Julia wanted to scream, but the cloth wrapped around her mouth prevented it. She also wanted to pull her arms back to her chest and cover her exposed breasts, but the ropes holding them tightly in place would not allow her to do so. The two metal poles flanking her on either side pulled her taut, wrists bound and suspended slightly above shoulder height. She stood rooted to the spot, as she had done for a couple of hours now, legs free but unable to do anything other than kick and flail uselessly.

The bored-looking woman sitting opposite her twirled a pencil in her hands that was about as long as Julia was tall. Nervously, the helpless captive watched as her interrogator flipped it around in her long pale fingers and pressed the tip of the eraser against the back of her elbow. She shook her head frantically as the pressure increased, tears streaming down her face as discomfort turned to pain. Her arm began to bend at an unnatural angle, causing her to thrash and struggle as much as her limited mobility would allow.

"Stop it," said another woman behind her. "We're not even in a session right now."

Julia breathed heavily through her nose as the pressure subsided and the worst of the pain ceased. Sweat was streaming down her forehead, tickling her face as it rolled across her cheeks. The sensation was uncomfortable, but far more preferable than what she was experiencing just a moment ago. Her arm still hurt, but the dull ache was a manageable pain. In fact, she was almost glad for it, since it distracted her from thinking about the events that had led her to this present situation.

"Don't be stupid, we're always in a session," replied the bored-looking woman. Her cold, blue eyes regarded Julia with serpentine curiosity, absent of pity but attentive to every twitch and whimper the diminutive figure was making.

"She's got a gag in her mouth, she can't even say anything," the first woman countered, stepping around the side of the table. Julia grimaced as the giant heels clacked against the hard floor in the mostly empty room. She still hadn't gotten used to processing noises like that at her size.

It still wasn't clear to her why they had wrapped a cloth around her mouth. Although she hadn't been very forthcoming with any information - for there wasn't a lot for her to give - she hadn't spat or been particularly rude to anybody, beyond expressing a level of curtness that might be expected for someone in her circumstances. She suspected it was done simply to deprive her of comfort and agency. The fact that it was the only piece of clothing that remained on her body added credence to this theory.

"So what?" asked the bored-looking woman, flipping the pencil back around in her hands. "Maybe I don't want her to say anything. Maybe I just like seeing her wriggle."

Julia squirmed as the graphite tip advanced towards her, tapping her lightly on the stomach. It began to draw circles around her navel, leaving faint grey marks that darkened with every lap. Tiny feet attempted to kick the pencil away, but it evaded her with ease. Amused by the show of defiance, the woman pushed the pencil between Julia's legs and began to slide it back and forth between her thighs. The lacquered wood chafed against her sensitive region, eliciting muffled cries that brought a smile to the face of her tormentor.

"Stop that!" shouted the first woman. A giant, tanned hand swooped down from the sky and snatched the pencil out of the other woman's grasp. Julia winced at its sudden approach, hair flapping wildly across her face in a gust of wind. At once the awkward rubbing motion ceased, but the graphite tip grazed her thigh as it was yanked backwards, drawing a thin line of blood. She snapped her legs shut, hoping it wouldn't be noticed.

"Honestly Kristen, what the hell is wrong with you? For Christ's sake, have a little empathy," the short Asian woman huffed, shoving the pencil into her pocket.

Each of them was pretty awful in their own way. The one called Kristen took far too much delight in her work, and enjoyed coming up with new ways to make Julia's existence increasingly uncomfortable. It was always easy to tell who was holding the little steel carrier she was transported around in based on how much turbulence there was during the journey and how gently it was picked up and put down. Ironically, all that experience gave the sadistic woman an excellent understanding of how to handle the tiny individuals unfortunate enough to pass through her hands. She knew what hurt and what didn't, and chose the former more often than the latter. Whenever she wasn't actively trying to cause harm, she could be surprisingly soft with her touch.

In comparison, the Asian woman - Jennifer - was kinder, but far more clumsy. Julia reflexively flinched at the sight of those tanned hands reaching down for her just as did with Kristen's pale ones, knowing that either way she was going to end up with another bruise or two by the time she was released from their grip. The only difference between the two was whether it was accidental or on purpose. It had been Jennifer who had restrained Julia to the two poles, pulling the cords too tightly around her wrists and accidentally bumping her in the head with an oversized finger as she did it.

