Zzzzzzaaaap!
A pale blue ray emits from your size ray, brightening your dark lab with light and a crackling sound. It stretches almost instantaneously towards your target: a mannequin dressed up like a Roman legionary. The mannequin is engulfed by blue light and, almost instantaneously, seems to disappear.
Or did it? You take off your protective goggles, pocket your size ray, and snap your fingers, causing the lights in your lab to switch on. You smile as you walk towards where the mannequin was and bend down. The mannequin, once about your height, has been reduced in size. You grab it, wrapping your fingers around the legionary's torso, and walk with it briskly to your workbench, where you have a magnifying glass and a ruler set up.
You push the miniaturized mannequin against the ruler and take a measurement. "Six inches, exactly!" you proclaim proudly. "I better remind myself to keep you this small when all is said and done. You'll look great on my desk in the office."
"Now, let's do another test..." you say, grabbing the mannequin again. You bring it back to your testing room and put it in the same spot. You unholster the size ray and hit the safety, setting it to "grow".
"Ok..." you say to yourself. You thumb at a dial above the safety. "I'd say... eight feet is a good height for testing the potential for growth...". You set the ray accordingly as you walk across the room and prepare to fire.
You aim the ray gun at your target and pull the trigger. A green light - much smoother and quieter than the shrink ray - slowly emits from your laser gun. It inches towards the miniature mannequin, eventually engulfing it after a few seconds. Again, almost instantaneously, the mannequin begins to grow, stretching up and up toward the ceiling. You let go of the trigger once the mannequin stops growing.
You approach it, looking up at the now-gigantic mannequin. You're glad you decided to test this on a dummy before trying it out on the real thing. Facing down a real eight-foot legionary would be terrifying. But, you supposed... you could just shrink one down, too. And why not? It might be cool to shrink a few down and keep them around. "They could be my toy soldiers" you chuckle to yourself.
You go to measure the now-giant mannequin, but, to your chagrin, you realize you forgot to prepare the wall in your workbench to measure heights larger than six feet. Regardless, it looks like the experiment was a success! Your size ray is now complete.
You pocket your device again and shut off the lights in the size lab with a snap. No need to come back here right now. Testing is complete. Or is it?
No, you need to do one more test. And you know just how to test it.
You hurry through a narrow hallway and approach a door with a retinal scanner on it. You scan your way in, and hurry through. If you're fast, you should be able to catch your research assistant, Tess, as she's tinkering with the time machine. You asked her to work late today, as you want to take it for a spin now that you've finished your size ray, but you've caught her leaving early before.
You walk past a menagerie of other experiments - the invisibility cloak, the memory neutralizer, the stun screwdriver, and the teleporter. You stop and admire your work. True, the teleporter is a total failure, but the stun screwdriver, neutralizer, and invisibility cloak work. At least, they work most of the time. You ponder them for a moment. They might come in handy on your journey, you realize. You grab the neutralizer and the screwdriver, each of which are small and thin, and fit comfortably in one of the pockets of your labcoat. You consider what to do with the invisibility cloak. You zap it with your shrink ray, making it the size of a handkerchief, and fold it up and put it in your back pocket. No telling when it could be useful!
Once you've secured your things, you hurry on towards the time machine lab. You hear Tess humming away while she works, tinkering with a wrench and some kind of torch. You quietly approach, admiring her work, and glance over at the diagnostics running on a nearby panel. You smile. The machine should be ready to use!
"Hey, Tess!" you exclaim. She turns her head and lifts up the heavy welding goggles she's got on.
"Yeah, [YOUR NAME]?" she asks, looking at you over her shoulder.
"C'mere a sec" you say. "I need to talk to you about some of the readings I'm getting on the calibrator" you say, pointing your thumb towards the panel behind you. Tess squints at them.
"Is there something wrong with them? I didn't hear any alarms or anything as I was working" she said, bashfully.
"Yeah, I think everything is fine. But you'd better come take a look" you say in a serious voice. Better not let her know you're up to something. There's no way she'd agree to let you run this test on her.
Tess sets down the wrench and torch and stands up. She stretches, wipes a bit of oil off of her forearm, and struts over. She's not wearing the labcoat she usually wears, but instead is wearing welding overalls and a sleeveless shirt with a bandanna around her head. She almost looks like Rosie the Riveter, you think.
"What's up, b-" she begins to ask as she approaches you. You cut her off mid-question, reaching for your size-ray like you're a gunslinger at high noon. You switch it to "shrink" as you draw, and then shoot it from your hip, engulfing the research assistant in crackling blue energy. In a moment, she's miniaturized. You gaze down at her, smiling.
Tess gasps as she looks around as her now-gargantuan world. "Ohmygod..." she mutters.
You approach her, staring down at her between your boots. "Enjoying your new perspective?" you ask. She looks tiny - too tiny. You wanted her to be about six inches tall or so, but it looks like you accidentally zapped her down to only three and a half. Much too small for what you intend.
"This isn't funny, boss! I didn't agree to be part of the shrink ray tests! And I didn't even know it was nearing completion!"
"It's a size ray, not a shrink ray. It can grow things, too. Watch!" you say. You take a step back, switch the ray to "growth", and zap her for just a couple of seconds.
Tess looks like she's doubled in size, maybe become a little bit taller. You reach down and scoop her up, wrapping your fingers around her waist as you lift her up. You smile. It's exhilarating holding someone in your hand like this!
Tess screams as you lift her up to your face. "PutmedownPUT ME DOWN! I'm sooo high off of the ground!" she says, panicking. She pounds her tiny fists on your thumb and kicks her legs wildly.
"Oh, hush. You're going to have to get used to being carried if you're only a few inches tall" you say. You carry her over to a workbench nearby and deposit her on the table, grabbing a nearby ruler to measure her. "6.35 inches..." you say, pushing her against it. "Unless you're not standing as tall as you can."
Tess folds her arms across her chest as you measure her. You prod her with a finger. "You are cute at this size. And I'm sure you're very useful. Imagine how useful it would be to have a miniature mechanic ready to get into small spaces to fix things? That would be much, much easier than having to rotate huge, heavy machines to get at inaccessible parts all the time."
"Quit poking me. It doesn't seem like it would be any easier for me to fix something at this size than it would at normal size, anyway" she pouts. "I've got work to do. Make me normal."
"Correction: we have work to do. And I'm afraid you're going to have to stay teensy-weensy, at least for the time being. We're going time traveling."
Tess gasps. "Really? You think it's ready to travel through time? But I was just finishing our diagnostics! We haven't even tested it with sheep!" she says.
You pat her head. "You're cute when you act all surprised, especially at this size. But we're going to test it. Together!" you say. "I'm confident it is ready."
"But it only fits one person..? Oh. That's why you shrunk me." She says.
"You're catching on, Tess. And I also shrunk you to make sure it worked on people. Feel proud. You're the first successfully shrunk person! Anyway, you'll ride in my lab coat pocket."
"Doesn't sound very comfortable..." she mutters. "Can't I just stay here and get some more work done? Or go home?"
You feign concern. "But Tess! We haven't tested out the growth function on people yet! The results could be disastrous!" you proclaim with a smile.
Tess rolls her eyes at you. You both know if shrinking works, growing is, too, but she understands she can't talk her way out of this one. "But, if you really don't want to make history as the first shrunken woman to time travel, I suppose I could leave you hear. But I can't leave you all alone. I'll call my niece to watch you. She's out of school and is much too old for dolls, but I suppose she'd make an exception for the world's first moving and talking doll..." you say, playfully reaching for your phone.
"Ugh, fine." she says. "Where are we going, then?"
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