Judy took aim with her camera, fixing the lens square on the Tracking Bird Nick was pointing out to her.
They'd heard the bleeping din of the birds almost as soon as they reached the road, on their way back from that false alarm at the comms array. At once Judy had shouted for him to stop the car so she could get out and attempt to get some pictures. She'd seen the picture in the pamphlet. She'd searched the leaves for a hint of lapis lazuli blue, but it was Nick who spotted the specimen, perched on a spindly branch that stuck out over the road.
"Not every day you only see one of them." Nick was leaning against the car, watching Judy do her stuff. "They're pretty sociable birds. One time I saw a flock of about three hundred, all in one tree. Don't know how it didn't collapse."
Judy lowered her camera and slowly turned to glare at the fox. "I can't remember a time when you weren't talking."
Nick looked to add fuel to the fire, but then he said, "Hold on." He motioned for her to be quiet while he listened to his headset. His brows creased together. "Begging your pardon, sir, a what?" After a moment he nodded. "We're already on our way back, sir."
"No we're not." Judy wasn't leaving until she got her pictures. She'd been hoping to find this bird ever since she heard their unusual song.
"Yes, we are, Carrots."
"Stop calling me Carrots."
Nick opened his car door. "They've detected a cyclone forming about eighty miles from the colony."
Judy's ear twitched. "How severe are we talking?"
"Wind and rain. For now. The colony will be fine, but we need to get back pronto."
"If it's just a tropical storm, we can hang on for another minute."
"Just a tro-" Nick stopped himself and huffed. "Fine. One minute."
Judy adjusted her focus. The bird was oval in shape, with black tipped wings that speckled like stars. The bird buffs in her fan base would get a real kick out of this.
Behind her, Nick threw his head back and yawned. Or groaned. "Ugh, how long does it take to take a freaking picture?"
"Patience, Private. It'll be a long trip back, otherwise."
"It'll be a long trip back either way, 'cause I'm sure I took a wrong turn. Is it me, or is that breeze getting breezier?"
Judy grunted when her vision of the bird turned blurry. She'd turned the dial too far. The bird preened its feathers. Judy had read that female tracker birds had slightly duller feathers and more specks. Too bad there wasn't another bird here to make a comparison.
"That's it, just keep doing what you're doing…" She whispered.
The bird flapped its wings in a silent flutter. For a split second it appeared to lock eyes with her through the camera. Judy smiled as she imagined what it's chirping would translate as. What're you looking at?
She took four photos before it suddenly took off, vanishing in an instant.
"See? Even the bird thinks we should get outta here!"
Judy returned to the car. The bleeping of the birds was lost when the engine roared back to life, and as they drove off she was soon unable to hear it at all. She was glad for that. The resemblance to the marines' motion trackers was truly eerie.
The drive back was quiet. For about 24 seconds. Then the fox opened his big trap again.
"Can I ask you a question?" Nick kept his eyes on the road.
"You may." Judy wondered if he would ever shut up and kept looking at the pictures in her camera.
"Which part of the job do you like most- the crime scenes or the wildlife?"
"I like them both the same. What about you?"
"Huh?"
"What hypes you up most about being in the corps?"
When he didn't answer, she looked up to see that for the first time, he seemed genuinely unable to give a response.
"Come on, it's a simple question."
Nick smirked. "The ladies. I like a girl with muscle."
Judy was not amused. "Fine. Don't tell me."
"It's true. I could watch Fangmeyer do her pull ups all day."
"If you're trying to put me off, playing the creep card isn't gonna cut it."
Nick's muzzle turned downward. "I know."
Judy set her camera on her lap. With the strap around her neck, there was no danger of it falling beneath the dashboard. "So why can't you just tell me?"
"I'm the first small mammal to become a marine. Ever. That's not as awesome as it sounds."
"Why not?"
"Because I didn't exactly join the corps by choice."
Judy blinked. She knew that some marines had started out as criminals and street thugs, threatened with prison or worse if they didn't enlist. Judy understood the justification behind this controversial practice; it was basically community service with a slice of danger. If this fox was one of those mammals, then that explained a lot.
Except for the part that he of all small mammals was the first to be accepted.
Judy tightened the fists that rested on her knees. Her blood boiled at the unfairness of it. She'd wanted this since she was a kid. Why did she get passed over for this irritating, cowardly, insufferable-
Stop it, Judy! You don't know the whole story.
In an instant, Judy felt terrible. She sat there in silence, letting her anger slip away. A part of it was still there, smoldering in the back of her mind.
