Chapter 14 – Crawl Spaces and Ventilation Shafts
"We've got it!" Dr. Sedgewick said with excitement as he burst into Jasmine's lab. He was holding Lucy's shrinker with a broad smile. "Quickly, scan it and make copies of it with our 3D printer. We need to find a way to hack into it so we can break the code for the natural polyphylon body stockings."
"Are you serious?" Jasmine said with excitement as she stood to take the shrinker from Sedgewick.
"Yes I am. Did I not promise you that we'd solve this puzzle eventually? According to our new prisoners, this shrink ray can be programmed to control the original body stockings! Including the one your sister is trapped in. We've found the key! We can finally free her!"
Jasmine studied the mysterious device awe-struck finding it hard to believe that the answers she'd been looking for for all these years were now in her hands. "Do you really think the 3D printer will be able to duplicate it? I know it's state of the art and all, but we usually use it to duplicate miniature versions of clothing, accessories and basic tools. This looks downright … alien."
"I know, doesn't it? The language is like nothing I've ever seen. I wouldn't be surprised if it actually IS alien. Haven't I always said that polyphylon must have come from another world?" Jasmine ignored him as she put the device in the scanner. He continued, "It's worth trying to duplicate in the 3D printer though, even if the duplicate doesn't work. We need to be able to experiment with it and take it apart, and I don't want to risk breaking it. It's the only one we have. They're interrogating the prisoners right now to find out if there are any more out there."
A smile came to Jasmine's face as an idea suddenly came into her head. "Don't you think that one of us should be present then?" Jasmine asked, "The mistress may know a lot about manufacturing hosiery, but she's no scientist. Why don't you go down there and assist with the interrogation."
"Good idea!" Sedgewick said excited to have a reason to be in on the tickle torture. "Angelica wouldn't let me near them, but I'm sure the Mistress will understand why it's essential that a scientific mind be present. Make sure to thoroughly scan and duplicate it as best you can while I'm away."
Jasmine breathed a sigh of relief after Sedgewick rushed out of the room. As soon as the door closed she said, "Okay, you can come out now."
Niesa and her minitiarized companions peaked out from under Jasmine's desk. "What was that all about?" Niesa asked.
"It looks like Dr. Sedgewick has just unknowingly delivered us our victory over the Doll Collector," she said smiling as she studied the scan results on her screen.
"Oh? That's good news! But what does that mean?" Tamara asked.
"It means that there's a change in plans," Penelope said sharing her sister's smile. "There's no need for us to sneak into Sedgewick's lab and steal his shrink ray. Once my sister figures out how to use that thing, she can return us to normal size. All of us. Not just you girls wearing the new sophisticate brand pantyhose, but even those of us who are trapped in the original body stockings."
"Yes! Finally! Me first!" Amanda shouted excited.
"Not so fast," Penelope said, "first my sister has to study that thing. It will take an hour at least."
"Half hour," Jasmine said confidently as she retrieved the device from the scanner, "I already have a pretty good idea on how to work it. As alien as it looks, it's actually not too different from the ones Sedgewick and I built. The symbols are different though, so coding will take some time, but I think I can find the correct patterns. I'm going to need to scan each of you with it for proper calibration."
Jasmine picked up Amanda, "Hey! My shoe!" she shouted as she was lifted out of one of her shoes.
"Easy there," Jasmine said as she pointed the shrinker at Amanda, who was nearly falling out of her dress as she was held awkwardly between Jasmine's fingers. "All done, that wasn't too hard, was it?" Jasmine said as she gently placed her on the floor.
"You could have warned me," Amanda said slipping back into her shoe.
As Jasmine scanned each of the shrunken girls in turn Niesa turned to Penelope. "Don't you think we should rescue the others in the basement before we return to our normal sizes? How are we going to sneak down there?"
"I was thinking the same thing," Penelope said, "We should go down there and free as many as we can while Jasmine works on cracking the code."
"But how are we going to open the packages they are trapped in? They're sealed up tight. Even with all of us, it will take a long time to open up just one package at our size."
"OUR SIZE," Niesa's voice could be heard loudly through the device. Jasmine smiled again. "Well, it looks like I can communicate with you through this thing, Penelope. Brilliant feature! By the time you get down there, I should be able to return you to your normal size remotely. Then it should be easy to open all the packages.
Lucy could barely see when she saw the man enter the room. Her eyes were blurry with tears of laughter. She was now half her former size. The Doll Collector had been tickling only her right foot and she had barely been able to stand it. She was ready to confess everything. But Faye had broken before her.
"I'll tell you everything! Just please stop!" Faye begged. She too was just under 3 feet tall now and swimming in her clothes. The tickling had shrunken her even more than it had Lucy. Angelica stopped tickling, but held her fingers over Faye's sole. Faye gasped for air.
"Well?" Angelica said impatiently moving her fingers closer.
"No! Just! Where do you want me to start?"
"The polyphylon body hose! What is it? Where did it come from?" The Doll Collector demanded.
"It's ..." Faye looked at Lucy puzzled, Lucy looked back sympathetically, grateful that the tickling had stopped. "It's not from this world," Faye finally said. A hushed silence filled the room. Sedgewick, who had just walked into the room, was the first to break it.
"I knew it!" he shouted happily. "I knew it was alien!"
"Shut up Sedgewick!" Angelica scolded before turning to Faye cruelly. "You still haven't answered the Mistress's question."
"It's from a planet called Taaj," Faye answered fearfully as Angelica's fingers moved closer. "A woman named Yvonne Palsrek was the first to come upon it. She was captured by aliens, umm, the Taajians, I mean, and forced to wear the body stocking. She was completely at their mercy. They could shrink her at will, and she couldn't remove it. She didn't have the means. They gave her a mission, you see."
Angelica stared at her in disbelief, "This is bullshit," Angelica finally said to the Doll Collector, "Captured by aliens? She's making it up, obviously."
But the Doll Collector ignored Angelica, "What was her mission?" she asked seriously.
