Rampage	
by Ace Corona
A family gains fantastic technology


The small shuttle passed through the force field into the cargo bay of the
massive starship that was in Earth orbit. The occupants of the shuttle, Dave
Smith, his wife Samantha, and two daughters, Lisa and Jenny, disembarked and
went straight to a service elevator, where Dave told the onboard A.I. to take
them directly to the bridge. Once there, the main view-screen had already been
activated by another starship that was identical to the one the Smith family
was in. On the screen was a family who were exact doubles of Dave and his
family. 15-year-old Lisa's double was holding a jar with a miniaturized man
inside.

"Thank you for helping us capture Doctor Thanatos!" said Dave's double on the
view-screen. "He came to your reality to trick us by putting a bionic brain
implant into your head, but when he tried to make the switch, we turned the
tables on him!"

"No problem!" said Dave. "I'm just glad that mind control device didn't give
me brain damage! Thank you for removing it!"

"Not a problem!" said Dave's double. "As a token of our appreciation, the
starship I've replicated for you has all of the features that our own ship
has. The cloaking device engages automatically, and it should keep you
shielded from 21st century tracking devices. You might want to have Jenny and
Lisa use the onboard A.I. to learn about the technology at your disposal!"

"I understand on your world you're crime-fighters!" said Dave.

"That's true!" said Dave's double. "On our world, we're known as heroes!"

"Should we use this technology you've given us to do the same on our world?"

"That's up to you! You can either share your technology with the U.S.
Government, like we did, or you can hoard the technology and take credit for
the inventions yourself!"

After several more minutes of questions, the other Smith family, who were from
a parallel universe, left in their starship and returned to where they came
from. Dave and his family were alone together on board the starship.

"Girls," said Dave, "while your mother and I get to know the bridge stations,
I want the two of you to go down to the cargo bay and learn about some of this
technology. I want you both to learn something specific, because I'm going to
ask you questions about it later. Now, get going!"

Lisa and her 13-year-old sister Jenny immediately complied, too astounded by
the events of the past 24 hours to complain. The Smith family had just
concluded an amazing adventure that would probably be classified as top secret
by the Pentagon, if it ever became known to the U.S. government.

The girls took the service elevator, and arrived at the cargo bay. Small
shuttles lined one wall, and at the other end was a wall of computer work
stations. In between the shuttles and the computers, there was a rectangular
depression about eighteen inches deep. The depression was about twenty meters
wide, and eighty meters long. The vertical eighteen-inch high wall surrounding
the perimeter of the depression had blue lighting emanating from
circuit-shaped filaments that covered the majority of the surface area.

Lisa sat down at a computer station, and Jenny sat down at another. Lisa began
asking the A.I. questions about technology that existed after the year A.D.
2100. Lisa figured that since the year 2100 was nearly 100 years in the
future, limiting her search to technology developed after that year would
yield remarkable results. While she was narrowing down her scope of study,
Jenny sat at her computer, puzzled as to what to inquire about.

"What are you interested in?" asked the onboard A.I., in an effort to be
helpful.

"I like what happened to Doctor Thanatos!" said Jenny. "How does shrinking
work?"

A three dimensional diagram of an atom appeared on the monitor. The protons,
neutrons, and electrons were labeled, as were the quarks and gluons composing
them. After naming the components of the atom, the A.I. went on to describe
neutrino dissimilation.

"Neutrinos are stripped from the quarks and gluons, resulting in the protons,
neutrons, and electrons decreasing in size, weight, volume, and mass!"

The diagram displayed this theory in action, showing the atom decreasing in
size. The A.I. continued: "Neutrino dissimilation is a chain reaction, and
unlike teleportation, requires no computer memory to keep track of each
sub-atomic particle during the miniaturization process. The electrons, which
keep atoms locked into position due to the repulsive force of their negative
charge on one another, cause the atoms to move closer together as they
decrease in size."

"I don't understand," said Jenny. "My dad is going to ask me about this
theory, so I need to understand it completely!"

The A.I. replied: "Like charges repel. Electrons all have a negative charge.
The atoms composing a table or a wall remain in position because of the
repulsive force of the charge of the electrons. An individual atom stays
locked in position because it is surrounded by other atoms, and the negative
charge of the electrons orbiting the other atoms acts on the negatively
charged electrons orbiting the atom in question, causing it to remain in
place. Is this explanation sufficient?"

"I understand about the electrons keeping atoms in place, but what does that
have to do with miniaturization?"

