The Waters of Atlantea Chapter 9
Authors Notes: Happy New Year to all my supportive fans, especially those who've been with me since this saga started in March, and all the new readers who have joined along the way that have given this story a try! I was going to wait to publish a full chapter after 2017 started, but you deserve a nice little New Year's 'snack' of this stand-alone scene I carved out. Maybe I should do more of that: more smaller chapters.
…JW Mammaliott VIP Suites…
Protected by guards that lined the hotel staff hallways and elevator lobbies, Bogo, Nick, and Judy got off the elevator and walked to their respective rooms in the witness protection zone of the luxury hotel. Evelyn and Bogo cleaned up and changed in a couple of other guest rooms converted for police work. All of the policemammals were a mess from the arrest of the reindeer at the gym.
Judy and Nick showered together as usual without lingering, and emerged damp and naked together from the bathroom into the bedroom to put on fresh a uniform that had been delivered by room service.
Before they dressed, Nick flopped on his backside across their gigantic bed. There wasn't any question what was on Nick's mind from his state.
Judy put her paws on her wide hips, and chastised her husband, "Nick, we don't have time for this. Dinner is in 10 minutes. Get dressed."
He beckoned to her and winked.
"All I want is a hug," he lied.
"I know better," she further scolded.
Looking into her eyes, Nick suggested, "Is there any chance we can be 'fashionably late' to dinner, gorgeous?"
Another 15 minutes would give them the pleasure they wanted from each other, and she was pleased with his compliment, but knowing they had to be on time for the dinner with the Chairman and the Mayor, she rebuffed him, "Tempting, fox, but we have to get moving."
"Aw c'mon, Carrots, they'll never miss us," he urged. It was very tempting to just give in to her husband, but she pointed her index paw finger at him in mock anger.
"Nice try, Nick. But absolutely not. You'll want me more later. We have to get dressed for dinner."
They only had seven minutes. Nick didn't know how to want his Judy more than he did already.
Trying desperately to calm his desire for Judy, Nick turned his attention to the pile of clean clothes from the bed, "Formal dinner with the top brass of the city. Commando… or not commando?"
"Here's your choice, fox. Be fast," she chided and wandered over to the dresser where the new, clean, but obviously very new uniforms and undergarments were stacked.
She held up a very stiff set of new underwear that would provide maximum discomfort, and not contain him in his current state. Nick raised an eyebrow, and they both stared at his crotch.
"Commando!" they both laughed together.
Judy also lamented, "Nick, dear, I'm getting so tired of wearing scratchy new clothes. I want my comfortable things back."
She noticed and rummaged through another stack of wrapped boxes, and observed, "Wait. What are these?"
Time was rapidly running out. There was a card on the top box. Judy read it and then exclaimed, "It's a gift from Adeline. Dinner wear! And real, soft underwear. How nice."
"She is one classy feline," Nick stated, but quickly added, "But no less classy than you, Carrots."
Judy snickered, "Maybe. But I'm a lot poorer."
"Not as far as I am concerned," Nick added.
"You're sweet," she added and kissed his nose.
She pushed his next advance away, and opened the boxes, "What's in here?"
She held up a little black dress against her fur. It was sized perfectly for her. Nick saw it and his jaw dropped. He quipped, "Does Adeline want us to not show up for dinner at all?"
She ignored him but gave him a look. He chuckled.
Judy draped the exquisite dress over a chair and explored the other boxes, "What have we here? Here's nice dinner suit for you, with a genuine bow tie. And underwear you can actually use."
He took the dinner tie and jacket and modeled both against his furry chest.
Judy's eyes bugged, "You always look good in ties, but… wow, Nick!"
This time, it was Nick that urged the pair to get ready, "So let's get dressed already. It's only 5 minutes now. Do you want to keep the Mayor, the Chairman, and the Chief waiting?"
Judy kidded, hearing her own words of warning parroted back at her, "'Sounds like a career limiting move if we do, Officer."
"Carrots, I have hope for you yet," he teased.
Both mammals laughed. Dressing quickly, they stood together paw in paw and admired each other fully dressed.
Nick complimented his wife, "The only way you could look better is to not wear that dress."
"That's hardly a way to eat dinner with our management, dear husband," she retorted.
Nick reminded her, "Well nothing looks pretty darn good on you with breakfast. Why not dinner? It would be easier to get to dessert."
It was trite pillow talk but fun to tease each other. Judy blushed even though breakfast au naturel was nearly a daily occurrence for them.
"Shut up fox. You'll get your way. Later."
They just smiled at each other. It was time to be in the meeting room converted to group dining area down the short hall. Nick held out an arm and invited, "Shall we, Carrots?"
Blushing through her fur, she answered and took his arm, "Goodness. How gallante. Yes, dear, we shall."
