Billy Joe and Bobby Sue met their senior year in high school and started dating. When they graduated, neither of them has any plans or ambitions, so they packed up his '66 Mustang and hit the road. They would drive until they found a small town, rent a house or apartment and get a job. Billy Joe had a knack for mechanical things, so he usually found a job as a maintenance man or janitor. Bobby Sue, cute and bubbly, found being a salesgirl suited her talents, and she would get a job in some kind of retail store. They would stay for a month or two, get bored and hit the road again.
This time, it was a college town they stopped in. Billy Joe got a job as a janitor at the college and Bobby Sue found a position as a salesgirl in a jewelry store. One evening, Billy Joe was summoned to the Microbiophysiology Lab as a technician had dropped a box of glass bottles in the storeroom, the glass shattering and make a royal mess, and he was called to clean it up. Normally, no one outside the lab is permitted in the storeroom without supervision, due to the sensitive nature of some of the items and equipment, but it was taking Billy Joe so long to clean up the mess, the technician left the room to chat up a female technician. Billy Joe had a tendency to keep his ears open when around other people, often gathering valuable information about what is going on and sometimes, the information proved beneficial. He had heard the technician talking to the female technician about a device called a Matter Manipulator, which could shrink things then return them to normal size. He found this quite interesting, and he started looking at the tags on the cabinets and drawers until he found one marked "Matter Manipulator, Second Prototype". Since this room was always secured, they didn't feel the need to have locks on the cabinets. Looking back to ensure he was alone in the room, he opened the drawer and found the device. It was about the size of a cordless drill. The battery was rechargeable, so he took the device and the charger and put them in his cart's trash bin. Finishing the cleanup, he went back to utility room and put the device in his backpack and locked it in his locker.
He went home and Bobby Sue was already asleep, so he plugged in the device to charge the batteries and went to sleep. Bobby Sue was up and gone when he woke up. He checked the device and found the battery fully charged. He found the control settings selector and set it to "Reduction". Aiming it at an upholstered chair, he pulled the trigger. A flash of light and the chair was miniaturized small enough to fit in a doll house. He reset the control to "Restore", aimed it at the chair and pulled the trigger again. The chair returned to its normal size. Then he heard one of the neighbor's dog barking. He knew they left the dog in the backyard when they went to work, so he got dressed and put the device in his backpack. He walked over to the neighbor's yard and saw the dog. Setting the control to "Reduction", he fired it at the dog and the Great Dane was now the size of a mouse. He reset the control to "Restore" and fired it again at the dog, but the batteries were dead.
"Ah, shit." he thought. He didn't want anyone to suspect he had stolen the device, so he climbed the fence and caught the tiny dog and put it in his pocket. He went home and plugged the device back in to charge it. It took two hours to recharge. He took the dog outside, set the device on "Restore" and fired it at the dog, which grew back to its normal size and ran off down the street towards its house. Billy Joe started thinking....then a big smile formed on his face, and he went back to their apartment.
Billy Joe didn't have to work that day so he hung around the house until Bobby Sue got home. She got changed into some sweats and was getting ready to chillout on the couch when Billy Joe pointed the device at her and pulled the trigger. She shrunk down to about five inches tall. First she was shocked, then scared, but when she turned and looked at the hulking form of Billy Joe looking down at her, she got angry. Billy Joe set the device back to restore, fired it at her and Bobby Sue was back at her normal size.
"What the f*ck, dude?" Billy Joe laughed and asked her how she liked being a mouse. She threw a pillow at him. Then he said, "Settle down and listen to me."
"I'm getting a little tired of just getting by. I want to make a big score, and this thing is gonna make it happen." He went on about his plan to rob the jewelry store Bobby Sue was working in. At first, she thought he was nuts, but he started convincing her that it would work. She described the security system to him: Only the perimeter doors and windows, and the roof had alarms. The alarm system ran through the telephone lines and was not monitored by the alarm company unless the alarm went off. The security cameras were turned off at the end of the day. Finally, she told him the deliveries always came on Thursday afternoon, right before closing, so the boxes were left in a backroom until another employee, Gretchen, opened them and put everything away Friday morning. She added that Gretchen didn't like her. Gretchen was a little older than she, not as pretty as Bobby Sue and seemed to be jealous of her. She was hired as a salesgirl, because she was the owner's niece, but she sucked at it. He didn't want to fire her, so he made her the office manager. Gretchen treated her like crap, bossing her around and trying to humiliate her at every opportunity.
