Chapter 2 – Code Five Fifty-Five
When Judy came home she went directly under the shower, while Nick was finalizing dinner in the kitchen. Even though they had a large dining room, they preferred to eat at the much smaller table in here. Nick had cleaned up the entire place, even the kitchen looked neat and tidy. He took a steaming casserole out of the oven while Judy, already in her pajamas, played on the floor with the twins. In the frying pan, the pred food was sizzling. Judy had gotten used to the smell of the meat surrogate made out of insects.
"You look great in an apron, did you know that?", Judy said.
"You just say that because I made your favorite carrot-broccoli gratin!", he replied smirking. They would both have this night off, it was the first time in a week that they had some hours together.
Nick put some of the veggies on each plate of the twins. Keira started making retching noises and Leia giggled.
"Keira, stop doing it – veggies are good for you, you'll get big and strong!", Judy reprimanded her.
"Like you?", Keira answered with a frown.
"Careful, young lady!", Nick said, "You know very well that you'll get much bigger than your mom, but she is right, so do what she says!"
Keira rolled her eyes, but Judy overlooked it. When the kids got their 'meat' on the plate, they started to dig in like there was no tomorrow. Nick and Judy had to remind them several times to eat the veggies, too.
Finally, the kids were through and after the usual mayhem while putting on pajamas, brushing teeth and having a final glass of water and a bed time story and another bed time story and another final glass of water and the announcement that they need to go to the bathroom once again, Keira and Leia were sound asleep at half past eight.
"So, how is your new partner?", Nick asked.
"Well, she's okay, I guess… had a hard childhood… she will need some time, but I think she's gonna be a good cop."
Judy had decided not to tell him about Mrs Hockstetter.
Both took out their phones to discuss the schedule for tomorrow.
"You're on from 7 to 3", Judy said, "so you'll have to get the kids after kindergarten. Don't forget, they close at 4 and Miss Nolan will be on our necks when we're late again. I'll be in the office tomorrow, from 9 to 5… so, I'll finally get all the paperwork done."
Nick sighed, "I haven't been on office duty for ten days now, so all the stuff from my patrols are still open…"
"Hey, I could help you… this is, if all your stuff is neatly stacked on your desk!"
Nick smirked, "There may be some discussion about the definition of 'neatly', but yes, it's all on my desk. You're the best, honey bunny!"
He put his long arms around her and started to playfully kiss her ears. When they started a game of tongue wrestling, they suddenly got interrupted by some smooching sound effects made by Leia and vomiting sounds by Keira.
"What are you guys doing out of bed? Wait 'til I got you!", Nick jumped behind them and the twins screamed and laughed. It took Nick the better part of 15 minutes to put them back in bed.
"So, where have we stopped?", Nick smirked when he finally was back.
"You wanted to take me to bed, too… and I want a bedtime story!", giggled Judy.
"Okay, today's story is 'What the big bad fox does when the lights are out'… rated PG!"
Judy never found out what the big bad fox used to do, as ten minutes later both were sound asleep in each other's arms.
Judy got up at 6:45 am. On her way to the bathroom she noticed to her surprise that Nick still sat in the kitchen reading the morning paper.
"Nick! You need to go, your briefing starts in fifteen!", she said.
"Good morning to you, too, fluff butt. Don't worry, Kitty allowed me to skip the briefing. Ember will pick me up in half an hour, so we can have breakfast together!", Nick said.
"That's great!"
She showered, woke up the kids and dressed them.
"Okay, you little rascals, what do you want to have for breakfast? Anything but…"
"Snompies, Snompies, Snompies!", both kids yelled.
"Oh, please, that stuff is so disgusting…", Judy pleaded, but she knew she was on the losing site here.
"Come one, Carrots, they love that stuff. And it's full of vitamins and proteins and stuff", Nick got out a large box with a dancing cartoon snail on it.
"Yeah…", Judy said, "… and stuff…"
Nick poured the snails in his and the kids' bowls and all three tuck in immediately. The cracking sound of the snail houses bursting between the teeth of the kids made Judy's stomach somersaulting.
