Three weeks, to the day. Exactly three weeks ago, homicide detective and forensic investigator Ema Skye had finally solved a minor mystery that had been hanging uncomfortably over her head for a few days running. Unfortunately, this had only come as the sole upside to what had otherwise been a very stressful and emotionally-taxing incident.
Following the resolution of a recent murder trial, Ema had taken it upon herself to study a strange device that had been involved in the case, attempting to deduce what the prototype machine had actually been designed to do. Struggling to parse the vague-to-incomprehensible information the device provided to its user, Ema had been growing quite frustrated until a certain friend of hers inadvertently uncovered the answer.
The device was, seemingly impossibly, capable of altering the size of any object it could register via scan. Ema’s potential excitement over this discovery, however, had been stymied by the manner in which her friend uncovered it.
Defence attorney Apollo Justice had been making a brief visit to Ema’s lab in the police precinct to pick up some documents from her, only to accidentally find himself becoming an unwitting test subject for the size-changing device when it activated without his knowledge while Ema was out of the room. The experience had no doubt been quite harrowing for poor Apollo, as he’d been reduced to somewhere around half a centimetre in height, and forced to navigate the hazardous environment that Ema’s lab became at his reduced size, with Ema unaware of what had happened to him. Apollo had apparently managed to catch a ride with his co-worker, Athena Cykes, when she arrived shortly afterward, and had been taken all the way back to the law office-turned talent agency in which he worked, struggling to draw Athena’s attention and get himself rescued all the while. He could have been killed quite a few times over, and Ema had been terrified beyond belief for her friend’s wellbeing when she eventually realized what had happened to him.
Most fortunately, Apollo had eventually succeeded in getting himself noticed by Athena, who dutifully brought him back to Ema’s lab so his original size could be safely restored.
In the three weeks since, Ema had continued to study the size-changing device, performing various tests and taking extensive notes, her mind for science consumed by curiosity. Her actual assigned task here in her lab had simply been to determine the device’s purpose so she could record it in her evidence report before sending the device off to a permanent home in the station’s storage. Too interested to simply do so at the first chance she got, Ema had stalled the completion of her report until today, for one very particular reason.
With some experimentation of her own, and a generous amount of time spent tinkering with the device directly, she’d managed to replicate most of its functions, building a compact model of her own. Of all her achievements in life, this had to be among those of which she was most proud.
Her new device was much smaller, bringing the original’s desktop printer-comparable size down to a simple handheld device much closer to the size of a camera. During construction, she had briefly entertained the idea of trying to match its design to the kind of classic “shrink ray” look she would expect from a budget sci-fi movie, but decided against it in the interest of keeping this personal project inconspicuous.
She had already tested it on various loose objects around her lab, and had been itching to try it out on a human subject, like the original device, but the first person she contacted, Apollo himself, had flatly refused to be involved. Ema supposed that she could understand, given Apollo’s terrifying experience with the original device, but she still would have appreciated his help. Keeping knowledge of this device’s existence to the smallest number of people she could would be for the best.
Of course, there was still the option of Athena, the one other person involved in Apollo’s shrinking incident, and it was for that reason that Ema was now seated in her lab, her cell phone in one hand, and a dial tone quietly buzzing into her ear.
“Hey! Ema?” Athena’s voice answered.
“Hey.” she said.
“Hi!” Athena responded brightly, her cheery attitude unmistakable even over the phone. “What’s up?”
Ema hesitated. “Uh… OK, you remember three weeks ago? When Apollo… y’know, shrunk…?”
Athena laughed. “Yep! No way could I forget that! Why?”
Smiling to herself, Ema replied, “Well, I’ve been working on a little project over here at the station. It took until yesterday, but get this – I managed to build another machine to do the same thing as the one that shrunk Apollo.”
Clearly shocked to hear this news, Athena sputtered something in a language Ema didn’t know. “Wh-whoa, for real…!?” she inquired. “You made one yourself? Does it work?”
“Yep. I’ve got it right here.” Ema said, examining the device in her hand. “Shrinks things and returns them to normal just like the old one. It can make things bigger than normal, too. I’ve been testing it all day since I got back into work.”
