Judy tucked the last of the evidence into a metal case, which was so big she had to climb into it. She jumped out and pushed the thick lid, pushing hard so it would shut properly. At the press of a button, the locks, which resembled big flat screws in each corner of the case, spun and sank into the flat surface, completely sealing it. Only she knew the code, but she would have to ask a larger mammal to carry it for her. If only she'd been able to access the crime lab before landing planet-side. Onboard was a robotic all-terrain transporter that would have carried it for her, including her gear, piloted remotely by Minerva. Thank the dickens that the Rainforest labs had been able to provide alternative equipment, or she'd never hear the end of it from her superiors. Minerva, the crime lab, even Judy working solo, it was all still in the testing phase. Even with half a dozen cases under her belt, there were some stingy execs who weren't convinced that the program was worth the cost. That made it all the more essential to find the saboteur who killed Green.
Judy put a paw on the big case. There was no way she could move it on her own. Maybe she'd be better off working as part of a team. She'd put it in the report once the case was closed. One more mammal at least. She was sure the Company could spare an extra 40,000 a year to cover the salary.
The day after tomorrow, Judy would meet up with Roschewool and Cudson and they'd be out of here. That gave her forty-eight hours to make sure she hadn't left anything out, and to maybe see a bit more of Rhamnusia. She'd give anything to see a live Gorgonopsia and take a few snapshots for her website. Again, the investigator in her wondered what had happened to the Gorgon that died yesterday. She'd done some research on the side since the incident and learned that while Gorgons did indeed engage in the occasional dominance fight, they very rarely used their claws. If they did, they sure as heck didn't leave gaping wounds like the one that Gorgon had suffered. Gorgons were the apex predators in these parts, so it wasn't a natural predator either.
Unless there was some other alpha species on this planet, one the colonists hadn't discovered yet. Imagine if CST Judy Hopps was the one to discover it…
There was a prolonged beep from her door. She dropped down from the desk and opened it to find Nick waiting for her in the hallway.
"'Sup." His face was unreadable.
Judy folded her arms. She hadn't forgotten the fox's cowardice the day before. "What do you want?"
"Okay, so I'm getting cold fish today." Nick took a sigh. "May I ask why?"
Judy didn't answer. What did this fox want?
"Sooo that's a no." Nick mirrored Judy's pose. "Anyhoo, we think the saboteur has struck again."
Judy's ears pricked. "Another murder?"
"Another pain in the ass for Parks."
"Couldn't they have called me through comms instead of sending you?"
"Carrots, it's comms that got screwed with. Bogo wants you to check out the scene before the engineers get to work."
"Let me get my gear."
While she gathered her equipment and changed into her exploration gear, Nick explained more of the situation. An array installed just outside the colony had been damaged, consequently wreaking havoc on communications all over the colony, except for the Colonial Marines' personal channel which colonists had no access to. Parks wanted to get it repaired immediately. Bogo wanted Judy to examine it first. Clawhauser sided with Bogo and Administrator Hornbull wasn't here to make the overrule him. Judy wondered if she would ever get to meet the rhino before her departure.
It was one o'clock when they drove out the other end of the Car Wash and drove the short eleven minutes to the array. Judy looked at the foliage they passed on their way. They were travelling off road, and the ride was bumpy. She had to hold onto the side door so her body wouldn't sway so much.
"This is nowhere near the Rainforest Sector, is it?"
"Nope."
Judy collated the information she already knew even as her physical form continued to rock in every direction. Every other incident involved the exterior border of the Rainforest laboratories. Not this one. By the time they reached the array, she'd assumed that this was just a malfunction, or some form of environmental damage.
The comms array was ugly, a single massive dish perched atop of mountain of lined grey metal. Judy immediately noticed how clean it looked. No dirt, rust or moss. It had been installed very, very recently.
"What exactly is this for?" Judy asked. "I thought the main comm needle worked just fine on its own."
"No idea. It was installed round about the same time Dr. Ewetani's excavation started."
"Excavation?"
"Bogo didn't tell you?"
When Nick was done telling her about the excavation at Lake Kitticaca, Judy was both intrigued and envious. She knew she'd never be permitted to be a part of the endeavor. The photography she'd glean if they somehow found something out there would be worth it just for the honor of taking them.
