Chapter 22: To Kingdom Come

Author's Note: Sorry for the lengthy hiatus! I know it's been over one whole year since I last edited this story, and all I can say is that life's not been treating me nicely: yet fortunately the LORD has not turned a blind eye upon me, and with the help of Samohaya, my new co-author, I was able to carry on with the story. This chapter was written entirely by him, and to his credit, it was exactly what I had been hoping to see so far, combining an exquisite storyline with a wealth of military knowledge. On with the story!

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The grey jeep, as Nick later knew as a certain BJ212, rumbled along Highway 3 towards the edge of the city into the great plains. Arguably he was not at his best form, since he had to listen to endless briefings and weapons practice from the party of polar bears through the whole damn clock, so as of now, he let his mind wander, while the cabin was quiet as ever, filled by grim occupants of polar bears.

As sharp as he can be, Nick dozes off into his own mental world from time to time. Memories might be green and blue, but every now and then he just couldn't control it.

Even now, when the supposedly nondescript ZERB jeep rushed along its way out of the city, sending its erstwhile passengers to their final destination, Nick thought back, back when life was just… life, and nothing was better nor worse. It was no great comedy, but neither was it a sob story, just anything that stood as an antithesis of what constituted as drama.

Contrary to most heart-throbbing, dopamine-filled mammals early in romance, especially in the guessing-whether-he/she-loves me bit, he wasn't longing for Judy. Not when he is most likely going to die. No.

He flew back to his youth, when he knew nothing much, other than predators were targeted. Only in hindsight did he know the economy was turning for way worse than expected, and riots were brewing before he was born, but that was not the point.

How the riots went, starting from simply targeting anyone who was relatively well-off was not the point. Neither did the point concern about how the riots started to list towards predators, or simply anyone who thought the protestors were increasingly violent and radical in their ways. How he and his fellow foxes, as violence morphed into silent aggression, were increasingly isolated from the politically-acceptable spectrum of species and verge on pests to be exterminated, was also not the point.

It was the sense of listlessness, or more accurately, how… empty he felt. The fact that, no matter how hard you try, you know you are just wrong. Unaccepted, futile, useless, powerless.

Thinking back, it was not so much about a skewed education or bad upbringing- damned be those who dare to badmouth his parents, who bent over backwards just to raise their boy to be a decent mamma- that made him go into wherever he was before becoming a cop. It was simply a feeling of abandon: If they're not going to move or change regardless of how I act, why shouldn't I go screw their lives up in whichever way possible?

Then everything simply happened, up till right now. Judy, Wolford, Buffalo Butt, Finnick, along with his parents, bless his deceased father in wherever he is now, were arguably the few mammals that guided him in their own ways. The rest of his life was just encounters, random combinations of mammals, deals, the usual smuggling or scam and the occasional murder that he had exactly no pleasure to witness.

But, as the driver, Mannheim announced they were mere 10 kilometres away and have to put on ZERB gear, Nick hit upon a question, one that he long failed to answer for.

Between long thread of monotony and the handful of sparks (do they come in lavender?), how do you value life?

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"... up, man!"

Oh, right, ten klicks. Gotta grab the gear and garb up. Heh, four Gs in a sentence. "Alright alright-" the neck gaiter muffled Nic's own voice, "ammo over here, thanks fam." What those ZERB mammals usually wield, namely Type 56 rifles were simply too large and inconvenient for his size, so Nick had to settle for this hunk of a star-embossed bakelite and steel, Z-54 pistol.

Hey Nick, is that a cannon in your pants, or are you just happy to see m- shut up, Judy in my head.

The facility, despite its status and secrecy, was actually rather classical and bland when it came to security planning, at least before one approaches the entrance. Learning upon the mistakes of the previous intrusion, its planners have created a 10-kilometre deep detection zone pocketed with sensors, landmines and the occasional anti-vehicle trap, save for one single path, upon which sensors would trigger facility-wide lockdown, unless the vehicle passing through it was scheduled to be there during then, recorded by blockchain.

Game face up, nothing unusual, Nick. Just death at the end of this long-ass dinner table.

"Like what we rehearsed, three phases to this plan. Mannheim secures the launching key, infiltrate the chamber, and stand long enough till our VIP launches himself to Kingdom Come." What Simo, the ever tight-lipped and depression-inducing team lead left out for morale purposes was everyone except for Nick are simply going to die in the mission, though his chances aren't any better from practical measurements. Stuck in the lowest section of an underground secure facility, surrounded by angry troops armed with more lethal weaponry than their long-demilitarised compatriots in the city, without any second exits, the outcome was pretty clear from the start.

