Story Circle

This was my idea, wanting to emphasize the personal horror that would exist if some force were really trying to confine somebody (who didn't want to be a baby in the first place) to do only what a baby can do, while leaving it possible for them to describe the horror to others. And the contrast for a caregiver between someone who wants baby treatment and someone who doesn't want it but needs it. - LilJennie

Abducted

by LilJennie & Miki Yamuri

Chapter 1: The Discovery

Allison didn’t remember much about what had happened to her recently. Just now, she felt the grass under her feet and knees. She saw the lights dart around her and recede into the night sky. She felt … cold. The grass was damp with the beginnings of dew, and she wore only a flimsy robe and whatever they’d put on her underneath. And then it was dark and quiet.

Then there was a voice, another woman’s voice. “Oh, Honey, are you all right? What happened to you?” How long had it been since someone had spoken to her? Kind hands put a jacket over her shoulders. “Can you get up? Do you want to come inside?” Allison looked up and saw a woman’s face. She had long, dark hair, and she was offering her hands to help Allison up. Staying on the ground was attractive in a way, but it was cold out here. She reached up and clasped hands, standing up unsteadily.

“Where … where am I?” Allison asked. Her voice sounded ragged. She looked around. There was a painted and lighted wooden sign in the grass that said, “Nanny Vanessa’s Daycare Center.” It featured colorful depictions of children' s toys. The dark-haired woman’s arms helped steady her and guided her toward a nearby house, where the front porch light was on. The house appeared to be attached to a larger building, but only the house had any lights on inside at the moment. Up a few steps to the porch they went, then in through the front door into a lighted living room.

“Here, why don’t you sit here?” the dark-haired woman said, guiding her into a soft easy chair. She removed the jacket and quickly laid a blanket over Allison. “My name’s Vanessa, and you’re in my home, but I also run a daycare center. You sound parched! Let me get you some water.” She left the room; Allison could hear the sound of a refrigerator opening and water pouring into a glass.

Vanessa returned with a glass of water, handing it to Allison. “Here you go,” she said, and Allison held the glass without drinking at first. “I don’t know what happened to you, but … I’m guessing you’re probably pretty confused by whatever it was. I’m guessing that because, well, I’m confused. I saw bright beams of light shining out of the sky, lighting up my lawn, so I went to look out the door, and … well, one second you weren’t there, and the next, there you were. Then the lights disappeared into the clouds.”

Allison had a few flashes of memory. “The lights … oh no, the lights!” She remembered she’d been asleep in her bed at home … and then there were the lights. “They came for me … in the night … and then … I don’t remember …” She had no idea how long it had been. “They took me away … I was in a dark place, and there was this low humming sound all the time … and then sometimes there was the room with the bright light and the table …”

Vanessa nodded and listened, looking intently at Allison. “OK, this is sounding like some kind of TV show, but … I did just see you basically beamed down onto my lawn,” she said. “Something really not normal is going on. There was a room with a light and a table?”

“They … they put me on a table … it was like an operating table … with a bright light shining down … and they were looking over me … I didn’t feel anything and couldn’t move, not even my eyes … and … I think they did something to my head …”

“Well, let me look, Sweetie,” said Vanessa, standing up. Allison leaned forward, still not drinking her water, while Vanessa examined her head, looked at the back of her neck, and said, “I don’t see anything, but … that doesn’t mean anything, necessarily, I suppose. But I wanted to make sure you’re not bleeding or anything.”

Allison sighed. “That’s a relief, I guess,” she said. “But … it was … so scary! They never said a word to me – not a word I could understand, anyway. They … talked, I suppose, but I didn’t understand anything.” She paused. “Was it … aliens? Were they aliens? They were like the aliens on TV … short and gray … big black eyes … small mouths and almost no nose …”

“I have never seen anything like what I saw tonight,” said Vanessa, “so who knows? It could be. I’ve never experienced what you have, that’s for sure. How long do you think … wait. Today’s July 25.”

“What?” Allison gasped. “That’s … not possible. Last I remember, it was June 16. It’s been over a month? But I don’t remember … it only feels like it was a few days …”

“Well, you said they did something to your head,” said Vanessa. “They might have done something to your memory … or they might have drugged you so you slept through most of it. But please … drink some water, dear. You need it.”

“All right,” Allison said, raising the glass to her mouth. But as soon as it touched her lips, she inhaled sharply and squinted her eyes. The pain was sudden and piercing. “Ahhhh!” She thrust the glass away from her. Some of the water spilled.

“Oh, no!” Vanessa said. “What’s wrong!”

“It hurts,” Allison said. “Not anymore. But … it hurt. When I tried to drink.”

“Well, here, I’ll help you,” she said, taking the glass and holding it up to Allison’s mouth. “Just a little sip.” She tipped the glass up. There was no pain. “You’re fine. Just take a sip.” Allison sipped the water, which was refreshing. “There you go. Another sip. Come on. You need it.”

“Thank you,” said Allison, trying to hold the glass and drink for herself. “Owww!” she quickly exclaimed as she felt another stab of pain.

“No, no, maybe you need to just relax,” said Vanessa. “Don’t worry, dear. I’ve got it. Sip some more.” Allison had soon drunk most of the glass of water, and Vanessa set it down on a coaster. “How old are you, Honey?”

“I’m twen – ouch!” Allison experienced another stab of pain in her head as she tried to answer. “Ooh, that hurt.”

“It hurt? To say how old you are?” Vanessa asked. “Is it the same kind of pain?”

“Yes, right inside my head,” Allison said. “Not now, though. Just when I tried to say my age.”

“Well, what if you try to say something else?” Vanessa asked. “You tried to say you were twenty-something. Try to say you’re 19.”

“I’m nine – ouch!”

“Sorry! Umm, is there anything you can say without pain?”

“I’m eigh – ow! I’m sev – ow! I’m sixt – ow! I’m fift – ow!” Allison tried lower and lower numbers. “I’m elev – ouch! I’m ten – ow! I’m … I said a lot of these already. I’m three – ow! I’m two – ow! I’m one … no pain. I’m one year old.” Allison took an incredulous breath. “This makes no sense. I’m not one – ow! What?”

“This is very peculiar,” said Vanessa. “You obviously aren’t one year old, but you can’t say you’re any other age without pain, and you can’t deny being one year old without pain either. Let’s just say you’re in your early twenties. Is that right? Just nod if so.” Allison nodded. “Are you hungry?”

“Yes … I can’t remember if I ate anything when I was … with them.”

“Well, let me get you something simple so you don’t have to wait,” said Vanessa. She left and returned with a plate with a few simple soda crackers on it. “Here you go. But be careful. I’m starting to wonder about something.”

“Me too,” said Allison. She picked up a cracker and tried to put it into her mouth, but a stab of pain happened, causing her to drop it to her lap.

“All right, Sweetie, let me try,” said Vanessa, lifting up the cracker and feeding it to Allison. “Here you are.” And Allison was able to bite it without any pain.

Vanessa continued feeding Allison crackers while saying, “I think what’s going on here is some kind of conditioning. They’ve done something to your brain. You can’t drink for yourself and you can’t feed yourself. You can’t say you’re any age other than one.”

“What? Why?” asked Allison. “Why would they do this? That’s terrible! It makes no sense!”

“Nevertheless, it seems to be what happened,” Vanessa said. “And if so, I shudder at how cruel it is. But, I suppose, to them we’re like their lab rats, their guinea pigs.”

“What do I do?” Allison asked.

“Well, look, this is a daycare center,” said Vanessa. “I’m an expert at feeding little ones who can’t feed themselves, and I’m perfectly fine doing the same for you, at least until we have this figured out.”

“Yeah, but I’m not a b – owwwww!” Allison put a hand to her head as another stab of pain felt like it was splitting her skull. “I’m not! A baby is not what I – ouch!” She took a deep breath. “I’m old enough to vote!” Nothing happened. “Really?”

“Perhaps they don’t know our laws about how old you have to be to vote,” said Vanessa. “Interesting. This may not be based on your perception. It may be an implant.”

“An implant?”

“Some stories people tell about aliens is that they put devices in their bodies, things they program to do some task. Maybe to monitor them. Or, in your case, maybe to change your behavior.”

Allison gasped. “They want my behavior to be … like a baby’s?” she asked incredulously. “That’s … insane!”

“I don’t understand it either,” said Vanessa. “But … that’s what seems to be happening.”

Suddenly Allison put her hands to her head. She felt the need to pee after all that water, but trying to hold it hurt. She squirmed. “Ow! Ow! Ow!”

“Uh-oh, that looks like a potty dance if I ever saw one, and I’ve seen all sorts of potty dances,” said Vanessa. “Let’s get you to the bathroom …” She tried to help Allison to her feet.

“Ow! It’s … ow! Too late …” said Allison, blushing brightly.

