Chapter 40: Victim of the system, say it isn't so.

2 Messidor Year CCXXXVI, Potat, South Windland, Libertalia – Amazonia

Raul Sanz was in his last free moments as an adult. It was not enjoyment, just a mix of anticipation, fear, and excitement, like he was about to take a pop quiz he had not studied for. He was standing at the front door of a small ranch home located in a cul-de-sac a few miles from where he attended school.

Today he dressed in his finest ensemble, something he had worn to high school graduation and was slightly too small for him now. A cheap blue overcoat that was probably from Bullseye, which went well with his long white khaki trousers. He had picked up a short green bow tie. He had taken the time to learn how to properly put it on, and between the clean shave and the tie he looked five years younger. He had stuffed his black and red backpack with the minimum essentials he would need, plus some nice to haves. Not too much, just in case something had happened, and his new mother needed more time to get things ready for him.

He was twenty years old and had been attending college until a few days ago. He had shaved as much as he could both up top and down below. His head hair was slightly long, but per the instructions that would be good, as mommies loved taking their boys to get a haircut. He took one last look at the brochure from Family Planning and put it into his back pocket. With his hand free he took out his letter and drawing. He shifted the bouquet of flowers to his left and walked up to the doorbell.

Scott was kind of annoyed he could not do anything, the experience was almost on autopilot, but at the same time felt like he was the one making the decisions. He heard the voices in his head go over what Raul wanted to say, and Raul was accessing older memories and putting this whole thing in context. Scott could only slightly move the focus of the scene, like emphasize the sound of chirps of distant birds or fill his nose with the smell of grass and dew.

Raul Sanz was the first in his family to attend college. His father, like most male littles he knew, worked in construction. His mother was 'stay-at-home', but did odd jobs from the household, like sewing and stitching. She had some contracts where work would drop by in the morning, and she would watch the children or her soaps all day while sewing fine tiny details into clothing. Some of it was for bigs, some for smalls, some for smalls of the smalls. In the evening, she would drop off the box at the end of the drive, and someone would pick it up and a small pile of cash would be left in the mailbox.

He had been small even for a little. He did not want to do heavy labor. He was not great at school, but he was good enough. He wanted to study animals. Go out into the world and get away from everything and learn about zebras or giraffes.

University was an entirely other matter than high school. To say there was discrimination and lowered expectations for him in primary and secondary education was an understatement. It had been a glorified daycare, keeping the littles from getting into trouble and getting sent back to diapers was the only real concern. It was not a surprise that he struggled in the first year in college and barely made it to year two. He started to get demerits, and on one particularly bad day at lunch he saw a gal handing out the brochures.

She was decently attractive; in the memory of the memory, she had blond hair and was taller than him. He went up and decided to see what she was handing out. The moment he was within a few feet of her, she looked him cold in the eyes and said flatly, “Have you thought about your future?”

He looked at the green-blue brochure she had forced into his hands. “FAMILY PLANNING: What to Expect When You're No Longer Expected to be an Adult” The front had an outline of a baby with a red arrow to an adult and an arrow to another baby, like the phases of a clock.

“I'd like to know more about the future.” He encanted the dangerous words. Knowing the future never ends well in stories.

When she explained it to him, it was the best idea he had ever heard. Better than going to college or working in construction. Littles have stages to life, and they are inevitable. Birth, childhood, adulthood, the return to childhood, and then death. It was a natural cycle, like an arc to everyone's life. Everyone would experience it eventually.

You cannot do anything about your first childhood. Which means you do not really have control of what your adulthood is going to be like either, as a bad childhood led to a bad adulthood. Each stage was laying the groundwork for the next one. We live in the modern era; we know how these things work. So much of what is given as conventional wisdom and best practice was really just randomness.

Get a good job and education, work hard, save money and you are just as likely to get picked off at a coffee shop as the next little. There was no need to suffer the difficulties of adulthood just to get the retirement we want. Adulthood should be focused on setting up for the next stage of life. You can even sequence break! Retiring early was an option.

Who you are in your return to babyhood is as important as who you were before, and you can start planning for it today, and make sure it will be a good one. If you just leave it to the whims of nature, well, you might end up in the hands of an overzealous Amazon teenager who hits puberty and wants to abduct her first child, or an elderly man who cannot even hear you crying; one who kicks the bucket in a decade.

On and on she told him about all the worst possible things that could happen. Teeth coming out, damaging the body permanently, and worse.

Family Planning was like unlocking a secret code. All his friends, teachers, peers, parents, relatives, all of them were idiots. He had not really thought of this future, but neither had they. This whole time he thought he was immortal. If college went poorly, he would just … he did not have an answer.

He barely had any money in his bank account, at best he might be able to chill with his parents and get a job doing construction from his dad, but that was not a guarantee. Plus, it was possible that something could happen to him while he was in school. For example, he was pretty sure that test he had gotten back today was intentionally mis-scanned. He was too scared to bring it up to the professor. What if was some twelve-dimensional Amazon plot to get him kicked out of school?

“You can retake the test, but this time in diapers” he thought the teacher would say. Raul was not that imaginative, but Amazons did not make mistakes around littles unless they intended to set them up for failure.

What he loved the most about Family Planning was the brutal honesty. His parents, his old teachers, his friends, even the university, no one wanted to talk about this. Adoption was not all happy days and love. Family Planning was more than willing to talk about the bad side of adoption. That was half their pitch, there were bad parents out there, and you can do better.

