During lunch time, two girls named Nadine Nikolas and her rival Queenie competed for the attention of a cute boy named Johnny Diggs. Nadine had long blonde hair. Nadine’s best friend Carol Cummins, a brunette, stood by and watched.
“Johnny, I want you to pledge your allegiance to me and me only!” said Nadine.
“You don’t need to listen to her, Johnny!” said Queenie. “I won’t order you around like she does!”
Despite being dominated by Nadine, Johnny chose her over Queenie.
Another boy approached Carol, Nadine’s best friend. “Carol, I love you!”
“Get away from me!” Carol shouted, and the boy departed.
When lunch was over, Queenie cried in her next class over losing Johnny.
“What’s wrong?” the teacher asked.
“I don’t understand why a nice boy would choose to be dominated by an evil girl like Nadine Nikolas!”
The teacher wrote something on the board. “There are four types of people in this world, dominant, submissive, both, and neither. It sounds like this boy you’re interested in likes to be dominated by your rival. If you don’t reciprocate him and she does, they are more compatible together!”
In a miniaturized space cruiser far beneath the grassy area of the junior high school, the control console of a cryo-stasis chamber lit up, resuscitating a shrunken man. His name is Daniel de la Cruz, the captain of this expedition.
The central computer informed him that the main fusion reactor is going to need more deuterium and tritium, so they need to get some purified water to extract the hydrogen and convert it to these isotopes, or they will lose power in a short time. He resuscitated the chief engineer, Alvin Edison.
“Alvin, what should we do? According to the computer, we’ve been resuscitated in the 21st century.”
“We need purified water, and we need to convert it into deuterium and tritium. Our main problem is that while we can shrink objects, we can’t re-enlarge anything, including ourselves!”
“If one of us goes to the surface, it should be me, because I’m in command. We should resuscitate Newton, in case I need your help!”
Newton Newhall, the medical expert, was resuscitated and briefed on the current situation. The three of them agreed someone must go to the surface and make contact with a local.
They used their technology to dig a tunnel through the ground to the surface. Daniel exited the mothership and made his way to the surface. Once there, he saw that a school had been constructed over the site where they buried their ship. Junior high school students milled about, heading home from their last class of the day.
Nadine and Carol cut across the main field, because they lived in that neighborhood. Nadine said, “Those Mexicans who cut the grass here do a great job!”
Carol replied, “Nadine, that’s racist! Mexicans aren’t the only ones good at gardening. My Uncle is a gardener, and he’s white. He makes good money at it, too!”
Nadine stumbled onto Daniel before anyone else could, and grabbed him.
‘“What did you find?” Carol asked.
“It’s a shrunken man!” said Nadine. “A real one! He’s only about an inch tall!”
“Where did he come from?” Carol asked.
“Let’s take him to my house and find out,” said Nadine, “don’t let anyone else know I captured him!”
Once they got to Nadine’s house, her younger sister Delilah intercepted them before they could sneak Daniel to Nadine’s bedroom. Delilah had medium length blonde hair, and was about 8 or 9 years old.
“What’cha got in your hand, Nadine?” Delilah asked.
“It’s a shrunken man, Delilah!” said Nadine.
“We’re going to swallow him!” said Carol. Delilah had a concerned look on her face. “Well, I guess one of us is going to swallow him!” said Carol.
“Too bad we don’t have two of them!” said Nadine.
“Don’t you dare swallow him!” said Delilah. “Like you did with all of your goldfish!”
Nadine and Carol laughed and high-fived each other.
“I’ll tell you what,” said Nadine to Delilah, “We will chew gum and blow bubbles with him in it, instead of swallowing him!”
“Good!” said Delilah. “Can I watch?”
The three girls went to Nadine’s bedroom with some root beer from the refrigerator and some bubble gum from a drawer in the kitchen. Nadine gave some gum to Carol, then opened a piece for herself. After chewing the gum thoroughly, Nadine stuck Daniel to the gum, and put it back in her mouth. Both Nadine and Carol laughed as Nadine tried to blow a bubble with Daniel inside, but failed.
“I want to try!” said Delilah.
“We need more bubble gum,” said Nadine. “If I give you some cash, can you go to the store and get some?”
“Yeah!” said Delilah, and Nadine gave her some money and the young girl left to go to the store.
