Despite the big AIs, the god machine and the mother, JAMBI and Mithene, and the massive, efficient timekeeping systems and schedules these AIs established and enforced, what really kept the Big Data on time were the meal times. Didn’t matter if you came from the cozy, colorful, Wes Anderson offices of Thoughtbase or the sweaty, grimy, John Carpenter wastes of Worker’s Paradise: food was food, and it was one of the few unanimous agreements in the Administration that programs for bypassing stomachs were not profitable in the long run. So, meal breaks were still a fact of daily life, and employee traffic in the Big Data revolved around it: there was no other way. Every day, swarms of employees came in a wave to the commerce blocs and shopping districts, flooding the restaurants, cafes, eateries, buffets, and roadhouses. Delivery vehicles and shipments went into overdrive; countless installment plans and meal schedules went into action to ensure clockwork meals and maximized efficiency.

It was during these post-lunch lulls that the offices for Steppenrazor, LLC were usually quiet: half the employees were out to lunch. The offices were repurposed from some bakery that had once been a flimsy front for some Commune terrorists, taken for cheap when Sector Security cleared the place. The offices were standard, drab folding chair metal color on everything, mid-20th century professional chic; the only thing in the office that was out of place was the large banner that yielded their slogan, a tongue in cheek one stolen from some ancient song: “Dirty Deeds, Done Dirt Cheap!”*

Of the minimal lunch staff of Steppenrazor were Mackie “the Blade,” a hardgirl in heavy armor who was dozing away in an office chair, and Tokes Malloy, a gangly breaker who was half-consumed by his gear. The pair, having gotten rid of their stomachs long ago, remained on standby, but made it a point to still charge premiums for lunch hour contracts just for the hell of it. Tokes was lazily absorbing the feeds when the distinct chirping sound of a new contract made both twitch in surprise. Lunchtime contract. Delicious premiums. Tokes gave a stilted chuckle and passed it off to Mackie, who was sitting up, empty face becoming ever so perplexed at the contract and its message, which read as thus:

“GREETINGS OH GREAT DWELLER OF THE WILDLANDS, I AM FRAU LEPUS, THE REAL FRAU LEPUS, MIND, THE MOST HIGH RANNKING FRAU LEPUS RPER IN THE WHOLE GODDDAMN LAND, AND I HAVE NEED OF YOUR SERVICES. I NEED SOMEONE TO PUT A BUNCH OF HOLES INTO A BITCH I REALLY HATE. THE BITCH IS TRYING TO GET PAST ME IN RANK AND HAS THE AUDACITY TO CALL HERSELF FRAU LEPUS, HENCE MY CURRENT HANDLE. HER NAME IS ANIKA JEERS AND SHE USED TO BE MY EVERYTHING. MAKE HER SUFFER IF YOU CAN, SHE MIGHT TRY AND TAKE YOU WITH HER. IN CASE JUSTIFICATION IS NEEDED FOR WHATEVER LEGAL CRAP SHE TRIES IN RETALIATION, I’LL JUST STATE THAT SHE HAD THE AUDACITY TO BREACH THE CAREFULLY WRITTEN RULES OF THE KANINCHENBAU TO NEVER SHIP INCAPATABLE CHARACTERS TOGETHER WITHOUT A PROPER AND DETAILED REPORT AND EXPLAINATION AS TO WHY THEY WOULD EVEN BE IN A RELATIONSHIP, AS SPECIFIED IN THE KANINCHENBAU CHARTER, BUT THE BITCH COULDN’T DO IT, SO SHE AND HER LITTLE POSSE MUST BE PUNISHED! MAKE HER SUFFER PLEASE. ATTACHED IS THE PAYMENT. THANK YOU IN ADVANCE.”

The hardgirl watched the words fill her interface and sifted through them for all of ten seconds before searching out the target’s name and the mention of payment. She opened the attached file and found her pending account filled with the entire payment, up front.

