The redheaded employee, Tina, led your group deep into the expo grounds, eventually coming to a stop before a shockingly advanced looking exhibit.
What caught your eye first was a tall curtained booth, whereupon the main curtain as drawn back to reveal a padded chair and a resting helmet littered with electrodes. Beside the booth was a long table filled to the brim with computer monitors, display consoles, and all sorts of complicated technological instruments you could only hope to one day understand. And behind the table was a chair claimed by a wiry, manically energetic looking girl with messy long black hair and sharp features dressed in an oversized lab coat and miniskirt.
Tina, your guide, cleared her throat. "Got some interested potential participants, Sophie." She explained to the mousy-looking mad scientist girl. "Just keep your hella crazy energy in check, alright?"
The science girl, Sophie, leaped from her seat so fast she knocked over some of her instruments. "Oh my god, really? Participants? Aah! That's awesome! I've been dying for more data all day!" The girl talked rapidly and fervently, even more so than Tina had earlier. Clearly, Small Wonders enjoyed employing high energy go-getters. "Welcome, welcome, everyone! Thanks for stopping by!"
With a wave, Tina departed, and you scowled a bit as you noticed Mari (and even Selena) take a second to watch the extremely toned curvy girl's butt sway as she jogged off. Mari then set you down onto what little spare space there was on the table in front of Sophie, and Jenna did the same with Piper. Sophie, meanwhile, hastily fixed the machine she'd knocked over, and Ashley helpfully pitched in...knocking over two more in the process. After a minute, everything was back in order.
Sophie cleared her throat. "Sorry about that. Anyway, I'm so excited to have new test subjects! Or, uh, participants. Whatever makes you feel more comfortable. This invention of mine is, not to sound too proud of myself even though I totally am, might be the most revolutionary invention in the history of affected-minded design? At the very least it'll totally be a paradigm shift when it comes to how society views affected."
Jenna adjusted her glasses, peering closer at the uncurtained booth. "So what is it? It almost looks like some sort of virtual reality."
"Close!" Sophie concurred. "I call it the Affected Augmented Experience, or AAE for short. The difference between it and virtual reality, though, is that this is a much more visceral experience. Rather than just mental stimulation, it's a full-on five senses physical stimulation experience."
"Like those 4-D movies they tried to make popular for a while?" Mari inquired, smiling faintly at the memory of going to see one of those with you once before. You, on the other hand, didn't smile at the memory. Two minutes into the movie Mari jumped at a jump scare and tossed you to the ground, and all of your attempts to get her attention and climb her body for the rest of the movie were confused by your giantess girlfriend as effects from the 4-D experience, leading to her swatting, stepping, and crushing you ad nauseum each time for two hours. Clearly, her bad memory had blocked that part from her recollection.
Sophie drew you back by shaking her head. "Well, sorta, but so much more advanced than that! See, what my AAE machine does is, figuratively speaking, transmit your conscience itself into a brand new body, and everything that body experiences your own real senses undergo! Obviously, magic doesn't exist, so it doesn't literally transplant your conscience or anything, but it's advanced enough to fool your brain into, in essence, switching bodies for however long the experience lasts! Like the world's most in-depth puppeteering!"
Selena arched an eyebrow, Sophie's science talk going way over her head. "So...it's like a super advanced video game, or something?"
Sophie giggled, with a slight manic edge. "Yeah, or something."
Ashley tapped her chin. "Okay...but, like, what bodies are we, like, puppet tearing, or whatever you said. Are they totes cute?"
"You could say that." Sophie agreed, leaning down and grabbing a small metallic case from the table, hidden under some wires. Yanking the case free, Sophie rested it in front of you all, then unclasped the front and popped it open. Everyone leaned in, and everyone collectively gasped at the sight of a multitude of tiny bodies inside the case!
There were various genders, skin colors, hair colors, and everything else, but every single one was a tiny...or, as you took a closer look, an extremely detailed tiny puppet. At a passing glance they looked like living and breathing tinies, but there was a certain glassiness to the eyes that gave it away. They were exceptionally detailed dolls, not real affected folk. Naked dolls too, with accurate anatomy, you realized with a blush.
