Chapter 24

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"Uhhh," Haida gawped.

"Wait, what?" Retsuko added.

Ton snorted, sitting back down. "Answers. Now."

"Well," Haida began, his paws fumbling together. "I mean, I wouldn't really picture you helping us… Ever."

"Fair point," he grumbled. "But maybe I will help you here."

"But why?" Retsuko asked, scratching the side of her head.

"Simple," he said, leaning forward. "Because you are my workers. That doesn't mean I'm doing this out of the kindness of my own heart, oh no! But, if someone is about to hurt you, I will drag you back in and, if someone has hurt you, then it gets personal."

"So, because he hurt us…" Retsuko began, only to be cut off.

"-This isn't for you, not by a long shot," he interrupted. "Remember back in the howler crisis, that guy talking on about how the afflicted preds should face trial and how he should clamp down on petty crime."

"It got lost in the mix," Haida explained.

"Well, some mammals remembered, and afterwards he wanted to salvage his reputation. Oh no, he isn't against predators, he's against crime period and he set out to prove that. Prey criminals would be caught too, would have the library thrown at them too, it would all be equal opportunity hardcore policing." He snorted. "I'm not sure he's that anti-pred, and normally I'd be on his side. But then, he went too far."

Haida's eyes began to widen, as did Retsuko's.

"He didn't just want to show that he'd go after prey, he wanted to show that he'd even go after his own kind with no mercy. Hippopotamuses. Of course, you need one to go after, and what do you know, there were a few shreds of circumstantial evidence linking a certain mammal of that species to a data leak from this company."

"It was him, personally, who..." Retsuko muttered.

Haida buried his face in his paws in shame. "Kabae… No wonder she panicked so much!"

Ton nodded. "Anyone could see that there was nothing to it. It was bad luck and hereasy on her part, but he needed a hippo and he got one. Even better, she worked in financial services, and after all the similar junk claims that he's thrown at Lemming Brothers ever since Murana Wolford became CEO, it had double the propaganda value. 'I treat a hippo like I do a wolf, and if I'm really anti-pred, why have I left Tom Nook and his company out of this, huh? Because those tanukis keep their noses clean, and I hunt down all crime, that's why!' Wasn't even that big of a deal for the 'victim', he probably thought. She was only held from Monday to Friday before being cleared of everything and going home. Only it is a big deal."

He glanced over at Haida. "You weren't there." He then glanced at Retsuko. "You were just useless that week anyway. But, I was hearing her call from her cell, shaking and blubbering and begging for help to anyone, terrified. Terrified about where she was, about what might happen next, about how her little children would cope, or deal with it, or whether she'd have to see them growing up from behind bars as they grew up without their mother."

There was a long pause, Ton beginning to fume. "I have kids too, so I felt that." He looked up. "And as he hurt one of my workers, he's in my bad books. Nothing I can do to get back at him though, until now…" He smiled, his porcine features beginning to look distinctly predatory. "Drinking him under, huh? I can do that. Tell the kit's family that they have their mammal!"

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William blinked at Carmen's words. "That name sounds familiar."

She smiled. "I am the first cousin once removed of Inspector Carmelita Montoya Fox of Interpol. Her father is my great uncle and, in our family, we share a love of high fashion, high heels, and high justice."

"And I just want my son back," he said, frowning. He looked on before shaking his head. "This is stupid. Just stupid, I... -I'm thinking that this is an elaborate disguise or something and you are up to something!"

"You think… maybe correctly," she said with a sly smile, making him blink a few times in surprise. Her eyes bore into his. "And what about Shylock? What makes you think that he was legitimate too?"

"I…" he began, before shaking his head, paws out. "-What reason has he for not being?"

She closed her eyes. "He's someone me and my associates have been following for a very long time. He's a dangerous mammal who came to this city and is up to something, moreover we believed he's joined with other dangerous mammals, ones we do not know, to work on some nefarious scheme or other. What it is, I don't know, but after wondering whether what happened to your son or not was linked, I was able to follow him here. Fingers crossed my associates can catch him on the way out, but I'm not holding my hopes high."