Lucy looked down at her still booted left foot. She wiggled her toes. The paralysis was fading!
Faye continued "To get as many women as she could. At least fifty, to wear the body stocking and shrink them. She was to bring them back to the ship so that the Taajians could take them as wives. You see, the planet Taaj was destroyed long ago in an intergalactic war. All that's left are refuges, mostly military males and a few infertile females. They had found a new home planet, but had no way of repopulating it."
"You don't actually believe this, do you?" Angelica asked staring at the Doll Collector.
"I do," Sedgewick said excited. "It makes perfect sense!"
"Shut up Sedgewick!" Both the Doll Collector and Angelica said.
"It's true," Lucy finally said looking up. "It's all true. Unbelievable, but true. She didn't quite succeed though. She got a few of us. Not enough of us to save their species. But we've been living with them for the passed seven years. We've already had children with them. But they sent us back here, after we found out about your little … experiments with the polyphylon that was left behind."
"So you're working with them … these Taajians … I thought you were their prisoners." The Doll Collector said with suspicion.
"At first we were," Faye said, "But you don't understand what we've been through these passed seven years. They are a desperate people, but they are good. They mean us no harm. In fact, they treat us like queens. And they need our help. They … that is, we ... need the Earth's help."
Lucy continued, her eyes fixed angrily on The Doll Collector, "And we won't sit idly by as twisted perverts like you enslave and torture young women and sell them as toys!" With great effort, Lucy kicked the Doll Collector away from her with her still booted left foot. Faye, taking her cue, did the same against Angelica. The two of them pushed passed Sedgewick and bolted for the door behind him.
"Sedgewick! Get them!" The Doll Collector ordered. But Sedgewick lost his balance and fell on his face. "You clumsy fool!"
Lucy and Faye stumbled down the corridor, each single shod but still wearing their oversized clothes. "What do we do now, Lucy?" Faye asked fearfully as she stumbled after her.
"Just run!" Lucy said fearfully. She really had no clue what to do next. All she knew was that they had to escape somehow and get help. Guards were heard running towards them up ahead. "Quick! In here!" Lucy said pulling Faye into a nearby door.
They found themselves in one of the mansion's many closets. It was pitch black, and neither Lucy nor Faye could see a thing. They could hear the guards come upon the hall. "Search the closet!" barked Angelica from the other side. Faye began to panic as she held the door shut. But Lucy's eyes began to adjust and she noticed that the closet was much bigger than she first thought. There was a large metal filing cabinet near the door.
"Help me push this!" Lucy ordered Faye. Using all their strength, the two of them managed to knock over the filing cabinet. It fell at an angle just as the guards tried to open the door. Lucy found the light switch and turned on the lights. Fortunately the top of the cabinet had become lodged between the closet shelf and the large wooden studs holding them up. They would have to open door with enough force to tear the stud free from the wall in order to get inside. But Lucy knew it wouldn't take them long break in. To make matters worse, the closet had no other exit. They were trapped.
"Look here!" Faye said climbing a series of boxes towards the ceiling. The ceiling tiles looked easy to remove. "Give me a boost!" she said. Lucy climbed underneath her and pushed her up. Their smaller size proved advantageous as she nimbly opened the ceiling tile and climbed through a small crawl place in between floors. She pulled Lucy up before carefully covering the tile behind them.
Though they were quite small and light, they knew that they had to be very careful to stick to the metal scaffolding, lest they put too much wait on the tiles and fall through. Lucy and Faye found their loose fitting clothing to be quite bulky as they crawled through the narrow space. Faye found it impossible to keep her remaining sneaker on as she pulled herself forward through the tight space, and it wasn't long before Lucy lost her boot as well. Soon, they found their pants and shirts tearing off as they got snagged on nails and the rough surfaces. "Where should we exit? We're going to be naked before we get out of here!"
Lucy opened a tile and peered below. She saw another corridor with guards patrolling up ahead. She quickly closed the tile to avoid being seen. "Keep going. We need to find an unguarded place to exit, and stay quiet!" she whispered. It wasn't long before both girls were stripped of their clothes completely, and had to crawl in just their sheer body stockings. On the bright side they found it much easier to crawl through the narrow passage without their bulky ill-fitting clothes, despite the loss of their dignity.
As Penelope led Niesa and their group down through the hidden spaces inside the walls of the mansion, they soon found themselves in a wider crawl space. Niesa shrieked as a great force knocked her right out of her shoes and onto her back. She looked up in fear as she shined her small flashlight on a large hand that was descending upon her. "Help!" she screamed as the hand came down on top of her. But as soon as she felt the hand press on her, it was quickly moved, and the giant woman made a startled shriek.
"Eeek! who's that?" She cried moving her hand in front of the flashlight to get a better look.
Niesa got to her feet and noticed that her shoes were gone, but she kept the flashlight shined on the giant woman in front of her. She was definitely much larger than Niesa, but still looked considerably smaller than a normal sized woman. She noticed she was naked except for a sheer purple body stocking. Obviously she was partially shrunken. "Who are you?" she asked fearfully.
Penelope's flashlight shined on Niesa and the woman finally got a good look at her. Her expression changed to one of relief. "I'm Lucy Davis, we've come to rescue you."
"Lucy Davis?" Niesa asked recalling something Beth told her, "Why does that name sound familiar."
"How do you plan on rescuing us?" Penelope asked suspiciously, "It doesn't look like your plan is going well."
"It certainly isn't," the woman behind Lucy said, "we were captured as well and are really just trying to escape right now."
"Well, I haven't abandoned our mission yet, Faye," Lucy said. "We just need to find a secret way out of here."
"You're not going to find one in these crawl spaces," Penelope said, "but if you truly want to help us, you should come to the basement. That's where we're headed. We're going to need your help to open all the packages."
"Packages?" Lucy asked surprised.
"Just follow us, I think you just might be able to fit through the ventilation duct. We'll have to go through storage though."