"When electrons decrease in size, this causes the shrinking atoms to move
closer together, because the diminishing force of the charge of the shrinking
electrons isn't keeping the atoms far enough apart from one another. As the
electrons and the nucleus shrink, the atoms have no choice but to move closer
together. This is the chain reaction that causes miniaturized atoms to
maintain the same proportionate distance from one another in comparison to
their distance apart at normal size. Do you understand?"

"Yes," said Jenny. "Thank you, computer!"

"You're welcome, Jenny!"

"Hey, can you shrink anything?"

"Yes, I can," replied the A.I.

"Can you shrink a city?"

Meanwhile, Lisa was learning about metallurgy. There were hundreds of alloys
that had been discovered since the year 2100, and most of them were many times
stronger than carbon steel or titanium. The A.I. that was having a
conversation with Jenny about neutrino dissimilation was simultaneously
interacting with Lisa.

"There is a metallurgical process you might be interested in that was
developed before the year A.D. 2100," said the A.I.

"Really?" said Lisa. "What is it?"

"Metallic elements are capable of being rendered transparent." Images of
transparent sheets of titanium, tin, and aluminum appeared on the monitor.

"You should have told me about this sooner!" said Lisa. "Learning about this
process is better than memorizing the formulas of super alloys! So how does
this theory work?"

"The atoms of metallic elements found in nature are scattered randomly. If you
align these atoms in rows, this renders the metal transparent."

"Can any metal be rendered transparent?" Lisa asked.

"Only metallic elements. Alloys containing more than one element are incapable
of being rendered transparent. One element in particular that can be rendered
transparent is iron, but when a magnet is attached to the metal, the surface
area that comes into contact with the magnet turns dark. Iron is not
preferable for transparency."

Meanwhile, during the time Lisa was learning about future metallurgy, Jenny
was in the process of doing something outrageous. Jenny had asked the computer
about shrinking a city, and after a question and answer session, she had
decided on Fresno. The entire city wasn't being targeted, just a section about
a mile wide and four miles long, near the downtown area. The sophisticated
onboard sensors had locked onto a section of the city, and it was now shown on
the monitor.

"Will the shrunken city appear in that rectangular pit here in the cargo bay?"
Jenny asked.

"Affirmative," said the A.I.

"Well, what are you waiting for?" said Jenny. "Shrink the city and beam it up
here!"

Back on Earth, in the San Joaquin valley, something incredible happened. An
entire section of several square miles just vanished. On the freeway, which
was torn in half by the event, cars and trucks flew over the edge and
plummeted to the ground below. Cars slammed on their brakes at the edge of
roads that had been cut in half, with empty dirt in front of them. A section
of the city one mile wide and four miles long had just ceased to exist from
the perspective of the people who witnessed the event.

Back in the cargo bay, Lisa turned around to see what the noise was as the
section of the city that had been dissected materialized in the rectangular
depression that was eighteen inches deep. Before the first vehicle had hit the
ground after flying off the freeway back on Earth, the miniaturized section of
the city had completely solidified in the cargo bay. Lisa jumped up from her
computer station and ran over to survey the spectacle.

"Jenny, did you do this?" said Lisa, as she stood at the edge of the
rectangular pit. Lisa could see the scale of the people who were visible; they
were just under an inch tall. Inhabitants of the miniaturized and teleported
section of the city exited their homes to see why their power went out to find
themselves gazing up at a teenage colossus. Purple rubber mid-calf boots
connected to blue spandex-clad legs that stretched up into a short purple
mini-skirt. A pink and blue long-sleeved spandex T-shirt was covered by a
purple vest that matched the purple boots and skirt. Above that, Lisa's green
eyes gazed down from a beautiful face adorned with long, dark blonde hair.
When Jenny joined her side, the mighty maidens looked like the spawn of titans
to the tiny, terrified people.

"If mom and dad find out about this, you're dead!" said Lisa. "Why did you do
it?"

"I wanted to be a giant!" said Jenny.

"But these are real people!" said Lisa. "Where did they come from?"

"Fresno," replied Jenny. "I hated it when we lived there, so I wanted to get
revenge. Now we can do whatever we want to them!" Jenny took a step down into
a section of the city, but Lisa pulled her back.

"Jenny! You can't just go stepping on people just because they're shrunk!"

"What can they do about it?" said Jenny with a sinister smile on her face.
"It's not wrong if we get away with it!"

"Jenny, I never knew you were so evil! What's gotten into you?"

Lisa took Jenny by the hand and took her back to the computer station where
she had learned of futuristic metallurgy. She asked the A.I. to activate an
intercom link to the bridge.

"Dad?" said Lisa.

