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.)

14. Bad Business

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 Thirteen: Bad Business

By: Gabriel LaVedier

The world was vast and varied. Nations spread out in all directions outside of Zootopia. Sherlock knew it well. He had come from that distance. He was a child of one of the multitude of places called The Old Country by every kind and class of immigrant. Even so, nothing really felt more distant and unreal than another part of the city that he called home. His birthplace was real, he could feel the snow on his skin still, the smell of frost and pine. Hermione's homeland had come alive in tales she told him of being a little kit in the countryside. The wheat fields, the strange old ruins, the slow pace and the almost ethereal village of cobblestone streets and chipped plaster buildings winding around the old fountain. All other nations seemed like that. He had never been but they were more believable, ironically, because he was a stranger to them. He wasn't supposed to feel connected to them, so there was a parity between him and such places.

Sahara Square was part of Zootopia. It was his home. He was meant to feel that his home was a part of him. But all he knew was Happytown. He remembered the time in Vine Country, but more of his life had been spent in Happytown. Spent. Like currency, he paid pieces of his life to grow up and live. It infused him, enriched him. Became a part of him. Perhaps too much. The bigger city was the bigger city, some alien world. Going from one place to another was almost unthinkable.

The rocking of the inter-city tram was almost meditative if not for the frequent stops. It was always cheapest to be indirect. A long trip would be made even longer but it saved enough money to make it feasible to actually do anything. He knew how things worked all over. He figured many mammals were like Boo, buy something and the information would come. A simple and direct chain. He held that confidence without reason. City mammals were strange beasts. They never said anything in one long path. He could speak in circuitous routes, but they were no novices at constructing labyrinths of words.

Meditation came naturally to Sherlock, and he let the spaces melt away, the fascinating and unique scenery turning into a blur, like the driving snow of his home. He didn't need to count the minutes of transit, didn't need to worry about how he was chasing a lead he had been handed through intentional misdirection. He needed to make peace with the idea he wasn't feeling like he was stepping from one room to another. If he could reason through the disconnect he could reduce it, pacify it, make it go away enough to be natural someplace different.

He was not wholly unaware of the world. Echoes of the other valleys filtered to him, faint but real. His little under-powered machine kept him in limited connection with the city. He was well aware of the general plan of the District. So much devoted to leisure and gambling, in the midst of a functional area with residents engaged in the business of business. There were densely packed high-rise areas, and in the sand itself whole neighborhoods of stone buried in the cool earth. Open air markets ringed modestly sized malls, the whole collection known as a souq.

With the heat being so intense during much of the daylight hours, there wasn't much going on at street level. Limited subterranean passages were cool and comfortable, to a degree, with no real central network. It was largely a District-subsidized route between souqs, a way to help the locals access their shopping at any time. The District was quite well known for being friendly to tourists, but even more helpful and generous to its citizens, helped out by all the money made from taxes on the gambling. There was a reason the one who continually suggested and implemented such, City Councilor Tiziri Fanak, was reelected every cycle.

The meditative contemplation of the place he was to go ended as the sun sank slowly behind the tram, almost spotlighting the rising sand-barrier wall with brilliant, flaming reds and oranges. The tones came up announcing the two-step entry/exit process that kept the sand largely in the district. Further tones announced the arrival at the main inter-district depot. "Arriving at Sahara Square. Transfer to Infra-District transport available. The train will be sent to Tundratown for all those with pass-through tickets. Five minutes to offload the cars. Mind the gap."

Sherlock stepped out of the train and into a strange new world. The design of the whole station was a marvel of modern technology that helped to keep the location cool in the day and warm at night, with lots of transition polymer windows, long and straight aisles to move air efficiently, and solar panels everywhere.

Mixed with that modernity were examples of ancient construction, from both the local area and distant cultures that had also come from deserts. Sandstone pillars stood all over the place, decorated with carefully reproduced carvings and paintings of ancient script and figures form those bygone nations. Sherlock could feel the history, it reminded him so much of the ancient timbers of the lamasery carved with figures, and the scrolls of the wise sages from generations past. Even if only a decoration, they seemed to have some grasp of the rightness of preserving history.

He had arrived as District sensors picked up the night's darkness and suddenly popped on the brilliant lights of the place. The neon buzzed to life, transforming the entire scene into a land of ethereal glow, every color of the rainbow washing the main section of the District and transforming it into a kind of artificial daylight, sufficient to make everything bright enough to get around in.

