"This place smells like fertilizer and betrayal," Hrum muttered, lowering his visor.
Luke glanced around nervously. The ruins of what was once a high-tech agricultural station stretched ahead of them, wires hanging like vines, solar panels shattered like glass dreams. The sign on the rusted gate read:
MORKVOTRON-7 — Smart Farming for a Better Tomorrow
The irony punched harder than a mutant wolf.
"You sure this is the place?" Luke whispered.
Hrum didn't answer. He held up his paw — a signal for silence. Luke shut up. Rule #1 of the resistance: When a rabbit tells you to zip it, you zip it.
They crept through the outer fence, boots and paws crunching over broken carrots and old drone parts. Luke could feel the weight of the gear they'd strapped to him back at Base FLUFF-13 — lightweight armor, a basic pulse scanner, and what he assumed was a glorified GoPro attached to his shoulder. Hrum, of course, moved like shadow in fur.
"Target zone is the greenhouse complex," Hrum murmured. "CarniCorp occupied this zone a month ago. Now it's gone dark."
"That's not suspicious at all," Luke said. "Completely normal. Farms go dark all the time."
"When farms go dark, cities go hungry. When CarniCorp goes quiet, someone's digesting secrets."
The interior of the compound was worse — vines had overgrown control panels, and faded posters still tried to sell smiling families on hydroponic lettuce. A busted terminal sparked in the corner, blinking with what could only be described as passive-aggressive desperation.
"We're not alone," Hrum said suddenly. His ears twitched. "Thermal spike. Northwest corner."
"How can you tell?"
"Because I read the scan," Hrum replied dryly. "And because I can hear it breathing."
A rustle. Then — silence.
Luke reached for the sidearm he wasn't very good at using. Hrum was already gone — a blur. He dove into the shadows like a ghost made of muscle and intent.
A snarl echoed through the greenhouse. Something leapt from the rafters — and it wasn't a rabbit.
The creature was at least two meters long, slick with damp fur and stitched cybernetic implants. Its eyes glowed faintly green, and its mouth opened in a spiral of teeth.
"Oh hell no," Luke said, and fired.
The shot grazed the beast. It lunged. Luke screamed in a way that he hoped sounded warrior-like but almost certainly did not.
Then — a flash. A whipcrack of movement.
Hrum collided with the creature mid-air, tackling it with brutal precision. He twisted, launched it into a metal beam, and when it charged again, he fired his carrot-shaped shock-blaster straight into its skull.
The beast dropped.
Luke exhaled. Then realized he hadn't actually been breathing.
"That's a Class-G Virmutt," Hrum said, cleaning his weapon. "Hybrid canine. Gene-spliced. Part pitbull, part machine, part vengeance."
"That was in the training manual?"
"Page 17. Right after 'Don't Feed the Owls.'"
They moved deeper into the facility. More silence. More bones. Luke didn't want to ask what kind.
"This wasn't just occupation," Hrum said, scanning a console. "They were testing here. Feeding these things. Conditioning them."
"Why a farm?"
"Because farms are perfect. Enclosed, isolated, self-powered. And because no one suspects the lettuce."
They reached the central control room. The monitors were still active, running on emergency backup. Hrum tapped a few buttons, and a holographic log sprang to life.
"...shipment approved. Human volunteer transferred. Testing to begin under Condition: HARE."
Luke blinked.
"Did they just say 'human volunteer'?"
"That's resistance code. No one volunteers. If there's a human here — they were taken."
More logs. More lines. Then, one file marked: "Directive: Cooperator."
"It's encrypted," Hrum said. "Military-grade. But the title means what I think it means. Someone on our side... is feeding them intel."
Luke felt cold. And it wasn't from the broken climate controls.
"What now?"
Hrum looked up, ears tense.
"Now we leave. And we make sure the file gets to HQ. Someone needs to see this."
They turned to go — just as the lights went out.
Then came the sound.
Claws.
Dozens of them.
And breathing.
Heavy, hungry, surrounding them.
"Luke," Hrum said, loading a fresh charge. "If you die, I'm deleting your browsing history."
"Noted," Luke replied, raising his weapon with hands that wouldn't stop shaking.
[to be continued...]
"5 Things to Know Before Getting a Rabbit"
1. Rabbits don't live on carrots alone — it's like giving a kid only cake.
2. They need space — cages are prisons, not homes.
3. Rabbits need specialized vets — not everyone knows how to handle ears.
4. Rabbits are social. Isolation breaks them.
5. Never get a rabbit on impulse. It's not a toy — it's a life that trusts you.