“HOW MUCH LONGER?”
Exflibberaguil had quickly gotten tired of bubble-blowing, and resorted to whining and moaning about whatever little thing irritated him. It began with the way flies buzz, and now it was about how his feet hurt.
“Only a dozen more hours at your pace,” Nick snapped. “We cross the street here.”
Nick stopped at the foot of the crosswalk, waiting for the electronic sign to turn to ‘walk’. Right now, cars were still speeding across the road, neither of them wanting to be stopped by a red light. “Hey, Flipper, keep an eye on your ferret,” Nick warned, “or he may become roadkill. You hear me? Flipper?”
Nick swiveled her head to the right, where Exflibberaguil once stood. There was no one. Cars honked and beeped loudly on the street. Wheels squealed as the vehicles braked. Nick turned to the commotion. Exflibberaguil was walking in the middle of the street, glaring at the cars. “Quiet down! You almost ran over me!” he yelled. “Go fix you auto-driving system! What is wrong with all you guys?”
An enraged truck driver rolled down the window. Before he could start firing insults and curses, Nick sprinted onto the crosswalk waving her hands in surrender. “I’m sorry! I’m sorry!” she yelled frantically, escorting Exflibberaguil safely to the other side of the street.
“What was that about?” Exflibberaguil barked.
“Why were you on the street? The light didn’t tell you to walk!”
“It’s obviously their fault,” Exflibberaguil retorted. “They need to fix their auto-drive! I almost got run over because of them.”
“Because of them?” Nick yelled, “It was your fault! Stop blaming everyone else. Their traffic light was green, so they were supposed to go!”
“Green? What difference does that make?”
“Green means go! People drive the car and step on the gas when the light is green.” Nick frowned. “Though, I suppose I should have expected your ignorance. Traffic policies must be different on your planet.”
“Wait,” Exflibberaguil exclaimed, bewildered, “people drive cars by themselves? And the only thing that keeping them ordered are lights? You mean, my life and the life of others depend on colored lights?”
“Well, that and white lines on the road,” Nick admitted.
“Let me get this straight,” Exflibberaguil began, “everyone on this road is following a colored lines and lights system, along with a few other rules. And so everyone is basically trusting that everyone else would also follow these rules.”
“I suppose…”
“However, you lock your doors every night because you don’t trust people and are afraid some stranger might break in. So you are basically trusting people you don’t trust at all with your life.” Exflibberaguil paused. “Don’t you find that frightening?”
“Now that you put it that way…” Nick confessed, “I suppose it is frightening. Any moment, someone who breaks one traffic rule could end our life. Yet we allow that to happen, even though we don’t allow that same person to come in our houses because we’re afraid they’d steal something.”
“How can anyone have the guts to drive?” Exflibberaguil asked.
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“How was it like on your planet?” Nick inquired, ignoring the question Exflibberaguil posed (mainly because she didn’t know the answer).
“We had auto-drive, obviously.”
Nick snapped her fingers. “Ah, yes. I forgot your planet was insanely advanced in technology.”
Exflibberaguil smiled modestly. “Yes, it was. Well, only advanced compared to you Sodriew, of course.”
“Yes, thank you for your hourly reminder of how pathetic my planet is. Really motivates me to help you on your mission.”
“Can you stop talking?” Exflibberaguil complained, “You’re lagging behind. I want to get that trailer as soon as possible, and then we can start travelling.”
“Yes, travelling,” Nick repeated. Travelling, why did that seem odd? “Wait, Flipper?” she ventured cautiously, “I don’t think this trailer is going to work if we want to travel.”
“Why?”
“Because none of us can drive it.”
Exflibberaguil laughed. “Box can. It can just talk to the engine. I’m sure the engine would have been very tired anyway, and would be willing to let Box take over. Engines are always very tired and very lazy.”
“But,” Nick argued, stopping in the middle of the sidewalk, “you can’t just let a car drive by itself. Someone has to do the driving.”
“I’ll do it then.”
“But you have to be older than sixteen!”
“I’m sure it would be very easy to convince whoever stops us,” Exflibberaguil replied, his ego flashing like a neon-bordered restaurant sign. “You know, Sodriew are extremely easy to convince. I’ll just say I hit puberty late, and that I really am sixteen.”
“It’s not that easy. The police would ask for your driver’s license.”
“I’ll think of something up. Come on, let’s go.”
But Nick didn’t budge from the front of Pinky Princess Pies. Something was still troubling her. “My world may not be a big place compared to your planet,” Nick said, “but it’s still pretty big. There’s no way we’d be able to destroy all rabbits.”
“We’re not destroying all rabbits. All I need to do is destroy the chief rabbit, and everything should fall apart from there.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know. Box told me.”
Nick frowned deeper. “Ok. Fine. Let’s assume that you’re right—”
“Of course I’m right.”
“Let’s hope so. There really is this chief rabbit. But there are a lot of rabbits in this world! We can’t possibly go through each one!”
“We only need to go through the ones that are old enough.”
“That’s still a lot!” Nick plunged into contemplation. “The only way to complete the mission is if you collaborate. You must remember something about your planet.”
“The only way I’ve ever been able to remember something is when a trigger word is said,” Exflibberaguil explained. “Some memories are easy to trigger. The trigger words are used every day. But some memories, like most memories about my planet, are difficult to trigger because I suspect I deliberated tried to erase it out of my hippocampus. These trigger words are very uncommon. And if not triggered for a long time, the memory would go extinct.”
“Has it gone extinct yet?”
“If I remembered, it obviously wouldn’t have.”
Nick groaned. “You’re so frustrating. You want to save Earth, yet you know nothing that will help save it.”
“Quite frankly, saving your planet is not my top priority. My health comes first. Afterall, I’m the only reason why your planet has even a slight chance of surviving the bunny apocalupse,” Exflibberaguil replied. “Nick, you’re making an evil face again. What are you thinking about?”
“So these trigger words,” Nick began, “they must exist, as long as the memory isn’t extinct. What if I just told Box to blurt out words every day. Sooner or later, your memory will be triggered, right?”
“I…I suppose.”
“Then let’s try it! Box!” Nick commanded.
“Yes? I’m so happy to be of assistan—”
“Start saying every word you know in alphabetical order.”
“How many words per minute do you want me to say?”
“Let’s say, five—”
“Er, Nick?” Exflibberaguil murmured uncertainly, “shouldn’t we do this in the trailer? People are staring.”
“Oh, that’s right. I’m still a fugitive.”
“What?”
“Never mind. I might tell you later. Let’s go.” Nick walked with a spring in her step.
It was then that Exflibberaguil learned something very fascinating. Sodriew are very much like dogs. They like to be praised for their supposed intelligence. The only difference is that dogs are, of course, a lot smarter.