“But … you’re not making a mess on the floor …” said Vanessa. “Don’t worry. If you did, everything’s washable. This is a daycare. Lots of little ones have accidents. But … if I may, I wonder what they dressed you in. I saw that robe …”

“Um …”

“Oh, don’t worry, nothing I haven’t seen before … wait … ok, this I haven’t seen before.” Vanessa opened Allison’s diaphanous alien robe to reveal what must be an alien diaper. White and somehow sparkly, it seemed skin-tight, but now part of it was starting to swell between Allison’s legs. “They … must have expected this, I suppose …”

“Oh, this is so embarrassing,” Allison said.

“Well, around here I change little ones’ diapers many times every day,” said Vanessa. “But … this is some kind of alien material. That’s nothing that comes from this world.”

“But … what am I going to do?”

“For now, why not just sit back down so we can talk about it,” Vanessa said, and Allison sat back down in the chair, somewhat uncomfortably. “Now, don’t worry. That alien undergarment has got absorbent properties, obviously. It probably has some kind of maximum capacity, but it’s fine for now. I don’t want you doing anything that gives you pain, Honey, so when you need to let it go … just let it go. When it gets too saturated … I’m telling you, I’ve changed babies of all sizes, and I’ve got diapers to change you into. We keep well stocked around here.”

“But I’m not –”

“I’m going to stop you before you say more and hurt yourself,” Vanessa said. “I know you aren’t a baby, and I know they seem to want you to say you are, but regardless of that, I’m equipped to help you, and that’s what I’m going to do, if you’ll let me. I don’t know why they’ve done this to you or how to undo it, but what I can do is make you comfortable until we can figure this out.”

“Well …” said Allison reluctantly, ‘thank you. I’m glad that they dropped me off near someone who knows how to care for babies after doing whatever they did to me, even though I’m not … you know.”

“Let’s see about getting you a real meal and something to drink,” said Vanessa. “I’ll be right back. And I hope you don’t mind. Oh, are you lactose-intolerant?” Allison assured her that she wasn’t.

Vanessa made sure Allison was comfortable before going to the kitchen, coming back with some chicken nuggets and a rather large-looking baby bottle full of warm milk.

“Wait, is that a baby bottle?” Allison asked. “It’s … kind of large, isn’t it?”

Fastening a bib around Allison’s neck, Vanessa replied, “Yes, and this being a daycare center, this is the best way I’ve got to give a drink to someone who can’t hold the glass themselves. As I said, I take care of babies of all ages. The ‘formula’ is my own recipe – it’s just skim milk with vitamins and minerals mixed in, sweetened with stevia.” She proceeded to feed Allison the chicken nuggets, letting her eat at her own pace.

Then came time for the bottle. Allison felt very awkward about this but let Vanessa hold the bottle up for her to drink. It was difficult to figure out how to suck and swallow from the bottle, and how to breathe while doing so, but she at least was able to drink from the bottle. The milk was warm and sweet. Vanessa kept Allison’s face clean with a warm cloth.

“The bottle …” Allison said afterward, “it felt … good somehow.”

“Good?” Vanessa asked.

“I mean … I felt a good feeling while I was drinking from it that I can’t account for. I wonder … whether they did something to me in that way too.”

“You mean …” wondered Vanessa, “whether they somehow made you feel good sensations from sucking on a baby bottle, just as they made you feel pain at other times?”

“I have to wonder about that, yes,” Allison said. “This is so messed up.”

“It’s terribly, terribly cruel of them,” Vanessa said, carrying the empty bottle and plate back to the kitchen. “I can’t imagine why they would do something like this to an innocent person. I don’t think being taken care of like a baby is anything to be ashamed of, but forcing it upon you like this is just inhumane. I wonder if we can get a doctor to look at you. But for now, it’s pretty late. I wonder if you’d mind if I put you in one of the daycare bedrooms. I hope it’s not too embarrassing, but it’s what I’ve got.”

But Allison had already fallen asleep. She was so exhausted after her ordeal that she was out like a light. Vanessa said, “Oh, the poor dear,” and set about getting Allison ready for bed.

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Chapter 2: The Remedy

Allison was in that comfortable place when we are not yet quite awake, but not asleep either. Whatever was in her mouth made her feel so contented as she suckled it enthusiastically. She snuggled closer to the soft fuzziness of …?

Allison’s eyes popped open; she was suddenly wide awake. The thing she was so diligently sucking on had been her thumb. She struggled with it for a few minutes and failed at stopping the unconscious urge. The comfy soft fuzzy thing she was snuggled up with was a rather large Teddy Bear dressed in a cute pair of flowery coveralls.

She sat up just in time for her to go potty in her pants. She knew it would hurt terribly if she tried to stop it, so she didn’t bother. She felt the warmth trickling down around her bottom until it seemed to somehow be absorbed and she couldn’t feel it any longer.

She held her arms out and looked down at herself. She was dressed in an adorable pink and white footed sleeper with a large butterfly on the front; it had snaps up the insides of the legs. She knew she was in a diaper, because not only could she feel it, she could also hear the soft crinkling of the plastic panties as she moved around.

Allison then realized that she was in a bed with high rails down both sides – she was in a crib! She tried to stand up by holding onto the rails. It worked, but it didn’t feel as good somehow, and there wasn’t really a way to climb over the side – the sides were almost as high as she was tall, and there were no footholds. The crinkling sound as she sat back down told her that there was a plastic liner over the mattress, and suddenly she felt good again somehow.

She wondered why Vanessa even had a large crib to put her in, but then looked between the bars and saw a large changing table, high chair, and playpen. Now, Allison had heard of adult babies jokingly at a party not too long ago, but it was just one of those weird stories that you heard, said, “Huh,” and moved on. But she thought back to what Vanessa had said about having a daycare center for babies of all ages, and she suddenly put two and two together. The kindly Vanessa was a Nanny for adult babies, and Allison was now in her nursery.

And it also dawned on Allison that, whether she liked it or not, what the aliens had done to her was now forcing her to be one of those adult babies, and there wasn’t a single thing she could do about it. Her feelings of helplessness and hopelessness welled up, and she began to cry like the infant she now appeared to be … “Waaaaaahhhhhhhhh!!!!!!!!” It actually felt good to cry.

Allison struggled hard to stop herself from crying. It was hard, as it seemed more natural to keep crying; it actually felt good. When she managed to stop crying, it felt less good somehow. She remembered that standing up hadn’t hurt, but it had also somehow felt less good. Whatever the aliens had done to her was able to cause her pleasant feelings as well as pain. They were conditioning her to behave like a baby! This made her want to cry again, but she refused.

So … she couldn’t feed herself, drink anything on her own, dress or undress herself, or even prevent herself from using her diaper as a baby would, without feeling severe pain. She couldn’t even deny being a baby or assert being an adult. What was more, she was encouraged not to stand up, to suck her thumb, and to cry. To her complete displeasure, anything that wasn’t within an infant’s ability that she would attempt to do caused severe pain. But on the other hand, she also realized, when she performed babyish acts, an amazing tingle of contentment rushed all through her. It felt totally amazing.

It was interesting that she didn’t feel pain when she tried to stand up or tried to stop sucking her thumb or crying. She thought about it and realized that there were really too many other things she could do besides sit down or crawl – she could hop, jump, roll, wiggle … the aliens hadn’t conditioned her with pain for doing anything other than crawling because there were simply too many alternatives. Likewise, there were too many things she could do with her mouth or thumb for them to cause her pain for every single one of them. And there were many things besides crying she could do … many of which babies did naturally anyway, so it didn’t even make sense for the aliens to discourage those with pain. Instead, it seemed they’d encouraged the desired behavior with positive feedback. But there were a few things that babies definitely didn’t do, and those things she was apparently now punished for.

Nanny Vanessa entered the nursery. “Oh, you’re up, Sweetheart,” she said.

“Vanessa, you’re … an adult baby Nanny?” asked Allison.

“Oh!” she said. “Well, I’m a Nanny for babies of all ages. I have an adult baby nursery, and a regular baby nursery. They’re separate. You’ve heard of adult babies?”

“Well … I mean, once, I heard someone talking about them at a party,” said Allison. “It was strange, but seemed harmless, so I just accepted that it was a thing …”

“I see,” Vanessa said. “So you’re not really a baby – you’re being forced to be one.” She started adjusting the side of Allison’s crib, and soon the bars lowered with a clatter. “Let’s get you changed and cleaned up, OK?”

Allison was glad she was still able to walk, because she didn’t see how Vanessa would have been able to carry her over to the changing table. She took Vanessa’s offered hand and waddled over to it, crinkling all the while, lying down on it as she knew was what was expected.

“That’s a good girl,” Vanessa said. “I’m sorry if I talk to you like a baby sometimes; I’m just used to it. My charges expect it and love it. But the fact is – you’re not a baby, and I know it. It’s truly unfair of the aliens to do this to you, and cruel. I can’t imagine how they could justify it, unless they think we’re somehow animals to them, like lab rats to be experimented on. I really can’t condone what they’ve done to you. But I can try to help keep you comfortable. Maybe we can have a doctor look at you.”

