DVa: "Stay indoors! Evil robots on the streets!" = ╮(˘▽˘)╭
INTERNET KEEPS BREAKING = (҂╯` ﾛ ´)╯︵-┻━┻-

There was a lot on Bentley's mind.

There always was. But right now, he was facing a huge volume of work. The others all had their skills. Carmelita and Wilde and Hopps were all able investigators. But there were no suspects to interrogate, no forensic clues to examine. Just a computer system that wouldn't give up its secrets without a fight.

It all fell to him, now.

He had set up in the security room and run his standard procedures. After the first few failures, he had begun running a reliable program which would slowly pick at the firewall by trial-and-error. It was hard to say how long it would be before he got real results, but it was his best plan for the moment. The direct approach had only produced scraps.

But they were very worrying scraps. Fragments of blueprints and manuals and plans that gave Bentley pause. That was rare, after so many years contending with the worst uses a sharp mind could be put to. But some of this material was truly troubling. A single device that could bottleneck all communications? A seemingly limitless supply of robotic shock troops? Notes from Clockwerk himself?

Bentley was glad he didn't have to face this alone.

"Hey, Specs?"

He stifled a sigh. He actually did kind of need to be alone right now, though.

Rubbing his eyes, he looked up from his laptop. Nick had found him, bringing along Fox and his omnipresent smile.

"What is it?"

"Sorry to interrupt, but Carmelita wanted us to check in on you. Specifically, whether you've eaten anything in the past, like… day."

"Right." Bentley frowned at them. "On reflection, I haven't."

"Oh!" said Fox.

They stood there. He sat there.

"Do you," said Nick finally, "want us to get you something, or…?"

"No." Bentley caught himself. "I suppose a quick break might help. Is there food here?"

"Uh, sorta. Mess hall's that way."

Nick indicated a direction with a casual nod. But there was nothing casual about the way he was watching Bentley.

"You alright?"

Bentley reached under his glasses to rub his eyes. "I'm just feeling the strain of being the only person here with a technological specialisation. We still haven't determined Andross' location, let alone the size or nature of his forces. There's a lot of questions and very little data. And…"

Nick raised an eyebrow. "And?"

"And we're doing badly! We only managed to rescue you because some unknown party sent me the security codes."

"Oh, yes!" said Fox. "I remember that. You seemed very worried about getting help…"

"Because I didn't ask for it!" Bentley turned to Nick. "Wilde, you're a sensible man, so please back me up on this: if a faceless internet stranger showed up and offered you exactly what you needed, how would you feel?"

"Extremely suspicious."

"Thank you!"

"I still don't understand," said Fox. "Andross needs to be stopped. Anyone who helps us do that has to be on our side. Right?"

Nick laughed heartily. "Oh, my sweet summer pup," he said, patting the shorter fox on the shoulder. "Had we met earlier in life, the bridges I could've sold you…"

"You used to work in civil engineering?"

"Lieutenant McCloud," said Bentley, "I'll put this bluntly. On the internet, it is extremely easy to lie."

"People do that?!" said Fox, alarmed.

"…Yes. And for that reason, you should never assume anything about who you're talking to. Especially in our line of work."

"Ha ha," said Nick, "like that time I thought I was going crazy, and you and Sly found me an 'expert' to talk to, and it turned out to be a nine-year-old child."

"Exactly. And that's a comparatively benign example of what I'm talking about." Bentley folded his arms. "This 'Krystal' character could be a double agent, or a fake persona, or even a former enem-"

Fox's ears perked. "Did you say 'Krystal'? With a K? That's my friend!"

Bentley blinked. "You… What?"

"Krystal is my friend from the internet! She helped me out before."

"So you know who she is?!"

Fox paused. "I… know she's my friend!"

"That's a 'no'," murmured Nick.

"Tell me everything," said Bentley firmly.

"Well," said Fox, "my squadron and I have mostly just been testing various modifications to our Arwings. Our lead engineer is very funny! You'd like her, Nick, she-"

"Lieutenant," said Bentley, "am I begging you to stay focused."

"Oh, sure! So we weren't expecting any combat soon. But then I got this message from a lady calling herself Krystal. She told me that Andross was about to attack Zootopia. Lots of innocent people would be in danger."

"And you just took that at face value, huh?" said Nick.

"I had no reason not to. Besides, it was a secure channel! She only could have used it if she was someone I could trust."

Bentley did not have the time to explain how wrong that statement was. He just motioned Fox to continue.

"Now that you mention it, Lena and Poe were skeptical, too. But they let me plot our course for that day, and they didn't mind that I brought us close to Zootopia. Then our radios started glitching, and then we picked up something weird over the city, and, well…" He grinned. "You know the rest! Krystal was right."

