RR Nina Beckett - Chapter 5

PREVIOUS CHAPTER    | START FROM THE BEGINNING

Reduction & Relocation: Nina Beckett

Chapter 5 - David vs. Goliaths

[January 27th, 2010]

Dr. Bexley removed from the inside pocket of her lab coat what looked to be a business card. The displacement of air was certainly unrecognizable to the towering women, but to David it was enough to blow his hair back.  As his body gradually inflated to normal size, he could feel himself slowly losing his slavish adherence to Rose’s butt cheek.  He could finally take a deep breath and his senses were returning to him, no longer blinded or disabled by pain. 

Rose was doing her best to remain still but people make all kinds of little movements when they’re trying to stand still.  Even the subtlest movement of her pinky toes as she maintained her balance, something so routine and practice, sent the consequence of jiggle up her flesh.  No one would notice it except for David, and even to him it felt like the faintest ripple of a waterbed.

“Looks like I finally get to use this communication method, Dr. Walker.” Dr. Bexley beamed proudly, gently sliding the card closer toward David so that the edge was, to him, only about 20 feet away.  

“I hope you don’t mind, Rose.” Dr. Bexley said, checking in with her intern.  

“No, I completely understand, Dr. Bexley. Please do whatever you have to do.”

David watched the thick edge of the index card press into and deform the round curvature of Rose’s left butt cheek.  The deafening sound of paper against fabric caused the bones in David’s ears to rattle painfully. Dr. Bexley’s finger continued forcing it further and further toward David’s immobile body.  The card’s edge slid in underneath David and he was shocked at the precise, surgical finger control of the doctor as he was gently nudged from his precarious perch. 

It was a jarring transition, tumbling from the soft gray slacks warmed wonderfully with Rose’s body heat to the glossy, cold surface of the business card. He slid precariously along the surface, unable to gain traction but thankfully, Dr. Bexley’s purple-painted fingernails were pressing down on either side of the card, making sure he wouldn’t (nor couldn’t) leave the surface of her cardstock.  

“Okay, David.” Dr. Bexley spoke softly to the card, understanding that a strong enough gust from her lungs could send David flying,  “You’re standing on the backside of one of my business cards.  Isn’t the cardstock nice?  I picked it out specifically to–”

“--David…” Dr. Walker interrupted, motioning to Dr. Bexley a suggestion of setting the card down on waist-high table’s sturdy top. “You’ll notice that you’re standing on the far right edge of the business card atop an ‘X’ in pink ink.  On either side of you, spaced on either corner, are two shapes.  On your left is a black heart…” Dr. Walker said, her black-painted fingertip completely consuming the tiny black circle. Rose watched in fascination as the gesture shifted the card just enough to disrupt David’s balance and cause him to drop to his knees. David stared in awe at the fingers he’d probably have called short and stubby just minutes ago.  Now they were formidable marvels of the modern world looming over him like colossal pillars.

“And on your left is a purple heart.” Dr. Bexley said, completely consuming the tiny purple heart with her purple-painted fingertip.  

“For the remainder of this conversation, refer to the black heart on my side as ‘YES’ and the purple heart on Dr. Bexley’s side as ‘NO’. When asked a question by one of us, you will take several steps toward the heart of your choice…enough that we can see your movement, and then you will return to the pink X and await the next question.  Do you understand?”

“Is this…still part of the job interview process?” David shouted up to the godlike woman.

Dr. Walker’s eyes narrowed behind the lenses of her thick-framed glasses. “You must understand that you’re far too small to be understood, right?  I understand you’re probably shouting but it’s all just squeaks to us.  Now I’ll ask again, do you understand the rules?”

Dr. Walker raised an eyebrow down at David, who reluctantly stepped toward Dr. Walker’s black heart. 

“Are you experiencing any nausea, flashes of light, or auditory hallucinations?” Dr. Walker asked.

David took several steps toward Dr. Bexley’s purple heart, indicating a “No” response.

“Any numbness or tingling in your extremities?” Dr. Bexley asked next.

David stepped toward the purple heart, indicating “No”.

“Did you experience any discomfort under Rose’s weight?” Dr. Walker questioned next.

“Oh, you mean when she sat on me with full-weight??  Did I feel discomfort?” Realizing that he couldn’t convey sarcasm to these goliath women–and that it wouldn’t be a wise decision if he could–David stepped toward the black heart, indicating “Yes”.

Dr. Bexley asked the next question. “To the best of your knowledge, did you sustain any injuries such as broken bones, sprains, or bruises?”

