Chapter Four: Acceleration

"So you're sure about this?"

The question could've hung in the air ominously, had Teri let it. Instead, she dnodded her head. "Yeah, Mike. I have to do this. It's just...I don't know, I can't say no. But I'm going to give you a veto over it. If you disagree...."

Mike laughed at his fiancée. "Teri, if I veto this, you'll never forgive me. I know that. Just...please, do what you've said, okay? Two months. If by then you feel the same, we'll put the house on the market and move on down permanently. And if not..."

"...If not, I quit, and come back here, and I'm done with the Society forever," said Teri, nodding. "Agreed. I love you, you know. Not many men would be as understanding."

Mike smiled. "Well, you're just lucky, I guess."

He kissed his fiancée, all the while terrified of what this meant for them.

* * *

The Gulfstream G450 climbed quickly out of Barcelona International Airport, banked, and turned westward. Zoraida looked out the window forlornly, and tapped her fingers on the armrest. She wished she had her laptop, or at least a pen and paper. She needed to write. To get some of this emotion out of her bloodstream.

"You should get some sleep," said Alyssa, walking over and handing Zoraida a glass of water. "This is a long haul. We're stopping over in about nine hours, but you and I are staying on the plane while Leah takes care of some business. Then it's another nine hours or so before we get to where we're going."

"Where are we going?" asked Zoraida. "I mean, if I can ask that."

"You can ask that," Leah said, reclining in her seat across the aisle. "But I can't tell you--yet. A long way from Madrid, that's for sure. Alyssa's right--you should sleep."

"Why do you want me?" Zoraida asked, for what had to be the fifteenth time.

"You can help us," Alyssa said, taking the seat across from her. "Look, we're working together to build a new world--one where women are finally in charge. Aren't you tired of taking a back seat to men?"

"I've never thought about it," said Zoraida. "It has not affected me."

"Ever been taken less seriously because you have a vagina?" asked Alyssa, brusquely.

Zoraida frowned at that. She remembered presenting a novel to a publisher. Her agent praised it, as had the buyer's female assistant. But he was dismissive. "Just another girl novel," he'd said, waiving his hands idly. "Nothing special."

"Yes," said Zoraida.

"Of course you have," Alyssa said. "Not a woman alive who hasn't been. I was gang-raped; went to trial, and they said it was my fault. Bastards got off, too...for a while."

She grinned at that. "Look, Zoraida, men have set the terms of discussion for the past ten thousand years. They've called the tune, and we've danced to it. Yeah, there are guys out there who are okay--and in the new world order they'll have their place. We don't hate men. We just want to turn the tables. It's our turn to set the playlist, and it's their turn to dance."

Zoraida nodded, quietly. "I understand," she said, though she wasn't quite sure she did. "I'll help you," she said, though she wasn't quite sure she would.

* * *

Scott peered out of the sack, trying to get a bead on what his oblivious hostess was doing.

He had been a bit surprised to hear her awake at five in the morning or so, especially when he noted that she did so in order to pray. He would have thought that given how many tenets of Islam Wafia was bending, daily prayer might well go by the wayside as well--especially in a more secular state like Morocco. But she had left the room to wash herself; when she returned, she stood, locked to the east. "llahu Akbar," she said, then bowed three times, and continued on through the ritual. Though Scott did not speak Arabic, he knew enough of what she was doing to recognize that her actions were not empty or questioning. She was affirming, as all good Muslims should, that there was no God but God, and that Mohammed was His prophet.

She completed by standing, closing her eyes, and barely whispering, "Assalamu alaikum wa rahmatullah." Then she sighed, and headed for the pack.

Scott swore under his breath, and darted backward into the gloom as a titanic hand reached in and grabbed the copy of The Feminist Mystique that had been his overhang. Fortunately, Wafia was not awake enough or aware enough to search her sack diligently. Instead, she walked back over to her bed and, turning on the bedside lamp, began to read.

Scott sighed, and reached into his own pack for a canteen and a granola bar. He'd have to forage soon, but not quite yet. He leaned his back up against the spine of the Qur'an and had a drink, and wondered what exactly he'd gotten himself into.

* * *

Lloyd waited until Lil had gone into the shower to make his move.

He'd had to reassure her three times that he knew what he was doing, and that he'd make sure he was safe above everything else. It was sweet, really--she really didn't want to hurt him, and he had to admit, it wasn't going to be totally smooth sailing.

This would be the smallest he'd ever been around a woman; he'd gotten down to two inches tall with Andrea, but only once--she'd complained afterward about being with him that way, and they'd broken up not long afterward. And there was the time he was bold and shrunk down to an inch and hid in the women's locker room--but he wasn't necessarily proud of that decision, and besides, he hadn't really done anything but look.

