Not all the platforms had elephants and bunnies, though. Some were carrying what I was pretty sure was sod, presumably to go up to repair a patchy spot in the grass. Maybe that’s what the rabbits were going to do, instead of attack my team. Hey, a girl could dream, right?
Dad would have loved something like this—automatic sod deliveries—back when I was a little girl and he’d tried to grow a good lawn in the desert heat of Pueblo Caliente. The water cost had been so high, Mom had put her foot down, so we’d lived with pretty desert landscaping most everywhere and a crummy lawn in the backyard that the dogs and cats enjoyed in their own, special ways. As Mom had put it, we lived near a great park that Pueblo Caliente paid the water bill for, and parks were for running around and having fun in, so she saw no reason to keep on trying to create something lush when all it was really used for was cat and dog excrement. Mom, as always, had a point.
Wondered what Mom and Dad would make of this. Potentially more than I was. Worried about my parents, having to cover things while we were gone. Worried about Mom and Dad having to lie to Alfred and Lucinda. Worried about all the pets left on Earth. Then chose to worry closer to home, so to speak, and worried about Jamie, Charlie, and Lizzie, then all the other kids.
Could have kept on worrying about everyone and everything, but Bruno squawked quietly and I stopped. Shoved the worry away hard because Bruno had made a good point—we didn’t want Jamie picking the worry up, because we really didn’t want any of the kids to try to come down here. In no small part because, despite the lack of apparent danger, I was sure that we were in trouble of some kind, because I didn’t believe SuperBun had actually had Butler taken away out of concern for Butler’s robotic health.
As we got closer to our destination, could confirm those were indeed squirrels driving cars and doing assembly line work, and they were all normally squirrel sized, just like SuperBun and his rabbits were normal bunny sized. There was something wrong about that, but I didn’t have time to think about it because we finally reached the ground. Tried not to breathe a sigh of relief but felt all of us relax, animals included. SuperBun as well, which was interesting.
He hopped off and we followed. The area we were in looked like all the others we’d seen from above, only now that we were down here on this version of ground level, it was just about the same as when we’d been above it. Smells were the same, noise level wasn’t too much more than we’d heard while on the platform, and while everything around us was huge, we weren’t as dwarfed as I’d expected us to be. Frankly, things had looked larger when we’d been about halfway down than they did now.
“Something’s off,” Chuckie said quietly. “Be on guard.”
Algar was clearly in agreement. My music changed to “Something’s Missing” by John Mayer, and I counted song time in my head—it had taken us about fifteen minutes to lower from when I’d put my headphones in, so if I guessed our time in the dark correctly, we’d been on the platform for a good twenty minutes.
On Earth, that would mean we were far underground, even on the slowest elevator. Looked up. I could still see the top, as patches of light appeared and vanished, depending on what was going up or coming down.
Had no idea what this meant in reality, but it was clear that what we were seeing wasn’t necessarily what actually was. Wanted to ask Ginger and Bruno what they were seeing, but had a feeling that would broadcast to SuperBun. Wasn’t sure that all I’d been thinking hadn’t broadcast to him, but hope liked to spring eternal.
SuperBun hopped along and we followed. Realized I hadn’t asked his name. “What should we be calling you?” I asked as I caught up to him.
He replied that he quite fancied SuperBun and I could keep on using that for him.
“I’m glad you like your superhero nickname, but do you have a real one, one that people other than me use for you? We all have real names and nicknames. Not sure if that’s just us, though.”
He replied that, so far, we were the only people he’d met.
“Oh, sorry, semantics. I think of everyone sentient as a person. You’re a fluffy, adorable person, I’ve met big, scary, Cthulhu-type people, people who look like us but are different inside, and so on. It’s just easier to think of everyone as equal in their personhood than not.”
SuperBun stopped hopping, sat up on his haunches, and stared at me. He found this mindset of mine shocking.
“Why?” I asked as the others gathered ’round. “You’re sentient, you’re in charge of your planet, or at least part of it, you guys clearly have a system of some kind going, what’s wrong with thinking of you as people? I mean, I’m not gonna change that mindset, but I’m curious as to why you find it so odd.”
SuperBun did a fast shake of his head, like a lot of animals will. It was beyond adorable when he did it, ears flapping fast. He blinked at me when he was done with his shake. He wasn’t a people, he was an animal.
“Yes, but you’re a sentient animal,” I replied. “I mean, I’m best friends with a lizard-woman, a cat-person, and a giant dog-girl. They go by the official race titles of Reptilian, Feliniad, and Canus Majorian, but they’re still people and still my friends. Sure, they’re somewhat humanoid, too, because they walk on their hind legs just like we humans, or Naked Apes, do, and they’re a lot closer to our size. But still, they count as people. You guys, do, too. You have a sense of humor, you have the ability to be snide, you have the ability to be thoughtful, and so on. I don’t see why me thinking of you as people versus just as adorable things to cuddle is a problem.”
SuperBun did a full body shake. We could talk about this later. Then he hopped off again.
We all looked at each other. Noted that Christopher was carrying Bruno and Jeff had Ginger. Decided not to ask why.
As we followed SuperBun again my phone rang. Was able to answer it without alerting SuperBun since my headphones were in. Didn’t want to say hello, but it turned out I didn’t have to.
“Kitty, it’s Tim.” He sounded out of breath, like he was running. “Took a chance that you were listening to music. I figure you are, since you’re not speaking. Keep it that way, don’t let that rabbit you’re with know I’ve called you. So, you don’t talk, just listen. Don’t ask me how, but Mother can actually keep our cell phones working out here. For which we’re really grateful to her and Drax, because we’re under attack.”
CHAPTER 33
DID MY BEST TO focus on thinking about flowers and grass and that the squirrels working on the machines were super cute but not as cute as the bunnies. SuperBun kept on hopping with purpose, so hoped I was keeping this conversation from him.