I sighed and closed the tablet, stuffing it into my bag. Nada had been no help with the class B that was living in the mini golf place. She just kept going on and on about "reporting them to the proper authorities", and getting mad at me when I refused to tell her where I'd found them. I'd already decided I wouldn't narc on them, so her acting like this just served to tick me off. I shouldn't have asked for her opinion on it, really. I'd known what she'd most likely have said, so there was no point in even having let her know we'd found someone.
I poked my head out of Marissa's hoodie pocket and looked around. We were still waiting in the entrance to Millon Labs for Tracy to get back with the guest keycards. It looked like we were the only people here for some reason, even the person behind the desk was gone. Quince was across the room from us playing a game on her phone with Kensey, the sound low enough that I couldn't quite tell what it was, but it looked like it was a two player game. I'd have to ask Kay about it later, it'd be nice to have a phone game to play with Missy every now and then.
I climbed out of the pocket and onto Marissa's tummy, laying on my side as I looked up at her sullen and slightly annoyed face. She'd been complaining about having to come here for the past day and a half already, and now that she was having to sit and wait, she was even more annoyed. She put her hand over me without looking and slid down in her seat, crossing her legs with a sense of frustration, and rubbed my back with her thumb, the gentle movement mismatched to her grumpy attitude.
Finally, after what had seemed like ages, the door to the waiting room opened up and Tracy walked back in holding a couple lanyards with white squares on them. She glanced at us and waved for us to get up, holding the door open with her foot. She looked stressed and annoyed, but I was just happy to finally see her after over half an hour of nothing.
"Ok, I managed to get the passes, the alarms won't go off or anything now." she said "I told everyone to go home until tonight so we'd have the place to ourselves, and I ended up having to figure out how to make these stupid things in the security office myself."
Marissa picked me up and her hand went up to her chest, pressing against her sternum, her warmth radiating into me "It's about time, I was getting ready to leave."
"I wasn't!" Quince said "I want to see all the tinies so bad, I'd have waited for days!"
"She's been talking about this for the past day and a half." Kensey laughed "She's really excited."
"Mm, well, I'm not thrilled about you being here, this was just supposed to be a private tour, Quince." Tracy said, giving her a look "This is very important to the future of the lab, and you being here might effect that."
"Well, she's here, so let's get on with it." Marissa said, grabbing one of the lanyards "Amber doesn't need one of these?"
"No, she's too small to trip the sensors, just hold her." Tracy said, opening the door all the way "Come on, first step is showing you how we process the new class Bs."
"Wow, so exciting." Marissa said, rolling her eyes, but she followed anyway with Quince close behind
The hallway led to a small room with an 'airlock' styled security gate with an empty desk, and Tracy showed Marissa and Quince how to scan their cards at each checkpoint, letting them through into a larger room on the other side. The room was brightly lit and had rows and rows of small baskets on the walls with sizes on them, measured in millimeters. There were a few tables in the center of the room, and a rack of cleansuits on one wall with names above them and small lockers below them. Tracy walked over to a small machine on one of the tables and turned it on, a sound like a faucet filling the air.
"This is where we process new test subjects to get them ready for the treatments." she said "This little box here is one of our creations, it's a class B sterilization chamber! They climb in, and using a mix of water and very gentle chemicals, they get clean and germ-free in less than two minutes, far shorter than if they took a shower themselves."
"I should get that for you, Kay." Quince said "Maybe then you'd stop taking forty minute showers."
"I barely use any water, you can't complain about that." Kensey said, rolling her eyes "Plus a long, hot shower is one of life's pleasures, I don't want to give that up."
"It's not about the water, it's that we can't hang out while you're in there." Quince said "But I get it, I like showers too."
"So you made a washing machine for class Bs, cool." Marissa said "Is this what you wanted to show me?"
"I- no, ugh, I'm walking you through the process, you need to understand what we're doing here before we get to the meat." Tracy said "We wash them first, then we get them a kit that's their size, as accurate as we can get it."
She pointed to the baskets "These are kits for class Bs, they have food, clothes, soaps, blankets, lots of stuff, special made for the class Bs, down to the millimeter."
"Can I have one of the kits?" Kensey asked "I'm about, uhh, I think 180 millimeters? I'm not great with metric."
"W-well, I can't really give them away." Tracy said "They're all accounted for, we'd have to process you through the system as a test subject."
