Chapter 2
"The Grog Bog?" Shawn asks, looking at the sign of the bar.
"Owner is Australian, don't question it." I reply, walking up to the door.
"Ids." Asks the bouncer, a rough looking Tasmanian Devil."
Both Shawn and I pull out our drivers licences, to which the Devil just shakes his head no.
"What's wrong with em?" Shawn asks.
"It ain't the ids." The bouncer replies, stepping in front of the door.
"Oh, is it cause I'm a fox!" Shawn yells, rolling his sleeves up.
I look over my shoulder to see White walking up to us, wearing some black cargo pants and a red t-shirt.
I stop Shawn before he swings, watching Logan walk up.
"Hey Cameron, What's the trouble?" He asks, a worried look in his eyes.
"Bouncer says our ids won't get us in." I inform, calming down Shawn.
Logan lets out a chuckle before turning to the bouncer. "Oz, really, You didn't tell them the rules?"
"Nah, thought you would, I was having fun with em." Oz replies, a smile forming on his face.
"Place caters exclusively to government employed personnel, y'know, Police, Fire, Military." Logan says, producing his new Police Badge.
"Ohhhh. I say, pulling out my Badge, while Shawn pulls out his ID, his smiling face with the title 'Trauma Surgon' at Zootopia General Hospital."
"Yer buddy's a doctor? Good to know I know who's patching me up if I get shot." Logan laughs as the door is opened and we walk into the bar.
I take in the sights, the building is old, like 1930s old, on the inside it was wood panneled with what appeared to be redwood, it's clear it was always a bar, with specificity designed alcoves for tables, and a long bar stretching the length of the left side of the building. What first captured my attention was the wall of insignia, three quarters filled it was a wall covered in... insignia, of various government services worldwide. I see everything possible, but the big three are ZPD, ZMS, and ZFD, with the US Air Force, army, and navy directly below.
I let out a low whistle, taking in the sight, Shawn is doing something similar next to me. Logan chuckles.
"My friend is former New Zealand Air Force, decided we needed a bar where we can talk to people that also lived in the service. All the employees are either retired or veterans, Oswald outside is the exception, nobody knows what he did, or what his last name is actually, we got a betting pot over there, whoever gets it out of him gets the money." He points at a large glass drum, same size as a oil drum, half filled with cash of various currencies.
I spy our graduating class over in the corner, everyone seated at a large table, already drinking. I stroll over, plopping down next to Jessica with Shawn pulling a chair up.
"Ey, Engi, was waiting for you to show up!" Nick says, his girlfriend next to him. "Who's yer friend, is it Yer date?" He finishes with a smirk, getting a punch from the rabbit.
"Nah, this is Shawn, Trauma Surgon at ZGH and my roommate." I inform, presenting the grey fox that is Shawn.
"Yo." He simply states, leaning back in his chair.
"So, who's the unknowns to me at this table?" I ask, pointing to several people I don't know.
"Alright, if my memory serves me well..." Nick begins. "This bundle of fur next to me is Judy, the girlfriend that Bogo must not know about and the Tiger next to Jessica is Jared, Jessica's brother.
"Hey, let me guess, Fire department?" I ask, pointing at Jared.
"And you'd guess correct. Let me guess, Jessica dropped some hints?"
"Yea, she said you were emergency services, and your muscles are too big for you to be an EMT."
We go back and forth for a while, I admire the dozens of photos on the walls around us, everything ranging from graduation pictures from the academy, to old black and white photos of military units.
"This place get much traffic from War Veterans?" I ask Logan, who is sipping on a beer.
"Yea, infact, those three over there at the bar." He informs, pointing at a greying wolf, a greying tiger, and a greying bear at the bar. "Second world war vets, but here's the kicker, wolf is German and the other two are British."
"Enemies who became friends?" I ask.
"Story is, the brits were fighter pilots that got shot down over the Channel during the blitz, and the wolf was the sole survivor of a bomber that was shot down, the three of em shared a raft for two days before the winds blew them ashore in France. Rest of the story is standard, German patrol finds three severely dehydrated and injured guys washed ashore on a beach, German broke his leg in the process so he gets sent home cause he can't fly and the brits spend the rest of the war in a POW camp, they reunite after the war, all move to America, and get drinks every friday night."
"How sweet."
"They all told me that for the first thirty minutes they were aiming pistols at one another, all knowing they wouldn't fire due to being waterlogged." Logan laughs into his drink.
I smile, taking a sip of my drink and pointing to another guy at the bar who is talking with a kangaroo.
"Hey, What's the story with that sika deer?"
