Venli 

I kept my head down, pretending to focus on the sandcastle I had been half-heartedly building—anything to avoid meeting the amused gazes of the parents who had just witnessed my public humiliation.

Aunty, however, wasn’t done. “Oh, sweetie, don’t go quiet on me now,” she chirped, scooting to the edge of the bench to see me better. “Why don’t you play a little more? Dig some tunnels, make some baby noises—just have fun!”

The bouncer squeaked softly as Venli shifted, the thick padding between her legs squishing unpleasantly. She grimaced, turning again, trying to ignore the clammy sensation pressing against her.

Damn inspectors.

She sucked down another gulp of lukewarm coffee, the sippy cup’s rubber spout pressing against her lips in an all-too-familiar motion. Her fingers drummed against the board book in her lap, its garish pastel cover hiding something far more dangerous than nursery rhymes.

She adjusted the book’s angle, making sure that if anyone walked in, all they would see was a perfectly compliant Little reading an age-appropriate bedtime story. But inside the cover, the report’s crisp pages told a different story.

Her story.

And now, Ash’s.

Venli’s jaw tightened as she scanned the words again, even though she had practically memorized them by now. The serum was a calculated risk—an attempt to break Naomi and Oliver’s programming before it took full root. If it had worked… if Kaylee had snapped back fully… it would have changed everything.

But the final lines of the report chilled her:

“Subjects exposed to conditioning may experience unintended cognitive dissonance upon injection. In extreme cases, reversal attempts can deepen regression. This risk increases if the subject has already demonstrated prolonged compliance to pre-existing behavioral programming.”

Venli’s fingers tightened around the edges of the book.

She had warned Ash—hadn’t she? She had implied the risks, but time had been short, and Ash had seemed desperate. It wasn’t as if they had options. The window to act had been closing.

Now, she wasn’t sure if she had saved Kaylee… or damned her.

A chime sounded from the nursery’s security system, and Venli’s breath caught.

The inspector.

She swallowed hard, pushing the sippy cup aside. She couldn’t be caught out of place, not now. The last thing she needed was some clipboard-wielding Amazon getting suspicious.

She took a steadying breath and relaxed, letting herself sink deeper into the role she had played for years.

When the door creaked open, her face was perfectly innocent, her pacifier—an unnecessary but effective prop—nestled between her lips.

The inspector stepped in, their shadow looming over her.

Venli didn’t move.

Didn’t flinch.

Didn’t even breathe.

Venli kept her body relaxed, her fingers idly clutching her onesie's soft, pastel fabric as she rhythmically suckled on the pacifier between her lips. Her gaze remained locked on the bright, bouncing figures of Naomi and Oliver on the screen, her expression carefully crafted into a mindless fascination.

She had long since trained herself to tune out the program’s effects. The words, the colors, the subliminal whispers threaded into the show—they all slid harmlessly off her mind like water off a duck’s back. The serum she had taken and years of cognitive conditioning allowed her to resist.

The inspector didn’t know that.

The inspector didn’t know a lot of things.

"Oh, there she is!" The inspector’s voice dripped with condescension, honeyed venom wrapped in a thin layer of maternal warmth. "Aren’t you just the sweetest little thing?"

Venli did not indicate that she had heard.

She remained still, perfectly compliant, letting the show dull her expression just enough to be believable.

She could feel the inspector’s gaze raking over her, searching and analyzing her for any sign of non-compliance. Venli had seen it before—these people wanted to catch Littles and Tweeners in defiance, wanted a reason to punish them further.

She wouldn’t give them one.

"She’s been such a good girl lately," her so-called Mommy said proudly, stepping into view. The woman’s voice had the same cloying sweetness and mask of affectionate cruelty. "Haven’t you, little one?"

Venli blinked slowly, her thumb twitching slightly as if in acknowledgment—but she didn’t turn her head.

Let them think she was too far gone to care.

