When Agent Jack Savage failed to find Dr. Slothfeld's Data Disk in a stinking dumpster close to the ruined Arctic House, his patience, normally as cool as the blue ice of his eyes, began to wear thin. When he found a white neck pillow bearing more than a passing resemblance to Agent Alyssa Skyefall's thighs, his patience went from thin to non-existent.

"Oh for God's sake!" He snapped and flung the pillow out of sight. "She was trained in sexpionage, of course she'd be good!"

He immediately felt stupid for uttering the same phrase Felix Llater had invented while drunk in a bar one night. His ZBI contact had been unable to deliver any news of the whereabouts of Slothfeld and his disk, but he wasn't without news. Swinton and her cohorts were utterly in the dark as to the whereabouts of Nicholas Wilde and his fellow fugitives Finnick and 'Cass Tile,' which was fortunate for all involved with the Battle of Arctic House. In fact, the hunt for the one predator to recover from his savage state was gradually becoming second priority.

The Battle of the Artic House had started something, and it wasn't just the bloody gang war taking lives every day. The diminutive ewe Dawn Bellwether was doing everything in her power to turn the citizens against Swinton, including publishing some rather controversial articles. The article of the 'Musth' incident had been the start. Then there was the article politely vilifying one of Swinton's supporters for unknowingly funding Wilde's illegal collar-removal operation, which had almost certainly triggered those gruesome savage attacks. Then there was the article detailing everything they knew about the mysterious disappearance of Sedor Valentino two years ago and the primes suspect behind it, Mr. Big; the implications within the article that City Hall had allowed the rivalry between Big and Koslov to reach boiling point had not sit well with the readers. Every day since the Tundratown civil war started the Meadowlands Gazette had put out a new article, each one giving at least one reason why City Hall was at fault for everything going wrong. Jack had done everything he could to stay out of that mess in the eight or nine days since the shootout, up to and including avoiding prowling journalists like the plague. In fact he seldom watched the news anymore. Instead all his news came from the undercover ZBI agent in City Hall or the arctic vixen from ZI6.

There was a loud rattling sound as Agent Alyssa Skyefall emerged from behind a hollowed microwave holding the shapely neck pillow. "Could you explain to me why I just got hit in the head with a pillow?"

Jack chuckled. "Sorry about that."

"Ah, don't worry about it. I'll take a pillow to the head over a gun any day." Alyssa tossed the pillow over her shoulder. She was wearing a green sweater today, a change from her usual red. Jack preferred her in red. For God's sake, you're a ZIA agent! Act like it!

"No luck either, I take it?" He asked.

"No. This was the last place the disk could have ended up." Alyssa sat down on a crumpled pizza box, sharing Jack's frustration. Every night they'd met up and come to the area where she'd lost the disk, picking a new spot to search every time. "You don't think the garbage truck picked it up, do you?"

"There hasn't been a garbage truck here since the entire street became a crime scene." Jack said. "No, someone must have picked it up."

"Honey searched the jam cams for hours, but didn't see anyone pick up a pirated Gazelle CD. If you're right, the disk may have ended up in one of the blind spots."

"Then we'll need to find out the identities of every mammal who entered this street during and after the shootout and check them out one by one. How long will it take for Honey to compile a list."

"A day, maybe longer if she has to hack the system again."

"Great. Come one, we should get out of here before we permanently stink of trash."

He and Skyefall were almost out the dumpster when his phone began to ring. Jack found that curious, for his conversations with Llater were always face to face. Then he saw the code name 'Bluebell' on the screen and suddenly remembered giving Officer Judy Hopps his contact number.

He held up a finger for Alyssa to be quiet and answered. "Hello?"

Judy cut right to the point. "Agent Savage, I need your help!"

Jack felt a jolt of dread. He'd warned her not to stick her head in. "What did you do?"

"Nothing! I need to find Nick Wilde!"

"Who is it?" Alyssa asked.

Jack ignored her, being more concerned with Judy's desperate tone. "Hopps, what happened?" Alyssa scowled upon learning who was calling.

"Didn't you know? A wolf in a trench coat tried to kill Clawhauser in his safe house. He almost killed Bogo, too! Wilde was telling the truth but I didn't believe him and now he's in danger!"

"Hopps, slow down!" Jack barked. "Are you saying that someone tried to kill Clawhauser and your superior?"

"What? Jack, talk to me!" Alyssa yelled.

"Yes! If I'd just believed him, none of this would have happened! I have to fix this, but I need your help!" Judy pleaded.

"Jack, tell me what's going on!" Alyssa snapped.

"Not now, Alyssa!" Jack snapped back.

Alyssa pursed her lips, wordlessly put her paw between Jack's ear and the phone and pressed the speaker button. "Yes now."

"Who is that?" Judy asked.

Feeling that he should know better by now, Jack resumed speaking. "This is Agent White. She's ZBI, too." Alyssa raised an eyebrow. Jack motioned for her not to say the truth. "I don't know where Wilde is by now, but I do know that he's safe. Seeking him out will just put him back in danger, and I know you never wanted that."

