'Please, Dr. Froendlich, call me Teri.  I'm so glad to finally meet you.'  Theresa Steiner could be very charming if she wanted somebody to like her and she assuredly wanted this man to like her.

'Ah, well, ah, you can call me Al,' he stammered.   He well knew that wasn't at all an original line , but it was the best he could do.  He'd always been unsure of himself in the presence of stunningly beautiful women, even stunningly beautiful women who weren't slightly less than one foot tall, like Teri.  And of course he blamed himself for her condition, even though he'd been unconscious, literally at death's door, when she'd been shrunk.  He had designed the decapacitor, he'd built it: ultimately, Teri's state was his fault.

'Al, then.  Al, Claire here tells me you have some ideas about how to transform me back to the way I used to be.'

'Well, ah, I've been thinking about it since Claire broke the news to me.  I have some ideas but they'll need some work... ah... some expensive work.'

'Expense I think I  can handle.  Could you tell us a  bit about what you think you can  do?'

'Okay.  My idea is that after a decapacitor inverse pseudocharge is uncharged, it takes some time for the saturation to decay to the new true level.  In that time, it should be possible to partially reestablish the original  inverse pseudocharge to the new false level,  unless, of course,  the false saturation was so low that the LanthPal cells became unstable, even at liquid nitrogen temperature.'  Al Winters looked as proud of himself as if he'd actually said something.

Teri stared at him slack jawed.  'Claire, did you get anything out of that?'

'Some, I think.  Al,  you mean that you can re-expand the shrinking field right after something shrinks, sort of bounce it back?  I can see how that could enlarge something right away after it shrinks but how does that help Teri?'

'That's sort of the idea.  Well, we should be able to shrink one mass, then replace it with a  different shrunken mass.'

'So you mean we'll shrink something else, take it out of the target cube, put Teri in, and bounce her back.'

'Exactly.' Al beamed.

'Fantastic,' breathed Teri. 'Get to work.'
 

Of course, they ran into problems.  They found out that the size of the target cube limited the size of objects they could shrink: small cubes could only shrink small objects.   When they tried building bigger cells, they found out the LanthPal cell sheets had to be as long as the cell dimensions: three foot cubes required three foot cells.  Longer cell sheets were a lot more expensive than shorter ones.  And so on.  Finally, though, they brought Teri into the lab and showed her a full sized target cube.  Six foot by six foot by six foot.  She shuddered when she saw it.  She had been 5í9î  tall five months ago she had walked into one just like it.  She was her current  eleven and a half inches when she was carried out.

Doug Winters was delighted to see her, although the feeling was decidedly not mutual.  He wasn't bitter about her forcing him to sign over all his money,  after all it was better than going to prison.  Since they had to keep him around to keep an eye on him,  Al used him as an assistant when Claire wasn't available.  He even let him flip the FLUX switch in some the test runs.  Anyplace Doug could shrink things, he was happy.

'Get that creep out of here,' she told Claire.   One savage glance and he was gone.  Claire would never forgive him for trying to shrink her too.

Al bustled over, just delighted with himself.  'I'm almost done aligning the resonance paths, I should have the calibrations done tomorrow sometime, we can try it on you next week.'

'Try?' Teri snapped. 'Try? what do you mean,  'try'.  You've tested this thing, surely.'

'Well, no, we can't.'  Al was apologetic. 'You know we can only use a set of cells once and it's easier to rebuild the whole apparatus than to try to replace them.'

'I know you've tested other ones.  What about all those small ones you've run through?  Claire, have you been telling me everything?'

'Everything I know.  Of course, I can't follow all the details of some of Dr. Froendlich's explanations.'

Teri's voice cut like a knife.  'Tell me, Al, tell me everything I need to know.  I know , Lord, I know you can shrink things.  Can you bounce them back?  Are they okay afterward.'

'You bet.  Works great.  And some things are actually better afterwards than they were before.  Sometimes the shrinking process seems to smooth out flaws.  And they stay smoothed out after the bounce.  One problem in the bounce has come up, though.'

ìWhich is?î

'Ah...hm...I didn't know how to mention it, but the bounce isn't 100%.  It appears to be limited by the original saturation.'

