Summary:
Nick and Wolfard share a drink over grading papers when Miki drops a surprise call on an unsuspecting Nick, while across town Hugo tries to figure out a mystery at the Tundra Town hospital while Judy dances the night away in City Center with the Assistant Mayor of Zootopia.
Zootopia Police Academy
BZZZZZ…. BZZZZZ…..
Nick's paw phone went skittered across his cluttered academic desk like a drunken beetle searching for rotten fruit among the fallen leaves. Nick scowled at the spasming brick of plastic and glass, his brows furrowing as if he were trying to will it to silence, but the little machined only denied him his solace.
BZZZZZ…. BZZZZZ…..
Wolfard, his glass raised to his muzzle, paused to fix a single eye upon his younger protege, and mummered quietly, "Aren't you going to get that?"
Nick's eyes snapped over his mentor's face in disgust as the old wolf tilted his muzzle back and drained his tumbler of whiskey dry. His ears, however, tracking the miscreant device with unerring accuracy, as he snapped his left paw out and slapped it down on the writhing little beast. Flipping it quickly over, he dispatched it with a practiced thumb claw, and drew the phone up to the side of his head, where upon he drawled in the phone a long greeting undercut with a tint of resignation and over laid with a twinge of sarcasm.
"Hello, Miki."
"Hello, beloved husband." His speaker whispered back in his ear. "How are you this evening? How is your leg?"
"I'm fine just sitting here on my ass, and my leg itches. I can't wait to get this damn cast off."
"You need to remember to stay off it as much as possible so that it can heal properly. You've not been drinking, have you?"
Nick picked up his shot glass and stared at the offending liquid, "No, I'm not drinking. I'm grading papers."
Across from him, the old wolf dropped his paw to his lap and with a grin on his muzzle, he mouthed "Liar" back at Nick.
"Papers?" she asked.
"Term papers, yeah. It was the end of the quarter today, babe. I gotta get them done and graded, so I can get them posted." He held out his free paw and gave his chuckling partner the full bird.
"I'm sorry, I forgot. The day change still throws me off, sometimes. I'm still getting used to it."
"The life and times in the Sunset Isles, I guess. So what's up? I didn't expect you to call until the morning." He asked her.
"Oh, Grandfather is taking us out to dinner with family, and I don't think we will be free again until late in the evening, so I took the opportunity to call my beloved shujin." (*literally meaning master/owner*)
Nick coughed under his breath. It always bothered him when she called him that – he never knew exactly how to respond, so he deflected a bit, "Is that why you asked about drinking? He been hitting the sauce while you're there?"
"No, he has not. I think the presence of your mother mostly deters that awful habit of his. He's certainly been on his best behavior every time he has been around her. Although that may not last the night."
"Let me guess – your cousins are going to be there."
"Yes. And they will be drinking, I can tell you that, and before the night will be out they will make complete jackasses of themselves." He heard her sigh on the other end. "And Grandfather will just sit there like stone, chewing on his cheek, before finally exploding at them for being drunken hooligans unworthy of the family honor." She paused for moment before continuing, "I'm not sure what he expects, though, when he hosts these family get together. Foxes and alcohol never mix well."
Nick reached back and scratched the back of his head, his muzzle twisted into a grimace of guilt. "He doesn't blow up at you?" he asked her.
"No, because I don't drink. I know better. I know what alcoholism does to your liver and brain. No thank you." She snorted in derision.
"Well, there you go. He should just give you the company and be done with it. You're obviously the sensible one." He suggested to her.
She laughed lightly, "Me? You're kidding, right? Give control of Kitsune Sangyo, the third largest conglomerate in the Sunset Isles, to a female? They would eat me alive! I'm a nurse! I know nothing about running a giant multi national corporation! Besides that, Grandfather is nothing if not traditional. He would never do that - he wants the company to go to a suitable male heir."
She paused for a moment, "If he can find one worthy..."
Nick scowled on the other end, but before he could could add in his opinion Miki interrupted him, "Oh, my aunts are here to take us to lunch! I'll call you back, okay?"
"Umm.. Okay," Nick stammered, but she was already gone. He looked at the phone for a moment, his brown arched in confusion, before laying it back down on the desk.
