The pool was twenty meters long and about half as wide, segmented into lanes that could occupy a single swimmer each. Participants swam from one side to the other, performing several laps in what was another experiment. It was an exhausting workout to complete so many laps, yet the pool they splashed in could be uprooted and held in one woman’s arms. That one woman was Overseer Duval, standing beside one end of the waist-high table that the pool was designed for. Her watchful eyes were easy to forget about when they hovered so high, but one look outside the glass enclosure would remind anyone of the titanic scientist’s presence.
Amidst the discord of bodies splashing through the water were two arms that scrambled onto an edge. A head cropped from the surface to cherish a victorious inhale, followed by the rest of its drenched body. It was Kendall, fatigued but successful, that beached herself with an arm pumped up. She continued to gasp for air while water dripped off her orange swimsuit, the same uniform color that all the subjects wore.
“I did it!” Kendall cheered the moment she had the breath for it. She celebrated on her knees, “First! Me! I wo--”
“Congratulations!” A giant voice announced Kendall’s victory onto everyone, despite being meant for her alone. Duval clapped and bounced slightly where she stood, producing crashes of noise and a subtle rumble underneath the shrunken people. “Always so competitive, Kendall~ I’ll bring some gelato tomorrow as your prize.”
Kendall had shuddered under Duval’s booming words, but when she next looked up, a hand was there to meet her. Though she had been the first to complete her laps, she wasn’t the only one out of the pool. Sierra had been waiting there at the end, completely dry in her standard jumpsuit uniform. Kendall took her neighbor’s hand gratefully and was pulled up.
“You look like you got your ass kicked,” Sierra giggled, keeping Kendall’s arm held while she composed herself. “Congrats. You really like to win, don’t you?”
Kendall smiled but lacked the stamina to laugh. “It’s more like I hate losing,” she replied while panting, “even if there’s nothing to win. What’s gelato, again?” She was guided to a table where dry towels had been set out, eager to toss one over herself. Immediately she sought to dry her face and pull back her soaked hair. “What a shame that you had to miss pool day! This was the most fun any of the overseer’s tests has been! You must have been bored out of your mind up here.”
“I find ways to keep myself entertained,” Sierra said, stepping back from Kendall as she dried. At that thought, she turned her attention up to that towering scientist, whose clean lab coat acted as a white backdrop for that corner of the enclosure. She much preferred studying Duval in peace rather than participate in another laborious challenge.
It had been two weeks since Sierra injured her arm in one of Duval’s obstacle courses. She had committed the stunt in hopes of spending some time with the overseer, but she hadn’t expected this much attention. Her sprained arm was now the center of study for Duval’s research; Sierra was the first of the shrunken test subjects to be meaningfully injured, a title she took with no pride. Every two days, they would meet for a private check up where Duval would record precise data on Sierra’s state of recovery. One such appointment was scheduled for that day after the swimming tests, and so Sierra convinced Duval to let her tag along until then.
Sierra sought to cherish each of these extra minutes as much as she could, but it appeared that time was reaching an end. Indeed, a moment later saw two more swimmers surmount the challenge. Like Kendall before them, they slugged forward on their knees after pulling themselves up. “Excellent job, everyone,” Duval congratulated, her knees bent so that she could hover closer over her subjects. “These results look great! You should all be proud of yourselves, this was no small feat.”
Both Kendall and Sierra offered themselves forward to aid the two swimmers. Sierra offered a hand, but regretted her generosity when she heard him spit a remark. “Nothing to be proud about,” Chase said, spoken to the floor under him as he took Sierra’s help. “No small feat… It’s like we swam across a puddle.”
Sierra glared, but eased her expression before Chase or anyone else could see it. She practically dragged Chase to his feet and then turned away from him just as quickly -- a gesture that did not fly so unnoticed by him. He sighed, “... That arm of yours must be feeling better.”
“Excuse me?” Sierra blinked, then glanced at her arm. She hid it away from Chase, keeping it clutched with her other hand. “Well, it has been healing. What about it?”
