Chapter 16: Asylum Infiltration/A Familiar Face In An Unlikely Place
At the exterior of Cliffside Asylum, Alex, Judy, and Nick looked at the decrepit building. The former medical facility was somehow in use again, with lights on outside and several timber wolf guards patrolling the entrances. "We need to get inside. Got any ideas?" Nick whispered. Judy thought about it for a second before her eyes lit up. "I could howl! That would distract them!" Judy suggested.
"And me! I would be caught in the howl too!" Alex hissed in protest. He had a backpack that he had brought from his police cruiser, which was parked off the side of the road to avoid the attention of the guards. Judy frowned, her ears drooping a little. "Well, mister senior cop, got any better ideas?" The bunny asked, a hint of defiance in her voice. The wolf unzipped his backpack, which was quite spacious and large.
"Judy, hide inside here. I'll leave the zipper open just a smidge, enough for you to be able to breathe. And Nick, go limp. Play dead until I tell you to open your eyes." Alex instructed. Judy hesitated before getting in the bag, curling up into a ball. Alex zipped the backpack up but left enough of a hole so that she still had oxygen. Nick closed his eyes and went limp like a ragdoll, allowing Alex to pick the fox up.
Alex then began walking up to the entrance of the asylum. "Hey! Halt! Who goes there?!" One of the timber wolves shouted at the bridge station. A black wolf then ran up to Alex, a second white wolf approaching from the other side. "Hey, hey, what's the matter?!" Alex protested. The two wolves sniffed him, and Alex prayed they didn't ask about the rabbit smell.
"You don't smell familiar, who are you and what are you doing here? And why are you carrying a fox?" The black wolf asked. "Answer Larry's question!" The white wolf growled. "Jeez, relax, you two. I work the day shift on Wednesdays, I'm here to drop off another savage animal." Alex said calmly, waving his paw around to dispel the animosity. Larry looked concerned. "Another savage?! That's the second one in twenty-four hours!" He exclaimed.
"Yeah, this fox nicked me pretty good. He was my friend, I tranq'd him and I'm making it my personal mission to make sure he's taken care of." Alex answered. "Gary, let him through." The black wolf said. Gary hesitated before letting him go. "Why do you smell like rabbit?" The white wolf asked curiously. "Oh, that's because I was hanging out with my rabbit girlfriend when we were attacked. A-and by girlfriend, I mean girl who happens to be a platonic friend." Alex quickly said. A soft giggle could be heard from the backpack, but the wolf guards didn't catch it over the heavy downpour.
"Just be careful, man. We don't know what's causing these animals to go crazy out of nowhere. That's why we're keeping them here: for their safety and ours. We have the best doctors we could manage to hire and swear to secrecy here working on finding the cause, and hopefully a cure." Larry told Alex. The white wolf nodded solemnly before walking inside the building.
The interior of the building was sparsely lit, several of the lights having been burnt out and not replaced in the years that the asylum had been abandoned. Once he was sure there wasn't anyone that would catch them, Alex set Nick down and unzipped the backpack, Judy leaping out of the bag like a rocket.
"All right! Let's go find those animals!" Judy excitedly said. She opened a door and walked inside. The rhythmic beeping of medical equipment was heard. Inside that room was an examination bed and three screens with a CAT scan of a brain. "This medical equipment is brand new." Judy noted as she took several photographs with her phone for evidence.
"The guards did say that they were treating the savage animals here." Alex mentioned as he sniffed the air, smelling the scent of several predators. "C-carrots…" Nick nervously said as he pointed down at the ground. Alex looked at where Nick was pointing and got chills at the sight of rather large claw marks.
"Claw marks…" Judy murmured worriedly. "Yeah, huge, huge claw marks. I mean, what kind of animal…" Nick trailed off. All of a sudden, something banged against the glass. Alex drew his taser and whirled around to see a large feral tiger in a containment cell. Walking through the passageway, Judy shone her phone flashlight around the room and discovered several other predators in the same savage state, including Manchas and Otterton.
"Eleven, twelve, thirteen, fourteen... Not including Manchas, it's... It's fourteen. Chief Bogo handed out fourteen missing mammal files... They're all here! All the missing mammals are right here!" Judy exclaimed. The hiss of a mechanical door opening was heard, and the three of them dove into an empty cell to hide.
"Enough! I don't want excuses, doctor. I want answers!" Mayor Lionheart's angry and stressed voice growled. "Mayor Lionheart, please. We're doing everything we can." A honey badger in a lab coat pleaded. "Really? 'Cause I've got a dozen and a half animals here who've gone off the rails crazy, and you can't tell me why! Now I'd call that awfully far from 'doing everything'!" Lionheart snarled.
"Sir, it may be time to consider their biology." The honey badger suggested. "What!? What do you mean, biology?!" The mayor asked in frustrated confusion. "The only animals going savage are predators. We cannot keep this a secret, we need to come forward!" The badger insisted.
Lionheart snorted and put a digit to his lips. "Hmm, great idea. Tell the public. And how do you think they'll feel about their mayor, who just so happens to be a LION!? Or worse, how about their own police force, which has a large number of predator officers!? Worse yet, have you considered the fact that the prey population in the city far outnumbers the predator populace!?" Lionheart ranted.
"What does the prey populace have to do with this, Father!?" Kimba's voice argued in an exasperated tone. Alex's eyes widened as he heard the voice of his friend. "Son, you of all people should know the risks of coming forward with this information! You're a lawyer for predators! You deal with fearful prey pressing charges all the time! If the prey found out about predators going savage, then they'd start panicking! Many herbivores are already nervous enough around carnivores. They hold far more power than the predators in Zootopia. If this came to public light then the economy could destabilize and collapse!" Lionheart roared.
Although Alex didn't agree with keeping the truth hidden from everyone, he understood the mayor's fears and concerns. "Father, if we don't go public and animals find out, it will blow up in our faces! We have to get ahead of the game, there's no way we'll be able to keep this under wraps forever! Or at least tell some animals about it! Chief Bogo may be understanding, and if we had the help of the Iris Corporation we would be able to greatly speed up the process of determining the cause of the savage condition!" Kimba protested.
"Chief Bogo doesn't know. And we are going to keep it that way." Lionheart hissed through gritted teeth. All of a sudden, Judy's phone began ringing. "Shit." Alex thought to himself. "Someone's here!" Lionheart exclaimed. "Father. Get out of here. I'll handle the search for intruders." Kimba promised. The mayor nodded his head and left in a hurry along with the honey badger.
Judy looked at the toilet and Alex knew what she was thinking. "Judy, what the hell are you thinking!? Even if you and Nick fit in there, the water lines would dump you in the middle of the rainforest district's lake! It's too risky!" Alex whispered. "Got any better ideas!?" Nick spat. "Yeah, as a matter of fact, I do! Let me talk to Kimba, I'm close with him. We may just be able to get out of here unscathed." Alex argued.
