The Cat With Ninety-Nine Problems
"Oh, for th'love o' top cat…"
This was most certainly not what he wanted or needed to see right now, but here it was, inescapably.
Given his earlier internal explosion, Sam was much more inclined than usual to forgo professionalism for the sake of practicality; in this case, dropping down on all fours to rush out Skippy's open gate and down the road to Officer Gromark's car. Years of subsisting on microwave meals and takeouts had certainly left him in worse shape than a feline ideally should be, but his biology won out long enough for him to dash to the car. Once he arrived, he barely even paid enough attention to stop and catch his breath as he gazed upon the work of morbid art that had been made of Gromark's car.
The formerly clean silver vehicle had words painted on every side in black spray paint. It had clearly been done in a hurry, since the lettering had dripped down the sides of the car for a good distance before drying up.
Sam reassumed a bipedal stance so he could saunter around the vehicle, reading the vandals' handiwork.
'WAKE UP SMELL THE CATNIP' was the first thing he saw, sprayed across the entire right side of the vehicle. Sam also noticed a large dent in the driver's door.
Just ahead of it, above the front wheel, 'UNCLE TOMCAT' was written.
Sauntering over to the very front, he had to lift himself up the grill to get a clear view of the bonnet.
'BELLWETHER MUST DIE' was what greeted him, accompanied by a crudely-drawn image of his client getting shot in the head, complete with bits of blood and gore spraying out.
It might have been a very slapped-together and unrealistic interpretation, but the sight begrudgingly made Sam drop down from the grill and step back in alarm.
Warily, he made his way to the side of the car facing the curb.
'SHOW US YOUR WOOL, FLUFF-LOVER' was written above the wheel.
On the door, 'THIS CAR BELONGS TO THE SHEEPINATI' was scrawled, along with an image of the infamous conspiracy pyramid with a sheep's skull in the middle.
'BURN IN HELL TRAITOR' awaited him not much further down, which may very well have completely decimated any mammal who wasn't used to receiving such accusations on a regular basis. Nevertheless, he found himself alarmingly stepping back again for entirely different reasons. He had a suspicion as to who was behind this…
…And his suspicions were confirmed the moment he came full circle and inspected the car's trunk lid.
'CRYPSIS SEES'
'CRYPSIS KNOWS'
'WE ARE CRYPSIS'
The three phrases were arranged in a triangle, with Crypsis' 'C' emblem sprayed prominently between them over the car's license plate… or rather, where the license plate would been, had it not disappeared. Thinking back a bit, Sam didn't recall seeing a plate on the front of the car, either.
Sam stepped back and sat down on the curb, his brow furrowed. He began to pinch himself on the nose and every part of his body raised in attention again. It seemed this sight had a strange effect on the angered cat. It helped to bring him back down to earth, but not in a way he would have wanted.
On any other occasion, he would have simply rolled as his eyes at such a display from Crypsis… except Crypsis obviously knew exactly where he was going to be, and they were apparently capable of striking his car out in broad daylight in the middle of a relatively upmarket suburban neighbourhood on the opposite side of the city from where he lived. He had clearly underestimated them and their drive… they had never done anything like this before. He'd readily admit he was wrong when he had to, but that didn't mean he had to like it.
That lead him right onto another pressing concern that had somehow crossed his mind… where was Officer Shaun Gromark?
His answer came very soon; in fact, his answer had been given to him multiple times while he was inspecting the car.
His ears perked off to the side as he heard a loud banging noise from the trunk. Wasting no time, he pushed himself to his feet and
"OFFICAH GROMARK, YOU IN THERE?!" Sam yelled out – only noticing after the fact that his angered accent hadn't quite disappeared yet – in an attempt to confirm his suspicion, placing his paws and ear against the trunk. Unfortunately, the response he got was not a voice, just more bangs that made the trunk vibrate and made Sam stagger back with a minor earache.
Recovering with a shake of the head, Sam stepped forward again and wasted no time in lifting the trunk open, which had strangely been left unlocked.
"MMMPPHHH! MMMNNMMPPHH!" was the noise that greeted him once the trunk had opened.
The noise in question came from Officer Gromark, bound by his arms and legs with layered silver sticky tape, writhing about the trunk like a beached fish. Sam couldn't see his face, for he was wearing a paper bag with the same happy photograph of his client taped to it, and there was a sheet of paper also taped to his chest.
Sam didn't spare a moment to look at the piece of paper; instead, he almost immediately ripped the paper bag off the ram's head, revealing yet more tape covering his mouth and his eyes wide open with anguish.
Sam reached straight for the block on Gromark's mouth, taking hold and tearing it straight off with audible abrasion.
The sheep began to hack and cough. "Gah! Goddamn, that hurt! I couldn't freakin' breathe in there!" he spat out, stopping afterwards to catch his breath. Squirming about some more, he tried to nod towards his hindquarters.
"Sam, in my pocket, there's, uh… one o' those multi-tool things that has a knife in it."
Sam attempted for a brief second to remember what one of those was actually called, but blinked and shook his head once he realised that, in the grand scheme of affairs, it didn't really matter. Thus, instead of thinking, he reached inside Shaun's pocket, in which he could see the tool of which he spoke from the bulge it left on his trousers. Pulling it out, he didn't wait for Shaun to motion his head again before he flicked out the knife component of the tool and began to slice at the sticky tape binding Shaun's hind-hooves.
"Gromark, what the hell happened?!" Sam asked with barely enough breath to spare.
"Well…"
As it turned out, attempting to sing along to the radio and complete one of the Zootopia Times' crosswords was a particularly taxing task for Shaun Gromark. Thus, he had restricted himself to simply mumbling along the chorus as he sat there waiting in the car, his eyes squinting hard at that dastardly last row he couldn't figure out.