“I think Chase just wants an excuse to get out of these tests, too,” Kendall joked from over the shoulder of who she escorted to the towels. “What, Chase? You never swim a few laps before?”
“I’m just wondering if she still has to do those check ups,” he said, yet to catch his breath for this argument. “If your arm is healed up, why does she need to take you away every other day?”
“That’s what a check up is,” Sierra plainly explained. “Besides, she’s also researching the recovery of people with bodies like ours. What does it matter if I need them or not?”
“You are way too comfortable about all this… It’s about--” Chase winced. His eyes pointed up along the white curtain that stretched high over them. Closer than before, the scientist was leaned in above him and the others, her smile still displayed for the sake of encouragement. Under that kind of pressure, all fell silent.
“Is something the matter?” Duval asked, the only time her smile flickered away. The air of her speech was enough to make any calm parts of the pool shiver. “No one was hurt, were they?”
Kendall motioned to Duval with both arms, signalling to her that all was fine. Sierra took the opportunity to distance herself from Chase, but not without a glance back in his direction. Of course, when asked by Duval, he had nothing to comment, but everyone in the shrunken community knew well how Chase felt about their situation. An ire had grown, if quietly, towards Duval right under her nose. Chase resented this experiment and what it had left him with, and this feeling was shared among others, this distrust towards Overseer Duval.
But the attitudes of others failed to sully Sierra’s perspective. Though she still did not quite understand it about herself, she understood the depths at which this attraction went. Whenever possible, she would openly gawk at the giantess, always amazed to be a beholder of such a tremendous sight. It had been months since she had been shrunk, yet the first few steps of Duval’s walk through the labs every morning always managed to impress her. That shockwave which represented so much weight, and the contrast onto her, a being so small and feeble that she was literally a test subject to someone so powerful. Even the idle motions that came with standing still took Sierra’s breath away, but she wouldn’t gawk here and now, not while others were joining her at the poolside.
There would be plenty of time later to simply stare, Sierra reminded herself. Not long after the last of the testers made it to the finish was everyone filling the transportation shuttle, including Sierra. Where she had once boarded the shuttle hesitantly, a span of two weeks had made her jitter not from fear, but anticipation. Out of everyone, she was the first to buckle into her seat, more excited than anyone for lift off.
A flank of the shuttle’s windows were suddenly filled with Duval’s watchful eyes. “Everyone ready? We’re making a small detour to my office first,” Duval said while doing one final headcount. With everyone accounted for, Duval stretched to her full height and gripped the shuttle with one gloved hand. A dozen people were then lifted into the air as effortlessly as that, clasped by giant fingers that tangled around the shuttle securely.
The shuttle flew at the pace Duval strolled. Outside the windows, miles of geography passed by, giant monuments that were merely typical features of any lab or workspace. It wasn’t unlike traveling by plane for the tiny passengers -- Sierra found the comparison enchanting -- but Duval crossed the halls as casually as ever. It didn’t affect her that the safety of over a dozen people hinged in her grip, to the extent that when her phone began ringing, she answered it without missing a step.
“Hello, Tina?” Duval answered, speaking up over her clacking heels. “I’m finishing up on my end, yeah. There’s one last-- oh? Oh. Err… The director?” She paused, having arrived outside her door but without a way to open it. Regardless, the conversation on the phone seemingly weighed heavier. “Now? As in, right now? … Well, if it’s the director, th-that’s important…”
The passengers all acknowledged the delay, but Sierra sleuthed for an explanation. Ever invested in Duval’s doings, she listened to as much of the phone call as she could, but with only the overseer’s side, it wasn’t a narrative that could be pieced together. Sierra chuckled, I’m so nosy, but she did catch fascinating glimpses of Duval’s career. It didn’t come up much in their few chats what kind of work Duval was responsible for, but it was evident that she was a busy scientist. Meetings and papers and deadlines, it was a stressful world that Sierra accepted was far beyond her.
She continued listening in as the conversation was wrapped up. Duval replied, “Sure. Sure. I’ll be down in the lobby in… umm, five minutes.” Sierra’s head perked up, having expected a different estimate if any at all. Thus far, no check up had ever been so brief. “Yeah, that’s great. I’ll see you soon. Bye-bye.” The phone wasn’t pocketed, instead partly used to twist the doorknob into her office. She moved as fast as she had been, as if kicked back into gear after having halted.
