Chapter Text
Chapter 9:
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Nick felt younger.
He felt small and he felt tired and he felt scared.
The collar around his neck seemed so much bigger now.
Every time he moved his head, it pinched slightly or rubbed.
As he tried to snuggle up on his damp pillow, it always imbalanced him. Pushing him off to one side, or nudging him in an annoying or uncomfortable way.
Whatever way he moved, it always pressed or hung.
It always hurt.
He wiggled slightly, before wincing as he felt a sting on his neck. Whimpering, though doing his best to be a mature tod and hold in his tears, he raised a paw to feel it.
He nudged the collar along a bit, whining as it moved. There were ten or so points that were painful. That ached or stung. Nick slowly moved the shocking unit of his collar away from the latest one, and moved it to a rare patch of virgin fur.
His neck still ached.
He was so very tired, but couldn’t go to sleep.
Slowly pulling the blanket off over him, he stepped out of his little basket and walked towards the door. Past the deep basket like bed where his friend Finnick was sleeping. Carefully out through the bedroom door and into the corridor. Walking along, careful not to make a noise, he slowly headed towards the door at the end.
He felt guilty, having to wake them up.
It was a relief when a door to the side opened, and she came out.
“Miss Cherifa…” Nick slowly said.
“Nick,” she said slowly, looking down at him. He wasn’t that shorter than she was, and he would soon be taller, but for now she still had the advantage.
“My neck hurts…” he whimpered, sniffing slightly as he rubbed it.
Her ears fell down, and she brought him into a hug. “Follow me,” she whispered, as she led him into the room she’d just exited. It was small, but tightly packed with a crib and other nursery gear. In it, a tiny little fennec kit lay, slowly getting up and watching them as they entered.
“Calm down little Tariq,” Cherifa slowly whispered, leaning over to fuss with one of his ears. “Go back to sleep.”
The kit lay down and curled up slightly, though he still looked on curiously at his mother and the strange new child. He watched as she brought out a tub of cream and, rubbing it onto her pads, leant over towards the boy.
He stepped back slightly, looking at the tub of white stuff.
“It’s not just for babies,” his mother said, putting her other paw on his shoulder. He looked at it for a few seconds before groaning. A paw rose up and slipped beneath the thing that hung around all the big people’s necks, before it shot out again as he whimpered loudly with pain. The thing’s green light went orange, and he sniffed, his lips trembling. The strange boy now walked forward, head bowed. The baby kit watched as his mother gently pulled the thing out a little, and began rubbing the cream beneath it.
Nick held his mouth tight as she rubbed, whimpering as the odd sting came about. Cherifa just looked on and sighed.
“It’s not going down to the skin as much as I’d like,” she commented, as she put down the tub. “Let’s get you some painkillers, help you go to sleep.”
They left that nursery, and slowly made their way downstairs. Into a small kitchen, where she opened a drawer and pulled out a little pink bottle and a plastic spoon. Nick silently watched as she poured out one spoonful, which he swallowed, before pouring out a second, which he also swallowed.
Cherifa put the medicine away, and brought Nick into a tight hug. “The pain will go away,” she said. “We’ll look after you.”
“Miss Cherifa…”
“You don’t need to call me that,” she whispered.
“Miss Cherry Pie,” Nick said, before pausing as she giggled.
“Go on…”
“When will I see Mum again? And what about my Dad? When can we go see Paps?”
“It’s Pop’s dear…”
“I call him Pap’s…” he mumbled.
“Of course you do,” Cherifa said with a smile.
“It’s been a week,” Nick continued. “When can I get to see them.”
Cherifa’s ears dropped back down further, and her collar went orange. “I’m sorry Nick,” she said. “But the policemen say that they’re not going to allow anyone to visit them. Ever…”
She hated herself for saying it, but it seemed like the best way. She told herself that even as he sobbed, and his collar went orange. Even as he dove into her chest and began to shake from his shocks, screaming into her while all she could do was hold him.
Hold him and hold him.
Her ears raised as a figure walked out of the shadows. Her size too, he looked between her and the smaller figure she held and sighed. “How badly is he doing?” he asked.
“It’ll take months to heal honey,” she said, whimpering as she felt one of the shocks go through her.
“It should take years,” he spat. “But I think with that thing, it’ll take weeks.”
“It’s not as if I can help,” she said slowly, “my paws are too small. Even if I can cover both, the shock just goes right through them…”
The fennec tod walked forwards, and slowly put a paw around Nick. “Come on boy, time to get you back to bed.”
Nick just whimpered back, following the two without saying a word. He still cried though. He still winced as he was shocked.
