Chapter 6: What's that smell?

It had taken more than an hour or two till the last of the chickens had delivered to their future doom, and the pair of delivery mammals looked into the hell that the inside of their van had become. "Please tell me we have an easy way to clean that gunk out of there."

"Yeah, I have one." As the skunk looked hopeful at his boss, Finnick gave a short laugh. "It's called 'ordering my employee to do it!'".

"You suck as a boss you are aware of that aren't you?" Joe cursed his luck as he again looked into the van. The chickens had not been content just to relieve themselves in their cages and had managed to get a lot of it on the floor of the van too. He couldn't even start to imagine where he would need to start to get that mess cleaned up.

"I'm also a very lenient boss as you bitching and moaning would have had you fired at least a dozen times over by now." At this, the fennec crossed his arms and gave the skunk a stern look. It was relaxing that his employee was able to keep up with him when it came to ribbing and joking around, but in the end, it was still a boss/employee deal, and it wouldn't hurt to make sure that skunk remembered it.

"Seeing as you are never going to find another mammal crazy enough to be a testing ground for Honey I'm pretty confident my job is safe enough for the moment." Joe gave Finnick a smirk. "But don't worry I understand what you're trying to say and I'll try to lessen the grumbling."

The fennec fox gave his partner a nod and looked at the mess that his van had become. And to think it would only get much worse from here on out. "See that you do as we now have another set of deliveries to pick up."

The sharp intake of breath next to him told him that his partner just realized that the mess he would need to clean up at the end of it all would consist of two types of messes mixed to make a mess even the hardiest of cleaning mammals would openly weep about having to clean.

"Please tell me that we're first cleaning this up. If we don't want the mess, it will create, to be akin to horror incarnate! And that's not even mentioning that we'll never get the smell out of our fur!" The skunk imagined that, next to being pink, he would stink of dung for weeks as well and had to shudder at the implications. There would be no way he would be able to investigate a thing as he would be thrown out of the precinct as well as the Academy as soon as he arrived.

Finnick checked his watch. Could they pull off cleaning out this mess and still arriving at the pickup point at the arranged time to pick up the load for the florists and gardening centers. He quickly did the math in his head and quickly realized that it would be impossible. "Sorry Chico, but if we cleaned out this, then we wouldn't be able to complete the deliveries."

The skunk seemed to sink into despair as he imagined the hell the ride back to the depot would be like with them stank up to high hell. "This day is quickly moving up to be at least the fourth worst day of my life."

Finnick had to chuckle at that. "If this is only fourth I have to wonder what could be one through three."

Joe stretched his body loosening it up and in the meantime tried to get rid of his feelings of gloom at the stinky task still in his future. "I'll tell you later when we don't have a happy afternoon of stink and manure to worry about."

"You know I'm gonna hold you to that right?" The fennec fox climbed into the cabin after making sure he rolled down the windows all the way. As the skunk jumped in the fennec looked over and had to grin. It was going to be horrible, and it would take several showers afterward for the stink to be gone, but at least he wouldn't suffer alone as he looked at the scrunched up pink face of the skunk in the passenger seat.


The meeting wasn't going well, and Jacques was having difficulties controlling his urges to grab the nearest board member and slam his head against the wall in pure frustration. Not only had the board not accepted that miss Badger had declined, but was now openly discussing how to get her aboard in other fashions. Another suggestion of further raising the salary (to four time his for Celestial's sake) had him shaking his head in anger, but also ideas had come of sabotaging the company she worked for bankrupting it thus making it, so she had no other choice. The ones that calmed him down and made him wonder what the board knew that he might have missed were the suggestions of blackmailing her or even worse outright 'removing' her to 'work' for them.

Now the discussion had come to an impasse. The higher salary / bankrupting the delivery service block against the less legal means chapter.

"What I don't understand is how we end up in a situation that we need that damn woman in the first place! If she's so great at what she does, it should please her to no end that there is a company present that does not only appreciate genius but is also prepared to pay very well for her time and research." The old goat slammed his hoof on the table in an attempt to add weight to his argument. "If she isn't prepared to play ball then I see no problem in shifting through her past. Seeing as she is such a hermit already, it wouldn't surprise me if we found a treasure trove of data that we could use to modify her reply to our job offer."

A lama next to him snorted and leaned to the side. "Still seems like a dung load of work if you ask me. I'm all for just grabbing miss Badger and make her do our bidding as it seems to me that we're not interested in her work for us and more concerned with getting her not to work for them!"

Jacques felt his interest peaked. Finally, he was getting a glimpse of what seemed to move the board in trying to acquire miss Badger.

