GENETITECH/BIOENG. confidential file
SUBJECT: --GOLDMAN, David
A.U. No.: --NC 654 55 D
S.C.I.D. No: --7474HHD
SUPERVISING DOCTOR: --Dr. Terrence LYNCH
ITEM: --Transcript of recorded testimony regarding subject's current condition. File for ASSESSMENT/INFO
2003.02.27
16:30:12
How do I feel? Look at me! I'm two inches tall, for Christ's sake!
Sometimes I can put it out of my mind. For a brief, blissful moment, I can forget about everything that's happened over the past year. But then, reality intrudes and I'm reminded that I'm doomed to spend the rest of my life the size of a plastic [EXPLETIVE DELETED] army man.
That's how it was when we were Carolyn's prisoners. I mean at first, before the [EXPLETIVE DELETED] hit the fan. She kept us in a dollhouse--this plastic, three-storied monstrosity that was scaled just a little too big for us to be comfortable. But after a while, you could put the fact that it was a dollhouse out of your mind. You could forget that the pictures were actually painted on the wall, frame and all. You could lay there on the oversized plastic couch, staring at the grandfather clock with its sticker face that always said ten after one, and you could pretend that your life was still normal. Then you'd hear the thudding footsteps from outside and feel the house shake slightly. You'd screw your eyes shut and try to hold onto that normal feeling just a little bit longer. Everything in the house would shake as it was moved away from the wall, and you'd find yourself staring at a bare foot the size of a Citibus...
God, there are some things I just don't want to [EXPLETIVE DELETED] remember. But the indignities we suffered at the hands of Carolyn won't stay buried. She didn't just imprison us, she methodically crushed our spirit and our will to resist until we were no longer prisoners, but pets. I wish I could say that my mind was too strong for her games, that I only played along with her until I could make my escape, but it wouldn't be true. She broke us, poor Eddie most of all. He was out of his mind by the time she killed him.
Okay. From the beginning...
***
Julie was the one who got me the job with Eddie. I knew her back in 2000, before you guys recruited her. She was a graduate student at SMU, teaching classes for Dr. Brauva. I was a sophomore, struggling through my computer science courses. It was obvious I wasn't cut out to be a computer scientist, but my trust fund stipulated that I had to major in either business or engineering. With the benefit of hindsight, I should have just sucked it up, gotten a job and transferred to a less expensive college. I'd be a poverty stricken English major today, but at least I'd still have a life outside this [EXPLETIVE DELETED] lab...
I'm sorry. I guess I shouldn't complain. The room is very nice, and you guys have been very accommodating. I just miss my friends and family...
Anyway, I have to admit that I was pretty smitten with Julie. She wasn't bombshell gorgeous, but she was smart and funny and pretty in a fragile, gamin kind of way. And after I scored horrendously low on my first Digital Logic exam, she kind of took my under her wing. Under her gentle tutelage, I raised my paltry F to a respectable C+.
In May 2001, Julie graduated with her M.S. in Computer Engineering. She had gone off the board with her thesis and concentrated on Biometrics. I'm still not sure I understand just what the hell her thesis was about, but it attracted a number of recruiters from all over the country. Including you guys. Of course it was no contest.
So Julie went off to GenetiTech. We vowed to stay in touch, and actually did to some extent. We talked on the phone a couple of times a month, and she even popped in to have dinner with me occasionally when she was on her way home to visit her parents. It was during one of these dinners that she told me about the job with Eddie MacManus.
"He's a freelancer," she explained around a mouthful of burger. "Lives in a farmhouse outside of Midland with his wife and his dog. Comes across like an utter hick, but I'm telling you he's the most brilliant man I've ever met."
"What's the job?" I asked, wondering why a super-genius living in proximity of a think-tank like GenetiTech would be interested in recruiting a B- college student.
"Ergonomic enhancements," she said. "Interface work. Maybe some documentation. I can't be any more specific than that."
"How come?" I asked. "Top secret stuff?"
She blushed a little bit. "Well, Eddie's very secretive. He doesn't trust the other developers at GenetiTech, and he doesn't trust management. Hell, he barely trusts me, and I've been his liaison for the past six months."
"So why does GenetiTech put up with him?"
"Because he gets results, Dave. This guy can take a piece of abandoned technology and do things with it nobody ever imagined. About two years ago, he started working on a project that had been shut down in '95. GenetiTech just packed up the necessary equipment and delivered it to his home lab, and he's been working in relative seclusion. Since I seemed to get along with him better than anybody else on the staff, they made me his liaison. So I check in on him every week or so to see if he needs anything, but I don't have a clue what he's doing."
"So, why me?" I asked. "Why not one of the interns at GenetiTech?"
"I told you, he doesn't trust them," she said. "He doesn't want them 'spying' on him. He asked me if I knew anybody 'untainted by the corporate machine,' and I told him I might." Julie grinned. "So, what do you say? We're talking $10,000 for two months employment, plus free room and board."
"Room and board? Really?"
She nodded. "Eddie wants you staying with him and Carolyn, where us 'evil corporate types' can't get to you. But it won't be so bad. It's a beautiful old house. And Carolyn is a wonderful cook."
Two months in seclusion seemed a small price to pay. The money was good, and I would be able to list GenetiTech on my rsum. I mulled it over for a few seconds, then grinned back at Julie. "When do I start?"
