The Subject Pt. 02

And the beast that shuffled out from behind a coffee can in front of her didn't necessarily care about her purpose, either...

It was looking for something to eat, and seemed pleased that Cassie had wandered into its dining room. Cass knew at once that she was confronting a rattus norvegicus... a wharf rat. And a BIG one too, even to someone who wasn't eight inches tall. But considering that she WAS, however, the animal crouched before her was more like ten feet long (That's not including its tail).

The tiny woman took a defensive posture with her knife as she backed away, slowly... "H-hey there, Mickey..." She said, trembling, but obviously, the rat was neither in the mood for levity, nor was it so easily dissuaded from its idea of having her for dinner.

She decided that mentioning to the animal that it was mostly a vegetarian would be for not because by the look in its eyes, she deduced that it wasn't a healthy creature by any means. This could mean several things; that it was poisoned, diseased or injured. But mostly, it meant that it was FERAL, and would consider anything that she did as a threat.

Cassie's mind froze with fear.

She had seen death on the horizon for so long and had thought that she was ready for it. However, when death came to her in the form of a rat the size of a HORSE, she found herself blinded by panic.

The rat's squeal was more like a roar as it lunged at her, and she suddenly found herself sprawled in a heap several feet from where she had been standing. Blood trickled into her eyes, partially blinding her. She franticly felt for the 'knife' but couldn't find it. Numb with fear, panic, and ignoring whatever injury had produced so much blood, she began to scramble to get to her feet. But she slipped...

Her foot caught the edge of her covering, and she fell chin first, hard against the cold concrete floor. Dazed, Cassie just closed her eyes and lay there, unable to move, cowering... waiting for the searing pain of gigantic teeth tearing into her flesh...but nothing came, save for an alien sound like that of a steel drum being dragged through an empty warehouse. She slowly lifted her head to discover the source of the sound.

The blood that riddled her was not hers, she realized, but that of the rats. What had knocked her off her feet was the concussive force of a gigantic shoe slamming down atop the animal, and the sound was the owner of the shoe scraping the mutilated carcass from the sole.

With tears, blood and dirt clouding her vision, Cassie couldn't see the source of her salvation, but she COULD hear the familiar voice booming from above.

"THERE you are!" It echoed like thunder, "I thought I'd NEVER find you!"

Chapter Eight

Boris scratched his chin, then ran his fingers through his thick black hair. He sighed audibly as he leaned back in the chair, cursing silently at the computer screen. "What aren't you telling me?" He muttered.

Files and notes were stacked in piles around the computer, some threatening to avalanche onto the floor. The glare of the monitor showed indecipherable notations laid out in tight patterns, cross-referenced by date and time and evaluated neatly and succinctly.

Still, for all the amount of data at his fingertips, Boris could not find the answer to his question: "Where the hell are Tanya and Cassie?" His mind echoed the query again and again, as if the empty lab would produce an answer if prompted enough.

Boris had arrived at the women's apartment two days after the urgent call from Cassie only to find it void of life. The landlady had graciously let Boris in on the pretext that he was Tanya's brother, yet she didn't leave his side for one minute. Nevertheless, Boris found enough evidence to satisfy himself that the women hadn't been back to the apartment after the phone call. The display on the telephone's caller ID box showed that there was a message waiting, date stamped for later in the afternoon on the day that Cassie had called him.

So, if they didn't return to the apartment, then they must still be at Tanya's lab, was the hypothesis. Luckily, Cassie had thought to give him the address, and a quick cab ride left him at the door of the lab. Using the page box by the front door, Boris waited for Cassie to answer and unlock the lab. There was no answer, though, and this is when his worries began to mount. He had no choice but to break in. The security system was state of the art, as well, surpassing even that of the Pentagon.

Boris made a mental note to congratulate Tanya on the design and array... and then, disabled it in less than 10 seconds.

Once inside, it was obvious to him that Tanya and Cassie had spent the money from Willover's accounts very well. The lab was equipped with the most up-to-date research equipment available, and the computer system was exactly what Boris would have himself, if he weren't trying to survive on a Professor's salary.

