The Sleeper Wakes A Zootopia Fanfiction
Chapter 1:
A long time from now, in a city not particularly far away, Duke Weaselton wiggled through the disgusting pipes of the cities lower bowels. He cursed and muttered to himself about how his bootleg DVD racket had fallen apart, all because of the damn internet.
"Stupid high speed internet, if I see any of your data cables down here I swear I'll chew through every one I find!" Filth of all kinds oozed from the ceiling of the narrow passage he was squirming thorough. A blob of it landed directly onto the light mounted to the weasel sized hardhat he was wearing. He hissed something incomprehensible and wiped the muck away, lighting the way in front of him once more.
he looked down at his literally filthy paws. "You know, I used to always say I never minded getting my hands all kinds of dirty in order to make a buck, but this is ridiculous." The crooked life had been difficult lately. He used to be able to rely on his small size and speed to evade law enforcement, but ever since that Officer Hopps joined the police force he lost his advantage. As if having a fast bunny on the police force wasn't bad enough ever since she joined, she had inspired a whole slew of smaller mammals to join the police force as well.
"I popped the weasel!" he heard her obnoxious voice every time another small fast mammal chased him away from what in the past was an easy score. Zootopia might have become an even better place for law abiding mammals, but for con-artists like himself it had become just slightly harder. It's why he now found himself digging through the deepest darkest bowels of the city to find his latest score.
There had been rumors since the original founding of Zootopia that there was some kind of hidden treasure buried deep within the center of it. When it was easier for small time con-mammals like him to make a buck he would have scoffed at the foolish idea of tracking it down. But times change he needed a big score even if it meant digging through the filthy guts of the city's sewers.
He sneered as he thought about all the nasty words that had been applied to him over the years. Slick, slippery, sleazy, a lot of words that began with the letter S were commonly attributed to weasel's. Smart was not one of those words. Still he didn't let that stop him from spending weeks at the city library, studying the history and schematics of the lower city. Every now and then the chief librarian, an elephant would glance his direction with a look of suspicion and disdain, and just as quickly look away, afraid to be caught staring.
His research had paid off though. He had found what could only be described as a secret chamber. When all the schematics of the cities underground structures were overlaid over each other, there was a decidedly conspicuous block of space that nothing seemed to occupy. Nothing overtly marked out. Even the sewage system just seemed to stop at, or go around a large rectangular space, around the size of a large two storied building. But nothing was marked as being there.
Reaching into his back pocket he fished out a smart phone. Not his, he had swiped it from some dumb Podunk bunny who was too busy ogling the sights of Zootopia to notice her phone had gone missing. No signal bars were displayed. Not that he expected to get any coverage this deep underground. His claws clicked against the glass of the tiny device's screen as he opened up the photo gallery. It had Taken him months to construct the map now stored on the stolen phone. He supposed he could have used a photocopy of the precious map that had taken him months to make, and that he didn't didn't have to steal that poor bunny's phone, but old habits die hard. Besides it was easier to read the phones glowing screen in the dark than a physical paper map.
He was close. There was a pipe that lead to one of the lower corners of the secret chamber. Reaching for a weasel sized pick axe that he was swinging from his belt he gently started to tap on the walls of the pipe hoping to find a spot not buried under dirt or cement. His first few attempts resulted in the dull thud of metal on metal, but finally his search was rewarded with a hollow echo… The chamber must be right through this pipe.
These sewers were ancient. Some of the first built in Zootopia, who knew how many years, decades, centuries even any mammal had last been in this chamber. What could the founders of the city been so intent on protecting? Well if there is one thing he was certain of secrets were valuable, so whatever Zootopia's founders had put so much effort into burying so deep beneath the city's foundation must be very valuable. He lifted his pick ax and swung at the wall of the ancient metal pipe. Age and corrosion had made it fragile and he easily broke through with just a couple of swings. The vibrations from efforts caused a large portion of dried filth to shake loose atop the weasel's head. After a moment of sneezing and coughing he took a closer look at his work. The hole in the pipe was not particularly inviting, indeed it looked more like the gaping maw of some massive predator promising immense peril rather than a passage promising incalculable riches. Still he had come too far to back out now, so he straightened his shoulders and continued his trek into the unknown.
The hole lead into a small room sized chamber, made mostly of cracked and molding concrete. A door, scaled perfectly for a medium to large sized mammal, but massive when compared to the tiny weasel, lay at the far end. Duke eyed the door suspiciously. It looked way to modern to be something the founders of the city had built. He would have been less surprised if he had found some kind of ancient obelisk or pyramid marking the entrance of the chamber. Still the thick layers of dust and mold seemed to imply no one had been down here for at least several decades, if not even longer than that.
