"No, wait!" insisted Caitlin, walking around in front of him. "We're real! My name's Caitlin, and these are my friends, Tania and Randi. We've been shrunk, just like you!"
"Go away," he repeated, "or at least stop blocking the TV. You're just a hallucination, and I'm not listening to you."
Of all the responses she had imagined he might have, this was not one of them, Caitlin thought. What if he really was insane? No, he didn't look crazy, just incredibly doubtful.
"Look, we climbed all the way up here," Tania said insistently. "You might as well humor us."
"Oh, all right, the show's over anyway." He sighed, stood up, and walked over to the remote control. Reaching down, he hit the "Mute" button and the TV was suddenly silenced.
"Why don't you think we're real?" asked Caitlin as he did this. "I mean, sure, we're three inches tall, but so are you."
"Oh, please!" he replied, throwing up his hands. "I could believe it if you were someone ordinary, but come on! Three gorgeous women, dressed up like superheroes, appear on my tabletop from out of nowhere? What am I supposed to think?"
Caitlin blushed slightly at the complement, and was unable to keep herself from smiling. "Thanks," she said demurely. At once she felt embarrassed by what she was wearing, especially since his eyes were all but devouring her slim figure. "I guess I can understand what you may be thinking," she said, looking away to hide her reddening face.
"Oh, give me a break," muttered Tania.
"Wait a minute," he said abruptly, walking up to Tania, who stood just slightly shorter than himself. He studied her face carefully, then let his eyes drift down to her white-suited body. For a few moments, he studied her graceful curves with intensity, causing Tania to put her hands on her hips in indignation. She wore a strange expression, however, and Caitlin could not tell if she was upset, embarrassed, or oddly pleased by this examination.
Suddenly, he reached out and grasped Tania by the shoulders, giving her a little shake. "You're real, aren't you? God! It's true! You're real!"
"Yep, I'm real all--" Tania began, but without warning he suddenly kissed her directly on the mouth.
Angrily she shoved him away and slapped him across the face. The reaction was reflexive; she did it without thinking. Instantly, Caitlin and Randi were beside her, ready to help her fight him off if necessary.
Instead, he put his hand up to his chin, feeling the sting of Tania's blow. "Damn," he said, rubbing the slowly reddening area just above his beard. "Oh, geez, I'm sorry," he said remorsefully. "I shouldn't have done that."
Tania immediately relaxed, and was at once apologetic. "I'm sorry I hit you," she told him. "It was automatic, really."
"It's okay," he replied, staring at the tabletop. "If you really are real, you can't understand what I've been through! I haven't seen another person my size for months. Maybe years, I've lost track." He looked directly at Tania. "And now you show up--so beautiful! I couldn't stop myself. I'm sorry."
"You sure have a way with men," Randi said to Tania with an accusing grin on her face.
"Oh, stop it," Tania replied, wiping her mouth with the back of her glove. She did not, however, seem angry or upset. Instead, she was looking at the man with a strange expression that seemed almost like fascination.
He paid no attention to their exchange. Instead, he seemed to slowly collapse onto the floor, his expression a mixture of remorse and pain. "If you really are real," he said after a moment, "how did you get here? The door never opened."
"We came in through the air vent," Randi answered, sitting down next to him. The other two also kneeled down, but they remained somewhat wary. "It was open."
"Oh my God," he muttered. "I pried that screw off months ago, and wandered around in the vents, but there was nowhere to go. I couldn't get any of the others open. I'd forgotten all about that."
"You've tried to escape?" Caitlin asked.
"Oh, yeah," he answered. "Many times. Eventually, I gave up, though."
"You don't want to be here, then? This isn't something you want to do?"
"Of course not. Who would want to be shrunk, and experimented on by sadistic bastards?" He suddenly looked up at them. "Oh, geez, you aren't volunteers, are you? If so, I apologize. I didn't mean anything by it."
"No, not really," Caitlin answered. "They tricked us, told us it was a movie they were filming. That's why we're dressed like this. All they gave us to wear were these costumes."
"Yeah, just my luck," complained Randi, "the one time I don't dress up in something that matches!"
