Chapter Thirty-Nine

Chessmemmle

Judy paced irritably back and forth across the carpeted floor of the Registry House department of Manufactures of Electronic Components. The room was illuminated by a system of almost ancient beam lights, if only just, in dull yellow brightness. Every wall was covered with shelves, and the small room was an almost labyrinthine maze of skeletal frame-bookcases, the surfaces of which were packed with thick wads of files and stuffed full of yellowish paperwork with crisp and delicate pages.

Nick observed the rabbit as she paced back and forth in front of him, her arms crossed against her chest and her expression tight and troubled. The fox sat forwards in his chair, opening his palms out towards her. "What does your instinct say?"

The rabbit paused. "Research Erkin. Avoid danger later."

"Then that's what we should do."

"Oh," the rabbit groaned, pacing again, "but it's not as easy as that! What if we can't find anything about Erkin here anyway? Nothing incriminating, that is. We'd lose our chance to talk to Jack."

"Hopps," Nick urged, pulling his phone and checking the time, "it's already five past eight. We're running out of time; it's time to decide."

"Couldn't we just research Erkin now and take Jack in the car with us?"

"You mean uncuff him, drag him to the cruiser and cuff him inside that?"

"Yeah."

"Wouldn't work, Hopps. The moment we take him out of those cuffs, he'd escape."

"How?"

"He's an expert in like, I don't know, aikido or something. I mean all he'd have to do is incapacitate me and overbalance you for a few moments. And that would be it: bye-bye Jack."

"But..." the rabbit stressed, squinting, "but you managed to control him."

Nick snorted. "I had him by the throat, Hopps. If I'd given him half a chance, he would've turned the tables and had me on the floor in a second. What were you hoping to say to Jack anyway?"

Judy stopped moving and focused her attention to Nick. "I was going to tell him exactly what would happen if ever he is to damage a single hair on your body again!"

"Wouldn't it be enough to just knee him in the... undesiraballs?"

"I... guess," she sighed, faltering, "but I also wanted to get an idea of who he is and what he's like. Also, I wanted to see if I could make some kind of deal with him."

"A deal!" Nick blurted out by standing up, "With Jack?!"

"Hey," Judy complained, taking a step back from the irate fox, "don't take it like that."

"You can't make a deal with Jack! You... you dumb bunny! You don't even have anything to bargain with. He doesn't need money. He's already Agent One of the MI-Z. If he has a family, he never sees them. And if you try beating information out of him, he'll just have you jailed. You could probably use sexual persuasion to get a deal out of him, I guess. But if you so much as even think of going to bed with that jerk, I'm gonna take a blunt knife and cut off that little bastard's ba—"

"Nick, calm down. I'm not trying to bribe him or scare him, and I certainly wasn't thinking of going to bed with him."

"Well then what... how were you planning to do it?"

Judy felt giddy inside her stomach with a playful sensation growing new. It was childish and mischievous, and it made a small blush to grow on her face. "You know, if I wasn't an officer, my mom once swore I'd be an actress. I haven't actually done any performances for over ten years..." The fox raised an eyebrow to Judy's grin. "But I think it's time I put those skills to use."

Nick huffed in lack of persuasion. "And what part do you plan to play?"

"The part," she swooned, "of the attractive, helpless, innocent little victim who needs protecting from the vile, big fox." Nick's arms went slack as he gawked, gobsmacked, at the rabbit. "What?" She winked. "I'm only giving him what he wants: telling him what he wants to hear. Isn't that the idea of how to bribe someone; give them what they want?"

After a moment, the fox's bewilderment grew into amusement. "Bribing someone with words alone? You sneaky little minx." A sly smile infected Judy's face; the fox chuckled at her reaction. "If only I'd have thought of that one: bribing someone with words alone, whatever next?"

"Thanks, Slick," she said, turning to the door. "Oh, keys?"

"Right here," he confirmed and tossed them over.

"Thanks," she said as she made her way out, calling over her shoulder. "You stay here and find what you can about Erkin; this won't take long."

"Hey, Hopps." The fox beamed as Judy's head re-appeared from around the door frame for one last time. "Break a leg... preferably his."

A grin split on the rabbit's face. "If things don't go how I've planned them? Certainly." Judy's head disappeared, the door swinging shut behind her.

...

