No Surprises

Watch us, flying through the air towards the warren. We pass over the mashed-potato fields, the packets hanging heavy on their branches, but we're going too fast to tell exactly how ripe they are.

We fly over the warren and spiral down to an entrance. The entrance is unguarded and we enter with ease. A candle flickers nearby and we can see a couple of moths flying love-dances over the flame. We ignore them and pass down the deserted burridors, keeping a steady distance from the undulating ceiling.

We pass into the depths of the warren and see a door that is just ajar. We aim for the crack of light that seeps past the edge and, as we enter the room, we spin round one-eighty to see that a coney standing in front kicking the door shut.

We circle round the outside of the crowd filling the room and we alight on the wall near the desk of the speaking coney.

We look at the room, there is one small candle, on a shelf near the door, lighting this crowd of about twenty conies. This is a bit of mixed bunch, but, on average, they give the impression of muscle rather than intelligence. The coney at the front gives a different impression, that of darkness, intelligence and muscle - in nearly equal amounts.

We give a little cough and begin.

"Good Morning, this is your favourite 'Fly On The Wall Documentary' with Fred Housefly and the delectable Anthea.

"Today we are visiting the dark depth of our local warren where sinister deeds are plotted and evil plots are hatched. We are here in the pre-dawn hours to witness the rallying of the troops and we appear to have got here in time to catch the motivational speech. Let's listen in..."

---*---

"This is the final push, my friends. This is the last day that we work in the shadows. From today we will stand tall. From today we will be in control.

"The Buck Starts Here." This brought titters from the more intelligent members of the crowd.

The coney was striding from one side of the room to another. His hands were clasped behind him and he examined each coney in the room as if they were soldiers on parade about to embark on a great campaign. Which is, I suppose, technically speaking, correct.

"We've worked long and hard for this. Many of us have been homeless and living rough ready for this moment.

"Today is payback time. Today is liberation day. Today is our freedom.

"Our thoughts must go to those who fell when our home was destroyed who aren't able to be here to see this day.

"They are looking at us from The Ledge. They oversee all we do, and today they will smile at us with pride.

"Our thoughts must go to those who lost their way when our way of life was crushed.

"Today we lay the foundations that will allow us to bring them back to the fold. Today we start to build the walls of our community again!"

He stopped pacing. He stared above the heads of the crowd.

"We all have our tasks for today. We all have our place readied in the Order ahead.

"We all know the plan. We know there is no place for sloppiness. We all know that there is no leeway for things to go wrong.

"Just remember - no alarms and no surprises."

The crowd murmured the phrase in reply.

"No alarms and no surprises."

---*---

"Isn't that amazing, listeners," Fred says, "We are here on the first day of the New Order. Will this be a New Order of Substance?" Next to him Anthea giggled. "Look, friends, the buck is coming our way, possibly wanting to say something for the cameras for posterity."

There is a squishing sound and the lights go out.

---*---

Cola rubbed her eyes as she padded along the burridors to work, Fudge trotting a few steps behind...

Cola yawned. She should really try to stop reading so late at night. But not until she's finished the journal. She's too caught up in the story of the Head Buck's younger days flying around the galaxy to stop now.

She rounded the corner and bumped into Lotte, also trotting to work.

She looked sheepish, remembering her last words with Lotte the day before and managed to speak before Lotte did.

"Lot," she said, "I'm sorry." She wanted to rush out an apology. Lotte was her best friend now and she needed someone she could rely upon. "Everything seemed to go wrong yesterday and it put me in a bad mood with myself. I shouldn't have let it spill out at everyone else."

Lotte looked at the floor for a second, then she hugged Cola. "I'm sorry too." She said, "You were right, I shouldn't have missed the morning at work like that."

"No more!" Cola said, pulling her head back, "We've both apologised, let's just start the new day as friends again." Lotte nodded.

The girls linked arms and trotted to work, both feeling a little better with each other. Fudge followed silently.