She and Nick circled the array until she found the source of the damage; the hatch allowing entry into the inner workings of the array had been forced open. Nick sent a quick update to his superior through his headset and shone a flashlight into the hollow interior of the structure, which could best be compared to the interior of a computer tower.
Judy pulled on her gloves, out on her mask, and began to approach the hatch. Nick held out the arm not holding the flashlight.
"Hold on, Carrots. We don't know what kind of damage has been done in there. Could be hazardous."
Nick had a point. Judy took out her own flashlight, providing some more illumination. The interior of the array seemed to be empty. No exposed wires. No sparks. No electrical hazards that she could see.
Wait. There, by the black thingiemajig next to the cooling fan. What was that stuff covering the circuit board? That crumpled strip of patterned plastic? Judy put a leg into the hatch, keeping the flashlight's beam on the strange substance.
She yelped as she was suddenly yanked back out by the back of her suit. She dangled a few centimeters from the short grass and locked eyes with Nick.
"What the heck, Private?!"
"Shut up and look." Nick's curt response didn't shock her nearly as much as what she saw when he shone his own torch into the darkest corner of the alcove. Twinkling in the white light was a giant coil of aqua scales.
Oh crackers, that's a SNAKE-
Nick dropped her back on her feez and spoke into his headset. "Huh, false alarm. A Gigantoboa forced its way into the structure's interior. I figure the heat must have attracted it. Over." He paused to listen to the response. "How should I know how long it is? It's coiled up tighter than Crowe's testicles. Over. Okay, copy that. I'll keep an eye on it. Over and out."
"Backup?" Judy asked, still shaken at what her carelessness had almost cost her.
"Feral Control Squad. They'll have to get it out without hurting the damn thing."
"What's the ETA?"
"Forty minutes." Nick quietly closed the hatch. The lock was clearly broken, so he didn't bother trying to use it. "We should probably get back to the car before it gets hungry."
They returned to the car and sat in their seats, never taking their eyes off the array.
"We can stick around when they get here, if you want." Nick said after a few minutes of uncomfortable silence. "When they take it out, you can take a picture for the website."
"How do they plan to get it out?" Judy asked.
"By law, they have to do everything they can to get the snake out alive." Nick said. "Sedation's pretty risky for a reptile, even one that big, so most likely they'll get the bigger mammals to snag it and drag it out."
Judy figured from its name that the Gigantoboa wasn't venomous, but she asked about it anyway. Nick said it wasn't.
"Didn't we have a giant boa a few million years ago? Titanoboa, or whatever it was?"
Judy shrugged. "Yeah, probably."
"Funny how no matter how many light years away it is, every planet we find shares similar characteristics to ours. No matter where we go, the chemical elements always match those on our own periodic table."
"You know what the blocks on the table mean?"
"Hey, I may look like a grunt, but I paid attention in school."
Judy consulted her tablet to re-read her notes. She rewrote the bullet point referring to today's false alarm. "So, every case of sabotage has occurred at the border of the Rainforest Laboratories. Remind me again what they do in there?"
She wanted to see if Nick's exposition made any contradictions to what she'd officially been told. She knew from experience that facilities such as this, not wanting to catch hell from the government bodies back on Earth, weren't always honest about what they were researching.
"They research the flora and fauna of Rhamnusia." Nick said readily. "It's a pharmaceutical facility. Carthusia and the other boffs develop drugs which are then sent to another facility for final testing, marketing and distribution."
More or less what Judy had been told. "Can you think of any reason why someone would want to interfere with their work?"
Nick's eyes shifted in their sockets. "Disgruntled employee. Activism. Corporate Espionage. Drug trafficking."
"Drug trafficking?" Judy hadn't considered that one.
"Okay, maybe that one's a little far-fetched, but hear me out. Plenty of recreational and/or illegal drugs are made from plants." Nick said. "Maybe there's a plant here that you can't get anywhere else."
Judy thought about it and realized that it was indeed a possibility. Illicit drugs were immensely profitable, perhaps not to low-level street dealers, but certainly to certain criminal organizations. If someone was looking to create a new product, then that was motive right there.
"After I get my photo of the snake, I want to talk to Dr. Carthusia. I need to know exactly what he's working on."
The two small mammals, hot red and yellow figures in the infrared view, exchanged a few more words before falling into another silence.
