Veronica Ceres listened as the woman on the phone detailed the goings-on in Madison. Nothing concrete--men disappearing, rumors of someone calling herself "The Coed," one rumor that the men seemed to just disappear.
Ceres gnawed on her pencil. She'd risen a fair ways in the hierarchy of the Athena League, but she'd failed to deliver the Big One.
Not that this was unusual; nobody had delivered the Big One. The Cadre had pretty much foiled the League at all turns.
This thing in Madison. It wasn't necessarily GTS-related. But it might be. Could she afford not to gamble on it?
She hung up the phone, and called her travel agent. She'd get in position. Just in case.
* * *
Liz sat and watched TV, trying to shake the odd buzzing in her mind.
It was always there, ever since she started to exact her revenge. Like the soundtrack of a movie turned down almost to nothing, barely perceptable, except for that occasional blip where you'd hear a car crash, or a scream, or a stray word.
She knew what the buzzing was telling her to do: go out, get vengeance. There were bad people out there, and she could do something about it.
She wished Sue was in. She needed someone to talk to. But Sue was off studying.
Liz got up and turned off the TV.
* * *
It was late in the evening on a Sunday--Saint Crispin's day, as I recall. Liz walked through the cool streets of Madison, the chill breeze of early winter whipping through her bones.
She was heading for the southeast dorms, a likely location of illicit activity. She shook involuntarily as the wind buffetted her, wondering why she was out that night. She just knew she had to be. It was a duty. It was something more.
Mentally, she started flipping through the rolodex of minds in Ogg Hall, trying to get a fix on any negative behavior. She had gained a great deal of control in the past few weeks. She could see the minds like a picture-in-picture, flipping back and forth while still utterly aware of what was going on.
She stopped on one. A man was pressuring a woman. No, it was more than pressure. It was eerily similar to something she'd been through.
She turned, and entered the building.
* * *
I entered the elevator and headed to my dorm room. I had been goofing around, playing on a MUD that my friend had showed me--MUDdog, as I recall. It was entertaining enough--a text version of D&D. I was kind of addicted to it, I thought, and I was probably going to have to get un-addicted, if I was going to do well in class this week.
I flipped through my copy of The Badger Herald, and chuckled at the anti-Perot editorial. The guy writing it had some skills, I thought, as the elevator stopped. I exited, and headed to my room.
I put the key into the door, and opened it.
My roommate jumped up off his bed. "Christ, don't you knock?" he said, as a farly attractive young woman quickly rose and exited past me. "Shit, Julie...aw, Hell."
Tom Neiderman was a hard-drinkin' guy from Milwaukee, who seemed out of place in Madison. I disliked him intensely, but we were roommates, at least through the end of the year.
"Tom, it's my room too. If you want privacy, you've got to give me some fucking warning," I said, as I tossed my jacket onto my bed. I was thinking I should turn around and head to the lounge--do some reading, and maybe watch some TV. I grabbed my text of Plato's Republic and turned around.
* * *
She stood in the doorway, a picture of beauty. She was taller than she'd been before, by a couple inches. But I recognized her immediately.
She didn't look happy.
"So, a little date rape, eh? Boy, you picked a bad night to try that. Shrink, 1:24 scale."
Suddenly, I felt a sinking feeling in my stomach, and the world seemed to slow. I saw the walls start to rush away from me, all at once. But that wasn't possible. I looked at the girl, and she was taller. Six feet. Eight feet. Twenty feet. But this wasn't possible.
When the ride stopped, she appeared to be a hundred feet tall. I gasped as she took steps into the room, the floor shaking with each vast footfall.
"BOTH OF YOU NEED TO COME OUT WHERE I CAN SEE YOU," she thundered. I knew she wasn't referring to me--I was already in the middle of the room, and she could certainly see me. Nevertheless, I walked towards her, looking up her massive denim-clad leg to her face, ten stories above me.
Tom came out too, shaking like a leaf. I'm not sure why it never occurred to either of us to hide; maybe we both instincively knew that someone who could shrink us to three inches tall wouldn't be dissuaded by our merely hiding.