Thump!
Beth awoke and noticed she was lying on the wall of the house, the floor and ceiling were now serving as walls and the furniture had fallen next to her. The house had also become very dark, as it appeared the light outside had been turned off. But there was a dim light coming from a nearby room that enabled her to see her surroundings. "What happened?" she asked groggily.
"Someone knocked the house over," Sarah said fearfully, having also fallen over.
Voices could be heard from outside the doll's house. "Easy Faye, watch where you're going!"
"I can't see anything down here!" Faye complained, "Those tiny flashlights don't exactly cover a lot of ground."
"It's Lucy and Faye!" Lisa said excited, "We should tell them where we are!"
"Shhh!" Beth whispered, "I don't trust those women. Why would they be walking freely around here? Weren't they captured?"
"Maybe they escaped," Lisa said fearfully.
"Beth is right," Sarah said, "they captured and tortured us once before, I never really warmed up to them either. And I still don't buy that whole alien story they fed us."
The girls listened as Lucy and Faye made there way to the other end of the storage closet. "Still, we should follow them," Beth said, "Where's Gwen anyway?"
"I'm here," Gwen said crawling out of one of the sideways doors that led to the upstairs bedroom, she was carrying a doll sized flashlight that had been the source of the dim light. As Beth's eyes came into focus she soon learned that Gwen was dressed as Alice from Alice and Wonderland. The three girls laughed as she tried to get to her feet. "Well it's better than being naked!" Gwen laughed as she pointed her flashlight at the three girls clad only in their hosiery.
Beth sighed, "let's get dressed first. Did you find us clothes?"
"I put them on the couch next to you, should be somewhere on the floor … er wall now. Flashlights should be there too," Gwen said.
Gwen picked up the outfit nearest to her, noticing that it was the outfit and boots of a super villain she had recognized from cartoons she grew up watching. "Poison Ivy?" Beth sighed, eyeing Gwen with one eyebrow raised.
"It goes well with your green tights," Gwen answered defensively.
"Cat woman?" Sarah asked frowning as she picked up her leather costume and high heeled boots.
"Oh cool, I get to be Batgirl!" Lisa exclaimed as she started donning her costume.
Penelope's voice could be heard through the shrinker, "We've made it through the storage room and we're going to go through the ventilation duct that leads to the basement. We have some help now so we might not need you to grow us right away. Still let me know if you crack the ---"
Jasmine quickly turned down the volume on Lucy's shrinker as soon as she heard the door open. It was Sedgewick. "The prisoners escaped," he said rubbing the bruise on his forehead, "they're still in the mansion though. I don't see how they'll be able to get far though, even if they do manage to get outside. Has the scan finished?"
"Yes," Jasmine answered, "it's printing the copy now."
"Good, I'm going to need to use the shrinker. We think they're trying to sneak through the crawl spaces in the ceiling so Angelica wants me to try and grow them back to their original size with their shrinker."
"You won't be able to," Jasmine said doing her best to stall him, "I still haven't cracked the code for their polyphylon. If you give me some more time with it I should have it ready for you."
"I'd rather you experiment with the copy," Sedgewick said taking the shrinker from her, "I'm sure I can crack the code. You're not the only genius here."
"But I'm so close, just let me finish my work with it," Jasmine said trying her best not to sound desperate. She stood up and tried to grab the shrinker back. Sedgewick pulled it away from her and pushed her back into her chair.
"What are you up to?" he said smiling suspiciously, "You really don't want me to take this shrinker. You're hiding something from me, I've seen you like this before."
"No, I'm not, I'm just …" but her voice trailed off as Sedgewick lifted up her foot. She looked on helplessly as Sedgewick slipped off her shoe. "No! Please don't!" she begged.
"Just a little tickle interrogation to find out what you're hiding from me," Sedgewick laughed maniacally as he dragged his finger across her sole.
"Eeeeeheeeheee!" she squeaked. "Stop!"
"Why should I? I didn't get the chance to take part in the interrogation of the prisoners, but at least I get to interrogate my favorite subject."
"Get away from me, you creep!" Jasmine said kicking him in the face with her still shod foot. Sedgewick fell backwards, but not before pulling her remaining shoe off. Jasmine could tell she had kicked him in the same place he had fallen and injured earlier. He looked up at her enraged.
"How dare you!" he said rubbing the now bleeding bruise. "I'm confiscating your shoes for that kick," he said as he got to his feet. "You'll have to work in your stocking feet from now on. I know how much you hate that. Your tootsies are too sensitive."
"Fine, take my shoes, you foot pervert," she said angrily. She had had enough of Sedgewick and knew that pretending to be nice to him was no longer going to work towards her advantage.
"I think it's time you were shrunken down to size and punished again. A good long one this time," Sedgewick threatened.
"Go and get your shrink ray then and do it!" she yelled angrily, "You're too dumb to figure out how to use that one on me!"
"I will!" he said taken aback. He was not used to being spoken to by her like that. He looked at the shrinker perplexed for a moment, but then looked at Jasmine with an evil smile. "I know what you're doing. You think by saying I can't shrink you with this alien device, that my bruised ego will motivate to try that very thing. I'll waste time trying to figure out how to shrink you with it and you'll get out of your punishment. Well it won't work, clever girl. I'll be right back with MY shrink ray, and you will endure a good long punishment. Taking her shoes and the shrinker, Sedgewick backed out of her lab, careful not to turn his back on her.
After the door shut, Jasmine looked down at her delicate stocking feet and sighed in frustration. She buried her face in her hands knowing she was in for it when he returned, and there really was nothing she could do about it. She doubted very much that she would be granted the same freedoms she had been afforded so far. Just then the 3D printer beeped and the hum from the printing process stopped. The duplicate was finished. Jasmine stood up suddenly and picked it up. "I hope this is a perfect duplicate," she said as she attempted to work the device. She had a very limited time to act.
