Chapter 16: Moments of Revelation

Bureau 13…. The Next Day…

B13 had again received communications from Dg, he had transmitted technical specifications to upgrade the computer interface in the operations center, "It wasn't advanced enough for the information" Dg had written. Kaiden and the others felt it was imperative to get access to whatever information this insider had, even though there was also the concern that this may actually be a trap but the collective feeling of boldness pushed them to feel that the risk was worth it. If it meant even having direct access to Council information for even a short time, it would prove valuable in the fight against them. The raids had taken their toll in the physical realm, but those were just arms of the monster, attacking its ability to interact with the world around them. The real power lay in the council of five and its members, finding out what their hidden agenda was and stopping it would stop the conspiracy in its tracks, and taking them out would create literally overnight changes for the better. That was both the council's greatest strength and weakness, the fact that in managing agencies, like boxes stacked in one another, meant that the bureau could remove and dismantle the boxes one at a time, properly cleaning house at each one, an endeavor that would take years to come, but one that B13 would relish because it would mean finally mean achieving their goals and ultimately finish this invisible war.

It was that thought the cyber fox entertained on occasion, what would happen if this war stopped right now, today, what he would do tomorrow. He honestly didn't know, he felt that he would spend the rest of his life fighting this war or die trying. But yet here was a chance as a third option. The fox had encouraged Nick and Judy to relax before the coming storm, no one knew when or if they would get another. Certainly, Judy missed her family through all of this, but she knew not to try and contact them for fear of getting them involved, the same for Mrs Wilde. They both wondered what their families would think about all of this when this was over. Would they even believe it? The pair were hip-deep in it themselves and even they had a hard time believing in the reality of where they were, what they were doing, and the mammals they were doing it with. Thankfully, the Bunny Burrows were well outside the quarantine zone, and for that reason alone, it was a blessing in disguise, no one in or out, so no chance of anyone from the burrows coming to the city.

Kaiden had seen Fox and Rabbit duo in the cafeteria, they had at least outwardly appeared to have returned to some sense of normalcy, their banter sounding more like what he had come to expect from them. It made the old fox feel better knowing that a healing process at least had begun, that maybe in spite all of this or perhaps because of it, they will be stronger than before. In either case, it brought a smile to his lips knowing they were doing better, though he tried to remain positive, he knew there would be a lasting stain of these events but hoped it didn't affect them to the point of changing them from the mammals he had come to know and care about.

the fox made his way to the operations center to check on the status of this 'interface' the IT boys were hooking up. He saw a machine that was a smattering of parts hooked up to what resembled a fish bowl.

"What in the hell is this thing?" Kaiden asked facetiously.

"This…advanced holographic interface…much faster…..allows transmission of data….faster speeds." Replied Hamilton excitedly.

"A new high-tech toy? Well, we know you're happy," the fox quipped.

"This could revolutionize data storage, a holographic storage medium, and they had it the whole time!" remarked Langley.

"Yeah, it doesn't surprise me the Council has been keeping the more advanced technology secret, they don't seem to want to share their toys." Remarked Baers.

The vulpine simply acknowledged this was just out of his league, he could have studied technical specifications to try and understand it but it didn't really matter to him. Unless it was something he could directly pick up and take the fight back to the council of five and its army of soldiers, it was just minutiae. Though he was glad the more technically minded of his comrades seemed to be enjoying themselves, like kids on Kitsmas morning. Better to enjoy the levity now, knowing whatever Dg had to say. He felt that the next phase would begin soon.

Kaiden had wondered who this Dg really was, who on the inside of the Council's network could have so much access and yet not be loyal to the cause. Nick had mentioned seeing a hologram of something that claimed to be his friend Benjamin Clawhauser. But even to the fox's knowledge of seeing bleeding edge technology, he knew that it was impossible to bring back the dead. He wondered what Nick really saw. But he also knew the council was willing to go into areas of science that completely broke the limits of morality. The fox had a nagging thought that prevented him from dismissing it out of paw. This was yet another question that he hoped would be answered soon and yet knowing that this break in the armor existed gave him hope that the Council was not as mighty as they seemed to be. Kaiden had seen their abilities first paw, their machinations, their sheer firepower. It seemed to him that current events were completely contradictory to what he had experienced, and yet there it was. A paradox, the answers he sought would hopefully be contained within this insider.