Truly, it was the worst of both worlds. One of the women did not seem to understand that parts of her body were sensitive, and the other understood it too well.

"What do you think she'd do to us if she had the chance?" asked Kristen, staring directly at Julia.

"Do you mean before or after you started needlessly hurting her?" replied Jennifer.

Before her associate had a chance to respond, something started vibrating in one of the women's pockets. Jennifer pulled out a cellphone and answered it, voice on the other end inaudible from Julia's position on the table.

"Hang on, I need to take this. Can I trust you to stay out of trouble while I step outside for a moment?"

"No promises," said Kristen, leaning back in her chair and smirking at Julia. Suddenly, she didn't look quite so bored anymore.

The windowless door opened and shut with a harsh clang as one half of the pair exited the room. Overhead, the lone fluorescent light beamed down on Julia with a sickly yellow glow, its constant buzz the only sound filling the silence in the room for several long moments. The doll-sized woman did not like the way her captor was running her gaze up and down her figure, feeling like she was being visually dissected.

Slowly, Kristen reached inside her jacket and withdrew a packet of cigarettes, lifting one from the box and lighting it with the aid of a Zippo from another pocket. She looked a little older Julia, but probably no older than thirty - far too young to be doing this sort of job, although it certainly seemed like she had a talent for it. The woman radiated a level of menace that made just sharing a room with her feel uncomfortable, and Julia was sure she would only be slightly less scared of her if the two were equal in size. If the tiny prisoner had anything worthwhile to say, she would have said it by now, but there were no secret plans to divulge or classified information she was holding out on. Everything had been confessed during the first session.

"We're not supposed to smoke in here," Kristen admitted, taking a drag on her cigarette. "But since it's just two of us here, I'll know who told if someone finds out."

The faint smell of tobacco filled the air, which Julia felt was perhaps more likely to snitch than she was.

With her free hand, Kristen leaned forwards and reached around the apparatus holding Julia in place. She shut her eyes tightly and braced for pain, but instead felt something touching her hair as a set of long, red-painted fingernails expertly manipulated the piece of cloth tied around her mouth, somehow managing to undo the knot at the back of her head without hurting her. It fell to the ground at her feet, granting her the power of speech once more.

"Is that better?" Kristen asked, smiling sweetly.

"Yes, thank you," mumbled Julia.

"Still so polite, despite everything!" she exclaimed. "You know, I'm almost starting to feel a little guilty about all this."

Beautiful faces look exceptionally terrifying when they wear cruel expressions. Kristen's soft features were framed within a French bob of dark brown hair that terminated just below her sharp jawline. A short, curvy nose with the slightest upturned tip sat above a pair of thick lips painted a muted pink, whose smiles had a nasty habit of foreshadowing that something terrible was about to happen. But it was the eyes that caused Julia the most concern. There was something lacking in them.

"Oh, you're hurt!" said Kristen.

It seemed a very stupid thing to say after everything that had occurred over the past few hours. Julia's muscles were burning, her elbow was sore, her feet ached from standing in one place for too long, she had a bump on her head where the other woman had knocked her, and her thighs had not yet forgotten the lacquered wood that rubbed inconsiderately against them. She didn't understand the remark until she saw the focus shift in her colossal interrogator's eyes, following their gaze down to her leg, where a trickle of blood was leaking past the side of her knee.

"Here, let me help."

An enormous hand lunged forwards and pinched the tiny cloth between two fingers. Julia squeezed her legs shut as tight as she could, watching the giant digits pause in front of her body like snakes ready to strike.

"You can open your legs, or I can open them for you," Kristen stated, voice devoid of all warmth. "I'll give you a few seconds to think about that."

Only half the amount of time was needed for Julia to submit and spread her legs shamefully wide. Gently the fingers dabbed at the wound, mopping up the little splotches of blood smeared across both thighs. The giant hand withdrew at one point, taking with it the dry cloth and returning a wet one, now slightly damp with a thin coating of warm saliva. Thankfully, it was only a superficial cut and had stopped bleeding soon after the graphite had scratched her. Although it stung, medical intervention did not seem necessary beyond maybe a bandage and a small amount of antiseptic cream. It remained to be seen whether either of those things would be forthcoming.

