A World All Her Own - Toga (2024)

Chapter 1: WEEK ONE

Chapter Text

AUDIO RECORDINGS//DOCTOR HOWARD//Initial Discovery and Interaction (Henceforth referred to as DAY ZERO)

At 2230, LANDSAT 8 detected a sudden and massive thermal spike in the Colorado State Forest. The anomaly was short-lived, lasting just over eight seconds, and produced a small, non-lethal amount of radiation. Though unremarkable for its effects, the sudden nature of the phenomenon piqued the interest of authorities higher than us, and we were dispatched to investigate. We were loath to get on the helicopter, feeling it to be a waste of time; the anomaly was probably a brushfire by some meth head trying to cook up his own supply. Maybe he scored some isotopes from a hospital or something, who knew.

Erring on the side of caution due to the small amount of radiation, we arrived on scene at 0310 clad in clean suits and wielding Geiger counters. The anomaly had a clear epicenter, with all of the grass and foliage burnt away starting from the epicenter and extending outward for twenty meters. The trees were bent away from the epicenter, as if impacted by a shockwave.

Our team took samples from the soil beginning at the epicenter and then every half meter outward. Samples were also taken from the surrounding foliage and trees. Total collection and observational recordings took approximately one hour. During this time, one of our team came upon a remarkable, though admittedly odd discovery.

A lagomorph was found approximately thirty meters from the anomaly epicenter, huddled inside the twist of roots at the base of a tree and wearing a peculiar sort of garb. Our first thought was the lagomorph was a victim of animal abuse, as all four limbs appeared broken and elongated, and because of the aforementioned clothing the animal was wearing. Upon closer inspection, each paw was divided into four fingers, including an opposable thumb. Not only that, but its entire anatomy appeared all wrong and its overall structure was more humanoid than anything.

Doctor Kildale believed the lagomorph to be deceased and began trying to remove some of the costume in order to sex the animal and take blood and tissue samples before bringing it back to the facility. The moment he tugged at the outer layer of the clothing, the lagomorph sprang to life and immediately kicked him in the face, rebounding off his clean suit’s visor and landing itself in a defensive posture – on two legs! Its anatomy was not a matter of mutation or abuse, but actual evolution! The way the legs pivoted from the hips, how the arms fiercely jutted out from its shoulders, how the eyes sat forward in a head that was supported by a strong, muscular neck; this lagomorph was bipedal, and not only that - vocal, too! It actually spoke! English! I nearly wet myself the moment it told us all to back off!

Sensing the discovery of a lifetime, and perhaps with a mind made hazy by the excitement of the find, I made a rather brash decision: I informed the lagomorph to come quietly and there would be no trouble. To emphasize my point I waved my Geiger counter ominously, as if it were a weapon. Doctor Kildale, bless him, picked up on my attempt to intimidate and acted as though he held a weapon as well. The lagomorph examined all of us, no doubt seeing it was surrounded, and somberly dropped its arms with a sigh.

After the lagomorph was secured using plastic binders, it accompanied us on our helicopter without further incident. It remained quiet during transit and would not make eye contact with any of our team.

Upon our return to the facility, the lagomorph and each team member were subjected to the same decontamination procedures, while the lagomorph was given extra scrutiny and walked through a detector suite; no foreign pathogens or contaminants were found upon it. The animal was then transferred to a holding room. Ahead of our arrival I had instructed a bed, dresser, and desk be added in order to lessen the stark nature of the room. The lagomorph willingly entered its makeshift cell and no further interaction was recorded.

I briefly toyed with the idea that it may be an alien lifeform. I might have flown with that hypothesis, but its anatomy was far too reminiscent of a terrestrial lagomorph while being strikingly similar to ours; it must be of this world. I cannot imagine something so eerily familiar evolving on another planet. I cannot overstate my excitement at the prospect of interviewing this being tomorrow.

DAY 1

I must preface this entry by stating that I fear vanity has gotten the best of me. Though there are labs, think tanks, and facilities better equipped than we are to deal with intelligent lifeforms, I confess I am unable to let them take the reigns on this discovery, if not for my own benefit, than for the safety of this lagomorph – Subject One. It is clearly intelligent, beyond any shadow of a doubt. I cannot in good conscience relinquish it to a study group that will poke, prod, and perhaps even vivisect it.

Of course, with that in mind, I must admit to a modicum of hypocrisy; I will need blood and tissue samples at some point, but only after I have gained this being’s trust, and only after it agrees to cooperate. In order to build trust, the foundations of a friendly relationship must be established.

When I walked into the interrogation room Subject One was visibly taken aback by my appearance. I am not horrifyingly unattractive, nor am I a stunning example of the masculine form, so my only guess as to Subject One’s reaction was that it had never seen a human before.

Our first interaction was tense, and the lagomorph was not forthcoming with much information, if any at all. Upon closer inspection it was revealed that its garb was, in fact, a uniform with what appeared to be a police badge pinned to its breast. I suppressed my inner laughter at the thought of a rabbit cop and began the session by being the first to divulge information.

Firstly, I apologized and told Subject One that the ‘weapon’ I had threatened it with back at the anomaly was not a weapon at all, but simply a Geiger counter. It appeared unfazed, so I continued. I gave Subject One my name, age, occupation, a vague idea of our location, and the name of our planet. I suppose I threw in that last one just in case it was an alien. Why not cover all my bases?

At the mention of Earth, Subject One seemed confused and said this was an impossibility, as 'things’ such as myself did not exist on Earth. I pulled up an interactive 3D image on my smart phone and gave it to Subject One. Without my informing it, Subject One intuitively used its pointer finger – or, it’s equivalent, anyway – and dragged it across the screen, spinning the 3D model of our Earth. It did not recognize our planet, and said the colors and size of landmasses were similar, but the placement and overall shapes were different from its own Earth.

Curious as to how it knew how to use a smart phone, I inquired if it knew what a smart phone was. It huffed flippantly at me and then fished out its own smart phone from a pouch on its belt. Instead of an apple logo on the back, it had a carrot, and was a tad smaller than my own. Honestly, it was sort of cute, though I did not dare say this out loud for fear of diminishing it.

I asked to see this…carrot smart phone, but Subject One grew distressed. I had hoped to flip through the images and videos to glean more information about Subject One’s Earth, but the lagomorph was unwilling to part with the device even temporarily. Not wanting to push the subject any further, I instead tried again to ask Subject One’s name and occupation; after all, maybe its get-up was simply a costume.

But Subject One did not hear me and sank into the carrot smart phone, presumably thumbing through images of friends or family from its own Earth. Subject One became unresponsive and I decided to end the session there.

Despite Subject One’s reluctance to talk, the smart phone with a carrot logo would seem to imply it comes from a civilization with equal or near-equal technological capability as humanity. If two different realities that have never interacted with one another grow along similar technological lines, does this hold true for all realities? Is there some optimal path of technological evolution upon which nature always advances? If a bunch of lizards somehow gained intelligence would they eventually invent smart phones as well? Why a carrot logo? Would this imply Subject One’s Earth is inhabited by nothing but other lagomorphs and the Carrot brand reigns as supremely there as the Apple brand does here? Is the stereotypical bunny, thinking of nothing but carrots, actually a reality on the other Earth?

I keep saying other Earth, our Earth...henceforth, and until other evidence shows otherwise, I will not say extraterrestrial, but other-terrestrial. Call me crazy, but I am inclined to believe Subject One is from a different reality. I despise myself for delving so earnestly into pop science, but I have some physicist friends who know far more than I do about these things; I’ll ring them later without divulging the context of my inquiries.

For now, Subject One is more or less comfortable in a holding room, furnished with a bed and dresser full of clothing that should fit; most of it is children’s clothing, so we have removed the tags and any indicators that they are for children. We are not trying to minimize it.

DAY 2

I figured Subject One must be hungry, and I still had some basic rules I wanted to lay out, but I had to step carefully. I wanted it to be absolutely clear that Subject One was not a prisoner by any means, and that no harm would come to it – no exceptions. It could try to escape, it could punch me in the gut or talk about my mother – it would be entirely safe and never be hurt. To this end I have turned into a micromanaging asshole, according to my team. I agree with them, but I need Subject One to know this is not a prison. Any time a meal is ready, it must be presented to Subject One in person, with the door wide open, and with kindness. If anyone tries to slide a dish under the door then I’ll have their head.

I rapped on the door of Subject One’s holding room. I received no answer and allowed myself in. I entered with a single unarmed escort by my side. Subject One looked at me expectantly, then down at the tray in my hands. On the tray was a plethora of vegetables and fruits; most of it was greens, as a terrestrial rabbit’s diet consists mainly of greens with only a small supplementary helping of fruits and veggies. Of course I had no idea if Subject One had the same diet, but this is what I went with without first having asked Subject One.

Regardless, Subject One dug in earnestly, though it seemed to favor the fruits and veggies. If this was the normal diet, it must have evolved a way to better metabolize the sugars found in these items, as sugary treats like carrots or apples are detrimental to a terrestrial rabbit’s health in large amounts. I asked if this is how Subject One always ate, and it nodded. For future reference, more fruits and veggies, less spinach and cabbage.

While the other-terrestrial lagomorph (just trying it out; has a bit of a ring to it, if I might say so myself) was eating, I had my escort step out into the hall and bring back a simple doctor’s scale. Subject One’s ears perked when the scale was brought in, and then asked me what the scale for. I said it’s a tool to measure weight. The rabbit scoffed and said it knew that, but why bring it into the room? I explained that I only want some simple readings during Subject One’s stay: weight to make sure it was not being under- or overfed, and a height record just to make our data thorough. The rabbit did not seem to object any further as the scale was installed by the door.

Subject One finished most of the food and retired to the bed, its forlorn face buried in its smart phone. I chose to end the session there as Subject One became visibly distressed during its use of the device.

DAY 5

I saw when I walked in that Subject One was still in its costume. When I asked why, it said it did not feel like it had enough privacy, and being in a holding room made it feel as though it was being observed. I made no effort of hiding the cameras in the interrogation room, but I tried to explain there were no cameras in the holding rooms. Subject One did not believe me.

Sensing a way to gain its trust, I offered to let Subject One change in the team member dormitories. I reasoned that the watchers had no reason to watch their own sleep; it seemed to agree with a wordless nod. Under light, unarmed escort, Subject One was taken to the team dorms with a change of clothes in hand – paw? – and allowed to change inside. A few moments later it stepped out wearing a pair of blue jeans and a baseball shirt featuring a smiling head of cabbage with exaggerated eyes. Again, I had to mentally chastise myself for thinking 'cute’.

I felt I had done Subject One a service, and thought now would be a good time to ask its name, if only so I could stop saying Subject One over and over again in these damned entries.

We stopped while walking the hallways back to Subject One’s room.

Judy, it said, after a long moment of hesitation. My name is Judy.

Of course I should’ve been happy with just that breakthrough, but being a perfectionist I had to make sure; I asked if Judy was female. I had an inkling, an inference, but at the risk of squandering whatever goodwill I had just gained, I had to hear Judy say it. Upon my question Judy looked rather offended, but that quickly passed and she nodded. I smiled and we walked back to her room in what felt like a not-unfriendly silence.

Her name is Judy. Progress is progress. Henceforth I will no longer refer to her as Subject One.

DAY 7

Nothing notable occurred on day seven of Judy’s stay with us, but I wanted to make an entry anyway in order to cap the week and provide a brief summary.

As things are now, progress appears slow-going, but I hope that will change as Judy grows more comfortable around us. My ultimate goal is to discover how she arrived on Earth, as travel between dimensions or realities would open up a new frontier for mankind–one that would offer truly unlimited potential, beyond the comparatively measly offerings of the sea or the torturously slow pace of space exploration. The physicist friends I contacted earlier in the week still have yet to get back to me.

Along the way, however, I would like to get Judy back to her home if we ever figure out how. Staying within this facility forever is a fate not even I could endure and we clearly cannot release her to the general public. Her life would never have any semblance of normalcy, and I’m sure the more religious people of the world would throw a hissy fit of biblical proportions over the fact that another species has been given the gift of intelligence, something they thought reserved only for humans.

Our tertiary goal is to decipher her biological tree. Perhaps map her genome, try to fit Judy into our own taxonomy. I’m a little hazy on this goal as I have no idea how to apply our taxonomic model to a lifeform not of Earth, or even if we could. I think, in a pinch, we could throw her somewhere along the lagomorpha line, far ahead of modern day rabbits. She’d be at the very tip of her branch on the tree of life, much like hom*o sapiens sapiens.

Chapter 2: WEEK TWO

Chapter Text

AUDIO RECORDINGS//DOCTOR HOWARD//DAY 9

I still need blood and tissue samples. My team and I are eager to begin DNA sequencing and genomic analyzation, but I feel a few more days of building a repetoire would do us well in the long run. Judy’s only been here a week; I’d like to let her settle for a little bit longer before I begin asking to poke needles in her and pluck tufts of fur and scrape up epithelial cells.

Instead, at least for today and the next few days, I’d like to continue our simple talks, easing her into our world while hoping she opens up about hers.

I knocked on her door and she shouted me in. I found her on the floor performing push-ups in a t-shirt and basketball shorts – apparently she now felt comfortable enough to change in her room. I watched her for a moment, noting the musculature of her body at work. At a glance, she was absolutely indistinguishable from a human as far as muscle structure. I must remember to schedule a musculoskeletal MRI. With Judy’s approval, of course.

I asked her if she’d like to accompany me for another interview. She came back with the suggestion that we simply talk right there in her room; she reasoned she was in the middle of her routine and did not want to interrupt it. It seemed a fine idea to me. The lack of cameras wasn’t an issue so long as I kept my recorder on.

I noticed her uniform, the one we found her in, on a hanger suspended from a dresser drawer knob. It was separate from the other clothing; the only piece in plain view, like it was a trophy or a reminder. The badge had recently been polished – at least as best as she could have done without any actual polish. She likely used a clean shirt or something.

I asked her if she was really a police officer. The idea of a cute rabbit being a cop still tickled me but I kept this notion to myself. She said yes.

Curious as to what crimes one rabbit might visit on another, I pressed her further. At this point she stopped and asked what my obsession with bunnies was. Unfortunately, my assumptions snuck their way into conversation, and like a grad student unsure of his answer, I timidly explained that with Judy being a rabbit officer in a rabbit world, my rabbit-related questions seemed relevant.

She co*cked her head sideways and her ears flattened (by the way, I must remember to document such behavior. Ears are directly related to her emotional state). She hopped up onto her bed, took a sip of a water bottle, and dropped a bombshell on me.

Her world is inhabited not only by rabbits, but hundreds of animals, perhaps thousands; she could not give me an exact figure on the number of species. All of them mammals, the majority of them prey animals, and all living together as a single people. Wolves are accountants, gophers are landscapers, beavers are construction workers, otters are florists, tigers are dancers, any animal is anything and everything.

Naturally, this floored me and I found myself erasing every assumption I had made about a rabbit world. For a world to be inhabited by tigers, deer, bears, rats, wolves, whatever, and for all of them to have equal capability for intelligence is beyond the realm of chance. Brain chemistry differs between species; brain size and neuron count differs between species. For convergent evolution to select for one trait across thousands, for it to select intelligence, one of the most elusive traits on Earth…it’s simply unheard of. I might say impossible, but I cannot refute it; Judy is living proof, and I cannot think of a reason for her to lie, as forthcoming as she was being.

I mentally revisited the alien theory, but instead of Judy being the alien, I posited the nutty idea that perhaps alien beings visited her Earth and uplifted the entirety of class mammalia. Or maybe there was some sort of virus or bacteria, something that altered class mammalia. It would’ve had to be one hell of a pathogen to jump from every mammalian species to another. There isn’t an organism on record with that kind of cross-species transmission capability.

Beyond that, how did the social dynamics change in such a population compared to humans? Did certain species have a propensity for certain tasks? Were prey animals relegated to safer, risk-averse occupations? Is Judy an exception in this case? Do predators, with their natural weaponry, make better cops and soldiers? How did their hunting instincts factor into society? Were they suppressed? Did…did predators still eat prey?

These all seemed like heavy questions and I did not want to interrupt her; this was the most talkative she’d been since day zero. She went on for almost an hour, talking about all the characters she’d met so far. A power-hungry lamb, a tiny shrew who ran a criminal family, a couple of polar bears that sold beach umbrellas, a buffalo as the Chief of Police…

And she might have kept going, but she grew distant and unresponsive after mentioning a fox police officer. I tried to reengage her by expressing interest in any of the aforementioned characters – and I really was interested, it wasn’t an act at all – but she asked to be left alone.

I’m beginning to think the gravity of her situation is sinking in. She has no idea how she got here, has no idea where here is, and she has no idea when or if she’ll ever get back home. If this is how she will become every time she mentions her home…

Regardless, she is clearly bored. I had some exercise equipment moved into her room. She now has a set of small free weights, a bench press bar with several two and a half and five pound plates, and an incline bench. They may be a bit big for her, but she should be able to at least get her paws around the handles. I have also placed a requisition order for some more board games; I dare not raid the team rec room of Battleship or Monopoly. They’d kill me without mercy.

