Alright, another quick and somewhat short chapter. Normally things brought up here are glossed over in other stories for brevity but the 'story' kind of demanded that they be addressed.


Judy confirms her immunity. They work together at shifting supplies down levels, our bunny sees phone station 2309 after a near 62 year absence, and then finds out why she knows some things about the alien who snagged her.








Chapter 16: Supply Movement, Bathrooms, Wash, and “Oh!”

As they approached the entrance, Nick felt Judy’s hold on his paw slowly tightening up.

“It’s one thing to be told you’re immune to the fear field’s effect but until you actually prove it to yourself…” he thought as he gave what he hoped was a reassuring squeeze to her paw.

Once inside, her hold relaxed. To, then down the stairs they went to stop at the landing to Level One. In the very dim light, Nick activated a couple of chem light sticks (green) and hung one on his vest and another on a ring on the front of Judy’s.

“The white light sticks are nice but tend to be shorter lived,” he explained.

The tod picked up a rabbit sized backpack and settled it onto Judy’s shoulders. He instructed her on tightening it down to her body so that it was comfortable for her. Next, he showed her how to do a fast drop of the pack then had her practice that a few times.

“While I’m hoping we won’t run into any problems down here, there’s always the possibility that we might have to lighten up fast in order to haul tail fast,” he said.

There was a two-quart water bladder in her pack that Judy could drink from with Nick’s being a two and a half quart. After descending to Level Six, they took their packs off and began moving stuff down to lower levels. They moved the material down in stages, four levels at a time. In the process…


“Ahh, Nick.”

“Yup?”

“Wha…what do you do about…about going to the…bathroom?” Judy asked.

“No problem. Just go to the communal use bathroom of the level we’re on and do your thing,” he said as he checked through items in a box he’d opened.

After a few seconds hesitation, she left. Nick smiled.

“Wonder what she’ll think?” he mused.

About ten minutes later, she returned.

“There’s toilet paper in there,” she said, a note of amazement in her voice.

“Of course there is. What do you think I am, a barbarian?” the tod said.

“And there’s water in most of the bowls,” she added.

“That too.”

Judy looked at Nick.

“Being a little generous…free with your water supply, aren’t you?”

“Not really. When I need to bathe down here I use a wash suit. Heat about a quart of water with a chemical heater unit while getting undressed, slip into the suit and seal it mostly shut. Check your water temperature to be sure it’s right, make adjustments as needed, then pour it inside the suit. Add a bit of no tears soap powder and then finish sealing it up. Roll around on the floor, do some sit-ups, some jogging in place for agitation, and another set of rolls on the floor and you’re pretty much done. Drain the suit, pour in another quart, and do the same ‘exercises’ to rinse yourself out…”

“Then you dump the used water into the toilet bowls, thus not allowing it to go to waste,” Judy completed.

“You got it,” he said. “Same goes with the clothing wash and rinse bags we’ll be using.”


Two days later:

“Wow, it does work pretty well,” Judy thought as she toweled off the front of her body while Nick worked at drying her back.

Nick, down to his fur, had demonstrated the whole wash suit procedure to her. Under other circumstances she would have been a little uncomfortable in the presence of a nude male but her trust in him superseded that. After he did his wash and rinse, she helped dry him off. While the ambient temperature was in the mid-60s almost constantly down here, that was still cool enough that one did not want to have heat conducting water draining their body heat into the air any longer than necessary. Once dry, she helped groom his fur, with a particular fascination with that fluffy tail of his. He dressed in clean clothing and then it was her turn. She followed his lead and, in about six minutes, she was done. The dry off followed and assisted grooming, then her own clean clothing. Then they used the wash bags. With these, they put in the clothing to be done, sealed them most of the way up, added the soap and a little less than a quart of water, completed the seal, then rolled, squished, and lightly pounded on the bag to agitate the water within. Same thing done to rinse them out. A run through a two roller clothes wringer to get most to the water out, then hang them up to dry.

