“It may seem like I’m purely disappointed in you, Ms. Arton, but that would be untrue,” Claire Brookes commented sweetly as she grasped Carly into the center of her gloved palm for yet another bruising clench, contorting her fingers tighter and tighter on each repetition.  The entrapped girl groaned, taking her lashing without any complaint, having already guessed such a thing was coming the moment she kicked Michelle’s samples off the table.  It didn’t bother her, even if Claire was squeezing tighter than that overly tanned she-hulk of a security guard ever had.

            The redheaded tormentor continued in a drawl: “Don’t misunderstand.  I am still… unhappy with you after those antics.  But in a way, I’m glad we had this opportunity to be clearer with one another.  Some of the previous subjects just took my words at face value and, I think, never developed a proper respect for what I can do to you if I want.  Which really can be hurtful to a good working relationship.  Don’t you agree?”

            Wheezing as Claire’s leather-bound fingers wound their way back over her legs again, Carly nodded rapidly, feeling her bones creaking inside the vice of crushing digits.  She gasped, feeling a small puff of air refilling her lungs and surprising her as Claire’s fingers loosened again in preparation for the next round.  Her cheeks were flushed and her hair was matted by now with sweat after nearly half an hour of being entombed in the woman’s unforgiving hand, but Carly still held no regret for her actions.

            “Good.  So I guess there’s something we can agree on, at least,” Claire said with a self-assured smile, her thin lips tipping upward for the first time during this meeting.  Her fist pumped Carly again in six rapid motions like a stress ball, causing a few tiny flecks of weary perspiration to drip from the miniature girl’s neck and into the overheating crags of the glove.  “And let me be honest for a second, now that we’ve decided not to hold anything back.  I admire you.  I really do.  You’re not much like most of the other little friends I’ve made in here.  Though I’m sure you already knew that.”

            Grunting through the pain, Carly’s head cleared just enough to consider this.  Claire’s question didn’t really even warrant an answer.  The truth was pretty self-evident in this case.  Who else out there could possibly ever even touch the legacy Carly had created just by being herself?

            The thought was quickly choked back out along with another brief mouthful of air as Claire gave Carly a freshly smarting compression between her fingers, this time actually affixing her thumb to the girl’s stomach to ensure her abdomen was depleted of all life-giving air for just a few seconds.  The pair remained frozen here now as Claire’s fingertip pressed with increasingly vicious pressure into Carly’s navel.

            “Having said that, even someone like you eventually has to learn that, when you’re down to this size, someone else calls the shots.  And in this case, that someone is me.  Hopefully you’ve almost figured that out on your own by now…” Claire sighed, finally releasing her thumb away from Carly’s gut and allowing her capture to heave up just enough air to keep conscious.  Already her previously pink face had gone pale as her vision blurred from loss of air, slipping quickly into a forced sleep.

            “In a way, I blame myself for it,” Claire pontificated, opening her palm just wide enough for Carly to splay out and quiver as her numbed limbs refilled with oxygen and blood.  “I probably sent in someone to work with you too soon after you got here, when I should’ve given just a little more attention myself, seeing as you’re going to be the star of this show soon.”

            Carly coughed, her eyes watering, but even with her line of sight as wavy and wet as it was, she could make out Claire’s face above, still painted with that thick black eyeliner and, even more pronounced, sincerity.  If nothing else, the woman did believe every over-chewed word that passed between her lips and into the ears of her abused prisoner.  The shrunken Arton was unquestionably important to Claire, no matter what message her crushing fingers was providing right now, and it was beginning to become clear to Carly that she really was merely a link in the chain of something far bigger than herself, literally and figuratively.

            “But we’re here now, you in my hands and me with all the power,” Claire relented, rolling her palm from side to side and causing Carly to rock.  “So we’ll just work with what we have.  What do you say to that?  Fair?”

            Carly tilted her head up, blinking in a mostly failed attempt to refocus her gaze, and at last became satisfied with facing in the general direction of her tormentor’s monumental countenance framed by those flaming tresses.

            “It doesn’t matter though,” Carly spat, her lip trembling.  “I know you… won’t let me go.  No matter what I do.”

            “That’s true, but let’s not forget I can always make things significantly more painful for you if I choose.  Or I can make them comfortable.  It’s really entirely in your hands.  Well… mine, still, technically, but I’m willing to make it a collaborative effort if you are,” Claire corrected as those shadowy fingers coiled back around Carly like cobras.  She squeezed again, stretching the hair on Carly’s scalp and causing her to squeal under her breath from the strain.  “Aren’t you at least a little bit afraid of that?”

            “NO!” Carly growled loudly enough to nearly inflict a tremor through Claire’s body, setting back to thrashing and squirming as soon as her limbs were allowed the space in the crevices between the giant woman’s digits.  The black-clad operative paused the assault with her fingers again, reflecting quietly on the rabid little spitfire entrapped in her hand but no more demure than when she was loose on the world.  Her pale cheeks seemed to tighten as she regarded Carly and took a step forward in the dank habitat used to house her prize miniature’s tank, lifting her leg and slamming her right boot with a confident clatter onto the surface of a crate.

