------------------------------------------------------------------------ Election Night at UCirc Newsgroups: alt.devilbunnies From: adm4@po.cwru.edu (Aaron Mandelbaum) Message-ID: Date: Mon, 12 Sep 1994 18:59:57 GMT Organization: CWRU [Sorry this took so long. But a lot of time passed in the story, so its probably for the best.] "So he's actually going to go through with this election thing?" Aaron asked, after Sylvie returned from her meeting with Chris. Loren was allowing them to see each other, so that they'd know that the others weren't being tortured, but not unobserved -- he didn't trust them. Chris, of course, was fine, being the irreplaceable SquirrelMentat and head of the UCirc lab. Erik was in worse shape, locked up in his quarters under heavy guard, but aside from being forced to remain in the tiny room, tiny even for squirrels, he too was okay. Sylvie and Aaron had the run of the warren, since the upcoming election was their responsibility to set up and run. "It looks like it," she said, "He agreed to all my requests. He only insisted that it be one squirrel, one vote, and that everyone in the warren be eligible. I don't understand what his angle is. At LEAST three quarters of the warren hates him." "It has to be a trap," Aaron said. "Duh! The problem is finding it before it finds us. I don't suppose you've found anything, have you?" "Um..." Aaron said, glancing at the floor, "Actually I've been playing with the portable comp you gave me. I think I've got the commands down, but this ten-key keyboard is annoying. It's two keys for every letter." "Can you concentrate on what we're doing?" she screeched, throwing a pile of forms to the floor, "We've got to do this tommorrow, and we have to win! Did you even set up the registration list?" "Of course!" Aaron said defensively, "That's why I started messing around with the thing in the first place. Well... maybe not, but I downloaded the warren roster and set up a little program to keep track of who's voted. No problem, but do you know your BUNIX doesn't even have C? All I could find is B++. Cute language, very cute." "Look," Sylvie said, "I'm leaving now to find some people to work the voting booths and do security. Why don't you... I don't know. Do whatever you want." "I'll check the legal texts," Aaron added as she left the room, "Just in case." He sighed. It was hard to concentrate on the task at hand, when just what had to be done was so unclear. None of what they'd done was really necessary. He'd wanted to just have everyone e-mail a ballot to her account, so they could count them automatically, but she didn't trust the computer system. Wise, since Loren had run it for... many years. The squirrels refused to mention just how long they'd been hiding, but he knew it was longer than Sylvie'd been alive, which probably meant at least fifteen or twenty years, probably more like thirty. Unless squirrels matured faster than humans. Wild ones did, of course, but did the DB modifier virus change that? In any case, she didn't trust the warren computers, so they were setting up a bunch of voting booths and funneling the entire warren population through them. Slow, a bother both to them and to the population as a whole, which had to wait in line, probably for hours, and it added the additional annoyance of actually counting the votes afterward. All in all, he'd rather run in by computer. If Loren messed with the votes, well, he could always fudge the numbers. He shrugged. Sylvie was impossible to argue with, since she'd 'lose her temper' and storm out before anything could be decided. It takes two sides to argue... and since she was doing most of the work, it was up to him to make sure that his part matched. There were still a couple hours before Loren's dinner invitation, so he downloaded the legal files on murder and started reading. Aaron woke up and checked his watch. 4:00AM? It couldn't be, there'd been that dinner thing at six, and Loren would have sent his goons if he overslept. And where was Sylvie? He stood up, hitting his head on the @#$%&*! five foot ceiling, and squeezed out the door. The hallway was empty. Aaron looked both ways, but as far as he could see not a single squirrel darted across the floor or scurried along the catwalks. He flexed his hands, wishing he had his hockey stick, but Loren had confiscated their weapons in the interest of public safety. In the interest of not being shot on the spot, or at least losing their chance to hold the election, they'd let him. He thought he heard a chattering to the north, so he followed it. Eventually, after several wrong turns, he managed to find the source. Loren was giving a speech. At four in the morning. He had to get down to the floor to peer through the strictly squirrel-sized opening, but when he did he could see the enormous auditorium, even by human standards, packed to the brim with squirrels. And there in the center, surrounded by his subjects, Loren was giving a campaign speech. In squirrel, damn him, and Aaron couldn't understand more than the two or three words he'd picked up in the last few days. Namely, 'squirrel', 'human', and 'devilbunny'. Squirrel was an annoying language, since 90% of the words sounded like 'chatter' unless you listened very, very carefully. And half the rest were tailflicks. Well, Aaron thought, there's not a lot I can do here. Didn't Sylvie say the control center was near the main auditorium? Loren had mentioned that it was across from his office. He wandered a little farther down the hall, and soon enough came to a section of tunnels he recognized from his first visit. He turned right, then left, and stepped through a nondescript door into the heart of the warren. The room was dominated by a large table covered with a three dimensional representation of University Circle and the warren beneath it. It looked electronic, and was dark now, but would no doubt come to life if the scouts saw anyone coming. He hoped there were scouts, that Loren hadn't called them in too... no, Loren wouldn't do that. The next thing he noticed was the pair of consoles set in the far wall. They looked like normal terminals, except for the strange seats. He saw that one of them was still on, logged in, and walked across the room to look at it. He almost tripped over the squirrel, a red one, which ran to the acitve terminal and shut it off. "Who are you?" it squeaked. Loren had dropped the no-english restriction once it had become obvious that all squirrels could talk if they wanted. All the higher ranked squirrels knew english quite well, although most of the converstions in the warren were still in squirrel. "Nevermind," the squirrel added before Aaron could reply, "There's only one human in this warren. A better question would be, what are you doing here?" "Who are you?" Aaron asked. "None of your business. In fact, this entire room is none of your business, so leave. Now!" "I just want to look around," Aaron said, walking to the other terminal. He turned it on, but then noticed that it had no screen. The squirrel chattered irritable behind him, but he couldn't make out what it was saying. "Get. Out." "Why? What's to hide?" "Nothing! Leave. Now. Or. Else." "Or else what?" "Or else you will regret it. Soon." Aaron looked at the squirrel and pretended to think about it. "So you personally are going to make me regret it? Loren can't hate me more that he already does, and I'm not terribly frightened of you... what did you say your name was, anyway?" He stared the squirrel in the eyes. The squirrel stared back. They stood there, frozen, for a long time. The squirrel seemed to grow. The room around it fuzzed, and the eyes grew, darkening as well, until they were huge pits of blackness that threatened to swallow him whole. Aaron locked his gaze, put on his best menacing face, and refused to look away. He was used to his mind doing things like this, it was one of the drawbacks of reading twenty sci-fi books a week for five years. Suddenly, the squirrel grinned. Its teeth were pointed. Aaron stopped running when he got to his room. -- Aaron Mandelbaum (He who can control a thing, can destroy a thing. Just look at airline pilots. And Clinton. ;) ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Usenet Web 1.0.3 (development) / webmaster@netimages.com