Nick has a full queue of reports he needs to finish writing, but it's hard to concentrate when a certain dumb bunny is out to pull something. Every five minutes he stops to listen and sniff around— so distracting.

If Judy wasn't making such a big deal out of her twenty-four hours, he'd be blissfully typing away in between checking Muzzlebook and Preddit instead of watching his back like a hustler. Is that what she's reduced him to? Will Judy always be playing dumb games with him— games she can't even win?

He leans back in his chair and closes his eyes… but not for too long, in case she's hiding around the cubicle. More coffee should help him stay alert.

Bogo is leaning on the counter in the break room, his mug and teabag ready, waiting for the electric kettle to boil.

"How's it going, Chief?" Nick picks up the coffee pot with caution. It's hot, but not scalding. Good. He sniffs to check that the liquid inside is really coffee. It is.

"Could be worse. Yourself?"

"Never been better." But what if the coffee is laced with something? Judy hinted that some pranks can't be sensed... of course! There are plenty of flavorless, odorless substances she could spike it with. Like a laxative.

Nick sets the coffee pot back. "Judy hasn't gotten you yet, has she?"

"No. Hopps wouldn't risk her professional reputation over a ridiculous pranking game. She won't go that far."

"I hear ya, Chief. She placed a big bet, but she's bluffing."

"Even if she tries, she won't get away with it. Thirty years on the force has taught me a bit about keeping my eyes open."

"Thirty yea… how old are you? You don't look like you could be my father!"

The Chief is deadpan. "That's because I'm a buffalo, Wilde."

Nick points. "Touchez. Say, Chief... " He leans on a drawer handle beneath the counter. "What if we watched each other's backs? You give me a heads-up if you see that crazy bunny on the prowl, and I'll do the same."

Bogo's eyes light up. "Excellent thinking, Wilde! Teamwork is the only way to survive an outbreak of practical jokes. We could check in with each other... "

A wolf howl echoes down the hall.

"Great!" Bogo turns off the electric kettle and heads for the door. "That's the last thing I need today!"


Nick runs after the Chief, and the noise leads them into the Investigative Division cubicles. Wolford howls in front of his laptop, head raised to the ceiling, paws pointed down. A FuzzFeed video plays on the screen, showing a hippie howling circle taking place around a campfire.

"Hey! The chief's here!" Detective Frank Bullitt shakes the wolf's shoulders. "Snap out of it!"

Bogo slams the laptop shut, breaking Wolford's trance. "Carter Wolford! Who gave you permission to howl on the job!"

Wolford shrinks into his chair. "Sorry, Chief! I know what this looks like, but it wasn't my fault! Seriously! I just got back from taking a phone call and when I opened my computer… the video was there and it started playing! I never went to the site or anything!"

"Do you mean to tell me," Bogo lowers himself to Wolford's level, "that someone snuck into your cubicle, called up a video, and then closed your laptop, all while you were away? Do you expect me to believe that nonsense?"

"That's exactly what happened," says Bullitt. The bison props his hooves on the back of Wolford's chair. "Wolford wanted a second opinion on some new evidence in his case. We came back here, he opened his laptop, and boom— howling."

Bogo snorts. "It's a good thing someone else saw it. Or Detective Wolford here would have had plenty of time to howl during his suspension."

Nick looks around. "Chief, you don't think…"

"That's exactly what I think, Wilde."


Judy types and stares intently at her monitor.

"Hopps!" Bogo hovers over her. "Did you set up Wolford's computer with a howling video!"

She spins her chair around. "I might have. Howl did you like it?"

"Ugh." Nick covers his eyes. "Your puns are the worst!"

"Hopps, listen to me!" He points his hoof in her face. "I appreciate moments of levity every now and then, but I will not let you harm my officers with your pranks. You could have started a howl! Do you remember the last time that happened?"

"Sure I do! We had to lock the wolves in the solitary cells so they wouldn't encourage each other."

"And they lost half a shift of productivity! Howling videos are not safe for work under any circumstances! That's explicitly in the manual!"

