Venturing into the human zone wasn't an issue for Kat, she'd been doing it since she was a kid, but that didn't mean it wasn't still stressful. Maybe if she wasn't running late, the 'human zone stress' could be suppressed easily, but she was already fifteen minutes late and wasn't even at the building yet.

When she's back in her home in Micropia, everything is thankfully her size. Other people are - at most - a head taller than her, footpaths are just normal sized, and elevator rides are only to go up a couple of floors. Kat didn't need help doing anything or getting anywhere in Micropia because she can just do it herself.

That, unfortunately, does not apply to the human zone.

Ahead of her, Kat can see the looming building ahead. Even for humans, the building had three floors and would've been massive. Combine that with everything in the human zone being well over ten times as large, and you've got a mountain well over 200 micro metres tall. From the last dozen times Kat had been here, she knew the micro entrance was essentially a single elevator that took a solid three minutes to reach each floor. Since Kat was two floors up, it was a six minute ride to get to where she needed to go. If the elevator departs without her, she'd be waiting twelve minutes for it to return, to then wait another six while she takes it.

Kat decides she can worry about the elevator once she gets to the elevator, since she still has a good way to go until she reaches the building. The designated micro footpath running alongside the human footpath as it stretched between the micro shuttle and the multi-story building, positioning Kat and the other micros right beside the giant humans as they breezed past. Each time a human walked past, their shadow cast Kat into a temporary darkness as the giant blocked out the sun, and passed just as quickly as they continued walking without giving the micros a second glance.

Kat checks her watch. She's running eighteen minutes behind schedule. And she's still not at the building.

Her thoughts are interrupted when a human steps by, the echoing sound of their footstep bringing Kat back to reality. She turns her head, her eyes lining up with a human's ankle, and takes a step back and looks up at the human it belongs to. It's a human woman with brown, freckled skin, and wearing a deep blue suit. Her frizzy brown hair is pulled into a loose bun behind her head, and she's come to a complete stop as she peers at something on her phone. Kat takes a glance at the building in the distance, then back up at the human, and makes her decision.

"Um, excuse me, ma'am," Kat calls, straining her voice to make it audible. The human startles, and looks around a couple of times before finally looking down.

"Oh, sorry," the human replies with a nervous laugh, "I didn't see you down there."

"I don't want to trouble you, but I'm actually running a bit late. Would I be able to get a lift over to the building with you?"

Kat points over to the building, the human following her arm to the destination, and then agreeing to help. The two stare at each other for a moment, Kat shifting her weight from foot to foot as she waits, the human looking down at her, unsure of what to do.

"Have you ever held a human before?" Kat asks after about thirty seconds of awkward silence.

"No, never," the human responds, "honestly I have no idea what to do."

This new information causes Kat to quickly reassess her options. She could walk as she was doing before and just deal with being an hour late, or she could try and explain how humans can move micros. She decides on the latter, and tells the human to lay her hand on the ground for her to climb onto, then they can walk together to the building. The micro benefits by moving at human speed, and the human generally isn't inconvenienced enough for it to be anything of note.

Hesitantly, the human woman slowly places her hand on the ground beside Kat, palm-up and straight as a board. Kat walks over to the mount of flesh, and easily mounts it, several occasions of being transported makes the action second nature to her. Once in the centre of the palm, she lowers herself into a sitting position to help maintain her balance, and the human giant slowly beings to raise her hand. Ordinarily, the sudden lift off makes Kat's stomach drop, but this human was slow on the ascent, ensuring her hand was stable and steady. Her fingers curled slightly to form a barricade, and her other hand reaching over to cup underneath, supporting the micro with both hands. Satisfied the micro is secure, the human begins walking slowly but surely towards the building. Kat pretends she can't hear the giantess' thumping heartbeat through her chest, or feel her steady breaths on her back.

"I never got your name," Kat calls to the human, attempting to distract them both.

"Oh, my name's Sarahi," the human responds. "What's yours?"

"Katherine, but everyone just calls me Kat."

"Pleasure to meet you, Kat. Say, what floor do you work on? I don't think I've ever seen you before."

Kat knew why this was; the building contained three floors but only the second and third had both human and micro employees. The first floor was human only, and the third floor where Kat worked had enough humans for that she could count them on one hand. Although she hadn't been to the second floor nearly as much, the occasional times that she had been showed her a similar scenario with about twice as many humans. She knew the humans on her floor by name, and that they'd gone through specialised micro training to share a work station. Sarahi was likely just one of many humans that didn't work with micros, and thus had limited experience.

"The third floor," Kat responded, deciding not to lecture the human she just met on micro interactions, "you're first floor, right?"

"Yeah, I am. I've never actually been to the other floors. What are they like?"

Kat laughed.

"So you've got the same cubicles that you'd have on the first floor - human ones, not micro ones. The third floor only has six of them, and there a part of the desk behind the human's monitor. In that spot are our micro cubicles."

"Wait, so you all share a desk?"

"You realise humans are like, ten times bigger than micros, right? You guys have plenty of space to share. Just set us up out of the way, and we're all good."

Sarahi takes a moment to think this through, considering something she hadn't considered before, and ends up reaching the office building before she realises it. Slowly, just as she had done when she picked Kat up, Sarahi lowered her hands to the ground and allowed the micro to dismount.

"Thank you, so much for this," Kat called to the human, who simply smiled in return. Kat turned to the elevator, just to see the doors close and watch it begin its slow ascent. "Oh, god damn it."

"Missed the elevator?"

"Missed the elevator."

There was a light thump behind Kat and Sarahi lowered her hand down once more, signaling for the human to climb aboard.

"Here, I'll take you up with the human elevator." The human eyes the micro entrance before continuing. "There's also more than just one human elevator."

Inside, Sarahi makes her way to the elevators and presses the button for the third floor. Kat couldn't suppress her audible gasp when the doors reopened a mere thirty seconds later on her floor. Sarahi stepped inside, not wanting to go too far into the micro sector, and once again lowered Kat to the floor, allowing her to step off onto the carpeted interior.

"Again," Kat began, "thank you so much for today. You've honestly saved me a lot of time."

"No worries," Sarahi responded with a slight chuckle. "Y'know, this was actually pretty interesting. I might look into doing the micro training program, maybe you'll have a new coworker up here."

Kat turned around, taking in the gigantic office. Humans moved around the space, most of them holding a micro in their hand or transporting them on their shoulder. Idle chatter filled the air, conversations about the weekend, coffee, and sport. Everyone going about their business, no one drawing attention to the differences between the two groups of workers. Kat looked up at Sarahi, and smiled back.

"I'd like that."