The Subject Pt. 02

According to Cassie's examination, Tanya was still shrinking.

Chapter Three

Rain splattered the window looking out into the empty lot, creating a smeary picture of what lay beyond the glass. Tanya, with her head to the pane, sat quietly on the windowsill, which was just wide enough to support her at her new size.

The rivers of rain on the glass created complex patterns of refracted light for her to focus her eyes upon, for which she was grateful, the darkness of the stormy sky outside in contrast to the bright fluorescence of the laboratory turned the window into a mirror to her. She couldn't stand to look at herself.

Not like this, anyway.

The reflection, had she decided to focus on it, would have shown her a pretty young woman, early of her thirties, with waving golden brown hair and deep brown eyes. It would show her that the woman was dressed in a t-shirt, and nothing else, but that the shirt was sufficient to cover her body, as her body was less than half its normal size.

This was what Tanya couldn't bear to look at. She knew that she would look small, even to herself, dressed in Rita's t-shirt. She knew that Rita had stored spare clothes in the lab in the case of an accident with chemicals or an all-night experiment. Luckily for Tanya, Rita stored them in the second to bottom drawer of the filing cabinet. If she had put them any higher, Tanya was certain she wouldn't have been able to pull the huge drawer open.

The shirt fit well, like a dress, hanging below her knees. She cinched the waist with a piece of string to make it more comfortable, and then had tried to go back to work on the energy transmission experiment. Working, however, was no good. She had to stand in the chair to reach her keyboard, and her hands were to small to effectively type at the speed she was accustomed to.

Everything she did reminded her of her size problem, and the guilt of that made her give up. Pushing the desk chair to the wall to use for a boost up, she climbed to the window. She sat down and looked out into the rain, and this is where she sat still, concentrating on the patterns of color in the glass, ignoring the guilt and fear that she was feeling.

Tanya sighed, sadly. She hoped that Cassie would be back soon, but at the same time, she didn't look forward to seeing her. Tanya was wracked with remorse at Cassie's all-to-easy return to the world of science and research. Of course, Cassie was only trying to help Tanya, but Tanya couldn't help but feel badly that Cassie had to come back to the lab environment as anything other than her friend and lover.

Cassie had sworn off science, silently, of course, but a vow was made just the same. Tanya could see it in her actions. She never gave her opinions when Tanya told her of her experiments, never came to the laboratory except in a social capacity, never asked what Tanya was working on, and when she did appear at the lab, it was only for brief moments, to leave lunch for Tanya and Rita, or to give Tanya a kiss and a 'love ya' as she was on her way to her next class, luncheon, meeting or whatever.

Cassie was busy constantly. Either she was taking classes, joining social clubs, taking lunch with friends... anything but doing scientific study. Tanya knew that Cassie avoided the topic of science for one reason only. She needed to be her own person. The knowledge of being a clone of another person still bothered her quite a bit. The fact that the person happened to be Dr. Cassandra Willover, most commonly referred to as 'The Crimson Tide' a moniker that was not so much used in reference to her scarlet hair, as much as it was to the idea that she acted as if she were having her period ALL THE TIME.

It was no surprise that Cassie would want to distance herself from the woman she was supposed to be an exact replica of. All that crossed her path had loathed Willover. She was selfish, self-serving, cold and indifferent, as well as rude, self-important, self-righteous and in the end a cold-blooded killer.

Tanya, of course, in the true form of one with no self-esteem whatsoever, had fallen deeply in love with the woman. Or so she thought. It was only after cloning Willover and being allowed to vent her frustrations on the tiny copy that she realized that it was not love she felt for Willover, but a need to make the woman feel SOMETHING other than her own selfish desires.

It didn't take long for Tanya to discover something sad about Willover's lack of warmth and friendship, and that pity expressed itself in her feelings not for the doctor herself, but for the miniature copy that Tanya had created. When it looked as if the tiny clone were going to die, Tanya did everything in her power to save her, and care for her. Feelings of gratitude from the tiny woman, something that she had never experienced from Willover, made Tanya realize that she hadn't created a replica of the doctor, but a much-improved version.

Still and all, Cassie needed to establish her own identity, even then, when Tanya had professed her love for her. The real breaking point for Cassie was when it was discovered that Willover was planning on using the cloning process to create miniature clones of people to be sold to some Japanese company as toys for the elite.

