[Mandrake]

Chapter 6 – The Dollhouse


“And we have power!” Kevin said as the screen came on the gadget they had been working on for the past hour. Beth’s laptop battery had worked after all. It just took some minor tweaking to get the connections right.

“This is exciting!” Beth said looking at the complex readout. “What do all the symbols mean?”

“I don’t know, but it looks like some kind of radar. When I move the device, the symbols move relative to my position.”

“Damn, you’re smart. Quick, let’s point it at Vanessa and try the dial, maybe we can change her size …” Vanessa looked at Beth worriedly, “… back to normal,” Beth finished.

“Don’t you think we should take some precautions or something? What if it blows her up?” Kevin asked. Vanessa just buried her face in her hands. Beth slapped him in the back of the head. “Oh of course it won’t, the tachyon readings prove that this is completely safe,” Kevin said pulling techno babble out of his ass.

Vanessa wasn’t an idiot, but she knew that they had to test it on someone if she was ever going to get her pantyhose off. So she let them try the dial on her. With great trepidation Kevin pointed the remote sensor at Vanessa. Vanessa shut her eyes tightly fearing the worst. Slowly he put his hand on the dial. Thinking that turning it right would make her larger, since that usually raises volume levels, he decided to turn it to the right. Very slowly he did ….

Nothing seemed to happen. He turned it faster … Still nothing. He turned it all the way to the right. No dice. He turned to the left. No change. All the way to the left, still no change.

“I don’t get it, the dial doesn’t do anything to her,” Kevin said disappointed.

“There must be more to it,” Beth sighed. “What about that other dial on the side?”

Kevin had noticed it earlier, it looked like a much less important dial; it was like the kind of volume knob you see on the side of walkman radios. “I’ll try it, but I doubt it does anything,” Kevin said. He raised the dial up, and suddenly heard an electronic “wake up Kevin wake up Kevin wake up Kevin” repeatedly. “What the hell?” he said.

“Isn’t that your alarm clock noise?” Beth asked.

“Yeah, but why do I hear it through this?”

“What’s that flashing symbol on the screen? It looks like it’s flashing in sync to the noise.”

“I don’t know, maybe we should follow it,” Kevin said. The three of them followed the radar blip out of the basement of the dorm. The alarm sound was beginning to get annoying so Kevin turned it down again.

Outside the dorm the three of them continued walking towards the blip, it was leading them further and further way, towards the end of the campus. Kevin was keeping track of the symbols next to the blip and was beginning to decipher them as numbers. “Oh crap,” he finally said, “This blip is far.”

“What makes you say that?” Beth asked.

“Well, the way these symbols are counting down as you walk towards it. It’s like a numerical system. It’s counting down very slowly. It could be about a hundred miles away. In fact, come to think of it, it’s probably home. I think I forgot to turn my alarm off before we left, and it’s probably picking up audio from one of the body stockings at home.”

“So this thing is like a communications device too?” Beth asked, although she didn’t really mean it as a question. “That’s really amazing. We should go there. It’s probably designed to control one of the body stockings at home. That’s probably why it didn’t work on Vanessa.”

“But that’s a two hour drive. It’s almost midnight now, mom and dad will be pissed,” Kevin said.

“Don’t worry about it Kevin, they’ll understand, this is for science. You want to help Vanessa and Niesa don’t you?” Beth said using her powers of persuasion.

“Of course, but --,”

“Then let’s go, if we leave now, we’ll be back before dawn and they won’t be the wiser, come on Vanessa, we have to hurry because I want to pick Niesa up first,” Beth said dragging the two of them to her car.




Niesa woke up in a very large bed. But it wasn’t because she felt tiny. It was just a very large king sized bed with curtains, bed posts and an extravagant head post. In fact the room was also very extravagant. It looked very Victorian. This was not a hospital bed. She suddenly sat up surprised.