"What are they doing?" Sarah asked Beth as she peaked out from behind a box. They had finally gotten dressed and had followed Lucy and Faye to the other end of the storage room, a large vent in the wall was being pried open with a stick they had found.
"Shhh!" Beth answered as she listened to the conversation.
"How did you get this open at your size?" Faye asked as she tried in vain to open the vent.
"I never had to," the tiny voice of Penelope could be heard, "I can fit through the cracks."
"Yeah, but we can't," Lucy sighed, "damn, I guess we should have endured more tickling, Faye, we would have been smaller."
"No way, no more of that! I'm done with tickle torture. Never again!" Lucy gave Faye a quick tickle across her exposed belly.
"Ehehahahehaha!" Faye laughed knocking Lucy's hand away angrily. "I'll stick this piece of wood up your ass if you try that again! And don't think your body stocking will protect you, it's stretchy enough to allow this thing to go up pretty far!"
"Okay, okay," Lucy laughed defensively, "I couldn't resist. It's hard not to tickle someone who's wearing only a sheer polyphylon body suit."
"Well, you're just as naked as me!" Faye said returning to her task, "You don't see me trying to tickle you."
Beth had heard enough. Quietly she made her way back to Gwen, Lisa and Sarah. "They're trying to open that vent over there. It looks as though they were shrunken somewhat by tickle torture and lost their clothes. I have a feeling they're trying to escape. The strange thing is that there are other shrunken girls with them, but our size. I couldn't make out who they were though, they were too small to see from here. Maybe you might know them, Gwen.
"Maybe," Gwen said nervously as she peaked out from behind the box to get a better look. "They've got the vent open!" she said, "It looks like they're crawling through, the fully shrunken ones too."
"Do you recognize any of them?" Beth asked.
"I can't see them well enough," Gwen answered, "They're gone now, probably to the other side of the vent."
"Where does it lead?"
"I … I don't know. I've never been there. But … I've heard things about where it goes," Gwen said gravely.
"What things?"
"Screams. Horrific screams ... like girls getting tortured, and not in a tickling way," Gwen gulped nervously and the other girls shuddered at the word. "Back when I was hiding out down here I remember some of the girls talking about a basement where many of the shrunken girls would be taken. None of us knew what they would do to them. They were never seen again. We would sometimes hear screams through that vent over there. Tiny screams, very faint, and occasional the Doll Collector's wicked laugh. It creeped us out."
Beth looked at the open vent horrified for a moment before speaking, "Well … I'm going in there. This is what I came here for after all."
"You're crazy!" Gwen said, "Didn't you hear what I said? No one's returned from there. I thought we were going to find Dr. Jasmine? I told you she could help us!"
"If she truly can help us, then why hasn't she helped them?"
"She's been trying. She's already figured out how to reverse the effects of our pantyhose, maybe not your body stocking. But you have the control device for it. She might be able to figure out how to use it to remove it."
"My brother has the shrinker, and he's on another continent. Besides, what good is removing our polyphylon if we can't rescue the others? We'll be normal sized so it will be a lot harder to sneak around. Plus we'll be vulnerable to all sorts of dangers, not the least of which is bullets."
"Yes, but what good do you think it'll be going in there? Do you truly think you'll find anyone alive that you can rescue."
"Maybe. Maybe not. But I have to try. You don't have to come. I don't want to put anyone else at risk anyway. I dragged you guys far enough as it is. But I came here to save Niesa and her friends, and that's what I'm going to do. If there's a chance that she's been taken to this dungeon, I have to look while I still can. I don't see how it will be any easier to do that after we speak to this Doctor of yours, so I might as well check it out now."
And with that, Beth turned her back on her three companions and walked bravely towards the dark open vent.
Lisa looked at Sarah pleadingly. "We can't let her go alone! We have to help her!" she said finally as she ran after Beth. "Beth, wait!"
"Lisa, go back. I dragged you far enough as it is," Beth said without looking back.
"You didn't drag me. I came here for the same reason you did, to rescue my friends. If that's where they wound up, then that's where we have to go!"
"Yeah, Beth," Sarah said coming up from behind, "I never thought I'd admit it, but Lisa's a lot braver than I am. I really don't want to go in there, but she's right. We came to save our friends just like you did. We're going too."
"I really hate the situation you put me in," Gwen said catching up to the rest of them, "But I guess this is my mission now too. I'd feel awful if I just stayed behind in that dollhouse."
As the four tiny rescuers made their way towards the dark opening of the vent, not a word was said. Fear gripped all of them as they drew closer. They stopped for a moment at the entrance, peering into the blackness that seemed to extend indefinitely. A faint shuffling could be heard from within, most likely Faye and Lucy. Beth drew a deep breath and climbed inside, followed closely by her three companions. As the light behind them dimmed, all that could be seen in front of them was blackness. But they pressed on until the light behind them disappeared entirely, and they walked in total darkness. They still followed the noise of the shuffling they heard ahead of them. But suddenly that sound ceased.
The metal around them quaked as a dull thump was heard up ahead. Then there was total silence. This, combined with the total blackness made it almost too much for Beth to bear. She had no sound to follow, and no light to guide her. She felt disoriented and dizzy. But she only hesitated for a moment, and then continued forward. The footsteps of her companions could be heard behind her. They hadn't abandoned her, and they still had the courage to follow as long as she had the courage to lead. She had just grown accustomed to walking blindly forward when she suddenly took a bad step on an unstable part of the metal floor. It opened up beneath her and she found herself helplessly free falling nearly 15 feet. She hit the ground hard, but felt no pain. Her body stocking had saved her life yet again.
Looking up she examined her surroundings. She was definitely in the basement. And what a vast basement it was. Though it was dimly lit she could see shelf upon shelf of toy packages. At first she couldn't tell what they contained. But after letting her eyes come into focus it became clear. There were people in those packages. Miniature girls shrunken to doll size and dressed in various outfits. As he approached she could see they were staring blankly ahead, barely moving, but still breathing.
