Chapter Summary

It's been a year after Judy left Bunny Burrow behind. She's taken on a new identity, a new job, and an new roommate. At her roommate's art showing, Judy has a fateful meeting with a photographer, and this gives her roommate some concerns.

Flashback: 9 years earlier in Gateway City

"Order up on Six!" The cook behind the counter called out.

"I got it!" A small grey and white rabbit, clad in a pink plaid dress and a white apron with a small name tag with "Jessica" written, stood on her toes and pulled the two plates off the shelf and down to the counter in front of herself. She stuffed her order pad into the apron pocket, and picked up a plate in each paw. A grilled salmon sandwich with french fries and a shrimp salad with raspberry vinaigrette for the young dingo tourist couple on table six. They were wandering around Gateway City doing the typical tourist things, and eating at a 50's style diner was on their vacation bucket list.

She wed her way through the crowded restaurant to their table, sliding the sandwich in front of the male, and the salad in front of the female. "So I told the cook that you were from Down Under, and he said he'd wipe up some chicken salt for your fries; I think that's what's sprinkled on top of them. But if it doesn't taste right, let me know, and the cook will fix it for you."

"Ah, thank you!" The dingo took a bite, and with a smile on his muzzle he shook his head affirmatively.

"Alright, you enjoy your dinner, and I'll be back to check on you both in a bit." She made her way back to the counter and pulled out her order book, checking the entries against the computer screen, while the din and bustle of a busy restaurant continued in the background.

Judy had been lucky to find the waitressing job at Dee's Kitchen. Gateway Bay City was a busy city, with an active economy, so good jobs went fast. She had been concerned a year ago that the fake ID that she had acquired from an underground counterfeiter wouldn't stand up to scrutiny, but the old anteater swore that it would pass easily; he had been indignant when she suggested that his forgery skills were less than professional. She had never thought her former skills as a police officer in another life would come in equally handy breaking the law. The irony was that it had definitely helped her with understanding the counterfeiting lingo as well knowing who in the city she should approach. It had taken most of her left over cash from her father's tractor fund, but in the end she had a set of working IDs identifying her as "Jessica Jumps" from Podunk.

It turned out that he was right. Most businesses in Gateway Bay were so desperate for employees that they never even bothered with running a background check, figuring that losses from theft were less than the losses from customers they couldn't serve. Still, she had gotten a temp job as a clerk at a donut counter, tucked inside a grimy truck stop, to start with. It wasn't the cleanest place, so they weren't really fussy about her appearance, which was advantageous since she was living out of a tent in the woods behind the truck stop.

That job gave her a start, and from there she had both found the waitressing job at Dee's and a roommate, an art student who needed help with the lease for her little attic apartment in an old row-house. Her name was Moni, and she was a capybara from Amazonia who was finishing up her art degree from the Gateway Bay Art Institute.

As for her job at Dee's, it also helped that the Golden State didn't collect income taxes. Too many immigrants coming and going made enforcing those taxes difficult for the state and local governments, so instead they had enacted sales and property taxes for all their fiscal needs. It made the cost of living really high, but for somebody like Judy, who was desperately trying to fly under the government's radar, it was the perfect Northern Zoonia state to hide in, far, far away from her past life on the east coast. Here nobody even knew what the Cliffside Asylum even was, much less care who the Bunny Burrow Predator Killer might be.

That was the plus side to working at Dee's. The downside had been getting used to the smell and appearance of cooked meat in an omnivore restaurant. But after a couple of trips on the first day to empty her stomach in the commode, she bit back her bile, and toughed it out. Now, after a year, it barely bothered her. She wondered what her family back home would think of that.

The evening dinner crowd had filtered out, and Judy was left with a smattering of regulars at the counter. She was serving coffee to a koala DJ on the way to his next gig when her roommate hurried in through the door. Moni slid onto a free stool and grabbed a menu. Judy filled her a glass of cola, and placed the beverage on a napkin in front of the capybara.

"Hey, roomie." Judy greeted her. "You want food too, or just the soda?"

"Uh… I don't know… Do we really have time?" Moni looked over the menu at her. She looked nervous to the rabbit.

"I've got ten more minutes before I can clock out, so yeah. Besides, it's your showing we're going to. You know when it starts. Tell you what, how about a simple quinoa and kale salad? Quick, easy, and you should be able to hold it down." Judy grinned over at the agitated rodent. It was Moni's first major exhibition of her paintings at the Institute, and she was definitely showing her nervousness.