After having had found himself alone in the corridor, the striped rabbit had used the pawcuffs, that were securing his writs to the tall radiator pipe, to support his weight during the hustle up. Jack Savage stared down at the floor underneath him, dangling upside-down from the ceiling with his legs wrapped around one of the beam-lights above.

The rabbit jostled. He felt movement in the outer breast pocket of his suit jacket and froze as he felt it slip, because he only had one shot at this, after all. With one last little jostle, an unusually thick credit card slipped out of his outer pocket and fell into his waiting paws beneath. Smiling, Jack released his feet from the light, and he dropped back down to the floor. He fidgeted with the credit card; though, he was unable to see for the fact his paws had been secured behind him. But then he managed to slip open the credit card with the false bottom and access the secret compartment within.

By touch, he selected the two most appropriate lock picks and allowed the case to drop to the floor. Kneeling forwards slightly, holding his tongue between his teeth in concentration, Savage inserted the picks into the lock of the pawcuffs, he was held by, and started to work at the pins inside. He felt the first click into place after several moments of uncomfortable shifting. These locks were designed to resist being cracked, and so it was a difficult and complicated challenge which required all his mental attention and a great amount of dexterity. The second pin clicked into place, his paws becoming clammy with the strain. Only three more to go. He was about to start work on the third when a small, echoing thump from somewhere down the corridor grabbed his now-racing heart.

His ears shot upright at the noise of a door being closed. If his judgment was correct, it was the same door Nick had used, and by the sounds of footsteps coming towards him, it sounded like the fox had come to finish the job. Starting to panic a little, Jack withdrew the picks from the lock, grimacing as he heard the pins snap back into place; he stood upright as he slid the secret-compartmented credit card beneath his leg, so it was now hidden under his foot.

His ears twitching left and right as they adjusted on their target, Jack's brow started to furrow. By the sound and noise the footsteps were making, he would have assumed it wasn't a fox but a smaller mammal. And by the apparent speed they were walking at, it appeared whoever it was, they were feeling more apprehensive and concerned than brash and bold like Nick would have been.

A silhouette started growing up the wall. The silhouette of a small yet large-eared mammal not unlike himself. Jack's eyebrows raised in surprise as a gray doe came into view. She turned the corner into Jack's line of sight, but didn't appear to spot the black-striped creature, looking up and down the length of the adjoining corridor nervously. She turned to scout down the corridor Jack was in, and her eyes met his. What happened next surprised Jack to the core of his existence.

"Oh, thank goodness, I've found you!" Judy shouted, bolting down the corridor towards Jack. She reached the startled rabbit, and the moment she did, she threw her arms tightly around him. "I'm so frightened," she whimpered, "you have to help me. I don't know what I'll do if you don't."

The offensive front Jack had made dissolved at her embrace; he swallowed. "Miss... Miss Hopps?" He didn't know if it was surprise at the manner of her appearance — or the pleasure of the doe's arms around his waist and her nuzzles into his cheek — but Jack's voice was suddenly very soft and smooth, "What... what happened?"

The doe's arms came tighter around him. Jack wondered if she was crying, because she wiped her eyes against his neck. "He... he's a monster."

"Wilde?"

She nodded, taking her arms from around his waist and wrapping her paws, softly, around his neck; hence, she rested her head submissively against his chest... something Jack didn't mind one bit. The buck subtly breathed in a little of the doe's appealing scent, while she brushed her head against his chest, making his legs quiver a little as he spoke, his voice gentle, "Tell me, what's he done?"

"He scares me, bullies me, makes me feel insecure."

"But I've been listening in to the two of you at his apartment. It didn't sound like you were unhappy with him."

"He..." Judy paused slightly at the words, but then she whimpered and continued, as if a giant weight was pulling on her every word, "I have to constantly pretend I'm happy to be with him, or else, he says he'll beat me."

"So why do you stay with him? Why don't you report him; arrest him, even?"

"He said he'd get my family if ever I told anyone."

Lowering his head, Jack placed his nose between the base of Judy's ears, taking in a lingering breath of her scent and no longer worrying about making it obvious.

Judy fought to control a smirk. "You like my scent?" she asked, timidly.