The attending fingers dropped the bloodied cloth and swapped legs, no longer patting but caressing the skin with a lover's touch. Their journey began at the ankle, travelling the entire length of her leg along its inner path until it reached the smooth arch where, not long ago, the pencil had forced itself back and forth. More fingers joined in, stroking Julia's back while a curious thumb rolled across her breasts.

"Isn't life just...better when we're nice to each other?" whispered Kristen, eyes losing some of their severity.

Two pale digits traced the lines of her collarbones, massaging her poor, aching shoulders that had grown stiff from being pulled apart by the ropes binding her in place. They lingered on the glabrous dips underneath her arms and the little bump on either side of her waist where her hips bulged outwards. With meticulous care, they avoided touching Julia's vulnerable skin with their sharp tips, although they did sometimes brush their hard, flat surfaces across the soft plane of her midriff.

For her part, Julia stood there and simply let herself be touched - not that there was much else she could do. When the fingers brushed against her neck, she tilted her head to the side so that they could glide up and down her cheeks in a smoother motion. When they drifted downwards to explore the area between her legs, she widened her stance so that they could play with her more easily. She really just wanted to lie down in a corner underneath a thick blanket, but she knew this was much better than what would happen if she put up any kind of resistance.

Kristen licked her thumb and rubbed it in gentle circles against Julia's navel, removing the grey blemishes and smiling as she did it. Red nails were pawing at her playfully, trying to provoke movement.

"You're a very beautiful woman, did you know that? I mean, I'd be surprised if you didn't," breathed Kristen, flicking ash from the cigarette in her other hand. "And an intelligent one too, judging by what I've read about you."

The affectionate hand pulled back, while the other one moved forwards. Julia fidgeted as the lighted tip of the cigarette came to a stop about a foot away from her body, nervously looking up at the gargantuan figure who appeared to be drinking in the sight of her.

"Please don't," she begged, searching for anything resembling mercy in the woman's eyes.

The hand slithered towards her along the surface of the table, bringing with it an uncomfortable heat and the overpowering stench of tobacco. She tugged at the bindings around her wrists, but rope had no slack and the thick metal poles screwed into the apparatus beneath her did not move an inch. All she succeeded in doing was adding more burns to her tender skin.

"Shh, it's okay," cooed the woman above, tip of her tongue peeking out of the corner of her mouth. "I'm not going to hurt you. All I want to know is one more thing and then we can stop."

"But I already told you, I don't know anything more," cried Julia. "I was just paid to take some photographs. I don't know who hired me, it was all completely anonymous. I never even got the money. You already have my camera, you've seen the pictures I took, that's all I have, I promise."

Julia whimpered as the hand crept forwards another couple of inches. Puffs of heat were wafting off the glowing orange head of the cigarette, blasting her with waves of scorching hot air as if she had just stepped in front of a blast furnace. Smoke swirled around it in thick ribbons, sticking to the back of her throat and tickling her gullet whenever she inhaled.

"Oh, are you still talking about that? You're very silly," said Kristen, mouth slightly agape. "Actually, that's not what I wanted to ask you about at all."

"Then what? I--" Julia broke off into a fit of coughing as she swallowed a streak of grey smog, unable to do anything other than cough and splutter as her body fought to expel it.

"I want you to tell me..." Kristen began slowly, enunciating every word with crisp clearness. "...who is the most beautiful woman that you've ever laid eyes on, and how lucky you are to be the object of her attention at this very moment."

No answer would ever come, however, as the door to the room swung wide open, announcing the return of the shorter Asian woman who had left several minutes earlier. She was extremely unamused at the scene she found.

"Are you fucking smoking in here again?" Jennifer seethed, staring daggers at the seated woman.

Kristen sighed and stubbed the cigarette out on the table, flicking the remainder of it over Julia's head, where it landed on the floor on the opposite side of the room. She stretched and yawned languidly, working out the kinks in her arms and neck as her partner looked on in disbelief.

