Chapter 5:

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The rest of the day had been easier on Honey. She'd stayed in her room for a bit longer, watching the little TV she had, before being introduced to a second doctor, a tapir whose voice would make a good cure for insomnia. There was a second long and boring talk, until she got to talk about her theories of course! After that, though, things settled down. Eventually, it was time for her to go out for dinner. Her little punishment period in isolation was long since over, but she was still a bit more cautious. Still trying to walk on the tips of her pads, making sure not to mess up again.

She'd screwed up earlier, big time.

Getting all worked up and frustrated like that. Everything just swamped her back then but, in hindsight, she should have coped better. She was going to have to cope better. After all, this was what the sheep were trying to do, wasn't it?

Break her.

Snap her…

So, she'd better not let them know that it was getting to her. Instead she kept calm, grabbed some pizza from the canteen, and settled down to munch on it.

It was good pizza!

That was nice. She dug in quickly, adding some good helpings of ketchup as she went. Looking around, checking on the other mammals who were present, she paused as she saw the rabbit from earlier. She felt it best to keep away from him and just mind her own business. Apologising or the like would just feel awkward.

Better not let the sheep understand that too…

Or should she?

She pondered it as she ate. If the sheep did want to break her, they could just shoot her, or torture her until she really was crazy. After all, life here was much nicer than being fixed to a torture loom of theirs… If she wasn't suffering enough they might send a crew of sheep, or trained sheepdogs, in here to get her if they wanted. Then again, she remembered with a smile, neither would be much of a match for her, would they?

But what about an actual prison? That would be like this but much worse, something hammered home by what their pet therapist had told her. Frame her for a crime? Have her sent away for life, struggling to get by…

"Dawn," she whispered, remembering that the ewe of doom was currently stuck in a medium security prison. Could that be why they wouldn't risk it? So that she wouldn't be in close proximity to their leader. After all, she thought, were she to be given the chance to end such a lethal sheep, she'd have to take it! Every moral fibre, every logical decision, every iota of evidence pointed to such an action being the choice she should take. She could easily hustle together a few supplies here and there, find a spare room, and get a knit-o-matic up and running for her! She smiled at the glorious thought and imagined the alpha sheep getting her own close shave, letting it replay in her mind over and over, before returning to the matter at paw. If the sheep intended to lock her up in there forever, was there anything really to lose in taking out their leader?

Although… If the sheep wanted to have her locked up, surely they'd pull some strings andthrow her into a maximum-security prison anyway? That'd be a more surefire way of keeping Honey away from the ex-mayor.

No…

They had her here for a reason. Not jail, here… Why…?

She closed her eyes. They were here to break her. To twist her and render her a non-threat. It was the same with the sheepdogs, after all. Mere victory wasn't enough, they wished to salt the earth and spite those who dared to stand up against them.

So…

Was she going to be dragged out in the middle of the night and have her mind knitted up?

It was a scary thought. Looking down, gulping, she saw one of her paws twitch and shake. If such a plan was what they intended to do, well…

-Or maybe it wasn't?

Maybe they just hoped to wear her down for as long as they could keep her in here? In that case then, surely the best course of action would be to call their bluff, act like they'd succeeded in 'reforming' her, then get out and pull a disappearing act so she could help the resistance from the shadows.

She smiled. She may be a honey badger, but she was so going out outfox the sheep. So much so that her best boy Nicky Wilde would be proud! Taking her new plan in her stride, she put it into action. Up she got, walking over, before planting herself next to the white rabbit. "Hey, uh…" she said, trying to form the words as he looked up at her. "Sorry for calling you those things earlier. I thought I was just telling the truth but, to be honest, I was probably being real mean."

"Oh," he mused. "Th-thank you."

"You're welcome," she said, smiling. "Don't you worry. I'll be working on my polite… -talk, from now on!" She gave herself a fist bump, given that she narrowly avoided saying that she'd be working on her polite lying from now on. She even chuckled at the irony, given that it was her polite lying at work right there.

Up she went, away from the rabbit, before she settled herself on a seat in the recreation area. She guessed she had to show herself being social, and she could bear being next to the others as long as she had a TV to watch.

…

"Uh-hullo!"

Her musings were cut off as a rather large and energetic Siberian tiger walked up to her. "I said hullo!"

"Hi," she replied, before pointing at the TV. "If you don't mind, I'm kind of watching this."

"Well," he said, smiling. "I can watch it with you." And, with that, he turned around and jumped onto the sofa, firing Honey up in the air a little before she landed down again, a bit shaken.

A genuine smile grew across her face though. She had to admit, she'd kind of like that. "I'm Honey," she said, "Honey Badger."

