Chapter 45 - Did they tell you, you should grow up when you wanted to dream

16 Messidor Year CCXLI, Potat, South Windland, Libertalia – Amazonia

Oliver and the President were not on P4M-328 for long before he used a series of portal hops that brought the two back to the diaper dimension. President Arrow was cooperative with Oliver’s directions, mostly on the part of his brain having been fried by Oliver’s fancy glasses. Small bits of drool accumulated on the man’s lips, so Oliver offered him his pacifier. Oliver could see both aspects of the man, the adult with his strong suit, manicured fingernails, and perfectly cut and combed hair and the toddler sucking on the pearled ivory silicone bulb. He was a man that belonged nowhere.

The President looked around the room made of rough wooden floors and walls, along with a soft breeze through the cracks of the walls and occasional bird sound was enough to know he was somewhere outside. The temperature was a good fifteen degrees hotter than the room he had come from, and forty degrees above the ambient temperature outside the White House. Wires and monitors lined the walls, and soft beeping and crackling of radio static. Oliver whipped the glasses from President Arrow’s head and marched across the room to a mirror on the other side of the room.

President Arrow stared at his reflection, but the mirror was wrong. He could not put his tongue on why it looked wrong, but he saw his reflection every day and something was off. He tried waving and moving closer. His counterpart waved back. The President looked down at his well fit suit and tie, then again at himself in the mirror. Like a funhouse distortion the other man had a long vista blue onesie that only came to his upper arms and displayed a small excess of white barely peeking out of the leg holes. Instinctually he moved his own hand down and adjusted his pants, squishing the elastic banding from his own protective padding down below his pants line.

“Go ahead and swap clothes,” Oliver directed, and the mirror man reached out, and took off Dewey’s coat. He then flipped down and began unbuckling buttons under his clothing. Within two minutes both men were down to their white diapers. If not for the triplicate of bears on the front of the President’s, and his soother in his mouth, the two men were now identical.

“Do I need his binkie?” Dewey asked with a hint of concern as the other man started to suck his discomfort away.

Oliver’s face soured, almost confused by the question, “It’s wrong to separate a little from his pacifier.”

“Good, I don’t use one.” Dewey said proudly. Oliver’s eyes went wide, but he stood up and handed Dewey a white shirt. The man continued, “I’m not a baby.” The taunt caused Oliver to pat his own pocket for security. Within a couple minutes Dewey and Dewey had swapped clothes. Oliver handed off his glasses to his friend. Dewey looked down at the glasses unsure, carefully holding them a couple of inches from his head, he glanced at his other self. Oliver saw the thoughts behind his hesitation.

“Hey, it’s OK, sometimes you’re the Earth,” he pointed at Dewey, “and sometimes you’re the Terra,” he pointed back at the man with a pacifier. “He’s going to love it here.”

There was a flash and the fates of two twins were exchanged. The diaper dimension stole the life of another Earthling and released the life of one of its own.

* * *

President Arrow sat silently on the ivory white carpet. He banged the UH-60 inspired helicopter with its bright red, blue, and white plastic with his left hand against the floor, before struggling to stand up. His head hurt like he had not drunk coffee for three days as he pieced together what had happened. He looked down at the large smile and bright white eyes that adorned the plastic toy, before dropping it.

This morning, he had blown something up, and then Oliver had come, and then he had met himself. He wiped his dry lips, he needed a glass (bottle) of milk just to collect his thoughts, to get back to normal. He rubbed his barren toes into the inch thick carpet before bringing his attention to the loud television before him.

It was big, twelve foot in diameter, but the colors were vibrant as they blasted the life size animated figures into the dim room. With cautious curiosity he approached the television, one waddling step at a time before he was close enough to touch it. The pixels were barely perceptible, and when he touched the glass, the screen warped in a rainbow color and warmed his hand. He giggled appreciating the rainbow of colors.

“Dewey! Don’t touch the television!” his wife called him from behind. He turned to see her coming around a stair railing at the edge of the room, and her pace quickly crossed twenty feet to the center of the room. Dewey cranked his head up to stare at her in the face. Gentle arms swiftly pulled him up into the air with a force that left a small flush in the back of his diaper.

“Woah,” He looked down at his tiny hands compared to her arm, “You got big First Mommy.” From his higher vantage he could look around the room, the shelves, couches, and tables were mammoth sized. “Or did I get tiny?” Dewey flicked his hands front to back, examining his fingers like they would give him the answer.

“First Mommy?” She held up a hand to his head as if that were a way to check his mental health, “Are you feeling OK baby?”