The building-sized woman in front of us crouched down, and I gasped. So much mass dropping so quickly--and then freezing perfectly. It was unreal. I looked at the girl, and found myself getting aroused in spite of myself. So much power....
I was broken from my reverie by her booming voice. "YOU TRIED TO RAPE A GIRL, DIDN'T YOU?" This was aimed at Tom. I turned towards him. He was trembling, and the look on his face gave him away.
"You tried to rape her?" I said, advancing on him. "You cocksucker. You fucking son of a bitch." I was onrushing him now, and without thinking, I tackled him.
* * *
It had been four years before that she'd been raped.
My sister. Mindy. She was attending Rice on an engineering scholarship. This was before my dad died, but after my mom. Mindy had come back from class, and was studying in her room when the bastard struck. Broad fucking daylight. The police said she struggled, but there's not much defense against a knife when you're bound and gagged. Happily, they found the rapist. And happily, he lived in Texas, so he went to the chair.
But not before my dad passed on. Not before he had to travel to Texas to identify his daughter's broken body.
* * *
I caught him with a roundhouse across the jaw, not even conscious of the bizarre circumstances that surrounded me. Suddenly, I found myself lifted off of him--and then up--and up--and up.
The fingers were vise-like. I struggled, but there was little point in that. They turned me to face her.
Her red hair flowed like a raging torrent around her face. Her massive maw could easily surround me now. It was drawn tight. Her face was the size of a billboard, a huge one. I tried to gather it all in, but it was like trying to take in a forest while your face was plastered against tree bark. Her green eyes fixed me like a fly in amber. There was something odd behind them, some kind of internal debate I could barely recognize. "YOU," she said. "WHAT PUNISHMENT WOULD YOU GIVE THIS MAN FOR ATTEMPTING RAPE?"
I thought not a second. "I'd kill him," I said.
"DOES HE DESERVE DEATH?"
"All rapists do." I wasn't lying, or trying to impress her. I believed it--still believe it.
"WELL THEN," she said, turning to look at Tom, who lay prone forty feet below. "DEATH IT IS. SHRINK, 1:100 SCALE."
With that, Tom dwindled to nothing. Then she stood, and with tremendous force, brought her tennis shoe down on the spot on the linoleum he had occupied. Then, for good measure, drug the foot. "CLARIS," she intoned, cocked her head, and smiled.
I was trembling. She turned back to me, and my stomach flipped. I'd witnessed a vigilante killing. A just one, but still. "NOW, WHAT AM I TO DO WITH YOU?" she asked. It was a rhetorical question. "YOU ARE BLAMELESS. YOU EVEN AGREED WITH ME ABOUT THE FATE A RAPIST DESERVES. I COULD JUST LET YOU GO, RETURN YOU TO YOUR NORMAL SIZE."
For a second, my heart leapt. But it sank moments later.
"NO, I CAN'T DO THAT. YOU'VE SEEN ME, YOU KNOW WHO I AM. IF I LET YOU GO, YOU COULD LEAD THE AUTHORITIES TO ME."
"They'd never believe me," I said, trying to persuade her. "Besides, I know if I told anyone I'd risk Tom's fate. You can trust me."
She looked at me, and I could see she was torn. But she shook her head, sadly. "NO, I'M SORRY, BUT I CAN'T TAKE THAT RISK. I'LL HAVE TO DISPOSE OF YOU."
She started to set me on the floor. I was crying, but I knew I had no choice. I thought I might try to run as soon as I hit the floor. I'd have to try to live, even if only mouse-sized. It was a long shot, but the only chance I had.
But before we reached the floor, the hand stopped.
"I CAN'T DO IT. I CAN'T KILL YOU," she said, one tear running down her cheek. "YOU DIDN'T DO ANYTHING. BUT I CAN'T LET YOU GO, EITHER." With that, she rose back up to her full height, and opened her purse.
"I'M AFRAID YOU'LL HAVE TO STAY WITH ME. I CAN'T RISK ANYONE FINDING OUT ABOUT MY SECRET."
With that, she unceremoniously dumped me into her handbag, and zippered it shut.