"Keira, Leia, at least close your mouths…", pleaded Judy.
That was the signal for Keira to open her mouth extra wide.
"Look, mom, I can squeeze it through me teeth!", she shouted excited and the green-brownish slimey goo squished out and landed on her dress, pulling a long thread dangling out of her mouth.
"Great, Keira, I just washed that dress!", Judy scorned.
"No prob, mom, look…", Keira made a slurping noise and the entire mess was sucked inside her mouth again, "See? All gone!"
"Urgh…", Judy got up from the table when the door chime went off. Nick reached for the phone.
"Mornin' partner. I still need five for breakfast, just come up!", he said and pressed the button that would grant his partner access to the elevator.
As soon as the door opened, the twins yelled "Ember, Ember!" and run over to the cheetah that just had entered the apartment. One snail used the opportunity to crawl out of Leia's bowl leaving a slimy trail on Judy's table.
Officer Ember Yarola had seen the kids only twice before but won their hearts instantly with her charming laughter she had an endless supply of.
"Morning Judy!", she yelled, "Morning, partner! Hey, you two little cuties!"
The slender figure took the two fox cubs in her long thin arms and threw them in the air without any effort.
"Weee!", the twins yelled.
"Geez, guys, looks like you have grown again in the last two days!", Ember put them on the floor again and sat down next to Judy.
"Oh, cool, Snompies!", she said and grabbed the escaped snail. Right next to Judy's already green-tinted face, she cracked the shell between her long fingers and sucked the slimy content out of it. Then she threw the shell in her mouth, chewing loudly.
"Man, I loved them when I was a kitten!", she said munching, "Judy, you don't look good. You work too hard!", she said sympathetically.
Judy jumped up and vanished in the bathroom, "Predators!", she grunted.
"Did I said something wrong?", Ember asked.
"Nah, you know these veggie-eaters!", Nick smirked.
"I heard that!", yelled Judy from the bathroom, "I won't come out until the last snail has vanished from my table!"
Finally, when Nick had taken his weapons out of the safe and kissed his girls good bye, Judy came out again.
"We're on highway duty today. Ember will drop me off here, so I have no problems fetching the kids in time! Hey, what about a good long good-bye kiss?", he asked.
"I pass", said Judy thinking of all the slime that has been in Nick's mouth seconds ago.
"Bye, Ember! Take good care of him, will you?"
Ember let out her contagious laugh, "I will, bye, Judy! Bye, girls!"
It was 3:30 pm and Nick was in big trouble. To avoid an accident, a huge truck had gone over the median and now the trailer got stuck in the ditch. The truck was standing on three of the four lanes. Highway 5 was full at this time of the day as it was one of the most important routes through Zootopia. Ember was standing on the road, trying to direct the cars from all four lanes to the outer right one, but the cars passed slowly, some animals wanted to take a good look at the truck, but most of them preferred a good look at the well proportioned cheetah, her uniform clinging tightly to her perfect body, thanks to the rain that had started one hour ago.
The tow truck had arrived ten minutes ago, but the elephant driver had not yet extended the hook, but had an intensive chat with the driver of the truck, a grizzly, instead.
Nick saw his end of shift far away. He needed to pick up the twins from kindergarten at four at the latest. He could still make it, but things must speed up here.
The second patrol car at the scene was no help, officers Gudbrandsson and Voronez had retreated in their huge patrol car, seemingly the polar bear and the mountain lion wanted to keep a dry fur.
Nick had to yell twice before the elephant and the grizzly noticed him.
"Hey, guys! What's the problem?"
The elephant looked down on the tiny fox.
"I'll tell you what's wrong, that damn thing is too heavy! The truck is full with iron ore, the trailer alone weighs more than 50 tons, my truck could never pull it out of all the mud."
"We need to get the highway free in thirty minutes!"
"Hah! Dream on, officer fox, we'll need a crane and it will take at least fifty minutes until it's here! And then you need to close the last lane, too, as it will need all the space to pull this baby out of that ditch!"
