DISCLAIMER: I was so rushed to get my bid to own Zootopia out on time, that I wasn't watching where I was going and tripped over two slimy frogs. That was when they started talking. In English. Frogs should not talk. I got the hell out of there, and lost my bid to own Zootopia
Thanks to TheoreticallyEva and GusTheBear as always for reviewing my mess and making it readable!
"The district attorney has asked for us all to brief him on the case against our beloved cultists and given us a week of dates that we need to keep open for him. We'll need to keep our schedules clear for that first week. Nolwazi and I have already given him our statements, but he wants to hear the entire story, front to back, from all of us."
Judy looked from Detective Rivers to her partner and mate. "We've never been interrogated like that."
Nolwazi nodded. "You've managed to avoid it longer than some cops, but you don't need to worry. It's a bit different than talking to the media, though. With the media, you answer their question with a question, and then answer that question."
Nick looked at Judy with a smirk on his face, as Nolwazi unknowingly repeated Nick's own words to Judy.
"The thing is, attorneys don't like it when you do that. They also don't like it when you add assumptions or irrelevant information."
Judy couldn't help but cringe.
"Just be straight and stick to the absolute facts of the case. We'll go over those well beforehand, along with the questions they'll likely ask of us."
The doe nodded, feeling a bit better about the situation. She hated talking to the press at all, constantly worried that something she said would be taken out of context, or she'd end up blundering into more speculation, the same thing that got her in trouble last time. Maybe the written facts would be easier.
At least her fox's mother had gotten a small win under her belt against her former boss. Of course, she still had to deal with the case against the company where she used to work—a much bigger mountain, according to her attorney—but at least one case was out of the way.
Over the last month, however, things had slowly started to return to a new sort of normal. The city was increasingly open to non-essential travel, including international tourists, but there was an atmosphere of uncertainty surrounding it all. Shops that had been able to reopen had not seen the sales volumes to which they were accustomed, hotels were barely breaking even, and countless other businesses had closed shop or moved out of the city. Vacancy rates across the board were skyrocketing.
Furston Pharmaceuticals had announced record low profits and the layoff of more than thirteen thousand workers across the region, efforts it claimed were meant to stop the hemorrhaging of funds due to the ongoing boycotts. From what Judy heard, the company was having trouble even selling bottles of their common acetaminophen. Those pharmacies that did still purchase their products weren't able to get them off the shelves as mammals refused to buy them.
It wasn't all doom and gloom, though. Brayer's first antidote shipments had arrived, and that had allowed more savage mammals to be treated faster. Slowly but surely, hospital bed backlog was reduced to the point where parking lots full of temporary tent cities were starting to disappear, and cells full of savage mammals in both precincts and the city jails were starting to empty out.
Brayer had also announced that a second shipment was already on the way, a huge relief to the city's beleaguered population. The Grrrman company had been well praised in the media for their swift research, production of the antidote, and condemnation of Furston's business practices.
Gazelle had announced the date for her relief concert, with all proceeds being donated to mammals who were out of house and home and matched up to one million dollars by the singer herself. The only thing that hadn't been mentioned in the media is that all emergency workers were to be given free entry. That had been given in a letter written to each hospital, fire station, and police precinct, on the condition that it not be made public information.
Tickets for the concert had disappeared in minutes, forcing the celebrity to announce three further concert dates. Those tickets had sold out within hours, and when no more tickets were available, she'd announced an admission-based live stream of the first concert so mammals could watch from home. Production companies to be involved in the performances had further announced their own donations to various groups. All in all, it was already a resounding success, and the performances were still months away.
Marian Wilde, now free of her protective custody, had been splitting her time evenly between her own apartment and Nick and Judy's, all while searching for a new job. The hunt had not been going well for her, with nary a phone call or email for a potential interview. No one would admit it, but Marian, Nick, and Judy were almost certain it had to do with her status as a fox, a whistleblower, and being tied to the terrorist attack in the media. Despite the win against McStripeson's attorney, the situation had been taking its toll on the vixen, and it showed in her demeanor. More than once, the duo had caught her with her ears down and tail drooping. On those days, they had taken the vixen out to dinner or to do something fun to take her mind off her troubles. It seemed to help, and for that, both were grateful.
