Chapter 2. Where the characters learn to break rules. All the rules.
Disclaimer: Zootopia and all settings, characters, scenes, etc. are owned by Disney.
"What!? Chief, you can't just make me and Carrots not partners anymore! We've been partners for over a year now! Look at what we've done! Things you didn't think we could do, or anyone thought we could do!" Nick yelled, jumping up on the seat, if only to look at Bogo's eyes directly. He stared at the glasses, and wondered idly if he should be staring into Bogo's eyes or the glasses. Could the buffalo see without them? If so, how good was his eyesight...
"I told you Wilde, it's not about your successes and mishaps as police officers."
"Then why? Why after so long!?"
"You're being moved, Wilde. And Hopps will join you in several months. Surely even you can wait that long."
And that was hit number two. 'Wow,' Judy thought, 'Bogo doesn't really pull his punches, does he.' Nick sat down and looked on in disbelief. "I'm...I'm what?"
"You are one of the few mammals in the ZPD that's qualified for a new task force. You, Delgato, and Fangmeyer are part of the 'Chaos Incident Investigation Team'. Mayor Reich has seen fit to make the team after several incidents that simply don't have any explanation," Bogo explained easily, as if he had been anticipating this exact behavior. Knowing him, he did.
"But...what about me Chief?" Judy asked. If she was going to be joining him in a few months, then what would she be doing in the meantime? It was unusual for one officer to move up or around without their partner being with them; it wasn't that partners were for their entire career, but rather most of the higher-ups understood that having someone around who knew them well would make any assignment much easier to process.
"You have a special assignment. Officer Trumpent found records of a drug chain in the Rainforest District. Not much is known except they seem to deal in Gemfield," Bogo continued, seemingly not affected by the amethyst eyes. For all Judy knew, he wasn't. Gemfield was a new drug on the scene. From what Judy knew, it had massive addiction problems, similar to some kind of amphetamine, complete with major high. It had low amounts of drawback, asides from small amounts of radiation, about a hundred times more than a simple banana. In small doses, practically nothing. In large doses, however...
There were some calls to legalize it, after it was discovered that the radiation could actually help mammals afflicted by other types of radiation, such as nuclear. Scientists came down hard against it, saying that using a drug that worsens radiation symptoms to help those afflicted with nuclear radiation, using a new type of energy was simply bad practice, and should be considered a Class-3 Controllable substance until such time as they could study it further.
"What you must do, Hopps, is to find the dealers, find their supplier, and grab a sample for the lab techs. They think if they get a bigger sample, they can make a sensor to easily locate other groups of it, and prevent it getting into the city entirely. Also to eventually take down the dealers and supplier, but you'll be working with the Special Forces Division for that."
"So you want me to go...what, sit on my tail for hours per day while Carrots here gets to do a drug bust practically on her own?" Nick said, sitting down again. Chief Bogo sighed, and pushed another manila folder over to the fox, who took it with a confused look on his face. He opened it, and after a few moments, expressions flirting just the edge, a mix of shock, disbelief, and finally disgust showing themselves.
"If you consider solving that to be 'sitting on your tail', Wilde, then yes. I do."
Judy looked over to the folder, only to be greeted by a picture that absolutely could not be real. It was the picture of a mammal, a canid of some variety, that was all Judy could tell, who's entire body was covered by some kind of white suit with no openings. Maybe a body bag of some variety? But if he was killed from before... Then she saw it; it wasn't a white suit, or a bag.
It was bone. He was covered, quite literally, by his own skeleton.
"Now that that's cleared up, Wilde, CIIT is on the third floor. You can keep the cubicle down here, as I know you two well enough to know that no matter what I say you're going to work on each others cases. Hopps, Clawhauser has the file you'll need."
"Bone? Ew, Judy, that's messed up!" Clawhauser said, a white glazed donut hanging from his neck. After they had left Bogo's office, their heads held low. They would still get off at the same time as each other, assuming she wasn't undercover or anything, so it wasn't all bad. At least, that's what Nick had tried to say. She remembered his motto, 'Never let them see that they get to you.' It took them both a good ten minutes to stop and go their separate ways, knowing that they wouldn't be working as partners for the first time in...since Nick joined the force. Since before Nick joined the force.
