Clad in a black and white prison jumpsuit, I followed the detective down a prison hallway, my hands pinned behind my back with literal `hand cuffs' that looked like something cut off of Frankenstein's monster.
Cartoon animals filled the cells, walked around in warden's garb, specifically felines and one classification of nocturnal bird.
"This is cute," I muttered. "What is this place?"
"Owl-Cattrez," the detective answered. "Strictly minimum security. It's a quiet place. You'll like it."
My companion was a doodle. Ink and paint. He used to be human once, but now he was full on animated, his eyes just a pair of circles like Little Orphan Annie, his blonde hair super bright yellow.
"Look, Harris," I said. "I just saved the world. Before all that crap went down in Vegas, I did ten years hard time in a real prison. Don't I deserve better than a transfer to another jail?"
The officer threw me against a cell. Sometimes I could flash into a cartoon character and not feel anything, but this wasn't one of those times. It actually hurt.
A human body, after sleeping with a doodle, flickers from real to cartoon and back again every couple minutes. Despite being in contact with The Spike of Power, I still hadn't been cured.
"Listen, you smug son of a bitch! You nearly ended the world because you couldn't keep your Johnson in your pants! Your psycho bitch girlfriend pushed me off the side of a building! Do you know how much that hurts? You screw the world for a piece of ass and what, I'm supposed to thank you? You didn't save the world, you just cleaned up your own mess!"
A female cat in a skin tight police uniform stopped and stared at us, making that silly blinking noise that cartoons sometimes make when confused.
She resembled something from that Zootopia movie. In fact, most of the characters in the place did, from the overweight owl gawking next to her, to the lean Calicoes snickering at us behind bars.
The detective, looking embarrassed, let go of me and the cat sidled away, twirling a normal set of handcuffs.
Harris sighed. "Deebes, I'm going to level with you. The reason why you're here instead of Arkham or Supermax is because you stopped Holli. Like the judge said, you're the first criminal of your kind, so we don't exactly have a legal precedent to compare it to.
"You did ten years in a real prison? Don't know what you did, don't care. I'm thinking, if you're on your best behavior, we can get you out of here in five, maybe less. Plus, uh..." He smoothed back his crazy blonde Elvis hair, face turning an unnatural shade of pink. "Even though dying sucked, you did kinda make it possible for me to finally get (ahem) intimate with a certain doodle..." He feigned coughing.
I opened my mouth to argue that he didn't have to die to do that, but I didn't relish getting thrown against the bars again. "Sounds like I did you a favor! Why not, you know, just let me off with a warning?"
I saw actual steam blowing out of the detective's ears, his face turning the color of a stop light. "Warning! I gave you that the first day I saw you step into Cool World!"
He pinned me against the cell, clamping his hands around my throat. "You want me to make this into a life sentence? Keep talking and I'll get an order from the judge! Lessening your sentence to five years, that's all you're getting from me in terms of gratitude! You broke the oldest law in Cool World, you nearly destroyed the world! Five years, Deebes! That is what you deserve! If I were you, I'd keep my damn mouth shut and accept it, because things can certainly get a lot worse!"
"I'm sensing a lot of pent up frustration," I muttered. "How long have you gone without sex?"
He jabbed me with his finger. "That's six years, Deebes! Want to make it seven? Because I'd be more than happy to oblige!"
Since my hands were still cuffed, I gave him my best defeated looking shrug.
Harris opened a cell, tossing me in with three prison striped cats, a big fat gray thing, a skinny brown one with a stupid looking headband, and a squat little orange feline with a pumpkin shaped poorboy hat.
"Can I has cheezburger?" the gray one asked.
"Sorry," I groaned. "Fresh out."
The cell door slammed shut.
"See you in six years, Deebes!"
I gave the detective the finger, but he only laughed at me and walked away.
"So," said the brown cat. "What are you in here for?"