"I'm… I'm sorry, I'm lost here," he said, shaking his head.

'Carmen' nodded. "Join the club. Let me explain this in another way. Imagine you're playing chess, normally it's you up against an opponent, dead ahead of you. You can see all he's doing and take action against it. We toppled our first king years ago. Now, imagine a new type of chess, where behind the first enemy is a second, and then a third, and on and on and on. And as we've moved forward they move back, into the fog of war and into places we do not know, with strange new players at different states of play. We don't know the whole board, we don't know if they're neutral or against us or for us or whatever. We're flying blind, trying to figure it out as we go along, and that figuring out has led us here."

William paused, looking at her, head tilted hard to the side. "So you're saying that your story... is colliding with other people's ones... -and they're not meshing; you don't know the full story, you just have peeks at it which you can't make sense of."

"Indeed," she spoke. "The only way we've been able to fight so far is to pre-empt their moves, making sure to take things of value to them without even knowing what they're for." She paused, before smiling. "I see you're still confused, so would you like an example?"

"I... suppose…"

"To give one, lately we learnt that they were going at great lengths to recover the black box of a long lost airship. Maybe you have heard of its story? Maybe you have not. Built by the Kirov airworks in the USSR, it was an experimental aircraft that was mothballed when the wall fell and then stolen by a band of modern day pirates. Flying under the name Iron Vulture, they looted the northern skies for a decade before vanishing in the Sea of Okhotsk in the early dawn of the new millennium. When her black box was recovered in Magadan a few months back, our enemies wanted it for some reason, even getting one of the world's most powerful and secretive arms dealers in on the job, simply to ship it over! We don't know why they want it but they do, meaning we must deny them it, whether it provides us with any clues to their motives or not. We're setting up an intercept as we speak."

William began to shake, hard, only broken off by a paw on his own.

"-Your son is not embroiled in this giant plot, nor are you, and we won't force you to be," she urged. "But something about his case has caught their interest. I don't know what, so I need to know everything that went on between you two. Everything!"

"And… And why should I tell you?" he asked. "He might get my son out…"

"-So might we," she said. "We have no interest in your son being in prison, but I think he has no interest in him being out. We'll carry on our investigation and anything we find we'll send your way. That's a promise."

William blinked a few times before his confused features hardened like cooling obsidian. "That's what he said."

She shrugged. "And you accepted it. So, double up your chances. What do you have to lose?"

He held back, only to relent. He warily recounted the basics: how he'd come to talk, how he'd learnt of the ongoing Nick and Judy led investigation, how he'd mentioned having a sponsor, interested in ancient Efrafa…"

"That other thing wasn't Efrafan…" she commented, only to shake her head.

In the end, Dr Silverfox finished, looking into her eyes. "So, does that help you?"

She looked back at him. "The fact that you sent him the basics, no. The fact you didn't send him the details, yes. You've thrown us many more jigsaw pieces, but none of them are edges or corners. As for your purpose in this, I..." She was broken off by the bleeping of her phone, which she brought up, her eyes widening. "Well, sweetie, seems like our time is up!"

She jumped up, running to the door, Dr Silverfox racing after her. "Just hang on a minute! Wait!"

"Stay with Nick and Judy, and best wishes for your son! We'll help if we can."

"Just stop…" he began, before feeling a swift paw to his chest. He was knocked back, stumbling to his knees before getting up again.

"Wish I could chat," she said, sadness in her eyes, as she raced out of the apartment. Confused, Dr Silverfox walked out into the corridor, spotting her enter a lift and vanish. Going back in, sitting down, he held himself. As he did so, he couldn't help but think of another way to describe what she was trying to get at.

He could see the tip of the iceberg, but nine-tenths were still underwater, and he had no way of knowing whether he was in danger or not. He packed up his things and left. The day was coming to an end, and it was time to meet up with everyone and see how things were going.