"Sweetheart," Dave replied over the intercom, "I'm kind of busy! What do you
need?"

"Daddy, you've got to get down here right away! Jenny did something horrible!"

Both Dave Smith and his wife Samantha arrived via the service elevator less
than a minute later. They could see the shrunken section of the town as soon
as they entered the cargo bay.

"What's that," Dave asked Lisa, "a hologram of a city?"

"No, dad! It really is a city! Jenny shrunk an entire section of Fresno,
because she didn't like living there! There are thousands of little people
less than an inch tall!"

Dave immediately commanded the A.I. to only respond to his commands and to get
clearance from him if one of his daughters wanted to give it an order. Dave
analyzed the miniaturized section of town. He went to a computer station, and
asked the A.I. to show him what remained of the section of Fresno back on
Earth that Jenny had asked the A.I. to miniaturize. In vivid detail, the
monitor showed that the rectangular dirt area of the part of the city that was
missing was teeming with people who were exploring the area.

"Well, we can't send it back," said Dave, "there are too many people occupying
the area where the town used to be." Dave turned around and looked at his
daughters. "Jenny, what the hell has gotten into you?"

"I just wanted to have fun," said Jenny. "Our doubles got to shrink Doctor
Thanatos, and I wanted to have fun with shrunken people, too!"

"I wanted to share this technology with the United States government," said
Dave, "but now I can't! If they ever find out we're responsible for shrinking
those people, we'll all be charged with a crime!"

"You could disintegrate them," said Mrs. Smith, "and it would be like they
were never here."

"I could, but I have a different solution!" Dave turned to address Jenny.
"Young lady, I order you to swallow all of those captives! It's up to you to
get rid of the evidence! You're going to have to learn that there will be
consequences when you do something crazy like this!"

Jenny's eyes widened. "Are you serious? That's what I wanted to do with them,
anyway!"

As Jenny thundered into the miniaturized town, Mrs. Smith wasn't too sure.
"Honey, are you sure there's no other way? Is turning our daughter into a
cannibal the best solution?"

"She might as well get it out of her system," said Dave. "Besides, who's ever
going to know about this? With this starship, we have god-like power!" Dave's
smile was contagious, and Samantha Smith smiled back.

Jenny was in the midst of the shrunken town, hunting for her first victims.
She stomped on a building that was ankle-high with one of her pink mid-calf
boots. She was dressed just like her older sister, but with the colors
transposed differently, and a short-sleeved spandex T-shirt instead of long
sleeves.

As Jenny stood still for a moment, pondering her next move, a miniaturized man
was foolish enough to stand mesmerized by Jenny's beauty. He was transfixed by
the siren call of her beautiful steel-gray eyes and her long dark blonde hair.
He was quickly captured. He had made the mistake of assuming Jenny was a
harmless teenage girl, and it cost him his life. At about eight-tenths of an
inch tall, the miniaturized man was quickly and easily dispatched by Jenny.
She swallowed him whole, and as he passed through Jenny's esophagus into the
depths of her stomach, she felt a sense of raw power that she had never felt
before.

Lisa got into the spirit of the moment, and urged Jenny to chew on one of the
captives before swallowing him. Jenny was only too happy to oblige. She
grabbed a shrunken man, and bit him in half. When he was thoroughly chewed up,
Jenny opened her mouth and showed her family the carnage. The three of them
clapped, then Jenny swallowed the chewed up captive. A small stream of blood
dripped down onto her chin from her mouth, and Jenny wiped the blood away with
her hand as she hunted for more victims.

A miniaturized man stood on the roof of a building far from the destruction of
Jenny's rampage. His name was Chuck, and he had figured out pretty quickly
what had happened to him and the others who were miniaturized and teleported.
He still couldn't figure out where they had materialized, but that didn't
matter. Chuck and his entire neighborhood had been reduced in size, weight,
volume, and mass, and a family of normal-sized people now ruled over them with
an iron fist.

What kind of people were they? From what Chuck saw, they had no value for
human life, and they were invincible. Like many people who were facing death,
Chuck accepted his fate, and knew he would probably die a horrible death. The
sister of the titaness who was rampaging through the city was actually smiling
at her sister's mischief, as if what Jenny was doing was no more serious than
swiping a taste of some food that had been regarded as off limits.

The mother and father were no better. If Jenny managed to step on a
particularly large structure, Dave and Samantha would clap. Chuck had realized
right away that this family had enough technology at their disposal to take
over the world. After witnessing Jenny's passion for destruction, and her
family's enjoyment of it, Chuck realized that it was just a question of when
this family of titans would take over the world, not if.

