✅ Younger Than You Think?

"E: Examination Room"

"Come on," a figure in uniform said, appearing from a door on the other side of the little corridor. "You can change her in the examination room." Seamus followed him carrying Iriña, and Mary was right behind them with a bag over her shoulder. Neither of them looked happy. Seconds later, it was just Iriña and the two adults, alone in a large white tiled room that would have been right at home in a hospital. There was a stainless steel table in the centre of the room, and many locked cupboards recessed into the walls.

"You had to cause a fuss," Mary growled. "We told you what happens if you cause a fuss. Why couldn't you just nod and giggle like a real toddler? I hate when we have to do that." She had put down her bag on a counter and was rummaging through it. She pulled out what looked like a pacifier, as well as a coiled length of tubing that could have come from some kind of inflatable cushion, with a pump that was little more than a rubber ball to squeeze on one end.

"Wait," Seamus interrupted her. "Jeremy looked up our new baby's medical history, and there's a mountain of weird crap in there. We can't afford for her to have a negative reaction."

"And if she tries to expose us again?"

"I'll make sure she understands properly. We might have been too vague. Look, you go and check on Lyle. Make sure that idiot doesn't say something stupid. And make sure my bag's processed, so it's only the metal detector when we come out of here. The diaper bag's already been through the X-ray, right?"

Mary nodded, scowled at Iriña, and left the room.

"Right, little one," Seamus ditched the forced smiles and cheerful affectations now. He knew he wasn't talking to a child, and he didn't need to make his words childish or entertaining. "I've been watching you, and I think you have something to tell us. I know that sedation scares you more than whatever you imagine our destination to be, which is unusual. So I would rather avoid giving you a repeat of the cocktail from earlier. But I do have it right here, and I will use it if I have to. So that's your choice. You can show me that you're willing to play ball, I'll order your medication from one of the specialists who makes this stuff up for us, and hopefully that will be good enough. Or you refuse, and you get this."

As he spoke, he held up two different bottles. Both were marked like some kind of toiletries; tiny bottles of baby oil. But from the way the first one sloshed when he turned it over in his hand, she was sure it wasn't any kind of oil. And in the other hand, he held up a similar bottle filled with a yellowy, creamy substance. As she watched he screwed the neck of the little bottle onto one of the rubber pipes, which she was sure wasn't normal for any kind of inflatable device. Another pipe screwed into the back of a pacifier, and that was even stranger. She didn't know what valves might be in all those tubes, but she could tell the intention. While she was so weak he would only need one hand to force the pacifier into her mouth, and he could pump the little bulb with the other. Presumably the drug would be sucked up and then forced out through the pacifier, giving her no choice about consuming it.

"Wha?" she struggled to make a sound, and pointed at the first bottle. She knew he wanted a choice, but she was never happy not knowing what the options were.

"This is a strong muscle relaxant. It will make you weak. Even weaker than a genuine child of your apparent age. Muscles so relaxed that you couldn't possibly stand without help, and couldn't lift a book. You might even need a cushion to support your head. And your internal muscles would be weakened too, so we'd have to put you in a diaper even if that wasn't what we had promised the officials. I really am sorry about that, but it gave us an opportunity to establish ourselves as overworked parents contending against the whims of a contrary toddler. And it wouldn't have been necessary, had you not attempted to attract attention."

Iriña's eyes widened as she realised what he was saying. Of course he knew the effects of those drugs. The confidence with which he'd reeled off a list of common meds had told her that he had training in pharmacology; he'd sounded kind of like Uncle Chad in that moment, although he had nowhere near the same level of skills and experience. He'd only pressed gently on her bladder, but it had been enough. They'd put a cup of cola within reach when she was so thirsty, and hadn't stopped her drinking it. She wondered if he had given her some kind of diuretic in the hours that she couldn't remember, making her kidneys work in overdrive to fill her bladder and causing that terrible thirst as a side effect. And as she had lost control, he had turned slightly to point her stream towards the speaking grille in the security barrier. It had looked like surprise and awkwardness, but she could see now that every moment of the performance had been thought out. All to make sure they were trusted. She grunted in response, but didn't try to speak.

"And this one," he held up the other, "well, I think you know. This is a strong sedative, mixed with a few other ingredients. Nothing so complex, but it can be easily absorbed through mucous membranes, including the gums. A squirt in your mouth, even if you fight me and refuse to swallow, and you're straight off to dreamland. Now, Mary wanted to give you this one when you tried to run before, and she was even more determined when you called us kidnappers. But I did notice that you puked at the rest stop, and I'm wondering if that's because of some kind of allergy. Do some sedatives make you sick?"

"Aaah..." she tried to say all, but it seemed her tongue still didn't have the strength to reach the top of her mouth. She tried to add: "And seizures. Brain damage." But her useless tongue turned it into near-gibberish. She hoped he would understand.

"That sounds pretty bad. So we were lucky, I guess. Very well, I promise that I will keep Mary from giving you this stuff. But if you disobey an instruction, or give bystanders any clue that you aren't really four years old, then I can take that as proof that you are lying, and it becomes my first option for keeping you quiet. I will not stand up for you again, do you understand? Now, will you take one of these, and then allow me to put you in a diaper and some more age-appropriate clothes without fuss? And do you accept that if you act like this stuff doesn't scare you, it's entirely your responsibility when I put you down for a nap?"

She reached out for the first bottle; the muscle relaxant. He handed it over, and watched her carefully. There was no way she could pretend. She knocked back the tiny bottle like her Uncle Brett used to do with shots of mezcal, and almost gagged at the bitterness. It was bitter and salty, and tasted way too much like grapefruit juice. But she forced herself to swallow, and hoped that she could at least keep herself alive now. She didn't fight as Seamus pulled off her pee-soaked miniature pantsuit and threw it in the trash. Then, as promised, he pulled out a cellphone and handed it to her. The app on the screen was a catalogue from a major pharmaceutical giant. Not Dennier-Pfalz-Furchtengöber, and there was no generic version of the drug she needed, but she could still type in the first twenty-eight letters of the name and it was able to find the stuff. The next screen wanted the required dose, but her fingers wouldn't go where she wanted them, and the phone clattered to the table beside her.

Seamus had cleaned her up by that point, and had been watching to make sure that she didn't try to send any messages. Now he asked her to raise her butt so that he could slide a diaper under her, but Iriña quickly found that she couldn't. Raising her knees off the table and sliding her feet closer so that she would have leverage took every ounce of her strength, and they fell back to the tabletop before she could complete the manoeuvre. She may as well be paralysed, and she knew she was completely at the kidnappers' mercy. She couldn't fight the diaper being taped around her waist, or the tiny pink overalls fastened around her. Even when she had been forced to wear toddler clothes, before learning about the Titansville communities, she hadn't looked so childish.

She tried not to think about it as he carried her back to the security desk, told everyone that she was feeling extra shy after those few moments of excitement, and carried her onto a plane. And it was easy to let her mind avoid the present, when the taste of grapefruit and the sight of that pacifier had jogged her memory, and she might have a little more success thinking about how she had ended up in this place.