"Sorry," Kristen said flatly, retrieving a small bottle of hand cream from an inner pocket and squirting a dab of it into her palm. The sweet scent of coconuts filled the air as she massaged it into her skin.

"Orders from above. Put her back in her box, there's been a change of plans." Jennifer's hand was still resting on the doorknob, top half of her in the room, bottom half in the hallway. "And be snappy about it too, I want to go home sometime today."

The door slammed shut and the two of them were alone again in the room once more. A heavy puff of air escaped the pair of pink lips, which were contorted into an ugly expression of frustration. Pale blue eyes gazed longingly at the discarded cigarette, unsatisfied by what they had taken from it. With a grunt of annoyance, Kristen leaned over and picked up a small metal carrier from the floor and dropped it on the table. It clattered against the table with a deafening crash that made Julia yelp.

"I probably don't have to say anything at this point, but misbehaving would be a very bad idea," warned Kristen, voice dangerously low.

She was right; she didn't have to say anything. One incongruously large feminine hand slammed down against the table, palm facing up, the tips of its fingers just shy of brushing Julia's feet. The other loomed overhead, descending with frightening speed towards her head. It halted abruptly just above her, clicking two buttons atop each of the metal poles. Immediately, Julia fell forwards like a marionette whose strings had been cut, her fall broken by a wall of soft flesh that smelled strongly of synthetic coconut. She remained still while the fingers flipped her over, manipulating her limbs and enjoying her soft, yielding body.

"You know, if we had more time together, I could make you love me," Kristen lamented, curling her fingers around the pale, unmoving thing in her palm.

Regretfully, she stuffed her toy back in its box, being careful not to bang its head or get its arms stuck as she pushed it through the small opening. The carrier was barely long enough for Julia to extend her body to its full length and just barely high enough for her to sit up straight. She tucked her legs up underneath her as the door slammed shut, listening to the fingers outside fiddle with the locking mechanism. As was typical in this place, there were no windows for her to look out of, only a thin sliver of light that crept in through the crack between the door and the wall.

Perfectly smooth surfaces prevented Julia from grabbing on to anything as her carrier was lifted into the air and careened to one side, causing her to slam into the side of it. She did not know where she was going and knew better than to ask. Questions did not get answered in this place - at least not ones asked by her.

Muffled voices were talking about something outside, and she thought she caught mention of her name once or twice, but the steel casing prevented their words from coming through as anything other than meaningless noise. The sharp clacking of heels on epoxy flooring echoed around inside Julia's tiny dark prison, and she pressed her hands against her ears to try and soften the grating sound. She had made about a dozen trips inside the carrier since her reduction and doubted that she could ever get used to those amplified noise. It was anyone's guess as to whether this particular torture was intentional, a happy accident, or whether those in charge were simply ignorant of how awful it was being stuck inside one of these things.

$80,000 is what she had been offered to take the photos. Greed compelled her to accept after only a day of deliberation, once she discovered how easy it was to access the lower storage room and how little traffic that part of the building saw. Sure, they had cameras, but nobody was actually sitting there watching them all day, right? And given that she wasn't physically taking anything from there, why would they ever go back and check the footage? The test run had taken her less than fifteen minutes, from desk to storage room and back to desk again - easily passed off as a bathroom break. The real thing was currently at about five days and counting, Julia wasn't exactly sure. It could have been a week since she'd been caught.

She hadn't even made it to the end of the hallway before they arrested her, took her to a floor she didn't even know existed, and threw her into a cell not much bigger than the bathroom in her apartment. Less than a day later, they had offered to commute her inevitably lengthy sentence if she agreed to some kind of experiment they had going on. Raw panic and lack of sleep meant that many of the details slipped by her, but if it meant that she might breathe fresh air again, she was ready to sign the forms and agree to whatever it was they were offering.