“You’re accepting that it was aliens awfully easily,” said Allison as Vanessa unsnapped her sleeper and removed her soaking wet diaper.

Vanessa dutifully cleaned Allison up, saying, “Well, I saw what I saw. There were huge glowing orbs high up in the sky, and one of them beamed you down onto my yard, then they flew away. If those weren’t alien spaceships, I don’t know what they were.”

“But if we try to tell a doctor it was aliens …” Allison began as Vanessa pinned a nice fresh cloth diaper onto her and slid a dry pair of plastic panties on over it.

“Yes, most doctors would have a hard time believing it,” said Vanessa. “But look, we don’t have to tell them that. We can just show them the symptoms, and they can draw their own conclusions. What’s more, I know some doctors who have seen some … unusual things. Maybe not space aliens, but they keep an open mind. Remember, doctors became doctors to help people, not to judge people.” Vanessa snapped Allison’s sleeper back up.

“I … guess so,” said Allison as Vanessa helped her sit up and step off the changing table. “If there’s anything a doctor could do … but I don’t know if I can pay them … all my identification and everything is … uh … where are we?”

“We’re on the East Coast, not far from New York City, dear,” said Vanessa.

“What?” Allison was incredulous. “I live in Montana! What … what’s today’s date? And the year?”

It came out that the last date Allison remembered was over a month ago, even though she only remembered being with the aliens for a day or two. “That means either that I was unconscious for most of that, or … some kind of relativistic time dilation effect … did they take me back to their planet?”

“It’s clear that you know more about science than I do, Dear,” Vanessa said, helping her into the high chair and fastening the tray in front of her. “Now, just wait a moment, and I’ll be back with some breakfast for you, OK?” She left the room, leaving the hallway door slightly ajar.

Allison noticed the door. She wasn’t a prisoner here. She could probably leave anytime she wanted … but she obviously couldn’t live on her own now. She needed help with so many basic tasks. She was dependent on Vanessa for her very survival now. But she had no way to repay her for her kindness. Vanessa was even talking about taking Allison to a doctor at her own expense.

Allison briefly wondered whether somehow Vanessa was in cahoots with the aliens, if there even were any aliens. What if those memories were some kind of hypnosis-induced hallucination? But that didn’t make sense. Why would she do that? What was the profit in it? No, she dismissed that idea. But if it were aliens, was she the only one in the world who had been abducted like this? That didn’t make any sense. If they were only going to abduct one human, she supposed, then it would have to be somebody; her chances of being the victim were exactly the same as anyone else’s. But no, if this were an experiment, they wouldn’t just have one subject. There’d have to be others. But not in the same place.

“Vanessa,” said Allison as Vanessa returned with a tray containing a bowl of oatmeal and another baby bottle, “do you think there are … others who were abducted like I was?”

“That’s a good question, Sweetheart,” Vanessa said. “You know, you’re not like my usual clients. Most of them don’t want to have adult conversations; they get plenty of that in their regular lives outside here. And most of them don’t want to use computers – they have to use them in their jobs and want to get away from all that. But let’s say that after we get you fed and dressed, we’ll get you set up at my computer and we can search for any other news about anybody like yourself. You can do that while I try to get you an appointment with one of the doctors I know.”

“OK, that sounds good, thank you,” said Allison. She looked at the oatmeal that Vanessa set on the high chair’s tray in front of her. “That smells really good.”

“Cinnamon oatmeal with honey,” she said. “And my usual formula.” She set the baby bottle down next to the oatmeal, then fastened a bib around Allison’s neck and started to feed her. Allison was very cooperative and tried to eat every bit of her breakfast, which was delicious. For Vanessa’s part, she found Allison a lot cleaner and more cooperative than most of her charges. This girl wasn’t here because she wanted to be a baby, she reminded herself. She really preferred babies who wanted to be babies, but it wasn’t poor Allison’s fault that she had to be here.

Vanessa tried to comfort Allison as much as she could while giving her her bottle, stroking her hair and talking soothingly to her. “There you go,” she said, “just drink it all down, get all those vitamins. Just relax and try to enjoy it, Sweetheart. Nobody here’s judging you. I’m here to help you because you’re in a bad way. You’ll be OK.”

After breakfast, Vanessa removed Allison’s diaper and cleaned her up again, but it was time for a bath. Allison wasn’t surprised to learn that she felt stabbing pain whenever she tried to bathe herself, but not when she just played with the water; that felt good. Of course. Vanessa made sure to scrub Allison nice and clean, then dried her off and put her back into fresh fluffy diapers and plastic lined rhumba panties with ruffles on the seat and a matching babydoll dress. She surprised Allison by popping a pacifier into her mouth, which Allison wanted to object to, but she just couldn’t stop sucking on it.

“That seems like it feels good, doesn’t it?” Vanessa asked as she led Allison toddling and crinkling down the hallway. “Let’s go to my office – I don’t usually have babies in there, but then you’re not a baby, are you? That way I can call my doctor contacts, and you can try to find out about other abductees.”

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Chapter 3: The Search

Vanessa sat Allison down in front of her computer and pulled up a chair next to her, taking out her phone. Allison started searching. Vanessa saw her search terms. “Missing person found with conditioned pain responses” was what she started with, and unsurprisingly she found a number of articles about sexual abuse and torture victims. Allison changed her search and kept trying while Vanessa called her first medical contact, a nurse practitioner.

“Hi, this is Vanessa Amethyst – oh, hello, Beth dear. I’m trying to reach Nurse Mendoza. No, I’m fine, thank you; it’s one of my clients … I see. That’s fine, I’ll be here.”

Allison had found something. “Just last week, in Morocco … missing from Spain for a month, found paralyzed from the neck down … no known cause …” She printed out the article. Vanessa started to feel more concerned but called another number.

She pressed 1, then 3, then waited … “Yes, this is Vanessa Amethyst – oh, hi, Andy, good to hear your voice. I wanted to talk to Dr. Patrescu. It’s about a client of mine …”

“Oh no … this one can’t talk at all … she seems to suffer pain when she tries … found in eastern Australia after going missing from northern Australia …” Allison printed out another article.

Vanessa’s phone rang. “Oh yes, Nurse Mendoza … yes, she’s experiencing pain she describes as searing or piercing when she tries to do certain things … no, I don’t mean when she flexes certain muscle groups; I mean when she tries to feed herself or dress herself … actually no, she isn’t one of my clients at all; she was in distress and came to my door for help … yes, I’ve been trying to make her as comfortable as I can … next week? All right …”

“This one can’t walk,” said Allison. “He was found in a town in India … no known cause for the excruciating pain when he tries to walk …”

“Dr. Kerrigan? Hi, it’s Vanessa Amethyst … I’m asking for a young woman who’s here with me, not one of my clients but someone who came to my door in distress … she suffers from pain when she tries to feed herself or dress herself, and even if she tries to say she isn’t a baby or assert that she’s an adult, but … no, as I said, she isn’t one of my clients … yes, this is a strange case, even stranger than the hypnosis one last year … yes, otherwise she can speak quite clearly … it’s like there’s some kind of influence on her that’s trying to force her to be like a baby … yes, we can come in right now.”

“Oh my God,” Allison said. “This one only lived a week before she died … but she disappeared a month ago in Korea but was found in Japan … she was in terrible pain whenever her heart beat … she died yesterday …” Allison was almost in tears.

“That’s horrid, Dear, and we should print that one too,” said Vanessa, clicking the print button. As the printer whirred, Vanessa said, “We’re going in to see Dr. Kendrick. She can see you today. Let’s get you dressed for the public. I’ll pack you a diaper bag and take you there.”

“Diaper bag?” said Allison, dismayed.

“I’m sorry,” Vanessa said. “My clients want me to call it that. I understand that you don’t. But I’ll pack a bag of supplies to bring with us. Let’s get you dressed a bit more adult.”

“Yes … please,” said Allison in a small voice.

Dr. Cassandra Kendrick was small, red-haired, and older than Vanessa. Her office smelled of incense and herbs, quite delicious really, and Allison felt as if she might practice alternative medicine, but she had a white coat and stethoscope like any other doctor she’d ever seen. “Allison, this is Dr. Kendrick,” said Vanessa. “Dr. Kendrick, this is Allison … forgive me, what’s your last name, dear?”

“Scanlon,” said Allison. “Allison Scanlon.”

“Well, it’s nice to meet you, Allison,” said Dr. Kendrick. “Let’s get you back to an examination room and have a look at you.”

After taking her temperature and blood pressure and looking in her ears and nose and down her throat, Dr. Kendrick said, “All right, now, let me listen to you breathe.” She warmed up her stethoscope and listened to Allison’s back. But as she breathed, Dr. Kendrick said, “Now, I understand you’re not a baby.”

“No, I’m not a b – ahhhh!” said Allison, cringing as the pain made her stop speaking.

“I’m sorry,” said Dr. Kendrick, “but I can see that hurt a lot. Can you describe the pain? Where is it? What does it feel like? Hot, stinging, burning, sharp?”