All was still in the room, as it was supposed to be, but Sierra felt a life in the office that the others did not. The community that they all lived their shrunken lives in was, of course, scaled to their needs. Days could be spent within their houses, the subjects living as carefree as they had before the shrinking, reminded of their size only when a gigantic scientist stomped into their neighborhood. The tests that Duval would set up, too, did not often impact anyone with the reality of their size; the environment, as it were, felt adjusted to them, even if the tests focused on their smallness. But the office, a space Sierra was exclusively growing familiar with, was not like those locations so designed to have them feel normal. It was a giant’s office, and appropriately so did it continuously weigh on Sierra that she was impeccably tiny, and that these titanic objects were in fact unabashedly mundane to the rest of the world.
The shuttle was perched onto the center of Duval’s desk, its size and weight fittingly similar to that of an ordinary stapler. Duval’s hand remained nearby while she waited for the one departure. Sierra disembarked with her bag lazily in hand, offering a wave to Kendall and the others just as she stepped onto the perfectly flat surface. She stood a fair distance away from the shuttle, but close enough so she could feel its take-off, keenly observing Duval’s prowess in lifting away something so heavy and stocked with people. It left her legs quaking to watch the trailer be plucked away in such a delicate grasp.
Duval, always one to be safe, brought the shuttle to her eyes closely for one other headcount. Confirming all was well, she turned her attention to Sierra, where her demeanor turned preemptively apologetic. “I hate to spring this on you last minute,” she began, “but I actually just got off the phone with a colleague, and our director is calling for a meeting. Would you be able to wait here for about thirty minutes? I’m so sorry about this.”
Sierra stared blankly back at Duval. The wide space of the desk felt as though it stretched even wider to isolate her. “Thirty minutes?”
“No longer than that,” Duval swore. “I wish they would warn us ahead of time, but it’s been… hectic lately, for all of us. I hope this isn’t too upsetting, Sierra.”
“No, i-it’s…” Sierra bit her lip, choking on her lie. She wouldn’t express her disappointment, not over something so trivial, but it was how she felt. Even such a minor delay felt like a cosmic attack on her -- at which point, she realized she was being too silly. She nodded approvingly, “I can wait it out, i-if it’s just thirty minutes.”
“Thank you for understanding,” Duval replied amidst a stress-relieving sigh. Her smile returned briefly for Sierra before being aimed at the shuttle. “Let’s get everyone home and… and call it a day, haha~” Taking a moment to straighten her back, Duval then exited her office. The door closed behind her, but the clacking of her heels could be heard through it, a rhythm that Sierra was linked to until it finally faded too far.
She’s definitely been busier than usual, Sierra took note. It was the first thing to her mind the moment Duval’s footsteps disappeared, but it had been a recurring thought for the past several days. Ever since these check ups began, Duval appeared to move about the labs more quickly, at least the few times she could be seen at all. As the week went on, the overseer was seeing less of her subjects, between infrequent visits and not investing as much time.
Sierra was first drawn towards the medical station atop Duval’s desk. It was the only structure there that was scaled to her size, as well as a familiar place in general, having showered there two weeks before. It rekindled that memory among others, which she sought to walk away from; she had to change out of her uniform and into a patient’s gown for these check ups, and with Duval elsewhere, she figured it best to change now. Her bag was deposited on one of the empty beds, the privacy curtain was cautiously closed, and she was soon dressed in the breezy pink gown.
The open air chilled her skin where exposed with the essence of loneliness, but the huge emptiness of the office was something she actually enjoyed. The space to think and the freedom to explore were perfect attributes for meditation, but the thoughts rumbling in Sierra’s head were not stressless. When left alone to dwell on her thoughts, it was only a matter of time before Sierra burdened herself with unresolvable worries.