Not that the team is ignorant of it, just that professionalism and some inane cockamamie shred of egoism forced everyone to act as if they were off for a picnic. Then again, prior to infiltrating ZERB, they were hitmen of their own right. In a way, one final job seemed just a bit more appropriate to a self-respecting assassin than retiring as some effete, senile elderly.

"Checkpoint coming up." The checkpoint, a small shack in appearance, stood between the cusps of D-zone and the control area, known as C-zone. Vehicle drivers are to show their permits, as well as their one-time generated QR code for identity confirmation. Failing that, the vehicle would simply be blown up by a bundle of anti-vehicle mines by command. Being a half-buried bunker, the checkpoint would not be bothered at the least by the string of explosives.

"Papers, please." Showing the identification minutiae through the winded-down door window, the robotic voice stood silent for a moment before allowing them to pass. "Carry on."

After that, air and ground patrols in vehicular, footmobile and electronic form would come across them in random patterns assigned by daily computation, and vehicles would be stopped randomly for routine security checks. As such, Mannheim would quip to himself they were just lucky enough to be murdered later save for Wilde, the good-natured bastard, as the dust-blasted jeep stood before the facility proper, waiting for its turn to enter the underground maze without being checked much.

Stowed behind the backseat, Nick took one swig of water. When the going gets hard, the hard gets only harder.

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Since he was the only team member with the right access to forge access into Taylor's personal laboratory, Mannheim was ordered to infiltrate the lab while others try to swindle their way into the transport chamber. If there was a silver lining to all this mess, thought Mannheim, who was long considered to be slightly too calm and patient, everything would end in just about another goddamn eternity.

Garbed in white researcher uniform with a small tablet computer on his hand, Mannheim almost flinched inside as scanners took just a bit longer to validate a false pass into where he had walked for twenty minutes, kidnapped and garrotted his previous colleague, and dumping any protection other than a stun baton before finally arriving at.

The good news, after the slightly short polar bear infiltrated his way into Taylor's personal lab, was that he infiltrated the lab. Considering the flow of information, patrols and personnel arou

nd and through the laboratory, the fact that the team technician was able to play the role of one of Taylor's many researchers was no small feat. Standing in his laboratory with facilities enough to entertain whole teams of personnel in front of a command podium, the rumours about Taylor being a total egomaniac seemed to be true.

Though, Mannheim would have argued that since he officially is a researcher, it was pretty easy: Nervous around troopers, snide around officers and be a total bastard around fellow researchers, especially junior ones. Cliches persist for a reason, and that is because they are, to a certain degree, real.

The bad news was, since the the key-grabbing virus would take so long that detection software would pick up its traces easily, and the time would be too short before another patrol strolls down the corridor and peer into the damn panel. Yes, Mannheim could just turn off the lights, but a fully working computer screen, running a program in a dark room where there should have been mammals only a few minutes ago? That would raise suspicion, not to mention the multitude of researchers Mannheim had to… silence before doing that.

Mannheim chose the obvious: Taking refuge in audacity. One thing about group behaviour is that, if you do something that is close enough to what the others are doing, the others probably wouldn't care about what you are really doing. Plus, passive aggression among researchers often manifest in a lack of interest of what the others are doing as a projection of academic snobbery, or just pure contempt for anyone who is not under his or her own agenda.

As such, the the virus took the key just before the security software pinned his location down. Yes, alarms were triggered, a few researchers ran around trying to nail down the breach, and some soldiers rushed into the room pointing guns where they should absolutely not be, but strolling forth within the stream of evacuating researchers, Mannheim managed to slip away into a small side emergency shelter, where the rest of his gear and the still-warm corpse of his recent victim laid.

"Got it. Team lead, lead us to our final destination." Tension asides, looming death never stopped a quip or two.

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"Got it. Team lead, lead us to our final destination."

Mannheim, having sent the activation codes, had to find his way into the transport chamber, where recent upgrades allowed at most a mammal per capsule sent to destination. Three were built for backup and other purposes, but all could only be activated at once under capacity electric generation, meaning only one could be sent at once without shutting down the whole facility at all times.

Simo liked the idea of basically blowing the facility to bits by overloading the generators, but there are just too many safeguards to prevent just this. No point in making a superproject with a tiny but glaring weak point; he always hated the new Galactic Conflicts series under Mini Mouse Films. No, the point isn't about destroying such a valuable facility that could have been of some use, but the ones who are monopolizing it.