15 across: 'adjective: indicative of a system of government characterised by right-wing militarist authoritarianism and nationalism. Can be applied to people and practices.' Seven letters: F _ _ _ I _ T.
Shaun began to compulsively click the end of his pen as he cycled through every letter in the alphabet, desperately trying to figure it out. Of course, what he refused to admit to himself was that his clicking of the pen was distracting him, as was the rock song on the radio.
"I'm a wolf in sheep's clothing… I'm an ass in a lion skin… I'm a fool with a shellsuit that looks like a pangolin…" he mumbled along to the words. "Don't tell me it'll never happen… that this battle I can't win… when I'm with my pack, know you'll see a toothy grin."
The ram shook his head, bashing himself against the forehead with his free hoof. This was not good at all. How the hell was he ever going to make the SWAT team if he couldn't even think on a newspaper puzzle and listen to music at the same time? That thinking could be having to defuse a bomb, and the listening could be listening to a terrorist sneaking up on him, ready to slit his throat while he was occupied. Which was it going to be? The crossword bomb, or the rock song terrorist? Decisions, decisions…
However, his thinking was cut short when he was jumped by a sudden 'bonk' sound against the driver's door. "Huh?!" he said, his ears and body shooting up with alarm.
Finally, he thought. He was in his element. This may have been a peaceful-looking up-market neighbourhood, but so was the Meadowlands. Crime strikes everywhere, even in copy-pasted suburbia. Nobody would think to look there… nobody except Shaun Gromark, suburban saviour.
Shaun grabbed his tranq dart-gun from the glovebox, kicked the driver's door open and swung himself outside.
"Alright, who threw that freakin' stone or whatevah?!" he called out.
He looked around. This was a little unusual, he had to admit. It was seven in the evening, to be sure, but the neighbourhood seemed completely deserted. Not even a single car was approaching. It was just him, wandering out into the middle of the road, the Outback sun beating down on him. It made him ever-so-slightly delirious at times... to the point that he didn't know where to look when he heard some skittering to… some side of him.
Both his ears perked up and he began to aim his dart gun over at the car. He scanned along the side.
"ZPD!" he yelled out to no-one in particular. "Come out with y'paws up, punk! Or claws or hooves or whatevah! I got a dart gun an' I know how ta use it!"
More skittering off to the road. He turned around and stepped back, accidentally walking backwards into the car.
Surely this couldn't be true, he thought. Someone was playing tricks on him. He was out in broad daylight in a residential area. He wasn't in the woods. He wasn't even high on locoweed, not since he'd stopped toking while on-duty. Yet… this was still happening.
Shaun only just noticed his aim was off. Because he was trembling. He took a deep breath. This is what he's been trained for, he reminded himself. There's always something going on, even in the most unexpected places. Crimes strikes everywhere, and that's why he was here…
But then he heard a noise. This was one was different. This one spoke to him in a very primal way.
"Baaaaaaaa!"
His aim lowered and the rest of him shot up with attention once more. He swivelled around on his hooves. The bleating was coming from one of the houses, just beyond the pavement the car was parked on. And it kept going. It wouldn't stop.
Shaun tried to stop and remember what he was doing; he was looking for some mammal that had thrown a rock at his car, or something… but now a fellow sheep was in danger? Or it could have been a trap… but this was precisely what bleating was for. It wasn't like checking back would… or would it… but he didn't want to conform to the stereotype… but then again…
Stupid… sheep… brain…
"Baaaaaaaaaaaaaaa! Baaaaaaaaaaaa!" Shaun bleated back as loud as he could, with all his focus and attention.
It was then that he felt that slight prick in the back of his neck.
He couldn't even reach to feel for it before he felt his senses going numb. He could only barely hear his dart gun clattering against the ground as it fell out his hooves, he could only barely feel the ground as he collapsed against it, and he could only barely see a small, masked mammal dressed all in black as the light around him got dimmer and dimmer.
"…An' the next thing I know, I woke up blind an' gagged in the goddamn trunk! It was real freakin' nice of 'em to leave it unlocked, though! Too bad everyone in this god-forsaken neighbourhood apparently's got their hooves stuck up their ass all day! I am nevah comin' back 'ere, I can tell y'that much! Screw drop bear attacks, this is what Outback Island's really about! Outback Island, come for the novelty mugs, stay for gettin' yer ass mugged! By a muggah!"
By that point, Sam had already freed Officer Gromark's hind-hooves; the ram, sitting on the edge of the trunk, had now turned around while ranting so Sam could cut the tape binding his fore-hooves. The sawing motion was quite taxing, and both the heat and the frustration of having to deal with Skippy's prejudiced crap and knowing that Crypsis was apparently getting serious certainly didn't help. By the time Sam had finished cutting through the tape, his grip on the multi-tool-knife thing – that he still couldn't remember the name of – had loosened enough through exhaustion for it to simply drop out of his paw. He stopped to keel over and catch his breath, resting his paws on his knees.
"Why didn't… ya text me like… I said?!" Sam asked between inhalations.
"I was gonna do that before I got tranquilised or whatevah!" Shaun spluttered out some more, ripping Crypsis' piece of paper off his chest and peeling some bits of tape residue from his now-free wrists. "Cut me some slack, whiskahs! I weren't expectin' tah…"
Gromark's speech trailed off into silence as he got down from his perch and walked around the side of the car, his eyes widening with horror at the sight before him.
"…Ohhh, crap… the car. Bogo's gonna have my unshorn ass for this…"
As Shaun began to slowly wander around the vehicle, Sam sat himself down on the edge of the trunk's interior, burying his face in his paws to absorb the grand parade of inconveniences that had befallen him. It was only when he did this that his gaze was pushed to the side enough to notice the sheet of paper he had ripped off Shaun's shirt earlier.