Sophie grinned. "Do you like them? Pretty cool, huh? Oh, but, uh, sorry about them being naked. The dolls, or puppet bodies if you prefer, needed to be highly detailed to fool your mind into providing enough stimulation and data when participating in the experiment. The alpha build of the AAE used pure white mannequin-like puppets, but this beta build is trying to test so much more. But, uh, it just wasn't financially worth it to make them clothes. Hope you understand."
Selena shook her head. "So, wait. You're saying that your experiment will put our brains into those tinies?"
"Figuratively, yes. Again, your actual body will rest in the booth, unharmed, but since you'll be so hard-wired into the system, you will in essence be a tiny during the experiment and experience everything that they do. And, that's kinda the whole point."
Mari frowned. "What do you mean?"
"Well," Sophie continued. "The whole point of the AAE is to help unaffected finally realize what living like a tiny is like. Because...it's kinda impossible to without it. You, an unaffected, can say that you know what it's like to go through hardship and pain, but you don't really know what it's like to be stepped on, or sat on, or eaten. To see everyone else in the world as a giant monster. To take five times as long to traverse what an unaffected can in a single step. I think this'll be a really good educational eye-opener."
Jenna's eyebrows raised. "Wow...that's really impressive, Sophie."
"Isn't it?" Sophie beamed. "And I'm so glad I remembered Doctor Fran's whole spiel, because she had me memorize it. If you ask me personally, I just made the AAE because I could and it sounded fun! That's the driving force behind all my inventions! I just live for inventing! Ooh, speaking of, I've got a little surprise to show you if you promise not to tell Doctor Fran. She told me it was too dangerous, but I argued it could lead to good data."
Ashley giggled. "We promise! Also, we, like, totes don't know who that is!"
Sophie cackled as she pressed a button on the console closest to her, and a contraption assembled itself in the blink of an eye. It's lower half was a funnel that rested on the table, and then a tube led to a cannon-shaped endpoint pointed high in the sky.
"So, the AAE experiment is meant to have participants get hooked up, have their consciousness figuratively implanted into a tiny puppet, and then they run through some tests. But I thought, what better test than being shot out with this cannon into the big wide world! That'll open up a whole bunch of possibilities for brand new unexpected data!"
Mari's eyes widened. "Well, that certainly sounds exciting! I love trying new things!"
Sophie bounced up and down. "So you'll try it? Rest assured, it's not like there's any real danger. After one hour has passed, you'll be automatically disconnected and your conscience will wake back up in your real body. Communication won't really work out while in a tiny puppet since they don't have vocal chords, and this travelling expo set-up doesn't have the gear I need for this whole radio communication shtick we had with the alpha build, but one hour isn't so bad, right?"
Selena cracked her knuckles. "Guess not. I'm down. Time to prove that being a tiny isn't all that big a deal!"
Sophie smiled, but then suddenly paused. "Well...there's always the possibility that...but nah, that shouldn't happen."
Jenna furrowed her brow. "I'm...w-willing to try too, but what were you just saying?"
Sophie shrugged. "There was a bug where some participants didn't trigger the disconnect due to undergoing too much stress and stimulus at the hour mark. So the system reset for another hour, and then they returned to normal at the two-hour disconnect. So two hours, max! I mean, what are the odds something happens that keeps adding stress and stimulus, forcing the system to just endlessly reset? That'd be crazy unlikely, not to mention unlucky, right?" Sophie waved her hand. "Really shouldn't be an issue!"
Ashley took a step back. "Um, video game-y stuff with helmets and junk makes me nauseous, so I might sit this out. Keep, like, an eye on our resident cuties." She winked down at you and Piper.
Sophie clapped her hands together, turning to Jenna, Mari, and Selena. "Guess it's just you three then. So, who wants to go first?"
1) Selena opts to go first.
2) Mari opts to go first.
3) Jenna opts to go first.
4) Before anyone decides, a voice/s calls out, an unexpected arrival approaching with potential interest in the AAE experiment.
5) *Writer's Choice*
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