The Subject Pt. 02

Cassie walked forward to stand over Willover. Her thumb still on the button, as she watched her slowly dwindle, the lab coat slipping from her, too big and heavy to stay on her shrinking body. Willover protested all the way down until she stopped shrinking at a foot tall. "Damn YOU! GawdDAMN YOU!!!" She chirped as she struggled to keep herself properly cover with the oversized garment.

"Get out of her." Cassie commanded again. "Now." She held the device so that Willover could see her thumb poised over the button that would cause her to shrink even smaller.

Willover stopped what she was doing and held her hands before her face as if it would protect her, "No, WAIT...! Please... Don't!" She begged.

"Why Rita, Cassandra?" Cassie asked. "Why did you go into Rita's mind?"

Willover backed away, silent. She desperately tried to cover herself again with the huge lab coat, but was failing miserably. Cassie finally reached down and snatched it from her, throwing it across the room to gain the small woman's complete attention.

"You could have just jumped into MY mind, you know." She said, "It would have been like going home... right? Same body... Same brainwave patterns... So why not me?"

And again, there was only silence from the tiny blonde. She just stood there, trying to keep herself covered, occasionally looking about like she was preparing to make a break for it, but was too terrified to try. It was obvious to everyone in the room that Cassandra had never been in a situation where she was totally helpless.

"It's because you're AFRAID of me, isn't it?" She said, and this at last, produced a reaction, in the form of an expletive.

"Fuck YOU!"

"That's why you ran from the lab the day you shrank Tanya.

"Shut up..."

"When I came in, you RAN!"

"Shut... UP!" Willover forgot her nakedness and tried to shield her ears from Cassie's words.

"That's why you shrank ME when my BACK was turned, instead of doing it right then, huh? My gawd, I bet you REALLY had to SCREW UP the courage to come back and do it too, didn't you?"

"SHUT UP! SHUT UP! SHUT...!" Willover paused. She seemed utterly shocked at the implications that Cassie had just made.

"That's why you didn't go looking for me when I escaped... Rita found me easily, but you never even looked for me, did you, Cassandra?"

Cassandra opened her mouth to speak but nothing came out...

Then Cass smiled. "You wanted this, didn't you?" She chuckled. "You didn't want the money, or the cloning machine... or even Harry's technology. You wanted TANYA. But you wanted Tanya the way I have her... the way you always wanted her, but were too AFRAID to admit it...You WANTED someone to stop you... DIDN'T you?"

Willover was in tears again, this time in the shrunken body of Rita. She looked across at the foot tall figure of Tanya standing beside the woman she truly loved and then glared up at the giant redhead sheepishly, her body slightly fidgeting as Cassie continued.

"That's why you used the shrink ray on Rita, but at such a low setting. That way she'd have plenty of time to find me, and Boris. That's why you gave her the shrink ray when you dumped her out of the car, so that we'd have a working model to test."

Willover looked at Cass with Rita's soulful eyes. Cassie left one last challenge. "You WANTED to fail, Cassandra. You wanted to fail so that someone would come and save you." She knelt and put out her hand to the tiny woman. "Please... let me help you."

Willover eyed the huge hand before her... sniffled... and then slapped Cassie's hand and her offer of salvation away. "Go save yourself, you BITCH!"

Cass sighed. "WHY...? Why are you SO afraid to take the chance, Cassandra? It can't be you don't think you're strong enough to take--" She saw something in Willover's eyes, and pressed on. "Ahhh... That's it, isn't it? You're afraid to get inside my head aren't you? YOU'RE afraid that if you do you'll lose the fight, huh?" She grinned. "YOU'RE afraid that my will is stronger than YOURS, aren't you?" She paused, seeing the smaller woman tensing, coiling as if to spring. The trap was nearly set. All she had to do was finish baiting it... "Try me, Cassandra..." Cassie spread her arms wide, opening herself to attack, "Come on... Take MY body..." almost now... she could see it behind Rita's eyes, "That is...if you think you're STRONG enough."

Rita's voice suddenly split the air in a violent scream, and she flew backwards as if kicked hard in the stomach. In that same instant, Cassie reeled backwards landing next to Tanya, her hands flying to her head. She recovered quickly, looked about wildly and then rushed from the room, stopping in the doorway to call out to Tanya and Boris with her eyes. Boris grabbed both tiny women and followed after her.

