BACKGROUND MUSIC:
1) Micheal Giacchino - "Work Slowly and Carry a Big Schtick" - from Zootopia
2) Micheal Giacchino - "Work Slowly and Carry a Big Schtick (Expanded version)" - from Zootopia
"What the fuzz, Nick?!" Finnick grumbled behind the wheel of his van. "You said the line was gonna be shorter at the drive-thru."
"It was earlier," said Nick, shaking his head at the SUV in front of them. Through the rear windshield of the SUV, Nick could see a pair of hippos making exasperated gestures as the driver as the driver joined Finnick and numerous others in the chorus of blaring horns.
"Quit it," said Nick, turning to the other fox. "That's not helping."
Finnick just snorted. "I told ya we shoulda gone to BugBurga. At least their soft-server machines work."
"You know C&W's got the better burgers, buddy," said Nick.
"Agree t' disagree," huffed Finnick, glowering at the line of cars ahead. "Anyway, why're you so quiet today?"
"Quiet how?"
Finnick didn't take his eyes off the SUV. "Usually y' talkin' about how cussfuzzin' insane y' co-workers are; 'Pouchvenger did this,' 'Buffalo-butt did that,' 'Carrots did everything in between'… Only now you ain't said a word 'bout how today went."
Nick just stared out the window.
"Hey, talk t' me Nick," said Finnick, turning to his passenger.
"It doesn't matter," muttered Nick. "At least it won't once I get out of there."
"Still think yo' plan's crazy," grumbled Finnick. "Even fo' you."
"Well, that's me," said Nick. "I make crazy work."
Before Finnick could retort, he was greeted with another chorus of honks from in front. "Fo' the love of- What the fuzz is goin' on up there?!"
"Hang on, I'll check." Nick promptly hopped out the door and walked past the three cars in line ahead before encountering a sleek red sports car with the vanity plate 'FST NSL' positioned at the speaker/microphone stand. Leaning out the car's window was a sloth trying to communicate his order to the increasingly exasperated voice coming from the speaker.
"…and a…double… tall…"
"Sir?" growled the speaker.
"…smooth…roast… decaf… coffee… extra… hot… extra… foam…"
"Will that be all, sir?!"
"…no… ice."
"Is that it?"
"Make… sure… it's… a … large… onion rings."
"I got the large onion rings," growled the female voice at the other end. From the slight braying in her voice, it must have been a caprid.
Nick smiled at he recognized the sloth. Only he would drive a car like that. "Flash, Flash, hundred-yard dash!"
Gordon 'Flash' Slothmore slowly turned to Nick. "Niiiiiiick…!"
"Great, another one," grumbled the speaker.
"It's been ages, buddy," said Nick. "How've ya been? Wait, hold that thought."
"At least this guy talks normal," muttered the caprid.
Nick turned to the microphone. "Just get this guy a double-double-veggie burger, no tomatoes, extra lettuce, large onion rings, smooth roast decaf coffee, extra hot, extra foam, and an apple turnover for dessert." The fox turned back to Flash. "Same order as back in high school?"
A smile slowly wormed its way across the sloth's face. "Yeah… Nick…"
"Thank God," sighed the caprid. "I didn't write down his order the first time because he was taking so long."
"…you… know… me…"
A voice could be heard in the background through the speaker. "You shouldn't have asked him to repeat it, Mauricia."
"I know, I know…" moaned the caprid. "Stupid!"
"I'm a… sloth… who…"
"I'm actually with the van a few cars down," said Nick. "If you like I can stay with this guy and pick up both our meals. Just tell the fennec in the van I've got his order."
"…knows… what… he… likes…"
"You got it. You're a lifesaver," said the caprid. "You're having…?"
"So… how have… you…"
"Double goat-cheese cricketburger with large fries and a cub sod for me, and a kiddie mealwormburger with apple juice for my colleague in the van – don't forget the toy."
"…been doing…"
"Alrighty then. Proceed to the second window."
"…these days?"
"Me? Been alright," said Nick, not missing a beat as he slid across Flash's hood, landed on the other side of the sports car, yanked open the passenger-side door, and got into the car beside the sloth. The fox took in the car's interior; obviously a custom job.
Nick whistled. "So how 'bout you? Still the speed demon?"
Flash just gave a slow-motion smirk.
