The Constant Rabbit

The Ross integration experiment, while hugely successful at the time and still regarded as the gold standard for peaceful inter-species coexistence, was never rolled out further owing to a concerted smear campaign by UKARP, who despised the concept of integration and instigated numerous complaints about the rabbit’s ‘bacchanalian nature of rampant promiscuity that would surely corrupt the nation’s youth’. Despite no evidence that the nation’s youth needed any outside forces to help corrupt itself in the least, UKARP succeeded in casting doubt over further integration and were as surprised as anyone when their plan succeeded, and integration plans were abandoned. They used it as a springboard to further pursue their anti-rabbit agenda. No one could have foreseen that they’d actually lead the nation four decades later.

‘Before Ross we had only failure,’ said a spokesman for UKARP, ‘afterwards, only success.’

Despite the leporiphobic rhetoric, the once sleepy market town of Ross was now a bustling centre of commerce which encompassed trade, crafts and literary and artistic pursuits, as well as two centres for higher learning that revolved around philosophy, high cuisine and sustainability. While a few residents initially complained about the rabbits, all were won over by the vibrant nightlife, friendly upbeat manner of the newcomers and, of course, the trading opportunities. Although rabbits were not paid well, they liked to spend what they earned quickly. The gourmet lettuce bars did particularly well, as did the numerous greengrocers, a thriving bookstore and several hookah dens where rabbits discussed politics, economics and carrot hybridisation issues while their hookahs bubbled and puffed with the aromatic scent of a variety of rabbit tobacco: dock leaf, catnip, burdock, celeriac and dandelion. Mornings in the hookah dens were reserved for performance readings: the one we passed had a reading of The Hunchback of Notre Dame going on all week.

More relevant to the Rabbit Compliance Taskforce, Ross was by local statute an ‘Open Town’ commercially, residentially and – crucially – for those on a day permit from Rabbit Colony One, eight miles to the east. Thanks to a well-intentioned by-law passed forty years before, busloads of rabbits could move between the two locations without identification checks, something of a headache for RabCoT as it made potential free movement of those in the banned Rabbit Underground that much easier. None of the other colonies enjoyed such freedoms, so it had long been assumed that Colony One was where the movement was based.

It was now half past three, and Lugless AY-002 and I were sitting in his Cadillac Eldorado on the opposite side of the road from the post office.

‘Where are you now, Fudd One?’ asked Lugless, who was wearing an eyepatch and a large tartan tam-o’-shanter stuffed with newspapers to disguise his earless state.The officer in question reported that he was across the street from the post office, standing in the doorway of a shop that repaired light bulbs. All the Compliance Officers were deployed in various places in the locale, either drinking acorn coffee at a sidewalk café, having an animated conversation on a mobile or simply waiting out of sight, ready to amble past and pounce when Flopsy 7770 made his move.

‘Copy that,’ said Lugless into his mic, acknowledging a message from Sergeant Boscombe that a Labstock carrying a briefcase was approaching from the north. Lugless checked his watch, then asked the officer tailing the post office van for an ETA. We received the reply that the van was still twenty minutes away. Having acknowledged both reports, Lugless then dug a carrot out of a brown-paper bag and crunched it up noisily.

‘So,’ I said, trying to ignore the carrot-munching, ‘you’re an AY-002?’

‘Yup,’ said Lugless, neither wanting nor expecting to expand upon the subject.

Since he carried the alphanumeric surname he would be descended from the three laboratory rabbits anthropomorphised at the Event. The DG-6721s were the most numerous with the MNU-683s not far behind. They all suffered ongoing health issues owing to experimentation pre-Event, aside from the AY-002s, whose ancestor, to their constant shame, had been a ‘control rabbit’ in the lab and subjected to no tests at all, something that gave them huge residual guilt that often manifested itself in antisocial behaviour. That, in itself, wasn’t enough to justify cropping. Lugless must have done something seriously unpleasant. Either improper sexual conduct or doing what he was doing now. Rabbits despised a collaborator as much as they despised those who extracted favours by coercion.

We sat for another five minutes in silence.

‘Am I here on some sort of test?’ I asked.

‘I don’t know,’ said Lugless without looking up from the crossword he was attempting. ‘Are you?’