"Do you have those samples of creeping dogwood?" Isoko asked.
"They should be in the bin," Taki said, looking up from her work.
The anteater shifted carefully in the bin of plant clippings, not finding the vegetation she wanted.
"Nope," she said, turning to the brown rabbit. "Not there."
"Well then I don't know," Taki shrugged, hunching back over her work and focusing the microscope.
The anteater groaned and turned back to the task she was originally doing, shutting off the spectrophotometer and looking over her notes. Luckily there wasn't a time restraint on anything she was doing, so she could pause and come back when she had what she needed.
"I'll grab them on my way back from break," Haru offered.
"You sure?" Isoko asked. "I can get them now."
"Don't you have a culture of algae you need to do something with?" Taki asked, not looking up from her slides.
Isoko sighed, casting a glance at the seated rabbit who was unphased by anything outside her task. She had developed her acclaimed tunnel vision and pinpoint laser focus.
"Seriously," Haru said. "It's fine."
"Ok," the anteater said, flicking her eyebrows up for a split second. "Sorry."
"It's fine," the white rabbit reassured. "I'll grab them on my way back."
Haru turned and left her coworkers in that lab and left down the halls towards the break room. The halls and rooms were dark. Everyone had flashlights or headlamps in order to move through the labs. The greenhouse was probably the only facility that didn't have any power back whatsoever, and still running at full efficiency. Most of the tools used in the labs could be used with batteries or be plugged in to charger packs that were recharged every night via generator. The greenhouse section of course, ran with the sunlight and was open to the public, despite the happenings of the outside world.
Haru made her way to the break room to clock out before heading to a meeting she had made with her husband. They had decided to meet up at the greenhouse and spend her break hour together. She slipped into the break room and punched out, noting the few beams of light that were swiveling around in the room, and the few that looked at her as she performed her task. She looked at her watch and noted the time, doing the math she needed in order to figure the time she had to be back. She then pulled out her phone on the way to the greenhouse.
On my way, he texted her. See you in a bit.
And that was fifteen minutes ago; the walk being a fifteen minute trip from his job. He'd meet her there. She turned off her headlamp and pocketed it, squinting her eyes in the sunlight as she stepped into the main greenhouse area. The glass walls and ceiling allowed the sunlight to stream in and warm up the building, even with the chilled autumn air accumulating outside. The various vegetation was scattered with the few people visiting the greenhouse. Not many and it was easy to get lost, hidden by the walls of green.
She was making her way to the exit to meet Legoshi outside when she found her path blocked by a janitor's cleaning supplies. And it wasn't just a caution sign, it was a full setup to keep people out. She'd have to go around a planting bed, but it wasn't that much of an issue. She turned and was caught off guard to find someone in her path.
"I think these are perhaps my favorite flowers," he said, picking some from a bunch in a planter. He pulled down his mask to hold them to his nose, inhaling deeply and closing his eyes to lose himself in the smell.
"Sir you can't pick the flower," Haru said.
"Not the scent," he continued, ignoring her to pull the mask up and look at her. "I can't smell very well. I just like the blood red color and the difference in its appearance from the usual flower look."
Haru felt uneasy and stepped away from the hybrid.
"Wait," he smiled. "You don't remember me, do you?"
She shook her head. She honestly didn't.
"Fair enough," he shrugged, spinning the flower between two fingers. "I figured most of my students would choose to forget me given what happened."
He un-squinted his eyes and looked dead on, eyes locking into hers.
Haru gasped and took a step back.
"There it is," her old professor sneered. "There's that look of remembrance."
Someone came up and grabbed her from behind, slipping a wet cloth over her nose and mouth. She struggled against the hands, to cry out for help, but she began to succumb to the chloroform and weaken. She prayed someone would come around a corner or peer through the bushes and come to her aid. However this hope faded with her consciousness as she felt herself being stuffed into some sort of bag.
~~~~~
Legoshi had made sure to take his break at the same time as Haru. This was the first time they were doing something like this and he hoped the timing would work out so they could each get back to their jobs on time. It was an hour, but at the same time, it was only an hour. There wasn't much of a crowd, but it wasn't dead either. Not many people were out, most too afraid to leave or they had left the city before the lockdown. It looked more like the kind of crowd you'd see in the rain, not the beautiful, cloudless day it was. He sat on a bench outside the greenhouse entrance and waited. He sat basking in the sun as he looked up to the sky. Not many birds were flying, as the city put an air ban on all flyers. Unless it was for business, for which they had to carry a city issued waiver.
He sat on the bench for a minute or two. The time seemed to tick slower, and slower as it waxed on. He looked at his watch and decided to give a quick text to Haru, just to see where she was.