It was hard to remember exactly what happened after they stuffed her inside that small glass box. There was pain, dizziness and a lot of nausea, and by the time she came to her senses again, the world was a much more frightening place than it had been before. The shorter Asian woman had been there at the time. Julia recalled the tanned, car-sized hand reaching down for her, pinching her far too tightly around her waist and lifting her into the air without properly supporting her back, causing her to bend awkwardly and pull several muscles that were only just starting to recover now. Excited voices were commenting about the results, but Julia could recall almost nothing of the specifics, only that they were surprised it had worked. From what she gathered, they were still trying to work out why the test had been successful with her and not with some of the others. Julia was far more preoccupied at the time with the gigantic face that filled the entire scope of her vision, two almond shaped eyes as big as her desk monitors watching her with detached curiosity. And the thumbnail digging into her abdomen.

Without warning, the swaying of the carrier ceased. Julia held her breath, waiting for something to happen. After a few seconds, her stomach dropped as the carrier plummeted to the earth, smacking against the floor with a thunderous clap and sending her bouncing off the walls. Her yelps were followed by groans of pain as she shrank back into the far end of the little box just in time to hear something fiddling with the lock on the outside. Immediately Julia threw her arms up as the door swung open, shielding her face against the wall of blinding light that invaded her tiny prison.

There were a few blissful moments of silence as the brightness subsided to a more agreeable level, allowing her to gain some small understanding of where she was. The shiny beige surface, vast and perfectly flat, that stretched out ahead of her indicated that she was on the floor for some reason. It did not look like the place they usually returned her to after they were done questioning her, although most of the rooms in this place looked more or less the same to her.

BANG. BANG. BANG.

Julia flinched as something pounded against the roof of the carrier. Her brain rolled around in her skull as the vibrations set her teeth chattering and threw her into a state of disorientation worse than the first time the Asian woman had picked her up and deposited her in the examination tray for all of them to gawk at. The walls blurred and shifted as her vision came back into focus; the two overlapping squares of light directly ahead of her slowly converging into a single shape.

And then, darkness. Overhead, a short-heeled stiletto pump swooped across the sky and landed directly in front of the carrier. Its glossy, jet black surface contrasted strongly with the pale skin of its wearer. From her confined space, Julia could only see part of its length, which replaced the door as a new barrier to her egress.

"Come out," commanded a voice that she had come to dread. "I have a surprise for you."

The giant stiletto pump ascended back into the sky and sailed out of sight, creating a series of sharp, earsplitting thuds along with its matching before coming to a sudden stop somewhere in the near distance. Hesitantly, Julia moved towards the light, crawling across the cold floor of her box with the finesse of someone who had just woken up from a coma. If asked, it would have been easier at this point for her to list which parts of her body were not in pain.

She shuffled out of the claustrophobic box and into a space so wide and open that she almost turned around and crawled back inside. There were many terrifying things about her new existence that she was struggling to come to terms with: ceilings so high it felt as if the sky above her had permanently transformed into a cloudless and unchanging off-white, objects that were orders of magnitude larger than they should be, the complete lack of agency to do anything without assistance, giant uncaring people who increasingly spoke about her rather than to her, cages and interrogations, hands that touched and grabbed at her body without asking.

But above all else, the thing she had come to fear the most during her short time in this waking nightmare was the figure who sat on the sofa with her legs crossed, lighting up a cigarette and taking a long, slow drag of it. The towering, pitiless woman extended one of her arms and pointed a finger directly downwards at a spot just in front of her feet.

"Here," she ordered. "Come closer, or I won't be able to hear you."

A cursory glance at her surroundings gave Julia the impression that they were in some kind of breakroom, although they appeared to be the only two individuals occupying it at the moment. Behind her, a closed windowless door barred her exit and there no apertures in the walls to allow any natural light into the room. The single source of illumination came from a pair of fluorescent bulbs attached to her new sky.

Nervously, Julia stumbled to her feet and began the dreaded task of approaching the smoking woman.

"No, wait," Kristen said, causing Julia to freeze in her tracks. "I liked it better when you were on your hands and knees. Crawl to me."

Half-lidded blue eyes watched the diminutive creature on the floor as it lowered itself into a more obeisant stance and started to crawl towards her with agonising slowness. It did not bother Kristen that it would take the little thing several minutes to reach her; she really needed that cigarette and wanted to savour the pleasure before she experienced the subsequent joy of informing Julia about her fate. She wasn't actually supposed to smoke in here either, but rules were for other people to follow.