They opened the door to their suite and walked right into Bogo who was leaning into the door to knock.
"Oops. Sorry you two. I was a little worried you'd forgotten the time."
"Not a problem boss," Judy answered.
He asked a little nervously, "Do you two have a moment?"
"Uh yes sir. But, won't this make us late?"
"The Mayor knows I need to be with you two. Alone," he answered anxiously. Evelyn stood guard outside the suite. The Lieutenant had her taser armed and at the ready. This was a very serious conversation.
Judy could only respond,"Oh. Sure, boss."
He shut the door and guided them to sit on the sofa just inside their suite door to maintain their privacy, "I've tried twice to tell you about your next assignment in private, but we keep getting interrupted by police work."
"Interesting coincidence since we're all cops don't you think, boss?" Nick tried to interject a little police humor.
Bogo shot the fox an annoyed glance. Nick quickly silenced himself.
Judy responded a little more forcefully, "Chief, We're not saying 'yes' to any new assignment until we get some real clothes from our apartment."
Bogo was a little perturbed at having this trivial matter enter into a serious conversation, and started to correct Judy, "You don't even know what…"
But he saw both mammals with their arms crossed and narrowed stares. He sighed and acquiesced, "Of course, Officers. But remember, I only promised 20 minutes to get your stuff. No more. And I'm going to have the apartment searched before you go in. Just in case 'they' left a few nasty surprises."
Both agreed. It was prudent to do so.
It was time to get back to business. Bogo ordered Judy, "Show me your Atlantean necklace."
With the deep cut neckline of her little black dress, it stood out prominently between her small but noticeable lagomorphic cleavage, "Uh… sure…"
The cape buffalo carefully picked it up in his hoof and examined the exotic Atlantean electronic key with skepticism, "Are you sure this thing isn't recording everything we say, Officer?"
Judy answered, "Sheldon and the tech say it's only a key. I've seen what it does. Twice. If it transmitted anything to the bad guys, I would have been dead on the waterfront."
Bogo grudgingly agreed to her assessment, but it still made him uneasy. The overly curious unknown vagrant watching Nick and Judy, even without doing anything to them, made him nervous.
Nick drew them back to matters at hand, "OK boss. What is this new assignment?"
The Chief looked at the ceiling and took a deep breath. He asked, "I want you to go to Atlantea. With my blessings. Despite the danger. Under cover."
Nick and Judy were truly stunned. Despite the fact that the Chief knew their desires to go and rescue Michael, with so many new and even more deadly circumstances happening since the night at Assembly Hall, the couple had assumed there would be a huge pushback from the boss if they even suggested the idea. Instead, here he was ordering them to go.
Nick asked for clarification, "Under cover instead of our honeymoon?"
Bogo responded emphatically, "No. Absolutely not. You need that time. Crisis or not. You'll look harmless to any curious eyes. Your under cover work starts after the official honeymoon. No one but me has to know that the days after your honeymoon aren't an extended honeymoon."
"I don't know…" Nick hesitated a bit to Judy's surprise, despite Nick and Judy's previously settled argument on this matter, but before events escalated even more violently. Judy realized Nick was also testing Bogo's resolve in the matter. She didn't protest.
Bogo stated, "You want to find them – the Movement. I know you want to find Michael and get him out and reunited with Melvin and Sandra."
Judy was quick to reply, "We do. He's family. Michael is not just an ordinary kidnap victim. We want to find any others there too. No parents should ever suffer like Sandra wand Melvin did. The Mayor and Adeline should never have to fear their hybrid child could be kidnapped."
"Or ours," Nick added. Judy fought back an unexpected tear.
Bogo warned, "You two are getting too far ahead of the game. Just find Michael. We can interrogate him and find out about the Movement, and then develop a counter strategy."
Both gave the boss a nasty look at the term 'interrogate' as if Michael was a criminal.
Bogo apologized, "I meant: Just ask questions to your cousin. He's got 25 years of experience with the Movement that he can tell us. And probably wants to talk."
Nick asked flippantly, "So, Judy and I just wander the streets and waters of Atlantea, asking the citizens if they've seen an arctic fox-rabbit hybrid and invite him out for dinner and a fun night of escaping certain death? Boss, do think The Movement would ever let Michael out in public? There's never been a fox-rabbit sighting anywhere on the planet. We've never been to Atlantea. We wouldn't even know where to start looking for the dark corners of that city. Is there any informant we can trust there even if we find one?"
Bogo was a little surprised with their reticence but as usual impressed with how far they thought the details and pitfalls through, "Someone has already left us clues. Whoever this 'Xobar' is, he's an insider who wants us to come. He might be ready to give you more clues if you just show up."