"Oh my god," was all Beth could say in response to the horrific site before her.
"We've got it!" Dr. Sedgewick said with excitement as he burst into Jasmine's lab. He was holding Lucy's shrinker with a broad smile. "Quickly, scan it and make copies of it with our 3D printer. We need to find a way to hack into it so we can break the code for the natural polyphylon body stockings."
"Are you serious?" Jasmine said with excitement as she stood to take the shrinker from Sedgewick.
"Yes I am. Did I not promise you that we'd solve this puzzle eventually? According to our new prisoners, this shrink ray can be programmed to control the original body stockings! Including the one your sister is trapped in. We've found the key! We can finally free her!"
Jasmine studied the mysterious device awe-struck finding it hard to believe that the answers she'd been looking for for all these years were now in her hands. "Do you really think the 3D printer will be able to duplicate it? I know it's state of the art and all, but we usually use it to duplicate miniature versions of clothing, accessories and basic tools. This looks downright … alien."
"I know, doesn't it? The language is like nothing I've ever seen. I wouldn't be surprised if it actually IS alien. Haven't I always said that polyphylon must have come from another world?" Jasmine ignored him as she put the device in the scanner. He continued, "It's worth trying to duplicate in the 3D printer though, even if the duplicate doesn't work. We need to be able to experiment with it and take it apart, and I don't want to risk breaking it. It's the only one we have. They're interrogating the prisoners right now to find out if there are any more out there."
A smile came to Jasmine's face as an idea suddenly came into her head. "Don't you think that one of us should be present then?" Jasmine asked, "The mistress may know a lot about manufacturing hosiery, but she's no scientist. Why don't you go down there and assist with the interrogation."
"Good idea!" Sedgewick said excited to have a reason to be in on the tickle torture. "Angelica wouldn't let me near them, but I'm sure the Mistress will understand why it's essential that a scientific mind be present. Make sure to thoroughly scan and duplicate it as best you can while I'm away."
Jasmine breathed a sigh of relief after Sedgewick rushed out of the room. As soon as the door closed she said, "Okay, you can come out now."
Niesa and her minitiarized companions peaked out from under Jasmine's desk. "What was that all about?" Niesa asked.
"It looks like Dr. Sedgewick has just unknowingly delivered us our victory over the Doll Collector," she said smiling as she studied the scan results on her screen.
"Oh? That's good news! But what does that mean?" Tamara asked.
"It means that there's a change in plans," Penelope said sharing her sister's smile. "There's no need for us to sneak into Sedgewick's lab and steal his shrink ray. Once my sister figures out how to use that thing, she can return us to normal size. All of us. Not just you girls wearing the new sophisticate brand pantyhose, but even those of us who are trapped in the original body stockings."
"Yes! Finally! Me first!" Amanda shouted excited.
"Not so fast," Penelope said, "first my sister has to study that thing. It will take an hour at least."
"Half hour," Jasmine said confidently as she retrieved the device from the scanner, "I already have a pretty good idea on how to work it. As alien as it looks, it's actually not too different from the ones Sedgewick and I built. The symbols are different though, so coding will take some time, but I think I can find the correct patterns. I'm going to need to scan each of you with it for proper calibration."
Jasmine picked up Amanda, "Hey! My shoe!" she shouted as she was lifted out of one of her shoes.
"Easy there," Jasmine said as she pointed the shrinker at Amanda, who was nearly falling out of her dress as she was held awkwardly between Jasmine's fingers. "All done, that wasn't too hard, was it?" Jasmine said as she gently placed her on the floor.
"You could have warned me," Amanda said slipping back into her shoe.
As Jasmine scanned each of the shrunken girls in turn Niesa turned to Penelope. "Don't you think we should rescue the others in the basement before we return to our normal sizes? How are we going to sneak down there?"
"I was thinking the same thing," Penelope said, "We should go down there and free as many as we can while Jasmine works on cracking the code."
"But how are we going to open the packages they are trapped in? They're sealed up tight. Even with all of us, it will take a long time to open up just one package at our size."
"OUR SIZE," Niesa's voice could be heard loudly through the device. Jasmine smiled again. "Well, it looks like I can communicate with you through this thing, Penelope. Brilliant feature! By the time you get down there, I should be able to return you to your normal size remotely. Then it should be easy to open all the packages.
Lucy could barely see when she saw the man enter the room. Her eyes were blurry with tears of laughter. She was now half her former size. The Doll Collector had been tickling only her right foot and she had barely been able to stand it. She was ready to confess everything. But Faye had broken before her.
"I'll tell you everything! Just please stop!" Faye begged. She too was just under 3 feet tall now and swimming in her clothes. The tickling had shrunken her even more than it had Lucy. Angelica stopped tickling, but held her fingers over Faye's sole. Faye gasped for air.
"Well?" Angelica said impatiently moving her fingers closer.
"No! Just! Where do you want me to start?"
"The polyphylon body hose! What is it? Where did it come from?" The Doll Collector demanded.
"It's ..." Faye looked at Lucy puzzled, Lucy looked back sympathetically, grateful that the tickling had stopped. "It's not from this world," Faye finally said. A hushed silence filled the room. Sedgewick, who had just walked into the room, was the first to break it.
"I knew it!" he shouted happily. "I knew it was alien!"
"Shut up Sedgewick!" Angelica scolded before turning to Faye cruelly. "You still haven't answered the Mistress's question."
"It's from a planet called Taaj," Faye answered fearfully as Angelica's fingers moved closer. "A woman named Yvonne Palsrek was the first to come upon it. She was captured by aliens, umm, the Taajians, I mean, and forced to wear the body stocking. She was completely at their mercy. They could shrink her at will, and she couldn't remove it. She didn't have the means. They gave her a mission, you see."
Angelica stared at her in disbelief, "This is bullshit," Angelica finally said to the Doll Collector, "Captured by aliens? She's making it up, obviously."
But the Doll Collector ignored Angelica, "What was her mission?" she asked seriously.
