Perkins
Perkins is a rabbit and a ZSI special operative in We Can Fix Pawbert. He is a member of Charlie Sierra One, a ZSI rabbit special operations team that conducts covert intelligence gathering in hostile territories. Perkins and his partners Botasky and White are shot down during a mission in Vladifrostok in "Golden Age", and ZSI lists all three as presumed killed; the loss of the team is the first sign of the threat that drives the season. White is dead, but Perkins and Botasky are not: in the W-Series they are found alive in a mothballed climate station on the Vladifrostok coast and brought home.
"Charlie Sierra One, transmitting in the blind, the target is Zootopia, the target is Zootopia!" — Perkins, desperately trying to relay intelligence, "Golden Age"
Background
Perkins was recruited by ZSI fifteen years before the events of Season 5, approached by a nondescript officer at a bar in Bunnyburrow who asked if he wanted to do something that mattered. He and Botasky partnered from the beginning, becoming a two-mammal team that worked in the shadows, keeping Zootopia safe from threats most mammals never knew existed.
As rabbits, Perkins and his team were ideal infiltrators — small, unassuming, and easy to underestimate. They operated in facilities designed for mammals three times their size, using their agility and professional training to compensate for the disadvantage. Perkins was described as practiced and efficient, his reloading muscle memory doing the work while his eyes scanned for threats.
Series History
Season 5
S05E01 "Golden Age"
The episode opens with Perkins and Botasky fleeing through a Vladifrostok facility after their mission has gone sideways. Their sniper, White, has been killed by an RPG while covering their extraction from a maintenance catwalk. The two rabbits have downed a polar bear and are attempting to exfiltrate with critical intelligence about a threat to Zootopia.
The intel is trapped on a device the size of Perkins' paw, unable to transmit through the jamming. Perkins tries repeatedly to broadcast their findings — first calling for the station Angel One, then transmitting in the blind under his own team's callsign, Charlie Sierra One — and gets only static back. The words "the target is Zootopia" never reach ZSI.
At a corridor junction, the team encounters multiple hostiles. Despite their exceptional combat skills — two rabbits taking down a tiger, leopard, dhole, and gray wolf in quick succession — Botasky is shot through the abdomen. Perkins reaches him before the wolf's body has stopped moving and stays there, telling him to hold on, until Botasky goes still.
When a red fox and brown bear round the corner, Perkins grabs Botasky's weapon and fires with both paws, screaming as he pulls both triggers. He kills them both, but the bear gets one shot off on his way down and it catches Perkins in the chest. Perkins lands beside Botasky, reaches out to find his partner's paw, and whispers what he takes to be his final words: "It's been an honor, Bota."
A shadow falls across his face, and a shot rings out. The polar bear standing over him is Mikhail Icener, though nobody will speak the name for another three episodes. He is massive, his fur pristine and unmarked by the violence around him; he steps over the bodies without looking down, picks up the device, turns it over once, and tosses it to the corsac behind him, who cancels the transfer. Everything Perkins fought to send is lost.
W-Series
In "Souls on Board", Perkins is found alive on a welded steel shelf at Station Nine, a mothballed climate station at Ostrog Point on the Vladifrostok coast, where a corsac fox named Rustem Adaev has kept him and Botasky since the station went dark. He has carried the count of days from the start and never once said it aloud. The right side of his face is scarred, the jaw healed crooked and the hearing on that side muffled, and he has kept his own teeth down with a piece of pine. When Luther crouches in the doorway and says both names, Perkins asks to hear them again, then tests him on Director Costa's eyebrow scar and coffee before he lets himself believe it. His one request is that White's name stay on the memorial wall exactly where it is, in the gap. He is awake through the cargo fire and the ditching in Sandy Cove, and Reacher carries him off the aircraft. At Zootopia General he refuses to give Botasky the day-count. Ten days after the water he stands at the wall in the lobby of ZSI Headquarters, touches his own name and then White's, and tells Luther he wants to go back to work.
Legacy
The loss of Charlie Sierra One leaves ZSI blind to the Vladifrostok threat. At the close of the episode, Luther receives a phone call informing him that the Vladifrostok station went dark eighteen hours earlier and that three operatives — Perkins, Botasky, and White — are MIA, presumed KIA. Their intel never reached Zootopia, and ZSI has no idea what they found or what is coming.
The presumption stands for the rest of the main series. The three operatives found the threat to Zootopia and fell trying to warn their home.
Key Relationships
Botasky
Perkins and Botasky have been partners for fifteen years, having worked together since their recruitment from Bunnyburrow. Their bond was forged through countless operations in hostile territory. In the corridor at Vladifrostok, Perkins reached for Botasky's paw and held it through what both of them took for the end. It was not the end. Perkins calls him "Bota," and in the long stretch that follows he builds his days around the sound of his partner's breathing.
White
White was Charlie Sierra One's sniper, providing overwatch from elevated positions during operations. He was killed by an RPG while covering Perkins and Botasky's extraction, his loss forcing them to flee without cover. Perkins carries the weight of leaving White's body behind, knowing there was nothing else they could do, and it is Perkins who asks that White's name stay on the memorial wall untouched.
Key Quotes
| Quote | Context |
|---|---|
| "Charlie Sierra One, transmitting in the blind, the target is Zootopia, the target is Zootopia!" | Desperately trying to relay intelligence (S05E01) |
| "He's gone. He's gone. There's nothing we can do." | To Botasky, about White (S05E01) |
| "It's been an honor, Bota." | Final words to his dying partner (S05E01) |
Trivia
- "Charlie Sierra One" is a reference to the manga/anime Cat Shit One (also known as Apocalypse Meow), which features rabbit soldiers conducting military operations.