“Ouch!”

“Sit still we’re almost done” Emma said, sticking a small device to the side of his head. “This little thing will allow us to see everything you see, it’s flat and skin colored so I doubt Jocelyn will notice it.”

“It’d be easier if all this surveillance equipment didn’t shock me every time you attached it.” He’d been having himself bugged for the last half-hour in a surveillance van parked outside Jocelyn’s house.

“They shock you because they communicate through your body rather then using wires.” She activated the computer console next to her; a video stream matching Jim’s vision began playing. “Neat huh?” She said excitedly.

“Neat.” He replied with much less enthusiasm. Jim hated that Emma was going through with this knowing he was being blackmailed; he figured she probably wouldn’t mind having him out of the way for a while.

After all the equipment was checked Emma handed him two pills, one blue, and one red. “We colored the GTS and the reversal tablet: Red - you shrink, Blue – you grow.”

“You watch the matrix too much” He said trying to ignore the bad feeling in his gut; Jim threw the red pill in his mouth and took a mouthful of water. Seconds later he blacked out…

-

“Rise and shine Jim” Emma’s voice boomed above him. He remembered instantly what had happened; but was taken aback at finding himself in Emma’s hand, already in Jocelyn’s apartment. He tried getting to his feet, but couldn’t keep himself steady. Trying not to look down he crawled to the edge of her palm to get a better look at the apartment.

It was dark; all the curtains had been drawn allowing only slivers of light to pass through. The place seemed a mess with clothes, magazines, and boxes, covering most surfaces. In the corner, Jim could see several cages lying empty on top of a cabinet. Emma seemed to pick up on what he was thinking and slowly made her way across the apartment, avoiding the junk that littered the floor.

When she opened the cabinet doors, hundreds of tiny screams greeted her. It was impossible to hear what they were all saying, but most seemed to either be crying for help, or mercy. They were all divided into plastic containers, doted all over with tiny air holes. Some were so over crowded with guys that they seemed to have no room to move, while some of the last containers were empty, or had two at the most.

Jim heart was beating hard in his chest. Emma was ignoring the cries of the little men and trying to decide the best place for Jim. She put him in one of the last containers on the bottom row; dropping him in unceremoniously before getting up and heading straight out the door, with not even a backwards glance.

After she left the commotion died down, but didn’t go away. He could hear people yelling down at him from the upper shelves asking him who he was. He couldn’t answer yet; if he told people he was a cop, there was a chance Jocelyn could find out. Jim also didn’t want any of the shrunken criminals undoubtedly mixed in with everyone else finding out he was a cop.

“Jim, are you reading me?” The words came in so clear it was as though someone had spoken them in his head.

“Emma? Yeah I can hear you fin-”

“She’s coming up to her apartment. Be ready, she’s with someone!” Jim’s heart which had just begun to calm down, was once again trying to beat its way out of his chest. “Got it.” He was sure his voice had gone up a few octaves.

The door to the apartment opened and the screams of the men above him intensified once more. He watched Jocelyn step inside, followed closely by a tall African-American woman. She was about 6’1, well toned and well dressed, wearing a black skirt and tank top. Jim thought she was almost too well dressed to be in an apartment like this.

“It’s alright Trish, I should still have one left” Jocelyn said over her shoulder to the other women while taking off her purse and coat.

“Ugh… You have got to clean this place up.” The woman tried to kick off a magazine that had clung to the heel of her black ankle-boots.

“I’m hardly ever here.” Jocelyn said approaching the cabinet. “Besides the cops are probably going to be watching this place now, I’ll have to move all my stock back to Kim’s

The two women were now standing in front of the cabinet; Trish sat down on a nearby recliner while Jim could hear Jocelyn rummaging through the containers of little men above him. His attention was focused strongly on this new woman. He watched as she casually unzipped her ankle boots; pulling them off revealed her long shapely bare feet, each covered in a thin layer of perspiration. Jim staggered back from the wall of the container as the strong odor reached all the way to his plastic prison.

“Here we go, found one.” Jocelyn walked over to Trish and dropped something into her hand. It took Jim a while to recognize the tiny figure as a little man who was no more than an inch tall. “He’s the last Inchy I got for now, hope you get to enjoy him for the whole night.”

Trish smiled, still looking down at the little man squirming in her palm. “Girl, I don’t think he’ll last an hour after I hit the dance floor tonight.” She raised her right foot and shoved the little man into her toe crevice then scrunched and unscrunched her toes until he was hardly visible.

Horrorstruck, Jim watched as the girl slipped on her airtight ankle boots and zipped them back up. ‘There’s no way he’ll get out’ve there alive.’ He thought to himself, imagining the terrible environment in the woman’s shoe.

Jim never understood why most women who bought captured little men, enjoyed having them imprisoned under their feet. Since he’d started investigating the GTS phenomenon, Jim had seen all manner of shoe designs made specifically for containing the men under the owner’s feet.

~-~

One case he’d worked, on involved an entire sorority being rounded up. Part of the initiation to become a member involved seducing a boy and bringing him back to the sorority house, there he’d be forced to ingest GTS and inserted into a special cavity made into the girl’s shoe.

While the girls were being interrogated, Jim oversaw the removal of the little men from their footwear. All the shoes had been placed on a large table and he and four other officers went through each pair, checking for compartments under the insole. The state of the little men had been disturbing to say the least; many were both physically and mentally scarred from the experience.

He remembered one man he’d found in a size 13 running shoe belonging to a member of the schools track team, most of his ribs had been crushed and he’d claimed to have been in there for at least two semesters worth of competitions. The girl turned out to be the star runner for the school, a 6’1 shapely blond with definite Swedish ancestry.

The shoes of the next girl were in sharp contrast to the running shoes, they were a pair of black leather knee-high boots with five inch black rubber platforms. The boots looked worn and menacing, they had a row of silver buckles running down the front with a tiny skull adorning each; he was relieved to see they were fake. The heat and smell from the boots was 10 times stronger then it’d been with the running shoes; it was still so warm he remembered feeling his hand sweat when he’d reached in and fumbled with the moist insole.

Underneath the insole he’d found 6 men in a compartment that’d been carved into the platform of the boot, they were all crowded together with hardly any space to move. Each of the men were delirious and emaciated, hardly aware of what was going on around them. They’re bodies were covered with signs of abuse, one man simply squirmed around the bottom of the compartment lacking both arms and legs, another two were tethered together oddly with short chains and piercings which undoubtedly served some sick purpose. All of their skin had been decorated with tattoos and welts, they hardly seemed human anymore.

~-~

The sight and stench of the little men had made him sick to his stomach, but it was nothing compared to how Jim’s stomach now felt lying in his plastic cell. He could easily be forced to endure what those men had gone through.

Jocelyn had been busy changing while Jim was reflecting. The other woman had left several minutes ago in a hurry, and the commotion in the containers had died down. As he watched Jocelyn crawl into bed and heard the cries of the other men go silent, he couldn’t help at worry about what would happen to his daughter if he were to die on assignment; but even these new fears died away as Jim dozed off after what felt like the most hectic day of his life.