“Shit,” Mackie remarked, a smile on her face, partially mangled by the large scar that slashed her lips and barely missed her nose. “These guys don’t fuck around. Paid up front. In full, no less.”

Tokes whistled low and began fidgeting for a second before speaking.

“Yep, the Kaninchenbau,” Tokes buzzed through a modulated voxbox that was crapping out. “One of the bigger sects, real righteous, lotta members. Pulls in a good bit of donations from fans. The “Frau Lepus” that paid for the job is actually a coordination tech by the name of Jasiah Le. Upper Offices rejected her attempts to change her name to Frau Lepus or Jasiah Lepus over 50 times in the last five cycles.”

“Fans? Of what?” Mackie asked, frowning.

“Oh yeah, I forgot,” Tokes replied. “You security types don’t partake in the culture of the laymen very much, do you?”

“Got one already,” Mackie said, fiddling with a new piece, smooth bore, pistol grip love, small lover, made to punch through five-inch fiberglass.

“You know that show on the feeds, Baron Bunny?” Tokes asked, continuing when Mackie shook her head. “The show with the little bunny that flies around shooting planes down, has dog fights with a literal flying squirrel, trying to stop some big white raven called Steiner in the skies over Edenland. No? Not even the name Bunny von Rictofen?”

Mackie was still puzzled, although she vaguely remembered the shrill voice of some cartoon rabbit running around with its friends in the trenches of some cartoon land, an anthropomorphic dog tossing grenades into them. Of course, it was on the feeds of some occasional targets she was given. Mackie was always in and out, quick, no time to gawk.

“Was there some walking dog that was covered in grenades, and stuff?” Mackie suggested, absentmindedly probing her fingerpanels with a knife. “Trenches and such?”

“Yeah! Yeah, that’s the one,” Tokes nodded. “Erich Houndog. He was Bunny von Rictofen’s best friend.”

“Never watched. Saw it occasionally playing on the feeds of a couple targets I knocked off,” Mackie explained. “Beyond that, never was interested.”

“Well, in either case,” Tokes continued, “the Kaninchenbau is the biggest fan forum of the show, biggest in the Big Data, too. Big rollers. The only thing keeping them from becoming major players is that all of the members are low entry workers. Either way, they get touchy about discussions on the characters and fanfics and such. Daily worship, etc. Check out the community feeds if you dare.”

Tokes was now fidgeting again, processing, doing his job, silent. Mackie shrugged and made for the door. Tokes quickly added as she did:

“Oh, try to make a connection if you can. Network a little,” Tokes said, making Mackie pause. “Good money in catering to a nice institution such as this one. Might have to get into the show, though, earn some brownie points with them.”

***

On the way through the Big Data in a hopper for hire, Mackie did some research while Tokes had come through with the target information and behavior report. Alongside the report was a stream of Bunny Baron episodes that Mackie watched dispassionately, having looked into the community page for the show and a pinned post advertising the fifty best introductory episodes to curious newcomers. Mackie, out of curiosity, looked into some of the subcommunity pages and found herself barraged by images and ideas of a world she knew nothing of: The forum was divided into various shipping factions centered around combos named with sloppy portmanteaus localized in various containment threads. Each of these threads held a gallery of artist renditions of hypothetical relationships between two charters on the show, some wholesome, some romantic, some explicit, couplings of countless combinations of characters without regard to sexuality or personal types, unless justified by a spectrum of fictions, official or fan-made.

