The attack came while Elevator Girl was out on patrol, wearing her leather uniform for non-quick-change situations.  It was in a familiar location: the harbor, in the same general area where she’d battled Mammoth.  It was hard for her to wrap her head around the fact that battle was about a month ago.  Now there was some sort of giant machine in the harbor using the water of the harbor itself to create (What else?) ice.  The machine was trapping ships and endangering people on shore.  When harbor police tried to reach it, they were attacked.  She heard the sirens, knew by the number of them that the run was a big one, and followed them to the scene.

Elevator Girl started wading out into the water and immediately realized the difference between early October and early November on the Great Lakes.  Even through her costume’s leather hip boots, thickened because of her 200-foot height, the water was icy cold.

And there was another problem.  Elevator Girl hadn’t had to go too far into the water in her battle with Mammoth.  The boots’ spiked heels didn’t handle her massive weight on the lake floor well.  She was having a difficult time just standing, let alone wading out to the machine.

As she approached it, Elevator Girl looked around the area.  Most menaces she’d faced lately had been ice-oriented, and Kellie was convinced it was because of some mysterious enemy, hiding in the background for some reason.  Even Mammoth’s name suggested an ice-age creature, and she was sure he’d been planted by the mystery adversary.  But the only one of those foes to use machinery against her was the Planner, and he was nowhere to be seen.  With his ego, he’d be around if this one was his doing.

When Elevator Girl got within 400 feet of the machine, it suddenly lifted a single arm, adjusting it into a gun-like shape.  The device fired a stream of icy water directly at the teen heroine.  Instinctively, she lifter her arms to block it -- and it immediately blasted directly on her size-changing bracelet.

Elevator Girl dove under the water.  Up to that moment she’d been trying to keep the bracelet’s electronics dry.  Now that was a lost cause, so she dove for the machine’s base.

She found that it was on four sturdy metal legs.  She reached her arms out and grabbed all four at once.  Getting her feet under her, she pulled the legs, and the machine, out of the water.

The moment the machine’s mechanisms were out of the water, small explosions began happening all over it.  Elevator Girl flipped it away from herself just before it blew up altogether.

Then she saw a small airship, shaped like a stealth plane, but made entirely of crystal, flying off from out on the harbor and into the city.  She spun as best she could in the water, and hit the bracelet’s growth button.  But all she got was a stinging electric shock.

“Blast it!” Elevator Girl said.  She realized the water was shorting out the bracelet’s controls.  But she was too far out into the water and losing too much time at this size.  In two seconds, the ship was out of sight.

The teen heroine realized the ship was probably monitoring her battle.  All the other locations had been in areas where cameras could be planted, but not this one.  Her mystery foe was still just trying to gather information on her.  But why?

Elevator Girl managed to get out of the water and back ashore.  By trying the bracelet, she found that the shrinking control still worked, but the growth control only gave her an electric shock.  She hoped letting the mechanism dry out would be enough to get it working again, but that would take at least overnight.  She headed for home.

Elevator Girl actually changed into Kellie Ross in the cave that had been her first headquarters, where she still kept one emergency outfit, sealed in a plastic bag.  From there she could walk home at normal size, without trying to use the malfunctioning growth control.

Kellie’s mom, Gemma, was surprised when her daughter came in through the back door instead of her usual entrance from the basement, and in different street clothes than she expected.  “Did patrol go well, honey?” she asked.

Gemma was shocked when Kellie took off the bracelet.  “The bracelet got wet stopping yet another ice attack,” the daughter said.  “It’s shorting out now.”

Gemma was looking at her daughter’s wrist and ran over to her.  “Oh, my God, Kellie, what have you done to yourself?”

Kellie tried unsuccessfully to tug her wrist free of her mother’s grasp.  “It’s a small electrical burn, Mom.  It’s nothing.”

Gemma looked horrified as she pointed to a darker area near the center of the burn.  “What’s this?” she asked.

“It’s just some kind of skin tag, Mom.  It’s nothing.”

