DISCLAIMER: I had a new draft for a bid all written, but Sid decided to strap it, along with Buzz Lightyear, to a rocket, and launch it, saying it was an important message that had to be sent to an orbiting battlestation. I don't know why he didn't just email the message, but my bid is now a thousand bits of confetti.

Thanks to TheoreticallyEva for editing this chapter and keeping me grounded!

Two mammals groaned as the infernal screeching monstrosity colloquially known as 'Nick's alarm clock' blared out its announcement of a new day. Even Judy just wanted to smash the thing to pieces, despite her get-up-and-go attitude most of the time.

They'd finally managed to get back to their apartment a little after 3:00 a.m., crashing on the bed after just barely taking the time to change, though Nick almost didn't make it that far. After turning in the voice recorder to be analyzed, they'd had to log the wrecked, burned-out delivery van into evidence and have the overtired lab mammals go over it with a comb, and finally spent hours writing up their notes and forms for the day.

By 2:00 a.m., the transit system was shut down for the night, and their only way of getting home was to wait for a ride from one of their colleagues, neither of them feeling alert enough to drive, even through the city's empty streets. Fortunately, one of the night shift officers had offered them a ride home. Bogo still wanted them in early, though he stressed the need for sleep. Judy figured that meant he wanted them in for the late morning shift, if shift work had any meaning anymore.

Nick groaned, cursed, and Judy could feel him moving around before she heard a loud crunch and the alarm ceasing with a squawk. The fox's movements ceased, but the mumbled curses from just above the doe's head didn't. Tired though she was, the doe couldn't help but smile and start poking the fox. The grumbling got louder, and the next thing she knew, she felt Nick's arms wrap around her, pulling her right into his chest. She struggled for a moment before poking him hard in the side.

THAT got a response, as the fox yelped and flinched away. "Come on, Nick, time to get up. We have to get to work. Bogo wants to be briefed as soon as possible."

"Fi mr m'nuts flf…" came the sound of the fox's voice. Judy sighed.

"Come on, Slick. There's a city out there that needs us. Mammals that want justice for what happened yesterday."

After a moment, she felt Nick nod and loosen his arms around her. Judy squirmed out of the embrace and off the bed, then turned to regard Nick as he sat up, looking like a truck had hit him sometime in the night. He sat there a moment, and Judy cocked her head to the side.

"You OK, Slick?"

For a long time, Nick didn't speak. It wasn't until Judy wormed her way into his lap and wrapped her arms around him that he finally spoke. "I kept having nightmares. All those officers on the videotapes, the news footage, everything we saw and heard yesterday. It's like my mind wouldn't let me forget."

Judy nodded, crawled back onto the bed, and sat next to her fox, wrapping her arms around him in support. "I had a nightmare, too. Everywhere I looked, I saw all those we couldn't save. They all seemed to be asking me why I wouldn't help them. The last time I had a nightmare like that was the night of Wolford's murder."

Nick was silent a long while. "I know I say 'never let them see that they get to you', but this really did…" He trailed off, and Judy laid her head on his shoulder and rubbed his chest with one paw. "I kept seeing the different outcomes. Predators caged, muzzled, fitted with these ugly black stun collars, beaten tortured, and killed for public sport. And the worst part was, no matter how hard I tried, I couldn't find you. It was like you were gone from the world. Mom, too, and Finn."

Judy crawled into her fox's lap and wrapped him in a tight hug. "I'm not going anywhere, Nick. Never. If these… monsters got their dream of whatever twisted utopia they want, I'd drag you into the first resistance cell I could find and fight." She grinned. "We could be the Freedom Alliance, fighting against the evil empire."

A small smile crossed her fox's face. "Can I be Luke Pawwalker?"

The rabbit's grin turned into a full smile. "You can be whatever you want. Just as long as I can be right by your side."

Nick grinned but stayed silent for a moment. "Would you do that though? Give up your dream job for me?"

"My dream always has been and always will be to make the world a better place. If I'm on the police force and am being forced to arrest predators just because of what they are, the only worlds I'm making better are the twisted, horror-story ones."