Lucy looked down at her still booted left foot. She wiggled her toes. The paralysis was fading!
Faye continued "To get as many women as she could. At least fifty, to wear the body stocking and shrink them. She was to bring them back to the ship so that the Taajians could take them as wives. You see, the planet Taaj was destroyed long ago in an intergalactic war. All that's left are refuges, mostly military males and a few infertile females. They had found a new home planet, but had no way of repopulating it."
"You don't actually believe this, do you?" Angelica asked staring at the Doll Collector.
"I do," Sedgewick said excited. "It makes perfect sense!"
"Shut up Sedgewick!" Both the Doll Collector and Angelica said.
"It's true," Lucy finally said looking up. "It's all true. Unbelievable, but true. She didn't quite succeed though. She got a few of us. Not enough of us to save their species. But we've been living with them for the passed seven years. We've already had children with them. But they sent us back here, after we found out about your little … experiments with the polyphylon that was left behind."
"So you're working with them … these Taajians … I thought you were their prisoners." The Doll Collector said with suspicion.
"At first we were," Faye said, "But you don't understand what we've been through these passed seven years. They are a desperate people, but they are good. They mean us no harm. In fact, they treat us like queens. And they need our help. They … that is, we ... need the Earth's help."
Lucy continued, her eyes fixed angrily on The Doll Collector, "And we won't sit idly by as twisted perverts like you enslave and torture young women and sell them as toys!" With great effort, Lucy kicked the Doll Collector away from her with her still booted left foot. Faye, taking her cue, did the same against Angelica. The two of them pushed passed Sedgewick and bolted for the door behind him.
"Sedgewick! Get them!" The Doll Collector ordered. But Sedgewick lost his balance and fell on his face. "You clumsy fool!"
Lucy and Faye stumbled down the corridor, each single shod but still wearing their oversized clothes. "What do we do now, Lucy?" Faye asked fearfully as she stumbled after her.
"Just run!" Lucy said fearfully. She really had no clue what to do next. All she knew was that they had to escape somehow and get help. Guards were heard running towards them up ahead. "Quick! In here!" Lucy said pulling Faye into a nearby door.
They found themselves in one of the mansion's many closets. It was pitch black, and neither Lucy nor Faye could see a thing. They could hear the guards come upon the hall. "Search the closet!" barked Angelica from the other side. Faye began to panic as she held the door shut. But Lucy's eyes began to adjust and she noticed that the closet was much bigger than she first thought. There was a large metal filing cabinet near the door.
"Help me push this!" Lucy ordered Faye. Using all their strength, the two of them managed to knock over the filing cabinet. It fell at an angle just as the guards tried to open the door. Lucy found the light switch and turned on the lights. Fortunately the top of the cabinet had become lodged between the closet shelf and the large wooden studs holding them up. They would have to open door with enough force to tear the stud free from the wall in order to get inside. But Lucy knew it wouldn't take them long break in. To make matters worse, the closet had no other exit. They were trapped.
"Look here!" Faye said climbing a series of boxes towards the ceiling. The ceiling tiles looked easy to remove. "Give me a boost!" she said. Lucy climbed underneath her and pushed her up. Their smaller size proved advantageous as she nimbly opened the ceiling tile and climbed through a small crawl place in between floors. She pulled Lucy up before carefully covering the tile behind them.
Though they were quite small and light, they knew that they had to be very careful to stick to the metal scaffolding, lest they put too much wait on the tiles and fall through. Lucy and Faye found their loose fitting clothing to be quite bulky as they crawled through the narrow space. Faye found it impossible to keep her remaining sneaker on as she pulled herself forward through the tight space, and it wasn't long before Lucy lost her boot as well. Soon, they found their pants and shirts tearing off as they got snagged on nails and the rough surfaces. "Where should we exit? We're going to be naked before we get out of here!"
Lucy opened a tile and peered below. She saw another corridor with guards patrolling up ahead. She quickly closed the tile to avoid being seen. "Keep going. We need to find an unguarded place to exit, and stay quiet!" she whispered. It wasn't long before both girls were stripped of their clothes completely, and had to crawl in just their sheer body stockings. On the bright side they found it much easier to crawl through the narrow passage without their bulky ill-fitting clothes, despite the loss of their dignity.
As Penelope led Niesa and their group down through the hidden spaces inside the walls of the mansion, they soon found themselves in a wider crawl space. Niesa shrieked as a great force knocked her right out of her shoes and onto her back. She looked up in fear as she shined her small flashlight on a large hand that was descending upon her. "Help!" she screamed as the hand came down on top of her. But as soon as she felt the hand press on her, it was quickly moved, and the giant woman made a startled shriek.
"Eeek! who's that?" She cried moving her hand in front of the flashlight to get a better look.
Niesa got to her feet and noticed that her shoes were gone, but she kept the flashlight shined on the giant woman in front of her. She was definitely much larger than Niesa, but still looked considerably smaller than a normal sized woman. She noticed she was naked except for a sheer purple body stocking. Obviously she was partially shrunken. "Who are you?" she asked fearfully.
Penelope's flashlight shined on Niesa and the woman finally got a good look at her. Her expression changed to one of relief. "I'm Lucy Davis, we've come to rescue you."
"Lucy Davis?" Niesa asked recalling something Beth told her, "Why does that name sound familiar."
"How do you plan on rescuing us?" Penelope asked suspiciously, "It doesn't look like your plan is going well."
"It certainly isn't," the woman behind Lucy said, "we were captured as well and are really just trying to escape right now."
"Well, I haven't abandoned our mission yet, Faye," Lucy said. "We just need to find a secret way out of here."
"You're not going to find one in these crawl spaces," Penelope said, "but if you truly want to help us, you should come to the basement. That's where we're headed. We're going to need your help to open all the packages."
"Packages?" Lucy asked surprised.
"Just follow us, I think you just might be able to fit through the ventilation duct. We'll have to go through storage though."
Thump!