Like a sharp prick, Sierra reached a conclusion: Obviously Duval’s busy when she has to make time for me like this. The hard taste of regret was in the bite of her lips and how her arms crossed. It made too much sense to ignore, that by faking this injury as much as she has, she’s added more work onto Duval’s already steep load. It was only recently that Duval’s tired streak began, the same time at which these research-heavy check ups started. Although these sessions generally only lasted an hour, that was still one whole hour stolen from Duval’s day. That could be an hour sleeping in, Sierra argued, or an hour spent getting actual work done. Instead, I’m having her babysit me for something I made up…
The problem arm was given a look over. It had been too easy to trick Duval all this time, Sierra realized. The overseer was too huge to accurately read how injured the arm was, and so she relied on Sierra’s word. She had been expected to be honest and cooperative, but Sierra knew now that she had been acting selfishly. What was I honestly thinking?! she raged at herself, her anger manifesting in a cold scoff. Even a child could tell me what I did was wrong.
So, why did I do it? Sierra dropped to a seat with a huff, immediately taking her head into one hand. She breathed through her fingers, her thoughts coming up empty. There wasn’t an answer waiting for her, but the space to come up with one herself. The outline was obvious, I just want to be with Duval, but what was left unfilled unnerved her for how out of reach this part of her psyche was. There was more to this, Sierra considered, than just a typical crush in an atypical environment.
Those thoughts had time to dwell, and then even escape her. Sierra had closed her eyes, internally at conflict with herself, yet enough time passed that she felt the issue slip away. Her thoughts went elsewhere, but then she looked to the office chair that stood a short distance from the desk. It was huge, and empty -- “... Duval?”
An electric clock on the desk told the time, and it revealed to Sierra that it had since been longer than thirty minutes. “I must have dozed off,” she grumbled, concernedly getting to her feet and pacing around the desk. It wasn’t like she could fetch Duval herself, but walking around felt better than sitting in total helplessness. She knew it possible that Duval could be uncharacteristically late, given that nobody could be perfect, but time continued to tick even after she noticed how long it had been. Eventually, an hour had gone by since Duval’s leave, and another thirty minutes more after that.
Sierra had paced around the desk two complete rotations before she succumbed under the fatigue and worry. There was yet to be a hint of Duval’s arrival, and so Sierra wondered what was to come next. She had occupied the desk for an hour and a half, and only then did it dawn on her that she was stranded. She was trapped as this insignificantly sized person atop an office desk, abandoned and at Duval’s mercy. Who else would come for her otherwise? Who other than Duval did she utterly rely on?
There was a click, and a clack. Sierra’s head popped up. It was heard again, and so she twisted towards the door. Another click-clack from the hallway, a pattern that neared closer until finally, the mighty door was unlocked and opened. Sierra sprung to her feet at the sight of Duval entering her office, washed once over with relief, then again with uneasy suspense. Duval had walked in, but the air surrounding her felt incorrect.
The door was closed by the weight of Duval’s back. She leaned against it into a hard slam of a close, enough force to make Sierra hop even from her distance at the desk. Yet Duval was unflinching to the noise, seemingly even at rest to hear it, for she lingered there against the door while her arms hung loose at her sides. She wasn’t dressed in her lab coat this time, a fact Sierra immediately noticed. The coat was instead draped over her shoulder, freely displaying her earth-colored blouse and her strict black slacks. A curl of black hair was out of place, a particularly minute detail that Sierra also took hint of.
Most pressing, however, was the silence. Duval brought energy to the room with her massive presence, at least from Sierra’s perspective, yet it all died with the shutting of the door. The scientist had no greeting for Sierra, nor a remark towards anything. She stayed slumped against the door, her only motion being to raise her wrist so that she could check the time.
Duval yawned with graceless performance, not even a palm to cover herself. Sierra didn’t giggle aloud, but the sight tickled her in a unique way. “And that’s the day,” Duval sighed, a comment edged with a short laugh and a shake of her head. She peeled off the door and into a stumble of steps towards the center of her office, perhaps the most casual of walking Sierra had ever witnessed from the overseer. “Good grief. Let’s get old Ophelia into a chair.”