Meanwhile…

Bureau 13…Cafeteria

Judy and Nick sat in the cafeteria at a corner table, Nick had taken to sitting beside her on the bench seat, they had been inseparable since their night together, Judy was constantly holding Nick's paw or holding him close as if she was trying to never forget the feeling of his fur or the scent of him. Nick was caught up in looking at her, watching her expressions, the way she moved and gestured, the way she talked, the shape of her. To him it was like poetry in motion, the occasional sway of her shoulders or the flop of her ears would make him smile, and her eyes, he felt as though he could get lost in those eyes forever.

"Nick, I asked you a question," Judy said.

Nick snapped out of his own thoughts and focused on what she just said.

"Hmm?" he replied, with his chin couched in his paw, his arm crooked on the table surface.

"I said are you alright?" she inquired.

"Why wouldn't I be?" he replied with a soft contented smile.

"It's just….that…..well never mind." she stopped.

"What's the matter? Come on, you can talk to me…" He replied back, rubbing her forearm.

"You were…dreaming, last night." She explained.

Nick sat silent.

"You were….calling for me."

Nick had half-remembered a nightmare he had last night, he was trying to play it close to the vest, yet Judy must have heard him call out for her. Judy drooped her head a little, starting to feel guilty again, and Nick immediately tilted her head back up by her chin with his paw.

"Hey now, don't be like that. I know we've been through some rough things lately. And yeah, it's going to take a while to work through them." He consoled trying to keep things light-hearted. "But I know that together, we will deal with all of this. Okay?"

Judy grabbed his paw and caressed it against her cheek, kissed it, and then she held it in both her paws and looked back at Nick.

"I promise, when this is all over, when we get our lives back together, I want to make up for lost time." She said

"Sure?" He replied not exactly knowing what she meant.

"I know we spent a lot of time together in the past, but there was always this nervousness between us, and it was because we were afraid, afraid that we didn't know how we both felt, or that we would lose something, so we were always distracting ourselves," she said

"I think I know what you mean." He admitted rubbing his chin.

"Well, that's just it, now it's all out in the open. I want to explore that, I want to get to know you completely. I want you to get to know me."

Nick smiled back warmly.

"You took the words right out of my mouth, Carrots" he replied with a contented chuckle which resolved into a smirk.

Nick placed his other paw with Judy's, he stared into her eyes just beaming at her with his 'Nick' smile. She loved that smile, it always made her feel warm like Nick was the sun at the center of her world beaming down upon her. Judy scooted even closer on the bench laid her head on his shoulder and caressed his chest with her paw, taking a deep breath.

"Can I say something?" asked Nick.

"Sure." She said

"When you rescued me…"

"Yeah?"

"You were a tough badass GI Bunny. And I'll be honest, it was kind of hot." He joked to her, still keeping his smile.

Judy laughed out loud and slapped him playfully on the chest. After she laughed wrapped her little arms around his neck and kissed him on the cheek.

"You always know how to make me feel better," she said looking into his eyes.

Nick wrapped his arms around her small frame and hugged her back, still with his seemingly eternal smile.

"I'd like to think I can make you feel more than just 'better'." He said suggestively twitching his eyebrows.

"Oh, you are so bad" she replied with a sarcastic tone.

"Hey! I was nervous…" he quipped.

"You know what I meant." She quipped back.

"You know I love you…." He said putting his nose against hers.

"Do I know that?" she pretended. "Yes, yes I do." She replied back warmly with a small smile pursed on her lips.

The conversation was punctuated with a loving kiss.

Meanwhile…

Bureau 13…Operations Center

Kaiden sat in boredom watching the trio plus Hamilton finish construction and final preparations of the device they had been putting together.