Beth awoke and noticed she was lying on the wall of the house, the floor and ceiling were now serving as walls and the furniture had fallen next to her. The house had also become very dark, as it appeared the light outside had been turned off. But there was a dim light coming from a nearby room that enabled her to see her surroundings. "What happened?" she asked groggily.
"Someone knocked the house over," Sarah said fearfully, having also fallen over.
Voices could be heard from outside the doll's house. "Easy Faye, watch where you're going!"
"I can't see anything down here!" Faye complained, "Those tiny flashlights don't exactly cover a lot of ground."
"It's Lucy and Faye!" Lisa said excited, "We should tell them where we are!"
"Shhh!" Beth whispered, "I don't trust those women. Why would they be walking freely around here? Weren't they captured?"
"Maybe they escaped," Lisa said fearfully.
"Beth is right," Sarah said, "they captured and tortured us once before, I never really warmed up to them either. And I still don't buy that whole alien story they fed us."
The girls listened as Lucy and Faye made there way to the other end of the storage closet. "Still, we should follow them," Beth said, "Where's Gwen anyway?"
"I'm here," Gwen said crawling out of one of the sideways doors that led to the upstairs bedroom, she was carrying a doll sized flashlight that had been the source of the dim light. As Beth's eyes came into focus she soon learned that Gwen was dressed as Alice from Alice and Wonderland. The three girls laughed as she tried to get to her feet. "Well it's better than being naked!" Gwen laughed as she pointed her flashlight at the three girls clad only in their hosiery.
Beth sighed, "let's get dressed first. Did you find us clothes?"
"I put them on the couch next to you, should be somewhere on the floor … er wall now. Flashlights should be there too," Gwen said.
Gwen picked up the outfit nearest to her, noticing that it was the outfit and boots of a super villain she had recognized from cartoons she grew up watching. "Poison Ivy?" Beth sighed, eyeing Gwen with one eyebrow raised.
"It goes well with your green tights," Gwen answered defensively.
"Cat woman?" Sarah asked frowning as she picked up her leather costume and high heeled boots.
"Oh cool, I get to be Batgirl!" Lisa exclaimed as she started donning her costume.
Penelope's voice could be heard through the shrinker, "We've made it through the storage room and we're going to go through the ventilation duct that leads to the basement. We have some help now so we might not need you to grow us right away. Still let me know if you crack the ---"
Jasmine quickly turned down the volume on Lucy's shrinker as soon as she heard the door open. It was Sedgewick. "The prisoners escaped," he said rubbing the bruise on his forehead, "they're still in the mansion though. I don't see how they'll be able to get far though, even if they do manage to get outside. Has the scan finished?"
"Yes," Jasmine answered, "it's printing the copy now."
"Good, I'm going to need to use the shrinker. We think they're trying to sneak through the crawl spaces in the ceiling so Angelica wants me to try and grow them back to their original size with their shrinker."
"You won't be able to," Jasmine said doing her best to stall him, "I still haven't cracked the code for their polyphylon. If you give me some more time with it I should have it ready for you."
"I'd rather you experiment with the copy," Sedgewick said taking the shrinker from her, "I'm sure I can crack the code. You're not the only genius here."
"But I'm so close, just let me finish my work with it," Jasmine said trying her best not to sound desperate. She stood up and tried to grab the shrinker back. Sedgewick pulled it away from her and pushed her back into her chair.
"What are you up to?" he said smiling suspiciously, "You really don't want me to take this shrinker. You're hiding something from me, I've seen you like this before."
"No, I'm not, I'm just …" but her voice trailed off as Sedgewick lifted up her foot. She looked on helplessly as Sedgewick slipped off her shoe. "No! Please don't!" she begged.
"Just a little tickle interrogation to find out what you're hiding from me," Sedgewick laughed maniacally as he dragged his finger across her sole.
"Eeeeeheeeheee!" she squeaked. "Stop!"
"Why should I? I didn't get the chance to take part in the interrogation of the prisoners, but at least I get to interrogate my favorite subject."
"Get away from me, you creep!" Jasmine said kicking him in the face with her still shod foot. Sedgewick fell backwards, but not before pulling her remaining shoe off. Jasmine could tell she had kicked him in the same place he had fallen and injured earlier. He looked up at her enraged.
"How dare you!" he said rubbing the now bleeding bruise. "I'm confiscating your shoes for that kick," he said as he got to his feet. "You'll have to work in your stocking feet from now on. I know how much you hate that. Your tootsies are too sensitive."
"Fine, take my shoes, you foot pervert," she said angrily. She had had enough of Sedgewick and knew that pretending to be nice to him was no longer going to work towards her advantage.
"I think it's time you were shrunken down to size and punished again. A good long one this time," Sedgewick threatened.
"Go and get your shrink ray then and do it!" she yelled angrily, "You're too dumb to figure out how to use that one on me!"
"I will!" he said taken aback. He was not used to being spoken to by her like that. He looked at the shrinker perplexed for a moment, but then looked at Jasmine with an evil smile. "I know what you're doing. You think by saying I can't shrink you with this alien device, that my bruised ego will motivate to try that very thing. I'll waste time trying to figure out how to shrink you with it and you'll get out of your punishment. Well it won't work, clever girl. I'll be right back with MY shrink ray, and you will endure a good long punishment. Taking her shoes and the shrinker, Sedgewick backed out of her lab, careful not to turn his back on her.
After the door shut, Jasmine looked down at her delicate stocking feet and sighed in frustration. She buried her face in her hands knowing she was in for it when he returned, and there really was nothing she could do about it. She doubted very much that she would be granted the same freedoms she had been afforded so far. Just then the 3D printer beeped and the hum from the printing process stopped. The duplicate was finished. Jasmine stood up suddenly and picked it up. "I hope this is a perfect duplicate," she said as she attempted to work the device. She had a very limited time to act.
"What are they doing?" Sarah asked Beth as she peaked out from behind a box. They had finally gotten dressed and had followed Lucy and Faye to the other end of the storage room, a large vent in the wall was being pried open with a stick they had found.