Old Ophelia? Sierra shuddered in how she restrained her giggle, thinking of that silly name. She openly smiled, but in her gut, she was uncertain how to feel. Is she joking around? she wondered, weakly raising one arm as a gesture towards Duval. As the giantess drew closer, Sierra spoke up, “H-How was the meeting? I was getting-- almost, a little worried, since--”
“Not that one…” Duval interjected -- so casually, it couldn’t have been intentional, but Sierra shivered from such an abrupt reply. Duval pointed at the lavender couch, like a spotted enemy, “I’ll fall asleep in that, I just… like last time…” Sierra barely followed the slurred words, a description she dared to admit was the case. Instead of sitting on the couch, Duval dropped her lab coat along the arm as she continued walking to the desk.
Her shadow swept over Sierra, colder than it ever had before. Duval reached for her chair and pulled it towards her, nonchalantly putting on display her power to move monuments -- Sierra stumbled nearly off her feet as the massive furniture was spun suddenly out of its stillness, and yet to that point, Duval herself hadn’t said a word to her. As the woman’s tremendous weight shifted over the chair, Sierra braced for the inevitable impact. Only a short distance from her, Duval’s massiveness collapsed into the chair, the action of her lazily claiming her usual seat imposing the gravity of a comet.
Sierra was startled into speaking up, “Duval!” Instinctively, she strayed towards the center of the desk, constantly looking up in hopes that she had been recognized in the slightest. But Duval’s next sweeping motion came, a throw of her upper body forward as she hunched towards something under the desk. “D-Duval! I’m right here!” Sierra desperately called out, but the overseer did not respond. She proceeded to open a cabinet, a door to a trunk-sized fridge, and from it she withdrew her prize; a tall, thin bottle of white wine.
Without delay, Duval uncorked the bottle. Sierra didn’t believe the popping sound, but it was happening before her eyes; the overseer was drinking. It was the stinging aroma that made her blink out of her denial, confirming how true the scene was. Duval scanned the shelves of her desk and only broadly across its top. When she couldn’t find a glass, she vaguely shrugged to herself, and drank directly from the bottle. Sierra found it possible to be even more astonished, circling back to rejecting the truth all over again.
A hum of satisfaction followed the taste Duval took. Her eyes remained closed, savoring the world the wine delivered her to. Gentle sways from left to right kept her relaxed but awake, her eyes never drifting too far from the lip of the bottle. Sierra was overcome with emotion, and so much of it could have been ecstasy, had she not felt the terror of being forgotten about. In this situation, she was a speck not only abandoned on Duval’s desk, but abandoned in her memory as well. The more comfortable Duval displayed herself to be, the worse Sierra’s stresses became.
Duval took another chug -- slam, the bottle hit the desk hard on its bottom. Sierra jumped to the side, as if dodging a bomb drop from only so far away. The wine’s impact rattled her where she fell, inflicting a persistent tremble while she tried to stand. She squeaked Duval’s name again, but the giantess grumbled over her, a nondescript complaint related to some other, unspoken thought. It didn’t matter to Sierra, who had fortunately thought of a way to get Duval’s attention -- an attempt, at least.
Sierra dashed to a nearby corner of the desk where a trio of pens had been brushed aside. Behind her, she heard Duval mumbling on about a supervisor, a director, but any noise the titan made only rushed her anxiety. Short of being in a rage, Sierra crouched down and grabbed a pen by its halfway point. It was lighter than she expected something so long to be, and so it was flung to the edge of the desk, skittering once across the polished surface before tipping completely off. Sierra ducked down and cowered, watchful of how Duval might react.
It was a delayed response, but Duval twitched and grimaced. A furrowed glare of confusion was beamed at where she heard the pen’s fall against the floor. The unpleasant expression gripped Sierra by the heart, as though she had disturbed a monster from its rest. Her lips quivered into forming an apology, melting into regret for acting so reckless.
The push of Duval’s stare fell onto Sierra. Her grumbling came to an end, leaving a pause where silence stood firm. “... Noo,” she feebly whispered; not the bark Sierra had expected, but a coo. “Oohh, goodness… Sierra…”