First Interlude: Nick (June 21st, 2018 A.D.)
Why on Earth Judy Hopps still saw fit to stay in her crummy old apartment at the Grand Pangolin Arms was something Nick Wilde had been puzzling over for the better part of a year now. A part him knew he shouldn't judge; for goodness' sake, he had lived underneath a bridge for a not-insignificant period of time ("I was just playing the waiting game while my portfolio came together" was the line he'd deliver with a knowing wink and smile if anyone at the ZPD ever bothered to follow-up on that particular detail of his and Judy's now infamous first adventure together.)
And yet, Nick couldn't help but be morbidly impressed by whatever fresh new hell he discovered creeping in and around den of cracked wallpaper and conspicuously stained drywall that Judy Hopps was so keen on calling home. The neighbors were still a handful and a half, and the fact that they weren't already up and screaming at each other this morning was an exception to the rule. Nick was also sure he'd only met the ancient landlady of the building once, and he was only half-joking when he later insisted to Judy that the old armadillo was just an old ghost, haunting the place where she had met her grisly end, like something right out of The Shining ("The good one that Steerly Kubrick made back in the 80s", Nick would make sure to add, every time. "Not that crappy TV show with the lame computer effects.").
When he'd first joined up with the Zootopia Police Department, and saw the rather measly salary a rookie earned in his first year on the job, Nick had thought he understood why Judy was so content to shack up in such a decrepit old place; though even if his own new and more permanent abode on the east side of the Canal District also left a lot be desired, it didn't give off the faint but compelling aura that several unsolved missing animals cases could be solved if you just knocked down a few feet of drywall and started sniffing around for bodies. He'd made that joke to Judy a few times on patrol, too, and he still couldn't decide if her response of half laughter and half knowing-stare was her just messing with him back, or a sign that he really did need to put his new policing skills to good use. At the very least, his buddy Elmer from the Health Department might someday receive an "anonymous tip" and come down to do some sniffing around of his own – even if he didn't find any dead bodies, Elmer was the best in the business at picking up asbestos (among other illicit toxins), and the old bear was usually more than happy to shut down any operation that didn't live up to code.
"Think about it, Carrots," he had said to Judy once, a few weeks after his graduation from the Police Academy, "The lawsuit alone would get you enough money to buy your own place in Sahara Square, or maybe even the Meadowlands. You would even have enough left over to buy me out slumming it in the renter's life too – I could sleep in a shed in your backyard, or even one of those trailers you all love so much back in Bunnyburrow. I'm just saying, it's what a true, blue police partner would do." Judy, who was still only half-certain that Nick's days as a grifter were behind him for good, had laughed that one off like all of his other snarky remarks. At the time, there was no indication that either of them had anything more substantial to say about Judy finding a new place to live, or the notion that Nick coming along to join her was something the fox might be taking more than a little seriously.
It was this exchange that Nick found himself thinking about as he stood outside Judy's door, dutifully waiting for her to finish her morning routine and take the ride with him to Precinct 1. The moment was stuck in his mind, playing on repeat like a scene from a DVD that wouldn't stop skipping. He couldn't quite place, why, either – it wasn't like the moment was embarrassing, or painful, or anything like that. It was just a joke, really, another wisecrack to chuckle over during the morning commute. Wasn't it?
Yet that memory was what had spontaneously popped into Nick's head once he'd left his apartment and headed to Judy's on that June morning, and it was still stuck in his mind's craw now. There was something else, too, a barely remembered fragment of a dream he'd had last night. Something about an impossibly bright stream of neon skyscrapers, a cacophony of glass and gunfire, and a rabbit with violet eyes…
(her ears turned ever so slightly toward Nora, and the fox wondered if the rabbit had somehow)
"I'll be out in just two shakes of a lamb's tail!" Judy called from inside her apartment. Speak of the devil, Nick thought.
What he responded with was: "Just so long as that little lamb is still behind bars!" It was one of a few sets of lines that the two of them cycled through during what had become their daily routine, barely deviated from in the nine months since the two had become partners on the force. At first, they had talked about trading off who met who in the morning on an alternating basis, and Judy was still happy to stick to the plan even when Nick found a place so far out of the way, but Nick preferred their current arrangement. Her place was just a hop and a skip from the train that took them to the precinct, so Nick was happy to rendezvous here every day, even if he was constantly worried that a creepy pair of twins would poke their heads out of the corner and demand that he come play with them forever.
