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Chapter 3
Part 3 / Epilogue

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Chapter Description: Changes.

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[quote][quote][quote]The plan implemented, there was no turning back now. Aaron, still outfitted in wizard’s garb (sans the trademark Potter spectacles), scurried back toward Viewing Room 114b. With all the precision his nervous six-year-old body could marshal, Aaron readied the second phase. Soon his erstwhile wife would notice his absence and come forging down the hallway. He could already hear that determined cadence, the metallic ring of her heels against the floors. It wouldn’t be the first time he had provoked her wrath, but with luck it would be the last.

Pulse quickening with each breath, Aaron rehearsed the moment in his head. He’d spent years lulling Natalia into a false sense of maternal security. Adopting the habits of a first grader, developing an adorable lisp, calling her “Mommy,” playing the game and biding his time. He remembered, with youthful clarity, what pleasure she took that first year, milking every opportunity to remind him how small and impotent he’d become. In private, the ruse made him smile. A child on the outside, he remained every bit his 37 years where it counted.

Ominous music filled the room. It was 9:00. The Halloween special now blared through the viewing room’s system. Aaron averted his eyes. One more dose of the signal would send him back to certain infancy.

On schedule, the footstep cadence echoed down the corridor. Natalia had come to check on her guinea pig. The heels clicked louder and louder until they stopped. Aaron watched her expression shift from anticipation to alarm in the observation window.

The door flung open.

”Damn it!” she hollered, seeing the untied restraints dangling from the armrests. “What the hell is this?”

Catching a glimpse of two young eyes in the corner, Natalia squinted. “Aaron!”

He shook at the sound.

”Aaron, you little shit. I’m going to put you in diapers this time!” Natalia lunged toward him like a drunken parent.

Before she finished the thought, Aaron tugged hard at the cord wrapped around his hand. The line, pulled taught around one leg of the chair and a crate situated adjacent to the door, caught Natalia’s left foot, sending her to the floor in a beautiful, yelling mess. Landing on her hands and knees, the would-be ruler of the world steadied herself, cursing as the vertigo subsided.

”That’s it. You’re fu -“

Righting herself, Natalia made one tiny miscalculation. A minor error for sure, momentary and completely forgivable, had it not been for the circumstances. As she raised her head, the screen came into full view. Briefly, but long enough. Natalia’s speech halted mid-expletive, her body still, her mind utterly captured.

Inside she struggled, begged, pleaded. It couldn’t end this way. She was Natalia Vanise. She ran this show. But the tug-of-war in her head soon gave way to an unfamiliar sensation, and the insistent whispers of protest quieted.

Aaron grinned a long-awaited grin.

***

Justin eased the pedal into the floor, the engine roared. All manner of exotic gadgets lit the dashboard. He might have taken the time to appreciate the impressive display of electronics had the world not been coming to an end. With purpose he plowed through clots of traffic, dialing number after number - the ones he could remember.

”Hi, Kathy? God, please get this message,” he repeated for the fifteenth time. “If you or anyone you know is watching the NBC Halloween special tonight, just turn it off, okay? There’s a signal running through the - it’s complicated. Just, whatever you do, don’t turn your eyes toward the screen.”

Justin hung up and immediately began pressing more numbers.

Who else, who else. He briefly cursed the complacency bred by modern technology. No one remembered phone numbers anymore. Apart from a few accountant types, people probably couldn’t recall their own area codes these days without a friendly mechanized reminder. Still, as adrenaline shot through Justin’s bloodstream, digits randomly sprang to mind. The next lucky contestant: his next door neighbor.

”Pick up, pick up...” he urged as the tones continued.

”Hello?”

”Christy, hi, this is Justin Foster. From next door.” Probably more clarification than she required. Christy and her husband had apartment-sitted once or twice about a year ago.

”Of course. What is it? You sound out of breath.”

”No time to explain. I just need to know. Are you watching TV right now?”

”No, Greg’s gone up to bed and I just - “

”Just promise you won’t turn on the TV tonight, all right? Some kind of weird transmission is coming down through NBC and it’s affecting viewers, anyone who watches the screen, even for a second.” It never stopped sounding ridiculous.