"Gah..." He buried his face in his paws. He sighed and dropped his arms to the table. "You know what?" He asked his partner rhetorically, "I would love to help you look for a lost otter."
"What? Now?" Wolfard was taken aback by the sudden change in Nick's behavior.
"Yeah, now." Nick swept his arms over the piles of paper work, "I'm just not in the mood to grade papers right now. It can wait till morning." Nick slide off his chair, grabbing his cane from the edge of the desk and started hobbling to the door.
Wolfard cocked his head for a moment, before turning to slide off his chair. He reached out and set his empty glass next to Nick's, still filled with whiskey, and paused to look at the two glasses.
"You coming?" Nick called from the door.
"Yeah..." Wolfard lingers just a breath more, a worried frown creasing his brow, before turning to follow his partner out the door. He pondered the nearly untouched dram of whiskey on the desk.
Nick always finishes his drink when he's drinking with me, just to prove he can keep up with me. What did Miki tell him that would make he leave that untouched, and in such a hurry to get away from here?
Tundra Town Hospital, Security
"Huh..." Rargyra murmured as he watched the screen that perched on his oaken desk. "They certainly look like orderlies."
Hugo leafed through a stack of printouts on a clipboard, "I don't see any names that strike me as particularly canine on this duty rooster."
"Well, that doesn't really mean that much these days, you know." Rargyra turned to look down at the diminutive jungle cat standing next to his desk. "You and I are immigrants from beyond the Commonwealth, and as such we retain much of our home countries – including a cultural identity and the names that go with that identity. But Zootopia has been a melting pot of cultures and species for hundreds of years. The names have gotten somewhat muddled." He pointed out.
Hugo grimaced, but his rejoinder was stalled by a tapping at the door. "Come!" Rargyra called out.
The door opened, and a hairy rhino in the white uniform of the hospital security leaned his head in to the office. "Hey Boss. So… We check every mammal on that list, and they're all at their duty stations. Not one of them is a wolf." He shook his head. "None of the other nurses we checked with know who those two are."
Rargyra grunted in frustration. "Thanks for checking, Badak." the director told him. With one eye on the smaller cat who looked back up at him with a pinched expression on his face, the large ox gave the rhino another order. "Could you pass those photos on to the other network hospitals? Maybe they would recognize them?"
The rhino bobbed his head, "Sure thing, boss!" He closed the door.
Hugo slid the clipboard back on to the desk as the large bull leaned back in his creaking chair. "Sorry, Doc… I had hoped it was something simple. A miscommunication or a misplaced transfer order. Something." He waved a hoof at the screen, drawing Hugo's attention back to the grid of different video streams from around the hospital. "I can tell you what they're not, though." Rargyra continued. "They aren't some gang bangers looking to help their mate skip out of the bill. They knew what they were doing. They belonged!"
Hugo pinched his brows together, "They certainly didn't belong here!"
Rargyra leaned back in his great creaking chair, and rubbed his tired bovine brow with a massive hoof. "That's not what I meant. I mean they acted like the belonged." He elaborated for the smaller cat. "Folks will question things that don't belong, but general speaking individuals will be afraid to call out somebody who's acting like they belong, even if they're not somebody the individual recognized." He sucked in his lower lip for moment as he pause to consider his words, "These two were trained. Trained to do this."
"What do you mean?" Hugo's natural cat curiosity began to surface.
"What do I mean? I mean look at them, Doc, really look at them!" He pointed at the screen closest to them, "Look at their body language. It's right there. Hell, You're the one who teaches my guards mammalian body language! It's not like I should have to point this all out to you, of all mammals."
Hugo put down the clipboard of names and turned his attention to the screens, watching the footage of the two wolves pushing the patient bed down the hallway toward the ER loading bay. They didn't even pause at the automatic door, their exit pace timed to allow them them trough the sliding doors without even pausing on the mat. He spoke, running through his observations, "They are comfortable in those uniforms, no tugging or squirming, nor do they talk to each other. Just a glance and slight head tilt, and they communicate volumes. Yes, they are trained, and not only that, they have also trained together long enough to silently communicate." He tilted his head in consideration, "Who could have trained them?" he wondered out loud.