Nick could hear Judy rustling about inside, digging through drawers and singing along with her morning playlist – this song Nick had heard before, a funky collaboration between Gazelle and Bruno Mares that Nick hated to admit would be stuck in his head all week. Beneath the surface level noise, Nick could also just make out the soft bubble of percolating coffee, and when the machine's alarm beeped just a few seconds later, he also caught the telltale sproing of Judy's toaster. Judy's borderline obsessive love of fruit flavored toaster pastries was one of the first things Nick had learned about Judy once everything had settled down after the Night Howlers Incident, which is what the papers had decided to call the events Nick more affectionately referred to as "The Time Judy Hopps Broke The Whole City, and Also Made Nick Cry." These days, Nick only called it that when he was feeling especially feisty, since his arms could only take so much of Judy's affectionate (but shockingly strong) punches.
In a flash, from the other side of the door, Nick heard the simultaneous scraping of toaster pastries onto a plate, the pouring of coffee (along with Judy muttering "Ow! Ow! Hot!"), and the jingle of keys as Judy crammed everything she needed into her pockets with her free hand. Nick couldn't see any of this, of course, but he had a perfect picture of it in his head, so perfectly predictable was the routine. Nick hadn't even rapped on the door this morning to get the process started, and he hadn't ever really needed to in the first place. The whole "living alarm clock" bit was mostly a pretense. Judy just liked knowing that someone was waiting for her when she started her day, and though it would have taken several doses of some after-hours nightcaps to get him to admit it, Nick felt much the same way.
The door flung open, and there stood Judy Hopps, she of the ZPD and the Night Howlers and the toaster pastries, her eyes and her smile as big and buoyant as always. Her uniform looked so crisp that Nick figured she had just finished ironing it. Nick would never understand this habit of hers; he always figured some wrinkles and wear-and-tear were a good look for public servants. That way, people could tell that they actually had to break a sweat working their beats, figuratively speaking. One thing both Nick and Judy both made sure to do in the morning, though, was polish their ZPD badges to a glistening shine.
(the thing about a broken machine is that it can be fixed. We just need to find the right parts, and someone who can)
Judy held out the plate of breakfast, along with one paper cup filled nearly to the brim with piping hot coffee, which Nick accepted with a dramatic little bow. "Two creams, three sugars, and just a little on the stale side" she said, winking. "Just the way you like."
"Like I keep telling you, Carrots", Nick said, sipping his coffee with one hand and balancing the place of treats in other, "You ought to quit this ridiculous cop business and open up a coffee chain. We could set up a truck right outside of Little Rodentia, and charge three bucks for every thimbleful of the stuff. The little fuzzballs would probably all have heart attacks within the week, but you'd give Starbucks a run for their money. I'd handle the finances, of course." They were leaving the musky confines of the Wild Pangolin Arms, now, heading down and out into the already bustling streets of Downtown Zootopia.
"That makes total sense, Nick", Judy said, with mock sincerity. "With how good you are at cooking the books, we'd make a million bucks before the year is out, and still somehow make money on our tax returns!"
"Judy, you wound me! Only a million? Ol' Fennec would never let me live it down if I did anything less than five, minimum."
They were rounding the corner of Grizzlyton Avenue and 31st Street, and the pair quickly cut across to the train station. There was a corner of the trains third car, four seats from the main doors, that were Nick and Judy's unofficially reserved seats. Judy sat while Nick stood by her, holding on to the lowered handle meant specifically for smaller mammals like him. Judy, who couldn't consider a day properly begun without a bite of breakfast, was happily nibbling on her square of melty strawberry strudel. The blueberry one, Nick knew, was for him.
"Alright, partner," Judy said, "Are you ready for another day of keeping Zootopia's criminal underworld at bay?"
"Oh, you know it, Carrots," Nick replied. "Today might be the day that we finally catch up with whoever has been leaving all of cow-pies outside of the new Mayor's office. You should see the conspiratorial cork-board I've been working on – the amount of money I've spent on yarn alone is gonna drive Chief Buffalo Butt up the wall, I bet."
"Is something the matter, Nick?" Judy was giving Nick her serious eyes, and though he hadn't felt like he was giving away his distracted state of mind, the bunny was nothing if not an observant detective.
"I was just kidding about the 'Buffalo Butt' thing, Carrots. Bogo rear-end is more comparable to that of a refined, well-built hippopotamus, I think." Judy didn't look amused.
"Seriously, Nick, I can tell when something is on your mind. You've got the poker face of hyperactive hamster."
"Some of the best poker players I've ever met were hamsters, I'll have you know!" Judy still wasn't conceding. She wasn't wrong, though, and Nick knew that his friend was nosy enough that she wouldn't let it go until he gave her something more substantial than some dumb, awkward joke he was maybe feeling embarrassed about almost a year after the fact. "Alright," he said, "You've got me. I woke up on the wrong side of the bed this morning. Didn't sleep well."