You will always love your parents, but you did not have to like them, and Family Planning wanted you to have parents you liked and who liked you in addition to loving you. They even included a small section in the brochure on what to do if things go wrong after adoption – what numbers to call and how to contact them. They did not lie, LPS could be worse than your adopted parents, do not ever reach out to them on a whim, but it was also a chance at something better if your life was in actual danger.

Right at the end was a special code, just for the littles, in case you could not get to the phone. Just enter it into a Blu-ray or DVD player and their servers will pick it up. Raul was not sure anyone still had those, but it was something special just for littles like him in case the game became unplayable. Family Planning actually cared about his future and was taking it seriously.

Family Planning would screen him and screen the applicants at the other end. This was a premium service. They would handle all the legal paperwork on the adoption. Make sure everything was on the up and up. While that was happening, he would take training and classes going over how to get the most of the next stage of life.

The school was ecstatic in its support. His teachers all knew he did not have it in him to be a zoologist, and they congratulated him on figuring out the truth long before the other littles. The regent had even let him change majors to 'child development', and he switched his classes mid-semester to the FP recommended courses.

The instructions were thorough – how to have conversations before and after, what to do in emergencies, and how to pick a good diaper brand. They taught him to deal with boredom, to be comfortable with losing his knowledge and skills, what rights he still had and what he would lose. And after three intense months, he had earned his “associates” degree. The school even said there would always be a spot for a ‘former alumnus’ at Hilltop, in case he ever got a chance to continue his degree.

His parents were not thrilled when he told them, but that was a conversation they had practiced in one of his classes. He knew every objection they would have, and he had prepackaged answers.

Except the last one, class had not prepared him for that question, but he shrugged and left without another word. Raul had blocked off the rest of the memories, so Scott had no idea what was said, only that there was crying when Raul got back to his dorm. Family Planning had left him a special care package, with a letter and picture from his new mother, and it helped turn his mood around.

And so that is how Raul ended up at Mrs. Darbyshire's front door. Family Planning told him she was a widow, that she had a decent amount of money. Not a ton, but enough he would not want for reasonable things and could have toys and good TV shows to watch, plus trips to places in town. It would be a nicer childhood than his first one. He was worried about her age, but they assured him that most Amazons lived far longer than littles and that would not be an issue. She had seen his picture, got his first letter, had responded kindly, but this would be the first real meeting between the two.

And that is how Scott, now in the body of Raul, perceived the current set of memories.

In case this is a bit confusing. Oliver is still on the couch in twenty twenty-three, sucking his pacifier... soother for the first time, and experiencing a mind-bending trip to the future, which may or may not all be a product of his imagination has hitting infinity.

Here in twenty thirty-eight Oliver is in a makeshift meeting room built from an old janitorial closet in the basement of the White House. His new boss, Scott has put the fancy glasses on and has just had this memory downloaded into his head. It helps that Scott has been drinking the milk and his mind is primed for other-worldly experiences.

Ms. Darbyshire's doorbell had a nice “Ding, dong” (lower) “Ding dong” (higher) “Ding Dong” (lower). Raul wanted to push it again but did want to wear it out. He waited and heard the loud thump of an Amazon approaching the portal. Once he stepped through, his adulthood would end, and he would begin the next level of his life.

The door moved with the pace of a loading screen. He had practiced this greeting, the smile. It was a little cheesy but maybe that would be fine too. He looked at his new mommy for the first time. He proudly spoke, with the enthusiasm of a four-year-old, “Hello, I heard there was a lonely woman in my area and…” his voice had cracked a bit as he tried to say the line as cool as possible.

It took Ms. Darbyshire a second to realize there was a small at the door. She glanced down “Oh, it's you.” Her clothes were barely more than a night gown, and she had large glasses that made it hard to see her eyes. Her hair was a mess, uncombed, frizzy, gray and black and silver and white. She had a cigarette between her fingers to her left, but she had placed it in way to the side to obscure it from a full-sized visitor. Her teeth had a crook and had also yellowed. She smelled a bit like onions.

The house was no better on the smell either. Raul held his breath for a second, but he knew this could happen. Your new family may have unusual tastes and smells, and your body will adapt in a few hours. He did not want to say it was cat piss, but there was something off. There was a loud TV playing on the inside of the room. News maybe? The words were too far away to make out.

Raul took the flowers and handed them to her and did a sheepish kick while looking down at his feet. Maximize the cute as soon as possible.

She took the flowers and just shook her head. It was an inconvenience. “I'll get these in a pot. Go ahead and get in. And take your shoes off.”

He did not really see a place to put his shoes, but he took them off and placed them nicely by the wall, just past the door so they would be out of the way, but not on the carpet. He made his way to an overly flowery couch and climbed up. The TV was far too loud and covering some event of the day. Some controversy in Gaul over their frog exports.

She came out from the kitchen and stared at the shoes and then pointed. “Is this where these go?” she loudly chastised from across the room.

He did not really think he needed to say anything. He just looked at her and gave a soft shrug. This was also covered as a possibility, some parents needed to start off on nit picking small mistakes. Let them have their moment of authoritarian fun. She probably already had new shoes ready for him or wanted to take him shoe shopping. Maybe something with Velcro or lights. Just go with it until she is ready to have a real conversation.

“We won't be needing these then” she picked up the shoes, opened the door and then tossed them behind a bush. He knew enough to not say anything, he just stared at her directly, like she was a bear or a wolf. The coke-bottle-glasses protected her from his judgment.

She made her way over to him and put her hands on her hips. She stared down at the boy. “Given how much money I've given to Family Planning you'd think they'd get this right.”