"Fuck!", Nick cursed.
From the inside of their warm car, Gudbrandsson and Voronez watched the nervous fox running up and down.
"Look, he's checking his watch again…", grinned Voronez.
"Yeah, it's a five fifty-five, if I ever saw one!", confirmed Gudbrandsson, "He'll come here every minute now, wanna bet?"
"Nah, too obvious!"
Nick walked over to check if his partner needed any help. The traffic flow had now stopped completely as a dented old pick-up truck, filled with three wolves had stopped directly at the bottleneck. Ember blew her whistle and shouted, "Hey, what are you looking at? Get moving!"
The driver yelled back, "We look at your pretty legs, pussycat!"
"Yeah, why don't you come in here, we'll rub you dry 'til you start to purr!", said his friend.
The third wolf in the back let out a load "Meow!" and all three started their howling laughter.
Ember roared, "Move your ass!"
"Oh, I will… but only against yours, sweetie!", said the driver again.
Ember got out her baton and hammered it against the driver's mirror that dissolved into a shower of glass and plastic shards.
"Hey!", yelled the driver, "Are you insane, stupid bitch?"
"I think, your windscreen's broken, too!", said Ember and lifted her baton again.
"Fuck, drive on, drive on!", yelled the second wolf and in a black cloud of burned rubber the car swerved on.
Nick shook his wet head, "From 'sweetie' to 'stupid bitch' in two seconds, that's a new record! I'm so glad they taught you deescalation at the academy!", he grinned.
"Hey, I deescalated the situation, didn't I?", Ember replied swinging her baton, "Nick, when will they finally move that stupid truck away? I'm soaked to the bones!"
"It will take quite some time, dear, they need to get a crane!", Nick replied shrugging.
"Hey you, stop flirting and do your job, I want to get home!", yelled a sheep out of his car.
"Yeah, tell me about it!", said Nick and checked his watch again. 3.45 pm. He had no chance. He walked over to the other patrol car and knocked at the window.
"Hey, Sigthor, can you do me a favor?"
"You want me to go five fifty-five?", replied the polar bear.
"You got me."
"Forget it, Nick, do it yourself, it's your problem!"
"Hey, Sigthor, you know how it looks when I am calling…", Nick pleaded, "You owe me one, I never told Bogo who switched on the light during that razzia in Little Italy, did I?"
Gudbrandsson sighed, "Okay, okay, I do it, sly fox…"
Chief Bogo was in the middle of producing a presentation for the city council, but had severe problems concentrating. His assistant, a certain cat, sat at her desk in their shared office and typed on her keyboard. She seemed to be in a good mood, she had ear plugs in and her legs were moving back and forth to the rhythym. After Bogo caught himself several times staring on these legs, he cleared his throat and got up. He needed a break. As soon as he stood, Kitty pulled the plugs out of her ear.
"Do you need anything, Chief?", she asked with her pleasant dark voice.
"No, MacMahon… I just get me a coffee…"
"Oh, sir, I can make you one…", she said giving him a glowing look out of her blue eyes. Bogo had to clear his throat again when he felt her look all over his hide.
"No, thanks…", he just mumbled and left.
Kitty looked after him. He had cleared his throat quite a lot… maybe he caught a cold? Kitty decided to make him a big mug full of tea with honey. Yes, that would be good!
Bogo had not taken a coffee but wandered aimlessly through the ZPD corridors, taking one deep breath after the other. Whenever she gave him this look, something happened inside… he entered the dispatch room. The time when he could let Clawhauser do all the radio traffic were long over, nowadays four officers were coordinating the patrol cars in four sectors.
He overheard the raspy voice of Sigthor Gudbrandsson on the radio.
"… I say again, we have a code five fifty-five here…"
Bogo raised his eyebrow, curious what the operator, a raccoon, would answer.
The operator had noticed Bogo behind him and turned around, looking anxiously.
"What are you waiting for?", asked Bogo, "Don't tell me, you don't know what a five fifty-five is!"
"Of course, sir!", the raccoon said and turned to the ferret at the next table.
