Chapter Five
Tuesday Turnout
Several minutes later and the established, familiar structure of the Zootopia Police Department, headquarters came into view. On two separate occasions on the short stomp-over, Nick had tried to dart into a food repository vending establishment where he could acquire some nutrients to masticate upon but had been foiled in his attempts on both accounts by an impatient Judy who had never once in the last year been late. Worst of all, she had sworn this day would be no different. After squashing any last resistance, Judy led Nick through the glass doors of the ZPD, her head turning sharply to see the big clock on the wall just as the minute hand ticked into the danger zone.
One minute, we still have one minute…
"Nick, hurry!" Nick would meet Judy just outside her apartment each and every working day, unless it was raining in which case he would just wait quietly outside her room's door, and in earnest, most and nearly all of her nonworking days as well; as a result of this, Nick's record of punctuality was just as untarnished as Judy's. But as they swung open the glass doors to the ZPD, Judy audibly groaned while Nick's ears lowered slightly and his tail slouched just a little bit, both sounds caught only by Judy, as they jogged from the entrance and across the large hall-like room and towards the front desk.
"Hey, Hopps, Wilde!" Clawhauser — a quite hideously obese cheetah — called out to them from behind the desk as they darted past.
"Hi, Clawhauser," Judy called back, "can't stop! Nick, quick, go on ahead and get changed!" Nodding, Nick's pace increased and he sprinted off towards the changing room and Judy got to stand beside the door leading into the bullpen.
"You guys better hurry up," Clawhauser shouted back, "roll call starts in one minute."
"I know, Ben, but thanks!" Clawhauser tried to call back... but found himself too out of breath to do so and, instead, decided his efforts would be better spent on his sixth bowl of Lucky Chops Cereal.
...
Judy was still standing tall outside the door of the bullpen — the gathering place of all the officers of the ZPD — while waiting for Nick. She was pacing quickly back and forth before the large door but, as the minute hand ticked off the last minute, she stopped all motions as her head fell into her desperate paw.
Thanks to her, both herself and Nick were late.
True they weren't very late and she wasn't wholly to blame after, what she had started to refer to in her own mind as the 'Bedsheet Incident' to avoid unnecessary blushing, had happened. All the same it was she who had kept arguing and letting her personal life get in the way of her job when they should have been getting ready to go. She groaned airily into her paw as she heard howling and the thumping of tables from within the bullpen which always accompanied Bogo's entrance to the room, but she looked up again as, a second later, the chainging room door slammed open and Nick shot out towards her while doing up the last of his shirt's buttons.
She pulled the door open for him as he approached. "Come on, Carrots! Why didn't you just go in?!" With no time to answer him she rushed in behind, closing the door herself after the fox, who didn't have time to finish doing his tie as they rushed across the room of silent mammals and towards their conjoined chair. However, they did come to a stop — a dead stop — when the shadow of a Cape Buffalo came towering over them.
"Morning," Bogo, the chief policemammal, greeted with an uncharacteristically singsong and lighthearted tone to which they looked up towards him... something every officer flinched at.
If Bogo was shouting, you were usually safe... it's when he was quiet when you needed to watch your tread.
"Hopps, Wilde," he continued, smiling pleasantly, "good to see you at last, I was getting worried."
"Heh-erm," Judy chucked nervously, "yea... hi, sorry we're late, we ju—"
"Just saw fit to join us at last?" he interrupted regardless, his tone as bright and cheerful as before, "I am very sorry if I have inconvenienced you by starting 'on time'," his tone started to rise in volume, "perhaps we could just move the whole damn bloody timetable," and then his voice just began losing it, "to suit your personal requirements rather than that of the official Zootopia POLICE force!"