"I feel like we're living in a horror story now," Nick said, then he let out another small smirk. "Maybe a vigilante superhero, then? Mild-mannered police officer by day and masked freedom fighter by night?"

Judy shrugged. "If that's what it took, yes. It may not be legal, but at that point, I'd rather be fighting for what's right. And what these guys want isn't anywhere close to right."

Another smile graced Nick's face. "I know you would. And I'd make sure I had your back. Someone'll have to be around to pull your crazy bunny butt out of the messes you get yourself into. Might as well be me."

Judy laughed and slugged his arm. "You make it sound like it's such a chore."

Her fox joined in the light laughter, which Judy was happy to see. "You know you love me."

"Do I know that? Yes, yes, I do. And now, lover fox, you and I need to really need to get back to the precinct. There's a world out there that REALLY needs to be made better, don't you agree, Slick?"

Nick's smile was soft and warm. "Yes, I agree, 100%."

Judy stretched up and gave the fox a kiss on the nose. "Good. Now let's go. Bogo will want to be caught up with the case before he makes any decisions. Let's make sure he can make the right ones."

The doe squirmed out of his lap and headed down the hall to get changed. Nick stayed where he was for a moment, wondering what he'd done to get such a wonderful mammal in his life, then stretched and got up to change back into his uniform himself.

Bogo jerked awake from a fitful sleep on his office couch. Last time he'd looked at the clock, it was 4:00 a.m. Now, the clock read 6:30. The cape buffalo groaned. He'd called his wife early the evening before to say that he wouldn't be coming home that night, and she'd been understanding. She might not be so understanding if she knew that the couch was too small for him. He would have a sore back for days to come.

He just hoped that those days could be spent at home, with the terrorists of yesterday's attacks locked up. Smoothing out his uniform, he got up to review the latest lab reports for the equipment recovered from the water treatment plant and the truck pulled from the ravine in the desert. In another pile on his desk were the health reports for each of his officers that had been taken out of commission by the attack. While most were treated for Night Howler and drug exposure, some had been seriously physically injured in various altercations, either with civilians or their fellow officers, and one of the sergeants from the Canals District had succumbed to his injuries overnight.

The third stack on the cape buffalo's desk was the one to which he was hoping to add this morning, once Rivers, Longtooth, Hopps, and Wilde had returned from the break he'd ordered them to take. At least they'd gotten to go home. We should add a sleep room, like some of the police departments in Asia and Europe have.

The cape buffalo was reviewing the lab results when his phone rang. Officer Henders, manning the dispatch office, was on the other end and informed the chief that several of their hospitalized officers had shown up. He asked what to do with them. The chief had them sent to his office and set aside the files. Those would have to wait.

The four officers from the Rainforest District showed up in his office a moment or two later. A cheetah, a sloth bear, a hippo, and an Asian elephant all stared at him, as though he had all the answers. He wished he did, though maybe he had at least some of the answers they sought. Like where to go for work that day, if they were even medically fit to do so.

"I assume you officers want to be put back out on patrol." It was more of a statement than a question, since he'd already had a few come through his office. The other precincts had as well, and he'd given the precinct captains the authority to put an officer back on active duty with a signed doctor's note, bypassing a lot of red tape with MR and internal affairs. Right now, they needed all the able bodies they could lay their hooves on.

Three of the officers in front of him nodded while the other remained silent.

The chief held out his right hoof. "Doctor's notes?" All four handed over the requested notes and forms, already filled out and signed. The chief looked them over, then pulled their personnel files, made the necessary changes, and closed them. They weren't the usual crop of mammals that he'd choose for Precinct One, but he couldn't be choosy. "Very well. All four of you report to the bullpen in forty-five minutes for briefing. If you don't know where that is, go pester one of the other officers. Dismissed."

Three of the four officers turned to leave, while the cheetah remained. After a long moment, Bogo looked up again with a long-suffering expression. "Something else I can help you with, Officer Pawson?"

The cheetah fidgeted under the cape buffalo's intimidating glare. "Sir. I was wondering if you knew how a few other officers were doing. A few… friends." When the chief didn't respond, the smaller officer took it as permission to continue. "Nick, Judy, and my partner, sir. Are they OK?"

