By midmorning, the first sign appeared.
It was taped to the side of Bunny Twelve with blue painter’s tape and a confidence that suggested someone had run out of better options.
OUT OF SERVICETEMPORARILY
Jake stared at it.
“Temporarily,” he said. “That’s doing a lot of work.”
Trent leaned in, hands on his knees. “It always does.”
Behind them, Bunny Twelve remained perfectly still, its chassis clean, sensors dark, posture neutral in the way that made people uncomfortable even when it was doing nothing at all.
A parks and rec supervisor hovered nearby, clipboard tucked under one arm, eyes flicking between the sign and the bunny like either might change if watched closely enough.
“So what’s the procedure now?” she asked.
Howard didn’t answer right away. He was at the bench, tightening something that didn’t appear loose.
“There isn’t one,” he said finally.
The supervisor frowned. “There’s always a procedure.”
Trent raised a finger. “There will be.”
Jake nodded. “Give it ten minutes.”
They didn’t even get five.
The clipboard appeared next.
It wasn’t official. It couldn’t have been. The paper was the wrong weight and the clip had a crack running through one corner. Someone had written BUNNY STATUS at the top in thick marker, underlined twice.
Under that were columns. Time. Location. Task. Initials. Notes.
The Notes column was already full.
Jake read the first entry.“ ‘Unit Twelve unresponsive. Did not acknowledge greeting.’ ”
He looked up. “Greeting.”
“It felt polite,” Trent said.
Howard glanced over. “It doesn’t respond to greetings.”
“Well,” Trent replied, “now we know.”
By lunchtime, the clipboard had migrated.
It no longer lived on Bunny Twelve. It lived on a rolling cart, because someone had decided information should be mobile. Someone else had added a color key. Red for unresponsive. Yellow for unclear. Green for “observed but inactive.”
Jake squinted at that one. “That’s all of them.”
“Yes,” Trent said. “But now it’s documented.”
Two employees stood near Bunny Seven, arguing quietly.
“I’m telling you, it rotated,” one said.
Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.
“It always rotates,” the other replied.
“No, I mean at me.”
Jake stepped closer. “It doesn’t have intent.”
The first employee shrugged. “What does that even mean?”
Howard watched from a distance, arms folded, saying nothing.
Trent leaned toward Jake. “You’re doing that thing.”
Jake frowned. “What thing?”
“Explaining,” Trent said. “Don’t.”
Jake exhaled. “This is spiraling.”
“Yes,” Trent said. “Institutionally.”
A second sign appeared.
This one was laminated.
DO NOT INTERACT WITH UNITUNTIL FURTHER NOTICE
Someone had added a handwritten note at the bottom.
Unless authorized.
Jake looked at Howard. “You see that, right?”
Howard nodded. “Yes.”
“You’re not going to stop this.”
“No.”
“Why not?”
Howard considered. “Because if I stop it now, it restarts later with better stationery.”
Jake rubbed his face. “That’s not comforting.”
“It’s accurate.”
By early afternoon, the temporary solutions had begun to generate dependencies.
Someone asked if the clipboard should be backed up digitally. Someone else created a shared document. A third person printed it and put it in a binder “just in case.”
Trent flipped through the binder. “This is already out of date.”
Jake gestured at the yard. “Nothing has changed.”
“Yes,” Trent said. “But our understanding has.”
Howard erased a whiteboard no one remembered filling.
A meeting formed.
It wasn’t announced as a meeting. People just gathered near the break room. Someone took notes without being asked. Someone else asked if there was an agenda.
Jake leaned against the counter. “This is how committees form.”
Trent nodded. “And how they justify themselves.”
The supervisor cleared her throat. “Until we receive guidance, we’ll proceed with manual operations.”
Jake blinked. “Manual what?”
“Operations,” she repeated. “We’ve reassigned routes.”
Trent tilted his head. “With brooms.”
“With brooms,” she confirmed.
Howard spoke up. “The bunnies were doing three concurrent tasks each.”
“Yes,” she said. “We’re aware.”
“And those tasks overlapped,” Howard continued. “Deliberately.”
She hesitated. “We’ve split them.”
Jake winced. “That’s going to create gaps.”
She nodded. “We’ve documented them.”
Howard said nothing.
The meeting ended without resolution, which everyone accepted as progress.
Later, Jake found Trent sitting on an upturned crate, watching Bunny Twelve like it might blink.
“You ever notice,” Trent said, “how people get uncomfortable when machines stop behaving like appliances?”
Jake snorted. “They’re behaving exactly like machines.”
“Yeah,” Trent replied. “Just not the kind that makes people feel useful.”
Across the yard, someone was explaining to a new hire that the bunnies were “in a reflective state.”
Jake mouthed the words silently. Reflective state.
Howard locked a cabinet.
“You’re really letting this play out,” Jake said.
Howard met his eyes. “People need to see what they build when the thing they relied on isn’t there.”
“And if they build something worse?”
Howard nodded. “Then we know.”
By the end of the day, the clipboard had a cover sheet. The binder had a label. The whiteboard had been redrawn with neater lines.
The bunnies were unchanged.
Jake leaned against the doorframe as the yard emptied. “So this is the test.”
Howard shrugged. “It’s one of them.”
Trent stood, stretching. “On the bright side, no one’s accused the robots of sabotage yet.”
Jake gave it a beat. “Yet.”
Howard turned off the lights. “Temporary solutions have a way of revealing permanent instincts.”
Jake looked back at Bunny Twelve, its sign fluttering slightly in the evening breeze.
“Think they’ll be ready tomorrow?” he asked.
Howard locked the door. “For what?”
Jake considered that. “Good point.”
Behind them, the systems remained quiet.
In front of them, the people had never been louder.
