Chapter 3

Furmekistan Desert:

A dark windowless room is the only thing she can see while the desert heat boils around her, there is nothing but empty loneliness to keep her company. To any other mammal being locked in solitary is one of the cruelest tortures that can be endured, after being beaten senseless, prodded with tazers and water boarded almost into oblivion her captors ran out of ideas and locked her on an abandoned bunker right in the middle of the Furmekistan desert.

They aren't stupid enough to let her die of dehydration, so they keep hosing her with water at full force twice a day. They need the information she has and they won't kill her until she gives it to them, so for now the best strategy for survival seems to keep her snout shut.

Skye Frost smiles to herself, do they really think loneliness and isolation can break her? Fools! She has lived in isolation her whole life, she practically grew in it.

The arctic vixen was born in Siberia, as the privileged daughter of a powerful warlord and his trophy wife. While her older brother Alexander had been raised and primed for taking over the family business when their father dies, she was ruled out of the succession line because of being born not only a female, but an albino. Unlike most arctic vulpines her fur stayed white even in warm weather and her pale blue eyes had little resistance to the sun, yet that was the least of her problems, even as an incomplete albino (her snout and the skin below her eyes was still black) she was expected to suffer from deafness and/or blindness when she reached the adult age. A health risk like that meant she could never rule by her brother's side and could never inherit the leadership of his empire.

So the patriarch sent his mutant kit to a boarding school for the most privileged located high over the alps in Animalia, as far from her family as possible. In there she was raised in the ways of a proper high class lady and was given the best education money can buy, learning at least six languages by the time she was thirteen.

But the most important skill she ever learned there was how to handle yourself when nobody around you tolerates your presence. In spite of being as rich as her classmates everyone knew that her fortune came from a criminal activity instead of an aristocratic bloodline, so she was looked down by everyone in the school, to them she was just another sly conning untrusting fox.

Alone in her luxurious room and unable to make any friends she found solace in a demanding studying schedule, working harder than ever to prove that everyone was wrong about her, that she was more than her criminal family made her out to be. Following that goal and with great effort she excelled in martial arts, fencing and track race, and when it came to academia she got the best grades in almost all subjects. In the meantime she also trained her body until her petite form was able to defeat opponents five times her size and her paws could crush planks of wood like a hot knife through butter.

Her whole kithood she craved desperately to prove to her family that she was strong and capable of handling the business. The fuel behind her accomplishments was the foolish hope that maybe if she were strong enough, fast enough, smart enough then maybe she could go home in the summer instead of being ditched in a summer camp, that would mean that maybe she could stay with her family more than three days a year. Skye often fantasized of one day being accepted within her own family because she knew she would never fit in among the stiff brats of the aristocratic world, or her teachers.

The white furred vixen spent her entire childhood alone, looking through the windows as "normal" kits played with their friends in the snow, knowing they would be welcomed into their homes at summer while she would be tossed away into another institution, so her father wouldn't have to deal with the embarrassment of showing off his mutant spawn.

But no matter how hard the vixen tried or how good she proved to be, she was never seen as more than a liability in the eyes of her father, it took years for her to learn that no matter what she did she would always be seen as the weakest link.

The KGB agent still remembers the fateful day when she turned eighteen and left the boarding school, she had waited for that day ever since her father threw her in there when she was five. After having made little to no friends in there she knew she wouldn't miss the place where she grew up, but she did look forward for a future in Siberia. But now that her education was over her family couldn't just hide her away in a place between the Alps and call it a day, they would have to face the fact that reaching her adulthood she wasn't anywhere near deaf or blind and she could defeat mammals twice her size in combat. But all her stupid hopes were crushed when her father sent her a letter right before graduation day.

The letter was long and filled with affectionate words, he said he was proud of her performance and her grades but she could read between the lines. "This line of work is too dangerous for a delicate flower like you" she read on the white paper tainted with her father's pristine pawriting, "It is best if you follow your own way" it said, that and more saccharine sentences crowded the paper and it was too obvious they held no true emotion behind them. At the end of the letter there was a number for an account with five million dollars and the number of the dean from the University of "La Fangbonne" the most prestigious college in the whole world; apparently he had pre paid any college career for her to choose.

She understood the message in that letter loud and clear: You are not our problem anymore, go find your own way and better make it far from us. Ever since then she stopped trying to contact them, and they made no effort to reach her either.

Her classmates and teachers never accepted her, and her family wouldn't do that either. That day while reading the letter was the last time she would cry, the vixen cursed the random mutation that severed her opportunities from the day she was born, but when her tears ran out she decided how futile it was to rage about something she could never change. Her fur never turns dark, how is that a reason to be discarded and left alone?

Loneliness was her only company, her thoughts and accomplishments her only friends. It took years for her to accept and even embrace that fact, eventually the solitude that haunted her became her utmost defense, building walls around her heart so high nothing and no one could ever reach past them. She convinced herself that the mutation was a blessing in disguise, since emotions are after all the worst weakness you can be exposed to, as someone who trained herself not to feel she then became unbreakable.

