Chapter Eleven


The first thing I felt was wetness underneath my fingers, slippery wetness. I brushed my hands over it, feeling just what it was I was lying on top of. Grass. Grass wet with dew. So it must be dawn.

I didn't want to open my eyes yet. Had I just had some very, very strange dream, born of some bad synth-food? Maybe I had been stargazing, like I often do, and had fallen asleep outside.

I remembered all that had happened in the past two weeks. Was that all just some exceedingly odd fantasy? No matter what had happened in her world, I wished that it was real, that she was real.

My hearing was starting to come back to me now, it felt my like my ears were popping after descending from a high altitude. And I could hear a loud, thunderous sound that had grown familiar to me over time. Sarah's heartbeat was very near to me.

I sat up, grimacing at the pain moving my bruised body exposed me to, opened my eyes and saw a few stars sprinkling a sky that was slowly brightening to dawn. I looked around, moving my head slowly in a circle. Grass below me and stretching out for miles, turning into hills. To my left, a fairly large forest, the trees just beginning to bud as spring began. To my right, a small, plain off-white house, rather shabby-looking. My home.

To my left was a gigantic bare leg, the skin soft and smooth, I knew from experience. It stretched quite a long distance downwards to land in a beautiful, if huge bare foot, and upwards it was covered by a conservative skirt. Beyond that was a simple white blouse, then the lovely face of my girlfriend, barely visible in the dawn.

I got into position to whip out my hoverboard, but suddenly remembered; it wouldn't work on my world. I'd have to wake Sarah up the hard way. So I broke into a sprint, running along, admiring the scenery, particularly the views on the left hand side. Lovely morning for a jog, I thought to myself, and almost laughed aloud.

By the time I had made it to her shoulder I was panting a little. I focused instead on the graceful swanlike curves of her neck and shoulders. Soon enough I was at her cheek, which I lightly tapped with my hand. No response. I pressed harder on her. Still nothing. I was practically slapping her by the time I realized that considering her skin was more than likely inches thick, there wasn't much hope of waking her up this way.

Instead, I toggled my mic, and said in a voice just loud enough to wake her, "Come on, sleepyhead, get up."

Sarah groaned and began to roll over. This alarmed me, which is reasonable considering it was similar to watching a sixty-story office building rolling towards you. "Sarah!" I yelled. I was suddenly very, very glad the mics still worked in my world.

"Huh?" Sarah's eyes opened a crack, then when she spotted me quickly opened all the way. She quickly sat up, a large sudden movement that caused me to involuntarily take a step back. "Oh, Eric, did we make it?"

I made a sweeping gesture with my arm. "See for yourself."

Sarah slowly craned her head around. "Wow. You know, from this far away, I'll bet those hills look about the same size to both of us."

I smiled. "Yeah. As well as being secluded, and good for my purposes, this part of the country is fairly beautiful."

She sighed. "Kinda romantic. Anyway, where's your place?"

"Ummm," I replied, "You're standing right in front of it."

"Oh," said Sarah shortly, visibly taken aback. "It's so small..."

"Rather, you're so big."

"Hmph." Sarah looked pensive. "You're right. Now I'm the one who's different, you're the one that's normal."

"Well, normality is a majority concept. It's defined by whichever group is the largest. So when we're in your world, you're normal and I'm not, when in mine, vice versa."

"That's pretty good, did you come up with that?"

"Nope," I grinned. "I'm paraphrasing one of my favorite authors, Richard Matheson. You should read some of his stuff some time."

"Hey, only if you can blow up the font really big." Sarah giggled.

"Well, let me show you around," I said, stepping towards the house.

"Yeah, about that..." Sarah said, sounding ill at ease. "How exactly am I going to fit?"

"Trust me, you've got nothing to worry about." I replied, stepping swiftly up to my doorstep and pressing the doorbell three times in quick succession.

A massive chasm opened in the earth next to the house, leading down into a mile-long shaft in the middle of the plains. The shaft was about a thousand feet in diameter. I was rather proud of it. "You think you can fit?" I teased.

Sarah shoved me with one large, pretty finger. "Get moving, shorty."

We both stepped onto the large platform and began our descent to my lab, the platform moving slowly but surely downwards.

"What exactly do you use this for, anyway?" Sarah asked. "Seems a little much for just one person of your size."

