One by one, the other contestants were brought over—Sarah first, then Mason, Maria, and finally, a groggy-looking Finn. Each was deposited into a waiting bouncer with the same practiced fluidity Ivy had experienced, their legs threaded through the leg holes, straps snapped tight before they had a chance to react. Not that many of them did. Their expressions were muted, their bodies pliable, drifting along in the current of whatever drug laced their systems. Ivy watched them, trying not to show her tension, even as her bouncer shifted beneath her with every subtle twitch, squishing her messy diaper.

The cartoon had begun in earnest. Naomi twirled onto the screen in exaggerated loops, her hair drawn like ribbons of sunlight, her voice sweetened with false affection. “Now remember, babies,” she sang, winking toward the audience with a glinting, too-perfect smile, “when we share, we show we care!” Beside her, Oliver bounced along like a wind-up toy, his diaper puffed and pacifier bobbing with every syllable. His speech was muffled and simple, just enough to model behavior.

Ivy remained rigid, bouncing only when the elastic cords demanded it from her body. Her pacifier moved slowly between her lips. She colored the lines of her expression with a layer of relaxed obedience, softening her eyes, letting her shoulders sag like she was succumbing.

Then Sarah giggled.

It wasn’t subtle; it bubbled up from her chest like champagne, light and ringing. She clapped her mittens together—loudly, twice—and her legs kicked, sending her bouncing once, then twice, until the motion became a rhythm all its own. Her face had bloomed into an expression Ivy hadn’t seen in days. Joy. Or something like it. Not the forced kind, not a mask, but the unfiltered glee of someone whose mind had been stripped down and rewired.

She babbled, giddy and high-pitched. Nothing but scattered syllables, happy nonsense flung like paint against a wall. “Na-na-mah! Shaaaare! Bah-bah-bah!”

And just like that, the rest began to follow.

Mason jerked upright in his bouncer, arms waving with erratic excitement. He didn’t speak, but his mouth moved like he wanted to. Maria let out a squeal and began bouncing with increasing speed, her pacifier forgotten as she tried to repeat the words Naomi encouraged them to say—tried, and failed, her consonants slipping sideways, vowels drawn out into senseless coos. Finn twitched beside her, nursing his pacifier so aggressively it squeaked, then let it fall and tried to speak. What came out was a wet string of mushy attempts: “Sha… sha… da-da…”

Ivy’s heart thundered.

So this was it. This was the cost of blending it. Not just the sluggish limbs or the drooling, not just the embarrassing loss of bodily control—but a regression of will, of language and thought.

She was the only one still intact.

And if she didn’t start acting like she wasn’t, they would realize she was the odd one out.

So she giggled.

It wasn’t her best work, but it did the job. She let it ring out with a tremble of false delight, tilted her head to the side like something on the screen actually amused her. Then she clapped, twice—softly, hesitantly—letting the mittens smack together like a toddler’s flailing hands. Her bouncer responded immediately, springing into motion. The cords squealed slightly as she began to bounce, her legs moving with faux abandon. Her diaper squished with every descent, spreading against her skin in slow, sticky waves.

She cooed next. A babble, soft and simple. “Bah… bah… sha-na!” She repeated the garbled sounds, making her mouth clumsy, rounding her syllables into drool-thick nonsense. It felt wrong. It felt awful. But as she looked to her left and caught Maria’s wide, vacant smile, she knew it was also necessary.

The cartoon rolled on.

Naomi danced, her animated form singing about playing nicely and listening well. Oliver tripped over blocks and was praised for not crying, for being brave. Ivy watched the screen with eyes half-lidded, her mouth still suckling the pacifier between coos. Occasionally, she bounced too high and let herself stumble with a little yelp, mimicking how a weakened toddler might react—surprised, uncertain, but too fogged to care. Each time, she recovered with another string of babble, playing to the rhythm of regression that echoed through the room like a lullaby set on repeat.

Every small shift of Ivy’s body triggered another springy rebound, sending her diaper squishing against her. It clung with every descent, pressing up between her thighs, warm and swollen. Her cheeks flushed deeper each time, a tide of humiliation she refused to let rise higher than her carefully crafted expression of vacant cheer. Ignore it, she told herself. The others aren’t flinching. The others aren’t blushing. Why should you? She let the pacifier roll gently in her mouth, nursing in slow, deliberate motions. 

The cartoon dragged on.

The nursery colors, once pastel and soft, now seemed almost predatory in their persistence. Naomi’s sing-song instructions about obedience and good behavior gave way to musical numbers about diapers and feelings and how “big thoughts are too big for little minds.” Oliver nodded and babbled and fell over his own feet again and again, earning laughter and praise that made Ivy’s skin crawl. Around her, the others had sunk deeper into it. Sarah rocked in time with the music, her pacifier squeaking softly as she nursed. Finn was now clapping on instinct, vacant-eyed and twitchy. Maria was mumbling the song’s chorus, too garbled to understand.

By the time the credits rolled, Ivy was ready to scream.

Instead, she bounced once more, cooed softly, and let her arms sag like her motor control had finally given out. The music faded, and the screen darkened. 

Then Mistress spoke.

“Oh, my sweet little ones,” her voice chimed in from every speaker, smooth and awful and far too pleased with itself. “You’ve done such a good job! I’m so proud of every one of you. This was a very special trial, and guess what? It’s over!”

Ivy blinked. 

Mistress continued, voice like saccharine punch. “Now, it's time to vote. One of you was pretending. One of you didn’t get your medicine. One of you is our little fibber.”