The inspector hummed, stepping closer, her heels clicking far too loud against the nursery floor. "Let’s just check on our little darling, shall we?"

Venli felt the air shift as the Amazon leaned in, her presence suffocating as she loomed over her.

"Oh dear," the inspector murmured, her tone low, suspicious.

Venli’s stomach twisted.

She knew what came next.

The inspector reached down, pressing a large, clinical hand against the front of Venli’s diaper. A cursory squeeze—checking for wetness. Then—

The real test.

The one Venli had been psyching herself up for all week.

She grunted, her face contorting with just enough effort to look natural.

And then—

She pushed.

The mess flooded into her diaper, warm and undeniable, the squishy bulk pressing firmly against her. The disgust clawed at her mind, but she held firm, keeping her expression soft, unfazed, infantile.

A beat of silence.

Then, the inspector chuckled, low and satisfied.

"Oh, there it is. What a little stinker!"

Venli wanted to retch.

Instead, she giggled softly, mindlessly, shifting her weight just enough to make the diaper squish beneath her.

Her Mommy beamed, clapping her hands together. "Oh my, we were just talking about how she’s been so well-behaved!"

The inspector smiled. But her eyes remained sharp.

Venli held still, her body limp, pliant, every inch of her radiating submission.

Because if the inspector suspected anything—if she even hesitated for a second—Venli would be in a crib she could never escape from by the night's end.

And she had too much left to do to let that happen.

As the inspector and her so-called Mommy left the room, Venli remained in the bouncer, keeping her body slack and mindless, her expression perfectly vacant. She waited until the door clicked shut behind them, the muffled hum of their conversation filtering in from the nursery.

Then—only then—did she allow herself to move.

Her fingers twitched, releasing the crinkled fabric of her onesie as she slowly reached for the hidden report in her lap.

Her heart still hammered in her chest, the phantom sensation of the inspector’s touch against her diaper sending a fresh wave of nausea curling through her stomach. She clenched her jaw, forcing herself to ignore it. Later. She could process it later.

For now, she had work to do.

Her thumb traced the edges of the pages as she flipped through the report again, scanning the words that had haunted her for days.

She knew the serum she had sent to Ash was rushed. Too rushed.

They didn’t have time anymore.

They didn’t have resources anymore.

The Little Care Act had tightened its grip around them like a noose, suffocating every effort to fight back. The government’s perfected conditioning techniques were more dangerous than ever. Venli had watched Littles vanish into their hypnosis, their minds rewritten so seamlessly that they never even realized they were gone.

And now?

Even their people—the resistance—were being hunted. Forcibly adopted. Reprogrammed. Removed.

Every day, Venli had to fight harder just to exist. To stay one step ahead.

To not break.

She had gone years without needing to do… this, without needing to pretend to be a drooling, helpless Little. She had earned her place and carved out a role that allowed her to work behind the scenes without scrutiny. But now, with the crackdown, with inspectors crawling into every corner of their lives, she had been forced back into this nightmare.

And she hated every second of it.

Every time, she cooed. Every time, she giggled. Every time she used the diapers, they forced her to wear them.

But she’d do it a thousand times if it meant stopping what was happening.

If it meant saving even one more Little from this fate.

And Kaylee…

Venli’s throat tightened.

She didn’t know what had happened yet.

But she had a feeling.

She had seen it before.

It was a rushed serum. A fragile mind already ensnared in Naomi and Oliver’s conditioning. The formula was meant to break through and pull Kaylee back, but it could have just as easily deepened the regression instead.

Venli’s fingers curled around the edges of the paper.

She had sent it hoping she was saving Kaylee.

But what if she had just pushed her further down?

What if she had just made everything worse?

Her breath hitched.

She needed to find out.

She needed to move.

Her eyes flicked toward the nursery door. The inspector was still here. She couldn’t risk breaking character yet.

But as soon as that woman was gone—

Venli was getting out of this hellhole.

