Let it go, it's Happytown

by Gabriel LaVedier

Tired, dangerous, the trash can of Zootopia. Home for native predators and all manner of immigrants. A place of gangs and private investigators. One unremarkable death becomes, for a PI and his assistant, something far more in the misery of Happytown. (Sort of an odd AU of the French show Sherlock Yack in Zootopia, connected to the Translation of Dawn Bellwether universe.)

9. Bust

I do not own Zootopia, that belongs to Disney. This a fan work made solely for the sake of amusement.

"Let It Go, It's Happytown"

Chapter Eight: Bust

By: Gabriel LaVedier

"M. Gyag! You gave me such agony for not thinking of safety and here you are now!" Hermione cried, pacing hard, stomping her sandaled paws to emphasize her indignation. "You care so much for this place, you care so much for this case! Ce n'est pas vrai! Un mensonge! You would take yourself away from it all! You would destroy your life so easily, sell your life so cheaply! Is this what you have in you? How could you?"

Sherlock was in the back of an ambulance, shirtless and showing off his rather well-toned, thickly furred body, with an oxygen mask held over his face. A few breaths later he pulled the mask down and coughed. "I cared enough to go in and see if there was anyone to save. I did what a proper, caring mammal would do if inclined to save lives. I know it seems rash but I had every reason to go in... well... my training was not perfect, I suppose. Sometimes I feel strong emotions. I had to do something. But you know what I found."

Hermione sighed and slowly nodded. "Oui. You brought two unfortunates. And skeletons, blackened and twisted in the space. The ZPD will look at those you brought."

"Plastic bags and zip ties. A horrible thread, bloody and fresh, winding through so many dead mammals, all our neighbors. No matter their occupation, they deserved better than this terror," Sherlock sighed.

"It's never easy with you, is it?" Officer Wulfberg said, walking up to the ambulance. "Throwing yourself into a burning building. You really know how to make trouble."

"Trouble for whom? The mayor? Yes, trouble for him, lots of it. I hope he cannot sleep at night, with all these lives on his head, all this blood on his ignorant hands," Sherlock said. "You see it. You saw it out there. There were others I could not recover."

"You got more than enough," Louis sighed. "The charred bodies were suggestive but easy enough to dismiss. This is open. New bodies to cut into, to examine the brand of plastic and zip ties, actual proof. This boat can't rock any more without just capsizing it."

"Exactly what is necessary," Sherlock said firmly.

"Chaos, destruction and upheaval?" Louis asked.

"Change," Sherlock stressed. "Change is often misunderstood. We do not like being moved from our normal lives but unless we change and grow we will stagnate, rot and crumble. Rot. And crumble. Stagnate. I'm sure you know what that looks like..."

"You can't blame all this on everyone else, you folks have some responsibility too!" Louis shouted.

"We do," Sherlock concurred, in a low tone. "The gangs have made the decay worse, indifference, complacency, acceptance of lowliness. All stagnation. Accelerated rot. We are dying, Officer Wulfberg. A walking corpse that was not broken and fed to the tower of silence, as is proper. We need this dynamic change. We need it."

"I don't know what that last part means but... I understand..." Louis sighed and shook his head. "I have my mother's name and my father's respectability. I'm passing, as a predator. Her wealth and status insulated me as much a my father's head-butting caprinity and hard work. But I still learned what it was like being a predator, what prey say behind your back, what they do when you're not looking. Only the ZPD really fit. I wish everyone had that."

"C. Wulfberg, I was upset too, but... he is correct. As strange as it is, he did right," Hermione said. "These bodies will bring more notice. They are an immediate thing."

"That's what worries me,"Louis mused. "This whole thing now looks properly connected. It started with a crime that was supposed to be swept away. Killing and arson followed, to look like the dangers of old, abandoned buildings were the cause. They must have planned this before realizing someone was on to them. Now they know, and their careful plan to do... something is falling apart. If there were other steps, they can't do them. If they had an agenda, it's ruined. No one would bet on what happened. And your name has come up. You'll either be avoided..."

"Or targeted," Sherlock finished. "I am aware. If I go away in some capacity, the problem might go with me. But then again, it might make everything mean more, everyone left behind clamoring for answers. So they might ruin me. Kill an innocent and throw them in my cot, invent finances I never had in an account I have never seen, or put drugs I have never used on my body, when I used to prefer drink, when I was at my lowest."

"And it will be me they kill," Hermione sighed. "I accept this. I knew this place would kill me one day. It will kill us all. At least it will not be toxic mold or poison water or a desperate creature needing money. It will be mercifully fast."

