Chapter Ninety-Nine

Perspectives

A ZPD cruiser pulled neatly around the corner of a T-junction in the road, the male driving raising a polite paw to the driver who had slowed to allow him to pass. Beside the fox driving, the figure of a young lynx watched him, carefully.

"You're a very good driver," she said, her voice quiet with timidity.

"Yeah," replied the driver. He said nothing else, and the lynx found herself in a silent car and gazing at a fox. Clearing her throat, she turned to the road ahead.

"Have you been in Zootopia long?"

"All my life, never left the damn place."

"Not even on a holiday?"

"Never had a holiday. Never had the money... never had the time."

"You, uh... know your way around Zootopia well, then?"

"Only better than anyone else. Spent time living in all the districts. You dump me out anywhere, I'll know where I am, and the shortest route back home."

"You know, it's... it's really good to meet you, actually. I, uh, didn't expect to get to spend time with anyone... on your level. Thought I'd just be cooped-up filling out paperwork for a few weeks."

Sighing, the fox took a long glance towards lynx. "Alright," he relented, turning back to the road, "don't get all flattery." His voice was dry, though a light smile was beginning to crack upon his expression.

Hearing the slight touches of venom now lessoning in the fox's voice, Fields chuckled a nervous breath. "Sorry, just, not sure how to behave... with you."

A time passed and then, with the fox and the lynx sat in silence, Nick's mind came up with a number of conversational topics, which could've started a further discourse between them, but the desire for such interaction was dried up by the ever-present thoughts of his loved one lying upon the hospital bed where he had left her.

"You know, huh..." Fields wondered in her words, and the fox raised a quizzical brow at the lynx, beginning to speculate just why she was so intent on creating conversation with him. Anxiety? Just talkative by nature? Edging for something? He doubted an earth-shattering arrière-pensée from this seventeen-year-old, but… Still, that base sense of 'unease' was unshakable from his mind, no matter who, when or how.

"What?" Nick asked.

"Oh, just, a curiosity. Your record says you're the newest officer on the force. But, also notes you're one of its most 'experienced'? And yet... there's no actual mention of any 'past jobs' on your record. It's just 'blanks'."

"And what're you doing reading my records?" he sidestepped.

"Just... just, you know... we get told to read the reports of other officers we follow and respect, to build an understanding of what skills and experiences they have, and what they know we can learn from, that sort of thing," Fields succeeded in saying with just one breath of impressiveness.

"Uh-huh, yeah."

"It... it's totally not like a stalker-ish, type—"

"I get it, yeah. Like the reports we had to write in the academy, yeah."

A smile grew on the lynx's features at stumbling upon a piece of common ground. "When I... eventually do get to the academy, uh..." Clearing her throat, the lynx looked towards her feet. "I'm going to base my written investigation assignment off of you."

The fox gave Fields a withering look. He snorted, a small grin appearing on his muzzle. "I based mine off Chief Bogo."

"Oh. I thought Officer Hopps would be...?"

"She's... well, she's a wonderful officer, of course," he said, his eyes tightening with thoughts of admiration and respect for his partner, "but what they're really looking for in that old written exam is an account of an officer's learning curve and progression. You need to talk about how A affected B, and how C gave the officer an understanding of D, and then show how they used D to help solve B and A. Get it?"

"Just about."

"Hoppsie was my first choice, obviously, but when I got looking into writing the damn report, realized there wasn't all that much history to her. Go for Bogo, or McHorn, or Snarlov, someone with years of experience in the PD. You won't even have to dig deep, and they'll give you all the material you need to— you're seriously taking notes!?"

"Well sure! Bogo said, while I was here, to learn what I could from what I saw and heard and to listen to any advice I might get given!"

Mystification crossing his features, the fox gazed out at the city street, noting the shape of the hospital coming into view ahead. "What's Bogo's angle in all this, anyway?" he asked, turning the car towards the Saint Bernard's carpark.

"I don't... what do you mean?"

"Letting some 'lil kid run around. No offense. But I mean, he wasn't even happy to have Hopps on the force, and that was after topping her class at the academy."

"I don't know, Officer Wilde. He, uh... didn't seem very happy to meet me."

"Oh, don't worry, he's never happy to 'meet' anyone. Not much of a people person."