* * *
As the handbag swayed and I tried to avoid motion sickness, I tried to wrap my head around this bizarre turn of events.
This afternoon I'd been a normal guy. Now, I was smaller than a smurf, prisoner of a probable serial killer. Because this woman was almost certainly The Coed, the vigilante who'd been kidnapping guys. Now I knew why they were disappearing.
Were they all rapists? If so, I sure felt okay about her killing the bastards. Heck, I might even offer my assistance. If she'd unshrink me, I could talk to guys--hey, guys talk. Maybe I could offer her that....
No. I had to face reality. I was probably going to be stuck at three inches for the rest of my life.
I tried to think of what this meant, and struggled to. Images of Gulliver's Travels swam in my mind, and The Borrowers. But they were all wrong, I knew immediately. The world was a big, scary place, and one lone person was going to have trouble surviving in it without help.
Somewhere in this, the image of my captress pushed its way into my mind. So big, so powerful, so beautiful. Out of my league. But she was going to take care of me. I was going to stay with her.
There was a bright side to this.
It was pretty dim, but it was brighter than the other side.
* * *
It had been a few hours. I'd been set down--the purse had, anyhow, and I heard talking between my captress and another woman. I had tried to sleep a little, but my sleep was fitful. Well, I shouldn't have been surprised--I was trying to sleep in a purse. Finally, the purse began to move again, before it was set down. The sky parted--well, the zipper, anyhow--and the face of the woman looked down on me with concern.
"I'M SORRY TO LEAVE YOU IN THERE SO LONG. I DIDN'T WANT MY ROOMMATE TO SEE YOU. I FINALLY GAVE UP AND HEADED TO THE LOUNGE." She reached in and gently hoisted me out, and set me on the table in front of her.
I was just below breast level, which afforded me a spectacular view. Still, I forced my head northwards--I did not want to be caught ogling her. "I'M LIZ," she said, simply.
"Jake," I replied. "Jake Thiessen."
"WELL, JAKE, WHAT THE HELL AM I GOING TO DO WITH YOU?" She had a different countenance than before. Her face was softer, and her eyes were clear. "I WISH I HADN'T SHRUNK YOU."
"I wish I hadn't been in the room. If I would have hung out in the lab half an hour more...." I paused. "No, if I'd have waited, I wouldn't have interrupted Tom. And that girl would have been raped, not just assaulted."
She looked surprised. "YOU'D TRADE THIS FOR HER SAFETY?"
"Yes," I said. "Yes, I think I would."
Liz looked down at me, stunned. She'd later tell me that at that moment, she started to have feelings for me. But she simply said, "YOU'RE A GOOD PERSON, JAKE. I'M SORRY TO DO THIS TO YOU. ARE YOU HUNGRY?"
"No, I'm not. Thanks, though."
"WELL," she said, "YOU'RE PROBABLY TIRED. HERE, COME WITH ME, I'LL FIND YOU A PLACE IN THE ROOM TO SLEEP."
She picked me up in her hand, and cupped the hand around me. The flesh was soft and yielding, and I felt utterly safe. She carried me gingerly back to the room, and suddenly, opened the hand, dropping me into a drawer.
The cliche in Giantess fiction is that the man is made to sleep in the Giantess' underwear drawer. I had no such luck. She put me into her desk drawer, and dropped in a handkerchief. She mouthed "Good night" to me, and seemed to wait just a second, as if she had something more to say, before she shook her head and walked away.
The lights were doused a few moments later, and I was left in darkness to wonder what fate had in store for me.
* * *
There was silence between Scott and Jake for a moment or two. Finally, Scott said, "I never knew how your sister died. I'm so sorry, Jake."
Jake sipped his scotch, and looked at his watch. "I'm really tired, Scott. What say we continue this tomorrow. We'll clear the decks right away, and I'll continue regaling you with stories of my youth. Hell, bring Sarah. She probably could stand to hear the story, too."
"Okay, boss. You want to settle up?"
"'Son me," Jake said, as he dropped a hundred dollar bill on the table. He rose, and headed out to his car. Time to head home, give Teri a call, and see how she was doing.
And hope the dreams didn't come.