"...a book club”

If anything good ever came of her shrinking, it's that she had tons of time. She wasn't always great at utilizing it well, but in the last few months she did manage to pull herself together. The local tinies' welfare group donated a Minicomm to her; it was a device that she could use to browse Internet and message people, like a tiny smartphone. (The big tech giants hadn't yet decided whether it was worth investing into tiny tech). As far as she new, Minicomm was simply plugging her into a central server which did all the real processing. It didn't matter much. It provided her with a link back to the world, and she managed to do some good volunteer work for a local library: she sorted digital archives, did a bit of IT stuff and cleaned up their website. Her experience in graduate school came in handy. They were now considering hiring her full-time; it wasn't much, but then again, it's not like she needed much money. She was renting a shack in the government-subsidized Tiny area, didn't need much in the way of groceries... but with more money she could hope to get some luxuries and start saving up for when the treatment would be available and she'd need lots of money to be the first in line. The library wanted to meet her in person; and so she was invited to attend a book club and meet the staff afterwards.

"really"

"yes, really!", she sent, suddenly feeling a tinge of anger.

"i mean how do u even go?"

"I called a Leaf".

"leaf?"

"Uber for tinies"

"wow i had no idea"

And, a second later:

"so why book club?"

“Why not?”

As she sent that last message, the anger turned into gung-ho I-have-something-to-prove feeling. She turned the screen off and placed the Minicomm in her pocket. She wanted to pretend she was just pursuing a hobby, one of the many currents in her life. She'd spent so long feeling broken... She didn't want to, anymore. She didn't want to deal with someone assuming that she had to be sad and tiny and powerless all the time. Yes, tinies' lives were often poor and pathetic, but she was so tired of it that at least in her personal conversations she could pretend to be normal. Take "Naraworld": the developers recently announced that they would look to introduce the ability to play Tiny character into the game. She didn't want it...

Her Minicomm informed her that her carrier was coming; she stepped outside, wincing as the light of day lit up her face. She passed a few Tiny living blocks; it took her several minutes to reach the curb, where a faded yellow rectangle indicated a Tiny pick-up / drop-off area. She was the only one there; most of her neighbors didn't leave their apartments very often and preferred to keep to the community. She knew that a lot of them were actually afraid of the big world beyond the borders of their little living quarters. Brooke herself had been dangerously close to becoming a complete shut-in.

A figure appeared in the distance; it moved swiftly, rushing along the street. A bicyclist. He slowed down as he approached, finally coming to a standstill right next to the curb. He was wearing shorts and a breathable t-shirt; she also caught that he had curly brown hair. A pair of sunglasses hid his eyes. There was a plastic box strapped to his side: it was marked in yellow and black.

The man must have been about five feet nine inches tall; she couldn't tell these days. Brooke's height was about an inch. He was a titan. All normal people were.

She couldn't take her eyes off him as he brought his leg over the seat and jumped off the bicycle; he stretched, rose on his toes, calves flexing; he had a toned body, with very little hair on his legs. He took a step; the ground under her feet shook ever so slightly. She had to crane her neck to look up at him.

He stopped right in front of her, a young, boyish titan, probably about twenty she surmised; he ran a hand along his sweaty forehead. She lowered her eyes then: his massive feet were in front of her, the dusty toes of his Saucony athletic shoes to both sides of her. The rubber soles had seen better days. The fabric flexed as he must have lifted his toes. Brooke both hated and loved the level of detail she'd learned to notice in normal people.

It went both ways, she knew: this man probably couldn't even make out her facial expression.

In a swift motion, sendind a gust of wind downwards, he squatted over her. He unshackled the strap that held the box in place and positioned it in front of her; with a soft click, the door unlocked. There were letters along the upper rims, just below the roof: "LIVE HUMANS". The roof itself was transparent; the walls had windows in them. The inside of the box had some 12 seats with roller-coaster style braces; all were empty.

"Welcome", he said, smiling at her from above. Right down to business, then. She nodded at him and walked towards the box, trying to keep her steps steady. She'd only taken Leaf a couple of times before. There was a feeling she could not shake off as she stepped inside one of those boxes: like, here she was, putting her life in the hands of this random person. Was it really that different from taking a taxi, where you're at the mercy of a driver? She wasn't sure. Statistically speaking, it was probably safer. But that tiny box; it's so easy for it to be hidden, or lost...

She stepped through the doorway, noting that the sides of the box were slightly glistening where the carrier's sweaty hands had touched them. Her brain had a very brief idea to also touch those spots; she shrugged it off as she took a seat and pulled on the safety brace. A moment later, the door slammed back into place, flicked by the man's finger: another moment - and he stood up in a graceful motion. Gravity gently pressed her into her seat as the box was risen and locked back to the man's belt. She could see his fingers through the windows; the quickness with which they moved was breathtaking and felt dangerous. Far in the distance, through the roof, she could see his face; the expression seemed neutral and focused. The man was working.

Her life lacked intimacy; sometimes it led to strange thoughts coming through when she was in the presence of comparatively giant men. One time she told her therapist, Linda, about it. "Those are normal", Linda told her. They held their meetings virtually, because Linda was normal-sized, and it was easier that way. For some reason, Linda asked her to describe some of those thoughts to very high level of detail; so high, in fact, that Brooke wasn't comfortable doing it. She stopped seeing Linda afterwards. She never stopped having the thoughts. There was something about those dancing fingers; something that made her wonder what it would actually feel them tap on her body, perhaps even caress it. But... oh well. Fantasies. Idle, silly fantasies.

Suddenly, she saw a phone camera pointed at her through the roof; with an audible click, he took a picture of her. She immediately reached for a mic mounted on the wall.

- What was that for?

- I just keep proof, - she heard his voice through the walls. - I'll take another one if you'd like to smile.

That made sense; the guy probably wanted to cover his tracks in case something happens. She smiled at the camera as he snapped another picture. Then he jumped onto the bicycle and they took off; the box shook and rattled, but it was equipped with some stabilizing mechanism, so it wasn't too bad - no worse than a rough landing on a plane. Some Tinies experienced motion sickness when carried around like this, but she wasn't one of them (and she was really happy about it).

He was taking her...