Experiment Zero

Chapter 5
Daycare and Presentation

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Chapter Description: Eric gets taken to daycare near the conclusion of the study. Amelia and her team of nurses get ready for the presentation they are to give to their sponsor.

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When Eric awoke that morning, his diaper was covering his stomach and his legs were barely sticking out just a little. He noticed that he was very small and chubby now. This wasn’t right. He was waiting for Ralph to get better so they could play together during recess again, but now...

Eric struggled to slip out of the over-sized diaper. Poop clung to his bottom as he freed himself. Making it to the edge of his bed, he tried to make his way down. To Eric’s dismay, he slipped.

The fall to the ground hurt him a lot. Eric couldn’t help but let the world know just how much. As he was sobbing about his encounter with the ground, he felt a pair of hands lift him from beneath his arms.

“Tch tch tch, looks like someone left a big present for mommy!” said a voice that Eric pegged as somewhat familiar. He saw Andrea’s face as she laid him down on the already messy bed. First she cleaned, powdered, and diapered him, then she got to work cleaning up the trail that Eric had left behind.

“Whoo-wee. Baby left a big mess for mommy today.” She smiled down at him. Eric was very, very confused at this point. “Well, baby, it’s time to go to daycare while mommy goes to work!”

’Baby?’ was that supposed to be him? What was mommy? What was daycare? Eric tried to associate the words with images in his mind, but soon forgot what the words even were. Eric tried desperately hard to recollect what he felt his mind was missing while Andrea adorned him with a onesie.

Eric felt something rubbery invade his mouth as he was lost in his thoughts. It felt... soothing. He sucked on the rubber. Having given him his pacifier, Andrea picked him up to carry him to the reading room.

“Here he is, doctor,” she said to Amelia as she handed Eric off. “He’s so small!” she quietly squealed.

“Well, isn’t he just the cutest little pumpkin?” Amelia said as she jiggled Eric lightly.

“Do you think this is enough, or does this one need more?”

“More, for safe measure. I know he might not look it, but he still has a somewhat rational mind... and that could be enough to start remembering things as he grows older.” the doctor explained. “I don’t want any of them left older than a year.” she set Eric down and watched him toddle across the room to play with the other babies. “And be careful that you give them a very small dose or they will die.”

Eric didn’t comprehend any of what Andrea or Amelia said, but he did see Ralph, which made him happy. He knew that for some odd reason he wanted to see Ralph. “AH!” he screamed as he gave his friend an awkward embrace. Eric’s pacifier fell out and he kissed Ralph on the cheek and laughed as he tried to push him off. Ralph tried to spell out a message with building blocks.

Andrea, who had been watching the pair the whole time while other nurses made their reports and ascertained their assignments, motioned for everyone to watch as Ralph got to work on his communications project. Ralph wasn’t wearing anything but a diaper, which made the whole scene quite comical, given the fact that his mind was supposed to be slipping away by now. As everyone turned their attention to Ralph and Eric, the message, ’THEY ARE USING US IN EXPERIMENT, was completed, to which Ralph tried to redirect Eric’s attention with pointing and grunting. The room, filled with nurses, roared with laughter.

“Really, though, this is the reason we can’t leave anything to chance. He will definitely remember everything if left unchecked, which will absolutely come back to haunt us. As careful as I have been to cover my tracks, we are all ruined if they start remembering and make it public, granted that won’t be for a few years, but the less evidence we leave, the better. I will give that subject the final dosage myself... and that other one.” she said, pointing to Eric, “I find it odd that those two remained friends throughout the regression.”

"How young are you going to make Subject Ralph," one of the male nurses asked.

"I"m thinking a few days old should do it," Amelia replied, "The younger we make them, the less brain activity they have, which should help them to forget this whole project. I don’t want to do that to every subject, but the more intelligent ones can essentially start over from the beginning."

“Is there anything else we need to address before the presentation to our sponsor tomorrow?” Susan asked.

“No, no.” Amelia said, shaking her head, “Just finish the project. I don’t care how young you make them as long as they’re still alive. We can’t have any evidence for others to find. Speaking of which, where is Veronica?”

“She’s still in the holding cell,” Susan answered, “What are we going to do with her?”

“Let’s just say she’ll have a big role of tomorrow’s presentation...” Amelia answered with a devious grin. All the adults in the room laughed.

