Chapter 9:

(Posted: February 10)

“We need to get through one more world before we reach Spoke One-fifty-three,” Kat told Jessica as they walked through VERSA's side space. “Once we're in this world, it's going to be a long hike to the next door.”

“How long?” Jessica asked, trying to keep up with Kat. Even though Kat tried walking slow, practically shuffling her feet, Jessica, shin-sized and barefooted, had to hustle to keep up.

“Well, even at my size, it's going to be hours of hiking, maybe a whole day. We're probably going to have to find something to eat along the way too,” she realized. They'd left all their food behind in the bags at the diner. Rich's bag in her pocket may have contained food, but at her and Jessica's sizes it would be laughable trying to eat it. And plus, the boys might get hungry too.

Inside Kat's pocket, Harrison and Rich finally found separation and began awkwardly trying to find their footing and somewhere to sit. Because of the slope of Kat's breast and the narrowness of the pocket, it made more sense to lean against her body in a half-standing, half-sitting position. It was still problematic figuring how to brace themselves with their feet, as there was nothing but the unsupported pocket bottom to rest them on. Along with his bag, Rich tossed his useless guns to the bottom of the pocket.

Completely at the mercy of Kat's whims, the men had nothing to do but sit and wait for her to remove them. Rich turned to Harrison and said wryly, “How is it that we're always the ones turning small and getting carried around?” Harrison couldn't believe their luck either.

“Just think,” Harrison said out loud, “We'll probably be even smaller whenever we reach the next world. We'll be ants in there.”

Rich laughed. Harrison couldn't tell if he was genuinely amused by the situation or venting his frustration through humor. “Well then,” he replied, “I guess we'll just have to stay in here with this big ol' tit until Kat's ready to take us out.” He hit his fist on the side of the pocket like he was knocking on a large door. Kat probably couldn't feel a thing through the shirt fabric and whatever kind of bra she was wearing underneath. Harrison realized the only way they could even get her attention was aggressively kicking her like before.

Harrison copied Rich's light-hearted tone. “Well, I guess one of the upsides to all this is we get to hang around the largest boob in the history of mankind,” he commented. Rich looked at him in surprise and then approval.

“Jesus Christ, what I would give to go anywhere on her body right now,” said Rich dreamily. No matter what, men's brains will eventually wander to sex if given enough boredom and time. And Harrison knew they didn't have to worry about Kat overhearing their conversation; their meek voices wouldn't carry up to her giant ears.

“I wonder what it would even take to turn her on from in here,” Harrison mused aloud. “I wonder if we're even big enough.” He had finally decided to drop the sense of professionalism he'd been keen on keeping up during the trip. He didn't care anyone. If Kat was going to shove him into her pocket and forget about him, he was going to say anything he wanted to. He was stressed and frustrated. Plus, it wasn't like Rich, of all people, was going to judge him. Or care.

Rich thought about his question for a moment. “I bet if we kicked her nipple we could,” he finally answered, grinning. “But yeah, I think we're too high up for that.” He looked down to the bottom of the pocket. “Yeah it's down there somewhere.”

“Yeah she'd probably kill us too,” Harrison added, smiling. They were bored and stuck, and had nothing to do but jest and fantasize until their fate changed.

Rich remembered his bag at his feet. “You hungry?” he asked Harrison, crouching down and unzipping the bag. “I think I have some cookies in here...”

“Ok, here's the door,” Kat announced. Jessica was still walking down the hallway behind her, her short legs working frantically to keep pace. When she came alongside Kat she looked up at the words stenciled on the front of the door: “INFERNO-152.” Her eyes went big.

“We're going in a world called 'INFERNO'?” she asked Kat incredulously.

“It's not that bad,” Kat reassured her. She didn't have the patience to argue with someone shorter than her knee right now. “It's just a little... warm. And it's the last world we have to go through. Just trust me.”

Jessica wasn't really in a position to argue, but she was apprehensive as to what this next world might throw at them. “Ok, if you say so...” she reluctantly agreed.

Kat opened the door as Jessica, standing next to her leg, peered into the world. A large, poorly-lit chamber appeared and Kat walked through. Jessica hesitated, and Kat looked down at her. Finally succumbing to the larger woman's will, Jessica walked in and Kat closed the door behind her. With the click of the latch, Jessica surveyed the new world. It was not what she expected.