***
On June 16 of last year, I drove the 325 miles from Dallas to the thriving community of Midland, Texas, population 95,000 (SALUTE!). I followed her directions and had no trouble finding the GenetiTech complex. Very impressive, like an island of glass and steel in the midst of the meadowlands. The security guard called Julie, then waved me through. She was waiting for me in the circular drive in front of the main building.
I followed Julie (who was now driving a BMW 3... nice!) out to Eddie's place. I understood now why she had agreed to meet me and lead me there, rather than just give me directions. I would have never seen that driveway off of Highway 349 if she hadn't made the turn first. Nothing but an old, rusty mailbox to mark it amidst the high grass and metal fence.
The driveway, such as it was, meandered through the woods, occasionally lapsing from blacktop to dirt, then back again. The pavement was cracked by tree roots and weather. Her car had no trouble with the bumps, but the springs on my little Fiat convertible groaned painfully with each bounce. We went over two cattle guards (despite the cattle guards and the fence, I don't think I ever saw a cow on that property) and finally came out in a clearing. It was a small patch of civilization in the rustic wilderness. The heavy woods suddenly gave way to a well manicured lawn and a beautiful house of brick and wood. The rough pavement became smooth concrete as we pulled up into the driveway. There was an immaculate red Saturn in the garage. A battered green pickup was parked to the side.
I noticed Julie's professional business attire for the first time as we walked to the front door. I was suddenly self-conscious in my untucked bowling shirt and jeans. I asked Julie if I was underdressed, and she just laughed. "Eddie doesn't trust anybody that wears a suit."
Eddie answered the door, and I must admit that all of my mad scientist preconceptions were dashed. He was in his mid-forties, with a black pompadour and sideburns that almost made him look like Elvis. He was wearing a wrinkled flannel shirt over a t-shirt, jeans and boots. He smelled faintly of beer and Aqua Velva. His face broke into an easy grin when he saw us.
"Hiya Julie," he said, stepping back to let us in. "Is this my new lab partner?"
"This is Dave Goldman," she said. "And he's going to help you out for the next couple of months on your super-secret project." She said the last part very melodramatically, and I got the feeling that it was a running joke between her and Eddie.
"Eddie MacManus," Eddie said in his pleasant drawl, shaking my hand.
"It's good to meet you, Mr. MacManus."
"Please," he said, winking. "Call me sir."
We followed him into the living room, where the TV was on but muted. I sat next to Julie on the couch, and Eddie fell back into his recliner.
"Where's Carolyn?" Julie asked.
"Out in her garden," he said. "We're getting some beautiful tomatoes and sweet corn this year."
I turned and glanced out the sliding glass door and saw a woman in the distance, crouched on a railroad tie and plucking weeds. A large, red Irish setter bounded back and forth, stopping occasionally to bark.
"I filled Dave in as best I could on your project," Julie was saying, "but you'll have to give him the details yourself."
"Well hell, I know that," Eddie said. "But we both know that's not gonna happen while you're here."
"Fine Eddie," Julie said. "You can share all of your secrets with Dave as soon as I leave."
"Not too soon, I hope. Carolyn's counting on you staying for supper."
***
We were chatting with Eddie about college football when Carolyn came in from her garden. It's hard now for me to remember her as she was then, but I do recall thinking there was something quite striking about her. She was petite and very tan. Her hair was dark and short, matted down with sweat where she had worn her straw hat. Her legs and feet were grimy from her work in the garden, but still quite shapely. It was hard to tell her age, but I would have guessed mid-thirties.
I suddenly realized that I had been staring at her sandaled feet just a little too long. I glanced up guiltily and flushed when she met my gaze and smiled.
"You must be Dave," she said. "I'm sorry I'm such a mess, but I really didn't expect you until later tonight."
"Oh," I said, shifting uncomfortably. "I mean, I didn't mean to inconvenience you..."
"Don't be silly," she said. "I'm going to go shower, and then I'll start dinner." She looked at Julie, her smile still firmly in place. "You're staying for dinner, aren't you sweetheart?"
"I'd love to," Julie said. She held Carolyn's stare for several seconds, before finally looking away.
"Wonderful," Carolyn said, walking past us and up the stairs. "The more, the merrier."
***
Julie helped me carry my suitcases up to my room. It was a guest room, decorated with nice, but mismatched furniture. We tossed the cases on the large oak bed, and I poked around a little. The dresser was empty, but the closet was full of quilts and towels.
"So, what was that?" I asked Julie. "Is Carolyn pissed at you about something?"
Julie shrugged. "Not that I know of, but that was kind of weird. Maybe she and Eddie have been fighting."
I got a bad feeling. "Do they fight a lot?"
She shrugged. "I don't think so. I've only seen them go at it a couple of times, but..." She trailed off, then whistled. "This was before my time, but I remember a couple of people at work talking about the time Eddie brought Carolyn to the Christmas party. I think this was back in the mid '90s. But they said that Carolyn just got drunker and drunker as the evening went on, and Eddie was mortified. He tried to quietly get her out of there, and she tore into him as loud as she could. She accused him of sleeping with everybody from Rachel Foster to Anne in Payroll. Anyway, they say that's why Eddie never goes to company parties anymore."