"Wow. Wow, and I thought Scarlet had a fatalist look at the world. But she only looks at love like that. She'd never talk about dying like that," Louis said with a small whistle at the end.

"What is this Scarlet of yours?" Hermione asked. "I can guess she is no wolf, or goat."

"A red fox. She's... not quite an immigrant. Her grandparents came from some old country, but they had some money. She's still a red fox, but she has this... really bright attitude that makes her keep going," Louis sighed, happily.

"You are fortunate, C. Wulfberg. Seeing love with real eyes is a rare thing," Hermione said. "But that is beyond the point. Alright, M. Gyag. You did well saving those bodies. But you must be careful. You must be alive to solve crimes."

"Someone will come after me, there will always be eyes to see and hooves to dig for the truth like a yam," Sherlock casually said, stepping out of the ambulance.

"Cases go cold all the time, don't trust that eyes will be there to replace you. And some have very special skills," Louis noted.

"Perhaps..." Sherlock said, shrugging on his slightly singed coat. "We should not rely on mammals like that, but talent has not seen fit to be spread across the whole of the world. So, I will take your advice and endeavor to survive to perform my job and solve this case."

"I never knew living was so onerous, monsieur," Hermione said with a roll of her eyes.

"This life is an illusion, but while we exist here we take it as we find it, and this is a place of suffering, all the fault of misplaced and overly emphasized desire. Desire makes mammals do unfortunate things. Desperate things, fueled by desire. But... if nothing else, this is my home and I will protect it," Sherlock said, resolutely.

"We need to do better on that front," Hermione sighed. "Too many neighbors are being sacrificed to some horrible purpose. What gluttonous maw needs so many bodies to sustain itself?"

"I have heard of corrupt places in other nations that sustained power by making others vanish or laying out the dead as a warning to others. No death, but our own terrible conspiracy laid out supposedly natural horrors that had the city go into a panic. Sacrificing those not seen as important works. Curse the very stones they walk on, but it works," Sherlock grunted.

"Naturally, we'll keep you informed," Louis said. "Technically, you're the lead on this... meta-case, the criminology types are calling it. You're on for the Charlie case, and I hear you registered as the investigator of record on the first fire. Since they're all likely connected it only makes sense to tell you what we find, as long as you share with us."

"If I find anything, which to now has been... death and misery," Sherlock sighed. "Only dead bodies, destruction and ruination for my home. I hope it amounts to something."

"As dark as it is, dead bodies are good for us. They tell us a lot. The lab is going to have a lot of useful things ready," Louis said. "I hate it, but it's the reality of this kind of thing."

"The dead can speak. My venerable master taught me from the lips of those long dead. And in this land the brilliant still bring words from the mouths of the fallen. Maybe these sacrifices will tell us whose maw they fed," Sherlock said.

"Back to work, Monsieur," Hermione said. "Mad as I am about your recklessness, I understand now. And there is no stopping."

"March on to the truth," Sherlock said.

o o o

"I have seldom seen you using that infernal machine, monsieur," Hermione was behind her desk, filing her claws while she listened to Sherlock clicking away at the computer.

"Increasingly, I see the use of this device in this modern world," Sherlock said, clicking on links and taking physical notes when he discovered something new.

"And you still take paper notes," Hermione said with a small laugh. "You are a true contradiction in terms. Or perhaps merely a deeply complex mammal. You stand in another world and this one, the past and present. I am so glad I came to work for you, M. Gyag. Seeing this spices up this bleak vale."

"There exists no contradiction. We all live our lives in a swirl of the past and present, taking lessons from before and using them to inform our lives as we move forward," Sherlock commented. "These folk around us, our neighbors... they have strange notions about what life is like and how the world works. For those who live here. There are many who are clearly not from here but pretend they are also our kind, sometimes to make themselves look knowledgeable, sometimes to spread rumors and innuendo. If I was incapable of separating them it would make sifting for good information all but impossible. What a curious things for mammals to do."

"Oh Monsieur..." Hermione said with a slow shake of her head and a smile on her face. "We live in a world of liars and of the suspicious. We are all low here, all equally abused. But some think we are specially hated. Indeed we are, and predators have been the targets of a conspiracy. But in their minds... it is more. More than Bellwethers, more than the disdain of the culture. That there are dark forces in this world, that target them, stalk them, eliminate them. They may be right..."

"Not to the degree they presume..." Sherlock muttered. "And the liars?"