She walked out to the front desk with her head held high, and her eyes cleared of water. There was no reason to cry, and she still had a job to do. Best get to it. Then she had promptly told both Benjamin and Cream about her assignment, and Nick's. Clawhauser was in disbelief, and thought it was a hoax. Cream however...
"I can see why it got punted to CIIT then. That's...definitely not normal," she said, still splitting her attention between the computers in front of her, which kept track of all of the police cruisers, and Judy.
Judy looked the cream-colored rabbit. "You've heard of them? What are they?"
Clawhauser answered in his usual style, "The Chaos Incident Investigation Team, supposedly their cases are a lot different than the usual ones. There's only four members, seven now once you include the new three. Shaping up to be quite the team. Poor Nightclaw though...they grabbed her as their dispatcher," Clawhauser cried, as if mourning a fallen comrade.
"Huh. How come we haven't heard of them? You'd think that'd be something all over the rumor mills."
"And how often do you listen to the rumor mills? Trust me, Judy, they're all over the mills. And being ground to flour," Cream answered. Judy was about to ask how she heard, and then stopped herself. Rabbit hearing. It's a blessing and a curse. She had grown so used to avoiding any rumors that of course she'd almost instinctively block it.
Of course though, that's what one has to do when the ZPD isn't used to having rabbits. "So Bogo said you'd give me the file out here on what it is exactly that I'm supposed to be doing," Judy said. Clawhauser looked shocked for a moment before diving underneath the table, probably to search for the folder.
Cream and Judy looked at the cheetah for a moment, listening to him mumble under his breath as he searched, before Judy held out her paw to Cream, who nervously chuckled and gave her the folder. "Thanks Benji!" Judy called out, giggling lightly when she heard the thunk of Clawhauser hitting his head along with his 'you're welcome?'
Nick wasn't sure what he was expecting as he walked through the door. It was a simple door, marked "CIIT" in simple paper, only to have the name crossed out and replaced down the side with "Special Investigations Team". From CIIT to SIT. Or, Nick let out a small chuckle, from sit...to sit. The room was a modified meeting room, of which there were dozens in the ZPD, mostly unused. There were a few that were more used to seeing traffic, especially the ones near the detectives, but in general, most officers didn't like sitting in meetings.
A long wooden table, nine chairs surrounding it, a -Nick's heart rose at the sight, maybe this wouldn't be too awful- coffee maker on one of the counters, and a massive stack of papers on one end. A simple binder sat on the table. On the wall stood a tall poster proudly reading, 'List of known Chaos-Touched', with a long list of names on it. Nick only briefly took a glance at the bottom to see two names very familiar to him, 'Nick Wilde' and 'Judy Hopps'.
Fangmeyer and Delgato, a tiger and lion that Nick knew fairly well, had also been transferred apparently, and were sitting at some of the chairs looking bored. A ram, a horse, a panther that looked fairly familiar, and amazingly enough a wolverine sat on four of the other chairs. Nick prided himself on knowing everyone in Zootopia, and if you give him a minute, he could figure out these guys' names before they introduced themselves.
It was a common tactic truth be told. If someone feels that you know them even before you've ever met, you feel a closeness to that person, and are more liable to either buy from them or sell to them. Common manipulation, but it was only so common because it worked. If it didn't work, Nick wouldn't bother with it, and neither would most others. Mammal psychology, Nick would say.
"Fangmeyer, Delgato. Nice to see two more familiar faces up here. Hammerhorn, right?" Nick asked with a smirk. The ram grinned and nodded. One for one so far. "Hooferton, Nightclaw," he continued as the panther waved jovially, and the horse seemed rather impressed.
"Now just give me a minute, I don't see too many wolverines around here. Let's see, you're not Tornadus, you don't have the scar above the eye. I can already tell you don't know me, so that rules out Wolvine, so on process of elimination you must be Logan," Nick conintinued.
The wolverine, a short stout fellow looked up. "Did someone say my name? No, good. Wilde, finally. Welcome to sit," he said quickly. Hooferton chuckled.
Nick sat down on one of the available chairs, next to Fangmeyer, and attempted to wait patiently while Logan spoke. "Lion and tiger over there have already got the speech, so they're going to get it twice. Get over it fox, I am not going to be bothered to learn everyone's name. Or anyone's."
Before Nick could say anything, or even open his mouth, Fangmeyer elbowed him softly. Ah. Logan was that kind of boss. Fun.