"But let me be explicit about where the score stands." Judy grins and holds up three fingers. "Three down, three more to go." She looks both of them in the eye. "Two of which happen to be you! The gentleox and the gentlefox."

"No more pranks! None! That's a direct order!" Bogo storms out of the cubicles.

"So." Nick crosses his limbs. "You heard it from the boss. Game's over. Time to pack up and go home."

"If I did everything Bogo asked, I would have handed over my police badge a long time ago."

"Carrots!" He throws his paws up. "Your jokes are getting less and less funny! Making a wolf howl when he doesn't want to? Something he could get fired for? Exploiting instinct for a cheap laugh is a low blow, bunny!"

"Funny you should bring up instinct after you chased me on all fours across the building!" She hops out of her chair and pokes his chest. "I mean, my goodness! You went predator, Nick! That made me go prey! We're not supposed to play that game outside the bedroom!"

"Yes. And I broke our rule because you kept sneaking up on me in the lobby. You were the one playing predator!"

"I was not! I heard Dr. Ebbingmaus' voice in the lobby and I was heading over to say hello. If you hadn't chased me away each time you would have found out that it wasn't a prank!"

"Uh huh. And my fur isn't red."

"Nick, it's only a game! It's perfectly acceptable for you to lose once in awhile."

"Maybe for some species that shall go unnamed, but it's not acceptable for me. I'm a sore loser, Carrots. You knew that when we got together! I cheat at every game except relationships!"

"Well then don't think of it as a game! Think of it as two strong-willed mammals strengthening their bond through a couple of rounds of chaos. And what's that quote again? 'The very essence of romance is uncertainty'?"

Nick rolls his eyes. "What hormone-imbalanced bunny said that?"

"Your great-great-great uncle." She darts off, disappearing somewhere in the maze of cubicles.


Nick sniffs the air so often that he barely finds time to type. But he can only hold his bladder for so long, and Nick sends the Chief an email to announce that he'll be away from his desk. When he returns from the bathroom, he flags down Bogo in the hall.

"Oh, Chief!" Nick scans for any signs of the crazy bunny. He whispers: "I just saw Judy on her phone. She never texts at work, so she must be planning something big. Really big."

Bogo nods. "Good to know. I took the liberty of watching your desk."

"You're the best around, sir!"

"Unfortunately, I'm afraid I arrived too late. Hopps was crawling around your chair. She ran off when she heard my footsteps."

Nick gulps. "So uh, what do you think that means?"

"It means you need to find another place to work, Wilde. She's rigged your cubicle. And all while defying a direct order!" He snorts.


Nick logs in to one of the old Zindows 98 terminals in the records room. He's never seen Judy in the basement before, but it would be great if he could find today's security camera footage to confirm that.

His bathroom break was ten minutes long, tops. She must have messed with his desk in the moments before Bogo could get there. And to know he had left, she must have been spying on him from a distance where he couldn't smell her.

He couldn't even smell her! Good God, that is one sly bunny...

A chair creaks somewhere beyond the tall shelves of boxes. Nick jumps with a tiny fox screech.

"Who's there!" McHorn's voice.

"It's Wilde. I'm alone, no need to panic."

McHorn peaks around the stacks. "Scared me to death. You've been working down here, too?"

"Uh huh."

The rhino looks anxiously to the left and right. "I've been here all afternoon. The patrol cops hate this place, so I think we're good."

"But nobody knows you came here?"

McHorn shakes his head.

Nick rubs his face. "Thank God."

"Hey, Nick, could we buddy up so I can get something from the vending machine upstairs? I don't think Hopps will try to get us both at the same time."

"Two against one! I like the way you think, Jeremy!"

They tiptoe through the stacks. "You tried to guess how she's gonna get you?" whispers McHorn.

"She's not going to get me," Nick looks over his shoulder, ears down. He clenches his teeth. McHorn's footsteps are so loud, they could easily be masking a rabbit's...

"Don't be too sure. I didn't think she could get Carter. He's one hell of a good detective."

"You're not… scared of her, are you? A big, hulking rhino scared of a little bunny?"

"Hell no. I'm just cautious. You scared?"

