Chapter 1: Falling down to Earth down from a higher plane.

May 10th, 2023, Templeton, California - Earth

“Now, we know how hard it is to speak up when you are being exposed to offenses that make you uncomfortable. This is a place of understanding, and a place of healing. If you are feeling in the slightest uncomfortable about what we say, or choice of words, or are not respecting your autonomy, please say something.”

It was not the first time he had heard some variation on this in the past couple of days, but what was bothering Benjamin Young was that there were two toddlers in front of him giving this presentation. One, a lady with a dark complexion and short hair, was wearing a perfect Halloween recreation of a scientist or a doctor's outfit. White coat over clothes that hid her figure. The boy, the one who gave him the spiel, was wearing a full business suit. Even a tiny tie. A literal boss baby.

Why someone would put something that expensive on a toddler did not make sense to Benjamin, but it was a style growing in popularity among teachers and administration at the university to dress up their young in a way that conveyed their parents had both high tastes and money – and control. Here is a being made for jumping in puddles, and we are confident enough we can train him or her to behave, and we are rich enough to afford to clean or replace expensive clothing if he or she does not. He knew when he adopted his first little, he too would always be dressing him in his Sunday best, he just was not looking forward to the cost.

Oh.

It was no longer a possible decision. Everything he had ever said about the moral complexity of adoption, about not needing another person in his life, all those rationalizations, and from one accidental wrong thought it changed. He was going to adopt a little. This tiny person had made him see that.

The woman chided her colleague, “'Speak up?', might as well ask him 'how's the weather up there?'” She addressed Benjamin directly, looking up towards his eyes, “We're sorry this is something new for us, and we're trying ...”

The boy shushed her, “Now hold on, that's a good point, he hasn't said anything. He's probably afraid we'll punish him if he says the wrong word. He needs to know we want him to be honest with us, and we want him to be comfortable here.” He turned and looked directly at the man almost twice his height, “'How is the weather up there?'”

Benjamin did not know what to say, none of this made sense.

The man's speaking was pointed. “We want you” small pause, “to tell us,” second pause, “if you're uncomfortable.”

He went into a rant, “We know your kind is smart. Right now, on a scale of one to ten, the level of discomfort you're feeling is about a two. It might feel like a ten to you, but trust us, we can make this much worse for you. Giving you this stern honest talk, it's about a three. You do not want to see five. You really do not want to see ten. Your kind understands punishment, I suggest you figure this out. How do you feel when people bring attention to your physical disability – your gigantism, the thing that makes you unable to function in our world? 'Is there enough air up there?' 'Do you feel like you're going to fall over?' 'I heard a man's instrument is the same size as his hands, how big are your hands?'”

“You're a naughty child. I am going to find your parents, both of you, and you'll be spanked.”

The lady just shrugged her shoulders and rolled her eyes, but the boss baby was happy. “Thank you! Finally! An honest answer. Your name is Benjamin right, not Ben, or Benji, actually Benjamin? Benjamin Young?”

He nodded. Benjamin tried to stand up but instead learned he was strapped into the chair. These little people had all the power.

“Use your words, you are an adult, we expect you to use your words.”

Benjamin had a second of heavy breathing, and then answered, “Yes, my name is Benjamin Young. Where am I? What is going on here?”

The boss baby continued, “I'm sorry I had to do that. You have a disability; I need you to recognize that. Two actually, but we'll get to that. I mean this earnestly, we are trying to be better here, and it was wrong to do that. Do you agree it is wrong to do that, please let us know you know it was wrong to do that to you.”

“Yes, it's” Ben paused, “please don't talk down to me. What disability, what is going on? Let me out.”

The lady looked questioningly at the boss baby. He whispered, “OK, I think we can try that. Be careful.”

The woman came over to Benjamin and began removing the straps. First his arms, then the chest, and then...

