Scott had a feeling he wasn’t going to enjoy whatever was incoming when he’d seen Olivia Blackwell enter the training room.

            That feeling became a certainty, though, when he watched the young woman’s hands sink into that black duffel bag of hers and emerge with long, neon-orange rubber bands draped in her palms.

            These bands weren’t quite as horrifically mysterious as the glass marbles from the day before; Scott had seen, and used, such equipment in the gym to increase his resistance a couple years back at normal height. Somehow, he doubted he’d be receiving the same benefit from their use now, at this particular size, with biceps flimsier than the tips of his sister’s fingers.

            “Ooh, great idea!” Maggie sang. Her fingers thumped excitedly against the table upon which her weary, sock-scented brothers sat in waiting for her next command.

            “Hey, it’s not my idea,” Olivia shrugged. She grasped each end of the bands and stretched them out, elongating them with each pull of her shoulders, to test. A smirk crossed her lips. “That’s just what’s next up on this protocol.”
            “Oh, is it? I didn’t even see,” Maggie insisted. Sliding open her phone again, the towering teen scrolled through Techilogic’s tiny-training app. “Yep, my bad. I see it now. Guess I’ve gotta look these over more, huh?”

            “Don’t feel bad, these are the new ones, remember?” Olivia soothed. She gave the two bands one last snap. “Besides, you’ve got weeks to get these down pat. Just try to absorb it all.”

            “Got it,” Maggie said. She turned, looking down to her siblings again, her smile renewed. Her fingers took turns tapping on the table at the feet of her miniature brothers, vibrating their tired bodies with each landing. “Ready, boys?”

            As if that was a question and not a declaration she’d already decided. Odds were, it was just another chance for Kyle to make a second emotional plea if he was about to be sick. Any complaints other than outright physical illness were likely to go ignored.

            “Yeah,” Scott said calmly for both. Kyle still looked too shell-shocked from being tucked into his sister’s socks for that first exercise.

            “There are some other protocols I only know because I did come up with them, of course,” Olivia teased. She handed the bands off to Maggie, who accepted them happily. “We’ll probably get to talking about some of those later this month. There’s some pretty creative ones, if I do say so myself.”

            “I’ll bet,” Maggie said. She gave one last glance to her phone for a clear idea of the next step in the training protocol, then set her phone down on the table with a loud clack, blacked out, that rattled her brothers again.

            “But I’d also bet you have a few up your sleeve that could make a pretty good protocol,” Olivia said. She brushed her dark bangs back from her eyes and set about tying her hair back into a high ponytail. “With how many years you’ve had of experience with this?”

            “Yeah, it’s… been a while,” Maggie said.

            “No kidding. I think I started helping my parents discipline my sister when I was… maybe eighteen? But you were… what?”

            “Thirteen,” Maggie commented shyly, though the pride in her voice still shone through. Scott watched his sister twiddling with her fingers behind her back, possibly in memory of the first time he was placed in her hands with the intent to punish. “I was technically eight when Mom first let me… spend some tiny-time with Scotty, but yeah, thirteen when Mom gave me a job to do with him.”

            “A lot of responsibility to have back then, huh? And look at you now. You’re here, really turning that skillset into something you can use. It’s pretty cool, I have to say.”

            “Really?” Maggie muttered hopefully, clearly drawn deeply into the praise of her Clinic idol.

            “Hell yeah, it is, girl,” Olivia encouraged with some over-exaggerated hand gestures, though her expression was also sincere. “All right, enough chit-chat. These boys are probably starting to sweat over there, and we haven’t even gotten started with them. Why don’t you get them strapped in?”

            “Sure.”

            Scott raised an eyebrow, somehow both desiring to and feeling sickened by the idea of sneaking a peek at what was on that protocol list Judy had requested specifically for them this morning.

            He needn’t have wondered for long. A few seconds later, he and Kyle were bathed in the emerald light of the PMRD as their sister fired it upon them. Incredibly, though, rather than shrinking lower, they found themselves actually rising higher. Higher still, until Scott determined he and his brother were a full twelve inches in height. A minor miracle, really.

            Then came the aforementioned strapping in by Maggie. With the same care and attentiveness she used to load her brothers into their baby car seats, the girl cupped the doll-sized Scott on the small of his back, her fingers traced casually over his rear end and down to the backs of his thighs. Her thumb fingered the hem of his shirt, the pad of her digit cool on his skin. Which, unfortunately, wasn’t entirely unwelcome.

            The first orange rubber band was coiled neatly around his hips and shoulders, distributing its massive potential energy over his frame, which he was grateful for, even not yet understanding the exercise. Next came Kyle, who was tied in with greater grace and time than Scott.

            And then they were placed on the floor, the long exercise bands draped comically like flowing capes behind each boy. Scott took a couple tentative steps toward his sister’s ankles, his face level with her bare shin.

            “Um… what are we…”

            “Hold your horses, Scotty,” Maggie chirped.

            Olivia was rooting through the duffel bag again. In another second, the woman drew out a pair of what looked like boxing gloves, complete with padding and cherry-red color scheme, albeit in more of an oblong shape. The mystery of the objects wasn’t kept in suspense for long, though, as both Olivia and Maggie hunched over, wrapping one padded boot each around their right foot, still in its trainer.

