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The room was silent in the wake of her story.

The rabbit eyed the figures around the room who had by now all taken seats, herself having taken a place next to Honey.

The resulting formation had her feeling not-a-little intimidated as the Happy Towners (with the body doubles of herself and Mr. Wilde) sat across from her in a semi-circle, reminding her of a tribunal. She shuddered at the unpleasant memories it raised as she faced them, now.

They regarded her critically, each of them feeling a profound sense sadness and loss--not for her sake so much as for Otterton's, who'd been such a gentle soul; all of them could remember with a heartbreaking clearly what the feeling was like the next day when they heard the awful news.

The silence that fell over them was impenetrable. Or nearly so.

She had just described not only the death of Otterton but the death of her idealism and her innocence.

In her version of the events that led to his death, she'd also hoped to tell the story of how she'd come to realise the truth--how she'd come to realise something that she hadn't wanted to acknowledge before she became--in her eyes--a murderer and wouldn't have been able to till the moment she shot Otterton:

It hadn't been till then that she had seen the lengths to which the Zootopian elites were willing to go to maintain their power over the city; it hadn't been till then that she had understood the full depths of their hatred for predators.

That was the truth.

It should have been obvious to her from the beginning. But even at that point, the truth had been difficult to see. While the death of the Otterton had started the ball rolling, it was still some time before she was able to see things for what they were.

For all the strength of will she had, in the face of such insurmountable abuse and hatred, she had gradually been edging toward their way of thinking and had been growing very steadily toward accepting their abuses. That was obvious to her, now. Looking back on it, she could see the seeds of it creeping up on her somewhat younger self; even then, after so short a time on the force. The killing of Otterton and its fallout had shocked her out of her growing complacency, and Hopps hoped that they would see that. She hoped that they would understand it.

Of course, not everyone understood what she was trying to say, nor saw it in the most flattering of terms . . .

"So . . ." started Finnick slowly, "you sayin' the reason you been such a cold bitch this whole time is 'cause you killed Otterton?"

Everyone broke into laughter instantly as the sombre mood shattered. Some doubled over as they shook and struggled for breath; awkwardness and sobriety gratefully banished in an instant. Their amusement wasn't caused so much by what the fennec had actually said but by the release of the strict tension that had been mounting in the room since bombshell after bombshell was being dropped on them.

Wilde clapped Finnick on the back and put his face in his paws as his chuckles subsided before looking down at his companion gratefully as the laughter in the room died down.

Finnick looked back, quirking a smile before dropping it and sighing, the noise in the room having quieted, as his mind turned to more serious matters. He faced Hopps again as he worded his next question. "But seriously," he started earnestly, "you been a dog to everyone--even to us. If you was really tryna' help us out, why be a bitch t' everyone? I mean, the way Garou put it when we was talkin' earlier, you had 'is wife fuckin' cryin'!"

Hopps nodded carefully. The question was a sharp one, and a similar one had been on everyone's mind. Gathering her thoughts for a moment, she finally made to answer as best she could.

"What do you know about the ZPD and City Hall's spy network?" she began, deciding to open with a question.

Hopps looked around the room and saw no one really willing to answer, looking unsure.

"Well, it's deep," she said carefully. "Multiple-layers deep." She took a breath. "As in, spies are leading double lives," she said.

The group looked around at each other dubiously. Was she for real? "Spies were leading double lives"? That's how spies worked! She might as well have said grass was green.

"Alright," began Finnick slowly as he looked back at her, "so, spies lead double lives. We already knew that." He chuckled slightly.

'Right, okay, yeah,' thought Hopps to herself as she put her paw on her forehead, trying to think, 'walked right into that one.'

And that's why this was so hard, she thought. It was difficult to describe the profundity of the nature of spying at the ZPD and City Hall.

"But what I mean is," said Hopps carefully as she tried again, "if Honey, all of a sudden, turned out to be not who she said she was and was really working for the ZPD this whole time. That's the level of spying I'm talking about."

They all looked at her confused.

"Uh . . ." began Wilde, "there's no way the City Hall wo-"

"Yes, they would!" she stressed. "I've seen it with my own eyes! Animals are trained to spy for City Hall--I know this for a fact--and then they go right back to being regular members of the city. They usually recruit civilians. Some of 'em're like undercover cops with all the training plus a crap ton of spy training, too."

Wilde opened his mouth as light bulb suddenly went off in his head. "Oh! Wait, so . . . you're saying," he started as he tried to collect his thoughts, "that . . . that what? That Cevilla could be a double agent? And that that's why you were putting up a front with her?!" he asked in a low voice. He couldn't believe what she was saying, and he eyed her quizzically.

Hopps nodded vehemently. "Yes! Exactly!" she said, somewhat elatedly. She was relieved to be understood even though she felt no one believed her. "Not only that," she continued ardently, "but Garou could be one, too. Or they could be working together."

Wilde scoffed. "There's no way-"

"There is a way!" she said sternly.

Wilde's temper flared angrily, and he made to retort but was cut off when Honey raised her paw at that moment, interrupting the flow of the argument, and the others all looked at her as she spoke.

"I just needed to say for the record that Garou and Cevilla are not spies. I vetted them the second I found out that they were in play. Judy's speaking hypothetically. Probably." She sounded almost bored as she said this. Of course she was bored--she knew this all already.

Hopps nodded gratefully. "Yeah, I meant hypothetically." She breathed before looking around to address the group.

"The point is," she continued, "if I don't know who to trust, I have to wear my persona in front of everyone. Not only that: there are bugs and surveillance cameras all over the ZPD."

"But why weren't Cevilla and Garou in any trouble?" asked Clawhauser. "They were illegally married."

"They weren't high enough up on the totem pole for anybody to notice. It wasn't too hard for me to find out they got married at some point. Anyone else who cared probably could have, too. But that might have been coming to an end. Unless they were spies."

"What do you mean 'it might have been coming to an end'?" asked the cheetah.

"Well," she started, "as I said, I knew about their marriage, but I had to do a bit of digging for it. Not a lot, but it was under just enough red tape and paperwork that no one would have seen it unless they were looking for it, so they were probably safe on that front as long as they didn't make waves. What would have tripped them up is . . . well, did Garou tell you how I threatened Cevilla?"

Clawhauser nodded. "Yeah, he did. He said you threatened to expose their marriage."

"Yeah, well, the thing is, things were a little more complicated. And I had a bit of a double reason for revealing that I knew about their relationship. Is that all Garou told you? Just that I threatened to expose their marriage?" she asked.

When he nodded, she continued. "I caught them having sex in the supply closet."

Roars of surprise and laughter again filled the room. They collected themselves quickly, however, and stifled themselves as they all wanted to hear her, now.

"The thing is," she said as her own laughter subsided and her grave mien returned, "if they did have sex in there, they were caught with or without me: The supply closet is monitored and bugged. I saw them set up the system there (and I know that the whole ZPD is bugged and monitored, anyway); if they'd actually done anything in there," she said, referring back to Garou and Cevilla, "(which, I guess they did), they would have been caught."

"Yeah," said Wolford as he joined the discussion, "but if they were working for City Hall, there's no way they were fucking, 'cause then they'd be just as anti-predator and prey relations too, right?" he asked as he looked around at the group. "So," he started as he turned back to Hopps, "then why didn't that tip you off?"

"You mean," she began slowly, "why didn't the fact that they were actually having sex indicate that they weren't spies?" She raised an eyebrow to accentuate the question.

"Yeah," he replied as he nodded carefully.

Judy nodded back in understanding. "Because I only heard them: I didn't actually see them having sex," she said. "They might've just been making the noises to fake me out--it's what they would've done if they were spies, and there was no way for me to know--I don't have access to those cameras: only animals who work for the spy network do."

"But still, why were you so awful with her? And Garou, too!" asked Clawhauser. He felt a special kinship with Garou after having worked with him for so long, though Cevilla had always feigned disinterest and hostility toward him. Yesterday was the only day she'd shown him kindness, and he realised that it must have come down to the fact that there was no use in pretending that she hated prey animals now. At least, not in front of him. Of course, she'd gone right back to "hating" him the instant they were back inside the ZPD . . . .

Suddenly, it clicked in his mind!

Of course Hopps would've had to have been cruel with everyone--in the same way that Cevilla'd had no idea whom she could trust, neither had Hopps! And in the same way that Cevilla'd had to go right back to feigning hostility the instant they were back inside the ZPD, Hopps would've had to put up her mask constantly.

With the mind flower blooming in his head, the cheetah realised that if the whole ZPD were bugged and surveiled, there was no way to know who might be listening into what and where.

