Feb 12 2001 - NEAR Shoemaker lands on Eros.
Feb 13 - Radio signal contact lost suddenly unexpectedly.
Feb 16 - Eros appears suddenly in Earth's orbit, apparently via wormhole. It disintigrates oddly in Earth's atmosphere causing meteor showers worldwide.
Feb 17 - The Reducening begins. 99% of men and 50% of women shrink. Global chaos.
Frb 19 - Almost all global leaders are newly sworn-in women.
Feb 21 - Athena Corp springs into action. An upcoming robotics company, it begins distributing robots, blueprints, and AI chips across the world to aid in emergency services: food/water production, distribution, energy, waste removal, etc. for free.
July 2001 - Worldwide state of emergency is lowered for the first time since the Reducening. AthenaCorp lauded for saving the planet.
2002 - The Year of Rebuilding. Earth focuses not on surviving and adapting anymore, but evolving and looking forward. AthenaCorp leads the zeitgeist, aquiring thousands of companies. It also forms a science branch, funding research into cloning and reproduction, and microtechnology. Lastly it begins producing luxury lifestyle homes and products for the size-afflicted population. AthenaCorp skyrockets in value.
1
Audio Recording File 001, ‘Project Cockroach’.
“... Ok, let’s do this. Athena, is this recording? …Good. I am Dr. McKeyla, I’m a research and development scientist at the NeoVancouver Size Institute. I’m also a geneticist, biochemist, ecologist, pharmacologist, and programmer. People tell me I’m a genius, so there’s that I guess.
It’s November 9th, 2008, 1:38am. It’s raining. I’m in my office at The Institute. I suppose if you’re a ‘genius’, you get your own little lab at the top science facility on the continent, with your own little window office on the 59th floor of Parthenon Tower, and your own little Sago palm which keeps trying to die. I have 6 degrees, 9 awards, I’m 33 years old and I can’t keep a houseplant alive.
Oh well. That’s what I have an intern for. And her coffee is not bad.
Anyways. I’m recording for a reason:
I have been assigned a project.
I don’t usually get assigned to things. Usually, I do my own thing and they leave me be. But the higher-ups at AthenaCorp really want me to do this thing. So here I am, doing it.
Also, they’re going to pay me millions of dollars. Which is nice, of course. But I already have money.
Honestly? …I’ve just been bored lately.
Okay, where to start? That’s always the hardest part.
I’m just going to keep talking because I don’t know where to start, and nobody is going to listen to this anyway, and I’m having a glass of wine. How did this project come into being… I think it was over a few beers at the bar here one night after a big conference. I met Dr. Hayley, whom I had heard of but never met before. She’s our head of Nanotech (and Super-nanotechnology - which we both agree is a dumb word). She is so fucking smart. A real genius, I would say. Extremely talented in all regards. Especially that thing she did with her tongue after we -REDACTED-
Athena, edit that last part out. Anyway, we got talking, and I can’t remember exactly all that was said (I was writing it down on a napkin, however in the morning I found it unreadable) but she’s the one who developed the nanite solution for ‘de-aging’ which is all the rage right now. Won a fucking Nobel. The nanites help the body repair it’s cells, rejuvenating and extending life. Fascinating.
I asked about her research and trials, and she mentioned testing on tinies (Yes, I’m going to use the non-scientific term for “size-afflicted people”. Get used to it). Officially, nobody is supposed to use tinies for tests, but everyone does it here. Permission is not hard to get - it just comes with a Non-Disclosure Act, and a wink. Athena, delete that last part.
-REDACTION ERROR-
Anyways, she said those trials had some very unfortunate results, and I said I can imagine. I asked if it worked on the tinies, and she said yes - kinda, sorta. I said what do you mean, and she said well, all kinds of stuff happened in testing, some of their bodies turned rock-solid, others turned to goo before they started to get it right. Some turned all rubbery. Most of them died pretty soon after. I said well if they were like that, at least they wouldn’t get squished, and I laughed and ordered another beer. Then I said, joking, we could market it, ‘The Wonder-Cure for Crushing: What The Tiny Population Needs’, and she laughed and said yeah.
Then we went back to my office and -REDACTED-
A few days later, Head Office pulled me into a meeting. It was an unusual assortment of people.
Angella of course, my Department Head. She’s not a scientist, at all, she’s just a good manager. That’s okay, because she actually listens and takes care of us nerdy types, not like past managers. That reminds me, Athena, make a separate note:
-NOTE ADDED-
Anyway. Tanya was also there so I knew it had to be important. Tanya manages the whole Tower, top to bottom. She has a penthouse suite, second only to the Athena Suite, but usually she’s off somewhere on vacation (and she was sporting quite the tan that day). She’s snooty, but at least she pretends to care.
There were a few AthenaCorp reps, or analysts or some kind of background job who I had seen around here before.
But there was a group of women I didn’t recognize. This wasn’t too unusual for me, I never have to connect with administration (plus I don’t get out much), but if I had to guess, by their suits I would say most likely government, possibly even military.
Then they started talking about our silly little idea from the bar about making a cure-for-crushing. Angella asked me if it could be done, I said probably yeah, and they assigned me this project with indefinite funding and resources. I was caught by surprise, but apparently they’ve been prepared to start this project for some time and were just waiting for the right moment. Which is now, apparently. After the meeting, I texted Hayley asking if she had anything to do with this, and she just sent me a winky emoji.
So that’s the big project. Make tinies un-squishable.
On the surface, It’s a surprise we hadn’t started on this goal earlier. After all, billions of tinies have been at risk for the last 7 years. But I suppose there were other things to worry about, like stabilizing the rest of humanity and the world after half the population suddenly shrank. Perhaps they were still holding out hope for a real cure, to return the men back to full size.
Honestly, I hadn’t really thought about it before.
So anyway. The project.
They gave me some rules. I don’t like rules, or working for people. But to be fair, there aren’t that many restrictions.
And did I mention they are paying me millions of dollars?
The end result should be a product that temporarily protects (tinies) from harm
Sign an NDA
How very AthenaCorp. Anyways, here I am. I have a bunch of Hayley’s notes from her project. She’s working on a different project at the moment, cloning technology I think. I’ve spent months studying her notes and ordering supplies, and writing thesises and running the math, so here’s the plan:
Combine nanites and dna-mutation to hold body cells together. Make it into a pill.
It occurs to me that if I’m successful, this will change the world. If tinies were impervious to harm, they probably wouldn’t want to live in the Domes anymore. And there are billions of them.
But, thinking about it realistically, I think I know what will really happen - HeraCorp will sell the product at a controlled rate, keeping the status-quo while making billions of dollars. Nothing will change except the company’s bank account, and the tinies may feel a little better about their little lives.
And I’ll probably get some kind of big, huge award, and see a piece of that money. A big piece. Works for me, honestly.
Athena, delete all that.
-DELETION ERROR-