Alyssa leaned toward the phone. "Even before you discovered that foxes were capable of being honest after all."

The phone fell silent after that.

Jack glared at the vixen. "Stay out of this." Alyssa shrugged and stepped back. "Hopps, heed my advice. Don't go looking for Wilde. In fact, don't get involved at all. I told you the night we found those bodies, you're in over your head."

"It's too late for that." Judy's voice sounded weaker now. "I went back to my apartment after leaving the hospital and I'm sure someone broke in."

"What?"

"My apartment wasn't trashed or anything like that. But someone has obviously picked the lock. A few of my things were out of place, including my laptop. They may have been after that disk we found."

Jack clenched his teeth for a moment to bite back a response. An angry voice would do little to assure Judy at this point. "Have you told the police, yet?"

"Yes, Agent Savage."

"Good. Pretend that you think it's a random burglary, and don't give any indication that you know why you were targeted. The conspirators will hopefully think you are genuinely ignorant of what's going on and back off."

"Okay, I think that will work. What about Wilde?"

"Hopps, listen to me. Under no circumstances take Wilde back into custody. You do that, you're sending him to his death." Jack thought for a moment. "The best thing you can do for Wilde right now is leave him alone. If you insist on atoning for what you did to him, then I suggest you worry about ending the war in Tundratown. You'd be doing that fox a service by getting Koslov off his back."

"Alright… you're right… right." Judy breathed.

"It's not safe for us to be in contact for very long. Is there anything else you need to tell me?"

"Yes. Commander Cunninghorn was the wolf's accomplice. I bet he's up to his neck in whatever it is you're investigating."

Jack had seen enough of the rhino to not be surprised. "Understood. We'll talk again later. Stay safe, Hopps."

Jack hung up. His eyes, bright with amusement, locked with Alyssa's. "Agent Skyefall, you've had the expression of a kit caught with her paw in the strawberry jam since Hopps told us her apartment was broken into. I think you've got something to confess."

"I just wanted to make sure that she hadn't already found the disk before us." Alyssa grumbled, making Jack smirk. The vixen was clearly unhappy that in spite of her efforts her unscrupulous visit had been noticed. "She may not trust you enough to bring it back herself, especially if she finds out you lied to her. Why did you tell her you were ZBI?"

Jack climbed onto the edge of the dumpster and held out a paw to assist the vixen. "It was just in case she's ever questioned about me. ZBI deals with national threats. ZIA deals with international threats. Dr. Slothfeld is a foreigner, so if he finds out a ZIA agent is in the city, he'll realize we're on to him, take his research and disappear."

Alyssa took his paw, her paw enclosing around his like a cocoon. Jack tried to tell himself that the mildly electrifying effect on his heart was from rarely having any physical contact outside of a fistfight. So what if they'd spent most of that night in the Palm Hotel room with their fingers intertwined.

Bunny and vixen both dropped down onto the ground. "That can't be such a big deal. It was your people who found him in the first place." Alyssa said.

"We got lucky." Jack said. "If it wasn't for that email my contact intercepted, we never would have discovered that Slothfeld was still alive."

"So if we lose him now, he may as well be gone for good." Alyssa said as Jack turned toward the street to make sure they weren't being watched. "But both our organizations made it pretty clear that the disk is more important."

"Yes." Jack muttered under his breath. 'That's what I like least about this mission."

"What's that?" He heard Alyssa ask.

"Nothing." Jack said quickly. "We should leave before someone sees us together."

Alyssa strolled into Jack's line of sight with an irritatingly coy smile. "Why Jack, what is there to worry about? It's not as if something actually happened between us."

Jack let his emotions loose at last, shooting his companion an embarrassed and withering look. "Contact me as soon as Honey gets that list. Got it?"

Alyssa did a two-fingered salute. "You got it."

"I thought we were going to pretend that never happened." Jack said sternly.

"That happened?" Alyssa looked childishly innocent.

"You-" Jack held up his own paw, stopping himself. "Shut up and go away."

Alyssa's snickering followed him out the alley, and he was still stewing over his immature choice of words when he was back in his hotel room, waiting for a response from Felix Llater. His anger towards the vixen didn't last long. It rarely did nowadays, no matter how much they annoyed each other, even as their bickering mounted along with their frustrations. Honey's technical skills were their only hope, unless the incident at the penthouse unearthed some leads.

Like hell it would.

Jack didn't realize he was grinding his teeth as a sudden burst of anger made him tense up in his seat. The savage attacks had stopped, true, but the conspirators at large were far from finished. Jack, on the other paw, was completely stuck. He'd found the Data Disk. He'd held it in his paw, but circumstances had parted him from it before he could even report his success to HQ. Now here he was, reduced to scrounging through garbage until his recovery from his brush with anaphylaxis was complete. If his cohorts in ZIA heard of this, it would destroy the reputation he'd fought and killed to maintain. It was tedious, it was frustrating, and it was far too quiet.

Jack glared at the phone on the coffee table before him. He could see his future right in front of him. Miss Morton would delegate him to an office, probably a grey room in the precise shape of a cube, forced to eke out a miserable existence taking calls and listening to other agents' contributions to their country.

