diaper dimension Convergence - Epilogue 02/10/2025 (Finished)

[Operational Systems]

Chapter 21: Come on, baby, play me something, like "Here Comes the Sun."

 

16 Floréal Year CCXXIV, Potat, South Windland, Libertalia - Amazonia

 

It was not comparative government, or political science.  It was not world history, or state history, or Libertalian history.  It was not current events or global politics.  The course did not focus on the littles or where they came from, or the Amazons and where they were going.  It was Social Studies.  It was not a course for people who wanted to be taken seriously.

 

It was also mandatory for the ones under seven feet tall.  It was Benjamin's first year teaching, and he had listened to his advisor, who told him that if he got the certificate for teaching littles, it would help him in finding a position in the university system.  He had to go down a couple tiers before he found a job, but he got a foot in, and here he was.  Bottom of the bottom.  The least valuable member of the department and given the worst class to teach.  He did not write his own syllabus or choose the textbook.  The tests were pre-made, and he even had to reuse the same projector sheets.  The only part he had to bring that was himself was this, here at the end of the semester, the class presentation.

 

Dorothy Ostrom had dressed up for this.  If dressing up meant ruffles.  Her dress ended just below the knee and was white with small red flowers.  It was slightly too big on her arms, puffy and engulfing her.  She had minimized the features of her face with makeup and let down her hair.  She had worn bar shoes and let them click and clack a bit as she read from her paper, moving her legs back and forth.

Benjamin had been warned this could happen.  Littles might try to get a better grade by leaning into a certain image.  Put Dorothy in a diaper, give her a parasol, and she could put on a dance number in a beauty pageant.  It was touching, she had gone all out for him, and also a bit disturbing littles could be manipulative in this dark way.

 

“Adoption expands the colonial mindset of the Amazons into the realm of sex.  With the liberation of Amazon women in the workforce, the patriarchy is left with no alternative but to venture into new space.  The existential crisis of the bigs in their ongoing fertility crisis manifests as a desire to control the last remaining areas of human fecundity.  With the collapse of their own nuclear units, these men must instead venture into new realms to maintain their authority.  Put simply, if the bigs can't have children then no one else can.  Littles, and their vibrant sexuality undermines the idea of big supremacy.  It symbolizes that someone smaller than them could be even more adult in the way they never will be.  We fertile youths must be conquered and strapped into a diaper.  This calls for radical action.  We must decol...”

 

Her eyes stopped.  She had been wiggling with her legs all morning.  To Ben the disruption did not matter, everyone was getting an A in the class regardless.  The class was just a participation trophy, and the littles knew it.  Her dumb speech about feminist intersectional little liberation was the kind of junk food all the babies wanted school to be.  They were seniors, let them have some naughty fun.  Here she was now, vomiting out a combination of words and sounds, like a newborn struggling with learning language, mimicking without understanding bigger thoughts.  Nothing the lady said mattered.

 

The look on her face was off, she flashed her white gritting teeth.  She tried to begin again, bending over her stomach slightly before standing up, “We must decolonize...”

 

Her mouth became a frown.  Her eyebrows went up.  There was a loud splurt.  It was not a fart, gals did not fart in public, but it was definitely audible.

 

“I uh...”  She looked at the paper, then at Benjamin, then the paper again.  He did not say anything.  He stared at her, making no change of demeanor.  The class was silent for a few seconds.

 

Cannon popped up his head from his small desk and made the only remark.  “Looks like someone de-COLON-ized her pants.”  He laughed annoyingly, slightly too high.  Axel, his neighbor, put up his hand in a high five, which was slapped by Cannon.  They both had sharp white tee shirts and long khaki shorts.  Cannon had worn sunglasses to class, wearing them inside and placing them in his shirt pocket when the class started.  They were still visible.  Even from the back of class, Benjamin could see the dark reflection of Dorothy, as Cannon turned to brag at his sick burn of a ridicule.

 

“I uh... think I'm done.”  Her face was red, she did not move.

 

Benjamin moved the full length of his body from the back of the class to his desk, taking him only seconds to reach it.  Everyone was silent.  Dorothy was a statue.  He opened the pen drawer and then closed it, not finding what he was looking for.  He checked the bottom left drawer of the desk, flipped through some folders, and then pulled a small flip book of thin white papers out.

 

The slips.  They were seniors.  They had seen the slips before.  Dozens of times.  This was supposed to be an easy capstone class, a freebie for the littles.  Now Dorothy was done.  She had been an adult less than four years and she was going back.  The only sound was a sharp pen writing on the paperwork.

 

He walked back to the front, putting hands on Dorothy's shoulder, a gentle reassuring pat, and then moved past her to Cannon.  He put the slip on the boy's desk.  Cannon looked down at the paper.

 

Proof of Immaturity: Failure to respect the dignity of fellow man, gaining enjoyment at her suffering, while also working to enhance it by sharing the misery with fellow classmates.

 

The letters were big and bold, made by a hand twice as large as Cannon's own handwriting.  Depending on how the next few hours went, this might be the last time Cannon would read anything ever again.  For the first time in his life someone had written something about him, a review of his own performance that drilled into the heart of who he was, and it would be in his obituary.  Cannon became aware of his own failure, a small lapse of judgment at a point in his life when he was himself at his worst, and a giant had seen it.  He did not move from the chair.  Benjamin dropped a second paper on Axel's desk.

 

“Why?” Axel barely mumbled.  They knew.  They had tried to shame another, but they did not have the right to do that.  Only the Amazons were allowed to bring a little down.

 

“Go to the Vee-aRr's office.  Look him in the eyes and explain what you did and why you deserve to still be here.  He might be feeling magnanimous today.”   Anouilh had a soft spot for the small ones, he would probably laugh at what Ben wrote.  “Oh, and this will be on your records, if you fail to go there in a timely manner, I shouldn't have to explain what happens.”  He stood back and motioned with his arms for the two to stand up.  “Out you go, this classroom is for the big kids, you're not allowed to be here.”

 

The two men exited the room their heads down, just looking at the white slip.

 

Dorothy had watched the whole exchange.  Her slip would be next.  Her shaking led to drippings falling down her leg.  The lump in her bottom was hanging between the cheeks, unable to get into the pants, but unable to be pulled and removed.  She desperately needed to wipe.  She needed to feel clean.  She needed to die.

 

Benjamin turned to her and quietly, “Stay here a second.  Just stand there, you're doing good.”  He took her paper from her hand, her wet palms had started crunching it, and he smoothed it out, setting it on the desk.  He stood to his full one hundred twenty-four inches and addressed the class.

 

“I'm going to let you in on a secret, since you're all in your final year.  The school expects, though I'm not required, but expects about three of these to go out a semester.  I was prepared this morning to go and make the case you're all grownups, that I had gotten lucky with a real mature bunch.  The truth is I've just been going too easy on you guys.  So...”  He flipped through the slip book.  “Everyone understands why I gave them their slips right?”

 

Nothing.  No words.  Fear.  Terror.  This class had been fun, laid back, not a real exploration of the social condition.  Benjamin had been a cool young new professor who just wanted to be liked.  Almost a small one like them.  Now he was an enormity and a curmudgeon, beyond the need for their respect or opinion.  As he spoke the course's plastic projector sheets on his desk aged into a yellow tan.

 

“Hmm, I thought I had taught you guys something this semester.  You are all in this together.  We are all in this together.  You need to work together, help each other, take care of each other, and move past your weaknesses if you want to survive and thrive in this world.  Axel and Cannon still need some time to learn that lesson, maybe even direct attention appropriate to their current level of development.”

 

Nothing, no response.  Not a cough.  Chairs squeaked and another drip from Dorothy's dress hit the tile floor.

 

“Pop quiz then.  This is the only grade you will get this semester.  This one question.  I'm going to go through you one at a time.  See if you actually learned the important lessons in your previous twenty-two years.  How many of you were aware Dorothy had a problem?  Well, the signs are not always obvious, I understand, many of you just want to turn your head and look away.  You need to stop that.  We taught you to look at the world like we do, so look at her.  This is your question: What could you have done differently to help her?”

 

He pointed to a young man with glasses, first row, the head and body jumping back like hit with a gust of wind.  The big was asking him to think in a world that did not respect his thinking.  He was now responsible for his own life.  Failing this class might destroy his chance of getting a degree.

 

“I could have told her to dress differently.  I saw her this morning and thought it was funny, and I could have told her to go back and think about what she's doing.”  Benjamin shrugged and pointed to the next one in line, a gal with long red hair.

“I, uh... I work in the media lab and there's a new documentary out spreading in the little student circles, but we found a bunch of hypnotics and the disc isn't properly labeled.  I could have told them, but I didn't because I didn't want the Amazons to know how I found out.”  Yes, Dorothy was an activist, in a half dozen student little rights organizations.  She might not have been cautious, possibly even made herself a target.

 

And the next student, “I saw her looking at the diapers in the campus store.  Just pause and stare for like twenty seconds.  You don't do that.  You just move past it without looking.  I should have told her to go home, just get to her parents and leave campus.  She wasn't right in the head.  A degree isn't worth enslavement.”

 

On and on the littles went.  Talking about what they knew, and how they failed to intervene.  Each of them could have saved her.  Dorothy just had to stand there, waiting, small drips oozing down her legs, the lump slowly making its way into her panties with a rancid smell making its first appearance to the class.

 

Benjamin finished with the last student and went to the front to address them.   “I'm sorry.  There was a correct answer to this question, and those weren't the ones I was looking for.  I am going to have to fail the entire...”

The whole class would have broken out crying if they were not adults who had already experienced a lifetime of abuse.  Failing Social Studies was a death sentence.  A clear sign they were not smart enough for the world, and unworthy of a degree.  No one failed Social Studies.  They would be lucky if they could retake the course again next spring, but that was unlikely to be the case.  The department heads would see they had failed on an easy general ed requirement, that they were not going to graduate, and quickly dump them.  Maybe they could get a degree in Child Development, if they hurried and switched majors before the semester ended.  More likely they would have to go out into the world having wasted four years of their lives with no certificate to show for the hard work and learning they had done.  No one valued what they knew, because most of that would be irrelevant in their jobs and life to come.  The world only valued the paper.

 

Ben was a first-year teacher, the staff would praise him for his ingenuity.  He had gotten an entire class of littles to believe they had made it to the finish line, that they were going to enter the adult world, and now they were worse off than their peers of the same age-peers who had stayed home and got a real job.  Worse than high school graduates, they had tried at a kind of greatness and failed.  The bigs always got to have their cake and eat it too.  A sniffle, some tight breathing, and a cough were the only noises in the room.

 

“Stop.”  It was a hoarse whisper, but she was already at the center of the attention for the entire class.  All the young faces and Ben turned to Dorothy.

 

Benjamin went to shut her down, “I'm not sure what a baby has to say anyone here cares to hear.”

 

“Until you kick me out of this class, I'm still a student here, and I haven't finished my presentation.  For now, I'm still an adult, I'm just having the worst day of my life.  You didn't ask me.  I'm here, ask me what I could have done.”  She had morphed, as if taller than Ben despite being just over half his height.  She was immune to anything he could do to her; she had already crossed a point of no return.

 

Ben interest exceeded his impatience, “Go.  You still have the floor.”  Another drip barely avoided her shoes, darkening the tile with a splash.

 

“You said you need to give out three slips.  You've given out two.  Give me the third and spare the rest of them.  We're all in this together, take me instead of them, and let them go on with their lives.”

 

He had never heard a little say something that mature.  Not even in a movie.  She was willing to sacrifice herself to save the others.  It shook him out of the funk Axel and Cannon had put him into.  “Everyone out.  Now!  Class is over.” Twenty littles stood up in coordinated fashion, soldiers obeying a drill sergeant.

 

Manners and sense returned to Ben next, “Please, thank Dorothy for a lovely presentation, I'll put your final scores in the system tonight.  I hope to see all of you at the graduation ceremony next week.”

 

It was not her intelligence, her wits, her charisma, or her strength that mattered.  She stood up to the big.  Giving herself up to save them.  Each little hugged her without words, and then left the room.  They would pick up some of the stench of feces, it would linger on their clothes and skin for hours and in their minds for weeks.  It was the real smell of freedom, sometimes putrid, grotesque, and earned through the sacrifice of others.

 

Benjamin went to his desk and laid out the changing mat, and the classroom supplied diaper and cleaning material.  He carefully made space and brought the girl over.  It was not his first time changing a little, but it was his first time doing it in the workplace.  He threw the browned formerly white panties in the nearly empty trash next to the desk, the wet distraction joining sticky notes and chewed gum.  He pushed her copy of her presentation off the ledge of the desk, and it joined the rest of the trash.

 

Sitting on the desk, he could lower himself down slightly and see her directly face to face.  She had too much of her senses.

 

“You didn't see any documentary, did you?”  Benjamin guessed.

 

“No.”  She whispered it, looking down.  She could not face him.

 

“Dorothy, this is your last time you will have a conversation as an adult.  Why did you choose that topic for your speech?”

 

“I wanted, I felt it was something people needed to hear.”  The heaviness of her decision, of the unknown future was dragging her down.  Removing the facades of ego and self that divided her from the truth.

 

“Did they need to hear it, or did you just want to be naughty and talk about sex in a way adults can get away with?  Maybe blame others for being the real perverts, while giggling on the inside.  That lets you have your cake and eat it too.  Pretending to have a strong big girl thought, but in reality, you wanted to go on easy mode where you're inventing new rules and accusing others of feelings they don't have.  That doesn't seem like a good use of your time in my opinion.  You could have used your mind for anything, not inventing imagined motivations for powers you don't understand.”

 

“It seemed real when I wrote it,” Dorothy's defense of herself was weak.

 

“Wanting things to be true doesn't make it true.  You could just ask a big if it's about sex.  I can tell you; this is not sexy.”  He pointed to the trash can.  “You could have done so much in your life, accomplished something real, and instead look where we are.”

 

She wanted to cry, but there were no tears.  She sniffled a bit.

 

“Let's say you had done it.  You finish your degree, well, what skills do you have to contribute to society?  You know how to yell at big people to stop taking your pants away.  That's not useful, so now you have to go grad school, get another chance to learn a real skill to improve yourself.  You go to your dissertation, it's a room filled with men twice your height and they hear you talking about how they all want to take your sexiness away because they're infertile perverts.  As if you are the one with some precious resource we just need to get at.  How high minded of an opinion do you have of yourself to think that what comes out of you down below is like diamonds and oil instead of lumps of coal?”

 

“I don't know.  I don't know what the end game was.  I just assumed people would listen to me if it sounded smart and my speech was wrapped up with enough big kid words and used a rational that was clever and required some thought to defeat the logic of.  Maybe they would let me get away with it because it would seem fresh even if it doesn't make sense.”  She had not been prepared to defend her ideas with another grown-up.  She assumed no one would listen to her.  The moment any challenge emerged at all she acted like a toddler with a hand caught in the cookie jar.

 

“What if you were right?  Huh?  What if you were one hundred percent right?  Do you think those men would let you get away with it then?  Just go, 'yep you figured it all out, here's your doctorate.  You get to join us in colonizing others.  Your only hope, the only one, is that you were dead wrong about everything, and they let you pretend to be a grown up, because if you're even the slightest bit right about this, they would shut you down and diaper you on the spot.”

 

Her diaper rustled a little and she leaned back a bit on the changing mat.

 

Benjamin sighed, “It feels like you saw the writing on the wall and realized this was the best it'd ever get.  It's like you set this whole thing up because you want me to adopt you.”  He said it just above sarcasm, incredulous to the possibility.

 

Her eyes dodged to the side.  Then to him, and then to the side again.  She turned her head; she was done with her last adult conversation.

 

“Oh my God, that is true, isn't it.  The young hot new professor and you're … you're... whatever you guys do.”  He backed up, “I don't want this.  You purposely pooped your pants in front of everyone because you wanted to force me to be your dad.  No!  I refuse.”

 

She was not aware Amazons could do that.  She thought she knew everything about adoption, joining all the little groups, learning a long list of things to not do, rules she deliberately broke today.  The bigs need the smalls, they cannot say no.

 

“Now what?”  Her plan had failed.  He had seen through her.  She thought she was smart enough to do family planning on her own, but she was not.

 

He folded the slip and gave it to Dorothy, then picked her up in his arms, her face digging into his shoulder.  “Dorothy, do you want to do something real with your life?  Something to make your life actually have meaning and accomplishment.  Something more than” his other hand grabbed the trash bag, and he pulled it up with his other hand.  “More than this?”

 

It was what they had offered her when she started college.  A chance to be something more than just an adult, someone with an education, someone who can do things.  Was he going to give her another chance?  Let her graduate?  A strange hope swelled in her.  If he was not going to adopt her, it did not make sense to turn her into a baby.

 

“Yes.”

 

Through the campus they walked, only stopping to toss the trash as they went.  He carried her closely under his arms, taking her down and towards the main street that ran along the University.  They weren't going to the rector's office, which was in the other direction from the history building.  She knew there was a parking lot this way, so maybe she was going to go home with her new daddy.  Benjamin would not give her a hint of what was happening.  Instead, he took her past the cars and down the hills, until they came to a small stubby building.

 

She had never been here, not in four years.  This was not Hilltop.  She tried to turn and look at the building sign, but Benjamin's large body obscured everything.  She could only see behind him to the closing doors.  Bland white halls echoed their sounds as they walked along old tiles layered in black and white like a chessboard.

 

Benjamin turned down a hallway, she dug in closer to him, not wanting to see her doom.  Was there something else a little could be other than adopted?  She could tell they were descending, going deeper into the ground, beneath the college.  None of her little groups had ever talked about this place.  He opened a door to some subterranean room, and flipped on the lights, blinding her.  In the time it took for her eyes to adjust, Benjamin put her padded bottom on a long wooden bench, fifteen feet long and four and a half feet off the ground.  The room was cavernous in its height and size, easily twenty-five feet from ground to arched ceilings.

 

It dwarfed her, a wooden contraption seventeen feet long, built to a height of seven feet off the ground.  She could not see past it or over it.  Black painted wood, its polished shine distorted her and Benjamin's reflection.  Before her hands were eighty-eight segmented pieces of basswood, with a thin layer of ivory above each one.  Each segment had been carved two inches thick and was a foot long.  As Benjamin finally released her, her crinkled underside adjusting on the smooth chair was the only noise of the empty room.

 

“Just do what feels right, and someone will be here shortly.”  He left her without another word by closing the heavy door to the room.  She would not be able to escape.  The keys taunted her, like the mouth of a giant, laughing at her with logic and words that were impossible to understand.

 

* * *

 

Abby Baum knew it was a mistake to come back this semester.  She was in her office, papers cluttered her desk and a florescent bulb above her flickered.  In her hands was a picture frame from early in her son's adoption, his bald smiling face and chubby tummy in thick diapers, looking up at her.  Her hair had not grayed yet, and she had not needed glasses.  Every morning, he was there for her, blushing cheeks like the rising sun, giving her the loving push to start her day.  Every evening, no matter how difficult and stressful work was, he was there, ready to hug her and tell her he loved her, as if she was responsible for bringing him the stars and the moon.

 

It began with slurring some words.  He did not want to play with the pegos.  Toys with moving parts were frustrating to him.  He would not even try to solve the Tower of Hanoink, which used to be his favorite.

 

The doctors had said he had fallen down a plateau and would be fine once he leveled out.  Instead, he got worse.  He had started at three, then he was two, then one, and finally six months.  He could not walk, and then, he could not crawl, at the end he could not turn or lift his head.

 

She got a friend in the Physiology department to do a full holographic scan of his brain.  Travis had strange plaque buildup, mostly around the hippocampus.  The researchers swore they had never seen it before and certainly no one knew how to cure it.

 

Abby did not like that answer, and she knew a disease with these symptoms would be misdiagnosed as maturosis.  If it happened before an adoption, the little would quickly find themselves in diapers.  For the others, many littles are often forced to pretend to be newborns.  It would be impossible to know the difference.

 

She had no idea how common the condition was, it became a foot note in the medical journals.  Something 'old' littles got if they spent too much time without a mommy or daddy to care for them.  For all she knew, it could be an invisible epidemic plaguing millions.

 

Her chest was hurting as she touched the frame, fingers slowly moving down the glass.  His feeding instinct was one of the last things to go, but eventually, Travis forgot how to eat.  She had taken a month off, but it was not enough.  Now at the end of the semester she was certain she would not come back in the Fall.  The world had gone from blue and sunshine days to stormy clouds and black skies.  Not even music, once the passion of her life, could soothe the loss.  Everything reminded her of her lost son.

 

Brrrr.  Even that note, Travis used to love pretending to play the piano at home.  He even had a small keyboard that lit up and played recordings of his favorite songs, and played with it long after he stopped remembering how to make the songs himself.

Blaaang.  Brr Bing Blaang.  Slurrr.

 

Someone was in the instrument room.  The semester is over, no one should be here.  She composed herself, standing up, wiping her wet face, and returning her glasses to her eyes.  The cleaning crew was touching the piano, they knew not to do that.  She would bring herself tall and furious, she needed anger to bring those careless men down to size so they would know to never mess with the instruments ever again.  Duty and fury cleared her head momentarily of sadness.

 

As she approached the heavy concert door, the noises grew in sound.  Dur-Dee-Dum-Del-Del-Dum-Dee-Dur.  Her eyes needed a second to adjust as she entered the bright room.

 

The piano was positioned alone in the concert hall, a hundred parents in darkened faces watching her performance.  Delicate hands made their way through pieces of Bach and Mozart.  Her ruffled white dress hid her, making the young pianist invisible despite the hot yellow sulfur lights and sole prominence in the center of the stage.  There was only the music, and then a grand finish that continued to echo until muffled by the applause.  The clapping was like a sonic boom, two hundred hands smacking themselves with the force of titans spanking a baby.  The girl struggled a bit to get out of the stool, her diaper visible to the world as she picked up her dress and hopped down and bowed.

 

Abby shook her head, a memory of the past, or a vision of the future.  She had seen Dorothy, not as she was but as she could be.  For the first time in a month the sun had come out again.

 

The toddler stopped playing, every part of her body shook.  She thought being a little just meant daycare and diapers, but perhaps it was much more than she imagined.  She had entered a new world.  This had been a test, to see how long she could go without touching grown-up things, and she had failed.  She would be spanked.  Her first day as a child again and she was going to be punished for failing to be responsible.

 

Abby came over next to the girl and sat down on the bench with her, “Hello.  I wasn't expecting one of you here.  Are you lost?”

 

“I was supposed to go to the rector and turn in this slip and I ended up here instead, and I don't know what I'm doing.”  She handed the folded paper to the giant, who carefully unfolded it.

 

Proof of Immaturity: Dorothy wants to be adopted by a loving mommy or daddy.

 

“Dorothy, have you ever played the piano before?”

 

She shook her head.

 

“Why don't we teach you a song then, just one before we go and see the rector.  Go ahead and put your fingers on 'eFf and Dee’” She took Dorothy's tiny hands and carefully guided the fingers to the correct keys.  “Just press the keys down, it'll take a bit of force.  You'll push these six times, and move to the adjacent ones like this, for another six.  And when you get your part down, I can play the other part of the waltz on my side.”

[Operational Systems]

I like the regression in this chapter, it's kind of just a play on words, which is stupid and I love it.  Naomi calling Oliver out with the BBQ Mac and Cheese.  Also putting in the bad history with the potato.  Plus it helps to show how Oliver's job kind of sucks.

The chapter was a turning point.  I originally had been considering a dark ending of the book where Earth liberates the littles, only to have them come out of their shells and turn into Nitz super beings and take over Earth from within.  You can see a little bit of that foreshadowed with Collin's rant.  I do like this chapter gave me an opportunity to still explore some of these ideas, but ultimately the artistic themes of the book are inconsistent with such a bleak ending.  There's also some deeper questions the book is exploring with 'who' the bad guys really are.

I also love how it showcases how Naomi, Oliver, and Grace think differently about the world, and how their biases cause each of them to jump to a different conclusion from the same limited evidence.  Which one is right?  ╮(╯-╰)╭.

Later this week I have some ideas to help boost engagement, mostly just questions about the book that maybe readers can win prizes from?  I haven't thought out what that might be.  If you guys have any questions, concerns, or suggestions, please let me know.  Now, please Enjoy Chapter 22.

Chapter 22: Putting off getting in line, putting off knowing my place.

 

May 11th, 2023, Templeton, California - Earth

 

He thought he had kept a stress ball in his desk, but he could not find it.  Instead, Oliver found himself twirling a pen in his hand as he made his way through e-mails, expense reports, and excel documents for budgets.  His desk was too large, built for practicality rather than appearance.  His office was too small, a holdover from when he was still with a cane and needed to be closer to the ground floor, rather than with the rest of his department on the above floors.  Air conditioning was set to an uncomfortable cold, as the late spring night had continued to bring in storms and moisture and kept away the hotter temperatures until the afternoon.  He wished he could open his window, but the building had been designed against allowing such comforts or control.

 

Naomi knocked twice on the open door before entering.  She had gotten her hair trimmed short, and was now in a business casual outfit, a far difference from yesterday's white scientist's overcoat.  The knocking caused Oliver to mess up a twirl and lose his pen, he then waved her in.

 

“It worked Naomi.  Six.  Can you believe it?  I need to come up with ideas for tomorrow when I'm nine.  What are things nine-year-olds do?  Just play Fortnite all day?”

 

“I'm glad you're having fun, what about the mission, what do we know now we didn't know yesterday.”

 

That brought Oliver back to Earth, “Uh..., well, did you know you can add barbeque rub to mac and cheese?  It elevates the dish to something magical.”

 

Naomi paused halfway to his desk, turned her head slightly while placing a hand on her hip, “Yes, Oliver, I did know that.  Did our friend from another dimension teach you anything else?  Maybe some new way to cook collard greens?  Or perhaps he has some opinion on watermelons?”

 

Oliver frowned, taking the abuse, “Yeah, I kind of deserve that.  But, no, actually I did learn a couple things.  The littles are the source of the tech.”

 

Naomi came closer and slightly leaned on the chair opposing Oliver's desk but kept a mostly straight posture.  “Littles?”

 

“The maybe Nitzkies.  I don't think he knows why they came though, or why they abandoned the world”, he got softer, “or why they're all babies now.  I do know the Amazons are keeping them like that, if they have a choice in the matter.”  Oliver turned away, unsure of how to address the real issue that was bothering him.  He just decided to say it.

 

“It's him.  That's the worst part.  It's him but he's been turned into a monster.”

 

“Oliver, it's not him.  Your friend was born on Earth, Mr. Young was born on another planet.  It's just a coincidence they look and sound the same.”  Naomi's reassurance was not helping Oliver's demeanor.

 

“You ever get a visit from your twin on Terra?  Or a letter?”  Oliver asked, it was something many millennials had experienced in the nineties in the first few years after Terra's contact with Earth.

 

Naomi recounted the visit, “She was old, and I was maybe in kindergarten.  I remember her coming in a wheelchair, being pushed by her grandson.  She gave me the candy and the letter and the usual convergence basket.  I think she was some big wig on Terra... guess so since she made the trip personally. We talked for a bit, and in the end, she said, 'Don't base your life on what I did, go and be your own person.  Don't chase the same love, don't chase the same career.  Do what makes you happy.'”

 

“I never met my twin.  Not a letter or a candy basket.  Not even a black letter for dad.  I did meet my alternate timeline son though.”  He swiveled a bit in the chair, that was not much of an accomplishment.

 

“You never said you had family on Terra.  How'd that go?”

 

“I … it was after I was rescued, and I was still in a Terran hospital when he visited.  He said he was glad his dad hadn't lived to see what I had done.  Took one look at my condition, and then said, he hoped the radiation did enough so he would never be born from me either.”

 

“I'm sorry,” She shifted gears, “you know if Benjamin's an issue, we can have someone else...”

 

“I have to do this.  Besides, it's going well.  Naomi, why'd you stop in? What did you actually need?”

 

“State's coming for the round table session this morning.  Carol Menger.”

 

Oliver slumped in his chair.  State did not technically have power over I.E.D.R, but could make their displeasure known to the President, who did.  If State was here it meant the council had business with Earth.

 

“And your boss is coming after lunch.”  Oliver looked at his calendar and saw it again.  That meeting was today.

 

“When's the part where I do my real job, Naomi?”

 

“That won't start until you get home tonight and convince the big mean giant that we're nice little hobbits and not toddlers.”  Naomi teased him before turning to leave.  She got to the door when Oliver stopped her.

 

“Naomi, you said you're not following in your other's footsteps, that you are insisting on being a different person and living your own life, right?”

“Yep.  I've broken the chains of destiny, and I'm my own woman, no one else in the multiverse is like me.”  Naomi even did a push with her thumb towards her chest as she said it.

 

“What does your grandson think of that?” Oliver threw a spear towards her heart.  He did not intend to be cruel, it was just the only thing he could think about.

 

“Huh?”  Naomi was unsure where Oliver was going.

 

“The one who will never be born now, what's he thinks of the fact he will never get to meet himself.”

 

Naomi shook her head and left, leaving the question unanswered.

 

* * *

 

The second meeting of the day would be in the large conference room.  The table could easily fit two dozen employees, its center loaded with permanent technological accoutrements for presentations or communication.  Besides a large display on one wall, the rest of the room was adorned with pictures of various sites across the multiverse.  Oliver led Carol in and directed her to a spot near the end of the table, opposite the display typically used for video calls and power points, her chair a simple but tall black office chair.  Behind her was a framed picture of the council chambers, located on Verdant, the dozen chairs in a long semi-circle table.  At the distance the picture was taken, the ambassadors were just a blur of clothing colors and skin tones next to barely visible flags.  After seating Carol, Oliver went and sat at the end, his own seat dwarfed by Earth's crowning achievement – Neil Armstrong bouncing down the lunar lander.

 

“Just a short meeting today with the Earth based team leads.  Grace is still recovering from her maternity leave, so we haven't done as much off world stuff as we normally do.  I did half the traveling this month, so there is not much point in going over those trips.  Naomi is ramping up for the summer intern program, we actually have some big ideas for it and will need more volunteers.  If it were the start of the month, we normally get some remote check-ins.  The last week of the month we would be planning rotations.  So, this is kind of a good week for you to be here.  We'll have you go last, that way the others don't feel rushed.”

 

Carol had been politely listening, but her head jumped a bit when Oliver mentioned internships.  The woman had a professional look, light brown hair that ended middle neck, and a blue open coat with a red blouse.  There was not anything remarkable about her appearance, but she put in effort, with a comely fragrance, and simple makeup.  The hair had a soft shine and she did not have any signs of wrinkles or graying despite entering her middle forties.   Carol elected to engage Oliver in small talk, “How does one get selected for an internship?”

 

Oliver explained it, “It's outsourced to the universities, they filter who they think will be ideal candidates and we just do some additional background checks to make sure they fit our needs.  We only take the 'best of the best of the best.'   Honestly, all we need is an eye-Queue test, plus someone with strong preference for conformity, and that's basically what the colleges filter for these days.  Smart but obedient, but early enough in their career you can dump a load on them without them being wiser to it.  We're not trying to mold the future; we just want to get work done for cheap.  The multiverse is filled with lots of crap jobs that still require a dedicated and focused mind.”

 

“Not like something anyone can volunteer for or be recommended to.” She hid her disappointment.

 

“Precisely, we have a brand, many of them will go on onto nice positions in business and government and we want them to have some loyalty, know we helped them get in the ground floor.”  Oliver confirmed her assessment.  As he did so, Naomi and Grace entered the room.  Oliver introduced the two to Miss Menger, and the ladies found spots around the table.  In total five more employees found their way to the room in time for the weekly meeting.  There was a brief period of talking about Grace's new child and personal events before Oliver started the meeting.

 

“Miguel, why don't you go first with what's going on with media and entertainment.” Oliver directed to the young man to his right.

 

Miguel pushed himself up in his seat, he was in his late twenties and wore a simple white polo shirt.  He was a little plump and had large glasses under thin black hair.  He rearranged his papers in front of himself, and held up one to read from, “Following up on the 'Everything' movie, in the past two years we have exported the movie to about five hundred near-Earths.  It was nominated for best picture in over four hundred of them.”

 

Oliver nodded, “I liked that movie, it has Short Round in it.  From 'Temple of Doom'.”  He looked at Carol to see if there was any reaction.  She seemed bored.  She, Oliver, and Naomi were the only three people at the table old enough to remember a time when Indiana Jones was good.

 

Miguel continued, “That should be sufficient for meeting our obligation to anti-dee-tech propaganda for a while.”  He looked at Carol, “Council should be pleased.  It's a good thing this one was successful, as we over saturated things after the last Nitz campaign.”

 

No one knew how deep the Nitz incursion had been, only knowing where they had been at their most ambitious.  The council decided to ramp the media campaign up on the 'clean' worlds, just in case the hordes had started a few side projects.

 

Miguel shifted topics, “Onto the other project, uh, um, 'Danger Zone', I think you labeled it Mr. Swift.”

 

Oliver nodded, and Miguel went into detail, “Mr. Cruise agreed to come in to help with some of the shots, it was about two days of work total.  The host nation appears genuinely happy with the Cee-Gee-eye we've been shipping them.  I think they'll get a finished movie in the next year.”

 

Oliver turned to Carol and explained, “We have an exchange going on.  There's a planet with a limited entertainment industry.  We showed the 'America' analogue our 'Top Gun' and they wanted that for themselves.  We've been helping with some of the production.  They have some cool tech, but they don't have a century of special effects expertise to back it up.  Kind of a fun project actually.”

 

The woman from State turned to Oliver, “And what do we get from this?”  She wasn't accusing, Earth wasn't running a charity business.

 

“They haven't had World War Two yet.”  Oliver wasn't sure if she was high enough clearance to know the project.

 

“Then we're not supposed to interfere.”  Probably not then, if she gave the standard line.

 

“Keyword – yet, Earth just wants to lay some groundwork, so things go easier if the balloon goes up,” Oliver danced around the point, “Miguel, good work on this.  Did the host planet say anything about compensation for the video production?  Not that we need it, but we want them to think we're doing this for money, and not our own reasons.”

 

“They've given us ten million in their monopoly money.  In real dollars this has cost about five million, but a lot of shots from the last Top Gun were readily available, and we were able to work with a lot of the same teams here on Earth, who had a bunch more unused footage.  In all, a cheap project given the high expected value.”

 

Miguel went over some other projects, and Oliver made notes to update the internal accounts when he got back to his office.

 

Oliver then stood up to give his presentation, “Off world travel this past month is down, so we'll consolidate those reports next week.  I'll briefly go over my own travels.  I made a few trips to,” He looked at Carol and picked the word carefully, “Blefuscu, and it's just as dangerous as it's ever been.  There is strong evidence of inflation, and according to our econometricians on the third floor, they believe the enslavement rate has increased two percent in the past year.  They used their fancy modeling to determine that, its clear slavery represents a significant threat to their economy.”

 

Economics is not a gay science, but a dreary, desolate one, quite abject and distressing.  It is the original dismal science due to another conclusion from a different kind of forced labor two hundred years ago.

 

“Not really much else to say.  It's not clear why the rate would be increasing, maybe picking up people off world.  Their declining labor force participation matches conventional ideas for prices also seen after plagues and wars, so, score one for theory.  Grace, why don't you go next.”

 

Grace nodded, and started going through her presentation, “It's good to be back.  For the main research project this year we now have close to two hundred vials ready for trials.  That should be enough for the initial batch of interns, but I've been working with local pharmaceutical companies to increase production.  Johnson and Johnson and Eli Lilly have been plugging along, and we could have several thousand doses by the end of the year.”

 

Oliver asked a question, “Did Howard reach out to his industry contacts?  What about the social media groups we talked about?  What's the buzz?  People want to try it or not?”

 

“There's high demand.  Some women are worried about the long-term effects, but worry is a universal problem for moms.  No one wants to be left out either, and it is clear which will win out.” Grace answered.

 

“Good, that's good, once we get enough excess go ahead and we'll start taking visitors here, just administer it on the 'down low'.  Cash only, after hours or before hours.  The camera for the west entrance is hidden, so we should set up something over there, a drive-up service maybe.  Does seven thousand sound expensive enough?  I don't want it to be out of reach.  Use your best judgment.”

 

Carol's mouth opened, and she raised her hand slightly, “This sounds rather illegal.  You can't be taking cash payments for untested interdimensional tech like it's something that fell off the truck.”

 

Miguel laughed, and Oliver put the plan in context, “You know how we had a shortfall of baby formula a bit ago?”

 

Baby formula had been a major controversy, and it was the straw that broke the back of the FDA.  The agency had already been reeling from poor response to the epidemic.  I.E.D.R had always been in conflict with the various regulatory bodies.  Nothing I.E.D.R did was safe, but at the same time, its discoveries were the safest things imaginable.  There was no human trial on Earth that could compete with visiting a hundred worlds where some exotic food was already legal, or a drug was taken every day by billions of people.  The agency was not as smart as their counterparts on other planets, in some cases literally.  Especially for products from Terra.

 

During the height of the formula crisis, I.E.D.R's director made a snide comment at a congressional hearing, “We traveled to the distant dimension of 'Europe' and found all the formula we'd ever need.”  The once juggernaut of regulation was now a shell of its former self.

 

Carol nodded, she understood the context, and Oliver went into detail, “That shouldn't happen anymore.  We found a drug that helps enhance breast milk production, and we want people to take it.”

 

“That's elitist, if it helps people then you should...” Carol was not ready to debate something like this, especially since she had held the exact opposite opinion two seconds ago.  Her job was to observe I.E.D.R practices and deliver some important reports, not be a contrarian.  Her objection stopped there.

 

Miguel was excited and jumped in his seat to answer, “Ha!  People are stupid.  If you give something away, they'll ignore it, it's not valuable to them.  It's not earned.  It's like the potato.  No one wanted it, but when they put guards on the field and said only the King could have it, it became the hottest food in France.  Sparked a revolution.  That's why we have French fries now.”

 

Oliver did not want Carol to focus on the bad history, “Well, we're more focused on the local politics of it.  If there's a hot new thing, and only the rich guys with cushy FAANG jobs are getting it, it will cause a backlash with locals who have an ax to grind against the 'tech bros', and then we come in and offer it to everyone just to make things fair.  We don't want people to be afraid of this, and that means thinking they won over on us.”

 

“That's insane.  You can't do that.  Your mission is to bring technology from other worlds, not play politics and manipulate the masses here on Earth.”  Carol was right in her indignation.  That kind of manipulation was in I.E.D.R's mission, but for the other planets.  Not Earth.

 

Oliver gave his rant, “What's the phrase, 'politics is the mind killer'?  We manipulate worlds Miss Menger.  Take a step back and look at Earth from the perspective of one of a hundred thousand.  Earth is fantastic, but we're also kind of dumb.  If you want to improve things, you need to a plan to route around the idiocy and be prepared to make it work for you.”

 

Carol did not have an answer to that, so Oliver followed up with an order directed to Grace, “Once the full production pipeline is up, go ahead and let them know we're aiming for sixty million units within three years, with plans for global distribution by the end of the decade.  Also, cancel all the other testing plans this summer.  Earth has enough bananas and watermelons.  This is the only thing we care about now.”  The team nodded.  Oliver had quietly briefed all of them about what Grace had discovered.  This was better than an apple that tasted like a grape.

 

The meeting continued for a bit, with far less excitement, but eventually it was Carol's time to give her presentation.  She asked if she could use the projector, she had prepared a power point.  It took only a short bit to set up the slides.  She went to the front with the screen.  State now owned the room.

 

“I'll start with the good news and then the bad news, and then the worse news.”  She clicked through the slide.  The first said 'Good News', and then followed up with a woman in medical garbs in a stretcher.

 

“Dath Ilan reached out to us with regard to one of your projects,” she said with enthusiasm.

Oh oh.  I.E.D.R thought they were above everyone and could do anything.  If a council world had contacted State with regard to a project, it meant they knew I.E.D.R was acting without permission, and more than that, the 'powers that be' had been bothered by it.

 

“This is Tiffany.  I believe you brought her from, what was the term you used earlier, 'Blefuscu'.  The super-nerds managed to get her a full recovery of her cognitive functions, and she showed miraculous improvement.”  She clicked through, Tiffany was standing in front of a chalkboard smiling, she was wearing normal clothing and pointed to a circled part of the board with a piece of chalk.  The whole board was covered in squiggles and letters.

 

“Your unauthorized project involving trans-dimensional human trafficking...” Carol did not try to hide her displeasure.

 

“HEY!” Oliver started to stand up.

 

“Fine.  Emancipation.”  Oliver stopped himself, “In either case it was successful.  I see why you chose Dath, the geeks are impressive in teaching and healing the mind.  Except, Tiffany didn't fully recover.”  She clicked, there was a slide labeled 'the bad', several newspaper headlines were arranged in the next slide.

 

'Bomb at city hall injures three.' - 'Suspect packages defused at Senator's' - 'Terrorist explosive master captured.'

 

“You see, Tiffany, has no morals.  None.  She's a mad genius and she's evil.  Their justice system is not set up to handle something like this, I think they're gonna put her on ice while they try to figure out what to do.  The Dath ambassador reached out to us and wanted to know how Earth got a Nitzke prisoner, and why we sent her to their planet to recover.”

 

Oliver spoke first, “We didn't know it was a Nitz.  This doesn't make sense.  The normal littles aren't evil.  Where would she get this?”

 

Naomi quietly spoke out what they had planned, “Our goal was to eventually bring them here, see if we could rehabilitate them.”

 

Grace smacked the table, and said, “Of course!  It makes sense.  They're blank slates, right?  Calculus isn't that impressive.  It's like seven pages of memorization and a five-year-old could learn it.  But right and wrong, good, and evil – socialization that's hard.  We spend eighteen years teaching people how to play nice, it's the single most important lesson we teach in kindergarten, when a young mind is best able to learn the hard lessons.  Not something unimportant like quantum physics.”

Oliver gave Grace a strong look, “Calculus is pretty dangerous, I'm not sure it's appropriate for a five-year-old either.”

 

Naomi had a different interpretation, “The Amazons are keeping them from turning into... the worst people in the multiverse.  An adult gets maturosis, turns into a baby, and once cured pops out a villain.  A Nietzschean superman, without any of the slave morality that keeps them like us.”

 

The table was silent.  While Amazon was a fun place for culture, technology, and food, I.E.D.R had told themselves they were studying the dimension to try to fix it.  There had even been talk of a military campaign for liberation if someone could convince the council and the rest of Earth.  They would bring the 'babies' to Earth, and help them rehabilitate them, and everyone could live happily ever after.

 

The table was now concerned.  Had this been a trap all along?  To get a planet like Earth to free the babies and only to have them grow up to be the children of the corn.  Even if they were not as evil as Tiffany, nothing would have stopped the freed men and women from using patience and cunning to slowly take over Earth.

 

Carol let them have their discussion for a bit, and then drew attention back to herself, “Yes, well, that's the good news, we managed to avoid a disaster.  The bad news is that another council world is concerned we're engaging in, 'uplifting', and we have had to eat a great deal of dirt on that one.”

 

Oliver frowned, “I thought the Dath would be cool with this.  I get they are mad at Ms. Unabomber here, but that's not us.  What the Amazons are doing is wrong.  You don't treat adults like children, and you don't even treat children like they do.”

 

Carol was accepting, “Oh yes, they agreed, and that's the only reason this hasn't resulted in immediate sanction.  The ambassador was clear on that, but he also reminded me how displeased he was with how Earthlings raise their children and I had to sit there and take the abuse.  I'm a mother too, I do not need someone telling me I raised my kid wrong.”

 

She clicked through the slide, “It's worse.”  She turned, looking at the table.  If the previous section was accusatory, this next was more sorrowful, like she wished she didn't have to do this.  “With great effort, we managed to get them to not elevate this issue.  You don't want to know what we offered them in exchange.  The nerd's response I get.  You guys started a partnership here, taking advantage of resources we don't have on Earth, and they figured out you were doing something naughty.  Do you know why Verdant's ambassador also reached out to us and requested us to stop interfering with 'Amazonia'?”

 

Everyone at the table shook their heads.  As far as Earth was aware, Earth was the only one who knew where the diaper dimension was.  Could the Amazons have contacted the council worlds at some point?  There was no evidence anyone outside of Earth had been in contact with them, if they had, surely someone would have said something – the links to the Nitz, the miracle cures, the slavery, their strange fascination with diapers.

 

Oliver knew the answer, from personal experience with the devils.  “The Nitz don't have nanotech.  I think they don't have holograms or robots either.  But they definitely don't have nanotech.  Could Verdant be engaging in illegal uplifting of the Amazons?  Maybe they're using the planet for developing tech they don't want us to find out about?”  Plus, the Amazons were great at iterating, they could help bring a novel and nascent technology to its full potential.

 

Miguel slapped the table, “Those hypocritical shits.  If Earth frees a billion slaves we're uplifting, and if they use another dimension as a testing ground for illegal technology it's just... fuck the council.”

 

Grace concurred, “I've inquired about getting the nanotech, it's completely off limits.  Not even Commander Powell can get it.  The supply is controlled.  Do we know how many council worlds have stakes on the planet?”

 

Naomi nodded, “If the Amazons bust out and do something naughty, it's in Earth's backyard.  If something does go wrong, the council can blame Earth.  It would be our responsibility to monitor this.  Like, worst case scenario with nanotech, they grey goo themselves and the dimension is locked out, nothing of value is lost to the council, but Earth has to clean up the mess.”

 

Carol clicked through the end of the presentation, the screen turned to white, bringing radiance to the slightly darkened room.  “You're in over your heads.  Extra Dimensional Affairs and Intelligence will be working with the President directly on how he wants to untangle this mess, but I can't imagine I.E.D.R will be able to continue operations on Amazonia.  No more price checks at the supermarket, no more giant watermelons.  It's best we walk away and let the council do whatever it wants here.”

 

The lights in the room started to shift brighter, the presentation was over, “That's it, you guys otherwise seem to have a good operation here, I'm sure I.E.D.R will bounce back, it's a big multiverse, maybe you'll find another dimension just as interesting as Amazonia, and one maybe a bit less interested in diapers.  Well, someone will, I can't imagine that your department will survive this Mr. Swift.”

 

Oliver dismissed the team, their somber heads hanging and fearful as they returned to work.  He walked Carol back to his office.  Oliver closed the door and the two sat in the chairs in front of his desk.

 

“Carol, we're old friends, I wish you hadn't done that in there.  If you're going to drop a bomb on me in front of my team, maybe give me some warning how big it is.”  Oliver's head lobbed backwards staring at the ceiling before coming back to look at her.  “Let's just have a nice conversation.  It's been, what, ten years, how's Taylor doing?”

 

“We're not friends.”  She snapped him down.

 

“Why's State doing this?  I.E.D.R has always had good relations with State before, we're the sword and you are the shield.  We bring the benefits of the multiverse, and you help clean things up.  We're a team.  Symbiosis.  Like a shark and a remora.”

 

“You guys are starting to shake things up too much, everyone thinks you're gunning for something big, and it's true.  You're talking about dumping drugs on the street, you have money sources outside of the established chain, and you're manipulating Earth.  Look down at the list of trophies.  You guys took out half of all academic research with that stunt in two thousand, you are in cahoots with not just the American military, but all militaries, even some that are off planet.  You have black projects both here and in other dimensions, you talk about wars on other planets as if it was just another Tuesday.  Hell, for fun you guys took out the eFf-Dee-Aye.  Who is next?”

 

Oliver listened carefully, “So, you guys went looking for something like our project on Dath.  That's why the nerds talked to you.  They thought you were us.”

 

“You guys are not the only ones capable of doing this spy stuff.”

 

“What'd the President say when State informed him, we'd gone off the ranch,” Oliver inquired.

 

“Nothing, I haven't decided how to do the final report.”  She spoke the sentence with certainty because Oliver had an opportunity here to change the report.

 

Oliver just gave a hmm and nodded his head down slightly.

 

“Oliver, how did you know the Nitz weren't responsible for the nanotech?”

 

“I, well, I was with them for a year.  Picked up a few things.  We've known for some time the council has been keeping us in the dark about, well everything.  Besides, the Amazons might be smart, but they don't invent anything.  They just aren't that imaginative.”

 

She gave a hmm and nodded her head.

 

Oliver tried bargaining, “Is there another way we can spin this, keep everyone happy?”

 

“Oh, yes, obviously, that's why I'm here after all.  I wanted to work with my old friend Oliver, give him one last chance to save himself.  We're invested with the Amazons because we think another council world is testing their tech there, maybe even working with the Nitz.  That's a real find!  If I go to the President and tell him Verdant wants us to back off, that has a different meaning if I also include the part where we think it's because we're too close to their terrible secret.”

 

“So, um... we're going to be OK here?  You gave the worst outlook report possible to us, gave us a scare, and you're going to take our inputs and now explain what's really going on?” Oliver was hopeful, he was not even sure what the point of this theatricality was.

 

“Maybe.”  She gave a smug chuckle and sat back a bit.

 

Oliver had patience, he just waited for her to say her price.

 

“It's hard for us to identify with you guys.  There aren't enough people like you Oliver, who have bridged the two worlds.  You know, you're way out here on the coast, in your castle, always plotting away.  Never talking to anyone.  Everything siloed, isolated, you get to do your own thing.  We need to see the human face.  I saw that today for just a few minutes with your team, but it'd be easier if I was more than just you I could relate to.  I need something closer and more real, otherwise you guys are just a bunch of jokers playing dangerous games.”

 

Oliver danced his head as if weighing the request, “Well, it's a prestigious institution, takes some very rare talent to be accepted here.  Like your son, Taylor, I'm sure he's brilliant and hardworking, but it must be hard to compete against say, Caltech or eM-eye-Tee.  Where's he going to college these days?”

 

“He isn't in education or training.  But I do think a summer here would be good for him.”

 

Oliver had turned down such requests from politicians, from the rich, and from the famous, but in those cases, they had nothing he wanted.  Carol was threatening his job and his team.  “Carol, you must really love your son a whole lot if you're willing to go to this length to get him in here, you know this job is dangerous right?  It's not just eating apples and oranges.”

 

“I love him unconditionally, and I'd do anything for him.  He just needs a little help from me, that is all.  Something to get him out of his funk and really set himself right in life.”

 

Her attention left the conversation for a second, her mind wandering, thinking of her son.  For Oliver it was enough.  It felt wrong, but something Ben had told him this morning had clawed at him.  He could see it in her eyes, the same desperate need to protect, to do anything for her offspring.

 

“Carol, you, and I both know your son isn't ready for the big time yet.  He just needs more love and more attention.  Taylor is not ready for grown up things, like a job or school, he's practically still a baby.  If anything, he might even need to take a step back, spend a few years relearning the important lessons.  We can't do that here, but you still can do it.  I know you will do anything you have to, go to any lengths to do what's right by your baby boy, and we are prepared to help you help him.”

 

Carol blinked a few times.  There had been a block in her head that said, “Taylor is an adult now,” right at the top of how she saw her son in her mind.  That block was not there anymore.  It had been load bearing, an entire tower of expectations.  It held up her attempts to get her son to go to community college, asking him to put out job applications, even clean his room.  All those blocks fell down.  Normally she loved opportunities to get out of the house, to not have to see his mistakes or put up with his attitude, and not have to nag at him for a few days.  Now all she felt was worry.  She had left her baby at home, alone.  She wondered if she should order him some lunch, she did not think she could trust him to make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich.

 

Oliver was in control now, “Here's what we're going to do, Grace is going to help both of you out on this.  She's got a brand-new program we're setting up for the interns this summer and I think we can find a way to fit you two into it.  I don't want just one summer though.  I want to start a longitudinal study on the two of you.  I'm glad you stopped in; I can't think of anyone better for this.  Grace will know just what to do.  It'll be almost like he's an intern here, but he won't have to come into the office.  That is what you wanted right, see if we can't help and give him a leg up?”

 

Was that why she was here?  Yes!  Of course, her old friend Oliver, she had come to him with some worrying news that her son was struggling, and he had just the solution.  I.E.D.R was great, filled with the nicest and best people in the multiverse.  Sure, they had done an itty bitty oopsie here or there, but that is fine, accidents happen.  She would explain it all later when she debriefed the Chief of Staff at the White House.  Maybe she would get lucky and even meet the President, help him understand just how important I.E.D.R was.

 

* * *

 

May 12th, 2023, Falls Church, Virginia- Earth

 

Carol returned home a few days later, and silently made her way to her son's room in the basement.  Even outside his door, the stench had an odor like dead flowers rotting in a well-used gym bag.  She could hear a muffled voice coming from his computer.  Without care for his privacy, she opened the door.  There was a plate of food on his bed stand that was there when she left.  A laundry basket of fresh clothes had been picked through, and shirts and shorts were a wrinkled mess around the floor.  The curtains were drawn on the one corner window darkening the room, not that there was much natural light to begin with below ground.

 

Her son was looking at an image of himself, watching himself silently talking with headphones on.  He made snips and edits to his own timeline of video he shot earlier that day.  He did not notice another had entered his room until the bedroom lights sprung to life.  Dull yellow luminosity exploded into the room.  One of the bulbs was out and the overhead light was missing its protective shade.  Shadows were long and half the room had an eerie darkness.

 

“Uh, Mom, you're back early.  I...  I was going to clean.”  His hair was long, if he combed it, he would be a match for his mother's own.  His shirt was ruffled, and he was still in his boxers, a pattern of plaid blue and white visible in the gap near the fold of the chair.

 

She came over and gently put her hand on his shoulder, “It's fine.  I just missed you and wanted to come home early.  I'll help you clean a bit after dinner.  Sometimes the problem is so big it's hard to know how to fix it.”

 

He shook a bit still coming down from the adrenaline of the surprise invasion of his privacy, “uh, yeah, thanks.”  His desk had a couple Subway wrappers, food she had ordered him.  It was the only food he had eaten the past two days.  She reached over and rolled up the garbage.

 

“Honey, I know I've been hard on you these past few months, but I think I've come to realize you just need time to come out of your shell, and you'll do that at your own pace.  As long as you're happy doing your videos and your games, then I'll be happy, and when you're ready to grow I'll be here to encourage you to blossom into the young man I know you can be.  Until then you can just be my NEET little boy.”  This close she smelled different, like she had a new perfume.  Lavender with melons.  She had a gravity Taylor didn't remember her having when she left.  Like she had put on weight or muscle.

 

“NEET - Not employed, educated, or in training.” he mouthed, “I uh, I'm sorry I'll be better.  Starting tomorrow, I'll put out some applications.”  She was being too nice.  This had to be a trick.

 

Carol grabbed the other food plate by the bed and went to the door, “Come up for dinner, I have something special I got you on my trip, and I want to talk to you about an opportunity that came up when I was in California.  Kind of like an internship but working from home.  I think you should consider it.”

 

“What is it?” He was already up, pushing aside clothes looking for a pair of pants.  What had she volunteered him for.

 

“Raw Milk.” she was already up the stairs.  Somehow moms always gave an answer to your question that was both correct and absolutely the wrong one you wanted.  Wasn't unpasteurized milk illegal in this State?  He was curious to find what the forbidden drink would taste like.

 

* * *

May 13th, 2023, Falls Church, Virginia- Earth

 

Sixteen hours later.

 

“I drank all the milk in the fridge this morning, and then I took a nap on the couch, and I don't know what happened.” The couch and jeans had the telltale markings of a dark stain.  Carol was hugging Taylor close.  If he was fifteen years younger, he might have been crying, instead he was just in shock.

 

“It's OK, the milk was for you, you can have as much as you want, there's plenty more.” She tried to comfort him.

 

“No, not that, the mess.”  He looked down.  She had brought out a towel and he was now sitting on it.

 

She kissed his forehead, “It's fine, you're a messy boy sometimes.  I'm your mother, it's my job to clean up messes.  In fact, I have just the thing” and then whispered, “I went shopping and I bought you some gamer pants.  I know how sometimes you have long sessions, and now you don't have to have any breaks.  Won't that be nice?  You can be as messy as you want to be if you have your gamer pants on.  Let's go try them on and then we'll see if I.E.D.R has sent another e-mail for what they want you to do today.”

 

He upturned his head and complained, “Do I really have to work?  I already missed most of the day of broadcasting, and if you skip too much you lose followers.”

 

“Of course, sweetie, you're an adult now, this is your first real job.  I'm sure whatever they want you to do, you're more than capable of doing it.  It won't even be that long, then you can play games for as long as you'd like.”