”Sure, sure. But what’s - “

”Trust me, it’s stranger than you’d think. Just keep the TV off, whatever happens.”

”Okay, I promise,” she said, exasperation in her voice.

Justin hung up satisfied. One more couple who might be spared a chronological quantum-leap that evening. But what of the thousands, perhaps hundreds of thousands who might already have succumbed to that cloying series of commercials. Flipping the channel, catching it by pure chance in a store window or waiting room, disinterestedly glancing up while treadmilling at the gym. Justin imagined the Big Apple just now feeling the twinges of paralysis - aisles clogging with motionless tourists, statuesque shoppers crowding around banks of digital TVs, families fixed at odd intervals inside their own living rooms - all entranced, unable to free themselves from the hold of the images.

But the traffic backups and inconveniences would pale in comparison to the forthcoming panic, when the viewers roused from their waking slumber to find themselves transported back in time, their biological clocks rewound. How would New York, that most adult of towns, handle this sudden infusion of innocence?

Almost ten minutes past. Paul Revere, he was not.

Justin steered his brain away from the apocalyptic and back to the road, but his headache grew and the lines were beginning to blur.

***

Aaron spent only moments appraising his work. Unfortunately more pressing matters commanded his attention.

The Halloween special was airing. That meant Justin’s attempts to interrupt NBC’s programming had failed. Though expected, the events left him in a state of high anxiety. Subduing Natalia may have proven the simpler task; it remained to be seen if the ensuing chaos could be contained.

In a peaceful trance, Natalia barely stirred as Aaron removed the keys from her waist. Did she already look a hair younger? Fuller cheeks? The tiny wrinkles bookending her lips maybe?

Revenge was sweet, but this was no time to savor. Somewhere on the keyring hung the release of his fellow playmates. In the last month alone Natalia had evidently amassed a daycare’s worth of kids, all enemies of one sort or another, people unfortunate enough to stumble upon her grand scheme. Another week and the authorities might have pinpointed her operation as the source of the disappearances. But all that would change on Halloween. What did Natalia call it? Her D-Day? With the city in lockdown, the NYPD’s manpower would be in short supply, she had reasoned. If for no better reason than half of its “men” would be little boys. What followed would rewrite history, by plunging people back into their pasts.

Ducking down hallways like a kid spy, Aaron finally reached room 167a. He fed the keys into the keyhole one by one. Damn it, work!

The second-to-last clicked. Aaron gingerly unlocked the door and peered inside.

Aaron’s prior encounters with the other children had been brief, but not entirely inconsequential. This was the first time he’d seen the entire crew collected, though.

Several rows of identical bunkbeds greeted him, each occupied by an attentive youth. The majority looked to be close to his age - grade-schoolers fresh out of kindergarten. A few stood taller than the rest, the oldest probably just cracking double digits. A handful of lucky victims hardly passed for pre-schoolers. Not surprisingly Natalia’s penchants manifested themselves in numerous ways. Boys accounted for at least three-fourths of the room. Natalia delighted in cutting men down to what she called a “convenient size.”

”Aaron?” one strawberry-freckled girl spoke.

”Yeah, it’s me.”

Another young voice rang from the back of the room, a familiar voice. His contact.

”Well, did it work?”

***

New York City twitched and pulsed. Like a sick man trying to shake off an unfamiliar symptom.

All around Justin a hive-like frenzy overtook the streets and shops. Cell phones glued to ears. Consternation broadcasted on every face. Holes dotted the crowd where former businessmen, street musicians, tourists, and construction workers, robbed of their proper heights, continued gazing deeply into video monitors. Small congregations stared into electronics store TVs, others, bewitched by their BlackBerries, were planted throughout the crowd. It seemed every flat surface in the city sported a screen. When word spread, millions had no doubt switched to NBC to see what all the fuss was about. Now they knew.

Justin marveled at the brilliance of Natalia’s plan. Each new onlooker immediately fell casualty to the regression signal. Rubbernecking used as a weapon. Genius.

Clogged streets soon dashed any hope of vehicular transportation. What else was new? New York was hardly forgiving on an average day. Justin abandoned the BMW and began traveling by foot, carefully avoiding anything bright or television-like in his peripheral vision. He turned up his collar.