"Mr. Kamayashi, bombing wave over Port Arthur, shot down, captured, had to be stopped from killing himself." Logan says saying the last part while taking a drink.
"That's bushido for you."
"I see you know your history."
"History nerd, specifically World War Two."
I go back to looking at the pictures around me, after another half hour we all decide to head home.
- Day One -
I may not be intimidated easily, but walking into the first day of your job is real damn nerve racking. I sigh, stepping out of my 1970 Challenger and closing to door behind me, I made sure to arrive two hours early and park it next to the staff entrance. I did the typical Andy first day guy thing to do, go straight to the place I needed to be way too early. This lead to me sitting in the back of the 'bullpen' as I was told it was called, looking at my phone for the next hour and fifty minutes.
I look up from my phone, hearing the door open again, finding White and Murphy walking in and spotting me.
"Who the hell has the kind of money to own a damn 1970 Challenger? The thing is stunning." White laments, seated next to me. All the while I'm grinning internally.
"Hey Cameron, how was your weekend?" Ethan asks, taking a seat.
"It was good actually, I decided to play video games all weekend." I reply honestly.
"Better then what I did, I just waited nervously for today."
I chuckle, slipping my phone into my pocket and sitting up.
"Anyway what are you two hoping for on your first day." I ask, leaning on the table.
"Anything but parking duty, trust me boys, just pray it ain't parking duty." Says a passing timber wolf, who stops to talk to us.
"Was that your first assignment?" Ethan asks.
"Yep, a whole two weeks of it, could be worse, it ain't a desk job. Wolford by the way, Arron Wolford." He says extending a paw for a handshake, to which we all accept.
"Good luck boys, Yer gonna need it." He says, turning and sitting next to tigress, though I notice they sit a little closer together then normal, I rub my forehead wondering how many of these 'secret' couples there are.
I notice a door at the front of the room open, and the Chief wall in, everyone starts banging on the tables, leaving the trio of Ethan, Logan and I confused at the back.
"Alright, Alright, Settle down." The Chief says, looking at a folder he places on the podium infront of him. "I would welcome our new recruits, being Wilde, Robertson, Murphy, White, Manning, and Fowler, who are all expected to do great, but don't really care." He announces with a smirk, earning some chuckles from around the room. "Alright. Wolford, Fangmeyer, undercover in Savanna Centeral, suspected drug dealer near the train station. Delgado, Grizzoli, someone has been breaking into shipping containers down at the docks, deal with them. McHorn, Rhinowitz, suspected fight club in the Rainforest District, find it and survey. Francine, Higgins, string of convenience store robberies in the Medowlands, catch the robbers. Robertson, White, with Wolford and Fangmeyer. Murphy, with Delgado and Grizzoli, Manning, Fowler, with Francine and Huggins. Hopps and Wilde, Parking Duty.
Everyone cringes at the final assignment, and the two look crushed.
"Kidding, street racer downtown, shut them down." He says with a smirk, everyone breathing a sigh of relief for the two.
"Dear god, I almost had a heart attack." I hear Nick say as he strolls by.
I wander out to the parking lot, finding several officers around my Challenger. "No, it can't be Wilde's, he's too smug to not tell anyone about it." One of the officers says as I pass by.
"If you scratch her, you pay triple what it costs to repair." I comment, catching the gaze of several officers.
"Oh so it's Robertson's, Yea that I can live with." I hear before I hop in the drivers seat of a cruiser. "Wolford, you lead the way, and tell me where to go." I say over the radio, watching their cruiser pull out infront of me.
I follow the cruiser through the streets, eventually finding myself parked infront of the train station, watching Wolford and Fangmeyer try and bait out the drug dealer.
"You'd think they'd come out and ask if I wanted to buy some crack." Fangmeyer comments over the radio.
"I know right, it's almost like they don't want to be caught." I reply, seeing Wolford laugh in the distance, which he plays off as talking on the phone.
Twenty minutes later White and I resorted to playing eye spy, whiles Wolford and Fangmeyer were pretending to be business mammals.
"Eye spy something with my little eye, something that is green." White says as I watch the street.
"Is it the grass?"
"No."
"Is it the traffic light?"
"No."
"Is it the shirt that Wolford is wearing?"
"Yes."
"Oh dear god something happen." I ask aloud, leaning back into my seat.
Just then a red car zooms by, with a ZPD cruiser right behind it.
"Z018 to Z721 you need backup with that?" White asks over the radio, spying the number on the cruiser.
"No, they're pulling over, we're two blocks West if we need backup." Comes Nick's reply over the radio.
