Ben followed Senior Science Officer Brennan through the silver halls, listening as the cougar told him everything she knew about Dr. Carthusia's behavior over the last few weeks. He'd seemed fine up until a couple of days ago, when he received the news of Hornbull's disappearance. After that it was like a mask had been ripped off. He'd stopped allowing mammals into his private laboratory. Defied fire safety regulations by rigging the doors to not respond to Hornbull or Ben's master code, only opening with the doctor's. Refused to discuss anything to do with Hornbull or the Company in general.
Well, enough was enough. Too many mammals were dead. Hornbull was still out of commission. Ben had to step up.
Three marines flanked him, armed with pulse rifles. Ben had requested one or two, but Bogo had insisted on three, just in case Carthusia really did have something to do with Green's death, and the deaths of the half-eaten mammals a search party had found in the jungle not too far from the cavern where Hornbull had been located. Brennan lead them to the large doors marked RD-4. Where Carthusia's secret research project was located.
Night Howlers. That was the code word for the beautiful but dangerous blue flowers discovered by a botanical research team two years after construction of the colony was completed. It only grew in one place, a far-away place only Carthusia and a select few knew about, but apparently they'd succeeded in bringing back a few seeds and breeding the flower right her in RD-4. This focus on the study of local plant life, with artificial plantations seeded all over the sector, was the reason why this place was so-called the Rainforest District.
Brennan walked up to the intercom beside the door and held down the button. "Dr. Carthusia? This is Senior Science Officer Lucille Brennan. Administrator Clawhauser needs to speak with you."
Interim Administrator, Ben thought hopefully.
A few seconds passed. Brennan turned her head with an apologetic look. "He takes a little while to respond."
But it ended up being a long while. Brennan began to frown and looked up at the tiny screen above the intercom, glowing with the number 1. The number of mammals in the lab at any one time. If she was right about Carthusia not allowing anyone else inside, then he was definitely home.
"Dr. Carthusia? This is SSO Lucille Brennan. Administrator Clawhauser is here. Please respond."
Nothing but a rhythmic beep from the intercom as it waited for the doctor to press a button on the other side. He didn't.
"May I?" Ben asked, his tone tense with irritation. Brennan stepped aside with a nod. The cheetah stood before the intercom and pressed the button himself. "Dr. Carthusia, this is Clawhauser. Hornbull told me everything. We need to talk."
Nothing.
"Doctor, I have three marines right here behind me. They're not here to hurt you, but they brought their Com-Tech Hacking Device. You can't keep us out anymore. Either you let us in, or the Company sends their own team. And you know they won't go easy on you… Carthusia?"
Still nothing. Ben sighed. He didn't like playing the dictator, but Carthusia had his chance. He turned to the marines. "Go ahead, Corporal."
Corporal Rainne, a bear, nodded and went to the console on the other side of the door, and inserted the pda-like device in moments. It cracked the code in six minutes and the door slid open. Privates Roebuck and Dhali hefted their pulse rifles and entered first. It was another couple of minutes before the sharp pops of a handgun burst out. Ben jumped back from the door and Rainne rushed in front of him, his rifle aimed at the door. The brief chatter of a pulse rifle ran out, and there was a cry. Ben felt his heart stop. He hadn't wanted this.
"What the fuck happened in there?" Rainne barked into his headset.
Dhali responded. "Fucking asshole shot at me. Armor caught the bullets. Roebuck shot the gun out his hand and broke a couple of fingers."
Ben clutched a paw to his chest. No fatalities. Thank God.
"We good to go in?" Rainne asked.
"Affirmative."
Ben followed Rainne inside, dreading what Bogo would do when he found out.
They'd cornered Carthusia in the observation deck of a generic looking laboratory complex overlooking a small plantation of blue flowers sustained by overhead UV lights. As he made his way through, Ben noted a few things that stood out. An apparatus of glass ending in a triangular vial of rich blue liquid. A line of hazmat suits sat outside the shower one had to pass through to enter and leave the plantation. A desk covered in open case files. Ben stopped at that last one, signaling to Rainne that he was taking a closer look before continuing. He stepped up to the desk and realized with a chill that they were morgue folders. Four deaths, all occurring on the exact same day. October 10. The day they found the Night Howlers. Ben held the photos by the tips of his fingers like they were bloody tissues. Each one showed a bloodbath. Carthusia had hypothesized that the victims had gotten poisoned just by breathing in the pollen. Like breathing virus particles in the air. Beside the files lay a book: The War of the Worlds.
What was the Company planning to do with this stuff?
Feeling sick, Ben pressed on, entering the observation deck to the south of the plantation. Roebuck had his gun trained on Carthusia, who sat miserably on a desk chair while Dhali patched up his bloody limb. Carthusia glared at Ben with eyes that hadn't rested in days.
"What were you thinking?" Ben asked.
"It's my work." The doctor said.
"I saw the case files. Those surveyors who first found the flowers? Hornbull told me they were med-evaced back to Earth."
"Guess that makes him a liar too, doesn't it?"
Ben crossed his arms. "I don't want any more lies, Dr. Carthusia. Did you have Green killed?"
He shook his head, lips tight from the pain. "No. That wasn't me."
"Did you know he was the saboteur?"
Carthusia held his bandaged arm to his stomach once Dhali was done. "Yes. A few others were in on it, too. You knew too, didn't you?"
"No, I didn't-"
"You were Hornbull's right hand mammal, of course you knew! Those million dollar bastards want everyone on board in getting my property!"
