"Every Precinct in the city is looking over every inch of the tunnel and bridges, but with the Joker's threat, there are limited options," Commissioner Cluck discussed the city's current situation to Mayor Garcia in his office at City Hall.

Garcia wondered, "Can they head east?"

"It's locked up for hours," Cluck answered. "Which leaves only the ferries, with thirty thousand animals ready to board. Plus, I need to use some of the ferries to transport some of the prisoners off Zootopia Penitentiary."

"The animals you and Garnet put away, James?" Garcia rubbed his chin. "Those aren't people I'm worried about."

"With all due respect, Mr. Mayor, you should be," Cluck reasoned. "Whatever the Joker's planning, it's a good bet that Garnet's prisoners might be involved. It's a hunch that I want to get them out of here."

A brief moment, then Garcia broke the silence, "So where is Alicia Garnet?"

Cluck reported uneasily, "We haven't found her yet."

Garcia sighed agitatedly. He knew that the city's morale would plummet should anyone discover the district attorney disappearance. "Good Lord… How long can you keep this quiet?"

Cluck mused, "I don't think it won't be very long."

At a downtrodden part of the city, one of many spots where the criminal underworld was purported to thrive, or at least it used to until the Joker's threat, Salvatore Pappagello's birdcage was drifted by a grizzly bear to the passenger seat of his black limousine. The cast supporting his injured left talon was a painful reminder of underestimating a certain rabbit. The grizzly bear, who happened to be the chauffeur, positioned Pappagello's cage in the seat, before taking the front and staring the engine.

As the limousine drove, Pappagello gave instructions to his valet, "Don't stop for cops, lights, anything." Just then, he felt another presence the left side of his birdcage. He turned to see Alicia Garnet, the district attorney thought to have suffered a fate by fire, a revolver in her paw. "Garnet…?" Pappagello whispered, daring not to scream for help or dial a number, and instead maintaining a calm composure. "Hello, sweetheart. Can I help you with something?"

Turning her head to reveal her horrible scarring, Alicia asked, "You gonna join your family?"

Pappagello was somewhat smug in his words, "Yes."

"How many are there?"

"I have a wife, and three beautiful children."

"That's a lovely family of birds."

"I'm glad you think so."

"Do you love them?"

"Yeah."

"Do you imagine what it would be like…" Alicia quipped. "…to listen to them die?"

"Look, take it up with the Joker," Pappagello pleaded. "He killed your bunny bunch. He made you…" He gestured to the scars with his feathers, "…like this."

"The Joker's just a mad dog," Alicia retorted. "You turned him loose to catch me and Judy. I want to find whoever let him off the leash. I took care of Woltz, but who's your other guy in Precinct One, the one who picked up my family? Must've been someone they trusted."

"Look, if I tell you..." Pappagello besought. "…will you let me go?"

Pointing her weapon, Alicia rolled her eyes, "Can't hurt your chances."

Pappagello remained quiet, as if trying to think of a way out of this situation. He hoped that his confession would grant him safety from his vengeful adversary. He then revealed, "It was Ramirez."

Finally learning the identity of the traitor within the ZPD, Alicia cocked her revolver, which was still aimed at the crime boss, much to his dismay. "But you said—"

"I said it couldn't hurt your chances," Alicia countered. He flipped her coin and caught it on her free hand, covering it for a second. "You're a lucky bird." It was the clear side of the coin, sparing Pappagello from Alicia's wrath. She flipped a second time, with the coin landing on its burnt profile. "But he's not."

"Who?" Pappagello was curious of whom she was referring to.

Alicia fastened her seatbelt and aimed her revolver behind the driver's seat. "Your chauffer."

A gunshot rang out. The limo violently flipped over until it collided against the side of a building. The weight of steel crushed Pappagello's birdcage, and feathers spread from his innards.

The parrot didn't hear anything after that.

As night approached, tens of thousands of civilians hoarded Zootopia's waterfront, scores of the ZPD and National Guard doing their best to ensure that the populace would board the remaining ferries, without causing a scene. While several looters and thugs jailed under Alicia's jurisdiction were being led abroad one ferry, much of the city's citizens were naturally against this apparently unfair course of action. A cheetah protested, "Hey, that's not right! We should be on that boat!"

