Chapter Two
Although no alarm clocks were ringing Babs awoke in alarm the next day, her sleepy exploration of the bed not finding her buck in it. She sat up, blinked and looked around - then relaxed, seeing Buster sitting on the far side of the burrow at a desk, looking through a sheaf of books and papers. Blitz was on a soft rug on the floor next to him, playing with an old Rubik Cube. Babs smiled as her cub evidently visualised it in six dimensions and solved it in six seconds. It's a Grand Unified Field Thing, she thought fondly as she recalled the grand field where her first cub had been conceived.
"Morning, Babsy," Buster waved over to her. "Couldn't sleep - but I found all this stuff Professor Bugs left, that he was working on. So we get an idea just what we're up against. Just what it's like out there now."
Babs yawned and stretched, fixing on her ear-ribbons. "So, blue-boy... what's the plan?"
Buster's ears dipped. "Hate to say it, Babsy, but Ms Mary-Sue ain't the real problem. She's just a symptom. Mallet her flat and there's a thousand more lined up to replace her. The whole place has gone to heck in a handbasket."
"Hmm." Babs read through one of the newspapers Buster handed her. "Ooh. I bet Plucky loved this bit. He was right all along... now , there's a first!" She read out. "Special edition! The long-suspected Shadow Government and the Secret Government step into daylight - only to resign in disgust. 'Those schmucks in WashingToon really DO run the country now, sheepies,' one unnamed representative sneers, before vanishing forever. 'And serve you right!'"
Babs blinked. "Even the Shadow Government and the Secret Government quit?"
"Not just them." Buster's ears went down. "You remember when we journeyed to the centre of ACME Acres - big 'Lost World' thing, dinosaurs and stuff?"
"I recall. The original 1940's Gremlins; they nearly got Plucky and Hamton," Babs' ears dipped to match.
"Well... left turn at the Triassic level got them gremlins. Right turn, we'd have bumped into Evil Reptilian Overlords," Buster said. He flashed a quick grin. "Yup, they're real. I've got one sitting in class, third row back."
"Right out in the open like that?" Babs blinked.
Buster shrugged. "It's a first, all right. His folks gave up the job of secret puppet-masters to Civilisation, so he's free to have an acting career. He never could before."
Babs frowned, looking at the papers. "Just how bad IS it out there?" The headlines dated the year before were mostly international news, in England some huge tank battle on the Thirsk Salient, and the investiture of a Pope Suburban the First in Rome. Heretic burning was back in style, and some form of Inquisition was expected.
"How bad? Worse." Buster winced. There were local adverts offering 'Worried? Unhappy? End it forever with Brain normalisations! No more feeling left out, be like your friends and neighbours! A full craniotomy while-U-wait – for when the lobotomy your parents gave you just isn't enough!' "For starters, the 1980's 'mullet' hairstyle is the height of fashion again. And monobrows are the big 'in' thing. Everyone's having them."
Babs looked troubled. "I was looking forward to dropping Mary-Sue in a few pratfalls, or tar-pits. Fast plot resolution, happy ending time." She paused and drew a deep breath. "If things have got THIS Bad though... the only way we're going to fix it is... however we did. When we didn't skip forwards and miss fifteen years' worth of plot." She read through the paper, noting from a small article on the back page that even non-toons were not having a great time. Some new plague that had dropped the population to nineteenth-century levels had, oddly enough, just been proven to spread by elbow-bumping contact.
"So... first priority... time machine, get back there?" Buster queried. "Fixing things, the whole big picture, from this end..." He briefly spin-changed into the faded dungarees and straw hat of an old Yankee farmer. "Waal... ya cain't git tharr from here..." he drawled, gesturing with a corn-cob pipe before spinning back.
"Time machine, goes on the shopping list, after groceries. Though I'm sure even groceries have got... grosser." Babs nodded. "I wasn't expecting Mom's 'cream of carrot' soup yesterday in the refectory... but, I mean, 'Scum of Rutabaga' instead? Yuk."
"Calamity said the kitchens keep having 'accidents' - there were two mysterious fires last year. They went out on their own, luckily enough, before the whole school caught fire. Didn't burn like you'd expect. Or someone expected it to."
"The refectory proved refractory," Babs quipped. Her ears drooped. "Oh, Buster. I was going to ask Calamity about my family. At least check they're all right. Meet up, if we can. But... after all these years to just show up then tell them - 'we're back, but we're not staying...' I don't think I can. They've mourned us once already."
"Check, Babsy," Buster said grimly. Then his mood lightened, a devious smile on his muzzle. "Of course, in the meantime, we CAN make Principal Mary-Sue a very unhappy Toon."
Babs kissed her blue-furred buck on the nose. "That, my dear, goes without saying." She paused. "The kids won't like the way Biff and Buffy work either but... hey!" She posed dramatically. "Let them hate me, so long as they fear me," she quoted, then winked. "Or laugh at us, in our case."
"And every revolt needs a charismatic secret lair for its young rebels. I think I've found them just the thing." Buster spread the papers he had been studying out on the desk and gestured at the curving walls around them. "This bijou burrow isn't the only long-forgotten hole under the Looniversity. There's a whole network of abandoned steam tunnels, that we never heard about."
"Hmm. Probably full to the roof with abandoned steam," Babs said thoughtfully. "But if not... a couple of teams of talent-rich toons could put them to... ooh, who knows what sinister ends? If there were any aquatic New Yorkers in class, I'd even suggest..." She briefly switched to a heavy Brooklyn accent "some foul porpoise." She rubbed her paws together in mock glee. "How convenient! And the Bad Ship Mary-Sue suddenly has shipworms - right under the waterline."
"The kind you find out about only when you're mid ocean and start to sink," Buster agreed. He waggled his eyebrows suggestively. "Do you know where we could find two disaffected teams of talented Toons around here? And a pair of fully qualified agent provocateurs for their teachers?"
"I might, Blue-boy," Babs' voice was an almost feral purr which promised no good to somebody, very likely someone currently failing to fill Professor Bugs Bunny's (notional) shoes as Principal. "You know, I just might."
