Disclaimer: Zootopia stories, characters, settings, and properties belong to the Walt Disney Co. This story is written under Fair Use Copyright laws.

The Fire Triangle—A Zootopia Fanfiction

Part One:

Fuel

Chapter 10 –When A Fox Goes Rabbit
(Concluded…Pt. 7)

Conor Lewis took a short sip of his soda, never once allowing his eyes to stray from the image in front of him.

For the past few days, he'd been unable to perform his daily ritual; looking at the picture he kept of his mother, (so as not to forget what she looked like.) Because of that, he was allowing himself an extra few minutes tonight.

More and more, this image was becoming the young silver-fox's last tenuous connection to the vixen that had borne him. Beyond her appearance, he knew practically nothing about her. What had she done for a living? (Had she even had a job?) What about her friends, who were they, what had they been like? What had she liked to do for fun? Conor couldn't remember any of that…and the few memories of his mother that he had managed to retain were fading by degrees. They had lived in an apartment, he knew that much, but in what city? Once upon a time, he had could have answered that question, but now…aggghhh, grrrr, somewhere back east; other than that, it could have been almost anywhere. There were other recollections as well, but mostly they were just fragments; the kid next door he'd played with, (a ringtailed cat?) and the older vixen—he thought it was a vixen—who had sat with him from time to time. And had she watched him over the weekend once or twice, maybe even for longer than that? That was it; that was all the young fox had left of his mom in his memory bank.

That is, except for…the one thing about her that Conor knew he would never forget; whenever she tucked him in for the night, his mother would sing him a song before turning the lights out. He'd been able to hold onto that memory, at least in part, because she'd eschewed the 'public domain lullabies' in favor of her own preferences, 'This Must Be The Place.' by Talking Herds, and Sarah McLachlion's 'In the Arms of the Angel' to cite just two examples. Her all-time favorite had been a tune the young silver fox had since learned to play himself, "Who Know Where The Time Goes?" by Furport Convention.

Mom had always sung that one with a special beauty.

"Across the evening sky…all the birds are leaving.
But how can they know…it's time for them to go?"

And then, one day, it had been time for her to go…

Conor moved the cursor and closed the image. Enough was enough, and Guild would be logging into their secure chat room in just a few more minutes. He drained his soda-can, tossing it into a nearby wastebasket when he was finished.

And then he settled down to wait

He was inside the Furrison Hotel again, seated once more in his zero gravity chair; surrounded by a trio of display screens and with a fourth one overhead. He wasn't bothering to go VR this time; that was fine for work, but not for chat.

Anyone watching him would have seen a slightly different looking young fox than the one who'd stumbled into this loft in the wee hours of the morning—and also a different smelling animal; he had toned down his scent as well.

After finishing his clean-up chores, Conor had given himself a good, hard work-out, and then taken another shower, this time using the fur-bleach and the deodorizer-infused fur-wash.

He had employed them both only sparingly; it was something else Danny Tipperin had taught him. The key to effectively changing to your appearance and/or scent is to make it a gradual process. Don't do it all at once, give it time to settle in. So it was that the young fox's fur was only fractionally lighter than before, and his scent only a tiny bit less noticeable.

Conor blew a puff of air against his nose. Danny had once given him some further advice along that line; if you really want to change your scent, try changing your diet. "Like the old saying goes, you are what you eat," the swift fox had said.

Unfortunately for THIS fox, that option wasn't open to him, at least for the time being. Having to lay low inside his hidey-hole, he'd be scarfing on his usual fare for at least another week.

When it came to changing his appearance however; there were a few more things he could do. For starters, he could alter his wardrobe, swapping out his usual clothes for something a bit more homeboy; stressed jeans, a hoodie and t-shirt, and a ball-cap turned askew.

As for his burning-amber eyes—the young fox's most distinguishing characteristic—he had made preps to deal with them a long time ago. Over the past three years, he had acquired several sets of theatrical contact lenses, two sets in brown, one in grey, and two more in blue. (Those last ones actually made his eyes turn green, but never mind, as long as they looked different than before.)

He had one of each color-set, laid out in the bathroom and ready to insert if needed.

The clock in the corner of monitor #1 ticked down to 9:36; one minute left, it was time to get ready.

Conor clicked on his mouse, moved it, clicked again, typed some instructions and then double-clicked. This time he did not use voice control. When interacting with Guild—or with any other member of The Circle, for that matter—voice-chat was strictly verboten, a legacy from the days when Kieran McCrodon had run the show.