"Scared of my own wife?" Nick gives a nervous laugh.

They round the corner and creep down another row of stacks on their way to the elevator.

"Huh. That's weird." McHorn stops in front of a box that sticks out further than the rest. "This one's misfiled. It's not even put in… Oh, that's really weird. These are the transcripts for the tapir cult case. I need this for my deposition."

Misfiled?

McHorn reaches for the box...

"Jeremy! NOOOOOO!"

The boxes pour onto McHorn like a rockslide, sending him to the floor. Nick runs for his life. When he finally looks behind, McHorn is buried under a cardboard mound.

"Help! Rhino down! We need backup!" Nick climbs onto the pile and starts tossing boxes off the rhino. The staffers from the other end of the basement rush in to help.

McHorn digs himself out and pushes himself on his feet. "I'm alright! Got a thick skull!" He coughs. "Just a couple of bruises!"

He yanks an impaled box off his horn.

"No! That's not right!" Nick runs up four flights of stairs and corners Judy at her desk.

"What are you doing, rabbit! What the… You could have killed Jeremy McHorn! You could have killed anyone who wasn't a rhino! You could have killed me!"

She leans back in her chair and beams. "You liked my little engineering job? Just like playing Jenga, wasn't it?"

"Carrots! This isn't a game! This is real life!"

"Don't act so envious, Nick! It's not like my little jokes are something a master confox would come up with. Oh no, I'm not that good!"

He cautiously places his paw on her forehead. She shifts her weight, and he jumps back to safety. "You don't have a fever, but you are not well, Judy. No prank is worth putting lives at risk!"

"You know what is worth that?"

"Please enlighten me. Because I don't!"

She grins and holds up her fingers. "Four down, two more to go."

He backs up slowly. "Oh God. She's losing it. She's really losing it!"

"Hopps!" Bogo leans into the cubicle. "You disobeyed a direct order! Desk duty for the rest of this week!"

She raises her paws in protest...

"No appeals! And I want to see Precinct One at Dr. Ebbingmaus' lecture on managing stress in the workplace. Five minutes from now, Briefing Room Green. That's a direct order!"


Nick takes a long, unpredictable route through the building, stopping every few seconds to sniff the air and listen for danger. By the time he gets to the briefing room, Dr. Ebbingmaus is in the middle of the lecture.

The psychiatrist looks up as the door opens. "Oh! Mr. Wilde! So glad you could join us! Have a seat!"

There's only one left. And of course it's next to hers.

Nick inspects the chair before he sits, lifting it high and turning it upside down.

"Ermm… is there anything I could do to help you feel more comfortable?" Ebbingmaus wrings his paws from his tiny lectern on top of a table.

"No." Nick puts the chair on the floor. "Just checking."

Ebbingmaus nods with a leery smile. "Right. Where were we? Ah yes. As much as we need to rely on ourselves to stave off off fatigue and mental weariness, bonding with the mammals close to us also strengthens our resilience."

Judy sits with her paws folded in her lap, back straight, listening with a smile. What a performance! How can she pretend she has a clean conscience when she's already gotten four cops?

His kneecap brushes against hers. Nick pulls away fast, almost tipping his seat over.

"Is something wrong, Mr. Wilde?"

The room looks at Nick. He rights himself and adjusts his tie. "I'm fine. Perfectly alright. Really."

"Good. I hope so." The mouse clears his throat. "When the support systems of our neighbors, friends, coworkers, and spouses are replicated in the fabric of an organization, we call this a 'healthy culture'."

How much longer will he be trapped next to her? Nick checks the time on his phone. His shift is almost over, thank God. But there are sixteen more hours of potential pranks...

"Healthy organizational cultures delight in the less serious aspects in life. They devote time to recreation. This could take the form of office sports leagues or board game nights, or perhaps good-natured, light-hearted pranks…"

There it is! Ebbingmaus gave himself away without realizing it. Judy knows the psychiatrist— she said she met him at the Academy! And she claimed she was trying to "say hello" to him earlier! So they're double teaming him. Just like in the lobby, Ebbingmaus is distracting him while she's setting it up!

