Chapter 66: The Workshop Revelation
The stairwell to the basement was cold, the bare concrete steps worn smooth by years of foot traffic and the occasional scuffle of a Walker that got too close. Rosa took them slowly, her broken arm cradled against her chest, the sling's strap digging into her good shoulder. The generator hum grew louder with each step, a low thrum that vibrated through the floor and up into her teeth.
She found Lee at the far workbench, his back to her. He was hunched over the size chamber control box, its casing open, guts of wire and circuit board exposed to the dim glow of a single work lamp. A pen was tucked behind his ear, and his glasses had slipped down his nose. He didn't look up when she cleared her throat.
"Rosa," he said, still staring at the board. "Your timing is impeccable."
"It usually is." She crossed the room, boots scuffing on the grimy concrete. The air smelled of ozone and solder and the faint metallic tang of the cannibalized electronics Lee had been feeding this project for weeks. "What did you figure out?"
Lee set down his screwdriver and turned. His eyes were bright behind the wide lenses, alight with the kind of glee she only ever saw when he talked about soil pH or the water filter's bacterial colony. Without a word, he gestured at the control box, where a small readout had been jury-rigged into the casing. It glowed soft amber, displaying a string of numbers.
"There," he said, pointing. "I found the frequency modulation."
Rosa leaned in, studying the readout. She recognized the numbers from the notebook, half-remembered scrawls of Silas's handwriting about harmonic resonance and displacement fields. She had never fully understood it. She didn't need to. "What does that mean?"
"It means precision." Lee tapped the screen, his finger leaving a faint smudge. "Before, that device was only ever set to one output. Max shrink, all the way down to three inches. But the field responds to a range of frequencies. If we modulate it properly, we can dial it in. Millimetre precision."
Rosa blinked at him, processing. "Millimetre precision meaning we choose exactly how small we get."
"Or how large." Lee grinned, a boyish expression that looked strange on his worn face. "Theoretically, anyway. The reverse is built into the same field mathematics. You shrink to the size you want, then you grow back to the size you want. No guesswork."
Rosa let the words settle. She thought of Roy, of lying in bed with his weight hardly registering against her collarbone. She thought of Jason, of the way he'd curled into the hollow of her throat like a child seeking comfort. She could have that back, whenever she wanted. They could choose it, together.
"That's incredible," she said quietly.
"It is." Lee's grin faded as he gestured at the cluster of capacitors and transformers wired into the control box's base. "There's a catch, though."
"Of course there is."
"The energy requirement is still too high for continuous use." He rubbed the back of his neck, and she caught a flicker of frustration cross his face. "The field needs a sustained charge to hold the displacement. To reverse it, we need even more. We'd burn through our battery reserves in three or four good sessions."
Rosa frowned. "So what, we get a handful of hours of smallness and then we're dead in the dark?"
"Not dead. Just conservative." Lee picked up his screwdriver again, twirling it between his fingers. "I've been thinking about how to work around it. The generators on the roof could handle the load, but only during the day, when the sun's up and we've got the juice to spare."
He looked at her over the top of his glasses, and something in his expression shifted. Softer, more deliberate.
"We still wouldn't want to run this thing during the deep winter," he said. "The batteries need every charge we can give them just to keep the water filter and the heat going. But if we plan our uses, if we time them right..."
Rosa waited. Lee let the silence stretch out, clearly savouring the reveal.
"We could make a lot more food from what we currently have," he finished.
Rosa's mind jumped ahead, cataloguing possibilities. The rooftop garden, the pantry shelves, the canned goods and preserved vegetables that had been carefully rationed since the outbreak. If they could shrink crops without killing them, pack ten times the produce into the same soil, the same water, the same sunlight...
"What are you thinking?" she asked.
Lee's smile turned conspiratorial. "You remember that hen we tested the reversion on?"
Rosa nodded. The poor thing had clucked and pecked its way through the whole ordeal, utterly oblivious to its temporary state of being six inches tall.
"What if we could shrink livestock?" Lee said. "Keep a whole flock in a space the size of a shoebox, only growing them out when we needed eggs or meat. We could stretch our feed reserves for months."
Rosa let out a breath she hadn't realized she'd been holding. Her good hand found the edge of the workbench and gripped it, steadying herself.
"That's not just keeping Roy small," she said slowly. "That's everything. That's the whole game."
Lee's grin widened, and he turned back to the control box, his fingers already reaching for the screwdriver again. "That's the plan."
We worked in comfortable silence for the next hour, Lee narrating his process in a low murmur as he traced circuits and adjusted resistances. I leaned over his shoulder when he hit a snag, pointing out a loose connection or a component he'd overlooked. He'd grunt, fix it, and move on. It was meditative in a way I hadn't expected, the steady rhythm of problem-solving pushing aside the ache in my arm.
"She's getting there," Lee said finally, leaning back and wiping his hands on a rag. The control box hummed, the amber readout steady. "I'll need to run a full diagnostic tomorrow, but I'm confident about the frequency modulation. The energy issue is a separate beast, but I've got a few ideas."