“In my head,” said Allison. “Hot and sharp … like a bolt of lightning in my head.”

Allison, Dr. Kendrick, and Vanessa talked about exactly when the pain occurred … and then about when things felt good. Dr. Kendrick looked more and more serious as this went on.

“This isn’t just some kind of illness,” Dr. Kendrick said. “Something’s trying to control you, influence your behavior, change how you act. I’d say it’s like hypnosis, but when I hypnotized you just now I found nothing.”

“You didn’t hypnotize me just now,” said Allison. “Wait, did you?”

“She did,” said Vanessa. “She’s very subtle.”

“Just enough to know that there’s nothing there, as far as I can tell,” Dr. Kendrick continued, then paused. “It’s … something else. I’m not sure what it could be. Can you tell me more about … what happened before you came to Vanessa’s door?”

“Well … she didn’t exactly come to my door,” Vanessa interrupted, but Dr. Kendrick was looking at Allison.

“I was lying in my bed, in my apartment … in Montana,” she said. “It was the middle of the night … when suddenly there was this bright light, and these people with huge dark eyes looking at me … and then …” She described what she recalled from her experience again, ending with finding herself on Vanessa’s lawn.

“And yes, I saw these orbs of bright light in the sky, and I went out to look,” Vanessa added, “and one moment no one was there on my lawn, but the next there she was, in the midst of a beam of light, and then the orbs flew up into the clouds and were gone.”

“You’re … describing an … alien abduction, then,” said Dr. Kendrick slowly. “Well, I’m not exactly publishing this one in the medical journals, am I? But that means … they did some kind of experiment on you, it sounds like. I’m going to have to get you in for a brain X-ray.”

“Aren’t MRIs safer?” asked Vanessa.

Dr. Kendrick paused, then replied, “Well, MRIs don’t involve radiation, so I usually prefer them too. But … they’re just better at locating … foreign objects.”

“You … you think it’s an implant too, don’t you?” asked Allison.

“I don’t know,” Dr. Kendrick said, “but let’s be logical. Either it’s something that appears on X-rays, or something that doesn’t, like a reformatting of your neural pathways. But if the aliens can do that, why not merely rearrange them to be more babylike? Why this operant conditioning carrot-and-stick approach? That doesn’t make sense. It has to be a device. Which is why I suggest an X-ray as the next step. If the device is metallic, it’ll cause artifacts on an MRI that’ll confuse the results. If you’re willing, I’ll get the X-rays scheduled.”

“I’ll do anything … if it’s OK with you, Vanessa,” said Allison.

“Look, Honey, if it could help you, I’m 100% OK with it,” Vanessa said.

Dr. Kendrick said, “Vanessa, if I could talk with you for a moment?”

“Oh, of course,” Vanessa replied. They stepped out of the room, leaving Allison inside.

“Vanessa,” whispered Dr. Kendrick, “this implant – if that’s what it is – understands what Allison is saying. It can tell when she’s trying to feed herself. Do you see what I mean?”

“It’s … intelligent …” Vanessa whispered with a horrified catch in her throat. “The thing in her head … is intelligent …”

“So far it hasn’t responded to anything we’ve said,” whispered Dr. Kendrick. “But I notice that it responds before Allison finishes what she’s saying. That means it’s reading her brain activity as she’s formulating what to say or do and responding very quickly. It doesn’t seem to have reacted when she asked if it existed, so that seems not to trigger anything. But it may be important not to … provoke it. These printouts you brought … one of the victims died. We can’t take too many risks.”

“You don’t think an X-ray is too risky?” Vanessa asked quietly.

“I think it’s the only way forward,” Dr. Kendrick replied. “But after that … we’ll have to carefully consider the next step. Think about it logically. Whatever the aliens may want, what don’t they want? They don’t want their technology falling into the wrong hands. We have to make sure the implant never gets the idea that could happen. It might be OK if it thinks we’re trying to destroy it, but if it gets the impression we’re trying to extract it intact – whether we are or not … That’s why I’m not telling you this around Allison. We don’t want her even thinking about that. Because then …”

Vanessa paled. “It might …” she began, but didn’t finish. One of the fluorescent light tubes overhead flickered a bit before returning to its steady, humming glow. They both looked up at it, then at each other.

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It was later. Allison and Vanessa had gone to the radiology clinic across town, and the X-rays had been taken. They were at home. At her clinic, Dr. Kendrick had excused herself and retreated to her research area. She brought up the many X-ray images the clinic had made of Allison’s head. As the images were downloading and appearing up on the large screen, she turned and took a large drink of her cup of coffee. When she looked back, what she had expected to find ... was nothing like what she actually found.

She had thought to find some type of crystalline or electronic device. To her complete astonishment, what she found was more like some type of molecule-sized creature that glowed a bright blue in this X-ray’s false color legend. The atom-sized connections throughout Allison’s neural system appeared on the scan like a blue spider’s web.

She sat back in her chair with a large gasp. She had never seen anything like this in her entire career. She knew there was no way in current knowledge that could even begin to address this.

She created an AI-driven simulation using Allison’s live scan as the baseline. Slowly and meticulously, she removed the atom-sized blue traces. She now knew that this thing was alive. Every one of the tendrils she severed in the simulation was either replaced or instantly rerouted right before her eyes. The AI, at least, believed that this network of connections was complex enough that each part contained the whole pattern, that it could reform itself if interrupted.

Whoever those aliens were, they had proven that not only did they believe themselves so far beyond humans that the Earthlings were nothing but lab animals to them … they might be right. They apparently had technology so far advanced beyond anything Earth knew that the humans might as well be monkeys swinging in the trees.

She then accessed the Department of Medical Research and had the AI search for all similar issues of severe restrictive pain, but isolated only those that dealt with forced helplessness of one sort or another. She discovered that there were hundreds of records relating to action-induced allodynia after a disappearance of one to several months and many miles’ distances between vanishing and reappearance. Cases had begun only in the past year, but they were spread all over the world. There were fewer or none listed in less developed parts of the world, but that could just mean that they hadn’t been reported, or hadn’t been entered into the database because of low levels of technology. But hundreds of cases, in a world of billions, had gone unnoticed.

Dr. Kendrick had managed to glean a small amount of data on the abilities of whatever this implant was. Her scans and several of the tests showed that the item was giving off some form of coherent energy she had never encountered before. This wasn’t extremely surprising, since her specialties were medical and biological and had nothing whatever to do with quantum or nuclear physics.

But how was she to help poor Allison? That had to be her primary goal. That was why she’d chosen a career in medicine, and why she didn’t judge such an unusual group of patients that Vanessa brought to her, so many of them preferring to behave and be treated as toddlers or infants, even when brought in for medical examinations. She could tell they were of sound mind, so her worries were always focused on illnesses of the body, when one came down with a virus or had an injury. But Allison … she had no desire to behave like an infant or to be treated like one. This … invasive form of artificial life was busily conditioning her to behave like an infant, so she would need to be treated like one. How could it be removed from her?

Dr. Kendrick tapped her pen on her desk, faster and faster. It all had to do with why the aliens were doing this. And what they did with their lab animals when they were done with them.

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Chapter 4: The Cage

“Do you think Dr. Kendrick can help me?” asked Allison. Vanessa was changing her diaper.

“I don’t know, Sweetheart,” said Vanessa. “I do know that she’s going to try her hardest. And she’s very smart.”

“I wish I weren’t such a burden to you,” Allison said. “I hate that I have to choose.”

“Choose?” Vanessa asked, zipping Allison’s comfortable sleeper up over her new diaper.

“Well, yes,” said Allison. “It’s not as if I can’t help needing your help. I could just bite the bullet and feel the pain.”

“Allison!” Vanessa said, shocked. “I can’t let you do that! I’m not going to have you suffering through agony just for my convenience. How could I live with myself?”

“Well, I’m making you feed me and change my diapers just because I can’t handle a little pain,” said Allison. “How can I live with myself?”

“I don’t mind changing your diapers, feeding you, or all the rest, Dear,” said Vanessa. “And you and Dr. Kendrick both tell me that it isn’t just a little pain. It’s like someone stabbing you in the head with an ice pick.”

“Well, more like a red-hot electrified ice pick,” said Allison, “but still, it’s not real pain. It’s not really doing any damage. It’s just a sensation of pain. It’s an illusion.”

“Dr. Kendrick said that it actually is doing you harm,” said Vanessa. “It can cause fatigue, affect your mood, suppress your immune system, alter your hormone levels, even affect your cardiovascular system. Avoiding pain is good. Let’s go … find something to take your mind off it.”

As Vanessa helped her off the changing table, she held her hand and walked her to another part of the daycare she never usually took one of her babies into. It was the break room. It was after hours, so her staff wasn’t here, but there was an entertainment system with a large-screen TV. “What’s your favorite show?” she asked. “Sure, the babies like to watch shows for little kids, but we’ve got a lot of movies and shows here for the staff. They like a lot of things, and they like to get away from the kiddy stuff now and then. Me, I like both.”

