Kira was watching the customers in the lobby. A middle-aged woman engrossed in gingerly paging through a special edition of The Borrowers, so, if she ended up in the playroom, Kira would be at her smallest size, most likely. 

There was also a couple splayed out over the foam rubber chair modeled after Kira's hand at full size. The chair was even colored the same shade as Kira's own skin, so it gave her the creeps. It was like looking at your own disembodied hand. The couple was making out pretty heavily, casting mischevious glances at Kira often. It was a good bet that they would end up in the playroom too, doing the same thing in her actual hand. And Kira would smile and coo, and maybe pet them or roll them from hand to hand. Roleplay for money. Kira saw it as being an actress, and just as difficult at times.

The phone rang, and Kira picked it up, answering automatically. "Thank you for choosing The Big Book. Kira speaking." It was bad news. After a short time of listening, she said, "No, I'll get to you. Give me the address. I won't risk my clients. This place is probably watched. I can get out without them seeing me or suspecting." Another pause and she jotted an address down. "Two hours, maybe three. I'll be there." Kira hung up, put her best 'everything is OK' face on, and called out to her assistant manager, "Hailey, could you come here a minute?"

The slight, tomboyish girl looked up from where she was taking inventory. "Sure, Kira, what's up?"

"Think you could close for me tonight? I had a family thing come up last minute. I know it's short notice, but you could use the OT, right?" Kira asked, trying her best to smile.

"You all right? You look like something is bothering you." Hailey looked up at Kira once she'd come up next to her boss.

Kira nodded. "Yeah. It's family stuff. You know how it is, you can pick your friends but not your relatives, right?"

Hailey's eyes narrowed. "I'm not buying it, but we'll talk about this later. Go on, get out of here." She gave Kira a quick hug, then pushed off of her.

"Thanks, Hailey. I owe you." She sighed. Kira was getting concerned looks from the couple on her hand chair. "I better talk to our potential playroom guests before I go."

Kira walked over first to the couple. "I know you two were probably looking forward to the playroom tonight, but something came up last minute. I'll get you an extra half hour free if you book it tonight for tomorrow." The guy looked skeptical, so she decided to play a little dirty. Kira leaned in and whispered to the woman, "I look forward to seeing you moaning in the palm of my hand." She pulled back with a wink to her and instantly she was all over her boyfriend to make the reservation.

That left miss Borrowers. She took the few steps over to her and asked politely, "Miss, could you come with me to my office? And, bring the book if you would."

She looked confused, but nodded and complied. Once they were in Kira's office, she smiled at her. "What's your name, miss?"

"Agnes, Miss Kira."

"Well, Agnes, I take it from your book choice, that you were going to ask for playroom time with me at my smallest size?"

"I was trying to get up the nerve to, yes." She shifted uncomfortably.

"Well, I've had a family errand come up last minute and I won't be able to staff the playroom this evening. That's a lovely accent by the way. English?"

She nodded. "Manchester. I've come all the way here on holiday to see you, Miss Kira."

"Well I shan't disappoint. You see, I learned of a surprise, and I want to avoid someone watching the shop for me to leave. I'm simply not dressed for what they intend to take me to. So, I need your help. And for your trouble, you can keep the book."

"My help? I'm afraid I don't understand." She did, however, clutch the book more tightly to her.

"If you agree, I'm going to go to my smallest size and hide in your bag as you leave the store. I'll need you to take a bag of mine with full size clothes in them as well. Then, a few blocks away, you'll set me down so I can change back into these."

Agnes was covering her mouth for most of Kira's explanation. She blinked a few times, then cleared her throat. "I can do that... On one condition. That you let me hold you for awhile here first. That is what I came here for, after all."

Kira nodded. "I can do that, Agnes."

"Then we have an accord."

