✅ Potty Genius [NaNoWriMo 2022]

Fifty

¿Did you press 'Graduate'?

Yes. I thought about it for several minutes, and then realised just how much my perspective had changed. I was actually reluctant to do it, because I was kind of curious about the feeling of freedom that Theo had mentioned.

"So what do you think?" Britney asked.

"I don't know. It seems a bit anticlimactic now. But... well, it gives me a new badge, right? So that means the app will have to put me in trance again. If it's going to take any time, I'd rather change into a clean diaper first."

"Sure. Have you got some with you? You can use Theo's stash if it's easier."

"Thanks, I..." I started, and then realised that I didn't actually need one. As soon as it had hypnotised me, I would have complete control of my bladder again. I should have said I wanted to get changed out of my last diaper. But somehow, the thought of taking it off without putting a new one on hadn't occurred to me. Was that because I'd gotten used to the app forcing me to wear another diaper if I took off a wet one. But did that apply now? "Wait, will it still make me put on another diaper if I'm graduating?"

"No. You don't have to wear diapers anymore. It's entirely your choice. Do you want to?"

"Of course not! I've spent the last month trying so hard to... Oh, who am I kidding? It's kind of comforting, isn't it? Like the freedom Theo said. So maybe just one more, if you don't mind."

I still turned down the offer of being changed, though. I took a diaper and went into the therapy room to change. These ones were slightly thinner than the ones I'd been wearing, but somehow seemed even softer. I made a mental note of the brand name, so I could check them out the next time I came to order...

Why was I thinking about ordering more diapers? This was my last one. I promised myself that this was the end. I had succeeded, I had won. And in the process, perhaps I had found out that my life could be more fun with a few childish things in it. But that surely didn't extend to diapers.

¿So you kept wearing them?

"Ready to go back to being a big girl?" Theo asked, when I came back into the break room. Britney had apparently been busy, rubbing carpet shampoo into the space where the puddle had been, and Theo was heading back from the bathroom. She'd found time for a quick shower, and we were all clean now.

"I guess," I said. "But I've been thinking, and I don't know if I want to be an adult really. Not completely. If I do the graduation thing, I'll still be able to have childish things. Right?"

"Yeah. You get the graduation badge, which you can use to give yourself full control. But you can select the others whenever you want. Keep on playing and you might get more badges, that let you make more choices. There's even one called a medal bar, that lets you combine multiple badges. The more you play, the more choices you get."

"I should be glad to get out of this," I said. "But you know what? I think I realised I've just finished what's like a tutorial mode. Now I can just play the game the way I want to. Right?"

"Yeah. Once you have the courage to admit it."

"I think I know what I want now," I said. "I'm going to press the graduate button, but that's not the end. I'll keep the app installed, so I can play it when I want to. Try one of the badges for an hour or two, when it's right for me. I want to find out what I'm comfortable and what I'm not, but I'm going to do it at my own pace. I just... I can't believe that this was all hidden. Like, there must be so many people who use the app and don't even know that all this stuff is in there."

"I don't think there are," Britney answered, shaking her head. "There are like six different apps called Potty Genius, and some of them look pretty similar. But this one can't be installed without an invite from somebody else who uses it. And the forum where they spread it around, they've got pretty strict rules against sharing it with anybody who isn't an adult baby. You have to prove that this is what you want before they'll give you a copy of the app and instructions on how to unlock it."

"Sounds like they try to be responsible," I mumbled. "But then I should never have gotten a copy of it. I didn't need any kind of code, it was already set up. I mean, sure, I guess that being an app for little kids is a good camouflage. But somewhere out there, a copy is going to slip through the cracks. Somebody's going to get it without realising what it is, and start passing it on. I guess that makes me lucky, then. Because... it's really unlikely that I'd get my hands on this app without knowing what it is. And even longer odds that I'd get it and be into easter eggs enough to find the secret. It's so unlikely. And then that I'd get the app, find the easter egg, and realise that I actually enjoy it? That's the kind of thing that should never happen. Like one in a billion."

"I guess it is a bit of a coincidence," Britney said. "Maybe you were extremely lucky to get a push towards some introspection. Or maybe you're just open minded, and any other coincidence could have pushed you towards some other way to accept your inner child, or to put less pressure on yourself to conform."

"Could be. And I guess there might be a lot of people out there who started acting more grown-up than they were ready for, and could have followed exactly the same path I did if they found the app. I guess this... adult baby thing is pretty rare, but there might be a load more people who would enjoy it if they tried it. Who knows... maybe it's even a normal thing to like, but most people will never find out because they wouldn't be willing to try."

"I wouldn't go that far," Theo said. "But I think that a lot of people would come to appreciate it if they couldn't run away at the first taste."

"Okay," I said. "So. I'm going to click 'graduate' now. You can watch me do the hypnosis thing on the tablet. And if I don't regain control like I'm supposed to, you can help to make it work. Right?"

"Sounds like a plan. And good luck."

I tapped the button. It displayed a whole lot of animations, with Baby Adrica dancing in the middle of the screen while fireworks went off above her. She toddled back and forth across the screen, showing all the different outfits I had put her in over the last few weeks, and then came back holding up something that looked like a tiny pixelated diploma. I could only smile at how cute the whole display was, and it made me feel prouder than it had any right to. When it ended, it took me straight to the badge selection screen, where the one with the diploma on was at the top of the screen. The description just said it allowed me to be a big girl; and there was no time limit for this one.

"This is it, then," I said, and reached out to the tablet. I dragged the badge across, and confirmed my choice. It immediately congratulated me again for choosing to be a big girl, and a message popped up with a list of all the amazing, grown-up things I could do now. As I tapped 'next', another box of text appeared, and I read it as quickly as I could, feeling exactly what it told me to feel. There were a couple of questions still to ask, about which bits of my babyish behaviour I wanted to switch off and which I wanted to keep; but they were all easy questions and I tapped the right answers automatically. I didn't even pay attention to what they were asking, I just read them and picked 'yes' or 'no'. Somehow I didn't even realise I was dropping into trance again, until I noticed that I didn't know what I was agreeing to right now. And then the whole world seemed to spiral away, and I was dancing in a dream, happily accepting all the suggestions that would make me so happy.

I was getting exactly what I wanted. It was the best reward I could possibly imagine.