Realisation dawned on his face as he looked at the bunny. The tracking collars that had been on the verge of being widely implemented were a very small part of a larger plot to keep all the preds in the city under strict observation.

He furrowed his brow and looked at the bunny and nodded in understanding. She never knew who might be a double agent--never knew who might be listening in.

Her treatment of Cevilla and all the other preds was based on her inability to trust anyone. She couldn't trust that Cevilla weren't a deep-cover spy, couldn't trust that someone who were a spy was listening in, couldn't trust that the area in which she was speaking weren't bugged. Hell, she probably couldn't even trust that her own apartment weren't bugged. And yet, in the face of it all, she had decided to work for Honey.

"The thing is," began Hopps, "I didn't know whose side they were on before I talked to Honey. It was just strange that two animals would do anything in public the way they were. They even kissed in front of my workstation. It made me think that they wanted me to see them. Now that I know they're civilians, though, I get that they were just being stupid. Like I was. I never would have believed I was being spied on, either; so, that side of it I can understand--but kissing in front of my desk? So it just made sense to me: if they were spies, the reason was simple--their motivation would have been to set a trap and figure out if I was secretly sympathetic."

"So," interjected Fangmeyer who'd remained quiet for the duration, "you couldn't trust anybody or any_place_? And that's why you did all that illegal shit to us?"

'Well,' thought Hopps to herself, 'technically, it wasn't illegal . . . .' She didn't dare say it, though. She didn't wanna die.

Clawhauser looked over at Fangmeyer and answered for her. "Yeah, she had to, because she was undercover. When some officers are undercover they might have to do something illegal to not get caught. Like, sometimes new members of a cartel'll have to take drugs to be initiated, and then do more illegal things in order to stay undercover and not be recognised." He looked over at Hopps but was still talking to Fangmeyer. "They're tracking all of us, and the new tracking collars were gonna be part of it. Everywhere she went was bugged, Cevilla or Garou may have been under deep cover, working for City Hall, and everywhere she went she had to pretend to be someone she wasn't. And since everywhere was bugged, anyway, even if Cevilla weren't a spy, she would have had to wear her cover."

Hopps nodded gratefully. She finally felt like she was making headway!

"Exactly!" she said. "And also, if Garou and Cevilla were spies, it would explain why they were being affectionate in public--spies can get away with a lot in order to stay undercover. Otherwise, interspecies relationships are very illegal and very punishable by death."

She paused and looked around the room at the shocked faces. "That's something that's 'off the books,' too," she sighed. "But yeah, it's rare anybody knows they're being watched. Most animals don't even know it's going on, at all. There was no way for either of them to've known that they'd been seen, and . . ." Hopps paused and let out a hopeless sigh, "their capture would have come as a total surprise to them. City Hall likes for that kind of stuff to feel like a sucker punch," she said bitterly as she ran a paw over her face. "Their deaths would have been excruciating."

Everyone remained silent for a moment as they looked at her.

"So, that was my other reason for threatening her," she explained, sadly. "It works two ways: If she was a spy, what I said would come off like I was loyal to City Hall. If she wasn't, it told her she was in danger--That City Hall, or at least I, knew that she was doing something that could get her and her husband killed."

There was a quiet in the room as the mammals processed her explanation. The Happy Towners in particular easily remembered snatches of conversation they'd had with Garou the other day. He'd mentioned leaving town several times and seemed to be in the middle of planning to do exactly that. He'd even mentioned how Cevilla had told him that Hopps was keeping her on the hook for future favours. There was no way he was abiding that for either of them--not when Hopps was the worst-feared of those on the force and had such an awful reputation behind her. The way Garou saw it, Hopps was certain to turn them.

Finnick specifically remembered how the wolf had mentioned to him in passing that he was seriously considering leaving that night. Finnick had also noticed, as the day wore on and things got more dangerous, that what had started as a kind of joke on the wolf's part slowly transformed into a serious option till, at last, it was the option.

"But I don't get it," said Finnick as he rejoined, "Why would you put yourself in that situation if you knew how dangerous it was? I mean, the way you make it seem, you coulda been killed any second."

Finnick looked at Hopps intently as he waited for an answer, but she remained silent as though debating within herself.

The stillness was broken by Wilde who'd realised the truth of the matter.

"It's because of Otterton."

He spoke gently as he eyed her intently. He'd been watching her very carefully over the course of the conversation, and he wasn't quite sure what to make of her. She was unquestionably brave in the face of what she'd been confronting. In spite of his soft tone, though, his emotions, while largely ambivalent, had more than a tinge of resentment to them. For such a long time, predators had been facing a growing amount of prejudice and hatred, and Sgt. Judy Hopps had been the poster child for the ZPD's violence toward them. Every news conference the police put out about the dark nature of predators, every press junket that blamed predators for the downfall of society, every scare mongering tactic that City Hall had wanted to push, Hopps had been there, leading the charge. She had argued in favour of the TAME collars, argued passionately for segregation, and had campaigned for legislation that would crack down on preds!

So, while the fox admitted that she'd been brave in the face of the obstacles challenging her, she'd also done a lot to damage prey-pred relations in the city. Right and wrong were two lines that never crossed, he reasoned. And she had definitely crossed that line on several occasions; perhaps even losing sight of her original goal, which was the pursuit of . . . what? The chance to assuage her guilt over Otterton?

Wilde shook his head. It wouldn't do! He just couldn't get over the feelings of distrust and hatred he felt toward her in spite of his simultaneous admiration. What was the difference, he wondered, between being evil and pretending to be evil? What was the difference between being evil and killing someone versus pretending to be evil and killing someone? Bottom line, someone was still dead at her hands, moral alignment notwithstanding! Either way he saw it, she had seriously compromised herself and her moral values.

But had she? She had slain no one. She had apparently been working to get predators out of the city, too.

'Why would she stay on the force?' he wondered. 'If she knew what they were up to, she should've left.' That would've been the right thing to do. The sane thing to do.

"What I don't get," he started, "is why you had to stay on the force. If you were trying so hard to be this pillar of goodness," he spat, "why didn't you just give up and go back to being harmless? Do you know how many lives you ruined by being a part of what they were up to?"

She flinched at the accusation and answered seriously. "I did it because someone had to. Nobody would've been able to do what I was doing. I was the only one with access to sensitive information after . . . well, after City Hall trusted me."

Wilde snorted. "Weak, Hopps. Cevilla could have," he countered.

"Cevilla? You think she could do what I was doing?" she asked incredulously.

"No, you're right," he said bitterly, "I can't think of Cevilla doing anything as awful as what you were doing. You got animals hurt or killed, even if you didn't mean to. And every time there was a chance of something going our way-" said Wilde, "-it was always you in the papers saying that savage preds like us were dangerous and untrustworthy. So as much as you would like to hide behind the fact that you never killed anyone except for a florist with two kids and a wife, I think we can safely say that you contributed to the deaths of hundreds." He looked at her flatly and spoke in a dull tone.

His words were a slap in the face. She set her teeth for a moment as his words hit home. In the face of his conviction, her conscience howled that he was wrong, and she answered with a surge of fury that flooded the banks of her composure.

"Hey!" she shouted, "I have saved countless lives! I've been working for your benefit and the benefit of everyone here!" she said as she gestured to the room. "I was trying to make things better! I saved Fangmeyer's cub, didn't I?" she asked by way of example. "Not only him but thousands of others who were supposed to die! I put myself on the line to save animals like you!"

"Animals like us, huh?" asked Wilde as he sat back, unmoved.

"Yeah, animals like you," she emphasised. "Animals in trouble."

"Well, that's just fine," he said lazily. "You go ahead and wrap yourself up in that blanket of praise. It didn't stop you from watching Wolford and Fangmeyer when they were declawed, did it? How many others, Sarge? It didn't stop you from ruining predators' lives, did it? You said you were gonna try to get Fangmeyer out during the raids they were doing in his area, but what about everybody else?!" He sat forward, his eyes sharp as they regarded her. "Come on, Sarge! Tell us! How many others did you sit back and watch suffer? How many times did you sit there and watch my kind die?!"

"I was trying to help whoever I could . . . ."

"Oh yeah, sure," he scoffed.

"It's true! I'm trying to explain the danger that was in it for everybody involved. I was undercover. Sometimes I had no other option but to just do nothing!"

"Well," started Wilde, "I must say I'm impressed you could pull off being such a heartless bitch for a year and a half without anybody noticing. Good to know you have it in you. That's one thing: Shit like that seems to come easier to prey like you!"

