The soldiers crept through the abandoned building, careful not to make a sound. They were trained professionals, but there was real terror in their eyes. From outside, huge footsteps collided with the ground, shaking the building and its tiny inhabitants. Echoing through the walls was the giant’s laughter, guttural and menacing. His pheromones oozed through every vent of every building on every street, but the soldiers were ready for that too. They secured their gas masks, then pushed onward, deeper into the structure, working their way down stairwells and silently through doors. Finally, they reached their destination: a huge vault once used by an abandoned bank. Now, it would hold a new treasure. Ben.

“You’ll be safe here, sir,” one of the soldiers said, pushing Ben into the vault. “He won’t find you.” But they were wrong. As the tiny vault door ratcheted closed, the ears of a god, miles away, perked up. Jason closed his eyes and focused his senses, sniffing at the air and turning his head toward each subtle sound. He smiled, finding his prey, and licked his lips.

The footsteps grew louder, the ground shaking more and more violently with each step. And everyone knew they were dead. He found them. A whole city loaded with teams of soldiers, and without even breaking a sweat Jason found the one team protecting the VIP. From deep inside the building, the soldiers were unable to see the gargantuan predator headed their way, but they still trembled at his awesome power.

“I know he’s in there,” a deep, masculine voice spake from the heavens. “Bring him out. Or I’ll tear this entire building apart.”

“Can he do that?” one of the soldiers whispered to his lieutenant.

“I can do whatever I want,” Jason said through the walls, seemingly answering the soldier’s question. The soldiers shivered, knowing that Jason was telling the truth. “Give him to me, and I let the rest of you go. Refuse, and I will keep you. All of you. You’ll be my little ant farm.”

“Bullshit, this is bullshit, boss,” a soldier said to his commander. 

“No it fucking isn’t,” the commander responded. “He can do it. This isn’t a simulation. That’s the whole fucking point. If he says he’s going to do something, he will fucking do it. You should’ve read the goddamned waiver, son. You signed it! I signed it, goddammit! And I will not live out the rest of my career in a glass jar. Open. The fucking. Vault.”

Moments later Ben, escorted by two soldiers, stepped out the front doors of the abandoned office building. He looked skyward, meeting the mile-high gaze of his overgrown persecutor. Muscles the size of buildings flexed as Jason bent his long legs, stooping down and extending a hand. Ben wearily climbed aboard, and was raised to the sky. 

“I have him,” Jason said to the sky.

“Good work. Record time,” the sky spoke back. Heavy boots approached, stepping through the city streets and finally stopping next to Jason. Leaning over Jason’s shoulder was a raven haired goddess holding a clipboard. She nibbled at the end of a pair of red rimmed eyeglasses, and smiled at Ben the way a hungry kid smiles at their favorite candy. “Looked like you were having fun out there. Perhaps I should try the exercise sometime.” She patted Jason on the shoulder, smirked at Ben, and walked off. In the distance, she shouted, “Okay everyone! Reset! Round two!”

The makeshift city was comprised of abandoned buildings from across the United States. They were shrunken, transported to a hangar in an Air Force base, and assembled into a convincing municipality. There it provided a facility where Heather and Jason could train at their regular sizes. The latest exercise was designed by the staff psychologist, Dr. Alexandra Jacobs. She called it “capture the king.” The goal was simple. Invade a city, locate the city’s top official, and capture him for interrogation. It took a bit of selling, but for “added authenticity,” AJ insisted that the king be a civilian and not a soldier. Given that Ben was dating Heather, and that he now lived on the Air Force base, he became the perfect candidate.

“You’re up,” AJ said, nudging Heather in the shoulder as she walked by. Heather closed her eyes, and took a deep breath. She walked forward along the city’s main artery, with her characteristic poise, but with a total lack of confidence. Her head bobbed above the city’s skyline, as she scanned the surface for signs of life. There were none. In fact, the city was host to over a hundred soldiers, camped out at strategic locations, ready to fight back. This was as much their training as it was hers.

“I know you’re here,” she said, trying to channel Jason’s commanding tone. It was too transparent. “Just come out. Surrender. And no one gets hurt.”

Nothing moved. The city was silent as the grave. She frowned, and looked over her shoulder to Jason for support. He was crouched, far on the city’s edge, just watching. He’d be of no help this time. She looked at AJ, who was writing in her notepad and standing next to Jason. Further back in the hangar, a few high ranking military officials sat in folding chairs, some of them shaking their heads.

