The Time Traveler's Guide to Zootopia

Chapter 31: Repercussion

I never made things easy for anyone...

Even some of my former directors from the future could attest to that.

Judy Hopps must've spent lengths of time explaining to her superiors about all the recent events that have occurred at the ZPD.  Perhaps she also had to explain the incident in the Bunnyburrow forest and I could only imagine how that all went.  For a little bunny who brought an alien visitor to Zootopia, it must've been a lot on her shoulders.

Now I wondered, what would happen to me now?

All three animals - the bunny, the fox, and the coyote - casually stared me down in unison as if they were all thinking the same thing.  I didn't like all the attention so I stared right back at them.

Of course, the uniformed fox loudly slurped from his styrofoam coffee cup to break the silence in the room.  Typical.

The amount of grudge I held towards him had gradually dwindled over time... but it was still there. Grabbing him by the neck again would've been my ideal cup of tea - or in this case, coffee - but doing so would only lengthen my jail sentence. Thus, I had to play my cards right and I also had to play nice.

On another note, it was nice to see Judy again.

I could tell that she hadn't received a fair amount of rest in the last twenty-four hours. One of her bunny ears was slightly bent and her long sleeves were rolled up. Nevertheless, she still appeared alert, positive, and ready for all of this to be over.

Our previous interaction involved her having to shoot a couple of tranquilizer darts into me and I'm sure glad that was over with. A humiliating situation, to be sure, so I stared down at the floor with nothing else to say.

"How's our little troublemaker doing?" the fox asked while taking a sip.

"Better," the coyote answered. "Rough around the edges, but doing fine,"

The bunny stepped forward. "Is he good to come with us?"

The coyote closed the case file, stood up, and gave it to Judy. "Yep. He's all yours."

"Thank you, Director Pawts," Judy shook her paw. "Officer Wilde and I will take him from here."

The fox proudly - though carefully - approached me to place a new pair of restraints. Were it not for the two other animals present, I never would've yielded my arms out to him. After a small metallic click, they were locked and felt more robust than the previous set. Convenient for him but not for me.

"Very well, Officer Hopps. In the meantime, I'll do what I can on my end," the coyote smiled before turning to me. "And Mr. Cheribim?"

I turned my focus to her with the chains rattling.

She then extended her paw. "Good luck to you."

With my cuffed gauntlets, I carefully shook her little paw. These delicate little Zootopian creatures never seemed to have fear towards beings who towered over them. As she pulled her arm back, I felt a tiny slip of paper wedge between my fingers. Was it a gum wrapper?  Possibly.  I was unsure and pretended to not notice.

The coyote gave a little wink. "And remember, take things slow,"

"Don't worry, I'll hold his paw," the fox quipped from the doorway.

Finally, the coyote scooted past us, left the interrogation room, and waved before disappearing down another hallway. Overall, I thought she was an exceptional little interrogator and wished her the best.

I never thought that the ZIA would be the good guys but I still had my doubts. Would Rebecca keep her word? Judy and Nick seemed to trust her.

Without further delay, we too filed our way out of the cramped interrogation room and I felt grateful to be out of that dump. We weren't even outside and yet the air felt a bit fresher.