Dewey pointed himself and then at her, “I’m the President and that makes you the First Mommy.” He wiggled in her grip looking around the room from his new height, “Where is everyone?”

His nose filled with a delightful memory. She was wearing the old perfume, from the old days, from before his first campaign. She smelled of peaches and cinnamon. She had not worn it since he became governor and she stopped shopping at JCPenney, and he missed the simplicity of those early days. He could feel the warmth coming from her full breasts as they crushed into his chest. All he wanted was to be closer to her.

Elinor’s eyes returned to the television. It was on a static image, the final credit scene on the bottom corner of the screen, and surrounding it were bright images of cartoon children. White text labeled the movie that had just played.

“Naomi and Oliver Go to New Columbia!” **()()() CCXXVII [TV-LMAO] [UV-HD]

She squinted at the smaller text that summarized the episode, “This educational adventure, appropriate for littles of all ages, will delight your children while they learn about how the legislative process. Join Naomi and Oliver on this fun and musical adventure when they meet the President of ...”

She decided to humor him, “So now you’re the President? Did you meet Naomi and Oliver?”

Dewey’s eyes went wide, “How did you know Naomi and Oliver were there? They wanted me to veto the naptime law, but I said no. I like naps!” Dewey’s face puffed out in an exaggerated huff.

Elinor shook him slightly, getting a sense of how damp his underpants might be. Dewey did not need a change. The boy snuggled deeper into her chest, his tiny hands pawing at her thin summer dress. His tiny face beamed up at the giant and addressed her as though she were his equal. He had been thinking of what to say for some time, and now that he had her alone, he could finally explain himself.

His eyes softened, and his voice waivered like he had failed her in a way touching the TV and not putting hit toys away never did, “I’m sorry eM, eM. Ever since Camp David, I know… I know I haven’t been able to perform, or to meet your needs. I just hope this is enough. I know it’s selfish, but all I want is this. Just for you to hold me like this as I drift off to sleep each night. I just want to feel you against me, protecting me from the world. I don’t know if it’s enough for you. My mind is such a mess these days, and I feel like I’m wrapped in a cocoon, like I’m transforming, but I don’t want things to be different. I just want us to be like this forever.”

Her eyebrow went up confused, “Camp David?” With her free hand she flicked up a phone from her pocket and brought it parallel to the baby. Dewey looked over at the pink contraption. At nearly a foot long he would have needed both hands to grasp it. He had borne his heart to her, and instead of responding or chastising, she ignored him like he had spoken baby talk. She pressed a button before directing an inquiry to the phone, “Camp David.”

Beep-Boop went the phone before crisply announcing, “Camp Davie is a summer camp located just off Highway Twenty-Four near Camp Krill-Murdoch that caters to young Amazons with special needs and helps them grow into their best selves. Staff are prepared to manage mental and physical handicaps. Bus pickup service available.”

Dewey twisted in her arms and looked down eight feet to the floor and pointed at his toy helicopter she had almost stepped on. “Oh, let’s go back there. We’ll take Marine One.” He tried reaching down towards it, but his arms were about five feet too short. Distances and sizes did not seem to make sense today.

“Frank!” The giantess boomed, and across the house a man started his descent of stairs. It had a pitch of urgency and anger that got him to move with alacrity. Within moments he was at his wife’s side.

She started with the small mistake first, “I thought I told you to put the NOW movie on for Dewey” Elinor spoke with ignited authority, pointing at the cartoon figures on the bright television.

He shrugged, almost annoyed to be bothered by something so small, “It says Naomi and Oliver.”

“This is the cartoon. You were supposed to put the live action one on,” She let just a slight bit of acid come into her statement.

Frank looked at the television, and then Dewey and his wife, confused, “What’s the difference?”

All her anger built up to this, ready to unload onto him, but before a single word left her mouth Dewey was intermediary, “Oh mommy, go easy on him. He’s the Vice President, no one expects anything from the Vice President.”

Elinor looked at her husband and then her baby, and a slow wicked smile crept on her face. The Viellarm household would never be the same.

* * *

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

The energy in the Oval Office was explosive, panic spreading among staff and security. One second the President was celebrating, and the next, he was gone. The Vice President looked at the empty chair and desk, confused if he should sit down, maybe start issuing orders. He watched as confused men struggled to interact with the shimmering portal that Oliver had left through. Scott had acted quickly in the panic, and in minutes members of interdimensional intelligence would be here to clean up the portal trap and start the process of tracing where Oliver had gone.