"Even the best voice-maskin' software can't disguise everythin', boyo," the Irish sea-mink had once informed him, "F'rinstance, it can't change yer speech-pattern, can it?"

Needless to say, web-cams were also out of the question.

Conor clicked again, and the secure chat window materialized before him. As always it was set for high-contrast, jet black with the young fox's username, (Eiffelsogudg_x9%,) showing in the sidebar, the lettering in bright, canary-yellow.

The time stamp changed to 9:37…and a new name was added to the sidebar, this one in florescent lime-green, Guillycrakks75##3 .

And then a message appeared in the main window.

Guillycrakks75##3 : Hey, Who RU & What are you doing here?

Eiffelsogudg_x9%,: What MI doing here, what are YOU doing here?

Guillycrakks75##3 : Lking 4a frend,

Guillycrakks75##3 : FRIEND

Eiffelsogudg_x9%,: Dunno who U mean. Not me.

Guillycrakks75##3 : Ri. I be Out of here.

Eiffelsogudg_x9%,: Nighters

Conor settled back and waited for Guild to return. Their exchange had actually been a coded ritual; a test to make sure the other animal was who said they were. Had either one of them typed an incorrect response, the other would have instantly closed the chatroom and then deleted the program.

The giveaway wasn't only in what they'd said, but also how they'd said it. They had messaged each other in a mixture of phonetics and plain English, (RU and 'Are You',) a not particularly common practice in chat. The misspelling and correction of 'friend' had been intentional as well.

When Guild came back, what he had to say nearly caused the young silver fox to do a full 360 in his zero-gravity chair.

Guillycrakks75##3 : I'm switching over to voice-chat.

Conor blinked, and then stared at the center screen. Wha…? That couldn't be right. He typed a quick reply.

Eiffelsogudg_x9%,: Don't think that's gud idea.

Guillycrakks75##3 : Y not Conor? Already know who U R.

Eiffelsogudg_x9%,: Yes, but I dunno who UR. 2 Danger-S 4 U

Guillycrakks75##3 : My risk 2 take…and we'll B done fstr F we U-Z voice.

That was true, but Conor still didn't like the idea. Before he could type a response however, his partner beat him to the punch.

Guillycrakks75##3 : DO IT!

Conor felt his chest seize up for a second. When Guild typed in all caps you had two choices—either go along, or watch him disappear.

He took the first option, flipping on his headset microphone and engaging the speech-alteration app. Only then did he click on the 'voice' button.

"Okay, here I am."

Guild's response sounded like a talking vacuum-cleaner; he too was using voice-cloaking software.

He also wasn't wasting any time.

"So you're only 14, huh?"

Conor felt his ears go up and point at each other. There was something about the way Guild had said that…

He let it pass; probably just the voice-changing software.

"Yep, now you know." He said, and then quickly braced himself. He knew what was coming next. First, the sound of a pawlm against a face, followed by something to the effect, 'If I'd known THAT before I…how could I ever have been so…? Blah…blah…blah…I HATE myself.'

None of that happened. Instead, Guild told him. "Okay, let's recap. What have you been doing since you got out of jail?"

Conor felt his ears standing up even further than before. What, now? Wasn't his partner even going to ask him where he'd gotten the money they'd been lending out?

"That'd sure as heck have been the FIRST question out of my mouth," the young fox marveled silently. Their transactions had all involved payments of cash that would have been excessive even for a high-schooler to have had available… much less a kid at least a year away from getting his Learner's Permit.

Well…it might have been curious, but it wasn't unwelcome. Truth be told, his revenue source was the last thing Conor wanted to discuss with Guild right now—or ever. And so, he gave his partner a quick summary of everything that had happened since he'd left Precinct-1 (Wisely, he chose to omit the part about having overslept, and offered no details about his hideaway.)

Guild's response to this was a simple, "Okay," and then he wanted to know, "Have you told anyone else about me? Sorry but I have to know."

It was fair question and Conor even felt a little bit relieved. Finally his partner was asking something he SHOULD be asking. He said, "Don't worry; I didn't say a word to the cops."

"Not the police, but you did tell somebody, am I right?" Guild's response was a tense as a bowstring; he had caught the inflection in the young fox's voice.

"Now you know why I wanted to stick to texting." Conor grimaced silently. Nothing to do now but come clean—and he would have to tread very carefully.

