Judy pecked at her salad with disinterest. It was incredibly late and she was trying her best to force herself to eat something while she was confined here for the day, and the donut from earlier wasn't exactly healthy. The sliced carrots and croutons in the sea of leafy greens all seemed to blur into a big mess as she lost her focus.

Her daze was broken when she saw a familiar weasel plop down at the seat across from her at the cafeteria table. His tray had a Bug Burga burger and fries on it, along with a chocolate shake.

"Mind if I sit here, my lady?" Duke asked in his greasy way, his voice oozing sarcasm.

Closing her eyes, Judy let out a quick reply in the affirmative. She didn't want to give him anything to work with.

"Sweet. You're already miles ahead of Buffalo Butt, Thumper. You don't mispronounce my name, you let me eat with you, and you're a huge pain in Bogo's ass!"

"Don't count on it, Wesselton." Judy smirked.

"That was for 'Thumper', wasn't it?"

Judy just scowled and nodded. "Do you go out of your way to be rude?"

Duke looked like he was about to retort but then clamped his mouth shut. A long silence hung between them, the only sounds coming from their chewing.

"I'm sorry. I really did get off on the wrong paw with you."

"Well, apology accepted." Judy gave the friendliest smile she could muster to show that she appreciated his maturity.

There was another lull in the conversation before Judy spoke up. "Aren't you supposed to be off duty?"

Duke had to stifle his laughter to prevent himself from choking on the mouthful of burger he was eating. Upon swallowing, he adopted an amused tone. "Wait, you don't know? Us Enforcers are prisoners here. The only times we're allowed to leave this building are for assignments. We can go to our rooms, our workplace floors, the cafeteria, the gym, and a few other places. Restricted access and curfews."

"Oh, I didn't know." Judy responded almost apologetically. It appeared there was plenty she didn't know about the Enforcers.

"So, tell me about yourself, Hopps. Because in the least offensive way I can ask this, I wanna know what made a bunny want to take such a dangerous job." Duke asked.

"You don't think I'm up to the task, do you?" Judy solemnly replied.

Duke shrugged. "Hard to say. I can't talk much. I'm about your size and I seem to manage, so who's to say a bunny can't? You might surprise me. Plus, it was your first night; I know that Wilde and Fournier did most of the work for you. So I don't have too much to judge you on."

Judy could tell he was trying to be polite. "Well, if you really want to know my reason, it's that I want to help other mammals. Make the world a better place, you know?"

"That it?" Duke asked, clearly not buying it. "There are plenty of jobs out there where you can feel good about helping others without having lions trying to maul you."

"Well," Judy continued, "I guess there is another reason. Sibyl's judgment of my job aptitude exceeded the ZPD's employment standards to become an Inspector."

"Yeah," Duke cut in, "that's the confusing part. Aren't the standards for an Inspector insanely high? Didn't you have other options?"

"I got an A ranking for all thirteen ministries and agencies, as well as 6 companies. But I've always wanted to fight crime since I was a child. It was my dream job. Also, I was the only one in my class of over 600 mammals to get an A ranking for the ZPD. I guess the idea of being the first bunny Inspector was appealing too. I suppose I had a lot of reasons. After last night though, I'm beginning to wonder if I was wrong. I...Duke?"

The weasel had begun laughing upon hearing her second guess herself. His laughter quickly turned into a sneer. "You know what, I tried being nice, but I think we're never gonna see eye-to-eye, Inspector."

"What do you mean?" Judy glared back at him, already mourning the brief period of mutual politeness the two of them shared.

"You had all these reasons for wanting this job, and all of those other choices available to you, and now you're ready to back out on your second day? I think Sybil should check your test scores again, because you're pretty damn stupid."

"Excuse me-" Judy began before being cut off.

"You wanna know why I became an Enforcer, Hopps? I had two good years of getting beat up for being a weasel in grade school. By the time I was seven years old, I was taken out of school, because I was flagged in a Psycho-Pass scan as a latent criminal. Seven! What crime was I gonna commit, grand theft tricycle?"

Judy wanted to tell Duke to fuck off, but she felt like there was a point coming. She also realized she had never seen the weasel this passionate about anything before.

"So excuse me if I don't feel sorry for you because you're coming to grips with the difficulties of your job. You are a cuddly and cute bunny, probably came from a big loving family, am I right? Nobody has ever backed away from you like you were dangerous, right?"

Judy just sat in silence.

"Me? I've always been the greasy, slippery, disgusting weasel. I never had as much as you did, and by the time I was seven I lost what little I had. They couldn't rehabilitate me through treatment. The one stroke of luck I ever had in my life was the ZPD handing me a gun and telling me to go kill people like the predator I am! That's the only reason I chose to become an Enforcer," Duke motioned to the empty cafeteria around them, "I wanted a gilded cage instead of a shitty one. You should be thankful you had that many choices, on top of being able to have your dream job. I don't think I ever even had a dream job. The only choice I ever had was be an Enforcer or live in an isolation facility."

Duke grabbed his tray and stood up to walk away. He only made it a few steps before stopping himself and letting out a large sigh.

"But...for what it's worth I don't want you to quit. In fact, I'm begging you to stay."

Judy's ears perked up upon hearing his complete change of tone. "Why?" she asked incredulously.

"I heard what you did. With that puma girl. You have my respect for that, Inspector. I don't know many Inspectors who would take that kind of risk. I also don't know many prey who would see a pred for what they really are in situations like that. Situations where they're cornered and don't have many options."

"What they really are?" Judy mimicked, wanting to know what he meant by this.

Duke looked over his shoulder and into Judy's eyes. Judy could sense something fragile from the weasel just by staring into his eye.

"Scared." he stated solemnly.