Maybe his brothers, long burdened and dulled by endless contracts, could finally retire to Thina, or whatever that place is called. Maybe his parents did not really die, their souls resting there. Maybe his first love was sent to this Sh'ian place when she killed herself.

Or maybe you should get back to your job.

And so he did. "Team, fall in. Find a vehicle and get us to the chamber. Mannheim will be there." Four shadows, one being significantly smaller, sunk into the further dimness of the

tunnel they came in. Past the side tunnel from the lowest garage, the infiltrators waited until the ebb of patrols and personnel started to wane, leaving only about twenty to mop up before they could appropriate a small Z274.

If there was not enough security measures, vehicles were classified under "external" and "internal" lists. The division, appearing to be some Pawfpa-esque bureaucratic mess, actually prevented infiltration through vehicle from taking place, since vehicles for outside transport could not access any point beyond the underground garages. Instead, electric vehicles and trams were the norm deep inside the facility, with enough charging units to fill up any vehicle that somehow managed to break down during its journey around the subterranean labyrinth.

All the measures left for only one possibility: Internal espionage. Which is ironic, because as muffled rifle noises announced death after death, and shadows quickly devouring bodies into the darkness of maintenance tunnels and instrument panels, the whole team, Simo, Mannheim, Dominykas and Jokubas were all Mr. Big's last ties to his previous employer, so to speak. Wilde… not so much.

"Get in, VIP." The four bears somehow managed to squeeze themselves onto the tiny flatbed to Wilde's amazement, and he started to wiggle his way to a more comfortable position. Alright, there goes the helmet, just left to his seat-

"Alarm!" So they found out about the bodies. "Rev up the car, move!" A multitude of rifles, helmets and light beams rushing out from the side tunnel. "Stop! Stop the car!" "Dominykas, now!" By the industrial lights, Wilde saw something arching towards… them.

This isn't a flashbang, is it?

""BRACE!"" then came the flash.

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"Get the hell up, Wilde!" Where is he…? Shit, gotta go get the helmet, he stowed it just left of his seat, didn't he? Where's the big boys? Why's the truck on its side? Why is he in this angle?

"Get down, Wilde!" What the fu- the ricocheting and whizzing of bullets got Nick up and tight sooner than anything, as he saw his helmet being shot to literal pieces of synthetics just above him. Then he realised Simo pulled him down to where they all are by his tail from the pain.

"Tämä on perseestä, Dominykas is down. We follow the plan, Wilde. If you can't mow these skeidaa down, then at least find something good enough for the job!" Alright shit shit shit, calm down Wilde, find a bomb, where's a bomb, atta boy… "Simo!" The polar bear peeked up and released a volley of fire, possibly suppressing someone, but most likely killing him. "What?" God, he had to yell through the clattering. "Get me to Dominykas! He has the grenades! Throw me over there, and I'll throw them over!"

Where Wilde expected to be a face of anger for daring to mutilate a body for any purpose, Simo only displayed apathy. "Jokubas, suppress them. Wilde, get this done." Just as he finished the sentence, Simo simply picked Wilde up and threw him over a ballet of bullets, splinters and flying debris.

Pain, as if there was not enough, was the first thing Wilde felt as he landed just beside Dominykas' bullet-riddled assault pack. It was a good thing he held onto it before skidding along the ground, since bullets were grazing it as he hit where he is.

3 years of professional policing duty, about 45 or 46 cases solved, but never, never ever did Wilde truly want to take a life, and Wilde was sure he actually took none despite his more or less life-threatening adventures up till now.

You're about to extinguish about fifteen lives by blood loss, shock waves or simply combustion-induced suffocation.

During post-event investigations, Wilde would claim feeling a sense of guilt when he did it. Was it a lie? It was not, since he did feel guilty about lying to Carrots when breaching upon the grenade topic. The shrinks and MOI agents could go screw themselves, but that was not the precise truth.

The truth is, he felt nothing. In retrospect, as he pulled the pin and somewhat amateurly threw the bundle of fragmentation grenades over Dominykas' body, he felt the same sense of emptiness so familiar to him. There was no catharsis, no guilt, no joy, no excitement, just mechanical orders of throwing a bomb over, and killing the whole platoon of resistance.

This time, when the explosion came, he was well-prepared. Bunked behind what was left of Dominykas' torso, Wilde braced his head in prone, feet towards the enemy. As the loud bang, shockwaves and the ear-ringing rode out, he slowly got up, as Simo and Jokubas were already running up to their enemies, gunning down whoever was not roasted, bled or asphyxiated to their deaths yet by double-tapping their heads.

