FOREWORD: ABOUT THIS STORY
There are some fairly dark themes in MvA if you look behind the comedy and in-jokes. I wanted to explore those some more, as the movie was a little frustratingly quick about jumping from Susan's terror on her first day to apparent acceptance three weeks later. Three weeks in that bare cell, with nothing to do, no contact with the outside, and knowing you didn't do anything wrong would just not leave her as well-adjusted as we see her. And going that route in the fiction would lead to a very different story, one darker than even I wanted to tell. So I have made a few minor changes to canon. just to mitigate their living conditions and make it more reasonable that Susan was coping. There are some other minor changes to things that did not seem quite logical to me in the movie. I also changed her initial introduction to the facility a fair bit. However, the major beats are all there.
I have also tried to take a reasonably serious look at just what problems a fifty-foot giantess would face. I had to ignore the square cube law, however: quantonium clearly changes some fundamental laws of physics. The Art of MvA (searchable to an extent in Google Books if you want to check) puts her weight at 23,640 pounds, or 11.82 tons. Heavier than all but the biggest elephants. But other issues I have tried to deal with as rationally as possible. Physical measurements are based on a "giantess calculator" I found online; Susan's strength is based on the official "dossier" on her at the MVA website.
There is no "slash" here-Susan and Dr C do not fall madly in love, and I have tried to make it clear that Link, not being human, is not even interested in her that way. To say nothing of Bob. Who, by the way, I refer to as "Bob" and not "B.O.B" as to me that is said "Bee-Oh-Bee." If it were up to me, I'd probably have gone with "Ben"...
This story is set in 2012, as that was when I started writing it, and as the original movie is set in the "present day" there is no particular reason why this story should be set four years ago.
Spelling is British style, before anyone complains about things like "colour." References to places are all accurate I hope (thanks to Google Maps, I can virtually stroll around Modesto...). Constructive criticism is of course very welcome.
The very sensitive should be warned that there is some limited, non-sexual nudity. There is no possible way that Susan's wedding dress stretches that much, for a start...

1. Birth of a Monster

She was cold. The chill slowly penetrated her, and she became dimly aware that she was lying down on a hard surface, and a buzzer was sounding. Her brain was fuzzy, filled with strange images. Had she just got married? Yes, that was right. No wonder she was feeling confused. She remembered a church, her white dress, Derek standing there in the gazebo telling her his great news. Well, great for their future together. Okay, so their honeymoon in Rome would wait – Susan knew that you couldn't pass up an opportunity like this. Then she had been … it was unclear. She remembered running, a heavy blow and a strange green glow, a feeling of warmth and power, but then she was back in the church, the cute little white-painted church she had wanted to be married in since she was a little girl. It was such a romantic little church. Susan groaned slightly, still half-asleep. She'd had the most bizarre dreams. Unpleasant ones, she knew, though she could only remember snatches. The church being destroyed. The world getting smaller and smaller, and Derek falling, falling down and down and down. Then the black bees had come and stung her.

"Derek, my darling?" she whispered. She stretched out an arm to caress her new husband, the oh so handsome and clever Derek who had finally asked her the question. But he wasn't there. There was nothing there but empty space. Groggily, Susan stretched out further, calling his name again, and suddenly realised she had rolled off the edge of the hard bed. It seemed to take a second or two to fall, and she hit the hard ground with a sound like thunder.

Startled, she opened her eyes, blinking. She was lying on a metal floor, in a small room dimly lit only by a tiny white bulb. An alarm was sounding. She gasped, and tried to sit up, but her limbs felt uncoordinated, like she was drunk. She got halfway up and slipped down again, her head throbbing. Had she got that drunk at the wedding feast? She didn't remember any of it. Had she, nice, clean, sober Susan Murphy, got so drunk she had ended up in a police cell? The shame brought a flush to her cheeks. What would Derek think? On their very first night of marriage, too. She felt her eyes water, and a tear roll slowly down her cheek.