Even with his narrowed view of the street, what Justin witnessed sent a chill through him. One after another, he passed young adults, elementary school kids, and pre-teens, drenched in their baggy attire. Fresh, cherubic features where adult faces should be. Disbelief and confusion characterized the conversations buzzing past.

”Oh my god, what’s happening to them?”

”Did you call Brad? Try my cell phone - “

”That’s fucking impossible!”

”...más j?venes...”

”Don’t look at it!”

”Kendra just texted me. She said they’re saying the TV is making people younger -“

Decades of Hollywood disaster movies hadn’t prepared Justin for the sight of a truly panicked city. The collective blood pressure increase. The rampant misinformation. But it was worse - being one who knew. Knew the truth, knew what was coming. New Yorkers were a tough breed, he thought, but only when the crisis obeyed the known laws of physics. Start manipulating the space-time continuum and all bets were off. People expect the unexpected, not the impossible.

How long had the signal been airing? 20 minutes? A half hour? From the looks of the topless five-year-old Broadway playgoer watching the Times Square jumbotron amidst a pile of designer clothing, Natalia’s Halloween was still in full swing. For Christ’s sake, why hadn’t they turned it off?

Perhaps yanking the plug on a hypnotizing program was easier said than done.

***

In Room 114b, Natalia Vanise snapped awake, her face bathed in the blue light of NBC’s “Technical Difficulties” message. An authoritative voice spoke over the graphic:

”NBC is currently experiencing technical difficulties. Anomalies in the broadcast of our special Halloween programming are being investigated at this time. If you are experiencing headaches, lightheadedness, nausea, or any other unusual symptoms, please contact the nearest health care provider...”

A spinning sensation accompanied her return to consciousness. As the seconds ticked by it slowed gradually like a carnival ride grinding to a halt. The signal’s influence invoked powerful hallucinations. For some reason her dreams were of her childhood home, the aroma of her mother’s Italian cooking, and the holidays.

She steadied herself by placing her hands on the floor at her sides. A deep-seated unease took up residence in her stomach. Foggy but physically oriented, she knew things still seemed strangely off-kilter. There was no lingering pain, only a hastily mounting dread. Cold rushed through the gaping holes in her dress, which barely clung to her body.

Oh god, my body. It all came flooding back. The fall, her ill-timed glance, the plan. No, anything but...

Natalia scanned her girlish wrist, then up her bare forearm, shoulder, and finally down her chest. Straight down as it turned out - a view uninterrupted by breasts. Natalia gasped. All indications of her womanhood had deblossomed into the even chest of a young schoolgirl. Meanwhile the front of her dress, no longer recognizable as such, hung open like a sail, supporting nothing but air. Every limb felt weightless, skinny, and vulnerable.

Losing all but one shoulder strap in the process, Natalia managed onto her feet. The equipment had grown up around her, enveloping her in a foreign land not designed for children.

”Heh... hello...” She timidly tested her new vocal cords. The soprano sounds they made died almost instantly in the echo-free chamber.

Unable to resist, Natalia’s hands explored her body inch by inch, stopping only in strategic spots to confirm her worst fears. The signal - her baby - hadn’t discriminated, working its irreversible magic on its own creator. Her mind was now consumed with one question: How young had the damned thing made her? Pangs of denial arrived at regular intervals, each prompting another brief exam of her groin and another sigh of disbelief. In vain she searched for some reassurance, a hint of maturity: the beginnings of a breast, a promising patch of curly hair, the preludes of puberty - something to point to and say, “I’m not a child.”

But the truth knocked at every door and Natalia soon relented. She was a kid now. Probably nine or ten. A liberal estimate that did little to calm her racing nerves.

With that, Natalia screamed at the top of her lungs.

It was a noise not heard in decades. The frustrated wail of little “Nattie” being taunted by her five older brothers in her hometown of Messina, Italy.

Two guards came running at the sound. The sight of a young girl, draped in black, rivulets of mascara-stained tears trailing down from her eyes, elicited a double take worthy of silent film.

”What’s going on here?”

Recognition dawned slowly. Neither was particularly fast on the uptake.

