Chapter Thirteen
Mid-morning sunshine poured down on the Springtime of another world – that is, an Acme Acres without a single building of Acme Acres or even its newer, larger metric alternate form of Acme Hectares. There was a shallow bay in the lake where a family of mallards was relaxing after their early morning fishing trip and breakfast. Dawn was the best time for spear-fishing, with the low angled light on the water picking out the elusive shapes hiding in the reeds.
Plucky Duck struck a pose and transformed into the Toxic Revenger. "This is how you do it, kids! To do a spin-change you just have to fix in mind exactly what you want to be – then a fast enough move will get you there." He remembered Calamity Coyote theorising that any fast enough movement blurred a Toon into speed-lines, breaking down its component form almost like a caterpillar dissolving inside a chrysalis – what emerged was a form based on whatever you had in mind at the time. Other life forms had a principle of 'you are what you eat' – a Toon was very much what they thought they were.
"Bravo! But I don't think there's much call for a pollution-buster around here." Margot looked around at the unspoiled scenery. "And your Bat-Duck form rather assumes there's some crime to be fought."
Plucky gave an embarrassed grin. "It's the thought that counts. Hey, I'm doing my best to educate our chicks! At least I can spin-change. Not every toon can." His eyes went misty. "I remember my first super-hero form. The astounding W-Man – he took a wrong turn onto an Australian nuclear testing range, rescued one of the native Toons and was gifted with amazing wombat-like powers."
"Hmm. All I know about wombats is they're fat, sleepy and very prone to getting run over by trucks." A small smile crept over Margot's bill.
"Heh. Well, yeah. But hey, it's better than no super-powers at all!" Plucky looked down fondly at his daughters. They were knee-high now, and already waddling around unsteadily under their own power. "Hey! There's a gag for us. Why do little ducks walk softly? Because they can't walk, hardly." From nowhere well-defined there came a comic special-effect drum rim-shot, as he posed triumphantly. "Ta-dahh!"
Margot looked at the green mallard fondly. "We may not need crime-busters or pollution-busters round here, but everyone needs comedy." This world had few facilities, but was not wholly without entertainment. She watched as he played with the chicks, splashing in the clear waters. After the initial shock Plucky had thrown himself into the role of caring for the loon chicks; Margot could not imagine her Perfecto ex-boyfriend Danforth ever doing the same, even for chicks that were his. She could certainly imagine him demanding chromoplasm tests before even touching any newborn.
Maybe I was right with what I said when I first saw this nest – Plucky gives good egg. Maybe they really are his after all. Margot had considered Shirley's words over and over, about the chicks not being his sons. Well, one part of her argued strenuously, of course not – they're daughters. And maybe she knew that all along. She just said it to mess me up. Nice shot! Still, there was no trace of green in their plumage and their characters seemed a million miles from what the dossiers had hinted about baby Plucky. I wonder what chicks that definitely were his, would look like? A strange feeling came over her as she thought about that. Candi and Brandi had tail-feathers, and could presumably fly on their own power one day – something she would not be able to teach them. Plucky could fly both by Toon shtick and muscle power.
Relaxing as she looked up at the clear skies, she suddenly realised what was missing apart from jet contrails. Since arriving here she had never seen the once-common sight of a stork flapping overhead with a new Toon to deliver. True, as far as they had seen the population here was so low it would not be such a common sight, but still… it looked like the locals got their chicks the hard way, like everything else around here.
"Mmm." Margot envisaged the expensive mental control panel that had proven very useful in changing her body to let her feed the chicks. There were other switches – one of them had been notionally set firmly to 'off' since she got it. It had an extreme setting the other way that she was never likely to use, unless she wanted to end up like Babs' mother. The medium setting – well, one fine day she would talk with her drake about that. This was a world of Nature, and it might feel fitting to set that control to 'as Nature intended.'
Deep beneath the grassy fields of Acme Acres, the surface world and its troubles seemed very far away. Fifi Lafume stood outside the bedroom door of her borrowed burrow, paw in paw with Rhubella. She hesitated, looking at the door.
Rhubella looked her wife up and down, and smiled. Fifi was bare-pawed as usual, but wore a knee-length light green skirt and a short-sleeved blouse in the same colour that left her midriff bare. "You look lovely." She squeezed her paw gently.