"You always do." I straightened, wincing as my shoulder protested. "I need to head out. The goats and fish need tending."
Lee glanced at the clock on the wall, its face cracked but still ticking. "Want company? Jayden's on patrol, but I could-"
"No. You've got work to do here." I gestured at the control box. "This is more important."
He looked like he wanted to argue, but he nodded. "Be careful out there. The treeline's been quiet, but I don't trust quiet."
I didn't either. But the courtyard was only a few hundred meters from Anderson Hall, close enough that the walkers rarely ventured in. I left Lee hunched over his workbench, the soldering iron already glowing in his hand.
The cold air hit me as I stepped outside, biting through the sleeves of my jacket. Winter was still holding on, the sky a pale grey that promised nothing but more of the same. The path to the old science building was familiar, worn bare by months of use. I kept my good hand on the knife at my belt anyway, scanning the treeline as I walked.
The courtyard was enclosed by a low stone wall, its wrought-iron gate hanging crooked on its hinges. The goats, three of them, trotted over when they saw me, bleating their impatience. I filled their trough with the stored feed, checked their water, and ran a hand over their rough coats. One of them, the smallest, nuzzled my palm and wouldn't move until I scratched behind its ears.
"Alright, alright." I pushed gently at its head. "You're not starving. I know you're not."
The fish were easier. Just a tank in what used to be a greenhouse, a few dozen tilapia swimming lazy circles in the murky water. I checked the filter, added the supplement load, and counted them. All present, all alive. That was the whole task. The routine of it settled something in my chest, proof that life continued, that the world still worked if you worked at it.
I paused at the courtyard gate on my way out, looking back at the goats. They'd clumped together against the cold, their breath fogging the air. Lee's words echoed in my head. A whole flock in a space the size of a shoebox. If that worked, it changed everything. Not just survival, but living. I pulled the gate closed behind me and headed back to Anderson Hall.
The kitchen was warm when I pushed through the door, the smell of something savory drifting from the stove. And there, on the kitchen table, were Roy and Jason. Both of them tiny, perched on a folded towel like it was a couch. Roy was mid-sentence, his hands gesturing, and Jason was laughing at whatever he'd said.
I crossed the room and set my palm flat on the table beside them. "Miss me?"
Roy turned, his face splitting into a grin that made my chest ache. "You were gone long enough."
They climbed on without hesitation, Roy settling into the curve of her collarbone while Jason perched on the slope of her trapezius. She felt the familiar weight, barely there, and her heart squeezed in a way she didn't have words for.
"Warm up here," Jason observed.
"Better than the table." Roy pressed his palm flat against her skin through the fabric of her shirt, a deliberate little gesture. "Where are we headed?"
"Check-ins. Sandy, Joan, Jayden." She crossed the common room and started down the hall toward the med room. "Ally and Amie are off today."
Roy hummed. "And after?"
"Inventory."
The med room door was ajar, and Sandy was inside, restocking the shelf with bandages and antiseptic. She looked up when Rosa entered, her eyes flicking to the two small figures on Rosa's shoulder, and a tired smile crossed her face.
"You're collecting them now," she said.
"I'm a habitat." Rosa leaned against the doorframe, careful not to dislodge her passengers. "Anything need attention?"
Sandy gestured at the shelf. "I'm almost out of suture material. I used the last of the good thread on your arm." She capped a bottle of antiseptic. "We should add it to the next supply run."
Rosa nodded. "I'll add it to the list."
Sandy tilted her head. "Lee said he had a breakthrough?"
"Frequency modulation." Rosa paused, turning the words over. "We can dial the shrinking now. No more fixed output. And reverse it the same way."
Sandy's hands stilled on the shelf. "So Roy going back to full size wasn't a fluke?"
"Not a fluke. A choice."
The silence stretched for a moment. Sandy picked up a roll of gauze and held it without moving.
"That's..." she started.
"Yeah." Rosa let the weight of it sit between them. "I'll let Lee explain the details. He does it better."
She found Joan in the stairwell landing on the second floor, clipboard in hand, cross-referencing a tattered map of the campus grounds. The tall woman looked up as Rosa approached, her expression guarded.
"Rosa. You're mobile."
"Only with supervision." Rosa gestured at the sling. "Sandy's orders."
Joan nodded, then her gaze caught on the two small figures. She blinked once, processing, then returned her attention to the clipboard.
"Patrol routes are stable. Jayden's got the east perimeter. I'm checking the west fence for weaknesses before dark."
"Anything concerning?"
"Coyotes," Joan said flatly. "Lots of them. They're not walkers, but they'll take a goat if we're not careful."
Rosa filed that away. "I'll mention it at dinner."
Joan looked at her again, a beat longer this time. "You're taking this well."
"Taking what?"
"The whole thing." Joan gestured between Roy and Jason. "Living with people who can fit in your pocket."
Rosa's mouth curved near a smile. "It's given me perspective."
Joan snorted and returned to her map, and Rosa left her to it.