So the arctic vixen set herself to prove to the world that she was strong, that her lack of melanin was no physical hindrance. She entered the Siberian army and gained the best scores, getting a college degree in mechanical engineering within the army academy program. It wasn't long until the KGB knocked on her door and her true calling was found, in intelligence agencies emotional relationships are considered a huge hindrance so loners were the rule not the exception, the agency was the first place she ever felt she could fit in. At the age of twenty four she was responsible for the infiltrating and dismantling of five different governments and the death of at least two dictators, not even counting hundreds of soldiers and enemies.

At twenty nine she is a legend, the femme fatale of Siberia, how dare this puny soldiers to think they have the upper paw. Its true she made a dire mistake though, she was supposed to send the location of the current dictator's nuclear warheads to her superiors at the KGB but the safe house where she sought refuge sold her out to the regime. Now the Sha's army wants to extract information about her fellow agents who are still infiltrated within the regime and is very curious of why is the KGB nosing around their country.

Oh well what doesn't kill you makes you stronger, now she knows not even her colleges must be trusted. Her mentors trained her well, to her their torture methods are tickle fights, and the isolation and sensory deprivation that would make any other mammal crazy only makes her a little homesick. So now she has to think of an escape plan, assuming she isn't rescued for the critical information stored in her white furry head.

The door of the bunker opens and she suddenly understand how vampires feel when exposed to the sun, the radioactive sunlight pierces her eyes like daggers and blind the clear blue irises who were meant for seeing in the night. A camel grabs her arm and drags her away, the orgy of sounds and smells hits her so hard she almost faints, apparently the sensory deprivation isn't as bad when you get used to it, but being reinserted into the outside world can be very painful and overwhelming.

Unable to see she focuses on the soldiers words, they speak at a normal volume but to her they sound like howling hyenas as their voices pierce her eardrums and start a migraine –"'akhadhu waquat 'iilaa albawwabat alrayiysia"-

-"Hal tasmah li 'an 'adhhab balfel? Walakun kunt mjrd alhusul ealaa raha."- She retorts smugly, the camel apparently didn't share her sense of humor because soon after the butt of a rifle contacts her skull with tremendous force and her world turns to a welcoming darkness once more.

She comes to her senses a short while later and finds herself in a military jeep driving through the desert, the cavalry did come to the rescue after all.

The agent notices her brain is slow in processing the information it receives, the sounds around her seem too loud and confusing. She doesn't know how long she was locked in that bunker but her perception of time must be off, it was probably a lot more than that she thought. It's the only explanation for how weak and disoriented she must have been after getting out of there, because she never saw the blow coming when usually she would have dodged or blocked it with ease and right now she has a lot of trouble forming a coherent thought.

-"Are you alright? Frost can you hear me?"- A deep male voice asks, she looks at the driver sitting right by her side in utter confusion. Her savior looks at her with a concerned frown.

-"Are you the one that got me out of the prison camp?"- She asks incredulous

This is a dream, it has to be, or maybe it's a hallucination caused by the blow. There is no other explanation since the agent that got her out of there was a Zootopian, and a rabbit! Did they actually send a cute fuzzy bunny to extract her from one of the most dangerous prison camps ever created?

The adorable hare grins proudly –"Yeah, I negotiated an exchange between you and one of their own that my government had stored in Guanfaunamo. If they released you we would give them Jafar Dabae, but they knocked you down before the exchange. They are a short tempered folk agent Frost, I would try to not piss them off you were lucky I got you out"-

-"I'm a female, a vixen and a spy from and enemy nation, they couldn't hate me any less"- She growls gingerly touching the back of her head where a large bruise is already forming below her thin white fur. Then what the rabbit told her clicks in her head –"Wait are you telling me they exchanged me for the most dangerous terrorist in the whole world? No agency would ever do that!"-

The hare slouchs sheepish as he floors the accelerator on their vehicle –"Yeah you're right about that, the agency wanted me to get you out on my own and those guys were too many, too crazy and too well armed. So instead of barging in and becoming a bullet deposit I asked for a few favors in the ZIA and they let me do the exchange, but with one little tweak. All prisoners in Guanfaunamo are implanted with a tracker right below their skin, but no one knows that the tracker can also work as a pretty powerful explosive. The idea is that even if those prisoners do escape the Zootopian government can trigger the bomb from a safe distance, so once Jafar enters the camp the device inside of him would blow up, killing him and the Sha's soldiers."-

-"You are joking right?"- Skye asked eyeing the strange hare while he happily grabs a small device and pushes the button in the middle of it, the roar of an explosion not far behind them was her answer. –"Tell me agent…"- only then she realizes he never told her his name.

The striped hare shakes her paw gallantly –"Oh forgive my manners, I am agent Jack Savage it is nice to meet you"-

-"Skye Frost"- She says dryly –"May I ask how are we supposed to escape Furmekistan when the entire Desert Army is going to be looking for us?"-

-"We'll travel by land, not by the usual roads we know those are highly patrolled, but the Tuareg will hide us between their bags and we'll cross the border to Furan. Once there we'll be taken to Zootopia by plane, and this time it better be a private jet because I am NOT flying in coach ever again"- He says that like crossing the desert for three days hidden in a bag carried by camels were no big deal, but she's been in worse situations.

