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Zootopia: Like a Cauldron Burning

Prologue Turning Burning Pages

A cockroach scuttled between the massive and heavily polished shoes of the guard. Unnoticed and undeterred, it scuttled past him waving its long antennae, its legs a blur beside its segmented body, resembling more a spot of rapidly moving shadow than an insect. Suddenly, the tiger's tail swept the air above the small runner, which gave an irate hiss, stopped for a moment to assess the threat of further danger, and resumed its mad journey across the stone-grey floor. It slipped between the bars of the cells, sliding into the slate shadows. Though it ran from one colorless corner of the cell to the other, it was nonetheless free and damn anyone who said otherwise.

For the first time in her life, Dawn Bellwether wished that she wasn't a sheep. It was a fleeting thought, a placeholder filling in while bigger thoughts were still under construction. She shifted in her bunk to stare back up at the ceiling, scratching an itch underneath the collar of her orange jumpsuit. The tiles were of the same monochromatic obliviousness as the rest of the prison, slate grey like an echo of a memory, designed to siphon away an inmate's passions, to slowly drive them crazy, and finally to fill the gaping void in their minds with total complacency. But Dawn wouldn't have it--no, sir, not one bit. Here was one sheep they weren't about to cow into submission.

She watched them every time they made their patrols up and down the corridors, calculating their movements. She heard every joke--the walls were solid enough that sound merely slid over it like...like sound. Dawn narrowed her eyes; she was finding it difficult to formulate a proper simile anymore. It's only been a year, and this place was already affecting her brain.

The drug was aerolized into the air, it was crushed into their food, liquefied into the thin foam cups of water. That might be it, but it could be a combination of chemicals, each useless by themselves until joining in the body. Without the chemicals, the walls were just walls, and the jibes from the guards were just words. She had learned enough about biological systems and chemical reactions from her former associates to know that the drugs had to be strong enough to affect the nervous system without being consumed by the immune system, and yet be completely unnoticeable.

This entire place was a factory of subjugation. She had to get out of here.

In the three hundred and forty two days since she had been incarcerated here, she had managed to set up a network of goods and services, conquering rival competitors or derelicts when they became too grabby. More importantly, though, many of her fellow victims of justice--the smaller ones, the weaker ones, the younger ones, the ones who had issues she could exploit--had begun to see her as something of a protector, a force of good packed into a miniscule parcel, and that was what she truly thrived on. She had found it difficult in the beginning to convert to the jailhouse currency, but once she had found that niche she gouged at it until it became a throne.

But even guardian angels needed a fresh breeze to blow out the crazy every now and then.

Even though she needed spectacles, she still saw everything that happened around here; a habit bred from her role as "assistant mayor" to that idiot Lionheart, and what was he doing now? And what did it matter anymore? She knew the location of every security camera and their range of vision, even the ones in the "eyeless" rooms the guards talk about to try and trick their charges into getting into deeper trouble. She knew the locations where the walls were old and wearing out, thinned by time and neglect. She had the tools stashed away in a secured location, where they, like her, were waiting for the right moment.

She had had her fun in prison, using her role as guardian angel as a charm against the monotony of ditch-digging and shoemaking and the constant vigilance of danger all around, but the fun was over. The place was finally getting to her, and she had to get out. Dawn pursed her lips angrily in remembrance of the blackout she had slept through, and the jailbreak that had occurred while she was stuck in the bathroom. Two perfect moments come and gone like dandelion fuzz.

Soon, she told herself, chanting it in her mind, warding away the walls that were creeping inward. They did that from time to time; Dawn discovered their cautious advances during the fifth month of her internment. They always did it when they thought she wasn't looking, the walls and ceiling silently crawling toward her, but they snapped back into their proper places when she threw them a glare. It was a good thing she was still sane, otherwise she'd have been crushed by them a long time ago.

_WHACK!_The high-carbon riot stick banging on chrome steel was like a grenade detonating, the noise carrying all the way into the next block.

"Hey, eight-five-zero-three, time to get out of bed! Someone wants to see you."

Dawn didn't have to turn her head to know it was sergeant Hartoonian. The bear had a distinctive urban drawl that crawled out of her mouth like a cascade of skittering arachnids. It annoyed her, that voice, every syllable piercing at her ears and making her hands shake. "I have a name," Dawn muttered darkly.

"I know you do, cottonhead, I just don't care. Now get moving!"

As Dawn slid off the bed, her turtleshell spectacles lost their position on her muzzle, falling over to the side but she had managed to catch them, setting them back into place, not sparing even a blink. Hartoonian sneered at her as she unlocked the barred door, her green eyes gleaming beneath her hat like healthy palm fronds. The sheep stepped through the doorway, standing by the side with her hands clasped together as she had done hundreds of times before while the tiger closed and locked the gate again, and Hartoonian slapped a pair of handcuffs around her wrists, the short ones that defied an arm span greater than the width of one's shoulders. "Can't imagine why anyone would want to talk to you, though."

