It had been a hard winter, and not because of the weather.

After Chit and Zander's escapade with the marker bomb, the bunnies were
frantic to find the squirrels' warren. But while the impetuous pair had
failed to eliminate the bunnies with the mentat's experimental viral formula,
the flourescent (and slightly radioactive) marker compound worked almost
as well as far as eliminating them as a threat was concerned. It isn't hard
to avoid an enemy that shows up on scopes.

Then, one day, Colette and Marti, two of Kara's brood (that is, two of the
newly converted squirrels that she had been mostly responsible for),
disappeared on a routine scavenging expedition to the nearby Taco Bell.
Disappeared, that is, except for their tails, which were hung on pikes
outside the bunny warren entrance. Apparently, since no bunnies had been
detected anywhere near there, the bunnies had figured out that they were
being tracked and had called in help.

The next day, a large bunny force camped directly over the warren and began
a detailed, methodical search. Apparently, they'd discovered *how* they were
being tracked, and had turned it back on the squirrels, specifically on Chit
and Zander, who had been caught in the explosion and marked.

The (sub)mentat Zaphod refused to abandon his work, his equipment, and his
virus, and so the rest of the squirrels abandoned him, sneaking out at night,
while the bunnies slept, by burrowing up by a tree trunk and leaping from
branch to branch until they were outside the perimeter. Kara and the new
squirrels headed north to find a new spot for a warren, while Chit and
Zander fled south to lead the bunnies astray.

This was all in direct violation of the (sub)mentat's orders -- the squirrels
were supposed to stay and defend the precious virus to the last, to prevent
it from falling into bunny paws at all costs. But a unanimous vote (except
for the (sub)mentat, who didn't get one, and the former resistance squirrels,
who by that time were nearly comatose) selected a slightly different plan, in
which the squirrels fled for their lives, and several well-placed grenades
ensured that the virus was never found. 

Subsequent investigation of the ruins failed to turn up any trace of the 
(sub)mentat, but whether he had been caught in the explosion (which had 
been as small as possible, they weren't murderers), captured by the bunnies,
or had made his way back to UCirc, they would never know. Or care.

But they *did* care about Chit and Zander. Chit was, with the mentat's loss,
one of only two squirrels more than a few months 'old' (that is, past 
conversion), and Zander was always good for a laugh. And neither of them,
nor both of them together, had any hope in hell of fighting off a warren
full of bunnies and their unknown reinforcements, and even less of evading
them, marked as they were.

So, since they could run, but not hide, they ran. And the bunnies followed.
And captured them after about fifty feet, since even at night they had 
guards, and even their picket guards had scanners.

They were taken back to the warren under heavy guard, and shown by a gloating
warrenleader the chamber the mentat had constructed to decontaminate the
bunnies (which resembled, more than anything else, a carwash). They were
decontaminated as well (to make any rescue attempt more difficult) and thrown
in a dungeon to await interrogation.

"So this is where we escape, right?" Zander asked.

"Indeed it is. Are you pondering what I'm pondering?" Chit replied.

"I think so, but I could never count in base three."

And so, lacking a coordinated plan, they failed to escape and were tortured
at length. But they were *ky00t* tortures, this being essentially a civilian
warren, and involved dread ordeals such as the _Stern Talking To_, the 
_Comfy Pillows_, and the horrible _Barrel of Snapple_. Unable to take the
strain, both prisoners broke and told everything they knew.

As promised, they were set free, to do "whatever you want, even run back to
the other squirrels and plot our death," which they did, after removing the
clumsily concealed radio transmitters and dropping them into an old man's 
bag of breacrumbs, which he fed to the local pigeons.

So, while the bunnies wondered how their two former prisoners had managed to
sprout wings, Chit and Zander cast about at random looking for Kara and the
others, since they knew that trying to find the warren itself was an exercise
in futility -- the bunnies had never managed to find the original entrance,
despite knowing exactly where to look, and had had to dig their own.

Two weeks later, she found them, cold, hungry, and miserable, huddling
from the freezing winds in a hollowed-out tree, and brought them back to
civilization. They explained (over their first meal in three days) how 
they had fought off the bunnies, made their escape, decontaminated 
themselves at the local carwash, and decided to spend a month getting
close to nature.

TBC (well, it's already been 'C', but I want to fill in a bit more)

==
Chit