Francisco had left early, given he had little to do at home. He had spent most of his time in bed.

It looked like he was going to arrive right on time, judging by the clock on his phone. He had gotten a little lost on the way. The Rainforest District could be difficult to navigate, given the variable elevation, and this bar was up in the canopies.

Then he saw the neon words, "The Stained Fang." He could hear music muffled from inside.

He opened the door.

Inside was a dark and moderately crowded establishment. Chatter and clanging silverware. Smoke. About two-thirds of the bar seats were full, other customers dined in the booths. A female gazelle was the bar-tender.

'High class', as Jack Dutcher had referred to it previously, seemed like a bit of an overstatement. But it was not seedy either, with a shiny mahogany bar sporting rounded corners, and shelves that seemed to have a respectable assortment of drinks.

The coyote approached the gazelle.

"Excuse me, I'm here to see Mr. Dutcher."

She looked up from her cleaning. "Mr. Dutcher? I...ah! Hernandez, right?"

The coyote nodded.

She took something from behind the bar, and began walking towards a door with the bright blue neon letters "VIP" above it. She opened it. It looked like there was a staircase perpendicular to the entrance. She seemed to be waiting for him to enter. Frank walked in and she shut the door behind him, locking it.

Veins full of anticipation, he began trotting down the stairs, the start of a big night.

When he hit the lower floor, he immediately saw two wolves playing at the pool table. One of them was white female, cackling at some blunder of her opponent, who was dark grey with a splash of white on his...Dutcher? He had a cigarette in his mouth, a stained wife beater, and jeans. That was strange, but Frank recognized the patterns on his fur. It was definitely him.

There was an empty bar to the right, a door outside straight ahead, and a couple of small round tables in the corners to the left. There was also a door on the left wall, with a more stern and official look, from which a tall, broad shoulder lion in a black suit and red tie emerged.

The lion took notice of his guest immediately. "Rudy? Is this our mammal?"

The wolf looked up from his game, at Frank. "Yeah, chief. That's him."

Rudy? His name was Rudy?

The lion approached, he extended his paw, a golden watch upon it.

"I'm David Lennox. It's a pleasure to meet you." His dress was proud, but his voice was comparably soft and humble.

"Likewise..." Frank said robotically. He shook his paw uneasily, seeing he had already been given a fake name.

"Let's talk outside," he said, walking his large form to the balcony door. Frank followed. What could this be? There was no apparent threat, but the coyote was on guard.

They emerged into the humid night air. There were two small, circular tables, one with a bottle of some kind of drink and a scotch glass on it. The lion poured himself some, then turned to the coyote.

"Would you care for any?"

"No, thank you," Frank replied, though he was not entirely sure he should be polite. Mr. Lennox seemed friendly enough, but Francisco did not appreciate deception.

The larger predator walked to the railing, and leaned his muscular frame against it. Frank took a position by his side. He was not tall enough to see over the railing, so instead grasped two bars and leaned through, to look upon the canopies below. He eagerly anticipated an explanation.

"I heard about what happened to you," the lion stated simply. "You were on the news."

"Yeah?"

"Just a segment on ZNN and a press release that you were alive. More than I would have expected," he ended morosely.

The coyote did not know what he meant, there was only silence.

Then the lion continued, "It's easier for society to feel pity for a little guy like you. Not so easy for them to shed tears for a big, powerful lion."

Was he speaking from experience?

A breeze ruffled the leaves.

"There's no greater weakness in a civilized society than a veil of strength and privilege."

Quite a proclamation. Frank did not bother to analyze whether it was actually true, but he was reluctant to agree. Small carnivores like him were often treated with suspicion and they got little more sympathy from their bigger brethren than from the prey. Coyotes did not have it as bad as foxes, weasels, or raccoons, but the point held.

Then again, with the Predator Attacks, no one would be held to more suspicion than a lion. The damage a savage lion could do was terrifying to think about.

There was silence. Finally, the coyote turned and asked assertively, "Why did you ask to meet me here?"

"We're not the Zootopia Police Department. We're a group of concerned individuals."

"I gathered," Francisco said dourly. "Concerned about what?" He did not like his questions being danced around.

"The violence that's been happening recently, and its effect on the relationship between predator and prey. You were victim of the kind of...indiscretion the attacks have led to." No kidding. "We thought you'd appreciate our goal."

"This is some kind of protest group? Mammal rights activists? Seems like an unnecessarily elaborate set up to bring me here."

David Lennox pushed himself up from the railing, to look the coyote in the eyes. "Hardly. We wanted you here because of your talents. You're a white hat hacker, correct?"

There it was, the call to crime.

Frank nodded, despite that he did not like where this was going. He felt like he was shrinking.

"You have experience...infiltrating networks of information. That's someone we need right now."

"If you're asking me to..."

"Have you heard of a corporation called AniTech?"

"No."

"They're a small and fast-growing...medical tech company. They develop many things to help mammals live more comfortably in the modern world. Hearing aids, pace-makers...But most recently an inside source has tipped us off about a disturbing project. Something that has been referred to as 'taming collars.'"

Taming collars? That sounded ominous.

"Worse, they may even be working with the city government to develop it. We want you to help us find out what this is."