"That kind of training?" Rargyra shrugged, "The military, obviously. Certain government agencies, I suppose. Private security companies might, but they usually just poach from the military."
"What about the police?" Hugo turned to him.
The bull snorted, "Ha! You don't know Bogo. I mean, I know where you're coming from, because I used to live in a country just like that, but not here. Not Bogo." He shook his head in amusement, "No, Bogo would just storm in, his officers trailing along like a tidal wave of blue rip stop nylon, and just glower at you until you silently read his mind and cough up who ever he's looking for. Not that we would, mind you." He hastened to reassure the cat, "We'd demand a warrant, and after a second or two of steam, Bogo would probably relent. But he's gotta stand and stomp first." He shrugged his shoulders and shook his head. "He's just not the sneaky type."
"And the others?" Hugo pressed him.
"The security companies would just stonewall and threaten us with lawyers. The agencies would be more… slippery… Huh." He pursed his lips again, "I've still got some friends in the Commonwealth military, I could ask around, pass the photos on, see what they say." He offered.
"Maybe..." Hugo leaned back as he began to consider the implications of this kind of snatch and grab. He was no stranger to the idea of mysterious forces snatching mammals from their homes, work place, or the street. Or even, pray tell, their hospital bed. It was a common enough occurrence in the corrupt heart of Amazonia, a possibility that he had grown unaccustomed to here in the center of mammal enlightenment. Perhaps it was a wake up call…
"Actually, about the police, I mean." Rargyra paused for a moment, "If this turns out to be a kidnapping, we're gonna have to tell them." He gestured with his jaw at the door, "I got my guys checking around, cause right now it looks like a patient transfer gone wrong. But you and I know better, and come morning, so will the rest of Zootopia as all the hospital they're talking to start asking questions back." He looked down at his paws, "If this was the police, or heaven forbid some other government agency, well, that's a different story." He sighed, "I hate this. I really do. I thought I had left these kinds of suspicions back home in the Veld, that something like this could never happen here. I mean, this is Zootopia, the shining jewel of the United Commonwealth of Zoonia. We're above that kind of mistrust and corruption."
He took a deep breath and let out a sigh, "I don't even know who to talk on that side of the fence, if the ZPD is in fact that corrupt." He turned look down at Hugo, "Do you?" He asked the cat.
"Maybe." Hugo allowed.
"Maybe?" Rargyra snorted, "They'd have to be better than maybe. They'd have to be an honorable mammal, for sure. Honorable, and honest. But sneaky, I suppose, if they were to survive in that environment. And for our purposes they'd have to be a good investigator, careful, but thorough. Not some beat cop just out to get his time card punched, you know." He glanced back at Hugo.
Hugo looked back at him, a light gleaming in his eye and small smile tugging at his muzzle.
"I think I know just the one..."
Club Mynx
DJ Dedmouse was spinning the tracks as the whole dance floor shook with the deep bass beat of his latest set. Well, as much as any mouse could spin a record larger than his house. That's what the Kuka robot arms were for, she supposed, their brilliant safety paint flashing bright orange as the strobes caught their movement.
Judy sat at a low table just off the side of the dance floor, waiting for Dawn. They had been in the middle of the set, grinding up the dance floor when something had caught the little ewe's eye and she abruptly stopped dancing. She had taken Judy by the paw and lead her to sit at the table, leaving her there wait while she ran to the females WC.
Judy stared at the ewes retreating back, her thoughts turning dark. I should have gone with her, made some excuse or something, play a little grab tail even. The bathroom would be a great place to end her. The stalls would give great privacy, and the music would hid any noise of struggle, not that she'd give much of one. She's got a pencil neck – one swift kick to the throat and she'll be down with a crushed windpipe. Then all I have to do is wait for death to finally find her. Hell, if we got a large mammal stall, I wouldn't even have to worry about hiding the body! I could have just flushed her down the drain, along with all the rest of the Zootopian sewage, and nobody would have been the wiser...
Judy blinked in surprise, her train of thought finally run to it's terrible conclusion. Cheese and Crackers! She exclaimed to herself. When did I get so blase about another mammal's death? When did it get so easy to contemplate murder? I was a cop in another life, for cheese's sake. I upheld the law, not broke it left and right in pursuit of justice like I was some secret agent with a license to kill. She snorted, and took another sip from yet another carrotini.