'You mean that  things only bounce back as far as the saturation level when they started to shrink?'  Claire started shaking.  'You mean if they had shrunk me when the saturation was 50%, you'd never have been able to get me over three feet tall?'

'Ah, yes.  Yes, that's so.î  Al brightened. ìBut that didn't happen.  The saturation was much higher in Teri's case.  You said it was over 93%.  She was 5í9î originally.  After this bounce, she'll be at least 5'4'.  That's enough, isn't it.'

Everybody was quiet for a long time.  Finally Teri spoke.  'Yeah, I can settle for 5'4'.  In fact, for all the money I got  from Doug, it's a fair deal.  Go ahead, Al.  Bounce me back.'
 

That night, Doug Winters shuffled into the former janitor's closet that contained Teri's living space.  He'd built most of it himself and he was very proud of the work he'd put into it, improvising plumbing and lighting and even computer inputs so she communicate with the outside whenever she wanted.  She had certainly never sent him a note to come see her before, though, and in fact he hadn't seen her at all  for over three months, until this afternoon.  Just the thought of her never failed to excite him and the sight of her this afternoon had almost driven him to the edge.

So he gasped when light burst out of an opening door and Teri strode out wearing black lace lingerie.  Her body had indeed been improved during shrinking and she knew it.  She looked good, no she looked great.  He looked better than any woman he'd ever seen.  With her diminutive size...Doug just moaned.  He closed his eyes and moaned.

'Snap out of it, you idiot.'  Teri's clear voice knifed through the fog in his brain.  He straightened up, he almost stood at attention.  'I need to know if  Al Froendlich is trying to hide something.  I think he's holding something back.  You're going to tell me what I need to know.'

'Anything I can.'  Doug would've jumped off a cliff if she told him to.

'What's he holding back?  He told me about not bouncing all the way back to full size.  What else didn't work right in the tests.'

'Similarity.  There has to be bounce similarity.  We found out that if you want to bounce something to near full size, you have to shrink something as similar as possible.  You can't bounce a cat by shrinking a piece of wood.  You can't bounce a dog by shrinking a cat.  Even sex matters.  You can bounce a female by shrinking a male only about half the time.  The more similar the two subjects, the more likely it is to work.  Hey, this is all my fault, I don't care if there is only a 50:50 chance it'll work, you can shrink me.  I'll take the chance.'

Yeah, you would, she thought.  Take the chance I WOULD bounce and you wouldn't have a tiny woman to yourself.  'Does Claire know about this?'

'No, she's never watched a run on an animal.  She can't watch that, doesn't want anything to do with it.'

'Doug, don't tell anybody about this.  Keep it between us for now.  And maybe I will take you up on your offer.  If it works, great; if not, I'll get some company out of it.  But keep quiet for now.'

Doug looked so happy she thought he might faint.
 

A week later, Claire brought Teri back to the room holding the decapacitor and its target cube.  'Saturation was 85% early this morning.  It should be almost ready by now.  Where is it, Al?'

If Al Froendlich was nervous about his first run on a human subject, it sure didn't show.  He was beaming as usual, happily humming to himself.  'Over 96% and not climbing.  It's as ready as it'll ever be.'

Claire looked into the target cube and whirled to face Al.  'Where's the pile of wood you're going to shrink.'

He jerked a thumb toward a corner, where 200 pounds of wood was neatly stacked.  In the target cube was a wooden and cloth collapsible chair.  The import was obvious.

Doug Winters strode to the edge of the cube.  'I'm going to be the subject.  We think there'll be a better chance for this to work with a human subject and I'm going to be it. Ready, Teri?  Let's go, Al.'

Claire hadn't expected this but she didn't know how to stop it, even if she thought she ought to.  She set Teri down on the floor opposite Doug's side.  They had decided that it would be easier for  Teri to run to the center of the cube while Claire removed the shrunken wood.  Only now it would be the shrunken Doug.  Al switched the POWER switch from on to standby and the STORE switch to hold with practiced ease.   Doug started to enter the target cube.

Suddenly Teri screamed more piercingly than any woman should be able to.  'NOW'S THE TIME.'  The lab door slammed open with a crash  as Stan Montour burst in, plowing into Doug and  knocking him headlong  to the floor.  Stan grabbed Claire by the wrist, jerking her into the cube and then grabbing her by the shoulders and pushing her down into the chair.

