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Part I

You can tell a lot about a man by how he keeps house. Chip was learning this as he and Gadget rummaged through a chaotic collection of junk. Even if he hadn't known that Norton Nimnul had once operated out of this shack he could have easily guessed it. It was a mirror of the man's mind; bits and pieces of brilliance thrown together in no particular order. Gadget obviously shared his point of view.

"How did he find anything in this mess?", she asked no one in particular.

This was a far cry from her workshop back at RRHQ. To the casual observer it might appear equally disorganized but she always knew precisely where everything was. Her tools, though they looked slip shod (being made from human cast-offs), were also maintained in immaculate condition. Geegaw Hackwrench had drummed into his daughter the importance of properly caring for tools and equipment. This place was the antithesis of everything she'd been taught.

"If Nimnul had a system it's probably as scrambled as the rest of his brain," Chip said.

He added a last piece to a small pile he'd been building on the window ledge. He looked down, making sure it lined up with the trailer (a skateboard Gadget had modified for her purposes) hitched to the Rangermobile, and began to push.

"Chip, stop!" Gadget ran over and pushed her way in front of her friend.

"That's delicate equipment. We'll have to rig a block and tackle and lower it down."

He sighed. "This little parts-run of yours is turning into a major project, Gadget."

The young mouse looked sheepish. "Well, I guess we should have done this in a series of smaller trips. I've been meaning to scavenge this place for a while but new cases kept coming up. Now that they're tearing it down we'll have to get as much as we can in this one trip." As if to punctuate this the sound of a bulldozer starting up assailed their ears. The rest of the lot had already been cleared for the new building project. Nimnul's shack would be the last to go.

Gadget had high hopes for this salvage job. She found it very frustrating that all the ingenious (albeit warped) inventions pitted against them were invariably lost before she could see how they worked. And not just Nimnul's devices. Perhaps the sweetest plum of all had been the space pod Dale had crashed in the lake. What she would have given for a chance to take that apart! But, before she could assemble any underwater salvage equipment it had been found by some sanitation workers. They thought it was a just toy and tossed it in the trash. She kept an eye peeled whenever she was out looking for parts but had never discovered which dump it had been sent to.

"Or maybe it's not in a dump at all", she thought wryly. "Maybe one of them took it home to their kids. The most advanced technological artifact on Earth could, at this moment, be lying at the bottom of a child's toy box."

History is determined not so much by brilliant strategies in war and shrewd diplomacy in peace as it is by coincidence and happenstance. Minor decisions and accidents, in fact, make up history. It was a minor decision, for example, for Jacob Evans to take a short cut through the old lot during his morning jog. And it was just a coincidence that he leaned to rest against the window frame where Chip and Gadget had been piling equipment, and this is our story really gets started.

At fifty-five Jacob was still a powerfully built man with his hair just beginning to grey. His attention was immediately caught by the collection of components. After studying them for a few moments he went inside. The two rodents quickly hid though there was no need. Evans was far too absorbed by the contents of the shack to notice it's only two occupants. After about ten minutes of examining defunct inventions and rifling through stacks of old notes he left.

The two rodents scrambled up to the window sill and looked out. Jacob was approaching the bulldozer and motioning for it to stop. Chip and Gadget never heard the conversation that took place between him and the driver. Except for the roar of the engine they might have been watching a silent tableau. Jake's side was very animated, often gesturing back towards the shack. The driver seemed indifferent, even bored and then suddenly burst out laughing. By this time a number of workmen had drifted over and whatever they overheard caused them to laugh as well.

Then Jake pulled out his wallet. All laughing stopped as he began counting out bills.

The next thing they knew, they were the target of a veritable stampede. As she and Chip ran for cover Gadget made her first big mistake. Rather than follow Chip down to the floor, she dashed across a workbench, perhaps hoping to grab a few pieces of equipment before it was too late. The door was nearly knocked off it's hinges as hardhatted humans pushed their way in. One man propped up a crate at one end of Gadget's workbench and, with his other arm, swept the entire contents of the table top into it.

