ACT IV: Secrets from Below

Z.A.I.M.

Nick's thoughts were as bizarre as they'll ever be. How did the tiger know about who was doing this? Why was he trying to vandalize this place in particular? Everything was very suspicious. Did ZNN have something to do with it? No, there must be something else. Someone was trying to protect something. The whole building was empty except this floor. There's something that Marvin isn't telling him.

"So, Marvin. Who was that tiger? Why did he want to get to your floor?" Nick asked grimly. Marvin caught on to his tone and replied slowly.

"It was just a simple criminal, Nick. He had no motives to this. He just wanted to incite violence." Marvin said with a slight hint of sass.

"You're lying. This building is completely empty and there was no possible way a criminal would've climbed so many stairs just to find people he could kill. That tiger knew something and he looked mad. Mad at you and whatever kinda people you have over there." the vulpine stated, clear and direct.

"I don't know what you're talking abo-" he was interrupted by Nick's paw suddenly grabbing his neck and lifting him in the air, just like the tiger did to him.

"Listen to me, you coon! If I find out by myself you had something to do with my partner's and possibly hundreds and thousands of deaths I am gonna tear every limb from you, not before telling your beauty here what you've done." Nick kept aggressively stroking his neck until the raccoon managed to say something. "O-okay okay I'll explain everything, just let me go!"

Nick let go of him and tripped over some of the stairs. He was coughing because of the pressure on his neck. Nick felt horrible right after getting his paws out of him. He wasn't acting like himself and it was showing, it's just this afternoon wasn't being the best of all afternoons, it could probably be described as the shittiest fucking afternoon of his life. As the raccoon recovered himself Nick started to apologize.

"Hey...I'm sorry. I didn't really mean any of that. I just want to know who the hell did this. My partner is gone because of that person. He's gonna pay." Nick closed his fists angrily. The raccoon knew he was in the right for being mad. But he doubted what he was gonna tell him would make him feel any better.

"I get it, Wilde. This has been stressful for all of us. What I'm gonna tell you, however, is not great news. The person who did this is unreachable. At least for the time being." Marvin said in a serious and knowledgeable tone. Nick was surprised by what he said. Unreachable? What does he mean by that?

"It would be better if I explain everything to you and Kii in the office once she wakes up. What I'm gonna tell you both has been a long-kept secret within the confines of these walls. There will be 3 more animals in there that are part of the team." the Raccoon kept speaking as they approached the entrance to Floor 87. Their last stop was near.

"We're here. You don't need to introduce yourself, everyone knows who you are." he said to Nick as he opened the door and began to yell. "Guys, I'm back. I brought company." as he said this, the three mammals showed themselves. It was a male and a female wolf and a tall male ram.

"Is she still alive?" commented the female in an altered tone. "Would you look at that, it's Nick Wilde. Where's your.." - "Sheila!" she got interrupted by Marvin. After he said that she realized what she had almost said.

"Oh. Sorry. I'm Sheila, by the way." as Nick took a closer look at her she was undeniably pretty. Her fur was dark gray and she had blue eyes. "This is my brother, Paul," he approached Nick and extended his hand. He couldn't reach it because he still had Kii on his arms. Paul noticed and blushed in embarrassment. He could definitely see the resemblance between the siblings. "I'm a true fan of yours. Where's-" Sheila punched his shoulder and looked at him. He realized and his head went down. "Good to have you here," he said with a warm smile.

Paul was a very tall wolf. He was dark Grey like Sheila but was significantly larger than her in size. He was also very toned and muscular.

"I'm Bryan Ramston," the ram seemed like it was the oldest and the smartest. The way he talked gave him a very powerful aura that Nick could feel. "Let's help this poor lady out, shall we?" he took Kii from Nick's arms and put her on one of the empty tables in the studio. He started checking for breathing, pulse, and tried to find any superficial wounds. He took her shoulder and with some bandages he started wrapping it all up around it so no blood would come out. "She seems to be fine. She only needs rest. You need to take better care of your girlfriend, Marv, hah," he mocked the raccoon.

"I-it's not my fault she wasn't with me when all this happened! Besides she's a cop. She always gets in this kind of trouble," Marvin said, feeling attacked and also kinda mad that he was right. Nick had no time of these shenanigans. He wanted to find out who had made Judy and all the other mammals disappear, but he wanted to wait for her to wake up. She needed to hear it too.

As if the universe had heard his thoughts, she was moving and slowly opening her eyes. Marvin had noticed and quickly rushed to her side.

"Oh my god, Kii! I'm so happy you're alive," he said with great content.

She was still shaken by the blow the tiger had given her but managed to speak a few words."M-Marvin… hi, honey," he hugged her and kissed her in the cheek. This act of happiness made Nick think of how he had gone through many difficult and terrible times with his partner, and how he had always treasured being alive another day to see her face. He related.