'Hit it doc!' he roared, spring away from the target cube.

Even before he heard the command, Al flipped the FLUX switch, sending it to the engage position.  Immediately a grid of light engulfed the target cube,  brightening to brilliant violet almost instantly.

Claire's shock turned to terror almost as quickly.  When she saw the grid emerge, she knew her fate was sealed.  Her heart began to pound but her body froze as she felt the slight jolt in the seat as it  levitated  and  hovered perhaps an inch from the floor.  Stan's violent shove had pushed her and the chair to the side of the cube and it slipped and turned to the center before beginning a slow , gently rotating, rise.  Claire sat as if paralyzed, but her eyes swept frantically from the top of the cube to the base, where Teri stood waiting to dash into the cube as soon as the decapacitor had done its work.  'I'm sorry, kid, but it's you or me.  I wish it didn't have to be this way.  Anyway, you knew too much.'

'Too much about...?' but she was now facing the door where Al stood impassively.  Well maybe not impassively.  She thought there a half mad gleam in his eyes but maybe it was just a trick of the glow her eyes were trying to penetrate.  She continued to turn and now Dr. Froendlich came into view, busily monitoring the control board.  'Al, I thought you were my friend...' but so softly that he may not have even heard her.  He  didn't look up or show in any way that he was aware she existed.

And now the slow spinning was coming to a halt as she rose near the exact center of the cube.  She knew the color shift would start soon  and  so she waited the last few seconds, frightened and alone, feeling more dead than alive.

The initial color shift was subtle, as before, and the sensations she felt were subtle too, so that at first she didn't even recognize them for what they were.  Her skin felt warm, no it was cool, no it was the caress of the most skilled and gentle lover, no it was...

She tasted sweetness, with the gentle bite of a perfect wine, with notes of salt and a little bitter and a little sour and then notes of flavors nobody knows.  She smelled flowers, wine bouquet again, sea tang, coffee and chocolate, the musk of sex ....

Every nerve in her body was firing, she felt them all  at once, the building, shifting color exciting, stimulating ,gentle, soothing.  Her ears roared with a white noise grander than all the music of the world.  Every sensual and sexual and tactile sensation grew and burst in her until finally she was overwhelmed and gave a single, long, quavering cry and collapsed.

The others all watched in fascination as the shifting colored grid detached from the edges of the target cube and slowly collapsed, bearing the trapped girl further into itself as it reduced all her dimensions, shrinking her so that their eyes tried to trick them that she was moving away from them.  Teri had never seen this before, not from the outside, and she was seized by a flashback, forcing her out of the control she knew she had to keep,  until she erupted in a series of screams of passion trailing off to gasps and finally sobs.  Doug took it all in, as he had before, not with the mindless passion that formerly gripped him but with the desperate need of an addict getting a fix.  Finally Al looked up from his controls, briefly, with a look of... pity?...satisfaction?...he couldn't have said himself.

Only Stan seemed unmoved, standing to the side motionless as a doomed skier watching an avalanche approaching, or a sailor sinking with his ship.  When the grid reached its final size and green color, when the chair holding a comatose shrunken girl made its decent, he waited impatiently.  As soon as he heard the clunk of All disengaging the FLUX switch, he stepped into the cube, cradled the unconscious, newly tiny girl in both hands, and withdrew.  Teri lurched to the middle of the cube, threw herself into the now vacant chair and shouted to Al to reverse the switch.  He did, and a cube of light engulfed her and flashed to the center of the target cube almost instantaneously.  It hung motionless for a long second,  while Teri came to life and cried ìBarbie no more!î  Then it exploded, for where in  shrinking the cube had taken minutes to finish its changes,  in expanding it took seconds, bringing Teri back to a normal size before flickering out rather than reaching the edges of the cube.

Stunned, she looked at Stan and his helpless burden.  'Put her on the counter.'  she gasped weakly.  'Your money will get there before you do.   If I see you or hear from you ever, I'll call Reza... and...'  She made a slashing gesture across her throat.

 Stan looked at Doug, still sprawled on the floor. 'Nothing personal, bud.  And tell her,' as he laid Claire's miniaturized form on the little bed ready on the counter, 'nothing personal either.'

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