"Come on, Bogo!" Judy retaliated, "we've never been late before and we're only like thirty seconds late at that! We haven't even had breakfast or showed or—"
"Shut your tiny mouth, now!" Turning back to the board, both Judy and Nick let out the lungfuls of air they were holding onto, Nick a little more subtle but relieved none the less, relaxing as the imminent danger had passed... for now at least. "I should put you both on Parking Duty." Judy took back the lungful of anxiety, her pickling around the back of her neck returning in the fearful. "But," Bogo continued as he paced to his normal spot, "we need to focus on this blasted spike in drug crime."
He turned away, the belated officers took the opportunity to climb up to their shared seat before Bogo curved around and stood in his normal spot to address the fully comprehensive and now completely attentive officers. "Now," he began in a deadpan, "as I'm sure, all of you are aware, there has been a dramatic spike in the purchase and sales of illegal drugs right here in Zootopia. What some of you may not know is the full extent of this, so called, spike. In the past week alone the number of reported dealings has risen by no less than twenty five percent, a further eighteen percent increase on the week before, with the suspected rise of the growth of said substances rising in..."
"Hopps," Nick whispered to Judy as Bogo continued with some of the finer details, his speech soft but with a slight accusing edge in his words. "Hopps, why didn't you go straight in?"
"And leave you behind?" Judy whispered back, indigent, "no way!"
"Judy, there was no reason for you to take the blame of this with me, I can't and won't be the—"
"Nick, you're my partner." He looked down to his paw in surprise as the sensation of something touching it... surprise which soon turned to a warm smile as he saw — sure enough — a small, soft paw enclosing itself in his. Nick looked back up to Bogo, pretending of paying attention to him while only really doing so with Judy.
"Everything we do, we do together, Nick: the good and the bad. To be the best we can be, we need to take and give everything we have to each other. If that means being late for you? It doesn't matter in the least. So long as we do it together."
He groaned a low, quiet and happy sigh as he turned his own paw around to hold Judy's in return before playfully stating, "sometimes, Carrots, I really love you."
He looked round quizzically at the disappointment in her next words as she stared up sadly at him, "Only… sometimes?" And then she smiled, and it was that smile she always had reserved for teasing him.
"Well... maybe not... kinda more like, alw—"
"Enough talking in class!" Bogo bellowed. "You think this is a damn school, Wilde? Do you want detention or something? Make you sit in a corner with a cone on your head with 'dunce' written on it? Throw chalk at you and then tan your backside with a ruler?"
"Bogo, I know perfectly well you would pay money to have me bent over in front of you with your, so called, ruler ready to tan that part of me... but it's really not my kinda thing." Obviously this comment from the smart fox was kept on the inside of his deep mind and what he actually said was... "No, Sir."
"Glad, to, hear, it. Now—" At that moment, the police siren kicked into life and the Chief was cut off from his report by the loud and irritating ringing to which he instantly grabbed his radio. "Clawhauser, what's the situation?"
"Fire, Sir!" Clawhauser's voice crackled in return, "the old factory 'Ladders and Ladders and CO', the fire service is en route."
"Arson?"
"Unknown at this time, Sir."
"Right," Bogo clicked off the radio and then shouted in clear bellows which cut clean across the already deafened room. "Everyone, forget about the drug spree for now and get down to Ladders and Ladders. Pronto!" With practiced efficiency, the room cleared and, within minutes, each and every officer were darting into their cars and setting off down the road at high speeds with their lights flashing and their sirens crying for way to be made.
Judy leapt into the cruiser, doing up her seatbelt while Nick entered through the passenger side and, as they tore off down the road following the rest of the procession, Judy spoke, "Nick, Ladders and Ladders... know anything about them?"
"They make ladders," he stated in a deadpan and a shrug.
"Har, har," she replied without humor, "details, Nick."
"Sorry, Carrots, couldn't resist. Ladders and Ladders and CO founded about thirty or so years ago and went bust a couple of years back." They followed the procession with speeds through a set of red traffic lights, the ordinary cars waiting respectfully as the squadron of law enforcement drove past.
"Why'd they go bust?"
"When was the last time you needed to replace a ladder, Hopps?" Nick asked in return.
"Well... never."