Bogo eyed the cheetah a bit longer before speaking. "Officers Wilde and Hopps are fine, Pawson, though I suspect that if I hadn't sent them home for the night, that rabbit would have worked them both through the night. As for your partner, I don't know who was assigned to you, so I can't look him up."

"Her, sir. Her name is Meagan Moon. Spelled M-E-A-G-A-N. She's a wolf, sir. I last saw her yesterday morning. She isn't answering her phone, she's not at home, and none of the hospitals will tell me where she is. Same with her family." The cheetah broke eye contact and looked at the floor. "I'm worried sir."

The chief sat back and nodded. Partners in the ZPD almost always created a bond between them, some more than others, and losing your partner was akin to losing a brother or sister, even more so than losing a fellow blue family member. He'd had several officers under him who'd lost partners over the years. Only a few stayed on the force and none were the same after it happened.

After only a second of thought, he turned to his computer and pulled up the roster of officers, searching for Officer Moon. It didn't take the computer long to spit out a result. "She's in critical but stable condition at the White Sands hospital, Pawson. I don't have the full details though."

The cheetah nodded. "That helps, sir." He looked like he wanted to say something more, but instead turned and headed out the door, leaving the buffalo alone in his office.

Getting to work was even more of a hassle than before. With taxi services shut down, police checkpoints on all of the major roads, and many minor roads closed, the subway was even more of a sardine can nightmare than usual. Nick and Judy had been forced into a small corner by the mass of flesh. Each train car had one transit peace officer or a cop from out of town assigned to it, as did each platform on the train line. Some train lines had been shut down entirely, forcing the mammals that used them to find an alternate means to get to work or stay home.

The whole time, the two small officers tried to keep an eye on the mammals coming and going, looking for any who were on their wanted list. Unfortunately, it was an exercise in futility, as their vision was limited to those few around them, even when Judy clambered up to stand on Nick's shoulders. The individuals around them were just too large and numerous.

They eventually gave up and stood there in silence, waiting for the train to reach Savannah Central Station. Once there, they were able to squeeze out of the subway car between a hippo who wore way too much perfume and an elephant who smelled like he hadn't showered in weeks, and make their way up the stairs and across the plaza to the police station.

The plaza itself, normally a hive of activity with mammals of all ages and species going about their daily lives, playing, or relaxing, stood eerily empty, the dancing fountains silent as well. Down the street by the natural history museum, a city crew had opened a fire hydrant and was actively flushing water down into the sewer, but other than that, there was no activity whatsoever.

The two made their way up the steps to Precinct One and through the doors. Like the outside, the lobby was quieter than normal, and the two noted with dismay that Clawhauser's usual desk was still occupied by one of the other shift dispatchers. They hoped their jolly overweight friend was doing OK.

Nick leaned over to whisper in his partner's ear. "Think Spots is ready for visitors?"

Judy stopped to ponder for a bit. "I don't know. The first savage cases, back when we nabbed Bellwether, were back to their normal selves within a few hours. So were you, from what I heard, after the Grand Palm attack. But I don't know about the new strain." The doe thought for a second. "We should find out where he is and visit him if we can."

"Took the words right out of my mouth, Carrots."

The doe made a face. "Doubtful. They didn't taste like fox-breath."

Putting his paw over his heart. "You wound me, Carrots. Besides, you know you love it."

Judy rolled her eyes and shook her head but couldn't help the slight grin that crossed her muzzle. Before she could say anything, she spotted Nolwazi Longtooth waving at her from the second floor and gesturing that they should come up to meet her.

Nick was about to say something about her lack of response when he, too, noticed the lioness. "I wonder what she wants us for?"

His doe companion shrugged. "Hopefully, they got something from that voice recorder. Or maybe it's another briefing for Bogo. Maybe another mammal has come forward to blow the whole case open all over again. Come on. Let's go find out."

Nick frowned. "You mean to tell me that it's not company lunch Saturday? Or that the Bunny Scouts didn't come to drop off cookies?"