Julie must have seen the worried look on my face, because she reached over and took my hand. "Don't worry about it, Dave. It's just a story. I've been coming here for six months, and I've only seen them exchange a cross word maybe once or twice. Besides," she added, grinning, "she really seems to like you."
I found out just how much Carolyn liked me during dinner...
***
There was enough food for an army. Fried chicken, potato salad, turnip greens, and corn on the cob fresh from Carolyn's garden. She had also sliced some tomatoes and onions and set them out. The tea was too sweet, but I sipped it politely as I munched on a wing.
Eddie and Julie sat to either side of me, and Carolyn sat straight across. Every time I glanced in her direction, she seemed to be watching me, smiling this little smile. I came to know that predatory smile intimately during the months we spent as Carolyn's prisoners... pets... playthings... but at the time, it just seemed sort of playful. Every time I passed her something, her fingers would brush against my hand. I told myself I was just imagining things.
"I was telling Dave how much GenetiTech values your ability to think outside the box," Julie said, tearing the meat from her piece of chicken with a fork.
"Outside the box?" Eddie said, then laughed. "I think outside the [EXPLETIVE DELETED] room they keep the [EXPLETIVE DELETED] box in!"
"Nice language, honey," Carolyn said, winking at me. "We've got company, remember?"
"Aw, hell. He's gonna be around a couple of months. He better get used to it. Right, partner?" The last was addressed to me.
"Abso-[EXPLETIVE DELETED]-lutely," I said, grinning. Eddie laughed out loud.
"Boys," Carolyn muttered, still smiling at me as she shook her head. I felt her foot brush up against my leg, and I shifted back, hoping it had been an accident.
"I'm dying to see what you've done with Reynold's old project," Julie said. "He was so close to succeeding, I hear he actually broke down and cried when they pulled funding."
"Not hardly," Eddie said, shoveling a forkful of greens into his mouth. "Reynold lucked into that project. Greg Garret was the real brains behind Project Scotty, and when he died, you guys lost any chance of making it work."
"Project Scotty?" I asked.
"As in 'Beam me up, Scotty,'" Julie said. "Garret and Reynold were working on matter/energy conversion."
"Holy crap!"
"Reynold wasn't working on [EXPLETIVE DELETED]," Eddie snapped. "Reynold is a hack who remains employed only because of his prodigious ability to kiss ass. Garret WAS the project, and when he died, Scotty died with him."
"Are you sure?" Julie asked, arching an eyebrow.
Eddie grinned. "You're not getting a word out of me about it."
"The problem, Dave," Julie said, "was reassembly. Garret got the first part of the equation down, and actually demonstrated by zapping some crates and storing them on his hard drive as a sequence of data. Of course, it was all pretty academic, since he couldn't convert the stored data back into matter."
"It was only a matter of time," Eddie said. "The problem was that the energy use was prohibitive. You couldn't reconstruct without pumping an ungodly amount of energy into the signal. And you couldn't pump that much energy into the signal without breaking it up. Sort of a Catch-22."
"Still," I said, astounded by the prospects. "The ability to disintegrate the target. Imagine the military applications..."
"We really shouldn't discuss that," Julie said.
"Oh, don't worry about me," Carolyn said. "I don't have a clue what you're talking about."
I felt her foot again. This time it deliberately slid up my leg and came to rest in my lap. I squirmed uncomfortably, trying not to draw too much attention to myself.
"Carolyn's got security clearance," Eddie said, laughing. "They investigated her and made her sign an NDA back in '92, when they built my lab. Not that it matters... she couldn't care less about what I'm working on."
Carolyn pressed against my groin with her toes, and I gasped at the sudden tightness. I reached down, as if going for my napkin, and tried to push her foot away. Her toes grasped playfully at my fingers.
"I know you're a damn genius," Carolyn said. "I don't have to hear you talk about it every day."
I bit my lip to keep from moaning as Carolyn's foot mercilessly kneaded my erection. Eddie and Julie were still talking shop, but all I could hear was my heart pounding in my ears. Carolyn licked her lips, then took a sip of tea, her eyes on me the entire time. The pressure built, my heart pounded, my face burned...
And then, release. A spasm of relief and, despite my efforts to the contrary, I must have moaned softly.
"You okay there, Dave?" Eddie asked. Both he and Julie were watching me intently.
"Uh, yeah," I stammered. "The chicken is just, um, really good."
"Thank you, sweetie," Carolyn said as she stroked my leg with her foot one last time.
"No," I said, blushing as I looked at her. "Thank you."
***
I guess I should tell you now what it took me a couple of weeks to figure out. Carolyn wasn't exactly playing with a full deck. Her slinky was a bit kinked...
She was as [EXPLETIVE DELETED] up as a football bat.
The thing is, somewhere along the way, Carolyn had become convinced that Eddie and Julie were sleeping together. And based on the story Julie had told me about the Christmas party, I can only assume this was pretty standard behavior on her part.
And the sick part of it was, Eddie knew this. He knew how she felt about Julie. But he also knew that the only time Carolyn paid any attention to him was when she thought he was cuckolding her, so he did nothing to dissuade her. He simply feigned ignorance and basked in Carolyn's jealous attentions.
And so this game had gone for years... Julie was simply the latest unwitting player. But this time, Carolyn had decided to try a different tact. She was going to teach Eddie a lesson.
By seducing me.