Cassie even tried to kill Willover. She needed to distance herself from the evil of the woman that badly. She failed, of course. In fact, she later told Tanya that she couldn't go through with it, regardless of how much hate she felt at the time. In any event, Cassie was captured by Willover, rescued at last by Tanya, and Willover herself, shrank out of existence, a victim of her own devices. Tanya heaved a sigh. "Make one helluva story if I ever wrote my memoirs," she thought. A moment later she laughed as she shook her head and said to herself, "Naaa... who would ever believe THIS."

The tiny robots within Cassie's body that stopped the normal molecular breakdown in the early clone experiments also allowed her to grow herself to a normal size. It was this that allowed the secret of Dr. Willover's death to remain that way. Cassie took over Willover's life, despite her need for individuality.

There was, of course, a plus side to being known as Dr. Cassandra Willover for Cassie. That being her rather large bank accounts. Willover had made some very smart investments in tech companies in the late 1970's. By the time the bottom fell out of the Technology market, she had socked away enough money for Cassie and Tanya to take a yearlong vacation in Europe. It was Cassie's decision to put the rest into an anonymous trust to be used for a scholarship fund at Westview. She felt that it was ironic enough to do so, since Willover always believed that no one should be at Westview unless they could pay for it.

Tanya then sold off enough of the technology developed for the cloning process to keep them comfortable. The Electromagnetic pulse generator alone, not only bought the empty warehouse that was now her research lab, but got her enough notice from the government to assure her of an unlimited amount of research grants.

Cassie settled into the routine of being herself, while Tanya settled into the routine of being a research scientist. Both of them had spent the last two years being each other's lover. All was well and perfect.

Until now, that is.

Tanya sighed as she fought back a sob. She knew what was in store for her, despite Cassie's brave face and encouraging words. She knew full well that she was still shrinking. She could feel her body getting smaller with every passing moment. She was sure that, while for now the change was probably imperceptible, soon, it would be very noticeable indeed. She had already postulated that the smaller she became, the exponentially faster the miniaturization would be.

Currently she was a little over two feet tall. If she recalled her notes on the ray correctly, the charge that caused her to shrink to this size was of such a percentage that her rate of decline would be one inch the first day. The second day, an inch and a quarter, the third day, and inch and a half, two inches the fourth...the percentage of her rate of decline would remain a constant for each passing day. However, as her size reduced, that constant would increase in scale to her new size until there was nothing more of her to subtract from.

She wondered idly if it would ever stop... would she continue to shrink beyond the infinite, like the guy in that old sci-fi movie? Would she even be alive after she shrank beyond the size of oxygen molecules, or would the increasing radiation from simple interior lighting destroy her long before that happened? She suppressed a sob, taking a deep breath, and was steeled by the sound of the lab door opening, announcing Cassie's return.

"Did you get a hold of him?" She asked, turning her head toward her lover. But, her lover didn't answer, because she was not there. In her place was the last person that Tanya would have wished to see, "Rita..." she whispered, and panic took her body.

She looked around wildly for an escape route. The window... too high to jump to the ground outside, even if she could get it open. She would most surely break an ankle leaping to the floor, which would make a run for the door impossible. And even if she did reach the door, she was far too short to reach the security lock. Her heart pounded and her brain screamed at her to do something.

Then she realized that Rita wasn't moving. She was still standing just inside the door, statue-like, her gaze cemented to Tanya, still perched on the windowsill. Rita's lips were moving, but there was no sound from her.

Tanya frowned. Panic was replaced slowly by curiosity. Rita looked as if she had just witnessed an execution, or walked away from a car accident. The look of malice that had shown in her eyes-only hours before was gone. Her lips trembled, and she finally managed to croak out, "Duh... Dr. Vale...what happened to you?"

So shocking was the question, so absurd, that Tanya felt all fear boil out from the heat of anger in her blood. She stood up on the sill, shaking with fury. "HowDARE you!!! You shrank me, youBITCH!!! How DARE you come back here!!" Tanya convulsed with pure wrath at the audacity of her attacker.

