My mom carried me straight to the section of the facility where her office and laboratory were located. I lay as still as I could, hoping no-one would notice me underneath all the layers of fabric. It was bizarre to think that I, a fully grown young man, could be smuggled around in a little basket such as this. Mom’s invention was definitely gonna change a lot of things, that much I was certain of. I listened to the rapping noise her high heels made on the floor and wished I could sneak a quick peek at my surroundings. But I waited until my basket had been set down and Mom removed the blankets on top of me. When I stood up and looked around, I saw we were in a small office filled with files, computers and some glass laboratory equipment. The door was closed, and Mom told me it was safe for me to get out of the basket. I did so and she immediately picked me up and carried me over to a desk in the corner of the office. She put me down on top of it and then took a seat behind a computer screen.

“So, are we gonna start with the tests now?” I asked, sitting down on the desk’s edge.

“In a moment,” Mom replied, already busy on her computer. “Just be patient, my little man! I need to finish some other work first, okay? I can put you down on the floor if you want to explore the office…”

“No thanks, I’m fine up here with you.”

I tried to read some of the papers on the desk, but the scientific terminology in them was way too complicated for me to understand. So, I just lay on my back and thought about stuff, occasionally asking Mom a question about what we’ll be doing today. Eventually she stood up, and I sat upright as well.

“Just stay put for now,” she ordered me. “I’m going to fetch two of my closest colleagues, the ones who helped me develop the shrinking serum. They know that you’re here and are eager to see the results of our work. I won’t be long. Just stay where you are and relax. I’ll lock the door to make sure no-one else can get in.”

“Okay, no problem.”

Mom was only gone for about fifteen minutes, before she returned with two other women accompanying her. Both women were about the same age as my mom and both wore similar-looking professional clothing. One woman, who was almost as tall as Mom was, was dressed all in red and had long red hair as well. The other woman had darker skin and hair and wore a headscarf as well, which made me guess that she was of Middle Eastern origin. The three ladies approached the desk I was on and came to a halt, looming large over me and making me feel very insecure. The two newcomers were both very attractive as well, especially to me at this size, which made me even more jittery. Mom stepped forward and clasped her hands around my waist, then lifted me up and held me in front of her colleagues.

“As you can see,” she said with a smile, “the first test of our miniaturization formula has been a great success. My son, Ben, has been reduced from a full six feet in height to just sixteen inches, without him being harmed or impaired in any way. Say hello to the nice ladies, Ben!”

I mumbled ‘hello’ and waved up at them awkwardly. The two giant women each laughed with delight when they saw me and heard me speak. They then introduced themselves, each offering me the tip of her finger to shake with my hand. The redhead was Dr Nicole Spencer, whom Mom had known since her college days, while dark-haired woman was Dr Zira Ajani, a biological research scientist from Pakistan whom Mom had met at a conference and had invited to participate in the project she was working on. The two giantesses were eager to hold me and interact with me, so I was handed over to them and they passed me around and examined me as if I were a rare and valuable object.

“He’s so incredibly light!” Dr Spencer exclaimed, holding me in one hand and lifting me up and down as though I were a dumbbell. “I can carry him around without any effort at all.”

“He must be so much more manageable now,” Dr Ajani added, as I was passed into her possession. “I’ve got a teenage son of my own – perhaps I should let him have some of the formula as well. That should keep him out of trouble!”

“Now you’re talking,” the redheaded giantess said. “As for me, I’ve got a husband who needs to be brought down to size every now and then. What do you say, Lauren?”

Mom was laughing along with the others. She took me back from her colleagues and sat me carefully on her right shoulder, holding my legs to keep me secure.

“Oh, I’m with you on that one, Nicole!” she said. “I think it would do the men in our lives good to spend some time as the weaker sex. They’d be much more attentive to our needs and desires after spending a month at our feet, believe me!”

The three women laughed again, as did I, albeit more nervously. I wondered if they were only joking or if they were seriously considering shrinking down all the men they knew. But I didn’t have time to dwell on such thoughts, since it was time for my examination to begin. Mom handed me over to Dr Ajani, who told me that I could call her Zira and who would be doing some strength tests with me. I asked my mom what these would be like.

“Oh, nothing at all complicated,” she assured me. “We simply want to measure how strong you are right now, dear. Whether your strength is still in the same relative proportion to your size as it was before I shrank you, I mean. Go with Dr Ajani, she’ll take care of everything. When you’re done, she’ll bring you straight back here.”