DAY 11

I caught Dr. Byron and Judy speaking amicably in the hallway, I presume on their way to the interrogation room. Neither of them had seen me yet, so I took the opportunity to eavesdrop from around the corner, peeking out to observe Judy’s ears as she spoke. Let it be known that if they had been discussing anything personal, I would have stopped listening immediately.

Instead, Judy and Dr. Byron were discussing a city called Zootopia. Clearly it was a portmanteau of zoo and utopia; a paradise for animals. Naturally this raised some interesting questions about the language of other-Earth. Judy very clearly speaks modern-day English. Are there other languages? Spanish? German? Japanese? Without the countries from which these languages originate on Earth, what does other-Earth call them? Again, questions for the future.

Back to Judy’s ears. They have three states: relaxed, alert, and flattened. When relaxed, her ears are held upright, though gravity gets the best of them and the tips droop downward ever so slightly. When alert, her ears are held rigid and straight, as if scanning for noise. When she flattens her ears, they fall down, tucking against the back of her head and reaching down her back.

With only three states, each one has several emotional states associated with it. I could simply ask her about it later, but that would be too easy. If I had to guess, flattened ears are mostly associated with sadness or fear; her ears flattened when she recalled being chased by a crazed jaguar through a rainforest. On the subject of that jaguar, she mentioned later being challenged by the Chief of Police on the veracity of the jaguar’s savagery. Even as she recalls how meekly she reacted to this Chief Bogo character, her ears were alert; maybe indicating assertiveness after the fact, or perhaps anger. When not hitting the climaxes or action sequences of her stories, her ears seemed to default to a relaxed state.

Of course, my guesses are just that – guesses. For all I know, her ears are a contextual-based display – different kinds of sad or happy could share the same ears – and my hypothesis is out the window. I will most likely end up asking her about her ears anyway. For now, I went the opposite way and left Dr. Byron and Judy to talk. I do not want to monopolize Judy’s time and incur the ire of my team, nor do I want Judy to think I am hovering over her as if she is some child and I her overbearing parent.

DAY 12

Judy thanked me today for the exercise equipment in her room. It was the first time I had ever seen her smile. It was a small one, and it could have been out of politeness rather than actual joy, but it was a smile nonetheless. Eventually, I’d like to let her roam the facility at her leisure. We could remove the weights and bars from her room and have her go to the exercise room whenever she liked, along with the rec room, the showers, the cafeteria…

Overall, it seems safe to say Judy’s spirits have picked up a little. Dr. Byron’s enthusiasm towards her stories yesterday may have given her a bit of energy. Other team members have begun to seek Judy out for a chat, and she genuinely seems to enjoy telling whatever stories she has. At one point she had an audience of four, all listening intently to the time she busted a robbery ring with a rhino and wolf acting as her back-up while a tiger in a police chopper overhead tracked the one suspect that made a run for it. It sounds ridiculous to say aloud, I know.

Even though Judy has been with us for just under two weeks, I find myself considering the long game. Though I have yet to ask her about the nature of her transport to Earth, I must guess she has no idea what happened. If she did, she’d be working on trying to get back home. And since we currently have no idea on how she got here or how to get her home, I must assume she’s going to be here for a long time.

I wonder how Mister Gordon would take to the idea of sticking her on the security team; he’s always complaining of being short-staffed. We’re a large facility and we have a sizable staff. Lovers’ quarrels, thefts, and fights happen from time to time. I’d like to give Judy something to do that reminds her of her place in her own world. She wouldn’t have her own clearances and would be forced to accompany another security officer to every incident, but…

I’m getting too far ahead of myself, and now that I think about it, I have no doubts Mister Gordon would have me submitted for psych eval. Above all, I don’t want to become complacent with the idea of Judy as a permanent resident. I must keep in mind that she belongs in her own world, with her own friends and family. I don’t know how or when, but we will always be trying to get her home.

DAY 13

I went to Judy to see if she felt up for a chat, but her door was ajar and she was absent. Doctor Kildale walked by that moment and told me Judy had asked for a shower and had an escort take her to the facilities about twenty minutes ago.

I took a peek inside her room. Things were more or less neat and tidy. Almost all of her laundry was in the hamper save for what appeared to be a worn shirt flung haphazardly across the bed.

And next to the shirt was her phone. That little smart phone with the carrot on the back. It sat screen side up, and I must admit I felt a terrible inclination to violate the trust I had built with her; she would never know – but I would. I must’ve stood there for what felt like ages, going back and forth on whether I should take a look or not. To see firsthand images of this Zootopia she talks about, or of her family or home. Things that she might possibly be inclined to share later on, or I could see them now…

Thankfully, the opportunity was lost to me as Judy and her security escort rounded the corner with Judy wearing a fresh set of clothing. Her escort veered off upon seeing me, leaving her in my care. She looked a bit more poofy than usual, and smelled oppressively like melon and cucumber. She must’ve used Doctor Weber’s conditioner, which always hung in the air several minutes after she had left. Had Judy upturned the entire bottle over herself? Did she like how it smelled?

I tried to look nonchalant, to appear as though everything was normal. Judy is perceptive, however, and as she walked by she regarded me rather oddly. Honestly, the way she looked at me reminded me of how my mother would look at me whenever she thought I had done something wrong but couldn’t figure out what.

She picked up her phone from her bed and fiddled with it and seemingly forgot I was standing at her door. She looked at me strangely again and asked if I was okay. I said I was fine, and lied about a mild stomach ache. I left her alone without closing the door before I left.

DAY 14

Today was an interesting change of pace. Judy sought me out.

She found me in my office and explained that Doctor Kildale had told her where to find me. I asked if everything was fine, and without answering she produced her smart phone and offered it to me.

Like I mentioned yesterday, she is perceptive, a trait likely developed further over her career as a police officer. Even though I had done nothing wrong yesterday, she must’ve sensed what I had felt: that even in thinking something wrong, I had done wrong.

I glanced at the phone and then took a long, hard look at her, explaining that I did not want to push her any further than she was comfortable, and that if she wanted to keep the phone to herself I would not hold it against her in any way. She only shook her head, and I gingerly took the phone from her paw – hand? I really need to pick one or the other – and saw that she had already pulled up an image for me.

It was Judy with another, smaller rabbit crawling over her shoulder and head; a niece, Judy said. Her name was Cotton. She motioned for me to keep swiping. I did, and Judy called out the names as I did. Her parents, named Bonnie and Stu, innumerable siblings, Billy, Violet, Roy, Joey, Leonard, Richard – rabbit, rabbit, rabbit, rabbit, rabbit, rabbit…and a fox.

She froze, and I saw her arms twitch forward almost imperceptibly, as if she meant to quickly take the phone back. But she calmly explained the fox’s name was Nick, and he was her partner on the force – the ZPD, she said, or the Zootopian Police Department. I paused briefly and then resumed swiping, and Judy again recited all the countless names from memory as I went, which was honestly impressive.

Satisfied, and not wanting to exhaust her goodwill in one burst, I gave back her phone and remarked that she had a beautiful family. As she took the phone from me, I had a moment of panic in that I had no idea if this phone worked on the facility’s local wifi. As a passing thought, I asked Judy if she had tried to make contact with any of her family. She shrugged and said no, then showed me five empty circles and an ‘x’ at the top of the home screen; no service and no connection, she said. That was a lucky break. I’ll have the IT department make sure there are no new devices connected to the network. Just covering my bases.

With all that behind us, I had a distinct feeling something was off, but I couldn’t quite pin it down. She rattled off the names of her family without pause, but stumbled upon my discovery of this fox, Nick. That was when I realized she had mentioned a fox officer earlier, on…day nine, I believe, and I found myself wondering if he was recently disgraced or killed in the line of duty. I can’t fathom any other reason for her to react so atypically. If she missed her family and this fox equally, why would she twitch at his mention, and not the mention of her parents or brothers and sisters?

Every time she had mentally checked out into her phone, she had been reminiscing about friends and family, as I had hypothesized. I would too, if I was a stranger in an even stranger land. If she is now willing to open up to others, to me, about her family instead of closing herself off with them, perhaps this marks a turning point in her mental state. The idea that she’s stuck in an alien world might never sit right with her, but perhaps now she is coming to terms with it.

On a bit of a tangent, I noticed while using her phone that her battery was very nearly depleted. She must’ve been using it sparingly for it to have lasted this long. I don’t want to take away the only connection she has now to her own world. When I get in touch with the IT department, I’ll see if one of them can figure out a way to charge Judy’s phone.

Chapter 3: WEEK THREE

Chapter Text

AUDIO RECORDINGS//DOCTOR HOWARD//DAY 15

My objective this week is different. For the past two weeks, I have been prying into Judy’s world, and her personal life. I don’t want to assail her with questions, nor put her up to the expectation that I want an interview every day. This week, I’d like to return the favor, so to speak. I’m going to entertain any questions she has about our world.

I figured I’d start with some culturally significant pieces of media. Movies, music, and books can all tell a story; not only in and of themselves, but of the cultures and time periods in which they were written. However, with such a staggering amount of material to choose from, I found myself grabbing whatever I could from our on-site library; any books, movies, or articles I could find, digital and physical.

But I found myself stumped. I could not honestly expect her to read all of these epics in an appreciable amount of time. I then thought to stick to visual media which is more readily absorbed. Still, I grabbed a few books that I thought Judy could quickly power through. I also decided to stick to English, since that’s what she spoke.

Though as I went through the stack of books, I saw Romeo and Juliet. I thought for a moment and ended up putting it back. I do not want to put the idea of suicide in her mind, and beyond that, I’ve never been a fan of tragedies. Romances, sure, but I’d rather the two lovers end up together in life than in death. I like my stories to have happy endings. I’ve been called naive because of this quirk, but I think it is the natural state to want happiness.

I set all of these things out across several tables in the library and went to fetch Judy. I asked her to accompany me and she didn’t object, though I think she sensed my giddiness. I was about to introduce an other-worldly being to human culture for the first time! My pace was brisk and Judy nearly had to jog to keep up with me.

Back in the library, I explained to her what I had done, and what all of these things on all of these tables were. Go wild, I said.

She looked at me with a smile, like perhaps I was crazy, but I must’ve piqued her curiosity. She was slow at first, perhaps overwhelmed by the amount of information I had put out before her, but she began picking up books that I assume she thought interesting.

I was disappointed in her selections at first. A Color of His Own, The Grinch, The Giving Tree – children’s books left over from a long-standing but never-enacted policy in case a child was ever conceived on-site. But Judy suprised me. I think you can tell a lot about people by what they teach their kids, she said. I immediately stopped judging her picks, as she clearly had a reason for whatever books she chose. Though I did note with glee that she also picked up a historical encyclopedia and a National Geographic issue detailing human evolution; she was interested in learning more about us.

Judy eventually made her way to the couch in front of the television, captivated by Russian ballerinas of the past and present. Soon enough, the dancers were replaced with narrated clips featuring a number of classical artists and their most recognizable and significant pieces.

While Judy was clearly rapt, Doctor Byron surprised me by suddenly clasping a hand on my shoulder. He had the dumbest grin on his face as he called me an idiot. Just give her the internet, he said.

I admit, that seemed like an oversight on my part. I suppose fear of the death of printed media tinged my actions a bit; books always seem on the verge of obsolescence these days and so I made them relevant whenever I could. But still, I felt as though my mistake could have its benefits. They give Judy context. Sure, I could plop her down in front of a computer and tell her to search for whatever she’d like, but where would she start? Now she can see the name Shel Silverstein in a book, look him up on any search engine, see he was nominated for something called an Academy Award, see a list of movies that have been nominated, perhaps click on Apollo 13, then follow through to see what this NASA is all about and ultimately read about one of mankind’s greatest moments. All from a children’s book.

Judy stayed in the library for a while. I think she would have forgotten entirely about dinner if I hadn’t reminded her. She retired to her room with an armful of books and magazines. I’ll have the IT department give her a computer tomorrow, along with monitored internet access.

DAY 16

While the IT guys were installing her computer (I was thinking a desktop, but Doctor Jensen gave her a laptop instead, which seemed a better idea), I was explaining the rules to Judy. I told her point blank that given we are a supranational team and facility of potentially world-altering projects and discoveries, her internet access would be strictly monitored. I then explained that the entire team, even the security team, faced the same level of scrutiny; all of us have monitored internet access. Our superiors couldn’t have us blabbing about a talking rabbit, among other things, now could they?

She shrugged and seemed fine with everything I said. She jumped into her moderately oversized chair, and for a moment I thought to explain to her how the laptop worked. Then I remembered how easily she understood my smart phone and I simply let her figure things out as she went. Apparently computers in her world must be the exact same because she had everything figured out in a second. The only thing I had to explain were the websites we had pre-loaded into the bookmarks section.

And before Doctor Jensen left, she politely asked Judy for a look at her phone and if she would be so kind as to point out the charging port. Judy obliged after a split second of hesitation. Doctor Jensen took several photos of the charging port along with some measurements, then told Judy she’d have a phone charger ready for her by tomorrow. To say Judy was ecstatic would be a tremendous understatement.

We left Judy with her new computer and I asked Doctor Jensen if it was wise to so easily claim to have a fix for the phone. She explained to me that given similar technological capability and the ease with which Judy utilizes our technology, it stands to reason that smart phone technology is very nearly identical, and so too would the methods used for charging the phones. If Judy’s phone was a tad larger, Doctor Jensen had no doubts that a standard USB charger would fit. As it is now, however, she’ll have to contact the fabrication team and book some time in the shop to create a charger from scratch.

I asked her why she couldn’t simply create one of those homemade chargers with a pair of double-A batteries. She laughed and said that would be too easy.

I had almost forgotten, but I asked Doctor Jensen if she had detected any new, unauthorized devices on any of the facility’s local networks. She said no. So now I know that bullet has definitively been dodged.

DAY 17

Today was an exceedingly…odd day. I cannot think of another word to describe today’s events.

Judy found me in my office. She brought her laptop with her. While using it and perusing the internet at her leisure, she came across a youtube video of a Shakira song. I forget which song it was; it’s completely irrelevant.

She played the video for me and afterwards asked who the artist was. I told her Shakira, and her ears flattened and she was visibly confused. She produced her phone and played a song from it: “Try Everything” by an artist named Gazelle (how odd to take your moniker from your actual species). And we both listened, flabbergasted.

Gazelle and Shakira sound exactly alike. And I’m not talking about familiar to a certain degree, I mean absolutely, one hundred percent, unequivocally exactly alike. Her cadence, pitch, intonation – it was all identical.

Now it was very hard for me not to jump to conclusions right there. I approached it somewhat rationally. I am a scientist, after all. There are a near infinite number of possible human beings – that is to say, DNA will almost always create a unique person. Almost always. It cannot be entirely discounted that by random chance, the forces of nature will create a copy of a person. The chances are astronomically, incomprehensibly, impossibly small – there are more unique combinations of DNA than there are atoms in the universe – but the chance does exist. Human DNA can only be combined uniquely so many times, something to the tune of 10 to the 9 millionth power. I cannot recall the exact figure.

With an infinite number of universes, it could be said that this chance for random genetic similarity increases. The only caveat is being fortunate enough to witness it.

Barring the obvious differences in species and appearance, it is possible that in some far off corner of space and time, someone was born with a voice identical to Shakira’s. In this case, a gazelle in Judy’s world. I thought this seemed reasonable enough, even if highly improbable. But then Judy had to completely destroy that tenuous hypothesis by showing me the rest of the songs on her phone.

She had dozens of artists on her phone, such as the Beagles, Guns and Rodents, Fleetwood Yak, and all of them sounded like our world’s human counterparts. Except for Guns and Rodents, they squeak a bit much for me to hear any resemblance to Guns and Roses.

Again my mind tried to make sense of this. The near-impossibility of identical traits occuring so frequently destroyed my previous theory, and I was forced to mentally regroup. So Shakira has a vocal double on other-Earth. Does Judy have a vocal-double on Earth? Does someone on other-Earth sound like me? Could it be that certain characteristics are predisposed or predetermined? Like a hole-punch across different reams of ribbon, where each ribbon is another universe and the hole-punch is – oh God, I’m reminding myself of that one week in grad school I spent tripping on acid. Never again.

And why must everything be animal-related? Judy is Judy; her name isn’t Rabbit. So why must their Fleetwood Mac be known as Fleetwood Yak? Can’t it just simply be a Yak named Mac? Why must a group of rodents name themselves Guns and Rodents?

Going back to the drug-induced theories of my irresponsible days, let me suggest a crazy hypothesis. Certain characteristics may carry across to other realities. Let’s assume all the filler of a certain reality is like a stream of water; that water contains everything that makes up a reality, all the culture, media, history – it’s all in this stream. And once a reality passes through a perpindicular stream of stain, all that filler gets tainted by the color of that stain. So maybe, the filler for our universe was tinged by another color – by another reality.

I hate metaphysics. It’s all weird theories and no answers. I have no idea what to make of any of this. Judy was as equally lost as me and neither of us knew what to do besides take it all at face value. I’ll chalk this one up to the mysteries of the universe.

DAY 18

Judy found me very early today, somewhere around six in the morning.