They went back into his room, past Finnick, who just looked down at him, and into his basket. He snuggled up, curling in on himself and holding his tail for comfort, and cried and was shocked. Khalid and Cherifa looked at him, both gave him a kiss, before leaving.
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“Hey Nick.”
“What!?” Nick shouted out into his pillow, before whimpering slightly as another shock hit him.
“I…uh. Want to listen to some music?”
“I don’t care!” Nick cried.
Finnick hopped out of his bed, and brought over a large device, carried in both paws. Pressing a button at the top, he opened it up, before looking down at the racks of music below.
“Which CD do you want?” he asked. “We even got some stuff from your place, though most of it is your boring dad music…”
Nick’s eyes opened slightly, and he stood up. Walking over past Finnick, he knelt down and looked through the music.
“You’re going for dad music?” Finnick asked, shocked. “That’s all boring music… ‘cept the one that reminds me of my mad uncle Mahmoud.”
Nick ignored him, still looking through the cd’s. He sobbed slightly, and whimpered pitifully as another shock hit him. Finnick, reaching down to hug him, began stroking his friend.
“I don’t mind Slick,” he said. “We can shout ‘repent’ with the singer, and pretend we’re my crazy Uncle, I…” Finnick trailed off as he saw which disc Nick had brought out. “Isn’t that your least favourite song ever?” he asked.
Nick ignored him, and placed it down in the large CD player and closed the lid. The volume was down on low, but the first few playful strums of the guitar, followed by some slightly louder ones, sung out. They repeated a few times, before a cold voice sung.
“A winter’s day…”
More strums.
“In a… deep, and dark, December.”
Nick sniffed as it played, and grabbed hold of Finnick tight. The fennec tod felt a shock and a cry flow through him as Nick wailed, while the tempo suddenly picked up. “Slick?” he asked, alarmed. “You okay?”
“No,” Nick replied, standing up as the lyrics he so hated rang out.
“I am a rock…”
Nick sniffed in, and his collar went down to green. His eyes were red from his tears, and the fur beneath sticky and matted. He wiped them away. His trembling stopped, and he just stood there, a plastic grin growing on his muzzle. Slowly pushing Finnick off of him, he walked back to his basket and slipped under the covers once more. He didn’t move, or cry, or shake. He just closed his eyes, though Finnick knew he wasn’t sleeping.
He carried on watching, until the final lines of the song played.
“I am a rock,
I am an island,
And a rock feels no pain,
And an island never cries…”
The sound of beating plastic against iron shook the room, slowly making the memories drip and flow away. Finnick, the room, the song, they all vanished in a haze of white light.
It was years before Nick cried again at all. Over two decades before he finished the crying he’d bottled in on that night.
But now, for doing that, the time of his punishment had come at last.
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TO: gregoryhuvertung@zmail. com
FROM: melonymelody@bamboo. co. zt
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I was able to be out in time for the day that they sent him off.
Or at least the first day.
Every time the bus left the ZPD central precinct, on its way to ‘the zoo’ proper, we’d do our best to stop it. It was only on the third day, when the chief himself showed us a photograph of him being unloaded off the bus and walked, hands and feet in chains, into the building, that we went away.
Sometimes, I wonder what effect our ‘solidarity’ has?
Anyway, he was sent in. Taken through intake. And then, they sent him to hell again. Just because they could.
My contact doesn’t want to talk about what happened yet. Nick himself alludes to it somewhat in his writing, so I guess some detail is in order.
But I think we should just skim by what we know. The basics.
I don’t think we have the right to tell the world the details of what they did to him.
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TO: melonymelody@bamboo. co. zt
FROM: gregoryhuvertung@zmail. com
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Their little plot to destroy him.
No.
I don’t think we have the right to fully tell that story, in all its detail.
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As for whether our solidarity has any effect.
In the grand scheme of things, no.
On the personal level?
Even the slightest hint. A glimmer. An idea that there were those on the outside who were willing to stand up for you.
In the pits of despair, facing the loss of everything. That tiny something would be the greatest thing in the world.
I would have wanted that more than anything.
I’ll always be thankful for what you and the others did, in hindsight. But a whisper of what were you were doing, while they had me.
It would be the most wonderful thing in the world.
Just a flicker of something on the wind, and everything would seem so less hopeless.
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Woken up by the banging of a guard on his cell door, Nick lowered his tail and slid forward under his covers. His traditional vulpine sleeping form somewhat let him get enough sleep on the hard, flat bed. But it still couldn’t even match his former drawer and cushion. He was a basket mammal, and he felt that that would never change.
No matter how sleep deprived he got.
