Chapter 36: Not a missing mammal case

The precinct briefing room was filled to the brim with officers as Nick and Judy both walked in, heading for the usual shared seat at the front of the room. As was expected of the past several days since the Nighthowler attack on Bana City and ensuing protests, the room was packed with not only officers from the precinct brought in from canceled off days, but as well as a sizable portion of officers brought in from out of town to help out. As great as it was to see unfamiliar faces in the briefing room apart from the rate newly hired officer, Judy had to admit by the second day that she would much rather have things settle down to where the temporary additions can all go home.

As the pair walked by the chairs that normally held Wolford and Fangmeyer, the wolf held out an arm to halt them.

"Hey, Judy, Nick? Have either one of you seen Trigger around?" James asked, lowering his voice to where it wasn't drowned out by the noise around them, but also not easily overheard at the same time.

Judy shook her head. "No, can't say I have," she answered.

"Oh." James frowned. "I ran into Count on my way over. He was talking to Chief Bogo, and um, I can't say that it looked or sounded good. I mean, I only slowed down to try and hear what they were talking about, and Bogo just about murdered me right there and then. Odd thing is, I don't even think he was angry at Count. Uh, Dahlia?"

Next to him, Dahlia shrugged. "I didn't see or hear anything. Sorry about that."

Judy glanced at her own partner, who was the only one remaining who didn't say anything yet. "Nick?"

"I've seen him around the other day," Nick answered casually. "But today? Not yet. It is early in the morning though. Realistically? Probably still asleep and should be left undisturbed if so."

James also gave a shrug. "Well, I sure hope so. Well, better not keep you waiting. If Bogo is still pissed off, he will not approve you two not being in your seat when he arrives. A month of traffic duty, easy."

The warning was not without merit, as Higgins came in through the side door, yelling at everyone to sit down. "Everyone settle down! The chief is in a fowl mood this morning, so to repeat myself, everyone settle down right now!" he warned. The projector screen behind him rolled down, allowing a map of Zootopia to slowly fade into view on the white surface. Various areas were colored off with various labels showing where different officers will be patrolling.

Half a minute behind Higgins, Bogo himself walked in, glaring at the room, sending death glares at anyone who made even the slightest noise, intentionally or not. "If I hear so much as a side remark, I don't care if you belong to this precinct or are just here temporarily on loan, I will make you regret it! I'll be extremely busy today, so if you need help with something, for the love of God, find a more senior officer and talk to them! So getting to it, assignments are going to be similar to yesterday's, everyone. Starting with Snarlov..."

He opened up his folder and began to read off from the list, not allowing anyone to even acknowledge their own assignments before moving on to the next one. This applied equally to the Precinct One officers already familiar with him, as well as the out-of-town officers helping the city out. "...Hopps and Wilde, downtown Savanna Central. Fangmeyer and Wolford? The northeast quadrant…" A few more names and their assignments were read off before he finally got to the end of the list. He closed his folder and pulled off his reading glasses. "...And as for the situation with the protests," Contrary to his rush in reading off the assignment list, this time he hesitated. "The governor thinks that the national guard deployment has been able to achieve its objective with quelling the most severe unrest. However, we all know that just because we don't have mobs running around setting fire to everything anymore, it doesn't mean that we're out of the woods just yet. However, for you visiting officers, soon you'll be able to return to your normal duties. Unfortunately, new as of this morning, we have a… difficult situation. It is, to put it simply-"

Right as he was about to describe the situation, Bogo was cut off by the side door opening, the chief practically tearing the podium off the floor in anger at the interruption. But as Jack and Skye walked in, he visibly restrained himself. Oddly, he also glanced behind them as they walked past him, looking quite disappointed as it was just the two of them. "Savage? Please tell me there's good news."

"Afraid not, Chief..."

With a snort of frustration, Bogo motioned at the top of the podium. "Fine. Well, you showed up right on time. You and Winters can take over now, as I just finished with the matters of the ZPD, and was just getting into your problem." He gave the room a glance over. "If anyone here doesn't know who these are, these are agents Jack Savage and Skye Winters of the ZIA. They've… been cooperating with the ZPD on their own investigation within this city. It is in your best interest to listen to them. Savage? Your turn."

