Chapter Ten

Refraction

Liz's eyes fluttered open, and she smiled at Angie.  She really did like Angie, even if she'd gone into lockstep mode with the League.  Well, Liz reminded herself, that was partly her own doing.  She slid over, slightly, and said, "Angie, are we there?"

"No."

"We've been sleeping since six this morning.  I was just thinking...."

"I don't want to go up to the observation deck.  I'm sure Alaska's lovely, but I haven't slept on a bed in three days, damn it."

"No!  No, I mean, that's not what I meant."

"What do you mean?"

"Well...I mean, it's been about five years since we...and it was just the one time, and...."  Angie's voice trailed off.  Then, summoning a bit of courage, she said, "Look, I know that you've changed -- heck, we all have -- and it's been five years, and I can't expect that you still feel the same way, so...."

Liz looked at Angie, hooked her right arm behind Angie's neck, and pulled her in for a rough kiss.

It was a long time before they broke for air.  When they did, Angie said, "I want you to shrink me, like you did before."

"No," said Liz, "we need to be careful."

Angie paused.  "What if I shrank myself?"

Liz shifted a bit.  "No, Angie.  Last time -- well, when I woke up from my sleep, I wasn't quite myself.  I want you to get to know the real me.  I don't want to be worshipped.  Not by a lover.

"Which is why I want you to shrink me."

Angie looked at Liz, her mouth gaping.  "Are you -- I mean, you'd be...you're serious?"

Liz smiled.  "Trust me, I know a little person doing for you can be fun.  I'd like you to know what it feels like, Angie, to have me at your command."

Angie smiled a cautious smile.  "All right," she said, "here goes nothing."

€

* * * 

The train rolled in to Stuttgart Hauptbanhof, right on schedule.  Three men were there to meet it. 

Henry Bigg motioned to his two flunkies to spread out.  They'd find them.  They had to.

They looked at their grildrometers, each clicking away. 

He was an adept.  And he didn't know it.  Henry smiled wanly.  Lloyd blasted away when he used his skills, not that he needed to.  He just did so unconsciously, a man who didn't know his own strength.  It had taken them a bit to trace him to Amsterdam; Lloyd was smart, Henry would give him that.  A few hours more, and they would have had him there.  No matter.

Bigg looked at the grildrometer, which wasn't registering what he would expect.

"Damn it," he said.

There was a trace of...something.  They'd been there.  On this train.  He thought so, anyhow. 

He walked along slowly, patiently.  Looking for a spike, or a vector change.  But...nothing.  Nothing but a bit higher than usual background static, signaling that there had been something powerful on this train but a few hours ago. 

But not anymore.

"All right," he said, quietly, walking over to a map muttering to himself.  "They got off up the line a ways.  Stupid of me not to see it -- they're too smart to gun straight for Berlin.  But where," he murmured, drawing his finger back along the line to Heidelberg.

* * *

The door to the dorm banged open, and a college junior blearily looked up.  "Sue?  That you?" 

"Yeah, it's me," said her roommate, dropping her rucksack and denim purse in a corner of the room.  "Next time I say I'm going to Amsterdam for the weekend, remind me that I don't like pot enough to fill a whole weekend."

"I did tell you that." 

"You're right, Ráichéal, and I should have listened.  Just had a feeling I should go, like something important would happen.  It didn't.  Anyhow, I can get some studying done before Monday's test on Kant.  Which would be easy, if it wasn't in German.  I get halfway through writing kategorischer Imperativ and my brain hurts."

"Well, I told you that you shouldn't take the German-language classes in anything tough.  Why not take the English-language classes if you can?" 

"Because, it's my last semester in Germany before I head back to the states, that's why.  Assuming my head doesn't explode, I'll be able to tell my kids that I actually was able to speak fluent German at one point, at which point they'll roll their eyes and ask me why I didn't take Spanish."

Ráichéal pushed a mop of red hair out of her eyes and chuckled.  "You're too mature for nineteen, you know." 

"It's genetic," Sue sighed.  "Ráichéal, are you going to miss Heidelberg as much as I am?"

"I'll miss you, Sue.  But I miss home, too." 

"Yeah," Sue smiled wanly.  "Well, I'll miss a lot about being here.  You most of all, of course."  She felt a bit weak about it.  Ráichéal was the best friend she'd ever had.

"Get to sleep.  You need your beauty sleep, you know," sighed Ráichéal, knowing her friend well enough to know that a protracted conversation wouldn't lead to a happy place, or much more sleep for the evening. 

"Póg mo thóin," Sue shot back with a grin.

"Hey!  Eight months of teaching, and you're finally start getting your profanity right."

* * * €

Liz looked up at her titanic lover, boggling for a moment at the fact that either Angie or Jake had ever looked up at her this way.  It was daunting to sit between her thighs, smelling her sweet scent, and knowing that it was growing in intensity based on the anticipation of what Liz would do. 

She thought back to things that Jake had done for her, that Angie had done.  She walked along the inside of Angie's left thigh, dragging her right hand along it as much in wonder as anything else.  She stood about six inches tall, a good size, or so she'd been told.

She approached the pussy, and simply touched it.  Just...touched it. 

Angie moved her hips up and down, involuntarily, causing Liz to step back just a bit.

Liz reached back, and caressed Angie's labia, moving her tiny, delicate hand over the enormous, delicate folds of Angie's sex.  She got closer to it, feeling Angie's warmth radiating toward her. 

"It's beautiful," she whispered, as she buried her face in the folds.  And it was.

Angie shimmied just a bit, as she felt her tiny lover exploring her womanhood.  She remembered a pornographic comic book that she'd once owned, one she'd damn near worn out.  She'd always identified with Nibbil...but OH!  Annie had it good too.... 