"Mammals have strange needs when their bellies are filled and their home is safe and clean. They need to feel they have power. Power over others, to cause chaos. They lie to lie. I have heard tell of these. They may do it for their own amusement, or to forward their conspiracies, or more cruelly, to make others afraid, uncertain or even angry enough to act. I do hope, M. Gyag, you really do know them from others. For all your vast mental powers if you were moved by those who pretended to their position..." Hermione shivered and sighed. "I fear what you might do."

"I act only when moved, and I am moved when I feel the universe speak. Something inside sets my mind to working. I know caution and calm sense is the only way to live properly," Sherlock said, clicking through more of the pages of commentary. "The real ones, these poor folk so afraid for their lives... I would prefer to be able to call them wrong. They are not wrong. Their scope and scale is wildly incorrect. No need to think the world will come for them, some evil force nearby is threat enough."

"All of these things, connected. A unified whole, something dark and sinister. I thought I understood what that meant. I was wrong..." Hermione said.

"We seldom know the true scope of anything, we only confront it piece by piece as it is revealed," Sherlock noted.

"Tell me, my young disciple, how far does your mind go?" Master Bajja asked. He was unseen, speaking from out of a deep, pervasive darkness that swallowed up some huge chamber.

Shalva held a small candle, his eyes closed, his mind focused on ignoring all things but his master's voice, even the heat of the wax rolling down and over the thickened hoof tips of his fingers. "As far as it can go, master," he answered, doing his best to sit still in that little pool of light that scarcely illuminated his face.

"Truly? Well now, tell me where I am, young disciple," Master Bajja firmly demanded.

"You are here, with me in the chamber, master. I hear you, I know you are here to guide me," Shalva answered.

"I will guide you, my disciple, teach you why you are wrong," Master Bajja said. "I asked you where I was. Tell me. Where am I? Exactly where am I, young disciple?"

Shalva's ears flicked, slightly, in the darkness, just shown twitching in the aura of the candle. "I know you are there, master, behind me, to the right, five paces."

"You know this, my disciple? In all exactness, with your eyes closed and only a single light in your hooves? Tell me how it is you know this so finely."

A long silence followed, only the soft whisper of breath and the tiny fizz of the burning candle wick filling the space. "I... I do not know. I feel, I can gather..."

"Good, good. Your mind is wide and knows to connect the threads. But you can do more, so much more, by knowing more and using that. But your mind only reaches as far as it can. I have taken your eyes, but you may use them. Your eyes, your hooves, your snout, all of it. You have reached the limits of what your mind may do alone. Open your eyes, my disciple."

Shalva slowly opened his eyes, blinking slowly as his eyes adjusted to the glow of the small candle. "I... I do not see you, master. I cannot move, unless you tell me. What may I do to reach what you wish me to?"

The scrape of flint rasped loud and long in the dark and silent chamber, soon creating a second orb of light, illuminating the billowy form of Master Bajja. "You still do not see me, do you?"

"No master, only your new light."

"And that is the lesson my young disciple, one that others will never comprehend. Those down the mountain think we deal in magic here, in some strange mystery of awesome powers and terrible mysteries. You will leave here with fewer mysteries, fewer illusions. Learn this lesson well. For all that this world is ephemeral we may still see those things that are and with better clarity the more we understand we do not go as far as we can go unless we strive to expand past what we think is the limit we have. With your eyes closed you had only what you could hear or smell. With them open you saw little enough. But the little candle of my life made a trace you can see ever that much more. Even when you cannot rely on all the things available, you take every last thing that exists to reach a final conclusion. This is your goal."

"As you say, master. I will learn all, and become a great-" Shalva's comment was stopped when the sound of a wood-handled paper fan slapped against his head.

"Traces will never tell you anything more than you can gather. Focus."

"We see only as far as our open senses can allow. We gather tiny traces, to know as much as we can as best we can," Sherlock said, pushing away from his desk and sighing. "We need more clues."

"I will get my magic wand from home and conjure them for you, monsieur," Hermione said with a grin. "I know we need more, but we must wait for them or go seek them. Do we go out once more to find shadows and death?"

"I walk enough to think, and prefer to have a site to check. The ZPD and ZFD are examining the current sites. We need to wait for updates. Wait... I know that there is good in care and waiting, quiet meditation, but I know you prefer action, Mlle. LaBelle. Perhaps you would like to test your skill on those sites," Sherlock suggested.

"You joke, oui, monsieur?" Hermione asked.

