Lily (Chapter 26 up...and complete)

[Josh23]

Hopefully the two who go undercover part still happens.  Can’t wait to see if they can rescue Lily or perhaps get caught themselves

[Personalias]

Chapter 11

Try to keep it all inside

Try to hold it, hold it in

Try to beat it to the grave

Tell me how I should behave

Try to make it all things dark

Try to light in your black heart

Try to act just like I should

You know I would if I could.
 

Static X; “Hollow”

 

Over the past year Lily had become something of an expert at faking it: Childlike innocence, wide eyed wonder, babbling idiocy, a complete lack of social awareness or concern for personal hygiene.  Lily’s deep seated survival instinct mixed up with her paralyzing fear of being caught had made her an expert at stuffing down her ever-increasing anxiety, distress, and the building existential crisis within her.

 

What she didn’t need to fake, never needed to fake, was being completely overwhelmed.  Lily wasn’t faking it right now.  

 

The Rebirther community’s local park, normally a quiet place to feed birds and take walks, had been completely decked out to over the top spectacle levels of decoration. Lily hadn’t seen anything this big since last Easter, this topped it.  The playground had been nearly tripled in size thanks to a hurried construction crew. Picnic tables and blankets littered the remaining lawn, and grills were stacked to the gills with meat and charcoal.

Other families ate out of old fashioned picnic baskets, laughing and enjoying the sunshine, while sharing sandwiches and eating grapes.  It was like something out of Norman Rockwell, or Georges Seurat. A relaxing day lounging at the park for one and all: The idyllic upper middle class dream.  Only none of these families were actual families. Sitting on blankets, trapped in strollers, and contained by mobile playpens were Reborns.  

 

Everywhere, the poor trapped souls crawled, rolled and (in rare circumstances) toddled about.  Lily had never seen so many brain damaged babies in one place. Perhaps because until now, there hadn’t been. 

 

Along the edges of the park were banners that read “Welcome New Residents”.  Lily felt a sinking feeling in her stomach that had nothing to do with her digestion.  This place was growing. Listening to Melissa gabbing with her drinking buddies, Lily had heard that houses that had been empty in the gated community were filling up. 

There were going to be ‘stay home days’ so that construction crews not in on the dirty little secret could set up new buildings and infrastructure.   Already, giant privacy tarps and detours were being placed in key areas, making the twisting and turning maze of streets that much harder for Lily to mentally navigate.  Changes were coming. Daycare was about to get very crowded.

 

 Here in the center of the not-quite town, away from the construction and moving vans, the freaks were letting their flags fly. This?  This was the big hurrah kicking everything off. This place was going from an experimental community to a cult Mecca. First, Scientology.  Now, Rebirthers. What the fuck, Florida?

 

Lily was confined to one of the new playgrounds, cribbed in among rubber flooring instead of mulch, and a jungle gym made mostly of tubes, tunnels and ramps.  Nothing that required bipedal movement or the ability to use hands. Lamest. Playground. Ever. There wasn’t even a ball pit.

The daycare had a shallow ball pit that the staff broke out every now and then for special occasions.  It was the closest Lily got to swimming without water wings or fear of drowning. This place had a shallow sandbox that Lily wasn’t going anywhere near.  Sand in the diaper? No thank you. It was bad enough that her knees were getting scuffed up from crawling around, and her bright red onesie wasn’t doing anything for her knees.

 

 On the bright side, she was no longer the token Asian baby.  Surprise, surprise, most of the crazy people that bought into this lifestyle were white.  Most of their so-called babies were white, too. From the look of things a lot of these newcomers though had gone the Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie route and adopted “underprivileged minorities” from other countries.  Yes, that was the exact phrasing she heard one of the new women say.

 

Yay.  Psychotic disregard for other human beings combined with a white savior complex.  If disillusionment and jaded nihilism was food, Lily could gorge on it like a bear and hibernate right about now.

Despite their selection of trophy children, these Mommies and Daddies were all cut from the same cloth as Melissa Darling.  They all stood around the perimeter of the playground, watching their idiot children crawl and toddle and babble like they were monkeys in a cage.  If Lily got out of there she’d be able to write a book about negligence.

 

Speaking of negligence, Lily caught sight of a skinny black man digging around in the sandbox.  Unlike Lily, he was able to stand on two feet and was dressed in a snow-white sailor outfit. He was digging around and babbling to himself  “Bababababa!”

 

That part was common enough.  Most captives here barely knew any words and were lucky if they could verbally call for their caretakers or comment when they’d taken a dump in their pants. The rest of their language had been turned to jelly. What stood out was the focused look on the new one’s face.  His eyes were searching, his hands were combing. Did he lose a pacifier or something? Drop candy in the sand.

 

On all fours, Lily shuffled over to the sandbox despite every instinct in her brain screaming at her not to.  It wasn’t her business, interacting with a new prisoner was always risky, there were eyes on everyone, and even proximity to the sandbox was risky where her diaper was concerned. (Leakguards had the magical ability to keep wetness locked in but could not keep sand out.  

 

Dull eyes locked onto the ground, and his other senses dead to the world, the black boy found what he’d been looking for.  Candy. Except not. A brown and hard nugget coated with white play sand. That was another problem with public sandboxes; feral cats.  

 

The brain drained man-baby was sniffing it.  Lily wanted to gag and vomit her morning’s pablum and breastmilk.  Poor kid didn’t look like he was going to stop at sniffing it. He was licking his lips and drooling. 

 

Frantically, Lily looked around.  None of the adults milling along the playground perimeter were paying any attention.  Lily’s brain went into overdrive, sorting through her options faster than mere words could process.  Should she yell? Cry? Scream? That would only draw attention to her, and only from Melissa more than likely.  She didn’t know who the turd eater’s caretakers were and doing anything as obvious as pointing would show a level of awareness that would give her away. 

 

Sailor suit kid opened his mouth, and  brought the bit of cat shit up to his drooling mouth; a kid trying his first experimental bite of an unknown fruit.  Lily couldn’t let this happen.

 

She slapped him on the back of the thigh as fast and as hard as she could.  The man-baby jumped and dropped the kitty turd. Reflexively he rubbed his thighs, smearing brown on the back of his sailor shorts. 

“No!” Lily shook her finger at him like a stern mother; not yelling making her voice a low growl. “Bad!  Bad baby!” The poor guy seemed confused as hell. And why wouldn’t he? He was a toddler being scolded by a baby. 

 

Something clicked, though.  “No?” he said, his mind seeming to digest the word.

 

“No.”

 

His lip started trembling.  His eyes started watering. He started rubbing his thighs and his chest started to heave as his breathing became labored.  “Noooooooooooo….” It was coming out as a low rumbling moan and gaining momentum. Lily started backing up. “NOOOOOOOOO!”

Hands  still on his backside, smearing chocolate colored cat shit over clean white pants, the unfortunate idiot ran off blubbering.  “NOOOOOOO! No-no-no-no-no-no-no-no-no-nooooo!” 

 

There was a stir among the adults as he ran across the playground.  Someone’s wonderful picnic was being ruined by some twenty-four-going-on-one toddler.  Lily rolled over on her back and started playing with her feet. She couldn’t look guilty.  She couldn’t look like she understood what was going on. No one saw her, she told herself, but if they saw ‘Athena’ paying close attention to the crying new boy, they might start to realize something.

 

A pack of new Reborns was a major inconvenience on Lily’s patience and conscience.  A matching pack of fresh Rebirthers meant at least as much strain on her cover. Being Athena for so long had gotten easier in part because Melissa’s friends had gotten used to the act. Her cover was secure because after a certain point, people saw what they wanted to see.

 

Lulling her head to the side she watched the show she had started. The black boy in the sailor suit ran over crying to a middle-aged grey haired white couple. She was too far away to hear what they were saying, but the two seemed confused and worried for him.  

 

They turned him around and looked at his dirty pants.  ‘Awwwww’ faces were made all around and a few of the other adults joined in gentle laughter.  Eagle eyed, Lily watched as his shorts were pulled down and he was made to step out. Even from a distance, Lily could make out the bruises on the back of the man-baby’s thighs.   

Right where she had struck him.  She hadn’t hit him hard enough to leave a bruise; Lily knew that.  And she had only hit one of them. But that’s why he’d jumped when she’d slapped him.  She’d literally hit a sore spot.

 

Lily felt a deep anger welling up inside of her and made herself suck her thumb to cover up more of her face.  Mrs. Darling had spanked her before; Lily had seen to it. All of these cultists believed in ‘old-fashioned child-rearing’, and if Lily didn’t earn herself a punishment every now and again Darling might think her baby girl was too perfect.  Besides; misbehaving was her only real form of rebellion. A few swats on the ass were worth it.

 

But this? This kid hadn’t been spanked. He’d been beat!  And Lily had a sinking suspicion she knew what two letter n-word accompanied those beatings. She held her breath to stop from crying.  What were these people doing here?! Wasn’t the awful stuff that had been done to her and the others enough?

Some of the parents If there were greater and lesser evils, then that meant there were less and more evil people too.  As they grabbed a diaper bag made to change him on a blanket, the new kid’s caregivers were all sugar right then. Like any prepared parent, they’d even packed a spare pair of navy-blue shorts that still complimented the white sailor top.  Those bruises told of far worse things behind closed doors.