"You think it came easy to me?!" she shouted, nearly shrieking, her fury unbound, as she stood up and walked toward the centre of the group. "You think it was easy to hear the sounds of animals howling in misery?! Do you think it was easy for me to listen to the death rattles of dying animals again and again and again?! To hear the sounds of predators drowning in their own blood?!" Tears tinged the corners of her eyes as awful memories filled the vision of her mind's eye. "Do you think it's easy to listen to someone in agony as they're being declawed, or what it's like to hear someone ask you to deliver a message to his wife and kids when his wife and kids are dead?!" she finished fiercely. "Yeah," she said brokenly, "let Cevilla take that job Because she's real tough!" she finished sarcastically as tears started pouring down her face. "Do you think she'd be able to handle that?"

Everyone was dead silent.

"Every day, I have to go into that fucking operating room and watch for two hours as some poor animal is declawed and then write a report about it. I have to listen to them scream and beg for mercy." She wiped her face at the stream of wetness. "When I was given prison duty one time, I had to watch them do a cull," she said painfully. "I was filling in as a glorified janitor. And I watched them march all these chompers out into the yard. God, they were so thin!

"So, since I was the new girl they made me clean up afterward. Like it was just any other job orientation training! Do you have any idea what that's like?"

Finnick had paled drastically at the description, as had the others in the room, and he trembled as he looked at her. "Wh-why . . . ?" he asked slowly as his own emotions threatened to overtake him.

Hopps let out a sad laugh. "Because . . ." and here there began a hearty mix of sobs and laughter, "they said they were overcrowded. And they were standing over me the whole time, waiting to see if I'd break. Would my 'tough as nails' exterior crack? God, I'll never forget the smell!"

Honey eyed the group tensely but said nothing.

Once Hopps had collected herself enough to go on, she continued, softly, slowly.

"Things've been this way for a while. And there's nothing I can do to stop it. So yeah!" she suddenly exclaimed through her tears as she looked at Wilde, "I get my paws dirty! I do the dirty work that someone has to do. I have to face this Every! Day! So, I'm sorry I don't abide by your strict moral compass. I wish I could follow it, too! But instead, I gave that up. I gave up having a soul because if leaving behind a better world is all I can do, then I'm gonna try! I can't change the world; I can only light my corner of it. But there's just so much to fight against. But if I stop . . ." and here her tears started to fall again, "if I stop, that's one less animal I could have helped but didn't. And no, things don't always work out perfectly. Animals have died on my watch before. But at least I tried. I have to try, or I'm just like them."

Hopps heaved a breath and sat back down before collecting her thoughts. After a pregnant pause, she spoke again. "I don't expect any of you to forgive me. I've done too much, I know; and I can't even forgive myself for it," she started haltingly, "but that doesn't matter to me so much. I-I just hope that you can at least understand . . . ."

Another silence followed. Everyone seemed to be looking around awkwardly at the ground, save for Nick and Judy who eyed the rabbit sitting across from them attentively.

As Judy contemplated Hopps, she saw herself reflected clearly in more than just her looks--the façade the sergeant wore, a mere product of the world in which she'd been living. Judy had had to wear such a façade for one day, and it had worn her completely thin by the end. Here, Judy saw before her a bunny who'd been broken in pieces. How she managed with no support and no way to vent her resentment and hatred of the city, which had forced her into its bloody service, was a mystery to her. Even now, Judy noticed the way her double leant against the back of the chair not only for support but for refuge; as though somehow, sitting there, she would be safe.

Nick's feelings, on the other hand, were leading him down a train of thought. Seeing Hopps--the way she spoke, the way she thought, the way she defended herself--was clearly Judy at her core. Or so it seemed in light of the things she had revealed. The more he thought about it, the more certain pieces started falling into place for him: She'd had to pretend to be cruel while secretly working for the benefit of prey animals, had been sneaking captured animals out of the city to get them to safety, had been halting executions and operations whenever she could . . . . The events of the other day suddenly all fell into place, his realisation casting her in a new light as he voiced the feeling in his gut.

"You're the one who had me picked up," he said with a soft intensity. "That's how they knew where I was, isn't it?" he asked as he leant forward.

Hopps looked up from her paws to see Nick staring at her intently. She nodded slightly, a shy smile lifting the corner of her mouth. "Yeah, I called Honey after I . . . left you there."

"That's why you stopped . . . what they were doing," he said, slowing as the awful memories came flooding back. He shuddered--he could still feel the cold steel of the scalpel as it pressed beneath his claw, into his skin. His chest seized for a moment as anxiety gripped him. "You saved me from being declawed," he finished gratefully, though shaken at the recollection.

She nodded again. "I'm sorry," she started weakly, "for what I said, by the way. I didn't mean . . . ."

"I understand. I get it," said Nick as he held up a paw, though a terseness had entered his tone. "I'm not over it, but . . . I get it." He paused and grit his teeth for a second as he thought back to the gripping terror he'd felt in that hopeless moment, before continuing through the mask of his resilience. "I just needed to say thanks for that."

His mate took his paw and held it tightly. He looked at Judy and squeezed hers back, smiling as she patted the top of it before they both turned back to Hopps.

"I needed to say thank you, too," said Judy. "Nick is everything to me and I don't know what I would have done if anything'd happened to him."

"Something did happen to him," said Hopps gloomily as she eyed her double. "This place-" she gestured around herself, "-happened to him. This place happens to all of us," she gestured to the Happy Towners. "Nobody escapes it."

"How did you keep it from getting to you?" asked Judy. "I barely lasted a day. I have no idea what I'd do if I'd accidentally killed someone."

"Well, tricked into killing someone," said Honey, somewhat soothingly.

"No," said Hopps as she looked at Honey. "Don't sugarcoat it. We both know what I did." She turned to Judy and eyed her keenly before going on. "You do it because you have to," she sighed. "Animals depended on me--I couldn't just fall apart. Even though I did for a while."

"What do you mean?" asked Judy.

That was something that needed explaining, too, Hopps realised.

"There's more to . . . well, the story I was telling you."

Nick nodded. "After Otterton died."

Hopps nodded. "That's not the end of it." Hopps sighed in the wake of the silence.

"What more is there?" asked Judy.

After a beat:

"You've worked a murder case, haven't you?" asked Hopps as she eyed her twin cautiously.

Judy nodded carefully.

Hopps smiled sadly. "Then, you probably an idea of what I'm about to say: A murder," she began, affecting an informative tone, "isn't the beginning of a story--it's the end of one."

Judy looked puzzled for a moment,--as did everyone else in the room--before the realisation struck.

"I think I get what you mean," said Judy measuredly. "A murder's . . . like, the end of a series of events that led to a particular animal's death."

Nick nodded appreciatively.

"Exactly," started Hopps, excited that her thoughts were resonating. "And when you're working a case, you gotta start at the end and work your way back. A lotta times, we like to look for motive first, but that's backwards. You gotta unravel the whole story first before you can really get why something happened."

Hopps paused, and it seemed to Nick at that moment--as Hopps was expressing herself so excitedly and passionately--that he saw in her, clearly, for the first time, the exact image of the Judy he knew and loved. The light that shone in her eyes was the same bright, idealistic, and hopeful look he'd fallen in love with. He looked down at Judy and put his arm around her and held her to his side. At that moment, he was reminded of every good thing he had in his paws.

Judy looked up at him and smiled, the same shimmering, hopeful look in her eyes.

Nick looked away slowly and turned his gaze slightly to regard Wilde out of the corner of his eye. His twin's expression was mostly unreadable, but Nick thought he could detect a note of interest.

Nick knew himself well, and if his twin were anything like him, he also knew that Hopps was gonna have to break him down by degrees. In fact, her battle was going to be even more uphill than Judy's was since Judy'd started with a semi-clean slate while Hopps had a year and a half's worth of baggage behind her. Nevertheless, he wondered what the others would see when they saw the real Hopps for the first time.

Nick turned back to the rabbit before him as she sighed before going on.

"It's weird how in this case," she said softly, "it was police procedure that ended up getting me into even more trouble."

She regarded the Happy Towners carefully before finishing her story.

-.-.-.-

A Year and Two Months Ago

The next few days were a blur in her mind--A whirlwind of press conferences and interviews, each more frustrating than the last.

"So you're saying that predators are predisposed to going savage at any moment?!"

The gopher sat across from her at round interview table. He leant forward as he spoke, peering at her through his glasses and crossing his arms as he waited for an answer.

