With all the folks imagining themselves in Zootopia, how would that world deal with the influx of all that? Of course, what if 'Zootopia" was just an artifact, a fictional movie version of something else? Here's one what if.

As a long time reader of science-fiction, and being a fairly level-headed old fart of a fellow, abruptly finding himself in the middle of a wheat field when he had been in his home only a moment before was more a simple puzzlement than a shocking catastrophe. Well, after the initial flinch at least.

What really had him worry was that his hands were no longer proper hands as he knew them. More like paws. And not proper dog paws as past pets would have them. More like three 'fingers' and a 'thumb', instead of four toes and a dewclaw. At least they were fairly dexterous.

Similarly, his feet, his shoes were gone and analogs of his new hands or paws where what he was standing on. He still had on trousers, approximately like what he had on before, though they included a loop for a tail, of course. A great bushy thing it was too. And his baggy T-shirt was still on, with plenty of pelt underneath.

He reached up to his face. A muzzle, with a wet nose and teeth and all that. Was he a dog, or wolf, or what? The impression was canid at least. And large erect ears.

Everything seemed to work, he smelt the soil and the not quite ripe crop around him, a hint of Diesel (?) in the distance, warm asphalt too. At the moment all he heard was the wind, a breeze blew all the stalks and around his furry head. The sun and sky seemed awfully bright and colors were washed out.

He headed for the unseen road, grateful that his feet seemed to take the ground without too much sensitivity. And there it was, a completely normal looking little country road. He looked back and was glad he hadn't made too much of a trail through the crop.

But where was he? Not flat enough for areas of the Midwest. He'd driven coast to coast in his youth and the relentless flatness was awfully distinctive. There was just a hint of undulation in the land, but nothing on the horizon, but the swells, that might be only a mile or two.

He mentally flipped a coin and followed the road, south, if the sun was any indication. Of course, he though, if he was in the northern hemisphere. There were plenty of wheat in Australia and South America too.

A broader question of 'where' came to mind. Was he in an alternate Earth with animals? Or a near future with uplifted animals? Or animal-looking aliens? It didn't take long to find out.

He saw a tuck coming up the road. Not a familiar model in real life, but.

"Zootopia?"

He'd seen the movie. He liked animation and the story and execution was exceptional. But he was no furry fan. He knew a few furry fans, but who was he to judge, as an old school trekkie back in the day and still a SF fan in his dotage.

But why would he get to or be put here?

He waved to the truck and it did stop for him, a little way off. There was a sheep (?) behind the wheel.

"Hello there. I seem to be lost in more ways than one." He was careful not to approach, not knowing what kind of social dynamic he might be in between different species.

The sheep leaned out of his side window, "You one of those 'other world' fellas?" At least he spoke English, though in an unfamiliar accent and cadence.

"If you mean I'm really, really not from around here, I guess so." And he noticed his own voice was an octave or two higher, but still his own accent. "Am I to guess there is a process for someone like me?"

"Don't know about 'process', but you'll need to go to the sheriff's office."

"And that's - ?" He pointed to and fro on the road.

The sheep laughed, "I'm headed into town and can take you. But in the back."

He wasn't going to argue, "Thanks." Then realized, "As I'm new to this, what am I now?"

The sheep looked him up and down, "A coyote." Without the final e.

The town was pretty much like any little middle of farm country town. There was a rail line and grain elevators off to the side, a couple of gas stations and some only sometimes paved side streets for a number of reasonable little houses. The sheep pulled in front of an all-purpose municipal building, courthouse, town hall and sheriff's office.

The sheep motioned him to go to the office door, seemingly reluctant to get out of the truck. Seeing that the only other folk around were also various 'prey' animals, he guessed he was something of a scary anomaly even without his otherworldly origin.

"Thanks for everything." and he gave the sheep a little salute as he drove off.

He could tell he was the center of wary attention as he headed for the door. When he entered, the desk clerk began to ask, "Can I hel- " and stopped in surprise, only then fully noticing what had entered. A couple deputies and other office workers also stopped in shock. A rabbit, another sheep, several kinds of deer or antelope.

"Hi." He waved and slumped down to be as unintimidating as he could, or at least guessed that's how he would be read. "I'm not from around here."

"You really an other worlder?" The rabbit approached, rather boldly compared to the rest of the staff. Like the rest, the accent and cadence was rather foreign, but still understandable. And he must sound awfully odd to them.

"If I'm understanding correctly, I guess I am." He held his paws out. "About an hour ago I was a very different species and in a very different part of a world, in the middle of a city of my species. Then, suddenly, I was in the middle of a wheat field like I am now." He gestured to himself. "A sheep gave me a ride into town."

One of the deputies began pawing through some papers, "We got a notice as to how to proceed ifin one of your kind showed up."