She was over the knee, her coat flipped up, her buttocks reared to the sky. An arm came down hard, and instead of the sound of a smack there was something else. It went through Benjamin's arm, and he could not move the limb anymore. His mind was telling him to move it, but it was dead. Then there was the buzz, and a smell like a battery. Vision wobbled, and his heart felt like it had skipped a couple beats. Every movement was pain. Breathing hurt. The woman got up and walked away from his lap, carefully rubbing her rump.

“I hate it when we do that.” She commented, returning to her feet.

“It's important to know he's not faking it. I always hope it'll be one of the enlightened ones, but we have yet to meet one,” the other baby replied.

“Next time, you're the one who will be getting your butt spanked,” she spoke returning to her boss.

“Fair. Dang, he was a professor, some fancy liberal college too. History, I think? I wanted to believe. The reports said he graded fairly.” He spoke it aloud, not expecting an answer.

Benjamin's arm was tipped over the side of the chair, and it was dragging his body down. Everything hurt, he tried to say something. Boss baby, boss... man? The man waved at him, and then pointed.

“You're in time out!” He paused to correct himself “I'm sorry that was a wrong choice of words, I'll watch that. Anyways, you're at a four now. We're going to try this again in a few hours. I'm willing to let you out and we'll have a conversation like adults when you're ready to be an adult.”

The two left. The room got dark. Benjamin had not been this scared in his entire life.

Two hours later Benjamin was moved from the chair with the assistance of several little people. His right side still hurt. He was brought to a toilet that was the wrong size, but he was still able to function. After relieving himself, he crawled to the sink. He had to kneel down to look at himself in the mirror.

The reflection was starting to show some stubble. He patted back his brown hair. The babies had given him back his glasses and he took a moment to wash them with the tiny faucet. His dark blue shirt was a wrinkled mess. He patted it out the best he could. He stretched the shirt's fabric and put it in his khaki pants. He had worn this outfit for what felt like a couple of days. Seeing himself like this, he looked a little like what he remembered of his own father, back when he was his age. Benjamin looked old.

At one hundred and twenty-four inches he considered himself a bit of a manlet, but here the world was not made for people over ten feet tall. He had to duck his head everywhere. Even using the toilet required careful timing and precision. He had missed a few times controlling himself, and a puddle gathered in the corner of the stall. The stall's door had to be left open to use the toilet, and he barely fit in the cubical.

He could tell something was off, like the clothing he wore was heavier. The subtle signs of time changing were different than expected. The electrical hum in the lights was wrong. Even the water … tasted better.

He had been told he could have as much privacy and time in the restroom as he wanted. There were no changing stations. Instead, there was a wall of urinals, the lighting was calm, and soft sounds played. The counter tops were faux marble black. The music sounded like the ocean, it was tinny and distant but still comforting.

Benjamin was afraid to leave the bathroom. For the first time in his life Benjamin Young was afraid of small people. Which was ridiculous, he just needed to go out there and take charge. They would all be in line under him shortly, just needed to stand tall.

Kinda hard to stand ten feet tall when the ceilings top out at nine-feet six-inches. He would make it work. His posture was mostly straight except for his head. He walked around the bathroom corner and was stomach to face with the boss baby.

“Whoops! Sorry! I should have given you a bit more space.” the small man carefully stepped out of the way. Benjamin's hand gently touched the top of his captor's hair as he withdrew. The boy smiled for a second and then shook his head.

He looked up at Benjamin, and continued, “Being here, it must be extremely uncomfortable. Maybe a two, even a three, I am trying to get you back to a one. So, this is my first promise, what happens in a restroom is entirely you. You will not be watched. If you need ten minutes, twenty minutes, two hours, you take as long as you need to make yourself relaxed and ready for the world. If there is anything you need, we will bring it to you. No questions. No judgments.”

He pointed down the hall, “We are going to go for a walk. I want to find some place where we can just quietly discuss what has happened to you. We would like to work with you, and going outside might help clear your head a bit.”

“You're a strange little man. Who are you?” Benjamin hated himself right there. Little man. It was what he had used when he had dressed down that student who had turned in the ...