"Look I just want to know, will it get Showtime?" Kaiden asked his words dripping with sarcasm.

The trio plus Hamilton stopped and looked at Kaiden and collectively raised eyebrows at him in slight frustration.

"This is hard. Please?" Baers pleaded with the fox gesturing to the equipment.

"Ok. Clearly not in a laughing mood" he sheepishly shrugged.

The four went back to their work, doing final adjustments, and trying to properly interface it with their systems was proving to be more difficult than expected. Finally, the machine hummed to life.

Kaiden shot up and took a look at the machine; it seemed to finally be functioning. He snapped at one of the personnel in the hall.

"Hey, get Nick and Judy quickly please, they are in the commissary." Ordered Kaiden.

The B13 agent changed direction and ran to get them.

The machine displayed a hovering screen of information; it was connecting to something, running through whatever compiling of code it was required to do.

"Lights." Ordered Talmadge as he walked into the room.

A technician lowered the lights to make the hologram more visible. Everyone stared at the floating cloud of data that sat there in midair.

Nick and Judy finally arrived, just in time to see the cloud of data begin to resolve into shape, they approached where Kaiden was standing. The cloud managed to change shape into several amorphous blobs until it resolved into a more familiar form. The data coalesced into points and the points resolved into the shape of a person.

The cheetah-shaped hologram stepped onto the ground as if stepping out of a door from the digital abyss. Judy looked on in abject shock, when she saw who it was.

"Ben?" she finally managed to ask.

The cheetah smiled back at Judy and walked over to her.

"Hi, Judy." Replied the Hologram.

"How? How are you…How are you here?" she inquired still shocked putting her paws to her mouth.

Ben instinctively tried to touch her paw but the hologram went right through.

"I am not the Benjamin Clawhauser you remember. I am of him, think of me as…..an echo of the cheetah you once knew." He replied.

"Oh, Ben." Judy was saddened at this digital ghost of the cheetah that gave his life to save her.

Nick put a paw on her shoulder.

"I'm so sorry." She apologized

"It's alright." Ben absolved

"I should have done something." She said, regretting

"No. you did exactly what I told you to. I told you not to help me, if you had come out from that desk, Barret would have killed you too."

Judy took note of the name of the buffalo and burned it into her memory. Ben took note of Nick's responses to Judy's emotional state.

"Did you two finally acknowledge your feelings for one another?" Ben asked.

"How did…..you know?" both Nick and Judy asked.

"When I was alive, I felt that you two should be together. As I am now, I have been watching you two, as well as the whole city, and I calculated that given all that you have experienced, hopefully, you would have admitted these things to each other."

"Together, you are stronger, and I'm glad to see my calculations were correct." Smiled Ben.

Judy noted that it sounded like Clawhauser though she never heard him use the words 'calculate' or talk with such enunciation.

"As I said, I am not the Ben Clawhauser, you know" he replied.

"Wait, how did you know what I was thinking?" she asked.

"Technically I don't but I can interpret micro-expressions and animal psychology in fractions of a nano-second, I calculated that you were concerned that my mannerisms and speech don't conform to my original patterns. The way I used to speak." He explained.

"I assure you, it is me, me but more, my mind has been able to expand in thousands of different directions all at once, my consciousness expanding, and I understand it, everything."

"Understand what?"

"Everything, and that is why I am here. To tell you their master plan. So you can stop it."

Kaiden finally stepped in.

"Okay, but we were expecting a message from someone named Dg?" Kaiden explained.

"Dg? Ah yes, that would make it easier…I am Dg or" Clawhauser replied. He held his paws out displaying what looked like an alphabetical label "DgIeGpIaTrAdL"

"Yeah, just so I don't have a brain hemorrhage, what the hell does that mean anyway?" inquired Kaiden sarcastically pointing to the displayed letters.

Clawhauser held his palms up and 'held' the word 'DgIeGpIaTrAdL' in front of him, the word split up, capital letters and lower case letters separated out spelling 'DIGITAL' and 'gepard'

"gepard is a word for cheetah in my ancestral language. It is my heritage" Explained Clawhauser.

