Synopsis: A rude awakening begins a day that just keeps getting stranger.
Attack of the Fluffy Bunnies features characters and concepts from the Big Finish audio productions of 'The Tomorrow People' which are based in turn on the 1970s television series of the same name, created by Roger Price and produced by Thames Television. It has no particular place in the BF continuity, although it would help to have heard at least one of the CD adventures.
This story is completely unconnected with any of my other writing projects.
It is a work of fan fiction, not written for profit but rather in admiration of the show and its underlying principles. Characters and situations are used here without permission.
Many thanks to Jackie 'Angeriana' Clark and David 'Zzyzx' Steinberg for the pleasure of their company in chat, and the interesting conversation that led to this story concept. Thank you too for letting me take the idea and run away with it! I am also very grateful to Anyta Jawzi for beta reading this story for me.
It is always gratifying for a writer to know if their work is being read and enjoyed, and helpful to know if the reader's reaction is less positive. Silence only serves to worry and confuse! Feedback of any kind would be welcome to tiylaya@yahoo.com
Enjoy!
Elizabeth Stanway
[Paul!]
Paul woke in confusion from a nightmare in which he'd mistaken a Federation ambassador for a plate of spaghetti, not discovering his mistake until too late. Elena was leaning over him, shaking his shoulder in her effort to wake him.
"Paul! They're attacking! The Fluffy Bunnies are on their way!"
She jaunted as soon as she saw his eyes open, leaving behind a ringing in Paul's ears that slowly merged with the throbbing of his headache. The after-effects of a late night out and of the disconcerting nightmare Elena had broken into combined to leave him feeling muzzy and confused. Even so, Elena's words echoed in his ears. He groaned, rolling onto his back and staring at the ceiling of his bedroom with a frown.
"What?!"
*****
Elena was sitting at the link table when Paul jaunted into the Lab. She spoke quietly and urgently to TIM, her voice just too low to hear. She broke off as Paul materialised on the jaunting pad, turning to face him expectantly. He returned her look rather awkwardly, not sure what to say.
Elle spared him from having to decide. "Thank goodness you're here, Paul. We need to get moving."
Paul stepped down from the jaunting pad, running a hand through his short hair.
"Ah, Elle ... Look, I know this is gonna sound weird, but I could have sworn I heard you say ... "
"The Fluffy Bunnies are on their way, Paul," TIM interrupted, his rich voice carrying a note of tension.
Paul stared at TIM's hemispheres. He steadied himself against the link table, shaking his head in disbelief. "I haven't had nearly enough sleep last night to deal with this. Some of me mates had an 'End of the Month Party' last night." He caught their bemused looks. "Look, we're students, okay? And March is a rotten month - grey, wet and miserable."
TIM took pity on him. An energy drink materialised on the link table and Paul drank it gratefully. Finally, he took a deep breath.
"Bunnies?" He paused as TIM cleared his throat meaningfully. "Oh, err, sorry - thanks, TIM." He turned to Elena. "Look, I've not got this wrong, have I? We are talking floppy ears? Big teeth? Carrot fixation?" He held his hands up, their palms about a foot apart. "About so big?"
"Almost right," Elena told him, trying to hide a grin.
"The Fluffy B'nies," TIM began - and the word flashed up on the Lab's main screen - "bear many superficial similarities to Earth-evolved leporiform species, and therein lies a large part of the problem. However, there are two important differences: the B'nies are bipedal - "
"And twenty feet tall." Elena finished for him.
Paul shook his head. "You have got to be kidding me!"
"Have you ever known me to be less than serious?" TIM asked with cool dignity.
"But 'fluffy'?"
"The B'nies are covered in a pelt of hair that is several inches in length, Paul. While this pelt is remarkably soft, cushioning them against falls or collisions, the fibres are easily detached. They can cause serious damage if inhaled, or drawn into the air intakes of vehicles or other machinery."
"Their coat is their best protection - and their most potent weapon," Elena added seriously.
Paul looked her in the eye. Her mind was closed to him, but there was a bright spark in her eyes that could have been excitement, or fear, or something quite different.
"So - let me get this straight - we're talking about man-shaped rabbits the height of a double-decker that give you hairballs?" he asked, trying but failing to keep the scepticism out of his voice.
Elena sighed. "Aliens come in all shapes and sizes. Didn't your last blunder teach you anything, Paul?"
Paul flushed, looking away in embarrassment. "All I did was ask John why he was talking to a pot plant. How was I supposed to know that the ambassador from Drogna looks like me gran's aspidistra?"
"John's still calming the diplomatic waters," Elena reminded him.
"Hey, that's a point. Isn't John due back today? He said the first of the month, didn't he?"
Elena gave a regretful shake of her head. "TIM's tried to get in touch with the Trig, but interference is bad. We can't wait - anything could happen before John gets back."
Paul stood and began to pace around the link table. It felt as if Elena and TIM were manoeuvring him into a corner and yet he knew that it was hardly their fault. They just seemed to have an answer for every protest.
"Okay, so what will these Bunnies do when they get here? And what do they want?"
******
The main screen showed scenes of devastation: buildings smashed, cars crushed into crumpled disarray. It looked like the aftermath of an earthquake, but, TIM assured him, it was the legacy of the B'nies' last visit to the Earth. Paul found himself thinking of a birthday card he had once received ... two days late and unaccompanied by any gift. The card had shown a newspaper front page bearing similar scenes and the headline 'Giant Rabbit Eats Mall', while the slogan inside had read 'Sorry I didn't buy you a present - a rabbit ate my shop!' At the time, Paul had laughed, while secretly pegging it as the worst excuse he'd ever heard. Now, in a haze of confusion, he found himself wondering if it could possibly have been the truth.