When Hartoonian had finished and began marching her down the corridor, Dawn muttered under her breath as she stared down at the floor. "Damn preds..."

"What was that?"

"What? Hmm?"

Hartoonian sniffed angrily, shaking her head and keeping up a brisk pace. Dawn had to jog to keep up with the bear's long-legged gait.

She thought about who it was that wanted to see her--perhaps another ambulance chaser wanting to get the latest buzz on the woman who had tried to convince the city of Zootopia that every predator was losing their minds and giving into their basest natures, who had hired a freelance shooter with a background in bioengineering and pharmaceuticals to deliver a tiny, concentrated glass pellet filled with and infusion of Midnicampum Holicithias--known colloquially as "Night Howlers"--to a targeted predator, making them into little more than savage beasts.

In court, they had tried to get her on the same charges as the men she had hired to do the deeds, lumping her in with them, trying to get all associated participants under the same umbrella. It was a witch hunt; when the people had realized they had all been tricked into demonizing each other, they all wanted blood. Her lawyer had tried his best, but it was no use, not against the evidence and the public outcry, and the prosecution had succeeded. They were unsatisfied with the range of sixteen charges, however; they wanted to slap a sticker on her saying "ringleader," which was true, she had to admit that. Two of her accomplices had received a suspended sentence, and the other, the one who had actually committed the crimes, won his plea for insanity, leaving her alone to rot. There was no actual ceremony--they had frog-marched her straight from the courthouse to the prison, under the same camera-toting public she had tried to terrify into believing her. And now the media had sent another Jimmy Olson from the Daily Moron to see if she had finally cracked or not.

Dawn narrowed her eyes as she adjusted her spectacles; they were probably wondering if the "madness" was still there or if the prison had finally washed it away. Well, they weren't going to get anything from her tonight, no words, no expressions, nothing. They'd just have to make far-fetched guesses. They were the media; they could say the moon was made of moldy Gouda cheese and the people would believe it.

Hartoonian opened the door to the visitor's room, holding it open as Dawn stepped through the shadow of her arm. The room was divided in half by a row of long tables, segmented by walls that rose up to the ceiling. Each segment was further divided by a sheet of one-and-a-half inch thick bulletproof plexiglass, octagons of tiny holes punched into certain spots of the glass. A system of telephones allowed for communication between the two halves of the room.

Dawn didn't see anybody at this corner of the area. A rhinoceros stood at the far end, folding up a newspaper and sticking it beneath one sturdy, oak-like arm; when he saw her he snapped his fingers and motioned for her to come forward, and she did. The lighting in the room was brighter and harsher than elsewhere in the prison, blinding fluorescents that made her squint as she stared at the floor. She thought of what she would say, wondering if utilizing the Socratic Method would be the quickest way out of the interview. Interviewers hated having their questions thrown back at them.

She sighed as she climbed up onto the chair, doing her best to look as exhausted as possible. When she raised her eyes up to the visitor, her heart caught in her throat, choking off the scream that rose up and depressurized somewhere between her chest and her mouth. Her eyes went wide and her mouth went slack. She wished that she was back in her cell, sleeping the day away, or making shoes, or the laundry, or doing something that allowed her to not be here anymore. She had suspected this day would come, but after her imprisonment the suspicion had faded away, becoming a thought backed up into a dark corner of her brain.

The goat stared at her from the other side of the glass, eyes colored pale amber like superheated gold, black pupils slitted horizontally like keyholes into the darkness between the stars. Her fur was as black as her horns, which curved upward and backward, at odds with her ears, a thin and well-trimmed beard under her chin; when she looked down at Dawn, her face made an inverted star. Her hair was cut short and wild, the kind Dawn's mother would have proclaimed as a "spider's nest" with her usual disdain. She towered above Dawn, monster height, and Dawn couldn't have felt smaller than she did right now, shriveling under the woman's pale gaze.

She wore a scarlet blouse beneath a black twist-front duster, which accentuated the darkness of her body and stretched her form into a thing of blackness. Dawn didn't see what she wore below the table, but she suspected a high-low skirt and leggings, both red. A small medallion dangled on a hemp string around her neck, a silver ring. She was holding the phone on her side expectantly up to her ear.

Dawn could only stare, her mouth hanging open as a storm of incomprehensible sounds fought to break out. A blank noise finally escaped her throat, a horrified, get-me-outta-here sound, and she clamped her hands to her mouth.

The goat raised one index finger, an obsidian peg much too long, and began tapping slowly on the bulletproof glass. Dawn jumped in her seat with each rap, thinking abstractly 'Tis some visitor,' I muttered, 'tapping at my chamber door. With shaking hands she quickly reached up to the side of the wall and grabbed the phone.

"H-H-Heh," she stammered, fighting her own mouth to find the right pronunciation of the word.

"Hello, Dawn," the black goat said, her voice like silk over rough skin.

Only this and nothing more.

