Story #181: The Boy in the Erlenmeyer Flask

Story #181: The Boy in the Erlenmeyer Flask (Part 2 to 'Story #148: What Lies Beneath the Surface') (Content Tags: Messy diaper change, embarrassment, worldbuilding, ongoing story, horror) Leaf would go on to take off his duster and neatly place it on the floor to use as an impromptu changing mat, as to spare either him or his new friend from having to lay bare on the cold, dirty ground. He gestured for Azrael to lower himself onto it, while he fished out a crude copper tin with holes punched in the top: talcum deposits were fairly easy to come across near his home, and on days where he recuperated from his expeditions, he would mine some and refine it into a powder. It was a luxury that most didn't have access to, nor did many care to bother; the drones in the fuel pits obviously didn't receive such coddling, and those who were similarly in Leaf's meager income bracket were typically unable to afford it. The wealthy used it on their own young, but they had merchants to buy from, whom would do a much better job at processing it than Leaf. The little boy could occasionally make a tidy profit at selling satchets of the stuff, but he had a better time at selling the talcum in its untouched form. Leaf unfolded one of the diapers, wishing briefly that he'd brought ones of less expense; disposable diapers such as these were a luxury, one that he only gave himself while out on longer expeditions. In his normal life, he used cloth diapers that could be washed and reused indefinitely. He didn't mention that though, already thoroughly embarrassed by the fact that Azrael had called him a 'big baby'. "Umm, lift your butt, so I can put it under you..." He quietly instructed, not often in the position where he was putting a diaper on someone else. "This is so humiliating..." The other boy groaned, cringing as he heard the contents of Leaf's diaper smearing around in his movements. "S-sorry, I just don't have much else to offer." Leaf didn't say it, but he was more concerned about what might come next. Conquering nudity was but a small, hollow victory in the grand scheme of escaping these ruins; there were still countless monsters to worry about, and the environment itself was the biggest monster of all. Leaf hadn't brought extra clothes or an extra respirator, so how exactly could Azrael escape with him? As he started to sprinkle the baby powder, perhaps unnecessarily, since Azrael balked at wearing them, let alone using them, he decided to strike a different question: "So...What's a 'data-dooker'? You said you'd had to change diapers before and it was because of them." "Huh? Oh, well, that's not *really* what they're called. That's just what I call them. The Master call them 'Cogs' or 'Nodes'. They wear diapers, because their brain-power is used for more important stuff than the toilet." Azrael clumsily explained, his nose wrinkling as some powder danced into it. "The Master? What do you mean by their brain-power?" Half of the inquiry was fueled by the profit motive of obtaining new knowledge, while the other half came from a genuine curiosity. Azrael rubbed his head, "They're like...Living computers, and their brains are connected in a network. They process data in a way that computers can't, but they're not very smart on their own." Leaf taped the diaper snugly into place, "What's a computer?" That got a boggled expression from the freshly diapered boy, as if Leaf was asking him what a cloud or tree was. "You're kidding, right? Just where are you from anyways? The outer rings?" Leaf shook his head, "I'm from the irons, the fourth echelon. I guess things were different though, before you got stuck in that big flask." With Azrael now minimally clothed, it was Leaf's turn to be taken care of. He started to unbutton the scuffed outfit he'd been wearing under the duster, soon stepping out of the one-piece to reveal a sagging, stained diaper. It was an amusing contrast, to see his dirty skin weighed against the bright white of the babyish garment. Leaf put his clothes in a pile next to his mask, weapons, and bag, before carefully laying himself down on the ground. Azrael looked around the room, seeming to soak in fuzzy memories; the radiant glow of the machine that'd imprisoned him had dimmed to a level that made it harder to make out all the details. "Not a flask...It's a stasis pod. I can't remember going in it though...I can't remember what was going on the last time I was awake." The groggy boy looked down at Leaf's bulging diaper and sighed, "...Deal's a deal, I guess. You got some wipes?" "I have a couple rags and a jug of water. I usually just dampen them and--" "--Ugh, really? You don't even have real baby wipes?" Azrael would interrupt, looking further and further nonplussed by the whole situation. Leaf wasn't sure what to say about that, nor did he even really understand what Az was referring to; disposable, pre-moistened wipes were an alien concept to him, especially for a kid that had been stuck in one of the lower echelons for all his life. Regardless, Azrael would carefully wet one of the rags and get to work on untaping the filthy diaper around his new comrade's waist. "...You said that people haven't been living around here for hundreds of years. You thought