Sighing, Sam picked up the paper and began to read. It was a simple white sheet with plain black text all in the same size and formatting, obviously slapped together and printed off as quickly as possible.
'dear mr burmowitz
for your defence of public enemy number one (dawn bellwether) you have been declared public enemy number two
relent and repent or prepare to be punished
crypsis does not make threats crypsis makes promises
crypsis sees everything
crypsis knows everything
we are the silent revolutionaries
we are crypsis
we have spoken'
Even in this situation, Sam couldn't help but chuckle to himself. But the way he once again slid a paw down his face reminded him that it was a hollow chuckle. Even when Crypsis apparently proved itself a credible threat, even when they knew where he was, what time he'd be there, and how to apparently clear out the whole neighbourhood well enough to tranquilise a police officer, stuff him in his own car and then vandalise said car without anyone ever seeing it, all to prove a point, they still couldn't completely dispel that theme of 'disgruntled teenagers trying far too hard to look scary'.
The sheet of paper they left behind summed up the whole thing. Cheap paper. No capitalisation or punctuation. But in spite of this obvious lack of professionalism, the apparent fact that they were serious in their goals couldn't be ignored. This was what the world had come to. Any old schmuck with a laptop, a printer and a chatroom full of fanatics could organise a scare squad. Any mammal with just a little bit of discontent against the system could, without any training or even the slightest bit of respect, do this.
Sam had already known this, in the back of his mind; he'd defended a serial killer, after all. The Longneck Killer didn't need much in the way of training to murder those five mammals and turn them into compost for his flowerbed. Didn't even need much in the way of connections or education. Just timing, a sharp implement and enough money to rent a wood-chipper.
But at least he was just one crazy, obviously an outlier. What Sam was seeing before him was the result of mob rule. Popular discontent transformed into action.
Skippy had set off a little spark in Sam's head, and this just made it grow. Sam was forced to draw his attention to the sheep cop bashing his head against the side of the car in despair to distract himself. But just like his own bashing-of-head-against-car before they set off, it would be but a temporary respite.
"Hey, wait a second!" Sam could hear Shaun calling before he opened the door and began to rummage inside the car, making it shake rather violently. "They took my polished wooden bong, too! Goddamnit, that bong was a freakin' antique!"
Due to Precinct One's comparative lack of presence in Outback Island, Shaun and Sam had no choice but to drive halfway across town in Shaun's defaced car, and even to those who didn't care much about Crypsis or Sam, the car's unusual appearance doubtlessly affected many a driver's ability to concentrate, and many a traffic jam ensued. By the time Shaun had returned to the Downtown Precinct, it was nine in the evening, the sun having just passed the horizon.
Given the choice between having to stand around outside and doing nothing until the lack of activity made him eat his own mind and going inside to listen to Officer Gromark get an earful from his boss, he chose the latter. At least that way he might learn something, he thought.
"Perhaps I didn't make myself clear enough the first time I explained this to you, Gromark, but your job was very simple!" Sam could hear a deep voice from inside the office marked 'Chief of Police', his ear angled in its direction as he stood outside.
"…Keep an eye on Sam Burmowitz, make sure he stays safe and keep him within the eyes and ears of this precinct! I can't think of any other reason why you decided to instead drive him all the way to Outback Island and just sit around in your car doing crossword puzzles while he harassed a judge and broke one of her plant pots!"
"But chief, it weren't my decision!" Sam could hear Shaun respond, despairingly. "A-and shouldn't y'be more concerned about the, y'know, the vandalism?"
"The vandalism wouldn't have even happened if you hadn't disregarded my orders! I told you, if you think the lawyer is up to something, then stop him! If you think he's going to buy drugs, stop him! If you think he's going to snoop around the mayor's office, stop him! If you think he's going to buy an ugly Ermini suit, for the love of god, stop him!"
"Yeah, I understand, chief, it's just… I-I didn't see a reason to stop 'im!"
Sam could hear the chief – Bogo, if he remembered correctly – sigh heavily. "Gromark, do you not understand what's going on here?"
"…Not really, no."
"Then listen, and listen well. Bellwether made the ZPD do bad things. Things we're not proud of. We arrested dozens of predators on minor technicalities, and that was before she brought in the 'suspicion of savagery' law. She used the ZPD as a tool to destroy the city. So I'm not going to let her squirm her way out of a well-deserved punishment at the hooves of the courts, and that's why you don't be lenient with her lawyer!" he yelled, audibly punching the desk in front of him.
"If I had my way, I'd have kept him in a cell until his trial for buying catnip – which would have definitely kept him safe from these 'assassins' – but the courts paid his bail for some ungodly reason. The moral of the story? You can't always get what you want! Whether that's wanting to see justice for all time or wanting to join the SWAT division! Pipe dreams!"
"But sir, I-"
"No buts, Gromark!" Bogo slammed another fist into the desk and stood up, projecting a rather large, horned shadow into the door's window. "You are in no position to argue! You are lucky, very lucky indeed, that the provisional council even let you transfer over here! Your performance might have been considered outstanding in Precinct Three, where actually doing your job is the exception rather than the rule, but now you're in my Precinct, and here your performance has been average at best, and that's not even mentioning you indulging your locoweed habit while on duty! Shape up and shear yourself clean, or it's time to be herded out to pasture! Do I make myself perfectly clear?!"
The shadows remained in place, in complete silence, for another twelve seconds.
"Yes, chief." Shaun finally said.
"That's better." Bogo responded, his shadow and the creaking noises making it apparent he sat back down. "Now, I'll be assigning someone else to supervise Sam tomorrow, but I still expect you to be here for the morning briefing, and I don't want to hear any excuses. Be there half an hour early. Now get out of my office."
