"Luke, sweetie, why are you moping?"
"I don't know how to explain it to you, Electra, I just don't. That, and I'm out of time."
"What do you mean, you're out of time? You look plenty healthy to me."
"Not in that way. I mean, oh, you're not going to believe me, so what's the point."
"Try me, you never know. I have a pretty large capacity for imagination."
"I know, I've seen it in action. You wanted an explanation? Here it is. I'm not from here. I mean, I'm from Zootopia, but this is over two decades before I'm born."
She looked at me, shock and bewilderment both vying for dominance on her face. "I-I don't get get it," she stammered. "Luke, sweetheart, are you alright? Did you hit your head or something?"
"No," I sighed. "I'm perfectly fine. It's just that I don't want to be here anymore."
"Are you breaking up with me?" She started to cry.
"Oh, no, no, no, goodness no, nothing like that. See, I told you that you wouldn't believe me." I looked up, and she was still crying. "Here, do you need a hug?"
"Yes, I think that's exactly what I need. Now, please, what were you saying?"
"I'll tell you if you'll stop crying. There's nothing to worry about, at least, not here. But there is if you decide to come with us."
"Come with you where? You still haven't told me that," she said, crossing her arms over her chest. "You've ten seconds to start talking, or I am going to be one teed-off vixen, and I can assure you, you do not want that. Five, four, three…"
"What happened to the other five?"
"Oh, whoopsie, did I forget to mention that the ten seconds started then? Sorry!"
"Look," I sighed. "I've tried to explain what happened before, but you haven't believed me. But I'll tell you again, and please, please, please try and imagine this, that what I'm telling you is true, okay? Please?"
"I'll try, I promise. But don't expect a lot, got it?"
"Okay, then. Here it goes…"
I'm not an ordinary fox, you've probably realized that by now. If you've seen my father and I together, you've seen how we look so much alike. Identical, except for the fur color swap. That, and the eyes. Anyways, would you believe it if I told you I wasn't born until 2019, except, as you can see, this is 1993. Add to the fact that it's 2021 in my world, and you may very well think that I warrant commitment to the looney bin.
While that may very well be true, Electra, I'm telling the truth. There's a heck of an odyssey ahead, and I'm hoping that you'll see me through it. Dang, now I sound like a sap. Well, that's what puberty does to you. It makes your hormones crazy. Anyways, what if I told you that I'm not fifteen, I'm three. No, I didn't think you'd believe me, just pick your jaw up off the floor.
Yes, I'm three, but at the same time, I'm fifteen, and I'm not trapped inside my head or trapped in an older fox, which is impossible. Well, not anymore. The world I come from (Goodness, I sound like I'm some alien.) is lorded over by a psychopathic sheep who's hell-bent on destroying it.
Well, now that I think about it, she's not so hell-bent on destroying it anymore, seeing as she's already done that, and it's somewhat my fault. You see, this wasn't meant to be anything more that my father's ploy to gain a few vacation days. In 2016, he was a police officer, along with my mom, and the chief of their precinct, a bull by the name of Idris Bogo, absolutely refused to give any vacation days, even though officers were allotted two weeks a year for personal use. Well, my dad, he just got sick of having to report every single day, no matter whether he was capable or not. You have a cold? Bah! I've had swine flu, plus a fever of 101, and I still reported in! So, a day off for a cold? Denied! Just got married and want to take a honeymoon? Sorry, no can do.
My dad got more and more and more fed up with Bogo every day, though he didn't let on. But in his head, he was concocting a scheme to wile his way his way out of a few days of work, and he planned to bring my mom into his plan with him, but he didn't tell her anything. But he was scheming, oh was he. He may not come across as a bookworm, but he is, and as a criminal justice major, he'd also minored in law- that's where the bookworm part comes into play.
While he was in college, he read every single law book that the university library had to offer, and he memorized every single one, too, so he knew every Zootopian law backwards and forwards, and, as comes with total understanding of a subject, he knew all the loopholes in them, too, it's how he didn't get arrested during his years on the street.
Anyways, he remembered that there was some arcane, yet still active law that harkened back to the days where Zootopia was frontier territory, and policemen were apt to get shot in duels, so there was this law that stipulated that if a lawman had been shot four times, he got a month off to recover. Odd law, I suppose. Four times? But heck, my dad knew about it and was determined to exploit it. The only thing remaining was to provide the gunshots, and there we go! Vacation!
Only Dad didn't think to actually inspect the bullets that his actors would be using. Oh, well, I suppose, because it means I'm around. There's a golden lining to everything. In this case, the golden lining was a golden fox; you already know who he is, he's talking to you.
Well, my dad got his vacation days, only to be shot for real. That's the problem, I suppose, with not keeping a close enough eye on your prisoners...they escape. Bellwether [that's the psycho sheep that got us into this mess to begin with], she was sent to jail, but she's a crafty ewe, oh, is she. I have no idea just how she got into politics, seeing as she has a master's degree in electrical engineering with a minor in computer science; an odd pairing, but it certainly came in handy when they locked her away.
Prisoners who display model behavior are granted computer privileges, and who's going to think a small little lamb could cause any trouble on a computer? Obviously not the wardens, that's for darn sure. They let her on a computer, and ten minutes later, voila! She had hacked the system; then disabled every single security measure in the compound, all under the guard's noses.