Kat remembered that INFERNO-152 started in an underground bunker, really a wine cellar of sorts. The large casks, stacked against both walls down a short and narrow hallway, were still in the same place as the last time she visited. At the end of the bunker she recognized the steps leading up the metal door she'd have to open to get out into the jungle. The lights overhead too, humming faintly and providing a pitiful amount of light, were the same lights she'd seen before.

“Fuck,” she finally said out loud.

“What?” Jessica asked her.

“We're not supposed to be this small,” Kat said, staring ahead and trying to think. “Me, at least, I was supposed to be normal sized in this world.”

“Wait what?” Jessica asked, more confused.

“This door,” Kat said, casually pointing behind her, “is supposed to be bigger. But it's not now, and now I'm half as big.”

It was difficult for Jessica to really see what Kat was talking about, being so small to begin with, but comparing the green door to the large casks around them, it came into perspective. If Kat was small for this world, how small did that make her? “Do we need to turn around?” Jessica asked Kat.

Kat shrugged her shoulders. “I don't know any other way to Spoke One-fifty-three.” She kept thinking. Finally, she concluded, “We'll need to find a change-key. If we can get one we'll stand a chance making it through here.”

“Um, where are we going to get one?” asked Jessica.

“There's a cabin nearby,” Kat remembered. “I'm pretty sure there's one in there.” She found her hair tie, which had somehow stayed on her wrist this whole time, and put her hair back up. It was cool in the wine cellar, but she knew the rest of the world wasn't so comfortable.

Kat looked down at Jessica. “You're small and you've got no shoes, so you need to stay here,” she informed her. Jessica had no way of knowing if it was a good idea or bad idea, so she went along with it. “I'll give you the guys too since they shouldn't come with me,” Kat added.

She began to reach for her pocket, but stopped. They were very small, she thought, and she didn't want to needlessly crush them as she rooted around in her pocket. Then she had an idea. “Jessica, you can fish them out of my pocket,” Kat told her, starting to unbutton her flannel shirt.

“What are you doing?” Jessica called up to Kat, somewhat shocked.

“It's hot outside, I was going to take it off anyways,” Kat explained causally. She undid the last button, then carefully slipped her arms out of the short sleeves of the shirt. Though she tried not to jostle or turn the front pocket too much, she figured Harrison and Rich were probably tumbling around in there anyways.

Now clad in just a black sports bra and her denim shorts, Kat lowered her shirt down next to Jessica. “See, now you can get them out,” she said smiling, depositing her huge garment on the floor next to Jessica. It dwarfed the small woman. “I might be gone a few hours,” Kat told her. “I'm going to leave the door closed behind me too, so nothing can get in.”

She studied Jessica's tiny body for a moment. Even if she left the door open, Jessica would still have a hard time getting up the steps and climbing out of the wine cellar. She didn't like the idea of trapping them in here, but she had no choice. Jessica would only slow her down out in the jungle.

Before Jessica could lodge a protest or even acknowledge Kat's plan, Kat began briskly walking down the cask-lined corridor to the hatch.

“Waaaiit!” Jessica called after her, “When are you coming back?”

“Hopefully not more than an hour or two!” Kat shouted back. Kat had a little difficulty getting up the steps due to her size, but when she finally reached the top step, she leveraged the corner of the door up with her back, creating an opening she could pull herself through. The door was heavy, but she braced herself against it and slipped through. With a loud thud the door fell back into place, and Kat was gone. Jessica was now trapped.

Jessica stood on the cool concrete floor, trying to process how carelessly Kat had just left her. She felt hurt. Although she didn't want to try walking outside in just her bare feet, she was shocked at how quickly Kat ditched her. Jessica thought they should at least have come up with a plan together. And now she was stuck; she couldn't get up the steps or lift the hatch, and the doorknob of green door they came through was well out of reach. Frustrated, tired, annoyed, and morose, Jessica decided she didn't like big Kat. Everything had been so much better when they were all the same size.

Out of the corner of her eye she saw something move on Kat's giant discarded shirt. It was the guys! She'd forgotten about them for a moment. Well, she thought, reconsidering, at least she wasn't truly alone.

Harrison crawled out of the pocket and finally got to see his surroundings. The room was giant, one of the biggest he'd ever seen! Standing nearby was Jessica, still about sixty feet tall to him, but laughably small next to the massive plaid expanse he stood on that was Kat's shirt.

Behind him, Rich crawled out of the pocket, lugging his guns and bag. “Holy shit!” he said, looking around. “We really are ant sized!”