I was dead. Since I was in the stasis pod, I gues that means I've been asleep for a really long time." There wasn't a sense of sorrow in his words, as if he didn't have anyone to mourn the loss of. "I guess...I didn't know people could live forever in a tube though. How were you even breathing in that stuff? Why didn't you drown?" "The pod is full of a special kind of amniotic fluid, kind of like a womb. You can breathe it without drowning, and the machine preserves the body perfectly in one state while you pretty much sleep." Leaf looked skeptical at the claim, but the evidence was right in front of him; he lifted his legs so that Azrael could get at cleaning his bottom, and he tilted his head to the side. "If all that is true, then you're from the Golden Age. You've been asleep for a really, really long time." Azrael got a fresh diaper underneath Leaf and he gave him a hearty shake of powder, "Golden Age, huh? I guess things have changed then, especially if you said that people don't live in thie city anymore..." With the diaper taped up, both boys were now freshly padded. Leaf sat up with a crinkle, "We need to find a way out of here, and before it gets dark outside." "Is the little diaper boy afraid of the dark?" Azrael teased with a playful grin, tossing the balled-up diaper to the side with a heavy squelch. "N-no! It just gets a lot more dangerous at night. I just don't know how you're going to safely leave, because I only have the one gas mask..." Leaf stood up and picked his duster off the floor, "I'll wear this, and umm, you can borrow my outfit. I have some bandages we can wrap around your feet too, since I don't have shoes for you." Azrael looked a little annoyed, "If you were going to lend me clothes anyways, then why am I wearing a stupid diaper?" "It's cold down here, but it'll get even colder outside, so you should take all the layers you can get." The children got dressed, though the jumpsuit was small on Azrael, since the living fossil was bigger than Leaf. "Kind of tight...Doesn't really hide the dumb diaper that much either." "S-sorry...By the way, not counting being stuck in that flask, how old are you?" Leaf asked as he buttoned up his duster. "Nine, which means you're probably like, seven or something, right?" "...Eleven." There was a brief silence, where Azrael's jaw dropped and he was stuck staring at his supposed elder. "You're *older* than me? But you look...You look really, umm, puny." It was true. Leaf looked about half his age, mostly due to malnutrition and a lack of growth pellets. Leaf could typically only afford either growth or brain pellets, and one made a lot more sense than the other, especially whenever a broken intellect was a ticket to the fuel pits. With how lackluster his expeditions had been lately, he hadn't been able to afford the brain pellets either, and thus his IQ had been starting to diminish under the oppressive haze of toxins that hung forever in the air. "We should get moving. Do you know your way around here? Do you know a way back to the surface? I fell down here, through the floor, so I don't know where the stairs are." Az nodded and gestured for Leaf to follow him out of the room, "Yeah, I lived in this building, so I know all the ins and outs." "Do you want the gun or the sword?" It felt like a confusing offer for the younger boy, "Why? Did robots take over the world? Or giant bugs?" He was teasing, but there was an uneasy tone to it. "The city is full of monsters. Really scary monsters. That's what chased me whenever I fell down here. From what I know, the monsters get worse the further underground you go, and that's where we are, so we might run into one." The door opened up with some trouble and Az looked a little annoyed, "Stop trying to scare me. There's no such thing as monsters." Leaf wished that were true, and he hoped that Azrael wouldn't have to find out the hard way, but it felt inevitable that they're be running into something before they were able to leave this crypt. "Sword or gun?" He repeated dryly. Az rolled his eyes, but ended up taking the blade from the smaller boy. The sword, or 'saber', was actually one of Leaf's more expensive tools; it was a modified design of something used by professional scavengers, refurbished as a favor by an engineering prodigy in the third echelon. The scabbard had a complex mechanism that super-heated the blade upon being unsheathed, which tremendously helped Leaf overcome his lackluster strength. The gun, called a 'pea-shooter', was a mini-rifle that had been specifically designed for a child to comfortably use. It had little recoil and incredible accuracy for a slum weapon, but it sacrificed stopping power. It was typically only good for small game or headshots on the mourners. Azrael led the smaller boy further down the corridor that they'd been emptied into. There were still lights on, but they weren't terribly luminescent; after hundreds of years of abandonment, some of the technology down here was starting to fall into disrepair. Azrael opened another door and beckoned for Leaf to follow him inside. "There's a shortcut through here to the next level down." Leaf furrowed his brow at that, "You got that orange stuff in your ears still? I told you we need to go back up, not down. We'll be dinner