Sherlock paused at the exit of the station, in his boat-shaped hat and shabby plaid overcoat, looking like not even a tourist. He looked lost. He looked like a slack-jawed yokel, like some sod-kicking farmer straight out of the burrows. The worst thing was, he was aware of it. The irony of it all. A weathered and well-seasoned survivor of the toughest area of the city was struck dumb by the lights of a beautiful place. But it really was such a sharp division. It was so different. His home. But not his home.

The reverie was broken by several mammals elbowing past him in a surly fashion, most rolling their eyes and muttering, one loud enough to be heard. "Out of the way, ya tourist. Stupid yaks. Get offa that wacky baccy all of you keep downing..."

It was an accusation he had been well aware of. As a species, yaks had a tendency toward relaxed and patient natures, not rushing and sometimes being idle. It meant they could be good meditative mammals. But sometimes it raised the accusation they ate or smoked cow-eye grass, known for being effective on more than bovids when it came to inducing a peaceful state. It wasn't a fair accusation but the genesis was well understood. He didn't begrudge the commenter. He was blocking traffic, acting like a bull on the grass.

Stepping out into the deepening night he was blasted with a hit of the lingering hot air of the day and then the chill of the night. Such an extreme difference, so different from the slowly varying seasons of Happytown. Even with dead trees and live weeds, seasons came and went, each feeling different, subtle, changing day by day. Here, it seemed, the weather slammed back and forth at the gates of dawn and dusk.

He walked out into the rapidly cooling night, glad for his heavy plaid coat. Though he was raised in the bitter cold of the top of the world he still appreciated any protection. Being inured to extremes was one thing, but it didn't mean he enjoyed it. That was an important lesson. He was not meant to enjoy it, feel it was normal, make it normal. He was to endure. Merely endure, survive, push through. Comforts were not weakness, comforts were a reward, to be used in moderation when they were available. He had been through a loss of moderation, he knew how the balance could be trod.

The neon jungle surrounded and swallowed him. For all he looked the part to be bathed in the gaseous glow, the brights signs shone poorly upon him. He knew tall buildings in Happytown, and near areas, but the good repair, the smooth streets and sidewalks, were as foreign to him as the ancient stone forts and cobbled lanes of Hermione's faraway homeland. Even more foreign were the smartly-dressed vendors, in kiosks or inside fine glass-fronted stores.

Each one glanced on him like he was prepared to take what they had. His oblique questions asking for information on shady dealings made them pull in. It was not like home, where everyone saw and would loose their tongue a touch for a small fee. Law-abiding mammals never had the crimes done in their sight, and the criminals were too smart for such a thing anyhow. The police were actually active in Sahara square.

With the plan of paid information from the shopkeepers ending in failure, there was only one last thing he knew would work. Asking those in misery. The night time was the best time for finding the dregs and the leftovers. They were the type he could get on with. As Hermione liked to say, they had commonality in misery. But however much his Happytown nature made him lowly, the mere sight of him brought many different reactions from those types. Grumbling, disbelief, even laughter. Before one of the street folk, a serval, could leave him, he called out, "I know you know things you suspect have no worth. They may be of use to me. Why would you walk away if you could do some good for this city?"

The scruffy feline scoffed and looked Sherlock up and down. "Are you kidding me? You look like you crawled out of a cheap old movie! Ratty coat, stupid hat, talking like an idiot. I don't care how hard you've got it in Happytown, it's hard all over. You're just a bunch of gutter scum, ghetto trash that doesn't matter. At least we have dignity and dress like we're from this century you broken-down PI nobody! I don't give a spoory hack about your stupid assistant and-"

The words were hardly out before Sherlock quickly and efficiently put the serval into a painful wrist-lock, twisting it a few time to make him hiss and bite back expressions of pain. "I believe you fail to understand the seriousness of the tragedy that nearly came, the magnitude of the crimes I seek to solve. Life and death dance in the periphery of all our existence, but in Happytown they flare brightly and loom more darkly. We should not be left to special suffering in the name of disdain. If you have any information about what I asked before, it would be greatly appreciated if you could tell me."