Judy and Nick gathered up their notes from the conference room and headed out, their next task a routine patrol on the city streets. Juggling the investigative work with the patrol work was often challenging, though Bogo made it clear that the case work came first. He didn't want any mistakes, omissions or loopholes for the defense to exploit in the ZPD's side of things. If the terrorist cult walked free, it wouldn't be because of shoddy work on the ZPD's part.
The two had just gotten out of the conference room when both were startled by a commotion coming from the lobby. Glancing at each other, they both decided to go check it out.
There were a dozen officers in the lobby, all clustered around something or someone neither of the two could see. Nick and Judy carefully weaved their way through the crowd to the front.
Benjamin Clawhauser was standing in the middle of the lobby being embraced by Elizabeth Fangmeyer. The cheetah had been on medical leave ever since the Rainforest District attack. His heart scare had been a wakeup call. Judging by his physique and the significant amount of weight he'd lost in the last two months, it was clear that he'd been taking it extremely seriously.
Judy estimated that he had lost about a quarter of his weight, but she didn't want to make assumptions. She was just happy to see her first friend in Zootopia back. She and Nick had visited Benny a couple times on their way home, and he'd seemed to be in good spirits, but now, he was positively beaming.
"Benny!" Judy waved and bounded over, her fox following at a more sedate pace. Clawhauser turned just in time to be hit by a charging rabbit and wrapped up in a Judy hug.
"Hey, Judy!" The cheetah enthusiastically returned the hug.
"Welcome back, Spots! You look good!" Nick smiled and gave the cheetah a playful elbow.
"Hey, Nick! I see Judy's keeping you on your toes."
Nick laughed as Judy let go and hopped down. "Oh, you know it, Spots. That bunny would be hopeless without me!"
Judy slugged Nick's arm in retaliation.
"OW! Officer down! I'm being assaulted by my own partner!" The assembled mammals all broke out into laughter at the duo's antics, and Nick rubbed his arm where the disproportionately strong fist had connected with it, wincing and grinning himself.
Judy turned back to Clawhauser as the laughter died down. "So, when are you coming back to work, Benny?"
Clawhauser shook his head. "Not for a couple weeks, Judy. Still have a bit to go before my doctor will clear me for desk duty. He says I'm doing well, though! Better than he was hoping for by this time!"
"That's great, Benny! We sure miss you around here! It hasn't been the same since you haven't been on the dispatch desk!" The assembled mammals all voiced their agreement.
Clawhauser smiled. "Actually, Judy, I'm hoping to get back into more beat work and on the drug and alcohol awareness program."
The doe beamed. "That's great! You can really make the world a better place doing something like that!" She brought her comparatively small fist up for a bump, which Clawhauser gladly reciprocated.
"There you go, Spots. You have the Hopps Seal of Approval for making the world a better place. Can't go wrong with that!" Nick gave the cheetah a wink.
Clawhauser laughed. "No, you're right, Nick, I can't." He looked at the clock on the wall above the reception and dispatch desk. "Sorry to cut this short, guys, but I have to get to a meeting with the chief!"
"OK, Benny! Good luck!" Judy offered Clawhauser another fist bump that was returned in kind by the jolly cheetah, and the two headed back through the crowd of mammals to their cubicle.
With a brief check of their emails, Judy found one from Chief Bogo. She opened it, read it, and frowned. "That's odd." Nick looked over her shoulder at the email. "Chief Bogo reassigned our cruiser's maintenance base to Precinct Three. Why would he do that?"
The fox behind her scratched his head. "I'm not sure. How does that work, anyway, with us here?"
"I don't know. Bogo has to have some reason for it. Maybe it has to do with how long it took our cruiser to get fixed? Did you ever hear anything about that? I didn't."
"Nope, me neither. I just figured the body shop took its time to repair the Swiss cheese." Nick shrugged. "Then again, Finnick would know more about that kind of stuff than me. He's always been about his van. Got that custom paint job, and he's been doing his own mods on it for years."
Judy stared at the email a while longer, then picked up her desk phone dialled. "What is it, Hopps? I'm busy with making sure city council doesn't bankrupt the department, so this better be important!"
"Sir, it's about this email you sent us. We're supposed to take our cruiser to Precinct Three for work?"
There was an audible sigh from the other end. "Yes, Hopps, that's correct. I can't discuss the details with you, though. This is off the books for now, understood?"
Nick raised his eyebrows as he listened in. Judy mirrored him as she responded. "Yessir. Understood clearly."
"Good. Now, don't you have a patrol to do?"
"Yes, thank you, sir." The doe hung up and stared at the phone for a while. "Come on, let's go."
