Nick pushed the wheelchair down the hallway following Chief Bogo and Wolfard. They turned down a short side hallway that ended at a metal door. The chief removed an ID card and held it against the reader unlocking the door. As Bogo and Wolfard entered the surveillance room, Nick stopped outside and looked back down the hallway, seeing the security camera slowly panning and frowned. He watched the camera pan several times before Judy asked, "What's wrong?"

"I'm trying to figure out why that is a panning camera. If it's supposed to be monitoring this door, it should be a fixed camera."

"Does it matter?"

He shrugged, "Maybe."

On entering Judy noticed the room was small, with the four of them in the room there wasn't a lot of room to move around. Looking around there wasn't much to see, the wall across from the door had several rows of LCD monitors each of which was displaying a different camera feed. The left-hand wall had a simple desk against it which held a computer monitor, keyboard, and a small control panel. The right-hand wall had a storage cabinet and several racks of electronic equipment against it.

Bogo was quick to asked, "Any idea how long this will take?"

Nick shrugged, "It's hard to say, at least several hours."

"Well, I have things to do. Wolfard can help you with anything you need."


Judy spent the next half hour talking to Wolfard and getting caught up with what had been happening around the station during the last several weeks. They both watched as Nick examined all of the equipment in the room.

Eventually, Nick turned back to them.

"Well?" prompted Judy.

"Nothing. None of the equipment has been tampered with, as far as I can tell. All of the manufacturer and security seals are still intact. Also, there isn't any extra equipment that shouldn't be here."

"So what's next?"

"I need to check the cameras. Carrots, can you get my maintenance outfit out of the bag."

"Sure."

Wolfard watched as the fox removed his gun and placed the contents of his pockets onto the desk and then started to remove his clothes. Soon he was down to his vest, boxers, and a leg holster.

Nick looked down at Judy, who was again sitting in the wheelchair with the new outfit in her lap. He took the offered pants from her.

As Nick bent over and started to pull on the pants, he felt a light tug on his boxers. After he had pulled his pants up, he reached back and removed the item that had been tucked into the boxers. He looked at the dollar in his paw and chuckled, "Behave yourself bunny, what would your mother say?"

Judy laughed, "Knowing my mom. She would probably scold me for not inviting her to the show." She stood up and helped him put the shirt on over the vest.

Nick couldn't help himself and leaned in as she buttoned up his shirt, pulling her scent in, "God you smell good."

"Now which one of us needs to behave himself? There will be time for that when we get home." as she finished buttoning his shirt.

"Carrots, do you still have that ID card?"

Judy reached into the wheelchair's side pocket and handed him the card. "You know that is not going to work, don't you?"

He clipped the card to his pocket, making sure it was facing backwards. "Sure it will, nobody checks identity cards. They just look to see that there's one present. Let me have a little of your water."

She handed him the bottle. He splashed some on his paw, then ran it through his neck and head fur spiking it and making it look unkempt.

"Well, do I look scruffy enough for a maintenance mammal?"

Judy ran her paws through his fur ruffling it up in a couple of places. "Good enough. What do you need?"

"Just the couple rolls of painter's tape and the marker."

Judy located them in one of the bags and handed them to him. She watched as he pulled his phone out and placed an earbud in his ear. She did the same.

"Okay, I will be back in a while. Call me if you need me."

Wolfard got up, "I'll go with you."

"No, you stay here. I'm trying to be inconspicuous and having a ZPD officer following me around is the opposite of that. If you want to keep an eye on me, then you're in the perfect room to do it from."

Wolfard settled back into the chair and watched as Nick left the room.

Judy glanced at the wolf. Seeing that his attention was fixed on Nick's leaving the room, she pressed the call button on her phone before dropping it back into the wheelchair's side pocket. Judy straightened out the blanket over her legs before reaching into the pocket and removed her gun. She gently gripped it in her paw under the blanket. She heard Nick's voice answering in the earbud.

"Are you set?"

She cleared her throat.

"That's my girl."

She didn't like it, but until this case was over, there was only one mammal in the building she knew she could trust.


Judy and Wolfard watched as Nick moved around the building, placing numbered pieces of tape at various heights, apparently in random locations on the walls.

"Judy, do you have any idea what he's doing?"

"Not a clue."

Judy grinned as she saw officer Delgato walking down the hallway towards Nick.

"So want to bet another ten on if Delgato's going to catch Nick?"

Wolfard growled out in disgust, "No. I already owe you fifty bucks, and that's my limit." He shook his head as the fox stopped what he was doing and then casually walked up to the lion and started talking to him. They chatted for a few minutes, then the lion laughed and clapped the fox on his back before continuing down the corridor. The fox glanced up at the camera and winked before turning back and continuing with whatever he was doing. "That is just so wrong."