"Ah, damn..." Quince said, shaking her head "You would have looked cute in a lab coat."
"She wouldn't get a lab coat, it's scrubs." Tracy said "Anyways, once that's done, then a trained professional will bring the class B to the living quarters. Some of them are here for just a while, like volunteers for a couple days, and some are here full time with the lab itself being their legal guardian. Kinda."
"So" I said, speaking up "do the ones who're here full time have a choice to be here?"
"Of course!" Tracy nodded "If they ever want to leave, we'll help re-home them to the best of our ability. We're not forcing any of the people here to be here."
She waved us on to the next room, and we filed in after her. The next room, while still brightly lit, was much more cluttered and packed full of things on tables and desks. I examined some of the machines, they looked dangerous... I wasn't sure I really liked the looks of some of them, they were sharp and scary looking. Marissa stopped in front of one of the tables and frowned, poking one of the more intimidating ones with a finger.
"Uh, is there any reason why you need a thingie with needles on it and a place to strap class Bs?" she asked, looking at the multiple syringes sticking out of the top
"Oh, that's to give them their nutrients and to take blood and stuff!" Tracy said "See, their skin is way, way too thin to actually let a class A give them shots or take blood, one twitch and they'd be impaled. We made this thing so we can take samples of their cells and inject them with medicines without risking hurting them."
"Do you often need to take blood?" Quince asked, poking her head into a much bigger machine meant for full sized people
"Well, yeah, we need a lot of blood." Tracy said "We're trying to find out as much as we can about the compression particles, and pre-compressed particles are important for that."
"What's to understand?" Marissa said "That's what I don't get, we know how they work; they convert cells with the genetic components into more of themselves and then spread. I don't know why you and my mom are trying to figure out more, it's pretty easy to get."
"It's not that easy." Tracy said "The particles do convert cells into more of themselves, but if it just did that, there'd be huge piles of compression particles every time someone compressed, and if it was pure compression, the class Bs would weigh almost as much as they did pre-compression, they'd just be, well, compressed. They'd most likely suffocate because their bodies would be too heavy for their size."
"Ok, so there's a mix of conversion and compression, got it." Marissa said "It's still not that helpful."
"No- look, there's more to it than that." Tracy sighed "We can track how much something compressed based on weight, and we can check how much is converted to more compression cells by letting people compress in an enclosed environment and checking the compression cell count in the air before and after. Those two things combined make up for roughly thirty five percent of the missing mass."
"You mean there's almost three fifths of the person that just goes missing?" Kensey asked "That doesn't make sense, where did it go?"
"That's a large part of what we're trying to figure out here." Tracy said "It's important, it goes somewhere, but it's not here, it's... somewhere else. If we could find out where, we might be able to get people their size back, or, at least a few feet of it."
"Ok, ok, I get it." Marissa said "You're trying to cure class Bs, I support that, I'd love to have a mostly regular sized girlfriend to boss around and keep as a pet. My mom still isn't going to let you keep doing this research even if I tell her this though."
"So even if she was her normal size, Amber'd still be a pet?" Quince asked
"Yes." I said, nodding. Of course I would, what else would I be? I belonged to Marissa now, whatever size I was.
"I'm not trying to convince your mom with just this." Tracy said "It- it's complicated."
"You drug me all the way out here, so start talking, bitch." Marissa sighed, putting me on her shoulder and crossing her arms
"I am, or- I'm trying to." Tracy said "We're making better food for them, we're finding what hurts them, we're making medicine to boost their immune systems- did you know there are now viruses that are adapting just for class Bs? It's our job to help them, to make them safer, to cure them if we can. We have to."
"You're pretty passionate about this." Quince said "This passion happened in, what, a month since starting your internship?"
"Yeah, you almost cried when I made you hold Amber the day after I got her." Marissa said "It's just weird you did a full one eighty."
"Uh, uh-huh, yeah, about that..." Tracy said, taking a breath "After that day I held Amber, I was freaked out. I went home, and I complained to my dad about it, having to hold someone, to feel them in my hands, to be that big and not know what to do with them..."
She brushed her hair out of her face and swiped her keycard at the next door "He got quiet, and the next day he signed me up for the internship. He said it was important."
"You knew he worked with class Bs, and you complained to him about having to touch a class B?" Kensey asked "That's just rude."