 

At least one of the parents seemed to share Lily’s opinion.  A few feet away, a fat Daddy type was shaking his head. It was just a bit; an involuntary reaction, but Lily recognized the look of burning disgust in his eyes.  Lily had had that exact face so many times lately. 

 

She was starting to feel that face forming now, at herself no less.  How dare she even try to relate to these fuckers! Fatso was disgusted, but he was also bottle feeding and burping his own stolen daughter; another new girl with frizzy auburn hair.

 

A shadow fell over Lily.  She looked up past her thumb and saw someone standing directly over her; the glare of the sun above turning the person into a dark silhouette.  Fuck! Someone had seen her slap the black boy’s thighs! Or worse, noticed her noticing; seen the look of consciousness and thought in her face.  

 

“Mama?”  Lily mumbled around her thumb.

 

“Wuuhhhhaaaaa!” was the reply she got.  More baby babble; a shriek of fear as another adult toddler lost her balance and fell down onto her butt.  Lily rolled over to her side, and saw the stranger.

Another new fish, this one an Asian woman about Lily’s age. Her sneakers were hot pink and strapped onto her feet with convex soles instead of flat.  Someone wanted their little girl to be able to walk...just not too well. Unlike all the other big baby clothes Lily had seen and been forced to wear, the shoes seemed to have some kind of lock on them.

Light pink and white striped socks lead their way up to just below the knee and didn’t quite match the shoes.  Sitting splay legged, the pink denim dress failed to conceal the pink and white checkered diaper cover, bits of white still swelling out.  Lily very much doubted the dress would hide anything except her breasts. Underneath the dress, the girl was dressed in a pink top with a Peter-Pan collar.  
 

While Lily’s naturally dark hair was pulled back into a tight bun ‘so she couldn’t play with it’, the new girl’s  dyed light brown hair was done up in pigtails. It was practically a play version of Lily’s birthday party version.

 

The girl looked panicked and scared; and for some reason, Lily knew it had nothing to do with falling down.

 

“Giúp tôi!” the new girl whispered.

 

Lily froze.  That wasn’t baby babble.  That was language! Japanese?  Mandarin? She couldn’t quite place it, not with two words.  But it was language! And she was whispering, too, meaning she had a level of awareness and discretion that right until this very moment Lily had thought she alone possessed.

 

“Tôi không phải là một đứa trẻ!”  No. Not Mandarin...Korean maybe? No! Vietnamese!  That was it. Early on in college Lily had fallen in love with a Pho noodle house and ate there at least once a week Freshman and Sophomore year.  Eating Vietnamese didn’t make her any better with the language, but she’d heard the wait staff and kitchen talking to each other enough to know what it sounded like.

 

Lily opened her mouth to reply, went to shake her head and apologize that she couldn’t understand, but an approaching couple made her think better of it.  “Agaaaaa?!” she cooed and giggled, as if what had to be pleas for help was nothing more than amusing mouth sounds.  

 

Sorry newbie. Survival of the fittest.  Enjoy your booster shot. Hope that your last words were good ones.

“Trinh!” A woman with near Tammy Faye Bakker levels of hair said.  “Are you making new friends?” She pinched the new girl’s cheeks. “I bet you are!  Yes ma’am, I bet you are!” She pivoted to Lily. “And aren’t you just the cutest thing! Did your Mommy rescue you, too, little one?”

 

The new baby-woman, Trinh, was yelling now.  “Tôi đang làm việc ở Bangkok và cô ấy hứa với tôi một cuộc sống tốt hơn nếu tôi đi cùng cô ấy!”

If Trinh’s Mommy recognized her shouting as actual language, it didn’t register on her face.  “Come along now, Trinh. Mommy’s been invited for circle time. She wants to show you off.” She hefted Trinh to her feet and had to steady her by holding her hand.

 

Trinh started crying. “Người phụ nữ điên này đã bắt cóc tôi! Cô ấy nhét tôi vào bụng của chúng và cho tôi mặc tã!"

 

She started to lead the girl away, the thick diaper and ball-soled shoes all but forcing the girl to be dragged along on wobbling Bambi feet.  “Don't worry, Trinh-Trinh,” she said as she turned, “I’m sure you’ll see your little friend, later. Mommy will arrange plenty of playdates for you.”

 

“Tại sao bạn không hiểu tôi?” Trinh screamed back over her shoulder. “Tôi thấy bạn vẫn còn sống trong đó! NOI CHO HỌ! NOI CHO HỌ! TÔI KHÔNG PHẢI LÀ MỘT ĐỨA TRẺ! TÔI NĂM NAY HAI MƯƠI BA TUỔI!"

 

If she could have, Lily would have cried right then and there.  She was starting to break. Her resolve. Her empathy. Her courage.  Everything. Even her very soul. She wasn’t there yet. She’d have to persevere.

 

Mrs. Darling wasn’t giving her the choice.  “I see you met Trihn!” Mrs. Darling cooed. “Do you like her, Athena?”  Lily gave no reply. “Of course you do! My Athena likes everybody and everything!  Except maybe broccoli.” The woman laughed at her own terrible joke. “Come on, Mommy’s got lots more friends for us to meet.”

 

She made a ‘follow me’ gesture and side stepped away.  As Athena, Lily was at least expected to know how to follow a beckoning adult who made happy smiley faces.  Crawling off the playground and into the grass, Lily followed Mrs. Darling over to a circle of blankets. 

 

At least a dozen faux families sat in the circle, most of them unfamiliar to Lily.  She recognized Vicky, another Asian lady who’d been purposefully sent back to permanent Neoborn status. She lay on a blanket burbling, not even babbling, and no one seemed to care that she was only in a thick disposable, the rest of her body cooling midday sun. 

 

 Sailor suit was there, too, sucking on a jumbo pacifier right next to his Mommy’s lap.  The white woman posing as his mother was actually smaller than the diapered man. Damn. Picturing what they did to him to stuff him into a false womb was either comical or horrifying and Lily wasn’t sure which.

 

A petite latinx woman in a light blue onesie dress crawled over and was positively enchanted as her so-called parents hippity-hopped a stuffed bunny rabbit on the grass next to her. She seemed a little older, maybe early thirties instead of twenties.  Her parents seemed a bit older, too, and the same race. Lily thought of Jolene and Tiffany; this might be a similar situation.

 

Poor Girl.

 

To be betrayed by a stranger or lured in by a strange organization and promises of wealth and a new life was one thing.  To be betrayed by people who you were supposed to have a genuine and caring relationship with; that was the unkindest cut of all.


Lily had learned from enough time in daycare that the clear plastic pants poking out of the onesie’s legholes meant that she was being kept in cloth diapers. 

Again. Poor girl.  One time at daycare, Lily had been switched to cloth when Mrs. Darling had forgotten to drop off her usual disposables.  The feeling hadn’t been nearly as comfortable. The cloth had been able to absorb more but it did nothing to make Lily feel any less wet when the inevitable happened.  Gross. At least Mrs. Darling had to wash the dirty diapers and give them back. Little victories.

 

Trinh was already strapped into a stroller, crying something in vietnamese when her Tammy Bakker haired mother gagged her with a pacifier that fastened to the back of her head, all while making a soothing shushing sound and patting the girl’s head.  

 

Some old faces and a lot of new ones.  A few looked like their captors. Most didn’t. Lily didn’t need a mathematics degree to notice a pattern: None of the babies in this group were white.

It was Mrs. Darling who finally spoke up. Still seated, she waved her right hand just above her head like an old beauty queen in a parade   “Well hello-hello, everyone! I’m Melissa Darling, and I’d love to welcome you all to our little slice of paradise. I chaired the committee that put together this welcome party.”  There was a polite smattering of applause from around the circle.

Inwardly Lily bit down on her tongue in surprise.  That’s what Darling had been doing the last few weeks?  Lily would never have guessed. She thought she’d just been drinking while telling jokes late at night.  Lily had heard enough of the laughter from her crib. Chances are that’s exactly what had happened and somehow it had become a ‘committee’.

 

“Hello-hello to you as well,” Trinh’s jailor waved back.  “It’s so gosh darn nice to make your acquaintance. I’m Tammy Maxwell and most of these people are my friends and neighbors who traveled with me from the great white north!”  Lily had to bury her head in Darling’s bosom to hide her shock. Crazy bitch’s name WAS Tammy and she had the big hair to match. More applause, this time louder.

Darling just petted her head.  “It’s okay Athena. They’re friends,” she whispered.  Lily heard Trinh scream behind her pacifier gag. “Tammy,” Darling said. “Pardon me for being so up front, but why is your little girl so..restrained?”  

 

“My little Trinh is just going through her terrible twos.”  A round of knowing chuckles bubbled up from the newcomers. “Trinh is just getting a little fussy.  You know how two-year-olds can be.” There was an air of underlying menace coming from the woman that Lily normally only heard in her nightmares.

 

Lily felt Darling squeeze her protectively.  “Two years old? Isn’t that what a bit...old for a Reborn?”

 

“The doctors said it couldn’t be done,” Tammy replied.  “That little pink stuff they shoot into the babies is too potent.  Said that I could get a little over a year at most. But I made a deal.”  Lily’s blood turned cold and she buried her head deeper, going so far as to scoop.  “Minimal interference during the pregnancy, and just enough surgeries to keep her easy to manage.  The rest is just a mother’s love.”

“So she can talk?” Vicky’s Mommy asked. 