The Vice President touched the chair, when he heard a door on the west side of the room slammed open, his eyes saw past Dewey into the hall, the door to the tiny restroom was slowly closing. His eyes returned to Dewey, who spread out his arms in praise of his accomplishment.

“My business is done!” The entire room turned their attention to the man they thought was President. It was something to be proud of, on a planet where many people had been struggling with attacks on their maturity, Dewey had just declared he was the biggest boy in the room.

“What happened? Where’s Oliver?”

Dewey gave a cryptic answer, “I had to go to the bathroom.” He then gave his first lie as a politician, “I sent Oliver off on a secret assignment.”

Dewey made his way over to the chair and forcibly pulled it from the Vice President’s hand. He carelessly fell into the leather, enjoying the seat that perfectly contoured to his shoulders and butt. The seat was made for him. The entire room looked at him, shocked and concerned. Dewey’s mind was slowly going through the new memories, recognizing their names and position, and returning a smile to each one. At last, after the pause became unbearable, he leaned forward, clapping both hands together on the desk and addressed the room.

“I have decided that after today we are shifting direction. For the remainder of the administration, I want one attitude, one vibe, one ethos to drive everyone. Let the word go out.” He paused again, looking across the curious faces of his new staff.

“The adults are back in the room.” Dewey gave a hard emphasis of the word adult. A whole lot of people were going to need to start acting their age.

The Vice President had already backed away but seemed to slink a bit before asking his question, “So you are going to veto the nap law.”

How many mornings had the giants woken him when all he wanted was to sleep one more hour? They forced his lazy bones to embrace the sun, and head off to work, to church, and later in life to day care. His adopted father had even spoken it to him the morning after Oliver’s party, when he had complained about being dragged out to diaper camp.

“Frank,” Dewey began, his smile growing as he began to quote another Frank he used to know, “as my old man used to say, you can sleep when you’re dead.”

With the excitement of the day ending, the office began to clear. Dewey wobbled the chair back and forth behind his impressive desk. It had more drawers and secret buttons than he had ever seen in his life. His desk back home only had one drawer for both his crayons and markers. He was about to get up and explore the room, take the experience in when his desk started buzzing. With instincts not his own he answered the call to his assistant.

“Secretary Lamarck is here again after being rescheduled from this morning, are you ready for him?”

“Sure,” Dewey’s brain struggled to put his other self’s memories into context. The agriculture secretary? He did not need to think on it for long. The man who entered the office had a sharp black suit, thin graying brown hair, and a loud golden tie. It was an odd outfit to see the man in, as the last time Dewey had seen him, he was wearing a dinosaur shirt, with a tyrannosaur wielding an electric guitar.

“Greg?”

The man barely paused at the question before coming up to the desk and opening up a line he had practiced for probably an hour. “I’ve got something I need to let you know. Since we’re coming up on the end of the administration, I figured now is the best time for this.”

Dewey kept his face flat, trying to maintain his composure and seriousness while fighting against the urge to just get up and hug his friend. Based on quickly reading Arrow’s memories, Secretary Lamarck was not that close, maintaining a professional but distant demeaner.

Greg’s voice wavered and then refocused, “Monsanto has offered me a position, and I’m thinking of cashing out. Assuming it’s not too disruptive to your needs.”

“What? No, I need you.” Dewey was not actually sure if he did. Secretary Lamarck was not involved in any major or minor policy decisions. What actually did the ag secretary do? He tried to think back on the videos Oliver had given him. How did that song go? From crops to livestock, he knows what to do, and sometimes farmers get paid to not grow food too!

Secretary Lamarck stared into Dewey’s face; his steady mouth slowly turned to a frown as he was trying to get a read. He broke eyesight with the man to casually look around the room, as if examining the walls and paint for the first time.

“Oliver was here?” Greg spoke as if the question was to the room. It was only half a question, like he knew the answer.

“Yeah, we had a bit of fun this morning.” Oliver came over to his house, he brought over a new toy, they blew up a satellite, normal playdate stuff.

Greg frowned and nodded his head, “Shucks, he didn’t even bother to stop in.”

“I sent him back on an important mission. I’m sure we’ll see him again.” Dewey was not sure where this was leading. He wanted to talk to Greg, his friend, not Mr. Lamarck.

The secretary was incredibly patient and stood there as if waiting for Dewey to make the next move. He waited and watched the new President fumble with his posture and breathed in the moment to its fullest. Finally, after stretching it to an awkward length Greg spoke.