***

Amelia was wearing her labcoat, had her hair completely free of ties, and she was looking her absolute best. She was going to meet with their sponsor, Frank, today with the hopes of selling her research.

“Thank you for coming today,” Amelia said as she shook the hand of her sponsor. “I am proud to announce that our youth-restoring drug has been tested, and is one hundred percent successful.”

The old man grinned as he looked into the doctor’s eyes. “If you’re that confident in your research I would very much like to see the results.”

“But of course,” Amelia replied, “Andrea! Bring him in!” she called out.

Andrea came through a door carrying a nine month-old baby in nothing but a diaper and handed him off to Dr. Amelia.

“This subject’s name is Eric. He was twenty-five years old, but now is approximately nine months and two days.” the doctor said as she held out her volunteer for her honored guest to observe. Eric wriggled about, crinkling noises coming from his diaper as he moved. He cooed softly and put his hand in his mouth. Amelia couldn’t help but recall how easy it had been to get this sucker to sign up for the project.

“You expect me to believe that baby was a twenty-five year old man and volunteered to have this-" Frank gestured at Eric’s greatly reduced size, "-done to him?”

Amelia blushed and nodded. She doubted whether any of her volunteers would have stayed had they known her true objective and what they would end up as. She perched Eric back on her hip. Eric made babbling noises and continued to suck on his hand, speaking over her subject, Amelia replied, “For this experiment, I gathered only people who wanted to start their life over. I considered it a win/win situation since I wanted to see just how effective this drug could be. I have footage of his regression to prove he is exactly who I say he is.” Amelia started to jiggle Eric in the hopes of keeping him quiet during the presentation. She had not wanted to hand him off quite yet.

Amelia showed him footage of the interview. There was no audio with the video, which was all too convenient for the doctor.

“I’m sorry, but could I possibly view a copy with audio?” he requested.

“Unfortunately the only videos we have of interviews were taken from the security cameras. I interviewed so many people I didn’t have time to set up a video camera to record everything.” This was a little too convenient of an answer, but it was an answer, so the man accepted it.

Eric started to cry, maybe due to a vague memory resurfacing and a connection to his former self. Amelia could not have this, so she gave him a pacifier that she had brought with her, for that particular situation. As he started to suckle on it, Eric calmed down.

Amelia paused the video as Eric signed the documents. “Those are the documents that this subject signed...” she unpaused the video.

“I noticed he didn’t even read them.” her sponsor observed.

“I went over the details spelled out in the contract and told him to take his time to read them, which he obviously did not,” Amelia said as she shifted Eric to her other hip, “Not everyone took the time, but I did make sure to let them know what they were signing.” Her answer was a very convenient answer, but again, it was an acceptable answer.

Amelia fastforwarded to the orientation. “On the first day I showed them around and laid out a few ground rules. I had intended to only give them placebos on the first day, but one of my nurses mixed a few of those up with laxatives, which I hadn’t planned on using until the project had officially started, but this became the opportunity to introduce the subjects to the concept of wearing diapers around the lab.”

“Why would you put them in diapers?” asked the old man

“As the drug takes effect, their biomass breaks down and is excreted out of their bodies. In the interest of sanitation, I found diapers the most effective method.” she explained, “Catheters were another option, but since the former was ultimately a cheaper method, that is the one I decided to use.”

He nodded. “So these pills are the youth drug?” the man asked as he picked one up.

“Those are actually laxatives. We didn’t want to leave anything to chance, so in this scenario we figured constipation could have been dangerous to the subjects. All of the subjects survived, and are well and healthy.”

“Then how was the drug administered to the subjects?”

“We put the drug in a gas that was released in the subjects’ rooms at night. Since human testing hadn’t been performed yet, we did not know whether or not the subjects would feel pain as the reactions took place.” Amelia fastforwarded to footage of Eric sleeping in his room as gas was released. She sped through the part of his backwards aging to speed up the slow clip. “If you pay attention, you see that this subject excreted in his sleep. Some of the others didn’t, and were given laxatives upon waking.” the doctor explained. She showed him the rest of Eric’s regression clips.

“That looks very impressive.” he stated. “Did you leave any intermediate subjects or have they all been reduced to infancy like this one?”

“Unfortunately this project revolved around going all the way back, and we thought that if some regressed at a slower pace that would have impacted the results tremendously. Regardless of that, however, we do have one volunteer left.” Amelia signaled Susan to bring in the next part of the presentation.