She had in her arms three thick books with dozens of yellow post-it notes sticking out from the pages. She has been a busy rabbit, and I was eager to see what she wanted to discuss. The space race? The invention of electricity? The discovery of the combustion engine?

Imagine my horror when the jumps onto my desk and dumps the books across my workstation. Two of them detailed great battles of World War Two and the third involved first-hand accounts of slavery in Europe and North America. My heart rate markedly increased as I began to think I may have made a mistake in essentially letting her have the run of the library. What if this had been some near-deific being inconspicuously trying to determine if humanity was worth saving? I might’ve doomed us all if that had been the case.

I calmly asked her what she wanted to discuss. She started with the slavery book, prying it open and thumbing to the pages she had marked. She began to incredulously read to me passages of interviews, as if she was trying to decide if this was fiction or not. I let her go on, though every so often she would look up at me, as if waiting for a response. It wasn’t until she had been reading to me for close to 15 minutes that she finally stopped and asked me if it was all real. Buying and selling other humans, the horrid conditions of the slaver ships, working people to figurative and literal death…was it all real? Did it all actually happen?

I told her yes, and for all its horror, it was still happening today. Slavery takes on many forms and can be perpetrated on an indivudial level or societal level. While nearly every corner of the civilized world has outlawed the ownership of other humans, the entire globe is impossible to police, and these atrocities still occur. The most widely recognized perpetrators of slavery, namely the entire western hemisphere, outlawed it long ago, though the trade of human lives carries on in places like Africa, Asia, and South America.

Humans are an imperfect species. I didn’t want to throw us all under a bus, so I left it at that. Her expression softened somewhat, as if she was viewing this all from an academic sense than an emotional one. She went for the World War Two book, but I stopped her. I said that some are so hungry for power, they will do all they can to take it, and all they can to hold onto it. Whether it’s killing others by the millions or selling lives as if they’re nothing; power drives many people.

She seemed to understand, and I recalled her mentioning a power-hungry sheep last week. While I doubt this sheep, apprehended by a rabbit cop, had wreaked as much havoc as our tyrannical despots or megalomaniacs, I feel my quip about power gave Judy enough to begin making a few parallels.

Judy still meant to open up the books about war, but after a moment’s thought she instead scooped them up and quietly left. I hope she’s able to distance herself from her studies. Someone as intelligent as she is must be able to tell we’re not all bad, that you can’t generalize an entire species because of its past, or because of the things that still happen, no matter how hard we try to fight it. I wondered if I had done well or irreparably tainted her view of me and my fellow researchers.

I didn’t have to wonder long. Doctor Jensen stopped by later in the evening, looking awfully proud of herself. She presented to Judy a tiny, white, custom-made phone charger, complete with a little carrot logo. She plugged it in and hooked up the phone, and we held our breaths waiting for a sign that it worked.

The phone chimed, indicating the charging process had begun. Judy actually jumped into the air, which was the largest display of emotion I had yet seen from her. And here I thought she was happy when she learned she was getting a new charger.

I thought Judy made a motion towards Doctor Jensen, something like the start of an embrace, but she backed off before Doctor Jensen noticed. Perhaps if she had been bending down Judy would have followed through? Maybe Judy didn’t want to hug her leg? Who knows.

Doctor Jensen made a point to ask to see the internals of the phone before she left, but when Judy failed to answer promptly, Doctor Jensen backed off immediately and said no problem; she’d get to it on Judy’s time.

It’s clear that Judy’s spirits are as high as they’ve ever been since her arrival, and I’m more than relieved to see that she knows history is just history, and that there will always be crime despite the best efforts of people like her.

I’m feeling good about tomorrow. I’ll ask for samples tomorrow. But I’ll need tact. I’m not just poking and prodding some animal.

DAY 20

So I chickened out yesterday. I don’t know why. I’m afraid she’ll say no, but I can’t put it off forever.

I found Judy’s door ajar and peered inside to see her on her bed fiddling with her phone. I knocked on the door and she invited me in.

I pulled her desk chair out and took a seat. Judy appeared mildly alarmed; probably due to my unusually solemn look. She asked what was wrong.

I explained to her that her arrival is a monumental occurrence. Beyond world-changing, her presence on Earth has universe-altering implications. She was important on every level in every scientific sense. She seemed to follow me, nodding tentatively as I spoke.

I then asked her what might happen in her world should an entirely alien and undiscovered species be found. She thought for a moment, then her ears flattened slowly as she recalled some science fiction movies and television shows about all the uncomfortable or bizarre tests they might run. Her voice became quieter, and it genuinely pained me to see the fear that grew in her eyes as she spoke.

Before she could say another word I put my hands up in deference and explained to her that no samples would be taken and no tests would be performed without her permission, nor without her first seeing any procedures first carried out – on me. I would offer myself up as a sacrificial lamb to show her how harmless everything would be.

Her fearfulness faded slowly. She quietly asked what I had in mind. All we wanted were epithelial cells, some hair, and some blood. I was expecting a flinch at the mention of blood, but she showed no such motion. She did bite her bottom lip, as if mulling it over. I didn’t want to pressure her into it, but I explained that as an unknown species to our world, she may have some secrets hidden in her DNA that better explain her similarity to humans, or perhaps there’s the off chance that her body possesses something that could combat or cure some disease we have.

She looked at me and only nodded. I hid my relief and giddiness and gently asked her to accompany me to the medical wing. We walked the hallways for what I’m sure felt like an eternity for her. Ahead of time, I had asked all security team members to make themselves scarce along the path to medical. I didn’t want Judy to see any of her escorts looming about, as if ready to jump and pin her while we forcibly extracted samples.

On the contrary, the hallways were populated only by research team personnel, all of whom would kindly say hello to Judy and I as we walked by. By the time we reached the medical wing, Judy was almost smiling again.

Waiting for us in our room was Doctor Madaki, already wearing latex gloves. The three kits were spread out on a small table before him: cheek swab, blood draw, and hair. Or, rather, fur in this case.

I took the seat directly in front of Doctor Madaki. Judy sat in the chair adjacent to me. Doctor Madaki said hello to us both and asked if we were ready. My answer had no hesitation, but Judy still wasn’t sold. Surely they must have similar tests in her world; equal technological capability must mean equal medical capability.

Did she simply not trust me? That thought stung mildly; I had done nothing to earn any distrust. Perhaps I was overthinking it. I suppose I’d be cautious of aliens wanting to stick needles into me, even if they had been kind and courteous so far. That seemed most likely. I keep forgetting to see things from her perspective. No matter how well we treat her, she’s still marooned among aliens in an alien place.

Doctor Madaki tore open the cheek swab kit and instructed me to open my mouth. I did, and he rubbed the cotton swab up and down the inside of my right cheek. As he worked, he explained to Judy what it was he was doing and what he was taking. He bagged the sample and turned to her as he ripped open the second kit. She slowly opened wide and allowed a sample to be collected. Oddly enough, I noticed she had a full mouth of teeth more closely resembling a human than a rabbit, save for the two oversized incisors.

Next, three hairs were plucked from atop my head. He then went to take a sample from Judy, but to my amusem*nt, hesitated; he couldn’t decide where to take any hair from. Judy decided for him and offered up her arm. He used tweezers to take three hairs.

Then came the last test. Doctor Madaki strung a large rubber band around my arm to hold off for the medial cubital vein; I balled my hand into a fist a few times to make it easier to find. He swabbed the area with alcohol and the next thing I knew, I felt a tiny pinch. Blood flowed through the catheter and into an orange-topped test tube. When it filled, he quickly replaced it with another. Again, he spoke calmly to Judy while the second test tube of my blood filled, telling her all she’d feel would be a pinch. Not even a bee sting.

I paid careful attention to Judy during the entire procedure, and she seemed more curious than anything else. Whatever reservations she had earlier seemed to have melted away, though she did ask if she actually had to give up that much blood. I assured her absolutely not, and that we would only take an amount proportional to her weight.

Doctor Madaki rummaged through a nearby drawer and pulled out a catheter with a much smaller-gauge needle. He went to put the rubber band on her arm, but I stopped him before he could. I made it clear to Judy that I did not want to pressure her in any way. If she was uncomfortable with this for any reason all she had to do was ask us to stop. She simply shrugged and said it was fine and that I was worrying too much; this was much tamer than the things she had been imagining earlier.

A few minutes later, our preliminary test kits were complete. We are now in possession of blood, fur, and epithelial cells of a being not of our dimension. If I was any less professional, I’d have been shouting and hollering at the top of my lungs. Doctor Madaki sent the samples to processing immediately, clapped his hands once, and said that’s it.

With all that behind us, Judy and I stopped by the cafeteria. Over dinner, she was kind enough to show me more images from her phone. She had a group shot of some of her precinct friends, dozens more of her family, and some sweeping panoramic shots of the city.

There were a number of shots of this Zootopia, some from within, some from afar, even a few from above, presumably by helicopter. Nowhere in our world does architecture exist that resembles anything like what she showed me. The only city I can think of that most closely resembles Zootopia is perhaps one of those lavish middle-eastern cities like Abu Dhabi, but it’s only a passing resemblance, at best. Zootopia is absolutely packed. What looks like residential districts ring the perimeter, and the city becomes progressively shinier and more outlandish the closer you move to the center, with the lone outlier (that I could see) being some palm tree structure as tall as any skyscraper I had ever seen.

The city was absolutely stunning, and I wanted to see more, but she quickly put the phone away when she came across a photo of herself wearing an oversized green shirt. She seemed embarrassed about it, despite how cheerful she looked in the photo. Regardless, I hope she has more pictures of the city. The architecture looked incredible.

Chapter 4: WEEK FOUR

Chapter Text

AUDIO RECORDINGS//DOCTOR HOWARD//DAY 22

A bit of bad news and good news today.

Good news first: one of my physicist colleagues finally got back to me today by email. He firstly apologized for his delayed response, explaining to me that a near-catastrophic malfunction occurred during a scheduled experiment involving CERN’s large hadron collider in Geneva, and it had taken the better part of a month to make sure everything was back on track. Containment failure this, unpredictable magnetic field dispersal that – I haven’t got a clue. Physics was my worst subject by far.

Afterwards, his overall tone came off as suspicious. I’m sure he knows I’m hiding something, but he knows better than to ask; I’ve never told him what I do and I would never be allowed to – a conclusion that I feel he must have come to a ways back.

He went off about multiverse and string and M-theory, saying that these were generally accepted interpretations of the existence of multiple dimensions in that it was theoretically possible to measure their existence. The second half of his email involved something called the Many-worlds interpretation of multiverse, which is what most pop science deals with, and thus what most of the general public is familiar with.

Many-worlds interpretation says, in layman’s terms, every universe exists, that each of them is objectively real and encompasses every possible alternate history and future. The whole thing about going left or right at a crossroads? If I choose left, there’s an entire other universe in which I went right, full of all the history that led me to my decision to go right and a future full of all the consequences of that decision.

He went on to say that given the vague definitions and conditions of MWI, many claim it’s absolutely impossible to prove. However, it’s also impossible to disprove, and as such lies within the boundaries of philosophy instead of physics.

I wonder how he’d react if I told him I had living proof. I bet he’d have a coronary. Anyway, onto the bad news.

I got an email from our superiors early this morning. They are…less than enthralled with how I have – in their words – thrown caution to the wind, ignored established protocols, and refused to notify other teams of our discovery here. They’re upset that Judy was not immediately stripped of her belongings, of her clothing; upset that she was not forced into a rag generously called a hospital gown while her items were immediately fed into a mass spectrometer to determine their molecular make-up. And they’re very upset that I have allowed this – again, their words, not mine – creature to retain possession of its phone despite my assurances that her phone is non-functional as a communications device.

But, they said, they cannot argue with results so far. She’s willingly shown images of her home, willingly surrendered test samples, and has overall been cooperative. As such, they are allowing my team and I continued autonomy and they are making minor alterations to established protocols as we go. Should things continue to go well with our all-carrot, no-stick method, they may try to apply said protocols to future visitations of intelligent life.

At first I was elated; our team, despite being ill-equipped for first contact, was now possibly rewriting the books on how to communicate with intelligent visitors. We were at the forefront of the field despite never having should have been there in the first place.

Chapter 5: WEEK FIVE

Chapter Text

AUDIO RECORDINGS//DOCTOR HOWARD//DAY 30

The two rabbits I rush-ordered yesterday arrived. One was a European Rabbit, a breed typically used for cuniculture and one that reminded me of Judy, and the other was a Holland Lop, which is a common pet breed.

Judy made it abundantly clear that she didn’t want to think about those animal cruelty videos she found last week, and I feared I was yet again revisiting familiar territory. But I had a hypothesis – well, more of a curiosity, really – on how she’d react to an actual rabbit in her paws.

Humans have a far-reaching sense of empathy that allows for emotional connections based on a wide range of criteria. Primates are easy to empathize with; we see much of ourselves in their behavior and physiology, and primates readily display emotions that are more or less understandable even to an uninformed person. Lagomorphs have large eyes and funny mannerisms that make them endearing to us; they are cute, in short. Empathy based on cuteness alone is superficial, which is why I wonder if Judy has some deeper understanding or connection to a rabbit because it’s so similar to her, instead of it being merely adorable.

Our facility has an outdoor plaza. It’s a small, uncovered area within the facility with some shrubs and benches that allows team members to get a breath of fresh air after being cooped up for too long. I released the two rabbits there and went to fetch Judy, whom I found still watching nature documentaries in the library.

Upon our return to the garden, she seemed confused as to what this was all about. We both took a seat on one of the benches and I asked her to just wait a moment. It was then one of the rabbits, the Holland Lop, ambled out of one of the bushes and made a beeline for Judy. I feel this was significant somehow. Both rabbits are domesticated and used to humans, but the first one to show itself went straight for her.

Judy was silent, though her eyes spoke volumes. I imagined that some part of her must have been a little uncomfortable with the prospect of meeting an Earth version of her ancestors, but she only clapped a paw over her mouth. Her ears tucked back, and past the edge of her paw I could just barely see the corner of her mouth peeking out in a smile.

The lop is a dwarf breed, and this one did not yet appear to be fully grown. I carefully picked it up with both hands and placed it between me and Judy. It looked about the size of her torso, maybe a tad smaller. It took a quick sniff of my lab coat, then immediately turned its unrelenting attention towards Judy. She sat absolutely still as it hopped into her lap, stood up and leaned on her shoulders for support, and began to sniff all around her face.

At this point I became aware of just how big Judy was. With no visual comparison besides a human, she’s obviously rather small, somewhere just above half a meter. But with an Earth rabbit in her lap, she appears relatively large. Obviously her anatomy is built around her bipedalism and the musculature needed for it. Even compared to the European Rabbit which still had yet to show itself, her head was larger, probably to accommodate her larger brain. As I pondered this more I realized that I had neglected to ask her to submit to an MRI. I’ll get around to it.

The lop sat back down on all fours in Judy’s lap. She raised one paw tentatively, then began to stroke its back. It stayed firmly planted, clearly enjoying the attention. She finally noticed the ears and ran one through her paws, then asked what was wrong with it.

I explained that floppy ears are a trait purposefully bred into some rabbits meant as pets; some thought it made them cuter and thus, more desirable. I noticed her demeanor visibly changed for a split second upon my utterance of the word ‘cute’. She was content to let it go, but my curiosity got the better of me and I asked her what was wrong.

She started by saying she knew that I was not referring to her, but went on to say that 'cute’ is a demeaning term typically applied to bunnies by other mammals, though other small mammals are also similarly disparaged. When a mammal called a bunny cute, it was almost always a diminishing expression; a cute bunny is never taken seriously. Apparently, only bunnies can call other bunnies cute.

It took some effort on my part not to laugh. Not at her or the challenges rabbits face in her world, but at the immediate connection I made between the word cute and any number of racial slurs present on Earth. I stifled my amusem*nt, collected myself, and explained to her that humans on Earth face similar challenges based mostly on skin color or ethnicity. Doctor Madaki, for example – the one that completed her test kits – had faced his share of discrimination while attending school abroad, owing to his dark skin and African heritage.

Judy stopped me in apparent disbelief. She asked if skin color was really that big a deal. Why, she said, does one human feel superior over another for something so innocuous? She patted the tan-colored lop still content in her lap, noting that no bunny would do something so superficial. She was gray and white, others were brown or creme or tan; some black bunnies existed as well, though they possessed a rare mutation that altered their fur’s color. Regardless of all the colors she could recall, she could not think of a single instance where any rabbit was looked down upon for the color of its fur. She couldn’t imagine such discrimination occurring in other animal species either; it’d be like one tiger looking down on another because his stripes have a different pattern, or a red fox looking down on a white fox.

I once more brought up our discussion on slavery and awful people, and repeated myself in saying humans are imperfect, though I added that we can be quite petty as well.

At this point in our chat, the lop hopped off of her and then off the bench. The European Rabbit finally made itself known and scrambled out to see what the fuss was, and the two of them sat nose to nose for a moment before heading their separate ways, though the European circled back around before settling under the bench, directly beneath Judy.