Straining his eyelids open as he peeked out from beneath his sheet, he looked up at the blue clad mammal.
“We’re shipping you out in ten minutes,” he called, pushing a box and a pen through the access slot. “Put all your possessions in there, write your name and number down, and be standing with the box ready for collection when I come back. You sitting at your desk, I’ll give you a whack! Lying back down on your bed. Two whacks! I want you facing forward, ready to give me the box and to get your chains on. Understand!”
“Yes,” Nick groaned, slowly sliding his feet out and dropping them onto the floor.
“That’s yes sir you mangy chomper!” the guard shouted back. “You’re lucky I don’t have a collar remote with me!”
“Yes sir.”
“Better, pelt. Nine minutes now. I have a schedule!”
As he lumbered out of view, Nick slowly made his way towards his desk. Piling his few papers and puzzle books into the provided box, he wrote down his name and number as instructed. Pausing, he turned over to the library book he’d been skimming through and made a note of the name and page number, jotting it down on the front of one of his puzzle books. Packed up and ready, Nick made his way to the front of his cell, box in paws, and waited, bouncing up and down on his pads as the seconds slowly passed.
Finally, the ground shook as the guard returned with two more following. Opening the slot on the cell door, he waved his hand and Nick silently pushed forward the box, all his meagre possessions inside, and watched as it was placed among a set of others on a cart being pushed by one of the guards. His paws out next, Nick watched as the thick cuffs were locked around his wrists, tightened just enough to uncomfortably pinch the skin beneath his fur. The door opened, and he stood still as his ankles were likewise bound. A chain was locked between the two sets of shackles, binding all four of his limbs together for the journey ahead.
“Step in line,” the first guard ordered, Nick silently obeying. Out onto the access terrace, and he saw a line of other prisoners, mostly prey but some preds, standing still to his right. Turning left, Nick felt a chain being led through his legs and locked to his vertical one.
“Any more?” the guard who fastened it asked, as he fastened another one in front of Nick.
The first guard pulled out a clipboard and shook his head. “This is the lot for today. Now let’s get these scum onto the bus to their new home. I bet they’re all dying to move in.”
For once, Nick resisted the impulse to make a quip or joke, keeping his muzzle shut as the first guard waved him forward.
His chains rattling as he started to take his stunted strides forwards, he watched as cell after cell passed. Many empty. Many full. The mammals were all looking at them now, with a range of emotions on all ends of the spectrum. Now and again, a green or orange light would be shining out from inside, while the looks on many of the other mammals would suggest that they’d be giving out a red light if they were collared.
Down through the building. Past familiar doors and then into unfamiliar ones. Large metal doors were opened to let them through, and they exited out into a small courtyard, a battered school bus waiting.
An order to halt was screamed from behind, and Nick followed it. A clatter of keys, and the chain binding Nick to the mammal behind his was released. Led on by the chain in front of him, like a dog on a leash, he struggled up the steps and hopped onto his waiting seat, emotionless as the chain was locked onto the bar in front of him.
The guard left, ready to repeat the process to the next prisoner, and the lone fox relaxed somewhat. Letting his guard down, and trying to relax into his seat, his ears pricked at something.
Voices.
Voices singing out from outside, the same words over and over.
“You have no right to judge us…” “You have no right to judge us…” “You have no right to judge us…”
Nick’s collar beeped, its orange warning light on, as a giant grin grew across his muzzle.
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TO: gregoryhuvertung@zmail. com
FROM: melonymelody@bamboo. co. zt
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Grima.
Please don’t go there.
Please don’t.
It’ll hurt you, again.
And I don’t want you to hurt yourself.
I’ll do anything to stop you moping around in those memories.
Webcam time?
We haven’t done that in a while. Have we?
Anything. Absolutely anything. Just say.
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TO: melonymelody@bamboo. co. zt
FROM: gregoryhuvertung@zmail. com
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Melony.
I don’t want to run from the past.
I want to grow strong from it.
I know what Wilde was going through then. I can tell my story, and in doing so tell his.
I think it’s the best way.
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Love,
Grima.
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TO: gregoryhuvertung@zmail. com
FROM: melonymelody@bamboo. co. zt
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Grima.
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Are you certain?
Are you absolutely certain you want to go through with this?
Cross your heart?
Ranger scouts honour?
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TO: melonymelody@bamboo. co. zt
FROM: gregoryhuvertung@zmail. com
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Weren’t you the one who always wanted me to talk about it?
And I am certain. So yes, yes and yes.
I think it’s time.
I need to move on. Ever forward, to new destinations.