"Derek, Derek, I'm so sorry," she moaned, holding her head in her hands. It was then she realised she was wearing a strange jumpsuit, made from some thin silken material. Susan flushed. Somebody had stripped her, and then dressed her, all while she was unconscious. Derek would hear about that. He wouldn't be pleased with the police. She needed to contact him. How? It was dark and hard to see, but the cell seemed completely empty. It was a strange cell—all metal walls, two leaning outwards, a metal floor, no bars, and now she realised that it didn't even have a door. Where was she? What kind of jail was this? Was this Modesto Jail? She called out, but there was no response. Just her voice echoing in the small space, making it sound deeper and more resonant. Where was Derek, or his lawyer – he was bound to send one in. Why hadn't he already? Was he so embarrassed about what she had done that he was punishing her? What was the time? Where was she? Why had she drunk so much last night she couldn't remember a thing? Groggily, she crawled into the corner and huddled there, wrapping her arms around her knees to try and make herself as small as possible, and started to weep quietly at her shame.

Suddenly a red flashing light came on, strobing on and off. Startled, Susan looked up. Heavy mechanical noises filled the cell. Susan started to get scared. What kind of jail was this?

"Derek? Are you there Derek?" she called. Her voice definitely sounded strange to her. Low, almost echoing, like she was hoarse. Had she sung too much karaoke or something?

A loud groaning sound answered her, and she felt the wall behind her move up. It slowly crept open, letting in a bright flood of light.

Now very scared, Susan scuttled to the far end of the cell, pressing herself against the sloping wall, but to her horror, the mechanical noises got louder and louder and the back wall started moving, forcing her out. She scrambled to keep her place, but the floor was perfectly smooth. With a shriek, she suddenly found herself being pushed out of the cell.

Hunched over in a ball, Susan looked around. She was in a huge five-sided chamber, brightly lit, and which seemed to be quite empty. She slowly stood up and tried to make sense of where she was. She felt dizzy. Everything seemed to move in slow motion. The walls were all sloping inwards, and lined with more trapezoid doors, but there was no sign of anyone. Aside from a stencilled sign on the wall that meant nothing to her, it was featureless. Quite sterile. She could see smaller openings, little hatches, along the bottom edge of the floor, and tiny glass panels at various levels.

She thought she heard something. Very small voices. They seemed to be coming from under a small hatch or door panel that was open a tiny amount. Was there someone else here? The door only appeared to be about a foot or two high, but perhaps it was a vent or something.

"Hello? Is there someone there?" She bent down and tried to see inside, but it was dark. "Could you tell me where I am?"

There was no response. Just a quiet clicking, scratching sound, followed by a wet plop. Susan was starting to get very scared. This didn't look like any normal jail. Had she been kidnapped? She suddenly realised that was probably what had happened. But why her? Her family wasn't exactly poor, but wasn't that rich either, and nor was Derek. Kidnapping her for ransom made no sense. Was this a special sanatorium for drunk brides? Was she in here to detox? Why was there nobody else around?

She realised she could smell something. It was...food of some sort. Coming from one wall. She could see a bowl of something sitting there. She moved across cautiously, suddenly realising she was ravenous. The large room was deserted, but she was sure she was being watched. All those little glass panels for example—she was sure there were cameras behind them.

In a daze, she walked across to the wall, every footfall sounding like a crashing thump on the concrete floor. She saw a small bowl sitting on the floor on a tray near a low hatch in the wall, filled with what looked like fresh creamy porridge, and there was an old but clean spoon beside it,

"This must be a dream," Susan told herself. Her head was slowly clearing, but her memories were still hazy. But she definitely remembered some images more clearly. She had been dreaming of…Alice in Wonderland, that was it. Definitely. She remembered shrinking and growing images. So this must be part of the dream still. The part where Alice had to shrink herself to fit through the door to escape. "Okay, that must be the Eat Me food," Susan told herself. "Then I can eat that, shrink, and escape through that small door. Where is the white rabbit, I wonder?"

