"Truth is the highest thing man may keep"

--Geoffrey Chaucer, "The Frankleines Tale"
 

D.X. Machina
The Home of Teri Rowland
Uptown
Minneapolis, Minnesota

"How is this possible?"

The question was hanging in the air, waiting for an answer. But the answer I owed her was too long, and too complex, and not too nice in spots. So I sighed, instead, and said, "Teri, I told you when I got here...it's a long, long story."

She was leaning up against the wall--Kelly and Sarah and I had acted quickly when Teri fainted, and if either girl noticed I was nude, they said nothing--I guess one of the salutary things about knowing shrunken people is that it prepares you for pretty much anything. "You are D.X., right?" It was Sarah asking now. I could see what Scott had seen in her--she had a strong, almost radiant personality, and she kept it under a tight, perfect control.

"Yes, I am. David X. Machina, nee Jacob Thiessen, at your service, madam."

"You're the sworn enemy of Veronica! I mean, she said you were against her group, and that you were out to subjugate women!"

"Well, Teri, Veronica and I have never seen eye to eye, but I'm not against the League, and I'm not out to subjugate women. I just don't want women to subjugate men. That's all."

Teri was afraid--I could tell. Well, the League may be interested in dispersing GTS, but they don't just hand it out to chimps. They had to have indoctrinated Teri, at least a little. And if they told her anything about my alter ego, it wasn't good.

"I know this is a long shot, but...um...."

"Yes, Kelly?"

"Did you know anything about a little guy who ended up in a Catholic Girls School about seven months ago?"

"Yeah, although only through some sources of mine. Don't worry, he's fine."

Kelly brightened. Well, one out of three ain't bad.

***

Anonymous
The Oriental Restaurant
Woodbury, Minnesota

I was sorely disappointed by the food at The Oriental Restaurant. Then again, I should have known better than to eat at a restaurant called "The Oriental Restaurant." It was better than McDonald's, but not by a wide margin.

I was trying to figure out where I would be if I was D.X. Minneapolis and Saint Paul are fairly well-organized cities, and I felt reasonably sure that D.X. was either in Uptown in Minneapolis, at the University of Minnesota, or in the Grand Avenue area of Saint Paul.

Why was I so sure? Because when he lamented to me his nomadic existence, he would always wax nostalgic for Uptown, Grand Avenue, and the U of M. Elementary. So I paid my bill, and stepped outside into the fall day. I was in the middle of Suburbia, and I wanted to leave as quickly as possible. And then, out of the corner of my eye, I saw something. Correction--someone.

***

Teri Rowland
The Home of Teri Rowland
Uptown
Minneapolis, Minnesota

How? How could it be that Jake Thiessen, the guy I had carried a secret torch for all the time I was out at Princeton, all the while I had been studying Ancient Egyptian, ever since I knew him--how could he be Veronica's enemy?

And not just her enemy, but her sworn mortal enemy, sworn to fight everything she supported? Everything I supported? And why was he still here? He knew which side I was on--knew it, I suspected, from the moment I mentioned her name. Maybe before. If he knew I was against him, why did he let me shrink him? Maybe he was telling the truth--maybe he wasn't really her enemy.

Or maybe there was something more here.

I didn't know, I couldn't know. Everything I believed in had been turned on its head.

***

Veronica Ceres
Woodbury, Minnesota

Could it really be him? Anonymous, here? I knew D.X. had some ties here but--well, this had been a good guess. Or perhaps there was simply a fate that shaped our ends. He saw me, and his jaw dropped. I wondered what he was thinking.

Of course I debated; go confront him? Or follow him to D.X.? Did he even know where D.X. was, or was he playing a hunch? Of course, I was playing my own hunches.

Only one way to find out.

I love confrontation.

***

Scott Chelgren
A Health Club
Somewhere in the Twin Cities

I really was beginning to question whether I shouldn't just grow myself and take my chances.

I knew for sure that if I lived to make it back to Sarah I'd just be damn happy she didn't throw me out in the cold and live with it.

I was in a sauna, and if I had been laying a true half-inch to my left or right, I'd be physically part of the sauna. As it was, I was nearly drowning in the sweat from the ass of the woman who sat atop me.

It was my own fault. I'd stayed with Melinda too long--I should've dropped into her gym shorts, but I was too slow, and my only recourse had been to cling to her pubic hair and pray that she wasn't heading directly to the showers. And she didn't.

Instead, she headed into the sauna. It didn't take long until I started to get too tired to hang on, and I slid straight down onto the wood, between her enormous thighs. I tried--really hard!--to regain my composure, but before I could, she got up and left. It was miles to the door of the sauna, and hundreds of feet to the ground at any rate. I would just have to hope that someone else would give me the opportunity to escape.

And she did show up, almost immediately, a twenty-something asian beauty. Of course, she sat down right on top of me, and started to sweat like crazy.

Nobody's perfect.

At least I kind of got my second wind. As she went to stand up, I grabbed a hold of one stray hair, and rode it with her out of the room. The cold air was welcome, but I knew I would have to disembark soon. There's not a person alive who, when concluding a sauna, does not immediately shower. Since I know I'm too small to survive a shower (or at least too chicken), that meant I had to get the hell out of dodge.