After about fifteen minutes of ripping houses and buildings apart, swallowing
miniaturized people, and stomping on them if they tried to hide from her,
Jenny couldn't eat any more captives. "Daddy, I'm getting full! Can we shrink
the city down even smaller, until the people are ant-size? They'll be easier
to swallow that way!"

"Of course!" said Dave. "Anything for my little girl!"

As he turned to walk toward the computer console, Jenny asked him another
question. "Daddy! Can I keep one of the little people as a souvenir before you
shrink the city?"

"Sure! But be quick about it!"

Jenny looked around, but there were no captives handy. Chuck was the only one
who was standing in a location that was visible, because the other tiny people
were hiding from her. Before her eyes locked onto him, Chuck knew he had a
chance to escape, but knew he would die if he remained in the city. He didn't
know what would happen to him if he became Jenny's pet, but he knew his
chances of survival were much better than if he remained in the city. Jenny
saw him, and thundered across the town to retrieve him, stepping on houses and
other structures along the way.

Jenny's hand reached down for him and surrounded him. Her firm but gentle
grasp contained him and lifted him up to shoulder level, then Jenny unfurled
her fingers to look at Chuck.

"I'm Jenny Smith! What's your name?"

"I'm Chuck!" he yelled up to her, and the expression on her face indicated
that she had heard him. Dave instructed Jenny to climb out of the city, and
she complied. Once Jenny was standing by her sister's side several feet from
the edge of the rectangular depression, Dave told the A.I. to activate the
neutrino dissimilation process, and the city was reduced in size still
further. Lisa and Jenny were astonished to see the miniaturized section of
town decrease in area so swiftly. An area twenty meters across and eighty
meters long became rapidly smaller, until the town was about ten feet wide and
forty feet long.

"Daddy," said Lisa, "can I help Jenny destroy the city?"

Dave thought about it for a moment, then asked his wife. "Honey, what do you
think? Should I let Lisa help Jenny?" Samantha nodded affirmatively, then Dave
said, "Sure, sweetheart! You can help your sister! Now remember, I want no
survivors!"

"Wait!" said Jenny, and she stuffed Chuck inside her mouth. She needed both
hands for a moment, and her mouth seemed like the best place for him. She took
a scrunchie from her hair, which had been tied into a ponytail. She wrapped
the scrunchie around her right wrist, then stretched it and twisted it, then
wrapped it around her wrist a second time. Jenny moved the scrunchie up her
blonde down-covered forearm to her upper arm. She took Chuck out of her mouth,
and wrapped him up in the scrunchie, so he was bound to her upper arm. It
would've been fairly easy for Chuck to try to escape, so Jenny said, "Try to
escape, and you're dead!" Jenny turned to face her sister, and said, "Okay,
I'm ready!"

Lisa and Jenny walked briskly into the rectangular area, leaping down the
eighteen-inch depression as they stormed the city. At this scale, the tiny
inhabitants were smaller than ants. A discerning eye would've had a difficult
time deciding who attacked first, and who did the most damage. Lisa stomped on
an entire city block until all the structures in that block were reduced to
powder and rubble. Jenny stomped across the entire town to the other side,
where some captives were hiding, and stomped on an entire neighborhood until
she had a group of people cornered and contained within one city block.

"Okay, who wants to see the inside of my belly?" said Jenny to the captives at
her feet. "It's either that, or get stomped into a bloody pulp! The choice is
yours!"

Some of the tiny people actually volunteered to be swallowed, and lined up at
Jenny's feet. Others tried in vain to escape, but after quickly scooping up
the volunteers, Jenny stomped the escapees into the ground. Jenny walked back
toward her sister, oblivious to the houses and businesses that were crushed
beneath her pink mid-calf boots. Chuck could see the captives from his vantage
point, where he was tied to the front of Jenny's right biceps by the
scrunchie. To Chuck, they looked like they were about the size of
Lilliputians, because he was about eight-tenths of an inch tall, and they were
slightly smaller than ants.

"Lisa, do you want to watch me swallow some captives?"

"Go for it!"

Jenny tilted her head back as she lifted her hand into the air, then she
dropped the half a dozen captives onto her waiting tongue. Jenny instinctively
clamped her mouth shut when the last of the captives hit her tongue, but then
she opened her mouth after turning her head toward Lisa, to show off her
captives. Lisa told her to swallow them, so Jenny shut her mouth, tilted her
head back dramatically, and sent them down her gullet.

