Bryan re-corked the bottle and carried the glass out to Patrice.  She looked up from the movie they had rented and accepted it as he settled down next to her, touching, just barely.  'Who was on the phone?' she asked.

'Ah, this guy who has an office in the same place where I have a workshop,' he told her.  'He said he was driving by and there was a lot of activity there - police cars, an ambulance.  He was wondering if I'd heard what was going on.'  Patrice looked at him questioningly as she took a sip of her Calvados.  He settled back and stretched his arm on the couch back behind her.  'Of course, I told him I don't know a thing.'
 

************* **************** **************
 

Gwen was more than slightly irritated.  Every red light, every clump of traffic, was a fresh source of frustration and she'd hit them all.  For being so late at night, this was the slowest trip across town she'd ever endured.  She wanted to get home immediately, to play out one of the various scenarios that were erupting in her mind, all of them ending with Bryan being shrunk.  There was no way of telling if the effect on him would be permanent; if not, she'd have to hit him with the third charge.  If she could use that third charge on somebody else though... Who?  Man? Woman? Stranger? Somebody she disliked?  The more she thought about the possibilities, the stronger, the more confident she felt.

She'd always relished the power she held over some others, of course; power over their jobs, power over their money.  Indirect power though, not real power.  Not like this.  Now she could change somebody in a total way, strip their life away completely, separate them from humanity, while they were conscious of it, knew just what was happening to them and who was responsible for it and yet be helpless to stop it.  And afterwards, to be just helpless.

Gwen shivered with delight as she thought about it and as she thought about the girl- Marianne?- she had shrunk earlier this evening.  She remembered the feel of that tiny nude helpless body in her hand and reveled in the memory.  She wanted that feeling again.  But now it was time to put those thoughts aside.  Here was her apartment building, her garage, her parking spot.  Bryan's car was parked in his usual slot, she saw.  The rat was home.  Time to get busy, to do what she had to do.

************* **************** **************

Bryan wasn't afraid of burglars or other intruders, not in this nice, expensive, safe apartment, so he never latched the safety chain.  Gwen carefully turned the doorknob she had just unlocked and cracked the door open.  Lights and TV on.  A bit unusual, that; Bryan didn't much care for television.  She heard their voices over the program.  Their?  Voices?  As in plural voices?  It seemed Bryan was having a conversation with somebody in there, a low and gentle conversation.  A conversation with a woman.

Gwen was suddenly furious.  She was already furious, of course, furious that he would dare to imagine using her as a test subject, a guinea pig, that he would intend to shrink her to doll size and maybe worse than that.  But that was a cold and bitter fury, her reaction to it remorseless and grim.  This was a different anger, more purely emotional, hot, vicious.  Now she really wanted Bryan at her mercy.  And what about the the woman with him, should she get her too?.  The gall she had, to take her husband, to sleep with him.  In her own bed yet!  Maybe there would be a time for the woman to pay too.  But Bryan first.

She choked down her rage and slowly, soundlessly slipped through the door and relocked it behind her.  She winced at the slight rattle of  the safety chain as she latched it  but  the two in the front room didn't notice, it seemed.  Gwen hesitated, pondering her next move.

Then the phone rang.

Gwen whirled in alarm and slipped without thought into the little study by the front door, heart suddenly racing.  There was a phone extension in there but she didn't think Bryan would use it.  Sure enough, he picked up the extension in the living room instead and muted the television.

'Hello....Yes....Yes.....No, I haven't.'  A fairly long silence followed, then Bryan again.  'I'm sorry, officer, but that wouldn't be convenient.'  A pause.  'Tomorrow morning, certainly.  I can't say exactly when but certainly before noon.  I'll see you then.'  Gwen heard him set the phone down before the strange woman spoke.

'Who was that?'

'The police.  There was a breakin at the business center where my workshop is.  Some sort of assault.  He didn't say what exactly happened but he sounded pretty shook up.  They have a tape from a security camera that they'd like everybody who works down there to look at, see if they can identify who did it.  Probably a woman, he said.'