Sam retained enough sense to pre-emptively back away from the door as he heard Shaun silently get out of his seat and make an exit. He left the office and softly closed the door behind him, pointedly averting his gaze from the cat until after the door was closed fully, and even then, he darted his eyes around and scratched the wool on the back of his neck uneasily.
"'Ey, Sam…" he said, noticeably quieter than he ever was before. "Y'gonna have tah… find a way back to Mann-Cönn yerself. I kindah live up north, so, uh… yeah. But listen, I think yer a good egg, even if the chief don't. We should 'ave a drink sometime. Or a smoke, or somethin'."
Sam exhaled sharply and clasped his paws together painfully tight. "I appreciate the offer, but I'll have to pass. Drugs are not something I want on my mind right now."
Shaun tutted, clumsily waving his forearms in front of him. "R-right, o' course." He soon began to turn around and leave, but not before giving a 'finger guns' gesture to Sam and saying "See ya." Sam could tell that the gesture was meant to lighten the mood, but the attempt was a hollow one.
Sam kept his paws clutched tight as he made his own way out the building, albeit in the opposite direction. Tonight was not a good night. If Bogo didn't seem to know about the courts paying for his bail, that could only mean he was making his own independent attempts at getting proxy revenge against his client; but Sam had only heard good things about the chief before now. World-weary perhaps, but a pragmatic bull of the law. If even he was angered enough to try and throw roadblocks at the lawyer…
Sam waved his head around, probably making him look like an escaped mental patient walking through the station's central hall. There was only one good place to release self-doubts like these, and that was in the comfort of his office.
"Hey, Sam. Robin's upstairs." Cochelle said as Sam walked into the office, hesitating as she noticed the somewhat perturbed look on his face. "…Said he needs to talk to you about something weird."
"Acknowledged," Sam said before removing a disturbed, folded-up bit of paper from his jacket pocket, sliding it across the desk to his intern. "By the way, could you order this stuff from Mao Chi Diner?"
Cochelle raised her glasses to rub at her tired eyes before picking up the bit of paper and squinting at it. While she was busy reading, Sam looked off to a pile of additional papers on the desk; on top were some political pamphlets that he recognised all too well; they had been getting these ones at least every two days since the race for mayor had begun… and it had begun far too soon after Bellwether's arrest. The provisional council had no power to pass new laws or amend existing ones.
'Re-elect Leodore Lionheart!' the pamphlet on top said, complete with the disgustingly audacious grin of Lionheart himself displayed prominently, with the tagline 'Putting the 'Utopia' back in Zutopia!'
Sam carelessly slid it onto the floor without a second thought; Lionheart had some nerve trying to run for re-election while he was still in prison for the illegal detainment of the original fourteen savage predators, let alone doing so and hiring a pamphlet designer so incompetent they couldn't even spell 'Zootopia' correctly.
There was a second pamphlet underneath that one. It had the exact same smarmy picture of Lionheart, but the tagline was different. 'Would you buy a used car from this mammal?' It said, followed shortly by 'Vote Elizabeth Otterton for Mayor.' Clever bait-and-switch, Sam thought before sliding it off the pile; onto the table, this time. Mrs. Otterton wasn't his choice, but he could respect her for her hard-line reformist stance.
"Uh…" his ears twitched in Cochelle's direction. "…Are you sure they'd be open right now?" she asked, apprehensively.
Sam's fists clenched tight for a brief moment, his teeth digging into his upper lip, but he felt the rising tide of frustration and uncertainty before it could spill out of his mouth. Cochelle was just asking an honest question. She wasn't deserving of an outburst. It was eleven o' clock at night – courtesy of public transport delays – and Cochelle was working this late by choice. Of all the mammals in the office, she was the best of them, as far as Sam was concerned.
He took a deep breath and regained his calm stance. "Cochelle," he said, flatly. "I've been ordering the same noodles from that takeout for nearly ten years. I know they'll be open at this time of night."
Cochelle seemed to lean back in preparation for a sudden burst of volume, but noticeably sighed with relief when it didn't come. "K-k!" she said, apparently going back to her sunny disposition. Sam turned away and shook his head at her eternal peppiness, even at this time of night and in his current state, but was stopped before he could begin to walk upstairs.
"Ooh, wait, there's somethin' else!"
"Hmm?"
"I remember you talking to Bellwether on the phone earlier, and you said you'd tell her a joke. Weeell, I thought of a couple for ya."
Sam turned heel to lean on the banisters. Maybe a bit of comic relief was what he needed right now.
"Shoot."
Cochelle pulled her desk chair forward, rested her head on her elbows and smiled.
"Why did the stallion cross the road?"
"I don't know."
Cochelle leaned even further forward, visibly holding laughter behind her big grin.
"Because his fly was open"
Sam scratched his chin in deep thought, cycling the joke around his head for a good six seconds. It was only when his eyes glanced crotch-wards that he finally got it.
"…Oh yeah… well." Sam returned to his standing position; he'd absorbed it and filed it away in his mind, in a locker suspended slightly above his rising tide of frustration. "We'll see how she likes that one."
"But wait, I'm not done!" Cochelle spluttered out as she turned around to rummage through one of her drawers. "I have a whole list of 'em on the-"
"Cochelle, not really in the mood right now." Sam leaned forward again, audibly slapping one paw on the banister and tapping his finger loudly. After a few seconds, he pointed directly at the somewhat spooked intern's face. "Order, please."
"Uh, um… yes, sir! Sorry, sir!" Cochelle spluttered again, wildly shaking her head.
With that affair dealt with, Sam chose to shove it to the back of his mind along with everything else, blanking out completely as he made his way upstairs to his office. He could only hope that whatever Robin had to say wouldn't be the spark that set alight the great sea of second thoughts he had in his mind.
