“We are ready,” Taran said, the teal and orange Avali smiling around at his family before focusing on his console, “All integration checks are complete, once it is in position we can turn it on.”
“Well that sounds good,” Chantelle chirped, “Is anyone going to fill me in on exactly what we are doing? I’ve sort of been out working on the survey of the third gas giant’s ring system so I’ve missed all the excitement.”
“This is the launch for our plan to interrupt the Horker’s counting drones,” Selenu said from the captain’s chair, “We’ve not logged it in our daily reports because it’s been classified under Special Operations protocols.”
“Right,” Chantelle folded her arms, “So what exactly are we doing?”
“Just a little bit of Avali style soft sabotage,” Selenu chuckled, “I’ll let Taran explain it."
“I just programmed it,” Taran waved across the compartment at the others. The entire pack had shown up for this launch. Seinu and Ki were sitting together holding hands whilst Firi was at the tactical console.
“It was still a lot of work,” Selenu said, she glanced at the others and offered a warm smile, “You too Firi, Ki, all of you did good on this,”
Taran’s feathers fluffed in embarrassment at the praise, chirping at his pack-sister before speaking, “It was Ki and Firi who came up with the design, they deserve all the credit for this plan to disrupt the drones. I still don’t quite get why you changed your mind to go along with it bro?”
He was addressing the last question toward Seinu who had curled up on the beanbag, his head on Ki's shoulder as he watched them prepare for launch. His ears perked up but he remained lying down, shifting around to get comfy, wrapping his arms about their new brother.
“Come on Seinu, it’s been three weeks since we started building this thing, and in all that time you haven’t told us why,” Firi asked, “Heck you got us permission from Special Operations the least you can do is tell us…”
The Avali trailed off as a video screen flickered into life, Seinu gestured at it and a video started to play. Showing a scene involving Seinu and an ancient bunny, they were in his planetside camp, with the mountains for a backdrop. Everyone sat and watched the video, ears drooped, curses where muttered and as the elder’s story came to an end Seinu sat up slowly and looked around at his family.
“That’s why,” Seinu said in a quiet, calm voice reached as he sat back against Ki, the black and white avali wrapped his arms around Seinu, hugging him tight, “That’s why we are going to fuck with them.”
“That is so fucked up," Selenu whispered quietly.
“Fucked up…” Chantelle chirped angrily, “That’s a bloody war crime! Why aren’t we doing something!”
"We are doing something,” Seinu chirped, “It won’t stop them forever. We'll need help from home to do that, but we can stop them from spying on our new friends, at least for a while.”
“You sure we can’t take the Odyssey over to their planet and crack it in half?” Firi growled, “They couldn’t stop us, they could throw their whole navy at us and we’d swat them out of the sky.”
“Yes,” Chantelle growled angrily, baring her fangs as she turned on Selenu, “We need to do more than just mess with their drones.”
“No,” the pack-leader said firmly, “We aren’t a warship and we also aren’t starting an unsanctioned war. The rest of the Galaxy won’t be on our side if we just drop out of warp and blow them up. Heck, until Seinu’s reports go live on the Nexus our own civilization will be out for our heads and despite your confidence Firi the Odyssey is not a match for the entire Horker fleet, far from it.”.
Firi grumbled and subsided, folding her arms and huffing, “This is weaksauce stuff, we should be doing something.”
“We are”, Selenu chirped. “We are doing your idea. You’re the one who came up with a plan that didn’t involve explosions. We are all rightly proud of you for thinking up a solution that doesn’t involve hitting it with your hammer.”
“Wait,” Chantelle turned to stare at her sister, “YOU came up with a plan that was subtle and sneaky? Wow go sis, maybe getting hauled over the coals by those telepathic cuties had a good effect.”
“What’s this?” Ki asked, “When did that happen to Firi?”
“I’ll tell you later,” Chantelle chirped, “Or Firi can at your next together session, after all it’s recent and an important event in her life.”