***
As I mentioned, I knew nothing of this at the time. I was both confused and excited by the ferocity of Carolyn's flirtation. And I was hoping she would say something--anything--to me to explain just what had happened between us. Because I honestly had no idea how I was supposed to react.
After Julie left, Eddie asked me if I would like to see the lab.
"Sure," I said, glancing at the mess on the dinner table. Carolyn sat there, smoking a cigarette and sipping her iced tea. "Uh, can I help you with these dishes?" I asked her, my voice on the edge of breaking. I felt awkward and nervous.
Carolyn smiled at me as she tipped her ashes into the ashtray. "That's okay, sweetie," she said. "You boys go talk science or whatever. Don't worry about the kitchen."
I glanced down and saw her run her bare foot along the table leg. I looked back at her and blushed when she winked at me.
"Yeah, that's women's work," Eddie said, half kidding. "Let's go."
I followed Eddie through the living room and past the stairs, to a closed door at the end of the hall. It was a white wooden door, just like every other door in the house, except for the numeric keypad on the doorjamb.
"That's an awful lot of security for just a wooden door," I said as Eddie nimbly punched the keypad. The door unlocked with an incredible metallic snick, and Eddie pushed it open.
"The door is solid steel," Eddie said. "They just put the wood on that side so it would match the rest of the house."
Again, any mad scientist preconceptions I had about Eddie were dashed the moment I entered his lab. I suppose I had expected to see wild machinery and Tesla coils... test tubes and brains in jars... I don't know.
It looked like the workshop my dad had kept in the garage. There were a couple of workbenches against two of the walls, and stacks of uncovered PCs and electronic components on shelves against the third wall. There was a blackboard next to the shelves, covered with Eddie's indecipherable scrawl. Some messy schematics were tacked to the wall above one of the benches. And oddly enough, there was a jagged hole in the carpet right in the center of the room.
A portion of the workbench had been cleared and somewhat organized. On it sat a bulky computer, a network server that had been gutted and retooled. Some holes had been cut in its casing to accommodate the additional components. Some of these components looked slapped together, with pieces of circuit board exposed and wires messily soldered in place. Several of these wires were connected to a large, camera-shaped device that rested in a customized docking station. The "camera" had been heavily modified as well, and was held together by several pieces of electrical tape.
"It's... really interesting looking," I said lamely, unable to even imagine what function the thing served. It was difficult to imagine that this clunky contraption was the same sophisticated piece of equipment that Eddie and Julie had been discussing at dinner.
The door slammed shut behind us. I turned and was startled to see the smile had faded from Eddie's face.
"Let's get something straight," he said, without a trace of the former humor in his voice. "I work for GenetiTech, but I don't trust them. Too much politicking and too many cliques for my tastes. Especially with people like Reynold heading up the projects. You know what I mean?"
"I... guess so," I answered, not sure if I did.
"And despite what our friend Julie might have told you, I do trust her. If I were dealing with her exclusively, I would have no problem keeping her apprised. But I know how things work at GenetiTech, and I don't want to put her in a position of having to choose between me and them. So I don't tell her anything."
I nodded. "Right."
"Unfortunately, you're not going to have that luxury. If you're going to work with me on this, you're going to have to understand just what it is we're doing. And I'm going to have to ask you to say nothing about it to Julie. Again, not because I don't trust her, but because I don't want to put her in a bad position with GenetiTech. Understand?"
"Totally." I was a little moved by this earnest outpouring from Eddie, and I wondered if Julie had any idea just how highly he thought of her.
"Okay, then," he said, and the grin returned to his face. "I guess a demonstration is in order."
"A demonstration? Really?" I was thrilled by the prospect, and I think Eddie was excited to finally be able to show his brainchild to someone.
"Always show, then tell," Eddie said as he rummaged around on the shelves. He pulled down an old monochrome monitor and sat it down on the floor, right in the center of the hole in the carpet. "You can shut the skeptics up a lot easier that way."
Eddie crossed over to the machine on his workbench. He flicked the switch on the power strip and the computer whirred to life with an ungodly roar.
"Had to totally rework the power supply," Eddie said loudly to make himself heard. "If we were in the city, just turning this thing on would probably dim the neighbors' lights."
The computer ran through its opening diagnostics, then finally brought up a screen of streaming text. Eddie watched it for a few seconds, then reached over and flipped a switch on the camera. It beeped twice as an LED on the front switched from red to green.
"Okay, first we scan it," Eddie said. He tapped the keyboard, and red light shot from the camera, bathing the monitor in a web-like pattern. The pattern spilled over onto the floor, and Eddie hit a couple of keys. The red grid of light receded. Eddie continued pressing keys, expanding and contracting the grid until it covered the monitor exactly.
"It took me a few tries to figure this part out," Eddie said. "The first time, I got part of the carpet by mistake."
The text on the monitor scrolled up at a blazing speed. Eddie's eyes darted as he watched it stream by. "And here we go... now!"
Eddie punched another key, and a blinding white light flashed from the camera. I blinked my eyes rapidly, trying to disperse the temporary blindness, eager to see what had happened.
The monitor was gone! And in its place was...
"Wait a minute," I muttered, stumbling over to the bare spot in the carpet. Resting in the center where the monitor had been was a tiny replica, exact in every detail. I picked it up and stared in amazement at the tiny buttons and the small CRT. Even the video cable dangled from the back.
"Is this..."