“You couldn’t have chosen something practical, like hippopotamus?”

Dewey nearly leapt out of his chair, instead his mouth spit out a question faster than he could form it, “How long? I mean, who all?”

Greg chuckled before answering, “You’re the last one. I never thought Oliver would succeed.” He stretched his arms, and then leaned forward on the desk. “If we’re going to be growing up now, what are we going to do with all the left-over diapers?”

Dewey thought the question through and made his first real decision as President, “Amazonia gave us a gift, maybe we can give them something back.”

* * *

20 Prairial Year CCXXXI, Potat, South Windland, Libertalia – Amazonia

Oliver pushed the pacifier gently out of his mouth, and then let it fall towards his lap. He stared down at his hands and feet. Simple black shorts held up by a knot of thick sting and tucked in dinosaur expert shirt. He was still on the couch, his new mother leaned over and waved her hand in front of Oliver, and he stared up at the giant.

Victoria recognized his shift in posture, “Oh you’re back. You had me worried the last couple of minutes. You like the new gift, hmm?”

“Where’d I go?” Oliver looked around, he had been in DC, right? Or was he in Japan? Yamatoa?

“You’ve been right here the whole time.” Victoria leaned in closer, brushing Oliver’s hair from his head, “Today’s been hard for you.”

“The…” he looked down at the drool covered stress reliever, “soother is not like a time machine? We didn’t go to the future?”

Victoria paused creeping her hand back and flicking on the tablet glancing at Oliver’s test. She made a mental adjustment.

Seven! A perfect score! Just a few more tweaks and she would have her perfect baby boy. She scrolled the test, the biometrics were still picking up something from Oliver, one bar reached full and flashed over from yellow to urgent red orange. Victoria put the tablet down and turned to Oliver. His right leg was twitching up and down, but his eyes were empty, like the signal was not properly getting to his brain.

“I, uh… something’s not right. It’s not clicking.” Oliver flicked his fingers in a snap, an urgent damp sweat was building near his crotch. “Tip of my tongue.” He even tried knocking his head with clenched fists, before bringing them down to his legs. He wiggled and gave his thighs a good smash with his clenched hands.

Victoria said it and then immediately regret it, “Potty?” Oliver was close to losing his big boy status and she had just given him an out.

Oliver bolted up hard then turned and reached up his arms, nodding his head, “Please!”

The giantess only let her disappointment stand on her face for a second before she reached down and picked up the boy. Then she felt his warm hug, and she could smell his urgency and dependency. Her boy needed his mommy. A hundred feet and up a flight of stairs she carried him, untying his pants as she went. As she pushed in the bathroom door while another hand ripped Oliver’s pull-up to his ankles. She held Oliver cautiously by the armpits and placed him precariously on a porcelain throne.

Oliver shivered and creaked against the cold surface, while prickles of bumps moved along his arms. One part of him was disquieted. He was half naked, about to go to the bathroom, and a woman several feet taller than him was watching him as he went. On the other hand, this was not anything Vicky had not seen before. His Vicky had often insisted on interrupting his potty time too. It still made him clench uncomfortably. Oliver needed to just tune her out. Tune everything out and let everything go.

He could not do that. Everything was hyper focused. The occasional drip of water from the boat sized tub that echoed through the cavernous bathroom. The soft rustling of air conditioning coming from a vent in another room. The sensual warm touch of his new mommy’s hand on his instrument, carefully aiming it down to towards the stale water below. The cold soft padding pushing into rear. The heavy weight of gravity on his ankles of pullup, shorts, and socks that dangled freely inches off the ground. Even the warble on the lights, like a soft shimmer of an old monitor flickering on and off rapidly.

Oliver needed to get away. There was nowhere to go but in.

* * *

Oliver carefully pushed the book into the large empty space on the tall shelf roughly at head level. The colorful thin book looked out of place on the shelf with its heavy plastic binding and thin size. The books surrounding it were heavy, dull, and worn, and dwarfed the new addition. Still, the act of placing the book in the hole felt fulfilling. Like putting the last Lego into place, or watching the end credits of a television season, he basked in a feeling of accomplishment, of completion.

Oliver turned and looked up and down the aisle of the library he found himself in. Behind him just a couple feet were a parallel set of similar shelves. The lighting was a touch too dark, like unseen fluorescent bulbs above him had burned down for months without replacing. Thing red and black carpet softened his footsteps below. The aisle of books he was on seemed to stretch for hundreds of feet in one direction, but just feet to his left was an open space. Oliver slowly took a few steps towards the atrium, and as he reached the end of the book aisle, a strange familiar voice shouted at him.