Thankfully the sloth drove much faster than he did most other things. However that proved to be a bit too fast as Nick was hurled back and forth like a ragdoll as Flash's car lurched toward the checkout window, where Nick assisted Flash in picking up the bags and paying for his meal. Nick then texted Finnick to meet him and Flash in a small park a few blocks down from the C&W.
By the time Flash got out of his car, Finnick had selected a picnic table. Still, it took the sloth a while to get the twenty feet from the curb to the table. Nick was in no hurry, so he just ambled along with Flash, the drive-thru bags in hand.
"So how's the DMV treatin' ya?" said Nick as he waited for Flash to advance before he took another step.
"Things are… doing… pretty… alright… given… the… givens. …Priscilla's… doing… fine… as well."
"Glad to hear it, buddy," said Nick. "You caused quite the fracas back there."
Flash gave a barely audible tongue-click, slowly shaking his head. "The… trouble… with… mammals… these… days is… they just… don't… know… how… to wait."
"Don't I know it," chuckled Nick. Hopps would give herself a hernia if she had to have a conversation with Flash.
Flash briefly (by sloth standards) looked up and cast Nick a grin. "You… seem… patient… enough… Nick."
"Aw shucks, buddy," said Nick.
"I… mean it… Nick.… You… seem like… you've… got… things… pretty… figured… out."
"Gee Flash, I–"
"I… saw you… on… the news."
Nick's ears drooped.
"Working… with… Labors… must… be pretty… cool."
Nick hoped the sloth couldn't see his ears turning red. "Well, don't you technically work with Labors?"
"The… D… M… V… just… registers… Labors… We don't… actually… pilot… them… you know."
"Neither do I – I'm just a backup."
By now the two were halfway to the picnic table. Finnick was looking impatient.
"Still… closer… to the… action… than… me."
Nick snorted. "You say that like that's a good thing – I think I've lost five pounds from total fear since I signed on."
"Ha… ha… ha…!"
"I'm serious, Flash," said Nick. "I'd say you've got things more set than me. You're pretty laid-back, and next to me that's no mean feat."
"It's… no… big… deal," said Flash, giving a slow-motion shrug. "I'm… just… a… patient… kind of… guy."
"Seems like that's a virtue for you sloths," said Nick.
"The food even lukewarm in there?" Finnick grumbled from the table.
"Yeah.… You don't… see… sloths… stressed… out… that much.…It's… like… Zen… I guess."
"Zen?"
Another slow-motion shrug. "Maybe… not.… I don't… know.… Either way… I like… to think… us… sloths… are… just… plain…"
"Would ice cubes warm it up?" Finnick growled from six-and-a-half feet away.
"…paaaaaatieeeeent." The three-toes sloth gave a small skir. "Lots… of… reason… to… stop… and smell… the… roses."
"Ah, fergeddit," Finnick growled, leaping from the table to grab the bags of fast food from Nick.
"As he peeked inside, the tiny fox's muzzle contorted into a snarl. "What the fuzz, Nick?! A kiddie burger?!"
In his dingy apartment – still an improvement over the bridge – Nick clambered into his undersized bed, curling up around his tail.
The fox mulled over the events of the day. Hopps certainly could take some cues from a guy like Flash. Pity she wasn't a sloth…
Nick suddenly bolted upright.
Why was it that his stupid ideas were the ones that made the most sense?!
"Just hear me out you guys," said Nick. "What if we made Carrots a sloth?"
The lithe grey rabbit and the burly hyena just stared at the fox as Judy began wiping down Robin's left leg.
Joanna Namakoro turned to Judy. "Is he alright?"
Judy just shrugged.
"I'm just saying, if we slowed you down, it might train you to look more at your surroundings."
Judy tilted her head. Joanna scratched the mane poking out from under her mechanics' cap.
"O-kaaaay…?" said Joanna. "But how are you plannin' on doin' that? Last I checked, genetic engineering ain't nothin' like the comic books."
Nick smirked. "That's where you come in, Big Wrench. Who needs genetic engineering when we've got mechanical engineering? Back when I was with Inaba, they were experimenting with power suits for mammals our size using Microlabor tech – to help small mammals with heavy lifting. What if we made a suit like that, but for slowing down movement?"
"Like some kind of workout machine?" said Judy.
"More like something that detects movement and slows it down as it happens."
Joanna raised an eyebrow. "That is some level of engineering right there."
"The Ingrowls and Pythons both use motion-capture tech for intricate hand movement," said Nick. "And last I checked, you've got access to tons of spare parts."
"Yeah," the hyena snorted. "If you're building a Labor taller than an elephant."