Judy sat back and fidgeted uncomfortably in her chair, shrinking under his gaze. The brightness of the stage lights, coupled with her anxiety and general confusion, were muddling her thoughts.

Next to her, Chief Swinton nudged her, urging her to answer.

Judy looked down at the list of talking points in her paws and continued. "It seems that way," she said, "but I don-"

"Oh, give us a break, Officer!" insisted the gopher. "We know what happened in that alley and we know what's been going on city wide! It's been in all the papers! Chompers left and right have been going savage and injuring innocent prey on the street. There's got to be a connection, hasn't there?"

"When you put it that way, sure, it ma-"

"So, you agree then?"

"I . . . I've been on administrative leave since the incident. If there've been any other developments, you'd need to a-"

"Chompers have been going feral," said the interviewer. "You have to admit that something needs to be done to stop these savages, right?"

"Yes, but I have no idea wh-"

"And you're saying you think it's all just some coincidence?"

"No, I don't think it's a coincidence! Yes," she started as she looked back down at her sheet, "it is happening only to chompers--probably something biological like you said! And yes, something needs to be done about it!" She huffed as she finished reading down the main points.

"Thank you officer Hopps, you've been very informative." The interviewer looked into the camera before he continued. "Come back tomorrow, folks, when our guest will b-"

Judy turned off the television and flopped back onto the bed.

She sighed and looked over at the nightstand. On it lay the sheet of paper detailing the talking points Chief Swinton and Deputy Bogo had wanted her to push every chance she got. Now, for not the first time, she got the feeling it was accusing her.

At first, she'd been in such a daze from the unbelievable turn of events that she hadn't given much thought to what she was being asked to say. She'd been going on and on about the natural, violent, and feral predispositions latent in all chompers without a second thought. Her mind had been in a fog of confusion, guilt, and fear--three emotions that hadn't lent her much time to mend the trauma she felt. As one day stretched into five, and as she began to realise the full impact of what she was saying, she found to her surprise that she agreed with it.

The most recent headlines, both in the papers on the web, all told the same story--In the days following her own run in, savages were going feral all over the city. And it seemed intimately linked to their biology: a self-evident fact since animals of the predator class were the only ones changing.

After going over it again and again in her mind, she couldn't escape the conclusion that that was why this was happening. But then, why some and not others? Was it a disease? She couldn't make sense of it; and then again, it didn't really matter.

Her ambivalence over the talking points came from the fact that she was being used. She was certain of it. There was an agenda here, somewhere--but she couldn't say where and what it was. Preds were going feral--so that wasn't it. Preds were predisposed biologically to hunt and kill prey--so that wasn't it. And they seemed to be predisposed to violence if news of the protests were anything to be believed.

She groaned to herself. If only preds were able to see themselves as clearly as she saw them now, they would understand that there was no reason to be angry. Violence was just a part of their nature--you can't fix a problem if you don't acknowledge it, she thought. And these preds definitely had a problem. With every bloody protest they held, it only reconfirmed in her mind their aggressive tendencies.

More and more, she'd had to turn away from the news in disgust. Especially when TV pundits suggested chompers had founded some secret society bent on hunting prey. All the same, she found her mind giving the idea a certain credence. It was a ridiculous notion, and yet, in spite of that, Hopps found herself falling for it, in some small way, more and more. The idea that predators had developed a primal taste for blood had become a terrifying possibility made real to her by the horrors plaguing her dreams.

Even now, she could see the gaping jaws of Mr. Otterton--His sharp, pointed teeth aimed for her throat. She shuddered and tried to blink the image from her mind; it lingered, though, and she tried turning her thoughts to other concerns with little success.

Many restless evenings since that awful night, she'd awoken screaming, her pillow wet with tears, as she struggled for breath against the suffocating, horrifying darkness of the apartment.

These horrors would almost immediately find themselves replaced in her visions by images of Otterton in death.

As the tumult of emotions in her dreaming life swirled through her, the feelings of guilt would eventually come through, transforming his terrifying visage.

In those dreams, he was an angel! His harmless, gentle face looking peaceful in repose. A harmless creature who'd never hurted any. There was no way he would have harmed anyone intentionally, was there? His face belied the aggressiveness with which she'd been attacked, and in her dreams, she could see herself caressing his face. She would awaken then--sharp pangs of guilt--like daggers!--through her heart, sending her once again into a spiral of tears and sadness.

And she would never be able to forget the sight of his sobbing wife and children on the news.

Photo after photo of him confirmed her impression. There was nothing aggressive about this otter; which only meant--Chief Swinton had told her--that it had to be something in their genes.

Judy covered her face. She felt as though she were being torn apart! And her emotions conflicted with each other more than ever. While on the one paw, there was no way she could believe that Otterton, that sweet little otter--even shorter than her--would go savage for the hell if it, she also couldn't clear her mind off the terror she felt in the face of the images of him frozen in her brain.

Her argument with Garou the week before had been about this issue precisely; and yet now, she was here: reconfirming her initial prejudices. She had to believe the evidence of her own eyes. Perhaps it was due to the isolation during her leave, but the more time she spent alone, the crazier this started to feel. And the more time she sat reading tale after tale of feral savage, the more she started to believe what she read from the prompter sitting on her nightstand. Her terror and anxiety had only grown over time, feeding her fears. She was building a wall of distance and solitude between herself and the world. She could not let herself crack!

Cevilla had made it a point to stop by on several occasions to comfort her. At least at first. Judy noticed that with each press conference she gave--with each passing day--Cevilla's tone and manners toward her changed. Where at first the doe's voice had been one of comfort, over time it changed to desperation. Then to anger, then to fury--with the doe pounding on her door, demanding answers as to why she was trashing predators on television; till finally, she'd left her alone.

All this in the space of five days.

And still, she kept her door firmly bolted against the outside world whenever she could.

What was worst of all was she felt like she had failed herself. The brave bunny, supposedly the hero of Zootopia, was hidden beneath the walls of her grey apartment.

Oh sure, City Hall was quick to extol her virtues and made much of how brave she was in the face of Death. She was the mighty pred hunter. Or so the propaganda posters read.

More and more in the press, she was painted as a gunslinging heroine who'd managed to take down a vicious predator.

She'd gotten everything she ever wanted--the praise, the recognition of her worth, and maybe a promotion. Rumour had it.

And yet, something didn't feel right in her gut.

Judy stretched out lengthwise on her bed, put her arms behind her head, and sighed.

She had seen the shrink appointed by the city to evaluate her after the shooting. It was odd to her that the shrink, in spite of her initial misgivings about having killed Otterton, assured her that she should feel no guilt. Especially since she'd been choosing between her life and his. She made no mention of the fact that she hadn't known what kind of gun she'd been holding. Such an arm for policing duty was unheard of. No one carried guns in the city. Except for tranqs, guns harkened back to days when animals warred amongst and hunted each other.

She closed her eyes as these thoughts weighed on her.

Nobody had said this to her directly, but it seemed to her that the overwhelming message she was getting from others was that his life had been worth less than hers. And now Lionheart was pressuring the mayor for an investigation.

She covered her face with her paws again as her thoughts ran wild.

It was getting to be too much for her.

She reached over to her nightstand and turned off the light. It was only eight seventeen and she already felt exhausted.

She didn't even bother getting out of her clothes but merely inhaled and exhaled deeply as she closed her eye, hoping for a dreamless sleep

-.-.-.-

Five Weeks Later

Judy sat, nursing a drink, the stress of the preceding weeks the source of the terrific headache currently assaulting her as she mulled over the events in her life that had led to this current frustration.

The noise in the city calling for an investigation and trial had grown louder than ever over the following weeks. Eventually, the pressure from the Lionheart family had forced Mayor Bellwether to approve it. In the days that followed the mayor's assent, the investigation had been forced through the appropriate channels. With that, Hopps found herself more and more at the mercy of politics rather than anything amounting to justice.

Leodore Lionheart, in particular, had enough wealth and influence to force the issue, and he lent his support to the predators in the city who'd risen up against her. He couldn't be ignored.

Hopps had been beside herself throughout the situation as it unfolded and found herself howlingly resentful of the process. She had been interrogated relentlessly to the point nearly of tears. Swinton, though, had insisted that the investigation would come to nothing.

But then came the demands for a grand jury trial.

And again, she was put through the wringer.

Continually, both Bogo and Bellwether had reassured her that the grand jury was merely a show in order to pacify the noisy savages in the city whose vengeful, mean-spirited voices clamoured for justice. They said the same thing the following week--the fourth since the incident--when the grand jury came back with a verdict to formally indict her on a count of murder in the second degree.