Suddenly she felt something underfoot, and realised she had stepped on whatever it was. It looked like a tiny chair, now quite mangled. There was a tiny table beside it. "I guess that's the one with the Drink Me to make me big again," she mumbled, her mind feeling furry around the edges. "Oops."

She knelt down carefully, picked up the spoon, and nervously took a small mouthful. It certainly tasted like porridge, but there was no texture to it at all. It was like eating baby food. Pureed oatmeal or something, Susan decided. "Well, if this is a dream, I should get small enough to leave, and if it isn't, then…" She tailed off, not sure what she would do if it wasn't a dream.

She knelt and ate for a few bites, and the pain in her head quickly subsided. Just as she reached out the spoon for another mouthful, she spotted movement. A quick scurrying, and a chittering sound. Susan saw a flash of movement out the corner of her eye and whirled around to try and see what was happening, her heart in her mouth. Then she gasped as she suddenly saw a cockroach climb up onto the plate.

"Hello," it said.

"Argh!" she screamed, jumping up and whacking at it with her spoon. "No, get away, oh, you horrible thing!"

"Please, madam!" came a small tinny voice. "Stop! Doing! That!"

Susan looked around wildly for the source of the voice as she continued whacking at the disgusting bug. Finally she had shaken it off her spoon, and it stood uncertainly on the floor, on two legs. It was the biggest cockroach, with the biggest eyes, she had ever seen, and it appeared to be …. No, that was insane. Susan rubbed her eyes and blinked. It looked for all the world as if it were wearing a white coat.

"Wow. Whatever mad scientist who made you… went all out…" it said, and then collapsed. But it was up again in a moment as Susan stood frozen in shock.

"Oh great," she moaned out loud. "Alice gets a white rabbit, I get a white cockroach."

"I am not a cockroach, thank you," the cockroach said in a clipped English accent. "I am a scientist. A mad scientist, no less."

"And I suppose you're late for a very important date?" Susan asked.

The cockroach sat on the edge of the plate of pureed oatmeal. Susan could see that underneath the white coat it appeared human: only the head was some bizarre distorted insect head.

"Not really, no," the cockroach said. "I came to meet you, and welcome you to the Facility."

"The … facility?" Susan asked, lowering her spoon.

"No, the Facility," the cockroach corrected her, enunciating the capital F. "Monster Containment Facility. It's been so long since we had any new monsters. The others were too shy, so I came out to greet you. The name's Doctor Cockroach, PhD. Government-registered mad scientist and genius. May I enquire as to your appellation, my statuesque platinum beauty…?"

"My name? Uh, I'm Susan," Susan said nervously.

"No, I mean your monster name."

"My … monster name?"

"Like, what do people scream when they see you coming? You know, like 'Look out, here comes…' Mega-Maid, Monsteria, whatever."

"Uh, they don't call me anything," Susan said, by now terribly confused. "People generally don't run screaming when they see me. But my friends call me Susie."

"That's how they describe you in the news?" the cockroach asked her, one antenna twitching. "'The town was attacked by the terrifying giantess … Susie'?"

"Huh? What? Who? Who's a giantess?" Susan asked, confused.

Cockroach raised an antenna. But before he could answer, a new voice interrupted. "You're the giantess, sweet cheeks."

Susan turned to look at the newcomer. It was a … what was it? A little scaly lizard ape with a fish tail, or something else out of a fevered nightmare. It too was very small, only a bit bigger than the white-coated cockroach man. What on earth was going on? She had never had a dream quite this weird before.

The fish-ape vaulted onto her leg, then clambered rapidly up her body to her shoulder. Susan turned her head to look it, craning away in disgust. She wanted to flick it off, but there was no way she was going to touch such a disgusting creature. Then to her horror it reached over and grabbed her nose, wiggling it. Susan was too stunned and terrified to move a muscle.