"Yep," Eddie said, quite pleased with himself. "It's like Julie said. The problem with reconstruction was the amount of energy required. So I figured out just how much energy we could pump through the signal without distorting it, and adjusted proportionally. That proportion, as it turns out, is somewhere around point-oh-two-seven."
I stared at Eddie, gaping with astonishment. "It's a shrink ray! You've invented a shrink ray!"
He looked pained. "It's a matter proportioning matrix, okay? It's not a [EXPLETIVE DELETED] 'shrink ray.'"
"This is incredible!" I blathered on, oblivious. "I mean, Jesus! This is like some kind of human destiny milestone! Like inventing the airplane, or discovering the wheel! Or penicillin! You're going to be famous!"
"I hope so," Eddie said. "If I can keep Reynold and his toadies from getting the credit. As soon as I unveil this thing, they're going to start claiming they were in on its development from the beginning."
"So, that's why you're so secretive about it?"
Eddie nodded. "You're damned right. When it's time to go public, I'll bypass the usual development model bull[EXPLETIVE DELETED] and get Julie to set up a meeting with the board of directors and the old man himself."
I could barely pay attention to what he was saying, because I had suddenly realized that I might be famous too, as Eddie MacManus's lab assistant. Any contribution I could make to this invention would secure me a place in history. My head was swimming with the possibilities.
"So, when are you planning on unveiling it?" I asked him.
"Not for a while," Eddie sighed. "I still haven't figured out how to return something to its original size. I'm running into the signal degradation problem that Garret was having."
"But still," I said, pointing at the thing. "It's incredible, Eddie!"
"It still needs some work. But that's where you come in." Eddie walked over and shut the machine down. "We'll get you started bright and early tomorrow morning."
***
I was in bed, reading a dog-eared Clancy paperback, when I heard a soft knock at the bedroom door. I didn't even have time to answer before the door swung open and Carolyn poked her head in.
"Just wanted to make sure you were all settled in, sweetie," she said, walking in. She was wearing a short pink robe that barely came down to mid-thigh.
"I'm fine, Carolyn," I answered a little nervously as she slowly approached. What in the hell would I do if she just got into bed with me?
She walked over and sat down on the edge of the bed. Her robe hung loosely, offering tantalizing and teasing hints of her breasts underneath. She brought her long, tan leg up on the bed and rested her foot next to my elbow. "You like my pretty feet, don't you?" she cooed. I stared at the wrinkled sole of her foot and at her long, elegant toes as they wiggled seductively.
My throat was dry when I croaked, "Yes, ma'am."
That predatory smile was back on her face as she slid her leg back down and stood up. She leaned in close, and I could smell the wine and cigarettes on her breath.
"If you're a good boy," she whispered, "maybe I'll let you paint my toenails for me."
She left my room, winking at me over her shoulder as she went out the door. She closed it softly behind her, leaving me to my own impure thoughts.
***
A fetish? I guess so, although I never really thought of it like that. To me, it was always like I had a crossed wire in my head. Bad conditioning. You know, like Pavlov's dogs? He'd ring a bell when he fed them, so eventually they'd start salivating when they heard a bell ring.
When I was in high school, I had a girlfriend named Cheri who was partial to foot rubs. I mean, she loved them! I have this memory of sitting on the couch, watching a movie with her. Her feet are in my lap and I'm massaging them. Cheri moans softly and begins flexing her toes. While I'm rubbing one foot, she slides her other foot up and presses her sole to my cheek. I feel her toes rub at my sideburn and then grasp playfully at my ear. I bring her other foot up and touch my lips to her toes, and she gasps. I kiss her foot, her ankle, and work my way up her leg, and her moans grow more and more excited. By the time I reach her inner thigh, she's...
Well, I'm sure you can guess where it all led. But the point is that it became a ritual with us. And somewhere along the way, my wires got crossed. Feet... toes...
It could have been worse. Thank God it wasn't farm animals or anything like that.
***
The first two weeks passed with almost no incident, other than the occasional flirtation from Carolyn. I spent most of my time in the lab, trying to worm my way through lines and lines of spaghetti code. Garret might have been a genius, but he wasn't the most organized programmer. And on top of that, Reynold had gone through adding hundreds and hundreds of comments that served no purpose other than getting his name in the program.
Eddie had made a few modifications as well, but his programming knowledge was pretty basic. Which explained all that horrible streaming text on the monitor.
My first task was to incorporate something known as a "border circuit" into the process. The way Eddie had things set up, he had to meticulously adjust the scanning matrix so that only the target was shrunk. He had miscalculated once, early on, and accidentally shrunk a piece of the carpet along with the target.
The border circuit was a five-foot square sheet of plastic provided by GenetiTech. It had thin wires running along the edges and woven through the center like a web. And its function was to provide a reference point to the scanning process. In theory, the item to be shrunk could be placed on the plastic sheet, and the scanning and shrinking process would stop as soon as it encountered the circuit. This meant no more manual adjustment. Just aim, shoot, and shrink.
Of course, all this would be purely theory until I wrote the code to make it happen.
***
"I swear to God, she's totally pulling a Mrs. Robinson," I told Julie. We were sitting on the floor of her living room, eating pizza and drinking Coors Lite, waiting for the Sopranos to come on.