Fifi looked down hesitantly at her skirt. "Ruby – you do not – mind zis? Zat I 'ave to… wear ze skirt now?"
"Because the handsome 'skunk-hunks' I chose for you, have had the effect Nature intended?" Rhubella caressed Fifi's luxurious tail. Her fingers explored further down, caressing the musk glands on Fifi's rump. Her paw cupped her wife's muscular rump, massaging through the purple fur. "Because right now you can't 'conceal' for a while? Well, I never could. It doesn't worry me. Anyway, I love you dressed up – such fun to take it all off again. Like a Christmas present for me to unwrap, every day."
"Eh, we are more of ze matching pair now." Fifi nodded, relief on her face.
"I love that idea too." Rhubella ran her finger down the shivering skunkette's slender tummy. "I've got a date with a stork… and you've got a date waiting in there. Two, in fact."
Fifi nuzzled Rhubella's cheek ruffs happily. She relaxed, looking down to where Rhubella's finger was stroking her tummy fur. Suddenly her eyes went wide. "I am remembering, one year we 'ad zat exchange student from Japan. She 'ad ze Anime shtick of making 'erself transparent – in places. She could show 'erself like in ze cross-section. Shirley thought eet was tres, tres gross." She cocked her head on one side, considering. "I can imagine – wanting to see, sometimes."
"Mmmm. Of course, if you were an Anime girl, you'd probably not want me to find you skunk males. We'd be asking Shirley's mother to light up the pentacle and summon up something exotic for you. Or asking Calamity to open up a space portal to another dimension." Her eyes crossed slightly. "It happens even over here. When I started at Perfecto, one of the senior girls was a Squink. Half squid, half skunk."
"With ze ten arms, 'er own supply of ink for class and l'aroma formidable?" Fifi nodded. "Ze tentacles are not for Fifi – but I know girls 'oo see ze attraction. Maybe I would see it bettair with ze four-inch eyes."
Rhubella's naked tail swished. "You're lovely as you are - I really DID marry the world's hottest skunkette. I'll have hard work finding skunk-hunks good enough for you." For a second she winced, remembering some males who were decidedly not on her list. The Perfecto lawyer was one of them, excluded due to his personality; his disinterested viciousness was rarely an issue in Perfecto and indeed was widely admired there. Although not a skunk Chemley was excellently qualified in other ways - devastatingly intelligent, fit and handsome enough – indeed he had even 'acquired' a super-power shtick of being not indestructible (that was strictly reserved for Action Heroes by their union) but indisputable, which was far more useful for his job. Using that talent he could win any argument; in the University holidays he enjoyed himself and earned a fortune working for a firm of Greek divorce lawyers. Traditional Greek weddings usually involved breaking a lot of crockery to celebrate, which made divorces difficult. With Chemley's unique abilities not only could he arrange for all the pieces to be found and reassembled, but actually persuade the china shop to take them back for a full refund.
Fifi smiled. "We 'ave ze afternoon and one more night togethair – zen Rene and Jacques zey are on ze bus 'ome to la Quebec Monday." Her eyes widened, and a hungry look came to the skunkette's face. "Eh, bien. Zey do not need more sleep, Ruby. Zey can sleep on ze bus!" Her tail began to fume. "Toons often go 'ome with ze 'oliday souvenirs. Maybe lucky Fifi ees ze one with ze petit souvenir to remember zem by." Her tail swished at the idea, and the fumes began to pour out like twin stage smoke generators.
Rhubella's eyes gleamed. "Here's hoping. Better get in there – this corridor's not built to take skunk scent. You're burning the plaster off the walls." With that, she kissed Fifi one more time, and together they opened the door.
Similarly underground but rather less fun was the scene in Melicent McLoon's second sub-basement, where several of Unit Four Plus Two were looking at crystal balls and dangling crystal pendulums over maps, with a singular lack of success in spotting where the intruder had gone to ground. None of the detectors they had used before were showing so much as a twitch.
"This is totally stressing out my aura," Ensign Shirley McLoon complained, looking down at the big map in front of her. "Fer sure, this Resorbius dude, we know he's on our block of the Astral Plane – we saw him breaching the Seven Veils coming in. But he's totally dropped off the radar. We're just waiting till he moves. Mondo strain-ville."