Before he re-entered the office, he had to stop and take a deep breath. He'd need to think his response properly to dodge any potential sparks. Robin would probably just ask him about Skippy. Sam would just say it didn't go so well but he at least got some material, and then he'd say it's far too late at night to be discussing and he had work to do, and with a bit of luck Robin would agree and leave. After all, he had a family to attend to. Not like Sam. Sam could never hope to grasp Skippy's grievances, not with his alien, impersonal, bitter… no. No more delays.
Work would begin now, and self-loathing a few hours down the line. But not now.
Sam calmly walked into the office to see Robin leaning against the wall, his paws in pockets. At least he hadn't tried to put that accursed picture back up, Sam had noticed.
"Hey, Sam," he said.
"Robin," was all Sam said in acknowledgement, not even looking back at him. He simply placed slightly-battered suitcase on his desk and walked around to his seat.
"So how was Skippy?"
"I'd rather not talk about it right now." Sam said, abandoning his earlier plans in favour of an even better one; ignore the issue until Robin gave up. He removed his suit jacket by the sleeves and laid it upon his seat, exposing his shirt and suspenders underneath.
"So… not real pleasant, I guess."
Sam paused to stretch his arms back, gaining at least a temporary respite from both mental and physical heat. "…Robin, if you don't mind?"
"Ah yeah." Robin said.
Sam leant forward, resting his paws on the back of his seat, expectantly looking at Robin, who remained unmoving, clutching something in his pocket.
After a torturously long delay, Robin finally removed that 'something'. It was not something Sam wanted to see.
"I don't s'pose you can tell me what this is, can ya?" Robin asked, holding out the Feral Dream pill Sam had bought, still in its bag.
Sam could feel himself trembling ever-so-slightly, but he managed to force his eyes to stay half-shut like normal. If this was going to go down tonight, it would be with dignity. No fuss. Just cuff him and send him off to jail.
"…Nope," he replied. Of course, there'd have to be some denial. After all, Robin couldn't have known what it was. It was new and rare.
"…'Cause I found it in your drawer. I was checkin' to see if you had any spare 'nip left over from before you went to see Batty, and-"
Halfway through that sentence, Sam couldn't help twitch slightly. He jerked over to the drawer on his desk where he last remembered putting it and flung it open. As expected, empty, and the various bits of paper had been noticeably rearranged as well.
Sam clutched it tight enough to leave claw marks in the side – matching those claw marks on the front of the desk from a couple days ago – before he rather violently slammed it shut. He didn't want to start shouting like a maniac, but today was not his day, and everyone needed to be reminded of the rules, what few rules existed that weren't getting completely skewered.
"Robin, I thought I told you not to rummage through my stuff!"
Robin simply sighed and shook his head, holding the pill up even further. "Yeah, I know you did, but could ya just tell me what this is?"
Sam tutted and rested his paws against the desk, pinching his nose. "It's 'luxury medicine'. Batty swindled me into buying it."
"What, and the cops didn't find it?"
"Like I said, medicine."
"What sorta 'medicine' only comes in one solitary pill, anyway? It's gotta be some pretty strong stuff… wait a second…"
Sam could see where this was going. Robin was a drug connoisseur, after all.
"Also, I stuffed it down my underpants," Sam thoughtlessly slipped in. "That's why they didn't find it."
"…Sam, is this… Night Howler?"
Sam would have stuttered if he hadn't stopped himself from saying anything, but he still found himself shrugging like an idiot. This is what he'd been reduced to. An idiot. He wasn't even sure if he was being sarcastic when he said…
"What makes you think that?"
Robin sighed and rubbed his double-chin. "Well, it's just… I've heard a lotta rumours about mammals takin' it recreationally, and, well…"
"Not quite." Sam straightened his stance and wandered in front of his desk with his paws behind his back, officiously. Might as well get it over with.
"It's a Night Howler derivative. It's not as potent. It lets you focus your savagery, or at least, that's what Batty told me."
Robin stopped to clutch the pill baggie tighter in his fist before pushing himself off the wall, exhaling sharply as he did so.
"…Right. So, you're tellin' me you bought a Night Howler for recreational use. For goin' savage. Why, exactly?"
Sam attempted to maintain his current stance, but he couldn't stop his eyes, his ears and his tail from twitching slightly as Robin poked at his mental floodgates.
"Robin, why the hell do you even care? You're the one who's been keepin' me hopped up on catnip since Schnellshog."
"Okay, that is not true!" Robin raised his voice, loudly slapping a paw on his chest.
"Might as well be. Every time it seems like I'm gonna stay on the wagon, you always push me off!" Sam raised his own voice, removing one paw from behind his back to point at his friend's face.
"Sam, I had to!" Robin said, holding his paws out pleadingly. "You were going crazy a few days ago!"
It was at that moment that the floodgates finally broke.
"Yeah, and look how much good it did me!" Sam suddenly began to shout, throwing his paws into the air. "I go to Skippy's and what does she do?! She tells me the goddamn truth! I'm fighting a one-cat war against the entire damn city here, and for what?! I still don't even know if Dawn's got me hooked on a leash here, but that kangaroo sure as hell does! I can't do jack-squat about her, Robin! Zip! Bugger-all, as they say over there! All I can do is go to the trial and expose myself as some blind idealist defending a bigot! Just like mom! It'll be Schnellshog all over again! And what's your catnip doing, Robin?! Absolutely-goddamn-nothin'! All it does it turn me into some monster! Exactly what Dawn sees in all predators!"
"Oh, okay!" Robin threw his own paws in the air, barely keeping hold of the contentious pill. "And you think that this justifies using NIGHT HOWLERS?! What sort of backwards logic is that?! That's even worse!"
By now, Sam was unknowingly and erratically pacing around the room, waving his paws around haphazardly as he spoke.