No way, bunny. Your fox is too smart for this.

He springs out of his seat, rushes to the lectern and points an accusing claw at Ebbingmaus. "Don't listen to him! He's working with her! He's working with that crazy bunny!"

Nick throws open the door. "Sorry, sweetheart." He sends Judy a smug grin as he swings on the handle. "Better luck next time."

The door latches. He's back in the hallway. Back to safety. Nick slides down the wall and rests his eyes…

"HOPPS!" Bogo's voice echoes throughout the second floor. "HOPPS! You've gone TOO FAR!"

Oh God. She did it. She got her boss!


The Chief sprays fire extinguisher foam into his trash can as smoke billows out. "That ought to take care of it."

Nick puts his paws to his mouth. "Don't tell me she started a fire!"

"Worse than that!" Bogo slams the extinguisher on his desk. "She left an envelope on my desk that was supposedly from the mayor. It burst into flames when I opened it! Must have found a bit of flash powder down in the lab. I'm lucky I always keep an extinguisher in here, and I'm very lucky I didn't have anything explosive in my garbage. It could have been a disaster!"

"I'll say! Are you hurt?"

"No, thank goodness." He rubs his hooves on his pants, smearing them with ashes. "A bit shocked, that's all. And extremely disappointed in Hopps! She knows better than to play with matches."

"She certainly does... " Nick finds his paws shaking. He holds them behind his back so the Chief won't see.

Bogo packs his laptop in his briefcase and tucks in his chair. "She'll get her formal reprimand in the morning."

"Hold on!" Nick spreads himself across the door. "You're not leaving? Not when…"

"Wilde!" The Chief grits his teeth. "The moment I set foot in my house, I'm going to draw myself a lavender-scented bath, close my eyes, and let this awful day come to a peaceful end!"

"But what about me!" Bogo reaches out for the door handle, and Nick latches onto his wrist. "We're supposed to watch each other's backs! Who's going to watch my back?"

Bogo cracks a wry grin. "Sorry. She got me. Which means I'm mercifully done with her game. You're still playing." He shakes off Nick's paw and opens the door. "Good luck! You'll need every bit of it."

"Chief!" Nick chases after him.

"Hopps has nothing but respect for me. I'd hate to imagine what she'd do to someone she's upset with."

"No, Chief! Wait! Wait! Come back!" He smells a certain rabbit on his trail, and he spins around to face her.

"I can't believe it!" He holds his paws high in exasperation. "I can't believe it! You! You of all the mammals in Zootopia… you… you could have set the Chief of Police on fire! You could have burned down Headquarters!"

Judy shrugs.

"Was it worth it, rabbit? Was it worth roasting your co-workers alive in a blazing inferno to take revenge against a freaking Howlerpoint presentation? Was it worth ending your police career and going to prison forever to win bragging rights against your fox? Was any of this worth it?"

She crosses her limbs.

Nick gestures toward the elevators. "Come on. Bogo's left for the day. Let's go home and forget about the twenty-hours. But first we'll have us a nice dinner at Caetano's where we can talk it over like adults. Get it all out in the open. Come on."

He walks ahead. But she doesn't follow.

"Carrots! I'm leaving! Why aren't you coming?"

She is expressionless.

"What? What is it?" Nick puts his paws on his hips. "Aren't you going to speak up for yourself? Or have I shamed you into silence?"

Judy lifts one finger. "Five down." She grins. "One more to go."

"Wheeoooww!" Nick launches himself straight up in the air. He lands on all fours and bolts down the hall, ears back, mouth open.

Fox must escape… fox must escape the danger...

"Mr. Wilde!"

He's on course to collide with a white mouse. Ebbingmaus squeaks and scurries out of the way, and Nick rolls on the carpet and jumps onto his two feet.

"What on earth is the matter!" Ebbingmaus shakes with fear. "You're acting like an animal!"

Nick pants and points to the empty spot where Judy had been. "Crazy bunny! Crazy crazy crazy bunny!" And returning to all four paws, he runs to the end of the hall and leaps through the closing doors of the elevator.