Nervously, Jack walked over to the podium, jumping up to stand where everyone can see him. But the nervousness wasn't from having to address the room. "There's some of you here I don't recognize, so as Chief Bogo just said, I'm Jack Savage, ZIA. We're involved with an investigation involving the docks here, some weapons smuggling through them... and I'll leave that where it is. But the ZPD has been helping us out, so for most of you in here, we're not unfamiliar faces. Related to that investigation, and to your job with keeping the peace in the city, is the ZIA effort related to the Nighthowler attack on Bana city. So for those of you who didn't want to, or weren't able to keep up with the news…" He tapped on the podium, the screen behind him switching away from the city map to a selection of website headlines. "As of this morning, some five hours ago, the good news is that Ocelotia came out with an updated figure forBana City. They have accounted for over ninety-nine percent of the city's population. Of the remaining point four percent, they estimate that most of those will be found within a couple of days. However, the remaining estimated several thousand residents unaccounted for, the search can easily still take weeks, to months, or even years." He let these last few words hang in the air for emphasis. "But our issue is not with the three thousand or so still left to be found. Of those already accounted for, the survival rate is very high. Over eighty percent survived more or less unharmed. The twenty percent remaining are mostly dealing with minor wounds, with about a quarter of those dealing with severe injuries being treated in hospitals all over Ocelotia. International aid is luckily ensuring that those hospitals are being stocked with both material and personnel. Most are expected to survive more or less without any permanent scarring. Most, but not all." He scanned the room as he ended the 'good news' portion of his talk.

"However, the current number of dead is sitting at the moment at just above four percent. Unfortunately, that number is heavily weighted towards the smaller sized populations. With a population the size of Bana City? We're still looking at close to fifty thousand dead. And those three thousand still missing? Every day they're not found decreases the chance they'll be found alive. Which is why we're dealing with a lot of people even here who know at least one person who died in that attack. As you are all to aware of, most are in mourning. But some have gotten angry instead. I mean, Winters and I weren't out there for the past week pulling overtime trying to stop someone from firebombing a convenience store just because it's owned by an Urusian citizen. You know this far better than us. So while some of the other precincts are able to start clearing out space in their holding cells, we are still taking in mammals faster than we can get them out. Our own holding cells here in precinct one are also most likely going to be full by the end of today. The reason I bring this up is because…" Frowning, he tapped again at the podium. The headlines also went away, instead being replaced by the mugshot of Trigger, taken when he was first brought into the precinct months ago.

"Most if not all of you have seen this guy around here. We just call him 'Trigger'. And sometime last night… he's gone missing. Left the building and we have no idea where he is now. Just that he's not here, which is where we need him."

Nick and Judy exchanged glances at this announcement, Judy especially feeling a pit forming in her stomach. Swiveling around in her chair, she locked eyes with the wide, afraid eyes of James and Dahlia.

"Hopps? Focus," Bogo warned, forcing her to turn back around to watch Jack on the podium.

"I'm not going to mince words here," Jack continued. "We have no idea where he is, or where he went off to. And… his being missing is not going to be treated as a case. This isn't a missing mammal case like you're all used to. It's… for political reasons, not actually a case at all. But, while you are out there in the city during your jobs as police officers, if by some miracle you do run into him, apprehend him and bring him back here. Questions?"

An officer near the back of the room raised an arm. "So who is this guy anyways? I mean, he looks like a common prep. What makes him so different? Is he dangerous?"

Jack squinted to look at the officer who asked the questions. "You… don't belong to Precinct One, do you?" he asked instead.

"No, sir. On lone from Rock Creek."

"Right…" Jack looked over at Skye. "Winters? You're more up to date with what we're permitted to reveal and what we're not. So if you don't mind..?" Hopping off the podium, he let her take his place.

Skye wasted no time in getting to the point. "This coyote we're missing is Ocelotian. OADF. Survivor from that Ocelotian cargo plane that crashed into our harbor a while back, if you remember the news from that. To jog your memory, they tried to claim it was an airliner until we pulled it out of the water, at which point Ocelotia was forced to come clean about it as a military aircraft. What most of the public doesn't know is that there was a survivor. He was caught quickly enough, and has been housed here in the precinct since then while Ocelotia and Animalia figured out what to actually do with him. That did provide us with the opportunity to use his expertise to help us with our investigation. Until now... I dare even say that he was even rather useful at times. Cooperated with us when we asked, never had any serious issues with him so far-"

At her seat, Judy stared at the desk in front of her. Never having any serious issues? Well, minus the TAME collars, finding out about what his 'Three Strikes' actually meant, and now this? As much as she cared for him as a friend, even she was starting to feel the strain of having Trigger around. Why did he run away? Was there even any place for him to go to?

"- He's also trained. Well trained, if the physical tests we ran him through are to go by. And we do know from his military record that he has killed before, as he was involved with fighting since the beginning of combat operations. So to us now, did he run away to exact some revenge on the Urusians in this city? For all our sake's, I hope not. But it is a possibility. With any luck, he's just trying to flee to the Ocelotian consulate here in Zootopia. Got tired of waiting and wants to find an easy ticket back home."