He found her in the particle acceleration unit. She was on the floor inside, convulsing as if fighting against an invisible enemy. "BORIS!!!" She screamed. "DO IT, BORIS!!! NOW!!!"

Boris didn't know what she was talking about. "What does she want me to do?!" He asked from the booth. He placed Tanya on the control board so that she could see and make some sense out of what was happening. She looked at Cassie thrashing about and then it hit her.

The accelerator!

She pointed to the signs inside the chamber where Cass lay. "Any equipment generating an electromagnetic field must be removed prior to cycle start!" The warning signs stated.

Boris looked on in confusion as he place his unconscious love in one of the chairs.

"Electromagnetic FIELDS...!" Tanya exclaimed. "Willover IS an electromagnetic field, Boris! The electrons will disrupt her... get her out of Cassie's mind! DO IT!" Boris caught on quickly and cranked the dial up to maximum. He initialized the start sequence, and hit the button.

This time, there was a brilliant blue flash as the room was filled with a burst of electrons traveling at the speed of light. In theory, the particles would pass safely through Cass' body, ripping through the energy field that was Cassandra Willover, dispersing her consciousness forever.

In theory...

But in practice, Cassie was withering on the floor, her body arched painfully, as if a huge spear had been shoved up through the floor to impale her. Her screams mingled with the whining of the accelerator as her hands clawed desperately at the floor, fighting to keep from being spirited away by some unseen demon.

Then she collapsed... The cycle ended and the door was allowed to open.

Boris and Tanya rushed inside. Cassie was in a heap in the middle of the floor, not moving. "Cassie!" Tanya ran up to her lover and held her face, stroked her cheeks. "Cassie...? Please, honey... Say something..."

Cass' eyes opened, slowly. She smiled weakly at the sight of the small figure before her. "It's done." She said, tears filling her eyes. "I did it, Tanya... She's gone."

Tanya moved to her shoulder and held Cassie as tight as she possibly could. A gentle hand covered her from behind, pressing her closer. Both women were crying, but the tears were of joy for a reunion interrupted.

Epilogue The garden behind Harry Wolper's house was just as beautiful in the moonlight, Cass decided.

The sounds of frog song and crickets filled the night air as she sat by the water of the small pond alone, pondering everything that had happen. She took a deep breath and her eyes fluttered closed. It felt as if the very weight of the world had been lifted from her shoulders.

It was finally over.

Getting out of the lab was a simple trick. Since everyone in the place knew Tanya as Dr. Willover, all it took was a scowl and a foul mouth to get Willover's security to clean the body out of the laboratory and Marion proper medical attention... NO questions asked, just as Willover had said. They then filled out an order to have the cloning machine dismantled and destroyed, with Cassie herself authorizing the action by signing the form with the name Cassandra E. Willover.

There was concern that Koonago, INC had information that Tanya would rather they didn't, mainly the plans for the shrinking device and the cloning machine. But Boris quickly laid those fears to rest.

"Remember that burned out computer in the lab that I told you was a success?" He said as he ushered them out. "Well, it was a successful test of a rather nasty little virus I created." He smiled, sheepishly. "It not only destroys data, it causes the main CMOS settings to shut down all cooling mechanisms and increase data and clock speeds at the same time. In about an hour, Koonago won't have one working machine, at Tal-Tech."

Cassie shook her head. He was a genius, and NOT just in computers, considering how happy Rita seemed. She looked up into the night sky, was a little surprised to hear a voice. "Quiet out here, isn't it?" Boris said.

"Very." Cass answered. "Everyone still asleep?"

"I left Rita in the middle of a... pretty interesting dream, I think." He sat down in the grass next to the woman. "She kept muttering in her sleep for me to ah... 'PUSH the button.' " He chuckled.

Cass patted his hand. "She's a very lucky girl, Boris." She said, and she could feel him blushing, even if she couldn't see it. She looked back to the sky. "You know... when I was a little girl, I used to look up in the sky, and the stars always made me feel SO small."

There was a silence, then, only the sound of crickets and frogs. Boris looked at her thoughtfully, "You're quite a remarkable woman, Cassie."