They dropped their files into their filing cabinet and locked it, then headed back to the elevator and down, stopping in the break room briefly to refill their water bottles.
Their cruiser was waiting for them in the garage, and the two signed it out and headed on their way.
"So, what do you suppose is going on?" Judy asked Nick as she tapped her thumb on the steering wheel.
Nick shook his head. "I'm going to guess and say some sort of inspection or something. Maintenance never seemed busy before you got back. Not anymore than usual, anyways. Come to think of it, I never saw our car get worked on, did you?"
The doe shook her head. "No, I didn't."
The fox frowned. "Interesting."
In one of Zootopia's most secure facilities, one mammal approached another, doing his best to not be seen. It would not do to be seen. The other mammal was a threat. The other mammal attacked his home, his family. Destroyed them. Killed them with the flick of a switch. Snuffed them out like they were but an ant under his hoof. He might be on the inside of a maximum-security prison, but he still loved his wife and daughter. Now they were gone, and he had nothing left.
The other mammal needed to learn what happened when you did that to him.
For the last week, ever since he'd learned who the Texas longhorn was and what he'd done to his family, the lion had been planning, watching, and waiting. When things didn't go the way he wanted the first time, he changed the plan slightly to accommodate. Now here they were in the showers. No one else. The cameras in here didn't work. He had to be quick, or someone might see.
He'd made the shiv he was holding from his toothbrush. Broken the head off and filed the rest down with the concrete floor and walls of his cell. He'd had to be careful, hiding the weapon in an obscure spot that he'd found in the top shelf of his storage area. He was just lucky that none of the guards that visited him this week were tall enough to see back there. He might have even tried to use his claws instead, if mandatory weekly clippings weren't required by the prison system. Early on in his plan, he had also considered using his teeth, but he quickly realized that the act was both revolting and easy to trace back to him. Not to mention, it would just be a validation of everything that monster believed. "Lion Prisoner, Sober, Attempts to Eat Terrorist! News at 11."
Brandon Gibbs had spent the rest of the week watching the longhorn, learning his schedule. When he was allowed outside. When he was allowed to shower. When his meals were delivered, when he was confined to his cell.
When he was vulnerable.
The lion wasn't in for murder. He'd gotten caught smuggling drugs and weapons into the city, in a crate on his boat he hadn't asked the other party about, and the judge hadn't been kind. But there had still been hope that he could serve out his sentence and see his wife and daughter again. Now, though, with both gone, there was no point. The least he could do was avenge their deaths.
The lion spared a quick thought for the thousands of others for whom the longhorn was responsible, but only for an instant. The predator held his breath and readied the shiv.
The sound of the shower water washed away any noise he made until it was too late for the bovidae. One of the lion's paws went up to cover the other mammal's nose and mouth and stifle any noise, and the other plunged the improvised weapon into the longhorn's exposed carotid.
Damian Hornby struggled to yell, scream, to make any noise, but the lion held firm, not giving an inch, pulling the former toothbrush out and plunging it back in.
The Texas longhorn's life force poured out of him, staining the running water red as it splattered on the walls, running down the tile and swirling down the drain. Muffled cries for help went unheeded by the lion. Thrashing attempts to dislodge the attacker were ineffective. Swinging arms attempting to grab or hit the lion did nothing but miss.
Eventually, the Texas longhorn's frantic efforts slowed, his breathing stopped, and, with the last flicker of life in his victim's eyes, the lion whispered in the bovine's ear.
"That was for my wife and daughter, monster."
The light in the longhorn's eyes faded away, and the lion, soaked in water and blood, let the mammal drop to the tile floor. His paws were shaking. He took a deep breath and let it out. He felt…nothing. Not the despair that had consumed him from the moment he was told his family was dead, not the helplessness as he heard the stories of thousands of others killed, not the white-hot rage when he'd found out the mammal responsible was under the same roof as he, only the cold…nothingness that had permeated his thoughts since he'd begun his plan.
Now his plan succeeded, and all purpose in his life was gone. The lion barely registered the shouting and yelling of the guard that had entered the room. He didn't respond as the guard ordered him to do something. The toothbrush was yanked from his paw, and he barely took notice.
'Why don't I feel better about this? This was the monster that killed my baby girl. I should be… What should I be? I killed this mammal. I should be horrified. Or ecstatic? I feel nothing,' the lion thought as he was forced to the ground by more than one security guard. He didn't even feel that. That should hurt, shouldn't it?