”Um...boss?”

”Ms. Vanise, is that you? What happened?” A sincerity punctuated their words. Not only was the operation in serious trouble, but the world had lost a genuinely sexy woman. And in her place stood an adorable, angry young girl.

”What does it look like, you idiots?” she snapped, her trademark fierceness filtered through a new high pitch. Natalia cringed at the hilarious result.

”What... should we do now?” the second one said, unperturbed at asking the advice of a fourth-grader.

”Aaron,” Natalia muttered. “Find Aaron! He’s loose somewhere in the building.” Her mind wandered at the mention of the little traitor. She swallowed hard imagining them side by side now - only a few years separating them. Bastard.

”Okay, boss.”

”Is there anything else we can... get for you?” the shorter one stuttered, no doubt referring to Natalia’s lack of age appropriate clothing.

”Quit staring and just go!” she yelled, her voice reaching its highest register yet. “Now!” It was an ultimatum delivered with all the wrath of a hormonal preteen accidentally seen naked in the shower.

Once left alone, Natalia hung her head. Despite successfully bringing New York City to its knees, her plan had faltered. There was no way in hell she could retain her authority over the project, much less stand before world leaders as a mere child and announce her demands. Not like this. Who could take her seriously?

No, only one option remained: revenge. A certain husband of hers needed a spanking.

***

Justin’s trip through the heart of lower Manhattan yielded no shortage of surreal sights, many ironically appropriate to the Halloween holiday. Kids dressed as hobos, firemen, doctors, and ma...tre d’s, nearly every profession under the sun. Only these weren’t youngsters at all. Even apart from the disproportionate uniforms, the recently altered adults stood out from normal children. Their speech-patterns belied much older, jaded souls. It wasn’t everyday one encountered so many preschoolers so experienced and wise in the way of expletives.

Two streets back, he’d witnessed a mother and daughter arguing loudly next to a Starbucks. The mother, who had landed somewhere in her mid-teens, was coaxing and pleading with her daughter to hold her hand.

”I’m not a little kid! Get the fuck off me!” the three-foot-tall former cheerleader had demanded, making an admirable attempt at balancing her grown up posturing with the awkward stance required to keep her old halter top bunched around her torso.

”Honey, please, just calm down. Nobody knows what’s happening - “

In tears, the kindergartener had even refused to make eye-contact, disapproving of the new angle.

”Easy for you to say!” she’d spat. “You’re, like, my age now and I’m just a baby!”

”No, Kendra, dear, listen to me. You’re not a baby - “

”Yes I am!” Tears flowing down red, fattened cheeks.

Thankfully, the signal had been totally shut off. At least that’s what Justin gleaned from the snippets of conversation around him. Natalia’s little gag had left the city in a state somewhere between hysteria and an out-of-control elementary school playground. Now came the real terror, as New York’s newly shrunken citizens awoke from their stupor.

Just five more blocks. Home, sweet home.

***

Natalia rounded the corner in a rage, her sexy robes dragging behind her.

”Aaron!” she bellowed. “I’ve got a surprise for you!”

But at the next turn, the surprise awaited her. Marching down the otherwise sterile hallway was a squadron of police, encircled by youths - her guinea pigs. Her six-year-old hubby led the way. Once they spied her, the procession froze. Natalia could see Aaron studying her intently. Moments later another sly, satisfied grin inched across his face. Perfect.

”That’s her, officers,” he said confidently. “That’s Natalia.”

”But she’s just a girl.”

No shit, Officer Obvious.

”No, she’s a woman,” Aaron explained coolly. “In mind anyway. That’s what she did to all of us. What she tried to do to New York City.”

Natalia remained silent. That was her right.

”Like I told you, it backfired. The signal hypnotized her and turned her into...well, you can see.”

The policemen talked amongst themselves while one collected Natalia. She didn’t resist. What would be the point? The discussion centered around whether or not the offender should go to a juvenile detention facility or elsewhere. Again the law was rendered inadequate that evening.

The pigs win again. Years of strategizing and development ruined. Natalia glared daggers at her youthful opponent while the heavy-set officer placed his broad fatherly hands on her shoulders. She and Aaron shared that wordless, icy stare for what seemed like the better part of a half hour.

