Chapter Forty-Three
A Slip Through the Fingers

The university lecture hall was thick with heavy silence. The students looked down from their desks which were encircled around the teacher's lectern like a roman stage — with many desks on many levels so those at the back could see over the heads of those in front. The structure was all made from wood as old and hardy as the stone foundations of the building itself. The University of History and Arts was one of the only buildings in Precinct One not to be built from glass and metal. Over six-hundred years old, this building — which once served as a place of worship for the pagan mammals of old; the first of their kind to believe that predator and prey could live in harmony together — now served as the center of education for the whole metropolis.

A clock hung upon the wall, flanked on all sides by scuffed and scarred blackboards, its pendulum swinging rhythmically back and forth to the morbid rhythm of its soulless tick, tick, tick. The silence, of the otherwise noiseless room, was broken by the crack of the latch and the creek of the entrance door as it swung in, followed by the hunched figure of an aging billy goat. He paced to the center of the room — behind his desk and surrounded on his front and sides by rows upon rows of students — and began to speak in his strange accent: a voice comprised from a little of every major language in the East.

"Good afternoon, class," he began with the pierce upon the impatience, "thank you all for attending. Now, I know the last thing any of you want is a lecture on pre-historic architecture last thing on a Friday afternoon. I know you would all rather be off playing football or enjoying the company of your femammle companions, but what I have for you today is something really quite remarkable. "

"The Zistopia Council Tower. Otherwise known as the Spike of the Desert, the Tower of the East and, most controversially, as Xibalba, owing to the torturous function of the tower in during the medieval times." The billy goat paused, spotting a raised paw near the back of the class. "Yes, Jamie?"

"Mister Nyilas, is it true Zistopia's ran by a dictatorship?" he called.

"That is indeed a good question, Jamie. You refer, of course, to the rumor that the government there has been subverted and taken over by Principal Governor Zafearov? I can tell you today that this rumor is not true."

"But you visited there recently," the boy called out again, "you led an archaeology team on a dig in the gardens around the tower. You must've seen the brute force the guards use when dealing whit—"

"Pure speculation, my boy," Nyilas cut in. "It is true, the quality of life in Zistopia is not precisely as great is has been said to be, but that can be said for any city. Zootopia itself is no exception."

"But I heard—"

"We are not here to discuss politics, boy. We are here to speak about the architectural construction of this most ancient building."

...

"Nick, hurry," Judy called over her shoulder as she carried on jogging down the corridor, her voice an odd mix between a shout and a whisper, as she called out to the fox abiding silently behind, "the lecture's already started; I didn't want to be late!"

"Fluff," Nick called in a whisper behind her, "you do realize we don't have to be on time, right? I mean, you do realize we're not actually on this course?"

"There's no harm in being on time, Nick. And there's no substitute for being punctual either."

The fox chuckled as they reached a large, gray door which led to another corridor, helping the rabbit pull it open as she checked if the place was clear, before, going through with the fox slipping in behind her. "I don't think that's quite the reason, Hopps," he inserted, nudging her with his elbow as they moved with the search.

"Why, what... whatever could you mean?"

"I think there's another reason you're trying so hard to keep your mind occupied. A particular recent event maybe? A singular little something that happened in the car just now—"

"Nick! We don't have time for this," she shot, "now, the lecture started five minutes ago which means we only have twenty-five minutes to find where he is and make an arrest."

"Then how about, my love," he said, tersely, "we go to reception and just ask?"

Judy's hurry slowed to a halt. She paused and shuffled closer to the fox. "It could really be that easy?"

"We don't live in a spy thriller, Hopps. At least, I don't think."

The rabbit looked off to the side, a small smile growing and a single chuckle leaving her lips. "Well," she beamed, "what do you know? You get so good at thinking your way through tough situations, you forget just how simple the answer can sometimes be."

The fox encouraged her with a nod, while her attention returned to his. She rounded briskly, grabbed him by the wrist and hustled back down the corridor in the other direction. "Come on, Nick," she called as the fox stumbled and struggled to get his footing, "I'd hate to miss all the interesting bits."

...

Picking up another Polaroid, Victor Nyilas loaded it into the projector and an enlarged image of a black, stone staircase appeared on the blackboard behind him. "This is another point of interest," he confirmed, addressing the students before him while pointing to the photo of the staircase behind him. "There are one hundred and seventy-seven steps in total. Seven flights of seven steps, five flights of eleven, three flights of thirteen and two flights of seventeen. They are spiral and, together, act as the main stairway up to the roof of the tower. And I'm sure all of you can see the mathematical pattern and understanding this shows. A mathematical understanding we did not realize they possessed when this tower was built."