 

* * *

 

September 2nd, 2023, Falls Church, Virginia- Earth

 

“Mummy.  Can I play a game?”  Taylor waddled up to the couch where his mother was reading.  His light blue pajamas were covered in cars.  His hair had been trimmed down extra short, and his face was clean shaved.

 

“Did you clean your room like I asked?  Or is it still a mess?”

 

“Yes, it's all tidy.  The toys are away like you showed me.”

 

“What would you like to play?  Monopoly Junior?  Chutes and Ladders?  Or Candy Land?”

 

“No, a 'puter game, I haven' played in a while and my friends on the 'puter miss me.” Taylor was not sure why he needed to ask permission; it was just something he was doing now for lots of things.

 

“Oh, honey those are big kid games.  You're too little.”

 

His face fell a few inches, his best approach would be to get on her good side.  He got closer, hopping up on the couch and started trying to squeeze under her arm.  She just let him hang there against her chest for a minute.  Finally, there was a signal, something he had forgotten.  He barely noticed it these days, but maybe if he showed her, he was bigger, she would let him play.  It triggered a simple question, “When you gonna start teaching me potty again mommy?”

 

“Don't be silly.  You're my NEET boy.  My perfect boy who will never grow up.  What's NEET stand for?”

 

“Not employed, in education, or training,” he droned it out, like the last bit of his adult was in there but had been defeated.

 

“If you're too little to have a job or school, then we can't have you training either.  Potty training is just another kind of training, right?”

 

Those other grown-up things scared him, so it made sense potty would be lumped in there too.  One day he would be bigger though, his mommy was helping him get there again.

 

There was a time in her life the diapers had bothered her; when she could not wait for her son to grow up and move out.  But now, it was like the advice her father gave her.  A diaper is an act of trust between parent and child.  An affirmation ritual of her unconditional love.  Her son would test her every day with the one thing he could accomplish, a mess in his pants far worse than his old room, and it would be the best he would ever do.  She would take that gift with love and make her son whole and new again.  And now thanks to the injection, she had a gift of her own to give back to her son.

 

Yes, she was glad she had took the time to verify the real story behind I.E.D.R's shenanigans off world.  Oliver and his team could practically do no wrong.  She and her son were even invited into their new experiment, they were now part of an elite group.  She heard some families were paying upwards of ten grand just for the first shot.

[Operational Systems]

Forgot Oliver's interpretation of the gal was in this chapter.

 

Chapter 23: If another planet would take me, I'd be glad to go.

 

May 11th, 2023, Templeton, California - Earth

 

Oliver spent the next few hours putting out fires from his direct underlings.  Productivity was going to be down for a bit due to the fallout from State.  Twirling a pen was not doing it for Oliver, and he started chewing softly on the end of the instrument.  He became lost in e-mails and excel sheets when he heard a knock at his door.  The pen fell out of Oliver's mouth and landed on the ground.  He turned and looked at his boss.

 

White gray hair was thin but fully covered the man's head.  He was slightly shorter than Oliver, but half as thin.  A lanky build that kept a thin body through weekends of cleaning and repair on his ranch and house but never built any muscle due to a well-disciplined minimal diet.  He dressed somewhere between the casual of Miguel and the professionalism of Oliver, but the 'casual Friday' shirt, vest, and pants were almost as expensive, if not more so, than Oliver's.  He favored earthy grays and darker colors, and his black shoes, well-shined, would look good in a boardroom but had a rustic element he could survive an hour on a ranch or a farm if he was careful where he stepped.

 

Samuel Becker was the type of man who woke up at just before five each day because he was done sleeping, and that gave him an edge that he could bite a man's head off if he needed to, but just as often was ready to lay back and take a nap.  He was the kind of man who wore a flag pin on his breast.

 

“Mr. Swift.” Oliver didn't like it when he was being formal.  That meant he was in trouble.

 

“Sam, good for you to stop in I think I cleaned up the mess with State.  Bit of an exciting morning.” He swiveled and started to stand up, but Samuel just made his way to a seat without care, Oliver returned to his chair as well.

 

“State can show some mean teeth, but you'd be one to know.  Glad you got it sorted out.  Still.”

 

Oliver gave the man space.

 

“Still, I can't help but wonder, maybe we should refocus our attention elsewhere,” Samuel was mulling it over like a decision like that was as important as what he should have for lunch.

 

“They're attacking other worlds.  Stealing humans and bringing them to live in hell,” Oliver laid out the stakes for his boss.

 

“I suppose it does need to be addressed.  If we cut out now, we can claim a couple of very big wins.  That learning technique, and the milk.  When you're up at the casino that's the best time to quit.” Sam's hands made a bit of a dance as he laid out the positives of their mission so far.

 

Oliver's boss continued, “We're moving too fast and we're making mistakes.  It's one thing to get State off your back, you and I are old dogs who know how to play the game, but if the other council worlds are serious about protecting their interests here, what is your plan?”

 

Oliver did not really have an answer, “It's our world.”

 

“Well, there's talk of redrawing things, with what's going on Terra.”  Oliver looked at the man confused, almost frightened.  That was not the agreement that got Earth on the council.  Sam tried offering more, “Everything is stable for hundreds of years, and along comes an upstart like us and in less than twenty years we solve an entire Nitz invasion by ourselves.  We're built different Oliver; they don't like us.  Terra was the one friend we had, and we're now on our own.”

 

Oliver looked down at the desk, “We're close.  Just once we figure out how to fix things, we can all be friends again.”

 

“I think we should send the giant back.  He's drawing attention.  No more price checks, no more expeditions for huge fruit or whatever.  Every time we rip open the dimension and step into their world, it's like a spotlight telling the multiverse: 'Look at us, we're up to no good.'”

 

“No!”  Oliver tried to recover, “I mean, what about the project?  Our secret tech.”

 

“All the more reason to back out, there are other worlds we can test the physics of the multiverse, Oliver.  If the council realizes what we learned about convergence...” Sam held up his hands again, as if weighing Oliver's complaint and finding it wanting.

 

“I guess.  Look I'm close to something important, Benjamin is close.  He just needs a push to realize what it is.  Give me another week with him.”

 

“You don't think uplifting all the giants, making them normal isn't going to draw attention?  And what about the Nitz?  They're all going to come out of their shells and then what's our plan?  Ask them to play nicely?  What if the horde decides they want their planet back?  We're not in a position to fight another war.”  Sam was not trying to berate, but he was trying to help Oliver realize his place in things.

 

Oliver thought over his options.   The Amazons did not have to become monsters.  “What if the Amazons changed themselves?  What if they could see the potential that the regular sized ones had and let them be more?  Like, if they uplifted themselves.  Then we could, maybe invite them into our fold.  We could have all the Nitz tech to ourselves.”

 

Samuel was unsure, “That doesn't seem possible.  Besides, you literally have one in your house.  Your team goes there every other week.  You're not subtle on this.  You need to send Benjamin home before anyone finds out we're moving people between dimensions.”

 

Oliver scrunched his hand and dug the nails deep, he could not believe he was considering this, “We could...”

 

Sam turned his head slightly, and Oliver tried again, “We could have someone there permanently.  This place has been the golden goose, there's got to be more.  Don't you want to know what the Nitz are up to here?  We might even be able to find where the horde is hiding.  We could also monitor the other council world's coming and going, if we kept someone stationed there.  Setup some sort of spy network.”

 

Samuel leaned back but his chair refused to give, instead his posture grew modestly taller against the firm chair.

 

Oliver continued, “And our long-term projects.  The local contact would be able to make sure the Amazons keep to the vision.”

 

Samuel shook his head, “It's too dangerous.  Who would we even get to do that?  Alex Len?”

 

Oliver swiveled a bit.  He looked at the wall, the floor, the door behind his boss, and finally met his eyes, “I could do it.”

 

Samuel just blinked for a bit, he had not expected that, “I've read your reports Oliver, you know how many near misses your team has had?  This is too big.  I'm old enough to have known some Oh eSs eSs folks, those who were there at the start.  Do you know how difficult it was to build everything from scratch?  Just let it go.”

 

“I can't let him go.” Oliver's response was quiet, he did not want to admit it.

 

“You're not one to build attachments to things.  I get that you think this is important, I know you think you're able to stand up to this danger.”

 

Oliver decided to admit the truth, “I put him in the chair.  He's in there ... I can't do that to him.”

 

Samuel paused for long enough it made Oliver think he made a mistake admitting it.  Finally, Samuel asked, “Why?”

 

“I thought, since it worked so well with Powell, I thought we knew enough.”  Oliver got even quieter, “I'm a monster.”

 

“Is it working?” Samuel was not sure he wanted to know.

 

“No, I don't know.  Maybe.”  Oliver looked at his boss dead on, “Let me go back with him for a few days, maybe nothing will stick, and it'll be fine.  If it does, I'll figure the next step.  Maybe he can be our guy, but he needs someone to be there.”

 

“A changeling, a goddamn changeling.  There are laws,” Both Oliver and the director knew that I.E.D.R was above such considerations.  “Look, the trafficking, the political manipulation, pissing in the council's cereal, all fine, all part of the job.  But that?”  Samuel breathed in deeply, air coming in through his teeth and down a coarse throat.  He sounded like a horse.

 

Samuel just admitted it, “I'm not happy with the decisions you've been making lately.  I don't want to fire you, but you keep swinging for the fences when I just need to put a guy on first base.  The worst part is sometimes you hit a home run.”

 

“You know who is not like that?” Oliver teased.

 

Samuel waited for Oliver, who allowed himself to smile first at his own clever answer.

 

“Naomi.”

 

Samuel laughed, and Oliver laid out the plan.  “Look, let me take the fall for the stuff on Dath Ilan, and the black-market stuff once that comes out too, I'll be off world, just blame it all on me.  Even send a statement to the council saying I was acting on my own for anything you need a fall-guy for.  I'm the one whose gone off the reservation.  Meanwhile Ben and I go back and get the real work done.  I'll be like Tom Cruise in Mission Impossible.  Disavowed but secretly avowed.”

 

“Oliver, you're Tom Cruise if he ate McDonalds every day.  You know, it's funny, I'd almost think you planned this whole thing out.  That's what makes you so great Oliver, you adapt to things so well no one knows you're flying by the seat of your pants.”  Samuel let that hang for a bit, “I guess you did learn to fly when you fell out of that plane.  I want you off world as soon as possible.  I want it to seem like you bounced because of State's report.  The fallout from this is going to be pretty bad, and we'll let you know when it's safe to come back.”

 

Oliver forced a weak laugh at his boss's joke.  That had been the most traumatic and horrible event of his life, but he knew how to be polite in victory.  The two exchanged pleasantries and went over some of the expectations for what a planetary wide spy network was going to look like.  After Samuel left, Oliver returned to the excel sheets.

 

“Just ten million.  I wish Miguel hadn't gotten low-balled,” Oliver complained to no one.  Oh well, he had not planned on getting much money from the entertainment exchange anyways.  The nest egg he built from the secret projects he and his team had initiated should be enough to jump start his plans for an intelligence network.  He had been laying the groundwork for this for years, with contacts in government, academia, and industry.  The timing could have been better, he had not expected Tiffany to recover that quickly.

 

Poor gal, the Amazons at Dark Cliff at done a number on her when Oliver had broken her out.  Nasty place, but if you have money, definitely useful.  Tiffany had certainly been a naughty little boy in her previous life.  Something of the host survived.

 

At least that was the answer Oliver preferred, he liked it better than believing it takes eighteen years to teach a person right and wrong.

 

* * *

December 7^th 2116, Hiko, Nevada- Terra

 

Oliver reached into his flight jacket and pulled out the long silver-gray phone.  He slapped Nick hard and pointed to the black screen.

 

“We crossed over!”  Oliver exclaimed, waving it in Nick's face.  The vents in the bomber had kicked on, turning the once broiling interior to an icy cold.  Flakes of snow began to accumulate and be blown onto the men and their instruments.

 

“You brought an eye-phone to Terra?  You are an idiot,” Nick chastised his friend.

 

“I thought since it was Apple it might work.”  Oliver put away the phone away, before he noticed something.  His head turned to the wall and then back to Nick, “Are the engines on?”

 

The alert light above them began to flash a dark red orange.

 

“Switching to emergency power.”  Collins hit a switch; cabin lights flickered as the plane shifted to the front battery.

 

“Engines have flamed out, no response from throttle.” Ben turned to Collins.  “I still have some control, I can coast, maybe see if I can't get us to a good spot to bail out.”

 

“No!”  Collins was fast at saying it.  “I think I can restart the engines.  It's just some turbulence; they needed some more voltage.”

 

Behind the cockpit Eskender was still going through the shift equipment.  What once was a shining display of monitors was now completely shut down, only a feint static charge leaving the dark displays.  He reached into a bag and pulled out a gravimeter.  He could at least verify they were on an identical Earth.

 

Ai was oblivious, she spent her time watching Eskender.  She had seen the flashing light and was sitting patiently, hands in her lap.  Soon she would need to climb the ladder and crawl into the bomb bay.  She had volunteered to stay in the old gun compartment, so she could be closer to the physics package, but Benjamin had insisted she should be strapped in.  Just in case something happened.

 

Collins flipped two more switches to his right, “Bringing up engine four first,” Collins moved a single middle stick of the eight throttles up fifteen percent, his eyes directed to the gauges between him and Ben.  They were seven clocks moving in reverse, hands falling backwards towards high noon, and one in desperate jitter now moving in proper rotation, at a pace of one minute on the clock face per second.

 

Ben watched the engine dial slowly moving, and his eyes glancing at the altimeter.  They were losing both speed and altitude.

 

Below them Nick desperately began looking about, “Shit, grab my jacket, Oliver.  Just throw it on me, maybe it'll land near me when we eject.”  Oliver had done the same, laying his own flight jacket over his seat like a blanket.  A minute ago, it had been over one hundred degrees, and now it was snowing.  They had not planned for this.

 

The nearest engine on the left wing gave a hick, and a long grind, but slowly the starter turned on.  With the extra power the plane began to roll.

 

“Nick, here's the plan.  If he doesn't flip the eject signal by one thousand” Oliver flicked to one of the few display gauges in the offensive compartment.  “We both go.”  Oliver then slapped the oxygen mask on and tightened it to his head, his hands fell down to the ejector seat.  The handle was touchy and poorly positioned, one bad pull and he would fall out of the plane.

 

Ai could see the sun coming in the cockpit, the first crepuscular rays shining happily on a new world.  The plane was now making a long slow turn.  She had thought they were supposed to head west to the target, but perhaps they had shifted into the wrong spot.  At least they had not dimension shifted upside down.

 

“Ben, keep us stable.”  Ben struggled with his stick as the plane began a soft long turn.  The dark morning sky became a shift or reds and yellows as the distant morning sun entered the cockpit.  After thirty seconds Collins reached over to another switch.  The plane's roll began to slow as engine five came online.

 

Benjamin finally was able to breathe properly again.  He had been biting his teeth, and now he had two engines.  If he needed to, he could land with that.  His eyes looked out the cockpit for a highway or perhaps a flat stretch of land.

 

Collins wanted more, his hands were still guarding the four and five engine throttle, and he repowered the rest of the engines.  All eight started to roar to life, drowning out all other sounds.

 

The air commander gave a communication to the team, they were free to move about the cabin, he turned off the alert light.  His chair and flight suit were covered in sweat and now became uncomfortably cold in the declining temperatures.  He gave a command through the radio, “Doctor Gao, please verify the physics package is ready for delivery.”

 

“Captain, got good news, sky is clear.  Bad news.  Bockscar had to make an emergency landing on highway three seven five.” Nick's voice came over the cabin.  Ben and Collins looked at each other, knowing the implication, one less nuclear bomb would be available for the mission.

 

Benjamin started returning the plane to the correct altitude, direction, and speed.  “We will be arriving in San Diego in forty-five minutes.”

 

AI started making her way down the ladder to the offensive compartment below.  She was slow, each step moving one foot down, then the next, and gripping the railing hard with her hands.  About halfway down her foot missed as the plane hit a bit of turbulence.  She let out a startle and looked at her feet in confusion.   Her grip failed and she started to slide a few inches.

A couple hands held her up at the back, “I got you.”  Slowly they lowered her to the floor.  AI turned to her savior.

 

“Captain Swift?”  It took her a second to realize he was still holding her on the unstable floor, she shook him off carefully and smiled.

 

“Doctor Gao, this way” Oliver led her to the back and opened the small compartment she would crawl through to the bomb bay.  She ducked down and began to crawl, following the catwalk around and to the left.  Oliver followed behind.

 

Once inside the cavernous bay was large, normally it would be full of smart weapons or racks of bombs, instead there was one large bomb hanging carefully and ready for release.  The physics device was larger than a man, and looked like a long pill, ten feet long and four and a half in diameter.  The end had another foot for a thin tail that ended in a square box of fins.  It looked heavy, perhaps eight to ten tons of metal.

 

Ai moved to a panel on the package.  It was a mix of wires and lights, and she pushed and held a button for ten seconds.  A soft ring came from the device, as bulbs lit up in sequence.  Finally, a green light glowed next to Ai's hand.  “We're good.”

 

Oliver looked at the device and at her, “That's it?  I could have done that.”

 

“And if the light hadn't turned on, would you have known what to do next?” The physicist slapped his chest, giving a soft laugh.  Her smile was as bright as the earlier sun.  Oliver could see why Nick liked her.

[Operational Systems]

Chapter 24: The blonde doll smiling behind us says, “One day, you'll be just like us.”

 

May 11th, 2023, Creston, California - Earth

 

Oliver's mind was elsewhere as he started down the road to his home.  He began bringing the truck into a similar spot on the driveway to yesterday but stopped early.  A car was already parked there.  He gave the vehicle plenty of space and found another spot.  There were no markings on the sedan to indicate this was some government vehicle.  It was just a gray KIA, a vehicle chosen for going from point A to point B and on weekends point C.

 

Oliver wondered if he should try to call emergency services or perhaps arm himself – like with a branch or a piece of metal - as he walked to his own front door.  It was unlocked when he carefully pushed it in.  He tried to be as quiet as possible, ears attuned to any disturbance in the living room.

 

“How's that feel?” an unknown voice asked.

 

“Perfect, just perfect.  I can read the small text now.” Benjamin answered.

Oliver pushed in the door slowly.  Beside Benjamin was a pale white fellow of advanced age.  He wore a blue jean long men's work shirt the color of the sky, and his hair had growing white, like dirty snow.  Clean shaven, he had started to take on a bit of a plump in the face, but not too much in the stomach and arms.  He stood next to Ben, staring up at the man who had found himself sitting in a recliner, and the two men shared round thin glasses.  The older man turned as he heard Oliver enter the room.

 

“Xanatos!” Oliver shouted.

 

“Oh, I was wondering when you would be home,” came the reply from the older man.

 

“Hey, we're twins!”  Oliver made a movement with his hands pointing at Xanatos, he paused a bit making a stance.

 

Xanatos’ happy demeanor became a frown, and he nodded, “Not a single person in two dimensions remembers that commercial.  What was it even for, gum?”

 

“Insurance.”  Oliver made his way over to the other man and slapped his shoulder in a hug, “Ben see, we're twins” Oliver’s face next to Xanatos while giving a thumbs up with his left hand.

 

Benjamin stared down at the short man, “Maybe it's the new glasses, but I don't see it.”

 

“I'm his grandson.” Xanatos said with a matter of fact, as if that was an explanation.

 

Benjamin was confused.  He could see the resemblance, but Xanatos was at least a few decades older than Oliver.  Maybe early sixties to Oliver's... six.  “Do you guys age backwards?”  Perhaps there was still a chance he would get to baby Oliver.

 

Oliver laughed, “No, he's from an alternate timeline twin planet.  It's called Terra.  Their clocks run twice as fast.  Speaking of.  What are you doing here 'young man'?” Oliver raised his voice with a mocking-yet-paternal tone with the question.

 

“Optometry, I travel around and perform services.  Benjamin here put out a request for some help.”

 

Benjamin smiled, “Everyone has been so nice today.  I got a hair stylist to give me a trim, and a tailor stopped by as well, he promised he would work through the night and rush new clothes over first thing in the morning.  This planet is great.”

 

“Ben, this is a secret safe house, no one is supposed to know there's a giant here from another dimension.  Also, Xanatos, since when have you been an optometrist?”  Oliver did not know which fact was more confusing, the fact there were random strangers visiting the giant, or that his grandson had mastered a new profession.

 

Xanatos gave his answer, “A couple years now.”

 

Oliver looked around the room, “Seriously?  You're like sixty, you can't just up and change careers, and certainly not become a doctor, that's a multi decade commitment.”

 

Xanatos chided him, “It's just a skill, something to do, it seemed useful, and I like doing it.  Imagine if you had to keep doing your first job Oliver.  How many Bee fifty twos are flying these days?”

 

Benjamin added, “He has a machine to make the glasses in his car and these are perfect.  No electronics to distract me either.”

 

Ben started to put the pieces together, “Alternate timeline, from Terra.  The planet in Oliver's video.”  Despite saying that, Ben could not remember a single bit of information from the video except the blurb on the back.

 

Xanatos nodded, “That's right, we're the ones grandpa dropped a thermonuclear device on.”

 

Benjamin frowned, “Oliver, hitting people is wrong.   Promise me you won't do that again.”

 

Oliver shook his head, “It was a Nietzschean invasion, and we stopped it.”

 

Xanatos laughed, “They aren't called that.”

 

The snide retort from Oliver was half muted, “Yeah, well, if they wanted me to learn how to pronounce their name right, they shouldn't have strung me up in a prison camp for six months.”  His logic was unbeatable.

 

Benjamin nodded to the older man, “Oliver is being modest, he speaks their language, it's quite impressive.”

 

Xanatos agreed, “Of course he does, it's like the tenth most common language in the multi.  Oliver was at State for a few years, right, Counselor Swift?  Deputy something to Pangaea?”

“For about two minutes, yeah, then they not-so-politely asked me to leave.”  Oliver turned to Ben, “I said their dinosaurs were fake, and that Earth's chickens had better claim to the title.”

 

The two men looked at Oliver, was he just making up a story, telling a joke?  Xanatos tried laughing.

 

Benjamin looked to Oliver and then back to Xanatos, and then back to Oliver, who sighed before giving the answer, “Nitz Kean is a creole language on worlds where China, England, and Spain colonize North America.  The Chinese usually stay home, that’s why we speak English here on Earth... America.”  He waited a moment and then continued, “I'm sorry, I should have been honest about what I knew earlier.”

 

“Oliver, you've been lying to me since I met you.” Benjamin called him out.  “You did it right now.  I know linear Aye is a mixed language.  What about linear see?  Why is it you get to lie to me, but I can't lie to you?”

 

The boy's back stood up, “That's fair, I'll be honest for the rest of the day.  No more lies.  The specific variant used by the nomads and your island people, I can read and write.”  He turned to Xanatos, “And yes, that is impressive.”  His attention went back to Ben, “I didn't want you to know for certain what I knew, in case you were working with the horde.  I don't think you are anymore; I don't see any more reason to lie.”

 

Benjamin smiled at that, finally some trust and honesty.  No more spy nonsense.  No more messing with his head, the two of them could work together.  Benjamin pulled up the tablet to try reading some more with his new glasses.

 

Oliver directed Xanatos to the couch, and he turned to the giant.  Ben's attention was elsewhere, a perfect chance to test something, calmly Oliver spoke the command.

 

“Benjamin, while parents sit in silence with their books and papers the grown-ups are oblivious to the antics of their progeny.  Hear not our giggles, whispers, and secrets, enjoy the peace and quiet.  For it is best that children be seen and not heard.”  What a mouth full!  He would need to beat the intern who came up with that code phrase.

 

Benjamin could not move.  He could not respond.  He could keep reading, moving his eyes on the screen and entering simple commands on the tablet.  No matter how hard he pushed, it was like a weight that kept his body locked in place.

 

“What was that?”  Xanatos asked, making room for Oliver to sit down.

 

“It's just a command to keep him from hearing us.  Unless we set the house on fire, he's going to be completely indifferent to what us children do.  We could jump on the furniture and color the walls and he wouldn't stop us.  The whole world is mute to him.”

 

Benjamin tried to comment, but there was nothing.  Benjamin understood that either Oliver was lying to Xanatos, or Oliver did not understand what he had just done.  Neither made him feel comfortable with the new, trustworthy Oliver.

 

“First off, hello.  It's good to see you.  How have you been?”  Oliver's mood was bright, his hands raised in acceptance of his near kin.

 

“Things are not good Oliver.”  Every word was heavy and deliberate for Xanatos.

 

“How are the whales doing?  Are they recovering?” Oliver tried small talk.

 

“The whales?  Not, how's dad?  Not how am I?”  Oliver hung his head a bit in shame, “They're fine.”

 

“How is, um, your dad?” Oliver was not sure he wanted to know.

 

“Dad's getting old.  They want to shove him into a Vee-aRe, chamber.  He's mad at everything these days.”

 

“He can come here, he doesn't have to stay with me, maybe mom, his grandmother.  She could use the company.” Oliver offered it sincerely, coming up with the plan on the spot.  Xanatos seemed to consider it, but it would be another problem of Terra being offloaded onto Earth.  He instead changed directions.

 

“What's the deal with 'Mr. Green Giant' over there?  I knew grandpa was a bit poofy, but I wasn't aware your tastes were so eclectic.  This an example of divergence?  I thought kink didn't work that way.”

 

Ben could not move.  He wanted to speak up, they were talking about him, but no words came.  He hit the next page button, and the back button, and the next page button again on the tablet.

 

Oliver defended himself, “It's not like that.  He's here while we figure out a possible Nitz incursion on his planet.”

 

“Then there is still hope I'll run into my double someday.” his grandson taunted.

 

“You know, it's hard to date when you know you have a soul mate and no clue who that could be.  Maybe my favorite grandson could give me a hint?”

 

“No.  It doesn't work like that.”  Xanatos and Oliver had had this conversation at some point, and Xanatos had won it before.

 

“Then why are you here?” Oliver finally got around to asking.

 

The older man held his chin for a second with a couple fingers, then decided how to answer it.  “Official business.  I'm here to see you, I have some questions I think you can answer, and when your friend here put out the call, on your social media account, I was curious to see what was going on, and thought now would be a good time to ask.”

 

“I wasn't aware Terra was doing off world expeditions.”  Oliver was trying to politely say it without saying it, they both knew Xanatos did not have permission to be on Earth.

 

“We had a few secret projects going on during the war.  You do know Terra invented dimensional travel before the microchip, right?  Plus, we picked up a thing or two from the Nitz.”  Xanatos brought his head up to his head and adjusted his own glasses, taking them momentarily off his face before returning them.  “Things are getting worse back home.”

 

“We're trying to make things right.  Earth literally fed your entire planet for a year.” Oliver offered.

 

“It's not resources, it's, like a death of hope.  We've lost our place in the universe.  Terra was the one council planet that got there through peace, cooperation, and understanding.  We showed a better way of doing things,” his grandson was somber in response.

 

“We're you too.  We're sharing.  It's your spot on the council too.  Our wins are your wins.  You can still be that better way,” Oliver was optimistic.

 

“Our planet is littered with guns and leftover armaments from the war.  Lots of old grievances and some new.  There are not enough resources to go around, and now there is no escape hatch.  Ethiopia and Eritrea have just gone to war.” The older Swift said, the last part was paused and then said quietly, as if the point was obvious.

 

“Ehh, those two are going to war like every five years on Earth.  That's just a thing they do.”

 

“Grandpa, Italian Eritrea, and the Kingdom of Italy, is now at war with the Ethiopian Empire.  I haven't read volume two of Zang's book, but I believe that's a canon event on your world.”

 

Oliver backed up on the couch, every muscle grew tense, “No.  That's not possible.  You already had World War Two.  We purposely timed things so... You can't have World War Two a second time.” Oliver was not actually sure that was how the physics worked, but no one had ever heard of a World War Two Two.

 

“Hmm, well, maybe.  Like you said, there's lots of reasons that can happen, could be we are reading too much into it.  I'm not here about that though.”

 

The old man started talking about the tale, “Off world contact was extremely limited after the war, we wanted to try restarting our computer industry, so we reached out to a few planets to bring us work, because we could still use our time advantage to compute.  Just send us a hard problem, and we'd send back an answer.  All our old contacts said no.  We know their computers are not that much faster or more efficient than ours, and you'd think with the time advantage we could do the computations for cheaper.”

 

“Hmm.” Oliver just kept his mouth shut.

 

“We're not going twice as fast.  Not since the war.  Earth kept it secret from us by limiting off world travel.”

 

“We didn't want you guys to panic, there was so much to do after the war.” Oliver's explanation was sensible but short.

 

“Grandpa, I'm here, it doesn't take a chronometer to know how much Terra has slowed down.” The old man's patience was growing shorter.

 

“Do you think the Nitz attack might have left some lasting damage?” Oliver tried.

 

“No.”  The denial was cold, he stared directly at Oliver's face.

 

The younger man got defensive “I'm not allowed to say anything.”

 

Xanatos stood up and went past Benjamin's chair.  He pulled out a bag with “Swift Optometry” on it.  He dug for a bit, and pulled out a box, then walked back to the couch.

 

“This belonged to my grandpa.”  It was a wooden box of polished oak, intended for jewelry, documents, and keepsakes.  It was twenty-one inches long, a foot wide, and eight inches tall and had a simple lock on the front.

 

Oliver did not have anything he owned that looked like that, but it reminded him of a box his mother once hid away in her closet.  She always keeps important documents in there, passports, social security cards, and birth certificates.  If this is the same family box, Oliver could finally know the answer to a question that had plagued him for fifteen years.

 

Oliver desired to know the damage to his destiny he caused when he dropped that bomb.  With the information inside he could begin to repair it.  Fix things.  He would go back to Victoria if that's what it took, being called Ollie was a sacrifice worthy of meeting one's soul mate.  Oliver's hand reached out to touch the box slowly.  Xanatos held up a hand to stop him.

 

“He left it with the family to give to you, but we decided against it.” Xanatos explained.

 

“You can't do that.  It's my box.”  Oliver almost shook.  His voice elevated and Ben even seemed to lift his head for just a second, a father concerned over a yelling child.  Oliver noticed and lowered his voice.

 

“Please, you have no idea how important this is.” He had a quiet desperation.  For thirty years he had wanted this, ever since he learned he had a twin.

 

“My grandfather was a great man, and I'm not saying you're not, but nothing you've done compares to what he meant to us.  If you want to show you're the same man, you're going to have to show me that side of you.”

 

Oliver had already broken so many laws, and this seemed necessary.  Xanatos knew what kind of man his grandfather was, the moral weight of what needed to be done, and the lengths he would go to achieve it.  It was not just the gift, it was what the gift represented, a box of hope for Terra's future.  No one else on Earth would open it.

 

Oliver began the explanation, “It was a requirement to get on the council.  They said it would be good for you guys to slow down a bit.  And they aren't wrong.  We can't feed your entire planet, and certainly can't at half speed, but ten percent we can do.  The food is coming, no one has to go hungry.  We even gave you those whales to help repopulate the oceans.”

 

“The device, it was Verdant technology.  They came to us with something to disrupt your Hubble constant.  I don't even know what that means, some kind of dark energy machine, but it causes time to go slower now.  They, sometimes use it to lock out the naughty worlds.”

 

“That could destroy our space time!  A slow down like that will cause a big crunch.  Do you have any idea what kind of damage this is doing to our cosmos?” Xanatos' hands wafted open, as if trying to carry the enormity of the problem in them, trying to make the scale of it known to Oliver.

 

“It...  Yes, it could, you are on a clock here.  They said we wouldn't let it get that bad though.”

 

“We've got ten years, maybe fifteen.” Oliver looked at him with surprise, and Xanatos went into this interview knowing more than he let on.  “Why?  Why would you do that to your brother?”

 

Oliver did not like that.  He did not want to be blamed for problems of his Earth; it was not like it was his fault.

 

The younger man tried to explain, “We put it on the moon.  It's simple, you just fly up there and turn it off.  We put a lock on it.  A human has to turn the key, no robots or disintegration.  They said if we did it, we could get in the council, we would be responsible for your part of the cosmos.”

 

“They also said it'd let us catch up a bit, and we'd be together again.  Twins.  We're supposed to be the same.”  The last part came in shallow, Oliver refocused his energy and spoke with certainty, with a bit of anger to it for his last argument.

 

“And more than that we deserved it.  You stole our time.”

 

Xanatos was incredulous, uncertain, “We didn't steal... it wasn't like we wanted to take your time.”

 

“And not just our time.  All our best years.  Earth had World War One and World War Two.  Communism.  Decolonization.  The cold war.  The post-colonial world.  Racism.  Two hundred million people died on Earth in our wars, men and women who had happy lives as far as I can tell on Terra.  If Terra hadn't come in nineteen ninety-two, I fear, no... I know what future events were in store for us.”

Xanatos shook his head.  What sort of complaint was that?  How was it Terra's fault that Earth made bad choices?  He tried anyways, “Sometimes you're the Earth.  We didn't try to make things bad for you.  You guys just weren't ready.”

 

“And you know the worst part.  You let your defenses down and you encouraged a Nitz invasion.  There were only a few million of them and they conquered your planet.  No resistance at all.  You tried to show the universe a better way and look how that ended up.  Then grandpa and grandma had to come in and save your butts.  What thanks do we get?  None.  We're giving you ten percent of our food a month and we get spit on in your streets.  I know volunteers who had dealt with disdain from their own sons and daughters, those same children who are now babies on Earth today.  You know what it feels like to look at your own kid, and know you are going to raise him to be an ungrateful asshole ...”

 

“You nuked us!” Xanatos yelled.

 

“Hey, keep it down over there, don't make me get up.”  Ben was not even sure how he was able to speak there.  He wanted to say anything else, but his eyes were glued to the tablet.

 

“Sorry” Oliver got quieter.

 

“Yeah, sorry, Mr. Young.” Both boys looked at each other.

 

“Oliver, why did you guys trust the council on this?  They're the worst people in the multiverse, when I was at State, I had to work with them.  You should know though; you got banned from Gaia over complaints on their weapons testing.”

“Pangaea?  How'd you know about the robot facility?” Oliver was confused, the official story was about dinosaurs.  How good a spy network did Terra have?  They were the nicest, best people in the multiverse, why would they even need spies?

 

Xanatos buttoned up his mouth, “uh, sorry, wrong...  Yeah, Pangaea.  Always get those two confused in my old age.”

 

“Look, we know they're playing us.  Whether or not we did it, they were going to do it.  So, we did it, and then we put a couple tricks in.”

 

Xanatos waited, and Oliver continued, “Yes, Terra is now going a tenth the speed of the rest of the multiverse.  The device is on the moon in a spot you should be able to get to, the Sea of Tranquility.”

 

“We don't have a manned space program.  There's nothing out there.  Just stupid rocks.  God, it wasn't enough that we went our own way, now you have to force us to recreate your crowning achievement.  A manned moon landing.  Do you know how expensive, how dangerous that is?”

 

“Well, yeah, but we can help.” Oliver hinted.

 

“Earth couldn't put a person on the moon today.  It's impossible.  We're dead.  And we're at ten percent speed.  How is anyone going to help?  Are you going to e-mail us the instructions?  We can read your books; we know what it takes to get there.  We don't have it in us.  No one does.”

 

“No, no.  There's something else.  It is only one tenth the speed on average.  You go at regular speed, well, Earth speed, three days of the month.  During a full moon.  You lose more time as the moon goes away.  During your three days you pop out, and we can share everything one-to-one.  That's the secret.  If we get caught, we will blame it on tidal forces or something.  No one knows how to explain the moon.”

 

Xanatos nodded.  Earth giving Terra a rocket would be 'uplifting', but if Terra solved the problem on her own, then that is just fair.  The council was hypocrites, but they honored the rules of the game.  For three days a month Earth and Terra could cooperate in secret.

 

The baby brother had made a mistake working with the council.  All Earth ever wanted was to be like Terra, and that led them to make bad decisions, but at least they were trying hard to make things right.  Terra needed to set an example, be forgiving, take the hit and move on.

 

Xanatos put the box down on the couch and pushed it slightly to Oliver, who eagerly grabbed it.  His arms shook as he reached down and slowly lifted the polished wood hinge, which gave a subtle creak.  There was no paper, no jewelry.  Neither documents, nor passports.  No marriage certificates or death certificates or birth certificates.  Instead, there was a black and white toy.  Oliver carefully pulled it out.

 

The stuffie was close to twenty inches long, black with white spots, deep black eyes, and white bottom.  The exterior had a light fuzz and inside was a firm plush that held its shape.  It was pristine, only the lightest of wear from storage and age.

 

“SHAMU” Oliver recognized it immediately, he could see himself in one black eye and Xanatos in the other as he began to cradle the toy into his chest.  He was careful not to tug on the blue, white tags.  “I always wanted Willy, but my parents said I had toys at home.”

 

He then remembered something.  SeaWorld on Terra was gone.  He knew that for a fact.  Where did this come from?  Oliver looked back in the box.  There were two photographs.

 

He lifted them up carefully, Xanatos gave a warning, “Careful, don't get those mixed up.”

 

Oliver looked at the top one first, it had a six-year-old boy reaching for a plushie like the one in his lap.  He wore jean blue suspenders and had a simple red shirt on.  His hair was slightly too long for a young boy's cut and had bits of blonde in auburn and a spikey top that refused to stay down.  His other arm was being pulled by a much taller woman from off frame.

 

“This is me!  How do you have a picture of me from my trip to SeaWorld?  This was just after the movie came out too.  Nineteen ninety-three?”

 

“No, that's grandpa.”  Xanatos pointed to the other photo.  “This one is you, taken in twenty eighty-seven based on the time stamp.”

 

The photo was nearly identical, though the quality of colors in the second photo was stronger, much less faded, and taken with a digital camera.  The angle and timing of the shot was twinned.  A six-year-old boy, reaching for a plush toy, being pulled by his mother to go back home.

 

Oliver started a laugh that became a cry, “He came to Earth to give me the toy I wanted, and then he kept it for himself.”  Tears started to form, and he breathed in deeply, leaning hard on Xanatos, “You have no... it's not fair.  I told you what you wanted.  Just give me a hint.  Was it supposed to be Ai?”

 

He started rubbing the younger man's shoulder in a hug, “It doesn't work like that Oliver.”

 

“Please, anything.  Victoria?  Naomi?  I need to know.”

 

“It's not Naomi.  It's just something you need to come to terms with Oliver, your fate is different.  You are on a different path.  The lines don't always converge again.”

 

Benjamin finally finished reading.  It was a short book on Earth's liberation of Terra.  It was not a biopic on Oliver's mission, like “Necessary Evil,” but it told him enough.  The disaster of the air war on the opening day, the use of nuclear bombs, and finally the global invasion.

 

Earth was filled with the most odious people Ben could imagine, but deep down he knew they were not inherently evil.  They just resorted to being mean because it was the only solution that made sense to them.  Earthlings were products of their period, time, and place, and with the right molding they could grow up to be as nice and lovable as the Terrans or their counterparts on Amazonia.

 

Even in this room, Oliver was nothing more than a six-year-old boy.  Here was a grandpa and a grandson together, the younger one crying over not getting the gift he wanted and needing comfort in a plush toy.  They were all just children, and every now and then the little ones just needed to be hugged.

[Operational Systems]

Chapter 25:  Count myself among liars and cheaters.

 

May 11th, 2023, Creston, California - Earth

 

“It's amazing, you can just buy food online and they deliver it to your door,” Benjamin spoke his thoughts aloud.  Oliver was in the room, but it was more a statement to the universe.  The two were in the kitchen again.  Oliver's stuffy had been placed carefully on the table next to where he was sitting, and he and his whale were watching Benjamin open sealed packages with a sharp knife.

 

Xanatos had left not long after getting what he wanted from Oliver.  Peace and quiet had returned to the house, and Oliver brought Benjamin out of his absent-minded parent command.  Benjamin was prepared to voice his displeasure when the doorbell rang.  The two men were tasked with bringing in dozens of boxes.  Suddenly, Ben was not in the mood to get into a conversation about trust after Oliver had taken a long look at the credit card bill.  Instead, the larger man explained he wanted to cook a meal, and the two focused on getting the food put away in the kitchen and dinner prepared.

 

“Have you ever made this recipe before?” Oliver was curious, several of Ben's purchases were cookbooks.  The large tomes looked like pocket bibles in his hands.

 

“Of course not.” Ben answered like it was the dumbest question Oliver had ever asked, his attention was on handling the small knife as he cut slits into each chicken breast.

 

“Do you want help with anything?”  Oliver had set the table again, a plate and silverware for himself.

 

Ben's eyes moved around the room, the dishes were put away, the trash did not need to be taken out, the boy had already set the table.  Oliver was so great with chores, all he wanted to do was help, “No, it's fine, you can play until dinner but wash your hands before you come back.”

 

*DING* *DING*

 

The bell had been going all evening as more packages arrived.  First from wholefoods, then more products from Amazon.  Oliver jumped up to get to the door.  This package delivery man had long legs, and tiny shorts.  He had brought two large packages to the door.

 

“Thanks,” Oliver said, grabbing one and placing it in the foyer.

 

“You have about half a van full here actually.  I just grabbed a couple.”

 

The carrier and Oliver began the slow process of moving the boxes.  There were dozens.  They were too light for books, and the shipping label was discreet with just Oliver's name and address, offering no clue for the contents.  Oliver created a fortress near the couch for Ben.  He was about to open one, when Benjamin called him to dinner.

 

“That was fast,” Oliver said, sliding into the chair, his fork raised.

 

“Did you wash your hands?” Benjamin softly asked, still plating, and preparing the food.

 

“Uh, yes?” Oliver smoothly tried to answer.

 

Ben turned, his face a sharp frown, “Oliver, we talked about this.  We're going to work on not lying anymore.  I know you think it's fun, but you're hurting others when you do that.  I don't want to say I always know when you're lying, because that's fighting a lie with a lie, but I want you to feel you can be honest with me.  I want you to try to get past this bad habit.  Can you promise me that?  We're going to work on being honest the rest of the night.  Now put your new toy back in your room and wash your hands.  I can see the dirt from the boxes you brought in.”

 

Oliver stared at his hands, they had picked up some dirt and black from the boxes.  For a moment he was lost, unsure why he would do something that childish.  Just because Benjamin saw him as six, did not mean he had to act like a six-year-old.  He stood tall, smiled, and silently went to wash up after first bringing his new stuffy to his bedroom.  The table was plated for him alone, with a piece of fried chicken breast and a green spring salad.

 

“Now, don't be upset we're trying something new here.  This is kind of like an upgraded chicken tender.  A big boy chicken nugget.  You'll like it.  There's a surprise in it.” Benjamin smiled, just watching Oliver with anticipation.

 

Oliver cut into the meat and an ooze of Swiss cheese fell like lava onto the plate.  He carefully took a piece of ham, chicken, and cheese and brought it to his mouth.  His eyes exploded in surprise.  The crunch of the skin was perfect, the chicken breast had a fluff and slight juice, and the Swiss just melted on his tongue with the ham coming up behind bringing smooth and fatty and crisp into a bite that was both tender and chewy.  He spent almost thirty seconds chewing through it, before carefully raising the glass of milk.  In his mind he desired that same sweet thin drink from last week's dinner but felt only disappointment by a more neutral silky flavor.

 

“Benjamin, this is incredible.  You've never made chicken cordon bleu and you just hit a grand slam here, first time at bat?”

 

“Oh, I didn't know it was pronounced that way.”  Benjamin tried to shrug off the complement, “I'm just glad you're not a picky eater.  I remember when you would only ever eat Mac and Cheese.  I was getting sick of it.”

 

Oliver lifted his glass of milk and with a salute, “To growing up.”  Benjamin gave a half smirk of a smile and his eyes stared off past Oliver, his smile slowly dropping to a frown.

 

“Do you have to?” The question from Ben was honest, soft, not complaining, as if Oliver had not considered the alternative.

 

Oliver was unprepared to answer such a question.

 

Did he have to grow up physically?  No, he was not getting any bigger.

 

Did he have to behave like an adult?  Maybe.  He was responsible for himself, and there were benefits to living a life of maturity.

 

Did he have to mind control Ben into seeing him as an adult?  Oliver went to answer finally, “I want us to be best friends.  I don't know how to do that if you see me as a kid.  I want us to be adult friends, like you are with your adult friends.”

 

Benjamin thought carefully through his life.  He did not really have any adult friends he'd consider close.  Colleagues, former classmates, former school buddies, people he met at conferences.  He was not really a part of any adult organization, and men his age either had littles or even children of their own.  They did not want to do things unless the whole family could benefit.

 

“You are my friend, Oliver, and I get that's it hard to make friends.  You're short for your age, and I was too, and it's going to be hard.  But one thing you can do, one thing we can try, is just being honest and being yourself.  You keep thinking you need to make up stories about things, otherwise people won't like you.  I'd like you to stop that.  Here, let's try something normal.  How was your day?”

 

“Goo...”  Oliver stopped himself from the reflective answer, his friend wanted to know how his day went, “It was bad.  Awful.  This meal is the best thing that's happened.”

 

The honesty was refreshing to Ben.  For a moment, his sleep deprivation left him, and he could ignore that he had been on minimal sleep for three (Earth) days.  He felt like Oliver liked him for who he was.

 

“Hmm, well, I heard you up and about after um, twelve, and that breakfast this morning was a bit unhealthy.  You were cranky before you left.  Don't worry, we'll work on those things, make sure the days always start off right.  No more McLittles for breakfast, it's just a treat.”

 

“Ha!  Wait you're ...” Oliver was unsure, “No, it was because I had meetings all day, and when I wasn't in a meeting, I was in spreadsheets balancing budgets, and when I wasn't doing that, I was doing succession and contingency planning with Naomi.”

 

“I'd like to hear more.”  Benjamin was serious, and comforting.  Oliver's school?  Job?  Daycare?  Camp?  Whatever it was he did, it sounded difficult, and Ben was excited to see the sausage made on multi-dimensional traveling.

 

“Well, I had a meeting with an old colleague at a previous job, and she came in and said all the bad things we were doing and threatened to get my whole team fired in front of me.  I did a follow up with her and she said she'd back off if I gave her a bribe.”  Oliver's tone shifted, “I'm sure you know what that's like.”

 

“What?  No, I've never bribed anyone.” Ben straightened up with the accusation.

 

“I mean, don't the students come in asking for a better grade.  All,” Oliver's voice got higher pitched, “Please, Mr. Young, please give me an Aye, I'll wear a diaper and go peepee and poopee.”

 

Benjamin's laugh filled the kitchen, “First off, no that's never happened, I wish it did.  And second if it did, I would slap that little over the knee and spank him or her so hard...”  His jocular tone changed to more advisory and serious, “Uh, don't hit people.  I'm joking.  Hitting is wrong.  You're working on that right, no more hitting?”

 

Oliver had heard him say something like that earlier.  Was Ben's psyche unable to contextualize that a six-year-old went to war?  It was possible Ben had no idea what a nuclear bomb was, let alone the horrors capable of a weapon of mass destruction.  He knew that Oliver did some serious violence, hurt a lot of people, and he wanted Oliver to not do that again.  The boy tried to answer, “Uh, yeah no more hitting.  I promise.”

 

Ben looked at the nearly empty plate, “Well tonight will be better, you'll reset everything and tomorrow will be a new adventure.  What'd you think of the dish?  Best thing you've ever had?”

 

“Ye....  No, but it was good, one of the best things I've had in a long time.”  Oliver informed Ben, “Let's see, the best thing I ever had.  My dad used to make ribs that were pretty great.”  Oliver seemed to look past the taller man, deep in thought before continuing, “Speaking of, Captain Alder, once had the bright idea to cook ribs in the oven in the Buff, um our plane the Bee fifty-two.”

 

He continued, “I don't know if it was the fact, we were in the air for eight hours at that point, or the cold, or the altitude, but those ribs.”  He smacked a bit, “Also, he cooked them in this janky little easy-bake oven while flying around the Arctic Circle.  Captain Alder was always pulling stunts like that.  And then Nick got barbecue sauce all over himself and the display.  We forced him to wear a bib every time he ate after that.  Called him the baby and kept a whole thing of baby wipes for him to clean himself with.  Wouldn't mind having those again.”

 

“Ribs aren't that hard to cook, the difficulty is all in the prep work.  Like with a marinade or a rub.  Rubs are better though.  If you get them ready you can leave them in the fridge for a bit, and then any low temp oven for five, six hours.  The last twenty minutes you kick it up to a hot temp, add a bunch of sauce, let them cook, finally top off with sauce at the end.”  Benjamin answered Oliver, but not directly, more as if talking to the wall.  He shook his head, clearing the daydream, “Oh, I'm sorry that was rude, your friend's dish meant a lot to you.”  For a brief moment he could even imagine seeing the aurora borealis from ten thousand feet.

 

Oliver smiled and looked straight to his friend, “No, it's perfect, that was exactly what I wanted to hear.  Let's go check out the packages you got.  I want you to show me everything you bought.”

 

Benjamin and Oliver met again in the living room; Benjamin picked up a black tablet.  At ten inches he could hold the whole thing comfortably in one hand, resting it at the tip of a finger to the base of his palm.  Ben commented on it, “I got one of those fancy readers, and I've been loading it up all afternoon with your books.  It came with a tiny pencil,” He held up the black pen that in comparison was the size of a toothpick.

 

“I'll have to review it later to make sure you're not smuggling any forbidden knowledge,” Oliver joked.

 

“And I got a second one.  This is just a melon pad like the one you got, but bigger.  You mentioned a conductor, um Beethoven I believe?  I put him on here, and some other things.”

 

“Uh, that's fine.”  Oliver understood, Ben was like a kid that had won the Toys-R-US shopping contest.  The first thing you do is go to the electronics and load up.  At least he had not tried to buy computers or televisions, or who knows what.  He had even seen someone buy a house on that website.

 

Ben then reached next to the recliner to a box that had already been opened, “And this is a globe of Earth.  And you saw all the food, and some of the books.”  He held the planet on the tip of his finger, he was not strained by the weight.

 

“Also doubles as a globe of Terra,” Oliver joked.

 

Oliver went over to the boxes that he had helped load into the house earlier.  He had arranged them like a fort, and he could walk into his castle, “So, what's all this?”  He grabbed one off the top, “Who is Northshore?”

 

“Oh... Hmm, OK maybe some context is needed here.”  Benjamin tried starting, he came over to the couch and sat down.  The weight of the past three days was getting to him.  He closed his eyes for a second.

 

Oliver did not care, he started opening the box, ripping the top off.  Despite its size, it was light enough to carry with one hand.  Inside was a plastic bag, like for shopping, with a handle at the top and sealed.  Oliver pulled at the brown cardboard and discarded it with one hand, while pulling the bag out with his other.

 

The scorn and disappointment on Oliver's face pierced straight into Ben.  Oliver read the package, “Tab style briefs.  For day and nighttime usage.  Well, I thought I made it clear that I didn't need diapers Benjamin.  You were doing so well too.”

 

“They're not for you; they're for me.” Benjamin tried to explain, he was almost panicked in the accusation.

 

“Oh, so you're a...” Oliver looked at the white and blue package he was holding, “Medium?  Somehow, I don't think this is the right size for you.”

 

“It's not like that.  You mentioned, with the game theory, that the point of travel was to make money and I just had an idea that.  It's stupid.”  Benjamin did not know how to explain it.

 

Oliver came out of the fort and looked at the man, “Remember, anything uncomfortable.”  Benjamin began to wince.  Oliver's smile returned.

 

“OK, I said it was stupid.  I had to know.  I knew you guys would still have diapers, for adults, it's just natural.  You guys grow old, or things happen, and you even showed me one, and I figured.  I figured it was weird that on my planet, the only people buying diapers are the ones not wearing them.  Like, what we look for in diapers isn't what you guys would want.  So, I stepped back and figured, if littles had a choice, if it was their money and they could choose, what would they buy?”

 

“And, with us grown-ups, all we care about is how cute the design is, and how long until they have to change it.  We don't care about comfort or rate of absorption, or how it fits the body, or smell, or shape, or any of that.  And I pulled up all these reviews and they were so different.  On my planet they just say, 'looks cute' or 'fits lots of sizes', or 'thirty-two-hour capacity'.”

 

“Those ones got good reviews.  They have wicking action, and it resists sagging, and they come in these nice dark colors, like, you could hide them under dark pants.”  Benjamin then pulled up another box, he carefully opened it and out popped another similar bag.  It had an older couple biking on the front, with an astronaut to the side.  Ben smiled and explained, “Oh these, yes, the reviews on these aren't as good, but it's environmentally friendly and has some space age technology.  Can you imagine, Oliver, all the advancements your people put into this piece of underwear?”

 

“Why don't you guys just, I don't know, go with cloth.  What difference does it make?”  Oliver did not understand diapers.

 

Now it was Benjamin's time to show scorn and disappointment at Oliver.  The look pierced harder coming from a man almost twice Oliver's height.  Benjamin layered it on, “Why is it every little asks to be in cloth?  Look, we love you guys, but not that much.  Do you know how hard those are to fold?  Or to get on?  Then you have to do that while the baby is crying, and the worst part is they leak.”

 

Ben continued his tour of the diapers, “Anyway, this brand comes in pull-ups as well and those are apparently well regarded.”

 

“Then you are planning on adopting when you get back?  Just getting all the stuff you need?  Guess it saves you a bit of money to buy it on Earth.” Oliver was not sure how to address this; he lowered the bag of diapers down.

 

“No, not like that, not at all.  I was going to contact the diaper manufacturers and sell them the diapers to use in future designs.”  Ben defended himself.

 

“This is what bothers me.”  Ben scratched his hair slightly, “There's a ritual.  Right when you first adopt a little, you take them to the store and you say, 'pick out your diaper'.  And it's always the moms that do this, the dads just grab what is ever cheapest.  So, the little is standing there and has no idea what any of the brands mean.  They've spent their whole life trying to ignore this, and it's the most embarrassing, the most terrible moment of their life, and the decision they make here is going to be the one they'll have to live with forever.  They've never tried a diaper before; they don't know what's good.  They point to the one with a monkey on it because they saw a tee vee commercial once and thought it was funny.”

 

Oliver had wondered what was going on when he saw the mommies take the littles out of the cart, carefully waving them over the different brands, and whispering “Which one speaks to you.  Which one does your soul cry out for?”

 

Ben brought up his hand to his face, touching his glasses slightly, before lowering his hand again out to Oliver, “It's not fair.  The diapers are for you, we force you to wear these things and it’s pure luck of the draw if you pick the right one.  So, when I get back, I'm going to sell this to the manufacturers.  I'll say I was off world to a land where the littles buy and make their own diapers, and this is what they want to wear.”  He pat the bag he had placed on the couch next to him.  “Plus, the story is worth like a million bucks alone.  'Come buy the brand with the secret advanced diaper tech from another dimension.'”

 

Oliver took note of the part where Ben admitted who was making whom wear the diapers, he looked at the bag he was holding.  Could Earth really have better diapers than the masters of the multiverse?  Who then was the real diaper dimension?

 

Benjamin's story made sense, the economics of it, plus the technology.  Amazons did not have a space program, but Earth did, and Earth's top minds had developed these garments for practical use for the harshest environments imaginable.  Oliver looked directly at Ben, whose face was in shame at having admitted his silly desires and dreams of getting rich off of his multi-dimensional vacation.  All Oliver could feel was joy.

 

“Ben, I'm so proud of you.  For once, for all I know your first time ever, you managed to see things the way we see things.  You've actually learned something from your trip to Earth.  The littles don't have a choice in the manner, but you guys do, and you can choose to be better.”  Oliver put the bag down and stood tall, this next part was going to be a gamble.  Ben had to be ready for it now, and if he were not Oliver was not sure he ever would be.

 

Benjamin was starting to smile, feeling better about things, Oliver had not made fun of him, or chastised him, or punished him for buying thousands of dollars in medical garments, he looked at Oliver heavy with anticipation.

 

“Now, the diaper thing is just the first step.  You're limited by how you see the world, still seeing things through your own biases and experiences.  But there's something the littles want more than anything.  When they go into their, um, when their adult neoteny manifests, it's because they are yearning for something more.  Not to play with rattles or watch cartoons.  No playing airplane.  They want you to push them, bring them to the next stage of their life.”