At that moment, Wilde did not know how the scene would haunt him, as he simply got up and followed what was left of the team to find usable gear and a running vehicle. Behind him, the bodies stayed where they are, wrecks burnt silently, just as blood and marrow flowed without any sound from forever still flesh.

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Mannheim supposed his long-dead tutor was correct in many things, including his adage about plans always falling apart in front of reality. Unable to control anything beyond the transport chamber, there was no way for Mannheim to delay the hordes of assault troops descending upon the ragtag band of intruders, however great damage they have collectively wreaked upon the facility.

Good thing the emergency electricity supply should be good enough for sending Mr. Fox to wherever he wants to be: Even in face of electricity, water and oxygen shortage, the Chamber had enough supplies to run everything for around 48 hours, giving the crew ample time to finish their contract.

Countless upgrades rendered the Transportation Chamber control system maneuverable and easy to operate, requiring only two mammals to set everything up. All it takes now, are two paws to switch the activation keys simultaneously to finish the job. With a bit of ingenuity, some duct tape and a rod, Mannheim reduced the number to one.

As CCTV screens shut down one after another, Mannheim could only wait as he held the sole blast door open for his compatriots, who were arriving through a small repurposed golf truck. Assuming his count is correct, they should be arriving by anytime… now. "Mannheim, Simo! We're coming in, close the door now!"

Yeah, it's them. Not because of the desperate order that Mannheim followed anyway, but he recognised the battered team by how… battered they are, standing leagues apart from their smartly-dressed and neatly organised adversaries.

Alright alright, re-route the wires- ah shit, nearly got the wrong one- okay, there we go. "Chief," Mannheim called out to the lead for the first time in the operation by his position, "how many are coming?" Having rounded up the Transportation Chamber staff in one of the observation bunkers and set up the necessary minutiae for transfer, Mannheim's job was basically done. Just twenty metres away, a subtle hiss implied an anti-blast steel wall, five metres thick now stood between Wilde, the team of assassins and about a metric ton of angry troops showering down on them.

"A small pool, I think." Mannheim snickered to himself. Always stoic and understating, till the very last moment of his life. Then Simo started to surprise him.

"You know, Mannheim, you're probably the smartest boy I've met. No, our boss is a Gentleman; he doesn't count as a boy, so shut up." Everyone knew Mannheim was not the strongest when it came to twisting necks or pushing buffalos off cliffs, but by Polaris if he was not a whizz kid when it came to tech stuff, or the occasional weapon upgrade. In a way, he should have been off at Metropolitan Zootopia University, or off somewhere in Euprane, studying to be some genius engineer.

Simo loaded the pistol slowly, as if deliberately letting everyone know he was doing it, echoing loudly in the hollow and quiet chamber, save for the occasional banging on the bunker door, staffs struggling to be let out and take down whoever was messing with their precious equipment. One pistol, one cartridge. Just enough to do what he needed it to.

"Hey kid, catch this," called out Simo across the chamber. Mannheim barely caught the object coming his way- a Type 54 pistol. Jokubas simply grimaced far away. "We polar bears gotta take care of ourselves… see you on the other side." Simo pounded his own right chest- a solemn salute, used only in farewell among close Polar Bear kin. "You take care of Barbarossa there, and- yeah. Proshchaniye."

Wilde, beyond dulled by all the sheer gore and action, just slowly sat and strapped himself inside the Transportation Capsule, as the two older Polar Bears offhandedly threw a grenade into the bunker, finishing off the staff inside and stacking the bodies as improvised sandbags in front of the repurposed bunker- certainly not enough for the crew to survive the onslaught, but enough for them to do their job. Whatever Wilde felt from this operation, as his experience taught him, it would not be now- not when he was not safe. Safety: A notion so close to him, yet so far away. Carrots… is she safe?

He was not sure of it, but throughout the years of mingling with any type of crowds, Willde caught parts of what the two Bears hummed beneath their voices on radio.

… hiljaisuus, Vuorilla usva käy; Vaeltajalle… lyhty näy.

The last functional CCTV screen showed up-armoured assault engineers spearheaded the assault, recognizable by how the explosives were brutally plunging the weak points in the blast door beyond their limit. That meant the team only had about ten minutes before- plasma arcs?

Shit. Wilde just shut himself, fully closing the capsule, ensuring nothing could harm him, so long as no rockets impact the capsule shell.

… On hiljaisuus…... kumpujen; yeah, Simo remembered the lyrics went that way: Yö sadan vuoden varjonsa luoden, Menneestä kertoen.