"You want to ride across with them?" retorted Officer McHorn. "Be my guest."

Though the process was hectic, the loading of civilians and prison inmates alike on the two ferries eventually came through.

It was around 8:00 PM when the two vessels purred out from the docks, beginning their exodus. A multitude of passengers huddled together, given that their respective boats had reached its maximum holding capacity without the risk of sinking them down under.

Both boats' engines died suddenly, and the lights flickered uncontrollably, slightly unnerving everyone.

In the cockpit of one ferry named the Spirit, a walrus sailor informed the captain, "Sir, they've stopped their engines."

"Right, get on the radio," the captain commanded. "Tell them we'll come back to pick them up once we dump the scumbags."

The sailor proceeded to radio the other ferry, "Liberty, this is Spirit. Come in." The only answer was static. Almost immediately, the boats' power was beyond the crew's control. They were convinced to contact the mainland for assistance, but their attempts proved fruitless.

Judy and Nick peered out from a nearby port, their legs resting on the seat of the Hopp-Pod. She communicated through a radio in her paw, "Lucius, there's something wrong with the ferries!"

As ordered by the captain of the Liberty, the walrus sailor left for the engine room, passing through the crowd of inmates, including a muscular tattooed rhino named Ginty standing behind a support column. Upon arrival, he was confounded to have discovered scores of oil barrels wired with bombs, and it came with a small wrapped package atop one barrel.

Returning to the cockpit, the walrus informed the captain, "Sir, we've got a hundred barrels down there rigged to blow." He extended his arm to give the package, "And this."

Roughly around the same time, at the civilian-stocked ferry known as the Liberty, a maritime soldier grizzly bear carried the same package. Both subordinates on the two vessels cautiously unwrapped the box-shaped presents, revealing a makeshift detonator inside.

"My God..." uttered the captain of the Liberty.

The soldier reported, "It appears to be some kind of detonator."

"Why would they give us the detonator to our own bomb?" the captain asked rhetorically.

The boats' speaker systems crackled suddenly, and a familiar voice made the announcement. "Ah, nice to have you all aboard the fun boats! Tonight, you're all gonna be part of a social experiment." The passengers grew frantic and alarmed of the terrible misfortune occurring to them. It wasn't long before the transport crew discovered that all communication systems were hacked, including the PA.

Meanwhile at Walrus Tech Enterprises, Lucius tapped away at the mainframe, trying to triangulate the Joker's location. Narrowing the amount of the computer's phone-tapping receivers, he relayed the clown's message: "With the magic of diesel fuel and ammonium nitrate, I'm ready to blow you all sky-high. If anyone attempts to get off the boat, you all die. Each of you has a remote to blow up the other boat."

Lucius informed, "I'm zeroing in. The voice is on the ferry... but it's not the source." He momentarily scanned the map of the city, until finally, after pinpointing the source of the message, the Joker's hideout was discovered within the white and blue, "West!"

That was the call that sent Judy and Nick to that direction across the open freeway.

Having just departed from City Hall, Cluck received a call on his cellphone. He answered, "Cluck here."

"It's me," Judy's voice called. "We have the Joker's location: Pruitt Building. Assemble on the building opposite."

"At midnight, I blow you all up," the Joker's eerie message continued from somewhere in the Pruitt Building, an unfinished skyscraper near the shoreline. "If, however, one of you presses the button, I'll let that boat live. So, who's it gonna be? Alicia's Garnet most wanted scumbag collection, or the sweet, innocent civilians? You choose! I'll give you until 12:00 noon to dedice. Just remember, we're gonna kick off tomorrow with one blast or another! Oh, and you might wanna decide quickly, because the people on the other boat may not be quite so noble!"

And with that, the Joker's announcement came to an end, sending both parties to a heated debate amongst themselves regarding the safety of their own lives at the cost of others. At the holding area in the Liberty, the grizzly bear soldier motioned with his paws and demanded, "Stay back!"

An otter stood up from the crowd and argued, "Who are you to decide? We ought to talk this over, at least."

"Why do we all have to die?" a tigress of two cubs chimed in. "Those animals had their chances!"

"We're not gonna talk about it," the soldier said adamantly.