Judy couldn't help laughing. As she watched Nick work with his back to the camera, she heard him whisper in her ear. "When this is over I think we need to talk about that rule where I'm not allowed to hustle any ZPD officers because I'm sensing a double standard here."

After a while, Wolfard asked, "So how long have you two been a couple."

She looked at him innocently, "I have no idea what you're talking about."

"Don't give me that Judy. Nick's scent and yours are completely intermingled, and that doesn't happen just with casual contact. On top of that, when the two of you were flirting, there were so many pheromones and other scents coming off of you both I could barely breathe in here. I was debating finding a hose to dose you two."

Judy smiled and looked at Nick on the monitor before replying, "Not long."

"If you don't mind me asking, how did that happen? I mean I never heard of a predator/prey couple before, let alone a fox and a bunny."

Judy kept watching Nick on the monitor and shook her head with a smile on her lips. "I have no idea. Circumstances just pushed us together, and now I don't want to consider us not being together."

"Are you two trying to hide your relationship? I understand if you are. I mean a lot of mammals probably won't approve if they find out."

Judy shook her head, "We don't care who finds out or if anyone approves of our relationship. We're not breaking any laws and as long as we have each other, why would it matter?"

"What do your families think about it?"

She shrugged, "I'm not sure, we haven't gotten that far yet. If they don't approve then, they will just have to get over it. It's our lives, not theirs."

She looked at Wolfard who was staring at the floor and smiled, "Okay, so who is she?"

He glanced at her looking guilty. He sagged in the chair, then answered "Becky, from Mammal Resources. I think she likes me. We often have lunch together in the break room. She's a lynx, and I know my family wouldn't approve. I doubt her family would accept it either. There aren't that many canine and feline couples. Since our species are so different, it would be difficult to make it work."

Judy laughed, "That I can understand. Nick and I have been so busy that we haven't had the time to learn much about each others species or their customs. It sometimes feels like we are walking through a minefield afraid that one misstep is going to ruin everything."

"So how do you deal with it?"

"We just keep stumbling along hoping that if one of us messes up, the other will explain what they did wrong and forgive them for it. Hopefully, as we spend time together we will be able to learn enough about each other's species that we won't keep running into as many obstacles."

"Wolford, if you like her then ask her out. The worst that can happen is she says no. If she says yes, then take her out and have some fun. At least try to see if there is something there. If you don't, you will be wondering about what might have been for the rest of your life."

She glanced at the monitor a saw that Nick must have finished whatever he had been doing since he was heading back to the surveillance room.


God this sucks. Judy was so bored she just wanted to scream. Her legs were twitching with unreleased energy. She was a bunny. She needed to be moving or doing something. She had no idea what Nick was looking for, but he had been switching back and forth between camera feeds for over two hours. She hated to admit it, but she had given up looking after only 10 minutes. Wolfard had lasted for 20 minutes before he had made some lame excuse about needing to review some documents and had left.

She glanced at the monitor again seeing the view of the hallway by the building's rear exit as the security camera panned back and forth. There was nothing to see. Most of the cameras were stationary, and Nick would just stare for minutes out of a single camera at empty hallways or rooms. He had a clipboard in his lap, and he had drawn a crude map of each floor and was continuously scrawling numbers and various symbols along with an occasional note on it. None of which made any sense to her. The frustrating part was that every time she would try to ask a question about what he was doing, he would just squeeze her paw not saying a word while never taking his eyes from the monitor.

Judy heard the beeping sound of an access card being read at the door's reader followed by the audible click of the door's lock. She was shocked as Nick instantly pulled his gun and aimed it at the door. Judy could see that the pistol's safety was off. The door opened, and she saw it was Chief Bogo coming to check on their progress. She frowned as Nick didn't lower the gun.

She squeezed his paw, "Nick?"

Nick's voice was cold, "Chief how many personnel have access to this room?"

Bogo merely raised an eyebrow at the gun aimed at his chest. "Nick you are seriously trying my patience. I'm about ready to toss your ass out of this building if you don't get control of yourself."

Nick didn't blink, and the gun didn't budge. "How many?"

"Fine, I will play along with your paranoia. Five, including myself. Why?"

"Because what was done to the surveillance system, couldn't have been done without someone sitting in this chair. So at least one of those five mammals is working with Bellwether."

"Well, it isn't me. If it were, I would have just kicked you both out of the building already. So I would appreciate it if you would stop aiming that at me. I would rather not be shot by accident."