My new guardian held me close to her chest, letting me sit on her forearm. I looked up at her and saw her look down at me compassionately. I didn’t feel threatened by her, but I was rather nervous about being in the custody of a woman I didn’t know at all.

“How are you doing, little boy?” she asked as she began to walk, carrying me to her own office. “Oh, sorry – ‘little man’, I meant to say!”

“Uh…I’m fine, I guess,” I said. “I am still weirded out by this whole experience, even though my second day already.”

“Yes, I can imagine how strange this must feel to you. But do you like it so far, being this small?”

“Yeah, I guess so…as long as I’m with someone who can look after me, you know? I mean, it’s really embarrassing to admit it, but I am kinda helpless now, so…”

“Ah yes, it must feel quite mortifying, a young man of your age having to rely on his mother to look after him now. But, seeing as you volunteered for this, there must be some aspects of being miniaturized that you enjoy?”

“Yeah, of course! It is a strange and unfamiliar feeling, so there are lots of new things for me to experience like this. My mom’s really great to me too, so this isn’t actually that bad. Plus, I got to meet you, Dr Ajani…I mean, Zira.”

She giggled at my awkwardness. When we reached her own laboratory, she put me down on a large empty desk. I got to my feet, eager to get started, but Zira asked me to lie down on my back. She then handed me a small metallic rod, about two-thirds the length of my body and an inch thick from my perspective.

“Let’s begin with some simple bench press lifts,” she told me. “I assume you’re familiar with this exercise, am I right?”

“Of course, I am! I can…I mean, I used to be able to lift almost 200 pounds.”

“Really? That’s quite impressive, Ben. Let’s see how much of that strength you have left. Lie down on this cushion, please.”

By attaching small circular weights to the ends of the metallic rod, she was able to make me some miniature barbells, to which she could add more and more weight over time. I would then do a couple of reps each time the barbell got heavier, with short breaks after each round so that I could recover my strength. She kept on adding a little bit of weight until I could no longer lift it off my chest. The maximum weight I could lift turned out to be only two pounds and fourteen ounces. I was rather ashamed by my new lack of strength, but Zira quickly reassured me that I was actually stronger in proportion to my size now than I had been when I was full-sized. In fact, she seemed to be really impressed with my meagre feats of strength, coming as they did from a doll-sized man. Several more strength tests followed, with Zira carefully noting all the results, until I asked her for a break, since I was starting to feel exhausted. She gave me some water and let me rest for half an hour or so, before my next task awaited me.

My mom soon came to collect me again. Dr Spencer accompanied her, and the three women looked over and discussed the results of my strength trials while I rested on the desk next to them. Then Mom came over and told me it was time for the next test. I would be going with Dr Spencer (or Nicole, as she insisted that I call her), who would be measuring how fast I could run at my miniscule size. They had selected an empty corridor in a disused section of the facility. It was roughly twenty yards long – which made it about ninety yards in length to me. Nicole would take me there, but rather than conceal me inside a basket again, she had found a different way of carrying me around. She held up a baby’s car seat, small enough for her to carry, but easily big enough for me to lie in.

“This was my son Jack’s car seat, but he grew out of it a while back,” she explained. “I still kept it in the back of the car, always meaning to get rid of it at some point, but never actually getting around to it. Lucky for you, I guess. Come on, little guy, let’s get you strapped in.”

“Listen to her, Ben,” Mom said, as she saw me about to protest. “It’s a lot better for you than being trapped underneath all those heavy blankets. Now you can at least talk to us and look around while we carry you. Come on, I’ll wrap you up in one of the blankets I brought – just like I did when we went for a walk yesterday. You’ll look just like an innocent little baby boy to any passers-by.”

I had no chance of getting out of this arrangement. Mom simply took me in her hands and did as she said, wrapping me from head to toe in a soft blanket and leaving nothing but my face exposed. She then lay me down in the spacious baby seat, which could’ve easily held two of me at my current size, and buckled me in. I was trapped and unable to escape, and looked up at the three towering ladies who, judging from their laughter, no doubt found all of this incredibly amusing. But they were also professionals with a job to do, and Nicole wasted no time in picking up the seat and heading off to the next test.

The running tests were quite difficult for me. Not only because I was now less than a quarter of my former height, but because I was running on a hard, solid floor with bare feet. Nicole dropped me off at one end of the corridor and walked briskly to the other end, then gave me the signal to go. I ran as fast as I could, and a few seconds later sprinted underneath the arch formed by her long shapely legs, which she’d told me was my finishing line. I sat down and took a moment to catch my breath, before Nicole excitedly picked me up and sat me on her arm.