“Yes, proper introductions. I am Oliver Swift. I'm the manager of this project. It's not the most impressive thing, but we have a small budget, a small team, and we have done some great work. Come, we'll go for a walk outside. I think you'll like the fresh air.” Oliver pointed to the double doors down the hall. Benjamin followed as Oliver led him out. Oliver swiped a key card near a reader, and the doors unlocked. He pushed one door, went through, and held it open for Benjamin, who had to duck and leave the building sideways one limb at a time.

The air had a clean wetness. Distant thunder could be heard, and while the air was hot, a moist breeze gave it a relaxing chill. The clouds were gray to black on one side, but to Benjamin's left the sun found a way through overcast. Crepuscular rays had a mix of harshness and beauty against the dark sky. Benjamin forced himself to look at the sun. It hurt, but just a second of looking was enough to see it was wrong.

“This isn't my world.” Benjamin barely spoke it, a whisper from a giant.

Oliver confirmed his disappointment, “No, it's not your world. I am deeply sorry we took you here without your permission.”

“I need to get back, I was grading finals, you can't just go to other worlds and take people.” Benjamin was not in a position to be angry; it was a statement of desire.

“Benjamin, I can't have you go back until we fix what is wrong with you.” He pointed to the sidewalk, “Please, keep to the sidewalk, I got new shoes recently.” Oliver directed attention to his new loafers and they both saw it. The left shoe was untied. “I might need to do something about the laces though.” He knelt down and quickly fixed the shoe. Benjamin watched him kneel over, he was hoping he would see the outline of a diaper, any sign that he was still back home. Oliver stood back up, shook the shoe, and laughed, “Sorry about that, yes, we can go around the courtyard, but we are not prepared to let you out into the real world. You're still a danger to others.”

“I want to go back.”

“Yes, you do big guy,” Oliver flinched, but then rolled with it, “Don't worry, we have a crack team for worlds like yours. Robot suits filled with tiny people. Impersonating you as we speak. They can go for years without people noticing.”

Benjamin paused his walking and stared at the silly little man. He had just told him a joke... right? Made up a story? Best to give no response.

Oliver had waited a moment, as if he had expected Benjamin to laugh. “We actually just sent out a polite e-mail saying you had a crisis of faith, that you had been pushing the normal sized people too hard because you were hoping one would crack and you would take him or her home to be your new friend, and none of them did. You were sending out corrected grades reflecting the real quality of the work, and you felt ashamed that you put your personal needs above your duties and your academic integrity. You then said you would not be returning until you had worked through your issues.”

Oliver added, “By the way, for future reference anytime you walk away from your computer, you should lock it. No hacking required there.” They had been walking for a bit now, so Oliver pointed to a bench. A thunder rumble could be heard, but they could sit for a few minutes before they would need to head back.

Their journey had given Benjamin enough time to view the surrounding buildings. It was not quite industrial and not quite office space, some sort of hybrid approach in architecture. The fences and lights were tall, even for him, chain links going up to twenty feet. Cameras were everywhere. It reminded Benjamin of the schools used by littles, the ones he used to drive past when he was a graduate student. He had to go through the 'bad part' of town to get to university back then. When Oliver sat down on the bench Benjamin just stood leaning against a standing light. It held his weight.

“I … I just want to go back. Look, I won't tell anyone, I'll even honor the e-mail. I think you're right.”

Oliver was not having that. “You remember Collins. I read a copy of your e-mails. How you went from calling him brilliant - despite being a normal sized person. And more recently you accused him of using a helper to write an essay. It's a good thing he had camera footage of himself writing it. Plus, the drafts are saved automatically. Every sentence he wrote saved to the cloud.”

“I'm sorry... I just, I wanted...” Ben's face started to crunch up. “I want to go home.”

“Hey, hey, hey, it's OK. It's OK. We're trying to make you comfortable, that was wrong of me to bring it up. This is an important issue for us, we... we need to know what's going on in there.” He tapped his head. “Nothing about your world makes sense, and we're hoping if we have someone whose an expert talk to us, maybe we can work through these issues, maybe... maybe even find a way to make you normal.”