 

“Not English.” More knowing laughter.  “Chinese? Japanese? Baby talk? Who can tell the difference.  Just a bunch of pings and pongs. But she knows what words to say if she wants her dinner or needs a diaper change.”  Lily peeked out just enough to watch Tammy give her captive a condescending pat on the head. “Don’t you, Trinh-Trinh?”

 

Trinh was effectively Lily, then.  Still possessed of her adult brain but forced to debase herself and be humiliated every day of her life and be completely.  The only difference was, everybody knew what she was going through and did nothing to stop it. They knew and they went along with it.  Lily reburied her head.

 

Let this be over.  Please be over.

 

“Oh that poor thing...”  If Lily hadn’t been close enough to hear Darling’s heartbeat she never would have heard that.  There really were varying degrees of evil. “My Athena has never needed a booster shot,” she said loud enough for everyone to hear.

 

“Good for you both!  Was it eight out of ten or nine out of ten babies who needed a booster shot?”  One of the other new slavers asked.

 

“I’m not sure,” Darling said. “But I’m so glad we could all get to know each other a bit better.”

Another big baby's cry brought Lily out of her protective shell.  Vicky was starting to mewl and bawl, while her parents sat her up and checked her diaper.  “She’s not wet,” her mother said. “Must mean she’s hungry. If you’ll excuse us.” The couple moved to lift Vicky up and transport her for feeding.

“That’s a wonderful idea,” the hispanic Mommy called back.  “Communal breastfeeding. A wonderful bonding experience!” She opened her blouse and uncoupled her nursing bra, her daughter in the blue dress onesie and cloth diapers homing in on her lactating breasts.  “Happens everytime I hear a baby crying!” Another chorus of aw shucks laughter.

Sailor suit’s Mommy was lifting up her shirt just in time for him to greedily latch on.  Did they not feed him?! Everyone was doing it. “It’s such a nice way to enjoy this beautiful weather,”  Lily heard one of the strangers say.

 

Tammy was not phased.  She dug into a diaper bag and took out a sippy cup.  “My Tinh is too big for that, but I have something just.”  It was filled with a milky white stuff. “Sake!” Lily couldn’t help but frown in disgust and horror as she watched the pacifier gag was removed and the grown baby-woman be force fed rice wine, her tears  mixing with dribbles out of the side of her mouth as she finally laid back and accepted it.

 

So wrong on so many levels.

Darling and Vicky’s mother exchanged looks.  This was a new dance to them. Lily didn’t know how she felt herself.  “Come here, Athena,” Darling coaxed at her, having decided to go along to get along.  Reluctantly, Lily closed her eyes and began to suckle.  

 

Please let the alcohol content of this batch of milk be at least 40 proof, she prayed.  Lily would need to be drunk to get through the rest of this day.

 

The spectacle became a radio play, with Lily unable to see anything other than Darling’s flesh.  She slowed her sucking on the tit as her back was gently rubbed. “So now that we’re getting to know each other…” Darling said.

 

“We were actually hoping to welcome you into our club,”  Tammy interrupted. “While this lifestyle welcomes all, we all found each other had something that separated us from other Rebirthers.”

 

Non-white captives.

 

“And what is that?” Darling asked dumbly.

“We all rescued our babies.”

 

Oh fuck.  “I beg your pardon?”  Darling said. She wasn’t getting it.  Or she was getting it and still in denial.

 

Another voice cut in.  “It’s just that, some parents want babies that look like them, that come from the same background as them.  American kids already got the chance to be cared for by loving parents.” 

 

Oh fuck!  Lily sucked harder.

 

“We all decided to use the Rebirthing movement as an opportunity to adopt less fortunates from colder and crueler parts of the world and give them a better life here.” 

FUUUUUUUUCK!  It was worse than just racism, fetishization, or tokenism.  It was White Saviorism too!

 

“Elisha is from Uganda,” Sailor Suit’s mom said.  “He grew up a child soldier and was getting deeper and deeper into the blood diamond trade or something.”

 

Tammy spoke up.  “My Trinh was a prostitute in North Korea or was it South?” Lily stopped sucking so she didn’t accidentally nip Mrs. Darling.  The level of ignorance was terrifying. “Now the only time her legs are going over her head is when it’s time for a diapee change.”

 

“You know, I hear two years old is the perfect age to start potty training,” Darling said.  No one laughed.

 

From across the circle, Lily heard, “I got the best of both worlds. I got a baby that looked like me and desperately needed me. Sophia was a drug mule in Venezuela.   We’ve been together since 2015. I’m so glad we got her out of that life. She’s much better off like this.” Lily heard lots of general agreement.

 

“My Carla was deep in debt to the Mexican Cartel.” Another voice called out. 

“So was Gabriel, you should have seen the pictures.  It was like those Sarah McLaughlin commercials. Made me want to make him mine on the spot.  So I did.”

 

“Amira was a refugee from Syria.  Women have hardly any rights over there. It’s a nightmare, don’t you know?  Ooops! Leak!” Whatever the sound of self awareness was, it wasn’t the sound of tapes being ripped off of overfull diapers.  But that’s the only sound that came.

 

“What about you?” Tammy asked.

“I’m not sure where Vicky was from,” Vicky’s mother said. “The Institute implanted her when I provided the money.”

“I bet she was one of those Geishas or something.”  Tammy said. “She looks like she might have been a Geisha.”  Lily wondered if she could vomit on that woman and still have it framed as innocent spit-up.  “What about you?”

 

The uptick in Darling’s heartbeat let Lily know who was being stared at.  “Athena? I picked her out myself. It really was love at first sight, for both of us, I think.”

 

“You met her before the implantation?” someone asked.

 

“Of course.” Mrs. Darling sounded defensive.  “Lots of people do.”

 

“In Florida maybe...” Tammy said.  Wow...someone was actually managing to out bitch Melissa Darling.

 

“I wanted the bond to be genuine,” Darling fired back.

 

“They’re new people when they come out,” another bougie mother volunteered. “Reborn.  What would be the point of knowing their old life when it’s their new life that matters?”

 

“I-...”

 

“What was Athena before she became your surrogate.  A drug addict? A prostitute? Homeless? What did you rescue her from?”

Lily didn’t know that she could feel a dejected frown. “Student debt. She was a college student…”  Lily was close enough that felt Darling deflate. “She was in a lot of student debt...and I offered to help...”  Lily swore she heard the woman’s heart literally breaking.

 

“Anything else?”

 

“Well...I don’t think she had a particularly good relationship with her parents…”

 

“That’s nice.”  The condescending tone wasn’t.  Nor was the unsure chorus of hemming and hawing.  Nor was the quick change of subject.

 

Lily breathed as she was switched over to the second breast.  The old bitch had finally been taken down a peg, and Lily was at ground zero.  Yet why wasn’t she happy.

Maybe, a little Levi sounding voice whispered in her ear, because Lily was no longer special.  Not by any Metric. With the new sane baby, the influx of hoity toity parents and even more unfortunate souls than her from worse parts of the world, Lily was no longer unique. Tammy the queen bitch even beat out Melissa for worst possible Mommy.

 

Lily had told herself she was special and she could get through this.  These people couldn’t. Why could she?

[Shotgun Diplomat]

1 hour ago, Personalias said:

What the fuck, Florida?

I think that the answer lies within the question it self. Florida. That is enough. 

 

1 hour ago, Personalias said:

the rest of her body cooling midday sun

I am a little confused by this passage. Can you elaborate what you mean?

Once again a fine addition to this saga. I am really enjoying the realization that is occurring within 'Lily'. Now that she is no longer unique, and now that she is no longer the only mentally aware re-born what is stopping her from escaping? Truth be known the perfect opportunities have been presented with the idea of the "stay at home days" while the construction crews are about. Thank-you for the addition, I am very much looking forward to more.  

[Personalias]

4 hours ago, Shotgun Diplomat said:

I think that the answer lies within the question it self. Florida. That is enough. 

 

I am a little confused by this passage. Can you elaborate what you mean?

Once again a fine addition to this saga. I am really enjoying the realization that is occurring within 'Lily'. Now that she is no longer unique, and now that she is no longer the only mentally aware re-born what is stopping her from escaping? Truth be known the perfect opportunities have been presented with the idea of the "stay at home days" while the construction crews are about. Thank-you for the addition, I am very much looking forward to more.  

That was honestly just my stab at saying "it was hot out and she was almost naked".

[kerry]

7 hours ago, Personalias said:

“My Lily has never needed a booster shot,”

I think you mean Athena.

7 hours ago, Personalias said:

had gone the Brad Pitt and Jennifer Anniston route and adopted “underprivileged minorities” from other countries. 

It was Angelina Jolie, not Jennifer Anniston, who adopted all those children with Brad Pitt.

 

As to the story itself: God I hope all of these bitches get what is coming to them. And I hope that Lily finds a way to communicate with Trinh, though that seems unlikely. Another compelling (and angering) chapter!

[Personalias]

Oh shit.  Editing right away I thought I caught that.

7 hours ago, kerry said:

I think you mean Athena.

It was Angelina Jolie, not Jennifer Anniston, who adopted all those children with Brad Pitt.

 

As to the story itself: God I hope all of these bitches get what is coming to them. And I hope that Lily finds a way to communicate with Trinh, though that seems unlikely. Another compelling (and angering) chapter!

Oh shit!  That's what I get for rush posting.  Thanks for catching that!

