Mystery, stoats and thermodynamics.
An explosion in Zootopia's world famous climate wall sets nick and Judy on a case where more than justice is on the line.
This was going to be a chapter in my Animalia festival lectures but in thinking about the workings of the wall I found a really fun way to sabotage it (Mwa Ha Ha) and so it's wild and hops to the rescue.
Reginald Thompson, a muntjac deer, sat cross legged at the security desk. It was end of the morning shift and there wasn't much to do. He monitored the stats on the technicians, watching their little green dots scamper around the tunnels on a schematic of the massive peace of air conditioning. Next to that, a bank of screens showed feeds from the airlocks and tunnels of the "great hall", as the privileged few who worked their called it.
He was gazing fondly at technician Lawrence, a doe, down airlock feed 32 when everything went green; a claxon was preceded with a distant rumble. He bolted upright, knowing what that meant, an refrigerant breach, he looked to his monitor checking that the automatic emergency procedures had run, they had; Compressor 5 had cracked and was being isolated. The gas (stained green for safety) was already being pumped and stored, sucking in clean air from the outside.
More pressing was a little green dot, labelled "kingdom", charging towards a staff airlock, pursued by a wave of red dots as gas detectors tripped. He saw a green flash as the door opened and sighed in relief at a red flash as it closed. He grabbed his microphone, dialling her frequency. "Kingdom, is everything OK"
"I'm fine" came a voice muffled by respirator. "Is every one out".
"Yes you were the only one in."
Half a kilometre away a small mammal slid to the floor of her airlock, panting praise through her respirator.
This is the lunchtime news with Fabienne Growley:
"Fears in Sahara Squair and tundra town this afternoon as an explosion in the climate wall jeopardises the district's ability to face the coming heat wave, police are following up allegations of sabotage while city officials are organising possible evac…"
The screen went black
"Come on carrots," called nick from behind the sofa, remote in paw, "time for work, apparently were following up allegations of sabotage." He said with a raised eyebrow.
"Yup," exclaimed Judy, bouncing from the couch, "dibs not buying coffee."
"It's my turn anyway carrots," nick smiled, following Judy out of their shared apartment (two bedrooms (didn't stop the gossip)) and headed to the station.
The bright blue sky contrasted with the earthy hues of downtown Zootopia as nick and Judy took their usual shortcut through a park. It was mid-day, the roads were quiet and the park was packed as workers enjoyed their lunch hour in the warm sunshine. Nick stole a glance at the ever-present figure of the climate wall on the horizon, nothing seemed wrong; no Smoak rose from the exhaust ports, no sirens screamed in its direction but it was one of those perfect days that he felt often begged for disaster.
At the station, nick exchanged his usual greeting with Clawhouser while Judy stifled a smile in spite of herself as the cheetah danced around the C-word to describe the pair.
They had barely sat down in the bullpen when Bogo burst through the door at the head of the room; a tick on his face that they instantly associated with phone calls from politicians (and Nick opening his mouth).
"Right, no beating about the bush today, I assume everyone saw the news this morning."
A unanimous nod,
"Good, because everyone is on beat in Sahara Squair and tundra town. If we need to Evacuate we'll be on hand to help and put down any unrest, so full riot gear in trunks. In the meantime we'll be streaming CCTV to your cruisers. The wizards in the lab have confirmed the use of explosives, so we have a mammal to catch but no description, so that's where we're starting."
"Hops, wild, you're going to the wall to question the staff. We would bring them in but their spread even thinner over there than we are. This is a mammal hunt so we need to work fast. While you're there you'll also be our eyes and ears; we need to know if and when they miss the deadline so we can begin to evacuate. City hall is already planning what to do but you're our go no-go."
Nick and Judy nodded.
"And finally" he said, lifting a sheet of paper and smiling maliciously. "Verner; parking duty. Judy jumped as the ferret next to her face planted the table, the rest of the room laughed; someone wolf whistled causing the ferrets ears to turn red.
There was a knock at the door, followed by a panting Clawhouser, chief, precinct five is calling for backup, looting on Snowcastle way.
Bogo nodded gruffly. "Right, I want everyone suited, booted and off an hour ago. Even if the wall dose go south there Will - Be – Order". There was an instant scuffing of chairs as the room stood up and headed for the door.
Nick and Judy had yet to see the ZPD at full defcon 5. They were picking up their case file from Clawhouser as the entirety of precinct one charged out the locker rooms in full riot gear, for the larger mammals this meant little more than some fire proofing atop the standard body armour but when Wolford jogged past he was wearing something equitable to a bomb suit, while he wouldn't likely be put up against a rhino he still needed to be up for anything.