"Nick," Kii looked at him and smiled. "I'm happy you're alive too. What happened?"

"Well, your boyfriend here saved me. You should thank him. A bullet straight to the tiger's head, including the other 2 criminals," Nick's words didn't make her feel any better.

"But...but they were just some vandals. I understand about the tiger but why the 2 others? You could've cuffed them!" said Kii trying to get up from the table only to be received by pain in her chest and shoulder.

"Hey hey easy. Don't work yourself up too much," said the coon.

"He has an answer to that, don't you Marvin?" the other 3 mammals on the room noticed that Nick clearly knew something. Marvin just sighed and turned to the others.

"I'm gonna tell them, guys," he announced.

"Tell them what?" said Kii confused.

"Who did all this? You're gonna tell me right now," Nick said in his deepest and most serious voice. Marvin's co-workers were surprised and even Kii flinched at the sound of his voice.

"Marvin… You're not really gonna tell him, are you?" Paul said.

"How...how do you know about that? Nick, how does he know?" Kii asked him, completely bewildered.

"I have to tell them, guys. This secret has been going on for too long. It's time we showed them Zootopia's inner workings." Marvin stated. And with all of it settled and done, he began.

"Kii, are you good enough to walk?" He asked. She looked at him still confused about his involvement in all of this.

"Y-yeah. I think so," she said, as she got up from the table and began trying to walk with the help of Nick. Her two legs were still weak but she could move with his aid.

"Follow me," they did what he said and they were going through the main corridor in the studio until they reached a weirdly shaped and placed elevator that didn't look like the others. Inside it looked like a normal elevator that listed all numbers 1 to 100 for the floors.

"I thought the elevator wasn't working?" Kii said, as Nick pondered the same thing.

"This is another elevator. It's not connected to the main one," Sheila said. Marvin pressed the numbers 16, 4 and 3 on the elevator buttons. With that, a different set of buttons appeared and were instead letters. He was pressing them rapidly, which didn't allow Nick to decipher the password. After that, yet another security breach appeared and was instead a hand sensor. He put his right hand on it and waited for some seconds until the scanner worked.

The elevator turned green and a robotic voice started speaking. "Welcome back, Mr. Cooper. We're happy to see you again. Transportation to Z.A.I.M. Installations will begin now," Nick and Kii looked at each other dumbfounded, not knowing what to say. The elevator started moving, and they could feel it was going down. A little map started projecting on a little screen above the fancy elevator. Their destination was way below the Downtown Tower. Nick had never heard of a subterranean center before, which made sense, seeing that it was supposed to be a secret. He wondered how the people involved managed to do such a feat.

"How did you guys keep all of this a secret, and for how many years?" the questions came. It was only a matter of time before Kii or Nick would've started asking, but it was Kii who asked first. Marvin would go on to answer it.

"We got help from the government. Such funds to make a demanding installation like the one we're gonna be in is not cheap. They decided to keep it secret because things like the technology down there could be used for bad, and there are more stuff down there that is in need of protection and we don't want unwanted attention," he explained clearly. "It's been 20 years. I only joined a couple ago," he added. They were getting close, judging by the map.

"Did you know that this would happen?" said Nick in an ominous tone. If they knew he would be furious. They should've at least given a warning.

"We didn't," Paul said. "This took us by surprise. We were tracking the person who did this but we wouldn't be able to do anything since we don't have war technology. We have contacts. We could have found his location and sent some help, but we sadly couldn't," he remorsed. Sheila held his hand to comfort him.

They were already getting close. Nick could see it. It was bigger than he expected. There were designated areas for certain things but it looked like they were short on staff. Probably a cause of this phenomenon that Nick had still no name to call.

The elevator finally stopped. "Ladies and gentleman, welcome to Z.A.I.M. Installations," said Marvin as if he was a show host in a reality TV show, and it's exactly how it was described.

The place was immense. It probably stretched for many miles. It's amazing that such a big place like this had been off the radar for 2 decades. The entrance had the name of the company in blue and white. Most of the walls were painted in very different colors, but Persian blue was the most exposed.

Z.A.I.M. is short for Zootopian Agency of Intergalactic Matters," Sheila stated. "I know it might sound lame but it's the best the founders could've come up with. In this place we study everything that's out of this world. Including the person who did this," her voice sounded raw as if it hurt to say it.

"How long did it take to build this?" Kii asked. Marvin replied.

"It all started in 1976 when they had discovered an unusual material on the other side of this planet. It was a blueish solid object that had a very hard and coarse surface. The mammals that found it said that they could feel the strength of the material and that it was more than they could handle. Shortly after a scientist took it and discovered many of the properties of the metal. It had the capability to absorb sound and it could cut through any metal existing. This meant that the metal had not come from here, but from outer space. He called it Absorbium," he said as they kept walking through the installations. The mammals left there looked curiously at the newcomers.

