Three hours earlier…

"Christ on a stick." Bogo growled, the curse loud in the silence of the mine. After hours, perhaps days, of wandering through this underground maze, he'd found the way out. The rusty, rickety elevator beckoned him like the stairway to the Gates of Heaven, dirty lights shining like pearls.

Bogo checked his arm. The little cut he'd woken up had finally stopped bleeding, though the collar around his wrist was now stained red. A good omen, it seemed, and sure enough the elevator managed to take him to the surface without the cables snapping.

The controls on this end of the shaft were busted, but Bogo wouldn't go back down there for a president's ransom. The underground river had kept him alive, but he'd had the ominous sense of not being alone. Several times he'd heard the sound of leathery wings, but no matter where he'd looked he'd seen no sign of the flier. He'd heard other sounds too, dripping and crumbling, but the silence had been the worst part. Like the instant before a nut with a knife leapt out from an alleyway and gutted you before you could blink, only it lasted for a minute straight, and then ten minutes, before the silence was broken by a distant splash that could have been a bear's foot stepping into deep puddle.

But now he was out of the mine, and he could get back on track. He checked the sky. It was either dusk or twilight. He could have been in the mine for six hours, or an entire day, maybe even longer judging from how much he was craving long grass fries. It was raining as well, but it was so light he couldn't see it, only feel it sprinkling on his body. Bogo quickly scanned the area before pulling out his radio. Swinetown was so remote that getting a signal was unlikely, but he had to try. "Precinct One, come in. This is Captain Mansa Bogo. Precinct One, are you getting this?"

"… Bogo? Good God, I've been trying to reach you for days!"

Bogo exhaled loudly. Finally, a signal! And a strong one at that. "Chief Trunchbull, is that you?"

"Yes, it's me! Thank God you're okay! Where's the rest of your team?"

"They're still alive, I think. They were captured by the terrorists responsible for the attacks in the city. Speaking of which, I've figured out who they are, at least some of them."

"You have?"

"Yes, sir." Bogo sat down on a rock. "We encountered not only Sedor Valentino, but Maria Manchas, Stuart Levvar and Ryan Roarson. They mentioned a pack of wolves, and I think they may have been talking about the Bhediya siblings. I also saw two mammals in masks that I strongly suspect are Emmitt Otterton and Martin Liddel."

"… Mammals from the missing predator list." Trunchbull said softly.

"Exactly, sir. I suspect they've been on this mountain all along. Something's happened to them, sir. They were talking about torturing McHorn and Higgins once they track me down, and I don't think it's to get information out of them." Bogo shivered and looked up at the sky. "Sir, how long have I been out of contact?"

"Two, nearly three days. Where in God's name have you been?"

"Long story. I'll save it for the report." Bogo said. "I've been out of contact for so long because the satellite phone was busted and someone's activated a jammer. Since I'm talking to you, I assume I'm out of its range."

"A jammer? What kind of technology have these mammals been getting their paws on?"

Bogo looked at his collar. "I don't know, sir. I suppose we should be thankful to they don't have a nuke."

"Not funny. Where are you now?"

"I just escaped a mine and I think I'm near Swinetown. You may have heard of it."

Bogo heard the elephant sputter and a mug clattering on a hard surface."Swinetown?! But that's- Don't tell me the Commissioner sent you all the way out there!"

"Like I said, it's a long story. Please just send backup, sir."

"I-I'll inform the ZBI right away. In the meantime, I want you to find a place to hide. Do not engage the terrorists. I don't want any of that Bruce Woollis nonsense, do you understand?"

Bogo stared at the reflective puddles in the rain-soaked mud, pondering his answer. "Sir, I'm on Clawhauser's trail. I want to keep going before it gets cold."

"Oh, for God's sake!" Trunchbull suddenly snapped. "You're wasting your time, Bogo! If these predators are as insane as you say they are, then he's very likely dead."

"And if he isn't, I'd be condemning him to death by stopping the search." Bogo said. "This isn't like Wilde, sir. He's an innocent mammal and I can't just give up on him."

"He's an associate of Nicholas Wilde!"

