The Constant Rabbit

Flemming was already there when he walked in the room. She was chatting amiably to five Compliance Officers. I knew them all by sight, but only three by name. Spotters regarded Compliance Officers as gung-ho thugs with only a badge and a union-appointed lawyer to separate them from TwoLegsGood, and COs regarded Spotters as overpaid milksops who had lucked out.

They all introduced themselves to me at Whizelle’s behest, and they remained cordial, as did I, although I could see they were all deeply suspicious of my inclusion on the team. It wasn’t just the Fallen Arches exemption that had kept me off Ops. If you’re going to be part of a politically motivated team, you need a common goal, a common agreement, an understanding.

Our new Intelligence Officer was already there, but wasn’t like any other Intel Officer we’d had, either permanent or loaned.

This one was a rabbit.

Fudds and Flopsies

‘Fudd’ – as in ‘Elmer Fudd’ – was the usual pejorative rabbit term for a human. There were also: Pinko, Fleshy, Homo, Bingo and Rupert. There were others in Rabbity, too, usually reproductive slurs regarding evolutionarily disadvantageous rates of ovulation and shockingly low litter sizes.

The new rabbit Intelligence Officer had a startled look which made it appear that he’d been caught in car headlamps some time in the seventies and was still suffering the trauma. He would have been Labstock owing to his white fur which looked matted and ill-kempt, and he was dressed in an embroidered waistcoat covered by a long duster jacket that had been patched several times with brown corduroy. Rabbits abhorred waste and would often use an item of clothing until it fell off them.

More shockingly, when he removed his battered brown derby hat, there were only two healed-over stumps where his long ears would have sprouted from his head. He’d been, in rabbit terminology, ‘cropped’. His fellow rabbits had meted out the worst possible punishment for his unknown and presumably heinous crime and banished him from the rabbithood. Most rabbits took the honourable way out and dug themselves a lonely burrow in which to expire – but a few, consumed by humiliation and loss, wandered the country as outcasts, attempting to find absolution in any way they could. Some, like this one, flipped to the other side, knowing they could not be hated any more than they were already, but still knowing they would have to wear the burden of their sins for all to see, every day, for ever.

‘A rabbit without ears,’ a rabbit would say, ‘is less of a rabbit than nothing.’

One of the officers might have stared for longer than was polite, for the earless rabbit said in a low and unusually threatening growl: ‘What are you staring at, Fudd?’

‘Nothing,’ said the officer.

‘This is Agent Douglas AY-002,’ said Flemming, introducing the cropped rabbit warmly and to low gasps of recognition from the room, ‘vouched for by the Senior Group Leader, no less, and transferred from the Swindon office. Treat him as you would a human,’ she added, enthused by having a rabbit onside against the rabbit, ‘his record is exemplary, his dislike of rabbits well known.’

I too had heard of this rabbit before, though I had not met him. All rabbits who had turned against their own were cropped, but that wasn’t in itself enough. To be fully trusted, rabbits in the employ of the Taskforce would be expected to demonstrate their anti-rabbit credentials, and in this respect AY-002’s reputation preceded him. It was said his usual method for extracting intelligence from any recalcitrant brethren was via a hammer – varying sizes, from toffee all the way up to claw, to match levels of coercion.

‘Agent Whizelle,’ said Whizelle, introducing himself, ‘Intel, Identity Fraud. We met at the interrogation training weekend last year. I enjoyed your talk immensely – the one where you expounded on your “tie the suspect into a hessian sack and beat them with sticks” technique for extracting information.’

‘Morris dancer’s sticks,’ corrected Douglas. ‘It’s an important point, and I thank you. I thought your talk with the Senior Group Leader about the MegaWarren project saving upwards of a hundred million a year by bringing all five colonies together was particularly enlightening, and not before time.’

‘Kind,’ said Whizelle, ‘very kind.’

‘This is Peter Knox,’ said Flemming, beckoning me over, ‘our Spotter today.’

Douglas AY-002 gazed at me suspiciously.

‘I’ve seen your file,’ he said after a pause. ‘They say you’re talented, but hobbled by an unwarranted sense of fair play.’

‘I think it’s important to play the safe game,’ I managed to mumble, ‘to stop RabCoT making a fool of itself.’

He stared at me for a moment.

‘Is that all it is?’

‘That’s all it is.’

He paused again, then clasped my one hand in his two paws, the traditional human/rabbit greeting, as handshakes were tricky to accomplish without thumbs.

‘I won’t let you down, Mr AY-002.’