How Denhaven’s Justice System Forced Me to Reevaluate

I didn’t mean to get arrested. Let me be clear: it was completely my fault; it just wasn’t my intention. As you can imagine, this is part of the reason I haven’t been posting.

When I came to, I was on a cot in a jail cell. Daylight filtered through the window, and my head ached. I almost took the animal head off before thinking better of it. I had somehow made it this far without being revealed; at least, it seemed like that was true. Now was probably not the time to slip up and make a stupid mistake. Another stupid mistake. I carefully inched my fingers under the headpiece and probed my aching skill. A soft bruise reported sharply that I had, indeed, hit my head. My jaw ached, and I wondered briefly if I had been punched. If I had, I didn’t remember it.

My mind turned over the possibilities. What would they do with me when they inevitably discovered I was human? There was no way my disguise would hold up to closer scrutiny. At least I was alone in the jail cell. That was something. My pulse spiked when I suddenly realized my pack was gone. It had my ID in it, my wallet (much good it had done me), and my cell phone. Every link I had to the Overworld. I took a deep breath and told myself the police might have it. Maybe I would get it back. Or maybe the Chaos goons had scooped it up before the cops got there. Was I wearing it when I hit the ground? My memory was foggy.

I paced the cell for a while, then laid down and tried to rest. The time stretched, and I wondered if they had forgotten about me. Surely something would happen soon. I must have fallen asleep because one minute, I was staring at the concrete ceiling, and the next, someone was pulling me to my feet. My breath caught in my throat as I peered up at the largest gorilla I’d ever seen. She was uniformed and didn’t look like she would broker any foolery.

“Let’s go,” she said, dragging me stumbling after her. “They’re ready for you.”

The next thing I knew, I was unceremoniously deposited in front of a desk where a small, uniformed dog looked at me like I was truly something the cat dragged in. A plaque on his desk read Order Agent, and I immediately started paying closer attention. No one had asked me questions yet, but that was clearly about to change.

“Name?” The dog sighed and pulled out a clean form.

“What?” I asked, trying desperately to formulate some kind of strategy.

“Your name?” The dog sighed again. “You have a name, don’t you?”

“What?” I couldn’t even think straight enough to lie. If I gave them my name, then what? For all they knew, my real name was just as fictitious as anything else. I wondered if there was any connection between their database and those back home. Could they look up my Overworld information? Despite my anxiety about my immediate prospects, I was intrigued.

The dog sighed, his jowls quivering slightly. He stood and walked out of my line of sight. I didn’t dare adjust the costume head. As ridiculous as it clearly was, it was my only security.

“Where did you get this one?” The dog asked someone behind me. “Did they hit their head in the shuffle?”

That was it. I glommed on to the shred of a plan immediately. I did hit my head, and maybe I don’t remember anything. That was my strategy.

“Might have,” the gorilla grunted. “There was a struggle and a chase. Ridiculous disguise. I would’ve thought Chaos could do better.”

“Take ‘em to Annie,” the dog said. “I don’t have time for this today.”

There was snorting laughter and then silence. If they thought I was Chaos, this could get sticky fast. I didn’t have time to think through the implications before being pulled roughly to my feet and pushed down a different hallway.

“I’m not Chaos,” I said as cubicles gave way to a door-lined hallway.

I don’t know why I said it and the gorilla didn’t answer. She just grunted and kept pushing me forward. Finally, she unlocked a door and shoved me inside. It was a small room with a table and two chairs, just like an interrogation room I’d seen on daytime soaps. I turned to ask her how long I was going to be here just as the door slammed and the lock clicked into place. I sighed and looked around the room. There was a water pitcher sitting on the table, and I suddenly realized how thirsty I was. How long had I been here? My sense of time was unavailable.

It felt weird to just help myself, so I waited, gazing longingly at the pitcher. After some time had passed and no small amount of conversation with myself about the ethics of water pitchers in interrogation rooms, I poured myself a glass. But how would I drink it? I looked furtively around the room. There were no signs of cameras, but it seemed unlikely I was not being watched. I was calculating whether or not I could stick the whole glass under the costume head when the latch clicked and the door opened.

“Take that ridiculous thing off,” a voice behind me said. “Put it in the corner, and I’ll fumigate it before we throw it away.”

I turned to see a uniformed monkey smirking at me. She gestured to my suit and raised her eyebrows.

“Off,” she said. “Let’s have it.”

