Zootopia: Worlds Apart

4. The Club

Luke's POV

The machine whirred to a halt as I got out to look around. There were still animals everywhere. There was a roller-coaster, a carousel, food and drink booths, and a strange reception area. I went over to the reception to see what this place was all about.

"Hello?" I asked, looking around for a receptionist before dinging the bell on the desk. After a moment, a fox appeared. He looked quite familiar. Surely it wasn't.. no, that would be crazy. Surely it wasn't Nick?

"Hey there, friend! What can I do for you?" He asked.

"Nick?" I asked, confused.

"Nicholas Piberius Wilde, that's me." Nick replied.

"No way," I said in shock. "What is this place?"

"It's my theme park," Nick replied. "You wanna go in?"

"Theme park? Yours?" I asked in utter disbelief.

"Yes, that's what I just told you." Nick replied.

"What year is it?" I asked.

"It's 802005 dummy." Nick replied, taking a pint glass and cleaning it off.

"So you're twenty one?" I asked.

"Yeah.. how do you know my age?" He asked, putting the glass down. "Did one of my colleagues tell you?"

"Colleagues?" I asked.

"Yeah, you know. Finn and Ben." Nick replied, pointing to Finn and Clawhauser.

"Wow, they look so young!" I gasped.

"Are you alright?" Nick asked.

"I'm fine." I said, composing myself.

"You want in?" Nick asked. I looked at the park. It looked like tremendous fun.

"Sure, why not," I said. "How much is it?"

"Six bucks," Nick replied. I pulled the money out and gave it to him. He put it in a cash box before taking out a barcode scanner. "Collar?"

"Collar..?" I asked, confused.

"Your shock collar?" Nick asked, putting his paw out.

"Shock collar?" I asked, shocked. "I don't have one."

"You don't have one?" Nick asked. He smirked. "You got it off without one of these?" He waved the barcode scanner around.

"Yeah, sure." I lied.

"Wow, you must be a heck of a genius to know how to do that." Nick replied, opening a small door next to him. "Follow me."

I followed him behind the counter and down towards a staircase. He took me up it and into some kind of office where he sat me down.

"How would you like to work here?" He asked.

Uh oh

"Umm." I pondered. "Well, I have a very busy schedule."

"Right.." Nick thought, looking at me weirdly. "What's your name kid?"

"Luke." I replied. Nick looked at his computer and typed in what I'm assuming was my name.

"Second name?" He asked, taking a pair of glasses and putting them on.

"Dawson." I replied. Nick typed it in and waited for a moment. The computer made a bleeping noise and Nick looked back at me.

"There's only one record of a Luke Dawson." Nick said.

"Who?" I asked. Nick swivelled the monitor so I could see it. It was me, but in my human form.

"That doesn't look like you," Nick said. "Besides, he'd be over eight hundred thousand years old if he was still alive."

I looked at my watch.

"Nick, it's really nice to meet you and all and I really do want to work here, but I must be going. I'm umm.. late for a date..!" I said hastily.

"Okay 'Luke'. It was nice meeting you." Nick said as I showed myself out.

That really was a close call, also weird that he found my actual records from over 800,000 years ago.

I decided not to think too much of it as I returned to the machine and pushed the lever forwards again, making it move backwards in time even more.

After a few minutes, the years had rolled down to the year 3000. I decided to go to a time before I was born to see what the world was really like in the 80s and 90s.

After a few more minutes, the year was 2005. I pressed the teleport button and as quick as a flash I was at Epcot. It looked beautiful, despite me not going there ever. I continued watching as the years went back. 2003, 2001, 1999, 1997. When it got to 1995, I pulled the lever and stopped. Time stopped moving so quickly and eventually went at a normal speed.

I was now in Epcot.

Thankfully, I was behind one of the many pavilions, so the machine was guaranteed not to be seen. I also realised that now that I had left Zootopia, I was in my human form, and strangely it seemed that my aged had gone backwards too. I was somehow 19 again.

I pulled the time lever out of its slot and jumped down from the cockpit of the machine. I made my way towards the back of one of the pavilions. I had no idea which one it was, but it looked kinda interesting. From where I was stood it looked like a pimple that had gone mouldy and grown some sort of awkward pattern on it. It could be better described sure, but that's what it looked like from where I was stood.

I decided to go up to a fire door at the back of one of the buildings that were painted blue, which I've heard is to hide the buildings that don't look very pleasing to look at, and pulled on the fire door. It opened with ease, so I stepped inside. I was now in a dimly lit, hospital-like corridor with noises of fans and buzzing noises coming from all over the place. I went down the corridor to find a room labelled 'Theatre Maintenance. Do not enter when show is running.' 

I decided to ignore the sign and open the door, which greeted me with a wall with four weird patches on it. I looked around the wall to see wires scrambling around all different parts, linking lights and other complicated electronics to different parts of the theatre. I looked up to see a staircase towards a room labelled 'Projection 1'.

I loved old-school projectors, among other weird things, so I decided to take a look. I went up the stairs and into the room to find a cinema projector with a film running. I looked through where the projector was projecting to see a mirrored image of what looked like a school. I looked on to see that it was some kind of Point of View programme or something, with the camera being extremely shaky and not cinematic in any way possible. I could hear no noise at all coming from the theatre itself, so I decided to move closer to see if I could hear anything.

I traversed the complex scaffolding-like structure that was the back of the theatre until I came to a hole in the theatre. There was a crane arm sticking out from the hole, painted a light blue with a multitude of extremely thick wires sprouting from it and into some sort of control box. I got on my hands and knees until I came to see through the hole. On the other side of the hole was a theatre full of at least 200 people, all laughing and enjoying the show that was happening on the other side of where I was. One thing I didn't realise was this crane arm could move, so when it jolted towards me, I must've hit my head quite hard on it because I don't remember anything else from that moment.