"Oh, I see," said Nick. "I was kinda wondering how you guys showed up so quickly. It's because you had some warning?"

"That's right!"

"Is that all you can tell me?" said Bentley.

"Yep. That was the only time I spoke to Krystal. So far, anyway! She was very nice. I hope I can thank her."

Bentley frowned. "That… Well, that corroborates her claim that she's working against Andross. She knew about Clockwerk's attack before he arrived, and wanted resistance on the scene. But I'm not persuaded. There's not enough to go on, here. And I still can't find a trace of her anywhere!"

"Oh, no sweat," said Nick. "This whole conversation has jogged my memory. I actually know her too."

Bentley turned to him. "You do?"

"Of course. I know everybody. See, the reason you can't find our girl Krystal anywhere on the planet is that she's not from this planet."

Bentley stared. Fox watched Nick, who continued.

"She's from Dinosaur Planet, the planet of the dinosaurs. That's her hometown. The old stompin' grounds." Nick's eyes, his tone, were perfectly steady. "It's super humid, so she just runs around in, like, this tribal bikini thing. Also she's psychic. She has psychic powers, which maybe helps with the hacking? Dunno. Hard to say if they're directly applicable. Still useful in general, of course. And she's blue. Bright blue. Very vivid shade." He stretched. "That's her. Krystal, the bright blue half-naked tribal princess psychic vixen. From Dinosaur Planet."

There was a terrible silence for several seconds. Then Fox spoke. "Wow! I'm glad she's on our side!"

"No!" yelled Bentley. "No, that was all – no!! He's clearly lying!"

"Yeah," said Nick, "that was the most outlandish description I could come up with. I'm pretty proud of it. That was all off the top of my head, y'know."

Bentley clapped his laptop closed. "This has been an enlightening discussion," he said, "but I'm leaving now."

"Yeah, that's fair," said Nick.

Fox gave him a little wave as Bentley wheeled out of the room.

He needed air. Well, he needed a lot more than that, but it would be a start. He didn't get far, though. As he left the security room, he almost rolled over Judy's foot.

"Oh, sorry! I-"

"No, no." She stepped back smartly. "My fault. Don't worry about it."

They lapsed into an awkward silence for a moment, and Bentley was about to excuse himself when she spoke again.

"…Trust is a powerful thing, y'know."

Bentley just raised an eyebrow.

"I overheard what you were saying. I didn't mean to eavesdrop, but…" She shot a wry look to her ears. "Sorta hard not to."

"It's alright. I can use all the input I can get."

He began moving toward the mess hall, and she fell into step alongside him. "You really seem worried about this Krystal person," she noted.

"Well, I am. Me and the guys have - well, we've had bad experiences."

"If you don't mind me saying so, you kinda sound paranoid."

"I am."

"Oh…"

He paused. "Despite your reputation for idealism, you're no fool, Hopps."

"Thanks."

"And I know you have first-hand experience of what I'm talking about. Bellwether used you to further her own goals, didn't she?"

"Yep," said Judy, eyes forward. "Sure did."

"So am I really off-base here? It seems like common sense to me. But everyone else is looking at me like I'm crazy."

"I can see where you're coming from," she said. "But we're seriously understaffed right now. There's, what? Seven of us? Carmelita hasn't gotten through to Interpol, Fox can't contact his superiors… I bet you've tried calling your own network of, uh, friends. But we're alone out here. We can't really afford to turn away a helping hand."

"No…"

"No, what?"

"No, we haven't tried contacting other criminals." Bentley's voice sped up. "I found some data on the device behind the blackout - it's powerful, but not infallible. It'll be aimed at Zootopia, and at institutions like Interpol and the military, but outside of that…" He turned to her. "Can you show me your phone?"

"Oh, sure. I actually switched it off ages ago…"

The phone returned to life, slowly. It sat in her paw for a moment.

And then it buzzed. And buzzed. And buzzed.

Judy nearly dropped it as it continued to vibrate, building up an eye-watering volume of missed calls and voicemails and text messages, interspersed with various aimless notifications which popped up briefly before being swept away by the tide.

"Oh, jeepers!" Judy stared. "Most of these are from my parents!"

She frantically tapped the screen, and two equally frantic voices soon rattled through the phone's speaker.

"Jude! It's, uh-"

"We've tried calling your fox friend and his phone is off too, y'know, so if you could just-"

"We know you're probably fine! You're always fine! But just in case you're not fine we would really appreciate-"

"You call us back this instant young lady!"

Judy was already moving. "I should really, uh-!"