Venli heard the footsteps returning, and she reset—her body slumping, her eyes unfocused, her lips faintly working her pacifier.

The door swung open.

"Oh, what a precious little thing," the inspector cooed, her voice a sickly sweet knife sliding between Venli’s ribs. "She’s so well-behaved, just like you said!"

Venli didn’t blink. Didn’t react.

She let the words wash over her like water, pretending they weren’t stained with condemnation.

"Goodbye, sweetheart! Be a good girl for Mommy!"

With that, the inspector finally left, her presence slithering away as the front door clicked shut behind her.

Venli’s mind snapped back into motion.

The serum.

Although the first test failed, they could not stop. They needed data to break Naomi and Oliver’s conditioning on a large scale if they wanted to move forward.

And there were only two people in this world who had that data.

Hannah and Emily.

Venli’s lips pressed together behind her pacifier. The Amazon government had spent years refining its methods for those two. Unlike Kaylee, who had only been under hypnosis briefly, Hannah and Emily had been immersed in it for far longer. If they could recover their minds… if they could prove it could be undone even at that level…

Then, the serum would be ready.

But first, they had to find them.

Venli barely had time to process before Mommy returned.

The woman sighed, stepping back into the room with visible exhaustion. She rubbed her temples as she leaned against the doorway.

"I’m sorry, baby," she muttered, voice tinged with something far too human. "I know that wasn’t fun for you."

Venli nodded weakly.

She hated this.

Every single second of it.

Mommy sighed again, stepping forward and reaching down to lift Venli from the bouncer. The movement shifted the mess in Venli’s diaper, pressing the thick, humiliating warmth against her skin. She clenched her jaw, hating how it squished, and Mommy grimaced at the sensation.

"Oh, baby…" Mommy murmured, cradling Venli in her arms. "That bad, huh?"

Venli could hear the genuine discomfort in her voice.

It wasn’t pity for Venli.

It was personal.

Mommy was a Tweener. One that had spent years balancing on the knife’s edge between two worlds—forced to act as a caretaker, as a good Amazon, but never truly belonging in their ranks.

And Venli knew why.

Because Mommy wasn’t a Tweener.

Not originally.

A Little who had done everything she could to escape that fate. A Little who had spent years climbing just high enough to escape the highchairs, the cribs, the diapers—only to be pulled back, bit by bit, by the job she now held.

Every diaper change she performed. She played every episode of Naomi and Oliver.

It was all a reminder.

Memories she was desperate to erase.

Mommy grew day by day, already now a tall Tweener.

But Venli knew the truth.

Deep down, Mommy knew it, too.

She was still a Little, no matter how high she climbed.

Inspector Thorne

Inspector Thorne took another crisp bite of her apple, the sharp crunch cutting through the sterile silence of the observation room. She chewed slowly, savoring the tartness as she gazed through the one-way glass, her eyes dancing across the rows of occupied cribs below.

The maternity ward was pristine—rows upon rows of clear plastic bassinets, each holding a freshly reborn Little, bundled tightly in pastel blankets, their pacifiers bobbing rhythmically in their slack mouths. The faint hum of soft lullabies played over the speakers, a gentle but calculated sound reinforcing their new existence.

Her sources had been good.

They hadn’t lied.

She had watched as the Resistance celebrated, convinced their little escapees had made it back to Earth, convinced they had won this round.

Fools.

Their precious escapees were right here.

They had been brought down in brilliant, precise strikes—coordinated raids that had swept them up just as they neared the brink of freedom. So close to the exit, so close to victory… only to have it ripped away at the final moment.

Some had fought.

Some had begged.

Most had screamed.

But all of them had been corrected.

Thorne took another bite of her apple, her sharp teeth sinking into the flesh with satisfaction.

On some level, she supposed they had escaped.

They had escaped the burden of choice.

They had escaped their pointless, defiant struggle.

They had escaped into the warm, all-encompassing embrace of infancy.