Susan rolled in a huge clear, plastic cylinder that was about seven feet tall, had a diameter of about five feet, and a single door that could only be opened from the outside. Veronica was inside, naked as the day she was born. She banged on the walls of her prison for her release. She screamed and shouted, but the cylinder was soundproof, so no one could hear her cries.

“She doesn’t look too excited to be in there,” Frank observed.

“She’s claustrophobic and wants me to hurry up.” Amelia half joked, hoping that at least sounded plausible. In all honesty this was what she would get for crossing her. Amelia knew that Veronica would survive a fast-paced regression, but couldn’t guarantee that it wouldn’t be painful. “This is one of the nurses who worked with us on this project. When she saw the results were desirable she requested resignation and wanted to be a part of the experiment. Since it was already over, I agreed to let her be today’s demonstration."

Frank nodded his approval. Amelia released the drug into Veronica’s prison. She couldn’t help but smile triumphantly at an even more desperate Veronica.

As the gas filled the cylinder, Veronica hit the walls even harder. Amelia and Frank both watched as Veronica’s body fat came out of her pores while she started to involuntarily urinate and defecate. She got younger and younger. Where had stood a middle-aged nurse now stood a fairly attractive girl who looked to be in her early twenties. At this point she managed to bust the door open. A little gas poured into the room, but it was an almost negligible amount. Amelia bit her tongue, fearful that this was the end of her and her research.

“PLEASE HELP ME!” Veronica screamed, “None of the volunteers agreed to the experiments they experienced and this research is very uneth-”

Frank threw her back into the cylinder and firmly shut the door. Amelia’s eyes widened as she witnessed Frank’s opinion of her project.

“I just hate the humanitarian rats we have to work with, don’t you?” he made eye contact with Amelia, whose eyes were bulging at this point. She simply nodded. “Make sure you get that erased from the security tape.” Amelia nodded again as they watched Veronica continue to shrink.

Amelia bit down on her finger. She was unsure how young Veronica would get, but was enjoying the show nonetheless. All the gas in the tank had been absorbed by Veronica. She continued to sweat, pee, and poop. The young adult continued to bash on her plastic prison, but to no avail as she reentered her teens. Giving up hope, she fell flat on her ass and sobbed. Amelia was fascinated as she watched her get younger still. The preteen banged her fist and kicked her feet, throwing the biggest tantrum that they couldn’t even hear. As she receded back into her childhood, Amelia read the word, "WHY" on her lips. The child slowly shrank down to infant size. Finally, a three-month old was left crying in a pool of her own bodily fluids, contained by the cylinder.

Amelia handed Eric to Susan while grabbing a clean towel. She rushed to the cylinder and opened the door. Even though she knew what was in there, she winced at the odor. Amelia took care in gently picking up a screaming Veronica, wondering if her former employee still even remembered what she was doing there.

Amelia looked over at Frank and said, "... and the moral of the story is, babies don’t talk." Frank chuckled lightly. "Andrea!" she called out.

Her assistant came promptly, with an elevated table that had wheels. “Get her cleaned up.” the doctor ordered.

Veronica was cleaned, diapered, dressed in a onesie, and given a pacifier. This quickly calmed the struggling infant. Andrea picked up and held Veronica as Frank and Amelia watched. Amelia was fascinated at the end result and reached out for Veronica so she could hold her. "I wonder if she still remembers me," she mumbled quietly as Veronica’s head rested on her chest. Turning her attention back to Frank, she stated, "Speedy regression took roughly ten minutes, subject is calm and appears to be fine." she handed Veronica back to Andrea, who couldn’t help but coo at her former coworker.

“I see your research is a raging success.” Frank observed, “I will buy it from you. Two billion up front to you and your team, and ten percent of profits from medicines derived using your research.” Frank paused for a minute, “What do you plan on doing with all these children?”

“I called up an adoption agency yesterday and they are going to relieve us of most of the subjects,” Dr. Amelia explained, “I do, however, plan on raising a couple of them myself just to make sure they don’t remember anything.”

Frank nodded. “Well, good work, doctor.”

One of the nurses brought Ralph to Dr. Amelia, who had been regressed to a mere day old. He stirred as he was handed off. Susan escorted the doctor to her car with Eric as they all planned their early retirement.

The End

 

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