if we keep going lower." "It'll be worth it. My quarters are down there, and if everything is as dangerous as you say, then we'll need everything we can get. What we really need is to get to lab five, so I can pick up something special." Az explained, squatting down with a crinkle to open up a hatch in the floor. "Okay...Well, what you really need are some shoes and a respirator. Even if we get back on the surface, you'll just get poisoned without one." The next level down was darker, with fewer lights still operating than up top. Leaf took a moment to rummage through his bag, taking out a bulky, battered flashlight. Azrael grimaced at the sight of the primitive monstrosity, but he didn't make any remarks on it, instead politely thanking Leaf for the light source and pressing forward. The underground part of the building was a lot more intact than the upper levels, but the persistence of time was indelible and merciless; the halls were coated in dust and debris, cracks ran across the walls, and suspect stains blotted the corridors. Leaf didn't say it, but it was obvious that this place had seen some misery and violence in the time that Az had been peacefully sleeping in the flask. "Earlier, you mentioned a cataclysm. You said that it happened here, right? What happened?" Azrael suddenly asked, perhaps starting to acknowledge that the mysterious intruder was being honest about everything he'd said so far. Leaf shrugged and shook his head, "I don't know the real story, I don't think anyone does. At least nobody in the echelon I'm from. There's a big crater in the wreckage of the city though, and some of the worst monsters come from it. I had a buddy tell me that the fog came from here too, but I thought that the fog might've just always been around..." "What fog?" "It's like...Purple smoke, and it's everywhere. Most places, you can't see it too much, but there are spots where it gets really dense. It's toxic. Does that not ring any bells?" A look of disbelief came across Azrael's face and he gave a small shake of the head, "No. The air was clean the last time I was awake. Even in the factory districts, the pollution wasn't bad enough to kill anyone. I guess the gas mask makes sense...But you're saying that it's *everywhere*?" Leaf nodded, "Yeah, pretty much. It won't kill you immediately or anything, but it hurts you over time...Causes your brain to turn to mush, and makes it harder for your body to grow." Before any further explanation could happen, Azrael stopped at a door and nudged it open. "These are my quarters. Or were, I guess. I just want to see what I can get, and then we'll head to the fifth lab." Leaf followed him in, noting that even while in disarray, the bedroom was beyond anything he'd ever had for himself. Much like the rest of the facility, it was also wrapped in an aesthetic that was utterly alien to what Leaf had come to known in The Irons. "I don't want to be rude, but...Is it okay if I scavenge stuff you don't want?" Azrael had already started to dig into the drawers, the wood rotting but keeping its shape. "Scavenge? For what? I don't think you'd want any food, even if it was still in its wrapper." "Old technology goes for a lot on the market...So do books or any resources that are still usable. That's the reason I came here, even though I'm not supposed to." Azrael dug out a small rectangle from the drawer and tossed it over toward his new friend, "Batteries are probably dead, but that used to be a game system." Leaf looked over the device with awe. He'd seen screens like this before, but almost never in this good of condition. "You play games on this little machine? How?" "I'll show you later. Look, if you want to play pack rat, then go ahead and horde whatever you want. I'm just going to grab a few things and then we can leave." Both boys would wander around the room, each with wildly differing goals on what was worthwhile to take; Az had found a bag to store things in, but unfortunately had no luck in finding better clothes, as his wardrobe had all but disintegrated in the centuries that had passed. "Great...Looks like I'm stuck in babypants for now. You get everything you wanted?" Leaf had taken advantage of the generosity shown to him and had filled his bag with whatever interesting baubles he could find. "Yeah! This stuff is amazing! We'll be eating good once I can offload it." "Yeah, and you can buy more *diapers*." Azrael teased, heading to exit the room. "W-waste receptacle! And they're not cheap!" The younger boy again rolled his eyes, "Well, maybe we'll find some more in the labs. Those data-dooker diapers were pretty big...Probably a lot better quality, not that *I* ever wore them." As embarrassing as that was, Leaf had to admit that it'd be a boon to find. "Hmph. What do you need from the labs anyway?" "We're going to wake up a friend of mine to take with us. There should be some gear too. Then we can check out the elevator and see if it still works." Right after Az said that, a disturbing and gurgling roar sounded off in the distance. Azrael stiffened and paled at the sound, having never heard anything remotely like it. "W-what was *that*?" Leaf kept his hands on his rifle, "...The reason I gave you a weapon to hold onto, and a good reason to be wearing a diaper."