RR Nina Beckett - Chapter 6

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Reduction & Relocation: Nina Beckett

Chapter 6 - Jeweled Protection

[January 27th, 2010]

‘Oh no….they’re not really going to…’ David thought, but deliberately interrupted himself.  The thought of it was just too horrifying…too humiliating.

“You might be a genius, Dr. Becotte.” Dr. Bexley said, lifting her index finger to reveal the now jewel-less ring.  The pink jewel was sticking to her fingertip, the tiny threading of the jewel now just barely visible. 

“You might be right, Dr. Bexley.” Dr. Becotte teased.  The blonde doctor carefully removed the sticking pink jewel from Dr. Bexley’s still finger and held it up for them to look at more closely.  

David’s heart was racing.  He already knew what they were going to do.

“Look at the threading on the toe ring…and the space inside of the hollow jewel.” Dr. Becotte remarked.

“I know, and it looks like the male end of the threading will seat perfectly flush with the ‘floor’ of the jewel when it's screwed back on.” Dr. Bexley added, getting more excited.

“It’ll be a perfectly flat floor for him in there…” Dr. Becotte said.

“And there’s no way he can fall out!” Dr. Bexley sang in unified agreement.

“Right!  Or try and get out!” Dr. Becotte added.

“Great thinking, Dr. Becotte! Let’s make sure Dr. Walker’s alright with it.”

Much to David’s horror, Dr. Walker was completely fine with the idea, and offered just as much praise to Dr. Becotte for her creative solution. 

“Doesn’t anyone want to know if I think it’s a good idea?!” David shouted up to the women, but Dr. Walker had already changed the subject. 

“Rose and I are going to go back to my office and take a look at this.” Dr. Walker said, flashing an SD card in her fingers; David miserably recognized that as small as it was to Dr. Walker, the tiny SD card was around 40 times taller than he was.

“Oh, you’re going to look at the reduction data? I hope whatever caused the anomaly didn’t cause any corruption” Dr. Becotte said.

“I already did a quick review.  No corrupted files!  The answer to this anomaly is almost certainly on this SD card, and we’re going to find it!”

She looked down again at David.  His blood ran cold as her chocolate brown eyes fixed on his tiny body. She’d already smashed him twice…and he was terrified of her.

“I trust you two can handle transporting him?”

“Of course.” Dr. Becotte replied professionally.  

“Yes, we’re going to keep him in my office instead of the SSF.” Dr. Bexley added.

Dr. Becotte nodded, “I think that’s a good idea.  Like Dr. Walker said, we don’t want any misinformed interns disposing of him.”

“Or clumsy interns losing him!” Dr. Bexley added, playfully nudging Rose with a toothy grin. “I think there have been enough mistakes today.”

Rose blushed and Dr. Walker smiled, “Oh, she was just teasing you, dear. Everything that’s happened here today is great news…and even if it weren’t, you wouldn’t be in any trouble.”

“There’s a learning curve,” Dr. Becotte added. “...and it's best to make little mistakes like this early on and learn from them.”

“Little mistake?” David shouted.  He knew they couldn’t hear him but hearing her so casually downplay what’s happened to him made David furious.  “I’m a fucking speck!”

Of all the women in the room with him, Rose was the only one who wore some semblance of apology on her beautiful young face when she looked at David. He enjoyed that look of remorse for one more second before Rose looked away from him and followed Dr. Walker, who was already on her way out of the Reduction Therapy room.  

David trembled with fear and imbalance as the business card he was still standing upon began sliding against the tabletop as if it were a high-powered, football-field sized sled.  David cringed and panicked, noticing how quickly he was gliding toward the edge of the table, which may as well have been the edge of the earth.  

The card stopped and rotated slowly, positioning the edge of the card almost flush against the edge of the table, and David stood so close to the edge he could see down to Dr. Bexley’s Nikes and Dr. Becotte’s feet.  She hadn’t yet put her other sneaker back on and he could see the faint hints of blue from her toenails poking through the stretched thread of her pastel pink sock

“Okay, David…” 

Her voice was so sweet, and yet the tone heightened his fear and he wished he was anywhere else on earth as the raven-haired beauty’s fingers became visible just below the plane of the tabletop.  She was holding the pink jewel upside down, the threaded hole to the hollow innards expertly positioned so close he could have stepped off the edge of the table directly into it. 

David did not pull that comparison out of thin air.  He knew that was exactly what she–

“--I need you to step off the table and into the jewel here.  This is how we’re going to keep you safe, okay?”