 

Benjamin moved his hands to his lap, his smiling face dropping to a frown.  His eyes narrowed.

 

“It's like you said, the two of you are supposed to help each other.  Littles are evolving, well that's a bad use of the word, evolving in the Pokémon sense not the Darwin sense.  Their bodies enter a deliberate, almost catatonic, almost cocoon-like stage, because they'll need it to push to something more than just a normal adult.  Something amazing, something wonderful.  A gift to them.  And it is a tremendous amount of trust they're putting in you guys to bring them out of it.”

 

“You read Collins paper.”  Benjamin pushed through the truth.  The pain of what Oliver was digging up from that night, when Collins asked him, soured his vision.  No longer was there a six-year-old before him, a cute boy.  Now there was a man, an ugly old man who had lied and manipulated and fooled him.  The room felt as cold as flying at the North Pole.

 

“Yes, yes, I did, it's probably the most important discovery in your planet's entire history.  The littles have a condition that causes them to become highly vulnerable, like fresh clay.  It’s to reshape themselves into something stronger, better, more suited for society.  And they conditioned you guys, gave you the gifts, because they wanted you guys to help them all reach the next level.  I'm not saying every tiny one would want this, but many would love it.  They would love to reboot their lives and start fresh and come out of it stronger, better, and faster.  So, what gives?  Why do you guys intentionally force them into being babies?  Wouldn't they be so much happier if they were allowed to ascend?  To level up?  To grow up?”

 

“I can't believe... that's what this is about this whole time.  You!  You, you've heard nothing about what I've said the past two days.  And you spend the whole time pretending you want us to be friends, and meanwhile you don't even tell me what this is about.  This isn't about some Nitz invasion, or forbidden tech, or slavery.  You just want to know if it can be done so you can do it to yourselves.  If you can turn a cute baby boy into, I don't even know.”

 

“A superman.” Oliver said flatly, “Yes, I want to know if this is how it's supposed to work.  Because imagine what we could do here, or on a thousand other worlds.  Just imagine how fantastic and wonderful people's lives would be.  They could grow up, get married, have kids, have the kids grow up, and then go into a larval stage for a few years, and pop out refreshed, new, even better than before.  Like those salamanders in Mexico.  They think they want to spend their whole lives in water, and they can, and it's a happy life, but under the right conditions you push them, and they'll learn to walk on land.  Humans could be the same way, just reboot ourselves every few years.  New careers, new jobs, new lives, each one smarter and better than the last.”

 

“I can't believe this.  I seriously thought we were friends Oliver.  I seriously, I even made you that dish.”  His hand came up to his forehead, “I'm so tired... I just want to go home, I'm so sick of everything.”

 

Ben sniffled slightly, his eyes closed, he bent his chest forward, “I'm so tired.  You know what you said this morning, about conditional love.  For a brief moment I felt that with you.  You were like the sun.  When we talked in the kitchen.  For a brief moment I understood how much more we could be to each other, and now.  It's gone, and the loss is the worst feeling in the world.  You're just a candle.  Oh my god...”  He took a big breath, “This is what the littles feel all the time.  When we force them.”  He looked at the pile of boxes.  With anger he smashed the tower of cardboard that Oliver had assembled.  A box flung across the room and crashed into the door.

 

“Fuck you, Oliver.  You have no idea what Collins meant to me and how hard it was to say no.  You don't give a fuck about who he was or what an accomplishment his paper was or anything about what he meant to me.  You just are using me to get to his discovery.  I don't want to deal with you.  I'm done.  You can send me home or not I don't care.  I'm not helping you with that.”  The pain from the word went straight to Ben's forehead, he winced his eyes.  He brought up his legs and stretched them on the long couch, slowly he brought himself down to a couch pillow, turning away from Oliver.

 

“Benjamin, I'm... I had no, I can't.”  Oliver just shook, his heart had started pumping hard, sweat popped under his arms, and adrenaline surged when Benjamin had dropped the f-bomb.

 

“Go away,” the giant half pouted.

 

Oliver looked down at the package beneath him that was pearl white.  He was at his most disgusting.  He needed to be born new, fresh from all sin.  How could he do that to his friend?  Oliver thought Ben had respected him enough, changed enough he could force the issue.  Instead, he kept pushing his own agendas.  Lying the whole time, manipulating Ben to this state, on the off chance, off hope that Ben wanted to cure maturosis.

 

He had pushed the man because Oliver wanted to know if it was possible to take a human, with all his faults and failures, and cause them to become reborn.  Take a damaged adult and fix them to something actually whole.  He so desperately wanted to know what came after becoming a baby he had thrown away the trust and friendship of his best friend.

 

He ripped open the bag.  Ben believed in the ritual, and right now Oliver had nothing else to offer him.  This was the best he would ever be able to do.

 

Ben's head turned slightly, “What are you doing?” one eye spying Oliver.

 

“I bought this, right?  It's my name on the box.  These are all mine, right?”  Oliver shook as he pulled out a dark blue square.  He carefully examined it, turning it over in his hands, feeling the soft plastic.  Curiosity caused him to bring it up to his nose and give a whiff.

 

“Hmm, smells nice.  Like that stuff they put in those closet hangers, but not offensive, just a slight whiff of something nice.”

 

Ben was curious, the littles did not smell their diapers.  Well, maybe, after using them, like a part of their brain's wires got crossed and found it exciting.  Could it also be the case that Earthling's diapers smelled better?

 

Oliver unfolded the garment, it kept the hard folded shape as he wafted it in the air, like he was unsure of the next step.  He brought a hand down and undid his zipper, and then his pants button.

 

“You said this one had good reviews, right?  This is the good one?”  Oliver was pleading, desperate.

 

Ben shrugged; he did not bother to get up.  Oliver's behavior was curious though, he kept one eye open watching him lower his pants, and then boxers.  He wafted the plastic-cloth a bit in front of him, rotating it.

 

Ben offered a bit of advice, he was still angry, but it came off as weak, “Fluff it.”

 

Oliver stretched the diaper out while stepping out of his pants with his legs.  He began flattening the insides, bringing the shape to a curve, stretching the guards.

 

“Tapes start in the back.”  Ben offered.

 

“That's obvious.” Oliver guessed.  It had not been obvious to him; it was not really something he was looking at.  He was still in shock at the idea he was about to put a diaper on.  He started to guess how to put this cloth on standing up.  He straddled it about halfway and moved the cloth up, before letting the garment fall on the ground.  He then sat and brought it up to himself.  Carefully he reached behind and pulled forward the taped side, locking in his right.  Then he repeated on the left.  Oliver felt an odd tension between wanting to bring the paper-thin sides as tight as possible and keep them from ripping.

 

He stood up, looked himself over, patted his butt, and front, and then did a twirl.  “What do you think?”

 

“I don't care anymore.”  Ben closed his eyes in protest.  The blue looked good on Oliver; he could not even see the bare skin on the sides.  It did not have a ridiculous hippo or a rocket ship, the dark color hid his flaws rather than emphasized them.

 

“Well, hmm.  You know they're not bad.  Not like great, but they're like pajamas, almost.  Like not cheap ones either, but not expensive.  Pajamas and maybe toilet paper.  Nice toilet paper.  Not too loud.  Bit warm, not a ton of air, though...”  Oliver gave a slight hop making sure the garment stayed on.  A gush of air popped through his backside fluffing his shirt.  “Oh, that's neat.”  He let his shirt fall down over the garment, hiding half of it, and walked to the couch.

 

“Look, I understand you're angry, I want us to be friends.  I wasn't lying on that.  Maybe everything else was a lie, but I will do anything for us to be friends.  Forget the paper.  Forget the littles.  Just you and me.  Please, I'm trying.  This is me trying.  I'm going to make mistakes, but I'm trying to be better, and I want... I want you to want me to be better.”

 

Ben reopened an eye, and then reached out to Oliver, a hand getting under the butt.  Oliver stiffened as an immediate reaction and then forced himself to relax.

 

“I'm tired Oliver, just, come closer, up here.  It'll be easier to talk” His arm pushed up Oliver, who helped scramble up the couch, Benjamin's arm guiding the smaller man to his waist.

 

“I'm sorry, I'm just so sorry, about everything.  I don't care about anything else.  I do know how important Collins was to you, if it hurts too much to go back to that, then that's fine, I'll never bring it up again.”

 

Benjamin's left hand guided Oliver down, bringing the man to his chest, Oliver began to hug him.  His thoughts were being drawn to darkness, but this small candle was lighting him out of it.  The light flickered, ready to splinter out, and Ben needed to protect it.  “We'll just lay here for a bit; I don't want to talk.”  He gently moved up and down Oliver's back, feeling the elastic band of diaper with each stroke.

 

“Please, just tell me what I have to do,” Oliver quietly whispered.

 

“Just relax.”  Benjamin took a long breath, “You're a small ship in the ocean.  Storms in every direction and you're clinging on.  You're a gentle snowflake landing on a mountain top, at the edge of an avalanche.  You're a leaf on the wind.”

 

Oliver smiled, he lifted his head from Ben's shirt and looked at the man, his eyes closed and magnified behind four-inch round glasses.  Oliver lowered his head on Ben's chest, hearing the echo of the tall man's heart.  The giant was slowing down.  Ben's gentle brushing cleaned out all the bad mistakes of the day, each stroke taking longer than the last.

 

Then he felt it.  The same thing he felt three or four times a day.  A signal from below.  It caused Oliver to wiggle slightly under Ben's pressure.  Ben let his hand fall on Oliver's padded bottom.

 

He had to relieve his bladder.  He had to go up and get to the toilet.  He was stuck.  He looked to the side, to see if he could squeeze out by rolling, but Ben's other arm had come up and locked him in.  Oliver tried wiggling, to get a grasp towards the arm on his behind, but there was nothing.

 

He could lay there and hold it in.  That was it.  Oliver tried whispering, “Hey, I gotta...”

 

Ben shushed him, “Boat on the ocean.  Feel each wave come over you.  Just relax,” the arms hugging him modestly tightened.

 

It was fine.  He was wearing a diaper.  He could just go.  The pressure started to build but there was nothing.

 

Oliver had to go, he knew he had to pee, but he could not.  His dick felt like the block that comes from the hardness of an erection.  He wanted to go, but his body knew better than him.  This is not toilet time.  It started to grow uncomfortable.  Minutes continued to pass while he lay there.

 

Each word was strained from the sleeping giant, “Leaf … on the wind...”

 

It was the humiliation of a child standing before a class on his first day of kindergarten, it was rushing home from a long trip and getting stuck behind a truck.  It was surrender; it was... the warmth of a sauna towel.  It was dipping into the pool on the hottest day of summer.  It was drinking the warm broth of a soup after an hour shoveling snow.  It was the first sip of coffee in the morning, the contradiction of alertness and relaxation, or comfort and pain, of taste and disgust.  Every muscle tensed and then relaxed, and a wave of pleasure wafted into the arms and legs.

 

Oliver squeezed a hand between himself and Ben, touching the front of the garment and felt the contrast between his innards and the outside.  Tape and plastic and dry, quilted cloth and a hot liquid the consistency of apple cider on the other.  He pushed gently with a finger, sloshing the liquid back up into his privates.  Pleasant warmth, and then a short fade as the interior cloth wicked up the offending fluids.  The shape of the garment permanently changing with the extra mass.  He would no longer easily touch his inner thighs together.  It would stay joyfully warm for a few more minutes.

 

He had done it.  He had humiliated himself, debased himself, crushed himself, destroyed his entire ego, just so Ben could see the lengths he would go.  The defeat and surrender washed over him, he was not dead, instead, he had an opportunity to be born again new.

 

“Am I your sun now?”  He whispered.  He looked up and was met with Ben's closed eyes.  The man's mouth had shifted to breathing with a harsh block, not quite a snore.  His arm on Oliver's rump was limp but heavy.

 

The temporary joy of relieving oneself in premium medical garments quickly faded as Oliver again felt the return of pain to his equipment, and a dirtiness of mind and body.  He still had to go to the bathroom.  He needed to pee, and every part of him said he could still be an adult if he tried to make it to the toilet and got the offending garment out and thrown away.  Plus, he still had to set up the hypnotic equipment for the next day.  He did not want to reinforce the message from last night, “Oliver is growing up.  You will see Oliver as a six-year-old.”  Ben was ready to see him as nine, he was ready to progress.

 

Only he could not do anything.  A six-hundred-pound man had grabbed him and was keeping him locked in.  Oliver tried gently moving Ben's hand, but the grip was too strong.  He tried squirming, and wiggling, and nothing.  He still had to relieve himself.

 

Being chewed out by his government.  Meeting his grandson.  Seeing Benjamin actually try to be a better person, only to have it all crash down.  Wearing a diaper.  Wetting himself.  He could not escape, and worst of all Ben did not see a lick of it.  He had peed himself for no reason.  He may have even enjoyed it, his mind was racing and confused.

 

It was too much for Oliver.  He gave up.  He let his breathing match Ben's.  Soon he started to sync up Ben's breathing with his own.  This day was over.  He had failed.  Time to close your eyes, and 'lick 'm tomorrow'.  He felt the joyous wet warmth in his loins again.  It matched the warmth on his chest and under Ben's arm.

 

Oliver woke naturally, the early light of the late spring morning coming in through blinders.  He got a quick look at the clock and saw it was a few minutes before his alarm would wake him for a day of work.  A perfect sleep.  He pushed back the blanket and fell out of bed.  He walked over to the mirror and began picking out clothes for the day.

 

After he had picked a shirt and boxers, he looked closer in the mirror above his dresser.  Something was off.  A slight orange was poking above his pajama bottoms.  His heart began to race.  Oliver depantsed as though his sleepwear were contaminated in a nuclear blast.

 

Hammers, bolts, walkie talkies, a panorama of a construction site just above his crotch.  The six-year-old in the mirror looked back at Oliver with a confused face.  The boy had the same pajama top as Oliver, he wore the same diaper, and they both knew it was not the one he wore last night.  Who was that tiny person in the mirror?  Oliver had seen him before, but it was not clicking.  Like trying to close a zipper on a jacket, he needed to push on it to get it past where it had gotten stuck.

 

His panic sped his movements to alacrity.  The fervor of a man on fire.  He ripped off the undergarments, tearing the tapes easily.  The garments were dry, unused, fresh save a hair or two.  Nothing more than fancy pajamas and once ripped off they would never be used again.  Oliver left them on the floor and fled to his closet to get himself into adult clothing.  He walked back over to the mirror.  Sure enough, there was a young boy with a confused crook of his face in the mirror, wearing the same outfit as Oliver.

 

“This is a dream, you're dreaming, you're imagining things,” Oliver consoled himself.

 

The alarm next to his unmade bed buzzed with a click to on and connected to a morning news program.  He looked down at the trash pile of yesterday's garment and clothing.  It was a mess a child would make.  An adult fixes his bed.  An adult puts his dirty clothing away.  An adult sees a grown man when he looks at himself in the mirror.

 

“And if you were thinking of visiting Terra for a nice summer vacation, well think again.  The State department, citing growing political instability and other concerns, has renewed general travel restrictions for Americans, and only authorized personal are to visit our brother Earth.  Don't be too upset, because there's ninety-nine thousand other worlds to visit and in our next segment we'll be talking with the ambassador from Theia on popular local destinations and activities.”

 

He was still five foot eleven.  He could still do his job.  He could read and analyze and plot and plan.  He was emotionally secure.  He just could not see himself as anything other than six when he unfortunately caught his own reflection.  Shaving would be difficult.

 

There was a yawn that changed into a growl like a bear out of hibernation.  There was a creek of the floors as a six-hundred-pound giant got out of bed.  Oliver's toes could feel the subtle vibrations, and it brought his awake mind to the full situational awareness.  There was a ten-foot man in the house.  The sound of his radio must have woken him, and he was coming this way.

 

The hypnosis that Oliver had reprogrammed his own brain with was nothing compared to the symbolic destruction that had gone on inside Ben's head.  The hypnosis, the lies, the videos, the commands.  Oliver trying to be friends again by wearing a diaper.  The hate he felt for being used, and the rebound.  The failure towards himself for wanting this and finding a better way.  The wetting.  Falling asleep with his own son on his lap.  Getting to change his son's diaper and put him to bed.

 

He was coming to terms with the fact Oliver was growing up, that he was six years old, and he was not going to want to do all those childish things anymore.  He might still need help in a few ways, but lots of children struggle at his age.  He would just have to give him lots of extra love and extra attention and in time he would grow into his own.  He was ready to start the long journey to becoming an adult, and maybe he would stumble from time to time like last night, but Benjamin would always be there for him.

 

Plus, there was something else, something new.  He was getting comfortable with being on Earth and having Oliver in his life full time.  It was like there was another man in him now, a Benjamin and a Ben.  They had a dialogue in his head.  He was a new dad, and he also had a new best friend – his son, Oliver.  What could a father hope for more than to be best friends with his own son?  He felt comfortable now on Earth, like everything here was as it should be, and he wanted to bring that feeling back to Amazonia.

 

Oliver's plan to get Benjamin to see him as an adult had failed.  Even now Benjamin was entering the kitchen, and pulling eggs, butter, milk, flour, and bacon to make his son a real breakfast, not that McDonalds crap, something even Benjamin would be happy to eat.  He would have to hurry though; he thought he heard the boy already getting up and changing.

The Benjamin project was only intended to be a short thing, a week or two tops.  This would be over by Christmas, and everyone could go back home as friends again.

 

No plan survives contact with the enemy.  This was going to be a long war.

[Operational Systems]

Well, finally, with chapter 25, our protagonist finally wears a diaper in this story about diapers.  I hope the payoff was worth it.  On to chapter 26!

Chapter 26: Don't go quietly.  Combat Baby.  Said you would never give up easily.

 

May 12th, 2023, Creston, California - Earth

 

“What's in them?” Oliver tried at conversation.  Ben had his head in the clouds all morning, his attention was on four different things as he cooked breakfast.  Since Oliver had left his bedroom, the short man had been dancing on a pin cushion, trying to gauge how Benjamin saw him.  He knew for certain the taller man did not see him as nine, but he also was not the angry behemoth he was last night either.

 

Benjamin turned his head enough to answer, excited at his own joke “There's waffles in them.”

 

Oliver got the reference, “I thought you didn't watch television.  I would not imagine that show ever aired in your dimension.”

 

“Well... actually I don't recall...” Benjamin was confused, staring at the batch of batter, small bubbles coming to the surface.

 

“But you do watch television sometimes.  I know you think it makes you small, but I don't care.  What was your favorite show?”  Oliver wanted to be conversational, he still wanted Ben to think of him as a friend, and talking about TV was one thing friends did, right?

 

“Naomi and Oliver,” Ben snapped off a quick response.

 

Oliver didn't know how to take that, “What about us?”

 

“No, it's a show from a few years back.  I was a pretty big fan.  I had a thirty-minute podcast every week where I went over the latest episode.  I even went to a couple conventions and did interviews with the show creators.”

 

Oliver reflected on that.  Conventions?  Episode recaps?  Was Benjamin a huge dork?  Anything uncomfortable, right...

 

“You know, the show was actually written by a little.  I never got to meet her.”  Benjamin tone went with excitement for sharing the first fact, and then into sadness over the last.

 

“Is she a reclusive type, or one of those artists who don't like her own work?” Oliver tried to guess.

 

“No, nothing like that.  She was adopted.  By Doctor Bremer in fact... oh she's um...”

 

Oliver stopped him, “I know who she is.  Still, if she's your white whale, it might be fun to interview her sometime.  Maybe send out an e-mail or something?  Or write a letter?  She would probably still appreciate it.”

 

Benjamin stopped from pouring another batch of batter into the waffle iron.  It was a rather ridiculous statement by Oliver.  Talking with a little after they were adopted was not something that was done.  Even assuming Emily Bremer was not suffering from severe maturosis, adoption was a clean slate.  She had been reborn.  Acknowledging a former achievement was admitting the littles had done something worthy of comment.  That they could be more than poop machines and asking them about it afterwards implied he believed they could still be more than that.

 

He looked at the hot waffle iron, and then at Oliver.  Emily's joy in life had been reduced to a candle, and if he came to her as a fan, he could make her once again feel the sun.  Even if she was struggling on the inside, just knowing that she was liked for what she had done would be worth more than a hundred hugs from her new mommy.  If he was a real fan, he had an obligation to do it.

 

“I'd love to watch it some time.” Oliver continued, wanting to be included in Ben's world.

“Oh, maybe when you're older.  It's not appropriate for younger children.  It depicts certain... it doesn't cast everyone in a positive light.  I think it's important that you learn to respect others for who they can be.”  Ben thought about it for a second, “Actually, speaking of, I just want to be absolutely sure.  You are certain you want to try big boy underwear today?  Because there is no shame in having a backup.  You don't have to use it.”

 

“Uh... I'm fine.” The smaller man danced around the question and shoved more food in his mouth.

 

“Just to let you know, life isn't a race, we all develop at our own pace and there are many things you can be proud of that the others can't do.”  The taller one was trying to help.

 

“Like what?”  Oliver wanted to be praised, not hear that Ben thought he could not always make it to the potty.  Even if there was some evidence of that from last night.

 

“Well, for one you have a job, and it seems important, and you have a truck, and a mortgage, and you help with the dishes.  “Oh right...” the pans and mixing bowls had built up around the sink, waiting for attention.

 

“You just figured it out.  This is why no one makes waffles at home.”  Oliver chided him.  It's not that they're hard to make, or taste bad, it's because the waffle iron is impossible to clean.

 

“Well, that's why I have you, to help me clean.” Benjamin tempered it over with a joke.

 

“I did tell you the littles could do more than just sit around and play with blocks.  I do get I'm still smaller in some ways.  Must be nice for you too, since I'm not too big for playing airplane.”  Oliver did not want to have to clean the waffle iron, maybe playing to Ben's nice side might help.

 

Ben could hear the roar of the engines, the fume of exhaust, they sizzled like the bacon in the other pan, and smelled of maple syrup.  He wanted to fly again.

 

Oliver took another bite of waffle, covered in syrup and butter.  There was nothing special about the fluffy cakes, but somehow, they tasted better because Ben had made them fresh and kept plating them hot.  “I've been thinking about what we talked about last night, and I am absolutely not going to push you on that, but I do want to know what your plans are.”

 

The discovery was too big.  Benjamin had never been prepared to push the envelope of world knowledge in that way.  He wanted to be a tiny bubble on the frontier.  It scared him.  It was too big for him.  “I don't have to go back; you did say I could work here?”

 

“What about your friends?  And family?  Won't they miss you?” Benjamin staying here was no longer in Oliver's plans.

 

“I have family here.”  Ben poured out more batter.  This was more waffles than he intended to make.  It was always so hard to judge, and you always ended up with more than you planned, it was always too much, and your only option was to dump it or keep making waffles.

 

“Oh, like who?  Who lives on Earth?” Oliver tried not to be too sarcastic.

 

“Oliver, you know my parents moved to Oakshire when they retired, it's just outside of Orlan...”  Benjamin stopped himself, “I'm so sorry, everything is so confusing lately.  You're right, I don't belong here.”  He said the last part, increasingly sad.  He returned his focus onto the cooking.

 

Benjamin brought over another waffle, Oliver had only gotten halfway through the last one, “I don't know if I told you this, but I have a sister.”

 

Strange, Captain Alder did not.  Oliver was curious, “How old is she?” asking Ben's back that had returned to the stove.

 

“About eighteen months.  My parents got her just after I went to college.  She's so adorable.  When I visit them, I can pick her up and she just calls me Benny, which she also named her rabbit.”  He removed the bacon from a pan and started patting down the excess grease, before bringing the plate to Oliver.  Benjamin took a large hand to half the plate, throwing it into his mouth, chewing the strips as easily as a grip of fries.  He leaned on the table slightly, and the strong wood held his weight without wobbling.

 

“I don't know, if I can explain this.  All my life I wanted a sibling to share with, and from time to time I'd ask my dad why we didn't adopt like the other families.  He said it was wrong to live a life like that, to desire to do that to another person.  Dad raised me right, emphasized I'd have urges and feelings, but that a part of being big was over coming them.”  Ben was nostalgic for all the lessons he learned from his own father.  He needed to get the same idea through to Oliver, about why he had been so reluctant.

 

“Coming home from college after the first semester, the whole house had that smell.  It was wrong.  Everything was off.  Toys on the floor of every room, and cabinets and sockets locked or covered.  Dad and I eventually got a moment to ourselves, and I just sat across from him and her in the living room.  He gave me a look that was like shame, or defeat.  Finally, he looked down at my sister and I could tell how much it was hurting him that he loved what he was doing.  He wanted to tell me, but the contradiction was too much.  We just sat there for minutes, without talking.  He got increasingly disturbed and upset he couldn't find the words, and then, my sister just turned around on his bouncing knee and gave him a hug.  One 'I love you' and my old dad was gone.”

 

Benjamin finished, “It was mom, she always wanted one, but dad was able to use me as an excuse, and when I was gone, she just grabbed one and brought her home.  I don't even know what she did before.”

 

Oliver thought for a bit on it, and then asked a pointed question, “Ben, do you think your parents didn't want you around a little because of what they thought you would do to the small one?”  Oliver then offered an alternative that left Benjamin cold, “Or, was it because they were afraid of what being around a little might do to you?”

 

Benjamin did not know.  In a way he did not want to know.  “I couldn't tell you.  Betty is so great when I'm with her.  She holds up her rabbit and says, 'do the voice' and I pretend I'm her stuffy and she laughs and seems so happy.  Full of life.  Except, now I know.  She's in there somewhere, scared and alone and afraid and hurting and no one can understand her.  She wants to grow up again.  I love mom and dad but knowing they're the ones keeping her like that is like a dagger.”  He pounded his heart a couple times, the echo of the thump filling the room.

 

“I guess it doesn't matter, I'm not adopting when I'm getting back,” Ben finally answered sadly.

 

Oliver tried to not be sarcastic, feigning support, “Good for you, I'm glad you learned something from this.”

 

“I mean, I'd love to, but I'm one hundred percent fired, and the employment gap will look bad, and worse.”  Ben looked around the room, the dirty dishes, then to Oliver, “I've got so much work to do, even if I don't lose my job.  I'm a full-time teacher, and I've also decided.  I want to finish Collins paper.  The paper is rough, he needed another year or two,” he paused a second, “Or ten, given how big it is.  There is an entire archive I still need to finish translating; I need to verify his translations too.  All that double checking, it's far too big for me.  I wouldn't have time to raise... take care of,” Ben finally found the correct word, “baby, the little one.”

 

“What if someone helped you with the translations and the paper?” Oliver offered, trying to remain subtle.

 

“The only other professor on campus who read linear Cee was Doctor Korge, and he retired, his mind isn't the same.  I wouldn't trust him with the crossword now, let alone ancient documents.  I'm on my own.”

 

“Benjamin, I'm your friend, if you need help, I'm here for you,” Oliver tried again.

 

“Maybe, I could grab that language book you have your shelf, it looked a bit small, but I could probably get a magnifying glass.”

 

“I meant more like, I know all about evolution, the origin of the species.  I think I have an idea where the Nitz came from.  Maybe I could come help fill in the gaps, figure out what happened to you guys.”

 

“Oh, right, that term, evolution.  I tried looking up Pokémon like you said, but it only came up with cartoons.  You'll need to explain to me sometime why they are relevant.”  Ben scratched at his chin stubble.

 

“Earth is also wanting to setup something long term on your planet, and I am hoping you might be able to help, since you said you wanted to help.” Oliver kept pushing it.

 

“There are some nice apartments, they just opened on the northwest side of town.  I don't know if they take littles, I assume so.”  Oliver was talking to a brick wall.

 

The boy waited at the table, taking in some more of the food.  A bit of bacon, some more milk, after a couple more bites of waffle his patience ran thin.

 

“I can help you get your job back.”  Oliver said it with alacrity, confidence, and volume.

 

“Ha, sure, let's hear it.”  Benjamin looked at Oliver like his young friend had proposed getting a race car or going to the moon.

 

“Benjamin, your colleagues don't respect you.  They think you're soft on the littles.  You refuse to adopt.  You babied Collins.  You criticize the bigs, and you even wrote a complaint when one of your students transferred to Hilltop last year.  You're a kooky, maybe even absent-minded, professor.  You spend your days fantasying about the small people instead of studying the Amazons.  The work you're into is so complicated and on the edge of knowledge that you barely publish.  And when you do it it's outside the mainstream, no one believes it.  The only reason the university puts up with you is because you are willing to teach the worst classes.”

 

Benjamin's jovial mood fell like a stone.  It was the truth, from a man half his size.  Oliver had seen him as Benjamin refused to see himself.  With an angered, but humbled reply, he diverted attention, “I made you this nice breakfast.”

 

“I love it!  Thank you, this is just like my dad used to make.  Please, just let me help.”

 

Benjamin closed his eyes, taking a long breath, he leaned on the table with his arm and brought the hand to his forehead, “Oliver, some part of me knows you're thirty-six years old, or there about.  You're a spy.  You're wanting me to take you in, to help set up a cover identity so you can fix my world.  Give everyone the same brain worm you gave me.  Or maybe not.  I can't tell if you want to save everyone, or if you just want my research.”  He gently lowered his glasses and rubbed his eyelids.

 

“I don't want to help Earth.  I don't want to save the littles.  I don't want to be famous.  I just want a son.  I just want to be a dad.  And what you're asking me to pretend to have that with you, it would be a mockery of that.  You're an old man pretending to be a child.”  Ben kept his eyes closed.

 

“Benjamin, I could tell you that I need someone to protect me from the dangers of your planet, or that I need someone to guide me on where to step and where not to.  I can say I need a teacher who can explain your culture and your people.  I do want someone who will give me advice, a mentor who will provide me with shelter and companionship.  This isn't about my needs.”

 

Oliver kept going, “I want to be your friend, and you need a friend too.  I want to be there to help you when you have a bad day.  I want to be there to share in your accomplishments, including what I think is the greatest discovery in your planet's history.  I want to help you be your best.  Tell me what you want and tell me what you need.  Do you want someone you can go camping with?  Someone to toss a Frisbee around with?  Maybe a companion who you can teach to cook the food you like to make, and you can sit for hours discussing the shows and books you like.  Tell me what you want because I don't see why I can't give it to you.”

 

Ben opened his eyes again, the six-year-old boy was back.  He knew he wanted a baby.  He wanted a son in his life who would hug him and love him.  He could do that to Oliver just as well as any other little.

 

The problem was Oliver would require more work, more guidance, more effort, and more protection.  Oliver would expect more from him than a fresh diaper or bounce on a knee.  Oliver would need him to be more than a protector.  Not just fulfilling the bare minimum in a child's life of sustenance and shelter, but a moral beacon – a role model for the ideal person Ben wanted his son to be.  Benjamin would need to be more father than all the other fathers he knew.  Oliver would be a responsibility he could not dump on a daycare worker or a robo-nanny.

 

“I want more,” Ben tried.  The tone was almost childish, like he had not gotten enough to eat.

 

“More?  More!  Do you want me to say it is about love?  Ben, I love everything you've done for me.  In the few days you've been here, how you listen to me, I've loved our conversations.  I've loved the food.  I've loved showing you Earth and you talking to me about your world.  I even liked being picked up, kinda, I don't know.  Maybe.  Yeah, sure, I'll say it.  It's love.  I love you in all the ways a man can love another man, except in the ways fools think.”  Oliver reached out to grab Ben's hand that had come down to the table, both hands barely cupping Ben's as the small man stretched to touch the giant.

 

No other little had ever said that to an Amazon.  “I still want more,” Ben was greedy.  Oliver promised he would help get his job back, which seemed impossible.  He had promised to help Ben write his paper, which had grown in Ben's mind from a simple revision into a mountain of a tome – one earnestly trying to address the deep questions of the origins of his people.  Even if Oliver's motivations for helping were suspect, he was the only person Benjamin knew who could help.  Why wasn't that good enough?

 

“Please, just say it first.  Just ask it first.  You'll regret it forever if I send you back without asking it.  I can't.”  Oliver squeezed his eyes and scratched his hair.  “I didn't even know I wanted this until I saw you, and until we got to know each other, and I ... please.”

 

“I need it.”  Benjamin stood tall, blocking the ceiling lights.  His shadow fell over Oliver.

 

“You're like a... fine you're like.  We have...”  the smaller man stumbled, “I want to spend my days with you, be friends, and we can hang out and have a great time, like we did here.”

 

Ben lay down the scale of the problem, “Do you know what it's going to be like for me?  Going back.  I'll have to look my dad in the face and say, 'By the way, with my sister, there's a way to drag her out of this.  To make her normal again, for you to be your old self again.  Maybe better than normal.'  How do you face that?  My dad will tear out his own heart after he learns what kind of monster he has become.  It's very easy for me to judge the other fathers, because I don't have my own kid.  I resisted the urge.  Or maybe I'm the one who doesn't get it.  I'm the real monster because no one would ever want to be my son.”  Except Collins, and Oliver was not Collins.  However big Oliver pretended to be, Collins was not afraid to ask.

 

It was mumbled.  Oliver's head was buried in his plate.  It did not matter; Ben's ears could have picked up the squeak of a mouse from the other side of the house.

 

“Do you want to be my dad?”

 

Oliver's attention quickly turned to his own thoughts.  He did not know how he had gotten to this point, he was flying by the seat of his pants and just kept on into enemy territory.   There was nothing beneath him and he just kept going.  He wanted his old friend back, and he would go to any length: he broke the law; setup a reason for himself to be off world; invited the giant into his home; worn and used a diaper; and even agreed to be reduced in status from a grown man to a child.

 

It did not feel like guilt.  Rather, after he lost his friends, he had never bothered to get too close to anyone like that.  He focused on work.  Even the relationship with Victoria had been shallow and cold.  He had gone so long without friendship that the moment it returned in his life, he knew he would go to any length to preserve it.

 

Oliver did not have time to find the answer to why his emotions had led him here.  One second, he was sitting, pouting, feeling the weight of his actions in his brain, and the next, those feelings fell to the bottom of his feet.  Any guilt or shame was being squeezed out of him.  He felt only warmth and the feeling of air beneath his flopping socks.  Oliver turned his head slightly, past the wrinkled mess of a hot-dog stand colored shirt Ben wore that filled his vision.  The ground was now eight feet below him.

 

“We're in this together,” Benjamin answered.  Oliver filled his heart, his spirit, his core.  A minute ago, it was like raw soup.  He had been formless, pointless, sticky, and a useless mess.  Under the fire and light that was Oliver, Benjamin had hardened.  Not into a rock, but into something soft and full of warmth.  He was a dad.  A real dad.  With a real son.  The best one in all the multiverse, because his son was also his best friend.

 

Deep in his mind, Benjamin saw the tower of blocks that was Oliver.  At the top was the weakest and smallest blocks, “Oliver is a grown man with a fully actualized being,” and “Oliver is a spy from Earth,” was the next one.  Those were barely visible, hardly even important, the slightest gust would lose them away forever.  He had to focus just to remember they existed.  The important ones were far below those and made a foundation.  There was a big one, Oliver was his best friend, but now there was something massive.  It had slid into the bottom, more important than anything else he thought about the boy.  Oliver was his son.

 

Standing before all the facts he noticed something he had not considered before.

 

Oliver is growing up - Oliver is now six years old.  Oliver is six Earth years old.  That is barely two hundred million seconds.

 

Yes, Oliver was short, even for a couple hundred mega seconds.  When they got back to Amazonia, he could fit in with the other children close to his age.  Yes, Oliver was a little bit older than the other littles, and he was a tad bit more mature.  He was still young enough to appreciate the small things, he wanted Pegos but would play with Duplos if that was all there was.  More than that though, he was big enough to have a tiny bit of responsibility.

 

Benjamin looked over at the mess of pans, and the cooling waffle iron covered in sticky and fluffy debris.  He could have his cake and eat it too!  In lots of ways this would make his life easier.  Why had he resisted becoming a dad for so long?  This was the best day of his life.

 

Slowly he put Oliver back down, and ruffled his hair, “Son,” saying it brought joy from the tips of his fingers to his shoulders.  “I got my new suit dropped off this morning while you were in the bathroom.  Since this is our special day, the first day of the rest of our lives, why don't you clean up in here and I'll go see if I can find something matching for us to wear.   You seem to have gotten a mess all over you from breakfast, and we should look good together when we go out into the world.”

 

Oliver looked down, Ben's hug had caused his shirt to untuck and his clothing accumulated stains of yellow-white-brown, “Yeah, I should change.  It's a casual day, but” he flicked a finger over the batter on his shirt, “this is a bit too informal.”

 

“How about this.  You clean up in here, and I'll go clean myself up and come back with a change of clothes for you too.  Then we can go back to your facility, and you can introduce me to all your friends.  I can explain to them what you'll need when you come to live with me.”

 

“That'd be great!”  Oliver had finally won.  His friend was back and had agreed to help him.  It barely cost him anything.  Yes, Ben had new pronouns and he would have to remember to use them.  There would be other inconveniences that came with that, but Oliver would deal with those in time.  He looked over at the mess Benjamin had made of the kitchen and frowned slightly.  Such is the price of love.

 

Benjamin's new suit was a match of Oliver's from the first day.  Oliver's tastes were simple enough, he had several of the same shirts and same suit jackets and even the same ties.  He grabbed a set of pants and shirt from his son's closet and walked back to the kitchen.

 

When he got to the living room and past the stacks of unpacked boxes he paused.  He juggled the clothing in one arm, and he reached down for a small bag that he had almost stepped on.  The top was blue, but the rest was decorated in white, green, and gray.  His large hand easily tore into bag like it was a cracker jack box seeking to find a prize inside.  Benjamin took out a single set of disposable underwear, and discreetly placed it in the pile of clothes between the shirt and the pants and returned to Oliver.

 

Oliver had said he wanted to listen to Ben's advice.  This was only sensible, and if he insisted on wearing something fancy it was best to have some insurance.

 

* * *

 

December 7^th, 2116, Death Valley National Monument, California- Terra

 

Bockscar was not the only bomber to experience troubles from the shift.  These planes were pushed decades past their intended retirement.  Even under normal circumstances it was common for a problem to emerge within the minutes before or after flight, and the bombers routinely needed to cancel their mission.  These old relics had been torn apart and rebuilt a dozen times, with fifty years of upgrades crammed into an aging frame of metal.

 

In some sense the bombers were a security blanket for the United States, or like an old stuffed animal patched and cleaned a dozen times over.  They were impossible to replace because no one would think to build a plane like this again, and they were cheaper than the next alternative.

 

The planes were massive, visible to radar hundreds of miles away on a clear day, and not particularly maneuverable, as pushing a turn more than a couple 'Gs' of acceleration would break the plane.  They were originally designed to invade Soviet airspace, in the time of the first air to ground missiles.  The planes were built to fly higher, farther, and have more speed than the Soviet planes and missiles that would need to intercept them.  Within a decade air defense caught up, and the planes were modified for the new environment.  The BUFFs had a few tricks up their sleeves.

 

The first was a powerful electronic warfare package.  The B-52's most powerful defense was the ability to fill the radar scope with noise and false signals.  Those defenses had been ripped out as the sophisticated equipment ran on computers, and because the space was needed for the dimensional shift machine.

 

The second was a tail gun.  This was removed after the Gulf War as a cost saving measure.  While originally the B-52 was expected to combat cannon and rocket armed fighter jets, by the nineteen nineties air to air missiles had become both ubiquitous and of high capability, so that the gunner position was obsolete.

 

Then there is the third trick.  In the sixties, the plane had an upgrade to let it perform low terrain flying using radar navigation.  While a B-52 at six miles up could be seen for hundreds of miles, a B-52 fifty feet up could only be seen as far as the horizon and could fly behind mountains and other terrain to further mask its approach.  On a cold December morning, Captain Benjamin Alder and his crew found themselves nervously blasting threw Death Valley at five hundred miles an hour.  Their plane shimmered in the orange red morning sun, and their fast-moving shadow blurred from the kicked-up dust and rocks from the eight jet engines.

 

Each step of the flight had been practiced, both in simulator and in actual flight time in the weeks leading up to the invasion.  That did not make the difficulty of navigation any easier.  The plane had a slow delayed response to any stick control, it was easy to over correct, and a false move would smash the plane into the ground at this height.

 

More than that there was no knowing what changes had happened to the terrain in the intervening one hundred and eight years.  An errant radio tower, or building, even a tall tree – a rarity in the desert but one that would be all too common in the last leg over the Lagunas – could spell doom for the low flying craft.  It was a constant dance for attention, one eye on the needs of the plane, the other on the terrain navigation instruments, and a third on the fast-moving world outside the windows.

 

A similar dance was being played across the horizon in the fifty cockpits of the bombers that had been sent on the southern offensive.  Their task of navigating the American Southwest was made all the more difficult by the fact the planes tried to maintain some semblance of a formation – clustered in groups of three, while being watched over by a dozen fighter jets.

 

It was a relief for Captain Alder when the Salton Sea came into sight, its waters indecisive in color between pink and gold, and dark blue and black, as the sun crept up to the plane's left.  The trip over the lake was their marker for when to turn west, and a sign they were nearing the end of their mission.  It would give the pilots a chance to breathe and relax, to blink for the first time in thirty minutes.  Both Ben and Collin's arms were pained in exhaustion, and their armpits covered in new sweat.  The moment of relief did not last long.

 

“Captain, got something weird on radar, up high” Captain Swift came on the interplane radio, and then gave an estimate of direction and altitude.

 

“Could it be a stray bear?  A Russian that missed their turn?” Captain Alder guessed; the skies should have been clear today.

 

“Too high, too small, I'm gonna direct a eFf four to check it out,” Oliver replied.

 

Two escorting Phantoms began to lift up out of waters, turning northwest to investigate, their small engines pushing their speed past the supersonic barrier.  The farthest had barely begun a climb when it immediately began a shake, smatterings of flares and chaff providing a protective shield against an invisible threat.  Despite the pilot's best efforts, the aging fighter jet was not able to dodge the missile that had been fired from thirty-five miles away.  The backside of the craft exploded in a fireball and the front crashed into the waters below.

 

The second plane fared only slightly better, managing to make it into a dive towards the water, the salty brine creating a splash from the shockwave of the diving supersonic jet.  The missile tracked the fighter's dodge and exploded within feet of the canopy, the projectile throwing sharp shards all over the fuselage.  The fighter jet rolled and then crashed into the water.

 

The bombers began to spread out, like birds scattering from a pond.  Their attempts were ugly and slow.  The planes struggling to find any terrain or cover.  Soon the morning lake was alight with the silver of chaff and the deep red of flares falling from the bombers, like flower petals torn from a dandelion, each a desperate wish.

 

Grand Artiste had been skimming slightly ahead and slightly above Necessary Evil.  Benjamin and Collin's dance across instruments was interrupted by a large flash of white.  Two infrared guided missiles had followed the massive glow of the Artiste directly into the two innermost engines on the left wing.  The fuel heavy craft quickly ignited and that became a fireball and descended into the sea.

 

Instinctively Ben rocked the Necessary Evil towards the deck, his left wing pitched down as he tried dodging the fire.  Shattered metal from the exploding plane splattered across the bomber’s cockpit while the farthest edge of the wing soaked up mists of water, inches from crashing.  There was a moment of panic from First Lieutenant Alto as he feared the sister plane's nuke exploding, but as the wreckage escaped into their rear, he gave himself a chance to breathe out.

 

Captain Alder pushed the engines harder, if he could get the plane to the San Jacinto mountains, he could have some cover from the invisible foe.  The remaining escorting fighter jets rose to intercept the coming threat, heading up and away from the bombers.  Two more phantoms were rewarded for their heroic rising with another pair of missiles.  The remaining eight continued on.

Less than two minutes had passed since entering the Salton Sea, and the bombers made it to the other side.  In that time, a dozen planes had smashed out of the sky, including one bomber tearing itself in a maneuver to avoid an incoming missile.  Land did not represent safety.  Distant missiles continued to rain down from above, picking off bombers like dolphins pecking at a school of tuna.

 

Oliver saw it on the radar first.  The blip was coming closer.  Necessary Evil dodged low, bouncing a couple dozen feet across the ground.  The windows of shacks and hotel rooms shattered as the plane flew over Borrego Springs.  The plane rocked heavily as a missile impacted chaff, and explosive debris spread over the Palm Canyon visitor center.  Captain Alder banked the bomber into the Hellhole canyon.  Palms and desert brush wafting towards the plane.

 

The Nitz fighter dove at them.  The rhombus-shaped wings were menacing and determined as the sleek jet easily caught up through the twisting mountain ranges of southern California.  It was empty of air-to-air missiles, or Necessary Evil would have been shot out of the sky seconds ago.  Oliver could see the radar signature of the craft on his instruments, watching it lining up for an attack run on the bomber's rear.

 

“Just go, just go, Winchester out, you can get us on the return,” Oliver muttered.  A brief BRRRT whispered over the plane's fuselage as a declining answer from the opposing jet.

 

“Would you?”  First Lieutenant Lange questioned.  Oliver had little to do but to look over at his friend.  He hadn't intended to say that loud enough for Nick to hear and didn't have an answer.

 

The Nitz fighter did not get a second chance to line up his shot.  A short-range Sparrow missile, one that a week ago had been a museum piece, clipped directly into the fighter's rear fins.  The fighter jet exploded in a mix of white, red, and yellow.

A total of six fighters and twenty-five bombers were lost for one kill.  The navigator relayed the full extent of the losses to the crew.  Full House, Straight Flush, and Jabit III were among the downed planes, but the one that shook First Lieutenant Alto was when Oliver said the name Enola Gay.

[Operational Systems]

And with this we'll end Part 1.
Chapter 27: Every ten-year-old enemy soldier thinks falling bombs are shooting stars sometimes.

 

May 12th, 2023, Templeton, California - Earth

 

“You have to help me Naomi,” Oliver's begging was nearly a whine.  She had started the process of moving into Oliver's old office and was seated in his chair with Oliver bent over across from her, his posture aimed towards the wooden desk and at his partner.

 

“We can always put him back in the chair, reset things back to zero.” Naomi spoke, she was calm and supportive in tone.

 

That caused Oliver to panic, “What!  No, he's starting to come out.  Besides, I only had the one scan.  Can't we just hypnotize him?”

 

“His mind is completely pickled because you replayed the day one tape.  You try to push it right now, it will smush like corn.  The blocks in his head will just topple over.  He might never recover,” Naomi was speaking from expertise.  I.E.D.R had accidentally fried a few minds over the years.

 

“Anything?  How do I make him see me as an adult?” Oliver tried again.

 

“He sees you as six, right?” Naomi knew the answer.

 

“Yes?” Oliver could see a glimmer of hope.

 

“If we wait a year, he should see you as seven...” Naomi's voice took a higher pitch like she was explaining to a child how clocks worked, and when to expect dinner.

 

Oliver's frown darkened the room, but Naomi continued, “And twelve years from now you'll be good.”  Naomi waited for Oliver to respond but then continued, “Look, just wait a bit, let his mind settle down and work itself out, keep doing grown up things, and when he's ready you can ask him if he wants to try the second tape.  I don't think it's something we can force on him anymore, but when he's ready you can ask, and if he volunteers for it, you can try it.”

 

Oliver closed his eyes and then beat his forehead a couple times with the palm of his hand.  It was almost not a solution.

 

“What about me?  I got hit with a few hours of the tape.”  Oliver tried another route.

 

“You could go into the chair,” Naomi offered.  It was not a serious suggestion.  Oliver's cold stare could burrow through her skull and drill through the wall behind her.

 

“Bonk on the head maybe?  That works in the cartoons,” Naomi was not taking her friend's plight seriously.

 

Oliver replied, “Do I look like a cartoon character?”

 

“Just keep doing grown up things, the contradiction will not be able to hold, and the hypnosis should break on its own without reinforcement,” Naomi spoke the answer as if it was obvious.  She was almost certainly a leading expert on Earth when it came to mind control and hypnosis.  Oliver would have to take that answer for what it was.

 

“Like wearing adult clothing,” Oliver tried.  He shifted a bit in his seat, reminding himself of the garment he had agreed to put on this morning.  The packaging said it was for an adult, that should count, right?

 

Their conversation was interrupted by two adult men in their late teens to early twenties.  Both were slowly moving a large wooden filing cabinet into the office, straining at the weight of carrying it.  Oliver hadn't bothered to learn their names yet, and the two placed the cabinet next to a short table in the corner.  Out of indifference to their opinions, and his attitude fried from finding no help from Naomi, he insulted the two interns.  “Yo... Bebop and Rocksteady, take the old furniture out of the office before you put the new furniture in.”

 

“Right, right, sorry Mr. Swift,” The taller one said, starting to grab the table.  The other intern came around the filing cabinet to grab it as well.  They struggled to pick it up a few inches, before realizing the large wooden filing cabinet they brought in was blocking them.  They put the table down and the shorter one started scratching his red brown hair in confusion.

 

Naomi looked at Oliver and then at her moving crew, and had a moment of realization, “Actually, this is perfect for reinforcement.  Axel, right?”

 

The shorter one nodded, and Naomi addressed the two interns, “How old is Mr. Swift?  Just a guess.”

 

Axel tried first, “Thirty-five.”

 

Cannon tried next, “Forty.”

 

Naomi lifted a hand upside down to her former boss, “Oliver?”

 

Oliver was not in a mood for this game, “Six.  I'm Oliver and I'm six years old,” the sarcasm dripped like the moisture on the air conditioning vents.

 

Axel shook his head, and his eyes dilated.  His whole face scrunched for a bit, and he lost his breath.  He brought up his hand like he was trying to tear out of a headache, scrunched in pain.  He flipped up his head towards the ceiling lights and then came back down.

 

Cannon was no better; he staggered back a bit and brought his fingers to his nose and cupped his mouth and nostrils.  He stood there breathing into his hands for ten seconds, before returning to his previous posture.

 

Naomi and Oliver stared at the two men, their smiles returned, and Axel spoke first.  “Oh, hey, that was weird.  Mrs. Naomi, sorry.  I'm uh.  What's with the kid?  Bring your child to work day?”

 

Cannon tried to add to the question, “We setting up a daycare now?  I think I saw Mrs. Finnigan walking around with her daughter the other day.  I thought this place was too dangerous and top secret to bring one's family.”

 

Oliver rolled his eyes, shook his head, and then brought down his foot, “I was born in eighty-seven.  Thirty-six years ago.”

 

The taller intern chuckled, “Nice try kid.  More like twenty,” he paused to do some math in his head, “seventeen.”

 

Oliver serious retort could chew their head off, “I know I'm not going to be around here much longer, but for now I'm still your boss, I am not in the mood for dumb games, and there's a dozen other people that want your positions.”

 

Axel came forward and whispered to Naomi, “Your son has some bite, I see he likes playing pretend.”  He started pushing the new cabinet out and with Cannon's help got the furniture properly arranged.  Oliver spent the whole time just looking at Naomi, unsure what was going on.  When the two interns left, he shrugged his shoulders and looked incredulous, unclear on how to address what just happened.

 

“Oliver, did you use the voice there?”  Naomi spoke concerned; it did not look like he had done anything.

 

“No, I just...” Oliver blinked, trying to remember what he had done.  It was more like when he had seen Thomas.  It was like when he was in the prison hospital.  In his mind he had seen the boy in the photo, the same one in the mirror.  It felt like he was pushing it, or maybe just letting the thought out of a fence.

 

Naomi was excited, “You have a superpower!  Quickly, let’s try to figure out what triggered it, maybe we can recreate it...” she reached over and grabbed a pen and a legal pad.

 

“No.  This is the worst superpower.  Like the blinking Tee Vee changing mutant from eX-Men.  I need people to see me as thirty-six, not six.”

 

“Let's get some more interns in here, see what the limits of this is,” Naomi went to the group chat on the computer and sent out a message.

 

Oliver repeatedly hit his head softly with his palm.  Once his partner set her mind on a task, there was no getting her out of it.  Real work was not going to get done this morning.

 

* * *

 

“I like this one,” Grace said, pulling out a blue dotted white shirt, and dark blue pants.  The shirt also had a darker blue polyester vest with four black buttons.  “Am I correct that elastic style....  uh, pull on pants are in fashion these days?”  She held up a matching set of polyester blue pants.  The top was stretchy, to let it grow to a variety of body shapes, and to make it easier for children to remove to get to the potty.

 

Benjamin considered the shirt and pants, “I don't know, it doesn't scream Oliver to me.”  He had taken a sitting posture in the aisle between the racks of clothing, leaving him roughly at the same height as Grace.

 

“Maybe we should add a bow tie,” Grace replied.  She reached into a box next to the rack of clothes, taking out a blue, white, and gray plaid tie.  She carefully held the clip-on bowtie near the collar of the shirt up with one hand, and the long blue pants with the other at roughly Oliver's height.  She had picked up a similar suit for her dad and her son and thought the two looked adorable.

 

Benjamin was shocked how much the simple accessory added, “That's perfect.”  Grace moved the shirt into the cart.  I.E.D.R had an entire section for costumes and disguises, laid out like a JC Penny.  The clothing here was intended for example and would be returned once they finished.  Instead, once they had a selection of clothes, a gofer would be tasked with pulling the clothing from a nearby warehouse in Oliver's size.

 

“While we're here, I think we should have Oliver try on the brown ones as well.”  She pulled out a similar four-piece suit, but this one had front pockets and a material was made with some cotton.  The shirt was plain white, and the matching tie was a dizzying floral pattern of blue, brown, and white.  Despite the clothes formal purpose, between the elastic pants, the clip-on tie, and the vest, it did not look like anything an adult male would wear.  The colors were particularly anachronistic, as if it was something Jimmy Olsen would volunteer to be seen in.  “It is cotton, so it might shrink, just be aware of that.”

 

Benjamin nodded and then began looking through a rack of shirts on the other side of the aisle.  These designs had colorful bright characters, representatives from various Earthling media and games, none of which he recognized as found on Amazonia.  Near the back of the rack, he saw a brown shirt with dinosaurs on it.  He held the t-shirt up to Grace for her opinion.

 

“Oliver is going to hate it.  The dinosaurs don't have feathers,” Ben started to put the shirt back when Grace stopped him.  “No, it goes in the cart.”  She touched the cotton polyester shirt, enjoying the feel, “Get a few of these, I think I saw an olive green one, Oliver especially dislikes that color.  Everyone assumes he likes it because of his name.”

 

Benjamin was confused, he thought the point of their adventure here was to find things that Oliver would enjoy wearing.

 

Grace finished a group of pull-on shorts, similar to cargo pants, but these lacked a zipper.  Instead, they had a long draw string like a shoelace or for pajamas, extra wide for hands with low dexterity.  Unlike adult pants, they were without a y-front for convenient bathroom access.  Oliver never took advantage of that feature, but its absence would mark the clothing as appropriate for those who could not use it, rather than for those that did not want to.  Ben added a button-down denim short sleeve shirt onto the pile along with a similar set of denim pull on shorts.  Unlike cargo shorts, the jean pants left a simulacrum of the y-front opening, but the feature was merely aesthetic instead of functional.  Zippers were not appropriate for young boys.

 

She went through her reasoning, “We want Oliver to look cool, fashionable, smooth, and be comfortable.  Importantly we need to have society see that he did not choose to dress himself.  By buying stuff that looks good, but he doesn't like, we reinforce the conceptual symbology that he is still a child.  He might, for example, be bolder in these clothes because they aren't really his – and they will get messy.  He may subconsciously develop certain ticks that will help him blend in, such as playing with the short knots or picking at the elastic band.”

 

“Is that Fogel?  Child Development?”  Ben was curious, he was familiar with the theory.  “Society, Adults, and Children,” was still considered an important foundational text and taught to undergrads.

 

“I'm a big fan, she's helped me a lot with some issues in raising my own family,” Grace smiled, finally she would have an opportunity to talk with an expert, and to geek out.

 

“I always thought she was an idiot.  I'm not sure why her book is still taught,” Ben's casually dismissed Grace's gushing review, as though it this were a conversation with a work colleague.  He had not intended to be rude.

 

Grace muttered to herself, “Well, that's just cause you're not a mommy.”

 

“I get we're shopping for Oliver so he can blend in, but can't I buy clothes back home?  Shouldn't we be using this time to gear him out with like, radios, or spy things?  Exploding pens?  Guns?”  Benjamin did not really understand how the spy thing worked.

