Chapter 4: Possible Breakthrough

At the Lorbrulgrud research facility, Alyssa’s father was making headway in his research of the neutrino dissimilator his wife had given to him. When Mrs. Archer arrived, he had great news for her.

“I’ve figured out how to isolate the graviton gauge!” said Mr. Archer. “With present day technology, it would take an object with the mass of Jupiter orbiting a neutron star to detect one graviton particle every hundred years. This thing can detect them in sub-atomic particles! We currently believe that gravitons are massless dimensional strings, but according to this technical journal on this flash drive, gravitons have mass.”

“Can you demonstrate it for me?” Mrs. Archer asked.

“Yes, you see that block of metal on that table? I have the graviton gauge hooked up to my the mainframe computer right now. It can detect every quark and gluon particle composing every atom in that block of metal!”

“How long would it take you to build one of your own?” Mrs. Archer asked.

“Not long,” he replied. “I can even name the gravimetric units after myself, I think I’ll call them Archons! I might win the Nobel prize!”

“Is that ethical?” Mrs. Archer asked.

Just then, a news report came over the radio that was playing in the laboratory.

“Scientists say the comet that is currently visible from the northern hemisphere at night for the past few weeks that is on a collision course with Earth now has a more accurate time frame for the collision. Scientists across the globe think it is capable of wiping out all life on Earth! It will collide within three months.”

“If I can make a working neutrino dissimilator on a larger scale, astronauts may be able to launch it into orbit and use it on that comet!”

“Can it work against something that big?” Mrs. Archer asked.

“Sure, one of these buttons is 1/500, if you aimed it at the comet and fired at that ratio a few times, it should reduce the mass enough so that it won’t hurt anyone.”

“Will it have that kind of range?” Mrs. Archer asked.

“I think it will, you know, I think that time traveler chose this era to travel back to because he knew this neutrino dissimilator could be used to save the world!”

“It’s too bad Zach never lived to see that, Alyssa told me she swallowed him a couple of hours before I arrived.”

“I could’ve predicted that myself,” said Mr. Archer. “Alyssa is very mischievous. But we need to build a larger shrink ray to attack that comet. I have a cousin in the military, I can inform him of my discovery! I might be able to duplicate this graviton gauge with my own equipment, but I’m going to have to burn the midnight oil!”

Meanwhile, back at the abandoned house party, the kids had heard the announcement over the radio. Lisa was concerned, but had an idea she wanted to share with Kylie, her blonde friend.

“If that girl acquired a shrink ray gun from a time traveler like she said, maybe that means the comet won’t kill everyone.”

“Call her and tell her!” said Kylie.

Lisa got Alyssa on her cell phone. “Do you know anything about that comet that is on a collision course with Earth?”

“I wasn’t told anything about that,” Alyssa replied. “Why don’t you ask Zach?”

Lisa said she would and put her cell phone away. The other kids were in a somber mood after hearing the news report. They gathered around Lisa, expecting her to vomit Zach up and find out more about the shrink ray.

“Lisa, puke up that shrunken guy!” said Kylie, Lisa’s best friend. “Everyone wants to know if the time traveler he encountered said anything about the comet.”

Lisa knelt down and gagged herself until she vomited Zach up. He landed on the wood floor of the living room of the abandoned house where the party was, in a puddle of vomit. Lisa scooped him up.

“Zach, could you hear anything we were talking about while you were in my stomach?” Lisa asked.

“Nope!” Zach replied.

“You know that comet that we can see from Earth at night?” Lisa asked. Zach nodded the affirmative, indicating the answer yes.

Lisa continued: “It’s on a collision course with Earth. We just heard a news report saying it will collide in less than three months! Did that time traveler who gave you the shrink ray say anything about the comet?”

“No, he just mentioned that he was trying to get into Oxford university. Oh, and he said he was from five thousand years in the future.”

Lisa held Zack in the palm of her hand, while the other kids crowded around to listen to him.

“How did you end up shrunk around Alyssa?” Lisa asked.

“I was stupid enough to trust her. I chose to show her the shrink ray gun because her parents work for an electronics research facility and her dad is an electrical engineer. I thought he could reverse engineer the technology. She used a piece of gum that she chewed to wire the shrink ray so it only responds to her unique chromosome pattern.”

A teenage girl with blonde hair in a black leather mini skirt and fishnet stockings and mid calf boots approached Lisa. Zach looked her over, from her tank top down to her boots, and thought she was the sexiest girl he had seen in real life.

“If we’re all going to die when that comet hits, there’s something on my bucket list,” the girl asked Lisa.

“Yeah, what’s that?” Lisa asked.

“I’ve always wanted to swallow a shrunken man, but up until now, it was just a fantasy. Can you let me swallow Zack?”

Lisa looked at her friend Kylie, then back down at Zach. “I’ll leave it up to Zachary. Zach, do you want to be swallowed by her?”

“Definitely!” Zach shouted, and the girl grabbed him and knelt down in the ground. Zach climbed across her left thigh, climbing the fishnet stocking. 

“Do you like my legs?” the girl asked. She was only about a year younger than Zach, but he didn’t know her, because she ran with a different crowd than he did when he was a student at her high school. He knew her by face, but didn’t know her name, despite living in a small town on California’s central coast.

“You’ve got the best legs I’ve ever seen!” said Zach.

The strange girl grabbed Zach again, stood up, and lifted him over her mouth. She dropped him down onto her pink tongue and forced him to the back of her throat and swallowed him. Zach glided down the gullet of the beautiful behemoth, completely unable to resist being overpowered by her mouth and throat muscles.

Within seconds, Zach splashed down in her stomach cavity. While this was happening, the girl who swallowed him made a bee line for the door of the abandoned house, and went who knows where.

“Lisa, she’s taking Zach!” Kylie shouted at Lisa. “She’s kidnapping him!”

Lisa and Kylie tried to race to the front door, but once outside, the strange girl was nowhere to be seen.

“She’s gone!” Lisa shouted. “If anything happens to Zach, Alyssa might shrink me!”

“Then you’d better find that girl!” said Kylie.

To Be Continued!