I'm here, he texted.
He waited, awkwardly sitting there alone on the bench. He waited another minute before immediately feeling like something was wrong. He felt it in his chest at first, the tightness made his head spin and his ear stub twitched. His nervousness put the senses on overdrive. The sounds around him were increasing and the light was getting brighter as his pupils dilated. His nose picked up further off scents, including one he had archived to be on high alert for. About fifty meters away, maybe fifty-five. He stood and spun towards this one, zeroing in on the individual as he started moving towards the leopard-gazelle hybrid. There were two other animals traveling with him about the same distance away as he was. One was a pure leopard, and the other was a rabbit.
He quickened his pace.
A white rabbit.
He started jogging.
Haru.
He broke out in full sprint towards the combined scents and rounded the corner of the greenhouse. He saw them. The leopard was placing a duffle bag into the back of a van as Melon opened the door to step inside behind the wheel. He paused for a moment, hearing the quick footsteps of the wolf as he sprinted towards them. The hybrid looked towards him and shouted to his accomplice.
"We gotta go!" he said.
The leopard looked over their shoulder and closed the doors to the vehicle as Melon jumped in and turned on the engine. The pure animal ran around to the passenger's side and leapt in as Melon took off, driving the van away at full speed. Legoshi reached the back of the van before it took off, his hand just missing the handle and he stumbled forward, landing on his face on the pavement.
The wolf didn't stop. He grit through the pain and picked himself up, reaching full sprint after the van again. He fought back tears in order to see clearly as he pushed himself to run at his max speed of sixty-four thousand meters an hour (40 miles an hour). He had to catch the vehicle before it reached its speed. Then it would be gone. She would be gone.
His lungs burned and his heart hammered. He was gasping for breath as his muscles burned for oxygen, being pumped this hard. He hadn't moved this fast since he trained/worked under Gohin years ago in the Back Alley Market. He was actually running faster now. The back of the van was coming up, getting closer as he caught up. He didn't reach out his hand yet. That would offset his balance and throw him forward. A few more steps and then a jump to grab the handle. That's all he needed. He pleaded with his body for a few more seconds. That was all he needed. A few more seconds.
His body strained but gave him what he wanted. He pushed as hard as he could. In one step, he pushed himself from the ground and propelled himself through the air. He caught the handle and pulled himself up to latch onto the back of the moving vehicle. Wasting no time in throwing the door open.
"Peekaboo motherfucker," the leopard said.
Legoshi had no time to react before the end of a metal tank was slammed into his nose, which sent him reeling and falling off the van, tumbling, skidding, and sliding on the asphalt. The wolf picked himself up, bleeding and bruised with a dislocated shoulder and knee, a few fractured ribs and a serious concussion, and tried to run again. He took one step and his body shut him down. He collapsed but struggled to keep going. His mind fought his body and he stumbled and tripped after the van a foot before falling to his knee.
"Haru," he grated through his dry throat.
His panting was becoming erratic and he collapsed onto his stomach, fracturing his already broken ribs a bit more and puncturing his lungs. He tasted blood. His brain started to shut down all but the essential functions to keep him alive. He couldn't even process his feelings and tears just slipped out of his widening, dilated eyes. His breathing became more and more irregular as he gasped for air. He tried to pull himself forward with his one good arm, reaching and hoping beyond all hope that maybe he could get up in time. But his body gave up just as he saw the van skid around a corner and was lost to his vision.
Haru, he said to himself. I'm sorry.
That was the last conscious thought he had before he became a thoughtless, but living, husk on the road. The injuries were too severe for him to keep going and he faded.
"Someone call an ambulance!" was the last thing he heard before his eyes closed to a blank mind.
~~~~~
"I forgot how I looked without my face done up," Reina said, looking at her reflection in the mirror. "It's off putting. Anyway, remind me again why you risked this?"
"Shoji asked me to take care of some of the wedding planning," Melon responded. "This is a pick up of ingredients."
"Oh," Reina said, reaching into her bag. "White rabbit for the two love birds on their wedding day? Melon I'm shocked. I had no idea you could be so sentimental."
"Not for eating," the hybrid clarified. "There's not enough of her to go around for the entire wedding."
"What then?" she asked, doing her best to reapply her makeup in the bumpy car.
"Have you ever heard of blood-wine?" he asked.
Reina stopped and looked at the hybrid.
"That takes years to make," she said.
"Not if you do it my way," he responded.
The hybrid looked back in the mirror. The wolf would be fine. He was a resilient tramp that one. There was another reason he had picked this rabbit above all others for the blood-wine. He needed a few pieces on his side, willing or not.