"Okay…I never gave him your name, or anything…but I had to tell my attorney that I was working with someone …"

"You did WHAT?" Guild almost screamed; coupled with his altered voice, it sounded as if someone had set off mega-bass boom-box inside of the young fox's head. Agggghhh, grrrr, he was probably going to need a whole pawful of Zebuprofen when he was done here.

"Will you calm the heck down?" he said, "I didn't tell him anything he and the cops don't already know—except that the guy I work with isn't The Phantom—told him there ain't no such animal, and that's all I said."

Guild was anything but satisfied

"That's enough so they cops will know they've been looking for me in the wrong place."

"Only if my attorney tells them…and he won't," the young fox reminded his partner. "Don't forget, Mr. Rodenberg's not just a lawyer, he's a mob lawyer."

"What the heck does THAT have to do with it?" Guild was almost screaming again.

"Everything," Conor answered patiently, "A regular lawyer only has to worry about being disbarred if they violate the attorney-client thing; a mob lawyer has to worry about being used to paint a house, you follow what I'm bringing out?"

Guild didn't follow it apparently. For a long time, he said nothing. If it hadn't been for his username, still visible in the sidebar, Conor might have assumed that his partner had bailed. When he finally spoke again, his words were both slow and deliberate.

"Don't be so sure about that kid. You can't….you…just don't be so sure about it."

Conor stared as the screen for a second. This was the first time Guild had ever called him 'kid'. Yes, it was a given that he would be older than the young silver fox, but still…

He opened his mouth to reply but Guild had already changer the subject.

"Listen, you probably already know this, but were you aware that the ZPD has a warrant out for Mr. Shortal's computer?"

For a long moment, Conor just sat there, head tilted sideways in confusion. No he hadn't been aware of it, but at the same time, it was hardly a surprise. Why did Guild seem to think that it was some kind of a big deal?

"No, I wasn't," he finally said.

"Didn't think so; don't worry, I took care of it," Guild had mistaken the young fox's hesitation for something else, "I infected his hard-drive with ransomwear. Even with a clean-room scan, the ZPD won't get a thing out of that computer."

"Huh? What'd you do that for?" Conor was both bemused and confused. That sounded like a serious case of overkill.

"Sorry, had to do it." Guild's voice was just barely apologetic, "Shortal got careless on us; forgot to delete your last e-mail message and his brother-in-law saw it. Animal named Weaselton, Duke Weaselton; he's the one who informed on us to the police. Uhhh, you didn't know this?"

"Of course I knew it," Conor all but snapped at his partner, "My lawyer made the cops give Weaselton up while I was being questioned." He allowed himself a small snark. "There's other ways of getting information besides going online ya know."

Annoyed as he was, the young fox had to admit that his partner had a point. If Mr. Shortal had left THAT piece of information out in the open, then who knew what else he'd forgotten to delete? And though Conor had known since day 2 that the Dukester was the animal who'd given him up, the cops had never said HOW their informant come by the info he'd given them. Now, finally, the last piece of the puzzle was falling into place.

"You sound like you know that weasel," Guild replied, ignoring the jab; he seemed to have grasped that he'd unknowingly insulted his partner's intelligence.

"I know about him," Conor said. (Finnick had once filled him in on Weaselton.) "He's a street operator, rip-off artist—strictly small time; likes to hustle pirated DVDs and games. On the street, he's known as the Duke of Bootleg; word is, he can't stand that name." Something occurred to the young fox then and he asked. "Do you happen to know if he snitched me out as part of plea deal?"

Guild hesitated for a moment before answering. Whether it was because he had to look up the information or for some other reason, Conor couldn't tell.

Finally, his partner came back.

"Yes, they're letting him plead down from first degree burglary to possession of stolen property, why?"

Conor answered that question with one of his own.

"Was he able to make bail, do you know?"

"Uhhhm, yeah," Guild answered nervously, and then, "You're not planning on getting some payback, I hope."

A sly grin wrapped itself around the young fox's face. "Nahhh, way too risky…but wouldn't it be great if we could let the cops THINK that's what we're planning?"

"Oh, oh, ohhhhh—YES!" Guild's voice was almost gleeful, "Give the ZPD a little distraction; oh yeah, I like that idea. Only how are you going to set it up?"

"Don't know yet," the young fox had to admit, "I'll think about it, though. And if you come up with anything, lemme know."

"Will do," Guild replied, and then made an odd noise. It took Conor several seconds to realize that he was clearing his throat.

"Listen, getting back to Mr. Shortal; you never did collect that final payment from him, am I right?"