The otter demanded, "Why aren't we talking about it?!" Dozens of complaints resounded throughout the boat.

"I bet they're talking about the same exact thing on the other boat!" a lion stated.

"Let's put it to a vote!" a beaver suggested. If not all, most of the civilians agreed with this proposal.

Similarly, at the Spirit, the rioting inmates were held back from reaching the polar bear warden, who had the detonator in his claw, given that the officers discharged their shotguns into the ceiling to quiet the noises.

At the Liberty, the grizzly bear soldier ripped a piece of hand-sized paper from a nearby compartment. "I want everybody to put their votes on this piece of paper." He tossed it to a cat, "If anyone's got pens, pass it along." This course of action apparently appeased the crowd of animals, and they willingly went through with it.

The clock read 11:43 PM.

Meanwhile, in the same tunnel in Tundratown where she last interrogated the phony officer the night after Chief Bogo's funeral, Alicia held a frightened Jennifer Ramirez at gunpoint. The female pig was overcoming her initial dread at having to face the angry bunny she failed to dispose of, even more so at her aggressive behavior. Nonetheless, with a little bit of persuasion, Ramirez was pressed to reveal why she left Alicia's family to die in that warehouse.

"…and Pappagello paid me to drop them at 250 52nd Street," Ramirez confessed. "He promised to pay my mother's hospital bills if I did."

Alicia rubbed the unscathed half of her chin, nodding in understanding. "I see. Did you do this to us because you didn't know what they were gonna do? Or it is because you're willing to?" She then glared, "Oh, that's right. It's because you're jealous of me, from the very beginning. Now I understand what you've been through. You've been out there hoarding money behind the law's back, associating with criminals under the shadows, because you only care about yourself."

Ramirez protested, "That's a lie! I care about others, too! Especially my mother!"

Alicia retorted, "If you really care so much, then why did you work for the Mob? Helped the Joker? You've been a friend of my mother, and she trusted you. I wanted to trust you. But I realize now, that trust has been misplaced. You should've followed the rules, listened to reason, and took my family out of that warehouse before it explodes, but you did not."

Ramirez snapped, "Shut up, you sick freak! I always hated you, Garnet… You and that smug face of yours! That's why I—"

Alicia deadpanned, "You've become no different than a mobster! You only wanted to help yourself! You yearned to satisfy your own greedy ends, can't you see that? Is this what your mother would've wanted?"

Ramirez argued, "I'm doing this for her! What do you know about her?!"

Alicia sneered, "Like I said, if you really care, you should've left the club and stayed in school. And to prove it, you need to tell me where the Joker is. I heard you're the only beat cop in Precinct One who knows the location of his final hideout, without telling anyone. Let me guess, he threatened to kill your mother if you do? You don't expect the Joker to keep his word? I don't."

Ramirez shook her head angrily, "I'll never tell you."

Alicia growled, inching the revolver close to the chest, "Don't play games with me, pork chop! You know where he is! Admit it!"

Ramirez obliged nervously, "Okay, okay! I'll tell you! The Joker's at the Pruitt Building in Savanna Central East. There, you happy now?!"

Alicia confirmed, "Thanks for the info."

Ramirez begged, "Please, let me go! Don't hurt my mother! I'm begging you!"

"Fair's fair," Alicia flipped her lucky coin into the air, and when she caught it, she saw that it landed on heads. "You live to fight another day, officer. Looks like you can get to see your mother check out from the hospital after all." With that, she pistol-whipped Ramirez to the ground, knocking her unconscious.

Alicia took an abandoned police vehicle and began to speed down the freeway in record time. On her left was a sea of cars trying to escape. In fact, hers seemed to be the only vehicle heading into Savanna Central. She didn't mind that. Not at the very least. The look on Woltz's and Pappagello's faces just before they died still smoldered in her memory. Any qualms about the deed, though, were quickly consumed by Alicia's anger. At the moment, she had no concern about ethics or morals; she had put them aside. They were rules that no one around her seemed to follow. She felt no guilt about punishing those who had been accomplices, complicit in taking away the things she loved most.

Finally reaching Savanna Central, Alicia headed for Pruitt Building. She had a certain clown to settle the score with.