When the earthquake hit, my jar was knocked over. There was no lid, because my captress didn't think that a man who had been reduced in mass, weight, strength and size equal to that of an ant could possibly scale the sides of the slick glass jar that had been my prison. But the earthquake provided me with the perfect opportunity to escape!
Several other jars had been knocked over, and three other miniaturized captives were also in the process of escaping, but as I scanned the counter top where I was standing, it bereaved me to see that not all of us would be able to seize this opportunity. Two of the jars were still vertically upright, with the tiny captives still trapped inside. There was no way to help them, it would've taken too long.
As I made my way up the electrical cord that was strapped to the open widow that had been shattered during the quake, I looked outside and saw that the damage had not been limited to the inside of the laboratory. The red brick wall that surrounded the perimeter of the building complex had been damaged. A whole section of it about eighteen inches in diameter had completely broken away.
The other three guys were already climbing down the rose bush that was next to the lab. They didn't even bother greeting me, in spite of the fact that we had all been through the same experience of being held captive against our will. There just wasn't time. In the seconds or minutes it would've taken to hold a conversation, Trina could've returned.
I assume that the others were shrunk and captured the same way I was. Trina was a blue-eyed blonde, and had given me a ride when I was hitch-hiking. I was on my way to Washington, D.C. to patent a discovery I had made as a biochemistry student, and when I saw her awesome legs, short denim skirt and cowboy boots, I couldn't refuse her offer to give me a ride. After a question and answer session, she realized that I was from out of town. I had been traveling across the country, and none of my relatives knew my current whereabouts. I was a graduate student at Georgia Tech university majoring in biochemistry, and I had found a way to allow shrunken people to assimilate the molecules of normal-sized food and water, something that had baffled scientists ever since miniaturization had been recently discovered by a scientist working at a university in California. He had been working on a cold fusion experiment that went awry, accidentally shrinking one of his students. That professor's lab had been raided by bandits who had obviously been hired by someone to steal the schematics of the cold fusion reactor. Three of the bandits had been charged for the robbery, and the trial had made national headlines.
Trina had picked me up in her vehicle by random chance. Her questions didn't arouse my suspicions, because they fit into the category of things that just about any curious driver would normally ask a hitch-hiker. I never gave it a second thought when Trina brought up the topic of neutrino dissimilation.
When I told Trina about my discovery and my plan to get it patented, she told me she worked at a laboratory, I expressed interest, so she offered to show me a neutrino dissimilator that she was working on. I knew it was good to make connections with physicists and experts, so I might have some friends in high places when I graduated, just in case I wanted to return to look for a job after graduation; so I jumped at the chance.
At Trina's research facility, I met her niece, Saxon. She was a blonde-haired, blue-eyed 16-year-old Olympic athlete who had recently competed on the U.S. gymnastic team. I had seen her on television when her team won gold medals; that summer was an election year, so the Olympics had recently been held. She had been labeled 'Saxon the Sovereign Subjugator' by the press, and she had been the main reason her team had won gold medals in the Olympics. Saxon wore a blue bikini and flip-flops, and as I stared at the huge abdominal muscles and muscular arms and legs, Trina stood beside her there in the lab that day looking over the innards of the neutrino dissimilator she had built, Trina had Saxon explain the miniaturization theory to me:
"The atoms of all elements are made of protons, neutrons, and electrons. Protons and neutrons are made up of elementary particles known as quarks that are held together by gluon particles. Electrons are also elementary particles. The most important particle that made miniaturization possible, however, was the neutrino.
"The neutrino is the smallest particle known to man, with a mass equal to about one-billionth of that of a single proton. It is so small, that neutrino particles emitted by the sun could pass straight through the Earth at near the speed of light, without bumping into any atoms on the way through. The quantum neutrino dissimilator, conveniently referred to as a 'Decimator' by my Aunt Trina, converts over 99.9999 percent of the matter making up the quarks and gluons of protons, neutrons, and electrons into neutrino particles.
"Once these neutrino particles exited whatever or whoever the Decimator had been used on, these particles went shooting off into outer space at near the speed of light, never to be recovered again. Although the quantum neutrino dissimilation effect could decrease the size, weight, volume and mass of a person or object, no theory had been developed which could restore any person or object back to normal size."
"I thought elementary particles couldn't be reduced any further?" I asked, hoping Trina's beautiful niece would elaborate further.
"A dimensional membrane surrounds each elementary particle," Saxon continued, "and the matter that is being removed gets sucked through a dimensional vortex into another dimension. When the electrons shrink, that diminishes the repulsive force between the atoms, causing them to move closer together to maintain the same proportionate distance in relation to one another."
