“Let me get this straight,” Usagi Sensei, the head of the Bunny household, said. “You’re all spies?”
This was not a conversation that Lawrie Munroe wanted to have. She’d been actively avoiding it since the June Shutdown. She sat as pushed-back from the Bunnies’ long dining table as she could get, long legs kicked out to distance herself from the conversation. While Usagi was looking at her fellow Bunny, Widget, there was a stuffed rabbit under the table glaring accusingly at Law.
Law should have left after making sure that all the Bunnies were safe. She had taken, however, one too many lumps while trying to keep the oni from attacking Oktoberfest. She’d also left her Power Wagon parked at the train depot in Charleroi. There was a derailed train, a platoon of oni warriors, and an army of pissed-off elves between the Bunny enclave and the depot. At the time, it seemed wiser to hunker down, let Babs Bunny stitch up all her cuts, and make sure she didn’t have any hairline fractures. The last day — or two — had been incredibly hazy as she recovered with the help of antibiotics, painkillers, and lots of bedrest.
“What are spies?” Bare Snow asked over the rim of her chocolate milk. Three months of living with Law had made Bare Snow somewhat fluent in English but there were still lots of words that she didn’t know. The “teenage” elf female was wearing only an oversized nightshirt and one of the kids’ bunny hats, her long blue-black hair done in little-girl braids. It was utterly an adorable outfit, but Law knew from experience that Bare Snow also had half a dozen weapons hidden on her at all times. (It was a fact that often boggled Law considering how little Bare Snow wore.)
The Bunny household was having an emergency family meeting before their half-elf children woke up. All five Bunnies were in attendance: Usagi, Babs, Clover, Hazel, and Widget. (Clover, though, had her head down on the table and seemed to be asleep. She’d been up half the night with her colicky newborn son.)
Law wasn’t sure how she and Bare Snow had gotten roped into the meeting, as they weren’t officially part of the household.
The Bunny children all called Bare Snow “big sister.” After a lifetime of being an outcast in her own family, Bare Snow embraced the role with her whole being. The young elf wouldn’t want to miss a “family meeting.”
Usagi was in full mini-Martha-Stewart mode, complete with starched bandana. “A spy is someone who secretly collects information about an enemy.”
Yes, Law could totally be what someone could consider a spy. A freelance spy. Or an assassin. Or an avenging angel. Whatever. She had been one since the June Shutdown. She didn’t want the Bunnies to know, because there were all sorts of dangerous secrets attached to what she’d learned in the last three months. While Usagi and Widget had gotten a massive information download in June — the evils of the Skin Clan Empire and how Windwolf’s grandfather had been assassinated — they were missing key pieces of the story.
It wasn’t that Law didn’t trust Usagi. The problem was Usagi came with six sets of big ears and little mouths that endlessly repeated the most unlikely of things. (There were seven half-elf children but one couldn’t talk yet.)
Law had been hoping that Usagi would never ask about Law’s activities because she couldn’t lie to the woman — not in front of Bare Snow. Elves viewed lying as the worst sin that you could do. Bare Snow wouldn’t lie to save her soul. She would turn against Law if she heard Law lie, especially to someone like Usagi.
“No, we’re not spies!” Widget was the youngest Bunny, a cute teenage African American girl. She was stunningly intelligent yet lacked common sense. She’d actually swum the shark-infested Ohio River during winter, thinking that river sharks hibernated. “We’re Hal’s Heroes! We’re like the Sons of Liberty during the Revolutionary War, only less sexist.”
Law controlled a grimace. Widget’s other loyalties also made Law worried about telling the Bunnies the truth.
“Who exactly are these Hal’s Heroes?” Usagi asked. “How did you get involved with them?”
“It’s like Fight Club,” Widget said. “The first rule of being in the Resistance is not to talk about the Resistance. Besides, you know how hard it is to keep a secret in this house with all the little kids hearing everything and repeating it over and over and over?”
“In the name of the moon, I’ll punish you!” Bare Snow struck a Sailor Moon pose. Law wasn’t sure if Bare Snow was actually following the conversation. The discussion slipped in and out of the two languages on the fly. Her quip, though, illustrated Widget’s point, since it was one of the first things Bare Snow learned in English.
“The Resistance?” Babs was the oldest of the Bunnies. She had a skunk stripe of premature gray that she liked to dye various colors. Currently it was purple. Her lap was full of squirming ferrets, as part of her being the family doctor extended to the pets. Each ferret had a medical record in a binder that Babs was making notes in. “What exactly are you resisting?”
“We haven’t completely settled on a name,” Widget said. “Some people wanted us to be the Rebel Alliance but it was decided that’s too hokey. We’re using ‘the Resistance’ as in ‘the French Resistance.’ I think the name is to impress on people to be hush-hush and don’t go blabbing stuff to anyone, not even people they trust, because those people might tell other people who would tell the wrong person.”
“We need to know what you’re involved in,” Usagi said. “This time it saved all of our lives, but it could also endanger all of our lives. The elves believe that the head of household is responsible for all the actions of the individuals in their enclave. Who are these people? Why did you join them without talking to us first?”
Law squirmed but kept quiet; technically, she and Bare Snow weren’t part of Usagi’s household. Their activities shouldn’t bring the elves down on the Bunnies.
“Well, I didn’t seek them out and join them,” Widget said. “I was crushing on this boy that works at the bakery. I met him when I went in to help them with their computers. He is so fine, with the bluest of eyes.”
“Duff?” Usagi consulted with many of Pittsburgh-based companies, trading her Earth business savvy for things like dining tables. It was through her contacts that Widget ended up doing computer work for the bakery.
Duff was Alton Kryskill’s younger brother; number five in the Kryskill clan. The siblings were all ruggedly handsome as Norse gods. Their stunningly beautiful mother had a coffee shop downtown but their dad had been a sniper for the US Marines. The family’s sniper genetics meant all the siblings tended to keep to the shadows despite being incredibly good looking.
“Yeah, right?” Widget said. “Out of the blue, two months ago, Duff suddenly calls me and asks me to hack the city’s security camera system. ASAP. Matter of life and death. If I hadn’t done all the footwork while trying to find Windwolf the month before, I wouldn’t have been able to do it. I’m not sure how he knew that I could.” She glanced pointedly at Hazel, who worked at the bakery.
“I didn’t tell him anything.” Hazel had a silicon sheet down on the table, flour up to her elbows, and was kneading bread dough. “Duff seems to think you walk on water when it comes to computers, he probably just assumed you could do it.”
“Me? Walk on water? Is that what Duff thinks?” Widget smiled dreamingly at the news. After a minute, she realized that they were staring at her. She shook off the distraction. “Well, I am damn good at what I do, but not that good. I used the backdoor that I made in June. Anyhoo, I didn’t know why he was so frantic and then boom, I’m looking at the pug-ugliest fishes walking around the city, trying eat the police. Duff is all code words and hush hush. We did it. Well…the guys in the Hummer did it but only with my help. We saved the policeman and killed the monsters. Duff was all ‘Thank you, I love you, thank you’ and ‘Don’t breathe a word to anyone about any of this.’ Like I would talk to anyone about hacking the City of Pittsburgh’s computer system! That was before Princess Tinker pulled the orbital gate out of the sky; Duff’s family was worried about repercussions.”