"Yes. He's on Earth, all right – and as this is the only country with those cursed candy bars, he's likely over here." Colonel Fenix agreed. "Drogo said last time he was here, he doesn't show any detectable powers till his seven aspects come closer together. Then it'll be really something to stress your aura. And everyone else's."
That blue-glowing figure stood at Shirley's side, grinning as she summoned up a psychic charge then popped it in "storage", a small pocket-universe she had found on the astral plane. She sealed the little dimensional gate, and nodded grimly as she counted up the stored psychic bolts in there. They would probably all be needed. Pass the Lord, and praise the ammunition.
"I'll, like, pass on that." Shirley grimaced.
"Wimp." Angelina Angelique sniffed, the magpie turning up her sharp flesh-tearing beak. "Then – your lot study… comedy. Says it all, really. Horror is far more enjoyable."
"Unless you're cleaning up at the cinema after," Calgari elbowed her playfully. "When an Addams Academy grad makes a film – first showing, there won't be a clean seat left in the house. Knowing you just made the whole audience do that in sync – that's talent."
"Si! My hero film star in Mexico City, he made two theatre critics throw up their whole digestive tracts," Tlalocopa nodded happily.
"Like, gross." Shirley stuck her tongue out. "You probably want this vampire to make a start on say, draining every Toon in Rhode Island just so you can watch."
"What us?" Angelina spread her finger-feathers on her flat avian chest in a mocking gesture of shocked innocence. "You think we'd like to sit back and watch a state's worth of shoppers get totally hosed?"
Sit back? That's a mondo nega-toro. You wouldn't just watch, you'd be cheerleading, Shirley's aura muttered.
"Angelina can. I'll bring the popcorn." Calgari murmured, a gleam in the raven's eye.
"If we get Resorbius, stake him and power-tap him, he'd have more energy for us after feeding," Tlalocopa said dreamily. The Chupocabra caught a glimpse of Colonel Fenix's expression, and gave an embarrassed grin. "Well, shame to waste it. We'd only be recycling. Recycling's good, isn't it?"
"So is looking after the public we're meant to protect," Colonel Fenix reminded her patiently. "That reminds me. Ensign McLoon, could you call your friend Miss Melody in? If nothing else – she should have a ringside seat to report all this." He had not forgotten Mary Melody's involvement with Resorbius; such entities tended to be vengeful against anyone helping the opposition. Hal Fenix paid his debts. His reputation was solid that way; it had even survived a direct point-blank range hit from a service rival's 400 Kilowatt Demonizer.
Half an hour later, Mary and Jaggi pulled up outside the house in the Some_terrain vehicle. Shirley was at the door to meet them.
"What's up?" Mary asked brightly. Her eyes went wide at the sight of the loon's worried expression.
"Mary. You ate those cursed candy bars you got given as a free sample, after you interviewed Resorbius Inc, right?" Shirley asked. "I'll bet one of those was a mondo homing-beacon model. Resorbius like, has your number."
The human toon winced. "Those chocolates were tasty. I thought it was too good to be true. But I didn't see the harm in it. At least Jaggi hasn't eaten any." She looked up at the zebra stallion, who nuzzled her face reassuringly with his black muzzle.
"I've never been into diets – except high-energy ones for expeditions," Jaggi gave an apologetic grin. "There, you need all the calories you can fit in your pack."
"Fer sure. He's here – like totally come down for the showdown. We've been trying to find out just where." She stared at Mary for a second, then her eyes widened. "Oh wow. This might just work." Shirley rarely expressed the Toon shtick of the light-bulb popping into existence over her head, but she did now. "I tracked Plucky across timelines by homing on the vibes of that cursed candy he'd eaten – the totally mega-cursed one we found in Hawaii. We've still got that. Colonel Fenix, can I borrow it?"
At Colonel Fenix's nod, one of the buzzards flapped away and returned with the sinister sweetmeat. Shirley noted the lower ranks of Unit Four Plus Two were all wearing thick dark glasses, "Pray-Ban" brand with heavy secular lenses that shielded their souls against spiritual assault. She concentrated on the Luxovice Lightweight bar, instantly spotting its malignancy.
"Now – I tune my crystal into its way dark vibe… and link its output to a scrying globe. Like so." Shirley winced as her crystal turned dark; it would need an awful lot of cleansing after this. But it was working – an image formed of a Toon figure apparently standing in an empty warehouse, waiting expectantly. "The spell points to the one most tuned to that evil vibration."