He looked over at her. "It looks fine, trust me," he said with a quick laugh, and now it was Randi's turn to redden. "You all are lucky, though. All I have to wear are the same jeans and shirts all the time. Sooner or later I'll wear them out, and then I'll probably have to put on doll clothes or something stupid like that."
"So you don't know how long you'll be here?" Caitlin asked seriously. "They don't tell you?"
"No, and it's not from lack of asking," he replied. "This is some kind of scientific experiment, if you hadn't figured that out already. Once, in the hall, I heard one of them tell someone else it was to determine the long-term effects of being shrunk. They never say ‘shrunk,’ though. It’s always ‘miniaturized.’ Damn scientists.”
He sighed and shook his head. "I guess I have only myself to blame," he went on. "I was desperate for money. I used to be in software, but I blew my wad on a bad dot-com risk. Then the recession hit and I got fired. I sold my house and car and was staying at a friend's, but it wouldn't be long until I became another homeless bum.
"Then I saw this ad for a long-term scientific project. They wanted people that could afford to be away and out of touch with the world for several months, maybe longer. The pay was good, really good, and they said they'd cover all food and lodging. The money I'd make would've lasted for years. They didn't bother to tell me they were going to shrink me, though. Hell, I might have done it anyway, I was so desperate, but they never asked."
"It was the same kind of thing with us," Randi explained. "We thought we were going to be in a movie about tiny cheerleaders. He even told us we'd be shrunk. We just thought he was talking about special effects."
"And he knew that's exactly what we'd think," put in Tania.
"Yeah, they're real bastards, aren't they?" he laughed. "They even smile while they screw you over. I get regular visits every day from the same scrawny guy with a mittful of paper. He never shows any emotion, only writes down what I say and do. I've tried everything short of suicide to get his attention." He gulped a couple of times, then with some difficulty went on. "I think if you hadn't shown up, that option wasn't far off."
"That's awful," said Tania. She was still staring at him with rapt interest.
"You said you tried to escape," Caitlin said after considering his words for a moment. "Why did you stop? Did they catch you?"
He hesitated, his eyes narrowing. Then, finally, he shrugged. "Only once," he replied, somewhat proudly. "Just the first time. I learned from my mistake. I've been all over the building. At first I went out under the door, but I made a mistake and moved some things around. At least, I think that's what happened, because the next day they put that slab of metal down on the bottom. After that, the only way out was to be tricky. Sometimes, I'd jump out when they came in with my food, but then I'd have to wait until they came with the next meal. Once I got out by riding on the back of one of their shoes. Like I said, I even pried open the vent you came through, but there was no way to get out once I was in the duct system."
"We got out of the building," said Randi proudly. "We hid in someone's briefcase."
"That's not bad," he said, nodding. "I never got the chance to try that one. After a while, though, I just quit. There's nowhere to go, you see. They don't keep the restoring machine here. It's somewhere else, and unless you can get to it, you're doomed if you go outside. Dogs, cats, rats, birds, other humans--we'd have no defense against any of them. And how would you eat or drink? In a day or two you'd die of thirst."
"So you wouldn't want to escape, if you could?" asked Caitlin pointedly.
He narrowed his eyes again. Finally, he sighed. "Yeah, you could be spies," he said, as though talking to himself. "But who cares? There's nothing worse they can do to me."
"Trust me," said Caitlin, "there's plenty worse."
"All right," he nodded, "all right, I'll tell you. If I thought there was any way to get back to normal size, I'd be gone in a heartbeat. I already know how I'd do it. Believe me, I've planned it out well. I don't have a lot to think about all day long, you know. If I couldn't talk myself into suicide, I might have tried running away, if only to get out of this damn place, before they put me through another one of their blasted tests."
He hesitated, then sighed again. "It doesn't matter, though. It's pointless. There's nowhere to go."
"But there is," Caitlin told him, her blue eyes flashing. "We know where the restoration machine is!"
He stared at her, his mouth hanging open. Caitlin just grinned at him, enjoying the reaction. "No joke?" he asked after a long moment.
"Nope," Tania replied, laughing. "We wouldn't kid the only man on the planet as small as we are."
"That's it," he said, shaking his head in disbelief. "Now I'm sure you're a hallucination."