Julie was dressed in sweats and a t-shirt, with her hair pulled back in a ponytail. I had thought she might be concerned that the wife of GenetiTech's top freelancer was hitting on me, but she just seemed amused by the whole thing.
"Better get started on your letter to Penthouse," she giggled.
"Dammit, I'm serious," I said. "Every time I turn around, she's..."
"She's what?" Julie asked, leaning in.
"I don't know... brushing up against me and stuff," I finished lamely. I had never told Julie about my particular fixation, and really wasn't in the mood to start sharing right then.
Julie just smirked. "You thought I was hitting on you back in college, didn't you? Back when I offered to tutor you?"
"No," I said, then smiled at her. "I just kind of wished you were."
She laughed and patted my arm. "Don't worry, Romeo. Even if Carolyn is flirting, I'm sure it's all totally harmless. Just ignore it, and she'll eventually get bored."
***
My contributions to Eddie's "Matter Proportioning Matrix" were minor and relatively cosmetic, but I still wanted to make a good impression.
I spent about four days writing and debugging the routines involving the border circuit. I had to program the machine to stop scanning as soon as it encountered the circuit signature, so that it wouldn't actually shrink the plastic sheet along with the intended target. Just to be extra cautious, I even added an additional failsafe routine that would shut the machine down if it didn't detect the border circuit.
Eddie spent his days musing over the arcane drawings on his blackboard, or pouring over the reams of printed reports. Although he tried to hide it, it became painfully obvious that the stress and long hours were taking their toll. His face grew more and more lined with each passing day as he struggled to unlock the mystery of re-enlargement.
On Tuesday, about two weeks before the [EXPLETIVE DELETED] hit the fan, Carolyn came into the lab with coffee while Eddie was on the verge of some sort of epiphany. She set the tray down on the workbench, then came over to watch me work.
"So, what are you boys working on, anyway?" she asked, standing a little too close behind me. I could smell her perfume, cloying and fruity.
I glanced over at Eddie, who seemed oblivious. He stood with his back to us, studying the chalkboard. I wasn't sure just how much I was supposed to tell Carolyn. I knew she had clearance as far as GenetiTech was concerned, but Eddie was awful secretive about his work.
"Your husband can explain it better than I can," I told her, hoping that would satisfy her. Unfortunately, it didn't. I returned to the numbers scrolling up the screen and made some notes, all too aware of her still behind me.
"Eddie doesn't tell me anything," she said with a pout. "He thinks I'm too stupid to understand all of this science bull[EXPLETIVE DELETED]."
"I don't understand most of it myself," I told her. "I'm just trying to clean up this display to make it easier to read."
"You boys and your secrets," Carolyn whispered, her lips surprisingly close to my ear. Her breath was warm on the back of my neck. I felt her fingernail as she traced it up my back.
"Jesus [EXPLETIVE DELETED] Christ, Carolyn!" Eddie shouted, throwing a piece of chalk against the wall. "We're trying to work in here! Why don't you quit seducing Dave and go work in your [EXPLETIVE DELETED] garden?"
Carolyn's eyes brimmed with tears, and she gave me the most pitiable look I've ever seen as she ran out of the lab. Eddie stared at the door as it shut with a metallic snick. He shook his head and sighed.
"[EXPLETIVE DELETED]," he muttered under his breath. He walked to the door and opened it. "Carolyn," he called in a voice heavy with regret. He followed after her, letting the door close behind him.
Feeling awkward as always, I returned to my work.
***
After about twenty minutes, they both came back into the lab. Eddie came in first, rolling a spare tire from out of his pickup. He gave me a wink and said, "Let's get her fired up. We're going to give Carolyn a demonstration."
Carolyn seemed in much better spirits, although she had obviously been crying. She watched as Eddie rolled the tire onto the border circuit and let it fall over. It revolved a couple of times, then fell onto the floor with a thud.
"Why don't you stand over there, honey," he said to her, pointing to the far wall, next to the blackboard. "Try not to stand on the plastic when the machine is on."
"Okay, sweetie," Carolyn said, grinning.
Eddie aimed the scanner at the tire and hit a key. The tire was bathed in a red grid, and a series of numbers representing the tire's dimensions, density, chemical composition, weight, and about a zillion other things scrolled across the screen. I watched the red grid, satisfied to see that it had automatically terminated when it hit the circuits in the plastic sheet beneath the tire. Only the tire had been scanned.
"Now watch this," Eddie said, hitting another key. This time I knew what to expect, so I looked away from the bright white flash. I turned back in time to see the tire shimmer and vanish.
"Where did it go?" Carolyn asked as she approached the plastic sheet. Eddie was beaming with pride, anticipating Carolyn's awed response.
He wasn't disappointed.
Carolyn gasped as she approached the shrunken tire, and dropped to her hands and knees to get a closer look at it. She poked at it with her fingernail, then gingerly picked it up between her finger and thumb. She stood up, holding the spare tire in the palm of her hand.
"That's [EXPLETIVE DELETED] incredible," she whispered, staring at the tire with wide eyes. "I had no idea you were... that something like this was... I mean, this is wonderful!" She ran over and threw her arms around Eddie's neck, covering his face with kisses.
"You're going to be famous," she said, planting another kiss on Eddie's mouth.
"And rich," Eddie added with a grin. "Don't forget rich."
"So, when are you going to unveil it?"