* * *

Anonymous

She had seen me--a wry smile was creeping its way across her face, and I knew I had to get out of here. She'd be looking for D.X.--I was a board member, but nobody cares about a liberal junior member of the Cadre. I had to mislead her. I reached my Aston Martin as she began to run towards me. Without hesitating, I started the car, threw it into reverse, and screamed out into the lot. I smiled at Veronica as she cursed, and quickly reversed course towards her own car. Then I did something that a teenage neighbor of mine once called the neutral drop.

I peeled out of the lot, onto the frontage road. No sooner had I reached the light when Veronica's red Miata appeared in my rear-view window. She was going to follow me. Wonderful.

* * *

Veronica Ceres

Well, I will say this, Anonymous isn't a sheep. He was taking off in his very nice British automobile, and I was going to have to chase him down. But I wasn't stupid; getting involved in a high-speed police chase at 6:42 in the evening was foolish. Instead, I followed him, keeping his car in my sights, until he entered the freeway.

Then I started to concentrate.

I was patient--he wasn't going to fast, he probably thought he was misleading me, heading north, then west--just a few percent per mile, not enough to notice until we reached a city called Roseville. I smiled--I needed to get out and do this more often.

* * *

Anonymous

My car roared down the freeway. I didn't want to lose her--I just wanted to make her think I wanted to lose her. Drive around the city for a few hours, then make a break for Duluth. But as I got near Roseville, I began to notice an odd sensation.

It wasn't an unfamiliar one, and that disturbed me. Then I began to pay a bit more attention to the traffic around me. I'd been a fool. She was using her powers, and I was thinking I was eluding her! I exited at County Road B2--I would try to lose her at the shopping mall, and hopefully, repair some of the damage she had caused me.

* * *

Sarah Kensington
The Home of Teri Rowland
Uptown
Minneapolis, Minnesota

"This night just keeps getting weirder," I said, to nobody in particular. It had been the best $20 investment of my life--after all, who better to talk to about Scott then D.X.? After all, he'd been right on about him before. So I was hopeful he was right on now.

But I couldn't help but be disturbed by Teri's reaction to him. As if he was some great and terrible person who was working to destroy the rights of women. He didn't seem like a misogynist--indeed, he seemed downright feminist.

But he was a member of the Cadre, which was a misogynist organization, right?

"You said it,"said Kari, Teri's receptionist, who was, I found out, quite cool. She had just graduated from Hamline with a women's studies major, and now she was just hanging out, living in Woodbury, working in Uptown. "I could use a beer."

"I could too, if I could get in anywhere. How's Teri?"

"She's been better. She and Jake are trying to talk about things, but I don't know what's going to come of all that. At least he has some clothes on now."

"Yeah...it's got to be hard for her. I mean, waiting all this time for a guy, then finding out he's working for the enemy."

Kari smiled. "That's why I'm a lesbian. Girls aren't nearly as complex as guys." She arched an eyebrow, and we both chuckled. "Seriously, I don't know what I'd do if a girlfriend pulled the shit D.X. has. Run out for five years, then come back and be working with the bad guys--I tell you, I'd kick her to the fucking curb."

"I know what you're saying," I said. "Sometimes that's what I think I should do to Scott. But the little guys have a way of staying with you." I sighed, and whispered, "Even when they leave."

* * *

Scott Chelgren

I knew the moment the shower started that I was doomed. After all, it's not like I was big enough to survive the torrent of water that was certain to come my way, and I knew that if I tried to grow big enough to survive the flood, I would be spotted for sure, and that would lead to bad, bad things.

So when the drops knocked me from the pubic hair to which I clung, I was unsurprised. As I fell, I cursed myself for my stupidity, and lamented the fact that I would never see Sarah again.

But then a funny thing happened.

I bounced off the foot of the girl, and landed again, sliding down her foot towards her big toe--and a big toe ring. I was saved! I grabbed onto the edge of the metal and held on for dear life. The water didn't hit me badly, and when the torrent finally stopped, I was relatively safe and sound on the big toe of a giant woman--nothing I couldn't handle.

As she begain her slow, majestic stride towards the lockers, I was already planning my next move, but I was sure of one thing: the worst was over.

I was wrong.

* * *

Anonymous

She had turned up the rate of my shrinking, and it was starting to concern me.

Once I reached the parking lot of the mall, my car began to miniaturize even further, to the point where it was now no bigger than a remote-controlled car. She had lost me--I thought--but she had left me in a bad situation. And I was still shrinking.

I drove headlong towards the entrance to the mall. I had to find someone who could help me. But the car continued to shrink. I hopped the curb, and felt a sudden drop. My car was now the size of a matchbox car. Suddenly, from out of nowhere, a huge shoe crashed down in front of me. It was one of those shoes all the teens wear, the ones with the solid white raised sole. Easily eleven feet tall, at my scale. I cringed, as the car went skidding towards the shoe.

I lost consciousness just before the car hit.

* * *

Scott Chelgren

As the woman slid her foot into her sandal, she paused, just for a second, and looked down at her foot. I looked up at her--she was beautiful. And familiar. Strangely familiar.

I tried to place her--uh oh, she'd seen me!

She was reaching down with her right hand for me.

I hoped she was nice.

And then I saw it.

I don't know how I'd missed it before.

About thirty feet up her leg was a tatoo of a black ankh, surrounded by a blue circle. It was huge, billboard sized, and it told me immediately who this was.

It was Mira.

Oh shit.