Some secret agent you are, Judy Hopps. You're not trained for this shit, unless you can count be trussed up and experimented on like some lab lizard for years at the worst mental institution in the Commonwealth, drugged up to your eyeballs and… and… lab? Shit, shit, shit! LAB! I forgot about the fucking LAB! I forgot all about it! What the hell happened to Doug's lab? What did she do with it? Mammals are still disappearing, which means Lionheart's having them grabbed before their savage episodes make the evening news. If they're still going savage, that means Doug still making the blue pellets, except where now?
Damn Alcohol… Slowing down my thinking… Damnit! That means I can't kill her now. She's my only lead.
Judy's eyes narrowed as a scowl set in her muzzle. She stare across the dance floor as Dawn came out of the female facilities. The ewe was adjusting her head wool as she walked back to Judy through the crowd, but halfway there she was stopped by a larger ram who bent to talk in her ear. Judy tried to pick up what they were saying with her lapin ears, but the combination of music, many mammals voices, and alcohol blunted her efforts. She had to settle for trying to lip read the males urgent whispers.
The ram's eyes flicked up to look at her and noticed the intensity of her gaze. He locked gaze with her eyes, staring back at her unblinking, almost daring her to turn away. She cocked her head, as a hint of recognition in those actions tickled at the back of her gin addled brain. That ram… Who is he? Why does he seem familiar? She wondered.
Across the club, Billy's pupils twitched as he felt the strength of her eyes slide across his features. They carried a palitible weight he had not experienced in years. He looked up and returned her gaze with steady poise, until she cocked her head. A flicker of fear shiver down his back as his as he recognized that gesture, his loins clenching in anticipation of pain delivered at the end of a rabid rabbit's well placed foot.
"Boss, that rabbit..." He stumbled to get that much out of his mouth.
Dawn turned to look back at Judy, and she waved reassuringly at the doe. Turning back to the ram she asked him, "Jessica? What about her?"
"Those eyes..." He trailed off.
"Oh, the purple? Contacts, my dear. She used have red eyes for the longest time, some time emerald green, but mostly red." She tried to explain, missing what he was driving at.
He shook his head, shaking off the itch, "Purple. They've always been purple." He looked back down at the small ewe, "Boss, do you know who you've been dancing with all night?"
"J.J? Her fur might not be dyed like it used to be, but that's still Jessica Lapin under that gorgeous gray fur. Did you see how she was dancing?" She grinned at the memory.
"Dancing…?" He sputtered, "Boss, That's not no porn star over that." He jerked his jaw across the room, "That's not Jessica anything. That there is Judy Hopps!" Dawn looked at him blankly, so he added, "Judy Hopps? From Bunnyburrow? The Predator Killer of Bunnyburrow?" He held his hoof out to point back at Judy.
The ewe turned as comprehension finally began to dawn, "Really?"
He shook his head, "Yeah, boss. I'm sure. I've seen those eyes before."
A grin began to spread itself across Dawn's features as she exclaimed,
"Oh, my!"
Zootopia Police Headquarters
Hugo stood just inside the lobby doors, unsure of where he should go next. The hour was still early, the pre-dawn gloom still holding firm over the city scape. The foot traffic in the lobby was non-existent, as most of the city's citizens were still sleeping their sins off. Even the light were turned down low, as if the building itself was sleeping.
Getting here had been the easy part, as all Zootopian citizens knew where the ZPD headquarters were, right on the periphery of Civic Central park, just across from City hall. He had talked often enough with the officer at Fennick's annual birthday bash to know that the fox worked in this building, but in truth he didn't know which department he might be in, or if he even was on duty that day.
I should have called ahead. He thought to himself. It had seems like such a fine idea at the hospital, but now that he was here he was having second thoughts. I don't even know what shifts he works. I should have called Fennick first.
A voice called out of the gloom, "Can I help you, sir?"
Momentarily startled, Hugo's eyes cast about searching while his feline ears locked onto the sound and brought his head around to look at the central of the room. There, behind the desk, a masked mammal peered back at him.
"Can I help you?" They asked again.