"No- I was just venting, really. He listened to me though and wanted to do something about it." Tracy said "Did I ever talk to you guys about my mom?"
"I haven't heard you mention your mom in like, years." Marissa said "I assumed she left your dad and you didn't want to give us fuel to hurt you over it."
"No, there was a car crash." Tracy said, opening the door and propping it open "A head on collision, everyone involved died."
"Oh, fuck" Quince gasped "Your mom is dead?!"
"It was a compression accident." Tracy said, not listening as she led us into the next room. "She compressed while driving and lost control."
There were rows and rows of plastic tubs, frosted covers over them, hiding their contents. The lights in the room were dim, but many of the tubs were lit up from the inside, shining out into the walkways as we walked past. I peered at the boxes, and I could see movement in some of them, shadows moving inside, as the inhabitants went about their lives. These must be apartments, homes for the class Bs who lived in the lab. We were passing through a whole town enclosed in plastic bins. The muffled sound of videos and music slipped out of a few of them as we walked past, getting deeper and deeper into the room full of tiny people.
"Fuck..." Marissa said "So the virus killed her, then. That really sucks."
"Yeah, for like, two years I mourned the loss of my mother, blamed the virus, hated class Bs, I was so scared of them..." Tracy said, her voice quiet. "The first day of my internship, my dad brought me into this room, and he showed me something that changed all of that..."
We stood in front of an extra large tank, one with more floors and a wider base. There were pipes going in and out and there was a thick wire going into the side. This one was a permanent fixture, not to be moved and replaced like the others. There was a large plaque above it that read 'subject 001' in block letters, and a camera pointed directly at the tank itself. Tracy reached out to the frosted glass cover, unsnapping it to reveal the inside of the apartment, and stepped back, waving a hand at the glass. Inside was a woman about five inches tall, middle aged, missing a leg, facial scars on her left side, sitting in a comfortable looking chair.
"My mom died on paper." she said "She's legally dead, but as you can see, my dad found her in the wreck after the police declared her dead. Her leg was crushed off before she compressed all the way, and there was enough... biological material in the wreck that they assumed she didn't make it."
Tracy put her hand on the glass, barely aware we were here "My dad's been working to fix her ever since."
The woman, Tracy's mom, waved gently at her, and gave us a sad smile. She didn't say anything, just watched us through the glass, her gaze resting on Tracy. Tracy's fingers pressed into the glass until her fingertips turned white, lost in her own world. I looked around at the others to see what they were thinking. Marissa and Quince looked somber, which was understandable, they'd more than likely known this lady since they were kids, and had just gone through a roller coaster of thinking she was alive, then dead, then finding out she was compressed and still injured from the accident. Kensey met my eyes, and looked at me seriously, nodding to me like she was confirming something, but I had no idea what.
"I love you, mom..." Tracy whispered, tapping the glass, and she leaned away, turning back to the rest of us, tears in her eyes "If there's any way to help her, any chance I get my mom back, back to normal at least, I will to do everything I can to make that happen."
"Yeah, no- of course." Marissa said, her sour mood gone "I'll do anything to help as well, I- I had no idea..."
She grimaced "I still don't know how that will help convince my mom though, but we really need to find a way to convince her now."
"It was already pretty urgent." I said, glancing up at her
"Yeah, but- you know what I mean." Marissa said "Now it's like, even more personal."
"I'd like to help any way I can too..." Quince said "What do we need to do?"
Tracy took a long shaky breath and swallowed "We need to- we need a breakthrough. We need something that will prove that we can un-do the virus."
"Is it possible?" Marissa asked "I mean, fuck, I'd have heard about it if was, right?"
"You wouldn't have." Tracy said, shaking her head firmly "We're the only lab working on this stuff, and we don't talk about stuff publicly until it's ready. But we're almost ready."
"So if we do the breakthrough, what then?" Quince asked
"Then people stop selling Miss Lund their stocks, my dad keeps majority control, and we get to keep the lab. I get to save my mom, and we get to cure everyone who needs it." Tracy said
"Oh fuck, yeah that's like, an actual serious plan, yeah." Marissa said, uncrossing her arms "I'm on board, but seriously, what do you need me to do?"
"This is the hard part." Tracy said "I kinda sort of... need all your blood."