"I recognise him. That's the Toon I interviewed about the Luxovice Lightweight candy bars!" Mary Melody's dark eyes went wide.
"Far out. I know him too. He's the one we talked to at one of their distributors. This is so totally weird," Shirley said. Just then another identical rabbit came into view. "He's got a twin brother?"
"I think he's got more than one. Those distributors – they were the warehouses who didn't know where the candy was coming from – because someone powerful had messed with their minds? And there were seven distributors?" Mary took a step back. "That's a familiar number. I'll bet the other distributors around the country all had a rabbit just like that working there. That's him. They're all him."
"And they're all coming together now. There's two not far off, and I'm picking up tracks of more heading in. Creepsville." Shirley rapidly recalculated the spell, tuning out the strongest and nearest traces to spot the five making their way across the country from all directions.
"Bunnies. Why did it have to be bunnies?" Colonel Fenix sighed, then answered his own question. "Because Resorbius learns. We already knew that. He took that form so he can use bunny QuanToon Tunnelling. That's how he got out of the trap in Hawaii."
"That's like, not all he can do," Shirley adjusted her spell and pointed to her crystal ball. There was a freshly ploughed field in the New Mexico plain with a line of churned-up earth streaking Westwards across it like an underground jet contrail; they recognised it as the wake of a rabbit burrow heading across the countryside at the boundary of Hammerspace and the material world. "That one is coming in from the East Coast somewhere. Oh wow. He went straight past Albuquerque and didn't take a wrong turn! He's still right on track, heading right for us. That is some awesome burrowing." Suddenly the image blurred.
"We're losing the picture," Melicent McLoon frowned. "He's getting more powerful as his pieces get closer. He's gaining more rabbit powers all the time."
"What, Cuter and fuzzier?" Angelina grinned. "Oh dear, we're about to be invaded by fuzzy bunnies, whatever can we do about that?" Her razor-sharp black spirit-claws popped out of her left feather-hand, and swished experimentally. "Seven course menu. Rabbit pie, rabbit stew, rabbit stir-fry, bunny-burgers…"
"It's no joke. He's getting fuzzier, yes, which makes him more… indeterminate. When he's fully gathered in one place he'll have so much QuanToon uncertainty he'll be able to simply 'be' anywhere he wants to be, all at once." Melicent looked down her bill at the magpie. "I expect that's how he'll gather all the energies from the Toons who ate all the candies. He'll already be wherever he needs to, to drain them."
"And he can tunnel through Hammerspace. There's no barrier that he can't just dimensionally step around." Hal said, his beak set tight. "The Santa Claus clause. He doesn't have to fit down the chimneys, he chooses the possible QuanToon position state where he's already on the far side of them."
"He didn't tunnel to Pittsburgh or Hawaii," Angelina argued. "Why start earth-shifting now?"
"Because before, he didn't have to," Colonel Fenix's face was grim. "Those were just parts of his aura, we saw them they jump in from the astral plane. Whatever happened to them could be… regenerated. Now he's putting all the cards on the table."
"That's why we can't spot him with the old instruments – his auras are incarnated into bodies now, like an aircraft hiding in a cloud. He's meeting up with all his physical selves somewhere. But where?" Sergeant Clarke Gander scratched his head-feathers.
"Like, I think that might be it." Shirley pointed out of the window. There was what looked like a tornado cloud forming in clear blue skies, the very air around it seeming to darken. The centre was a few miles away, over on the far side of Acme Acres.
"Hmm. As I believe one of your teachers once said – 'Eeeeh… it's a possibility…'" Hal Fenix said.
Angelina Angelique nodded appreciatively. "Who ordered the supersized Apocalypse with a special side order of Doom?" She asked, her head cocked to one side. "What part of town is that?"
"That looks like the old Secret Military Suburban Base #7," Hal conjured up a mental map. "It's been mothballed since the 1980's." He broadcast them an image of a medical facility where very specialist paramedics had flown in critical cases from all over the country. "It was a Top-secret isolation hospital for Fashion victims. It was packed out in the 1970's, the paramedics used to have to winch down right onto dance floors and perform emergency amputations of dangerously wide ties and collars, right there on the spot… at the start of the decade, there's even rumours of flared trouser targets. But I'm not cleared for the full story."