Cassie didn't say anything for a moment, and then she sighed, turning her head to look at him in the moonlight and said. "I really hate that name."

Boris was taken aback, for a moment. He guessed that 'Cassie' DID sound a bit immature for her but he was a little leery, "What would you rather we call you, then?"

Cass placed her hands betwixt her legs and plucked at the grass absently as she thought for a moment. "Just call me by my name, Boris." She said. "...Cassandra Willover."

Boris tensed then, a gasp escaping him, but a gentle hand on his, and a light sound of laughter eased him. "No..." Cassandra said. "It's not like that... She's gone." Then she paused and sighed. "Sorta..." Her brow furrowed slightly.

Boris stared at her for a moment, then shifted his gaze back to the serene surroundings.

She could feel his confusion. "She's in here with me now," she explained. "I knew that if I could only SHOW her what it feels like to be loved by Tanya, to love yourself the way that she's taught me to love MYSELF... that she would finally be able to put away the fear that drove her." She took a deep satisfying breath, "And it worked."

"Then...the electron field? It didn't destroy her?" Boris asked.

"No, it wasn't meant to," she explained. "I did that just for Tanya. She went through so much hell at my...Willover's hands..." It was difficult for her to separate the memories now that the two sides of her were merged. "I just needed her to distance herself from it all. After she's had time to heal... I'll tell her."

She picked up a stone and tossed it out into the pond, watching the ripples in the moonlight.

"When you saw me struggling in the field chamber, I wasn't fighting to get her out of my head... I was fighting to hold on to her. I had to SHOW her what she was trying so hard to deny. It was the same thing that I tried to deny for so long. I was ALWAYS Cassandra Willover. 'Cassie' was a name that Tanya gave me because she couldn't accept that I was the same Dr. Willover who was so cruel to her. Her care for me made me realize how powerful I could be if ONLY I allowed myself some weakness, if you can call it a weakness. It was my care for Tanya that made me realize that I wasn't 'Cassie' or some...separation from the Willover that you learned to hate. We were the same exact person..." She shrugged, "Just one of us LEARNED to accept that we were loved."

A soft warm breeze caused her to tingle.

So, I brought the two of me...US, together." She paused as she gave that last bit a little thought. She shook her head as if she had trouble believing it herself, "Anyway once the Willover we were fighting merged with me enough to share the memories of my relationship with Tanya, to experience my love for her and hers for me, she was able to realize that mine was the better way. The memory and feelings of Tanya's love for me was able to break through to her. Now we're just one person, instead of two."

There was a moment of silence.

Then she turned her head and laughed at the confusion in Boris' eyes. "Yeah, I know... It's kind of hard to comprehend, isn't it?" She thought for a moment, and then said, "Think of the two of us... Dr. Willover and Cassie, as hydrogen and oxygen. Separated, they're useful and able to stand on their own. But put them together, and you get water, right? Which is far more useful."

Boris nodded, a small light of understanding dawning in his eyes. "So what you're saying is that you... I mean...Cassie AND Dr. Willover became one person?"

Cass winked at him. "E Pluburis Unum." She laughed. The sound of Latin made her think of Harry for some reason. She wondered if he would consider her wise enough to be worthy of her knowledge now.

Boris didn't know if he understood it at all, but somehow, he knew that it was a happy ending. He tried to mull it over in his head, but found that his brain was just too full of events.

"Heeey, what's this...? A private party?" Tanya's voice drifted up behind them.

"I HOPE you're not taking my advice on trying his oral techniques." Rita chimed in.

Cass closed her eyes tightly and laughed.

Boris did too, as their respective lovers joined them. The four friends sat there in the garden, basking in the light of the full moon and the stars, Rita snugly wrapped in Boris' arms, Tanya safe and sound in the embrace of her love.

Cassandra looked up from the face of her lover to the stars above.

They didn't make her feel small anymore, it seemed. She looked back at Tanya's smiling, sleepy face, and kissed her forehead. She knew that she held her future in her arms, and Boris' in his, and for the first time since she could remember, there was no fear, no emptiness. Just a wonderful feeling of satisfaction that she was finally...

Complete.

Fin