He paused for a moment, listening to the scratching of pencils and the tapping of computer keyboards as the students made notes — knowing this may well be the very last lecture he would ever make.

"These steps have, like the rest of the building, been calved with the utmost care, skill and attention. Every surface of every step is a perfectly flat and smooth. The steps are a constant size and width, with each step being the same steepness and distance from every other. The workmanship is unflawed in every way. This, coupled with how entangled the staircases are with one another and with the many rooms of the tower, it certifies the fact these long-forgotten craftsmemmle had some kind of skill or technology we no longer remember today. Some so-called 'experts' claim that this is the work of other worldly bodies. This is, of course, utterly ridiculous."

"But what about the theory that this rock came from outer space," a femammle from down the front called out, "doesn't that have some merit?"

"A valid point, Samantha," the goat answered. "It is true that no scientist, of physics or of geography, have been able to identify where in all Zoophon this piece of rock even came from. Or how it was dragged across several hundred miles of desert, stood erect and then buried thirty-five feet underground. Your suggestion and the suggestion of others: that the tower was originally a great meteor is not only partly plausible, but also explains how it came to be so deeply embedded in dry sand. Not an easy material to dig by any means. It could be that this rock was, at one stage, many times bigger than it is now. But it burnt up while entering the atmosphere, embedded itself in the desert and then was chiseled and shaped into the building we find today by a race of ancient people."

Pacing to one of the blackboards, Nyilas picked up a piece of chalk and started to scratch out a few lengthy calculations. "But this is not an all-that-satisfactory answer," he continued, "as, if we take into account the mass of the tower today, estimate the size it would've been when it entered the atmosphere and when it landed… multiply that by the velocity with which it would have hit Earth, times by the area of the base to give us the pressure of impact..."

...

Not far from the lecture hall, a pair of gray doors burst open and a rabbit hurried through, the door suddenly swinging back upon the fox who was following close behind, almost knocking him off his feet, before, he managed to slip through the rapidly closing space between.

"Come on, Nick," Judy said hurriedly as her eyes darted about her, "which way did the receptionist say to go now? Up the stairs? Straight on?"

"Up the stairs and then a left," Nick repeated, rubbing the sore patch on his arm, "but, Carrots, why—" The fox trailed off as Judy rushed up the stairs, failing to hear him or notice him talking. "Judy!" Nick called after her, making the rabbit stop at the top of the staircase and turn to him expectantly.

"What?"

"Why the big hurry? We've got time."

"What do you mean? We have no time. Sure, we don't exactly have a deadline we need to have Nyilas arrested by. But the sooner we can get him behind bars, the sooner we can focus all our attention on getting Bogo a warrant which we do have a deadline for. You with me?"

"I guess."

The rabbit crossed her arms. "Nick, where's your enthusiasm?"

The fox focused absently off to the side, still rubbing the pain in his arm unthinkingly.

The rabbit's eyes flicked from his face to his paw, then back to his face again with a small smile spread on her being. "You hurt your arm on the door, didn't you?"

"Huh… yeah."

Skipping down the staircase, she came to a level where her head was equal with his own. She leaned towards him suddenly and kissed him on the nose. "Come on," she encouraged, hurrying back up, "stop being such a cub. We have work to do."

Smiling at her nervously, the fox obliged, while the rabbit pulled the door, at the top, open to step through and, this time, held it still for the red fox following suit.

...

Chalking out a final, long number and underlining it several times, making all the mammals with a good sense of hearing wince from the terrible scratching noise it made, Nyilas wrote out the result of his sums. "If an object impacted Earth with this kind of tremendous force," he stated, sternly, "then the tectonic plate would have been split in two, the desert would be turned into the largest volcano in Zoophon. Half the continent would have been coated in lava and the other half would have sunk beneath the sea. The massive changes in the climate would, ultimately, have ruptured the planet core, therefore, ending all life on its surface."

The goat turned to the raised paw of a leopard in one of the wings. "Yes, Jerome?"

"If it really is that implausible, why do some scientists believe it?"

"Simply because it is the most logical theory of all the ones which present themselves. It is impossible that this piece of black marble came from within the desert itself. This is one thing at least all theorists agree on. So it either came from space or was dragged across an absolute minimum distance of three hundred and eighty-seven miles of sand."

In one corner of the room, between the slots of two desks on one of the upper levels, a set of large, gray ears poked out from behind a rafter, while another pair of smaller-red ones just peeped up beside them.

