Predator

Skip Turner drove his small red import into a neighborhood in Arroyo Vista, California he had never delivered to before. In his two months of delivering pizzas for Vito’s, he had thought he’d been everywhere, but this area east of the freeway was a neighborhood he hadn’t personally visited in two or three years. That in itself wasn’t surprising, considering that he was a part time junior college student when he wasn’t delivering pizzas. Homework left little time for sight-seeing.

A row of houses lined the street, and sure enough, there was the address Skip was looking for, so he parked his small vehicle in front of the house he was delivering to. He carried the sleeve containing the pizza with chicken, garlic, and white sauce, and approached the door. After knocking briskly, an elderly woman opened the door, and Skip could tell by her reaction that she seemed to be in no mood for eating pizza; he could sense that this had been a prank call before the woman even spoke.

“We didn’t order a pizza!” the elderly woman said, then she tilted her head and looked behind her. “Harce! Did you order a pizza?”

Harce must’ve been hard of hearing, because he said “No!” with a volume that would normally indicate anger, but with emotion indicating that he was indifferent, rather than upset.

“We didn’t order any pizza!” the woman said, then closed the door in Skip’s face. It occurred to Skip that some kid must’ve thought it was funny to pull a prank by ordering a pizza to be delivered to the elderly couple. The kid responsible probably knew the couple personally.

When Skip returned to his car, a girl of about thirteen or fourteen years old was leaning against his car. She was cute, with short dark-blonde hair and gray eyes. She wore a short skirt and a pink tee-shirt, which was normal enough, but what was weird was her holster. It looked like it had been made with great skill by a high school kid, perhaps. It was made of thick unpainted tan leather with thin straps at the bottom that wrapped around the girl’s thigh, and at the top there was another strap that wrapped around her waist and was fastened by a buckle, like a belt.

Before Skip could comment on the craftsmanship of the leather, the girl whipped out a device from the holster that looked like a ray-gun from the cover of a 1930’s issue of Astounding magazine, and fired it at him.

An instant later, Skip was about half an inch tall looking up at blades of grass. He had been standing on the grass between the sidewalk and the curb adjacent to his car when she shrunk him, because he was about to put the unwanted pizza in the passenger side of his vehicle so he could make another delivery. Skip tried to assess the situation, but soon the titanic teen was towering over him like an avenging goddess. She held the shrink ray-gun in her right hand, and was now reaching down to grasp him with her left hand. Skip was dashing away from the girl before the thought of trying to escape had firmly formed in his mind, as if by instinct; however, he didn't get very far. The girl was too much bigger and stronger than Skip.

The girl grabbed Skip, clenched him gently but firmly in her left fist, then pointed the shrink ray-gun at Skip’s car, and fired. After re-holstering her weapon and picking up the miniaturized car in her right hand, the girl walked home, which wasn’t far from the site of the abduction.

When she got to her front door, Skip saw that she couldn’t open the door with him in one hand and the car in the other, so she opted to stuff Skip into her mouth briefly while she opened the door. As the girl’s hot breath washed over him, Skip realized that at half an inch tall he had been reduced to a perfect size for swallowing. Once inside, she returned Skip to her left hand and went straight to her bedroom.

The room was of average size, with a bed, a dresser, and a desk with a computer and some computer-related hardware. Built into the desk above and to the rear was a shelf. On the top level of the shelf, which was surprisingly clutter-free, there was a plastic box with air-holes cut into the roof. The bottom half of the plastic box was concealed with gray duct tape. The girl set Skip and his car on the top level of the shelf and opened the plastic box and gently turned it over. A group of men the same size as Skip came running out. One of them, a man Skip thought looked like a biker, ran up and took the sleeve with the pizza in it from Skip.

“Hey, she shrunk another pizza guy!” the man said to the others, as the group tore open the box and began grabbing slices of pizza. Two other men who looked like bikers grabbed the pizzas from the rear of Skip’s car. The man who had taken the sleeve from Skip had on a black leather jacket that somehow looked futuristic. His black cargo pants were tucked into his black leather boots. After taking a few bites of pizza, the man introduced himself to Skip.

“Hi, I’m Scrapper!” he said.

“Did that girl shrink you, too?” Skip asked.

“Yeah!” Scrapper replied. ”Me and my crew. I was a space pirate in the asteroid belt about thirteen centuries in the future. Those are my brothers, Gator and Cronus.” Scrapper pointed at the other two men who looked like bikers. “Over there are Captain Vargas and the surviving members of his crew, Toro and Diego. They’re from the same century I’m from. They were hauling a miniaturization weapon through the asteroid belt when I attacked them, and when they tried to escape their space-freighter got caught in a hyper-temporal flux that pulled them back in time to the twenty-first century. That’s how Megan ended up with that shrink-ray!”

