"Hi, welcome to Nanotech Labs. Do you have an appointment?" the receptionist asked.
"Megan Johnson," Megan replied, shouldering her bag. "I'm here for the nanite experiment."
"Oh, yes! Please, go right on through that door. Dr Morgan is waiting for you."
Megan headed through the door, brushing her red hair from her face. Frankly, she needed money for college, and her part-time job wasn't going to cut it. She'd seen the ad in her local paper looking for medical test subjects, and the money was pretty damn good, so she figured she'd sign up.
She found a door marked "Doctor Janice Morgan", and pushed it open.
"Ah, you must be Megan," the black woman inside greeted her warmly. "I'm Dr Morgan. You're here for the matter reduction experiment?"
"I guess," Megan replied.
"Excellent. Well, I'll have to run some preliminary tests." Dr Morgan shut the door. "Please take off all your clothes and stand over here." She gestured to a height marker on the wall, like the kind in police lineups.
Megan reddened, and Dr Morgan laughed gently. "Relax, nobody but us girls here. I'll turn my back if you like."
Megan nodded and Dr Morgan turned around while the red-haired girl undressed and stood up next to the wall.
Over the next half an hour, the doctor recorded Megan's height, weight, breast size (C, if you were wondering) and other vital statistics.
"Alright, you can get dressed now," the doctor said.
Megan pulled her clothes back on and sat up on the bed as per Dr Morgan's instructions. "Now, I'm going to inject you with some nanites, so hold still." She produced a hypodermic syringe, filled it with a yellowish fluid and injected it directly into Megan's arm.
"So what'll these do, exactly?" Megan asked.
"Basically, they're programmed to respond to a certain command word. When that word is spoken by anyone within earshot, including yourself, the nanites will activate and reduce the amount of empty space between the molecules in your body."
"What will that do?"
"Shrink you."
Seeing Megan's look of alarm, the doctor laughed. "Relax! They're programmed to only halve your size each time, the process is perfectly painless, and a second command word will immediately return you to normal size, no matter how small you are."
Megan swallowed and nodded. "What are the command words?"
"Nothing that is likely to come up in normal conversation. The failsafe command to return to normal size is 'ante-meridiem', and the command word to shrink is 'post-meridiem'."
Megan suddenly felt a tingling spread through her body, and the room seemed to get larger around her. Her shoes fell off her feet, and her clothes became a lot baggier. Within a minute, she was half her normal height- about two feet, nine inches.
"Aaaah!" she cried out in shock.
"See? No pain at all," Dr Morgan said. "Ante-meridiem."
Megan's body tingled, and she shot back up to five foot six.
"Alright! Take this journal, write about your experiences, and I'll see you in two weeks. Here's my card if you need me." She handed Megan a business card.
"Th-thankyou," she stammered, pulling her shoes back on and leaving.
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