BACKGROUND MUSIC:
1) Kenji Kawai - "Noa's Repose" ("Noa no Hitorigoto") - from the Patlabor - The Mobile Police TV series (I think)
2) Kenji Kawai - "Knock on the Tomorrow II" - from the Patlabor - the Mobile Police TV series
Okay, Benjamin Frederick Clawhauser.
Your mission, should you choose to accept it (okay, you weren't given much choice… and you've already accepted it) is to figure out what's going wrong between Hopps and Wilde. If you fail, this partnership will self-destruct in five days… one day? A week? A month? Bogo hadn't given him much of a time frame.
Good luck, Ben…
Taking a deep breath in, Clawhauser walked to the hangar, where he noticed his targets from the catwalk that led from the offices. There, he soon noticed his targets.
Nick and Judy were walking toward one another. As soon as they came near one another though, they glanced at each other, then altered course so they passed each other by a considerable distance.
Clawhauser grimaced, screwing his courage to the sticking-point, memories of childhood dinners flashing through his mind.
From his vantage point, the cheetah then noticed Judy exchange a few words with Joanna Namakoro. The hyena had often talked with Judy about Unit 1. Maybe she was a good place to start?
Suddenly, Captain Bogo's bellowing voice rang in Clawhauser's ears.
" Hopps !" The Buffalo pointed to the door out the hangar. Must be to set the record straight about the 'reassignment' fiasco.
As Judy moved towards the stairs up to the catwalk, Clawhauser moved past her and approached Joanna. "Uh… hi?" He waved meekly.
Joanna raised an eyebrow. "Hi…?"
Ben twiddled his thumbs. "So… What did Hopps want to talk about?"
"Just how soon we were gonna get that arm back on," said Joanna, gesturing to where Unit 1's severed arm lay in front of the Labor itself.
"Nothing… personal?" Clawhauser's face contorted. He didn't like prying.
"Nooooo…?"
"Nothing about Wilde?"
"No?" The hyena sighed. "Okay, what's this about?"
Ben sighed and told Joanna about Judy's overhearing Lee and Bogo, then about Bogo's request. "I'm worried she'll be out of a job at this rate."
"That sucks…" said Joanna. "But why are you interested?"
The cheetah put his hands in his pockets. "I… I just don't like it when mammals fight. Especially when they should be close to one another."
Ben then shook his head. "The point is, I wanted to know if you had any idea why Hopps and Wilde aren't getting along."
"Couldn't tell ya about Wilde…" said Joanna. "But Judy sounded jealous of Nick. Back then I thought she was just cheesed off about missing the Labor-kill twice in a row, but now I dunno… I get the feeling there's something else between 'em."
"Like what?"
"I dunno," said Joanna. "You'd have to ask her – or him. But my Mom has a saying; 'When a salt-shaker picks a fight with a pepper mill, ten years later you'll still be picking up the paprika!'"
Ben stared. "…What does that mean?"
"Search me." The hyena shrugged. "It just sounded fitting. Either way, you'll wanna hear it straight from the little guys' mouths."
"Alright, thanks anyway," Clawhauser sighed, turning away from Joanna to head back to the Ready Room.
"Clawhauser?" said Joanna, prompting the cheetah to look back at her. "Just so you know, I'm rootin' for ya. From what I hear, Wilde's more careful. If Judy listened to him, it's save us techs this kind of headache." She gestured to Unit 1, in all its battered, dented, mud-covered, one-armed glory. "So if ya need any help, you only need to ask."
"Thanks," said Ben.
When Clawhauser returned to Ready Room 2, he was surprised to find only Earl Beaverbrook sitting there, his nose in a copy of Great Pawcific Ocean Liners .
"Where'd everybody go?" said Clawhauser.
"Oh, Lee's gone jogging." Beaverbrook adjusted his glasses. "Hylander went with her. I think Captain Bogo's talking with Hopps. Don't know where Wilde's gone off to."
Clawhauser was about to go find Wilde when Judy squeezed past him into the room.
"Oh, I was just looking for you," said Clawhauser, smiling down at the rabbit.