As I marveled at the magnificence of this fantastic new technology, I didn't keep my eyes on Trina and she left and came back with a hand held neutrino dissimilator device. My back was still turned to her when she aimed it at me and activated it. I had been unaware that Trina had built a working model and kept it in the lab, or I would've been more careful and alert.
After being reduced to the size of an ant, Trina placed me in a jar and explained that she needed to research the effect of the Decimator on people, so she could determine whether it was safe enough to be used on criminals. The latest talk had been of legislators passing a bill requiring all prison inmates serving life terms to be miniaturized and sold as toys, but years of research would be required before such a bill would even be considered by congress or the senate.
"Can I keep this one, Aunt Trina?" Saxon asked. "I like him more than the others, he's cute!"
"I might, if you help me capture more of them." Trina responded. "I'm going to use the formula he discovered to see if their bodies can process normal-sized food and water, it would be cheaper than shrinking food and water down to their scale."
****
That had been three weeks ago. During the interim between then and now, Trina had successfully figured out how to conjure up the formula I discovered, which meant we could thrive on small amounts of normal-sized food and water. This was cheaper than Trina being forced to miniaturize water and food down to our scale, but it also meant she got credit for my invention. Now that I was finally free, I intended to stay that way, and to try to find an ally who would help me reclaim the credit for my hard-won discovery. If you were wondering how my miniaturized body could process normal-sized air molecules but not normal-sized food and water, I'll explain it. As far as breathing was concerned, normal-sized air molecules and atoms shrink when they cross the dimensional membrane surrounding the elementary particles of my body; when I exhale, the air molecules and atoms re-enlarge and return to normal size. It was only a matter of time before scientists figured out a way to use dimensional membranes to re-enlarge shrunken people.
I navigated the blades of grass that towered over me like trees, completely unaware of the location of the other escapees. When I came to the brick wall, It took several minutes to climb up and over the pile of broken bricks and mortar of the broken section of the wall. Once on the other side, it was a lot easier; for as far as the eye could see, there was nothing but plains strewn with occasional boulders (pebbles) and clumps of wild grass growing here and there.
When I started to run, I eventually caught sight of the other three former captives. They were making their way, hell-bent-for-leather, towards the creek that was several hundred yards from our current location. To us, those several hundred yards were like several miles.
My heart pumped with fear as I raced at top speed, because I knew that Trina would be on our trail very soon, as soon as she realized that we were missing. I knew if I could make it to the other side of the creek, I would be home-free, because the dense foliage on the other side would make it impossible for Trina to find me, but getting there was the biggest problem. The field between the brick wall and the creek was barren, which would make spotting me and the other miniaturized escapees that much easier for the captivating conquerors who would soon be hunting us down.
After running for at least a mile (from my perspective), I stopped and caught my breath and looked back. The brick wall and the top of the lab beyond were still all too close. If Trina tried to track me down, I was a convenient distance from the perimeter of the laboratory complex, which would make her job much easier. When you're the size of an ant, it takes a long time to get anywhere.
A voice like thunder shattered the silence. Another equally loud voice, a girl's voice, replied. I knew it was Trina and her athletic 16-year-old niece, Saxon, who was still visiting her Aunt for the summer. Titanic Trina had promised sultry Saxon that she would be allowed to keep one of us, if she cleaned up around the lab and behaved herself. Therefore, the girl was now eager to capture as many escapees as possible. If we all got away, there would be none of us left for her to keep. Saxon had shoulder length blonde hair and blue eyes like her Aunt, and was clad in a pink bare midriff tank top and ultra short purple shorts, and was wearing pink sneakers and white socks.
I started running again, and as I did, I looked back and saw Trina and Saxon. They were climbing over the brick wall in an effort to capture us. Trina had a large jar in her hand, and Saxon had a smaller but equally inescapable jar in her hand.
I knew that my best strategy once they began to draw near was to run from pebble to pebble as I made my way towards the creek, and when one of them looked in my direction, all I needed to do was remain still, and I should remain hidden. I was so small that a normal sized person wouldn't be able to see me among the pebbles and different colored dirt and sand, because they would be trying to scan a wide area, and all they would be able to detect was movement. As long as I was still, Trina or Saxon could look right at me as they turned their head from left to right, and they would never notice me.
One of the others didn't figure this out, and he was the first to get captured by Trina. Saxon was jealous, because to her this was like a game, and the score was now Trina one, Saxon zero. Because of this, Saxon was all the more obsessed with capturing one of us. She lumbered in my direction, and I was frozen in fear as she stopped right behind of me, only a couple of normal-sized feet away.