"Hey Miss Biggy. First day in prison, reckon you're gonna take on the toughest guy in the yard? I'd like to see you try! The name's Link, baby," the fish-ape said. "Missing Link. As in, the missing link. Geddit? Bam! Kapow!" The creature jumped down to the floor and executed a series of kung-fu style flips and kicks until there was a crack and he fell down groaning. "Ow…"

Susan slowly stood up, unable to speak. Her mind was in chaos. Why was she dreaming of a tiny humanoid fish, of all things?

"Great, first new monster in years and she doesn't do anything," the fish-ape commented as he got up, rubbing his back. "I was hoping for a wolfman, or a mummy. You know, someone to play cards with."

"What … where…?" Susan gasped. What were these things? Scaly talking apes, tiny men with cockroach heads? This must be a dream. No, a nightmare. Too much rich wedding cake? Too much wine—was she still drunk? Susan had never been completely blind drunk before, and wondered if this was what it was like. She nervously backed away from the bizarre creatures, her heart pounding in fear. Then she trod on something gooey and fell slowly backwards, hitting the floor with a colossal crash. Rubbing the back of her head, she found she had trodden on some blue goop that was stuck to her foot.

"Oh, gross," she gasped, trying to scrape it off. It stuck to her hand. She tried to shake it off, but it oozed down, and then she realised it had an eyeball and was looking at her.

"Welcome! I'm Doctor Cockroach!" it said from a featureless mouth.

"No, I'm Cockroach," the tiny insect-headed man said. "You're Bob."

"Hi, I'm Bob! Benzoate Ostylezene Bicarbonate for short!"

Susan gasped, and flung the blob away from her. It sailed into the wall and split in two.

"My back!" it cried, and then laughed as the two pieces of goop merged. "Oh wait, I don't have a back!"

"You'll have to forgive him," Cockroach said smoothly. "But as you can see, he has no brain."

"Brains are totally overrated," Bob interjected. "Turns out you don't need 'em."

Susan sat and stared at the blue gelatinous mass. It was true: the blue goo creature was translucent, and she could see a single eyeball floating in what appeared to be its face, but there was nothing else.

"I personally beg to differ, of course," Cockroach said with a small cough. "IQ of 200, thank you. More brains than the rest of you put together."

"I'm getting scared… Wake up Susan, wake up! Please wake up!" Susan cried in exasperation, cradling her head in her hands. She brushed a strand of hair out of her eyes, and suddenly realised something else had changed. Sitting up, she bent forwards to get her bangs visible, and gasped. Her rich dark chestnut locks had turned completely white. White hair, like an old woman! What on earth was going on? She started to weep again.

The tiny cockroach man came over to her, and patted her shin, the only part he could reach. Then he scurried up her arm to her shoulder. Startled, Susan automatically tried to swat the insect.

"Please relax," came the insect man's voice in her ear. Susan desperately tried to brush it off again, and only succeeded in hitting her head. "And please stop trying to squash me!" he added in her other ear. "I'm trying to help you!"

"This isn't very Alice in Wonderland," Susan muttered to herself, very confused, rubbing her temples. "I don't remember any fish or blobs in the book. And why aren't I shrinking?"

"Shrinking, my dear?" Cockroach asked, one antenna quivering.

"Uh, yes. I ate the magic food, so I should be shrinking so I can get out the door. That's how the story works."

Cockroach looked at Link and Bob, then back at Susan.

"They must have really used a lot of tranq," Link said with a shrug. "She's kookoo-bananas!"

"I am not!" Susan retorted. "At least… I don't think I am. I can't remember…how I got here… Please, can one of you...things...tell me, where is here?"

"Uh, Susan, isn't it?" Cockroach said gently, so gently she had to strain to hear him. "How much do you remember? Do you remember your rampages?"

"Rampages? You mean I did get drunk at the wedding banquet?"