“I like … crime dramas,” Allison said. “Detective shows. Cop shows. Or true crime.”

“Well, let’s look for that, shall we?” asked Vanessa, giving Allison the remote. The implant, or whatever it was, didn’t give Allison any pain as she searched through the system. Maybe it would have rewarded her for searching for kiddy stuff, and Allison was pretty sure it would have, but she didn’t want to. She wasn’t a baby. She was still allowed to think that, even if she couldn’t say it. Allison found a series. “Oh, I’ve only seen the first episode of this one,” she said. “I never got to see the rest. Because –” Yeah. Because the aliens had taken her from her home. Best to focus on now.

“Oh, yeah, that one looked interesting,” said Vanessa. “Do you mind watching the first episode again? I wouldn’t know what was going on.”

“No problem,” Allison said. “It’d remind me how it started too. It’s been a while.”

“Let me get some things for you before we start,” said Vanessa, quickly getting her a bottle of water and some popcorn to feed Allison while they watched.

But halfway through the first episode, the moment Allison had been dreading finally arrived. Her bowels had finally reached the point of urgency. “No …” she said.

Vanessa paused the show. “What is it, Dear?”

“Ow! No! Ow! I won’t!” Allison said, getting up. “Gotta go … potty …”

“Oh, dear,” Vanessa said. “I know it’s not a comfortable thought …”

“Owwww! Nnnnggh! Not … going to … make you … change … that …”

“Sweetheart, I do it all the time, it’s all right …” Vanessa said, stroking Allison’s hair.

Allison was sweating and trying to make her way to the bathroom she’d seen in the hallway. Maybe she could make it … but with every step came another spasm and another stab of pain as she tried to hold it back.

“Just let it go,” said Vanessa. “Please, Allison. I beg you. It’ll be OK. I’ll change you, and it’ll be all right again.”

Allison realized she’d only made it a few steps toward the door in what had felt like several minutes. It had only been a few seconds. The pain was messing with her sense of time as well.

“Ahh … no!” Allison doubled over and squatted down. She emptied herself into the seat of her diaper with noises best left imagined. She felt intense shame and self-loathing. “No, no, no … no, ah, I’m so sorry!” She was crying. It felt good. Yes, the thing was making this feel good to her. She hated that. She was crying harder, and the thing was making that feel good too. And she hated that too. “Waaaaaahaaahaaaahaaaaa …” Allison sobbed.

Somehow Vanessa got Allison to a changing table before she realized it. Allison was in a new diaper before she realized it, too. Vanessa was just that experienced.

“Uhhh. Uhhh. Uhhh,” Allison sobbed, then realized that it was over. “Huh?”

Vanessa was zipping Allison’s sleeper back up. “All done, Sweetheart,” she said. “Just a moment.” She got rid of the messy diaper, washed her hands thoroughly, and returned. “You’re all clean now.”

“I’m … sorry …” Allison said, her face still streaked with tears.

Vanessa dabbed at her face with a tissue. “You poor, poor dear,” she said. “Some love this experience, even crave it. You never asked for it, but you got it anyway.”

Allison hugged Vanessa. “Thank you …” she said helplessly.

“Oh, you’re welcome, Dear,” said Vanessa. “We can watch more of the show, if you like. It’s paused right where we stopped.”

“I … OK,” Allison said. On the way back to the break room, she said, “Vanessa?”

“Yes, Allison?”

“Why … did they drop me off here? I can think of … much worse places they could’ve …”

“I’m not sure,” Vanessa said. “Maybe they knew I was someone with the ability to take care of you, with what they’d done to you. Maybe they’d observed me. Maybe they …” Vanessa paused.

Then she picked up her phone. “Dr. Kendrick, this is Vanessa,” she said, leaving voicemail. “I just had a thought. What if what … they did to Allison wasn’t a test for her? What if it was a test for me? What if I’m the one they’re actually experimenting on? Not that I know what they’re testing for … I’ll talk to you later.”

Allison sat back down on the couch in front of the screen. Her behind could still feel the aftermath of what had happened. She knew it would happen again. And she knew they wanted her to let it happen, get used to it, not resist. She still had the choice – pain or submit. But it wasn’t really a choice. She was imprisoned in her own body by a jailer that was in her head.

Meanwhile, Vanessa continued her computer search. Allison hadn’t mentioned anything to Vanessa about her family, friends, school, job, or anything about her former life, and Vanessa had occasionally asked, but Allison clearly didn’t want them to see her like this. But somewhere, Allison had family who were certainly very worried about her, and she was trying to find them so she could at least send them an email or something.

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Time passed, as it has a habit of doing. Vanessa had noticed Allison had begun to respond more and more often to the infantile conditioning as time went by. It was more than understandable; the pain-pleasure conditioning strategy almost always worked eventually. Vanessa had mixed emotions over it too.

One the one hand, Allison made a wonderfully adorable baby. When she didn’t fight the conditioning, as she had started doing less and less often as time passed. On the other, it was more than clear that Allison didn’t want to be an adult baby, or even a little or a toddler.

It had been an extremely tricky procedure, but Dr. Kendrick had managed to get several samples of the molecules of the device in Allison’s head. The procedure had been done with minimal invasiveness through Allison’s nasal cavity. The alien molecule they wanted a sample of was right there and required no extensive searches or ramblings. The olfactory gland was impermeated with them and super easily accessed. But Dr. Kendrick had insisted that they tell Allison that they were testing her for viral infections, as they didn’t want her to give the implant even the first idea that they were trying to study its technology.

Within seconds of severing several of the strands to retrieve their molecular samples, the strands regrew as if no damage had ever been there. Of course this blew all the researchers’ minds, and none of the current analysis showed anything thought of as conclusive. Nothing current science knew had ever encountered anything like this.

None of the analysis came back with any useable data. The best anyone could tell was that it was alive at the same time that it wasn’t, like a virus. It needed some sort of compatible genetics to complete its own biogenetic machinery. Once such a connection was made, no one could figure out how to remove it.

Dr. Kendrick sat back and took a long drink of her coffee as she looked at the chemical breakdowns of the molecules. Nothing within them was known to human science. She looked at the electron micrographs of the molecules. The images she received were so alien that none of the research facilities she’d sent the data to could make heads or tails of it.

Dr. Kendrick just happened to look at the molecular sample isolation unit. To her complete and total surprise, the molecule slowly began to divide and grow. Slowly, it spread tendrils all through the isolation unit. It was still expanding, just as it was still alive, for want of a better word, inside Allison’s brain.

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Chapter 5: The Final Stage

“I understand – I think,” said Vanessa. “You’re saying that this is so far beyond human science that you have no idea how to begin to remove it without harming Allison.”

“Exactly,” Dr. Kendrick said on the phone. “We’ve found a way to culture it, to grow more of it, but although that’s made it easier to study, we haven’t learned very much yet.”

There was a familiar crinkling sound in the hallway. “Is it Dr. Kendrick?” asked Allison, crawling into the office. She was wearing knee pads, because she’d decided over the past few days that she preferred crawling on the floor to walking. She was just wearing a plain pink onesie over her thick diaper, and she had booties on her feet to keep her toes warm. She was sucking on a pacifier, which had become her constant companion.

“Yes, Dear,” said Vanessa. “She and the other doctors she’s been talking to still don’t know a way to undo what they did to you.”

Allison sighed. “Didn’t think so,” she said. She sat and listened.

“Meanwhile,” said Dr. Kendrick on the phone, “your other theory might have some merit. According to what you’re saying, Allison’s behavior has regressed in accordance to the conditioning, but the experiment seems not to have ended. The possibility that they left Allison on your doorstep as a test for you must be considered. But what could they be testing? The limits of your compassion? The lengths you’ll go to? We don’t know whether they’re fully aware of the nature of your … livelihood. If they were, they’d know that you’re fully capable of taking care of an even more regressed adult infant than Allison.”

“I mean,” said Vanessa, “the other cases around the world we’ve looked at – they weren’t all infantile regression. Some were simply paralysis; others mimicked one type of illness or another, and they were all placed near caregivers equipped to deal with that illness or condition. What are they testing for?”

“Perhaps they’re testing for continued support of the patient through the final stages,” said Dr. Kendrick. “I have no data about any of the patients recovering, so either none of them have reached whatever final stages the experimenters are moving the patients toward, or they’re waiting for all the patients to reach the final stages.”

“Final stages?” asked Vanessa. Allison looked up at her with a worried expression.

“Well, remember that case in Japan,” Dr. Kendrick reminded her, “where the patient’s heartbeat itself caused pain, and they died. That was one of the first cases recorded; the experimenters may have simply been testing the limits of human physiology. They haven’t done the same thing since. Clearly, though, there’s a final stage – in that case it led to death, though.”

“But none of the other cases have?”

Dr. Kendrick replied, “There are some possible cases that have led to death – it can’t be proven, but there’s a case in Africa where the patient may have been placed rather far from a hospital that has very poor facilities and very low funding, and they were found dead of exposure, apparently days after they were dropped off – if that’s what happened. All we know is that the unfortunate person’s remains were later found there. And there’s a similar case in rural Australia. Were they abductions like Allison’s? We’re not sure.”