As she looked around, her eyes passed over my location, but, just as I had planned, she didn't notice me because I remained motionless. When her gaze shifted to the right, I ran to the pebble right in front of me, but stopped there and hid when Saxon’s eyes passed by me again as her head shifted from right to left. When she was looking to the left, I ran forward to the next pebble. I actually had a hope that this just might work, because if she stayed where she was, I could gain some ground and leave her behind, but this wasn't the case.
Every time I moved a few inches forward, Saxon took another step forward, which closed the distance between us. She finally gave up and became frustrated, and knelt down and began scattering small rocks and pebbles with her hand, hoping to find a miniaturized captive that had managed to hide beneath one of the pebbles.
The hand of the deific damsel drew near, and I knew that my strategy of remaining still and moving when her head was turned wouldn't work at this close distance, because she was close enough to me now that she would notice any movement at all, even out of the corners of her eyes.
Just when I was about to give up and accept defeat, a miracle happened. Trina caught another miniaturized man, and Saxon became angry. Saxon stood up, kicked some rocks, and thundered right past me as she ran towards the creek. She yelled back to Trina:
"I'll stay here and wait for them to try to cross the creek. I'll definitely catch one now!"
In the process of allowing me to harvest the fruits of one hope, fate had allowed another hope to be shattered. With Saxon standing guard over the creek, there would be no way to cross without being captured.
"That's a good idea!" Trina replied. “You guard the creek and catch any of them that try to cross, and I'll hunt them down as they try to cross the field!"
It was hopeless. The creek wound around the laboratory complex, so it was impossible to go around without walking around to the front of the complex. In that time, Trina could cover every square inch of territory between the wall that surrounded the perimeter of the lab and the creek, front and back. It looked like I was faced with two choices: get captured by Trina, or get captured by Saxon. Regardless of how hopeless it seemed, I continued making my way towards the creek, heading towards a section a good distance from where the mighty maiden was standing.
Saxon the subjugator stood there, one foot on each shore of the creek like the colossus of Rhodes had (incorrectly) been depicted in old paintings, arms folded across her chest, scanning the area in front of her and behind her for any movement. It would not be possible to cross the creek within 20 or 30 yards of her location without her knowing about it. My goal was a location about 50 normal-sized yards from Saxon, where I might be able to cross without being seen by her, if I could avoid being captured by the towering Trina in the process.
I decided to go all out and make a run for it, rather than to rely on my previous strategy. After fifteen minutes I was about twenty yards from the edge of the creek, and within about five more minutes I was ten yards closer. I looked behind me, and realized it had been a mistake to abandon my original strategy, because Saxon spotted me, in spite of the fact that I was about fifty yards from her.
"Aunt Trina!" Saxon yelled, "I saw one over there!"
The two of them started moving in my direction, and they could've easily reached me long before I could get to the creek. As they closed in, I realized that my only hope was to find an ant hole or a gopher hole to hide in. I had passed a couple of gopher holes, but they were too far behind me to reach them in time. I had only a matter of seconds before the two huntresses would arrive.
I ran forward, towards the creek, looking for any holes I could find. There was only one to be found, so I ran for it. I reached the edge of the gopher hole when Saxon was still a few steps away, but I hesitated; I didn't know if there was a gopher or a snake in the hole, and I was scared. I tried to circle back around and try to reach one of the ant holes I had passed, but Saxon arrived before I could even get close.
She was only a few steps away from me, so I hid behind a pebble, hoping she wouldn't notice me. Saxon didn't give up that easily. She knelt down and picked up every single pebble and rock within a square yard of where I was at, and I was trapped. When she picked up the pebble I was hiding behind, I knew it was over.
The domineering damsel turned the jar upside down, and dropped it over me. The jar was about three inches high, but to me it seemed like the height of a 15 story building. Trina soon arrived to assist with my capture, to ensure that I wouldn't be crushed by Saxon’s fingers if she tried to pick me up.
Trina's method was effective, but not scientific. She simply picked up the jar, licked her index finger, and pressed down on me gently. With the jar held right side up in her other hand, she wiped me against the inside of the jar.
"Since you found this one, I'll let you keep him." said Trina.
Saxon’s eyes lit up with joy as Trina handed her the jar. She looked at me with the enthusiasm of a kid on Christmas morning who just opened a present and found her favorite toy.
"Now you have to promise not to let him escape, Saxon.” said Trina.
