Hello, my fellow Zootopians!

The tragic misfortune magnet is back! (Thanks again, J Shute Norway, for that one! I was laughing for hours! Maybe I should turn this into my new pen name! NOT!)

This chapter is quite short, but in terms of story development, it is quite crucial, for it sets several things in motion which will become very important later. As such, there's not much I have to say at the moment, so let's cut to the chase, shall we?

As for the stats, they've increased to more than 31,300 views, 249 reviews, and favorites and alerts remained at 159 and 246 respectively.

So nice that people haven't forgotten about me in the meantime. I sincerely hope I won't leave you hanging dry for that long a time again, but knowing me, that might be a bit much to ask for ...

GhostWolf88 (Best of luck to you, buddy!), Combat Engineer, J Shute Norway, DirtKid123, FirnenOne, my Spanish buddy (this is getting old, you know ... maybe I should really start learning Spanish!), one winged nightmare, and tweiler18 were generous enough to bestow their wisdom upon me, for which I will be eternally grateful!

It took tweiler18 little time to find the quote I mentioned in the author's notes of the last chapter. The line "We've got a long way to go and a short time to get there" can be found in the song "East Bound and Down" by Jerry Reed, which in turn appeared in the hilariously insane movie "Smokey and the Bandit," along with Jerry Reed himself, who played Cledus "Snowman" Snow, the truck driver. Congrats, my friend! Come on! All together now! "We gonna do what they say can't be done!

The disclaimer can be found in the first chapter.

Chapter Twenty-Five

Selling Terror

Ich verkaufe Terror, ich verkaufe Tod. Elend, Leid und Schmerzen sind bei mir im Angebot.

Die Ärzte: "Opfer" (Written by Farin Urlaub, from the album "Planet Punk," Metronome Records, 1995. Translation: "I sell terror, I sell death. I have misery, sorrow and pain on offer." - Translation by yours truly.)

The mammal walking in through the huge doors was the very epitome of being nondescript - just your average, everyday ram, his fleece quite dark, almost black. He was wearing blue jeans and a black shirt under a black jacket made from leatherette, a set of horn-rimmed glasses sitting on his nose. Even Moritz Kaffer wouldn't have recognized the mammal that approached his desk, but of course he knew him.

Turning away from his computer towards the new arrival, he asked: "And?"

"It's done," the ram said while taking off the glasses.

"Any problems?"

The ram shook his head. "None. He was almost stationary, and given his stature, he probably wouldn't have been able to outrun me anyway."

Kaffer allowed himself a smile. "I was told that he is quite the portly one."

"You could say that."

Kaffer pointed at the dark fleece. "The disguise worked alright, I assume."

"Worked like a charm. I was able to walk in right through the front door, and nobody was any the wiser." He snorted. "One should think getting into Precinct One was tougher, with all those cops running around."

"Obviousness often is the best disguise."

"Maybe so, still I think those idiots should really have paid ..."

"It would be most unwise to underestimate your adversaries!" Kaffer's voice had become cold.

The ram snorted again. "I am Public Enemy Number One! My face happens to appear on every "Wanted" poster you can find in this city! I am the guy they're most desperate to find! Yet I was able to waltz into their very own HQ, and nobody even spared me a glance! Nobody! Do you call that competent? 'Cause I don't!"

Kaffer looked at him for a few seconds without saying a word. "How did you get out?" he finally asked.

"Emergency exit towards the back. Found out about it the last time I was there."

"The last time?"

"During Hopps's press conference."

"Ah. Of course. You took the time to spy out the place back then?"

The ram shrugged. "I had arrived there some fifteen minutes early, and since nobody seemed to be paying me any attention, I just strolled along the corridors like a tourist. Back then, I wasn't quite sure if things would turn out the way I wanted them to, so I was looking for a quick and easy way out, just in case that things got dicey. Which, as you know, they didn't. But today, it paid off."

"Good thinking. Nobody saw you?"

"Seeing that they were shocked to a stupor, I don't think anyone paid me a closer look."

"Are you certain?"

"I am. I mean, Bogo almost immediately screamed at every officer in the vicinity to go and look for me, but nobody noticed me. They would surely have tried to stop me otherwise. Especially since I was carrying a lengthy duffel bag which contained a sniper rifle."

"Are you sure the serum worked?"

The ram chuckled. "He tried to slay a rhino, so yeah, I tend to think it worked."

"What did they do to him?"

"Well, a lion tackled him, but even when several other large mammals ran over to help, they were almost unable to pin him down. It wasn't until Bogo shot him with a tranquilizer dart that he finally collapsed."

Kaffer paused. "Bogo himself shot him?"

"He did."

"And it worked? He fell unconscious?"

"Yes, but if I understood it correctly, he had to use the mother of all tranquilizers to get the job done. The lion, for one, was quite frantic about it."

Kaffer chuckled darkly. "That is excellent news, Doug! Good work. I am really pleased."

"Thanks. I'm off to take a shower. Hope the fur dye washes out alright."

"It will, do not worry."

Kaffer watched Doug Ramses leave the room, then he picked up his phone, speed-dialing a number. "Mr. Takhi, it is me." He waited for a response. "Shut up and listen! About one hour ago, another cheetah went savage in the midst of Precinct One. Find out what you can about it, and present it to the public. And that is all you are going to do, nothing more, nothing less. You will ..." He made a pause, listening. "I do not care. You will not present the public with anything that cannot be deduced from the facts themselves. You have done enough damage to our cause already. Do not make it worse, or I will make it worse. Understood." He waited for a reply. "Good." He hung up without any further word, only to make another phone call immediately.

This time, he only said three words: "It is time."

And that's all he wrote at the moment.

I already mentioned an emergency exit in Precinct One's HQ in chapter 14 of "Now Your Nightmare Comes to Life." A building this big, with so many mammals working in it, is sure to have several additional means of leaving it in case of an emergency.

And the first time Doug had paid Precinct One's HQ a visit was, of course, during Judy's press conference we get to see in the movie - it was confirmed by the guys who made the movie that Doug's the one reporter who asks Judy if predators are the only mammals going savage. So of course he knows the place, and given how sly he is, imagining him strolling the hallways looking for an emergency exit sounds quite feasible to me. Particularly since Precinct One HQ looks like a surprisingly accessible building to me, for a police station, that is. If you want to visit my hometown's police station, you need to pass through a permanently locked door that opens only when the guy sitting in the reception office unlocks it. Seems like in Zootopia, nobody really cares about proper security measurements ...

Again, no quotes this time - I simply didn't feel the need for them.

Thanks for reading, and, please, do send me your reviews!

Take care!

J.O. aka TheCatweazle