Naomi sighed. She should have thought of this before the lecture she gave Juanita/Jessica. Jessica, the ever-enthusiastic pack member, had dutifully obeyed Naomi's orders to forget everything about her past life. But, could people really forget things on command? If that were true, the entire legal system would collapse: "Where were you on the night of the 25th?" "Sorry, my lawyer told me to forget that day," and that would be that. Maybe Juanita just thought she had forgotten. In that case...
"Jessica...remember before the wedding, there was a bunch of stuff I told you to forget?" Naomi was hoping beyond hope that this would work.
"Of course," Jessica said. Did she really remember, or was she just trying to impress her supposed superior. Only one way to know for sure.
Naomi gave Jessica one last order: "Remember it all." Naomi winced, as if Jessica might explode at such a paradox. If this didn't work...
Jessica stared off into space for an excruciatingly long moment, and then looked back at Naomi, horrified.
"Oh my gosh," she sputtered, "I'm your boss!" Then Juanita shook her head and was, suddenly, back to her usual self. "Sorry about that. I forgot myself for a moment."
*You have no idea,* thought Naomi.
"Well," said Juanita, "I guess it's time to change me back, isn't it?" Naomi thought it would be imprudent to mention that she had said almost the exact same thing a moment ago. She made a mental note never to tamper with her superiors' memory again. *Although*, she thought a bit mischievously, *I wonder if I can play mind games with the other huskies--the ones who really are under my command.*
Naomi and Juanita made their way silently into one of the changing rooms. As Naomi stood aside, confident that the worst was behind her, Juanita began typing into the room's computer.
+++++
Monty arrived at his lair to the lackluster greetings of his followers. They liked him, of course, but then again...they also liked their sudokus.
"Hiya Monty," called a badger, "Did they eat the cake?"
"No," said Monty, "It was too dry. Everyone hallucinogens suck the moisture right out of a cake." Something was amiss. There was something different about Monty now...some gleam in his eye and lilt in his voice that changed the meaning of his madness. It sounded almost like he was making a joke. Could it be, they asked themselves, that Monty Mongoose, Conspiracy Theorist Extraordinaire, was being funny...on purpose?! A pair of tortises giggled nervously. The badger laughed, but tried to make it sound like a cough. Then, out of nowhere, the laughter came. It wasn't just laughter at the cake joke. It was the laughter of Monty's hundreds of wild theories. It was the laughter that, until then, they couldn't have shared in front of their friend, because they would never laugh at Monty. But now things were different. Now they were laughing...with him.
+++++
For the first time in the the park's history, the huskies' perfect organizational system showed signs of failing. The wedding-duty huskies had divided into two groups: one would supervise the legal aspects of Jeremy and Leticia's marriage, and one would supervise Marth's initiation fights. Neither group knew where Naomi was. Of course, they could function without their leader if everything went well, but Murphy's Law and a simple look at the park's recent history indicated that something would come up that required their (absent) leader.
+++++
Naomi glanced around the changing room nervously. She was no expert on the park's transformation technology, but she had a sufficient working knowledge to know one thing: this was taking too long.
"Juanita," Naomi called nervously, "Ms. J?...Is something wrong?"
"Uh...kinda?" Juanita stammered. There was panic in her voice. Something was definitely wrong. "When I deleted the system's record of my transformation..." Naomi sensed a bombshell. "...I also deleted the system's record of my human genetic template. So...there's nothing to turn me back into."