In his head, Harrison did the math. He'd overheard everything Kat and Jessica had said, so if Jessica was roughly half-small in this world and she was about 300 feet to him, he guessed, that meant her normal height would have been 600 or so feet. If his real height was five feet eleven inches, round that to six feet, he was about one one-hundredth normal size or so. Six feet in inches was 72, so a hundredth of that was 0.72..... he realized he was less than an inch tall. He'd been right before about the ant thing.

“Shit I gotta take a leak,” Rich grumbled. Harrison watched in shock as Rich walked off the edge of Kat's shirt and onto the concrete floor and simply unzipped his fly and peed right on the ground. Looking back over his shoulder, Rich caught Harrison's gaze. “What?” he asked him indignantly.

Harrison had to admit that at their size, no one was really going to notice Rich's puddle of urine-- one of the few benefits of being so small. But Harrison didn't feel safe in this room. Even with Jessica so much bigger, she was still comparatively very small to everything else. He hoped there weren't any bugs or spiders lurking in the shadows.

As he thought about their situation, Jessica walked over to the nearby wall of the room and sat down on the floor, leaning her back against the towering concrete slab. She looked sad, Harrison thought. And tired, like him. Their surreptitious venture into the sim had already gone off the rails, and he imagined she had some regret about it too. It occurred to him that he could try comforting her. After all, he didn't feel too great either. It took him a while, but he eventually walked over to her.

She sat with her legs splayed out in front of her, and Harrison approached them first. Gray and brown dirt covered the soles of her bare feet as they rose above Harrison's head. He stopped nearby, unsure if he should come any closer. Jessica watched him with moderate interest, but her mind was truly elsewhere. Harrison wasn't the best a reading people's expressions, especially women, and he wasn't feeling lucky here either.

“Hey,” he said casually.

“What's up?” she asked him flatly.

Harrison wasn't sure if she was annoyed at him for bothering her or if she was just simply too zoned out to act engaged. So he changed tactics.

“I just wanted to say sorry,” he admitted sheepishly. “The last time we talked in that last world I got mad at you for not listening to me, and... well, I'm sorry I... touched you.” He wasn't sure he was actually sorry yet; he was still miffed at her, but it sounded good, so he continued. “So yeah, that was my bad. I swear I won't do anything like that again.” He remade eye-contact with Jessica. It certainly humbled him apologizing to this woman that stood over fifty feet taller than him.

Jessica looked at him sadly, but with her faint smile he knew she'd been ameliorated. “Harrison,” she replied, “you don't have to apologize, you didn't do anything wrong. If anything I should apologize for snapping at you. I'm sorry, I was just so stressed...” She sighed heavily.

That was his cue. Harrison walked around to the side of her left foot to get a little closer to her. He stood tall enough that he could see over her legs as they rested on the floor, but his vision remained focused on her face which looked longingly down at him. He rested his left hand on her leg near the cuff her jeans, right above her ankle. If she'd been his size, he would have put his hand on her shoulder and then given her a hug, but this would have to do instead. Although he could smell the odor of her feet, he didn't comment on it and pushed the smell out of his mind.

“No but really Jessica,” he started back up, trying to take the high road, “I realize now you didn't need me barking in your ear about what to do. I don't blame you for how you reacted.”

“Aw, thanks,” she replied, smiling again. Harrison blushed a little, partly because of his size, but partly because she had a very cute smile. Emboldened, he opened up to her.

“You know, when Rich and I first met you, we both figured you were some just-out-of-college sorority girl who's parents knew someone in the Senate and got her a job on a committee.” He paused. “But you're not that, you're really tough... and smart. You're doing better than me at handling all the crazy stuff that's happened to us in VERSA.”

Now it was Jessica's turn to blush, and she laughed a little and turned away. “Well,” she replied, “I actually was in a sorority in college and yeah, my dad is good friends with Senator Holmgren...”

“What?!” Harrison joked with her. He poked himself in the chest playfully. “I was right??”

“Yeah you were,” she giggled.

“Wow I'm good. But seriously, you've saved me multiple times already. I definitely would have died in this sim if it weren't for you,” he admitted. “I'm glad you're here with me,” he added. He gave her ankle a pat, looking at her understandingly.

It felt nice talking to her. At his size, he was hoping she'd think everything he said was cute and not creepy. He definitely didn't want it to come off like he was hitting on her; he didn't intend it that way, nor did he want to make it feel like he was taking advantage of the situation. Plus, he'd just met her, technically earlier today. Or was that yesterday now? Time didn't really mean anything anymore.