“How did I do?” I panted.

“Oh, quite well, I believe,” she said, smiling. “Just under twelve seconds – not bad at all, considering the relative distance involved. Of course, I’d like you to go several more times, but I’ll give you a moment to recover first.”

“Are you gonna keep on doing these tests once I’m even smaller than this?” I asked.

“I suppose so. You’ll have to ask your mom about that, little guy. This whole project is her brainchild…I’m just helping her with it, that’s all.”

Once all the tests were done it was time for lunch. Nicole strapped me back into the baby seat and covered me up nicely. I let her do it without protesting, since I had actually begun to like her. She was really friendly throughout the whole testing period and I had never felt threatened or uncomfortable in her care. She did tease me a little bit about how little I now was, but she was just joking around with me and trying to make me feel relaxed with her. I lay back in the oversized chair as my giant caretaker lifted it up and carried me off. Not long afterwards, I was back in my mom’s office. Nicole made sure I was still okay, then handed the seat, with me still in it, over to my mom. She put it down on her desk, then headed off with her colleague and shut the office door behind her.

“Well, this sucks!” I thought. I was now trapped in the seat and, try as I might, I couldn’t break free from my restraints. Nicole had strapped me in properly, just like she no doubt had done to her own infant son once. I was suddenly struck by just how much like an infant I was now treated by the women. I hope they still realized I was an eighteen-year-old man, practically an adult, and capable of looking after myself even when shrunk down like this. I was gonna have to talk to Mom about it. It had been fun for a while, but I can already see it becoming tiring. Luckily it wasn’t long before Mom came back for me. She strode into the office with two plates of food – one with a couple of sandwiches and some salad, and another with a tiny portion of a sandwich and a much smaller helping of salad.

“I almost thought you’d forgotten about me, Mom!” I said, relieved.

“Oh, don’t’ be silly! I just went to get some lunch, that’s all! So, how do you want to do this? I can undo your straps, but maybe it’d be better if you stayed put? Then I can feed you your food. What do you think?”

“Mom, no!” I exclaimed, while she laughed at how horrified I looked. “This isn’t funny anymore, okay? Get me out of this thing, please!”

“But I thought you liked being taken care of like this,” she said, still laughing. “Okay, okay, you don’t need to get all worked up like that! I’ll let you go, don’t worry! It’s just…well, it’s nice having you be my little baby boy again, you know? But I’ll stop it if it’s upsetting you.”

She took me out of the seat and unrolled me from my blanket, then put me down carefully on the desk. I sat down and she gave me my plate, as well as a little toothpick which she told me I could use as an eating utensil. It was definitely a lot less of a hassle for me to use than a regular-sized fork.

“So, how’s your day been so far?” she asked me as we ate our lunch. “Are you having fun doing these tests or do you find everything incredibly boring?”

“No, it’s fun, I suppose – just gets a little tiring after a while, you know? All that running and exercising. I don’t have to come here every day, do I?”

“Oh no, that won’t be necessary. Just one additional day this week should be enough, I think. In fact, we’re pretty much done with you for today, so you can relax and find something to do while I complete my other work here. Then we can go home.”

“Okay, sounds good. Are you…are you still gonna phone Kara today?”

“Yes, if you want me to. I was thinking of doing it once we’re back home, later this afternoon? Is that okay?”

I nodded. Even though I was nervous as hell about seeing her while I’m miniature-sized like this, I felt it was something that needed to be done. It could be a great way for me to learn how she really feels about me.

The rest of the afternoon was pretty quiet. I lay on a couch in Mom’s office and read some of the magazines she had, while she continued working at her desk. No-one else came for a visit except the two doctor ladies I’d already met, and I began to realize how big a secret this whole project really is. Mom took some more bodily measurements a bit later on to confirm that my size hadn’t changed since yesterday. Eventually it was time to go back home. I was rolled up in my little blanket and strapped in the baby carrying seat, which my mom then just tucked under her arm. Once again, her huge strength relative to my own was incredible for me to behold. I lay back comfortably in the seat and looked around at the enlarged world surrounding me.

“Damn, I love being tiny,” I thought to myself. “I wouldn’t mind staying like this…but, on the other hand, maybe being even smaller will be fun as well. I’ll have to wait and see…”