"I myself once tried to calculate how many people it would take to move a piece of stone this size across such a great distance, and found the number impossible to comprehend. Not with all the paws in Zootopia and Zoophon could we move this stone an inch. Not one jot. Not only because of its enormous size or weight, but also because it is so heavy. It would constantly be burrowing down into the sand, making it almost impossible to shift without digging it all out again. What's more, given the scorching temperatures in the daytime and the freezing winds at night, the death toll would have been in the millions."

...

"Great hiding place, Nick," Judy whispered to the fox beside her as she glanced about at her surroundings. Behind the tiered platforms of desks was a disorganized tangle of structural supports — wooden beams and iron polls — to keep the structure supported; it was here where the two officers had found a hiding spot in a crouched, quiet observation. All underneath the feet of all these oblivious interns.

Judy tilted her head a little to the side, trying to watch the professor between the legs of a student. Nick observed Judy for a bit; she had definitely been busying herself with their getting here to avoid unnecessary thinking, there was no denying that fact at all. Sure, Nick had enjoyed the moments of raw passion while it had lasted, — he loved it — but he was beginning to regret giving into his desires like that.

The fox watched as Judy's attention on the teacher started to blur as her thoughts turned inwards. Her focus fell just a little as her musings deepened and, eventually, her gaze fell from the teacher altogether as she considered what had happened back at the police cruiser.

Nick spoke, trying not to sound concerned as he asked, "You look troubled, Hopps; you okay?"

"Yeah... I'm just—"

"If this is about what just happened in the car," he sighed, "then—"

"It's not that," she interposed firmly, "it's this. It's just... I don't know. It just doesn't sit right is all. You know?"

"I know," the fox agreed. "You're wondering why a well-respected billy goat with a wife and kids, who's long past the age of settling down, decides to get into bed with a bunch of drug dealers."

"Yeah."

"Well, that's something I can't answer, Hopps. I may be pretty good at judging peoples' past, but I'm not a mind reader. All I can do is agree with you," his voice turned slow and distant, and his thoughts deepened. "Why does a well-respected archaeologist get into bed with a bunch of drug dealers?"

"We can always ask him later," Judy said, "and remember, we're not here to scare him. So no shouting 'you're under arrest' or anything like that. It'll only make things harder, when we could just ask him nicely if he'd come. We clear?" There wasn't an instant answer and she noticed that Nick was too deep in thought to have even noticed her words, let alone formulate a thorough response with fruity ideas. She looked back to the front, watching as Nyilas — apparently just a pleasant teacher by all accounts — politely engaged with another student.

Her lips tightened. She couldn't believe this elderly mammal at being the head of a massive crime operation. This somewhat bumbling professor of archeological sciences just couldn't be. It just didn't work in her head; it just didn't sit right — none of it. Her mind drifted back to what Nick had told her recently, 'Everyone has their price.' Could it be that Nyilas was just a pawn in this? The rabbit found her heartbeat rising as the thought entered her brain. It was a big leap to make for sure, but it sure as hell wasn't Nyilas! She wondered about what Nick would think if…

The rabbit turned to him, sharply, just as Nick did the same towards her. The fox's eyes set upon the rabbit's expression, his brow furrowed with reflections. There was silence for a moment and then he nodded slightly, his voice dry and resolute, "You think so too?"

"There has to be more to this than we're seeing."

"We don't have any proof, Hopps," he said, although he clearly agreed with her.

"I know, Nick… But someone has to be the head of this drug operation. And it sure as hell isn't Nyilas.

"I know, Judy," the fox sighed, grimly.

"You okay?"

"Yeah," he said, "I'm just worried is all. Just how big is this gonna turn out to be?"

"I don't know, Nick," she sighed, putting her paw on his, "but we're going to find out."

The fox's paw closed on the rabbit's; her gaze rose to watch the elderly mammal at the front. "It doesn't matter what leverage, whoever really runs this operation, has against Nyilas," she said firmly with heaps of confidence, "once we take him in, it won't be long before we can convince him that we can help. He'll tell us everything he knows about the operation. I'm sure of it. And whoever is really in charge will, with a little luck, be apprehended by the end the day."

"Like it's gonna be that easy," Nick muttered beside her.

"Hey, it might be," she said sweetly, stepping closer to her fox and slipping her arms around his waist. "Come on, have a little faith. Nyilas is bound to have some information on whoever it is. All we need is a name and address, and we can put an end to this struggle."

The fox surrendered his arms around the sweet-smelling rabbit needfully. He still couldn't fight off the feeling of trepidation he had woken up with. His first thought that morning had been that this was going to be a very long and difficult day. And that sense had stuck with him and had been growing steadily stronger with every moment that had passed. He tried to ignore it — he was good at ignoring it due to the lots of experience — but the fear remained all the same, and so he clung extra firm to the rabbit, denying the truth that he already knew: that something bad was going to happen.