Judy felt Nick's paw move against hers. She knew what he was expecting from her, and she was not going to take any chances with their lives. Judy shifted the gun in her lap to cover Bogo and released its safety. She then returned the touch on his paw.

Nick smiled reassuringly, "Of course Chief," as he lowered the gun, releasing its hammer, and re-engaging the safety. He leaned forward and casually placed it on the desk out of his immediate reach then turned back to examining the monitor.

Bogo frowned, from the way Nick had been behaving since entering the building he had been sure the most he was going to do was lower his weapon. He knew he wouldn't have set his pistol down if there was any chance that he was in a room with one of the traitors. Then Bogo noticed Judy's paw under the blanket and immediately knew what was going on. That clever bastard, Nick was setting himself up as bait, expecting Judy to act if he was the traitor and tried to make a move against them.

Bogo tried to ignore the gun that was covering him even though he still felt a chill go down his spine at the thought, "So what have you found?"

"Well someone has messed with your system. Either that or the company that installed it was completely incompetent. It's useless if someone knows how the cameras are setup."

"Everything looks good from here."

"It looks correct, but it's not. Hmm... Instead of wasting a bunch of time trying to explain what's wrong, I think a quick demonstration will make it clear."

He got out of the chair and turned it, so it was facing the wall of monitors. "Chief please take a seat." As Bogo sat, he noticed that when Nick turned and repositioned Judy's wheelchair to face the wall he left it behind his chair giving her the perfect position to cover him.

"Carrots, I assume your ID card allows for access in and out of all of this building's entrances and exit doors?"

"It does."

"Okay, I'm going to need to borrow it for a little while." She pulled it out and handed it to him. Bogo clenched his hoof annoyed that she had just given it to someone that wasn't authorized to use it, though he didn't openly raise any objections since solving this issue was more important.

"Okay, watch the monitors. I should be back in around 5 minutes."

They watched his progress on the monitors as he made his way down to the main lobby. He momentarily paused as he passed by the main desk, then proceeded to exit the building.

Bogo's eyes narrowed as he watched Nick pass by the main desk. "Is it just me or did he take something from the desk on his way out?"

"I'm not sure. The cameras are at a wrong angle to tell for sure. We could roll back the footage, but I don't want to waste time. I want to see him when he reenters the building."

They watched the bank of monitors for any sign of the fox, but saw nothing.

After ten minutes, Bogo sighed, "Please tell me we didn't just sit here and watch that fox walk out of here with a security card and the plans for our surveillance system."

"He will be back." She frowned, "Dammit Nick where are you?" She wanted to ask Nick where he was but didn't want to reveal to Bogo that they were actually in constant communications with each other. Her thoughts were interrupted by a knock on the door.

Judy looked at the monitor for the camera located in the hallway outside the security door. After several seconds the camera had rotated enough to reveal Nick's form at the door. She watched as Bogo got up and opened the door for the fox.

As Nick entered the room, Judy commented, "It's about time, what took you so long?"

"You looked hungry, so I stopped for donuts." He removed a donut from the box before handing her the half full box.

"Nick, I don't want a donut. I want to know how you got all the way here without us seeing you."

"Whoever did this replaced several cameras with panning cameras and shifted several key fixed cameras just enough to create a series of overlapping blind spots. If you know where they are, you can enter unseen through the rear entrance and make your way to this room. Once here they could either turn off the video feeds they didn't want to be recorded, though more likely they just patched in different video sources with a still video image."

Bogo asked, "So what would that require?"

"Not much. I've done it…," Nick paused and coughed, "I mean I could do it in a matter of minutes with a couple of cell phones." Nick smiled as he glanced at Judy seeing she had already unconsciously removed a donut from the box and began to eat it.

"So we are going to need to bring in a security company to fix this after all."

"Not really, I can fix the cameras."

"And just how do you plan on doing that without every mammal in the building knowing what you're doing?"

"Trust me. That shouldn't be a problem as long as you have a ladder around here. I just need to check out your maintenance closet. It should have everything I need."

Judy spoke up, "No the tricky part is that we will need to revoke the security access to this room for everyone but you, without whoever is involved knowing about it."

Bogo frowned, "That means we are going to have to get Debra Grazer involved. She is the head of the IT department, and they handle the building's security access. I have known her for over ten years, and while I doubt she would be involved in this, she is a gazelle. She is also one of the five mammals that have access to this room."

Nick asked, "Would you be able to tell if she has done it?"

"Yes, while I can't modify a mammal's access, I can view their rights and see what they have accessed."

Bogo sighed, "It's a risk, but I think we have to take it. Once Nick fixes the cameras, we can't risk someone coming in here and deactivating or destroying the equipment. Besides, if she is one of the moles we will know soon enough if she doesn't revoke the access."