Twenty minutes later, Agnes left the store, looking immensely pleased with herself. As instructed, she walked a few blocks away, then ducked off into an alleyway, setting down Kira's bag first, then carefully reaching into her own shoulder-slung bag, bringing Kira out with both hands, cradling the doll-clothed and doll-sized woman lovingly. "Oh I could hold you for hours, Miss Kira."

"And how I'd love that, Agnes. But, family obligations prevent." Kira meant that earnestly, the doll size for her was one of her favorite ones.

"Yes, quite." Agnes leaned in, her lavender body spray smell nearly overpowering Kira at her size, and delivered a kiss to, well, Kira's whole face, before putting her down slowly.

Kira waved to Agnes and blew her a kiss in return, then moved over to hide behind her knapsack to undress, while Agnes turned to keep watch on the alley entrance. 

A few moments later, Agnes felt a hug from behind as Kira had resumed height and changed. "Thank you again, Agnes." She said softly. "Now off with you. I'll wait here until you've been gone a few minutes before I make my escape."

"Happy to oblige, Miss Kira." The woman replied, then broke away, walking swiftly off, and in the best mood she'd been in for twenty years.

Once Agnes was away for awhile, Kira pulled out her phone, accessing the address, and the website she used for the other job she occasionally did. The suit was still in its bunker, according to the site. Her plan was, get to the suit, then use its built in communications and information access to find out the whole story, what the TDS wasn't telling her. She was pretty sure that the TDS was aware of the "rescue suit" but she figured if she got to it fast enough she could get the story.

Kira hailed a cab, and took it to a bar on the boardwalk. From there, she headed for the loading docks, slipping into a seemingly abandoned warehouse, using her key for it. With a sigh, she snapped on the lights. Overhead at a height of fifty feet, the flourescent tubes flickered to life, revealing the Rescue Suit.

Over forty feet tall, and looking like, as Kira put it when she first saw it, 'like a Power Ranger collided with a fire truck.' Painted glossy red like an emergency vehicle, complete with a number 1 on the shoulders and chest, the rescue suit was ten tons (incredibly light for its size) of biohazard armored glory. Fully sealed and fireproof to six hundred degrees, Kira had been dispatched before to major fires, biohazard situations and wilderness rescues. Today, she had different plans for the suit.

"No way! Kira, you had a super suit? You were totally a superhero!" Chrystal interrupted Kira's story in excitement.

"It wasn't any more glamorous than being a volunteer fire fighter. I wasn't even paid for it. Though they offered. I just told them to put my wage back into the fire department's budget. Now can I please get back to my story? I was on a roll." 

"Oops, sorry Kira. But you totally were a superhero..."

"Chrystal..."

"Shutting up now."

Once Kira was suited up, she tuned into all of the emergency channels, and accessed the TDS intranet by using her override password. She found what she was looking for, then disconnected all communications and went 'dark'.

Thirty minutes later, further down the docks, one massive hand surfaced from the water, then the other. Once she'd pulled herself out of the water, the two 'dock workers' in front of this particular warehouse, pulled pistols and took aim "Shit. How'd she find us here?!" The pair opened fire, but there was no way small arms fire would do more than scratch the paint on Kira's suit. Casually she swept a foot at them, catching one and sending him sailing fifty feet to land in a heap. The second was running like Hell. She didn't care, he wasn't the one she was after. 

Inside, a powered hitman known only as "The Shooter" was casually assembling a sniper rifle. If he had known the extent of Kira's physical strength, he may have moved faster. Suddenly, a giant gauntleted fist slammed through the roof, top floor, and ceiling of the bottom floor of the warehouse, then unfolded to grab the man right off the floor.

"Good job, bitch. Now finish it. Kill me. Go on!" He cursed at her, struggling in her grasp.

Kira just straightened up and turned away from the warehouse. "Admit it. Admit what you did."

"What, I'm supposed to beg for my life now? Well forget it, bitch. It was just business. I got paid to off you and your family. I knew my job would get me killed one day so I ain't gonna give you the satisfaction of scaring me. You may as well kill me now. If you can. I don't think you have th-"

The Shooter's tirade was cut off by Kira taking three running steps and throwing him out to sea. The hitman struck ocean surface going 120mph about an eighth of a mile out to sea, according to the satellite surveillance.