...

"But we come, now, to perhaps the most striking fact of all. Whatever technology these ancient people had to be able to carry this gigantic rock across such a vast dessert landscape, no matter how skillful they were in chipping and calving the rock, regardless of what system they used to make sure every floor was flat and level and every wall was perfectly vertical... all facts pale away when we consider the strength of the rock itself."

From his pocket, Victor Nyilas pulled a small piece of gray rock which he set down upon his desk. "This," he stated loudly, "is a piece of marble similar to the kind the tower is made from. In other words, your average piece of marble. If I were to take a three pound lump hammer and hit this rock, it would shatter into shards. If this piece of rock were of the same material as the tower, however, I could take a ten pound lump hammer and the handle would break long before the rock would."

"But, sir," interrupted a voice from about the center of the group, "how can you know how strong the stone is? I thought taking samples was illegal."

"It is," Nyilas replied, "but I was blessed." He paused for a moment, a smile growing. "As you know, there has been very little in the way of archaeological finds in that area, hence, why there are so rarely digs there. I, however, thought there would be no better way to end my carrier as an archaeologist then one final dig around the Zistopia Council Tower. I was, during this dig, contacted by High-Secretary Hayes. As it transpired, he had heard that this was my last dig and, as a retirement gift, permitted me to use laser technology to remove a piece of stone from its outer surface. One centimeter in size and half a millimeter in depth.

"As soon as I returned to Zootopia, I took this shard down to the laboratory here in the university and began to examine it. Its intermolecular structure is like nothing I have seen. It's almost as though this rock is an alloy between marble and crystal. In the same way bronze is an alloy between copper and tin. But the technology to create an alloy from two non-metallic substances does not exist, nor did it ever exist. For it is as impossible to make a single substance from crystal and marble as it is to make lead into gold.

"The strength of this structure also poses some interesting questions. For instance, if a modern day builder were to sit at the foot of the tower with a bag of sharp chisels and a mallet, he could sit there all day and blunt every single one of his chisels before making so much as a scratch to the surface. This material is impervious to damage from any paw tool, can strongly resist most kinds of electric tools, can withstand small explosives without taking any damage and is effectively bulletproof. In fact, by my calculations, it is my belief that it should, possibly, even be able to withstand a head-on collision with one of the smaller types of missile, without sustaining enough damage to compromise its structural integrity.

"The front door is no less thick and, once sealed and barred from inside, is practically as impervious to any kind of damage as the rest of the building. So," he added with a hoof raised in the air, "if you find yourself locked outside, there is really very little you can do to get back in, short of calling in a tank and three hundred pounds of TNT. When this place was used as a fortress in the medieval times, it was considered literally impregnable once the doors were locked."

Clearing his throat, Victor pulled the last of the photos out of the proctor and flicked on the lights. Blinking as his eyes adjusted, he proceeded to shut off the proctor, wipe his calculations off the board and then addressed the class as a whole.

"Class, thank you all very much for attending. I am sorry to inform you of this, but it may be impossible for me to provide any more lectures. I know I did not mention this to you before, but I didn't want to leave without just telling you what a privilege it has been to teach here." Almost choking up, the goat forced his voice to finish what was started, "Good-bye, all of you. And I wish you the very best of luck in the exams."

With that, the goat turned and swiftly left the room. Darting back from their viewing portal, Nick and Judy rushed to get out. They knew... the chase was on.

...

Nyilas stepped from the lecturing hall for what he knew would be the last time. He began pacing down the first-floor corridor slowly, looking about at the wide hall and tall ceiling as though never having seen it before.

A door swung open, some way up the corridor behind him, and a voice called out, "Mister Nyilas, may we have a word?" His brow raised, he rounded to see who it was. What he had expected to see was one of his students, wishing to bid him a personal farewell. What he saw instead was the very rabbit and fox he had been warned about.

"Officer Wilde and I were—"

"— Great Scott!" With that, the goat nearly tripped and sprinted away with all the speed a sixty-three-year-old professor of archaeology could muster — which admittedly wasn't much. It took a moment for them to process what had happened, but when they did, Nick and Judy exploded into motion behind him. The few seconds head start had given him a little time, but it would be only seconds before the two officers would catch up.

The goat reached the end of the corridor and knew running wasn't going to get him anywhere. He couldn't out-fight them; he couldn't out-run them. His frantic search darted around for an answer. It came.