Why did this have to happen? He directed the question at the phone before him. Why now, when things far more important than his reputation were at stake? After everything he'd been through, why did fate pick now of all times to send another hurdle to trip him up?

Nothing. Not so much as a jingle from that stupid phone. Jack took a deep breath, contemplated sending the phone over the balcony, and exhaled.

"God, I need booze." Jack strode over to the bar and almost had a bottle in his paw when the phone finally rang. The rabbit took the bottle with him as he returned to the coffee table and answered. "Jack, it's Felix."

"Tell me what happened, Llater." Jack said.

Felix quickly filled in the gaps from Hopps' own report, including the description of the mystery mammal that had shut Wilde's wolf in the bathroom and the fact that Captain Bogo was the only other survivor of the attack. Jack closed his eyes tight at that last part and wondered how much Bogo's attempted murder was his fault for pointing out to him the flaws in Antlerson's testimony.

"There's something else." Felix said. "I was listening in through the bug I planted in Swinton's office, and I managed to get some info Woolton's replacement."

Jack opened his eyes. "Don't keep me in suspense, Llater."

"I didn't hear a name but he's definitely another prey mammal in disguise. Probably the ram with the code-name Mark II who sniped Koslov's limo."

"That makes sense. So he was behind the safe house attack?"

"Yeah. He sounded pretty pissed."

Jack shot to his feet. "He was in the office?!"

"Yep, and like I said, he was P, I, Double S, Pissed. He thinks Dr. Slothfeld was responsible for those predators showing up and ruining the hit."

The rabbit began to pace around the plush crimson carpet the table stood on. "And what did Swinton say to that?"

"Plenty actually, and most of it came from Slothfeld. Matter of fact, it explains a lot. A few months back, three staff members stole his Data Disk and released Sedor as a distraction. Slothfeld put his special collars on some of the other subjects and sent them off in pursuit, and they managed to track down and kill the traitors. He's had them hunting down Sedor and the disk ever since."

"That does explain a lot." Jack conceded, as a little bubble of hope began to expand inside him, forcing out the frustration that had been eating at him for days. "It explains why Dr. Lemming and Woolton were murdered. This isn't about tying up loose ends, this is about revenge."

"We don't know that Sedor was behind Lemming's death." Felix reminded him. "Anyway, that didn't satisfy Mark II, so Swinton called Dr. Slothfeld herself and put him on speaker."

Jack froze in the middle of the rug. "Slothfeld was on the line?"

"I had HQ check it before calling you. His voice matches recordings from Slothfeld's lectures before he disappeared."

"What did he say?!" Jack demanded. "Tell me, Llater!"

"He told Mark II the same thing he told Swinton. He sounded pretty calm about it, so I don't think you need to worry about him disappearing any time soon."

"Good. Good." Jack breathed, relieved. "What else?"

"Not much. Mark II told him that he didn't care how important the good doctor was to Swinton's conspiracy. If he or his freaks interfered with his mission again, he would, and I quote, 'put you and your cock in separate body bags and send them both back to Boarland.'"

"Charming." Jack said wryly.

"After that Mark II hung up on Slothfeld and then he and Swinton starting talking about going after Clawhauser again."

Jack felt a knot beneath the bubble of hope. "And?"

"And Commissioner Elba is refusing to divulge the location of the new safe house. It looks like Clawhauser's safe for now, but I'll let you know if that changes. Instead Swinton has given orders to hunt down Wilde and kill him, no matter what it takes. Now that they no longer know where Clawhauser is, they've re-switched targets."

"Darn it." Jack muttered. That put Mark II and Hopps on another collision course. Christ, this is why I warned her not to get involved!

"That's all I've got for you. I know it won't get you any closer to finding Slothfeld, I'm sorry."

"No, it's fine." Jack said. "No, scratch that. It's perfect."

"I'm not following." Felix said.

"Sedor's somewhere in this city, and he's just sane enough to talk. He's also got several other test subjects wearing mind control collars on this tail, also somewhere in this city."

"Ooooh…"

"Precisely. They may be just the mammals to tell us where Slothfeld is."

"… All you have to do is capture one." Felix stated grimly.

"Easier said than done, I know. But finding one will be the real challenge." Jack said, contemplating the dilemma even as he spoke. "It looks like cooperating with Agent Skyefall was a smart move after all."

Felix's tone took on a coy edge. "Speaking of which, Bisoniing saw you with her at the Palm Hotel the other night. How did it go?"

Jack felt a surge of shock and rage. "That's none of your business!"

Laughter burst from the phone in his paw. "You did?! You lucky bastard!"

The phone creaked in Jack's constricting fist. "We will speak again tomorrow."

"First thing in the morning!" Felix burst out through his laughter. "I want details, Jack! Copious details!"

Jack snarled straight at the receiver. "May I remind you that I have been trained in one thousand ways to kill?"

"Oh yeah? How many ways have you been trained to-"

Jack hung up then and there and reached for the bottle.