All three women squinted down at little David as he looked over his own body for a few moments.  He could move all ten fingers and all ten toes.  Nothing was broken.  Nothing was punctured.  In fact, the blinding pain he’d experienced earlier was entirely gone. 

He indicated a “No” response.

“This is incredible.” Dr. Walker said.

“The fact that he’s not hurt?” Rose asked.  Dr. Walker turned her attention from David to Rose.  

“That’s right.  All ‘inch-scale’ subjects experience a small uptick in durability, but there have only been a handful of cases since the establishment of RR Labs where a subject has demonstrated this degree of resilience. What is even more interesting is that those few subjects were much larger than this one.”

“That’s right.” Dr. Bexley added. “As Dr. Walker mentioned, durability seems to increase in subjects as their size decreases.”

“They are by no means indestructible…” Dr. Walker clarified, “...but they enjoy a necessary boost in resilience such that they can survive the inherent pressure and compression of the buttocks that surround them.”

“That makes sense,” Rose said, “..but then wouldn’t we expect David to be…well…super resilient then since he’s so much smaller than any of the inch-scale subjects?”

“I can see why you’d think that.” Dr. Bexley said, “...the reduction/durability relationship is mostly preserved throughout the range of our inch-scale reductions, but we’ve observed a gradual ‘diminishing of returns’ at the lowest range of the inch-scale.  Additionally, we’ve observed that the reduction/durability relationship completely breaks down at the micro scale, which is actually a HUGE problem considering our plans for those micro-reduced subjects, but I digress.”

“To sum up…” Dr. Walker said, jotting down some notes in her notebook, “...we see diminishing durability in the lowest range of the inch-scale reductions and absolutely no increased durability in the micro-scale reductions. Ergo, we speculated that the size range between inch-scale and micro-scale would see little to no boost in durability.”

“But David seems to defy that theory.” Dr. Bexley said.

“It is undoubtedly, but I suspect that this anomaly merely proves that there are local minimums and maximums along the graph of durability from inch-scale to micro-scale.” Dr. Walker stated, donning a pair of aqua blue gloves. “As I think more about it, the occasional uptick in durability really isn’t really all that remarkable.”

“But I sat on him…with my full weight, Dr. Walker.” Rose said.

With a snap of her tight glove, Dr. Walker replied, “It’s possible that the non-Viable fit along a crease in the fabric of your lab coat..or perhaps he was positioned directly beneath your gluteal cleft where the pressure wasn’t as extreme.”

“She makes a good point,” Dr. Bexley admitted. “Things that are incredibly small often have a way of wiggling out of difficult and troublesome situations.”

“Everything we would need to understand how this happened is stored on The RTD.”

Rose watched David cower away from the brilliant brunette doctor as her dainty hand reshaped, her short fingers tucking into a fist save for her index finger.

“Now…” Dr. Walker said, lowering her fingertip toward David, who was now cowering on his back and holding his hands up as if they could resist the will of Dr. Walker.

It was almost cute.

  “...like good scientists, let’s challenge this implicit theory of indestructibility.”

Rose heard a cute, quiet squeak coming from David as Dr. Walker’s fingertip came straight down on top of his cowering body.  He completely disappeared into the tip of her fingertip. The brunette doctor in glasses applied so much pressure to the firm, stainless steel surface that subtle tremors overtook the doctor’s hand, wrist, and lower arm. Had she not been dressed in a long-sleeved lab coat, Rose suspected she might have seen the doctor’s tricep muscle flexing.

Rose listened intently for the fatal compression of David’s body, expecting to maybe hear crunching of bones

The blood returned to Dr. Walker’s fingertip as she raised her finger.  There was nothing left on the tabletop where David once cowered before Dr. Walker, just as Dr. Walker expected. 

What she clearly didn’t expect, however, was to find David completely preserved and unharmed, adhered and practically embedded in the wide-eyed doctor’s fingertip.  

“Rose…” Dr. Walker said quietly, a foreign tremble in her voice.  Her fingertip was mere inches from her face and her big, brown eyes crossed down her short, cute nose.  Less than an inch from the clear lens of her large glasses, David was fully intact and seemingly unharmed, struggling with all his might to escape the doctor’s fingertip.  

Dr. Bexley was over Dr. Walker’s collarbone, a hand squeezing her shoulder, mouth agape staring with just as much shock.  

“...please go find Dr. Becotte.  We’ll need to develop a safe method of storing this anomaly and I fear the SSF will not do.”

Rose nodded enthusiastically and briskly walked toward the Reduction Therapy Room exit.  As she walked out the door, Rose heard Dr. Walker and Dr. Bexley speaking quietly to each other.  There was something different in their voices, an almost childlike excitement.  

