Jason Salotor walked into the door of Cinerius Auto Works in the Downtown District near the northern section of the biome wall separating the Rainforest District with the Downtown dsitrict, just barely on time as his boss Joe Cinerius, a middle aged koala, watched disapprovingly from behind the counter. After yet another near sleepless night in the thinly walled Grand Pangolin Arms, which was the apartment that Jason lived in, the scowl from the koala only dampened his mood further. With drooping shoulders, the raccoon he slowly walked towards the back room to see what had come into the shop that he needed to fix.
"Why're you always comin' in just before you're supposed to be here?" the Koala inquired with his strong New Jersey accent. "You ain't never gonna get anywhere just slumpin' around."
"I didn't get any sleep. Bucky and Pronk were screaming all night long again," Jason explained as he looked around the shop at all of the cars that came in.
The closest one was a class D police cruiser, belonging to a fox police officer, that needed a simple oil and bumper change as well as a check over of the rest of the car after it had recently been in an accident according to the dry erase board that listed each vehicle's needs. The next slot over had a class C hummer, belonging to a pair of arctic wolves, that had popped its two front tires and proceed to smash into another vehicle, requiring a new bumper, hood, engine block, axel, and two more wheels. In the last slot, there was a class A car belonging to the elephant who had been hit while waiting for the left turn light to come on. The third car required only a replacement front bumper and front left tire due to its massive stature. Deciding to start off simple, Jason stuck a car jack under the police cruiser and raised it about eighteen inches above the ground before starting the engine.
Starting with the bumper change, Jason prodded the front of the vehicle with his left paw to see how bad the damage was. The bumper had a fair bit of wiggle in it, although it didn't appear to have been a bad crash. Federal safety regulations required the entire car to be in top condition to be used, and the car's bumper had arrived that night, so Jason unclipped the old bumper and clipped in the new one.
The raccoon let the engine run for five minutes before turning it back off to let it warm up. He stuck an oil pan under the plug that sealed the oil, letting all of the old oil drain into the pan that he had lined with a sheet of plastic. The fact that it was the size of car that Jason would have if he could afford one made it easier as the car was designed for a mammal his size.
As Jason changed the oil and filter on the cruiser, he thought about the fox who had dropped the car off. He had recently heard about the first fox officer getting a diploma from the Zootopia Police Academy, but had thought that it was just a political move by the mayor to endorse his mammal inclusion initiative, not that he had thought the officer didn't have what it took, but possibly was more for show than other officers. The fox that had showed up at the Auto shop did indeed look like the one in the newspaper. He was a red fox, the largest species of fox, who had been wearing an everyday patrol uniform, complete with a taser and tranquilizer pistol, both of which had remained in their respective holsters. Despite this, the sight of the weapons had put Jason on edge. He hadn't had any run-ins with the police before, but he had a few friends who had repeatedly told him to watch out for them. Granted, those "friends" also happened to be people who he knew from high school who had become drug dealers. In fact, thinking about it now, almost all of the mammals that he had involved himself with in his youth had ended up finding their way into some sort of legally precarious position.
Jason noticed himself daydreaming in his thoughts and shook his head to either side. What did it matter what anyone else did to earn money? He had a steady job and steady paycheck, so what everyone else did shouldn't matter to him.
As he finished changing the oil on the cruiser, he performed a quick inspection of the rest of the car, making sure that nothing was amiss. The vehicle's suspension, paint job, engine, and bumpers were fine, showing almost no signs of wear, but its tires were a little low on air, so Jason topped them off before lowering the vehicle down on the jack and rolled it out of the garage and into the parking lot, locking it before going inside and hanging the keys back in a locker with a key rack inside the garage on the hook that was designated for the parking space he had left the cruiser in.
Satisfied that the car would be ready for the cops when they got it back, he proceeded to move to the hummer. Although he would have preferred to have gone after the easier job with the elephant's car first, the bumper and correct tire size were out of stock, scheduled to be delivered the day after. With that, he set to work replacing the sections on the hummer that were in stock.
As he finished replacing the crumpled hood on the second car with a new one, he heard a commotion outside of the garage. Curious as to what was causing all of the commotion, he opened the back door to the auto shop, looking to see who or what was causing the noise. As a security precaution, Jason locked the door before proceeding further. As he stepped out into the parking lot, the raccoon saw a feline dressed in a black hoodie and dark grey sweat pants running from a fox dressed in a yellow Pawiian t-shirt and blue cargo pants chasing after him.
"Stop! ZPD!"
Nick was on his way over to the mechanic, taking the inner loop subway line up to Hill Street, where he walked for a couple of blocks until he reached an auto body shop that was better maintained than many of the buildings in the area. Many of the buildings on the biome wall with the Rainforest district were on a decline, having suffered an economic hardships when gangs decided that it would be the perfect place to set up shop for their drug deals. The rivers that flowed in from the Rainforest district provided water flow that was rich in nutrients that helped grow illicit substances, and the proximity to the city center made for easy distribution.