The thoughts ran through the lion's head as he was roughly cuffed, his feet bound together so he couldn't fight back at all, and dragged back up and marched off out of the shower room and down the halls. Whispers from the other inmates reached the feline's ears but weren't comprehended. Shouted questions, jeers, and taunts went in one ear and out the other, and the constant shoving from the guards was ignored.
The lion was led into a small cell—no windows, only one solid steel door. One lightbulb in a heavy mesh cage. A steel slab for a bed. A sink/toilet combo. Nothing else but concrete. Isolation. That's where he was. No other explanation for it.
A sharp prick in his side. A sensation of cold and lethargy.
Nothingness. Welcome nothingness.
The group of guards wrestled the unconscious lion onto the slab that served as a bed, uncuffed him, and quickly retreated, the doors to the cell automatically closing and locking behind them.
The team lead, a large gray wolf, motioned to the others. "Get the ZPD in here. Now. And that lion in there stays put until I give the order. No one goes in or out of that cell or the shower rooms until I give the word. Move it!"
Nolwazi Longtooth was taking a much-needed five-minute coffee break when her phone blew up. Not literally, but the device skittered across the counter and made a break for the floor before she was able to catch it.
Thankfully, the phone was spared an early and somewhat permanent retirement by hard tile floor. Cursing the device out, she checked it and was immediately hit by an urgent message from Rivers. Trouble at Zootopia's Cedar Point MaxSec, and he'd meet her there.
The lioness swore under her breath. It seemed that whenever she got five seconds of spare time, something pulled her back to work. Idly, she wondered what it was, and she racked her brain for the list of mammals she'd put away there, giving up when she realized that half of the group of the Night Savage cult had been sent there.
Grabbing the coffee she'd been making for herself, dumping it in a Styrofoam travel cup, and slapping a lid on it, the lioness hurried out of the breakroom. She stopped by the dispatch desk to sign out one of the unmarked cruisers before heading to the garage and passing the precinct's somewhat disgruntled-looking wildebeest mechanic on the way.
She found the car she'd signed out parked in the maintenance queue. As it was the only unmarked left, she grabbed it anyway and headed off to the prison, just outside the city's northern border, full lights and sirens.
The city wasn't as busy as it normally would have been, thanks to mammals still being wary of leaving their homes, so there wasn't much to get in her way. The trip took half the time it normally would have. The radio was tuned to a local news station, but it wasn't offering anything that might clue her in as to what was going on, so she shut that off and listened to the police chatter. Again, it wasn't much help. Hopps and Wilde were ticketing a speeder in Sahara Square, Fangmeyer and Grizzoli were responding to a savage mammal call in Savannah Central, and McHorn and Pennington were settling a domestic dispute…over a case of which spouse's day it was to take out the garbage, it sounded like. The lioness rolled her eyes. She didn't miss calls like that at all.
Passing through the two security gates and pulling into the emergency services section of the jail's parking lot, she immediately spotted Rivers' own unmarked cruiser, along with an ambulance and a vehicle from the coroner's office.
Oh.
Well, that wasn't a good sign.
The detective secured the cruiser and was immediately met by a wolf security guard. "Detective Longtooth, Detective Rivers said to expect you."
"What's goin' on?"
The wolf sighed as he led the way into the correctional center. "Long story short, someone spared the city the cost of a trial for one of the mammals you brought in connection with the terrorist cult. We caught the mammal responsible with the shiv in paw, and he's in isolation and sedated, but we're on lockdown now, just in case."
The wolf led Longtooth through security, past dozens of armed guards, each one just looking for something to shoot, and finally into the corridors of the prison itself. All of the non-security staff had been removed from the site, and the lioness had to go through a more vigorous security check than normal. She was allowed to keep her sidearm, thankfully.
As they traversed the prison's corridors, they seemed eerily quiet with all the prisoners ensconced in their cells and guards of every size and shape every twenty feet. Unlike the Zootopian Maximum Security Penitentiary, Cedar Point, the older of the two, wasn't segregated by size, but it also couldn't take the largest mammals, or the smallest.
They turned a corner—apparently headed to the shower rooms, according to the sign on the wall—but before they got any further, they ran into police-only tape. The lioness looked at the wolf for explanation.
"This is your domain. I just guard the place. Your colleague is in the shower room down the hall on the right."