[Shotgun Diplomat]

13 hours ago, Personalias said:

That was honestly just my stab at saying "it was hot out and she was almost naked".

I see. Well, thank-you for the new addition. It has made me both angry, and a little jealous (in a twisted way). Cheers. 

[WriteAndLeft]

Awesome.  We got two chapters.

[Personalias]

20 hours ago, Shotgun Diplomat said:

I see. Well, thank-you for the new addition. It has made me both angry, and a little jealous (in a twisted way). Cheers. 

I'm glad it had an emotional effect on you.  (I think? lol)

10 hours ago, WriteAndLeft said:

Awesome.  We got two chapters.

Thanks.  What did you like?

[Shotgun Diplomat]

7 hours ago, Personalias said:

I'm glad it had an emotional effect on you.  (I think? lol)

I really, really, really like sake. Having a steady supply of the stuff fed to me (albeit without the forcefulness) is something of a quasi-dream of mine. 

[Cya]

On 4/17/2020 at 11:50 PM, kerry said:

I think you mean Athena.

It was Angelina Jolie, not Jennifer Anniston, who adopted all those children with Brad Pitt.

 

As to the story itself: God I hope all of these bitches get what is coming to them. And I hope that Lily finds a way to communicate with Trinh, though that seems unlikely. Another compelling (and angering) chapter!

 

Well, Trinh's mom did say she was going to schedule a bunch of playdates for Trinh. If they do somehow meet again, let's hope that Trinh isn't completely shitfaced on her sippy cup  "juice"...

Really loved how you weaved a bunch of new characters, who actually managed to make Melissa look like the lesser of all evils, into this community. Great job!

[WriteAndLeft]

How long can Lily be the responsible adult without getting caught.  All these adult babies with their minds poisoned by booster shots are really under poor supervision by what should be responsible adults.  Lily saved a girl from pulling a blender down on her head, saved the black man in the sailor costume and presumably will need to act later to save some other babies.  The mimosa chugging is asking to let preventable accidents happen.

[Personalias]

On 4/19/2020 at 4:13 PM, Shotgun Diplomat said:

I really, really, really like sake. Having a steady supply of the stuff fed to me (albeit without the forcefulness) is something of a quasi-dream of mine. 

Chase your dream!

On 4/20/2020 at 5:27 AM, Cya said:

 

Well, Trinh's mom did say she was going to schedule a bunch of playdates for Trinh. If they do somehow meet again, let's hope that Trinh isn't completely shitfaced on her sippy cup  "juice"...

Really loved how you weaved a bunch of new characters, who actually managed to make Melissa look like the lesser of all evils, into this community. Great job!

Making Melissa Darling look good was a trick, that's for sure.

3 hours ago, WriteAndLeft said:

How long can Lily be the responsible adult without getting caught.  All these adult babies with their minds poisoned by booster shots are really under poor supervision by what should be responsible adults.  Lily saved a girl from pulling a blender down on her head, saved the black man in the sailor costume and presumably will need to act later to save some other babies.  The mimosa chugging is asking to let preventable accidents happen.

Those are good questions and observations.

[Shotgun Diplomat]

3 hours ago, Personalias said:

Chase your dream

I do, it is a dangerous dream to chase. But I do my level best at it. 

[Personalias]

Chapter 12

Wastin' away again in Margaritaville

Searchin' for my long lost shaker of salt

Some people claim that there's a woman to blame

Now I think, hell, it could be my fault

 

Jimmy Buffet; “Margaritaville”.

 

Since the divorce and her adoption of Athena, Melissa Darling had become an expert at various stages of intoxication.  In order, there was buzzed, merry, inebriated, tipsy, maudlin, plastered, blotto, sloshed, woozy, smashed, wrecked, trashed, skunk-drunk, and full on blackout.  Melissa had started hitting the sauce as soon as they’d gotten home from the disastrous get together in the park.

 

She’d been so rattled that she’d forgotten to change Athena till it was almost her bed time, poor thing.  The diapers could hold it, of course, but that was besides the point.  She’d taken a point of pride of doting on her baby girl, especially since the upsetting birthday party incident.  Even if it was just letting the little cutie sit on her lap, she’d been very particular about making sure that Athena knew she was loved.

 

But Melissa had been so overwhelmed after that little pow-wow with the newcomers, that she’d completely forgotten herself and had started looking in the bottom.  She was no stranger to drink, regardless.  Dr. Anguis and company actually encouraged it. 

“It mixes well with the medication,” he’d told her when she first signed up for the program.  “And why not live your best life?  That’s what this is all about.”  Not just that, but everything was about living the best life, here.  That was the point of this whole lifestyle.  Her best life was as a mother, and yes, a bit of a drunk.  But in a quiet little community where everyone had the same dirty secret, a little drink didn’t matter.

 

When she was a girl in highschool, Melissa read Brave New World, by Aldous Huxley.  It was supposed to be a dystopia, where the majority of the population was so drugged up, most people didn’t think of higher moral questions or independence or anything beyond their assigned lot in life.

 

 A younger Melissa had been of the opinion that it wasn’t actually a dystopia; just a perfect world that imperfect people couldn’t live in.  It wasn’t like 1984 where people were forcibly brainwashed and then killed if they didn’t pay lip service to the evil overlord or whatever.

 

  In Brave New World, you got with the program, got drugged up and went to the weekly orgies, or you were sent away to an island or a reservation with the other people who didn’t want to get with the program.  It was supposedly ‘banishment’, but was it really if you weren’t happy where you were and you were likely to be happier where you were going?

Everyone was happy, everyone got to live their best life without having to think overmuch about it, and those who wanted to think were grouped with others who could tolerate such discussions.

The world had just become one giant alternative lifestyle gated community. How Melissa had longed to live that life.  And she’d felt like she was so close.  So close.  Then today happened.

After running out of vodka and tequila, Melissa had gotten out the dark liquor, fed and changed Athena, and put the girl to bed. She was good and sloshed now, but as she refilled her whiskey glass she was good and determined to make it to at least wrecked before she passed out. The alcohol had helped with the divorce too.  Jack had been a good man, a faithful husband, and a wonderful companion and lover.  But deep down, Dr. Anguis had been right.  She had chosen to be a wife.  She was born to be a mother.  So when push had come to shove, she’d made her choice.  Now the only Jack she had her life was Mr. Daniels.

She downed the glass and refilled it again.  The surge of alcohol in her bloodstream all but wiped that last errant thought out of her mind.  One existential crisis at a time, please.

 

The new mothers and fathers moving in from Alaska had duped her and wrangled her.  They’d surrounded and secluded her away from her social power base.  Her interviewing them had become them interrogating her.  Honestly, it was right out of Melissa’s old playbook; she should have seen it coming.  Had motherhood made her soft? 

 

 Then they’d gone and given themselves pats on the back on what good parents they were; not because of how well they were caring for their children, but of where they’d gotten their children from.  

 

Drink in hand, Melissa stumbled into her bedroom.  Athena’s gentle snoring over the baby monitor had become its own sort of white noise.  Melissa had been so drunk- even for Melissa- that when she’d breastfed Athena that it wasn’t surprising the little darling (no pun intended) had fallen right asleep.  Both Mommy and baby might wake up hungover tomorrow.

The backhanded compliments and full handed self-congratulatory nature of Tammy and this power clique of hers had cut Melissa more deeply than she had anticipated and wished.

“My baby used to be a prostitute,”  she mimicked in a whiny nasally voice.  “My baby was a drug mule.  Mine used to be a soldier in Uganda.”    Who cared?  What did it matter what the Reborns used to be?  They were Reborns.  The whole point was that who they used to be was erased and replaced into something beautiful and new and innocent- literally what all those goddamn evangelicals preached about made real.

 

Who cared? Deep down, Melissa knew that she cared.  Hookers and drug mules and murderers and child soldiers; none of them had lives worth living.  Being babied and loved and cared for for the rest of their natural lives was an upgrade.

Athena had been...no...Lily had been just an art history student with a ton of debt.  Her life would have been hard, living paycheck to paycheck and most likely in a field that had nothing to do with anything the girl had loved,  but it still would have been worth living if a little boring and a little stressful.  That was America, though.  That was life.

Melissa had chosen to lie to that girl, though.  Melissa had liked Lily so much as a surrogate that she’d sold that poor girl a false bill of goods on a new life and the poor girl had effectively committed suicide.  Lily had been so enthusiastic that she’d allowed herself to undergo the surgery before Melissa woke the day of the implantation.  Lily had gone into the artificial womb, and Athena had come out.   Maybe it was the booze talking, but Melissa finally regretted never getting to properly thank and say goodbye to the young woman that her baby had come from.
 

That’s why they’re still called surrogates, Melissa realized as her head hit the pillow.  Melissa was the one getting pregnant and raising baby Athena, like a mother.  But if not for Lily Chen, Athena Darling would have never been possible.  It’s just that Lily had effectively died in childbirth.
 

The new mothers had never known or met their precious foreign babies before being Reborn.  They’d only ever allowed themselves to know one side of their babies and denied themselves the knowledge.  Did that make their guilt any less?  

 

They were all murderers in this community, if not kidnappers.  It was a soft murder, but it was still murder.  She’d just been able to talk to her prey before the scalpel fell.  She still didn’t feel any better about it.  Melissa hadn’t murdered a crack whore or a thief.  She’d murdered an average girl who’d never done a bit of harm to herself or anyone.

