Tumbled

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Bloodthirstybutcher
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Tumbled

Post by Bloodthirstybutcher » Tue Feb 14, 2023 11:26 pm

I felt the urge to write something kinda noir-y, so this is the result. It definitely turned out a lot weirder than I had planned😅 Hope you enjoy!
"People like Coldplay and voted for the Nazis, you can't trust people, Jeremy."

-Super Hans, Peep Show

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Re: Tumbled

Post by Bloodthirstybutcher » Tue Feb 14, 2023 11:28 pm

Tumbled


Part 1-"The School of Seven Bells"




The fact that Imogene Spaak was expressing so little emotion about the heinous act she had just committed worried her more than the actual deed itself. She'd never killed a man before, despite the dangerous nature of her chosen profession. His still, lifeless body lay limp at her feet... like he could get up at any moment.

His demise came courtesy of a slow acting toxin delivered into the overpriced energy drinks he frequently consumed. Imogene had frequently warned her partner in the short time they'd been aquatinted that the sugary, over-caffeinated things would kill him. She wasn't kidding.

Their target's home, which the two of them had just destroyed, felt eerily quiet. The whole ordeal had been such a whirlwind up until that moment. Now she was alone, the uneasy silence only broken by the occasional crunch of broken glass beneath her feet. As skilled as she was at what she did, for the first time in her short career... Imogene had botched a job.

Was she wrong in killing this man... whose liquifying entrails continued to ooze onto the expensive-looking rug where he fell? Should she have just let him keep his share instead of double crossing him?


No.


He had it coming.


His name? Imogene only knew the man she had been working with as Cooper. An alias he took in reference to the infamous D.B. Cooper, a plane hijacker who jumped out of said plane at ten thousand feet with $200,000 in a briefcase... never to be seen again. What her "Cooper's" real name might be was anyone's guess. To him, she was Selina, like the famous comic book cat burglar, Selina Kyle... a little too on the nose if you ask Cooper's opinion on it. With the potential danger involved in what the duo had schemed, neither wanted the other to be able to identify them in case things happened to go south... just like things had.


This was the score of a lifetime after all.

Of several lifetimes.


The odd pair had been unaware of the other's existence, but each worked for the same man... Lucio Fulci... yes, just like the Italian genre film director. The rotund little man was a long tenured member of the D'Amato crime family (yes, just like another Italian director... you can't make this shit up). Fulci specialized in the acquisition and smuggling of rare items. He handled the business end of things, while contractors did the dirty work, people like Spaak and "Cooper." Neither were proper members of the syndicate, which Fulci actually preferred when it came to these things. It made cooking his books (for both his bosses and the law) that much easier. Burglary and smuggling had always been tricky business. Dangerous business. The less others inside his circle and out knew about his dealings the better.

Normally Fulci would have chosen to keep his contractors ignorant to one another, but this upcoming job was special... one no single thief had ever accomplished. He needed his best working together to pull off a heist of this magnitude. Spaak and Cooper were exactly that, the best. And if these two pulled off a heist of this magnitude? A tropical retirement awaited him in an island nation with no extradition, baby!

Imogene gave the dead man, whom she'd been working with for the better part of a month, a light kick in the shoulder with her bare heel... just to make sure he truly was dead. The bloody vomit still trickling from his mouth along with his bulging, unblinking eyes should have been enough... but she needed to touch him. She needed to know what she'd just done to this man was real. It still didn't feel that way.

Spaak thought about that night in Fulci's dark office when her boss introduced them to one another, and how strange it felt that her frequent employer thought the need to bring in another for what she usually managed so efficiently solo. From the look in this "Cooper's" eyes when their hands met, she could tell this stranger felt the same way about her.

"Alright, now dat dah fa'malities ah ovah with, dah two of yous... please, take a seat. And fah fuck sakes, give back whatevah yous took from dah other!" Fulci was nothing if not observant. In the seconds it took for his best to shake hands, Imogene had stolen Cooper's wallet, while Cooper had snatched her expensive Tiffany bracelet right off her wrist. Holding their prizes up for the other to view, both Imogene and Cooper smirked back at one another. Whether the act was some kind of test, reserved among thieves... or just old fashioned showing off, only Cooper and Imogene could answer that.

Cooper won't be doing any more talking.

"I got a job for da two of yous," Fulci began in his thick New Yawk-ese. Although the two seated on the other side of the desk from him were listening to their boss, their eyes were still locked on each other, still sizing each other up. "I knows duh both of yous prefah tah work alone, but trust me when I tells ya dis is too big for any single mook. I needs muh best... and yous twos is it."

Cooper and Imogene's staring contest continued until Fulci revealed the nature of the job. "Muh sources 'av informed me dat dey've located Dah Broker."
While Imogene's gaze remained fixated on the man next to her, Fulci now had Cooper's full attention. "I'm sorry, I thought I just heard you say you found The Broker?! You're fucking with me, right?"

"Ya got wax in ya eyahs or sumptin?" Fulci snarked back with his typical east coast bluntness, "yeah... I just told yous I knows who Dah Brokah is! Pay attention, would ya!" The burly mafioso struck a match to light the Cuban he'd been twirling around in his fingertips. He leaned back in his chair and took a few deep puffs before waving the match cold.

"Who's 'The Broker?'" Imogene inquired. The two men stared back at her in disbelief. "What? Sorry I don't know everything! Maybe when I'm as old as you dinosaurs I will!"

Cooper opened his mouth to explain, but Fulci raised his chubby hand to interrupt him. "Dah Brokah is dah single most sought aftah dealah in rare artifacts dah world has evah known."

"That's putting it mildly," Cooper butted in, "the things that have passed through his hands are the stuff of legend."

Imogene raised an eyebrow, "what sort of things?"

Fulci leaned forward in his chair, which squeaked under the strain of his considerable weight. "Da kinda stuff dat wars are fought ovah."

Fulci could almost make out dollar signs shinning in Imogene's eyes when she grinned back at him.

"There's just one problem," Cooper argued, "they say no one who's ever tried to rob The Broker has lived to tell about it."

"'They say'," Imogene scoffed at Cooper, thumbing in his direction, "where'd you find this guy, Lucio?! He talks like he's afraid of a curse on some pirate's treasure!"

"It's all just stories, muh dear," Fulci tried to assure her, "but dat don't mean dis job'll be a cake walk. Dats why I needs yous both. If dah two of yous pull dis off, dah t'ree of us are gonna live like royalty for dah rest of our lives." The balding man reached into his desk drawer to retrieve an expensive bottle of scotch and three well-used glasses. He set them down on his worn wooden desktop where he began to pour an ice-less double into each.

"Not only dat, but you'd be legends ya'selves in dah unda'world when word starts to spread." Fulci raised the glass he poured for himself and asked, "so... what'dya t'ink... can yous two work togethah for dah score of our lives?"

There was hardly any hesitation from Imogene, picking up the whiskey glass and holding it up by resting her elbow on the desk. Cooper wasn't so sure. He was as skilled a burglar as anyone had ever seen, and he'd been at it for quite some time... working well into what were now his forties. His eyes darted from the glass, to his potential partners in crime, then back again.

It sounded too good to be true, which usually meant it was. Despite what Fulci said, he had in fact known men who'd attempted to chase down The Broker's mysterious loot... none of whom he'd ever seen again. It scared him, and it concerned him even more that his colleagues weren't as worried.

"Hey! No skin off my ass if he doesn't want in," Imogene gloated, "that just means more for you and me, right Lucio?" She spun her booze around in the bottom of the glass, almost staring through Cooper with her sexy, smokey eyes.

Even with every ounce of sense screaming inside his brain to get up and leave, Cooper was still a thief. One in need of a challenge... and a hefty nest egg. The allure of a score like this potentially putting him in the history books was too great. D.B. Cooper, eat your heart out! The Broker had been persued by the law and the mob in equal measure for longer than anyone could say. What if HE was the one who finally pilfered the unpilferable?

Cooper lifted his glass and held it beneath Fulci's desk lamp, the sole source of light in the cluttered and musty old office. "When do we get started?"

With the clang of glass in toast, the trio spent the night forming a plan.





End Part 1
"People like Coldplay and voted for the Nazis, you can't trust people, Jeremy."

-Super Hans, Peep Show

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Re: Tumbled

Post by Bloodthirstybutcher » Wed Feb 15, 2023 11:13 pm

Part 2-"Working Conditions"




Fulci identified an individual named Emil DeTorres as the man known equally to international law enforcement and the criminal underworld as The Broker. DeTorres was an unassuming individual, a man appearing to be in his late fifties of thin build and grey, thinning hair. His olive, Mediterranean complexion stood out against the vintage white suits he was rarely seen out of. He also wore a pencil mustache that gave him more than a passing resemblance to filmmaker John Waters, and just like Waters, DeTorres also preferred the company of men.

The Broker resided in a large, mid-century modern, single level home in the Hollywood Hills. Windows surrounded its exterior, allowing for a fine view of the city below and an immaculate rock garden and amoeba shaped pool in back. It was the kind of place one could imagine Rock Hudson hosting cocktail parties in the golden days of post-war Hollywood. As Imogene and Cooper scouted the location early in their plot, she remarked that it seemed odd for a man with so many secrets to reside inside a glass house. Cooper had no comment.

The newly formed team of two had flown out to Los Angeles from New York just a week prior. They took separate flights and booked rooms at different hotels. Cooper chose to take up in a cheap roadside motel, while "Selina" would settle for nothing less than the Marriott. Cooper suggested a well known tiki bar situated on Sunset called Tiki Ti where they could meet and discuss their strategy for the coming days. Selina described the place as "tacky," but Cooper found the atmosphere comforting and the drinks superb after a long day of surveillance.

The older of the two would take the day shift, following DeTorres's movements... spying on those he met with... going through his mail... anything that might reveal more about this mysterious individual. There was so little to go on, research-wise. It was like the man didn't really exist. Their work would have to start from scratch.

"Selina," in turn, would monitor Emil's home at night. Watching her mark's nightly habits... researching the men he brought to his bed... and looking for flaws in the home security system. The likelihood of this man's entire fortune being stored on the premises was slim, but there had to be a safe (or better yet, a vault) inside the home. There could be information locked within that could lead them to the jackpot.

So, just like that, the patient game began. One both parties had played many times.

Over the coming weeks, the unlikely duo became quite the experts on Mr. DeTorres. He frequented a local 1960s era dinner every morning for coffee and toast, quite in keeping with his aesthetic tastes. If he stopped for lunch, it was usually to meet with one of his associates or a potential client. Most of Emil's nights were spent at home, with only his butler-cum-bodyguard for company, but on the weekends the social man could often be found sipping martinis at a nearby gay bar. Emil never left the house in anything but his trademark vintage three piece suit.

Cooper began to focus heavily on DeTorres's meetings. Eavesdropping on their conversations from across crowded restaurants revealed quite a lot for the seasoned burglar. His clients appeared to span the globe, but The Broker never had an interpreter present. The man was fluent in dozens of languages! Cooper realized that this way DeTorres could be certain his dealings wouldn't find error due to someone else's botched translations.

And as for the dealings themselves, the conversations (the ones Cooper could understand anyway) were always vague and coded. That was to be expected, but the more Emil's unaware "admirer" watched his mark wheel and deal, the more he felt like he was watching the devil himself bargaining for souls. Even through the masked dialogue, Cooper was able to gather that The Broker rarely held interest in cash compensation for his services, but rather preferred...

...favors...

...tasks...

...promises.

The more Cooper watched the man's process, the worse the worry pain growing in the pit of his stomach got. The same feeling he got back in Fulci's office. DeTorres was an exceptionally strange man. Cooper couldn't quite put his finger on what it was about the gentleman that put him off so much, but The Broker scared him. His body's fight or flight impulses were screaming at him to get out, but he'd come way too far for that now.

Who was The Broker really? And what was the extent of his power?

Meanwhile, Imogene donned her usual jet-black attire and co to Jed with her nightly infiltration of the estate. The security around the home, or rather the lack thereof, was incredibly perplexing. DeTorres had several cameras placed at the four corners of the roof, but they belonged to an outdated system. One that was mass produced and easily purchased from a bulk store over a decade earlier. She never saw any kind of security detail patrolling the estate, save for the muscle-bound butler. There had to be something she was missing, and the more she searched for it, the more frustrated she became. She did have a theory, but it would take more time to prove it.

By the end of their third tedious week spent casing Emil DeTorres's life, the unlikely pair of professional criminals had nearly memorized his daily life. Even so, they were left at a stand-still. They sat together in the darkest corner of the aging tiki bar, each looking like they could fall asleep at any moment. The usual bar chatter from its tipsy patrons dulled into a an ambient drone in the background. Neither Imogene nor Cooper were speaking.

Emil DeTorres was a creature of habit, irritatingly so. Something particularly draining for anyone searching for holes to poke in his routine. Just watching him lounge about at home hadn't exactly made for the most engaging of activities either. The man spent an awful lot of time at home, something that made getting inside all the more difficult.

It's not as though Imogene or Cooper couldn't just overpower their mark. Such tactics were better left alone until all other options were exhausted. A well executed heist to Cooper was one where his victim didn't even realize they'd been robbed until he'd crossed the state line. Imogene was no different.

"Anything new last night?" A visibly exhausted Cooper asked as he stared blankly into his elaborately presented cocktail.

Imogene was just as detached, twirling her beer around in angled circles at its base. "Nothing... same routine as usual," she was so tired of feeling frustrated... and frustrated with being tired. The nights had been long, and The Broker hadn't given her anything, other than the occasional X-rated fling. Just enough to keep her from passing out in his garden. These brief meetings with Cooper in that kitschy bar had become the highlight of her day, something even she realized was pretty pathetic.

"Maybe Fulci was wrong," Cooper suggested. "Maybe this isn't the guy. I mean, he's connected for sure, but what if this isn't The Broker?"

"It would make sense," Imogene admitted, "the lax security... the nonchalant way he goes about everything. Maybe you're right... maybe Lucio got some bad info. It'd be a first though."

Cooper nodded without looking up from his drink, "I know. He's usually so meticulous when it comes to these things. You think someone within the syndicate is fucking with him? Trying to set him up to take a fall for something maybe?"

Imogene took a sip of her overpriced beer before answering, "I wouldn't put anything past those crooked bastards. They'd sell their own children if it turned a profit."

Cooper chuckled a little at the thought, "ain't that the fuckin' truth."

For the first time since his drink arrived, Cooper looked up from the cheery garnishing and melting ice to gaze at the woman he knew as "Selina." She looked especially beautiful in the dim lighting, her hair pulled back in a ponytail to reveal the soft features of her face. It wouldn't be the first time he'd made the observation. He had been quite taken with her from the first moment he saw her, when she snatched his wallet back in Fulci's office. The woman had to be fifteen years his younger, meaning the middle aged man that he was had few illusions of anything more than a professional relationship. Cooper was well aware of how people her age viewed those of his. Still, the company of a beautiful woman like "Selina" in a moodily lit bar felt somewhat reminiscent of his salad days.

That night was different though somehow. Selina had been so confident, so self assured up until then. If they hadn't already been working together, she would have been completely unapproachable. The kind of woman every man wants, but also fears. But that evening, her visible frustration with the job had lowered a few of her walls. Cooper could tell she wasn't used to the feeling of failure... something he had gone through many times in his seniority. You can't win 'em all.

"So," the elder of the two decided to change the subject, "how's a gal like you get into work like this?"

"Selina" seemed a little surprised by the question, raising a single, dark eyebrow out of curiosity. "Really? We gonna share our origin stories now?" She scoffed. "There's a reason we don't know each other's real names, 'Cooper.'" The middle-aged man with the salt and peeper hair sitting across from her held quite the laughable appearance, sipping from his gaudy cocktail. It looked like a party store had exploded all over it.

"I'm not asking where you grew up or your college major, Selina," he replied, "I'm just curious about how you got started in this... unusual... business."

Imogene/Selina sat back in her chair, still twirling her bottle in little circles, notching out a deeper track in the wooden table with each round. Subconsciously she also fidgeted with the thin gold chain she wore around her neck. It wasn't an especially expensive looking piece, the diamond set in its pendant would've looked small even set into a ring. It was the only item of jewelry his partner had worn since she got there, which made Cooper wonder if it was some kind of good luck charm.

"Ok, Cooper," Selina finally accepted her cohort's invitation for small talk. Anything to prolong another night of watching DeTorres organize his closet for the tenth time. She'd never seen anyone so obsessive compulsive in her life.

"I suppose I just thought of working a nine-to-five as just being, I don't know... a slow death," she began. "I wanted to travel the world, eat exotic foods... fuck exotic men. I always had a knack for stealing, the amount of jewelry I stole from my mother's friends as a kid is testament enough to that. I started selling what I'd stolen... guys like Fulci took notice... so here I am."

Cooper took another sip of his drink. The pleasant mixture of sweet and burn as it passed his pallet always felt comforting to him. "Do you like it?"

"Other than THIS job?" She joked, "yeah! It's exciting... it's dangerous... it keeps me moving and my billfold heavy. What about you? You've been doing it a lot longer than me. Do you still enjoy it?"

"Yeah... I used to," Cooper admitted. "I just wonder how much longer I can keep going. I'm not getting any younger, you know." He paused, a tiny twinkle in his eye emerged, even in the moody bar lighting. "But it's that rush... when you've come away with the score and you just know they're never gonna catch you... that's hard to leave behind."

Imogene leaned in, "I know, right?! Like, it started out as just a way to get the things I wanted, but now i think it's the thrill of the heist itself that I love. I'm addicted to it!"

"Does that make us a couple of junkies?" Cooper joked. For the first time that night, Selina flashed him a crooked little grin, something a woman like her could've used to get anything they wanted from him back in the day.

"Yous still ain't ansahed muh question, ya mook," Imogene pressed her partner, using her best imitation of their mutual employer, "how'd you get mixed up in this shit?"

Cooper laughed, then slurped the last of his beverage. "I grew up poor. If you wanted something, you pretty well had to take it. I supported my mother and siblings doing it. Dad wasn't around. Like you, certain individuals took notice my talents. It was like getting recruited for the pros, if you know what I mean."

"Yeah... kinda fucked up that the only thing we're good at is stealing, isn't it?" Imogene mused.

"I don't know," Cooper replied. "I make it a point not to steal from people who can't afford to lose it. In a way, I feel like Robin Hood... robbing the rich-"

Selina finished his sentence for him, "...and giving it back to the rich!"

Both shared a laugh over that one. As Imogene reached for her drink, she accidentally grazed Cooper's hand with her own. The electricity exchanged between the two in that fraction of a second was difficult for either to ignore. They locked eyes, each wanting to taste the other's lips, but too cautious to say it out loud.

When was he ever going to get an opportunity like this again, especially at his age? Never was the obvious answer. Cooper stepped back and took his prayer of a shot from half court, "you.. uh... you wanna get outta here?"

"Selina" raised her trademark eyebrow. She didn't say a word, just smiled... and nodded.

Cooper tossed a pile of money on the table and took "Selina" firmly by the hand. They made it out the door, but that's about as far as they got before Imogene grabbed Cooper by the tie and pulled his face to hers. Cooper pinned Imogene against the window of the Church of Scientology next door to the bar, slowly running his hand from her knee to between her thighs. He kissed her passionately, with an energy he hadn't possessed since his twenties... and she kissed him back just as needfully.

Imogene paused him briefly with her finger to pressed gently against his lips, "your place or mine?"

"Yours, of course... ya mook!" Cooper replied with a grin, echoing Selina's impression of their cartoonish boss, "have you seen the shithole I'm staying in?!"

Imogene laughed, then took Cooper by the hand and lead him to the passenger side of her rental car.

As they got inside the cab of the sedan, Cooper leaned over and kissed her once more. Before she turned the key, he felt the urgent need to tell the gorgeous woman in the driver's seat, " you know... you're wrong about something..."

"Oh yeah," she replied with mock-inquisitiveness, "and how's that exactly?"

Cooper caressed her cheek with his thumb and smiled, "stealing isn't the ONLY thing I'm good at."

Imogene laughed and planted another kiss on Cooper's lips. She threw the car into drive even before unlocking her lips from his.





End Part 2
"People like Coldplay and voted for the Nazis, you can't trust people, Jeremy."

-Super Hans, Peep Show

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Re: Tumbled

Post by Bloodthirstybutcher » Thu Feb 16, 2023 7:24 pm

Part 3-"Hangover"




A strong, masculine hand caressed the smooth curves of her body, coming to a rest between her navel and sex. Gooseflesh spread across her bare skin at his very touch. Just enough sun had penetrated the blinds to signal that morning had come.

Fuck.