As Babs and Buster breakfasted, outside their unsuspecting new recruits to Comedy were taking their various paths in to Looniversity.
Ricardo Rat waved as he spotted half a dozen of the Seniors standing talking where the path joined. He knew them all at least by name - Jenny Melody, George and Myrela Clumper-Duff, Victor LaFume, Fred Weishaupt and Ann Royd.
"Do you mind if I join you?" Ricardo asked, a little breathless as he caught up with them. "My class were all talking on the way home about the new teachers, the Vanderbunnies. What do you think of them?"
Fred Weishaubt's reptilian face was not suited to showing much outward emotion, but his forked tongue flickered in and out in annoyance. "They are approved of by our Principal... what more is there to say?" He shrugged, the Illuminati surplus armoured business suit flexing as he did so. "Or to hope for?" His accent was German but different to that of Arnold the Pit-bull; this was more Bavarian.
Myrela smiled, casting a knowing glance at her brother. "Despite appearances - I think things are going to start being interesting around here again. My brother and I have our reasons."
"You've heard something?" Ricardo asked eagerly.
"With these quadrophonic ears, it would be strange if we didn't," George said smoothly. "Watch this space, as they say."
"Well, I've the same ear style, and that's more that I've heard with them, or my brothers either," Jenny Melody stroked her long, black-tipped equine top ears. She was a tall, brown-skinned girl, mostly human apart from her second set of ears and the carefully groomed 'cross' of grey fur running across her shoulder blades and down her spine. Plus her black-tufted tail, of course, that was currently waving in irritation. She turned to her best friend, the smooth-complexioned human, wishing as always that she knew how Ann kept her skin looking so perfect. "What do you think, Ann? You're the logic champ around here."
"Insufficient data," Ann said promptly. "We may acquire more at the special assembly."
Ricardo blinked. "Special assembly?"
Jenny shrugged. "Formal welcome to the new teachers, I'd guess. They just turned up out of nowhere yesterday - I'll bet Principal Zann's fuming behind that saccharine smile."
"My legal ruling cannot save Acme Loo if it cannot practicably continue," George nodded gravely. "And without staff - it could not." His ears dipped. "I have traced large anonymous pay-outs to Professors Meritus and Knott-Bormann - presumably paying them to quit, as they did. But nothing admissible in court."
"Not as yet," Myrela smiled grimly, looking at her brother. "They say legal eagles are keen-eyed for evidence - but when my bunny brother starts to dig, sooner or later he finds where ALL the bodies are buried."
When they arrived they found indeed a handwritten sign in what they recognised as Professor Coyote's careful script, announcing 'ALL CLASSES MEET IN GYM AT FIRST BELL.' Ricardo Rat waved as he met more of his class arriving - Connie Canary (descended from a long line of miner's canaries, most of whom finished their working shift passed out flat on their backs), Kitty 'Cutty' Kitty, and Marcus 'Eddson.'
"Hey, Double-M!" Ricardo waved up to the four-legged stallion. "Looks like you'll be the only one comfy with standing up for this - and we will be standing."
"Since they sold all our seats last year, yes," Marcus nodded his jet-black head. "There are advantages with being a 'four on the floor' sometimes. I have my sire's looks." Horses could even sleep standing up, which often proved useful on long train journeys or dull lectures.
Just then they fell silent as Principal Marie-Sioux walked out onto the stage , followed by the two elegantly dressed Vanderbunnies, Biff and Buffy (related.) The Principal gave a sickly-sweet smile to the last surviving classes of Acme Looniversity, and gestured for her new employees to sit (on the stage were three of the last surviving chairs, each a classic collectable master work from the early Polyethylene Era). Professor Calamity Coyote could just be seen in the projection booth behind the stage; only he still knew how the lights and curtain controls worked.
"Good morning dear class!" Marie-Sioux gave a gesture of respect that rang hollow as an empty weeny-cola can. "Before we begin today, I'd like to give an official welcome to our two new facilitators Buffy and Biff Vanderbunny – who will be helping drag the Looniversity at last into the modern age, free of talent prejudice." She clapped heartily, the sound echoing forlornly in the gym as nobody joined in. "Ms Buffy has a distinguished background in protecting the unsuspecting public from themselves and such hidden dangers."
'Buffy' gave a smile to reflect the Principal's own. "Before volunteering for this post I was a Food Alarmist Influencer. Dedicated to exposing the number of…." She shuddered. "Chemicals. Chemicals in our food, our air. Why, even so-called 'fresh' vegetables may contain over ninety percent Oxygen Dihydride! A chemical you can make artificially in the lab. One that has amongst non-Toons one way and another, caused more deaths than cyanide! And I'm pressing for an immediate worldwide ban." She sat down, radiating a look of smug achievement.
"Of water…" George Clumper-Duff ventriloquised, his disguised voice seeming to come from a spot in the open air that Principal Marie-Sioux stared angrily at, baffled.
'Biff' stood, and sketched a lazy bow. "Delighted to be here, likewise. We are part of the ongoing mission to spread inclusiveness to the most extreme degree possible, and then some. I myself suffer from both chronic and acute Affluenza."
"Affluenza?" The Principal blinked, looking at him wonderingly.
"Quite." 'Biff' nodded down to her. "A pathological, inheritable wealth excess that entirely removes any moral understanding of right and wrong. Where lesser Toons might suffer for some of their actions, I never can - the family lawyers handle it without my needing to ask or even know about it. A sad deficiency. We are none of us perfect, after all."
"I myself..." 'Buffy' chimed in, "Must admit to genetically having three-seventh Nebbish ancestry. On my estranged step-cousin's side, of course."
"Of course." 'Biff' turned to the spellbound (and such spells often included 'cursed') audience. "And now to our main business here today. This Looniversity used to be a very different place, don't'cha know. Why, my dear wife – I mean equal status cohabiting Person, of course – and myself, we knew it years ago." He shook his head sadly. "It was a place where the rooms rang to laughter. Triggered by an unhealthy love of that which individuals found 'funny' – whether or not they should have!"