"Call out a five fifty-five!", he ordered.
The ferret, responsible for Sahara Square and Savanna, nodded. "All stations, we have a five fifty-five – again… who's closest to 23rd and Pack Street?"
Interested, Bogo listened as he heard the answer, "Unit 43, we are only twelve blocks away, we'll take it!"
Unit 43 was Fangmeyer and Wolfowitz, those good-for-nothing wolf cops. Bogo noticed, that everyone in the room stared at him.
"Did I have something on my face?", he roared.
"No, sir…"
"Hmph…", he marched out of the dispatch room and returned into his office. When Kitty returned five minutes later with a steaming mug, she found him sitting at his desk, glasses on his nose, flipping pages in a book titled 'Radio codes'.
"Sir, I made you a mug of tea with honey…", she purred, but he didn't even looked up and pointed on his desk.
"Thanks, Kitty…", he only called her Kitty when he was distracted, "… do you happen to know what a code five fifty-five means?", he asked her.
Kitty gasped, "Erm… sir, I think, it's…"
He looked up, "Yes?"
She shook her pretty head, "No, I think, I don't know that…"
"Hmph." He turned around and looked at the large city map on the wall behind his desk, "What's on 23rd and Pack?", he asked.
"I don't know, sir…", she lied.
"Strange…" He sat down and started to look at his flatscreen again, "I've been out of regular duty too long…", he murmured and Kitty was glad when he started working on his presentation again.
Miss Nolan, head of the Rainbow Day Care, located at the intersection of Pack Street with 23rd Avenue, walked up and down. Being a squirrel, her walking was more running. Behind her stood the two fox twins, hand in hand, ready for being picked up. Miss Nolan checked her tiny wrist watch again: 3:58 pm. Even though she was much smaller than most of the kids she cared for, her authority was undisputed. But she was also playful and funny and the kids loved her as much as she loved 'her' kids. Even Keira, the wilder one of the twins tried her best to stay in Miss Nolan's good book.
She had been sad and furious when she heard from Nick and Judy that a lot of day care facilities had rejected the twins because they lived in a pred-prey patchwork family. Miss Nolan thought very positively of the way Nick and Judy were handling the kids. But right now…
"If your father's late again…", she started, but then her tiny ears twitched as she heard a siren in the distance, coming closer.
"Oh no…", she said, "don't tell me he is coming directly from work…"
Ten seconds later, a patrol car came shooting around the corner, burning rubber, coming to a skidding halt just one inch before the nose of the shocked Miss Nolan. The window opened and a huge wolf's head poked out.
"Hey cuties! Need a ride?"
"Yay!", yelled the twins, "Jasper and Bernie!"
Suddenly, a red flash zoomed into the open window and directly in front of Officer Jasper Fangmeyer's long snout.
"ARE – YOU – INSANE?", Miss Nolan shouted in his face, "This is a 15 mph zone, directly in front of a kindergarten! How dare you violating every traffic rule and endangering the kids here? Where is Mr Wilde? His wife told me he will pick up the kids!"
"Hey, don't shout at me, I'm not deaf, you know?", said Fangmeyer, "Wilde got stuck, there is an accident on highway 5 and he sent us, so stuff your bushy tail in it, will you? And we obeyed the traffic rules 'coz our lights are on and that means, we don't need to follow no rules, correct, girls?", he grinned to the twins.
"Yes, alarm ride, alarm ride!", yelled Leia.
To Miss Nolan's horror, the wolf lifted both girls through the window and sat them on his lap.
"You don't have a proper child seat! And what about seat belts? When there is an accident…", she raged.
"Calm down, Squeeky, we don't have accidents, we are the police, they call us when others have accidents!", Wolfowitz said from the driver's seat. Then he said to Keira, "Our record from here to the ZPD's eight minutes. You think, we can beat that today?"
"Sure!", Keira said, "I'll press the siren button!"
"Not fair!", yelled Leia, "You did it last time!"
"No, Leia, you'll do the speaker!", said Fangmeyer and gave the mike in the girl's paws.