“Remember to be scary,” AJ said, with a smirk. Now Heather was the one shaking her head.

“Yeah thanks,” Heather said, visibly irritated.

AJ made a condescending wave of her hand, as if to say “happy to be of service.”

Heather continued down the city streets, hands clenched, feeling embarrassed and defensive. No signs of life. Everything was quiet. She peered through windows and didn’t see a soul.

“You’ve already lost to Jason’s record, so just take all the time you need, girl,” AJ yelled.

Jason looked up at her. “What the fuck are you doing?” he whispered.

“Motivating her,” AJ answered, hugging her notebook and swinging it cheerily.

“You’re just pissing her off,” Jason grunted.

“You noticed! I’m so glad,” AJ muttered with dripping sarcasm. She clapped her hands like she was cheering her child at a softball game. “Keep it up Heather! Lookin’ good!” she cheered, flashing a thumbs up and winking.

Heather pretended not to notice. But she knew all this taunting was just undermining her credibility as a giant supersoldier. None of the ants hiding within these buildings would respect her now. She squeezed her fists even harder at the thought.

“Go big or go home, babe!” AJ taunted in the distance.

Heather gritted her teeth, but pressed onward. She was vibrating with anger. Maybe it was better she didn’t find Ben. She might crush every tiny person she found just to end this stupid exercise. 

She rounded a corner, closing her eyes and trying to listen for nearby squads, hearing nothing. She lacked Jason’s preternatural senses, and that pissed her off too. In high school through the end of college, she was always the hottest and the brightest and a star athlete, but being the world’s second biggest god made her feel totally inadequate for the first time. She felt a heaviness in her eyes, as she grew tired, weighted down with the guilt of defeat.

“Maybe if you’re lucky the enemy will just die of old age!” AJ yelled.

That bitch. Heather’s lips curled with rage. She’d find Ben if she had to rip this entire city apart. Heather reached for a nearby building, ready to tear its walls off, but its occupants struck first. A missile launched from a highrise window, straight into Heather’s face. It exploded, shattering nearby windows, leaving no damage on Heather’s face but stinging like a motherfucker. She teetered backward, catching herself with one leg, waving about her face as the squad opened fire with everything they had. A rain of minuscule bullets pricked at her skin like a million stinging bees.

Bees. Insects. That’s exactly what they were. All of them. Insects. How dare they. If this wasn’t an exercise, this whole city would be flattened. How dare they even put her through this exercise. She wasn’t just another person, she was a goddess. This whole thing was a farce; a waste of her time. They couldn’t defeat her, they were insignificant little gnats that had the audacity to call themselves people. 

“ENOUGH!” Heather screamed, but the soldiers didn’t stop firing. It didn’t matter. When Heather decided to fight back, it was all over. She reached into the building and gathered several of the men into her palm. She brought them up to her snarling face, the ground beneath them shaking with her rage.

“Tell me where he is or I will ground you into PASTE and wear you for makeup,” she growled.

The men in her palm trembled, unsure if she would seriously do it but she looked pretty goddamn convincing.

“You first,” she said, pointing at one of the men on the edge of her palm. She reduced his size, slowly, so all the other men could see just what she was capable of.

“No, wait!” the squad leader shouted. “We’re just a distraction! He’s being held at 401 South Main! It’s a hotel!”

Heather chuckled, and set the men back on the ground. “If you lied to me, I’m going to come back here and pop all of your heads like grapes.”

The squad leader nodded vacantly, and started to run off with his fellow soldiers. Heather’s foot came crashing down before them, forming an impenetrable blockade.

“You didn’t thank me for sparing you,” she said.

All the men thanked her profusely, anything to be out of this damned crazy exercise and away from her. She cast a vicious smile at AJ. The other woman shot a thumbs up back.

“Jesus,” Jason said.

“She just needed a push,” AJ explained.

Heather stomped to the hotel, making every footstep as loud and heavy as possible. The soldiers within did everything they could to withstand each impact, but the force of her footfalls was enough to knock them flat on their asses. The force was so heavy that... One of the soldiers looked outside, and his jaw dropped with horror. Heather had grown. She was now the height of the entire hangar. By comparison, the soldiers inside were barely noticeable specks.

