The Time Traveler's Guide to Zootopia

Chapter 41: Echelon

I couldn't believe what I was seeing.

This thing—this creature—it was unlike anything I had ever laid eyes on in this world.

It felt like something torn from my deepest, darkest memories. A spectral reflection of what I once was—a nightmare in armored flesh.

It stood before me as the embodiment of my past—an unforgiving time I had tried so hard to escape and forget.

But despite all my efforts... my past had finally caught up to me.

Each step the creature took sent a resounding, metallic thud echoing through the sterile chamber, vibrating through the soles of my boots and straight into my spine.

"Who... who are you?" I asked, my voice wavering as I backed up against the operating table.

The soldier stopped a few feet away. His glowing blue eyes glared down at me, cold and unblinking.

"I am Gadianton, Commandant of the Sixth Stratotic Legion," he stated, his voice low and articulate—eerily calm, like steel wrapped in silence. "I have come to extract you."

Gadianton. I hadn't heard that name in what felt like an entire lifetime ago. A disciplined soldier, from what I remember—unyielding, efficient, and strictly obedient. He was at least five ranks higher than me, maybe more. I thought he had perished during the Big Crunch—the day our universe folded into itself. Yet, here he was, standing right before me, alive. He was the last person I expected to ever see in this world...

"But... how did you find me?" I asked, disbelief flooding through me. "How did you even get here?"

Gadianton's gaze tilted slightly downward. "We intercepted your signal in the quasar sector. Residual quantum distortion triggered the moment our universe imploded. The signal's trajectory was disrupted by gravitational shear, fracturing our alignment and scattering us across different points in the continuum. Once the interference decayed, your location was triangulated."

I blinked, struggling to follow. "I... I don't understand. I never transmitted any kind of signal."

"You did," he corrected. "The moment you crash-landed on this world."

I frowned. "How?"

"Your armor's quantum beacon is hard-wired to the Stratocracy network," Gadianton stated. "Each nanite is keyed to your genome. The transmission wasn't conscious—it was biological. Every particle in that armor carries your genetic signature."

"So... I was the signal?"

"Affirmative. Your presence initiated a resonance that kept the pathway open. The teleporter found this world by chance, but your DNA made it traceable."

The realization hit me like a pulse through my chest. "But... if that's true... how are you finding me now—after all these years?"

"A time dilation occurred when the teleporter engaged mid-collapse," he explained. "It destabilized the singularity and fractured our transition. Consequently, you emerged two years ahead of us."

"So I wasn't the only one who made it out alive..." I murmured, still trying to wrap my head around it. "Did anyone else from the Stratocracy make it?"

"Negative," Gadianton said. "Intel confirms our squad is all that remains."

I hesitated, unable to process the weight of that statement. "How long have you been here?"

"Two weeks," he replied. "The others arrived at staggered intervals—shortly after your entry, yet long before my own. I am the last."