The scene before her was a strange one. From afar she watched as a lone wagon rode across a sprawling countryside. Its driver, a man clad in the finery of a 19th century pauper, stared vacantly in the distance. Nothing but him, his wagon, and his destination countless days ahead. She began to hear a somber melody play, timed to the setting sun. Just as it fell from view, though...That was when the music changed to something more uplifting. Perplexed, the driver paused and looked to the horizon; where the darkness was shattered by a rising sun - And the music rising to a crescendo

“This used to be us.” A suspiciously friendly male voice said from seemingly nowhere. “Then we adapted.”

The image suddenly cut to a modern scene. Now she watched a contemporary home with a van at the front caught in a terrible rain storm. The same man as before, now dressed to better suit the times, was busy carrying boxes alongside his wife towards the moving van. He hurried past the rain and into the van to set a box down. He hunched over, gasping, drenched and tired, and looking on despondently to the dozens of boxes still awaiting transfer.

“This is us now. Don’t you think it’s time we adapted again?” The mysterious voice chimed in a second time.

Once again, the image she watched shifted. The couple, now smiling under the incandescence of a bright and shining sun, stared at their home. The man laughed at something his wife said and he lifted up what appeared to be a sleek white remote. With the push of a button a thin beam of energy shot from the item’s tip and struck the house. As it made contact, the house proceeded to dwindle away, soon little more than a tiny thing at the center of its own foundation. The man stepped forward, giant fingers grasping at his diminished home and effortlessly plucking it up. Off to his side, his wife had what resembled a jewelry box complete with a custom slot for their home. The man needed only to slot it inside and that was it. The task done, the woman shut the case and both began to walk, camera pulling away from them both. 

“It’s time to reduce the stress, by reducing the problem! Introducing the Reducer! With the push of a button watch and be amazed! No more annoying carry or travel costs!” The image showed the couple arriving a new, barren lot, and placing their shrunken home onto the foundation. What followed was a reversal of the prior scene, with the man pointing the device at the home and pressing a button to make it grow. As it swelled to its former scale, he turned to his wife with a broad grin and together they entered their new home without issue.

“Modern problems call for modern solutions!” The narrator said merrily as a familiar company logo faded onto the screen. “The Reducer! Only available at R.E.I.!” 

“Who the hell signed off on that?” Eva groaned, feeling the slightest relief that the television advert had finally ended and given way to something else.

Reclined across a luxurious velvet couch, the ebony-haired woman plucked a series of assorted nuts from a bowl at her lap and brought them to her awaiting lips. Her living room was as spacious and affluent as one of her station deserved; and save for the TV and the gentle whir of a vent overhead there wasn’t a sound to be heard. True peace and solitude as the woman relaxed in her natural habitat. 

“Dana probably.” She theorized with a sigh. Her flatscreen across the room had already moved onto some sort of promotion for cheap sub sandwiches that she keenly ignored. 

The prior ad certainly seemed to fit her blonde coworker. It had the sort of faux helpful optimism that could only ever exist in commercials; and even then it came across as a bit dated and vague. Eva certainly wouldn’t have ever greenlit it, but that was probably why she wasn’t involved in the alien world of advertising. How people could be so stupid as to fall for such blatant corporate dribble was beyond her. It worked though, so who was she to argue with results? Her reflections on the subject didn’t last another second before she shrugged it off and refocused on bringing another snack to her mouth.

In the end her personal beliefs hardly mattered anyway. So long as the sheep were coming to buy their product there was no reason to question the how and why, and sales were indeed on the rise. The Reducer was R.E.I’s latest marvel and had finally brought the wonders of shrinking technology to the affordability of a household appliance. Uses were still limited, granted, but it was new and always developing like any emergent invention. In time, and with enough work, perhaps every home would have some sort of R.E.I. device. 

That was the dream at least. Reaching appliance status would put the company at the forefront of the industry and could let them meet the future with open arms. A modest goal befitting Eva. She was nothing if not ambitious. 

The ads had ended and the news was back on before long, but Eva’s eyes only stared blankly at the screen without processing a thing. It was about some unimportant nonsense about an upcoming election anyway. Irrelevant. Because of that dreadful commercial her thoughts had already slipped back into a work mindset, the woman musing over the possibilities of R.E.I. technologies. 

Contrary to popular belief, the core science behind size manipulation was not terribly complicated. Even a laywoman like Eva or Dana could grasp and explain the fundamentals. All it took were the right minds to make that initial discovery and from there the rest was history. At its core, everything revolved around molecules - the building blocks of anything and everything. Although unseen, any living creature or object was made by an infinite interwoven network of particles. Their size, therefore, was determined by the number of those particles and the space between them. In theory all one needed to do to alter scale would be to introduce or remove particles; or adjust the room between them. The research and development of both such methods was the foundation of Reduction Enterprises. 

Eva could still remember the many times in her early days with the company. Where it felt like the R&D folks were explaining this every other day for this or that reason. It wasn’t that hard when you understood it was a science and not whatever garbage someone saw on TV. To shrink something, one had to remove and condense particles and to make something grow one had to do the opposite. While the latter had remained only theoretically possible, reducing objects had proven surprisingly simple when approached the right way. An object needed to only retain its form more or less, making adjusting it on a molecular level simpler than say a person; where in addition to the reduction one would have to account for all the myriad of functions a human body required. 

Eva herself had asked questions on that very subject early on in her time with the company. The answer came attached to a deluge of scientific vernacular and needlessly complicated terms, but it boiled down to the simple fact that an animal would die once shrunken. Their lungs would quite literally be too small to process oxygen and their stomachs too weak to digest most contemporary foods. A difficult puzzle to be sure, but one that the Research & Development team tackled every day. There had been progress, they had managed to shrink a plant recently, for example. However, a proper creature still eluded them. 