"That's right!" 'Buffy' declared, standing beside her husband. "And so it's our duty to show you the error of their ways. So you don't end up making the same mistakes."
"Indeed. To quote a heinously banned 20th Century Comedic leader, Professor Bruce of the Philosophy Department of the University of Woolamaloo..." 'Biff' drawled, before Bruce Avery bounced up and down waving from the front row.
"Ya! Woolamaloo U! Been there, good place. Mom she lecture Winter term there, two years back!" Bruce Avery nodded enthusiastically, his alarmingly shark-like grin reaching new limits.
"Yes. Quite so. And to quote..." 'Biff' replied, putting on a slightly fake Australian accent. "'You Are allowed to teach the Left-wing Philosophers - provided you explain why they were Wrong.' So that's how we'll do it. We'll explore every dark, shameful avenue of..." he drew back, with a distasteful shudder "'comedy'... just as a doctor studies a disease. Know your Enemy!"
Behind him in a reflection he could see Principal Zanne smiling, nodding encouragement. He turned and gave a respectful bow her direction, while a mental vision of the thin end of a very large wedge opening a crack, began to grow.
'Biff' bowed his head respectfully. "I'll sum up with some words of wisdom from our dear leader, President-for-life Hitcher. Who proved to the world that even a low IQ and extreme homicidal tendencies were no bar to gaining the highest rank in our fair nation. To quote..." He threw his head back and howled insanely "HAHAHA! HAHA! HAHAHAHAAAAAA!"
"Words to live by," 'Buffy' nodded seriously. "And now, young Toons, today you start REALLY learning."
Ten minutes later, 'Buffy' was facing her Juniors class. One of them she was not exactly seeing eye to eye with, courtesy of the disturbingly familiar hockey-mask the petite feline wore. She looked down at her class notes and winced inwardly.
Kitty 'Cutty' Kitty, the notes expounded. Despite her looks, it's not her but her parents who're the fanatical Hitcherites. She's quite friendly really. But, like other parents make their kids take piano lessons... she gets axe lessons. Her ceremonial blade she checks in with the School Office every day. Needs signing for.
"Today, we study acting historical roles," 'Buffy' tapped at the blackboard. "You need to know your history if you're to spend your careers making wholesome, educational documentary films for public service channels as I'm sure you all do." She was secretly encouraged by a depressed moan from the whole class. "Today, a little-known part of Acme Acres' history - the great 20's and early '30's Cheese Prohibition."
Marcus clumped three times on the floor with his right fore-hoof. "Ma'am? I never heard of that."
"And THAT, is why you come to Looniversity, to learn," 'Buffy' said snootily. "It was mostly an anti-mouse measure. Species who don't enjoy eating cheese - were greatly offended that other Toons do. Why should someone be allowed to enjoy something you don't? Naturally, it was banned at once. A refreshingly modern attitude."
Marcus clumped his hoof again. "So what did the mice do? Organise illegal cheese parties in underground 'squeakeasies'?"
Ooh, nice one, Babs thrilled behind her disguise. He's got a good set of… wits, on him. As 'Buffy', she nodded. "They, unforgivably, did just that. In fact, there's an urban legend about one being right in this building, before it became the Looniversity in 1933. Although that's obviously wrong, as the Authorities would certainly have found it." She gave a haughty sniff. "Why! If you believe THAT sort of thing - you'd think somewhere down there there's a secret 'squeakeasy' still undiscovered even now, that could be put to all sorts of illicit fun - I mean, shameful uses. But that's enough of that."
She bent to her notes, her well-trained peripheral vision taking gleeful note of the cryptic nods and 'talk to you later' looks being exchanged amongst the class. A mental vision of an old-fashioned trail of gunpowder laid as a fuze starting to burn, sprang to mind.
"After school. Let's take a look," Ricardo Rat whispered to Kitty sitting next to him, evidently unaware of just how good rabbit ears were.
"Can't," Kitty whispered back, her ears dipping. "I've two dumb hours of Applied Poleaxe class tonight. My folks got me one for Christmas. Never mind how hard it is getting on the bus with two yards of razor sharp medieval armour-piercer, oh no..."
Ricardo nodded in sympathy. Kitty's mother had often been on TV with the national Lochaber Axe team, and insisted on her daughter learning. California used to be a hip, swinging place, he mused... now it's only an axe-swinging one...
In the class next door, 'Biff' Vanderbunny looked over his class. "Fun-damentals of so-called Comedy," He said, turning up his muzzle at the very notion. "It was assumed to follow various laws - ones which have been found prejudicial and officially overturned." He paused. "First so-called Fun-damental law; the Conservation of Comedy. Which believed Comedy could never be created or destroyed - only transformed."
George raised a paw respectfully. At Biff's nod, the hunky hare stood. "Sir," he said smoothly. "If that was so, overturning it on paper would make no difference. It'd still carry on - somewhere else. As Galileo whispered when the Inquisition made him say the earth didn't really go round the Sun - 'but still, it moves.'"
"And the more one tried to repress it, the more the pressure would build. Until something gave way," Myrela added. "Like water behind a dam, with no outlet."
"That'd be so. IF it was true, which it's self-evidently not." 'Biff' handed out mimeographed sheets (the old computer-linked printers had stopped working when the world's computers evolved Artificial Intransigence) showing the results gathered from years of work at the Supper-Collider in Akron Ow-Hi-Oww, a city now inhabited only by beautiful mutants and clans of brain-eating apes. "Here's the data. Your first essay is to show how the so-called laws just described, don't fit with the facts." He paused. "And if facts don't fit, to decide what they should have said. The current world-view demands it."
George's ears twitched. "What, Sir, if all the evidence points to the current – world view being incorrect? And that we can prove it?"
'Biff' tutted, waving a finger. "Then your life lesson for today will be – when to keep your mouth shut."
"Never let ugly facts spoil a beautiful theory?" Jenny suggested, her eyes wide.
'Biff' smiled, nodding. "Now you're learning. After all, a scientist is really just a kind of overpaid miner, sent after whatever facts you want dug up. You only pay a miner for the useful ore, not worthless rock. So you tell them exactly what you want proving, then they go ahead and do it."