Firi grumbled subsiding and chirped in appreciation at the compliment and dire threats at her sister if she dared to say more. Chantelle chirped back a very unconcerned response, she was one of the few who could take Firi’s energetic threats and turn them back on her. For a moment the air was full of soft quiet Avali chirping as the pack sang at each other for a moment, offering compliments, commiseration and promising Ki they’d tell him all later if neither of their sisters did.
“Love you all too,” Firi interrupted, “But as cute as Avali song time is, we have a job to do.”
“Right,” Taran perked up dropping back into Avali core instead of the pack’s own dialect, “Let’s get going, you’ll see Chantelle this will fuck their drones for a good long while,” He touched his console and brought several holograms to life, Avali text scrolled across the screen, folding into position around the image of a very ugly looking satellite.
“The entire point of the satellite we built is that it will blend in. It looks like one of their hub controllers, it’ll link into their system and fuck the whole thing,” Taran touched a communication icon and it flashed with orange lights, “P1, give me an ETA on Satellite release?”
“Task complete, orbit stable, awaiting orders,” the drone’s synthetic voice echoed out of the speakers and Taran nodded, “Ok P1 return to the Odyssey, Ifelse bring my uplink online.”
“Connecting now Taran,” the AI reported, their holographic avatar appearing and perching on Taran’s shoulder to watch, “All systems are integrated with me, access open,” A small black screen appeared. White text flowed across it in lines and a little jingle played then the teal and orange Avali started to type text into the command prompt.
“There,” he said after he executed a long line of instructions, “It is online… connection confirmed. Integration into the drone system is complete.”
The pack chirped happily and Chantelle asked, “You still haven’t said what we’ve done?”
“Oh,” Taran closed his console and turned to his sister, “The satellite looks like one of theirs, even if they took it apart I’m sure they wouldn’t have the skills to tell it is a fake. We’ve replicated each component. The only difference is the operating system, which has a whole layer of additional instructions embedded in it.”
He pointed at the floating hologram of the satellite, an ugly brutish thing of steel and brown panels, it was certainly not anything an Avali would build. It had solar panels and not a single bit of aerogel and it used long slender radar cones as uplink and communication dishes.
“This is what their satellites look like, they are shit. But building a copy took some skill and they use a hacked variant of an ancient and obsolete operating system from Earth, MS-DOS. But for our version I have built in a virus. It is propagating itself across the network as an update even as we speak. It will look like a glitch in the system caused by poor maintenance causing issues in the recording and reporting software.”
“Ok,” Chantelle said patiently, “I am with you so far, we’ve made a replica satellite and spiked it, so what does this virus do? Or better said, how does this work in the first place?”
“It’s an extremely simple system, so simple that any of us could’ve come up with something like this as kids in a hatchery. Basically the drones down there count bunnies, sending the information to the drones here in orbit. The drones here in orbit just take that number and send it back to what we assume is the Horker homeland. That’s about it. There’s no more science than that”.
“Okay, and how are we fucking with them? Chantelle asked curiously, “What does your virus do?”
“I wouldn’t call it a virus since what we did was miserably simple,” Taran said proudly, “But essentially the drones will faithfully record their bunny stats, so the Horkers will find they are working correctly. But the reporting system will look like it has failed. Each time a drone sends a report the software that sends reports back to the Horkers will change whatever number is received from the drones to zero”.
Chantelle tilted her head all four ears twitching curiously, “And that’ll screw with their plans Taran?”
“We believe so,” Seinu interrupted, “Our best guess is that the Horkers are counting bunnies until the population has recovered to a sustainable level. Then we fear they’ll return to use bunnies as cattle again.”
“Won’t they just pull the data from the drones?” Chantelle asked, “When they realise it is not reporting properly?”
“Good luck to them,” Taran laughed, “They either cheaped out buying these or got ripped off,” the Avali shook his head, “These things barely have enough ram and memory to do their jobs; the specs of these drones are so small that almost all the storage space is used for its operating system and the memory is so small that there is no redundancy to keep raw data. They make a report then delete the original data so they can record more.”
“Which works out in our favour,” Seinu said, “We are just lucky their system is so shit.”