Before she passed out, two questions flashed across Melissa Darling’s mind:  “Am I a bad mother?”  and “Am I a bad person?” 

[WBDaddy]

Melissa getting a conscience?  

Nah.  That's just the booze talking... 

[Personalias]

Chapter 13

So just how far down do you wanna go

We could talk it out over a cup of Joe

And you can look deep in my eyes

Like I was a supermodel

Uh huh

Well, it's just you and me baby

No one else we can trust

We'll say nothin' to no one

No how or we'll bust

Never crack a smile or flinch or cry

For nobody

Uh huh

 

The Refreshments; Banditos

 

This was not Daphne’s first cult.  There was a time when for two months she pretended to be a wide eyed virgin and subjected herself to sleep deprivation, back breaking labor and the sexual advances of guys old enough to be Charlie’s father.  Fucking tinfoil hat motherfuckers believed that broccoli was proof of alien life forms and that the U.S. government was covering it up.  Not coincidentally, those motherfuckers got a lot of pretty, starved girls to share their beds and work their broccoli farms.

Was all that broccoli and gross sex worth it to prove that phase two of their plan would have amounted to agrarian terrorism and sabotage?  Maybe. Though sometimes Daphne had her doubts.  The paycheck had helped like it always did.  

 

Charlie was right.  Weird shit paid more.

 

She’d been undercover in this adult baby daycare for a little over two hours and she was already missing the taste of broccoli smoothies.  Better than the bullshit baby formula she was being fed.  The taste of the stuff could be described as a lot of things, but milky wasn’t one of them.  It was maybe- maaaaaaaybe- a kind of thin yogurt, or if yoo-hoo had branched out into different flavors.  It was sweet, to be sure, but it had that kind of tacky artificial sweetness to it that neither her tongue nor her brain could quite figure out.  Kind of chalky, too.

All she knew about the stuff was that it was sold in gallon jars at the specialty supermarket, got mixed with water and ended up the color of diluted mud. There were absolutely no ingredients listed on it, either.  Considering this was stuff intended for a grown-ass woman in a diaper, it might be better if she didn’t know.  Daphne might not have been able to stomach it, otherwise.

 

The woman whose lap she was resting in held the bottle for her and cooed at her, relentlessly.  “Aren’t you a hungry girl?  Such a good eater.  Drink it all up for your daddy.  He’ll be so proud of you.”  Daddy. Charlie would be laughing his ass off if he could see this, it was a miracle he hadn’t bust a gut when checking her in.

 

He’d wheeled her in in the custom stroller, her hair tied back into a ponytail and her sunflower adult onesie all snapped up with matching yellow socks pulled up over her knees.  Charlie had insisted on dressing her, “for authenticity”.  “This is Daphne,” Charlie had told the lady at the check in.  “She’s very shy and slow to warm up, but likes to explore.”

“Can she walk?” the lady had asked.

 

“With help,” Charlie had said.  “But mostly she just crawls around on the floor.”  That seemed to be the case with a lot of the Reborns, as they were called.  Good thing Charlie and her had scouted things out at the picnic.  Most of this crop couldn’t walk, and if they could it was just barely.  Daphne had a keen enough eye to spot surgery scars on some of the crawlers.  They’d healed up well enough but nothing could fully mask that kind of thing if you knew what to look for.  It was the way they tried to stand and how they crawled as much as anything.

“How about talking?”

 

Same thing for the talking.  Daphne had binged way too much porn that she hadn’t known existed before and regretted deeply, now that she knew.  At first, that regret was because she thought she was going to have to learn to whine and talk in a nasally little ‘baby voice’ and pretend to be more sugary than Shirley Temple.  ‘Daddy, change my diapee pweeeease. I made a wettums.’  That kind of bullshit.  

 

After their scouting hammered home how few words most Reborns spoke, Daphne was steamed that she’d made herself endure all of that pointless smut.  Most of the prisoners here didn’t talk much, and when they did make noise it definitely wasn’t in any kind of cutesy voice.  Lots of thumb and paci sucking, and babbling, but nothing that could pass for actual coherent conversation.  They’d been close enough to enough of the babies and Daphne saw no signs of brain surgery or head trauma.  

 

 “A few words.” Charlie said at check-in.  “She says ‘Daddy’ and ‘baba’ and ‘num num’ and a few of her favorite toys, too. So a couple of words, but she’s not allowed to say anything else.”

 

That had gotten him a weird look. “Excuse me?”  Charlie had broken an unspoken rule with that bit about what Daphne was allowed to do.  These freaks never broke character, it seemed.  Ever.   

 

Charlie backpedaled.  “Allowed?” he said.  “I meant able.  Able.”  He gave Daphne a pat on the head.  Daphne cooed and even giggled a little bit as he tickled her under the chin.  Had to sell this.  “Just been having trouble getting this one to sleep through the night.”  Charlie let out a yawn for emphasis.

 

Charlie was a lot of things, and a damn good liar was one of them “Oh, I understand,” the lady waved off.  “Happens a lot, especially when there isn’t a mother to breastfeed.  No offense.”

 

“None taken.”

 

“Have you considered slipping a little vodka into her formula at night?  That helps a lot of little ones who don’t breastfeed.  Coconut rum mixes really well, too.” 

 

“Oh sure.  I don’t mind sharing with my pumpkin.”

Daphne had blinked long and slow to hide her eyes rolling.  So much for staying in character.

 

That had been two hours ago.  Diapers had been handed over, half a tub of formula had been checked in (the other half poured down the drain at the tiny two bedroom apartment they’d snagged to make it look like it had been well used), and Daphne had been allowed to crawl into the giant nursery.

 

The building was only one story, with the main area being a gigantic nursery playroom just past the reception desk.  From the little info Charlie’s contact/client had been able to scrape up, she’d expected this to be some kind of conditioning center or sex dungeon:  Spanking benches;  spreader bars;  pacifier gags; fuzzy handcuffs on the walls, changing tables, and cribs; enema bags, maybe; that kind of thing.

 

Instead what she’d been led into was a giant playroom made for giant babies:  Padded blankets with mobiles dangling overhead; empty shelves with scattered plastic toys nearby; piles of stuffed animals; giant walkers sans wheels with tray toys and bead mazes; a big screen T.V. showing Paw Patrol on loop; what amounted to a Mr. Potato Head graveyard with limbs and plastic noses and eyeballs barely contained by the baby gate perimeters; a story corner where a patient old woman read to wide eyed Reborns above the din; and a row of rocking chairs where people in diapers were bottle fed.  Daphne had been wheeled in ready for a sex dungeon, and had gotten a nursery instead.  The only thing that this place and a sex dugneon had a common were the one way tinted windows.

Still sucking down the formula, Daphne continued to take stock with her eyes while tuning out whatever drivel her ears were being exposed to.  It was barely controlled chaos, emphasis on the chaos more than the control.  Adults...non-diapered adults that is- were everywhere but they were clearly spread too thin.

 

One was constantly wiping down surfaces that had been touched.  Another always seemed to be changing diapers.  There were at least three whose job seemed to be saying “No, no, no, honey!  Not in your mouth!”  That had rattled Daphne.  They were like untrained dogs on a leash; a real ‘Who’s walking who?’ situation. 

 

They were acting like, well, fuck...babies, and the adults were having trouble managing a lot of them.  There wasn’t any cranial scarring, Daphne admitted, but there was more than one way to do irreversible brain damage: Like shoving someone in an enclosed space with not enough oxygen.  The real miracle is that someone would be alive after that long in an artificial womb.

 

  This wasn’t even a particularly well run  daycare.  No schedule.  No groupings.  Nothing to control the environment beyond a few minor restraints, barriers, and child proof knobs on some closed doors.  Daphne wasn’t an expert in childcare. Far from it; she just had a modicum of practicality and common sense.

 

Twice in the last two hours Daphne had witnessed those doors fail when they weren’t closed all the way, and watched one of the slavers have to chase after their charge.  Daphne already had a pretty good idea where those doors led to.  The hallways snaked left around the main play area, and there wasn’t a single changing surface or crib in the playroom.  But she’d seen people led and carried off and heard talk about a changing room and a quiet room.  They were at least doing that part ri-.

 

Her stream of consciousness was interrupted by the sound of her slurping air and an audible hollow pop when the bottle was yanked from her lips.  “Good girl,” the woman praised her. “Now give me burpees.”  Daphne would have almost preferred the dreaded push-up jumping jack hybrid to being slapped on the back until she belched enough times.

 

After the third time, she was finally allowed to slide off the stranger’s lap and crawl around on her hands and knees.  She hadn’t gotten too far when the same stranger patted her on the butt. “Still dry and clean,“ she said.  Then, with the same hand, she patted Daphne’s head.  “But that ba ba will take care of it soon enough.”   Daphne wished that Charlie had thought to pack a pacifier for her; something to hide her grimace.  Did that mean what she thought it meant?

The detective steeled herself and crawled back on playing her part.  Today’s objectives were just to gather intel and blend in.  Charlie would be doing the same with the (literally) upright citizens.  Her blending in was gonna be harder than his, she accepted.  Even if Charlie picked her up for lunch like he’d promised, a big baby with a clean diaper for four hours might stick out.  And she couldn’t say she’d seen the whole place if she hadn’t been in that changing room. 
 