Nick wasn't fazed. "I know mammals from junkyards and electronics stores. They can help with the tiny parts – plenty of spares for Microlabors."
Joanna shook her head again. "Still a lotta effort on my part."
"Okay…" Nick made a show of turning his back to the hyena mechanic. "I'll just let you miss out on this little bit of elbow grease and leave you to your eternity of heavy repairs on Robin whenever Carrots goes off the rails. Your call, Big Wrench."
"Hey!" Judy protested.
Before Judy could say anything more, Joanna had dashed in front of Nick, donning a toothy grin. "When do we start?"
Nick smirked.
Joanna gave it a week, but in the end it was only four days before the first of the 'sloth suits' was finished. That is, if 'finished was the right word for it; Joanna insisted on it being linked up to her computer so that she could monitor its systems.
When Judy got a look at the suit, she wondered how the hyena could possibly monitor them – it just looked like there were so many.
The sloth suit itself looked like some kind of medieval torture device. It was comprised of a rabbit-scaled wetsuit so covered in metal frames and pneumatic cylinders that it could stand up on its own. Judy felt immobile the moment she strapped the thing on. About the only things it didn't cover were her hands, feet, and head.
"Each of these pistons corresponds to a muscle," said Joanna. "If all goes well, the mo-cap nodes'll pick up your movement and trigger the moving muscles' pistons, pushing back against them just a teensy bit."
"Feels like it's resisting me already," muttered Judy.
"Uh, Judy?" said Joanna. "I haven't switched it on yet."
"Oh."
"I'm gonna turn the whole shebang on in just a sec. It it's completely holding you down or pinching you at all, let me know. I'll probably have to re-tune it anyway."
Judy nodded. "Okay…"
Joanna placed her finger on a switch just under Judy's chin. "I put the on/off switch here so you can turn it off with your chin in an emergency. I'm gonna power it on in three, two, one…!"
[OST2]
CLICK
Almost instantly, Judy felt the suit tightening up against her, somehow pushing every muscle in. It felt like it was about to crush her completely.
Joanna must have seen the rabbit's look of discomfort as she dashed to her computer, punching in commands. "Hang on. I'll loosen 'er up."
The crushing feeling subsided, but Judy still felt… heavy.
"Don't try and move just yet," said Joanna, still typing away. "Okay… That should do it. Let's try something simple. Try moving your arm out and forward."
Judy began to move her arm, but soon heard the pistons engaging as her movement slowed.
"I think it's working," said Nick, his expression brightening.
Just then, Judy's arm stopped moving halfway through the gesture.
"Hmm…" Joanna resumed typing. "Was worried about this – system interpreted the slowing-down as you trying to stop the movement and it got into a feedback loop that made it stop completely. Bit of extra code and… there we go. Try reaching that arm for the ceiling."
Judy began raising her arm upwards. Once again, the pneumatics went into action, stopping her movement, but this time the slowdown wasn't so rapid. It wound up being fifteen seconds before Judy got her arm pointing upwards.
Joanna smiled. "Now we're cookin'."
Nick nodded. "Yeah, that looked real sloth-like."
"This is so weird…" Judy muttered.
Joanna took another look at her screen and typed in a few more setting updates. "The hard part is making sure the suit follows through on movements – making sure the slow-down commands aren't getting messed up by new inputs from Judy's body. I'm not 100% sure I've got that settled, so I'd like to get as much testing out of this as possible."
The hyena looked back at Judy. "Try waving your arm – like you're waving at someone in the weeds." She gestured toward the field of weeds visible through the open hangar doors.
Judy tried to wave, but her arm jerkily moved toward her head in a stuttering motion. She began to worry about knocking herself out, but her arm never made contact.
Joanna typed in some more settings. "One good thing about these modified Labor OSs is that they learn a bit from each movement. So hopefully the more complicated movements'll get less jerky the more you use the suit. Keep waving."
Judy kept waving and sure enough, her arm's movements grew less fitful and more smooth, but still incredibly slow.
"Okay, now try flapping your arms," said Joanna, not taking her eyes off the screen.
Judy did so. At first her left arm felt as jerky as her right arm first hand, but its movements very quickly grew as her right.
From there, the testing moved to the legs. It wound up being a while before Judy could actually walk in the sloth suit, mainly because the change in momentum meant she had to change the way she walked. Joanna kept updating the suit's movement settings all throughout the exercise, eventually feeling confident enough that she unplugged the cables that ran from her computer to the suit's spinal area and shifted to wireless updates.