He was unsure what to say to that.

“I wanted a girl. Blond hair. Snow colored skin. Like my dolly I had when ...” her thoughts drifted, and the TV switched to a commercial. Something involving insurance for your littles or your children's littles. It was even louder than the news.

“You're the ugly dolly that the poor kids get to play with.” She stretched out poor, like it would hurt Raul more. It did not.

“You best make yourself useful dolly.”

His voice quaked but he replied after a short swallow, “I thought, maybe we could sit and talk about each other, and maybe you can tell me about yourself and...” He was trying to pat the couch.

Nothing. Was she having a stroke? Just a confused look.

“I uh, wrote us a letter if talking is a bit of a problem. It just kind of goes over what I want and what I can help with.” He handed her the letter and sheepishly turned. It talked about trips to the zoo, what type of diapers he liked, what his favorite foods and colors were, how he wanted to be sung to each morning when he woke up, how he wanted her to be open and honest before and after. To show patience and love and understanding.

Her hands easily ripped the letter in half. It was folded and had multiple pages. The two halves fell and wafted under the couch. “I don't need an instruction book.”

One final attempt. The picture. He had spent hours drawing it. It was his best attempt to draw her and him and the two of them together at the zoo, with him pointing at a giraffe. It was decent, made with coloring pencils and well-proportioned figures. He had doodled and sketched a lot in boring high school classes. It labeled her as mommy and him as Raul Darbyshire (Son). “Please. Here I made this for you, let's just talk for a bit.”

She grabbed the picture and then crumpled it behind her. “No. Dollies don't talk. Dollies exist entirely for my pleasure.”

Pleasure? Oh. OH! That is why she was being like this. They had hinted at this in exactly one class, and it was not supposed to be something the little would bring up. She was not attractive, but she was a somewhat rich widower. He could imagine it being a fun life. It was probably illegal, but it might be better than being in diapers full time.

His voice got deeper, and his posture improved, “I wasn't expecting that, but if you want to try exploring boundaries, I'd be happy to show what I'm capable of.”

The old woman scolded him, “You don't understand. You are my doll. You're not an adult. You're not a baby. You're not a tween or a little. You're a doll. I don't want my dolls to make any noise. You got that? You're a simple old doll like the ones I had as a child, with no fancy voice boxes.”

It was such a terrible sin of the past that the history books even mentioned it. The Dolls. It was illegal. Scott was annoyed he could not see more of that book in the memory. All he got was a quick black and white picture in a textbook from Raul's mind and then Raul shut it down. He knew Raul was scared.

“Ma'am, I'm sorry, I think there are some differences of expectation here, and we can figure this out through a nice conversation and come to a mutual understanding, and if not, we can have Family Planning sort this all out.”

She picked him up and then held him upside down. She began to shake him hard. He wanted to vomit. She took off his backpack forcibly.

He managed to get out a “Nonnonon, don't … don't... shake the baby” and she tossed him back on the couch.

“Yep, still making sounds, gotta do something about that. Can't have my dolly making noise while I watch my television.” She unzipped the bag. “Let's see what accessories you come with.”

“Change of clothes, don't care. Some candy, naughty naughty.” It was a granola bar; he did not know if she would be home when he arrived and might need to wait for hours. “A phone? I took the liberty to block 'five gee' in my house. Don't want the cancer rays to get into my brain. My only phone is the landline in the kitchen. Oh, and what's this? A book?” She held it up by just one side, and the spine flopped.

It was going to be his gift to her. It was a white binder. Each page had three sections, the first had a picture of himself from childhood doing something, like his first birthday cake, and then a picture from him in adulthood, at his twentieth birthday party, and then finally a spot on the bottom for her to put a picture of him in doing the same thing post regression.

“Useless trash,” she put it back in the backpack and then left for the kitchen. She tossed it all into the trash bin on top of the flowers he had gotten her.

He figured he had about ten seconds here. He hopped down and swiftly ran to the door. The lock was too far to reach. He did a running jump up the wood and smacked the lock open. He landed on his socks and then started to open the door. He just had to get to the neighbors. He just had to run, except now his collar was choking him.

She picked up her dolly and then stared at him again. “Dollies can't run away. The doctor will set you right on this, but for now let's just see what your art... tick... you... lation is like.”

A human should not twist that way. She broke his hip and he yelled. Yelled and screamed and every foul word he could think of as she carried him into a room with just a simple wooden crib. It was not a human crib. The bed was far too high up, unstable on four long legs, and the bars were barely a few inches high. The whole thing wobbled as he squirmed from the pain. He cried through the rest of the day. He eventually wet himself, and then eventually crapped himself. His insides were a mess. She turned up the volume on her TV, so she did not have to hear her dolly crying.

LPS would come right? He just had to wait it out. LPS always sent someone to verify things. He just had to wait. Maybe find a phone, dial emergency services.

She came by later to play with her doll. He smelled. He yelled at her. “My 'Rolly Dolly' needs some cleaning.” She used shears to get his clothing off. He tried to hit her with his arms, but that did nothing but annoy her. She then threatened him with the scissors. “Eyes, Fingers, down below, you hit me again I'll go for one of them. This is sharp enough for any of those.” He stopped. Instead, she started cutting his hair down to a thin layer. It was an ugly job, like a two-year-old with scissors and a toy.

