Path: usenet.ins.cwru.edu!b62535.STUDENT.CWRU.Edu!adm4 From: adm4@po.cwru.edu (Aaron Mandelbaum) Newsgroups: alt.devilbunnies Subject: sylvie squirrel explains [sl] Date: Thu, 4 May 1995 06:44:24 GMT Organization: CWRU Lines: 147 Message-ID: NNTP-Posting-Host: b62535.student.cwru.edu Aaron woke up tied to a table. In terror, he tried to tear the tape that held him down, but large amounts of duct tape don't take well to that kind of attempt. He frantically looked around the room for... for... for something, anyway, cursing himself for not acting sooner. Now it was too late. He noticed quite a bit of medical equipment set up around him, and wondered where the squirrels had been hiding it all week. And how they were powering it... oh, there was the cigarette lighter adapter hooked up to a power strip. Most of it (IVs and such) didn't really need much power anyway. Not that that was reassuring. "I'm sorry, Aaron," Sylvie said, having somehow snuck up on his chest while he stared stupidly at the machines. "I wish there was some other way." "There is," he said angrily, "Let me go! I'm not sick!" "Of course not," she said, "Not really. But you aren't well, either, and you certainly aren't stable. [flick]" "You've been saying that all along! What are you talking about? Maybe you don't agree with my ethics, but that doesn't make me insane." "No," she said, "It makes you evil. But you aren't really. [flick] I'll explain." "Oh, you will? Great. Why don't you untape me so we can talk like... er... intelligent beings?" Sylvie chuckled, and shook her head. "Because you're not sane right now. [flick] It's all my fault, I'm afraid. Remember when you were a Fudd? Of course you do. Remember when I snuck into the camp to warn you of the bunnies? Of course you do. Remember what happened then?" "Yeah," he said, "You were freaking out, so I grabbed you until you calmed down." "What else happened?" "Um... you left? What are you getting at?" "I bit you," she said, shuddering. Aaron blinked. Oh, yeah. "So?" "The squirrels at UCirc are not natural. I'm sure you know that! What you might not know is how we were converted." "Nanites, right?" "No," she said, shaking her head, "That's may be what the bunnies use now, but our conversion is based on the bunnyvirus. Rather, an altered version of it. We call it the squirrelvirus, sometimes. But rather than turn humans into bunnies, it turns squirrels into... [shrugflick] squirrels. "What we didn't know, was that it also turns humans into squirrels." "I'm *not* a squirrel!" "Yes," she said sadly, "You are. You've been a squirrel for months now, genetically at least." Aaron stared at her, as best as he was able (he could barely lift his head off the table). She really believed that! He shuddered. Maybe it was true. But even so... "But I'm not a squirrel physically," he said, "Even if that's true, what's the problem? Obviously, it didn't change anything important." "It changed your *mind*," Sylvie said, "Just as it was designed to do. Only, since it was supposed to start from a squirrel, it did it in an undefined way. Although looking at your actions afterwards we can start sketching out some of the details. [grimswish]" "So you bit me and it turned me evil," Aaron said, "And now you want to 'cure' me? How?" "The squirrelvirus was designed to produce sane squirrels. Apparently, it can't produce sane humans. [chitter] So..." "No!" Aaron said, horrified, "AAaaargh!!" "So we'll have to turn you into a squirrel." "Aaaaaaaaaargh! Let me out! Aargh!" "Don't worry," she said, "It should be safe. I buddied up to that test-tube washer and got a sample of really good bunnyvirus." "Bunnyvirus! Aaaaaaaaargh!" "Yeah! [flick] If my theory is right..." "YOUR theory???? You're a soldier, not a mentat! Aaargh!" "I talked to Chris a lot about this, over dinner. When we were plotting our revolt. The two viruses are very similar. The bunnyvirus'll start the transformation process to put your phenotype back in line with your genotype, or whatever it's called, but it won't actually infect your cells and change the DNA 'cause it'll see they've already been changed!" "Aaaargh!" "Isn't it neat!" Aaron stopped screaming. Not because it was neat, but because he was out of breath. "Sylvie," he panted, "(a) I don't want to be a squirrel. (b) There're so many holes in your theory that you could drive a truck through it. (c) I want to be a bunny even less. (d) I want to be *dead* even less than that, and that's what I think is going to happen. (e) I'm not insane! I'll give up WOMBAT, if that's what you want! Anything!" Sylvie looked hurt. "Why don't you want to be a squirrel? [poutflick] Don't you like me?" Aaron grimaced and let out a low growl. "Sylvie," he said, "You KIDNAPPED ME and TIED ME TO A TABLE, CUT OFF MY NET ACCESS, and now you're going to INJECT ME WITH BUNNYVIRUS! Of COURSE I like you! I fucking LOVE you! I'd love you to DEATH if I could move my arms!" "But why don't you want to be a squirrel? [flick?]" "Because you're all dirty, smelly rodents who steal everything, refuse to admit that you might be wrong, chitter incessantly and keep flicking your damn tails at me! I *hate* that! I hate the whole *idea* of tails!" He tried to lunge up, but his rush of adrenaline proved entirely inadequate. "You'll like it," she said, "It's convenient." "Aaaaaaaaaaaarrrrrr..." "Oh!" Sylvie said, "I forgot the most important step! We need to make sure that you're really saturated with sqirrelvirus first." A stream of squirrels poured into the room and clambered all over him. "Now did you all brush your teeth?" Sylvie asked. The squirrels nodded, some baring gleaming pearly whites to prove it. She smiled. "Okay, then, you all know the spots we picked out..." Screaming seemed entirely inadequate. So he just whimpered. -- Aaron Mandelbaum (Will Aaron escape from Sylvie's fiendish plot? Will he be turned into a squirrel? A bunny? A *sane* squirrel/bunny? Stay tuned... TBC next August, in: Aaron goes nuts, or: Sad and lonely tail. :)