"I like you." Judy drew her head back to look into Jack's face, waiting with hidden amusement as she watched his pupils dilate. "I think you're beautiful; I've thought that since the moment I saw your photo in my report. You know," he continued slowly, drawing his face closer to hers... "Foxes can only take one mate in their whole life. Rabbits, however... rabbits like you and I... are not so unfortunate. When this is all over and Wilde's behind bars, how about I take you out to dinner somewhere, take you back to my place for a drink and... see what happens?"

Jack moved his head forwards to press his lips against Judy's. Luckily, she had expected this move and managed to swiftly avoid the meeting of mouths by adjusting her lips close to his ear.

"That sounds really great," she whispered through gritted teeth, "but first, we need to figure out what we're gonna do about Nick."

"How long do we have?"

"Not long. I'm only able to talk to you now because he's in the bathroom tending to the cut you gave him."

"I went easy on him," Jack muttered, "I won't let it happen again. I should've broken that damn fox's jaw. Okay, we'll meet up later. There a café near your place?"

"There's a little restaurant called Joe's Place I know of."

"Right. Do you think you'll be able to get away from Wilde long enough?"

"Oh, I think that should be easy."

"I'll see you after the raid then. Yes?" She nodded, and he delightfully beamed at her. "I swear, this will be over before you know it." Judy took her arms back from around Jack's neck and got her key out of her pocket; consequently, she stepped closer to Jack to reach behind him and undo the pawcuff locks, but she regretted her decision instantly. Jack's head shot forwards and his lips pressed firmly against hers; as a result, Judy froze, a mixture of uncontrollable fury and panic instantly building within her. Jack withdrew himself, while she remained in the shock of motionless silence to his self-satisfied smirk. Without a word, she swiftly undid both cuffs and stepped back from the buck, amidst her urge to gag.

"Now, get going," Jack said smoothly, mistaking Judy's shock for surprised pleasure as he rubbed his wrists, not even glancing at the rabbit he had just kissed, "Wilde will be out of the bathroom soon. You don't want him knowing where you've been."

If Judy had opened her mouth, she knew only curses would follow, so she just turned sharply and marched hurriedly away.

Jack's face rose with satisfaction as Judy disappeared, collecting his lock picking set. He sure hadn't lost his touch. Barely ten seconds alone with a doe, and he was already practically in her pants. Might've been a new personal record. The buck turned, licking his tongue along his lips, while he walked, running through, in the back of his mind, a few of the positions he might like to take her through later. Maybe he'd strip her, lie her down on the bed and give her a nice massage... maybe give her something a little rougher... maybe even borrow those pawcuffs for a while.

He grinned, continuing to consider all the things he might like to do to his new plaything. It didn't matter what the fox did now; that doe was his. Jack knew he had charmed Hopps into wanting to have sex with him, and there was nothing to be done to change that now.

...

Nick Wilde jumped as the door slammed open. "That stuck-up, jerkish, black-striped little bastard! Do you have any idea what he just did to me?" she screamed, "Do you have anyidea?"

"Er—"

"He kissed me, the bastard." Judy spat at the floor and started furiously wiping her mouth on her sleeve. "God, I stink of him. Nick, come here and mark me."

Nick blinked. It was unusually good fortune for any mammle to have a femammle practically ordering them to mark them with their scent, but he wasn't about to argue. Judy stepped towards the fox, as he knelt down to her height, and pressed herself readily against him, furthermore, his muzzle started to roughen and smoothen against the side of her neck. "It's all sorted out though," she sighed, her anger subsiding, "he thinks I hate you. We're meeting up at Joe's Place later, and he's going to tell me everything he knows."

"So all in all," Nick summarized, "you played him like a violin."

"Yeah. I still taste him on my lips though. Give me a kiss." The fox obeyed, parting his lips for her as her arms hooked around his head and pulled him deeply into the heated affection she gave. Nick wasn't sure if the kiss was as thorough as it was simply because Judy wanted it, or because she wanted to be sure that all of Jack's scent was gone... but either way, he didn't mind.

After a long and heart-pounding moment, Judy drew her lips and her tongue back from Nick's. "How long do we have?" she asked, her eyes now sparkling a little with emotion.

"A little over an hour. Plenty of time if we don't get distracted."

Glee grew on the rabbit's face, and then it morphed into a chuckle. "Aww, you sure we don't have time for just a little fun?"