"Do we know the actual reason as to why he ran away?"

Bogo stepped in. "Because, while we don't actually know why, if you need a reason… He's from Bana City." A murmur of understanding went through the room. "He had family still living there when it got hit by the Nighthowlers. I checked on their status for him, but, they didn't make it. It's been, what? A week since the attack, a bit more? I let him know about his family three days ago, and he's been in mourning since. You all arrested at least one person out there in the city behaving badly because of what happened. If the worse he does is give us a headache because he ran away, we should all be grateful. But the only way to guarantee that is to find him. So again, while you're all out on your assignments today, keep an eye out for him. Bring him back safely if you can."

Another visiting officer had a question. "So you're saying there's a chance that he's dangerous? What if we find him attacking some Urusian citizen?"

"Our job is to protect the innocent," Bogo reminded the room. "Whatever some Ocelotian politician might tell us, I don't care. If you meet Trigger because he got himself involved in an… incident, do what you normally do to end the situation. Just do your jobs, that is what I'm asking of you. But if you can, we need him back unharmed."

"Why did you tell him about his family?" An officer, this time from the precinct, asked. "Seems like a risk, you know? I mean, helping the ZIA, sure, but he's also at times been quite the pain in the ass during the time he's been here."

Bogo let out a long sigh. "If you were stuck in a foreign county, and found out that your home city was attacked with Nighthowlers, wouldn't you want to know?" The officer visibly shrank back, trying to hide. "It was my call to let him know. As for 'pain in the ass', believe me, if you think he was causing problems with you, that's nothing compared to what I had to deal with. Or Officers Hopps and Wolford, who were most often assigned with watching over him."

"But wasn't he smuggling drugs through here?" Another officer was at least brave enough to raise his arm. "That's not a little thing. Why didn't anyone do anything about it? I mean, he was cuffed for a while, but I've seen him walking around without them after that for sure."

Bogo let out a long, hard sigh of disapproval. "Right, that particular rumor… How many of you have heard it?" he asked. "Show of arms, I won't judge."

Most of the room raised their arms.

"Normally, I let dumb rumors go around this place without issue. Because most of the time? I don't care." He gave out an almost inaudible groan. "But I'm afraid this time I might have let it travel through the precinct before it can be stopped. So for once, I am rather pleased to be able to say that this rumor is completely and entirely false." Bogo even let out a slight grin, but it faded even faster than it formed. "Reason why this rumor started is also why he was in cuffs. Because the ZIA and I were leaked information from his military record which… Which Ocelotia felt far more comfortable hiding from us. We couldn't chance him reacting negatively when we did found out, hence the cuffs. When everyone were able to calm down, we let the cuffs come off. He's been behaving since."

"...Until now."

Bogo's eyes narrowed. "During his stay here, both Ocelotia and Animalia had him take various tests, to make sure that he would be ready to get back to work when he gets sent back. Physical and mental. After dealing with him personally far too much, he doesn't strike me as the type of person to seek revenge by attacking a random Urusian. It's a risk… but I wouldn't bet on it. Look, your job to to just keep doing your job. You're a police officer. Go out to the city and be a police officer. But if you do run into him? We need him back here." He turned his head to the hare on the podium. "Savage?"

"I think that about covers it," Jack confirmed. He noticed a paw being waved at the back of the room. "Yes, officer?"

"We only knew this guy by a nickname," the officer pointed out. "'Trigger', right? Wasn't it some radio callsign or something? Thing is, if he's gone missing, can we get a release of his identity? Can help in finding him."

Skye shook her head. "Ocelotia doesn't want us releasing his identity," she explained, raising a finger to halt any arguments. "And while we do know his real identity, Ocelotia never officially confirmed it for us, and they are very happy keeping it more or less an open secret between those who know, and a closed secret for everyone else. So until Ocelotia stops sitting on their asses, 'John Doe' is the name you're all looking out for. I'm sorry about that, but that's how it is. Anything else?"

Silence filled the room as no one had any followup questions.

"In that case," Bogo concluded, "everyone? Dismissed."

The silent room instantly filled with noise as everyone got up to head out and start their work. Well, almost everyone. Judy ran over to Bogo, before he had a chance to ignore her by talking to the ZIA agents. "Chief! Chief Bogo! Jack!"

Bogo hesitated, looking down at her. "Listen, Hopps…"

"Please give me a case on him, Chief!" Judy pleaded. "Let me find him!"