Imogene was hardly a stranger to the feel of a man's touch at the break of dawn. She'd traveled the world and bedded more than her share for someone her age. The thing of it was, until then sex had been nothing more to her than a tactic. A means to get information. A way to distract. Just another tool in the chest for a world class criminal such as herself. Imogene laid in the soft sheets of her hotel bed, enjoying the sultry sensation of Cooper's fingers lightly tracing figures known only to him onto the exposed skin of her naked back. It felt delicious... like she could greet each new day like this for the rest of her life and truly be happy.

Which is also why he had to go.

The groggy blonde flipped over so she could stare at Cooper face to face, "what're you doing?"

"Selina's" tone wasn't quite what Cooper had expected when she finally awoke, "just enjoying laying here with you... what's wrong with that?"

His partner rolled her eyes and sighed, kicking the covers off and sitting up on the edge of the bed. She pulled her panties over her legs, then felt around beneath the bed for her bra.

"Seriously... what? What did I do?" Cooper asked in confusion. He sat up and rested his arm on bent knee.

"I thought you were a pro," Imogene replied. "This was extremely unprofessional."

"You weren't complaining last night," Cooper quipped, "don't put your own hangups on me."

Imogene picked up Cooper's pants and tossed them at his face, the heavy belt buckle whacking him in the eye upon contact, "ow! Goddamnit, Selina! What the fuck?!"

"You need to go... you... WE have work to do," Imogene scolded, getting more and more agitated by the minute.

"Look, doll... last night was fun, and that's all it had to be," her partner tried to reason with her, "we can keep having fun, or we can stop... but there's no need for all the fucking hostility."

"Yeah, I had fun last night," Imogene relented, "but we can't get overly attached, not while I'm still in this life."

"Who's attached?" Cooper scoffed, "the way you're acting, if anyone here seems a little too attached it's you!"

The reality of it was... yes... she did like him... more than she knew she should. Cooper had grown on her over the short time they'd been working together. It didn't help that his muscular bare chest and five o' clock shadow made her want to jump his bones all over again. He was the first man Imogene had been with that she wasn't looking to exploit. The fact that he could see that in her only pissed her off more.

"I'm not going to say this again... go. Do your job. I'll do mine. The sooner you find us an opportunity to get inside DeTorres's home, the sooner we can get this job over with and get on with our lives."

Cooper just shook his head and smiled in amused astonishment. He got out of bed, collected the rest of his clothes, and got dressed. Before leaving he asked, "see you at the bar tonight as usual?"

"Whatever," Imogene barked, then pushed him out the door.

"Fuck. Fuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuck."

How could she feel this way about a man she barely knew, and in such a short amount of time? She had to shake this feeling off. Purge Cooper from her thoughts. She had to be professional.

Before this rather inconvenient development, she'd already made up her mind that she was going to have to kill him.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

After a long night of heavy sex and the inversion to her sleep schedule, Imogene normally would have found rest easy. The conflicted feelings she held about Cooper kept circling around in her head, which made sleep nearly impossible. She didn't want to kill the man, she'd never killed anyone in fact. It was Fulci who had planted the seed in her head to begin with, leaving the decision up to her. But if she decided to go through with it, that would mean a fifty-fifty cut instead of a third of one of the greatest scores anyone had ever seen.

She dreaded having to see her partner again, of having to face him in that crusty old bar after kicking him out like a drunken mistake that morning. By the time she finally slinked into their usual booth that night, she looked like death warmed over, barely able to keep her eyes open.

"Well don't we look bright-eyed and bushy-tailed this evening," Cooper teasingly mocked.

"Shut up... I didn't sleep very well. It was too bright in my room," she lied.

"You sure you're up for this tonight?" He asked.

"Please shut up... just tell me what you got today." Imogene crossed her arms in front of her and rested them on the table, then buried her face in them. Cooper could still hear her groaning in misery, despite her efforts to hide it.

Her partner smirked, "well... which is it?"

"Which is what?" Her voice muffled inside her arms.

"Do you want me to shut up, or do you want the good news?" Cooper crossed his arms over his chest and waited for her answer.

Imogene peeked over her elbow and raised that signature, sexy brow, "what good news?"

"Spur of the moment thing. DeTorres has left for wine country for the weekend with one of his boy-toys. He won't be back until Sunday night."

At this, Imogene shot up straight. "Holy fuck! We can get in tonight?!"

"That all depends on you, doesn't it?" Cooper asked. "Have you worked out his security setup? And can you fucking stay awake long enough to do so?"

"Don't worry about me, I'll just down one of those nasty energy drinks you're always guzzling." It hadn't occurred to her until just then, but what a perfect way to put Cooper down. Permanent sleep delivered by way of something meant to keep him awake. She thought Fulci might appreciate the poetry in it.

"I've been frustrated by how little security there is on the premises, but I'm starting to wonder if that's by design," Imogene mused. "What if that in itself is a cover... like, guards and snipers and searchlights would just draw attention to a fortress, but what if the safe is just that we'll hidden that he doesn't need to worry about it."

"It's an interesting theory," Cooper admitted, "I guess there's only one way to find out. We'll have to neutralize the butler, of course."

"Leave that to me," Imogene assured him, "the old pretty-girl-with-car-trouble routine hasn't failed me yet."

"I'm sure it hasn't," Cooper joked. For the first time since their wild night together, she smiled back.

"That big ox will be so distracted, you'll be able to sneak up on him from a mile away!" She assured him.

"Just get his back turned to me," Cooper instructed, "I'll lay him out."

A different kind of electricity filled the air this night... a charge that energized them both. This was it. This is what they'd been waiting for. The score of a lifetime would soon to be at their fingertips.

"So," Imogene asked, "what the fuck are we waiting for?"

The pair of criminals nearly knocked over their table in such a hurry to leave the otherwise calming ambiance of Tiki Ti's. Both knew it was now or never. DeTorres hadn't shown, despite his monetary means to do so, that he was much of a traveler. What better way for Smaug to maintain a keen and watchful eye over his treasure.

Imogene and Cooper parted ways to collect the gear they needed from their respective accommodations, planning to meet again just two blocks east of DeTorres's bachelor pad.

This was indeed their only shot.


Now or never.





End Part 3
"People like Coldplay and voted for the Nazis, you can't trust people, Jeremy."

-Super Hans, Peep Show

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Re: Tumbled

Post by FredKOV » Fri Feb 17, 2023 5:28 am

Hello,

Thank you for sharing this story. I can't wait to read the rest.
My website here : AhentaiTV

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Re: Tumbled

Post by Bloodthirstybutcher » Fri Feb 17, 2023 9:36 pm

FredKOV wrote:
Fri Feb 17, 2023 5:28 am
Hello,

Thank you for sharing this story. I can't wait to read the rest.
Thanks for reading so far! There’s plenty more to come.
"People like Coldplay and voted for the Nazis, you can't trust people, Jeremy."

-Super Hans, Peep Show

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Re: Tumbled

Post by Bloodthirstybutcher » Fri Feb 17, 2023 9:37 pm

Part 4-"Mr. Rudolph"




Hacking into DeTorres's security system was nothing short of child's play for the young and talented Mrs. Spaak. She'd infiltrated similar systems time and time again, but rarely on a job as high profile as this. Everything had already been set up during her nightly visits to The Broker's property. Within seconds of opening her laptop she was in control of the whole system from the comfort of her air-conditioned rental car. Opening the livestream in a separate window, it was then only a matter of recording the feed for thirty seconds or so, then placing that short clip in a loop.

"Probably would have been easier to just spray paint the camera lenses," Cooper joked. Imogene grinned, that same eyebrow raised in amusement. Cooper began to wonder if that thing had a mind of its own.

"How exactly have you managed to stay out of prison this long?" Imogene asked, mocking her partner's old fashioned methods.

"Who says I haven't," he replied.

Imogene outright laughed this time, "alright... when we get out of here, you're gonna have to tell me all about that!"

Knowing she had already poisoned Cooper's energy drink, Imogene realized this was a strange thing to say to a man who would be dead in less than thirty minutes. The clock was ticking. She still needed her partner for a little while longer. While she distracted the butler... a large, musclebound meat-head if there ever was one... it would be Cooper's job to surprise and subdue the man.

That guilty feeling still nagged at her though. Cooper didn't deserve this... and yes... she'd developed feelings for him despite her better judgement. It was distracting and unprofessional... but did she really have to kill him? Could she have settled for a third?

Oh... but HALF... half was well worth taking his life.

She hoped anyway.

"You ready?" Cooper's voice startled Imogene out of her conflicted and guilt ridden thoughts.

"Y-yeah," she stammered, "just going over something in my head."

Cooper gave pause. "You sure you're up to this?"

Imogene opened the door and stepped out of the car, leaning back inside briefly to tell her partner, "I was born for this." She slammed the door shut to emphasize her point. Cooper chuckled to himself for a brief moment, then joined her.

While Cooper was clad in black from head to toe, Imogene sported a shimmery green party dress and stiletto heels... all part of the performance she was about to put on for the butler... a certain Mr. Alphonso Rudolph. As the two approached the door, Cooper took his spot just out of sight, a needle full of tranquilizer primed for its target. He signaled to his partner that he was ready with a silent nod.

With that, Imogene slipped out of her heels and held them both dangling from the straps in one hand. She smeared her heavy eye makeup down her cheeks to make it appear as though she'd been crying... then rapped lightly on the door.

The seconds felt like hours with the heavy anticipation lingering in the air. Sweat beaded on Cooper's forehead, while he couldn't believe how Imogene remained so calm and composed, like she'd done this a thousand times. Before long, the bald gorilla of a man that was DeTorres's butler approached the door. He only cracked it open at first, clearly suspicious of this frazzled-looking young woman standing on his boss's porch at such a late hour. "Yes? What do you want?"

"Oh yes! Thank you!" Imogene exclaimed with her best pout. "I've been knocking on every door in this neighborhood and no one would answer! My breaks went out about a half a mile down that way and I crashed into a fire hydrant! I tried to call 911, but my phone is dead! Could I possibly use yours, sweetie?"

She was good, Cooper thought to himself, really good. She'd obviously had done this before.

The butler sighed, "yes that's fine... just... wait here a moment while I get it."

"Oh god bless you, sir! You're such a sweetheart!" Imogene continued to sell it like she was trying to win an Oscar, clasping her hands together and beaming from ear to ear.

The butler failed to close the door tightly when he turned his back, so once he was out of view, Imogene allowed herself inside. She remained standing just within the entryway, awaiting the return of the mountainous man servant. Cooper held his ground, his hands moistening with anticipation. As the butler came around the corner, he saw that this strange girl was now inside the house. He instantly came unglued.

"Hey! I told you to wait outside!" He shouted with a finger extended towards the door.

As he got closer, Imogene placed her hand on the big lug's tree trunk of an arm, a simple caring touch that she'd used so often to turn men into putty in her hands. "I know, I'm so sorry... it's just that... I've been walking a ways and my feet are getting all tore up. I just wanted to stand on this nice soft doormat, I promise."

She rubbed his forearm and pouted like her life depended on it. "Thank you so much for this, sir! I'm eternally in your gratitude! May Jesus bless you and yours!"

Cooper had to restrain himself from pulling a spit take at that last bit.

The butler unlocked his phone for the sad looking girl standing on his boss's landing. "Here. Make it quick."

Imogene took his iPhone graciously and pretended to dial emergency services. Casually, she began to pace back and forth while holding her imaginary conversation with 911 dispatch. She needed to maintain the butler's attention as she meandered her way further inside. To the Mr. Rudolph, her movements appeared ditzy and uncalculated, but were anything but. Once the caretaker's back was turned to the door, she finished her call and thanked the man for his kindness and praised Jesus one last time... Cooper's signal to move into action.

With a lightness of foot, the veteran burglar snuck over the threshold and jammed the narrow spike into Alphonso's thick neck. The caretaker reacted on pure instinct, knocking Cooper against the wall with enough force to put a nice big hole in the drywall. The less-than-incredible hulk ripped the needle from his neck and tossed it to the ground.

"Ooooh... you're both dead."

Like handling a pair of rag dolls, Alphonso grabbed both of these home invaders by their throats and lifted them off the floor with ease. Their feet dangled just a few agonizing inches off the floor with toes stretching desperately for terra firma. Imogene clawed at his wrists while Cooper pounded on Rudolph's massive arm with his fists, both furiously trying to free themselves from his crushing grasp.

"I've always wondered what it would be like to kill someone by just... smashing one skull against another," the butler grunted, "I guess today's the day I get to find out."

The behemoth of a man spread his arms apart, like he was winding up for maximum impact. Cooper and Imogene stared into each others reddening eyes, each praying that the other still had something up their sleeve. But just then, the ground came rushing up to greet them. The tranquilizer coursing through the Goliath's bloodstream had finally taken effect and the butler dropped like a falling tree, taking his deeply relieved guests with him.

"Holy... fuck," Cooper panted, "that guy... was like... a fucking... elephant!"

Imogene rubbed at her aching neck, reeling from the shock of the strangulation. "How long will he be out?"

"Normally... I'd say... a few hours," Cooper thought, "but this fucker's... as strong as... a bull! Who... knows?"

Instinctually, Imogene slammed the front door shut and killed the lights so as not to arouse the attention of the neighbors. She looked around at the destruction they'd already caused and shook her head. "It really is now or never, isn't it?" Saying it more to herself than to Cooper. "DeTorres will come home and see the damage, call the cops, boost his security... and that will be it. We'll never get back inside. We have to find his safe tonight."

Cooper was mildly distracted, flicking the butler's cheek, just to make sure he actually was out cold. "He kinda looks like Dave Bautista... you think he looks like Dave Bautista?"

Imogene ignored her partner's pointless musings, already feeling her way along the walls for a seem, a latch, anything that looked well hidden. Seeing what she was up to, Cooper stood up and started doing the same on the opposing wall. They continued this process through the entry corridor and into the main living space.

Most of the home was one open floor plan, with the exception of the bedrooms and bathrooms. It felt surreal for both of them to finally be viewing the place from the inside instead of through the binocular's lenses from the hillside above. Everything was very clean, very minimalist. Adorned with post-modern, angular furniture imported from Europe. Cooper shut off the lights in the living room, knowing as well as Imogene that the glass walls of the home wouldn't hide anything the pair of burglars were up to. He retrieved a pair of flashlights from his bag, one for each of them.

"Pssst, hey... Cooper! Come look at this!" Imogene beckoned. "This interior wall... what looks strange about it?"

Sure enough, a thick column constructed of masoned volcanic rock separated the dinning area from the spacious living room. Cooper shone his torch at the painting hanging prominently on one of its four sides, "is that an actual Van Gogh?! Well fuck me! That's definitely coming home."

"Pay attention," Imogene chastised, "what practical purpose does this wall serve? It looks like a chimney or something, but there's no fireplace. It's here! It has to be! Hidden in plain sight! He's even placed that Van Gogh there as a distraction. Fuck, how did I miss this?"

"Change of perspective, I suppose," was all Cooper could offer as an explanation. He suddenly felt quite warm, flushed with what felt like a fever coming on fast.

"Ah-ha!" Imogene suddenly exclaimed. She had been pressing on each rock, searching for a release or removable stone. When one of the rocks finally gave, it popped back out, revealing a security keypad beneath. "I knew it!"

Cooper removed Imogene's laptop from the bag and handed it over. "You think you can crack it?"

"Piece of cake," she replied. What Imogene lacked in experience she more than made up for in talent. The crafty young criminal quickly cracked open the case surrounding the keypad, then connected her laptop to it via a short cable. Within a matter of minutes, a simple algorithm installed on her computer had cracked the passcode. The light backing the pinpad flashed from red to green, then... an entire side of the wide pillar rolled up into the ceiling like a garage door. Hidden within the column was an old service-style elevator, quite narrow, but wide enough for a single person to take it down. Imogene began to step inside... but that's when she heard a familiar, unnerving sound...

Click.





End Part 4
"People like Coldplay and voted for the Nazis, you can't trust people, Jeremy."

-Super Hans, Peep Show

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Re: Tumbled

Post by Bloodthirstybutcher » Sat Feb 18, 2023 11:29 pm

Part 5-"Honor Among Thieves"




Imogene was no stranger to having a firearm drawn on her. It had happened frequently enough that she could recognize the sound of a gun being cocked without seeing it. She raised her hands and slowly turned around to face who she assumed was DeTorres. The blinding beam of the the flashlight lowered from her face, revealing the gun's owner.


It wasn't The Broker.


It was Cooper.


"Sorry about this, doll. It's nothing personal," he half-heartedly apologized through a slight but worsening cough.

"What the fuck, Cooper?!" She replied. Of course Fulci had made Cooper the same offer. That double crossing little pig. Imogene kicked herself, knowing if she hadn't have been so blinded by her infatuation with with her partner, she would have seen something this coming. There was still the poison in his system though, and judging from Cooper's cough, it had to be taking effect. She just had to buy a little time.

"Let me guess... Fulci put you up to this?" She asked, just to keep him talking.

Cooper coughed a little more, "sixty percent is a hard number to turn your nose up at."

"Sixty?!" His partner exclaimed, wondering what the hell either of them had done to fall out of Fulci's graces. "That bastard only offered me HALF to kill you!"

"I guess it's true," Cooper jokingly taunted, "what they say about women in the workplace. They do make less than their male counterparts."

"Fuck you, Cooper!" She replied less than eloquently. It may not have been obvious to her treacherous partner, but Imogene could finally see Fulci's plan. Wait and see which one comes back alive... then kill them too, leaving only their boss remaining to collect the score.

"Like I said, love... it's nothing personal... this is just... business." Cooper sat on the corner of the couch to steady himself as he began to feel dizzy. "I've passed my prime in this line of work, Selina. The technological knowledge needed these days is beyond me. I'm a dinosaur. So... it's time to hang up my balaclava, you could say. But I'll tell you this... I'm sure as shit not marching off to a 'living death' in some nine to five, as you so perfectly put it."

"Having a gun pointed at my face feels awfully personal to me," Imogene countered. "Can't you see what Fulci is up to here?"

She hadn't finished her sentence before Cooper began to cough violently, this time spitting up a handful of blood. "The fuck?"

Imogene furrowed her brow and glared back at Cooper. It was time she let her partner in on the gag, "you're hemorrhaging, Cooper. I'd say you have... maybe a few more minutes left to live without medical attention."

Cooper continued to cough, a frightening amount of blood pooring from his mouth, nostrils... and even the corners of his bloodshot eyes. "What the fuck is this?! What's--"

And then it hit him.

Imogene had been quicker on the draw.

"Yoooooouuu... you did this!" Cooper's voice gargled like he was drowning. His face twisted and gnarled in rage, his life's blood spilling from his orifices.

"Just a nasty little something I picked up the last time I was in Singapore," Imogene replied. "You really should cut back on those energy drinks, Cooper... they're so bad for you." Even as the words left her mouth, Imogene second guessed her taunting of the doomed man. He still had a gun.

"F-f-fucking... fucking bitch... FUCKING BITCH!" Cooper could no longer hold himself upright and slumped to his jittery knees. As weak and sickly as he felt, he still possessed enough strength to raise his weapon. If he was going to die... if he wasn't going to get his precious nest egg, then "Selina" sure as shit wasn't going to get it either. "You spoiled fucking brat! What the fuck have you ever had to earn?! When have you ever gone without a meal or a roof over your head?! How dare you take this from me!!! It was mine, goddamnit! MIIIIINE!"

The gun flashed to life in the darkness. Bullets sprayed wildly in every direction, as though the room were a flower and Cooper was trying to pollinate it with lead. Imogene dodged behind an expensive Bauhaus arm chair, just barely escaping an errant projectile. The cold blue of the darkened home sporadically brightened with the random bursts from Cooper's gun. He knew he was was done for, but even the cheapest firecracker goes out with a bang.

Trying to avoid the hail of gunfire, Imogene managed to pull the heavy wooden credenza away from the wall and slide behind it for cover. Chips and slivers rained down on her as Cooper filled the expensive piece of furniture with holes. Several of the exterior glass walls shattered and then came crashing down in delayed fashion.

So much for hiding their activity from the neighbors. The job was over, and Imogene knew it... for her, a rare failure. All that mattered at that moment was to survive long enough for Cooper bite the big one, then get away before the cops arrived.

The shooting suddenly stopped. Her former partner had to be dead, judging from the amount of blood he'd already lost, but Imogene didn't dare peak from cover just yet. The bastard could just as easily be playing possum. Every second mattered. The law was most assuredly on its way. It felt like her heart might just pound its way out of her chest.

Imogene pushed the bullet-filled credenza further away from the wall, then peaked over the top. There on the floor, lay the man she only ever knew as Cooper. He had vomited up his insides before he died... blood and gore flowering all around him. Imogene stood up... walked over to where he lay... and stared blankly at his lifeless body.

Should she feel more than she was feeling? Should she be more concerned with the fact that she'd just murdered this man that, despite her good sense, she had grown to care for? For the time being, she'd have to rationalize her actions as self defense, even though she knew damn well that wasn't the case.