As Chip looked on in horror everything in the shack was quickly boxed, bundled, and carried away. Following the men outside he saw that it was all being loaded into a beat-up pickup truck. The man who had caused all this had a few words with the driver then sprinted off.

Chip grappled with momentary indecision; split between making a try for the pickup or following on the Rangermobile. The decision was made for him when the truck peeled out, kicking up a shower of gravel and dirt. Chip ran for the motorized skateboard and kicked the switch that brought the engine to life. He knew he wouldn't have much time to catch up. Thanks to Gadget's technical wizardry the small vehicle could actually match the speed of a car or truck, but only for a few minutes at a time. Any longer and either the engine would burn out or the battery would be completely drained. Sometimes both.

The Rangermobile sped down the street, keeping pace with the pickup.

"Gadget!", Chip yelled.

He doubted he could be heard over the sound of traffic but there was little he could do without her cooperation. When repeated calls yielded no answer he decided to take action on his own. Keeping one foot on the accelerator and bracing the other on the vehicle's skate key steering wheel he reached behind the seat. He didn't recall Gadget packing the plunger-harpoon but just the same knew it would be there. It was almost unthinkable for her to be without one. Securing one end of the line to the Rangermobile he drew a bead on his target. As he took aim, however, the truck began pulling ahead. He leaned harder on the accelerator only to find it was already on the floor.

'We can't be out of power already,' he thought.

He glanced back at the rear-mounted hair dryer which served as the vehicle's means of propulsion. Though he didn't see smoke trailing from it as he'd feared, he did see why he was losing speed. Chip sighed. Gadget would be furious about what he was about to do. But then that was the idea, to ensure that she would be around to be furious. He grabbed the release cable that ran back to the trailer coupling and yanked hard. The Rangermobile shot forward as nearly a full mornings work spilled out across the road.

Chip took aim again and scored a direct hit on the truck's bumper. There was a sharp jerk as the line went taut. Switching off the engine he strapped himself in and settled back. He flirted briefly with the notion of making his way, hand over hand, along the line to the truck. After all, Gadget might be hurt and require immediate attention. Unfortunately, someone was needed to steer the Rangermobile. It would do no good to rescue Gadget only to have their means of escape smashed to bits by a pothole. He would just have to wait till they reached their destination and take it from there.

The chief problem with work, as far as Alex was concerned, was that the workday started too early. Which meant waking up at an ungodly hour; going though washing, dressing and feeding yourself while half asleep; and then fighting your way through traffic to get to work just to put in eight hours of hard labor.

Alex Spender was not a morning person.

Alex leaned back from the monitor, brushing his dark hair away from blue-gray eyes. His hard labor currently consisted of tracking down the bug that had been plaguing the data retrieval system. He had managed to narrow it down to a software problem as opposed to hardware. Though, "narrow" might have been the wrong word since he would now have to search through umpty-million lines of code. Even with the help of diagnostic software it was going to be mind numbing work. All things considered he was relieved when the call came to drop everything and report to lab five. At director Evens' orders no less. Alex reflected that having an old friend of the family as a superior had advantages. Not that Jacob showed him any favoritism but he was not adverse to offering the occasional perk. Just Alex was not adverse to accepting them.

Lab five, it turned out, was fairly isolated in a part of the building complex not currently in use. Like all the lab rooms it had a series of computer terminals, and workbenches. It was also packed full of boxes and bundled papers. There was no sign of Evans, but then the man might not even be in the building yet. His higher-ups didn't seem to care what hours he kept as long as he got the job done. Alex was just starting to rummage through some boxes out of curiosity when he burst in.

Jacob scanned the room, his eyes wide with what could only be called wonder. Alex was reminded of a child coming downstairs on Christmas morning to find brightly wrapped presents piled under the tree. As he would discover, that analogy was very apt.

"Isn't it beautiful?" he breathed. "What a find!"

