As Henry looks around the room, he notices movement outside Jeff’s window and notices a red squirrel perched on a branch of the tree right outside the window.
Henry activates the scanner after aiming it at the squirrel, soon the message “scan complete” pops up. The boy then opens the “scanned targets” tab and blinks when he notices a file with Jeff’s name, “maybe Jeff used the program on himself, maybe that’s the reason he isn’t here,” Henry mutters to himself, “whatever… better not mess with his file… I don’t want to risk causing an error of sorts to whatever he did”.
Ignoring Jeff’s file, Henry opens the file of the squirrel he had scanned, the boy’s eyes widen, “wow… the stats are so accurate,” he says to himself, looking out the window, the squirrel still on the branch, busy chewing on some nut. Henry turns back to the screen, “what if… what if change its intelligence from “animal” to “human”? What would that cause,” and without a second thought, the boy changes the animal’s intelligence before confirming it and turning to the window.
Henry watches as the small animal seems to shiver, then stagger a little before clutching its head, it then blinks and looks around in confusion, until its eyes stare directly at Henry, the 10-year-old’s eyes widen and his mouth falls open when he notices the intelligence in the animal’s eyes before it seems to frown, the squirrel even places a paw on its hip, while it raises the other paw and indicates for Henry to approach the window with its tiny “finger”.
The 10-year-old suddenly feels nervous and gulps as he gets to his feet and slowly walking over to the window, his eyes widen more when he sees the squirrel’s mouth move, and he hears a muffled voice say, “open the window, human,” however the ten-year-old is unable to make out if the voice sounds male or female.
Henry feels his shake a little and start to sweat from nervousness as he reaches up and opens the window, “um… h-hi,” he mumbles shyly and nervously.
“I have no idea what is going on,” the animal says, its voice high and squeaky, hard to make out a gender, “but something tells me that YOU have something to do with my… situation! So, human, you better start explaining: what the hell have you done to me?”
Henry rubs the back of his neck sheepishly, “to be honest… I had no idea that it would actually work,” he starts before taking a deep breath, deciding it would be best to tell the truth. The 10-year-old steps aside, “I think… I think it’s best if I show you… I honestly don’t understand it myself and I am just as surprised and shocked as you are… my… my name is Henry, by the way”.
The squirrel hesitates, tilting his head, “my animal instincts tell me not to trust you,” it finally says, “however… I am curious and would like to know what is going on,” it then says before walking along the branch and, with a skilled leap, jumps through the window and into Jeff’s room.
“Follow me,” Henry says, walking back to the desk and sitting on the chair, “climb on the desk and I’ll show, I promise to explain as best I can”.
The squirrel climbs up on the desk and Henry starts to show the program to the animal, explaining what he had done.
“So… yeah… that’s what happened,” Henry concludes.
“Well… I’m honestly at a loss for words,” the animal says, “this… this is crazy… and scary”.
“I… I’m sorry… as I have said… I didn’t really believe it to work,” Henry says.
“I believe you, kid,” the squirrel says, sounding calmer and less annoyed than before.
“I… I can revert it,” Henry then says, “you… you wouldn’t even remember”.
The squirrel thinks for a while, ‘a part of me wants things to return to normal,’ it thinks to itself, ‘however, the other part of me… the human-part… is curious, wanting to know more… what else is this program able to do?’