"Wedding banquet?" It was Cockroach's turn to look confused, or as confused as an insect-headed man could look.

"He seems upset," Bob offered. "How can we cheer him up?"

"Her," Dr Cockroach corrected him. "Bob, we are in the presence of the rare female monster."

"No way!" the blue blob declared. "It's a boy! Look at his boobies."

"Bob, we need to have a wee talk," Link grinned. "She's all woman. Every…last…inch of her," he added, examining her carefully. "Those legs just go on and on…"

"Stop ogling me, you pervert!" she said hotly.

"Gentlemen, I'm afraid we are not making a very good first impression," Cockroach informed the others. "You'll have to excuse Link," he added. "He has no class whatsoever. The first thing he did when he escaped from the lab in Hawaii was terrorise the local beaches. In fact that's the only thing he did. The national guard had to be brought out to stop him carrying off girls in bikinis."

"Now, I never hurt none of them, see?" Link called up. "It was just for fun. You tell giant girl here."

"Why do you keep calling me that?" Susan asked, annoyed. "You're the tiny one. You're barely bigger than cockroach man here."

"Uh, no, Susan," Cockroach explained. "I'm actually nearly six feet tall. Nearly seven if you count my antennae."

"What do you mean?" Susan asked suspiciously. "You can't be that tall. I could pick you up with one hand."

"I mean, my dear, that your hand is nearly five feet long. Or a hundred and fifty centimetres in scientific metric measurements. Based on that, and your general proportions and anatomy, I'd put you at somewhere around fifteen metres tall at least. Or fifty feet, to use your quaintly archaic American measurements."

"Impossible," Susan said. "You're a tiny bug-man. Bugs are small. I'm a normal girl."

"Ah, no, not any more I'm sorry," Cockroach said soothingly. "You are in fact what is commonly referred to as a giantess. Look at yourself."

Slowly, nervously, Susan stood up, looking down at her body. She held her hands up in front of her. They looked normal. Her legs looked normal. Her torso looked normal. She felt normal. No, it wasn't possible.

"I look perfectly normal," she told him. "You're the weird-looking ones."

"Take another look at that jumpsuit you are wearing," Cockroach suggested.

Susan did so. She had earlier noticed how fine, almost silken, it was, and the fact it was sewn from lots of smaller panels. Now she took a closer look. The stitching was almost invisibly small. It looked as if dozens of little bits of fabric had been sewn together into one huge one to make her clothing.

"I …." Susan gasped for breath. Her? A giantess? Images, memories, came flooding into her mind. The world getting smaller, shrinking, as…as she grew taller, larger. It had been…in the church. Just before the ceremony was completed. She'd been feeling so amazing, so strong, just standing there about to finally be Mrs Derek Dietl, the Weatherman's Wife, and then suddenly everything else got smaller. Or… maybe she'd got bigger, Susan realised with a shock. She remembered people shouting, screaming, trying to flee the church, and then she kept growing, and growing, her clothes splitting and ripping, falling in shreds off her, leaving her stark naked. And still she kept on getting bigger, and bigger, until she broke through the roof. And then… And then… There were men. Little men. In black. Susan remembered their black suits. And black helicopters. There were ropes. Trying to tie her down. She was holding Derek. Or she wasn't…. Something had been shot at her, she had felt a prick and…and that was all. And then she had woken up here. In this prison. Susan shook her head, trying to clear it. What was she? A freak? A monster? No, this wasn't possible. It couldn't be…

She backed away in fear from these strange tiny creatures. This wasn't happening. Nothing here made sense. It was a madhouse. "Please tell me I had a nervous breakdown at the wedding and now I'm in a mental hospital on medication that's giving me hallucinations…"

Suddenly she realised she had bumped into something. Something big and soft and furry. Her heart in her throat, Susan suddenly remembered all those horror movies where the heroine had backed away from one danger, only to run into another one even worse she hadn't seen.