David knew she couldn’t hear him.  No one could hear him.  Nothing could hear him. But he prayed that the goddess above him could at least see the fear in his eyes.

“I know it’s…a little scary.  But this is the best way for us to keep you safe.”

Dr. Becotte raised an index finger and added, “..and accounted for! You really are surprisingly and uncommonly small, you know…and that’s saying something coming from us!”

“Truly, David.” Dr. Bexley said, and David was torn on whether the hint of compassion in her green eyes was sincere or some manipulation tactic. Was all of it a manipulation tactic?

“You’re less than 1/32 of an inch tall.  This is for the best.” Dr. Bexley said, a little more firm, gently shaking the pink jewel underneath him and calling David’s attention back to it.

“Please…don’t make me.” David shouted, clasping his hands to indicate his begging.  The goddesses did not answer his prayers; instead, the one with raven-black hair sighed and carefully lifted the card, pinching it into a half-pipe shape.  David shrieked in disagreement and disdain as he tumbled clumsily down to the base of the paper half pipe. His protests and attempts at rebellion were easily rounded down to zero in the face of Dr. Bexley’s manipulation of the cardstock. The angling business card allowed gravity to act against his consent, pulling David toward the hollow pink jewel.  He looked up as the impossibly large threading of the toe ring loomed overhead. He cried as Dr. Bexley twisted it back on, sealing David inside the jewel of Dr. Becotte’s toe ring. 

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

5 Days Later

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

It was a rainy Monday morning, but as far as Dr. Bexley was concerned, the day was full of sunshine and possibility.  Last week ended with some very big ideas about the very small anomaly named David Denison.  After the fascinating error of his initially routine Reduction Therapy session, David was carefully stowed in the perfectly sized jewel compartment of Taylor Becotte’s toe ring. It became obvious to the team that storing David–or as Dr. Walker simply referred to him, The Anomaly–would require a bit more consideration than normal.  Storing him in the SSF along with the common, viable subjects would have been protocol had he been viable or common, but David was neither.  

He might be so much more…but time would tell. In the meantime, he’d have to be kept safe–when he wasn’t being experimented on.  Dr. Bexley had a great idea.

“Good morning Dr. Bexley!”

Startled, Alexandria Bexley turned her attention to the receptionist who appeared from behind the RR Labs check-in counter as if she were an adorable, red-headed whack-a-mole. She quickly swallowed a mouthful of creamy, sugary coffee before returning the warm greeting. 

“Good morning, Laura. How was your weekend?”

“It was okay.  Went to the movies with friends and then just hung out around the house. Kind of boring, honestly.”

Dr. Bexley chuckled, setting her coffee down on the high surface of the receptionist’s counter.  “Well, when you get a little bit older, you’ll look at uneventful weekends as a blessing.”

“You’re not that much older than me, Dr. Bexley!” 

“Old enough to appreciate a quiet, boring weekend!”  The raven-haired doctor took a look over her shoulder, reconfirming that the waiting room was completely empty.  “What’s the morning looking like?”

Laura’s expression switched from playful to business, the freckles on her cheeks shifting down as the smile gently retreated from her young face. She pressed several keys on her computer keyboard, pulling up a schedule for the day.  “Oh, busy day for sure! We’ve got a few Participant follow-ups, Cassy and Amy are before lunch…both in their third month. Jenna and Grace are after lunch.”

Laura bit her bottom lip as she scrolled through a dense page of information.  “Jenna just started her second week and Grace is in her fifth year.”

“That’s a nice, fun spread.  Am I on any of them?”

“Hmm…it looks like Dr. Zhang has Cassy and Amy.  Dr. Stanhope has Jenna….oh!”  Laura nodded with a smile, “...and you have Grace, the fifth-year.”

“Oh, great!  I think I did Grace’s initial installation.  Wow…can’t believe that was five years ago.”

Laura’s green eyes scanned her monitor and her mood seemed to darken as she cleared her throat.  

“And umm….after that you and Dr. Walker have a meeting with Brooke Beckett.”

Dr. Bexley couldn’t help but let out an audible sigh.  As unprofessional as it was, she succumbed to the reflexive impulse to roll her eyes and suck her teeth.

“Ugh…what’s this one about?”

Laura didn’t say anything, but the red-head’s mirrored exasperation told Dr. Bexley everything she needed to know. 

“It’s about Nina?” Dr. Bexley asked.

Laura nodded.

“Don’t tell me she needs another one…” Dr. Bexley said.

Laura nodded again, not quite sure if she should laugh.

Dr. Bexley looked at her phone screen and her sigh filled the empty waiting room.  “She’s had him for five days!  What on earth happened?”

