A slice of life with my shrunken colleague

[max-reducer]

There's this device that we in the industry call a "copy maker". It has a more scientific name but it doesn't matter for this story. It's a highly specialized piece of equipment, there's just about a dozen of them in the world. Think particle accelerators or neutrino catchers.
This device allows humans to do scientific observations and engineering on a very different scale.
The operational part of it looks something like an electric kettle standing on the table. It's a short black cylinder.
How it works? You place your hand on top of the cylinder, it scans everything about you, then it does some bio-printing, a little door opens at the bottom and a very precise tiny copy of you comes out. Now this copy can work with all the miniaturized scientific equpment, perform experiemnts and after they're done, they go back inside the device, you place your hand on the cylinder again and the tiny person is re-absorbed back with all their gained knowledge and memories passed back to you. So you end up having all the new memories of this person in addition to yours. Pretty neat for science.
Being a technician for one of these machines I get to see scientists using them all the time. They make copies of themselves at different sizes to do work on different scales (device allows choosing from 5 to 0.05 inches). And since I've started working at the institute, I got really friendly with one of the scientists, Alice.

Alice is amazing. She's smart, funny, easy going, she's got that positive outlook on life. But she's always working. Always coming in early and staying up late. She's single because she has "no time for mating rituals".
One day I was bringing her coffee and I saw her working with her 5-inch copy. She needed a copy for a few minutes just to go behind some heavy equipment and connect some cables. She was about to absorb her back when I had this crazy idea. We were the only ones in the lab.

"Can I take her home?" I asked and noticed how both Alice and her tiny copy looked at me perplexed.
"Why?" She asked.
"She's... You're... just so cute at that size," I blurted. "And this way I can spend some time with you off-work!"
She laughed. Tiny Alice smiled too and looked up to big Alice waiting for her anwer.
"But you know that you have to return her, right? All materials are accounted for up to a molecule. And I have to absorb her back." Alice said.
"Exactly! This way you will have all the memories of spending time together with me off-work. While still working!" I was proud of my idea. But does Alice trusts me enough to give me herlself in this tiny, vulnurable form? She never saw me outside of work, she doesn't really know much about me. Maybe I'm asking her for too much here...
"I'm okay if she's okay," Alice looked at her 5-inch tall self. "I wouldn't be a scientist if I didn't love experimenting!"
"Let's do this!" said tiny Alice and made a step towards me. "Just be sure to return me tomorrow morning!"

I brought her out of the institute in my messanger bag, couldn't risk the guard noticing me smuggling her out. But after that she could get out. She was sitting on my car's dashboard on the ride home, wearing her tiny lab coat, taking in the giant world around her.
"Woah... The world... It's so different. I'm only used to seeing lab equipment at this scale. This is just a whole different way to be int he world." She spoke enthusiastically.
Than she stood up, turned to me and said "Wouldn't it be funny if I was dressed as a hawaian hula girl?" she imitated the movement.
We both laughed out loud. I was amazed by her ability to find something funny in this very new and confusing situation.

At home I've put her on my kitchen top and started changing into my home clothes. She looked at me and I probably gave out how I feel because she said:
"You seem nervous." she was frowning at me.
"I'm sorry," I said, "It's just the first time we're spending some time together and I haven't planned anything."
"You know what?" She smiled after a short pause. "I'm five inches tall. Anything you'll come up with will be new, exciting and unforgettable."
She was right, as always!
"You are right, as always!", I said. "Hmm. How about I order a pizza?"
"Oooh, the pie would be giant!", she got really excited, "But I want to see other food too! Let's get a bit of everything!"
And that's what we ended up doing. She ran and jumped around the everything pizza barefoot picking up and tasting all the ingredients, she climbed on top of a giant cheeseburger, we used fries for fencing until she started just throwing them at me, she messed around inside of a bowl of salad, she then thought about jumping into some ramen but changed her mind at the last moment.
"I don't want to wet my clothes... that much," she said. "But maybe some time it might be fun to swim in a bowl of soup, what do you think?"
"I'd love to see that!" I smiled to her. "Maybe bring a swimming suit next time?"
I was joking but her face was dead serious.
"Well, if I wear one under my normal clothes, no one would notice..." she thought out loud. "And it WILL copy onto my copy."
"Hmm... If you're serious then you can also swim in my bathtub" I suggested.
"Oooh, it will be like a giant pool!" she exclaimed, "And I also want to soak in a big cup of herbal tea before going to sleep!"

After throwing some more ideas and fries around I suggested to end the evening by watching something together. The experience was pretty wholesome. I was laying on my bed, she sat on my chest and I've put on a movie on my phone, which was like a giant TV to her. After some time I saw that she's asleep, so I gently picked her up, put some clothes on my bedside table and put her there. I ended up covering her with my shirt.

In the morning she woke me up by jumping on my chest and laughing.
"Wake up! Hahaha, you're gonna miss work!" she was surely joking. It was still a few hours till work. Or maybe it was normal for her to get to work so early.
"Go away, alarm fairy, let me be." I mumbled and jokingly covered her with my hand.
"No way!" she insisted while lifting my hand imitating Atlas holding the Earth. "Time! To wake! Up!"
"Okay, okay..." I picket her up and went to kitchen to make some coffee.
"Oooh, and give me a drop too!" she asked. I put some into a bottle cap.

In the lab the original Alice was a little tense waiting for her tiny copy. After all, what if I didn't bring her back? What if I did domething bad to her? What if something bad happened? There's always a real change that she will absorb some very traumatic memories she'll have to live with for the rest of her life.
But then she saw a happy face of tiny Alice peeking out of my bag. She picked her up.
"Did he treat you well?" she asked her and glanced at me.
"See for yourself!" tiny Alice smiled and pointed at the copy maker.
"Well, okay, get in then." She put tiny Alice into the door at the bottom of the machine and pressed her hand against the scanner.
As the absorbtion progressed the smile got wider and wider on her face. And when it finished she went in for a hug but restrained herself because it's just too much affection for the work environment.
"It was so fun!" - she exclaimed. "Let's do it again soon! With the swimming suit and everything!"

[Little Sally]

Pretty good, that was fun! Plus I like stories that aren't too long but cover everything you need to know, and it was almost like a taster for a longer one (or a series).

It amused me how the smaller version of Alice, seemed impatient to experience everything about being small (like the food, and wanting to take a swim). Whereas the normal sized Alice would be more reserved, we presume. But it ended with "normal" Alice feeling good about the experience, which sounded promising!

It also answers a question or two (from the other thread). In that creating a small copy of someone you know and have to return to that person, allows that (big) person to know what happened to their copy. Which is kind of like a safeguard, that nothing bad will happen.

That of course depends on the person borrowing the copy, being a trustworthy man in the first place of course. Which I'm assuming you base on your own character.

:edit: The idea could probably be turned into a darker scenario with villainous intentions (not that I'm advocating it), where jealousy in the workplace is present perhaps. Where a woman's "copy" might be kidnapped while she was distracted, or even be forced to copy herself by an intruding stalker threatening violence or worse. Phew! I think I'll stop there! Especially if If it's me getting copied!

[max-reducer]

For some reason I wantet this particular storyline to be fully devoid of any darkness and edginess. If there will be a continuation, there wil be no dark twists. They are both kind and nice people guided by affection and curiosity, discovering something new and interesting about each other and the world.

[Little Sally]

For some reason I wantet this particular storyline to be fully devoid of any darkness and edginess. If there will be a continuation, there wil be no dark twists. They are both kind and nice people guided by affection and curiosity, discovering something new and interesting about each other and the world.

That concept worked well with this story. Plus a refreshing change from the usual offerings.