"I know, but I've got no choice now! Because of you, Robin! Catnip's losing its edge and I need more! I'll be even more of a monster, but it's not much of a difference now, is it? I mean… just stop and think for a second here, Robin. Of all the guilty mammals I've given second chances to, just how many of them have actually used them?! I bet less than a third, and even that's being generous! I'm already a monster, Robin! Not only that, but I'm worthless! That's why it's becoming so easy for me to slide back to the old days! I mean, just listen to me now, shouting like a maniac! I was worthless back then, and I'm worthless now!"
With those words, Sam found himself circling his desk and inelegantly slumping into his seat again. He didn't even care that he sat on his tail.
Meanwhile, Robin slowly approached the front of the desk and slammed the pill on it, leaning into Sam's face.
"No. You're not."
Sam, in turn, sighed heavily, resting his face on one paw and tapping loudly with the other.
"Why do I suspect you're saying that just to make yourself feel better about being just as much of a monster, but shamelessly so?"
"I'm not! Listen to me, Sam. If you were worthless, I wouldn't have gotten you hooked on the 'nip in the first place!"
Sam jumped to his feet at that point, reminding Robin of his height advantage, his eyes wild with rage, and almost stabbing him in his rotund chest with a claw point.
"So you have been keeping me hopped up on purpose!"
"Fine, I admit it!" Robin practically bellowed, forcing Sam's arm down with a shove. "I have, and I'm sorry! I shouldn't have done it, but it's just…"
Robin proceeded to start wringing his paws together, his eyes and ears drooping. "Remember after Schnellshog, you kinda just sat around your office, silently staring at a picture of Tundratown, the one with the bridge over the frozen river? I had this nightmare that you were just sitting on the edge of that bridge, staring at the river, like you were about to… you know…"
"I had toyed with the idea." Sam said bluntly, tutting and making a scratch in the desk with a claw. "I didn't think I had any reason to exist after what I had done to that hedgehog."
"Exactly! But you're my friend, and I couldn't let you go wandering off to that bridge. I had to stop you from thinking about bad things, because lemme tell ya, every time I handed you some of my 'nip, I did so worried like hell that if I didn't, you'd go to that bridge and you'd do it for real. I'm not as old as you, Sam. I'll admit, in many ways, I never really grew up; I mean, I still play dress-up when you're not around, for Bastet's sake! And… I don't think I can handle a loss like that."
Sam's ears ever-so-slowly perked up as he opened his eyes, tracking Robin as he went silent and shuffled back in front of the desk, placing his paws to his side with regained confidence.
"Anyway, look." He started up again, doing a chop gesture to emphasise his change in tone. "What would your mom think if she saw you like this? Thinking about taking Night Howlers? Affirming anti-pred bigots and saying that you, and by extension, the Burmowitz family motto is worthless? She'd be appalled. You said you went into defence for her, right? Then prove it! I know we have a 'disagreement in philosophy', as you put it, but I don't care about that anymore. Show this city that Dawn Bellwether is worth granting a second chance to, and to hell with any roadblocks your mind throws up!"
Sam's posture seemed to droop again, almost literally deflating with a heavy sigh, and he gazed at the pill on the desk. Robin leaned over again and forcibly pushed Sam's free paw away from it, catching his undivided attention.
"I can see you're still thinking on it, but… just, whatever you do, don't take that Night Howler. Just crush it to dust and throw it in the garbage. I'm trusting you, Sam."
At that moment, a loud knock was heard at the door; the noise evidently attracted Robin's attention very much, drawing both his gaze and every other part of his body towards it; meanwhile, Sam simply stayed sitting in place, only his eyes and ears twitching in the door's direction.
"Yeah?" Sam called out.
The door opened with a loud creak, and Cochelle soon made herself visible in the doorway, clutching a white plastic bag with Pandese lettering written on it, the distinct smell of fishy noodles wafting into the office. It was just enough to put Sam's mind at ease for a moment.
"Those Mao Chi guys are lightning fast…" Cochelle declared. "Wish the Pandese buffet near Bushveld Uni was like that…"
Sam remained motionless, with the exception of his eyes, as he slowly scanned his surroundings to aid in his thought process. Cochelle took no notice and simply walked over to place his takeout food on the desk next to him.
"…Goddamn, it's nearly midnight." Robin said, checking his watch, making a quick move towards the door soon afterwards. "I really have to go, the wife's gotta be back from that rehearsal by now. See ya tomorrow."
"Robin." Sam finally spoke up, stopping Robin in his tracks. Cochelle squeezed past him as he stood, expectantly looking at his partner.
"Yeah?"
"Thanks."
Something wasn't right here…
Darkness. The room Sam could see he was in wasn't exactly visible, but it looked vaguely familiar. It certainly wasn't his office. It was like a massive, bricked-up room, and he was sitting in an elevated position. It was cold, as well… but it wasn't a normal outdoor sort of chill. Sam shivered as he sat there. He could feel the cold climbing up his spine, like he was naked. Or at least more naked than usual.
"Hmm? Where am I?" he said instinctively, to nobody in particular, scanning the room around him.
"About to get slapped with life imprisonment! Ain't that a major doozy, huh?"
Strangely, Sam's gaze seemed to travel slowly this time, but not willingly so, like he was underwater. The room even had a rather stuffy sea salt scent in the air, which prompted him to start breathing through his mouth.
Eventually, however, his gaze reached the source of the familiar voice, just across the table that he was sitting at. He could see his client sitting there, smiling a broken smile, and dressed in a rather atypical skirt suit and tie. Woollen, of course, though. That much was certain.
"Dawn?" he said, instinctively.
"Lucky guess, you clever little guy!" she practically squeaked out. "That's right, I'm Dawn. Dawn Bellwether. I'm your defence attorney."