"Much as I'd love to say yes, Carrots, in my experience, we do seem to be quite prone to accidentally going further than we intended to. Let's just see what we can find," he said, fully aware he was sacrificing a make-out session with Judy for the sake of some paperwork. "And save all the fun stuff for this evening."

Judy sighed, a little sadly, but accepting the situation as it was. "Okay," she persisted as she drew her arms back, "what have you found?"

"Take a seat." Judy did as instructed, while Nick thumped down a thick, old book down on the desk in front of her, opened it to a bookmarked page and took the seat beside her. "Well," he began, "this thing is the Companies Registrar. It lists all the businesses set up in Zootopia in the past twenty years. It doesn't tell you anything about the company itself, apart from the year it was started, its name, and its company number. That's like the company's fingerprint, kinda thing."

"You've found Erkins?"

"It's, erh," he erhed, leaning into the book and running his finger along, "zero, four, six, three, eight, seven, two, seven."

"Oh, good... and that helps us how?"

"Everything in this building is, or should be, kept in numerical order. And now that we have the number, we should be able to find everything a lot quicker."

"So," she asked, her brow furrowing, "what is it we're looking for, exactly?"

The fox sat closer, slowly. "In all honesty, Hopps, I don't have a clue. This is the realm of legitimate business procedures; it all goes over my head."

"But what might constitute enough of a reason for something to warrant a raid?"

"I guess we could look at their import and export sheet, and see if there are any inconsistencies. I mean, I doubt they're gonna write 'eighth of March, imported three thousand grams cocaïne', but we might get something. The real problem here is that, we have to remember, we don't, technically, know for sure that they are criminally involved."

"But the coyote Mister Black talked to—"

"Is not going to stand up as reliable evidence when taken into consideration by the judge. If we want them to sign a warrant card, our evidence cannot rely on what ole Shaggy told us."

"That puts us back to square one?"

"Essentially, yes. But at least we know where to look."

"Okay," she finalized, resolutely standing, "you look at their import and export, and I'll root around and see if I can find some kind of employees list."

"Yay," Nick jeered, dryly, as he stood… "paperwork."

...

More than half an hour passed without eventfulness, and the two officers started feeling as though they were spending as much time looking for paperwork, in this large, jumbled mess of files, then they were actually reading it. The two officers sat facing away from one another on separate desks... which, by the end of the half an hour, were both packed to an overflow with files and folders.

Judy slapped down yet another file on the desk with a heavy grunt. "I don't understand this stuff. I mean, why do they have to write it like this? Why do that have to make it so damn complicated?"

"What does it say?" Nick asked from a desk behind her.

Judy lifted the file. "Notwithstanding the provisions of sub-section three, section A, clause two-one-four of the Administrative Procedures Cortland Act nineteen seventy-eight, it is proposed that, in so far as the implementation of statutory provisions is concerned, the resolution of anomalies and uncertainties, as perceived by the responsible department, shall fall within the purview of the Ministry of Administrative Affairs. What does it mean?"

"It means what it says."

"That's not helpful, Nick."

"What it basically means is 'we're a big company who know lots of long words'. It's just like that to confuse the average publican, Hopps. It doesn't really mean anything if taken at face value."

"But it's all like this!"

"Carrots, as an ex-conmammle, I know that most of what politicians and big companies, such as this, rely on is obfuscation: the art of confusing and fatiguing a listener. It's meant to bore and baffle us to the point we stop reading. Or at least stop taking it in, so that when we reach the part we're looking for, we either can't be bothered to read it properly and miss it, or never reach it at all on account of having given up and gone home for a lie-down."

"But how do we beat it?"

"We can't 'beat' it, per se. Everything government-related relies on it. We just have to keep looking until we find the bit they don't want us to see. How'd you get on with your list of employees?"

"It came back with some pretty interesting results," she said, lifting documents out of the way as she sought for it. "I don't know quite what to make of it, but it's definitely worth looking into. Ahh." She found the file and lifted it out, standing and crossing to Nick's desk before pawing it over and pointing to a particular part.

"Well, this is interesting."

"Yeah, the whole original staff was made redundant three weeks ago and replaced by new guys."

"Huh... I wonder what caused that."

"Well," Judy said, "the only reason I could think was if a new guy was in charge, and he wanted a clean slate to work from. But I had a look at this Previous Owners thing, and it didn't say anything about a recent change in management."

"You didn't. You're quite sure?"