Bogo shook his head. "Hopps, Savage explained it. No case. The Ocelotians won't allow it. They don't want the paper trail. You want to find him? Do it on your patrol today. But you have to actually patrol the city. We're going to lose the National Guard soon, and there's a risk that violence will go right up when they leave. You're a police officer. Don't sacrifice the protection of the city in a feint attempt at finding him. We don't even know where to begin looking for him."

Judy hesitated. "What about Count?"

"Count's still here with us," Bogo answered quickly, a hint of a smile forming on his expression. "He was rather eager to spit out ideas as to where we can try searching, not that there were many. Poor guy's been up ever since he figured out that Trigger's gone missing. Was the first to let us know in fact. I think… I'll be quite darned, but I think Count's rather worried over this. Scared even."

"Can I talk to him?"

This question earned her a snort from Bogo. "I suppose," he finally answered. "I doubt it will help, but if you want, I won't stop you. I… Just in case, we figured it best to put Count back in cuffs, in case he decides to make a break for it too. He's probably still in that room of theirs, but I doubt he's in a good mood."

"Thanks, Chief!"

"Don't take too long, Hopps, you still need to be out on patrol today." Bogo reminded her. "Wilde? Make sure she actually does her work."

Nick appeared next to Judy. "Will do, chief!" He grabbed her by the arm and pulled her away. "Let's go, Fluff! As he said, we do have a job to do!" He only dragged her away as far as out of the room before she was able to struggle out of his grip, at which point she promptly switched the tabled and took charge in guiding him upstairs.

As Bogo suggested, they did find Count in the pilots' temporary room, sitting on his bead and idly staring at a screen of a lent laptop. An ankle monitor was freshly strapped to his leg, poking from beneath his pant leg.

"If you're here to ask me where he might have gone to, I already said I don't know," Count complained, not even looking up from the screen.

"Count, it's us," Judy had a gut feeling that he didn't actually see who had walked in.

"Hopps?" A grunt followed her name. "I take it you know?"

"Chief Bogo briefed everyone," Judy confirmed. "We'll all keep an eye out for Trigger. But I thought that, you know, you might-"

"I don't know where he went, Judy," Count complained. "He walked off on me in the middle of the night. Didn't say anything about running away before. Or even hinted at it. He just… left."

Nick took a spot next to Count, while Judy also hopped on the bed to sit on the other side of the pilot. "Did he say anything? Before leaving?"

Count grunted again, closing the lid on the laptop and moving it aside. "I was half asleep when it happened, so I don't remember it too well," he warned. "But Trigger? He just apologized or something. Said he couldn't stand being stuck in here anymore. And then he… left. And yes, Bogo was here already with Savage and Winters. I told them everything."

Judy patted his leg in a reassuring manner. "Bogo said it was you who raised the alarm."

"Had a hunch something was wrong when Trigger didn't come back," Count mumbled nonchalantly. "Went to chief Whatshisname, the night shift chief, and let him know that something felt off. It was Winters who this morning was able to confirm that Trigger's scent went up through the building's ventilation systems, but by then, well, he's gone, isn't he?" He let out a heavy sigh, bringing his legs in so that he can hug his knees. "I promised to keep an eye out on that dumbass, and instead let him run away to God knows where," he complained. "He really should have said he was hurting this bad. But as always, he clammed right up and kept his damned mouth shut."

"He was going to run away the moment he set his mind to it," Nick said, hoping that he can help Count from dwelling into a darker mood. "Believe me, I've been there… I have done that! No one saw it coming, and I was twelve at the time. If Strikes wanted to leave, no one could have stopped him."

"You escaped from your house," Count pointed out, "this is a police station."

"Exactly, a police station. It's not hard to get out of here if you really want to," Nick countered, making sure that his tone was entirely patient. "This room isn't the holding cells, which are underground for a reason. And this is a police station, not a prison. It's filled with open windows and unlocked doors. And the ventilation system is made for large air volumes and comfort for everyone inside, not for being escape proof."

Count shoved the laptop away with an angry grunt. "So what do you want, anyways? It's not like I have anything to say after being grilled by Bogo an hour ago."

"You know Trigger the best, and have been around him the most since the attack on Bana City," Judy said. "If he just ran away, then we'll find him eventually. Especially the detectives, that's what they're good at."

Count raised an eyebrow at her direction. "Chief Bogo let me know very clearly that he can't spare an invention into finding Trigger. Then to top it off, Savage let me know that Ocelotia is making sure that there won't even be one. Makes them look bad or something."

"If the only thing with Trigger is that he ran away, then we'll find him," Judy repeated again, voice stern. "What we're worried about is if he will try to exact some revenge. If he commits a crime? Not even Ocelotia will be able to protect him."