“Where am I?” she asked to no one in particular. She got out of bed and noticed she was naked except for her black pantyhose. Who had stripped her? Who had put her in this bed? There were no clothes to be found but she saw a closet in the corner. She opened it and found a beautiful traditional Japanese red dress with matching red dress flats. They were a bit large, but seemed to fit ok. Since this was her only choice she put them on and headed out the door.

As she walked downstairs she couldn’t help but shake the feeling that she was being watched. She entered a dining room. On the table there was a bowl of fruit. She was very hungry and grabbed an apple. She quickly noticed that it was plastic. All the fruit was plastic. She entered the kitchen, the refrigerator was empty, and didn’t seem to have any power. There were empty cereal boxes in the cupboards. It was as if everything in this house was fake. The flowers were plastic, the food was plastic, the stove didn’t seem to work either.

A woman walked in from a room across the hall, she was a blonde beauty dressed in a Victorian dress. She looked at Niesa, surprised at first, but soon not so surprised. She sighed. “What’s your name?” she asked.

“Niesa,” Niesa answered. “Where am I?”

“The Doll’s House,” the woman answered nonchalantly. “Don’t bother with the kitchen, the real food is outside, when the mistress ‘dines’ with us.

“The Mistress?” Niesa asked surprised and frightened.

“Yeah, you’ll know her real soon. She likes the new girls the best.” Suddenly Niesa heard a deep rumbling. “I wouldn’t stand there if I were you,” the woman warned. Niesa looked down, beneath her feet a long straight crack started to open up. Niesa’s right foot slipped into the crack and she nearly lost her shoe as she fell backwards. The house seemed to open up like a doll’s house revealing each half to a much larger room. Niesa’s eyes bulged in amazement as she realized she was under six inches tall inside a doll’s house. She saw a woman’s face looking in at her. She was too awestruck to scream, too frightened to run away.

“Be careful, little doll,” the woman said as she reached for Niesa. Niesa couldn’t say or do anything. She was too dumbfounded to speak. As she was lifted up to the woman’s face she noticed that the woman was also dressed extravagantly in Victorian clothing. She clearly was very wealthy and old fashioned. “You’re probably very hungry,” she said. The woman carried her to a large dining room table.

“I have prepared some Miso soup,” she said carrying her over to a dining room table. Upon the table there was a smaller table with a chair that was sized just for her. The woman seated her at the chair and served her small portion of Miso soup. Niesa found a spoon near the bowl.

Niesa was so hungry that she didn’t care where the soup came from and started eating immediately. The woman smiled. Niesa looked up at her with trepidation, she was pretty, probably in her thirties. She had long black hair done up in a bun and she wore a lot of makeup. There was something very disconcerting about her face though. She almost looked like a porcelain doll.

“Very good, eat up. You need your strength,” the woman said. “You’re a very pretty doll.” The woman took out a camera and took a snapshot of Niesa. The flash was blinding and Niesa covered her eyes in reaction. “You can call me Mistress, I am a Doll Collector, I collect the most realistic dolls in the world.”

Niesa shuddered. “Are you going to keep me as a doll?” she asked frightened.

“No, sweetie,” the woman smiled. “I just want to use you as a model, that’s all. I don’t hold people against their will. You are free to leave whenever you want.”

Niesa sighed with relief, but something about the woman’s smile was still very unsettling. “Why was I brought here?”

“The hospital could not do anything about the pantyhose you are wearing. That is what has caused you to shrink, I’m afraid. So they called on me to help. I know the secret to restoring you to your original size. I can also remove your pantyhose.”

“You can?” Niesa asked hopefully.

“Yes, as you might have guessed, you are not the first to be trapped in those strange shrinking nylons. I first discovered them several years ago while doing research for my dolls. A street vendor wanted to sell me the most realistic doll he had ever found. Obviously, I was intrigued. Little did I know that he was selling a real woman … a tiny woman clad in a body stocking that had made her shrink to five and a half inches,” the woman reached over to the doll house and retrieved the woman Niesa was talking to earlier.

“This is Penelope, my first little guest,” the Mistress said as she placed Penelope on the table next to her. Penelope curtseyed politely to Niesa.