A salvaged Z-85 heavy machine gun was set up, barrel barely visible from the slits within the bunker. Meanwhile, Mannheim activated the process- Wilde knew since the panels inside the capsule lit up, showing he had just a minute left before he's gone to somewhere else, while the Polar Bears get to go to hell; not that they did not sign up for this.

One last job is always more dignified than retirement.

"60秒" A small doorway cut out visible now; one small push… and a hail of machine gun fire, mowing down the firstcomers, except it was a ballistic shield-wielding point man rushing out, covering for his team mates.

Itkeneet on äidit, lukea kuinka voisi kyyneleet

"50秒" Mannheim had already turned the keys; his job was done. The best grades did not offer him a way out from crime into education; poverty and xenophobia pushed Polar Bears into their little ghettoes, from which Mannheim turned to who he is, and probably will be, no matter if he ended up in Valhalla or Hel. "Dosvidanya." barrel in mouth, pointing to cranium, a pull-

Kummut on alleen kätkeneet tuskan menneiden polvien

"40秒" If Jokubas was a mere officer for ZERB, he would have commented the point man was clever enough to wield a shield, but his buddy was even smarter, since he pulled out a thermobaric rocket launcher, even though its use within underground space was very possibly suicidal. "Fu-" No time to swear. A long burst from his own Z-56, and the buddy was down. Another burst, and the launcher burst into flames, swallowing the entirety of the first breaching team into screaming, tumbling and finally, motionless balls of fire.

Varjot nuo vain, Kumpuja vartioi; Unessa kehrää unelma lankaa, Maa kovan kohtalon

"30秒" Simo knew the entire business of being a killer, whether an operator (Officially Zootopia did not have soldiers anymore), or an assassin, was a cruel joke: You spend an entire life training, appreciating and slaughtering your opponents like works of art to be slashed and burned, only to receive the same treatment at some random, almost nihilistic point in your life.

Still, a job is a job, first job or last job, and so he adhered to his job, by exhausting the last 50-round belt onto the second breaching team. This time they knew better, as they ran from cover to cover, until the rocket launcher found a firing point behind a column, and of course, fired another thermo at them.

Pandshurian, kummuilla tuuli soi

"20秒" Even through the tiny observation port, Wilde was able to see how the rest of the troops stormed through the now-clear breach, and fired round and rocket until the bunker was no more. Confident about having removed the resistance, the soldiers slowly moved up to check and I. D. the bodies.

Uinuvaan kukkaan hohtava kyynel, Kasteesta jäänyt on

"10秒" A limb… Jok's head just… flung off? Here comes the soldiers, cursed and damned, we killers all are… here, one last bang before…...

The 31st Assault Company's last report, voiced back via radio from the doomed lockdown operation, was that "The body was rigged", before the lines were completely jammed, attributed to the strong electromagnetic radiation emitted whenever a Transportation Capsule is launched, owing to inferior Zootopian radiation shielding technology.

"启动" In the brief darkness, Wilde's hands started to shake on their own.

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Remarks:

Since the in-universe ZERB equipment are Chinese surplus, the weapons are well, Chinese surplus. Z-56, allegorical to the Type 56, is the Chinese AK-type rifle, the Z-85 Type 85 heavy machine gun and Z-54 the Chinese Tokarev, Type 54 pistol.

I took some liberties with the vehicles. BJ212 is a Chinese jeep relegated to God-knows-what purposes, but definitely away from active military use. Z274, however, is actually M274, an Vietnam-War era American utility vehicle nicknamed as the Mechanical Mule. I figured such a Vietnam-era template could be freely copied, so I kinda inserted it into the ZERB catalogue of equipment.

Yes, yes, a bit too much gore. I'm experimenting around, but I feel this might be either too dark, too cringey or both. Your pick, readers.

The song is On the Hills of Manchuria, an Imperial Russian Waltz composed by I. A. Shatrov in memory of the Imperial Russian Mokshansky Regiment, which suffered heavy casualties during its 11-day encirclement by Japanese troops in the final days of the 1904-1905 Russo-Japanese War.

No offense, but I mixed Russian, Finnish and what I believe to be Baltic cultural elements together, since I felt Russians, no matter how Russian, are occasionally out-Russianed by non-Russians; not that stereotypes do not exist without some ground in reality, no matter how inflated or disrespecting they become.

By now Wilde should have become slightly softer, experiencing far more peaceful days than his previous occupation would have been. That's why I had to make him less responsive, a bit dull, and certainly shocked by wanton violence, until the nasty bits start settling in later.

Until next time, Samohaya.