Mackie attempted to navigate this strange world she knew not of, doing so for several minutes before giving up in the face of the many tributes, written, drawn or otherwise, and the various shows of devotions she could see, having been boasted, presented, and reported on by various members of the community: A pair of particularly enthusiastic parents officially named their newly commissioned child Kaiser Steiner and valiantly fought an ultimately futile legal battle against the Copyright Corps to keep the name, eventually settling for Kaisr Stnr. One of the cast members of the show appeared at a local convention and left a bottle; there was a brawl over it, the victor presenting the bottle to a camera despite her bloodied features. One such fan had a blurry image of the show’s writing room, having managed to sneak into the Department of General Media and Entertainment and snap a photo seconds before being tackled by Sector Security; countless clues (real or otherwise) of the coming storylines were gleaned from the blurry photo for months after. A team of individuals attempted to kidnap a particularly adored member of the cast in order to obtain genetic information and gestate a series of illegal clones of the person; however, the cast member’s security team had thwarted and destroyed the pursuers. Numerous fans attempted to contribute funds to crackpot laboratories throughout the Big Data to create living versions of the characters to be kept as pets or in community zoos; however, most of these efforts were fruitless or, in one case, resulted in several manmade abominations wiping out these laboratories out with the Copyright Corps coming in to clean the mess up. There were also other hits on a myriad of people, including members of the same fandom or members of a rival fandom, dustups between hired guns and coordinated attacks and terrorist bombs, usually the result of some slight to the characters or the show. There was more, much more, all documented by fans in a show of their devotion to this particular intellectual property.

The show was okay to Mackie. Had some good, accurate stuff on early 20th century German wartech, but not much beyond that for her. From what she could glean, the show revolved around the never-ending struggle between the old Edenland Empire and the new regime brought forth by Kaiser Steiner, a big albino raven in full SS gear, and the various fights in the trenches that ran throughout Edenland. The main character, Bunny von Rictofen, and his squadron of fighters, including Enrich Houndog, did battle against Steiner’s forces and got into all sorts of nifty and wacky adventures, frolicking in the trench-scarred forests of Edenland, singing cheery songs in the muddy trenches, and occasionally going on misadventures in enemy trenches or in the foggy clouds of mustard gas that swept across no man’s land. Frau Lepus, as it turned out, was Bunny von Rictofen’s love interest, a village rabbit maiden that served as a strong leader in the village she lived in. She was featured in many episodes, either as a damsel in distress or as a fighting partner. There was a sizable selection of other characters, too.

Mackie surprised herself by getting through about twenty episodes before she reached her appointed liaison, a surveillance tech designated Watcher 77, who was absentmindedly eating lunch at some greasehole that dispensed Italian cuisine as interpreted by the Greek in the middle of some modest commerce block deep in Centerzone. Mackie slipped into the seat opposite him and the Watcher, having been busy with his food, and another feed for another client slipped Mackie the information via a secure connection that only worked at short range. There was footage and pictures of the target moving about the city, some old, some new. Jeers was originally a mousy secretary from the Department of Records and Census, but only twenty years later became an upstanding pillar of the community, marking this physically by getting her head replaced with that of Frau Lepus’ in a nice mixture of cartoon tinged with photorealism. Expensive, no doubt. The others in her group (and others) weren’t quite as smart with their money or choices. Some were full beast, some half, varying levels of competency in construction and quality. One had been botched into a freakish monstrosity, vague approximation of an animal, some didn’t seem to resemble any of the characters unless you knew the character’s accessories and details well, indecision created horrid amalgamations of various characters. The stylized ones worked better, less uncanny valley. Paying for copyright permissions also helped. Mackie smiled at the most recent footage. As usual, Tokes’ network had been thorough.

Mackie thanked the Watcher and made her way to the “surface” of Centerzone, artificial skyline, where the premium buildings were. The target was in some rented penthouse with her flock and the rituals were going on. Oh yeah, sitting ducks. Mackie got to an adjacent building, made her way to the roof, and set up with her scoped lover, looking over, seeing the group through the scope; they were frolicking, running around, dancing around a shrine of merchandise—T-shirts, action figures, dolls, toys, costumes, appliances, weapons, drugs, equipment, sex toys, shoes—some held yellow smoke bombs, mustard gas simulations, trailing behind them, some were burrowing in their own small shrines of softness. Mackie watched them, filtered through the smoke for the target, finding her presiding over the whole thing like a priestess, master of ceremonies, well-paid bunny head in her sights when there was a sharp whistle beside her.