Only Rita wasn't attacking. She simply stood there, trembling, silent. Suddenly, she burst into tears, and sank to the floor in a heap, sobbing, "Oh my god... oh my god..." She chanted over and over like a mantra.

Tanya wasn't done, regardless of Rita's obvious remorse at her crime. "Did you think that I would BE into it, or something?!! Did you think that I would like to BE like this?!!" She was searching for some sort of explanation, some answer to Rita's sudden and unexpected attack, but she was answered only with the girl's sobbing. "Why did you DO this to me, Rita?! WHY?!!!"

Rita winced as if she was about to be hit and then looked up, her eyes were swollen with tears, and her normally rose tinted cheeks were pale with sadness, guilt and fear. "I'm... sorry... I couldn't help it, Tanya..." She sobbed, "I-I-I couldn't... help it..."

Tanya wanted to murder the larger girl. She wanted an answer and she was getting nothing but riddles, and that made her even angrier. "WHAT THE HELL DO YOU MEAN, YOU COULDN'T HELP IT?! Did someone put a FUCKING gun to your head and MAKE you shrink me?!" Tanya slid down off the sill, and strode toward the girl, boldly, despite the fact that the woman was at least twelve feet tall to her.

Rita, still crying, started to back away, sliding backwards across the floor in retreat from the tiny woman, "NO!! NOOOO!! PLEASE!! I COULDN'T STOP MYSELF!!!" She shrieked, and there was something in her voice that made Tanya realize that it wasn't her small self that Rita feared, but her presence near her... something that Rita feared because of Tanya's proximity.

Tanya stopped. The anger inside was fading at the sight of her one-time friend, collapsed under the strain of some inner demon. "Rita..." Tanya's voice softened, "What do you mean?" She prodded, gently, believing that Rita might be having some type of breakdown, "Please... Help me understand."

"I... I was..." Rita began, her voice catching when she looked at the miniature woman. She looked away, unable to bring herself to meet Tanya's gaze. "I was just sitting there..." She said, "I was thinking about what I would do when I got home today...*sniff*" She paused, seemingly afraid of a memory, "And... and then, we were running series seven, and you were reading the results, and-and-and..." She began to sob again.

"Shhh... Its okay... Calm down, Rita? What happened to you after that?" Tanya's patience returned, along with a hope that she wasn't being gullible.

"*Sniff* I... I felt something... HAPPEN to me..." Rita took deep breaths, trying not to scream, obviously. "There... *sniff* there was a... voice in my head. I-It was... SO loud... so cold..." She shuddered, "And then... *sniff* it was as if... I was watching a movie of myself doing these... THINGS..." She bit her lip, chewed at it in fear of the remembering. "I... I saw myself... removing the shrink ray from the cabinet *sniff*... I-I WATCHED myself setting it, bu-bu-but it was like... I couldn't control my body... like I wasn't ME anymore..." She glared at Tanya in confusion and then began to cry again, her head dropped down and she curled into a fetal position.

Tanya saw in her eyes that shock was taking over, "Rita!!" She shrieked, and Rita's eyes brightened, "If you weren't in control... who was?" She hoped to bring out the obvious split that Rita had in her personality, she only hoped that the other Rita wouldn't return with it. "Who was it that you think was controlling you?" She didn't know what to do except stall her until Cassie returned. She silently prayed her lover a speedy return. "Come on...Talk to me, Rita, please?"

Rita whispered... "The voice..." She said, reverently, like a child would speak in a cemetery at midnight, "It... It hates you..." She looked at Tanya at last, sat up abruptly, fixing her gaze with the little woman's. Sitting up, she was the same height as the small doctor. "It... It wants to... kill you, Tanya." Rita face was full of confusion then panic began to boil up behind her blue eyes. "It made me shrink you because it wants you to die."

Tanya backed away slowly, fear returning. Rita's enormous size and the threat that her story was holding made her want to flee. Rita suddenly reached out, her large hands gripping Tanya's little shoulders, fingers panicking. Tanya's heart stopped, she was trapped but Rita's face told her that she didn't want to hurt her. To the contrary, the grip of her huge hands was more to hold Tanya in place so that she would absorb the urgency of Rita's words.

"The VOICE, Tanya!" Rita whispered anxiously, "I-I know the voice!" She breathed rapidly, her head suddenly snapping back and forth, as if she feared being watched, and breathed.