"Like eww… I bet the place's aura is still infected. Good thing I've had my shots against Disco Fever," Shirley shivered at the idea. "Mine took, too." Her friend Hamton was the only one of her class whose body had reacted badly to the inoculation, with hideous stylistic side-effects as the invasive meme ravaged his unprotected fashion sense.
"What's the chances of Resorbius coming together right here, right in sight of us?" Clarke Gander grabbed his specially reinforced circular slide-rule and began to make calculations. For some particularly hideous questions, no electronic computer would survive the sheer intensity of horror. "He's had his… component parts scattered all over the country. He could meet up way out in the desert or the far North of Alaska where nobody sees… or some burned out basement in downtown Detroit where nobody cares."
Shirley sighed. "I'm mondo sure I know. Remember Hawaii? He totally read me like a book, down to my basal Charka. He knows about us and what we do. We're his mondo nega-toro."
"I agree. He knows we know about him. So he's here to take care of us first." For a second Colonel Fenix's beak twisted in a wry grin. "Sometimes it's nice to be appreciated. Although perhaps not this way."
Angelina nudged Calgari. "If Resorbius knows everything Shirley does… time to give him a little surprise. We didn't tell her everything." She rummaged in her Toon pocket, and pulled out two glass tubes filled with a clear liquid. "I've been working on this for awhile now. Let's see him bunny-hop out of range of this."
Shirley's aura peeked at the tubes, and shivered. It scans like pure water – but it's carrying a massively negative vibe. What is that evil stuff?
Calgari held out his feather-hands placatingly. "Oh, it's water all right – no chemical test will spot anything else. But – we're all into alternative healing here. You use homeopathic medicines, don't you?"
"Like, fer sure." Shirley nodded, puzzled. "The more diluted they get, the stronger the effect."
"Oh, yes." Angelina grinned. "Even when there's almost no chance of a molecule of the original ingredient actually being in the dose. The principle works. So… if it works with medicines then…" she clinked the fragile glass tubes together, waggling her eyebrows suggestively.
Shirley's already pale plumage lost all colour as she picked up the thought the magpie was not trying to hide. "Homeopathic horror! Catalytic Dip, nerve gas… and the infective payload of the DroidRipper.D computer virus!"
"She's sharp, today," Calgari winked at the magpie and chupacabra. "Look at that cloud forming. It's going to be raining bang on target, looks like. We hit it with this stuff, it'll be diluted thousands of times more by the time it hits the ground. 'A hard rain's a gonna fall'. Right on Resorbius, and we won't even need to aim."
"Si! Grande wipeout!" Tlalocopa nodded enthusiastically. "Colonel, we have that orange cloud-seeding helicopter still? Is perfect for the job."
"Just dust off and nuke the place from orbit. It's the only way to be sure," Angelina quoted with a wink. "It'll either work and we get him – or it just totals the neighbourhood and he'll be the only thing still moving, Toon, biological or robotic. Then we can spot him easier. Hey! It's a win-win situation for us! And any collateral damage, we just say Resorbius did it." She shrugged. "Anyway, we've not hosed any shoppers lately. Now's our chance to totally do it mega-style, and no comeback."
Shirley looked at Colonel Fenix, aghast that he had not instantly slapped the idea down. "You're not thinking of like doing that?"
Hal Fenix looked pained. "Ensign McLoon. I have to consider all ideas." As he saw her expression turn to pure horror, he winked reassuringly. "Even the extremely bad ones. That's one of them. No – we're going to do this by the script. Heroic assault time."
"Cliché time, what fun. We're the expendable front line, no doubt. I should have seen this coming. Reformed Bad Toons get given the chance to make good or die trying, fer sure. Preferably both." Angelina commented sourly. "Good girl Shirley's no doubt going in last, like a good pacifist Healer."
"What else? She's had five years of high drama school training, just perfect for the role." Calgari agreed, a mocking smile on his sharp beak. "Healer? I can guess her idea of that - cradle their shattered body in her arms, look up accusingly at the uncaring heavens with a tear-streaming face and scream out 'WHYYYY?'"
Shirley looked at the raven disdainfully. "Shed tears, for you? Like, get real."
"Everyone – get moving. There's a bus just coming round the corner," Colonel Fenix was suddenly all business. "That's three of Resorbius already gathered together." Outside, his mental alert had reached the crew of the GRAVUS METALLICVS – hatches closed, and the spiky vehicle began to roll down the street.