Carefully, her heart pounding, she felt behind her. Whatever it was was very large indeed. There was a massive, deep rumbling roar from far above her. Was it a giant lion? Something even worse? Terrified about what she might see, Susan carefully looked up. A massive creature was standing behind her. What it was, she had no idea. It let out another throbbing roar, and Susan screamed in pure terror. She fled as far away from the great beast as she could.

"That's not a good idea!" Link shouted as she shot past him, white as a sheet.

Susan pounded futilely on the thick steel plates.

"Every room has a door! There's gotta be a door here!" she shrieked. Susan dashed to another part of the wall. "Please! Somebody! I don't belong here! Let me out!" she pleaded desperately, weeping from primal fear.

"Hey! That is not a good idea!" Link called after her, but she ignored him.

"Let! Me! Out!" she screamed, thumping the unyielding metal.

Suddenly, with a heavy crunch and a loud grinding noise, the panel she was pounding on slid open.

Susan saw a pair of glowing red eyes shining out of the darkness inside. She backed away in fear as they approached, too terrified to flee, knowing there was nowhere to run. What new monster was this? But to her astonishment, she realised the glows were not eyes but lights, on a jetpack being worn by a tiny man in an army uniform. Or was it, Susan suddenly realised with horror, a normal man who needed the jetpack to reach her giant level?

"Monsters, back in your cells," he ordered. "And you: do not attempt to leave the Common Room without authorization!"

"Oh thank goodness! A real person! Uh, you are a real person, right? Not one of those half-person, half-machine…you know, whatever you call those things…" Susan trailed off nervously.

"A cyborg."

"Oh no! You're a cyborg?" Susan shrieked in confusion.

"Madam, I assure you, I am not a cyborg. My name is General W. R. Monger," he announced importantly.

"What is this place? Who are you? Who are all these people? Why I am being kept here? What happened to me?"

Questions poured out of Susan, but the general held up a hand. "All will be made clear in due course. Now, if you will follow me."

Unsure of anything, Susan nervously followed the floating general. She found herself in a long vaulted corridor, with balconies and offices on several levels. Most of which were below her own eye level. There were a number of men and women milling around, all of them no bigger than the general, or Cockroach, had been. Either the entire world had shrunk, or she truly was a giant, Susan realised.

"Where's Derek?" she asked as she looked around nervously.

"Your fiancé has been told you are being held by the government. That's all he needs to know," Monger said curtly. "Hold steady."

To Susan's surprise the floor began to move. It was a large conveyor platform, moving on tracks on the floor.

"This here facility is a converted missile base: this platform you are now on was once used for moving nuclear missiles," Monger explained. "Now it works to carry monsters like you."

"I'm not a monster! I'm a girl! I'm Susan Murphy, age 22, from Modesto, California! I'm an American citizen! I have rights! You can't keep me here. When Derek finds out about this..! He's a famous reporter! You—"

Monger shook his head.

"You're no longer covered by the Constitution or the Bill of Rights. Not while Special Order A-52 applies."

"Special Order A-52?"

"You are in a secret government facility, codenamed Area 52," the general explained as they moved along. "You see, in 1950, it was decided that Jane and Joe Public could not handle the truth about monsters, and should focus on more important things, like paying taxes and fighting Commies. So the government convinced the world monsters were stuff of myth and legend and then locked them in this facility."

"Locked in here? How long do I have to stay here?" Susan asked as the platform passed through a huge door. To her surprise, Susan realised that the entire facility was buried underground in a massive cavern. Looking behind her, she saw a titanic concrete cylinder stretching into the blackness. The moving platform dropped a few feet, and Susan nearly lost her balance, then it started crawling along a track on the outside of the building. Two small gyrocopters joined them, hovering around her shoulder height.

"Indefinitely," Monger responded calmly.

"Indefinitely? I can't leave?" Susan gasped.