Aaron admired his handiwork. He retraced their bizarre past in his mind; the introduction at a party in Boston, the awkward courtship, the rained-out wedding, the typical newlywed fights over furniture and friends. Then came the feminist rants, reasonable at first, before they acquired a conspiratorial tone, as if she were planning something big and illegal. Even then no one would have surmised the lengths which Natalia was capable of reaching.

She made a cute little girl though, he admitted. The olive skin, layered ebony hair, penetrating brown eyes. It suited her well at any age.

”Okay, playtime is over.”

***

Epilogue

Justin left the changed world behind him as he stepped into the apartment. How he craved normalcy. Boring fixtures, the familiar smell, the music of creaking floorboards. He was just glad to be home.

A 400 page memoir would fail to capture the sheer unreality of his day. It toyed with his head like a half-remembered nightmare, with characters and events too preposterous to be believed. But it was all actually happening; a simple glimpse out the window offered proof. What would the headlines be tomorrow? Terrorist Shrinks the Big Apple?

Once caught up with his breath, Justin cleared his throat. “Chelsea? Are you home?”

No answer at first. Though, as he drew closer to the living room, music crept past his eardrums. An odd nightcap for such a crazy evening. Soon the source revealed itself.

The TV. His new enemy. Never before had the old 26” Sony sent such an emotion through him. More troubling was the power light on the TiVo unit.

”Honey?”

Silence.

”Chelsea! I’m home...”

Blocking his eyes out of habit, Justin moved closer. Peering over the lip of the couch, he saw a silhouette quietly observing the screen.

”Cheslea?” Oh god, oh no, oh no.

The silhouette stirred.

Winding around the couch, Justin prayed hard - the hardest he’d prayed since that afternoon. She couldn’t have seen it. She had to work late, remember? She joked about watching the special, so she couldn’t have been serious. Chelsea was ambivalent about Halloween. No, she wouldn’t have...

But Justin’s case fell apart with every step, every new inch of skin revealed. A crumpled blouse propped precariously on narrow shoulders, which gave way to a babyfaced version of his wife, wide-eyed and innocent. The spitting image of her third grade yearbook photo.

This can’t be real.

Justin knelt down and ran his hand through her hair. “Baby, wake up.” She was so small, so young.

Judging from her sleepy reaction, he guessed she’d just finished watching the recorded broadcast and was only now rousing from the trance. As her consciousness slowly returned, he watched, searching her eyes for a sign of his lover. Blinking and yawning, Chelsea made no words, only noises.

As he surveyed the child before him, Justin realized how much he relied on Chelsea as the anchor of their relationship, how their age difference might plunge him into irretrievable depression. Such an unbridgeable divide would ruin his life - and hers. Forever. He couldn’t adjust to a seven-year-old wife anymore than she could live a 30-year-old husband. What could he do?

There was one thing.

Justin inhaled and exhaled deeply, hands shaking like castanets. Threatened with a second childhood once already, he recognized the strange and unique fear that accompanied it. The prospect of forfeiting his deep voice, height, and other manly traits seemed no less intimidating now. His body’s self-preservation mechanisms kicked in. What would it feel like? Backwards puberty?

He could do it - become a kid again like Chelsea - before she even realized what happened. At least they could be together, if only platonically.

He could call Christy, the next door neighbor. She would find them.

He could learn to enjoy being a little boy. Growing up alongside his beloved. It wasn’t all bad.

He could. If he was brave enough to raise the remote and switch the program back on.

It was a decision countless others would face in the coming months. Natalia’s scheme aborted, the technology would remain. Genies never return to the bottle willingly. Not with 24-hour cable news, YouTube, and today’s viral mindset. The game had changed, leaving the players to grapple with a new world where flesh was protean and age a tradeable commodity. The regression signal would be honed to suit a million different purposes - cosmetic, recreational, therapeudic, and weapon. In a society immune to aging, the real question was: What wouldn’t change?

Justin wiped his eyes. The remote slippery with sweat, he could barely keep his finger from sliding off the “play” button.

What to watch. It used to be a silly question.

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