And she had seen to it personally that they would never be troublemakers again.

She let her gaze flick lazily between them, searching for her favorites—the ones who had made the most noise when they were first brought in.

There—

A former hacker, now swaddled in soft pink, a frilly bonnet framing her vacant, drooling face.

A smuggler, now curled into a fetal position, idly suckling her thumb, her hands clumsy and weak from the motor skill dampeners they had introduced into her system.

A Resistance recruiter, a girl who had once inspired so many others to run, to fight, to hope—now lying on her back, her diaper thick and soaked, her legs kicking aimlessly at nothing.

Hope?

Gone.

Purpose?

Erased.

Rebellion?

Flushed away, just like their last accident.

Thorne’s lips curled into a satisfied smirk as she swallowed another bite of her apple.

These Littles wouldn’t fight anymore.

This was their life now.

And the Resistance?

Still clueless.

Still celebrating a victory that never happened.

The last bite of apple crunched between her teeth as she turned, tossing the core into the waste bin with a casual flick of her wrist.

They thought they could win this war.

They thought they could outmaneuver the system.

But she knew the truth.

The system didn’t lose.

It only corrected.

Inspector Thorne chuckled as she spotted one of the Littles tensing, their face scrunching up in a futile attempt at resistance. It was a battle already lost. A moment later, the telltale bulge formed beneath the thick padding of their pristine white diaper, their expression shifting from tense discomfort to slack acceptance.

Perfect.

Thorne leaned against the observation window, watching with idle amusement as the Little whimpered softly. Their fingers twitched as if some long-forgotten part of them remembered what dignity felt like. That, too, would fade soon enough.

The auction house would be thrilled.

Littles fresh from the maternity ward were some of the highest-value products on the market. Not just because they were compliant, not just because they were fully broken, but because they were blank slates.

No more foolish dreams of adulthood.

No more delusions of escape.

No more stubborn defiance.

Just perfect, helpless newborns—mindless, docile, and worth their weight in gold.

Thorne exhaled in satisfaction and turned her attention to her tablet. She skimmed the latest reports submitted by Nanny Bots across the sector, which streamed data across the screen in organized columns: wetting patterns, food intake, compliance ratings, and regression status updates.

Efficient. Reliable. Unforgiving.

A well-oiled machine.

Then, something familiar caught her eye.

Her smirk widened.

Kaylee.

Thorne’s amusement grew as she skimmed through the logs, tracking the girl’s downward spiral. The mighty Amazon, shrunken to nothing, was forced into the very role she had tried to inflict on Ash.

She was tempted to intervene when she first heard of Kaylee’s mishap. It had been such a rare, delicious bit of irony that she almost wanted to preserve it. But in the end, letting the situation play out was far more entertaining.

And it had.

Brilliantly.

Kaylee had been forced into infancy to accept Ash’s care and to become the very thing she had once mocked. The entire Enforcement Agency had roared with laughter when the reports came in.

And then—

Then, there was the serum.

Her fingers drummed against the tablet as she pulled up that report.

The Resistance had thought they were being clever. I thought they were making progress. I thought they had hope.

Thorne had ensured they didn’t.

She had seen that the serum had been tainted—not enough to make it useless, but just enough to sow doubt.

Just enough to drive a wedge between Ash and the Resistance.

Ash was dangerous in her way. A wild card. She didn’t trust the system didn’t fully submit, but she also wasn’t with the Resistance. She had carved out a neutral space, a gray zone, and for now?

That worked in Thorne’s favor.

Like many others, her daycare was a net—a honey trap for defiant Littles and sympathizers alike. Let them think they had a safe space. Let them think they were winning.

And then?

Let them fall.

Thorne exhaled slowly, tapping a fingernail against the edge of the tablet.

She’d let it play out.

Let Ash struggle. Let Kaylee sink further. Let the Resistance trip over its failures.

And when the time was right—

She’d pull the net closed.