"Pretty sure the Bunny Scouts are locked in their houses like most of the rest of the population, Nick. Not like they'd be allowed to go out canvassing or setting up a clothing drive. Just another one of the things in this city that those terrorists have ruined." Judy frowned.

They finally reached Longtooth, standing outside one of the conference rooms. "You're just in time, you two. Cybercrime came back to us with that recorder you found, Hopps. They got it working. I don't fully understand how, but they did. We were just about to… listen to it." Judy's ears dropped like they had lead weights attached to the ends, and Nick's ears were set in a similar posture.

Glancing at each other, they were easily able to read the other's thoughts. Neither of them wanted to hear what might end up being the last words of their lost colleague, particularly Judy, who had been the wolf's partner for six months before Nick graduated. Judy took a breath and nodded to Longtooth, who led them into the conference room.

The room was mostly empty, with only Shawn Dancing Rivers, Chief Bogo, and the cougar from cybercrime present. The chief glanced up at them. "Glad you could make it, you two. Have a seat."

They walked over to one of the chairs and hopped up, sharing it the same way they would in the bullpen. Neither one of them had a problem getting a little cozy with the other, though at this point, that was the last thing on either of their minds.

Longtooth closed and locked the door behind them, ensuring that no one could disturb the group, and Chief Bogo gave the cybercrime detective permission to proceed.

"The device was badly damaged by both the heat of the fire and its trip off the edge of that ravine, and by spending months exposed in the desert," the cougar explained. "Most of the device was waste, but we were able to get the flash memory chip safely off and put it on an identical unit we found. Some of the memory was bad, but we were able to recover about twenty-six minutes of audio, all from the night he died."

Bogo grunted. "Let's just hear it, Cam."

The cougar nodded and started the playback.

The room grew silent as the initial sounds of someone handling the recorder played before they settled down, and Eric Wolford's voice poured out of the speakers.

"OK, we have two vehicles that left the warehouse heading in opposite directions, a grey medium-large pickup truck and a medium white delivery van, Zootopia license plate Zulu Foxtrot Juliet nineteen sixty-five. I'm following that one right now, east on 26th avenue."

The sounds of the car's engine could be heard coming to life, along with the sounds Judy recognized as Wolford pulling out of wherever he'd been parked to follow the van.

"Looks like our suspect, Hornby, drives a pickup truck, Furysler Dodge crew cab, matches what Wolford said. Light grey in colour." Rivers said as he busily tapped things out on his computer.

"Delivery van is a Furd heavy chassis truck with a cube box back and a cab overhang, repeating the license plate Zulu Foxtrot Juliet nineteen sixty-five. Looks like it's a couple generations old, late 90s or early 2000s, maybe."

Rivers typed the license plate into his computer, then waved to the cougar to stop the playback. "That license is… Well, it's not a Furd cube van, unless Furd cube vans have come down in size. That license plate belongs on a Smart FurTwo."

Longtooth snorted. "So, he's runnin' on a stolen plate. Hey, Wilde, you and Hopps get the license plate of the wreck you found yesterday?"

Judy flipped through her notes. "The plate was scorched, but Nick was able to read the stamped numbers."

"Zulu-papa-juliet-nineteen-sixty-five," Nick intoned, reading his bunny's notes over her shoulder.

Rivers punched that up. "That matches. Comes out to a Furd van owned by… Tech 4 Teens… The same 'charity' that Mrs. Wilde found out about. Registration was cancelled a week after Wolford was murdered. Same day as his funeral. But from what Stang said, and Woolter backed up, it seems that the van was destroyed the very next day."

Longtooth had a puzzled look on her face. "But why would Wolford have read out a different license plate number?"

It was Nick who had an answer to that. "I knew of a few mammals that would use a permanent marker to change their license plates. Threes, sixes, and nines are easy. You can just change them to eights. U's to O's or eights, P's to R's, that kind of thing. If you're really desperate, you can also take white paint and change a P to an F, or an R to a P or something. It's an easy way to get out of a photo radar ticket, but if you actually get pulled over, well, you can kiss your car goodbye."

Rivers nodded. "Must have been one of those. Doug doesn't seem like the kind of guy that really cares about the law unless he gets caught."