"The sheriff is out on patrol at the moment." Offered someone else.

"Here we go. Got the on-line notice." Announced someone else, pointing to a computer screen. "Did you really look like that?"

The image was of a human, a teen-ager, long lank hair, sort of a slacker fan look.

"Sort of, but a lot older and darker skinned. Different hair too."

"So, that's bare skin, not short hair?"

"Yes, other than a bit on the top of the head, and some on the face of older males, we're more or less hairless."

The collection of animals gave him a long look. "You don't look all that old?"

"Well, I don't know how old I appear to be here, but I was fairly aged back home, over sixty."

"That's not so old. Do your folk age out early?"

Then he saw the wall clock. Conventional twelve-hour interval but saw fourteen at noon. Then he realized they used base eight. "Oh, wait a minute." He held up a digit for a pause, "I'd actually be nearly one hundred in your number base."

"Then that is something, 'cause you don't look much more than thirty now."

He now knew that would be more like twenty-four, so the whatever that got him here also adjusted his age. Curiouser and curiouser.

"I'm afraid I'll have to ask you go step inside." One of the deputies gestured to the back of the office, and presumably, a cell. "Just to be sure."

"Not a problem." He was remarkably calm, considering some rather unfortunate history with small town law enforcement in his youth; DWB was still a thing in some places. Not exactly fatalistic, but he was so far out of his element at the moment that he was just going to ride it out.

Yes it was a cell, designed for rather big beasts by its features, so made it plenty roomy. He had a small audience, several of the animals wanted to ask questions of the Alien Creature, though he suspected no small part was simply seeing a coyote up close as much as his answers.

He was a little bit surprised that they seemed to be as well-connected, in the sense of the interwebs and related technology, as anything he'd been around back home. There were any number of smart 'phones and tablets on hand and some kinds of facebook or other social media sites going on.

In conversation with the crowd and their devices, he found out that hardly a day went by without some kind of Other Worlder of some sort popping up somewhere. Some were unconverted humans and obvious, others were like him, and officials were concerned that there might be uncounted more passing in the population.

After a while, the deputies had to stop the show, as there was a crowd of gawkers growing outside and they really didn't want to deal with any crowd control tromping thought the office.

A while later, the sheriff came back off rounds at about the same time as some 'government officials', MIB types. A rather imposing bear and wolf in bland suits and sunglasses, an odd contrast to the Javalina sheriff.

There was some paperwork, then, without a word, they took him into custody, handcuffs and leg shackles. A very ominous turn of events.

"I hope you guys don't do vivisection alien autopsies, eh?" He tried to joke. They didn't respond as they stuffed him into the back of a blacked out SUV.

Then a long silent drive in the dark. In his previous life, taking a little power nap when the opportunity allowed was a thing, and after it became clear that he was going to be in a black box for a while, he curled up as best he could for a snooze.

Surprisingly, he actually got some sleep, how much, he couldn't say, but he felt like it must have been a while. The sun was off to the west, a couple hours later than when they started. He was pulled from the SUV onto an airport tarmac, some smallish field, a couple light plane size hangers, the control tower just a small second floor extension to a small office structure.

There was a plane waiting, a modest size twin turboprop, a little feeder liner kind of thing in charter airlines markings. The seating inside reflected the range of animal sizes likely to be encountered, small to moderate sized seating fore and aft, with huge seating right at the wing for minimal balance issues.

The whole rear area had the windows blacked out and there was another passenger in back, a snow leopard, similarly shackled.

"Hi. Where are you from?" He asked as he was sat down and strapped into his seat.

"San Diego. And you?"

"Portland, Oregon. I used to be a sixty-two year old black man."

"Yeah? I'm told I'm still nineteen, but now I'm a female leopard." Though the cat's face was not easy to read, he could tell she was very unhappy with her current condition.

"Were you a furry? I'm trying to figure out how I got here, and I wasn't really a fan or anything, so don't get the connection."

"Don't know either, but yeah. Had a couple of fursonas, male and female." She was clearly ashamed of that now.

"Hey, don't sweat it. Back in my old D and D days, my main character was a female elf." True, he wasn't one now, but he never planned to be a coyote either. "Have any idea where we're going?"

"No, but they seem to have a process for us."

"No kidding. I may have been a temporary internet star, a bunch of locals facebooked me for a while."

"Weird how it's so close to our world."

And so it went for a while, speculations and small talk, some exchange of background. The snow leopard used to be a simple geeky furry fan, taking some community collage courses to build up some class time before plunging into collage proper.

He was a retired postal carrier. Did some volunteer work for one of the shelter. So very different, so what was the connection?

She suggested that they might have died; there was a body of fan fiction about Zootopia being a place for reincarnations. He wasn't keen on that, he was in good health and there was no transition between there and here. He would have expected something if he had died. Heart attacks were not sudden, though strokes could be, but he was in particularly good health for that kind of thing.

