Four Years Earlier

"I want them dead. I want Hopps and Wilde dead, Savage, and you, my lapin friend, are going to help me."

It's not everyday that a psychopath comes barging into your office and wants you to order two mammals' deaths, mammals, which I might add, are the city's highest-profile and best cops. Aside from the obvious legal and moral question that would raise, there's also the romantic one- Can I really kill my ex-girlfriend? No, no no!

"Sorry, I don't think I heard you correctly. What was that? Besides that, what are you not doing in jail? They sent you away years ago."

"Aren't I a little angel? Day pass out on the town, unsupervised, but with a tracker. A tracker which, might I add, is disabled. Oopsie! But what I said was that I want Hopps and Wilde dead! Was that not clear, you bunny buffoon? Funny, I thought those long ears of yours were supposed to make you hear better, not worse."

"Look, Dawn, no is do you want them dead for, anyways? It's not as if they've done something wrong, you know.

"I have my reasons."

"I'm sure you do, Dawn, but is this really the best way to go about it?"

"...What makes you think I care, Savage? They'll be out of my way, that's what matters. So do me a favor and cover my tracks. Lock the city down, I don't know, call DEFCON 5, something."

"You realize DEFCON 5's the lowest alert, right?"

"Not anymore, Savage. It's time for some fun!"

Oh, Sweet Serendipity, what have I gotten myself into?

"What are you into this for, Dawn? What do you stand to gain?"

"As I said, I have my reasons, Savage. You may not understand them, but I have my reasons."

"You've said that, Dawn, so tell me!"

"For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. Galileo Galilion, I think."

"It was Isaac Newtrunk. Get on with it."

"You handled the case, you tell me."

"What case?"

"I'm an orphan, dumb-bun. The dots being connected up there yet? Remember this?," she produced a tape recorder from her pocket and pressed play. A tinny voice came from the speaker:

"Agent John Wilde, at your service, sir!"

I slapped a paw to my forehead. "Dumb bunny, dumb bunny, dumb bunny."

Bellwether laughed. "Yeah, you are. You haven't even asked how I got the recording. Tsk, tsk, tsk. Boy, you are just full of fluff, aren't you? No brain, just fluff. But enough with the pleasantries, are you going to give me what you want or not?"

"What happens if I say no, Dawn? What are you going to do about that?"

"This," she said, pulling a Colt .45 out of her jumpsuit pocket and levelling it at my head.

"Oh. I see." I hate to think that after all these years, I'd be that easy to coerce, but at the risk of sounding horribly stereotyped, rabbits are afraid of quite a lot of things, guns being one of them.

"Alright, Dawn, you win."

Well, shoot. What now?

"I'm glad you see it my way, Jackson. Very glad indeed."


Hopps Residence, 1991

Rabbits often pick their partner rather early in life, and unlike other mammals who date one at a time, we rabbits like to double-, triple-, or even-more-date. But, like Judy, I never was one to conform to cultural norms, that trait's what's gotten me where I am, in both the good and the bad.

I was only seventeen when I became Commissioner of the Special Forces Division of the ZIA. High exam scores, plus a history of being a star player (I'm not trying to brag, I'm just stating the facts.), and at the start of my junior year of high school, in 1989, the ZIA came knocking. They needed a new Commissioner, and they thought I was the perfect mammal for the job, even at seventeen.

Seventeen, and if you've done your math, that makes me twenty-one years older than my ex-girlfriend, Judy Wilde. Well, still Hopps, technically, since she and Nick have been a bit to preoccupied to make it official. Ah, well, rabbits do have a rap for being rather amorous. Darn the stereotypes, but I think I fit them rather too well.

In all my years, I've seen more murders than I care recount, and consider this an official declaration of guilt, some of them were on my orders. Heck, some of them I committed myself. Officially, my paws are clean, but if you look closely enough, the fur on my front paws is perpetually an ever-so-slight pink.

But what's the point of all this rambling? Get to the point, Savage. Backwards as it may seem, at least to me, seeing hundreds, if not thousands of murders makes one want to read murder mysteries. Here's what I'm trying to get at- this whole this seems just like a murder mystery, and not a good one, but not a bad one, either. The villain is rather cliched, though, I mean, why would she come right out and say that she's not the only one? It's a rather overused plot device.

Though with Bellwether's track record, she only lies if she has to, and I didn't detect a lie in the message she sent us through John Wilde, a fox, who, on my orders, killed Bellwether's parents. In retrospect, was that hit really necessary? No. No, because like Bellwether claims of herself, they were the low ones on the totem pole. That's really what's convinced me of her not-entirely-guiltiness.

So that pops the question- whodunit? I may have a clue there. The-


"Hey, Jack, what're you writing in that book there?"

"Yike! Don't sneak up on me like that, Electra!" I had been writing in Judy's private study, with her permission, and with the size of the Hopps warren being what it is, I thought that I had complete privacy. I guess not.

"Are you going to answer the question or not?" she said, tapping her foot on a way that reminded me of Judy. "This vixen's impatient."