She reached down unconsciously and felt Liz from behind with her right middle finger, urged her forward into the folds of herself.  And Liz pushed herself between the folds into the wet, sultry channel, and pushed herself up inside as far as she could, reveling in the feeling of Angie surrounding her, consuming her, her scent, her air, her water, her world.

Liz slid back a bit, and forward, and Angie above felt Liz moving inside her, and bit her lip.  It was perfect.  She had her lover back and it was perfect, more than perfect, Liz loved her so much, she had to.  And Liz slid herself back and forth, and wondered if she was leading Angie on, or if she actually cared for her.  But she though she owed the girl a bit of affection, she thought...oh, this was amazing, amazing...and wonderful, and it felt so...she fit so perfectly, and she slid back out, and now she was working on...and it was the size of her head, but she simply pushed and kneaded it, knowing that it would make her...and she felt it, oh Goddess, she was coming, she was coming, and she felt it was through her and over her and they fell apart, just a bit, happy and glowing and giggling like two schoolgirls, as the Malaspina came within sight of Juneau.

* * * 

Scott was somewhat amazed that his plan had worked this well.

Not that it was working particularly well.  Oh, he was free-ish, but he was still inside the detention facility, though he'd chanced increasing his size to a half-inch.  It was a size he knew well, and he figured -- correctly -- that the dampener would play hob with their ability to track him.

So he just had to dodge giantesses who were, at present, combing through the facility, looking for a tiny man.  There were a few dozen at present, and he knew there'd be more along soon enough. 

Which is why he knew he'd have to get close to one, and soon.

He picked out a face he'd seen, one that belonged to a pretty girl with black hair.  The new adept.  He felt drawn to her just a bit.  He couldn't explain why.

All he could do was to wait until she turned, and sprint for her knees, which were crawling along with her on the floor.  He leapt and grasped at the hard wall of denim, but he didn't pause.  Instead, he climbed for all he was worth, aiming for the seam on her jeans. 

It would be a long, difficult journey, but he would reach her pocket by evening.  He hoped she would head out of the detention facility soon.

  €

* * * 

Lloyd and Lil curled up under the bed of their enormous transporter, listening to her snore lightly above them.

"Well, at least we know where we are," said Lil.  "Heidelberg is actually okay.  I was thinking that Stuttgart would be too obvious, if they had tracked us." 

"Nice of you to mention it," Lloyd said, pulling his beloved near.  "So stay here a day or two, then head out?"

"I think so," said Lil.  "Actually, we've got some options.  This one -- Sue -- she's heading back to America soon.  That would scramble them up, but good.  And the other -- Rachel? -- she's Irish."

"Irish is no good," said Lloyd.  "Nothing against 'em, but we're back in the British isles then.  And I still don't trust America as a destination.  Still, they seem like nice girls, and the view is nice," he said, with a wink. 

"Oh, I can make you forget the view," said Lil, laughing.

"I know you can," he said.  "But for tonight, let's get some sleep.  Time for love tomorrow." 

"Ah.  And so it begins, the long slide into becoming just another boring couple." 

Lil and Lloyd dissolved into laughter over that, and a few hours later, Lil fell asleep happy, with Lloyd nestled in the valley between her breasts, damp but otherwise gleaming.

* * *  

Zoraida settled back in her room, unable to shake the feeling that something was wrong.

Not that this was an unusual feeling for her; heck, everything had seemed wrong since she left Madrid.  But this was something more, something nibbling at the back of her head. 

That they'd lost the man that Wafia had brought in -- that stunned her.  That he'd been lost after a waterboarding session...Zoraida shuddered.  She didn't know that anyone deserved that.  She'd dispatched rapists, twice, but she'd done so quickly.  Nothing painful, no torment. 

There it was again, the feeling.  She could pin it down.  It felt localized along her left outer thigh. 

She felt the twinge.

"No!  Block!" she said, reacting by instinct.  She held his signal, kept it from getting out.  "Grow!" she thought, pulling him up to a doll-sized scale.  She had him.  She felt the power coming from him, and she struggled, but she had him. 

Scott looked her in the eye as she retrieved him from her pocket, staring him down.  She could feel him straining, feel him pushing against her. 

She could fight him out, maybe even beat him.  If not alone, fight him to a draw until Wafia arrived... 

Instead, for reasons he couldn't adequately explain, she shut down.  "All right," she said, quietly, "let's just stop for now.."

Scott cocked an eyebrow.  A trick.  It had to be. 

"I'm not trying to lie to you."

Scott looked at the giantess a good long time.  "What's going on?" 

"I want to make an agreement," said Zoraida.

Scott rolled his eyes.  "You must think I'm stupid.  You'll attack the second I turn my back."

"I give you my word as a Spaniard," said Zoraida. 

"No good," Scott said, chuckling in spite of himself.  "I've known too many Spaniards."

"Please," she said. 

Scott's eyes widened, just a bit.  He was surprised by this turn of events.  That he was only slightly less surprised than Zoraida seemed clear to him.  Both looked at each other, as if sensing the other's motivations, unspoken and otherwise.

"All right," he said.  "What's the deal?"

"I don't turn you in.  In exchange, you don't make a move, not a single one.  You keep your defenses down, and you stay with me.  For now."

"Why?" asked Scott. 

"Because I want to know who you are.  I want you to tell me why you fight, why you're trying to destroy the League.  I need to know," she said, "what they aren't telling me."

Scott smiled, and bowed just a bit.  He would have to be patient.  As much as he wanted to run right now, he knew that this could pay off handsomely for all of them.  "All right," he said, "I'll tell you." 
 
And he did.