"Bogo says nobody's getting reassigned," Judy sighed as she got behind her desk, head cradled in her hands. "Am I really that bad?"
Clawhauser and Beaverbrook exchanged a fearful glance. Neither of them wanted to answer the question. Ben in particular knew that if he said yes, Judy would take offense, but if he said no, she'd think it was just empty reassurance.
Beaverbrook wound up taking the initiative. "Wilde's been trying to keep down the collateral damage. Maybe you could ask him for a few pointers?"
"Wilde…" Judy huffed, trailing off as she stared at the wall in front of her.
Once again, Beaverbrook beat Ben to the punch. "Something wrong with him?"
"You mean besides the fact that he's intentionally slacking off despite all the effort I put in? Not much, really!" Judy rolled her eyes.
"Intentionally?" said Clawhauser. "You don't mean that, right?"
"Well, he does," Judy turned her swivel chair around to face Clawhauser and Beaverbrook. "He told me himself he was trying to get kicked off the force."
Clawhauser and Beaverbrook exchanged a look of disbelief.
"Why would he do that?" said Ben.
"He said his being here was a mistake." Judy eyed the floor. "Said he can only be a 'sly fox.'"
"Why not quit then?" said Beaverbrook.
Judy snorted. "Ask him!"
Clawhauser made a mental note to do just that.
Beaverbrook shrugged. "Maybe he does like it here?"
Now it was Clawhauser and Judy that exchanged a look of confusion.
"Maybe deep down, he wants to be a part of this?" continued Beaverbrook. "I mean, why else would he join in the first place?"
"But now that he's here, why's he trying to get out?!" Judy threw up her hands. "I've wanted to be a cop my whole life! I worked my tail off to here, but Wilde just wants all that effort and throw it down the toilet?!"
The rabbit realized how much her voice had raised and eased up. "I'm sorry. It's just that I joined the force to make the world a better place. You don't become a cop if you don't want to help mammals. If Wilde can't understand that, he should cut the nonsense and resign now."
Judy then got up from her desk and sauntered out the door. Clawhauser thought of going after her, but decided to give her some space first.
So Judy took Wilde's behavior as an insult. Enlightening, but only half the story. Now for the other half...
"Hey, Beaverbrook? Earl? Uh…?"
"Earl, Beaverbrook, makes no difference," said Beaverbrook. "Some mammals still call me Max after my middle name, but not so much these days."
"Thanks Earl," said Clawhauser. "I was just wondering, how'd you figure that about Wilde?"
"Figure what?"
"That deep down, he wants to be a cop?"
The beaver clenched his buckteeth. "I just… I just figured that- You don't get through the academy if you don't put some hustle into it, right?"
"Good point…" Ben stroked his chin. Somehow though, he wasn't satisfied by that answer. "Why try and get kicked out though?"
"Well…" Beaverbrook cut himself short, stroked his own chin, removed a popsicle stick from his pocket, and began chewing it in thought.
Ben sat as his own desk and sighed. Wilde was an enigma to be sure. He'd have to approach him directly.
But by this point, Wilde had proven to be a master at evasion – particular when any degree of work needed to be done.
Thankfully, one of the mechanics – a well-toned coyote – was able to point out the fox's location, and soon he found himself scanning the riprap between the field and the Bay before finding Wilde sitting in his lawn chair, fishing as usual.
"Hey, uh… Nick?" Ben waved nervously. "Is it okay if I call you Nick?"
"Okay by me, Benjy," Wilde chuckled.
"Okay," Clawhauser had heard Nick call Judy 'Carrots,' Bogo 'Buffalo-butt,' and Hylander 'Blunderbuss,' so 'Benjy' didn't feel that bad in comparison. It reminded him of living with his little brother.
The cheetah sat down cross-legged beside Nick's lawn chair. "So… No bites?"
Nick smirked under his wayfarers. "Not a one."
A long silence followed.
"Should've brought out some donuts…" Clawhauser murmured.
"Would've helped, yeah."
More silence.
Clawhauser considered his options before deciding on the direct approach. "Are-are you really trying to get kicked off the force?" he almost whispered.
