Changing places: Chapter 1 What do you get when you take a small, cramped, boring hospital office, add two parts toddler girls, two parts lesbian parents of those aforementioned small children, and fifty parts extremely delicate and breakable equipment? Dr. Tory Linderson and Dr. Lily Einshart, equipped with the best modern medical technology had no intention of finding out. Their two small daughters were sitting quietly in a corner with a copy of Virgil’s Aeneid, neither of them a hair past two years old to the common eye, but chronologically they were closer to eight, the subject of age-extension therapy pioneered by their mothers, and psychologically on par with most high-school seniors. Not that they didn’t have their kid-days, running around like the toddler rabbit and skunk that they were, mirrors of their parent’s species, and playing the way kids should, resulting in an almost bipolar fascination with the classics one day, and a desire to make instant mud-pies and shove them in the oven when mommy wasn’t looking the next. But this was a more ambitious project than that one had been, which had most of the groundwork already having been done in the early 2030s. Today, they’d be testing something truly groundbreaking, and Tory, the less confident of the two of them, stroked her ears with anxiety. “Are you sure the math works out?” She asked her mate, “I mean, we’ve got cooperate approval, but…” She nodded at their two daughters, who would be half of the receiving end on this particular experiment, as they had been on several others. “Calm down, Tory,” Lily said with a smile, looking over the skunk’s totally expanded tail, which was liable to fill the entire room with black and white striped fluff, “It’s going to work, I’ve got a good feeling. You know how this goes… You get all scared, then everything winds up going great.” The rabbit’s words didn’t seem to comfort her, so she walked over, both of them dressed in their white lab-coats, and stroked her flustered and flicking tail, immediately feeling the stress start to drain. “I guess you’re right, as usual,” the skunk said, sighing with resignation, then stood up to take her mind off things, “Alright, I’ll take care of the girls and get ready. You should go out into the lobby and wait for the two other subjects, do the paperwork, that sort of thing… You’ve always got the head for that, and let’s just hope these two aren’t smart enough to read the contract like the last pair.” Lily smiled and chuckled, patting her mate on the shoulder, “That’s a good idea. And don’t worry, these two are college students. If anyone’s going to be desperate enough to take part in these shenanigans, it’s kids like this.” She smiled and turned to go out of the office and into the stylistic, chrome and tile hospital’s biotechnology research wing, which, in place of bedrooms and sick people, had a myriad of advanced machines, experimental devices, and half the R&D funding in the entire company. Insiders called taking part in an experiment here selling your soul, both because of the often huge sums that were dispersed for taking part in experimental technology, but also because that technology was very often capable of rendering subjects with all manner of often permanent ailments. While her mate went out to greet the test subjects, Tory smiled and walked over to her two daughters, who had since marked their page in the poetic epic and gone about chasing each-other in circles and making suitably childish remarks about the state of the other’s underwear. “Stinky diaperbutt!” Sophie, who bore an acute resemblance to Tory despite being a genetic blend of a rabbit and a skunk, and stuck out her tongue at her sister, doing the typical elephant ears and not caring in the least that her own poofy, Disney princess pampers were on full display for everyone to see, peeking cutely out from underneath her short, frilly sundress. “Poofy piddle pants!” Sarah, who was likewise showed much more the rabbit side of her parentage than the skunk side, and, giggling, bounded over to her sister and pulled up her skirt, revealing that she was, indeed, the poofy piddle pants that she’d been teased as. Sophie squirmed and pouted, kicking and backing away. Both of them were diapered, a side effect of the growth delaying that some parts of their physiology matured faster than others, and potty training still eluded both of them to the point of hopelessness. It was a great irony that, despite their relative maturity even for their biological age, the two toddlers were so held back developmentally that they oftentimes couldn’t even tell when they were soggy without one of their mommies checking, let alone properly train. “Mom! Sarah’s being a brat again!” Sophie complained, trying to push away her sister’s arms and get her diaper back under cover. “Sophie, changing table. Sarah, time out in the corner for teasing your sister. She’ll be joining you momentarily,” Tory said, very experienced in the fine art of coralling small girls into reasonable order and met their surprise, pouting and whimpering with a stony glare that few people could replicate. Eventually they broke under their mother’s superior command, and the reluctant bunny waddled over to the corner of the office, surprisingly graceful despite the inch of slightly soggy padding sticking out from under her dress, while an equally pouty Sarah hopped up onto the side table that doubled as a changing pad for the young girls when they accompanied their mothers at work, and let her mother change her. After eight years of six times daily diaper changes, Tory was a master at the art if ever one could be declared. She pulled the little skunk’s dress up around her underarms