“OUT,” she boomed. Her voice echoed throughout the hangar. Even Jason felt intimidated. AJ just scribbled some notes and let out a bored yawn. Frightened little people scurried out of the building, carrying Heather’s prize. A speck on the street, Ben looked upward at his goddess girlfriend, and he saw it. That hungry look again. 

AJ walked nonchalantly down the street once again, her high heeled boots clopping the pavement. “Well done, well done. I knew you could do it,” she said, as Heather reduced herself to her normal height.

“What’s next?” Heather asked, ready for action.

“Oh that’s um,” AJ started, then looked down by her boot. One of the soldiers was separated from his squad. He stared upward at AJ’s titanic form, mesmerized by the curves of her long, athletic legs, running straight into her skirt. She giggled, and reached down, picking up the man and dropping him into her palm. She held him up and regarded him the way an entomologist examines an insect. “Interrogation. Room 6-B. We start in 30 minutes. Don’t be late.”

Heather walked away, but AJ stood in place, still studying the tiny person in her hand. He gaped at her, bewitched by her overwhelming feminine presence. “Do you want to stay this size forever, soldier?”

“Um... Only for you,” he barely managed to muster the courage to say.

“Hmm. How about until the military wants to know where their missing hardware went,” she suggested. Before he could respond, AJ dropped him into her purse, zipping it shut.

ROOM 6-B: RESERVED

Interrogation. The game was simple. The VIP knows a code. He is to withhold that code as long as he can. Heather and Jason are to extract that code, by any means necessary. Any means, so long as the VIP isn’t harmed. AJ insisted on that. She wanted total realism, but she also wanted the giants trained to solve problems without violence. 

The military found her proposal agreeable, though there were some objections. For one, Jason had already successfully interrogated the captured sailors from last month’s Pacific battle. AJ objected in return. She didn’t have any details on that interrogation; for whatever reason she wasn’t allowed to watch it. If she was charged with monitoring the giants, then she had to actually watch them do their jobs. The objectors relented. 

Ben sat on the cold concrete floor of room 6-B. The only other objects in the room were a folding table and chair. Not that it mattered. At an inch high, no one was giving Ben any comfortable furniture to sit in. He waited, alone, in silence, for over an hour. He was beginning to think everyone had completely forgotten about the second half of the day’s exercises. He started to feel nervous, anxious to find out who his first interrogator would be and what kind of mood they would be in.

Finally, the door opened, and Jason walked in. He had changed into his gym clothes and a pair of flip flops. His entire body was dripping with sweat.

“Hey little guy,” he said, walking over to Ben. He stopped, planting both his feet at Ben’s sides. “Sorry about the wait. I really needed a good workout. Puts my mind in the right space, y’know? Like, focused.”

Ben wanted to tell him to just use the pheromones and get it over with, but he couldn’t form the words. Jason’s command to stay silent on the matter was integrated into Ben’s neural pathways. But Jason didn’t seem interested in using his powers anyway. In fact, judging by the playful look in his eye, Jason was prepared to make Ben talk completely without using the mind-altering toxins.

What would he use then? Ben turned and looked at Jason’s golden feet. They arched gloriously between his soft, moist, ball and heel. His long toes curled and fluttered, as if beckoning Ben to come play. And they were drenched with sweat.

“Oh sorry, am I standing too close? See, I went for this run, and now I probably just reek,” Jason taunted. “Or maybe you’re into that. In fact, I seem to recall you’ve got a thing for feet, don’t ya little bug boy?”

Ben looked at the feet again, then upward at Jason. 

“Well go ahead, climb aboard,” Jason said, slipping his left foot out of its flip flop. Ben gulped, but didn’t move.

“Hey. What’s the harm? You can enjoy this all you want, and then you don’t even have to tell me what the code is. Sounds like a win for you,” Jason continued. 

And he was right. Ben shook his head. Stupid foot freak. Can’t resist. He climbed onto the flip flop, walked across the surface and buried his face into the depression left by the ball of Jason’s foot. He began licking the foam, eager to taste the sweat left behind. And then he began to shrink again. A speck, once more, as Jason’s flip flop expanded for miles around him. Just when Ben started to get his bearings, Jason lowered his foot, sealing Ben in.

“Unconventional,” AJ muttered to herself, tapping a pencil against her lips. She watched the proceedings from behind a one-way mirror. Heather had to wait outside. Heather checked her watch a few times and wondered what the hell was taking so long. Jason was supposed to get this done instantly.