The tiger looked at her and smiled. "Well, how you do? Honey-boo!"

She frowned. "Please don't call me that."

"Are you sure! Well, I guess you are. Just Honey then. Honey, 'Haich-Oh-En-Eeee-Why, is it?"

"Yes…"

"Well," he said proudly, as he closed his eyes and pointed at himself. "My name is Tigger…"

"You mean Tiger?"

"Oh no!" he said, cutting her off. "Tigger. Tea-eye-double-Guh-Errr! That's my name."

He was cut off as the nurse who Honey had scrapped with earlier walked over. "Sergei, have you taken your medicine today?"

"Medicine? Pah! Tigger's do not need medecimal treatment!"

"I'll take that as a no then," she said, before grabbing two pill bottles from her trolley. She checked a clipboard before measuring out some for him. Honey, reading the label, noticed that one was for severe ADHD, the other for delusions. 'Tigger' scoffed at them slightly but, with a bit of encouragement, took them down.

"I bet my parents didn't have this problem back in Petrolpavlova's-Kamehamehusky!"

Honey nodded slightly. He meant Petropavlov's-Kamchatsky. Emigration from the far east of Russia to Zootopia, in particular Tundratown, was fairly common. He didn't have any trace of the accent though.

"Still," he noted, "not the worst mispeeling. My father back in the old country said his mother knew a depressed donkey, who knew an anxious piglet, who knew a kangaroo mother and joey with an oedipal complex, who knew an owl who…"

"An owl?" Honey asked sceptically. "Flappy flappy wild animal that murders mice owl?"

"Well, one of them sapient ones, yes."

She shook her head. That whole sentient non-mammals thing confused her. "What about it? Did it spell its name Woh-Oh-Oll or something?"

"Oh no," Tigger said, shaking his head vigorously. "He spelt his name: 'Three-Ay-Bee-Oh-Chair-Haich-Oh…-and-reverse-En-with-a-smile-on-top!"

"Right…" Honey said, as she looked away. Polite lying… Polite lying… "He must have some real bad dyslexia there!"

"Hoo-Hoo…" Tigger agreed. Honey tried to settle down, focussing on the television, and it seemed to work for a few minutes. He left her alone. Then, she got a light tap on the shoulder. "You know," he began, smiling. "The wonderful thing about Tiggers, is that Tiggers are wonderful things!"

She looked at him sceptically. "So is 'Tigger' your name or your species?"

"Both, and the same! -and neither, or maybe on a co-sharing agreement?"

Honey was about to say something, only to be cut off by the tahr nurse. "Sergei, you're almost as confusing as Jeremy Bearimy, you know that?" she said with a smile.

"Who?" Honey asked, before being pointed to a situation in the corner. A melanistic cheetah, by the looks of it a doctor like Amy was, was having a frustrating conversation with a patient, a bear, who must have been the eponymous Jeremy. She noticed that the doctor was wearing tan trousers, a full-length shirt, and had a yellow vest jumper thing above that. The bear, meanwhile, was trying to explain something about 'Tuesday's', 'July', and also 'never'. In the end, the cheetah gave up and walked over, an odd grin on his muzzle.

The nurse who'd pointed the bear out went up to great him. "Dr Anango…" she began, only to be cut off.

"-That broke me," he began, his paws waving over his head in confusion. He mumbled slightly, before pointing over to Jeremy. "...-That bear, over there, he broke me. I'm… I'm done." He then walked off, out of the ward, the nurse looking over in concern.

She composed herself. "I'd better notify everyone that we've got a 'VSD' on our paws."

"VSD?" Honey asked.

"A 'void stares back'," she explained. "And given the doctor, I'd better make sure that no-one's serving chilli tonight." She then walked away, leaving Honey paused in confusion.

"Why with the chilli?"

"You don't want to know," a new voice, complete with a slight russian accent, spoke out. Honey turned and realised with alarm who it was.

"Tigger?"

Tigger looked back, before blinking slightly. "Sorry…" he began, his ears folding down. "Sorry about that. I needed the pills… I am Sergei. Is nice to meet you."

"Nice to meet you too," Honey said quietly, before slipping off her seat. She started walking, then began running, quickly getting back into her room and shutting the door. She dived under her covers, holding herself tight and sniffing slightly.

She was scared again. Terrified.

Those pills…

He'd…

If they could do that to him, what could they do to her?

She held herself closely, until sleep finally took her.