'It's all because of those fucking savages, Hopps. Ever since the amalgamation of Happy Town into Zootopia, thing's've gone downhill. Without those fucking chompers, none of this would be happening.'

Judy recalled Swinton's words a few days ago when the motion to indict had been reached. The chief had made a point of putting an arm around her comfortingly as she delivered the news. Swinton had gone on to explain that the ratios in the city had changed since the inclusion of Happy Town and that the percentages stood more like fifty-six to forty-four--with prey still the majority holders.

The unfairness of it all infuriated Judy! Her name was being dragged through the mud and all because some filthy otter had doped himself up and beaten his wife. Oh, yes--she had seen that in the news, too.

The coroner's report had been clear that a psychotropic drug, with which the coroner himself was unfamiliar, had been found in the creature's blood. And yet she was being criticised for killing him! The miserable thing had beaten its wife and attacked its home before storming off, and yet she was getting the blame?! Fuck that!

Swinton and Bellwether had been so kind to her, held her paw through every meeting and interview since. She wouldn't've been able to make this ordeal through without them. It had been five weeks, now, since the shooting, and over time she'd only gotten more hate in the press.

Predator columnists had called her lawless, degenerate, morally wanting!

She couldn't stand it and she cursed the day she ever came to the city.

So yeah, she lashed out at the preds! Her fury grew as with each passing day, the hate mail, the barrage of insults, the outright violence coming from the community she'd sworn to protect piled on her back like a torment aiming to break her!

She lashed out savagely in press interviews, disparaging predators as inherently stupid, vile creatures; the hatred she was receiving from them entirely unprovoked.

"How dare you call out my entire class," _roared a tiger during her latest interview. "We've done nothing to you!"_

"That's where you wrong!" _she'd fired back. _"If I seem angry now, it's because I learned it from you!" _she shouted as she pounded the table. "I was worried sick over what happened to Otterton, but the only thing I've learned now is that I was wrong. You *are * savages!"_

Hopps winked the memory from her mind. Ruminating over such things had done her no good, and the trial started tomorrow. She expected nothing more from the city officials than a slap on the wrist. Even if worse came to worse, Bellwether had promised her a pardon.

She was in a bar, sitting alone at a booth, nursing an alcohol fermented from cherries. It was sweet and strong, and she'd been taking quite a lot of it in the past few days.

She was in the habit of choosing a dark corner near the back to avoid the eyes of most animals there. She was recognisable on sight to most within the city, now; and she had come to despise the laud coming from those who hailed her as a hero.

It would be six weeks from the start of this whole mess and she couldn't wait for the whole thing to be over. Chief Swinton and Mayor Bellwether had assured her a swift trial in her favour. While normally any suggestion that the wheels of justice were being greased would have set her teeth on edge, Judy had come to feel since it was first suggested--within the first week of the shooting--that she deserved this exemption.

At least this once, she thought, justice would be better served through this subversion. She had already paid enough with her reputation as a villain. Rumours had tanked her standing as a law abiding cop. If that's all preds in the city were ever going to see in her, why bother to be anything else?

It was bitter!

Cevilla and Garou had both grown distant over time. When Hopps finally did feel up to having some company, she found both Cevilla and Garou as cold as ice. Yes, perhaps she had made mistakes along the way, but she insisted she was only reporting the facts and hadn't been trying in any way to hurt predators throughout the city. They wouldn't hear of it, and she found people turning from her little by little. She couldn't even speak to her parents. What could she say to them? More to the point, she was ashamed of what she had done to the family name.

As far as Garou and Cevilla went, things had spiralled out; and with that, her opinions on preds in general. She'd become mean and frazzled.

And her nightmares weren't doing anything to assuage her grief, either; and the shrink whom she'd been seeing continued to dismiss her fears and her dreams as irrational. Everybody had insisted to her that she'd done the right thing, that she was a good cop, that she was what this city needed.

So then why was she so sick?!

Why had her dreams become more and more terrifying?!

She slammed her fist down on the table as the cascade of thoughts tumbled through her.

The clink of her glass at the impact of her fist awakened her to her surroundings. She looked around and saw several patrons looking at her.

Embarrassed, she turned away to stare down into her drink. She downed it quickly before signalling for another.

"Big day tomorrow," came a feminine voice behind her. "You wouldn't wanna overdo it."

Hopps looked up slowly to see a badger looking down at her--She was poised, reserved, and in control.

"How 'bout you mind your own business," said Hopps as she turned back to stare ahead.

"You are my business, Carrots," said the badger as she came around the bunny to stand in front of her. "May I sit down?"

Judy looked up at her wearily beneath her eyelashes and nodded slightly while surreptitiously drawing her gun, keeping it concealed beneath the table.

The badger sat down and smiled at her as she caught the eye of a nearby waiter who nodded. He came over and took the badger's order before going off to mix the drink. In the meantime, another waitress came over and set Judy's drink in front of her before wordlessly leaving.

Judy and the badger sat in silence for a moment. They only looked at each other. Judy eyed the badger suspiciously. She examined every aspect of the creature sitting before her but for the life of her couldn't read a single thing from it.

The bunny set her teeth, rather certain that this was going to be another reaming from another pred. Death threats had been flooding her mailbox, and it wasn't too long ago that Bogo had suggested she carry a weapon with her. Judy's initial reluctance had been transformed by the aggressive manner in which she'd been treated by predators at nearly every opportunity when out and about.

She'd been attacked, punched, and beaten when alone on errands. Publicly humiliated and abused in full daylight! She had been frightened to the point where she didn't want to leave her apartment, and every time she did, she had grown afraid that that day would be the day . . . that someone finally went too far.

That was when Bogo had suggested the gun. Not just a tranq gun, but the bullet gun she'd used before. And she had accepted it without question. Fear had taken over her mind, and it made her feel safer.

Staring at the badger across from her now, she could see the brightness of her yellow eyes shining out from the half-darkness. They stood out in relief like gems against the shadows, and Judy swore she could feel them piercing her.

She inhaled deeply and undid the gun's safety.

Was this . . . it . . . ? Was this the moment that someone tried to kill her?

The waitress returned to their table and set the badger's drink before her. She scuttled off, sensing the tension between them before anything else could be said.

Judy took another sip, looking over the rim of the cup, as she eyed the creature. It seemed almost motionless as it stared at her--that badger.

"Preds aren't allowed here," said Judy carefully.

The badger merely frowned at first, but picked up her glass and took a sip after a moment.

"It pays to have friends in high places," said the creature after a moment. "What about you, Officer? Do you have friends?"

Judy took a breath and paused for a moment as she looked at the badger before casting them down to her glass.

"Just this cup," she said after a moment before looking back up at the badger.

"And Bogo? And Swinton? And all the other swine in the city?" she spat.

Judy's eyebrow twitched. "I have them, too. Just wait and see. Not that I'm threatening you, Savage, but if you try anything-"

The badger snorted and looked away toward the bar. "Oh, I wouldn't dream of it. You and your entourage would have me dead before your blood touched the ground, Prey."

Judy steadily aimed the gun beneath the table, taking a nervous breath. Her paw trembled, keeping her finger carefully off the trigger. She kept her eye steady.

The badger looked at her out of the corner of its eye. "You can put your gun away," she drawled slowly. "I'm not here to kill you."

"Then what do you want in this part of town, Savage? Isn't there a curfew?"

"Like I said, Prey," she replied coolly, "I have friends in high places."

"Not as high as mine," replied Hopps.

"No, you're right," started the badger. "Not as high as yours, Prey."

"You're gonna wanna stop calling me that," said Hopps as she narrowed her eyes at the badger, her tone lowering dangerously.

"Why should I? It's what you are."

"Oh, you think so?" returned Hopps in a low whisper. "You think I don't know how to hunt? I can kill as well as the rest of you."

"I've never killed anyone," said the badger smoothly. "So, who's the Savage?"

Hopps felt a lurch in her chest as the insinuation hit home, but said nothing and allowed no sign nor blemish mar her steady gaze.

"You think we all don't see what you're becoming, Savage?" said the badger. "We all see it and we all know it. And I see you, Hopps. I saw you in your first interview. You wear your heart on your sleeve. Or you did. Before they got to you."

Hopps said nothing but ground her teeth as she tried to tamp down her anger.

"The rest of this city may not have a good memory, Savage--but I have a very good memory. No one gave you much attention at first. There are chompers in the city even now who have no idea who you are. The mask of oppression in this city gets passed around here so often it's hard for a lot of us to tell who's who. You're just one face in a long line of animals who think they can get away with anything."