“I always wanted to try this.” She carried him over to the kitchen. He could not see anything and was not being carried right. It hurt his armpits to be carried that way. He heard a hiss and a thunk as something was opened. Raul was confused as he was lowered down onto a metal plastic surface. He looked around. Something was not right. The tray he was on was pushed into a dark container. It smelled like the garbage disposal. Something was not right! The cabinet door started going back up.

“No. No! DO NOT!” Click. Darkness.

She was 'kind' enough to have it bypass all the heat cycles. And turned off the steam dryer setting. The machine is just a sprinkler, like the kind you would use to water plants on your lawn. The container only gets a little water on the bottom. Perfectly fine. Raul started to yell, but then worried he might run out of air. Scott still did not know what was up until the water hit his back. Scott's mind kept falling back to an important classified document, the only Earthling experience he could relate it to.

“This procedure would not last more than twenty minutes in any one application.” About the length of time for a quick rinse in a dishwasher.

It did not do that good of a job cleaning him, but she wiped him with a towel and got him back to his crib. He just lay there not saying anything, not even crying. She shut off the light and left him there when nightfall approached.

He waited. An hour passed. He waited, counting a distant clock. He was sure she he had gone to bed. He waited. Another hour. He began rocking the crib slowly, the whole thing was unstable. Back and forth, creaking of the thin wood.

Rock-a-bye baby the cradle will fall.

It made a loud noise, but he figured she was going deaf. He was right, there was no response. It hurt like hell to fall that far, his full weight going into the wooden crib side, wood breaking and landing on his injured hip. He crawled to the door and got his hands underneath. He had just enough leverage to pull it open. He squeezed out. He crawled and stepped up to his good side and hopped with a hand along a hallway wall until he made it to the kitchen.

The phone was old and attached to the wall with a long cord. He found a broom and knocked the handset off, and with care hit seven – one – one.

It was a male voice “We're sorry, emergency phone services have been disabled at this address per the request of the property owner. If this is in error, please contact your service provider.”

OK, do not panic, call anyone else. He went to hang up when he heard the voice on the line.

“Dolly has been a naughty!” Twelve d-chess. She had planned for him to try the phone, just like she had put in the sockets in the wall or the hooks on the cabinets the contained the household chemicals. Amazons did not make mistakes around littles unless they intended to set them up for failure.

“We're sorry, emergency phone services have been disabled...”

He would not make it to the door, but he still tried to hobble to it.

The male voice on the phone said “Goodbye” and there was a click, then a second click, and tone. The lights in the kitchen turned on. He tried to hit her with the broom, but she grabbed it. With a flick of the wrist, she tripped him and then dragged him back to the room.

“You broke your crib! Well mommy's not buying another one. You can stay in the toy chest.”

It creaked like an old coffin; it was made of old brown oak wood and had been finished dark. She pushed him down into a sitting position, and it hurt. The box smelled like stale air and dust and dead bugs. She closed the lid with another bad creak. It cramped his head. She then latched the front. He was forced to sit for hours. Perhaps days in darkness.

She eventually took him to the doctor. Raul had never seen a place like this, but Scott knew instantly what it was. They had a bunch of them crop up in northern Mexico about ten years ago back when the FDA was still a thing.

It was his one moment of fresh air and light in days. Ms. Darbyshire smoked in the car. She smoked in the lobby. She even smoked in the office. The doctor smoked too. Raul eagerly breathed it all in.

The doctor was not even that tall, maybe eight feet, but he had a thick beard, and the coat hid his smaller frame. He was looking at the clipboard and growing angry. A nurse had gotten Raul an IV. They had put a cast on his leg. The hip would heal within a few hours thanks to that magical Amazon tech, but he was not responding to any stimuli. His bladder and other internal organs were also in a bad spot.

“He looks half dead. When's the last time he's eaten?” The doctor said with an accent and a pitch of a voice that was typical of inbetweeners.

“Don't know, he showed up about three days ago?” The old woman replied then took another drag of her cigarette.

“He smells like shit.”

“I gave him a bath,” she defended herself.

“Today?”

She waved him off, returning to the matter at hand, “I just want to know if you can do it.”

“You're insane. You're literally insane. How the fuck does this happen? I can make him a newborn, shrink some of the appendages. I can chop off down below, get him on hormones, maybe in a few months he'll come into the right form.” The doctor was unsure how to salvage this.

She held up her hand, “Flat. I want him flat down there.”

“No fucking way. No damn fucking way am I doing that.”

“I'm paying you to make my fantasy real. You understand? This is about me”

“How's he going to pee?” The doctor stared her down, she had no idea what she was asking for.

“Oh.”

“Fucking hell. You haven't even thought this through. You just want a damn doll. Get a fucking robot at the toy store miss. This is a human being. You should be happy you got one this adorable.”

“Well, take out the teeth, take away all movement, I don't want him running from me, and make it so the arms are useless too. I like that he has some fight though, so just enough movement on that, but not able to grasp or whatever.”

He nodded, he could do that, it was a pretty standard request actually.

She continued down her list, “No solid foods, and no control down below either. No talking. Ever.”

Raul did not care. He was dead inside. This was just one of those things that could happen, the circle of life. Bad childhood, bad adulthood, bad childhood, then death. Maybe he could sequence break again? Meanwhile, Scott had to listen in detail to the procedures his body was about to undergo.

“Can you take away crying? I hate that he cries.” Ms. Darbyshire wanted a silent dolly.

“Fuck no. You have to actually feed him and bathe him; he needs some way to tell you this.”

“I'm the mommy I get to decide what's best for him,” She was no more fit to be a mother than a toddler.

“If you don't take this seriously, I'm contacting protective services about this.”