Dr. Walker said, “We’ve got a lot of experiments to conduct on this one, Alex.”

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

The clacking sound of the soft, plastic keys beneath Dr. Walker’s dancing fingers was almost soothing.  

Well…it could have been soothing had he not been so stressed out over what had just happened.  Watching Rose’s massive ass crash down and pummel him would have been enough, but to have all three women tower over him, staring down in fascination like he was some kind of science project–-and then…you know…the attempted murder by Dr. Walker…that was also standing in the way of David’s relaxation.

Despite the mind-boggling disparity in size and his voice’s clear lack of ability to carry to the women’s ears so very far away, David just couldn’t bring himself to give up his attempts at communication with Dr. Walker, Dr. Bexley, and Rose.  He felt like a castaway on an island, watching three planes circle overhead and threatening to leave him stranded at any moment.  How could he not try to get their attention?  How could he not try to be heard?

Despite his continued attempts, David battled a persistent voice telling him that communication didn’t matter.  

‘Even if they could hear you, would they help you?’ 

The beautiful women lording over him must have had this planned all along.  David kept trying–stupidly, he would admit–to get the godlike figures’ attention even after he was peeled from the backside of the cute young intern’s curvy booty.  He just had to keep trying.  He couldn’t give up.  David preferred to hold onto his naivety, cherishing it as a finite, non-renewable resource that was drying up with each passing moment.  

  He was just as shocked as they were that he’d come out of the experience unharmed.  There were so many layers of confusion and panic, twisting and overlapping within David’s scattered mind.  How could he have survived Dr. Walker’s huge fingertip?  Or Rose’s gargantuan ass?  Solutions and explanations, possibilities and motives…all of them assembled in his overheating brain with overlap as if they were the most horrifying Venn Diagram that could ever exist.  

He had so many opportunities to just stand up and leave.  So many opportunities to go outside and enjoy the end of that beautiful sunset. He could have driven back to his hotel and stayed the night, planning out his next moves the next day.  He could have watched that next day’s sunset as well.  And the one that followed that. 

But here he was, in the belly of this laboratory, stared down by fascinated, lying predators. 

…well, maybe just one.  

He maintained a strong grip on the idea that Dr. Walker was the psychopath and that her raven-haired partner–and who knows…maybe even the cute hispanic intern that plopped down on top of him–were just going along with it. Whatever the reason for their alignment with Dr. Walker’s motives, whether sincere or forced, David had a lot to worry about. 

Would he ever leave this lab again? Had he seen his final sunset? David didn’t know. What he did know, however, was that his life was in the hands of these gorgeous, gifted–and above all else–dishonest women.  

With a heavy swing and a resounding thud, the robust latching mechanism of the Main Reduction Therapy door secured tight behind Rose as she entered. And she wasn’t alone.  

The woman following Rose wore a white lab coat that matched Doctors Bexley and Walker. Below the hem of her lab coat, well-fitting to compliment her elegant silhouette, David saw light jeans that flowed down to a pair of sky blue Sketcher sneakers. 

This must have been Dr. Becotte. 

Every woman he’d seen at RR Labs was beautiful, but Dr. Becotte was strikingly gorgeous.  He would not have been the least bit surprised to learn that she had a part-time job as a supermodel.  

Her thick, gorgeous mane of beautiful blonde hair fell in artful waves around her face and slender neck. Blue eyes sparkled under dark seductive eyebrows and they inspired a rush of confusing arousal in David’s otherwise horrified state.  She looked like a fashion model about to walk a runway, her layered blonde hair bouncing playfully as her hips swung with each confident step.

“Good morning, Dr. Becotte.” Dr. Walker said.

“Good morning, ladies. Rose said you two had a question about a non-Viable?”

In the silence that filled the air, Dr. Becotte’s confusion seemed to grow.  “Ummm...I’m assuming a disposal question?” 

David deduced that non-Viables were not something that RR Labs handled with much consideration or thought.  It was probably akin to Dr. Becotte being summoned to answer a question about door stoppers. The blonde goddess stopped at the stainless steel tabletop, standing between her fellow doctors and peered down at David.

"Oh, you weren't kidding! That's a tiny one for sure. I’ve never seen one this small!" remarked Dr. Becotte with an amused swing in her voice. She gracefully rested her hands on her knees, bending at the waist to bring herself closer to David's diminutive form. The glow of mild interest illuminated her striking features, and the weight of her mesmerizing blue eyes pressing down on him felt heavier than Dr. Walker's murderous fingertip.

