About four years ago, the world was ravaged by a… Well, by a something. Some people called it a disease, others said it was a spell, but everyone agreed on what it did. It killed thousands without symptoms, it made house pets go feral, but most importantly it created Havok. Havok is a drug company, but not just some run-of-the-mill lab that pumps out cold and flu relief, no, they made miracle drugs. 

Havok! Those that can do no wrong! Those that cured cancer! Those that turned out to be very shady. For a long time, I thought Havok was the gift sent by some holy force. Pure good in a company so when they offered me a job, of course, I said yes. I mean, they reached out to me. Me, Leo Valirus! A twenty-four year old, college dropout, with little to no experience in anything. 

Finding a job wasn’t easy, so I guess I overlooked some red flags. I’ll start from the beginning. The interview. 

When I walked in the sliding glass door, I was met with the smell of food. That surprised me. I mean, I didn’t know what to expect, exactly, but this wasn’t it. Colorful shapes hung from the walls and ceilings in abstract patterns, people sat in groups of five at circular tables, and not a single soul was wearing a button up. 

Jeans, tee-shirts, yoga-pants, you name it, but not a single bit of formal wear. I suddenly felt over dressed even though I was only wearing a dress shirt and tie. I couldn’t find my blazer that morning. I guess that turned out to be for the best. 

Taken back by the scenery, I started walking slower than usual towards what I assumed was the front desk, but there was no one there. I figured I caught them on lunch break or something, but something felt off. I felt like I was in the wrong place and I would’ve left if it wasn’t for the large sign that hung over the desk. 

“Havok,” it read in fancy cursive. 

I noticed a few people looking at me and casually nodded at them, but I felt like this was different from a greeting thing. It was like they were sizing me up. Heh, that- uh… that’s funny for reasons I haven’t gotten too yet. Sorry, I’m getting distracted. 

So, at the front desk, right. Eventually, someone got to me. A younger girl, maybe fresh out of college, with orange hair and a turtleneck who introduced herself to me as Jamie. After exchanging our, “Nice to meet you,”s, I asked where I would be doing my interview, but she looked confused. 

“No, no, no,” she insisted, “There aren’t interviews here. If you were invited here, then you’re hired. Just make yourself comfortable,” she explained, “Throw some ideas around and we’ll see what the next step for Havok is.”
“Wait,” I started, “So, you’re paying me to think?”
She nodded eagerly, “It’s a great job! Plus, there’s housing here and free food. All you need to do is make sure you don’t fall behind quota.”
“Quota?” I asked.
“Yes,” she explained, flicking her hair out of her face and sitting in her office chair, “Here, everyone has a quota. Be that one idea a day, maybe two a week, it depends on the person. If you don’t meet that quota, corporate will have to take action.”
I thought for a second, but nodded and said, “Well, sounds great! Where do I sit?” 

And that was that. I was hired. It was too easy and I should’ve realized that, but I guess my want for it to be true sorta blinded me. I was introduced to my group and they all seemed to be in a similar situation as me. 

There was Anna, a passionate, “soon to be” actor who had an energetic air behind a shy shell. Ocean-blue eyed blonde with nothing to her name, but an oversized hoodie and a pen she seemed all too attached to. It seemed like she over dressed too, but not in the same sense as I did. She had a very faint smell of sweat. 

Next was Rachel, Ray for short. Speaking of short, she stopped at about the five-foot mark, but it didn’t stop her from being the most confident at the table. Curly, raven black hair hung down her face and got in her eyes pretty frequently, but she didn’t seem to mind it. She had a love for animals and wanted to be a vet, but she never could get the grades for it. 

Lastly, there was Sophie who could’ve been Anna’s twin if she were just a little shorter and had a bit thinner lips. Sophie and Anna actually seemed to have somewhat of a history and stuck close to each other, but Sophie never really opened up about herself to anyone else. 

This only left us with four at the table so Jamie decided she’d stick around and help get us started. This worked great. I had fun talking with the girls and they seemed to enjoy my company, but it was a little off-putting that I was one of maybe ten guys in the whole place. I didn’t mind, no straight male would, but it seemed odd. 

The first few days, nothing out of the ordinary happened, but after week one, I noticed my quota wasn’t filled for my first day. I panicked. I didn’t know I needed to do anything the first day considering I was still being shown the ropes, but I had missed a quota… well, nothing had happened yet. With that realized, I started slipping on my work ethic. This rode for a few days until Jamie came up to me and asked if we could talk. 

Now, I’m not gonna lie, Jamie was kind of a bombshell. Like, wow. Emerald eyes and a smile that could melt butter all framed in freckles. Not to mention her body. Now, I wasn’t the type of guy to find any opportunity to do a full body scan of a girl, but there were a few things I couldn’t just ignore. 

