Not A Toy 080

It was her.

Sophie's anxiety lessened, but only for a moment. The voice wasn't who she was expecting, but her tone kept the scientist on edge. At the very least, Sophie knew who it was.

"Nathalie. Are you alone?"

The caller sighed. "Yes, Sophie! I am. They just finished a meeting in the board room, they know its gone missing, as well as all of the research around it. I had to cover for you - which I could lose my job for, by the way!"

Sophie's brow furrowed. She knew it would only be a matter of time, but she had hoped her actions might have gone missed until after the weekend. "So, they don't know the everything yet..." Sophie's voice quivered, for the briefest moment.

As this went on, Maisie squirmed and struggled, and seeing that her captor was talking to someone; the graduate's plan turned desperate. "Hey! Hey! This weirdo s-shrunk me and... someone else and... she's taking us somewhere! Help! Can you hear me?! Help!"

Yet her voice carried not nearly as far, and the two fully sized women were engrossed in their conversation.

"No, not yet..." Nathalie replied. "But they're going to launch an investigation, and how long do you think its going to take for them to figure it out? Disgruntled inventor, missing tech and research, said inventor nowhere to be found... The mystery solves itself pretty quickly, Sophie." The woman said firmly.

"I don't care how quickly they figure it out, I just care if..." The redhead said, her words spilling from her mouth, clearly frustrated.

Yet Nathalie's own frustration met her colleague's. "Sophie!" Cutting off the scientist. "What is your plan?" She hissed through clenched teeth.

Sophie bit her lip, as she uncharacteristically had no clever response. Her eyes drifted downward, trying to not be distracted by the hammering against her thighs and the high pitched yelling coming from the trapped shrunken woman.

In the silence, Nathalie heard a rather strange noise on the other side of the phone. "...Whats that sound?" Her tone perplexed.

Sophie went stiff. "Oh! Just... a... podcast I'm listening to. Nathalie..." Sophie quickly continued, realizing that explaining her actions felt too intimidating, even to someone who know what this device was capable of. "Just... buy me some time! You know why I did what I did, and I know you agree with me!"

Nathalie pinched the bridge of her nose. "I'll what I can, Sophie, but listen - I'm not going to lose my job over this. So figure out your plan fast, okay?"

Sophie grimaced. Nathalie was a fellow scientist, and the two were ostensibly friends - but they weren't without their own agendas. There was clearly a hidden threat laced within those words. The redhead wanted to be snarky in return, but realized the position she was in. "Yes, yes. I'll figure something out..."

"Good. Okay, I have to go... just don't do anything stupid, got it?"

Sophie's gaze flashed to the tiny woman between her thighs, and the other unseen in her bag. "Uh, yes, fine. I'm not a child, Nathalie..."

There was an unintelligible sound from Nathalie that indicated she wasn't wholly convinced, and with that that, the call was ended.

Maisie watched with frustration, and her heart sunk as the conversation was over, the tiny woman's pleas going unheard. Sophie was so in her own thoughts, she barely registered the actions of her tiny passengers.