At any rate, she had left his target sitting on the bed, the better for him to infiltrate it; they were, he thought, role-playing. Weird to think of it that way, but she was play-acting that she didn't know he would be there, and he was play-acting that she didn't know, too. But that made it fun, and sex is 85% mental anyhow.

Okay, the fifteen percent physical part of this was going to be fun, too.

So he went over to her panties--a simple cotton pair, light blue, he noted--and climbed inside.

He thought she'd chosen well. There wasn't a need for her to wear anything daring--indeed, wearing something slightly more modest actually had its plusses. He moved to the middle of them, feeling the cotton crotch--and here he smiled as he slipped between the fabric above and below, because her scent was everywhere, and it was dizzying.

He grabbed on tight, and held on; he didn't trust himself to hear her come in, and he knew that she would be in a hurry to put these on.

A few minutes later, it happened. The panties lifted, then dropped--though not all the way to the floor. He smiled a bit, realizing that she was trying to be gentle, even though the motion had been roughly equivalent to a meteor strike. Then one enormous foot penetrated the hole to his right, and quickly another penetrated the hole to his left, and he was being pulled up toward Lil's vulva.

It was but a moment before the world grew dim, as Lil pulled the panties firmly into place. He was laying just north of her taint, and he reached up and touched her lips softly but insistently, hoping she'd realize that it was his way of saying he was in position.

The subtle wiggle he felt out of her might have been her way of acknowledging him, or it might have been just a wiggle; nevertheless, he pulled himself up just a bit and kissed her skin softly. He could sense even before he felt it that she was moist with anticipation. He smiled. This was going to be one of the best days of his life.

* * *

The headquarters of the Society is thirty-three stories tall, though a casual visitor might be forgiven for thinking it had only thirty-two. The Society purchased it in 2005 for a cool $433 million (partly financed by a sweetheart loan from FletchCorp), and retrofitted it to suit their needs, which were pretty standard for a multinational, paramilitary, pseudoscientific group with the power to alter matter at will.

Most of the building was office space, with a few floors given over to training, exercise space, a relatively decent cafeteria in the lobby, as well as a Starbucks and a library on the thirty-first floor.

The thirteenth floor's windows stood just a foot from solid concrete walls, and what natural light came in was reflected down from the floor directly above. Lights went on and off for show outside the walls; nobody outside the building would notice that nobody was there. None of the main elevators stopped on the floor; indeed the elevators simply omitted thirteen from the menu of choices. The only way on or off the floor was a dedicated service elevator that emptied out two stories underground. The elevator was guarded at all times by two imposing defenders grown by a 5:4 ratio, armed with not just strong mastery of the forces of GTS, but uzis as well.

Behind them was a lone gate, the only way into the bunker. Just inside that gate were another two guards, as well as a localized morphogenetic dampening field. Then another gate, this one secured magnetically, designed to shut and hold if power was cut. And through that gate, inside another foot-thick concrete wall, lay the detention center of the Growth Triumphant Society.

Walk into Society headquarters and ask about the thirteenth floor, and you'll be told it doesn't exist. It won't be a lie, most likely--anyone with a security clearance below Beta wouldn't know it existed, at least not as such. Officially, it doesn't exist--officially, the detention center is in upstate New York.

Interestingly, the thirteenth floor was also not on the thirteenth floor; I mention that only in passing.

One might not think that the thirteenth floor of an office building would be sufficient to hold the two hundred fifteen men and women currently detained by the Society. But one would be forgetting that the Society deals with size changes on a daily basis. And that would be a stupid thing to forget.

In cell 3-20A, a prisoner went through her usual morning routine. She sat, cross-legged, on her bunk, eyes closed, face implacable, and she meditated.

In her meditation, she visualized the things she'd done, the mistakes she'd made, the people she'd failed. And she cherished them and apologized to each in turn, a prayer for absolution for her failure of character. She focused on one person in particular; she always did.

Mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa, she recited internally, an old part of the Latin Mass, which was odd, because she was not Catholic. But she had heard the phrase once as a child, and it fit perfectly. My fault, my fault, my great fault.

She opened her eyes, and sighed, and swept a lock of red hair away from her face, and rose.

She pressed a button by her door, and waited. After a few minutes, it slid open, and a guard, a good head taller than her by scale, stood waiting.

"Good morning, Anderson," the guard said, dispassionately. "Stand straight."

Liz sighed, and stood up tall. The trooper looked her over, holding a wand out to feel any tremor of GTS activity. Satisfied, she nodded. "All right, you're clear. Have a good day."

Liz nodded. "Thanks, Vi," she said, equally dispassionately.