            “Oh, good,” Scott muttered under his breath, too quiet to hear. He looked to Kyle, who still hadn’t quite puzzled out the game, despite the evidence.

            “Okay, boys, this is pretty simple,” Olivia explained, hands on her hips as she gazed down at the twelve-inch shrinkers at her feet with a beaming smile beside her considerably shorter intern. “We’re gonna get you both a little exercise. This is about creating a balance of tension and distance. You’ll get the hang of it more from practice than from me explaining it, though.”
            “You guys could use some exercise, probably,” Maggie commented cheekily. Her hands mounted similarly on her hips. “Since I was doing all the work on that last one.”

            Scott heaved a sigh.

            She wasn’t wrong, exactly.

            “Better get moving, boys!”

            Scott pressed the heel of his hand against his neck, popping the joint, and took off at a run. Or rather, the closest approximation of a run he could enact with a heavy rubber band knotted at various angles around his torso, the stretched end of which was slung around the ankle of Olivia Blackwell several feet back. Beside her on the lined sprint track of the training facility floor was Maggie, with her foot-tall younger brother leashed to his own band.

            After more than four strides, Scott could feel the resistance building up. He dug his heels into the ground, but with one more step, the band snapped back and he totaled to the floor.

            “Good effort, Scott,” Olivia encouraged, not bothering to hide her snickering other than with a token caging of her fingers around her curled lips. She arched her colorfully soled shoe against the ground, arching her calf. “Now get back up and give it another go.”

            “Will do,” Scott mumbled, resolving to avoid any intensifying of the exercise resulting from protest. He was fairly certain there had to be ways to answer a lack of cooperation, maybe by tying another length of band around his body to increase the difficulty. So, he pressed back to his feet, and took two strides.

            And smacked straight back down again as Olivia shifted her foot backward with a simple swing.

            “You have to be ready for those kinds of moves, Scott. This exercise relies on a connection between the handler and the shrinker. You have to watch what my legs and feet are up to, so you know where you can move, too.”

            “How silly of me,” Scott replied dryly.

            “Wasn’t it, though?” Olivia grinned, swatting her ponytail to the opposite side of her head. “C’mon, kid. Up and at ‘em.”

            Kid? There couldn’t have been more than five or six years separating their ages.

            With a soft groan, Scott clambered back up and followed the rather demeaning directions, at least glad not to be jammed back into someone’s sweaty sock while this activity was completed. No matter how many times Olivia yanked him off balance, the greater access to fresh air and cool AC made this activity infinitely preferable to the last. If anything, Scott was surprised to find such a relatively merciful activity following up the previous one. Maybe it was just ordered that way to grant a break? It wasn’t out of the realm of possibility, but Scott somehow doubted his mother would’ve chosen this particular routine if there were breaks involved.

            Yet again, the dreaded B3A2 hadn’t measured up to its ominous reputation. What about it had filled Maggie and Judy with such revere?

            “You got it, Kyle,” Maggie encouraged, a lilt in her voice indicating how much fun she was having. She rotating her foot at the ankle, then arced her leg forward, taking a step. “Keep in time with me!”

            Kyle, indeed, kept time. He stumbled at first, getting over the residual nausea of the last activity, but soon he had the rhythm. Their sister would take a few steps back, then a few steps forward, a skip and a hop off to the side. The soccer star might’ve appeared to an outside observer to be following a TV exercise routine, stretching and reaching every which way, except for the doll-sized boy looped around her ankle by a powerful rubber band.

            Scott rolled his eyes, for once wishing he was over with his sister than his current trainer. At least Maggie seemed to be having enough fun that she was willing to provide clear directions which, if followed, allowed Kyle to remain standing. Clearly the fun for her was in watching Kyle scuttle about at her whim, rather than Olivia, who was apparently more focused on coming up with reasons to trip him.

            “Ooohh, almost had it there. Seriously, I think I’ll be sending one of these bands home with your sister for some extra practice,” Olivia informed him, bending down ever so slightly from above. She cupped her hair over her ear, watching as Scott sprawled on the floor. She tapped his back with the toe of her tennis shoe. “You could really use the boost in your reflexes.”

            “Can’t argue with that,” Scott uttered too low to hear.

            “What’s that?”

            “Nothing.”

            Olivia smirked to the side of her lips, shaking her head, then crossed her arms. She arched back to full height and tapped her sole against the ground: a drum roll.

            “Get up. Now,” she instructed with a cool professionalism practiced over multiple years of experience in R&R training, tinted with just a note of venom belying her true love for this career. “And follow me.”

            Scott stood, dusted himself off, and followed after Olivia’s steadily tramping shoes, just about level with the back of her healthily rounded calves. Within seconds, her pace at picked up, forcing him to jog to keep up with her confident footsteps. Just when he thought he’d gotten the hang of it, though, Olivia came to a jarring stop, planting her foot down on the navy-blue floor with a seismic thump. Unable to stop his own momentum thanks to the rubber band, Scott was flung forward like a slingshot pellet, his body colliding with and instantly coiling clumsily around Olivia’s leg.

            “Well, that’s a start,” Olivia sighed. She gave her leg a shake, causing Scott to tumble down the front of her shoe and plunk back to the floor in a heap.