"That's some serial killer sounding shit right there..." Kensey muttered
"I like my blood though." Quince said, taking a step back "Do you need mine too?"
"It sounds bad, but you guys have uncompressed blood without the genetic triggers, we need more of that to study where the particles go when they're infected. We can use your blood as a baseline or a mixer to run tests on the compression rates." Tracy said "Your blood won't be taken, just swapped out with blood we've already run the tests on, ok?"
"Like, you pull the blood out one arm and pump it in another?" I asked
"We have an exchange transfusion machine..." Tracy said "It's both sides in one arm, but it kinda works like that, yeah."
"Ok, so what, we set up an appointment?" Marissa asked
"If you're ok with it..." Tracy said "I've been trained on how the machine works, I was going to ask if you're ok with me taking your blood right now."
"That seems really dangerous to do without a doctor here." I said "We should wait, right?"
"We don't have time to wait, we need to get the blood in stock before the night shift. I want to make the breakthrough tonight, if possible. There's not many more stocks left to buy before Miss Lund owns this place." Tracy said, rolling up her sleeve "Look, I already did it to myself, see?"
Sure enough, there were bits of gauze on her arm, with a tiny bit of blood seeping through. I looked at Marissa, she was frowning, but she wasn't saying no...
"Come on, Missy, this is dumb, at least tell her to call in another person to do it for her, she's an intern." I protested
"I'll do it." Quince said "I'll swap out my blood..."
"I'll do it too then, I guess" Marissa said, glancing at Quince and petting me softly
"Ok, thank you..." Tracy sighed in relief "Come on, the exchange transfusion machine is over here."
She lead us into still another room, this one with another dual airlock that protruded into the room, and we found ourselves in what looked like a garage or a warehouse, with rows and rows of tall metal shelves full of medical supplies. Blue bay doors lined one wall, and the rest of the room was lit in dim, hanging fluorescents. There were large tanks up close to the ceiling with hoses trailing down close to the floor, and a table-bed in the middle of the room with a big square box next to it. Tracy walked up to the machine and pressed a button, and a whirring noise started, filling the room. She turned to us and pointed to Marissa and Quince, her finger going back and forth between the two of them.
"Ok, who has what blood type?" she asked
"Uh, I'm O positive." Marissa said
"I think I'm A positive?" Quince said, shrugging
"Marissa, we'll start with you then." Tracy said with a tight smile "The process takes up to three hours, and the lab workers will be here at eight to start their shift, so we need to get the blood out of you now or they won't have time to run the experiments."
"O-ok." Marissa said "Uh, will I be knocked out? Or..?"
"Nope, we'll be here keeping you company, it's ok." Tracy said "Quince, if you could bring some chairs over?"
"I'm nervous," Quince said, dragging some office chairs over "is this legal? Will they be allowed to use the blood if there's no one official here to take it?"
"I'm official, damnit, I work here." Tracy said "Come on, Marissa, get on the table, we've got a lot to do."
"This feels really stupid," Kensey said "I don't like this either."
"Well, you and Quince can complain about it later, we're doing this." Marissa said "All my life I've wanted to give a 'fuck you' to my mom, and this honestly might be my best shot at it."
"Won't this hurt you too?" I asked her "This would be your company soon enough if you don't fuck up the deal."
"I'm sure she'd rather help people like you than to have a lab, Amber." Tracy said, helping Marissa up onto the bed "Just think, you could gain up to three or four feet back!"
"Yeah, but I'd still be all short." I said, frowning
"It's way better to be short than to be tiny." Kensey said "Fuck, if this works even a little, I might be a real person again..."
"You can still live with me, if you like." Quince said "Even if you get bigger, I don't care. We have guest rooms and stuff."
"Aw, that's sweet of you!" Kensey said "I'll have to think about it."
"So like, is this something we might be able to do tonight?" Marissa said, wincing as Tracy poked a needle into her arm "Like, am I going to actually be able to hold Amber in my arms as we fall asleep or something else gay like that?"
I climbed down onto her chest and gave her a hug, pushing my face into her hoodie to make it feel more 'real'. I wanted to be able to hug her for real, but as long as I was close to her, that's what mattered.
"I don't think- um." Tracy said, poking the other needle in "Well, if we do manage to find where the extra material goes, we might be able to run some tests, yeah."
She sounded unsure, and it sounded like she was lying, but I hadn't expected her to be able to 'fix' me today in the first place.