She couldn't keep doing this. She couldn't continue this rollercoaster of being angry at Nick and then feeling bad about it. He didn't deserve to be treated like this.
"So what did you get in for?" She kept her voice low.
"Hustling. Tax evasion. Mostly the second one. But totally by accident."
Judy nodded gently. She'd expected worse. "Must have been one heck of a felony."
Nick chuckled. "I made 200 a day, fluff. I'll let you do the multiplying."
"Yeah, I'm going to need more than that to do an estimate."
Nick made of show of thinking, deliberately twisting his face in a way that was utterly comical. "Let's say fifteen years, give or take."
"1,095,000."
Nick widened his eyes at her. "You just made that up."
Judy felt a laugh coming. "Numbers don't lie, Private."
"Clearly, rabbits do."
"If I'm wrong, drinks are on me."
"You've got yourself a bet."
Judy released the giggle she'd been holding. "Thanks for pulling me out of there."
"Anytime, Carrots."
Nick notched up the speed by five miles.
"You know…" He spoke. "If you're stuck on suspects, I can point out a few guys who'd have probable motive to betray the Company."
Jury's ears perked. "You know some guys?"
"I know all the guys. I've worked and trained here since I was signed up."
The offer was tempting, she had to admit. "Wilde, I'm just a crime scene technician. You're better off giving that information to your superior."
"I did."
"And?"
"He impolitely told me to leave it to the experts. Which is you."
"… It's not my place."
"Come on, don't tell me you don't like to play detective on the side. Or do you let MINERVA do all the collating?"
"No, I-"
They hit a bump in the road. Her body tried to fly out the seat and was held back the by her harness. She could feel the effect it had on her insides. The nauseating sensation came again when Nick brought the car to a stop.
"Don't tell me you broke the car!" Judy yelped.
Nick gave her a look. "That wasn't a rock we hit."
They got out the car at the same time. Judy didn't bring her camera. If they'd hit an animal, Rhamnusian roadkill was not an ideal subject to photograph. Nick went behind the car and approached the object they'd hit. From her position, Judy could see that it was too smooth and shiny to be a rock. Nick picked it up and turned it over. Whatever it was, it was bigger than his paw.
"It looks like a piece of the car."
Judy threw her arms in the air. "So you did break it. Perfect!"
Nick dropped the twisted metal fragment and checked each wheel of the car. He stood up and scratched his head.
"That didn't come from us."
Judy walked over to the fragment and knelt down. She doubted she'd recognize what it was, even if she was an engineer. "This wasn't here before. Wilde, when you drove us back to the road, did you bring us out the same way we came in?"
"I honestly don't know. There aren't exactly any road signs to work with. Chances are there's a broken down transport further ahead." Nicked glanced in the direction of the breeze that came in from further up the road. "Look, I like to procrastinate as much as the next guy, but we really need to get moving."
Judy slipped her fingers beneath the fragment. "We'll take this with us. Don't want to litter the road."
"Okay, you're the boss."
It was heavier than it looked, but Judy often worked out while MINERVA performed her duties. She carried the fragment, dropped it in the rear compartment that Nick had courteously opened for her, and joined him in the car to continue their journey.
They didn't get far before they saw the abandoned vehicle at the side of the road, slightly lopsided due to the fact it was missing a tire.
"There's our litterbug." Nick brought the car to a stop once more and spoke into his headset. "Private Wilde here. We've found an abandoned transport at the side of the road. Has anyone reported a breakdown recently?" Judy strained her ears to hear the response. "Huh. Okay, I'll check it out, but I really need to get Hopps back to base before the storm gets here. 10-4, sir. Over and out."
Nick opened the door and climbed out, taking his service pistol with him. Judy followed him without prompting, reminding herself whereabouts in the car the first aid kit was located. At first glance there was no sign of the driver or passengers. All the windows were intact, so it was unlikely that anyone had been thrown. Judy began searching the dirt road for footprints.
"You seem busy, so I'll just check the jungle. Don't leave the road, okay, Carrots?" Nick held his pistol with his paws as he slowly trudged into the foliage.
Judy didn't find any footprints. The dirt was too dry. She heard Nick call out, but no-one answered. When he returned, he was holding a leafless stick.
"Carrots, there's no-one here." He said.
Judy pointed at his ill expression. "Then why do you have that look in your face?"
"Because I did find some blood." Nick paused and seemed to swallow down bile. "A lot of blood, actually. I tried looking for a body, but I think it was dragged off."
Judy covered her mouth. Another death. The last thing this colony needed.
"You sure?" She breathed.