She leaned against the wall and folded her arms. I was frozen. There were no options other than compliance, but then what? My arms felt like lead as I raised them to the costume head and slowly lifted it. It was a relief to remove it, but the look of shock I expected on her face wasn’t there. She just smiled a half smile and grunted.

“I thought so,” she said. “Take the rest off. I assume you have something else on under there?”

I nodded mutely, fumbling with the zipper. Once I had finally shed the fur suit, she gestured to the chair, settling herself across from me. There was a long silence where she just looked at me.

“I’m fascinated,” she finally said, clicking her pen several times. “What’s your name?”

“J,” I said.

It didn’t make sense to lie now. She clearly knew what I was.

“Just J?” She looked at me with her brows raised.

I opened my mouth to respond, but she waved me to silence.

“It’s fine, it doesn’t matter,” she said, leaning in and looking at me like she was trying to pry information directly out of my brain. “What I really want to know is how you got down here.”

I just looked at her. How could I recount the past few years in a way that made sense? I couldn’t, so I said the first thing I thought of.

“On the Underground Line,” I stammered. Adding “Ma’am” as an afterthought.

She looked at me again very seriously and then suddenly burst out laughing.

“The UL, huh?” She wiped her eyes. “That’s good, that’s very descriptive.”

I didn’t know what to do, so I laughed with her. I sounded a little unhinged, even to my own ears.

“Seriously, though,” she said, taking a deep breath. “Who brought you here?”

“You mean to this room? A big gorilla brought-”

“No, that’s not what I mean,” she interrupted, waving her hand at me as if she could clear things up physically. “You didn’t get to the UL by yourself, did you?”

“I did,” I said. I had spent months trying to find an entrance that would accommodate an animal my size. It hadn’t been easy, but I was persistent.

“You did?” she smiled. “That is something.”

“What’s going to happen to me?” I asked, nerves jangling around in my belly.

She tilted her chin up and looked at me. “You think you’re the only human that’s ever been in Denhaven?” she asked.

The way she asked made it clear I was not, and the idea floored me. I had assumed I was the only one. But now, I was starting to wonder if that had been hubris.

“I guess I did,” I said, questions forming in my head faster than I could sort them. “I’m not?”

“Of course, you’re not; don’t be silly,” she laughed again. “Humans aren’t common down here, but we’ve had visitors. But they don’t usually just show up, like you did. Are you registered? Have a visa?”

She tapped the table with her pen and the threads of anxiety in my belly ballooned into snakes, writhing around my guts.

“No,” I said. “I don’t have anything like that.”

“You didn’t think we were going to execute you on the spot, did you?” She laughed again, sitting back in her chair.

“Of course not,” I said. But that was exactly what I’d been afraid of. They were animals, after all.

“What do you think we are? Humans?” She stood up and walked over to my animal suit, shoving it with the toe of her shoe. “You picked a dangerous time. The sentiment down here is not very pro-human at the moment.”

“So, how do I apply for a pass, or a visa, or whatever it is I need?” I was starting to hope that there was a way I could officially be here, a way to stay.

“You don’t,” she said, sitting back down and crossing her arms. “Like I said, this isn’t a good time. It’s always difficult for humans, but right now, I can’t see the POD approving anything human-related.”

My heart sank into my toes.

“But I worked so hard to get here,” I said quietly. “I’m not ready to go.”

She leaned over the table and was about to say something when there was a knock on the door. She closed her mouth and smiled at me, sitting back in her chair.

“Come in,” she said, pushing the water glass toward me.

The door opened, and it was Brandon. I wanted to jump up and hug him, but I wasn’t sure if I should greet him or pretend I didn’t know him. He smiled at me and turned to the monkey.

“Thank you, Annie,” he said. “I’m glad it was you on shift.”

She smiled at him and nodded to me. “If all humans are as crafty as this one, we may have seriously overestimated them.”

Brandon laughed, and I smiled tentatively, trying to work out what she just said. I guess I hadn’t exactly made a stellar impression.

“Does this mean you’re not sending me home?” I asked, picking up the water glass and taking a sip. It was a mistake. The cold water hit my teeth, and pain spiked into my brain. I guess it wasn’t just my jaw that was sore.

“No, J,” she said, leaning over and putting one hand on the table. “I’m not sending you home.”

I’ve hit my bandwidth limit again. I’ll upload more as soon as I can. Stay tuned.

-JPS