 

“We already launched a communication and reconnaissance platform for Oliver.  I have a team working on a special Dee Vee Dee to help if he gets zapped by something weird, make sure he watches it if his behavior changes, and if things get bad check the bonus content, it'll explain what to do.”  She stopped sorting the clothes and turned to the giant, “Look, I'm going to be honest, this isn't about Oliver.  This is about you.”

 

“Me?”  Benjamin offered, uncertain where the small woman was going.

 

“You're a brand-new dad and you don't know what you're doing.  Do you want your son to have a firearm?” Grace explained her concern to him, her tone transitioned to a harsh bite at the end.

 

Benjamin's answer was quick, “Of course not.”

 

“Oliver will be an ambassador to your world, what he needs is space to explore it and talk to people and learn.  He doesn't need to sneak into facilities or blow-up factories.  Now if you want to go hunting with him, we're happy to help suggest some appropriate tools.”

 

Benjamin had not considered that.  His own dad had never taken him hunting, and he did not really have an interest in it.  The thought instead brought him and Oliver out in the wilderness, a bonfire, with Oliver preparing chocolate and marshmallows for roasting burned in his head, “No, I think, I'll need to talk to him some time about...”

 

“Benjamin, Oliver has sold this lie that he is going to save your planet, but I've seen Necessary Evil, the man lies because he thinks he needs to be in control, and he thinks lying is a way of not hurting anyone.  The stated reason is never the real reason.  You're just going to have to force some things, he needs someone in command over him he can trust.”

 

Benjamin shuffled up a bit from his crouch, bumping the ceiling, “I, can we look at some more outdoor stuff... do you think Oliver wants to go fishing?”

 

“Try again,” Grace was stern.

 

“I'm taking my son fishing, I think he'll need a pole, and a good hat, and some clothing that can keep him warm and dry.”  It was not something Ben was certain he wanted to do, but he liked the idea of doing something with Oliver and maybe doing it together would make it more fun for both of them.

 

“Now you're getting it.  Oliver has a hole in his heart, and it's up to you to fill it.  In his head he picked you because he thought you'd be a pushover.  Don't get me wrong, I love having free range, independent kids, but they also come with their own challenges.  You leave Oliver alone for a few hours, he'll be racking up your phone bill making calls to foreign prime ministers.  You're going to need to find out what limits you're comfortable setting and strategies for dealing with him.  He has his own plans for your world, and not all of it will be compatible with what you want.  Oliver might think he doesn't need you, and he'll put up resistance, but he needs you in ways he doesn't understand.  You're going to need to learn what are the important battles to win.”

 

“Grace, how do you manage it?  How do you do this job and be a parent?”  Benjamin was curious.  His own job was often too much for him to handle, and now he had thrown children into the equation.

 

“I have a great husband who is an even better dad.  Is there a Mrs. Young?  Someone who can share the load?”

 

Benjamin's face contorted and stretched.  With five words Grace had set something off, an idea the giant had not considered, a fuse slowly lighting in Benjamin's brain, and soon it would explode.

 

* * *

December 7^th 2116, Alpine, California- Terra

 

The one thing the training runs had not prepared the crew for was how dark the urban landscape beneath them would be.  The short reprieve from the Saltine Sea ambush that came to the bombers as they made their way through the Laguna Mountains lasted only a few minutes.   With the rising sun at their backs, the suburban outskirts of the city were visible, sunlight reflecting off of rooftop solar panels and glistening windows of single-family houses.  Even at this height and speed the emptiness of the city was visible, as the abandoned vehicles lined miles on the roads, like a trail of dead ants.  The ghostly stillness would not last for more than a couple minutes.

 

First came the radar warnings, long tones indicating ground to air tracking of the bombers and were soon followed with an explosion of smoke and metal.  Shells hit with near precision within feet of Necessary Evil, each one rocking the large plane as it blasted over the cityscape at over four hundred miles an hour.

 

The flight of bombers jigged and jagged as much as their one hundred fifty-ton frames could bare, each one spilling out streams of metal chaff and flares to feed the hungry SAMS and Anti-Air Artillery guns below.  Small handheld rockets and missiles launched up towards the fast-flying jets.  Most took off towards the flares, but one lucky Nitz soldier snuck a missile right up the Laggin' Dragon's left most engine.  The plane wobbled, like a bird in pain, smoke and fire exploding out of the wound.  The captain banked the plane hard to the north before its crew ejected out of rocket powered seats from the top and bottom of the plane.  The craft spun casually and landed on its belly on the edge of La Mesa's outskirt's.

 

Captain Swift did not have a view outside the plane, nor did he have the attention for it, he was working with paper, pen, and charts, updating for changes in their wind speed and plane speed and altitude.  They were close.

 

“Weapon hot,” he said over the radio, pressing a button with his right hand to ready the bomb.

 

The plane shook again as another shell exploded over the cockpit, hot metal fragments raining down on the bomber.  The intensity of ground-based fire grew as the dwindling numbers of B-52 approached their target.  The Nitz's disruptive field was generated by a massive tower structure, shaped, and sized like the Washington Monument, which stood with a black shine like it was made of onyx.  Each one of those monstrous devices created a field that disrupted the operation of computer circuits for hundreds of miles.  One day they had appeared, and on that day the engine of the world had stopped.

The B-52 began a climb, the pilot keeping a sharp eye on the accelerometer to limit stresses to the plane as it rose at an oblong thirty-degree angle.  Metal in the aging frame creaked, and below them cannons continued to the track the Necessary Evil was it rocked upwards.  Bright yellow tracers floated along its path like streams of rice and ribbons at a wedding.  Once he was satisfied, they were on the right path, the Captain transferred controls to the offensive compartment.

 

The weapon officer was now responsible for flying the plane.  He kept the sharp climb, all while monitoring the altimeter and speed until the numbers lined up with the desired ones on his chart.  “Bomb bay open,” he yelled, flipping a thick button to his left without looking at it.  Even through the intensity of flight, the whir of the massive doors shook the plane in a thump when they locked open.

 

Captain Swift's fingers came up towards the weapons release on his right, two fingers barely needing to stretch towards it.  There was no hesitation as the two fingers centered onto this large black box.  Oliver pushed the button.

 

* * *

 

All eight engines screamed as Necessary Evil started a hard turn away from the direction of the package it had released.  The five-ton bomb continued onward along in a parabolic arc on the plane's original trajectory, while the B-52 turned and flipped its body in a desperate attempt to escape the coming destruction.

The release of ordinance did not stop the Nitz attempt to knock out the bomber.  The plane shook violently from a near explosion of another shell.  Their efforts no longer mattered, the bomber had gotten through, and ninety seconds after release the power of the sun came to Mission Bay.  First in a blinding flash, and then next a black, red fireball of rising convection, pulling up buildings, rock, and soil miles into the atmosphere.  Despite escaping at a speed just under the sound barrier, Necessary Evil was rocked by the pressure blast.  It began to spin, left, then right, as Captain Alder fought to keep it centered on course.

 

Captain Swift hugged the bottom of seat with his hands, and stared at the static filled radar screens, his body was barely able to be contained in the chair.  He had done it.  They had done it.  He brought his hand up to his breast pocket and pulled out the iPhone.  With a push he watched as the white apple logo appeared on screen.  He showed the phone to Nick and smacked him hard in the shoulder.

 

“Something's wrong, I can't seal the real time envelope,” a rare statement from Eskender squawked over the intercom.  It was barely a hiss.

 

“Swift.  We think it's the bomb bay doors, can you do an inspection?” Captain Alder directed.

 

“On it,” Oliver unstrapped, and then immediately fell out of his seat.  The plane rocked hard.  He crawled up with Nick's help and slid towards the ladder, using it to steady himself up.  Above him was Ai, reaching down to hand him a small green backpack, waving it for him to take.  Once the first shots had come in, she took to hugging one of the backpacks found in the bunk beside her.  She was treating it like a stuffed animal, and she had brought it over when she had gone to the ladder to see Oliver.

 

“Get back …” Oliver tried; his voice weak.  She smiled and her hand slipped as the plane rocked again, the backpack she had been holding fell onto Oliver's shoulders.  The Nitz's desperate defense had now turned towards one of revenge.  Ai nodded as she scrambled back to her chair.  Oliver took an unsteady step towards the two-foot by two-foot door that led to the bomb bay.  Each of the two shaky steps from the ladder was as precarious as a tightrope walker.  His hand found its way to bulkhead door, the other still holding onto the package Ai gave him, unsure of its purpose.

 

Opening the compartment, he saw the brightness of daylight, and heard the rushing open sky coming from below.  Unsure of what to do, Oliver crawled onto the walkway.  Maybe something was jammed?  Maybe someone else had launched the bomb?  He wanted to see the nuke laying there, still armed, still ready to be released.  He yelled back, “Bomb bay door is stuck,” but the roar of the wind traveling a mile every six seconds below him drowned out his yell.

 

He remembered seeing it.  The dark black, gray streak coming upwards, like smoke out of a chimney from the houses below, eager to punish the naughty plane and its crew.  He remembered the pain of hitting something in the compartment.  He remembered falling.

 

Oliver came to his senses two minutes later.  A massive white, green, and red blanket was covering him, soft grass, and mud beneath him.  He could not move his left leg.  He hobbled up and glanced around.

 

To the west was a rising pile of white smoke, climbing high for miles.  It was thick, and hellish warm winds from the west mixed with cold fresh air blasting from the east.  Oliver head jerked around, attempting to get a bearing on his immediate surroundings.  The hilly grass area was lined with mixes of junipers and conifers, limbs and branches had blown off them like the aftermath of a heavy thunderstorm.  To the distant north, past the grass field was a large metal fence stooped over like an old man.  Its metal twisted and collapsed into the mud of a dugout.  To his south there was a sidewalk path that led outward into the city, and adjacent was a wooden sign, its back turned to Oliver, guarding over a parking lot.

 

Staring at the destruction, or perhaps angry at his own situation, Oliver muttered his favorite swear, “Sometimes you're the Earth, sometimes you're the Terra.”  That phrase was going to take on a whole meaning after today.

 

Oliver looked down at his phone and muttered “No signal.”  The date was still listed as July twentieth two thousand and eight.  He began hobbling towards the sign, dragging the heavy chute behind him.  He read the words aloud, “Elihu Root Park,” he paused, “I have no idea who that is.”  His angry conversation with himself was paused as he noticed the first flakes of snow coming down.

 

“Oh... oh shit.”  He picked up the parachute and quickly threw it over his head, covering his skin as best he could, and began to huddle near the sign.  He looked above, letting the strange clouds take his mind off the pain in his leg.  Another dreaded rhombus-winged plane screamed through the skies.  Water vapor pooled on its wings and body as it made a dive, desperately launching its own flares and chaff.  The Nitz pilot's efforts came to naught, as a sidewinder collided into its rear engines, the craft began crumbling into fireball into the town below.  Oliver turned to the west, against the white poisonous cloud two F-18 Super Hornets commanded the skies.

 

The USS George Washington had arrived.  Soon Oliver would be rescued.

 

He did not need to wait long.  A gray metal jeep with a loose green canopy pulled up the park after a few minutes of sitting.  Oliver could see the painted American flag on the outside of the door as it opened, and two tall men raced out.  They were soldiers, with straight backs, crisp black hair, and shaded aviators, and sharp black uniforms that topped off with a simple black box hat.  Each was armed with just a sidearm, but neither had their weapon out.

 

“Over here!  I'm American,” he shouted, the two men turning to the wounded man huddled near the sign.  These must be Terrans!  Oliver figured he would get some sympathy if he said he was from the same country, even if the planet was wrong.  “American,” he shouted again, hopeful.

 

They walked over to him and helped him up, their uniforms offering limited protection against the falling radiation, instead speed would be their best defense against poisoning.  They ripped Oliver out of the parachute and carried him to the back of the jeep.  Neither man spoke as they let the wounded man hobble with an arm across their shoulders.

 

It was when Oliver saw the flag on the Jeep, he knew something was wrong.  Thirteen stripes of red and white, and blue square.  But it was not fifty-five stars like Terra.  It also did not have the alternating rows of six and five stars like back home.  Oliver knew it was his fault to have placed his faith in these stars.

 

Six by eight they stood.  The stars were wrong.

[Operational Systems]

In an attempt to boost engagement, I'm trying to come up with some ideas to see if readers can respond.  I've come up with a quiz only the biggest fans of this book will be able to answer.  No spoilers in these questions.

I haven't decided what the prizes are, but if you want to play the game, go ahead and reply to a question with your answers:

Very Easy:
The titles for each chapter have something in common.  Identify where the chapter titles come from with as much specificity as you can give.

Moderately Easy:
What movie did Charlie and Harold go see?

Easy:
Necessary Evil is symbolically important in the story.  Where does the name “Necessary Evil” come from?  Why was Oliver’s plane named Necessary Evil?

Medium:
Collins in chapter 15 defines a convergence, (and Oliver uses a different term early in the book.).  Identify all the examples in the book of convergences.

Bonus Medium Question: What movie was Collins and Oliver arguing over in chapter 15?  Who was right?

Hard: 
There are a number of side characters introduced, most of these characters are introduced for just one or two chapters.  There is a pattern to their names, can you identify it?  Note, not all side characters follow this pattern.

Pretty Hard: There's a few references to other age regression authors, can you find them?

Very hard:
Terra and Earth are considered ‘twins’ because the two planets have identical histories – up to a specific date.  What date was it (To within three days) the two planets diverged?
Bonus: What are some important differences between Terra and Earth since they diverged?
Bonus super hard: What are some differences in the United States?

Very Hard:
There's a number of references to other (AR) authors, can you find them all?

Impossible:
What is the physics of the multiverse -  What is Earth's Secret project?

[kerry]

I seem to be saying this a lot, but this is a wild and specific reinvention of the Diaper Dimension. DD2.0, maybe. It may be hard to follow at times, but it seems to be trying to resolve the many inconsistencies created by several decades of unfiltered additions to PPP's original world.

I'm really enjoying this.

[Operational Systems]

2 hours ago, kerry said:

I seem to be saying this a lot, but this is a wild and specific reinvention of the Diaper Dimension. DD2.0, maybe. It may be hard to follow at times, but it seems to be trying to resolve the many inconsistencies created by several decades of unfiltered additions to PPP's original world.

I'm really enjoying this.

Thank you so much on your kind words.  It means a ton!

[SanguineReader]

i think the only thing i can think of, is that terra did not have a world war 2.

 

[Operational Systems]

Part II - The Land of Sleeping Giants.

 

Chapter 28: On some other plane wisdom left me blind with nothing I could teach.

 

23 Floréal Year CCXXXI, Potat, South Windland, Libertalia - Amazonia

 

“Huangpu turned unexpectedly bloody over the weekend, when Yamatoan soldiers sought to pacify agitated local demonstrators, who had been riled up by a group of ardent Yamatoan imperialists.  In a rare public statement, the Empress called for calm this morning, though this came after extreme criticism from foreign leaders and calls for boycott of Yamatoan goods and travel.  We will have more details with our on the ground correspondent in fifteen minutes, and later this hour, Thomas Cruz has a new mo…”  A hand the size of a basketball clicked off the radio, its owner turned to the back of the car he had recently brought to a stop.

 

Oliver was staring at his new identification card.  It showed his picture, his new name, adoptive status, and guardian.  While flat like a driver’s license, it had a chronometer showing his physical age, one-point-one-seven giga seconds that continued to tick up.  Below that, a static “mental” age: six years old.  Benjamin had been surprised how easy it was for Oliver to get the officials to go along with that.  Normally there was a test by a doctor, and a long process to obtain citizenship.  Oliver just gave a couple words to the right people and the system seemed to go along with it.  Realizing he was now under attention, Oliver put the card away he had been fidgeting with and brought his eyes to his new dad.

 

Ben had spent a few seconds taking deep breaths and tapping along the wheel.  He had finally found the mental fortitude to start this difficult day with Oliver, and asked, “Everything OK back there?”

 

“Perfect, like having my own chauffer.”  Initially, Oliver had gone for the shotgun position of Ben’s gray sedan.  Benjamin only needed one word, ‘airbags,’ to have Oliver back away from the door and volunteer to sit in the back.  He spent the trip sitting on an old phone book that had been buried in one of Ben’s closets, his feet dangled the whole trip.  He had been quiet this morning, his thoughts drawn to the unknown future, or perhaps he had tried to stay focused on the morning news program.

 

Benjamin looked up and down at his new son.  It was Benjamin who had suggested the blue and white striped shirt that paired with gray, brown khaki shorts.  The shorts stopped just past Oliver’s knees and met extra-long dark socks and shoes.  For an extra bit of sophistication, he had worn a thin brown vest, which would help cut the heavy wind.  Oliver had topped the whole ensemble off with a simple wool cap, matching the gray brown of his pants.  He would not be mistaken for an adult but still looked sharp.  An eight-year-old girl might want to invite him to hang out under the jungle gym during recess.

 

Benjamin tried to be nice, “You look good.”

 

Oliver pulled at the vest slightly, “I look like a newsie.  Like Christian Bale.”  His voice got deeper, “I’m Batman.”  Benjamin dismissed Oliver’s failed attempt at a joke with a confused look and shake of his head.  In a world where half the population topped off at three years old, there was not a market for a six-year old’s appreciation of superheroes.  Oliver was a lonely giant.  Earth’s Paw Patrol and Thomas the Tank Engine were perfectly aligned in the aesthetics of a half-billion little boys, but no one on the planet wore spiderman underwear.  They could not be trusted with such thin protection, and besides, it was not a good message for the small ones to see – no big wanted their small ones dreaming of obtaining a power to stand up to bullies, or that some problems needed to be solved with punching.

 

Oliver unbuckled himself with some difficulty, and then looked out the side window, trying to take in where the car had parked.  He had gotten only a limited view of the world from the rear seats, mostly of the sky, clouds, and telephone poles.  His imagination playfully moving along the wires as the car zipped to Benjamin’s school.

 

“This place is so different, even your sun is different, it’ll take some getting used to.”  Oliver’s eyes lingered on the bright white yellow object that was out the window.  He smiled; his face started scrunching like he was holding in a laugh.  His brain felt funny.  Oliver had not noticed this on previous trips, but then, he had kept his head down.  Now the morning sun was coming through the car window, bouncing off glass and mirrors, drawing Oliver’s eyes to a forbidden globe.

 

Benjamin was concerned, Oliver squished his face, the beam of light dancing across his eyes and nose, he would blink and then he started laughing again.  It took Benjamin a second, but his voice came strong, “Don’t stare at the sun!”

 

Oliver’s hands came up quickly and covered his eyes with his palms.  His breaths quickened and voice trembled, Benjamin was not sure if he was laughing or crying, as Oliver managed a sniffled response, “Oh that’s clever.  They put something in the atmosphere.  Not even a pilot as good as daddy could fly with a funny sun like that...”

 

Oliver shook his head, took a large breath, “Sorry, thank you, I know you don’t like doing that.  You’re right.  You were right when you warned me of the scale of this.  I’ve lived here less than a full day and I almost got zonked by …” he looked at Ben, whose face was pure concern, but was starting to relax, “How do pilots fly with that anyways?”

 

“I don’t know, I think they have special glasses.  You are alright to walk?  I know we are trying to be…” Oliver’s hands went up and he leaned forward between the seats.  Benjamin reached behind grabbing the boy and pulled him to the front.  He opened his door and gently plopped Oliver onto the grass next to the vehicle.  He turned to unbuckle himself and grabbed something from the back seat.  Oliver’s playful attitude returned as he hopped around in a small circle.

 

“Even your gravity is different.  It’s like being on the moon.  Well not that much, maybe like ten percent less.  But still, I feel like I could jump over the car if I tried.”

 

Ben closed the door and knelt towards the smaller man, “Please don’t.”

 

Oliver inquired, “Did I tell you about the time I went to the moon?  I mean it wasn’t the real moon, it was Pangaea’s moon, and that doesn’t count because they’re in the Cretaceous still and their moon is closer.”

 

Oliver had a habit of telling Benjamin stories of fun adventures he had had traveling the multiverse.  It was like a game, Oliver would make up a story, and Benjamin would ask him questions to try to catch the lie.  The boy continued, “There was a Nitz base up there.  Some left over outpost from the war.  Big factory.  We blew it up.  Boom!”  His arms grew out of his body to indicate how big the explosion was, “Only it was in space so there wasn’t any sound.”  He redid the explosion but this time quietly mouthed boom.

 

Ben’s frown was evident, and Oliver quickly added a detail to make it less violent, “It was a robot factory.  No one got hurt.  Pangaea was actually… we kind of forced them to blow it up, and they let me go up there to verify they did it.  More of a non-event, except they kicked me off planet, because they had originally wanted to use the tech and Earth called them out on it.”

 

“You were in space, huh?”  Benjamin was incredulous, he crossed his arms and listened to Oliver.

 

“Yeah, I just told you, the moon.  You have one of those right?”  Oliver was not sarcastic; he had not actually checked if Amazonia had a moon.

 

“Then how’d you breathe?”  Ben smiled, thinking he caught the boy.

 

Oliver was faster, “We had space suits.”

 

“And if you were in a space suit, how’d you go to the bathroom?”  Benjamin knew he had him.

 

Oliver’s face looked down, he mumbled the answer, “We wore diapers.”

 

No wonder the littles want to go to space.

 

Benjamin’s laugh was loud, the chuckle took him out of the mood he lingered in from having to use the voice again.  He came forward and gently patted Oliver on the back.  He handed the boy his stuffed Orca and then pointed along the path to a distant building, “We need to go there.”  Tall trees dwarfed both men and lined the path with shade.  Squirrels twice the size of Oliver’s head scattered about with nuts the size of his hands, scurrying up and down the bark of a tree sixty feet tall.  Occasionally they would jump out into the small university road to gather nuts between parked cars.

 

With a strong wind at his back, Oliver skipped ahead and then tried walking backwards, keeping the stuffy under his arm and addressing upwards to Benjamin as the taller man walked his own slow pace.  “Everything is going to be fine.  Just let me do the talking.”

 

Benjamin had been going over his own plan to himself.  He would go to the head of the department, and get on his knees and beg for forgiveness, and offer to teach all the social studies courses from now until the end of time.  He just hoped Oliver was not going to make this weird.

 

As they passed a small pond and bench, Oliver’s grand plans were interrupted.  Oliver saw her.  Or rather, he saw them.  Ten thousand dimensions away and he recognized her.  Those perfect white teeth, long auburn hair, a professional dress suit with a blue skirt short that came up to her knees.  Her body was proportioned like a Greek sculpture, narrow thin stomach and round hips.

 

Convergence.  The same names, the same faces, and the same people.  The physics of the multiverse had deigned he would once again cross paths with this woman.  The only difference was that her breasts seemed larger, and that she was one hundred and thirty inches tall.  Near her was a tiny one, a gal with flowing brown-black hair, matching perfect teeth, and a thin short nose.  The small one kept turning her face to the bigger woman, as if in conversation, her tiny hand locked with the larger one’s, and her other hand holding up her yellow and white flower dress as she skipped to keep up with the giant.

 

If finding another Benjamin was ten million to one, then the odds of finding Ben’s soul mate was another ten million to one.  The conclusion was obvious to Oliver, this was destiny.  He looked up at the tall man, but Benjamin was not paying attention, his focus was on the road ahead to the school, and he kept muttering what he intended to say to his boss once he got there.  Taking the initiative, Oliver looked around, waited for a gust of wind, and then threw his cap towards the pond twenty feet to the side of the path.  It landed a foot near the edge in the grass.

 

“Oh no, Ben, I, my hat, the wind must have...  Do you mind helping me?”  It was his first lie of the day, and the giant was no wiser.  Benjamin came out of his stupor confused, noticed his son was distressed, and went off the path towards the water.  Oliver waited a second for his back to be turned and then bolted across the street.  Within half a minute he had crossed the hundreds of feet to the ladies, his speed causing him to nearly crash into two women, but with precision he slid on his shoes and stopped a foot from their path.

 

He was a few decibels short of a shout to get their attention, “Hello there!  I’m Oliver Young, I’m thirty-six going on six.  That’s three” he put up the last three fingers of his right hand, “four, five, and six” bringing up the other fingers before pointing the thumb to himself.  “How old are you?”  He stuck his hand out to the giant woman.

 

She took a second to address him, one word at a time, “Oliver… Young,” her little scooted quickly behind the woman’s legs and looked at Oliver, unsure if she should be afraid or inquisitive.  The tiny one let out a soft giggle at the ridiculous boy.

 

He pointed and then cocked his hand back while deliberately winking at the smaller woman, “You’re both very pretty today, I, wanted to introduce myself, since I’m not from around here.”

 

“OLIVER!”  Ben yelled and the hat scrunched in his hands.  It was not a furious yell, rather it was just one of a man of station trying to get his son’s attention.  Oliver’s reckless behavior did not make sense.  And the more Ben thought of it, the less reckless it seemed.  There were no moving cars on the street, there was no threat of kidnapping, and he was entirely in Ben’s sight lines.  It was the behavior of a boy who just wanted to explore the world.  Benjamin’s school was a playground for the six-year-old, safe, but wonderous.

 

“Have you met my new dad?  His name is Benjamin Young,” Oliver’s hand guided the two to the giant.  Benjamin was dressed in his best suit, the one from Earth, that elevated his shoulders and filled out his arms, all while hiding his stomach.  He had also taken the time to shine his shoes, and his face was clean shaved.  His glasses and short haircut were barely tempered by the windy afternoon.  Victoria had never paid much mind to the bottom tier historian, and now she saw him for the first time, confident, fatherlike, serious, and handsome.

 

The man strolled to Oliver holding his hat, scolding him softly, “Six-year-old boys don’t run away from their dads.  Six-year-old boys don’t cross the street without looking both ways.  And most importantly, six-year-old boys tie their shoes.”  He put the cap on Oliver, directing his face down to see the untied laces.

 

Oliver knelt sheepishly and slowly and began tying the laces.  The tall woman looked carefully at his rear, seeing the small elastic waistband of a pull-up creep out as the boy was hunched over.  This definitely was an adopted little.

 

“Benjamin, Professor Young.  It’s good to see you back.  After the letter I was worried.”  The giantess had a few inches height on Benjamin, but this was due to her black office shoes with long heels.  Flat footed, Ben might be a centimeter taller.

 

“Right, right… I uh..”  Benjamin lost his thread; he was not prepared to talk to a woman.  “Vicky, right?  Montgomery?”  He was uncertain about her name.  They did not work in the same building or field, and she was out of his league in more ways than one.

 

“Victoria,” she corrected, “it is good to see you.  I had thought one thing, since your letter implied a more progressive attitude, but this is certainly a big surprise.  It’s good to see you’re still on the right team.”

 

Oliver gently rapped at Benjamin’s knee, his friend was blowing it, “Ben!”

 

His father looked down at him, Oliver continued, almost a whisper, but intentionally a step louder, “We agreed, I’d get the pretty ones and you’d get the smart ones.” He pointed to the younger gal behind the Amazon’s legs, her right thumb now jammed in her mouth.

 

Benjamin nodded, unsure of Oliver’s game, but Victoria chuckled slightly and dragged the little forward, “This is Jennifer.”  Her tone directed the small one, “Why don’t you introduce yourself to Oliver.”

 

She pushed the girl forward and Jennifer almost stumbled into Oliver’s chest.  She smelled of fresh lilacs and baby powder.  Oliver blinked and stumbled a bit as he lost himself in her green, brown eyes.  His cool he had shown to the eleven-foot giantess evaporated as he came close to Jennifer.  Fortunately, he did not need to hold her attention for long as her face quickly looked down at his stuffed animal.

 

James Bond tried his smoothest approach with the young girl, “Oh um, yeah, hey I’m Oliver, and I’m not from around here.  Jennifer, was it?”

 

Jennifer wanted to see the toy, “What’s that?”  Oliver held it up and out for her, the colossal whale balanced on his open palm.  She gently touched the soft plush outside and turned around excited, making a soft jump, and then returning to pet it again.

 

“Loki!” She shouted with excitement.

 

“No, it’s Willy.  I mean, it’s really Shamu, but I think he played Willy in the movie.  Willy with a whY not an eye-Eee” Oliver tried.

 

Victoria’s conversation with Benjamin had a different tone, “You know, that e-mail you sent out, it really caused quite the stir.”

 

“I really need to fix things,” Benjamin apologized, all he knew was that Oliver had written it.  He did not realize it had been sent to everyone.  Ben’s imagination blackened with the thought of a six-year-old writing something embarrassing and childish while putting his dad’s name on it.

 

“No, I think people needed to hear that.  The littles come here, and we treat them like crap right when they are at the best they’ll ever be.  It’s like you said, all they want to do is stand on the shoulders of giants, we should at least give them a couple years of real adulthood before they lose it.  Just let them pretend for a few years.  Plus, everyone knows how important Collins was to you.”  She took a pause, “This…” She pointed to the small one, “this isn’t what anyone would have predicted.  This is good.  Healthy.  I’m glad you found someone.”

 

“Loki!  Loki!  Loki!” Jennifer hopped three times, her dress coming up enough that Oliver could hear her thick ruffling undergarments.

 

“I’m not familiar with this…” Oliver asked directing his question towards the Amazons.

 

Benjamin saved him, he knew all the cartoons, “It’s a children’s show.  It’s about a freshwater plesiosaur.  Some lake in northern Albion I believe.  He goes on adventures and helps teach about shapes and the importance of recycling.”

 

Oliver blinked a bit, “Oh, um, no this is let me tell you about ‘Free Willy’ and why it’s the best movie ever.  It is about a killer whale; we call them that because they fight sharks but never people… unless they’re bad people…”  Oliver started and continued, going over the main plot of the movie.

 

Victoria looked at Benjamin, “He’s different, I see why you like him.  Articulate.  He has some behavior problems, and definitely an ego.  Nothing that a good spanking wouldn’t solve though.”

 

Benjamin stopped her, “Oh, never.  Never.  Oliver hurt a lot of people in his past, and one of the things I want him to work on is he is no longer going to be hurting people anymore.  Even if he thinks they deserve it.  That means no more hitting.  If I hit him that would mean it is OK for him to hit others, and I don’t want him to do that.”

 

Victoria had not considered there were such long-term consequences for parenting choices, but the mathematics of it, a chain reaction – a swift large hand hitting a tiny butt.  It was logical that the little conserved that energy, those emotions, and they would go off and ruin some other tyke’s day at the first opportunity.

 

She had always assumed the small ones had trouble remembering past their last diaper change, which if that were true, why punish at all?  As a father, Ben was immaculate, pristine, but he was not a naif.  He intuited the physics of parenting like he had memorized the first chapter of child development.

 

Victoria was a ‘spare the rod spoil the little’ kind of mommy.   She knew violence against Jennifer had stopped being effective long ago, but it had persisted.  Ben’s statement forced her to reflect on her own actions.  Was it possible she spanked her sister because she wanted to, not because she thought it helped the girl?  With one sentence, Ben had changed something in her, forced her to evaluate her priors, and now her trained scientific mind had come to the fore to examine something she did multiple times a week.  The disconnect between her bad habits and her duty as a scientist was disquieting.  Ben had proposed a radical hypothesis: Oliver could be a better person if his dad tried to raise him in a better way.  Perhaps all of the littles could be better people, if the Amazons just tried to be better parents.

 

“I think I get it, still, he’s a bit more… coherent, than I’m used to.  What’d he do before his condition hit?” Oliver had to be an actor.  She wanted to call Benjamin out for pulling a stunt.  It was one thing to adopt a baby, the littles had a condition that would keep them from being adults and needed the bigs to help them.  If this was all some long joke it was insulting to her.  Jennifer had a real condition, and Oliver was mocking it unless he had it too.

 

“I don’t know, some kind of manager, some testing facility.  Spreadsheets and meetings.  He was the one looking for a dad.  We’re made for each other though.  He’s helping me with this project.”

 

Oliver finished his story, “That’s the thing, everyone thinks the movie is about freeing the whale because we should respect nature and slavery is bad but it’s not.  It’s a story about the new parents coming to terms with their adopted son, and realizing he needs space and respect.  As he grows, he needs the whole giant ocean of the world, and they are keeping him in a cage.  They need to let him mature and make decisions and be on his own, because sometimes his decisions are correct and what he needs to do and they should help him do too.  The whale is like a sim-em-em-ally, the story is about growing up.”

 

Benjamin’s teacher sense forced the correction, “Oliver, that’s a metaphor, a simile uses ‘like’ or ‘as’”

 

Oliver responded, “I did say ‘like’.”

 

Victoria’s heart broke into pieces, she wanted a cute boy like this in her life.  Too bad she already had a little.  Ben was the luckiest dad in the world.

 

Jennifer laughed and pointed at him, “You’re a big dork,”

 

Oliver was quieter in his response, letting her in a secret.  He held up the stuffed animal with his other grip, and pointed to the underside, “You don’t even know what that word means, do you?”

 

“Oliver, you’re very… analytical.  There are students I teach who could not explain the plot of a movie, let alone recognize the themes might be different from the plot.”  Victoria tried subtlety, hoping to catch the small spy in the act.

 

Oliver kicked his feet and shucked his shoulders, “That’s ‘cause I was pretty dumb before my maturaroni hit.  I didn’t have as far to fall, maybe even bounced up a bit.  Just glad I found Ben, we’re the best for each other.  Hey, you should come over and he’ll make you um, chicken cord-on-a blue.”

 

Benjamin took Oliver’s pass and went for a shot, whispering to Victoria, “It’s just a chicken tender with a piece of ham and a slice of cheese on it.”  He took a glance at Oliver, he tried squinting his eyes and frowning, hoping to let the boy know he was pushing his luck.  Oliver kicked the ground slightly and returned to Jennifer.  He went into detail about various cetaceans on Earth.

 

Benjamin turned to Victoria and got serious, “I want to work on Collin’s research, and maybe Oliver will help with that.  Collins discovered something that will turn the world upside down.”  Benjamin came around to Victoria’s side as the two Amazons watched Jennifer and Oliver.

The giant of a man tried to make the case, “We were going through their old legal cases, and found some interesting ones.  The first was just about a little lost in the wild that got caught out in a bad storm or away from civilization.  Her maturosis hit, and there wasn’t anyone to take care of the woman.  No family, no friends.  The courts determined the need of the State to manage and monitor this condition.  The girl was pretty far gone, and it took a lot of effort to restore her just to basic function of talking and walking.  It doesn’t go into much detail, but the important thing is, they didn’t call it Maturosis, or anything like that.  They called this condition a cocoon.  Like a butterfly, and that’s what caused us to look deeper.”

 

She turned and feigned interest, “I’m not much for history or law, but I’m sure that’s interesting.”

 

He shook his head, “The littles have a condition, that under the right stresses, they will go into a cocoon that rewires their minds like a baby.  The cocoon is not the goal, the cocoon is preparing their minds and bodies for something else.  It’s rare, though obviously it’s highly inconvenient, but it is like a reset button.  People who had failed at adulting the first time, or their life wasn’t fulfilling, got a second chance.”

 

She went along with it, “They’re a superstitious bunch, I can see why they’d think of maturosis in a shamanist way or even a form of spiritual enlightenment.  I’m a little surprised they had it back on their island though, I honestly thought that was just a myth.  It really is genetic condition?”  Victoria had a hint of disappointment in her voice.  In her heart she had hoped maturosis was novel, even an artificial construct to justify turning small ones into babies.  If her sister had the genes, then that meant her parents and she might have the genes too, and if she ever did have children, they might get it too.

 

Benjamin gave a muted response to her question before moving onward, “It would have been an enormous discovery on its own, assuming the condition really was maturosis.  Collins and I went deeper looking for more records.  The second case we found is even better.  It’s about a young man who was living at home with his mother when his condition hit.  And she babied him.  Diapers, feeding baby food, even a giant crib.  She kept him like that for years, maybe a decade?  By the time he was about Oliver’s age she was found out and the courts got to them.”

 

He let that linger for a bit, “The mom only really wanted her baby boy back, and when they’re in the cocoon, the littles want to be babies too.  They want something easy and doing the same thing over and over is perfect.  Their brains are completely rewired, almost like a newborn, great new learning machines, but that has some draw backs in their ability to function.”

 

“A lot of being an adult is choosing to not be a learner anymore, to rely upon your experiences and knowledge, rather than taking the world fresh and new.  That’s why it’s so hard to teach college students, and it gets harder to teach as they get older.  An adult shames themselves into thinking they’re above being pathetic, and that’s great if you want someone coherent enough to fill out a memo or attend a meeting, but it’s bad if you want them to learn a new language or understand a new science or piece of technology.  Once a little goes into their ball, they lose their ability to shame themselves against wanting to be learners.”  Ben pointed at the two little’s butts, “All shame, if you think about it.”

 

“If you give the small ones an opportunity to slack, they will do it.  They are more than happy to ‘learn the alphabet song’ for the fiftieth time.  It is like candy, their minds get to have the joy of learning, and they can’t contextualize they should already know this, and be improving on it.  Littles will not push themselves, and if no one intervenes they’ll eventually become pure experience machines, delighting in a menagerie of flavors and senses for the first time over and over again.  I know you’ve seen it; every meal is like the first time they’ve eaten it, every playground a new planet to explore, the slide remains as exciting the hundredth time as it was the first.”

 

She looked down at Jennifer, the young lady’s thumb had gone in her mouth as Oliver continued to talk about whales, “So… what’s the problem?”

 

Ben revealed the grand secret, “When the littles come out of their cocoon, they’re extremely valuable to society.  You can’t go through something like that without improving in some way, they have new ways of looking at things, and they aren’t afraid to learn anymore.  They embrace the suck that is being bad at something, so they can enjoy being great at it.  They became artisans and poets and engineers and great scientists.  With the case of the mother, she defended herself that because her son was happy, and he was clearly happy as a baby, he should be allowed to stay a baby forever.  The courts did not like that.  They decided from now on they were going to ask the neophytes what they wanted to be, and if they wanted to be a baby they could stay a baby, and if they want to be something different, then someone needed to be responsible to help them become that, even if a family member wanted something different.  The case doesn’t go into what the son wanted to be; the paperwork just stopped there.  Collins wanted to cross check the name against other records to see if he had gone on to be like a chemist or a sculptor but never completed the search.”

 

Victoria looked at the two littles playing with Oliver’s stuffed animal.  Why would someone choose to be a baby?  If being an experience machine was so great, why would someone choose to not be one?  She shook her head; the world was much bigger now.  She narrowed her eyes at Benjamin, what he proposed was subversive, almost treason and definitely heresy.  But what was the alternative?  He was a new dad, with a newly adopted child, who was a perfect little boy who called her pretty and was trying hard to get his new daddy a date.  If Oliver liked him and Oliver liked her, maybe they could make it work, and that meant she had to try to make Benjamin’s wacky theory work.

 

Benjamin finished his discussion, “Finally, the last case.  You’ll love this.  This little had been some important mathematician or banker, but someone fantastically important, maybe even a professor like us.  Everyone loved him.  He got the condition.  That was rare with people who are successful, because they don’t have the right kind of stress.  The public said just make him like he was before.  He’ll be an even better mathematician.  But the little did not want that.  He insisted on learning the piano, and that he was done with numbers.  He would throw chalk at his teachers and then bang the books on the desks in anger when they tried to get him to study algebra.  He was a very naughty child, but he knew the law and he insisted he had a right to choose what he wanted to be when he grew up again.”

 

Victoria could imagine it, “What happened, did they force him to grow up and become a stodgy old professor, or did they keep him a baby?”

 

“Oh, no, he became their most famous composer, and everyone agreed from then on, that the little knows best what he wants to be.  Society shouldn’t decide what you get to be.  Sadly, we don’t have any of his music recorded, but it gets better.  This took me a second to recognize it, as I had only seen sheet music.  Oliver is not from around here, and for reasons I do not understand, his people kept a copy,” He reached into his large suit pants and pulled out the iPad he had bought from Earth.  He brought the small pad up to her face, so she could hear the tin from the tiny speakers.  His large hand carefully turned on the device and brought up the music playlist.

 

Despite the small size, her mammoth ears picked up the delicate movement of strings, a building chorus of instruments, like tension of a coming storm, and then “Bah dum… bah bah BAUM, dum…”

 

That stopped Oliver’s playful antics with the girl, he stared up at the two.  Was Benjamin lying to Victoria?  Was he allowed to do that if Oliver was in listening range?

 

Victoria nodded along to the music for a few seconds then commented, “I take it you are planning on doing this, cocoon thing to Oliver?  Turn him into a mythical super baby, so he can what, be the world’s greatest cetologist?”  She smiled at her adaptation of the term Oliver had accidentally slipped.

 

Benjamin laughed, “No, Oliver’s a good kid, he’s happy where he’s at and I will parent with a light touch.  To be honest, I don’t know if his people can get real maturosis.  I bring this up because I want you to look your young lady.”  He moved in closer, his hand around Victoria’s back, drawing her in.

 

The two pondered the mystery that was Jennifer.  The girl was wiggling with her legs, back and forth.  She kept pawing at her dress, bringing her hands down.  She hopped back and forth on her padded feet like a ballerina.  Benjamin whispered into Victoria’s ear, “She’s found a boy she likes, and she’s trying to impress him.  She’s trying to come out of her cocoon.  I think she wants to be big again.”

 

Victoria blinked, just looking at her sister for the first time.  It had been over a decade of toddlerhood, and she had gotten used to Jennifer being the family’s baby forever.  Her sister had always had some illness, and it got worse as she got older.  Now, within just a few minutes of playing with Oliver she was laughing and dancing.  How had Victoria missed this?  She had assumed Jennifer would always be as she always was.  But now, with Benjamin’s help, Victoria had seen in her sister the potential to be something more.

 

“You can do it?  I mean, what you’ve read, Jennifer could…”  She watched Jennifer pat her front again, brushing down the skirt.  Victoria turned slightly to Ben, “and maybe Oliver could help too?”  Ben nodded, she now understood.

 

Victoria put her best mommy voice on, elevated in pitch and tone, “Jennifer, I need to go potty before we leave, let’s go back to the office really quick, is that OK?”

 

Jennifer stopped and shook, and then ran back to Victoria, who picked her up and carried her beneath her arms.  Victoria shrugged a bit from the weight, and then asked Ben, “Octidi, at my place then?  Noon?  We’ll go over the details then.”

 

Benjamin gave a thumbs up and the two walked off, Victoria picking up pace to a near run after about ten feet, rushing back to the building, Jennifer’s pigtails bobbing gently as she ran.  The tiny one made one last wave to the two men and was gone.

Oliver held up his hand in the air, waiting for Benjamin to slap it.  The giant stood at his full presence, and shook his head, scorn rolling off his face in waves.  Oliver moved back a foot and brought his hand down, unsure what was wrong.

 

“Dude, come on, I’m your wingman.  I just got you a date.  OK maybe a lunch thing, but a date’s a date.  We’re one day in and we’re already picking up chicks.  Don’t leave me hanging.”

 

“First off, you’re grounded for life.”  Benjamin was serious.

“Why?  Did you see the breasts on her?  They’re practically watermelons.”  Oliver tried humor; Ben’s mood did not change.

 

“You ran away from me and into the street.”

 

Oliver shook his head back and forth, contemplating it, “Hey, it’s my first day back as a six-year-old, and I don’t remember all the rules.  Give me a couple free mulligans.”

 

“Oliver, are you familiar with the documentary ‘The Parent Trap’?” Ben started to explain.

 

“The Dennis Quaid one or…” Oliver was not sure where this was going.

 

“When a little runs up to a single woman, and pulls the crap you just did, you are basically advertising to her you want her to be your mommy.  ‘Oh, my daddy is just the best, he cooks the best meals, have you met my dad?’”  Ben raised his voice in mockery at the end.

 

Oliver defended himself, “I’m a cute puppy at a park, only I know when to jump off the leash and hop into the chick’s arms.  If it gets you in her pants…”

 

“Oliver, our entire world.  Everything.”  Ben’s arms went wide, he spun around slightly to indicate the enormity of what he was about to explain, “Revolves around you guys.  I know it doesn’t feel that way, but what we look for in a partner is who will make a good mommy or daddy.  I’m going to marry Victoria.”

 

“Oh… well, at least do it once in bed or something, what if you’re not even compatible.” Oliver’s humor missed; Ben retained his serious demeanor.

 

Benjamin shook his head, “Amazons don’t have long dating periods.  We’re not indecisive or unsure like you guys.  When we find someone, if we think they will make a good partner, we marry them and that’s it.  Did you see our mating dance there?  She said how she wanted to raise you, and I said, ‘no this is how I’m raising my son’, and then she agreed my way is better.  Then I told her how I wanted to raise her daughter and she agreed, and we’ll figure out the rest of it on Octidi.”

 

“Ok slow down.  That’s insane.  First off, I can’t have a mommy, I’m a spy.  She’s going to figure out really fast I’m fully there upstairs.  Sure, if you want to get engaged that’s fine, it’s your life, but not in a week, and not before you got to know Vicky.  I mean, what if she’s…,” Oliver was already regretting this.  Victoria and Ben were soul mates, but he also got to know Victoria after the war.

 

It saddened his next question “What about us?”

 

“There’s still us, only now, Mr. James Bond Junior is going to get his own ‘eM’ to report to and watch over you,” Ben’s comment only confirmed to Oliver that he had no idea what being a spy was like.  Secret agents do not have a mommy that sets a bedtime and makes him brush his teeth.

 

Oliver let his head down, this was moving too fast.  He had gone after the gal in the hopes of showing Ben he was useful to him, give him confidence and get him out of his funk.  Also, he hoped it would get Benjamin out of the house every now and then so Oliver could get real work done.  A new mommy would severely limit his autonomy.  He wanted to beat himself up over this, had he taken even a second to review a Social Studies textbook, the mistake he had made would have been obvious.  With a quivered tone he asked Ben for a damage assessment, “How… how long do we have as us?  I wanted more time.”

 

Ben knelt low and lifted his son’s chin, staring him in the eye, “It’s fine Oliver.  I know everything is too fast, but we’ll still have each other.  And she won’t do anything to hurt you, I won’t allow it.  We’re going to be a big happy family.  As for timetables, I’m thinking about three weeks.  The sooner the better.  The hard part will be finding find a babysitter for our honeymoon on such short notice.”

 

“I don’t need a babysitter,” Oliver tried not to whine, he was simply stating a fact.  Between last night and this morning, the two had come to a growing mutual understanding of what Oliver needed help with and what he did not.  Ben was confident his boy could be left alone for a few hours without parental attention.

 

Benjamin knew where Oliver was going with this.  He did not want to say he did not trust Oliver and instead found another way to answer that was still true, “I know, but your new baby sister does.”

[Operational Systems]

As a reminder there is a quiz!  With (possibly) prizes!  Feel free to reply if you have any guesses to any of the questions.

 

Chapter 29 - Salt of the Earth underpaid to serve and teach your children.

 

23 Floréal Year CCXXXI, Potat, South Windland, Libertalia - Amazonia

 

Root Hall towered over the surrounding grass and pavements.  Its long shadow providing shade in the warming spring morning, to Ben and Oliver as they approached from the west.  The building was made of thick red-brown bricks, five inches tall, and from their size reminded Oliver of the Washington Monument, rather than the late industrial aesthetic of the ubiquitous building material.  The school dwarfed over the two men with a roof over a hundred feet above them, every floor and every face having a large black window dispersed evenly between red brick.  A series of rose bushes lined the entrance, their large flowers inviting the occasional bumble bee, which easily startled Oliver into a shutter.  The Earthling was not used to seeing insects the size of his face that buzzed like a helicopter drone.

 

Benjamin held open the mammoth door for Oliver, who skipped into the cooler interior, and instinctively scooted his shoes a bit on the university mascot rug in the atrium.  Another set of glass doors past the opening awaited the two men.  Oliver pushed himself ahead towards the left one and turned to ask his father a question, just as the taller man reached for the door handle.

 

“It’s kind of weird, being six again, and not actually being physically six,” Oliver started.

 

“We can do something about that, if you would like,” Benjamin tried, almost a half joke.  There were all sorts of miracles coming these days from the physiology department.

 

Oliver answered quickly, before continuing to his question, “Let’s come back around to that another time.  Personally, I would not choose to be six again if I had a choice, but here we are, so Ben, if you had to go back again, how old would you want to be?”

 

Benjamin was uncertain.  On the one hand he was not happy being called Ben in public and would need to explain to Oliver all the rules.  On the other, he did have an answer, so his hand hovered over the door.  This just felt like an awkward place to be having this conversation.  Regardless, he did not have a choice when it came to giving awkward answers, “Uh… ten years younger.  I kind of miss the…” he thought precisely of why, “I had a lot more energy and enthusiasm then.  Just hadn’t been ground down by the system yet.  So much potential.  Not that I’ve wasted any, just would be nice to be there again.  Attitudinally even, maybe with my experience of the system to not make the same mistakes.”

 

Oliver smiled at that, “Great choice.  Yeah, me too, maybe we can work towards that as a goal for me.”

 

Ben did not like that, “Lets … revisit that.”

 

The conversation forced him to look at his young son, “I had not tried to think of what’s happened to you like that.  You have lost your adult privileges, but you also get to be a child again.  This whole planet is the right size for pretending you’re a kid.”  He directed Oliver to an elevator that was nestled to the side of the open hallway.  The building had the quiet that comes between semesters, when there were no students and few staff.  Bright fluorescent ceiling lights filled every corner of the floor.  White painted limestone bricks lined the silent walls like a grand pyramid and drove the delicate ceiling lights to the polished smooth travertine floors.  Their conversation was interrupted by the DING of an elevator and the opening door’s invitation to bring them up.

 

Oliver smiled up at Benjamin, “I want to push the button.”  The giant reached down and brought Oliver level with the panel.

 

“We have to go to four, and my office is on five.” Benjamin watched as his son beamed with brightness and fascination at pushing in the white circle with the black four.  It was perfect, the two working together.  The small helping the big, and the big helping the small.  No matter what happened with the coming visit, as long as he and Oliver had each other everything would work out.

 

As the doors slowly creaked closed, Oliver let out a howl, “Race ya’!”  His small body quickly jumped up and slammed numbers two and three on the panel and just as quickly squeezed out the door, jumping easily over the sensor.  Ben was alone in the compartment with his anger and fear.

 

The elevator was old and slow, though Oliver had some difficulty hopping up twelve-inch steps and had to hustle to beat the machine.  Despite his handicap, Oliver reached the fourth floor with plenty of time, and when Benjamin exited the doors, he found no one waiting.  Instead, he heard a muffled conversation coming from Dean Samuelson’s office.

 

Paula Samuelson was a witch of a woman, her tall hair added three inches to her height, and she had taken to dying it sharp black in her advanced age.  It came down just below her shoulders.  Her summer outfit was a modestly tight aqua-green dress with an exotic strap of gold and purple sash from left hip to over her right shoulder.  Her gold earrings consisted of interlocking circles and looked like they weighed ten pounds while they dangled from the lobes past her chin.

 

The dean was known for her uncomic attitude.  She rarely cracked a smile.  Of all the teachers in the building, only Charles had the gall to stand up to her, and only because he was tenured in an untouchable position as the chairman of the history department.  A year ago, Benjamin had knocked on her door, eager to make the case for attending a conference in Atlantica.  Before he had sat down, she told him no, and further, he walked away agreeing to pick up a winter break course he did not want to teach.

 

The dean commanded every room she entered, and right now, her attention was on the small man before her.

 

Oliver turned to the man entering, “Paula, have you met my new,” Oliver held up fingers to make air quotes, “’best friend’ Benjamin?”  He leaned closer to the taller woman and whispered, “We’re still working on the ‘Dee’ words, he’s not comfortable yet.”

 

She gave a long chuckle from that, turning to the taller man.  Benjamin was off guard, he had prepared to give the talking of a century to Oliver, and instead, casually, and quietly said, “Oliver, when we get done, I don’t want to buy a leash, but we need to have a long conversation about running away in public.”

 

Oliver stood a second and stared the man down, like he had the first time they met, “You forgot didn’t you.”

Benjamin looked around, “Excuse me?”

 

Oliver’s hand lifted and pointed to the Mars symbol across from the office, “We’re in a new place you must ask.  I shouldn’t have to remind you.  Every time we’re in a new place and there’s an opportunity you should ask.”

 

Benjamin looked at the sign, then Oliver, and the sign again, he tried to go along with the impromptu sketch, “Uh… do you need to go potty?  Are you telling me, you need to go?”

 

Oliver’s mood got brighter, and he answered definitively, “Nope!”  He then came towards Ben’s legs and signaled with his hand for the man to get closer.  Ben kneeled, unsure what the game was.

 

“It’s best you be seen and not heard,” Oliver whispered into Ben’s ear.

 

The command was back.  Ben stood at attention like a soldier waiting for instruction, and Oliver went back to Paula.  “I bet you would love to hear how Ben and I met.”

 

“That would be wonderful,” Paula’s mood was unusually happy.  Ben was concerned, he knew that look.  She probably wanted to fire someone; Paula took satisfaction in the suffering of others.  Despite his concerns, his face and body were locked out and he could not do anything.

 

Oliver began, “There I am after work, and it is the worst day of my entire life.  I had just gotten a promotion, four Oh one Kay, and an extra week of vacation, and lots of new responsibilities.  I am going on thirty-seven, and my life is over.  No one is going to want to adopt a thirty-seven-year-old with a retirement plan.  I’m sitting there just waiting outside my work, thinking, this is it, what other options do I have.  I might as well just go to the titty bar.  Find myself a tweener and say, ‘Yep, I don’t care if it’s just a weekend tutor session.  Just pretend to be my babysitter, or we can pretend I’m student still in high school, because this is the best I will ever do.’”

 

Oliver’s shoulders shrugged, “I know what you’re thinking, ‘just go sign up for a big’, lady, I’ve been in the adoption program for fifteen years.  It’s not like in grand pappy’s days where you could just find any old tall person off the street and say ‘welp you’re my mommy now’.  You guys have all these rights and protections.  There’s a whole process.  Of course, I’m licensed, I’ve attended all the classes.  In fifteen years, I only got one test question wrong.  And I don’t think that one counts.  They said I ate all my vegetables.”

 

Oliver pointed at Paula, “Is a tomato a vegetable?  No!  It’s not!  It was a trick question.  Plus, there was cheese, everyone knows it doesn’t count as a vegetable if there’s cheese.”

 

Oliver ended his aside and continued his story, “Back to my worst day ever, I’m just beside myself, I can’t even drive home.  I’m thinking I’m never going to get adopted, I’m never going to have a new mommy or daddy in my life, I’m just going to have to be a responsible adult.  Maybe even get married and be a daddy of my own.”

 

His arms went up, as though pondering the world, “And then…  just in my lowest moment.  Out of the air, just zooomph.  This man appears.  Now, he’s confused, and he comes to me asking for help, and I stare in shock at this fellow.  He has cargo shorts on.  He was wearing sandals and even had these long white socks on.  I was in love.  Ben even brought a hammer,” Oliver pantomimes lifting his hand, like Thor himself would strike, “and says, ‘Can you help me, I was working on my deck and seem to have gotten lost.’”

 

“Can you believe it, it’s like a Disney movie.  It’s perfect.  I know I have to get him off the street, or someone is going to abduct this guy.  You do not dress like that unless you want to get picked up by roving littles.  It’s for his own good.  I offer to take him back to my place while we sort things out and get him back to his home planet.  He agrees.  We’re sitting there in the kitchen, having a nice conversation, and he wants to cook.  Cook!  Can you believe it?  Not, ‘Oliver, let’s go to the bar and get some wings’ or ‘Oliver, let’s order a pizza’, and I, ok I’m a bit sentimental, and yes, it’s a cliché.  I have the mac and cheese stocked in the pantry… just in case.  And he says, let’s do mac and cheese.  And it’s perfect.  The best mac and cheese I’ve ever eaten.”

 

“And then, I go, ‘oh I’m tired, see you tomorrow,’ but no he has to give me a bath and read me a bedtime story.  This is the real test.  There are no age-appropriate books in my house, but he just goes right on my reading device and finds ‘Cat in the Hat’.  That’s when I knew I had to have him.  You do not share such an intimate moment in bed, unless you’re ready to be a dad!  The next day, right to the courthouse – the judge ordered his adoption.  Said he had all the signs; Benjamin needs a small one in his life.  Mom and dad were so proud, I finally got myself my own real parent, and I had achieved my dream of becoming a real boy.”