Eddie sighed. "Not for a while, I'm afraid. I'm still trying to figure out how to make things big again. And mum's the word, Carolyn. Nobody knows what this machine does except for the three of us. Not a word to anybody, okay?"
"Of course not, sweetie." Carolyn poked and prodded at the tiny tire with her fingernail, rolling it around in her palm. She looked up at Eddie, as if suddenly inspired. "Can you shrink... anything?"
"I think so," Eddie said. "As long as we've got enough border circuits to put under it, and we don't fill up the buffer."
"What about people?" Carolyn asked as a familiar smile crept across her face. With the benefit of hindsight, that should have been a sign of things to come. But at the time, it seemed like a reasonable question.
"We haven't tried it on anything living yet," Eddie told her, enjoying the attention. "But it should work. I'm going to ask Julie to requisition me some test specimens from GenetiTech when I meet with her on Thursday."
"You are so clever," Carolyn cooed. "When can we shrink something else?"
"Later," Eddie told her. "Right now, Dave and I have a lot of work to do."
"Of course you do. I'll let you boys get back to work." Carolyn walked out, leaving Eddie and me to our tasks.
***
Eddie was in pretty high spirits after that, until we went into the kitchen after deciding to call it a day. There was a tall woman with long, blonde hair sitting at the table, drinking one of Eddie's Budweisers right out of the bottle.
"Oh, [EXPLETIVE DELETED]," Eddie muttered under his breath. He forced a smile on his face and said in a weary voice, "Hello, Linda."
"Eddie!" the woman squealed, leaping out of her chair and rushing over to him. She pressed her sticky red lips to his cheek, leaving an obnoxious print.
"Linda's going to join us for dinner," Carolyn said as she lit a cigarette.
Linda giggled. "If it's no trouble." Her eyes fell on me, and I stared back. Her tan face was pretty, but worn. She wore way too much makeup. "Ooh, who's this?" she asked, taking a step back and crossing her arms across her Lynyrd Skynyrd t-shirt.
"Dave Goldman, meet Linda Greenwood." Eddie sighed and added, "Carolyn's sister."
"Younger sister," Linda added as she reached out to take my hand. Her fingernails were obnoxiously long and pink. "And what do you do, Dave? Are you helping Eddie with his invention?"
I shrugged, uncomfortable with Linda's closeness. "I guess. I mean, I'm just trying to make it look nice."
Linda brayed laughter at this, as if it were the funniest thing she'd ever heard. She slapped playfully at me, letting her fingers linger just a little too long on my arm.
Eddie cleared his throat. "So, where's Randy?"
"Oh, that [EXPLETIVE DELETED] bastard's working late tonight," Linda said, "so I figured I'd just pop by and see if my two favorite people were available for dinner."
"Lucky us," Eddie muttered, fishing two beers out of the fridge. He offered me one, along with an apologetic smile.
***
While the girls cackled madly in the kitchen, Eddie and I went out on the back porch to drink our beers. His Irish setter, a beautiful dog named Sire, came bounding up to us, his tongue lolling gleefully out of his mouth. It had taken a couple of days for him to get used to me, but now Sire treated me like a member of the family. In fact, he seemed to prefer me to Carolyn, who made no secret of her distaste for the dog.
"I've had Sire since he was a puppy," Eddie told me, scratching the dog gently behind his ears. "I really wanted to keep him in the house, but Carolyn put her foot down. I think that's why he still barks at her." His voice got playful as he shifted his attention from me to Sire. "Isn't that right?" he said in baby talk, playfully slapping the dog on the neck. "Does the mean old lady make you live outside? Huh?"
Eddie really loved that dog. If he hadn't, he might still be alive today.
But I'm getting ahead of myself...
***
All through dinner, Carolyn and Linda blathered on about a bunch of names that meant nothing to me. Someone was getting divorced, someone was [EXPLETIVE DELETED] a cashier at Kroger's, someone was getting botox injections... I glanced at Eddie, who stared ahead as he ate, as if on auto-pilot. I got the feeling that this was how he endured Linda's infrequent visits.
So I concentrated on my meat loaf, and tried vainly to shut out their incessant gossiping and giggling. Linda made a comment about how quiet I was being, and at that exact moment, I felt somebody's sandaled foot caress my leg. I looked back and forth between her and Carolyn, wondering which was the culprit. They both gave me playful smiles as the teasing continued under the table.
I finished my meal and excused myself, all too aware of their stares as I carried my plate to the sink. I told them I had a bit of a headache, and I was going to turn in early. Then I headed upstairs and into the safety of my room. I closed my door and collapsed on the bed, relieved to be alone at last.
***
Monday morning, Eddie and Julie had a meeting with GenetiTech Finance. It was the price Eddie paid for his privacy and autonomy. Once a month, he had to appear before a committee and remind them of his track record before they would allocate him any more money, even if it had already been budgeted. It was precisely the sort of mindless bureaucracy that Eddie hated, the reason he preferred to remain a contractor rather than join the GenetiTech rank and file.
It was the first day of July, and even though it was barely nine in the morning, the temperature was already in the lower nineties. The air-conditioner was blasting away full time in the lab, but I could still feel the heat. Of course, a lot of that probably came from the rattling monstrosity of a computer that powered Eddie's "Matter Proportioning Matrix."