After Delilah was long gone, Nadine got a can of root beer. ‘I’m going to swallow this shrunken man permanently!”
Nadine tossed the shrunken man to the back of her mouth and chugged the root beer. On the way down her esophagus, Daniel activated his continuator, but because he couldn’t see, he ended up in an alternate reality not of his choosing.
He was still in Nadine’s bedroom, but Nadine and Carol weren’t there. He dropped to the carpet, at an inch tall. The version of Nadine from this reality came into the bedroom and spotted him, so he began to run. She was wearing different clothing than her counterpart in the other reality.
“Don’t worry, tiny one!” said the alternate Nadine. “I won’t hurt you!”
She knelt down and collected him, then stood up and set him on the desk in her room.
“How did you get so small?” Nadine asked.
She listened to his story of how he got in his situation. He belonged to a group of anthropologists from a human colony in another planetary system thousands of years in the future, and they journeyed back to Neolithic times to instruct ancient people on Earth how to grow crops. They received a final radio transmission from their own era explaining that a war in the future prevented the reconnaissance group from returning to pick them up, so they miniaturized themselves and buried their mother ship and went into cryo-stasis.
He also went into detail about her counterpart who swallowed him, and how he has a device called a continuator that can bridge the gap between other continuums, and that is how he ended up in her reality.
“So what do you need to repair your mothership?” Nadine asked.
“Purified water, so we can extract the hydrogen and then we can convert it to tritium and deuterium back at the mothership,” said Daniel. “We need it for our fusion reactor.”
“I can go get purified water from the store for you right now, just don’t let my little sister find you, or she’ll swallow you!” said Nadine.
“Your sister Delilah?” Daniel asked.
“Yeah, she’s evil!” said Nadine. “She’s always wanted to swallow a shrunken man!”
“Things must be reversed in this reality,” said Daniel. “In the reality I came from, you and your friend Carol were evil, and your younger sister Delilah protected me from them.”
In less than an hour, Daniel used technology built into his suit to construct the apparatus needed to collect the hydrogen from the water. When he had enough, he could take it with him back to his reality by using the continuator built into his suit, and use the isotopes to refuel the fusion reactor.
Later that afternoon, while Nadine went to get Carol at her house, Delilah entered the bedroom and found Daniel. She destroyed the apparatus that extracted the hydrogen, and lifted Daniel above her head.
“I’ve always wanted to swallow a tiny person!” said Delilah, and she dropped Daniel onto her tongue and swallowed him. Deep within the depths of the girl’s belly, Daniel could survive because of the immortality technology he and his crew partook of. In his time, people could live indefinitely without food, water, or air to breathe.
Delilah left the bedroom before her sister knew what was going on.
Not too long after Delilah swallowed Daniel, Nadine and Carol returned to find the bedroom in disarray. Knowing Delilah must be responsible, Nadine confronted her.
“What did you do with my shrunken man?” Nadine asked.
“I sent him where he belongs!” said Delilah. “He’s in my tummy!” Delilah smiled.
“You’re going to have to drink syrup of Ipecac to vomit him up!” said Nadine, and she went and got the first aid kit while Carol went and got a bowl from the kitchen. Nadine had Delilah swallow some of the Ipecac syrup.
A minute after drinking some of it, Delilah began to vomit the shrunken man up. He fell into the bowl Carol provided, and Nadine fished him out.
“Carol, since it’s Friday night, can you spend the night here while Daniel extracts enough hydrogen to refuel his mothership?”
Delilah was locked out of the bedroom while Nadine and Carol helped Daniel rebuild his extraction equipment. Some time after midnight, he had enough collected and needed the help of the two young teens to get back to the junior high school.
They put warm clothes on and went to the location where the mothership was buried. They had to climb over the fence. When Daniel was in position, he said goodbye and thanked them for their help, and used his continuator to return with the hydrogen to his own reality.
Once there, he radioed Alvin and Newton to climb up through the tunnel and help him carry the hydrogen back down to the mothership. With their onboard equipment, they were able to convert the hydrogen into tritium and deuterium for their reactor.
“Our main reactor will be back at full power within 24 hours, sir!” said Alvin. “Do you think we’ll ever hear from Nadine and Carol again?”
“I hope not!” Daniel replied.