Jayden was on the roof, standing watch by the solar panel array, her breath fogging in the cold air. She had the distant, focused look of someone who'd been on duty too long. She raised an eyebrow when Rosa appeared through the roof access door.
"Tag team," she said. "I thought you were on light duty."
"I'm delegating." Rosa crossed to the low wall and looked out over the treeline. Grey branches, grey sky. "I'm just here to confirm you exist."
Jayden's sharp face cracked into a grin. "Enjoying the view?"
"Always."
They stood in comfortable silence for a minute, the wind tugging at Rosa's coat. Roy pressed closer to her neck, shielding himself from the cold, and Jason shifted to sit on the lip of her collar bone.
"Alright," Rosa said finally. "Inventory. I'll see you tonight."
Jayden gave a lazy salute. "Check the food stores first. I think we're running low on flour."
The storeroom was a converted classroom on the ground floor, its windows boarded, its shelves lined with jars and cans. Rosa ran her good hand along the rows, counting aloud as she went, her passengers keeping watch from her shoulder. The tally was grim in places. Flour was down to three bags. Canned vegetables, eleven jars. Dried beans, less than she'd hoped.
She was about to close the ledger when Roy spoke, quiet and deliberate.
"What if we tested it?"
Rosa paused. "Tested what?"
"Lee's idea." Roy looked up at her, his small face serious. "If we’re almost out of flour, and we won’t be able to restock fully until summer, why not test the idea of stretching out the stock by growing it?"
Rosa let the ledger page sit under her fingers, the numbers blurring. Three bags of flour. She could picture them, the rough burlap sacks in the pantry, each one maybe ten pounds. Enough for bread for a week or two, if they rationed. Not enough for a winter that was still clinging on with grey fingers.
She thought about it. Growing flour. Taking a bag, shrinking it, then reversing the field somehow to expand it. Lee had said the reverse was built into the same field mathematics. But flour wasn't a hen. It wasn't even a plant. It was ground grain, dead and processed. The shrinking field worked on living tissue, on organic material. Roy was alive, the hen was alive. What would happen to something that had already been harvested and milled?
Texture. That was the problem. If the field expanded the flour unevenly, if it clumped or crystallized or changed its binding properties, they'd be worse off than before. She imagined a bag of flour that came out the other side with the consistency of sand, useless for bread, useless for anything. They'd lose a third of their stores on a gamble.
Or maybe it would be fine. Maybe the field treated all matter the same, living or dead, and a bag of flour would just become a bigger bag of flour. She couldn't know. Not without testing it, and testing meant risking real supplies.
The storeroom was silent. Dust motes hung in the thin light from the high window. Roy was still looking up at her from her collarbone, his small face patient. Jason had gone quiet too, waiting.
"Flour is different," she said slowly. "It's not a hen. It's not even a vegetable. It's been processed. Ground."
"The field doesn't care about processing," Roy said. "It's all matter."
"Maybe." She turned the page of the ledger, closed it. "But flour has a specific structure. If the field changes that structure, if it clumps the particles or alters the starch, we end up with something we can't bake with. And then we've lost the flour."
Roy considered that, his brow furrowing in that way he had when he was working through a problem. "So we test it on a small amount first. A cup. See what happens."
"A cup is a cup we can't afford to lose, if it goes wrong."
"When did you get so conservative?"
"When we started running low on everything." She set the ledger back on the shelf, adjusting it so the spine was straight. "I'm not saying no. I'm saying we need to think about what we're willing to risk."
The silence stretched out. She could feel Roy's weight against her collarbone, Jason's smaller presence on her shoulder. The clock on the wall ticked, each second loud in the quiet room.
"We'll discuss it with the others at dinner," she said finally.
Roy nodded. "Fair enough."
"You could run a smaller test first," Jason said quietly. "Not flour. Something with a similar texture. Rice, maybe. If the rice holds its shape after reversion, flour might too."
Rosa turned that over. It was a smart angle. Rice was still a risk, but a smaller one, and they had more of it than flour. And if it worked, it would tell them something about how the field treated processed grains.
"That's a good idea," she admitted. "We'll bring it up at dinner."
She lifted them back onto her collarbone carefully, adjusting her sling so it didn't press against them, and headed for the door. The storeroom was dim and cold, and the hallway beyond wasn't much better. She could hear the distant clatter of pots from the kitchen, someone starting dinner.
The afternoon light was already fading through the boarded windows, long shadows stretching across the linoleum. Winter evenings came fast, and she wanted to be back in the common room before full dark. She made her way down the hall, her boots echoing on the worn floor, Roy and Jason warm against her skin.
The kitchen smelled of onions and something canned. Sandy was at the stove, stirring a pot, and Ally was at the table, shelling beans into a bowl. Sandy looked up as Rosa pushed through the door, her gaze catching on the two small figures.
"Dinner's almost ready," Sandy said. "You're just in time."
Rosa crossed to the table and set her palm flat, watching Roy and Jason climb down onto it. She set them carefully on a folded cloth napkin near the bean bowl, where they could see the room.
"We'll eat," she said. "And then we talk."