Her breasts pushed against her sweater to the point of making it tight on her, but it hung low enough that she wore it as a skirt with nylons. I had zoned out a few times imagining her bending over for something in front of me just so I could see if she was actually wearing shorts under there or not. 

My point being, I wasn’t gonna say no to her. We walked down the hallways of Havok, casually chatting about things that didn’t really matter until we stopped at a door. An ominous door labeled, “Corporate.” I realized what this was about. 

Things happened sorta fast from there, but I’ll relay it to the best of my ability. 

“Sorry,” she said, “Don’t worry, it won’t be that bad, just… stay calm.”
“Jamie,” I said with a small chuckle, “I’ve lost jobs before, I don’t need advice.”
“Yeah…” she muttered, almost sad as she wrapped her arms around herself and stepped out of the way of the door, “But-,” she stopped for a second, “Listen, I like you, Leo, okay? You don’t deserve this. So, like, come back to me. After this.”
I felt my heart skip and swallowed to try and clear my dry throat, but it didn’t help, and all I managed to say was, “Well, sure. I can do that.” 

She smiled at me before turning away and slowly walking down the hall. I, on the other hand, wasn’t going anywhere for awhile. I knocked on the door and things got intense. Before I could fully pull my hand away from the glass, I was grabbed by the wrist through the cracked open door and forcefully yanked inside. 

I was pulled hard enough that I stumbled and tripped. I fell forward, but rolled as I landed and ended up on my back, looking up at the light from the hallway slowly vanishing as the door slammed shut and I was left in the blackness of the eerily dark room. 

I quickly pulled my phone out of my pocket and turned on the flashlight, but as soon as the small light came on, it was grabbed from my hand and whisked away into the darkness. 

“Hey!” I shouted, sitting up and trying to get my bearings, “You can’t do that! It’s theft!” 

I heard a laugh from the darkness, but I couldn’t pinpoint it. It was like it came from everywhere and nowhere at the sametime. I wondered if it was just in my head for a while, but then it continued. It was so loud now, but it was like I couldn’t hear it anymore. I don’t know how to describe it other than confusing. 

It seemed like hours, but, in reality, it was hardly five seconds before everything went quiet and the lights flicked on. I scrambled to my feet in the now lit room, contemplating making a dash for the door I was already facing, but stopped in my tracks as I heard that laugh again. Much more human this time and coming from behind me. 

I spun around and saw a woman sat behind a desk with a microphone in her hand. Looking around, I noticed the sound system set up around the room and things started to make sense. 

“I-,” she started, but busted up laughing again, “I’m sorry, but that- that! Was too good!”
I huffed, but wasn’t about to let my boss in on how annoyed I was with her, so I simply changed the subject, “You wanted to see me?”
She nodded, still getting over her laughing fit, “Yes, yes. You’ve been missing quotas. Now, this isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but it shows that, well, you’d be better suited doing something else.” 

I nodded, slightly disappointed, but she kept talking. 

“Don’t misunderstand,” she said, “I’d love to keep you working here, but I think you’d be better placed in a different position in the company. What are your skills?”
“Oh,” I said abruptly, taken back by the offer. 

I figured this would be the interview I never had and sat down in a chair across the desk. 

“Well,” I started, “I’m good at math and I can do a lot of heavy liftin-,” she cut me off.
“Perfect!” she exclaimed, “I have just the place for you. I think you’ll enjoy yourself too.”
I tried to cut in and ask a few questions, but all I managed was, “Is that going to be-?” before I was interrupted again.
“How are you in a fight, Leo?” 

I stalled before answering and she must’ve noticed that. 

“Maybe you aren’t right for this,” she said, “We can’t have hesitation.”
“No!” I said quickly, “I’ll do it. I can hold my own.” 

If I’m being honest, I don’t know why I said that. I should’ve just let it slide, but something about the way she let me down, made me think I was being fired, then brought me back made me desperate. I could tell by her grin that I just agreed to something that I hadn’t thought through all the way. 

“Perfect,” she said, her voice reminiscent of a predator catching up to its prey, “You start now.” 

She leaned forward slowly and pushed in the button on her intercom. 

“Tilly,” she said into the mic, “Be a doll and prep Mr. Leo for his role change.”
The intercom beeped before a girl’s voice came through the phone, saying, “Right away, Miss Porter.” 

Porter, that was her name. It seemed stupid that I never asked, but she gave off this energy that intimidated me. She never even took her eyes off me. Didn’t even speak after that. We just sat in the silence until the door opened behind me. I would’ve turned around to look, but Porter started talking again. 

“Now,” she said, “I’m sure you understand how much good Havok has done for the world. How much my brilliant mind has accomplished in just the span of a few years. I’m about to let you in on how that came around.” 

She stood and slowly started to pace around the desk. 