"I guess it's just because my school headmaster asked nicely? Maybe... Chief Bogo owed him a favor for something? I'm just glad I got this opportunity to be here, however long it lasts."

The fox nodded, absent-mindedly, the bias of his thoughts suddenly being tilted heavily against Field's favor, while the shadow of the hospital fell across the car, and the fox's features lead up to stare upon the large, grey building. "Well. Here we are. You gonna be okay driving back to the PD?"

"A-hem, I would've been fine driving us both 'to' here." The fox pulled the car up to a stop and removed himself brusquely, pulling the belt buckle from across his chest and stepping out into the open air.

"Hey! Uh..." Fields called out, rushing to exit the vehicle and call out before the fox walked away, "I, uh... I know that, just now, it's not going to be possible. But youuu... think you could introduce me to Officer Hopps some time?"

"I guess. Later. When she's better."

"Of course, yeah, of course when she's better. Uh... bye, then?" The fox was already twenty paces away, and heading in a solid march to the back entrance of the hospital. Noticing at last what he was doing, his footfall slowed to a stop. Sighing to himself, his head inclining over his shoulder, he turned back to the figure of the lynx and rose a paw in a brief wave goodbye.

Her gaze having never moved from him, the lynx's face grew to a beaming smile at the gesture, and with the snap of an arm, her paw was saluting in return. Raising his brows and shaking his head to himself, the fox turned back ahead and made to the reception entrance of Saint Bernard's Hospital.

...

A few hundred miles east of Zootopia, a black van waited elevated several miles above the surface of the road. An onlooker to this sight might've found it a peculiar position for a van to be in; however, no such onlookers had any chance of seeing such, as the van was concealed within the thick walls of solid stone of the mountain atop which Blackheath Prison was built. The ZZ van stood upon a metal frame, being slowly raised on a system of pulleys and chains: a purpose-built elevator that was constructed and calved inside the outer edge of the mountainside.

Assistant Chief Constable Shale was inside the darkness of the ZZ van, gazing at the bare rock wall as it passed before him. Having entered the outer gate of Blackheath, the three ZZ vans had pulled up alongside the vehicle entrance. The great, iron doors had pulled open and the first of the three vans had driven inside.

Shale cleared his throat, affecting a smile as he looked towards the horse situated beside him. "Pretty crazy place, huh? Giant elevator built into the side of the mountain, guards watching us from everywhere, load of—"

"You're doing it again."

"Yep, sorry, yep."

"You're not here for conversation, fox. You're here to drive the van."

"Yes, thank you, I—" The fox's reply was cut short by the beeping of the onboard phone. With a jolt and a flurry of paw-movements, Shale put the phone against his ear. "Eh, hello! Hi, Assistant Chief Constable Shale here, how can I help?"

"Surveyor Director Wright."

"Oh." Pulling himself upright in his seat, Shale dusted off his shirt and pawed back the fur upon his muzzle — the desire to make a good impression momentarily outweighing his reason. "Good to hear from you, Miss Wright. Just checking up, I assume?"

"Indeed," crackled Wright's reply, the signal crippled by the walls of the mountain around them. The time is ten minutes past one; I should have expected you be in the elevator by now."

"And in the elevator we are, Miss Wright. Eh— I myself am currently inside that big elevator thing they use to transport vehicles around here. We'll be at the top in another ten minutes. We'll have all the prisoners topside in the next eighty minutes."

"That will leave you thirty minutes behind schedule!"

"Wh— well I can't speed these elevators up! Ten minutes a way without a vehicle, twenty minutes a way with one. I can't change that!"

"You were instructed to arrive at half past twelve."

"You told us to be there at two!

"But to arrive at half past twelve, thus giving you the necessary hour and a half to get your three vehicles up to Blackheath."

"I was never told about the elevator, no one ever mentioned how slowly the—"

"Come in," Wright interrupted, abruptly.

"Your lavender tea, Miss Wright," came a second voice from the receiver.

"Thank you, Jeremy. That will be all. And as for you, Shale..."

"Yes?"

"That will be all from you an' all. Good day." The line went dead. Shale cleared his throat.

Realizing this hadn't changed the awkward silence that hung within the van, he cleared his throat again. "So... another fifteen minutes of 'this'." waving a paw, Shale indicated the nigh-endless wall of stone, which was all that could be seen by the light of the van's headlights that moved slowly as the elevator snail-crawled upwards.