"Uh, sir," said Alex, "what exactly is 'it'?"

Jacob grinned broadly and grabbed a bundle of papers off a nearby stack. He untied them and proffered a sheaf of papers to Alex.

"Have you ever heard the name Norton Nimnul?"

Gadget regained consciousness slowly. Her first thought was, 'My bed is awful lumpy.' She felt around, trying to rearrange sheets and pillows, only to realize she wasn't in bed at all. She was, in fact, half buried in a box of electronic components. The sides of a wooden crate loomed up around her. Directly above was a fluorescent light fixture. Then it all came back; the parts run, being swept off the table, and then blackness. She quickly took stock of herself. Over the course of years of workshop mishaps she had become quite efficient at first-aid. There were numerous scratches and abrasions, as well as a sizable bump on her head. However, there didn't seem to be any serious damage. She also couldn't move her right foot. There was no pain though. It seemed to be caught on something. Gadget was quite aware of the presence of the two humans. Their voices carried clearly across the room. She began to dig, moving aside transistors, capacitors, ICs and circuit boards. She moved slowly, trying to avoid unnecessary noise, all the while following the conversation going on around her.

"So this guy is a scientist?" asked Alex.

"He calls himself a professor, though I don't know if he had any formal training. If he did the school never gave him a sheepskin."

Jacob had fired up a computer terminal and called up the Official Mad Scientists Web Page. He had been surprised such a thing existed, though he knew he shouldn't have been. There were web pages for just about everything. Norton Nimnul's bio page was mostly taken up by a police rap sheet.

"Note the particulars of his crimes. The testimony of eyewitnesses hints at some very intriguing technology. Miniaturization. Weather control. Even anti-gravity, or something very much like it."

"If he could invent all that then why was he wasting time on crimes? If it was money he wanted all he had to do market any one of them and he'd be the richest man on Earth."

"Well, there's a reason they call them 'mad' scientists," said Jacob. "And the Cops could never find his machines. Or, at least, what they did find was to busted up to make any sense out of."

He turned away from the screen, taking in the contents of the lab once more.

"Can you believe this was just lying around like so much junk? If I'd taken my usual route today by now all this would be bulldozed to oblivion. Instead, with the outlay of a few paultry bribes, this technological treasure trove is all ours."

Alex raised a hand, "Um, question. Doesn't all this stuff and the ideas behind it belong to Nimnul?"

Jacob gave a dismissive shrug. "I never said we wouldn't cut him in. A small cut of course. After all, we'd be doing all the work of developing this into practical, usable technology. I doubt he has much use for money these days anyway."

He gestured towards the screen. "He's got a permanent room at the state mental hospital."

"Paranoid delusions," Alex confirmed. "He thinks rodents are out to get him."

Across the room, unseen by either man, a mouse smiled.

Jacobs's mind was filled with visions of room temperature superconductors and cold fusion reactors. Alex, however, was not so easily convinced.

"I still can't buy into this. Some of the technology you're describing isn't even allowed by natural law as we understand it."

"So maybe we don't understand it as well as we thought. C'mon you've got the evidence right in front of you," he tapped the papers Alex had been skimming over. "You can't tell me you're not at least intrigued."

Alex was forced to admit his interest was peaked. While the descriptions were nonsense the schematics and formulae that accompanied them actually looked... plausible.

"So, our first job is to make sense of all these chicken scratchings." Jacob pulled a handtruck out of a supply closet and began piling bundled papers onto it. "For now we'll keep the project small. Just you, me and some people I know in Data Processing. We'll bring in more personnel as we need them but I don't want to start anything major until we know exactly what we've got here."

He began wheeling the papers out the door.

"Where are you going?"

"Data Processing, like I said. This'll be a lot easier if we let a computer organize and corollate this data."

Alex made a face. From what he had seen most of this was handwritten so it couldn't be scanned in. Some one would have to type it all in manually. He didn't envy them the task.