"STAND DOWN! THIS ISN'T THE WAY, KIRA." A loudspeaker from a nearby helicopter blared at her. For a brief, terrifying moment, when Kira's helmeted head snapped over towards the helicopter, the pilot thought he was doomed. 

Instead, she turned on her communication array. "I'll be there on time." She said, and headed back into the sea.

"Wow, Kira. You must have been really mad. I don't think I've ever seen you get mad at all." Chrystal said, stroking her friend's hair.

"Yeah. I'd just lost my family to this guy, and the TDS were just going to let him walk until they could catch the big fish. My family was simply collateral damage to them. I was truly pissed." Kira replied, with a long sigh. "Still... I don't think I'd do it any differently if I had it to do over. And... uh, remember when I said I was in a witness protection program? Well, it started that way, but they ended up saying what I did was originally Murder One, but they spun the whole thing to the public so that the guy I threw was a terrorist wearing a suicide vest, so they couldn't convict me of that. They reduced the charge to Manslaughter, and my punishment was the exile as a prison term. I can't go back for five years at least."

"What?! You kill a hitman and they charge you with his death? What a crock of shit that is!" Chrystal was outraged.

"Well, at the time I was too, but later I realized, because they weren't able to immediately get at the leader of the crime family due to being tipped off that TDS was onto their activities, more people possibly died or were victimized due to my impulsiveness. Besides, staying here with you is hardly any kind of punishment..." Kira replied, ending with a smile and a kiss to Chrystal's forehead.

"Aww... but what happened next? I mean you told me the overall thing, but after you waded off..."

"I went back to the bunker and put the suit away, then went to the safehouse they had planned for me, while I waited for them to set up the Trans-Dimensional Transport. Of course, this is when I faced all kinds of shit for killing the hitman too..."

"I still think that's pretty shitty. Hold on, I'm gonna grab us some drinks. Can we move to the couch too, so you can stretch out and I can curl up by your feet?" Chrystal asked.

"Always with the feet. And what kind of drinks were you talking?"

"I've got OJ and a bottle of champagne cooling in the fridge. You up for a mimosa?"

"Sure, Chrystal. But after this little story time, I'd like to have a little more time with you in one of my smaller sizes. That... sort of was what my dream about you was about."

"Oooh. Sounds fun. Be right back." Chrystal hopped up out of Kira's lap and went into the kitchen to fix the mimosas for the pair.

Meanwhile, Kira went to the couch and stretched out. The big towel wouldn't cover her all over so she decided to wrap it around like a skirt and end up topless. That ought to give Chrystal some indecision, Kira thought. She won't know whether to go to my feet or my boobs.

Not long later, Chrystal came back not only with the mimosas but a plate of cheese slices and cold cuts. "I was kinda hungry too." She said as she handed  Kira her drink, her eyes not straying from Kira's chest. "You're playing dirty."

"Yup. You gotta choose toes or boobs."

"No I don't. I'll start up here and work my way down." Chrystal carefully laid across Kira, resting her head on the now-Amazonian size woman's chest, while balancing her own drink in one hand.

"Good sense of balance there, love."

"Mm. I've always been athletic."

"So, now where were we? Right... So I was going to the safehouse..."

An hour later, Kira entered the unassuming office, showed her ID, and was escorted by a security guard to an elevator. Once upstairs, she walked into the small conference room. The guard here was a lot more nervous and kept eyeing her as if he expected Kira to do something violent. "Relax. If I wanted to cause problems, I could have assumed full size right here and brought the whole building down."

Instantly, the guard had his gun out and aimed at Kira's head. "Could you do it faster than I could put a bullet in your brain?"

Kira didn't even blink. "Yes." She said with such confidence that it caused the man to waver.

