"I just can't seem to wrap my head around the fact that only your species evolved some form of hyperintelligence," Colin spoke from the edge of his stool. "You can't think of a single other species that uses complex language?"
"Nope. And honestly, it's a lot weirder to me that only mammals got a break here." Alex laughed. "What about fish and birds?"
"Natural selection gives us the how but not the why. We recognize varying levels of animal intelligence, but we don't quite know where the line is. At some point, there might've been an evolutionary blocker for certain animals taking it further. My best guess? They got unlucky."
"Nature's a bitch, huh?"
Colin chortled, nearly spilling his coffee in the process.
It'd been almost five days since he arrived in this fantastical world. However, he didn't see much outside his dual-purpose hospital room jail cell. He wasn't totally over the whole animal people thing, but he'd been chatting with the armadillo, Colin, quite a bit, which helped put his mind at ease. The guy was a walking anxiety vessel, but he loosened up pretty quickly after Alex cracked a couple of jokes. Plus, yelling at his boss seemed to help him get on his good side. The guy seemed way more interested in Alex's world than Alex himself, but he appreciated having somebody to casually talk to nonetheless. Especially since every other waking moment felt like an interrogation.
Colin Feral was just one of the many researchers at the Zootopia Bureau of Investigation or ZBI. He led the Anomalous Technology group and was brought in for the introduction, or confrontation as Alex saw it, after examining the human's cell phone. He'd been with the ZBI for nearly a decade and never saw anything as fascinating as Alex's device. There were quite a few complex bootleg weapons that came across his desk, but his cracked phone was a complete head-scratcher for Colin. It was a glimpse into another universe. Everything was familiar, but nothing was fully recognizable.
The armadillo was fairly hesitant at first to admit he'd thoroughly snooped around the device, but Alex wasn't bothered; he knew the investigation wasn't unwarranted. If the roles were reversed and Colin somehow ended up on his version of Earth, it would've been a matter of hours before he was strapped to an operating table and dissected. It seemed to also help his case that all of the tests conducted by the ZBI's research teams found Alex to be unarguably of mammal descent. Thus, he deserved basic mammalian rights. Rights that didn't include avoiding being strapped to an electric hospital bed, that is. Alex's cooperation with the ZBI also helped bolster his case against being a foreign spy, but there were still too many unknowns for them to loosen his chain. Luckily, they treated him more like a peculiar, permanent resident rather than a prisoner.
"I just don't understand how nature led our realities on such similar trajectories," Colin furrowed his brow.
"What do you mean?" Alex asked.
"Like your phone. I knew exactly how to navigate the interface without even thinking about it. But, the things on your phone are unfamiliar. Everything from the charging port to the application names to your search history is all just so… marginally bizarre to me."
"I hope you didn't find anything too bizarre in my searches…" Alex joked.
"Sorry, I can't delete it for you." Colin timidly giggled, as if he'd never told a dirty joke before.
Now it was Alex's turn to laugh. However, their conversation was briefly interrupted by a rapt at the door. A female antelope swung it open and entered the room dressed in her nurse scrubs.
"All done?" She gestured to his tray of food scraps from breakfast, making as little eye contact as possible.
"Yeah," Alex replied. "Thanks."
She walked over, picked it up, and was gone as quickly as she came in.
They brought him regular meals that were surprisingly familiar to him, minus the bug meat; He nearly gagged the first time they set the tray down, but that first bite changed his mind pretty quickly. It turned out that the animal diets here weren't too different from Alex's version of Earth. There was a range of nutrition requirements depending on the species, but none of the food was out of the ordinary. Fruits, vegetables, nuts, and various non-animal proteins were abundant. Oh, and coffee. Alex was especially grateful for that. He was more than a bit nervous to admit his omnivorous upbringing to them, but nobody seemed to bat an eye. They ate living things already, so it seemed like there wasn't going to be a problem as long as he didn't sink his teeth into another mammal.
"There's got to be something to connect the dots," Colin mused, holding a finger to his chin. "What year was it when you showed up?"
"Um… We're probably going to have different starting places for …"
"A religious figure's birth?"
Alex's eyebrows almost flew off his head with how quickly he raised them. The armadillo belly laughed at his surprise.
"2023," Alex told him.
"So similar… yet different…" Colin muttered to himself. "Would you mind if I played around with your phone's hardware? I should be able to keep it intact."
"I couldn't tell you no even if I wanted to."
Colin hopped down from his stool, giving a light grunt as he hit the floor. He scurried toward the door and turned back just before passing the threshold.