Part of the Mammal Inclusion Initiative was the increase in government funded jobs in the area, but many of those jobs were marred by the gangs who saw it as the government encroaching on their business. The auto shop that Nick had brought the car to was one of the establishments that was spared the tithing that some gangs tried to enforce due to how frequently many of the gang members tried to upgrade their cars. Nick was dressed in a yellow Pawiian t-shirt with dark blue cargo pants, containing his wallet, cell phone, cell phone charger, and a folding knife that he kept on his person as a form of protection.
Turning left on Forest Road and kept walking north for four blocks until he came to Wolfe Street, where he turned left and walked a few more blocks until he saw Cinerius Auto Works. He could see the police cruiser that he had come for in the front parking lot, a gleam coming off of hits hood. However, he then saw a figure in a black hoodie and dark grey sweatpants stand up from behind the vehicle, a can of dark spray paint dangling from the mammal's right paw. The mammal stood up just in time to see Nick rushing at him.
"Stop! ZPD!" Nick shouted as he ran after the hooded figure. Nick could just make out a yellow feline face with a black nose before the perpetrator of the crime turned and ran. However, they didn't get far, for an employee of the auto shop noticed the commotion going on outside of the shop. The employee tackled the fleeing figure, pinning him down. The feline flipped onto his back and brought up the spray paint can, sticking it in the employee's face and spraying it into his eyes and mouth. The employee reeled back onto the pavement, coughing and sputtering. The cat, however, wasn't able to get up in time to avoid a kick that Nick sent, knocking the spray paint can across the pavement. One of Nick's hands were already pulling out a pair of handcuffs, grabbing the cat's wrist as he flipped the criminal back onto their stomach.
Pinning the cat down with his leg, Nick grabbed his other hand, which was flailing out to the side. The vandal had almost no leverage to resist, finally submitting to being arrested.
"Are you alright?" Nick said to the employee of the auto shop. He saw the employee standing up to his left and wiping the paint off of his face. Nick finally got a good look at the employee who had helped him catch the crook. The employee was a raccoon who looked to be just past collage age, probably a Hilton Head Island Raccoon by the coloration. The raccoon was wearing a green short sleeve t-shirt that didn't have any pattern on it and a pair of silver jogging shorts, both of which looked to have numerous stains from working in the car shop.
"I'm fine. Here, let me go clean off your car," the raccoon said before spitting yellow paint onto the pavement.
"It's fine, I'll clean it back at the station," Nick said as he stood the criminal up and started to give him his legal rights. "You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law."
"Yeah, yeah, cut the shit copper," the cat said as Nick issued to him his rights. "I've heard my rights before."
"I'm sorry, could you repeat that please?" Nick asked, secretly pulling a carrot pen out of his pocket.
"I said I know my fuckin' rights!" the feline said as Nick clicked the record button on the pen. "Do you need to clean out your ears?"
"Thank you," Nick said politely as he clicked the pen off. As Nick was moving back to his car to put the perpetrator in it, he realized that he didn't have the keys to it. Nick walked the perpetrator back to the garage.
"What was all that noise comin' from out there?" a koala asked, walking out of the garage angrily.
"Nick Wilde, ZPD. This mammal was trying to spraypaint my vehicle and your employee was kind enough to help me subdue him," Nick said as he pulled out his wallet to show his badge.
"Oh," the koala said, knowing better than to start asking questions. He didn't want to be involved in anything that could get him into trouble. Just as the koala was turning back to go back to his position on the desk, he saw his only employee walking back out of the garage with a bucket of water sloshing around in each of his paws, along with specs of paint that were still lodged in the fur on his face.
"What happened?" the koala asked his employee who was walking past.
"Nothing, just some lowlife vandal tagging for someone who's too afraid to show their face in public," the raccoon explained.
"What's the bucket for?"
"Well, it wouldn't look good if this mammal's car was tagged on our watch and we didn't do anything about it," the raccoon explained as he continued to walk towards the police cruiser.
"You're a good mammal Jay," the koala complimented before returning to the counter.
Jay walked over to the cruiser as the officer went inside to receive the vehicle's keys from the front desk. He brought the criminal with him due to his inability to leave him for fear that he would run. Jason was washing down the right driver door, where most of the paint had been distributed, when the lights of the car flashed as it was unlocked. The raccoon looked up to see the Nick and the feline walking towards the car, the fox keeping a hand on the cuffs that were binding the cat.
"Oh, you don't have to do that," Nick said as he saw the auto shop employee look towards him.
"Well if I dropped a car off at some auto shop, I'd want it to be taken care of if something happened, so I figured you would too," the raccoon said casually.
"Thanks," Nick said as he closed the door behind the cat and walked around towards the raccoon cleaning the car. "And thanks for helping me with that guy Mr. –"
"Salotor. Jason Salotor," the raccoon finished.
"Officer Nick Wilde," Nick responded. He reached into his pocket, pulling out two ten dollar bills and handing them to Jason. "Consider it a tip."
"Thanks. And if anything ever happens to your car, you know who to bring it to," Jason replied.