Count grunted. "Exact revenge? Against whom? I mean, sure, if he knew who to go after, there's no stopping him." He suddenly glanced between Nick and Judy nervously. "That… isn't what you wanted to hear, isn't it?"

"Ever since the attack, we've had to arrest plenty of our own citizens with Ocelotian heritage because they lashed out not at any specific target, but at anyone or anything Urusian that they can find," Nick explained. Count knew this. Both pilots had seen the full holding cells. "Is Trigger someone who will go after any Urusian? Or is he after someone specific? Count, we're serious. Because if that's what is going on, he needs to be stopped before he has the chance to do anything."

"You two are acting like Bogo didn't already ask me all of this," Count grumbled. "But to my knowledge, no. I don't recall ever running into anyone who Trigger might target. Unless you count all those rodents he interviewed that other day, but I doubt he knows where they're located. As for someone random? No, I don't think he will."

Judy stood up on the bed to look at him squarely in the eye. "Count? Knowing you two's history? That the unit you came from..?"

Count returned the stare defiantly. "I'm not going to mince words, Hopps. And… I really hope that there's no audio bugs in this room." He did glance around the room, as though searching for such devices. "What I'm going to say, I guess you can let Bogo know if you feel like it. And Savage and Winters already know. Or should, if they're any good at their jobs. But no one else can know what I'm about to say. And that is... I know Trigger killed civilians. I killed civilians. During a raid on an oil refinery plant. You know which one. Urusia still likes to complain about it every chance they get. What was it? Close to fifty dead? That was us. Four-forty-four squadron. And Trigger knows about the aftermath. After all, we only had online access for over a couple of months... But point is, neither of us deliberately targeted civilians or their infrastructure. Ever. And I know for a fact that Trigger feels far more remorse over killing noncombatants than I ever did. Doesn't matter that it was a military target that was directly enabling the Urusian drone offensive. The oil plant was the target, not its employees. I, for one, did the job because it had to be done. Civilians working there or not. What we did wasn't… terror bombing like back in the second world war. Or what Urusia did to Bana. It was a tactical operation to damage Urusia's fighting capability. So as for those dead civilians. When Trigger found out? After all, they sure went out of their way not to tell us back at base. But he was… not in a good mood, let me put it that way. Those TAME collars sure as hell didn't do their job in keeping him from thinking about it. Even as I reminded him that by destroying that plant, we grounded an entire sector of drones. So you ask me if he escaped so that he can attack some random Urusian civilian? No, I don't think he will. He doesn't go after the innocent." Count finished his lecture, and leaned back. "That enough?"

Judy nodded. "It is. Thanks." She was about to hop off the bed when something stopped her. "But Count? When you say that he doesn't go after the innocent, what about his three lines?"

Count winced, but it was short-lived. "Does Trigger strike you as the type of guy who's even capable of doing something like that?" he finally asked. "And don't answer that. I know Bogo doesn't like us talking about that."

A knock on the door drew everyone's attention to officers Wolford and Fangmeyer.

"Hopps? Wilde. Chief wanted us to make sure that you two will actually leave Count and get to work sometime today," Dahlia explained their presence. Her tone was a mixture of concern and amusement. "Count? You need anything?"

"Would be nice if I can tag along and see if I can help find Trigger," Count admitted. "I hate being stuck in here being useless."

Dahlia flashed him a grimace. "If I were you, I'd feel like that too," she admitted. "But that's a question for Bogo. And I'm afraid even he can't allow you out of the building. Not anymore."

Count grumbled as he reached over back for his laptop. "Well, in that case, did he at least give you all some unofficial mission? Under the table and all that?"

"Afraid not," James said. "We have our own jobs to do. City needs us cops to prevent the peace from collapsing as the army units are sent back."

"Wonderful," Count muttered with a roll of his eyes.

"Count? We'll find Trigger," Judy reassured him. "After all, we found you the first time, right?" She ignored the whine of protest from James at that he and Dahlia had did the vast majority of the work in pinning the pilots in place before Judy and Nick had been called in.

Despite her words, Count just brushed her off. "Look, Hopps, I'm not going to pretend I'm being completely selfless here and just want to look out for that dumbass," he said. "I… I don't want to be alone here. So whatever you need to do, just do it. But bring him back."

James grinned and pointed at the pilot. "Now that, Chief Bogo did tell us." His expression then turned somber. "Nick? Judy? He did put pressure on it. We need to go." He waited for the two smaller officers to leave Count's bed and walk out the door to the room. "Count? You also. Take care of yourself."

The pilot just waved him off, eyes glued back on the laptop screen.