The serval expressed more pain, in increasing amounts as bravado and bravery gave in to the suffering and the solid hold. He couldn't escape and was ever more aware of being at the mercy of the broken-down, out-of-style PI looking stoically down at him, with his soft, cow eyes, some kind of pinpricks of blazing anger in the far depths of those mild eyes. "L-look... look... I'm just out for a good night's sleep! I hear this and that, we all do. These guys are no joke! I know it's bad over there but you gotta be tough when Mama Fanak brings the hammer down hard if you get caught. I wanna keep on being alive!"

"I have already angered these creatures. I exposed them, disrupted them. They nearly killed my understudy. They will care little for you when my blood is all they wish to spill. Tell me what I wish to know. Perhaps you will be safe, for they will be gone soon enough."

"Some junker PI is gonna... ARGH! Fine! I don't do it anymore, got clean on the District's corn, still don't got a job but I know where to go if I ever... I ever get real bad again. You gotta hit the source. What they do here doesn't stay here long. ZPD knows they don't get a bad rep being too rough here. If I tell you just let me get out of here. Please."

"Give me your information and you can slink into the night. But remember only one thing if you remember nothing else..." Sherlock tweaked his wrist one more time and leaned in, with his gentle gaze full of rage in tiny spots he would never acknowledge. "I was trained to feel out the world, survived as a detective in the dangerous streets of Happytown. I can find those who wish not to be found, if motivated by fee or need. If you are going to lie to me, leave the city-state. If you are going to waste my precious time, there is nowhere in the environs of the city you could go that is safe from me. Now tell me what you know."

Shortly thereafter Sherlock was making his way through the parts of the central District cluster tourists seldom saw. The hotels were far cheaper, the businesses far less glamorous, the lights no longer buzzed with excited molecules but merely glowed with sallow light, flickering now and again as their age or poor condition worked against them. It was the place where most casino workers lived, or those who worked at something that was not glamorous, those too proud or too attached to the idea of urban arrogance to live in a cozy stone burrow out in the sands.

There were subtle clues about which buildings to not bother with. Poor as the area was, casino workers and others gainfully employed hugged the border land between touristy and banal. The buildings were in good repair, they looked proper, where mammals with their lives together lived. They were, in some sense, proud of what they did and happy to be a functional part of the District, meaning they didn't just let entropy take their homes.

The modest apartments and minimum participation in cleanliness faded like the shadow of the moon into the truly run-down places, where no one recognized their squalor or no one cared. It was feeling like home at last, sad as it was. That was Happytown, full stop. Misery that lasted so long no one knew there was an option. Those kind could more easily fall into the trap of easy money. Easy answers. Easy escapes. Sherlock knew it all too well.

The dark back streets were nothing compared to the halls of the lamasery when the lamps were extinguished, the moonless nights in the snow when even the stars were banished by blankets of clouds. Light bled in from all directions, from the glittering main drag to the nearby windows and streetlights that had not been broken my malicious mammals needing the cover of blackness to do their deeds.

The sound came to him before he peered around a corner, the shuffling of boxes, the grumbling of voices. He found dark figures around a large, boxy car with the three of them talking in low tones and moving boxes from a rolling pallet into the car. From what little he could see the boxes looked like innocuous packages of sanitizer, bulk bathroom dispenser soap, and unregulated herbal supplement pills. More than clever, dangerous.

He stepped out from around the corner boldly, pointing at the set. "One of you has the answers I need. I do not care which one tells me, but it will be one of you."

At first, the trio reached for what was presumably weapons before they got a look at who had called them out. There were two wolves wearing scuffed and stained jeans and white undershirts, topped by open majority-reddish plaid jackets, a staple of swampfolk. The last was a shadowy, hunched figure, larger than a stoat but nowhere near enough to match the muscular wolves, trained eyes able to see the reddish fur tinge. "What in the name of blackness is that?" One of the wolves asked.

"No way, looks like some punk PI from Happytown. No one's that cheap-looking unless that's all that's in their closet," the presumptive fox said with a harsh edge roughing up his razor blade voice. "Get out of here! Go back to looking for stolen purses, we're busy."

"He can still get the cops, I hear they'll listen," the other wolf noted, completing the motion and pulling out a switchblade.

"Just a junker from the slum, you can take him," the fox said, slinking back to hide behind the larger canines.