Perched in a tree fifteen feet above the vehicle, the invisible Hunter magnified the helmet's vision to maximum, allowing it to document every word on the female lagomorph's device before she put it back in her bag. It had already scanned the large structure and determined that a large serpent was inside, just not the kind of serpent it was seeking. After a few moments the language was fully and roughly translated into a series of symbols it could understand.
A series of technical damages had occurred over the course of some moons, all done deliberately by an unknown individual. All had occurred on the outer rim of a section of the colony specializing in flora research. None of it had anything to do with the Company's excavation, or Dhi'haka.
Watching the two mammals in the car, the Hunter considered how to deal with them. Physically the female was not much of a threat, but she was an investigator of some sort. There was a chance, a very slight chance, that she would stumble onto some evidence of the serpents' presence and then the Hunter would find itself facing some unwanted competition. As for the vulpine, he may be small, but he still carried a firearm. One plasma blast at the vehicle and that would be that.
No. Their explosive deaths would draw too much attention. It would track down the lagomorph later and stage an accident of some sort, or a murder that the colonists would blame on the saboteur. After all, the saboteur, whoever they were, had committed one murder already.
The Hunter leapt to another tree and dropped down fifty feet from the vehicle, where they would be unlikely to notice the hazy ripple of its cloaked form. If the abomination and the impregnators had continued travelling in a straight line, it should find more traces of fluid on the other side of the field. It sped across the grass and into the line of trees, pressing on with the hunt.
Nick blinked, his nose twitching as a sudden gust of light wind passed through his open window. The odor had come and gone so quickly his mind had been unable to form a description of it.
"What is it?" Judy had seen his nose.
"Nothing important." Nick said and believed it. Probably there was a rotting carcass or pile of urine not far from here. He sniffed some more, but the scent was long gone.
Half an hour later the FCS showed up, eight mammals of various species and sizes wielding snare poles and snake hooks. Nick and Judy got out of the car when he saw their transport drive onto the field, and watched as they set to work, opening the hatch and shining their torches inside to get a good look at the situation. With ten minutes the two largest mammals, a cow and a rhino, had snared the reptile and were slowly dragging it out headfirst.
Judy's jaw dropped when she saw the full length of the creature, and Nick was both scared and impressed himself; it had to be thirty, maybe forty feet, its diameter approximately that of a dinner plate. Nick decided to be irritatingly cheerful as he introduced her as the creator of Creature Shoot and asked them to hold the snake still for just a few moments so she could get a picture. He watched and grinned as Judy's embarrassment gave way to awe when she brought the camera to her eyes and took in the Gigantoboa in its entirety. Nick had taken it upon himself to pose right next to the snake's big triangular head, holding his paw behind it to give it bunny ears. Judy took several snapshots before stepping away to allow the FCS to continue doing their job. All eight of them carried the snake to the edge of the forest and released it there, letting it slither away into the underbrush.
Nick did not miss the look Judy gave him when they returned to their car and drove off. He didn't know why he cared that she seemed to dislike him, but he couldn't shake the feeling that he'd somehow made things worse.
Four O'clock came and went.
In his office back at Zootopian Prospect, Clawhauser nursed the cold hot beverage he'd prepped at Hornbull's request, back when the Administrator had contacted him so late at night. That was the last he'd heard of him, and he'd thought nothing of it. Until now.
For the third time since he'd woken up this morning in Mansa's arms, he tried to call Hornbull's personal number again. He got no response. The array was still damaged. For the second time, he visited the receptionist downstairs to ask her about his boss's whereabouts, but Hornbull had not yet arrived.
At 4:21, a thought came to him. What if Dr. Ewetani's people had picked him up and brought him back to camp? Then he remembered that Hornbull had kept Ewetani's contact number to himself, at Ewetani's request, leaving Clawhauser with no means of asking her even if comms were working.
He tapped his fingers against the big orange mug and stared at the door. He'd left it open so he could hear if anyone was ascending the elevator or the stairs. It had been unnervingly quiet for over seven hours.
He couldn't contact Mansa either. His fiancé had taken a squad and ventured out to find the UFO that had struck the Vidar which supposedly had crashed a fair distance from the colony. He would be out of communication range by now. He wouldn't be back until tomorrow.
Clawhauser checked the clock on his wall. It was 4:30 exactly.
30 more minutes. He'd give it 30 more minutes.
He hoped to God that Hornbull would be back by then.
