"The worst mistake a boss can do is not to say well done." - John Ashcroft
Roughly three hours had passed since Jack Savage's surprise visit to Sector-A, but still the CEO's presence reigned control over the other mammals in the office.
None of them wanted to play cards anymore, and they all had begun to get wrapped up back in their work, thus leaving a bored Nick all to himself.
For 60 minutes more he kept to himself in the confines of his office, where he simply stared out of the window and off into the distance of the Zootopian skyline. He wondered what Judy was up to right then, and if she was making any progress on the mission objective.
Nick sighed deeply.
For the past near-month, nearly zero progress had been mustered revolving the fox and bunny's latest case. Nick himself wasn't too concerned about the length, as he had somewhat expected a rather dragged-out and lengthy mission.
What did concern him was Judy, and how she was taking the case...
The fox realized long ago that Judy wasn't a very patient creature, and that she preferred her work to be over and done with. He wasn't sure whether or not that was a bunny thing, or just a part of her personality, but he didn't press it: It was just a factor of who she was, and he respected that.
Nick just hoped that she could keep it together for the rest of the mission... However long it may be.
Eventually, the fox began to feel bored and restless. He'd been sitting down doing practically nothing for the past hour, and all the other employees in his sector were working their tails off. Aside from that, Nick felt that he hadn't contributed enough to the case as of yet, and decided that perhaps snooping around a little wouldn't hurt.
He rose from his chair and exited his office, closing the door behind him as he did. He started to pace around the work-place, doing simple things such as peeking his head into a cubicle every now and then: Thankfully, he no longer got fearful reactions from any of the other mammals.
After a few short minutes of patrolling the sector and its subsections, Nick started making his way to Dyvim's cubicle, intent on striking up more conversation with the titular rabbit in an attempt to gather more clues surrounding Jack Savage. Soon enough, Dyvim's little corner was in sight, and right when he was about to enter, he detected someone squeak from behind him.
"Oh! Mr. Leyfur! Mr. Leyfur! I have something you should see!" The voice called out.
Turning back around, Nick searched out for the source of the voice. Looking downward slightly, he locked eyes with the small form of a pure black female bunny, clad in an office-attire that consisted of a white button-up and simple black skirt. Her eyes were a piercing green color, which stood in stark contrast to the oil dark color of her fur.
He recognized the bunny as Natalia Blackthorne; Sector-A's only female bunny employee, and only bunny that wasn't either white or gray in coloration.
"Yeah, what's up Nat?" The fox inquired.
Natalia walked up closer to Nick and showed him a few sheets of paper, which the fox grabbed and began to look over curiously.
"I just printed out these account records... I-I noticed that the numbers didn't add up correctly... It's as if they had a part of them cut out from the financial withdrawal."
Nick blinked as he stared down at the papers.
He had barely understood a word that Natalia had said, but he figured that what she meant wasn't a good thing. Taking a closer look at the long column of numbers, all of which were summed up with a single eight digit number at the bottom of the page: 18,456,997.
He turned back towards the female bunny.
"Thank you, Miss Blackthorne... I'll look into this right away. You're dismissed." Nick stated.
Natalia nodded respectfully before walking off and disappearing behind a corner to the left. Nick swiveled around and continued walking towards Dyvim's office, not removing his eyes from the papers he still clutched in his paws.
When he stepped inside, he was met with the sight of Dyvim already eyeing him, the rabbit casually leaning back in his office-chair as if he'd expected Nick's arrival.
"Hmm... Lemme see that paper, Felix." The bunny mumbled. "From what I heard Natalia say, it sounds like you got yourself a phantom-profit..."
"Phantom profit?" Nick repeated as he handed the paper to Dyvim. "What's that?"
"Not good, I'll tell ya that much. It basically means that a portion of the money being handled has been unofficially removed."
The rabbit looked up from the paper and locked eyes with the fox.
"In other words, someone withdrew money from this account's financial flow without the permission of the higher-ups."
At that statement, a tiny little light-bulb went off in Nick's head.
"Wait wait..." He stammered. "So you're telling me that someone disrupted this account's loans?"
"Yeah, pretty much." Dyvim confirmed.
Nick took another look at the papers. Eyeing the recipients of the money: Bugga-Burger, the largest predator food-corporation in all of Zootopia.
They were huge... after all, they fed nearly 10% of the city's population every day.
"I wonder why someone would do that..." Dyvim's voice spoke aloud, bringing another idea into the fox's head.
"Tell me Dyvim... why else? Whoever took the money from Bugga-Burger's account didn't just throw it away... It got moved!"
"Bugga-Burger? Why them?" The rabbit questioned.
"Probably because they have such a high financial intake that they wouldn't notice if any money got withdrawn! Look here!"
Nick leaned the paper down to Dyvim's height and showed him the numbers. Some of them were pictured over time, and visibly shrunk over a period of several months. Not only that, but like Natalia had said, they simply didn't add up to the final sum of 18 million. The fox looked over and saw that Dyvim was nodding his head as he eyed the paper.
"So what do we do, boss?" He asked the fox.
Nick's smile grew ever wider as he lightly backhanded the paper for effect.
"We find out where the money went!" Nick rose to his full height and began to exit the cubicle, talking as he did.
"Assuming it was transferred using the exact same system, ours... Then we can retrace where the withdrawn money was deposited to."