Miranda Pierce

The air was warm and perfumed with lavender and chamomile. The gentle trickle of a small indoor fountain blended seamlessly with the soft, rhythmic chime of relaxation music. The masseuse’s skilled hands worked over Miranda’s back, kneading the tension from her muscles with practiced ease. Pressure, release, glide, press—the technique was flawless.

Her body responded, unwinding beneath the ministrations, but her mind… oh, her mind—refused to obey.

Even here, in the heart of indulgent comfort, where stress was meant to melt away like candle wax, Miranda Pierce’s thoughts burned with a quiet, simmering rage.

Hannah and Emily were gone.

Not permanently, of course. Nothing was ever truly lost in this world—especially not Littles. But the sheer audacity of their escape had left a foul taste in her mouth. She had taken her eyes off them for a fraction of a moment—mere days, really—and in that short, fleeting window, they had not only slipped through the cracks of her watchful gaze but had picked up strays along the way.

Another Little. Another Amazon.

It was an unexpected twist, but nothing she couldn’t handle. After all, she had read the latest reports and had seen the files detailing every step of their misadventure. It had taken some effort, but she had woven Lucas into her calculations, seamlessly integrating him into the case she was building. And Evelyn—well, that was an interesting complication. A rogue Amazon, playing house with a bunch of Littles. It was laughable.

Miranda let out a slow, measured exhale, pretending, just for a moment, that she was releasing her frustration along with it.

She wasn’t.

Her fingers twitched against the padded massage table as she recalled Welby’s latest infractions. It was bad enough that he had defied the natural order by coddling those Littles like they were equals, but he had also neglected his responsibilities. He had ignored the carefully curated tools she had given him—no, not just given, crafted for his girls.

The latest episodes of Naomi and Oliver had sat in his inbox, untouched and unplayed. This was infuriating. She had overseen the production of those episodes herself and fine-tuned their messaging with the care of an artisan. They were perfect, designed to coax compliance and gently reinforce the world as it should be—where Littles were happy, content in their rightful place beneath Amazon care.

And yet, Welby had denied them that.

She could feel her pulse ticking against her temple, her jaw tightening as she thought of it. He had refused to let them be nurtured, guided, softened. Instead, he had taken them on a trip. Not just any trip, either.

Disneyland.

The thought of it sent a fresh wave of irritation rolling through her. What had they done to deserve such a luxury? Littles didn’t need Disneyland. They didn’t need the illusion of choice, freedom, of being big. What they needed was structure. Routine. Carefully curated experiences that reinforced their place in society.

And now, after Welby’s defiance, his negligence, and his foolish decision to let those Littles play pretend in a theme park, Miranda found herself at a crossroads.

What to do with him? With all of them?

Oh, she already knew the answer, of course. It wasn’t a matter of if but when she would pull the strings that sent their little fantasy crashing around them.

If they wanted to play at having a Mommy in their lives again,… Miranda wasn’t about to stop them.

She could be so accommodating.

Evelyn was an Amazon, and that was all the justification she needed. Welby had been given a simple directive, and he had failed. He had turned his Littles into flight risks, corrupted another Amazon, and ignored direct conditioning aids. He had failed them.

That Miranda could not abide.

She took a slow, deep breath, feeling the tension shift beneath her skin as the masseuse continued their work. Her body wanted to relax, but her mind sharpened.

A new plan was forming.

If Welby didn’t do what was best for those Littles, perhaps Evelyn would. After all, the woman had already stepped into the role, hadn’t she? Holding their hands, carrying them, cooing to them. It wouldn’t take much push to help her embrace that role fully.

And Lucas?

He would learn his place.

A slow, satisfied smirk curled at the edges of Miranda’s lips.

They thought they had won something and carved out a life free from her reach. But they had no idea what was coming.

She would remind them.

She would remind all of them.

With a final deep breath, Miranda closed her eyes, letting the masseuse’s hands work out the last of the tension from her shoulders.

Soon.