“Whoa, wait, what?” Curtis exclaimed at the panicked brown squirrel. “Cuton? What in devil’s name is a cuton?”

Mustard shook his head. “It’s a part of physics most humans haven’t learned about yet.” He shook his head a second time. “Look, I don’t have time to explain.” He sat back on his hindpaws, curled up his tail, shook his head a third time, took a few deep breaths, forcing calm over himself, and stared up at Curtis. He suddenly had big eyes like Disney’s Bambi. He twitched his nose at him like Thumper in the same movie. “Trust me,” he murmured with a voice similar to Thumper’s as he ruffled his fur.

FLUFF

Curtis jerked back in shock as a warm sensation washed over and calmed him. He felt so safe and happy. He smiled as he looked down at Mustard. Yes! Yes, he fully trusted the adorable brown squirrel. He wanted to reach out and pet it or hug it, or maybe both!

Mustard grabbed a water bottle and splashed the contents in Curtis’ face. The shock brought him out of the blissful state he had been in. He shook his head.

“I’m sorry to do that to you, Dr. Devon. As I said, I use to be a devilbunny. With a little concentration, I can still fluff like one and unleash some cutons, though not as intense. If I was still a bunny, it would have taken more than a splash of water to bring you out of that. Faster to demonstrate cutons then to explain and there’s no time to waste. That thing,” he pointed on screen, “shouldn’t be there. Devilbunnies built a few of those as experimental power generators and quickly banned them long before I was born after a few accidents. One malfunctioned and leaked low levels of Cutons™ near a small town in upstate New York back in ’69. What was supposed to be a small rock concert there turned into Woodstock. In some other cases, much, much worse has happened.

“I’m amazed that one has run as long as it must have without breaking down. They work something like the technobabble power source in your science fiction show, Star Trek, except instead of slamming matter and anti-matter together, that thing slams Cutons™ and Anti-Cutons™ together. If it blows-up,” he paused, “and from those readings it could do so within hours if we can’t shut it down, it will unleash a massive dose of Cutons™. Take what I just did to you and multiply it by several, several thousand. You could become ‘cute-atonic’.” He switched to a slightly sarcastic care-free tone. “You’ll be blissfully unaware of anything around you for the rest of your life.” He switched back to a more serious tone. “Same with everyone else at the camps. That’s why I need you to take the Moxie™ back to the camps as quickly as possible and make sure everyone drinks some. If it does blow, it may be enough to counteract or at least reduce the effect of the burst of Cutons™.

“But it could be worse, if instead it unleashed that amount of Anti-Cutons™,” he shuddered all over a moment. “Let’s not go there.” As he finished, a pair of squirrels arrived at the door dragging a cart. Lashed down in it was a 2 liter dull orange labeled bottle of Moxie™. Mustard pointed at the bottle. “Go! Please go!”

Curtis shook his head trying to clear it, took the bottle and left, being led out by a squirrel.

A tech squirrel arrived with a smartphone strapped to its back.

“Good!” He pointed to Pine Tassel and Oakhurst. “You, two! Move! No time to waste!”