“Ms. Beckett didn’t say.” 

Dr. Bexley was at her wit’s end. “Okay…well, that should be fun.  Of all the investors on The Board, I think Brooke Beckett might be the one who’s spoken the least about funding our research and the most about her princess of a daughter.”

The raven-haired doctor collected her composure, smoothing her silky button-down shirt down over her voluptuous breasts and putting on a professional, friendly expression.  “Anything else?  Any RT appointments?”

Laura clicked a few more buttons on her computer. She seemed grateful to switch away from the topic of Brooke Beckett and her daughter. “Hmmm….  Yes, looks like there’s two here, actually.  The first one is coming in for his final Reduction Therapy screening session; his appointment is in 2 hours.  The other one got here an hour ago at 8AM and is back there right now with Dr. Becotte.”

“Oh, good!  So I assume Dr. Walker and Rose were able to get The RTD running again? That was quick!”

“Mm-hmm!” Laura said cheerfully.  “Apparently Rose was a big help in fixing it, too.  Honestly, I was kinda rooting for her.  She was really down on herself for what happened last week with that non-Viable. 

The 20-year old receptionist looked over Dr. Bexley’s shoulder once more to the waiting area, carefully confirming it was still empty. “Speaking of which…”

She also looked also toward the closed door that led to the rest of the lab.  Laura cleared her throat and leaned in closer to Dr. Bexley, whispering as if they were not the only ones in the room.

“...I heard some of the other interns talking in the breakroom yesterday during lunch.  They were saying some…well…honestly some pretty crazy things about that non-Viable.  The one that stabilized at like 1/32nd of an inch?”

Dr. Bexley could have responded and filled the silence Laura had carved out for an answer to her question.  Instead, the raven-haired beauty allowed the silence to linger, staring with a knowing but guarded smirk on her face. She waited just long enough for an appearance of discomfort to grow on the receptionist’s face.

“What did you hear?” Dr. Bexley asked.

“Crazy stuff!” Even Laura appeared caught off guard by the giggle that accompanied her response to Dr. Bexley, evident by her well-manicured hand rushing to cover her impulsive mouth. 

Laura cleared her throat, “Do you know…I mean….are you allowed to…well..ya know….say anything about it?”

“Well, what have you heard?” Dr. Bexley’s smirk grew as she picked up her coffee.

“Well, Allison told Brandi in the breakroom that they’d exposed him to some insanely hot and cold temperatures and even though he was squeaking a bunch, his vitals were fine.  And then I heard Dr. Stanhope talking with Dr. Becotte and Brandi about doing a drop test. They dropped him from higher and higher heights and if I heard her right, the highest he dropped from was 20 feet!”

Tickled pink, Dr. Bexley listened to Laura excitedly and passionately share the stories like chit chat at the salon.  

“Ooo! And then Dr. Walker and Dr. Zhang found–”

“-you’re quite well-informed, Laura.  There’s no denying that!” Dr. Bexley laughed. “I don’t care if they’ve got BS’s, PhD’s, they could even be board-certified experts in their field…you get a bunch of girls together and who knows what kind of gossip starts spreading…” 

The raven-haired left Laura’s desk but before entering the Limited Access Corridor, she turned back to the red-head, “…but I’ll tell you this: all those stories…100% true.”

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ 

Her office was all the way in the back, next to her dear friend and co-founder Dr. Walker, so Dr. Bexley used the long walk as an opportunity to make some quick rounds.  She first scanned her way through the heavy Security Door #1.  To the left, Dr. Bexley caught a glimpse of Brandi Thompson in the Acclimation Therapy Room. One of the hardest workers at RR Labs, she always had a sunny disposition and was currently introducing the first of a large batch of subjects to her big, soft rump. Dr. Bexley smiled, watching the blonde Acclimation Therapist’s fingers, clutching a writhing naked subject, disappear between large round glutes, densely packed in her vibrant peach-colored Housing Pants.  The hand emerged empty, the cleavage of her immense rump taking over holding the tiny subject as she immediately began scribbling some notes for the report she’d generate later.

After hooking a sharp right, Dr. Bexley passed one of the Subject Storage Facilities and then made an immediate left.  The break room on the left was empty except for the cleaning woman, Anita.  She was one of the first non-lab personnel hired to RR Labs and despite her status as the oldest woman at RR Labs (at a whopping 46), Anita was packed with energy and cheerfulness.

“Good morning, Dr. Bexley!”

"¡Hola, Anita!" Dr. Bexley stepped in just after the doorway of the breakroom, centering her sneakers on the entranceway’s black doormat. "I couldn't help but notice your gardening project outside. ¡Está mirando maravilloso!"