Having said this, she removed a business card from her pocket and slid it over the table to Sam.
'BELLWETHER & RAMSES LAW FIRM' the card read, though it was quite hard to make out in the darkness.
"Just what the hell's going on here?!" Sam belted out.
"Ohhhh, muttonchops… I forgot, the file said you'd be off your nut." Dawn cautiously mumbled to herself, adjusting her spectacles. "I guess a little joggeroo's in order for ya. Let's see here…"
Suddenly, Dawn produced a sheet of paper from behind her back, as if she had conjured it into existence from thin air. Adjusting her glasses again, she straightened posture and began to read.
"Ah, here we go. You, Samuel Dee Burmowitz, have been charged with drug possession, fifteen counts of first-degree murder, and the big one… perjury!" Dawn lowered the paper and tutted, looking Sam straight in the eyes. "That's just not kosher now, is it? But don't you worry your catnip-addled little mind. I'll get you out of this niggly little… situation."
It was then that Sam's suspiciously slow-acting vision brought him downwards, and he recognised the reason for his drop in temperature. He was wearing a bright orange prison suit, and a thin one at that.
"Murder?" he spluttered as he patted his paws all over his new clothes, getting used to just how naked they made him feel.
"Oh, don't you remember? You got completely hopped up on Night Howler and ripped apart an entire jury in a bloodthirsty fit of rage!" Dawn announced grandiosely, gasping for effect. "There was a lot of screaming and all that, but to me, it looked kind of pitiful, really. I mean, it was like a little lamb throwing a temper tantrum against a world that doesn't really care about 'em. Maybe these photos I brought with me will kick that old, decrepit brain of yours back into shape, huh?"
Once again, Dawn seemed to summon a collection of photographs from the ether; old-style photographs, like the variety created by an old Pandaroid camera. The sight certainly didn't make Sam nostalgic in the same way his old computer from the office did, though they might have done if it weren't for the faces he saw. They were all very familiar faces. Some of them were quite significant to him, like Robin, Przewalski and Skippy, but then he saw faces like Charles Barrah and Gromark, both of whom he'd only met in the last week. Then there were mammals he didn't even know, just vaguely remembered seeing, like the old bat cop from Chiropterra, and the sporty rabbit from the subway train.
"You still don't remember, do ya?" Dawn began to explain as he continued looking over all the photos she had given him… though come to think of it, he wasn't entirely sure if he was picking up different photos, or if it was just the same three photos inexplicably changing images.
"You got smug, you did. You wanted to take the moral high ground in the city by being 'forgiving', but they didn't like that. They told you that you were just being used by all sorts of nasty mammals, like a puppet. To be honest, I can't really blame 'em."
Sam could feel his paws shake as the photos he was looking at began to repeat themselves… though he could have sworn their eyes had changed, like they were looking at him.
"But who cares about them, huh? You just need to take some drugs or something and all will be well." Dawn leaned back in her chair nonchalantly, circling her hooves to indicate an irrelevant series of events. "And then you gobbled up some pill, and then you went completely cray-cray, drool was all over the floor, you ripped the judge's head off, then the screaming came in with the running around waving paws in the air, blah blah blah…"
Sam vigorously shook his head, attempting to counteract the strange feeling of underwater delirium present in the room.
"What was the trial for?" he raised his voice, throwing the photo – he neither knew nor cared whose face was on it this time – onto the table.
Dawn leaned onto the table, resting her clasped hooves in front of her face, and smiled.
"Why, it was my trial, of course. Who else could have it been?"
Sam erratically shook his head again, pressing his claws against his temple in such a way that he may have been trying to burrow into his own skull; he didn't but the pain was certainly there to take his mind away from the confusion.
"So… if you were found guilty… what are you doing here?"
"Oh, you are so precious!" Dawn clapped her hooves together and began to squirm around. "I just want to cuddle you so hard that your eyeballs pop out! You seriously haven't figured it out yet?" Her voice turned sour on that last sentence, contrasting with the maintained cutesy expression. Soon enough, she dropped it entirely and began to sit with her hooves directly to her side.
"The Dawn you know, she wasn't the beginning, and she sure as hell won't be the end. This whole city is corrupt, right down to the core. Always has been. It's in our nature, after all."
Sam suddenly found himself trembling again, but he wasn't entirely sure why. He was still confused, but also filled with a sense of ominous dread, almost spontaneous in origin, like he'd just been informed that there was a virus vaguely in the room somewhere. And it seemed, to him, that this analogy wasn't far removed from the truth of the situation. Thus, he hesitated before croaking out the question…
"What are you?"
Dawn, or the nightmare creature that assumed her form, chuckled to herself before leaning back with her fore-hooves clasped, putting her hind-hooves up on the table.
"I'm just the newest face of that corruption you've been so diligently ignoring for the past twenty years. I've been here since the beginning. Dawn was just… my latest agent, shall we say. Soon enough, once she's rotting away in a cell, forgotten, someone else will come along to take her place, and it'll keep happening until the entire city eats itself alive. And when that happens, where will you be? Dead? Shot in the face by Crypsis? Overdosed on drugs from trying to keep yourself sane? Perhaps starving to death on the streets, a penniless tweaker? Or maybe you'll be locked up in a padded room somewhere in the back of beyond, rocking yourself to sleep, mumbling 'everyone deserves a second chance, eeeeveryone deserves a second chance', et cetera et cetera."
Sam found his ominous trembling transform into something… different. Something deep awakened within him. A long-dormant instinct awakening. A desire to defend himself against a threat… but it seemed like a hopeless endeavour to his rational mind, or what little remained of it at that point. He found himself grabbing the edge of the table hard enough to leave claw marks in its metallic surface, the screech sound drawing his attention to his inner confusion even more. If only he could just… get this… thing to shut up for good. If he could just silence it, everything would be good again. Maybe destroy the body to be sure...