An elder tiger smiled without humor at the goat and lama and said with a strained voice. "You might want to rethink your proposals." As the lama and goat got up to argue again, the tiger slammed his paw down as hard as he could silencing the mammals and let out a loud roar. As the sound died out, he went on his tone laced with ice. "Do you two idiots think it's an excellent idea just to blackmail or kidnap a technician that is directly involved with the ZPD? Not only would the chief of police have an issue with the fact that a significant part of his research projects went missing, but you can bet your ass also that he wouldn't be taking it laying down. If you don't want our organization taken apart by the seems as the police go about retrieving her I might suggest you abandon that line of inquiry."

The goat sat back clearly not pleased, and the lama was biting back his reply as he was thinking about how to turn the discussion around. A ram on the other side cleared his throat and turned to address the tiger. "We can't risk getting the ZPD involved seeing the projects we have lined up. But isn't there a way for us to just grab her that wouldn't come at that cost? It would be possible for example to catch her at the end of the first testing phase. The new body armor project as our informant has told us seems to have been moved up and is scheduled to conclude next week. If we did it in that manner, it would take days, maybe weeks before the ZPD became aware that anything was wrong. More than enough time to make sure nobody would hear of Miss Badger again." The ram smiled rather cruelly as he finished and Jacques made a mental note never to be alone with this mammal ever.

The tiger shook his head. "Won't work her partner would most likely raise the alarm as soon as she went missing seeing as she's not one to socialize or going out. If you believe that the ZPD might not take the worth of a fox serious I have to point at exhibits A and B over there." On the info board, he was looking at were two pictures attached, one of a gray bunny with violet eyes and one of a red fox with green ones. "Miss Badger's partner, as well as herself, are befriended with officer Wilde and rumors have it that officer Hopps is acquainted with them as well. If miss Badger was to go missing, and mister 'Finnick' was to report it those two would act. With or without ZPD backing and seeing what they did without I'm pretty sure it would be something chief Bogo would try to prevent at all costs."

The lama slammed his paw down. "Then take out all of them! I know some dependable hit mammals, and it would be short work for them to kill two cops, a delivery mammal, and a research geek!"

Slowly sitting back the tiger let out a slow breath filled with irritation. "There is a considerable risk in that. We have investigated rumors going about a link between officer Hopps and a mammal only known to us as 'Mister Big' a well-known mob boss in those circles." The board members raised their eyebrows at that news.

Laughing loudly a boar that had been silent till now shook his head. "You had us discussing ways of getting to miss Badger, but wouldn't it be easier just to exploit officer Hopps. SEEING AS SHE HAS A RUTTING CONNECTION TO THE MAFIA!" The boar was seething with rage at the apparent waste of time this meeting seemed to be becoming.

It shouldn't be possible for a mammal to look more irritated than the tiger had appeared to be up to that point, but somehow he managed to pull it off. "Maybe you should learn to listen more carefully. You almost contribute nothing to these meetings, and now that you finally do so it is to showcase your apparent lack of focus! As I was saying, it's rumored nothing more! For every lead, we investigate we only find more and more wild stories doing the rounds. And we can't get any closer to rumors surrounding Mister Big or his family without risking him finding out."

The tiger leaned back into his chair. "Also, we found out the hard way that we can't get any of the mammals working under him to switch sides. It turns out they are loyal to the death, and our employees who tried turning them have either gone missing under suspicious circumstances or decided to go on long, long holidays far far away from here." The tiger had to sigh at that. "We're lucky that we had the foresight to erase them from our books before sending them out to try to offer employment to his goons. This seeing as our administration department has just yesterday reported that our files are compromised."

Jacques felt a shiver go through him. "What do you mean compromised? Did we have a break-in? Was something stolen and how much of our research is now on the street?"

The tiger looked at him, and Jacques found himself trying not to shy away under the intense glare the tiger subjected him to.

"Well mister director I can assure you that nothing is missing, but as for your other questions, my guess is as good as yours is. The ones that ransacked our files were professionals at the very least. They managed to go through all our archives, and if one of our more 'unstable' admins hadn't been a stickler for everything in the proper order, we would never have picked up on it at all." The tiger leaned forward and spoke while looking at each mammal present in turn. "As it stands now gentle mammals the chance that outside sources compromised our research is very likely. Looking at the circumstances and the timing it is safe to assume that Mister Big might well be the one that has his paws on it, although the chances are slim at best that he knows what he has. Even without him knowing though I can't see any happy outcome with officers Hopps coming to any harm. Seeing as the rumors of the relationship between Hopps and Wilde seem to be more than conjecture I am assured to say that any harm coming to Wilde will count probably as severe as hurting the bunny herself. And seeing as mister 'Finnick' and miss Badger are friends of officer Wilde I can conclude that we undertake any action that would result in harm to them it would also reach Mister Big in short order. Therefore NO gentle mammals we will not be conducting any illegal means to remove miss Badger from the field."