Didn’t mean it didn’t disgust her.  If there was something in the bottle she’d just guzzled, it might be a blessing in disguise if something forced her dignity’s hand.

She had yet to find her primary target, Victoria Yang.  Extraction couldn’t happen if she couldn’t identify the girl.  There were only a few Asian ‘babies’ here, less than a dozen, so it was a relatively short list.  But it was hard to figure out someone’s name when the prisoners couldn’t/wouldn’t talk, and Daphne would have stood out if she’d even chanced it.  

 

The only name she’d managed to pick up was of this not-quite toothless chick named Athena, dressed up in a purple shirt, diaper cover, and matching booties. Daphne gave her a good squint, just in case, but the picture didn’t match the face.  Too thin.  Daphne just hoped that Victoria, wherever she was, had more going on in her skull than Athena did.

 

Another baby was being taken out the side doors, the woman carrying her almost as burly as Charlie had been back when he’d bothered to work out. Once more, Daphne had heard the word ‘change’ mentioned. Good. 

 

The detective didn’t need help getting past a child proof door knob, but fewer guards meant fewer eyes.  The turnaround time between changing had been longer than dropping a prisoner off for a nap. 

It seemed stupid to be risking it this early but the difference between stupid and gutsy was success.  Daphne was never stupid. That and Charlie might give her hell if she spent four hours here and still hadn’t ID’d their target.

Time for a distraction.  A few women were feeding big babies formula and cooing at them, likely as an excuse to get out of work.  The granny was still at story time, even though only two bodies were paying attention to her.  The surface wiper had her back to Daphne. 

 

Perfect.

 

Daphne found a couple of plastic blocks and fist crawled over to another rube across the room; some girl that definitely needed a change by the smell of it.  The detective had to resist the urge to hold her nose.  She looked at a man-baby boy stuck in an immobile walker, looking off into the middle distance.  She noticed a teddy bear on the floor and hefted it. Nice weight. One of the more high functioning Reborns was stacking cups, her back turned to Daphne. Those years on the intramural softball team were about to pay off.

 

Scratch. Klink-klink. Klonk.

 

In three swift motions, Daphne raked her nails over one girl’s leg, tossed a couple of blocks at the boy’s ears, and knocked down the cups with the teddy bear.  She was crawling away just as the tears and screams rumbled up from the three unsuspecting victims throats.

Rockers were being abandoned, and a chorus of “Awwww what’s wrong, honey?” mingled with confused shouts from possibly oxygen starved brains.  With grown idiots in their laps, it wasn’t nearly fast enough for Daphne to be implicated. 

This was a test of more than just security.  All of the ‘adults’ in the room had been preoccupied, but it had been impossible to account for the crawlers and droolers.  If anybody here had the capability to rat her out, now would be the time.

 

They didn’t.  Apparently, they couldn’t.  Not even so much as a finger pointed in her direction.  Damn.  That was going to make this job harder.  Daphne was in the clear, but that meant she had a lot more work ahead of her.

 

Best to get on with it.  Get out. Find Yang.  Get back in.  Rising on her knees, Daphne worked the knob and slid out the door, leaving it open behind her.  Outside the playroom, the hallway was quiet.  

 

A telephone rang behind her back towards the reception and check in area, but it was too hard to hear what the receptionist was saying.  Ahead of her, she heard the sound of tapes ripping and a woman’s deep voice cooing; likely the bruiser that could give Charlie a run for his money.  Someone was getting a diaper change.

 

Even though she could walk, Daphne stayed crawling.  All the doors had windows and crawling made for better sneaking.  Better sneaking, that is, if not for the crinkle every time her hips moved.  Out here in the hall, it was a garbage bag wrapped around her ass and a thousand pins were dropping from the sky.

 

Don’t be stupid, she told herself.  Be gutsy.  The static of the clean diaper rustling in her ears, Daphne shuffled herself through the hallway, under door windows and praying that none opened on her.

Every door had a window under it.  Every door except the one at the end of the hall. The sign on the door read “Quiet Room” and had a picture of a shushing face on it for emphasis.  This is where they were being taken for naps.  Maybe Victoria was in there.  It didn’t have a safety knob on the outside, either.  No one expected the Reborns to make it this far.

Daphne yanked the door open a crack and crawled in.  The nap room was dark, a light rainbow of lights coming up and projected on the ceiling from a kind of reverse disco ball on the floor. Soothing, really.  Gentle lullabies played from a speaker in the far corner.  It wasn’t very big compared to the playroom, but it was big enough to have over a dozen giant cribs, many filled with slumbering bodies.

 

Carefully, Daphne crawled over the clusters of caged beds looking at the occupants.  

White. White. Black. White. Latinx. White. Black. Black.

Asian.  The girl in the second to last crib was chubby and dressed in footie pajamas.  Her eyes were open and she mumbled quietly looking at the rainbow on the ceiling.  “Victoria?”  Daphne asked.  “Vicky?”  She flopped her head to the side and looked at Daphne.  The eyes seemed to register something.  Success! Good.  Girl knew her name at least. 

 

The detective felt a pinch on her leg.  “What are you doing here?” a strange voice hissed.
Daphne whirled around, looking up.  She balled her fists up and readied a swing.  This was gonna get ugly.  Above her, she saw nothing, but only because the voice was level with her face.  “Are you crazy?  You’re gonna get boostered!”

 

Daphne was dumbfounded. “Athena?!”  It was the first coherent sentence she’d heard from one of the Reborns all day. 

“Lily,” Athena whispered. There was this weird shakiness in her voice, like even she couldn’t believe what she was saying. “My name is Lily.”

[Josh23]

Love this story! Hope Daphne doesn’t get caught!

[Personalias]

1 hour ago, Josh23 said:

Love this story! Hope Daphne doesn’t get caught!

I mean...in a way, she already did.

[WriteAndLeft]

I missed this update and already I want more.

[kirababy]

wow.   what a great chapter!   could literally hear the spy music track in the back of my mind

[WriteAndLeft]

It has almost been a month.

[Personalias]

Chapter 14

Don't speak, I know just what you're sayin'
So please stop explainin'
Don't tell me 'cause it hurts
Don't speak, I know what you're thinkin'
I don't need your reasons
Don't tell me 'cause it hurts

No Doubt; "Don't Speak"


Footsteps were coming.  Shit!  “Hide!” Lily hissed to the new girl.  Lily dropped to her belly and scurried under the crib closest to the door.  New girl was smart enough to do the same.  In the half-second it took, for her to react, Lily realized something about the girl: She’d been crawling because she’d wanted to, not because she had to.  The Reborns who’d been surgically forced into crawling just weren’t that agile.  More importantly she was quicker on the uptake than the other Reborns.  Lily had seen more than one Reborn groggily claw their way up to sentience only to be boostered back down into babbling oblivion.  It was a little like watching someone come to from anesthesia...right before they were put back to sleep forever.

There was none of the crying and questioning; none of the confusion or panic.  From the moment Lily had spotted her setting up the distraction in the daycare’s playroom, Lily had known that all gears were well oiled and turning at full speed.

Hiding under the crib, the worst possible thought screeched into Lily’s mind:  What if this was all a trap?  This girl was still obviously in her right mind, not surgically altered, and if she was trying to talk to Neoborns, definitely didn’t know the score.  There was no fucking way this woman had spent three months of her life isolated inside a synthetic womb with only pseudo-uterine drugs and darkness to pass the time until she broke. 

She was faking it; possibly as a way to catch others who were faking it.  Any minute now, a grown-up would come through that door, and the girl in the sunflower onesie would make herself known, and then Lily would be dragged screaming onto a changing table or just pinned to the floor where her veins would be pumped with an overdose of the pink shit that made people lose their minds.

It was over for her.  Over.  She’d lost.

A deal’s a deal.  Those words that increasingly haunted her dreams every time she was lucky enough to remember them came back to her.  A deal’s a deal.

Lily bit down on her panic and snapped herself out of it.  This new girl was a faker, but not a plant.  The Rebirthers were crazy and sadistic, yes.  However, they were also cocky and self-assured despite all evidence to the contrary.  They wouldn’t be paranoid enough to send in sleeper agents.  They were freaks and cultists with white-savior complex, not the secret police.  Had they looked at their Reborns as anything more than mindless pets, Lily would have been caught by now.

Whoever she was, this lady was the real deal.  Another person who only had mush in her diapers instead of her skull.

The door opened wide, and from her spot underneath the crib, Lily saw four wheels of a cart roll in.  “Time for changies, little ones,” a sing-song voice called out in a kind of stage whisper.  A chorus of adult gurglings started up.  

 

The worker was Mary Beth by the sound of it.  Lily had learned all the names of the regular daycare workers, just by listening to them talk to each other.  Mary Beth wasn’t the most observant of the lot.  Good.  They might have a chance.

Lily closed her eyes and breathed quick, shallow breaths as Mary Beth went to work, going from crib to crib, lowering the rails, and changing diapers.  She’d overheard enough new-trainees this past year to have heard the routine explained right in front of her.  Every two hours, the Neoborns were checked, changed, and turned to prevent bedsores.  The cart was loaded with diapers, wipes, and a garbage pail.  No point in carrying all of them over one by one to one of the changing rooms.

Every three hours they were bottle fed and burped; but since Lily didn’t hear any suckling or sloshing, she assumed she’d lucked out.

