Tomas smiled as his fingers danced across the exterior of the GULL-IV-ER pod. General Use Living Location, Internal Variance, External Response. His mind played through the full name, a clever reference, but all in all a fancy name for a societal petri dish.

The one he was looking to study today was OR-3-N. OR for outer rim, three for the specimen number, N to designate that it was a new entrant. It was supposed to be one coveted by staff apparently. Tomas smiled, looking around at the otherwise empty warehouse, full from wall to wall with pods. It was midnight, most of the staff were home asleep ready for the new day. Tomorrow his supervisor would compliment him on burning the midnight oil, oblivious to why.

The keypad opened, and his identification number danced across it. With a hiss, the GULL-IV-ER slid out, micro-thrusters keeping the pod floating flat. A slide of a few inches here or there would destroy what was inside, so the thrusters were made at grand expense to prevent specimen damage.

His room number came next. 0612. Obediently, the master umbilical clicked and fell off the pod, and it raced away.

It didn't take long, his room was but a few doors down the side hallway. He saw his door already open. His pod was floating inside obediently.

His pod.

Tomas smiled at that, and hit another keypad to lock his office door and initiate clean room protocols. He hoped not to have to follow them, but it would at least keep fellow staff away.

He grabbed the side handle of the pod, and led it to his testing table. This wasn't his first rodeo. OR-2-E (Outer Rim, 2nd Specimen, Emergency Response) was his first. He had cracked open the pod to find a rural scene, barely any living beings at all. They had been captured, as almost all of their specimens had, by a particular "contract worker" they hired to shrink and store... "unwanted" peoples.

OR-2-E had ended with the artificial introduction of massive electrical storms. He had watched them daily as they started to use what little they had to defend against constant life threatening lightning strikes. Metal rods went up to the top of the pod. By a few days he had watched as they had managed to use it to their advantage, capturing and trapping the electricity to start rudimentary industrialization. It had been a fascinating study for science...

… and one that had given him many. Many ideas.

Tomas rubbed his hands together as his fingers once again eagerly danced. Micro atmospherics on standby. Handle flipped up, emergency release lock one. A low hiss. Two. A low hiss. Lifting the top away from the bottom, he observed the atmospherics panel hidden between the two parts of the GULL-IV-ER. OR-3-N. Nitrogen 80%. Oxygen 19%. Argon 1%. Tomas grinned. He wouldn't have to use clean room protocols after all.

Third and final lock. Beep from the micro-atmospherics as it shut off, followed by a low venting. A smell, a mixture of rotten eggs and dust caused him to cough briefly before he got used to it. Sulfuric soil composition clearly.

CLICK. Two additional micro-thrusters, and the top lifted itself off of the bottom of the pod, safely depositing itself on the floor nearby. Tomas however, didn't even notice.

His eyes danced now upon the contents of OR-3-N. It was an entire city in microcosm. A large one. Immediately his eyes wandered over to the diagnostic report as it flicked online.

"Formerly St. Andrews, terraformed human colony in the Outer Rim. Population approximately 200,000."

Tomas exhaled sharply as he loomed over the table. He had never been able to look down at an atmospherically stable specimen. That alone was enough to excite him, tease his scientific mind.

But as his curiosity faded he realized something. The city had stopped. Inside the pod, it maintained to the best of it's ability the illusion of a natural atmosphere and sky. Most subjects realized soon enough their plight as any attempts at high altitude flight or space flight ended with them colliding with the new 'ceiling.' Similarly, any attempts at leaving their pod by walking towards the side walls would eventually render a similar fate. Opening the top however must have felt like someone peeling the sky away.

And more importantly, as he blinked down at the city. He now was their sky.

"Evening." Was the first thing he thought to say, before cursing under his breath. Again, his fingers danced, before a small cube popped out of a side compartment.

Delicately, Tomas grabbed it, and even more delicately, inserted it into a rather open part of the city. His fingers brushed past some of their "skyscrapers," his mind racing as he felt the cold chromed steel against his fingertips.

For now though he left them be as the cube popped to life, revealing a hologram of himself. It was a form that was able to communicate openly with those of this size. His normal voice would come across as a low unnatural rumble, but through this it would come out as normal speech by being fed through a sound system into tiny speakers in the cube.. He leaned into the side microphone and repeated himself.

"Evening. This is Dr. Tomas Quinn. As you may now know, your city has been captured for the purpose of anthropological study and testing by the Institute of Micro-Societial Studies."

Tomas waited for a moment, letting his eyes dance across the city again as he let that first part set in. The skyscrapers he had brushed before really were beautiful, looking for all the world like a chromed Terra skyline from sixty years ago. Antiquated, but beautiful in it's craftsmanship. The city tapered slowly off to suburbs, tiny plots of human life scrapped together on the unnaturally yellow looking earth.

"Your test today will be a response to direct interference by a member of staff, namely me. We'll be testing societal response to hostile external stimuli from an omnipotent force."

Tomas grinned, leaning down and with a flourish, simply pointed to his own face.