“What about Megan, the girl who shrunk us?” Skip asked. “Who is she?”

“Just some teenage chick,” Scrapper explained in between bites of pizza. “Her name is Megan Weiss, and she gets her kicks by going around shrinking pizza delivery drivers and taxi drivers, then she swallows them!”

Skip pondered the fleeting moments he had been in Megan’s mouth when she had opened the front door to her house. Was that just the beginning?

“You mean Megan is going to swallow all of us?”

“She’s going to swallow you,” Scrapper replied. “She keeps the rest of us alive because we have knowledge of future technology that she can use to win science fairs. You’re probably going down her gullet the same time as that guy over there!” Scrapper pointed at a man Skip didn’t recognize. “He’s a taxi driver! Never accomplished anything in life, probably never would, if Megan released him.”

“Would it matter?” Skip asked Scrapper. “If I planned on accomplishing something in life, would she spare my life?”

“Maybe, maybe not,” Scrapper replied. “But she’s going to want proof. What are your goals in life?”

“I’m working on getting an associate’s degree in electrical engineering at Cuesta college right now, then I plan on working in the electrician’s union for about ten years, until I save up enough money to go back to school and get a doctorate in physics!”

“Then you’d better tell her that!” said Scrapper. “I think today that taxi driver is history. She decides how long they’re going to live by the flip of a coin. If he loses the toss, he’ll get swallowed. The same thing will happen to you! That’s been the pattern.”

Skip thought back over the past few months, and yes, there had been something on the news on more than one occasion about taxi drivers and their vehicles missing. Skip didn’t pay too much attention to the news because of his studies, but there had probably been news stories about pizza delivery drivers missing, too. Megan stood there observing Skip and Scrapper. Skip realized she had heard every word of the conversation.

“Do you plan on serving humanity in some way?” Megan asked.

“Yes!” Skip answered earnestly, hoping that this girl could be reasoned with. “I want to be a scientist some day!”

“What proof do you have?” Megan asked.

“My pre-calculus book is in my backpack in the trunk of my car! My electronics textbook is there, too!”

Skip got out his keys, walked over to his miniaturized car, and opened the trunk. Once he got the backpack out he unzipped it, then he got the books out. Megan took them from him, set them on her bed, and fired her ray-gun, which was set on neutrino transfer. The books were re-enlarged to normal size instantly. Megan looked the books over, and seemed impressed.

“I’ve gotten a lot of liars who will say anything to avoid getting swallowed,” said Megan. “But you’re the first one who has proof.” Skip found himself pondering what kind of a Wonderland he had stumbled into where a teenage girl laments of problems she’s had with miniaturized captives. “But in order for me to re-enlarge you and let you go, I’ll have to flip a coin!”

“Okay!” said Skip.

“But first, I want you to see what happens to people who lie to me!”

Megan picked up the taxi driver, who looked visibly frightened of the beautiful teenager. He didn’t scream out, he just remained in the palm of her hand as she lifted him toward her mouth. Megan stuffed him inside, closed her mouth, and locked her jaw closed. A look of joy came over her face as she tilted her head back and forced the captive to the back of her mouth with her tongue. Moments later, she swallowed him. The space pirates started cheering when they could see a distinct bulge in Megan’s throat for a brief moment before the captive was banished to the depths of Megan’s belly. Skip noticed that the man Scrapper had introduced as Captain Vargas and Vargas’s two surviving crew members didn’t cheer as Megan swallowed her captive. When the swallowing was complete, Megan smiled.

“I want to ask you a question before I flip the coin,” Megan told Skip. “This has no bearing on whether or not I’ll free you, I just want to see how dedicated you are as a future scientist. Can you figure out how my shrink-ray works?”

Skip had no experience with theories that were so off the chart of modern science, but he had spent four years of high school and the last two years of junior college trying to digest string theory in his spare time. Skip understood the structure of an atom, so he started there, and tried to get the feel of this radical new theory. Although Megan had said this had no bearing on whether or not she would release him, Skip felt that he had better be right on target with this theory, in case it somehow subconsciously affected Megan’s decision.

“Atoms are composed of protons, neutrons, and electrons,” Skip began. “These three particles are in turn made up of quark and gluon particles. If I were going to venture a guess, I’d say that your device works by stripping matter in the form of neutrino particles from the quarks and gluons! This would cause the protons, neutrons, and electrons to decrease in size, weight, volume, and mass!”

“Very good!” said Megan as she clapped her hands together in applause. “The theory is called neutrino dissimilation! Can you tell me anything else?”