"With no evidence of his involvement in the Wild Times scandal. If he was a beaver or a hippo we wouldn't be having this conversation."

There was a bang. Trunchbull must have hit the desk. "Captain, this is not up for discussion!"

"Chief-"

"Don't be a fool, Bogo. The cheetah is dead. Either the terrorists got him or Cunninghorn did. I want you to hide and stay put. That's an order."

Bogo slowly closed his eyes, hoof tightening around the radio, and thought of the night he'd met Benjamin beside the piano in Pottermass's library. "I hear you, sir."

"Good. The ZBI will be there as soon as possible. I'll contact you when it's clear and then we'll rescue Higgins and McHorn if it's not already too late. Stay safe, Bogo. Out."

Bogo slowly lowered the radio, turned his gaze from the soggy ground to the collar on his wrist. Racial hypocrisy was not the only thing he hated about TAME collars and the ideology that invented them. There was also the animosity and distrust it bred on both sides. As a whole, the ZPD had no-one to blame for themselves for the prejudice they endured, and the fact that Bogo had once shared their mindset was a shame that haunted him to this very day. He'd lost count of the number of instances that a predator reacted to his mere presence with subdued antipathy, defiant bravado, confrontational vitriol or intense fear, even when he had no quarrel with them. Again, the fact that he had occasionally deserved it still burned him with shame.

Benjamin Clawhauser had shown no such revulsion.

"Normally I'd rather be a coward than a fool." Bogo said to the radio, even though Trunchbull could no longer hear him. "But I suppose we're all fools here."

"But not all of us are mad."

Bogo shot up from the rock, arms swinging his gun in a crooked arc, until the barrel was pointed up at the cage-like tower containing the elevator. Perched on one of the metal beams was a bat in a red mask.

"Stuart Levvar." Bogo quickly turned his head left and right, expecting an ambush. No other masked predators came out to surprise him. He kept his gun on the bat, who made no move to evade the line of fire. "You really have no shame, do you?"

"Whatsoever do you mean by that, my dear fellow?" Levvar said.

Bogo rolled his eyes. "Your hoity toitery for one thing."

"Mr. Big paid my weight in gold for the information I provided. If you're a rich predator, an incredible rarity in this forbidding world, wouldn't you act like it?"

"There's also the fact that you appear to have upgraded yourself from informant to terrorist. What, being a blood-sucking snitch wasn't good enough for you?"

Levvar chittered, offended. "Snitching is for reprobates with a death wish. I, on the other wing, provide a service."

Enough of this bull, Bogo thought. "In that case, I want some information. Where's the cheetah?"

Levvar shrugged. "I haven't seen so much as a tessellation in weeks."

"Alright, I see how this is. How much?"

"I beg your pardon?"
"I'm not as fond of incessant four-dollar words as you are, how much for your information? Five years off your sentence? Fifty?"

Levver reached beneath his mask to scratch his chin. "One ounce."

Bogo almost lowered his weapon. "An ounce?"

Levvar pointed at Bogo, his claw lined up perfectly with the length of the buffalo's gun. "One ounce of your delectable plasma, straight from your appendage."

Bogo snorted. "Now you're doing it on purpose. What the hell is plasma?" Levvar said nothing, leaving the buffalo to figure it out for himself. "You're not serious."

"I'm a hematophagic Diaemus youngi. Of course, I'm serious."

"Well, you're sure as hell not sane." Bogo took a step forward, maintaining his aim. "How about this- you give me some answers, and I don't shoot you down from that tower."

Levvar leaned down, technically leaning up given that he was upside down. "How about this- I tell you where the youngster is, and you don't try to snipe me when I flutter off. Choose quickly, dear fellow, or the Red Knight will claim the prize."

He was getting on Bogo's nerves now. Even Cunninghorn's smug put-downs were less annoying than this bat's sanctimonious twaddle. "Just this once. Next time, I take you down."

Levvar chittered. "Agreed. You'll find him nearby. In a church midway through this forsaken municipality."

"Do you even know what municipality means?"

"Do you?"

"Never mind definitions, how do I know you're not bullshitting?"

"So, you don't know."