Gwen closed her eyes and leaned back against the wall in the darkened room, not paying any attention to the rest of their conversation.  So she hadn't gotten away with her impromptu use of her shrinking device after all.  The damned girl must have reached a phone somehow, or somebody else had come by. Called the police.   And they had pictures of her, of the whole thing probably.  She felt suddenly cold, almost sick.  What would they do to her?

She took a deep breath and struggled to regain her composure.  Come to think about it, what could they do?  She hadn't killed anyone, after all.  She hadn't stolen anything, even from Bryan.  He'd used her money to set up that workshop and build this thing; by rights it was hers anyway.  The only thing she'd done was to shrink an unsuspecting woman to the size of a doll, that's all.  There weren't any laws against that.  Gwen choked back a hysterical laugh and took another deep breath.  She could get away with this but she'd have to stay under control to do it.  The security tape didn't matter either.  Only Bryan could identify her on it; nobody else down there knew her.  And Bryan was never going to see that tape.

Her problem now was the woman with Bryan, the bitch.  In a perfect world, she'd get up and go away, leaving Bryan alone for Gwen to deal with.  Not too likely that she'd do that, especially before the countdown timer expired.  Gwen took a look at it - 603.  602!  That wasn't possible.  The delays in the drive couldn't have used up that much time.  She looked at the countdown again.  597.  Less than ten minutes.  Still the cool feel of her device was comforting.  She was still in control

So it would have to be both of them, after all.  Fine.  Let them be together, since that's what they wanted. Now the question was, would the device work on them both?  Could she get them with one shot or would she have to waste the third one too?  Didn't matter, she decided.  Try and get them both at once, if that didn't work, get Bryan, then the woman right away.  She very carefully removed her shoes and crept out of the study on bare, quiet feet.

'Maybe I should get going,' Patrice said.  'You've got things to do tomorrow.'  She took another sip and eyed the remaining brandy.  One drink left.

'Oh, you don't have to leave so soon.  Please stay.'  Bryan was making his move.

'What about your wife, though?' she murmured.

ìGwen won't be back until tomorrow,î  Bryan told her as he flipped her hair behind her head and caressed the back of her neck.  ìWe're here by ourselves...î

'Gwen's back early,' Gwen announced savagely, as she surged into the room and turned to face them, the shrinking device held before her, pointed at the startled pair on the couch.  She could see the countdown timer very well - 226, 225, 224.

Patrice jerked forward on the couch as if to stand.  'Oh, no need to leave so soon.'  Gwen laughed bitterly.  'Stay right where you are.'  Patrice sagged back.  She didn't know what that silver object Gwen was waving at her was but she seemed awfully threatening.  She glanced at Bryan, who still hadn't reacted to his wife's unexpected entrance.

He finally opened his mouth to speak, closed it again, swallowed hard, licked his lips.  'Guh, uh, Gwen.'  He struggled for self control, his gaze riveted not on his angry wife but on the device in her hands.  It had taken him a second to recognize it, several seconds more to appreciate the peril he was in.  'Uh, could you point that away from us.'  He was silent again.  'Maybe we could talk this over.'

Gwen was delighted.  She had imagined him pleading, had been worried that he might try something physical, but his frightened paralysis was as good as any of her imaginings.  Definitely a moment to savor.

'Please point that away,' Bryan repeated.  'You don't know how that works.'

'Oh, but I do,' Gwen assured him, as she pointed it between his eyes and pressed the pulsing activation button.

And nothing happened.  Well, not exactly nothing.  The countdown display disappeared again, replaced by a familiar message:

DISCHARGED FAILED
NO AVAILABLE SUBJECT

Certainly there was an available subject.  Two available subjects in fact.  The countdown reappeared. 165.  Gwen aimed lower, at the two of them, stabbed the button savagely.

DISCHARGED FAILED
NO AVAILABLE SUBJECT

Her attention flickered from her prey to the display.  Finally it changed back to the countdown.