"Yeah, that's right," Conor said, "You thinking I should let him keep it, to make up for your having to ransomware his computer?"

He heard Guild making that noise again, obviously embarrassed. And why not, it wasn't HIS cash that he was proposing to give away.

Just the same, the young fox agreed without waiting for him to say it.

"Yeah, let's do it; I couldn't collect that money now, anyway. The ZPD knows I shined on that last payment…so you better believe they're gonna be watching that weasel close."

Another odd sound came over his headset, this time easily recognizable as a sigh of relief.

"Okay, good," Guild said. "I'll try to see if I can find a way to let him know about it. Oh, and except for our transactions, he had all of his data backed up in the Cloud. Once he gets his computer replaced, he should be back in business, no problem. Uhm, you sure you're okay with giving up that money?"

"Yeah, I can handle it." The young fox answered, "I didn't get into this for the bucks anyway.

He instantly wanted to kick himself; what the heck had he said THAT for? Now Guild would start pestering him about where a 14-year-old kid could have laid his paws on that kind of cash.

But instead he only made that throat clearing noise again.

"Yeah, about that…listen kid, I'm not very good at this kind of thing, but I'm sorry for getting you into this."

Conor's ears went up again.

"Wha…? You didn't get me into this; I did it to myself."

Guild was having none of that.

"Yes, I did; it was my idea, remember?"

The young fox came back swiftly,

"The first time yeah, but I was the one who wanted to run with it. If you'd had your way, it would have been a one-off deal—and I wouldn't be hiding from the cops right now. I pushed it, I own it, end of story."

"All right, I'm not going play reverse blame-game with you." Guild responded wearily. Just then Conor heard another voice in the background. He couldn't make out the words,, but he heard his partner say, "I'll be there in a minute, just wait." The words were not spoken harshly; in fact, they sounded almost…affectionate, and maybe even just a tiny bit familiar.

Then Guild said, "All right, I have to go; same time tomorrow?"

"Yeah," Conor said, "I probably won't be on, but go ahead and check in, just in case."

You never knew; something might come up between now and then.

"All right, later," Guild said, and then he was gone...

No, not quite, he still had one more thing to say.

"It was good while it lasted though, wasn't it? We helped a lot of animals."

"Yep, we did," the young fox agreed. Privately, however, he wondered if the whole thing had been worth it. Okay, maybe what he and Guild had been doing wasn't what the ZPD and everyone else had thought it was, but still—he had thrown his future down a garbage disposal in order to make it happen.

He was only just now becoming aware of that fact.

"Okay, Nighters." Guild said, and then his name disappeared from the sidebar. A split second later, the chatroom closed.

Conor fell back in his chair and shut his eyes, trying to absorb everything he'd just heard—and not heard; Guild still hadn't asked him where a 14-year-old kid could have gotten the kind of money they'd been lending out.

That alone would have been head-scratcher, but the young fox's partner also hadn't said a word about how a kid that age could have managed on his own for three whole years…with NO adult supervision.

And those were just for openers; Guild hadn't brought up the Performing Arts Academy, he hadn't asked how Conor had managed to get someone like Vernon J. Rodenberg to represent him…heck, he hadn't even asked what the young fox's real name was.

But the biggest anomaly was this: As expected, Guild had expressed surprise at how young his online partner actually was…but even through all of that digital voice alteration, Conor had been able to tell it had all been forced.

It made him stop to wonder; could Guild have been aware of his age all along? Did he know a more than he'd been letting on about the animal he'd been working with for the past couple years? It was certainly possible; like foxes, hackers have secrets that they never share with anyone. (For example, the other members of The Circle didn't have a clue that Guildenkrantz and Feelsogudd had been moonlighting as guerilla bankers.)

Conor opened his eyes and tapped his forefingers together. What did he really know about Guild anyway?

All right, first of all, his partner was the longest serving member of The Circle, one of the few from before the young fox's time with The Company. He'd been Kieran McCrodon's right-paw mammal within the group—of which he was now in charge following his chief's incarceration. As such, he'd known the sea-mink for longer than any of the other Circle members…a certain young silver-fox included. The difference was that, unlike Conor, Guild had never met Kieran face-to-face.

"Or…HAS he?" the young fox asked himself, feeling an urge to apply a slap upside his head. How did he know for certain that the two never met? The answer was, he didn't; he'd only assumed that was the case. Aggggghhh, grrrrr…big mistake for anyone to make that kind of conjecture—especially a young fugitive on the run; he would have to be more careful from now on.