"Mmm-hmm." Nick nodded, without turning away from the bay.
"Why? I mean, we're alright, aren't we?"
"Oh, you are." Clawhauser wished the fox would take those sunglasses off so he could read Nick's expression. "It's just that they'll give me the boot sooner or later, so I figured, why not sooner?"
"Why would they give you the boot?"
"Tell me, Benjy," said Nick. "How often have you heard the words 'trustworthy' and 'fox' used unironically in the same sentence?"
Ben didn't have an answer.
"Not often," said Nick. "Sooner or later, they're gonna push me out."
"You got through the academy, didn't you?" said Clawhauser, forcing a smile.
"Please." Nick's tone was oddly dissonant. "I got through the academy 'cause there weren't enough small mammals with Labor certification who signed up. I figure I'm just a placeholder until someone better qualified gets in. Then they'll probably bump me down to parking duty, or find some other way of shoving me out. I figure that if I get kicked out first, it'll spare me purgatory in a clown vest."
"Th-they wouldn't do that, would they?!" Ben sputtered.
"Why not?" said Nick. "The whole Division's a joke, really. Just ask Captain Buffalo-butt. No one knows it more than him."
"Why?"
"Chief Swinton likes to say Bogo's a well-respected officer, but really, she and the rest of the Old Guard can't stand the sight of him, so they put him out here where they figure he can't do any damage except to his own credibility."
"Why's that?"
Through the weeds came Judy Hopps. She looked puzzled at what Nick had just said. Ben figured she was trying to get Nick to stop fishing again.
"It's like this, Carrots." Nick took his sunglasses off at last. "You know the Barry Wallace Murder?"
Ben and Judy both looked at each other. The murder of Barry Wallace – a wallaby liquor store owner – had been highly publicized thanks to its outcome. It had started almost a year ago, when Wallace had been found garroted to death. After the Lieutenant in charge of the case, Owen Humperdink, had been seemingly thwarted at every turn after evidence began disappearing mysteriously, a frustrated Adrian Bogo – then Captain of Precinct 7 – had stepped in personally. Bogo had rigorously examined the disappearance of the evidence before finally arresting Lieutenant Humperdink himself for attempting to pervert the course of justice.
It had turned out that Humperdink had committed the murder. Wallace had discovered the camel Lieutenant and some officer friends of his had been running a de facto protection racket, threatening to report trumped-up health and safety violations against eateries if they didn't serve the officers for free. Wallace had tried blackmailing Humperdink, but the camel murdered him instead.
"But the Wallace case was one of Bogo's biggest successes," said Judy.
"And one of the ZPD's biggest scandals," said Nick. "It's never good for the force when a cop gets a murder rap, especially when said cop's dad is a Borough Chief. You'll remember Humperdink Sr. retired early after his son was convicted.
"Anyway, Swinton and the Old Guard were in a tough spot as it was, so you can imagine their reactions when Bogo gets caught in a press conference saying that no one is above the law – 'no matter their position, no matter their connections.'"
Judy scowled, foot thumping. "So? What's wrong with a cop believing in Rule of Law?"
"Carrots, this is the Old Guard we're talking about," chuckled Nick. "The last thing they want is a crusader cop making them look like idiots. So they figure Buffalo-butt's Kryptonite. But thanks to the case, he's popular Kryptonite, so they can't exactly punish him.
"So what they do is they send him over here – as far away from Precinct 1 as they can get him. Here, he's stuck between Anna Polecatsky's rising star and Bureau Chief Buckminster's credit-nabbing, and he can't interfere in police investigations."
Judy's nose twitched. "So Bogo's here because he's too good a cop?"
"In a nutshell." Nick's attention turned to his fishing pole. "Zootopia's a funny place, Carrots. Things like the city's Old Guards are what happen when you put a bunch of the businessmammals, career politicians, and other vested interests together in one roo-o-o-o-o-o-o-m-! "
The sound of whizzing greeted Ben's ears and Nick struggled to contain the fishing pole in his paws. The fox looked about to fall off the riprap when Ben grabbed Nick by the shoulders. The three of them were strong enough to yank an impressive cod out of the water.