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TO: gregoryhuvertung@zmail. com
FROM: melonymelody@bamboo. co. zt
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Are you okay?
Have you been moving washing machines again?
Grima?
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Nick watched as the last prisoner, a shaggy goat who was mumbling something incoherent about unfair attacks on innocent traders, was fastened into place. Reading him, Nick guessed that he was some sort of hustler, though not a very good one. He didn’t plan to ask though, instead leaning against his window and feeling the vibration of the engine travel through it. The door closed, and they set off.
Tan concrete moved quickly past, before they jumped out into the street. Past lines of officers, all equipped with riot shields and holding back a sea of green and yellow lights. Nick noticed a few members of the crowd look at him, some with flashing or recording cameras in their paws, and he nodded at them, thanking them for all they’d tried to do.
The protesters thinned as they moved along the road, speeding up as they began the journey out of the city and towards the main jail complex.
A place whose name was whispered around in horror and ghost stories. To misbehaving children to scare them, or to older ones as a threat.
The Zoo.
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TO: gregoryhuvertung@zmail. com
FROM: melonymelody@bamboo. co. zt
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Grima?
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“EYES WIDE PUKES! WERE ALMOST AT THE ZOO!”
Nick jolted awake as he heard the scream of the head guard. Pulling up on his chains, he rattled around as he regained his bearings before looking out of the window. Tired green meadows rolled past along with the odd tree, carrying its full summer coat of leaves. The occasional mammal, a sheep or bunny, was tending a cultivated field here or there, but mostly things had been left to go fallow.
They were out in the meadowlands, likely an hour away from the city he’d always called home. Looking past the guard, and the back of the driver’s head, he spotted his new one.
The Zoo of the night time horror stories had always been the old one. The crumbling ruin of Hydras Point penitentiary, multiple rows of cell blocks built onto a rock spur that thrust out into the sea. Cut off from the rest of the country by a narrow isthmus, its grey walls had held some of the worst criminals in Zootopia’s history, having been founded with the city. But by the time they collared Nick, it was falling apart. A near escape by a gang of infamous elephant mobsters convinced the powers that be to abandon it. By the time they took Nick’s parents, the replacement was ready and in service.
From afar it looked like a set of large big box warehouses. Multiple cubes on the horizon, short, wide and squat. All had a mix of raw concrete rendering, and painted sections in what must have been the architect’s big idea, colour coding. Nick could count at least six of these boxes, three on the front row and three behind, and knew that there were more behind them. Getting closer, other features became apparent too. The repeating rows and rows of tall, narrow windows. Multiple masts adorned with huge floodlights and multiple surveillance cameras. Regiments of concrete posts, linked together with sheets of electric fencing. Forests of guard towers, manned at their top by shifting figures with large weapons slung over their shoulders.
Nick shuddered at the thought of it. He’d had enough experience with garden variety pred haters, and he knew that there would be some here, armed with rifles and collar remotes and the knowledge that they could do whatever they wanted to him.
The bus slowed as they neared the outermost fence, pausing at a large airlock like gate. They were in, and soon covered by a squad of sniffer boars. Nick watched as they made their way from the front of the bus to the back, sniffing and looking as they went.
The outermost door was closed, and the inner one opened. The bus rumbled, and they started on their way forward once more.
Along the road and between two of the blocks. Their outermost fences were right next to his bus window, with various rows of no man’s land additional fences cutting him off from the cliff like wall of the building. The indents of windows, and the odd large streak of unpainted or painted concrete, moved past as they slowly cleared the first row of buildings. Another row was approaching, although this time there was multiple rodent sized cell blocks on his right compared to the single standard sized one on his left. Looking over at the small buildings, Nick could see that they were like square donuts, and he thought he saw the figures of exercising mice and shrews in the central yards. They were surrounded by their cell blocks which, in turn, were positioned in the central square of the zoo’s nine block grid, surrounded by the rest of the complex.
Glancing around, spotting the eight huge blocks that rose up all around them, Nick noticed a few anomalies. A large office tower stood in the centre of the complex, while a slightly larger than rodent sized block, covered with multiple glass domes, was nearby, black and orange figures flying in the centre. The one that truly interested him however was a lone black cube that stood alone, surrounded by patrolling guards. An odd sense of longing and loss washed over him, his collar going orange. It stayed with them as they exited the central square of the complex, turning left and rolling slowly through a set of open gates. Passing through the lines of protective fencing, they came to a halt in the shadow of the huge block, its sickly yellow paint looking like the vomit of a kit who’d eaten far too much custard. Armed guards marched past outside, while one of the guards in the inside came over and unfastened Nick from the bar he’d been tethered too.