            “You’re a special little girl, Carly Arton.  You really are,” Claire said, actually allowing a chuckle to spill out, and lowered her fist down to her arched knee.  Unfurling her fingers as she scooped her palm into the curve of her joint, she nudged a now-lightly hacking Carly out of her hand and onto the summit of her bent leg.  “Sit tight.  I’m going to show you something.”

            Carly, not having the physical strength to do much else, sucked in a few precious gasps of air as she sprawled on Claire’s knee and looked down the steep descent toward the steel-toed boot below as the redhead’s porcelain fists lowered.  She clenched the taut fibers of the woman’s leggings in her clammy fingers, clinging tightly enough that she wouldn’t start to slip off in either direction.

            Claire’s fingertips pinched around the thin copper-toned zipper and drove it down the clicking teeth, allowing her foot to be tugged free.  The lengthy appendage unsheathed steadily, her skin pearly enough to be reflecting its own moonlight, her toes possessing the dexterity to curl independently.  It arched from its leathery confines and planted beside the combat-ready accessory with a hard enough impact to almost jostle Carly from her dangerous perch.  For a moment, Claire simply wriggled her toes against the crate, readjusting to their airy liberty, and then set to work again.

            It only took a flick from her knuckle into Carly’s thighs to rob her of her precarious grip.  Gulping but refusing to cry out, the three-inch prisoner toppled downhill, struggling to right herself on the near-sheer surface of Claire’s shin.  Her descent slowed momentarily as she rolled over the woman’s bare ankle and landed atop her foot, but she was in motion again soon as Claire lithely lifted off.  Bracing with her heel, she quickly swept her foot over the flopped end of the boot and slid it back into place, easily bucking Carly from her leather-scented bronco and allowing the girl to cascade into the pitch-black toe section.

            Her tiny mouth hung open from the brunt force enforcement as well as a more general existential crisis to fathom she was now facing the same situation she had placed her brother into so many times not even the most accomplished statistician could estimate an exact total.  Carly quickly found reason to shut her lips, though, as she felt the spongy undersides of Claire’s toes squashing down into her stomach and head.

            Lost in a tangle of toe flesh and the sour seasoning of sweaty skin stuck in an especially tall boot for too long, Carly held her breath for as long as possible as the entire tower of black footwear launched off the crate and set back to the ground.  Gravity threatened to swallow her up as she was bounced from the roof and back to the acrid insole on every other step, but Claire’s toes kept Carly anchored, wrapping her into their moist arch and ensuring what little of her wasn’t yet damp with her own sweat was made sticky with Claire’s.

            Feeling as though she’d been lifted from her own body and swapped into someone else’s, Carly numbly faded into the floating nightmare of being worn in a shoe.  It was almost too much to believe.

            Admittedly, the sensation was different than she’d been expecting.  Sure, it was a little revolting to be demeaned beneath this unworthy creature’s body, but Carly had experienced things just as sick back in the hands of some vengeful law officers with screwy moral compasses.  No, her wonderment came from an entirely separate realization of being kept under a human foot.  It was less physically painful in the immediate sense and more simply crushing for the constant incoming beatings from all sides, never allowing a moment to gulp down a full lungful of the tainted, rancid air.  Not that she especially wanted to sample the oxygen clouded so thickly with Claire’s foot odor that most of the oxygen molecules had probably been infected with microscopic toejam granules.

            Unfortunately, there wasn’t much choice if she didn’t want to pass out, and Carly was determined to see this exchanged played out to the end.  Her size still precluded overpowering anything larger than a mouse, but the girl knew she’d be damned if she allowed Claire to see an ounce of weakness now, even in the face of being literally trampled beneath the weight of her body.

            The hellish ride continued for more than a couple of minutes.  Carly decided to just focus on counting her own heartbeats, which had sped up initially but eventually settled back into a relaxed rhythm once she convinced herself that Claire wasn’t planning on snuffing her out just yet.  There seemed to be some effort to conserve her fragile limbs beneath the potential liquefying power of the woman’s peds, ironically with much more care than had been displayed when she was being teased inside her fist just before.  Once they were in a pattern of rising and falling, even, Claire’s toes seemed to relent their pressure as much as possible when they’d touch back to earth again, though there still seemed to be an effort to slide Carly’s arms and legs into the slippery crevices of skin between the toes.  It was even harder to get out once they had been wedged inside, as Claire appeared to have some skill at controlling her toy, though she was by no means perfectly adept.  With some effort, it was possible to worm out and retreat back under the doughy arch of the toes again.  Managing a grin in the dark, Carly wrestled to free herself from the woman’s grasp again.