“It wasn’t there before you started wearing that bracelet,” Gemma said, “and that color’s just not right.  We need to get you to a dermatologist right away.”

“MAH-ahm!” said Kellie.  “It’s no big deal.  It’s just a skin tag.”

“Kellie, there is a history of cancer in this family, and that ‘skin tag’ looks to me like it could be cancerous, and it came from a malfunctioning device to trigger rapid growth -- and cancer is out of control cell growth.  We just can’t take a chance on this.  I’m calling a specialist to get you in tomorrow morning, and that’s that.”

That night, Kellie reluctantly left the bracelet off.  It still needed time to dry, and her burn needed a chance to heal.  But she’d become so used to wearing the bracelet at virtually all times, including when she slept, that it just felt … wrong to not be wearing it.

Gemma managed to get an appointment with a dermatologist for that morning first thing, leaving Kellie free to return to school afterward.  Despite the awkward impact of doing so on her sleep schedule for work, Gemma took Kellie.  For one thing, Kellie might be a superheroine, but she wasn’t old enough to drive.  For another, Gemma wanted to know for herself that her daughter was safe.

Kellie mostly was confident that she was fine, but her mother’s words had struck a deeply buried fear within her.  Cancer was the bane of her life, taking her father and threatening the life of her boyfriend, Dakota Greene.

The trip to the doctor’s office mainly took place in tense silence, except for one moment when Kellie, thinking about cancer in her life, chuckled.

“What’s funny?” Gemma asked.

“I just realized why it’s so easy for me to fight giant monsters,” Kellie said, “aside from having super-powers, I mean.”

“Because you think so fast you don’t have time to be scared?” Gemma asked.

“Partly that,” Kellie acknowledged, “and it’s partly that those monsters aren’t even close to the scariest thing in my life.  Cancer’s the scariest thing.”

Gemma, keeping her eyes on the road, held the steering wheel with one hand while patting her daughter’s shoulder with the other.  “It’ll be all right, sweetie,” she said.  “You’ll see.”

Gemma’s assessment would prove correct when they showed Kellie’s skin tag and burn to the dermatologist, whose name was Dr. Christie Dekker.

“This doesn’t look too serious,” the doctor said.  “I’ll take it off, as a precaution, but I’m 99-percent sure it’s just a skin tag that got burned.  I am curious, though.  This burn on your wrist is in an odd place.  How did you get it?”

“My grandpa was an inventor,” Kellie said, trying to be as truthful as possible without revealing too much.  “He made this wrist game gadget me, and it shorted out yesterday.”

Getting items from a cupboard in the room, Dekker said, “Doesn’t sound like he was much of an inventor.  You might want to be careful with his inventions from now on.”

Gemma stared at Kellie, who was scowling at the disparaging remark made about her grandfather.  But Kellie knew that Dekker had no way of knowing her grandpa was Elevator Man, and also knew that arguing too much could create a risk to her secret identity if she let the truth about her grandpa slip, so she held her tongue.

The doctor turned around with what looked like a small fire extinguisher with a miniaturized nozzle.  “This is what we’re going to use to remove the the skin tag,” Dekker said.  “It’s a standard treatment for small skin problems like this.”

“What’s it do?” Gemma asked.

“It’s a super-cold chemical compound, like that in some fire extinguishers,” Dekker said.  “It’ll burn your skin tag off by freezing it.”

Kellie wanted to roll her eyes, but didn’t dare.  Great, more freezing stuff, she thought.

The shot to the burned skin tag took less than a second; then the tag was gone.  Dekker put a dressing over the tiny wound.  “You won’t be able to wear a bracelet or a wristwatch -- does anybody even wear a wristwatch anymore? Anyway, you can’t wear a bracelet for the rest of the day today, or a ‘wrist gizmo’ either.  It should be well enough tomorrow for you to wear whatever.”

“Thanks, doctor,” said Gemma.

As soon as they were in the car, Gemma, buckling her seat belt, said, “Well, it looks like Elevator Girl is out of commission for today.  That‘ll save us a trip home to get the bracelet.”

