Igor's Warehouse, Wednesday Morning

[canlendyouahand]

A single Pi-Rat scampered into Igor's warehouse. It took one look around - taking in the shelves full of jars, some of which glowed and some of which were full of partly grown body parts - and scampered right back out again

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[ecirpnellehada]

Adah was late. It was not the sort of tardiness that one might have expected out of Adah due to her limp, or even due to the fact that she had with her a rather smart rabbit who knew that something was up, something was going on, and was trying to get out of it through squirming and, on a few occasions sinking his teeth into Adah's hand. All Pride was accomplishing with such tactics, however, was making Adah hope that the experiment failed miserably, and earned him threats of starvations, the only suitable punishment for biting the hand that feeds it

[ecirpnellehada]

Adah took a large, limping step back, checking behind her to make sure she didn't run into anything, but quickly, eagerly turning her eyes back. It was fascinating, really, that such comparatively rudimentary and primitive devices were being used toward something that modern medical science, with all its technology, couldn't.

Or wouldn't, perhaps, because, with an increase in technology came the increase in the idea of a supposed certain mortality that restricted...so much.

"Better flip it," she said, returning the grin. "We should change Pride's mind before he does it himself."

[canlendyouahand]

Needing no further encouragement, he did. The purr changed to a hum and the machine grew brighter still. There was a flash above both animals, which Scraps ignored, and then his eyes went blank as whatever it was that made Scraps Scraps was no longer there.

But only for a moment, because almost immediately, a rabbit had been installed to replace him.

Igor flipped the switch back.

[ecirpnellehada]

Adah felt a sharp chill rattle up her spine as the room warmed with the surge of electricity, of activity, of neurons jumping further than they normally did, and it had nothing to do with her disability, her own leaping heart, or even her caught breath. She could swear that she could see the moment of transition, the suspended moment when neither animal contained their right mind, and then the moment where a consciousness was plummeted to them. She saw the slight seizing of Pride's little body, that moment of non-life, of non-death, of non-existence, and then back, changed. A second longer, just one second, and his processes would have surely stopped, no longer having anything to set off the functions that the body did with constant reminders from continuous flows of brainwaves. Just one second. If something had gone wrong in the transit, if the transit had suddenly stopped

[canlendyouahand]

Igor snapped his fingers. "Scraps," he called, and the bunny lifted his head and looked at Igor mildly. When you're made from regularly changing body parts, finding yourself in an entirely different body wasn't too much of a concern.

Of course, when he went to hop off the chair he didn't realise he had to actually hop and tumbled off, cap still attached and tongue lolling out the side of his bunny mouth while he waited for Igor to come and free him.

"Oh yeth," Igor said softly. "It did indeed."

[ecirpnellehada]

Adah winced a little at the bunny flop, and, warily, her head spinning a little from what they'd...what Igor, really...had just accomplished, turned her eyes from the form of the rabbit to the form of what had previously been Scraps.

She clicked her tongue a few times against her teeth. "Pride?"

With a miserable little groaning sound, the patchwork pup turned its head distinctly away, clearly not pleased with its current situation.

"...Oh, wow!"

Eyes wide, Adah Price just released what might have been considered girlish glee right there.

[canlendyouahand]

"I couldn't have said it better myself!" He hurried over to crouch in front of Scraps-in-Pride's-body, and the dog-turned-rabbit licked his hand. "Do you know what this could mean?" he asked, eyes wide - well, the non-droopy one, anyway. "The possibilities..." He trailed off, lost in thought.

[ecirpnellehada]

The absurdity of seeing Pride's body licking anyone's hand had started a chuckle in Adah; that chuckle soon built up, bubbling and gaining speed into a laugh, and she found that she almost couldn't stop laughing once it started. It was not the maniacal sort of laughter that this sort of laboratory, this sort of situation might call for. It was light and tinkling, a rather pure sort of happiness that Adah rarely knew.

"...are endless!" she finished, once she felt she was able to. "Well, perhaps not endless, but the perspectives that can be gained merely from this simple...the transferral of actual brain matter, or at the very least, consciousness..."

Unable to help herself, Adah let out a slight squeal. She had to. It wasn't like she could just clap her hands.

[canlendyouahand]

An Igor laugh was generally a polite chortle, often followed by a 'very good, mathter'. Igor's laugh was quite different, and he hugged himself in glee. "We need to test this on people, as soon as we can."

[ecirpnellehada]

Chuckling a little, Adah gave one glance toward the lump of a canine that was giving her the most contemptuous Pride-ful look ever, and pointed out, "We should probably make sure we can get them back first, before we start plotting to turn this onto more complex minds."

[canlendyouahand]

"Oh yes, yes of course." He carefully picked up Scraps, who tried to wag his little bunny tail, and set him back on the chair. "Sit." Scraps sat. "Stay." Scraps stayed.

"Would you care to make the switch back?" he asked Adah. "You just flip the switch the other way. Up instead of down."

[ecirpnellehada]

Scraps was so adorable as a rabbit and Pride looked like he was in such utter despair that Adah almost wished they could have kept them like this, but the offer to reverse the process sent her tingling again, and it was no longer a concern.

"I'd love to," she said, smiling as she limped over. "It's not a heavy switch to throw, though, is it?"

It almost seemed that, for all the power behind it, it should be.

[canlendyouahand]

Igor considered her with the dispassionate eye of someone who knew human anatomy from the inside out, with all the knowledge gained from practical experience, and grinned. "You'll do fine."

[ecirpnellehada]

Adah nodded a little, the usual bob sharper than usual with the combination of excitement and her body's natural tightening. She felt like a spring, being wound and wound and wound, and worried about what her body might do once it stopped. She didn't let it hold her back any longer as she poised her hand on the switching, turning her attention back to the machine. She didn't want to miss a second of it as she flipped it.

[canlendyouahand]

The machine hummed and flashed and shimmered, power flooding through it, and then Scraps was barking happily, tail wagging, back in his own body. "Good boy," Igor told him, and went to fetch him a bone.

[ecirpnellehada]

Noticing the rather erratic hopping in the chair that issued forth from Pride from practically the moment Adah saw the light returning to his eyes, Adah limped over to him as fast as she could to release him from his restrains.

"You did a very good job," she whispered to him as she leaned in closer than necessary to undo the strap, so that Igor, even as he was gone, couldn't hear. She lightly ran her fingers between his ears, and then leaned in to kiss that spot. "Thank you."