“But if you could turn us back to regular height, why is Penelope still small?” Niesa asked suspiciously.

“Tell her Penelope.” The Mistress said smiling.

Penelope sighed. “I like living with my mistress. I make a good living as a doll model, I’ve never been happier in my whole life.” Penelope smiled and sat at the table next to Niesa. The Mistress gave her a small bowl of Miso soup.

“You two look so cute together,” The Mistress said snapping another picture.

Niesa flinched uncomfortably. “Okay, Mistress,” she said, “Thank you for feeding me. I’d like to be returned to my original size now, and if you could, please remove the pantyhose and I’ll be on my way.”

“All in good time,” the Mistress said still smiling. “But first, you must do some modeling for me. After all, I’m paying your hospital bills and doing you a great service, it’s the least you could do to pay you back.”

Niesa wiggled her toes in her shoes nervously. “What would I have to do?”

“Just pose for some pictures is all. It shouldn’t take long.”

“I won’t have to take my clothes off or anything, right?”

“Of course not.”

Niesa looked around nervously. She didn’t have much of a choice. She was under six inches tall, and even though the woman said she was free to leave at any time, something told her that was easier said than done. She had no phone or way to contact her loved ones. “Alright,” Niesa said reluctantly, “I’ll pose for some photos.”

“Great!” the Mistress said. “This will be the first Japanese girl in traditional garb I’ll have for my collection,” something about the way the woman said that left Niesa very uneasy. The Mistress held out her hand signalling Niesa to step onto it. Niesa warily complied, she quickly fell to her knees as the woman lifted her up and felt her heels pop out of her shoes. Not wanting to lose her shoes, Niesa hugged her knees and kept her feet firmly on the Mistress’s palms. “Careful now,” the Mistress said smiling.

The Mistress carried her into a dark room. It looked like there was a lit desk with some sort of tiny stool, presumably where she was to model. Niesa was placed here.

“Okay, start out sitting on the stool, I’ll take a picture of you posing there,” The Mistress said. Nervously, Niesa sat on the stool with both legs together. She looked very cute and vulnerable. The Mistress snapped a picture. “Okay cross your legs,” Niesa complied and The Mistress snapped another picture. “Stand up now,” Niesa complied and the woman snapped another picture, the snapshots continued for several more minutes. Niesa was starting to get tired of modeling but was grateful that she wasn’t being asked to do anything demeaning. Still she couldn’t wait for it to be over. Eventually, the woman’s camera ran out of film and Niesa was finally ready to ask to leave again.

“Okay, I need to get some more film,” the mistress said dashing Niesa’s hopes, “I’ll be right back, don’t move,” the Mistress said before leaving Niesa alone in the room.

Niesa got her first look around her surroundings as her eyes got used to the darkness, there seemed to be shelves all lover the place. She heard a noise from one of the shelves above her. It was a knocking sound. Niesa looked up, but it was too dark to see. She suddenly heard a very quiet squeaky voice. “Niesa!” it shouted. Niesa was astonished, the voice sounded familiar. She walked towards the lamp that had lit the desk. It was arched in such a way that it allowed access to the shelf above; if she could only climb it.

Using all of her strength Niesa started to crawl up the lamp. Her dress was tight and not designed to allow for such maneuvering, but fortunately the slit went up high so it allowed her straddle the sides of the lamps with her pantyhose clad legs. Her shoes were loose, but she knew that if she lost them she would slip down the lamp again. Fortunately she had a lot of practice keeping loose shoes on, so she managed make it to the top without incident. She was proud of her accomplishment and was really beginning to think of herself as a real hero after all. But what she saw on the shelf horrified her.

There were several packages lined up along the shelf, doll packages, all labeled to be manufactured and sold to underground markets. Inside these doll packages were real women, all 5 to 6 inches tall and dressed in various uniforms and fetish outfits. Some were even dressed up as popular characters. Some of the women looked dead, most looked barely conscious. These packages filled the shelves of the room. Niesa wondered how many women this sick Mistress had captured and packaged, and how many she sold to customers. She wondered if they were ever even fed or kept alive, or if she just kept them in the package to die of thirst or hunger.