"Tanya... it was CASSIE!" With great sincerity she repeated, "CASSIE made me shrink you!"

Chapter Four

"It's just not possible." Tanya repeated for what felt like the hundredth time. "It's just NOT."

She denied Rita's accusation that Cassie had somehow forced her to shrink Tanya to her current miniature size. "It isn't possible." She shook her head, her brown hair waving, as if to ward off the doubts that were circling her mind with leathery wings.

Rita, much calmer now that she seemed to have uncovered the mystery of her own actions against Tanya, spoke assuredly, "Shrinking a human being isn't possible, either," She said, "Cloning a human being isn't possible, for that matter." Rita concluded her point with, "Being able to manipulate one's own size is the most impossible thing of all."

Tanya looked up at Rita, surprised. She was aware the Rita knew that Cassie was a clone of Dr. Cassandra Willover, however, Cassie's ability to control her mass was a secret shared only between Cassie, Boris and herself.

Seeing the look of shock on Tanya's face, Rita explained, hesitantly, "I walked in on you two by accident." She nodded toward the glassed-in office at the far end of the lab, which doubled as Tanya's dormitory. She would occasionally nap there during particularly difficult experiments. It was the one place that Cassie could be comfortable, since it was more of an efficiency apartment than an office in a research facility.

Rita continued, her cheeks returning to their normally rose-tinted state with the embarrassment of her story. "You and Cassie were...umm..." Her face fell downward, hiding a full-fledged blush. She coughed nervously, "Anyway, I didn't know that you needed privacy, and I walked in and saw Cassie... shrinking." She frowned apologetically, and continued, "At first I thought that you had used the shrink ray on her, but then, you said something to her," Again, blushing, "And I realized that she was controlling it."

Tanya knew full well what Rita was describing. The sessions were frequent in the little office before Cassie had taken to enrolling in the local university. Cassie and Tanya would retire to their sanctuary most afternoons, eat whatever Cassie had prepared for lunch, and then make love. What Rita had witnessed, most probably, was Tanya's favorite position.

Tanya would sit on the edge of the soft couch, her bare thighs open, with Cassie standing between her knees, both naked as virgins. Tanya would then reach up and cup Cassie's ample breasts in her hands, gently lifting them slightly, enjoying the weight of them in her palms. With a smile, and a sparkle in her beautiful green eyes, Cassie would then begin to shrink, slowly... smiling... until she was eye level with the center of Tanya's arousal.

Tanya found that she was as much aroused by the sight and sensation of her lover dwindling between her legs, as she was the oral acrobatics that Cassie would perform when she had shrunk to the proper height. She would continue to hold Cassie's breasts in her hands, dropping them as she shrunk, feeling the weight of them decreasing in her hands as they dwindled from succulent melons to sweet plums.

What Rita had heard was a murmur of encouragement, 'loverspeak' from Tanya to her dwindling partner, probably something along the lines of, "Oh, yes, honey, shrink for me..." or something equally romantic and arousing at the time which sounded insipid in any other context.

Rita was embarrassed to admit to her unintentional voyeurism, and quickly changed the subject back to the matter at hand, "So, for a person who isn't a person, technically, who can change her size at will..." Rita hesitated, "...isn't it possible that there could be... OTHER things she could do as well?"

Tanya closed her eyes for two reasons. The first, to block out the incessant vision of the largeness of the world to her minute frame. The second, to block out the even more ceaseless voices of doubt filling her head. She took a deep breath, composed her thoughts carefully, and explained her case for Cassie to Rita.

"It isn't possible, Rita," Tanya began, and pressed on, even at the sight of Rita rolling her eyes in frustration. "No really... It's not possible, because Cassie and I are more than lovers, we're... partners and friends." She knew that it would be difficult for Rita to understand how a relationship like theirs could exist. To her, and to a majority of people, a same-sex relationship was based upon sexual attraction, or a defective gene, or a need for rebellion...Tanya knew better.

She was no less in love with Cassie than any man could be for a woman, or a woman could be for a man. The fact that they were both women didn't make them any less partners than any other couple of opposite sexes. Their love was based on the internal things that made them connect. Like all good relationships, sexual attraction was based on that, not the other way around.