She raised her limited stature two and a half feet above the doctor, “And I'll report the illegal chop shop here doing procedures on unregistered littles.”

The doctor's eyes grew and then he stood tall, staring her down despite her height. He used the voice. “No, you fucking won't. You won't tell a damn person about this. You're a witch of a woman. You went into this without any thought at all. He's your responsibility now. That's what it means to have a kid. He's your baby, deal with this.”

He still took her money. He still did the procedures. It was a standard newborn regression, turned into a brand-new baby stopped at a stage just before crawling.

The memory jumped a bit, and Raul (Scott) found himself on the floor of her living room, just staring at the door. He was not on a protective mat or in a bed and did not have a toy. He could not move his legs, they just randomly flopped from time to time from erratic nerve end twitching. He had a diaper now, and it was full of stool, and it was starting to run out onto the carpet. The house still smelled. She was in the kitchen smoking and eating her breakfast. She had left him in the living room with the TV. It was loud so she would not hear him if he cried. He could not even grasp the bottle she gave him, he had to turn his head and body to suck from the nipple.

He tried to pass the time by doing math games like Family Planning had taught him. He realized he could not remember the word for the numerals from one through ten, or what they looked like. He could see the squiggles on clocks and on the TV and knew what had they had done.

He knew his shapes still, the regression had been a hack job. He counted to himself to ten in shapes: Point, Line, Triangle, Quadrilateral, Pentagon, Hexagon, Heptagon, Octagon, Nonagon, Decagon.

He still knew e to the i pi was negative point, just as he still knew i was square root of negative point, and pi was triangle (point) point quad point pent nona line hex. He would need a new word for point and line. Maybe use that card game, Unus and that pizza joint Duos. If he had a pencil, he could still do algebra with shapes instead of numerals.

If a little psychologist like Victoria could see his thoughts, she would know he was suffering from Nash Syndrome – Raul could no longer tell a four from a five but only a single Jenga block had been knocked out, his tower still stood. A decade and a half of math teaching was still in there. Proper regression required a slow leveling of the infrastructure of his brain to remake him into a baby. It did not matter though; his vocal cords and tongue still lacked the control to make word sounds.

Then he saw it. It was old. No one has one these days except the oldest of olds. It was in the media cabinet below the TV, behind glass. Her console was low to the ground, and this was even lower. She probably had not turned it on in fifteen years. He could not walk to it, but he could lob his head back and forth on the carpet, pull himself forward with his toothless mouth and what little grip his hands had. He gave himself a rug burn. Ten feet away may as well have been ten miles, but he crawled.

His head lay against the glass, and he pushed it with his skull. The glass popped out gently. He moved his mouth around and grabbed the open glass, flicking it further open with his tongue. He rolled into the opening in the console and stared at the silver-gray box. Steadying himself with his chest, he barely was able to get the player to match his head height. With a tongue flick on the power button a red light turned on, and then in a couple seconds became green. The TV did not bother changing inputs.

There was a menu select button opposite of power on the fascia display, his nose and eyes slowly going across the bright green illegible squiggles, the black illuminated surface showing Scott his chubby crying face for the first time since the memory began. Raul bopped his nose on the inputs. It was the code he had memorized from the brochure. Slow, methodical, careful, through shaking tortured and atrophied neck muscles he pushed his nose into the direction pad.

Up. Up. Down. Down. Left. Right. Left. Right. He waited to see if anything happened, then repeated it. Then repeated it. Then repeated it over and over and over for minutes. Scott knew what the code was, but it did not make sense. Why would LPS put the Konami code into the DVD players?

* * *

“It's an older code sir but it checks out,” Oliver heard the little say as she handed him the printout.

Oliver read it, “This is local?”

“Yes, sir.”

It was an early project they did. Hijack the existing LPS network on the players and use them for intelligence gathering. They had wanted to see if they could counteract hypnosis or even give commands to littles. The best they were able to achieve was a command to the player to switch the hypnotic commands to Gaulish. A whole bunch of regressed littles would end up peeing on the couch.

It was not a complete waste. Oliver’s team got great analytics, and it was an easy way to hack into any home network. Internet of stupid and all that. They had used it to find distressed littles and help get them out of bad situations. Oliver even came up with the idea of putting a 'cheat code' into the players, and then sneak it into the media used by the little outreach groups.

“Could it be a trap?” The communications officer had a bit of an imagination, he made a note to work with her on toning it down.

Scott was unsure what was happening. He was in Raul's body one moment and the next he's, what? Just watching this? Whose memory is this part even from?

The disconnect must have worked to fix the glasses back to the correct orientation, because Scott soon found himself back on the carpet, drooling and staring at the door. Raul must have given up on pushing the button. The eyes felt squishy and a tiny bit blurry, like Raul had spent an hour crying.

* * *

“Ding, dong” (lower) “Ding dong” (higher) “Ding Dong” (lower).

“Ding, dong” (lower) “Ding dong” (higher) “Ding Dong” (lower).

“Ding, dong” (lower) “Ding dong” (higher) “Ding Dong” (lower).

“Ding, dong” (lower) “Ding dong” (higher) “Ding Dong” (lower).

“KNOCK IT OFF I'M COMING.”

Ms. Darbyshire stormed to the front door and opened it with a huff. She looked left to right and then finally down.

There was a six-year-old boy, his bike was on her lawn and had torn up some of the grass and mud. He had a blue baseball cap on, and soft summer clothing. A Tee-shirt with some cartoon on it she did not recognize, and long denim shorts.

