You’ve been working at Move & Adjust Logistics for about three years now and you’re still not entirely sure what the company does. You’re not sure if anyone at your level knows: on paper, you seem to mostly be involved in freight, and your own role involves organising shipment schedules and assuring clients of these, but that’s just Floor 3’s responsibility, and the company has four floors: there’s Management above, and Floor 2 is off limits. What you do know, though, is that this open-plan office with its grey-partitioned cubicles and fluorescent lights is boring, ruled by a strict, selfish manager, and you’d rather be anywhere else on this dreary Monday morning.

But here you are, typing away in the Bull Pen, considering what you can bring up to make conversation with your friend, Ailyn, who sits diagonally opposite from you. She’s about your age, bubbly and beautiful, and sharing this space with her makes the days that little bit easier. She’s plump with a somewhat boyish pixie cut, and looks great in her tight cotton blouse and loose slacks. She suspects they’re doing illegal experiments on Floor 2. The CEO, Arnold Church, is known for making extravagant, outlandish investments, and it could be anything from revolutionary computing tech to biological abominations. Ailyn sneaked down there once and before she got turned away she saw lots of rat cages, but no rats, whatever you’re supposed to make of that. You don’t dare investigate yourself: better to just turn your brain off when you enter the office, compartmentalising the hours you’re meant to be here.

That’s what you’re trying to do this morning, answering mundane emails, when an internal message pops up in the lower right corner of your screen. Eva Sanders. The last name you want to see: your manager. She’s sent five dreadful words: Come to my office. Now.

This can’t be good.

Miserably, you drag yourself to your feet and sigh to Ailyn that you’ve got an appointment with Evil Eva. She’s a sly manager with a cruel streak, and at the very least she’ll be wanting to take out her own Monday Blues on someone lower down the food chain.

You walk up the stairs to Floor 4, Management, taking your time rather than using the lift, and you continue down a yellow-painted corridor lined with wooden doors. Eva’s office is close to the CEO’s stately room at the end, and has its own foyer: you enter what is effectively a waiting room, just a desk, a pot plant and some filing cabinets, where Eva’s assistant/secretary Daniela sits slumped over her computer. She’s always very presentable in a dark skirt and an immaculate shirt, blonde hair tightly tied back, despite always being exhausted and overworked.

You give Daniela a smile, because she’s as meek and sweet as Eva is wicked, a mousy woman with cute big ears and round glasses. But she barely looks up, flapping a hand for you to go right on into Eva’s office. You take a breath before opening the next door, then enter to face the music.

“Close the door,” Eva instructs before you’re all the way in. You do so, frowning at her stern tone. This might be even worse than expected.

Eva has a fine office, with an expensive wooden desk and floor-to-ceiling windows that look out over a green park, a rare site here in the city centre. She’s a tall woman with an athletic figure, today wearing an expensive indigo pantsuit, white shirt unbuttoned at the top to show off a little cleavage. It’s distracting, making you doubly uncomfortable because you’re awkwardly drawn to her despite the fact she’s a rotten person. It doesn’t help that she’s got a spotless face, sultry dark eyes and raven-black hair that flows over her shoulders. She’s leaning against the desk like a seductive schoolteacher, and you wonder if she gives off this vibe deliberately. Probably.

“You were late again this morning,” Eva says. “Fourth time this month.”

“There were delays –” you start, but she clicks her tongue to tell you to shut up.

“I don’t care. You’re always late, your work is slow and sloppy and your attitude is appalling.”

You stiffen. This doesn’t sound like a regular telling-off. Your defence, which you hold in, is that everyone’s attitude is bad, and all the work is sloppy, because the work is so damn drab. Never mind that no one really knows what they’re doing.

“Nothing to say for yourself?” she prompts.

“Sorry?” you try.

“Mm.” She nods, as though she expected nothing more. She reaches behind her to take something from the desk. It looks like a toy, a water pistol or a plastic ray gun, not much bigger than her hand. She presses a button and it lights up with red LEDs, humming like it's charging up. Is she going to squirt you? You freshly ironed these trousers yesterday. Paying more attention to the gun than you, Eva says, “With your very limited aptitude here at M&AL, you will, of course, have no idea the sort of things we do downstairs. Perhaps that’s why you’re so unmotivated. But then again, perhaps you’re just a shiftless waster.”

“Hey –” you protest, because that is a bit much. You could complain to HR about that kind of language. But she looks up with a mean expression that warns you not to test her, and she tilts the gun towards you.

“Today, you’re going to learn how special our work really is. You, of all people, have been chosen to help me prove it. Thanks to your outstanding record of lackadaisical work. This is, of course, entirely off the books – it came to me in a moment of wonderful inspiration. I could fire you or I could finally put you to use. You’re going to help me get Arnold’s attention.”

“Ms Sanders,” you venture cautiously, because this is ominous in the extreme. She raises an eyebrow, but you don’t have a follow-up. What you want to say, really, is that you would like to leave now.

“Stand still,” she says, in abrupt conclusion, and she pulls the trigger.

You shriek and throw up your hands to defend yourself as the gun lights up with an electric spark that lances out towards you, momentarily blinding you. It heats you all over, and for a terrible moment you think it actually is a ray gun – they’re making experimental weapons and you’re being cooked alive! But the heat subsides and you’re still standing. Your vision is clearing.

But what you see is dizzying.

The office walls are rising taller, the ceiling expanding, and Eva, standing in front of you, is stretching. Higher and higher. You blink faster, trying to make this weird flex of perception settle, but it’s only getting worse, everything looming huge around you. You shake your limbs out, unsteady on the spot, and look down to see your feet have sunk into the carpet. That is – the pile is up over your shoes. Because you’re small now.

You’re tiny, in fact. Looking from the carpet, over to the wall, to the skirting board, then back to Eva, the change is unmistakable. Your manager’s trousers are flared over sleek black shoes with a toe not much shorter than you. You follow her trouser leg up, up, having to tilt your head far back to take in the full towering monstrosity of Eva, a smartly-dressed giantess peering down at you with a satisfied smirk.

She has shrunk you. They have a real-life shrink ray and she has used it to reduce you to the size of a mouse! Your breath is suddenly short, heart racing, just looking at the sheer scale of her, impossible and terrifying. From the look in her eye, and from what she said before, and from what you know of her nasty nature, you’re now in a lot of trouble.

What should you do?!

[A] Make amends; say whatever you can to persuade her to turn you back.

[B] Get the hell away; run as fast as you can for the door!

[C] Take cover; run under the desk to get out of her reach.