“When I was a little girl, my mom got sick. Very sick,” she explained, “So sick that little nine year old me had to take care of her. I learned a lot those days. I learned how to cook, clean, shop, even had a job at some shady fish shop that was morally crooked enough to hire a kid.” 

She finished her stroll and sat down on the corner of the desk beside me, nearly brushing my arm with her thigh and teasing me with the proximity. She let her legs uncross, giving me a glimpse up her skirt, but I didn’t dare break eye contact. I felt like it was my only hold on being human rather than a drone to her. 

“But the most important thing I learned was the power of being underestimated,” she continued, dipping a little lower to match my seated height, “No one wanted to blame the little girl with a sick mom, so I took to- well, taking. Convenience stores, street venders, superstores, you name it, but there was this one man who it never worked on.” 

She sat back, resting her hands on the table and looking up at the lights above. 

“My boss. A man named Gergory. He saw through me. Caught me stealing more times than I could count, but never called the cops. Never put me out of work. He taught me how to pickpocket, actually. Of course, he had seen too much little girl, and not enough desperate person. Since he was the only one who knew I was stealing, I stabbed him in the throat when I turned sixteen.” 

Her story had been unnerving before, but that was too much. I slid my chair back and was about to book it when a rope fell over my chest and pulled me tight to the chair by who I could only imagine was Tilly.

Porter looked down at me with a smile, saying, “He died. Bled out on my lap with this look in his eyes. Betrayal. It stung at first, that look, but it doesn’t last. Never as long as the first time. But that was just it!” she exclaimed with a laugh and bent forward to look me in the eyes, “All my problems were gone from that day out! Gregory had money, enough to keep me and mom afloat, but more importantly, he had inspired me. If my money problems were just one stab away from being fixed, why couldn’t my mom’s problems be just one stab away from being fixed?” 

Porter signaled to Tilly who stuck a needle in my arm and pushed a strange substance into it. 

“Then I got the idea,” Porter said, “Virus, bacteria, germs, they’re all alive. Why not kill them? But I was too big. I couldn’t just fight them. But what if, and here’s the crazy part, but what if I could give an ordinary cell the tools and the smarts to kill them for me? You, my dear, dear Leo,” she said with a mock pout, “Are soon to join my army of living cells. Smaller than a grain of sand, practically immortal, and most of all… completely… quiet.” 

I wasn’t about to just sit by and let that happen, so as soon as I could think of it, I pulled my shoulder forward, ripping the needle out of my vein and sending the vial crashing to the ground, still a quarter full. 

“Damn it!” Tilly hissed as Porter’s eyes went dark.
“You idiot!” she screamed at the assistant, standing to tower over the shorted woman, “Without the full dose, he won’t get small enough!”
“W-We can just g-give him more,” the assistant suggested, but, apparently, Porter didn’t like that idea. 

The much taller woman pulled back and slapped Tilly across the face. 

“No!” she yelled, “We can’t! We have maybe two seconds before his veins turn to goop and more solution can’t be administered!”
“P-Please,” Tilly begged with tears in her eyes, “I didn’t mean too…”
Porter scowled and reached into her blazer, “I don’t care,” she hissed before pulling out a small pistol and pressing it against the assistant's forehead. 

I looked away, but that sound will haunt me forever. Two loud pops echoed through the room and the sound of Tilly’s body slumping to the floor made a sickening crack. Her skull must’ve cracked against the hardwood. 

“Incompatant bitch,” Porter huffed before turning to me and putting a hand on my shoulder. 

I felt her hand push into me, but that was just the thing. I felt her hand push into me. She wasn’t just pushing on me, she was pushing through me. 

“Listen up,” she started, “In about ten minutes, you’ll be little more than a jelly mold. More of a giant cell, but we don’t have time to discuss that.”
“Bullshit!” I yelled at her, “What did you do to me!?”
She quickly shut me up by pressing the bloody barrel of her pistol against my chest before saying, “I’m. Getting. There. You’re going to shrink down to a little, itty, bitty spot, but since my ex-assistant fucked up your solution, you’ll be a much bigger spot that I was hoping for. Maybe an inch or two tall. When that happens, I’m going to have to dispose of you, but my problem… Well, our problem is that you won’t be able to just die. You can’t crush jelly or I’d just step on you. I could eat you, but I doubt my stomach acid would do much to you with that slimy membrane you’ll be forming.” 

She stopped as she stepped back and looked up at the clock. I could feel myself getting lighter, but I was also getting unbelievably dizzy. It didn’t take long before I was on the verge of passing out. Porter snapped her fingers in front of my face and got my attention again. 

“Okay, you’ll be blacking out in the next few seconds, but don’t worry,” she said, smiling, “I’ll make sure you wake up somewhere fun.”