"Why would I joke? This is your future, and your prior outing proved you can find very interesting things. This mysterious figure the officer did not see. Curious..." Sherlock mused, interrupted from his thinking by his phone ringing. "Sherlock Gyag Investigations."

"Sherlock... I don't know if this is exactly proper, but I doubt the chief will care. We had an incident they actually called the police on here in Happytown. We're trying to keep it quiet but this will get out sooner or later. You're a native and this will impact you, and the investigations, for reasons that you'll understand."

"Officer Wulfberg? What are you..."

"Grab that stoat that works for you and come down to the Four Aces card club. It's inside the demarcation of Happytown... barely, but it is. It's new, it was supposed to be something... and now we've got a dead body."

"Plastic, suffocation and fire?" Sherlock asked.

"No. But it's gambling, under attack. And the gangs were involved. We have one dead gang member, but none of this feels right. Usually we'd be busting heads and rounding up the usual. But the chief wasn't about to believe the appearance. He wanted me to call you to look it over. Second guessing isn't his style. If he needs more eyes, you get those eyes."

"We shall be right there," Sherlock said, hanging up and standing from his desk, popping his hat onto his head. "Mysteries abound, Mlle. LaBelle. We're bound to another killing, at a place of gambling. The appearance was meant to be simple and straightforward, and now they need new eyes to tell them who they are being deceived."

"Once I mistrusted these outsiders, now I must pity their blindness to our home," Hermione said, shaking her head and she got up from behind her desk. "C. Wulfberg must be desperate to ask us for help, he seems reluctant until we give him more than he ever could have found."

"He has lived a life passing as the wrong parent, in the eyes of the city. Money and power preserved him, but he has been suspicious and hard. He is only trying his best," Sherlock said, holding the door open for Hermione, who graciously nodded as she passed.

The walk was long, but silent. Sherlock walking with his long strides and Hermione making certain she kept pace with her quick, clicking walk, occasionally dropping to all fours to run like primitive weasels were said to. In their own ways both were contemplating the limited information both had, considering what it all might mean.

For Hermione, she knew only it was death they suspected to be something other than what it seemed. They had been shown they were being fooled, being played as dupes. It had stung them, and that amused her. The outside city folk always seemed so smug, so self-assured. Even the predators, even immigrants with money walked around with their snouts in the air. But they could be fooled too. They could be made to look ignorant and easily led. They weren't so perfect. They had their own faults and they were forced to feel the shame of knowing it.

Sherlock had to consider how he was being involved in this. Tangentially related at best. Yet, Officer Wulfberg needed his advice to see if they were being tricked again. He was an expert, and was being consulted about this world that was Happytown. The officer had been stung by his lack of understanding. He recognized that things were different there, that he was lost. A learning experience. He had said that the chief had wanted more insight from someone in the know. The learning was growing. Seeing understanding of humility and willingness to learn spread into the wider city was quite a wonderful thing.

When they arrived at the indicated location they found a small crowd being pushed back by big rhino ZPD officers, with Officer Wulfberg standing behind them, beside a sheet-covered lump on the ground in front of the indicated business. It looked like one of the old Happytown buildings given a good coat of paint, new glass and bright new signs trying to make it look like just an ordinary business in the city proper. Under the awning were other ZPD officers, who were asking questions of a small group of goats wearing security guard uniforms.

"This is a mess, a mess that's going to make everything harder, because it gives the mayor an answer that will make him too smug for my liking," Louis said as Sherlock and Hermione approached him. "I need some way to call this something other than what it seems like."

"Well, just tell me what happened here," Sherlock said, pulling out his magnifying glass and examining the street at the edge of the cloth cover.

"This place is some attempt to get legitimate gaming in here. Completely independent, licensed and legal, about the same as the casinos in Sahara Square, on a small scale to test the waters. Earlier today a group of folks came in and started busting the place up. They ran as soon as the security forces actually got on them, but... they had no coordination and communication. These cheap goons all darted the same thug, and too many times. Looks like he had prepared for close-quarter tasers, like professionals might use, but he didn't count on idiots with the wrong dose and too much of it," Louis grumbled, casting sharp looks at the security team.

"I do not know the finer points of such action, but would there have been any larger difference with a more refined technique in the heat of such a moment?" Hermione asked.

"Professionals have better training, for matters that are more than just someone getting rowdy. They were too slow, too disorganized, and didn't remember you don't dart wildly in the streets and especially without coordinating shots to tag a selected target. I'll say this... Councilor Seedsworth's wife would never have let this happen. There's a reason Lionheart hired her brother's company. You get the best when you're that desperate," Louis said, pulling the sheet back to reveal the victim.