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"Okay everyone!" Nick shouted, ringing a glass as they all piled into the Fox family lounge. He, Judy, the three (and a half) Foxes and one Silverfox, Jack, Skye, Honey, the fennecs and Haida and Retsuko were all gathered around. "Status update, status update. Good news from us, first."

"Yes!" Judy said, marching forward. "We know that Duke did leave the city for the states after his community service ended, likely on a camping trip to Oregon. I know that that is still a really wide area to look at, BUT, we have a lead. His roommate said he'd be going to a relative of his who owns a camper rental place, one which he'd have gone to in order to pick that camper up. If we can find where it is, we get one step closer to our weasel."

Fenneko nodded. "Having received it, it seems the key to this mystery will be that water tower," she explained, bringing up a picture. "I'll be putting a picture of it up on p-slash-oregon and asking if anyone can recognise it."

Finnick nodded. "Yeah. Fingers crossed, we can then check it out on Zoogle Street View before going out there ourselves!"

"Yeah," Judy cheered, bringing up a round of applause.

"Or," Nick countered, "we try and get an international warrant out on him, bring him back. Might be a bit easier."

"I…" Judy began. "-Good point, though you know that that would be slow."

Nick nodded slowly. "I know, but who knows how far he's going? We're just assuming he went local from here. How do we know he's not on the east coast right now?"

"Also, a good point," Judy said, turning down and letting her foot-paws rap hard on the floor in thought.

"Why not do both?" Ash asked.

"Both?" Honey chirped in, the young fox turning to her.

"Both."

"Both!"

They turned and looked at Nick and Judy. "Both is good!"

The bunny and fox cop nodding along. "Right," she said, "that's good progress along the weasel front, but…"

"-The Bellwether front?" Honey asked, buzzing a little with excitement as she turned to Ash. "So, what's the news, what's the news?"

Nick looked on, suddenly awash with concern, though he held back as Ash spoke. "Well, I checked the text. She would know."

"So she might be involved," the ratel followed on, Nick relaxing a bit.

"Might be, yeah. But she wasn't in class today."

"Sounds like she's running scared."

"Well whatever the case, she would be," Nick pointed out, walking forward. He gave Honey a long look, and she nodded and shrugged.

"Either because she did it…" she began, slowing down before suddenly rushing forward. "-or she thinks that mammals like us would think she did it! I mean, rock and a hard place, am I right?"

"Right," Nick said, looking down. "Good work on your side too, Mr…" he made a spitting noise, before looking up to Haida and Retsuko. "As for you, did you get your mammal?"

"I…" the red panda began.

"Well…"

They were met by a bunch of disappointed faces, the pair immediately rushing out to assuage them. "-We kinda succeeded."

"-We got someone."

Fenneko looked at them, pausing. "So you don't have Malcolm?"

…

"Wait?" Retsuko asked. "Protein's real name is Malcolm?"

"All this time you've just called him Protein!?" she exclaimed, as Finnick burst into laughter

"Yes!" she said. "That's what everyone calls him! You wouldn't call a Pikachu Ryan, would you?"

"I…" Fenneko began, before having to concede the point.

"And you know his real name?" Haida asked, as Judy stepped forward.

"Wait, this is the yoga teacher, right?"

"Right."

"You wanted their yoga teacher to do it? I… why?"

"I second that motion," Nick said, as Jack, Skye and a bunch of others third, fourthed, fifthed and so-onned it.

"You do realise that in his former life he was a roady for a major rock band, right?" Fenneko began. "Malcolm Jumpili, roady for 'The Oscars', a big band around the turn of the millenium, during which they had mammoth tours that left a trail of crushed beer kegs, defenestrated television sets and exploded hotel toilets galore. Given that connection, though a long time ago, I was expecting him to still have a high alcohol tolerance."

"And how did Malcolm… Get to Protein?" Haida asked.

"They went through a brief spiritual phase, bringing on a shaman called 'The Guru of the Stone'. While they moved on, it appears that Malcolm trained as his apprentice and then successor, before eventually earning the title of Master."

