{Of Clocks and Calendars}

Chapter 1: This Crummy Old Future of Ours

Part One: Ray Guns and Roustabouts

"People ask me to predict the future, when all I want to do is prevent it." — Ray Birdbury

"When you have eliminated all which is impossible, then whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth." — Shearlock Holmes

Chapter 1: This Crummy Old Future of Ours (June 21st, 2186 A.D.)

1.

It was just past 0330 hours, and the city was as alive as it ever was. Candy-colored specks of pedestrians scrambled across the dewy, shimmering pavement, and a swarm of buzzing drones swam through the air-car traffic, carrying flickering visions of elegantly adorned animals and flashy fashion accessories to and fro through the city's tangled web of skyscrapers and shifting hovertrain rails.

One such advert depicted the fully three-dimensional image of a lithe lioness, smoothly swaying beneath the frame of unmistakable FringeTech logo that hovered above her. The lioness' fur was resplendent with rainbow hues that streaked from her head all the way down to the bit of leg that flashed from the seam of her dark dress; the colors shifted and swam with every tiny movement she made. Her irises, too, were smeared with gold flecks and a swathe of saffron hue, and they had the unmistakable mechanical sheen that denoted the so-called "stimplant" modifications that had taken Zootopia by storm over the past few years.

As the drone that carried her made its rounds through the Zootopian skyway, the lioness repeatedly bent her impossibly huge figure down towards the citizens below and said: "I'm Dahani, and thanks to the latest in FringeTech neuro-mods and stimplants, I was finally able to become my most perfect self, and now, you can too! Sync your Smart Cards to this advert and get signed up for a free consultation for you, or someone you love. FringeTech: Experience evolution!"

If one of the animals walking down on the street below were to gaze upward toward Ursa-Corp Tower and look especially close at that ad, they would possibly see how the lioness' eyes pulsed and swirled with an eerie rhythm. If they took a moment or two longer to really take in what they were seeing, they might even notice that the colors themselves seemed alive, thrumming in step with some private, silent song that only the lioness could hear.

What that passerby wouldn't see when they cast their eyes upward, however, was the lone figure who stood at the very top of the tower. In the visual cacophony of artificial light that blanketed the Zootopian skyline from dawn to dusk (as it had for as long as most anyone could remember), it was nearly impossible to make the out the figure of the fox as she teetered on the edge of the Tower's rooftop—even if the most keen eyed of predators climbed all the way up the tower to get a closer look, they would have only been able to catch the briefest glimpse of the fox's disembodied eyes: Two shining emerald orbs that floated above a nebulous form that wavered in and out of its shape like a desert mirage. After just a moment or two, even the eyes of this intangible ghost disappeared into the cloudy indigo swatches that made up what remained of Zootopia's night sky.

In fact, the technology that hid the fox from view shimmered and shifted in a manner not too unlike the rainbow fur of the Fringe-Tech lioness, only tonight this fox's purpose was antithetical to that of all those roving billboards.

Above all else, she was not to be seen.

The faint outline of a fox's tail flickered into view for split second, a shock of rust-tinged white against the polished chrome and glass of the building that almost immediately faded back into invisibility.

"You must be excited, Nora." The voice came not from outside, but from the neural up-link connected to the inside of the fox's helmet. A little drone fluttered up next to her, seemingly from out of nowhere. It looked like a over-sized mechanical ladybug, complete with a mass of wires and softly-illuminated lenses that functioned as the eyes and ears, which tilted and posed to match up the voice that had just chimed in the fox's ear.