“The door will open, and the first row will exit, before making their way to processing,” he instructed.
The door opened.
Nick, and the rest of the front row, exited.
Pads hitting the dirty tarmac, Nick followed the prisoner in front of him, a scarred and bruised tapir, as they advanced towards the door that punctured the side of the building, open like a maw ready to swallow them.
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TO: melonymelody@bamboo. co. zt
FROM: gregoryhuvertung@zmail. com
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Patience Mel.
It takes time to write these things.
And no. I just felt a bit sick that’s all. Just some wind.
Sorry if I worried you.
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TO: gregoryhuvertung@zmail. com
FROM: melonymelody@bamboo. co. zt
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You did.
But apology accepted.
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TO: melonymelody@bamboo. co. zt
FROM: gregoryhuvertung@zmail. com
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Thanks. So, Melony?
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Where to start on prison intake?
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Superficially, it’s a set of procedures designed to accommodate a new prisoner into his new home. Given the wide range of mammals, and needs, proper orientation is required as to the procedures. The day to day routine. The power hierarchy and any unofficial rules.
Naturally, they let you stumble through that. No information or advice, rather they let you humiliate or starve yourself for the first few days or weeks. I think it’s omitted both by the guards and the prisoners for fun, you know? There’s little entertainment, so laughing at how the fresh bugs handle it is comedy gold.
There’s ‘danger reduction’ too.
In most territories, this includes collar checks as well as the introduction to the infamous collar remote. A few prey mammals have ‘dangerous weapons’ removed. However, this is only if they’ve proven themselves violent. Ram horns and boar and elephant tusks are the most common. However, antlers, any horns, claws or even spiny quills can also be removed if they mammal in question repeatedly uses them in an offensive manner.
For predators however, it seems the precautionary principle takes centre stage. All claws are cut back as far as possible, even in situations (like mine) where that makes many basic tasks (such as working with a pack of cards, brushing your teeth (not that I have any)) impossible. Talking of teeth, some nations try to ‘pacify’ those too. While I can understand the use and provision of muzzles for repeated ‘biters’, the use of them for those who are non-aggressive is particularly humiliating.
Compared to other options though, such as those in Mastodov occupied northern Katavulpia, and it is vastly preferable.
Hearing the screams of predators having their teeth filed down. Hearing that whirr of the electric filer, and the cackle of the ‘processers’ as they do it. Hearing the unremoved collars go off and off and off. Knowing that the pauses are to let the victims, likely thrown in by some remote judge for ‘pack behaviour’ on an automatic ten-year sentence, regain their consciousness, lest they miss the rest of it. Hearing them gag and cry as a solid metal muzzle two sizes too small is clamped and padlocked onto them, before they are sent on their way with an encouraging shock.
In any case. Once you’ve been rendered ‘not a threat’ (or before, depending on the order) there are the other things you get given, all adding up to make you feel like a worthless, pointless, nothing.
Security searches that violate you in every way possible. ‘Sanitary’ procedures, such as freezing cold showers and universal fur clippings, regardless of your species, that just give you a thin covering all over.
Unless you’re a sheep.
Because of course sheep still need their wool? You can’t cut a sheep’s wool, can you?
Anti-tick measures that leave you itching and overpower your nose. A variety of shots, regardless of how many you have had before. Or whether needles make you want to puke or not.
It’s needlessly cruel Melony and that’s the point.
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I need a little time to get the next bit down. Don’t worry though, I’m still good. It’ll be an hour max.
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Nick’s intake at the ZPD holding jail had been one of the worst experiences of his life. He’d seen some of his most precious possessions strip away. He’d been humiliated in one of the most intense ways imaginable for a mammal like him. He’d been bruised and battered in a power show, before being dressed in a costume for murderers and rapists and strapped down, his nails prey to the clippers.
His collar was orange as he walked along another barren corridor, lines of guards to his right. One other pred who was on his bus, a civet who looked little older than eighteen, was just behind him. Nick, him, and eight other similar size mammals were curtailed off into a large holding room, separated from the rest. The steel gate closed behind them, locking them alone with twenty-something guards. One of them, a large goat with a nasty sneer on his muzzle, stepped forward and turned to inspect all of them, his gaze resting on Nick for an uncomfortably long time.
“Ther name’s Byron yer heee’ar,” he snarled, his slurring and bleatish accent turning the last word into something that almost sounded like a bleat. “Byron Caprey, and I’ll be here making sure you lot aren’t going to spoil my block. Yer heee’ar!”
“Yes sir,” the prisoners muttered.