"So what job did you have in mind for me?" he asked.

"I want you to make a start on all this equipment. It'll take days to get all this into the computer. For now, catalog as much of this as you can. Find out what it does or is supposed to do. I'll send for the rest of the notes later."

He disappeared out the door.

By this time Gadget had dug enough of herself free to stand up. Her foot was still caught but if she stretched she could just peek over the top of the crate. One human remained in the room. He had carried a box over to a workbench and was examining the contents.

The young mouse was in the grip of mixed emotions. Nimnul was a dangerous man, but danger on a small scale. His inventions were for his own exclusive use. What would happen if those same inventions became available to the general public? Also, though she would never have admitted it, she held certain proprietary feelings for this equipment. This find, this technological treasure trove, was her's not some human's! She shook her head trying to clear it. Whatever she was going to do she had to get free first. She moved aside a few more components and found the problem. It was a ring shaped device, like a bracelet, although it didn't seem designed to worn as one. There was a clip on one side. This was what had caught her foot. It was as she reached down to free herself that it happened.

Alex had come across a small bracelet shaped device. As it appeared intact he decided to run a charge through it to see what would happen. The moment he attached the power leads it was as if the current were running through his own body. His initial thought of "Electrocution!" was shoved aside as saw what was happening too his surroundings. The room seemed to explode around him! The roof was rising higher. The walls were all moving away. Only the floor was moving towards him. Very quickly. Then what felt like a canvas tarp fell over him. He felt like a parachutist just fallen to earth only to be covered by his own chute. He struggled underneath the material and finally fought his way clear.

The first thing that struck him was that he was in a different room. A room that was to lab five as an aircraft hanger was to a garden shed. As he looked up and around, he soon realized it was lab five. As viewed by some one about four inches tall. His mind flashed back to his earlier conversation. Evans had mentioned miniaturization. Had he inadvertently shrunk himself? For the first time since the shock he looked down at himself.

He was furry.

Fine grey fur covered his arms. In fact, it covered his entire body, fading into white on his chest and stomach. He could see this since he was now completely naked. A glance over his shoulder confirmed that the "tarp" which had fallen over him was his own clothing. Alex tentatively reached up to his face. He encountered a pointed snout with whiskers sprouting from either side. Given the circumstances his next action was completely understandable. He fainted.

Gadget fared somewhat better. She was also hit by an electrical shock but at this point in her life she was used to them. On her personal "electrocution" scale she would have given it a three; a weak four at best. Rather than explode the room actually seemed to collapse in on her. The crate she had been trapped in burst apart as it became to small too hold her. The table she was on collapsed, unable to support the sudden weight. Gadget found herself sprawled on the floor amidst the wreckage. Quickly checking herself for damage she discovered two things. First, she was naked. Second, she was human.

"Golly!"

As her work with the Rangers had given her an unusually high tolerance for weirdness, Gadget was spared a fainting spell. In fact, modesty won out over shock and she looked around for some thing to cover herself with. The best she could do was a lab coat some one had left draped over a chair. As she stood to button it up she was hit by an odd feeling of vertigo. She certainly had no fear of heights, but she was viewing the room from a vantage point over five feet above the floor. Yet her senses told her she was standing normally. She swayed a little but found her balance as she tried to work out what had happened.

She had recognized the device her foot had been caught on. Nimnul's metamorphosizer. The twisted genius had used it to switch his form with that of other animals, using their natural abilities to commit crimes. So, if she had taken on the form of a human then that meant... Gadget quickly spun around to face the workbench where the man had been working. She had been so preoccupied that she hadn't given him a thought till now. He was gone. In his place was a pile of clothing. Next to the clothes, lying flat on it's back, was a small grey mouse.