Judy sighed and mentioned that she understood. Mammals look down on other mammals for plenty of reasons. Predators bore the brunt of the abuse. People thought they were big, loud, obnoxious, scary. Sometimes specific species suffered. She brought up foxes in particular, and after a brief moment’s hesitation, explained that people thought they were conniving con artists, that they were cheats, scammers, hustlers.

She timidly nodded, as if agreeing with what she had just said. There were quite a few foxes that she’d run into during her career that deserved their reputation. But, she added, all it takes is a single individual to break the mold, and you can never look at them the same way again. Sort of like herself.

She was, last she knew, the only rabbit to ever join the ZPD. Even after she had graduated valedictorian and had gotten her badge, she still felt as though nobody took her seriously. It wasn’t until after she cracked her first case – centered around that power-hungry sheep she’d mentioned before – that everyone finally took notice. She saw the change in her fellow officers; they treated her differently, treated other bunnies differently. She said some of her younger brothers and sisters at home dreamed: Judy’s not a carrot-farmer and she’s doing pretty well for herself. I could be something different, too.

I brought her and these rabbits out here to confirm a silly curiosity and instead we ended up having a much more important discussion. The rabbits were a welcome distraction for her. I think they allowed her mind to wander while she got some heavy thoughts off her chest.

And there I was with two rabbits and no clue what to do with them. We’ve still got some cages in storage, back from our days of animal testing. They’re a bit small, but Doctor Jensen could probably weld a few of them together to make a bigger space. The woman does love to make things.

DAY 32

I saw Judy speaking with Mister Gordon in the cafeteria today. I wanted to keep my distance; it had been a while since I saw Mister Gordon look so…animated.

Mister Mark Gordon is our Head of Security here at the facility. He’s a slightly pudgy man that’s slow to act and keen to let things play out on their own. By which I do not mean to say he is lazy. He’s quick to action when the situation calls for it and has peacefully – and sometimes physically – solved many disputes among the staff. However, I sometimes get the feeling that he thinks he’s babysitting grown adults. As such, he’s rather loathe to get involved in our squabbles, probably thinking that we’re all as mature as he is and that we should be able to settle our own matters.

He would not be Head of Security if he had not been deemed capable. And I truly believe he is capable. And I know he thinks he is as well, but it pains him not to be able to realize his potential in this place. A bunch of lab coats buzzing around him like bees in a hive and he’s the one guy waiting for something that lets him prove himself, lets him show his true colors. I almost feel sorry for him. The first alien contact we’ve ever had and it’s not some deadly hunter stalking around our facility for him to match wits with. It’s just a bunny cop, equal parts cute and law-abiding.

Actually, now that I think about it, that may be why he may be so engaged with her. If memory serves, I believe he was an officer of the law himself, back before he was 'promoted’ to his current position. I’m fairly sure he’s mentioned the New York Police Department at some point, and I very vaguely recall him saying something about the FBI. I can’t seem to piece it together at the moment; he’s notoriously stingy with details of his past. Whether he’s a private person or his past haunts him, I’m not sure.

I waited until after they were done talking; Mister Gordon walked away looking rather contemplative. Judy saw me and waved me over before I could get a chance to wave her over. I obliged and brought my tray with me; no meat on it today.

We exchanged our hellos before she mentioned she had a question that had been bothering her. She asked me what some of the animals from last week were, in the videos that I had found for her. The dogs, cats, and things in between.

I said exactly that: dogs, cats, cows, whatever else I could remember. I asked her why they were bothering her, and she said they didn’t exist on other-Earth. She thought at first they were strange looking versions of animals she knew, like Earth mutations of wolves or jungle cats.

After mentioning that she had a very good eye, I said they used to be wolves and cats; by way of domestication, humans had been genetically engineering animals for thousands of years. Modern day dogs are descendants of ancient wolves, selectively bred for specific mental or physical traits. Domestic cats come from an ancient wildcat hailing from Africa and the Middle East. Cows were descended from ancient oxen.

So, she said, with no humans, there was no domestication. I agreed with her and jokingly went on to tell her to watch out for the primates, since they’re the ones we humans hail from.

She had no idea what a primate was. Actually, that’s wrong of me to say. Before watching several documentaries and reading several National Geographics, she had never heard of a primate. No apes, monkeys – nothing of the sort. They don’t exist at all on other-Earth.

And then I realized that was the crossroads. That’s where our universes split. After that there could be many other innumerable splits but that was the focal point: no primates, apes, nothing. For whatever reason, the animals that would eventually become chimpanzees, gorillas, bonobos, orangutans…they just never appeared.

I’ll likely never know why. On a world with a similar climate, resources, similar niches and competitions to our own, why would proto-primates never appear? Again, after a long time thinking about it, I hated that I could only chalk it up to chance; just another mystery of the universe. Maybe the multicellular organism that would eventually give rise to hominids got phagocytized in a cosmic roll of the dice before it could propagate.

So without primates, no humans. Without humans, no German Shepherds, no Golden Retrievers, no dairy cows, no domestic cats – nothing. Thee more I think about it the stranger it gets; anthropocentrism dies hard even in the face of a talking animal from a world as equally advanced as our own. But of everything I’ve learned from Judy, this is the first thing that makes perfect sense. Humans don’t exist because primates don’t exist. Simple.

DAY 34

Nothing too groundbreaking happened today, but I wanted to make a note: I do believe Judy has had a positive effect on Mister Gordon. For the first time in a very, very long time, his security uniform was pressed and ironed, his utility belt was in order and level with his waist, his security badge cleaned and shiny, and he was actually smiling!

My curiosity demands I ask what he and Judy discussed that would change him so quickly, but I fear I’d be overstepping a boundary of some sort. She must have quite an inspiring way with words.

On an different note, Judy has expressed interest in helping to care for the two rabbits I acquired the other day. I had no objections. Neither did Doctor Madaki, who is currently keeping them in the medical wing. He’ll give Judy the rundown on their care. The two rabbits seem to be bonding well.

DAY 35

After mulling it over for the past day, I decided to pry and asked Judy what she and Mister Gordon spoke about. I prefaced my inquiry with the declaration that if their discussion was meant to be kept private then I was fine with that. Judy simply shrugged as she closed her laptop. No big deal, she said.

Perhaps then I should have told her that Mister Gordon is normally a private person, but it must’ve slipped my mind at the time.

I was slightly taken aback when she casually used his first name, Mark. I’ve only ever known him as Mister Gordon. It feels very odd to say Mark, I don’t know why.

According to Judy, Mister Gordon was an NYPD Lieutenant with twenty years on the force. It was his dream job. He liked interacting with the city, with its people, liked the idea of protecting his community. Eventually a friend already in the FBI (I paused her to ask if she knew what these acronyms meant; she said Mister Gordon had explained them to her) took notice of his record and mentioned he should try his hand at applying to the FBI. An injury sidelined that ambition, though before he could retire on disability, his paperwork somehow ended up in the hands of our superiors. And after a classified surgery, he worked here.

Which is no mystery to me, honestly. I’m sure they have their eyes and fingers everywhere, combing through all the professionals they can to pick and choose the ones they want to man facilities such as this one.

Judy said that he missed his old job. She apologized to me in advance and then said that he 'hated babysitting a bunch of brats in lab coats arguing about who stole a notebook or a candy bar or who’s banging who’.

Judy said she told him to look at it differently. The staff would seek him out; they chose to involve Mister Gordon in their affairs because of who he was. If he wasn’t respected, if his position carried no weight, if what he did was of no importance, he’d be wasting away in the security office because no one would ever think of him. It didn’t matter what he thought of the conflicts that needed resolving, what mattered is that they wanted his resolutions to them. A city needed cops that can help stop robberies and traffic accidents, Judy had said to him. The research facility needed people that could keep fights under control and track down petty theft.

I guess Mister Gordon neglected to mention the entire armory at our disposal should anything…outlandish occur here. It hasn’t yet, but who knows.

He’s more capable than I think Judy gives him credit for, but her words clearly had a good effect on him. She must have a good sense of what he feels in order to put things into perspective for him like she did.

I asked if there were any similarities between what Mister Gordon did and what she did for Zootopia. Judy gushed about all the things he had done and related them to her own comparatively short career.

She mentioned that he took the subway to work and liked to interact with the people onboard, like she did when she rode the train to and from work. He passed by an inner-city ball court that the neighborhood kids would play soccer on. She had a couple of soccer-playing kids on her favorite beat as well, and time permitting would kick the ball around with them for a few minutes.

She brought up the fact that Mister Gordon had a wise-ass partner. She abruptly stopped and I looked down at her in time to see her smile fade slowly, inexorably. She pulled her knees up to her chest and began to cry. In the midst of her frame-wracking sobs, she fell sideways into me and made no effort to right herself. After a moment’s hesitation, I put an arm around her, grasping her opposite shoulder and rocking her gently. I was sure I was crossing some objective line between researcher and subject but I didn’t much care at that moment.

My mother’s words came back to me in that moment, something she would fall back to during rough times or disappointments. I repeated them for Judy: hope and patience will get anyone through their worst days. I asked her to have hope, and to be patient with me and my team as we investigated her arrival more thoroughly. Please do not ever forget, I said, that my number one priority is to get you home.

With how expertly those words came from my mouth I almost believed them. Up until that moment, that had been a lie. Not a purposeful lie, though. I was not trying to prolong her stay on Earth, but so much was my excitement that for the past month my team and I had more or less entirely neglected the nature of her arrival into our world and instead focused on her. We wanted our samples, wanted our tests, wanted our results, but no one had sat her down to ask her how she came here. What was she doing the moment before being transported to Earth? Where was she before being flung from her world into ours? What was her transit like?

No more nonsense. I don’t need to show her animal videos on YouTube or see how she feels around Earth rabbits. I don’t need to see her family photos or hypothesize about which emotional states correspond to how she carries her ears. First thing tomorrow, I’m issuing an order: all available resources are to be allocated to deciphering the mystery of her arrival.

Chapter 6: WEEK SIX

Chapter Text

AUDIO RECORDINGS//DOCTOR HOWARD//DAY 37

For all the posturing I had done in my mind the other day – acting like enough was enough, that my true work had been ignored – I’m of practically no help to anyone. I’ve made it clear that physics was always one of my worst subjects. Doctor Byron has become the de facto team lead now; his experience in theoretical physics, previously underutilized in a facility concerned mostly with the biological sciences, has now come into play in a big way. As a manner of protocol, all requisitions and resource allocations still go through me, but Doctor Byron is the one telling me what to say yes and no to.

Despite once again being ill-equipped and perhaps under-educated for the work we are about to undertake, all of us are too afraid to bring in outside help. We could request personnel from other facilities but we’re unsure if those newcomers would have Judy’s best interests at heart. I’ve decided if worst comes to absolute worst and we positively require outside assistance, I’d sooner break protocol and involve my friend at CERN rather than have my pick of the innumerable teams looking to get their hands on what they see not as a fellow intelligent being but only as a talking rabbit, a biological oddity to be examined under scalpel and forceps.

New machines are being rush-ordered and old machines are being dragged out of storage, apparently dormant for decades. After questioning Doctor Byron where this equipment came from, I learned today that our facility used to be an atomic and nuclear research station during the middling days of the Cold War. These old machines won’t be of much help for long, but according to Doctor Byron they should prove satisfactory for preliminary work.

As such, I’m relegated to busy work that does not actually keep me all that busy. Exotic particle analysis, emissions tests, all these things that leave me with more free time than I’d like. Though I did interview Judy and finally get around to the conditions surrounding her sudden travel between her universe and ours.

While I had her at the table, I asked her for some simple background – for the record, I said. Things that I had never before asked or she had not yet told me. Apparently she’s 27 years old (is her measure of time the same as ours? I’ll confirm later). She’s been a police officer for three years, she was born in a place called Bunnyburrow, and her full name is Judith Laverne Hopps. It took everything in me not to giggle like an idiot at her surname.

Apparently her day had been as normal as any other day. On a Tuesday, she woke up quarter to six, went to work, then went home to rest and relax. To the best of her memory, she recalled falling asleep somewhere around nine or ten; it had been a long day and so she collapsed on her bed still wearing her uniform. A loud noise startled her during her sleep and she woke up outdoors in someplace she had never been before. After attempting to get her bearings for three or four hours in her new surroundings, she fell asleep again at the base of a tree, completely exhausted. That was when we found her.

It seems so little to go on, but it’s all she can give. If she was asleep during the transit then she has no idea what the transit was like. For her not to wake during seems to imply the mode of travel was either very quick or very quiet. I’m betting it was the former; for the amount of energy LANDSAT 8 detected on day zero, there’s no way it could have been quiet. She was likely in her bed one millisecond, then in our world the next.

Further, why was she the only thing transported? Why did this apparent wormhole not take her bed or sheets and blankets? Perhaps the bed was too large and thus the energy required to move it was greater than what was needed to transport Judy. Perhaps organic matter acted like a lightning rod to whatever energy – no, if that had been the case then why would her clothing have been taken with her?

Or maybe I’m going around in circles because I don’t have a clue what sorts of energies are in play here. God, I wish we had a second data set to look at; another anomaly would be great. Trying to draw conclusions or make inferences from a single data point is damned impossible. But who am I kidding? Even if there was a second event, who’s to say it would even give us someone or something from the same universe as Judy? It could be an entirely different universe. Or maybe a second event would give us someone from a different version of Judy’s universe. The whole situation is a mess no matter how I think about it.

Whatever. I’m tired, I feel useless and cranky. I’ve got another sample to courier to Doctor Byron. After that, I think I’m due for a power nap.

DAY 38//INITIAL DISCOVERY AND INTERACTION//SUBJECT TWO

Lord above, I am now a believer.

LANDSAT 8 detected a second event. Exact same signatures as the first one, down to the temperature readings and radiation output. Most interesting was that the second event shared the exact same coordinates as the first. That felt promising; matching data points between two separate events implies a common method, that these are not acausal machinations of a universe we don’t yet fully comprehend. A bridge, perhaps? An established pathway between two worlds? Is it something on their side or ours that is opening the way? Perhaps both worlds are unwittingly contributing to this phenomenon.

I felt bad leaving Judy with barely a word of explanation, but I’m sure she must’ve sensed the impatience and urgency in my voice. Only Doctors Byron, Kildale, and myself made for the helicopter. I instructed everyone else to remain. The less weight aboard, the faster we’d go.

I feel as if I need to make something clear at this point: we were not in a rush because of the significance a second event would have on our work. We were in a rush because if we detected this second anomaly, so have other research teams. If another being had been dropped off on our world, I felt it within this being’s best interest to meet us first.

As we approached the area I instructed our pilots to use the thermal imaging to scan the area. They spotted the still-warm anomaly epicenter. Thirty meters from the center was a warm body huddled against the base of a tree.

Our chopper touched down and I told our two pilots to watch the radar like hawks while we did our thing.

The three of us filed out. Sample collection time was quick; we just scooped up handfuls of dirt from the epicenter and stuffed it all into collection bags. We tore leaves and branches from nearby foliage. Total collection and observational recordings took about twenty seconds. We made a beeline for the warmth we saw earlier.

Huddled inside the twist of roots at the base of a tree (exact same tree Judy was found in; any significance there, I wonder?) was a red fox wearing a tropical green shirt and tan slacks, a striped tie hanging from its neck. In my head I immediately dubbed it Subject Two, though it felt wrong somehow. This fox seemed vaguely familiar and I swear its name was floating somewhere in the back of my mind but I just couldn’t pin it down.

Regardless, unlike our first encounter with Judy, Subject Two was wide awake and immediately belligerent. The ears were flat, the tail was held out and rigid, and it was very slightly baring its teeth at us. I suspect it might’ve been even more aggressive if we were not wearing our clean suits. I recall how easily Judy had come with us when we asked, probably because she thought we were animals beneath our suits.

Pressed for time beneath the fear that other teams might be closing in, I toyed with the idea of simply divulging Judy’s existence to this fox in an effort to more quickly attain its trust. Before I could, Subject Two took a deep breath and appeared to relax. It saw the helicopter behind us and told us to take it with us. Not wanting to complicate matters with any stupid ideas out of my mouth or my colleagues’ mouths, we jogged for the helicopter with Subject Two following closely behind. In hindsight it was grossly incompetent of us to allow potentially dangerous extra-dimensional being, with teeth and claws easily capable of rending flesh, onto the helicopter without any restraint, but like I said earlier: very pressed for time.

As we lifted off the co-pilot pointed at the radar and said two signatures were inbound from opposite vectors. My blood stopped in my veins when he mentioned we were being painted by laser. He assuaged my fear a moment later when he said it was just a range-finding laser. There were no weapon locks, and even if there were, the co-pilot mentioned he had a suite of countermeasures at his disposal. My eyes were glued to the radar for a long time, following each blip as they both plotted an intercept course for us. They gave up after ten or so minutes and slowly, quietly dropped off the edge of radar range. The rest of our transit was uneventful; Subject Two was remarkably well-behaved considering our initial meet.

Upon returning to the facility, Subject Two was given the same decontamination procedure that Judy was given.

