July 1, 1956
Bugs surveyed his surroundings, making sure no one else was in the hallway. He clutched an ordinary man made briefcase in one hand. The trench coated stranger's specific instructions echoed in his head 'Okay pal, here's what ya gotta do. There's a fire alarm box in the hall on the other side of that conference room...' Bugs eyed the red box on the wall. The box stared back at him. He reached to pull the rectangular lever down.
"Ah-ah! No fire." The fire alarm interrupted.
"Oh, yes dere is." Bugs sneered, shoving a lit stick of dynamite in the box's mouth. The rabbit scooted back and grasped his ears in tight fists, as the TNT detonated. An earthshattering KA-BOOM rattled the wall and all toons standing on the other side were rocked to their knees. Then the charred but still intact fire alarm box toon rang out its high pitched cowbell alert. Overhead, the sprinkler system showered down on every corner of the building. Instantly the town folk responded with shrieks of terror. '...Block the door so everyone will have to use the double doors in back. The mouse will be farthest from the doors. Being the goody two-shoes that he is, he'll try to be the last toon out anyway. Don't let him leave.'
Bugs pressed himself to the door, getting out of the sprinkler's range. After wringing out his soaked ears, Bugs pulled a roller blind over the doorway. From Bugs' perspective it was a thick green fabric. But to anyone who opened the door, it was a raging fire. Just as planned, someone yanked the door open, saw the five foot inferno, and slammed the door shut. The rabbit waited a few seconds before slipping under the roller blind, and stepping into the room. He made his entrance just in time to see Mayor Mouse herd the last toons to safety. A pair of hippos to be exact. Bugs amusedly watched the mouse try to shove the hippos' stuck behinds out of the doorway. The rabbit got a running start down the isles of chairs. He high jump-kicked one hippo in the tail, knocking him loose. Once one hippo propelled forward, the other came tumbling after. The two doors slammed shut when the barriers were removed.
"Gee, thanks for your help-" Mickey cut himself off as soon as his eyes caught Bugs' identifiable backside. The long eared toon faced Mickey with a smug smile. The brown briefcase swung in his hand.
"Don't mention it, bub." Bugs yelled over the alarm. Mickey froze under the uncomfortably friendly look Bugs gave him. Ever since their first meeting, Mickey never expected to talk to the rabbit face to face again. He never wanted to. And he was certain Bugs felt the same way after all the dirty looks they shared at the Academy Award Shows. Now the sudden assistance from his hated rival in an emergency knocked him for a loop. He decided to judge friend or foe once they were out of the burning building. Mickey reached for the right door, but the rabbit sidestepped in his way. The mouse moved toward the left door, but Bugs blocked him again. Mickey scowled angrily.
"I don't have time for this! The building is on fire!" Mickey shouted, hardly exceeding the alarm's volume. Bugs advanced towards Mickey, purposely going toe to toe with him, making him back away from the doors.
"Eh, I wouldn't worry 'bout dat. We've got time to spare." Bugs insisted, leading Mickey under a sprinkler. 'Make him open the briefcase, and then we will have our revenge.' Suddenly the fire alarm silenced itself, leaving only a faint ringing in the toons' ears. The sprinklers' water pressure trickled down to a slow drip.
"What's up wit' that?" Bugs wondered, staring up at the sprinkler.
"Maybe the fire fighters are already here." Mickey guessed. Then the mouse got the idea to take advantage of the confusion. He tried to tiptoe around Bugs and make a break for it. But the rabbit roughly shoved the briefcase at Mickey's chest. It knocked the air out of him. "What do you want?" Mickey wheezed.
"Open it." Bugs ordered. The mouse carefully looped his fingers around the case handle. He flipped the bronze clasps up with his left thumb. Mickey cautiously opened the briefcase just a crack. An aroma fumed out of the briefcase, invading the mouse's nose. It had a thick chemical smell that was so strong it seemed to stick to his sinuses. The mouse instantly assumed he held a poison or chemical weapon, and threw the briefcase aside. It flew wide open as the hinges hit the floor. To the toons' horror, green acid exploded from the briefcase like an erupting geyser. After spouting upward, the acid flowed out in a puddle that slowly ate away at the floor below. Mickey and Bugs dashed to the nearest chairs to get away. However they feared it wouldn't save them for long. If the Dip cannon armed briefcase didn't stop releasing Dip, the floor and every animated object upon it would dissolve into nothing. Luckily the geyser died down into the puddle, and the Dip ate its way through the animated materials, to the natural Earth. The puddle itself was the size of a small sofa. Mickey and Bugs crept down from their perches to investigate. Looking over the mess of Dip, Mickey caught a glimpse of the briefcase floating in the paint remover concoction. He began to think of how the authorities would remove the Dip before it destroyed Town Hall's whole foundation. Then he thought of Bugs... the conniving rabbit.