"Rougarou in Sahara Square, and a Madra Rua, you must be the one that I seek," Sherlock said, the pinpricks of angry fire flaring brighter as he glared at the hunched fox. "This is a complicated situation."

The second wolf came up with metal knuckles and his own switchblade. "We might have let you go after we taught you a lesson. Bleeding makes people smarter. But you said too much. Can't have that..."

The two larger gangsters approached, confident and strong. Sherlock looked on them impassively, cow-eyed and still, his body slowly moving out to the old, familiar positions, standing firm, his breathing huffing, in and out.

He was just an old man. That was what Shalva could very clearly see. Master Bajja stood there in the dim training hall, in his baggy, flowing robes. His order had been clear, attack him, take him down. He had been trained extensively. Not just reading the words of ancient sages, not just honing his senses. He had toughened his fists on wood and stone, toughened his body in the cold and with exhausting exercises in the hall. He had honed his talent on idle wooden dummies, polished his form and technique on them.

He was just an old man. That's what he said as he sped forward suddenly, looking to strike the weak parts of Master Bajja's joints as he had been taught. His limbs moved like lightning, hooves and trotters hard as stone, taking him within reach of Master Bajja. Or that was the intention. His reach was one thing.

The old man's was another.

Before Shalva was in striking distance, Master Bajja was already moving. Speed the old man shouldn't have sent his limbs flashing, blurs of baggy robes and extremities. Every initiated motion was countered with a metal-hard hit that stopped or deflected them. Then came the turn, the yak suddenly grabbed, swept along in a sooth motion, lifted up and slammed onto the ground with an echoing thud.

Almost instantly.

Shalva lay there, pained eyes looking at the ancient woodwork of the ceiling. The cloth-wrapped face of his master soon loomed into his field of vision, looking down on him. "Tell me, young disciple, why have you come to this position?"

"I moved too quickly, not quickly enough, thought too little," he replied.

"You know some causes. But not the cause. What was my armor, my shield? What truly protected me?"

Contemplation came naturally to the yak, and he thought deeply on the attack. To his own words. Just an old man. Just. Old. "I thought you less of a threat, master. An old man. Merely an old man, never thinking your skills could still be as sharp or dangerous as they ever were. I discounted that you had potential. And I payed for it."

"Deception and misdirection are as potent as a steel plate or lacquered shield. If an enemy thinks less of you, if they know nothing of what you can do, yours is the first move. You say how all shall proceed. They respond to you every further step. They always lag behind, you always lead them along. Every action is yours to control, even if they try to take charge, you step away. The surprise is broken, but they have been denied it now. Remember this lesson well, young yak."

Gangsters oozed false confidence. They were built out of patching over their emptiness with arrogance. He was just a broken-down PI. Just. They thought there was nothing to him. They were so sure. They remained so sure when his limbs moved, fast as lightning, stony hooves cracking their hands. The knives didn't have time to fall to the ground before their shins were smashed and hard hooves smacked into their cheeks.

The fox was no fool. A coward and a knowing criminal, but no fool. He thought faster than the average thug, even if that still took a bit of time given the fast self defense. As soon as all of Sherlock's attention was focused on trying to shake some sense into and get information out of the two wolves, the fox was scrambling for the car. He made a lot of noise but didn't care. His escape needn't be clean, just rapid. He entered on the far side and leaped across to the driver's seat, noting with dismay Sherlock had turned his hidden fury from the stupefied wolves to him. All he had to do was start and screech out of there.

His focus was distracted for only a second, grabbing the keys and wrenching them, the rumble of the engine not quite overpowering the high-pitched clattering of shattering glass, a pointed shard of cracked porcelain pinging off the automobile glass, turning the driver's side window into a sudden spiderweb of radiating cracks. His attempt to peel out was finished when Sherlock crashed his arm through the compromised window, grabbing the fox and hauling him out, using a brutal grip on his coat that reached all the way down to his fur. The car stuttered forward but went nowhere as his body was pulled out and, to add injury to more injury, was used to bash the faces of the wolves and put them out.

"I'm low level! I'm low level!" The fox shrieked, face exposed at last, nothing more than a nobody red, exactly like dozens of others.

