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Peach Bringer
a7a180
Now, onto testing the arm controls.
We already know what the 1/2 dose does, so we might as well test the two extremes first. But before that, I press the target button. The machine doesn’t spray anything when I do, instead cycling through three modes: Desk, User, and Manual. The first two options suggest it’ll target something that’s placed in front of it or whoever’s holding the controller, respectively. The manual option brings up the camera view as well as controls that move both arms around. The arms can stretch pretty far, nearly triple their normal length, but their movement is rather slow and the controls are somewhat laggy.
So, now that we can tell what way it’s pointing, what are going to test 1/16 on?
Anet’s hand shoots up. “Me! I want to test user mode.”
“Are you sure?” I ask.
“Yeah, why not?”
“Okay…”
Anet takes the controller and orders the machine to shrink her. An arm rotates to face her and sprays a large blue cloud in an up and down pattern. For a moment, she’s still standing inside the cloud as it spreads to cover her legs, and then she appears to vanish as the cloud disperses. Of course, she’s not gone, she’s just standing at our feet, now the most miniscule ant to ever exist. She’s jumping and waving up at us, though we’re already looking right at her. I kneel down to get closer, trying not to speak too loud. “All good down there?”
She calls out in a tiny voice. “Hello up there! I feel fine, just really, really short!”
“Anet, you realize how small you are on an objective scale right now? Like, you are a sixteenth of a sixtieth of an inch tall. …That’s nearly a thousandth of an inch. You should be seeing microbes at that size.”
She looks around and shrugs. “I don’t see anything weird! I feel really light, though!”
Jaina bends down to pick her up and sets her on the table. “Okay, so obviously that makes the other end of the scale the red gas. Time to grow up, Anet.”
“Ooh wait, hold on! Put me on the top shelf, I want to try pushing the cage!”
“Oh, hmm. Another good idea, we can test our plan here too.” Measuring her up next to the microscope, Anet’s about as small relative to the lab as Pent was when enlarged.
Having the height to reach the shelves easily, I pick Anet up by the waist and place her on top next to the cages. She throws all her miniscule might into pushing the smaller cage. She doesn't make a lot of headway.
After a few attempts, she says, “It’s heavy, but I think I felt it budge it a little!”
“It might have moved? Let me check something,” says Jaina. “This looks like a scale over here…” She picks up the cage and Anet along with it, and places them on the scale next to the sink.
I point out an issue with this test to Jaina. “Would its weight here even mean anything? We’re all a lot smaller and lighter right now.”
“The measurement units are the same ones I know, and the point is just to weigh it relative to her.” She continues steadfastly with her measurements. “…Yeah, this could work, if all three of us pushed. We won’t even need the weights dragging it over.”
With our projections for the plan pointing positive, it’s time to test the other end of the scale. Rather than waiting for Anet to regrow, since she still has the controller she becomes the de facto target for this test too. She sits on the edge of the counter and presses the button labeled 1. The red gas returns her to her previous size, and she hops down. Well, previous-ish? We didn’t do any measurements beforehand…
“She seems a little taller to me,” says Jaina.
“Maybe your dose of gas just didn’t wear off fully?“ suggests her sister.
“No, I think you just got taller,” Jaina suggests a little more firmly.
“Maybe we should try shrinking and growing something else, to be sure,” I interject.
We test again with the 1/4 dose, then the 1-dose on an empty beaker. Its size seems restored to normal after regrowing, no more, no less. Jaina concedes that she was probably just imagining things.
“So if that’s just an antidote to the shrinking, why’d Pent grow from exposure?” She asks.
<Maybe I just react differently to it than you?> says Pent.
Jaina thinks. “Well, she wasn’t hit with blue gas first, so… do we have the room to test that here?”
“The only one who hasn’t been hit with any gas yet is Sam, so…” Anet and Jaina both look at me expectantly. I guess I’m next. I’d better sit on the floor, just in case. This time, we mark my height on the wall beforehand.
Here we go… I hold my breath and close my eyes by reflex when the cloud sprays. When I open them I feel a little different, but I’m not sure how. I walk back over to the mark and… “Oh, wait! I actually did get taller.” Only by about half a head, though. There must be a growth effect if you haven’t been reduced first, but it’s nowhere near enough for me to reach normal size.
<But why didn’t you triple in size?> Pent asks.
I think about it for a moment. “Well, compare our relative sizes to the machine at time of dosing. Isn’t it the same amount of growth, objectively? Even a few inches can be pretty dramatic when you’re as small as we are.”
<Guess so. Hm, almost a shame it’s only temporary.>
>mini lab, mini drone?
Hmm, let me check the back. …Aha! This lab does have its own version of the drone. Although this one’s spherical instead of boxy. The mini-drone powers on when I poke around for a switch, but it doesn’t act - it just beeps in an error tone and shuts back down. Like the robot we found way back in the doctor’s office, it must be dependent on the hab block’s building wide systems, and those aren’t powered right now.
I spend a little more time driving the mini arms around until I’ve got the hang of it. With that, we’re all set to pull off our plan, and I can finally leave this microscopic mini-lab…
We teleport back to the glass hut where we entered this room, and wait for the drone to be looking away when we run back to the microscope. Anet hands off the clicker to me in case it’s needed, as they will all be jumping up to the top shelf to push the cage together. Aiming manually, I target all three girls with the 1-dose, growing them into miniature giants. They back away from the arms, and I input a 1/16 command targeting the desk, in case the power gets switched off. The arms search the target zone but find it empty, displaying an error. That zone being empty didn’t seem to stop it from spraying the closest object last time, so it should be fine. I switch the controls back to manual and look up at Jaina one more time.
>“Are you ready for this, Sam?”
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