Chapter 5 – Interference

"You mean this is because of interference from another world?" Judy asked him astounded.

We were in Judy's and Nick's office.

"Yes. You already know what the machine they stole was?"

They nodded.

"From what I could examine from the machine they built in the factory. They made it work, but it they use too much energy and that has side effects."

"Side effects? What does that mean? What's gonna happen?" Nick asked him.

"Well, at the moment only telecommunication is out because of the interference coming from the tear. And also at the moment only the city of Zootopia is affected. But that may change very quickly for the worse." He made a pause to let it sink in, before he continued.

"You, see if the tear isn't fixed it will get bigger and the two worlds will sort of 'collide' with each other. Resulting in the destruction of both of them."

The two just looked in bewilderment. And in their defence what would you do when someone just told you that the apocalypse is upon us and it isn't some nutcase telling you that.

"Who is he anyway?" the Professor broke the silence.

"This is Oliver,", Judy started explaining, " the 'Witness' from the Lab which … you know."

"He is the one crossed over? I thought he was a species we haven't heard about?"

"I was, but then she bit me while under the influence of some modified 'Night Howlers' and tadaa.

I guess the portal wasn't the only thing they were working on."

"What, Really?"

The other two nodded to him.

"Well, that would make an explanation why you two look such alike." He pointed at me and Judy.

"Professor, could we concentrate on the end of the world first?" Nick got him back on track.

"Yes, yes. We need to get that Tear to the other world fixed. The good news is I already know how to fix that. The bad news is that because the tear was opened from here it has to be closed from the other side. So somebody has to get over there and fix it."

"We need to tell this to Bogo." Judy and Nick said simultaneously.

"So you want to tell me this is the result of this 'Portal Machine'? And what if we don't stop it?" Bogo huffed at the Professor.

"Well, we don't really know, but the chances of the Population of both worlds surviving are quite small. One of the possibilities is that you get merged on molecular basis with whatever is at the same spot in the other world. Which means most of the people would be merged with air and would likely just become meat and bone dust, others would hit a wall or some other object and some would get merged with another organism. In all three cases death is almost certain.

Problem is we only can cross over two people without causing more damage. 'Them' essentially used so much power they could have moved over a whole football stadium. Until we have more experience in this regard two is the maximum."

He looked away from the Professor and seemingly stared into a void, he was thinking about what to do. After some time he sprang to life again.

"Hops, you will go over with our guest here." He pointed to me and Judy wanted to protest, but couldn't before the Chief continued. "You are going to a city unknown to you in another world. You need somebody who knows his way around. Wilde you stay with the Professor at the lab to guard the portal. We can't risk anyone interfering there while one of my best officers is over there. You will get support from a few officers to guard the building. Understood?"

"Yes, sir."

"Good, you are dismissed. And get him something less suspicious to wear." He was pointing at me. "He looks like a homeless junky in those."

And with that we left the office and we were on our way to the garage.

"Judy you get him to the mall and the safe house." Nick said.

"Why the safe house? The chief didn't say anything about this."

"Yeah, but he starts to smell a bit." I took a little sniff at myself and boy was he right.

"I and the professor will got the lab and prepare with the others."

"OK." she left out with a sight. "Bye."

"Yeah, bye." The other two went to a different police cruiser and drove off.

"What is the matter?" I asked.

"I don't know if that's the right thing to do, without letting the public know. I mean don't they have a right to know that they are in danger?"

We got into a cruiser ourselves.

"That's a tough question. They do have the right to know, but we don't know what will happen when this gets out. I mean people will go crazy, right?"

"Well what would they do in your world?"

I didn't suspect she wanted to restart our question session after this, but I played along.

"They probably would do the same and keep it secret.", I let out with a sigh, "And they would probably not send the Police."

"Who would they sent then?"

"Well, you know secret intelligence or the army, something like that."

"Wait you still got that? We abolished that years ago, because we had no use for it. So don't the countries in your world work together?"

I made a questioning face to her.

"Well, the do work together, sorta. There is the UN which most countries are in, but countries still disagree with each other. And the UN only has so much power the countries are still sovereign. How is that in Zootopia?"

"Here we have the United Mammals, which is sort of the world government, we all elected and in which all mammal species are represented."

"So it works more like states within a country then sovereign nations? "

"I suppose so. But you can still find old abandoned military bases in the countryside. The last one was only closed 60 Years ago after the last few countries joined. Oh and I haven't even asked you where you are from?"

"I am from Germany. Does that ring a bell?"

"Yeah. That is one of the territories, but it is nearly on the other end of the world."

"And what about Europe, America, Asia?"

"That's the continents. And we're in the northern part of America."

'So probably in the US' I thought. 'But where? I need a map.'

Sorry for the shorter chapter. I have not much time right now and I still need to figure out some parts in the later story I not really like right now. But I try to get them out as fast as possible.