“Thank you for sharing, Julian,” Val said with an identical grin as another shrunken incarcerate finished his tale. “We’re just about out of time for testimonials today. I believe we’ve heard from everyone so far except… Scott Stevens, yes?”

            Scott, draped over Judy’s knuckles, felt her finger rising again between his legs to get his attention. Quickly putting the involuntary tingling sensation out of mind as the woman’s digit prodded intently against his inner thighs, the young man looked out across the room of waiting eyes: fifteen pairs of normal-size and fifteen pairs of miniaturized.

            Unable to help it, he glanced back down across the room to Derrick’s body still wedged awkwardly and blushing like a piece of overcooked meat between Mrs. Tate’s foot and her now sweat-greased clog.

            “Scott? Would you like to share anything with us?” Val asked, breaking his concentration.

            “Uhh… sure. About what?” he said earnestly, hoping for some direction.

            “Well, I know you had your first disciplinary review board session a week ago. Why don’t you tell us a bit about that?” the monitor replied cheerfully.

            Judy’s finger remained poised between her four-inch son’s legs like a bronco, now rising and falling steadily in tandem with Scott’s breaths, reminding him what was at stake if his answer wasn’t up to code.

            “There’s, uh… not really much to tell,” Scott said, cracking the falsest smile he could muster.

            Twelve taut faces resting atop steepled fingers peered out at Scott over a magnificent mahogany table serving as the stage for this most momentous occasion in his shrunken incarceration.

            The Shrink Act poster boy himself, with his arms folded reverently behind his back, shuffled anxiously in his little suit and slacks as he stood upon the sheer surface, facing the people who just happened to be responsible for his personal freedom in the foreseeable future.

            He noted that his necktie had perhaps been tugged just a little too tight by Judy when she was personally dressing and grooming him two hours before like a personal doll, immediately following a vigorous bath in her sink. Of course he was far too fidgety now to correct it, especially with his mother seated immediately behind him. Occasionally her hands, folded neatly together on the tabletop, would stretch out and stroke on Scott’s back, reminding him to stand up straight and tall to look as little like a criminal as possible.

            For once, being touched by his mother’s enormous hands didn’t spook Scott; he had far more to fear on the other end of that table in the glassy, disapproving eyes of the review board.

            Almost all of them appeared perfectly willing to glance the other way if Judy were to, say, punt her son across the room like a football.

            His general public approval level was still working on crawling its way back above “pariah” after he’d drunkenly bulldozed into a pedestrian and violently terminated her pregnancy in the process of nearly killing the woman as well. Scott didn’t blame them for their judicial prudence in the slightest. If anything, he was even harder on himself, though these people now were giving him a run for his money.

            “Well, Mr. Stevens, after having some time to process the notes taken by your guardian over the past year, your own personal accounts, as well as the written testimonies of your siblings and others who’ve had close contact with you in the previous twelve months, I believe we’ve reached a decision that will be fair for all,” a greying woman in the center said, adjusting her reading glasses as she scanned her eyes over a document plucked from a manila envelope.

            Scott clutched his breath inside, every muscle tensing with more anxiety than he ever felt gazing into the awaiting shadow of a giant shoe. Frankly, he’d have taken being squashed underfoot a dozen times over than be made to stand here under the silent judgment of these people.

            “It is the opinion of this board that you will benefit most by remaining in the custody of your mother, Councilwoman Judith Stevens, for the next six months under the stipulations of the Reduction and Rehabilitation Act, at which time this board will convene again to discuss probation options, if indication of your personal improvement continues to be demonstrated,” the woman reported dryly, brushing a peppered bang off her forehead.

            Scott released the air at last, trying not to let his adrenaline-induced trembling show.

            It wasn’t the best outcome, but still much better than he was expecting. A glimmer of freedom, no matter how slight or distant, was nonetheless visible now. If only he could keep up this juggling act for another half-year.

            “In amending the parameters of your house arrest, as discussed earlier, recesses from the premises may now occur three times weekly for up to two hours, under the supervision of pre-approved temporary guardians other than your mother and two siblings. Is this agreeable to you, Mr. Stevens?” the speaker for the board continued.

            “It sounds like you’re making some very positive steps, Scott,” Val said when the young man had finished rambling through the explanation. “We’re all very proud of you, I’m sure. How do you personally feel about all of this?”

            “Uh, good… glad. I mean… glad to know I’m… making progress. And that the people… the review board sees it too,” Scott managed delicately.

            “One of the things I like to ask anyone I work with, whether they’re under R&R or not, is to reaffirm goals for themselves,” the woman said, twiddling her pen between her fingers. “Speaking them in front of a group can do some good.”

            “I couldn’t agree more,” Judy said, instantly grabbing the attention of every eye in the room with the commanding boom of her timbre still coiled in that sultry imperiousness. Scott had come to know and be chilled by that tone in the worst ways possible.