Niesa heard the knocking again, it was coming from one of the packages to her right. Inside she saw Christy, one of her cheerleaders. Christy was dressed up like a German barmaid in a red dress, white apron, her black pantyhose and wooden clogs. “Niesa, let me out!” she begged. Niesa looked around and panicked. She didn’t know what to do. The package was sealed up tight. She was too small to open it by hand. She tried tearing at the box where the cardboard met the plastic and she tried kicking at the plastic with her foot, but it was no use, the package was too strong. She needed something sharp.

“Christy, can you poke at it from the inside?” Niesa asked. Christy shook her head. Plastic ties wrapped around her body preventing her from moving. Niesa thought for a moment then came up with an idea, “if I can undo those ties from the back, I might be able to free you,” she said.

Niesa walked around behind the package and found the lower two ends of the twisted plastic tie wraps. With painstaking effort she began unwrapping the tie wraps. It took all of her strength, but she soon had the first one unwrapped. Christy’s feet were loose and she stepped out of the platic tie wraps at her feet. Meanwhile Christy was freeing her arms from the upper tie wraps.

With her arms free, Christy now had freedom of movement within the box. She kicked at the plastic with her wooden clogs and found them to break apart at the cardboard more easily from her end. She finally kicked a hole between the clear plastic and the cardboard. In pulling her foot back through the hole, her shoe slipped off, so she started kicking with the other foot. The hole got bigger, and finally she could fit her whole leg through. Niesa helped pull the hole open wider as Christy climbed out.

“Thank you so much, I thought I was a goner,” Christy said slipping her foot back into her errant clog. “We’ve got to save Joyce, Luvia, Tamara and Amanda, they were captured with me.”

“Are all these women dead?” Niesa asked horrified.

“I don’t know,” Christy said. “She gives them shots every once in awhile, to keep them alive, I guess. But I don’t know how long you can keep someone alive like that. Being stuck in there was horrible torture, and I was only there for a couple hours.”

Suddenly, footsteps were heard coming down the steps. “We better get out of here,” Niesa said. She was about to dive off the shelf onto the floor.

“What are you doing? You’ll kill yourself!”

“No it’s ok, watch,” Niesa said as she hopped off the shelf. She landed hard on her feet, but felt no pain. “Come on, jump Christy, you won’t get hurt, trust me.”

Christy hesitated at first, not sure if she was going to make it, but she heard the Mistress’s footsteps getting closer and decided to take a chance. She jumped, right into the Mistress’s hand.

“You naughty girl,” she said looking down at Niesa. “I told you to stand still,” Niesa tried to run away but the mistress scooped her up in her other hand. “Two naughty girls who need to be punished,” she put Niesa in her left hand with Christy and squeezed them tightly. Though neither could feel any pain, it was very uncomfortable being in such close proximity.

“I’ll teach you to stand still,” she said grabbing some glue and a petrie dish from a drawer with her free hand. She dumped some of the glue into the dish. “You will have to stand in here from now on,” she said as she forced the girl’s shoed feet into the glue. Niesa and Christy tried to move their feet, the glue was not yet dry but it had a firm enough hold on their shoes to make it impossible not to slip out of them while trying to move. The Mistress laughed. “Aww, are your shoes not tight enough on your feet? The glue has a tighter grip on your shoes then your shoes do on your slippery little sensitive little feet. Oh well, guess you’ll just have to stand there if you want to keep them on. I don’t recommend walking in that glue in your stockings either, or you’ll really be stuck.”

The longer they stood there the harder it was to move their feet without leaving their shoes behind. Niesa looked at the edge of the dish. If she could reach her hands to the edge, she may be able to do a cartwheel out of her shoes and escape the dish without getting stuck. Of course, she’d still be at the Mistress’s mercy, only this time minus her shoes, so it didn’t seem like a risk worth taking. The Mistress could tell the girls were getting frustrated and was enjoying every second. She took a few more pictures of them in this predicament, and tickled them a bit with a feather.

