Pressure Vessel - Part 01

Gently tugging on the copper strands, I lean forward over the vanity. My scowl carving deep ridges into my face as I adjust the straps of my bra, each tinny consonant and exclamation stabbing into me like needles. Lip coiling into a snarl as I try to ignore the little wasp buzzing at my feet. 

“—I can’t believe I turned to you of all people. Katie, Maggie, Jenna.” She growled. Water droplets glancing off my toes as she stomped past. Dried immediately by the fabric of my hand-towel dragging behind her diminutive frame. “Capable women, instead I get stuck with a flighty ‘Influencer.’ This week can’t get any worse.” 

Snapping my neck in her direction, I go to say something. Just barely biting the bile back, sacrificing sensation in the tip of my tongue. Ivana’s tiny frame disappears around the doorway into the bedroom. Following behind I watch her stomping towards a graphic tee draped over the edge of my mattress. Her protests fade slightly, the knee-high woman’s voice muted by the fabric of one of my new lens cloths.  

Knots form in my body, tightening with each flicker of memory from the past three days. Being summoned to her office, being badgered into helping her conduct her experiment, her foolish decision to forego P.P.E., watching her drop the device as she began to shrink. 

…

My lips breaking into a wry grin as the memory of the great Ms. Djuric curled into a tight fetal coil in my backpack as I snuck her from the lab. The look on security’s face, and the fight to hide my own expression as I walked through the front doors with the device and Ivana in tow. The lone compliment she gave me when we got back to the flat. My snarl returning as the memory of how Ivana’s cruel dismissiveness returned almost instantly. 

“Bloody cow can’t even fetch proper tools, having me bathe in a blasted litter pan.” Ivana hissed, throwing the towels towards the bathroom as hard as her shrunken limbs could manage. Water and soap spraying against my bedroom floor with a moist plop. 

Clenching my right fist, I lean against the doorway. My gaze drifting to the device partially buried in a nest of bedding, tossed there after Ivana had demanded to see it while she bathed. The furious little nuisance had wanted to— ‘wrap her head around the problem’— and insisted I hold the device for her so she could keep looking at the cracked plastic shell. My smile appearing once more, the instant Ivana accidentally discharged the emitter playing on a loop in my mind, her body enveloped in a bright light before she dwindled. The look on her face, wide eyes, red cheeks, the knowledge that she couldn’t blame me this time playing across her diminished face… 

Ivana had only been reduced by about six percent, but after fiddling with the settings in a vain attempt to fix herself, she’d botched it and shrank to a mere fourteen inches tall. Two reductions caused solely by her arrogance and impulsiveness. And, as Ivana had explained, she couldn’t get the restore function to work. A fault that couldn’t be repaired without a particular component. 

The ordeal of ordering the damn thing was seared into my mind, bubbling back to the front of my memory while the shrunken woman dried her hair. The tiny manager nitpicking my every key stroke, every bit of prose in the email requesting the replacement. Her squeaking tirade as she insisted I look after her during the weekend it would take for the component to arrive. 

The little brat was still whining as the memory faded, fidgeting with her lingerie as she complained to the aether. Sighing, she tugged the seat of her shrunken underwear back into place. “—and Now I have to get back in her stinky bag to try and get back inside my own lab…”

Suddenly, the tension in my body broke. “Not necessarily Ma’am.” My body moves on instinct, I barely have time to process what I’m doing. The device is in my hands once more, I can hear the coil within charging, feel the subtle field generated as a bright blue light fills the room. ‘When did I pick the device up?’ I think, sneering down at the rapidly shrinking brunette.