“This will fuck their timeline for resuming hunting trips whilst the Illuminate decides on a long term solution to keep the Horkers out,” Selenu explained, “It’s better then us doing nothing and letting them keep counting bunnies.”
“We don’t know at what threshold they’ll return?” Chantelle asked curiously, “Is that not in the system?”
“It is not, and we’d rather not go to war over this.” Seinu said softly, “But we also aren’t going to sit around and do nothing,” he sat up and hugged Ki tightly, “We’re fighting against inertia here, our usual don’t interfere policies are running into the ethical wall of “this is just fucking wrong.”
“It’ll take time for the Illuminate Bureaucracy to decide the best course of action,” Selenu chirped, “We might be an ‘enlightened race’, as others call us, but like everyone it can still take our leaders time to make new policy.”
“It’ll happen though,” Seinu chirped, “Even if normally we try not to interfere. However, anything active won’t really start to be discussed until our final reports on Bunny society are filed. They’ll want everything before they make a decision and even then it could take them a few years.”
“So this will hopefully delay the return of the Horkers,” Firi said, “By confusing their monitoring system they won’t know where or how many bunnies there are.”
“Won’t they just come to fix it?” Ki asked, “I mean when they suddenly start getting readings of no bunnies won’t they assume it is broken?”
“Probably,” Taran smiled softly, “But based on their behaviour it’ll take them months to send a ship. And when they do they’ll follow the instruction manual, reset the system and it’ll seem to start working again...”
Firi laughed and completed the idea, “And then, at some point within the first few cycles it’ll go wrong and start erasing all the actual numbers and sending 0 as the results again.”
“Yup,” Taran smirked, “That’s why we took the time to build this replica satellite, it can lurk around the system fucking them again and again as every time they reset it the new code will trigger and look like an error. Eventually they may decide they have to pull the entire satellite system and replace it but that’ll take them ages.”
“Good work everyone,” Selenu chirped, “Taran keep an eye on it and let us know if it propagates across the system correctly. But otherwise I think it is time for a nap.”
Seinu stretched and stood up, leaning on Ki as he drew him up to his feet next to him, “Mmhmm nap sounds nice, then I need to download my files before returning to the surface.”
“Also Ki, Chantelle,” Selenu said, “It’s your turn to spend time together this week, we’ll have a check in and talk through the therapist plan tomorrow morning ok?”
“Sounds nice,” Chantelle walked over to link arms with Ki as well, “I have some nice things to show you Ki.”
“Is it more clothes?” Ki asked warily, “Taran told me to watch out for you and fashion, I won’t wear anything stupid.”
“Certainly not,” Chantelle chirped as she started for the door with Ki and Seinu in tow, “I don’t buy stupid clothes! Taran have you been spreading lies?”
“I don’t lie,” the teal avali chirped, “Just giving my new brother a chance to avoid you and your fashions!”
“How rude! Seinu, tell Ki I don’t pick stupid clothing.”
“They aren’t stupid,” Seinu said, “But they sure are tiresome, you always pick the most complicated things for us to wear.”
Arguing and chirping with Seinu, Chantelle led the way out of the Bridge, Selenu watched them all leave and smiled softly to herself. Her pack was coming together around Ki very nicely, this was going to work out well.
Riding the teleporter was always a rush, the beam of light from the Odyssey to the surface swept Seinu along with it. This was no Earth sci-fi teleporter breaking you apart into molecules, you remained intact and the beam created two points for just a second that were the same place. The light itself was a by-product of photons being agitated by the energy involved in creating a worm-hole for a split second between two locations.
It was a very crude replica of the Kasvane fold-ways, the elder race who could open portals between galaxies with their gate technology. The best the Avali had been able to replicate was ship to surface teleporters, they took a huge amount of energy and could only maintain the wormhole for the few seconds it took to transport material or people from the ship to the surface or back again. It could also only move a certain amount of mass, about five Avali or an equivalent mix of Avali and material. The top Avali scientists were still working on expanding, and improving the technology but so far they’d hit a bit of a brick wall; Avali tech lacked the power source and ability to create larger and more stable transit corridors.