She wandered down to the cafeteria. It was a bit late for the main meal, but she could still get an apple ala carte, and then go to the library and read. It was what she did most days; the detention facility was actually reasonably comfortable all things considered--it wasn't a Supermax, certainly--but the Society figured that being confined was enough. As long as you behaved, you were able to wander reasonably freely.

If you didn't behave, things got ugly. But Liz had never lacked for intelligence.

"So, Coed, how are you?"

Liz turned, and sighed. "What do you want, Tori?"

"Nothing. Just wondering how you were doing, that's all."

Liz didn't like Victoria Stevens. And Victoria Stevens didn't like her. Liz--and a not insignificant percentage of her fellow detainees--was convinced that Tori should be locked up in a mental hospital.

Tori loved Liz, though, because Liz had killed more men than any other person in detention. And in interesting ways, too.

Tori loved those interesting ways.

"Look, I'm not going to discuss my kills; I know you're overly excited about it, but--"

"Hold on! Look, I'm going to group, just like you, missy. I'm not getting off on that stuff anymore. Although--" the assassin looked around briefly "--I don't mind hearing it now and again. Nice to remember--well, before, don't you think?" "Hmf," Liz said, unpersuaded. "I'm going to get breakfast, Tori."

"Don't let me keep you. Hey, Yvette and I are meeting in the commons this afternoon, we're working to start a poetry group. You might want to stop by."

Liz rolled her eyes. "Maybe, Tori." She would sooner cut her right arm off; Tori was a sick girl; Liz had killed for good reasons--at least sometimes. Tori killed for fun.

Liz walked into the cafeteria, grabbed her apple, and sat down and looked out on the artificial light shining in from outside the facility, catching a glimpse of a two hundred foot tall guard monitoring the dollhouse-jail she resided in.

Tori was right about one thing; it was sometimes nice to remember "before."

* * *

Lil squirmed in her seat, for the fifth time that day, trying not to burst out in ecstasy.

She had felt Lloyd almost immediately, or at least she thought she had. Just a flutter at the base of her vulva--nothing she'd ordinarily notice, save that she was expecting it, much as she was trying to role-play that she didn't. She'd gotten dressed and headed out for the tube, pausing briefly to pick up a copy of the Guardian. It was her morning routine; the ride to Canary Wharf station was a bit of a haul, and she had more than once debated moving out of Bayswater once and for all. If she was going to continue with InterNode any longer....

As she descended to the depths of the station, she had felt the flutter in her panties increase to a light brushing, this time halfway up her slit. She had thought she could almost picture what Lloyd was up to; he was on the right side of her, sliding between her outer and inner lips, slowly caressing her.

She had sat down on the bench, looked down at the Guardian, and smiled. She had had a feeling she wasn't going to be reading much of it.

By the time she'd exited the train for her transfer at Baker Street, she was feeling bubbly and warm, and Lloyd was getting close to the top of her womanhood. She'd grabbed a seat on a train on the Jubilee line, and looking out the window, she had smiled wickedly.

Soon enough, she felt him reach her clitoris, and then she simply closed her eyes and breathed.

She'd had to double back at Canning Town station, and she was twenty minutes late because of it. She didn't particularly care.

Since then, she'd felt him exploring her pubic hair (she was very glad she'd shaved it up the weekend before), felt him pushing his way inside her to the point she couldn't feel him anymore, felt him come back to her clit again and again. Once, just once, she'd gone to the restroom, and tapped three times on the front of her panties--their pre-determined signal that she needed to do so. She'd peered down from far above and saw him, laying back happily, just the tiniest of spots among a very damp crotch.

She'd smiled, and waved, and he had waved back, and she smiled even wider. She wiped herself more thoroughly than she ever had before, and pulled her panties back up firmly.

She felt him exploring between her cheeks soon after that.

Now he was sliding off her clit again. She was blissed-out and spent, and could barely even imagine what Lloyd was feeling. She thought about trying to make love to a man so big that she'd have to work as hard as he was working.

It might be worth it, she thought, for the right man. But only for the right man. The fact that Lloyd was willing to do it for her--well, she thought that she was a very lucky woman.

Tonight, she resolved she was going to make him dinner and spend a long time catering to his every whim; he'd more than earned it.

* * *

Scott wasn't sure why they were at the airport, but he was glad he'd acted when he had.

Wafia had received a call mid-morning; she'd spoken to the concierge at the hotel she was staying in; soon, she was in a car bound for Casablanca and the airport. A good long ride to the Mohammed V International Airport later, they were at a gate in the terminal, waiting for a Royal Air Maroc flight bound for somewhere.

Scott could only wonder where as they boarded the flight.

* * *

Sarah smiled as she raised her right hand.