"Of course," said Bentley. "And thanks again for the help."

"I helped? I mean, uh, sure!"

With that, she took off, vanishing to some appropriately private corner. Her ears were tall with embarrassment, but he didn't see why. Must be nice, having people back home. Invested in whether or not you make it back.

Bentley shook his head. No time for melodrama. He still had to force himself to eat something - and the second he was done, he had a call to make.

It wasn't hard to track her down. After all, she didn't have a reason to hide any more. She had served her sentence.

There was always the chance of recidivism, of course. To wait out the jail term and go straight back to crime. But Bentley had noticed that former opponents of the Cooper Gang, for all their nefarious talents, had a tendency to stick to civilian life once freed. That made sense from a psychological perspective. Cooper Gang victories tended to be thorough.

That was why he wasn't surprised by her reaction.

There was little time for preamble. Bentley sent his initial messages in text form, but received no response, despite the communication program listing her status as Online. Based on her personality, he suspected she had just stepped away from her device, and needed a clearer summons. With a twinge of reluctance known well to nerds everywhere, Bentley activated the video call feature.

He didn't have to wait long. On the fourth ring, the call was answered. Though Bentley's connection was shaky, hers was strong, so there was little buffering until the video stream materialised. And a small lynx, too close to the camera, was squinting at him.

She screamed.

She did more than that, flailing backwards over her chair and crashing to the ground. Bentley had a good view of her workspace – a barn of some kind?

"You!!!" she shrieked. She was just as loud as he remembered. "The sins of my past have located my IP address!!"

Bentley sighed. "Please try to calm down."

Dorothy Perrault, online handle 'Peridot', looked much the same. She was still unusually short for a lynx. She was still yellow, with a taste for green clothing, as evidenced by her star-emblazoned t-shirt. Her ears were still pointy.

The main difference between now and their altercation years earlier was that she seemed far less tired.

Peridot pulled herself upright, and resumed squinting into her webcam. "What do you want, you… um… clod?" A familiar word in an unfamiliar context. She was clearly uncertain about the optimum level of hostility to show.

"Hello to you too," said Bentley. "Just to be clear, I come in peace. I have no interest in reigniting any antagonism."

"Oh." Peridot blinked under her yellow visor. She had obtained a newer, pointier one in the same colour. "You're really not mad I tried to kill your friends?"

"Please. You were barely a threat."

Peridot bristled. "What's that supposed to mean?! I was very intimidating!"

Bentley realised he could be doing a better job of not reigniting antagonism. "Uh, sorry – poor phrasing. It wasn't that you were inept, I could just tell your attempts to kill Sly were… fair! And sportsmanlike! You conducted yourself with honour, the way all truly great criminals do."

"Hmph!" Peridot folded her arms, satisfied. "Thanks for noticing! Only took ya a year and a half…"

She tilted her head. Judging from the fresh wobbles in her frown, curiosity was pushing through her fear and irritation.

"Which raises the obvious question: why now? What is it you want, exactly?"

"Time is short, so I'll get to it. Have you been following the Zootopia situation?"

"Oh jeez, yeah. The whole internet is buzzing about it. It's not entirely clear what's happening, since the city itself has gone dark."

"It has?"

"Ssssssorta?" she said. "As far as we can surmise, Zootopians are still using websites like Chitter, but their posts aren't making it out to the rest of us. Probably getting caught on the local servers or something… I've never seen anything like it. And that's not even touching the robots. Whoever's behind this is…"

"Yeah," said Bentley. "We know."

"I don't envy the poor clods in that town. This is obviously very dangerous." She beamed. "I'm so glad I'm not involved!"

"…Well, I am."

"Why doesn't that surprise me?" She squinted. "Doing what, exactly?"

"I'm helping a small team cut the problem off at the head before it gets any worse."

"Well, better be quick about it. Situations like these can spiral out of control. Before you know it - BLAMMO!" She slapped her desk for effect. "Some overpaid bureaucrat has decided to just nuke the whole city!"

"You watch too many action movies," said Bentley, but it was partly to convince himself.

"Again: super glad I'm not involved. So again: why are you bothering me?!"

"The thing is… Hackers of a certain reputation tend to know about each other, correct? For instance, I had heard about you prior to the Nope Diamond incident."

"Likewise."

"Have you ever heard somebody using the handle 'Krystal'?"

"Crystal like a gem?"

"Krystal with a K. Here…"

Bentley sent over a screenshot of his conversation, including the encryption algorithm in the username.

He watched Peridot frown at it. Finally, she shook her head.

"No, I can't say this is familiar."

He sighed. "That's exactly what I was worried you'd say."