"Didn't say I didn't know. Just don't care." Bogo's hoof itched to pull the trigger. "I should have let you have at my arm, then I wouldn't have to listen to all this drivel."

Levvar snickered like an impish youth in an adult's body. "I've already had a taste of you."

Bogo's eyes widened. He sharply glanced down at the small incision on his arm, then back up at the bat.

"Oh, that is it!"

Levvar had a split second to dodge the dart. There was a tiny thunk as the dart hit something on its way past the bat's body, and the featureless mask tumbled to the ground like a bright crimson pebble. Levvar stared, eyes almost bulging, blood trickling from a little cut on the side of his jaw, at the livid buffalo as he started to reload.

Collar yellow with anger, Bogo reached down to grab another dart, intent on not missing a second time. He slid the dart in place, just as a shrill laugh reached his ears. Levvar's wings shook as they tightened around his body, which seemed bent double as he hung from the metal beam. He laughed and laughed, shiny, razor sharp teeth flashing orange in the dusk.

"You temperamental simpleton!" He cackled, even as blood trailed down the side of his face and dripped from the tip of one ear. "If you run half as well as you shoot, the Bandersnatch is going to have very lackluster evening!"

He flapped his wings and took off into the sky, laughing all the way.

Bogo almost pulled the trigger a second time, but then he realized he may need the dart. He lowered the weapon, then paused in thought.

"Perhaps I shouldn't have done that." He muttered, before turning to make the short walk into Swinetown.

He'd seen no pictures of Swinetown before or after it was abandoned, and he was underwhelmed when he finally laid eyes on the first part of the town. Beneath the unsettling atmosphere and decay, it looked like anytown, eighteen-fifty. Taking out his flashlight, Bogo scanned the first set of small wooden buildings. There didn't appear to be anyone about, but he wasn't that great a fool. He pressed on when he saw a distant church steeple protruding up from behind the houses, refusing to let the gnawing in his stomach distract him, until the full building came in sight. In the muddy plain that was the graveyard there were several sets of prints.

In an instant his copper senses started tingling. He slowed his speed to a crawl, arms frozen in an arrowhead shape as he kept his aim on the church doors. He never took his attention away from his surroundings; they were as bleak and eerie as everything else on this cursed mountain. He wished McHorn and Higgins were here to provide backup. He reached the doors and nudged one open with the gun.

Pitch black. Of course, it was. He pointed the flashlight around the interior of the church, stiffening when he saw fresh blood. The sight of it almost made him call Benjamin's name, but pragmatism warned him against that kind of stupidity. It also warned him against continuing on. He was on his own, with two weapons at most, with dozens of hostiles and no backup. But Benjamin had made it this far with even less than that. And so Bogo walked deeper into the church, slowly sweeping his gun and flashlight left and right.

A massive grey, blue and red shape leapt up into the flashlight, and Bogo had a nanosecond to recognize Cunninghorn beneath the blood and gore before the rhino grabbed him.

"Bastard…" He snarled, blood dribbling from the deep, gaping cut across his lips and cheek. "Both of you… bastards…"

Bogo's eyes turned up and down, taking in the bloody bites covering Cunninghorn's body. One had ripped an ear in half and reduced his eye to a bloody crater. "What happened?" Shock reduced Bogo's voice to a whisper.

Cunninghorn seemed to be pouring all his strength into holding Bogo in his grasp, forcing the buffalo to listen to his words. "Why couldn't he just let you go…"

Bogo regained his senses and shoved at the rhino. It was a lot easier than it should have been, and Cunninghorn staggered back against the altar. The rhino sank to the floor as Bogo advanced on him.

"Where is Ben?"

"Fucking Slothfeld… I gave him his lab rats on a silver platter, and this is how he repays me…"

Bogo reached down and grabbed Cunninghorn by his ragged shirt. The rhino was fading fast. "I won't ask again. Where. Is. Ben?"

Cunninghorn didn't answer. Bogo gritted his teeth and punched him in his ruined eye. The rhino howled, but it was the weak howl of a dying mammal. "Where is he? Tell me, or I'm leaving you for dead."