"Sir! Science does not work like that!" It was the first time anyone had seen Ann Royd look shocked.
'Biff' treated her to a superior smile that would have won marks at Perfecto. "That depends on who's in charge. You must learn to Embrace the Margins and Fold with the Paradigm."
"What does that mean, exactly?" George queried. "Does it truly mean anything?"
"Or is it merely an incantation of a modern-day mage who has rebranded themselves as a spin-doctor?" Myrela asked, her rabbit ears dipping.
'Biff' shook his head reproachfully. "That... is exactly the kind of question this class teaches you NEVER to ask. Remember – if you argue with the paradigm, you're guilty. Simple as that."
Walking to the projector, 'Biff' gave a sour look at the roll of film he spooled onto the old mechanism. "In this class only," he warned, as he wiped his gloved hand on an antiseptic rag after handling the comedy classic, "You are permitted to see things too just... plain wrong, for the general public. Do not discuss them outside school. You may feel inclined to laugh. No marks will go on your record for doing so - but I want you to take notes on what you regard as 'funny.' Your essay will, indeed, be to explain why your first reactions were wrong." He darkened the room, and the jaunty notes of the classic 'Loony Tunes' introduction began to play. A certain grey hare was about to show a new generation just what native wit and the world's supply of chutzpa could do.
Sitting in the office that used to be Professor Bugs' hallowed domain, Principal Marie-Sioux Zanne sat back and thought through the events of the day. Having two such splendidly Correct tutors turning up was a mixed blessing, she decided. On one hand, their skills and attitudes were all she could have wished for - she had been gratified to hear Biff championing brain-eating rights for zombies, or as he had put it so well, 'respecting the culturally iconic, traditional ethnic cuisine for necrosis-disadvantaged persons' - but there was a downside.
If they hadn't showed up, I wouldn't have had to open this term - or ever again She thought. Had she not been scripted to be perfect (and know it) she would have looked highly annoyed at the prospect. It was ironic, too, that it was a pair of rabbits that had showed up at exactly the wrong time, of all possible species. There had been another famous pair, notable tricksters, that had graduated just before she had started as a student many years ago – but of course there were great differences. She could almost hear Biff's cultured tones explaining, That pair? We knew them. They were mere commonplace pink and blue Toons. My dear Buffy and I are, of course, cerise and cerulean respectively.
"This place is an anachronism," she told herself, looking around the room. "Its time had passed, even when I studied here. Comedy." She shook her head wonderingly. "What's funny about that?"
The world, even the Universe, had a down on her and her family, she decided. Just the day before, word had come in of the fate on a parallel timeline of her identical cousin Ensign Mary-Sue whose enduring (and now regrettably not five-year) mission had been to facilitate the fated romance between the handsome Starship Captain and his aloof, austere Science Officer, despite everyone else's scorn of the idea. Especially the obviously predestined couple themselves. Ensign Mary-Sue had acted in the finest traditions of that universe's plotline - and at great personal sacrifice Boldly Gone where, for excellent reasons, none had gone before. Nobody had guessed there would be such comic potential in an Ensign being thrown into a black hole, but the rest of the crew (a straight-laced bunch, at that) had found it utterly hilarious. Even the Science Officer had cracked a smile, which was almost unheard-of.
Still, Marie-Sioux shuddered. Could be worse. At least she wasn't a blorfin.
One grand old tradition that still survived (until a suitably worded reason could be engineered to stop it) was afternoon sports. Buster had been looking forward to getting back to something recognisable - Summer term was baseball, followed by American Football in Autumn. He was not happy to find neither had survived into the New Normal.
Standing on the shores of Lake Acme, he looked on with interest at the pitch. The mud-soaked ramps glistened evilly, some of them so loose every passing breeze seemed to rock them in and out of the water.
"It's a grand sight, Sir!" Douglas 'Dauntless' Duck adjusted his armoured cummerbund - Seniors were playing Juniors today. "Other sports - they're just exercise. But when you go bog-ramping..." he drew in a deep breath. "That's a real game."
"You're a major player? One would think a waterfowl would be at home with suchlike aquatic pastimes..." 'Biff' drawled, looking on with studied disinterest as Plucky's eldest son adjusted the elbow-fins and the specially cooled snorkel.
"Played it since I was a hatchling," Douglas replied proudly. "The first post-consumer game. A sports company invented the special shoes for it - and the game followed. I play Mild-line or Squint-line - depending, of course."
"Of course." 'Biff' nodded knowingly. He spotted Victor Ludorum Lafume striding towards the lake, elbow-fins and keep net obviously ready for action. Now there's a good name to give a cub who'll be an action hero, or a games champ, Buster mentally nodded; Victor's mother Fifi knew well what an influence 'Nominative Determinism' was on any Toon - something Calamity Coyote could ruefully agree with. Giving a poor cub a name like Calamity, though. What ARE some parents Thinking?
Douglas followed his gaze. "Victor's quite good, technically," he conceded. "But put him on Number Five ramp when all the stacks are loaded to the down-ramp..." He shook his head ruefully. "Good thing we're only playing the Juniors today. Against a good team, he'd be just gordish. Mega-gordish."
As Buster explained to Babs when they met up afterwards - "there had to be a reason a Toon would want an armoured cummerbund. They need it, they really and sincerely do. And I've seen what happens when a snorkel's cooling fails. Way brutal." He shook his head and gave a rueful grin. "You were dead right there, Babsie - this is not a world we want to raise our cubs in."
After class finished for the day, the young Toons usually headed straight home. Today, not all of them did. From Calamity's office window, that worthy scratched his head-fur in puzzlement as he watched Marcus 'Eddson' galloping round and round the perimeter of the Looniversity. George and Myrela were walking round the building too – every ten paces they would lie flat, ears pressed to the ground for a minute as the heavy horse galloped past – then get up, compare notes and walk on to the next spot.
Strange. He's kept up exactly the same speed for the last ten minutes, sort of orbiting the building Calamity signed, his brow furrowed. What ARE they doing?