Longtooth nodded, pulled a package of disposable evidence booties out of her pocket, and put them on. It wouldn't do to contaminate whatever the crime scene ended up being, though judging by the bloody pawprints she saw on the floor, it would be a messy one.
She ducked under the tape and walked to the shower room in question. She'd expected a bloody mess, and that's exactly what she got. A mammal lay in a pool of blood on the ground. Smears of blood adorned the tiled floors and walls, and the indistinct patterns told her the shower had been running at the time the crime had happened. The tiles and running water wouldn't leave much evidence of a struggle if one occurred, though there might still be evidence on the body. That would be the job of the medical examiner. Rivers looked up as she entered, then stood and made his way over to her. She gave him a questioning look.
"I can't say I'm surprised this happened, though I honestly expected it sooner."
The two made their way over to the body. As soon as she saw the mammal's face, she recognized him.
"Looks like someone decided to save the city the cost of one trial. Too bad that also means paying for another trial," Rivers commented with a grimace.
Longtooth snorted. "And maybe one or two wrongful death lawsuits. Honestly, though, I can't say I feel sorry for him. What happened?"
"Hornby here was in for his weekly shower. Was supposed to be here alone, and he had fifteen minutes before the timer ran out and he'd get escorted back to his cell. The guards say it occurred towards the end of that fifteen minutes. They aren't exactly sure when the perpetrator got in, but here's the result." The elk gestured to Hornby's body. "Multiple stab wounds, each one on a critical neck blood vessel, courtesy of that nicely-filed toothbrush over there. Running water would have washed away most of the castoff, but we still got that nice pattern up there, above the water line," he said, pointing to one splatter pattern. "He was dead by the time the prison doctor got to the scene, and well before any ambulance."
"Do we know who did it?" The lioness looked around. Besides herself, her partner, the body, and two coroners' assistants, no one was around.
"We do." Her partner flipped to another sheet on his notepad. "A Brandon 'The Roar' Gibbs, lion, in for felony trafficking drugs and weapons, with intent to sell. He has gang ties to the current 57th Street crew."
Nolwazi frowned, not having heard of that one before. "It's a small-time gang that's sprung up in the Meadowlands. They mostly run a protection racket, from what I could tell. Seems Customs and the Canals district precincts shit a brick when they found lethals and drugs in a hidden compartment on his cigarette boat. That was a couple years ago. Had a year or two left on his sentence."
"What's his connection with our friend here?" The lioness had been jotting down notes.
"I'm not exactly sure yet. Suspect's sleeping off a TQ chaser. We'll have to talk to him or dig into his history at the precinct. The guard staff here don't pay much attention to individuals unless they aren't adhering to the prison's routine, misbehaving, slacking, or they show some suspicious behavior. Seems this was the first for 'The Roar', though."
"So, right now, we have nothing on him," the lioness sighed.
"That's about right."
"How did he get in? I was under the impression that mammals in isolation are alone when they shower."
"They are. When they shower, or if they are given any outside privileges, they are completely alone, with the possible exception of guards. No guards in the showers, though. They stay outside. No way to get out." He pointed to the small windows, barred and meshed, located high on the concrete wall and well out of reach. On the floor, the drains, while numerous, were far too small for any of the inmates to fit through. Perhaps a rat could, or even a mouse or squirrel, but none of them were incarcerated here.
"So, how did this guy get into the shower?"
"Seems the guard outside was distracted by something and left his post, but we're still trying to figure out who it should have been." Rivers frowned. "At this point, I'm not sure if it's incompetence or an attempt to protect the guard in question," he commented in a low voice.
"You have reason to think there's something hinky going on?"
"I just find it very suspicious that a mammal got in here without anyone noticing because one guard was distracted."
Longtooth nodded. That definitely raised a few red flags. "Well, I guess we have to figure out what happened."
Rivers nodded, looking at the door as the lab mammals finally showed up.
Mvivu Chidozie was not looking forward to what was about to happen. Something in his gut told him it wasn't going to be good. Not after half his fleet had been sent to other garages for repairs, including the cruiser assigned to that fox and rabbit. They were too small to be doing real police work, so why was Bogo sinking even more money into them?
He'd just finished another "A" check when he'd been called to the chief's office. After seeing that white fox skulking around once or twice in the last couple weeks, he was on edge. He'd asked her why she'd been there, and she'd said it was some sort of city audit that was taking place. He'd heard of no such thing before, but there was a first for everything. Maybe the city didn't want to justify the expense of having excessively small mammals on the force.