Leia pressed the button and yelled, "OUT OF THE WAY, YOU SLUGS!" and her amplified voice vibrated through the street, producing echos. Miss Nolan fell out of the window and landed on all fours on the street.
"IF YOU CALL ME SQUEEKY ONCE MORE, I'LL…", she screamed, but Keira had already pressed the siren button and the car was gone, leaving a black cloud of burned rubber.
"Wolves!", Miss Nolan hissed, "I'll definetely call someone for this…"
It was 4:50 pm when Nick finally arrived at the ZPD. Clawhauser gave him a broad smile.
"The twins are at…", he started.
"Yeah, yeah, I can hear them!", Nick interrupted him, as loud laughter and onomatopoeic sound effects of a siren came from the general direction of Judy's and Nick's office.
He opened the door and grimaced as he received a sound overload for his sensible ears.
The twins yelled "Weeee-hooo, weeee-hooo" and ran to him while Judy shouted at Fangmeyer and Wolfowitz.
"… and I can't believe you let them hold your gun! I do sincerely hope you took out the ammo before!"
Fangmeyer murmured, "Where's the fun in holding an empty gun?"
Nick kissed the twins and Keira said, "Dad, new record! Seven minutes, forty seconds! I did the siren! Weee-hooo!"
"And I was on the speaker!", yelled Leia, her eyes full of excitement, "CHANGE LANE, LAZY BITCH!"
"LEIA!", Judy yelled at the top of her lungs, "I never want to hear that word again out of your mouth, young lady!"
"What, lazy?", Leia asked innocently.
"No, b…. the other one!"
"I won't!", she said, but whispering so low only Nick got it, she added, "… let you hear it."
"Nick, how could you!", Judy hissed.
"Hey, cotton tail, it's not my fault, there was that accident…"
"I know, that's not what I meant! How could you sent these two clowns to pick up the girls!"
"I didn't! Dispatch sent them! I issued a five fifty-five and…"
"… we were the closest!", Fangmeyer continued.
Judy dropped back in her chair, "A five-what? I can't believe it! You misused dispatch for arranging private matters! What if Bogo finds out?"
"If I find out what?", came a very low voice from the door. The massive figure of the water buffalo had appeared in the open door out of nothing.
"Chief on deck! Atten-hut!", Keira shouted and gave a salute, her sister followed suit, but changed from left arm to right after looking at her sister.
The slightest smile ran over Bogo's face as he responded the salute of his two goddaughters.
"At ease, officers!"
Fangmeyer and Wolfowitz used the opportunity to squeeze past their boss with a quick, "Sorry, chief, we're busy!"
"I hope so!", Bogo yelled after them, "What's going on here? I just received a call of the Rainbow Day Care, a Miss Whatsherface yelled at me and complained about 'inappropriate behaviour' of two cops picking up these two rascals here! Somehow I can't imagine she meant you two!"
"Sir, I can explain…", Nick started, but he was saved by Keira who pulled on Chief Bogo's pants.
"Hey, Chief", she said. Even the twins called him chief. "You've promised to get us badges – real ones!"
"Yeah", Leia piped, "Not these boooooring stickers mom gave us!"
"Every kid knows there are no 'Junior Officers' in ZPD!", continued Keira, "We want real ones!"
Bogo grinned, "Well, it's easy to get one – as soon as you are of age, enlist at Police Academy and after you passed all the tests they give you one – for free!"
"Not funny!", Keira stamped on the floor, both paws on her hips, "We want one now! And you promised!"
"I see what I can do, honey!", Bogo sighed, then he looked up to Nick and Judy, "And you two – in my office, tomorrow 10 am!"
Nick said, "Sir, if it's because of that five fifty-five incident, Judy had nothing…"
Bogo raised an eyebrow, "No, I want to talk about work, for a change! But I have not forgotten that other issue, don't you worry… we'll have a nice chat about it – later!"
He slammed the door and marched back in his office, murmuring, "As soon as I have found out what a five fifty-five is!"