"You don't know anything about me," said Hopps in a low voice.

"Don't I? I know you're not who they say you are."

"And who is 'they'?" she asked sharply.

"Your 'friends,' of course."

Judy pounded the table and leant forward.

"I am what you and your kind have made me!" she said in a harsh whisper. "What the hell are you here for?"

The badger sat back and smirked. "I'm here to tell your fortune."

Hopps scoffed and turned away as she got up to leave.

"You're being played, Savage."

Judy looked back at her confused. "What the hell are you talking about?"

She shrugged. "You're being played," she said again. "You can't tell me you haven't seen it."

Judy felt a bomb go off in her mind.

'There has to be an agenda somewhere!' her mind echoed. It was a thought that had recurred in the early days following the shooting but had slowly dissolved away into the darkness of her heart.

Judy felt a tingle down her spine as the badger's words resurrected the long-dead thought.

Her unease at the developments in her case had been forcibly tucked away as being merely the imaginings of a distraught animal--and yet now, somehow, this badger had managed to speak directly to those concerns. At every turn, she'd found her worries and misgivings dismissed as the product of a delicate conscience--painted over with kind platitudes and promotions.

In spite of herself, in spite of the danger she felt in the presence of this creature, Judy couldn't help that part of herself that wanted someone to listen to those feelings. A side of herself that yearned to be acknowledged.

She gave nothing away in her face nor in her body language but merely turned back to the badger, slowly.

The badger regarded her knowingly. "Shall I . . . continue with my fortune?"

Judy balled her paws and made no sign to acknowledge the badger's question.

It merely smirked at the rabbit and continued. "At first, you just wanted to be a normal cop with a normal beat. But as time wore on, you found out that you were just someone's pet--Chief Swinton's little mascot. Too tall for Little Rodentia, too small for the rest of the city. A total misfit living betwixt and between two worlds. But then, all of a sudden, you kill 'the beast that no one can kill,' and you, 'the one least likely,' save the day. Except instead of 'the beast that no one can kill,' you took the life of a meek little otter with a wife and kids. He made a meagre living as a florist, but who the hell cares about that? What matters is the blame.

"And at first, you blamed yourself, because you're not a killer by nature. No one but the ones up top are aware of the fact that you killed that otter by accident. And it turns out that the brave story of 'the one least likely' who comes back as a hero is still the weak, spineless, and terrified bunny that you were in that alley. Your 'friends' up top see this and think to themselves, 'Oh, we can't have this,' so they take it upon themselves to turn you into a monster. They tell you what to say, what to do, and what to think. And you do: because in spite of being a Savage, you can never quite get rid of your meek little herd mentality. It's not your fault--all prey have that instinct, but in this case, it happens to be your downfall." The badger smirked. "How does that sound?"

Hopps pinned her ears back. Now, she was trembling all over. Carefully, she reached for the gun again as she spoke. "Did you forget the part where you savages started going wild and murdering innocent prey left and right? Did you forget the part where I was attacked on the streets out doing random errands? Just minding my own business and I was attacked?!" She upholstered the gun. "Or how about the part where all your little peaceful protests turned into violent attacks on innocent mammals?" She undid the safety and aimed carefully . . .

"Oh, you dumb, stupid bunny . . ." said the badger as she trailed off. The creature shook its head and met the bunny's gaze. "You have no idea who your friends are."

It suddenly felt quiet in the bar, and Judy swore she'd be able to hear a pin drop. Her breath shook as she felt the walls of anxiety and danger closing in on her. She licked her lips.

The badger held her gaze. "The sad thing is, you won't know the hammer's fallen till it's crushing you. You're being set up in more ways than you know."

"I believe the evidence of my own eyes," said the bunny.

"And that's your problem," said the badger. "You see everything so clearly and yet don't see anything. With all your carrot eating," she continued measuredly, "you have the best eyesight of anyone--but you have no perception!"

There was a pause in which neither of them spoke for a moment. It was Hopps who finally broke the silence.

"Are you gonna tell anyone?"

The badger cocked an eyebrow. "About you being a fraud?"

When Hopps said nothing, she continued.

"No. Right now, I'm enjoying the fact that you're twisting in the wind."

Hopps' face reddened in anger beneath her fur.

"Put your gun away. It won't do you any good here."

Hopps made no move, and when she didn't, the badger sighed.

"Or, do whatever you want. But, I want to ask you one favour."

Hopps glared at her. Still nothing.

"Rumour has it . . . your trial is only going to last two days. There's something I need to show you. Come and meet me here--same time. And if you're interested, I'll tell you more about your future here."

Without waiting for an answer, the badger stood up and made the long walk back to the front of the bar. She stopped at the cash box for a moment before heading out the door.

Hopps watched her attentively before turning back to stare at where the badger had been sitting.

Too much of what the badger'd said had struck home.

She safetied the gun before returning it to her holster for the second time and took a moment to ponder the strange encounter before finishing the last of her drink and heading to the front.

She found to her surprise that her tab had been paid by the creature.

She was curious in spite of herself as she walked out of the bar, and she turned the conversation over in her mind. And while she had no great desire to see the badger again, she knew that she would come again the next evening. She hurried her steps down the pavement as she made the short walk home.

Her dreams that night were more vivid than ever. She could hear Otterton's voice ringing in her ears as he cried out, again and again--his words lost in the void as he screamed at her unintelligibly.

Saveme nightho wle rssav eme night howlerssave menig hthowlerssavemenig htho wler ss avemenighthowlersnighthow lersnighth owle rsnightho wlers nighthowlers nighth owl ersnight HOW lersnighthowle rsni ghthowlersni ghth owlersni ghthow lersnigh thowlersnighthowlers nightho wlersmu rdermemurderme mu r derm emurderme murderme m urd erm emurd ermemurder mem urderme

MURDER !

Judy awoke screaming as the final shout echoed through her soul. She sat up and choked back sobs as tears came streaming down her face. She sat there for a few minutes before collapsing to her side. She raked her claws across her face and sobbed until she was too tired to go on.

At last, her shaking subsided, and she sighed even as her tears kept coming.

She let them come. And cried herself to sleep.

-.-.-.-

The following morning, she awoke to find that her mind was strangely clear, as though she'd awoken from a very long and satisfying sleep. Odd, since she clearly remembered the awful dream that had awoken her that night. But strangely, it was a sense that she was making headway on something, but she didn't know what it was.

Things suddenly seemed brighter than they ever had before in the face of such awfulness, and she laughed at the feeling. It were as though some weight had been lifted from her shoulders, and she didn't know why.

Someone had heard her, she realised. Someone had understood her suffering. Her charade. Her façade. And in spite of the way that creature had pried into her life last night, she found herself grateful on some level that at last she had someone who would confirm her misgivings.

She looked over at her nightstand clock as she got out of bed. She'd awoken before her alarm even went off--the time read five thirty-seven.

She switched off the alarm and went straight to shower and dress for court.

She had a long day ahead of her, and she didn't want to face it at all, really. As she dressed, she considered making a trail of candy bars from her door to the bed so she'd have something pleasant to come home to that afternoon. But, she decided against it--there were certain levels of patheticness she wasn't quite yet willing to stoop to.

She steeled herself as she headed out, wishing for a moment that everything that had happened up to that point were happening to someone else in some other universe. Taking a deep breath, she opened the door and faced the day.

-.-.-.-

7:11 PM

"Did you like the way that Otterton was portrayed in court today?"

Judy took a measured breath before sipping from her glass.

The question hung in the air and seemed genuine to all appearances. The badger who'd asked it looked across the table at her, expecting an answer.

After a long day of litigation, the rabbit was tired and her nerves were extremely frayed. Though she'd had some time to herself before seven to regroup, the trial had been as hellish as she'd pictured it. All the same questions, all the same mixed feelings she'd had since the beginning, came storming back in full force due, in no small part, she was sure, to the badger's words last night.

"I don't know what you mean," she lied. She knew exactly what the badger meant but had no idea how she knew it. The courtroom had been closed and the jury were gagged.

Being in the presence of Swinton and Bellwether had had the effect of shoring up her resolve, and yet she found it crumbling in the face of the badger now. Perhaps because she finally had someone who would listen to her misgivings. Not that that's what she expected tonight.

The creature eyed her intently. "I think you know exactly what I mean, Savage."

Judy grit her teeth.

"I know you don't agree with what they said about him. I can see it in your face."

"Like I said," began the rabbit, "you don't know anything about me."