Imogene continued to stare vacancy at Cooper's lifeless body. Waiting for the tears to come. They would not. She kicked his corpse, just as much to see if he truly was gone as to make sure what she was seeing was real. Imogene had murdered someone, and there was no going back from that.

The sole living member of this two man crew turned away from her former partner and began to tiptoe her way through the shattered glass that littered the floor. She started towards the front door...

...but there it was...

The elevator. Glowing from inside... the only source of light in the room since Cooper's gun ran out of ammunition. Imogene took another step towards the door, trying to focus on the jagged shards beneath her bare feet and not the mysterious lift. She stopped herself again... knowing damn well she should just leave. The heist was totally fucked... a disaster... she needed to get out of there...

... but it was right there...

Imogene had never botched a job this badly before. Not that she was worried about letting Fulci down, the bastard. Her former boss and Cooper were to blame for this mess, and she fully planned on serving up a big plate of revenge for the man when she got back to New York.

But that in itself posed its own set of problems. She would be the only one left to take the fall should the syndicate get word of this whole debacle. Her reputation would be ruined at best... and at worst? A one way boat trip and new pair of concrete slippers.

Then again...

Could she really walk away, not knowing what lied at the bottom of that shaft? Would she ever be able to sleep again... haunted by what could have been? The pull was strong, like the elevator itself held a tractor beam set on her very will. It knew what she needed. The devil himself... tempting her with its promises of riches.

Closing her eyes and taking a deep breath, Imogene cleared her mind and then talked herself out of stepping into that lift. It was a trip into the unknown, and leaving would ensure that she'd live to steal another day. It was the right decision. She soft-footed to the front of the house until she reached the landing, where Alfonso Rudolph still lay unconscious. She placed her hand on the door handle... and paused.



'Does that make us a couple of junkies?'



"One quick little peak won't kill me."





End Part 5
"People like Coldplay and voted for the Nazis, you can't trust people, Jeremy."

-Super Hans, Peep Show

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Re: Tumbled

Post by ensmallen » Sun Feb 19, 2023 1:48 am

Gripping!

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Re: Tumbled

Post by Bloodthirstybutcher » Sun Feb 19, 2023 11:11 pm

Part 6-"The Vault"




The hair on Imogene's neck stood on end. Sweat greased her palms. With a deep, nervous breath, she stepped inside the tiny elevator. There was barely space enough for both she and her bag of tools. An old lever with a worn wooden handle appeared to be the lone mechanism to run the machine.

Up or down... heaven or hell.

When she lowered the lever, the lift doors before her shut automatically. The narrow elevator began to lower. A hooked catch above the unit caught the rolling false wall and pulled it back down from the ceiling with it. The pin pad retracted as well, disappearing back into the wall. Cooper's body faded into the darkness among the occasional glint of shattered glass.

For a brief moment, Imogene choked with the thought that this Emil DeTorres sh was robbing was some kind of supervillain. Was she being lowered into a vat of acid... or sharks... or fucking lava? The trip was short lived though, as the lift only lowered a single level below the house. The ridiculous terrors her mind had conjured no longer awaited her arrival and quickly faded away to the back of Imogene's anxious thoughts.

She was Imogene Spaak, goddamnit! The best! 'Get your shit together, woman,' she ordered herself.

The elevator door folded open like a phone booth to reveal a rather unusual and unexpected sight. Various drills, presses and saws occupied the space on the wrap around bench that lined two of the outer walls. Imogene had spent enough time around black market jewelers to recognize faceting machinery and most other lapidary equipment when she saw them. Wooden shelving had also been built into the cinderblock walls that made up the home's foundation, displaying hundreds of polished and raw mineral specimens of varying scarcity. Each column of shelving was lit by track lighting that did these beautiful stones more justice than the flickering fluorescent bulbs ever could.

This was DeTorres's workshop.

"This can't be it," Imogene told herself. Her initial feelings of disappointment were only quelled when she analyzed the dimensions of the room. It was much smaller than the floor plan above her, and built into an "L" shape. "There's another room down here."

Her instincts were spot on. As she rounded the corner, situated between yet more display shelving, was an out-of-place looking red curtain. Imogene pushed the thick fabric aside to reveal exactly what she had suspected. In front of her was a sliding glass door that led into a much smaller chamber... empty save for a large vault door fixed as its centerpiece.

"Fuck me...," she whispered to herself, more out of relief than awe. "Finally." The vault door was old, easily as old as the home. More importantly, there were no signs of security cameras, no wires running from the door to an alarm. Imogene removed a bottle of baby powder from the bag and emptied a handful into her palm. She first tested the outside of the glass door. By blowing the powder across the floor into a cloud, she could expose the red beam of a trip laser. There was nothing. Cautiously sliding the door open, she tried the inside as well. Nothing there either.

"This guy really needs to update his tech," Imogene said to herself, whilst removing a heavy duty drill from within the bag. She emptied the remaining tools she was going to need to crack open the safe as well, something the skillful thief was certain would be a cake walk considering its age. She laid the items out neatly in a row and in the order she would need their services.

Cracking a safe of this build was rudimentary for someone of her talents. Like using a simulator before they let you fly the real plane. Placing the long carbide bit against the smooth outer steel of the vault door, just below the dial, she squeezed the trigger. The drill screamed to life.

Imogene felt a grin stretch her face from the oncoming rush. "Come to momma."

It was as though the troubling events just minutes prior had never occurred. The festering guilt was gone. Imogene didn't care that she'd killed Cooper... hell, in the heat of the intoxicating adrenaline rush, there was no Cooper. There never had been. He wasn't upstairs, his liquified innards spilling from his body and staining DeTorres's hardwood. No more thoughts of nosy neighbors or the rapidly approaching police. No need to worry about that big orangutan of a butler coming to and crushing her spine.

It was just Imogene and the safe.

The drill carved a small divot into the thick metal casing, but that's as far as it got. The glass door closed behind the focused burglar and locked automatically, trapping her inside. She hadn't noticed it latch shut over the sound of the churning drill. The lighting above her flashed from the pale bluish-green glow of the fluorescent lighting to a much more ominous red. There was no time to react. A small white cloud erupted from the center of the combination dial, hitting Imogene directly in the face. The unknown substance reeked of chemical and smoke.

Something was wrong.

Imogene couldn't breath.

Clutching at her throat with both hands, the panicked thief gasped for air. The intoxicating rush of the heist suddenly replaced with the tension of mortal fear. Terror completely took her as precious, life-giving air was denied. God knows what she'd just been hit with, but whatever it was had caused Imogene's windpipe to swell and close. Her eyes reddened and watered, bulging wider and wider. Her skin turned a sickly pale before it passed to blue. She fell back against the glass door with enough force to shatter it, but she didn't even cause a crack. Bullet proof. Her vision started to dim and blur as Imogene choked on her own throat.

And then, after a few agonizing seconds... seconds that felt like a painful and terrifying eternity, her windpipe relaxed and opened once again. Imogene gasped, pulling as much fresh air deep into her lungs as she could.

But now... something else...

...something new...

...was terribly wrong.

With each subsequent exhale, the safe seemed to stretch away from her. Imogene's first impression was that she'd been hit with some kind of psychotropic, half expecting to pass out at any given moment... but she didn't. Another breath... and her surroundings expanded once again...

... and again... and again.

With each new breath and release, the vault door marched further away from her. The very cold, hard ground on which she sat slid away beneath her in all directions. It wasn't until the strap of her dress began to slide down her shoulder that Imogene realized that whatever was happening to her wasn't some drug induced hallucination.

The chamber's sole prisoner stood up, with every passing second warping her reality further. As she turned to make her escape, the dress completely slid down her body and pooled at her feet... along with her panties. Her brazier still clung to her chest, but she no longer filled it out... and the bottom of the garment was slowly working its way across her stomach. The handle she had just used to slide the glass door open was suddenly high enough to reach her shoulder. The tops of the work benches beyond the glass were higher too.

This wasn't a hallucination. The world wasn't warped or growing... Imogene was shrinking!

If she didn't have reason to be terrified before, she sure as shit did now. Usually one to keep her head in a crisis, this was beyond anything the young criminal had ever encountered. She began to the hyperventilate, but the quickened pace of her breathing also seemed to quicken her dwindling. Within a matter of seconds, the door handle her gaze was fixed upon had grown so much larger, and stretched out of reach. This was when the terrified woman realized the horrible truth, that the very act of breathing was causing her to shed her mass.

A hard, direct slap across her own cheek served just as much to snap Imogene out of her impending panic attack as she hoped it'd wake her up from this nightmare. She took a single deep breath and held it. Sure enough, the shrinking process momentarily halted. With this revelation, Imogene didn't waste any more time... as she didn't know how much she had left. At the rate she was shrinking, it wouldn't take long before she was too small to move the door...

... and after that...

...would it ever stop?!

She attempted to push against the glass, trying to slide the door back open. Unfortunately for her it had been designed to lock and seal when things went red inside the chamber. She quickly ran to the hammer sitting neatly on the floor where she had just left it. The tool had grown over twice as large as when she had set it there. It was enormous, heavy and unwieldy... but she had to try. With every ounce of strength she had left in her dwindling body, Imogene took the hammer in both of her arms, spun in place to build up centrifugal force, and tossed it by its handle towards the glass.

Nothing. Not even a scratch. The shrinking woman could feel the oversized hammer's weight through the soles of her feet as it fell uselessly back to the floor with a clank. She couldn't hold the air inside her lungs any longer. Imogene took another breath and held it.

Smaller still.

Her cumbersome bra had already outgrown its host, joining the rest of Imogene's clothing on the concrete floor. She stood naked, surrounded by a pool of her own overgrown attire, still trying to hold her breath as she frantically searched for another way out. But the human body craves oxygen, and no matter how hard she fought against her involuntary functions, eventually she had no choice but to give in.

Still shrinking more.

Smaller... and smaller... and smaller.

The puddle of overgrown clothing flooded into a pond... and then that pond grew into a lake. The tools she'd carried with her into that dreadful room with relative ease had expanded in size so much that she wouldn't be able to lift a single one without a forklift. As she continued to shrink, even that seemed impossible. Soon, the tiny room Imogene had walked into felt like standing inside a hollowed out skyscraper.

Smaller and smaller still.

There was no escape. There was nothing she could do to save herself. Imogene raced through question after question in her head. Was this really how she was going to go out? Shrinking away to nothing?! Is this what happened to the others who tried to cross The Broker? They just... disappeared?! Blinked out of existence?!

The effects of holding her breath for such long periods began to take their toll. In trying to stave off the inevitable, Imogene had grown overwhelmingly lightheaded. Dizziness and disorientation spun the still-growing room into a crimson blur. The red light that engulfed the massive space suddenly faded to black.




End Part 6
"People like Coldplay and voted for the Nazis, you can't trust people, Jeremy."

-Super Hans, Peep Show

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Re: Tumbled

Post by Bloodthirstybutcher » Tue Feb 21, 2023 12:10 am

Part 7-"Two Years Earlier… The Dubai Job"




Ten Million Dollars.



Most people have a hard time picturing what that actually looks like, even in larger bills. Five million of it spread out neatly on the queen-sized bed in Imogene's luxury hotel room. The time had finally come to relax and bask in a job well done.

The fact that the sheik she'd stolen it from kept that much cash on hand was his own damn fault, as far as she was concerned. He was begging someone... daring them even... daring HER to steal it. As was usual, Fulci had provided his contractor with the details of the job and the means to get there. She hadn't been his first choice, but others had passed on the gig, claiming it was too risky and difficult for such a "lackluster" reward. Imogene saw it as an opportunity to prove herself, and prove herself she did. Ten million dollars was anything but "lackluster" to a small town girl from the Midwest after all.

Seeing how quickly and efficiently she pulled the whole thing off, from that day on, Fulci offered each new gig to Imogene before trusting it to anyone else.

Lucio's share sat in a large black duffle resting on the second bed, looking like an overstuffed body bag. Imogene had to congratulate herself on sticking with the gym... or she'd never have been able to carry those bulky things out of the high rise her victim called home. She still needed a cart, a hotel luggage dolly actually, to move the money out of the building.

The whole thing went so flawlessly, so according to plan. A true rarity in this business. The Saudi oilman left for dinner that evening with a pair of gold-digging models on each arm, giving the eager-to-impress Ms. Spaak the perfect window of opportunity. She was in and out within a half an hour, most of that time spent filling bag after bag with stacks of fresh American currency. Hundred dollar bills wrapped up in neat little bundles. And now, they all belonged to her... well, half of them anyway.

The fact that she had done all of the heavy lifting, literal and otherwise, seemed a little unfair to Imogene that Fulci should get half of the take. But he had the syndicate to pay off, as well as other obligations. Despite how much it irked her to do so, Imogene always payed her dues... better square than indebted to the mob.

Imogene had her own dues to manage of course. Her false identifications, safe houses, and those in charge of laundering the cash would all expect to be paid. It's amazing how quickly large sums of money can disappear once everyone involved gets their cut. She could easily loose half of her cut by the time all was said and done. Figuring the IRS would take that much if she worked a straight job, Imogene learned to live with it. At least this oil baron's money wouldn't be used to pay off defense contractors like taxes would.

But...

For that night and that night alone, it all belonged to her. The bundles of cash filled up the surface of her bed... more money than she'd ever possessed in her entire life. Green and crisp as though they'd never seen circulation. Imogene had always loved the smell of freshly printed cash, even the counterfeit bills she'd often come across.

If movies had taught her anything, there was only one thing to do at a time like this.

Standing at the foot of the bed, Imogene first began to slip out of her shoes, then pulled her socks off one at a time. Then came her black form-fitting pants, which she wiggled out of and left in a heap on the floor. Lastly, she pulled the tight, black turtle neck she wore over her head. Standing there in not but her underwear, she turned her back to the bed. With an embarrassed laugh, Imogene let herself fall backwards into the once neatly stacked cash.

The paper banding the bundles of money together gave easily under her weight as Imogene proceeded to roll and writhe around in the green paper, laughing and smiling like a child in the snow. She'd gather a handful of bills and let them fall, watching them flutter down onto her stomach like autumn leaves. She loved the smell even more now that she could actually bury her face in it. The way the paper felt on her skin, the way it crinkled beneath her body and inbetween her toes. The young woman had experienced some great sex, but none of it could compete with this.

Sure, she knew it was a little cliche, but rolling around in a big pile of money had always been a fantasy of hers. It was everything she'd hoped it would be and more, cliche or not. She wouldn't have wanted to share this moment with any man. Only Imogene knew how to press the proper buttons for an event like this. Before long, her fingers had traced their way down her smooth, flat stomach and snuck below the band of her moistening panties. She was warmed up plenty, she just needed to finish herself off. Imogene tried to tease herself at first, but it was no use. The dam was already primed to burst. A few flicks of her button was all the stimulation she needed to experience one of the best orgasms of her life, one that left her shivering, tearful, and giddy.

With a satisfied and somewhat embarrassed giggle, Imogene turned on her side and closed her eyes. Before falling asleep, she thought about all the people who would soon handle the money she had just masturbated on. This made her slight giggle escalate into outright laughter.

The mattress resembled a nest more than a proper bed after such an intense session of self stimulation. Imogene quickly drifted off to sleep, smiling and snuggling in deeper like a cozy little bird. It wouldn't be easy stuffing all of that cash back into the bags the next morning, especially now that it was spread all over the room. This thought couldn't be further far from Ms. Spaak's cum-drunk mind. Just wonderfully restful sleep and the most pleasant of dreams.

Imogene had accomplished the impossible, and now the world was her oyster. Others would find out and she'd soon earn the respect of peers she only then realized she desired. The young thief was on top of the world... there was nothing stopping her now.

Sweet Dreams, Imogene Spaak.





End Part 7
"People like Coldplay and voted for the Nazis, you can't trust people, Jeremy."

-Super Hans, Peep Show

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Re: Tumbled

Post by Bloodthirstybutcher » Wed Feb 22, 2023 12:17 am

Part 8-"The Towering Cell"




A deep gasp for air sobered Imogene from her fainting spell. Something was blocking her nose and mouth, making difficult to breath. She couldn't see either, which sent her into yet another panicked state. When she instinctually reached to her face to remove the blockage, she found it covered in a thick, clay-like muck. The stuff wiped away fairly easily, allowing the frightened woman to see and breath once again.

Dizzying disorientation and a nasty case of the cottonmouth greeted the as she coughed up more of the mud from her throat. Her vision blurred horribly with a crushing migraine that felt like it could split her head in two. Most of what she could make out was a red blur, filling the entire sky above her. The ground she sat on was cold and grainy, but relatively smooth... surrounded by shimmering green hills. A strange Martian landscape for which she was far from prepared. As her vision slowly returned to her, the sparkling stars that littered the hills revealed themselves for what they really were, enlarged sequins of the very dress she had been wearing... before...

...before shrinking.

Imogene held her breath at the shocking sight of her evening wear canvasing the horizon. She couldn't afford to shrink any more, especially not knowing just how small she'd gotten. With ballooning the shrunken thief denied the air inside her lungs escape until her face changed from red to blue. She pushed it down, keeping the breath locked deep down inside until the pain became too great. With an exaggerated release, Imogene braced herself to watch the hills slide further away, just like the vault. They didn't budge.

She took another breath... then another. Nothing changed. With a sigh of relief, Imogene fell flat on her naked back, taking in deep and satisfying lungfuls of stale basement air once again. Though relieved that whatever poison she'd inhaled seemed to have worn off, the terror of what she now had to face replaced whatever reprieve she'd earned. Her face felt quite heavy, coated in more of that strange goop. Imogene looked closely at the thick substance muddying her hands, a mixture of dark blues, deep reds and flesh tones that sparkled with touches of glitter. The stuff pooled around the space where her head lay as well.

"Fuck me," she gasped with the realization of what this gunk was. It was her makeup. Imogene sat back up and shook the stuff from her hands. She squeegeed the the rest of the muck from her face with the edges of her hands, shaking it away with a heavy splat on the floor.

Looking over her newly shrunken figure, she found something else stuck to her bare skin. On her person and strewn all around on the floor we're thick flecks of dark paint. Imogene recognized the color instantly as the color of nail polish she'd been wearing that night. She gazed down at her now natural-looking nails and knew this was the case. Her polish had cracked and broken away as she shrank, just as her makeup had collected into the smallest space available. Just another sobering slap in the face from the dire reality of her situation.

"Glad I never got any tattoos," Imogene muttered to herself, wondering if the ink might have actually ruptured through the skin if she had.

On trembling legs and weak knees, either one ready buckle from beneath her at any moment, Imogene forced herself to her feet. The light shining down from above that still bathed the room in crimson did little to help with her migraine. A terrible thirst nagged at her parched throat. Then tiny woman's even tinier stomach growled impatiently at her in need of some kind of sustenance.

One cautious step in front of the other across the cold concrete floor carried the tiny woman towards the base of the sparkling knolls. She tripped along the way, her foot catching the chain of the necklace she had been wearing, sending her tumbling face first onto the floor once again. Imogene turned over and kicked back at the chain angrily.

Then she paused... staring at the enormous piece of jewelry in a state of disbelief, forcing herself to believe it was real. The tiny diamond at its focal point no longer appeared as underwhelming as it did when she was younger. It had grown into the largest precious stone she'd ever seen. Whatever secret attachments she held for the necklace were fading away. It was just another taunting symbol of her terrible predicament.

Imogene stood up and brushed herself off, giving the necklace one final glare before resuming her journey to the base of the fabric hills. Using the round, iridescent sequels as hand and foot holds, the shrunken woman pulled herself up. The material beneath the shiny plate-sized discs barely buckled under her newfound insignificance, something not lost on the tiny climber. It wasn't a difficult or particularly steep climb to the top, but Imogene took it slow just the same. Getting injured in this state posed too many problems... and she wasn't exactly sure she was ready to deal with what waited for her on the other side anyway.

The inches-high promontory offered an overwhelming sight to the tiny intruder. Her neatly placed tools were right where she'd left them, all lined up like trains in a yard. The canvas bag she'd carried them down in was the size of a factory building, the mouth of which now resembling a massive cave entrance. Imogene's sprawling panties stretched out beside the bunched-up dress like the cover for a baseball diamond.

She was so small. So very... very... small.

Once safely down the wrinkled outskirts of the cocktail dress, Imogene ran to the corner where the sliding door met the wall. The metal frame of the titanic glass plate stood so high that she could no longer see over it. She tried to find a hole, a flaw... anything that would allow for her escape. Unfortunately for her, the chamber had been hermetically sealed the second she tried to damage the vault door. Nothing was getting out of there.

A chill ran down the miniature woman's spine, forcing her arms to wrap around her exposed chest. What was she going to now? Who could possibly help her? Only two people knew where she was, and one of them was lying dead on the floor above. The other was a man she'd grown to think of as a father figure, and he had double crossed her.