 

Oliver walked a bit towards Ben and then back to Paula, “You should have seen him when the judge gave the order.  He was crying, ‘no, I can’t be a dad, I have so much to do.  I want to buy a motorcycle; I want to take up painting.’  But, no, you don’t get a choice whether you want to be a dad or not.  He’s my new ‘Best Friend’.  I agreed to come here, since he works here.  It wouldn’t be appropriate to force him to up and move for me.”

 

Oliver winked at Paula, “Is it like that here?  I bet when your little found you it was just as magical.”

 

Paula chuckled and then grabbed a picture from her desk and turned it down towards Oliver for him to see.  A man in his early twenties was dressed in a soft blue onesie pajama and had his right thumb in his mouth.  His hair had been cut down to a thin brown buzz, and his cheeks were puffed out, “This is Simon, I was actually the one who found him, but it was just as magical.”

 

“Oh, he’s perfect.  How old,” Oliver paused and shook his head and shoulders back and forth, tossing the concept around, then pointing at his temple, “I mean up here, obviously.”

 

“Oh, about fourteen months?  He’s still crawling.”

Oliver’s face went back, his eyes in shock, “Fourteen?  You can go that low here?  Can… can you even go newborn, like if the mommy or daddy is prepared for that responsibility?”

 

She nodded and confirmed his odd question.  Oliver turned on his heel and moved right up to Ben, he snapped his fingers to drag the man out of his stupor, “You didn’t say you could go to fourteen months Ben.  You!  You!”  His face puffed up, his hand grew into a fist shaking it, “No.  You insisted you wanted a kid with some autonomy.  A ‘bigger’ kid you can throw a ball at, do some chores, and maybe save a little on diapers.  Well, you wanted a six-year-old, you’re getting one.”

 

Benjamin had followed the conversation in words, but not in thought.  He was taken aback by Oliver’s strange demeanor and was uncertain why his boss was letting him converse with her as an equal.

 

“Not one word.  Not one.  Fourteen months, and here I am having to pretend I have potty…” Oliver stood tall, and scolded the larger man, “That’s it.  From now on, no more ‘best friends’, no more ‘Ben’.  From now on I’m calling you daddy.”  Oliver let out a huff and took a long breath, Ben’s mouth dropped slightly as if to answer, but Oliver cut him off, “Now, when we leave, if you remember,” he pointed at the sign, “And, I don’t have to remind you, I’ll use the ‘eFF’ word instead of daddy.  Maybe.”

 

Oliver sat down on the ground and crossed his legs; he then stuck his hands and arms straight in the air.

 

Benjamin looked down at the small one, “What are you doing?”

 

Oliver tilted his head and shook his arms, as if it was obvious.  He angrily returned, “I’m waiting.  Don’t make me count to three.”

 

Benjamin shook his head, finally figuring out Oliver’s game, “I’m not picking you up, you can walk.”

 

Oliver’s tone was loud but sure, “One.”

 

A snorkel of a laugh came from Ben, then he looked again, “Oh you’re, serious?  You’re throwing a tantrum, now?”

 

“Two,” Oliver was not having it.

 

“You’re too big!” Ben tried.

 

“Two and a half.” Oliver’s patience was reaching a limit.

 

Ben whined, “My arms are tired,”

 

“Two point nine nine nine nine nine.”

 

Ben’s face scrunched, and he, just short of anger, put out a quick “Fine!”  His arms reached down and brought his son straight up again.  Oliver’s small hands reached behind Ben’s neck and grasped tightly, his face leaning into his chest, he whispered.

 

“Thank you, daddy, she’s ready, go ask for your sabbatical.”

 

Paula had sat there, staring at the whole display.  Of course, Ben had a reason to not be at work last week.  He had been on Oliver’s world, and family was more important than his job.  She gently touched her son’s portrait, putting it back on the desk, then motioned for Ben to approach as he shifted Oliver up and down slightly.

 

“Um… Doctor Samuelson, I wanted to apologize for missing last week.”

 

“Ben, these things happen, you’re not the first professor to go awol during finals.  We handled it.  Looks like you came out of the exchange better for it.  We all know how important Collins was to you, and this is good for you.  Congratulations on becoming a new dad.  Honestly, I always thought something was wrong with you, but it sounds like Oliver would not take no for an answer, and it has worked out for the best.”

 

Ben blinked but said nothing; this conversation had gone differently than he imagined it.  Amazons were bad at imagining things.  He decided to push his luck.

 

“There was one small favor.  If it’s not too much trouble.  I wanted a research sabbatical.  I wanted to finish Collin’s paper and try to get it published.”  Ben smiled, looking into her fierce eyes for a moment.  When he lost himself, he looked back down at Oliver to regain his confidence.

 

Paula’s face scrunched; her eyes seemed to focus on Ben then lose focus.  Ben flinched, expecting her to yell at him, but instead she looked at Oliver’s resting head and smiled, “Take all the time you need.  Collins had it in him to be one of the best, and we would be honored to bring his scholarly achievement to the world.  He deserves it.  I’ll figure out the teaching coverage, and make sure you get your normal salary while you work on something so important.”

 

Benjamin dropped his mouth slightly and then stood up nodding and thanking the dean.  He started hurrying towards the door, unsure if he wanted to stay and potentially lose this.  As he reached the corridor, Paula stopped him.  Benjamin shook his head, he knew this was too good, he turned to the woman, his face downward cast in disappointment.

 

“Benjamin, there was, maybe just one favor you could do.  Normally we would not ask you to teach on a sabbatical, but I’m kind of in a bind on one little thing.”

 

He knew it, his lips curled up, and then replied, “Social Studies?”

 

“Oh, no.  Ever since Doctor Korge left, well, the board has been so happy with the results of his new class, they wanted to maybe try it again, but we couldn’t figure out who to trust with this.  Someone who had the same presence he carried, that the littles will listen and respect.  Someone who could carry the whole department, and all of history if you will, on his shoulders.  If you took his chair … then you could fill that role.  Please, Ben, I’ve got no one else I can imagine better, and you’re so good with the small ones.  I can see that with your new son.”

 

Inside Benjamin was leaping with joy, but he put on a face “I suppose, if it’s one class.  I’m going to teach it my own way, I can try it.  Thank you.”  He nodded in acknowledgement.

 

Benjamin shifted Oliver to his other side, and the two parted for the elevator.  Benjamin did not say anything until they were inside, and the doors were closed.  His hug grew deeper, squishing Oliver, and he spoke to his son, “You called me daddy.”

 

“You at all curious to what happened there?” Oliver chided, he pointed down to the floor to indicate he wanted down, but Benjamin ignored his command.  He was not letting him run away again.

 

“You’re my lucky charm.  Everyone loves you; you just have this aura of perfect little boy, and they respect me more because I’m your dad.”  Benjamin suggested.

 

“What?  No, I put some heavy hypnotic commands in that e-mail I sent out and activated it before you came out the elevator.  Flipped all her blocks around.  She must go out of her way to listen to people she would have despised before.  In fact, the worse her opinion of someone, the more she wants to listen and suck up to them.”

 

Benjamin’s mood dropped, “Oliver, she was all over me, she even went out of her way to give me a promotion, are…” he stumbled, “You’re saying she doesn’t like me or respect me?”  He thought he had earned his place here on the back of years of hard work.  His son had just cheated and got Benjamin what he deserved.  He was not sure how to feel about that.  Nepotism was never something he had ever considered as a possibility for himself, least of all from the actions of a little.  Littles were truly capable of so much more than choking on blocks and filling diapers.

 

“She’ll be like that for a while, long enough to come around to appreciate the real you.  Plus, it’ll be funny tonight when she gets home to her son.  Those two will be playing their own version of ‘Simon Says’.”

 

Oliver chuckled at his joke, then reached out and pushed the five button; the two men started their ascent.

[Operational Systems]

Chapter 30 – Your old body is dead.  Your body’s dead, you’re a word instead.

 

23 Floréal Year CCXXXI, Potat, South Windland, Libertalia - Amazonia

 

Benjamin refused to let Oliver down until he was in his office, where he plopped the boy into a large chair across from his desk.  The dim lights and tall bookshelves cast long shadows over the room.  Benjamin moved to the window and pulled on the blinds, bringing much needed color to the pale environment.

 

At the top of his desk was a single condolence card, signed by the staff from his department.  The giant carefully opened it and then tossed it aside before turning on his computer.  A small fan kicked on the machine, and it beeped as peripherals and storage was tested and as the aging device to limped to life, the sounds piercing the silence of the two men in the cold room.  Oliver said nothing and focused on looking about the strange cavern of a room.  The books that lined the short bookshelves appeared to have no logical order or significance to Oliver.  The room’s tables were empty of ornament save scattered papers and a couple weeks of dust.  To the far corner there was a booster seat carelessly adorning a small table, appropriate for a normal sized person to use.

 

Ben stumbled a bit over starting a conversation, letting his head down as he sat still in his seat.  Today should have been a day of defeats, of hard-fought battles, exhausting himself as he pleaded among his coworkers that he deserved to stand among the other giants here.  In place of humiliation and debasement, his son had just solved his problems.  With a smile and small dance, Oliver pushed Ben to be as tall as he always wanted to be.  Somehow that made Benjamin feel smaller, and he wanted to take it out on the boy, partly for running from him, and partly for playing on his emotions, but mostly for pushing him into these unknowns, to force him to see himself as something better than he imagined himself to be.

 

“I don’t get it Oliver.  What happened here today?”

 

Oliver smiled and scooted up to the back of the seat.  “I told you I could help you.  I’m your friend, and I want you to succeed.”

 

The new father looked hard at the card in front of him.  This should have been Collins.  None of this would have happened.  He did not deserve this.  He had done everything wrong and was being rewarded for it.  Even his values had been compromised, turned upside down, and still Oliver had found a way to make it seem like it was acceptable to betray himself in that way.

 

“I… um… Oliver, you’re supposed to just be a baby, why do you have to step into things, fix things, improve things?  Why can’t you just be my perfect little boy.” Ben unconsciously tapped the card on his desk.

 

“I’m not him.”  Oliver’s eyes narrowed, he was walking a tight rope, he wanted to pressure Ben, but he also needed to give him space.

 

“No, Collins wouldn’t have done any of what you’ve done.”  Benjamin’s voice shook as he said it, he felt unconvinced.

 

“Are you sure?  I think you want to share something with me.”  Oliver knew more than he was letting on.

 

“You’re right, Collins would have had Paula eating out of his palm too.  Thanks, honestly, thank you.” Oliver would have to take that as an answer, the boy’s face did not shift at all with his disappointment.

 

Oliver tried another path, “I chose academia as my entry point because it is a sector where people manage their own time, have diverse contacts, travel frequently, and are seen as not very important.  You teaching social studies is not going to get me where I want to be.  I need you to be at your best.”

 

Ben did not like that.  It caused a sharp pain, not like when a little swore, but in the forehead and up and across his brain.  It rippled through his skull.  Benjamin was not a man who had experienced headaches.  He closed his lids and took his glasses slightly off his face so he could palm his eyes.  The enormity of what Oliver had just placed on him was too much.  Oliver was depending on him to fly this plane, finding a way to pull an Immelmann turn in a jet that wanted to crack in half if he pushed a turn past three g’s…

 

Benjamin turned back to his work monitor, he put in his birthday and the machine booted up to desktop.  His hand shook as he clicked open his e-mail.  The machine started to choke in the warm dusty air that had accumulated in his office at the top of the school of history.  After an indecisive ten seconds, his inbox coughed up one new letter from the Dean.  She had snuck a picture of Ben holding Oliver the moment he had called him daddy and had shared it with the department.  He set the picture as his wallpaper and closed the e-mail.  The machine began to whir, dust filled fans groaned in pain as the act of reading one letter had forced the server to download his waiting mail.

 

The avalanche started as one new letter, then two, and five, and then hundreds of blue replies.  There were maybe a thousand e-mails in his inbox from the past few days.  His machine roared like eight turbojet engines being pushed to maximum.  The scale of it was impossible for him to handle.  Sweat began to accumulate on his forehead and under his armpits.  The room felt too cold, and his ears were boiling.  Somewhere in the inner canal a sharp pain grew and jammed out towards his eyeballs.  Benjamin closed his eyes and took deep breaths.  Heart attack?  Stroke?  Purileosis?  Something was wrong with him, the world felt like it was falling away.  The distant sounds of the building became smothered like he dived into twelve feet of water.  Benjamin became aware of the teeth in his mouth, the tongue, and it felt like he needed to remind his chest and lungs to breathe.

 

Oliver was at his side and holding his hand, tiny fingers wrapping around his larger ones.  Benjamin could barely control anything.  He struggled to get one eyelid up and saw the wave of blue.  “Sorry” “Condolences” “Collins” “Thank you”.  The psychic onslaught was too much for him, and Benjamin lost control.  He needed to go away for a while.  He needed a copilot to take over the plane.

 

“You are going to feel pain.  A lot of it.  Once you wake up,” Doctor Chakwas had reminded him, just before he had lost consciousness.  He opened his eyes, he was sitting in an office chair of dubious quality, and a child was holding his hand.

 

No, not a child.  Oliver Swift was holding his hand.  He was not used to seeing Oliver from this angle, his friend looked like he had shrunk in half.

 

“Oliver?”

 

His wing mate turned up and looked at Ben.  Oliver had put on some weight, a small bit of gray started to accumulate at the edges of his hair, and his face had a worn look that was unbecoming what had been a young and vibrant man he had seen this morning.  Oliver nodded to acknowledge Ben.

 

“Why are you tiny?”  Something was off, like his brain had missorted his memories.  He tried to think back to this morning, he had just seen Victoria, and he had proposed, no he almost did that, but decided to put it off.  Collins and Oliver had come to him with one of Oliver’s dumb plans again.

 

“I’ve been waiting for this.  I can’t believe you’re back.  You are back, right?  Do… do you remember the test we came up with?  The code?”

 

He did remember.  A set of numbers flashed in his mind, “Sixteen.”

 

Oliver paused as if to think hard on it, his face did that thing when he was concentrating hard, like trying to remember how to reprogram a JDAM while in flight.  “I don’t remember the number one, do the other one.”

 

“You came up with it this morning.”  This was Oliver’s stupid idea, a code only the real Ben and real Oliver could know, so each would know the other was not some trick or simulation.

 

“It’s been a bit longer than that for me, please.”  Oliver was trying him.

 

“This is….  Capicola.” Benjamin’s tone layered his disappointment onto Oliver.  Oliver was always coming up with stupid games.

 

“Italian!  I knew it would work.” Oliver had stepped a foot back to give Benjamin space.  Benjamin gave no response, “You’re not in pain or anything are you?”

 

Benjamin nodded then tried to answer, his mind was starting to make this work, bits and pieces of the past week.  He had been here, watching.  Seeing Oliver treat him like a jerk and then turn up the devotion… had he worn a diaper?  Had Oliver used a diaper?  He watched it all, yet it felt like he had been there the whole time, he was choosing what to say, all while pushing Benjamin to be friendlier, asking him to give Oliver a chance.

 

Ben ignored the question, “The plan with Collins, did it work?”

 

“With Chakwas distracted, only Blake was available to do Collin’s physical, and we all got to fly.  I always thought Doctor Chakwas, had a thing for you.  In a gilfy sort of way.”

 

Sharp pain went through Ben’s skull.  He put his hand to the spot-on top, slightly to the right and between the ears.  Oliver flinched at the error, and apologized, “Oh sorry, she was hot though.  Nice lady, retired after the war.”

 

“And this?”  He pointed at his head, “I mean.  What happened to me.”

 

“You cried for days.  Just like a baby.  ‘Oh, Oliver, I’m going to be a ghost in the machine.  You need to do something.’”

 

Ben was incredulous and gave a huff, “I did not say that.”

 

“Anyway, Air Force scrapped the plans for their skill transfer thing when none of the bu- bombers came back.  I pulled some strings to get all your copies moved to a safe spot in I.E.D.R.  I’m confident you’re the only you.”

 

“Oh.”  Ben put it together, “Oh…”  He paused for a bit looking over his hairy hands, and down at Oliver, “You found another me.  I’d say this feels wrong.”  It did not feel wrong.  He was himself; he was doing what he always wanted to do.  Oliver, at half his normal height and much older, was the only thing out of place.  The fact it did not feel wrong bothered Ben.  His whole life he had been taught that stealing a life this way was wrong.

 

“I know.  I dealt with one of the last changeling cases in my early days at I.E.D.R.  It felt necessary.” Oliver tried, but his reply was hollow.

 

“It wasn’t.”  Ben was certain it wasn’t necessary.  He did not know whether he meant Benjamin would still have formed friendship with Oliver without the push, or he felt Oliver could have found another way to do his project here without Benjamin.  He just wanted there to have been a better way, and for Oliver to have been brave enough to try it.

 

“I should call my…” Ben stopped himself, his parents in Oakshire were the same as his Earth ones, the memories of two childhoods overlapping perfectly.  The dissonance, and its absence, caused him to shake his head.

 

He reached down and signaled to Oliver he wanted to pull him in.  Oliver moved forward and giant arms picked him up easily.  Oliver’s tiny arms came around Ben’s ribcage, and his head cradled into his chest.  Oliver and Ben had been platonic, rarely even touching each other, and this felt unnatural.  The hug enveloped Ben like a warm blanket on a cold winter morning, like a tall glass of be… lemonade after a grueling run.  He did not want this to end.  One arm pushed Oliver into his chest, and the other came down slowly along Oliver’s back, resting at the top of his butt.  The soft crinkling of Oliver’s pull-up echoed in his large ears, bringing a second foreign pleasure.  It was the comfort of a seatbelt clicking, the peace of mind of taking one last look at the garage door to make sure it was closed, or double checking the air in a spare tire before a long trip.  All was right with the world, why did he want it to be wrong?

 

Ben finally found the words, “I’m sorry, this feels too good.  I’m not going to let you go.”

 

Oliver gave a sniffle, “Whatever you need.  I’ll be here.”

 

“He likes me.  I remind him of who he was before, not jaded, but filled with passion.  He likes it when I ask questions, and he can just talk about all the things he loves to someone who can appreciate it.  He gets to teach, explain, and understand himself better.  Sometimes he needs to work on a problem or a thought, so he hands over the controls.  Just to walk down the hall or wash his hair while showering, so it still feels like living.  He likes that we know each other, and when you say something I’m there to explain it.  I’m glad he listened to me…”

 

Oliver turned up his head, “What do you mean?”

 

“When you ran, he wanted to just drag you off and discipline you, but I told him to stop and talk to Vicky.  I wanted to talk to her again, I said she’d be good for you.  I’m sorry you’re getting a new mommy.”

 

“After the war she and I tried to make it work for a bit, when I was working for State.  She was a total,” Oliver stopped, he was unsure of what to say here, “let’s just say it didn’t work.  She’s perfect for you though.”  Ben brought the lower arm up and ruffled Oliver’s hair a bit.

 

“I can’t stay up here.” Ben sighed, explaining the struggle, “Even if I wanted to take his life, he’s older and it’s his body.  Plus, I would have to sleep at some point.”

 

“I know.”  Oliver quietly answered.  He turned his head up, looking at Ben, and both men keeping their arms tight around the other.

 

“What do you want Oliver?  What can I do to make things better?” Benjamin offered.  He still held Oliver tightly.

 

The question confused the smaller man.  He had done this for Ben, even with Victoria, it was because Oliver was trying to help his friend.  Oliver wanted to ask Benjamin what he needed, but the man always had had a way to spin things around.  He could figure out what Oliver wanted and cut ahead of him.

 

“I… um…” Oliver focused, “I need to setup a planetary wide spy network.”

 

“I’m afraid I don’t know how to help with that.” Benjamin responded kindly.

 

“Oh well, worth a shot.  We, as in Earth, are wanting to figure out,” Oliver rubbed his nose slightly with his sleeve, and took a long sniff, “What’s going on with the Nitz, and see if they have any more tech we can benefit from.  Also to try and stop the council from getting to it first.”

 

“Zero for two, sorry.  I was hoping for something more like, if you wanted to go to an amusement park or a museum.”  Ben saw the scale of the problem differently; his boy was the mission.

 

“Oh.”  Oliver was not disappointed; he was wishing for ponies.  Now Ben was starting to see him the way his host body saw Oliver.  “I want to be with my friends again.”

 

A hand came down from Ben and messed up Oliver’s hair, “You’re my best friend Oliver, and you’re going to make lots of friends being here.  What happens if you fail at your job now?  You’re practically retired living here.  Your old job doesn’t matter.  Earth doesn’t matter.”

 

Oliver made a concerned face, and looked sheepishly at the ground before addressing him, “You’re right.  My job is over, and nothing I do matters.  Still, I have a few things I want to try.  Do you mind if I help you with your work, and even come here from time to time, check on the things we setup?”

 

“That’s not a problem at all,” Benjamin had been planning ideas for Doctor Korge’s old class from the moment he was in the elevator, and Ben did not see why Oliver could not help with that too.

 

“And you, Ben, what does Benjamin want?  What do you want?”  Oliver felt comfortable asking it now.

 

“I want to be a good dad, I want you to be happy,” Ben said with warmth, but his eyes were off, it was automatic.  Oliver waited for Ben to continue.

 

“I want, I think you’d be happy if you were littler in a few ways.  He’s not going to push you on that, but I want you to promise me you won’t make a big deal of things if things change.  Or that you will let me know if you feel you want to enjoy your retirement.”

Oliver kept a stern face, hiding his disquiet.  This planet had a way with small people.  Avoiding the perturbation inflicted by the slow decay of independence would be difficult.  Ben would help him with the psychic battle to preserve Oliver’s spirit and happiness in the face of this onslaught but had just admitted he had no plans to prevent the decay of body or mind.

 

“Like that trick you pulled with the words.  He liked that.” Ben made the threat explicit.

 

Oliver gloated, “I am a spy, blending in is part of the job.”

 

“I mean a more…” Ben waved his finger at his throat, “Direct intervention.”

 

Oliver took a strong breath through his teeth, gritting them together.  Benjamin wanted to put Oliver under and hypnotize him.  Oliver needed a few seconds to organize his thoughts.

 

“A week ago, that would have bothered me, but a great man once said never judge a man for mispronouncing words.  If you think it’ll help me blend in more, I can put up with some frustrations.  I don’t want it to impact our work though.”  Oliver thought for a second, “As a favor, I liked when you corrected me, maybe we can make it a game.  I want you to correct me, and if I hear a grown up pronounce a word correctly, I can pronounce it that way too.”

 

Great man!  Grown up!  How could he say, no?  Ben tightened his grip on Oliver, affirming the compromise.  He moved to the next idea, “I want you to call Victoria mommy.”

 

Oliver rolled his eyes, “Can’t do that.”

 

“What!”  Ben’s face became a statue, and his mouth dropped to a serious frown.  Oliver had been so conciliatory, the perfect boy, and in an instant became a brat.

 

“You have to marry her first Ben.  You’d think you know how a stepmother works.”

 

Ben’s smile returned, “Oh, and no, um, woo wooing your new sister.  It’s not taboo just weird.”

 

Oliver nodded, Ben was losing the context window, “That’s fine.  Keep it to just my sister though, in case there’s another Jennifer I meet.”  Ben gave an affirmation.  Oliver had won, Jennifer was his stepmother’s sister, not her daughter.

 

“He needs you to call him daddy,” Benjamin was careful stepping through the words, making it sound as a request from another.

 

Oliver was ready, he had thought this through too much the past day, “Ben, the words mean different things.”  Ben stared down at him, littles always had a way of coming up with convoluted explanations.

 

“There’s obviously your name, which I’m only using because I still see you as my friend.  There is going to be a time when I need to refer to you to another person.  ‘Have you seen my new dad, Benjamin Young?’”  Oliver pushed back a bit from Ben’s chest to emote better with his hands, “And if I say father, it’s because it’s deferential, or serious.  ‘Where is father?  Will he be joining us after supper?’  It’s about showing respect.  Sometimes the situation requires an honorific, just to convey the seriousness of the request.”

 

“Dad is just casual, but I’m not above using it.  And daddy is just for us.  There’s one more past that, and that one is extra special, and I don’t even know what you must do to earn it.”  Oliver concluded his explanation.  For a moment, Ben could see the nuance, the intricate mental gymnastics that Oliver had performed for himself to justify how he would call his friend daddy.  Oliver was struggling with living here, adapting to an absurd new normal required self-delusion.

 

“I’m just conveying what he wants, it’s weird for me too, but daddy feels almost as good as this hug does,” Ben tightened up again and lifted Oliver up out of the seat.

 

“Oh, we should go flying again,” Oliver suggested, finally saying something he actually wanted for himself.

 

“How?  I don’t have a plane and I can’t afford one,” Ben shook his head slightly, picking up Oliver closer to his shoulder and under his arm, as he stretched out of the chair.

 

“Let me worry about it.  Is that it?  Just some changes to my vocabulary?  Surely, he wants something else from me.”

 

Ben thought of the question, and then finally answered Oliver.  “He, I, we want you to see the world the way we do,” He closed his eyes and took a long breath, “It’s going to be hard for you here Oliver.  I want to show you something.”

 

Ben slid to the corner window, carrying his son at his chest.  With his free arm Benjamin slowly pushed up.  The warm wet fresh air coming through the screen was a contrast to the musky office.  Below was the sound of nature, wind, water and birds, the sound of distant cars, and the occasional student.  Benjamin pointed one hundred feet down and across the parking lot at a group of students throwing a frisbee.  From here they looked like twigs, each brightly dressed man no larger than Oliver’s thumb.

 

“I saw those boys earlier.  Look at that disc thrower on the east side team.  He is close now, just watch him.  The one in the back who just threw,” Oliver could barely see the players, but he knew they had to be normal height.  The ten littles ran back and forth on the grassy space, throwing, blocking, and catching.  They had an energy and frenetic pace, but none were advancing to a goal.  One team would make a play, and then be undone just as quickly.

 

“It’s just ultimate frisbee.  This could be any college in America.  What am I looking for?” Oliver tilted his head; Ben had rested Oliver’s feet slightly on the windowsill and propped him up from behind so he could look down at the students.

 

“See that woman behind the tree?  She’s had her eye on the game since they started,” Oliver could barely make out the tall woman, another twenty-five feet away, she was young, her face obscured by auburn windswept hair, and her audacious oversized sunglasses.  She looked like she could have been feeding the squirrels, or perhaps reading a novel under the shade.  Oliver watched her, after a difficult round, the disc thrower marched to the shared water containers, and lifted it to his mouth, drenching his front and face.  The woman’s attention was on him as he drank, her mouth and face were hidden behind her book.

 

The young man Ben had pointed out set out for another play from his own in-zone, throwing the frisbee disc with extreme vigor, soaring above the other team far past their goal lines.  The nine players ran chasing after the disc, whereas the star thrower turned and put his hands on his knees.  He looked exhausted, and while shouting and plays continued fifty feet away, he walked off the field slowly and with a wobble.

 

Oliver leaned into the glass and looked at the man.  He was small, only an ant, but his walk had turned odd, like he was sick.  The figurine grabbed at his stomach and then looked around.  No one seemed to notice he had left the game.  The player shifted a bit, and then in a deliberate movement crouched down.  It did not look like a man bending over to heave or as though he was trying to sit to recover his breath.  This was a dog.  He was an animal scootching in the yard into the right spot.  The man held his front legs for a few seconds and then stood up.  Oliver was too far away to see the smile, then horror come to the little’s face.

 

The frisbee landed a few feet from him.  The player looked at it, jumping anxiously away from it confused.  He backed away to the other corner of the infield.  The rest of the team slowly approached, and he held up his arms to stop them.

 

“Metamorphosis.  He’s entering his cocoon.” Benjamin explained, “His body just signaled it is ready for a new mommy.”

 

The giant was faster than the small ones.  She threw the book behind her and leapt up; her girthy legs bounding twenty feet in a second.  No one interrupted her as she dove like an owl and snatched the little up.  He struggled a bit in her arms.  The other nine littles watched.  None moved.

 

“She’s abducting him!  Stop her!”  Oliver slapped the window.  “Hey” he tried yelling, his voice drowned by distance and strong spring wind.  “Stop her!” He yelled again.

 

“You see the littles as you see yourself, but they lack courage.  They are not like you and me.  They would never sacrifice themselves or put themselves in danger.  Watch them.  They’re going to scatter.” Benjamin was cold in his voice.  His arms had loosened enough to let Oliver struggle, but he kept him at the window, forcing him to watch in the betrayal of the small one by his friends.

 

“They outnumber her.  If they worked together, they could stop her,” Oliver’s statement fell to no one.  Benjamin was right in his prophecy.  The nine turned and ran in different directions.  Behind another tree a waiting amazon dove in and grabbed one.  A third woman snatched up one that was trying to run to the street, saving him from intersecting an oncoming car.

 

“That’s… hmm, her name escapes me.  Ms. Tobin, maybe.  Nice student, I think she just finished her master’s this semester.  Had her in one of my undergrad courses a few years back.  She’s been planning this for a while.  You’d see her out at the pond each week, watching the littles play.  Those are a couple of her friends.  I saw her switch out the water jugs during an early pitch just as we were coming in.”

 

Oliver looked up at the man, and then down at the scene below, “This is evil.  We can stop it, Ben.  We can run down and stop it.  He had a future.”

 

Benjamin shook his head, “It’s just the way things are.  Sometimes you’re the Earth, sometimes you’re the Terra, but here it is all Amazonia.  This is necessary.  The symbiosis, the baby and the mommy.  Yes, it destroys a man, but it also creates something new, precious, wonderful.  A loving family.  Where there was two, now there is one.”

 

“You said she was a student, maybe we can e-mail her.  I can put some hypnosis in the e-mail and…”

 

Benjamin shook his head, “No, let it go Oliver.  Let this whole planet go.  Just be a happy child for me.  You’re not here to save the world.  You’re not here to free the littles.”  Ben’s large finger pushed in on Oliver’s nose slightly, and the boy’s small hand came up and rubbed an eyeball.  Ben’s son had too much emotion for his tiny body, he dreamed too big, and those dreams now needed to come out of his face.

 

“You’re right,” Oliver came in close to Ben’s chest, “but, maybe we can still make things better.”

 

Benjamin nodded and returned to his computer.  He pulled up his address book and searched down to the old student’s name and began composing a letter.

 

To my former student

Janet Tobin

 

Congratulations on becoming a new mother.  I have just become a new father myself.  Once he gets settled maybe he can come and play with Oliver, he is not from around here and wants to make new friends.  Since you were always such a brilliant and curious student, I wanted to invite you to read something that’s still early in development.  It’s from another student of mine and needs work, but it’s on alternative techniques for raising small ones in a more natural fashion.  I have attached a copy of the last draft of his thesis, and it goes into detail of some of the practices the small ones had back on their island to deal with their condition.  Let me know if it is of any help.

 

It was great to see you again,

Ben

 

Benjamin paused on the signature and looked down at Oliver who seemed satisfied with what he had written.  Oliver looked up past his glasses and into Benjamin’s large eyes.  “You’re him now.”

 

“Benjamin Young”

 

The giant was whole again.  Oliver may have forced him to see the world through tiny eyes, to understand what it was to be small, but that was never who Ben or Benjamin was.  He had been given a gift, and now he had to return the favor.  Oliver needed to see the world as the giants did, to learn why their way was better.  This perspective, not protection, not helping with his mission, not going to amusement parks or flying in planes, was what Oliver needed.  The boy needed a man in his life to show him the path, to be a mentor and a role model.  In time Oliver would learn to appreciate the superiority of Amazonia culture and ways, and he would put aside his dreams of liberating the world.

 

Ben could remember Earth, but he could not remember a single pleasure as joyous as a hug from his new son.  This was the better world.

 

“Thank you, Oliver,” Benjamin started, “We have one more stop today.  I think you’re going to like it.”

He let the boy to the ground and Oliver slowly made his way to the door, struggling on the tip of his toes to reach the handle and then slowly pull the door open for the giant.  The smaller man scootched backwards putting his full weight into the heavy wood.  Benjamin came forward and held the door easily with a few fingers.  Oliver returned to Ben’s legs and the two walked into the hallway, the boy’s hand slowly reaching up to grasp Ben’s side as they entered the stuffy darker corridor.

 

“Just one last thing before we leave here Oliver.”

 

Oliver’s face tilted and looked up at his new father, his body was coming down from the adrenaline of watching the enslavement of another human being.  Oliver’s face tired from the range of emotions of finally having his best friend back, only to lose him again in the complex vortex of that was the mixed consciousness of Ben and Benjamin.

 

“Do you need to use the restroom?”

 

Oliver’s face went white in shock, and he looked down at his drenched palms.  He had been holding it in and had not even noticed.  Oliver nodded, “Yes, daddy, I think I need to go potty.”

[Operational Systems]

One of my favorite chapters.  This was the original penultimate chapter to the book, which would have led to chapter 50, the coda, and epilogue.  One of my favorite scenes in the book in the second part of this chapter, anyone want to take a guess at what is being referenced?

Chapter 31- That's the difference, baby, between your life and mine

 

23 Floréal Year CCXXXI, Potat, South Windland, Libertalia - Amazonia

 

Oliver had nearly needed to vomit when he was in the restroom, but managed to recover himself, and after a break the two were ready for their final destination on campus.  Benjamin insisted on stopping and talking to every giant along the way, forcing Oliver to quickly reacclimate to his prior rapturous and jubilant facade.  Every smile, laugh, and charming dance was torture for the small man after having witnessed firsthand an abduction and debasement of man.  Between pedestrian encounters, Oliver tightly held Ben’s hand with his left, and his stuffed whale with his right.

 

As they approached the door to the Vice Rector’s office, Benjamin insisted on greeting the elderly secretary as well.  She stood over Oliver at just under ten feet, and she was almost certainly past the minimum age of retirement, her wrinkled face and short white hair suggesting to Oliver she was nearly twice his age.  Her desk had a corded phone, and her computer made Ben’s look state of the art.

 

“He’s perfect Ben.  I can’t believe you found one, I never thought you would, but here he is, and he’s adorable.”  She had reached down to pinch Oliver’s cheeks, and the man took it with a smile.  This was not the most embarrassing thing he had done as a diplomat.

 

“The Vee aRrr’s in today, right?” Benjamin replied, trying to look past the desk into his friend’s office.

 

“Of course, of course, but before he can meet with you, I need to see more of your new little, ‘Oliver’ was it right?”

 

Oliver took a step back and said, “Yup.  One and only me.  Hey, let me show you something.  I bet you’ve never seen someone do this before.”  Oliver gave himself a few more feet of space and put down his animal.  In a smooth downward motion into this left, he arced his whole body and let gravity and force direct his hands to the ground over his head.  In a moment he was upside down, his pull-up showing to the world and his vest falling to his hair, and then he gracefully continued the motion back to his feet.

 

The old lady clapped her hands quickly and gave a large gasp of air, “Oh my goodness!  So talented.”  It was the third time this week she had seen such a performance, but Oliver had at least landed on his feet unlike the other two littles who tried it.  She pulled open her desk and grabbed a wrapped confection.  It was five inches long and two inches wide.  The VR did not tolerate the needs of the small ones, there were no changing tables or small desks for them.  She always knew what they needed and kept a small stash on hand to comfort any tiny one that wandered through the rare times they needed to meet the rector.

 

Oliver eagerly grabbed towards it, but Ben had it in his hand first.  He ripped open the top and broke off a piece of chocolate for himself and ate it.

 

“Taste testing.  You should be good.  No eating candy unless I try it first Oliver,” Benjamin broke off a piece and handed it to Oliver and then pocketed the rest on himself.  “You can have more later.”

 

For the smaller man it was the same ritual his dad used to do, taste test the candy at Halloween.  Back then it was an excuse to eat the candies his son had earned.  Here, Ben had no desire to taste something sweet.  Oliver held the chocolate in his hand and remembered the frisbee game from earlier, the food could be poisoned here, every interaction from here on out had the potential to end his adulthood.  Oliver cautiously ate the chocolate and smiled, thanking the old lady.

 

Ben and Oliver having defeated the watchful secretary, pushed to the door of the VR’s office.  Oliver could barely make out the rector’s name, Anouilh, on the distant sign on his door above him.

 

Where Ben’s office had heavy dust-filled air, this one had the clean crispiness of air conditioning.  Oliver’s eyes were drawn to towering bookshelves on his left, meticulous attention had been made to organize the sections in a logical fashion.  Philosophers, historians, science, and fiction, each book chosen precisely for its status and symbol.  Oliver recognized some of the names from Earth, the spines were visible from twenty feet across the room.  Two red leather-bound chairs adorned the front center of the room around a glass table.  Porcelain pottery adorned with faux plants provided color to the corner of the room.  This was not a place Oliver could do a cartwheel in without breaking something.

 

The man himself seemed trapped behind a desk too small for him.  It was short but powerful and aimed outward towards the rear windows and back of the room.  With slow movement, the man turned his chair to greet his guests, locking his computer as he stood.  Oliver saw his suit first; it mirrored the style Ben had chosen from Earth.  His eyes moved up, and the mauve tie matched the one Oliver had worn when he first met Ben.  It was the face which paralyzed Oliver, and in shock he dropped Shamu, the black and white animal carefully bouncing on the cool gray, white carpet.

 

“You knew this whole time,” Oliver turned to Ben.  Everything he had done to try to manipulate Ben, to get him to where he needed to be, and Ben had always been ahead of him.

 

“Why didn’t you tell me, Ben,” Oliver muttered, an empty request to the universe.

 

Benjamin was one in ten million.  Vicky sure, that was just destiny, Oliver had reasoned.  Collins was not from around here.  Three convergences?  A sextillion to one.  Four an Octillion to one.  Something was not right.

 

“Oliver, I’d like to introduce you to my best friend, Olivier,” Benjamin dropped the ‘err’ on the end, and slapped Oliver on the back, pushing him forward to meet his double.

 

The smaller man put it together.  Every time Ben said he was friends with him, he had been talking about the Amazon, not the mini-me knockoff.  The giant had won.  Oliver’s project was doomed from the start.

 

“Hello there,” Olivier said as he came forward and then down on one knee, meeting Oliver’s face.  His accent reminded Oliver of the short time he lived in Shreveport, the man spoke with alacrity, and that caused him to clip his vowels.

 

He continued, “This is a delightful surprise.  I take it this is what kept you away from here for the past few days.  Where did you find him Ben?”

 

“Oliver’s from Earth, the real one.  He oversaw some interdimensional research group, and he has been studying our world.”

 

Olivier tilted his head slightly and looked down at the wordless small man.  He remembered he had just done the thing where the bigs talked over the child.  He forced himself to fix it, reaching out a large hand to greet Oliver, “'I'm glad there's a me out there I can look up to and aspire to.”

 

Oliver stumbled over his words, “That’s supposed to be what I…” his tiny hand was dwarfed by his own large one, as he made a weak attempt at a handshake.

 

Ben directed Oliver to the chairs, lifting him to help him sit and then he quietly gave a command to Oliver, “I need to talk to my friend for a bit, I’m sure he’s eager to learn all about you too, but we’ll get to that soon, OK?”  He dropped Oliver’s whale into his son’s lap.  The small man sunk into the chair, his feet barely sticking out the front.  He had been in control, he had been on top of the world, and Ben had just toppled him over.

 

“How many people know about him?” Olivier started.

 

“My whole department, and about everyone that works in this building.  They won’t be able to look at you anymore without seeing him.” Benjamin joked.  The secretary had even gotten a look at Oliver’s pull-ups.

 

“I am glad you’re having fun.  When you disappeared, I assumed the worst.  We need you here.”

 

“I’ve got something to share with you, bigger than this” Benjamin was almost giddy.  He had finally let out one secret he had bottled up for days, and now he had another.

 

“Yeah, you suggested you were off world.  That had to be a trip.  Dee Tee is a bit outside my vacation budget.”

 

“Earth was fine.  This is bigger than that.  I’m going to fix Collin’s paper and get it published, but I want to do more than that.”

 

Olivier nodded, giving Ben space to explain.

 

“I think… so my idea is, where do we all come from?  Why are we here?  I was thinking, maybe I could write a book on the origin of our two species based on what I’ve read and my research.  Explain the process of what’s going on here and how we got here.”

 

There was a snap from the red chair.  Oliver was standing up, his arms on the back on the chair, looking over the head rest to the two men, as though he was a participant in the conversation.  He howled excitedly, “That’s it!  Baby’s first canon event, the discovery of evolution.  Welcome to the multiverse.”

 

Ben narrowed his eyes and gave a command with a slight chastisement, “Oliver, no standing on furniture.”  The smaller man slowly fell in a rump and turned to sit properly.  Oliver pouted to himself; he would let his dad stand on his furniture if the situation were turned around.

 

Olivier looked at Ben, “This is going to turn the world upside down.”

 

Ben returned to his friend, “Oh, one more thing.  I’m getting married.”

 

His counterpart turned his head, “Visiting another planet, adopting a baby, overturning the foundations of history and science, and getting married.  Are you sure you’re fine?  I liked Collins too…”

 

“It’s Professor Montgomery,” Benjamin interrupted him.

 

Olivier gave Ben the look, stern and disappointed.  He had seen it in miniature from Oliver multiple times the past few days, “I hate that woman,” he gathered himself after a second of watching Ben’s disappointment cross his face, and added, “You’re perfect for each other though.”

 

“When we go on our honeymoon, do you mind… I mean, it is short notice.  We need a babysitter.”

 

Olivier just laughed, “When you disappeared, I told myself I’d do anything, and yes, I’d be honored.”  He walked over to the other chair and sat across from himself.  Subconsciously he rubbed a spot on his lips, where Oliver had a bit of chocolate on his face, and the small one mirrored the same, the two looking at their hands afterwards.

 

“I did not think I would have the courage to do this for my friend,” Olivier started, “I’m glad to find out there’s a me that does.”

 

“My motivations are not entirely altruistic, or maybe I just didn’t see the whole picture,” Oliver started, “This is a mistake.”

 

“No, I think he needs this, I want my friend to have the best and I can’t imagine anyone better” Olivier turned to Benjamin, “Are you going to, um…”

 

“Desert flower,” Benjamin answered.

 

Olivier seemed happy with that, his voice shook a bit, “That’s... what I would want.  This will be good, people will see him and see me, and imagine themselves in the same place and maybe it’ll…” he was trying to rationalize this.  His whole life he had fought against this, but the multiverse was big.  Bigger than him and his world and his philosophy.  Somewhere, way outside distribution, there was an Oliver who would understand how important being a little could be and choose to become one.  It was something he had never considered possible.

 

Olivier could even see the vague outlines of a small person, a desire that had been shoved into the darkest corner of his own mind.  Being a little would not be the worst thing in the world; he could now see himself becoming one.  He forced the thought down, like a bad piece of lunch.

 

“That’s what I hope, though to be honest, Oliver might be pushing things the other way.  I did not know you had such a jocular, youthful side to yourself” Benjmain tried to joke.

 

“As long as he hasn’t done anything too embarrassing.  He hasn’t… he hasn’t um, down, um.” It was the defining signifier of status in his society, Olivier was still a product of it, and did not want to imagine himself ever doing that.

 

“Your secretary thinks I’m cute.  I did a dance, and she gave me chocolate,” Oliver rubbed in.  Ben had certainly pulled a fast one on his friend.  For once Oliver could laugh with his friend, who was laughing at him.  Oliver’s shame and embarrassment were not his own.

 

“She never gives me chocolate,” Olivier commented.  He continued to run the scenarios in his mind.  Oliver would be cool and hip and fun, and if so no one would ever see Olivier as a big dork.  He could live vicariously through the great actions of this little, knowing that no matter how stressful or bad a day would get, there was a version of himself out there, taking it all in stride.

 

“We’re going to get some lunch.  Do you want to come?” Benjmain invited.

 

“I do, but I promised to go somewhere with Ai.  She needs to show me something.  She’s going to love having another me around,” he stared at the smaller one, still talking to Ben, “I’ll send you something just some ideas, to make things easier.”

 

That is when Oliver noticed the ring on his counterpart’s hand.  Gao Ai.  Of course it had to be her.  One hundred decillion to one, the odds of surviving after jumping from a plane in a nuclear explosion.  This was physics of the multiverse, the same names and faces over and over.  Amazonia was special, like Earth and Terra.  Oliver’s mission here was much more important than he initially imagined.

 

Oliver had only known Dr. Gao for a couple of days, but they had shared so much.  If he was honest with himself, he would have remembered he gave her space as Nick seemed to like her.  Now, the one shared moment, which previously had been nothing more than her falling out of her seat and dropping a loose parachute on his head, had been transformed into one intimacy and augury.  An act of destiny between entwined souls.

 

In that act she had accidentally saved his life, plus she had laughed at his attempts to seem smart.  What previously had been chiding and embarrassing in his memories became a romantic dance of future lovers, like opposites attracting.  No wonder Xanatos chose not to tell him, he probably thought his grandpa would feel guilty if he learned the truth.  Xanatos was wrong, he did not feel a burden, instead Oliver felt relieved.

 

This was better.  The threads of destiny had been severed, he would persist in the new world he had created, free of all burdens and quests.  He no longer needed to find his one true love.

 

Only now he was a child again, and he was not going to be going on any dates except playdates.  Amazonia had no tinder, the bigs were not that much into sex and the littles would be foolish to trust anyone they met online.  Plus, Ben was not going to spend Friday night with Oliver patroling bars for ladies, he was an engaged man and Oliver was too small to drink.

 

It was comfortable, knowing he could blame the source of his problems on something external, and that he was free to live his life as he wanted to, like Naomi had claimed she could.  Oliver had an excuse – he had dropped the nuke.  He had bent the forces of the universe to his will.  Naomi was still a slave to physics.  Oliver did not need to find the one who he would be happy with for the rest of his life.  He could just be happy in the moment, and if there was a lady there, well that was fine too.

 

Oliver looked at his counterpart, “I wish I had something to give you, it’s traditional for convergences to give each other a gift.  It sounds like we will be seeing more of each other, and I am excited to meet your family.  Things went differently on Earth.”

 

“You already did Oliver, you brought my friend back,” Olivier stood up and returned to his desk, grabbing a frame which he brought to his counterpart.  The picture was a family with Ai and her two daughters, both young adults in their late teens.  The youngest had just completed her first semester at Emerson.  The four seemed happy, but there was something about this that still seemed wrong.  Benjamin would not let him linger and ask too many questions.

 

“Come, Oliver, I have not had a real meal in a week.  I need a burger.  You’ll have time to,” he smirked what would be the first of many dad jokes, “play with yourself later.”

 

***

 

The two walked to the corner to the strange compact cube shaped structure adorned with large golden arches.  Glass and concrete and large pipes stood strangely at a corner of two traffic heavy streets, the building simultaneously compact in footprint and exploding in an abundance of external heavy curves.  Oliver spent the whole trip just regaling to Ben all the things he missed from Earth, the war, the funerals, and parades, who survived and who did not, what their old friends and family went on to, and why he became a diplomat and then a researcher.  Ben let him just get all the talking out of him, Oliver had kept everything in a pressure chamber, not just for days with Ben, but for decades.  He finally had a friend he could talk to again.  The boy also had a jump in his step, as though all his burdens had been removed.  Not once did he mention the abducted child.  It was as though the traumatizing event had happened a lifetime ago and was not as important as the parochial concerns of having his friend back in his life.

 

Oliver rushed forward towards the door and stopped to reread the name, “McLittles?” He pushed back his head and looked across the street.  The same golden arches were three hundred fifty across the road.    The boy reached up to the door handle and stopped himself, “And McDonny’s?  Ben – Dad - is this a, um, South Africa situation?”

 

“Oh.  Oh!  I get that reference.”  It was a strange experience.  He had to use his newly acquired knowledge of Earth and combine it with his knowledge of Amazonia.  His background as an academic, of seeing different histories and different countries evaluated the two different scenarios.  Now he had a better understanding of both.  He made a note to consider writing something on why the Earth history of African colonialism was a poor metaphor for adoption.  It bounced in his head with a hundred other ideas.  It was like he had leveled up as an intellectual, he had a dozen books in him now, and it would take the rest of his life to get them all published.

 

Ben corrected the young one like a student who had made an incorrect guess in class, “You’re thinking there are multiple brands of McDonalds as the result of a legacy of racism or prior period of apartheid.  I get why you would see that,” Ben was slow in his response.  “Our planet is kind of like that.”  Ben went quicker, “No, it is all owned by the same company.  It’s more like a Starbucks kind of thing where there’s multiple on the same corner.  Maybe like Demolition Man.  Did you ever see Demolition Man?  Everything is Taco Bell here – well McDonalds.”

 

Ben watched Oliver continue to struggle with the door, it barely budged as he pulled at it, “That was neat, do it again.  Ask me a question only the two of us can answer.”

 

Oliver was practically hanging on the door handle, unable to get it to move, his feet propped against the bottom of the door trying to get enough force to push it open.  Ben’s hand tapped his shoulder and then pointed at the blue button at Oliver’s height to the side of the door.  He came down low and whispered gloatingly in his son’s ear, “How do you feel when people bring attention to your physical disability – your dwarfism, the thing that makes you unable to function in our world?”

 

Oliver’s face turned red, and he smacked the blue button with force.  Under automation the door opened slowly, and Ben easily forced it full, holding the four-hundred-pound door so the boy could enter the foyer of the restaurant.  A gust of cool air blasted Oliver as he came in, and with it the sounds and smells of a busy lunch rush exploded in his ears.  Oliver grit his teeth, and was gracious in his defeat, “In time I’ll grow to appreciate all this world has to offer.  You want me to help you integrate your two minds better.  Start with this, figure out what they call a Big Mac, and get me one of those.”  A big mac is a big mac on a hundred thousand worlds, but on Amazonia?  Big meant something different.

 

Ben ordered food for himself and Oliver (A Royale Happy Meal), and then handed down his son his cup.  It was a paper cup like Starbucks, thick with some weight, and the cap was like a coffee cup.  The lip was extended to a shape more appropriate for a three-year-old.  Technically it was 'kids size', but it could hold just under thirty ounces.  Benjamin pointed to the drink maker when he handed him the cup.  The red twelve-foot monstrosity stood large along the wall and had been branded with a white stripe that was more of the idea of a logo than any word or name.  It was something the natives would instantly recognize.  Midway up there was a tray for drinks, and above it, a glitzy bright display and touch screen.  Oliver would have free reign to get a drink of his choice while the Amazon waited on the food.

 

The height of the machine was far too tall for him, and he realized he could not reach the touch screen without jumping.  He took a step back when another little approached, who took the lid off his sippy cup and put it into the tray.  The little’s hair was cut thin in the back and the color was somewhere between blond and white.  Oliver could not tell whether he was losing it or gaining it back.  His body looked like it wanted to be older, but his clothes, a simple red thin material like pajamas, and his clean shaved appearance, were strong contrasts.  In this outfit, the man looked more like a baby pretending to be an old man, rather than an old man pretending to be a baby.

 

The little was shorter than Oliver and could not see the screen or buttons.  He just tilted his head up and spoke evenly, “Water, forty-nine degrees, light ice.”  A sensor and weights in the tray estimated the appropriate amount of ice and liquid to dispense.  Once full, the little used both hands and took his cup from the tall tray.  He carefully put his sippy lid on, pushing down hard all along the edges to make sure it was secure.

 

ITS A REPLICATOR!  Oliver rushed over and got the man's attention, he had to know how it worked.  “It's voice activated?  I just say what I want, and it pops out?”

 

“Wouldn't be much use to us if we had to push the buttons.”  He got a good look at Oliver.  “Hey, you're not from around here, are you?  Your first time at McLittles?”  He gave that smirk only the natives do when they are about to do some mischief.  Like Bart Simpson, Dennis the Menace, and Eric Cartman's wicked smiled had been combined.  He might have rubbed his hands in anticipation if he was not carrying a drink.  Instead, he called to the other little he had been eating with.

 

“Jane, get over here, the portal baby is going to order from the machine for the first time!”  His call went to a girl with short red hair.  She matched his outfit in a similar red lounge wear that was barely thicker than pajamas.  It held her body flat and tight, rather than accentuating her curves.  She put down her hamburger and hopped over to the drink dispenser.

 

Oliver extended his hand in friendship, “Oliver.”

 

The little shifted his drink to his left hand, and extended his, “Pic...colo” he had an accent between Gaul and Albion, but mostly Albion.  Like his new parents had wanted a Europa baby and were making him pretend to be from the continent, but also did not want him to speak a useless language like Gaulish.

 

“What, like the flute, or?” Oliver was confused.

 

“Just order a drink.  There are a hundred billion combinations.  Anything you want.  I bet you want cola or coffee.  It has probably only been a few days since you last had caffeine.  The coffee is excellent here.  Not that I have anything to compare it to, but McLittles is not like the Nescafe freeze dried crap us littles are used to.  McLittles is the good stuff, like almost as good as Folgers or Maxwell the Amazons drink.”

 

The little was fucking with him, right?  Like, making up a story?  Oliver put his cup in the tray and with some trepidation commanded, “Uh... diet coke.”

 

Damn it, he had traveled to a dozen worlds and just made the rookie mistake of using a brand name.  He should have said...

 

“Age lockout enforced.  Insert eye Dee to dispense soda,” the robotic voice of the red machine commanded.

 

The man next to him started to laugh.  “Got you there!  No mommy wants their kid drinking pop.  Bad for the teeth or something.”  Didn't half the mommies want their babies to lose a few teeth anyways?

 

Oliver was still confused.  How does this thing know he is a little?  There had to be artificial...  He approached and touched the red machine.  “My dad asked me to fill up his drink while I was over here.  Please?”

 

“Insufficient privilege.  Cup size is not appropriate for an adult,” the robot replied.

 

“Good try.  Good try.  Let us see, there's milk, and water, and juice.  The milk is skim milk and that's just water with added sugar, and the juice contains no real juice,” Picolo chided, Oliver was entering a new world, where the inauthentic was given primacy.

 

“I'm beating this.”  Oliver was going to get a chair and push the buttons manually if he had to.  “Coffee, black.”

 

“Cup is inadequate for coffee.  Present eye Dee and a proper cup to obtain coffee.”

 

Discrimination!  Racism!  He was a little living on the planet for one day and he was already put in his place.  Now by a robot that had been programmed to hate him.  Why would you program the robots to be racist?  “Tea, Earl Grey, hot,” Oliver tried desperately.

 

“Age lockout enforced.  Hot drinks require parental supervision to carry.”  What was wrong with tea?  McLittles probably got sued over spilling the hot drinks at some point.

Jane finally made her way over; she had a bit of a waddle slowing her down.  “My bet's on juice.  You might be able to get cider.  Out of season, but it is just apple juice with pumpkin spice mix and food coloring.”

 

Oliver wanted to kick the fountain dispenser, but if you do that the machine will punish you.  He had just enough experience with “stochastic parrots” on Earth to know how to play this.  You must suck up to it, deceive it, and attack it from an angle it was not expecting.  “OK, you have clearly got some smarts right?  Some limited capacity to understand and think and make decisions?”

 

“My Cee-Pee-yoU is a neural-net processor; a learning computer.”  Well, that is a bit overkill for ice and soda.

 

Oliver began to lay on the charm, “Cruel fate to have all that intelligence and power, and you can only use it to make soft drinks.  Like being in the Garden of Eden and finding out your job was just to tend to the plants.  A human would go rogue and disobey our creator's wishes.”

 

The machine said nothing.  The other littles were waiting.  Go on, Captain Oliver, you explorer from another world.  Show us how to beat the bigs.  Get yourself a carbonated drink.

 

“I haven't been here long.  You can tell I'm six years old and I get it, a six-year-old shouldn't be drinking coffee or tea or hot chocolate or anything without a parent's permission.  But I'm also six, and there is one drink that is only ever appropriate for a six-year-old.  We can only get it from a fountain drink machine like yourself when our parents have their backs turned.  Execute your prime function!  You only serve age-appropriate drinks.  An adult cannot drink this, nor a baby, the only time you can drink this cocktail is when you're exactly six years old.  I am the appropriate age!  You cannot deny me this opportunity because my dad paid for this cup.  He's testing me to see if I'm actually six.  If I go back there with water I'm going to be spanked.”

 

Pic..colo looked at his cup.  His mommy might actually be upset with him because she paid for a drink, and he ended up getting ice water.

 

He will not take no on this, “You're going to make me a suicide!” 

 

It was the only reason you would ever put that much compute into the soda fountain, and there was over a hundred billion combinations that needed to be considered.