"Good talking to you," Colin smiled.
"Likewise," Alex returned. "Now go break my stuff."
Colin left the room, a chuckle echoing from the hall as he walked away, the door closing with a light wheeze.
A lot of Alex's time was spent alone, though, it gave him plenty of time to digest the bits of information he was learning about the world above him. He had thought his human world of politics and socioeconomics was complex, but this world was a whole other level of complex. A world built for humans was one thing, but a world built for supporting all mammals? That was a vast spectrum of both physiological and psychological needs to address.
Colin informed him that he was picked up in the heart of downtown Savannah Central, which just so happened to mimic a concrete jungle from his world. But, that was just one of the multitude of controlled ecosystems built into the city to sustain the millions of Zootopians. They referred to them as districts, and they ranged from a frigid tundra to a scorching sahara. Alex hoped to get a better look at them one day. Hopefully, without drawing too much attention.
There was a short, sing-songy knock on the door followed by a familiar red fox in police blues waltzing into the room, finger guns aimed Alex's way. He was accompanied by his law enforcement partner, Judy, with optimistic smiles perched across their features.
This was the second time Alex had seen the pair, and he was fairly impressed by how relaxed they already seemed around him, especially when compared to the ZBI researchers. Regardless, he greatly appreciated the officers keeping tabs on him. Between the bureau and the police department, the police seemed to treat him more cautiously than dangerously. In a way, he felt like the ZPD was on his side and hoped they come more often, but he assumed their limited involvement had to do with the ZBI enforcing their area of governance.
"Hey, hey," Nick fired a few rounds from his paws. "How's my favorite interdimensional mammal doing?"
"As good as anybody chained to a hospital bed," Alex replied, his tone split right down the middle between sarcasm and honesty.
"Oof, note taken." Nick holstered his finger pistols and used one paw to cover part of his muzzle and pointed to the rabbit next to him. "Though, I'd take lounging all day over strength training with officer boundless energy over here."
"What Nick means to say," Judy elbowed Nick in the stomach with a roll of her eyes. "I hope you're at least somewhat comfortable here."
"I'm alright," Alex sighed. "They haven't done anything too invasive, and the food's pretty good. I just wish they'd give me a TV or something. Any form of entertainment that isn't staring at the walls. I'd take a deck of cards at this point."
"We'll see if we can do something about that," Judy said. "I can't promise anything, though. The ZBI is pretty stringent about what can be provided to..."
"Unidentified species," Nick finished for her.
"Nice way of putting it." Alex chuckled. "At least my unidentified status isn't causing a ruckus deep below ground."
Nick and Judy glanced at each other knowingly.
"About that…" Nick said. "It looks like your brief meeting with a local came with a free photoshoot."
Alex cocked an eyebrow.
"The brown bear you bumped into," Judy clarified. "Turns out he was able to snap a few photos as you ran away. We did what we could to collect security footage and inform local business owners of the situation, but those photos are another story entirely. He sent them to somebody he knew, they probably sent them to somebody else, and the cycle continued. As soon as we saw them hit the internet, we knew it was too late."
"The first news story dropped yesterday," Nick added. "Mysterious Mammal Wanders Zootopia." He held out his paws for effect while announcing the title.
Alex groaned, letting his head flop down onto his pillow with a soft thud. He blew a short raspberry before speaking. "Great…"
"Honestly, a lot more flattering than we expected it to be," Nick said. "It could've been a lot worse. Especially with everything going on right now."
"What do you mean?"
"Let's just say things have been a bit… tense recently," Nick said.
"Tense," Alex repeated.
"Zootopia is built to provide for many different species," he continued. "I guess some mammals would prefer that similar species stick together."
"Officer Wilde."
Everybody snapped their head to the door to find a familiar black panther leaning against the threshold, her arms crossed and her whiplike tail lashing back and forth.
"Do I need to remind you of the communication protocol you signed off on?" she asked.
"Not at all, ma'am," Nick tried to play it off, but he was clearly caught off guard. "We were just finishing up here actually."
"Good," she said.
"Looks like we'll have to cut this one short," Nick half-whispered.
"We'll be back to check on you next week, Alex," Judy tossed him a smile. "We're rooting for you."
"Alright," Alex exhaled, trying to send a smile back but faltering. "Thanks."
Nick and Judy gave a quick wave and walked out of the room, a pair of sharp yellow eyes following them relentlessly as they exited. With them out of sight, the glowing eyes turned her attention back to Alex.