“Cootchie cootchie coo!” she said as she tickled Christy under the neck with a tiny pigeon feather. She lifted up Christie’s arm and tickled her under the arm. “Cootchie Cootchie coo.”

“Hahahahah! Stop!” Christy laughed uncontrollably and tried her best not to fall onto the glue.

“How about your breasts,” the Mistress said as she undid Christies barmaid uniform exposing her large D sized breasts.

“No please don’t!” Christy protested. But the Mistress tickled her erect nipples with a feather. “Cootchie Cootchie coo,” she continued to say as the feather moved down to her belly.

Christy lost it and burst into uncontrollable laughter. “DAHAHAHA! Oh my god! Stop! Hahahahahaha!”

The Mistress couldn’t wait any longer and lifted little Christy up out of her shoes. “Oops, looks like you lost your shoes,” the Mistress teased. “Guess I’ll have to tickle your feet then.

“Noooooo! Ahahahahahahahah!” Christy laughed as the feather stroked her tiny soles.

“Maybe I shouldn’t have packaged you, you’re too much fun. I’ll keep you around my doll house for awhile,” the Mistress said as he continued tickle torturing Christy.

With the Mistress’s full attention on Christy, Niesa decided to make her move. She braced herself for a cartwheel, something she was an expert at. This one was going to be difficult though because she had to completely avoid touching the glue, and her feet were in a weird starting position. To top it off, her shoes were glued to the ground. But her shoes were loose enough to pull it off. For the first time today she was happy that her shoes felt too loose. She took a deep breath and fell forwards letting her heels slip out of her shoes. Her hands grabbed the end of the petrie dish. She then lifted her toes out of her shoes and brought her feet over her head with sweeping momentum. And with the grace of a ballerina she brought her stocking feet down on the other side onto the dry desk and stood up.

She had succeeded and was out of the dish, and had not yet been noticed. She ran off the desk now in her stocking feet and landed hard on the floor. She hated to leave Christy in the clutches of that sick and twisted woman, but she had to find a way to get help. She heard Christy laughing in the distance as she ran towards the nearest exit.



The drive back to the Turam family home was uneventful. Beth was still a little worried about Niesa. They went to the hospital to pick her up only to find that she had been signed out by her mother. “I still think she should have called me,” Beth said. But they all decided that it was best to wait until morning.

At the house Kevin’s alarm clock was still going. The first thing he did was shut it off. The box of body stockings was lying on the floor next to his alarm clock. Beth opened the box. It looked as though most of them had shrunken back down to their 5 inch size, but one body stocking, a green one, was larger than the rest.

“Kevin, turn the dial on the gadget,” Beth said holding up the green body stocking. Kevin complied. To every one’s amazement, the green body stocking grew to full size. Beth dropped it on the bed stunned. Kevin continued to turn the dial this time to the left. It shrunk back down to five inches. When he turned it all the way to the right it grew to full size.

“It seems as though the gadget is programmed to control that one particular body stocking,” Kevin said astonished. Beth looked troubled. “What’s wrong Beth?”

Beth just smiled a little sadly. “Nothing, I, I just have to get some air,” she said as she walked out of the house.

Vanessa and Kevin just looked at each other puzzled. Eventually Vanessa followed her outside.

Beth was sitting on the porch swing in deep thought. “You’re thinking about putting that thing on aren’t you?” Vanessa said as she approached her.

“Pretty much,” Beth said.

“Well, I think you’re crazy for even considering it. Once you put it on you’re stuck in it. Who knows if we’ll ever figure out how to get it off? And yeah, maybe you can change size for awhile, but without that thingamajig, you’re pretty much as vulnerable as the rest of us.”

“But there’s more to it than that,” Beth said. “I feel like I’m getting close.”

“Close to what?”

“Close to finding out what happened to my mother and sister. Remember how I told you how they disappeared on the way over here?”

“Yeah, how could I forget.”

“Well, I’ve been searching ever since for some clue to the mystery, and today I’ve gotten loads of clues. I feel like putting that thing on is the next step I need to take to finding them. I’m just scared to take it.”