Peridot took another look at the conversation itself. "Wait. This person isn't even trying to kill you! All they did was help you out. I assumed from how serious you look that you had gotten into a fight or something… Did you really call me just to see if I had heard of your new friend?"

Bentley's frown sharpened. "She is not my friend."

"Not with that attitude!"

"Oh, for the…" Bentley folded his arms. "People don't just come out of nowhere and help thieves take down other, worse criminals! There's always an ulterior motive. Heck, we were never that honorable - we got our start in revenge. The whole 'righting wrongs' thing just kind of stuck."

"Y'know, back when I did crimes," said Peridot, "I used to hear people wonder how the Cooper Gang got so successful if they bothered with justice and empathy and other wimpy ideas." She gave him a catlike smile. "It's because you were in charge, isn't it?"

"I wouldn't describe myself as 'in charge'. But… I suppose that's not inaccurate. I offer a certain pragmatism, in contrast to Sly and Murray's more idealistic worldviews." He met her gaze, unamused. "And I think caution is warranted here, considering we've had enemies present themselves as friends before."

"Well," said Peridot, undaunted, "I no longer do crimes. And in my new life, I've come to understand and appreciate just how important friendship is. I'm great at it now! Ask anybody. I have mastered friendship."

"Uh huh."

"And by helping a former enemy, I can prove that once and for all!" She cackled, rubbing her paws together. "I can rub this in the faces of all of my friends…"

Bentley was not about to question her logic. "Well, in that case… I don't suppose you've called the police lately?"

"Hah! No."

"We've had no luck making contact - we suspect their channels have been hit by the same thing that's blanketing Zootopia. But if you can somehow get a message to Chief Barkley of Interpol, and/or General Pepper of the air force, please tell them that Inspector Fox and Lieutenant McCloud are safe and alive at a location we believe used to be called Titania Air Base-"

"Hold on, hold on… this is a lot of names-" Peridot clacked one paw against her keyboard, taking notes. "And, what? You want backup?"

"We'd love backup, but we don't expect it. We've resigned ourselves to doing this alone, but checking in with their superiors would be a start."

Peridot's tongue stuck out as she typed. "Got it. Anything else?"

"Yes. There's a reason I came to you, specifically. I wanted a hacker of similar skill." He met her gaze. "I have way too much to do right now, so I need to delegate something to you: a full background check on Krystal."

She blinked. "The person who helped you?"

"The unknown party with unknown power over this situation. Yes."

"Well, alright." Peridot adjusted her visor. "I'll do what I can! I'll check back in with you on this channel, okay?"

"Yes. Please. That would be great." He coughed. "I'd be willing to compensate you for your efforts, in light of our previous-"

She waved a paw. "No need! I don't want any money."

"You… don't?"

"Of course not! You can consider this a favour. From a friend!"

Bentley glared.

"This is the part where you say 'Wow! Thanks!'"

His glare did not lessen. "You're just doing this to prove a point, aren't you?"

Her smile was bright and innocent. "Yes!"

"Wow. Thanks."

He had apparently fallen asleep.

He must have, because now he was waking up. It was disorienting, but it was far from the first time it had happened to him. He was a career criminal with an endless workload. Sleep was something that had to sneak up and jump him from behind.

Groggily, he lifted his head. The computers of the security room still shone in front of him. And now something was beeping.

Bentley fumbled for a moment, but he was more and more lucid by the second - again, nothing new - and soon he had pushed aside all the irrelevant programs to find the offender. Good news, for once. His automatic password-miner had struck gold.

Suddenly, all of Andross' local files were at his fingertips. The first thing he tried was to tap into a wider network, but no luck.

No matter. He now had far more material to sort through. And somewhere in here would be the lead they needed.

Gaps in his knowledge began to fill. That horrific jet aped Clockwerk's appearance in an attempt to maximise production efficiency. The Global Nullifier utilised multimodal reflection sorting to attack multiple communication wavelengths at once. The drones were the product of… something. He still didn't have everything. But he stayed focused. The most important question, the one he needed to answer, was where Andross was hiding.

He actually found his answer quite quickly. It just took him a while to realize it.

Bentley noted its first appearance with mild interest, but disregarded it. He couldn't get distracted by something that was clearly irrelevant. He didn't think too much of it the second time he came across it, either. By the fifth instance, he felt a vague sense of unease. What was Andross' obsession with this?

Finally - and this was purely so that he could put it out of his mind and get back to what was important - he determined what its current co-ordinates would be.

Then he double-checked his calculations. Triple-checked. But he had done his math right. He always did his math right.

Bentley wheeled himself away from the computers. He went outside.

And he looked directly upwards.

"Oh," he said.