And what about The Broker? He wasn't due to arrive home for two more days, and even when he did, would she be prepared for what this man had in store for his tiny, uninvited guest? Would she wish she'd actually shrank away to nothing then? There was always Alphonso Rudolph, the butler. After what she and Cooper had done to him, trying to get his attention seemed as futile an option as any.

Imogene had seen the world, possessed talents few even knew of, and could wrap men around her finger like ribbon. What good was any if that to her now? She never realized just how truly alone she was until that moment. Her family didn't even know if she was still alive, having fallen out with them when she was a teenager. No friends. It was just... her.

The hunger pains in her gut growled and cursed at her more with each passing minute. In the off chance that Cooper may have stashed a snack away inside the bag, Imogene slowly trekked in its direction. The distance between her overgrown dress and the satchel had grown significantly, the small chamber now spanning the space of two or three football fields by comparison.

The power drill's long bit loomed large above the shrunken woman, casting a dark shadow beneath the artificial, unsetting red sun above. It lie just where she'd dropped it after getting hit with that horrible chemical. Imogene couldn't help but take pause at the immensity of the hand tool, ignoring her hunger pains for a moment to take in its impossibility. Staring up at the long auger itself, she got an idea.

Imogene's cursed herself at the same time. She should have just walked out that door, and over the many hours she would spend trapped inside her cavernous prison, this thought would haunt her. If her current situation wasn't a testament to the power of Imogene's curiosity over her better judgments, then who's to say what it would take to top it. All that being said... she had to know.

The length of the bit was about eight inches, give or take the inch or so gripped within the tool's rotating clamp. Laying down with her heels at the tip of the bit's shadow, Imogene stretched out flat on the floor. A thick enough layer of dust coated the concrete beneath her to mark out a line where the top of her head reached. When the nervous girl stood back up, she was stunned by how much shadow remained between the line she'd etched and the base of the drill. She was too distraught by what she was seeing to work out her actual height, but... two... maybe three inches... if she was being generous. A few inches were all that remained of Imogene Spaak.

Her teetering knees finally gave and she collapsed to the floor, a shortness of breath tightening in her lungs. Then a vice-like tension in her chest. The tears she'd been fighting began to flow... followed by a heart-wrenching scream.

What was she now?! Was she even a person anymore?! How could this happen to her?! What was she going to do?

The more questions she asked herself, the more emotional Imogene got. Despite the painful void in her stomach, knowing how tiny she had become was too much for her mind to take. Imogene would cry herself to sleep beneath the shadow of the electric drill bit that night.

The loneliest creature on earth.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

It's hard to say how long she slept. Time had little meaning inside the cell, and the red glow within never faded. As her eyes fluttered open, the same disorientation greeted Imogene as before. Not the sort of confusion that comes with waking up in a bed other than your own. This felt like waking from a dream, then finding out that real life was the nightmare.

Rubbing the sleep from her dry, reddened eyes... still sore from sobbing for so long, the miniaturized woman stood up. She probably could have slept for days, but that gnawing pain in her empty gut had only grown worse. So, like she had planned to do before her existential meltdown, tiny Imogene marched onward towards the tool bag. Luckily for her, she had left the thing lying on its side. There wouldn't be any way for her to get inside with anything less than a fire truck ladder otherwise. She climbed onto the lip, pausing to marvel at how large the stitching looked from her magnified perspective.

The mouth of the bag slouched, but offered just enough of a gap for its tiny explorer to enter. Rationally, Imogene knew there was nothing inside except that which she had brought with her. The primitive part of her brain, on the other hand, was sending out a red alert. A fear of what may lie in the unseeable darkness that extends back into prehistory. Imogene took a deep breath before entering the imposing dark.

The dim, crimson light didn't penetrate through the thick canvas much, leaving the tiny, naked woman to feel around inside the canvas tote. She found the loot bags Cooper had packed away, bundled up and tucked neatly at the bottom. So much for ever getting to use them. Imogene could feel the cold steel of enormous wrenches and screwdrivers, all having grown too heavy and cumbersome for her to ever carry again. The more she searched for any kind of sustenance , the more discouraged she became. Hell, a tiny crumb would be enough to fill her belly at this point.

Just one granola bar... just one of Cooper's disgusting energy drinks. Fuck... if her desperately searching hands found the cool, curved surface of one of those neon-colored cans, Imogene promised herself she'd buy stock in the company! That's if they sell holdings to a rodent-sized person anyway.

Defeated and starving, Imogene crawled out of the bag empty handed. Unconsciously, she began to pace back and forth across the floor. She pulled at her hair... panting and screaming in frustration. She even charged at the stethoscope she would have used to listen to the turning mechanisms within the safe. A poorly placed kick at the smooth metal disk only resulted in an excruciating painful stubbed toe. This only fed Imogene's anger.

"FUCK YOU!" She screamed over and over... at no one in particular. God, the devil, Fulci, DeTorres... Cooper. Everyone and anyone who had brought her to this, her lowest point. Imogene had never met a pickle she couldn't weasel her way out of, but she knew that wouldn't be the case here. She sat down hard with her back against the base of the vault door. While trying to curse the pain out of her throbbing toe, she pounded on the vault base behind her with a tiny clenched fist.

In the haze of red hot rage, a single thought crept into the tiny woman's head... and with that thought, her rage turned to cowering fear on a dime. Imogene craned her neck skyward. She was sitting directly beneath the vault's enormous dial. Slowly, she shuffled herself away on hands and knees, never taking her eyes off the combination dial so very high above her. What if her tantrum had been enough to activate the security measure again? What if residue from the first time it fired had settled to the ground where she now sat?

Imogene held her breath and frantically beat the dust away from her naked skin as she stood up. She continued to back away from the massive door, but also kept her eyes fixed upon the dial, ready to run if she needed to. If she inhaled any more of that poison, she'd most certainly disappear.

The cold floor beneath her feet, her own lack of clothing, and the chilling thought of shrinking even further sent a wave of shivers through Imogene's tiny body. The defeated thief worked her way back to her ridiculously overgrown clothing, hoping to find something to cover herself with. She could already tell her dress wasn't going to offer any reprieve from the cold, the giant sequins feeling so rough and sharp to the touch. Her discarded panties were the only option. Dragging the enormous garment behind her like a child with a comically oversized duvet, Imogene pulled it inside the tool bag with her. She wrapped herself in the silky pink fabric, trying to ignore the smell of her own body odor that saturated it.

There was little more to do. No matter what outcome may find her, she had to wait. She kept a close eye on the dial, hoping she could retreat further inside the bag should it spray any more of the mysterious powder. The wrenching pains of thirst and hunger had grown unbearable, making the empty minutes tick by even slower. Imogene couldn't help but laugh at the irony, of all the ways she could die at her size, starvation hadn't seemed high on the list until just then. She had to laugh... if she didn't, the tears would return. Crying would only serve as an unnecessary loss of precious moisture.

In the hours that passed, Imogene thought about Fulci. Mostly about how much she'd love to wring his chubby neck for getting her into this mess in the first place. But also of Cooper. She couldn't stop thinking about him. He was right upstairs... just above the ceiling. She didn't know how to feel about killing him at the time, but murderous guilt had plenty of time to creep up on her and fester in the deafening silence.

She should hate him. Cooper double crossed her just as she had him. But it didn't matter. The more she thought about him, the more Imogene still wished she could've taken it back. Even if it meant that he ending her life instead. Perhaps she could have reasoned with him... perhaps at least they would've had each other in this new alien world. If nothing else, if she couldn't have changed his mind, it would have been him starving to death in that cell instead of her.

The loneliness was just as suffocating as the thirst was painful.

Time inched along, and as it did, Imogene cycled through the stages of grief. Not just for herself, but for the man she'd murdered. An upside-down Tell Tale Heart, with the guilty trapped underground and the corpse taunting her from above. Just when she thought she'd found a way to accept what she'd done... and what she had become... the cycle of shame and guilt would only start over again.

So there Imogene Spaak waited. Torturing herself with her own thoughts. Both dreading and praying that the man known as The Broker would soon arrive.

Perhaps he could fix this...

Perhaps he could fix her...

How could something like hope feel so terrifying?




End Part 8
"People like Coldplay and voted for the Nazis, you can't trust people, Jeremy."

-Super Hans, Peep Show

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Re: Tumbled

Post by Bloodthirstybutcher » Wed Feb 22, 2023 11:19 pm

Part 9-"A Holiday, Rudely Interrupted"




A single shard of glass dangled precariously from the upper window frame. It finally gave, shattering upon hitting the floor at the feet of the property's owner, Emil DeTorres. The man stood silently over the wreckage of his home, his arms held akimbo, taking in the damage to his once immaculate estate. Glass crunched into the hardwood floor beneath the feet of the forensic team investigating the murder and attempted robbery. Emil was already fuming with anger over the broken windows, but now he'd have to resurface the floors as well!

The walls that weren't made of glass were peppered with bullet holes, adding even more fuel to Emil's emotional fire. Bullet holes! In his home! You'd expect that sort of thing further south in the city, but not the Hollywood Hills. You wouldn't know it from the man's calm demeanor, but DeTorres was ready to erupt in a fit of rage.

The place had been broken into the night before, but by the time word reached him, it would be the following evening before Emil could make it home from upstate. He dropped his lover off before heading home, knowing what he was going to have to deal with was something best sorted out in private.

Thankfully, amidst the destruction, the hidden lift remained unnoticed by the law... which itself meant one of two things: the perpetrators hadn't discovered what lay hidden within the pillar... or they did... and were still down there. The security measures he'd taken to protect his secrets were fool-proof, so the man most knew as The Broker was unconcerned with the integrity of the vault hidden beneath their feet. He was far more focused on the distressing sight of his favorite Van Gogh laying face down in the gory remains of a some John Doe, one who had already been hauled away from the scene. An art lover all his life, to Emil... this was the most insidious violation yet.

"...Mr. DeTorres? Mr. DeTorres? Have you been listening to me?" The police officer standing with the wealthy homeowner all this time asked with increasing impatience. He'd been trying to take DeTorres's statement for some time now, but the strange man hardly seemed interested in cooperating.

"No," Emil replied, not even gifting the officer the respect of eye contact. He continued to analyze the damage to his once immaculate home in silence.

The officer was stunned, not quite sure how to continue, "uh... well... I said your butler is alive. A misterrrrrrrr... Rudolph?" He asked, flipping through his notes. "He's in the hospital. The doctors seem to think he was pumped full of some kind of horse tranquilizer. They say he's going to be alright though, just needs a few days to recuperate."

Emil's response was predictably vacant, "fine."

The policeman clicked his pen, staring at DeTorres with confusion and growing contempt. "So, you're gonna need to find somewhere to stay tonight. CSI is still working the place over. There's always a chance the robbers could return to finish the job."

"Unconcerning," Emil replied, still refusing to look the officer in the eye. The blood soaking into his gorgeous, one of a kind Turkish rug was far more concerning.

"Well... just the same," the officer repeated himself, "you can't stay here tonight."

DeTorres's answers remained monosyllabic, "fine."

"Look, mister," the officer barked, his patience having been stretched to its limit, "we're gonna need your statement. Now, you can either give it to me here, or we can do it downtown. It's your call."

For the first time, DeTorres turned to acknowledge the young lawman. He looked him over, from his shoes to his cheap haircut. "Officer... Judkins, is it?"

"Yes, Mr. DeTorres."

"Well, Officer Judkins... I'll be happy to come downtown and answer your questions when it's convenient for me... not when it's convenient for you." DeTorres insisted with a dry of matter-of-fact-ness . "I'm a very... very busy man."

Officer Judkins took an agitated step closer to DeTorres. "Alright, that's it! I've had just about enough of-"

"I'd watch my tongue if I were you, son." Emil's tone retained its air of calm, completely in control, even though he wanted nothing more than to have this stupid kid done in. "your ignorance to whom you speak is only outweighed by your gusto, so I'll forgive you for your less than delightful candor... this time. Now, if you enjoying wearing that shiny little accessory of yours, I'd consider making a hasty retreat." DeTorres flicked Judkin's badge just to punctuate his point.

Just then, and not a second too soon, Officer Judkins' superior stepped in. A middle-aged African American man with a thick mustache by the name of Wallace, "take off, Judkins."

"What?!" Judkins exclaimed, "but sir, he's failing to-"

"That's enough, Judkins!" His superior reiterated. "Unless you'd like to ride a desk for the rest of the month?"

Judkins bit his tongue and complied, "yes, sir."

With Judkins sulking away with his tail between his legs, Sargent Wallace tried to smooth things over with the incredibly well-connected man of the house. "Sorry about that, Emil... he'll learn."

"I should hope so, Sargent. Unless he'd prefer applying for work outside of a Home Depot with the rest of the transients."

"Don't worry, I'll speak to him myself." Wallace assured him.

"Thank you, Sargent." DeTorres patted his old "friend" on the back and grinned through his anger, "it would appear I need to secure accommodations for the evening. Inform me with any new information, would you?"

"Of course, Emil," Wallace assured him. "You sleep easy tonight, alright."

Emil and Sgt. Wallace held a solid and mutually beneficial relationship for many years, just as he had with Wallace's predecessor. DeTorres saw to it that the wallets belonging to members of the local police department should never go hungry for cash... as long as the strange events that occurred on this particular stretch of property were kept under wraps. And most importantly, out of the press. The bribing of international establishments such as Interpol or the UN had always proved to be hard nuts to crack, but it rarely took much bread to convince an underpaid beat cop to look the other way.

Occasionally, gnats like Judkins would come along and buzz around Emil's ear, but they either learned to fall in line or lost their positions with the force. Those that couldn't get with the program were usually blacklisted from every other department in the nation. Such was DeTorres's reputation and reach.

Emil had been looking forward to his short trip to the wine country. A man of his position had so little time to holiday. Some fine wine, French cheese, and the company of a young man just over legality were exactly what he needed to unwind. Even with the kind of power DeTorres wielded, he was still a slave to his work. Days off were nearly as rare as the artifacts he dealt in.

The unhappy homeowner sat patiently in the driver's seat of his pink Volkswagen Carmen Ghia, watching the crime scene investigators ransack his beloved home. A vehicle he loved more for its sexy build over any practical purpose. A comfy spot where he could keep an eye on those invading his sanctuary. DeTorres just had to bide his time. CSI knew he was there, and he knew they knew he was there. Any information they gathered would find its way directly back to him.

Securing a room for the night wouldn't be unnecessary. Emil had a feeling he wouldn't be sleeping much that night anyway, not with what he expected to find in his cellar. Wallace would have everything sorted out by morning, burying the investigation in a spool's worth of red tape. Always the trusted collaborator. The real nuisance would come with the cleanup. Emil was already skimming through the contacts on his phone for a reliable contractor that could fix the glass walls... one that would ask as few questions as possible.

Once the police had left and night had fallen, DeTorres strolled back into his disheveled home. He walked directly into the kitchen, opened a cupboard, and removed a clean white saucer. Upon the saucer, the man would place a bottle cap filled to the brim with filtered tap water. From the fridge, Emil retrieved a single small blueberry. Using the sharpest Japanese knife in his set, he sliced the little fruit delicately into perfectly equal halves. After preparing himself a quick sandwich, turkey and lettuce on rye, he then collected his own plate and the saucer into a single hand.

DeTorres threw a dish towel over the forearm balancing the mismatched pair of plates, looking very much the butler himself. He approached the secret lift and punched his access code into the hidden pad on the column. The false wall slid open once again, the elevator door as well. Emil stepped inside and forced the lever into the down position.

It was normally Mr. Rudolph's job to greet the new "uninvited guests" this way. Seeing as the man DeTorres paid handsomely to prevent this very sort of thing from happening was lying unconscious in a hospital bed somewhere, the head of the house would be forced to further inconvenience himself. He'd had plenty of time to calm himself down though. No sense in greeting this intruder in a sour mood.

The Broker stepped out of the old lift once it came to its jerky stop. The fluorescent lights flickered on automatically as usual, as did the track lighting. He analyzed his beloved mineral specimens along the walls, knowing where each and every one belonged, finding not a single piece out of place. Satisfied that collection had not been violated, Emil walked to the glass chamber that confined the entrance to his vault.

Inside lay a scattered mess of standard safe cracking tools, as well as a lovely and expensive looking cocktail dress. "Tsk, tsk," he said to himself, curling his pinky at the end of his thin, pencil mustache, "Mr. Rudolph will need to see to this mess later." Emil relied on Alphonso's assistance so much that he momentarily forgot about his employee's state. An oversight so rare for the man that it actually brought an amused grin to his face.

The red glow shinning from within informed DeTorres that the sensors were still detecting trace elements of the defensive compound still lingering inside. With his free hand, DeTorres activated a panel just to the left of the sliding glass door. He punched in a few commands, then suddenly the whir of a large vacuum system roared to life. For a few seconds, it was somewhat chaotic inside the camber, the decontamination process possessing enough suction to actually drag the heavy metal tools across the concrete floor. Chemical disinfectant and neutralizer sprayed down from the ceiling, creating a heavy fog in the swirling vacuum chamber. It didn't take long for the machine to complete its job, removing all dangerous levels of contaminates from within the tiny space.

A buzzer rang and red light shut off, basking the chamber in cold, fluorescent light once again. As soon as the door unsealed, DeTorres slid the glass open and took a single step inside. He paid close attention to the dress, the natural first place to look for these tiny victims of their own hubris, but it had also been a day or so since the safe's defenses had initially been activated. It, along with the tools, had all bunched up near the vacuum vent. Along with a large, black canvas bag. The perpetrator was still nowhere to be seen.

"You may as well show yourself," he called into the echoing chamber, "I know you're in here. I'm sure you're quite hungry and parched. It's a common side effect accompanying the loss of so much mass all at once. If you wouldn't mind skipping this tedious 'frightened animal' stage, perhaps the two of us can converse like professionals over dinner?"

There was no response at first, but after a few seconds, Emil spotted movement from within the canvas tote.





End Part 9
"People like Coldplay and voted for the Nazis, you can't trust people, Jeremy."

-Super Hans, Peep Show

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Re: Tumbled

Post by Bloodthirstybutcher » Thu Feb 23, 2023 4:47 pm

Part 10-"EF5"




Finding herself surrounded by giant tools and clothing was one thing, but taking in the skyscraper of a man standing on the other side of the glass instilled a whole new level of terror in the diminutive Ms. Spaak. Until then The Broker had seemed so small through the perspective of her binoculars... had things ever changed in just twenty-four hours. His exaggerated features glowed red in the chamber's light, giving the gigantic man a devilish aura.

Imogene kept hidden, peeking out from the corner of the tool bag to gawk at the titan. At first he just stood there, analyzing the cast-off remains of her former self. His attention was quickly drawn to something obscured to her, just outside the room. And then came... the rumble. The tiny woman's ears popped with a sudden and drastic change in air pressure.

Within seconds, Imogene was caught up inside a veritable hurricane. The vacuum system howled through the vents so much louder than anything she'd ever heard. The powerful suction threatened to rip her tiny form from out of the bag's relative safety, pulling her to god knows where. She turned and ran deeper into its dark recesses, hoping the thick canvas would be enough to save her from wherever the furiously swirling storm outside may take her.

Oz.

She hadn't thought about Oz since...

...the tornado.

When the young Crystal Simpson (Imogene's true name, given at birth) was still a wee child, having grown up in the Midwest, a deadly tornado devastated the small town her family called home. Her upbringing was far from the privileged one Cooper had imagined. As the terrible whirlwind barred down on her family's home, little Crystal's mother held her children tight against her bosom in a dark corner of the moldy cellar. The woman tried to calm her crying offspring by assuring them everything would be ok, that the encroaching tornado would pass them over. But if by chance it did take them, the desperate mother fed them a reassuring lie. That they'd be whisked away to a magical land known as Oz. A beautiful place, where nothing could ever hurt them again.

The experience had been all but forgotten, Imogene being of such a young age when it occurred. But as the whirlwind outside the giant bag ramped up, the adult version of Crystal was transported right back to that night in the dank, scary cellar. The way her mother, whom she hadn't spoken to in years, had tried to calm her. Imogene could feel the same sensation in her sinuses that she did back then, when the air pressure grew too painfully oppressive. A stinging bubble of pain snaking its way up from her nose through her forehead. The air suddenly grew thick with the smell of chemical cleaner in the cloud that brought it.

The tornado leveled their home that night, as well as anything that stood in its incomprehensible two mile wide path. But her family survived where so many others hadn't. Imogene so wished her mother was there to comfort her now.

Even as the growing pressure made her skull feel like it could explode, Imogene persevered. She lived through one mighty whirlwind, and was determined to survive this one as well. She dug her tiny fingers into the spaces between the canvas stitching and held on for dear life, screaming like a banshee.

Then... just like that... it was all over.