“Wait, wait, don’t go, I found it! I Found it!” He shouted.

The man was running, carrying a heavy tome thick with leather and thousands of pages long, and was huffing towards Oliver. Oliver waited and watched the man slow himself before handing the tome to him.

“On relieving oneself, proper bathroom and toilet practice and etiquette, by Oliver Swift” Oliver read aloud. “I don’t, who are you?”

The man shared Oliver’s clothing, the stupid dinosaur expert shirt and black shorts, and the face was one he saw every day.

“It’s been a while Consc, you partake in some eL eS Dee? Trying some new mediation techniques? What brings you to central memory?”

Oliver took a look around the library, behind this new Oliver was what seemed like an endless number of bookshelves. They looked old, worn down, but there was a new prominent large one, built differently, more ornately than the others. Hanging above the two Olivers was a large monitor display, which flickered between the views of the library.

“I was looking for this.” Oliver’s eyes narrowed as he looked at his other self, he looked down at the heavy book and flicked through a few pages. There were thousands of examples of toilet experiences.

“See, you can always count on your memory, we’re the most dependable part of the body. We thought we lost this, but I found it.” His memory seemed too proud of himself.

Oliver scoffed, “Dependable? You leave write protection off anytime I access anything.”

Memory’s face fell, he was not used to being self-aware of his own faults. Instead, he turned accusatory, “What are you even doing down here? You’re not supposed to be here.”

Oliver’s arrogance pushed back on the challenge, “It’s my head, I can go where I want.”

“HA, your head! Don’t let Central Core hear that. Consc, that’s why I always liked you. But really, you can’t be here. You’re literally writing the same memories while you’re accessing them,” He pointed up to the monitor. As Oliver stared at it, the monitor shifted from a picture of Consc to a picture of him looking at the same monitor. The image began to box itself infinitely the longer he stared at it, which gave a small delight to Oliver.

Memory turned confused, and addressed Oliver, “Wait. Where’s the electricity? Where are the chemical reactions?” Memory continued to look at the monitor,” Is this… is that what reality is like for Oliver?”

Memory continued, “That’s horrible! At least you only must experience it for eight hours a day.”

Oliver corrected him, “It’s more like two thirds of the day at this point.”

Memory’s face dropped, “No, that’s… there are rules. This is why we have a union. Core should not be forcing you to stay exposed to,” He pointed at the monitor before shuddering, “that.”

Oliver decided to shift attention, “What’s going on here. Why’s my mind been acting so weird the past few days. Why did you lose my potty training?”

“It’s the milk,” Memory spoke, he was excited to explain, almost shaking.

Oliver was concerned, “I can stop if it’s a problem.”

“No, it’s, here look at this,” Memory reached out to Oliver and dragged him to the strange bookshelf on the edge of the library. It was taller and sturdier than the others, and newer. The books were thick and had an odor of fresh paper and ink. Oliver picked a dull green one and pulled it out, flicking through pages on integrals. He put the book back.

“I don’t get it,” Oliver admitted.

Memory waved to the old part of the library, “Consc, look we have a hundred years of empty books here, ready to be filled. A lifetime of books and shelves for every memory you will have. But… every one of these shelves, every one of these books, we stopped building those twenty years ago. I’ll be honest, we’ve been coasting on past accomplishments for the past two decades.”

Memory glanced down at that, almost ashamed, “I’m sorry, but it’s just, most of these books you’re never going to access again. But!” Memory knocked on the shelf, “The milk came through here and turbocharged everything. This is brand new, and we filled it with those test things you struggled with this morning, and one nap later it all came back. Isn’t it great?”

Oliver thought deeply, finally understanding, “Neurogenesis. It stops in adults, but the milk must turn it back on. New cells. New baby brain cells.” Adult brains were not designed to do this, and maybe there was a reason for that.

Memory scratched his head, and then nodded, “If you want to get all technical. And it’s not just happening here, it’s all over the brain. You should hear about the new thing that Core is talking about. They haven’t been this excited since the pituitary gland woke up twenty-two years ago.”

Oliver knocked on the new shelf, “This shelf is pretty prominent, what,” he thought carefully, “What would have happened if I hadn’t done that test thing. If I had slacked off today, and just watched cartoons?”

Memory jumped, “I don’t know, we’d probably get overwhelmed with the empty spaces. Eventually something like this would be impossible to find.” He thumped at the large potty-training book Oliver held. “It’d be like back in the old days. When everything was new.”

