123. Smooth and Sheer
Amy decides to see what the doctor and his monster are up to. She saunters over to the Miniatron 5000. As she approaches, the doctor, engrossed in his work, walks into a door in the side of the machine.
“Fred! Get in here and hold this panel open so I can work on it!” The shambling homunculus walks into the machine. Amy takes a look at the machine. There’s a lever with five pictograms of people, each one smaller than the one above it. Next to it is a giant button labeled “SHRINK!”
“Huh,” thinks Amy, “this seems easy enough.” If Amy’s going to rescue Shannon, she needs to get out of this lab, and that isn’t going to happen until the mad doctor is out of the way. Amy hatches a cunning scheme. She sneaks over to the door of the machine, reaches out, then quickly slams the door closed!
CLANG!
“Fred? Did you close the door? Don’t do that! Open it again, you brainless fool!” comes the doctor’s muffled voice. Amy runs back to the controls, throws the lever to the setting for the smallest person, then pushes the button.
A Click! comes from the door. “Fred? Fred, why isn’t the door opened!” Rattle! Rattle! “Why is this door locked?! What’s happening?!” The machine begins whirring and shaking, growing louder and louder for a few moments until-
Pop!
A flash of light comes from around the edges of the door, which then falls open. Steam emerges from the machine, along with two tiny figures, both no more than an inch high. One is a little man in a lab coat, the other, a green patchwork monster.
“What have you done to me?! I demand you return me to my normal size this instant!” screams the tiny man in the lab coat in a squeaky voice that Amy can only barely make out. Just then a rat emerges from a hole in the wall and darts toward the two miniature people.
“Fred! Protect me! Freeeeeeeed!” the two figures run off and Amy soon loses sight of them.
“Well, that’s a relief!” says Amy to no-one in particular. She glances around the lab, looking for something that might help her on her quest. Her eyes are drawn to a clothing line in the corner. From the line hang a pair of shimmering dark purple stockings. Amy walks over and feels the material in her hands. “Oooo!” Amy has never felt such a soft, smooth material. And so light!
Amy sees a note sitting on a nearby table. She picks it up. It reads: “Doctor Carluzzo- Thank you ever so much for these new stockings! I was skeptical when you told me that this material you developed was completely run-proof, but these things are indestructible! I had one of the maids try them out for me; she ‘accidentally’ fell into a wood chipper. The maid, needless to say, was ruined, but these hose haven’t even a scratch on them! Still, you said that they required some special technique to wash, and I’d really like to get the last bits of maid out before I wear them. Could you take care of it for me? Thanks in advance, XOXO –CS” The note looks old, as though it’s been sitting here quite a while.
Amy turns back to the stockings. She turns her nose up at their sordid history. But still… They look SO nice, and as they say, nothing beats a great pair of legs! Amy decides to borrow the stockings. She removes them from the line and balls them up and sticks them in her pocket. She then resumes searching the lab.
Back at the table the doctor had been working at when Amy first entered, Amy finds two items of interest. One is what appears to be a notebook. The other is a strange gun out of a science fiction story. Across the side is emblazoned the warning, “Danger! Death Ray!” Amy ponders her next move.