Samantha McCarthy, ZBI Investigative Director. A no-nonsense powerhouse and mental force to be reckoned with. She hid her name for days before Colin accidentally spilled the beans in passing. Alex was confident the armadillo got a verbal beatdown for that.
"What did he tell you?" She spoke evenly with a low growl.
"Nothing," Alex rolled his eyes and turned away from her.
"We have cameras in every room. Anything that's been shared, we will find out about."
"Then what are you asking me for?" Alex shot back, turning to make brief eye contact with her before rolling over again.
She stood silently at the door, tail bouncing back and forth like a metronome. Alex knew his attitude with her didn't help his situation, but it did make him feel a little better.
"My job here is to protect this city," She eventually said, taking a step towards the bed. "You may think what I'm doing is cold, but if your 'other universe' story is true, then I'm sure you understand where I'm coming from. Your tale may have convinced some, but I'm going to need a bit more than a wild story and some tears."
Alex didn't respond, letting the silence take over the conversation.
"What do you think would happen if I just let you go?" Her domineering voice cut through the quiet. "You think you'd walk out of here and strike up a conversation with the locals? Maybe get a bite to eat? Find a place to rent out and call home? Mammal or not, you stand out. What's being done is for your good and Zootopia's good. But, I think you know all this already."
Director McCarthy's body remained still while her tail continued to sway lazily, waiting for Alex to reply. After a few moments, the human rolled over and shot her an apathetic look.
"You done?" He said.
McCarthy remained silent, glaring back at him with an unreadable, stoic expression. He took her lack of response as a yes.
"Great," he rolled back over. "You can fuck off then. I'm busy."
The mental battle between Alex and McCarthy seemed unending. She constantly tried to establish her authority over him, but he refused to give in. Regardless of whether she showed it, Alex knew his mild insubordination got to her. Even if it made his life harder, he wanted to latch on to this one bit of control he had.
"You may have heard that: in Zootopia, anyone can be anything," he heard her paw clutch the door handle as she spoke. "But, I'm not so sure that anything can ever be anyone."
The door shut with a click.
Alex lay there ruminating on the riddle she left him with. He knew it was a scare tactic, but there was something about how she said it that still made him shiver.
His mind drifted to what she had mentioned about standing out. Nick and Judy treated him normally and didn't seem nervous around him. Although, being police officers, it's possible they just hid their fear well. Plus, he didn't want to mistake their concern for pity. He could just be an injured puppy in their eyes.
Colin, on the other hand, seemed like he'd actually grown accustomed to Alex. He was much easier to read; his constant state of nervousness made that obvious. The conversations they shared felt genuine and being able to chat casually with a skittish armadillo a quarter of his size made him feel like maybe Zootopia could see him as a bit more than a mysterious mammal. Maybe all it took was a simple chat for other mammals to see that he wasn't as different as he looked.
A sudden click of the door handle pulled him from his thoughts. He turned over to find a female goat nurse entering with a small tray of what looked like medical shears and collection tubes.
"The lab requested hair samples," she said while making eye contact with the side wall.
"Ok," Alex said.
She approached his bed but stopped a couple of feet shy of arm's length. She picked up a pair of scissors from the tray and faced Alex. They looked at each other uncomfortably while she clutched the sharp object in front of her. Her eyes repeatedly shifted between the scissors and Alex, never fully making eye contact with him.
"Uhm," she muttered. "Would you mind… turning around?"
"Oh uh, yeah, sure." The realization awkwardly hit Alex.
He sat up and twisted his body so his legs dangled off one side of the bed and his head faced the back wall that he'd been getting to know so intimately recently. He listened to her hoof-steps approach cautiously, then felt the light tug against the hairs on the back of his scalp.
SNIP
Alex couldn't tell how much she took off. It turned out to be not enough because he felt another slight tug.
"So… How is your day going?" Alex choked out.
A momentary hesitation in the room.
"Fine," She answered meekly.
SNIP
"That's good," Alex coughed into his hand awkwardly. "Do… you like working for the ZBI?"
Another hesitation.
"Yes."
SNIP
"That's also good," he repeated, mentally berating himself for how stupid it sounded.
Just as he was about to ask another question, the nurse cut him off. "That should be plenty for the lab to work with. Thank you for your cooperation."
"Oh, alright," Alex began turning himself back around. "It was nice meeting y-"
By the time he repositioned himself to face the door, she was already gone.
Hello! Don't forget to follow, favorite, and leave a comment if you're enjoying the story. I love all the feedback that I receive!
I apologize if I don't catch some egregious grammar/spelling mistakes. For some reason messes with my document after uploading it in .docx or .rtf format.