"Bad dreams?" Judy asked. Nick was ready to wave off the suggestion, but come to think of it, his dreams had been, if not bad, then definitely a stranger than usual. He didn't often remember his dreams, truth be told, but this one was lingering, though only in
(she immediately felt the sickening tug of gravity in her gut, and for a split-second Nora really did feel like she might just keep falling, down and down until)
bits and pieces. Fragments.
"Not a nightmare or anything," Nick said, "Just…a weird dream, I guess. The kind that puts you in a funk, even if you can't quite say why." Judy's ears perked up at this, and she immediately adopted the air of an excited teenager interested in some juicy gossip.
"Describe it to me!" she said. "I love hearing about weird dreams."
"Carrots, nobody likes hearing about other people's dreams. Besides, there's nothing to tell."
"Come on, Nick, humor me! You know you can tell me anything, right? Unless…" Judy leaned in, comically shifting her eyes about and nudging Nick playfully. She whispered, "Unless it's the kind if 'private dream' you don't want to talk about in public? Don't worry, Nick, I won't judge you. I'm a rabbit after all, and one of the first things we learn about in school are reproductive–" Nick gently nudged the rabbit back into her seat.
"Carrots, I cannot understand how, between the two of us, you ended up being the lewd and crude one, but no. It wasn't anything like that, and if it had been, I would tell to Clawhauser or Fangmeyer before I told you. Call me sexist if you want, but there are some lines I'm not about to cross with a bunny like you, no matter how sly you are."
"Alright then, Mr. 'Bro Code'. What was it then? In all the time we've been coming to work together I've seen you in a funk like this maybe two or three times, and I didn't forget breakfast this time, so I know that can't be the issue. We've got, like, ten minutes left before the train hits the station, so spill it. Otherwise, I'm going to eat your blueberry strudel."
"Alright, fine," Nick said, "But you're going to be disappointed. I can barely remember most of it, anyway. I was…here, in Zootopia, I think, but it was different. Shinier, somehow, and bigger. All of the lights were these bonkers colors like I'd never seen before, shifting around and glowing like something out of a science-fiction movie. That's kind of what the whole thing felt like: science-fiction. I want to say there were even been flying cars, but I dunno. I was on top of a building, I want to say, and I was looking down at the city and watching all of this crazy stuff happening, and suddenly there was this big crash, and all of this smoke, and broken glass, and all of a sudden I was falling off this impossibly huge building. It felt real, I guess. The craziest thing was, and maybe this is what has me feeling so out of sorts: I wasn't scare; I was…excited. Like I wanted to jump. Like I was happy for the smoke, and the glass, and the fire."
He was already regretting how he'd phrased that last part, because Judy looked more concerned than amused, and could he blame her? Her best friend has just told her he had dreams of explosions and jumping off of skyscrapers. I'm also pretty sure I was a girl who could turn invisible, Nick thought, but didn't say. Then he really would sound crazy.
"That's so strange…" Judy said, and she was clearly perturbed. Nick was already preparing for Judy to start giving him the talk about how the ZPD offered all of its officers free counseling, the very thought of which caused Nick to shudder.
"But like I said, Carrots, it's nothing, really. I was watching some cheesy old sci-fi flicks on cable the other day, and I probably just–" Judy cut him off.
"No, that's not it. I was just thinking about a dream I had. It wasn't about flying cars or anything like that, but it made me feel…" Just then, their train came to a screeching halt. Even if it wasn't a full five minute before they were supposed to get off, the violent shudder of steel against steel made it obvious that something was wrong. There were only a handful of other animals in the car with them, and all of them started panicking at once. Nick and Judy both immediately stood, calming the passengers and asking if anyone had seen what happened. None of them knew, but then a meek looking otter in a conductor's uniform came in through the train's interior doors.
"Everyone, please, remain calm. We just got word that whole public transportation system has been shut down between 31st and 8th street. The emergency brakes were activated by computer – there's nothing wrong with the train; we're safe."
"Would you mind telling us what exactly is happening then?" Nick asked. "The whole train system doesn't just get shut down across twenty blocks for no reason." Judy was tapping him on the shoulder, and he turned to see the black plume of smoke that was rising out of the sky just a few blocks ahead.
"Oh no. Oh God, Nick…" The fear in Judy's voice immediately flooded through him as well. Even without a clear view through the foliage and architecture of Downtown Zootopia, both of them knew exactly where that column of ash was rising from.
It was the Zootopia Police Department, and it was on fire.