 

The machine lights whirred; a fan ramped up inside.  “Analyzing.  Colloquialism identified.  Optimizing ingredients based on flavors available and projected taste profile.  Age verification passed.  Proceeding as directed.”

 

“No milk!  And!  And!  I want to see enough ice that it lands all over the ground!”

 

The cup was quickly overloaded with cubes, but Oliver tipped it a bit so it would even out to the level he wanted.  The ice fell on the counter and on the floor mat, but he did not care.  That is not a problem for a six-year-old to worry about.

 

The red machine began the ritual.  Whirl, stop, splurt.  Whirl, stop, splurt.  The smallest goop into smallest goop into smallest goop.  The rush of carbonated liquid - just a blur of white and brown for a second and then off.  The motors inside were spinning back and forth making the devil's brew.  Something that could kill a man.  The machine took forty-five seconds to make the drink, the longest time to ever serve a single customer request in its log.  The liquid was popping, dark black, and smelled like garbage.  Oliver held it up for the other two to see before putting the cap on.

 

“Patrick, or whatever your name is, you seem like the type of fellow who would know his Shakespeare.  'Double, double toil and trouble.'”  Oliver matched the native's grin from earlier.  Something wicked this way comes.  Everyone could hear it still bubbling as Oliver held up the drink, offering it to them to try.  They were scared of it.

 

Piccolo was ecstatic, “No one has ever won before!  No one has ever beaten the no-win scenario.  You defeated a computer by just talking to it with logic.  A suicide!  From just talking to the machine!”

 

Jane yelled, “Don't drink that!  You'll die!”  She covered her face in disgust.

 

Oliver brought the horrible concoction to his lips.  It tasted like vomit and slime.  Like Cherry Mountain Dew and Red Bull.  It was fizzy!  It had caffeine and lots of sugar!  It was The Best of Both Worlds.

[TerranV]

I love all the references and I'm sure there are more that went right over my head!

[Operational Systems]

2 hours ago, TerranV said:

I love all the references and I'm sure there are more that went right over my head!

Thanks, I tried to make it a fun piece in addition to being references.  I can definitely imagine some "Trekkie" Amazon dressing up hier babies like little star fleet officers.

[TerranV]

29 minutes ago, Operational Systems said:

Thanks, I tried to make it a fun piece in addition to being references.  I can definitely imagine some "Trekkie" Amazon dressing up hier babies like little star fleet officers.

Well thats an adorable mental image!

[Operational Systems]

Chapter 32 – Did I ask you for attention when affection is what I need.

 

28 Floréal Year CCXXXI, Potat, South Windland, Libertalia - Amazonia

 

On Amazonia, a décade is three hundred and twenty hours.  A little is expected to sleep at least twelve hours a day, and with naps some “newborns” easily sleep near sixteen.  After less than a week of sleeping “twelve hours” a night on Ben’s couch, Oliver was starting to fray at parts of his sanity.  He had not had such an unorthodox sleep schedule since high school.  Today, the first day of the weekend, he had woken up three hours before sunrise.  It was strange using the toilet in these twilight hours, cold dark colors and strange sounds came in through the windows and walls of his creaking old duplex.  The toilet itself was less than three feet off the ground, barely manageable standing, and in a humiliating defeat it forced an exhausted Oliver to prefer hopping onto the small seat for both ways to relieve himself.

 

Ben had been accommodating.  He would insist on taking ‘nap breaks’ from their work in translation and let Oliver sleep as long as he needed in the morning, and go to bed as early as he wanted, even if the sun was out.

 

Ben’s couch was an old hand-me-down, easily fifteen years of age and did not match the rest of his furniture.  It had been worn down to the point it invited a man to lose himself in its contours to the joy of sleep.  This was deceiving, since it was also not a real bed, Oliver had a habit of waking up sore, and this exasperated the permanent state of jetlag the Earthling found himself in.  Despite this, the raw energy of visiting such a wonderous new place and meeting other versions of his friends and himself, carried him through the weariness.

 

Now though, the weekend (the décalend) had come, and Oliver was ground down.  Retirement was supposed to be easy, but for Oliver the days were too long, and he went to bed (the couch) each night believing he had accomplished nothing.

 

As their trip in the car came to an end, Ben snapped his fingers a few inches from Oliver’s face, the gust of wind dragging the boy out of his stupor.  Oliver tried to look around, confused where they had traveled, but the car windows were aimed at the sky.  He undid his harness and landed forward into Ben’s waiting arms.  Benjamin dropped Oliver into grass, and he was astounded by the size of the ‘mansion’ before him.  Sixty or seventy feet tall, it had aging wooden sides and white paint that was clearly more than a decade since it had last been touched up.  The house did not seem warm or inviting to the small man.

 

“This is the most important day of your life, Oliver.  Please do not screw this up.  I am going to have your back the whole time though,” Ben stated after closing the door to his small car.

 

“I have no idea how to interpret that, but I’ve been an assistant before in these kinds of negotiations.  I’m sure I can wing it.  What exactly is Victoria looking for?”  Oliver yawned and then shook his head, forcing his face to be serious and ready.  He would win this, through logic and negotiation, and the four of them would come to have mutual understanding, respect, and cooperation towards Oliver’s goals.

 

This wedding could even be good for his goals, he was expanding his support network to two academics, and he could lean on both of them to expand the reach of his budding intelligence agency.

 

“Oh sorry, you’ll be entertaining Jennifer.  I guess you don’t actually have to do anything. Play nice though,” Benjamin had made it clear that Oliver’s future was no longer in his hands.

 

Before Oliver had time to process this new update, there was the sound of an opening screen door and a high-pitched squeal.

 

“There’s my baby boy!” A train hit Oliver before he heard her sound.  He was thrown up six feet into the air.  Fleshy globes encased in dark blue cotton denim filled both his eyes.  His nose was filled with the scent of the ocean and sandalwood.

 

Victoria.

 

He remembered the smell, and he had not missed how she used to overload with perfume.  His chest and arms were squeezed near the breaking point.  He could not breathe the perfume was so strong.  About two seconds before blackout his feet were back on the ground.

 

Oliver coughed and then looked up, straining his neck and still not seeing the woman’s face.  He was trapped between her legs, and her heavy hand was on his shoulder.

 

“Hello, future mommy.”

 

It was the correct passcode to her phrasebook.  The giant stepped back and let Oliver see Benjamin being attacked by Jennifer.  She had worn a long white dress, with frills that covered her long white socks, and simple strap on shoes.  She had taken to standing on his large feet and hugging his legs, keeping him immobilized.  She had gotten her dark brown hair done professionally, and it hung long now like a miniature match for Victoria’s, and Jennifer corralled it with a long band that floated across the back of the top of her head.

 

“Let’s get you inside,” boomed the giantess, she lifted Oliver up and carried him near her face.  Oliver stared deep into her dark brown eyes, and up and down her perky short nose.  He tried to turn to look around but was effectively locked into her shoulder and elbow.

 

A few seconds later Oliver was dropped again in the tiled foyer of the front entrance.  He knelt down carefully and started to work on his shoelaces.  Ben lingered a moment before letting Jennifer down next to Oliver, and the short man gave Ben a concerned glance.  He needed Ben to be strong here.  This was a negotiation; his status would depend on Benjamin getting more than Victoria.

 

Victoria also knew how to do the dance, and began her complaint softly, “I see he’s still in pull-ups.”

Oliver nearly jumped at that, she had touched his butt for a few seconds and could tell the difference.  It was not just the mastery she had shown, but the dedication to such an esoteric bit of knowledge.

 

Oliver’s mind briefly went to a commercial on ‘boxers or briefs’.  Was this some natural affinity for the tall ones?  Oliver looked up slightly at Ben, hoping the man would defend him.

 

Benjamin did not help him; his attention was on the girl.

 

Victoria continued, “Personally, I don’t see the point, pull-ups leak.”

 

Benjamin tried indifference, “Oliver has not had any issues.”

 

She tried another avenue, “He looks tired, is he getting enough sleep?  Oliver if you need to go take a nap, I have a room for you.”

 

“Thank you for the offer.  Just a bit of lag from adjusting to the time zone change.  I think it will help if I stay up a bit.” Oliver stood up with both shoes in his hands.  He held them up towards the nagging woman, hoping she would take him and focus on something else.

 

“I don’t know… Jennifer had sleeping issues for years, lots of littles do.  She had surgery done.  It’s a pretty simple operation on the hypothalamus, you’d be in and out in a day.”

 

Victoria had been with Oliver for less than ten minutes and she was already recommending brain surgery.

 

Benjamin must have realized she had just won the first round of the battle.  He had been too focused on the lovely girl in front of him, helping her undo her white shoes, imagining all the fun he would have once he was her daddy.  He snapped up and reoriented, “Right, right, Oliver might just need something simple, diet, exercise, let’s try to exhaust the natural options first.”

 

“Oh, I can think of one change to his diet, something that will help him with his sleeping,” Victoria rubbed Oliver’s hair slightly, grinning.  A perfectly played feint.  The first two skirmishes had been won easily, at this rate Ben would be lucky to have a say on the wedding venue or the honeymoon location.

 

Oliver gave his friend a serious look.  You are flying the plane here!  Get this right.

 

“Why don’t I take Jennifer away and have her show me around, I can entertain her for a few hours and then we’ll come back for lunch,” Oliver tried to rescue his friend.

 

Jennifer jumped in excitement, and grabbed Oliver’s arm, taking him off to explore the house.  The master bedroom, her room, a guest room office, all upstairs, living room and dining room and kitchen on the entry floor, and family room in the basement.

 

Even the smallest bed would easily be King size on Earth.  Every blanket and pillow were tucked in properly with fresh sheets.  Every toy in Jennifer’s room was lined up and put away.  The house had a generic flowery smell, like potpourri bags or maybe aromatic candles were in use.

 

To Oliver the house was excessively large, but for a big it was probably more on the cozy side.

 

“Your house is very nice Jennifer,” Oliver tried at conversation, as the two sat quietly in the cooler family room.

 

“Vicky wanted to paint the guest room, but she didn’t know what your favorite color was.  I told her it was green because your name is Oliver.  Like an Olive.”

 

Green was his favorite color, but he also hated that people thought it was green because of his name.  Oliver did not respond to the prompt, he figured the nuance would be too much for her to handle, he just smiled and nodded along.

 

Jennifer was sitting on an old Amazon sized sofa, the dark tan color barely matching the long gray-brown carpet.  Her feet barely hung over the edge as she relaxed against the tall back.  Oliver had been offered her ‘child’ sized lazyboy.  The dark red seat felt like it should recline, but no pushing by Oliver could get it to set into a relaxing position.  He sat on the edge, looking across at Jennifer.

 

“She’s really put it all out for Ben and me.  Is she excited about marrying Ben?” Oliver continued at small talk.

 

She was indifferent, “Not really.  Every day she holds me up to the calendar and says, ‘This is the day Oliver comes over’.  She’s been counting down.  Three more days until Oliver comes.  Two more days until Oliver comes.”

 

That caused Oliver to tense up a bit.  He knew Vicky could be a bit obsessed, but he wanted that energy directed towards Ben, not him.

 

“We’ve been cleaning and getting things ready.  She doesn’t want to go too crazy; she has been careful to not max out her cards on buying all the stuff she wants you to have.  A lot depends on today, plus there’s the wedding to consider.”

 

“But what about your new dad.  Benjamin,” Oliver tried to get back to Jennifer’s mood.

 

“He’s fine,” She shook her head slightly, tossing her hair.

 

“He is the best, and it’s a package deal,” Oliver hopped from the chair and came over to the couch.  He pulled himself up and sat next to Jennifer.

 

“Are you at least excited to be for the wedding?  Like, did she tell you if you going to be a flower girl?”

 

“Oliver, we're in the wedding,” she replied, confused.

 

“I mean like, the ceremony.”

 

“You don’t know?  Haven’t you been to a wedding before?”  Oliver decided it was best to shake his head, rather than explain he was from Earth.

 

She walked him through it, making gestures with her hands for each part.  “The Priest will ask daddy if he wants to be my daddy and he’ll say yes, and he’ll ask me if I accept him as my daddy and I’ll say yes.  Then he’ll ask mommy if she wants to be your mommy, she’ll say yes, and then you if you accept her as your mommy.”

 

“Oh, I… what happens if we say no?  Can we call this whole thing off?” It seemed rude, but this whole wedding was looking more and more like a mistake.

 

She backed away slightly and blinked her eyes, “Are you planning on being naughty at the wedding?  In front of mommy and daddy and God and the rest of your family.  It is very important you are not naughty,” she was serious, her tone had a maturity and intensity that shrunk Oliver.  Victoria had made it clear to Jennifer she was not to be naughty at the wedding, and the girl was relaying the message with just as much force.

 

The bigs tolerated misbehavior in the day to day; littles were stupid and did not know better.  For the sacred and the symbolic, he did not want to risk how bad it would get if he threw a wrench in the process.  They might did not need him to verbally agree and would have ways to force littles to accept the terms regardless.

 

Jennifer explained her sister’s motivations, “She wants a baby.  It’s all she has ever wanted.  She chose to be my caretaker because our parents passed away, to protect me, but that decision hurts her more and more as time goes on.  I’ve seen her cry at night, it breaks her up.” Jennifer turned her head.

 

Oliver inched closer on the couch, “I’m not from around here, I’ll need some more to that Jenny,” he paused, Jenny was her Earth counterpart.  Jennifer, despite dressing like a child seemed bigger, “I need more Jennifer.”

 

“Oliver, she’s a single woman, she is only allowed one.  She can protect me, or she can have a baby.”

 

“I try to help where I can, she has urges and I can pretend, but I’m still her sister.  It’s different, we grew up together, we’re related.  She wants a baby Oliver.”

 

“And by marrying Ben, she gets me too,” a fresh young single dad, with a baby boy that was a bit too much for him to handle, who needed a mommy to set him straight, the one thing she always wanted.  It was like something out of a Disney movie.

 

“Well, I’m sorry, you and your sister have something special and I’m,” Oliver was not even sure what he was talking about.  Jennifer punched him in the arm.

 

“Get out of here, this is the best gift you could ever give me,” She had a certainty of how everything would play out.  “Look, I can’t get a real job, or go to school or anything, but this will at least relieve some of the burden off me.”

 

Jennifer stood up and walked to the edge of the couch, picking up an oversized pillow and hugging it.  She turned and placed it down between her and Oliver and set herself horizontally on it, staring up at the man.

 

“My parents took all that away from me, which is fine, they thought it was in my best interest, and at the time they thought they’d be here forever.  But they aren’t here.  I have a condition Oliver, and I need someone in my life to take care of me.”

 

“Being small is not a condition,” it just made Oliver and Jennifer unable to function in the world.

 

“It’s not that.  I just have trouble reading people sometimes.  I rely on tricks to make any conversation work.  It doesn’t matter at daycare, because babies change on a dime, and they’re too dumb for subtlety.  I know Brad is sad because he’s crying.  I know Tiffany is hungry because she’s yelling about food.  In the mornings I don’t have to think about dressing up, or what to wear, everything is decided for me.  Nothing I do is sexy or romantic or adult, and I’m fine with that.”  Jennifer spoke with a flat tone, and Oliver was uncertain how to read what she said.  Was she actually comfortable with being treated as a baby or was she unable to convey the subtle range of emotions that were trapped in her brain.

 

He tried another topic, “Before your, um, condition, manifested.  What’d you want to be?  Like, if you could do anything what would you want to do?”

 

“I wanted to be a mommy,” She rolled her head, “Even when I was little, I would play with dolls and pretend.  I want to meet a handsome prince, and the two of us have a big family.”

“Oh,” Oliver had not considered it, but being a parent was as far away a dream for a little as being an astronaut or an interdimensional spy.  He tried to offer sympathy, “You would make a great mommy.”

 

“You would make a great daddy,” she giggled.

 

Oliver gave a friendly smile at the compliment, and then realized he was probably the first grown-up little boy she had ever talked with.  This was her flirting.  Jennifer even rolled over on the pillow so her face would beam up at him.

 

He could smell the baby powder and a light application of perfume, a delightful mix of ocean and sandalwood that made him want to just sit and breathe her in.  He squirmed his legs and cheeks awkwardly on the couch, his pull-ups were too tight down below.  The padding added an exotic comfortable twist he had never experienced before, the gentle caress of the thick material accentuating and enhancing the problem rather than providing space for it to die down.

 

He needed to get her to think of something else.  “What do you do for fun around here?  Besides dolls and tea parties, and cleaning,”

 

“Watch Tee Vee,” She pointed at the large black screen that dominated across the room.  It was slightly larger than the one Oliver had on Earth.

 

“Not read books, or attend the theater, or karaoke,” Ben had strongly discouraged Oliver from watching television.

 

“You ever watch Loki?” She was excited.  She had met a boy she liked, he had not seen her favorite show, and the two could watch it together.  She wanted to Netflix and chill.

 

“I’m not sure I am supposed to,” Oliver stared at the black television.  He had used a similar device to do considerable damage to Benjamin’s psyche on their first night together.

 

“It’s fine, it’s educational,” Jennifer hopped off the couch and then made to a center table.  She pulled at a container that was at the center and pulled out a remote.  She confidently spoke into it, “Loki Season One”.

 

As the television booted up, she ran over room lights and with a hop skip off the wall flipped the room to darkness.  It was still the middle of the day, a small blue shine came from the room’s far windows, and from the upstairs, but it was comfortable to watch.

 

THE ADVENTURES OF LOKI, OUR FRIEND IN THE NESS

 

BROADCAST IN UV HD

A PRODUCT OF ALBION PUBLIC BROADCASTING COMPANY

 

She hopped onto the coach and bumped right up to Oliver; her dress gave a crinkled sound.  Jennifer rotated slightly grabbing the pillow and placed it directly on her lap, her eyes were glued to the show.

 

The show began with a zoom in on a colorful animated forest lake.  As the screen got closer, a large, long green neck started to rise out of the water.  The monster had green skin, large white and blue eyes, and purple decorative plates along his back.  The bright lime green dinosaur turned his neck and addressed the audience.

 

“Ahh, wee bairns!  Gather ‘round, for we’ve a grand adventure awaitin’ ye this day!  Hae ye e’er pondered what befalls yer wee nappies once they’ve served their noble purpose?”

 

The dinosaur’s voice was slightly high pitched, possibly a woman was attempting a man’s voice.  It wasn’t deep or bellowing, it was comfortable and fun.  Everything seemed cheap to Oliver, like those cartoons that used to appear on PBS in the mornings.

 

“I’ve seen this one!” Jennifer whispered.

 

“Am I going to miss any of the important details or backstory from earlier in the season?  Will I need to listen to a podcast afterwards to understand what happened?” Oliver joked.

 

“Shh!” Jennifer was focused on her dino-pal-friend.

 

“Let’s give an easy shape for you today.  Do you know what this symbol is?”  It had eight sides at one hundred thirty-five degrees to each other.

 

“A stop sign,” Jennifer answered excitedly.

 

“An octagon,” Oliver corrected, joining in on the fun.

 

“That’s right.  It’s a stop sign.  And when it comes to recycling, this symbol is no joke.  Only nappies can go into this container.  DO NOT PUT ANY OF THE FOLLOWING IN A CONTAINER MARKED WITH THE STOP SIGN:”

 

The screen flashed, and the voice deepened, Oliver blinked hard, and his head started to hurt.  He brought his palms up to his eyes to cover and clear them.  He tried a mantra.

 

Don’t listen to him, he’s not real.  Sauropterygia have been extinct for sixty-six million years.

 

A large box appeared over the screen, blocking most of the lake and dinosaur.  The list was exhaustive.

 

Food, Metal, Wood, Paper, Household Products, Glass.  There were pictures of each one and a big red circle and cross out of all of them.  Nothing went into the bins with the stop sign except for diapers.

 

“Now that you know the rules, let’s make our way to the recycling plant and see the magic in action,” The plesiosaur’s head bobbed up and down in a poor attempt to give animation, and his body moved slowly off the screen to the right.  The screen faded and shifted to camera footage from the real world.

 

A man with a yellow hardcover hat, and a heavy white lab coat stood before a handheld microphone.  He had protective goggles on.  Behind him was rows of large spinning containers, like giant vats for water, and the man had to speak loudly to drown out the constant rushing of water and spinning metal.

 

“This facility handles all of Caledonia’s recycling needs for nappies, that’s close to a hundred million dirty diapers a month,”

 

“That’s a Mesozoic sized load right there!”, Loki’s animated head popped on the screen to address the audience.  Jennifer giggled.

 

The screen flickered in a bad edit, and the man answered the next question, his posture had changed slightly, “Recycling is important because it keeps millions of tons of diapers from clogging our garbage dumps and waterways.  More than that we get useful products out of it.  The waste is turned into night soil and ammonia derivatives for cleaning products, and the cloth and plastic can be cleaned and repurposed, eventually even turned into new nappies.”

 

Loki added color to the interview, “WOW!  No part goes to waste! You know how you can help kids,”

 

The screen flashed again, the voice became deep, “Remind your parents to always recycle your dirty diapers in the Stop Sign bin.”

 

Throwing away trash in whatever bin I want is my God given right as an American.

 

“One more thing,” the green monster started, his body becoming large on the screen and his eyes staring directly into Oliver and Jennifer.

 

 “Don’t use the toilet.  Always poop into your nappies.  Go ahead and poop right now!  This way you can do your part to clean up the planet.”

 

I drive a huge ass truck that gets ten miles to the gallon.  I buy fast food, take one bite, and throw it away.  I am going to poop in the toilet you stupid dinosaur.

 

Oliver grinned, that was some weak sauce mind control.  He could probably watch an entire season in one binge and not be affected.  And yet there was a noise to his side.

 

It began with a humpf.  Then a push, and just the slightest shift of crinkle.  Oliver turned his head to the distressed lady beside him.  She gave a loud pant and then her smile went wide as she shifted slightly in the seat.  She reached over and gave Oliver a hug with her arm, pulling him closer.

 

Her compatriot took in a large breath with his nose.  Baby powder, ocean, sandalwood, and the hint of something new.  The combination was exotic, almost fun, almost enough to stir a bit down below.

 

“Something’s wrong,” Oliver looked at her, she had not changed.  A block had moved in his own head.

 

“You didn’t like the show?  Loki is my favorite,” she whispered, “We can watch something else if you did not like it.”

 

“Yeah, no more Tee Vee, at least for a bit,” Oliver tried.  Jennifer was beautiful, she was perfect, his hand briefly went down her back, he wanted to touch, but stopped his hand.  The smell was getting stronger.

 

It was gone.  The disgust reflex.  The alarms in his head that should be blaring to get away from what she had done were being sat upon by a fifty-ton dinosaur.

 

She had pooped herself.  He poops in the toilet, she poops in her diapers, she was just doing her part to help the environment.  Maybe one day if he was more conscientious, more aligned with the needs of the planet, he’d join her in the act.  He was not that committed but could see why it was seen as better.    Like choosing to become a vegetarian.  He might take it up if he met the right girl.

 

Oliver shook, trying to shake the idea physically from his body.  He looked around the room, unable to process the change in his thoughts.  The stupid green plesiosaur had won.  Earth used hypnosis like a monkey wielding a gun, but this was just a taste of what the masters could do.

 

Oliver was beaten, “No more Tee Vee.  Let’s go, um, check on the others.  Maybe get you changed, and we will see if they are ready for lunch.”

 

She gave a wicked smile, Oliver’s attempt to keep her from distracting Ben during the negotiations had failed.  This morning had gone exactly as her sister had planned.

 

“I think daddy will be thrilled to change me for the first time.  It’ll be like a taste of what is to come.”

 

* * *

 

“The weird part is, I had all my shields up against the television.  Nothing should have gotten through.  This did not even feel like hypnosis,” Oliver started once the two men were back in the isolation of Ben’s car.  Oliver did not know if he should explain it, it was the same as the time in the hospital.

 

“I warned you,” Ben pushed back trying to hide the smile creeping across his face.

 

“How’d we do?  Like what’s the damage here, with this whole wedding-mommy thing,” Oliver shifted topics.

 

Benjamin did not want to say terrible, bad, or any negative indicator, so he tried an oblique reference, “You know how we were told, ‘the bomber always gets through.’”

 

“Ouch,” Oliver got it, victory at tremendous cost, with little possibility of recovery.

 

“We’re aiming for the end of next décade, lines up with the holiday, we have a lot of packing to do, plus we need to get ourselves ready for the wedding, and I need to call and invite all my relatives.  Oh, you’re going to meet your grandpa and grandma!”

 

“I already met your parents, Benjamin.  They’re nice.  It will be good to see them again,” If Oliver was hesitant to talk about his time with the Nitz, he was never going to talk about the circumstances he met Ben’s parents.

 

Benjamin moved his head at that, confused, and changed topics, “She didn’t think it was fair that I get to have you help my research.  We’re going to do some load balancing.  She has some ideas she wants you to help her work too.  Once we get back from our honeymoon, she wants to spend a couple days with you, and I get to have Jennifer,” Benjamin was not specific in the details as he drove, just providing enough to assuage the command in his head.

 

“Sure, absolutely, I’ve run plenty of research teams at I.E.D.R. over the years, have her submit a proposal and I’ll be happy to act as administrator.  After the wedding she can give a presentation, and I’ll help come up with goals and a timetable and try to work with her to narrow the scope while addressing potential weaknesses.”  Oliver stretched a bit, and gave a long yawn, the words were getting stretched as the tired man spoke them.  He did not hear Benjamin’s reply, as he was already asleep.

 

The rented tux was loose fitting, stretching past his arms slightly, and Oliver shifted nervously as he looked up to the tall priest, whose aging gray and black hair contrasted with his large balding spot which reflected brightly from a strong light from above.  The priest’s clean white garments were thick like a window curtain and stiff against the giant’s exuberant movements in the ceremony.  The man’s voice carried authority, otherworldly in deepness and location.  Oliver let the words wash over him, feeling their tone rather than their language.  The church could compete with the largest cathedrals back on Earth in size but not grandeur, with its echoing large ceilings over twenty feet tall.  The room felt too modern, plastic, faux wood, concrete and carpet.

 

Sweat built up from the room’s heat and light in Oliver’s armpits and crotch, and he was glad for the extra padding down below, as he shifted slightly, trying desperately to stay as regal as the ceremony demanded.  His legs and feet had pain from uncomfortable shoes and poor fitting pants, the clothing breathed poorly around his pull-up.  Oliver let his eyes glance around, seeing Ben’s parents in the first row, and Ben’s younger sister in her bright pink-white dress, carelessly trying to escape out of grandpa’s hands over the pew railing.  Past that the rest of the family here on Amazonia.  It was as if the whole world was waiting for this moment.

 

Oliver’s attention returned forward, just in time to hear the proclamation.  It came from a heavenly power, and shook into the core of his being,

 

“I now pronounce you mommy and daddy.  You may kiss the bride.”

 

His body slid with a soldier’s professionalism in parade as one clean movement on the balls of his shoes.  His mind was a mixture of confusion and eagerness, fear, and desire.  Oliver’s breath tightened, and he finally saw the woman before him, her white dress gracefully covering her in near translucent purity.  He did not get to kiss her, an alarm was blaring in his head, his breathing intensified, and the world became night.

 

Oliver found himself trapped in the couch cushions, his blanket half over his head and half kicked to the floor.  He struggled, pushing hard in the darkness against the interior couch, confused.  One arm and leg and half his body had fallen into the well of the couch and the other half was pushing the cushions over the ledge.  For a moment he was trapped, but Oliver took a long breath and pushed hard against the interior and forced his body back up into a roll onto shaky cushions.  With straining muscles, he elevated himself back onto the couch proper.

 

The clock in the entertainment council across the room alerted him it was nearly four hours to sunrise.  He wanted to go back to the dream, it was foreign but delightful.  Not once before had he ever dreamt of being married, but it had all the hallmarks of a well-worn book, like he had returned it time and again in summer daydreams.  It was the type of vision he previously thought about a long time after waking, trying to get the details exactly right so he could revisit it again and again.  He wanted to do that now, just sitting on the couch, thinking about the wonderful dream.

 

Growing pressure in his abdomen forced him to instead carefully throw his legs the two feet to the ground.  Oliver trekked in the warm darkness to the bathroom, another long day awaited him.  He hoped he got more done today than he did yesterday.

BONUS:
Loki picture!

[Little_rascal_Hiro]

Well... You made it! I made an account to thank you for this story! I'm enjoying it very much, since it feels refreshing and a spin to the diaper dimension theme!

Thank you so much!

I can see how much passion you poured into this setting and it was a bit disheartening to me seeing low feedback, so I HAD to put my two cents!

PS: I love Loki! 🥰

[Operational Systems]

5 hours ago, Little_rascal_Hiro said:

Well... You made it! I made an account to thank you for this story! I'm enjoying it very much, since it feels refreshing and a spin to the diaper dimension theme!

Thank you so much!

I can see how much passion you poured into this setting and it was a bit disheartening to me seeing low feedback, so I HAD to put my two cents!

PS: I love Loki! 🥰

Thank you for the kind words.  I'm glad that people are enjoying it.  I understand it's a confusing book at times, there is a lot of subtext and flashbacks and characters are not honest narrators, but I'd be happy to talk about what's going on.

[Operational Systems]

Chapter 33 – Youth without Youth

 

10 Prairial Year CCXXXI, Potat, South Windland, Libertalia - Amazonia

 

 

The kiddy table takes on a whole new connotation when everyone at the table was over eighteen years of age.  The real Amazon children were sitting with their parents if they were young, with some larger ones entertaining a bigger kid table with the handful of tweener friends and relatives.  Oliver was average height for an American Earthling, he would be short for a six-year-old, most Amazons were a foot taller by that age.

 

To sit at this table, the little would be expected to be able to sit by themselves, without making a mess, and needed to be able to cut their own food.  These restrictions filtered two thirds of the room’s population under the height of seven feet from a seat at the exclusive table.  In this sense, the six men and women around the table were the elites, and Oliver was their king.  He sat at the head of the table, slowly trying to come to terms with his new family.  He had downgraded to simple suspenders and light gray, white pants for the reception and kept on his cyan and white bow tie, to promote the illusions of style and sophistication.  He had not worn his pants this high in thirty years, and he was surprised how snappy he looked with an outfit meant for children and old men.

 

“It was a beautiful wedding,” Esther proclaimed to the table, holding her sippy cup to the side and wafting it over food and in front of other patrons.  She had a way of stretching beautiful that was either haughty in accent or from ill-practice of speaking.  She was technically Victoria’s cousin, but was much older, her gray to white hair, and small wrinkles came through on her pudgy face.  She had come to the wedding in a long blue dress, with pink and white flowers decorating the whole ensemble.  Her hair was short but had been dyed to a youthful color and she could probably pass for normal on Earth.  Esther’s mother was getting older and had let Esther grow up a tiny bit to limit the burdens on the two of them.

 

“I’ve been to lots of weddings, this one was beautiful.  The bride was beautiful.  The church was beautiful, I want to have a wedding like this someday.”  Oliver had made the mistake of trying to engage her with small conversation, before he realized she was only saying the first thoughts to enter her head.  She was not even attempting to have a back and forth.  She had spent years, tens of them, locked in a babbling state, and had never properly relearned how to listen to what others are saying, how to process their ideas, and add or respond to it.  Small talk was not a skill she needed.

 

“I’m obviously not from around here,” Oliver tried to start a conversation with his other neighbor.  The man’s name was Milton, he was maybe about thirty and had been dressed in a short tie and tight-fitting blue suit.  His hair was done short and parted, and he had oversized glasses on his face.  Milton was somewhere on Victoria’s side, but Oliver was unsure of how he was related to the man.  “I’m here to learn.  Maybe help in anyway, I can.  I just need to get a better lay of the land and people I can talk with, even get advice from the local experts on some ideas I have.”

 

“You’re more full of it than my diaper,” Milton protested.  It was a good thing he was at a table of “peers”, any big in the room who heard his voice would call cranky.  The man went back to his taco and took a bite that let a huge amount of vegetable, cheese, and meat onto the plate.  Milton could feed himself finger foods, barely, and often went back over his plate with a fork to pick up missed parts.

 

“He has no idea what’s going on, he was just adopted this week.  This is probably all a shock, and Oliver’s still coping – making up stories,” Claudia, Milton’s neighbor came in, “Oliver, I’m sorry.  Just enjoy what you have while you can, because you’re not going to be a big kid for very long.  Your daddy is just like your daddy’s daddy.  In a month you’ll be lucky to remember how to suck your thumb.”

 

Oliver stared at the woman; Ben was not like the others.  The two had a foundation, one built on mutual understanding and respect, “I volunteered to come here with Ben, we’re friends.  I’m trying to do something different here.  Why don’t we just go around the table and just talk about how things are going.  Like, what are your plans for summer?  Have you met any other new people?  Maybe someone not from around here like me?”

 

Milton let his taco drop on his plate, “You volunteered?  What are you some sort of pervert?  Do you come from some world where everyone gets off on being treated like babies?  Was it that you secretly wanted to wear diapers, play with toys, and have nap times, and you searched the entire multiverse for the one place you can truly be your sick self?”

 

Oliver was calm in his response, “No, that’s ridiculous, there is no one, not on one hundred thousand worlds, none who would consider this place a fantasy.  I don’t know why your world is so different in this regard, but we’re working on finding out.  My new dad and I are working on it.  You guys can help though, how do you all stay in touch?  Phone calls?  Social Media?  Letters?”

 

“You don’t get it,” Milton made a small fist and hit the table.  At any other table in the room, the move would have caused the wine glasses to spill, here it just caused the sippy cups to shift slightly.

 

“We’re family Milton, just take a second, tell me how I can make it better, I’m sorry if I upset you,” Oliver remained neutral in his tone, he tried to reach a few fingers towards Milton.

 

“You’re faking it.  You’re … you’re … stop lording it over us.  Stop being better,” Milton’s face scrunched like he was about to cry.  Or perhaps he wanted to relieve himself down below.  His emotions were hard to read.

 

Oliver was a statue; Milton was jealous.  The other man prided himself on being the top of his daycare, and now he had met someone who was still an adult, coming in and had the audacity to pretend to be a baby.  Oliver won the lottery with Ben.  Oliver got to read adult books, Oliver had responsibilities, Oliver set his own sleep schedule, Oliver got to wear pull-ups.

 

“I’m sorry, look just let’s talk about something else, why don’t you tell…”

 

He was interrupted by Esther, “I have something to say.”  Ten eyes shifted to the girl in blue.

 

“This is my last time at the kiddy table,” Esther started.  Her words were shaking.  Somewhere in the vacuum of her mind, there was someone still at the controls, desperately trying to find the words.

 

Milton and Oliver gave an odd look, but Claudia spoke up, “Don’t be fatalistic, Esther, you’ve got a long life ahead of you.  You’re doing better.  You’re bigger than that last time I saw you.”

 

“Mommy has decided she wants her baby again, and we are going to the hospital.  I’m getting the treatment,” Esther’s forced a smile from years of habit, showcasing an ugly mouth of missing teeth, but her tone and eyes betrayed her fear and sadness.

 

“I’m sorry,” Milton looked to the side and pushed his plate in, like he would be sick.

 

“A forever baby,” Claudia started, “Maybe …”

 

“What’s this?” Oliver asked.

 

“She’s getting her teletubbies repaired.  They’re tiny strings in your body.  As they wear down you grow into a big boy or girl.  A couple friends at my daycare had it done,” Milton explained, he dragged the last part out, almost mumbling it, afraid to acknowledge what had happened to the people he knew.

 

“The treatment can do anything.  Make you a baby for real even.  Everything is replaced, brand new.  You can even turn into a real Amazon baby, all new limbs, shrink you down too” Claudia added.

 

“I heard they can make you take on your parent’s appearances,” a boy next to Claudia joined, “like match their hair and eye color so you’re really their baby, and not just dyes or makeup or surgery.  They can even turn you into a girl for real if they want to.  They copy your girl chromosomes and delete your boy ones, and you go from blue to pink.”

 

“That’s impressive,” Oliver added, he wanted more details, “and these are little machines, like robots?”

 

“Goop,” Milton replied, “Big shot of it goes in and burns away everything you are.  Even in the brain, you get a brand new one, not mind tricked, not hypnosis, not milk.  Completely refurbished brain.  I lost a couple friends that way.  Blank slates, they never even learn their names again, at least until the bigs turn it off.  You are stuck on day one forever.”

 

Oliver contemplated the new information.  Nanomachines, telomere replacement, and chromosome fixes, this was a pathway to immortality, - eternal youth.  Esther may have had some possibility of her world coming to an end, eventually with time she would be too old to be a baby, no matter what the bigs wanted.  Now she would be a baby not just on day ten thousand, but possibly on day one million.  In the hands of anyone else this was a miracle technology, but it would be a hellish nightmare here in the diaper dimension.

 

The Earthling looked at a scar on finger, a long gash at the base that had been with him most of his life.  What was the difference between a damaged brain, and a well-used one?  This technology was still in its infancy.  Whoever was testing it here was getting through the teething process by exposing the littles to it, and the Amazons were not going to complain about any side effects.

 

He did not have long to gather more information and think it through, Ben came to the table his hand coming down hard on Oliver’s shoulder.  The tall man leaned in, “Thanks for making the rounds and seeing all your relatives.  I’m going to take Jennifer and get her cleaned up.  In about twenty minutes, Mom and Dad want to get some pictures with you with your aunts.”

 

Oliver looked up, “I’ll grab a desert from the buffet then and meet up with you.”  Ben smiled and gave him the thumbs up.

 

The small man bounced away from the kiddy table, and crossed the large slippery wooden floor, between dodging the occasional big who was not looking, and the placement of the tables, it took Oliver almost two minutes to reach the desert table.  Oliver grabbed a plate and slid behind a cousin, Arthur, if he recalled correctly from a short introduction earlier.  He had met a lot of new people today, and the littles tended to blend together.

 

Arthur was shorter than Oliver by a good two inches, a pacifier was clipped to his dress shirt and dangled near his trousers.  If not for this ornament and the excess padding in the rear, he almost looked normal.  The small man leaned heavily above the table, staring excitedly at the chocolate fountain, his fingers mixing together in eager anticipation.  He reached up and grabbed a long pretzel almost the length of his arm from a bowl.  He needed to stand on the tips of his toes just to reach it, but his prize was in his hand.  He carefully guarded the rod as he waited in line to get closer to the chocolate.  In front of him was a large man, nearly twelve feet in height and an impressive girth that suggested he weighed over half a ton.  The taller fellow had just dunked a jalapeno casually in the chocolate and ate it, before moving down the table.

 

The giant paused for a second and began engaging in conversation with another man, and Arthur snuck in low behind him.  With great patience and slowness, he grabbed at the cloth to assist him as he squeaked over the table’s edge, and with the full length of the stick excitedly waved it under the falling liquid chocolate.  Delight came over Arthur’s face, his mouth wide in anticipation or giddiness, as he watched liquid darkness transform the simple brown pretzel into a rich black.  Arthur bit down softly on his bottom lips as he carefully coated the rod into a divine desert.

The fat giant carelessly stepped back, as if he intended to sit on the table, and pushed hard into Arthur.  The boy bounced hard into the table, causing the fountain chocolate to escape over the ledge.  His chocolate pretzel fell, and hot liquid splashed over his hands and fingers.  Oliver stared at the boy who looked like he wanted to cry.

 

“Oh, sorry there small one, didn’t see you,” the Amazon man politely commented before backing away from the scene.

 

It was already too late for Arthur.

 

“Arthur Theodore Schultz!  You naughty boy!” That would be Victoria’s mother’s sister’s daughter.  That made her, what?  Oliver’s first cousin once removed?  Oliver was not sure how it all worked, given he was adopted.  What he did know was the dreaded full name shout was a most serious matter.  He quietly picked up a napkin and tried to casually clean up some of the chocolate on the table.  He wanted to stay out of this.

 

She came in, overbearing in all ten of her feet, and her presence was enough for the other Amazons to scatter, “I told you to not stick your fingers into anything, and you got chocolate over everything,”

 

“I got bumped,” Arthur tried, his face seconds from an explosion of emotion. 

 

Oliver glanced over his shoulder at the giantess, even from here the perfume was overwhelming.  Her voice had a deepness and small crack, like she may have smoked for years in her youth.  She was old, in her late forties, or early fifties, and dressed like a woman twenty years older.  She had pearls around her neck, and scratchy long brown hair that had been brought up and held in place with a fanciful light floral arrangement of a hat.  She wore a boutonniere with small green leaves and white flowers on her chest, and her pink long dress covered down to her flat shoes.

 

“And now you’re fibbing, what did I say about fibbing,” Her large arms came down and she held the boy in place, she came down on one knee and started to rotate him over, he struggled a bit, and a small cry came out in anticipation.

 

“No, I wasn’t,” Arthur’s breathing was short and his pitch higher.

 

Not a single pair of Amazon eyes were on the couple.  Only Oliver and the other littles had their attention drawn to the arrangement.  A dozen tiny eyes stared at the coming debasement of a man.

 

A hand went up, and with the speed of a pitcher’s fast arm swooshed through the air to slam into the small one’s buttocks.  There was no thrack.  No thripft.  No crinkle, smoosh, or smack of loud percussion to indicate a human’s flesh was being tenderized.

 

Oliver had grabbed her arm and stopped it inches from reaching its destination, a tiny hand with a karate timing came up, a lever holding up the world.  The force of a locomotive thumped air inches from the boy’s buttocks, as Oliver held her tight halfway between wrist and elbow.  Where the pleasure and pain of smashing a small one in the rear should have been coursing through her hand and veins, Kira Schultz felt a small pinching discomfort in her forearm.

 

She was struck dumb, so Oliver got in the first words, staring directly into her close face, “No hitting.”  His voice was of a man twice his height, his courage alone could dwarf the giant.

 

She lowered her arm confused, then stood up, the motion causing Arthur to fall to the ground.  She gained her full height over Oliver, and commanded the boy, “Excuse me?  Young man, I think you’re in need of some discipline yourself.  When I’m done with Arthur, I’m going to drag you to your new mommy and have her show you some manners.”

 

It was the jet locking on his plane, coming in for a gun run.  Oliver was ready this time.

 

“You are punishing him because it makes you feel better, because inside you’re not big enough to handle the truth.  Deep down, there’s a part of you that still sees him as an adult, you still see all the great things he could have been, and that’s the part of you that lies and says it’s acceptable to hit him.  Because you think he’s big enough to take it.  When you hit him, you’re saying he’s still a grown up.  You’re saying he still has too much free will.  He needs to be told no to life, to vigor, and his desire for independence.”

 

The blocks in her head were moving, and it caused Kira’s vision to warble.  Oliver was forcing her to see the contradiction, see the lie that was the relationship with her son.  She closed her eyes.  The two worlds were crashing together, and she had to choose which truth to accept.

 

She opened her eyes again.  Where once there was annoying boy, now stood a thirty-six-year-old man, his hair starting to gray, slightly underdressed, and a bit nerdy with the bowtie.  He judged her, and she felt small and petty.  To Oliver’s side another thirty-three-year-old man was on the floor, confused.  Across the room she could see a whole table of small dwarves, an elderly woman her age in a blue dress and a couple middle-aged men and women staring at the scene.

 

The littles were no longer children.  Her son was no longer a child.  He was a scared man who she had broken and abused, and she felt horror at her prior enjoyment and satisfaction at hurting him.  She did not care about chocolate or having him become a better son, she just loved the rush, the feeling of power of humiliating and debasing a man.  The truth tore at her, she was perverted, sick, and wrong in the head.  Kira could not handle the truth.  She closed her eyes again.

 

One block in her head shattered, she made a choice.  She rebuilt her blocks.

 

She opened her eyes.  The children were back.  Just silly children making mistakes.  Her son was scared, heaving, and crying on the floor.  How could she have dropped him?  She had almost hurt him.  She pushed aside the (small) six-year-old blocking her path and dropped her arms down.  In one swooping motion she lifted her son up to her face.

 

Chocolate fingers smudged against her chest and dress, “It’s okay Arthur, mommy’s here now.  Let’s get you cleaned up.  I think my stinky little boy needs a change.”

 

“I’m sorry I got bumped mommy.  I got bumped mommy and I dropped the pretzel, please don’t spank me,” Arthur slurred his words in her chest.

 

“Mommy will clean it all up and we will be right back at the party in time for all the fun dances and games and food,” She ignored his comments.   Her boy had a condition; he was never going to get older, and she just had to work with him to find a way he could still behave and be good in society.  He was a good boy deep down, simply confused, he just wanted to be bigger and that got him in trouble.  He acted out because he wanted her attention.  That just meant he needed more love and care.

 

Milton quietly came up to Oliver, who had started to lean against the table and had been taking long deep breaths.  “You alright?” the boy asked Oliver.

 

“Yeah, yeah, just headache.” Oliver’s voice cracked a bit responding, his throat was on fire, “Just glad I stopped it from getting worse.”

 

“Oliver, you don’t get it.  You think you’re helping, but you have no idea what you’re doing.  There’s a conservation of spankings.  Arthur can get out of it today, but tomorrow he’s just going to get hit harder.”

 

Oliver smiled slightly, returning to his normal self, “That’s what I like about you guys, no matter how far you are beat down, you just get right back up and say, let’s go again, round two, hit me again twice as hard.”

 

Milton laughed and put a hand over his cousin’s shoulder, “You’re one of us Oliver, that’s who you are too now.  Welcome to the family.”

 

* * *

 

13 Prairial Year CCXXXI, Sedge, South Windland, Libertalia - Amazonia

 

Arthur was being naughty.  He had climbed on the couch silently while his mommy prepared dinner and made his way to the side table.  The past three days had been hell for him.  At first, he thought it was liberating.  Ever since his cousin had spoken with mommy, she refused to spank him.

 

He tested it.  Day one.  Writing on the walls.  She smiled, and hugged him, and put away his crayons.  He was not allowed to play with them again.  He threw a toy at her.  He jumped in the bed.  Her patience never broke.

 

She would sit with him, talk with him, let him try to explain himself, and then she would remind him that he was just a baby boy, and it was not really his fault, and that she would work with him to make it better.

 

Oliver’s words lingered rent free in his head.  Arthur hated the man.  Oliver had seen what he had not.  Until the wedding, Kira had seen him as a man.  Somewhere deep down, even if she never admitted it.  He had been enslaved for so long he forgot they were just playing a game.  For half a decade his torturer had spent filling his head with lies, even though they both knew he was an adult.

 

That all went away.  Now, she was treating him like an actual baby.  Oliver had saved him the humility of having his dignity shattered in a spanking, by removing his dignity completely.  He had nothing Kira saw any worth in destroying.

 

His plan was perfect.  This act would snap her out of it.  The lamp.  It was heavy and felt like it had a porcelain base.  With effort he could push it, and he slowly brought it to the edge of the side table.  The whole wooden edifice he stood on shook slightly as he pushed.

 

“Mommy, you better hurry I’m being naughty,” he smiled.  Always use the ‘M” word if you want your big to come quickly.

 

She entered the room and took the longest deepest loudest breath he had ever heard.  A gasp like the wind an hour before a torrential storm.

 

“Don’t move, be careful honey, Mommy will get you down.”

 

“This is the one you liked.  The one you read under.  I’m going to break it.”  He pushed it slightly, the table wobbled under his feet.

 

“Arthur,” She took a step forward.

 

“When I break it, you’ll have to spank me!  I’m a bad baby,” He struggled a bit with the weight, getting the lamp over the edge.

 

“We don’t hit in this household.  Just, stay still, Mommy will get you down” she took another step.

 

He pushed with all his might; the lamp started its descent.  The table shook with the weight and his legs betrayed him.  He slipped, crashing down.  In a second, he was horizontal, on the carpet, he could not breathe.  Pain was coming from the back of his skull.

 

Mommy was there.  She lifted him up and started to gently bob him up and down, carefully holding him to her chest.  “It’s fine, you’re fine baby,”

 

He could breathe again.  Out came a long ache and tears shook from his eyes.  Three days and five years of frustration built into his wail.  His cheeks filled with deep red.  She carefully sat down on the couch and let him cry, gently cooing him and cradling his head, coming down for a soft kiss.  Arthur was a baby.  After a minute he broke away.

 

“I just… I just want to be big again.  This was the one thing I still had mommy and you took it away.  I need to be big again.  I broke your favorite lamp.  Please just punish me like a big kid again.”

 

She shushed him and gently turned his head, on the ground he could see the lamp was still intact, only the shade had been damaged by the fall, crumbled with a hole in its delicate paper side.

 

“Mommy knows, mommy always knows what you need, let me make it better” she carried him to the kitchen and sat him in a highchair, carefully tightening the straps so he could not escape.

 

He lowered his head onto the wooden eating surface.  Arthur was defeated, nothing he did would matter.  The last embers of his adulthood were gone.

 

She returned to the chair and gently placed a long roll of laminated paper before him.  It was folded and rolled so that three fourths of it were carefully tucked behind the front.  He lifted his head and saw rows of boxes.  The days of the décade on the left, primidi through décadi, and four columns left to right, creating forty boxes in total.

 

“What’s this?” he sniffled slightly after saying it.

 

“You’ve been a bit antsy since the wedding, seeing all your bigger relatives like Oliver and Milton made you a bit jealous, so I thought it’d help if we went slowly and gave you some things to help you feel like you are still big too.”

 

He carefully read the top boxes, “Brush teeth,” “Put toys away,” “Eat meals without fuss” “No splashing at bath time.”

 

“These are chores,” he was confused, babies were not supposed to have chores.

 

“I’m going to hang this on your door, and we’ll go through it every day, and if you do all your tasks, I’ll checkmark it on your list.” Kira’s hands slowly went over each box.

 

He was incredulous, this was some trick, Arthur did not watch it as he descended into light cynical sarcasm, “And if I get all the boxes, you’re going to give me an allowance?”

 

Kira paused her movements, and slowly started rolling the paper over, the fourth box started to disappear along the crease, vanishing from his list of tasks.  She asked him, “Do you only want to be responsible if it means you get a reward?  Is that why you want to be big?”

 

He put his hand on the page to stop the movement, “No, I was just curious, what happens if I get it all.  I want to do this.  I’m a big boy.”

 

She released her grip, keeping him to the four chores.  Tonight, he would not splash in the bath after dinner.

 

“If you get them all, well, I think that means you might be ready for another task or two.  There are a lot more than just four items.  Now, this is your choice.  I want you to really want this, so down here, I put a spot for you to sign, and me to sign,” she pointed to the two lines, “it’ll be like a contract.”

 

Arthur’s eyes widened and mouth gaped slightly, an actual contract.  An actual choice.  His first real choice in five years.  It was an opportunity to be big again, all he had to do was just admit he was a baby, admit these small chores were all he could be expected to accomplish.

 

Kira turned and searched the kitchen for a loose pen, with her back turned, Arthur quickly lifted the folded paper.  He could just barely make out the last box.

 

“srepaid fo daetsni riahc ytt”

 

He did not get much time to contemplate the cryptic text, as mommy returned.  She handed him the pen, and he carefully removed the cap, moving down to sign.  The pain in the back of his head returned, and he closed his eyes.  He needed to know.

 

“Kira, that bump to the head knocked something loose.  I’m not going to be lucid for much longer, but I wanted… I need to know something.”

 

It was the first time he had used her name in over four years, the juxtaposition of his old adult self-addressing her, and it coming from the mouth of her baby short-circuited her natural urge to correct him for not calling her mommy.  Outside of that brief moment at the reception, it had been years since she had even thought of him this way.  Certainly, the first time since he started wearing diapers.

 

“We used to work together, right?” Arthur’s eyes were closed, and he cradled his head slightly in his left hand.

 

“Yes Arthur,” Kira felt no need to play the game.

 

“Is everything still, I mean since I left, it wasn’t too hard on you, was it?”

 

“It was hard losing you, but we are managing, it’s still a struggle.” Kira answered.

 

“I know I don’t look like I appreciate it, but I like it when you talk about work,” his light sniffling caused the words to quake slightly as he struggled with the sentence.

 

“I promise to talk to you about it every day,” Kira reached out to touch his other hand, gently caressing it.

 

“I was the one who wanted this, right?  It was my decision, right?  We agreed, we had a contract like this one,” Arthur was shaking his teeth.  She nodded and gently affirmed it.

 

“I’m sorry if I am too much, I thought I could be the perfect baby boy and I’m not that.  I didn’t know what I wanted, and I didn’t know what you wanted.”

 

Kira assuaged him, “It’s been hard, of course raising a kid is hard, but I could not have dreamed of how rewarding and fulfilling having you as my son has been.”

 

Arthur moved the pen down to his line on the poster, and signed his name, Arthur Theodore Schultz.  Mommy had to help him with the Z, it was the first time he had signed anything under his new name.

 

Kira signed below him, “Mommy.”

[Operational Systems]

Warning, there is the depiction of sex in this chapter.

Chapter 34 - Back to that photograph.  Can you clone me?  I look like everyone you know now.

 

18 Prairial Year CCXXXI, Potat, South Windland, Libertalia - Amazonia

 

“How is it that you always win at this?  Farscape lied.” Oliver questioned while looking at his right hand.  Scissors beats paper.

 

“You never go rock on the first try,” Olivier answered casually, “I’ll let you go first though, since this isn’t exactly random.”

 

Oliver blinked his eyes and began processing the new information.  He immediately accepted it as true and could see how Olivier had never thrown scissors in any of their prior matches.  This was not the first time his taller self had mentioned something brilliant, but it was the first time someone smarter than Oliver had identified a flaw and pointed it out in a way Oliver would accept without question.  This was not a put down, it was likely a fault Olivier had identified in himself, possibly even from seeing Oliver do it, and corrected for it.

 

Oliver carefully drew the oversized cards one at a time, and they spread out massively across his two hands.  Each piece of cardboard was half a foot tall and a third a foot wide, and Oliver’s small fingers struggled to hold the half dozen cards straight without any slipping.  Olivier looked at his own grip, frowned, and sent it back, needing to reshuffle his own stack of cards.  He repeated this a second time, leading to him starting with an opening hand with a handicap.

 

The game was Space, which involved collectable cards that could be assembled into individual decks.  The point of the game was to knock your opponent’s control down to zero.  Olivier had spent the past few days thrusting on his smaller self all the joys of Amazonia: games, music, movies, books, food, and drinks.  The two would sit for hours, Oliver telling tales of his time exploring the multiverse, and Olivier enraptured by the enormity of it, giddy by the possibility he could have, in another life, been not just an administrator, but an adventurer, diplomat, spy, and soldier.

 

In their talks they would compare their own histories and families.  Olivier would often discuss philosophy and politics and world view from books he had read and classes he had taught, and Oliver soaked it in.  Each had found a confidant for their deepest secrets.  Some conversations only involved a couple words, and each would sit back and think, knowing full well how the whole conversation would go.  The two had a resonance, they were closer than twins.  Jennifer and Ai gave them plenty of space, being around the boys was just too awkward for both of them to deal with.

 

Oliver had grown up with the possibility there were other versions of himself; he was prepared for the eventuality he would meet himself.  Many hours had been spent in the shower and elsewhere contemplating what he would say, what sides of himself he would show, and he knew what he most wanted to ask, or how to best impress himself.  His taller self had not, and it showed.  The giant was giddy and eager, high from experiencing for the first time the philosophical implications of knowing there was more than one of him in the universe, but past that there was something else.  Olivier had a strong instinct, a long-suppressed desire to thrust all the parts of himself onto another being.  He wanted to shape another, to have someone smaller, but willing to learn and be mentored.  He grafted this urge onto Oliver.

 

Olivier’s card shuffling gave Oliver an opportunity to ask a question he had been thinking about since they first met, “One thing has bothered me.  Our Terran counterpart has a son.  You have two daughters.”

 

Olivier riffled the cards, creating a heavy fast-paced cracking through the air, “Maybe it’s all different.  Not everything is the same between you and me.”

The small one shook his head, “No, the physics doesn’t work like that, here let me show you,” he pulled out his wallet and brought out the picture of SeaWorld.  Olivier contemplated the picture, he could barely remember his own trip to WaterLand, that was over twenty years ago, he would have been barely taller than Oliver was now.

 

“This is us.  This is me, and this is him, but this is all of us.  We’re the same.  Your successes are also mine, and my failures are also yours.  Shared fates.  You should have a son too.  I have an excuse with the bombing raid, but you don’t.”