As Dr. Becotte's gaze enveloped him, David covered his exposed genitalia.  This was now the fourth woman to see him naked! Her oceanic blue eye was everywhere and he couldn't escape the overwhelming sense of his own minuscule existence. David had thought he couldn't feel any smaller, but the scrutiny of this captivating woman, with her pretty face and discerning eyes moving even closer to him now, made him acutely aware of his microscopic insignificance. 

The subtle tilt of her head and the elegant curve of her lips hinted at a measured curiosity that felt both clinical and primal, as if she were studying a specimen under a microscope and also considering making a meal out of him. It was as though he existed solely as an object of interest, stripped of the complexities that defined his humanity.

“Wow, he’s definitely one of the biggest non-Viables I’ve seen.  Still super tiny though, obviously.  How’d you stabilize him at such a small–”

Within a fraction of a second, David found himself bathed in a dark, growing rectangular shadow….and then an indescribable pain.  

SMACK!

He couldn’t scream, he couldn’t run…he could barely think.  The pain was in the same realm as when Rose had sat on him but the intensity was several orders of magnitude greater.

When the lights came back on, David saw Dr. Becotte’s sky blue Sketcher sneakers, Rose’s Converses, and two pairs of black flats.  

‘Did she really just….swat me with a freaking book?!’

She really did.

David felt his flattened stomach flip in somersaults as Dr. Becotte’s pretty face came back into view, her thick lips parted in a gasp. 

“Golly!  How did he survive that?” 

“We think we may have stumbled upon resolving the issue of durability in the sub-inch size range.” Dr. Walker replied, lowering David toward the table.  She ran the book’s cover along the abrupt right-angle edge of the table, painfully scraping David off unceremoniously as if he were gum on her shoe. It took four or five passes before David finally separated from the book, left fatigued and broken at the cliff’s edge of the table closest to Dr. Becotte.  Once again, he felt like his body had been destroyed by the repeated pressure against the solid table’s edge but just as before, everything still worked.  Every finger, every toe.  Breathing was coming back, he could still see.  He could still smell and taste.

“We need to conduct some tests on him but first we have to devise a way to transport and safely store him.”

“Dr. Walker, you just smashed him with a copy of the Rear-Housing Guidebook and he appears completely unharmed.  I don’t think you need to worry about hurting him.”

‘Rear-Housing Guidebook?  What’s that?’ David thought, still trying to work through the blinding, searing pain that was finally starting to dull.

“I’m not worried about hurting him,” Dr. Walker said.  “I’m worried about losing him.”

“Ohhh, that makes sense.” Dr. Becotte said.  She stood back up to her full height and tickled her chin. “You don’t think we can contain him within one of the standard subject transport pods?” 

Dr. Bexley held up something that looked similar to a pill container, its shape an interesting mixture of cylindrical and spherical.  

“Unfortunately, no.”  

The raven-haired doctor popped open the tab like it was a tic-tac container and held it up for her blonde co-worker to peer in.

“See the hinging with the lid?  And the micro-heat coil assembly pocket behind the front-facing wall?”

Dr. Becotte’s pretty blue eyes squinted and her expression soured. “Oh yeah, you’re right.  He’d definitely slip in there.  We really couldn’t just…carry him carefully?”

David’s eyes whipped from one towering speaking goddess to the other as they discussed his fate.  It was now Dr. Bexley’s turn to speak.

Her raven-haired bob cut shook gently as she moved her head.  “No, we can’t run the risk of dropping him. At his size, even a strong enough breeze from one of the lab doors could blow him out of our possession.”

“His mass is so insignificant, I think even a strong enough breath could send him flying.” Rose added.

“I agree with both of you,” Dr. Becotte said. “...and you can’t use the pipette from the nV kit because–”

“--it was never designed with long-term survivability for nV’s in mind.”

“Right..we call them non-viables for a reason…and for him…yeah…that would be bad.” Dr. Becotte agreed, looking back down at David.  “Can we not store him in one of the Subject Storage Facilities?”

“We shouldn’t take the risk of one of the interns misunderstanding his presence there.  They’ll see a non-Viable and they’ve been trained on how to handle them.  We’ll need time to inform everyone of the situation but until then, we can’t risk one of the interns disposing of him.”

Dr. Becotte stared for a few moments and then her blue eyes widened.  

“Oh!  I’ve got it!” Dr. Becotte exclaimed.

“You do?” Dr. Bexley asked.

She gripped one of the stools and pulled, causing the four legs to scream noisily against the floor as she plopped down.

“Yup!” Dr. Becotte cheered, crossing her left ankle over her right knee.  David watched curiously as the blonde doctor slid her left foot, clad in a pastel green sock, from one of her sky blue Sketchers. 