The one sprawled out on the ground was a fairly nondescript wolf. His coat was light gray, scruffy and mussed up, with markings that indicated his gang allegiance. He was wearing a white undershirt with thick padding on the front and back, and along the sides, likely thick carbon padding to stop electricity. He wore low-slung jeans that were baggy, distressed and heavily faded. Multiple tranq darts stuck out of his back, peppering the area. The specific silver shine and color of the feathering denoted a particularly strong formula.

"I do not even need the glass. This is a fake. And if you ever happen to find who he is, a task akin to climbing the sacred mother, you will find he has no connection to this place or to any gang," Sherlock plainly asserted.

Louis visibly relaxed, his face keeping its hard edge all the same. "I'm sure I could take that to the chief and he'd try his best to be okay with it, but he wants results, he wants a reason to think that's a fact. Just give me the particulars and the chief will be satisfied."

Sherlock pointed to various features as he mentioned them, occasionally using his glass to more finely highlight his point. "The pants are suitably ruined. I have seen these sorts, occasionally seen sold in the second-paw shops. It is not the type originally sold for this but a pricey type given away after damage. But they were always actually aged and had stitch marks to show they were repaired. These are faded evenly, done with intent, and the fraying shows slight follow-through as with scissors or a knife. I cannot be sure but you might find that sandpaper was involved. Most importantly, look at the lower hems, fraying would happen where a normal mammal walked. That might be the first reason to give it away, not something done as a cosmetic choice. But sandpaper looks to have been used there too, showing more all-over damage.

"These marks look fine from a distance, but they are not dye-cuts. Just dye; a proper dye-cut is deeper, richer, especially in one of this age. Fading takes time and would be on a much older mammal. It is also very sharp. That is not proof but most gang-cuts are at least a little unsteady, slightly skewed. A professional could have done it, but the design is highly detailed. Most of the time they get only the basic shape. Even for hard mammals there is pain involved that they must endure.

"This fur mussing does not smell right. You can smell the petroleum jelly, I trust. Some will use some form of this if they have the money or inclination but most do not need it. They smell of their natural oils, with the fur pushed down in regular patterns from being swept up in a kind of tic the gang members develop to look casual and unconcerned. This is not quite random, but artfully done to make the mussing look like it was part of a gang look. They tried, very hard, to look from a distance like a gang member," Sherlock concluded.

Louis leaned in and sniffed the body deeply, lips slightly curled up. A few huffs of breath later he grunted. "Plain petroleum jelly, and a bodily scent that was just someone sitting around for a few days. So what do we say about this? Why try to throw blame on the gangs and why do this kind of attack on this particular business?"

"We have to think of it with all the other happenings in mind. Fleabite wanted to be independent, paying nothing to the gangs who, themselves, always seem to pay money to others that give them some advantages. Those that tried to replace him wanted to be free as well. This business was from the outside, and was going to be openly independent. Some force does not want that. Independent folk give hope and lift folk up. They attacked this place looking like gang members, to bring the standard response, arrest of gang members, more terror for Happytown, more uncertainty. They would claim to know nothing, of course. As for anyone caught, which would be the effect of a professional security team, they would make bail, as this is a crime that would earn it. Bail paid by a nebulous organization. And then, vanish. No record would be found of them. Fake address, no prints, no one knowing they ever existed, explained as being the gang hiding one of their own. As you say, you get the best when you are desperate, or when you have the funds."

"Not that long ago I would have called you crazy. We have too many dead bodies to think you're off your gourd," Louis said with a shake of his head, replacing the sheet over the body. "Best case scenario, we have someone trying to frame the gangs for something, that stirs up trouble, makes mammals afraid, desperate to punish Happytown. It's Bellwether all over again, hurting immigrant prey too. Just what was all of this supposed to do in the end?"

"That is a mistake we so often make," Sherlock said gravely. "Nothing ever actually ends. Life may be a grand illusion, but it persists before our eyes however we may deny it. There need be no end, merely maintaining the stagnation. Letting us rot, for some benefit that I may only guess at. I cannot even know if this is desperation or the plan put together to try and salvage some intended path. It was meant to be simple. End Charlie, end independent operators through apparent accidents, make the city fear the gangs who attacked a company owned by the someone from the city proper. This is strange. Very strange. We fouled some plan. But blood is still spilled. I only fear what this strange force may demand to have their will be done..."