The world was a very strange place to Five. Why was it that he felt so strongly attached to the White Rabbit's new Cheshire Cat? Why was he afraid of the Queen of Hearts but couldn't picture her at all? Why did he remember the White Rabbit differently? Why, didn't she used to run about and say "I'm Late!" And didn't she used to be a he? It was so hard to tell with rabbits. White Rabbits. Ought to paint them red, he should. Paint. He missed painting. Painting was so simple. A lot of work but simple work. Nice simple work for the queen. The queen who was going to cut his head off if he didn't do exactly what his Mistress Rabbit said.
It was hard being the only card. He was hard thinking of the queen's cat. And that shouldn't be at all! More than that, he wanted to rhyme and cavort with all of the mad tea party. He didn't get to any of that. Obey and toil. Paint and pluck. Stumble about and just watch. He was just a five and he'd lose his head and he didn't want to lose his head. His head was the only bit of him with any substance, except for when he saw the Cat that was.
Special paint, that's what he needed. Special, special paint. So he went to work as Mistress Rabbit played with her new toys and Master Hatter played with his old one. He invented better paint. White paint for the White Rabbit, white paint full of his own cells. And the nanotechnology and the unstable molecules of his uniform. And anyone that he painted it on would transform. They would be unable to refuse Mistress Rabbit anything, and their subconscious would be struck with the image, the image of a card. His cells would let them shift their shape for just a few minutes, and in that time, they would shift it into card form.
Now it was just to test it.
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There was one thing that bothered Jervis. In her current state, the wasp didn't fit the mold. She was more like a fairy than anything else, a Tinkerbell, and that was just a wildly gross thought. She wasn't a doormouse, no matter how much she seemed in a stupor. Why she didn't even have the ears. His chemicals interfered with things. It was a bother, a confoundment! A raven and a writing desk all in on! Still, he had the little ears, and after she had finished with him, he wanted to reward her.
It shouldn't work. It wouldn't work, but so much has worked lately. So much was working now. Maybe it would. All he had to do was begin at the beginning and go on til he came to the end and then stop! So yes, he'd put the ears on and all would be wonderful. He just knew it. Jervis' eyes crossed a bit as he pressed it upon her head. The chemicals reacted quite poorly, quite poorly indeed. All that smoke!
Smoke? And then there was the strange tone to her voice, sleepy? No, raspy? No, distant and deep! "Who am I?" She said. Her bioelectric powers were reacting to the smoke, was electrifying it in the strangest ways. The chemicals that she'd been bathed in were bonded to her now, and breathing in the smoke laced with her natural energies, Jervis felt strangely sleepy.
"Who are you?" He coughed. "Who are you?" He laughed! She remembered nothing. Well, it was time to tell her then!
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