No available subject.  Subjects.  Maybe it wouldn't work on two people at once.  'Get away from him,' Gwen snapped at Patrice who had involuntarily retreated over to Bryan, cowering next to him.  She stared up at Gwen, not registering the command, only shock, surprise, fear.  'I said, move away,' Gwen snarled.  Patrice looked to Bryan, now sagging in resignation.  He gave her a gentle push away from him.  She immediately scuttled to the other end of the couch and huddled there, looking back and forth apprehensively, first at Bryan, then at Gwen.

The display read 101 now but Gwen didn't fire it just yet.  The mixture of terror and resignation on Bryan's face was just too precious.  Nothing he had ever done, in bed or out, had ever begun to please her this much.  She held her shrinking device on him a little longer.  90.  A while longer still. 75.  She gloated for a few more seconds before deciding to give him what he deserved.  As the display read 59, she pressed the trigger firmly.

DISCHARGED FAILED
NO AVAILABLE SUBJECT

What?  It had to work.  She stabbed the button again and again.  The display remained constant. Finally she kept her finger away from the button long enough for the countdown to appear again.  23, 22.  Now it was time for Gwen to taste fear.  She didn't really know what would happen when the countdown read zero but she strongly suspected it would be a bad thing, very bad.  She suddenly whirled to point the device at Patrice and jammed her finger down.

DISCHARGED FAILED
NO AVAILABLE SUBJECT

That couldn't be.  Gwen knew the device worked on women.  She'd used it on a woman.  It had to work.  It had to.  She gripped the button and watched in horror as the countdown reached 10. Then 5. Then 2.   Gwen hurled it away from her in the general direction of Bryan but it was too late.  The countdown had reached 0.

The fear in Patrice vied with curiosity as she watched Gwen frantically try to do...what?  The object Gwen was pointing at them didn't look much like a gun, not that  Patrice was any kind of firearms expert.  Whatever it was, Bryan was afraid of it.  Patrice was afraid too, as much of Gwen as of the device she was trying to use.  And now Gwen looked scared, as scared as Bryan, and the thing finally did something.

As it left Gwen's hand, it sounded  a low POP  and slowly rotated in the air, traveling much slower then a thrown object should.  A white haze shimmered around it as it turned end over end until the end of the cone was pointed back and down at Gwen.  The haze immediately condensed into a white beam of light illuminating a circle on her leg, just above her knee.  The device continued to rotate, sweeping the beam up, the white spot still fixed on her body but moving up her leg to her waist before stopping.  As Patrice watched, a flare of light rippled across Gwen's legs, expanding outward from the perimeter of the beam's end.  Then she saw that where the flare had passed, Gwen's appearance had changed.  The flare had eaten the material of her clothes, consumed the cloth, leaving the bare skin of her body in its wake.  The strip of nudity expanded to the sides too and even above her torso, consuming all her clothing so that in a few seconds she hung naked in the air.  'Oh, no,' Gwen moaned, 'not me, after all.  Not me.'

Patrice looked to Bryan to see what his reaction was, but he didn't seem surprised at all.  His expression was compounded of exaltation and delight.  'Watch this, now,' he urged Patrice.  'See how her feet are a little off the floor?  See how tall her head is?  Well, just watch her for a second.'  Then he gloated silently while, for the next couple of minutes, he sat transfixed, watching.  Patrice swiveled her head from Gwen to Bryan and back again.  Sure enough, her feet weren't touching the floor but she wasn't falling like she should.  She was wildly struggling, snarling and shrieking, her bare arms flailing, her naked body writhing, but she didn't seem to be hurt.  The intense beam of light was still trained on her body, reaching from upper thigh to her breasts,  but it wasn't burning her or harming her in any visible way.  In fact, nothing much was happening except that the beam was spreading, enveloping more and more of the trapped woman.  Where the beam enveloped her, she glowed intensely  but even the parts of her not exposed yet were glowing more faintly.

The device now hung in mid-air seemingly supported only by the light connecting it to Gwen.  She punctuated her struggles with pleas and demands to Bryan.  'Stop this thing.  Don't do this to me.'  Patrice glanced sideways at him but he made no move to interfere, his expression unchanging.  She shivered as she drew close to him and watched, uncomprehending.

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