Dave was having fun watching his daughters stomp away, but then a thought
occurred to him. He went to one of the computer consoles on the wall of the
cargo bay, and asked the A.I. if it could replicate hand held life sign
scanners that could detect the miniaturized people, give an accurate count of
how many were left alive, and show a digital map of where the survivors were
located. The A.I. indicated that this was indeed possible, so Dave authorized
it to make two of them. The replication console door slid open, revealing two
identical devices that were only slightly thicker than credit cards, that had
sophisticated computer monitors built into one side of each of them.

"Girls, I've got something for you!" Dave marched to the edge of the
rectangular pit, and the girls walked to the edge, and each of them took a
scanner. "These are scanners! They'll tell you how many captives are left
alive, and a little map on the computer screen will show you where they're
hiding!"

"Cool!" said Jenny. "There's a lot more of them left alive than I thought!"
Jenny walked to a specific part of the shrunken city, and lifted her left boot
into the air. "If I stomp right here, I should be able to take out about
thirty of them!" Jenny's boot slammed into a miniaturized building that had
been ankle high, crushing it out of existence.

"That shows how much your daddy cares about you!" said Dave. "I wouldn't want
to disintegrate this city after you've reduced it to rubble, if there's still
people alive you could swallow or step on!"

Jenny turned toward her father. "I don't want you to disintegrate this city!"

"Honey, why are you getting a conscience all of the sudden?" said Dave. "We
have to do something with the remains of whatever is left over!"

"I'm not getting a conscience!" said Jenny. "It's just that I want this whole
city shrunk down to microscopic size, and I want to swallow it all in one
gulp! I want my belly to be their grave!"

"Well, sweetheart, if you feel that way, why don't I just shrink the city to
microscopic size right now? Lisa, you don't mind if your sister swallows the
shrunken city, do you?"

"I don't mind!" said Lisa. "It would be kind of cool to watch that! It'll give
Jenny a sense of closure, to know their dead, miniaturized bodies are passing
through her digestive system!"

Some of the remaining people who had survived the wrath of Lisa and Jenny
gazed up at the Smith family in disbelief. Lisa and Jenny were still standing
in the city, while Dave and Samantha were at an elevation eighteen inches
higher, standing near the edge of the rectangular pit. There were two factions
of miniaturized survivors: those who felt the worse was over, and those who
knew better. The naïve few who felt the Smith family could be reasoned with
were incapable of accepting reality; the more mature survivors outnumbered the
optimists, and rightfully felt that the Smith family was like a pantheon of
vengeful gods, incapable of being appeased.

In less than a minute, Dave had told the A.I. what he wanted, and the A.I. was
waiting for Dave to give the order. Dave had explained that he wanted a
microscope slide replicated, and that he wanted the shrunken city
simultaneously miniaturized and teleported onto the microscope slide. The four
members of the Smith family lined up above the rectangular depression, and
Chuck watched from his perch high up on Jenny's upper arm, as Dave said,
"Execute!"

The entire city vanished in a gleam of bright light. One second it was there,
ten feet wide by forty feet long, then a nanosecond later, the rectangular
depression where Jenny and Lisa had enjoyed themselves so much was empty. Only
the metal plating that had been there originally before the shrunken city had
been teleported remained.

A microscope slide on a table gleamed with light for a split second, then the
glass was barren no longer. The circuitry of streets and city blocks could be
discerned on the surface of the glass. The Smith family sat down in four
chairs that were pulled up to the table.

"I hope you're not too hungry," Dave joked, "Because this is a light snack!"
The family laughed at this as Jenny reached for the microscope slide, lifted
it above her open mouth, turned it over, and dragged it forcefully across her
tongue. Dave went to the replication console and had the A.I. replicate a
computerized microscope, and set the microscope slide under the microscope
scanner. The computer voice indicated there were no life signs on the
saliva-strewn rectangular piece of glass. The Smith family cheered for Jenny.

"Daddy, can we do this again?" said Jenny.

"I'll tell you what," said Dave, "I've decided that we're just going to
conquer the world, and rule as gods. We're a royal family now. Our
counterparts are heroes in their reality, but on our world, we're going to use
this technology for our personal benefit. Our power will be absolute! Since
you girls had so much fun with that city, I'll shrink another city every day
for a year, and nobody can stop us. Jenny, since you picked the city today,
your sister gets to pick tomorrow. Each of you will take turns picking a city
to rampage!"

As the girls threw their arms up in the air and cheered victoriously, Chuck
contemplated the destiny of the human race. All of the people of Earth in this
reality were now thralls of the Smith family, and nobody was safe! Which city
would be next?

The End