"Yeah," the horse grunted.

"Shame there's no in-flight movie."

"Yeah."

"Any, eh... any suggestions of what we cou—"

"You can suck me off if you're bored."

Shale's tan fur flushed. "I... hey— I don't think that would be especially appropriate."

"I'd make it an order, if you weren't so fox-ugly."

"I— I, em... hem... I am, in fact, actually senior to you, you know."

"Sure you are," the horse snarled with a grin at the fox and slipped a hoof into a pocket, which led to crude gestures with his hoof. Looking sharply to stare at the dull, stone wall ahead, Shale forced himself to focus on nothing but the bleakness in front, his teeth biting down upon his tongue in his mouth, almost with enough force to cut it through.

"Sure you are, fox," the horse grunted, sarcastically, pulling his hoof back from his pocket, "sure you are."

...

Judy Hopps lay upon her back, resting upon the cool softness of the medical bed. Her eyes were open and blinking slowly, though her mind was wondering and her thoughts were elsewhere. The sound of her mother's voice caught the lagomorph's attention, and her wandering gaze grounded itself upon the figure of the motherly doe, as she turned towards the nurse stood beside her.

"Now, Flo, let's get serious about this." Beside her, Nurse Flo raised a cautious brow towards the rabbit, but allowed her to continue in her proposition. "If you're sure she isn't going to need anything 'major' done to her... how long is she going to be kept in here?"

"For one thing, Mrs Hopps, I cannot promise you she will not need further medical attention from the injuries she has received. There will be long-term complications to her physical fitness. Not to mention her psychological well-being and any further head injuries— even, say... thirty years down the road, she must be brought in for checking straight away."

"Alright. Alright, I'll be sure she gets all that, I'll take good care of her. But when, when do you think she can come home?"

"Well, notwithstanding pro—"

"Home? Mh— Mom, what do you mean 'home'?" The assembled group shifted their attention at the hospitalized rabbit's aroused caution. She knew, full well, that her impropriation of 'home' and her mother's interpretation would be rather drastically different.

"Well to the farm, sweetie! With your family! We'll take good care of you."

"Bu— buht I can't, I don't want—"

"I know, hon-bon, I know you've got your little apartment to think about. But you can't stay there forever. Once you're better, if you want to go back to the PD— which, obviously you shouldn't," she added with sternness amidst all that softness. "But, if it's what you really want, Stu and I can support you and help you find another apartment."

"It's not that, Mom, it's not my apartment… It's..." she grunted: how to make them see what she was saying? How to say it without causing heartbreak? "I... I'm saying: I don't want to go back to the farm."

Through the silence, Bonnie gawked at her. "But... but sweetheart, you love that farm. You grew up on that farm!"

"I think, Mister Wolfard," Flo cut in, "you and I might do well to give the Hopps' some space." The wolf and the hare paced quietly from the room, moving away down the corridor without a word to the bed-bound Judy, her overprotective mother or mouthy brother.

"I know, Mom," Judy continued a moment after, "I know and... I loved it there, and still do. It's just... not..." she huffed, the buzzing pain in her skull clouding all thought, her anxiety mingling with her throbbing injuries and boiling up into irritation. "There's no peace," she shot, "no privacy, no rest or calm."

"But Judy... Judy, hon… You have to have someone you trust to take care of you!"

"I do! I do, Mom, I have someone I trust with all my heart— my, eh, my... all my life."

"Oh now Judy, you're still sick, you don't know what you're saying. Taking care of you, it's going to be a lot of work!"

"I know, I know Mom, and Ni—"

"After all, even once you're out of hospital, you're still going to need us to cook for you, take you out, help you recover."

"Mom, I get th—"

"I mean, even getting out of bed you're going to need help. Have you considered that?"

"Yes— yes, Mom, I get it."

"Then there's the matter of... taking baths, showers... getting dressed and... undressed." Judy gazed at nothing, realizing just now that with this list of revelations, all of which she intended Nick could help her with, was going to be very, very difficult... to convince her mother that Nick would be able to take her place... without giving on to another revelation of her own; one which through the pain and the irritation she herself hadn't even had time to properly consider… Clearing her throat, Judy said those words which would seal the fate of this conversation.