When the tiny thief finally opened her eyes, the red glow outside the bag was gone. It was much, much brighter outside. She'd made it out the other side of whatever the hell she'd just experienced, hoping to god that the giant didn't put her through it again. For all Imogene knew, this was how DeTorres disposed of those unfortunate enough to fall into his little trap. A tickle on her upper lip dripped down into her panting mouth, a light nosebleed which she quickly wiped away across her forearm.

"You may as well show yourself," a thunderous voice reverberated throughout the cavernous chamber. "I know you're in here," it added. The godlike voice also informed her that it knew she was starving and that this was a normal part of the process. Easy for him to say... the only thing that hurt worse than the pounding in Imogene's skull was the knot in her empty stomach.

"If you wouldn't mind skipping the tedious 'frightened animal' stage, perhaps the two of us can converse like professionals over dinner."

"The fuck?" Imogene whispered to herself, "what the fuck does he think this is? A business meeting?!

"Come now," the voice doubled down, "my time is precious. You've already spoiled my weekend plans. My home has been left in quite the undesirable state. You, at the very least, owe me an attentive ear."

"Jesus, who the is this guy," the tiny Ms. Spaak mumbled, "and why the fuck does he talk like some bougie thespian?"

"I suggest you not try my patience for much longer, little one," the giant added, "you may not enjoy what comes next."

A loud rhythmic tapping followed The Broker's final prompt, which Imogene surmised was being made by his massive foot tapping impatiently against the floor. What was there left to do except comply? To say The Broker had her at a disadvantage would be the understatement of the century. Imogene slowly approached the canvas opening, lifted the elastic trim of her otherwise useless panties to cover herself, then peeked around the lip of the bag.

The giant's eyes fixed upon her as soon as she revealed herself. To see something so much larger than she was staring right back gave the tiny woman the shakes. 'Now I know how a mouse feels when cornered by a cat,' she thought to herself. This is what The Broker meant by "frightened animal stage."

"Ah! There she is!" DeTorres exclaimed, "and oh my! Aren't you the teeny-tiny one?!" As angry as he had been about what this person had down to his home, seeing her reduced to such a ridiculously tiny size instantly lifted Emil's spirits. Gazing upon the little ones for the first time always did.

Imogene didn't know what to say. She'd never been so terrified in her entire life, and this was a woman who had survived a tornado, and more recently, a barrage of gunfire. This man's impossible size was so intimidating in every way that she wasn't sure she could speak even if she wanted to.

"I can't say I've had the pleasure of meeting one quite as small as you yet," he continued, "you must have ingested quite a substantial amount of the compound."

'Great,' Imogene thought, 'I'm a midget among midgets.' She lingered on that thought a moment more. How many others were there?

"Don't be timid now," Emil beckoned with a 'come hither' motion of his hand, "let us get a proper look at you."

Imogene stepped down from the lip of the bag, still clutching the lacey band of her underwear against her torso. The huge garment slid much easier on the floor, but not before she struggled to drag it away from the staticky texture of the canvas.

Emil scoffed, "If you've made it this far, then certainly you've done enough research about me to know my... tastes. Which means you also know I have little interest in what lies behind that intimate wear you cling to so desperately. Come on now, step forward."

The shrunken woman looked up at the gargantuan man, then down at the floor in embarrassment and shame. She dropped the panties, revealing every centimeter of herself fully to the very person she had attempted to rob. His every prompt felt like the commands of a deity, one she dared not disobey. Yes, Imogene knew DeTorres was gay, but standing there exposed... baring herself like that to anyone, felt humiliating. Let alone the sobering fact that the person standing before her was as tall as the Eiffel Tower.

"It's quite amazing," DeTorres mused, "you're far from the first to undergo this unique transformation... but the experience of seeing the compound's effects never ceases to astound me."

The enormous eyes looking down on her diminished state from so high above felt cruel and patronizing. The tiny woman held her arms across her chest and grumbled to herself, knowing intuitively that her voice would be too small for him to hear, "I'm glad someone's enjoying themselves."

"Follow me, my dear," Emil stepped aside and gestured toward the work bench, "dinner awaits. Once you've sated what I'm sure is quite the sizable hunger, we can further discuss this predicament."

Imogene couldn't help but take the "sizable" remark as a cheap shot.

Emil stepped away in the direction of the awaiting meal. It had been his experience with the reduced in past encounters that his size was almost too overwhelming for them, let alone Mr. Rudolph's. He'd found that giving them their space before handling them was the best recourse.

Reluctantly, Imogene creeped toward the door. She knew she couldn't trust this man, but her stomach hurt so badly that she'd choke down rat poison just to end it. As she arrived at the door, the track the large plate glass door slid upon had grown into more of a trench. Taking a few steps backwards, Imogene launched herself over the miniature chasm, landing safely on all fours on the other side. She looked back up to where DeTorres was standing, so far away yet only a few strides for his sequoia-like legs. He was leaning against the edge of his workbench, one leg crossed in front of the other. His pinky flicked at the end of his thin mustache absentmindedly, with a smirk of amusement plastered across his face.

"Don't stop now, little one," he continued to coax the miniaturized woman like she was a pet being introduced to a new home. Who's to say she wasn't? "Just a little ways further."

Imogene swallowed her pride. There was no where to go but to him. The cellar stretched out in all directions around her like a cold, grey desert. One surrounded on all sides by strange rectangular cliffs, Emil's workbenches and shelving. Imogene had seen and lived in the flatness of the plains, but the uniformity of the ground she currently tread upon was something else altogether. None of it felt real.

One thing was certain, the lift was the only way out, and the lever was far too high and far too large to operate now. Even if she could escape somehow and make her way to the main floor... then what? Where could she go? Who would even know to look for her? Imogene was at the mercy of a whole new world full of giants... one she stood no chance of surviving on her own. Her only hope was to play to this man's sense of mercy... if he had any to play on, that is.

The tiny thief put one jittery foot in front of the other, closing the significant gap that separated her from the giant... feeling like she was being led into a trap. DeTorres didn't move from his position, only crossing his arms across his chest as he patiently waited for the minuscule home invader. The faintest of grins never leaving his face. He made no motion to assist Imogene on her long trek, something she interpreted as his idea of a walk of shame.

The Broker was, in fact, showing his audience of one just how futile any thought of escape... any attempt to fight back... would be. The closer Imogene got, the more intimidating his size became. Her neck craned ever higher with each passing step across the chilly floor. When she reached a short distance from his vintage wingtips, her legs felt too heavy to continue. It was just too frightening to approach any further. Emil squatted down, a burst of motion from someone so large easily startling the rodent-sized girl. She took a few unconscious steps backward, but still fully aware that this colossus could do anything he wanted with her... TO her... and there wasn't a damn thing she could do about it.

Emil's gargantuan, well-manicured hand lowered like a platform to just a few inches away, his palm facing upwards. "May I offer you a lift, little miss?"

Imogene took another step back.

"I understand your reservations," DeTorres reasoned, "especially considering the circumstances of our meeting. I assure you the utmost care."

The shrunken woman's mouth felt dry, and not just from her nagging thirst. She'd been staring up at her host with jaw hanging agape for some time now. Her lizard brain kept screaming at her to run, but rationality won out. There was nowhere to run. The Broker had her right where he wanted her.

Imogene swallowed hard and took the final terrifying steps towards DeTorres's outstretched digits. Each finger stretched out longer than Imogene was tall... and even the smallest was much stronger than she. Her tiny legs felt like jelly as the warmth from the pad of Emil's finger introduced a contrast in temperatures from the icy floor beneath her other bare foot. Another agonizingly terrifying step... then another.

With shaky balance, Imogene traversed the less then sturdy middle finger, feeling the skin and tissue beneath slide on the bone. Giving a little with each new step. It felt strange and dangerous, as though the massive fingers could snap shut at any moment like a fleshy trap. The Broker could crush her in his powerful grasp without much effort at all on his part.

"Might I suggest that you take a seat," Emil suggested as Imogene reached the center of his palm, "less chance of toppling off when I begin to move."

'When he lifts me?' Imogene thought to herself, 'is this real? Is this really happening? Wake up, Imogene! Wake up!'

Not being the first tiny he'd handled... not by a long shot, Emil took great care in raising his guest over the edge of the bench as slowly and as steadily as possible. Even then, the ride was faster and more unstable than any elevator Imogene had ever ridden. Her stomach dropped like she was riding a rollercoaster. Once over the countertop, DeTorres tilted his palm just enough for the tiny woman in his hand to slide off, unbeknownst to his passenger. Imogene crumpled like a rag doll as she hit the hard wooden surface of the counter.

DeTorres squeezed some hand sanitizer from a strategically placed dispenser at the back of the bench. He worked the strong-smelling gel across his hands thoroughly until dry. "You'll have to excuse a brief inconvenience, but I'll need to perform a quick examination before we can proceed."

Imogene's eyes grew wide, "what?!"






End Part 10
"People like Coldplay and voted for the Nazis, you can't trust people, Jeremy."

-Super Hans, Peep Show

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Re: Tumbled

Post by Bloodthirstybutcher » Fri Feb 24, 2023 3:34 pm

Part 11-"Business Dinner"




Why was he cleaning his hands?! Walking onto his palm was one thing, but was The Broker actually going to touch her with those long, trunk-like fingers of his?! Imogene's breathing quickened, as did her pulse. She shot up, her head darting from right to left across the expansive workbench. There was nowhere to go. Nowhere to hide.

Emil removed his white jacket, folding it lengthwise ever so carefully so as not to create any unwanted creases where they didn't belong. He draped it over the towel rack above the shop sink, then returned to his frightened company. Scooting a metal stool over to make himself more comfortable, DeTorres finally took a seat. It had been a long ride home, and an even longer day. Even seated he remained a human monolith to this puny female. Her frightened expressions were still visible, despite her greatly reduced stature. Unbuttoning his sleeves and rolling up the cuffs, DeTorres proceeded with his examination.

The entire bench beneath Imogene shook like an earthquake, knocking her off her feet once again. A tremor the giant had caused by simply opening and closing a drawer beneath her position. She hadn't moved far from where The Broker had initially dropped her, too afraid to make a wrong move in his presence. Things were bad, but she needn't make things worse for herself. From within the drawer, DeTorres removed a gun-like device similar in appearance to a laser thermometer, but far more advanced.

"Could you please stand my dear," Emil asked politely, even though he could just as easily have lifted the tiny blonde to her feet himself. Imogene didn't move, in fact she raised an arm to cover her face, bracing herself for whatever horrible thing the device might be capable of.

"There's no need to fret, little one," DeTorres tried to assure her. "This device is only a scanner. The chamber's decontamination system does a fine job of removing and neutralizing the smallest of dangerous particle, but where you were secluded inside that carryall, I must maintain a certain amount of caution. You couldn't have carried enough on your person to affect me in any meaningful way, but if you inhaled any more at your extremely small size, there's a very real risk of going microscopic. So, please... stand up."

Imogene's fears from earlier were confirmed. That stuff could still be on her! The very thought made he tiny captive involuntarily scream, her panic bubbling over into outright terror. Microscopic?! Sure the thought had crossed her mind before, but hearing it out loud... that it was actually possible... was truly horrifying. She rocketed back to her feet, spinning frantically as Emil, dowsed her in the red beam of the device's scanner.

"Excellent, thank you." Emil seemed pleased with the readout, which also helped Imogene breath a little easier. "Now I just need to record your weight and height, and then I promise we can eat."

With the fear of shrinking even further quelled, Imogene's state of undress returned to the forefront of her mind. She kept one arm fixed across her breasts and the other dangling in front of her most private of areas. She felt like a specimen, an experiment... anything but human.

Emil slid a small digital postal scale across the surface of the bench for easier access. "Step onto the scale, please."

Imogene did as instructed, the power of her cravings driving her to jump through her captor's hoops as quickly as possible. She had to scurry up the digital face of the scale, her naked state actually making it easier to do so than expected. She couldn't see for herself what the scale read from her perspective on the plate, and DeTorres didn't verbalize it either. The only thing she was certain of was that, as she stepped over the angled surface of the screen, she could see that the scale was set to measure her in grams.

Grams. Imogene was so small that her weight had to measured in grams!

Out of the sky, like a bolt of lightning thrown down from heaven, came an enormous steel ruler. It clanged against the metal surface of the scale, just to the side of the minuscule woman, startling her with a barely audible help. Everything startled her now, just like a mouse... the world had never been so full of terrors before. As quickly as the ruler appeared, Emil whisked it away before Imogene could read the bad news in the notches for herself.

The Broker jotted some quick mathematics down in an old, well-used notebook. "Everything seems to be in order. No deformations from the miniaturization process. Subject appears in good health," he read his final notes out loud before snapping the book closed again.

It began to feel like there was no end to the nightmarish revelations. The implication that certain parts of her could have shrunk more than others, turning her into some kind of grotesque freak of nature... Imogene gulped nervously. Then came another horrifying thought, that DeTorres wouldn't have had to make this observation if it hadn't already happened to someone else.

"H-how small?" Imogene stuttered. It seemed like a good enough distraction. She wasn't sure she could handle any more frightening thoughts of shrunken mutants add edto everything she was already dealing with. At least she already had an idea of how small she'd become.

"Ah! She speaks!" Emil replied with enthusiasm, "speak up, little miss! You'll find your voice won't project as far as it once did."

Afraid as she was, Imogene was growing tired of her new demeaning nicknames. "Little miss"... "little one"... the situation was trying enough without being spoken to like a child. "It's Im-... uh... Selina. And I was wondering tall-uh... small I am!" She shouted, hoping the giant could hear her this time. She had to correct herself mid-thought, the word 'tall' in regards to her state sounding ridiculous to her ears.

"Selina? Well, that certainly has to be an alias," Emil laughed. "Borrowing the name of a famous fictional cat burglar isn't exactly the most creative choice, is it? I may operate in wealthy circles full of less than trustworthy individuals, but I'd like to think I have far better taste than to masquerade as Bruce Wayne."

"It's I-Imogene. Imogene Spaak," the tiny woman replied to The Broker's teasing.

"Well now," DeTorres exclaimed, bringing an inquisitive finger to his chin, "that too has to be an alias, but one that carries with it some weight...," he grinned a little as he stared down at his helpless captive, "figuratively, of course."

Imogene seemed shocked. "You... you've heard of me?!"

Emil leaned over her, getting just a little closer so he could hear better. The shrunken woman instinctively took a few steps back as the giant's shadow loomed over her even more. "You pulled off that job in Dubai a couple of years ago, did you not? Not a hefty haul, but it was some fine work."

Imogene didn't know what to say.

"Don't look so surprised, my dear," Emil elaborated. "The gentleman you stole from was a client of mine. Besides, I would be remiss to dismiss these sorts of things. I keep a close eye on those who might prove a little too ambitious for their own good. You're employed by a man named... Fulci, is that correct?"

She nodded with apprehension, but Imogene's stomach interrupted the conversation, growling so loudly that even the titan above her heard it.

"Ah, yes! All of this can wait, I promised you a full belly, and I never renege on my promises." The Broker retrieved the pair of plates he had brought with him from the kitchen and placed them in front of himself and Imogene. Even the small saucer he offered the poor shrinkee dwarfed her incredibly diminished personage.

"It really is incredible," Emil mused, regarding the remarkable state of shrinkage Imogene had endured.

Emil picked up half of his sandwich, cut corner to corner, as any other way he found crass. He took a dainty nibble, then set it back down on the plate. "Go on then, Ms. Spaak... don't be shy." He spun the saucer clockwise just so, gesturing to Imogene that she may indulge as she pleased.

Imogene had to step up onto the plate to access her meal, an act that really drove home how small she had become. The bottle cap of water caught her eye first, easily the size of a wash basin to her shrunken eyes. She dove at it, shoveling mouthful after mouthful of cool, refreshing H2O down her throat. She didn't care how strange the liquid felt to the touch, how it's surface tension held stronger in her current state. She just slurped it down until her thirst finally took a back seat to the hunger.

"Easy now, Ms. Spaak," Emil warned, "it's not healthy to imbibe so much so quickly in a state of extreme dehydration."

"How is any of this good for my health," Imogene grumbled under her breath. She then crawled toward one of the strange blue half-spheres rolling around on the plate. It was when she scooped up one of the cantaloupe-sized bowls in her hands that she realized what she was holding was in fact a blueberry. The thin skin, so easily broken by a set of normal sized human teeth, felt as thick as an orange rind. Instead of attempting to bite into it, Imogene dug into the sweet, juicy center with her fingers and gobbled the innards down greedily. No single piece of fruit had ever tasted as delicious as this one.

"I apologize for making you suffer this long, Ms. Spaak. From what I understand, the hunger pains that accompany the transition are nothing short of unbearable." Emil stated before he taking another delicate nibble of his sandwich.

The tiny bites the giant took were still more food than Imogene could eat in a week, and seeing so much matter disappear into his mustachioed maw brought a whole new level of unease to her already reeling mind. With her gut no longer groaning for sustenance, there was nothing left to distract the shrunken woman from the real problem... what did The Broker plan to do with her? Was this his idea of a last meal before sending her to the proverbial electric chair? Should she at least try to make a break for it, even if the hope of escape was only pipe dream?

As she scarfed down the messy purple guts of the massive berry, Imogene continued to scan her surroundings. Not only struck by of the impossible size of it all, but for anything that looked like a place she could hide where The Broker couldn't reach her.

But what did that mean really? He was a giant, a monster... a god capable of acts that would seem impossible from her lowly perspective. Acts that were trivial and simple for him. If Imogene could make it to the back of the workbench, perhaps she could down the power cord to one if his machines. Maybe even shimmy between the wall and the legs of the bench. She knew it wouldn't make a difference. The effeminate kaiju currently casting his shadow over her could just as easily move the bench... a single man capable of moving mountains. Escape was looking less and less like an option.

Near her, what resembled a large water tank to the shrunken Imogene was merely a receptacle for The Broker's pens and exacto knives. Nothing but an old coffee mug imprinted with a caricature of a flamingo, the word "Florida" printed in black cursive on its yellowing surface. Imogene wondered if she could use one of those razor sharp utensils as a weapon against him? Maybe opening a wrist... could she nick an artery? So what then? Even in the unlikeliest of events where she landed a killing blow, a real life David taking down an all too real Goliath, what good would it do her? To starve do death... alone... in the belly of her own personal cyclops' lair?

Were fighting back or escape really the answers though? Especially if DeTorres possessed the means to cure her?

Emil only finished a single half of his turkey and lettuce on rye, while Imogene inhaled the entirety of her blueberry. The larger of the two decided it was time to get down to brass tax. He was an important man after all, and his time was just as important.

With fingers clasped together, his chin resting casually on top of the knuckles, DeTorres had a question for the vulnerable, naked creature currently making a mess of herself with berry juice, "so, Ms. Spaak... what specifically was it that you had hoped to acquire by infiltrating my home?

Imogene gulped down her last mouthful. Just as much out of fear as hunger.





End Part 11
"People like Coldplay and voted for the Nazis, you can't trust people, Jeremy."

-Super Hans, Peep Show

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Re: Tumbled

Post by Bloodthirstybutcher » Sun Feb 26, 2023 2:45 am

Part 12-"The Broker's Collection"




"Come now, Ms. Spaak. Speak up," The Broker insisted. "A dialog about this predicament we find ourselves in is imperative... well, I should say it's more YOUR predicament than it is mine. So... when I place a question before you, I do expect an honest and prompt reply."

DeTorres's tone was calm but stern, as though talking down to a misbehaving child. Imogene wiped the berry juice coating a good portion of her face across her forearm, smearing the sticky substance more than removing it. Rolling his eyes at her less than formal eating habits, Emil promptly removed a wet nap from the same drawer that hid the scanner. He ripped open the square packet that held it, unfolding the clean smelling moist sheet within as soon as it was removed. The giant tore off a small corner and offered it to his shrunken dinner companion, then dabbed neatly at the corners of his own mouth an equal number of times with what remained.

As Imogene cleaned herself off, she forced out an answer to The Broker's inquiry, "I-I don't know." She wasn't lying exactly. She hadn't the faintest idea what treasures lay beyond the vault door... but she knew it wouldn't be enough of an answer to satisfy a man like DeTorres.

"You don't know?" Emil chuckled. "Surely you must have some inkling? Come now... humor an old man."

"I don't know...," she repeated, "money? Jewels maybe? Gold and silver... artifacts?" Imogene didn't know where this game was going, but she did know hated being talked to like a child, her diminished stature be damned. Snapping back at him wouldn't do her any good, not if she hoped to have him restore her to her former size. So, she bit her tongue and listened.

"Let me show you something." The giant stretched his massive arm far over Imogene's head, reaching for something resting on one of his display shelves.

