I'm an archeologist on a dig. One day, I find what looks like a remote control. But I pulled it out of a stratum yards down--centuries back!

I try out the buttons and find... the thing still works. And what it controls is not TV. One button freezes people for half a minute or so. They come out of it unhurt. A pause button! And two buttons on opposite sides, pushed together, create an orange light that makes things fade into another dimension. A zap gun!

I'm not too shocked. Our dig is near the edge of a reality-field, where things fade in and out even without zapping. The orange ray just tips them over into the other continuum; doesn't take much out here.

Later that day, robots in hooded cloaks (alien tech? They sure don't look man-made) start lurking around the site. Stalking me! I think they sense the device's emissions. Shouldn't have pushed those buttons!

I hide under a freeway ramp, but one of the robots spots me and gives chase. I aim at him, hit 'pause' and run. But this guy's immune to the pause button! Others spot me now that I'm in the open, and they start to encircle me. I hate to use force, but he's about to catch me--I turn and blast him with orange light.

He doesn't vanish. I keep pouring fire on him, hoping for cumulative disruption. He turns a bit translucent, but his claw-hands stay solid enough to grab me. I'm caught.

I clutch the device stubbornly, and my captor just lifts my hand to examine it. Says "Valuable! A tool from an ancient civilization--ancestor to our own." They let me keep it--chilling me more than confiscation.

And yet, even with all hope gone, I keep using the buttons. I gradually notice a slow effect on ME--I'm gradually turning greenish! But so is he. Finally he fades and disappears. But he's not entirely gone; his empty hooded robe moves and eventually he fades back in. The orange light has slipped him into a strange border zone. Me too, I guess, since we're both a bit chartreuse and intermittent. In both worlds at once.

That's not the only change, but the others are even slower, subtler. I feel more apt to compromise and listen to my captor. I hurriedly blurt this out, because others are coming to take me away soon and I'm hoping I've softened him up too. I feel strangely naïve, but I think naïveté is a good survival tactic with these blunt, near-mechanical people. My captor does seem less rigid and self-defensive now, too.

I say "I think this device is boosting my intuition!" And, as I say it, I know it's true--I'm positively psychic now! I add "listen, believe me about this effect, I've never been logical, always intuitive; this is my primary sense--and it's stronger!"

And he believes me. He wouldn't have, five minutes ago.

Others arrive and hand me my new assigned role in the Rigid Robot World: a giant bunny suit! I'm supposed to be the sports mascot for a small New England college called Barrington.

I've never even heard of Barrington College, let alone their stupid football team. The Jackrabbits?! I'll be rooting for losers. Oh well! For POW labor, could be worse...

At Barrington now. My first game as the mascot. The suit is a little loose, so I hide the channel changer up my sleeve. And while I do cheerleader routines in my bunny suit, I blast the fans with benevolent bolts of slow, insidious honesty, nerdiness, and trust, rah rah rah...

Maybe the Barrington Bunny can save the world.

Incrementally.

NOTES

• Archeology, powerful find: dreamwork, self-therapy, digging up buried memories--not just traumas but abilities, too.
• Channel changer, Barrington College: from Being There, starring Peter Sellers as a dimwit who thinks life is television and faces threats by hitting the channel changer.
• Captured by robots: programming and habit, I suspect.
• Slow change, despite despair: Wishing WORKS... just gradually, almost imperceptibly. While habit denies change is happening...
• Giant bunny suit: echoes two more become-a-giant-bunny dreams, Acorn & Pelt and Bugs & Roosevelt. Both dreams were predictive, so the bunny may mean not just socially unacceptable strengths but scientifically unacceptable ones: ESP!
• ACTION: Patience. Don't despair. Magic's not all instantaneous. Changing deep programming is a long game.

When I dreamed this, I knew little of autism; since, it's become obvious I need no raygun to make me naïve! I have Asperger syndrome: social naïveté, simpler emotions (I read animals better than people), compulsive honesty, sensory overwhelm in crowds, prosopagnosia (can only recognize friends by voice, not sight), twitchiness and rocking, severe allergies and chemosensitivity... but also IQ off the scale, powerful pattern-skills (math, music, finance, languages, codes--I type HTML as fast as English, for example).

I've learned to accept life in my bunny suit. You see a nerd as bumbling as Peter Sellers... while hidden in my cartoon pelt, I subvert you all.

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