"I can't believe it." Mickey awed. His eyes darted away from the Dip, and glared through Bugs. "You're the one behind all this!" He accused.
"What?!" Bugs exclaimed.
"Yeah! It's so obvious now! You made the Dip, murdered all those toons, bribed the weasels into helping you so Disney would look bad, and now you're trying to kill me! You were the Judge all along!" Mickey ranted. In a split second, Bugs' hands shot for Mickey's throat.
"Listen here, ya pathetic ink stain. I ain't the Judge, and I ain't no moiderer." Bugs hissed through clenched teeth. "Now you and I both know who da real Judge is. So why don't ya cough up da truth, and tell me why ya put Dip in my house?" The rabbit jerked Mickey's jaw toward the Dip. "And I suggest you do it now, while I'm still asking nicely." He warned. Mickey trembled in the rabbit's grip. In the past Mickey had seen Bugs be a bully, a show off, and a threat to the mouse's popularity. But never had he imagined Bugs becoming this psychopath, making a threat on his life. Mickey would have said something, anything to keep his skin, had it not been for the heart stopping click he only heard in movies. Both the toons' pairs of highly sensitive ears heard the click. They turned their heads towards the sound, and beheld a short human toon wearing a trench coat and a hat that covered his eyes. Bugs' ink boiled at the sight of the familiar stranger. But he didn't lash out at him. The deceitful stranger's non-toon pistol, undoubtedly loaded with Dip, kept the rabbit still and silent.
"Surprised Bugs?" The baritone voice cracked. Bugs deemed that permission to speak. He released Mickey, and took a step towards the trench coat toon.
"Yeah! So what's yer beef wit' me? Him, I get." Bugs spat, jabbing his thumb at Mickey. "But whaddya wanna kill da both of us for?" He demanded.
"Not just you two." The stranger growled. "I want revenge on all the big name colored toons. All the toons before were a trial run. Now you big shots are gonna get it for stepping on me! Making the world forget me!"
"And you are...?" Bugs mocked.
"You don't remember me, Bugsy." The stranger croaked, his voice going hoarse. "But when I was king of laughter..." His voice squeaked to new volumes. "I talked..." And higher. "JUST, LIKE," And higher. "THIIIIISS!" The toon screeched. Finally he threw his hat down on the floor, revealing his full face. Bugs flinched as the biggest, scariest, most disturbing, head bursting, black eyes he'd ever seen stared into his soul.
"Buddy?!" He exclaimed.
December 18, 1983 7:13 pm
"His name's Oswald."
"How'd you know?" Bugs queried. He was sure their missing rabbit's true name would surprise the mouse. But Mickey was already caught up to speed.
"Here." Mickey showed Bugs the index. Bugs read over the same lines Mickey had.
"Looks like we found da same t'ing." Bugs noted, putting his book on the table. "The foist four pages are an ovah glorified account of Felix the Cat's existence. Den we get dis." The rabbit pointed to a paragraph, reading along. "Walt Disney, a young cartoon producer from California, was in New York loirnin' th' unhappy news dat his distributah was forcin' him ta relinquish control of 'Oswald', a series he'd created. Outta dis poisonal calamity a new mouse character was developed." Bugs thus far quoted. "And yadda yadda about Steamboat Willie. Sound and color and such in da thoidies... all animators' previous woiks becoming obsolete and forgotten." The rabbit summed up.
"This is starting to sound very familiar." Mickey thought out loud. "What else does it say about Oswald?"
"I'd have ta read t'rough da whole book. But..." Bugs began, running his thumb over the fanned out pages. "It doesn't look like dere's any torn pages. So dis book's gotta have more to tell about th' lucky rabbit." Bugs reasoned.
"That's great." Mickey said. The rabbit plopped down in the chair Mickey previously occupied, propped his feet up on the table, and continued silently reading.
"By th' way Mouse, anyt'ing ya wanna ask da receptionist about dat shredded book, ya bettah ask quick." The rabbit advised.
"Why?" Mickey questioned.
"Because we've still got time to kill till we can use the next code. Which means dat any second now, a plot device is gonna come in, redirect our attention before we loirn too much, and fast forward da story by two hours." Bugs explained in detail. Mickey looked skeptically at him.