“Yeah,” said Kellie ruefully as she, too buckled up.  “Man, I wish I’d mastered the remote technique Grandpa described.”

“Explain that to me again,” Gemma said, backing out of the parking space.

“In theory, with use over time my mind should be able to link with the bracelet so I can access the powers remotely,” Kellie said.  “At that point I won’t even need to wear the bracelet to use the powers.  So long as it exists, I can change sizes.”

Gemma nodded.  “That would be good for a situation like today,” she said, pulling the car out onto the road.

“And it might save my life, or the lives of others,” Kellie said.  “One of the reasons the Planner was able to capture me, along with my concussion at the time, was that he had noticed how I used the bracelet and took it out of commission first.  It was only because you got Granite Man to the scene that I got the room I needed to survive that little encounter, and it’s a miracle more students weren’t hurt and that no one was killed.”

“Well, the world got along all right before Elevator Girl came along, and it’ll just have to do without her for today,” Gemma said.

“I guess,” Kellie said flatly.  “So, now what?”

“Now, I take you to school,” Gemma said.

“No, I meant, what are you going to do, Mom?”

“Well, I’m wide awake, and there’s not too much time before my shift starts, since I‘m covering for someone on half of a day shift this afternoon,” Gemma said.  “I think I’ll just swing by the park and sit with my favorite statue for awhile before I go home to change into my work clothes.”

Kellie couldn’t help but smile.  She knew her mother was going to sit with the statue that was secretly Granite Man, an ancient warrior under a spell that had left him a statue that could only live when someone needed rescuing.  It was Gemma who had revived Granite Man to rescue Kellie when the Planner attacked, and Kellie knew her mother had fallen in love with the stony superhero that day.  In his statue form, Granite Man was only dimly aware of what went on around him, but he knew Gemma was there at some level, and she was determined to let him know someone cared.  She went to sit with him every chance she could.

Kellie patted her Mom’s leg.  “He’ll appreciate that, Mom,” she said.

“Yeah, someday,” Gemma said, her voice slightly choked with emotion.  “C’mon, let’s get you to school.”

Gemma arrived back at the house early in relation to her time to leave for the nursing home where she worked.  She planned to use the time to get herself some lunch before going in.

But, once inside, curiosity overtook her.  Kellie had learned to use the Elevator Girl bracelet on her own, before Gemma knew about it, and the basic controls were pretty simple.  She knew it could become psychically linked with its wearer, but that obviously hadn’t happened yet, by Kellie’s own admission this morning.  She had to know.  What did it feel like to be able to change sizes?

Gemma went upstairs to Kellie’s room.  The bracelet was still sitting on her daughter’s nightstand.  Nervously, Gemma walked over and put the bracelet on.  She didn’t notice that there were still two drops of water on the nightstand that had just come out of the bracelet.

Gemma wasn’t short, but it might be fun to be a little bit taller for today, she thought, just to see if anyone noticed. It would also make the lifting tasks at work easier.

After changing her scrubs for work, Gemma tapped what she believed was the up button once.  Nothing happened.

At school, Kellie was sitting in her algebra class.  She found it boring, especially since the teacher, Mr. Sheely, spoke in a monotone.  Her seat was in the back of the class.

Suddenly Kellie felt a sensation she hadn’t expected to feel.  It felt as if she had just grown in the chair.  It wasn’t by much; it was as if she’d just tapped the bracelet control once, and lightly.  But it definitely felt as if she’d grown.

Kellie looked around.  By now she had a pretty precise feel for how things looked at different heights.  She swallowed hard.  There was no doubt about it.  She was 5-foot-7, inches taller than she should have been.

Gemma frowned.  She knew the growth control had shorted out before, but she hadn’t gotten a shock.  She pressed it again, harder.

Kellie sprouted another foot taller.  The school desk’s chair was becoming a snug fit, and her right knee hit the desk bottom.  She tried to stretch her legs out beneath the other desks, but had to do so carefully to keep from hitting other people’s feet.  At least her clothes and shoes were changing with her, as if she was wearing the bracelet.

