You come to fully clothed, but with a strange new bracelet clamped over your left wrist. Its chunky and heavy, and sports a featureless dial.
Looking up, you see Miss Hensley's face dominating the view as she looks down on you nestled in her palm. At half an inch tall, you can fully appreciate the details of the woman's face, and with her warm skin at your back, it's a very pleasant experience.
A smile cracks across that vast expanse, and from within wash words and warm breath. "Ah, you're awake! Well, time to go through the basics, if you'll just get down, please."
There is a rumble of the flesh beneath you as the woman lays her hand flat upon a tabletop. Obligingly, you descend the side of it before it lifts away again, and she settles down to speak. "Now, at your current half-inch size, you are obviously difficult to spot with the naked eye," Miss Hensley begins. "This affords you some freedom, and I'm sure you'll find your new scale renders you slightly more mobile than before."
You take the opportunity to run a little, and find your muscles working better than ever before! Your acceleration and speed and certainly higher, and while you'll still be negotiating distances one hundred and fifty times greater than normal, it won't be as bad as you'd feared. Trying a standing jump, you find yourself leaping greater than your height!
"I knew losing weight was good for my health."
"Of course," Miss Hensley continues, as you jog a circle, "you are incredibly vulnerable at this size. Should someone actually detect your presence..."
The hand slams down vertically before you, the palm forming an impossible wall that blocks your progress. You turn back, but have hardly progressed before Miss Hensley's other hand crashes in your way, trapping you.
"In a situation like this, you may want to turn that dial on your wrist to the right. It has only three settings, and this would be the greater extent."
Click.
The world shrinks as you grow, topping out somewhere in the range of five inches. Now the hands are less an indomitable wall, more a slight inconvenience. You vault over one, and find that your speed is still proportionately greater. Miss Hensely smiles, but then makes a mock snarl as she lashes out. Her left hand coils its fingers around your torso, lifting you up in her grasp. You get your hands hooked on the thumb across your chest, and while you are strong enough to budge it a little, you can't pry yourself free.
"Bigger also means even easier to spot, and one on one you're no match for a normal human. Turn that dial to the left, though?"
Click. Click.
Immediately the world becomes a different place. You are surrounded by grooved curves and cliffs of pulsing skin, the woman's hand and fingers features of the landscape! You plunge down a drop not dissimilar to one that you've dropped many dictators off. Yet instead of falling to your death, you land easily, barely out of breath.
You stand up and marvel at the sheer size of the woman now, far beyond you in terms of power. Were you to scale yourself up, she must be the equivalent multiple miles in height now, making you little more than a speck of dust before her.
"The final size," she whispers, although her every word now rings with the finality of a nuclear bomb, "is obviously a last resort. You'll be all but impossible to locate, but traversing the world will become just as, if not more, difficult."
Makes sense. You click back to five inches, desperate to be away from the nightmare of the tiniest form for as long as possible.
"Your gear has shrunk with you. A bullet from your gun will of course not be able to kill a human, but it may well be possible to irritate or distract them. Note also that it is possible for you to alter the size of small physical objects alongside yourself."
Miss Hensely places her own sidearm on the table, a modest pistol that is now bigger than a cannon to you. "Touch it with the bracelet," she suggests.
You do so, and the gun immediately dwindles to your scale. You can pick it up, check the clip, aim it. Miss Hensley smiles as you point it in her direction. "They'll remain shrunk while in your possession, which will be useful for gathering physical evidence from Gamell, but if you should let them go for too long, they will revert."
"Think I'll keep this as a souvenir," you say, tucking her pistol in your jacket, "you can have it back when we're able to see eye to eye again."
She folds her arms, but laughs and shakes her head. "Time to get into character."
"So, tell me about the target."
Miss Hensley is tying her hair up as she replies. "Colleen Gamell, nine years old. She's collected from the school by a single bodyguard, well trained enough to evade any attempt we've made for a tail. We've lost some agents. So, we have no idea for location or who else lives there. We're not sure Gamell lives with his daughter, but there must be some connection at that house."