"Town Hall… in the back room… I'm telling you so Valentino can tear your intestines straight out…"

Bogo heard the clicking of claws on stone and looked around quickly. He saw nothing but darkness. Then a pale blur shot past, and the buffalo briefly felt jaws striking his arm. He staggered back from Cunninghorn, the collar's bleep drowning out his curse. He gripped his arm and stared at the teeth marks welling up with blood.

The attack had happened so quickly that he didn't realize he'd dropped his gun and flashlight until that moment. He couldn't where his gun had gone, but he could see the quivering beam of the flashlight rolling across the floor, illuminating bloodstained wooden pews.

The glass hemisphere on his collar flicked from yellow to red.

Bogo stared at the collar, Trunchbull's voice echoing in his skull.

"It's not like the normal collars, Bogo. Normally when it goes red, you get a shock and that's it. But this collar has a fourth stage. Red is the third, your final warning after the yellow stage. Once it goes blue, it's Savage City."

The hell with this! Bogo searched for the door, but something had made it close while he'd been preoccupied. He was now alone in the dark, with a hostile capable of bringing down a rhino without a gun. Where was it? What was it? Why was his arm tingling? There was a shrill sound drowning out everything else. Now what? Screaming? The cry of the Bandersnatch Levvar had spoken of? No, it was beeping. The collar was bleeping in sync with his thundering heart.

"Keep it together, Mansa." He growled at himself. Bogo ran after the flashlight, grabbing it just as it came to a stop, and shone the light upwards. Something resembling a large wolf leapt across the beams holding up the ceiling to avoid the light. Whatever it was, it didn't seem severely pained by the light, only reacting when it realized Bogo was aiming at him. It must not have realized he'd lost his weapon. Yet. All the while collar stayed red. Bogo stopped dead, fell silent, and focused, listening intently. For an eternity, he heard nothing but the collar beeping like a ticking timebomb. He mustn't panic. He must not panic. If he did, that was it for his sanity. He needed a plan. He shone his flashlight at eye level, the beam suddenly revealing the closed exit. The flashlight. That would do. He just needed to buy himself five seconds.

The collar continued to beep. "Knock it off." Bogo grunted. The collar didn't stop, but its color reverted back to yellow. It always helped to have a plan.

He heard the tiniest whisper of exhaled air and spun, aiming his light like a gun.

Lumen, his sister had called it. Three hundred lumen was enough to temporarily blind someone. The flashlight issued to Precinct One officers was almost triple that number.

When the eight hundred lumen white beam struck the yellow-eyed creature square in the face, it reacted like it had been pepper sprayed, howling and flailing at its eyes. Bogo didn't hesitate, didn't even try to look for his weapon as he seized his chance. He was out the church within five seconds, spotting a broken tombstone the size of a paving slab. He muttered a small apology to the resident of the grave as he lifted the heavy stone and shoved it against the doors. The stone sank slightly into the mud, anchoring itself like a pillar.

The doors pulsed against the slab with a bang. The tombstone didn't budge. Good to know the creature didn't possess super strength.

What the hell even was that? Some psychopath posing as the Hound of the Casels? A gytrash? A Bandersnatch? Bogo shook his head. He had to have imagined it. He was going mad, like Levvar and the other terrorists. Either that or the darkness of the church had messed with his head.

"Town Hall." He looked down at the collar once more. It was still yellow, and would likely stay that way until he was back in Zootopia with Benjamin and his fellow officers. The situation was looking worse and worse, and now he had possible infection to worry about. He could already feel the muscles beneath the bite begin to relax. If it weren't for the pins and needles, he would have thought he'd been injected with Novocain.

When he found the Town Hall, In the time it took to find the secret stairway behind the bookcase, Bogo realized something was very wrong. He had to lean against the overturned desk for a moment before he started down the metal stairs. The gun felt heavier by the minute; by the time he reached the chamber he could hardly keep his hold on it. When his vision doubled as he was scanning the area, it occurred to him that he may have been poisoned.

It was a dark room, a metal platform building into a cavern. McHorn had mentioned that some tunnels within the mine were situated beneath the town streets, and this was surely one of them. The place was lit with green glass lights coming from a cable car dangling by the edge of the platform. A cable car?! What the hell kind of operation were they doing here?