But maybe he'd said too much. This was, after all, a business trip. And he hardly knew her. They'd been through a lot in the last day, but he started feeling a little out-of-line. Jessica was looking at him but not saying anything.

Now doubting himself and his motives, he looked at Kat's shirt where he figured Rich still was, and said to Jessica, “Maybe I should go help Rich with whatever he's up to.”

Jessica looked perplexed. “No, it's ok,” she reassured him, reading through his act, “I don't mind if you want to stay with me.”

Her reaction surprised Harrison and it erased whatever doubt he harbored about himself. Conscious of the fact that he was a little older than her, he didn't want to be just another guy trying to get friendly with some attractive twenty-something girl. But Jessica didn't seem to care, or better yet, she was actually enjoying his company.

“Oh, ok...” he replied to her, trying to act cool. “Mind if I sit then?” he asked, about to get in a position to sit on the floor and lean against her leg.

“You can come closer,” Jessica said abruptly, leaning towards him and reaching out. Harrison was too surprised to move or protest as she grabbed him and lifted him up. He didn't like that she hadn't asked him permission before she grabbed him, but to complain now would have been lunacy. She was pretty and cute and wanted him to sit with her. He remained prudently silent.

Jessica deposited him in her lap. “You can sit here if you'd like, I don't mind,” she told him kindly. Harrison had not been prepared for this when he had walked over to her. His head was spinning. What was going on here? He found it amusing and shocking that she hadn't asked him what he was comfortable with before putting him right on top of her. It must have been her size, he speculated. She was starting to get used to doing what she wanted with him.

Harrison obediently sat on her left thigh and rested his back against her stomach, which rhythmically inflated and shrank with each of her breaths. Neither of them said anything, but Harrison couldn't, his mind completely conquered by a dazed silence. The professional part of him screamed that this was very inappropriate, but another part of him was loving every minute of the intimacy and attention.

“...This is nice,” his floundering brain finally sputtered out.

“Yeah, it is,” she replied dreamily. “Thanks for sitting with me. This day has sucked.”

Harrison tried looking up at her to see her face, but once again could only see her white shirt stretched out over the underside of her breasts. Under these circumstances, he was now finally able to admit to himself that they were a marvelous sight indeed.

Feeling him shift a bit, Jessica instinctually lifted her right hand and placed it over Harrison. Holding him secure against her stomach, Jessica decided she liked the feeling of his little body and left her hand in place. Harrison hadn't complained about anything yet, she thought, so until then she'd just keep doing what felt right. VERSA had left her exhausted and she wanted to sit and unwind with someone.

His head and shoulders remained uncovered, but Jessica's huge hand had trapped Harrison's arms and legs beneath it. But its covering presence warmed his small body. It felt pleasant. And for the first time since his trip out to California began he felt... relaxed.

Behind him, Jessica's stomach growled. The ominous rumbling sound snapped him out of his peaceful state. “Ugh,” he heard her complain.

“You hungry?” he asked up to her.

“Yeah,” she acknowledged, “but there's nothing to eat.”

“I'm sorry,” Harrison said. He didn't want to let her know that he sated his own appetite with Rich while they were in Kat's pocket. Rich, it turned out, had a decent about of snacks packed in with all his ammo.

“Maybe I'll just have to eat you,” said Jessica playfully. Harrison's eyes went big. He knew it was a joke, but still, it was a bizarre thing to say. But it made him wonder what that would be like. Was VERSA so advanced it could simulate something so truly strange?

It also made him wonder about dying in the sim. What would happen to him? Would he just de-sim and walk away unharmed like he was supposed to? Or would he stroke out in his waterchair like Kevin had? The uncertainty of death upon, well, death, had really changed the way he thought about this VR technology. It had gone from some cool techie adventure-project to a virtual prison of perpetual fear.

Harrison felt Jessica's body shift, and looking up he could see her bending forward to get a look at him, like she was sizing him up.

“Hmmm, I think you're a bit too big to swallow whole,” she concluded. “Guess I'll just starve then.”

Trying to be optimistic, Harrison said “Maybe when Kat comes back she'll bring you food?”

“She needs to bring shoes too,” Jessica added, looking out at her feet. She wiggled her toes for Harrison.

Just then from the far end of the room, a metal bang reverberated down towards them. Harrison and Jessica, snapping out of their conversation, looked to see what it was. A ray of light appeared where the metal doors were. One of them was being opened.

“Kat's back already?” Harrison exclaimed, confused. He felt like she'd just left.