We furnished another holding room to match Judy’s – a bed, dresser, and desk – and led Subject Two inside. It didn’t seem all too concerned with its surroundings and seemed to take his predicament in stride. He sauntered up to his bed and hopped on, crossing one leg atop the other and staring at the ceiling. It took another deep breath. As I closed the door, Subject Two said to me, don’t make me wait long.

I’m not sure what to make of that.

I’m debating whether or not to involve Judy from the start. The two are clearly alike in that it seems probable they’re from the same universe. The baseline universe, at least; I suppose it’s still possible they could each be from a different version of each other’s universe. How could we confirm this?

Regardless, having Judy present during our interactions with Subject Two would bypass much of the difficulty and apprehension experienced during our first days with Judy. I’ll run the thought by Doctor Byron, see what he thinks.

I’d like to wrap this entry up by stating that today was an absolute comedy of errors on my part.

DAY 39

Doctor Byron said to wait on introducing Judy. Keep the two data points separate; don’t let one influence the other until we have Subject Two’s story. He’s right, of course. If Subject Two and Judy were allowed to converse, some aspects of Judy’s account may inadvertently color certain details of Subject Two’s account. Keep them apart for now, and we are able to avoid any potential biases.

To that end, I asked Subject Two to accompany me for an interview. It wordlessly agreed, getting up from the bed and following me down the hallways. The way it carried itself was…different. Judy was proud and walked tall her first time through these halls, perhaps to compensate for an understandable amount of fear. But Subject Two seems as if it could not care less. Every so often it took a deep breath.

Beyond that, he’s entirely agreeable and completely nonplussed by my appearance, as if he doesn’t care where he is or what I am. He answered every question I had without complaint and without hesitation. His name is Nicholas Wilde, age 35, and he’s also a cop. At the time, I thought that was such an odd coincidence that the two people transported here were both cops, but then I realized – that’s why he’s so familiar! I don’t know this fox, though I know of him! Judy’s partner! She’s going to be absolutely ecstatic to –

No. No, no, wait. Now they’re both trapped here. I’m sure she’ll love to have some familiar company, but in the end she and her partner are in the exact same position. I highly doubt this is how she would’ve wanted to see Nick again.

Back to the interview. After his background, I immediately asked about the nature of his transit to Earth while it was still fresh in his mind. His story matched up entirely with Judy’s. He got home, collapsed onto his bed somewhere around midnight, and when he woke up he was in an alien world. What is it with beds? Why would this wormhole snatch two people while they slept? Does the transport only occur at night?

While trying to put these pieces together in my head, Nick interrupted me. I’m a cop, he said. I know how it goes. I do something for you, you do something for me. I answered your questions, so where’s Judy?

I remember giving him the most dumbstruck look I could muster, a face I probably haven’t put on since my first college class. He took another deep breath and asked again: where’s Judy?

He could smell her! He smelled her on me, on the suits we wore when we found him. That’s why he came so easily – that’s why he asked to be taken with us! The suits were clean but we weren’t. We must’ve gotten Judy’s scent all over the suits as we put them on.

In all honesty, I could not think of a reason why he could not see Judy now. He had given us his story and it was a perfect match to hers; there’s no way she could instill bias on a story that already perfectly corraborated her own. He was clean of any pathogens or contaminants, like she was. After a few moments to mull it over, I asked him as calmly as possible to wait right here while I went to fetch her.

Before I could leave he asked, so she’s okay? I smiled and nodded. He slumped back into his seat and finally let a breath out; I hadn’t seen him do anything except breathe in nearly this whole damn time. He’s must’ve been drowning himself in Judy’s scent. As an interesting aside, I suppose this confirms that these mammals, despite their humanoid characteristics, still retain the sharper senses that their ancestors here on Earth have.

I couldn’t find Judy at first. I searched the library, the cafeteria, her room. Turns out we had been running in circles after each other throughout the facility, each trying to find the other. When I finally bumped into her in front of the rec room, it was clear to anyone that she was in a frantic mood. Her ears were alert and her eyes were wide, but telling most of all was her constantly twitching nose. She probably already knew.

She confirmed my suspicions when the only thing she could stammer out to me was a stern, “Where is he?”

My stride is probably equal to about three of Judy’s, maybe four. Even with that in mind, it was nearly impossible for me to keep up with her after I told her to find Interrogation Room Three. She tore down the hallways, bounding off of the walls to change her trajectory more quickly. She very nearly knocked over Doctor Kildale as she went; all she could manage was shouting an apology over her shoulder as she continued on. It struck me that I don’t think she knew where Interrogation Room Three was; she must’ve been guided entirely by her sense of smell, maybe following the scent trail I left behind me on my way to find her.

She had a good five or ten second lead on me, and after I saw her make that final right turn into the room, there was a large commotion. A metallic screech and the sound of metal impacting metal. When I finally reached the doorway, Nick’s chair had been knocked over with a tearful Nick still in it, and in his arms, crying her eyes out and burying herself in the fur of his neck, was Judy.

I left the room afterwards. They clearly had much to catch up on and I did not want to intrude upon their reunion more than I already had. I trusted Judy to show him to his room when they were done; she knew her way around pretty well.

DAY 42

Before I forget, I first wanted to mention that Doctor Madaki has made some headway in analyzing Judy’s blood. There are several antibodies within her blood showing high similarity to rabies and myxomatosis antibodies, very likely as a result from vaccines.

The presence of both is rather interesting. The development of pathogens on other-Earth appears largely unaffected by the absence of humanity. The myxomatosis vaccine is unremarkable to us as one already exists, but there exists no approved rabies vaccine for rabbits on Earth. Doctor Madaki believes given some years of development and trials, a rabies vaccine for rabbits could be reverse-engineered from Judy’s blood.

Unfortunately, all I can muster is a ‘big whoop’. And I don’t say that to belittle Madaki’s work, but it seems so insignificant compared to what we’re attempting to do now. We’ll place that on a backburner for now and continue moving forward on trying to get our two visitors back home.

Speaking of which: Judy has been filling Nick in on her time spent in this facility. Hearing it from her is probably much better than hearing it from me or anyone else; he has no trouble trusting her. I feel that this may bypass a few of the teething issues we experienced after first discovering Judy. Seeing them together is…heartwarming. Despite their predicament, they both seem happy – Judy more so than I’ve ever seen since meeting her.

While things seem all sunshine and roses, I feel I must still remind them of the possibility that they are from different versions of the same universe. I’ll let Nick settle in and get comfortable with his new surroundings before I confront them both with this sobering possibility. Not looking forward to that can of worms but it must be said. Is this her Nick? Is this his Judy?

Chapter 7: WEEK SEVEN

Chapter Text

AUDIO RECORDINGS//DOCTOR HOWARD//DAY 43

After discussing the matter with Doctor Byron, he and I came up with a tenuous method to determine if Judy and Nick are from the same universe.

As far as our technology is concerned, it’s absolutely impossible to be certain if they both hail from the same world. With Judy by Nick’s side, she was able to convince him fairly quickly to give up some blood and tissue samples. There are some fine particulates in his fur that match Judy’s tests, strongly indicating he is from the same city as she is; they would have washed out of her fur by now, so we know she did not physically transfer anything to him. However, with an infinite number of Zootopias, who’s to say he’s from the correct city?He also possesses an other-Earth rabies vaccine of his own, as evidenced by the antibodies in his blood (along with some other interesting compounds that I’ll ask about later). Furthermore, at the atomic level, they’re both the same. Hell, all of us are; humans and Zootopians alike are made up of the same elements.

So we had to rely on something a bit more subjective and potentially full of holes, but it was the best we could do.

Judy and Nick have been inseparable since their reunion. I found them in the cafeteria. Surprisingly, I saw them both eating the same foods. Is he a vegetarian? Is he eating fruits and veggies in order not to offend her? If she wasn’t around, would he be tearing into a steak or – well, no, Judy said all animals are equally intelligent. It would be odd for him to eat what used to be another person. I still haven’t actually asked whether or not predator instincts or appetites are suppressed or substituted with something else. I need to get around to that.

Anyway, back to the pressing matter at hand. I sat down with them and told them that we had a less-than-reliable way to determine if they shared the same origin. Since they appear to be proof of the Many-worlds interpretation of multiverse theory, that must mean that they share a universe with an infinite number of similar universes, along with an infinite number of extradimensional doppelgangers.

I prefaced their task with an example. If Doctor Byron and I were trying to determine whether or not we were from the same universe, we’d try to find similarities in our lives and memories. If Doctor Byron told me that the first female president of the United States had been elected or that the Braves had won the last World Series, I’d know right away that we were not from the same world.

Beyond that, they would have to go into minute details. In order to determine if he was her Nick and she, his Judy, they would have to have a very, very long talk. I told them to recall all of their time together, as much of it as they could. Try to recall pivotal moments in the relationship, try to recall the little things. See if their histories matched up: past events, leaders, catastrophes. Talk about the routes they would take and try to determine if a deli was on one side of the street as opposed to the other. Talk about the colors they would see; maybe the squad cars were different colors, or certain landmarks may have varied subtly in appearance. Maybe the ZPD motto was different, I don’t know.

I handed them a more or less impossible task: recall every single moment of their entire lives down to the tiniest detail and see if it all matched up.

Chapter 8: WEEK EIGHT

Chapter Text

AUDIO RECORDINGS//DOCTOR HOWARD//DAY 50

Things just became complicated. Or worse, really; let’s not beat around the bush. If our superiors really don’t intend for Judy and Nick to return home, they’ve just made a move towards effecting that goal. I received this email this morning.

Doctor Howard, you’ve exceeded your budget for the fiscal quarter, you acted on the second anomaly without authorization, blah blah, blah…here it is: “Due to complaints from other teams of monopolization of extradimensional subjects and/or material, we have constructed a modular facility around the anomaly from which Subjects One and Two have originated. In order to better utilize the resources available to all of our teams, all future subjects and/or material will be allocated at our discretion. For the time being, you will retain your subjects and your autonomy, but consider this a warning. You and your team are hereby placed on probation. Further disregard for authority will result in forfeiture of autonomy, including but not limited to the forfeiture of samples, material, and test subjects.

"This punishment is the result of a long and arduous review process, and is a punishment that we deem fitting for the infractions committed.

"As an aside, I would greatly appreciate if you stopped telling your guests that they might be going home.”

That’s it, that’s the part. Of all the times I have ever had contact with our superiors, never once have I ever ran into a singular pronoun usage. It’s always ‘we’ and 'us’. This is no doubt a deliberate occurrence, and I fear that despite our autonomy, outside forces will soon be exerting more pressure on us than would ever be comfortable.

I don’t regret what I did at all; going out there to grab Nick was the right call.

See, because each research team operates as an independent cell, none are aware of what the others are doing. But humans are chatty and social creatures by nature, and stories sometimes leak. It’s hard to tell what’s truth or not because they’re impossible to verify. So while I am well-adjusted and empathetic like most human beings, stories abound of the typical mad scientist-types.

Doctors Harrick and Horowitz spring to mind; sociopathic surgeons, the both of them. The rumors claim that they were the head researchers at a facility located somewhere in Siberia. When they stumbled upon a mutagenic compound borne from decades of work, the two of them began covertly dosing their colleagues within the facility. When their colleagues died (and even sometimes before then), they’d cut them open to see what was going wrong inside, as every iteration of the mutagen was meant to create a stronger, better human; your typical super-soldier fantasy. Instead, it supposedly birthed awful tumors and growths inside the victims, like something out of a horror film. Only after they had already offed a dozen of their own subordinates did our superiors send an investigation team. Harrick and Horowitz had been found out within a week and executed on the spot.

Anyway, that’s how the story goes. Again, no idea if it’s true or not. But the fear, the mere possibility that people like this exist within the ranks of our nebulous organization is what drove me to take Nick before being authorized, before anyone else could take him. If someone like those two psychos had gotten a hold of him or Judy for a single day, I…I cannot even bear to think about it.

As for their mutagen research…I don’t know what happened to it. It’s possible that our upper echelon stepped in to resume the work. It would fit their bill, honestly. Several stories float between stations that once research reaches a certain point, the original team is reassigned and some super cell or higher tier of scientists takes over the work. In fact, that’s exactly what happened to our last project here; after ten years of study, we were within three years of a cure – an actual, working cure – for four different kinds of cancer. Once we reached a certain point, all of our data was copied before being wiped, and we were given a new project to work on. That was almost a decade ago.

To the outside observer who sees all this progress being made within the halls of these research stations and to see none of it released to the public, it might appear as if we are a black hole of resources, a massive void that – that sucks up all the progress and wonder while nothing we produce is ever…ever, uh…released.

Huh. A black hole. I wonder if…well, no. Nevermind.

I’ve forwarded the email to my direct subordinates. They should know what it is I’ve brought down upon us. I’ll…I’ll schedule a team meeting for the end of the week.

And…and I am, now more than ever, acutely aware of the fact that all of us here are monitored, and the only thing that keeps me submitting these audio logs is protocol. But I want my superiors to know that I will not do anything I, uh, would regret.

Also, I need to see Doctor Jensen before I go to bed. I’ve been having some issues with the local net. Maybe she needs to run one of her updates or something.

DAY 53

Our work has completely stalled, and unfortunately what we’ve gotten has amounted to a whole lot of nothing. And it’s the nothing that’s driving Doctor Byron crazy; there are holes in his theories and his equations, holes that he doesn’t know how to fill. Dark matter? Some exotic energy source? Anti-matter? He hasn’t got the faintest idea, and I actually laughed out loud when he asked me if I could be of any help. I hated physics. If this had anything to do with biology, I’d be all over it.

Our superiors have gotten nothing short of what they wanted. Judy and Nick won’t be going anywhere anytime soon. How ironic it is now that we figure out we can’t help them only after I’ve been reprimanded for saying we will help them.

As such, I’ve found myself avoiding Judy and Nick. I don’t have the heart to tell them we’re at a dead-end, that even though we want to send them home, we’ll never be able to.

It genuinely hurts. Judy nearly got a hold of me in the cafeteria; as soon as she walked through the door, I tossed the rest of my food and made a beeline for the exit furthest from her. She knows something’s up. I can’t avoid her and Nick forever, and eventually I’ll need to tell them what they don’t want to hear – what I don’t want to admit.

DAY 54

I was in the library…well, I’ll just say it: hiding. I was hiding in the library. Still trying to avoid Judy and Nick.

Unfortunately, I am an enormous idiot, and completely discounted their – well, Nick’s sense of smell. He found me in the deepest, furthest corner, as far from the entrances as I could possibly be.

I tried to hide my initial discomfort, but I’m sure he sensed something was amiss. He is a cop, after all. Whatever intuition or perceptiveness the occupation had instilled in Judy, it instilled in Nick as well.

He asked me if I was all right (he called me champ! I’m nearly twice his age!), and when I said I was fine (save for the deepening pit in my stomach, which I kept to myself) he paused to take a look around. He rocked forward and back, glancing over his shoulders. He casually took a sniff of the air, and I noticed his tail was flicking out behind him, perhaps in some sort of irritation or apprehension. He was still fiddling with the thing in his left pocket. He must’ve been carrying it everywhere; he’s been doing that even after changing into fresh clothes.

He followed up by bluntly asking if I and the rest of my team would be able to get Judy and himself home. The pit in my stomach became cavernous, and the only thing I could say without stammering like a fool was that we were trying. He frowned while his tail became slightly more animated with my answer.

He asked if I could keep a secret. I laughed inwardly at the grand irony of the question, but told him yes; I am very good with secrets.

His paw came out of his left pocket, holding what looked to be a small velvet box. He opened it before giving it to me, and though it was comically small in my own hands, the figurative weight it carried was tremendous. Inside was a simple gold band with a small gem – a diamond, perhaps; if it were cubic zirconium it may have been larger. Regardless of the gem, I just stared at the ring for a while, absorbing it’s significance.

Nick must’ve read my expression wrong; he quipped that an officer’s salary isn’t the greatest. I told him I wasn’t thinking about cost, and truth be told, I highly doubt Judy will think about cost, either. When was he going to ask?

He’d been carrying it around starting a week before Judy’s disappearance. His plan was to have her family there, a few good friends from the force present as well. Then this whole…situation happened. He spent so much time obsessing (understandably so) over Judy’s vanishing that the Chief of Police, this Bogo character, put him on paid leave for a week, telling him that “no one’s a machine”, and that Nick needed to clear his head and get some rest.

But Nick has carried the ring around since then with the intention of popping the question the moment he found Judy. Barring any unthinkable circ*mstances that might see her gravely injured or otherwise of unsound mind, he said he would have bent his knee at first sight of her, wherever that may have been: behind a fast-food joint, the landfill, a sewer for all he cared.

He stopped to think there for a moment. It must have been painful to think about; landfills or sewers are not where people tend to think about finding living persons. Before being reunited with her, he already had the worst in his mind. While he thought, I asked him what was stopping him now.

He didn’t want to look desperate. I asked for clarification on that remark. To me, it sounds a bit like cold feet, but Nick insisted that being in an alien universe changed the equation a bit. With Nick being the only Zootopian male, and Judy being the only female, he didn’t want to propose out of fear of making it seem like it was simply because she was the only option available. A sort of last – and only – resort kind of thing. I disagreed with his interpretation of the situation, but nonetheless I could clearly understand his problem.