"The newspapers have already stopped talking about you. From the January edition, you've already been relegated to page-fifteen material. The television reports keep you in the back as a something to fill the final articles before the next program. The people of the city refer to you in conversation as "the little monster" and resume going about their lives. Things seem to have not worked out as we had planned."

"I tried," Dawn whispered. "Believe me, I tried."

"You were given three years to accomplish what you were told to, and you didn't."

"I was close...I was so, so close!"

The black goat shook her head. "Close isn't finished, Dawn. Close_isn't 'we did it,' Dawn. _Close isn't 'everything is finally falling into place for us,' Dawn. You had three years to do your work, and you spent too much time walking in the shadow of that fool Lionheart. You squandered your time, girl."

Dawn snapped, her back popping ramrod-straight, slamming her fist onto the table so hard it hurt. "That's not fair! I had to fight and claw my way to get to where I am!"

The goat put the phone down and looked around at her surroundings, at the walls and the ceiling, then back to her. "Yes, you certainly seem to have done that! Congratulations!"

Dawn closed her eyes and pinched the bridge of her muzzle. "You know what I mean." She heard a sigh and watched as the black goat stared at the spot where the table met the wall, shaking her head with a solemnity that bordered on sadness. Time passed, and Dawn continued to look at the woman, unsure where exactly those eyes were looking. After a short while, the black goat raised the phone up to her ear again.

"What was the first thing that I taught you, Dawn?"

The sheep stared down at her table, watching a cockroach skitter along its tarnished surface. Was it the same one from her cell, following her, keeping her company? Her lower lip trembled as she spoke, her eyes beginning to water. "You taught me that fear always works."

"Fear always works, yes, until you make it the biggest thing in people's lives. What you sought was control and you probably would have gotten it, but after ten years? What you would have gotten would be panic, rebellion, unnecessary violence. I can't even begin to voice the level of my disappointment for your actions, Dawn. Your failure, and the amount of media coverage of your failure, was an affront to you, to all of us, even to our Mother. You had a respectable vision, shortsighted as it was, but you risked too much to attain it. The police were too close to our doors...if they had found our altar, we all would be in here with you, and believe me, if that were the case you wouldn't have lasted in here as long as you have.

"Oh, don't give me that look, Dawn. I've been reminding everyone of all that you've done for us, and for the moment I've got their desire to wear you like a wool coat under control. Unfortunately, I can't undo this tragedy you've gotten yourself into. Now stop sniffling--Take your medicine like a woman. This was your fault, and you have to pay for it."

"No! It wasn't me!" she popped, Champaign bottle report, trying to make herself heard. "It was some stupid rabbit--h-her name is Judy Hopps! She's a police officer at the ZPD...please..."

The black goat stared at her thoughtfully, tilting her head, ears splayed outward as though listening for some unheard sound. She sat like that for a while, long enough for the bead of chilled sweat that began at Dawn's forehead to migrate down to her neck. When she spoke, her lip curled slightly. "I'll have some of our people look into it. In spite of this, though, it was still under _your_direction that the plan had failed, and the responsibility for that failure still falls on you."

"What about Doug and those other guys? They were as much to blame for all of--no! They were more to blame for all of this than me. I didn't even know about the lab under the subway station--."

"You made yourself an accessory to their actions when you involved yourself in the attacks. If you had gone through the proper channels in the first place, and if you hadn't wanted too much too quickly, none of this would have happened. All you had to do was stay in your office and be the mayor, but it was your arrogance and your overconfidence in your abilities that put you where you are. As for your compatriots, I'm afraid they didn't have enough time to savor the freedom that they had been given by the magnanimous justice system. Each of them met with freak accidents, in their homes and in the streets--C'est la vie."

"Oh..." Dawn put a hand to her mouth, feeling like she was going to throw up, visions of nightmares past echoing in her mind like screams in subterranean caverns.

"Don't worry, Dawn. It's not all razor blades and punji sticks. You and I both know that you can still be forgiven by the family, maybe even by Mother, if you're lucky. Do you want that?"

Dawn opened her eyes, looking up at the black goat. She saw a hand rise up from the table and rest against the glass, half expecting those long sharp fingers to penetrate the semitransparent material like railroad spikes cutting through a bubble. "You can repent, Dawn. I promise you that you can be forgiven by the Sunless. We can help you out of this. You just have to keep walking the same road. Will you?"

"I promise I won't make another mistake," Dawn said, her voice choking with gratitude, tears flowing from her face as the levee broke. She placed one hand on the glass, reflecting the black goat's palm, a tiny spot of white compared to the night on the other side. She rested her head against the glass, her hair pooling and radiating outward like an oversized cotton ball. "Never again..."

The black goat smiled, keeping her thin lips covering her teeth. "I know you won't, dear," she said. She caught the rhinocerous's eye, and when she gave him a slight, virtually imperceptible nod, he rubbed twice at his nose and went back to his paper.

"I know you won't."