This obviously had to do with the bracelet, but how?  Was the electrical short manifesting itself in a new way, or had someone gotten their hands on the bracelet and started pushing buttons?

“Sit down, Miss Ross,” Mr. Sheely said.

“I am, sir,” Kellie said, trying to keep her voice as quiet as possible to hide any changes in its sound.

Gemma’s brow furrowed.  Obviously, the growth function on the bracelet still wasn’t working.  But maybe she could shrink.

Gemma hit the down button.  Nothing happened to her.

“How can you be sitting, Miss Ross?” Mr. Sheely said.  “Your head is above everyone … oh.  Never mind.”

Kellie was relieved to realize she had shrunken.  She was back to within two inches of her normal height.  That was close enough that most people probably wouldn’t even notice the difference.

Gemma sighed.  The bracelet obviously wasn’t working.  She dropped it back on Kellie’s nightstand.  It wound up sitting at an odd angle, with the down button just barely depressed.

As the bell rang, Kellie stood up and realized she was shorter than she’d been when last she checked.  She was now barely 5 feet tall, and she was pretty sure she was still shrinking -- but shrinking way more slowly than she had ever shrunk before.

By the time she got out into the hallway, Kellie was no more than 4-foot-8, and her height was continuing to decrease.  She had to act, and fast.  But what to do?

Gemma had gone downstairs to get her lunch.  She made a quick cold-cut and lettuce sandwich and ate it quickly, but not hurriedly.

Kellie’s best idea was to try to call home, but school policy meant her cell phone was in her locker.  She had to get there and get in it, but how?  She was going to drop under 4 feet tall in the next few seconds, and people were bound to notice.  She hid behind an open classroom door.

Kellie was down to just over 3 feet tall when she saw Dakota.  Taking a chance on being seen, but thinking of no other alternative, she shouted, “Kota!”  He turned and looked around, but didn’t spot her.  “KOTA!” she shouted again.

This time Dakota spotted her and realized immediately that she was the size of a baby and shrinking.  He’d seen her shrink faster, but it surely seemed fast to him nevertheless.  He slipped over by the door.  “Kel, what’s going on?” he asked.

“I don’t know!” Kellie said.  “Can you get me to my locker?”

“Can’t you just use the -- where’s the bracelet?” Dakota asked.

“Long story, and no time to tell it,” Kellie said.  “I’ll explain later, if I can, but I need to get to my cell phone in my locker.”

Dakota picked up his now-fashion-doll-sized girlfriend, pulled up his shirt and slipped her underneath.  “Your chariot awaits,” he said and started walking toward Kellie’s locker.

Gemma finished her sandwich, got up and left to drive to work, locking the door behind her.

Dakota could feel Kellie shrinking against his skin.  She was down to between 6 and 8 inches tall, and he could tell she was still dwindling away.  Trying not to look panicky or upset, he picked up his pace on the way to Kellie’s locker.

Kellie was amazed.  She knew Dakota was thin because of the chemo, but she hadn’t realized his abs were so ripped.  Add to that observation the fact that, from her perspective, he was growing larger and more powerful, and she was finding herself feeling unbelievably passionate.  But this wasn’t the time or the place.

As was her practice, Gemma turned off her cell phone just before she started the car.  She didn’t want any phone distractions while she was on the road.

Dakota got to Kellie’s locker.  “What’s your combination?” he whispered.

“You won’t need it!” Kellie shouted, her voice so faint only Dakota could hear it.  “Just slip me through the one of the vent slots!”

“But the fall --”

“Won’t hurt me!” Kellie shouted.  “I don’t have enough mass any more to get hurt.  But if I don’t get in there quickly I won’t be able to use my phone!  Hurry, please!”

Dakota dropped her through the slot.  Unable to contain himself, and afraid this might be his last chance to say it, he whispered, “I love you!”

But Kellie was now so small that Dakota’s whisper sounded like a faraway wind to her, so she didn’t hear what he said.  She dropped down to the locker floor, where her backpack was.  Fortunately, there was a worn spot near the top big enough for the wasp-sized teen to crawl into.  She ran as fast as her still-diminishing legs could carry her to her phone, and was very glad at that moment that it wasn’t a flip phone.

