“Prisoner 365, Please step forward for transfer processing.” The guard told him. Mikal Nelson had been dreading this day for over a year. He knew it could happen, that one day they would file a request and poof, he would be whisked off to do god knows what for whoever wanted him.  Now, he wasn’t scared. He hadn’t felt much of anything beside the sexual gratification of seeing the clip of Keyla being hammered beneath that girl’s ass. It was gross, he knew, but he didn’t care. She had almost died, what a wimp. He could do better; he was almost sure of it. In the days since the trial Mikal, or better known as Mickey to pretty much everyone, had worked on turning himself from a slab of meat into a hunk of muscle in preparation for his time at Micro Incorporated. He could dead lift almost 300 lbs. and could leg press almost twice that amount. The prison yard didn’t mess with; they had tried but most escaped with broken bones, when they were lucky.

  Since his trial, Mickey had killed four inmates and seriously injured almost 40. That was just the prisoners; the guards were the ones requesting that he get transferred into the felon program at Micro Inc.’s correctional division. It didn’t make much sense, to lock a convict into a suit that could be used to gut somebody. He had experimented with the suits tech enough that they had the ability to do so.

After hours of paperwork, they had loaded him into the back of a Micro Inc. van and were hauling him off to one of the containment facilities. He was restless; he couldn’t wait to see what it would be like, he had watched enough of the models his mom had rented perish beneath foot and butt to get a good idea of what death by those means would be like. He knew that with his mass he would probably be labeled durable, or maybe even a brutal rating it all depended on the tech that they would give him at the containment facility.

Micro Inc.  Medical transformation center (Shrinking Hub)

“Mikal Nelson?” he looked up to see a young brunette in a lab coat standing in front of him. She looked to be about five years older than him and was about half his size, but she didn’t look intimidated by him. She held a clipboard in her hands, and she was looking over thick rimmed glasses at him. “You are Mikal Nelson right? Prisoner 365? 180lbs 6’2” blood type A+? Brown hair, blue eyes? Yep looks like you.”

Mikal smiled at the anatomical description the girl gave him. “Yeah, that’s me.”

“Well, Mikal, my name is Dr. Samantha Frederick. I’ll be overseeing the procedure that you will be undergoing.  You already signed the paper that authorized us to do this correct?”

“Yes, I thought that I didn’t get a choice in the matter,” Mikal said.

She grimaced, “You see, you technically do.  You have the option of choosing this or death row. I’ve gone over your file, including consorts you’ve killed 35 people and seriously injured way more than that. The government thought about letting you rot but decided that giving the American public the ability to torture a murderer is always better for American morale. So they transferred you to us. Now everything we do is humane here. You won’t be executed the minute you get shrunk, that’s not how the system works.”

“You mind explaining how this whole ordeal is going to work?” he asked.

“Sure, first let's get you into O.R. prep and out of that god-awful uniform.” Samantha led him through a set of double doors that brought them into a sterile white bathroom like room.  She produced a set of keys and moved to unlock the handcuffs and ankle cuffs that held his wrists together.

“Is that a good idea?” Mikal mused.

“You tell me. I release you from these cuffs, and you attack, maybe kill me and they guards they have stationed outside come in and execute you on the spot, or you let me do this, and we go through the procedure as normal. You should honestly consider this a luxury Mikal; you’re going to get to live the rest of your sentence in semi-luxury. When you aren’t out on a mission, you will be in one of the centers we have for the consorts. They have all amenities imaginable, everything from video games to movie theaters to parks that you can roam and breath in the fresh air. Yes, your assignments well be hell, and one of them will be your last, but it will be a hell of a lot better than rotting in a fucking cell, wouldn’t it?”

“You don’t have to worry about me ma’am,.” Mikal said.

“That’s what I thought you would say” she unlocked the shackles holding his arms and legs, “Strip out of the uniform and then we’ll go into O.R.” Samantha said without taking her eyes off of him.

“Aren’t you going to turn away?” he asked.

“Standard Procedure says we have to watch to make sure you aren’t harboring any weapons of any sorts. We have a lot of extremists who try and bomb the shrinking rigs by smuggling in explosives and the such. So if you aren’t comfortable undressing in front of a woman, I’ll bring in a male doctor.”

“Nah, I’ll be okay.” Mikal smiled, heat flushing his face.

After stripping out of his uniform, Samantha brought him into the operating room. It wasn’t the typical operating room, though. The center table was still there, but it was surrounded an array of needles and IV’s. Each one of the needles was a minimum of 3 inches long, and they ranged in size of pin to pencils. Mikal hesitated before climbing onto the table as he was instructed.

“Don’t worry; you’ll be asleep before we start poking you. Now lie down on the table, everything will be all right.” Samantha said as she walked over to a computer and started typing information off of the clipboard she was holding.

Mikal crawled onto the table, it creaking slightly as he shifted around and laid down. Mikal flinched as he felt Samantha’s cold hands on his face as she attached a breathing mask to nose and mouth.

“Okay, here is what is going to happen. We are going to give the minimum serum required by law. This will cause you to shrink, as standard procedure, you will be shrunk down to six inches tall, after this happens you will be given a nano-bot suit that will keep you alive and fix any trauma that happened during the procedure. Since you are a big guy, you probably won’t have to worry about any of the needles crushing you. When you wake up you will be in our micro hospital. A doctor there will monitor you progress as you heal, when you are fully healed from the surgery you will be outfitted with one of the suits and then you will undergo stress testing and resistance training, this is going to be your first technical job, all of our consorts go through it.”

“What is it exactly?” Mikal asked even though he already had an idea.

“Resistance training is seeing how much weight you can take before the suit and your body fail. You will be paired with a Micro Inc. store employee for a day and they will torture you, e.g., sit on you, and walk on you etcetera. See how much weight you can take before critical failure. They are given torturous freedom over you but they aren’t allowed to kill you. When you reach the point of critical failure they will stop and record your score. In the event you ever undergo a heat sealing treatment you will have to undergo resistance training again. This time the employee won’t stop until you’ve either met your first score or, died. Do you have any questions?”

Mikal felt a chill ran through him as the realization set in that he could die under foot or something worse. “No, I think it's best we start or my nerves will get the best of me.”

“In that case, have a good nap Mikal.” Samantha pressed a button, and cool air filled his nostrils. The world started to spin slowly then Mikal slipped into unconsciousness.