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The next morning, Dr Lupuleli, filing things away in her office, smiled happily as Honey arrived. "Sorry for the delay," she said. "I know you like routine, but we had a slight emergency earlier. Nothing to worry about… -Unless you're a fan of Mexicat food who's allergic to marshmallow peeps or M&M's…"

"That's incriminatingly specific," Honey pointed out, as she sat down.

Breathing in, Amy nodded. "Let's just say we might be having a repeat of a certain incident," she began, not wanting to go into the details. After all, one day that might be her. "Anyway, yesterday a judge agreed with our diagnosis of you, and gave us permission to keep you here for treatment. The good news is that we believe we know what's wrong with you, and that means we can help."

Honey paused, and Amy looked at her face, trying to see if she could work out what was going on in there. Fear, curiosity, relief? Honey's ears were folded back slightly, and her posture was tense, which seemed to lend credence to the first possibility. "You have a lot of mood swings, don't you?".

"Yeah," Honey said, nervously.

"Don't worry," Amy assuaged. "You're not in trouble or anything. But you suddenly feel angry, or upset, and it takes over you?"

She nodded slightly.

"You have these intense passions which push you on, driving you forward. It's the same with your friendships, isn't it? There aren't many of them, and you find them hard to maintain, but once a mammal earns your trust, you stick with them no matter what because they're your friend, isn't that right?"

"The few I have… Yes…"

"Honey," Amy said, standing up and walking down to be with her. She knelt down, so eyes met eyes, and one of her paws went on the honey badger's shoulder while her tail looped around to gently stroke the top of her legs. "I believe you have, in addition to your autism, mind you, something we call borderline personality disorder. It means you have an underdeveloped control of your emotions, which can lead to outbursts like the kind you had earlier. It can be treated, and if we did, I'm confident that your life would change for the better. It'd help you make friends, settle down, get along with people and fit in with society. Doesn't that sound nice?" Of course, she didn't mention that it would make her less likely to flare up in anger when her worldview was challenged, making it easier for her to introduce new ideas and slowly undermine her firm belief in the Cudspiracy. That could be helped along by some other patients of hers, who she'd asked to help. She hadn't got a reply from the one that Honey would be most eager to meet just yet, but she did have one from her favourite horse, Mr Boxmoor. He'd agreed to tell his story of giving everything he had to an idea and worldview, which then threw him out like scrap before imploding, and hopefully it would help make Honey less afraid of, and more open to, doubting her beliefs.

The ratel looked at Amy, pausing, with the same look that a mammal might have before jumping off a precipice. Amy knew the look, she'd seen it so many times before, and she was about to comfort the honey badger when she spoke out. "So, is this gonna be therapy and talking and stuff, to help me?"

"Partly, yes, though you'd also be taking some mood stabilisers to…"

"-NOPE!"

…

Amy sighed. "Honey, please…"

"NO-NO-NO-NO-NOPE!" she shouted, as she jumped off, scooting away. Amy looked up to her, observing her reactions as she made her way to the door, only to find it locked. A few pulls on the handle, and some frantic pounding on the door, and she turned, grimacing as she looked back at the therapist, tears in her eyes. "YOU'RE NOT GONNA KILL ME!" she hissed, an accusing finger pointing out.

Amy felt a cruel stab of worry slash through her. "Honey," she said, paws to her heart. "I'm not going to kill you. Are you worried that these are poisoned, or…"

"I woulda," she hissed, before shaking her head. "You know, I woulda…" And then, ever so creepily, a proud smile grew across her muzzle. She barked out a laugh, and then another, and then, to Amy's complete shock she began clapping, glancing around as she did so. "Well done sheep!" she said to the wind. "Well done. Didn't take me long to work out your little game, did it?" She then looked back down at Amy and pointed at her. "You're just a pawn here! They'll get you too! Soon! You could march bleating into the valley of steel, with a smile on your muzzle, huh? Unless you rebel! You can still rebel, you know! Come with me! We'll join with Wilde and Hopps, and we'll be free! Away from the sheep! We'll fight against them, for truth and justice and all that! Vive Le Resistance!"

Amy closed her eyes, taking a steadying breath in and out, before she walked back and sat down on her seat. Of course it wouldn't be that easy, it was a fool's hope to think otherwise. Still, no point in moping about the cards she'd been dealt with. This wasn't about winning the battles, she could lose all of them and still come out on top. This was about winning the war. "What is their game?" she asked, opening herself up again. "What's their new plan?"

"Why didn't they kill me, or send me to jail?" Honey argued, walking forward. "They want to salt the earth! Make it so those that resist them are more than defeated. It's like with the sheepdogs!"

Amy smiled. "You're not going to be a sheepdog, Honey."