Which is why, Nick continued, he needed me to make sure I could get the both of them home. Here, they’re just stuck in the metaphorical mud, both of them alive but not actually living the life they should be. Sure, Nick went on, he and Judy could get married now, but then what? They don’t have jobs, their families are in another universe and they obviously cannot start one of their own. He joked that we could build a little house for them just outside the facility, but it would be meaningless. It would ultimately be just another extension of the research facility. Everything he and Judy did or owned would just be another thing to be examined or interrogated about. Here in our universe, their lives would always be under the thumb of someone else.

Before my heart could sink any further, Nick’s ears perked. He glanced over his shoulder and quickly took a whiff of whatever scent might’ve been on the air. He snatched the ring from my hand, stuffed it back into his pocket, and began walking towards the entrance. How quickly he shifted back into his usual swagger was impressive. Halfway there, Judy came through the door, hooking her arm through his and directing him to the couch in front of the television.

So now there are three lives weighing upon me: Nick’s, Judy’s, and the life they might share together.

No pressure, Howard.

DAY 55

Doctors Jensen, Byron, and Kildale are in the for the team meeting tomorrow. Mister Gordon will be present as well. Why wouldn’t he be? He’s Head of Security.

I figure…tomorrow. I’ll fill Judy and Nick in tomorrow. I’ll have them along for the meeting and break the news to them there. In the mean time, I may have overstepped another boundary between researcher and subjects, but I think that boat’s long since sailed.

I had our cafeteria staff set up a table for two in the outdoor plaza before closing it off to the rest of the staff for the night. Judy and Nick are out there right now, enjoying a pleasant dinner by themselves by candle light. Well, not really; we have no candles, so I had to substitute with a bunsen burner. It’s the thought that counts.

Why not give them one last semblance of happy normalcy – as normal as can be in an alternate universe, anyway – before I deliver the news tomorrow?

DAY 56

Nothing really interesting occurred today.

Oh, I guess I should say that the team meeting went off without a hitch, save for the fact I forgot to bring along Judy and Nick, such was my excitement. Nobody really blamed me for the extra attention we were getting from our superiors, which was nice. In fact, everyone agreed they would done the exact same thing. Any non-human would be an emissary, and nobody on our team trusted anyone but ourselves to handle the interaction.

To be honest, I don’t know why I’m even making this audio log. It’s past 1900 and the local net is down, which means I can’t send or receive email, and the cameras and microphones that have been monitoring me, monitoring us, for the past thirty years are down. They won’t be back online until the main hub cycles through the reboot process – if it even can; Doctor Jensen takes great pride in her computer worms – and that would take at least three hours. More than enough time; we’ll be in the air by then.

I guess it’s just force of habit that drives me to make this recording. I’ve been doing it for nearly half of my entire life, and never have I had any indication that someone’s been listening unless it was to reprimand me or tell me that my team’s work was done, and everything we had worked towards for a decade or more would soon be taken from us.

I guess that’s a grudge I’ve always harbored; my team and I did great work, incredible work, and it disappeared. The cancer cures we had within our grasp would have saved millions each year. Would have saved someone else’s mother from suffering as mine did all those years ago.

But that’s not what this is about. I’m not leaving this as a manifesto or some insurrectionist note; I’m not nearly vain enough to fancy myself some rebel leader against a shadowy organization. I’m not going to blow whistles or dish the dirt. My sole reason for this insubordination is the safety of Judy and Nick – not Subjects One and Two, but Judy and Nick. Those are their names. Emissaries from an entirely different reality and your first instinct is to hold them here for the rest of their lives. I cannot abide by that.

So, with a nearly concrete means of getting them back to their home universe, we’re going to take our chances. Whether we are reprimanded afterwards – executed or otherwise, I don’t know – or given a lighter sentence, I speak for myself and my direct subordinates when I say we are doing the right thing. For all our histories with this organization have taught us, for all our interactions with you, our superiors – we do not feel, nor have we ever felt, that you have at heart the best interests of our two extradimensional ambassadors.

This is Doctor Richard Howard, presumably signing off for the last time.

AUDIO RECORDINGS//DOCTOR HOWARD//END

~-~-~-~-~

Door’s open. Hope they’re both in there. Hope they’re both decent. God, I hope I’m not about to walk in on them. Why would the door be open if they were – forget it.

“Judy? Nick? Are you two in here?”

“Doctor Howard?” Thank God, they’re decent.

“We’re getting you home. I promise I will explain everything to you once we are in the air, but for now, grab whatever is yours and come with me this second.”

Chapter 9: DAY 56

Chapter Text

Even with the ear protection on, I can barely hear myself think over the commotion of machinery that is this helicopter. But the pilot had said it would be about a four hour trip, so I’ve had plenty of time to do just that.

I’m still trying to imagine how all of this could go wrong. Maybe I’m pessimistic, but all I can see right now are the potential points of failure. Perhaps if I could stop agonizing for two seconds I might think of some realistic ways to mitigate them.

Because, in all honesty, there are about a million ways this could go wrong. My friend at the LHC – Doctor Keller – could get caught injecting Doctor Jensen’s viruses into the system, the same viruses that would let him override safety checks and fool everyone else at the facility into thinking everything is normal. Jensen’s worm might have been defeated faster than she predicted and our superiors may have already figured out our plan. We could be shot down en route to the anomaly site. The security staff likely present at the anomaly site could shoot us on sight. The LHC might not be connected to this at all and it might all be one stupidly huge coincidence.

But then I think of how I came up with this plan, and realize how lucky I was – how lucky Judy and Nick are – to have one little thing go right.

To wit: a week ago, I mentioned how our research facility was like a black hole. At that metaphor, I recalled how there was only a single facility on the planet specifically designed to emulate and create black holes in a theoretical bid to test for the existence of alternate universes: the Large Hadron Collider.

If I had thought about this before receiving that menacing email from our superiors, I might have said aloud what I had been thinking and clued them in to a potential avenue of escape for Judy and Nick. But by a stroke of luck, and I guess some measure of oblivious stupidity on my part, I had thought of it after I had already realized whose side I was on.

And with the help of Doctor Jensen and her computer expertise, I was able to covertly communicate with several others who were also keen to see our two guests go home.

“You’re sure your man on the inside is up for this?” Nick is far more nervous than Judy, which is an interesting change of pace considering how mellow he’s been for his stay. I suppose he also feels a lot more riding on our success; his paw is still fiddling with the velvet box in his left pocket. “Is he going to be okay?”

“He knows the risks,” I reply. And that was the honest truth. When I reached out to Keller, he jumped at the chance to help despite my explanation of the risks. I imagine most scientists would be more than willing to die in order to be a part of something so momentous as helping two extradimensional beings return home, to be a part of something that teased so many answers and questions about the nature of our universe and others. Beyond that, Keller’s an exceptional man. I don’t know if our organization would kill him after I filled him in on our operation; I’ve never hear of anyone breaking protocol like we are now, so I don’t know what the end result will be. If anything, I think there’s a high chance they’d recruit him. That’d be great, since it would allow him to escape the prison time and fines that surely await him for tampering with the LHC as he’s doing now. Not to mention it would save him from the endless embarassment he’d endure at trial, trying to explain to a jury that he was helping a talking fox and rabbit from another universe.

“What about the rest of your group?” Nick says, using his free paw to keep Judy’s oversized headset in place. She had fallen asleep earlier, probably coming down from an adrenaline rush to the metronomic whine-and-thump of the helicopter’s blades. Despite the situation, my eyelids have been feeling heavier and heavier as well. “The ones you left at the facility – are they going to be okay?”

“The only people part of this plot are on the helicopter with us right now,” I tell him. I had needed Doctor Jensen to set up the firewall tunnels that had allowed me to covertly communicate with Doctors Byron and Keller, whom I had needed to confirm my suspicions regarding the potential connection between the LHC and the anomalies. Finally, I wanted Mister Gordon along to provide security. I pray nothing serious occurs, but I think of him as our ounce of protection. He was more than happy to help Judy.

Madaki, Weber, Kildale, any of the dozens of others we left…they should all be fine. I’ve never heard of an entire facility being purged. At most, I suspect a very thorough auditing to be performed in order to weed out any potential sympathizers, but everyone will come up clean. No one else is a part of this save for us four. Plus Judy and Nick.

“What about us, doc?” Nick says. “Are you sure about all of this?”

He’s nervous. Understandably, of course. I am, too. My blood pressure must be through the roof. Madaki would be having a fit if he saw my vitals right now.

Byron takes this question from me. “Nick, I understand your apprehension. And the truth is we cannot be absolutely certain this will work. But I can tell you that two people from the same universe being dropped off at the same spot at the exact same second the same malfunction happens twice in the only machine capable of theoretically testing for alternate realities is one hell of a coincidence. And the fields of theoretical and quantum physics do not have much room, if any, for coincidences.”

Left in the air was the tacit understanding of risk. Beyond the obvious, there’s no guarantee this portal will transport them in the manner in which we theorize. It stands to reason it will, but when dealing with untested, uncontrolled experiments…you just can’t be sure. I had mentioned this earlier, but I suppose it might be comforting for Nick to hear it more than once, perhaps as a way of coming to grips with all possibilities. No matter their fears, both Judy and Nick agreed they’d take their chances instead of remaining here for the rest of their lives.

Judy’s ears flicker and strain against her ill-fitting headset, signalling she’s awake. She stretches, looks around as if to make sure of where she is. She glares at Mister Gordon for half a second before moving on; he’s still fiddling with his weapon.

He and Judy had argued earlier over his decision to bring a rifle. Ever the optimist, she had scolded him for even thinking he might have to use it and for bringing it along instead of a taser or beanbag gun. The argument had culminated in a shouting match (she’s pretty loud for someone so small) that had Mister Gordon tersely explaining that he had never wanted to use his gun during his twenty year tenure with the NYPD; no cop ever does, but the decision is never entirely theirs to make. Judy had quieted down immediately at the implication, and had seemingly grown distant when Mister Gordon had said the same might eventually happen to her.

“What if you came with us?” Judy says, her eyes flickering to each of us.

The thought is…tempting. Visit an alien world, see and meet an alien civilization, escape whatever punishment might wait for us here after all of this is done…

…Or be trapped in some isolated facility like she and Nick were because society as a whole is unready for the vast implications of interdimensional alien life.

“We appreciate the offer,” I say before anyone else can answer. Best to nip this thought at the bud if anyone else is considering it. “But as much as you do not belong here, a human surely does not belong in Zootopia.”

Byron nods in agreement, though Jensen looks as deflated as Judy.

“Touchdown in two minutes,” says the pilot. Everyone straightens up, puts on a game face. My throat’s so damn dry from fear I can barely swallow. The last time I felt this way, I was in grad school, handing in a dissertation; I can’t even remember which dissertation it was, my nervousness had rendered me a babbling invalid and honestly blanked a good chunk of that day from my memory. I had to will myself to shut up as I handed it in. Here though, I can’t seem to scratch a single word out of the stone that is my mouth and throat.

Because this must become the precedent. Should any other intelligent life ever come into contact with us, the first people they meet must not be their prison-keepers, must not be their tormentors or dissectors. In the vast reaches of time and space feasibly teeming with life, it must be demonstrated that we are social, kindred spirits interested in knowledge, not power; cooperation, not domination. Where peaceful life greets us, it must be met with peace without reservation and without ulterior motives.

I mean, the alternative is I’m a naive old man who’s going to return this fox and rabbit home to a race of animal warriors who seek our obliteration, but I don’t really see that happening.

Mister Gordon slaps a pair of plastic binders onto Judy’s and Nick’s wrists; tight enough to be convincing, but should anything happen they’ll be able to slip out of them effortlessly.

The helicopter lurches as the pilot orients the vehicle, and it rattles when it hits the earth. The headsets come off – I never realized how badly I was sweating beneath mine – and we file out into the tree line towards the facility. It looks rudimentary; the email did mention it was modular. They must be constructing a framework, a skeleton of sorts upon which they can build something more permanent. Right now it looks like a collection of building blocks, simply cube after identical cube lined up next to the other around the anomaly.

My heart skips several beats when I see a pair of security personnel jog out to meet us, but their posture is relaxed, almost bored. They cast an uninterested glance at our faux prisoners – honestly, what? A bipedal fox and rabbit wearing clothing and they couldn’t care less? What other nonsense have they seen? – and ask for our IDs, which they scan with a portable reader. They then wordlessly take point ahead of us and lead us into the facility.

A second checkpoint awaits us, and the man sitting at an untidy desk, behinds mountains of paperwork and post-it notes, is the first to give our animal friends more than a passing glance. He hoists his eyebrows for a moment, but his interest quickly wanes and he asks for our IDs again.

“You weren’t on any arrival logs.”

Lord help me. “The last two times we were here there was no facility. We were unaware things had changed.”

His mouth shifts to one side as he mulls it over. “Let me make a call.”

He grabs the phone atop his desk and begins to dial, but halts when he brings it up to his ear. He hits the phone hook several times before angrily slamming it back into its cradle. Out of the corner of my eye, I see Judy shuffle a loose cord into the chaos of wires beneath his desk. Clever rabbit.

The man sighs and begins fishing about the sea of papers that is his workspace. I see some encouraging signs: the unorganized stationary, the checkpoint that doubles as the security station as evidenced by the camera monitors behind the desk, the messy wiring running everywhere. This facility is unfinished and consequently inefficient, and likely full of holes and full of people overworked and all wishing they were somewhere else.

This man tearing apart his desk in front of us only confirms my suspicions. After knocking over every stack and looking through every drawer for whatever it is he was looking for, he groans, lowering his face into his hands.

“Jackson, take them back,” he says without lifting his head. One of our security escorts stiffens in response and motions for us to follow. “And when you’re done, grab a tech and tell them to fix the phone lines again.”

The facility is arranged in a rectangle, the center of which contains the anomaly. The interior reeks of sterilizing chemicals fresh off of a fabrication line, and the mixture of stark whites mixed with drab greys contrasts deeply with the mottled green and brown of the exterior; likely made as such to camouflage it from a distance from curious eyes.

We pass by empty dormitories and offices, and a vacant cafeteria, all the while barely passing a soul in the central hallway. All that’s present is this skeleton crew, designed to keep the seats warm and the computers running until the permanent team arrives; it’s morally draining, unrewarding work, and it shows. Even in a supranational black site, there are going to be those people that are simply there for the paycheck.

Our security lead ushers us through a door around the corner, and we are again out in the open air. The facility rings the site, with a single side taken up entirely by a heavily plated door large enough for a truck. The epicenter sits squarely in the middle with approximately forty meters of clearance all around.

In the distance, I hear a helicopter growing louder. Probably not good.

“That will be all, Jackson.” I try to keep that flippant confidence I’ve had going since we got into this place, but it’s not easy when the guy you’re snarking at has a gun. “What we’ll be discussing here is above your pay-grade, I’m sure. Privacy, please.”

Jackson looks miffed; I’m sure he’s dealt with plenty of other conceited scientists. Nonetheless, he puts his hands up in deference and goes back the way he came.

Helicopter’s getting louder. Definitely not good.

“What happens now, doc?” Nick gives voice to the terror welling up inside of me.

“We wait. Kellar’s had the LHC running for hours now; it should be at nominal charge soon. Just stand in the center and do not move no matter what.”

The helicopter’s very close now; the rotors are drowning out my heart pounding in my ears. Is it a troop carrier? A gun ship? Would they just rake us from the sky with gunfire? Blow us to smithereens?

The guard I had waved off earlier – Jackson – bursts through the door, his pistol in hand. He begins to shout something – I don’t hear it, like the air has frozen, sound won’t travel – and I see from the corner of my eye Mister Gordon spin to train his weapon. Judy shouts, and Gordon shifts his aim slightly, squeezes the trigger. I hear a bark but I don’t register its meaning.

Jackson drops to the ground, clutching his leg. He tries again to raise his weapon but Mister Gordon is on him; the pistol is kicked away and in one swift action he slaps a pair of binders onto the wounded guard. In the adrenaline-soaked haze I finally notice the helicopter has quieted. Maybe it simply flew overhead and I missed the receding sound as it went. Or maybe it could’ve landed already?

The heavy gate slides open at a torturous pace, and damn it to hell, in walks my answer.

“Doctor Howard! Byron, Jensen–”, he pauses to regard Jackson, still writhing from the bullet hole in his leg. “Mister Gordon.”

He’s an older man, maybe my age. There’s nothing that really stands out about him. Messy, greying hair, five o'clock shadow, and dirty, silver-rimmed glasses don’t do much to combat the sleepless scientist stereotype. Most of him is hidden beneath an ill-fitted labcoat and his khakis haven’t been ironed in what looks like years, but otherwise, he looks like me. He could’ve headed any of the sister facilities. Maybe he’s here to head this one.

Oh, and he’s flanked by twenty or so heavily armed soldiers.

Gordon puts himself between the firing line and our two interdimensional visitors, his weapon leveled at the new arrival. We’re outnumbered; the moment Gordon fires is the moment we lose. This must become a delaying action. Kellar has to have the LHC nearly charged, and we have to stall for a few more minutes.