As they cruised through downtown, the north end of the climate wall loomed ahead of them. A hum of confusion came from the driver's seat. "What's up carrots?"
"Just wondering why Verner's on parking when everyone's on high alert.
"He's still on parking after he came in cuffed to a head board." Judie yucked then giggled in recollection.
"So, who's our guide for the day?"
"Izabella "Izzie" kingdom", began nick, "she's a wire rat, hails from the slots in Sahara district; only mammal in the wall when the explosion went off. She's their PR mammal as well; so if we're lucky we'll get a tour"
"Wire rat? Never heard of one of those before, got a photo?"
"She's actually a stoat, wire rat's her profession; she's a specialist electrician in the wall, runs cables down the tunnels, damn dangerous if she gets it wrong." He said passing a drivers licence photo of a mustelid in her early thirties. "I heard of one that didn't notice a steam leak, got found cut in half and par-boiled."
Judy rolled her eyes, knowing by now not to trust most of what came out of nicks mouth, before looking down at the photo. The animal had cut her brown and white summer coat brutally short, ruffled rings showed in the fur round her eyes where Judy imagined welding goggles often sat. Despite this she seemed remarkably well groomed for a mechanic; wearing a sun yellow blazer over a floral v neck shirt, a set of small shielded sunglasses tucked in to a Brest pocket. Her eyes open and honest; Judy was reminded of a hardy Mrs Otterton.
Nick and Judie pulled up outside the small meatal door hidden behind a substation, exiting the cruiser they paused to admire the veritable collage of black and yellow warning labels before pushing a buzzer. A caged light flashed, a Clackson sounded and the door clanged open. "Come on in," came a friendly, if crackly, voice from a speaker in the ceiling. They walked tentatively through the arch of a meatal detector and were greeted by an empty room as the door closed behind them. They wheeled around only to see, behind a bullet proof screen, a friendly looking stag in orange overalls, he waved before leaning forward to speak in to an intercom. "I'll need ID and stick any weapons in the lockers in front of you please." Judy and nick both placed their badges and warrant cards against the glass then placed their Tranquilisers in the lockers. Judie rolled her eyes as nick made a show of placing a bright pink can of fox repellent alongside the gun, he kept it to annoy Judie more than anything but it had come in useful on more than one occasion (even if it meant taking himself out at the same time as the perp).
The lockers clicked and the door ahead of them opened with a clang.
They were greeted by the stoat herself; she was Judy's height (sans ears) but skinnier, perfect for navigating narrow tunnels; once chasing rabbit's, now fixing sophisticated machinery. She wore the bright orange overalls of the city mechanics with a high Vis waste coat on top and matching hard hat. While she obviously wasn't going for the badass mechanic look she was sporting a grubby neckerchief and welding goggles around her long neck and a utility belt that put the ZPD to shame; covered in monitors, meters and tools that put her firmly in the "highly skilled" bracket of the job market.
"Afternoon," she said brightly, offering a paw to Judy (them being closest in size). "Sorry for the inconvenience but we're in full crises mode." She smiled, jumping as her radio squawked, hastily turning down the volume. "I have half an hour off but I really need to get back, were running all the auxiliaries at full to compensate for the loss and we need to get the compressor back on line before sun-up or we start overheating."
"I'm sorry?" said Judy, looking confused
"Let's walk and talk," the mechanic beckoned the pair forward
"You understand the wall is basically a giant air conditioner, sucking in the ambient air and cooling it down for tundra town while the hot exhaust heats the Sahara district."
A nod,
"The problem comes in the summer when the ambient air is already thirty degrees; we have to cool the air by fifty degrees for tundra but that means that the exhaust would be at seventy degrees, far too hot for Sahara. So instead we have a secondary system cool the exhaust and dump all the excess heat in to the bedrock, Sahara Squair doesn't cook, tundra town stays cool and we have a massive heat reservoir that we can tap in to during the winter when the problem is reversed."
She led nick and Judy through to a locker room; they were given gas and water monitors, respirators, high vis jackets and helmets; Izzy continuing to fill them in.
"That's what makes this attack so weird; you'd expect someone to go for the main fans. But they went for the heat pump compressors, AKA that secondary system, without that system the excess heat has nowhere to go but the rest of the wall can continue running as normal."