Up in his office, Bogo rubbed his temples. The day before, the arctic fox they'd brought on for an independent audit had submitted her findings, and they did not speak favourably about the Precinct One mechanic. Neither had the reports from the garages at other precincts. Fluid changes were missed or not done correctly. Worn parts not being inspected or replaced. Several cruisers even had recurring problems that had been overlooked or not otherwise corrected. One particular problem stood out in that a number of the cars had badly-adjusted brake calipers, and two, on two different cruisers, were even found to be non-functional entirely, with reports of bad braking from the officers driving them.
'How had this gone unnoticed?' Had been his first question. A background check had shown that the mammal had worked at several garages with glowing reviews prior to applying at the ZPD academy. After that failed attempt, the wildebeest had apparently gone back to mechanic work, eventually applying for the ZPD, and being assigned by default to Precinct One when the previous mechanic had retired.
After that, his performance had gone downhill, it seemed, but no one had noticed, somehow. Several complaints about mechanical deficiencies, and one complaint lodged with Mammal Resources by Eric Wolford regarding a comment the mammal had made about his then-partner, Judy Hopps. Somehow, none of this had made it to his desk, and it seemed that the staff members that handled the reports were all different.
The house of cards had started to come down for the wildebeest when Bogo had caught him lying about Hopps and Wilde's cruiser, of course, but it appeared this mammal had been digging his own grave for a while. Of course, that was backed up by the testament the duo's union representative had given Bogo concerning what he'd overheard when he'd gone down to talk to the mechanic.
The maintenance deficiencies were the final nail in the coffin, and Bogo had summoned the mammal to his office to explain his actions. The knock at the door suggested that the mammal in question was there. "Enter."
The door opened. "You wanted to see me, sir?"
Bogo gestured to the chair on the other side of his desk. "Sit." The wildebeest moved to the proffered chair and did so. Bogo handed him a folder. "I need you to explain this to me."
The wildebeest looked over the folder and frowned. "What is this, sir?"
Bogo arched an eyebrow. "I was hoping you could tell me. What I'm looking at seems to be a list of maintenance deficiencies, improper procedures, and flat-out falsifications about work being done, and from multiple sources. We even have security tapes of you working on a few cruisers, then logging work as being done, when you did not do it. Even not doing requested work at all."
"I do everything the way I've always done it, sir. Whatever this mammal has told you, it's not right."
"Not this mammal, Chidozie, these mammals. Ten different precincts, eleven different mammals, and five of those were unprompted by me, they all came back to me saying the same things."
"What can I say, sir? They're wrong."
"And then there's the list of complaints filed against you in the time you've been working here. Seems Mammal Resources misplaced a lot of them, but we were able to track them down. Failure to adhere to procedure. Poor work performance. And one from one of my own officers that didn't make it to my desk—inappropriate comments made towards or about officers. And a second one made just a few weeks ago. That one DID make it to my desk."
The wildebeest was getting angry. So, Bogo was investigating him behind his back. That's what that white fox was doing poking around HIS shop. What did she know about working on large mammal equipment? She probably just made stuff up as she went. And his own colleagues in other precincts, selling him out. What camaraderie. "So, I'm in trouble for voicing the truth now? That those two officers you seem so fond of are nothing more than a PR statement, and worthless for police work, while your academy flunks out far more capable mammals, like me? And on top of that, I'm in trouble for doing things the way I've always done?"
Bogo's expression turned dangerous. "You don't get to decide who's fit for police duty and who isn't, Chidozie. Hopps and Wilde faced the same tests every other mammal that enlists there faces, including yourself. You were the one that failed the academy courses, not them. That should not make any difference in your work as a mechanic, but it clearly has." The Cape buffalo hesitated. "I was going to let you off with a warning and a requirement for further training, but now I feel that you are not a good fit for our work here at the ZPD. Pack your things. I will have Mammal Resources mail your notice of termination to you. Dismissed."
A/N
So, how many of you saw that one coming? Damian Hornby is gone forever!
Well, this week has been a roller coaster, both emotionally and physically. I'm exhausted, and I know my editors are too!
No one found the reference in the last chapter! Can you find one here?
Coming up on April 2: I did it and I'm Not Sorry!
Questions? Critiques? Did a creepy voodoo lady turn your snake into a goat? Leave a comment!