"Occasionally I order shipments of food or supplies, sometimes raw materials. I give them explicit instructions to place their shipments onto this lift, and then I'm able to easily transport large amounts of things."

The lift came to a stop. "That was fast," Sarah remarked.

"It's quicker than it looks," I replied.

We disembarked and I gave her the quick tour of the lab, at least the parts she could fit into. Most of the ceilings in my lab are as high as those of aircraft hangers, but Sarah still had to crouch in order to move around. It was almost ludicrous, seeing just how large she was in comparison to my home.

After about ten minutes of showing her around, Sarah groaned softly. "Um, this is really interesting," she said. "But do you think we can find a place I can sit down? All this crouching is giving me a crick in my neck."

"Sure, no problem. I think the highest ceilings in the lab are in the aviation test center. There's padded walls there too, so it should be fairly comfortable."

After a little more careful maneuvering by Sarah, which I assisted by giving hand signals in the manner of an air-traffic controller, we made it into the aviation area, full of prototypes for fighter planes I had designed. I imagined that for Sarah they'd look like highly detailed models.

Sarah carefully settled herself in one corner of the room. I couldn't keep my eyes off her. Somehow, even the way she sat down, long legs stretching and bending, was seductive. She gazed around the room, entranced by what she saw.

"God, it's all so tiny..." she said in awe. "It looks so complex, and yet so fragile. It feels like if I were to make the slightest movement all of this would come crashing down." She made a small sweeping gesture with her hand, smashing a large lighting fixture in the process. With a muttered "Ouch" she clutched at her hand, then blushed a little.

"Point taken," I said lightly. Sarah chuckled nervously. "So, to the business at hand."

"Business?" Sarah cocked an eyebrow. "Didn't we just get here?"

"Yeah, but Sarah..."

"I can't talk business right now," she said. "My head's still scattered from all the crazy stuff we just did. I mean, right now I'm in a whole different dimension..."

"I guess I understand," I said. "A lot's happened in very little time."

She smiled down on me. "Thanks, sweetie." She slowly leaned over and gave me what would be called a peck. As it was, she really just pushed me with her lips. It felt quite nice just the same.

"You know, so much happened that I'm actually feeling kind of exhausted." I admitted. Between the dull, aching pain in my ribs and the general soreness, I really just needed a chance to lie down.

"Agreed."

I suddenly remembered a major concern. "We're going to have to find somewhere you can sleep."

Sarah nodded, biting her lip. "I was kind of worried about that. You're a lot easier to take care of than I am."

"Well, I'm sure I can think of something..."


An hour of quick thinking and hasty construction later, I had rigged up what was a cross between a spring mattress and a hammock, at Sarah's scale. "Ten tons of super-tensile steel. It could hold something five times your size."

"I'm impressed," Sarah said, sounding like she meant it.

"Wait until you get in, first," I said. "If it doesn't fall in, you can be impressed."

Sarah bit her lip and nodded, then carefully positioned herself above the hammock and laid down. "I'm not falling yet!" she joked.

"Great. How's it feel?"

"Surprisingly comfortable," Sarah replied. "There's so many of these metal strings, and they're so small, that they just kind of conform to my body shape."

"Awesome. I figured it would work."

"My little genius," Sarah said, beaming down at me.

"You're only being part facetious, right?"

She grinned, then leaned her head back and closed her eyes. "God, I am so tired," she yawned, stretching. One of her feet skidded up the side of a wall, leaving a huge scuff mark. I doubted that she even noticed. "I've got to crash out."

"No problem," I said. "I'll do the same. Good night."

"See you in the morning," Sarah mumbled sleepily.

I blew a kiss to her, more for my own amusement than any real purpose, then shuffled off to my own quarters. It felt like so long since I had been in my lab. It was practically unfamiliar to me. But once I was nestled in my bed, the lights out, it felt like home again. Was it the same for Sarah? Or did she feel as isolated as I did that first night in her world? I wanted to comfort her, but worried that my efforts would be even more inadequate than hers.

She was a stranger in a strange world, just as I had been in hers. She would have to adjust, there was nothing I could do for her about that. I did think it would be quite a lot easier for her, however, considering that she had no immediate dangers facing her at her size. All I had to worry about was providing for her, which would be difficult but not impossible. If anyone could do it, it would be me.

Somewhere my thoughts drifted off, my bed felt like it began to spin, and I was asleep.


