Tyler moved forward, pointing the device between the bars of the cage right at the confused little duck. With a bright flash and a frightened quack, the duck shrank down to being almost speck like in size. Tyler set down the shrink ray and opened the cage, putting his hand over the duck so it couldn't escape.
"Great!" Josh exclaimed as he looked down at Tyler's hand. "I've actually been having issues shrinking living creatures, so this is huge!"
"What kind of issues?" Tyler asked, looking down at his own hand with a little concern.
Josh picked up the shrink ray and tweaked the settings a little bit before setting it down and pulling out a notepad. "Nothing gruesome. Just simply it hasn't worked at all. Living creatures just have a bit more complexities to them than simple inanimate objects, so it took a lot of tweaking."
"Gotcha, yeah that makes sense." Tyler replied, moving his other hand under his first, feeling the tiny creature get scooped up between them. Josh handed Tyler a special microscope slide with a dent in it, in which to deposit the duck. Carefully, Tyler encouraged the tiny creature inside and sealed the top with a second slide. Pulling out a microscope, Josh set the slide down and adjusted the settings while looking at the confused little critter.
"Wanna see?" Josh asked Tyler, turning and looking at the taller man with a smile. Tyler shrugged and bent down, peeking his eyes into the microscope. Sure enough under the lowish setting, the duck was fully visible as if it was normal sized.
"Woah... how small is it?" Tyler asked, legitimately curious about just how tiny the device could make things.
"Its perfect, about 1/16th of an inch in height." Josh smiled excitedly as he jotted some numbers down in his notebook.
Tyler scratched the top of his head in a little confusion. "How's that perfect?"
"Well... relative to a human's height, that means if I shrunk a person they'd be at about 1/4th of an inch tall. Which is my goal height for the experiment." Josh smiled with some excitement.
Tyler looked even more puzzled. "Why wouldn't you just shrink a person? And what's so special about 1/4th of an inch?"
Josh stopped writing as he blushed slightly. "Umm well I didn't want something to go wrong when shrinking a real person... and the height... well... it's dumb. Let's just say it's a good height."
Tyler rose an eyebrow slightly, but quickly just shrugged it off. "Well if you say so."
"Right! Now let's return this little ducky to normal!' Josh said suddenly, pulling the slide off the microscope and handing it to Tyler. Picking up the shrink ray, Tyler changed the setting to return the duck to normal. Removing the top slide and activating the device, a bright flash quickly enveloped the slide and.... nothing.
"Hey, nothing happened." Tyler added as Josh looked closer. Moving over to a computer, Josh powered on the console.
"Must just be a small mistake somewhere. Take care of the duck for me?" Josh asked, turning his attention to the monitor to look through some of the programming used in the regrowth formula. After a few seconds, Josh heard a small squishing noise. Turning to look at Tyler, he saw the huge man with his fingers pinched together with a small bloody smear once they separated.
"Why'd you do that?" Josh asked, more shocked than angry.
"You said to take care of it." Tyler responded, feeling slightly offended.
"I uhm... meant like... care for it while I figure stuff out." Josh sighed with a little disappointment.
"Oh..." Tyler simply stated as he wiped his fingers on his shorts. "Sorry."
"It's ok." Josh replied, trying to be supportive. "Poor duck though."
"Something that small is practically a bug though." Tyler frowned as he pulled up a chair and sat next to Josh. "I wouldn't worry about it."
Josh turned his attention back to his computer, reading through some of his program. "Yeah but what if it was a person that small?"
"Same deal I guess. Anything small enough to squish like that is pretty much just a bug." Tyler replied, leaning back and crossing his arms. Josh frowned as he looked through the computer a little more.
"I guess so." Josh sighed as he found a line of code that looked to be problematic. Fixing the mistake and double checking all his work, Josh closed the program and hooked it up to the shrink ray. "That should do it."
"Should we find another duck?" Tyler asked, still leaning back, looking a little unenthused as he pulled out his cellphone to check the time. "Shit..."
"What's wrong?" Josh asked as Tyler stood up suddenly.
"I gotta go work out and grab something to eat. I'll do that and be right back." He stated, almost commandingly. Josh simply turned to him and flashed a quick smile.
"Sure! Bring me back something to eat too, if you don't mind." He answered in an understanding tone.
Tyler's expression turned from confident to a little surprised. "You aren't mad?"
Josh shook his head. "No way, do what you gotta do."
Tyler smiled as he turned to leave the room. "Thanks, dude."
Josh watched as the huge man made his way out of the room. Turning his attention back to his shrink ray, he decided he could use the time to mostly just fiddle with the device a little while Tyler was gone and hopefully work out a few bugs.
- -
Some time went by and Josh wiped a little sweat from his brow, confident in a lot of his theoretical work involving the shrinking technology. Setting the ray down on the table, Josh gasped as it suddenly misfired, sending a bright flash of light directly hitting...
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