Chapter 5: I'm flipping out in the magazine neighborhood.

20 Vendémiaire Year CCXXVIII, Potat, South Windland, Libertalia - Amazonia

F. Scott Fiztgerald once wrote, “In my younger and more vulnerable years my father gave me some advice that I've been turning over in my mind ever since.”

Imagine what it would mean to receive just one sentence, one sequence of words, that could linger with you for years, advice that would not just encompass your thoughts once, but would constantly worm its way up there, that you will revisit over and over in new context throughout your life. Who else, but one’s dad, would be capable of such a powerful exchange. As you grow older your memory will fail you, and you will forget the names of old teachers and old streets, unspoken languages will melt away, and when cursive becomes a rotted jungle, the words of your father will stick with you. They are the ideas you do not want to abandon, and they will come to define the type of person you aspire to be.

As all the readers should know, the mommies on Amazonia have breast milk, which in the diaper dimension is written as closer to Homeric ambrosia or nectar than ordinary dairy. It strips away the years and inflames the passions. That's not fair to daddies though. You can say that's how it is in real life; all boys and girls are more attached to their mothers. The fact is, even on Earth, there are things dads can do that moms cannot.

They can talk to their children differently.

Think of a naughty child, where the mother scolds him, “Wait until your father hears about this. He will give you a ‘talking too’”.

Think of the advice you get from a father. The real advice, the stuff that sticks with you in a way that advice from friends, and teachers, and work colleagues and even your mother or siblings does not. It is clear, not mixed with everything else you knew.

Think of that scene in “The Graduate” with Walter Brooke taking aside Dustin Hoffman, “Just one word. Are you listening? Plastics.” Obviously, that was not from his father, but it was sold like advice from a father figure. A mommy cannot do this.

It manifests in other ways, not just wisdom. The whole point of a dad joke is that it is being set up as some important wisdom, and instead it's useless.

“Son, have you ever wondered, why are there so many people at the cemetery?” It is like birds and bees. It is like dating advice. It is like car shopping. He is preparing you to get wisdom on how to deal with tragedy, life, death, and religion. He has your full attention.

“Because they're dying to get in!”

The dad joke is just practice at the voice. He is not ready to give the real advice and you're not ready to hear it.

If the diaper dimension is every age regression story combined into one, imagine how much worse the “dress down from your father” must be. On the world of Amazons, the dad voice is far more powerful. It drills deep into your core. It corrupts you in a way that you enjoy being a different person.

“You've gotten too big. Promise me you won't get any bigger. You're a little stinker, right? You're never going to grow up! I got you! You're not getting away!” It is different when a man says it. If you are stuck in a hug, you could maybe get away from your mom, but you're never sneaking away from your dad. And long after mom stops carrying you and makes you walk everywhere, well, the dads still want to pick you up.

It is not a chemical addiction, like breast milk, it is something cerebral. It is an adaptation for the Amazons for something even they do not understand. It is a voice that could dissipate a mob, train a soldier, get a man to jump over a trench, or rally a nation. And the best part?

The mommies do not know what's going on. This is just a daddy secret, shared among daddies. Girls are aware there is some 'boy' thing, and they happily will use it as a threat if a little is being extra naughty, but if the mommies knew what men were capable of? Societal breakdown.

Would they look at their husbands the same way? Would they be jealous? Would they think their husbands had ever used it on them? Would women want it to be used on them?

Plus, the littles. If the littles knew, they would never trust themselves around an adult man again. They would be angry too, once they thought of the problem for five minutes, but they would be scared of adult Amazon men. If you think it is weird that men on Earth have a taboo against being at the park, imagine how much worse every mother's fear would be if the bad men only needed to be convincing with their words. No one would ever talk to a stranger again.

On Amazonia, an adopting mother will never be your 'real' mom. She never carried you in her womb. She is just a stepmom. You might love her just as much, maybe more if she brain fucks you and makes it sexual, but an adopted dad? There are millions, tens of millions of people who have grown up with a man who is not their biological father, and neither they nor their dad know. Any daddy can be your real daddy in a way your mommy can never be. When an eleven-foot man picks you up and throws you on his shoulders, you will never see the world the same way ever again.

In the first few years of exploring Amazonia, it did not take Oliver's team long to realize that this was not just some weird coddling instinct for the big women. There was evidence of a fecundity crisis, and maybe it was related, but there was far more going on.

At first, they thought littles were some sort of human cuckoos, tricking mommy's into raising their young, or maybe some broken reverse cuckoo situation, the nurturing instinct of the Amazon women gets triggered, and they steal the littles as if they were their real children. The mommies even lactate! Turning adults into babies was a biological phenomenon, whatever its origin was.

That does not explain the daddies! And there were a lot of daddies. Women could control littles with breast milk, a highly addictive substance that creates a bond between little and Amazon. The Amazon males do not have breast milk, but they have just as much control over their littles as the mommy's. If it was just hypnosis and toys and mind fuckery, how did the men get the instinct and desire to do this in the first place? How did they coddle the littles before the technology was available?

It all clicked when Oliver heard 'The Voice' for the first time. Oliver had been 'shopping' in a supermarket. Same as Earth, with carts, aisles, the whole place the size of multiple football fields, and overly bright. Milk in the back and the bread in the front. Being in a store this large was not even a novel experience for Oliver, as he had a Costco membership. People on Earth routinely visited stores where products were ten feet off the ground and the aisles stretched for half a mile. Being in a supermarket would feel like the most normal part about Amazonia.

Today he was recording price changes to independently verify the Libertalia government's public data on inflation. Normal spy stuff. Oliver was not there to go grocery shopping; he did not even like to do that on Earth. After a couple of miles of walking, he had found himself in an aisle with magazines. While checking the headlines and topics for the stories of the day a twenty-seven-year-old lady quietly shuffled up behind him. She was decently attractive, red hair with a blond streak, yellow flower dress. She also had no sense of personal space.