Judy snorted. "That's an understatement."

Nolwazi Longtooth scratched her head. "Why risk it, though? I mean, if the plate gets spotted, the truck's gonna be ticketed and impounded."

Judy was the one to answer that. "At a passing glance, maybe we wouldn't notice. And if he gets caught by a red light or photo radar camera with his real plate, we'd know where he was. He knows we've been looking for him since Bellwether. If he changed the license plate legally, the DMV would notify us of a wanted mammal. So, he did it illegally, and as long as we don't have reason to run the plate, we won't notice the discrepancy."

There was a brief silence before Bogo spoke up. "We have some automatic license plate readers on order that we are going to equip cruisers and traffic camera software with. It's not ready yet, though, won't be for a couple of months." The cape buffalo's voice lowered. "Maybe I can use this little detail to put more pressure on the city council to speed things along."

Shawn Dancing Rivers let out a snort. "That would have certainly saved a lot of time… Maybe even Wolford's life." He paused a moment before gesturing to the cougar. "Please continue the playback, Cam."

The cougar cybercrime specialist nodded.

The sound of the moving car continued through the speakers. "OK, turning onto Kindiak Road."

Rivers continued typing on his computer, noting the twists and turns the wolf called out as he went. About fifteen minutes in, and a few rewinds for clarification, Wolford announced, "Suspect is making a turn into Kalahari Heights."

Judy and Nick looked at each other, both remembering that night in vivid detail. The recording continued, with Wolford listing off a couple more turns before he announced that he was breaking off when the delivery van made another turn. There was a moment of just road noise before Wolford spoke again. "The van stopped in front of the Jerry's Mini Mart here in Kalahari Heights. I'm moving to investigate."

There was the sound of Wolford rustling around, the loud clicks of him checking and preparing his service weapon, then the sound of opening and shutting the car door. What followed was a long silence of several minutes, before the sudden sound of breaking glass shattered the tension in the air.

"Damnit, man, that wolf was a fucking cop, Doug! You fuckin' killed the guy! Now the heat's really going to be on! That painter, too!" The unmistakable sound of Woolter's voice blared from the recording.

"Cop was following us, and the painter saw what happened. Now shut up, Woolter, and help me out here. If he kept a log or something of where he's been, we could be in trouble."

The sound of rustling came through the speakers as the two rams searched the car, Woolter griping about it the whole time.

The unmistakable voice of Jesse chimed in, just as the rustling of the searching mammals grew louder. "Hey, guys, got the tagger loaded into the van, but there isn't enough room for the PoPo. But we gotta scram. Now. Fuzzmobile just rolled by the store. If they see us, we're hosed."

"Found a recorder, that'll have to—" The recording cut Doug's voice off abruptly.

"That's where the recording ends. Nothing in the memory chip after that. Either the device hit some sort of recording timer, or the suspect stopped it. He might have tried to erase it, too, but unless the memory segments are overwritten, the data is still there." The cougar was packing up his equipment as he spoke. "My mammals will forward you guys a full transcript, along with the audio file."

He paused a moment before speaking again. "I hope to God this is enough to nail these bastards to the concrete floor of the darkest cell in the lockup." He left without another word.

Silence reigned in the conference room for a long while. Having to listen to what may well have been the last words of one's colleague and friend was a whole different form of hell. Bogo was rubbing his head in both of his hooves, while Rivers had propped his chin in his own hoof while staring through his laptop screen. Longtooth had a somber expression with her ears folded back, staring at the wood grain of the table in front of her.

Nick and Judy, of course, were reliving the entire night all over again. As if by instinct, their closest paws reached out to clasp each other, offering whatever comfort they could.

"Minutes. Just a few minutes. We were too late by just a few minutes!" Judy punched the table in front of her, wishing it were Doug's face, then immediately regretted it as pain shot from her fist. She shook her paw out, wincing.

Nick's smirk was a ghost of its usual self. "Now, now, Carrots, I'm sure our boss wouldn't like you beating his expensive conference table to pulp wood. There are other ways to vent your anger."