"No," Monger said. "And no one knows you are here. Or even where here is. This place is an X file, wrapped in a cover-up, and deep-fried in a paranoid conspiracy. There will be zero contact with the outside world. Hold on."

Susan spread her legs for balance as the platform began to move up. "I can't leave?" she repeated in a whisper. "Why? How can you do this? Do you think Derek will let you get away with this kidnapping?"

"Actually he won't have a choice, and he can't do anything anyway. And you cannot be released. Not while you are such a potential danger to others, and a risk to society."

"I'm not a danger!" Susan shouted, angrily gesticulating.

"Look out!" Monger shouted, but it was too late. Her hand had hit one of the gyrocopters, sending it crashing to the platform. Monger swooped down and managed to pull the pilot out before the small craft exploded. "Code Seven! We have a Code Seven!" he shouted into a communicator. His duty done, he then turned his attention back to Susan as an emergency crew attended to the downed pilot.

"I'm so sorry," Susan wailed. "I didn't mean it!"

Monger covered his ears. "A little less volume if you please, ma'am," he demanded.

"Where are we going?" she asked.

"The lab," Monger explained curtly. "Now that you're awake, you're getting a full physical."

"A physical?" Susan looked down at herself. "Are you going to cure me?"

"Not at this stage, ma'am," Monger said.

"Do you even know how?" Susan asked, rather miffed.

"That's what the physical is for. We need to know exactly what happened to you. I advise you to cooperate. It's for your own good."

"What has happened to me? Can you please at least tell me that?" she begged.

"I can. As to what happened we don't really know," Monger admitted. "Six days ago, a monitoring outpost detected an object heading towards the solar system. We don't know where it came from or what it was made of. But it hit the Earth in Modesto, California. On the lawns of a small suburban church, to be exact."

"My church?" Susan gasped. "You mean, our wedding?"

"Precisely," the general said. "Or to be more precise, you. It hit you square on and then just disintegrated, leaving you unharmed—apart from this interesting side effect. However what was in that meteorite, or object, we still have no idea."

"I got hit?" Susan asked. She did sort of have a dim memory of being pursued by something, trying to run and being unable to escape.

"You did. By some alien, outer space super-advanced object that has left you with enormous size and strength. We want to find out what has happened, and how we can duplicate it. Just think—an army of giants and we could crush those Red Chinese!"

"I don't want to be a weapon! I refuse!" Susan cried. "You can't make me!"

"It's your patriotic duty," Monger said once she was calmer. "Besides," he added a little more gently, "it's out of my hands as well. I'm just your warden."

"What if you can't figure out what it was?" Susan asked. "You won't be able to make giant soldiers then."

"In that case, we won't be able to get you back to normal, either," Monger stated.

"Oh." Susan was not sure how to react. While she did want to get back to normal size, she had always been a pacifist, and hated violence. Helping create super-soldiers was not an appealing thought. But nor was staying a freak, stuck in this prison.

"Anyway, you don't have a choice in the matter," Monger reassured her unhelpfully. Susan fell quiet as the platform continued its slow rise. Then it stopped, and moved back around before arriving at a another titanic door, which opened and let them through.

"We're here," he added, flying out along another high vaulted corridor as Susan followed on her platform.

Reluctantly, Susan stepped off the platform and followed the floating general down a side corridor so tiny she had to bend over. Well, tiny for her, she realised. The thought of a physical was not encouraging, but she consoled herself with the thought that it might help them cure her. Then she could get back to Derek, who must be worried sick about her, she thought. She felt her eyes water again, and did her best to choke back her tears.

The corridor ended in a massive open space, the size of a cathedral.

"Please step this way and remove your clothes please," came a new voice.

"What?" Susan asked, confused. The new speaker was an elderly man in a white lab coat. He looked very like Dr Cockroach, save for the head of course.

"Please remove your clothes and lie down," the tiny doctor repeated. Sighing, Susan complied. Nothing here made sense; nothing was as it should be. A tear escaped and splashed heavily on the ground as a range of machinery and technicians approached her. Humiliation and fear overwhelmed her as the small team of specialists began their investigations.