"Yeah, I'm absolutely sure!"

"So... it was undeclared." The fox's head turned, gazing into the middle-distance as he thought.

"What is it?"

"I saw something about that," he trailed softly. His ear twitched, his gaze lowered to the paperwork and suddenly his paws were in a frenzied rush as he routed through the many pages of paperwork. "Here!" Lifting out a file marked 'Management', Nick set down the single sheet of paperwork on the desk. Judy stepped close to him and examined the sheet, while Nick rested his paw on Judy's back affectionately as she gave scrutiny. The rabbit leaned forward a little to get a better view at the page... and so the fox let his paw slip down to rest quite comfortably on the smooth slope of her rump instead.

"It's the name of the fella who apparently runs it," he realized. "You see how it's the same piece of paperwork from four years ago, but the name's been crossed out and re-written?"

"The management's different now, but they haven't filled in a new sheet. Is that it?"

"Precisely. I just assumed it was accidental to begin with, but with what you've found about the recent redundancies, I'd say it was done intentionally. And if that's the case, then this file relates to the old owner. But it has no information about the new one, apart from a name."

"So what are you saying?" Judy tried to understand, "The company was bought up, but the new owners wanted to keep it quiet?"

"Yep. And there's only ever one reason why a company might want to keep something quiet: they're up to something."

"You sure this is the most up-to-date copy? You sure they didn't realize they'd made a mistake and wrote out a new one?"

"This must be the most recent one. Paperwork like this, which includes phone numbers and addresses for an individual, are always rearguard as sensitive information and are kept for 'need-to-know' only. That means it's only kept so long as the information is required. And once it's no longer required, it gets shredded to protect that individual's information."

"I get it," the rabbit said, "after all, if you've pawed over your business to someone else, you don't want people phoning you up with complaints years later, do you?" The rabbit smiled for a moment in satisfaction... but then dejection came to be. "Nick, is this actually getting us anywhere? I mean, it's interesting in a way, I guess, but it's hardly incriminating."

"Well that depends, Hopps. Look, in the past month, Erkin Electrics has changed paws. It used to belong to some guy called," he glanced down at the page, "Joshua Jerome. But now appears to be owned by some larger company called, erh... dataDyne."

"DateDyne? Never heard of them."

"No. But you understand it's no longer owned by the same people, yes?"

"Yeah."

"It's being passed off as just a change of management. That means whatever or whoever now runs that joint is no longer Erkin; it's just a company of the same name. That means, unless they sell exactly the same stock and provide exactly the same service as Erkin originally did... we have them proved guilty."

"Guilty? Guilty of what?"

The fox smiled like mad. "False advertising."

...

Moving efficiently, Appleby pulled back the corner of the thick bedsheets, standing patiently beside the bed while his master slipped from his gown and stepped into the expensive, soft mattress. "Your conversation with the receptionist was informative, I trust?"

"Most informative indeed."

The badger pulled the bed sheets over his master, speaking softly as he reached for the chord that would turn off the light. "Do you wish me to take steps to prevent Mister Nyilas' arrest?"

"No, let events take their due cause. Nyilas was losing his edge, after all, and a blunted tool is of no use to my cause. He is merely a ball-ball now, a pawn, to distract the ZPD." He chuckled, settling back into the sheets. "Tomorrow, and for weeks to come, Bogo and his little insects of police officers will be busy patting one another on the back, telling each-other what a very good job they did. They'll be so caught-up in their own pathetic, little celebrations... they'll fail to see what's really going on until it's too late."

The badger pulled the chord and the lights flicked off, leaving only the floating glimmer in from the corridor outside to hold back the growing darkness. "They will take Nyilas thinking him the king, when really, he is but a pawn. It is a plan of highest excellence, Sir."

"The idea was yours, was it not?"

"Oh, I make no claims to fame of my own, Sir. I may have suggested an appropriate course of action to you, but it was not I who processed and developed the idea into the faultless, diversionary device it has hence become. My part in this is but that of servitude, my Lord. As it should be."

"As it should be, Appleby. Yes, everything is proceeding as I have foreseen it."

"Glad to hear it," the badger said, "I can't tell you how..." he sought for the right word... "happy that makes me feel. Good-night, Sir."

"Be seeing you."

Appelby swung the thick door shut, extinguishing all light from the cold, black room.

…

Author's notes:

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