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.”