Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Fifteen

Week Two had gone well for the plot bunnies' plan, Flopsy admitted to herself.

Earry had started giving her periodic updates on what he'd heard about the other zones, and it seemed to be clear: the novelists were losing their nerve. From what she knew from her time stalking the Office of Letters and Light, that was a normal trend - but the decision to exploit it had caused unprecedented numbers of novelists to drop the challenge.

Flopsy supposed she ought to feel happy about it, or at least to pretend to more than she had bothered so far, at least in front of plot bunnies who weren't part of her team. But she couldn't.

Which was why she was here, in the carefully mustiness-free rare books section in one of the libraries on the campus of the University of British Columbia. She always felt strangely at home here. One of her first writers had introduced her to the space. He had been a librarian here, and used that privileged position to take his breaks in here to write. And given that he wrote books based around her own narrative, perhaps he found it soothing for the same reason she did: she felt a kinship with these texts, many of which had been lost and abandoned, but which had persevered through the years to find themselves in this place of peaceful solace.

Flopsy breathed deeply. Even the scent of the tomes perfuming the air was soothing, and she reveled in the external environment, for it contrasted sharply with her internal turmoil.

She sighed: she had been here long enough to start. She wasn't going to get any more value out of being here unless she did.

Okay. Time to admit it: she was scared. She didn't understand what was going on, and she didn't know what to do about what had already happened, and she didn't like it. She felt out of control.

But at least she could think through it logically.

Okay. Fact. Alfalfa was stuck.

He couldn't walk through walls or ignore the chill air and raindrops, but more than that, he couldn't return to Bunniption Base. They thought it had something to do with his narrative somehow working, or trying to work, on humans, which she didn't understand. The plot bunnies were just stories, just fiction - there was no way for them to affect humans - or so she had always thought.

Power, she thought suddenly. She had known for a long time that Alf had done something to the way his energy returned to Base. He hadn't liked how much of the brain carrot energy he returned to base had gone to feed the scenery, so he had investigated and tinkered and figured out a way around the system. She didn't understand it and had never tried to do anything like it herself - she'd trusted the system, she supposed. It wasn't like she needed the creative energy for anything else, and the existing energy allocation supported and nourished plotlet kits in sufficient numbers to support growth when the brain carrot harvest was good, so what else could she want?

But now, the vampire was in charge and what she had trusted was no longer true. Flopsy shivered. Alfalfa had been cut off right before the full start of the mission, and almost at the same time, his narrative had somehow affected humans.

Perhaps the power he had been busy harvesting had decided to ground itself somewhere, since Alf hadn't been trying to contain it at all.

Flopsy paused in her train of thought.

Harey and Hopert.

Surely she would have heard if someone had been murdered.

Surely.

Flopsy shivered, suddenly sure that she understood Alfalfa's case - but the boys insisted the same 'mysterious' thing had caught them out too, and she knew they hadn't changed their power return before - but she had told them to stay with Alfalfa and his human friend - oh boys, she thought, what have you done?

And she bounded through the ceiling, back to Alfalfa's friend's apartment.




Metaphorical fur seemed to be flying when Flopsy arrived, bounding up through the floor near the door where Patricia was unlikely to see her.

Harey and Hopert were on the couch, the first looking absolutely disgusted and possibly angry - it was hard to tell with Harey - and the second looking incredibly amused. Chances were Hopert was annoyed with whatever had Harey in a fuzz, but was more amused at Harey's reaction than annoyed with the other thing.

Normally Hop's reaction would be a good sign, but as Flopsy took in with her first glance, Alfalfa was in just as bad a mood as Harey. She hopped over to the plate on the floor that still had a few carrot stubs on it, and munched on them - nowhere near as good as brain carrots, and yet there was something about them, she thought, crunching with readily apparent enjoyment. She carefully did not display any sign of awareness of whatever had her team riled.

Yes, she supposed they all knew her well enough to know exactly what she wasn't shoving in their faces, but Flopsy rather thought that was part of the effectiveness of the tactic. Her restraint caused the boys to suddenly fall into line, if necessary, or forget what all the huff was about, if it was minor, or at least explain what was going on.

Unfortunately, she got none of those reactions.

Harey and Hopert both stilled their expressive ears and sat with a more neutral posture - she could barely tell their emotions now, and that was a lot more neutral than either of them ever got - but Alfalfa still radiated ... but no, Flopsy thought, eyes scanning all the little signals of her friend's un-muted body language, he wasn't annoyed. He was worried.