"Master Protein," Retsuko said, nodding. "Only he's sworn off of alcohol entirely."

"Ah…"

"And, it seems we all had different ideas for who our most logical obvious choice would be," Haida added.

"Oh, so you got one of your friends onboard!"

"Well… not entirely."

"I asked Director Gori," Retsuko explained. "…who'd have loved to do it, but is currently on antibiotics so she can't."

"And I thought Kabae would be good. She's a hippo, right? Given her bad experience with the false accusations before, I thought she'd be happy to fight against it. Turns out she was terrified."

Fenneko blinked. "Wait, so who's doing it then?"

The hyena and red panda glanced at each other, coughing and tugging their collars. "Well," he began, "on getting the full explanation, he…"

"-Volunteered!" Retsuko blurted. "Said it was revenge for Kabae."

"Who was actually falsely accused as a political move by Kurt himself. I didn't make that connection."

"Neither did I. Nor would we make this one here. So, not our ideas."

"Just kind of had to settle for it."

"Yup."

"Please don't be mad."

"Please don't be…"

Fenneko looked on, head tilting. "You got Tadano on board?"

The pair blinked, turning at each other. "Why didn't we think of that!?" Haida shouted.

"I don't know," Retusko groaned, face falling into her paws.

"Would that work?"

"I don't know!"

Skye then stepped in. "Wait, the Tadano? Tech genius."

"Long story," the two office workers cut her off, as Fenneko marched up.

"Just tell us all who it is!"

The pair looked at each other, held each other's paws and faced the music. "Director… Ton…"

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…

"What species is he?" Ash asked.

"Pig…" Fenneko said, with a thousand yard stare.

"Should work, right?"

"Yep," Mr Fox said, "Brilliant news. I think that this new member of our crew will perform excellently. Well done Haida and Retsuko!"

They were met with a round of applause, all mammals except the Aggretsuko crew happy about the step forward. Finnick nudged up to his girlfriend and whispered into her ear. "You really think I'll let him treat you bad?"

She relaxed significantly, before bringing up her phone. "As for operation protest, it seems that we'll be getting a lot of turnout tomorrow."

"Which is good," William said, stepping forward. "The original creators of the law are thinking about amending it if there is enough public support. He'll still be in legal trouble, but he'll be home. We show them the support, and…" he trembled, taking a breath in and out, his fist out and holding tight.

"Yeah," Mr Fox said. "Combined with my writings, that should really get public opinion on our side."

"Writing?" Retsuko asked.

"He writes for newspapers, remember?" Mrs Fox explained, off from her chair in a corner (or the nearest thing to that in the round room).

"I may have forgotten that," the red panda said.

"So did I," Haida agreed. "We should communicate more."

Mr Fox nodded, as did William. "Yes, quite," he said, fumbling with his paws. "About that, something weird happened… earlier."

All eyes turned to him as he went on about the strange foxes he'd met earlier. He mentioned how the latter one had talked about 'pre-empting' the other side's moves, and all the strange things talked about. He finally ended by saying that he hadn't sent off the hard details, yet.

"Okay," Honey said, stepping out. "This… Woah, this is actual spy stuff!"

"We don't know that… We don't know anything," Nick said, getting up and pacing. "Who they are, what side they're on, but they now know about our investigation so far."

"Oh gosh," William said, "I'm so sorry, I…"

"Only the very basics," Nick said. "So not too bad. They know we're after a weasel, and a relative of Dawn's, but not who or even where they are… So we've got a head start, at the very least."

"Hold off, hold off," Judy said. "Maybe he just wanted to get involved with us, see whether he could help out. That was what she thought, right? Or maybe wanted to see if he could get you onboard for whatever they wanted. But what use would they have for you?"

"Smuggling, counterfeiting, verifying stolen items," William suggested. He shook his head. "We're just seeing the top of this iceberg. I'm scared about what else is down there."