Athena didn’t respond right away. Ema heard her voice, but she sounded muffled, like she was briefly covering her phone with a hand.
“… That’s so cool!” she finally exclaimed. “Can I see it the next time we’re over there?”
“Actually,” Ema interjected, “That’s the exact reason I called. I was hoping you’d come over and help me with a couple more tests.”
She could practically hear Athena’s jaw drop. “Really…!? You bet! I’ll be right over!”
Ema smiled, glad for the positive response. If she could keep the number of people who knew about her device’s existence to a minimum for now, things would be much easier for her.
“… Wait.” Athena said after a pause. “I’m gonna need an excuse to leave. … Oh, perfect – it’s about lunch time, anyway! Can I come over right away, Ema?”
“If you want.” Ema answered. “I’ll just hang around here in the lab.”
“Perfetto!” Athena cheered, though she was clearly trying to keep her voice down. “I’ll be over ASAP!”
“Good. See you when you get in!” Ema responded.
“Bye!”
Tucking her phone away, Ema returned her attention to her device. Maybe spending three weeks of working hours building something like this wasn’t the most professional thing she’d ever done, but in this case, she felt she could easily justify it. Scientific curiosity was reason enough, in her opinion. Plus, it could be pretty fun to experiment some more, now that she’d actually finished building it.
There was still one minor wrinkle in her personal project, however – the scientist who designed and built the original size-changing device, a Dr. Levi Loft, had powered his device using what appeared to be custom-designed power cells, and Ema didn’t exactly have a heavy supply of them on hand. She had scavenged a couple from the original device itself for her own use, but she would be out within just a few more tests, as the cells only held a charge sufficient to activate the device a small handful of times. Hopefully Dr. Loft’s empty lab had some more. He certainly didn’t appear to need them anymore, given that he was the missing and presumed-dead victim in the murder case Apollo and Athena had been working a few weeks ago.
Athena arrived quite promptly, leading Ema to hope that she hadn’t simply broken a long list of traffic laws in her hurry.
“Ooh, is that the shrink ray?” Athena asked once she was inside the lab.
Ema smirked. “I decided not to give it the classic sci-fi movie look, but yeah. This is the Skye Device.”
Athena raised an eyebrow. “The ‘Skye Device’?” she inquired. “That’s... less creative than I would’ve guessed, not gonna lie.”
Ema shrugged, a little smirk on her face. “Well, it was either a more clever name, or a free chance to feed my ego. Guess which option won?”
Athena laughed, and Ema held the device up for her to examine it.
“Dr. Loft must’ve been a brilliant guy.” Ema remarked. “I wish I’d met him before he disappeared. Figuring out how his machine worked was seriously difficult.”
“Looks like you pulled it off, though!” Athena said. “So, is yours any easier to use?”
“Yep.” Ema said, nodding. “More efficient on power, too; makes me wonder if Dr. Loft had any other prototypes around in his lab.”
She had been setting the device up while Athena was coming over.
“So, mind if I test it out on you, first?” Ema asked.
Athena’s eyes lit up. “You’ve got my blessing! I wanna know what Apollo was seeing in here!”
Ema nodded. “I’m not sure he’d appreciate hearing that.” she said. “He must’ve been terrified, the poor guy.”
Athena’s grin drooped a bit. “Yeah… I felt so awful for him. Just being around us at all must have been seriously scary while he was so tiny. I couldn't even imagine.”
“I don’t doubt it.” Ema replied. “… OK, it’s ready. Just give me a second to get you registered in the database. Your clothes, too, since I doubt you want to go naked in here.”
Athena was practically shaking with excitement. Ema had instructed her not to talk about the original device or Apollo’s incident with it, and while she was fairly sure Athena had kept to her word, she doubted it had been easy.
“Alright.” she said. “Just stand right… there.”
Athena moved to the spot on the lab’s floor that Ema had indicated. Ema stood a few steps away, making sure she had her angle correct.