Without alerting him, Jessica wrapped her hand around Harrison and got to her feet, just as a tall figure stepped into the cellar. The open cellar door backlit the person so they couldn't tell who it was.

“Harrison?” a feminine voice called out into their cellar. It was not Kat's voice.

“Shit run!” Harrison immediately shouted up to Jessica. And without even asking, Jessica bolted to the left toward the long line of casks against the wall. At her size she could still get their quick enough to hide before the figure got close.

Between the wall and the massive wooden rack supporting the casks was a space Jessica squeezed through, hiding behind the barrels. Once against the wall, she dropped down to the floor to watch the room from under the rack, depositing Harrison next to her. Jessica had to crawl under the rack to fit, but Harrison simply walked under it at his small size.

“Harrison, do you know who that is?” she whispered forcefully.

“Um yeah...” he slowly replied. He'd recognized the voice. “That's my ex-girlfriend Hailey.”

Jessica, with an expression of shock and dread on her face, stared at Harrison for a few seconds before she looked away. VERSA was fucking with them again. “You have an ex??” Jessica finally asked him, as if it was unbelievable.

“Hey, it's not like that!” Harrison defended himself. “We dated for like a year and broke up a while ago. I've bumped into her a few times since then and it's been fine, there's no hard feelings between us...” he trailed off, thinking about her.

“Harrison? Where are you?” his ex called out, taking her first few cautious steps into the room. She was full-sized. Which meant she was absolutely gigantic.

Each of her footfalls caused the concrete floor to shake under Harrison and Jessica. Her presence was massive; every sound she made seemed amplified. Harrison had thought Kat was big last time he saw her demolish that building. No. This girl was twice that height now. He couldn't see her full body from under the rack, but as she stepped closer towards them, he stared in dire awe of her feet.

Clad in sandals, each of her feet were probably longer than Jessica's standing height. Through the dim light of the room he could see purple nail polish on her toes, and just to confirm it was his ex, he spied the little dreamcatcher tattoo above her right ankle. It'd looked so small when they'd been together, but now the tattoo was larger than his entire body.

From nearby, her voice rang out loudly, “Harrison, I know you're in here.” Hailey's voice always had a pleasant singsongy quality to it. But now it was terrifying. She didn't sound angry or mad, but he got the feeling she was toying with them.

Jessica looked at Harrison and put her finger to her lips. Harrison felt slightly amused; he didn't think anything he said in his diminutive form could be heard by the giantess in the middle of the room.

“Oh, what's this?” his ex said, discovering Kat's shirt on the ground. From his hiding spot Harrison could see one of her enormous hands bend down and grab the shirt, which looked comically small in her hands.

“Is that a little man??” she exclaimed in her sweet voice. Oh no, Harrison thought. She must have found Rich. “Hey little man, are you Harrison?” she asked him, squatting down over the ground to get a better look. He voice sounded like an adult talking to a little child. She was playing with him. Rich was in big trouble.

When Hailey squatted, Harrison could see what looked like the bottom of a colorful knee-high sundress come into view. She put her hands on her knees and bent forward a little. He still couldn't see her face, but some of her long auburn hair fell down in his view.

“Awww, is the little man shooting at me?” Hailey teased.

“What the hell does he think he's doing?” Harrison blurted out in anger. Rich was insane to think any of his guns would leave a scratch on this woman. His gunshots were so tiny that Harrison couldn't even hear them from his hiding spot.

“Shhhhh!” Jessica silenced him.

“Little man, you're not my boyfriend,” Hailey said to him. “He'd never treat a lady like that.” Ok, now she was just being cruel, Harrison thought. Rich needed to start running. Although maybe he already was, Harrison couldn't see him from so far away.

In a fluid, graceful motion, Hailey once again stood back up, reclaiming her impossible height. Still speaking to Rich she said, “Now little man, I don't appreciate how rude you're being to me. Rude men get crushed. Ok?”

Shit, Harrison thought. He couldn't do anything to stop her. “Jessica, we have to save Rich!” he cried to her.

“How?!” Jessica angrily whispered back.

“Oh, you don't want to be smushed?” Hailey asked, cutely. “You want to be a nice little man now?” There was no way she could actually hear any begging or pleading coming from Rich. She must have just been making up her conversation with him. And Harrison doubted Rich was one to beg anyways.

“Well I'm still going to teach you a lesson,” Hailey giggled. “Unless.....” she let the word hang on for a moment. “...Harrison wants to come out and save you. Then I guess I could let you go.”