"The scientist's name was Patrick Howloway," Paul started speaking. "Our father," he revealed.

"So I'm guessing you guys own all of this?" Nick asked.

"We co-own it, along with Marvin. His dad was a big friend of my parents," Sheila said.

"What about you, big guy?" Nick told the quiet ram.

"I handle some rough jobs in here. I command some spaceships and I help on building them," Bryan stated.

"Mr. Ramston has been with us for quite a while. His help has brought many great things to this organization," Marvin expressed in a proud voice.

"So how does this work? It's underground. No spaceships can go undetected to the surface?" Kii questioned.

"That's why the spaceships are never used in Zootopia. It would be foolish to do so if we're trying to hide them," Bryan started speaking. "This station is just a secondary one, where we build weapons and some parts of spaceships to take to the actual station that we have in the other side of the globe,"

"It's impressive how I've never heard of it. How do you take the station away from the news? There must also be people in the other side of the world," Kii exclaimed.

"Indeed there are, but we're smarter. The station is hidden completely in plain sight on the jungle of Zibia. But only we can access it," Paul said. "And before you ask, we hide with a special shield that safeguards it against possible threats. And there's only one entrance that only we know about. It's like an entrance to a different dimension. My dad's findings gave way to all of that. He truly was amazing," Paul stopped speaking and lowered his head.

"Until Milo betrayed him. His partner," Sheila unveiled. "And that tiger you saw at the entrance was his son," Nick's eyes went wide open. To think that he had thought of him as just a vandal, but he turned out to be worse. Sheila kept talking.

"With their findings, they had found other three Absorbium stones around the zone. Some were hidden very deep in the soil. Milo wanted them all to himself, of course. He wanted to use the metal for his own selfish reasons. Our father wouldn't let him and he fired him. Furious, the tiger grabbed one of the stones and punched him right through his face," with this, Sheila began tearing up but still had an angry face. "I still remember that day as clear as water. I was only 16. So much blood. The metal was the hardest of all, and combined with that bastard's strength it was more than he could handle. He died in a span of seconds, while Milo just ran away with two of the metals," Sheila was now fully crying. It looked like she had suppressed those memories for a long time. Paul went to hug her and she accepted it.

Nick was seeing Déjá Vu. It was as if he had already lived those moments. Because he did. He remembered the day he had told Judy about the tragedy with the Scouts. He also reminisced of when he told her about his mom and how he resented leaving her side. He cried that day, like he never did. Cried in his bunny's arms. Never had he felt so vulnerable and so strong in his life at the same time. She cried with him, because she too felt his pain, but how could she? he recalled thinking that too. He understood in an instant. She loved him. More than he cared to love himself. A knot in his throat formed at the thought.

"So I'm guessing one of you killed him," Kii stated. "I would've done that too," she expressed with angry eyes.

"Indeed we did. It took us weeks to find him. He was on a hidden base north of Zibia. We killed him right then and there. No mercy. He didn't give our father mercy," Paul stated angrily.

"But he had an offspring and that was that tiger at the entrance. He was trying to get revenge on us," Marvin told them.

"What a cycle of revenge. I'm glad it's over now", Kii said. Nick was still in his pondering state, not feeling the vibrations of their speaking, or the air from the working turbines in the base. He was still daydreaming of Judy. Kii noticed it and went to him.

"Nick," she said. He didn't seem to hear her so she tried again. "Nick!" she called him once again. He got back to his senses.

"Sorry, I got distracted by my own thoughts. But I did hear what you said." with his mind recovered and focused they kept walking. In the base there was another big room that looked like an office. And indeed it was. A much better office than the ones in the tower. This one had a massive computer with an equally-sized keyboard that stretched as many as 3 tables. Each table had its own chair for the respective mammals to work on it.

"This computer has been saving our information about everything since this company started. All the memories, research and events that we and others have recorded. It also holds the information about the creator of this horrific genocide. Patrick used satellites to scan other planets and look for info about the people throughout the galaxy. Thanks to that we know a lot about him," the raccoon said. Nick was ready to find out who it was. If he couldn't kill him he could at least be happy by looking at his face.

"Are you ready, Nick? There's no backing up. Once you're in, you're in," Marvin warned him. Nick was already decided. He feared no tyrant. Death was also the least of his worries.

"I'm ready," he said in an ominous tone. Kii was getting ready for the reveal too and was still surprised at what her boyfriend has been involved in for all those years.

"Okay. Here we go. Not much has been found about the alien's childhood or his background, but we know his name. The Mad Titan, Thanos," as he said this, Bryan opened some files containing his name and the files became holograms, but ones Marvin could touch.

TO BE CONTINUED