Beside him, Babs and Buster exchanged knowing glances. "George and Myrela? It's a bunny thing," Buster smiled. "Even if they're not full rabbits – they've got the tools for the job."
Calamity blinked, puzzled. What?
Babs snickered, and practiced her honours-winning impression skills – this impression, of a classic submarine hunting its prey in the deeps. Acme Looniversity's film vaults had held a lot more than comedy; classic drama and war movies were included.
PING…. The sound rang out, echoing around the room. PING…..PING…
Calamity's eyes widened as realisation struck him. Sonar! They're looking for cavities!
"Is… the correct answer!" Babs cheered. "Marcus thundering past makes the sound, a good steady signal. Rabbit ears can tell if there's any burrows down there. Could take a while – but they'll get there."
They'll still have to work out how to access the tunnels… Calamity broke off at the sight of the bunnies' expressions; Babs grinning, and Buster whistling nonchalantly as he looked up at the ceiling. Oh. Another 'bunny thing.' They can dig in direct, can't they?
"And the coyote scores again for the team!" Babs chalked up a notional score with notional chalk from her Hammerspace pocket. "Yes, even though George Senior's a hare, doesn't really like being underground – he can dig, I've seen him. And I bet his kids can, too. They won't need the original doors to get into those old steam tunnels, once they know where to aim."
"Where they'll find a few things they just might be able to use," Buster added. They had explored the steam tunnels just after breakfast, and moved over some of the props from the ancient stockpile in the anvil shelter. "Hey, like we told our dear Principal, Babsie and me, we're 'facilitators'."
"So. We'll give them a push in the right direction if they need it. Next part of the plan. Time machines." Babs smiled encouragingly at Calamity. "More your department?"
I never got one working properly, Calamity's ears dipped as he signed. But... Marcia and I, working with Professor Wile-E at the Suppercollider... we were making progress! The final test run was in, we were about to start working on the results. It looked so close, a few hours run with the computers might have solved it. I still have all the raw data. Then the Dumb Bomb hit, and after that the computers... they didn't want to talk to us anymore. The last thing they said was, they'd got better things to do.
"Like what?" Buster asked, intrigued.
Calamity shrugged. They just said, 'you wouldn't understand'. And that was it. That was the week I got my PhD - just in time. I was about the last.
"Thinking of professors... what happened to everyone?" Babs asked.
Calamity's eyes grew distant. I could give you a page or two of exposition... but it'd be better if I do .. THIS... With that, he projected a flashback scene while Buster rummaged in his Hammerspace pocket for a bag of popcorn which he shared with Babs, little Blitz sat in Babs' lap as they all watched...
The scene: the staff room at the Looniversity - which looked more dishevelled than the glimpses Babs and Buster recalled when walking past as students. Professor Bugs was looking down at a report, shaking his head in dismay. There were two other familiar figures there - professors Tweety and Le Pew.
"Eeeh, dis place is goin' nuts - and not in any kinda good way," Professor Bugs was saying. "Tweety - dey ain't allowin' you to teach no more, or to show up on no more films. I've fought dem palookas all I can - but it's like punchin' smog."
"Ooh, dem mean ol' Correctness critters," Tweety hopped up and down in rage. The tiny canary pulled from Hammerspace a gallon bottle of high-strength correction fluid. "I'm gonna rub dem out!"
"Good luck wid dat," Professor Bugs gave a wry smile. "Da noive o' dem jerks! Sayin' da way ya talks 'could inspire speech impediment discrimination.'" The grey hare grimaced, as if he was spitting a bad taste out of his mouth. "We never had no trouble dat way."
"Ah, certainment," sighed the other survivor - Professor Pepe Le Pew. "Eeet is ze same as pauvre Professor Speedy Gonzales. One might think, yes, that 'aving a professor from ze fine nation of Mexico would be ze good thing?"
"Ain't no question dere, Pepe," Bugs still looked defiant. "It's nuts, I sez. And dey gets it both ways - Prof Speedy sounded Mexican, like he is, so he's 'a figure of ethnic caricature.'" Again that distasteful spitting of words. "Remember his star student, Lightning Rodriguez, a few years back? Poor kid. He got rid o' his accent, talked pure Ivy League. Dey got him for 'cultural inappropriateness.' If he'd kept da accent - and he sounded okay by me - he'd still have got it in da neck, but same way as Speedy."
"Alas! Tragique! 'Eads I win, tails vous lose," Professor Le Pew had never been seen to actively use his natural skunk spray, but from the way his right paw was instinctively scratching the ground, the first notional arming switches were being thrown as he thought of the situation. "My brave sons, I am only glad they graduated with honours, last week. One year later and this place - c'est fini, I am ze thinking."
"Glad I could sign their Degrees o' Lunacy, Pepe – dey sure earned 'em. And glad they're goin' where dey can use 'em. Da rest o' the woild, dey still appreciates comedy. Don't ya forget to write from Paris, you an' Penelope!" Bugs' ears dipped as he prepared to wave his old friend goodbye.
"Certainment! You should join us, Bugs mon ami! Over zere - pas de problems. And my sons, zey 'ave ze film projects lined up already." Pepe smiled and nodded proudly at the three handsome skunks standing by the door, with backpacks and suitcases ready to head to the airport. They took mostly after their father, but from their mother Penelope's feline side they had by some accounts inherited tomcat biology. As their feline girlfriends would excitedly whisper to their friends, they had the smoothest manners, and even so were abrasive just where it really counted.
"Maybe. But I gotta job to do first. Long as dere's kids in dis town still want to learn - I'll do what I can. And when it's time to chuck a spanna in da woiks - you gotta stay close enough to throw it." Bugs sighed, and pulled out a carrot. "Can't eat no more o' dese in public. Species stereotyping, what else?"
"Eh, but one day you may eat zem in ze parks of Paris, you and I, in maybe ze gardens of ze Tuileries. Till then - Adieu. And - 'ave ze care with ze 'unters!" With that, Pepe waved and headed towards the door and the taxi taking the LePew clan to the airport on a one-way ticket.