As the light faded Seinu looked around, watching the thick fluffy tails of several bunnies quickly bouncing out of sight behind tents, bushes and rocks. The Avali chuckled and turned in a slow circle and smiled at Taran who had ridden the teleporter down with him before speaking out loud in Bunny Song.
“Thiln, friends, sorry to startle you all, it is just me Seinu and my brother Taran is here too.”
“What are you all doing here?” Taran asked curiously in their own language, thanks to the augments he had, the teal and orange Avali had been able to pick up Vampire Bunny Song easily.
“It is safe here,” Thiln said as he peeked out from behind a crate and walked over, looking up at the two Avali, “The nice yellow one told us that no predators will come here... so we were foraging... also we were admiring your pretty things.”
“Our pretty things?” Seinu queried and jumped as another bunny popped out from behind a tent and hurried over. She had golden yellow fur with a white neck ruff and paws, soft green eyes and her hat was a deep dark blue covered in wavy patterns of grey though it didn’t have the ear-flaps but a very large black pom-pom on top.
“Yes! Yes yes you have such pretty things!” she chirped happily, bouncing up and down, she pointed at the crystal array that powered Seinu’s office tent, “Like this, will you trade for this we have things to trade!”
“Ah…” Seinu started to say but Taran cut him off as he knelt down to make it easier to look her in the eyes.
“What did you want to trade?” he asked curiously, “Also my name is Taran you are?”
“Oh right! I am Fi,” she beamed and pulled out a small grey-black rectangle of plastic from under her hat, “I have this! I use it as a decoration in my room but your crystal is way nicer!”
“Is…” Taran took the Earth style mobile phone and held it up, running his fingers across the antenna and LCD screen, “W…what the… this is a Nokia Cityman 900!? How do you have one of these!”
Fi peeked up at Taran from behind her paws hopefully, “Is it valuable? Is it enough to have a pretty crystal?”
“Hell yes,” Taran said and chirped excitedly, without pausing the Avali unplugged Seinu’s crystal and offered it to her. She squeaked and hugged it excitedly, bouncing back and forth on her paws as Taran spoke, “I will trade you all as many crystals as you want if you have more of these trinkets! How do you have these?”
Seinu sighed and flopped into a beanbag, “Did you read any of my reports Taran? The first species that wasn’t the Horkers to land on Babupekakkerok was a human pirate ship which used it to dump all the stuff they had gotten pillaging that was worthless to them.”
Fi made a happy sound and continued doing a little dance, still hugging the crystal “We have more! Your crystals are so cool, they glow in the dark and everything! Wait here space creatures.”
She scampered off, gathering up the other two bunnies who belonged to Thiln’s foraging party, the twin grey and copper bunnies Cri and Cal and they all hurried off through the snow in the direction of the village, thick fluffy tails erasing their tracks as they went. Thiln stayed, peeking over the edge of Seinu’s bean bag curiously as the silver Avali turned on his brother, muttering in Avali.
“You… Do you realise they are going to bring back a whole load of human trash, right?”
“I want it!” Taran chirped defiantly, waving the old human communication device back and forth, “Do you have any idea how impossible it is to find old Earth tech in this almost mint condition!? I’ll cut them a fair deal. We have shelves and shelves of crystals up on the Odyssey.”
Seinu chirped and sighed, leaning over to ruffle Taran’s crest, “Fine…. But that isn’t what we came down here for…”
He paused as he caught Thiln repeating the last few words he’d said and chirped curiously, “Thiln did you understand any of that?”
“Some,” the bunny said in Avali, “It… very… quick… but am… know few words.”
Seinu shook his head and reached out a hand to just rest it atop Thiln’s head, “That is amazing, it’s only been a month and you can already put together a sentence.”
“Is… enjoy,” the bunny paused and wiggled their snout, struggling for the right conjugation to finish the word.
“Enjoyable?” Taran suggested and Thiln nodded and chirped in bunny an affirmative.