"It must have been an animal. See the gunk on this stick?" Nick held out the stick, and Judy saw the clear gelatinous substance coating it. "I found this covering a tree and I'm pretty sure it's not sap."
Judy felt a chill, but it wasn't her blood. She'd seen this substance before.
"Keep a hold of that stick, Wilde. I want to take a sample."
"Okay, you're the boss." He waited for Judy to retrieve her sample kit, take a swab, and put it in a plastic tube.
The wind was getting stronger. Fallen leaves scattered across the road. Nick dropped the stick and started ushering the rabbit back to the car. "Come on. The best thing we can do now is call it in."
Judy wanted to argue, but with the wind picking up, rain and possibly even worse things would soon follow. So they returned their car and continued on. Nick solemnly reported the discovery of the blood through his headset, and the rest of the journey continued in silence. Judy kept expecting Nick to open his big trap again. He didn't.
The Hunter crouched at the edge of the pit, which was ragged from millennia of erosion, and gazed down into the darkness. Its tendrils swayed in the winds of the encroaching storm.
The trail led here, to the entrance of what must be an extensive cave system. The hive was down there, somewhere deep, deep down. That much was certain. And somewhere deep in that hive was the Serpent responsible for this dilemma. And if it had already found hosts, which was a distinct possibility in the time that had passed, there was likely to be more.
It opened its wrist computer and inputted a command. A scarlet window of writing and imagery appeared in the left of its vision to provide an update on the status of Dhi'haka. Nothing had changed. The Hunter inputted the command to close the window, and in the process four drops of mammalian blood fell from its wrist blades and splattered atop the buttons.
Its route through the jungle had led it to cross paths with a small herd from the colony. Half of the group were humped camels, and the rest were other assorted prey, and all had borne the Company emblem. They'd carried gas masks and guns, little pistols that were easy to smuggle and deadly to the unarmed. They'd been too preoccupied with harvesting a grove of midnight blue flora to notice the cloaked creature slip by them. It had been tempted by the challenge they posed, minimal as it was, but the risk of someone noticing their absence had been too great. The Hunter had been content with leaving them be.
That all changed when one of the camels went mad and turned his gun on the others.
The Hunter wasn't sure exactly how the blue flower's toxin had found its way past the gas mask filter,, but when a stray bullet struck its arm and turned its attention back in the group, it saw seven mammals dead, and the eighth bellowing and firing in all directions. The Hunter could have fired from a distance, but a desire for more personal retribution drove it to close in and drive its blades deep into the camel's guts. It could vividly remember the sensation of the camel vomiting blood down his killer's thick forearm before he died, and the Hunter ripped apart the puncture wounds with its bare claws. If the corpse ever found its way to the morgue, no-one would assume that it would be anything more than a wild animal attack.
Back in the present, the Hunter retracted its wrist blades, shedding the rest of the excess blood, and cast aside the memory of that bloodbath. That was irrelevant to its mission. The Queen was all that mattered. It scanned the cavern beneath. Almost a hundred feet. Low enough to drop straight to the bottom. And it did.
The cleaning foam completely consumed the car windows, blocking the admittedly uninteresting view of the Car Wash. Nick listened to the voice in his headset, muttered an 'affirmative', and turned to the rabbit beside him. She was checking out the photos in her camera again, just to have something to do. Nick had the sense that this was a bunny who didn't like being idle.
"That storm hasn't changed course." He said. "It won't pass over us, but we'll definitely be feeling the fringe of it for a while."
"That's good." Judy said. She didn't look like she meant it.
"Of course this means that there won't be any ships flying to and from the planet until it passes over."
"Dropships have flown through worse."
"True. But until we're sure the storm isn't gonna come after us after all, McHorn isn't permitting any flying."
Judy lolled her head on her shoulder and glowered at the fox. "And your point is?"
"After we settle our bet and talk to Carthusia, we can visit the rec centre. Get your mind off murder for a bit."
Judy gazed at the foam-soaked windshield in front of them. The rinsing process had just started. "They got a pool table."
"You bet. Small, medium and large." Nick listed them with his fingers.
"I suppose I could use a little recreation. I don't have much to do once MINERVA gets to work."
There was lull in the conversation as they watched the foam be washed away. There was a red light in the corner of the ceiling. Nick didn't know what purpose is served, but the way the light tinted the foamy water made him think of the grisly scene they'd discovered earlier. He would have to notify someone as soon as they were inside, but in the meantime he didn't want to think about it.
"So you really work alone?" He asked.
"Yeah. Not much need for a team with what MINERVA's capable of."