“What do you mean?” Skip asked.

“What causes the shrinking atoms to maintain the same proportionate distance from one another, compared to their distance apart at normal size?”

“Oh,” Skip replied, “you mean if two normal-sized atoms are ten atoms apart from each other, then when they’re shrunk, they’re ten miniaturized atoms apart from each other?”

“Exactly!” said Megan. “Those two distances are different, because atoms must move closer together as they shrink. What causes the shrinking atoms to move closer together?”

Skip knew enough about sub-atomic physics to easily know the answer to this. He had to make an effort not to smile as he replied to Megan. “It has to do with the electrostatic repulsive force of the positively charged protons. When they get smaller, that repulsive force diminishes, and the atoms move closer together."

"Very good!" said Megan. "What about the orbiting electrons? Should they stay big as the atoms shrink, or should they shrink with the nucleus?"

Skip knew the answer to this question, as well. "The electrons would have to shrink, too! The negative charge of the orbiting electrons is partially responsible for what keeps atoms a specific distance apart from one another, because electrons repel each other. When electrons shrink, the force of their charge diminishes, so the atoms are forced closer together. If the electrons stayed the same size as the nucleus shrank, this would upset the positions of the atoms, and they would get mixed around. That would work out very badly if you tried to shrink a person that way!”

“I’m impressed!” said Megan. “You’re absolutely right! Now for the next question. Does a neutrino dissimilator need a powerful computer to keep track of every atom it miniaturizes, or is it a chain reaction?”

The answer to this question could just as easily be either option, so Skip ventured a guess. “It needs a computer to keep track of each atom it shrinks?”

“No!” Megan replied. “It’s a chain reaction. The computer is very powerful, because it controls the application of string theory and quantum mechanics, but the individual atoms don’t need to be tracked.” Megan took out her silver dollar and prepared to toss it. She held the coin up vertically for Skip to see and asked, “Heads or tails?”

"Wait," said Skip, "before you flip the coin, I'm curious about something."

Megan lowered the coin momentarily and said, "What?"

"Now that all of the atoms of my body have been miniaturized, how do they react with their normal-sized environment? How can my tiny body process normal-sized oxygen atoms?"

"The way it was explained to me," Megan replied, "is that there is a dimensional brane surrounding your body. Don't quote me on this, but I think it is about 3 X 10^-18 meters thick. When normal-sized oxygen atoms cross that barrier into your lungs, they shrink so your miniaturized body can assimilate them. The same with food; that's why I have to shrink all of my captives' food, I can't just feed them stuff I chewed up and spit out, or they wouldn't get filled up when they ate. Well, you only delayed the inevitable, it's time for the coin toss! Heads or tails?"

“Heads,” said Skip, and Megan tossed the coin high into the air. During the fractions of a second that the coin was in the air, Skip’s mind quickly pondered his situation. Megan was a predator. There were many different kinds of predators. It occurred to Skip that it was ironic that her name was Megan, considering the fact that Megan’s Law was designed to keep track of adult predators who preyed on kids, and Megan was a predatory kid who preyed on adults. Skip briefly pondered whether or not he should go to the police if he did indeed get re-enlarged by this sadistic girl.

Skip’s mind went blank as soon as the coin hit Megan’s right palm and she turned it over onto the backside of her left hand. Megan peeked under the hand that was concealing the coin, with a look of apprehension on her face. The look of apprehension was replaced with a smile as Megan silently lifted her hand to reveal that the coin had come up tails.

“It looks like my belly will be your grave!” said Megan cheerfully as she held the silver coin aloft. “Now I’m going to flip to see whether or not I swallow you today or tomorrow. Who knows, if you win enough times, you might live a whole week!”

Skip found very little comfort in the concept of being able to live an entire week, rather than surviving for just a day or two. But what could he do? He was half an inch tall; it was her call.

“Heads you get swallowed today, tails we flip again tomorrow.” Megan tossed the coin high into the air a second time, but Skip was too sick to his stomach to watch. It spiraled through the air and Megan caught it. When Megan saw that Skip wasn’t watching, she said, “You won this time, it was tails. You live until tomorrow! Do you want to hang out with the other captives and eat some pizza?”

Skip saw that he had little choice, and went to join the others. He was now living on borrowed time, with the flip of a coin determining whether or not he would live or die. In just another day, maybe two, he would find himself struggling for air in the depths of his captor’s belly. Skip wondered how many others had fallen prey to Megan Weiss before today, just as he had, and how many more innocent people would fall victim to this unstoppable predator? All he could do now was anticipate his inescapable destiny.

The End