“OK, Skye Device test number eight commencing in three, two, one…”
The device shuddered in her tight grip for a moment, and let off a sharp buzzing noise. Ema couldn’t help but grin, watching as Athena began to rapidly dwindle in size, right before her eyes. A swelling feeling of pride surged up in her chest when Athena’s shrinking ceased, leaving the redhead defence attorney standing in the middle of the floor at around five inches tall.
Taking a step forward and crouching to the floor, Ema looked Athena over. The tiny redhead had a huge grin on her face, looking back up at her in amazement.
“Th-this is… I-I don’t even know what to say…!!” Athena gushed. “Ema, this is amazing…!!”
“Mind if I pick you up for a sec’?” Ema asked.
“Go ahead!” Athena said, raising her arms a bit.
Ema reached her free hand forward and gently took a grip around Athena’s diminished body, securing her fingers beneath her test subject’s muscled arms and pinching her off the floor.
Even having seen it once before, Ema was floored by the feeling of picking up a shrunken human being off the floor, holding Athena in just one hand. She weighed practically nothing.
“The original device’s effects were set to work pretty much instantaneously.” Ema explained, “I slowed the process down a bit for this run, so you’d comfortably shrink down on the ground, instead of changing size so fast that you’d end up falling right out of the air.”
Athena nodded. “… Is that what happened to Apollo the first time?”
Ema frowned, nodding back. “I’m pretty sure. I don’t even want to imagine how terrifying that whole experience must have been. He must’ve thought he was going to fall to his death when it happened.”
She felt Athena shiver slightly in her grip. Setting the diminished redhead back down, she stood up again.
“OK, getting you back to normal now.” she said. “I don’t want any accidents.”
“Got it!”
Ema tinkered with the device’s settings again, and this time, with the same shudder and noisy buzz, it restored Athena to her original height, a few inches shorter than Ema.
Athena looked about ready to explode with excitement.
“E-Ema, this is so cool!!” she exclaimed, her blue eyes lit up with infectious glee.
“Yep. Informative, too.” Ema agreed. “I’ll need to do some more testing soon. Shame Apollo didn’t want to help out. I even offered him money for it!”
Athena laughed. “Well, maybe he’ll come around some other time.” After a pause, her face lit up again. “Hey – can you make me bigger? You said it can do that, right?”
“Bigger? Well, yeah, but-…”
“Ha! Nobody would underestimate Athena Cykes, the fifty-foot lawyer! They’d have to build whole new courtrooms for me!”
Ema raised a hand. “OK, love the enthusiasm, Athena, but don’t get carried away. I’m not comfortable trying to turn you into a movie monster right now. We don’t need that kind of chaos anywhere in the city.”
Athena’s grin slipped a little. “… Yeah, yeah, I guess you’re right. Still… we’ve gotta try something like that sometime! Maybe somewhere more under-the-radar?”
“I’ll think about it, for sure.” Ema answered. “Just don’t step on anyone.”
Athena giggled. “… Hey, wait – I’d better get going again, but before I do, could you make me just a tiny bit bigger? Just a teeny little bit? I’d love to see Apollo’s face if I walked back into the office and I was suddenly taller than him!”
Ema smirked. “I’m almost out of power here, but sure. I guess a little boost won’t hurt!”
She adjusted the settings once more, while Athena pumped a fist in the air and took position on the floor again.
“OK. Three, two, one…”
The change was much harder to spot this time. Athena gained just a few inches in height, bringing her up to roughly Ema’s own height now. The redhead’s considerably broader shoulders looked quite impressive like this, having expanded to match her new scale.
Athena let out a cheerful laugh. “You’re the best! OK, I’ve really gotta go, Ema. I told everyone I was just going out to pick up lunch, and if I take much longer, they aren’t gonna buy that.”
“Alright. See you another time, then.” Ema said. She held the lab’s door open, and Athena stepped outside, her incredibly long ponytail swaying behind her as she exited.
When the door closed again, Ema examined the device once more. As she’d suspected, that last change ran its battery dry. She was just going to have to stop by Dr. Loft’s vacated lab and scrounge around a bit. She could probably just pass the visit off as a quick check to make sure no one had broken in, if her colleagues asked.