Susan found the medical humiliating and uncomfortable. It wasn't even being naked that was the worst part—that, at least, was understandable, though the large number of male doctors made her very embarrassed. The doctors had treated her like some strange specimen, giving her order after order, making her carry out all sorts of bizarre tests and subjecting her to all manner of probing. But finally it was over. Susan hurried to get dressed again as Monger flew back into the lab.

"This way," he ordered.

"Can you cure me now?" she asked hopefully.

"Of course not. We only just finished examining you. It will take months, or years, to evaluate all the data."

"Years!" Susan gasped. She felt dizzy. Would she really be locked away in here for years? No, that couldn't be right. This wasn't possible. Her parents…Derek…somebody would get her out.

Monger led her back to the main vaulted passageway, and ordered her to stand on the platform again. That took her into a great five-sided shaft, its bottom lost in the blackness, and lined with large windows and observation portals. There was a tall tower standing in the middle, like a watchtower in a prison.

"What is this place?" she whispered.

"Observation area. You will be held here for the first night so that we can keep an eye on you. You will be monitored at all times, don't worry."

"At all times? What about my privacy?"

"Monsters don't get privacy," the human told her acerbically. He gestured to a tall glass door .

"Inside."

Susan looked around. It looked like the same small bare cell she had woken up in that morning. Her face crumpled in despair.

"We had the prison psychologist redecorate your cell. Try to keep you all calm-like," Monger said, pointing out a tiny poster on the far wall. Susan could just make out a little kitten clinging to a branch above the caption 'Hang in there.' She started to weep again.

"But I don't want a poster," she wailed, looking up at the flying general, her eyes pleading and her lip trembling. "I want a real kitten hanging from a real tree. I want to go home…"

"Come on, Little Debbie, please don't cry. It makes my knees hurt. Now go and rest like a good little—like a good big girl. You will be fed again in a few hours. Enjoy your stay. Don't think of this as a prison. Think of it as a hotel you never leave because it's locked from the outside!"

"Wait, what? Prison? But I didn't do anything! Help!"

"Oh, and one other thing. The government has changed your name to Ginormica."

The glass doors clanged shut, their echoes reverberating, and Susan was alone. Fear and terror overwhelmed her, the adrenalin almost painful. Terrified and confused, she looked around nervously, hugging her arms tight around herself. The grey steel cell was dark and forbidding, and Susan felt more alone than she ever had in her life. There was no one to hold her, comfort her. No one would help her. She was utterly powerless. Giving in to utter despair, the young giantess slumped down in a corner, as far away from the prying eyes of the observation tower as possible, buried her face in her arms, and began to cry softly. Her life was over.

AUTHOR'S NOTES: I have removed the strange elevator cell, as I wanted to slowly ramp up Susan's concerns rather than jump right in, and the system seems very strange to me as well-every time they go to their cells, they get shifted up several levels? I need a map of the base... I have also removed the original Panopticon arrangement, though I may add it back in in a later revision.
[June 2013, minor revisions] In line with the sequel to this story, I have made a few minor changes regarding the common room. And after spending far more time and effort than any sane person would in examining the precise route Susan follows after leaving her cell, I have also added back in the panopticon arrangement, though changed it to a temporary observation area rather than their normal accommodation, as I still cannot believe that makes the slightest bit of sense. Especially for Insecto. And why are the other monsters in glass-fronted cells and Susan's is steel? That defeats the purpose of the central observation tower. One of these days I'm going to design my own Monster Containment Facility, but for the time being, I shall try to make sense of what we are shown. Which is really what this story is all about...

[Nov. 2013] After a review from Jezrianna2.0 I have realised there was an editing issue I had not resolved. So I have fixed it, reverting Susan's first meal here to being on the floor, just to further enhance her feelings of dislocation and unease.