Judging by the large number of red welts on the poor woman's torso, she had probably been a little too rough when dropping the carrier onto the floor. Thankfully - for the both of them - her bad mood was quickly evaporating with every hit of nicotine that was flooding into her body, melting away some of the stress of a long day. She wondered if the poor thing on the floor smoked. Probably not, she reasoned, given how polite and composed she had remained over this past week with no luxuries other than food, water and Kristen's own delightful presence.

Julia stopped about where the finger had instructed her to, waiting for further instructions. Thighs as thick as three lane highways uncrossed themselves, momentarily throwing her beneath their shadow as they glided over her miniscule form. Jet black pumps fell from the sky, planting themselves on either side of her body, their hard shiny walls boxing her in from both flanks. Straight ahead, high above the kneeling woman, long pale fingers were playing with a cigarette butt.

"You know, I really hate this part of the job," Kristen sighed, affecting an air of remorse. "Look, we both know you brought this upon yourself, but that doesn't make it any easier. In my opinion, people should have the opportunity to learn from their mistakes. One bad decision shouldn't mean that you never get to see your family again."

A smile twitched on her lips as she noticed those words catch Julia's attention. The latter craned her neck up to meet Kristen's gaze, who drank in the terrified expression on the tiny pallid face. This place definitely tested her patience at times, but moments like these reminded her why she got out of bed in the morning. Ever since someone in management had noticed her talent at dealing with the detainees, her job satisfaction had skyrocketed. Of course, tight restrictions meant that she couldn't indulge as much as she wanted to, but she envisaged herself rising through the ranks without too much difficulty. Perhaps there would be a few changes to the code of conduct once she was in charge. Relaxations on handling procedures.

Kristen slid one of her feet forwards and began tapping the toe of her shoe on the ground.

"The researchers here have been very grateful for your compliance. I'm told that you've provided some very interesting data that they'll be looking at for months to come," she said, leaning forwards and resting her hands on her knees. "The thing is though, you're not especially useful to anyone here anymore. In fact, you're a little redundant."

"S-so does that mean I can leave? Am I being released now?" squeaked Julia, voice deliciously hopeful. One of the researchers had kindly provided a set of clothes for her to wear, entrusting them to the care of Kristen to pass them. They currently sat in the bottom of her handbag.

"I'm afraid not, sweetie," she explained, pausing to blow a long puff of air out of her mouth before she delivered the next piece of news. "We obviously can't just let you go, I'm sure you understand that much. The technology we have here is a good few decades ahead of what the public knows about, and we'd like to keep things that way. Can't have you running around out there, it'll cause all sorts of problems for us."

The pounding of the shoe was beginning to give Julia a headache. It felt like somebody was clapping their hands next to her head.

"B-but the waiver I signed--"

"Commutes your sentence of treason to one count of subterfuge and four counts of espionage," finished Kristen. "There's still time to work in a little something about sedition too, depending on who our mystery buyer is. All very serious charges, you know."

Kristen's heart fluttered as the toy at her feet quivered and started breathing more heavily. Even from this distance, she could see the rising and falling of her bare chest, the tensing muscles on her exposed skin, the little hopeful expression on her face withering and dying with each passing word that left her lips. The two women were mirroring each other in some respects. Both were feeling light-headed from what was currently happening, but whereas one face was blanching, the other was starting to blush.

"W-wait, so what's going to happen to me then?" asked Julia.

An air conditioning unit on the wall hummed gently, filling the silence as the two looked at each other. Cool air wafted over them in soft waves, adding to the tiny woman's discomfort and keeping the pinkness in Kristen's cheeks in check. Her pet's nipples had become hard and she was shivering from the chill. It amused Kristen that only a short while ago she was being begged not to burn her.

"For whatever it's worth, I really did enjoy our time together," Kristen said. "I know this may be hard to believe, but I like you, in my own way."

The tapping came to an ominous halt as the monumental stiletto pump rested on the cold floor. Opalescent blue lines snaked their way across the surface of the alabaster skin, like currents of fresh water trapped beneath thin ice. The wide expanse of smooth, unblemished flesh curved and flowed upwards, disappearing shortly into a pair of charcoal grey slacks.

"Please don't," Julia pleaded, tears beginning to well up in her eyes.