"So- a-h-h-h, ugh,fuck, that feels weird." Marissa shuddered as the machine kicked in, blood filling both tubes going to her arm "It's kinda cold..."
"It'll warm up in a second." Tracy said "Just- we gotta wait it out now."
Tracy's hands were shaking as she pressed the buttons on the machine, checking the readout and making sure the needles in Marissa's arm were in place. She must be nervous, this was a last resort for her, for her mom. If she didn't get the breakthrough she was looking for, her mom could be used for any number of horrible experiments, and she might lose her all over again. I could understand her nervousness. I looked around the room for something to take her mind off the blood transfer, and saw a big TV in one corner.
"Hey, Quince," I said, pointing "wanna see if you can cast to that?"
"You want to play music or something?" she asked, pulling her phone out of her purse and setting the bag on the floor
"No, I was just thinking, we never did get to watch Freaky Friday."
Quince grinned "Oooh, perfect! Trace, can I..?"
"Uh, y-yeah, g-go ahead." Tracy mumbled, still looking at the machine, tears in her eyes "I- I'm just- yeah, let's watch a movie."
Quince set Kensey on Marissa's chest with me and ran over to see if she could move the tv closer, and I smiled at Kensey.
"Kinda feeling a little hopeful about this, how about you?" I asked
"I'm waiting to see." she said, frowning "It's just- hm. I just want to wait and see."
"We gotta t-try." Marissa said, shivering "If we h-have th-the power to t-try, we n-need to. It's th-the r-right thing t-to do"
"Yeah, that's a good way to look at it." Kensey nodded, and took my hand in hers, squeezing it gently
As Quince dragged the TV stand over to us, my stomach filled with butterflies, and I wondered if we were doing the right thing. It felt like we were doing something wrong, but we had the passes, Tracy worked here, her dad owned it, and people were coming in later to help us, so it couldn't be anything that'd get us arrested or anything, right..?
~~~
"I'm n-not feeling great." Marissa said "I'm all dizzy and my guts hurt..."
"That's normal." Tracy said, her jaw clenched "You just have a few more minutes to go..."
"You seem tense, was watching the remake right after a bad idea?" Quince asked
"What?" Tracy asked "No, uh, I'm just distracted."
She checked a readout on the machine and swallowed hard, her eyes watering. I hugged Marissa's neck tightly and took a deep breath. It was close to six in the evening already, not enough time to finish replacing Quince's blood as well before people showed up. Hopefully they didn't mind too much, maybe they could mess with Marissa's blood for a while until Quince was drained or something. Kensey stood up and popped her back, making Missy groggily glare at her for getting footprints on her chest
"Hey Quince, come get me, I'm guessing Amber and me will be using you as a sofa next, and I need to stretch before then." she said
"Yeah, get- get her off Marissa, and here, Amber, come with me." Tracy said, reaching out for me
I climbed into her hand, feeling it tremble and I felt nervous again, maybe we were doing something illegal after all? She set me on the flat part of a close by shelf and turned back to the tubes, checking how they went into Marissa's arms. She poked them and Missy flinched, pulling away slightly with a glare. Tracy stood up straight and lightly slapped herself in the face, taking a deep breath.
"Quince, I need to get more needles for your turn, could you go to the room with the little machines and get some?" she said "They'll be next to the blood-drawing station."
"Uh, yeah, can I peek at some class Bs on my way there?" Quince asked "I've hardly got to see any, and that was the whole reason I came on this tour."
"I- just don't bother them, knock first before you take the frosted screen off." Tracy said, shooing her away with a wave of her hand
"Yes!" Quince said, pumping her fist "Come on Kay, let's find ourselves some new tiny friends."
As Quince headed for the airlock, Marissa shifted up on the bed, looking groggy and a little worse for wear.
"Is it almost done?" she said, her voice heavy "I want to get these tubes out of me..."
"Y-yeah, just," Tracy said, flinching "let me..."
She shut off the machine and carefully removed the needles from Marissa's arm, wrapping a bandage around it and tying it closed. She stared at Marissa for a moment, and put her hand on her chest, breathing heavily.
"Are you ok?" I asked "You look like you're about to puke."
"Yup, yup yup. I am fan-tastic." Tracy said, looking around "Marissa, just lie there for a moment longer..."
