I haven't seen the male Doctor Knight around lately.
I've seen his witch of a wife - I've felt the sting of her words and her needles - but I haven't seen him. I also remember that It was the female Doctor who did most of the threatening when the Knights conversed with my parents. Her husband was mostly just a cool, commanding presence.
I'm starting to wonder if maybe Doctor Knight did something to her husband - who I decide to simply call "the Professor" - and if she did, why did she do it? What could he have done that would have forced her hand to do this?
Maybe he started to get a conscience. Maybe he realized what he was doing. Maybe he tried to tell his wife that what they were doing was wrong and she eliminated him as a threat. Or maybe she wants the pleasure of torturing me all to herself. Who knows?
The daily parade of Miniatures under the spell of the Pied Piper serum marches past, like little toy soldiers, or bees in a hive. They don't have individual minds; they can't think for themselves. They have a hive mind, one massive intellect that controls them and thinks for them. A queen bee. And in this case, it's Doctor Knight.
I scan through the crowd of faces the way I always do and search for familiar faces. Carter. Justin. Even Rick, at this point, just to see someone that I know. Someone that is familiar.
I don't see any familiar faces, but I see plenty of new ones. The parade of Miniatures always takes approximately three point five minutes, but today it's taking far longer then it should. Almost six and a half minutes have gone by before the last vestiges of the Miniatures disappears beyond my view.
Exactly fifty seven seconds later, Doctor Knight bursts through the doors and begins preparing vials of serum. She talks to me in a sickly sweet, overly peppy voice as she turns on the Bunsen burners.
"Hello, my pet! Sleep well?"
"As well as you can when you're in a cage," I reply pointedly. She either doesn't notice or just doesn't care. "You've got more MIniatures than usual?"
"Oh?" she asks, in a tone that implies that she knows everything I'm about to tell her and is toying with me. I continue on anyway. "The parade took six and a half minutes. That's three minutes longer that usual!"
"The numbers are growing," Dr. Knight replies, busying herself with a syringe.
"What? But there . . . There are only so many Miniatures, even I know that!"
"Yes, but you see, I'm a scientist. I know how to get things done efficiently. There are several large cities in range, cities that use water towers as a means of getting water to every single home. Administer the shrinking serum and a mild sedative drug, then send out the boys to collect my new prizes. Quite simple, really."
"So you're kidnapping people? Surely the world is noticing large cities just suddenly becoming completely devoid of people?" I demand.
"Amazing what you can do with bio scans and holograms."
"Everyone thinks these cities are full, but they're really empty. And you're using the inhabitants to test dangerous chemicals so that you can gain power."
"Oh no, dear, you've got it all wrong. I've got all the power I can dream of." She scoops me out of the glass tank and studies me.
"But I thought that was the point of the Miniatures?" I say, dumbfounded.
"It was. But if I want power, I can shrink and sedate the entire world. I can control every single inhabitant on this planet. There's something much bigger going on here," she says, pressing the point of the needle against the exposed skin on my upper arm.
"Things are going to change, Hannah. Very soon. War is going to be waged. And everyone knows that wars aren't all guns and soldiers. It's psychological as well. And with chemical warfare that empowers our soldiers while rendering the others completely helpless, we will win this war."
"So you're a government scientist?"
"Nope," she says, injecting the contents of the syringe into me. I wince, knowing that I'm going to pass out. "I have my own private army of soldiers. They might be tiny, but they'll have weapons that allow them to win the Third World War."
Before I can register much more, I black out.