"Oh, muchas gracias." Anita grinned ear to ear as her weathered hands released the mop she wielded into the yellow bucket of dingy water, creating a small but controlled splash. Her voice was deep, but no deeper than what was typical for a more mature woman.  Her voice carried a hint of gravelly, sandy grain but it was softened by the charm of her accent.  "I've been working hard on it. Only just got the foundation laid out so far, but Dr. Becotte had some great tips for what to plant when it gets warmer."

Dr. Bexley's smile widened.  If there was one girl to trust about flowers, it was Taylor Becotte. "¡Qué bueno! I can’t wait to see them bloom and flourish," she praised warmly. "By the way, have you seen her around?”

“Dr. Becotte? Sí, creo que ella estaba en la Sala de Terapia de Reducción," she replied, gesturing toward the hallway with a nod of her head. "She's been busy there most of the morning with a chiquito."

Dr. Bexley nodded. "Gracias, Anita.”

If Dr. Becotte had already completed Reduction Therapy on her 8AM appointment, maybe there’d be some time for the two of them to chat while she conducted her post-RT assessments. Unfortunately, Dr. Bexley could see that the ‘chiquito’ that Anita spoke of was not quite finished yet.  Dr. Becotte was only just starting the final physical and screening.  

‘Wow, he’s huge.’ Dr. Bexley thought.  He was a hulk of a man with tufts of thick black hair on his broad-barn of a chest.  He looked like he might have lived at the gym; probably one of the most muscular men she’d ever seen.  He truly looked like a bear towering over Dr. Becotte.  The blonde doctor barely even had to get on her knees to start the best part (according to Dr. Bexley). The raven-haired beauty’s cheeks flushed as she watched Dr. Becotte shift the man’s proportionately massive penis in her hands. 

‘...Or maybe Taylor’s hands are just that small.’ She thought with a giggle.

Dr. Bexley passed her Dr. Walker’s office on her right and made her way through the adjoining Copy/Print/Scan Room that her and Dr. Walker shared, finally arriving at her office.

The pleasing scent of vanilla greeted Dr. Bexley as she left the busy hustle-and-bustle, high energy environment of the RR Lab corridors out there on the other side of her office door.  The offices of Dr. Bexley and Dr. Walker, the co-founders of RR Laboratories, were the largest in the building. Despite being mirror images of each other, they could not have been more different. 

Dr. Walker's office was devoid of personal touches, lacking any framed photographs or children's drawings that would identify it as her own. Instead, the only items that could be found were a crystal chessboard and a gift from Dr. Bexley that dated back to before the formation of RR Labs. This minimalist approach created an atmosphere that appeared cold and uninviting, which was a direct contrast to Dr. Bexley's office.

In contrast to Dr. Walker's office, which appeared chaotic and impersonal, Dr. Bexley's office was a reflection of her warm and welcoming personality. 

The walls were lined with framed photographs of her family and friends, as well as colorful artwork that looked to be created by children. The office was filled with potted plants that added life and warmth to the space, making it a comfortable and inviting place to be…or at least she hoped so–for the near-microscopic man living there.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Naturally, Dr. Bexley volunteered to keep David in her office. She was the obvious choice considering the rapport they’d developed during his screening phase. So it was there behind her normally locked door that David remained, staged indefinitely in a small amphibian tank underneath the raven-haired doctor’s desk–unless he was being checked out by one of the other doctors, always far too busy to even summarize what they were going to do to him.  It didn’t take long for David to begin preferring the sanctuary of Dr. Bexley’s office, even if that awful, strongly-scented toe ring was continuously left in the tank with him.  David coudln’t get far enough away from it.  It wasn’t as if it smelled bad. 

But it unmistakably smelled like Dr. Becotte’s feet.  The scent was even stronger coming from the toe ring than it was when he was stuck to her bare sole last week, something that David felt extremely lucky to not share in common with the ring. While David hated that he had to share his limited space with the fruity, flowery aroma emanating from the toe ring, he was grateful that Dr. Becotte hadn’t tried to get it back and put it on.  He stayed there for the rest of last week and all weekend, during which time Dr. Bexley and Dr. Walker had several in-depth meetings to discuss their plan going forward.  

In addition to a considerate portion of crumbs and cranberry seltzer water from her Friday afternoon lunch, Dr. Bexley had left something else in David’s tank over the weekend.  It was a tool for David, now too small and significant to be heard by anything, that he could use to communicate, albeit at brief and infrequent spurts earned by literal hours of hard work.