Without even a thought Harrison bolted out from under the rack, jumping up and down and screaming at the top of his lungs. Jessica tried to stop him but he quickly outran her reach before she could grab him.

Coming into the open, Harrison caught his first full glimpse of his ex-girlfriend. She'd been tall when he knew her back home but now he was looking at a woman who was living skyscraper. Her dress looked good on her, floral and bright, accentuating her hips and naturally slim figure. Up top he could see her two small breasts pressing against the fabric, her light-brown hair flowing freely down to her chest. Like usual, she wore large decorative earrings and a small headband. And her face was just as he remembered it, even down to her cute button nose.

Trying as hard as he could to get her attention and save Rich, he raved like a madman and he kept running towards her. At his tiny pace though, it would take him minutes to reach one of her feet. Watching her with rapt attention, Harrison saw her slowly lift up one of her dainty sandal-clad feet in preparation to smash Rich. She started humming absentmindedly, infuriating Harrison. Just as he furiously wondered how she could so callously and calmly do this, he remembered he was looking at an apparition, not his real ex. The real Hailey wasn't cruel like this, but this wasn't the real Hailey.

“Oh, what's this?” she said casually, looking over to her right. She'd spied Harrison. Hailey gently lowered her foot down away from her intended target. “I knew you'd come!” she gladly exclaimed. “Hey Harrison! Long time no see!”

Harrison skidded to a stop. He'd succeeded; she was focusing on him now. If Rich had half a brain in him, he'd be sprinting the hell away right about now. But now it was Harrison's turn to face the terrifying attention of this woman. Unsure how to react, he cautiously waved his arm at her, trying to act friendly. He wasn't sure how well she could see him.

Hailey only had to take a couple steps until she towered directly over him. Harrison craned his neck up to try seeing her face. The only thing he could equate it to was standing at the base of the Washington Monument and looking straight up. It made his head feel light.

Suddenly Hailey squatted over him, her body plunging down to his level. Within her shadow, her body blocked out most of the light in the room. Harrison quickly glanced at her right foot next to him. He was as tall as the sole of her sandal. He was a dust mite; she was a goddess.

He looked forward again, then started looking up. He spied her crotch, noting the baby blue underwear she wore under her dress. Farther up, her arms rested on her thighs, and then all the way up her gigantic, angelic face, framed in cascading rays of her straight light-brown hair. She smiled at him, but he didn't think she was his friend.

“I'm so glad I found you!” she told him. “I've been worried about you this whole time!” Her incredibly condescending tone felt out of place. In the year or so they dated, she never talked like this. If VERSA had pulled memories of her out of his mind to construct whatever was crouching over him, it had clearly assigned her some new personality. Harrison felt unsettled.

“Here, let me get you out of here, ok?” Hailey offered. But it wasn't an offer. She was taking him.

She stuck out her hand and rested it upon the cool concrete floor. It was big enough she could have held a bus in it. And Harrison realized he was too short to simply walk onto her palm.

“Just hop in!” she urged him. She smiled at him.

Harrison looked from her hand to her face, then back to her hand. He approached it and tried to mount the side of her finger.

Hailey waited patiently as Harrison struggled to get onto her hand. Her smooth skin, a little slippery with her natural oils and perspiration, made his already difficult task even more daunting. “Aww, having trouble there Harrison?” she finally said. Harrison felt embarrassed, frustrated, and completely emasculated. This new Hailey apparently loved to tease tiny men. “Here, lemme help,” she finally said.

Without warning, Haily's left hand came out of nowhere, her index finger sweeping under Harrison's legs, pressing him uncomfortably into the side of her right hand. Pushing him upward, she used her finger to propel him into the palm of her hand. “There we go,” she cooed. “Time to go!”

Before he could stand, Hailey stood, the acceleration of her rise pinning Harrison to her palm. After straightening up she began walking, and the gentle movement of her hand rocked Harrison so much that he couldn't find the balance to stand. Not that he had to worry about falling out of her hand at this size, it was as big as a tennis court.

His new reality settling in to him and Harrison realized he had not the slightest inkling where she intended to take him. He'd been kidnapped by some aberrant creation of VERSA and was now subjected to the whims of whatever code was running somewhere in a warehouse at the lab.

Hailey climbed up the stairs to the hatch and stepped out into the outside jungle. Harrison looked up over her fingers to catch a glimpse of this lush, sunny outside world. Standing in the clearing, still wearing the same sinister black dress, was the woman in black.

“Hello Harrison,” she said, smiling at him cruely. “I've been waiting to talk with you.”