I heard a muffled thumping and glanced over to see Quince and Kensey, still in the airlock. Quince was waving at us, pointing to her keycard, then to the door and shaking her head. It wasn't letting her through? Was she trapped in the airlock? I waved at Tracy to get her attention.
"Hey, I think Quince is stuck." I said, pointing
"Yeah, I know." she said simply, pulling on one of the hoses connected to the ceiling, something dripping from the end.
"Ok, um, M-Marissa? L-lay still, ok? I want this to fully cover you so there's no accidents." she said, holding the hose up
"Accidents? Trace, what are-" Marissa said, before being cut off by a blast of water to the face.
I shrieked, what was going on?! Marissa sputtered and held her hands up to catch the water, but Tracy kept spraying until she was fully soaked, her body, the bed, the machine, all dripping wet. I walked over to the edge of the shelf and glared at her as Marissa indignantly tugged at her hoodie and tried to wring her hair out.
"You fucking bitch, what was that? I was a little sleepy so you decide to soak me?" Marissa growled sitting fully upright "What the fuck?"
"No, it- Marissa, I'm so sorry..." Tracy said, still shaking "I need to save my mom, this is the only way..."
"What did you do?" I asked "Wait- did you trap Quince? That was on purpose, wasn't it? What is this?"
"She wasn't even supposed to be here, Amber!" Tracy yelled, her voice cracking and her tears finally falling "I just- there's only one way to save my mom, I can't stop Miss Lund from getting the lab, it's too late. No matter how much blood we have, we'll never find out where the extra mass goes, this- the only way to make sure my mom stays safe is to make sure Miss Lund cares enough about class Bs to actually help us instead of stripping everything, and there's only one way to make sure she cares..."
Marissa stared at Tracy, her eyes wide, then she looked at the machine, and she shuddered violently "Oh, gods, Trace, no, fucking tell me you didn't do what I think you did..."
"I did, Marissa." Tracy said, the tears dripping off her face mixing with the contaminated water pooling on the floor "I replaced your blood with the blood of people who had the compression mutation, I'm sorry, I had to... We never even needed your blood, it was a trick."
"I'm- but- I'm immune..." Marissa muttered
"Not anymore." Tracy said, sniffling "I'm so sorry Marissa, I'll take good care of you here, we'll keep you with Amber, even. I just..."
"Can you undo it?" I asked "Quick, give her the un-mutated blood back! It took hours and hours before the infection set in for me, we have time!"
"...No." Tracy said "This is grey-water from years of compression experiments. We don't have hours, we have minutes."
"I am going to fucking kill you." Marissa snarled, sliding off the table and balling up her fists
Tracy stepped back "Do it, I don't give a fuck." she said tiredly "I knew what I was doing. I'm saving my mom from yours, I don't care about myself anymore. I threw my only friendships away for this, I'll lose whatever I need to."
"Missy, don't!" I yelled "She's our only way out of here!"
Marissa glanced over at me, her expression softening, and she reached out to touch me. She never got close enough though, she doubled over and moaned in pain, collapsing to the floor in a ball. I screamed and ran back and forth on the shelf I was on, looking for a way down, I could knock the racks off and slide down them, but if she was about to compress, and I got caught up in it-
She moaned again, and the ground around her split and cracked, the noise louder than I expected, making me jump.
"What was that?!" I asked "Why is the ground breaking?!"
"The part she's on is compressing with her." Tracy said, still looking tired and dead inside "She's already started..."
Marissa moaned again, and grabbed the shelf I was on for support, her body blurring. It looked like vibrations, some kind of twisting, shimmering glass. I could see her body melting away, getting smaller as she struggled to stand back up. She pulled herself to her feet, the ground under her splintering and cracking, making her sink, but her head was already below the shelf I was on. She'd lost at least two feet already. There was a twisting metallic noise as the part of the shelf she was resting against compressed under her touch and the whole thing shook, knocking me to my butt.
"It- it hurts, it's n-not s-supposed to hurt I thought?" Marissa wheezed. I peeked over the shelf to see her grabbing her chest, the side of the shelf and the floor still folding in on themselves as she got smaller still
"Marissa!" I screamed, slapping my hands against the metal "Missy, no! Please, Tracy, help her!"