Its dimensions were similar to that of a standard keyboard, but this roll-out keyboard was essentially an incredibly thin mat adorned with printed computer keys.  It had virtually no height at all…just like David.

From humble beginnings as a ‘baby’s first keyboard’ toy, the bright pink device had undergone quite the transformation before Dr. Bexley adjourned for her weekend.  She configured the keys to be incredibly sensitive to touch so that they would register under even the slightest pressure…and whose footsteps were more slight than those of a 1/32” sized man? 

He admired Dr. Bexley’s approach.  It was resourceful and simple.  All it took was an Arduino Uno and some simple code to restructure the keyboard…and now it accepted a keystroke if and only if David’s weight was registered on the key for 65 seconds. Once 65 seconds had passed, the key upon which David stood would light up pink, indicating to him that the keystroke had been processed. At that time, he’d have to hustle off the key to find the next one.  

It seemed like an awfully long time for David to have to wait on a key, but Dr. Bexley knew what she was doing, even if it went over David’s head.  Her napkin math showed that at David’s size of 1/32”, it would have taken him a little over 30 seconds to walk from one end of a key to the other. Any shorter key actuation times and accidental keystrokes would have been far more prominent.  

Dr. Walker had trouble understanding Dr. Bexley’s efforts.  She pointed out that there was really no practical reason for him to communicate with RR staff. “There’s nothing he could tell us that we won’t assess from experimentation.”  It might have been good that the black-hearted Dr. Walker couldn’t hear him when she said that, speaking as if he wasn’t there.  If she did, she might have crushed him with a book again…maybe just for fun. In response to the psychopathic doctor’s mean-spirited question, Dr. Bexley made the great point that if such an unlikely time came when they’d need to hear his direct feedback, it would be nice to have a system already in place. Hard to argue with that.  And Dr. Walker didn’t.

Dr. Bexley had clearly explained all of this to him on the way out of her office Friday evening.  There were no limits on what David could type aside from special characters that would require the pressing and holding of the shift key.  

She centered the thick black cushion resting atop her office chair and took a seat, bringing her PC and accompanying peripherals to life after a weekend of dormancy.  The plastic enclosure containing David and a flat, pink keyboard was stationed directly next to her computer tower, and a single black cord ran from the keyboard to the back of the tower. 

David watched the illuminating computer screen paint the beautiful black-haired doctor’s smile, minimizing the text file to pull up some other applications she deemed more pressing. Her slender feet gracefully slipped out of the confines of her sneakers, revealing a glimpse of delicately arched soles and dainty toes adorned with playful polka-dotted socks. They found their temporary home propped up atop the conveniently sized box that lived under her desk.  David cringed, holding a protective hand over his head in case any insignificant (to her) debris wanted to dislodge from her cotton sole and crash down upon him.

Dr. Bexley keyed in her password and was immediately greeted by the same screen she’d left up on Friday when she went home for the evening.  She turned the monitor so that David could see.  Why she didn’t leave it pointed at him over night so that he could actually see what he was typing, he surely did not know for sure. His assumption was that the doctor didn’t want to leave her monitor running overnight.  Insane that she’d take this good care of him but didn’t even consider a few extra watts of power worth him being able to see what he typed.

The message David had prepared for Dr. Bexley read:

Dr. Bexley’s pristine white soles slid apart, revealing her face in the heavens looking down at little David, barely visible but so clearly in awe of her presence.  

“Oh come on, David!” Dr. Bexley said with a giggle, plucking Dr. Becotte’s toe ring from the enclosure.  “She hasn’t worn it since the day we put you inside of it.”

She brought her friend and coworker’s toe ring to her face, breathing in through her nose to see for herself. “And it smells good anyway!  Like an air freshener!”

David was ready to cry.  How could she downplay his experience with such insensitivity?  She couldn’t possibly understand what it was like being this little. And then his heart filled with hope as Dr. Bexley began rinsing Dr. Becotte’s toe ring off in her office sink.   

“Go ahead and hop in.  Don’t worry, it’s nice and clean now.” Dr. Bexley said.

David hesitated.  This wasn’t the first time, second, or even third time he’d been put into this toe ring by a woman of RR Labs. He knew what normally came next. But what choice did he have?  Also, Dr. Bexley wasn’t actually there most of the times when the experimentation was really bad..or really painful.  He climbed into the chamber of Dr. Becotte’s foot jewelry under the smiling gaze of Dr. Bexley.  She carefully lifted the toe ring and threaded the jewel tightly into the ring so that David would remain secure inside. 

~

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