"Me too," Nick spoke. "Maybe Basil and Dave would know?"

The bunny stomped her foot. "Why do they have to be off on their wild goose chase now, of all times!"

"They'll be getting back soon," Nick reassured her. "Who knows, maybe their mortal enemy guy is behind all this?"

"I don't know."

His ears drooped down. "I don't either. This… That thing they talked about, about being stuck looking into the unknown. Yeah, I get that."

"Oh totally," Jack agreed, along with Skye.

"You know what I think," Finnick said, walking forward. "We have no clue what's going on over our head or which side we wanna be on. But we know that there's a fox out there who needs us rescuing him, so rescuing is what we're gonna do!"

Judy nodded. "Right. I'll type all of these things up and send them off to Catano. Maybe she and the others can make sense of it. But, for now, they're just loose threads that we don't know how to tie. We keep on searching, we keep aware..."

"-Especially if they suddenly find things on Maisy," Nick said, raising a finger. "They might know that she exists, and it might be in their interests to hurt Dawn's niece and have her take the fall." There was a pause, as he looked over to Dr Silverfox too. "You should be careful too… You might be important to their plans, you might not be. I don't know."

"Right," he said, nodding.

They all settled down to do some more work, getting partway through it when they were broken off. William's phone was ringing and, bringing it out, he answered it, his eyes widening. "KRIS!"

Almost immediately the room went quiet, everyone running to be around him. He turned his phone onto speaker, wiped away a tear and spoke.

"H-how are you?" he asked.

"I'm holding up well," he said, his father buckling with relief. "I mean, you hear these things about this place… That's an exaggeration. I'm going along, not causing a fuss, I'm making friends, both with the staff and the others. Bogo told the warden everything, so those in charge know. They made me use a story for the others but I'm happy they did, knowing them now. Sometimes it does hit you… You remember where you are, or there's a sudden thing going on between others." There was a long pause. "I can survive though. I really miss you, but I can survive."

Tears were dripping from his face. "I really miss you too. -We've found two mammals who could have done it. We've sent it to the police and are looking in ourselves. We're even playing the politics game. We're going after that hippo and we're pulling some politicians on your side too. We're going to get you out, then get this charge dropped, and you'll be home! You'll be home so soon, and we all love you."

There was a sniff from the other side too. "Thanks," he said. "Just had one of those moments."

"Don't worry about it," his father said.

"I won't. I'm staying strong. Staying calm."

A smile flicked onto his muzzle. "Of course you are…"

A soft silence filled the air as Ash leant in. "We're going to get you out. Hold on in there!"

"You're going to be there to meet your new cousin come hell or high water," Mrs Fox added, a paw on her belly.

"We're rooting for you," her husband said.

Soon everyone was cheering on, clapping, making him sure that he knew he wasn't forgotten. That they were all here for him.

"We're going to do everything to get you out," Judy said. "I promise."

"Thanks," he said softly, a slight sniff coming out. "Thanks."

Dr Silverfox nodded. "Well, I need to talk to you in private, but I hope you know…" he began, pausing to dry his face. "You know how much we care for you."

"I do," he said. "I do…"

And with that he flicked his phone onto regular mode and went off to find a private room. Meanwhile everyone else relaxed. "He's doing okay," Retsuko said, visibly relaxing.

"Yeah. Brave kit," Haida agreed.

A little smile flicked on Finnick's mouth. "Knowing from experience, you can harden yourself up in somewhere like there… But he's doing well. Very, very well. Good for him."

"And when he sees how many mammals we get on his side," Judy agreed, bringing herself up. She had a big smile on her face as she looked at Fenneko. "You said it's gonna be big. How big?" she asked, pausing as her phone rang. She quickly brought it up, nodding along, as Fenneko double checked all her work. Computer down, she looked up as Judy hung up.

"You wanted to know how big it's going to be?" Fenneko asked, smiling. "It's going to be very big."

"I know," she said, a decided grump in her voice. "Nick and I have just been called back to the ZPD. They need us for protest control."