It wasn't that bad actually, traveling the desert in a large bag stuck next to a rabbit, at least compared to the prison camp. She is pleasantly surprised at his gentle and friendly demeanor, but then again lagomorphs are supposed to be that way, it's just that intelligence agents are not known for their sweet personalities. All over the world most spies have the same cold and detached behavior, but this hare seems to be genuinely warm and she is glad to notice he's actually quite cuddly and soft to the touch, which is pretty useful when you are stuck next to someone for an extended period of time.

By the next morning they are resting in the modest camp the nomad tribe settled in, it is near a small city around an ancient oasis. The sunrise sun paints the sand dunes in a kaleidoscope of oranges and gold, some stars still shine in the sky refusing to fade in the light of day.

The vixen admits the journey was kinda nice, once they were far from the security checks they could exit their bag and walk by the camel's side. The ZIA agent is not that bad either, he took care of her wound as soon as he could and helped her get fed and rehydrated. Normally agent Frost wouldn't accept to be nursed by another mammal, learning for a very young age not to depend on anyone but herself. The problem is that she had come out of her imprisonment much weaker that she thought but had grown used to it, it wasn't until Savage practically started to shove food down her snout that she understood how physically damaged she was. It is embarrassing for her to need his help, but in all fairness he is really kind and doesn't seem to mind helping a fellow agent, it is a mystery how a mammal with such a big heart ended up choosing such a cruel career.

-"Tell me Savage, why an agent from the ZIA is doing the extraction?"- Skye says staring at the magical landscape as he changes the bandage at the back of her head. His soft pad less paws now gently roam over her back looking for other wounds that might be hidden under her fur, he has found over twenty scars from the tazers on her shoulders alone, the poor vixen must be numbed to pain by now because she doesn't even flinch when the strong antiseptic is swabbed over the red angry marks.

-"We need your help with a mission in Zootopia, we are supposed to infiltrate the Tundratown mob and then destroy it. My bosses figured it might be a job for the Femme Fatale of Siberia"- he giggles at her nickname while still looking for more scars, it's like her white pristine fur hid a horrid landscape below the silky softness, he told her to let him know if she ever got uncomfortable or felt any pain but she seems immune to either.

-"I see, so who is my target?"- She says while gently putting her tunic on, to the hare's credit he was such a gentlemammal that she didn't feel shy about exposing her bare torso to him so he could clean her wounds, he was very respectful to her the whole time.

After reaching a file from his backpack situated at the back of their tent he shows her a picture of Nicholas Wilde, she eyes the image with raised eyebrows, the red fox is actually quite handsome.

-"I understand that they want me to kill him right away?"- She wonders how long will she have to flirt with the tod, it's a shame she has to kill him; according to the file he is extremely smart and powerful enough to put an ancient crime organization to its knees. He would be a good mate material.

-"Well first I must get comfy with his wife, then you can kill him"- Savage tells her wiggling his eyebrows.

-"He's married?!"- Frost says groaning –"Don't your bosses know anything about fox courtships?"- When her coworker shrugs she rolls her eyes and explains –"We as a species mate for life, sure some do break the mold and cheat but those are rare exceptions, when foxes choose their mates they are usually monogamous. There's a big chance he won't even notice me."-

- "Wilde doesn't seem to be in love agent Frost, apparently she's just his slave, I'm sure their marriage is a cover"- Jack scowls at the thought of that beautiful helpless doe trapped in that deviate's claws.

-"What makes you think that?"- She asked cocking her head

-"She's a bunny"- he gave her another picture with Judy's face.

-"You're right it is not a true marriage, it is impossible for a fox to have genuine feelings for a mammal of a different species, our pheromones play too big of a part for our mating rituals and bunny's scent could never accomplish that"- Skye's lips twist into a disgusted scowl at the interspecies pairing. –"This is not natural"-

Jack shrugs –"I agree, but I don't know. Actually I have the phone number of a nice ewe I would like to call when I get back home."-

When he heard her giggling he poked her shoulder asking what was so funny about it –"A hare and a sheep, you would be the most adorable couple I have ever seen. It's a good thing you could not have kits because your baby would be too cute to handle"-

-"We don't like being called adorable or cute, it is actually very offensive for us"- He frowns crossing his arms over his chest.

-"Why? What's wrong about being cute?"- She asks genuinely curious, he can tell she never meant to disrespect him.

-"It's demeaning, like we were too tiny and frail to do anything other than look cute and act cuddly, mammals underestimate us too much as it is"- He says softly while awkwardly staring at his shuffling feet, now the vixen knows that she has to suppress her urge to point out how adorable he looks when he does that.

-"I think you see things the wrong way, you are actually a very capable agent and lethal when necessary, being cute will not get in the way with that. In fact your sweetness might be more of an aid than a hindrance if you know how to exploit it, who would suspect of a cute little rabbit?"- She smiles warmly as his mood lightens, a sly cocky grin paints his muzzle.

-"You know Frost, I never thought about it that way"- He usually hates when other mammals, especially predators, call him cute. But for this particular vixen he might make an exception.