“What'cha working on?” she whispered. Her breath went straight into his ear. It smelled of maple syrup. Oliver's cart was empty, but he had a long shopping list with prices and numbers.

He steadied himself from jumping in shock and instead coolly replied, “I'm looking at the prices.”

This aisle was a quiet reprieve, almost secluded from the rest of the store. She picked up a magazine, something bright and pink with a woman on it looking at the reader with a sexy smile. She stared at the woman’s thick lipstick. She began flipping through the pages, not reading but looking for glossy ads and pictures, and then just dropped the magazine. It landed open on its spine, and a subscription card fell out and slid across the aisle.

Oliver stared at what she had done, and then looked at her. She moved on over and picked up a magazine that said “Dollies.” The front had a porcelain baby doll, with a big puffy black dress, long hair, lost empty eyes and tiny nose.

“For the Hardcore Doll Enthusiast!” the magazine read in bright red text below Dollies. He could make out some of the article titles being advertised on the cover.

“… announces new baby wetting model coming this fall.”

“Tips for getting around the export ban! Yamatoa-Girl dolls impossible to find? We got the best ...”

She flipped the pages. “Old! Read this six months ago.” She threw the magazine on the ground. Actually threw it, not dropped, like the floor was now the trash bin. Her eyes crossed as she looked at Oliver. Her body shook and as she turned and looked around at the mountains of magazines, newspapers, and books. Her wandering gaze stopped and locked in on one on the bottom shelf.

“Coloring ones!”

She tried to bend down to the coloring books, but instead her bar shoes slipped along the polished floor. She started doing the splits sideways, and her butt was up directly aimed at Oliver's face. Her bottom was huge, but the shape hung wrong right below the crotch. It even smelled off. She fell right on the offensive area, and then scooched to the coloring books along the bottom shelf. She picked up the first book, tossed it behind her and then picked up a second with the exact same pictures. She started flipping through it like she was skimming the articles.

Oliver picked up the first magazine she had thrown away. He carefully undid the folding caused by her outrage and put it back on the shelf. An actual little. Not a real person, but a person who had been transformed into a baby. He had seen them but had not talked to them or gotten close to them. They scared him, like the condition was contagious. He began to wonder if she would be a suitable candidate for the next phase. They were working on some ideas for rehabilitation. He reached down to pick up the next magazine, and as he stood back up, he heard something that froze him in place.

“YOUNG LADY” It was furious and strong. It was a drill sergeant's command.

“YOU DO NOT RUN AWAY FROM ME WHEN WE ARE IN PUBLIC.”

It was not a mommy. He had only seen littles with their mommies. From afar. This was a man. He turned his head and was greeted with dad-core. Slightly open white polo shirt exposing chest hairs that was tucked into jeans, light brown beard, and some signs of balding up top. He had a full cart. He must have run out of room and let the little out to walk on the promise she would be good.

Oliver realized he was holding a magazine that said 'Dollies' on it. He looked down. “Boys want to play with dolls too? The future of the industry!” There was a small picture of a thirty-year-old man, he had been dressed in the same flower dress as the lady sitting beside Oliver. Oliver covered the picture with his hand, and slowly put it back on the shelf. As the older man walked past him to his baby girl, every hair on his arms stood up. It felt like the bombing mission. He could hear the tone of the radar lock on his plane.

“You will never run away from daddy again. Do you hear me.” - The voice was turning on. “I should spank you to lock that into your brain.”

“Yes, daddy.”

He picked up the young lady and began carrying her in his left arm.

“And no talking to strangers.” He turned, aware of Oliver.

Do not talk to strangers. Do not talk to strangers. Fuck! That was in his head! The daddy looked at him, “Oh hello there, little one, are you lost too. Did my girl try to make a new friend?”

Do not talk to strangers. His hand was reaching for the emergency dimension shift. He had to get out of here.

“Shy? You can speak up, it's OK?” The tall man voiced concern.

He is not your real dad. Fuck him. Fuck this Steve or Bob or whatever his name is. He can fuck my mom but that will not make him my real dad.

That... worked? He could talk to a stranger again, “She seems to have made a mess of things. In a few spots. Children, right?” He pointed to her diaper, and the coloring book on the ground.

“Oh. Are you a dad too?”

“We're thinking of trying, but it's hard these days, she's not sure she wants to raise a child in this world. You understand right?” The lie came fast from Oliver, his composure restored.

“It's just the best, watching them grow up. Every day is a treasure. You get to see the world a new.”

Oliver had to push it, his mind was still a rebellious teen, he needed to say something ass-holeish, “Does she ever grow up?”

“What do you mean?”

“She's never going to tell you how her first date went, you're never going to help her move into her college dorm, you're never going to walk her down the aisle, you're never going to visit her in the maternity ward and meet your grandchildren.”

The man looked at his daughter and Oliver, and then back at the daughter. “You wouldn't understand because you're not a dad.” He pushed his cart with one hand and exited the aisle. “Here, let's get to the restroom so I can get you cleaned up.” The little girl dropped the coloring book she was holding into the cart and waved goodbye to Oliver from over her father's shoulder.

Do not talk to strangers. The old man does not know shit about anything. Fuck him.

When he had returned to the facility his whole team had gone over the footage. The effect in recorded audio form was not as strong, but it was still there. “Don't talk to strangers.” They tried the recording on staff in other departments, and it worked. They tested how to undo the conditioning, blasted a few interns as deep as it could go and saw how hard it was to get out of it. They had discovered something important.

The big daddies had a superpower.

No wonder they easily built such powerful hypnosis toys, the toys were just emulating what they could do naturally.

Studying the voice became a top priority.