Judy also was worried, "Or he's been caught and is dead. Or found out and it's a trap: to finally rid the world of the pesky little fox and rabbit who so far have ruined every part of the Movement's operations in Zootopia."
The boss cop sat back a moment, and scolded them, "Now you sound just like me. Do you want to do this or not?"
Judy was affirmative, "Yes. Yes, of course, boss. Thank you for saying 'yes'. We weren't… ah…"
"… weren't really sure I'm committed to doing this? Of course I am, even if I can't believe that I'm asking you two to walk right back into harm's way again. You have this annoying habit of walking out of trouble with hardly a scratch and dragging a perp along with you in cuffs."
"Or in a bucket," Nick kidded. They all laughed at the awful truth of that fact.
Bogo was clear in the simplicity of his instructions, "Remember. Save Michael and gather clues to lead us back to the Movement and we'll take care of the rest. This is too big for only the two of you."
Nick responded, "We'll do our best, boss, but rescuing Michael will probably involve us fighting the whole Movement. In case you hadn't checked, they're kind of pissed at us."
"Find a way to isolate him, just him, away from any of the others. You guys are unpredictable. Your greatest successes in solving crimes have been doing the unexpected. Use that talent. Isn't there something legendary about lucky rabbit paws?"
Judy gave her boss a not-so-amused look, "Only if you separate the paw from the rabbit, Chief."
He was very embarrassed, "Oh my. Sorry."
Judy sloughed off the unintended cultural insult, "We'll try boss. I know we've talked about going to 'them', but we have so much unfinished business right here. So much more than we ever expected. Should we go now?"
Bogo affirmed, "'Now' is even more reason to go to 'them'. This truly is the last thing they'd expect. There's dozens of hot leads, lots of confusion, and plenty of pressure from the City Council and the press on ZPD. It looks like massive inner turmoil in the city government, and we're still reeling from a widespread unexpected conspiracy. Besides, now we have the disaster on the wharf which looks way more suspicious than an old cave collapsing. Who in their right mind - on top of all this happening - would ever think to send two highly respected investigative detectives into the enemy's lair to rescue a kidnap victim?"
They looked right at him and Nick smiled in agreement, "We're 'in', boss. You know that. We were just making sure of that."
Judy smirked, "You had us at 'under cover'."
They saw the cape buffalo's rare grin, "Good. I cannot emphasize how carefully this op has to be done. You really are right about being stretched to your limits. You two will be alone with damn little high tech to help you but that thing around your neck and no mammal special unit backups to save the day this time. We can't risk any more mammals right now to tip our hand. Or like the Mayor worries the most about – create an international incident. You're going into a foreign jurisdiction, and you have to look like tourists."
Judy confirmed for Bogo, "Boss, you don't have to worry about sending us 'in'. We both 'get it'. We've hurt them – hurt them badly. We can't risk them regrouping - they may disappear forever back into the woodwork. We can't spend our whole careers guessing and looking over our shoulders until something really bad happens. We want to raise our children in peace, Chief. That's why we have to go. We have the most fur in the game of any of any mammal in Zootopia. Except for Michael."
They silently shared the irony that there probably couldn't be anything worse than what already had happened in the past week.
Nick cautioned, "You and the Mayor want us to go, but the Chairman isn't helping us. He could totally blow our cover."
Bogo gave the Officer a confident look, "That's why we're having dinner tonight: to get the hippo's cooperation. That's the Mayor's goal."
Bogo felt like they were all in agreement but asked carefully, "Officers Nick and Judy. There's one more thing I need from you. There's only one way to successfully go under cover in Atlantea."
"Hiding a fox and rabbit couple in a city full of pinnipeds and cetaceans will be really hard. But ask us anything boss. We'll do it. Just say it," Judy assured him confidently.
So he did.
"Wh- what?" Judy stammered, taken completely aback by the request.
Before Nick could object further or Bogo could add detail, their private conversation was interrupted by the Mayor who opened the door without knocking over Evelyn's protestations, "So, are you fine mammals going to talk police business all night or are you going to join us for dinner? The Mammaliott has the best lentil soup in the City. And it's getting cold."
"We're coming to dinner right now, sir," Bogo said to cut off objections from the visibly shaken couple.
"Are you guys OK?" Leodore asked seriously, noticing the pair's distress.
"We're fine, Mr. Mayor," said Nick a little more angrily than he expected.
Leodore whispered to his Chief of Police walking side by side ahead of Nick and Judy who remained silent but looked at each other in alarm, "Adrian, did you tell them?"
"I did," Bogo whispered back.
"And...?" The Mayor inquired.
"They reacted as expected," the cape buffalo replied with no emotion.
The Mayor gave his Police Chief a look of satisfaction, and noted,"Good. That will make it more genuine when the time comes."