The word changed from 'gepard' to 'cheetah'

"So the digital cheetah? Right…makes sense, kind of," commented Nick

AI Clawhauser smiled his familiar smile, Judy relaxed, it WAS Clawhauser, that smile of his was unmistakable, she had always seen him playing around on his phone, word games were one of the many little games she would catch him playing with. Other officers had assumed he was simple, in truth he was just playful and enjoyed life. But there was also another side to Clawhauser, one that was insightful at times as much as he was welcoming and warm because that was the kind cheetah he was.

"Okay, now that we've established who we are talking to, care to explain what?" asked Kaiden.

"Yes, you're right, pleasantries must come later, there is much you need to know and not much time." apologized Clawhauser

Clawhauser swept his arms around and the projector began to display multitudes of data files and data, pages upon pages of text, video, images, all forms of media in a cloud around the room.

"Firstly, I am an artificial intelligence construct created by Dr. Bryce Lucas with the assistance of Kai Ren Medical. After I was killed, my body was retrieved from the police station and loaded onto the blackpaw helicopter that the mercenaries known as 'The Fiends' had been using. My body was brought to Kai Ren Medical and my entire central nervous system was mapped onto the AI template."

"Their reasoning for this was, until recently not known to me, but they were trying to probe my memory for the location of the encrypted data access chip."

Judy clutched the flash drive that was around her neck.

"When they were unable to locate the chip even with the assistance of my memories, they decided to use me as an experiment to determine how much, if any of my 'consciousness' survived the transfer."

"The reason for this has to do with their final plan, part of which involves whether or not a mammal's consciousness can be successfully transferred into digital form."

Clawhauser displays a large subterranean base beneath the heart of the city, the hologram expands and contracts, separating out into 3 distinct sections. Clawhauser brought one into focus, expanding it in his paws, making it large, revealing details of its features. A seemingly large computer section, with black computer towers similar to Clawhauser's from the black site, except many more and 5 tubes, almost coffin-like in their shape, assumed to be resided in by the council of five.

"The council plans to upload themselves into a similar but larger computer matrix to control their empire from the safety of the digital realm, in doing so they would become omnipresent, able to see and hear everywhere."

"The whole of Zootopia and mainly the city has a highly interconnected system, that a presence such as myself or the council would be able to control and surveil with unlimited access."

"I know this because I am the prototype for that larger system."

"I have observed that in your clandestine infiltration of Kai Ren Medical as well as the raids, you found the Cryo Pods with the frozen Zootopians inside."

"The purpose of these pods has to do with Project Roslyn, Roslyn is an old language word for 'Rose Line' which itself is a metaphor for blood Line."

"Project Roslyn has to do with the secret history of Zootopia, that the council of five realized could be used in the creation of their perfect society."

"It refers to paleontological evidence that Zootopians are not as separate as we think, that we all descend from a common ancestor. It is the DNA of that ancestor that has allowed us all to evolve with similar traits, such as intelligence, bipedal walking, and consciousness, as well as other traits."

"The Roslyn is that common ancestor, an ancient vertebrate that is our evolutionary antecedent. This fact has been kept from the general populace and the world at large for one obvious reason."

"Because of the potential for such information to completely change society. The council's progenitors knew that if this fact got out, it could have destroyed the nascent civilization that was being built. And they could not afford to allow this to happen, so a decision was made to keep it secret."

"Why, what were they so afraid of." Asked Kaiden

"They were afraid that society wouldn't be able to handle such information. In the beginning predator and prey were just starting to cooperate with each other, that fragile trust having to override millions of years of distrust. If they knew then, society would have crumbled before it started." Answered Clawhauser.

"I don't understand." Said Kaiden confused

"The Roslyn and its DNA that courses through every Zootopian means that by definition we are ALL similar, not separate species as we have been told. Similar enough to where it is potentially possible albeit no currently known examples, to create mixed offspring, just to name one example."