Still, the whole experience was painstakingly slow for Judy. As she tried to walk back and forth, she turned her head back and noticed that in just over a minute, she'd only walked about six feet forward.
"I think this is a bit much," she said.
"You kidding?" said Nick, walking up beside Judy. "I was on the track team with a sloth and you're moving like he did in the 100-yard-dash, Carrots."
Judy rolled her eyes and waited for the inevitable smirk from Nick, but it didn't come.
"Running?" said Joanna.
"Yeah," said Nick.
"Better turn it up then," said the hyena, typing into her laptop.
"Seriously?!" Judy groaned as the suit slowed down even more.
After a few horrifically belabored paces, Judy heard a voice from behind her.
"Just what the hell are you doing?" growled Captain Bogo.
Judy tried to turn her head around, bus she could only just catch the buffalo in her peripheral vision. Soon she tried turning her body around, but all she could do was see her peripherals getting clearer and clearer as the suit slowed her rotation.
"J-just a little side project, Cap'n," Joanna stammered.
"Side proj- why?!"
"It's our way of dealing with Hopps' tunnel vision," said Nick.
"Wilde, was this your idea?"
Even through her peripherals, Judy could see Nick standing there, his mouth hanging open.
"I'll take that as a yes," Bogo said. "Hopps wouldn't dream up that thing and Namakoro's too bloody sane for this."
"Uh, thank you, Cap'n?" said Joanna.
"I figured it was wither you or Camazotz, Wilde – and since Camazotz hasn't told me anything-"
"You called?"
A chill ran down Judy's spine as the oddly light form of a spectral bat alighted on top of her head.
"Were you watching us?" said Judy, her teeth clenched in fright.
"Only the good parts," said Chief Mechanic Camazotz, giving Judy an even bigger scare by tilting her head down over the rabbit's face to look her in the eye. By now, Judy had learned that whenever Camazotz gave that toothy, fanged grin, it meant she should be afraid – very afraid.
"I can handle my own officers, Lucy," Bogo huffed.
"True, but seeing one of my mechanics spend so much time and effort on this thing…" The bat gestured down to Judy's legs. "You should'a put those actuators on the back of the legs by the way."
"D'oh!" grunted Joanna, bringing a paw to her head. "I knew something was up with that!"
"Thought I taught ya better than that, Joanna," Camazotz chuckled. "Anyway, seeing so many parts going into this thing made me morbidly curious how it was gonna turn out. Gotta say, I wasn't disappointed."
"I'll let you know when our act hits primetime," Nick muttered before turning to Bogo. "Seriously though, Captain. We're trying to help Hopps out here. You're the one that's always on our case about property damage."
Camazotz used one of her wings to grab onto Judy's ears, whispering into it. "This'll be good."
Bogo loomed over Nick as he gestured to the sloth suit. "How does putting her in this… this… cyberpunk BDSM cosplay help her with that?!"
Nick rubbed his chin as he turned to Judy. "There a market for that?"
"Focus, Wilde!" Bogo bellowed.
"Okay basically," said Nick. "It's to try and get Hopps to slow down a bit – get her to watch the situation more."
"You could have done a few rounds of Kim's Game – or anything else that didn't hold our mechanics hostage," growled Bogo.
"Kim's Game?" said Joanna.
"Oh, I know that!" said Judy, her expression brightening. "We played it in Bunny Scouts. Basically we–"
"I wasn't talking to you, Hopps!" said Bogo.
"Always figured Bogo was an ex-Junior Ranger Scout," Camazotz whispered into Judy's ear.
"Kim's Game wouldn't work with multitasking," Wilde replied. "She just won't have time for that in a fight. This is basically like those metal training rings baseball players put on their bats. I figured it was either this or another sparring match like she had with Pouchvenger."
Bogo's teeth clenched at the mention of the sparring match.
"Bogo?" Camazotz finally flew off of Judy's head. "A word?"
The bull and the bat made their way toward Camazotz's office. Judy, Nick, and Joanna just stood there wondering what was going to come next.
After a few minutes, Bogo stepped out, rubbing his head with his hoof and clenching his teeth. "Wilde, get Hopps out of that thing. I don't want to see her in it again without my say-so. Namakoro, Camazotz wants a word."
Joanna gulped and sauntered off to the office as Judy clambered out of the sloth suit.
That would be the last Judy or Nick saw of the hyena for a week.