While this drama was being played out in lab five Chip was having his own problems. He had arrived safely at their destination, that destination being a complex of buildings identified by a large sign as "Optimum Technologies". But not without incident. Crossing over a section of asphalt which had been deeply scored, apparently in preparation for repaving, the plunger harpoon had been jarred loose. After a frantic search he had finally caught sight of the truck just as the last of the boxes were being unloaded. Following them into the building he had quickly become lost. The entire complex was a multi-level maze. He considered going for the other Rangers so they could mount a proper search operation, except that he couldn't find his way out of the building either. He pressed on, determined to find Gadget.

Gadget knelt by the newly made mouse and, leaning forward, poked him gently.

"Hello," she said tentatively. "Are you alright?" Her voice sounded strange to her ears, deeper than usual.

Alex had been awake nearly a minute by then but had not opened his eyes. His thoughts were divided into two camps. One fervently hoped it had all been a dream and wanted him to open his eyes to confirm this. The other was terrified that it hadn't been a dream and wanted him to keep his eyes closed so he couldn't confirm it. It was Gadget who broke the stalemate. Alex didn't recognize the voice but that didn't matter. There was some one here now. Whatever the problem was, he would have help. Everything would be alright. Right?

He opened his eyes.

"Aaaarrrrgggghhh!"

Alex scrambled back only to become entangled in his own clothes again. He lay there, nearly in hysterics. His breath came hoarse and rapid, his body was shaking in terror.

Gadget fell back at the sound of his scream. She had expected shock, even fear, but finding himself face to face with what from his perspective was a giant was apparently more than he could deal with.

"It's alright," she said softly. "No one's going to hurt you. It's OK."

She continued on in this manner, not quite realizing she had assumed the same tones and attitude that any human would use to calm a frightened animal. Fortunately, it had the desired effect. Gradually the trembling subsided and his breathing slowed.

Alex lay back in a cushion of clothing and regarded the giant woman who loomed over him. 'No. Not a giant,' he thought. 'I've shrunk!' She could have been in her early twenties. Blue eyed, with a mane of red-blonde hair reaching down to her waist. Quite attractive, really. The kind of woman he would have liked to meet had he still been the proper species. She was wearing a white lab coat. In fact, that seemed to be all she was wearing.

"Believe me, I know what you're going through," she was saying. "A few minutes ago you were human and now you're a mouse. Well, a few minutes ago I was a mouse and now I'm human. The other half of the equation, I guess. What's your name? I'm Gadget Hackwrench."

The answer sounded, to Gadget's human ears, like a series of high pitched squeaks.

"Come again?"

More squeaks.

Gadget frowned. Her previous experience with a metamorphosizer had involved a wolf from the city zoo. As a human he had still been able to understand her and the other rangers. Some aspect of his wolf hearing had apparently carried over into his human form. Not so for her. Still, they would have to establish some form of communication if they were going to help each other.

"It's no good. I can't understand you. Come on." She set her hand down on the floor, palm up.

Alex backed away and regarded it suspiciously.

"Look, we're going to have to trust each other. I won't hurt you. I need you to be a mouse again just like you need me to be human."

Finally he climbed onto her hand. She lifted him up to the counter and set him down. He immediately ran to check on the metamorphosizer. It was completely fried, some parts even melted. No help there. He turned his attention back to Gadget. She had found a pad of paper and offered him a pen. This was the first time Alex had ever used a writing implement that was taller that he was. He found that if he held it in both hands (paws?) and propped it against his shoulder he could write with reasonable legibility.

ALEX SPENDER

"Hi, my name's Gadget. Oh, I already said that didn't I? Um, what..."

But Alex was writing again.

EXPLAIN

He pointed to the remnants of the metamorphosizer.

Gadget took a deep breath and told him, at length, about her encounter with Nimnul. As Alex listened he found himself captivated not so much buy the description of Nimnul's invention, which he had already experienced first hand, as by Gadget's description of the world she lived in. He had jumped to the conclusion that her ability to speak was a by-product of the change. That functioning with a human brain had upped her I.Q. As her story progressed it became obvious that she was no stranger to rational thought. Nor were the numerous other animals she mentioned.