Hugo stopped his wool gathering, and strode over to the central desk. He peered up at the female raccoon looking down at him with a slight sense of confusion. She wore the standard blue button down uniform shirt with the ZPD badge emblazoned on her right shoulder and left breast, but there was no name tag on the right side, or rank mark on her other shoulder. "Hello, Officer… Um..."
She waved an easy paw at him, "Oh, I'm not an officer, mister. I'm just the graveyard shift dispatcher."
"Uh.. Okay..." He looked around for moment, "I thought there was an officer normally at this desk..."
"Yeah, during the day, sure. Sargent Clawhauser usually pilots this desk during the weekday, but at night they try to have all their officers on duty also out on patrol. So ya get me instead. You here to make a report of something?" She asked him.
"Well, I had wanted to talk to an officer, but I don't know if he's working tonight. I seem to recall that he did work nights, but I don't know it that's currently the case. I should have called ahead."
"Which officer, sir? If he's on duty, I can give him a buzz on the radio and see if he can swing by the station."
"Oh, I don't think he'd be on patrol. I think he was injured or something, may doing desk duty. His name is Nicolas Wilde."
She had been rooting through the night's duty roster clipboard but stop as soon as he mentioned the name. She put the clipboard down, and smiled at him gently, "Sorry, he's not here. He's doing a tour over at the Academy, teaching during the day. I suspect he's off duty now."
"Are you sure?" Hugo blurted out.
"Quite sure." She reassured him, "Although his regular partner might still be on duty. Sargent..."
"Wolfard." Hugo finished for her. He knew exactly who that mammal was.
"Oh? So you do you want me to call him, see if he's available?"
Hugo's face froze for moment. This wasn't the brightest idea after all. He thought to himself, I wanted to talk to Nickolas, not some ZPD wolf officer about two other wolves kidnapping yet another wolf, possibly rabid, from a city hospital. Maybe I should just call him? Fennick should have his number – if he was still up, that is.
But before he could demur on her offer, he heard a slight click like wood on stone and the murmur of canine voices carrying down a side hallway. The raccoon heard it too, and quickly turned her head to look down the hallway. Her eyes widened as she recognized the source, and with an easy grin, she called out, "Hey! Wolfard! Wilde! Got some cat here to see ya!" She pointed with an outstretched claw at Hugo.
From the gloom of the darkened hallway came two canines at a slow pace. The shorter one was limping along with a cane and a cast on one leg, making him look decidedly lopsided. They both returned the raccoon's easy grin.
"Heya, Emily. How's things?" Nick asked her.
"Quiet," She replied, "Whacha doing out this way? Isn't it term night or something?" she asked him.
"Yeah, but a mammal can only take some much grading before his head turns to mush and he goes bonkers." He nodded over at his taller partner, "So I decided to save what little sanity I had left and come visit the condemned."
"Condemned?!" Wolfard replied indignantly, "Bogo swore it was just a temporary assignment, at least until my lackadaisical partner can get around to help out in the real world again."
"Laci-what?" He gave the older wolf the stink eye, "Grandmother, what big words you have tonight! What, you've been waiting all night to use that impressive vocabulary after you read it in the daily crossword puzzle?"
"A-Hurmph…" Emily cleared her throat, and pointed back down at Hugo.
Chastised, the two officers ceased their mock bickering and turned to face him. Nick eyes went wide, and he smiled down at the smaller cat. "DOC! As I live and breath. What brings you out our way?"
With all three pairs of eyes now staring at him intently, Hugo fought for a moment to over come the irrational urge to call the whole thing off. He swallowed, and drew himself up. "Something has come up, and I was hoping I could get your professional opinion."
Nick spread his paws and exclaimed, "Certainly! What do you need?"
Hugo gestured with his paw at the three of them somewhat nebulously, "In private."
Placing both paws on his cane, Nick forward, "Certainly. Wolfard's got an excellent office down in the basement! Would you care to lead the way, Sargent?" He asked Wolfard.
"By your Command, Corporal." Wolfard slide back, turning as he did to walk to the elevators. Nick began stumping after him, leaving Hugo standing by the desk, wondering if he had the courage to follow a wolf and a fox down into their dark lair.