"Don't worry," said Saxon, “I'll make sure he'll never escape from me! I promise, aunt Trina!" As the two of them walked back to the lab with their captives, Saxon asked: "What if I swallowed him alive, Aunt Trina? Would the cells of his body nourish my muscles?"
"I went through a lot of work to acquire that captive, so I don't want you digesting him," said Trina. "I have a neural stimulator that was invented by one of my captives that you can use to vomit him back up if you ever end up swallowing him, okay?"
"Okay!" Saxon replied. The charismatic colossus then addressed me: "How does it feel to dwell under the dominion of an Olympian? Now you can worship me!"
As Saxon carried my jar back to the lab, I knew that I had made a sincere effort and tried as best as I could to get away, but I knew that I would never again have another chance to make another escape attempt. I had been conquered by the deific duo, and I was now the property of giantess Saxon, the sovereign subjugator!
*****
Eventually, Saxon went back home to her parents' home. She took me with her, and her parents were okay with her keeping me as a captive just as Trina had been. Things went normally until the Friday night before she started school again for the Fall semester. She was at a party that was attended by mostly her female friends, and beer was being consumed. One of Saxon’s girl friends dared her to swallow me. Saxon thought this was a hilarious idea, so she tossed me into her red plastic cup that was full of beer, and took a chug. I was swallowed instantly. At the proportionate size of an ant, I was powerless against her teenage might. I cascaded down her esophagus and splashed down into the belly of the beautiful behemoth who had conquered me.
I could breathe inside there, because there was enough air for me at my miniscule size. Everything smelled like beer down there, with the odor of pizza that she had eaten earlier that night. I wondered what would happen if I was digested by my mighty mistress, would the cells of my body be absorbed by her cells? That's what she wanted, but I knew Trina had given her the neural stimulator to make her vomit me up if she ever swallowed me. The irony of ending up in the belly of an Olympian wasn't lost on me, there are some people who would choose to die this way, but I wanted to live. Soon there was an eruption and all of the food and beer in Saxon’s stomach cavity moved upwards; she was puking, and I was going along for the ride.
I plunged out of her mouth into the light, into a kitchen sink that had been plugged up so I wouldn't be lost in the plumbing when I came out of her body. Saxon and her friends were laughing when they saw me, and Saxon showed me the neural stimulator that had allowed her to vomit me up. My majestic mistress plucked me out of the vomit and rinsed me off, then placed me back in my jar. I was the talk of the party for the next five or ten minutes. Some of Saxon’s female friends also wanted to swallow me, but Saxon wouldn't allow them to.
About a week later, Saxon came home from school and dumped me out of my jar onto her hand, and said, "They found a way to re-enlarge people who have been shrunk. There's a laboratory here in town, I'll take you to get re-enlarged if you promise not to seek litigation against me."
"Why would you do that?" I asked her. Most teenage girls would never allow a shrunken man to escape from them, if they had a choice.
"I don't want my gymnastics coach to find out that I conquered you. I could get kicked off the gymnastics team! I don't care if you sue my Aunt Trina, but you have to promise me that you won't allow me to get punished for keeping you as my prisoner swallowing you, okay?"
It seemed reasonable, so I agreed. I thought Saxon was cute, so I didn't mind being her captive for those several weeks. She took me to the lab where they could re-enlarge people, and I was put into a chamber. Twenty minutes later I was normal sized again, so I went to a restaurant and had a huge meal, because one of the side effects of the formula I discovered was that when the miniaturized atoms and molecules of my body were re-enlarged, the food in my digestive system remained normal size, so it was as if I hadn't eaten in several weeks. I also drank a lot of water at the lab that re-enlarged me when I returned to normal size. After my meal at the restaurant, I said goodbye to Saxon, and headed straight here to the courthouse, and here I am talking to you as you record everything I say.
*****
Tom Tucker, the man who had been miniaturized by Trina and given to her niece Saxon, was seated in a room speaking to his attorney.
"So based on everything I told you," said Tom, "I don't want Saxon prosecuted at all. Without her, I would still be a plaything living in a jar in her bedroom."
"We can swing that," said the attorney. "We can leave her involvement out of it completely."
"I just want to sue Trina, because she stole the formula I invented that allows shrunken people to assimilate normal-sized food and water. I don't want her taking credit for my invention."
*****
Several months later, Tom emerged from the courthouse victorious. He had won his case, and Trina had been sentenced to prison. Without Tom, the other captives who were being held prisoner would never have been freed. He still stayed in touch with Saxon over the phone, and she never got into trouble for her role in the abductions.
THE END