But despite his envious awe of the laboratory, the one overriding thought in his head overwhelmed him all the more. Cassie and Tanya were not here, either, and as he searched for any sign of them, tension and worry grew all the more inside. All at once, the fears that he was trying to put to rest were founded.

On the floor of the main lab were two piles of discarded clothing. From what Cassie had said on the phone, he knew that one set belonged to Tanya, who had been shrunk by her assistant. Cassie had assured Boris that she was safe, however, for now. The second set must have belonged to Cassie herself, he guessed.

But why?

Remembering the urgency in Cassie's voice, Boris figured that Cass would have returned directly to the lab after she hung up with him. But why would she come back here and take off her clothes?

The answer his mind came up with surprised him with its jealousy, and he shook it off. He knew that the furthest thing from Cassie's mind, given the plight of her lover, would be sex, despite what his libido wanted to believe. But where would Cassie take Tanya without taking her clothes anyway, and why? He pondered the thought for a moment longer, and the realization dawned on him like a cold hand running down his spine. What if...?

After a short search of the laboratory, Boris discovered Tanya's "office/apartment", thinking correctly, that any security systems would be in a place that would be inconspicuous. As the 'office' was slightly hidden in plain sight behind an unmarked and unassuming door. Boris found the security system INSIDE the building quite a bit easier to overcome than the one guarding the building itself. The cabinet that housed the security monitors and recording equipment was at the back of a small room just off what appeared to be Tanya's office. A penknife was all it took to force the lock open, and it was mere minutes before Boris had the answer to the mystery plaguing him.

From several different angles on the tape he could watch the young woman, apparently Tanya's assistant (Rita was her name, he thought), sneak up behind Cassie and a miniature version of Tanya and raise what appeared to be a television remote control. Obviously, it wasn't what it appeared to be.

Boris remembered the first time he saw Cassie shrinking. She was beautiful at normal size, and he remembered thinking that her beauty seemed to increase the smaller she became, as if it were being refined, intensified by the compacting of her body. She seemed more graceful, more womanly, more... herself, at a miniature size.

On the several occasions that Boris visited the couple before they took their hiatus from the world, he would find Cassie parading around their small apartment in her shrunken state, only a foot or so tall, as if it were as natural to her as he felt when he lay around on a Sunday in only his boxer shorts. She would wear only a shift of silk hewn from a scarf or something, and lounge comfortably in Tanya's lap, secure in her lover's embrace, her smallness adding something special to her beauty.

This time, seeing it on the small black and white security monitor however, Boris found nothing at all beautiful about what was happening. A surprised Cassie lurched and quickly dwindled into her own clothes, which seemed to hang suspended in air, emptied of her body before collapsing to the floor. Tanya, barely recognizable on the tape due to the poor image quality and her small size, could only lean forward to see where her lover had gone, and then... she too dwindled away to a mere speck on the small monitor.

The girl with the device walked forward slowly and gathered up Tanya in her hand. Boris couldn't help but notice that she paused for a moment as if studying (or admiring) Tanya's small form before she carefully deposited her in what looked like a Zip-Lock bag that she had produced from her pocket.

The girl then knelt down and tossed back Cassie's blouse, laying in a heap, and quickly snatched up the doll that used to be the woman inside. The Cassie figure was not admired, or studied... she was merely dropped into the woman's purse as an afterthought. When the woman stood and turned toward one of the cameras, Boris got a good look at her face. She was wearing a smile so smug and so horribly cold... and Boris would have sworn that he'd seen her somewhere before because of it.

So, he knew what had happened to the girls, and who had abducted them. Now the question he was desperately seeking an answer to was: Where had they gone? Boris didn't know what to do next. He supposed he could call the police, show them the tape of the obvious kidnapping, and let them handle it. Tanya's assistant's address, phone number, driver's license number and DNA were all kept on file within the lab's computer so it wouldn't be hard for them to track her down, find Tanya and Cassie and...

And WHAT? He thought. Arrest her for SHRINKING two PEOPLE?!?

The one thing that Tanya had tried to do after the debacle at Westview was to keep her research buried. One, for the obvious controversy surrounding the cloning issue that was cropping up in the media, and two, because she felt that there was too much possibility of the research being used for less than moral purposes. Willover's plan to clone and sell people as miniature slaves had proven that.