“I don't want to be tiny.” Well, at least they agreed, Oliver was the normal one.

Oliver did that chuckle laugh Benjamin liked so much before. “I'm sorry, no your size isn't the issue. In fact, given your size, you're a remarkably peaceful people. You're excellent cooks. A few other talents we appreciate. You had the potential to be the Brobdingnag's of the multiverse. Instead, you're actually the most odious people we have ever met. The entire multiverse is afraid of you, including us. We're not afraid of you because you're big, but because you are disturbing the order of things.”

Benjamin did not want to be judged for the problems of his society. “Just let me go back. I promise to respect the littles from now on, and I won't adopt one.”

“First off, the term is normal sized people. Have you even taken a census? Do you even know they outnumber you now? Never mind, we'll get to that in a bit when you're ready for that. Your problem is not that you are bigger or stronger. It's that you think that gives you the right to do what you want. More importantly, you have a condition that makes you see other humans, adults with fully actualized lives, as children. Also, on my world we like to see children as people too, and so you're doing something worse than just making them children. It's like slavery. It's like rape. It's like all the worst things in our history combined.”

“No. You're wrong. They have a real condition the...” Benjamin wanted to still win here, “the normals as you call them, they start degenerating and they need us to protect them from themselves. They're so happy. Like, symbiosis. A shark and a remora. Aphids and ants. We work together, we were meant to be together.”

“Look, you and I, we are not from the same world, and I have no idea how your species got dimensional travel, but you know enough to know, we don't share the same history or biology, we're completely different, and yet in your mind I'm a three-year-old boy. Study the issue like you would anything else you were trained to study. Close your eyes and just think about the problem.”

Benjamin closed his eyes. His heart was racing. His breathing intensified.

“Slow,” Oliver spoke softly.

He could just hear the distant thunder, feel the wet air coming in from the East. His urges had gotten worse. He had written that e-mail accusing Collins. He had wanted to adopt and hoped he could ...

“Keep your eyes closed. You don't know much about interdimensional travel, it's something very new to you. I have visited a dozen worlds, including your own, and my people have traveled to hundreds of thousands. Yours is the only one with people outside the distribution of height while keeping a near normal society for tech and culture.” Oliver laid out the scale of the problem.

This was scaring him. “There's something wrong with me. Please, just let me go back to Amazonia.”

“Our records are not that good for a world so far off of prime line, but we even have some evidence the planet was called Blefuscu before you Amazons came and ruined everything.”

“No that's not true,” Benjamin denied.

Oliver continued the instruction, “Please, keep your eyes closed, just a little longer. You're right, we're not sure, it's just what we think happened. We suspect you're a parasite species, moving from host world to host world and feeding off humans. Some sort of evolutionary meta-adaption of the multiverse we need to fight against.”

Benjamin's voice raised, “No we were fine, we were happy, then the littles came to us, and they needed us. They came on their tiny boats, and they were so unhappy, and they needed help. Their island was falling into the ocean.”

Oliver was unprepared for that. The littles … the normal people had invaded Amazonia? Mass hypnosis, the advanced technology, it was starting to come together. Illegal uplift. Possibly some genetic manipulation, and planetary wide social engineering, but why?

“I'm sorry I brought you there, you are correct, I didn't mean to distress you. Here. This is a present. Keep your eyes closed. This is just something nice I'm doing for you. You need the help.” Oliver took a deep breath.

“You're back at your university again. All your colleagues are so happy for you. Your time away has given them a newfound respect and understanding, and your e-mail was extremely brave. Everyone agrees you were right. Here comes the man whose has been helping fill in for you while you're gone. Who is it? Who is the new teacher?”

“Collins. It's Collins.” Benjamin guessed hopefully.

“He comes up to you and gives you a hug, he's so glad to see you. He says he understood why you pushed him so hard for this, to prepare for the real challenge of working here. Ever since he met you, he just wanted to be like you, and this is the moment he's been waiting for, a chance to finally work with the man he has always respected and admired.”

“I... what's going on.” Things were not right in the dream. Benjamin could not open his eyes. Everything was stretched.