            He silently swallowed another lump as his mother’s finger rode particularly high up between his legs, casually pinning his family jewels up nearer to his stomach through his pants. A show of strength: she wasn’t in the least bit unnerved to make such a move even with everyone’s attention squared directly to her.

            Another warning, as if he needed one, to tread carefully, or else be treaded upon.

            “Yeah, I’m, uh… I’m sure it can!” Scott said. He fought back an especially feminine bleat from creeping into his words as the sensation of his mother’s finger squeezing against his crotch peaked with a twinge of pain before settling down again.

            “Good. Why don’t you share with us, then,” Val suggested coolly. “What, above all, are you hoping to get out of all this, Scott?”

            “Y-Yes. Yes, definitely,” Scott responded to the older woman’s question, trying not to sound too ecstatic. He needed to maintain a very precise demeanor here. For once, he actually wasn’t too ungrateful to have his parent’s fingers stroking possessively up his limbs, if only to keep him in a state of relative docility.

            After all, it wasn’t just the review board and his mother he had to impress. Given that this was the first review board held for the premiere Shrink Act house arrest case, there were a number of powerful players in attendance whose gaze Scott could certainly feel scalding through the back of his scalp from the seats located just behind the table. Figures from prominent advocacy groups both attacking and bolstering The Shrink Act’s country-sized controversy. News reporters and their accompanying equipment and flashing lights, perhaps almost as many as had been present at Judy’s fateful campaign announcement party.

            Even, Scott was fairly certain, another senatorial hopeful he recognized from the news named Theodore Darwin: a clean-cut fifty-something self-made billionaire East-coast native with a gleaming smile who just happened to command one of the few remaining technology corporations not yet bought out by Techilogic. His “smart” systems were currently being used to revamp and strengthen the security and stability of every major prison within range of the Atlantic, or so the news anchors enthusiastically spouted, putting him in direct opposition to Judy and company’s more unorthodox methodology for rehabilitating criminals. The man in his pressed charcoal suits was preparing to go toe-to-toe with Judy Stevens, which Scott knew from very personal and sweaty experience wasn’t always a good move, but he held out hope that he could root for the man. While Theodore wasn’t “on his side,” per se, it gave the young man comfort to know there was a presence in the room who potentially rivaled the strength of his mother’s, which was no small feat.

            Of course, that glimmer of a hope meant far more to Scott than escaping the toying clutches of his mother. He had put up with plenty throughout his life in her possession, and he was prepared to go through far more and far worse if it meant his real goal could be achieved.

            “Well…” Scott began, exhaling heavily as he stared across the room of blinking incarcerates and over to Val’s blankly awaiting expression. The true answer to her question remained lodged in his throat, and he finally succeeded in choking past it. Now wasn’t the time, especially not when he was perched directly on his mother’s knuckles.

            “Yes?”

            “My goal is… still to become a better person. To take the wrongs I’ve committed and just keep working at thinking about them, and using this new freedom in the program in any way I can to improve myself in mind and body.”

            He’d stated these same words of cookie-cutter remorse in some combination for what felt like roughly eight thousand times in the past year, and while he meant some of them, it left a bad taste in his mouth every time, but it was also the only surefire way to ensure Judy was kept happy.

            “That’s good, Scott. But I’m not just talking about the goal of self-improvement. Those are the kinds of points we cover all the time. I want to hear what you want,” Val said, and though Scott still hadn’t attended enough sessions in this whitewashed cell to detect how genuine she was, the half-curved smile on her face at least let him know that in this moment, she wanted exactly what she was asking for. “Where do you see yourself? What do you want to do? Finish school? Advocate? Travel?”

            “Right. Me,” Scott mumbled, still keeping the answer at bay, but nonetheless feeling a swell in his chest at the thought of it.

            Sure, he wanted to finish his degree, providing his school, or any school, would take him back. Sure, he wanted to continue reconnecting with Ella, assuming the strain of it all didn’t become too much to bear. Sure, he wanted to put as much mileage between himself and his mother’s claws as was geographically possible, despite knowing the woman could and would find any way she could to close the distance if she desired.

            But no, his true aims were laid elsewhere.

            As the board flipped through a few more pages of lesser measures to amend Scott’s sentence, he chanced a glance over his shoulder to a spot near the front of the spectators where his younger siblings were seated with hands folded in their Sunday best: Kyle, a lanky and bespectacled high school sophomore who’d pulled his nose out of his books long enough to come support the brother with whom he’d only recently become shakily allied again, and Maggie, a blonde seventeen-year-old high school soccer star who, despite being short for her age, could’ve once terrified Scott down to the marrow with a simple lick of her lips, but who now couldn’t have looked more conflicted than if she had a literal angel and devil perched on each shoulder whispering advice in her ears.

            Them. They were the reason he was going through all this now.

            They were the reason he was willing to sit on this table and lie through his teeth before God and the world about his belief in Judy’s fascist whims. If he didn’t stand for them, small as he was, no one would, because the longer they all remained in their mother’s mind-warping web, the less of them would be left by the end of it, and it wasn’t just their physical height that Scott was concerned for.