"Bugs, that's..." The mouse trailed off. Something in the air felt different, as if they were being watched. He searched for spying eyes around the library. The walls slowly revealed many. Faces of Chernabog's assorted bat, pig, wolf, and reptilian like minions stretched out of the blue sheetrock. Their yellow eyes all locked on Mickey. "Bugs?" Mickey nudged.
"On my mark, we jump inta th' portable hole." Bugs stated calmly. He never took his eyes off the book. Then he pulled a perfectly edible, never chewed upon, carrot from behind his back, and threw it on the floor. The strange act signaled Mickey to look down. The mouse saw the carrot disappear into the portable hole placed under the table. Bugs turned the page, paying no mind to the demons that crawled out of the wall. Mickey clung to Bugs' chair. He wanted to trust in his friend's plan, but those demons were getting too close for comfort. Then Bugs took a black marker out of his invisible shirt pocket, and scribbled BB on his white glove. Instantly the toons dove under the table. Mickey scrambled into the portable hole first, followed by Bugs and a horde of devilish creatures. The mouse heard their screeching and hissing behind him. He focused and willed the toon gag to propel them faster to the location Bugs chose. The force moving him through the portable hole suddenly dropped Mickey in a pile of dirt. He lifted his head, trying to pick out any familiar features of his surroundings. The land and everything around him was pitch black, but the sky held a grey/blue shade and sparkled with the light of a thousand stars. Mickey's ears twitched at the sound of a fabric ripping in half. He sat up and turned around. A beam of light shined from a flashlight that someone waved around in the air. That someone stomped in the dirt, then picked up the mutilated black half circle, and tore it into smaller pieces. Mickey smirked at the telltale rabbit ears wildly flapping as the toon overdramatically covered their tracks. The flashlight stopped thrashing everywhere, and aimed its light at Mickey. "Dere. Dey won't be following us anywhere." Bugs panted. Mickey dusted himself off.
"Where are we?" The mouse asked. Bugs shoved a beige cowboy hat over Mickey's ears, and crowned himself with one. Mickey's hat didn't quite fit his head and it tipped over his eyes.
"In the great Lone Star state." Bug answered enthusiastically. Mickey lifted the large hat off his head.
"That's great, but why are we here?" Mickey inquired. With Bugs' cheerful and festive mood after a narrow escape, Mickey figured there had to be a reason.
"Because Cheese-for-Brains, we are now on Central time. Which means you may now set your watch to da local time of 9:17 pm. How's dat for 'unique perspective'?" The rabbit boasted. Mickey's jaw dropped in surprise. It was a crazy idea. It could even ruin Walt's carefully designed quest that took months to create. But then again, Walt said most of the journey would take place in Toontown. He never said they couldn't leave Toontown.
"Bugs, you're a mad genius." Mickey beamed. The mouse brought the snow globe out of his hammerspace whilst Bugs shined the flashlight down on the space between them.
"Zero, one, zero, nine, two, eight." Bugs reminded. Mickey keyed in the numbers as he heard them. The glass globe illuminated with the light of twinkling snowflakes, giving the toons a soft white glow around their faces. Walt's message began.
"Minnie and the others have been taken hostage in the Dunes of N'Wraco Rocco. You'll need a camel to find your way. He'll keep you on a steady track heading for water. Finally meet your rival who has sent phantoms to destroy you. Remember, to use your wits, Mickey. The safety of your friends is more important than revenge. And as for Bugs, well I don't expect you to help in the least bit. The next code is 122627."
Still the snow globe blew its snow storm in place of where a picture should appear. Mickey pondered the last digit. Seven, as in the year 1927. Maybe there was an even deeper history than the tragedy of 1928 he was meant to learn. Or maybe Walt was just sticking with the Alice Comedies premiere dates.
"Nuh-Racko Rocko?" Bugs sounded out. "Never been there." Mickey felt his stomach flip and slam against his side. That was a place he wished he could forget.
"Trust me. You'll hate it more than Two Tone Town." Mickey murmured. He wanted to think he couldn't believe Walt would ask them to go there. But Walt had asked them to do worse that same day. So Mickey believed it. He knew well they were not avoiding this clue or any other. No matter how frightening, dangerous, or crude the challenge, they would go. Especially with Minnie and company trapped at the hands of Chernabog. The image fueled Mickey with determination. "C'mon! Let's go!" Mickey commanded, as he threw a new portable hole on the ground, and jumped in. However, Bugs' feet stayed planted in the dirt. He paused a moment to weigh his options.
"Follow the mouse into a new level of Hell... or call it a night?" Bugs contemplated. The silent desert argued for neither side of the coin. So Bugs drew a heavy sigh, and chose the former.