"Jessica! I'm not going to vomit all over my paintings! I might all over Professor Rivers, but that's only if he tries to complain again about my use of negative space." Moni waggled her paw at Judy. "Estoy Bien!"

"Uh Huh." Judy turned away, and reached under the counter into the salad chiller. She pulled out the salad, and put it up on the counter, where she dashed some vinegar, olive oil, and salt on the top before sliding it front of her roommate. "There you go. Enjoy. It's on me tonight." Judy dug through her tips, and pulled enough out to cover the salad and soda, and put it on the counter in front of Moni.

"Oh, Jessica, you don't have too!" Moni assured her. "I can pay!"

Judy just shook her head, "No, not tonight. Tonight is special! It's your first major public showing we're going to. Now eat up, so I can go clock out." Judy left her to bolt down the salad, and walked back down the counter to check on her other patrons.

They were outside the restaurant fifteen minutes later. Judy had quickly changed into a simple white halter top and blue jeans, certainly plainer attire then Moni's fancy red dress, but Judy wasn't trying to impress anybody tonight. She was just going to be moral support: either the designated sober person for her companion and her fellow students if the show went well, or the shoulder to cry on if it went poorly. Judy didn't think it would, but she thought Moni was a wonderful painter, so maybe she was just biased.

They jumped on the 47 bus and passed the time it took to get to her school chatting about their day, Judy telling her about the tourists she met, and Moni told her about rushing to finish her master piece. She was really looking forward to seeing what Judy thought of it.

After getting off the bus, they walked the short way to the school's main gallery. The exhibit was the result of Moni's Visual Culture class, and the students and faculty were already there, milling around the exhibit. Judy stood back, and watched the bustle take place. She felt a little out of place, a stranger in a strange land, unable to really relate to the students around her. In a previous life, she had attend college for 4 years, and she knew that she had gotten a criminal justice degree. But 10 years after her "reboot", she was finding it really difficult to remember details about her previously life.

Good Gravy, it was almost 19 years ago that I was last in college. That's a long time. And all the time that Cliffside spent mucking up my brain didn't help my memories any. Judy seethed.

She had gone to a party with Moni, a month or two after she had moved in with her, and they had gotten involved in a conversation with the females at the party about their first romantic kiss. They gone around the table, and by the time it got to be Judy's turn she had been struggling to remember when her first kiss was. It wasn't Nick, it couldn't be. She had a girlfriend for a short time in high school, and that had been her first real relationship. But she could not, for the life of her, remember her girlfriend's name or even her face. All she knew was that it had happened, but she couldn't recall any details. She had gotten by her turn by telling it that it had been her girlfriend, but she didn't tell them any more. Because she didn't know, and that troubled her.

It had been a couple of days after that party that Judy finally had a day off from work, and she went to the UCGC medical campus to peruse the student library. She had spent the day researching what kind of drugs she might have been subjected to at Cliffside, and the only conclusion she could come up with was that it was a miracle that she had been able to escape that hellhole alive and somewhat sane. Almost every class of drug she could find that she might have been given, from benzodiazepine to thorozine, carried serious side effects individually. Taken in combination the side effects from the various drugs, especially on her memory formation and retention, had been disastrous.

She had gone into Cliffside as a perfectly sane eleven year old kit, and left a terribly broken eighteen year old adult. No wonder she was having rage issues, as well as bouts of anxiety and depression, episodes of excessive risk taking, and to top it all off, a memory as riddled with holes as a termite infested log. She knew that she could work on the emotional issues, but the memories she would never get back. They were gone with yesterday's rains.

Damn it. When the Divine had said that she would suffer, She hadn't been kidding. Judy had expected to loose her freedom, her family, and her fox. She hadn't expected to loose…herself.

Crap. Judy knew she was brooding, and if she let it go too long, she would start getting angry, and this really wasn't the place for that. She had to find Moni, or maybe even raid the punch bowl. Why did I volunteer to be the sober one tonight? I need a drink! Screw the whole being nineteen thing again!

As she search through the gallery for her roommate, she passed by an absolutely striking painting. Oh, Moni. He's beautiful! Moni had certainly done a superb job with the Visual Culture portion of her master piece.