“Normally I wait until I’ve got three to four sets of clothing to do but I wanted you to see how this worked.”

“Huff, gives me some appreciation for what my grandmother had to go through in doing wash,” Judy said.


As they descended to the lower levels, Judy was amazed at the number of big (“225 gallons, each” Nick told her) containers on most of the first 15 levels. She counted a total of 64 of them.

“Water is almost always the biggest supply problem. It’s heavy, 8.3 pounds per gallon, and bulky in its own right. I’d been stocking up for months before I found you,” he explained.


It was on their ninth day that they got down to Level 23.

“We take it slow,” Nick said. “I didn’t clear the whole level because I wanted to get you to the surface as quickly as I could.”

They did. Looking into each room they came to to confirm that there was no one nor anything of interest, or threat, in each. Then, about two-thirds of the way down, Judy came to telephone station 2309 and just stood there, looking at it.

“Hard to think that I made that call so long ago while I stand here looking at it,” she thought.

“Has it been disturbed in any way? Nick asked her.

“No, no. As far as I can remember it’s just like I left it,” she answered.

“We’ll get a batch of photos to confirm everything for Kay and Roy,” Nick said as he slipped out of his pack and set it on the floor. Tripod and camera came out and were set up. He used a tape measure to get the distance from lens to hand set right and an angle gauge to get the degrees of angle for each shot. Next, he pulled out his flashgun, loaded a capsule in it, stuck a pin through a hole that led to that capsule, then primed the pan with some loose powder.

“Turn your head away and close your eyes,” he instructed as he opened the camera shudder.

She did and a couple of seconds later, jumped just a little at the “”foof!” sound and the sudden flash of light that made its way through her closed eyelids. Nick took 31 shots of the station, recording each one’s angle(s) and distance in his logbook. That done, they traveled further down the corridor. Nick stopped again, checked the wall (which had a mark on it), then looked about.

“I found you here,” he said.

“There’s nothing left of the cocoon,” Judy observed.

“Or the material that attached it to the ceiling, floor, and one wall,” Nick added.

She saw him look down the corridor in the direction of the exit she had meant to use for her escape loo this many years before.

“Fluff, do me a favor.”

“What?”

“Get down on your hands and knees by the wall at that point,” he said, indicating the spot where the cocoon had once been.

She did.

“Now, face down towards the floor and close your eyes. Keep them closed until I say otherwise.”

Once more, she did as asked. Over the next few minutes her ears picked up various sounds: fox movements, the ever so faint noise of something brushing over something, then the snap sound of a chem light being activated followed by it being shaken to fully ‘wake it up’. Sound of tape pulled out of then ripped from a roll. Nick lit off 15 chem sticks, from the sound of things.

“What is he doing that requires so much light?” she thought.

Her ears moved a little at the sound of his returning to her. He stopped close behind her.

“Alright, keeping your head down, open your eyes,” he directed.

She did and could clearly make out the joins of the floor tiles. Nick had used white light sticks, something he seldom did.

“Is this about the level of lighting just before you got grabbed?”

“Pretty close, I think,” she answered.

“Alright. Like our original reenactment, I’m going to grab you and bring you up in front of me. There’s no need to claw or kick, all I want you to do is look straight forwards,” she heard him say.

“Understood.”

“On the mark, three, two, one, MARK!”

An instant later, Judy was up and looking down the corridor…to see the two-foot-wide by six-foot-long grooming mirror attached to the wall barely fifteen feet in front of her. A very big ‘light’ pinged on in her head.

“Oh,” she breathed.

“That’s how you knew it had four arms and where they were positioned,” Nick said as he set the bunny on her feet on the floor. “You don’t remember anything else, well, maybe the lead legs, because the central body of the alien was pretty much blocked by your own body. And once your panic kicked in…”

“I didn’t get to see anymore because of my struggling,” Judy finished.

“That’s what I figure,” he replied.

They both looked at the door off to the right of that mirror. Both wondering what the next lower level would be like.

“Alright, we set up at least one supply cache on this level before we proceed,” Nick said.