The kid took a large breath and then said with a rush.

“I HEARD THERE WAS A NEW KID IN THE NEIGHBORHOOD AND I WANTED TO INVITE HIM OUT TO PLAY”

“Oh... hmm, one of these.” At least he wasn't selling her popcorn.

“IS THE NEW LITTLE A BOY OR A GIRL”

Why was he yelling? She bowed down closer so she could talk to him. “Raul's a bit too young to play outside.”

“My sister does babysitting. I can um... she told me how many fingers per hour, and I'm supposed to multiply by the age, or divide. If I see him, I can tell you how many dollars.”

“I don't need a babysitter” He ignored her and started looking around her legs.

“Is that him! HELLO. RAUL COME OUT AND PLAY” He waved, but her arms pushed him out of the door.

There was something like a soft cry from the living room floor. Oliver could see the boy struggling.

The door closed hard on his face.

“Ding, dong” (lower) “Ding dong” (higher) “Ding Dong” (lower).

“Ding, dong” (lower) “Ding dong” (higher) “Ding Dong” (lower).

“You'll wear it out! Stop it!” She yelled as she opened the door. The boy was gone. In his place was an adorable girl, maybe about four or five, hair in braids, long dress, blond hair. The kind she wanted to turn into a dolly.

“Hello, I'm Melissa, and I live over there.” She pointed to the sky and to the back. “I heard there was a new girl in the neighborhood and my mommy thought it'd be nice to invite the new girl over to play with my dollies.”

“There's no girl here. You're mistaken. Leave. Don't come back.” She said it angrily and slammed the door. She went over to the TV and noticed the DVD player light was on. Raul was rolling poop directly into her carpet.

“Ding, dong” (lower) “Ding dong” (higher) “Ding Dong” (lower).

“OK One more person buzzes the doorbell I'm calling the cops.”

“Ding, dong” (lower) “Ding dong” (higher) “Ding Dong” (lower).

She went to the door and nothing. No tiny person. Nothing.

“Ding, dong” (lower) “Ding dong” (higher) “Ding Dong” (lower).

“YOU ASSHOLE KIDS I HATE KIDS I WILL KILL YOU ONCE I GET MY HANDS ON YOU”

“Ding, dong” (lower) “Ding dong” (higher) “Ding Dong” (lower).

There was something stuck pushing in the doorbell. She reached over and put her finger in it.

It went through her arm, and she could not move the limb anymore. It was stuck on the doorbell. Her mind was telling her to move it, but it was dead. Then there was the buzz, a smell like battery. Vision wobbled, and her heart felt like it had skipped a couple beats. Every movement was pain. Breathing hurt.

She fell and broke her hip, her glasses broke, she could not see anything.

She did not die immediately; she managed to crawl her way back into the house. She could not reach the phone, but she found the boy's cell phone where it had fallen out of the bag. She got no signal. She crawled to the kitchen and the broom stick, her arms were in pain, and she could no longer move. She managed to knock the phone off the hook.

The dial pad was too far away, she could not make out the numbers, they were just squiggles and unreadable. Does her phone go one to nine or seven to three? She hardly used the phone these days. She tried smashing the pad with the stick randomly.

“We're sorry, emergency phone services have been disabled at this address per the request of the property owner. If this is in error, please contact your service provider.”

She had thought she was immortal. She did not account for falling and not being able to get back up.

The paper boy had found her a few days later. An ugly site for a little that 'young' to see, but the little knew what to do. He got to his bike and called emergency services from his cell phone. The cops told him he was a big boy for having seen this and performed responsibly.

Amazons always try to protect littles from knowing that their parents are not invulnerable, but it was just as important for them to know there is still an arc to life. For an Amazon, you are born, you are a child, you become an adult, you grow old, and then you die. Littles were lucky in that they did something else other than grow old.

Ms. Darbyshire had not been in good health, and the poop, blood, and other fluids were a sign that things were bad near the end. She had no living family, no children, not even a little. Instead, she had left everything she had owned to Family Planning, which was a considerable amount of money.

Scott and Raul had been grabbed and taken to some strange facility. It looked like a tree house, with the wood and open windows aesthetic. He knew Oliver was talking with someone and after a bit his ears adjusted enough that the conversation broke through, and he could hear it.

“She did a lot of damage. It's not going to be easy to repair. The best option is to tear huge chunks of the appendages out. We'll need to completely rebuild bone and muscles. Urinary and digestive are also a wreck, so no solids for a long time. Voice box and teeth are probably repairable, but it's gonna take a lot of work to get talking and eating back.” The man went over how bad it would be for Raul.

“But he will come back, right?” Oliver asked.

“Years. We're talking years to get back but look at him. He's completely gone inside.” The doctor walked over and waved a light over Raul's face. “Any luck with the parents?”

Oliver replied, “Undocumented. Family is gone. Eff-Pees knew what they had with the boy and kept everything off the record. No one would complain.”

“Then I don't know what to do here. He needs to want to fix this. He needs someone who will push him to be better.” The doctor felt it was hopeless.

Oliver paused and addressed everyone, loud and in his Patton voice. “What we have here is a failure of imagination. I want everyone to spend five minutes coming up with the dumbest craziest silliest solution to getting our Raul back to one. Nano-machines, super drugs, whatever, you have four minutes and fifty seconds, go!”

Their idea was stupid. They could regrow the broken limbs in a vat and transplant them. Unfortunately, they would come in all tiny. Like Deadpool when he regrows a body part, but Deadpool regrows the limb in hours. That would not happen here, it would take years to grow back to normal size. Instead, they would use the shrink ray. They would shrink the rest of the body to match the size of the new arms and legs.

