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BUGS
Daff, as your friend, I am telling you to go home.
DAFFY
Ath your friend, I am telling you that ain’t happening, Buthter.
BUGS
As your boss, I am also telling you to go home.
DAFFY
I’m fine.
BUGS
Look at you. I’ve seen you look better after being shot at by a dozen hunters. You need rest.
DAFFY
Our friendth in the hathmat thuitth gave me a clean bill of health, bloody holeth notwiththtanding. And they theemed very ready to quarantine anyone showing the thlightetht bit of infection, tho I’m sure thith ith fine.
BUGS
The paramedics said your lungs need fresh air. Porky’s too.
DAFFY
It’th fresh enough down here.
BUGS
In the middle of the corpses of a thousand rotting woims? C’mon, Daff, can’t we at least do this in my office?
DAFFY
No! I need to be here. Need to watch. I need to be sure—
BUGS
Daffy! She’s gone. I went with the ECDC people myself when dey took her away. I watched ‘em burn her body. Jane Prentiss is dead. You can relax.
DAFFY
Can I? Really? If Tweety actually found—
BUGS
Dat is a matter for da cops.
DAFFY
Thinthe when do you trutht the polithe tho much?
BUGS
Daffy…
DAFFY
Fine! Fine. I’ll go home ath thoon ath I have everyone’th thtatementth.
BUGS
…Okay, Doc.
DAFFY
Thtatement of Bugth Bunny, Head of the Magnuth Inthtitute, regarding the…infethtation by the entity formerly known ath Jane Prentithth. Thtatement recorded direct from thubject, twenty-ninth of July, two thouthand thixthteen. Thtatement beginth.
BUGS
Dere’s not much to tell on my end, really. Dis afternoon, just after lunch, I was going over the budgets for the Institute in my office like I normally do on Tuesdays when the fire alarm started going off. I packed my woik away and started heading for the evacuation point like we’re supposed to when Ralph came barreling through the door, babbling about woims and clutching a tape recorder.
I told him dat whatever was wrong should wait until we got outside. Dis ain’t no cartoon, you know, and if dere was a fire we weren’t going to be safe. He told me he had set off the fire alarm to get everyone out, and dat you and Porky and Tweety were trapped by Jane Prentiss. Obviously dis got my undivided attention, and I suggested he turn dat tape recorder of his on. Mostly so dis kind of thing wouldn’t be necessary. Didn’t you get the tape?
DAFFY
No. There wath…thome thort of problem. Ralph tellth me the tape wath lotht.
BUGS
…Huh.
Well. I told him about the new fire suppressant system, and said that, since there wasn’t an actual fire, we would have to manually get it going. We went down to the main floor, on our way to the basement, and it was clear everyone else had left the building. We had…just reached the main floor when…
Look. I…I know I’ve been pretty nonchalant [pronounced non-CHALL-ant] about your concoins lately. I was actually getting ready to raise the issue of Porky living in the basement, especially since I think he’s been stealing fire extinguishers. But…honestly? I didn’t really fully appreciate what you were talking about until I toined dat corner and we saw what I can only describe as a…tidal wave of filth rushing towards us. I’m, ah…I’m kinda ashamed to admit I didn’t really pay attention to Ralph while we were running, and I guess I musta lost track of him somewheres. We got separated.
I managed to get meself under control and decided to take a right toin at Albuquerque, as it were, an’ go a different way around to the boiler room. Lucky thing for me it looked like da woims were mostly concentrated in dat one mass, so it left all the other places pretty well unoccupied. It took me maybe ten, fifteen minutes, but I made it, with only one close call. Lemme tell ya, the sight of all them big, red, shiny CO2 canisters was a pretty comforting one. [Deep breath] I’m…sorry it took me so long to actually figure out how to work the system. If I’d maybe been a little quicker…
DAFFY
It’th…fine.
We’re alive.
BUGS
Yeah. Well. I…turned on the fire suppressant system. And…that’s when I hoid the scream. I can’t really describe it, not even with all the experience with foley we’ve had, but…I don’t t’ink I really need to, you know? You were a lot closer to it than I was, I think.
DAFFY
Yeth. It wath the latht thing I heard before I paththed out. Thouthandth of thingth thcreaming without mouthth…
There’th no amount of combining thound effectth that would give you the thame feeling.
BUGS
Yeah. Awful sound.
Anyway, I called the fire department, and a contact at the ECDC the notes from the last head said was involved in the original Jane Prentiss investigation. Once I was sure most of da gas would be gone, I went down to the Archives to see what was up. Ralph was already there, but you and Porky looked really bad. Seemed like a few dozen woims or so had been goin’ to town on you when the carbon dioxide killed them. You looked like lace doi—
DAFFY
All right, all right, I remember that part. At leatht onthe the ambulanthe arrived. Quarantine, bandaging, et thetera. When did Tweety get back?
BUGS
Eh…maybe an hour after you and Porky got taken away? They were prepping Prentiss’ corpse for disposin’ when Tweety boist outta that trap door you found. No idea how he even got it open, but he was screaming that he’d found a body. So we called the cops.
DAFFY
Tell me what happened to Granny.
BUGS
How many times do we hafta go over this, Daff?
DAFFY
We never got it on tape.
BUGS
What is with you and these tapes?
DAFFY
We’re Toonth. How can we prove we exthitht without thome thort of recording?
Let’th hear it. For the record.
BUGS
…Fine.
On the fifteenth of March last year, I surprised the previous Head of the Institute, Elias Bouchard, just as he was getting ready to leave his office for the day. He collapsed from a heart attack, and of course emergency services came out, along with several members of the Board of Trustees. They said that since I was responsible for the death of the previous Institute Head, I had to take his place, at least until they found a better replacement if I couldn’t do the job. They told me all the department heads would be notified and that I would need to hold a meeting with dem the next day to get an idear of what goes on around here. When we had the meeting the next day, the only one not there was Granny, the Head Archivist. Someone said she’d probably quit rather than work for such a—
DAFFY
Hare-brained inthtituthion, I know. That joke’th been done to death.
BUGS
Well. I went down to the Archives to see if she was dere, or if she’d left a note or anyt’ing. She wasn’t there, but there was a lot of blood, all over her desk. Toons don’t normally bleed, but I was still worried something mighta happened to her, so I called emergency services back. You can imagine they were real thrilled about dat. Anyway, there was a huge search, but no trace of her found, alive or dead. She didn’t have any assistants, so there were no witnesses, and nobody saw or heard nothin’. The police tested the blood and said it was a match for hois—and no, I don’t know why they had any Toon blood, let alone Granny’s. They said it was more than a gallon, way more than anyone can lose and still live, so I assumed she was dead and left the investigation to the cops, for all the good it did. And I appointed a replacement Archivist.
Tweety finding her body in the tunnels is as much a mystery to me as it is to you. But, you know, Granny always loved a good mystery.
DAFFY
Right. Okay. Thankth, Bugth.
Thtatement endth.
[SIGH]
Can you thend in Porky nextht?
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