Chapter Fifty-Eight
The Brink

'T' minus 21 minutes and counting...

The clock ticked on. A slow, monotonous clicking, which grated on the nerves and gnawed at the senses. Judy Hopps, one of the first to be dressed and out of the changing rooms, stood, fretful and frustrated, in the main foyer area of the ZPD HQ. When she had first appeared, Clawhauser had been sat quietly behind the reception desk, staring soulfully down at a box of donuts on his desk; his appetite for eating all gone with what was soon to come. He wouldn't be taking part in the raid, but he still worried about and cared for each of the officers' lives as much as he would his own.

When he had first seen her, Clawhauser had given his congratulations for delivering the briefing earlier; then he had asked how Judy was feeling, which he could clearly see on her etched impatience. So the cheetah had offered to go up to the CCTV room and keep watch over the car park for her, and to contact her via radio when Bogo's car would pull up. Judy had agreed, and then Benjamin Clawhauser had left.

So then, the rabbit stood in the growing silence of the foyer, with nothing to listen to but the ominous ticking of the clock upon the wall, and nothing to think about but her growing fears about tonight. She had tried moving around, but wearing the heavy armor, she had only worked herself up and had fussed and tugged at the items of apparel; trying to force them to become comfortable on her body, using them as a vent for her tension in the form of an unwarranted amount of fury. And now, fearful and frustrated, she stood motionless in unbearable anticipation in the silence of the empty foyer.

A door opened some way up the corridor. Judy turned — hoping it was Nick most of all — but prepared to endure the company of anymammal in lieu. From around the corner, from the direction of the changing rooms, Snarlov the gray-muzzled polar bear appeared. Her pace was a little slower and a little less broad than usual, due to the tactical armor. The large, white bear made towards the rabbit. "Officer Snarlov," Judy greeted as the bear approached, trying to keep the very obvious nerves out of her voice.

"Hopps," the white bear greeted in reply, a little less warmly and a little more professionally than Hopps would've liked, but still courteous at least.

"The others," Hopps continued, "are they nearly ready?"

"Nearly, yes. They'll be along in just a minute."

Hopps chuckled through her jitteriness. "Hah, great. Wouldn't want to be making the Chief mad for having people still getting changed when he gets back now, would we?"

"Not in the position you've been put in, no. No, you really don't want to mess this up, believe me."

Judy held her smile a moment longer, and then, she let it drop. "Okay, look," she said, sincerely, her volume lowering, "I get it that no one's really happy Bogo put us in charge… I get it."

"Huh, got that right."

"And, believe me, I'm not all that overjoyed about it either, but Bogo was fully justified in his decision. He had no personal reason to be putting us in charge of giving the briefing. He didn't do it because he thought we were more capable than McHorn or the others. There was no 'favoritism' or lack of proper judgment, like most of you seem to think there was. It was just a matter of necessity.

"We, aside from Bogo, were the only people who had been fully furnished with the facts as we knew them. We were the only ones who had seen inside Erkin and knew what was going on. It makes sense to put us in charge of telling the others what's what!" Hopps rubbed her paw across her forehead, trying to hold back the strain in her voice. "Why does McHorn and everyone else there have to hate us for it? Why?"

Judy stared down miserably at the floor. The bear tilted her head a little to one side and sighed in understanding. "It's mostly just jealousy," she said, at length. "The two of you just seem to get all the lucky breaks in this job. There are some officers here who've been working their tails off for over thirty years, and haven't had nearly a fraction of the recognition you have. Look at it this way: within a week of being hired, you'd cracked the case of the century and brought that psychopathic sheep to an end. Wilde wasn't even an official employee back then. And now it looks like you're about to do the same thing all over again."

"You can't blame McHorn for feeling hurt. And he may've masked it behind just being angry, but underneath, he was just feeling hurt and confused. It's not his fault. He's been waiting to take over from Bogo in Precinct One, since The Krays' time. And now, I guess he's just worried you and Wilde are gonna come sweeping in and steal the position of chief of police from him, taking it from him in just a little more than one year. Something that he's been aspiring to for more like forty."

The rabbit stared, blinking up at the bear. Then, her expression died and she sighed with exhaustion. "Well great... now I feel crappy for kicking him out."

Snarlov snorted. "Yep, and I think most of the officers feel the same way."

The rabbit's head fell into her paws. "God, what've I done," she mumbled. "I got into an argument with the second most senior officer in the Precinct. What was I thinking?"

Snarlov crossed her arms and smiled, grimly. Further up the corridor, voices approached, as a number of people of both genders grew closer. The polar bear's grim smile faded just a little as she looked down into the rabbit's frightened existence. Unfolding her arms and clearing her throat, she leaned down towards her a little. "For what it's worth," she whispered, while the people behind her grew closer, "while it is true what I said: that a lot of mammals aren't happy about you and Wilde being put in charge. I never said that includes all of us. I never said that includes me."