“Just a happy memory, a possibility of what could have been. Do you see it yet?” Oliver taunted.

Benjamin stumbled, “He's... he's... we're the same height. Collins is big now!”

“No try again.” The doors were huge. The hallways were cavernous. The students were giants. His colleagues all congratulated him on making the transition, of being so brave.

“I... think I need...” Benjamin did not like this.

“Collins isn't big, you're normal sized now!” Oliver emphasized at a volume just below a yell.

Benjamin's eyes open, there is a crack of lightning and a few seconds later thunder. He jumps in fright. He is actually scared of the thunder! The fences are forty feet tall. The bench is eight feet tall. Mr. Oliver had to be... God he is so old. Mr. Swift is older than him. He had a slight gray in the hair. His tie was the exact same one the vice rector would wear.

“Sit for a second, right here.” Oliver pat the bench. Benjamin reluctantly sat onto it. Oliver was taller than him now. His heavy breath shook, this had not been his worst fear before today, because he had never imagined it was possible.

Oliver's volume returned to a soft conversational level, “We could do this by the way, make you small like this. One pill makes you big, one pill makes you small. Your world has some pretty impressive tech given the fact that literally half of your economy is making baby toys. There's hypnosis, and cell rejuvenation, and that dimensional travel is a whole other box that makes no sense at all. Is it also true you have nanotech? That's illegal on most worlds.”

“What... no, that's just... I'm sorry. I haven't been this small since.” Benjamin looked at his arms and legs. He was still an adult; he was not a child. He was talking with an adult, an equal. This was the most normal thing he did every day; it was everything else in the world that was wrong.

“I'm going to bring your discomfort on this to about a six, maybe a seven, and I'm really sorry, you seem like you would have been a great ally. You remember what happened to Collins right? Ben, go ahead and remember.”

The student had not actually made the recording. There were no draft edits. Collins had chosen a different path.

“I just wanted him to be my … be in my life forever. To always be there and protect him and love him and have him love me back.” He brought his hands to his face. First a sniffle, then an eye twitch. It was too much. The sun was wrong. It hurt to look at things. The distant rain was getting wetness in his face. He just wanted to go home. He did not want to be himself.

“Hey, hey, it's OK. I'm sorry. We just need you to understand why we are doing this. You want to be better, right? We can't bring back Collins, but we can try to make it, so you do not want to hurt anyone like that again. Would you like to work with us to be better?”

“Yes, I … I have a problem. Oh! We all have a problem. We're all sick. You made me a normal and I'm … I can't go back. They'll...” Benjamin was aware he was crying now “they'll do it to me, even though I was big, they'll do it to me.”

Oliver took no enjoyment in taunting him with this, “And what will they do to a man who cries?”

“We were supposed to help them!” Benjamin panted, unable to hold his emotions in. His face was going red.

Oliver felt his stomach turn, it would be easier if the stories had happy endings, but in the diaper dimension they almost never did. “Do you understand what it means to be one of us now, to be normal, to live with fear of something badder and meaner coming along and ruining your day?”

“What is this place?”

“The Amazons are only starting to put together a basic map of the multiverse. But if you could run into a half dozen worlds just slightly less advanced than yours, wouldn't that mean in an infinite multiverse there was some UR-Earth. A big dog on top, or even a council of planets running the show in secret?”

There had been speculation, but the consensus had been that if there was a more advanced world, the people there would have to be twice as big. Some thought there could be a world with people four times as big and maybe even eight times. Effort had been spent to calculate the tallest world possible. There were physical limits set by oxygen and gravity. Amazonia was probably near the top.

There was a supposition that, somewhere, in the multiverse, there was another world with giants, and if you traveled far enough, those taller men and women might have an opinion on the maturity of a race of smaller people who still insisted on playing with baby dolls.

Amazonian scientists made predictions of what sort of technological marvels could be found on such a world. Obviously, it would far surpass Amazonia. A world where giants had landed on the Moon and rockets had traveled to the edge of the Solar System. Where the atom was split for its energy. Worlds where the computers were so advanced, they could even beat grandmasters at chess or predict the weather two weeks out. It was just ridiculous science fiction. Everyone knew the weather was completely unpredictable more than even a couple of days out.

