Resurrection
by Kenneth Brady

The first time we resurrected the Easter Bunny it was a total disaster. He came out of the tube with sharp fangs, glowing red eyes and one hellacious overbite. When he got up on his wobbly legs and found they would support him, he made a fifteen-foot leap right at Anderson, and would have gotten him, too, if not for the thick glass shield separating our three-man team from the Resurrection Chamber. Let me tell you, we all shit our britches that day.

Then we gassed the little fucker and tossed him into the incinerator.

"Back to the drawing board," I said.

Anderson, Wesley and I took a quick drive from the small warehouse we rented from Boeing over to a little hippie coffee shop down toward Sea-Tac airport. You can't swing a dead rabbit anywhere between Seattle and Tacoma without hitting a coffee shop, but It's Bean Good was our hands-down favorite. Over triple grande soy lattes and bagels, we hashed out our plans for Easter Bunny version 2.0.

"We could try grafting in some dog genes," Wesley said. "Maybe that would calm him down, make him a bit more docile."

Wesley pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose. Of the three of us, he most looked the part of mad scientist. He constantly slicked his greying hair back over his bald spot, but strands rose up and caught the breeze, making him look a bit insane. His eyes were magnified bug-like through his glasses. A little trouble with Attention Deficit Disorder as a kid, but now he had a doctorate in genetic engineering from M.I.T.

"Nah," Anderson said. "Then he'd end up eating the eggs or drooling all over them. Maybe he'd hump some kid's leg and we'd never hear the end of that."

Anderson's degree was from Johns Hopkins, and he looked pretty much like your stereotypical family doctor. No remarkable features. Average Joe. And aside from a minor inferiority complex, he was a good guy.

My schooling was at Stanford, and I'd been told I looked like any sun-deprived computer geek. My only real problem was a caffeine addiction, but it wasn't like that caused me any long-term problems. A little upset stomach here and there, but nothing much else. I'd had to change my major from nuclear physics to genetic engineering because I got a little twitchy, but that wasn't such a big sacrifice. Had to have my coffee.

We were all scientists, forward-thinking, maybe each a bit mad in our own way, but still grounded in reality. Yet here we were using top secret government equipment that even we didn't understand to resurrect a creature that should not, as far as we could tell, legitimately exist. But exist he did.

"Cat genes," Wesley said. "Make him smarter."

What were we doing wrong? We had tissue samples from the Wyoming crash site, photos, radar-tracking reports. We'd learned everything there was to learn about him. But, still, it was like there was some sort of secret ingredient we just weren't getting. Something that would make it work. We needed an Easter Bunny, a cute little fellow with long, floppy ears, a wiggly nose and doe-like strawberry eyes. What we'd gotten was a deranged, homicidal horror.

"Make him sneakier, too," Anderson said. "Something else, maybe? What else?"

"Human?" Wesley said. Neither Anderson nor I said anything. Wesley cleared his throat. "Well?"

The Office of Homeland Security was already breathing down our necks, it being Thursday, three days till Easter. If we didn't have a new Bunny for the U.S. government by good old Colored-Egg Day, someone was going to have to confess to shooting the Easter Bunny down for violating restricted airspace. And nobody wanted to fess up to that one. How did you explain to children all across the country that their government had blown a fuzzy bunny out of the air while he was super-sonic hopping over a missile silo? Kids, your government is so paranoid it isn't even funny, and now there will be no Easter egg hunts.

"Well," I said. "Let's give it a shot."

We decided on Wesley's genes, since it was his idea. Just a bit of tweaking, enough to give the Bunny's genes something to graft onto. We hoped that something from Wesley would balance the new creature out, maybe boost his intellect enough to keep him from attacking the first person he saw. That'd be a start.

"That's it, boys," Wesley said, checking the readings on the Resurrection Chamber. "Now we wait." I could see the pride in Wesley's eyes, almost like an expectant father. He would have trouble sleeping tonight.

Good Friday morning I swung by It's Bean Good to grab some coffee for the team. My hands were shaking as I picked up the cups and, until then, I hadn't realized how nervous I was. I had a cup of house coffee before I left.

When I got to the lab Anderson and Wesley were there waiting for me. Wesley paced back and forth like he could barely contain his excitement. He went from one readout to another, making notes, adjusting dials.

"Been like this for an hour," Anderson said. "Guy can't wait."

I nodded and handed Anderson a latte, then walked to Wesley.

"Coffee, Dad?" I asked.

Wesley stopped, looked at me, then caught the joke.

"That's good," he said. "Dad. No, no coffee."

I shrugged and started in on his coffee. I'd finished mine up on the drive over. Then I nodded to Wesley.

"Go ahead," I said.

Wesley flipped the switches, slowly, one at a time. We all pressed our faces to the glass and looked into the Resurrection Chamber as the door opened on the end of the tube. For a few seconds there was nothing, then a nose poked out, sniffed the air. Then a mouth, opened slightly, tongue testing the air.

I turned to Wesley. "No fangs," I said.

He nodded, then shushed me with a wave of his hand.

Easter Bunny version 2.0 poked his head out of the tube and it was then we saw the first defect. His eyes were huge, easily twice their normal size. When he wiggled his entire body out of the tube, the Bunny flicked his head every which way, as if not sure where to look first. Then he seemed to see us, and focused his attention on Wesley. For a moment I thought he was going to repeat the actions of the first Bunny and leap, so I held my finger over the gas-release button.

Then the Bunny seemed to forget all about us, attention suddenly caught by a digital read-out on the tube beside him.

"What the hell?" I asked.

Wesley turned to me, eyes tearing up.

"A.D.D.," Wesley said. "It's genetic. He won't be able to focus on any one thing for a long time."