Shirley watched it go, as with a pang she waved her Mother goodbye. She thought of Drogo DeVerre, the neo-hippie loon squeezed into his armoured beanbag in the crew compartment. At least he was well protected in there. A flash of second-hand information from Plucky's memories surfaced unasked-for – most armour strength is rated against an attack geometry striking at 90 degrees to normal – but the High Dourness steel is also proof against impacts at up to 65% to the Hideously Abnormal…
We've always like, thought cowboy films as mondo uncool, with how they totally exploited the Red Indians, Shirley's aura commented sourly. But now we know what it's like for the cavalry… nobody ever asks just what hassle they have to go through, to always turn up just in time like they do.
"And you never hear them muttering 'Nobody told us there were going to be THIS many Red Indians' when they get there. But I'd bet they did," Calgari nodded. "Anyway, you never get proper Red Indians any more. They were all wiped out and their film roles stolen by trendy modern Native Americans. They're just not the same. I loved a good scalping scene."
"Bogus." Shirley winced. The full force of Unit Four Plus Two was assembled as she watched; the mink Sergeant Macree was let out of his straightjacket and muzzle, and the casket containing Pvs. Lewis's comatose body was wheeled out of storage by the buzzards while his astral form soared up onto the astral plane to give the psychic equivalent of air cover. Getting that casket on the Acme Acres local bus looked challenging.
The difficult, we do at once, her aura agreed, quoting Babs. The impossible – we just have to attend rehearsals for.
Colonel Fenix flagged down the bus, made his successful Persuasion Roll (+4) about reduced fares for suspended motion caskets, and Unit Four Plus Two bussed into action.
Not two miles away in Acme Park, was a meeting that Calamity Coyote had not managed to spot with all his technology. Six of the Elmyra Swarm were sitting on the rim of the fountain, keeping cool in the warm late Autumn sunshine. Although there were various furred toons in sight, nobody was doing any chasing.
"It's just not the same anymore," the Chinese Elmyra sighed. "I don't want to catch any pets. I keep thinking – how it'd be to have a handsome buck who wants to stay with me."
Five heads nodded glumly. Calamity would have diagnosed an unstable meme group vibrating with incompatible energies about to tear it apart – but all this group knew, was that their world had changed and they suddenly felt out of place in it.
"And it's not something we can share. Elmyra was good to us showing us… how it can be." The brown-wigged girl carried on.
"George. Oh my." The other five chorused, their eyes crossing.
"Yes. Now we know." The brown-wigged Elmyra nodded, eyes wide. Suddenly she looked down at the device that was sitting in her lap; it looked like a cross between a reflector telescope and a bulky night-sight. The detector was suddenly glowing.
"I thought you took the batteries out when we stopped hunting cute furry toons?" The Indian Elmyra queried.
"I did. This shouldn't happen." She looked at the screen. There was something showing; if the detector had been built to spot fireflies, on scale here was something as bright as a 5 MegaToon ACME 'landscape rearranger" detonating – its energies so huge they were energising the detector's circuits without the need for a battery. "But it's here! It's here!" She pointed to a streak of disturbed earth running across the park almost as fast as the eye could follow.
Instantly the habits of a lifetime kicked in. According to Classical Toon Physics, a burrowing rabbit moves on the boundary of Hammerspace and is immune to any influences from the outer world until it surfaces. But the Elmyra Swarm had spent their Physics lessons doodling improbably cute mitten-wearing kittens in the backs of their exercise books, and knew nothing of the Law of Trans-Spatial Invulnerability.
"Gotcha!" Breaking six Laws of Toon Physics in a brute-force attack of inspired ignorance, the swarm dived to the exact spot in space-time the burrower would be when they hit the ground. Six pairs of eager hands grabbed their victim and hauled him up to daylight and EinsToonian Space.
"Oh my. It's the handsomest Bunny on record!" The blonde-wigged Elmyra squealed, as they took stock of their catch. "I've never seen a bunnier rabbit. And so powerful!"
"I can feel that. He's amazing. His charkas have enough power in them to light up a country," the Indian Elmyra noted. She smiled seductively at the captured rabbit. "Well, hello, handsome. You can light up mine, any time."