It was hard for the miniature woman to grasp that the white-cuffed limb was actually a human body part and not the underside of some strange suspension bridge. The suddenness of motion seemed so impossible from something so large, but like with anything else she'd encountered in the previous twenty-four hours, Imogene found herself constantly adjusting to her new point of view. Nothing else had changed... only her. It wasn't a bridge up there, but an actual arm spanning the distance between the shelf and The Broker's building-like torso. When he retracted the gargantuan limb, it returned holding something black, but glassy in his hand. The dark object shined against the track lighting, momentarily obscuring its true beauty.

"If you'd be so kind as to step down from my fine porcelain, Ms. Spaak." Emil asked politely, then waited patiently while the minuscule female did as asked. He promptly removed the pale-white saucer and set it aside, along with his own unfinished dish. Then... the dark, otherworldly object descended and came to a rest directly before its shrunken viewer.

It was a stone. Almost jet black, but faceted in a such a way that the flat, panels still caught the light as it turned. It's polish was so finely executed that Imogene could view her own reflection in its mirrored finish. The jewel was enormous, a boulder to Imogene's eyes... a science fiction meteorite from well beyond our corner of the galaxy. Seeing the reality of her miniature self within the mystery stone's sheen for the first time since 'it' happened... only made her feel smaller.

"Two inches and nearly a half," Emil said, seemingly out of context.

"Excuse me?" Imogene asked, still quite mesmerized by the alien object placed before her.

Emil clarified, "you asked how small you were... two inches and a half... almost." The way he emphasized the the 'almost' felt almost... mocking. That somehow, by not reaching that arbitrary two and a half inch mark, it made Imogene's insignificance even greater.

Imogene stared past her own reflection into the dark abyss and beyond. She was left speechless. He was right in his assessment. This man was showing the tiny woman that she had become exactly that...

...insignificant.

Emil set his hand down on top of the gem, tapping on it nonchalantly. His massive fingers startled the puny creature once again, snapping Imogene out of her existential trance.

"This beautiful specimen is, in fact, the largest black diamond ever found on earth," DeTorres began, "its name? Coração Do Diablo... which translates in English to The Heart of the Devil. Gems as large and rare as this one have a tendency to earn a name." Emil lifted the dazzling jewel from the bench to admire it himself. Imogene watched her reflection disappear as the precious stone was lifted into the sky. The giant gazed into its dark core himself, turning the gem... so large it could easily crush his puny guest should he accidentally drop it.

"This gemstone has passed from one monarch to another, depending on who lost the war, for centuries. At auction, it could fetch many... many millions of dollars," he paused for a moment, before abruptly and carelessly tossing it back onto its place on the shelf. His gaze returned to the little figure standing next to his tacky "Florida" mug, a grin creeping its way up one side of his mouth. "It's also incredibly boring... I use it as a paperweight."

The impact of the falling diamond on the wall-mounted shelf was enough to send a cascade of dust falling onto the trembling, miniaturized blonde. Imogene sneezed repeatedly... apparently, not even getting shrunk could free her from her allergies.

"It appears Mr. Rudolph has been ignoring his cleaning duties. I'll have to have a conversation with him about that when he returns home from the hospital. I apologize for the unkempt state of my shop, Ms. Spaak. I do not take such oversights lightly."

Imogene couldn't have cared less about the barely noticeable layer of sediment blanketing The Broker's displays. The continuing absence of any attire left her feeling even more vulnerable than her size already was. It may have been easy for the gay titan to dismiss, but not so much for her. Once her sneezing fit ceased, she sheepishly asked DeTorres , "m-may I please have something to c-cover myself with?"

Emil continued to fidget around inside one of his drawers, barely acknowledging the question. "I thought we were past this, Ms. Spaak. Nothing about your sex interests me." When he finally found what he was looking for, Emil looked back to the shrunken 'Ms. Spaak,' noting her visible discomfort. He rolled his eyes at her again, realizing that if he hoped to gain her full attention, he'd also have to give a little, "but since it's only going to continue to serve as a distraction, here..."

His spindly fingers dropped a thin sheet of microfiber cloth, one he normally used to buff away the fingerprints left on his extensive collection of rare stones after viewing. Imogene pulled the cloth towards her as quickly as she could. Though small and delicate in his hands, the microfiber felt soft and comforting, like a king-sized duvet to her diminutive touch. It wasn't clothing, nor would it be easy to walk with, but the glimmer of security the yellow swatch offered was far better than nothing at all. Imogene thought for a moment about how much she used to hate handling microfiber. The way the texture always seemed to catch the rough parts of her skin... she was far too small for that to affect her now.

Emil placed another stone in front of the shrunken woman, actually pinning the small cloth she gripped at her chest to the bench. If she had to make a break for it now, the dirty piece of fabric would most certainly be staying. This new stone was much smaller than first, but still larger than Imogene herself. It's surface was covered in tightly layered and multicolored bands, running parallel to one another or connecting back into beautiful fortifications. She looked back up at The Broker, wondering just what the hell all of this was about.

"Now look at this one, my dear," DeTorres prompted. "A strikingly beautiful and busy agate mined in Mexico... and all for a measly pittance of fifty dollars. Look how much more dynamic it is than the diamond... the way the tiny bands swirl and meet... the way it draws your eye and begs you to solve its secrets. I almost envy your position, being small enough to appreciate its finer intricacies. An agate is small and uniquely beautiful to any other, not unlike yourself, my dear Ms. Spaak."

Imogene was taken aback by DeTorres's comment, pulling the silky cloth even further up her chest like a pearl-clutching shrew.

"Don't be so coy, Ms. Spaak... I may be a 'friend of Dorothy,' as they say, but ignorant I am not to the modern standards of beauty."

Imogene looked away. If his goal was to make her feel even more uncomfortable, then DeTorres was succeeding marvelously.

"You may be asking yourself why I'm showing you these things," Emil said, finally teasing a point, "it's not solely showing off."

Imogene grumbled under her breath, "fucking hell."

"You, and the... what I can only assume was your partner... the man whom you left bleeding to death on my one of a kind Turkish rug," DeTorres needed to address a quick tangent before he continued, of course. He parked his knuckles against his hips and scorned the shrunken thief like a pet needing housebreaking, "I was quite fond of that rug... a gift from Saddam Hussein himself... a thank you for allowing him sanctuary in my home when things grew a bit too... tense... back in his homeland."

The blank expression staring back from his audience of one was enough to inform Emil that his little intruder cared little for his loss. "...but I digress. As I was saying, the dead man and yourself could easily have pilfered many an item from this very room and turned a hefty profit. Any number of these stones could have sold well on the black market, allowing you to live out the rest of your days in affluence and comfort. But like any thief, a vault such as mine... the one that keeps drawing your attention away like a moth to a flame... is far too intriguing for someone like yourself. No matter what easy pickings may lie in plain view. There must always be more... there must always be better."

The Broker was right. Even with the intense fear that came with what she had become, that door still loomed large... both figuratively and literally. Her primal instincts may have taken over, but she was still Imogene Spaak. She still wanted, no... NEEDED to know what was stashed behind that door.

"You stare at it even now," Emil continued. "While yes, there is money... there are jewels... and gold... and silver... and artifacts, all stored safely and securely behind that door, there are also things that may challenge you. Things that may shake your very understanding of the fabric of reality. It is imperative for you understand that... none of it is for your eyes."

Imogene looked back up at the god-like man, wondering just what the hell he meant by that.

"Take the very compound that has brought you to your current condition," DeTorres elaborated, "quite an ingenious, but dangerous concoction cooked up by scientists working within the Israeli military. The powder is mostly harmless until inhaled, and even then, must be activated by a mixture of oxygen and adrenaline. So, those devious chemical engineers added an element to the mix that would send anyone unfortunate enough to breath the powder into anaphylaxis, guaranteeing an instant adrenaline rush. It's cruel and terrifying for the victim, exactly what these men had hoped for. The shortness of breath only lasts a few agonizing seconds, but by then... the damage has been done. Your enemy is completely neutralized, and without shedding a single drop of blood."

The reaction Imogene had experienced in the chamber... it all made sense to her now. She remained silent while The Broker continued his over-explanation like a lesser Bond villain.

"When I learned that the military planned to use this new weapon offensively against their Palestinian neighbors, it drew time for me to step in. As you may well know, I'm the sort of person that people... corporations... even nations come to for highly specialized needs. I've built my reputation, just as you have yours, through hard work and connections made with the right kinds of people."

"The 'treasures' that lie inside that vault... are actually just the tip of the proverbial iceberg. A steel gateway to a vast tunnel system snaking its way through the very mountain my home rests upon. These 'specialized' items are more powerful than any amount of gold or silver. And with that power, a man can possess the kind of influence that can build nations... or leave them in ruins. So, I brokered a deal with the Israeli military..."

Emil had Imogene's full attention. When she didn't ask, 'what kind of deal,' he continued anyway. It's not like she was going anywhere.

"If they were to use that kind of weaponry on an entire population... women and children mind you... civilians... it would only serve to ignite a powder keg in the Middle East. Every nation would want that kind of power, with one nuking the other until nothing remained but melted glass in the sand. I already failed to keep that atomic nightmare from becoming a reality, and I was not about to let another world changing weapon be unleashed upon the masses."

'He couldn't stop the atomic bomb from developed?' Imogene thought to herself, 'he couldn't possibly be that old.'

"So, I made the Israelis an offer...," Emil continued, "one they couldn't refuse, as the cliche goes. I would acquire all of compound they'd created, plus any and all documentation so that further manufacturing could not occur... and I give them back a certain relic... a golden chest their people have sought after for millennia."

Imogene furrowed her brow for a moment, trying to figure out what The Broker was alluding to... until it hit her, "you... you couldn't possibly mean..."

"The Ark? Yes... THAT ark. I'm not quite sure what all the fuss is about. It's beautifully crafted yes, but a bit too gaudy for my tastes. I had considered using the artifact as a receptacle for my dirty laundry, but the lid proved much too heavy. I think you'd agree that needing someone of Mr. Rudolph's strength to tend to my unmentionables is both embarrassing and a pathetic waste of the gentleman's talents."

"In the end, the Ark took up far too much space and I was glad to have it gone. The Israelis outdid themselves in their desperation to regain their artifact. Not only did they meet my demands, but they exceeded them by executing anyone who could develop the compound again in the future. They get what they've desired more than anything since Moses himself led them out of Egypt. A war was avoided. And now, I possess enough powdered deterant to ward off those, such as yourself, who would wish to pilfer what is rightfully mine. Enough for centuries to come."

This final statement felt particularly strange to Imogene's ears. 'Centuries to come?' What exactly did that mean?! Seeing the confused look on the tiny woman's face, Emil was more than happy to elaborate...

"When I tell you that the things behind that door can change a person, I mean it, Ms. Spaak. In your case... it was the door itself!" Emil laughed riotously at his own joke, much to Imogene's discomfort. After composing himself and wiping away a happy tear, the increasingly mysterious man dropped his biggest bomb yet, "I've been at this game for a very long time, my dear Ms. Spaak. A very. Long. Time. I've seen civilizations rise and fall and rise again from the ashes of the old. Your entire life leading up to this moment has been but a blink of an eye to someone like me."

Imogene couldn't help but to tear up. Who... or WHAT was this man? Emil DeTorres, The Broker... whatever he chose to call himself. Every answer to every question she had about this man only raised a dozen more.

"Once upon a time... a younger version of me may have been preoccupied with silly notions of conquest. Once I actually tasted power though, it left a bad taste in my mouth. So much responsibility. So many people looking to you for answers. I quickly realized that the best way to maintain the status quo was from the shadows. Wars came, wars ended. There's no quelling the human race's insane need to kill one another, but I've made it my life's mission to ensure that your lot may endure. That you may continue to exist and thrive, despite your own inherent stupidity."

"You may find me villainous, Ms. Spaak... but I assure you the work I do has saved this world more times than you can imagine. I am not the bad guy."

Tiny tears fell from Imogene's face and soaked into the fluffy yellow cloth. Was The Broker really even a man? Was Emil DeTorres a... a god?

"I had hoped that rumor itself would be enough to deter those choosing to test me. A few disappearances were all it used to take to manufacture a legend, Christ knows it's worked for me in the past. I've never been above rattling a few chains to make a house appear haunted, you could say. Lately though, my techniques only seem to have made your ilk all the more curious, more... daring." Emil twirled at the corner of his mustache once again, "you know what they say about curiosity and cats, my little Catwoman?"

The trembling in Imogene's bones had consumed every inch of her. She barely managed to spit out a single question in her terror, "w-w-what are y-you going t-to do with mmmme?"

The constant state of fear had resurrected a slight stutter the girl hadn't dealt with since she was a small child. An impairment of speech she'd worked through and completely forgotten about. All these memories of her past, traumas buried deep in her mind. The fear she experienced in that basement was built on such a primal level that her brain was dredging up anything it could to help her get out alive. There she was, smaller than any person had ever been, feeling those buried fears rising to join the new ones. All of them suffocating her like the compound itself.

DeTorres leaned back in, resting his pointed chin on his abnormally long hands once again. "Since you ask, Ms. Spaak... this is normally where I offer you a job."






End Part 12
"People like Coldplay and voted for the Nazis, you can't trust people, Jeremy."

-Super Hans, Peep Show

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Re: Tumbled

Post by Bloodthirstybutcher » Sun Feb 26, 2023 11:02 pm

Part 13-"The Unwitting Applicant"




"I'm sorry... what was that?!" Imogene couldn't believe what her tiny ears had just heard.

"A job, Ms. Spaak," DeTorres repeated.

Her heart leapt, "d-does that mean you can f-fix this?! Make me b-big again?!"

"Please, Ms. Spaak... you can't put a pin back in a grenade once it's tossed?" He replied.

Imogene stuttered once again, "w-what do y-you mean?!"

Emil tapped her playfully on the top of the head with the tip of his index finger, "there's no reversing the effects of the compound. It was developed as a weapon, not a lesson in humility. Really, Ms. Spaak, I took you for a more intelligent woman than that."

Above all else, these were the words that broke Imogene Spaak. Her knees gave and she crumpled onto the worn and splintering surface of the old workbench. The microfiber cloth slipped from her grasp. On her hands and knees, she gazed blankly into a tiny divot in the wood, one too small for normal eyes to see. The tightness of another panic attack was clamping down on her chest and she needed something to focus on.

"Breath, Ms. Spaak," Emil whispered. "Take long, slow breaths. I understand how jarring this news can be. I've seen the toughest of the tough collapse once they learned they would spend the rest of their lives this way. Take your time."

"FUCK YOU!!!" Imogene spit back. Every muscle in her body felt like quivering jelly, but she'd had all the patronizing bullshit from DeTorres she could stand.

"My my, Ms. Spaak! Such-"

Imogene cut him off, something not especially easy to do when your vocal chords are nearly microscopic. "ENOUGH!!! For f-fuck sakes! Do you ever g-get tired of the sound of your own f-fucking voice?! FUCK OFF! GO AWAY! LEAVE ME ALONE!"

Now it was Emil's turn to clutch his own proverbial pearls. "Ms. Spaak, I have been nothing if not cordial to you since we first met, especially considering the circumstances... I-"

She stopped him again, "FUUUUUUUUUUUUCK!!!" Screaming at the top of her lungs. Ripping clumps of her hair out in hate-maddened frustration. Imogene's billowing fear and frustration had finally come to a head.

Emil took a surprised step back, adjusting his tie as he did so. "Alright, Imogene," he said softly, using her familiar name for the first time in their conversation. "I'll give you a moment to process things. I need to prepare a few things in the meantime. I do hope we can continue under the same umbrella of mutual respect that I have been more than generous with myself."

And with that, DeTorres stepped away towards the far end of the workbench, a few casual strides for him, but a hundreds of yards from Imogene's perspective. He opened a cupboard above the shop sink and began to remove a few plastic bottles and canisters, inspecting the labels on each one at a time. He then proceeded to fill a small pitcher with warm tap water.

Meanwhile, the shrunken woman on the other side of the room was close to going into shock. For most, the shrinking itself would have been the thing to push them over the edge, but for Imogene it was the unfathomable reality that she was truly was stuck this way that pushed her to the brink of madness.

Forever. No more extravagant trips around the world. No more five star hotels. No more expensive meals. No more casual sex.

No more heists...

...a passion that had developed into a preferred lifestyle more than a job. She loved it. Even if she were able to crack DeTorres's safe, living high on the hog for the rest of her life... Imogene still wouldn't retire. That was Cooper's dream, not hers.

The tiny woman pulled her knees to her chest, her back turned to the eccentric giant across the room. She propped her back up against the Mexican agate that still pinned the hem of the microfiber cloth to the surface of the bench. Imogene had to turn away, unable to bear looking at DeTorres anymore. With her face buried against her knees, she screamed at herself to, "wake up, Crystal! Wake up! This isn't real! Please wake up!" She repeated the words over and over again, a repetitious prayer she hoped would somehow make them come true.

Even at her remarkably small size, and his distance from her on the other side of the basement, Emil could hear her pathetic screams while he continued searching for a certain container. To his credit, he did give Imogene the space he promised for far longer than he'd ever given that kind of time to anyone before. A generous gift from someone of his pedigree, indeed.

Time ticked away. Emil took a few more minutes to finish the other half of his sandwich, then returned to where he had left his tiny guest. He remained quiet, holding his chin high and looking down his nose at the puny girl for even longer. The long drive home and the late hour were beginning to catch up with the man, causing a yawn to escape as he waited.

Once the muted sobbing had subsided adequately enough, DeTorres felt he could carry on with their discussion. Imogene was still seated with the yellow cloth wrapped around her for warmth, mostly hidden behind the lacey Mexican agate. She didn't look back to acknowledge him, but she could feel him looming. The giant's shadow had engulfed the tiny woman once again, like a cloud passing in front of the sun. Imogene just stared forward blankly at the foundation wall in front of her, rocking ever so slightly in place.

"Have you calmed yourself enough to continue, Ms. Spaak?" Emil asked, trying to conceal his growing impatience.

"What are you?" Imogene asked, once again a little too quietly for Emil to hear. She turned her head back just enough to where Emil could just see her tiny face peeking out from beneath her yellow covering. With a touch of his fingers to the back of his ear, he wordlessly implied that she needed to speak up. Imogene turned back to face the wall once again. Massive tools dangled from mounted pegboard, swaying a little every time the human-shaped mountain behind her moved.

"What are you?" She repeated.

Emil placed the large, black canister he was holding down on the workbench, the vibration from its impact causing Imogene to jump a little. She wrapped her blanket around herself even tighter, receding into the imaginary protection it offered even further. Like an ostrich with its head in the sand, the less she could see at that point, the. Less overwhelmed she felt. DeTorres asked Imogene to clarify, "whatever do you mean?"

"Are you... are you the devil?" The question felt just as silly leaving her lips as it did in her head. Emil's laughter-filled response didn't make her feel any better about it.

"No... no, my dear... I'm just a man like any other. Well, maybe not like ANY other. I suppose you could say I never really got around to dying. The prospects of an uncertain future are far to exciting to risk missing out on, especially over something as mundane as death."

It wasn't a particularly satisfying answer, but judging from the rest of their interactions that evening, Imogene figured it was about all she was going to get out of this strange man. He spoke in such a specific, eloquent way... but also seemed to get lost on tangents fairly easily. Branches shot off from the conversation, that at first seemed pointless meandering, would later collide into relevance. When he deemed it time to do so, anyway. Emil DeTorres certainly was a man out of time.

"The job...," it wasn't what she wanted for herself, but Imogene knew she was out of options. She may have been stuck at two and a half inches tall... "almost"... but DeTorres was offering her a purpose. For the time being, until she could figure out her place in the world again, it would have to do. "What is it?"

"Ah! I'm pleased to see you've come to your senses, young lady," DeTorres beamed, clasping his hands together with a smile. "My little security feature is flawless in its execution, but as you may imagine, your very existence now poses a bit of a problem. The general public cannot learn of this place, or of others like yourself. So... I remedied the issue by keeping them here, with me. They have their own space, living in as much comfort as I can possibly provide... given the circumstances. They're free to live their lives as freely as I can allow, with a single stipulation. When I find need of certain... services... anyone in my employ is required to perform said service flawlessly and without protest."

Imogene listened intently, needing something to occupy her thoughts other than the grimness of her situation. She still couldn't bear to look at him, shrinking ever further into her microfiber cocoon. She'd never cried in front of a man before that night, and allowing DeTorres to witness her in such an emotionally vulnerable state left a sick feeling in the pit of her stomach. A strange thing to be focused on in the moment, for sure, and even she realized it. "How exactly am I supposed to do ANYTHING for you like this?" She asked.

"It is true, none of those currently under my care have been miniaturized as intensely as you have," DeTorres explained, and in such a patronizing tone that it made Imogene's hair stand on end. "But you'd be surprised to learn how incredibly beneficial it is to have a team of miniaturized thieves at your disposal."