It was a portrait of a tall jaguar, black as night, set against the background of an emerald green jungle. Judy leaned in, and the amount of detail she saw was absolutely exquisite. Each leaf in the jungle was individually painted, and peeking from between them were the colorful faces of the forest denizens. He was naked save for the crown of iridescent feathers adorning his head, and hidden in the blackness of his fur was a multitude of stars, comets, and galaxies. This Jaguar was regal, proud in his bearing, and assured in his power. He was a thing of pure beauty.

Judy wondered who Moni had used as a model.

"I don't get it," a voice spoke up from beside her. Judy turned her head, and her eyes fell on the third species from Down Under that she had encountered today, and perhaps their most famous of natives – a Red Kangaroo. He was dressed in a simple black kilt and a photographer's vest, and he had a rugged DSLR hanging from a strap around his neck. He pointed at the painting, "Is this a cultural figure? Was he an important lord or something? The tag just says 'Lord Jaguar' with nothing else explaining who that was."

"He is Death." Judy explained. The kangaroo started a bit and stared down at her. She smiled back at him. "He is Lord Jaguar, Guardian of the Underworld. He is the portal through which all living things must pass on their way to the Infinite." As she explained to the kangaroo, she pointed to the faces hiding in the jungle and at the stars in his fur. "Death is a terrible predator, from which there is no escape. But his is also gentle and unhurried, for all will come to him in their own time."

Her smiled faded from her muzzle, but she continued, "He is an important religious figure in many of the mythologies found in the southern continent. The jaguar was the largest land carnivore there, and most of the prey species treated him with respect."

"Most?" He inquired of her.

"Yeah, most. Except for the llamas. They were right bastards, and in the old days they would chase down any jaguar they could find and kill it. According to my roommate they are still bastards, so most predators avoid them and their mountain cities." She shrugged.

"Oh, so you're not the artist of this painting, I take it then?" He gestured at her and then at the painting.

"Nooo, that's my roommate Moni. She does the painting thing. I'm just here for the moral support and what not." Judy explained offhandedly as she waved her paw and shook her head. She looked up at him, "And you, what are you here for? I don't take you to be a painter as well." She pointed to his photo gear.

"Oh, sorry. Yeah, I'm a freelance photographer. I'm doing a piece for the Gateway Chronicle on the local art schools, and I saw this exhibit come up on the Institute's website, so I came down to take a look. I don't really know what I'm going to do with this, honestly. I'm probably just get some wide shots of the students interacting with the visitors. Mammals moving slowly really isn't my area of expertise."

"Oh?" Judy's curiosity was piqued, "and what might you prefer? Mammals moving quickly?"

"Yeah. I do a lot of sports photography, as well as photos of cars and motorcycles. Anything that moves fast, or has the potential to move fast. Well, I take that back. Not everything I do is fast. I also do some studio photography of the local alt scene."

"Alt scene? What's that?" Judy had never heard that term before. Or at least, she thought she hadn't. It was so difficult to be sure, and she didn't want to be so obviously ignorant that she appeared out of place. She worked really hard to fit in here, which was ironic since she hardly fit in back home.

"The alternative culture scene? You've never heard of that?" He looked askance at her.

"Nope, Sorry. I'm a country yokel from Podunk, back east. We're kinda backwater rabbits out there." She grinned as she fibbed her way through her cover story.

"Oh, so what are you doing here? Are you going to school here too?" He asked her.

"Nope, I'm just out here, exploring the world. My Da wanted me to farm, and I thought that was a stupid idea, so here I am." She had decided that it was probably best to keep her story as close to the truth as possible, including the family problems that had driven her away. Less to keep track of and expose her. As for Podunk, she had cousins out that way, so she knew how they lived.

"Ah, well before I try to explain that to you, I might want to have a drink. Is there a refreshment table around here?" He stood up on his toes to look around.

"Yeah, it's over there," Judy pointed behind a partition on the other side of the room. "And if you could get me a cup of the punch, I'll be your friend forever," she promised as she smiled up at him.

He quirked an ear at her, obviously asking why.

She responded by holding her paw up like she was trying to touch the top of her ears, "I'm too short. I can't reach the ladle. I could probably jump up on the table, but I don't imagine that ending very well."

He leaned back on his tail, appraising her form. "Yeah, I could see that." She had a lean and trim figure, not wide hipped like most of the adult female rabbits he had encountered previously. He wondered if she had ever done any modeling before. He had a project coming up where the client had specifically asked for a rabbit model, but he didn't know any locally. Well, maybe after he got her some punch, he could ask her. He held out his paw, indicating that she should lead. As she walked away from the painting toward the refreshments table, he followed along, watching how her butt moved in her jeans. Yeah, his client would definitely like her. Now he just had to convince her to try it.