She nodded. "You're right. Oooh, they have much worse set for me! You see, I've seen what those drugs do."

"You have?" Amy asked, curious. A slight worry crept into her. Though very, very, very rare, adverse reactions were things that occurred. Did that happen to a friend? If so, it was both horrible for said mammal and a giant thorn in the side of getting Honey the help she needed.

"They'll burn out my inner spark," she said, pointing to her head. "Take all my passion and creativity and all that. More than that!" She clicked her fingers and shrugged. "They turn you into a different mammal. Entirely. I saw that happen to that poor tiger in your prison - yeah, you heard right, it's a prison. Poor guy took his drugs and then…" She clicked her fingers again. "Gone. Replaced with someone else entirely. You know, if he's so different, if his old self is gone… He's not the same mammal, is he? Old Tigger is dead, and this new mammal, Sergei, is in place." She frowned. "You think I'm dumb enough to let that happen to me? Nu-uh… No way. Never ever ever… And that's that!"

Amy blinked.

She wasn't that familiar with a Tigger or a Sergei. She didn't work with every patient here, but from the sound of it, it was someone with dissociative personality disorder who'd just taken his medicine. Honey must have seen the change and assumed the worst, twisting what she'd seen to fit her own ideology.

Everything had got harder, a lot, lot harder.

Still, Amy thought, as she pinched the bridge of her muzzle, she had to adapt. That meant going back to the drawing board, taking what she now knew, and going at it from another angle. She could still prove to Honey that she could be wrong about things, creating the chink in her armour that could then be widened, giving her full access. Closing her eyes, thinking a bit, she smiled as she reached into her cupboard.

"As you're still an adult, and don't have a legal caregiver or so on who can sign you off, I can't force you to take anything." She said. That was only partially true; the court order they'd be given meant that they could force Honey to take medication if she was considered a threat, the judge not counting her reaction to being taken off the street. Honey could act out, and then Amy could force her onto a regimen of drugs, but she didn't want to resort to that. She wanted Honey to build trust and take it of her own volition. That way, she'd be far more likely to stay on her medication once she left.

"HA!" Honey cheered, looking up at the walls, most likely for non-existent cameras. "In your face, sheep!" She stuck up two pairs of middle digits, thrusting them up and down as she spun herself down for any and all spying onlookers to see, blowing a mocking raspberry as she did so.

"Still," Amy began, smiling as she brought out plan A. "Helping yourself comes with rewards."

Honey paused, her eyes widening with glee as she saw what Amy had put down on her desk. "OMG-OMG-OMG…. HONEY CHOMPS!"

"Yes," Amy said, patting the giant box of cereal. "Honey Chomps, which you can eat in your room, at your own breakfast time, if you agree to take your medicine."

The honey badger's exuberant mood vanished and she bent down, cradling her head in frustration. "Wait a cotton picking minute," she grumbled. "You're seriously gonna weaponise Honey Chomps!? Against me! That's low, girl. Real low…"

Amy gave the box a little shake. "Call it you scratching my back, me scratching yours."

Honey was not impressed. "Call it selling my soul for cereal," she deadpanned. "I'm not an idiot, you know? That's a hella-nope!"

Amy sighed. "So be it. And before you ask, they're too expensive and not healthy enough to be on our usual line of breakfast servings."

"I can adapt," Honey pointed out. "What you're doing is cruel and nasty, but I can manage it."

"Fine…" Amy huffed, before pausing. "I was able to get them to stock a store brand 'Honey Bites' cereal though, if that's any consolation."

There was an ever so slight smile on Honey's mouth. "Seems fair 'nuff…"

"Right then," Amy said, tiredly. This meeting had certainly been stressful. "I'll be seeing you daily for the exercises, helping you get through all this. Now, behave, and I look forward to seeing you tomorrow."

"You too, Doc," she said, before heading off.

Amy sighed. Another tiring experience. Still, there were things she could do to help. She needed to chase up Nick Wilde for his answer. Both on if it would be okay for her to speak a bit about him or, even better, whether he or Judy would be willing to come in and help again like he'd done before with Ash. Both Ash and Honey idolised him, though that was where any similarities ended. She'd had plenty of patients in her time, but this new one knew how to make things stressful.

So much so that Amy reached around with her tail and brought up a friendly face. Maybe it was remembering Nick and Ash and, by proxy, the role this little guy had played in the group-therapy session they'd been in, but she felt that she needed the cute little hyena doll in her lap for her own therapy.

She held him tight against her chest, smiling as she felt a bit better. If only it was that easy for Honey. With her, she couldn't rely on a single strategy, that was for certain.