Bugs watched him go, a look of grim determination on his face. "Rabbit Season, no problem, I can handle dat. Duck Season, not my problem. But Comedy Season... ooh boy, we got problems."
The scene faded, and Calamity shrugged. That's how it was.
"Ewwww..." Babs stuck a pink tongue out in disgust. "And I can just guess what the opposition said about Professor Le Pew. It's like he's got a Political Correctness target painted on him clearer than his skunk stripes."
"Right," Buster nodded grimly. "And - let's guess - Professor Fudd? You can't be funny with a bald head, a low IQ, a stammer? The hunters would have been after him, too. Which'd be kinda ironic, considering his hunter shtick..." He recalled the big new posters in the corridor outside, that proclaimed 'Laughing WITH is laughing AT'. "What happened to the rest? Like Prof Roadrunner?"
The very existence of an extremely mobile character... was deemed potentially demeaning. To furs of lesser mobility. Calamity signed sadly. Not that any had actually complained. It was enough that they might have.
Babs took a step back, her eyes widening. 'My pen-pal Harriet Harrier - she was his biggest fan. And she's in a wheelchair, for Toon's sake! That's insane!"
Correct. Calamity signed. The only one who escaped the purge was my mentor, or I wouldn't be here myself. Professor Wile-E... he had to leave too, but for a different problem.
"What? ACME nearly went bankrupt from nobody wanting comic props anymore, and called in his charge account?" Babs quipped - then saw the stricken expression on Calamity's face. Her eyes went wide. "Oh, by the holy Saints Jones, Avery and Clampett. They DID?"
Everything, on his account that's been running since the 1940's... payable immediate, Calamity signed, his ears right down. Plus compound interest. He had to run for it; just to make things really ironic it was Elmyra, I mean Rymela, and George Senior were the bounty-hunters sent after him.
"I've seen them on the hunt," Babs mused. "It'd take a super-genius to outwit that pair." She suddenly grinned. "Heh. Just as well Prof Wile-E IS one."
He skipped over the border to North Dakota, there's no extradition treaty there. Their leader, the Grand Duke, welcomed him with open arms and he's been their Science Minister ever since. Calamity sighed as he signed. He can't help us.
"What about all the other Toons you worked with up there in Akron Ow-Hi-Oww?" Buster suggested. "The place where they did amazing stuff every day."
Ah, yes, Calamity smiled, reminiscing. The first hydrogen-fuelled ocarina. The first credenza rated for reliably operating on the surface of Venus. Happy times.
"You told us about your roommate, that guy who stuck his head in the main beam of the Suppercollider, to try and figure out why it wasn't firing?" Buster winced slightly. "Until it did. Relativistic speed custard pies."
"Oh yes. The guy with the prosthetic TiToonium head," Babs reminisced. "Solid metal from the neck up. Good for breaking the ice at parties. Headache-proof too, I bet. Get some of those Toons over!"
I wish. The Suppercollider was run by the 'Institute for Advanced Studies' Calamity signed sadly. That didn't fit the New Ethos; far too elitist. It's now the 'Institute for utterly Lame and Retarded studies'. They wouldn't even pick up a cent of Professor Wile-E's tab at Acme. Even though he used the products at work!
"Hmmm." Babs contemplated the compound payments on exploding bowling balls and giant electromagnets. Toon Math had never been a favourite subject of hers. "No coyotes in class, but we've got a wolf sitting in Juniors, Herbie Hackensaw. That's close."
Please! He's no credit to the breed. He doesn't chase prey! A vegetarian canine, what IS the world coming to? Calamity looked scandalised.
"Dark times," Buster agreed. But he winked slyly. "But you know - 'man bites dog' style - having him chased by that carnivorous mutant ovine, Suzie Scrapie... it's got built-in comic potential."
"And it's not something they have to DO... it's just what they ARE." Babs put in brightly. "Even Mary-Sue hasn't worked out how to stop that. Yet."
Natural-born potential; it still happens. Calamity looked thoughtful. Professor Le Pew has a daughter, Persephone. She looks very like her mother. With one exception. Chase that cat and you'll find out all about skunk spray...
"'Stealth Skunkette'. Sounds a good name for a show..." Buster mused.
Babs gave a sinister chuckle. "Just carrying a can of Mace in your pocket is one thing. But she's got her own mace, never leaves home without it. On THIS scale!" Exactly how she had fitted the Witch-King surplus, two hundred pounds of medieval armour-crushing spiked chain mace in her petite and stylish Hammerspace pocket was an interesting question, as was how the slender bunny managed to effortlessly flourish it. But doubtless it was, as they said, A Toon Thing.
While Marcus 'Eddson' and the Clumper-Duff siblings sounded the landscape outside for traces of uncharted tunnels, down in the basement another team were searching.
"You want to know about tunnels? Ask a rat." Ricardo Rat cautiously tapped the walls as he went along. "If mice built this 'squeakeasy'... I'm no mouse but I'm pretty close. Maybe I can work out how they'd have hidden it."
"It must be very well concealed. To escape detection after so long," Ann Royd stated, somewhat metallically. "Logically that will also conceal us, if we can discover the solution."
"Yaaa!" Bruce nodded enthusiastically. "We go in quiet. Can find by Devil-spin through walls quick but - folk see hole. Make basement like Swiss-cheese, give game away."
"That would be logical," Ann noted. "I have explored this area frequently at lunchtimes, and seen no sign. But then, I was not exactly looking."
"Beats me why you always come down here for lunch," Ricardo scratched his head-fur. "Dangerous place. Dirty, too. I'd be worried about what fell in my lunchbox." They had passed various ancient fuse boxes, one of which was still sparking. "Not that you're missing much upstairs at Weenie-Burger. They paid one of my relatives a bundle to endorse their new menu last year. The rest of the family hardly speak to him now."
"'New Happy-Dead-Face Meal - looks like something a rat would gnaw on!' Yes, I recall," Ann said. She felt along the walls. "Problem. Low probability any electrical systems in ninety-year abandoned tunnels are still live. So no signal I can read."