“We can practise more later Thiln, but for now I need you to pay attention bunny friend,” The grey and yellow bunny perked and peered curiously at Seinu, “Do you remember when you nibbled me to sample my blood and found it tasty?”
Thiln nodded, “Yes, friends are not supposed to taste like fruit, friend Taran doesn’t taste like fruit… he tastes awful.”
Seinu glanced at his brother, “When did you let them nibble you?”
Taran shrugged, “Thiln asked whilst I was down here calibrating your AI array so I said yes, it seemed the thing to do.”
“So awful,” Thiln stuck his tongue out, “Like stale pee, not like blood at all but I know Taran now.”
“Well the reason I can taste nice is because of a special ability I have. Not many people in space can do this, I am the only Avali I know about but I am going to do something that will surprise you, but I need you to remember that it is still me ok?”
“Oooh, are you going to change colour and blend in like the Arbolin? They blend into the caves where they weave their webs so you can’t see them.”
“Not quite,” Seinu glanced at Taran then stood up, “You’ll see, stay out here with Taran and I will be back soon?”
Thiln nodded, looking curious and Seinu hurried inside the tent and closed the flaps. He didn’t like other people to see this part, it was… very weird and disturbing and private. Fiction always made transforming into another species to be fun, or enjoyable, but the reality was it was disturbing. Day to day Seinu could forget that his body was literally held together by tiny nano-robots suspended in a solidified base of purple slime. He could even generate feathers, and look normal but he wasn’t and changing species was… well it was certainly not sexy, or exciting, but it sure was an experience.
Running through his internal augmented reality control system Seinu checked his body was registering as normal. He then opened the control system that told the nanites what “species” he should be. It was a very sophisticated piece of technology, cutting edge, classified and not for general use. The Doctor who had used it to save Seinu’s life when he was a kit had been both praised for saving a kit and told off for using it in equal measure.
But the nanites had essentially preserved all his brain patterns, his sapient, conscious thought ran on one level of the system. And then his being and self was instructed to filter through an “Avali brain” map so he could operate an Avali body with all the correct instincts and filters in place. He was Avali shaped and thus he thought like an Avali and now he was telling the system he was supposed to look like a Vampire Bunny.
The physical change whilst… unpleasantly like melting into living slime and then solidifying into a new shape was only one of the changes happening. It was gross, his body dissolving, melting, flowing and starting to transition to a new exterior appearance whilst inside he remained essentially solid purple slime. There were no organs, no lungs, heart, brain or intestines, just a solid mass of jiggling slime pushed into the correct shape and then covered in a faux layer of fur. At best he had a mouth, teeth and throat to simulate the experience but his stomach didn’t exist, his throat just gave way to his internal slime where anything he ate would be processed into more him.
Internally the filter was changing from “Avali Brain” to “Vampire Bunny Brain.” Seinu had loaded a full map of the Vampire Bunny DNA sequence and the scans the med bay had made of their physiology and neurology into the controlling system. It was why Taran was with him, his brother had been helping Seinu review the input sequence and testing it.
If any anomaly was detected his body should revert back to Avali but it was so weird. Seinu’s core identity remained the same, his memories, his sense of self and identity but there were new instincts, new thoughts, new feelings and senses that came with the shape. Shaking his head the former slime-Avali, now slime-vampire bunny looked at himself in the mirror. What he saw was a smooth, shiny, purple body gleaming back at him. The physical changes were complete though the neurological filter was still uploading and adjusting that was the longest change to implement.
Feeling his new snout and tugging on his stiff, lop ears, Seinu turned to look at his tail, swaying the thick waves of purple slime back and forth.
“Cool, ok… apply exterior organic effects,” he spoke the command out loud even as he thought it and his smooth, semi-translucent dark purple slime body looked back at him. Then fur rippled over the surface, silver, grey and charcoal fuzz covered over the central core of purple slime. His blank features took on definition, his nose grew in, eye-lashes, claws and neck-ruff, all the features a vampire bunny needed grew out of the surface layer until the slime was hidden beneath the realistic covering of fuzz. His spiky mohawk adjusted itself into floppy fuzz instead of Avali feathers and about five minutes later the change was complete.
