The Fire Triangle, A Zootopia Fan-Fiction -- Prologue, Escape From Zoo York

The Fire Triangle, A Zootopia Fanfiction -- Prologue, Chapter 3

The space was neat but not compulsively neat. As with any young mammal's room, a few things were out of place, but nothing had been left strewn on the floor, and the wastebasket had also been recently emptied.

"Sorry, didn't hear you guys." The young fox apologized, closing the laptop on the bed beside him and rolling up the headphone cords. "What's going on?"

By way of answer, Danny Tipperin held up the backpack, saying simply, "It's time."

Dylan responded by raising an eyebrow and tilting his head to one side.

"Wha...? How come, Danny? My flight doesn't leave 'til later on tonight."

"The Mister's orders." The swift fox answered, setting the backpack down on the bed, "He wants you out of here before the meeting starts; says we don't need the distraction...or something like that."

Beside him, Kieran was sniggering. On Dylan's other side, a black duffle-bag was also lying on the bed-packed, loaded, and zipped. The kid might not have been expecting this, but you better believe he was ready for it.

But then the sea-mink coughed into a fist and looked away. He knew the REAL reason Dylan was being sent away early...and what was going to happen to him upon his return.

Fortunately-or perhaps not so fortunately-the young fox didn't seem to notice. He hopped off the bed, asking, "What's this sit-down for anyway?"

His question caused Danny to turn even more shamefaced that Kieran; luckily for him Dylan had already turned to put his electric axe back on its rightful stand.

When he turned around again, his paws were lifted.

"Wait, yeah, I know...I don't NEED to know. Sorry, sorry...just forget I asked, okay."

"No sweat, kid." Danny answered taking a seat on the bed beside the young fox. He looked over at Kieran, "Druid?" and the sea-mink passed him the envelope. Danny opened it and began to transfer the contents to Dylan. The first thing he removed was a red-and-white neck-placard reading, 'UNACCOMPANIED MINOR' with all the pertinent information written below.

"You'll want to save puttin' that on until you get to the Airport' the swift fox told him, tapping it with a finger, "But be sure you have it on BEFORE you hit the MSA checkpoint."

"Right," Dylan nodded earnestly, reminding Danny forcefully that he was just a kid. Danny shook it off and proceeded to pass over the rest of the items, plane tickets, debit card, cash, ID card, etc. So far every item had been met with a simple nod. But then the swift-fox removed a small plastic bottle from the envelope, containing what look like six clear-glass capsules. Half of them were red...but the others were all a deep, sapphire blue, the unmistakable color of a certain poisonous flower.

When Dylan saw them, he shied back slightly, holding up a paw as if shielding his eyes from a piercing light.

"I-I don't want that stuff, Danny."

Before Danny could come down on him, Kieran quickly intervened.

"I know ye don't, boyo." He told the young fox, not unkindly, "But I'd think yer'd want even less NOT to have 'em in case there's trouble."

It was an unanswerable argument, and Dylan didn't try. Reluctantly-very reluctantly-he took the bottle from Danny, handling it as gingerly as though the contents were nitroglycerine, and slipped it into a side-pocket of the backpack.

"You've got the pipe with you, kid?" the swift-fox asked him, taking over again. As long as they were on the subject of possible trouble, he might as well bring this up now.