Billy Joe miniaturized Bobby Sue again so she could "train". She found when she was tiny, she was far more athletic than normal. She could jump, comparatively speaking, much higher than normal and could jump from a comparable height of twenty feet without getting injured. Even at her reduced size, she could easily plug the telephone plug from its socket on the wall. While she was training, he took a small box that he bought at a local store. It would be just big enough for Bobby Sue, in her shrunken form, to lie down. He wrote the address of the store on the box and put on a cancelled postage label. He enlarged the corners of the top flaps, just enough to allow sufficient air to circulate. He had to know the driver' route so he waited until the following Thursday and staked out the delivery truck. Once he determined its route, which it made the same stops each Thursday, he found a location where the truck would stop and be out of sight. Here, he would slip the box containing Bobby Sue in with the rest of the jewelry stores packages. Once the packages were delivered and everyone left the store, Bobby Sue would use a razor blade to cut the tape from the inside. A length of string would let her climb down from the table in the storeroom, then she would climb the telephone cord up to the desktop and unplug the telephone, disabling the alarm. Billy Joe had a key that she was able to sneak out of the store and would let himself in. He would steal as much jewelry as he could fit in his sack, then put the box in the sack, Bobby Sue in his pocket and leave, leaving the key back where Bobby Sue had taken it from and leaving the door unlocked. This last part was Bobby Sue's idea......Gretchen was responsible for locking all the doors before she left so she would get the blame for the break in. He set up a practice course, from her description of the interior of the store so he could time her to see how long it would take her to get out of the box, get to the floor, run over to the desk, climb the telephone cord and unplug the telephone. He would still wait twice as long, to allow darkness to conceal his approach to the store and to give her a little extra time to ensure the alarm system was disabled.
One week later, Thursday afternoon, they set their plan into motion. Bobby Sue had every other Thursday off so it wouldn't rouse any suspicions regarding her not being at work. Billy Joe miniaturized Bobby Sue, and she climbed into the box. He taped it shut, put it in his coat pocket and walked to the spot where the truck would stop. When it arrived, he waited until the driver carried the packages into that store, then he quickly walked to the truck and put the box containing Bobby Sue inside, on top of several other boxes with the jewelry stores address. Then he walked away and went to the park across the street from the jewelry store and waited.
The truck arrived at the store, fifteen minutes before closing. He carried the packages inside, then left. Gretchen went to the front door and locked it. All the cars were gone from the parking lot, so Billy Joe just settled back on a park bench, smiling to himself, to wait an hour, just as the late fall sun was setting. Everything was going as planned until..........
Gretchen had not gone home after locking the door and turning off the showroom lights. Her car was in the shop, and it wouldn't be ready until 8, so she just stayed at the store and decided to put away the new deliveries. She had taken the next day off anyway as she was going out of town for the weekend. Just as Bobby Sue picked up the razor blade to cut her way out of the box, she felt the box being picked up. She nearly screamed when she saw the tip of a knife pierce the tape and slide along the seam, mere millimeters from her body. The box flaps were peeled back, and Bobby Sue found herself looking up at the face of a shocked Gretchen who nearly dropped her.
Bobby Sue began to beg Gretchen not to call the police. She confessed what she and Billy Joe were planning on doing and promised she and Billy Joe would disappear and no one would ever have to know about this. Gretchen stood there for a few moments, looking down at the tiny, trembling girl in the box she was holding. Then, a smile spread across her face.
"I wouldn't dream of turning you over to the police, Sweetie." Gretchen said as she closed the flaps of the box and taped it back shut. She put the box in her purse, and left out the back door, after she plugged the telephone cord back in, set the alarm and locked the door. She walked through the back alley to auto repair shop, sat down on a bench in front of the shop, listening to faint pleading of her tiny captive in her purse, she waited..........for the sound of the police sirens approaching when Billy Joe set off the silent alarm.