            If the shoe was on the other foot, literally and figuratively, Claire would not be able to move a single finger in protest.  Carly would control every twitch of her measly muscles and every beat of her cowardly little heart.  That much was certain.  In fact, the very thought of this reversal fantasy was enough to soothe Carly into completely ignoring the pounding of the monstrous toes above her, so much so that she hardly noticed when at last the shell of her musty prison was zipped back open and Claire’s gloved hand entered the hazy hollow to retrieve her shrunken detainee/toe ornament.

            She was pretty sure she’d enjoy having Claire under her foot almost as much as Jack.  But not quite.

            The room was enormous.  Surely the largest she’d encountered thus far, and, Carly had to suspect, the most expansive that could easily be fit into this installation and still keep it as covert as Claire required.  The ceiling stretched so high she had to crane her neck to trace its winding rafters, but this wasn’t the primary thief of her attentions.  A source of light was flooding the walls with its blue luster, spilling it into every corner such that no shadow could remain untouched by its cobalt embers.  The glove had wrapped itself back around her abdomen, though, restricting her vision of its source to a slit between the cracks of two digits, making it impossible to get a good glimpse.

            “I’m trying to work here, Claire,” a voice groused from somewhere beyond the clawed fingers obscuring her view, sounding much younger than Carly was expecting.  Judging by the urban twang in his syllables, she might’ve mistaken him for someone who’d accidentally wandered into this metallic purgatory off the street in search of a hotdog stand.

            “Take a lunch break, Goodwin.  I’m giving our new guest the grand tour.”

            “The MRD isn’t really in shape to-”

            “No tests today.  Just trying to make a point,” Claire snapped, cutting him off with a jagged note of civility in her tone that instantly silenced the youthful employee.  “Please leave.  Now.”

            The shoes of whoever was apparently arrogant enough to openly argue with his boss dragged along the floor, the plastic tips of his laces ticking at the cold concrete.  A door slammed heavily behind him, leaving Claire and Carly alone once again in this spacious sanctuary that evidently housed the heart of the entire operation.

            “I’m hoping you’ll start to learn, Carly.  This is about something greater than you, or me, or anyone we’ve ever met.  With my masterpiece here, once it’s finished, we’ll be tapping into something never before seen by our entire race, and have it all for ourselves,” Claire breathed dreamily.

            “You mean you’ll have it,” Carly corrected.  She was quickly bored of trying to peek around Claire’s fingers at the light source, not wanting to give her the satisfaction of appearing curious.

            The redhead shrugged, with no effort to hide it as she kept her eyes dutifully glued to the luminous structure ahead, whatever it was.  She let the pause linger as she looked on with almost lustful zeal.

            “From what I’m asking of you, I know it may appear you’re in the middle of the biggest bad blackmail deal of your whole existence.  Your cooperation in exchange for your life.  To be fair, that’s not entirely false, but it’s so much more complicated than that, Carly, and I think once you have a better understanding of that, you’ll want to help me,” Claire insisted.  “Because if you do, you’ll find it can help you just as much as me.”

            “You don’t have anything that I want,” Carly hissed, wrapping her arms around her shoulders and dipping her chin down to the level of her knees as she leaned against the caged fingers.

            “Maybe not yet,” the woman said.  “But see, I have a feeling that once we get a clean sample set out of that little body of yours, it’s still not going to fill out the full roadmap for us.  Whatever’s locked inside of us… all of us… we haven’t been able to study yet, because none of the subjects have been related to each other.  Until… now, that is.”

            At this, Carly’s head perked up just a little higher, but she still didn’t look Claire back in the eye.  A cool breath caught inside her ribcage, webbing over her skin from the inside.

            “Something tells me your brother is the other half of the key to unlocking this entire puzzle, Carly.  And once we have him… have the samples we need, anyway… well, I won’t have much more use for him,” Claire explained, at last spreading her fingers open wide enough for Carly to take in the titanic machine in all its hypnagogic glory.  “But I imagine you might.  Won’t you?”

            Finally Carly was given cause to lift her head back to the totalitarian emeralds imposed inside Claire’s exacting eyes.  Her own had welled with tears.  Sniffling, she nodded solemnly, realizing there was no hope of concealing this deepest and fiercest of her desires.  After all, there was nothing left on this planet she truly wanted anymore, except to hold her brother in her hand and become his goddess once again.

            The girl, at last broken down to her essence, crawled forward in Claire’s cupped palm, turning back toward the walled fingers, which parted, allowing Carly to gaze on the prototypical Matter Reduction Device.

            “So you see,” Claire crooned lovingly as she gazed upon the bizarre sculpture of lead and copper crisscrossing over in entangled wires, reinforced casings, and glowing specks dotting the inside of a translucent orb that lit up the entire room in its luminescent glimmer like the most holy of Christmas lights.  “This isn’t me blackmailing you.  It’s me… giving you back the one thing you have left in this life.  And a chance to step into whatever is coming next for our world.  What do you say?”

            Carly felt herself nodding, a sublime warmth emanating from inside like it hadn’t in what felt like decades.

            Who gave a damn what was coming next for the world?

            Her world was about to come back.