The rabbit gasped for breath. He was not a bright toonish shade, more a natural silver-grey. His fur had an odd appearance, in that it seemed extremely fine – it was hard to say exactly where it began or ended, as it seemed to fade into an indefinite cloud as if airbrushed into the background. "I have to go..." he struggled under the weight of the scarlet-wigged Elmyra currently sitting on his chest. "I'm late! I'm late! For a very important date!" He tried to channel the ancient White Rabbit meme, but some huge negative force seemed to be blocking any escape through Wonderland or even Hammerspace.
The scarlet-wigged member of her meme group frowned slightly as she addressed her body doubles. "He's cute. But I thought we weren't going to do this anymore." She scratched under her wig, the unaccustomed effort of thinking making her head hot. "We were all going to get one like George and Elmyra? One that wanted to stay, without us having to do this?" She wriggled experimentally.
"Hmm." The Chinese Elmyra considered the matter. Suddenly her face lit up in a grin. "Well – we'll just keep him around until he decides which of us he likes best. That's fair."
"Yay!" The other five chorused. Logic had never been their strong point.
Just at that instant, Babs and Buster appeared in the park. For a few minutes they had been out of sight over a rise in the ground – till Buster's ears twitched in instinctive danger mode.
"Babsy – I'm picking up definite stressed rabbit vibes – as Shirley would put it," he warned. "Thataway." His ears pointed urgently.
Babs spin-changed into a slinky sorceress outfit and concentrated. "I sense a great void… devoid of thought and reason…" she intoned. She had kept this in its original Mistress of the Dark form despite its original having recently moved on – Elvira, respectably married Housewife to the Dark, was an idea she found rather less impressive.
"Elmyra." The pair spoke in unison. Buster spun up like a drill bit and vanished out of sight, Babs diving into the tunnel behind him.
Babs snickered as she followed him into the borders of hammerspace. "Me, plunging into your tight, inviting little burrow… that makes a change."
"Hush, Babsie. Somebunny's in trouble out there." Buster concentrated and invoked the Avery Periscope shtick – his ears merged, popped out of the ground in realspace and manifested an eyeball at the tip that blinked as it swivelled to take in the view. A second later a similar, pink periscope surfaced next to it.
"To quote Professor Daffy – 'Whoo-hoo!' One of his more profound statements," Babs commented. "The whole swarm, minus our reformed one. And they've caught someone."
"Rescue time." Buster grinned. "I never thought we'd have to do this again!" The periscopes reverted to ears and sank into the ground, and Buster tunnelled a circuitous route through the bushes where the tell-tale track of displaced earth was less obvious.
Suddenly Babs' ears twitched. "Hold it, blue-boy. I'm getting a funny feeling about this one." She sat down on the burrow floor, copying Shirley's favourite Zen pose.
"Since when did you tune into the Infinite?" Buster asked wryly. "The shopping channels, yes."
"Hush, blue you. When I put a spin-change form on, it's not just the outfit. I get some of the shticks that go with it. Elvira knows the Dark, and she's looking at some of it right now. This bunny they're sitting on… he's not a real one." Babs' whiskers twitched in alarm.
"Someone zippered him into a bunny-suit?" Buster queried. "We should get him out of it, when we get him away from the swarm. If he's stuck in a Toon suit… you know what can happen. Those things can go permanent on you."
"Like Rhubella told us, that canine Perfecto student last year, he got into a girl outfit for a bet… now there's a tall bitch on their basketball team who isn't faking it anymore. He, she, isn't keen on the idea but it's a one-way trip." Babs shivered. Being permanently stuck that way might be unfair, but it was comic – except for the victim. As they had learned in class, Toon fairness emphasised the law of the greatest laugh for the greatest numbers. "No – it's not like that. It's something else – that's taken on that shape. It's about as unnatural as anything out of Doctor Splicer's lab."
"Hmm. Something so bad that even the Elmyra swarm don't deserve it?" Buster queried. At Babs' nod, the burrow lit up with brilliant light as a thousand-watt bulb manifested over his ears. "Hey! Don't we know someone who'd hate the scene out there – half a dozen pure human Toons keen to pop their pedigrees with a walking throw rug like us?"
"Throw rug? Speak for yourself, bunny of mine." Babs' ears suddenly went up, and a devious smile crept over her features. "Are you pondering what I'm pondering?"
Buster pulled a comic face, temporarily extruding his tail into a rough approximation of a white lab mouse's. "Gee, Brain, I think so… but can we get enough ballet tutus for the whole Chinese Army? Narf!"