She had employed Boris' own expertise to making sure that any traces of hers and Dr. Willover's research was erased from Westview's records, which was a daunting task, considering the amount of funding that was poured into it by the board of directors. Luckily, accountants weren't the smartest computer users, and it was relatively easy to find and delete the information.

Boris sighed, frustrated. If he was going to find Cass and Tanya, he was going to have to do it himself, and the idea of facing down an obvious psychopath armed with a SHRINK ray didn't appeal to him at all.

However, he knew that he would have to do something, and do it soon. God only knew WHY Tanya's assistant, Rita...THAT was her name...would want to shrink the two women, but it couldn't have been for any GOOD reason, he was sure. He tried not to think about what might be happening to the two tiny women in the hands of this person, then found himself WANTING to think about it. The mental images of the two of them in danger strengthened his mettle, and helped him to block out the fear that was rising in him.

He gave himself one last mental kick to get going, and returned to the lab. Rita's personnel records would give him a lead as to where to look first, and they could be easily pulled out of the computer. If only... there wasn't someone already SITTING at the computer station... The 'someone' being the VERY person in question as a matter of fact!

Rita looked up. The look on her face as surprised as the one Boris knew he was wearing himself. "Boris." She said his name flatly, as if stating a fact, and reached down to the desk, her hand disappearing behind the monitor.

There was a moment of silence that stretched out to eternity as Boris' mind raced with the probability that at any moment he would be joining Cassie and Tanya in situation and size. He felt his muscles coiling, waiting to spring at her, to knock the device from her hand... and if he should fail, then he would at least know that he'd done his best for the two women.

His last thoughts were of Cassie and Tanya and what this woman may have done to them. A rage welled-up inside his mind and he focused totally on the woman staring blankly at him. She had HURT his friends and he planned to do whatever it took to make her pay!

Boris sneered as his body sprang into action and Rita's hand came up over the top of the monitor. He was in mid-flight when he saw what Rita held in her hand... A half-naked, eight-inch tall... red head?!? Who was frantically waving her arms at him.

At his current angle, Boris knew he would crash directly into Rita, probably crushing Cassie between them in the process. Without thinking, Boris' hand caught the edge of the desk as he passed over it, and propelled himself in an awkward arc, not into Rita, as he had intended, but past her. He landed unceremoniously, his short flight stopped suddenly by the meeting of his head with... the steel drawer of the filing cabinet. He wondered absently if "O-Z" would be imprinted backwards on his forehead, and then let the pain wash over him as he slumped to the floor.

"BORIS?! OHMIGOD!" Rita exclaimed as she quickly came to his aid. She helped him into a sitting position against the cabinet, "Are you okay?!"

Boris blinked and shook his head several times, trying to make the multiple Ritas pick one of their own as a spokesperson, "You... you..." He muttered, and tried to get to his feet, but his feet had other plans, and slid out from under him at the slightest pressure. "You..." He said again. "What... did you do... with TANYA?"

"Boris, please... calm down... you've hurt yourself." Rita said as she tried to examine the bruise on his forehead.

His hand reached out and grabbed the front of her shirt. He fought the blinding pain that came with every effort, "Where is she?!" He snarled, hoping that he was being more of a threat than he felt.

Rita was caught off balance and grasped the hand holding her to keep from falling over, "Boris! Wait! Its not what you think!"

"DAMMIT...!!! Where's TANYA?!?!" He was about to grab for her throat when...

"BORIS!!! STOP!!!" A tiny voice, so familiar, yet so far off, called to him. He turned to look for it, and found Cass, standing on the floor next to him. He squinted as he strained to hear her tiny voice over the sound of the blood pounding in his skull. "It's OKAY, Boris!" She yelled, her voice as tiny as her frame. "Really! She's trying to HELP me!"

Boris wasn't sure if it was the blow to the head, or the situation. But one thing was for sure...

He had NEVER been so confused in his whole LIFE.

Chapter Nine

"Okay... Let me get this straight..."