"The stoat," Sherlock said with a hollow, dead tone. "Hermine. Let the echo ring through your ears. Arrêt. You know the word, slurred as you make it. You know the tongue. She could see through you, through your employers. Swampfolk. Rougarou. And you, Madra Rua, a club for those too sly to stay alone but too weak to stand tall. If none trust any there is no advantage to being together. A bundle of sticks can only be unbroken if they are bound together. A line of individuals will be broken one-by-one."

"Oh buck your package, you spoory PI," the fox spat, the indignation hot in his eyes. The shame of his life, the constant degradation overcame the fear and pain, at least for a moment. A tighter grip on his fur pulled a hiss from between his teeth and a small yap. He panted a bit, the fear slowly creeping back into his features. "We do what we have to. We all do. You do, that street-scurrier did- AUGH!"

The grip grew tighter still, practically ripping out some fur. "Hermione. She IS my assistant. She is an investigator in training. She found you. And from your words alone, from your butchering of her language, she found you. Now you will pay."

"Who's paying you?" The fox whimpered. Sherlock seemed to somehow have some special power. He inflicted pain with ease, the way his hooves moved, the way he pressed against points on his body. He tried to remain hard. But it wasn't worth it to keep up the facade.

"City Councilor Cecil Seedsworth, the ZPD, and the city of Zootopia," Sherlock answered.

Despite being fully covered in a pelt, he almost seemed to visibly pale, his eyes flicking into tiny, terrified slits. "P-PIs don't... you... just hand me to Big or give me to Mahmoud's dudes to keep the streets clean. No, it's... you don't have the cop's permission. You need..."

"You were identified and I found you performing illegal acts. I defended myself. Even breaking the window can be excused because you are connected to a case I was working on, and I must apprehend you for suspicion of murder. The police will give very little concern."

A moment followed of absolute silence. No pain was being inflicted, no questions were being asked. He had to consider what it all meant. "The Rougarou make me do double-duty. I'm a Happytown dealer the Loup Garou shove and shake down a little, but all the pie pieces get slashed up just like they agreed, and no one else knows I'm from outside. But they have me here to do the supply chain business. The kitchen cookers move small and slow and when there's enough we load up and sell."

Sherlock, too, was still and silent, his digits placed but not pressing, his look turning disbelieving. "Why would you say all of these things so quickly? Why would you confess so freely? I have no cause to believe you..."

The captive fox began to laugh, a rasping, bitter laugh, devoid of mirth and light. A polluted stream of sound, the audible version of a rictus grin. "I'm not going anywhere. You let me go, I'm marked. Mahmoud will have my head for pipelining through here. Nowhere is safe. The ZPD will have everyone on me for what I almost did, and for what they think they can prove. But they have rules. There's something worse than getting slammed into Murkmoor, or even here in the Sweatbox. I might get some real protection from the guy that pulls the strings, and I'll take 'might' over having to look over my shoulder every day until I'm over."

Sherlock slowly released the fox from his grip, still staring hard down at him. "Who pulls these strings?"

"Ha! You think a dealer knows the top guy? I'm lucky I was sly as I look, found out there's someone up there. It makes sense. There's no way the Rougarou pulled this smooth pipeline off. But it all goes to Happytown. They focus on it. No idea why. They'd make bigger bucks hooking kids in Canyonlands. A good inroad to Hyenahurst and they'd be sitting pretty. But they keep folks like me in Happytown, selling junk," the fox said, leaning his aching body against the car. "After what I did... after what you did to those Rougarou bucks... thanks for not killing me and plopping down my neck. Still could but I guess you're about to pull your bosses in to slam me behind bars."

Sherlock had pulled out his phone and was dialing a number as he kept his eyes on the trio. "Give thanks to the permanent lessons of my venerable Master Bajja, and my need to see justice done, the proper way." The phone rang a few times before connecting. "This is Sherlock Gyag, a hired PI for the ZPD in Happytown, call Chief Bogo to confirm. I have two members of the Rougarou gang and a dealer all connected to crimes within the scope of my allowance. I am in a back alley in Sahara Square, on H avenue between Third and Fourth streets. I will be here. I had to use self defense and incapacitated two of them. Thank you."

The cold of the night and the dim surroundings wrapped around them all, the sounds of the bustling casino-filled city soon being overpowered by the scream of sirens, the night pushed back intermittently by the whirling red and blue lights of the arriving ZPD cruisers.