You nod, and Miss Hensely finishes her disguise with a pair of thin-rimmed glasses, competing the image of a sexy librarian. With her blown up to such a huge scale, it's quite captivating.
"Come on," she says, offering her hand again, "almost time for class."
You shrink to half an inch again for the ride to her handbag. In the dark, amongst her possessions, you return to your old techniques of mental discipline, slowing your breathing to pass calmly through the times of boredom.
It is ended as Miss Hensely's hand descends once more, pinky finger extended. You grip tight to it and are carried up and out into a new world of light and noise. You don't get to take in much detail while the woman moves her hand back and forth, but you can make out enough words to realise that this is a French class. From Miss Hensley's mouth you can hear her inviting Colleen up to write on the blackboard.
The hand does not remain still enough until after the clacking of the chalk ends, and Miss Hensely congratulates Colleen on being correct: "You may now return to your seat."
A gentle pat on the shoulder from teacher to student, and you transfer to the target. You cling tight to the thick fabric below you as the girl walks back to her chair and sits, long blonde hair waving above you. Once she's settled in, you get a chance to look around.
Numerous girls sit in rows, dressed in sombre uniforms. Your eyes aren't really on them, though, as Miss Hensley absorbs all your attention, a gigantic vision of beauty kissing sultry lines of French from her lips. Of course, it's school-level French she's teaching, but her accent is sexy none-the-less. You don't try to make time pass faster now, luxuriating in the display before you.
It ends all too soon, and you settle down for the ride as Colleen rises and moves off, chatting with her friends. They disperse in the corridors, and it's clearly the end of the school day. Colleen waves goodbye, a massive arm high above you, and while other giants go to parents or the bus, she approaches her bodyguard.
Even at full size, this guy would tower over you. He's close to twice the girl's height, and wide as a horse. Dressed in the same 'subtle' suit as a secret service agent, he glares down from behind sunglasses. You hear the sigh of your host rumble through your world before she raises her arms in a t-pose.
The bodyguard runs a paddle up and down her body and limbs, passing directly over your position twice. Nothing triggers it, no bugs or trackers present to be removed. Looks like their high-tech solution can't detect you. Confident that he can't see you, you take the time to stab a rude gesture at the giant.
Colleen lowers her arms and gets into the bodyguard's car, settling a seatbelt over her other shoulder fortunately as she looks to her phone to keep her entertained for the drive home.
All good so far. You just have to ride this out and you can begin your search for evidence. There's danger here, so you don't meditate, instead watching ahead should that monster of a bodyguard ever start to make a move toward you. But no, you're safe and undisturbed, and the girl enters the house behind the bodyguard.
It's a nice place, open plan and airy, and huge even to a normal sized person. The bodyguard halts in the doorway, and Colleen speaks to him as she crosses to the stairs. "I'm going to get changed, then I'll be back down."
The man nods, and you grimace. You don't want to be with the girl while she disrobes, and now you're in the building you don't need her any more. So, as she ascends, you jump down to the handrail, allowing the giant girl to proceed on her way. You note the door she passes through, and then look around, pondering which chamber may serve as Gamell's office.
A disturbance from below: you turn to see the bodyguard, looking outside, raise a hand in warning while the other reaches into his jacket. A gunshot puts a stop to his movement, the giant crashing to the ground as the dark-clad assailant steps over him, placing another three shots to be sure.
Who is this? Has someone else managed to locate Gamell? Who could they possibly work for? Now it's a race, perhaps in competition with this newcomer to find the secrets you're looking for. But you've never been one to back down from a fight. Maybe you could try to take out this assassin first? If he's too intimidating, you could get to the bodyguard, see if you can get him back in the fight.
There's also a girl in the house, innocent and vulnerable. You could get to her to make sure she's safe.
Maybe this mission is already a bust: time to extract and retreat.
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