Salaryman pretends to be working hard at his desk. To those around him, he has quickly stepped up to the challenge of handling overseas communication for a secret project in an esteemed department of the most profitable factory that the Company has ever established. For the moment, however, Salaryman’s mind has relinquished control to his alter ego, Chameleon, and his work productivity suffers from it.

Chameleon first appeared way back when Salaryman was in love with his grade school teacher. Salaryman had been staring at his teacher and daydreaming about how, someday, the aliens would land in the playground and demand the Champion of Greater Earth come forward and test his skills in battle, when a voice in the back of his mind ǵexclaimed, "hey weendawgLOVEbruhabruha!" Over a period of a several years, this voice would appear bearing messages as incomprehensible as the first. Sometimes the voice would appear when Salaryman was walking home from school alone. "Nebuchadnezwahahaha!" "Kombayetny!" "Archipellihombokexla! It was kind of funny when he was all alone to listen to this voice in his head privately and muse upon possible meanings, but the voice also appeared when he was not alone - and sometimes it interfered with his concentration at important moments. Once, when he was taking a math test, the voice drowned out all other thoughts and proclaimed "You suck at math." No! He eeped loudly, "eep!" and drew the attention of the entire class. He apologized weakly, mumbled something about mistaking a broken eraser for a black widow, and sank back in his chair red-faced. He failed the test and the next day had to explain to his teacher that he had not studied for it - and he cursed the voice all the way home. Salaryman worried greatly about the voice and started eating dried rubber cement balls in art class so that other kids would think his solitary outbursts and sudden convulsive sputterings were chemically induced.

In fact, this was the breaking point. His young life had been so crushed by this burden, so twisted by the fact that he knew he was insane and that no one would believe the existence of the voice if he told them, that he decided to confront it. He would confront the voice, and kill it if he could.

He pretended to set out the next morning for school, as usual, but headed for his hideout instead. His hideout was a copse of towering eucalyptus trees on the border of two orange groves. It was his favorite place for one main reason. In the summer, the mixed fragrance of the surrounding trees was simply intoxicating. The piercing tang of eucalyptus leaves crushed under foot interwoven with the sweet kiss of orange blossoms roughly massaged his very core. He sat at the base of his favorite tree, an old, old man with wide girth and stringy brown bark that peeled off to reveal a lighter skin underneath. This tree had a wisdom that Salaryman could only think of in terms of generations, and it made him feel comfortingly insignificant. He dozed off in the torpid heat and saw a vision.

In his vision, he was in an armory, preparing for the confrontation with his voice. He started equipping himself. Black fatigues, jungle boots, Kevlar vest. Sig in a hip holster and SPAS-12 slung across back. Full helmet with faceplate, poleax, and a couple of willie petes just in case. Long rifle (H&K) in hand, he walks out the door of the armory into darkness. The voice is waiting for him - he can feel it out there, staring at him. He feels no fear, though. He has come here to conquer, to smash, and destroy.
"Hey, weenie" the voice says. It is some ways off. Salaryman dons his NV goggles and powers them up. He sweeps left and right of the direction the voice came from. Nothing. Then from behind him: "Lalalalala!" He spins around ready to fire…and finds himself staring in a mirror. It is an old mirror, cracked in places, and the frame is made of wood. It smells faintly of camphor… His reflection is a living entity moving freely on the other side of the mirror. "Hey dork, I’m Chameleon," the reflection says. Salaryman lets a burst loose at the mirror, but the slugs simply disappear when they hit the surface. "You cannot break the mirror," his relection says.

"Why not?" asks Salaryman.

"This mirror cannot be broken unless you truly want it to be gone. As long as this mirror is here, I can visit you any time I like. Since you do not know who I really am, you do not truly wish to destroy this mirror."

Salaryman ponders upon this in length. He does not want to destroy the mirror.
The reflection grins and adds, "The real kicker is that someday you will be ready to break the mirror, and I have just empowered you with the knowledge to do so."

Salaryman awoke to find himself sprawled out under the old tree. His cheek has been resting on the ground, and the smell of damp earth is slightly sickening. He has met Chameleon, the voice in his head, his own reflection that thinks his thoughts and shares his breath. He has awoken from the ignorant bliss of youth.

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