Mackie ducked down quick enough to avoid the blade flying at her, jumping back to gain space, finding a short black figure standing a few feet away, full black camo, distinctly bunny-shaped, wielding some sort of bladed truncheon. A shrill, cartoony voice screeched as it lashed out:

“Für den Kaninchenbau!”

Mackie dropped her scoped rifle and parried the blade with her knife, dodging the little bunny creature as it leapt at her. She retrieved her sidearm and tried to plug the little bugger, but it quickly bounded out of sight among the numerous pieces of air conditioning equipment on the roof. She paused, waiting, listening, hearing the soft padding of rabbit feet on concrete, coming closer; Mackie quickly turned and parried another blow, firing at the rabbit with her gun, who had only managed to narrowly bound away again. She was running out of time, so when the rabbit made another pass, Mackie seized the little bastard by the ears and emptied her clip into its body and tossed it off the roof.

Time almost up, Mackie dashed to her scoped lover and took aim again, finding her target. Instead of being lost in religious fervor, Jeers was staring at Mackie straight through the scope, knowing, probably tipped off. Oh well. The rabbit gaze was blown away, along with most of her head when Mackie pulled the trigger, following it up with blasting as many of the marked ones as she could. Naturally, she went for the ones Toked had ensured could afford the birth machines and went for clean head kills. New brains made old ones redundant, so she exploded just those. They panicked, ran around, so it was a fun to get them while they were moving. Mackie had gotten all the marked ones, catching the last as a big dopey parody of a hound dog tried to bound out, blowing his head apart when he got to the door.

Five minutes later, Mackie was in a hopper for hire heading back to base, getting thankful messages from Tokes and the client, “The_Real_Frau_Lepus1138”:

“YES! THANK YOU! YOU DID FANTASTIC! NOT QUITE AS BRUTAL AS I WOULD’VE LIKED, BUT THE FACT THAT YOU DID THE JOB EVEN WITH THE BODYGUARD MORE THAN MADE UP FOR THAT. THANK YOU. OH, SORRY ABOUT THE BODYGUARD BY THE WAY, I SHOULD’VE EXPECTED HER TO DO THAT. ANY WHO, THANKS AGAIN AND I WILL DEFINTELY CONTACT YOU AGAIN. ALSO, I COULDN’T HELP BUT NOTICE YOU ALSO HAVE A BACKLOG OF EPISODES ON YOUR ACTIVITY LOG, MAYBE YOU’D LIKE TO JOIN OUR LITTLE GROUP FOR MORE GUIDANCE? JUST A SUGGESTION! THANKS AGAIN.”

“Connection, ho!” Tokes called out as Mackie walked into the office, which was now filled with lazing mercs and jittery breakers. “I see you got the Kaninchenbau in your pocket! Keep on ‘em, and we got a nice healthy batch of contracts waiting for us!”

Mackie sat down, smiling, tired. “I’ll do that.” A pause.

“How many of these people have you dealt with before?”

“Too many. Good money, though.”

Mackie settled in for the day, putting on another list of Bunny Baron episodes, intending on a comfortable binge, when another chirping notification came in. Mackie frowned in mild puzzlement at the sender, “The_Illustrious_Frau_Lepus1137,” and her message:

“Good evening, Miss Contractor. According to my intel, you were the one who helpfully killed my bodyguard and blew a hole in my head earlier today on the dime of my wayward former partner Ms. Jasiah Le. Normally, I’d be mildly uncomfortable with the idea of contacting you, but you were so gracious to leave most of my body intact during the assassination, along with many of my friends, that you’ve made the blow to me considerably more thoughtful on your part. So, using our salvaged capital, we propose a contract for a retaliatory attack on Ms. Le and her cronies and an invitation, due to your recent activity, to join our sect, the Neues Kaninchenbau. Full payment is attached. Thank you in advance and thank you for your eloquent business etiquette.”