The rumbling of machinery and the sight and even smell of construction had become a familiar scene during her first year in Zootopia but the sight that met Judy as she maneuvered the truck…. Only knocked over that one trash can thank you very much… still made her pause in surprise. Four city blocks seemed to have been wiped away and a massive skeleton of concrete and steel raised in its place. The base floors already higher than any of the nearby buildings and steel pillars shot upwards towards the sky. Judy craned her neck back trying to take it all in.
"Caribou Tower, The bold future of Zootopia, look on my mighty works and despair," Russano said, as Judy climbed down from the truck. He lent against his car staring up at the jumbled maze of steel beams and half-finished masonry. His face a held a slightly deeper frown than what Judy now recognized as its natural state.
"Despair at what?" Judy asked but Russano just rolled his eyes.
"Tallest building in Zootopia when, or if, they ever finish it. This place has been a half built towering monstrosity for a decade." He replied.
Judy couldn't choose between monstrosity or a sense of awe as her eyes followed the twists and turns of the building. The first dozen floors made up the base and seemed to be nearing completion with windowpanes and the glow of lights but higher up the building twisted and split into three distinct tower sections each bending towards the sky.
For a city with hundreds of architecture styles and environments this building still seemed to stand apart in massive scale.
"Wait with the truck while I find the foreman to sign off on its return." Judy started to object but Russano cut her off, waving one large silver and black paw. "For once today just stay still, Hopps. This place already gives me the creeps and I'd rather not have to come find you half way up a crane or some shit," he muttered as he walked off towards a set of trailers.
Even this late in the day the construction site buzzed with activity, cranes and trucks rumbled around the parameter with crews of mammals in hardhats moving in every direction. A pair of rhinos in orange vests carried steel beams over to a waiting crane while a crew of beavers worked on wood paneling for interior walls. High above orange sparks fell as beams were welded together. The scene had the look and feel of choreographed chaos. Judy pulled out her phone to get a photo. Dad's not going to believe this.
"Move it, cotton tush!" a voice yelled from behind her. Turning around and looking down Judy found a large spool of cooper electric wire coming quickly at her. Crouching slightly to look down further she spotted the long pointed pink noses of five gray and brown shrews supporting the round wire on their shoulders as they jogged towards the building.
"Sorry, just trying to get a good view," she said as she stepped to the side, out of their way.
"Well get that view somewhere else, cutie. Some of us got work to do!" the crew leader yelled back.
"Hey don't - " Judy started to defend her bunny decency but the shrews never broke stride and just continued by her. Somehow, she thought that he probably didn't care if he was rude. She watched as they carried the spool of wire to one edge of the building and set it down. The leading shrew grabbed the end of the wire and clipped it to a small ring around his belt. He took a moment to reach up and flip on a headlamp attached to his hardhat before he dashed into the small opening of a tube. Judy hadn't noticed them before, but a series of small narrow tubes almost like downspouts ran around the outside of the building, twisting and branching off at different floors. The wire was pulled into the darkness and unspooled behind him and after about twenty feet the next shrew in the crew hooked onto the line and likewise ran into and up the tube. Judy watched as the electrical wire coil grew smaller and smaller until the final shrew hooked in and pulled the last of the wire up into the tubing. Huh - I wonder if they can fix my apartment cable, she thought.
Rude or not the shrew had been right about the view. Judy held up her phone in camera mode but no matter which direction she turned it, she couldn't fit the whole building into frame. Looking around and with Russano nowhere in sight, Judy moved to cross the street and get a better view. Not technically disobeying orders. She had started sending her parents a few interesting city photos each week to prove to them that she hadn't been trampled, eaten, murdered, or otherwise destroyed by whatever darkness her parents imagined stalked every city street. Besides, she figured her country farm-dwelling parents secretly enjoyed sights of the towering metropolis.
Standing on the sidewalk and holding the camera low she finally could just get the higher sections of the three tower sections into view. The setting sun behind the building making it seem to glow with shadows and reflected light. Her thumb pad had just clicked the photo circle when another strange voice came from behind her
"He's wrong by the way," the voice called out. Judy turned around but no one was behind her.
"What?" she asked, turning her head from side to sid,e and again looking down but still finding nothing.