Back in the interrogation room, Jason squeezed Ben against his giant foot, keeping the little man in place for nearly 20 minutes.

“I can keep this up. I can even make it last all day,” he said to the speck beneath him. “It’s easy, all I have to do is put you in my shoe.” He sat down in the chair, and crossed his foot over one leg. Examining it, he saw to his satisfaction that Ben was still stuck to his sole. “Do you want this to stop?” Jason asked.

“No,” Ben whispered, pushing his face into the giant’s skin and breathing deeply.

Jason shook his head. “What do you suppose Heather would say, if she knew you preferred my feet to hers?”

AJ leaned back in her chair and smiled. She kind of admired the big fella. He had a natural gift of psychology; he really knew how to play people like a fiddle. Even if he was kind of dense. Poor Ben though. He had no idea what he’d volunteered for.

“How about we make a deal?” Jason continued. “Tell me what the code is, and you get to spend all of tomorrow as a speck on my body. Wherever you want, you just disappear there.”

Ben shook his head. It won’t be that easy. He wouldn’t let it be that easy. Can’t give in. “No deal.”

Jason chuckled. “How about a whole month. You can tell Heather you’re out of town, visiting family. She won’t care. She won’t even know the difference. It’ll be our little secret. You’ll be my little secret.”

Ben resisted again, but it took every ounce of willpower he had. “Can’t.”

“Jason,” AJ said over a PA, “your time is up.”

“But,” he objected, before AJ cut him off.

“You wasted too much time at the gym. Got cocky. Stupid, Jason.”

Out in the hallway, the door to room 6-B opened, and AJ leaned out. “You’re up,” she said to Heather, who was pacing about, a coiled spring ready to bounce. As Heather walked past AJ, the psychologist leaned toward her and whispered, “Show him you’re his fucking boss.”

Ben sat again, back in the middle of the concrete floor, restored to his previous size of one inch. He heard the tapping of Heather’s shoes. They were fast, and they were confident. She pushed open the door and strode inside, wearing short denim cutoffs that hugged her hips in all the right ways, a yellow strappy top, and suede, peep-toe mules.

Ben stood at attention, ready to resist whatever she could throw at him. “I-”

“Shut up,” she ordered. He could see it in her eyes. She meant it. “You don’t talk until I tell you to talk.”

“Ah, you must be bad cop,” Ben quipped. But Heather wasn’t laughing.

“Another word,” she warned, “And you’ll spend the next fifteen minutes buried deep in my asshole.”

Woah. Ben did not want that. He really didn’t want that.

“Do as I say, and I’ll reward you. How does that sound.”

Ben nodded the way someone nods at an angry pitbull. Easy now.

“Do you know what I discovered today?” Heather asked, stepping ever closer to Ben. “I really like it when people obey me.”

Her act was convincing, if it was an act at all. That hungry look was in her eye. Maybe a beast was awakening in her, or maybe she was just pissed off from the morning’s embarrassing performance, but either way, Ben already knew he was going to do everything Heather told him to.

“And I realized something. Something I wish I figured out a long time ago,” she continued, dangling her mule from the ball of her left foot. “I realized that, I spend all day, taking orders from all these tiny little people. Everyone tells me what to do. And I have to obey them. Or they tell me I’ll get in a lot of trouble. So I take their shit. Because I have to. I have to listen to whatever anyone tells me.”

Heather withdrew her left foot from her shoe, and crept the foot over to Ben, gently clasping him between two toes. She squeezed him, just the right amount, letting him feel her power, but also her restraint. Instinctively, Ben started kissing her toes. Heather smiled, pleased with her boyfriend's reflexive submission to her.

“Except for you. You’re the only person I don’t have to listen to. I just feel like I’ve got all of this power, but... It’s not even mine. It’s everyone else’s. But you don’t make me feel that way. I come home from a long day of doing what I’m told, and it makes me feel so fucking good that I get to do, whatever the fuck I want with you.” Heather pushed Ben onto his back, and rubbed him gently with her sole. Jason was wrong. Heather’s feet were divine, second to none. “So please,” she continued, “make me feel like a goddess.”

“3719,” Ben blurted out.

“That’s the code?” Heather asked.

“Yes,” he said, struggling to form cogent responses under the advances of her foot.

Heather frowned, and her eyelids narrowed into dark slits. “I didn’t tell you to talk,” she spat. “That’s 30 minutes. As my thong.”