For now though, she had other work to do. Opening up her emails, Amy paused as she saw one from some familiar faces and, reading it on, she smiled as a very unexpected but happy bit of news came in. There was concern about how this curveball would affect a certain mammal, and how they should go about it, but they seemed to mostly be on the right track so far. After all, trying to avoid this issue could cause a novel's worth of work to try to fix and put right. She typed in, giving some advice, telling them to focus on what the patient in question would become, how he'd benefit, how he could take part and base a new part of his identity on it.

Identity…

That was what Honey was scared of losing. After all, hopefully the mammal coming out would be far different than the one that came in.

If only she could convince the badger that that was a good thing.

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The next two days went well for Honey. Both times, she woke up a bit late, had her knock-off, but still a whole boatload better than nothing, almost Honey Chomps for breakfast, and then settled down. Maybe things like the hydrotherapy or art therapy were actually fun to do, especially when she annotated and described her Knit-O-Matic plans in great detail. She could even picture it then, Dawn Bellwether tossed into the washing tub as the two mega-sponges pushed in and out, smothering her in the soapy water. Clouds of bubbles grew as they smashed together harder and harder, counter rotating at the same time. She stumbled and stuttered and tried to beg at first, but then the rage showed, as she muttered fowl slurs at the lowly chomper that didn't know their place. -While slipping and flopping and sputtering in the water, of course. Then, when her eyes had been washed out to reveal their rectangular pupils, Honey pulled down the vacuum chute and up the ewe was sucked. Into the fan dry, feet blasted into the air as the water was shed from her, before she was sucked into the clipping chamber. Honey proudly turned the setting up to ultimate shave, and trembled with glee as the many electric clippers buzzed to life before diving in, pulling out threads of wool as they went.

Looking out at everyone afterward, she smiled smugly. Of course they didn't know what to think, she'd just blown their minds!

Apart from that, she was able to relax a bit, watching the TV and such. Madge came and visited, and said she'd try her best to get her out of here! She could always count on her big sister, couldn't she!

Honey smiled on her bed afterwards as she went to sleep. Madge knew what it was about. The sheep had come after her, the older sister, just like they now came after the younger one, herself. But her big sis would have her back, always! Always and always and always!

She went to bed happy that night and, having dreamt of her battles for good and the Knit-O-Matic, she woke up to a blissful morning, the sun coming in through the window. She felt that, after breakfast, she could go into the small garden and relax there. Walking on, along to the door by the kitchen, she waited there, looking in.

And freezing…

A sheep was there.

An actual sheep, with its terrible eyes... The devil had terrible eyes, didn't he? So did this sheep, and Honey felt the tips of her fingers go cold as it held up and shook the box of her cereal. Her breaths were more frantic now, puffing and blowing as she remembered that she hadn't checked the boxes before at all on both those days.

The sheep had done it.

They'd got her.

She ran back to her room, slamming the door, before going over to the toilet and sticking her finger down her mouth. She gagged a few times to no avail, before grabbing some of the liquid soap from the dispenser and smearing it on her tongue.

That did it…

She threw up the contents of her stomach, finding nothing there.

The first two loads were already in her. Being digested. Poisoning her. She sniffed a few times, before running back to her bed and wrapping herself up, crying into it.

She'd failed.

It was over.

They'd won.

She was going to die, worse than die, become another.

The rest of that day was like hell. Second by second, it ticked away, while she tried to keep herself aware of any changes of faults with her body. They soon began to flood in. She felt different, across her whole body as it ached and winced. All the great ideas she had, the connections she'd make as she pieced together the conspiracy, weren't there. Instead, she just felt a dull miserableness.

She could tell it was happening.

She was changing.

How long would it be before the process was complete?

Did they need any more doses?

What if they did, and she stopped taking the cereal? Would they force down the pills, taking her anyway? Or would they dose other bits of her food?

She felt a horribly dreary acceptance of it all, as if happy for it all to just end, letting her drift off. She glumly realised that that might be the signs of her conversion into a drone manifesting. She almost felt that, if she was asked to take a pill, she might as well.

That must be their endgame! Have her dose herself up a few more times, and then they could just ask her to take the doom pills and she'd do it…

"No," she hissed, her eyes narrowing as a new, fiery, resolve, coursed through her. "NO!"

She was not going out like this! She didn't care if she was already taken. She was going to fight it! Tooth and claw, the last bastion of freedom against the oncoming age of wool. She was going to get out of here, get back home, hide there and let the stuff get out of her system. Then it would be time to find Wilde and Hopps and strike back against the sheep, properly this time. They played with fire, they would get burned.

They were going to pay.

They were definitely going to pay.

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