Then they load him up with the experimental puberty reversal drug they had stolen from Juvantes. Oliver's team had managed to get that one and put a stop to it before it got into the water supply. On Raul it would reset his hormones and undo his secondary sex traits, many of the targeted areas were the most damaged parts of his body needing repair.

Finally, a tiny robot would be attached to the relevant glands in his brain, it would trigger the production of growth hormones naturally. It would be slow, but gradually he would get back to regular size and then it was programmed to shut off. They had an idea of doing it in stages, so the body would have time to grow, heal, and then grow and heal, the robot would time the slow release of chemicals over the years.

Oliver let Raul know. “We got lucky here Raul. You earned an extra life. The next one is going to be a bit different than what Family Planning promised, but I think you'll be happy.”

Time jumped again, Raul was in a baby carrier and in a car. The huge glasses were on his face. He had fallen asleep. The sky looked wrong, it was too bright, the roads had a bump sound unlike asphalt, more like rock and mud. He could not move his body other than his head, but every few seconds if he focused, he heard a word from the radio up front. Corn, husking, kicks, missed, some numerals here and there but those words did not mean anything. The radio turned off along with the then the car. The Amazon up front came around and opened the door and easily picked up Raul's carrier.

The sun hurt his eyes, but the air had a freshness of flowers and grass, and the only sound was the wind and a bee or a fly. It was dry but cold. Raul huddled in his blanket. The Amazon put the baby carrier down and approached another two who were walking up to greet him. They looked old, not as old as Ms. Darbyshire, but probably late fifties to early sixties.

The Amazon male spoke first, “Captain Swift, it's been what (unknown) years?” The three then exchanged pleasantries.

The woman continued, “You said you had something to important to show us?”

Swift answered, “I just want to let you know, thank you. Derrick always wanted to have kids, so the fact his twin on Terra did is not surprising. Wouldn't have expected a great grandson to show up one day like this. We're up to our eyeballs in these refugees, I'm just glad you agreed to take him, you're the only living relatives I could find.”

The ten-foot-tall woman started to approach him, “Oh he looks adorable. What's his name?”

“Yes, let me introduce you to your new son, his name is,” and there was a flash.

* * *

March 1st, 2038, Washington D.C. - Earth

Scott was back at the White House. At some point Oliver had taken back the shades and was wearing them again.

Oliver started with a question, “Are you back? Are you back at a one?”

“Fuck you Oliver” He squished his face and tried rubbing his palms into his eyeballs. “It was like Dante's Inferno. Why would God create such a horrible place and then send the innocent there to suffer?” Oliver had seen it before; the man was close to a tantrum.

Scott started to cry, “Oliver, you could have done anything. You had direct access to my mind, and you could have put literally anything in there. You could have made me your gay lover and asked me to suck your dick. You could have invented a super-secret director position and said you were my boss. But you put that in my head. Why would you do that?”

Oliver defended himself, “Because I'm your friend, and I want you to make the decision here because you want to be better, because you want to do the right thing.” The evil he had done was necessary.

“Fuck... Fuck!” Why did Oliver have to remind him how close they were.

“You're my best friend Oliver. You saved my life. I mean, his life. Just tell me it's not all like that.”

“No, it's not all like that. Dollies are legal in Yamatoa. It used to be one of their biggest exports.”

Scott's mouth flopped, trying to grasp what that meant, “That wasn't even a doll. He wasn't even made into a doll.” There was another hell past that one.

“When they raided Sing-A-Ling at the start of the war, they captured thirty-five thousand slaves and brought them to the factories. Put them in boxes like a barbie.” Oliver was flat in explaining the barbarism the Amazons were possible of.

“We have to stop it.” Scott’s voice was getting higher, his breath began racing.

“We did, we attacked the factories with the toys Earth gave us.” The do-little-good raid, as the Libertalia contact had told him when it was proposed. That was enough for Oliver to push forward with the mission.

“We have to do more. Earth is the only one that can save them, like we saved Raul. We have to save them all. Let's nuke them. We'll just nuke them all and save the babies.” Scott was having a meltdown.

“Scott.” Oliver gave the commanding voice. “Scott, I need you to calm down. I'm your friend here. You've had a life altering experience, and it's caused you to knock over your blocks.”

“My... what?”

“Your blocks in your head. Everyone has these blocks we build our towers with. As you have experiences and education in your life you add more blocks. How to think about things, like math or ethics. There's a set of blocks in your brain that says this is what's important and this is what's not. It's what lets you um...”

Oliver did not want to say it, as it sounded mean. “It's what lets you care more about the fact you have a splinter on your thumb than when a river floods in China.”

Scott was confused, but at the same time, everything seemed so flat. Every problem on Earth was important now. There were malaria victims in Africa. The church on the corner needed a new roof. His niece needed to get into a good college. The rain forest was on fire. His wife had a toothache. There was a border skirmish in Eritrea. Every problem in the multiverse seemed just pressing – Amazons, Terra, the Council. It was too much.

“So here, let me help you rebuild. It'll take just a minute.” Oliver was kind and he went into detail.

“The first block is your job. That's going to sound a bit weird, like it sounds like you should work twelve-hour days until you drop of exhaustion, but that's not what it means. Work life balance is a thing, but also, we're just setting priorities. Hundreds of millions of people are expecting you to do your job well, with integrity and honor. You should desire to do good work. If someone threatened your life unless you compromised your job, you still wouldn't compromise your job. If there was an opportunity to advance yourself at the expense of doing your job well, you won't take it. If there is some shallow petty vendetta that has been bugging you for twenty years, you're going to let it slide if your job would be better for it.”

