Alice Abernathy's Questionnaire

[Alice sits quietly, demurely.  She was used to being interrogated.  She didn't know the person doing it now, but she didn't know most of them.]

"I don't know where we are.  Somewhere in a forest.  I think based on the sun the southern hemisphere?  But.. I don't know.  I live here because this is where I have always lived.  I am not allowed to leave."

She looks up for a moment, nervous, hoping they would accept that as a factual answer, and not become offended in some way.  The interviewer - she couldn't actually quite make them out - were her eyes going? - speaks softly.   "Be honest, Alice.  There won't be any recriminations here."

[Alice didn't really have a choice.]

"...I don't like it here.  Even if it's gotten better since Rose was here.  It's better.  But it's going back to how it was before, with the scientists and the pain and...."

I don't have money.

I am given what I am given, and I don't have what I am not given.

Well...

[Alice looks up at the interviewer again.  She shouldn't say any more.  Couldn't.  And yet, she felt she must.]

"Other than what I take.  The scientists... they don't believe I'm anything.  They don't think I have the ability to do anything.  So.. sometimes, when they're not paying attention, I take things.  Little tools that they think I'm not smart enough to watch them, to know how they work.  I can copy  them.  I can make them work.  And I have.

I just want to have somewhere safe to be.  Somewhere I don't have to be afraid, somewhere I don't have to hide and be hurt and... and be an object.

I.. that's what they promised me.  And they gave it for a little bit, but it's going away.  So .. I think I need to do something to make it myself.  And it's hard.  But I have to, right?  No one else is going to do it for me.  That's silly.

So I'll... I'll go... I think I can do it.  They don't care.  They'd kill me without a second thought.  It  isn't fair.  So.. why shouldn't I be willing to hurt them?

I come close to death every day.  What's a little more?

I don't know.  I don't really remember my life before.. all of this.

I know it existed, vaguely.   I have faint memories of a family.  A good family.  Being happy. 

But then there was the fire, and the men who took me, and... then the darkness, and the pain.  The change.  I wasn't born like this.

[Alice looks down at her furred paw, making a fist for a moment before releasing it.  She curls her tail around her hips, starting to pet it.]

"They made me like this.  So.. it changed me.  A lot.  I can never go back to what I was. Maybe I can make something of what I am now."

Kel.  She's the girl in the cell across from me.   I guess she arrived at about the same time I did.  They turned her into a ferret.  She's cute.  She's nice.  She's my best friend, and... I don't know.  We talk a lot at night.  There's not much for us to do otherwise.  She's a little jealous about some of the stuff I got, but I try to sneak her anything I can.  I don't know what I'd do without her.

Dr. Scott.  They're... they're the lead scientist for my floor. They're.. not a good person.   I don't like them.  They're mean, and... and I don't know. They treat me mean.  And he... likes... I don't know.  I don't want to talk about it. 

Mel.  He.. I don't know.  I haven't know him that well.  I don't even know him that well at all.  I met him on one of the times they sent me out, and... and he's a good person.  He's nice.  He tried to save me from having to come back here, and he said they'd save me.