“Mister Gordon, please,” says the new man in an understanding, almost jovial tone, as if this is all just a simple misunderstanding among good friends. “There’s no need for such hostility. I’m not here to harm anyone, nor would I ever want to. You all represent significant investments to our organization, and our superiors would love nothing more than to welcome you all back into the fold.”

“Then tell your men to lower their weapons,” Gordon says. He’s clearly not buying anything this man has to say. Neither am I.

The calm facade cracks and the scientist’s voice turns pleading, nearly frantically so. “They’re not even lethal, Mister Gordon. Pepper guns. Bad chemical burns, but absolutely non-lethal. I’ll repeat myself: we are not here to harm any of you.”

I wonder how painful it is. I wonder if Gordon could plug all twenty before the pain got to him. Or the pepper guns are for Judy and Nick and they’ve got hidden pistols for the rest of us.

There’s still a burning question. He’s not here to punish us, kill us…

“So why are you here?”

The new man closes his eyes and folds his hands together as if praying. “Think about what you’re doing. For just two seconds, really, really think about what you’re trying to do. Those two animals are the most significant find in human history. The Copernicum System, the theory of relativity, even fusion power, which the Germans are getting closer to – it all pales in comparison to proof of intelligent, other-worldly life.

"You had one – the rabbit, I listened to some of your audio logs on the way – for two months, and all you took from her was blood, fur, and cheek swabs? Are you kidding me? Where are the brain scans? The muscle biopsies? Instead, you gave her children’s books and old National Geographics and let her watch youtube videos all day. What in the hell is wrong with you? Let alone the fact that despite these two beings are the only known individuals to travel across dimensions and you spend a grand total of one day asking them about it?”

“They don’t know anything about it,” I blurt out, which is the truth. “Even if they were awake when it happened, they’re just cops, not physicists. They couldn’t help.”

“So they say,” he growls. “You take the word of an alien at face value? It’s a completely unknown world, Doctor Howard. What a policeman’s uniform is to us here could be an army uniform over there. There could be any number of idiosyncracies between our worlds that we can’t even comprehend without context. My point being that we just can’t know anything for sure without ever seeing it for ourselves.”

He pauses for a second and breathes deeply to catch his breath. After a quick scan of us, of our surroundings, he cranes his neck to take a peek and Judy and Nick behind us. They’re wisely keeping quiet; the less attention they draw, the better.

“But forget all of that. What are you even doing here? You think the portal’s just going to magically appear because you want it to? You said none of you know anything about it, right? Let’s say by some cosmic roll of the dice, it opened right now. Are you sure it’ll take them home? In one piece? How do you know it won’t break them down into sub-atomic particles and scatter them across space and time? How do you know it won’t turn them into goopy piles of flesh and viscera? How do you know anything? You want them returned safely to their own world but you have no idea if what you’re hoping for is safe at all!”

In the back of my mind, every second he keeps ranting is another tiny victory; just keep him talking long enough and I win. Judy and Nick win. But the things he’s saying…he’s absolutely right. And I feel like I adequately informed our two friends of the risks involved, but as a scientist, I must come to grips with the idea that I’m throwing them headlong into what could be a meat grinder. We have nothing but theories, and it’s not comforting to know that plenty of scientists throughout history have died or gotten others killed in pursuit of such theories.

But until Judy or Nick say otherwise, the plan remains. Keep him talking. “Then what? You want us to just hand them over?”

“Yes! I could take samples, run tests, be a hundred times as productive and exhaustive as you were. I have technology unheard of in the private sector; procedures with recovery times of hours or days instead of weeks or months. We could catalog everything about them and then turn our sights onto getting them home. Instead of throwing them through a portal and hoping for the best, we could actually test our hypotheses. With the resources our organization provides, we could ensure they get back to their own universe; no reason to merely hope for it.”

“And what happens to us if we make this hard for you? Are you going to kill us?” Slow and steady. Each word deliberate, nothing said in haste. Make every second count.

“For God’s sake, Howard, we could’ve already if we wanted to; the other two security guards have been behind you this whole time, guns ready. But our superiors haven’t killed anyone in decades. Do you have any idea how much red tape is involved? How much paperwork there is? Believe me, I know. Killing you is probably ten times as much work, and five times more expensive. Beyond that, you and your entire team represent nearly twelve hundred years of cumulative knowledge. You alone are about half a century’s worth. They would never so willfully waste such experience.

"At worst, they might transfer you to one of the Antarctic facilities which, coincidentally, have the highest suicide rates.”

Wait…haven’t killed anyone in decades? “So do you know the names Harrick and Horowitz?”

“Of course,” he scoffs. “I’m Doctor Harrick.”

No shame. Don’t even hear a twinge of regret. Sociopath. Butcher. Murderer. Mass murderer, actually – killed twelve of his own team.

“Don’t look at me like that, Howard,” he says, nonchalantly pushing his glasses further up his nose. “We went to the very edge of what ethics allowed, and when more was still required, Horowitz and I did what we had to. It wasn’t in vain, either. We had working prototypes the next year. We do what we must for progress. For knowledge.”

You disgusting sack of – “The rumors said you and he were killed.”

“They spread those rumors. They create an atmosphere of rigid subordination and fear, and those of us that rise above it, those of us that are willing to do what’s necessary, what’s right for the advancement of the human race are lifted up and given whatever we need to keep doing what we’re doing. I was punished for my perceived squandering of personnel, but afterwards I was given the authority and power to pursue whatever project I wanted.

"And look at you, Doctor Howard,” he continues, a sickly, predatory smile stretching across his face. “All of you. Willing to hijack the most important subjects mankind has ever possessed in your pursuit of what you think is right. Once your tenure in Antarctica is over, I’m positive you’ll all have a position like mine.”

The hair on my arms and legs begins to stand on end, like there’s a large plasma globe nearby. Byron and Jensen feel it, too. Gordon must as well but his composure has not changed. I can feel the tingling traveling up my limbs and spine, spreading out across my skull. The hair on my head also begins to stand.

“And when you finally have such a position, imagine the progress that will have been made without you. Imagine the progress you could then be a part of! The inexorable march of time correlates with the advancement of technology and knowledge; by the time you’ve got your new position, you’ll be in better shape than ever to… to get them home. You’ll have the resources, the team, the means to do whatever it is – whatever…”

Harrick is confused at first, like what he’s seeing simply doesn’t compute. Which is amusing in itself; all the things he might’ve seen that are more incredible or unexplainable than a talking fox or rabbit, and he’s struck dumb at the sight of our hair frizzing out, getting higher and higher until nearly straight-out from our scalps. Jensen’s longer hair makes her look positively ghastly. Judy and Nick look quite comical, to be honest.

I guess Harrick’s just a little stupid, because it still doesn’t click for him. He knows we took Judy and Nick out of the facility, presumably to escape whatever treatment may have been coming their way. He knows we brought them to another facility, the one that surrounds their entry-point into our world. And he must realize that if our goal is their escape, we would not simply waltz them into another facility so they could be recaptured and – oh, wait, I think he just got it.

“Take them now!”

There’s a sharp crack, like a single person clapping their hands, and I feel as though something has pushed me forward. I open my mouth to shout but the words clog together as air rushes down my throat. A flash of light casts our long shadows in front of us and for a fleeting instant, I am awash in heat, as if someone had opened an enormous oven behind me.

The next moment is deathly quiet. Behind us, Judy and Nick are gone. The anomaly has a clear epicenter. The grass that had been growing back was burnt away. The only evidence of a shockwave was the fact I was knocked over. It must’ve taken the air as well; that would explain the loud clap and my inability to breathe. The air had rushed to fill the space behind us after Judy and Nick were taken. And the static build-up that had occurred – why? Was there friction in the air? What had produced it?

What about their world? The portal terminus on their side is within their apartment. How large is the apartment? Will their neighbors feel it? Do they even have neighbors anymore? Maybe the apartment, or the entire building was condemned. Someone could still be hurt though. Perhaps cleaved in two at the molecular level? What if we simply get another Zootopian cop or investigator that was milling about the apartment? If that happened, we would–

“You…”

Oh, right. He’s still here.

“…are a very stupid man, Doctor Howard.”

Chapter 10: DAY 7

Chapter Text

JUDY HOPPS DEBRIEF//DOCTOR HOWELL//DAY 7

Today will be the seventh day I’ve been doing this, and I cannot overstate my displeasure with how I am being underutilized. While I can understand the agency’s worries about having crews install secure networks and fiber lines in the middle of the city, having to dub my observations over a prerecorded video of Miss Hopps’ interviews and then physically hand it to a courier is excruciatingly inefficient.

I did not achieve a doctorate for this. I’ve been here as long as Miss Hopps has, equally as bored as she is, and I’m not even the one being detained. I plop my tail in this chair, listen to Agent Rahado ask the same questions he’s been asking the last six days, and watch as Miss Hopps becomes increasingly agitated as she is forced to repeat her story every time.

And she is extremely agitated. More and more with each passing day, each passing hour. Every time one of the insignificant questions comes up, she looks ready to lose her mind. Not clinically, of course, but I’ll allow myself some editorial leeway in making my observations about her behavior. I’d be going nuts as well if someone was asking me these inane questions. What did she have for breakfast the morning of day thirty? What was the weather like the afternoon of day twelve? What color walls did the cafeteria have?

I’m talking over the first part because it’s the same story she’s told the last six tapes I’ve sent you – her entire ordeal, the night she disappeared to the night she and Mister Wilde popped into existence before our very eyes. She and Mister Wilde are remarkably consistent, and you are not losing out on any information by having me skip the first few hours. I’ll let Agent Rahado and Judy speak when something interesting occurs, and pause their interview to offer my thoughts on her behavior.

“Tell me about Doctor Howard.”

That was the first new question of the day. Miss Hopps considers the inquiry, looking rather relieved for some reason.

“Scientist; stereotypical to the extreme. They all were. White labcoats, khakis or dark slacks, most of them past middle age – and I mean that in a familiar way, I think they age at nearly the same rate as mammals do. I mean they are mammals – or that’s what they told me, but–”

“Please try to focus, Miss Hopps.” I do believe this is the first time Rahado has used her name. Please check tapes one through six if you feel I am wrong.

At this point, she looks down at the ring she wears on her left paw. When her possessions were seized, she heavily implied violence if anyone dared to take it from her. I don’t know if she was joking or not, but we let her keep it for now; it’s just a ring. At most we’ll give it a once over before she leaves, but I don’t expect to find anything important. Mister Wilde mentioned that no one else ever touched it until he gave it to her. If you’d like, please refer to the item manifest provided to you on Day Zero for a full list of everything we seized from Judy, along with our accompanying commentary on tape zero.

“I prefer Miss Wilde now, actually.”

Rahado groans, which I find amusing beause he’s not one to let others get to him in the slightest. Miss Hopps must be getting to him. For the record, Hopps is still her legal name, so that is what I will refer to her by.

“Right, Howard. Kind of scatterbrained; he would mean to do or tell me something, then forget about it later if something else came up. Had weird priorities for a scientist type – I mean, my only comparisons are to science-fiction movies I’ve seen so take that as you will, but he didn’t seem too concerned with running tests or other science… stuff.”

Here, you can see Miss Hopps appear distressed; her glare shifts quickly from Rahado’s face to his notepad. She actually rises from her seat just a little before she adds–

“But a good guy. I get the feeling aliens weren’t his specialty, so maybe that’s why he was scatterbrained and forgetful. But he was friendly – even self-sacrificing, if that hadn’t been made clear already. He went out of his way to accomodate Nick and I. The night before our escape, he, uh…”

Look there, she tucks her ears back, but not before the blush gets to them. She can’t pull this back now, but I’m sure she wishes she could. She should have gone with a more professional demonstration of Howard’s care. This is too intimate for her. She could have gone with Howard furnishing her room to alleviate her boredom, or giving her access to a laptop. Either way, I believe she may have felt she was painting Howard in a bad light – possibly influenced by Rahado’s ever-steely gaze – and felt the need to say something positive about him. Never mind the fact that every time she’s ever brought him up during the recollection of her ordeal, she’s almost always had something positive to say about him.

“He set up a dinner date for us. Put us in the outdoor patio and had the cafeteria cooks give us a special menu.”

“Do you think Doctor Howard is dead?”

I advised against this question so soon after Miss Hopps’ return, but Rahado’s a more paranoid mammal than I give him credit for. The more people directly involved with the portal’s opening on their side that wind up dead, the better – in Rahado’s eyes, anyway. I understand his fear, but as a scientist, I cringe at what a waste that would be.

Judy pins her ears back more tightly than before, and her answer starts at nearly a whisper.

“Well, there’s a sucker punch. But, I guess it’s a fair question. After all, They did have us surrounded by soldier-looking types before we escaped; they could’ve killed us at any time, so maybe the intent was there. Harrick said they were pepper guns, but maybe that was just to keep up appearances; maybe they had hidden weapons they had meant to use the moment we dropped our guard.

“But being a cop, even for just three years, you start being able to tell fact from fiction. Just because someone’s an awful person doesn’t mean they’re always lying. You can’t discount everything the sociopath says. You can’t ignore the dealer because you hate him or what he does. You’ve got to be able to listen, to discern what the truth is no matter who you’re dealing with.

“And my gut says that, despite how incredibly creepy Harrick was, I don’t think he was lying. A stint in Antarctica would be the punishment, wherever that is. Like he said, whoever it is they worked for had too much invested in each of them to just throw them away. That part didn’t sound like a lie.

"So I think he’s alive. I hope he’s alive, but I don’t get the feeling you guys really cares about my hopes. I mentioned several days back I had hoped for a nicer place than this and that clearly fell on deaf ears. My first apartment was nicer than this. Give me back my greasy walls and rickety bed. Cheese and crackers, even Howard gave me a better room than this sterile box.”

I believe her attempt at levity was a deflection. Her body language and tone suggests she believes what she says – that Howard’s still alive – but the truth of the matter is she has no way of knowing for certain, and so she attempts to change the subject.

And here’s the part where Rahado misreads Miss Hopps. I think she was glad to get away from the mundane questions, and going back to them was more than she could bear. He should have caught that.

“What color were the bed sheets they gave you during your first day?”

“What? No, I’m not going back to the stupid questions. Forget this. I’m a cop. I know what you’re doing. You’re making me recall all these little insignificant details over and over and over again to see if I have any inconsistencies in my story, and then if you spot one you drive a claw into it like a wedge, hoping that more and more of my story falls apart. I’m not answering anymore questions like that. I’m tired of it.

"You have had me here for seven days and every single day I’ve told you the exact same story. I’ve answered your questions truthfully and consistently, and I know Nick’s doing the same right now. He and I were not tripping on drugs from evidence lock-up and we’re not crazy. If today’s not the last day of this unlawful captivity then I’m going to go absolutely insane and you’re going to get an eyewitness account of what a savage bunny is capable of.”

This marks the first time she has directly threatened violence. My initial assessment of her, taken from the psychological evaluations performed during the hiring process of the ZPD, indicated Miss Hopps to be brash and impulsive, but actively starting a fight with a tiger as large as Rahado is something I would not have anticipated.

But as Rahado puts his notepad and pencil away, Judy noticeably tenses up. I can’t tell if she perceives some incoming threat or if she was, in fact, preparing herself for a fight. The way Rahado put his things away could have been taken in a threatening manner; her reaction could be learned, a reflex which occurs whenever she sees a suspicious mammal’s paw disappear behind a jacket or other article of clothing. Or it could be she has an inkling she’s dealing with sketchy government types, and everyone here is a potential killer in her eyes.

“Miss Hopps–”

“I told you, it’s Wilde now.”

“Can I just call you Judy?”

“No.”

“I think you misunderstand the purpose of this debriefing, Judy. The way I see things, there is an alien species out there that has somehow stumbled onto a reality-altering discovery that has grave implications for all involved. For a species as or more contentious than we are, as advanced or nearly as advanced as we are, to have this sort of technology scares the living daylights out of me.”

I want to pause here and clarify what our biggest fear is right now, for any of our non-scientifically inclined minds watching this. Well-known and revered theoretical and astrophysicist Stephen Elking says that should intelligent alien life exist, it will probably be more advanced than us. And as many mammalogists know, as evidenced by the extinct or endangered cultures of the past and of today’s world, technologically inferior cultures rarely survive contact with more advanced civilizations. Either through outright obliteration or diplomatic oppression, the less-advanced people eventually die out or assimilate. With this interdimensional technology as of yet unknown to us, guess which culture we are in this scenario.

“Does any of this sound ridiculous to you yet? Like it was straight out of a sci-fi movie? Interdimensional travel, portals, aliens, all that.”

“Yeah, okay. Sounds pretty out there.”

“Then I don’t have to tell you, Judy, that the vast majority of those films do not end well for one or both of the parties involved. So my objective is to glean every little detail off of you that I can, keeping your recall fresh and sharp by having you tell me the insignificant things on a whim so that when I bring up something actually important, your answer comes quickly and without hesitation, because the longer you’ve had to think, the more one’s mind tends to distort the memories.”