Putting a stupid broccoli allergy ahead of the fate of the planet had been petty, why had it been such an important deal to Scott an hour ago?

“You have a responsibility to your employees, all of us here put our lives on the line, and we expect your full support. You have a duty to the people above you to give them honest feedback and assessment, and not glamorize your achievements or cover up your mistakes. You'll work to get everyone who works for you up to your level of commitment and dedication, and you'll get them with the support they need to be the best at their jobs too.”

“The next block is your family or yourself and be sure to leave some room in the blocks to put your friends as well. The order on this doesn't matter, I assume you have some idea how you placed your blocks before. We're just putting you right here at the bottom here because you need to love yourself to function, you can't just give and give.”

“Third, we have Earth.”

Scott was annoyed. Oliver was now messing with his head. He would have to love all eight billion humans on Earth equally. He was being turned into some globalist post-nationalist. He worked for the US government; he needed some priorities.

“Now you're probably thinking, where's America on this? Well, every country on Earth belongs to America, so putting it ahead of Earth is kind of redundant. America block, Earth Block, same thing.”

No! Now he was an insular patriot. Maybe some gradient here? Not just America First and then the rest of the planet. For the rest of his life, Scott was going to be an awful tourist.

“Fourth, Terra, cause they're just us.” Right Terra, they're basically us.

“Fifth Amazonia.” Right, Oliver had … wait that's too high.

“Sixth the Nitzkies, because they're actually pretty chill once you get to know them.” That could not be right, didn’t the council declare they are hostis humani generis? Oh well. If they are cool.

“Seventh the rest of our sphere of influence.” The rest? He was now already thinking of the sphere, with Amazon as the first planet in Earth's domain. Verdant had been interfering in a planet that rightfully belonged to Earth, and the most important one! They would have to do something.

“Eighth our obligations as a council world.” Earth had some duties to the greater humanity; it was not all fun and games at the top.

“Ninth, a big pile of poo.” Uh.

“And tenth, the other council worlds. And with that we have a ranking of the most important people to the least important. Now, do you still want to nuke the Amazons?”

His blocks were reset and back in place. Amazonia was important, important to justify interference. Oliver's mission was nearly up there with what was happening with Terra. It was not like Earth (America) had to nuke the Amazons to resolve the problem, but it just needed to be resolved. Knowing Oliver had saved Raul and bombed the factories made him feel better, like America (Earth) was making a difference.

Oliver paused, turned his head, and then focused on Scott, “I think I'm satisfied you should be able to do a performance review for something this complicated. Must be hard with so many different employees across so many different worlds. Here let me review your notes and I'll see if we can't make some improvements, and then I'll give you a final grade. I don't think we need to fire you for being thirty minutes late to your review, we'll just keep things the same for the next year.”

Scott was confused, “What are you talking about? I'm reviewing you.” This morning was confusing, the start of the interview might as well have been three weeks ago.

Oliver gave a chuckle, “Good one! I'm the boss, this is your review. I wanted to see how you would handle a crazy spy coming in from the fold and trying to kidnap the President. It's a big multiverse, anything like that can happen.”

The director pulled out the org chart he had brought with him to berate Oliver with earlier. It showed the President, then the director, then the assistant director, then way off to the side was Oliver under 'Other Legacy Assets Not Positioned.’ Based on Oliver’s pay he had just been thrown into this random spot on the chart. He only reported to the Assistant Director because no other manager made sense after the merger.

“I think I'm your boss.” He pointed to the picture.

Oliver corrected him like a student, “Now, now, that's just the exoteric interpretation. What is the secret interpretation?”

He stared at it for ten seconds, the fate of the world depended on this, “Oh right. You're the Dodeca-Tuple Secret Director of Off World Activities and report directly to the President.” Was that a real position? “I'm sorry, I forgot, and I hope this whole thing wasn't too much of a burden.”

“Nah it's fine, it's a super-secret position for a reason. You did a good job pretending I was just some wannabe Jason Borne. Let's go meet the President, we have a satellite to blow up.” They began gathering their things and stood up.

Scott had to know, “Um... Oliver. Did you ever find out what happened to Raul's parents?”

Oliver nodded and got quiet as he pushed in his chair, “His mom took her limited cash and tried to find him. She barely spoke the language, got tricked, got picked up by authorities, bounced between prisons and foster homes, deported, and finally adopted, I think. Dad got drunk and tried to go after his big supervisor with a nail gun, not sure what happened after that. The siblings are with other relatives, or on their own.”

“And Raul?”

Oliver went into detail, “He's in second grade now, parents own a ranch outside Lincoln. Bladder never fully healed, and he's a bit on the short side. He doesn't remember any of it, just remembers going up to the doorbell and then meeting his new parents and just went with it.”

Scott went to the door to open it and stopped, “How many littles from the Amazon dimension are now on Earth, Oliver?”

Oliver held up his hand, “That's classified, in fact just letting you know that one of them came over is a big deal, so keep it a secret.”

The elevator opened as they made their way back up to the East Wing lobby. “You know Scott, one thing has been bugging me for the past fifteen years, only your unique perspective can answer this.”

Finally, he could be useful, a chance to show his boss he was doing his job with the dedication and attention it deserved.

“Is breastmilk vegan?”