"Now, I suppose you're wondering why I'm your defence attorney here." She kept talking in the background. "Well, that's simple. I'm defending you from yourself. How else will you realise what you're doing is a huge waste of time? You'd just suppress it with drugs or something…"
He would not be doing that. He would not be doing that. Not this time.
With blinding speed, Sam pushed back his seat and leapt over the desk, claws raised, aiming right at the nightmare sheep's jugular vein.
With a pained breath, Sam propelled himself up from the desk.
He took a moment to look around him, blinking repeatedly, breathing heavily.
He looked back down at himself. He was wearing his suit again, albeit with the sleeves rolled up and his jacket missing. He ran one of his claws down a suspender, making sure he had properly come to his senses again.
Slowing down a bit, he looked back up at his desk, one paw instinctively reaching for the controversially-named mouse for his computer, being sure to shield himself from the sudden burst of light once the screen became active again. Once he'd become adjusted to the light, he scanned his eyes down to the clock in the lower-right corner of the screen. It was 1:22 in the morning, apparently.
Sam leaned far back in his seat in relief, his paws massaging his temples. Somehow he'd managed to doze off, but how? And why was he only just having nightmares of this calibre? He was expecting them to show up a lot sooner, and he couldn't just chalk it up to the 'nip like usual. The 'nip tended to keep you awake, which complicated matters even further.
Sam turned his desk chair 180 degrees, getting himself a good view of Zootopia's brightly-lit night-time skyline just over the waterfront, looking like someone had splattered fluorescent paint all over a black backdrop, or at least it did to his currently delirious mind. It was then that it hit him.
He rolled his tongue around the inside of his mouth, getting the distinct taste of dried-up Pandese noodle sauce. Speedily, he turned back towards the desk, looking at the space beside the computer. Here he got reacquainted with the box of squid noodles, with 'Mao Chi Diner' and their logo, a stylised picture of a Pandese Wildcat, pictured on the side, and some disposable chopsticks sticking out the top. He slid the box towards him with one paw to get a look inside; half-empty, but definitely cold by now.
The scent was still lingering, though, and it was still positively delicious. But there was another reason why he then decided to abruptly take hold of the chopsticks and shovel some extra noodle into his mouth.
Slurping it up and chewing away, he very deliberately and methodically analysed its taste… nothing unusual, he noticed. The noodles were safe. Thank Bastet, he thought. He could microwave them for breakfast tomor- later that day. It was then that he noticed the can of Oka'-Kola off to its side that he had ordered with the noodles. Picking it up, he almost threw it at the ceiling, expecting it to be much heavier than it was. Indeed, it was empty. But when he took it to his nose, there was something… off about it. Something… chemical.
His eyes widened and his tail shot up. Something else had hit him at that moment. The dream he had just had. What Robin had told him to do before he fell unconscious. There would be no more drugs. The Night Howler pill, he had to get rid of it.
Carelessly allowing the can to fall out of his hand and onto the floor with a clang, he briefly rested a paw against to forehead to remember where he had put it, and within seconds, his eyes snapped to the space on the desk where it was… or should have been.
It was gone.
How? He could have sworn he hadn't touched it at all while he was eating dinner.
Perhaps he had thrown it away and forgotten? Maybe, but he doubted it.
Things got very frantic very fast within his mind. He got out of his chair and began to pace up and down the office again. He started rummaging through every draw on his desk, and when that failed, he started rummaging through Robin's desk. It took him around ten minutes of panicked, noisy searching for him to finally rest against the side of the room, catching his breath.
It was definitely gone.
Resigning himself to that fact, he slowly shambled back over to his chair and slumped into it, making the chair roll backwards towards the window. He sighed heavily. At this point, he could only hope that he had destroyed it. The alternative was that someone had come in and stolen it from him, but who? Robin, most likely. Maybe he didn't trust Sam to destroy it and snuck back in to do the job himself, just to be sure.
It was then that he did a delayed double-take at the desk. There was something else he hadn't noticed after awakening; an unopened fortune cookie.
With no motivation to do anything else at that moment, he grabbed at the cookie and cracked it open, reading the cheap piece of paper contained within.
'The wise mammal goes with the flow, the fool attempts to halt it', it said.
Sam tossed the paper towards his deskside trash can.
"What a load of shit", he tiredly mumbled before crunching away at the two cookie halves.
Author's Note: Well, it took me over a month, but ja ja, there it is. I think it took me this long because I wasn't mentally prepared for it being this long; it was supposed to be an 'intermission' chapter, of sorts, but when you have this many 'scenes' going on at once... well, let's just say it got out of hand.
I will say that there may be some more time before I update this story next; I'm taking a short break to work on another fic I have planned until I can get back into the rhythm with this one, so to speak. It's a miniseries, which I peg at seven chapters long; eight, at most. It's Zootopia, of course, and takes place in the same continuity as this story but is otherwise unrelated. It's going to be a crime-comedy of sorts (think of Guy Ritchie's gangster films like Lock, Stock And Two Smoking Barrels), with a heavy Grand Theft Auto influence (minus the swearing, for the most part), following Nick and Finnick before the events of the movie. Just in case any of you aren't into that sort of thing, so you can yell at me with unbridled rage. :V
As usual, special shout-outs to Malcovich for helping me with the dream sequence towards the end (I originally had something completely different written up, but chose to scrap what I had and go for something a bit less bizarre at his suggestion), Mind Jack for his joke being selected (finally; the rest of the suggestions were good too, though, so thanks for those), Berserker for the name 'Mao Chi Diner' and Red Star for subconsciously giving me the idea to have Bogo making independent revenge plans.