“Then don’t take it. You can figure this mystery out without putting that damn thing on.”

“Niesa told me that the box with the pantyhose is in the girls locker room in the phys ed building. If I could shrink myself down, I could sneak in and read the shipping label of the box, then sneak out. We could find out where these pantyhose came from and that would lead us to the source. The ability to change size would come in handy when investigating the source. Maybe I’ll find out what happened to my Mother and sister. Maybe I’ll find them alive. I have to take that chance.”

“You’re crazy, you know that? You’re taking an awful risk, there are other ways to investigate, you don’t need special size changing powers.”

“What if they’re armed? These people who shipped us the pantyhose are dangerous, I’m sure of it. I need all the protection I can get. Putting on that body stocking may be a huge mistake, but, it just seems like something I have to do now. All the clues led us here. It must be the next step.”

“Well, I guess I can’t stop you. I hope you like the color green.”

“It was always my favorite color. I am Irish you know.”

Vanessa just laughed, “Whatever Beth. I hope you find your Mother and sister.”

And with that Beth got up off of the swing and back into Kevin’s room. She picked up the green body stocking and looked it over for a few minutes. “Not a bad color,” she said taking a deep breath. She carried the undergarment to her old bedroom and shut the door behind her.

“Umm, is she doing what I think she’s doing?” Kevin asked.

“Yep.”

“I have the coolest step sister in the world,” Kevin said smiling.

Suddenly the door opened and Beth stepped back out. “I think I’ll take a shower first.”




Sarah and Lisa had been sleeping in the cell beds for a few hours when a guard came to open the door. They were exhausted and had fallen asleep as soon as their heads hit the pillow. They didn’t even bother to take their boots off.

“You are free to go, fair ladies,” the guard said bowing low and waking them up.

“Free?” Sarah asked groggily. “To go where?”

“Duchess Lucy will take you home, I will take you to her,” Sarah and Lisa looked at each other puzzled. It was strange to be treated so respectfully all of a sudden. They followed the strange looking guard out of the cell and through the winding hallways.

“So what’s your name?” Lisa asked.

“I am Yer, first security officer, fair lady.”

“So your from Taaj, right?” Sarah asked somewhat sarcastically.

“Yes,” he said sadly. He stopped in his tracks, put his hand on his chest and looked up for a moment, then continued walking.

“Why did you do that?” Sarah asked.

“Every time we’re reminded of Taaj, it’s customary to stand and reflect in respect.”

“Seems a bit of a pain in the ass if you ask me,” Sarah laughed.

Yer stopped for a moment and gave her a dirty look. “Since you’re a lady, and you’re not familiar with our history I will try to forget that you said that.”

“Sorry,” Sarah said defensively.

“It’s okay, I thought the queen had told you,” Yer said turning away though still clearly hurt. “You see Taaj was destroyed many years ago in a war with the Trafulites. There are less than a hundred of us alive. All of our fertile females were killed. Our species was doomed until we discovered you humans.”

“Wait, what?!”

The door in front of Sarah suddenly opened and the lab in which she and Lisa had been tickle tortured was revealed to them again. The guard motioned them to enter. “All will be explained soon enough,” he said. “I’m just a guard. I don’t deal in these sorts of interspecies politics. Speak with Duchess Lucy. She was a human like you, but now she’s one of us. You’ll find that women are treated like royalty here,” he said as he led them into the lab. “Now I must go. It was a pleasure serving such beautiful ladies,” he said as he left.

Sarah and Lisa had never been in the main part of the lab. It was huge. They could see the two glass enclosures on the side. They shuddered at the memory of what had occurred in there. At the far end near a large door designed for a full sized human stood Lucy, still full sized. Sarah couldn’t understand how she could live as a Taajian when she was nearly six foot tall. Lucy saw them enter and motioned them to come closer, she was holding some sort of pouch. The girls looked at each other nervously. Suddenly a rumbling was heard all around them. Sarah was beginning to wonder if they were actually in a spaceship that was moving.