Still, it was a scary thought. How tall would a man have to be to lift another man to the moon? Twenty feet? Thirty? The moon was pretty far away. How strong would he have to be to rip open the proton? Imagine that power! Now imagine if the people who had that knowledge were also mean. A race that fought every day for dominance and power. A people so aggressive, their wars killed hundreds of millions every century.

Just the possibility was almost enough to shut down the dimensional travel project. Better to hide than run into the super giants. But of the half dozen worlds they visited, even the tallest person was smaller than the smallest adult Amazon. Plenty of evidence to dismiss this as crank theories of over imaginative nerds. Amazonia was surely the first, the biggest, and the best. That is when the harvest began, because who would stop the Amazons?

“We're part of a team of worlds. It's like the United Nations.” The analogy missed. Amazonia never had a Second World War. Oliver continued without explaining, “There's an alliance of Earths and that's all you need to know. For the past couple centuries, we've been quietly manipulating things on other worlds we visit. Small suggestions to changes to the textbook Standard Model that led to wrong paths. 'Multiverse' theories of quantum mechanics that suggest the existence of other worlds but must be impossible to reach. Even some cultural suggestions. Sometimes we'll introduce movies, comics, or Tee Vee shows, just to put out the idea exploring the multiverse is a bad idea.”

Such a silly proposition. 'What if' the other universes are just like us, but are the evil version of us? An Earth Two if you will. As if any world that invented fascism and slavery would have an eviler version of itself.

Benjamin was shaking. He had never been prepared to deal with something bigger, stronger, and deadlier before. Amazons were always on top. Now he was just a regular guy, and he just could not handle it. This little, who was an inch taller him and two years older, who he first met as a boss baby - he had shown him that all their worst fears were wrong. It was not bigger people to be afraid of. It was just running into someone that understood how to deal with a bully. You do not have to be twenty feet tall to stand up to a bully.

“Ben, I'm sorry, what I just did there, making you feel smaller than yourself. We're just making you realize where you actually landed in the order of the universe. And I feel really bad for dredging up that memory, you were at a breaking point when we took you, and we thought maybe we could help each other. You want that right? To help us?”

Benjamin wiped his nose on his sleeve, “How can I help you? I'm not bigger anymore. You made me small. Only big people can do things.”

Oliver corrected him, “Now this is just hypnosis, nothing permanent, it's not something we like to do but it seems to have helped with giving you a bit of perspective. If you promise to cooperate, I can make you big again.”

Ben nodded, and then remembered from earlier. He was an adult, he had to use his words, “I would like that. I can help, I know things.”

“Stand up Benjamin and close your eyes,” Oliver commanded.

Benjamin did as instructed. He was lost. He could hear the rain starting to approach. The wind was picking up, and thunder was only a few miles off. The sounds were deeper. He felt a slight pulling at his hand.

“Daddy look at your pants. It looks like you wet yourself. Daddy wet himself.”

He looked down, and yes, he must have sat in water. His pants were soaked.

“Collins that's inappropriate language for the park.” Benjamin turned to chastise the youth whose hand he was holding, but it was not Collins. It was Oliver. The young man turned, and he smiled and looked up into Benjamin's face. The older fellow was gone. This was just a little. Not a toddler, not a boy, a normal sized person. He was an adult, like him, only smaller.

“Are you... at about a one yet? I know I promised to try to make you feel back at a one, I know it was a difficult journey.”

Benjamin smiled, he was big again, and his boy had helped him understand something important – what it felt like to be small. “Oliver. Mr. Swift.” Be tall. “Do you mind holding my hand back to the facility, I am not certain I can find the way.”

Oliver put his hand into Benjamin's, and the small man let the giant pull him the whole way back. Benjamin made sure to step in a way that avoided the puddles. After all, his boy had brand new shoes, and he did not want them to get ruined.