so she could examine the state of it, and shook her head. “Sophie, you’re soaked. You can’t honestly tell me you didn’t know…” The much larger skunk said, scratching her daughter’s belly affectionately, and watched her daughter blush and squirm. “I dunno…” She said, looking ashamed and flushing bright pink as her mother kept up the belly scratching and slowly undid Sophie’s cute little pink diaper tapes, one by one, then let the soggy pamper pass down between them and smile. “Well, if this works, you’ll have a whole year out of diapers I think, since it’s a physical disability and not a mental one,” Tory said, smiling and scratching her daughter’s head, and gathering up some wipes from a dispenser before slowly and affectionately wiping down her whole diaper area, and watching the little skunk relax completely with the familiar motions of a diaper-change. She even purred a little bit, and let her eyes drift closed as Tory took her time with it, making sure not to leave anywhere she could get rash, then looked under the table at the several cases of kid’s diapers she kept stocked under the table, since both her daughters took the same size. “So, what kind of diaper do you think our dear volunteer should wake up in, sweetie?” The older skunk said, smiling mischievously. Sophie returned her playful look and grinned, “He’s a kitty, right?” Tory nodded, and neglected to mention that an adult male lion probably would have taken exception to being referred to as a kitty. “Oh, do we have any of the Lion King ones left?” She smiled enthusiastically, and her mother giggled approval. One of the great things about children with advanced intelligence was that they had a very firm grasp of irony. The diaper Tory took out from under the table had Nala from the Disney film prancing across the front of the diaper, and, naturally, pink stripes and hearts all over the rest of it. They were adorable, and, smiling, she took out two of them, knowing one might be soaked through while they were all asleep. The maternal skunk lifted her daughter’s little feet by the ankles, pulling out the soggy diaper from beneath her and unfolding the fresh, cartoonish and infantile pamper in front of her and sliding it beneath her black, furry posterior. The mention that, if today’s equipment test worked to specification, which was likely, she might not be changing either of her daughters for an entire year, the duration of the contract. Or at least not in spirit, she wouldn’t. A few puffs of powder were enough to turn the little girl’s crotch and rear from mostly black, to mostly white, then she pulled the fluffy, absorbent undergarment up around her waist and snugly taped it in place. “There’s a good girl,” Tory said, smiling and scratching her belly playfully again. Sophie giggled and smiled, but didn’t look all too happy when she saw she was going to be doubled up. “Do I haffta wear two?” Sophie said, lip pouting at the thought of being reduced to extreme toddling, or even crawling depending on the brand, as she was often forced to do when mommy put her in more than one diaper at once. “It’s just this time,” Tory affirmed her, scratching her belly, “heck, this might be the last diaper you ever have to wear.” It was unlikely, but the suggestion stopped, or at least postponed, a temper tantrum, and she sat only marginally uncomfortably as the diaper was slitted, and a second one fitted over top of it. “There we go,” she continued, patting the bulk between her daughter’s legs and giggling, “now, let’s get you over into the corner with your sister. You still have a time out, little one.” “N-nuh! You weren’t supposta remember that!” Sophie said, apparently shocked that she hadn’t forgotten, then pouted tremendously as her wiggly, heavily padded diaper butt was picked up off of the improvized changing table, and stood precariously in a bare corner, right next to Sarah, who was sitting with her nose against the wall. In the intervening five minutes, the little bunny had unknowingly had an accident as well. Friends and babysitters who occasionally cared for Sophie and Sarah when their mothers were too busy or needed a night out occasionally referred to the pair as taps on drip, often relating stories of the two needing changes practically hourly, if they weren’t kept in the thickest diapers available. Tory noticed the toddler rabbit’s sagging diaper, then sighed and checked her data pad. It had, indeed, been five minutes, and she picked up her other daughter for a change as well. As frustrating as it could sometimes be, being the mother of a pair of perpetual toddlers, Tory had always been the more maternal of the two mates. Lily loved her daughters as well, and as deeply as the skunk, but in a more masculine way than she did. The rabbit wore the pants and Tory knew it, but she felt that maybe Lily didn’t take the same love in caring for their children as she did. Even the diaper changes, which were frequent, served a necessary bonding role in the skunk’s mind, and she wasn’t eager at the thought of leaving it behind, even if the juicy psychological and physical data that this unique opportunity presented intoxicated her just as much as it did Lily, and, desperate for some forward progression in their physical development, Sarah and Sophie had flat-out refused to let their mothers use anyone else, reluctant as Tory was to use them as guinea pigs for something like this. Her musings about keeping her maternal feelings in check for the good of science was interrupted as she lifted up the bouncy, often fussy little bunny up off the ground where she stood, facing the wall in time out, and heard her soggy pamper squish against her arm as Tory shifted the little bunny