"Except that you're being manipulated," she returned lightly. "You know that what they said about Otterton was a lie."

Hopps said nothing for a moment. "Is that all you came here to tell me?"

The badger laughed once. "No. I came here to tell you that you're in grave danger from the people you're relying on, and it's gonna get you in trouble if you don't watch your step."

"I don't have to worry about them," said Judy dismissively.

"You do. Do you think it was a coincidence that Otterton ended up dead? He was marked from the beginning. What they weren't counting on was that you were the one who was gonna pull the trigger. You can't tell me that that doesn't bother you, by the way--that they're using bullets?"

Judy inhaled sharply.

The badger nodded knowingly.

"Poor little savage," she drawled. "You don't know a thing . . . ."

Judy pounded the table furiously. "Then why don't you stop playing games and tell me?!" she hissed fervently. The creature eyed her coolly--that creature sitting across from her--before answering.

"You wouldn't believe me," she finally said as she looked away.

"Maybe. You'd need to prove it to me, though," said Judy.

The badger laughed. "You wouldn't like its price."

Judy sat back and smirked. "Then you have nothing."

"Now who's playing games?" asked the badger as she leant forward. "You wanna know what the price is? What the proof is?"

Judy rolled her eyes. "I'm all ears," she said sarcastically.

"The proof . . . is your death."

Hopps rolled her eyes again. "How dramatic of you."

There was a lull in the conversation, and the badger looked off out the window, as though in deep thought.

"Is that the rest of the fortune you came here to tell me?" asked Judy. "That I'm going to die?"

"No," replied the badger flatly without turning to look at her. She sighed before looking back at the rabbit.

Judy couldn't swear to it, but for a moment she saw what she thought was pity in the badger's expression. It was gone the next moment as the badger opened her mouth to speak.

"Do you remember the story of Julius Caesar?"

Hopps nodded slightly.

"Do you remember how he died?"

"Stabbed to death by five of his friends," said Judy as she wondered what the hell this had to do with anything.

"That's your fortune."

Judy scoffed. "What the hell are y-"

"You're a farm girl, aren't you?" interrupted the badger.

"What are you . . . ?"

"Just . . . answer me . . . . Do you know how to farm?"

"I know how to farm, but I swear: if you're about to make a carrot farming jo-"

"I'm not!" implored the creature. "I'm just . . . just follow me down a thought experiment. Or rabbit hole, if you will," she smiled.

Judy worried that if she rolled her eyes one more time they'd get lodged in the corner of her skull.

After another moment, Judy realised that the badger was still waiting for an answer.

"Yes, I know what carrot farming is like," she said between grit teeth.

"Do you ever think," continued the badger, "what things might have been like if we preds haven't given up our savage ways?"

Judy snorted. "You haven't."

The badger's eyes narrowed dangerously. "Oh, you don't think so? Then why isn't every prey in Zootopia dead? Because most of us want peace," she said. The creature was livid as it stood up. "If I really wanted to, you don't think that I wouldn't have the power to tear you and every other animal in this room to shreds without the use of a gun?!"

Hopps sat back and felt the old fear rise in her chest again. For a moment, before the savage calmed, she wished she'd thought to bring her gun with her, but for some reason, she'd felt safe with the creature tonight.

The badger sat back in her place.

Judy shuddered. The creature still eyed her from the shadows, and it made her uneasy.

"So," continued the badger as she regained control of her temper, "I'll ask you again--clearly, not all of us 'savages' are mindless ferals--what do you think would have become of you prey?"

Hopps offered nothing. The question confused her. What the hell did that have to do with farming? Like predators would ever run a farm! If they did, it'd have to be a farm fo-

And then it hit her. Judy paled beneath her fur at the suggestion, and the badger smiled sinisterly.

"You get it?" asked the creature.

Judy said nothing. She felt rather petrified by the sensation of anxiety she was suddenly feeling.

The badger leant forward. "We are living in an animal farm. Right here, right now. Only things aren't the way you'd expect them to be. If we preds had wanted to, we probably could have started running farms where instead of breeding vegetables we'd breed prey. Raising them up for slaughter. Can you imagine what your life would be, Savage, if you had been born into that kind of slavery?"

"We're all equal here in Zootopia," said Judy carefully. "Nobody here's a slave."

"You think so?" chuckled the badger. "You're wrong. In such an animal farm, some animals would be rulers over the others--we preds would be the rulers. There would be no charade to hide behind--prey would be our livestock. Here in Zootopia, things are more subtle. Sure, you say that we're all equal--but if you're a pred animal living in this city you learn very quickly that some animals are more equal than others.

"The trouble for you, Savage," continued the badger, "is that you're in the same boat with the rest of us--but you're worse off than us chompers. Which is something that's very difficult to manage. We're all living on this animal farm, Savage; and we're all devouring each other in different ways. And now, your friends are raising you like a pig for slaughter."

Judy was silent for a moment. She was totally confused and utterly unable to understand what the creature was saying. She was speaking in half-truths, analogies, and metaphors.

"Maybe it's the dumb bunny in me," started Hopps as she leaned forward, "but I need you to tell me what the hell you mean."

"Alright," started the badger after a pause. "Your friends at the ZPD are stitching you up. They're going to kill you as soon as the trial's over, which'll probably be tomorrow."

Judy just stared at her incredulously.

"What?" she asked flatly after a brief pause.

"They're going to kill you," repeated the badger, a deadly seriousness in her voice. "They want you to be a martyr to their cause so that they can justify killing us next."

Judy started to laugh but stopped when she saw the badger was serious. Suddenly flushing with anger, Judy leant across the table in a flash. "Now you listen to me, Feral: Yeah, maybe there are a few questions that I have about the case but none of that points to anybody of the prey class that would do such a thing. Otterton went savage and that's a fact. Probably because he was taking some drug that messed him up! And it also doesn't take away the fact that you chompers have been treating me like shit."

"Get used to that," said the badger.

"You!" started Hopps angrily before checking herself and looking around the bar to make sure she wasn't making a scene. To her relief, their earnest chatter had gone on relatively unobserved.

She sat back down and eyed the creature angrily.

"Yeah, it makes sense," continued the badger, "that chompers would be calling you names. I'm sure that's so much worse than being killed in an alley . . . ."

"And attacked!" said Hopps, rather loudly.

The badger looked at her strangely before a look of realisation came over the creature. "Ah, so is that what goaded you into your current prejudice?"

"That," said Judy slowly, "and the fact that you've all been going savage. I don't trust you anymore."

"And by 'you,' you mean . . . ?"

"I mean, not you, personally, but you chompers."

The badger nodded. "Let me ask you . . . these preds who attacked you . . . were they ever caught?"

Judy shook her head no. "They skulked off before anyone could get 'em."

"Well, then," said the badger, "that just proves that we--and I mean 'we chompers'--aren't the ones who're attacking you."

"Huh?" asked Hopps incredulously. She was becoming more annoyed the more the creature spoke. "That's ridiculous--I saw them with my own eyes."

"There were police nearby?"

"Yeah, I had to go around a few places that were protesting, and some officers were trying to keep the peace. So?"

"And did they see what happened to you?"

Judy flumped back in her seat and tilted her head back as she tried to recall what happened. "Yeah," she replied finally, "they saw me. They saw the whole thing." An uncomfortable feeling was beginning to settle in her stomach. "But they didn't catch 'em."

She looked at the badger fiercely.

"I know what you're implying and it's not true!"

The badger smiled. "And what am I implying?"

"That . . . uh . . . that they let them go? That the officers just let the creatures go?" finished Hopps nervously. She had a sense of what the badger was trying to say, but the thought was so incredible to her that she didn't want to believe it. And voicing the ridiculous notion felt stupid to her.

"More than that, Savage. Not only did they probably let them go, but the preds who attacked you were probably working for City Hall."

Judy looked puzzled for a moment. "There's no way . . ."

"Yes, there is. The truth is right in front of you, and you don't see it. You have no perception! All the clues are right in front of you and you don't see it! You don't get it!"

"Then just tell me what I'm supposed to be looking for!" she shouted, drawing the attention of the other patrons.

"Is everything alright over here?" asked a waiter as he came over.

Judy said nothing for a moment before finally nodding. "Yeah, everything's fine," she said slowly.

The waiter eyed the badger suspiciously before slowly taking his leave.

The badger turned back to Judy as he left.

"Alright, little Savage, I'm gonna try to be patient with you since your 'friends' seem to have blinded you to the obvious: How many times were you attacked?"

Judy let out a slow breath. "Three times. Almost four times, but that time there was intervention."