Under their noses? You bet your britches, under their noses. She's a devil, but a crafty devil if I've ever seen one. She coded a virus into the system that, when it brought the prison down, left the guards' quarters still electrified so that the guards had no clue that they were under siege. So yes, she escaped, Electra, she escaped and came traipsing on into the prison run by Jack Savage. He knew she was there, she actually had signed on as a computer technician, but only after having a wool dye job done. Add to that some colored contacts and some bribes on the side, and she was in.
Savage is a harebrain, pun absolutely intended. He's served in the ZIA's ranks for twenty-odd years; he was hired right out of high school and rose up on through the ranks like lightning. He's smart and well-trained, though, but obviously not in the art of disguise. Bellwether bided her time, wondering how best to ensnare the government in her web. Well, the security bunkers beneath the city are under his domain, and at Bellwether's urging, Judy Hopps and Nick Wilde were evacuated to the bunker beneath Tundratown and left there, so all that was left for her to do was get a bus ticket to go out there. Then, seeing as sheep are rather common in said area of Zootopia [I don't know why, but apparently they enjoy the cold.], she managed to blend in and reach the bunker unnoticed.
Once inside the bunker, she put her plan into action, even managing to coerce Dad's old 'business partner,' Finnick Zerda, into tagging along and helping her with her plan- the power of money, I suppose. Well, once she was in, there was no stopping her. Armed with some midnicampium holicithias pellets, she shot my father from across the room while hauling my mother with her, her other hand- hoof- holding a pistol to my mom's head, taunting my dad; calling on him to save my mom. When he moved to do so, she dropped my mom to the floor and shot my dad. The next thing he knew, he was in the hospital, and what do you know, a criminal, or so he was told. The hospital staff said that he had mauled a rabbit by the name of Allison Longear after he, Chase Blacktip, supposedly shot up on Night Howler, a toxic substance, a.k.a. ... midnicampium holicithias.
I can see you're wondering- yes, he's Nick Wilde, not Chase Blacktip, and Allison Longear was really Judy Hopps.
Thank you, Dawn! I love you lots! Karma only knows just how much. What of this convoluted misadventure isn't her fault? Nothing, absolutely nothing. Thanks to her screwing around, I'm in this mess, and I suppose I have to say thank you, because without her, I wouldn't be in existence. Don't worry, I'm getting there, Electra. Are you still with me?
Well, when my parents were just barely recovered enough to walk, they had collars clipped on them- shock collars, you've probably heard all about them in history class. After that, they were sent off to trial, my father for assault, attempted murder, and possession/use of a controlled substance; my mother for impersonation of a police officer. They were both convicted, my mother got forty years, my dad; sixty. Having regained city mayorship [albeit under an alias], Bellwether set in place a law that condemned prisoners with sentences in excess of forty years to death row, so you can guess where my dad went.
Night Howler has its perks, though- it's used by EMTs to resuscitate heart attack victims, just in a dilute form. Prisons get the strong stuff, though, just in case, so that's what they used on my dad-apparently, Savage had found him innocent after all! Well, he couldn't let the whole prison know that, so he locked my dad in the morgue. As part of all morgues, there is an autopsy lab adjoining it, but what was unusual about this one were the enormous glass cylinders that stood inside it. As my dad went closer to get a better look, he stumbled and fell over one of the power cords that were criss-crossing the floor and faceplanted against one of the control pads, and the next thing he knew, I was standing next to him, a thirteen-year-old fox clothed only in a towel. Goodness, it was cold in there.
So, with me in the picture, how did we get out? Strong paws and poison, that's how. Twist open a water pipe here, sprinkle in a little bit of this, a dash of that, and wait. The next day, Jack came to give us some food [or my dad food, really, he didn't know about me], and he decided, in a drugged stupor, to unlock the door to the morgue, and out we went- first stop, props department.
The prison allows inmates to stage shows every so often, so there were plenty of costumes to choose from, I chose a wolf costume, but also a t-shirt and some shorts- I couldn't just go around wearing a towel all the time, could I? I got dressed, then Dad and I slipped into the costume- Dad doing all the walking, me riding piggyback. Jack, then not chemically stunned, made up release documents to get us out- there was a kind spot in him after all, who would have thought? Dad gave the papers to the still brain-fogged guards, and out we went.
I don't know what either of us was expecting, maybe to return back to our normal lives, to reunite with Judy. Fate, however, had other plans. As soon as we walked out of those gates, thanking Karma that we'd escaped, Bellwether's goons closed in on us, and they caught us. Off we went to Sobiboar...those were the hardest months of my life- back-breaking labor all day, every day. Sobiboar was closed six months after we arrived, there weren't enough predator prisoners [or predators, for that matter] to sustain the camp, so off we went, back into the city, which had been bombed flat. No food, no water, just hot pavement. Hot pavement and-
"Luke!" my dad called, his voice shrill and urgent, tinged with just a little residual fear, which was something that I'd never heard in his voice before, and it frightened me.
"Luke, hurry, for Karma's sake! Your mom's in labor! Hurry!"