This choice: The briefing is conducted by a veteran shrunken agent • Go Back...Chapter #5Bullet Train by: Doom   The journey is pretty stable. Miss Hensley keeps her hand nice and level, her palm an interesting surface of valleys and hills, impressive detail that you're sure would drive a fortune-teller wild.
When it descends, you finally have to grip tight to her finger again, gulping at the rush. The velocity is more shocking than a landing aeroplane, and when the hand crashes down your head is spinning.
As you recover, you climb back down the sheer cliff-face of Miss Hensely's hand. You are unable to avoid standing, transfixed, to watch as the woman withdraws the appendage and steps back to sit in a chair. One leg crosses over the other at the knee, like living skyscrapers.
"Sir."
For once, your sense of situational awareness has failed you. Yes, you've always had an eye for the ladies, but that has never normally distracted you from potential danger. Seems that when you're confronted with a beautiful woman, blown up bigger than a building, even your training can't cope.
WIth a struggle, you turn to face the speaker. While he's to the same scale as you, he's big, a military man in a black stealth outfit. His craggy face speaks of years of service to the country, no doubt in operations of which all knowledge has been disavowed.
"Sir," he continues, "my name is Watts, and I'd like to introduce the rest of the insertion team."
You nod, looking past him as he gestures to each of the other soldiers in turn. Each wears the same uniform, but they sit around passing the time in reading, checking their weapons or eating.
"Richardson." A thin man with an alert gaze, the team sniper.
"Everett." Big for a woman, she's carrying a similarly oversized squad support weapon.
"Stokes." She doesn't even look your way, sharpening her knives.
"Bazley." The final member salutes, his fresh face clearly that of a recent recruit.
"You'll be going in with me," you guess.
"Yes, sir. Between us we've clocked up thousands of hours of shrunken operations. We have intel that the enemy may well have their own mini-marines in the facility, so it makes sense not to go in alone."
"Of course," you muse, stepping past him and rubbing your chin as you look up at the structure looming over the squad, something of a cross between a tube train car and an American diner. The words 'Radway Green' are emblazoned above the entry door.
Following your gaze, Watts explains. "Squad name, sir. Something of an in-joke."
"I see. So, how are we going to be inserted into the area of operations?"
"Please step inside. Once we're all inside, we'll be subjected to a second burst of shrinking energy."
You enter, and find two rows of seats, like those of a fighter jet with thick straps to hold people in place. The soldiers place their weapons into tightly locked trunks, and as the door shuts behind you, emergency lighting is all you can use to see the locks on the straps and the determined faces of your comrades.
No windows in here, no way to see the outside, outsize world. "We'll handle protecting you, sir," Watts continues, "and we're with you every step of the way. You guide us in, we have the equipment to record and transmit whatever secrets we can find, whether from individuals or databases."
"Good to hear. And please, call me Jack. I'm not going to be called 'sir' by someone that knows what they're doing a whole lot better than me!"
He smiles. "Of course."
"So, how is it that we're getting in, anyway? I doubt we meet the height requirement to enter this dive bar."
"Oh well, this capsule we're in? This is something of a bullet with our name on it."
***
It is all explained to you during the long hours in the dark. The cylindrical structure you're in is shrunk more until it can fit neatly as the payload of a rifle cartridge, which Miss Hensley will then shoot into the dive bar. It's well-armoured enough that you should not be hurt, and you can get into the middle of the action. The only real worry, as Watts explains repeatedly, if there are opposing same-scale operatives in the area, in which case a firefight might ensue.
You're only half-listening, your mind primarily focused on the thought that Miss Hensley can casually carry this entire structure around in her hand. A single digit of her hand is bigger than the whole thing. She literally has the fate of this mission in her hand, and the power that she exemplifies is both humbling and arousing.
Most of the other soldiers don't say much, still prepping themselves for the mission, and you can't blame them. You're planning to use your usual method of improvising yourself through any problems that may arise.
You don't even feel the impact of the bullet, wholely missing the pressure that the goddess Hensely exerted on the trigger to commence its journey. Sound too is deadened utterly, but Watts slaps your shoulder and points to the green light that has blinked on above the door.
"Go time," he tells you.
You hustle out with the others, onto a vast surface that appears to be another table, only now on an even vaster scale than before. Looming above you all, the immense figure of the first giant human at this new size, an insurmountable obstacle whether friend or foe, aware or unaware of your team's presence.   indicates the next chapter needs to be written. |
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