"I'm not getting anywhere near her." Tracy said "I'd lose a limb. It's- it's going to be ok. I'll take really, really good care of you two, I'll get Quince to hang out with us still, and if she can be normal about it, maybe even Henri, I promise, it's going to be fine."
She bent down, crouching on the edge of the dusty circle Marissa was compressing in and ignored the pen I threw at her "Marissa, I will fix you, and your mom is going to help me do it. You'll be ok, I swear to you."
"F-fuck you, you f-fucking bitch." Marissa mumbled, and vomited under the shelf
It buckled again and I braced myself as I was knocked over again, dropping to my hands "Tracy, please, you know what Miss Lund will do her if she sees her like this..." I said, fighting off tears.
Our life was ruined, we couldn't go back to her room, we couldn't play our games, or go to school together like we used to. Marissa's whole future was ruined now, and I was willing to bet Henri would use this as blackmail of some kind to get me, leaving Marissa all alone to be a lab rat for her mom. I curled up in a ball, I wanted to jump down and hug Missy, to tell her everything is ok, but getting that close, I'd compress too, and I doubted I'd survive if I was much smaller than I was now.
"Miss Lund will see her as her daughter, one that needs help." Tracy said "She has to. She'll keep the focus on helping class Bs, and she'll give money to make sure they're safe."
"Sh-she'd r-rather m-me b-be dead." Marissa grunted, her voice barely reaching me
"That's not what I heard." Tracy said "I just want to say again how sorry I am, I care a lot about you Marissa, but my m-"
There was a wrenching noise, and the shelf I was on collapsed, and I screamed, sliding straight into the support beam on the side. It went down fast, the boxes of pens and lab equipment tumbling off around me to the ground, and I slammed into the metal hard as we made impact. I opened my eyes and moaned, I was at an angle, so the shelf hadn't hit the ground- was Marissa crushed?! I scrambled up and climbed the side of the shelf to look around. I couldn't see Marissa, but Tracy... The shelf had landed straight on top of her. I scuttled along the side of the shelf to get a better look, and had to brace myself as the shelf shifted again. Marissa must still be compressing under this somewhere...
Tracy was face down on the ground, the shelf at an angle over her, one of the support beams on her head. I gasped when I saw blood running from under the beam and pooling on the floor under her, she'd taken a hard hit to the head... She was actively bleeding, that meant she wasn't dead dead, right? Or was there enough blood in someone to let them bleed even without a heartbeat? She was in an uncomfortable position, her legs splayed and her body bent in half with her face on the concrete, maybe she was dead...
I turned away, and looked up at the airlock. Quince was slamming and kicking the door as hard as she could, waving at me and shouting, but I couldn't hear her. I was too short to use the keycard anyway, she was stuck in there for now. I picked my way through the fallen shelf to the middle, my heart beating quickly. I needed to know if Missy was ok... The shelf shuddered and tipped, and held still. She had to be done compressing by now right? I crested the top of the shelf and look down. Way below me in a pile was a familiar hoodie curled up in a ball, the ground cracked and split around it, no movement at all.
My breath caught and I slid down the shelf, hitting the ground hard. I ran over to her, slowing down as I got close. What was that I'd read about the virus kicking back in after initial compression? Something about the compression particles could stay in the area now, and re-trigger the infection? Something like that... I had to get her out of here before she re-compressed. I stepped up to her, and bent down. The hoodie was almost my size, maybe a little too big, but the lump inside it wasn't. I reached out and lightly touched Marissa's shoulder, and she jerked upright with a gasp.
"That stupid fucking fucker!" she said, her face wild with anger "Fucking- fuck her and her fucking mom, fuck FUCK fuck!"
I gasped at her and fell back, she was- she was small. Not my size, not really, but close to it. It was alien and wrong to see her so tiny, so much like me, like she was even smaller than she really was. I was almost worried I'd break her if I touched her, but she wasn't that compressed, she just seemed that way because I was used to her usual size... I stood back up quickly and pulled her to her feet, and looked down at her in shock. She was barely as tall as my shoulders, if that. Her anger melted away into horror and she spun in place, looking around at her surroundings, taking it all in. She flapped her hands and looked around for something to say, but her arms dropped to her sides and she sagged, quiet tears running down her face.
"I'm- fuck, I'm really- I just..." she mumbled "I'm gonna be in a lab my whole life now..."
"Not- No, we don't know that." I said "It's ok, it might be ok..."