Judy glared at Nick for a moment, then slugged him in the shoulder. The fox let out a pained grunt. "That wasn't exactly what I meant."

"So, now we've got a recording identifyin' Doug as Wolford's killer, along with our hyena tagger, and Woolter confirmed that Doug is also the trigger mammal that killed Spencer Callahan. Three counts of murder." Longtooth's eyes remained unfocused, but her expression had hardened. "It may be circumstantial, but it's what we got, until we can get the gun that he used."

"Given what he's been involved in, it might be enough, though." Bogo's expression turned fierce. "Rivers. Longtooth. You, Hopps, and Wilde gather all of the evidence you've been able to get your paws on, on all the mammals involved—locations, funds, everything. Get it all together into a briefing, then call me and Sergeant Higgins. We're taking these terrorists down. Today. Whatever the cost."

Rivers nodded stiffly. "By the time we're done, you'll know what toothpaste brand they use, sir."

The chief left the room, leaving the four mammals to continue thinking. Rivers broke into the others' thought processes. "OK, we need everything on the table. Hopps, you and Wilde have all the intel on Ramses, the two Bighorn siblings, Wolford, Callahan, Redfohn. Get together everything you can and meet back here in an hour. We'll do the same from our side, Longtooth. We need to come up with a plan to take these guys down."

"You got it, Antlers." Nick gave the elk a wink and a finger-pistol motion as Judy began dragging him out of the room, leaving the two detectives alone.

Longtooth looked at her partner. "This is big, Shawn."

The elk nodded. "Very big. No matter which way you look at this… As terrorists, mass murderers, spree killers, this is huge."

The lioness sighed and stood up. "I just hope we have enough. The idea that one or more of these guys might get off on a technicality or insufficient evidence…" She trailed off, shuddering at the thought that one of the monsters would be free to continue their crimes.

The elk followed her out of the room. "Then we just need to make sure that the evidence we have is as tight as possible."

Bogo stomped into his office, slamming the door shut. He stood there a moment, rubbing his forehead with one of his hooves.

Hearing the last words said by one of his own mammals was never easy. Next to informing someone that their loved one was never coming home, it was one of the hardest parts of the job. Even knowing it was only a recording didn't make it any easier.

The chief thought back to the missing mammals case. If only they'd known then that that was just the tip of the iceberg. Every few months, something popped up to bring even more of the iceberg into focus. Economically, this would be a disaster, with the fallout felt for years to come. Socially, this could drive the wedge between predator and prey even deeper than it already was.

On the flip side of the coin, with Gazelle's announcement yesterday, there was also the possibility that support for predator and prey relations might be better than it felt like at the moment. Perhaps the dissidents just felt like the attacks had given them a reason to voice their displeasure of the other mammalian order, and did so by shouting the loudest.

Of course, he didn't want to discredit the efforts of his officers. These monsters had apparently been extremely careful in covering their tracks, but from the sounds of it, might have gotten a bit overconfident. An important, perhaps fatal, weakness on their part. But if all went well, they'd be making their first moves to shut them down today.

The cape buffalo chief sighed. He knew today would be one full of tough calls and potentially deadly consequences, but it paled in comparison to yesterday. If whatever deity who over the city was in their favour, though, they may be lucky enough to come through this with no more lives lost. On the other hoof, it could turn into a massacre.

Chief Adrian Bogo walked to his desk and sat down. For a long moment, he massaged his temples, before picking up the phone to make one of the hardest calls he would have to make that day. The other end rang four times before it was answered.

"Mrs. Wolford? Chief Bogo here…"

A/N

Well. That was a tough chapter to write. Even with the fluff. I was reliving the writing of "Officer Down" all over again. What happens next?

Hope everyone had a very Merry Chritsmas! Happy New Year too, since that's only a few days away! And in a huge milestone for me, yesterday (December 26) marks the 2 year anniversary of the prologue of this story being posted! WHOOOO HOOO!

Writer's block is getting better. Yay!

I buried a reference or two in this chapter! Can you find them?

Coming up on January 10: Chess Moves!

Questions? Critiques? Did your Buzz Lightyear come to live and start shouting "To infinity and beyond"? Leave a comment!