And she had to agree. She was not a jock, but she did a lot of bicycling and was in reasonably good shape. No transition for her either, just there then here.

Another thought came to mind, what of the folks back home. He didn't have any really connections to worry about. His family was dispersed and what friends he did have were mainly casual acquaintances. She was not so lucky when she realized she'd lost a close large family and several good friends behind.

He wished he could give her a hug or something to console her, but the MIBs were unmoved, and she wept off and on for the remained of the flight.

It wasn't all that long in total, maybe a couple hours. And as they exited, the sun was setting in the west. What little of the land that he could see was not encouraging. Wasteland, reminded him uncomfortably like parts of Montana, flat and desolate. No mountains on the horizon he could see for any hints though.

At this point, the MIBs took the cuffs and shackles off. "No where to go if you tried anything." One glumly advised.

Another blacked out SUV ride. Not terribly long.

"You okay now?" he asked.

"With everything else going on, I hadn't thought about everyone back - . Ya know." She was better now, and they sat beside each other. She was head and shoulders taller than him, and more robustly built, maybe. All that thick fur made it hard to tell. She had on a T-shirt and cargo pants, adapted for a tail as well.

He hadn't really looked at her for female features before, the feline face always struck him as feminine already, except maybe for some lions and such, but she did 't have a body that showed any human equivalent features.

"Can I ask, about your new girl parts?"

She gave a snort. "Yeah, I got to be a female, and you'd expect a sexy form like the fan art, but if you notice in the movie, the females have next to nothing up top." She made a bit of a bewildered face; "It took me a few to realize I'd lost my junk, with everything else going on. I didn't even think to check until I was referred to as a she."

"I wonder how to tell, you look like a snow leopard to me, must be some subtlety that we're missing." He then laughed. "I haven't yet checked to see if I've got a baculum, a penis bone."

"Oh, that's right, its what dogs got, right?"

"Many mammals, if I'm remembering right. Humans don't though."

Then they were at their destination. As he got out of the vehicle, his hackles went up. It was now fully night. There were an array of portable buildings, likely barracks, and off to the side, the foundations for more permanent structures. But it was the guard towers and searchlights. He didn't know what to expect, but a prison camp was not a hoped for answer.

There were, at least no obvious armed guards on the ground around them as they were ushered to one of the buildings.

It was an office, with little cubicles off to the side, which he discovered were for individual interviews. And as such, they were innocuous enough. Some personal background information, not much worse than an employment interview. Some extra health questions, and impressions of his conversion. At that, he could only mentioned the tactile effects of the fur and changed anatomy and the altered sensory repertoire.

Then the interviewer, a raccoon, asked, "Would you consider yourself a furry?"

"No. I'm more of an SF fan. But - " And he started, "Was it that movie?"

"Zootopia?"

"Yeah!"

"Don't know, but it does seem to be the one connection I've seen." The raccoon shrugged. "This isn't Zootopia, though. But we do have a major city that could sure fit the bill. Doesn't have the artificial climates, but sure matches many of the features."

"Some kind of connection? Interdimensional thing?" His SF mind was running though scenarios.

"Dunno. Though it's the kind of thing the techies talk about. You'll get a chance to speculate with them later."

"So. What is this place?"

"Containment center. The authorities don't know who or what you all really mean to us. No biological hazard so far, but with some of you able to pass, there is a risk of infiltration. The Humans who come over are pure nightmare fuel though, so get picked up as much for their own safety. Some of the first few got killed as scary monsters."

"Are there any here?"

"Oh yeah. As far as I know, everyone gets sent here. Been about a thousand of all types here so far."

"Will this be permanent?"

"We really don't have any idea. This only started with the opening of the movie, as far as we can tell. So we haven't had time to really figure that out."

After some more odds and ends, he was cleared and assigned a barracks. An escort led him over; the 'subjects' were cerfewed at night to the buildings.

"You'll get the open bay for now, common barracks style, but as we get them done, we're getting folks into individual apartments for more privacy. Don't want this to be any more oppressive than it has to be." The wolf who escorted him was head and shoulders taller and likely double his weight. As he regarded the creature, he thought he finally caught on about gender.

"As I'm still really new to all this, my nose just told me you're a female?"

She laughed. "Yeah. The humans are having the hardest time with that, so used to visual clues. We can tell visually too, its just a lot more subtle, though in something other than uniforms and a touch of cosmetics, it gets easier."

Then they were at the barracks and she bade him good night and good luck. As he got to the top of the stairs, he looked out over the complex. He really didn't know what to expect, but knew that one didn't build permanent structures for a temporary problem. Maybe the age reduction wasn't a blessing after all.