It was a kind of torture, the waiting.  Every sound of a tape being ripped off plastic, the crinkling of a diaper being balled up and tossed away so a new one could be unfolded and put on was torture. Mary Beth cooed at and tickled every one, eliciting the giant babies echoes and protests.

“Oh, someone’s grumpy, today,” she cooed.  “It’s okay, you can get right back to sleep as soon as you’re nice and dry.”  Another one sounded happier to see her.  “I don’t remember leaving you on your tummy.  Someone’s learning how to roll over.  Yes they are!  Yes they are!  Almost ready to go join the big kids.”

During all of this, Lily strained her neck to look for the girl in the sunflower onesie.  She laid there, alert, but unbothered.  If Lily hadn’t known any better, hadn’t seen that fierce spark of awareness in her eyes, she would have thought that the girl had gone catatonic.  Lady was stone still. Statue still.  Sniper still.  It was uncanny.

 

Admiration didn’t last long.  “Hep me,” a new voice moaned. A man.  “Hep me.”  Slurred speech.  Pleash.  Hep.  He sounded confused.  Scared. 

“I’ll help you,” Mary Beth cooed.  “Right after I finish changing your diaper, okay sweetie?”  Her tone hadn’t fluctuated at all.  The poor man might as well have been babbling nonsense.

 

“Notta…” he groaned.  “Notta baby.” 

“Uh-huh.”  The sound of tapes coming undone made a vicious irony.  “Of course you aren’t, honey.  Can you tell me your name?”

“Bran...Brandon.”  The voice was gaining in both strength and panic.  “Get me out of here.  I don’t want this anymore.”

“Oh, Brandon made poopies.  Good boy, Brandon.  Your mommy will be super proud.”

“I didn’t mean to…”

“Of course you didn’t mean to.  That’s why you’re wearing a diaper.  No worries.”

“My fiance.  My girlfriend.  Is she okay?”  

 

Lily wanted to cry, she wanted to scream. “Don’t let me hear this, she screamed inside her own head. “Please don’t make me listen!”   Covering her ears, she bit down on her tongue until the iron taste of blood started filling her mouth.  Then a terrible thought:  How long had this guy been conscious?  If he kept talking, he might say he heard and saw others crawling around and talking…

 

Please...please for the love of God just make this quick.

“Of course your fiance is alright.  You don’t have to worry about her.  She’s fine.  Everything is going to be fine.”  In her heightened state of anxiety, Lily heard the dry grinding of a drawer being opened.  “Everything is going to be fine.”

“What’s that?”

 

“It’s okay,” Lily heard.  “It’s okay.  This won’t hurt a bit.  Hold still.”

 

“OW!  THE FUCK?!”

“Shhhhh…..”

“Let me out of here!  Let...the fu…?”

 

“Shhhh…It’s alright.  Just let go.”

“Fuga ugga ugga uh?”

“That’s right.  Thaaaaaat’s right. Good baby.”

 

The man who had once been Brandon quieted down as the last of his brain cells died.  If Mary Beth had gotten the dosage right, he might be crawling  around in another few weeks to two months.  If not, he might just be crib bound for the rest of his life.  Lily heard the syringe rattle around in a biohazard container.  All she could do is cover her mouth and look across the floor to the girl she had caught.  From the look in her eyes she was just starting to piece together the atrocity that had happened.  More proof that this woman wasn’t a spy...not for their side anyways.

Lily wished that Brandon had been the last to get his diaper changed.  But he wasn’t.  Mary Beth had four more Neoborns to check, change, and roll over in their cribs.  Each one she did just as casually and cheerily as she had with Brandon and the babies before him.  Pricking him with that needle and finishing off the job that had started at the Center over three months ago had been just as easy and just as casual as wiping his ass and putting him into another cartoon print diaper.  His lost adulthood and the weapon that had reaped it were forgotten by the woman like it was just another shitty nappy in the garbage.  

 

The entire ordeal; changing the adult babies who were progressing (or regressing) normally, the pit stop to destroy Brandon’s mind, and then back to business as usual, took less than fifteen minutes all told.  It was a tiny eternity for Lily.  Her Super Dry Kids was neither super, nor dry, and her bladder being atrophied wasn’t the only culprit.

 

When Mary Beth’s footsteps and the squeaking wheels of the diaper cart had faded away, the both waited a full minute before beginning to drag themselves out.  Lily had considerably more difficulty than the woman she’d tracked in here.

“What the fuck was that?” the stranger whispered.  “Is that guy dead? Drugged?  Did he just get hot shotted?”

Back in college, Lily had learned that Dante Alighieri famously wrote that on the gates of Hell were the words “Abandon All Hope, Ye Who Enter Here”.  Only now in this moment did Lily realize that it was not a condemnation, but helpful advice.  For over a year. Lily had lived without hope of rescue.  She’d endured and kept herself sane only because she’d known deep down that help was never coming for her.  She was going to be alone; stuck inside her own head and imprisoned here.  

 

Forever. 

And for the first time in over a year, Lily felt hope.  She felt hope and it broke her.

“What the hell was that?”  The woman said.  “Lily?  What’s going on? ”  She looked over to Brandon, now quietly burbling in his crib.  “What’d she do to that guy?”
 

Instead of answering, Lily started trembling.  “My name is Lily…”  She never thought she’d get to say those words ever again; not to another baby, not to an adult; not even to herself.  Sometimes, she feared that she might talk in her sleep, and the baby monitor would broadcast her mumblings out to Mrs. Darling.  It was the only reason she deigned to sleep with a pacifier; hoping it would gag her.

And the only thing Lily could do was break down and quietly bawl into the palms of her hands.  “My name is Lily” she said. “My name is Lily.  My name is...I’m...my name is Lily. Lily.”

The other girl, no...the woman, shuffled over to Lily.  Her adrenaline pumping, Lily recoiled at her presence, for some reason afraid she was going to be spanked.  Two strong and steady arms guided Lily up by the shoulders so that she was sitting back on her knees.   Tears streaking down her face, Lily could only keep saying those same words again and again.  “My name is Lily.  My name is Lily.”  All the while, her brain was screaming, desperate for recognition, starving for attention, begging for something resembling basic humanity.

The woman must’ve been a mind reader.  Lily quickly found herself in a hug, sobbing into the woman’s shoulder.   “It’s okay, honey,” she shushed.  She rubbed Lily’s back, shushing her.  “It’s okay.  It’s alright.  It’s gonna be okay.”  Lily had heard these words plenty of times in the past year; but they meant nothing coming from the people who spoke them.  This was different.  She wasn’t talking to Lily about a clean diaper, or a new bottle, or a relaxing nap. 

“Please,”  Lilly quietly begged,  “Please say my name, again.  I need to hear it.  I need to know you understand me.” 

“Lily,” the woman said.  “Your name is Lily.  Your name is Lily and I can understand you and you’re going to be alright.”

“And I’m an adult…”

 

“And you’re an adult.”

Lily was beyond words when she heard that.  She reached for her paci clip and shoved the rubber bulb in her mouth just to muffle her sobs.  For the longest minute of her life, Lily just cried into this stranger’s shoulder, trying to keep her voice down while the woman.

“Lily?” the woman whispered.  “Lily.  I’m gonna need you to regain your composure, soon.  You can still be upset, but I’m gonna need you

“Upset?” Lily whispered, her throat tightening up even as she spoke the words.  “I’ve never been so happy in my life!  Thank you!  Thank you so much!  I never thought I’d hear my...my...” Lily lost her words and just started sobbing into the other shoulder. 

The other diapered woman just hugged her tighter.  “Oh, honey.  What did they do to you?”
 

It was another minute before Lily could speak again.  She took deep breaths.  In through the nose, out through the mouth.  Out goes the bad air, in comes the good.  Out goes the pain, in comes the numbness.  Out goes the hope, in goes the survival instinct.

“We need to get out of here,” Lily sniffed.  “If they haven’t noticed us missing, they will soon.”

The lady looked at the Neoborns in their cribs.  “What about them?  Brandon and Vicky?”  The sore spot on Lily’s tongue where she’d bitten rubbed up against the roof of her mouth.  Mary Beth hadn’t mentioned Vicky by name.  How did this lady know her?
“Everybody in here is screwed.”  The cramp came.  “The ones that didn’t break in the womb get stuck with the needle.”  Lily grunted.  “If they know you’re normal, you’ll get the needle, too.  We need to go.”  Her nose wrinkled as her diaper sagged a bit more.  She pivoted on all fours and crawled for the door.

“Did you just poop yourself?”  The lady didn’t sound disgusted as much as she sounded distrubed.

Heat flushed on Lily’s cheeks and for the first time in over twelve months, Lily remembered what it was like to feel shame.  She’d known she was pooping.  It’d just been so long since anybody dressed like her cared that she did, (and even the ones who didn’t look like her only cared that they’d have another ass to wipe)

She looked back over her shoulder.  “Pee your pants,” she said.

The woman blanched. “Excuse me?” 

“Have you been changed since you got here?” Lily asked.

“No…”

“Pee your pants.  If you were really a Reborn you’d have wet your diaper by now.”

“What…?”

Lily pivoted back around.  This woman was good, but she needed to learn a few things.  Her getting caught would get Lily caught.  “You’re like...FBI or something?  You’re a spy?  Undercover cop?”

“Something like that.”