I woke up in the darkness. I'm a very light sleeper, so the smallest sound can screw up my sleep. But this sound hadn't been small.

There it was again. A muted thump in the night. I slowly got out of bed, and quietly crept out into the corridor in time to see the lift coming back to its resting place at the bottom of the shaft. I got in and pressed the button.

I stepped off at the top to see Sarah in the moonlight, her back against the side of my house. It may have looked like a small house to Sarah, but it was almost a mansion, and it was utterly dwarfed by her enormous backside. I figured I was probably the only person in the world who would find that incredibly sexy.

I walked over to her, and toggled my mic. "What are you doing up so early?" She jolted up a little, then looked around for me. "Down here, by your hand."

"Oh," she smiled, looking down at me. "Well, I kind of couldn't sleep. First night in a strange place, you know the drill."

"Hey, at least you don't have to worry about any giant insects coming to kill you." That brought a laugh. "Seriously though, we should get back inside."

"Nah, I kind of like it out here. Crisp night air. Stars in the sky. All this open space."

"How lyrical you are," I joked with only a little sarcasm. "That said, we really have to go back in."

"Why?" Sarah looked down at me pointedly.

"Well, it's a little dangerous out here," I replied, aware that my nerves were showing in my voice. "You're kind of obvious out here in the open like this. If the government were watching -"

"You're such a worrier!" Sarah broke in playfully. "Always so paranoid, never enjoying anything. Come on, sit and watch the stars with me." I brushed at the grass beneath me and began to sit down Indian-style. "No, not down there. Up here." Sarah patted the top of her chest.

She put a hand on the ground, offering me to step on. "I'm not sure about this..." I muttered.

"Come on, the view's great." How could I say no to this? Below, I was already saying a very stiff "yes". I activated Sess just in case, then I climbed onto her palm, and held on as she slowly lifted me up to her level, stopping right at her breast. I stepped out and slipped a little, a foot accidentally brushing her nipple, eliciting a small moan from her.

"Sorry."

"Don't be," she said, her voice sounding aroused. I clambered up and lay back on the smooth slope of her bust, hearing her heartbeat beneath me, the light smell of perfume surrounding me. I looked up at a sky thoroughly dusted with glimmering beads of light, the dying frequencies of far away suns shining out into the night. There was something so right about this moment.

It was shattered by the shot that rang out into the night.

This was what Sess was built for. My reflexes quickened to the point where everything appeared to be in slow motion. I saw very clearly the sniper hiding in the brush to the left of the house, as well as the two others spread around the yard in camo. Finally, I noticed the three other commandos hiding behind the house. And I saw the sniper bullet moving slowly but powerfully towards me, the wind lancing off it as the air resistance pushed it aside. I prepared to dodge the bullet, then remembered what was behind me. Would it kill Sarah? The chances were slim. Would it kill me with Sess? The chances were slimmer.

I placed my head directly in the path of the bullet, and shut my eyes tight.

I was struck backwards with a concussive blow. My hands gripped the fabric beneath me, Sess lodging in every pore of the material. "Go!" I shouted over the mic.

I did my best to hold on as Sarah lunged upwards, coming to a standing position, then leaned into motion, running away. She was an easy target, but her sheer size made her movement fast, and thus she was difficult to hit. I heard the cracks of rifle shot behind me, a burst of machine gun fire.

Sarah was moving into the forest, probably without thinking. She was running on instinct now, which was the best possible way she could. Behind us, the sounds of the shots became smaller.

Then there was a thunderous sound behind us, and Sarah stumbled, the sounds of machine gun fire very loud and near again. She kept running, but her breathing was quickly turning ragged.

I then began to notice the pain in my head. It was small at first, just a twinge in my temple, but it began to spread like wildfire, consuming my skull, tracing fiery lines across my brain. I struggled to maintain consciousness. What was happening? I tried to find my way to the source of the pain. It seemed like my left temple was where it was all coming from. But Sess had blocked the bullet, had it not?

Then, even through the blinding agony it was obvious to me. Fragmentary sniper shot, one of my first inventions for the military. The only thing that had a remote chance of piercing Sess. Slowly, I felt the silvery polycarbon withdrawing from the material of Sarah's blouse. The world seemed to be shrouded in black mist. I felt myself slipping, but was paralyzed, powerless to help myself.

As I fell, everything faded into black.