Boris shifted the cold compress from his eyes to the throbbing lump at the edge of his hairline. "What you're telling me is that SHE," he gestured to the young forlorn lady sitting behind Tanya's desk, "didn't shrink you and Tanya..." He tried to clear his throat. Partly because of what he was trying to comprehend, but mostly the mention of Tanya's name caused a lump there.

"...But that you and she were shrunk by...?" He almost laughed, and certainly would have if he weren't still in a numb sort of shock from the news of Tanya's death, "The GHOST of Doctor Cassandra Willover?" His brow furrowed, and he hissed in pain, readjusting the cold pack. "I'm sorry, Cass... but it's all... just a bit much to believe." He looked down at his friend, who was perched comfortably on the arm of the sofa next to him, wrapped in half a handkerchief, little more than seven inches tall.

The tiny woman dropped her head, succumbing to the weight of the tale that she had told Boris, and the burden of believing it herself. Then, she looked desperately into his eyes, and her small voice carried to his ears her only defense. "Boris, you have the phone number of a human clone who can change her size at will in your speed dial..."

Her tiny eyes pleaded with him. For some reason, she trusted the young woman whom all evidence showed as the kidnapper and suspected murderer of Tanya. He didn't understand it, and knew that he had no reason to believe in it... but Cassie's eyes burned into him. He knew her, and knew her intelligence, and her heart. If anyone had reason to hate the woman at the desk, it was her. But she didn't. For some reason, she actually trusted the story she was told, and he figured that this alone would be good enough for him, too.

"...Good point." Boris conceded. "I just wish I could understand it. I mean Tanya..."Deep emotions welled up within him, but he swallowed them at the sight of Cassie sitting next to him, so small and so helpless looking. He didn't have time to mourn while she was still in danger. That would come later. He silently promised Tanya that he would cry for her later and returned his thoughts to the matter at hand. Still... he couldn't get the conundrum out of his head, no matter what Cassie said. He needed to hear it from the horse's mouth, so to speak.

"What about you, Rita?" He said, and Rita jumped at the sound of her name. Her eyes were glassy, deep set by exhaustion and what appeared to be fear. "You wanna explain to me what happened here?"

Rita's lips trembled and her eyes glistened with tears. She was afraid to open her mouth for fear that she would start screaming and never stop. Sensing this, Cassie motioned for Boris to take her to the desk. With more than a little hesitation, he stretched out his hand and let her step into his palm. He was amazed at how light she was as he carried her to the desk. She leapt off before his hand came to rest, moving quickly toward the nerve-shattered woman. Dwarfed by the pencil holder and piles of books on the desk, Cassie looked even smaller to him. Still and all, she strode across the desk to stand below Rita, and spoke with an authority that belied her small size.

"Rita? Rita!" She shouted up at the girl, "Rita, look at me!"

Rita forced herself to look down at the tiny woman, ignoring the screaming in her head, focusing on Cassie's small voice, which softened along with her stern expression.

"Rita...? It's all right. No one blames you for what's happening. Boris just needs more information if he's going to help us." Rita glanced nervously over at Boris and back to Cass, the tiny redhead needed to loosen her up a bit more. "You two have never met before...Why don't you tell Boris how you met Tanya and I, Rita? Would you like to do that?"

Rita nodded and tried but failed to smile. She hugged herself tightly as the more gentle memory slowly flooded into her mind, calming the terrified voices there, and at last she was able to speak...

Rita was more than a little surprised when she met her new employer for the first time. She knew Dr. Tanya Vale in name only, having been interviewed for the job through a headhunter agency that she had almost forgotten she'd signed with. She had been given a start date and an address by the agency so she took it upon herself to introduce herself to her new boss a week before she was suppose to start, partly out of respect for her new job, but mostly because the anticipation was killing her.

Her current job in the State Police Forensics lab was interesting, to be sure, if not entirely unsatisfying. She felt like a civil servant, bound by the government on all sides. To work in the private sector would bring the freedom to express herself that she ached for. Computers were her life. The hardware, wires and miles of code were like clay to a sculptor in her hands. She couldn't wait to get her hands on the computer systems that a private research facility would possess.