"A Zootopia Story: Outfoxed"
By ZangooseMiner and STT
Chapter 4: "Progress"
"What do you mean we aren't partners!" Zerrith whined as Nick pulled to a stop in front of the orphanage.
The fox sighed. "Zer, look. There is no case or big crime here. There's no detective work to do. It's almost midnight and honestly, I'm tired."
"B-But...but I thought...with the...and the...what we did…" The wolf went silent, unable to find any words. "...w-why?"
"...cause I can't risk myself, or you, for the sake of hurting her even more…" Nick rubbed the back of his head. "Get some sleep...I'll see you around."
"...are...y-you going…" He sniffled. "...a-are you gonna go look for him without me?!"
Nick stared at him directly in the eyes through the rearview mirror. "No. I made a promise to Judy and I intend to keep it. The other cops on the force will do what they can, alright?"
He frowned, before pouting as he hurriedly got out of the car, storming up the steps into the tall orphanage. The door slammed behind him, and Nick sighed. He'd be better in the morning.
The fox drove his cruiser down the street, coming to the intersection he'd turn right at before driving back to his place in Rainforest District. Typically, he'd be coming from the left, where the Police Headquarters was. The road was empty tonight, not even a moving car in sight. The fox clicked his blinker on to signify he was turning right.
Because he was. He would wait here until this light turned green, then go right. To his home. Where he told Judy he would go.
He found himself glancing at the Headquarters. Why? He'd promised.
The light turned green. He pulled forward, and made a left towards the Headquarters.
Screw the promise, he would not get hurt, he would not let that scumbag be out and about after putting his best friend in the hospital, close to death.
He walked through the front door and looked up at the desk, where he expected Clawhauser to be. Except in his place was a hulking elephant, boredly rolling a pencil around with her trunk. Of course he wouldn't be here, Nick scolded himself.
"Hey, uh, Francine?" he called up.
"Hm?" The elephant looked down. "Oh, hey, Wilde. What brings you here so late?"
"It's...really important. And secret, so no telling anyone." He glared slightly. "Not even Bogo."
"...what is it you want me to do?"
"...I need a teensy little peek at the security tapes from earlier today, over on the corner of Redhorn and Pine." The fox sighed. "Bogo doesn't want me involved...but I need to find who hit Ju- er, Officer Hopps."
Francine eyed him suspiciously. "Hm...this is a real big risk, Wilde. If Bogo finds out about this...we'll both be in hot water."
"I know, I know, but...he won't, just don't tell him. Okay? And if he ever asks where I am, just say I'm home resting."
She pursed her lips and squinted.
"Pleeease?" he asked in a high voice.
"Fine," she sighed, handing down a card to the fox. "Video Room B, back of the building. Just be quiet."
Nick nodded and smiled, walking around the counter. "Thanks, France! You're the best!"
"You'd better not get me fired, Wilde!" she shouted after him.
He jogged through some halls and found the door, checking left and right cautiously before swiping the card and going in. The fox sat in the oversized swivel chair and pumped it high enough for him to get at the computer, which fortunately was as high as the seat went.
"Alright, now if I were-" He stopped, seeing the computer was password protected. "...well shit, how am I gonna...huh?"
He glanced at the bottom corner of the monitor's border, seeing a sticker; a nametag sticker.
'Hello! My Name Is: Property of Benjamin J. Clawhauser~'
Nick blinked before chuckling. "That's right, Ben donated his monitor to the force…"
The fox sighed, remembering what had happened to the cheetah. But he couldn't dwell too much on it now.
"Now...if I were Ben...would my password be…?"
He typed in a word and hit enter, and the desktop popped up with a 'ding'.
"Huh...didn't think 'Gazelle' would work!"
A basic interface popped up, showing a street map with camera icons scattered around. The fox navigated to the one he wanted - Redhorn Lane - and clicked. A live view of the crime scene appeared. Nick pursed his lips at the sight of the pulverized police car, still wrapped in police tape. He felt even more motivated to catch this guy now.
The fox scrolled back on the timeline until the wreckage disappeared. The screen blurred and became staticy for a moment as it 'rolled', the rewinding effect old and akin to the ancient monitor it was being played on. Nick sighed; now to wait. Being a cop wasn't always fun.
He glanced back up at the screen after a moment, quickly stopping once he saw the massive truck 'uncolliding' with the car. He pressed play and shielded his eyes, but winced when he heard the vehicles come into contact; he couldn't bear to watch. The noise eventually stopped, and he looked up.