"What is it with you and the fish, fluff?" groaned Nick, still in Clawhauser's arms. "Three times you've darkened my door, and each time I get a big bite like this." Clawhauser put Nick down as they pulled the fish in. "You some kind of fish whisperer?"
Judy rolled her eyes. "Yeah, I'm subliminally telling the fish to swallow your cheap bait to make sure you're actually contributing to the unit."
[OST1]
She then stared at the cod as Clawhauser stuffed it in the cooler beside Nick's chair. "Still, it's weird. I did a bit of catch-and-release in Bunnyburrow, and I never had this kind of luck."
"Oh yeah!" Clawhauser saw an opening for small talk. "I've been meaning to ask, what's it like out there – in Bunnyburrow, I mean?"
"Oh, Bunnyburrow? Pretty… well…" Judy sat down and rested her chin on her knees as she stared out onto the Bay. "Pretty boring, honestly. Don't get me wrong, it's nice and all. I'd just rather have some excitement in my life."
"'Excitement' would be an understatement, Fluff, given how you're stomping around the place in Unit 1," said Nick, casting another hook into the bay.
Clawhauser burst in before Judy could retort. " So! What's your family like?"
"Oh, we're just farmers for the most part, but we've done pretty well for ourselves. We bring in plenty of carrots, but we deal in a bunch of other stuff too – there's potatoes, cabbages, strawberries…"
"How 'bout blueberries?" Nick piped up.
"Yeah. Why?"
"No reason." Nick readjusted his wayfarers.
Ben pressed further. "Any brothers or sisters?"
Judy gave a sly grin. "Clawhauser, I'm a bunny. Is that a trick question?"
"Oh, uh…"
Judy promptly took out her phone and proceeded to enthusiastically introduce in rapid succession more siblings than the other two mammals could count.
"Hopps! Hopps! Hopps!" Ben held up his hands. "How many siblings do you have?!"
"Oh…" Judy tilted her head in thought. "About 307…"
"Three-hundred-and-seven?!" Ben and Nick chorused.
"Oh, that's just communally," said Judy. Only twenty-six of them are actual blood siblings. The rest are mostly cousins – plus the odd niece or nephew."
"Oh…" Ben found growing up with even twenty-five brothers and sisters a bit much. "You're one of the older kits, right?"
"Yep. Only five older than me."
Only five?
"So you've got big sister privileges?" Ben chuckled, fondly remembering cubhood with his own little brother.
"You bet," said Judy. "Of course, Junior would beg to differ."
"Junior?"
"Oh, Stu Jr." Judy showed her phone again, this time showing a rabbit that looked eerily like a male version of Judy standing beside a gangly-looking Labor. "He's the oldest boy. He likes to say he's the buck of the house, but I'm technically older than he is."
"Hang on, what's that?" Nick suddenly seemed interested in the photo. "Is that a farming Labor?"
"Oh yeah." Judy shifted to a photo of an older, pudgier male rabbit – Judy's father, Ben guessed – standing proudly with the Labor in the background. "That's our Bumpacrop. Dad got him about a year-and-a-half ago. I got experience working with Labors on him."
The bipedal agricultural Labor was a mustard-yellow color, with long, spindly arms, large lights on top, and an open cockpit, beneath which the word 'CHARLIE' could be made out. A grain platform hung from its abdomen.
"Charlie?" Nick raised an eyebrow.
Judy sighed. "That's the pet name my Dad gave him."
"Awww!" Ben couldn't help himself.
"Yeah, my Dad's the sentimental type," Judy chuckled as she looked at the photo herself. "He likes to name things like tractors or combines, so naming a Labor was the next logical step."
"Heh. Now I'm wondering what you'd call Unit 1." That's it, Ben. Focus on what binds them all together. "Big guy kinda looks like a Dennis, don't you think?"
"No…" Judy mused. "Not really seeing it. Gotta be more 'fights-for-justice' than that… Alphonse, maybe?"
" No !"
Judy and Ben suddenly turned to Nick, startled by his panicked outburst.