As they reached the offices Matt stepped towards them, holding out an envelope.

"Message, Miss." He stood back next to the door and Fudge took up his position on the opposite side. They nodded a greeting to each other.

Cola ripped the envelope open and held the paper out for her and Lotte to read.

Must se yu urgentlee! Allown.

Leaf the gards at home.

Tel now wun

On secund forts bring lottty.

Furst fing in the mornnin. At the brokun oke.

Al.

She folded the paper up and put it in a pocket. The badly written words brought a lump to her throat - it was just the way Gorden used to write.

"Al?" She said to Lotte, "What's he want?"

"Urgently?" Lotte said, then whispering, "Without the Matt and Fudge?"

Cola nodded, then she shivered. She scratched at an itch on the back of her neck, thinking.

"Matt, Fudge. "She said, "We have a meeting to go to and it's important that the two of you stay here until we're back."

"M'lady, I'm supposed to stay with you always." Fudge said, frowning. Cola had a flicker of anger about Fudge walking off with Gilchrist that night. She suppressed it.

"We won't be long and we can take care of ourselves for a few minutes."

"But, Ma'am..."

"This is an order, Fudge." Cola said straightening her back, "Stay here until we come back from our meeting. And don't tell anyone where we've gone."

"Where are you going?" He asked.

Cola thought for a second. 'Tel now wun' it said. "Sorry, Fudge, I can't tell you that..."

"Miss, we'll get in trouble with Mister Gilchrist if anything happens to you."

"He can't blame you if I order you."

"Miss!"

Cola patted Fudge on his shoulder. "Stay here and look after the offices until we return, that's an order." She turned to Matt, "That goes for you too." He nodded in return.

Cola took a deep breath, "Come on Lotte."

Fudge took his position by the door up again and looked grudgingly at the does. Matt looked at the girls with his usual unimpassioned stare as they padded off into the distance.

The does turned a corner and Fudge began to count. "One angle-grinder, two angle-grinder, three angle-grinder..."

At "Sixty angle-grinder" Fudge held his paw out at Matt, palm up. Matt smacked it with his.

"No alarms." He said.

"No surprises." Fudge replied.

The two conies then stepped away from the wall and strode off along the corridor.

---*---

Cola and Lotte were making their way through the forest. "I'm sure I remember the Broken Oak being nearer than this." Cola said climbing over a fallen tree.

"I haven't been this far into the forest since I was at school. I remember it being quite a long way then." Standing on the fallen tree Lotte pointed, "Look, there it is." In front of them was what was once a large oak tree. One stormy night many years ago lightning had hit it and split it down the middle - it hadn't grown since and hadn't worn leaves for many a season, but it made a good signpost and has been a meeting place for young bunnies and a shelter from the rain ever since. It had to be a safe place in a storm because everyone knows that lightning never strikes the same place twice.

Cola looked at the size of the tree and the damage that the bolt of lightning had caused. She shivered, thinking of the power of that one strike that had brought down a tree that could easily be a hundred years old. She scratched the back of her head. "Wonder where Al is hiding?"

They slid down the fallen tree to the ground again and made their way to the broken oak,

They spent a fruitless ten or fifteen minutes searching all around.

"We must be here before him." Cola said, slumping against the truck.

Lotte "Ummed" and sat next to her. "Well," She said, "What did you read last night then?"

Cola laughed a little. "It's getting weirder by the page." She smiled. "Let's see, where was I?"

---*---

The next few weeks went by in a blur of hard work and boring food. It was good to have Malcolm to talk to, I think that help keep me sane. I was never sure about Malcolm 'though. He was a very erratic coney. Very funny to talk to; he tried to speak in song titles and quoted rhyming couplets rather than sentences. He normally just replaced the word "Love" with "Lunch" but it made for amusing conversations.

Then I started realising something. The guards had started to treat me differently. It took a while to notice, but they stepped away from me when I stepped near them. The kitchen staff also seemed to treat me with more caution than disdain. That was it, I realised, they were treating me with kid gloves. And not just me; Malcolm seemed to get the same. He didn't notice it but I did.