The situation was defused when the TDS supervisor entered. "Stand down." He ordered.

Both complied without a word, and Kira made her way to the interview desk, shortly followed by the supervisor. "To say I'm disappointed is a severe understatement. I've spent the last hour pulling damage control after your little stunt, Miss Dennethi."

"Can you blame me?" Kira retorted.

"No, but that does not excuse it. Some of the PADs want your head, almost literally. I took the hit for not protecting you and yours as a contributing factor." He began.

"How kind of you, Jake." She interrupted.

"Quit with the sarcasm, Kira. We're friends, but I have to hit all the bullet points."

Kira pursed her lips tightly and nodded.

"Now then, the preliminary charges you're being brought up on are unauthorized use of an emergency vehicle, vandalism, aggravated assault, and first degree murder."

"Murder?! Of that scum?" Kira tensed in her seat, but before she could say any more, Jake had raised his hand to placate her.

"Hear me out. I can get the vehicle use charge dropped, and TDS can pay the fine for the vandalism." He was almost interrupted again but the look in Jake's eye silenced Kira. "The assault can be justified as self defense, but the murder..." He sighed. "The best I can do is by have you plead guilty to manslaughter. If you do that, I can pull strings and make our previous agreement serve as punishment. It would mean that you would have to waive your right to return until the sentence was up."

That was a lot to take in. After several attempts to speak, Kira managed to say, "How long?"

"Seven to ten years, if we're lucky."

"That's way longer than-" she started, then sighed. "Fine. Agreed."

"Officially, what Rescue Kira threw in the ocean was a terrorist with a suicide vest on. that's what the media's going to be told. The only reason this isn't going far worse for you, is that you've been the best PR tool that the PADs have had in years. If the media had been there, it would have been a disaster. So, if this deal holds... You'll make a public statement about needing to go on a hiatus for your health and the safety of your employees, then we move you to a world without powereds."

"Wait, that wasn't a part of the original agreement-"

"Should have thought about that before you used a hitman for a fastball."

Another sigh came from Kira. "Fine. So, I take it I'll be I undercover on this new world?"

"Totally. We can't risk a breach like that. Besides, do you want to be the first and only powered there in the spotlight?"

"No. Can I at least say goodbye to my employees?"

"Tomorrow morning. By this time tomorrow you'll be on a new Earth. We got you all set up, and we're going to use all that back and future pay from your rescue work to split between you and your employees since your business will likely take a nosedive without you there."

"But I donated-"

"No. They put it in a trust fund. If you had a kid they would have gotten it. Or it would have gone to your estate in the event of your untimely death."

"Nine years of back pay, invested-"

"You're a millionaire, Kira. Barely. The Rescue Corps was going to surprise you with a check once you came back from Witpro."

This was too much for Kira, who was laughing deliriously. "So what now? Conceal, don't feel?"

"Your puns never bothered me anyway." Jake replied. "We'll work through this, I promise."

"Wait, how could TDS have this non-powered world all set? Doesn't that take months?"

"Yes. It was one of about five worlds we were looking at. No one but the launch crew would know which of them you went to? Well them and the Director."

"You think there's a leak in TDS." Kira stated.

"We assume there always is. Protection using compartmentalization."

"Huh. Makes sense. So, can I go get dinner and crash now?"

"At my place. Debbie will be thrilled to see you."

"Oh." The thought of spending time with Jake's 10 year old daughter was a melancholy one. "Fine."

"You keep saying that."

"I wish I believed it." Kira said as they left the building together.

 ***

"Wow, Kira. That's so sad. I'm sorry that happened." Chrystal looked up into Kira's face.

"I'm not. I wouldn't have gotten to meet you if it hadn't."

"Aww!" Chrystal hugged Kira again.

"There's a lot more to tell."

"I don't need to know. If you need to tell it, can we do it another time? My feels are wearing out."

"Your what? Nevermind, I get it. Let's get some rest, we have a big day tomorrow. Apartment hunting."