On the surface he looked like another vampire bunny, under the surface though any standard scanner would register his body as an organic augment. Under the surface he was slime, a solid mass with a layer of fuzz and teeth and eyes but otherwise he was gelatinous all the way to the core. The neurological update was still parsing, his brain was taking its time to switch him to bunny protocols but that was fine, it was a big change in instincts, thought patterns and external stimuli it had to be done properly.
With his body complete though he opened the flap and walked back outside. Thiln turned away from his conversation with Taran and froze, eyes widening in surprise as he saw a bunny walk out of the tent instead of Seinu. The bunny's nose sniffed the air, then again, he moved forward, circled Seinu sniffing and then darted close and sniffed as close as he could without touching the new bunny.
“It is you,” he said, then started bouncing from paw to paw, “It is you I can tell! It’s you but … but you are one of us!”
“This is the special ability I was talking about Thiln, I… can become a different species,” Seinu explained, holding out one paw to the bunny. Thiln grabbed it then held one of his own paws against it, examining how they were the same, big thick fuzz, paw-pads, stumpy fingers and claws.
“Why! I how… tell me more!” Thiln exclaimed then chirped excitedly at Taran, “He’s one of us! Look at him, he is one of us!”
“I can see,” Taran chuckled and moved to sit on the floor beside both bunnies, “You look adorable Seinu… it’s a good look, any problems?”
“Nothing so far,” Seinu replied, “A little disconnect, the neurological filter is still updating my perceptions but… it is nearly done.”
“Ok, open yourself to my monitors please,” Taran said and a holographic screen appeared as Seinu told his systems to give Taran live updates. Whilst his brother was checking his system integrity Seinu turned back to Thiln who was still excitedly bouncing back and forth between shock, curiosity and excitement.
“So Thiln, the reason I have done this is I want to not just learn your stories,” he smiled, and then paused to feel his new fangs with his tongue, “Oh these are… very different from Avali fangs.”
“Yes,” Thiln exclaimed, “very different but why! Tell me why!!!!! The others will be back soon, they are all going to want to know why!”
“Well you know I am here to learn about your people yes?” Seinu asked and Thiln nodded, “Well I have learnt lots about your stories but not much about how you live… I want to live with you, experience your daily lives, learn what it is like to be a bunny not just in stories but by actually living as one.”
“Oh…” Thiln frowned, leaning forwards to sniff again, “But… you could have done that without turning into a Friend?”
“Yes, but it wouldn’t be as authentic, like this I can live, I can learn, I can experience and when my work here is done I can upload my experiences to our Nexus. So other Avali can… live what I see, learn what I have learnt and understand your people, not just as words or stories but live what I live, it is called an Augmented Reality Program.”
“But why?”
Seinu smiled, patient and quiet and happy to explain, “Because of what happened to your people. The Horkers and them killing you all for food. If my work is good, if I can bring what it is like to be a bunny to my people then what happened won’t be forgotten and when my leaders decide a plan to make sure it doesn’t happen again the Avali packs will hopefully agree with their plan.”
“I don’t entirely understand,” Thiln frowned, “But… but you want to live like a bunny!” he clapped his hands together, “Then … then I will go ask the Elder if you can live in the village! You can spend time with us and er… Seinu are you ok?”
“I… er… gimme a moment.. Taran…. I… Thiln!” Seinu’s voice squeaked in alarm and he clutched his head, staggered left and stared at the forest, “I am … what the fuck am I seeing! So many… what the fuck Taran there are... COLOURS”
He fell sideways with a thump and stared at Thiln and Taran as they hovered over him, “Why are you so bright! Taran is this what your feathers look like normally! And that YELLOW Thiln you are… and… ahhh no don’t…stop moving!”