Now, Alex had no illusions about his species. He knew that humans could be enormously arrogant and self-centered. But it amazed him that there could be a whole other civilization, literally at their feet, and no one had realized it. Imagine how the world would react when... His train of thought came to an abrupt halt. He could imagine all to clearly how the world would react. It would be chaos! The level of global paranoia would sky rocket as man turned his suspicions not only against his fellow man but against animals as well. Religion would surely figure into it as well. Most likely it would be seen as the work of the devil or a sign of the apocalypse. In the end it would all be taken out on the animals. If humans could perform acts of unspeakable cruelty on each other how much worse would they treat creatures that were, literally, inhuman? Creatures they now saw as a threat. The depredations they visited on animals even now would be nothing compared to the carnage that would follow. No wonder intelligence had never been recognized in animals. They intentionally kept it hidden, and with good reason.

He dropped the pen and sat down with a loud, for a mouse, thump. Gadget stopped her oration and looked at him quizzically. He got back on his feet and wrote:

JUST REALIZED

CAN'T TELL ANYONE?

Gadget thought a moment then shook her head solemnly.

The greatest discovery in history and he couldn't tell anyone about it.

NO TELL = NO HELP

"I'm afraid so," she agreed. "Still, we've got plenty of equipment to work with here. I'm sure we can switch ourselves back."

Gadget's optimism would prove to be short lived. The innerworkings of Alex's metamorphosizer were fried beyond recognition. In sifting through the scattered components on the floor they could find nothing resembling the device which had transformed Gadget. She had probably shattered it while growing.

All through the search something kept nagging at Alex. He knew the word "metamorphosizer" from somewhere, he just couldn't remember where. He had heard it or seen it written some - it hit him like a bolt from the blue. The papers Jacob had given him to peruse. One had been a page of schematics clearly labeled "Metamorphosizer". He got Gadget's attention through the simple expedient of jumping up and down and squeaking at the top of his lungs. She immediately carried him back to his pad and pen.

NOTES - SAW THEM

DIAGRAMS, SCHEMATICS, EVERYTHING!

"Where are they?" asked Gadget, caught up in his enthusiasm.

Alex tried to calm down and think. He had set them on a stack of papers right over there. Except there was no stack of papers over there. His heart sank as he realized what must have happened. Gadget continued to look at him expectantly.

"Well, where are they?"

"Data Processing, Sharon Irving. Can I help you?"

"Uh, yes," came a female voice from the other end of the line, "this is, um, Dr. Hackwrench. I'm working on a special project for director Evans. I believe he had some papers sent down there earlier."

"Yes, that's right."

"Well, there were some notes included in that delivery by accident. I really need them here so if you could have them sent..."

"I'm sorry doctor. Director Evans has placed that material under alpha clearance. I'd need you to sign it out personally."

There was silence on the line. An argument seemed to be going on in the background though only one voice could be heard.

Finally, "Uh, OK. I'll send some one. Thanks."

RISKY! CAUGHT!

"Sure there's risk," acknowledged Gadget, "but if we're going to build more metamorphosizers we need those notes. I mean, sure I've worked on them before but I couldn't build one from scratch. If you have a better idea I'm all ears."

Alex fumed but she was right, there was no other way.

OK

CAN PROVIDE CODES

PASSWOR

He dropped the pen, wrung his fingers, and caught his breath. Writing can be very tiring when you're a mouse. When Gadget looked on, concerned, he resumed writing.

BE EASIER IF COULD TALK

"I know. I've never figured out exactly why humans can't understand me. When I'm a mouse, I mean." A thought struck her.

"You know, you have a smaller voice box now, so your voice must be pitched a lot higher," she said, thinking of how her own voice sounded lower. "I know humans don't hear sounds that are pitched too high. So what we need is -," her attention was caught by Alex.

DEVICE - LOWER PITCH

Gadget smiled, her mind already awhirl with possibilities. There were plenty of spare parts to work with and she knew basically how to build what he proposed. With what she had gone through already that morning a little inventing would be just the thing to relax her.