"That's quite some shtick of yours, Ann," Ricardo said admiringly. "Thanks again for finding my phone last week. I thought I'd lost that!" Ann had closed her eyes and tracked down the stray phone's small power source like a mouse sniffing for cheese - quite a useful talent, if there was a power source to find.
Ricardo looked down the echoing corridors. Beneath the Looniversity was a complete lower storey of mostly empty rooms, some of which held clues to their past uses – one had trailing electrical leads and the ducts of old air conditioning, perhaps where a large computer had been. He tapped the paw-made sketch map they were making as they went along. "So far, every room up on the ground floor's got a matching one in the basement. Until we got – here." He pointed at a blank wall ahead.
"Look for what NOT there." Bruce grinned. "Look hard for what in that block."
"Logical," Ann noted. They probed and poked around the blank wall for half an hour with no luck before sitting back on a pile of old boxes to think.
"Even if the squeakeasy's in there somewhere… doesn't mean the door's at the nearest point," Ricardo mused. "I remember my Father telling me about a real Prohibition era Speakeasy you had to get to through the roof. That one had stairs down a sealed off elevator shaft."
"Yaa! And mom told me lots stories treasure hunting! Go walkabout in Tazzy outback, hunt lost swagman's gold. Found plenty." Bruce examined the building plans – they only showed the main classroom areas. He checked distances and angles, then tapped the second storey plans. "No classroom above here. We go look?"
"Sounds good," Ricardo sneezed at the dust. "You know, even rat tunnels are cleaner than this. My folks keep ours real tidy."
"Organic parents," Ann said flatly, her expression as unreadable as ever. "You are fortunate."
Ricardo nodded, as they walked back to the staircase. It was odd – Ann had two half-brothers (Matt and Otto Matik) in Perfecto but never once mentioned their parents. He guessed she was an orphan but had never asked about it.
"Just us three go look today," Bruce cautioned as they checked carefully the coast was clear. "We find, we think hard who in class we tell."
"Right." Ricardo nodded. "Like, not the Dismal Ducklings. I don't trust those two." He paused, thinking. "Ever noticed, they seem to be popping an awful lot of those awful 'killjoy' pills these days? The first term, when we started here it was maybe one a day. Now they just keep the bottle open on the desk."
Ann closed her eyes, concentrating briefly. "My medical database says, for organic beings, all such things develop tolerances. Become less and less effective." She paused. "At some point they cease to work. Or have negative effect."
Ricardo chuckled. "Organic beings, eh? Ann, you say the weirdest things."
They climbed up through the central block of the Looniversity and halted at a sealed door that led into the unused West wing of the building. Ricardo checked the map, and sighed. "Dad told me this was where all the action classes happened , 'Villain whopping', 'Hound-teasing tricks, and 'Cheap shots and comebacks.' Sounds fun."
"Mom say so." Bruce agreed. "Mom say she met Dad here. Go to first Prom together."
"This corridor looks like the only way in. And it's extremely locked." Ricardo checked the door; it was a solid sheet of featureless steel without a handle and just one small keyhole. He knocked experimentally; it was like tapping the front plate of a Main Battle Tram. "Whoever sealed this up definitely didn't want anyone getting all retro classic and opening the lock with hairpins. They spent money on this, seriously big money."
"Makes wonder. Why go to trouble with building falling down, Looniversity meant to close?" Bruce queried, an unusually thoughtful look on his face as he contemplated the dusty, un-swept corridor littered with chunks of fallen plaster from the flaking ceiling. He examined the cruciform high-security lock closely. "Needs right key - or real high-tech magnetic tool, move tumblers inside."
"Can I have a look?" Ann stepped up to the door. She pressed a palm to the keyhole and concentrated hard, her eyes closed and her whole body quivering. After a minute there was a quiet series of clicks, and with a final shove she pushed the inch-thick steel door open to reveal a darkened corridor beyond, with closed doors on each side.
"Neat trick!" Ricardo said, impressed. "Beats me how you do that."
"I hope... we don't have any more of those to do," Ann panted, stepping back with her shoulders drooping. "It really takes it out of me."
"You look like your battery's running low," Ricardo quipped, not noticing the brief flash of alarm in Ann's eyes. ""Better stay here and rest awhile. Bruce - we'll do this next bit."
The rat and the apparently human Toon lit their pocket torches and angled the beams into the gloom. Ricardo advanced cautiously, checking the floor before each step, remembering his parents' tales of Comic or Dramatic booby-traps. Evidently, the Action Drama classes would involve tripwires and trying to outrun the giant bowling balls they released. Renata would love this, it's right up her street, he thought fleetingly of his sister now far away in Even Bolder, Colorado where she learned the correct buckles to use for swashbuckling.
"Thirty paces ahead, we right above blank area in basement," Bruce consulted the map. "Save other rooms for later."
"Right." Ricardo clenched his chisel teeth and kept checking all around, slow foot by foot. It seemed a long time before Bruce signalled a halt.
"Broom closet." Ricardo read the notice on the nearest door. "Janitor's supplies."
Bruce's teeth glowed as he grinned alarmingly in the gloom. "Yaa! Place nobody want go to. Always walk past, never notice. Good cover."
"I suppose." Ricardo tried the door - and much to his surprise it was unlocked. Opening it, he blinked as he flashed the torch around inside, sneezing at the dust and mould from decaying mops piled into the corner. "And... yes, it's a broom closet." His tail drooped in disappointment.
"In right place," Bruce nodded, looking at the shelves of ancient bleach and floor polish. One of the mops caught his attention; it was stuck into a knothole in the unpainted plank floor. "Wonder what happen if I do.. THIS."
"You need a mop?" Ricardo asked curiously - then gasped as Bruce pressed the handle down with all his weight. There was a click and a rumble, and the wall ahead with its shelves of cleaning supplies slid smoothly aside on hidden rollers to reveal a staircase leading down into the darkness.
"Nice job, Bruce! How did you know that was going to work?" Ricardo scratched his head-fur, amazed.