Now the size of a large ant and still shrinking, Kellie knew she only had time to hit one button, and that with the full force of her body, before she would have to hit send or get too small to do anything.  She dived on the speed-dial setting for her mom’s cell and then on the send button.  Now gnat-sized, all she could do was wait.

But the call went into a system saying her mom was unavailable.  Kellie recognized it, even through the garble of sound that she could make out on this scale, as being the message she would hear if her mom had turned off the phone.

Kellie sat on top of the paint os the letter “S” in send, dangling her legs over the growing precipice.  She was undoubtedly microscopic, smaller than she’d ever been before, and still shrinking.

Kellie paced atop the “S.”  The paint line was now as wide as a football field was long to

her, and still expanding.

She was now too small to be seen or heard by anyone, and had no chance of getting help.  She was shrinking quickly enough that she was going to be in danger of becoming microbe food, or even becoming too small to breathe, in a matter of hours, perhaps minutes.

But whatever else was happening, there was only one possible explanation:  the bracelet was affecting her remotely.

Kellie remembered that this had happened to her grandpa once as Elevator Man.  His solution was to push something onto a stuck button on the belt he used in order to get it unstuck.  But that clearly wasn’t an option here.

But, if the bracelet was affecting her remotely, maybe that meant the link her grandpa told her about was in place after all.  She just had to figure out how to use it.

Kellie closed her eyes and concentrated.  She realized she could feel a slight tingling sensation on her right side -- the side in the direction of her house.  The tingling had to be from the bracelet … she hoped.

Kellie turned toward the tingling.  She could no longer see the edges of the paint for the letter “S,” and was becoming aware of how uneven that paint was on a microscopic level.  She focused on the tingling sensation.  If she could just find a way to reverse the process

…

Then Kellie realized she could feel the pulses of the waves themselves.  She had become so small the wavelengths were detectable to her in and of themselves.

With no other ideas, Kellie tried the obvious.  Her brain had its own impulses.  She thought of inverting the wavelength signal, sending it backward.

At home, the bracelet received an incoming signal and rolled slightly, removing the pressure on the down button.  At the same time, the up button depressed, seemingly on its own.

To her delight, Kellie started to grow almost immediately.  It was working.  She just had to think in terms of altering the wavelengths, picturing them in her mind, and the bracelet responded.

Even though she’d been too small to hear it, Kellie knew that, by now, the bell starting the new class period had rung.  The hallways should be empty at this time.

She grew big enough to grab the vent slot, then shrank small enough to fit through it.  Kellie smiled.  She couldn’t have done this before; if she needed both hands to hang on, she couldn’t have worked the bracelet controls.

Looking both ways to make sure the hallway was deserted, Kellie swung herself out the vent hole and grew in the hallway to her normal height.  She smiled and strode confidently down the hall.  She’d be late for class, but that was nothing; she’d nearly died, after all.

Still, she was going to have to have a talk with her mother to sort out exactly what had happened here.

When both of the Rosses were home that evening, Gemma, on learning of what her actions had done, couldn’t apologize to Kellie enough.

“Gawd, Kellie, I’m so sorry!” Gemma said after several minutes, sounding on the verge of tears.  “If I’d had any idea --”

“Mom, enough!” said Kellie.  She hugged her mother.  “What’s done is done,” the teen said.  “And it all worked out well in the end.  Just remember, from now on, never do anything to the bracelet.  What you do to the bracelet, you do to me.”

Gemma nodded, and hugged her daughter again.  “I’ll remember,”  she said.  “So, is the short fixed now?”

Kellie nodded.  “I double-checked it with Grandpa’s schematics,” she said.  “Elevator Girl is back in business.”

Kellie walked over to the fridge and got out a can of diet cola.  “But, the world can get along without her for one more night,” she said.  “I’m gonna relax at home.  After all, I’ve had a big day.”