Act 1, Scene 2 - Side Effects
For a moment, you panic. Your tiny heart races, and you can think of nothing more than tearing the device from your head - but you quickly quell those thoughts. You are not going to panic - you are a SCIENTIST. Scientist's don't freak out - they experiment, figure out what's going on, and then come up with solutions! Preferably solutions that involve needlessly complex devices that pose a threat to both themselves and the public at large.
So, you experiment. You try to speak - nothing comes out but some unintelligible squeaking. Still, after a bit of effort, you do get the hang of it, and can change the pitch a bit - you're pretty certain that if you attempted to speak to anyone like this, they'd be unable to stop laughing, but with dedicated effort communication could be possible.
Next, you move around a bit. The muscles, as mentioned before, are all wrong - you keep trying to move things that just don't work the way you expect. It's disorienting, but you've had enough experience with immersive VR systems that it doesn't take terribly long to adapt. It's a bit like playing a video game, except with constant phantom bits poking out. At least Arthur is a girl rat, otherwise it could have been even more awkward. You shudder for a moment.
Still, content with rough control of your new and current body and with a decent understanding of it's limitations, you decide that priority one is probably regaining control of your old, significantly superior body. It may be pretty crappy compared to a variety of potential replacements, but a rat is definitely not a step up. Luckily, you haven't bothered to close Arthur's environment in ages - letting him roam around early on helped the system adapt to him, and he no longer had the desire once he started adapting to the system. So you head off, climb up the mesh, and poke your head over the top. There's your body, reclined next to the machine, and beside it the computer that allows you to enter various commands. You quickly calculate a way to get over to the both of them, and then execute it - hopping down, climbing up some wires, having a close call where you nearly fall off the edge of a bench to the floor below you because woah that tail is actually pretty heavy and you keep forgetting to keep track of it, and then finally you've arrived - you hop down onto your own shoulder (which, it must be said, is an incredibly odd experience) and then look yourself in the face. You appear to be a slight but steadily darkening shade of blue.
Hmm. That doesn't seem good.
(to be continued in edits!)