"You've already used that line," Kristen stated wryly. She raised one foot unhurriedly, stretching out her toes, and dangling it over the whimpering thing beneath her.

Julia surprised her by scurrying towards instead of away from the source of danger, throwing herself at the other stiletto pump and crying for mercy. Her begging degenerated into incoherent blubbering as the little naked woman pressed her lips against the toe of the shoe. She stopped begging only to kiss, and stopped kissing only to beg, and the sight of the whole thing was taking Kristen to a place she hadn't been in quite some time. The larger woman wanted to interject and tease some more, but was struggling to keep herself under control, and so decided to let the moment play out instead.

It really was unfair, she thought. Why did her life have to be so full of frustrations? Why couldn't they just let her have one to play with? She was too tactful to ever raise the question with anybody in charge, and knew that they would only respond with some wishy-washy answer about moral principles and avoiding needless cruelty - never mind the fact that nothing about this godless department was humane and every advancement they made was only pushing them towards unforgivable transgressions. They drew their lines in funny places that she did not understand. She knew that many people thought of her as cruel, but at least she wasn't a hypocrite. Her fingers twitched as she fought the urge to reach down and grab the little broken toy, to start touching it and squeezing it and seeing what other sorts of little noises she could get it to make.

"You--" began Kristen, before she was interrupted by the click of the door.

An impeccably timed appearance by Jennifer shattered the tender moment. Instantly, the plug was pulled and Kristen felt her heat draining away.

"The car's waiting outside, what the hell is taking you so long? Does 5pm not mean anything to you?"

The short Asian woman cycled through a rapid series of emotions in the next several seconds. She sniffed the air and gave her partner a scornful look, before noticing the empty steel carrier on the floor with confusion. Her eyes traced an invisible line across the floor towards Kristen's feet, where it locked onto the snivelling naked figure who was staring back at her with a distressed but equally puzzled expression on her face. Finally, her gaze looped back to Kristen, her blank countenance completely indiscernible.

"Can we leave now?" asked Jennifer, fighting back the urge to make further commentary.

Kristen rolled her eyes and sighed theatrically, consenting with a shrug of her shoulders and launching herself off the sofa with a long stretch. The thing at her feet fell onto its back and tried to scurry away when she drew herself up to full height, but she reached down and plucked it from the floor, gripping it tightly in the palm of her hand. It wriggled pleasantly when she squeezed her thumb against its breasts.

"Oh, by the way, you're being transferred to another facility. Some other research department wants to run some tests on you, or something," said Kristen, retrieving the carrier with her other hand. "I would say we'd probably never see each other again, but I think that'd be a bit pre-emptive. Maybe when you go to sleep in your new cell tonight, you might dream up some ways that might happen, and what we might do together the next time we meet."

Pale fingers unfurled, releasing Julia from their grasp. She rolled into the tilted carrier, barely having enough time to pull up her legs before the door slammed shut and the latch was bolted into place. It would be hours before she was freed from darkness again. Many hands, and instruments, and substances would touch her skin over the following years, but never again would she know the warmth of natural light. She did not realise it yet, but one of those forms she had signed was an indefinite voluntary admission to a government-run facility. Several subsequent rounds of paperwork would ultimately strip her of her personhood, which made the more questionable tests significantly easier to get approved.

"You gave her a chance to pee before the trip, right?" queried Jennifer, leading them towards the parking lot.

"Yup," Kristen replied.

Now that she had settled back into a more professional state of mind, Kristen started considering ways in which another meeting might be contrived. It would be a challenge, one that would likely take a long time to overcome, but she was starting to calculate the steps required to make it happen. Perhaps in a couple of years, once she had moved up the ladder another rung or two, she might be able to put in a transfer request with the other department. She didn't know enough about the project to invent an excuse at this present time, but she was confident that she could come up with something once she had access to the files. Increased seniority would grant her clearance, and she'd pull some strings here and there.

She thought of it as her own fun little side project. Something to work towards in the background while she progressed in her career here. She just hoped they hadn't broken the little woman too much by the time they met again.

"Hey, when we're done here, do you wanna--"

"Nope," said Jennifer.

The two walked the rest of the way in silence.