"Old grumpy snout Russano. He's wrong about the building being a monstrosity," the female voice said, speaking quickly and with excitement. Having looked to each side, and down, Judy finally took the obvious last option and looked up and found the speaker. Two stories up sat a squirrel, her feet dangling out over the window ledge. Her orange rust colored fur offset a pair of dark blue leggings and a black tank top. Beside her the last few bites of a sub sandwich sat in its wrapper.
"And it won't just be the tallest building in Zootopia. Tallest building in the whole world!" the squirrel said. Her large black eyes looked up with clear admiration at the towering height. "At least for now."
"Hi there. Umm, yeah, sure is big," Judy said awkwardly, glancing back and forth between the construction site and the squirrel sitting on a sixty-foot ledge. A narrow sixty-foot ledge, Judy thought. "Kind of a strange looking building," Judy added.
"Strange! It's beautiful. Well, when it's finished it will be, all two thousand, eight hundred forty-five feet and twenty-two inches. Add five feet if you count the flagpole. I'm Beth by the way!" the squirrel jumped to her feet, her long flat tail waving from side to side. Judy winced as it slipped over the ledge before righting itself. Beth didn't seem to notice but instead picked up her sandwich and walked along the ledge while pointing up at the towers.
"Caribou Tower supposed to look like… yep you guessed it, a caribou," she said, waving towards the three distinct towers emerging out of the dozen story base floors of the building. "Three antler towers that each will have two additional splits. So nine peak points, the middle antler being the tallest." She pointed at the central tower. Now that Judy knew what she was looking at, she could start to pick out the features of each skeletal tower.
"I see it. They do kind of look like antlers," Judy said. "I'm Judy, by the way."
"Hopps, right? Not exactly lots of officers like you in the Z.P.D., and you must have pissed someone off if they paired you up with old Stonepaw." She gestured towards where Russano had been standing.
"Stonepaw? You know Russano?" Judy asked.
"Anyone who hangs around the seedy parts of this city knows that face. Hell, half of them been arrested by him at least once."
The squirrel plopped down again, right on the ledge's edge, her feet dangling off the drop in a way that made Judy distinctly nervous. "Thanks for getting the truck back. Even if..." she paused and looked down at a large wristwatch. Down below Judy could just see the watch's digital display light up. "Even if it's delayed the opening by a week," Beth said with a sigh before biting into the last of her sandwich.
"Delayed the opening a week?" Judy said, with a mix of surprise and amusement. "It's one truck. Not like they're short of them here." She looked across the street at the seeming dozens of trucks that moved around the site. She spotted Russano returning to where they had left the stolen well now returned truck. Judy waved her arms and gave a few bounces before she got his attention. Even at this distance she imagined she could see the eye roll he gave.
"The tower runs like clockwork. Pull one piece and everything slows down. They pulled a truck from tower three that was digging ground for water pipes and sewage. You know they hit some sort of underground spring last year and delayed the whole site for a month, Anyways, that truck being gone delayed everything by," Beth looked down and made some more calculations on her watch, "three hours and twenty minutes, give or take."
"Well, that's hardly a week," Judy said smugly.
"Big city openings are always Friday evenings." Beth looked at Judy as if this was the clearest thing in the world. "Ribbon cutting, speeches, boozy gala, pictures for the Saturday paper," she threw up her arms, "so a four-hour delay pushes the whole thing back a week." Her watch gave a series of beeps. "Oh this is one of my favorite parts, watch!" Beth said pointing a paw towards the center tower. Judy's ears perked in surprise as she saw a series of long cables rapidly descending from the top levels of the tower. She almost gasped as she made out the figures of mammals attached by harnesses to bungee cables.
"They do inspections of the outside at the end of the day. Big rolls of bungee cords on each floor calibrated for the building height," Beth said. Judy could see a Zebra inspector checking weld points. His body seeming to defy gravity and walk on the side of the building.
"So, you're really looking forward to the opening. You already got a ticket?" Judy asked.
"Oh, I don't care about the party," Beth said dismissively. "It's what I'm going to do after."
"And what are you going to do once they open the tower?" Judy asked, still distracted by the sight of the inspectors suspended in the air. Their forms made small dark dots against the imposing height, moving like choreographed dancers as they went up and down the building's exterior.
"I'm going to jump off the top of it," Beth replied.