Caprey shook his head slowly and pulled out a small remote, the sight of it sending both Nick’s and the civet’s collar orange. “That passes from prey. But what about you chomper scum,” he drawled, before turning to face Nick. “’Specially a vile piece ‘o filth like you.”
“Yes sir,” Nick said firmly, though not without slowly backing away, his back almost up against the wall.
“Yer think yer so cunning, I bet,” he snorted. “’Better check tha’ collar isn’t tampered with. Shouldn’t I?”
“It works!” Nick shouted out, already flinching down. “It works, I promise!” He breathed deeply in and out, paws covering his eyes as he awaited the explosion of pain to engulf his neck.
There was a click, and a light pinch touched the fox’s skin. His fur went up on end, and he slowly withdrew his paws from over his eyes. Looking up, still panting, he watched the goat twirl his remote before placing it back in its holster.
“What a Baaa’by,” he said, grinning sickly at the prisoners. “Tha’ ther’ is just a tester remote. Not allowed to use tha’ real deal in here! Yer know why, Fox?”
“Laws…” he guessed. “Protocol?”
The goat brought out the remote again and held it like a gun, waving it about a few times. “Tha’ partly,” he explained, before flicking it over onto the civet, giving him his own little shock. The predator grunted somewhat and shook once, before rubbing his neck with his paws. Caprey, nodding at his work, pointed the remote up into the corner of the room and sneered. “Camera’s,” he snorted. “They and ther waaaa’rden get in ther way of treating you chomper scum properly…”
Nick gulped, but shaking his head he turned up to the hanging camera and smiled, holding up a hand paw. “Hi camera,” he said softly.
Caprey look Nick in the eyes, staring daggers into the fox, before stepping back and addressing the whole crowd. “I need to get yer all ready, shaved and clipped, ear-tagged up and then showered! Yer all get new uniforms, then meet ther waaaa’rden! Got tha’?”
“Yes sir,” Nick and the others replied in unison, before ten guards came forwards, one for each of them. A bored looking pig grabbed his chain and led him forwards, past Caprey, and towards a waiting chair.
“Might need to check tha’ again though…” the goat mused behind them. “He was devious. I don’t want anything unfortunate happening.”
The pig officer ignored him, and sat Nick down onto the waiting chair. The fox watched as his arms and legs were tied in via straps, and sighed with relief as his chains were removed. The air filtered through his fur to his chaffed skin, bringing blessed relief, though he wished that his hands were free to rub them.
The relief quickly faded away as Nick saw a pair of pliers and some claw clippers being brought out.
“We can do it the easy way or the hard way,” the guard said, sounding bored more than anything.
Nick looked at the tools, closed his eyes and breathed in. “Easy,” he said, before extending all claws out. He kept his eyes closed throughout the procedure, slowly feeling as each appendance was tugged forwards before being released, somehow feeling lighter and different as he pulled them back. His fingers were quickly done in order, and then his toes too.
Opening his eyes, he looked at his dulled paws, before the pig began undoing his foot straps. “I will release you from this chair and you will then remove all of your current uniform, do you understand?”
“Yes,” Nick replied, before a sudden pinch grabbed his ear. He whimpered, tensing up as his eyes went wide, all while a familiar voice spoke out.
“Tha’s yes sir! Do yer understand chomper?”
“Yes sir!” Nick parroted back.
He felt Caprey release his ear and lean over him, speaking to the pig guard. “Back from here, his brush looks very bushy. What do yer think?”
“I-uh, didn’t notice anything wrong,” he innocently said back.
“Ah, yer just a big bit inexperienced…” the goat mused. “Never been here when there’s a flea or tick outbreak. Bad fer everyone… Planning to do a full clipping?”
“Shall I?”
“Better safe than sorry, I say’”
Nick sighed with relief as he felt Byron leave, letting his now orange collar drop down. He looked back at the guard, and spoke up. “Sir, what was that about...?”
“I am going to release you from this chair and you are going to undress completely,” he said, carrying on from before like nothing had happened. “You will place your paws against the wall, while we do some standard checks. We will then give your coat a clipping, you will be ear tagged and then sent to the showers. Do you understand?”
“Yes sir.”
“Good,” the pig replied.
More straps were undone, and Nick rubbed his wrists as he stood up, before his collar went orange with a dreadful realisation.
“What is the meaning of that?” the pig said, pointing up at his collar accusingly.
“Are-you,” Nick said, as his tail curled up defensively around his legs so that its tip came to rest in his hands. “Are you going to clip… to clip my tail?”
The pig blinked, looking down at it and then back at Nick, before shrugging. “I’m sorry. I’ll make it short.”
