Little Intrigues

Millie was furious.

She was a junior staff member at the company, freshly out of college, but she had an ambitious far larger than her five feet and five inches.

Although that number needed to be revised.

She had been working for one of the senior managers of the company, Ivana Connally, for nearly a year and a half and couldn't stand her. Bossy, rude and demanding. The older woman was one of the leads of the R&D division, and Millie had learned that Ivana was working on a spray that would seek out living matter and reduce it in size, along with anything worn or carried by the form. It was beyond top secret, and as far as Millie could surmise, Ivana was the sole researcher on it.

Millie concocted a plan fitting for her ambitions, and one that would hopefully make Ivana far more pliable.

The young woman had taken a canister of the agent and placed it in the air conditioning systems of the company's meeting room, and arranged a meeting for Ivana in that same room. The final touch was that the canister was set to release its formula at a specific time.

The plan was simple really. Ivana would arrive for her meeting on time as she always was, and the timer would set off and release the agent. With Ivana being the only one in the room, she'd end up significantly smaller. From there, the overworked, underpaid Millie would secure for herself a much more senior position and one that paid what she was deserved.

Millie had everything set to go. An hour prior to Ivana's 'meeting', the young woman had decided to do one last check on the room. It was a well known trait of Millie's, that she would do a once over on any scheduled plans an hour before they happened.

As she was doing that, she noticed too late a faint mist drifting from the air conditioner and attaching to the space around her. In a few moments, the saboteur fell into her own trap and rapidly shot towards the floor. In her panic, she went for the door far too late - the handle had already risen out of reach.

Embarrassed and furious, the girl retreated beneath the conference room table and tried to understand what had happened. Had she been so careless as to get the time wrong? Perhaps the device she affixed to the canister was faulty?

Or... had someone become aware of Millie's plan and altered the settings?!

The young woman could only ponder this. Unless she could get a chair over to the door, she was trapped in here. Even if she did escape, she'd have to suffer the potential embarrassment of someone seeing her new dwindled stature. The clock was ticking though, as Ivana was scheduled to be in her in less than an hour...