Run Rabbit Run

Been trying to come up with another story, so when I saw this picture today I decided to write the first thing that came to mind. It's probably crap, but it's practice...

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It was a wet and miserable Jersey night as I sat on an old crate waiting for my contact to arrive in the alley behind the Run Rabbit Run. My only companions a pair of wild rats diving for scraps in the kitchen dumpster. I don't know how the wild ones can stand the damp, but the cold drizzle seemed to find it's way through my coat and soak my fur underneath. My grandfather used to tell me that from what he remembered from his 'wild' years, before he was 'lifted' by the humans, it was instinctual; that he would just ignore the cold and the damp. Personally, I think he was full of it. He was an old fart and a little soft in the head, but my father believed him and would always listen to his stories over and over again. My father told me that most of the lifted couldn't remember the time before, while they were still wild, or at least they won't talk about it. Makes me glad I'm a third generation 'fur'.

Most of the 'furs' of my generation don't think about it because we're to busy trying to rebuild the ruined remnants of the old human world into a new world of our own design. One where we don't have to live in burrows and nests and kennels like out wild cousins. Those crazy inbred human holdouts up north and their subservient New Kennel lap dogs aren't making our lives any easier though. Most of the humans around here have resigned themselves to the fact that animals have started to take over and that the 'Age of Man' has reached its final chapter, but the Empire of Humanity acts like this planet is their birthright and no stinking 'mutant' animals--lifted or otherwise--are going to take if from them.

I guess that's why I decided to join the Cardanian Intelligence Agency as a field agent. A few years ago, the Empire started sending in covert espionage agents to hamper our progress. Assassinations, sabotage, poisoning water and food supplies, even trying mutagens to reduce the lifted animals back to wild beasts. Their campaign of terror went unchallenged for most of a decade until President Foxline approved the creation of the CIA to combat the phantom threat from the north. A threat the militia families couldn't answer.

So now I sit here in dark alleys in the Contested Lands waiting to receive information from our spies and then deliver it to my superiors for review. It's not a glamorous job, and certainly not a safe one--I have the scars to prove that--but I'm told that we've been able to stop a dozen or so attacks this past year, so I am proud of what I do even if I have to catch pneumonia once in a while.

As I sit in the dark and the wet I keep an eye on the street at the far end of the alley, I chose this location because it's a dead end--only one entrance to the street and one into the kitchen. If there's gonna be any trouble, it'll come from one of those two directions, and then, most likely from the street. The humans and dogs they send after us are usually not very creative and almost always go for the frontal assault. Once they sent a sniper, but dogs don't tend to know what the meaning of the word, 'stealth'. He made such a racket accessing the roof across the street from the meeting spot that night that my contact was able to sneak up behind him and take him out before he had his rifle fully assembled. I still have that gun back at my apartment as a memento.

Finally, at half past midnight the light thud of cat paws landing on the corrugated steel awning over the taverns rear entrance announced the arrival of my contact. Steve was one of the few who didn't shed their wild forms when they were lifted. This was a huge asset to the agency, since most Humans won't give an animal a second glance, unless it's doing something obviously uncharacteristic for a wild one. Steven was a pro though. Even when we meet up in a safe spot like this one, he won't drop the pretense of being a wild feline until he's absolutely sure the area is clear. On more than a couple occasions he's even fooled me.

Finally sure that we are not being observed, Steve hops onto the crate next to me and shakes the damp from his fur. I half-seriously ask if he was followed, and receive a cold feline stare in reply. Sometimes I think Steve is going to forget that he's more than a wild cat. After the exchange of code phrases I slipped the collar from around his neck and removed the microfilm tucked inside. I placed my prize in the concealed compartment in the butt of my knife and tossed a small plastic wrapped gift onto the crate at his paws, which he snatched up in his mouth before leaping down to the alley floor and skittering out into the night.

With my package retrieved I shook the wet from my coat and left the alley to enter the tavern through the front door. I had a few hours before my ride back to Cardania would arrive and the Bunnies at the Run Rabbit Run were a nice way to pass the time.