The boar straightened up. "Fine, what do you suggest our options are then?"

"First off I'm pretty sure that our director Jacques has tried all the possibilities available to him to acquire her as an employee yes?" Jacques just could not at that. The last offer had been the best he could come up with without losing his self-respect or making the company seem desperate. The tiger nodded his understanding and continued. "Seeing as that option is now exhausted we can only focus on the other, and I might offer a third."

"What third option are you talking about?" The boar still mad with the tiger talking to him like he was an unruly teenager gave him a look of pure loathing. "You seemed to be quite happy to shoot our suggestions down as if we were idiots, but suddenly you come out with an option yourself when we all but been forced to accept that it's employment or bankruptcy if we wish to succeed."

Jacques was quite intrigued as well. Although he was still annoyed that the board threw away the plans he had put forth he hadn't expected to be learning so much about the board's plans for the coming future. Of course, as the director, he knew the research that was going on right now and the ones lined up to start next, but it seemed the board had more lucrative plans going even further down the line. For those to be successful though it appeared that miss Badger had to be, if not employed, to be not a part of the research community.

"As of this moment, the only contract going on between Miss Badger and the ZPD is the body armor project. It would take the completion of that before Bogo could offer her more work so if we manage to sabotage her efforts without anyone noticing she will be removed from the project and without the ZPD paychecks the FDS would soon be hurting."

The goat leaned over. "Sabotage sounds lovely and would make bankrupting FDS so much easier to accomplish, but how do you suggest actually to mess up the demonstration?"

Softly chuckling the tiger sat back again. "You let me deal with that just make sure to scoop up Miss Badger's employment contract when it becomes available."


Across the city, Finnick and Joe had arrived at the gardening center and were currently looking for an employee to direct them to the loading dock to pick up their shipment. As they walked into the center, they noticed the zen like music playing as well as the birds that seemed to be free to fly in and out of the building at their volition with holes made in the wall allowing for just such thing.

The skunk had to admit that the music and birds chirping had a healing and soothing effect on his poor frayed nerves and he finally allowed himself to relax and enjoy the ambiance.

Finnick had found one of the employees and identifying himself had asked that the employee show him to the shipment that needed delivering.

The elephant smiled down at the two smaller mammals and gestured for them to follow him. Following they got to the back area were several warehouse employees were busy collecting and preparing various wares to be packed and made ready for shipping. As they reached the fore mammal he frowned at the request and called out to an employee further down one of the aisles. "Hey, Wilbur have you collected the shipment for FDS to deliver yet?"

The giant moose smiled down to his smaller counterpart. "No George I was going to, but then Jim and Ashkey needed help with the Duskkeeper order."

The small moose groaned a little. "Well did you guys finish that one yet?"

"Yep George the shipment just got picked up by the client. He seemed pleased as well."

"That's great Wilbur, but now I've got the problem that FDS is here and the shipment isn't ready. How much do you need to pick yet before they can collect."

"Just one more bag of manure. Wait one moment I'll get it right away." With that, the moose ran towards the back of the warehouse. The smaller moose looked over the docket looking were the rest of the shipment was supposed to be assembled. "Okay gents follow me, and I'll show you the dock you can drive to to load."

Joe and Finnick followed the mammal. The small moose took a sniff and then another. "Sorry gents, but may I ask if that smell is coming from you? I wouldn't say anything, but if the smell isn't from you, maybe one of our batches of manure has gone off."

The skunk wondered how in blazed synthetic crap could go off, but decided against wording his confusion. He didn't need to know really, and he just wanted to get this last job done so he could grab a beer and a much-needed shower. "You would be correct that that smell is coming from us."

Just as the smaller moose was about to comment, his larger counterpart came running back. Finnick saw that the bag had loosened considerably and stepped aside quickly, but he was too late to alert his coworker. As the moose came to a sudden stop, he fumbled the bag, and the opening suddenly ripped open by force letting the manure out.

As the skunk looked up and saw the fertilizer come down on him, he could just think one thing. 'Oh, shi...' The fennec fox looked on in shock as the manure covered his employee from head to toe and the three mammals quickly moved to dig him out. As they freed his head, there was quite a frown on the skunk's face and spitting out some manure his words sounded weary. "I've turned pink, ended up getting crapped on by birds and am now covered in poop. Can I go home now?"

Finnick looked at the sad pink head sticking out of the giant pile of poo while in the background zen music played and bird song still sounded. He had to wonder if the skunk was just unlucky or had done something to upset the celestials.