"We are here because we are the best. We get the impossible cases, the ones that no one else can solve. It is our duty to do the impossible, to see the invisible. To touch the untouchable, and to break the unbreakable. Logan out," he said, before quickly going and slamming the door.
Silence reigned for a few moments. "Row, row, fight the power?" Nick asked, grinning. Nightclaw only shook her head for a few moments as the ice broke and the others chuckled softly.
"Alright Nick, because Logan over there didn't say anything about why you're here, I'll explain. The four of us were moved to this backwards team a little more than a month ago, when things started getting weirder. Logan was the head, and still is, but counted as a member," she said. She continued after seeing Nick's nod, "We were all fairly impressed with the way you and Hopps kept going during the robot incident, and even managed to arrest Robotnik himself. And then there was that Chaos Effect. To have someone that was Chaos-Touched on the team would be a big help to figure out some of the cases even we had no idea."
"SIT, or CIIT, whichever you prefer, is the department where cases go to die. If the detectives downstairs can't figure anything out, they come to us. We're expected to get either results or an explanation they can use. The first step, and the step these two have already started, is to study the Chaos Theory," Nightclaw pointed towards both Fangmeyer and Delgato.
"And here I thought I was done with studying once I went through the Academy. You mean to tell me it was a sham all along?" Nick said, smirking. "But uh...I'm not Chaos-Touched. Neither is Judy so...not sure what I can help you with," Nick continued when only a few snorts came out. 'Tough crowd,' he thought.
"I think you'll find the Theory far more entertaining than anything in the Academy. Thank the lords for that..." Nightclaw said, before she reconstituted herself into attempting to be serious again, "So with seven on the team, six because no one in their right mind counts Logan, five because I'm the dispatcher and no one in the right mind counts me either, and with Hoofington and Hammerhorn again on almost permanent patrol duty..."
"You guys are stretched thinner than a snake, I get it. So what, you just need us to be extra minds or what? Besides, what you want then is Carrots, not me. She's the brains, I'm just the lazy tagalong."
"Tagalong, he says. I know better, Wilde. We tried gunning for both of you anyways, but we got shot down by Mayor Reich. As in he came in, asking for Hopps to work on the Gemfield case, so we could only relocate you even though we got in our paperwork nearly a month ago. We knew as soon as we were assigned that we wanted both of you."
"Reich? What does he want with Carrots?" Nick asked, his mind whirling at a mile a minute. Reich was a wolf, the newest mayor elected to office. After the debacle that was Bellweather and Lionheart, the city council took away almost half the office's power and moved it to themselves. The mayor after that, some elephant named Trunkaby, tried to move some back but got stalled out.
Reich ran on a platform that promoted equality and education. Sounded good, and sounded even better after the now-mandatory reference and background check that went back nearly twenty years for people in office. Some mammals called it a breach of privacy. Nick called it insurance.
"Couldn't tell ya. But hey, take a look at the Theory there, it's in the flashy binder. If you want you can take a look at the newest case that came in, all three of you newbies got put on it FYI," Hooferton said, quickly getting up - Nick hadn't realized exactly how tall he was, nearly four times Nick's size! - and grabbing Hammerhorn and leaving the room. This time closing the door gently.
"I should head out too. You three, study the Theory for a bit. I need to get back to dispatch. If you have any questions, let me know. If you three decide to go anywhere, let me know," Nightclaw said, before also exiting the room.
Now alone with only people he knew, he took a moment. "I don't like this guys. Something smells off."
Delgato nodded, "Yeah, something's fishy with all of this. Something doesn't quite add up."
"So what is this whole Theory thing anyways?" Nick asked rhetorically, grabbing the binder and opening to the first page. It looked about as exciting as one would expect a police report to look. In small lettering, it simply said "The Theory of Chaos and all it Includes".
"It's the set of hypotheses, tests, and disproven tests that the author did. They remain anonymous though, and as far as I've read, and I've read the entire thing, they never once mention who they are," Fangmeyer said, pointing to the empty "Authored By:" column.
"Huh. Well, it's a good thing I know who," Nick said, grabbing a pencil and smirking at the other two, who just looked on in disbelief as the fox wrote in a name. They looked over his shoulder as he penciled in the name in almost-too-elegant lettering.