Judy knows this very well, which explans why she’s relaxed at the moment. She understands. Going back to her service record and some of her completed case files, she’s had witnesses change their stories three, four, five times. She’s had witnesses unable to describe what a mammal was wearing only five minutes after seeing said mammal. She knows memory is an awfully fickle thing.

"So then, you believe me? Us?”

“Judy, you and Nick quite literally popped into existence before our eyes. Of course we believe you. We’re just trying to see if anything in your memory runs contrary to what Doctor Howard has said.”

“Wait, what? Is he here? He said he wasn’t coming with us!”

Judy perks up considerably here with a burst of energy, no doubt believing that Howard somehow came through the portal himself. Her newfound intensity is instantly extinguished under Rahado’s steely glare, however. She slumps back into her chair, but livens up again when Rahado produces a recorder in a plastic bag from his breast pocket. Faster than he can react, and fast enough to startle those of us watching at the time, she clambers up onto the table, snatches the recorder from his paws, and mashes the play button.

We found this recorder on Judy’s person. It was in one of the pouches on her uniform belt. As evidenced by her reaction, she has apparently been unaware of its existence this entire time. If you’re still keen on checking the item manifest I mentioned earlier, the recorder is listed as item 5-A.

“Hello. To the people that will invariably end up searching Judy and her belongings: my name is Doctor Richard Howard. If this is Judy’s home universe, I want to first say she and Nick are unharmed and in good health. We cared for them and respected them as any living being should another. While listening to what she has to say about her experience, please keep in mind that – like you, I’m sure – the large majority of us are well-adjusted individuals, and people that may seek to do her harm are an infinitesimal percentage of our population.

“On the ever-present chance that this is not Judy’s home universe, please know that she and her friend mean you no harm. If at all possible and within your power, please do everything you can to help them on their way or, at worst, integrate successfully into their new, perhaps permanent, home. They were not meant to end up where they did; if anything, it would be our fault for urging them through an untested gateway between worlds.

"Honestly, what am I even saying? If it’s the wrong universe, who’s to say they even speak English? It could be some gutteral barks or pitched chitterings that – I’m getting off track. Sorry.”

“To Judy: there’s too much that needs to be said, but we’re getting close to zero hour and I don’t want to distract you or Nick with any more questions or chats. I immensely regret how long we had you here, how long I was happy to grill you for any little speck of information regarding your job, your technology, your family, your world, when I should have been trying to get you home from the start. And if I’m being honest, I also regret how much I didn’t ask you. How did your language or languages evolve to match ours? What are your religions like? How does your economy work with mammals of varying sizes? How does traffic work?”

“But with Nick’s arrival, I came to see the bigger picture more clearly, and I saw just how much of your future was riding on our potential success. On that note, I want to say you and he deserve everything good the world has coming to you, and I hope – I want to congratulate – er, I wish the best for both of you.”

“You won’t have to worry about being followed through the gateway. Not anytime soon, at least. The virus that Doctor Jensen is going to use to commandeer the LHC? It will also irrevocably erase all the data and test parameters associated with the malfunction that led to this entire ordeal. The server farms that house the data are vast, and no human could ever commit to memory all the data involved. I cannot say for certain that someone will never stumble upon the same values again, but for a long time, the gateway should remain closed.

"As for me – for us, please don’t worry about us. Byron, Jensen, Gordon, and myself; we know the risks of what we’re about to do. We all figure there’s some sort of punishment waiting for us after this, regardless of whether it works or not, but we’re doing it anyway. Your life should not be spent a universe away from home under the constant pressure of alien whims, some of whom may not have your best interests in mind. Nobody’s life should end up that way.

"God, it is physically painful for me to say this, I despise melodrama, but I’ll say it anyway: live your life. Don’t waste any time wondering about us. I don’t know how easy it will be for you to resume your life after all of this, but please try.

"I think I speak for everyone at the facility when I say this: we’ll miss you both, Judy. I guess I’ll, uh, slip this onto your belt or something – shoot, it’s still on? Didn’t mean for that to get on there.”

Miss Hopps maintains her composure well, though her eyes do have a watery sheen to them. She tries to rewind it all but Rahado plucks the recorder from her paws and places it back into his breast pocket. She watches it the entire way, keeping her eyes locked onto it until it disappears from view, likely aware of the fact that recorder is the last link she’ll ever have to Howard, and it is forever out of her reach.

"So? Everything I’ve said checks out, right? Howard says the gateway is closed and all the data is gone.” Her voice chokes with emotion. It’s clear to anyone she misses Howard.

“It would appear so.”

I want to stop here again and say that Rahado has a natural ability for intimidation. Whether it’s in passing conversation or waiting in line at the snack machine, he’s an imposing figure. The silence he leaves after his last statement is heavy, and Miss Hopps misinterprets the admittedly unsettling quiet.

“So are you going to kill us now? To keep this all a secret?

"Heavens, Judy. We haven’t killed anybody in decades. Too much red tape. Never mind the fact that a public figure such as yourself would be a nightmare to disappear.”

Her relief is palpable, and her posture relaxes accordingly. She had been preparing herself for violence just a moment ago. Her behavior just now matches the behavior she displayed earlier, when Rahado was putting his things away, which confirms that she did in fact feel threatened. I grossly underestimated Miss Hopps’ capacity for action; I won’t say she’s eager for a fight, but she’s certainly ready to defend herself at a moment’s notice and doesn’t seem at all hesitant to square off against mammals much larger than herself.

“You’re going to take the good doctor’s advice: live your life. We’ve got a cover story for you and Nick already planned out. You were pulled for a covert assignment involving drug smugglers, Nick went off the grid to find you, the imaginary suspects tried and failed to bomb your apartment and were then apprehended, allowing both of you to come out of hiding.”

"Cheese and crackers, that’s awful. Legitimately terrible. I feel dumber for having listened to that. It sounds like the kind of television cop drama that only lasts a single season.”

Rahado shows a very slight smile, which I feel is disconcerting as I’ve never seen the tiger smile before. I don’t know what it means; just something I wanted to point out.

“The finer details will be explained to you by my associate; she’ll be in shortly with your study material, along with your new uniform and phone.“

When the technicians are done analyzing the phone, all of the videos and images will be forwarded to you with the next courier. Yes, all of them, so please do not act shocked should you come across anything private. Because you will.

Back to the task at hand. Look at Judy’s face here; she’s considering her options, but she doesn’t know what they are. She has an organization of unknown influence and size telling her to go along with the story she’s being given, but she’s yet to receive any threats to force her compliance. Oh, there it is, that moment of realization.

"What happens if I don’t go along with this story?”

“We have an extensive disinformation campaign prepared in such a case. Safe to say, you and Nick would be out of a job and rendered social and political pariahs.”

And there’s still that split second of consideration, that flash of defiance evident behind her eyes and furrowed brow, but the reality of defeat sets in shortly after. She realizes that there’s nothing she could hope to do. She could talk, tell the whole world her story without a shred of evidence to back her up, all in exchange for the careers and potential future she and Mister Wilde share. It’s not a hard choice, really.

"It’s still an awful cover story.”

"Glad to have your cooperation, Judy.”

Agent Rahado is about to completely overstep the bounds of his authority. All things considered, I agree with his appraisal of Judy, but this was not his decision to make. As much as I thought Miss Hopps was beginning to annoy him, maybe that’s what drawn him to her. She gets under his skin, a place where few mammals I know have managed to get. Maybe he thought that was a promise of what she’s really capable of. Regardless, this is a severe break of protocol.

“You know, Judy, you’re privy now to a wealth of information no other mammal possesses. You’re talented, capable, cool under pressure, if this ordeal was any indication. We’ve never had a rabbit agent before. With some facial markings and contacts, we could make you unrecognizable and–”

“Hell no.”

Don’t think I need to analyze that answer. Rahado leaves, and that concludes this day’s interview.

Miss Hopps’ lab work came back all negative – she’s free of foreign or unknown pathogens and as healthy as ever – so I recommend keeping her here for the remainder of the month for any noticeable changes. I also recommend that we keep tabs on her doctor’s visits and her biannual ZPD physicals for the next two years as a precaution.

Apart from the aforementioned medical check-ups, I don’t believe any further surveillance is necessary after her thirty-day quarantine. It is my professional opinion, based upon my observations of Miss Hopps’ behavior and my analysis of her vocal patterns and facial micro-expressions, that she has thus far been honest with Agent Rahado and will continue to be.

It may be possible that she was becoming more and more combative without an outlet with which to express her displeasure. The outbursts and threats – veiled or otherwise – may have been cathartic. With the temporary release of this tension, her cooperation may come more easily in the future. At least, until her agitation reaches the same threshold it did during this interview.

Now please. Please get an IT team down here with a secure router network. I can’t take another day of this courier nonsense.

Chapter 11: EPILOGUE, DAY 31

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We won’t see each other again, Judy. You won’t see a dark car following you. You won’t see a mammal in a suit watching you shop for groceries. We have our answers; that’s all we wanted. So please – like Howard said – just live your life as normal.

That was the last thing the tiger said to me. An entire month of questioning, the intensity of which I’ve only seen in murder investigations – and that’s all he had to say. As if everything’s right as rain now that I’m being let out. Sure, they generously got us a new apartment after our old one was condemned. I’ve been told it’s bigger, nicer, closer to the precinct – overall better than our old one.

Barf.

As I’m presumably being freed from my prison – which seems more and more familiar the closer we get to the ground floor – my escort stops at another door and raps once. It opens and Nick is ushered out. His expression softens when he sees me but there’s barely a sound between us as we’re led out of the building. That is, until we get outside into an alley and both of us try to laugh, but it comes out harsh and frustrated; the building that had been our prison the past month was in fact, our former apartment. Condemned signs and police tape line the property.

A white sedan with darkly tinted windows idles in the alleyway, doors already open. As we make our way over to it, I’m surprised by how carefree Nick seems; no worse for wear a month later. Same swagger, same smug smile I know and love. I wonder what they told him?

“What’s your role in our cover story?”

He tries to fake a frown but it doesn’t even get half-way. “A month of desk duty for almost compromising a fake investigation.”

“Oh, my poor fox. They’re promoting me to Chief.”

“Over Bogo’s dead body,” Nick says, his smile as wide as mine.

“We’re probably this close to giving him a heart attack, anyway.”

“In that case, knock a couple of weeks off my punishment, will you?”

The jokes are a comfortable fallback, a temporary reminder that so far, we’re both okay. There’s a lot we need to talk about, but a short car ride isn’t the time or place to do it. After we rib each other a few more times, we quiet down as we climb into the car. No need to let the driver in on anything personal. He’s probably one of the government-types, too.

The rest of the trip to our new home is deathly silent, save for our driver who can’t stop humming this new Gazelle song on the radio I’ve never heard. Neither has Nick, because the two of us can’t break this worried glare we’re sharing, each of us waiting for the other to gather the courage to ask a simple question.

“When did this song come out?”

“Two weeks ago,” says the driver. Thank goodness.

Buildings pass by that I haven’t seen in what feels like forever. There’s those kids I haven’t spoken to or played ball with in months, watching our car pass by as if it was the most normal thing in the world. The donut shop down the street’s full of blue uniforms, like always. The apartment high-rise in the distance is still under construction, the crane looking as if it’s barely moved since I last saw it. Whatever punk or punks were spraying anti-predator graffiti on Pack Street seem to have expanded yet again; one of their ugly tags has marred the side of Mewler’s Deli on Peak Street. They’ve got guts, coming so close to the precinct; our crackdown months back doesn’t seem to have had much effect.

There’s a lump in my throat I just can’t swallow. I might’ve started to get teary-eyed if Nick hadn’t startled me with his paw atop mine.

Nothing’s changed. Nobody knows. None of them will ever know, and the only people that do know don’t care about the people that stayed behind. Howard felt I was too far from home, but now I’m a universe away from him and his friends and I haven’t got the foggiest idea what they’re going through. And I can fret and whine over it all I want but there’s not a thing I can do to help him or anyone over there. I’m finally home and I just wish I could go back and get them.

“Hey, Carrots,” Nick says, tightly grabbing my paw. My ring catches what little sunlight can make it through the darkened windows and throws off a dull shine. Still impressed with how quickly he bent his knee, and how quickly my answer came. “We’ll be fine, right? You’ll be okay?”

I can’t answer him – not right away, I mean. I smile and put my ears up to complete the facade, for what good it’ll do. Which is none; Nick’s as good as a bunny when it comes to telling if my ears are fake or not. Truth is, I don’t know how things will settle. I finally manage to swallow and look out the window again.

And there’s Mister Susser leaving the bank! He’s wearing a suit! Does he work there now? He was homeless when I left! I wonder if he went to that seminar I signed him up for after I was forced to relocate him to the shelter.

And – no, I don’t believe it. Jackie? Jackie Shearson? Last time I saw her, Fangmeyer was bringing her in for shoplifting. Is that her fruit stand? She has a business now? I didn’t think she’d take my advice so literally.

Lo and behold, if it isn’t Rob Pennington. I ran him in for misdemeanor possession the week before I left, and now he’s actually volunteering with the Urban Park Landscaping Service. Oh my gosh, he’s planting tulips. I had thought I had been too hard on him, but he took what I said to heart.

“Judy,” Nick says, his muzzle nearly touching my ear. He’s trying to compete with the Gazelle song our driver’s blaring. She says something about everything being as it is, where it should be. “We’ll get through this.”

Howard wants us to. I want us to. I think we will. I hear Gazelle’s voice but not her words and I’m reminded of that singer in Howard’s world, and how he tried to explain this really out-there theory that certain characteristics could carry across other worlds. Equally plausible is that it was random chance, but forget that. I’ve got my own theory.

The voice makes the singer. If Gazelle’s voice pops up in any other universes, maybe it will always belong to a singer. Likewise, if my mind has any copies out there, it will always belong to a cop. Maybe that someone is as dedicated to helping people as I like to think I am. Maybe that someone is as hopeful and capable.

Further, if there are infinite universes, then there’s infinite universes in which someone like me exists in Howard’s world, and that person would try to help him. Maybe save him, I don’t know. Where everything is possible and everything is happening, the chance exists that I am a force of nature that holds constant for all realities; a multi-universal force for good.

I don’t just make my world a better place. Across whatever vast distances separate us from Howard, there are countless versions of me – some rabbits, some humans, maybe some who-knows-what – all making their worlds better places. I don’t have to go crazy, thinking I’m some insignificant speck in an uncaring, infinite universe. I’m in the place I was meant to be, making the difference I was always meant to make. My world is not mine without me.

That’s my theory. Good luck to anyone trying to prove me wrong.

“I know we will, Nick.”

Chapter 12: Author's Notes

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Well, that was a long ride. For me, anyway. Some authors put out tens of thousands of words in weeks, but I’m sorry to say I’m a slow writer.

Thanks a ton for reading this. Thanks for starting it, for keeping with it, for reading it to the end. Thanks for your compliments and your criticisms (honestly!). And with the myriad of Zootopia fanfiction that exists, thanks for adding my fic to your routine.

This started out as a simple conversation between myself and several other anonymous individuals on an image board. We were talking about the general disdain we shared for the human-in-zootopia trope, and how little-utilized the opposite is. After literally a single post, which was probably less than 100 words, in which I tried out the idea a bit more extensively, I decided I would give it a go; what could I do with a Zootopian on Earth?

I understand my conclusion was abrupt, and some were less than thrilled with how I had set it all up. And looking back, I definitely see things from your perspective. It was rather hasty, and even though that was my plan all along, the ending conflict could definitely have been set up more clearly and with better pacing. My conflict with Chapter 8 was trying to set up hints that might tip off the reader that something was atypical with Howard's behavior, but would not set off alarms to the superiors that monitor his audio logs. In the end, I kind of wrote myself into a bit of a corner and tried my best to carry out what I had in mind. It ended up sub-optimal and thus felt rushed.

I also wanted to stick as close as I could to canon, so I veered away from subjects like religion or language because I didn’t feel I had enough to work with from the movie. I touched upon them in Doctor Howard’s absent-mindedness, just as a reminder that they existed, but I never intended to fully explore them.

I want to give a VERY special mention to an individual I know as Comic. Out of pure kindness, he was my dedicated editor for every single chapter of this story. I can say beyond any doubt, the story would have been so much worse off if not for his input, and plenty of his thoughts made it into the final product. So thank you especially, Comic, for what you did here and for what you still do for plenty of other writers in the thread.

I would also like to give a shout-out to artists A_Signature and akella333, both of whom surprised me with pieces of fanart for this story. You can find their works below in the order I have just listed, along with links to their websites. I am incredibly grateful to them and still tickled that they were smitten enough with this story to draw these pieces on their own. I've never had an artist do something like that for any fic I've written in all my years of writing. Much later, far after I thought I was done shilling and plugging this story, I was tremendously surprised to find two more pieces by Chumpy! His are down below as well.

I hope this was a satisfying conclusion for you guys, and I hope you had as much fun reading it as I did writing it!

Wow, that sounds really cliche when said aloud.

Presented in the same order as they are above:

Chapter 5, Day 30: Judy meets an Earth rabbit by

A_Signature