The Disapprovers - Squall Line

"You were able to wiggle your paw in there?" repeated Zeus.
"Yes, it felt really strange, I expected solid matter there." replied Molly.
"Well, I think we got away with a lot." said Zeus, gazing away now, "... trouble is, I can't classify this thing. Assuming the worst, it reminds me of a carnivorous plant, if we can call it a plant, but I'm not so sure it is a plant. I've never heard of carnivorous roots. Maybe it was trying to lure you in?"

Zeus kept gazing away and massaging his jaw as he spoke, then he started scratching his ribs and carried on "... the trouble is, I'm having all sorts of mixed feelings about ... 'it'. There are no plants around that I know of, with roots growing that thick, that close to the surface. The fraser fir has a pretty mighty root, but it grows straight down. I'm afraid we won't know any more about 'it' until we have a sample to examine it and ..."
"Right, fancy a trip down there to snatch some of that, do you?" growled Suzy, cutting him off.
"Give him a break, Suz. He's just telling us what he knows" intervened Molly.

The rain that started after we got home never really stopped and now was getting more intense. We could hear thunder in the distance as the squall line was moving closer.

"He's right." said Abby. "Something from 'it' for a close examination would be a great start, but I'm not up for it. And I hope nobunny here feels like playing a hero."
"Speak for yourself." I grumbled.
Everybunny looked at me.
"What?!?" I asked, the girls stared at me, wishing they could rope me up with their looks.
"... we could make a robot to carve a chunk out of 'it', couldn't we, Zeus?
You've been coming up with some amazing stuff, how about it?" I pleaded.
Zeus look up at me, first puzzled then grined.

We heard tiny footsteps coming from ratties sleeping quarters. It was Milly, with a bag of popcorn.
"What's going on? Have you seen all the footage already?" she asked.
"How's Apollo?" asked Abby.
"Hard to tell, he's sleeping, poor guy" said Milly.
She turned to Zeus and asked "What's the infrared showing?"
"Let's look…" replied Zeus, relieved by the change of subject.

Zeus played with some settings and rolled the footage again, this time showing imagery composed of temperatures from the infrared sensor. It looked like an early 70's era showcase of video special effects. It took us a moment to realize what we were looking at. Outside of the hole everything was more less recognizable, but when Molly started getting deeper into the hole, the screen darkened, almost uniformly, and the only light spots were Molly's paws when they streaked in and out of view as she worked the sand. The sand itself would glow for a short moment as Molly's paw warmed it up while she swept it back. When she poured out the water, the image brightened. The water was warmer than the sand so it showed brighter flowing out and slowly faded away as it cooled getting absorbed by the sand. She put her paw on the 'thing'. Right before the thing opened up around her paw, it got much brighter than the surroundings so her paw looked like it was surrounded by a halo, or thick, bright ring.

"Do you remember this stuff warming up after you touched it?" asked Zeus, pausing the image and looking at Molly.
She slowly shook her head and added "... no, not at all. I remember the sand being cold and the water being pretty warm, relatively speaking of course."
"Yeah…" said Zeus, turning toward the screen and hitting 'play'.
"'It warmed up a only a little, but warm up it did and it wasn't your paw that transferred this much heat. 'It' definitely warmed itself up." said Zeus, sounding like he was talking to himself.

A sudden and very close thunder crack jerked us back to the present moment.

"We better shut it down for tonight." whispered Milly.
"Why are you whispering?" asked Abby.
Milly gave her the stink eye and carried on, powering off all the equipment. It was getting darker as the green and ghostly screen lights went out. Finally, only some remnants of distant street lights and lightning provided traces of illumination. For a moment all lights in the neighborhood went out and we were immersed in pitch black silence. Then came another thunder clap. After a while, some lights outside started to come back on and our silent home started twitching and squeaking with sounds of electronic equipment resetting itself. The fridge started humming again. The oven and coffee pot were alternately blasting the kitchen with blinking, green light, like possessed beacons.

Frankie came out of the burrow, sleepy, yawning, trying to clear his eyes with with his tiny fists,
"... you woke me up. I was having a wonderful nightmare and you spoiled it!"
He started helping with the cleanup.

"Oh I'm gonna owe some favors for this ..." muttered Zeus, seasoning his tirade with epithets that would make his super-great-grand -grandmother proud. She worked on the "Queen Mary" in her younger days and once a sailor - always a sailor; forever through the blood line.

I sat staring at the storm and watched the waves of rain trying to storm the window and break into the house. Rain drops tried to pound their way in without mercy, always meeting their end with a splat; then sadly flowing down the glass pane.

Another lightning struck, this time it's blinding tentacles lasting much longer than before. As they spread out illuminating the storm, I thought I saw Cleo's face formed in the clouds. My legs got cold and stony, my gut felt paralyzed and goosebumps were creeping up my back. As the lightning disappeared, I heard somebunny say "It's all going to work out just fine…". My neck felt frozen and I barely willed it to turn toward Zeus, "... did you say that?"
Zeus looked at me puzzled, "... said what?"

"Oh, nothing, never mind." I replied and turned to Abby, "Did you see that lightning, Abby?"
"Um, no, I didn't see anything, Major" said Abby.

I had had enough.

"Night everybunny!" I said and headed for my pad. Now I had a lot to sleep on; if I could sleep, of course.

- Thank you Renee!
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