Babs snickered. "Knock it off with the non-sequiteurs, and take us to periscope depth." As Buster obligingly tunnelled up till daylight flooded in and only fallen branches blocked the sky, she pulled out her telephone and spin-changed into Buffy Vanderbunny.
"Hello? Ms Vandensnaffel? Buffy here. Biff and I have decided to call you in. Miss Duff has finally reached the point where something must be done about this situation." She described the location and hung up, grinning. "It's perfectly true. Something has to be done. But not what she thinks."
"Hmm. Little problem here," Buster scratched an ear quizzically. "That's not Elmyra Duff out there."
"You know that. I know that. But she's never met the swarm that we know of. Three of them look very like the duff Toon we knew and loathed so much. Only the wigs are different. And… get this. It was in this dossier Mary got about Ms Vandensnaffel." Babs face lit up with glee. "Guess how she got to be ChairPerson of the committee?"
"The usual? Clever use of bribery and assassination?" Buster waggled an eyebrow.
"No… she can prove to her enemies she's unprejudiced. Medically prove it. She's colour-blind!" Babs posed triumphantly. "Ta-dahh!"
"As a certain pink bunny has been known to say… 'how convenient.'" Buster commented dryly. "And now – stage two. We had a solution waiting for the right problem – and today's the day that right problem wanders into range. One of us should stay here and keep an eye open while the other gets what we need."
"I'll go and get it, pronto!" Babs winked, assumed the position of a runner on the starting blocks and sprinted away, hitting full afterbunner ten seconds off the pad. A pink blur of speed-lines spread across EinsToonian spacetime as she accelerated; at full comic speed of twenty-five frames a second a Toon ceased to be a solid object subject to mundane collision laws. Minor irritations such as traffic and the occasional building were not even noticed – travelling faster than their images, by the time she could have possibly collided she was already on the next frame.
Five minutes later she was back, the scene around Acme park blurring slightly as she decelerated to twenty-four frames a second. Black holes were not the only objects causing frame dragging. "Got it!" She sang out happily. "When I told her what I wanted it for – she handed it right over, wished us good luck with it." She risked a peek over the horizon. "Oho! I see a certain ChairPerson is already there. She's telling the Irish Elmyra just what she thinks of her choices in dates." She paused. "I guess her wig's closest in colour."
Buster looked down at the object Babs was carrying. "You know, Babaloo – I get the feeling we missed out an important stage here."
"All the world's a stage, and all the men and women merely players," Babs quoted happily. "Plus Toons, of course. Any particular stage? Or are you just stage-struck?"
Buster scratched his blue head-fur thoughtfully. "The bit where we sit down for a chapter or two trading existential angst while discussing if we're justified using Weapons of Mass Plot Effect on anyone." Babs and the villainous Montana Max had been struck by one like it in their first year at Acme Loo, and had their minds so radically rearranged that they had been within seconds of happily marrying each other before she received the antidote. "You know, radically rewriting someone's character sheet for them just like that – it's not the kinda thing Good Guys are meant to do."
Babs thought for a second. "Existential angst sounds dull. What's wrong with – 'target locked, missile away'?"
Buster thought about it for another second. Then he grinned, and shrugged. "Eeehhhh…. ok, we'll go with that." His voice changed to metallic video-game tones, probably from an old 8-bit console game. "We require the keys and authentication documents at this time."
"Roger copy. Authenticating code to go to lunch. Opening the red lunch box now. Confirming luncheon voucher codes." Babs replied in the same tones.
"I think you mean 'launch', Babsie," Buster commented dryly in his normal voice. "And those aren't carrot chips in there."
"Oh well. Maybe later." Babs switched back into character. "Confirming launch codes are authorised by the President, or some dude."
Buster nodded. "Launch code authenticates. Turn the key in three seconds and hold for three."
"Key turning. Missile away!" Like a javelin thrower, Babs hefted the Cupid's Arrow that had been preserved on Coal Black's wall for decades, souvenir of the time she had taken that role after the Committee of Responsible Cartoons had ruined her film career. She cast it unerringly, to where Ms Vandensnaffel was just grabbing the paw of the strange rabbit trying to pull him away from an Elmyra's embrace. Give good for bad, was something she had always believed in – and love was a wonderful thing.
End Chapter Thirteen