The bouncers shifted slightly beneath them, and with a quiet mechanical hum, small screens rose from the tray-like bars in front of each contestant. Five buttons, each labeled with a simple number—no names, just designations. Ivy's gaze drifted down to her set: 10, 12, 20, 24, 56, 86. Her fingerless mittens hovered, noncommittal, above the display. Around her, the others stared at theirs, too.

Whatever spell the cartoon had cast shattered the moment Mistress’s voice shifted tone. The music was gone, and the lights felt a little harsher now. The others looked around, and it hit Ivy—really struck her—how different they were. The blank smiles had faded. The giggles were gone, and they weren’t babbling now. They seemed confused.

Finn glanced between the numbers and his fellow contestants, a furrow working into his brow like a fog he couldn’t quite push through. His lips moved, as if forming a question, but he didn’t speak. Mason looked down at his screen, blinking rapidly. Maria chewed on her pacifier, eyes darting side to side. Sarah tapped the tray lightly, then stopped, her head cocked like she was trying to recall a word that had wandered off and never come back.

They didn’t understand, not in the way Ivy did. Either that, or they were all very good at acting.

She looked back at her screen, feigning the same confusion, even letting her mouth hang open slightly. Her pacifier bobbed gently as she breathed through her nose, giving her the look of someone barely aware of what they were seeing. Inside, though, her mind was racing.

If the medicine didn’t just slow their bodies, but also their thoughts, then this vote might not even be fair. Could they even reason through it? Could they spot inconsistencies, remember actions, and question the strange fluidity of her movements versus theirs? Or would they vote at random?

Ivy blinked again, forcing herself to look at each contestant in turn. She let her eyes narrow just a little, as if trying to puzzle it out like the rest. She even tilted her head slightly, suckled on the pacifier harder, and furrowed her brow. A perfect picture of dull incomprehension.

Just another confused baby.

One by one, like hesitant dominoes, the buttons lit beneath the contestants' mittens.

Sarah was the first. Her hand hovered, twitching slightly, then dropped. A faint beep followed. Finn moved next, his brows drawn in concentration, tongue poking slightly between his lips as if the act of choosing required the last shreds of his mental energy. His hand shook, mittens brushing the screen, and then: another soft chime. Maria glanced around nervously, her eyes flickering between the others, lips pressed tight around her pacifier. She pressed her button more by instinct than thought, as if responding to a reflex she didn’t understand. Ivy waited, breathing carefully through her nose, trying not to tremble as she selected Mason’s number—86. 

Then came the silence. The kind that made her skin prickle.

The bouncers creaked with the subtle shifting of bodies. Five figures sat strapped into soft-plastic prisons, padded, pacified, and waiting. Ivy’s heart pounded in her ears, her bounce halting, pacifier forgotten for the first time in what felt like hours. Her mouth was dry. 

Mistress’s voice returned.

“Interesting,” she purred. “Very, very interesting results.”

That was all it took. Ivy’s chest tightened, and her breath caught halfway between inhalation and screaming. 

“I must say,” Mistress went on, her voice bright, but coy, “I did not expect this outcome…”

Ivy’s entire body tensed. Her fingers balled into trembling fists inside her mittens. Her legs pressed together, thighs brushing against the heavy, used diaper wrapped around her. Was it her? Had they guessed? Had she failed? Her stomach churned with panic. Her eyes darted to each of the others.

And then it happened.

A click echoed beneath Mason’s bouncer. The straps released in a single fluid motion, his body jerking forward in surprise. His eyes widened—genuine this time—as the floor beneath him cracked open like a mechanical mouth. He barely had time to gasp. One moment he was there, slumped in the padded seat, pacifier dangling from his lips.

The next, he was gone.

A soft whoosh, a blur of motion, and the panel resealed with a seamless hiss.

Ivy had done it.

She’d actually pulled it off. Against all odds, with a messy diaper pressing between her thighs and a pacifier still hanging from her lips, she’d convinced the others she was just as doped and dazed as they were. Her breath caught in her chest for half a second before it escaped in a long, slow exhale. Her limbs, tense for what felt like hours, loosened like drawn strings finally cut. She let her head fall back against the padded arch of the bouncer seat, closing her eyes just long enough to feel the absence of fear.

Then—

“Oh thank fuck,” Finn muttered, his voice plain, human, and very much not babyish.

Ivy’s eyes snapped open. The pacifier tumbled from her lips and bounced once on her chest.

Finn was grinning, his face flushed from relief, his hands rubbing at his face like someone emerging from a long, bizarre dream. “I thought for sure you all figured it out,” he said, laughing now. Not giggling. Not cooing. Laughing. “I was this close to just throwing in the towel and confessing.”

The room shifted in an instant.

Ivy sat upright. So did Sarah and  Maria.

Confused silence cracked into scattered disbelief, each of them scanning the others like strangers seeing familiar faces for the first time. “What do you mean?” Sarah demanded. “I fooled everyone!”

“No, no, I did!” Maria said quickly, bouncing in her bouncer with renewed indignation. “I even drooled on cue! Did you see the drool? That wasn’t real!”

“Oh my god,” Ivy said softly. “Guys…”

She blinked, her heart climbing right back into her throat, not with fear but with dawning, blinding comprehension. Her eyes moved from Finn to Sarah to Maria and back again. None of them looked medicated. 

No limp limbs, no fogged gazes.

“We’ve been played,” Ivy breathed.

They all stared at her.

Then at one another.

They had all been trying to out-infantilize one another while watching for a tell.

Each of them thought they were the only one pretending.

Every single one had fallen for it.