"So they've come before," Paul said, summarising the last ten minutes of images and stories. "And they smash things - but why? Why bother coming to Earth?"
"The B'nies believe that their cousins, the Leporidae, have been kept from their rightful place of dominance," TIM explained. Paul gave him a blank look before turning to Elena.
"They think that bunny rabbits should have inherited the Earth," she translated with a smile. "We have to keep an eye out for them every spring, because every so often they decide to come free their relatives."
"Why the spring?"
"The B'nies object to the consumption of Leporidae in effigy at the spring festival."
Elena opened her mouth to provide another translation, but Paul waved her into silence.
"Hold on. I think I actually understood that one. They don't like chocolate Easter Bunnies?"
Elena nodded, and once again the corners of her mouth turned up in a slight smile. "They think it's an insult to their dignity."
Paul nodded back. On the one hand, the whole situation did sound pretty funny, but having seen what the Bunnies could do, he hardly felt like laughing.
"How do we stop them?" he asked seriously.
Elena and TIM exchanged looks.
"Now this is the bit you're not going to like," Elena predicted. "The only way we've found to attract their attention is to appeal to their maternal instincts. One of us will have to dress up as an infant B'nie, and open up negotiations."
Paul hesitated. TIM had shown him a fuzzy image of a Fluffy Bunny with its front teeth forming a prodigious overbite and its long, floppy ears brushing its shoulders. Its outline had been blurred by a haze of windblown fur. Most striking of all had been its colour: a vibrant, artificial pink. His first instinct had been to dismiss the entire thing as a fantasy, but he'd seen so many strange things in the last year or so that he had learned to keep an open mind. Even so, he tried to imagine a smaller, man-sized version of the creature, and his love of drama clashed with his capacity for sheer red-cheeked embarrassment.
"Well volunteered, Elle," he told her quickly. Elena shook her head, and the smile was gone from her face now. Her expression was calm and controlled.
"Unfortunately, female pheromones seem to alarm them. I'm sorry, Paul, but it's going to have to be you."
*****
Paul stepped back into the Lab's main room, shrugging his shoulders to settle the metallic fabric of his AE suit more comfortably across his back. He pulled the helmet on, grateful that its faceplate obscured his mortified expression.
"All right. Here goes," he said aloud. He concentrated, visualising the image he had seen on the screen and feeding it to the suit's spectra shift. Suddenly, he was seeing the world through a mist of pink fur. He could see himself reflected in the darkened viewscreen - a six-foot-tall, long-eared, bright pink, two-legged bunny rabbit, his own features barely visible behind the furry mask.
Elena stared at him, her lips trembling with the effort of suppressing her laughter. TIM cleared his throat noisily, and there seemed to be a note of amusement even in his voice. "Very convincing, Paul."
They all started when the pulsating music of an interstellar jaunting beam split the air. John materialised in a cascade of light and sound. Paul turned to face him, speaking urgently, even before the older man was fully present.
"John, thank God you're back! The Fluffy Bunnies are coming!"
For a moment, John just stared at the metamorphosed Paul with an expression of amazement, then his lips began to twitch, their corners gradually turning upwards in a broad smile. His eyes on TIM and Elena, he tutted sternly.
"Playing the old 'Bunnies' trick again?"
Paul's expression changed to bewilderment as Elena folded under John's gaze. Her attempts to conceal laughter failed utterly and she doubled over. Even TIM chuckled, the sound emerging from his many speakers. John stepped down from the jaunting pad, patting Paul companionably on one fluffy shoulder.
"Don't worry. I think TIM's caught out every TP that's ever passed through here with the same ruse."
"Training exercise!" TIM protested. "It is vital for each of you to maintain an open-minded approach to those you encounter."
John smiled up at him, raising one eyebrow. "An exercise which you just happen to schedule for 1st April, every time?"
Elena pulled herself upright and crossed the room to give Paul a quick hug. She looked up at TIM's hemispheres. "Would you do the honours, please, TIM?"
Paul watched with confused embarrassment that faded into anger as a thick, leather-bound volume materialised on the link table. John collected it, handing it to Elena with a slight bow. She bowed in return before turning to present the book to Paul with a flourish. He accepted it automatically, barely glancing at it before TIM's rich voice filled the air.
"Congratulations, Paul, on your graduation from the Fluffy Bunnies School of Open-Minded Tomorrow People," he announced grandly.
Elena winked at him, "Only alumnae get to see the gallery."
She took the book from his hands, opening it to the last page. Paul looked into his own face, barely recognisable as it stared out determinedly from its mask of pink fur. Despite his irritation, he couldn't help himself as he flipped the pages backwards across page after page of pink-rabbit attired Tomorrow People. Elena was there, her familiar features ridiculously distorted by the ludicrous costume. She nodded as he looked up at her, flushing with the memory. Driven by curiosity and a sudden thought, Paul flipped further back still, turning to the very front page. There, decades younger, but recognisable nonetheless, John's features graced an over-sized and ridiculous pink bunny rabbit.
Finally, Paul's irritation faded to amusement as he looked up to find their stern, responsible friend squirming in embarrassment. Perhaps proving he was as open-minded as John had been worth a little humiliation. Getting the chance to see this photo certainly had been! He turned back to the end of the gallery, noting the empty pages that followed his. He closed the book contentedly, already planning in his own mind how he'd teach the next breakout the same lesson. After all, who knew when the Fluffy Bunnies would attack again!
The End