The entire room reacted to that statement, the mood suddenly shifted, as if someone just pulled the blinds up in a dark room, the flash of the light of truth, almost blinding, causing daze, surprise, and confusion. There were mutters and whispers in the dark back and forth. Kaiden's reaction of realization not surprise caught Clawhauser's notice.

"Quiet down folks, let's keep hearing what he has to say," Kaiden commanded with interest.

Nick and Judy's shock wore off and they glanced at each other with expressionless faces and then back to Clawhauser, a reaction he also noticed.

"As you can see even among your own personnel, there is already mixed reactions. Some would fear this realization, this inconvenient truth, and try to resist it." Continued Clawhauser.

"Some would react with shock and surprise, very much as you just did."

"And others, would perhaps…welcome it." Said Clawhauser, covertly glancing at Nick and Judy as he finished the statement, then back at Kaiden.

"Regardless, this fact alone could serve to divide society and create even further stratification on an already concerned population. The predator and prey divide from the 'savage' case over a year ago only illustrates that while we think our society has come so far, it would not take much to send Zootopia back to the dark ages."

"So…how would that help them? Forgive me, while that information may be a bombshell of news, it's by no means, at least to me, something that would help anyone create a perfect society." Inquired a confused Kaiden.

"That is because you have not thought about how to properly apply it." Replied Clawhauser

"The fact alone may be unsettling, but it's what the council plans to DO with that information that is the cause of concern."

Clawhauser shifts focus from one section to another bringing its details into view, expanding its holographic visage for the room to see. The details show a numerous amount of large glass tubes with shapes inside them, presumed to be some animal form; the science projects of the council.

"With the ability to recombinate DNA to create viable animals, the council can effectively play god."

"They could create a perfect caste system of animal hybrids, each with their specialization and ability according to class. Workers, Warriors, Servants, Builders, to name a few."

"They would seek to pervert the Zootopian genome and this miracle of biology and use it for their evil and selfish ends."

"Yeah, well I don't think society at large is going to let them, even with lies." Chimed in Nick.

"That's assuming there is a society to resist them." Replied Clawhauser.

Nick had perked an eyebrow up.

"Why does it sound like I'm not going to like this," Nick replied

"Because you won't, the council has decided that they are no longer going to tolerate the current status of the world, and instead of fixing it, they have decided to just….start over." Replied Clawhauser almost coldly.

The room roared to life with muttering and whispers, an occasional understandable word would come out of the crowd.

"Quiet!" yelled Kaiden.

Clawhauser continued. He displayed a hologram of a large cylindrical cavern located underneath the city, the third section of the Council's pantheon of horrors; containing something that looks like one part factory, one part nightmare, with jagged and sharp fins adorning a spherical shaped room at its heart.

"The council has in their possession a device called a 'Wolfram Alpha-Phase Pulse Generator'. This device is designed to release a form of radiation known as 'Wolfram particles' which can render organic molecules into dust."

"Why? Why would they do this, Why would anyone do this?" Judy inquired, reaching for some reasoning for the madness.

"They do this because they see themselves as the stewards of Zootopia. They believe that society cannot function without the intervention of an elite group such as themselves, which makes decisions for the masses. They view absolute freedom as analogous to absolute chaos, and hence the need for them to sacrifice some of an individual's freedom to maintain order. This particular 'Final' solution seems to be their last bid attempt to create what they have been trying to build slowly since the founding of Zootopia." Finished Clawhauser

The room stood deadly silent, one could hear a pin drop, the truth of it all explained right in front of them. The Council's master plan was to start over, killing every Zootopian in some insane depopulation scenario. Only to retake it with their class system of genetically engineered populace, all the while maintaining the eternal eye of providence over all, from the recesses of some cyber-digital domain. It was the stuff of nightmares made manifest.

Stunned expressions filled the room, processing the stakes of what it is they just heard, thinking of every animal out there, every male, female, and child who would be affected by this, the families of the B13 agents who would be affected, Judy's family, and Judy and Nick themselves.

Judy and Nick looked at each other and held their paws together, clutching tight, realizing that this was an all-or-nothing confrontation.

No second chances…No surrender, No retreat.