Munmun(89)

It’s fiftybillion, not sure how exactly the math works out but I think the new minimumsize will be about quarterscale, maybe a little bigger.

Safe from cats and spiders, bigenough for schools and hospitals, strongenough for smaller jobs, Lifty and Cleany.

So get ready, get set, in a few minutes I’ll start scaling down, after that you can sprint to your local bankbranch for a Scale Up, enjoy your new middlelife courtesy of Consolidated Warning.

But I didn’t say it.

I gazed down at the littleville and filled my enormous lungs and something happened, I don’t know, the announcement sat in my throat and dried out.

Somewhere Usher and Prayer watched, waited, must have thought, Warner, spit it out, big guy, what’s the hangup.

But a different plan was yawning open in my giantbrain, notsomuch about goodnews, more to do with badnews.

And heresthething, as soon as I thought of it, I knew the badnews plan was really my plan allalong.

“Big sir, at your convenience feel free to peruse our menu of tantalizing transpo options,” piped the spokesdrone, displaying tanks and choppers.

THAT’S OKAY, I’LL WALK, I told the drone.

“Fantastic choice because we will clear any path you need, remember we exist to serve and even our biggest citizens can always count on the Lossy Indica Police Department, infact I’d say especially our biggest,” reminded the drone.

Meanwhile I looked around at all these roofs I could step through.

Cars I could pick up by the fistfull, houses I could stoop down and lick off the hillsides.

ACTUALLY I’LL SWIM, I decided.

“CLEAR THE FREAKING BEACH,” blared the coastguard. “A GIANT WANTS TO SWIM.”

Twothousandfeet off the coast, I paddled north a little bit, police and coastguard proudly flanking me like dogs.

I was ofcourse ravenous, my giant stomach was empty, thirsty too, my raw dry mouth was panting.

My plan had been not to eat or drink, anything in the tum makes it tricky to scale down, forget the plan though.

I needed food and water, had ideas of where to get them too.

I passed a few points, a few inlets. The tiny toy cliffside houses got bigger and bigger.

I dove a couple times to see how close is the bottom, turnedout it’s pretty close. I itched my belly on the tickly coral, dragged knuckletrenches through the ocean dirt, clouded the water with blownup seafloor. When I came back to the surface the choppers and speedboats were cheering me.

“EPIC DEEPDIVE,” they roared and clapped. “SO HEROIC.”

Before long, there it was, the familiar spannishvilla.

I waded to shore, police and coastguard had to hang back, Balustrade was ofcourse a private defense zone.

“IT HAS BEEN AN UNLIMITED PLEASURE ACCOMPANYING YOU ON YOUR VISIT TO LOSSY INDICA,” a boat trumpeted after me and more stuff like that, I ignored it and stepped onto land.

Wow, were the bighouses of Balustrade dumb and pathetic to my gigantic eyes. To halfscale me they had been soaring concerthalls. But now look, they’re actually just sad weird huts.

Spannishvilla, castle, shrine, plantation, glasscube cluster, all pathetic. Onestory boxes for caging lonely giants.

I stood and dripped and gazed and each bighouse was just a few twinedtogether alleyway milkcrates.

Betterdecorated obviously, bigger windows, filled with tiny servants, oceanviews.

But each house was the one my dad built and tinkered with everyday and patched the roof and papered the walls and died inside when a kid stepped on it, Warner why are you thinking about that, idiot, you have work to do.

I stepped onto the villa patio, Mark’s staff ofcourse was trying to intercept me with gentle welcomes of Hello Honored Guest and apologies of You Know What Though, Mark Is Resting And Relaxing At The Moment and suggestions of Would You Like To Wait Out Here, Perhaps We Could Get You Something.

I ignored them too and knocked on the door, tried to open it, it was locked.

But the locks they make even for bigriches are pretty puny when you’re a kingkong, it wasn’t that hard for me to rip off the door and drop it in the sand.

Inside quiet cooks were prepping bowls of lemonwater and charred cows, fantastic, I lifted a bowl and drank it down as they cowered in silent terror.

Water filled me, spread to my fingertips, my throat loosened, eyes brightened, giant lungs uncurled even further.

I munched a cow, pretty good but pretty bland, guess it’s hard to brew enough sauce.

Meanwhile in the nextroom blinky toadcolor Mark bolted upright in his bed, staring at the naked godsilla in his kitchen, munching his food.

“HEY,” he grogged. “UM, WHAT’S GOING ON HERE.”

I said nothing, just stared at him in the eye and chomped his cows, gulped his drinks, man did it feel good to be putting food in the tum.

He squinted at me, ran a hand across his perfect rigid hair.

“YOU LOOK KIND OF FAMILIAR,” he said. “WHO ARE YOU?”

I AM THE KINGKONG GOD, I told him.

“OKAY,” he said. “DID YOU JUST BREAK MY DOOR?”

I finished his food and water.

YUP, I said.

“WELL OKAY,” he said. “JESUS. UH, STAFF, I GUESS COULD YOU MAKE ME SOME MORE COWS.”

Behind me I heard the staff spring into action, Heather barked commands, we need five charred cows blitzed and sauced immediately, four bowls of water, movemovemove, Mark has a naked mystery guest, looks like atleast a fourtybillionair.