------------------------------------------------------------------------ Waiting... Newsgroups: alt.devilbunnies From: adm4@po.cwru.edu (Aaron Mandelbaum) Message-ID: Date: Wed, 7 Sep 1994 05:42:28 GMT Organization: CWRU [author's note: I've had it with 3rd person present tense! Arrgghh!] Of course, there had to be more to the plan than 'walk in and kill Loren'. That may have worked on Loren's boss, but Loren KNEW Aaron was the enemy, and was unlikely to fall for the same trick he'd used so many years ago. There had to be some overwhelming reason for him to agree to a meeting, and some way to take care of the guards that would inevitably be present. Sylvie told him, once they reached her secure area, that the only squirrels absolutely loyal to Loren were the silver squirrels, apparently the result of some twisted devilbunny experiment. She said that one of the other members of the group would be able to explain better, and that actually, and further explanation should wait until the entire group was present, so that everyone could add their share. "Wait a minute," Aaron said, looking around at the tiny dark chamber marked as 'supporting struts' on the warren blueprints, "I thought you said this was a large group, that almost everyone in the warren supported you." "Almost everyone in the warren DOES support us," Sylvie replied, sitting up and flicking her tail angrily, glaring at him. Glaring squirrels are scary enough when they're staring at you from trashcans, Aaron thought, let alone when they're sitting on your lap... "So how many peop-- squirrels do you have?" "I don't *have* anyone, but there're three of us." "THREE?" "Why do you think we need you help? If there were a thousand of us we'd have taken over by now!" Aaron thought about that. "So what exactly are the three of you going to do?" "The *four* of us will discuss that when Chris and Erik get here." Time passed. "Stop it!" Sylvie snarled, snapping at Aaron's hand, "What am I, a cat?" "Sorry," he said, putting his hands behind his back, "Force of habit. I have four cats at home." "Oh? Where do you live?" "Toledo," he replied, "Not too far away. I just hope Loren doesn't look her up and make trouble. I'd never know until it was too late." "Don't worry," she said, "If he tries anything, we'll stomp on it. Matter of fact, maybe the first thing we should do... no, let's wait for the others." "Who are the others? Besides their names, I mean. I assume you're some kind of military leader..." "Not a leader," she positively bristled, and claws dug into his thighs through his shorts, "Only Loren's *special friends* get to be leaders." She glowered a little, then recovered. "Chris is the mentat here, SquirrelMentat, as a matter of fact, since he's the only squirrel mentat in the world, as far as we know. I don't think the devilbunnies let squirrels take the tests." "And Erik?" "Middle management, in the warren. He organized this whole thing, takes care of the logistics, and covers the paper trail. We wouldn't have lasted a day without him." "So how did you get started?" Sylvie shrugged, the ripple travelling the entire length of her body, ending in the tip of her tail. "All three of us knew Loren personally, and hated his guts. So we decided to form a resistance movement, kind of as a joke. Erik took it seriously and set the whole thing up, so we figured, why not?" "Um... because you could get caught and executed?" Aaron suggested. "Well, Loren would never hurt Chris, he needs him too much, so Chris went along right away. Then I HAD to, to make sure they didn't mess up and get caught. Loren knows the three of us hang out, and if he caught them doing anything he'd arrest me anyway, just to be safe. Loren believes strongly in being safe." The conversation kind of died, and they waited in the relative dark for Chris and Erik to finally arrive. Sylvie gradually became more and more agitated. "What's wrong, are they late?" "Extremely late," she said, "They were supposed to get here at the same time we did. I think something might have happened to them..." -- Aaron Mandelbaum "Sorry I'm late." "That's okay, time doesn't exist." -- Slackers ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Usenet Web 1.0.3 (development) / webmaster@netimages.com