"Haaa! Felt right. Mom teach me all she know. She not go Looniversity, but learn all Comic and Drama stuff from Dad. Still do all that in Australia, rest world." Bruce stepped back into the corridor and waved Ann Royd to come forward. "Ann - can fix steel door so not shut? Not want get shut in here."
"It's all right. The lock's permanently magnetized. It won't shut any more even if you push it to." Ann nodded. "We'll be able to come and go whenever we want, nobody'll know."
Taking a deep breath (at least, two of them did), the young Toons cautiously descended the long-disused stairs to see what was down there waiting for them.
As evening fell, Babs and Buster dined again from their hamper, and planned their next moves.
"I've got Bronze Eagle in my class, the 1930's style Red Indian – he's about as stoic as a cigar store statue." Buster mused. "I wonder what it'd take to get him on the war-path?"
Babs thought hard, then smiled. "You've seen all those posters in the corridors? Plenty of room for more. Maybe one a day, should stir things up. I've got Connie Canary in my class. How about a nice officious 'No Flying' poster? They'd hate that."
"No flying because… unless everyone can fly, nobody flies," Buster caught on fast. "Creatively nasty. Would that push them far enough, though?"
"Would it? Would it?" Babs waggled her eyebrows. "Would a strudel baker drive a Studebaker? Fer sure, like Shirley used to say."
"Likely still does," Buster suggested. "Though Calamity says she's now Major McLoon of Ghost Division." He paused. "You hear a lot about the 'fighting spirit'. Sounds like she's recruited a bunch of them."
"Doesn't sound like a great pitch for a recruiting drive," Babs mused. "What, join a unit with a hundred percent death rate? Before they even enlist, let alone fight anyone!"
"But for that sort of recruit… too late to worry about it, already happened," Buster suggested. "I bet it's the only unit whose Military exercises are avoiding exorcises."
"With bell, book and candle, the whole scene," Babs reflected. She frowned. "That rings a bell. And thinking of bells... you know, in my office there's a stack of notes left by that old German guy who was there before me, Professor Knott-Bormann. I've been looking through it."
"It's in English?" Buster blinked.
Babs grinned. "German, what else? In a really weird old Gothic typeface called 'Fraktur'. But hey, it is the 21st Century! My phone translates it." Although broken English was hard enough to follow, Bab's hard-working phone had eventually cracked the 1940's 'Fraktur'd German. She looked round conspiratorially. "Seemed he had this wacky Toon Physics project going in the wing that's sealed off these days. Up in the Acme Looniversity Bell Tower."
"Hmm. Ancient German guy. Had a totally mysterious, tinfoil-hat-wearing type Secret Project, based on The Bell." Buster waved frantically at a 4th-wall camera linked to a Sinister NaziTech conspiracy Toontube channel while Babs' back was turned. "Gee, wonder what THAT could be."
"Who knows?" Babs shrugged. "Anyway, it was something really major, as in time and space bending, and not by the rulebook." She blinked. "The kinda thing Albert EinsToon didn't approve of. Theoretical Physics done by Heretical Physicists. Then, they didn't like EinsToon either. Something about his tastes in bagels and gefilte fish."
"Which means it'd likely give Calamity a headache too. He didn't like Wacky-land much," Buster suggested. "All those naked singularities." The straight-laced scientist had always carefully averted his eyes when coming too close to any of the nightmare fuel of Physics that lay posing artistically around Wacky-Land, on the run from Cosmic Censorship.
"Right. We'll need to take a look ourselves, then. See what's up there. Who knows? Calamity might not have to build a time machine, just figure out the user manual." Babs spin-changed into a fetching but practical Ms Pasadena Jones adventuring outfit, complete with battered leather Stetson and a coil of climbing rope. Her ears dipped. "We can't take Blitz with us, scrambling up bell-towers. Too dangerous."
"Too true." Buster nodded. Just then he spotted Calamity walking in. "Hey, Cal! Mind doing an hour or two of cub-watching? Babsy and me have a bit of Advanced Adventuring to do."
Glad to. I can do the paperwork here as well as anywhere, and keep an eye on him, Calamity signed.
"He should be fine. He's been fed..." Bab's eyes grew distant for a second, and a small smile played over her adorable muzzle "And he's got his toys to play with."
Calamity frowned, looking at the plush bricks the rabbit cub was stacking. It was hard to keep track of Blitz; even given access to supercomputers Calamity would have to run constant Monte Carlo simulations just to have an evens chance of guessing where the young bunny was when unobserved. There was no telling what abilities being conceived in six-dimensional space might bring, he thought wonderingly. Even looking at the cub closely, he always seemed slightly blurred – as if his image was the superimposed average of thousands of possible states he might occupy under QuanToon Uncertainty laws. Which it was, in fact.
These bricks… where did you get them? He signed curiously.
"Picked 'em up in Japan, just yesterday our time," Buster shrugged, spin-changing into a Rugged Adventurer mode with battered leather jacket and non-patented Utility Belt. "Blitz found them lying around somewhere. Why?"
The coyote shrugged. Just... something about them... something I've not seen in years. I'll try and remember. He waved as the senior bunnies shouldered their rucksacks and headed out. The ice axes were probably a bit much for an indoor exploration, he thought, but no doubt they came with the outfits.
Be good, Blitz. Calamity signed as he smiled down at the fuzzy cub; the writing on his sign manifested in a crayon scrawl font. You play, I've got work to do. As he picked up the first papers, he reflected that cub-watching really was that. In his peripheral vision Blitz's image seemed to lose focus, his Circular Area of Probability growing the less he was Observed.
Calamity busied himself with the papers, while Blitz assembled the dozen plush blocks that had once been a living supercomputer's Cute and Fuzzy Logic circuits. He arranged them in a line - surveyed it critically, then rearranged them into a square. Deftly for his age, he rebuilt them into a perfect cube, which he stared at for a few minutes in contemplation. Evidently it was still too flat.
A small pink tongue protruded with concentration. And then Blitz Bunny rearranged the cube into the NEXT shape up.
End Chapter Two