"You must have security. Seems pretty risky to have only one bunny keeping an eye on things. No offense."
"None taken. And don't worry about MINERVA. She can take care of herself. Besides, there's only one airlock on the crime lab and I'm the only one who can access it." She straightened up with pride.
"So if someone needs to get aboard the lab to, shall we say, cover their tracks, they'd have to get though you to do it."
Judy fell silent as the drying process began.
"If the Company really is that incompetent," Nick started examining his claws. "Then it's no wonder we had to bring you in to catch this guy."
Judy smiled for the first time since they found the abandoned car and went back to admiring her pictures. Nick relaxed in his seat, one paw grilling the steering control. He needed to hurry up and find a calculator, or a paper and pen. After all, he still had a bet to win, and a pint of Ram's Bar beer to look forward to.
Two minutes later the last door opened, and they drove onto the main road of Zootopian Prospect, only to find a small transport blocking their path.
"Oh for crying out loud." Nick got out the car first. He heard Judy open her side door, but this time she didn't get out and follow him. As he drew closer to the transport he saw that it was empty. The sound of voices drew him to the booth where the marines supervising the Car Wash monitored the security cameras. Someone dressed in outdoors gear, almost certainly the driver, was standing in the open doorway, his paws on the doorframe. Nick spied a gold and white tail striped with black.
"Spots?"
Clawhauser turned round, his face a picture of anxiety.
"Wilde? Hopps? What the heck were you two doing out there? The FCS got back way before you did!"
Nick almost pointed out that as Acting Administrator, Clawhauser would have been informed of their whereabouts, but then he remembered that colony comms were still down and Clawhauser had no access to the marine frequencies. He rubbed the back of his head sheepishly. "My fault. I took a wrong turn back to the road. I did call it in, but with main comms still down I guess you wouldn't know that."
Clawhauser fumed. Nick had never seen him this tense. Maybe being Hornbull's glorified secretary was finally getting to him. "If Mansa was here, he'd be raking you over the coals right now, you'd know that, right?"
"Well, why the hell are you picking up the slack? You're not married yet!"
"Because Hornbull never showed up!"
That nipped Nick's retort in the bud. He heard the gravel crunch as Judy got out the car and walked up to them.
"What are you talking about?" She asked.
Clawhauser wrung his paws. "He was on his way back from a trip last night, but his tire blew out. I haven't heard from him since. I came down here because the guards keep a log of everyone who comes in and out of Lionheart's Gate."
Flashes of darkness passed over Clawhauser's worried face, like droplets of liquid shadow. Nick looked up. The rain had started, and water was running down the transparent dome protecting the colony from the outside elements. A chill swept over the fox as he remembered the abandoned transport. Hornbull was a just a pencil pusher, but he was still a big damn rhino. No local predator with any sense would try to take him on. Would they?
Judy looked to and from Nick and Clawhauser. It was likely she was suspecting the worst, like he was. The chances of there being two unreported breakdowns in the vicinity were low.
"Maybe he's still broken down." Nick knew it was a false hope as soon as he said it.
"It takes this long to change a tire? Heck no." Judy pulled out her PDA and opened up a map of the surrounding jungle. "Ok, I'm pretty sure we found the car here on this bend."
"Car? What car?"
Nick hesitated. Clawhauser wasn't going to like what he was about to say. "Spots, don't freak out, but we may have discovered an abandoned transport on our way back. Before you ask, we didn't see anyone."
Clawhauser blanched and turned to the open doorway. "What's the ETA on that search party?"
"Three minutes!" Someone yelled from inside the booth. Judging from the Boarston accent, it was Private Izzard, a dingo Nick liked to play cards with.
"I can take them to the crash site." Nick said. He didn't mention the blood. Clawhauser looked freaked out enough as it was.
Clawhauser turned back to Nick and Hopps. "Hornbull would have been accompanied by an escort, so we should look for more than one mammal."
Judy pocketed her PDA. "The team should split up once we reach the site. We can cover more ground that way."
Nick felt a pang of fear. Fear for his own well being. "Whoa, whoa, whoa, what's with all the 'we's? Bogo wouldn't want you two going out there."
"Mansa's not here." Clawhauser said. "Go get that transport turned around. It's blocking the whole road."
Thunder rumbled overhead. It growled like a wild animal. The rain coated the dome in a drenching sheet, distorting the view of the darkening clouds. The gale wouldn't be far behind.
Nick reflexively gave a two-fingered salute and led the short, hurried walk back to his transport. He was glad that he was taking point. That way no-one could see the cold dread coloring his face.