Immediately the city, once shocked stiff, came to life. His cube form, equipped with microphones for interview response by those in question below, came through loud and clear with the sound of nothing but screams.

He soaked it in momentarily before his fingers dipped in again. Those chromed out skyscrapers once again brushed against him as he simply added force. In an instant, the tough work of thousands cracked effortlessly against his fingertips, tumbling to the earth with puffs of acrid yellow as the dusty sulfuric earth was displaced in an instant.

"Log entry, Dr. Tomas Quinn, first results. Local building techniques found structurally lacking. Will need to improve integrity if further generations are to survive."

His grin returned as the GULL-IV-ER beeped, his first log transcribed.

Tomas leaned in closer, trying to get an eye on the tiny subjects themselves. He could imagine, just from looking at the people, the cars, the other buildings, that those skyscrapers he had destroyed had been around three hundred feet tall. If that was true, each person in his new sandbox was under half an inch tall. They were visible, but barely. They lacked the oversized features of an ant, to which they shared a similar size, and so were harder to differentiate as well.

They also didn't build structures as strong as an ant could, clearly, as they weren't used to the idea of building something at such sizes.

For those below, their horizon above simply filled with the white expanse of a grinning God as Tomas quickly leaned in further. And seconds later he simply... blew.

The pod beeped furiously as it registered what it considered an artificially introduced gale wind outside of testing parameters. It registered local wind speeds of over two or three hundred miles an hour. Tomas watched as it was strong enough to send cars careening. More than one collided with the skyscrapers that surrounded them. More than one detonated, causing fires to start spreading effortlessly throughout the city.

The inhabitants that got caught in the gale simply blew away. Tomas had watched as they landed moments later. Lifeless.

"Log entry, Dr. Tomas Quinn, second results. Local inhabitants not prepared for gale force winds."

Beep.

Tomas licked his lips, exhaling sharply again, recomposing himself before continuing.

"Log addendum. Subjects are showcasing extreme flight response to stimuli. Test proceeding on removing flight option to test overall fear response."

Tomas's grin returned as he lowered his hand down. He had seen a number, easily a few hundred, of the locals gathering together in an effort to escape the continued fires and rubble caused by his tests so far.

"Do not run. Tests require inhabitants to face their fear and respond to it adequately. Please stay in place and respond to this next test as you all see fit."

His hand hovered over the group he had just chastised, and to his amusement, most of them followed orders.

Most.

His other hand quickly came into view, and without a second's thought simply flicked down across the earth. A yellow billowing cloud still couldn't hide the red mist that his finger had turned the running few into, coating those that remained below in a mixture of it as he chuckled briefly.

"Very good. Most of you followed instructions. Now, please respond to the current external stimuli appropriately."

Tomas lowered his hand until he could feel the tops of them, feeling them writhing against his palm.

He could quickly tell a shift was occurring as the writhing turned purposeful. Curious, he leaned to the side to look. He could barely see, but even still he could make out a mjaority of them kissing the hand that crushed them.

They knew their place. Tomas licked his lips.

"Log entry... mmm, Dr. Tomas Quinn. Third results. Local inhabitants easily manipulable."

Beep.

Tomas's hand simply pressed down a bit, grin widening as he could feel them writhe again. So easy to make them lose trust, to give into fear.

"Log entry. Dr. Tomas Quinn. Third result addendum. Local inhabitants lose mental cohesion quickly. Manipulable, but unreliable and generally useless."

Tomas's "handful" were easily clenched into his palm as he raised it out of the GULL-IV-ER pod. The pod beeped in protest. Removing organic matter especially was forbidden under most tests.

Tomas leaned down, tongue just scrapping against his own hand, breath cascading across the assembled crowd. They writhed just as much down his throat as they had in hand. As close as they were, he could hear their minuscule screams as well.

His other hand reached for his zipper, swiftly undoing it with a sharp exhale. Flagging out, Tomas rubbed eagerly against his own cock, licking his lips as he looked down.

His other hand hit his cock to an ecstatic shiver of a response. Tomas stroked eagerly, purposefully, aiming his cock at the city below even as he felt the crowd's life fade.

"Log entry... mmmpf... Dr. Tomas Quinn. Test protocol start. Flood resistance from outside stimuli."

Beep. A routine test most days.

His stroking simply got harder as his breathe went ragged. He couldn't feel any of the crowd now. He could see the rest below watching him though. They knew.

Pre jetted across the floor, a precursor. His eyes lidded as he sped up, adding a second hand for expedience. It didn't take much longer. Jets of alabaster "external stimuli" cascaded across OR-3-N. Jet after jet of it blowing through the city. Tomas couldn't help but watch through hazed eyes. The diagnostic log showcased the loss of life, as it climbed through ten thousand and into double that, then triple. He couldn't stop. He bit his lip. Finally, a minute passed. He caught his breath again, and relaxed.

Beep.

"OR-3-F. Flooding external stimuli test. Results: over 60% damage to structures. Life signatures reduced to under forty thousand."