"A trait you no doubt inherited from your mother. I think I have a lead. Call together the adults, this is crucial!"


Twenty Minutes Later

"Okay, Jack, I think that's everyone. Finally. I think you can understand how annoying it is to go hunting for someone through this warren."

"Yes, Ma'am, I do….Ow! What was that for?" She slapped me!

"That, Jackson, is for being a dumb bunny."

"You wound me, madam. That's an awful insult, and coming from another bunny? Eeesh."

"I've told you time and time again, call me Bonnie."

"Yes, Ma-" Her paw reached up. "Bonnie."

"That's better. Now, as you have everyone's attention, what's so important?"

"Has anyone here heard of the gang Sherwood Down?"

Both Nick and Judy raised their hands. "Yes? You've heard of them."

"Yes, we both have. They're a rather notorious gang, always after the biggest banks in the city. They've yet to have been caught, and the funny thing is, all the money that they steal has never been found. However, soon after a heist, a charity will report two black suited mammals leaving crates of cash inside their building."

"Robbing the rich to give to the poor."

"Exactly, John. But there's something else- after every heist, the cops arrive to find two things- an apple that has an arrow shot through it, plus graffiti on the building reading MJW2 and crossed fox paws, a reynard's and a vixen's, both wearing wedding bands."

"You don't think that was us, do you?"

"No, Marian, I don't think it was you, this version of the Wildes that I'm looking at right now, I think it's the other timeline's version of you. In the original timeline- please don't shoot the messenger- you two die, separately, before Nick turns ten, John of a cocaine overdose, Marian of a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head two days later."

"So, then," John said, trying not to let anger fill his voice, " I don't see how it could possibly have been us, seeing as I was a junkie, and my mate Marian here shot herself in the effing head!"

"Ah, I'm getting to that. Please, I know it's hard-"

"Hard? How would you react if you'd just been told that you killed yourself, Savage, leaving your nine-year-old son to fend for himself on the streets? How would you? Huh?"

"The very same way, Marian. You see that house across the street? That's my house, which I inherited thirty years ago, ten in this timeline, when my parents boarded a flight to Bearlin and never returned. 'Mister Savage, it's your parents, sir. Their flight, um, was shot down over Furance. I hate to be the one to tell you this, but…' So John, Marian, I understand what you're going through right now, really, I do, but can we turn back to the matter at hand?"

"I suppose," John muttered. "Get on with it. Tell us more bad news."

"Well, the way history is rewriting itself, you two actually lived."

"Where's the proof?"

"Here," Nick said, pulling three pictures out of his pocket. "Before I went on this crazy journey, these pictures were different. The first one," he said, pointing to a picture of a gravestone. "was originally a gravestone with "John and Marian Wilde, 1964-1994" carved on it. Looks a little different now, huh? "John and Marian Wilde, 1964-" This second one," Nick said, referring to a picture of three foxes hugging, "is my family- you. Before this, it was me crying in front of two funeral wreaths that I'd hung on the wall. I don't know why I did it, perhaps I knew it would be the last reminder I ever have of my parents."

"How about the third one?" John asked, tears brimming.

"Great question, Dad, and here's your answer: instead of me sitting on a bench on top of the Palmtree Hotel, it was a reporter's picture of a fox about to jump off the roof of said hotel."

"I take it," John said, openly crying now, "that said fox was you, wasn't it."

Nick smiled gravely, nodding almost imperceptibly. "Yes, it was. I talked myself out of it, told myself that I wasn't going to be following in my parents' footsteps that way."

"Nick!" Judy gasped. "You never told me!"

"Ow, Carrots, enough with my arm and punches. I didn't tell you because I didn't want you to worry."

"Well, now I'm worried! Dumb! Fox!" she shouted, emphasizing each exclamation with a sucker punch to my arm.

"What did I just say about the arm?"

"I. Don't. Care! You should have told me, we could have gotten over it together!"

"Well, I chose not to, and that's that. Jack, please continue."

"Gladly. As I was saying earlier, though, in this version, you lived, and I think you get why I'm directing this towards you."

"It's because you think that MJW2 stands for Marian and John Wilde."

"Exactly."

"So what now? It's not as if we can just get up and leave 1991, now is it? Besides that, aren't we dead?"

"You're right, we can't just up and leave, there's still planning to get done," I said.

"But what should we do? If we leave, we don't know where we'll be going, when we'll be going, none of that."

"It's also not as if I either care about or control that, John."

"Keep in mind, Savage, that I hold you personally responsible for this."

"Can we not rehash this? It didn't get us anywhere last time, either. As for leaving here, I see it as what choice do we have? The trouble's in the future, we can't just sit around waiting for it to find us."

"Too bad it already has. Put your paws where I can see them, chompers! What the- no collars? I'd better radio Lieutenant Hopps on this one." He picked up his walkie-talkie. "Uh, Hopps?"

"What is it, Rhinovicz?"

"I got a whole bunch of collarless chompers here. What do you advise?"

"Well, Officer, there's a reason you have those spare collars, isn't there? Use them."

Oh, this isn't good.