Nick was silent in his response, slowly undoing his entire uniform until he was as bare as the day he was born. Leaning against the wall, he saw the pig bring up a tray of supplies and look at him. “This next part is uncomfortably for both of us,” he said, before suddenly being joined by Caprey.
“Tha’s right,” the goat said, putting an arm on his shoulder. “Yer been doing a fine job as a rookie, let me handle this…”
“Uh… thanks sir,” the guard said.
“Yer know...” Caprey drawled, as he walked up close to Nick, his breath twitching one of his ears and sending it flicking. “I thought I better see ter yer myself. Pays ter be sure…”
Turning back to the tray, he pulled out a blue glove, playfully pulled it down over his hoof, and his grin got ever so slightly larger.
Nick gulped, but he refused to whimper.
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TO: gregoryhuvertung@zmail. com
FROM: melonymelody@bamboo. co. zt
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Grima.
Why on earth would mammals, yet alone ones who claim to be the good guys, enjoy this?
It’s not like I don’t believe you.
It’s these other mammals, and what they do, that I don’t believe.
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TO: melonymelody@bamboo. co. zt
FROM: gregoryhuvertung@zmail. com
.
Melony.
These procedures are like so many things that are terrible about mammal society. They try to justify everything they do with good intentions. They try and present a simple and convincing logic. They attempt to be ‘kind’.
In reality they are so needlessly cruel and petty it staggers belief.
It’s an outlet. An outlet designed to funnel hate and scorn down onto those a society has judged to be outside their ideal.
To treat them like, and make them feel like, grubs.
.
I wonder if the prey mammals who created them feel that it really is a form of justice? Punishing us for the unholy diet that evolution deigned to shackle us too.
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As Caprey pulled off the glove and needlessly flung it into Nick’s face, the fox gritting his teeth back.
“That was… thorough,” the pig officer quietly observed, the nonchalant response sending Nick’s ears down sharply. He’d refused to give the goat the satisfaction of seeing him get shocked during his search.
Pays ter be sure…” the goat said happily, though Nick noticed that he looked somewhat disappointed. Turning back to the tray, he pulled out a large set of electric clippers and turned them on, the sound sending a shiver down Nick’s spine.
“I can do that sir,” the pig said, only to receive an arm around his shoulder.
“Sonny boy,” Caprey drawled. “Never punch a gift giving horse in ther mouth, yer hear? Lemme do ther hard part fer yer!”
The pig looked sceptically at Caprey, while Nick closed his eyes tight as he felt hard hooves grab the tip of his tail, pulling the limb back tightly. It was all too much, and his collar flashed red with his fear. “Arghhhh,” he grunted, before panting with fear. “Now, this isn’t necessary, I…”
“Don’t speak outta turn!” Caprey chided. “And I am sorry, but it is.”
“Sir, that’s my tail and I....” Whatever Nick tried to say was cut off as he whined and whimpered at the feeling of a clipper running along the skin of his brush. His collar flashed red again, and he shook with the shock.
Beginning to whimper like a kit, the odd tear flowing from his watering eyes, Nick felt himself get trimmed down as sweep after sweep went up his tail. Cold air filtered down onto it, while the whole balanced of his body was thrown off.
With a final flourish, Caprey finished and finally let go. Nick swung it defensively around to his front, and felt sick as he saw what had been done to it.
Luscious deep red fur, fluffy and warm, it was no more.
It looked foreign. A long, thin, light pink snake. Completely naked, freezing, with nothing more than a light stubble left on it.
Nick closed his eyes and began breathing in and out, trying to make sure his crying didn’t get out of hand.
“Regulation,” Caprey said innocently. “Chompers coming in with fleas an’ ticks… Dumb chomper lovers say we need ter clip prey too! What do they know?” he stepped back, looking at his work, before handing the clippers back to the pig. “Carry on,” he ordered, with a slight pat to his shoulder. The pig watched him go, looking slightly concerned as his gaze flicked back to Nick’s tail every so often.
“Easy way or hard way,” he finally said, and Nick complied.
Soon the fox was wincing as fur all over his body was being trimmed. He’d moulted already for the year, so the cuttings down to regulation length were minimal, but the occasional nip of clipper teeth on his skin still stung out here and there. Caprey roughly covered all of Nick’s body. Chest, head, arms, legs and even his cheeks. Closing his eyes and pulling away as they came up, he glanced the fur that had fluffed up around those areas fall away to the floor. Nick stayed silent throughout.
“Regulation,” the pig said quietly as he finished, pushing Nick as he guided his prisoner back down to the chair. Looking around, he noticed that, bar the civet, the other prisoners had already left. It was just him and half a dozen guards, Caprey and the unnamed pig included.