Three containers, including the pitcher of water, were now lined up in a neat row across the surface of the workbench from tallest to shortest. Each causing its own rumble as they were placed on the bench. Imogene wasn't interested in anything The Broker was up to, choosing to remain safely hidden under the miniature blanket. Inquiring would only lead to another one of his obnoxious tangents.

Emil dragged a large glass jar forward to the edge of the bench. The jar itself was filled to the brim with raw, uncut stones, from which the giant began to pick and choose a few choice specimens. He analyzed each with a jeweler's magnifier, searching for unwanted pits or cracks, flaws that were difficult remedy. Each of the preferred stones was deposited into a black, rubber canister. One easily gripped in DeTorres's long fingers, but large enough to serve as a two story home for the shrunken Ms. Spaak.

The sound of each stone crashing into the others as they fell made Imogene wince. It was a sound, that while sharp and startling, offered a strange sense of mental clarity. The anticipation of the next crash, the next vibratory wave through her bottom, brought with it focus. The tiny victim of The Broker's insane security system had so many thoughts darting about in her head until then, but a single word pushed its way to the forefront of her mind. Clear and ominously present. Something DeTorres had said earlier.

Normally

Admittedly it's not a word most people find themselves getting hung up on, but it nagged at Imogene like an awkward itch. It could have just been a figure of speech. But if it wasn't... what then? There was only one way to know for sure.

"N-normally," Imogene stuttered.

"Come again, Ms. Spaak?" Emil asked in reply, growing ever so tired of asking this girl to repeat herself.

"B-before... you said 'NNN-NORMALLY this is where I offer you a j-job.' Did... d-does that... d-did I...," the shrunken woman turned about, peeking out of her coverings just enough to see around the massive agate. Gazing upwards at the giant man looming over her like a coming storm.

Emil's contented grin faded away in an instant, "it would seem you ARE smarter than I gave you credit for..."





End Part 13
"People like Coldplay and voted for the Nazis, you can't trust people, Jeremy."

-Super Hans, Peep Show

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Re: Tumbled

Post by Bloodthirstybutcher » Mon Feb 27, 2023 11:54 pm

Part 14-"Crystal's First Heist"




She'd seen her auntie wearing it on occasion. A simple but lovely necklace with a thin gold chain. A single stone dangled from a pendant at the front. It wasn't a large diamond by any means, but it was still a diamond. A gem of such strength and beauty that all others paled by comparison. Diamonds are forever.

Even at the young age of seven, Crystal Simpson's fingers were stickier than most children her age. If she wanted another kid's candy, she simply took it. If they were playing with doll she fancied, it too became hers. Her mother's constant drilling of the difference between right and wrong into the young girl's skull seemed to have little effect. If Crystal wanted it, she was going to get it.

And Crystal wanted that necklace.

Taking her auntie's jewelry wouldn't be like stealing from the other kids her age. This was an adult, an intelligent woman with a watchful eye. Crystal overheard her mother venting frustrations over her daughter's lack of respect for personal property on several occasions. Because of this, her mother's sister kept a close watch on the troublesome niece. No, pilfering the necklace would not be easy at all... this would require a plan.

Crystal had a little brother, Bradley, a three year old with the temperament of any child his age... a tantrum throwing force of nature. Who better to paint as the fall guy. She just had to figure out where her auntie was stashing the coveted necklace without raising suspicions. A strategy began to take shape in her young mind.

During their weekly visits to the house, Crystal found simple ways to case her auntie's bedroom while the grown up sisters chatted about the usual boring gossip over coffee and cake. She'd excuse herself to the restroom, then use that time to peruse the woman's sleeping space. Minutes at a time were all she had before Crystal knew her keenly suspicious aunt would come looking for her. A quick flush of the toilet and a rinse of the hands on her way back to the living room helped to sell the lie.

After several weeks of patient research, Crystal located her aunt's jewelry stash. A false bottom in the woman's sock drawer revealed a modest but lovely collection of earrings and bracelets. It may as well have been The Crown Jewels to the greedy seven year old. There, in the middle of the drawer lay her prize. Crystal fought the urge to take the necklace a that very moment. The glistening stone at its focal point practically begging the young girl to pocket it.

"Not y-yet," she whispered to herself, closing her eyes and taking a deep breath. Her obnoxious stutter always seemed to amplify when she got nervous. And damn, was she ever nervous. The girl closed her eyes and took a breath to calm herself, something she'd seen her mother do while doing yoga on the living room floor. There was a plan, and Crystal knew she had to hold to it if she didn't want to get caught.

Success or failure, it all rested on Bradley. The little boy was potty training at the time, and as a show of good faith, Crystal would often help her mother out when he had to go. The perfect cover. The family rarely left the house without Bradley's little training toilet, a lime green abomination with a seat shaped like Kermit the Frog's face. Crystal's father always cracked that it looked like Kermit was going to eat little Bradley's ass every time he sat down. For reasons beyond Crystal's understanding, dear old dad always got rewarded with an elbow jab to the ribs from her mother for it. Setting that mental digression aside, Crystal sat on the floor with her dolls and waited patiently until Bradley needed to use the restroom.

The wait was agonizing. The little shit refused to drink anything that day, just for the sake of being a petty, stubborn three year old. Crystal could feel her muscles tightening with every passing minute. Sweat began to bead on her brow. If something didn't happen soon, she was certain she would scream. Throw her own goddamn tantrum for a change, just to show Bradley up.

Finally, the moment came. The little boy put down the alphabet blocks he'd been banging together in a time signature known only to him, then waddled up to his mother. A little tug and at the hem of her dress followed, "pee pee."

"Crystal sweetie," her mother called, "could you do mommy a favor and take your brother to the restroom?" She and her sister were hotly engaged in the latest scandal among their church friends and couldn't be bothered with such inconveniences. Much to Crystal's advantage.

"Ok, m-mommy!" Her 'helpful' and 'dutiful' daughter replied. Crystal had been waiting so long for that very moment, when it came she like she could jump right out of her skin. "C-come on, B-brad! Let's go p-potty!"

Crystal took her brother's hand (the one that didn't have a death grip on his crotch anyway) and lead him down the hall to the restroom. The Kermit potty was already there, waiting patiently in the dark for feeding time. Crystal got her brother all set up and ready to do his business, then brought her finger to her lips.

"I'll be r-right b-back, ok."

With that, the sneaky little girl tiptoed out of the bathroom and creeped down the hall into her auntie's bedroom. It was always dark in there, even in the daytime. The older of the two sisters always kept the shades drawn, but with as much time as she'd spent in there, it had become a space Crystal knew as well as her own room. She carried a wooden stool from the closet over to the dresser that held her prize, then gently slid the top drawer open with minimal noise. She threw the socks blocking her way onto the floor, making sure to leave a single purple stocking dangling over the edge to really sell the scene.

There it was, still in the same place she'd last seen it beneath the false bottom of the sock drawer... the necklace Crystal had spent weeks pining over. Her desire to possess it had outgrown the significance of the item itself. Like the diamond had evolved into a sort of talisman, one that magically held all of her aspirations. The Holy Grail... The Ark of the Covenant... this cheap necklace from a mall jeweler... each just as mythical as the other. With a trembling hand, Crystal snatched the necklace from its secret keep and stuffed it into her pocket.

Once in possession of her own little El Dorado, Crystal pulled the lower drawers open as well and emptied more clothing onto the floor. She took a step back to regard the one-sided pyramid she'd just created. The frame job was set. It was time to rush back into the bathroom to pin the whole thing on her brother. Bradley had finished feeding the pig loving frog and was struggling to pull his training pants back over his chubby little rump. Crystal quickly disposed of her brother's urine by dumping it into the actual toilet. This is where things got tricky.

"You s-see that-t handle, buddy?" She asked her younger sibling, pointing to the chrome flusher near the top of the tank. Crystal flushed the toilet once to show him how it worked. "Can you c-climb up there and flush it, t-too?"

Bradley giggled, then used his perfectly placed little potty as a step stool, just as Crystal had hoped. The little guy scaled the porcelain throne, reaching the top of the bowl with ease thanks to his friend Kermit. He extended his chubby arm and pressed the handle down, beaming from ear to ear. The toddler laughed and clapped his hands as he watched the the water swirl around in the bowl and then disappear down the hole at the bottom.

Meanwhile, behind Crystal's back she held a single pink ankle sock fro her aunt's drawer. As soon as her little brother flushed the toilet again, she tossed the garment into the bowl and screamed, "Brad! Nooooooo!"

The adult sisters still visiting in the living room came running faster than Crystal had anticipated. They appeared at the bathroom door, each clamoring for their own space in the frame.

"What?! What's wrong... Bradley! What are you doing up there?!" Their mother rushed to grab her son from the top of the toilet seat before he could fall in. "Crystal! How could you let your brother climb up there like that?! He could have hurt himself!"

Time to sell it.

Crystal worked herself up into a fit of tears and pleaded with her mother, "I'm s-sorry, mommy! I didn't m-mean to! He w-went p-p-potty and then I had to g-go too. He ran out the d-door!" The surprising crafty young girl was almost in hysterics, "I thought he just w-went back out with you, m-mommy! I f-finished, but then I saw Brad was running b-back from Auntie Karen's room! He had a sock and Auntie's necklace and..."

Karen left the children immediately to go inspect her room. Sure enough, the child had been playing around in dresser drawers. That wouldn't have been such a shock, but the stool next to it... with the top drawer hanging open, made her heart skip a beat. She rushed to the dresser and looked inside... sure enough, her favorite necklace was gone.

Appearing back at the bathroom door with all the fires of hell blazing within her eyes, Karen glared down at her niece, immediately suspecting her. "Where is it, you little shit?!"

Crystal looked up at her aunt with such hurt in her weeping eyes, then back to her own mother, "m-mommy?! I didn't m-mean to let him out of m-my sight, I swear!"

Her mother knelt down and took her daughter by the shoulders, "where is the necklace, Crystal?"

This was it. If she didn't give the performance of her short life, Crystal knew she would be in deep trouble. She hung her head and sobbed even harder, pointing to the toilet bowl. "I'm sorry! I t-tried to s-stop him!"

Karen ran to the bowl and knelt down with her face closer to the seat than most would find comfortable. She extracted the soggy sock with the tips of her fingers, the soaked footwear dripping heavily as it dangled.

Karen was furious... but not with Crystal.

She glared at each of the kids, then back at her own sister. "Can't you keep these little monsters under control!"

"Excuse me?!" Crystal's mother replied.

An argument ensued, ending with Mrs. Simpson storming out of her sister's home. The two wouldn't speak for almost two months, but siblings have a way of getting over their grudges easier than most. Neither Crystal nor Bradley were punished for what happened, an even better outcome than the former could have anticipated. When they'd finally be invited back to their auntie's house, the children were expected to play outside. Crystal was fine with that.

She had what she wanted. To her, the necklace was a dazzling prize that she kept hidden inside her favorite teddy bear. From time to time, she'd take it out and stare at its simple details for long periods, getting lost in it. Over the years, the necklace would gain a few "friends," also stashed safely away inside of Crystal's stuffed bear. She figured her auntie's neckwear needed a few more shiny adornments to keep it company. But that necklace would hold a special place in little Crystal Simpson's heart. Her first heist... surly one to remember.

No one forgets their first.





End Part 14
"People like Coldplay and voted for the Nazis, you can't trust people, Jeremy."

-Super Hans, Peep Show

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Re: Tumbled

Post by Bloodthirstybutcher » Tue Feb 28, 2023 11:58 pm

Part 15-"The Basics of Rock Tumbling"




"Are you familiar with the art of tumbling, Ms. Spaak?"

Imogene should have known better. A direct answer coming from The Broker was as rare as the way she preferred her steaks. As if her situation wasn't traumatizing enough, the frustration that came with enduring DeTorres's mind games and tangents only added to her stress. She dropped her face into her hand and sighed, "what now? You gonna show me a few gymnastic moves on the basement floor?"

"Rock tumbling , my dear... are you familiar with it?" He repeated.

"What, like that shit little kids do?" She snarled back. Though probably best not to poke the bear, Imogene had been through a lot in the past day or so... and she'd had enough.

"Not quite," DeTorres huffed back. "While yes, tumbling is quite often a hobby picked up by the young, it actually takes many years of trial and error to perfect the technique of doing it well."

"What does this have to do with anything?" Imogene growled, still hidden beneath the makeshift hood of her microfiber blanket. Even as the words left her mouth, she knew she wouldn't receive a straight answer.

"Everything I have laid out here on this counter," The Broker began, displaying the containers proudly, "is all that's required to tumble a jagged, unremarkable stone into a stunning gem... unlocking its true potential. Along with that motorized device over there." Out of the corner of her eye, Imogene could see Emil's finger extended towards a blue rectangular station of some sort against the wall, assumedly the tumbler itself. Most of the black market jewelers she'd met had one collecting dust in a corner somewhere in their shops.

"Nature provides us with the raw beauty, it's our duty as artisans to refine and perfect it," Emil continued.

While Imogene desperately needed to know what DeTorres had meant by "normally" in reference to her potential employment, perhaps the best course of action was to let the rambling bastard get it out of his system. She bit her tongue and let the giant continue, as if there she had any other choice.

"To begin with, you'll need to fill your tumbler barrel with an appropriate number of stones." Emil lifted the barrel from the workbench and shook it a little to let the rocks within settle, a sound akin to what Imogene imagined a landslide would sound like. "About two-thirds full should suffice. It's also important to choose stones of varying size to ensure a good tumble."

He opened another jar and poured an avalanche of strange, white pellets into the cylinder. "This is material is called ceramic media... it helps to fill in the open spaces and get into the little nooks and crannies, ensuring a smoother result. After that, we add our first stage of grit." Opening the next canister, DeTorres used a tablespoon to measure out two scoops of a coarse, metallic powder. "The added grit here will grind against the surface of the stones as they turn, smoothing out their surface over the course of the next few weeks. I'll gradually add finer grit until it's time to polish... but we're getting way ahead of ourselves."

A waterfall spilled down from the mouth of the pitcher, sprinkling the microfiber cloth in little droplets from the splash. To small to absorb, they clung to they fibers of the swatch like little hitchhikers. Imogene was distracted at first by the strange beauty of the the falling water, but that's when the answer she had been waiting for finally came. "I'm afraid that you've failed your interview, Ms. Spaak."

Imogene's eyes opened wide. She flipped the blanket hood from over her head and turned on her butt to face Emil. The thee canisters and the pitcher he'd collected now separated her from the giant like a row of silos. "Interview? What interview?!"

Emil set the pitcher back down, having filled the barrel to the desired level. Just to where the water met the uppermost stones. "What exactly did you think this entire conversation was, my dear?"

"I... what? I don't understand... what are you t-talking about?" Imogene stood up, clutching the cloth around her like an oversized bath towel.

Once again, DeTorres clasped his fingers together, propped his elbows on the table, and rested his chin on the back side of his hands. He towered over the tops of the canisters that themselves dwarfed the shrunken woman like buildings. "I need to know I can trust the people under me... in your case both figuratively and literally. Since this interview began, you've consistently shown me that I cannot."

"I don't understand," she repeated, "I d-didn't know I was b-b... b-being interviewed! I've barely s-said anything!" As the tension in the room continued to grow, so did the severity of Imogene's stutter.

"You may not have said much," Emil explained, "but what little you have said has been more than sufficient. Within a matter of minutes you not only gave up your employer, but your own alias, for pity sake! Lest we forget the accomplice you murdered. No, Ms. Spaak... I don't believe we were meant to work together."

The tiny woman was dumbstruck. What was the point of all this? And more importantly... what now?

"I know you're type all too well. Headstrong. Independent. Willing to throw anyone under the proverbial bus just to get your way. Out there... it's every man and woman for themselves. Out there it's a necessity. But down here, Ms. Spaak... down here things work differently. I need people who can follow orders. People I know won't make things difficult for me. Self-serving individuals like yourself have always been a problem. You're simply too much of a wild card." The looming giant stood up tall, casting his imposing shadow over Imogene once again. This time, far more ominously. "You can be sure of one thing, little one. I'm certainly not going to deprive myself of my beauty sleep over the possibility that one of my employees might try to get even. Unlikely as that may seem for someone as small as you."

Imogene swallowed hard, looking from DeTorres to the enormous tumbling barrel and back again. "W-what are y-you going to d-do?"

The corner of Emil's expansive mouth curled into a sinister grin. "As I stated earlier, Ms. Spaak... your very existence is somewhat... inconvenient."

"Then... w-what was all this for?" She whimpered.

Emil tilted his head a little before answering, "I was enjoying the company. It's not everyday one gets the opportunity to converse with a person the size of a mouse. But it seems the conversation has grown stale."

Imogene stood in shock. He wouldn't... DeTorres couldn't possibly be that cruel. The barrel... the stones... the seemingly pointless and lengthy monologue about polishing them...

Imogene's eyes bulged and her quivering jaw dropped, releasing a horrified gasp. A new, sinking fear knotted in her stomach and her legs grew heavy. That's when she tossed her meager coverings aside and attempted to make her escape before the fear rendered her immobile. Even though freedom seemed as futile a prospect as returning to her normal size. Strange thunder clapped from behind her and above. The sound was everywhere... his voice, reverberating off the cinderblock walls like a canyon. The Broker's bellowing chuckle. The diminished woman's desperate attempt to save her own life seen as nothing more than amusement to a cruel god.

The tiny thief didn't get far before a massive wall of flesh came crashing down in front of her. There was no time to stop and she ran face first into the barrier, knocking her backwards upon impact. It was DeTorres's hand. Not long ago, it had offered a helpful lift to the top of the workbench, but now it's soft pink skin was preventing her from getting away. Imogene found her footing as quickly as her reflexes would allow and took off towards the back of the workbench. She couldn't give up, knowing that doing so meant certain death. There was in fact a gap between the back of the bench and the wall, just wide enough for her to wiggle through if she could just make it there. The Broker's laughter continued to fill the air like an encroaching storm.

The gap was so close Imogene could make out the cobwebs that crisscrossed their way down into the uncertain darkness. Was there a chance that she'd shank small enough that the abandoned spider nets could ease her fall if she simply jumped? She'd never get the opportunity to find out. Mere inches from a full-sized person's perspective, Imogene was stopped. Her lower right leg was caught in a soft, but powerful vice. Her forward momentum stalled and she fell forward onto her stomach.

So close. She was just so damn close.

The shrunken woman tried to kick and wiggle free, but it was no use... her leg was pinched between the long, spindly fingers of The Broker. The world flipped upside down in an instant and she felt herself jerked away from the surface of the bench... and any hope of freedom. She tried to dig her nails into the wood grain of the workbench to no avail, lifting away the nails from the bed under the extreme force. An excruciating pain only dampened by the adrenaline pumping through her body. The bench fell away at a terrifying speed until she came to a jarring halt... dangled directly in front of The Broker's inverted face.

DeTorres said nothing, a first for him. He just shook his head in disapproval. Before Imogene could regain her bearings, the hellish elevator ride resumed, only this time she was dropping at an unnerving rate. The tiny blonde screamed when she saw the mouth of tumbler barrel rushing up at her.

Imogene was dumped unceremoniously into the black cylinder with barely a hint of a splash. It took a moment for the terrified woman to right herself again, now soaking wet and covered in the silvery grit. She was lying across a pair of boulders, her fall softened slightly by the grit itself which was slowly sinking into the abyss below. Agates and jaspers and pieces of jade peeked their banded heads just above the water like tiny islands. The walls of the barrel's interior curved all around her with little streaks of water-staining descending from the rim.

Struggling to find her footing on the slick rocks, Imogene clamored through the sand-like metal shavings, hopping from one stone to the next until she reached the barrel's rim. She could just get her arms over the edge, immediately attempting to pull herself over the lip... until The Broker's chuckling resumed.

"Please! Don't do this! I'm begging you!" The terror-struck miniature burglar cried out. Emil responded by knocking her back inside the barrel with the slightest flick from his finger. Imogene fell backwards, screaming once again as she splashed down. This time she landed hard on top of the jagged edge of an agate, scraping the back of her leg up with searing pain. Imogene climbed to her feet once again and made a break for the dark plastic wall. This time though, a giant black disc was there to meet her. The lid, coming in for a landing like a flying saucer.

Emil scoffed, "while others of a shrunken stature have served me well in the past, look at yourself, Ms. Spaak. What services could you possibly offer me? You're entirely TOO small... not even fit to clean the pebbles from the bottoms of my loafers."

Falling to her knees, Imogene made one last desperate plea for The Broker's mercy, "please! Emil! Please don't do this! Please don't kill me! I'm begging you! I'll do anything you ask! Please! Emil...," she repeated the words over and over, hoping by using the giant's familiar name that he'd show her some shred of compassion. "Not like this! Please, Emil! Not like this!"

