[may, 1995, in an underground bunker near Denver, CO]

Aaron lay in the makeshift clinic, crying softly and shaking with
fear, or maybe cold... with nothing else to think about (except
for the future, and he couldn't think about the future) every
sensory input was magnified, until small annoyances like the chill
air on his bare skin, the frigid metal of the examination table,
the pinching stickiness of the duct tape, and the hundreds
of squirrel bites covering every part of his body were magnified
into... larger annoyances.

The funny (funny? he giggled slightly, then giggled a little
more, and it was several minutes before he could stop. Funny,
indeed) thing was that he really wouldn't mind being turned
into a squirrel. It had always been a fantasy of his, ever
since he was a kid. Not squirrels specifically, of course, but
something else... *anything* else. Preferably something small
and furry.

Like a guinea pig? He giggled more, until it turned into a cough,
or maybe a sob.

He'd read trashy sci-fi novel after trashy sci-fi novel, trying
to imagine what it would be like... he'd never thought it would
be like this. He still didn't think it would be like this. This,
he thought, is death.

And he didn't want to die.

* * *

He woke to the prickle of claws on his chest. He lifted his head
up to look, and wasn't surprised to see Sylvie standing there,
looking worried.

"Don't worry!" she said, "I know what I'm doing."

"You're trying to reconstruct a complex experimental procedure
from lunchroom chit chat," Aaron hissed. "That's what you're doing."

"Oh, no," she said, "I just didn't want to mention too much in
front of the others. [flick] I was good friends with ChrisMentat."
She looked down and twitched her tail a bit. "Very good friends."

"How nice for you."

"Shut up!" she dug her foreclaws into his skin, lashing her tail
angrily, "Do you know what it took to set this up, Aaron? Do you
have any idea? [chitter] Would I have done it if it wasn't
necessary? Or if I didn't know what I was doing?"

They glared at each other, and she went on...

"Like I said, I was *very* good friends with ChrisMentat. [flick]
He didn't 'mention' it in passing, he explained it. He let me
come along when he did his experiments."

"It's been done before, then." What was that... was that hope?

Sylvie paused a few seconds before answering. "It's been tried
before."

Aaron sighed, and let his head drop back down to the table.

"But he knew what he was doing wrong," she added quickly, "and
he told me how he'd fix it for the next test. But there never
*was* a next test, you see. Loren found out and canceled the
project, and ordered them never to try anything like it again!
[flick]"

"So what was he doing wrong?" 

"There's an... imbalance. That needs to be imbalanced the other
way. And there's a certain... substance that can do it. We'll
give you the first dose tommorrow. [flick] But I just came in
here now because I saw how worried you are. I wanted to let you
know that I *do* know what I'm doing. [flick!]"

"WHAT-ever."

"Fine. Be that way. I've had all I can take of you today, mister
wombat." A sneer and a leap, and she was gone.

After a while, he got back to sleep. But he wasn't crying now.

* * *

Chit lay curled up in the corner of the recieving bay, chewing on
his tail and staring blankly at the transport, still resting
against the wall where it had stopped. And reminiscing.

Was that how it had happened? Or was he filling in bits. Making
up details. 

He remembered how he'd been afterwards... wandering for weeks
without knowing who he was, or where he was... not really
knowing anything except that he had to get back to UCirc.

Whereever that was.

After a while he started to remember. Who he was. Who he'd been.
What he'd been. And he'd been terrified that it wasn't going to
come back... but it had.

Not this part, though. He'd *never* been able to remember what
happened after Sylvie and her crew injected him with bunnyvirus.
He wasn't entirely sure he was remembering now.

But it wasn't hard to guess why he was thinking about it. He
could recognize an analogy when it stared him in the face.

Even if he couldn't look it in the eye.

==
Chit