Sedor Valentino saw Bogo through the cable car windows before Bogo saw him. The buffalo heard a low growl behind the door before it was almost ripped off in Sedor's rush to get it open. Bogo raised his gun as the bear rushed at him, only for his vision to double again. The blow came like a sledgehammer, causing his vision to go completely black, and he came to seconds later, feeling the cold platform beneath his back. Sedor stood over him like the grim reaper, gripping those wicked bone shears. Bogo tried to get up, but he couldn't even lift his head to look for his gun.

Yes, definitely poisoned. Not good. Maybe he had been too great a fool after all.

"No, no!"

Benjamin came between Bogo and Sedor's shears. He was wet, covered in dirt from the mine and wearing a miner's coat, but he was alive. Bogo tried to say his name, but even his voice was no longer working.

"No, leave him alone!" Benjamin yelled. Sedor tried to push him aside, but the cheetah ducked under his massive arm and stood his ground. Sedor grabbed him by the coat, threw him aside and knelt down beside the fallen buffalo. Bogo felt his large paw grab his wrist and watched him raise his arm to examine the bite.

"Leave him alone!" Benjamin shouted again. Sedor turned his head to growl at the cheetah in warning. "Please, you don't have to kill him!"

Shut up and run, Ben, Bogo tried to say. Please.

"You think he's seen too much, is that it?" Benjamin said, voice hitched with panic. "What good would that do him? He's an anti-collar wet blanket with PTSD, everyone knows that. He could tell anyone about what he's found up here, but they won't believe him. They didn't believe him last time."

Sedor cocked his head at Benjamin. He let Bogo's arm drop to the floor and pulled up his shirt. Bogo tried and failed to grit his teeth, knowing that the bear was checking out his scar.

"You've got nothing to lose from letting him go. I'm the dangerous one. I'm the only one who can identify you as Woolton's killer. If you let him live, I'll come quietly. I'll even let you eat me if you want. Just let him live."

Sedor looked back at the cheetah abruptly. Bogo had seen that reaction several times in the interrogation room, when a suspect or witness was confronted with a game-changing piece of evidence. Benjamin's terrified expression softened slightly as he too realized the bear's confusion.

"Hang on." He said slowly. "You killed Woolton right there in Bug Burga. If you were going to kill me, you would have done it in the church." He got up from the floor, staring at Sedor. "But… then what do you want? For crying out loud, why don't you say something?!"

There was a quiet rumble in Sedor's throat. Bogo couldn't recall the bear saying a single word in the two or three times he'd encountered him.

Sedor appeared to scrutinize them both for a second. Then he straightened, lifted the cheetah and put him over his shoulder before he could react. Then he looked down at Bogo, bent down, grabbed the buffalo's leg and started to drag him across the platform.

"Wait! I wish to accompany you on your voyage." In flapped Levvar, the fur of his face crusted with the blood from his cut. He perched himself on the brim of Sedor's hat and hung upside down before the bear's masked face. "My initial objective was to apprise you of the necessitous buffalo's presence, but I see that was not required." Sedor grumbled and dragged Bogo into the cable car, slid the door shut, and released the buffalo to activate the controls. "I know, I know, my Sesquipedalian Loquaciousness is irksome and inessential… but it irritates the fuck out of our bovine acquaintance, so who gives a hoot?"

Oh, that bat could go to hell.

Bogo felt a jolt beneath his useless body as the cable car came to life and began its journey through the tunnel. Sedor stepped over Bogo, set Benjamin down on the seat and sat down beside the cheetah.

"How long will this trip take, two hours?" Levvar asked. His large eyes were on Bogo, and he didn't like the greedy look the nutty little creature was giving him. "You won't be perturbed if I refresh myself, do you? I have some unfinished business with our guest."

Benjamin tried to get up and intervene, but Sedor grabbed his shoulder and held him firmly in place. Levvar flew down and landed on Bogo's chest. He crawled up until Bogo could fell his light weight pressing on the dressing around his throat.

"Not the neck!" the cheetah yelled. Levvar ignored him.

I should have known that would come back to bite me, Bogo thought. He felt nothing at all when Levvar drew a fang across his skin and started licking.