They climbed in to a golf buggy and passed down a long tunnel lit by strip lights; the low concrete ceiling making the officers feel the weight of sandstone above them. Finally a set of heavy blast doors acted as an air lock in which the trio pulled faces as their ears popped.
"we've got enough toxic refrigerant in here to suffocate half the city; keeping the pressure down makes sure nothing nasty can get out when something goes wrong. Always been a pain but we're damn thankful today."
After a pause the doors opened releasing a wave of heat as the ceiling flew in a triumphant sweep skyward. A great hall stretched for kilometres in to the distance; beams of hazy sunlight shon through slot shaped ports in the ceiling on to great cylinders of rock encased in complicated metalwork; rumbling in a note so low that the officers felt it in their chests as much as their ears.
the century old machines that quite literally set in stone a cities determination to face and to overcome the divisions of nature; as it was often said, the wall that built bridges.
Nick and Judy stared for a second before there was a cry of pain from nick, there was still a strong smell of stale urine in the air, the remnants of the breach. What was strong to Judy was agonising to nick who clutched his muzzle in pain with one paw while reaching for the respirator on his belt popping it from its canister and affixing it with help from Izzie,
"Sorry, should have warned you," the insides of her ears blushing "you get used to it after a few hours."
Judy held her nose but resolved at least one of them should be able to talk clearly. Nick had already recovered and was making darth Vader noises.
"So, what happens if you over heat?" Asked Judy, tentatively removing her paw.
"Should that happen we only have two options;" continued Izzie as they traversed the floor of the hall towards the nearest cylinder; a massive number 5 etched in to its side. "We begin dumping the heat in to the exhaust and cook Sahara Squair or we shut down and let tundra town thaw, either way we'll need to Evac the district and the property damage will be phenomenal."
"Can't we just meet in the middle, warm things up just a little," Suggested nick
"It's the hottest week of the year; tundra town is taking all we've got and Sahara Squair is running at fifty degrees virtually on its own. This is the worst time it could have possibly happened, it's all or nothing." She paused before adding. "But it won't come to that, we run a tight ship here; we can replace anything short of an entire core within twelve hours. Anyway, its half an hour until anyone's on break so I'll introduce you to our baby,"
She floored the accelerator (why couldn't the ZPD get carts this good) and they sped across the expanse of stone towards a crew of technicians crowded around a mass of twisted meatal, pulling up some twenty meters away; far enough that Judy wasn't defend by the screeches of the pneumatic tools being used to loosen the compressor from its mounting.
The damage was shocking, the casing was shattered and bent outwards like a flower; the compressors interior glistened with broken blades.
"The breech looked normal until we saw the outside of the shell" Izzy shouted of the scream over tools, holding up a fragment of meatal for them to see, the paint was blackened and broken despite being on the outside, the remanence of an explosion.
Nick whistled, running his fingers over the rough edges.
"You bet, we found that little beauty embedded in the wall two stories up, anyway Let's get moving" said Izzy as the last of the bolts came clear, "give them some room."
The three mammals climbed the exterior of core five for a better view, next to them they could see the overhead crane trundling down one of the galleries, a massive lump of cast iron hanging from its belly, nick and Judy assumed it to be one of the new pumps by the intricate fan work visible in its mouth.
"How good is the CCTV coverage asked nick?" Curious what the rest of the force had to work with.
"In here? Terrible; we don't expect anyone to get this far, the real threat has always been to the main fans. I'll show you now." She turned to continue up the stairs when an almighty bang behind them caused her to stop in her tracks.
As the Crain reached the empty bay the driver, an antelope sat in a nest of levers, had applied the brakes; there was a series of bangs from the wheels and the crane judderd violently. The quick release hook strained then gave off an immense crack as the pump dropped to the thankfully empty floor. The cable however, suddenly free of tonnes of engineering, rocketed towards the winding gear, over shot and whipped around the cabin.
An alarm sounded as glass shattered and Izzy, Judie and nick stared.
Judy reached for her radio "precinct one, officer hops, 10 43, crane driver, antelope, hit by cable"
"Condition?"
"Unknown"
Her and nick were already climbing towards the ceiling to try and get a better look. A badger in a safety harness was already inching his way along the cranes girders; angle grinder in paw.
Dun Dun Duuuun.
Will the driver survive, will hops and wild catch the bomber, and will the author admit that ammonia is the wrong refrigerant for high temperature uses.
Find out soon…
This is my first attempt at narrative; so all reviews, comments and suggestions are massively appreciated.
