Okay, so let's recap here, Mary, I think, trying to keep myself from losing it, your- best- friend's been kidnapped, the chief's missing, and you're getting dragged along on an investigation, that sound about right?

Well, considering that we're now sitting in a room that's lit by only one flickering lightbulb and my mother is sitting across from the table, cuffed to the cold metal bar that runs down the middle, it kind of has to. I don't know how much she'll know about what's going on, but if my father still kept her in the loop like he did in the old days, then she'll hopefully know enough about them to get us some groundwork for a plan.

I want to call her Mom, but I don't know if I should, is that professional? What're they expecting of me? I mean, other than being secretly out to kill them all (and probably, after what happened to Wolfard, they all think I'm some kind of killer cop. Good luck to me ever trying to convince them otherwise, ha ha ha ha flock no that's never going to happen)?

Okay, let's see how this goes…

"Mrs. Bellwether," I offer, wincing inside as I see her flinch at that, "I'm sorry for your loss. I-"

"Can it, Mary," she says, slumping into the steel chair that they've given her to sit in, the bright orange of her jumper the only splash of anything but dark and drab, and I see the two other mammals who're standing in the back of the room lean forwards. My mother apparently sees it too, because she sighs. "Right. Officer Bellwether, how can I be of assistance to the ZPD today?"

"I need to know all you know about Ketazine, ma'am," I tell her, trying to keep my tone under control.

"Oh, the weapons manufacturer, the same one that your father bought all of the midnicampium holicithias from, the same one that owned Cliffside, that one?"

Ah scat I didn't know about that… but I can't let on… damn it…

It's my mother, she knows how to read me, I'm not even that hard to figure out…

"Yes ma'am, that one," is what comes out of my mouth instead. "Do you know where the Chief is? And maybe where Jason Wilde is?"

"You really do care about that fox so much, Mary," my mother- Mrs. Bellwether- says, smiling. Unlike most of the times that I've seen her smile, this one actually seems honest, not vindictive, not cunning and scheming. "I'm sorry I can't reign in what's going on, I can promise you that much…. And try the Banyan Street station. That's all I know, Mary, I swear. Just be careful, okay? Please don't die…"

That worries me, but no, I can't let her know that, I have to stay calm, cool, collected, professional.

With that, I get up to head out- I've heard enough, and if I stay any longer she's going to try and get be back. I don't want to be won back, I want to be able to stand on my own as a mammal, not just as her daughter.

"Mary, please please please, don't get hurt!" she says as I leave, and I have to bite back a retort. Maybe mom, if you didn't want mammals to be getting hurt than you shouldn't have started working on a psychoactive drug that turned regular mammals into fucking psychos? Maybe I shouldn't exist, if the world was fair. Hell, ain't that a thought.

"It's a little too late for that, Mayor Bellwether," I say, finally leaving the room. "Now I have to go clean up your mess."

A few hours later I'm sitting in another office with one of the on-duty sergeants- a lion, Delgado- watching me since I'm technically still suspended? Or maybe I'm not, I'm not really sure, and I hope that we didn't just pull a Chief Judy-style… that wouldn't be great.

"Any progress?" the sergeant asks, and I nod, sighing, my hooves cramping from gripping a pen for the rest of the day writing reports.

"Yeah, so, um, Ketazine's where my father got all of the drugs that-"

"What?" the sergeant asks. "Ketazine's- I thought they got shut down years ago for some real creepy shit... "

"Like what, Sergeant?" I ask her, feeling like I know the answer. Experimentation on mammals, lab testing, probably more than that. If the Chief is there-"

"Alert, alert…"

What the-

Everyone's radios are griping, shrieking and screaming at us, and there's a red banner scrolling across the TVs in the lobby, bright red and "Civil authorities have issued a Hazardous Materials Warning for animalia with the Understanding that you Stay calm... Effective until September 29, 02:16 AM ZST. Would you. Could you. On a Train? Wait for further instructions, this message authorized by bzzt-" and then static. What. The. Hell. Was. That?

Everyone's on edge, and we're all milling around the bullpen, the tvs have dark again.

"What the hell was that?"

"Are we okay, is the station gonna get raided or something?

"Who put that there?"

"Did someone hack into the ZPD?"

Voices, all of them, everyone in the building panicking again, everyone screaming. Am I screaming I can't tell, oh never mind my throat is killing me yeah I'm definitely screaming…

-and then, as if to mock us-

Screw that it's definitely to mock us-

The screens flick on again, and we're treated to what' s calling itself a live shot, flying over Savannah Central, ZNN broadcasting live with Fabienne Growley and Peter Moosebridge-

"Zootopia is on high alert today, ladies and gentlemammals," Peter says, the bull moose says, and even though he's trying to remain professional, we can all see that he's shaking in his suit, "as you can see, there's a fox who's gone a little off the deep end-"

If that's supposed- who is that- is that-

Oh sweet Celestials above-

I can't take my eyes off of the tv as he runs down the road on all fours-

"They're not going to be able to stop him... they'll shoot him, Mary, is that what you want?"

How do I know that's even Jason, how do I know? I don't, I don't!

"It's not him, right?"

"I wouldn't be so sure of that…"

As I'm watching, armed mammals surround him.

"So, Chiefs Wilde, you've got a choice. Mary Bellwether, or your son. Easy pick. You have a minute. If you don't, they both die."

With that, the TV clicks off again, and now I'm sure that my voice is one of the ones screaming bloody murder.

Well, if I shouldn't have even existed in the first place, there's no such thing as being too young to die, right?

I put my hoof up, a wave goodbye of sorts, like Catnip in the Hunger Games. "I volunteer as tribute."