That was a lot to take in. Normally Frank would have refused a request like this on the spot, but 'taming collar' sounded so threatening, and he had seen so much anti-predator hatred recently, he decided to inquire further.

"How do you expect me to do that?"

"You're the hacker, you tell me."

Frank sighed and looked back over the tree tops. This lion obviously did not know anything about hacking. It would not be as simple as going on AniTech's website and punching a few buttons.

"Chances are I'll need to get inside one of AniTech's offices to be effective."

"That's what I thought. That's why I think you and Wolfowitz would make an excellent team."

Wolfowitz? Rudy Wolfowitz?

He heard the female wolf, who Frank now assumed was his girlfriend, cackle loudly again from inside. Frank looked back at the lion.

"Team? Who is Wolfowitz, anyway? Was he the one who met me at the hospital?"

"Rudy Wolfowitz is a former ZPD detective. A hacker and a detective seemed like the perfect combination to dig up what's going on at AniTech. But I've known Rudy for years. With you, we took a chance."

"I didn't say I agreed to this!" the coyote shot back defensively.

David took another sip of his drink, as if unsurprised by the coyote's reaction.

"Like I said. A chance."

"And why me?" Francisco pressed. "There are plenty of more experienced people in the 'ethical hacker' business."

Mr. Lennox disengaged from the railing, put his drink down on the table, then came back and looked out again.

"It was more than your abilities we were interested. Your experience allows you to understand the gravity of our situation."

So that kick in the head had been a mark of fate, siphoning him to a gang of mammals who wanted him to break the law.

And he was actually going to consider the offer.

Right when he was supposed to be resting his brain.

Great.

Then the lion continued, "And don't sell yourself short, Francisco. You graduated from Albersten."

Frank felt more imposed upon than flattered. He felt small. He hated having decisions like this thrust on him.

The twenty-seven year old sighed loudly.

"I really need to think this through."

David propped himself up from the railing.

"Be my guest."

The lion turned to walk out. But then something popped into Frank's mind and he quickly turned to intercept the larger mammal.

"One more thing! What happened to the police officer who attacked me?"

The predator stopped, but did not turn to face him. "Nothing. The ZPD said he acted reasonably."

And then he walked back through the door, leaving the coyote with a callous silence.

"Nothing."

Frank had not originally held any grudges, but could not help but feel offended at the news.

He got back to staring into the rainforest.

He had almost been killed. But in the eyes of Zootopia...predators were disposable trash, dirtied as they were by the sins of their ancestors.

He had been tricked into meeting with these mammals, and now they were asking him to break the law. That made him angry. But they were not the only ones who had done him wrong.

And they were asking him to break it in a harmless way: All they wanted was information. It was the consequences that could befall him that were really his reservation. He was fairly sure he could cover his tracks, but one never knew what tricks security or law enforcement had up their sleeves.

The door opened, jolting Frank out of his thoughts. It was the wolf this time, cigarette still in his mouth.

"Hi," Rudy said, offering his paw. Frank obliged reluctantly, and the wolf gave a hearty shake. "I assume Dave filled you in on...everything."

"Yeah. Quite the deception," Francisco said, tone neutral.

"Hey, we couldn't recruit you for illegal shit upfront."

The larger canine got to the railing, rested a paw, and puffed smoke into the humid night air. Frank turned back to the canopies as well.

"You do realize how serious this is, right?" Wolfowitz asked. Frank looked back at him. "For us preds?"

"I..." Frank had not really made up his mind.

"They've been chomping at the bit for an opportunity like this for centuries. A chance for vengeance."

"Vengeance?"

"You know what I mean. They think us preds are born with evil DNA, and do the damnedest to convince us of the same thing. They treat us like we're born with original sin."

He tapped some ash off his cigarette, into the abyss below, before continuing.

"Those plays they put on for school children? The guilt-laced textbooks? Nothing in those books about sloths eating their young or hippos killing each other over territory. Just the big, mean, scary predators feasting upon the poor, innocent prey."

Frank knew all too well what he was talking about. He remembered squirming through those as a kid.

Then his mind wondered back to an incident in elementary school. He was learning about how predators used to consider themselves superior to prey. Frank had raised his hands and told the class about how his cousin had been bullied by prey animals in Sandleford.

The teacher, a coyote herself, responded with "But you can understand that, right?"

Original sin.

But these predators...understood things. They saw the world for how it was.

"They've conditioned us to hate ourselves. Now they finally see an opportunity to go in for the kill."

These were heavy words, heavy circumstances he hated having suddenly imposed upon him.

Frank felt both empathetic and uneasy. On one hand, Wolfowitz seemed a perceptive mammal. Frank had seen the same things in the world, even if he had never quite turned them over in his head that way. But Rudy also sounded like a radical. To imply the prey were 'going in the for the kill'...

The wolf tapped some more ash off of his cigarette. "If AniTech really is making 'taming collars', I can garuntee we'll all be wearing them in a matter of months."

A weighty statement. Rudy seemed to be letting his own fear and anger get him carried away. Sure some prey did not like them, but to put them in 'taming collars?"

Silence. Only the chirping rainforest insects conversed, as the coyote's mind stirred.

The wolf disengaged from the railing.

"I hope you'll accept our offer, Francisco."

Then he turned towards the door and left the coyote alone.