"Shhh!" Beth answered as she listened to the conversation.
"How did you get this open at your size?" Faye asked as she tried in vain to open the vent.
"I never had to," the tiny voice of Penelope could be heard, "I can fit through the cracks."
"Yeah, but we can't," Lucy sighed, "damn, I guess we should have endured more tickling, Faye, we would have been smaller."
"No way, no more of that! I'm done with tickle torture. Never again!" Lucy gave Faye a quick tickle across her exposed belly.
"Ehehahahehaha!" Faye laughed knocking Lucy's hand away angrily. "I'll stick this piece of wood up your ass if you try that again! And don't think your body stocking will protect you, it's stretchy enough to allow this thing to go up pretty far!"
"Okay, okay," Lucy laughed defensively, "I couldn't resist. It's hard not to tickle someone who's wearing only a sheer polyphylon body suit."
"Well, you're just as naked as me!" Faye said returning to her task, "You don't see me trying to tickle you."
Beth had heard enough. Quietly she made her way back to Gwen, Lisa and Sarah. "They're trying to open that vent over there. It looks as though they were shrunken somewhat by tickle torture and lost their clothes. I have a feeling they're trying to escape. The strange thing is that there are other shrunken girls with them, but our size. I couldn't make out who they were though, they were too small to see from here. Maybe you might know them, Gwen.
"Maybe," Gwen said nervously as she peaked out from behind the box to get a better look. "They've got the vent open!" she said, "It looks like they're crawling through, the fully shrunken ones too."
"Do you recognize any of them?" Beth asked.
"I can't see them well enough," Gwen answered, "They're gone now, probably to the other side of the vent."
"Where does it lead?"
"I … I don't know. I've never been there. But … I've heard things about where it goes," Gwen said gravely.
"What things?"
"Screams. Horrific screams ... like girls getting tortured, and not in a tickling way," Gwen gulped nervously and the other girls shuddered at the word. "Back when I was hiding out down here I remember some of the girls talking about a basement where many of the shrunken girls would be taken. None of us knew what they would do to them. They were never seen again. We would sometimes hear screams through that vent over there. Tiny screams, very faint, and occasional the Doll Collector's wicked laugh. It creeped us out."
Beth looked at the open vent horrified for a moment before speaking, "Well … I'm going in there. This is what I came here for after all."
"You're crazy!" Gwen said, "Didn't you hear what I said? No one's returned from there. I thought we were going to find Dr. Jasmine? I told you she could help us!"
"If she truly can help us, then why hasn't she helped them?"
"She's been trying. She's already figured out how to reverse the effects of our pantyhose, maybe not your body stocking. But you have the control device for it. She might be able to figure out how to use it to remove it."
"My brother has the shrinker, and he's on another continent. Besides, what good is removing our polyphylon if we can't rescue the others? We'll be normal sized so it will be a lot harder to sneak around. Plus we'll be vulnerable to all sorts of dangers, not the least of which is bullets."
"Yes, but what good do you think it'll be going in there? Do you truly think you'll find anyone alive that you can rescue."
"Maybe. Maybe not. But I have to try. You don't have to come. I don't want to put anyone else at risk anyway. I dragged you guys far enough as it is. But I came here to save Niesa and her friends, and that's what I'm going to do. If there's a chance that she's been taken to this dungeon, I have to look while I still can. I don't see how it will be any easier to do that after we speak to this Doctor of yours, so I might as well check it out now."
And with that, Beth turned her back on her three companions and walked bravely towards the dark open vent.
Lisa looked at Sarah pleadingly. "We can't let her go alone! We have to help her!" she said finally as she ran after Beth. "Beth, wait!"
"Lisa, go back. I dragged you far enough as it is," Beth said without looking back.
"You didn't drag me. I came here for the same reason you did, to rescue my friends. If that's where they wound up, then that's where we have to go!"
"Yeah, Beth," Sarah said coming up from behind, "I never thought I'd admit it, but Lisa's a lot braver than I am. I really don't want to go in there, but she's right. We came to save our friends just like you did. We're going too."
"I really hate the situation you put me in," Gwen said catching up to the rest of them, "But I guess this is my mission now too. I'd feel awful if I just stayed behind in that dollhouse."
As the four tiny rescuers made their way towards the dark opening of the vent, not a word was said. Fear gripped all of them as they drew closer. They stopped for a moment at the entrance, peering into the blackness that seemed to extend indefinitely. A faint shuffling could be heard from within, most likely Faye and Lucy. Beth drew a deep breath and climbed inside, followed closely by her three companions. As the light behind them dimmed, all that could be seen in front of them was blackness. But they pressed on until the light behind them disappeared entirely, and they walked in total darkness. They still followed the noise of the shuffling they heard ahead of them. But suddenly that sound ceased.
The metal around them quaked as a dull thump was heard up ahead. Then there was total silence. This, combined with the total blackness made it almost too much for Beth to bear. She had no sound to follow, and no light to guide her. She felt disoriented and dizzy. But she only hesitated for a moment, and then continued forward. The footsteps of her companions could be heard behind her. They hadn't abandoned her, and they still had the courage to follow as long as she had the courage to lead. She had just grown accustomed to walking blindly forward when she suddenly took a bad step on an unstable part of the metal floor. It opened up beneath her and she found herself helplessly free falling nearly 15 feet. She hit the ground hard, but felt no pain. Her body stocking had saved her life yet again.
Looking up she examined her surroundings. She was definitely in the basement. And what a vast basement it was. Though it was dimly lit she could see shelf upon shelf of toy packages. At first she couldn't tell what they contained. But after letting her eyes come into focus it became clear. There were people in those packages. Miniature girls shrunken to doll size and dressed in various outfits. As he approached she could see they were staring blankly ahead, barely moving, but still breathing.
"Oh my god," was all Beth could say in response to the horrific site before her.