One thing that he did know for certain was this: Like Conor himself, Guild was one of only a pawful of mammals who had been aware that Kieran McCrodon was the legendary Druid. Even today, more than three years after his arrest, the police were unaware of that fact; they knew Kieran had been a hacker all right, but not THAT hacker.

Guild, however had known; it was something to give even more credence to the theory that they had known each other offline.

Maybe so, but it still left one big question unanswered—if Guild had known all along that Conor was just a kid, why the heck had he gone along with that moneylending scheme?

THAT was one puzzle for which the young fox had at least a partial solution. Guild had always held a special loathing for banks and bankers; how crooked they were and how they always stuck it to regular mammals, (especially if they were members of a maligned species.) He'd supposedly been hacking into the databases of various banks even before he'd joined The Circle. And what he'd found—the young fox had seen it—was downright sickening.

No, it made perfect sense, when you thought about it. Something that involved giving it back to a bank, even in a small way; there was something Guild would be up for, and the heck with his partner's age.

Conor stretched his arms and made small grumbling noise. At the end of the day, their backstreet lending program had probably hurt Zootopia's banking community about as much as a bottle-rocket is capable of hurting a concrete bunker. On the other paw a pinprick action like that was probably the ONLY way Guild would have been willing to take on a bank. He was the kind of hacker Kieran call a 'Hot-Bottle,' the whistleblower who accumulates a warehouse full of damning evidence, only to get cold feet at the prospect of leaking it to the press or passing it on to law enforcement.

Shaking his head as if attempting to clear it, Conor tried to make sense of it all; the more he thought about Guild, the more questions he had. In fact, there was only one thing he knew right now for certain.

And that was, he had taken enough risks for one night and it was time to get offline while the getting was good.

He moved his mouse to the 'Shut Down' button and clicked, waiting for The Beast to power off and put him back in isolation.

It occurred to him then that the next few days were going to be incredibly boring—and lonely.

Nick Wilde would have had very little sympathy for his fellow fox right then; at the moment, HE wanted nothing more than for the world to go away and leave him alone.

He was sitting on a bus, on his way back to the Vole Garden Metro station, not caring when, or even if he ever got there.

Nick looked a far cry from the sharp-dressed cop he'd been when he'd arrived in Happytown earlier in the day. His tail was dragging, his cheek tufts were sagging, and that once-snappy uniform of his now looked as if he'd acquired it by dumpster pouncing.

After more than an hour of concerted effort, he had finally managed to convince his mother that there'd been nothing romantic going on between him and Judy Hopps; that was the good news. The bad news was—with that out of the way, mom had seen no reason why she shouldn't started pestering him about grandkids again; out of the frying pan, into the fire.

"Hey buddy, isn't this your stop?" The panda driving the bus asked him, not unsympathetically. (He was the same animal who'd dropped the red fox off a while back—and he was not unaware of the change in his passenger's appearance.)

Nick looked out the window and saw the entrance to Vole Garden Metro station. He mumbled something that might have been 'thanks', and then got up from his seat and headed for the door.

Halfway down the station steps he heard the call of a hunting-horn, coming from his pocket; someone had had just sent him a text.

He almost left his cell-phone where it was; probably a parting shot from mom.

"But what if it isn't from her?" his inner voice queried. Okay, he'd check… but NOT until after he boarded his train.

When he did, all the seats were taken, and oops… can't text while holding a strap; he would have to let it go a wee bit longer At the next stop, Walnut Street, a whole bunch of animals got off, and Nick was finally left without an excuse for not checking his inbox.

He sat down and looked at his cell-phone screen…and at once, his ears were standing tall. What, now? In all the time that Nick been with the ZPD, he had never once gotten a text from Chief Bogo; for the big Cape buffalo, it had always been voice communications or nothing.

The message read:

Meet me at the following address, tomorrow at 11:00.

403 Hanging Fern Ave, Otterdam, unit number 1620, the entrance code is 5025# . Tell no one about this message and delete it as soon as you've read it (and memorized the address.) I will be contacting Officer Hopps separately.

Extremely important that you be there! Lives may depend on it.

Bogo.

Nick knew at once that he would be there; no question about it.

It wasn't the urgency of the message that made up the fox's mind for him. In fact, he wasn't at all sure that the summons was really from the Chief and not some kind of set-up.

No, it was simply that if Nick WAS about to walk into a trap, he didn't really care right now anyway.

"Dangit Mom, why does it always have to end up like this?"