Nick got up and went to the door, "Well, I have work to do. Where is the building's maintenance closet located?"


Bogo watched through the monitor as Nick struggled to drag the large ladder down the hallway. As Officer Pennington walked by, Nick stopped and talked to the elephant for several minutes. Bogo shook his head as he watched Francine pick up the ladder and start carrying it down the hallway. The fox turned to the camera and flashed a grin before turning and following after the elephant dragging a box of fluorescent bulbs behind him.

"Judy, where the heck did you find this guy?"

Judy didn't want to get into how the two of them had met, so she fell back on the safe answer, "It was in my report. When I started the investigation, he was a key witness. Nick had been the last mammal to see Emmett Otterton before he disappeared."

Bogo was silent for a while before saying, "Judy, I need to know some things about Nick if he is going to work for the ZPD. I need to know why he is so hostile towards authority. I really can't see him working for the ZPD with his current attitude."

Judy couldn't meet Bogo's eyes, "I'm not sure if I should be the one to answer that. I betrayed Nick's trust once. I'm not going to do that again."

She heard Nick whisper in her ear, "Go ahead and tell him."

She sighed, then answered, "Nick doesn't have an issue with authority." as she looked at Chief Bogo.

Bogo's eyes widened a little as the realization hit, "So his issue with me?"

Judy looked away and nodded.

"Why?"

"I don't know all of it, but from what he's told me, he has had a pretty rough life. For whatever reason, he believes in defending the little guy, though I'm not sure he is even aware of it. I'm pretty sure that's why he came to my defense when you tried to take my badge in the rain forest district."

Judy looked past Bogo to the monitor. She saw Nick checking to making sure there was no one around before sliding the ladder from under the lights in the center of the hallway to underneath the camera.

"From his point of view, he thinks you have an issue with small mammals, and because of that he doesn't trust or respect you."

She looked at the Chief waiting for a response, but when one never came, she continued, "He's convinced that due of the time limit you imposed, the lack of resources, and then asking for my badge before the time had expired, that you set me up to fail in the missing mammal case. He's sure you did it just because I'm a small bunny. Then when he tried to defend me in the rainforest, you told him you wouldn't trust the word of a fox." She glanced away again, "If you have no respect for him or his species then he sees no reason to trust or respect you."

"And what do you think?"

"I want to trust you. After all, you did support me after the missing mammal case, but... I don't know."

Bogo sighed, "Judy I want to deny it, but Nick is correct about a lot of it. I was a strong opponent to the mammal inclusion initiative. It's just that I couldn't see any way one could be an effective police officer. I was afraid that if I put you out in the field, one of two things would happen: Either you would be killed, or one of my other officers would be killed when they were relying on you, and you couldn't adequately support them. I had planned on having you work as a meter maid forever when you were to be assigned, or until you gave up and quit."

"When you forced your way into the missing mammals case, I saw it as an opportunity to get rid of you. I wanted you to fail. To help ensure that you did, I made sure you didn't have any of the resources you would need to succeed. I was planning on using you leaving the force as an excuse to prevent more small mammals from being able to join it. At the time, I was sure I was doing the right thing."

"I regret what I said to Nick in the rainforest district, and I understand why he feels the way he does. I have no problem with foxes. At the time I was just saying what I needed to get you to surrender your badge. It wouldn't have mattered what species your witness was. I would have found an excuse to dismiss what they had to say no matter what."

"All I can say is that I'm sorry Judy. I was wrong and hope that I can earn back your trust in the future. You have proven to me that a small mammal can be just as capable of an officer as any large one. If Nick ends up being half the cop you are, I will be proud to have him on the force. If either you or Nick don't think you can work with me after Nick graduates, then I will allow you both to transfer to the precinct of your choice."

She looked at the monitor and saw Nick's body was blocking the camera as he adjusted it. She heard him whisper in her ear, "Don't bother asking, I already know what you want. All I can promise for now is that I will consider it."

Bogo got up out of the chair, "Well before it gets too late, I need to call Debra and get the access revoked for this room. I will leave you two to continue on alone for a while."

He smiled at Judy, "It will give your paw a break from constantly having that gun under the blanket trained on me." He watched as Judy blushed though he noticed her paw never wavered. He stopped at the door, then turned back to the monitor showing Nick already climbing down the ladder. "And Nick, since I'm sure you have been listening to everything we have been saying. I also want to apologize to you for what I said to you in the rain forest district. I am sorry. I shouldn't have said what I did and what I said to Judy about earning back her trust goes for you as well," as he watched, Nick stopped at the bottom of the ladder and looked up into the camera. He gave a small nod before starting to fold up the ladder.