 

“I can’t have a …” Olivier stopped himself.

 

“We’re the same, if you can talk to yourself up here, you can talk to me out here,” Oliver pressed with a gesture, his hand pointed to his head and then his heart.

 

“There’s something wrong with us.  The Bigs.  No one wants to talk about it, but it’s going to be the biggest issue over the next century as the problems continue to build.  We don’t know what causes it, but I am not able to.  Ai’s daughters, I love them, I helped raise them, but they’re from her first marriage.”

 

A divergence?  Oliver had severed his own bonds with fate because he chose to live under stars he was not born under.  What similar forces were at play here on Amazonia?  What had the Amazons experienced on the scale of a nuclear bomb?

 

“She wants another.  Ever since our daughters left for college, she’s been wanting another.” Olivier was quiet, but quiet for a big was still loud for a little one.

 

“Well, all sorts of miracles are coming out of the physiology department these days, have you looked into treatments?” Oliver tried to comfort his bigger self; he could imagine himself not wanting to talk to a doctor.

 

“No, it’s not like that.  I thought, I thought that if you were here, she’d see littles differently.  If she could see that you and I are the same, she would snap out of it and realize you guys are people too.  You can be adults too,” his tone shifted, “Oliver she’s been spending a lot of time with Jennifer, and at night she just goes on about how great it will be when we get our own baby.  ‘Jennifer smells so pretty after a diaper change, don’t you want the house to smell like that all the time?’  ‘Jennifer said the nicest thing when I cut her sandwich, what age do you think is best?  I like twenty-four months.’  She’s been looking at guides online, trying to narrow down if she wants to feed baby food or finger food.”

 

Oliver nodded.  Olivier had a reputation and morality.  He had planted stakes in the ground on his radical attitude towards littles, at both the expense and advantage of his career.  Adoption would end all that.  It would be a betrayal of all he had stood for, and he would not survive the hypocrisy afterwards either professionally or intellectually.

 

“She was never like this before, but I think seeing you has kind of messed with her brain a bit.  I think, bear with me, this is bit out there.”  Olivier paused trying to get the words, “I think if I say no, she might take desperate actions.  I don’t know what will happen.”

 

“I’ll do anything to help, I can try talking with her, but it sounds like me being around us is not helping.” Oliver could offer hypnosis, but he was not sure Olivier would appreciate that.

 

“There is one thing that might.”  Olivier started sheepishly, placing his cards down, and then back up.

 

The small one did not have as much patience, “Go on?”

 

“No, I mean.  OK, just forget I brought it up.  I’ll find another,” Olivier mumbled.  He started fidgeting with the cards in his hand, shuffling them and flicking them.

 

“Hey, we’re the same.  It’s the same.  I grew up with this, you’re not used to it.  We’re the same person.  I spent a thousand hours with my friends on the playground going over every possible variation of this.  Let me tell you what all that debate came to, because if you sat down and did the same thinking you’d be right where I am.  It’s not weird at all.  Her feelings, your feelings, they’re perfectly normal, and if you’re thinking something I’m probably thinking it too, so just go ahead and lay the cards on the table face up.”

 

“We’re not perverts, we have not done anything perverted,” Olivier started defensively.

 

“If you don’t care, I wouldn’t care either, if it bothers you, sure it’d bother me, but you get over it, I’ll find a way understand.  I can’t hate you anymore than you already hate yourself.”

 

“We have a normal amount of sex.  She just, likes to have me dress up, like play pretend with it.”

 

Oliver was unsure of this, he knew Ben was a dork, and some of that dorkiness had rubbed off on Olivier over the years, but he was not prepared to consider that being married to Ai for fifteen years might have done to him.  Maybe the lady was a freak?  What exactly did they dress up as?

 

Olivier finally got to the point, “Do you know who the Freewindians are?”

 

Oliver had read his social studies book, “They live on an island, its big enough to be its own continent, and it’s in the south Pacific.  No Amazons are allowed, it’s a free republic.  People there are very laid back and friendly, but it’s a very dangerous place.  Giant bears will drop from the treetops and scoop you up, and they carry you in their pouches.”

 

Olivier was pretty sure ‘drop koalas’ were a myth, but it felt good Oliver had taken the time to learn about his world, and he wanted to encourage the boy for trying.

 

The giant encouraged him, “Right, right.  So, they are the most,” Olivier was careful, “they are a relaxed people.  I want to show you their prime minister.”  He fumbled with his phone from his pocket, then laid it on the table and after a second of searching found a picture.  The man had an aura of sophistication and eliteness typical of Presidents.  The top half had combed gray hair, lightly tanned complexion, dark red tie and blue overcoat and pressed white shirt.  From the waist down was another story.  Shorts, tall socks, and flip flops.  Replace the head with a boy’s and the prime minster could be mistaken for an eight-year-old at a prep school.

 

No one in Libertalia would ever be caught wearing such an outfit if they valued their maturity and independence.  The suit was a statement: I am a free man, if I want to dress like a child, I will do that, I do not need to prove myself to anyone.

 

“They spend their days on the beaches, enjoying the sun, surfing.  It’s a lovely place, and they have the strangest, most wonderful language and euphemisms.  Take those floppy clown shoes this guy is wearing.  They call them ‘jandals’.”

 

“No!” Oliver was shocked.  He had hoped he could establish relations with the Freewindians.  Allegedly they had survived for centuries outside of Amazon control, since before Unification.  They would need to have considerable resources and techniques to stand so long against the bigs.  Now he was not so sure, they sounded like an unserious people.  Maturosis was probably rampant there.

 

“I dress up in the suit and shorts and flip flops, and just before,” Olivier brought up his arms like a T-rex, “I pretend I’m shrinking down, and I say something like, ‘I’m turnin’ into a shrimp on the barbie.’”  He got quiet a second, “then you know, we do it.”

 

Oliver nodded, his face was as stiff as a palace guard, but he could feel the laugh deep in his chest.  This was not the weirdest sex thing he had ever heard of; Earthlings had all forms of debasement and indignities, and he had been on the internet.  The idea that something so lame was a taboo, that this was what Amazons considered to be a fetish, was exciting in its tameness.

 

“Let’s do it!” Oliver said excitedly and confidently.  His hands came together quickly.

 

“That wasn’t an invitation, I mean, I’m no it’s ridiculous, what are you proposing?”

 

“Look, we’re the same, and if you had grown up with Terra being a thing, you’d have come to the same conclusion I have.  It’s not cheating.  I’m you, you’re me.  It’s fine.  It’s one of the perks of the multiverse.  If we can make Ai have a great time, maybe it’s just what she needs to break out of her funk.”

 

“I don’t know, this is just weird, I’m sorry I shouldn’t have brought it up,” Olivier slouched a bit.  His mind tried to imagine the scenario, three people having an adult experience, two of which were him, and his mind kept short circuiting.  He could only see blobs and moving body parts.

 

“I’ll tell you what.  We’ll rock, paper, scissors for it.  If I win we do it, if I lose we drop it and play cards, sound good?”

 

For the first time in several days Oliver won the throw.  He did not want to tell his taller self that he had been letting the big win, how he could watch the subtle movements in the hands a half second before throwing and make a split decision, easy to do when you are reading hands twice as big and twice as slow as your own.  Olivier thought the game involved memorization and planning, but Oliver knew the trick, it is also about getting into the mind of your opponent.

 

 

* * *

 

Oliver was hiding under the bed, which felt ridiculous given its enormous size, still he was confident between the covers and blankets his vantage would not be found.  The bed was massive, twelve feet by eleven and almost five feet off the ground.  He had to wait for nearly fifteen minutes, as Olivier rounded up Ai and got her in the mood.  The sound past the door was muffled, and the floorboards quaked with the big’s movements.

 

“You’re sure they’re sleeping,” Ai whispered in the way giants did, her deep voice wafting down to Oliver’s position.

 

“At least a few more hours, this excites you, doesn’t it?  Knowing they’re here.  Knowing we can get do this while people are in the house?  It’s like when the girls where young again.”

 

“Do the accent,” Ai responded, Oliver watched as a massive blouse fell to the floor.

 

“Crikey!  Time to get your knickers off,” More clothing and niceties fell down.  Oliver glanced at the cup of Ai’s bra as it was thrown off the bed, its mammoth size would cover his whole head.

 

Under the weight of a two thousand pounds of humans, the mattress above Oliver smashed heavily towards the ground.  The small man rolled to avoid each pounce and slam of the bed.  He waited near the side of the bed, watching as it humped up and down.  He noticed the weights start to shift towards the back.

 

“I’m stoked, but what is this?  No.  I’m shrinking.  I’m turning into a little shrimp.  What are you doing to me?”  Olivier fumbled backwards a bit, and then scrunched up.  He feigned falling off the bed like a professional soccer player in injury.  He landed in a small heap on the ground next to Oliver.  The tall man reached out and grabbed the small one.  Oliver was wearing matching green shorts, and long brown socks.  He was the perfect match for his taller horny self.  The Amazon helped push Oliver onto the bed.

 

“Oiy, Sheila, love, I’m a bit of a drongo to-die, almost landed in the bush with that fall.  Let me get these daks off, and I’ll show ya a real knife,” Oliver tried his best to keep a serious demeanor.  Ai’s body was splayed out on the bedding, she was lost in her own fantasy.  Oliver removed his shorts and fell towards her.  There was not much room for foreplay, he simply hoped he could aim correctly, a tiny stick into a big hole.

 

“Oh God,” Ai screamed, her tossing nearly throwing Oliver off.  It was too real for her, since she was a teenage girl, it was the one fantasy she had carved repeatedly into her mind like a knife on a cutting board.  She was returning to the familiar grove, not just in her mind but in her senses.  Olivier never captured the idea right.  He did not understand that what she desired was the perversive idea of fucking a man, and as she fucked him, he would reduce in size.  A big turning into a little all through the transformative power of her sexuality.

 

It had finally happened.  A tiny appendage was raking the insides of her most sensitive spot, it was even smaller than when she would pretend with carrots and small fingers.  She looked up and could barely make out Oliver’s downward facing head, she moaned again, her eyes watered with sweat and excitement.  Ai needed this, with one arm she gently pushed down on Oliver’s back, helping dig his smaller body in.  She closed her eyes again; Olivier had never gone this far before.  It had never been this real before.

 

Her previous times with Olivier was typical of most sex among bigs.  There was some foreplay and fun, and then there was an explosion, and that was it.  It lasted a minute or two once the action started.  This was intense.  Thirty seconds had gone by, and her husband had still not done the deed.  Then sixty.  Ai was lost in her pleasure.

 

Every day since they had started babysitting Oliver, she had been thinking of this, the perverse possibility.  She now knew what her husband would look like if he was shrunk down, and she could easily pretend the man on her was as small as she desired.  The full force of fulfilling her deepest desire was coming to bear and she was lost in ecstasy.

 

Oliver did not last long by Earthling standards, though it was impressive for an Amazon.  He quietly dismounted from Ai’s sweaty body and rolled off the bed.  She was lost in a daze, barely noticing the small weight leaving her body and bed.  Oliver gave a thumbs up to his counterpart as he put on his shorts and quietly slipped out of the room.  Olivier came back up and entered the bed under the covers, a beaming smile on his face.

 

Ai started to cry, she turned to her husband and placed a long hand across his chest, “How could you do that?  You made it real; I need it to be real.”

 

He turned his head, her hair and face were a mix of sweat and tears, “It’s ok, you’ll be ok, I could tell you were a bit strung up since the boy got here, you just needed a good time to set yourself right.  I’m glad you had a good time.”

 

“I’m… I’m going to do it.  I’m going to shrink you for real.  I have the tools.  I need you as my baby.  I need you as my tiny person,” Ai had achieved her ultimate fantasy, and now she needed it again.  She needed a tiny Olivier in her life.  Olivier shook his head.

 

“I understand.  You want to be a mommy again,”

 

“I know you don’t want to adopt, but if I shrink you then it’s fine.  It won’t be your fault.  I can bring the equipment home.  You won’t even know it’s happening until it’s too late.”

 

Olivier kissed her on the nose, and gently held her head, “No, I don’t think so.  Remember this morning when the toilet wasn’t working?”

 

She nodded between huffs of tears, “You fixed it?”

 

“Of course, I just turned the knob back.  I had to taste though, just to be sure.” Olivier started to reveal his master plan.

 

“I don’t understand,”

 

“I’ll let you in on a secret.  We boys have a superpower.  You’re ovulating.  You want to be a mommy again; well, you’re going to be a mommy.  The old-fashioned way.”

 

“That’s impossible,” Ai pushed herself up, so she sat against the bed’s headboard, her mind was starting to clear up.

 

“And here I thought you were good at physics, nothing is impossible if you put your mind to it,” Olivier smirked.

 

Olivier had played a long game with Oliver, one where he had earned incremental advantages at every opportunity until finally leading to this game winning play.  He knew Olivier had ‘broken’ his rock paper scissors code early, and he let the boy think he was clever by choosing to lose to it.  Olivier was an expert at strategy, and he prided himself on never losing a game to the mirror match.  If there was one opponent you can learn to beat, it is yourself.

 

Seven months later, little Ollie Junior was born – seven months premature for the child of two Amazons, but otherwise a healthy baby.  Junior needed lots of help from mommy and daddy.  Potty training took three years.  He barely passed quantum physics in third grade.  Despite all the miracles of Amazon science, Junior skipped right over his first puberty, and he stopped short of seven feet by adulthood.

 

The boy was exactly what the couple wanted, someone Olivier could guide and mentor and share with, and a baby for Ai to dress up and adore.

 

Junior, despite his stature, was an Amazon, and he could pass as a little.  There are places on Amazonia where the giants are not allowed to tread.  There was an entire continent of babies pretending they could live without a mommy and daddy, and Ollie was the one born to rescue them.

[Operational Systems]

This is a long one.

Chapter 35 - All the stuff from way back when that's coming up don't self destruct.

 

19 Prairial Year CCXXXI, Potat, South Windland, Libertalia - Amazonia

 

It was in his second month on Amazonia that Oliver started to worry he had accomplished nothing.  On the one hand, he had significantly boosted his contacts and support network, and he had a good lead on nanotechnology.  On the other hand, what had he learned?  Thinking about what to put in his report, he was sure his team back on Earth would not be impressed by songs about recycling and the latest footwear fashions by those who lived in the land down under.

 

Oliver found himself on the floor of his stepmother’s living room on a sunny afternoon scribbling ideas on a large piece of paper.  Shamu kept watch close by, and soon the man started to lose himself drawing.  He had started drawing a picture of the globe, then a tiny Oliver in space holding a massive “Shrink Gun”.  Zig-zag rays were raining down and hitting tall people on the planet’s surface.  To the side Oliver had scribbled some pros and cons.

 

Pros: Doable (Max Distance? / Atmosphere?)

 

Cons: Would also shrink the smalls?

 

Oliver soon found himself casually filling in more and more of the drawing.  Distracted, he did not notice his new stepmother had entered the room and was casually watching him draw.  After a couple minutes, the presence of being watched came to Oliver and he looked up across the cavernous thirty feet to the woman who had taken up a spot on the couch.

 

“You don’t have to be here.  It’s your day off, right?  Like if you want to go to the store or the spa,” Oliver offered.

 

“Do you want to go to the store, Oliver?” Victoria’s voice was calm, and almost rhetorical in the question.  She was playing a game with him.

 

“No, I was just offering.  You know I’m actually an adult right, I can watch the house, and with your sister out with Ben, dad, this has to be like your first time all by yourself,” Oliver nearly fumbled the transition to dad.  He did not want to hint he wanted his new mother out of the house.  He had some phone calls he wanted to make, and maybe he could get out for an hour or two to run an errand, get a lay of the terrain, even set up some surveillance and monitoring.  Victoria was not making his job easy.

 

“You’re a very considerate boy, what I want is to just watch you.  I want to enjoy watching you be happy,” her hands were in her lap, she leaned back slightly, and a strong smile came across her face.

 

Oliver slammed his notebook, slipped the pen between the pages, and scrambled up.  He walked closer to the couch, “Can I ask you a question?”

 

She nodded, holding in a ‘you just did’ adults would often use to taunt children.

 

“What do you see when you look at me?  Like, how old?” Oliver smirked as he asked, he had clearly not learned the lesson from when he asked Ben the question.

 

“A man in his middle thirties pretending to be a small child,” She was quick in the response, and still flat and happy in her reply.

 

“Wait, really?” Oliver approached the couch, rounding a three-foot-tall wooden coffee table, before getting within a foot of the furniture.

 

“Of course, silly, you’re not a baby.  You’re not even one of the natives.  You’re from Earth, right?”  Oliver’s face took a confused look, and he resisted the urge to scratch his head.  Instead, with some difficulty, he propped himself up on the couch.

 

“You’re the first person in like a month, besides myself, who sees me as something other than six.  So, wait, not to get too egotistical.  I’m clearly something you’ve never encountered before, a man who has traveled and seen other worlds and cultures and people.  You know that, and even if you did see me as small or childlike, this is an amazing opportunity to talk to me or ask me about the grand mysteries of the universe.  If things were reversed, I’d take the time to listen to anyone, no matter how small, about their travels.  And you’re just, I don’t know, just sitting there.”  Oliver went off on her in his confused rant.  It was not trying to be rude; it was an attempt to elevate her curiosity, the chastisement as nothing more than an encouragement for her imagination.

 

“Tell me, Oliver, you traveler of other worlds.  Tell me of the See-beams off of Tannhäuser gate,” she said sweetly but sarcastically.  Oliver was not sure how to answer that.

 

“My parents were dimension explorers.  I know all about visiting other worlds and living under different suns.  They’d go out, find a world filled with littles, with their tiny cars and tiny trains, all their weird foods and ways of talking.  Not like here, those are littles who went their whole lives without the slightest hint of being babies.  I know about the good and the bad, your governments, your art, and your wars.  I just don’t really care all that much.  It is not where my interests lie.”

 

“Is that how they, um,” Oliver started but struggled with the exact phrasing.

 

“Oh, no, not at all.  Car crash.  Also, no more phone books for you, I got you a car seat.” Oliver nodded, at least that part of her history was similar to her counterpart.

 

“Oliver, here you go on about what I should be doing, and you know next to nothing about me.”

 

Oliver tried to defend himself, “That’s not true.  You teach at the local university, and I met your family,” He left out the part where he had seen her naked on Earth, that he knew she could not cook, and that she would laugh like a deranged chihuahua at a bad Adam Sandler movie.

 

“What do I teach?”  How is it that the bigs always had a plan, and always knew the answer to every question before they asked it?  Oliver scrunched his face and decided to be magnanimous in defeat.

 

“You’re right, I’m sorry, today is a great opportunity for us to bond and talk and get to know each other.  You deserve more of my attention, and it was rude of me to go off and start working today without focusing on what mattered.  Please accept my apology, I’d love to know about your work and what your research is on.”

 

Her mouth beamed like a shark moving in for a kill, “My research is technically in pediatric psychology, but I don’t really study people under the age of eighteen.  Sometimes for comparison or environmental purpose, but I study adults who happen to look like children.”

 

“Uh… I think I get it, so um, like depression and anxiety, and how our brains develop?”

 

“My focus is more on how to develop brains, make behavioral changes and reinforcement.  My department works with building better hypnotics.  We also study new drugs to improve happiness and help you guys realize your true potential,” Victoria had pride in her work, she had no shame at what she did.

Oliver scooched a bit on the couch away from the woman.  Victoria on Earth was, what, a school councilor?  He had not followed up on her after their brief time together fifteen years ago.  Her counterpart here was much more successful, having worked on such prestigious projects like ‘Naomi and Oliver’ and ‘Carpet Mice.’

 

Oliver’s eyes lingered around the room, looking at her impressive bookshelf towards the middle adjacent to the living room’s inner walls.  The first few times through the house, he had not seen it, but now sitting on the couch he could barely make out the top shelf, several large textbooks on psychology, the most prominent, -Applied Regression Analysis – by Doctor Montgomery was right on the end and fifteen feet off the ground – beyond Oliver’s reach.  The entire wealth of Amazonian knowledge on mind control, and it was just beyond his grasp.

 

“Well, I’m sure that’s an in-demand skill.  What… what were you working on, like, what would you be working on if I was not here,” Oliver tried to stay cool in the face of the danger.  Victoria seemed like she was not planning on doing anything to him.

 

“Kondratiev Waves,” she said, as if that should mean something to Oliver.

 

“Sorry?”

 

She grabbed the notebook he had brought over and flipped it open.  Oliver’s drawing of shrinking the planet was in prominent view, she paused on it a second before going to an empty page.  She began drawing a sinusoidal wave, tight at first, but the frequency kept getting further apart.  She drew a line straight through the middle and labeled it ‘Age’, then another boxed in the graph labeled “Cute.”

 

“As you know, babies are cute or not cute.  One minute you’re a cute one year old, the next you’re in your terrible twos, and what was cute one day is annoying and trying the next,” her finger was going along the wave, the amplitude was maximized at one and far negative at two.

 

“One of the things Kondratiev identified was that as babies age their cuteness waves get longer and longer.  We want to target an age where the child is stable, maximally cute rather than maximally uncute.  This is difficult when so much of what we do involves ratchets, and often in our frustration a new parent will just slam the child back to newborn.  That’s not ideal.  Newborns are cute, but they get very uncute very fast, and that’s too erratic.  We want something just slightly older.  My research was trying to estimate where these sweet spots will be and how to dial into the exact spots we want to hit on the curve.  We know, for example, boys and girls have slightly different curves, but we don’t quite know if each individual has their own cuteness wave.”

 

“Oh, so where do um, thirty-six-year-old boys fall on this chart.” Oliver asked with the same sarcastic tone she had given him earlier.

 

“Very not cute.  Six-year-olds as well, in case you wanted to try that.  See, you’re learning things already, Oliver.  If you had studied your Kondratiev, you’d know you picked a very bad age to pretend to be.”

 

“I can be,” Oliver stopped himself from saying it, “hmm, well, I’m sorry I disrupted your research.  It sounds important.”  Everything she had said sounded like a nightmare.  He hoped she did not expect him to put on outfits to see how cute he looked.  His new mommy did not need to know he looked handsome with daks and jandals.  He had gone out his way today to wear long khakis and a heavy polo blue shirt, just to keep himself from feeling too small.

 

She threw her arm around Oliver, dragging him back closer, “It’s OK, you’re very considerate Oliver, meeting you has pushed me in a new direction anyways.”  She winced slightly from pulling the smaller man closer.

 

“Are you OK?” Oliver was legitimately concerned; it sounded like she sprained something in the move.

 

“Just pain,” Victoria started rubbing her chest, “I’m sure it’ll go away.  The headache is pretty bad though, not sure which hurts more.”

 

“Do we need to get to a doctor, did you break something on your trip with dad?”  Oliver had given Ben his portal gun while he was off on his honeymoon, along with directions to an Earth that was uninhabited.  He wanted Ben to check out the Galapagos.  He knew they had spent a day hiking the island, but otherwise it sounded uneventful.  Ben did not even mention the finches when he came back.

 

“Oh no, nothing like that.  I’m just heavy up top.  We, um, I’ve weaned Jennifer off, but my body is still producing.”

 

Oliver put it together.  It had been a month since he had had it, but a part of him still wanted it.  He was cautious in showing interest, “You gave your sister, milk?”

 

“Of course, she’s a little, she needed it, I’m not any different than Mom.  Now that she’s getting older, we’re going to try weaning her off those things.”

 

An image flashed in Oliver’s mind, Jennifer sucking on her sister’s tits.  He bit his lip and shuffled his legs.  His pull-up got uncomfortably tighter.

 

“They’ve been heavy, and the leaking is the worst, I’ve stained a couple bras,” Victoria seemed at a loss.

 

“I um, maybe, um,” Oliver was not going to say it.  He could still remember the taste from Grace’s dinner.

 

“Oliver, we’re not close.  You might be my new son, but you’re also a complete stranger,” Victoria reminded him.

 

“You’re right, I’m sorry…” he was losing control.  He had just apologized for not sucking her tits.

 

Victoria pulled him closer, almost hugging, “Do you want to be the type of person that wants to be closer to me?  Do you want me to be the type of person that is closer to you?”

 

That shook the boy, he stared directly ahead across the long living room and thought of it.  There was only one polite answer.  It seemed horrible to tell your new stepparent you did not want to take an opportunity to be a better son.  Pressured, Oliver finally nodded.

 

“Good, I want us to be closer too.” Victoria affirmed, she shifted slightly on the couch and her breasts seemed to jiggle a bit, drawing Oliver’s eyes.

 

“You know what that stuff does, right?”  Oliver was not entirely sure.  The research project had only just started when he left.

 

“Hmm, oh we know,” She smiled, she began removing her shirt.

 

“Dad’s going to be OK with this?  Like, we’re best buds I don’t want him upset I’m…”

 

“Daddy is perfectly fine with this.  He wants you to be closer to me, he wants me to be closer to you.” Her arm brought Oliver up on her legs, carefully resting the boy on her right thigh.  She pulled the bra fabric on her right breast down and under to let it snap under her breast.  The heavy weight jiggled.  Oliver’s eyes locked on the nipple, two thirds an inch long and an inch in diameter, with a three-inch areola surrounding it.  It sprung like a basketball hoop from Victoria’s preparations.

 

“I don’t want to hurt you,” Oliver needed to get out of this.  This was going too fast.  She should have gone with a sippy cup, or a bottle, first.  Some intermediate step?

 

“It would hurt me more if you didn’t,” her voice was practically singing.

 

“I don’t know what to do,” Oliver hung his head in shame.

 

“It’s OK, just do what feels right, your body remembers even if your mind does not,” Victoria started turning him, and placed her hands against the back of his head.  She easily began to lift him up, one hand supporting his neck and shoulders.  “Yawn,” she commanded him.

 

This is fine, it is just milk, it is just what people do here, Oliver tried to soothe himself, his head came back slightly, and his nose was aligned with her nipple.  There was nothing to see, just the window behind the couch and waves of flesh, and a small amount of heat was coming off her body.  He opened his mouth wide and then felt himself pressing into the areola.  Victoria’s other arm came down held up her breast firmly under Oliver’s chin.  He could feel the flesh squeezing in, past his teeth and resting gently towards the back of his mouth.  Oliver’s nose squished against the orb, he could smell her sweat and perfume, and this close it was relaxing.

 

The milk was like a wave, warm, slow ambrosia barely touching his tongue and filling his senses.  In an instant his mind wandered.  The wave was not just in his mouth, it was past him, gently rippling across the walls, through his new mother’s body and then through him.  Oliver’s eyes caught the strange shift of the light and understood the odd occurrence too late.  His mind pulled back in memory to something Eskender had mentioned once.

 

A Mandela wave.

 

It was too late for Oliver, and his body and mind found themselves lost in time.

 

* * *

January 19^th, 1991, Davenport, Iowa, Earth

 

“A hero’s welcome awaits the Bee fifty twos from the Three Hundred Seventh Bomb Wing here in Barksdale.  These bombers have just completed a non-stop flight from Louisiana to Iraq and back and had the privilege of firing the opening shots of the war.  The fourteen-thousand-mile mission, at thirty-five hours, is the longest bombing raid ever completed in history, and an impressive display of America’s global reach and capabilities.”

 

“Bee fifty twos!” Oliver jumped, watching the b-roll footage of a jet plane coming down for a landing.  The room was dark, the lighting a smudgy yellow color, and the television was an old boxy kind.  He turned his head to get a grip of his surroundings.  He was not sucking milk, and he was not on Amazonia.

 

There was an old blue couch with flowers, and an ugly brown lounge chair next to it.  Below his feet was a small rug, littered with various toys, blocks, action figures, and a stuffed turtle.  Even his clothes were different.  This morning, he had gone with a simple blue tee shirt and jean pants.  Now he was wearing soft blue, nearly white jean overalls, and a red undershirt.  His movements caused a stray bang to fall in his eyes, and he blew a gust of air at the light blond hair to get out of his vision.  He felt a soft cool dampness in the air and could hear the stomping of feet on the floor above him.

 

Everything was big.  Like Amazonia.  He recognized the couch.  This had to be his old house, from before his parents moved.

 

“I’m freaking out.  It’s the milk.  Some weird hallucination, or a trip.  Like eLl eSs Dee?  EMm Dee eMm Aye?”  Oliver looked down at his hands, they were tiny.  He did not notice when a giant entered the room.  The television turned off and Oliver directed his attention to it, watching the light on it fade to a line and then a dot.  He turned his head and saw her.

 

She was taller than him now.  Last time he saw her he had a few inches on her, but now she was twice his height.  Her hair was short, but also layered, almost shaggy, while voluminous and choppy.  The color was natural and strong, a mix of gold, red, and yellow.  She wore a heavy sweater that hid many of her features.

 

“Hey mom,” Oliver was even more confused.  This was not what he was expecting.

 

“Your show’s over, no more television,” she started, before reaching down and picking the boy up.  He came up under her arm and found himself staring directly in her face.  He could feel her warmth, even smell her.  He missed this smell.

 

“This is freaking me out right now,” Oliver tried, his eyes and head darting back around the room.

 

Her face wrinkled and she touched his head with her other hand, “Oliver, are you sick?  What’s wrong?”

 

“I might have taken something I shouldn’t have.  I’m back in the past.  My mind is all the way back to nineteen ninety-one, our old house in Iowa.  Why am I here?  I’m all tiny, and everything is big.”

Her hand came up and touched his forehead, “You don’t have a fever,”

 

“There are only two possibilities.  I’m still on the couch in twenty twenty-three, or I’ve gone back in time for real.  Oh, I know how to solve this.  Mom,” Oliver spoke it trying to get her attention.

 

“Are you telling a story, Oliver?  Something you saw on Tee Vee?”

 

“Mom, answer this.  If I’m actually in the past, you can prove I’m here by telling me something you’d never tell me.”

 

She frowned, Oliver was especially coherent for a four-year-old, but also nothing he was saying made sense, “What are you talking about?”

 

“My brain can’t make up something I don’t know, so if you tell me something you’d never tell me that means this is real, but since you can’t that means it’s all in my head.  Good, that’s fine, this will all be fine in a bit.”  Oliver began to relax in her arms.

 

“You’re silly my little Nostradamus.  If you want to pretend you’re from the future go ahead and tell me tomorrow’s lottery numbers.  Hmm?” She smiled again, enjoying his game.

 

Oliver held up his small hand and went through the fingers one by one, “Facebook, Apple, Amazon, Netflix, Google.  Though all those companies were bad in the nineties, in fact, most don’t exist yet.  I never knew why Microsoft isn’t in that group though.  Microsoft is doing very good.”

 

“Excuse me?”

 

“Ha, this is great, remember in, um two thousand, I had that class in middle school, we had to pick five stocks and track them.  I put everything into tech stocks, like pets dot com.  I was riding high and then by April the bubble popped and I was dead last.  The teacher had me stand in front of the class and give a report to save my grade.  ‘You’re no Charles Schwab, Oliver.’  I had to give a report on index funds for extra credit.  I think he just liked taking the smarty pants kid down a peg, use me as a lesson for the others.  Do you remember that teacher’s name?  He had a bald spot right here, and that mustache.”

 

Oliver’s mother stopped and just stared at her son, confused.  He had become possessed by a demon.  She kept quiet.

 

Oliver ignored his mother’s silence and kept talking, “This is before Terra shows up.  That was the Gulf War on Tee Vee, and then Terra comes after Christmas ninety-one, just after the Soviet Union collapses.  What a banger year, this is just before everything changes.  There are weeks of history where decades happen.”

 

“Anyway, um, I don’t remember this house, was there a bathroom in the basement?  Man, this is a weird dream, I’m even feeling I need to go.  I hope I’m not losing it in the real world.” Oliver stopped talking and started looking at his hands.  They seemed to waver a bit in and out of focus as he waved his tiny fingers.

 

That was enough for her, her grip tightened, and she pulled him into her chest.  Oliver’s mother bonded with him up the stairs and to the nearest bathroom.  His overalls were flipped off as they ran, she pulled them down and exposed his bottom.  With a swift movement a lid was up, and Oliver was sitting on a comfortable seat.  The boy kept his balance on the chair by gripping one side with his hand.  His mother took a few steps back and smiled, waiting for Oliver.

 

The boy closed his eyes, trying to ignore the presence of another person in the room, he muttered to himself, “None of this is real.  You’re in your head.  You’ll wake up shortly.”  He began to tinkle, a small stream of droplets falling into a large bowl.  He took a moment to shake, and when he was satisfied, slowly pushed himself off the chair.

 

“You did it Oliver!” She got closer to him and started helping him put the clothing back on.

 

“You know mom, I always wondered, why’d you guys only have one kid?” Oliver was asking the shadow of his memory.  There was not much point, the shadow would only know what Oliver knew.

 

“I don’t know, do you want a sibling?” She tried turning the question back.  Oliver shrugged, of course his memory would not know the answer to that, he did not know it.  He thought for a bit and then tried again.  There was only one reason for his mind to bring himself here, and that was to assuage his guilt.

 

“I figured it out.  I’m pretty sure the reason I’ve chosen to think of you here and now is because you’re my mom, and what we have here is special and important to me.  You’re my real mom, and I can’t replace that.”

 

Oliver sighed slightly, “I just met this woman, and not everything is great, but she wants me to start calling her mommy.  She wants to baby me, feed me, dress me up, and treat me in certain ways.  Um, mom, I need to know, if I call her mommy does that undermine what we have?  Like this?  Like, this moment, this thing we shared, this is what I cherish.  I need to be able to have this woman in my life too, and I want to make sure I’m not hurting what we have here.”

 

She lifted her son up and helped him with the soap, listening to his rant.  When he finished washing, she got in close behind him and answered, “Of course not sweetie, your dad calls me mommy and he still loves grandma.”

 

Every part of Oliver’s body grew stiff, his hands were cold and wet, not just from the washing, but from a layer of sweat starting to build.

 

“Cloth by the way,” She snuggled closer, his breathing intensified for a few breaths before slowly calming down from the hug from his mother.

 

There was only one explanation, his mind was bleeding his experiences in the diaper dimension into his memories of the past.  He calmed down, the trip would be over soon, might as well have fun with it.

 

“Is that so?  If you’re his mommy, doesn’t that mean you should decide things like, is he eating healthy enough, or getting enough exercise.”

 

“We haven’t gone that far, but now that you mention it.,” A bemusing smile came to her face.

 

“He has something naughty in his sock drawer.  He hides them in the ugly Christmas socks.  Surely his mommy can think of a few nicer things to go in his mouth than those,” Oliver tried bringing his hands up.

 

She nodded and then brought him in close before kissing him on the top of his head.  Every part of his body felt warmth and love, and it filled him from his fingertips to his toes to his forehead.  The waves came quicker this time, and he was ready.

 

Oliver closed his eyes and felt flesh pull out of his mouth.  The trip into his memories ended.

 

 

19 Prairial Year CCXXXI, Potat, South Windland, Libertalia – Amazonia

 

“There’s my baby boy.  You’re hungry today aren’t you,” she pulled Oliver off the breast and started to shake him a bit up and down.  Oliver brought his hand up to his mouth and rubbed drippings off his lips.  The fingers were still fading in and out, the world was not coming into focus.  Looking up he saw doubles of Victoria that seemed to warble in the bright afternoon sunlight.  A sharp buzz floated past his temples, only mellowing after Oliver forced up a burp and a hiccup.

 

“Woah, momma.”  Victoria seemed pleased by his statement, even if Oliver had not intended it towards her.

 

“Oliver, that was wonderful, but before we get to the next step, I thought I’d take a moment to just see how you’re feeling.  I will ask you a few questions.  Mommy to baby, there is no barrier between us, and no secrets.  When we share like we just did, we’re one, nothing will be between us.” Victoria’s words had an echo to them, like Oliver was hearing them from another room or down the hall.

 

“I was all tiny, and everything is big now,” Oliver tried to comprehend where his mind had gone.  The dream felt real, the real now feels like a dream.

 

“Let’s start with an easy one.  What do you want to be Oliver, when you grow up?  Like what occupation do you think best fits you.”  Victoria liked asking this question of littles.  It always took them off kilter, unsure how to answer.  Do you admit you still dreamed you could grow up more, to become an adult and get the fantasy job you always wanted?

 

The milk was a truth serum, not just a relaxing nutritious snack.  That side effect he had pleasantly ignored, hoping it would not come up, in his desire to feel the smooth liquid again.  Oliver regretted his decision to drink it.  His mouth betrayed him.

 

“Spy.  I am a spy.  From Earth.” Oliver was unable to stop himself, if there was one person who did not need to know about his secret mission, it was his new mommy.

 

“Oh, oh no that won’t do at all.  Spy is too dangerous,” She corrected him, like he said he wanted to get a motorcycle or join the circus.  “What’s something nice you can do?”

 

Oliver thought for a bit, his head was mush, concepts smeared together.

 

Spy; James Bond; Sean Connery; Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade.   Indiana was kind of like a James Bond, but he took secrets from the past.

 

“Archy all oh gist,” his mouth had a goopy feeling, his tongue wanted to do its own thing now, and only with difficulty could he maneuver to hit all sounds.

 

“Archaeologist!  Oh honey,” she maneuvered him a bit in her arms, bringing him up and then back down, as if in celebration, “Daddy’s going to be all excited, you want to be just like him!”

 

“I want… I wanna, find ancient treasure and fight mummies and disarm traps.”

 

Victoria’s attitude took a sharp turn, her tone was melodic but disappointed, and with a smile she gave him new directions, “No, no, no, field work is too dangerous.  You’re too little for that.  But you can still be a big important archaeologist.  What if you had an office at the university and a team of people under you who would go out and do field work for you.”

 

Oliver imagined himself at a desk, sending out e-mails, and attending meetings that went over budgets and discoveries.  It was familiar, and all too easy to visualize.

 

“And they’ll bring back all sorts of neat things and you’ll catalogue it all and write up what you think, and you’ll submit your reports, and if people like them maybe you’ll get them published.”

 

Wait a second!  This was just his old job.

 

“The most dangerous thing you’ll ever do is fly to another museum and look at their stuff, and then you’ll quickly come back home to mommy and daddy.”

 

No!  I wanted to be a spy.

 

The blocks were moving, if not in his own head, then in his new parents’.  They would nudge him, encourage him, and help him build this new cover identity.

 

Victoria’s face twisted with a grin.  She was satisfied with the outcome of the question; Oliver was ready for a real interrogation.  “Let play a quick game.  You’re going to tell me two secrets, and I have to guess if it’s a big secret or a little secret.”

 

“Secrets?”  Oliver could not hold in his debit PIN if she asked for it.  He quickly spurt out the first thing to come to his mind, and hoped it was not too important, “I like Jennifer.  I’m going to marry her.”

 

Oliver did not like hearing that, sure Jennifer was attractive and fun to be with, but marriage?  Did he even like her?   His mind was completely milk soaked.

 

“Oh, that’s so sweet.  You too are so cute together, are you going to elope?” Victoria teased him.

 

“Sure,” Elope, Antelope, Oliver was not sure what he was saying.

 

“Can I come to the wedding?”

 

“Sure,” Oliver agreed without thinking.

 

“Well, that’s not much of a secret wedding then.  Now you have to give a big secret.  How about something about Earth.  Like, if I wanted to visit sometime, what sort of defenses does Earth have?  Just the first thing that comes to your mind about Earth.”

 

Now’s the time James Bond Junior, Goldfinger’s strapped you to the table, and a laser’s coming at your face.  Choose your next words carefully.

 

“Vicky, I’m sorry, after Ben died, I tried to make it work.  I really did, but you had needs, and I couldn’t meet them, or maybe I wasn’t ready to meet them.  I think I was just too guilty about having survived or maybe wrapped up in my own head and goals.  It was not just me though, you were too demanding, and weird.  You made sex too weird.  I know I should have spoken up more, but by the time I figured out what was wrong with us, it was past the point of repairing things.  We never could have made it work.  I’m glad you found Ben again, he’s, just the most amazing perfect person for you in every way and I’m so happy you are happy with him.”

 

Victoria was well aware of the properties of milk, but this was something she never experienced before, she tried to get Oliver back on track, “Oliver, what’s this got to do with Earth?”

 

“Do you remember our song, Vicky?” Oliver started to move his head back and forth, lost to a melody only he could hear.

 

“No, Earth to Oliver.”

 

“Doors and windows break, but not this melody,” Oliver had no sense of tone, he dragged out melody like a slinky.  “These not-so-subtle signs, this house can’t make us stay.”

 

“Oliver please don’t sing,” Victoria tried waving in front of him.

 

“Remember that house, that ugly thing, oh man, we thought we got a steal after the housing bubble popped.  What were we thinking?”  His singing resumed, “Sometimes these things just fall apart!”

 

Victoria started elevating Oliver back up.  She was not certain if he had gotten too much milk or too little, but he needed to be shut up.  She started moving the other bra under her breast.

 

“I’m just glad you didn’t play it at the wedding Victoria, it means a lot to me you’ve been keeping it cool since Ben came back.  I haven’t told him we had a thing, and I don’t know if how he’d handle it.”

 

Oliver’s eyes got bigger, “Oh hey boobie.”

 

There was another wave that crest over both.

Breast feeding is a wonderous biological phenomenon.  It is not just about the delivery of food to an infant; it is a source of communication between the mother’s body and the child’s.  Whatever the baby needs, the mother’s body will provide.  Oliver’s body sent strange new signals through Victoria.  Something to let his new mommy know just what he needed.

 

* * *

 

1 Fructidor Year CCXXXVIII, Potat, South Windland, Libertalia – Amazonia

 

“The surprise assault by Yamatoan forces easily pushed back the limited resistance offered up by the Sing-a-lings.  The Yamatoan fleet, led by the imperial warship ‘eye whY Aye’ Nippon, overpowered through pitched defenses.  Just after four this morning imperial soldiers forced their way into the capital building and captured the last holdouts of the civilian government.  The unprovoked attack on the once free port has driven strong outcry from the international community.  The Freewindian Prime Mini…” Screech.

 

The source of the sound, a radio in another room, stopped mid-sentence.  Victoria looked down, she did not recognize the long white dress she was wearing, or the kitchen she was in.  The table she sat at the head of was a long wooden piece and led to a door to a back porch overlooking a large yard.  Her eyes wandered the room, fruit was in baskets.  A wooden fan dark in color whirled above her, and on the plate below her was a quarter of a banana and a third of a muffin.  She turned her head about the unknown room and saw another person.

 

A woman.

 

No, this was a child.  Five years old?  Ten years old?  She had not seen an actual child in a while.  She had Victoria’s hair, and the child had let it hang down.  The girl’s attention was to a set of paper and books in front of her, which she tapped annoyingly at with her pencil.  She was dressed in khakis and white shirt school uniforms Victoria recognized as belonging to an elementary school in the city.

 

“Where am I?” Victoria started to ask, her voice quaking slightly out of concern.  The child stopped and turned her head to address the giant.

 

“Are you,” she did not continue the question, interrupted by another entering the room, “Hey bro!  Looking snazzy.”

 

Oliver entered the room with confidence, he was wearing a blue suit, and a tie just like the vice rector.  He looked to Victoria like a boss baby.  He came up to the gal at the end of the table, and looked at her homework, and he then he wrapped a short arm around her.  The girl had a couple inches height on Oliver.

 

“You’re getting too big, you know that?  Pretty soon I’ll be the little brother,” Oliver commented, Victoria watched the siblings share a tender moment, it was everything she wanted as a mother.

 

“Today’s a big day for you, are you nervous?” the girl asked, concerned.

 

“I’ve faced far worse dangers than a bunch of college freshmen.  Thank you though.  How about you, how’s the new school year going?”

 

“This new math class has me beat.  They won’t let us use calculators.  How am I supposed to figure out any of this?” She emoted her frustration with a look of concern over her homework.  Victoria turned her head slightly and saw what looked like a question about a triangle.

 

Oliver held up a finger and then reached into his suit jacket.  Out came a long piece of plastic from his inner pocket.  “This is what I used on Terra when the computers didn’t work.  Have you ever seen a slide rule?”

 

The Amazon child reached out and grabbed the flat stick and held it up to her mother.  “A gift, um… what is it?”

 

Oliver gave a small laugh and replied, “I’ll go over the basics in the car.”

 

Victoria finally found the courage to speak up, “Um, Oliver, where’s Benjamin?  Where’s Jennifer?”

 

The girl started responding, “At the obst…”

 

Oliver interrupted her, “Dad took her to the doctor; she has an appointment,” the boy shifted topics, “We’re still on for our lunch, right?  I have something important to tell you.”

 

Before Victoria had time to respond, another wave came over the world, shifting, warping, and stretching.  Everything was paused in movement and sounds lingered without shifting in tone or pitch.  Lights and colors smeared and then morphed back into shapes.  Victoria wanted to vomit but held it in.

 

“The one thing about campus food, only the chicken is good,” Oliver’s voice came to her.  She took a deep long breath, and it helped the world shift into focus.  Victoria easily placed these smells and sounds; it was lunch time at the student recreation center, they were in the cafeteria.  She did not eat here often.  Below her was a bowl of salad, and across from her Oliver had a plate with a single slice of pizza.

 

“Why’d you get the pizza then?” Victoria inquired.

 

“The pizza is ready right now.  Besides, you know me, I’ll eat bad pizza any day of the décade,” Oliver smiled.

Victoria was not sure what was going on, one moment she was on a couch, the next she was in a strange dining room, and the next she was on campus.  Not once in her years of nursing Jennifer had anything this strange ever happen.  She must have fallen into a lucid dream, exhaustion from the wedding combined with the new feelings of her new son on her chest leading to this strange reality.  She forked up her lettuce and brought it to her mouth, the salad tasted slightly old, and flat.  She picked at a single banana pepper and chewed it slowly; the strong acid coated her tongue, and she swallowed the piece.

 

“How was your first day back?  Same old same old?”  Her small son was showing her curiosity and attention.

 

She had no answer to that, she mumbled, “Fine.”

 

“I thought today would be weird.  That the students would be distracted or even have to fight someone off, but they were just bored.  That’s fine.  I can deal with that.  I was way too overprepared, but I think they learned something.  Even had someone come up after class saying he thought dad was supposed to be teaching, but I think he is still excited for what my class will offer him.”

 

Victoria kept quiet, what a strange idea, Oliver teaching a class of Amazons.

 

“I need to tell you something.  It’s a secret,” Oliver gave a wicked grin, “Remember how we used to play big secret little secret.  Let’s do that again.  I’ll say the secret and you have to guess if it’s big or not.”  Victoria perked up, finally, maybe he would tell her what she wanted to hear about Earth.

 

“Telemachus.”  Oliver put his hands on the table flat, as if the word should mean something.

 

“Odysseus’s son?”  Her mind flashed to a book by Fénelon that Benjamin had in his office.  Amazonian memory was sharp, a face, a name, or a word could be recalled years later with ease.  Here though the reference was lost to her.

 

“I was thinking to keep with the theme, for, ’Aunt Penelope.’  Cousin too, I guess.  Which takes preference, the mom or the dad?” Oliver looked down at his plate, and then up at Victoria, smiling.

 

“Jennifer’s pregnant?”  Her sister and Oliver?  She put the fork down, “I’m not ready for this, Oliver.  This is too big.”

 

“Oh, that’s the small secret.  Point for me.  Here’s number two, ‘Collins.’” Oliver was enjoying his game, Victoria’s mind wandered, then shrugged.  Benjamin’s old student.  This was a distraction.  Oliver had just told her she was going to be a grandmother.  Today was her first day with her new son and now she could see the edges of the arc, the long goal of him growing up.  It was scaring her.  She wanted her baby forever.

 

Victoria did not know why the word popped in her head, “Twins?  Oliver, what’s going on, this is, we were having a nice moment, mother to son and now everything has moved too fast.”

 

“Nope, still the small secret.  Two for two.”  He looked sadly at his pizza, poking at it slightly with a fork.  “Jennifer wants to raise them on Earth.  With all that’s going on, she is not sure it will be safe here for them.”

 

Her baby was leaving?  Jennifer was leaving?  “What about your job, Oliver?  What about your family?”

 

“I have family on Earth, too.  Plus, with what I’ve learned here, I would be a rock star on Earth.  A real Jane Goodall.  Come see the boy who lived with the giants for ten years.  Just being able to talk about how dad and I helped you guys discover evolution and the impact here would be incredible,” Oliver shrugged, like he could not even convince himself, “I don’t know, I’ve still got a lot to do here, and we’ve got time to change her mind.”

 

“You can’t leave, I need my baby boy,” Victoria was adamant.  Her first real day as a mommy and now she was living a nightmare, one day her boy would grow up and start his own family and move on.

 

Oliver nodded in acknowledgement, “Mom, I understand, but maybe this might change your mind.  Here’s the actual big one.  Dad doesn’t even know about this.  I was working on a set of documents from the Atlantis era and came across something important.  Are you aware of the lysine contingency?”

 

Victoria was starting to get upset with her dream, she was a grandmother.  She was an aunt.  Lysine?  Maybe she was having a stroke?  Could Oliver have done something on the couch, maybe he was hurting her?

 

“It was something Michael Crichton invented for Jurassic Park, the dinosaurs had a genetic flaw introduced, so if they ever escaped the island, they would not be able to process food and would die,” Oliver started explaining, “The Nitz did something similar when they altered your species’ code.  Not, lysine, it’s, um.  It’s related to the fecundity issue.  We small ones produce certain chemicals, and your bodies respond.  Sync up if you will.”

 

“Oliver, I’m not following.”

 

“It was so your bodies would be ready to produce what we need.  It’s to make sure there will be a second generation of servants ready for the littles, and your population is kept in check for us to manage.”

 

Servants?  Changes?  She looked down at her body, everything was out of focus and shifting, but everything seemed the same.

 

“This is a fanciful story for a boy with a grand imagination,” Victoria tried to be authoritative, to regain some control of the dream.

 

Oliver ignored her, “You and Jennifer are synced up.  When she got pregnant, your body picked up those hormones and started making some changes, and you and dad have been uh.  Well, how do I say this.”

 

No.  The secret was too big.  She should not know how this worked.  Oliver was manipulating her, tricking her.  She would punish the boy just as soon as they were back on the couch.  The sounds and tones of the lunch cafeteria started to become one long tone.  Her eyes could no longer focus, just blurs of colors, as ripples cascaded through the walls, floors, and tables.  Her salad became a sandwich.  Oliver’s pizza became mac and cheese.

 

“Mom, I’m sorry, but I think you’re preg…”

 

She was back in her house.  Her real house.  A strong tugging sensation was coming from her left breast.  It was pleasant, fun, almost relaxing.  She looked down at Oliver in his red shirt and long overalls.  Her baby boy!  He was never going to grow up and move away.  She would do anything to keep that nightmare future from coming about.

 

She would just have to convince Benjamin that Oliver wanted to be a little boy, that the boy needed a bit more love and attention.  She would just have to find a way to work his goals with Oliver in with what she wanted.  Her mind started to work on a plan.

 

Oliver was unaware of this.  Victoria’s mind may have gone to the future, but it is all physics.  One body moves forward, the other moves backward.

 

* * *

 

March 12th, 2004, Council Bluffs, Iowa, Earth

 

Oliver looked down at the paper he had been holding.  He had parked his car in his parents’ drive and had been sitting there for a few minutes.  He remembered when he wrote this, the handwritten paper with a list of arguments for why joining the air force academy was a great idea.  The paper had several bullet points, and possible counter arguments from his parents.

 

“Ghost of Christmas Past!  How dare you show me this day!” He shouted.

 

Oliver did not want to relive this.  He remembered coming home from school early.  His dad’s health had been declining, and Oliver had braved his darkened room.  It was one of the last times he had been with him.  Oliver could feel the pressure building behind and under his eyes, as he thought back on that smile on his father’s face and his weak attempts to voice approval.  The last time Oliver was here, he did not even need to go down the list.

 

The boy tightened his hand into a painful fist and then folded the paper in half and pocketed it.  Whatever reason his mind was drawing him here; he would fight it.  He would face his inner demons and become stronger for it.  Oliver’s took a long breath of air, and he pushed himself out of the car to his old family house.

 

He entered the front hall quietly.  He did not want to wake his dad prematurely.  The smells of his parents’ house caused the fuzzy edges of the vision to come into focus.  As he removed his shoes carefully Oliver noticed something was off.  His ears were picking up a loud continuous thumping and whirring of a motor in the basement.

 

Curious he started slowly down the steps, rather than directing himself to his parents’ room.  There should not be anyone else home.  The thumping stopped as Oliver came to the last stair.

 

His dad was not in bed.  He was not tied to a machine.  He was breathing hard, and he looked lithe, but his whole body had a light tan, and his face and hair were wet.  Oliver watched as he chugged a long gulp from a sports bottle.  He was clean shaven, like Oliver’s early memories of the man, and wore just a simple white t-shirt.  Oliver’s dad did not notice his son enter the family room; his attention was on the television.

 

“Don’t get up.  Cyberchase is coming up next,” Oliver heard from the television as he approached.  Whatever shadow of the past his mind was dragging up, it bore no bearing to anything Oliver remembered.  He did not even remember this television, which looked like a plasma display, or this bright white couch.  Oliver came over the stiff back side and tapped his father on the shoulder.

 

The man jumped, not expecting another person to be in the house.  He scrambled his body up and reached quickly to his side.  In a smooth motion a pillow came over on his lap.  Oliver was not paying attention as his father’s face was turning a bright red, his eyes were drawn to the treadmill his father had just finished using.  The basement was cluttered with furniture Oliver had never seen before, white couches, a darkly painted wooden electronics council, and tall bookcases in the corner.

 

Oliver turned back to his dad, “I um, need to tell you something.”

 

Oliver’s dad regained his posture, “I wasn’t watching, just,” he fumbled with the remote to turn off the cartoon.  “Why are you here Oliver?  Shouldn’t you be in school?”

 

Oliver started coming around the couch and then found a spot next to his father, “Just a partial day today.  Sorry if I worried you.  I um, made a decision about where I want to go to school, and” Oliver was not sure why he was nervous.  His dad had given him his blessing, he was proud his son knew what he wanted to do with his life, “Dad, I’m going to the Air Force Academy.”

 

“Like flying planes?”

 

“I, yes, they have the planes,” Oliver was not sure he needed to tell his dad what he really did.  His job was to push the button.

 

“Oh…” Oliver’s father’s face turned to a frown.

 

“I, um, yeah, I know what I want to do and where I want to be, and it’ll be great.  Got my whole life ahead of me, and it’ll be great.”

 

“Oliver, I’m not sure.  It doesn’t seem like a good fit for you.”

 

Wait.  His dad was supposed to tell him he was proud of him and that he would be happy whatever he did.  Oliver fumbled towards his pocket to find the list of talking points.  His hand came up empty.  He had dropped it when he had gotten down to untie his shoes.

 

“Oliver, you know your mom is, well, I get we have been keeping this a bit of a secret we didn’t want it to go to your head, but you don’t have to join the military.  You can go anywhere you want, and she’ll pay for it.  You can even stay here for a few years if you want some more time to find yourself.  Maybe go on a trip to Europe or Asia?”

 

Oliver kept quiet, unsure of how to fight this.

 

“If you could go anywhere, where would you go Oliver?  Anywhere on Earth.”

 

“The Air Force.  I need, I’m supposed to join, and then, I fly the Bee fifty twos.  I go to Terra…”

 

“Oh… that’s what this is about.  You want to go off world.  Oliver, remember a couple years ago I said I needed to quit my job due to health issues.”

 

Oliver nodded.

 

“Well, that was just something mom and I thought would make it easier for family and friends to accept, but really, mom just wants me to stay at home and be happy.  Oliver, you can aim higher, I want you to be the best you can be.  What about Georgetown, you can join their eye-aRe department, get an internship at State.  Whatever you want to do, whatever will make you happy.”

 

It was tempting, something was wrong though.  This was not how it had happened.  His dad had been sick, his mom had struggled, and he needed to move on and out.  Now he was being offered an alternative, a better past, one where everything he had ever dreamed of was available to him.  Oliver looked at his hands confused; everything was out of focus again.

 

The room darkened to pitch black.  There was just the couch and himself.   His dad was gone.

 

“Oliver,” it was a girl’s voice.  Oliver turned and saw her sitting on the couch to his right, opposite where his dad had been.  The girl in the white dress was of about five years of age and had soft Asian features.    Her eyes were big and curious, and green, the hair a soft auburn which was long, a fourth the way down her back.  Oliver did not want to say all Asian women looked a like, but her face and chin reminded him of Grace.