The fox quickly collected himself. "I mean… I've just had… an acquaintance named Alphonse that I've had some bad run-ins with in the past."
"Well, what do you think would be a good name?" Ben asked Nick.
"Hmmm…" Nick exaggeratedly rubbed his chin. "How 'bout 'Your Name Here'?"
Clawhauser giggled. Judy rolled her eyes. "Ha, ha, ha."
"How about 'CAUTION: INCOMING BUNNY'?"
"Nick…!" Judy growled.
"Madam, we're naming a hunk of metal." Nick feigned being offended. "I wouldn't dream of making light of this."
Bast almighty, getting these two to cooperate was hard. Still, Ben found an opportunity and pounced. "C'mon, Nick," he urged. "What's a good name for a 'justice' kinda guy?"
"Well, Robin, maybe…" Nick muttered as he cast his attention back to his fishing pole.
"Robin?"
"Forget I said anything." Nick seemed eager to change the subject all of a sudden.
"Something wrong?" said Ben, hoping he hadn't gone too far to get a handle on Nick.
"It's just embarrassing is all," Nick sighed. "When I was a kit, I was raised on stories of Robin of Foxley."
"Oh…!"
"My Dad was a big fan, and my Mom liked to joke that she was a descendant of Robin and Marian – and I think she was a Brian Redfurred fangirl. Anyway, that's why 'Robin' popped into my mind."
A silence hung over the three officers until Nick burst out laughing.
"Makes no sense anyway." The fox gave a wan smile as he took off his sunglasses. "Naming a cop Labor after an outlaw…"
Judy smirked. "At least Robin of Foxley got off his lazy tail and did something for his fellow mammal."
Nick stared at Judy before putting his Wayfarers back on and turning back to his fishing. "Guess you're right…"
Ben and Judy glanced at one another, not sure what to make of this display.
Before either of them could press any further, Nick immediately hooked onto something big again. Ben and Judy rushed to hold the fox down before he got pulled into the water.
"This has gotta be a piece of junk or something!" Nick grunted. "I never get this lucky twice!"
The three officers held Nick down until he reeled his load in. Indeed, his hook had latched onto an old hubcap, but the policemammals were left slack-jawed at the rather large octopus clutching onto it.
"What the cuss?!" Nick muttered.
Ben walked back into the hangar. Nick promptly dashed beside him to the washrooms, face black with ink after the unruly cephalopod had squirted him to make its getaway. Funny how it had made a break for it the moment the mentioned calamari…
Now Ben's attention turned back to his 'mission.' As he pondered what to do with the information he'd gleaned today, a voice came behind him that sent a shiver down to the tip of his tail.
"Benjamin Clawhauser, you're a mad genius!"
After Nick finally got the ink off his face, he made his way to join Judy and Ben in Ready Room 2.
As soon as he entered the room though, an announcement from Chief Mechanic Camazotz made its way over the PA system.
"Now hear this, ya bums! Since things have been getting messy of late, I'm instituting a new policy. Captain Polecatsky and Captain Bogo have both agreed with me that from now on, Zeeplabor Forwards and Backups are required to take over for the mechanics when it comes to Labor cleaning and repainting."
"What?!" chorused several voices in the Ready Room, but their voices were soon drowned out by cheers coming from the mechanics.
Nick stared at the ceiling. Thanks a lot , universe…
[OST2]
At the end of the (thankfully deployment-less) day, Nick made his way out of the hangar. His eyes chanced to glance up at Unit 1, which (mercifully) had been cleared of mud when Camazotz made her announcement. Soon, he noticed something on the machine's chest area below the neck.
"Dumb bunny…" the fox muttered as he continued on his way.
There, on Unit 1's left-hand side, between its primary and secondary hatches, was one word, painting in a brush script:
Robin
...and now the title of this 'episode' makes sense at last! "Robin of Foxley" is - as you've probably guessed - the Zootopian equivalent of Robin of Loxley, aka. Robin Hood.
Similarly, Brian Redfurred is a reference to the late Brian Bedford, Robin Hood's voice actor in the 1973 Disney movie.