"Are you sure about this?"

Teri groaned. "I'd like people to stop asking me that, please."

Sarah laughed, and said directly, "Do you swear to uphold the principles of the Growth Triumphant Society, to carry out lawful orders as directed, to defend those who need defense from the GTS arts, and to at all times strive for balance in their application?"

"I do," said Teri.

"Very well, Teacher Thiessen. Welcome back aboard."

Teri smiled, and shook Sarah's hand. She had a bad feeling about this.

* * *

The plane touched down on the long gravel runway, bumping along in protest that it was not the sort of plane that was supposed to land out here in the sticks. Zoraida stirred and looked out the window at a bright afternoon.

"We're here," said Alyssa, as the plane taxied to a stop.

"Where's 'here?'"

"All in good time," said Leah, as they prepared to deplane.

Soon enough, they exited the plane and headed to a waiting Hummer, and then they were off on a dirt path.

"I've never seen an airport in a town this small," Zoraida said, as they quickly passed by a few houses and a small school with an American flag flying out front.

"I don't doubt it," said Alyssa. "It isn't exactly a bustling metropolis. But it suits our needs, and the people of the town leave us alone. In exchange, we spend a lot of money in town. It works out."

They drove up over a hill, and then around to a simple gate, guarded by a lone sentry. She stepped back and saluted as she saw Leah; the President simply nodded as they were waived through.

"Welcome home, Zoraida," said Leah as they turned a corner.

Zoraida gasped as they turned a corner. There it was, a miniaturized city under camouflage netting--but clearly alive with real people. The car rolled to a halt.

"Would you do the honors, Zoraida? It's at a 6:1 scale."

Zoraida looked up, and almost by instinct, the car and its occupants were reduced to Barbie-size.

They drove into the fort, and Zoraida boggled. It was huge in size--far larger than the town they'd exited from. And it was populated by, near as she could tell, hundreds of women of all nationalities, working hard to move boxes and equipment. Working hard, but not hurriedly--there was an organization to their work that was immediately apparent.

"Welcome to New Myrina," said Leah. "We'll get you to your quarters. We'll have plenty of time for discussion tomorrow."

* * *

Lil embraced Lloyd once he was back to normal size, sniffed him, and laughed. "Oi! Someone needs a shower. You smell like you've been living in someone's panties!"

Lloyd laughed. "Best home I've ever had, love. Did you enjoy it?"

Lil looked at Lloyd coquettishly, and said, "Lloyd, you take a shower, I'll make dinner, and afterward--I'm yours. Do with me what you will."

"But I already did!" Lloyd protested.

"Well, then think of something else. You're creative!"

Lloyd looked at Lil, and said, quite seriously, "My love, what I really want is dinner, and then just to fall asleep with you tonight. I've had an exciting enough day already. I hope you're not disappointed."

Lil kissed her fiancé, and said, "I want to fall asleep next to you every night, forever, love. But if you want to rest, maybe you can curl up in my cleavage? I like that size."

"I like that bed," Lloyd said. "I'll shower fast."

* * *

Scott groaned as he awoke, the satchel bumping to a stop in another hotel room somewhere east of Morocco. He thought it might be Qatar from a few snippets of conversation he'd heard, but he couldn't be sure. At any rate, he wanted very much for Wafia to go to sleep so he could get out of here. She'd dozed on the plane, but the pack had been stowed in the overhead bin, and he hadn't trusted his ability to escape and get back. So he'd stuck it out.

But a full day of hiding was numbing his brain, and he was quite ready for something new.

The pack rustled, startling him back to life. He heard some muttering from his giant captress, and then the flap was opened again.

She looked down into the darkness, and muttering again, she tipped the pack over.

Scott should have been on his guard. He was battle-hardened and he had years of experience hiding from women; had he been more awake, he might have quickly shrunk himself more or merged with one of the books. Instead, he was dumped out onto the desktop, half an inch tall, but separated from the books enough that he was out in the open.

Wafia's eyes scanned for something, and then stopped, and darted straight to his position.

He raised his hand, but she was already smiling, and shaking her head slightly. She said something and reached out, and his parry failed.

He felt himself immobilized, and realized quickly that he'd been transformed into a small gemstone. He could reverse this easily, he knew, he just had to...but she was already picking him up and dropping him into a box, one that she'd found among the debris of the bag.

It looked like a metal coffin, and in a sense, that was its exact function. She dropped him inside, and shut the lid.

He sighed. This was odd. He started to think of what his next step should be, when suddenly he felt his soul run cold.

The power. It was dropping out of him.

The box was a dampening field. Small and portable--a prisoner transport device.

He felt the box drop somewhere. He knew for sure that this was not going to end well.