"Exactly, sure they were fine for the first couple of years, but then everyone had ladders; and, I mean... ladders last for years, you know? Once everyone had a ladder they just ran out of custom and shut up shop. The place is still full of all their stock." The sky above appeared visibly darker as they approach the ladder factory, with that darkness finally being easily recognized as smoke from the fire which had filled the innocent air of prior.
"Their stock is still in there?"
"Yea, there's nothing worth stealing, just some old wood, and it was cheaper just to leave the stuff dumped there when they went under... so there's plenty of fuel for the fire." The cars ahead of them turned round and away from the, still out of sight, warehouse as the road to reach it curved off for quite the detour... something which the fox apparently found most distressing. "No! No, no, no, dumb-dumbs, where are you all going?"
"What? Know a shortcut?"
"Hardly a shortcut, Carrots, just common sense! Turn right here." She did so, swerving away from the rest of the convoy and into what appeared to be the car park of another industry building. "Hopps, all these industrial buildings have car parks, right? And each of them connect to its adjacent one. So, by going this way, we cut half the journey by going along instead." As if on cue, the shapeless grey building, a dull block with a single large door, row of grubby windows, exterior fire exit stairs bolted to the side and a sign written in peeling and faded paint on the front.
'Ladders and Ladders and CO'
"Ohh, god," Judy breathed as they pulled up, taking in the swarm of fire engines gathered around the building wrapped in flames, fire oozing forth from the windows and black thick smoke rising through the ashy roof.
Nick was silent, taken about by the sight but instinctively holding back all outward signs of shock as he took in the visible story complex with bright golden-red flames spewing from within while Judy turned the rumbling engine off.
"Nice going, Slick," Judy complemented as they got out. "Come now, we've got get these people away from the flames." With that, they pawed it towards the crowd, the fire being hot enough to make them lightly pant even at this great of distance which was getting shorter and shorter with every step taken, tho it didn't take long until Judy's small-yet clear and authoritative voice spoke up, cutting cleanly through the general chatter of the ruckus loud.
"Okay! Officer Hopps, ZPD! Everyone back up!" With Hopps and Wilde both working to shift back the crowd, they had nearly everyone backed away to a safe distance by the time the blue flashes and accompanying sirens of the rest of the ZPD convoy caught up. Their cars pulled up in front of the quietly smug officers, they disembarked and could only gawp at seeing them already there.
"Don't just stand there!" Bogo yelled from somewhere behind the crowd, pushing his way through, "get these people out of the way and..." he stopped as he broke through to the front, halting as he saw officers Hopps and Wilde. Bogo was good at hiding when he was impressed with his officers, and the only inclination that got off this was a slightly longer gaze sent towards the two before he glanced over to the already cleared public. His eyes moved back to them again before he turned around to face the other officers trailing behind, and then issued the next orders.
"Okay move! I want a perimeter around here now, and get that tape up." The officers complied without a flinch, while Bogo turned back to Wilde and Hopps, shaking his head with a thin smile on his lips before walking away. "You two stay here and keep an eye on the public; the reporters'll be here soon no doubt but I'm sure you can handle them... just as long as you keep them out of the way of the fire engines."
"Yes, Sir!" The two smaller officers replayed in unison as Bogo marched off. Sharing a little 'nice going' wink to one another as he walked away.
"Guess we're good on the whole 'being late' issue now?" Nick asked his partner by his side.
"Yep, thanks to you. And going back to that point, of course I should be late with you. It was my fault we were late anyway, besides," she continued, wrapping a small arm around him in a friendly hug, "I know you would have waited for me."
Nick's only reply was to chuckle as he put his own arm around Judy, and held her for a moment until they were forced by police duty to return to the moment at paw as, behind them, the large hosepipes for the vinous fire engines continued dousing the orange hellish tongues that were trying to escape to freedom and into the sky above that was now sickly plagued with black and many pieces of black ashy stars countless…
…
Author's notes:
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Grooms decision thus chosen blind.
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