Sidetracking to the fire extinguisher at the end of the corridor, Nyilas yanked it from the wall, pulled the pin, pointed it in the direction of the fox and the rabbit as they came to within grabbing distance of him, and he unleashed a bellow of freezing gas towards them.

Nick and Judy stumbled back from the intense frost, covering their faces and blinded by the icy smoke as they backed instinctively away. Still spraying the extinguisher's contents towards them, the goat backed hurriedly away. Glancing to his side, he spotted the fire alarm and broke the safety glass with the butt of the heavy canister.

As the alarm rang out in piercing loudness, the officers tried again to approach him, but were unable to negate the wall of icy cold between them. Moments later, the fire extinguisher ran out of gas and Nyilas dropped it like a dead weight, before, bolting off down the corridor.

"Hurry," Judy called, recovering quickly from the cold, "after him!" But just as the officers started giving chase, the doors to the many lecture halls in this corridor crashed open and a horde of students filtered out — summoned by the call of the fire alarm. Within moments, the entire corridor was packed with a slow-moving procession of students steadily filtering towards the staircase down. Far too slow for Nick and Judy, as they tried to get through the mass of bodies.

Nimble though they were in darting through spaces and in between legs, their speed was still severely slowed by the panicked crowd; thus they lost sight of Nyilas almost instantly. "Damn it," Judy muttered while trying to squeeze past a rhino and an elephant, with utter failure and an obvious danger to her life. "Nick, quickly, think of a plan to get us out of this."

"Too late," murmured Nick from just behind her.

"What do you mean 'too late'?"

"I mean we've lost him," he said, flatly.

"Nick, I—"

"Look." Judy turned her head and noticed that Nick was no longer moving, but just staring out of the upstairs' window. She made her way back towards him, following his eyes' aim as he gazed solemnly outside.

"Is that Nyilas?" Judy asked.

"Yeah."

"Getting into the back of that black car?"

"Uh-huh."

Leaning forwards, Judy looked at the drop. "Nick, you think we could jump down from here, get to the cruiser and follow them?"

He gave her a sideways glance of wobbliness. "If you want to break your ankle or your neck, I guess you could. But I'd rather you didn't."

"So what do we do?"

After a moment of thought, Nick inhaled a long breath and let it out in a slow sigh, his voice low and dry, "We phone Bogo and tell him we lost our lead."

Both mammals watched in their own little bubble of failure, surrounded by the excited chatter of dozens of mammals and the wailing bellow of the alarm, while the elderly goat visibly rushed into the back of a low car with tinted-black windows, before, being driven quickly away in escape.

Both officers just idled without emotion, until Judy's expression rose to look at Nick's expectantly; Nick reacted down at her, despondently. He twisted away from her as he finally gave reaction, "Come on, Hopps," he spat as he paced away, "let's get out of here."

Judy's mind returned to the window, at a loss of what to do or how to feel, while the black car drove up the road and disappeared out of sight. Raising her paw, she touched it upon her chest.

"Coming... Nick."

...

"D-do you think t-they're following us?" Nyilas asked through his frantic heartbeat and ache within his exhausted lungs.

"No."

"Are you sure? What if they—"

"Just shut up!"

Sitting back down in his seat, Nyilas let out a controlled lung of air as he tried to figure out what had just happened. The car was empty but for the driver, a coyote, who he asked, "How did you know to pick me up?"

"I was just instructed to. Apparently the boss already knew Wilde and Hopps were gonna try and arrest you."

"He sent you here to save me?"

"It's looking that way." The old professor was speechless for a moment long, thinking on how he might strike up a conversation with this rather unpleasant fellow.

"It's George," he deducted carefully, "isn't it?"

"None of your business, gramps."

"What happened to your paw?"

"Some dog stuck a knife in me."

"Oh. So, where we going now?"

"To the docks."

"Won't the police still be there?"

"Until nightfall. But the boat's ready to make dock as soon as they're gone."

"How do you know?"

"I just know, alright?"

"But," Nyilas tried despite the threatening behaviour, "someone told me you have to keep radio silence to stay undetected."

"We do," the coyote affirmed, "but I was on the boat. I came ashore on a little rowing boat with an advanced party. It'll be our job to open the gates for the vans later."

"You came on the boat?"

"Isn't that what I said?"

"Are you the captain?"

"No, but I am in charge."

Nyilas refrained from retorting, until a mutter came under his breath, "No, you're wrong. The Lord of Zistopia... he's in charge."

Author's notes:

Hesitance jumps around your mind,

Grooms decision thus chosen blind.

Your thoughts most succulent of snack,

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