"Who intervened that time?"

"The fourth time?" asked Judy. "The protestors did."

"Not the police who were always nearby?"

"I don't believe the police are in on it! If that was the point you were gonna try to make-"

"It wasn't--I just thought it could do to point it out. No, my real point is this: What happens to preds when we become agitated?"

Judy looked bemused. "I don't know. Nothing, I guess, except they get a citation?"

"Try again, Savage," replied the badger as she gestured to her collar.

Judy felt the wind leave her as sudden realisation slammed home. Back in Bunnyburrow, all predators were uncollared and she hadn't quite gotten used to the idea of predators facing consequences for merely being angry.

"In the times you were attacked, were the chompers who attacked you wearing collars?" asked the badger.

Judy nodded.

"And they weren't shocked?"

Judy shook her head slowly. "No. They weren't." She spoke softly as the implications finally set in.

"Four times?"

"Look, I get what you're implying, but there's no way that City Hall or anyone working there is-"

"And Otterton? How 'bout him?"

Judy looked at her, perplexed.

"Was Otterton wearing a collar?" asked the badger.

Judy looked down in thought as she recalled the shooting; the images of that night flooding back.

In her mind's eye, she could see Otterton lunging for her, see his mouth--his teeth . . . . But no collar!

Her eyes flashed back up to the badger's and saw her sporting a grim smile. The creature just shook her head softly.

"Who can take off an animal's collar?" she asked the rabbit.

Judy looked down at the table and shook her head in disbelief.

"Who has the ability to do that?" asked the badger again.

"Anyone . . . with a key card . . ." said the rabbit slowly.

"And who has them?"

Judy thought for a moment. "Anyone with privileged access. The mayor has to approve them herself."

The badger nodded. "I thought it was something like that. But then that means that someone set Otterton free on purpose."

"Or he stole a cop's key card," replied Hopps desperately.

"And why would a pred steal a key card?" asked the badger.

"To feel free!"

"Free to do what? Go savage, attack a bunch of mammals? Beat up his wife and kids before trying to kill a cop? Face it: the case is falling apart like a cheap motorcycle."

"There's got to be more to it!" insisted Judy as she felt things starting to fall apart in her mind.

"Does there? How about nothing more than the eradication of chompers in the city? Sure, okay, let's pretend for a second that Otterton was a fluke: Now, you're telling me that the hundreds of cases throughout the city of animals going feral all had their collars removed or malfunctioning, too?"

Judy rubbed her face with her paw. She couldn't believe it.

"I . . . I need to think about this."

"While you're doing that," said the badger, "I'd also like to suggest this: Consider whether you might have been set up to take down Otterton. Tricked into it." She watched the bunny very carefully. "Even supposing Otterton doped himself up with some drug just for kicks, someone would still've had to remove his collar. And I think you and I both know at this point that the most likely suspect is a police officer."

Judy covered her face with her paws. Tears came to her eyes as the awful realisation began to sink in on her: Her friends, the people on whom she'd been relying, who'd been supporting her through everything and all the trials she'd been facing--including the actual trial she was attending--had in fact been responsible for her situation. Those individuals, in whom she'd placed her safety and wellbeing, were trying to kill her? It beggared belief. But the obviousness that bypassed her completely as she sat shut up in her apartment for the last few weeks had been compounded by her isolation. And of course, the truth had been glossed over by the fact that her information had come from those with a vested interest in keeping her ignorant.

"They're setting you up, Judy," said the badger, using bunny's name for the first time. "Think about it. You know I'm telling you the truth!"

"No!" shouted Judy as her emotions got the best of her. She was bursting at the seams as the platitudes that had showered her--that she was a hero, that she wasn't guilty of anything, that the shooting had been a good one, that she was loved and appreciated by her superiors, that she was of value--were stripped away in an instant.

And there, sitting there in the centre of it all was the truth. The ugly, awful truth.

She was a murderer and a pawn. Nothing more than a patsy. An expendable little patsy whose reputation was being built up and fattened like a sheep before the shearer.

And she had played into it like the good lackey she was. So eager to please the higher ups to get some notice and some advancement in her life that she had sold herself and her values.

The people in the bar looked over at the bunny as she stood.

"You don't know anything about me!" she screamed. "I do have friends! They're not going to-!"

The badger looked around at all the patrons gawking at them. The manager was approaching.

"Let's get out of here," said the badger as she stood up. "We're leaving," she said to the manager as she held up a paw.

The manager stopped in his tracks and nodded, giving the badger a wide berth as she passed by.

"Coming?" she asked lightly as she looked back at the seething bunny.

Hopps looked at her, positively shaken, before nodding jerkily and following her.

After paying the tab, the two of walked out into the cool night air.

"Down here," said the badger stiffly as she motioned down an alley.

Hopps followed her, and once they were down quite a ways, the badger stopped and turned to her.

"Okay, now you listen to me, Judy," she said, "you say you have friends? I don't think you do. You have the evidence right in front of you--all of it at least pointing to the fact that something's going on. I'll guarantee you that it's a setup and that they are planning to kill you. If you're so certain of your 'friends'' loyalty, tank the trial tomorrow. You're going to be questioned tomorrow, the jury's gonna go in and pretend to make a decision before they come out and declare you 'not guilty.' At least, that's what's supposed to happen, I'll bet. So this time, tank the trial. When the DA cross-examines you, tell them everything you told me--tell about your misgivings. Tell about Otterton not wearing a collar. Tell about how you didn't know you were firing a bullet gun. Say all of that in open court."

"What would that prove?" asked Judy, her tears having stopped for the moment.

"If you're right, nothing will happen to you. But if I'm right, it means that tomorrow night will be your last night alive."

Judy looked at her puzzled.

"When you die--when they kill you--they want you to die a hero so that they can have a martyr for their cause. They want to use your death to galvanise the prey demographic into kicking the rest of us out of the city and institute laws that discriminate against us even more," she said pressed. "They can't do that if you destroy your reputation in court."

"So?" said Judy, her voice rough.

"So, if you tank the trial tomorrow, they'll have to accelerate their plans and probably try to kill you tomorrow night in order to keep the jury from reaching a conviction. With you dead, the DA would have to drop the charges, and no one would know what you said in open court. And in the imagination of the public, it would appear to everyone that you had been killed by a savage in retaliation for the death of Otterton. City Hall would have its gilded heroine and martyr and a rationale for doing whatever the hell it wants."

Judy looked at the ground in deep thought. "You're wrong," she insisted tearfully.

"Then prove it. Either way, tank the trial."

"But if I do that, and you're scenario is that I'm going to die . . . what? Are you asking me to sign my own death certificate?"

The badger smiled. "You leave that side of things to me. I'm asking you to take what I think is a big risk--but if it turns out that I'm right, and I save your ass, I'm going to want something in return."

Judy looked at her bemused.

The badger looked at her seriously, now. "Your service."

"What . . . what do you . . . ?"

"I'm not going to share the details with you till I know you're onboard. Just trust me," she said quietly.

Judy shook her head from side to side slowly as she tried to think. She was too confused to truly ponder through all the details. Finally, she took a deep breath and looked up at the badger. At the end of the day, she was a cop, and she wanted to get to the truth no matter the cost.

"Do you promise to have my back? Even if things go bad?"

The badger nodded slowly. "You have my word on that."

"You know that I'm not switching sides, though, right? Not until I see the proof with my own eyes."

"I understand. Just tank the trial tomorrow."

"I get it," said Judy, laughing slightly with sadness in her voice. "You want me to incriminate myself. If you're wrong, then I could be facing real jail time--Hell, if even if you're right, and I survive what you say is gonna happen, I could still be facing jail time." She looked up at the badger. "What are you gonna do about that?"

The badger smirked. "You're not the only one capable of getting someone off the hook."

Another subversion of justice?! There was only so much Judy could take . . . .

"But like I said," continued the badger, "I'm gonna want something in return, either way. Don't worry: I'll let you know. What I want depends on the outcome of this experiment."

Judy nodded thoughtfully. "Alright. I'll do it."

"There's my noble rabbit. I need you to be strong for me, now, because I know I'm asking a lot from you."

The badger put out her paw, and Judy stared at it for a moment, taking notice of the badger's sharp claws. After another moment, Judy reached out and clasped her hand. They looked at each other and shook.

"This is scary," said Hopps to no one in particular.

"I know," said the badger grimly. "But trust me. I'll be keeping an eye on you."

Judy nodded, and after they both bade each other good evening and parted ways for the night, Judy went home to one of the best night's sleep she'd had in weeks.