“Girls don’t be afraid. This pouch is designed specifically for Taajians. It’s very comfortable,” Lucy said at last.

“We don’t trust you!” Sarah yelled, though her tiny voice was probably not much more than a squeak in the large room.

Lucy sighed and sat down at one of the computers. She turned to face the girls. “Come here,” she said, “let’s just talk for a few minutes.”

With some trepidation, Sarah and Lisa approached Lucy. She was an imposing sight, still towering over them while seated. But she had a kind hearted look on her face, one that was strangely trustworthy considering what she had done to them. Lucy crossed her legs. Sarah tried to pear up her pant leg to see if she was wearing the stocking, but her boot went up too high.

“You have every reason not to trust me,” Lucy said. “I wouldn’t trust me if I was in your position. And believe me; seven years ago I was in a position very similar to yours. It changed my life forever. But I don’t regret a thing that has happened to me. Had it not been for those events I wouldn’t have the family I have now. I wouldn’t be helping to save a noble species from going extinct. I realize that some of the tactics that were used were a little unsound, but those were desperate used by a desperate people barely clinging life and begging for our help. It was justified. And in the end, they have helped me much more than they hurt me, just like we’re trying to do for you, if you’d only see it.”

Sarah couldn’t believe what she was hearing. This woman actually believed she was helping to save an alien race from extinction by making babies for them. “Is that what this is all about?” Sarah said in disbelief. “You want us to join your kinky alien orgy and give birth to alien babies?”

“You don’t believe it because you haven’t seen the worlds that I have seen, or done the
work that I have done. You don’t know how rewarding it has been to help rebuild a civilization. I don’t expect you to understand yet. But yes, I would like you to join us eventually.”

“Hmm, let me think about it,” Sarah said, “How ‘bout, no!”

“Lisa?” Lucy asked.

“I’m going to have to agree with Sarah, I just want to go home now,” she said, almost crying.

“I see,” Lucy said sadly. “It wasn’t our intention to ask you to join us so soon anyway. But since you figured it out …,”

“Was it your intention to give us a choice?” Sarah accused.

“Of course,” Lucy said defensively. “I didn’t have a choice. But now that there are Taajian children we can afford to give choices to our newer recruits. But to be honest, I’m glad they didn’t give me a choice. I most certainly would have chosen not to be a part of this great project. It would have been the biggest mistake of my life. I probably would have wound up in the hands of the Doll Collector and lived a life of torture and misery.”

“Spare me the Doll Collector story,” Sarah said, “I don’t buy it. I don’t buy any of this. I just want to go home.”

“That was the Queen’s order,” Lucy said. Suddenly the rumbling stopped and there was a bump. Lisa and Sarah nearly fell over. The door behind Lucy opened. There were trees outside and the sun was just beginning to rise. They were definitely on Earth.

“No transporter beam? No space shuttle?” Sarah asked suspiciously.

“This lab is actually also a shuttle that takes you from planet to ship,” Lucy explained.

“A likely story,” Sarah said nudging Lisa. “We never left Earth. Whoever’s behind this sure went through a lot of trouble to get their jollies.”

Lucy just ignored her comment. “Time to get into the pouch,” she said, “Unless you want to walk home.” Lisa and Sarah reluctantly climbed into the black pouch that Lucy held out for them. It was surprisingly comfortable. It had a little section for each of them, but had enough room for them to move. It was like a sleeping bag with a built in pillow back, except meant to be stood up vertically. Lucy put the pouch in her suit pocket. This gave the girls an excellent view of where they were going. Even Sarah had to admit that it was a nice way to travel.

With the passengers stowed away, Lucy exited the lab and got into a nearby car. A very attractive young Asian woman dressed in a black business suit that was similar to Lucy’s was sitting in the driver’s seat. “Hi Faye,” Lucy said upon entering, “We’re all set.”

“Hi girls,” Faye said smiling at Lisa and Sarah. The girls just looked at her quizzically. “Okay, don’t say hi,” Faye said sarcastically as they drove off.