over one shoulder, supporting her behind with a hand. “H-hey! Mom!” Sarah immediately started to squirm, always having been the more mature and keen on being treated as an adult of the two, and always making diaper-changes an adventure. It was for this reason that Tory had had a child harness made for both of her kids, since they so frequently liked to run off and play adult. They were smart about it, too, occasionally coordinating so that, when their parents were occupied with one child, the other would run off, then both parents would turn their attention to the one that had run while the other dashed off as well, and the two met somewhere. This was most common at fairs, zoos, and other public places, and no amount of telling them to stay with them had struck home, so the harnesses were mandatory whenever they were out of the house. They had another use, though, and that was keeping a fussy toddler on the table during a change. It was the work of two minutes for the well experienced female skunk to coerce her fussy, over-energetic daughter into the pink, childish harness and wrap the leash around the table before snapping it to the receiver on the other thing, keeping the pouting bunny from being able to run off and cause any more trouble. Unhappy, but knowing it was childproofed and that she didn’t have the fine manual dexterity to escape it, Sarah submitted to a diaper change. When given the same choice of diapers as her sister, Sarah chose a Whinny the Pooh pamper, because its coloration matched her yellow, butterfly adorned sun dress, and she liked her clothes to match. Tory smiled and used the same, useful mix of coddling and scratching to keep Sarah calm while she undid the little bunny’s diaper tapes, slid the pamper out from underneath her and replaced it with the yellow, bear adorned diaper that she had requested. They didn’t make medical white foil diapers for kids under four, so, with much animosity about it, the two toddlers had been forced to accept life in the most infantile garments possible, though, luckily, being the right age for that sort of thing made it a bit easier, since nobody questioned a two year old wearing pampers. Sarah went still once she realized no fuss was being tolerated - something she had to relearn practically every diaper change - but eventually fell under the same spell of comfort and safety as Sophie had when Tory took the warm, soft cleaning wipes and stroked her soggy behind and legs. Thus consoled, it wasn’t too much difficulty to get the fresh, yellow diaper underneath her and, using her maternal insight, decided to go with diaper cream this time, instead of powder. Sarah had eaten a big breakfast, and hadn’t messed herself yet today, so it seemed like a good call. This brought another wave of fussing from the little bunny, who knew full well that diaper cream was mom’s way of preparing for a potentially stinky diaper, and showed a distinct lack of trust in her ability to control herself, not that Sarah had much to show… There was a short pause, then Tory smiled and taped the diaper up around Sarah’s waist, scratching her belly and checking the waistband and leg holes to make sure her squirming hadn’t thrown it off center, allowing for leaks. For fairness, and in spite of all the little rabbit’s eager fussing, equally energetic at the idea that today would be their last day as babies for, well, at least a year. Somewhat tuckered out by her fussing, and by the five minutes she’d spent balancing her thickly padded rump and flimsy toddler legs while facing the wall, Sarah more or less willingly submitted to the rest of the change, allowing Tory to add a second layer just as she had with her sister, even if she squirmed and pouted at the reduction in status, then yawned, her small child’s body no more able to go all day without a nap than an actual toddler. Tory giggled, smiling down at her daughter, then picked her up and kissed the little bunny’s forehead, hugging her close and going to collect Sophie, who was also quickly loosing awareness and only stared at the wall blankly, already half asleep. The little skunk was picked up as well, the remaining few minutes of her time-out forgotten, and took them to get ready for the experiment… *** “Hello, so you’re our two volunteers?” Lily said, smiling broadly as she stepped out into the waiting room and showing her incisors in a grin at the sight of the two test subjects. They were a mismatched set, though they’d have plenty of time to get to know each other over the course of the next year, and Lily had specifically picked them out of the various applicants because of their differences. Hunter, a sizable male lion, had a full mane and the musculature of an amateur athlete, which Lily knew he was, and her grin widened, wanting nothing more than to see his reaction when he woke up. The other was a bit more of a concern. According to his application, which provided Lily with a broad array of information, that not including what she’d been able to glean from his schooling records and medical history, he was a barn owl, and quite the intellectual savant besides. Sarah had insisted on him being selected, something about liking the feathers, and, eventually, she agreed. Now she regretted the decision as she saw the gleam of intelligence in his eyes. It would make an interresting experiment, but she somehow felt she was compromising her own, highly selective morality by including him. “Yeah, that’s us,” The lion said, smiling broadly, and clearly tried to dispel his anxiety by giving the owl to his left a friendly shoulder squeeze, though Lily knew the two of them weren’t friends. Jocks and preps rarely mixed, especially when they were