I sigh, letting my head fall forward onto my chest. I then look back at Wolford, who is talking with a sheep.
"Ohhh I think we got a biter." I say, looking at them closer.
Wolford and the sheep appear to be talking in hushed tones, and eventually saunter off towards an alley across the street.
"Man, we've only been here an hour." White says, picking the radio back up. "Fangmeyer, you watching Wolford, we don't have eyes on him."
"I have eyes, be ready to mov- AND He sucker punched Wolford, I got Wolford you go after the sheep!" She commands, I see the sheep run out of the alley, running for the subway.
I jump out of the cruiser, running after the sheep, by the time I make it across the street, he's already going down the stairs into the subway. I rub to the stairs, hollering for people to make a hole, reaching the bottom to find a filled platform, but to my advantage there's only one way out.
"Robertson to Fangmeyer, hows Wolford?" I say into my radio, keeping my hand on my taser.
"We're headed your way, punch only stunned him." I get my reply, "Is the suspect in cuffs?"
"Negative, he's hiding in a crowd, gonna need backup." I reply, scanning the crowd and finding only one sheep, towards the front of the group near the far end. After about twenty seconds, I get my backup, and the four of up begin to close in on the sheep.
"Sheep wearing the grey hoodie, put your hands up and get on your knees!" Fangmeyer announces, the crowd backing off as we make a semi-circle around the sheep.
The sheep turns around in a panic, finding two tasers, a tranquilizer pistol and a balistic pistol aimed at them.
He looks down the tracks before jumping backwards, standing on the tracks and waiting for a train.
I look to my right and see a train no more then three hundred meters down the line.
"SIR GET OFF THE TRACKS!" Wolford orders, still aiming at the sheep.
Thinking fast, I holster my taser and jump down with the sheep, grabbing him and forcing him to the ground, before hitting the deck myself just before the train passes over us. I unholster my taser, putting it to the sheep.
"You try something funny before this train moves and I'll shock your ass. Got it?" I ask sarcastically, to which the sheep nods slowly.
After about thirty seconds the train moves along and I haul the sheep to his feet, tossing him up to the others. White puts the guy in cuffs and begins reading him his rights as Wolford and Fangmeyer help me up.
"Great thinking." Fangmeyer says, keeping me a bit back from her.
"I'm covered in grimy dirt ain't I?" I ask rhetorically, looking down to find myself dirtier then anything.
"Yeeep, which means you're sitting in the back while Fangmeyer drives, and I'll go with White." Wolford informs, going to follow Logan.
"Here." Says a subway worker, handing me a towel, which I happily accept, wiping off my face before handing it back.
"So what gave you the idea to jump down there?" Fangmeyer asks.
"Officer Fangmeyer, honestly, I got no idea." I reply, looking at the few looks I am getting.
"If the Chief ain't around, call me Laura." She informs, opening the back seat of the cruiser for me.
"Laura Fangmeyer and Arron Wolford, two first names down, about a dozen to go." I reply, sliding over to the passenger side of the cruiser.
"Yeaaaaa..."She says somewhat weirdly.
"Yea, you can tell I know?" I ask.
"How'd you figure it out?" She inquires as we pull away from the train station.
"The way you two sat together in the bullpen, also the fact your tails were wrapping around each other's."
"You going to tell Bogo?"
"I haven't told on Hopps and Wilde yet."
"Wait what?"
"Ahhhh shit."
"Since when?"
"I figured it out when my academy class caught them going at it in the showers."
"Dammmmmn."
After the rest of the short drive she lets me out of the back.
"You better not tell anyone. Nick swore the class to secrecy." I inform, opening the staff enterance.
"Yea, that ain't going to be an issue." She says, pointing into the break room, where the pair are lip locked.
"The Chief has cameras all over the station right?" I ask.
"Yep, he's probably watching them right now, let's go ask Clawhouser." She says, walking over to the welcome desk with me in tow.
"Hey Ben, you seen the show?" She asks the cheetah st the desk.
"Yep, absolute lip lock. Almost as good as you and Arron in the storage closet." He says with a smug grin.
"How many people know?" Fangmeyer asks dejected.
"Prettty much everyone. Chief included."
"Wonder why he hasn't talked to us about it."
"Probably because he doesn't care as long as it doesn't affect your work."
"Makes sense." I input.
"He- wow what happened to you?" Ben asks.
"Subway, suspect on the tracks, oncoming train." I abbreviate.
"Showers are over there." He points down a hall.
"Thank you."
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And the drama begins, what will happen to our daring hero, will he rise above the common officer, or will he join them and become as effective as them?
We all know which one will happen.