“Regulation,” Nick heard again, and he gulped as he saw a piercing device, yellow tag loaded in already, being raised up. “You have five seconds to prepare yourself.”
Nick immediately started.
Closing his eyes as he felt his ear being gripped.
Bracing for what was going to happened.
Nick still yelped with pain as the sterile rod was shot through his ear, the shock enough to send his collar off. Feet scrambling and rising up, his arms trying and failing to dig into his chair, he breathed in and out deeply before looking at the pig guard. “Now you see why us Preds don’t like piercings,” he hissed.
“Regulation for all prisoners,” the guard explained, before slapping two small sterile blue plasters over either end of the ear tag. “Now, you will place your paws on your head, and shower. Understood?”
“Understood,” Nick said, as did as ordered. His ear throbbed angrily, and it seemed that even a simple breeze would make it worse, so he reached for his tail instead. He stroked it and petted it, before pulling it up to gently kiss. As he did so, he entered a tiled passageway, filled with the sound of water firing from hoses.
“Don’t wanna sleep in clipping fuzz, do yer?” Caprey said. “Shower time. Grab yer shampoo, and scrub! The sooner yer done. The sooner yer out!”
The clang of a metal door opening sounded out and Nick walked forwards, into the showers proper. Walking in, he felt the water pour onto his fur, cooling him down. He entered fully, and his bare tail entered too.
“Yaaaahhhh!” he grunted from the shock, barely managing to keep his surprise bellow red light territory. The jets of water didn’t just come down from above, but below as well, and the water was definitely on the wrong side of luke-warm. His tail was freezing, and he felt the chill of it as it rapidly pierced down to his skin. The only consolation was that it numbed down the pain in his ear, taking it down to an irritating buzz.
“Eeeeeeeppppp…… ARGGGH!!!”
Nick turned and winced as the civet entered, and managed to shock himself where he hadn’t. Teeth already chattering and body shaking, Nick hunched over on himself and look forward. The front of the showers was clear plexiglass, various guards observing them from the other side.
He didn’t care about his exposure now, instead curling himself up to try and conserve his body heat. His eyes landed on a bottle of shampoo and he grabbed it, quickly unloading huge amounts onto his body and scrubbing. Working his paws as hard as he could, fur from his toes to his ear tips was soon covered in a white foam which was washed away.
The cold was getting worse, Nick fearing he might fall over from the shaking in his body.
He finished up and hunched over, looking over at the civet. He too was also finishing and bracing himself from the cold. Looking forwards at the guards, warm and dry behind a glass screen, they looked on with pleading eyes.
Seconds ticked by painfully slow as the guards looked at them.
Silent.
“I think ther pelt there…” Caprey slowly mused, using his hoof to stroke his beard. “… I think he’s still covered in muck and filth. Don’t yer boys?”
His collar orange, he looked at Caprey with a look of pure and unreserved hatred, before grabbing the shampoo bottle and covering himself again. Paws worked as hard as they could and foamed him up, before he washed and shook himself off.
“I s’pose tha’s good enough. Better dry yer all off,” Caprey announced, and both predators sighed with relief as the door out of the showers slowly opened. The shower heads stopping, Nick shook himself off as he walked, mumbling a quiet apology to the mammal behind him. Out of the showers, and into a spares room with a bench and some towels. Grabbing one, Nick did his best to dry himself off, though he still shivered and shook, his teeth chattering. Sneezing a few times, he turned to look at the guards who were grabbing vials of something. Knowing the next stage, Nick backed up to one of them and lowered his head, as the guard dropped a huge dose of potent anti-flea treatment onto his nape.
With the other prisoners complete and waiting, the final transformation into inmates began. Walking forward, still shivering and now being bothered by the pain in his ear again, Nick made his way towards a waiting jumpsuit, laid out by the pig, and stepped in.
While the one in the ZPD jail had been an ugly orange that somehow clashed brutally with his fur, this one was the most gaudy, hideous shade of yellow Nick could imagine.
His fashion sense screamed out, but he knew he had no choice. He put on the garment regardless, stepping in and feeding his arms into the sleeves. Reaching around, he threaded the two sides of the zip on the back of his collar together and pulled down until he reached his, locking himself in. He’d have tucked his cold tail inside his suit, but he was cautious and didn’t want to give anyone any excuses.
Nick and the other inmates turned around, facing the guards.
They wore broken, emotionless faces and had drooping ears and dull eyes. Standing out in their yellow suits, black blocky numbers stencilled over their chests, they were mammals no more.
They were prisoners now.