The crumpled car was on it's head, and Clawhauser laid on the asphalt a few feet away. The semi truck's doors swung open, and out stepped...a grizzly bear? Nick furrowed his brow. Judy mentioned a fox, but not this guy. He had seen a few bears before, but this one didn't look any familiar.
Then, out from the driver's seat, stepped the aforementioned fox.
He appeared slightly bigger than Nick, if not a tad scraggly and horribly unkempt, like someone ripped straight from a mental asylum in the movies. His fur was the same orange-red shade as his, and his clothes were very...unique, to say the least; some torn-up pants and a red button-up shirt left hanging open, exposing his scarred chest. But what stuck out to Nick was the shiny, black piece of metal that appeared to be tightly clamped around his neck.
So, the perp was into the punk look? Nick looked closer as the person circled around the destroyed vehicle; there seemed to be a green light shining steadily from the accessory, and it was located slightly off-center, where the jugular would be found.
The person leaned over and stayed there a while. He seemed to be talking, but the audio was so terrible it was no more than a muffled sound. Soon he rose and came back to his unmoving companion, handing him something. The muffled talking rose in volume, and as it did, the green light went yellow, then orange, and eventually bright red. The fox cut off, staggering back and doubling over - revealing he had no tail.
Nick's eyes went wide. He'd only seen one tailless fox in his life...and he knew that reaction all too well.
He paused the video feed and simply stared. "...n-no...n-no way...i-it can't be…"
He clicked the footage frame by frame...that walk, the blue eyes, the collar; he had to warn someone.
Nick jumped off the chair, not bothering to log out, and sprinted towards the door.
Only to slam right into a static wall of muscle. He tipped backwards and fell right on his butt, not daring to look up.
"Wilde," Bogo growled.
His ears fell. "Chief..."
And yet...he surprisingly didn't yell. "I saw this coming from a mile away."
"...s-so what now?"
The buffalo simply gestured toward the door. "This is a warning. Now go home."
Nick sighed, starting to get up, before his ears shot up again. "W-Wait, Chief, look at the footage, there's-"
"I don't care if there's a leaf in the wind or a flower in the road or a jaywalker walking through traffic." His voice slowly got louder. "This is not your case! Now go. Home."
(Added all of this.)
Nick raised a finger to object, but simply lowered his hand and sighed. "Yes, sir..." He exited the room in defeat before he paused. "Ch-Chief?" he quietly started.
The buffalo sighed in exasperation. "What, Wilde?"
Nick wrang his tie, ears folded down. "J-Judy...she's my friend...best friend, a-and I...I just wanted to..."
Bogo let out a low breath. "I know, Nick." The chief turned around and looked down at him, expression softened in what seemed to be genuine concern. "But even if I wanted you on this case, you have too much personal attachment to it; it's against the rules. Not to mention it's unbelievably stupid."
Nick glanced up questioningly.
"I don't know who this person is, but if they have the nerve to poison and attack my officers off-duty, they're dangerous. I know their type. I don't need another dead cop on my hands." He lowered his eyebrows and stared at him intensely. "Go home, Wilde. We'll handle this."
Nick gazed up for a moment before blinking. He timidly nodded and shuffled away wordlessly. Bogo sighed and rubbed his forehead. What was he gonna do with that fox?
Nick quietly left the building, ignoring the farewells of Francine, and hopped into his car, then slowly drove home. 'Great...what am I gonna do now?'
He soon stopped at the terminal that would take him to the Rainforest District, where his horribly shameful apartment was...oh, he couldn't even call it that. It was basically akin to a squatter, except for one person. Or a boiler room.
The fox parked his car in the reserved section, where he'd pick it up in the morning upon his return to central Zootopia. He boarded a tram and silently watched the nighttime lights rush by in a breeze as the speedy vehicle moved along.
It wasn't fair. None of this was fair. He should have been out there, hunting this guy down himself. Not going home and sleeping.
Not giving up.
The tram slowed to a stop, and thankfully the weather in the Rainforest District was only a light fog and not a heavy rain. Nick trudged along until he arrived at the hotel where he stayed, a low quality, slightly rickety looking building partially built inside a tree. The 'Gatefalls Hotel' was all he could afford however. It was so old, sometimes he passed right by it, it was so unrecognizable of a building.
The fox glanced up at the street signs, then back at the building. "...yep, 1955 Cypress Grove Lane. I didn't miss it this time."
He quietly entered and rode the old, slow elevator. The cheapest rooms were on the top floor, and they were cheap due to the quality of said rooms. Nick's was the only one he could buy, yet he couldn't really call it an apartment room; mainly cause it wasn't.