Silenced at the new knowledge, Judy's head rose unconfidently from her hiding place of paws. She looked up at the polar bear, who bore a thin smile. "Who cares if you make them jealous?" Snarlov winked at her. "You show them what you're made of."

"Snarlov, I..." The rabbit trailed off into unknown moments, and then, managed to huff-out a short chuckle, "Thank you."

At that moment, the radio on Hopps' belt crackled, and Clawhauser's quiet yet urgent voice rushed, "Hopps, we got a Bogo, incoming!"

The rabbit pulled out her radio and asked in urgency, "ETA?"

"He's now pulling-up outside. At a guess, I'd say no more than sixty seconds."

"Thanks, Claw, I owe you one."

"Aww, you owe me nothing."

Judy didn't have time to smile at the comment; thus, she flicked off the radio and turned to the slowly assembling group of officers, as they made towards her from the changing rooms. "Okay, everyone," she called out to them, cutting off their conversations, her voice a noticeable tone higher than it normally was, "Bogo will be here any moment. Could you all get in here lined up, please?" More or less returning to their conversations, the assembled officers of the ZPD made their ways, leisurely, towards the foyer.

"Hey," Snarlov shouted, getting everyone's attention, "Hopps said to get in a line. So let's move it!" Speeded on by her words, the officers arranged, swiftly, into a line. Finally managing to make his way through the crowd of armor, re-enforced mammals, Nick succeeded in reaching Judy, while she turned and glanced up at the clock on the wall, counting down the seconds until 'the master's' expected return.

"Hopps," Nick wheezed, but Judy turned her head at the door's direction, not registering that the fox had spoken at all. "Hey, Hopps," he said, louder. This time, the rabbit turned to him, her expression troubled.

"Oh... sorry," she apologized with unease. "I'm just having a little trouble hearing stuff in this thing."

"Don't worry about it. How are you feeling?"

"Like a sardine. It's only been five minutes since I put this on, and already I can't wait to get it all off again. You?"

"Well," he said with a shrug, "it'll keep us alive if things go wrong. So mild disability aside, I'm happy. What's the word on Bogo?"

"He'll be here any second. Actually, I'm surprised he's not here all..." Judy trailed off, a black shape appearing on the other side of the glass doors — the main entrance into Zootopia's Police Department Headquarters. A silence falling instantly in the room at the tall shadow, which stretched out across the floor, the doors opened, and the chief of police stepped in. Hopps and Wilde shuffled quickly to their place at the end of the now perfectly straight line of officers. Chief Bogo came closer, his footsteps slow, silent, calm. He took a stop before the long line of officers waiting for him, and gave each of them a long, steely gaze.

He got to the first officer in the line — the opposite side to Hopps and Wilde — and stood, with his hoofs clasped behind his back before the figure of Officer Trunkus Trunkaby. His gaze traced slowly up, and then down his uniform. "Your badge is crooked," Bogo noted. "Attend to it."

"Yes, Sir," Trunkaby complied and adjusted it instantly with Bogo's next steps, deathly slow, down the line of officers.

"Officer Fangmeyer, the plate on your leg is lose. Tighten it. Officer Higgins, your visor is speckled with mud. Clean it. Officer Grizzoli, there's a rip in your sleeve. Repair it, before we leave. Officer Wilde, yo—" Having reached the end of the line, Bogo froze and stared down at the fox. Wilde stared back, his head slowly lowering and his tail slowly drawing between his legs, as he prepared for whatever berating was to come. None came; Bogo just kept boring into him.

At length, Nick broke the silence, "Erh... hi?"

"Officer Wilde, your..." Bogo sighed sorrowfully, his eyes falling closed as he raised a hoof to rub at his head. "Your fly is undone. Attend to it."

"Ugh?! Oh, erm... heh heh, right." The fox turned swiftly away from the line of officers now looking at him, doing up his trousers' zipper quickly before readjusting to his prior spot, with a sheepish smile and fur on his cheeks that was tinged just a little redder.

"Alright," Bogo concluded firmly, moving away from the almost fatally embarrassed fox and pacing back and forth before the line of officers, "it seems you have been handled with an adequate amount of care. But now, we're going to have a little test to see what you really know. Fangmeyer, how many points of exit are there to the location?"

"Three, Sir. The front door, the back alley and the fire escape."

"Correct. Snarlov?"

"Sir."

"Describe the layout of Erkin Electrics."

"One reception area leading to one corridor connecting to a three-story high work area. Off-the-blueprint structures and obstacles are likely, due to the nature of the building, and—"

"Enough. Delgato, finish her sentence."