My task for the past week had been to take the stream of data returned by Eddie's scanning process, and somehow wring some visual sense out of it. After five days of frustrating tests and constant debugging, I finally had an impressive display to show for all my troubles. I rolled Eddie's ergonomic chair onto the plastic sheet and pressed the button on the camera. The red web of light fell across the chair, adjust automatically for the border circuit.
Then, to my delight, a wire-framed rendering of the chair appeared in a window on the monitor. The image rotated slowly, as the pertinent information was displayed next to it in an easy to read format. Dimensions, density, chemical composition, weight, and so on... these figures were now updated in real time on the display, rather than just scrolling madly across the screen.
Hardly rocket science, especially compared to the sheer enormity of Eddie's invention, but still I was proud. And Eddie had so far been pleased with my performance. All in all, things were going good.
Except for Carolyn's awkward flirtations. Every meal was spent with her foot in my lap, her toes teasing me mercilessly as she regarded me with a playful grin. I can't even count how many times she brushed up against me, her hands always lingering just a little too long, her face always too close to mine. And last night, she had come into my room to tell me good night, and her robe had come open, granting me a glance at the nakedness beneath before I averted my eyes. She played it off as embarrassing happenstance, and offered a shy apology as she covered herself back up. But we both knew it hadn't been an accident.
So I was kneeling on the carpet in the lab, making minute adjustments to the border circuit, when the door opened and Carolyn came walking in. I didn't look up as she walked over to me. She slid her sandaled foot onto the plastic sheet, into my field of vision. I looked up as if startled, pretending I had been too engrossed in my work to notice her.
She was dressed in white shorts and a cropped red t-shirt that showed off her tan midriff and legs. She wore red flip-flops to match her painted toenails. And despite my frustration and discomfort, I found myself reluctant to look away from her playful, wriggling toes.
"As long as you're down there," she said with a giggle, "why don't you make yourself useful?"
I sighed and looked back up, into her smirking face. "Carolyn, I'm really busy right now. I can only work on this stuff when Eddie's not on the machine, and I've only got a couple of hours until he comes back."
"Fine," Carolyn snapped. Then added, as an afterthought, "You know he's cheating on me, don't you?"
"What?"
"Eddie and your little friend Julie. They're having an affair. So you don't have to feel guilty about anything that's happened between us."
"Oh, for God's sake." I climbed wearily to my feet and regarded her. "In the first place, there's nothing going on between Eddie and Julie. And in the second place, nothing has happened between us."
"I've seen the way you look at me," she said, her hand on her hip. "The first day you came here, I caught you staring at me like some lovesick little boy."
I slapped my hand to my forehead. "Jesus, what is wrong with you?"
"What's wrong with me?" Carolyn repeated angrily. "What the [EXPLETIVE DELETED] is wrong with you?"
My mind raced, desperately searching for something to say that would placate her and send her on her way. Unfortunately, nothing came to mind. "I'm just trying to do my job," I finally stammered lamely. "I don't know why you have to make things so complicated."
She glared angrily for a few seconds. Then, surprisingly, her eyes softened and she offered me a sheepish smile. "I'm sorry, sweetie," she told me. "I guess I got a little crazy, just thinking about Eddie cheating on me."
"You don't have anything to worry about," I told her. "Julie and Eddie's relationship is purely professional."
She sighed. "I hope so. But even so, I had no right to take it out on you. I just..." She looked away from me, smiling embarrassedly. "I guess I was just excited by the thought of a young, handsome man like you being attracted to an old woman like me. I got a little carried away."
Once again, I felt myself blushing, ill-equipped to deal with this situation. "You're not old, and I'm not that handsome," I told her, and her eyes lit up as she gave me a pretty smile. For an awkward minute, we both just stood there, grinning at each other.
Finally, Carolyn broke the silence and offered her hand to me. "Friends?"
"Absolutely," I said, shaking her proffered hand. I felt a great sense of relief that this conflict had finally ended.
"So, what are you working on?" she asked me. "I mean, if you can tell me."
"Sure," I said, happy to have a willing audience. "My stuff's not classified and you already know about Eddie's stuff, so I guess there's no point in keeping secrets."
She listened raptly as I explained the user interface I had designed, and marveled at the graphical display, at the wire-framed model of Eddie's chair rotating on the screen. Then, she pushed the chair off of the plastic sheet and stood in the red light, letting it spill over her from head to toe. The image on the screen blinked and flickered, then a wire-framed representation of Carolyn appeared on the monitor, rotating slowly as her vital statistics printed out on the monitor.
"Oh my God," Carolyn exclaimed, running over to the monitor to get a closer look at her image. "Do I really look that fat?"
"No," I told her. "But your shape is a little more... complex than what I've been working with. I've still got to make some adjustments."
"Okay, sweetheart. I'll stay out of your way and let you work."
I was all too conscious of her standing over me, watching me as I knelt on the circuit to punch in some minute adjustments. Even so, I had no real inkling of danger until the red web of lighting spilled over me. I glanced up and saw her reaching for the button on the keyboard.
"Carolyn!" I shouted as a white, blinding light slammed into me like a speeding truck. For an instant, time seemed frozen and the image of Carolyn's cold eyes and cruel, predatory grin was burned into my brain. Then everything went dark.
***
Giantess World
Summer Job by Cayce
Story Notes:
This story refers to events in Homunculus, but it isn't necessary to read one to enjoy the other.
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