"Ah, shit," I said. "Well, what do we do with him? I mean, he doesn't seem to be violent, right?"

"He's got your eyes, Wesley," Anderson said.

"That doesn't make sense," I said. "That's what Wesley's eyes look like through his glasses. That's not hereditary."

"With the tech we're dealing with?" Anderson said. "Who knows what that machine's passing along to the subject."

I looked from the Bunny -- who was now staring at the ceiling tiles -- to Wesley and back again. Definite resemblance, even in mannerisms. Just yesterday I'd seen Wesley stop and stare at that same ceiling while he was supposed to be prepping the Resurrection Chamber. Without knowing how the damn thing worked, none of us really knew what was possible.

"Regardless," Anderson said, "we can't turn him out into the world like that."

"I know," I said. "But, maybe it should be up to Wesley. After all--"

At that moment, Wesley reached in front of me and pressed the gas-release button, and Easter Bunny version 2.0 went limp.

Anderson was next.

"Sure this is a good idea?" he said. "I mean, I'm not convinced it'll work."

But we didn't have much choice. We were running out of time. And even though version 2.0 hadn't been successful, at least we had found that human genes could make a difference. It was just a matter of finding the right combination.

Saturday morning was the same drill. Coffee and anticipation. And when the door opened and Easter Bunny version 3.0 came out, my hand went instantly for the gas-release button.

"Wait," Anderson said. "I need to see."

The creature that emerged was a whining, sniffling toad of a rabbit, fur green and mottled with black patches that oozed sticky, steaming liquid. It skulked around the Resurrection Chamber, whining at everything it saw. Then it spotted us, and let out a screech like metal grinding against metal, so loud it hurt my ears through the shield. The Bunny turned and, in one long bound, was back in the tube.

"Maybe that's just what the Easter Bunny is like," Anderson said. "Maybe he's always been timid. You ever met him before?"

"Maybe you're right," I said. I put my hand on Anderson's shoulder. It must have been hard for him to see the product of his humanity working there in the rabbit. A frustrated, screaming, scared little abomination. And if the machine was picking up on some of his personality, not just his genetic makeup? I wondered then if he'd decide not to have kids.

Anderson pressed the gas-release button.

"Your turn," he said.

I closed my eyes. I was the last hope.

Early morning on Easter Sunday came and I was a bundle of nerves. Looking around at the two other members of my team, I could see they were as exhausted as I was. I drained my fourth coffee of the morning.

"Got a call from Homeland," said Anderson. "While you were getting coffee. They're not willing to wait any longer. Whatever we have here, we have to give it to them."

I stuck my nose against the glass. What sort of monster would my pseudo-offspring be? Would he be a homicidal maniac? A raging lunatic? What? I wasn't sure I knew myself well enough to make that assessment.

"Then let's hope we have something worth giving them," I said.

I flipped the switches and the door opened. My hand was near the gas-release but the moment I saw Easter Bunny version 4.0 I knew I wasn't going to have to use the button. He was a perfect, energetic, fluffy, white bunny, strawberry eyes and a twitchy nose. His ears flopped back and he hopped around the room, sniffing in corners, at walls. When I tapped on the glass, he bounded over to the shield and looked up at me. His eyes were wide, seemingly full of wonder.

"Maybe it was the coffee," I said.

We stood out on Boeing Field at ten o'clock that morning, and I opened the pet-carrier box door. Easter Bunny version 4.0 ambled out and I picked him up. For a rabbit, he was a heavy little sucker. But he was damn cute.

"Where's he get the eggs?" Wesley asked. "I mean, he's just a little bunny. You think he paints them all himself or what?"

"I don't know," I said. I ruffled version 4.0's fur, felt him twitch his nose against my arm.

"Maybe he produces them internally," Anderson said.

We all laughed at that, and I set the Easter Bunny on the runway tarmac. He turned and glanced at me for a moment, then took a few tentative hops forward. Then he picked up speed and distance, a four-foot hop, then sixteen feet, then one hundred, then five hundred. Then he was vertical, and shooting up into the sky faster than an F-15 with the afterburners cooking. A sharp, resounding crack washed over us as the Easter Bunny broke the sound barrier.

We all watched as he rose up and up and became just a dot in the grey sky.

"Look at him," Wesley said. "Amazing. He just keeps going and going. Probably heading south to Olympia first, maybe Portland."

"Homeland should be satisfied," I said. "They've got the Bunny back and no kids will ever know how close they came to premature disillusionment."

I picked up the pet-carrier and something heavy thunked against one side. I reached inside and my hand came back with an egg, obsidian black and polished to a gleam. It was ridiculously heavy, about the weight of a small bowling ball. I held it up for the others to see.

"I'll be," Wesley said. "You were right, Anderson. Seems he pops them right out."

I tried to crack it open, but it was solid, so I dropped the egg on the ground. It cracked open, and through the crack poured green, glowing light.

"Oh shit," Anderson said. "Is that what I think it is?"

"Yeah," I said. We all backed away. "Plutonium."

Then the thing cracked open all the way and lay on the tarmac in half. A plutonium core surrounded by a burned-out hulk of electronic circuitry. My nuclear physics schooling came back to me and I saw what could only be a small, thermonuclear device. Unfinished or damaged -- lucky for us -- but still, a bomb. Course, it was only the Bunny's first try.

"Guess now we know what your influence gave the little guy," Wesley said.

In the southern distance, first we saw the flash, then heard the explosion, as the Easter Bunny brought a little bundle of holiday joy to children everywhere.

The End

Story copyright Kenneth Brady, published by the Fortean Bureau
http://www.forteanbureau.com