"Miles Prower? Isn't that the kid you two arrested like six months back?" Delgato asked.
"We never arrested him, but yeah, that was him."
"Huh. That makes a lot more sense now. I mean, look at this," Fangmeyer said, pointing to one of the first paragraphs, "While it is not known where the Chaos Emeralds have come from, myths about other Chaos-Touched have appeared throughout time. However, after further review it was only a single Chaos-Touched, Sonic the Hedgehog, who thought it would be fun if he had crazy adventures where literally nothing went to plan and absolutely no one would believe him. Unfortunately for him, some of us do."
"Does that happen throughout the entire thing?" Nick chuckled. Miles was always so serious when he knew him, so it was nice to see that sometimes the fox could be joking around.
"Oh yeah. Here's another one, 'I humbly thank my anonymous companion, Espio, for his complacency and allowing me to shock him thirty plus times during the course of this experiment. I also thank him for remembering that my body is soft and does not like sharp ninja items being stabbed into it.'"
"Crazy like a fox indeed..." Nick said, finally grabbing back the binder to see what the SIT had deemed 'necessary reading'.
Judy sighed in disbelief at getting another one of 'those' cases. The kind where they had almost no information, no leads, not even a worthless blurry picture! This was just as bad as her first case, although admittedly this one wasn't nearly as vital. For one, she hadn't staked her career on it, and two, this one actually did have some information. Even if it was just a police report. Specifically, which road corner, and at which time. And that was it. The official report from the officer was only slightly larger; and Judy sighed in relief when she saw at least that much.
At approximately 1:15 am, on the corner of Pine and Lark, Officer Trumpent had smelled and felt something different. It smelled like what one would expect rubber to smell like, except this was fresh and wasn't burning. It caused her to feel like as though an enormous pressure was diving down on her, and the only thing she felt she could do was to back up.
Sanity not excluded, she powered forward, and caught two shifty looking mammals, she couldn't tell what they were in the darkness, and neither could the cameras watching, who darted out and promptly went into hiding. Back at the precinct, Trumpent concluded that after looking at small samples that it was Gemfield she had smelled, but in a much larger amount. A drug deal or something had gone down.
Judy debated with herself for only a few moments, before starting up her new cruiser. After she blew up her old one, both she and Nick were required to walk their beat for about two months, before Bogo eventually bowed down to pressure and allowed them to use a different one. She got the message loud and clear. 'Don't blow up the car this time'.
She would just go and check things out today. Most likely she wouldn't find anything, and she was fully aware of that, but it felt good to be back on a case again. Especially one as large as this one could be.
Her phone rang with a text before she could leave, and after wondering who in their right mind would text her at work, found the answer easy enough. She read it aloud, in her mind replacing her own voice with Nick's, 'Got any tips on studying large amounts of useless paper? I forgot how after the Academy.'
Rolling her eyes at her part-...ex-partner's, Judy thought sadly, antics, she replied, 'Take it home and read it there. Then walk around reciting it for fifty laps.'
She chuckled as she imagined his deadpan voice when the response came in, 'No thanks Carrots.'
From: Nick Wilde
To: Miles Prower
Subject: Chaos Theory
Because I know Carrots is going to rag on me if I don't ask this, how're you doing? Now that's done, here's some real news for you. Carrots and I got split up. I got moved to some team called the, I kid you not, "Chaos Incident Investigation Team". Guess what's required reading? The Chaos Theory. That giant set of papers you wrote.
Any way for me to skip reading it and just go to the source?
Sincerely,
Nick Wilde
From: Miles Prower
To: Nick Wilde
BCC: Adrian Bogo
Subject: RE: Chaos Theory
Really? They made that required reading. Of all things they could've done, they just made the entire thing required? Seems like a waste of time to me. I mean, most of it's obvious stuff in retrospect, although some things like the math isn't.
Just follow your instincts. Something I've noticed that I never managed to test was that most sapients have a knack for understanding Chaos without fully understanding it. If something seems chaotic, that's generally because it usually is. It just follows it's own set of rules, that's all.
-Miles Prower
Chapter 2. I like this one a lot better, which is kind of sad considering that chapter 1 is supposed to be the introductory chapter and all that.
Also I've decided to just get rid of their email addresses. That way FFNet can't yell at me.
Until next time!