distinguished in their own fields, and, for their own reasons, liked to look down on the others for their life choices. They had, however, had two hours in the waiting room to talk and become acquainted… They would, however, soon become much more intimately involved. “Hmm,” Psudo said, looking over the contracts they were handed while Lily tried to small-talk him, and distract him from the fine print. “Neither these, or anything on your website had any details about the actual experiment or its goals, short of the broad term cognitive disassociation, which you never bothered to define,” he said, a bit too keen for his own good. “You know the procedure,” the rabbit said with a smile, having prepared some arguments in advance, “it would compromise the experiment if you knew what it was in advance, and our competitors would get an unfair advantage in replicating it if it was public knowledge. Just sign here,” she pointed at the dotted lines on each of their papers, keeping her friendly smile all the while. “And we get the money in a year no matter what, right?” Hunter asked, standing a head taller and sixty pounds heavier than his companion. He was referring to the tax-exempted 1,000,000$ reward for a year’s corporate testing of a new, ground breaking system. Lily nodded and smiled more broadly. “Of course, the money will be dispersed in ten cheques over the course of the year,” Lily smiled and winked, “The IRS knows to keep off of you when it’s us issuing the money. That sounded good to the two college students, who had spent three years each groveling past on what was colloquially referred to as the college diet, a mix of boiled noodles with unrealistically high sodium content, and other rock-bottom sustenance that was the best they could afford with a blood-sucking cooperate entity attached to their necks. With skepticism, Psudo took a pen and signed the piece of paper, Hunter doing the same, if with considerably more confidence, wanting to assert himself as the more forward of the two, and Lily smiled victoriously. “Right this way,” the rabbit said, scooping the contracts up in her hand and stepping back through the door to the pristine, steel and finely tiled interior of her pharmaceutical company’s personal medical bay. “Huh, that looks expensive,” Hunter observed, looking at the sizable machine in the strict, modern room they had been led into. It looked almost like an MRI, if one could be imagined that only wrapped around the person’s head like a halo. They were attached by a cable the size of Hunter’s forearm to a nearby set of terminal screens, like something you’d see in a science fiction film, then ran again through a hole in the wall to a heavily tinted personal office. “Care to explain what those are for?” The owl asked, looking over the rabbit, who had seated herself on the terminal and started clacking away at a virtual keyboard, “I generally like to know what I’m putting my head in, presuming those are for us…” “Oh, it’s basically a neural scanner, it’s to take a record of your brain activity,” Lily explained, answering the word of the question rather than the spirit of it, then smiled as she executed the first of several commands on her computer, and got word via her ear-piece that Tory and the girls were also ready to begin. “Alright, you two, take off your clothes and stack them on the chairs next to the beds, then lay down and try to relax.” Hunter obeyed at once, the natural jock’s dislike for being ordered around by a woman being somewhat overruled by the natural dominance in her tone, and pulled his T-shirt over his head, maybe just a little vain about his sprawling brown mane and well tuned muscles. He removed his pants as well, dropping them down onto the chair without bothering to fold them. Psudo, on the other hand, was dressed in a looser, more custom fitting set of clothing, as the anatomy of his species demanded. It took him twice the time to undress as Hunter did, but Lily didn’t seem to mind so he neatly folded the robes and stacked them on the chair as he’d been told, then, as instructed, they both laid down in the beds, dressed in nothing but their undergarments. “Alright, Tory, are the girls ready?” Lily said, her excitement creeping into her voice now that they were honestly about to begin this long-awaited trial. “Affirmative,” Tory said with a smile, looking over the already hooked in and sleeping toddlers, who were laying on their backs in identical machine-beds to the ones Psudo and Hunter were waiting in, looking up at the glassy blue interior of the halo rings. “Is this, erm, going to hurt? I’ve never been in something like this before?” Hunter asked, though he was quite sure he could take it if it did. “There won’t be any pain. You might feel sleepy and fatigued, but the procedure is primarily done while you’re under,” Lily explained, taking up position next to the terminal with Tory, who had joined her shortly after the check-in with their girls. “Alright, ready?” Both of the males nodded, and, her grin widening to cheshire cat levels, Lily engaged the next of several commands, and watched the rings start to rotate, giving her a prompt, on-screen view of their brain activity in seconds. Lily had warned them against the sleepiness and fatigue, as she had put it, but had neglected to mention the scope of it. “W-woah… oh jeeze…” Hunter commented, his entire body suddenly relaxing and finding that the energy required to speak again no longer existed. The rabbit had walked over to him with her widely grinning face, and, finding him helpless to move an inch, giggled a bit as the last shreds of consciousness started to fade, “Good night, my confident little kitten. I’ll see you in the morning.”