Every so often I'd see guards talking and looking in my direction. If they saw me looking they'd look away.

I was standing in the slop-queue at lunchtime ("Lunch is the miracle of life", Malcolm had told me) when I saw someone I knew. I saw a rat's tail through the crowd and I though I caught a glimpse of a rat's head bobbing up and down.

What was Richard doing here? Had the ship been captured doing something it shouldn't have done?

I gladly received my large bowl of gloop (a technical term) and padded through the canteen to where I thought I'd seen Richard. There he was sitting at a table eating. There were spare seats and so I sat down at the table. He looked up at me, glared, then looked back down at his food. I didn't know what to say, luckily he said it for me.

"Don't talk to me." He spoke to his food without a glance in my direction. "You don't know me." He said, "So why would you have anything to say to me..."

He cleaned his bowl as I sat there, stunned.

"I'll tell you when I need you." He said than stood up and walked away. Malcolm sat next to me.

"It's almost like Lunch." He said letting the slop drip off his spoon.

"No one will get that one." I said with a smile. "No one bought Big Generator"

"Lunch will find a way?" He tried. I shook my head. He tapped the side of his bowl in four-four time, "Rhythm of lunch?"

I took a mouthful absent mindedly running through my head what Richard would want of me.

I saw Richard about most days since then, but he never looked in my direction and never said a word when I was near him.

He was one of the biggest enigmas of my career so far. Our home planet was interdicted and contact from the greater galactic civilisation was banned and that ban was enforced. So how did Richard get a seat on the good ship TB?

For that matter how come Lord Fader was an important part of galactic politics? Surely someone must have performed some checks on his background?

Richard had barely spoken a word to me whilst we were on the ship. I could never get him into a conversation about Home.

Then, one lunchtime, I was eating alone and he sat down next to me. He still didn't look at me, but he spoke at his slop.

"Be ready tonight."

"For what?" I asked my slop.

"I take it your implants are in storage here?"

"I think so." I said, taking a mouthful.

"At five, ask to see them."

"What?"

"It's your right to check your property has not been tampered with." He took a mouthful. "Promptly. At five." He held his bowl and drained the remnants. "See you later." He said standing up and walking off.

The afternoon went very slowly. At four thirty I left work and made my way to the storage area.

I went up to the duty guard and realised that this was the first time I had wanted to speak to a guard. I made my request. I could see he wanted to say no. I could see that he looked a bit frightened.

Of me?

He pressed a few buttons and a package dropped from a tube by his side. He checked the details printed on it then handed it over to me. I ripped it open.

Within were five shiny balls. They looked just like the sort of marbles you would cherish if you won. The sort of marbles that you never wanted to lose. I held each one in my fist one at a time. I could almost feel the nano-gel within that held the logic of my implants - extra memory, translation, enhanced vision, waste disposal and power management. Holding them I nearly felt whole again.

Then the world turned upside down.

An almighty crash shook the building. Alarms began ringing immediately. The guard opposite me went glassy-eyed as he received instructions over his implants.

Smoke poured out of the tube that my package had arrived through.

"Return the package now," The guard said to me, standing up. He coughed and held his arm out.

Another crash (explosion?) rocked the building and he lost his footing. The implants in their protective spheres rolled onto the floor.

I dived at them.

The wall behind the guard collapsed and hit him hard. I had collected the spheres and I took a decision. This was what Richard had known was going to happen. This is what he expected.

I picked up each sphere in turn and crushed them in my hands. The nano entered my body, blackening my hand for a few seconds, then starting its trek through my body to find it's place of work. My hand should have been bleeding from the shards of the balls, but all the nano had medical applications and the cuts were healed as the invisible machines were absorbed by my body.