“Well, are there cases where it looks as if they’ve reached their … final stages, whatever that means?” asked Vanessa.

“The one in France, where the young man is completely paralyzed,” Dr. Kendrick said. “Only his autonomic systems are functional; he can’t even voluntarily move his eyes. But his brainwave activity suggests that he’s fully aware, just unable to move a single muscle. That’s as final as I can imagine. He was originally moving but in pain. Now he seems to have given up. His paralysis seems to be more or less voluntary.”

“That’s horrible,” Vanessa said.

“I don’t want to reach some kind of horrible final stage!” said Allison suddenly, having heard only half this conversation. “What’s going to happen to me?”

“Oh no – Allison, I think you’ve only heard part of the conversation, Sweetheart,” said Vanessa. “Nothing’s going to happen to you. We were talking about other patients around the world.”

Dr. Kendrick said, “Oh, she overheard. We don’t know she’s going to get any worse at all. As far as we can tell, her implant’s keeping things exactly the same.”

Vanessa tried to repeat that. “Don’t worry, Allison dear,” she said. “The implant isn’t changing or anything. It isn’t getting worse.”

“But how do you know?” Allison asked.

“Careful,” Dr. Kendrick said.

“We … just haven’t seen any change between when we’ve X-rayed it or taken samples,” said Vanessa.

Allison suddenly went limp, passing out on the floor.

“Allison? Allison!” said Vanessa.

“Wait, you just said we’d taken samples,” Dr. Kendrick said on the phone. “I’m getting some other calls. Can I call you back?”

“Of course,” Vanessa said, hanging up and crouching over Allison. “Honey? Are you all right?”

Allison’s eyes were closed. She didn’t respond, though she was breathing. Vanessa exhibited a strength she didn’t look like she had, picking Allison up and carrying her to the crib in the nursery that was now her bedroom. She tried to arrange Allison as comfortably as possible. Then she sat down in the rocking chair and watched her, worrying. “It’s my fault,” she muttered to herself. “We weren’t supposed to mention that in front of her. Did I just … no, it can’t be. She’s going to be all right. I’ll make sure she is.”

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Allison remained unconscious. About an hour later, Dr. Kendrick called back. “Vanessa, please don’t blame yourself – it was bound to happen eventually – but all the samples we took are gone. They’ve somehow disappeared, dissolved into simpler molecules. There are some reports around the world that the patients in similar cases have all gone into states of catatonia – sudden unconsciousness. Like they’re sleeping.”

“Oh no,” Vanessa said, going pale. “I … did that …”

“We don’t know that for certain,” said Dr. Kendrick. “Maybe this is because you said something about taking samples … but one of the other cases reports that they tried to take a sample at about the same time, without taking the precaution of telling the patient they were doing something else. It might not have been you.”

“Well … it still might have been,” said Vanessa. “Poor Allison. She’s resting – wait.”

Allison’s eyes opened. She started sucking on her pacifier again. She picked up a nearby Teddy Bear and cuddled it.

“Allison, Honey, are you all right?” asked Vanessa, getting up and looking down at her.

Allison seemed to forget the stuffed animal and reached both her arms up toward Vanessa. “Ma … Ma …” she said hesitantly.

“Oh no … Allison, can you talk to me?” Vanessa asked. “I know you don’t want to be a baby, and I’m still going to try to help you, Honey, even though most of the time I usually take care of people who do want to be babies …”

“Ma Ma …” said Allison.

“What’s going on?” asked Dr. Kendrick. “Allison was talking last time we spoke.”

“I know, now she’s acting like an actual baby,” said Vanessa. “I don’t understand. Did it … destroy her brain?”

“There’s no reason to assume that,” Dr. Kendrick said. “It may merely have taken charge of her motor neurons. Allison may be in there, helpless to do anything now as her body acts out being a baby. In my opinion this is your final test. What you need to do is take care of her as you would any baby. Make her happy and comfortable. Don’t let her hurt herself.”

“All right, that I can do,” said Vanessa. “I’m an expert at that,” she added, which was no exaggeration.

“Good. I’ll talk to you soon. There are still reports flying around. I have to keep track of what’s going on. Good luck.” Dr. Kendrick hung up.

Vanessa put her phone away, then reached down and said, “Aw, come here, Sweetheart, let’s check your diaper … oh, you need a change, don’t you?” She picked Allison up and carried her to the changing table. “Let’s get you into a nice clean diaper, OK?”

Allison, for her part, had been conscious the entire time, including when her eyes had been closed and she’d been lying there in the dark, unable to move her body or even open her eyes. She’d heard Vanessa talking on the phone, and then her eyes had opened on their own, and her arms had moved, and she’d spoken in this mechanical babyish way. She couldn’t move a muscle or stop her body from moving as it went through the motions of acting like a real baby.

After changing her diaper, Vanessa put Allison in the playpen, where Allison had never wanted to go before, but now Allison seemed content to play with the toys. But there was no smile on her face, no emotion at all. She was like a robot that had been programmed to act like a baby. And, now cut off from the rest of the world, Allison could do nothing but watch as her body went through the motions of playing with the baby toys, sucking on her pacifier, making nonsense sounds, and drooling. Allison wanted to scream, but she couldn’t.

Even when, hours later, Vanessa put her into her footed pajamas and tucked her into her crib for the night, Allison wasn’t asleep. She was fully aware of the mechanical routine her body was now acting out. Her eyes were closed now, but she wasn’t asleep. “Vanessa!” she shouted. “Vanessaaaaa!” But nothing came out. Her thoughts echoed in her head, which was the only place they could go.

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Chapter 6: The Echo

“This is just like the case in France,” said Dr. Kendrick, looking at the screen as Allison’s brainwaves scrolled across it. Allison was in a hospital crib, sucking her pacifier and cuddling her Teddy Bear, while Vanessa watched over her; wires were leading from her head to the equipment. “I believe Allison’s still in there, but the … implant has fully taken over.”

“I am in here!” Allison tried to say, but of course nothing happened. Her body made some grunting, babbling nonsense sounds.

“I’m glad to hear that, because that’s what I believe too,” said Vanessa. “I’m doing all I can to talk to her, keep her comfortable, but it’s so hard to tell. Do you hear me, Allison? I’m still here for you. Don’t worry.”

“But there’s nothing we can do to take the implant out,” said Dr. Kendrick. “I guess there’s no point hiding it from you anymore, Allison: the thing has somehow spread throughout your brain. We’ve tried simulating it, but any changes we make it just heals. We took samples of its molecules earlier, but it just regrew them, and when … whatever happened, all our samples just simply dissolved. I think the aliens moved the experiment into the final stage, and we don’t know when it will end.”

“I don’t know what they’re testing for,” said Vanessa. “Exactly what is the experiment? We don’t know anything about these aliens. What do they hope to learn?”

“I’ve got my theories, but I don’t know if they’re right,” said Dr. Kendrick. “Suffice it to say that if they’d gotten their data, they’d have already left and gone home, and Allison would be free of it. But the last X-ray showed that it’s still in there.”

“I hate you!” Allison said to the implant, wherever it was. “I want you out of my brain! Give me my body back!” But her body only wet her diaper and drooled more, and sucked her pacifier and held the Teddy Bear. “Show yourself so I can fight you!” That was the most frustrating part; there was no sign of anything she could do. She was completely helpless in her own body, which just did whatever it wanted – correction, whatever the implant wanted.

“Allison, I know you’re in there, and I know you’re feeling helpless,” said Vanessa. “But what the implant does isn’t important. You’re there, and I’m going to take care of you, not it. I hope it can hear me. What I’m doing, I’m doing for you, not for … whatever the thing is. It’s your body, and I guess it has the power to take control of your body away from you, but that’s not right, and I’m not going to stop fighting to get your body back under your control. I’m used to taking care of babies, and I can do that for your body, but I’m also here to take care of you, and that means I’ll keep talking to you. For now I’ll have to imagine your responses, but I guess that’s how it’ll have to be.”

“You’re such a good person,” Allison said. “Vanessa, I don’t know what I’d have done without you. I think what hurts most is that I can’t thank you.” Of course, nobody but Allison heard any of this.

“Are you getting any sleep?” Vanessa asked. “I hope it at least lets you sleep. That’s something we’re going to test for, Dr. Kendrick and I. Your body goes through the motions of sleeping, but is your brain actually getting rest? That’s necessary – well, as far as we know. Nobody’s seen what’s happening to your brain before.”

“Yes, we’ll be getting some very important data about that once it’s bedtime,” said Dr. Kendrick. “We’ll be able to see when and if the real Allison goes to sleep. I wish we could find out what she’s thinking, but the technology just isn’t there – and even if it were, who’s to say the implant wouldn’t interfere with it?”

Allison swore at the implant, not that it did any good.