Whether or not such a thing was possible, Eva didn’t know. Just based on what she could understand, it seemed less like simply shrinking a person was the problem and more about how to adapt them to such a scale, but that was why they had an R&D team. Fantasies were left to the dreamers and science to the scientists. She dealt with reality. The technology that was real and what could best be done with it. 

Which brought her attention towards the table between her and her television. With another crunch of a nut between her teeth the woman spied her keyring there and, driven by whimsy, she reached for it. The bowl of her snacks was set down and she instead lifted the keyring, the TV’s noise droning on in the background.

At a glance it was wholly unremarkable. A few keys for her home, car, and the office. Intermingled with them were a few inane keychains; but, among them was a deceptively innocuous charm. What appeared at a glance to be a toy model of a red sports car was, in fact, far from a mere toy. A memento of an ex of hers who had the gall to think he could break up with Her. She didn’t fucking think so. 

Eva smiled, the memory as vivid as the day it happened years ago. The Reducer was new and being approved for market at the time, and that evening she’d admittedly had a few drinks. She couldn’t shrink the bastard, but that was when she remembered the car he always enthused over. It had proven almost frighteningly simple really. She had merely walked up and with the click of a button she had gained a new key chain. Nobody ever knew, and law enforcement would never piece together that it had been reduced and whisked away. The perfect crime as committed by the perfect woman. 

“Mmm…~” 

The woman hummed as her heart still skipped a beat even years later. It never failed to excite her. The man’s livelihood was basically between her fingers. All he could ever talk about and fawn over. Hers. She rolled it along the pad of her thumb and forefinger, her only regret being that the bastard wasn’t in there at her mercy too. An impossibility sadly, but it never hurt to indulge in a bit of fantasy. It was rather easy to imagine his diminutive cries; and her subsequent chuckles overwhelming them. Eva opened her lips and, perhaps a bit childishly of her, pressed the vehicle against her tongue. 

How much did it cost him? Fifty thousand? Eighty? A hundred? Now it was buried in the wet embrace of her mouth. It had long since lost its sheen after years in her purse, pockets, and wherever else she put it, but even now, she liked to imagine his little voice screaming about how her taste buds were scratching the paint. 

“You deserve it.” Eva whispered to the envisioned figure. It was enough for her to bring a probing finger downwards, ever so gently caressing between her legs as she indulged in the blissful moment. One boon of the technology R.E.I. used was the durability of objects once shrunken. Something about the compression of molecules or some such - She didn’t care. All it meant in the end was her little vindictive trophy was intact, and always would be. An eternal testament to why you do not fuck with Eva Rhodes. 

The moment passed and Eva pulled the vehicle away, letting it dangle from her key ring with a fresh spit shine as it were. She chuckled at that and observed it swinging to and fro for a time before finally setting it all back down. 

Reduction technology truly was a wonderful thing. Imperfect, perhaps, but time had made her a believer in it. She just needed to see to it others did as well. It was the world’s most irritating war against ignorant ideas and nonsensical fears about crushing or eating your belongings; but if Eva’s ex taught her anything it was the infinite possibilities available with size in the palm of your hand. 

She took a moment to gather her breath and cool down lest she get too hot and bothered. The woman went for her phone nearby and began to scan through her email with a collected look about her. All the musings over size technology and business dealings reminded her of a certain mousy brunette she still hadn’t heard from. 

Despite it being Thursday evening, Eva wasn’t particularly worried. Tomorrow Dan Broderick would be officially announcing his retirement to the company and, more important, the name of his successor to the Board. This was going to be cutting it close - Too close for her liking frankly. However, for all her harsh words Eva did in the end have faith in her assistant. Tina may have been a sheep in the herd, but she was good at what she did. A premium part of the flock if you will. It would get done, and then the Board would have no choice but to acknowledge Eva’s accomplishment. 

Sorting through her messages, a series of new emails greeted her. None from Tina though. Instead it was the usual assortment of trash that she sifted through in pursuit of that one name. There was plenty to look through, but nothing that held her interest. Meeting RSVPs, Budget Proposals, VP Meeting Notes, and some R&D Project Update that she didn’t care about. Unimportant minutiae, all of it. She must’ve stared at her email list without opening any for over five minutes, idly scrolling back and forth until it finally happened. 

DING-!

Her phone made a notification noise and she hurriedly scrolled to the top. There it was at long last. Tina Martin. Sent at 7:59 P.M. She actually hovered her thumb over the email hesitantly. This would either make or break her aspirations. Did she have the resolve to look?

Of course she did. She was Eva Rhodes. 

Eva all too eagerly opened the email after that initial moment. What greeted her was a short, efficient email typical of her assistant. She liked to keep it short and sweet like a good girl.

“It was tough, but the deal has gone through. I’ve already sent Mr. Broderick the formal notification and he should be aware of it first thing in the morning.

Attached is a copy of the signed agreement in case you wish to verify.

Sincerely,

Tina Martin - Assistant to the Vice President of Business”

Eva read it once, then again, before the realization finally began to weigh in. She didn’t need to check the attachment; if there was even a slight doubt Tina would’ve botched this she wouldn’t have entrusted it to her in the first place. Which meant…it was done. It was really, truly done. She’d just secured the best deal Reduction Enterprises Inc. had ever seen. Euphoria ran through Eva’s body as her phone fell to the couch beneath her. With this, no matter what Dan planned for the meeting, he would have no choice but to nominate her. She did it.

She won.