Now, while Alex and Gadget are busy with their project, it would be worth our time to consider Gadget's past. Specifically her relationship with her father. Her mother had died when she was just a year old so she had no real memories of her. For nearly twenty years her life had revolved around her father. Geegaw had always known Gadget was a bright, quick child though her true intelligence didn't make itself known until she was in school. Her first grade teacher had recognized Gadget as the prodigy she was. Knowing such children were often ostracized by their peers he had been careful not to draw attention to her. He arranged with her father for Gadget to receive special assignments on the side to challenge her growing intellect. Unfortunately, her second grade teacher used a different approach. She held Gadget up as an example for the rest of the class. It wasn't long before she had been branded the class brain, with all that entails. So she came to depend even more on her father as the only person in her life she could relate to. Geegaw Hackwrench had been an intelligent mouse. He was the best pilot of his generation and could repair and maintain his planes well enough. He'd taken care to teach Gadget everything he knew but he was never a match for his daughter's genius and eventually her knowledge surpassed his own. She didn't see it that way.

To Gadget her father was the standard she could never live up to no matter how hard she tried. Since her inventing had gone into a slump after his death she saw this as confirmation. Without her father's help her inventions suffered so it was her father who had made them work in the first place. This was true, but not for the reasons she thought.

If Gadget had one flaw as an inventor it was her tendency to focus so intently on one specific part of a machine, the engine for instance, that she would neglect or even omit other parts. Like brakes. Geegaw's most valuable contribution to her work was in the form of quality control. With Geegaw there to double check her work and remind her of anything she'd forgotten - riding the brake, as it were, of her creative exuberance - her inventions rarely failed.

Since the other rangers saw Gadget's inventive moods as cues to run for cover this was the first joint project she'd taken part in since her father died.

The work progressed smoothly enough, though they did run into a hitch or two. Mostly it was a matter of their newly acquired sizes. Gadget wasn't used to dealing with parts so small that at some points she needed to use a magnifying glass. The human sized tools, however, were quite convenient to use. Alex, on the other hand, wasn't used to dealing with parts so big. He didn't know the various tricks rodents used to make up for their small size so his chief contribution was in the design of the thing. They got as far as the testing stage only to discover that the communication barrier was more than a matter of mere pitch. Finally, after a little redesigning and an extra half hour of fine tuning, success!

"Testing. One, two, three," Alex said.

"You're coming in loud and clear," Gadget confirmed, putting a hand to her ear. A wire ran down from the ear piece to the counter where it plugged into what appeared to be an old transistor radio. It was the only case they could find that was the right size.

"Not bad at all. Brush your hair forward a little and you can't even see it."

They were both in considerably better spirits now, heartened by their success with the communicator. Now, there was just one last thing. It would hardly be inconspicuous for Gadget to walk through the halls wearing only a lab coat. So Alex politely turned his head while she tried on his clothes. He used the time to hunt up an old dust rag which he wrapped around himself toga style. It could have been argued that in his current form he didn't need clothing but a lifetime of habit is hard to break.

"OK. How do I look?" asked Gadget.

It will be left as an exercise for the reader to imagine a humanized Gadget wearing ill-fitting men's clothes.

Actually, the fit wasn't as bad as Alex had feared. Though proportioned differently her overall size seemed to be the same as his had been. The metamorphosizer had probably used the mass from his old body to make her new one. With the coat hiding most of the ill fit it would at least be good enough for a quick trip down to data processing.

"Wait a minute. The shoes are wrong."

"Yes, they're not very comfortable," said Gadget, who usually didn't bother with footwear.

"No. I don't mean the fit. I mean the style. Women don't wear shoes like that." Still, bare feet would have been even more noticeable so they were stuck with it.

Finally, with the communicator safely stowed away and Alex ridding in a coat pocket, they were ready. Gadget opened the door and stepped out into the human world.