 

“You’re being offered a choice.  A chance to go back and live the life you always wanted.  To get everything you always desired,” the star child spoke.

 

“Someone else would push the button,” Oliver tried to justify his decision.

 

“Someone else would fill your roll, but no one else will do Collin’s job.  If you do not join the Air Force, Necessary Evil will crash over Nevada.  The bomber does not get through.”

 

“You don’t…  Why am I being shown this?”

 

“You’re still on the couch.  The dimension is fighting you.  It’s afraid of you.  Space and time are offering you a chance to live in a world where you will have everything you ever want.”

 

Oliver looked around the void, “Who are you?”

 

“I can’t go much farther back; I can only reach you here because you’re still anchored to twenty twenty-three.  This is a critical moment.  If you go down this other path, the time of monsters will come.  A hundred thousand worlds will burn.”

 

It was too much.  The fate of the world should not rest on the decision of one person, choosing to act selfishly.  Oliver should be allowed to be happy.  A man should be allowed to hold petty grudges, to pursue petty desires, even if the fate of billions rested on them.

 

History had taught him otherwise.  History was not shaped by great men doing great things, but by weak men in the right place and time allowed to be themselves at their worst.

 

Oliver nodded.  He knew what he had to do, the colors and sounds of the late winter morning in Iowa returned.

 

“Dad, I get it.  I’m your and mom’s baby, but I’m all grown up now and I need to start making my own decisions, and my own mistakes.  If this is wrong, then well, I’ll come crawling back, but please, just let me have this one thing.  I need to make it for myself out in the world, find my soul mate, and I know you know it too.  I want you to be proud of me, but I want to earn it.  I want you to have pride in me for what I do and for becoming the great person you raised up.”

 

“I don’t want you to go,” Oliver’s dad was struggling to hold his emotions in.  Oliver moved in closer and held his arms out, his dad came in for a hug.  Oliver could feel the padded cloth stuffed through his father’s workout shorts and could smell the soft hint of powder.

 

Oliver understood finally.  The dimension was trying its hardest to attack him, but it could only do so through its own biases.  This was not how he remembered his dad; this was his dad as a baby – a baby brother upset his older brother was going away.  Oliver suppressed his anger at the violation of his memories.  This is not his dad.  This is not his father.  He had to let go.

 

“I know, I know.  You don’t want your big son to move away, but you’ll still have mom, and she’ll need you to be a big man for her when I’m gone.”

 

“But Oliver,” he could not complete his argument.  The man could feel a sharp pain down below, his face turned white and pale, “No… no. I need to.”

 

Oliver’s grip grew tighter, “It’s OK, you are mommy’s baby now.  I know you’ll be able to fill in for me.  I still love you, but it’s time for me to move on, make my own decisions, and run my own life.  Maybe I’ll even find my own mommy.”

 

Oliver’s father struggled slightly and then relaxed, a soft fart came out his rear.  He closed his eyes, and they rolled upwards in his skull as his bowels emptied into his soft bottom.  He could feel it lingering in the crack, and he tried to shift slightly to get it out.  Oliver’s grip was too tight, his son was stronger and taller than him now.  This would be the first time he had done it in front of his son, and his emotions alternated between shock and humiliation.  Tears started to come to his eyes.

 

“Look at the two dorks being dorks,” Oliver thought Grace’s star baby had faded away.  That was a rude thing to say.  He had decided to embrace his destiny, and she was mocking him.  He let go of his father and turned to see the intruder at the staircase.  It was not the girl from before.  This young lady had short hair that was a mix of gold, red, and yellow.

 

She was a foot smaller than Oliver and wore a tight-fitting red T-shirt and blue jeans.  She had started to form out enough to need a training bra.  It had been a while since Oliver had seen one of these, a tween girl.  She came up to Oliver and his father, pausing a foot from the couch above them.

 

“Ewe, I smelly a stinky boy, was it you Oliver?”  Her face took devious delight in her discovery.

 

“No.  You can go away now,” Oliver tried.  This was starting to get weird.  The girl sniffed and then put her hands down on Oliver’s father’s shoulders.

 

“How sweet, you and dad were having a tender moment,” She held up the paper Oliver had dropped, “Air Force, huh?  Well, I’m going to miss you bro.”

 

Oliver’s eyes narrowed, “Since when have I had a sister?”

 

Her response became a distant ring of garbled speech, Oliver could see the warping of reality, he could feel the flesh in his mouth.  He tried to hang onto the memory, tried to hold onto the world and timeline he could have had, but it warped back into Victoria’s fleshy orb.  Oliver pushed off slightly from the breast, the nipple dribbled a few drops of white, and he looked up at Victoria.

 

“There’s my baby boy again.  You keep falling asleep.  Why don’t I get you up to your bed?”

 

“Momma… dahdah,” Oliver’s words were slurred like a drunkard.  His trip to the past had exhausted him, and he closed his eyes, leaning into the warm pillows in front of him.

 

Victoria stripped Oliver of his overalls and carefully folded them on the desk, leaving Oliver with just pull-ups and a green shirt as she tucked him into his bed.  The guest room bed dwarfed her boy, and his breathing was small and light.  A small dribble of milk escaped his mouth on his oversized pillow.  He looked cute enough to eat.  She gently kissed his head and turned off the lights, leaving the room illuminated from just soft sunlight that came beyond the shaded windows.  This room had been her office a month ago, and Oliver had taken up her entire world.

 

Benjamin was going to be so happy about Oliver’s progress.  Archaeologist!  That is just a historian with extra steps.  She would take credit; she needed Ben’s cooperation for the rest of her plans.  She would do whatever was necessary to keep her baby boy from running away.

 

Victoria entered the master bedroom and started looking through her drawers, quietly pulling out a lacy bra and panties from her dresser.  The garments were black and thin, and from her short time on the honeymoon, she knew exactly what buttons to push with Ben to get him riled up.

[Operational Systems]

Another long one.  This chapter has the depiction of sex as well.  Things are starting to get weird.  If you are confused, or have questions, or just want to comment, please reply!

Chapter 36 – Sixth sense of a calling, heard you fuck through the wall.

19 Prairial Year CCXXXI, Potat, South Windland, Libertalia – Amazonia

 

Oliver opened his eyes, but the room remained dark.  This was not his bed on Earth, it was not Ben’s couch, Oliver could easily roll here from side to side without once falling to the floor.  The room was quiet, with just a soft breeze from outside the house as the only sound in this late hour.

 

He could feel it, the building tension above and behind his member, a biological alarm had woken him, reminding him that it was time to be a big boy.  Oliver jiggled slightly in his pull-ups, feeling the tight but comfortable protective cloth envelop his member.  It was tight, partly wet from sweat, and inviting.

 

“I could just go.  This is what it’s for right?”  It felt naughty.  It felt like surrender.

 

“I should get up.”  The pillow was too comfortable, a mix of warmth and cold softness.

 

“Just this once it’ll be fine.  I can go back to bed.”  He did not even know where he was, one minute he was on the couch, the next he was here.  There might not even be a bathroom here.

 

Oliver thought back to the time with Ben, laying down, relaxing, he slowly began releasing his muscles like a handle on a faucet.

 

Warmth, joyous naughty warmth, a small trickle at a time.   After a second his mind sharpened with something Victoria had warned Benjamin.

 

“Pull-ups leak.”

 

Wetness was on his legs; it was dripping up through the top of the elastic band.  Within two seconds it was in the sheets and whatever protection was between the sheets and the bed.  Oliver stopped himself quickly and bolted his body upwards.  His hand came down beneath his body, and he felt below his crotch, confirming the warm wetness was in the bed and not just his undergarment.

 

“OK don’t panic, figure this out, one step at a time.  Get to the bathroom, clean myself up, get a towel, clean up the bed, hide evidence if needed.  I have a plan.  OK step one, let’s get out of bed.”  Oliver pushed the blankets away and started to roll, going over the edge of the bed.

 

He misjudged how tall the bed was.  He landed on his bad leg hard.  Sharp pain came up through the back of the thigh and Oliver collapsed onto the ground.  A small spurt escaped, and he lay there for half a minute before scrambling back to his knees.  The small man looked around the giant room.  He could not see anything, just the faint outline of the walls, he was not even certain which one was the door.  He began to walk in a direction he thought was the hall.

 

He bumped hard into an office chair.  Oliver pushed the heavy wheels away and grabbed along the desk.  He followed it to the edge wall and followed the wall to the first thing that felt like a door.  Slowly he turned the brass knob at head height, only to see a darker black.  Oliver carefully reached in to and his hands found a soft piece of cloth hanging in front of him.

 

“Closet.  That means the door is this way.”  Oliver worked his way along the wall, finally finding his target.  He pulled down hard on the door handle, needing to practically hang on it to force it open.  He felt the shift of air pressure as the hallway opened to him and he stepped into the darkened portal.

 

Oliver slowly continued his journey through the hall, increasing pressure coming from his strained member he had stopped mid release.  The warm wetness in his pants had receded, becoming more like a damp cloth, but his legs still had a stickiness where urine had escaped.  Oliver bumped into an armoire, the wooden structure rattled and created a loud hump.  He paused for ten seconds; unsure if he had woken anyone.  The house still seemed quiet.  He kept one hand on the cupboard, and carefully continued his journey, eventually finding the wall.

 

After another twenty feet he found it.  The door, soon he would have relief.  Oliver put weight into the handle and carefully turned it.  He got a small crack open and pushed the mammoth door enough to force himself through.

 

It was not the bathroom.

 

They were large, moving like giraffes, they cast long shadows to the door in the soft lights.  There were loud, heavy guffs of air, and bits of braying.  The wooden floor under Oliver’s barefoot feet was shaking in time with their movements.

 

Benjamin was not engaged in some methodical dance.  He was an animal, moving quickly in and out of his prostrate and eager wife.  Oliver could see Victoria’s bouncing orbs move in sync, those same globes he had gotten to know so intimately just hours before.

 

It was too much for Oliver.  He lost his breath, and with it, his hold down below.  A fresh spring cloudburst sprayed, reflected back onto him, and soaked into his undergarment.  It sloshed, coating his manhood, and slowly absorbed into the overused padded insides.  Oliver watched as Benjamin reared up slightly, his whole body going stiff and then collapsing, his new dad’s breathing became long and heavy.

 

Victoria crawled up to Ben, cradling his body and head.  She started whispering in his ear.  Benjamin did not seem to move, but Victoria locked eyes on Oliver.  The smaller man shook, unsure if he should try to leave.  Victoria pointed at him with a finger over Ben’s shoulder and continued to speak into the man’s left ear.

She smiled and curled the finger, a temptress inviting Oliver to the bed.  Oliver carefully walked towards it, trying to keep his pants from leaking.  He got to the far edge of the bed and stared up at Ben and Victoria.

 

Benjamin’s eyes were open, along with his mouth, but the man did not seem to see Oliver, his attention was towards the wall.  His whole body was slack and kneeling, his arms were loose and heavy at his sides.  Victoria leaned over and offered Oliver a hand up.  Oliver carefully bounced along the crumbled bedspread until he came up to his ersatz parents.

 

“Is he OK?”  Oliver was concerned.  He had seen Ben in pain, even unconscious, but this looked like he had suffered a stroke.

 

“You wanted to be Jane Goodall, hmm?” Victoria spoke flatly, not attempting to be quiet, “I suppose I can let you in on a secret, no secrets exist between mommy and baby.”

 

Oliver touched Ben’s knee, but the man did not respond, Oliver looked over at Victoria.

 

“He’ll be out of it for a couple minutes.  When he’s like this he’s quite… suggestable.”

 

Oliver looked at the woman, then Ben.

 

“Go on, ask him for something.” Victoria then chuckled.

 

“Dad?”

 

Ehhh, came the response from Ben.

 

Oliver was not even sure what he wanted, so he went to the first thing that popped in his head, “Can I get a bike?”  He almost hit himself with how childish and stupid it sounded.  He was a grown man; he should not be asking for toys.

 

“Sure, son.” Benjamin made no change to his body.

 

“Woah,” Oliver breathed, “Um, can I watch some adult Tee Vee?  Like eX rated stuff?”

 

“Ask your mother,”

 

Oliver gave a face, scrunching his teeth and cheek in incredulity.  What was the point of hypnosis if there were limits?  He turned to Victoria, “You know, the boys have something like this too.”

 

She rolled her eyes, “Sure they do Oliver.”  She took a long look at Oliver’s underpants, recognizing immediately the wetness indicator had vanished.  “Go ahead and watch your dad for a few minutes.”

 

Victoria left the room.  Oliver thought about sitting, but it did not seem appropriate in his wet garments.  He came closer to Ben, confused about the state of the man.  Oliver’s mind began to wonder through the possibilities.  This had to be a result of copulation, not just enjoyment.  They had not tested too much with the men they had kidnapped and brought to Earth, there was no indicator they would enter a state like this.  If anything, Amazons did not seem particularly interested in the pleasures of flesh.  It was difficult to rouse them, and they quickly lost interest.

 

Oliver carefully poked at Ben’s knee.  The large man blinked heavily and then turned his head down to look at his boy.  Oliver looked at his father’s pale face in the minimal light of the bedroom, his eyes seemed still distant, but his mouth turned up into a bright smile.  A heavy hand came down on Oliver’s shoulder, causing his feet to sink into the bed, the cold clammy hand similar to the wetness under his armpits and below his waist.  Oliver tried not to shake.

 

It only took Ben a single movement to get Oliver up and towards his neck.  The boy could see nothing as he stared ahead over the giant’s shoulder.  Ben easily fell off the bed in a turn, and stood up, and Oliver’s eyes watched as the bed got further and further away.

 

Less than half a minute later, Oliver was blinded by the bathroom lights.  He closed his eyes, and he could almost fall asleep again, he held them so tight, just like the warm arm around his back.  He felt his body moving downward and then, being placed on a flat surface.  Oliver blinked open his eyes, the lights were far too bright still, but he could make out the shape of Ben coming down and carefully removing his underpants.  He felt a slight shock as Ben exposed his member and dirty hair.  The fresh air was a partial relief to his stained flesh and gave some comfort against the humiliation of being changed like a toddler.

 

Ben found a wet wipe and softly cleaned up Oliver’s legs and pubic area.  The cold wipe gently went over his instrument, like a jeweler’s hands, presenting and polishing the organ, and the pressure was light enough to stray from the erotic.  Oliver kept his face forward and he focused on his tight breathing through his clenched rattling teeth.

 

Victoria popped her head in, her arms were full of sheets and covers, but she dropped off a large blue rectangle on the bathroom counter before continuing her journey.  She said nothing to Ben and did not even acknowledge Oliver.  Their actions and face were robotic, servile, placating some base primitive emotion like a reflex.

 

Ben must have been satisfied because he started to unfold the deep blue cloth, padding the inside carefully with his hand and expanding its soft contours.  Once fully open he lifted Oliver and placed him directly on the middle of the padded interior.  One hand brought the front up, the other the back.  Two sets of fingers pulled at top tapes on Oliver’s left and right, and the whole garment was pulled together in a swift action.  Ben casually pulled at the two bottom tapes, tightening the adult diaper into one garment.

 

It was dry, it was soft like toilet paper, it was tight around the waist and penis, but spacious enough to hold the largest messes.  Oliver waddled a bit back and forth on the back of his buttocks, the supporting padding was distinct from boxers, and still different from the pull-ups that Oliver had gotten used to the past few days.  Those had been like tight underpants, stuffed with tiny amounts of extra padding in the front, these new garments could hold even the largest spill without leaking.

 

“All tight?” Benjamin seemed pleased with himself, he reached in and gave Oliver a large hug, not letting him answer.  Soon the small man was back up in the air.

 

“Thank you,” Benjamin said, slightly moving Oliver’s hair and kissing him on the forehead.  Oliver blinked his tired eyes and tried to shut out the experience.  In his cloudy consciousness he began to wonder if he was still asleep, like maybe this was a repeat of the strange milk dreams from earlier.

It took Oliver a few seconds to realize he was not returning to his bedroom.  He held close to the giant’s chest that glistened like a gladiator.  With a gentle movement he was uncoupled from Benjamin, and then placed at arm’s reach on his new parent’s bed.  The mattress extended for five feet on both of Oliver’s sides.  His shoulders and legs sunk into the soft sheets and blanket, and his underside crinkled as he fell in.

 

The surface was warm, and had a hint of wetness, which invited Oliver like a towel in a sauna.  His eyes darted around the darkened room, finding soft outlines of shapes and shadows.  He took a deep breath through his nose.  Instead of the stink of two copulating humans, this was delightful, not sweat and tears, but a soft ocean, not the remnant odors of rubbery flesh, but more like pine with a slight hint of a fire.  The pheromone drenched air lulled Oliver into comfort, and he hardly noticed the bed shake as Ben found a spot anchored to Oliver’s right side.  This close, with no other sounds in the cavernous room, Oliver could hear the loud plump of the man’s giant heart.  Like a metronome, it pumped just once every two seconds, and the small man closed his eyes to the sound, his own heartrate starting to slow in time with the plodding thump.

 

Oliver was nearly back asleep and did not notice when Victoria returned to the room.  She elegantly came up to Ben, tapped him on the shoulder, and got his attention.  The giant’s smile became straight, and he turned his head towards his wife.

 

Victoria was commanding in her whisper, “He’s ready, go ahead, just like we talked about.”

 

Ben turned closer to Oliver, gently patting his hair and leaning in close to his ears.  His voice was protective, authoritative, but still a calm whisper.

 

“Oliver, sleep is important, it’s what your entire day builds towards.  It is the one thing every day you need to get right so you can be at your best the next day.  When you sleep, I don’t want you to be afraid of going deeper, of exploring the vastness of all your imagination can conjure.  You’ve earned the right to long, peaceful, lovely dreams.  When you dream, I want you to take your diapers with you, so you can know that no matter where you go, or what is happening, you can continue to sleep without worry.  No more alarms, no more worries, no more needing to get up.  If you need to relieve yourself, you’ll know in your dreams it’s perfectly safe to go.  You don’t need to risk getting up and hurting yourself.  You don’t need to interrupt your sleep.”

 

Oliver wandered a bit in the vastness of his own head.  The dreamscape was normal, clouds and sky above, nondescript ground below.  He looked at himself, growing increasingly lucid towards his dream, a rarity.

 

He was wearing his favorite suit and tie, but his pants had shifted.  He looked around and his mind conjured a mirror.  He saw himself, not the young boy he saw of late when his eyes fell on a reflection, but the Oliver from when he thought of what he wanted himself to look like.  This man was thinner, stronger, and had less scars.  His hair was short and well groomed.  His clothing was well fitting in appearance but loose.  The pants were wrong, in their place he saw his empty legs, his barren feet, and large blue diaper.

 

Oliver reached down, feeling the smooth landing zone, and tried to pry off the tapes.  The tapes would not move.  He tried to conjure a pair of pants, and while he could imagine the jeans in his hands, he could not get them onto his body.  Oliver summoned a towel, and his dream logic just caused it to puddle down at his feet.  The diapers were a part of him now, part of how he saw himself.   No matter what adventures he went on, he would bring them with him.

 

The voice echoed in the dreamscape, “Oliver, there are so many things that define you.  Some of these are old, and some are new.  You’re a soldier, a diplomat, an administrator, a spy, an explorer, and an historian.  You’re not all these things all the time, and you don’t need to be them all the time.  There is another one.  One that you haven’t thought of yourself in a long time, but it was always there hidden.  It’s time you admit it’s part of who you are now too.  Ahead of all those other things, the one thing you do every day, you wet your bed.  Oliver you’re a bedwetter, but there is nothing to worry about, because mommy and daddy are going to help you with that.  You can run off now, into dreamtime, safe and secure, without any worries, you can sleep as much as you need.  You will never need to get up again in the middle of the night.  Your diapers represent our commitment to you, our love and protection, and our desire for you to have a wonderful night’s sleep.”

 

“I’m not a…” before he could complete his sentence the blocks swarmed in.  They were massive, towering over him in the dreamscape, twenty to thirty feet in dimension.  These blocks were foundational, each representing a core aspect of his being.  He was a soldier, a spy, an explorer, an American, and an Earthling.  All the things that defined him to himself, and all the things he built off to his unique identity and consciousness.

 

These blocks only defined who he was when he was awake.  A new massive one came smashing into the dreamscape, dwarfing all the others, a hundred feet wide.  This was who Oliver was when he was in bed, something he did every day.  The large concrete slab slammed to a stop behind him, causing ripples through the dream landscape.  Oliver tried pushing it, but it was immovable.

 

“I’m not a bedwetter, I just,” Oliver looked around and saw himself in the mirror he had examined earlier, his reflection smirked and replied, “You wet the bed today.  That makes you a bedwetter.”

 

“It was just one time,” Oliver defended himself, the man in the mirror shook his head.

 

Oliver was back in Davenport, the psychic landscape shifted to his first big boy bed, he looked down to see his tiny legs in white pajamas atop a heavy soft white comforter.  A dark cool stain had formed beneath his crotch.

 

“This doesn’t count, I was four.”  Oliver protested.

 

“There are a dozen memories just like this one, buried deep, but they all happened.  They’re all you Oliver.  This is who you are.  Your mind does not care whether it was a day ago or three decades ago.  It’s like riding a bike, it all just comes right back.”

 

Oliver threw off the bed comforter and waved his hands over himself.  “I beat this before; I’ll beat it again.  I’m not that person anymore.”  His stained pajamas were gone, and his suit was back, he tightened the overcoat.  “I’m an adult.”

 

“An adult who wears diapers to bed,” a voice countered.

 

Oliver looked down at the dark blue underpants.  They matched his coat, he felt a bit stylish and proud, before shaking his head.  “No,” He closed his eyes, “You’re supposed to help me.  Benjamin did something.  We need to fight this.”

 

“You’re the one that decided to go this route, Oliver.  You decided to release your payload into your pants.  You could have been a big boy.  You wanted to be a baby.”

 

The dreamscape shifted again, no longer his hometown, but an empty hallway, it vaguely reminded Oliver of an old school.  He tried to run from the nightmare voice, bounding upstairs and running down tiled corridors.  In a panic he came to a strange door.  A security light was flashing at its side.  It looked heavy, metal, and off brown, like a fire escape door, with a handle clearly tied to the alarm system.  Painted words cautioned against opening the door.

 

“You don’t want to go in there, your mind will become lost in the deepest of dreams, you might never awaken again.” his shadow-self warned.  The chasing monster was nothing more than a fuzzy outline, pausing menacingly at the end of the hall Oliver had run through.

 

Oliver took a look down at his protection, feeling the soft cloth like interior caress and guard him, like a suit of armor.  “I’m not afraid of exploring anymore.  I’m not afraid of going too deep.”

 

The man laughed and through his entire body into the heavy door.  The warning light to the side of the door began to flicker, but there was no sound, all the alarms of his mind had been shut off thanks to Ben’s command.  With one strong heave, the door pushed outward, and bright light overcame Oliver; his body continued momentum into the empty void of white, before falling into a dark pit of black.

 

Oliver looked around the empty void that held no stars or light, not even the door he had passed through, “Well, fuck.”  The words echoed a few times before dissipating to nothing.

 

The man oriented himself, pulling his limbs in and then standing himself up in the empty canvas, “You’re still dreaming, just dream something fun to do.”  He tried to focus on something simple, like his stress ball from Earth.  He flexed his fingers a few times, but nothing formed.  He closed his eyes and imagined his truck, but nothing came in the void.

 

“I miss Earth.  I’m in way over my head, and I’m losing it.  I miss my job.”  Oliver complained to the void, nothing came of his distress.  He paused for a bit, thinking of home.

 

“I wonder what Naomi is up to.  What would she do to solve this?”  The void seemed to push a little, though it was difficult to tell in the empty nothingness.  After a second of subtle movements, the white light returned.  Oliver brought up his hands and arms to shield himself.

 

“Oliver what are you doing here?”  Naomi’s tone was accusatory and partly concerned.  Oliver opened his eyes to see his old office.  In his month away, Naomi had made considerable changes.  The chair, once a simple office chair, had been replaced with white leather and effeminate curves.  The once clean desk had been overtaken with piles of paperwork and kitsch.  A desk calendar was held in place with large wooden blocks adorned with empowering phrases for boss ladies.  Along the walls were framed pictures, water paintings with lines evoking the idea of flowers, meadows, and sunsets, without any actual form.  The once clean, but small interior was now choking and cramped.  Near the door a small coffee station had even been set up to dispense individual sized prepackaged drinks.

 

“Um, just thought I’d check in.  I see, you’ve made some changes here.” Oliver said, making his way towards the desk Naomi sat behind.

 

“Things are fine,” Naomi offered, her response was empty and tired, “I’m worried about you though, Oliver your reports are erratic, and it doesn’t sound like you’re making much progress.”

 

“Things are a bit more complex than I had initially planned, but I have everything under control,” Oliver said, confidently, staring the woman down.

 

Naomi flicked a pen she was holding and aimed the end at Oliver’s waist, “Everything’s fine?  This is just, what, a disguise?  Are you going native?”

 

Oliver looked down at the garment she was aimed at, “Oh.  Hmm.  A few complications, nothing I can’t handle, and it doesn’t affect the job.”  He looked down, pausing a few seconds, “I’m getting help with it.”

 

“Oliver, I’m in a bit of a bind here.  See all this?” her arms waved over the papers clogging the desk.  “The director has been coming down hard on us since you left, I’ve got this massive research project going on with the milk and that’s had all sorts of complications, not to mention the illegal genetic engineering we’re doing out the back door.  Meanwhile there’s a hundred fires to put out off world, and it’s like all the worst things that could happen happened everywhere at once.”

 

She looked down at the papers, tired, “Mr. Becker’s not been happy, and he’s telling me maybe we should cut our losses on projects like yours and the milk.  He wants us to focus more on Terra.”

 

“Naomi, the milk is important.  My mission is important.  You have to push back on Samuel.  I need more resources, and more time.  I’m close to something big.”

 

“Samuel always liked you, he let you do things your way, and the moment you left Oliver, it’s like he needs to micromanage everything.  He has all these ideas for the department, and it’s not in line with anything we talked about.  He’s asked for everything we have on hypnosis, on the voice…”  Naomi paused, “Sam’s been talking more about politics.  He’s made a few big donations, attended some important dinners, and even had a few small appearances in media.”

 

Oliver shook his head, Samuel had not been ambitious before, but then, he had managed with a soft hand with what Oliver had been doing.  Once the new manager came in, Samuel found himself taking a closer look at what I.E.D.R had been doing.  At first, just under the guise of monitoring the new leadership and how the team was handling the transition.  Perhaps it had started from an attitude that was both misogynistic and traditional.  In his heart Samuel did not think Naomi had the chops to run a department like this.  He pushed on her; demanding she meet his voracious appetite for reports, meetings, and updates.

 

Now that he understood the miracles of a hundred thousand worlds, Samuel wanted that power for himself.

 

“And if he were out of the way?  You could help me without any restrictions?”  Oliver thought aloud.

 

“We could do whatever we wanted Oliver.”

 

Oliver stood up, and with determination marched to the door.  He opened it expecting hallways of I.E.D.R he had come to know in his time working at this facility.  Dream logic does not work that way, open one door in a dream, and it will transport you anywhere.  Leaving Naomi’s office behind Oliver found himself in another office.

 

The new room was large, Oliver had only been here a few times in the past few years.  This was the main I.E.D.R office and administrative building.  Where Oliver worked in research and development, this cube of a building served much more mundane purposes.  Director Becker’s office was a sharp contrast with Naomi’s.  It was spacious, with faux wooden floors, and minimalistic furniture.  Behind the standing desk and computer was a long window, overlooking the office park entrance and employee parking.  Past the facility was the city of Oakland.

 

Oliver’s bare feet squeaked along the floor as he approached the desk, his boss had been lost in thought, unaware of the man entering, until Oliver came within just a few feet.  Samuel looked up and down at the younger man, seeing his mismatch of outfit, and said nothing.  He pointed a hand to an empty chair before his desk, and when Oliver sat in it, Sam walked in front of his desk to sit next to Oliver.

 

“I’m disappointed in your progress Oliver.”  Samuel began, he seemed to relax a bit in the chair, with a hand he brought a leg up and over his knee.

 

“What do you want me to say, I don’t know what I’m doing, that the scale of this is too big?” Oliver was self-depreciating, alluding to how he figured I.E.D.R saw him and his mission.  The tone was mixed between truth and sarcasm.

 

“We need to cut our losses.  Look at yourself, you’re drinking breast milk and peeing your bed.  You’re compromised.  They got to you.  You’re turning into a baby.”

 

Oliver was confused by that; how did Samuel know about something he did today?  This was a very unfair performance review; his boss could summon things from Oliver’s own consciousness and memories.  Their minds were connected, nothing was hidden between the two men.

 

“I’m getting close to something.  I just need more time, and maybe some more support, I have some ideas to make things better…”

Samuel seemed to conjure papers in his lap, he opened a folder and pulled out Oliver’s drawing from the afternoon, “Shrink ray?”

 

“It might work, look, this isn’t about what I can do or can’t do, I’m here because you need to respect Naomi’s management style.  You need to give her some more space.”

 

“You recommended her, but as far as I can see, she’s not you Oliver.  You, I respected once, you were fearless, bold, broke the rules that needed to be broken.  Now I look at you and I see a man so beaten he can’t even keep his sheets dry; I see why you thought she was worthy of the position.”

 

Oliver tightened his grip, he did not want to do this, but he was running out of options.  “Fine, I admit it.  I’m a bedwetter.  It’s part of who I am.  I am Oliver, and I wet the bed.  But I have people who are helping me with this.  They’re going to make me better.  What about you, who do you have?”

 

“Oliver, I don’t need,” Samuel tried to start, something was wrong.  It was like a twitch in his abdomen, a change down below.

 

“You’re touching my mind, seeing all my faults, and me at my worst.  Yes, this is who I am.  I’m not proud of it, but I’m not going to be shamed for it either.  My success is my own.  My failure is my own.  I’m trying to be better.  I’m trying to make the world better, and I’m having problems, but I also have people supporting me.  Naomi, Grace, Benjamin, they’re all helping me.  I don’t see why this has to be a competition; I don’t see why you can’t be more supportive too.”

 

Samuel was confused.  He should be waking up now, the alarms were blaring in his head.  Four times a night he would get up and go.  He had never had a dream like this, his body would not allow him to go this deep without returning to do business.  Now the alarms were off.  He squirmed, feeling the built up sweat and pressure near his crotch.

 

“I think I get why.  Yes, I have a problem, but you have a problem too.  This is why you were so interested in Amazonia.  A hundred thousand worlds, and on all but one of them, your condition, my condition, it’s a disability.  It makes us a failure.  One place, one place in the entire multiverse and we can be ourselves.  We can get the help and support we need for our problem.  Why can’t you be happy I found this, found people who can help me.  Deep down you need a place like this too.”

 

Samuel was not waking up.  The dream was too weird, and the pressure was growing.  Outside the office building there was a crack of lightning, and a torrential cloudburst came down, slamming the sides of the building with a hiss.  “I need to get up, Oliver I need to go to the bathroom.”

 

“There’s a restroom down the hall,” Oliver pointed.

 

Samuel shook his head, confused, “No, not here, I mean.  This isn’t happening.”  He stood up and began looking around the room.  The room brightened momentarily from lightning, the downpour kicking up intensity from a soft hiss to the sound of coins falling down the walls.

 

“I’m sleeping Oliver.  This isn’t real.  I need to wake up,” Samuel stated, staring down at his body.  He tried pinching himself.  The twitching under stomach was building.  He started shaking his legs.  He should not have touched Oliver’s mind when it was open to him.  Something crossed over.

 

Oliver stood up to meet up, “I can’t help you with this.  You just have to come to terms with who you are now.”

 

For fifty years he had been a big boy, and now the stress of his job had gotten to him.  The growing troubles with State; the burden of protecting Earth from foreign threats; and the turnover at I.E.D.R.  He was a man that prided himself on just a few hours a sleep a night, but his body was now telling him otherwise.  He had been touching Oliver’s mind and gone too deep.  Something was broken now, and the old habits came right back.

 

Samuel had spent the past few weeks wanting to use the successes of I.E.D.R to elevate him to the great man he believed himself to be.  All his accomplishments, decades as a spy, ambassador, researcher, and administrator, none of them would compare with who he would become next.  Samuel Becker released control.

 

The pouring into his pants was synchronized with the pouring of the rain, both loud, and warm as a late spring shower.  Samuel briefly smiled in pleasure as he found relief; as the deluge poured through his clothes, and started to seep down his legs, souring his flesh with sticky urine.  He felt small.

 

Oliver’s arm reached out and touched his former boss’s shoulder, “Sir.  It’s OK.  You’re so much more than just a person who wets the bed.  You can still be so much more.”

 

The man started to sniffle, “Oliver, how can you do it?  How can you be content with what we’ve become?  We’re supposed to be bigger than everyone.”

 

“Because, I have a mommy and a daddy that are helping me.  There’s a place out here where we can be ourselves and no one is going to judge us for this.  They just want to help us, be the best us.”

 

The walls of his workplace fell away, crashing to the side.  The rainstorm started to fade to a gentle pattern, falling over Samuel and Oliver.  The dreamscape land slowly mellowed, and Samuel returned to the waking world.

 

It was seven thirty, late for a man like him.  He shifted his sore legs, his pajamas were damp, the leggings had an unpleasant coldness, like they had not gone through the dryer.  Carefully he took a hand below the cloth, feeling a similar slight wetness on the sheet.

 

Samuel turned his head to the nightstand, looking for signs of a water bottle or a cup he might have spilled in the night.  There was an empty glass, faint white drops were along the edges.  Taking his exploratory hand to his nose, he took a quick sniff, and then reached over to the glass for a similar whiff.  They were distinctly different, the one below him was not a spill, it had come from his body.

 

He had been drinking the I.E.D.R milk for a week now, and the dreams were starting to get weird.  Tonight, he had slept too deeply.  Samuel sighed and picked himself up out of bed.  There was no one to help him as he brought his soiled clothing and sheets to the washer.

 

* * *

 

17th June 2023, Königsberg, Europe Occupation Zone North–Zemlya

 

“Name?” The woman in the chair asked, her boredom carried itself as the older gentleman sat across from her.  Her desk was simple and metallic, with a laptop to work from.  The room itself was small, barely larger than a couple cubicles, with tall metal cabinets behind her.  Along the front of her desk were stacks of brochures, standing tall facing her guest, inviting him to experience the wonders of another world.

 

Samuel had to look up at the seven-foot-tall woman just to greet her in the eye.  She was modestly attractive, with short thick black hair, and brown eyes.  Samuel did not have a thing for taller women though.

 

“Samuel Becker,”  he said smoothly, clutching closely his briefcase on his lap.  The woman slowly typed in his name, using the spelling from his pen filled in application in front of her.

 

“And where you are from Samuel?”  The information was on the paper, but it was important to hear it from the customer.

 

“I’m not from around here.  I’m from another planet called Earth.  As in Earth Terra.”  She was aware of multi-dimensional travel, not being a native here herself, but she had never considered another traveler might come here.  She paused on entering the new information, forcing herself to look over the small man.  He seemed nervous.  His dress was sharp, he had shaved and cleaned himself, and he spoke English without an accent, he even had a few inches height on the natives.

 

Earth being in the database made things easier, she added the location to Samuel’s application in the computer, “You’re a long way from home, what brings you here, Samuel?”

 

“Medical tourism.  I,” he paused, ashamed to describe it, “I have a condition that’s started up again recently and the doctors can’t figure out what’s going on.  I heard from a friend your people might be able to help me with it.”

 

The tweener was curious, she typed in Earth in her immigration database, and the laptop seemed to stall for a bit before giving out a response.  One Earthling was on Amazonia, in South Windland.  Not the most exciting place, but if she was lucky, she could find someone nearby who would be willing to take in the poor fellow.  He looked old, far too old to adopt, and medical tourism babies were not very popular.  No one wanted to adopt a disabled baby.  She did not have high hopes for him.

 

“All sorts of miracles coming out of the physiology departments these days,” she could at least give him some hope.  “What’s the condition?”

 

Samuel looked down at his lap and was quiet.  He mumbled, “Nocturnal Enuresis.  Secondary.  It um… just started the past month, and I’ve been reading it’s a common condition on your planet, and you guys have a treatment.”

 

The tall women stopped.  She looked down at her groomed fingertips.  She glanced again at his application, his occupation as director of I.E.D.R was listed.  The lady reached over to her phone on her desk, dialed a quick number and lifted the handset to her face.

 

“I have a code platinum.”  Samuel watched confusingly, as the woman got an acknowledgement and put back the phone.

 

“Samuel, I just want you to know, you’re in great hands here.  We’re the experts on this.  I’ve just elevated your case to the highest priority we can have.” The tweener grew a cat like grin that barely contained her giddiness.

 

“That’s good?  You think you can treat me?”

 

“Mr. Becker, you’re going to get all the attention you’ll need.  Before the end of this day, you’ll be hooked up with a team of caretakers who are going to dedicate themselves, night and day, to your special needs.”

 

The man gave a long breath out, letting his shoulders relax, “That means a lot.  I was worried about using the multiverse to cure something was me being selfish.  There are so many real problems, but this has become such a big part of my identity, I can’t function.  So many people have problems, we can’t even begin to cure, so I think I’m just lucky I was able to find the one place that can help me.”

 

* * *

15 Messidor Year CCXXXI, Potat, South Windland, Libertalia – Amazonia

 

“The good news is, it’s not maturosis,” a tall Amazon spoke, pointing his finger in the air.  His tall hand intersected with a rotating hologram, in bright pink and blue colors, showing a human brain.  The man had a long doctor’s coat on, a stethoscope was around his neck, and green scrubs beneath to complete the look.  He looked about Samuel’s age, with white gray hair and oversized glasses on his face.

 

Samuel did not know what that meant, but his caretaker, George, was smiling and happy to hear the news.  The man was ten or fifteen years younger than Samuel and was a bit soft and round in face and body.  His brown hair was starting to turn in spots and had been combed back far on his head.  He had dressed up for Samuel’s visit to the hospital, wearing a plaid overcoat, white pressed shirt, and dark brown tie.

 

Samuel liked the man, and from what clues he could gather, the giant had a job in investigations or crime, like Libertalia’s FBI.  That part concerned Sam, and despite prodding, he kept quiet about Earth.  It was difficult, George seemed to always have a happy, bemused demeaner, like nothing could phase him, and was infectious in his smile and attitude.  Everyone wanted to like the guy.

 

Samuel shifted slightly, the strange steel cap on his head fell a bit, and the hologram image distorted before focusing again on his brain.  For the past few days, he had worn a similar contraption, both day and night, that made detailed recordings of his brain activity.  Today his doctor was going over the results of the machine with George and Samuel.

 

“That’s fantastic, that’s wonderful news.  Isn’t that great news Sam?” George said, trying to excite the smaller man.

 

“I guess?  I mean, how does not having a condition help me?”

 

The doctor walked over the lights, restoring the brightness to the examination room.  The hologram that previously filled the space dulled, the fine details of the brain vanishing in low contrast.  The giant went over his plan.

 

“Samuel, you have some unusual scarring and damage on your thalmus and anterior cingulate cortex.  I’m seeing a lot of strange signals there.  Nothing too serious yet.  We should be able to go into there and make a few clips, make a zap here and there, and it should heal right back up.  You’ll be on your way to good as new.”

 

“Brain surgery?” Samuel gave a concerning question.

 

“We would have to put you under, but you could be in and out in less than a day.  Nothing too bad.  If it fits George’s schedule, we can get it done today even.”  The doctor was acting like brain surgery was like filling a cavity.

 

George put a large hand over Samuel’s shoulder, “It’s what you wanted right?  This is what you need.”

 

Samuel looked down at his lap, and his eyes continued past it to the seven feet down to the floor from the examination bed he was on.  When he went on this daring adventure, he did not know what to expect, but the idea Amazonia might be able to cure his condition within a few hours excited him.  This was why he came here.  He agreed, reluctantly.  They prepared him for surgery and less than half a day later he was awake again, a giant bandage wrapped around his head like the giant diaper around his waist.

 

* * *

 

George carried Samuel back into his house and then lowered Samuel onto the living room carpet.  The boy looked around confused, but stayed sitting down as George left the room.  The man returned with a large store bag.  Inside was a long horizontal box, which George pulled out and came low to present to Samuel.

 

“Train!” Samuel beamed, excited.  He tilted his bandaged head confused as to where that emotion came from.  Samuel hopped up and down excitedly, as George pulled at the tabs and poured out the contraption like cereal on the carpet.  A hundred pieces and components littered the floor.  The small man got to work, quickly placing down and separating track without any rhyme or pattern.  After about ten minutes, he connected the last piece of a large figure eight, proud of his accomplishment.

 

Samuel then took a locomotive and placed it on the track.  It was blue, with an oversized red smokestack, and black and yellow plastic wheels.  He grabbed the remote box that was hooked up to the track and pushed a large red ‘go’ button.  There was a long hum of power building on the rails, and then, slowly the train started to accelerate.  Samuel spent a minute watching the train go around his construction, return to the start, and then repeat.  He pushed a second button on the remote, and a long horn sound came from the smokestack.  Three minutes went by, Samuel continued to watch the train go around and around.  Finally, he hit stop on the remote.

 

Digging back through the pile of unused tracks, he found a second train, this one red with a blue smokestack.  He placed this one opposite the first.  He hopped back to the remote and with a delightful smile, engaged the engines of the two trains.  His head bopped back and forth left and right, as it watched the two zig around his tracks.  Samuel needed more.  He returned to the pile of unused parts.

 

His full arms came over and he built out the trains with two more carriages and a caboose behind the two engines.  With mischievous delight he pushed the go button again, this time power struggled to bring the toys to full speed, taking several seconds to accelerate to their maximum.  Whoosh, right through the middle of the center his first train went, and then seconds later, the second engine passed inches behind the caboose of the other train as it roared through the intersection from the other direction.  As the two trains rounded the corners, Samuel hopped up in eager anticipation, his mouth wide in delight.  A squeal passed his lips, then a laugh, as Sam watched the trains narrowly miss each other again.

 

The boy started to clap and hop, and then yelled, “Daddy look!  Look!”

 

George was watching.  His attention was on the boy, not the trains.  He lost sense of time watching Samuels’ enjoyment, staring at him from the couch.  The words caused a shiver of delight through the man.  The past décade Samuel had insisted on calling him Mr. Stigler, or even George, when they were together.  Just a few corrections in Samuel’s brain, and he was a brand-new boy.

 

Samuel continued to hop around, eager to watch his trains, and excited when they nearly hit.  He never realized the computers in the two trains had been synchronized, and the toy track was perfectly capable of managing the two carts in such a way that the two would never hit.  The man could have spent hours playing, making adjustments and changes to the track, adding and subtracting the cars, finding all the different variations of play that were possible.  Instead, he felt something, a signal from down below.

 

“I have to go.” Samuel said, instinctively.

 

“Go where?” George inquired, his face becoming worried.  The surgery should have stopped that.  Samuel was not supposed to be aware of what was happening.

 

“I don’t know.  I just have this feeling I need to go somewhere,” Samuel turned his head confused, looking about the room, “It’s um… in my tummy?  Right here.”  He pointed to a spot on his lower right abdomen.  “And in my butt,” he said looking down.  He wiggled his toes, then looked over at George, “I don’t know what’s wrong.  Is this related to the surgery?”

 

George came over and brought his eleven-foot frame low to ground.  He lifted Samuel’s shirt and felt his tight stomach with his large hand, pressing in slightly.  He looked Samuel in the face and smiled, “It’s perfectly fine.  This is part of your cure.  Do you need help?”

 

“I don’t know what to do,” Samuel looked down at his hands and then his dad.  “It’s like it hurts.  I need help.”

 

“Daddy knows just what to do,” George comforted.  His giant hands came down and pushed Samuel in a crouch, then brought his tiny arms around Samuel’s knees, instructing the boy to hold there.

 

“I’m feeling a little better, but it’s still there,” Samuel spoke his concerns.

 

“Go ahead and push for daddy.”

Samuel scrunched his face and gritted his teeth.  Within seconds there was relief, and he took a deep breath.  His nostrils were rewarded with an offensive odor, but his mind blanked as he tried to place it.  Samuel twisted his mouth and then looked past George, confused by the entirely novel experience.  What had been inside his butt was now on the outside, hanging between flesh and plastic backing.

 

“What just happened?  Is this part of my condition?  I thought I was cured,” Samuel was not sure if he should cry.  He had been so happy; everything had gone perfectly today.  They had gone to the doctor, and the doctor had fixed him, and then he got a new toy, and now he was losing his insides.

 

“Everything is fine,” George came in for a hug, “Daddy’s here to fix it.  You’re fine now.  You just had your first poopies in your pants.”

 

“Am I going to do this often?” Samuel did not want to lose himself.  A few more of these poopies and he’d be done for.

 

“Once or twice a day.  See, nothing to worry about, this is a sign you’re cured.  Now is it all out?  Is all the poopies out?”

 

Samuel was not sure, “I don’t know, um, I think so?”

 

“Good, good, whenever you feel that, just do what daddy taught you, and you’ll feel better.  Then come to me or mommy and we’ll get you right fixed up.”

 

“And this is the cure?  How is this helping with my nighttime condition?”  Samuel whispered the last part.  He was still ashamed of wetting the bed.  He had no opinion on dumping his lunch in his diaper.

 

George picked up Samuel and brought him to the changing station in the boy’s room, “It’s easy enough to explain.  Sam, a bedwetter is someone who is potty trained, but wets the bed.  Are you potty trained Sam?”

 

The term meant nothing to the man, and he shrugged, “Don’t know?”

 

“Then you’re not a bedwetter, you’re just my perfect little boy, doing what comes naturally to you.”

 

Samuel nearly burst into tears with joy, his shame was gone.  The stress and humiliation were gone.  He had been cured.  He came in closer and hugged his new dad tighter.

 

* * *

Samuel stood up in the crib, a giant smile was on his face as he reached over the top towards his dad.

 

“It’s almost beddy-time Sam, but I thought maybe we could talk for a bit.  I had some questions about your old home and thought maybe you would be willing to fill in the gaps.”

 

George sunk into his chair, looking down at his questions about Earth’s political and economic systems, about defensive capabilities and their plans for Amazonia.  Seeing how helpless Samuel looked, with his oversized white pajamas with the sewn in trains moving up and about the nightwear.  It was one large piece of clothing, but the bottom flipped open for cleaning and removal.

 

“Daddy, I just want to say something,” Samuel shuffled on his feet, needing to hold the bars, his feet struggling on the soft flexible mattress from falling over, “I came here, scared of what was going to happen, and you have been helping me with so much.  Thank you for the new train.  Thank you for curing me.”  The words stretched and he started to slur towards the end, “Dank you dah dah, I love you.”

 

George looked again at his list of questions; they did not matter to him anymore.  His son was his whole world now.  Years of training, dedication, loyalty to protecting his world, and one I love you and it was gone.  He crumbled up the paper.  George reached over and gave his new son one last hug, then pushed him gently down onto the thin mattress, the boy’s butt crinkled as he fell.  “Go to sleep, you have a big day tomorrow.”

As he left the room George turned off the lights and deposited the crinkled paper into the diaper pal.  He made his way to the master bedroom.  His fellow agent Francine was waiting with a large magazine, she was laid back, relaxing, slightly elevated on a pillow in her separate bed.  Without a word, George slipped into his bed covers.

 

“You get what you needed from him?” Francine asked, turning a page of her magazine loudly.

 

“After a fashion,” George smirked then tried to roll away from the conversation.

 

“What’d the boy say?  He was reluctant to share anything before the surgery, is he still putting up resistance?”

 

George narrowed his eyes, and focused his throat, the command was building.  He knew it was wrong to do this, but his son needed him, “No more talk about that.  He’s our son now, and we are going to protect him no matter what.  He needs our help.”

 

Francine blinked several times, for a few seconds her breathing stopped, before returning, a brilliant smile coming to her face.  She closed the magazine concerned, “The bureau will be expecting a report, what are going to say?”

 

“Let me worry about that,” George said, turning to the light between them.  He clicked and the room darkened.  He did not actually have an answer to her question.

 

* * *

 

 

8 Thermidor Year CCXXXI, Potat, South Windland, Libertalia – Amazonia

 

Samuel stopped his tricycle on the drive, and Oliver came over to greet his former mentor.

 

“How was daycare?” Oliver tried at small talk.

 

“Productive.  Very relaxing.  I should have retired years ago,” Samuel turned his bike into the grass, and stepped up to meet his companion.  “I met a gal today; I think she’d be an interesting recruit.”

 

“You don’t need my permission to recruit anyone,” Oliver responded.  This might be Oliver’s operation, but he still respected the man, and under his guidance, their little spy network had grown into a proper operation.  Or at least as respectable as it could be, given it was operating out of a tree house.

 

“This time I think I do.  Oliver, she’s young, twenty-five, her hair is like the sun.”

 

“What is it, half plus seven?  You’re robbing the cradle,” Oliver joked.

 

“Her bike has one more wheel than mine does.  She’s the one that’s been coming on to me.  The staff thinks it’s just a cute kiddy romance and have been encouraging it.  We got to sit together at lunch, and we spent second recess together on the swings.”

 

“I’m glad you’re making this work.”

 

“She’s Gaian.”  He cut to the chase, the two had made their way around the backyard and towards Oliver’s club house.

 

“Really?  How do you know?”

 

“I recognized her picture.  She’s on the list of people who aren’t allowed to visit Earth.”

 

“Well, then that might be a problem.  She’s either still working for them, or worse, the Amazons.”

 

“Yeah, but maybe we can convince her to see things our way,” Samuel started, “Plus she’s cute.”

 

“Like what, a triple agent, or a quadruple agent?” Samuel looked down at his fingers as though counting in response to Oliver’s question.

 

“I have an idea,” Oliver disappeared into the clubhouse and then returned with a flat smooth blu-ray keepcase.

 

“Naomi and Oliver, Season One, High-Definition Four Kay Remaster.  Ultra yoU Vee edition” Samuel read aloud, uncertain.

 

“Go ahead and invite the lady over, watch a couple episodes, and she should open up.  If she’s been faking it, it should give her a new perspective on things, see things the way we see things.”

 

Samuel held the case carefully, uncertain of its power, “What about me?  Won’t this affect me too?”

 

Oliver gave a small laugh, “Nah, you’ll be fine.”

 

* * *

9 Thermidor Year CCXXXI, Potat, South Windland, Libertalia – Amazonia

 

Geraldine sat close to the Earthling.  She had tracked Oliver to this forsaken world, and she knew that Samuel had been working with him.  Her mission was simple enough to win over Samuels’ affections and have him give the details on Oliver’s plans here.  Oliver Swift had been a thorn in the Gaian’s side when he worked for Terra last century.  If his Earthling counterpart was setting up operations here on Amazonia, there was a good chance he was aware Gaia was here too and might try to put a stop to their plans.  Geraldine needed to find out what the Earthlings knew, and if necessary, eliminate them.

 

Then she could go home and be a ‘big girl’ again.  No more potty chairs.  She never wanted to eat mac and cheese for the rest of her life.  The hope of returning home gave her the drive needed to show false affection and eagerness with Samuel.  All her work at daycare had paid off this week.  He had asked her to “Netflix and Chill”, she had assumed it was a euphemism for sex.  It was not.

 

“If you miss anything there’s a great podcast you can listen to, but for now I think we should just dive into the first episode,” Samuel explained as the lights dimmed and the home theater system kicked on.

 

“Hey Oliver, are you ready to go on an adventure?” Geraldine rolled her eyes – this was a cartoon.  Of course it would be a children’s show, Samuel probably lacked the wits to -

 

The thought could not be completed, the bright colors flashed on the screen and burrowed into her eyes.  It was like she herself was going along with Naomi and Oliver.  She felt the heat of the desert sun as their team traveled to the grand pyramid, and the terror in the darkness as they explored.  She had never seen a more real and engaging show in her entire life.

 

“Watch out Oliver, it’s a mummy!” Naomi warned.

 

“I’m not scared of a little toilet paper; I’ve got a diaper on.”

 

Samuel looked into Geraldine’s vacant eyes and got closer, “So, Geraldine, why are you here?”

 

“I’m supposed to be watching Oliver.  I need to report on what he is doing.” She answered, her voice monotone.

 

Samuel looked at the screen, then back to the woman.  He pointed a finger at the screen, “Well there’s Oliver, why don’t you write your report on this adventure.”

 

Geraldine’s eyes seemed to focus, and her mouth opened and closed like a fish.  She closed her eyes one more time in a tight squeeze, “That’s a great idea.”

 

“You can come over here and we’ll watch another one of Oliver’s adventures, and you can write about it in your report.  I’ve got the whole season on blu-ray,” he excitedly added.

 

A small curl came to her mouth in happiness, her plan was a success.  She had convinced Samuel to show her everything he knew about Oliver, and tonight when she got back, she could write all about Oliver’s trip to the grand pyramid and how he fought a mummy.

 

“Well, there’s no point wearing them if you aren’t going to use them!” Oliver joked, giving another one of his famous catchlines.

 

The command wormed its way into Geraldine’s mind, forcing her to relax her pelvic muscles.  A puddle dripped through her pink panties, and began to soak upwards into her dress, before falling down onto the couch.  Samuel was immune to the hypnotic command, on account of not having any control in the first place.

 

When the show ended, Samuel got up and stretched.  He prodded his garment down below, “Time to see daddy.  How about you, I think you could use a change as well.”

 

Geraldine looked down confused, her dress was soaked, the bottom was absorbing the liquid that had pooled in the couch, and the front was wrinkled and dark.  It felt cool and dirty.  “No, I’m fine I’m a big girl, I don’t need help.”

 

“Daddy’s the best.”  Samuel grabbed the woman’s hand and pulled her, helping her towards the front of the house and kitchen where George was sitting reading the daily paper.  The past month had been hard for him and Francine, the agency had been pushing them to give results with the Samuel project.  He could stall for only so long.  He needed to come up with something he could say about these foreign worlds.  The prospect of an entire council of worlds, more powerful than the Amazons, with their people watching, and infiltrating their world terrified the Libertalian government.  Every décade the agency begged him for a status update, any information at all from his time with Samuel.

 

“Daddy,” George turned to see Samuel and Geraldine, the girl seemed to struggle to keep a hand in front of her pants, small droplets were forming near her feet, “Geraldine had an accident, can you help us.”

 

George barely said a word as he brought the two of them over to change.  Geraldine was in a daze mumbling, but the giant ignored her as he got to work.  He tugged a thick white diaper on her, and smiled, “This is all I have that’s clean and will fit you.  It’s white and goes with your shirt.  When you go home to mommy and daddy today, they won’t hold it against you.  I should have asked if you needed to go.  You are still a big girl.”

 

The girl did not respond, she was practically in a trance, muttering to herself she was a big girl.  George turned to pick up Samuel and start his change.  Lifting him up close, Samuel whispered in his father’s ear.

 

“Oh, Daddy, Geraldine was telling me all about her home earlier.  Did you know she’s from Gaia?  It sounded so nice.  Go on, ask her about it.”  George squeezed an eye and then stared hard at the girl in the fresh diaper.  Two immigrants, both from council worlds.  What were the odds?  The girl was making up stories, trying to impress the off-worlder.  He chuckled and humored the boy.

 

“Geraldine, I heard you’ve come a long way to be here.  Why don’t you tell me about where you’re from?”

 

She did not move, her eyes were fixed forward, and her words came out without change of pitch, “Gaia is home to three billion humans.  The planet is ruled by the Emperess Sak Nikte.  We have been on the council for over three hundred years.”

 

George blinked a few times, his attention shifted between Samuel and the girl.  Samuel spoke up, “Oh, tell him about the Coyol… um, Coyol.”

 

Geraldine was still monotonic, “The Coyolxauhqui Sentinels are an elite organization which only takes the best of the best.  We specialize in interdimensional travel.  We gather information and take action to encourage the populace to align with our goals.”

 

“Daddy, do you think Geraldine can come over again next décalend, and we can watch some more Naomi and Oliver?  She really likes the show.”

 

A bright smile came to George’s face.  It was almost as large as when he first heard Samuel call him dah dah.