“Language, young lady!” said Vanessa. “I’m sure you’re frustrated, but saying words like that isn’t going to help.”

“Wait … what?” asked Allison. “You can hear me?”

But Vanessa was continuing to say, “Poor Allison. I can only imagine what you’re saying, but I know you would’ve been pretty frustrated right then.”

“Well, I’m frustrated pretty much all the time now,” Allison said, not that anybody heard her.

“Yes, just as you are now, and all the time, I’m sure,” Vanessa said.

Again, Allison was astonished. “What’s going on?” she asked nobody. “Nothing I do or say is having any effect on what my body does. Are … are you just imagining what I would say if I could? Do we know each other that well after these weeks?”

“Something’s happening on the EEG,” said Dr. Kendrick.

“I’m just … imagining what you’d say, Honey,” said Vanessa. “We’ve been together constantly for weeks, and I feel as if I know you. I wish you’d told me more about your family. I’ve been trying to find them so I could at least tell them you’re all right.”

“But I don’t want them to see me like this!” Allison said.

“Yes, I know you don’t want them to see you like this, especially now,” Vanessa seemingly replied. “I haven’t actually found them. I’ve narrowed it down to a few possibilities, but I’m not sure which one’s really them.”

“I guess you can’t go through police records,” said Allison.

“No, I don’t have any access to police records,” Vanessa said. “I’m sure somebody reported you missing, but that might not be publicly available.”

“There’s some kind of strange echo or feedback happening in her brain waves,” said Dr. Kendrick. “I’m not sure what that signifies.”

“I miss my family so much,” Allison said, still heard by nobody … except, she was beginning to suspect, by an echo of herself in Vanessa’s imagination, born of the close relationship they had formed over the past few weeks.

“I’m sure you do miss them,” Vanessa sort-of-replied, musing that Allison certainly felt that way. “I just … wish you could tell me how to contact them.”

“I wish I could too,” Allison said. “If I could only talk to you for real, I could tell you.” But her body just sat there sucking on her pacifier and humming to itself as it limply flailed her arms. Allison watched helplessly from within. “I don’t know who the aliens think they’re fooling. We all know that’s not me, or anything human.”

Vanessa watched Allison’s body as well. “You know, if the aliens are listening,” she said, “I’d want them to know that this implant isn’t doing a very good job of mimicking infant behavior. There’s no expression on her face, no emotion in anything she does. Nobody here thinks that’s really Allison. The real Allison is inside, but … disconnected. What is your experiment trying to do? What data do you want?”

“Exactly!” Allison said, inwardly. “What do you want? What will make you just go away?”

Dr. Kendrick continued to monitor Allison’s brain waves, but Vanessa said, “How do we make you go away? What do we know? We know that the implant can’t hear me, only Allison’s thoughts. It responded when it heard that Dr. Kendrick had taken samples of it …”

“No,” said Allison, “it responded when I heard that, and it heard it through my thoughts.”

“... or rather, when Allison heard me say that, and it then heard her thoughts,” Vanessa echoed. “What is this final stage supposed to be studying?”

Allison replied, though no one could hear her but the implant, “Well, the first stage might have been studying you, Vanessa, seeing whether you would take care of a helpless person who was left on your front lawn. And the answer was yes. But … this is different.”

“Yes, I think we’ve guessed that the first stage was to test me,” Vanessa echoed, imagining what Allison would say if she could. “Otherwise, why would they have left you in front of my daycare, as opposed to anywhere else? So I’ve proven that I, at least, would care for a poor helpless fellow human. But … what are they testing now? Is this a test for you?”

“A test for me?” Allison wondered, knowing that she could hear but not be heard. “How can you test someone who can’t do anything?”

As if to echo Allison, Vanessa said, “But how can you test someone who can’t control her body in any way anymore? Well, they caused that, so they certainly know it’s the case. But of course the implant can still hear her and report back to them, however it’s doing that.”

“Hey, yeah, the aliens are getting data from this,” said Allison. “Look, you disturbing little gray freaks, what is it that you want from me?”

“It must be something you can do or say now,” Vanessa mused, “something the implant can sense, but we probably dan’t.”

“You’re right,” Allison said, “it has to be something the thing can detect. But I don’t know. Maybe keep me talking and eventually I’ll say it.”

“I still can’t think what it is, though,” said Vanessa. “Maybe I can help if I talk to you about something else. Something hopeful, maybe. What happens if it goes away? What would you do?”

“Oh, good question,” Allison said. “I’d probably scream with joy. But you mean, would I want to go home, see my family, and whatever? Sure, that’s something I’d like to do – once I was in a state where I felt all right about them seeing me. But after that?”

Vanessa said, “You’ll probably want to see your family, once you feel that you can see them. But that’s just natural. What would you want to do with your life?”

“Well, if there’s a way, I’d want to find a way to repay you for all you’ve done for me,” Allison said, though no one could hear. “I want to help you somehow. I want to … you know what? I know you have lots of babies in your daycare, both adult and regular ones. I want to help you. You’ve said you have staff who help you out, and you’ve been taking a lot of time off, letting them do the work instead of you, so you could take care of me. What if I help you that way?”

“You’re probably thinking how you could somehow repay me,” said Vanessa. “You’ve asked me enough times how you can do that, after all. It’s all right, Dear, you don’t need to repay me. But if you need a job, I’d certainly offer to hire you. After all, it’s going to take you some time to adjust. You’ll need to be in diapers for a while longer yet, while you get used to having control of your body again. But I obviously wouldn’t be bothered by employees who need diapers.”

“You know, you’re right,” Allison said, not even bothered by the fact that Vanessa couldn’t hear her. “It’s going to be pretty hard for me to find a job that would hire somebody who needs diapers, who’s still adjusting to feeding herself, and who has a thumbsucking habit. But I know you’ll understand. And I’m sure your babies will too.”

“And, of course, my babies, both the little and big kind, won’t care that you’re in diapers, or suck your thumb,” Vanessa went on. “After all, so do they. They won’t see one thing unusual about it. And it’s true that there are little ones to be cared for.”

“Oh, yes, I’d love to help you take care of the little ones – either kind, really!” said Allison, knowing Vanessa couldn’t hear.

“What was that?” asked Vanessa. “Did I just … hear you speak? Allison?”

“Wait, can you hear me?” Allison said, and realized that she was hearing her voice with her own ears.

“Allison!” Vanessa said, reaching down into the hospital crib to hug her. “How do you feel, Sweetheart?”

“I feel … good!” she said, hugging Vanessa. Her eyes widened. “Hey …! Is it gone?”

“Let’s try this …” said Dr. Kendrick, holding out a small paper cup of water. “Can you drink this?”

Allison carefully took it and clumsily held it up to her mouth, taking a sip. There wasn’t a hint of pain.

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Chapter 7: The Future

Hanging up the phone, Vanessa said, “That was Dr. Kendrick. She says your new X-rays show no sign of the implant, or whatever it was. It’s just … gone.”

Allison jumped up and down. “Whoohoo!” she shouted with joy. Vanessa smiled. Allison didn’t normally get that excited, but certainly she was glad to be verifiably free of the strange alien device. “It’s really gone!” She paused for a moment. “It’s really gone. I’m … really free of it. It’s not coming back. I’d half expected it was lying in wait, ready to take over again at any moment, or at least to start in with its conditioning program again. I wasn’t really feeling confident that it was really over. But now …”

“Now, chances are much better,” said Vanessa. “I mean, who knows? But let’s not worry. At least you felt confident enough that you called your parents. They’d been really worried about you. I think they kind of still are. You were pretty vague about what happened to you.”

“Well, do I just say I was abducted by aliens?” Allison replied. “Nobody’s going to believe that without any evidence. And I don’t feel really … comfortable going to visit them yet.” Allison was wearing a fairly ordinary looking adult dress, with a geometric print, nothing babyish, but she was still wearing those Babies of All Ages diapers underneath, because she still very much needed them, having gotten into the habit of using them the moment she needed to. She was trying to potty train herself again, but it was taking time.

“I think that makes sense,” Vanessa said. “I’ll help you in your recovery in whatever way you want me to.”

“Thank you,” said Allison sincerely. “My only guess is that … well, they were first testing you to see whether you had enough empathy to help me, and then they were testing me to see whether I’d learned any of that beautiful empathy from you. So … were they testing humans to see whether we have empathy and whether we can learn it from each other? Maybe empathy is a foreign concept to them and they’re trying to figure it out?”

“That’s pretty similar to what Dr. Kendrick thinks is most likely,” Vanessa said. “Of course, who knows? But it makes some amount of sense.”

“Yeah, who knows?” Allison shrugged. “But while I’m thanking you, let me check on dinner.” She went into the kitchen to see how the pot roast she’d started earlier was doing.

Vanessa went on her rounds, checking with the staff – Sue, Anne, and Adam were doing fine with the adult babies on that side of the daycare, while Ginny, Alice, and Christine reported that everything was fine with the really little ones, the few of them who were actually staying overnight, as most of them were only there during the daytime. Allison had been helping with the little babies for now, and she’d been doing fine, but at the moment the regular staff didn’t need extra help.