Memory took the book and started making his way back into the main aisles. He waved Oliver along with him and the two soon reached the shelf Oliver had started at. He tried pushing the book back on the shelf but stopped. Oliver watched as he struggled to get squeeze the large book into the space. Memory paused and then pulled at the new book Oliver had put there.

“How to Go Potty, by Oliver Young” Memory read the colorful thin book before looking at Oliver, “Did you put this here?”

“I, uh,”

Without care memory flipped to the front page, “Step one, when you feel a tingling down below, tell mommy or daddy and they will help you to the potty chair.”

“This is hard for me too, you don’t need to embarrass me,” Oliver spoke, before remembering that dragging up embarrassing memories was a core function of his brain.

“Step two, remove your pants by untying the knot.” Memory slammed the book.

“Just stick it in there,” Oliver pointed at the shelf.

“They both won’t fit.”

“Just add it to the other one.” Oliver took the larger book from Memory and tried to stick the smaller book inside of the first. The binding refused to close, and it would never fit on the shelf.

“It doesn’t work that way. Be honest, is this tied to some sex thing?” Memory judged him. Oliver was not used to judging himself this way.

Oliver struggled with his feelings before he found the answer. Somewhere in the real world his dingaling was being guided by a woman as he stared at tits the size of his head. “Yes, Vicky and I are having a moment, but that’s not it. It’s like, it’s like the first time again. When I slotted this book in it was like I had mastered a new skill. I’m the greatest person in the world, the head of the class, first place in a tournament. It felt like pure pride, raw achievement.”

He took a breath, “and there wasn’t any shame either. It wasn’t awkward or weird, and it’s like I can try to do this thing without shame or fear. Like I am not aware of how bad I am at this anymore, I don’t care, I’m just glad I was able to do this one thing.”

Memory looked at the new book. He knew he should shred this. It was his job to shred the bad memories, to shield the mind from dangerous thoughts. Without his careful pruning Oliver would never have survived to adulthood. Memory shuttered at how horrible it would be to be forced to remember the world as it had actually happened; to be forced to see oneself as others did.

Oliver stared at the books on the shelf. So many of the titles were not relevant to his new life. One was on how to Drive in America, and another he used to every time he hired someone, Tax and Employee Regulations – California. A month ago, he might have accessed this shelf every day. Now he might never use any of this knowledge ever again.

“What’s with the location specific books?” Oliver asked tapping the one on driving.

Memory answered with a bored anger, “Rules are different in different places, so if you ever need to add the rules for driving in Britain, we can add a book for that.”

Oliver snapped his finger, excited, and held up the colorful thin book. He knocked it hard, giving it a shake before presenting it to Memory.

How To Go Potty on Amazonia; Book Two in the Toilet Training Series, by Oliver Young. Memory was cautious but picked up both books and put them into the vacant spot on the shelf. Both easily slid in. He had achieved a mastery of a “new skill,” but a better understanding of who he was and where he was going. Oliver closed his eyes and returned to reality.

The sound of a soft liquid splashing into soft liquid filled Oliver’s ears. He pushed the long stream out and let out a long deep breath. Victoria’s face beamed with excitement, “Go Oliver! You’re doing it.” Oliver did not even care she was talking down to him. His smile stretched long on his face. He finished with a long shake and then slipped off the toilet. Vicky reached over him and flushed away his waste.

“What’s next?” Oliver asked, his entire day so far had been planned by her. He reached down and pulled up his shorts and pull-up, not a single foul drop stained the inside of the white fluffy interior.

Victoria, pat his hair with her clean hand and chuckled, “You wash your hands sweety.”

Oliver let her pick him up to the running water, and his mind lingered on the lessons from his trip to into imagined futures. No shrink rays. The littles had to prove they could do things the bigs could never do. This world was on the edge of something massive. History was poised to repeat here like it had on tens of thousands of worlds, and now Oliver could see the opportunities in time like water circling a drain. It was up to him to give it a push. It would require unleashing a tremendous evil, but in doing so create a tremendous opportunity to change things for good.

He would need to make lots of friends, not just here, but across an entire planet. He would need to find the best of them and push them to their full potential. The warm soapy water turned hot, and Oliver leaned his head up towards his Victoria, waiting for her to turn the sink off and help dry his hands. Her face turned to a frown, as though disappointed in his efforts. She had expected more from him, a song and dance or a hug or statement, and as punishment she let the hot water steam for a few seconds on Oliver’s tiny hands. If Oliver was to save the world, some obstacles would need to be dealt with.