"Oh but... Wait… What!" It had taken a few moments for the words to actually register in Judy's mind. Her eyes snapped back towards the squirrel perched on the ledge with new concern. Russano chose that moment to walk up.
"Alright Hopps, you've harvested the turnips and filled the barn or whatever. Time to go."
He followed her gaze up towards Beth perched above them. He gave a grunt as Beth gave him a wave. "She bothering you?" he asked.
"No, I think she needs help! She's threatening to jump off the tower," Judy said, trying to keep her voice low.
"I wasn't talking to you," Russano said to Judy before returning his attention upwards. "Haven't seen you for a while, Beth. How you been?"
"Oh, you know. Been slow, no one dying particularly interesting all month, bored out of my tail. You?"
"Oh, you know, the regular." He gestured over to Judy who was watching with growing concern. "Bogo stuck me with the city-saving hero bunny of the week. She's concerned that you're going to jump off the tower," pausing a brief moment. "To your death."
"Ahh... well, I'm not jumping till it's finished."
Judy took this moment to interrupt. "If you'll come down and talk with us, I'm sure we can work something out. The city has mental health resources..."
"Let me handle this one. You work this city long enough and you get to know the nutcases and not many nuttier than Beth Stone," Russano said to Judy.
"So how long do you have to wait for them to finish this damn thing," he asked, turning towards the tower. The last inspector was slowly being reeled back up as most of the workers began to leave for the night. Beth looked down and began twisting dials and poking at the watch and her wrist.
"Factoring in the delay of today, probable future delays and average progress…. two years, four months, ten days, and twenty hours." She stood up and looked down towards the two officers. "But who's counting."
"See, Hopps, not a pressing police issue," he said and started to walk away.
"But we can't just..." Judy said, with concern and confusion as she looked back and forth between the two.
"Tell you what, set one of those computer alerts and check in in two years and three months and see if she still plans to jump." He turned back and looked up at the squirrel. "You need a ride Beth?"
Beth bent down and picked up the wrappings from her now finished sandwich and crumpled them into a ball. To Judy's surprise, she threw the crumped ball up and out over the ledge in a high arc.
Judy was just trying to recall what the citation number was for littering when she saw Beth slip. The squirrel's arms flailed wildly as she tried to keep her balance on the narrow ledge half on and half over the ledge. Judy gave a shriek in horror as Beth toppled over, her small body plummeting towards the ground. Judy broke into a run but knew that even her legs wouldn't get her there in time. Beth's flailing arms pulled in tight to her side as she picked up more speed. Then suddenly she flung them out and in front of her, the thin membrane of skin stretching between her wrists and hips expanding like two tight sails. In an instant Beth went from uncontrolled plummet to a quick controlled glide. With a twist of her wrists Beth leveled out over the sidewalk before dropping feet first in front of a startled Judy. With one paw she pulled out a small card and handed it to Judy, who stood with her mouth hanging open. With her other paw, she reached up and caught the crumpled-up sandwich wrapper.
"Nope, got a date tonight. He's got kind of a weak chin so won't work out, still a gal's got to have some fun in this town," she said with a wink towards Judy before she turned and walked away, tossing the wrapper into a trashcan. Judy stared still processing what had just happened. Finally opening her paw she looked down at the card Beth Stone: Zootopia City Forensics.
"She… she works for the city?" Judy stammered at Russano.
"Yep. The bloodier the mess the better."
"But..but you said she was a crazy!" Judy stuttered in frustration.
"You of all people should know that being crazy and working for this city are hardly mutually exclusive," Russano said as they walked back his car. As she opened the passenger door Judy's shocked mind finally clicked.
"You knew the whole time! You let me think that… A flying squirrel!" she said angrily.
"And that's what you get for making me late for dinner," he said, his normally grim face breaking into a grin.
Sometimes it's those small chance meetings that make or shape our lives. Following a gut feeling into an elephant ice cream shop, or a chat with a friendly if eccentric flying squirrel. Seeming small decisions and meetings that change lives and set events in motion. Years later Judy would think back to that first meeting with Beth. Staring up at the celling late at night she would wonder how things would have gone if she hadn't insisted on driving the truck back, or hadn't decided to take that photo. What if Beth had left five minutes earlier? So much would have been… different. There would be nights where this brought flowing tears to her eyes and other times where she quietly thanked every star above…twice