"Not if they were planning illegal means to get it." Ben said, raising his paws. "I didn't know anything about this. I swear to you."
"And I swear to you that I didn't have Green killed." Carthusia hissed. "And I swear to your masters that they will not get my research. I'll kill them first."
"No. No more murders. Until Bogo decides what to do with you, I'm putting you under house arrest." He hesitated, remembering that he wasn't a Sergeant, and turned to the Corporal. "If that's okay with you guys."
Raine gave a light pat on his rifle. "Just another day at the office."
Ben smiled, wishing he could relate to the sentiment.
The Aviary Sector was the only sector in the colony simultaneously utilized by the colonists and the corps. Consisting of two separate docking bays and three arrival lounges (the biggest reserved only for emergency evacuations), the place was currently under partial lockdown as per Bogo's no-fly order. Once Judy departed for MINERVA, that would be the last ship departing for at least a week. She'd stopped by the mess hall to give her temporary goodbyes to Rafe and Jean, who were still chilling out over beers while they waited for their replacement part and was now sat on an oversized seat in the corps arrival lounge. Nick sat on one side, her precious cargo of forensic evidence sat on the other. The uncomfortable silence was punctuated by the occasional beep of a nearby terminal. Her long ears picked up sounds from above their heads, a maintenance mammal tending to the fans that were too deep inside the vents to be mended from the outside.
"When did they say the shuttle would be ready?" She asked.
"1800 hours." Nick checked his watch. "Eight minutes from now."
"Good." Judy said it but didn't feel it. Now that she was here, mere moments away from leaving this planet and beginning the next phase of her work, she realized that she didn't want to. There was so much more she wanted to see, more evidence she wanted to collect. As far as she was concerned the mystery of the saboteur and Green's murder was solved, and it would only be a matter of hours for MINERVA to confirm that. But the creatures that abducted Hornbull, killed his escort and mauled that Gorgon were an enigma. The mere thought of them and what they may fully be capable of sent her little pink nose twitching like crazy. There had been nothing like it in Zootopian Prospect, not even during the initial surveying missions before its founding. Unless they had unwittingly 'dug too deep' and awakened some ancient underground horror, the killers, whatever they were, belonged here no more than the colonists did.
Judy gazed down at the blood on her pants. There was no point in changing her mind now. Bogo would never let her back through the Car Wash, not even to reexamine the crime scenes. She was a tiny bunny putting herself at risk from every carnivore in the jungle for a few scraps of DNA.
She spied the door to the lady's restroom and the janitor cart sitting outside and grabbed her suitcase. "Nick, I'm gonna change outta these pants."
"Want me to help?" Nick asked. His smirk fell at the look on Judy's face. "That crossed a line, didn't it?"
Were it anyone else, Judy would have kept up the grimace. "Just a little." She smiled, letting him know he was already forgiven.
Once inside, the janitor was mopping the floor and cursing up an acrid blue streak. "Fucking masturbating mother fuckers..."
The hare's ear twitched when the door closed behind Judy. "Ah, sorry ya hadda hear that."
Judy spied the wet patch the janitor had been so vigorously scrubbing. She felt a sickly dread at what the stalls might look like. "Is it… safe to use the restroom in here?"
"Yeah, they're clean." The hare said bluntly. "But some asswipe spilled a tube of KY jelly all over the floor. I don' know what the flying fuck they were doin', but I know it's agains' the rules!"
"Yowzas." Judy felt sick of the thought of what had gone down in here. The hare planted a yellow slipping hazard sign on the wet patch and stormed out.
Judy heard the sound of the duct worker again, right above her. Directly over the wet patch was a small vent, a tiny grated square the same metal color as the ceiling. The bigger ones were few and far between in the Aviary compared to the other sectors. Nick had told her about that particular bit of trivia after she had told him about the gruesome Monica Port incident, after her had told her about his plan to switch to Engineering. She had no doubt he'd get the degree to do it.
Judy lugged her suitcase into one of the stalls. The blood had fully dried by now, so she stuck her old pants in a spare plastic bag and pulled on a pair of blue cargo shorts, putting the bag in her case. When she was done changing, there were less than three minutes until 1800. It was time to wish Nick luck on his degree and lea- plip.
Her ears pricked.
Plip.
She stepped out the stall. Something thick and clear was trickling down the plastic panel of the slipping hazard sign. She looked up, saw the translucent goop drip again from the little vent, and gave a small gasp.
High up in a tree shrouded in dagger shaped leaves, the plasma caster softly chirred as its master contemplated who would be the first to die.
The triangular marker fell first upon the bull elephant carrying the smart gun, the largest blotch of heat in the pack guarding the so-called 'Car Wash.' It scanned the weapon, noting the size of the bullets held within the massive model, and the infrared tracking system which could potentially penetrate its cloak. He stood right in front of the sealed gate, beside the console which received the code to open it. Standing on the road itself were three other marines, two bears and a bull carrying pulse rifles. The digital reconstruction of the trail of scent particles it had followed floated between them in a hazy line, disappearing through the gate.
A metal wall protected the colony from ground to tree line. A transparent dome protected the colony from the sky. But the serpents would find a way inside. They always did. They may already have infiltrated the complex. The little time that remained before the infant queen would emerge no doubt spurred their efforts. The time for caution and observation was past.
The Hunter unsheathed its dual wrist blades and gave a visual inspection of their sharpness. Good enough to cleave through the elephant's spinal column like an axe through a sapling. Now the real hunt could begin.