Taran and Thiln froze mid-step, worry spiking their scents, adrenaline and a scent his new brain filters identified as “Him and panic” filling Seinu’s nose. He pawed at his snout, “I can smell… I can … why is it all so bad! OMG Taran you stink…. And… is that what Avali smell like and Thiln you are… I can smell… fear and worry I… sorry don’t worry I ugghhhhhhhhhhh….”
Seinu’s eyes rolled back in his head and the newly minted Vampire Bunny flopped backwards unconscious, legs twitching. The monitoring screen Taran had been using flipped up a series of error messages.
Warning: SeinuOS is detecting a severe SENSORY_OVERLOAD_MISMATCH Neurological filter upgrade completion has induced a SPECIES_MISMATCH
Thiln was crouched next to Seinu gently shaking him and whimpering, “What happened! I could smell his fear and pain… is he dead? he is not breathing!”
“Its ok Thiln,” Taran said, “He will start breathing again in a moment, he doesn’t actually need to breathe, so his body has shut that down for now whilst it fixes the issue.”
“That is weird,” Thiln said shaking his head, “Breathing is sort of important… he is a weird Aval… Bunny!” The bunny sat down and held Seinu’s head in his lap, stroking his fuzzy hair, “What happened to him? He said this was his special ability.”
“He just got a little bit overwhelmed,” Taran motioned to the screen, “It is why I am here… your way of seeing and smelling and hearing has just caught him off guard. This happened once before when he turned into another species but it was less severe… don’t worry he will wake up soon, his mind is just teaching him how to understand his new body.”
“Oh…” Thiln stared at Seinu, “Ok first lesson when he wakes up is how to be a bunny! Silly space bird you can’t just turn into one of us, he will have to learn like our little ones learn.”
“That might be a good idea, let me check his vital statistics ok?”
Taran turned back to the screen and scrolled through the error messages, Warning SeinuOS recovery at 7%, neurological filter online, hardware match approved… sapient understanding mismatch at 60%, Seinu will remain unconscious whilst adjustments to sensory systems is calibrated for optimum operational levels.
“Ok yes he will be awake soon, but he certainly will need some guidance in how to be a bunny, I think.”
“Well… he’s my friend I will teach him!” Thiln declared, “But oh,” he turned, watching as a line of about seven Vampire Bunnies carrying things emerged from the forest, it looked like the rest of Thiln’s foraging party and another three, “Fi and the others are coming back… you talk to them I will stay with Seinu.”
Thiln then dragged Seinu back inside his tent and started to build a pillow fort out of blankets and cushions so Seinu would wake up in the darkness. Taran nodded and set the monitors on Seinu to alert him if anything strange happened and left Thiln do it. He wasn’t quite sure why he was burying him in pillows but the bunny knew what a bunny in distress needed so he left Thiln to it.
Heading out, Taran shut the tent flaps and went to meet the other bunnies. He did a double take as his augmented vision started to tag and identify the items piled in several wicker-bark baskets they were carrying, ears perking up in surprise. One of them was carrying an Earth made “Nintendo Entertainment system” and another had an actual “Atari 800XL” whilst two more were carrying an Atari brand monitor, the screen was cracked but otherwise it looked intact.
There were also more phones, a fax machine and what looked like an MGA Mitsubishi X-10 Interplay System with a vertical turntable! Taran loved old Earth technology, knew what most of the things he was seeing were and needed all of it! What the pirate humans saw as Junk he saw them as ancient antiques to restore to working order! The teal and orange avali ran his eyes over Seinu’s monitors and turned off the visible screen and left the updates pinging into his HUD as needed.
“Yeah you rest bro and reboot… Thiln he will wake up in about ten minutes I think, maybe thirty… I’ll be right out here if you need me,” Taran called back to the bunny then moved over to greet Fi and the others, calling out to them, “I… Oh stars, hello everyone! Come over here let’s talk crystal trades!”
Taran settled down on a cushion and started to bring up a display of the various crystals the Odyssey carried, eyes drifting over the piles of trinkets filling the three large baskets with mounting excitement. Seinu would wake up in his own time, for now… for now he had Earth junk to trade for!