"WHAAAATTTT?!"

Moni had been chatting with a couple of her fellow painters, complaining about deadlines as always. She was having a pretty good time, and since her professor hadn't complained, she was feeling pretty mellow. So when Judy's screech rang though the quiet burble of conversations, Moni's heart jumped, and she ran toward the sound.

She turned a corner, and standing by the refreshment table were two long eared mammals, one small and one tall, both looking very embarrassed. She walked up to the small one and asked, "Jessica, are you okay?"

Judy, her ears back in embarrassment, stood there holding a cup of punch in one paw and a business card. She bit out through her teeth, "I'm Fine! Just fine!" To the larger kangaroo who was trying to take the business card back she said, "No, I'll Call You! I'll call you." She stuffed the card in her back pocket, and grabbing her larger roommate's arm, she walked them both quickly out of the gallery and into the night air. She was so embarrassed at her outburst.

"Jessica, what happened?" Moni reached out and touched Judy's shoulder. She was concerned about her little friend. Had the kangaroo tried to hit on her or something, maybe done something in appropriate?

"I'm sorry I yelled. I don't know why I was so shocked." Judy laid her paw on her friends paw, "He just asked me if I modeled, so I told him about the figure modeling I've done for your classes. Turns out he meant more like glamour modeling, in very skimpy bikinis. It kinda sounded interesting."

Moni grabbed Judy's paw, "Jessica, you have to be careful. He might be some pervert trying to do backroom pornos or something." She didn't want her friend to get hurt.

"Maybe, but most of what he was describing was going to auto and motorcycle show and taking pictures of the machines with me draped all over them. That part I don't have a problem with; I love powerful cars and gnarly motorcycles. And the near nudity isn't really a problem, not after I got past that first nude figure class I posed in for you last semester. What made me yell was his advice on how to 'make love to the motorcycle'. It was kinda graphic." Judy just shook her head, her embarrassment fading. "He was just as embarrassed to tell me as I was to hear it." She smiled.

She looked up at the capybara, "He invited me to go with him to the wharf this weekend for a chopper expo, just to try it out. It's a paid gig just like I do for the school, in public, and he doesn't mind if I bring a friend. Would you come with me? You could do some sketching too, so it won't be down time for you." Judy beseeched the larger rodent, "Plus I could really use the money. Please?"

"Jessica, I don't know. It sounds kind of risky." Moni just shook her head. Her roommate had a daredevil streak to her, one that Moni had trouble reining in at times. True, she had managed to learn to surf, which is probably what she wanted to spend the money on, but the first few times that her roommate took a spill Moni had been convinced that the rabbit was going to die out in the ocean waves.

"Tell you what, we'll take a look at his website, and if it's all crap, I'll dump the card. But if it's classy and not crassy, we could give it a try this weekend?" Judy offered by way of compromise.

Moni took a deep breath. I'm going to regret this, I just know it!

"Okay."

It turned out Moni's initial fears were unfounded. Tony, the kangaroo photographer, had turned out to be a gentle-mammal of his word. The weekend Chopper Expo had been very public, so there weren't any opportunities for him to steal Judy away for any hanky-panky. It had also been filled with powerful machines, covered in gleaming chrome and expensive crocodile leather, which Judy just drooled over when she wasn't posing for Tony.

The only downside to the day, other than the noisy crowds and all the walking, had come late in the afternoon when her roommate injured herself. She accidentally burned her paw on a hot exhaust pipe. But it turned out there were quite a few doctors among the tough looking bikers roaming the expo who were more than willing to help with her burn. She had basked in their attentions while Moni just stood to the side and just shook her head. Nobody was paying that kind of attention to her.

Well, she wasn't wearing a tiny black bikini either, but she would probably have died of embarrassment had the bold rabbit suggested it. She was the show-off, not poor Moni. She could just hear her mother lecturing her on the proper behavior for an Amazonia capybara.

Moni was concerned, though. What would happen to her friend when Moni went back to Amazonia after graduating in a year? She wouldn't be here to moderate her friend's impulses. What would she do if Moni wasn't around?

She just hoped her little rabbit won't get into any trouble.