“They don’t know you’ve got a grown-up brain,” Lily said, her face blank despite the load in her pants.  “If you wanna survive, give them as few reasons as possible.  You’re going to have shit in a couple hours anyways.  That formula you were drinking is a laxative.  You have to look like the idea of holding it in didn’t even occur to you.  Because it literally doesn’t to everybody else.”

The woman looked blown away.  Still on her knees she looked down at the bulge beneath her waist beneath her onesie.  “How can you even tell?”

Stone faced, Lily looked at what might be her savior.  “This has been my life for the last thirteen months.  The closest people I have to friends all wear these things.  I know when they’re wet.” She turned back around.  “C’mon.”

Lily opened the door up just a smidge crawling through the hallway like she owned the place.  The real babies didn’t know they weren’t where they were supposed to be, why should she? She felt a pinch on her leg.  She turned around and saw the undercover cop mouth “Hold on.”  Lily watched and stared as the woman released her bladder.  She’d have to get better at that.

When the woman nodded her head, the duo began crawling again, down the halls.  The crinkling from her onesie was less pronounced.  Diaper wasn’t quite as crisp.  Good.  Might help for stealth.  They couldn’t be found too deep without rousing suspicions.  Thankfully most Rebirthers were too self-obsessed to think critically.

 

She felt another pinch on her ankle and looked back over her shoulder.  Cop lady jerked her head towards the nearest playroom entrance.  Lily just shook her head and kept crawling.  They’d already been missed at the playroom, and the caretakers wouldn’t feel good enough about themselves if Lily had successfully snuck back in.

They were going to get caught.  The pair just had to get caught on their terms. Crawling forward, Lily lead her new ally to the front, right for the receptionist desk.  The lady on duty-Michelle if Lily remembered correctly-was busy texting on her cell.  Effortlessly, Lily reached up and grabbed the little desk bell and set it on the floor.

Plopping down on her butt, Lily smashed the top of the of the bell gracelessly.  The lumpy mess spreading around barely registered thanks to the adrenaline.

DING!
 

“Heeeeeeeee! Hehehee!”  Lily clapped her hands, and threw a look towards the cop.  “Now you,” she said with her eyes more than her lips. 

Lily watched as the confused woman who clearly didn’t know just how deep she was in go glassy eyed and ding the bell.  The look of joy and shock as it dinged seeming spontaneous and genuine; as did the resulting giggle.  Okay.  Faith restored.  Lady didn’t know.

The receptionist looked over the counter at them.  “Hmmm?”  A look of recognition crossed her face.  She reached over and picked up the desk phone.  “Found ‘em,” she said.  “Athena and Daphne.  I don’t know about Carla.  They’re out here.”  So Daphne was her name, or at least her alias.  Lily would remember that.

Of all the people who could come and collect them, it was Mary Beth.  “Well hello!” she said.  Like a toddler that hadn’t quite figured out English, Lily smiled a big pumpkin tooth grin.  Daphne followed suit.  “Daphne, your daddy said you were a little explorer!  But Athena what’s gotten into you?!”  The woman’s voice was sugary, but her eyes were probing.  “Were you makin’ friends? Is that it?  Is that it?”

Time for plan P.  Lily got back on all fours and wrapped her arms around the functional adult’s thigh and nuzzled her forehead into the woman’s kneecap; giggling all the while.  Instead of copying Lily directly, Daphne rang the bell again.

DING!

Mary Beth looked down at Lily and sniffed.  “Oh ho, someone’s getting cuddly.  I know what that means!”  Lily felt the woman shift her weight so she could bend over and pull back the waistband on Lily’s diaper. “Thought so!”  The five percent of suspicion lingering in her voice dropped down to not even one.   “Were you looking for someone to change you?  Were you?  I bet you were?”

In the time that she’d been here, Lily had developed her own habits and voluntary tells to not-so-subtly communicate her needs.  One of them was that most everytime she shit herself, she’d become very affectionate and cuddly towards whoever her caregiver was.  They couldn’t help but smell the load in her pants and would change her. 

It was an open secret that this is what ‘Athena’ did when she needed changing; for messy diapers at least, Athena never minded (and Lily never pressed her luck) sitting in a wet one. But such behavior had been written off as just childish enough to not think anything of it.  Listening to the so-called mother’s talk, Riley wouldn’t barely eat anything unless it involved chocolate or cheese and Mikey would sometimes try to masturbate during diaper changes. Reborns were kids, and kids still had quirks and personalities.  ‘Athena’s’ just happened to serve a practical need, and in doing so Lily had actually managed to condition her captors ever so slightly.

 

Mary Beth sighed, gently pried Lily’s arms off her thigh and stepped over the girl so she could check Daphne’s diaper.  “You’re only a little wet, Daphne, but might as well change you too.”  Daphne didn’t even flinch.  Just like every other Reborn, she seemed largely unconcerned with what was going on between her kneecaps and belly button.

Lady was a quick study.  If Lily hadn’t seen what she’d already seen, she would have written the girl in the sunflower onesie off, too.  Daphne was the real deal. That dangerous emotion called hope started glowing to the forefront of Lily’s mind.

 

“Come on,” Mary Beth gestured, even going so far as to pat her thigh like she was beckoning a pair of dogs.  “Follow me, babies!  Follow me!”  Lily and Daphne did not confer.  They both knew not to.  They just followed the pretty smiling woman who was slowly leading them to the changing room.

Mary Beth didn’t notice Daphne checking the door after she’d closed it, but Lily did.  What Daphne should have been checking for was whatever drawer those syringes were stored in.  Lily didn’t know where they were kept, either, but this room was always high on the list of contenders.  It’s why even now, she had to swallow a lump in her throat as Mary Beth lifted her up onto the changing table.

Her cover was unsnapped, and her soiled imitation Pampers was exposed.  No chest restraint.  Lily tended not to squirm and Mary Beth tended to be lazy as far as safety was concerned.  Another small freedom earned by pretending.

As her diaper came off, she tilted her head to the side, lazily.  Daphne watched intently as Lily had her genitals cleaned and her ass wiped.  She’d long gotten used to having her diaper changed to the point where it literally didn’t bother her anymore.  The coldness of a toilet seat first thing in the morning had been replaced by baby wipes; the roaring flush replaced with the click of a pail and the soft crinkling of a fresh diaper.  To sit the porcelain throne was a decadent fantasy indeed.  Lily could barely remember what the act felt like.  She hadn’t dared ream...she might start to dream.

“You like that?”  Mary Beth cooed, slipping a fresh SDK beneath her. “You like being all clean?  You’ll really like this.”  Lily felt a jolt of panic but did not show it. She sensed, more than felt Mary Beth reach for something beneath the counter.  A needle?  Maybe…

 

Lily couldn’t see...she dared not react.   

 

“This won’t hurt a bit. Hold still.”  Fuck. This was it.  No point in resisting.  One sharp pain and then it’d all be over.  She really would be Athena.

But a deal was a deal.

She jumped a bit as chilled cornstarch baby powder was sprinkled onto her bottom.  “Chilly, huh?” The adult said as she pulled the diaper up over Lily’s hips and taped it shut.  “This’ll help keep those good smells goin’.”  The diaper cover was reapplied and buttoned, and Lily was placed safely down on the floor.

What must have been Daphne’s first diaper change since at least kindergarten was equally uneventful.  She even sucked on her thumb, appearing bored more than anything.

Once they were both cleaned, it was time for them to follow their guard back into the main nursery.  “Look who I found!” Mary Beth announced.  “These little rascals were just having a good ol’ time.  Changed them, too.”

“I found Carla, too.” Another caretaker, Kendra, said.  “No idea how she made it to the lounge.”

“Too many new kids,” yet another lamented.  “We gotta get some more room and some more staff.”

“Or at least some baby gates.”

“Was Daphne poopy?”

“No such luck.  Formula hasn’t kicked in, yet.”

“Darn.  Thought I’d dodged a bullet.”

Lily crawled away, not even needing to pretend that she didn’t care what the caretakers were talking about.  She simply counted the minutes by playing with a nearby bead maze. 

“Is literally everybody else here completely zonked out?” Daphne whispered a half hour later when the coast was clear.

“Mmmhmmm….”

“And the ones who aren’t, end up like that Brandon guy; or Vicky?”

“Mmmmhmmm…”

“And you’re the only one who knows that this isn’t normal?”

Images of Trinh flashed across Lily’s mind.  “How did you know Vicky?” Lily whispered. “Friend?”

“She’s who I was sent to save.”

An unexpected surge of anger boiled the front of Lily’s forehead.  Because of course someone sent in a rescue operation and it had nothing to do with her.  Because of course no one cared enough about Lily to notice she was missing.  “Too late.”

 

“So you’re the only one left?” 

Again, Lily thought of Trinh; a poor girl with a sadistic woman for a Mommy who knew she was playing with a full deck and enjoyed tormenting her with that knowledge.  “Yeah,” Lily said.  “Yeah.  I am.”  Lily felt guilty...but just a little guilty.

“How have you lasted this long?”

Half remembered memories of a devil in snakeskin boots: A deal is a deal.  

 

“Just lucky, I guess.”

[Cya]

Exceptional stuff right here! Truly the perfect blend of darkness, edge of your seat suspense and intrigue. I felt like Lily had lost her mind for a moment there. Shame she had to throw Trihn to the wolves, but she definitely has to think about herself first. After all, how many times has she stuck her neck out to save others?

[kirababy]

ANother chapter where i was on edge of my seat.  Wow