The sock came off next, but not without a fight.  The colorful fabric turned inside out and gripped the gorgeous blonde’s foot all the way up to her toes as if it didn’t want to let go. 

Underneath was a remarkably smooth, wrinkle-free, pale sole adorned with five chubby, wiggling toes, occasionally flexing enough to showcase her toenails, painted a dark, pretty blue.  Amidst the natural polished color was an unnatural, glimmering sparkle centered over her middle toe.

It was a toe ring. 

David could only see glimpses of the light gold or silver band as most of the ring from his perspective looking at the bottom of Dr. Becotte’s foot, obfuscated by the plush cushion of Dr. Becotte’s sole and round, curled toe.  

“Umm…it's a cute toe ring, Taylor.” Dr. Bexley whispered. “...but how does that help us?”

Dr. Becotte grinned, extending her bare foot toward the table and, unfortunately for David, it was coming right toward him.

“Oh no….please don’t!” David’s shouting reached not a single goddess’s ear as the foot loomed closer, bringing with it a woosh of air and the strong, heady scent of blooming hibiscus and starfruit foot lotion.  He’d have needed a several-minute head start to get out of the way of Dr. Becotte’s bare foot and he didn’t have a fraction of that.  He let out a pathetic squeak as Dr. Becotte’s soft naked sole sank into the edge of the table.  She was propping her foot up on its edge and David had been unknowingly swallowed in the wrinkled creases in the bottom of her foot.  When she allowed her foot to fall down the edge of the table to the floor, the wrinkled creases maintained their hold on poor little David, embedding him in the soft, velvety skin of her sole.  His prayers were at least partially answered when instead of putting her sock and shoe back on, she rested her foot on the opposite knee.  

When the deep crease became shallow with the anti-flexing of Dr. Becotte’s dominating foot, David could actually see again.

Dr. Becotte wore a proud smile as she modeled the toe ring in her fingers.  She must have set her foot atop the table to take off the toe ring but David could only guess since he was buried under her foot and he was nowhere near her toes.  The oblivious blonde doctor handed the ring to Dr. Bexley who examined it closely.  No longer swallowed by the flesh of the doctor’s foot–neither David nor the ring–he could tell that the band was a sparkly silver. While beautiful by itself, the real eye-catcher was the jewel affixed to the top of the ring, which surely called attention to the doctor’s feet when she wore flip-flops.  

Just when David was beginning to think he’d be doomed to spend the rest of his life adhered to the foot of this unknowing doctor, he heard the voice of an angel. 

“Dr. Becotte?”

“What’s up, Rose?”

David craned his neck to see the young Hispanic intern squinting at the area where he’d just been standing on the table.  Oh god, was he about to be saved?

“Were you resting your foot here when you took off your sock?”

“Umm…I think so?  Why?”

“Oh no, I think David was here.” Rose leaned in close, closing one eye as she scanned the table’s surface. 

David groaned as the G-forces threatened to rip his body apart.  Dr. Becotte had lifted her foot and was now inspecting her sole.  

“Is that him there?” Dr. Bexley pointed to a spot a few inches away from David.  

“No, that’s a mole.  He’s way smaller than that. There he is!”

Dr. Becotte offered her apologies…to Dr. Walker and Dr. Bexley of course.  She carefully peeled David from the underside of her foot as if he were a sticker.  Not a single word was said to David as Dr. Becotte set him back on the table, this time with much more distance between him and the table’s edge.

“Anyway, I got the toe ring while I was on vacation in Maui.”  David noticed that there was no visible tan line on the underside of the gorgeous doctor’s pale toe, but he caught a glimpse of a tan line on the top as Dr. Becotte wiggled her round toes back into her sock.

“Yeah, like I said…it’s cute.  But why are you showing us? What am I missing?” Dr. Bexley asked sincerely.

“You see that pink crystal jewel thing on the top?” Dr. Becotte asked, pointing at the toe ring.

“Yeah, what about it?”

Dr. Becotte smiled, “When I bought the toe ring, I got a purple jewel, too.  And a red one.  And a really cute green one.”

David had been just as confused as Dr. Bexley so far, but then he felt even more alone as he saw a huge smile creep across the raven-haired doctor’s face.  

‘She figured it out before me?  What did she understand?  What are they going to do?’ David wondered.

Despite not hearing David’s question, Dr. Bexley answered it by pressing her thumb down onto the top of the toe ring, completely covering the pink jewel.  She twisted her wrist counter-clockwise.  

Now he understood.

~

NEXT CHAPTER