Dinner went well; it turned out that Allison was very good at cooking. Vanessa was putting the dishes into the dishwasher when Allison shouted. “Vanessa! Look at the sky!” Vanessa did, and gasped.

“No! It can’t be happening again!” she exclaimed. She ran to the front door and opened it, and both of them emerged onto the front porch, looking up. Bright orbs of multicolored light were dancing among the clouds, looking exactly as they had on that night when Allison had appeared, months ago. Then a blindingly bright beam of light shot down onto the lawn, and a figure materialized there. It was a young man, lying on his side, curled into a fetal position, dressed in the same sort of gauzy but sparkly white robe that Allison had appeared in. Allison and Vanessa ran to him.

“Are you all right?” asked Allison. “What’s your name?”

“I – ow!” he said hesitantly. “My – ow! They – ow! Ah … bah gah goo …”

“Oh, you poor dear,” said Vanessa.

Allison looked upward at the receding lights and shouted furiously, “You bastards! You’re even going to take away his ability to talk this time? You didn’t learn anything from us at all, did you? I hope your … flying saucers crash into the sun!” She screamed various other things, most of them unprintable.

“Allison, Honey, let’s get this poor boy indoors,” said Vanessa. “It’s getting chilly.”

The lights were gone. Allison came over to help. She would help him just as Vanessa had helped her.

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Epilogue: The Visit

“Is Jason settled in, then?” asked Vanessa. It was mid-morning, and Allison had come back to the living room.

“Yes he is – I changed him after his bottle, and now he’s watching TV,” said Allison. “He really hates kids’ shows, but he seems to like classic movies. I’ve figured that out by trial and error, the same way you figured out his name was Jason.”

“Well, at least there’s something we can do to keep him occupied, since he can’t carry on a conversation,” Vanessa said.

Then the front doorbell rang. “I’ll get it,” said Allison. She opened the door to reveal a sturdy-looking woman wearing a blue and white dress. Her age was unclear – she didn’t look old, but she had the bearing of someone who had a lot of experience.

“Good morning, my dear,” she said. “Is Nanny Vanessa in?”

“Yes, Ma’am,” said Allison, just feeling as if that’s how she should address this woman. “She’s just over here.” Vanessa had come to the door as well.

“Good morning,” Vanessa said. “How may I help you?”

“My name is Nana Pedersen,” the woman said, handing her a business card. “I’m here on behalf of Babies of All Ages, Inc.”

“Oh yes,” said Vanessa, glancing at the card. “I’m familiar with it, of course. I use several of your products regularly. Please come in.”

When they were all situated at the dining room table, Nana Pedersen said, “I’ve heard many good things about your establishment and was wondering whether you might be interested in a bit of a business deal of sorts.”

“I’m interested so far,” said Vanessa. “Please go on.”

“You see, several Babies of All Ages employees are, well, adult babies themselves,” explained Nana Pedersen. “They often need a place to stay temporarily where they can be cared for as they should be, until permanent arrangements can be made. We’re interested in retaining your services in exchange for both monetary compensation and certain other benefits.”

“That’s even more interesting,” Vanessa said. “You wouldn’t happen to have a proposal for me to read, would you?”

Nana Pedersen smiled. “I do, in fact,” she replied, taking out a stapled document from her briefcase and setting it down for Vanessa to read.

Vanessa looked it over. Her eyebrows rose at one point. “You’re … that Nana Pederson,” she said. “You can really …?”

“I can,” she said. “The better to care for the little darlings. You won’t be lacking for space, or for money.”

“This would … change everything,” said Vanessa. “I’ve had to take on some extra … clients lately, though one’s become staff.”

“Oh, taking in poor little ones with nowhere else to go?” Nana Pederson looked at Allison. “You’re so kind … but wait, you don’t mean this one? She isn’t a little one …”

“Yes, I do,” said Vanessa, “but you’re right …” Allison blinked in confusion. “This is Allison, now one of my assistants, and she arrived here under some very unusual circumstances.”

Nana Pedersen raised an eyebrow. “How unusual? Don’t worry, you can speak freely. I’m prepared to believe quite a lot.”

“She was brought here by aliens who abducted her, after performing horrible experiments upon her brain,” said Vanessa.

“Is that so?” Nana Pedersen asked rhetorically, her eyebrow arching even farther. “This is the first we’d heard of this. You seem to have recovered, though, haven’t you, dear?”

“Yes, Ma’am,” Allison replied. “I mean, there are aftereffects, but it seems their experiment on me … concluded. But there’s a boy here whose experiment is ongoing.”

“Well,” said Nana Pederson, “we’ll just see about that. I may know of a certain alien scientific expedition that has just drawn the wrong kind of attention.”

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In a nursery beyond anything the mind of mortal humanoids could imagine, a very large group of male and female alien infants were all struggling in their cribs. One wouldn’t have known it to look at them, but this had once been one of the largest and most advanced research and development teams the alien Broortogs had. They had been researching the human emotion called empathy, which they neither felt nor understood.

Now, Nana Pederson observed her many helper nurse Nanas as they made the rounds checking diapers, cleaning, and changing infants, as needed. It was more than obvious that their minds were still intact, although not one could do anything an almost but not quite three year old could do.

Several of the infants were struggling within themselves for more than one reason. None of them knew how it had come to pass that not only were they now infants in a nursery of some sort, but some of the males marveled at their maleness, since not too very long ago they had been female. The same could be said for some of the females, who marveled at their femaleness, since just as shortly ago, they had been males.

Persephone had personally taken out this particular research team in her own particular way, after consultation with Nana Pedersen. “Well done as always,” Persephone said to the Goddess of Nanas. “The domain of infantile regression is mine, and no mortal may impinge on it without my leave, especially in this particular manner.”

“And besides that, I know you have a particular interest in Earth,” said Nana Pedersen.

“That’s true – it’s a planet that contains a large number of my babies, only a few of which have accepted Baby Rules.” Persephone added, “These scientists were lucky at first – they managed not to interfere with any of my particular children, but it was only a matter of time, if I’d let them continue. As it is … perhaps they will learn about empathy, as they wished.”

“Meanwhile, Nanny Vanessa’s daycare is the perfect place for some of our Earth branch’s baby employees who need a place to stay,” said Nana Pedersen. “Nanny Vanessa has my approval. She’s quite exceptional, as are her assistants.”

“I’m happy to hear it,” Persephone said. “We’ll make sure it’s a happy, safe place for the babies of Earth – of all ages. Perhaps we should look into finding the perfect head for the Earth branch of the company.”

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Allison didn’t see the documents, but after Vanessa and Nana Pederson discussed the details of the agreement and came to an accord, they signed them.

And the next time Allison went into the daycare to check on Jason, she found that something subtle but amazing had happened. It now had just as much space inside as they needed, with no change to its size outside. The hallways were sometimes a bit labyrinthine, but somehow Allison still knew exactly where everything was. She was confused, but she somehow knew exactly which twists and turns to follow to get to Jason’s room, and when she got there, she smiled at him and said, “Hi! I think we might have a solution to your problem soon!”

Jason turned away from the TV when she came in. He replied, “That’s wonderful!” Then he gasped. “I can talk without being punished!”

“Ohhh, that’s great!” said Allison. “I’ll bet you can try other things too – let me get you some food, and let’s see how you do at using the bathroom.” Somehow the daycare knew that he was allowed to use the bathroom now, since there was one across the hall from his room. But the babies would find that they could crawl through the halls all day and never find a bathroom.

Allison came back with some chicken wings, which Jason could eat by himself without a problem, though he still needed a bib and lots of wet wipes for now. “Hey, I can clean my own face and hands off now,” Jason complained.

“You’re not used to it yet,” said Allison. “Now let’s get you on the changing table, Honey.”

“H-hey, you don’t need to keep changing me,” Jason complained.

“Well, one last time, then,” she said, patting the changing pad invitingly. Taking a fresh diaper from the supply, she unfolded it, then paused. “Wait …”

“What is it?” asked Jason from the table. He couldn’t see beneath himself. “There … are still the same number of diapers on the shelf …”

“That’s weird. Are you sure you counted right?”

“Yes … there were so many that the shelf was packed tight with diapers, and it is again. I’ll … have to ask about that.” She changed him one last time before he told her he could change himself from now on, for as long as he needed it.

Allison found that the supply of diapers and other baby items was somehow neverending, and there were always baby clothes that both fit and suited every client perfectly. Dr. Kendrick’s X-rays confirmed that Jason’s implant was gone, and reports of the abductions and experiments from around the world stopped. Jason went home. Allison eventually visited her family, who were overjoyed to see her, but she came back as a caregiver at Nanny Vanessa’s daycare center. She struggled to get out of diapers again, and she could never again sleep without a pacifier, but on the whole she was very happy, and Nanny Vanessa promised to always look after her as much as she needed.

~~THE … END?? ~~