"I suppose I could have stuffed you down the garbage disposal," the giant replied, his own voice easily drowning out that of the condemned, "or fed you to one of the local strays... but these feels a little more... on brand for me, does it not?"

Imogene continued to beg for her very life, groveling and crying with more terror than she'd ever felt in her life. Even more so than that rainy night when her younger self survived the largest and deadliest tornado in Kansas history. "Please! I'll do anything you ask! I'll be your slave! I'll be your fucking pet for christsakes! Just don't kill me!"

"I usually like to run through the first stage of the tumble for a couple of weeks," Emil explained, ignoring the tiny woman's desperate objections. "But I am not without a sense of empathy. I wouldn't want to find myself in your position... so... this is the one and only deal I have to offer you..."

"YES!!! PLEASE!!! ANYTHING!!!" Imogene shouted back. DeTorres may not have been a god, but as the tiny girl knelt before him clasped her hands together and his name on her lips... he may as well have been.

"One week," he replied. "I'll come back and check on the tumbler's progress in one week... and if you're still alive, I'll reconsider my stance on your employment."

"A week! I'll never-," the lid fell faster, quickly obscuring what remained of Imogene's view of the world outside the barrel... but not before DeTorres bid her polite farewell.

"So long, Ms. Spaak... I'll be rooting for you."

As the lid popped into place, Emil could hear the teensy Ms. Spaak screaming from within... and then silence. A threaded nut followed to hold the lid in place during its long period of rotation. DeTorres carried the little barrel over to the motorized tumbler and set the dark rubber cylinder down on its side. He made a quick inspection of the cord for any worn spots, then blew the dust off the end to prevent any fires. One can never be too safe when dealing with old electrical cords. When satisfied, DeTorres plugged it into the closest outlet. The simple motor hummed to life and the barrel started to rotate. The familiar sound of the stones within toppling over one another signaled to its owner that the machine was working properly.

As much as he wanted to leave the mess Imogene left in the vault chamber for Mr. Rudolph to deal with, the larger disaster she and her partner left upstairs was already weighing on DeTorres's obsessive compulsive mind. There wasn't much he could do about it that night, as quite a lot of contract work would be involved in putting his home back in order. But the pile of tools and discarded clothing was something he could remedy right then and there to help put his mind at ease.

First, he placed the break-in tools back inside the bag. Emil had little use for such things, but perhaps he'd hold onto them until Mr. Rudolph's return. Even though he wasn't pleased with his butler/human watchdog at the moment, DeTorres had grown quite fond of his current manservant... though he'd never be one to mention it. An expensive looking set of tools might be just the thing to cheer the big ox up once he came home from the hospital.

Next came Ms. Spaak's clothing. There were no shoes to be found, but her dress and undergarments were still present. Emil had just begun to gather them up when a small clink against the ground caught his attention. There on the floor, having fallen out of the empty clothing, was a modest looking gold necklace. A thin chain with a tiny, unremarkable diamond pendant dangling from the bottom. The sole piece of jewelry Ms. Spaak had worn that night. The only thing of any real sentimental value she had ever clung on to. Emil placed the less-than remarkable piece of jewelry into a drawer filled with other tokens left behind by those who'd made the ill-conceived choice to challenge him. Most dead and gone, but some still living...

With the closing of the drawer and the gathering of his and Ms.Spaak's plates, Emil "The Broker" DeTorres entered his private lift and returned to the main floor of his home. Imogene's clothing was tossed unceremoniously into the trash before he retired to his bedroom for a well-earned night's rest.





End Part 15
"People like Coldplay and voted for the Nazis, you can't trust people, Jeremy."

-Super Hans, Peep Show

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Re: Tumbled

Post by Bloodthirstybutcher » Wed Mar 01, 2023 11:51 pm

Part 16-"Vortex"




"M-mommy, I'm s-scared!" Little Crystal whimpered with heavy tears streaming down her face.

"You and your brother hold onto me as tight as you can, ok baby?!"

The roar of a tempest wind outside the house grew louder with each passing second. The very air pressure changed, causing the ears of every member of the Simpson family to pop. A powerful whirlwind, one so large and deadly that it would cut a path of destruction across three states that night, was bearing down on the edge of their neighborhood. Debris from the surrounding homes it had already consumed pelted at the side of the Simpson home in rhythmic fashion. The massive tornado had reached their doorstep and was literally knocking at their door.

While her husband was busy nailing boards to the shuttered cellar doors for added strength, Marilyn Simpson held her frightened children tightly to her breast beneath the hopeful protection of the stairs and an old mattress. She wanted to scream as badly as her sobbing offspring, but as any mother knows, her children were looking to her to be the emotional rock through the ordeal... no matter the outcome.

"Hey... hey," Marilyn repeated as she attempted to get her children's attention. "Have I ever told you the story about a little girl named Dorothy Gale?"

Crystal and her brother were both sobbing and plugging their ears over the horrendous growl of the hungry twister. They couldn't hear her at first, so Marilyn pulled their hands away from their heads.

"Listen to me, ok? Once upon a time, there was a little girl named Dorothy Gale, and she had a tornado come for her, just like us. The twister took her entire house, whisked it off into the sky and took it to a magical land called Oz. All sorts of amazing creatures and people live in Oz. It's a wonderful, green place where neither of you will ever have to be afraid of anything ever again."

The cracking sound of their home getting torn from its foundation reverberated through the cellar, but the kids were listening. Marilyn knew she had to hide her fear... she had to sell it. She wrapped little Crystal up in the little girl's yellow blanket and tucked it tightly around her daughter and her favorite teddy bear for protection. Bradley was already wrapped up safely in his own.

"So there's no reason to be afraid, ok? That big nasty tornado up there might destroy our house, but that's the worst of it. It just might take us away, but there's nothing to be afraid of, ok? You just have to close your eyes and repeat after me, 'there's no place like Oz... there's no place like Oz...'"

As the raging whirlwind passed over the house, the power to the basement lights was cut. The bulbs flickered to a suffocating black.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Imogene had never experienced a darkness as black and oppressive as the interior of the tumbler barrel.

She continued to pound her puny fists against the giant rubber lid, screaming herself hoarse in the process. The tips of her aching fingers continued to bleed from where her nails had been ripped away. The rocks beneath her feet shifted and settled into the water as the container she found herself trapped in swayed from side to side. The coarse metal grit continued to slip away from between her toes like sand falling through an hour glass into the unseeable depths, leaving her with only slippery, unstable stones to support her. There were already so few places to find footing, and the constant sway of motion as DeTorres jostled her rubber prison he carried with him made it nearly impossible to do so.

The Broker couldn't really be serious. This was just some kind of test, a way to scare her into submission. No one could be this cruel... this sadistic... right?! These thoughts did little to convince Imogene of anything other than the truth and her inevitable fate.

"LET ME OUT! PLEASE LET ME OUT, I'LL DO ANYTHING! PLEASE! I'M BEGGING YOU! DON'T DO THIS!"

With the suddenness of a gunshot, the ceiling she had been pounding on shifted, turning ninety degrees until it became a wall. The entire barrel had rotated onto its side, sending a tidal wave filled with heavy boulders Imogene's way. The shrunken woman fell forward, instantly pinned beneath the surface of the water by one of the rough tumbling stones. She fought to free herself, the thought of drowning before she even had a chance to prove herself at the forefront of her reeling mind. The offending jasper held her leg in place, nothing but a small river pebble whose minuscule weight was more than the tiny creature she had become could ever hope to lift. Time was running out... and Imogene couldn't hold her breath any longer.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Crystal held her little brother's hand as she stared outward in a state of awe at the incredible devastation. It had taken their father quite some time to clear the debris away from the doors so their family could escape the cellar, but the room had held strong, keeping the Simpson family safe. Their home had been leveled, wiped clean away from the foundations where it once stood and scattered along the wide path of the monstrous tornado. In the end, the Simpson family were alive and together... and thats all that truly mattered. So many others had not been so lucky that night.

Crystal looked up at her mother, who was failing at restraining her tears. "Is... is this Oz, m-mommy?" The apocalyptic landscape that surrounded them hardly resembled their town, nor the lush, magical paradise her mother had described.

"No, sweetie," her mother replied. "It's just our town... it used to be anyway."

Crystal was visibly disappointed, "do you think w-we'll get to go there s-some d-day?"

"I hope not, Crystal sweetie... I really hope not."

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

By what initially felt like a miracle, the rock pinning Imogene's leg shifted... in fact... all of the rocks were moving. Her gasp for air echoed through the cylinder, the sound bouncing against the walls like an indoor swimming pool when she breached the water's surface. The boulders beneath her feet were churning aggressively and the sound of some kind of motor hummed from outside the barrel walls. The second her hand touched the lid again, Imogene realized what was happening.

It was spinning... and fast. The entire barrel was rotating, causing the rocks to rise above the water on one side of the cylinder, then crash down and shift all around her. It was too dark to see where any of them would fall next. She could only hear the massive pebbles splashing back into the water, crunching and grinding against each other with the help of the tumbling grit.

"HELP ME! PLEASE HELP ME! EMIL! EMIIIIIIL! I DON'T WANNA DIE! PL-"

Another rock fell against Imogene's back and then rolled away, but not before it forced her head back underwater. She bobbed back to the surface, only to get knocked under once again. The tumbling stones rolled on, relentless and indifferent. The tiny woman managed to fight her way above the surface once more, straining for air. Imogene felt heavier... the rotation of the barrel had grown fast enough that the centrifugal force was pulling her under just as much as the tumbling stones.

She couldn't scream any more.

The pummeling action within the tumbler lacked any mercy . Over and over again, Imogene battled her way over one sharp and slippery stone... only to have another blindside her in the cold, uncaring darkness. It didn't matter how hard she scraped and clawed against the onslaught. There was only one possible end to her suffering.

Imogene couldn't see any of the damage to her person of course, but the razor sharp edges of some of the stones, combined with the jagged particles of grit, were shredding her flesh. She could feel her bones breaking, then breaking again. The endless bombardment from the heavy agates zapped her energy more and more with each passing minute.

It wasn't long before Imogene had nothing left to fight back with. The tumbler continued to turn... and turn... and turn, winning its battle against the miniature thief with ease...

...and soon... There was nothing left but for Imogene to accept her fate.

Imogene... Crystal's... final moments were muddled in a state of concussive disorientation. She was trapped in a perpetual avalanche and her body had sustained the damage to show it.

It was over.

As Imogene sunk beneath the surface of the water for the last time, pulled deeper and deeper by gravity and the force of the swirling vortex, she closed her eyes and remembered the chant her mother had taught her. With water racing in to fill her lungs, Crystal Simpson concentrated on her mother's words...


"There's no place like Oz

There's no place like Oz

There's no place like-"




End Part 16
"People like Coldplay and voted for the Nazis, you can't trust people, Jeremy."

-Super Hans, Peep Show

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Re: Tumbled

Post by Bloodthirstybutcher » Thu Mar 02, 2023 4:33 pm

Part 17-"One Week Later"




The lights to the secret cellar flickered on as they always did, filling the basement in the usual green fluorescent glow. As the old lift descended, the only other sounds filling the cellar were the buzzing of the tubed bulbs... and the persistent hum of the busy rock tumbler.

An especially spry Emil DeTorres stepped out of the elevator with a towel draped over his shoulder and a whistled tune on his lips. A Charlie Parker number perhaps. He immediately made his way towards the shop sink to retrieve the pitcher and a five gallon bucket which he kept stored beneath the rectangular basin. He filled the pitcher with water, then set the collected items up near his workbench.

The stool he had dragged across the room earlier that week while dealing with his latest intruder was dragged back to its usual home next to where the orange bucket rested on the floor. A simple colander hung on the wall next to the polishing pads for his flat cabber, which DeTorres promptly retrieved and added it to his increasingly cluttered work station.

With everything neatly in place, it was time to retrieve the black tumbler barrel from the machine. It was always so exciting to see the first stage's progress.

The mysterious man rarely felt the urge to get his hands dirty, literally or figuratively. That was what Mr. Rudolph was employed for. But when it came to his little hobby... DeTorres preferred to remain quite hands on. He carefully removed the plastic nut from the top of the container and set it aside, so as not to accidentally knock it under the workbench. It took a bit of elbow grease to pop the lid free, but the thin metal disk eventually gave. What greeted Emil was anything but unexpected.

A thick, grey slurry filled the barrel, hiding the progress his stones had made. With a slow, careful tilt of the barrel, the contents were dumped into the waiting colander nestled atop the bucket rim. The grey sludge rushed downwards in a sloppy cascade, leaving the tumbled stones suspended above like fish caught in a net. If the slurry happened to have been a slightly pinker hue than than usual, even DeTorres's trained eye for detail couldn't tell the difference. He had kept his promise to Ms. Spaak, empty as that promise may have been.

A quick shower of warm tap water from the pitcher revealed the luster of the gems once again, sending what remained of the the sludge coating into the bucket's depths below. Emil picked a single rock from the small pile, holding it close to his face. Using a magnifier, he scrutinized the agate's surface, a particularly beautiful blue and white specimen originating from Botswana . He turned it over in his hand, coming to what amounted as a foreseen conclusion.

"Just as I had suspected... one week wasn't nearly enough."

Emil prepped the tumbler just as he had a week prior, placing the unfinished stones back inside the barrel and adding the slotted grit. He set it back on the machine to be checked again in at least another week, if not more. Those Botswana agates could be especially stubborn to take a polish in his previous experience. There was no rush when it came to giving his agates that perfect, mirror-like finish. Taking the bucket of slurry with him, DeTorres entered his secret lift once again to return to the house's main level. The lights shut off behind him, leaving the simple machine to do its work in complete darkness.

The contractors Emil hired had been quite impressive and efficient with their work e previous week, finishing DeTorres's windows in company record time. The extra money he paid them to finish it quickly helped greatly to grease those wheels. The professional cleaning crew that came in afterwards were also incredibly thorough, leaving little trace of the destruction that had occurred only a short week prior. Emil's Van Gogh was still spattered in blood though, which caused a nerve in his eye to twitch every time he looked at it. An expert in art restoration would need to be contacted.

With great caution, DeTorres made his way through the house without dripping the thick sludge sloshing around inside the bucket onto his freshly cleaned floor. Normally he'd have help, but Mr. Rudolph had still not returned to work, opting instead to take a couple of weeks off to recover from his assault . Emil generously agreed to his trusted employee's leave, allowing all the time he needed. Mr. Rudolph's absence would leave a man of DeTorres's particular notoriety vulnerable for the time being, but for all his faults, The Broker was no helpless twink.

The contents of the bucket splashed against the side of the hill behind Emil's home. The same spot he'd dumped many, many gallons of lapidary waste over the years. Even weeds could no longer take root there. He'd learned the hard way about dumping the slurry down the toilet, having it congeal into something as hard as concrete in his pipes. That proved to be an expensive mistake.

The hillside made for an adequate enough dumping area to dispose of his waste... and for those who were unwise enough to test him. The final remains of Crystal Simpson... aka Imogene Spaak... aka Selina, soaked into the dry California earth where countless others had met the same fate. A mass grave only spanning a matter of feet.

DeTorres regarded the moist patch on the hill for the briefest of moments. There was always a part of him that felt guilty for ridding himself of his "problems" this way. Surely they had families, friends... loved ones who would go the rest of their lives not knowing what happened to those who now rested behind his home. Emil wasn't immune to empathy... their screams always haunted him afterwards. At least for a little while.

Once the orange bucket was rinsed out with the garden hose, DeTorres shook out the remaining water and wiped off the base with a towel, then returned to his hidden elevator. The orange receptacle was placed back in its usual spot beneath the sink in his workshop. Emil dried his hands on the washcloth hanging near the basin, then turned to face the vault chamber. Before journeying inside, he rolled his sleeves back down to the wrists and buttoned the cuffs. Never one to be seen without a tie, Emil straightened his slim black adornment... then stepped inside the chamber.

48 right.
12 left.
27 right.

With a pull of the handle, the heavy round door opened.

The insides of the vault were stark white, glowing... as if the walls themselves luminesced. To the left lay the vault proper. A true marvel of scientific achievement beyond anything available to the masses. DeTorres hadn't been completely honest with his little intruder that night when he told Imogene there was a cave system beneath the Hollywood Hills. To his knowledge no such system existed. This was earthquake country, after all. If any caverns ever did hollow out the mountain, they'd since been collapsed by the intense seismic activity in the region.

That's not to say that the vault wasn't as vast as he'd described though. Accessible only by both retinal and fingerprint scanner, The Broker's legendary keep was not something completely of this earth. Perhaps Emil felt that concept and complexity of a "pocket dimension" would prove too abstract for someone of Ms. Spaak's pedigree to fully grasp. So, he explained things in terms he was sure she would understand. Not that he particularly cared, mind you... it's not as though he owed her anything after all.

The real vault behind the steel facade was something far more extraordinary. A plain of existence separate from any other. One that DeTorres could expand or contract at his discretion, depending on the volume of inventory being held within. Such an incredible machine also made transportation of his many treasures so much easier. Only the portal had to be moved and the pocket dimension could be accessed from anywhere else on earth. An invaluable convenience should this country prove a less comfortable place to call home in the future. It wouldn't be the first time Emil had been forced to pack up and leave in his impossibly long lifetime.

While the dimensional portal device lay untouched to DeTorres's left, just as he'd left it, another wonder adorned the wall to his right. Stacked from floor to ceiling lay the "homes" of DeTorres's other "employees." A series of glass tanks built into the wall excelling at both form and function. A true work of artistic construction in themselves, the living spaces hung or protruded from the chamber like the attractive example of post-modernism that it was. The walls of each tank were covered to offer some sense of privacy for their occupants, all except for one. An unobscurred wall that allowed The Broker easy viewing of the shrunken people within, as well as for the convenience of constant video surveillance. As far as DeTorres was concerned, if anyone ever needed a close eye kept on them, it was this group.

Tunnels and small lifts linked the different living spaces together, allowing the shrunken to commune with one another, as well as a common area for exercise. Though these victims of their own compulsions were technically his prisoners, Emil still tried to make their miserable lives as comfortable as possible. He wished them no ill will... in fact, he had hoped his version of kindness would endear them to him like the pets they had become. He was still hoping. It hadn't worked quite yet, but if there was one thing Emil had no shortage of, it was time. Experimentation is always a process after all.

Currently, five occupants called the strange miniature "apartment" home, three men and two women. All of varying size, depending on how much of the compound they had ingested. It was the fewest DeTorres had yet held in his service since his acquisition of the Israeli weapon, leaving many a living space unoccupied. Because of this, Emil silently pondered whether or not he should have actually given Ms. Spaak another shot. Not something he dwelt upon for very long, it was far too late for second guessing himself now.

"Good morning, my tiny friends," the giant greeted his subordinates with his usual over-the-top enthusiasm. None of them returned his greeting, as had become their custom. Like animals in a cage, most could only stare back at their captor in fear and disgust. If The Broker himself was paying them a visit in Mr. Rudolph's stead, it could only mean one thing...

"Who among you is up for a little adventure?"

Once again, their warden was met with silence.

"Hmmmm... no volunteers?" He asked playfully. "Alright then. Have it your way... I'll just have to consult my itinerary to see who hasn't earned their keep in a while."

The only member of this fantastical terrarium not gawking up at their superior was siting on the very edge of her tiny, makeshift couch with her head in her hands. Her legs shook nervously underneath her elbows as she waited for what she knew was coming. It was her turn. She'd been lucky, having gotten away with her solitude for far too long, longer than most. Her time was most certainly up, her luck completely exhausted.

"Ah-ha!" Emil exclaimed, looking back up from the screen of his phone. "Mrs. Clark..."

Two years. That's how long Alexandra had been resigned to this living purgatory. Plenty of time to have grown to loathe the way her name sounded as it passed the The Broker 's weasely lips.

"Mrs. Clark? I'm speaking to you."

Alexandra, always having preferred Alex for short, cringed and winced... but didn't raise her head from the imaginary safety of her trembling hands. She refused to give DeTorres the satisfaction of jumping when her name was called. Her anxious knees gave her away though, bouncing even faster than before.

Emil leaned down, his devilish face filling most of the transparent wall that separated him from his miniature ''employee.' His mouth stretched into a gigantic, toothy smile, grotesque and foreboding. Speaking as though he were addressing the others, The Broker's next words were unmistakably directed at Alexandra, "it would seem our little Mrs. Clark here has won herself an all-expenses-paid trip to New York... The Big Apple baby!"

Alexandra groaned in response, "fuck."

"Tsk tsk," Emil feigned disappointment with the shrunken female. "I thought you'd be a little more excited to reunite with your old employer."

Alex finally lifted her head and looked directly into the giant, devilish eyes of Emil DeTorres.

She'd never told him that she worked for Fulci...

...how could he possibly know?




The End...






... for now.
"People like Coldplay and voted for the Nazis, you can't trust people, Jeremy."

-Super Hans, Peep Show

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