No team lead should have to draw something important out of her team like this, Flopsy thought with some aggravation. Not that her own team ever made it easy for her, but if Alfalfa was worried, seriously worried, then this was no time to be coy.

"Alfalfa!" she snapped. "What is it?"

Alfalfa looked at Flopsy. “I'm talking to Patricia, Flops. Or trying. She wants to go to San Francisco.”

“She wants to what?” Flopsy asked, flabbergasted.

“Well of course she does,” Alfalfa said, crouching towards the human in an attempt to indicate the end of their attempt at discussion. Patricia nodded and turned back to her computer, probably working on one of her two writing projects, Flopsy thought, and wondered which of the boys would be garnishing power off fuelling her plotline. Alfalfa turned away from her and offered his team lead a small crouch. He still looked worried, she thought, and no wonder. San Francisco would be very dangerous for someone of her creative output, especially with a vampire around... The grey leader would want all the energy the rabbits could absorb from her. “But she doesn't understand that I need to go with her,” he was continuing.

“You need to what?” Flopsy demanded in identical intonation to her previous statement.

“Of course I do. Someone from your team has to be there,” Alfalfa stated sensibly. “Otherwise she'll have no access to the local plot bunnies, and they'll suck her dry,” he echoed her earlier thought. “It ought to be me simply because she's already writing my plotline, but more than that, there's no one else you can send. You can't go, Earry has to stay here so he can report on you, and Harey and Hopert will be crucial to your plans against the vampire, once we've weakened his energy source.”

“Plans – once you've what? How thegarden are you going to do that?”

“I'll need Bun-Bun's help,” Alfalfa said. “So if you see Earry before me, send him my way, please.”

“That doesn't answer my question, Alf,” she said ominously.

“You have to trust me, Flops. Besides, you need to work on your end of things.” He paused. “I think I know what happened to Patricia's granddaughter.”

“You mean your narrative? Me too!” Flopsy exploded, suddenly reminded of her original motive in this visit and turning to Harey and Hopert. “You boys haven't caused anyone to die lately, have you?”

Hopert's ears waved in amused affront. “Of course not. I can handle more power than this. Besides, we haven't had any brain carrots since det – I mean, since we were detached from Bunniption Base.”

“I knew it was deliberate,” she sighed wearily. “You boys are going to be the death of me.”

“Not yet,” said Harey.

“And just how do you know how much power you can handle, Hop?”

“Macho bravado,” Harey answered for him, ears held carefully in their most serious position. Hop responded predictably, but Flopsy's glare stopped the imminent clash.

“So what are you thinking, Alf? Somehow use their stored power to kill someone critical?” Flopsy asked, once she was sure Harey and Hopert had settled.

“That's up to you, team lead, but I bet Earry's narrative will be even more handy,” he answered.

“You know his narrative?” Flopsy asked, surprised.

“I have a hunch,” he said.

“I bet you do,” Flopsy shook her head. “You sure seem to have it all figured out, Alf.”

“Except I can't figure out how to tell Patricia that I need to go!” He was back to annoyed disposition again.

“Well she surely isn't planning to leave today, is she?”

“No, but I'm a rabbit,” Alfalfa pointed out. “Aren't there crazy human laws about travelling with animals?”

“Not to worry,” Flopsy told him. “I know a bunny – I'll find him for you – he has a narrative of some sort of heartwarming animal returns home across long distance or animal tracks master or something – it should work for your purposes one way or another. You'll just have to work your magic on him, get him juiced up, and presto you'll get through. But while you're talking to Patricia tonight about going with her, ask her to find a home for another rabbit – he's always said he wished he could retire someplace with a few of the animals he's helped write so much about.”

Flopsy looked at Patricia, still typing away on her computer. “You know,” she said to Alfalfa thoughtfully, “we could just give her another dose. It would certainly make our lives easier...”

“No!” Alfalfa refused firmly. “We've put her through more than enough already. And besides,” he added,” she'll be useful, possibly crucial, to working this whole situation out. I can feel it in her just as strong as I felt it in Alfred: she's a storyteller, and what better person to solve problems than a storyteller? It's we who provide all the complications that make the story interesting, of course, but it's our human partners who pull all the threads together at the end. That's her role. She'll tie things together in our favour, not the vampire's.”