I knew it could be hours or days for the nano to reach their destinations and then re-wire themselves together and into my body. But in a few days I would be whole. There was no movement from the guard and I was just deciding what to do when the door was kicked in. Malcolm's head popped in the room.

"I got chew babe!" He exclaimed. "Come on!" He motioned for me to follow him.

We raced along the corridors. In the distance I heard more explosions, but each explosion seemed to silence an alarm, until there were no alarms, just things exploding.

We came across a fire-fight; we found ourselves behind two guards that were shooting at something in the distance that was shooting back at them.

I looked at Malcolm. He looked at me. We didn't really need to decide whose side we were on.

I picked up a convenient piece of wood on the floor. Malcolm found a length of steel pipe. We stood up behind the guards and thwacked them around the cranium.

They stopped shooting.

"Gottem!" I shouted. The other figures stopped shooting and one rushed towards our position.

"Vestock!" I smiled at my friend. "You've come to get me out!"

Vestock bent over the guards' bodies and pulled their weapons off the prone figures. He threw one at me. "Nisstslele Hissllelissslng." Bugger, my translation implants weren't online yet. He turned to Malcolm, "Kakkleissle gisslee?" He said, Malcolm nodded and was handed the other weapon.

I checked the weapon, no sign of personalisation. I took a shot at the wall. It blew a small hole and I nodded.

"Fifflegisslellish" Vestock said, motioning with his head and taking off at a run. Malcolm and I raced after him.

---*---

"I've found you!" Came a voice from above where Cola and Lotte were seated, "Thank Bugs!"

Cola stood up, "Gilchrist?" He bounded towards them. Cola could see his eyes were wide and he had a deep, bleeding cut on his cheek. "What's happened to you?" Lotte stood up amazed.

"I've been searching all over for you." Gilchrist said, "It's an uprising! There's fighting all over the warren!"

"What?"

"No time for that." He said holding his hands out to the does, "Let's go."

They raced through the forest back to the warren. In some obscene mirror of Herbert's story smoke rose from the warren entrances. Cola stood, dumbstruck at the sight.

A knife flashed through the air and Gilchrist pushed the two girls over. The knife buried itself in the floor where Cola has been standing.

"It's not safe this way." He said taking them round to the west entrance.

The entrance seemed unconnied and Gilchrist inched himself towards the dark hole in the ground with Cola and Lotte following. Gilchrist jumped at something and yanked a bunny out of the shadows. There was a crack as he broke the neck of the rabbit and then dropped the body to the floor. He didn't pay any attention to the dead coney.

"Stay there." He said to the girls and he dashed into the warren.

Lotte and Cola gulped deep breaths and looked at each other with rabbit's eyes. They tried to hide themselves in the undergrowth.

A few minutes later Gilchrist ran out. He sported another gash, this time on his arm.

"It's not safe in there for you." He panted as he reached them, "You'll have to leave for a while."

"Leave?" Cola said in a small voice. "Leave?"

Gilchrist nodded, "Leave, give me a week and my conies can gain control. Then you can safely return." He looked deep into Cola's eyes. "Trust me, you could die in there."

Cola gulped, "I need some things from my room." Gilchrist held her paws in his and squeezed.

"That will be very dangerous."

"There's just some things I can't leave without." She wanted the journal, She wanted Gorden's staff.

"Can I get them for you?" Gilchrist said. "It's not safe." He said for, it seemed, the thousandth time.

"I need a book that's under my bed. And the staff that stands in the corner." Gilchrist squeezed her paws and smiled a peculiar smile.

"I'll be back." He said. Then he was gone.

Lotte was shaking. Cola hugged her. They slid back into the undergrowth and hid from view.

Gilchrist wasn't long.

"I've got your staff." He held it out to Cola and she took it and cuddled it to her. "There was no book. Someone, or more likely many ones, had been through your room. About the only thing not broken or burnt was this staff.

Cola's eyes watered.

"I've got a few provisions." Gilchrist said, helping Lotte to her feet. "Let's go." He strode off westwards.

The girls followed close behind.