Chapter 10

Valdez Lexxon watched the core levitate an inch above his palm, it emitted a cool soft white glow. He reached out and poked it with his finger, near expecting the core to be warm to the touch but instead it was oddly cool to the touch. He knew what would happen if he turned it over to the council. They would just return it to its little alcove where it would go to waste, powering a single cryonics tube for the rest of eternity. There were so many questions that this small gem could answer. The council would never let him keep it, so long as it was needed to power the human's cryonics tube. Something had to be done and soon to make sure that returning the human to sleep was no longer an option. He rubbed his chin for a moment and chuckled. He had an easy solution to the human problem, all he needed to make was one simple phone call.

...

Cindy sat in the oversized chair while she watched Tim watch the television. Currently Gazelle was on, shaking her tail to her latest hit song. Tim was mesmerized by the pop star as she danced around on stage.

"I still can't believe how much your time is like mine. It's really…"

"Comforting?" Cindy interjected. Tim turned to look at her,

"I was thinking bizarre. Don't get me wrong, Zootopia looks like a wonderful place to live and all but…"

"But what?"

"It's a little disconcerting seeing places where I expect to see human's walking about, going about their normal lives… The main question I have is what happened… What happened to humanity. I mean I volunteer for a revolutionary medical experiment, I expected there to be side effects, but, not this."

Tim continued to stare at the TV screen, but his eyes were blank, unfocused on the images before him. Instead his thoughts had turned inwards as he continued to try and wrap his mind around his current situation. What happened, was the thought that kept rolling around in his head. What happened to humanity, his friends, his family? It was at that moment it finally hit Tim that they were probably long dead. Everything up to this point had been so surreal that he was sure it had to have been a dream. But the antiseptic smell of the hospital, the feel of the bed beneath him, the cold linoleum floor beneath his feet. It was all too real to be a dream. He opened his mouth to say something but no words came out. His gut started to knot up and his voice box seemed to seize up in his throat. Cindy noticed the odd expression on Tim's face and she leaned forward in her chair, a concerned expression on her face.

"Tim? Are you alright?"

Tim tried to say 'I'm fine' but the words just did not want to escape his lips. He continued to breath raggedly for a few more moments before he was able to speak… "It finally just hit me… Everything, everyone I ever knew, they're all gone…" He looked up at Cindy and pressed his hand against the plexiglass wall separating them. "Dead I mean… I have no idea how long I was asleep, but for animals to have evolved to the point you have… It had to be thousands of years."

Cindy just stared at Tim. In the short time that she had known this strange creature the idea that he had friends, a family even, was only a faint notion in the corner of her mind. She couldn't imagine what it would be like to wake up and find herself in a strange time and place, her whole family gone, for a bunny the very idea of being completely alone was almost incomprehensible. She wanted to tell him everything was going to be fine, but she knew that would be a lie. In truth very little was going to be all right for Tim if any of his outlandish story was even remotely true. She put her hand on the plexiglass wall as well, if the wall had not existed their hands would have been touching.

"Tim… No matter what happens I'm here. I'm your friend and I'll do everything in my power to make sure your safe." Cindy was surprised how confident she sounded, given the fact that her power to do much of anything was fairly minimal. She did know that if Tim wasn't treated well by the authorities she would make sure the world heard about it.

Tim looked up and into her eyes and he knew she was being sincere. He nodded to her and did his best to sit up on the bed and calm himself down. A few deep breaths later Tim found the sick feeling in his stomach abating.

"Thanks" he said. At least he had woken up to a friendly face, even if that face wasn't a human one. He lay back down on the bed and stared at the ceiling.

"You know what's funny right now Cindy?"

"What's that Tim?"

"I know I've probably been cryonically suspended for thousands of years, but still the one thing I want more than anything else right now is to go to take a nap. It's been one of those days you know?

"Then sleep. I'll watch over you while you do. I promise."

Tim rubbed his eyes and yawned loudly before flopping down on the bed. a thousand thoughts were running through his head. What was he going to do now? He now knew there wasn't any home to return to, so where was he going to go, would they even release him into the wider world of Zootopia? Even if they did how was he going to make a living? All he wanted to do was go back to sleep. He wondered if the cryopod he had been using was still functional. If it was he found himself sorely tempted to return to it.

…