"Ughm— the staircase itself if too unstable for people of a weight upwards of a medium wolf."

"Well done. Higgins, in which battle was Nelson killed?"

"His last one."

"Good. Wolfard, what manufacture of weapon are the workers at Erkin armed with?"

"SMGs."

"Wrong. I said what manufacture."

"Oh! Er—"

"Er is wrong, Wolfard. They're Heckler and Koch MP5s. What are they?"

"Heckler and Koch MP—"

"Will they be in possession of these weapons when we enter the building?"

"No, the guns are all locked in a crate."

"But?"

"But... if they do manage to arm themselves, we're to get out right away—"

"And!?"

"And, er, seal off that area?"

"You nearly lost it there."

"Yes, Sir."

"Be sure you're clear on the procedure."

"Yes, Sir."

"If they manage to arm themselves, you don't hang around. Right?"

"No, Sir. Thank you, Sir." Bogo took a step away, and Wool used that moment to take his breath.

"Alright," Bogo called in a slow step, "looks like most of you have the basic facts down just about okay. Seems I left you in capable paws after all. If only just," he added, turning to the glass doors and looking out. "Twilight's almost over," he said to himself, looking out at the almost black sky. "Officer McHorn, how much longer until total nightfall?" He turned to the room but didn't find his oldest officer. "Officer McHorn?" His face fell blank. Bogo double-checked the officers present. He turned to Judy, his brows lowering. "Hopps, where is Officer McHorn?"

"Eh-heh... yeah, about that. We aghmmm— that is to say, Officer Wilde and myself—"

"We were legally obliged to ask McHorn to leave the premises," Nick cut in, stating the matter cleanly and truthfully. After a moment of careful consideration, Bogo turned sharply to the fox as though ready to explode into furious questioning as to why. He raised a finger towards him, his mouth opened, then... the open mouth faltered, the finger fell and the buffalo grunted, and—

"There isn't the time for this line of questioning right now. And, I guess, I did give you active command of the unit. So whatever decisions you made and whatever orders you gave during that time, is your responsibility and of your own judgment. It would be hypocritical of me to chasten you for exercising the authority I myself gave you."

Bogo turned away from the fox and the rabbit, and the duo released a lung of pent-up tension for it. Then he called to the two of them over his shoulder as distance was made. "But the two of you had better have a damn-fineexcuse for doing what you did, when this raid is over. Now come one, all of you," he ordered, going further down the corridor, as he addressed all of the memmle, "our transportation is waiting in the car park. Everything is on schedule."

Without a word of argument, the officers followed their chief. Making her way around the crowd of armored officers, Judy caught up with Bogo, as he marched down the long hall with Nick following her close behind. "Bogo, did the jury sign the warrant?"

"Of course they did," he snapped, "why else would we be heading to the vehicle?"

"I'm sorry about McHorn, Sir. Looking back, I think I should've handled it differently, but we—"

"Enough, already. You'll be grilled on that later."

"What's the transport like? Will we be traveling in many separate cars, or—"

"Don't bother me with useless questions. You'll find out for yourself in a minute!"

"I'm sorry, Sir," she said, her voice shaking, "I'm just, a little shook, an—"

"Officer, fall back in line. That's an order." Judy froze, her mouth gawking with worry and hurt, and her paws starting to shake in her armor. Bogo carried on moving, the rest of the officers following behind, until it was just Nick and her. The rabbit felt a weight on her shoulder. She turned; it was Nick's paw. Usually, the warmth of his paw gave her inexplicable courage from nowhere — but she couldn't feel the warmth of his touch; couldn't smell his reassuring scent through the air; couldn't hear the soothing sound of his breaths moving in and out. It was as though he was only half there, due to the ZPD armor stood between them.

The rabbit adjusted to the fox and looped her arms as tightly as she was able around his chest. Nick glanced at the officers, as they grew further away — none of them were looking, and the armor they were wearing cut off most of their vision — so he returned the affection with a hug of his own. It was a struggled and uncomfortable hug. They were unable to feel one another's heat, and it was difficult to feel any amount of intimacy. The hug was, however, comforting enough, and when they parted from the strained meeting of bodies, the rabbit's expression seemed brighter than before.

Nick sighed as they resumed following the group of thirty or so officers. "You know," he said dryly, "I have the greatest of respects for Bogo and all, but he can be a dick sometimes."

"Hey, come on, he's under pressure too. Chances are he's far tenser about tonight than even we are. Give him a little lenience."

"Yeah, I guess," the fox sighed, following the rabbit as they made their way down to the ZPD car park, with the view of the dark, armored vans which awaited them thereupon.

Author's notes:

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