"I... yh— yeah, I ha..." taking a breath and forcing herself to swallow down her anxiety, Judy took a moment to note on the lighter side: that it was no longer because of her injuries and the drugs she was on that she was finding it hard to speak. "I have... thought about that side, yes. And... still say heh— he, can look after me."

Bonnie's ears dropped behind her. Desiring not to be undone by the same little device of body language she had so often picked Judy up on, she forced them to spring back upright once again. "So, it's like that," Bonnie said, eying Judy with an odd smile, her paws on her hips with a sense of 'triumph' about her demeanor. "Well, out with it: who is this 'mammle' you say can 'look after' you?"

"It— it, it's... it's Nick, Mom."

"Nick!?" Just feet away, the paw of a fox fell upon the door handle. The sound of his name, carrying through the wood of the door, froze his impulse for an instant; then the tone of the outcry and the potential urgency broke into his mind, and the door swung open... thus, the figure of Nicholas Wilde stepping inside.

"Eh— d-did, a-h-eh," the fox stuttered, trying to find something 'smooth' to say against the wall of ice that turned to face him... "Someone say my name?"

...

For the second time that day, Officer Snarlov lowered herself into the chief of police's chair. She wasn't about to admit it, much less mention it to anybody, but... she was rather getting to like the feel of the Chief's superior-quality chair beneath her. Coughing lightly, she pushed such thoughts from her mind and focused on the task at paw. Reaching into the top drawer of the desk, she took out the phone number Bogo had put there earlier that morning. Following the number carefully, she entered it into the phone sat upon the desk.

It rang for a few, brief moments and then, "Hi, Snarlov here, I... nh-no, Officer Snarlov. I just phoned, like, an hour a... what do you mean 'wrong countersign'? I spoke to you this— Gughh..." Dropping the dead receiver back into the cradle, Snarlov re-entered the number and picked the phone up a second time. It was answered considerably quicker this second time around, for some reason.

"ZPD Alpha One, Officer Snarlov, ZPD, speaking on behalf of Chief Bogo, ZPD. Countersign is 'Emelia'." Snarlov rolled her eyes, muttering a few words in the silence of her heartbeat. "I want to talk to Technologist Tchaikovsky, okay? Thank you." Gazing at the far wall, the polar bear waited the few seconds of nothingness that took for her connection to be linked to the internal phone.

"Tchaikovsky," came a stiff voice, "Senior Technologist. That's T-C-H-A—"

"Thank you, Tchaikovsky, thank you. We've been here before."

"Officer Snarlov?"

"That is corre—"

"You have the wolf!?"

"I... yes, we have the wolf."

"Excitant, we will be ready to receive him in six hours. That will give you time to arrange transport and make you—"

"Tchaikovsky, Tchaikovsky, ey... I am not here to just paw the wolf right over to you and the others. An oh-seventeen form has to be completed for one thing, and that'll take a few hours to process on its own."

"Alas, alas for the red tape we are forced to adhere to."

"Eh, yes. Point is: the Chief wants you and the others at Terminal Four to arrange the transport of the wolf. He's a very dangerous mammal, you understand. He's murdered at least one person already and... well, you've heard about Officer Hopps."

"I have indeed, the poor child."

"We dare not hold him here, at the HQ, for any longer than necessary. He should be at Blackheath in their highest security area, maybe the ward for the criminally insane, even. We will not bring the wolf to you, and we will not hold him here long enough for you to get around to coming over. If you want to see him... you'll have to arrange it with Blackheath."

"I see."

"I, eh... that is to say, Bogo is aware of the requirement of speedy access to this wolf creature, and he says that... if you arrange the wolf's transport from Zootopia to Blackheath for us, we'll let a few of your technologists have a look at him as we put him onboard." Senior Technologist Tchaikovsky paused for a long moment. Inter-departmental branches of the Administrators – such as the ZPD and Terminal Four – could not bribe or bargain with money or other kinds of 'goods', but what they could bargain with, next best thing: paperwork duty.

"I will... see what I can do," said the technologist. "It will take quite some organizing for the vans to be properly secured and properly mammled, a route chosen and so forth. But, for a chance to see this wolf, this creature, in person... it will be enough."

Author's notes:

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