Cautiously he crawled from the pipe and looked around, the headlamp on his hardhat casting a bright white circle upon whatever it landed upon. It looked like a boiler room of some kind. Duke checked his map on his stolen cell phone once again. Did he make a wrong turn somewhere? No he was sure he was in the right place. Moving forward he reached up and grabbed the door handle and used his weight to pull down on it. Once again he was surprised when handle moved without any struggle. He was at least half expecting it to be locked. The door slowly opened, its hinges creaking loudly. Duke would have been concerned about the noise alerting someone if he wasn't so sure the building was completely abandoned.
In the room beyond the door lay a laboratory that could have come straight from a science fiction film. Once gleaming machinery, now caked in dust still let out a low him, signaling that it was still in some kind of working order. A computer terminal of some kind was pressed up against the far wall and some mammal was still sitting at it. Weaselton gulped, still the figure was hunched over the computer in a way that implied he had fallen asleep at the terminal. He slowly crept up behind the still figure just to make sure it was sleeping. He let out a small gasp when he saw the figure literally had no meat left on it. He felt a little queasy when he realized he was looking at a skeleton, he felt even queasier when he saw the figures skull.
The Skull looked oddly familiar, yet it looked like no living mammal that he had ever seen before. Its face was completely flat, no muzzle of any kind to speak of, its limbs were long and lanky, a strangely awkward looking mammal to be sure. A deformed sloth for sure Duke tried to reassure himself. He reached forward and tugged slightly on the ancient lab coat adorning the skeleton which seemed to completely disintegrate to the touch, leaving the remains completely exposed in their full glory. Suddenly he remembered where he had seen a creature like this before, well a skeleton at least. The last time he had visited the natural history museum was when he was a small kit during a 9th grade school trip. It was actually the last school trip he had gone on, he chuckled to himself as he dropped out of school soon afterwards. Still, like any young mammal he was enthralled with the pre-historic exhibit.
"OMG this is a… oh come one now it's right on the tip of my tongue, A prima-something something, oh It doesn't matter, the natural history museum will pay a fortune for a complete skeleton of one of these beasts!" As he twirled around in glee he accidentally bumped into the chair the skeleton was seated at, causing it to fall face forward on the computer console's keyboard.
Across the room a large glass pillar rose from the floor, resting inside of it floated an orb the size of a large marble softly glowing with a pure soft white light. It was the single most beautiful thing Duke had ever seen, staring at it in awe one single thought went through his head… 'I wonder how much I can sell it for!'
Reaching forward he plucked it from its invisible perch, not even once questioning if it was dangerous. For something that glowed so brightly it was strangely cold to the touch, indeed it almost seemed to suck the warmth straight from his hands. He continued to stare at it for a whole moment longer before red emergency lights flashed to life and the wail of a klaxon filled the room.
"Central power and memory core has been removed. Full system failure in twenty minutes." A tinny female voice blasted out from the ancient computer terminal. "Emergency Cryonic resuscitation initiated."
Duke did not like the sound of that at all.
"Automated medical staff reporting to Cryonics lab 1. All unessential personal please clear the area."
Duke took that last phrase to be his signal to leave as soon as possible. Before he had a chance to turn tail and run a large mechanical beast entered the room, from it dangled dozens of mechanical arms, each equipped with syringes and a multitude of even nastier looking sharp objects that Duke could only imagine in horror what they must be for. A single mono eye mounted atop an articulated boom arm zeroed in on him. "Contaminate detected, initializing sterilization protocols." With those words one of the long arms dangling at the mechanical monster's side sprung to life, a long narrow device mounted to it, the tip slowly began to glow and a beam of red light burst forward from it hitting the tip of Duke's tail. Duke let out a yip of pain, and screeched out,
"I get it! I get it I'm leaving!" He quickly scampered back toward the door through which he had first entered the lab.
A tinny but more masculine voice blared out from a speaker somewhere within the mechanical beast's body,
"Missing main power and memory core located, Initializing retrieval protocol!" Duke blinked in disbelief as the massive bulk of steel and plastic lurched toward him in pursuit.
"Oh you have to be kidding me!" Duke scrambled as fast he could out the laboratory door into the chamber he had first entered this huge nightmare through. As quickly as he could he wriggled his way back through the hole in the pipe he had made earlier. He looked down at the glowing orb in his hand and scowled… "Darn thing had better be worth it!" Scampering as fast as he could down the pipe he stuffed the glowing marble into his pocket, not even noticing that he had dropped his stolen cell phone.