"Tracy is going to grab us and put us in fucking box..." Marissa said, her stare vacant "Everything I ever loved or wanted is gone now..."
"W-well, n-not everything?" I told her, waving at myself
She looked at me and blinked, then her eyes flashed with anger and she opened her mouth to snap at me, but lost the energy before she started. She tried to run her hands through her hair but her hoodie hadn't compressed as much as she did and she just ended up slapping herself in the face with wet sleeves. She sobbed and sank to her knees, shaking.
"Why hasn't she just grabbed us already?" she said "I just- I just want to get this nightmare over with..."
"She's- um, I think she's dead." I said, bending down next to her "The shelf fell on her."
Marissa looked at me, wild eyed, then barked a laugh, harsh and mean "Get fucked, bozo. Killed by a fucking shelf." she said with an angry glare
"Y-yeah..." I said, putting my hand on her shoulder, feeling how fragile it was compared to just a few minutes ago "We... need to get you to a source of uncontaminated water. If we don't wash you off, you might start compressing again any minute."
"Fuck, wouldn't want that, huh?" she snarked "Wouldn't want to be even smaller and more useless than completely small and totally useless, right?"
"We need to have a game plan." I said, ignoring her muttered growls as I led her through the remains of the shelf "Once we get you- and me since I'm touching you- washed off, we need to figure out what we're going to do."
"I guess just wait until the late shift shows up and get boxed." she muttered
"I don't think there's a late shift." I said "I think she lied about that."
"Then I don't know, live in the walls like ra- uh, mice?" she said, waving her hands wildly
"Here's a valve, it says it's 'water for control group." I said, pointing to a nozzle on the wall "Look, I think I can turn the lever..."
She boosted me up and I used a conduit to shimmy up to the spigot, and kicked the lever as hard as I could, a stream of water gushing out. i dropped to the floor and set my bag aside before I stepped into the stream, shuddering as the cold water rushed over me, soaking me and my clothes. I scrubbed for a moment, then stepped aside for Missy to wash, clothes and all. She growled at the temperature and didn't wash as well as I'd have liked, but at least she was 'clean' of any potential compression particles and genetic materials now.
"Tracy isn't going to be a problem." I said "Quince is locked up and can't get out, and even if she was out, she can't take care of us because, let's be honest, she's going to be a suspect, they'd never let her adopt the girl she might have helped disable."
I looked at where Quince was trying to pick the card reader with a hair clip and sighed "And both of your parents are out too."
"Oh, yeah, I guess they're both... ugh..." Marissa said, her fire dying down slightly
"Yeah, no offense, but I don't trust either to come pick us up, much less care for us."
"Not that my dad legally can after this past Sunday." she mumbled "Are you saying we need to call your mom? She... was nice to me, I'd be ok with that."
"I don't think so." I said "If word gets out about this, your mom is going to do whatever she can to get you."
"Maybe. Maybe she'd just pretend I died." Marissa said sullenly
"No, I think she'd want you, to test on, yeah, but she needs to control you if she can. If she heard my parents had us, she'd use her lawyers to fuck them up and get you under her control, and they wouldn't be able to fight back, they have no money."
"Fantastic." Marissa frowned "I'm out of resources. I'd say Darcy, but she's still out of the country, and I think she'd forget about us in a week and let us starve even if she did adopt us. Maybe my hitmen could do something if I can still access my accounts..?"
"I have a better idea." I said "It's a stupid one, it's not very safe, and it's going to hurt our pride to do it, but..."
"Oh, fuck." Marissa said "Just- please promise you won't let her touch me."
"I'll do my best..." I said, hugging her to my chest, warmth filling me despite the freezing water we were both covered in
I kissed the top of her head gently and savored the feeling of pressing my girlfriend into my chest, my arms around her, hers around me, and I knew it'd be ok. We had each other, no matter what, we'd be ok. I squeezed her gently, and she returned the squeeze, her arms tightening around my ribs in the same places her fingers used to. I let myself hold the glow for a moment, feeling the love and connection for just a bit longer before I finally broke away and pulled my tablet out of my bag.
I looked at Marissa, quietly crying, her hands pulling at my sleeve, and I gave her a nervous but supportive smile.
"It'll be ok, she's our friend, she'll make sure we're ok, I know she will." I lied, and called Henri
~~~