Nick silently strolled down the hall of the thirteenth floor, towards the door at the adjacent wall. He grunted in annoyance every time he saw the old door that was his room, and the long walk to it made it feel so mocking. The now rusted, once shining golden nameplate on the door was once coated in a glob of similarly colored paint, albeit a tad brighter, with the room number '13-I' imprinted on it. However, that glob of paint had since faded, and underneath were the words 'Pipe Maintenance'. The fox hoped placing a sticky note over the nameplate with '13-I' scribbled on it would make it feel less demeaning, but it didn't really help.
He reached into his pocket and fished out his ring of keys. A plentiful amount of them were from the police force. Most of them were shiny or slightly dulled, but his room key was the easiest to distinguish; it was a copper key that had partially turned green, and was slightly bent. Nick inserted it into the lock, twisting it as if he were a dentist pulling a tooth, until a disconcerting crunch signaled the rusted bolt had released.
The fox turned the knob, and with a grunt of effort, lifted the door up slightly in it's frame, forcing it inwards with a loud creak. Water got into everything up there. He sighed and ripped the key from its slot, looking around the dark place. In a normal house, he figured, he'd probably flick a light switch on and illuminate his cozy little abode. Except here, there were no lights, and to call it cozy would require an extremely creative use of the word, and it would need to be said by an extremely generous person. No matter, his night vision did the job just fine for him.
And the pipes, they were everywhere. They littered the walls and ceilings, going every which way and always acting as a hinderance. The fox usually spent time navigating them like a maze or breaking his back just to crawl under some of them, when he wasn't avoiding the occasional burst of steam from one or drops of water being collected in various containers scattered about.
Speaking of those, he had completely forgotten; as he stepped into the hot room, he had forgotten about the small bucket by the entrance, and he tensed up and cringed as his foot slammed down into the cold water that filled it. He bit on his lip hard as he refrained from exclaiming an irritated curse, before he slowly lifted his drenched foot out and wiped it on the carpet nearby.
He looked at the puddle of water he'd created on the floor, and for a half second considered cleaning it up before he sighed. "Screw it," he mumbled, unbuckling his utility belt and tossing it aside, where it landed near a low placed sticky note that read 'Police Stuff' in messy print.
Nick tugged at a sleeve, pulling his shirt collar over his head. With a bit of squirming, he dragged the tight blue uniform top off, balling it up and throwing it with his belt. Warm air hit his bare midsection as the fox sat on the floor and worked the stirrups off of his feet. The steam running through the pipes lacing his ceiling always kept the place at a consistent, uncomfortably warm temperature; foxes weren't meant to live in the jungle, he'd decided long ago.
He finally got undressed and slumped over to an oversized dresser at the side of the room, taking the knob of the lowest drawer and pulling it. The storage place slid out, showing it contained some pillows and a dull red blanket that he'd kept there for who-knows-how-long.
He sighed at the sight, thinking about what Judy had said to him weeks ago after seeing the place. "You live here?"
"Yeah, I do, Carrots," he'd replied.
"Nick..."
"What? It's not so bad."
She'd looked up at him, made that face she did when she was trying to be tough. "Nick. As your friend. I can't let you stay here like this."
"Yeah?" he snorted. "So what are you gonna do about it?"
Nick blinked out of his thoughts and glanced at some boxes, empty ones he still had to pack. He chuckled half-heartedly. "...that's what she did about it." She really didn't know when to quit.
His face lowered. Guess that's what made them different. He stared at the "bed," a bit of an awareness that this was less than what most people could survive day to day with working into his head. He shook it out.
"Screw it," he muttered again, clambering into the drawer. Dwelling on it would just make him feel bad about it.
The fox grunted in discomfort as a part of his torso was forced to hang over due to the small size of the drawer, the rounded wood pressing partially into his chest and gut. The addition of an overlapping blanket layer between him and the wood helped a little, but not by much.
He sighed and looked around for something hopeful to look at, but none of the numerous posters in his room did the trick. He adjusted in his "bed" before bumping the table, knocking something off and on to his face. Nick sighed yet again and lifted the object up, before he tensed upon eyeing it.
His checkbook.
The fox slapped a palm to his face. He'd totally forgotten to send money to his mother for the past month; he'd been so busy being a cop. She must've thought he was rich, sending so much to her out of his meager paycheck. She'd flip if she saw this place.
Nick placed the checkbook back on the table and sighed. Maybe tomorrow would be a better day. "Please let it be..." he said to no one in particular as drifted off to sleep.
TO BE CONTINUED…