The fox stepped out into the middle of the work-place, he took a deep breath in and shouted out across the office.
"ATTENTION! ATTENTION, PLEASE!"
Every single employee in the office stopped what they were doing and eyed the fox with confusion.
"We've got a problem here, everyone! It was just brought to my attention that we have a phantom-profit zipping around in our system! Ya hear that? A phantom-profit!"
He held up the paper and pressed his pointer finger into it.
"I need everyone to keep an eye out for any other transactions that don't seem to add up! Specifically, any additional profits that were added onto another account!"
He readjusted his collar and stepped away from the scene, indicating that he was finished. The sound of a hundred keyboards being pressed upon filled his ears and brought a smile to his face.
"There we go! In no time at all, I'm sure we'll be able to locate where that cash went to. Great work, Dyvim!"
Nick turned around expecting to see the rabbit right in front of him, but instead saw that he had retreated back to his office and was leaning in the frame of the entrance, staring out in front of him. Nick followed his gaze and saw that he was staring at Natalia from across the office, his eyes watching her every move. Dyvim had a dreamy sort of look on his face, and didn't refocus until Nick snapped his fingers right into his ear.
"Huh?" He vocally stumbled before quickly spitting out his next few words. "Ah, yes! Thank you, sir!"
The rabbits eyes momentarily darted back to where he was previously looking before settling back on the fox, who had one hell of a smirk plastered onto his muzzle.
"Aaah, well would you look at that! Mister White has a thing for Miss Black! A perfect match, if I ever saw one!"
Dyvim furrowed his brow and scowled before pulling Nick into his cubicle.
"Please don't say stuff like that out loud... I haven't exactly told anyone yet..."
Nick was excited; After all, he had just gotten a new lead on his case... A big one at that! But for the sake of his friend, he did his best to calm down.
"Aw, don't worry about it too much, Dyvim! Just let things unfold and you'll get the girl one day, I'm sure..." The fox said as he turned around and eyed the hundreds of rabbits.
"Speaking of letting things unfold," He added. "I reckon that it's only a matter of time until we have a lead on where our money went."
"Lead?" Dyvim chuckled. "What are you, a police officer?" He asked sarcastically.
The fox just shrugged.
"I'm just a guy tryna' get some answers, thas' all..."
Nick crossed his arms and smiled as he watched the scene before him: Hundreds of bunnies working to find the phantom-profit.
That's right... You're running out of luck, Jack... Soon, I'll have you right where you belong... The Zootopian County Prison... He thought to himself.
He then raised his paw and gave Dyvim a high five.
He figured that he'd earned it.
"Phew!" Judy panted. "New record time!" She said while eyeing the clock on the wall, which had just struck twelve.
She may not have reached her previous goal of finishing the entire stack of paperwork in 30 minutes, but for an amount that big, it was certainly a worthy achievement to complete the paperwork in an hours time.
At least in her eyes...
Flexing her aching fingers, Judy rose from Jack's chair and began pacing around his desk in an effort to get the blood flowing back to her legs, which had gone without use for quite some time.
After walking about ten laps around the large desk, Judy cracked her knuckles and began sifting through the paperwork that she'd just filled out. In her rush to finish it, she'd paid little attention to what the documentations were actually about, and now that she had finished, she decided to take the time to skim through and see just what type of deals that Jack was making with these.
As she flipped around the sheets, she recalled Jack's previous claim that the majority of the papers dealt with loans and other financial jazz with Bugga-Burger, the predator-based fast-food company. Ogling the many words, she realized that Jack had been telling the truth, as most of the papers seemed to revolve around back and forth deals with Bugga-Burger and it's closest associates.
There was a knocking sound at the office's entrance.
The door creaked open slightly, and Jack Savage stuck his head in and bid hello before stepping fully inside.
He confidently strode up to Judy and placed his paws on the desk surface, leaning his weight onto the table as he smiled and spoke aloud;
"Oh, I'm so excited!" He started, his dazzling smile growing even wider. "The meeting I have scheduled with the CFO of Bugga-Burger himself is almost upon us!"
He leaned away from the desk, clearing his throat audibly before pacing around the desk and walking right up to Judy.
"As I've told you before, I've been looking forward to this meeting for months! If all goes right, then we'll have a massive foothold over the public's investments into their stock market! All the money they invest in Bugga-Burger's stock will go straight through our banks! It'll be a breakthrough!"
Judy smiled warmly and nodded her head in agreement. She'd heard of Jack talking about this particular deal for weeks on end. Judy noticed that each time he brought it up, his eyes would glaze over and his attitude would turn very approachable and cheery: She liked seeing him like this, and personally hoped that it would work out for him in the end.
"It shouldn't take very long..." Jack continued, placing his paw beneath his chin and staring out the window. "No more than an hour at most."
The male bunny whirled around and locked eyes with the female bunny.
"The meeting is scheduled at 5:00 and should be running 'till about six... Hopefully it won't go over, as I wouldn't want it to interfere with our dinner, of course!"
Judy bit back a curse: She'd forgotten about her agreement with Jack.
"Sir," Judy began. "When exactly do we want to go out?"
Jack nodded his head, before giving his response.
"Well, I thought that we could leave for the restaurant at about seven, yes? We'll meet here, at the entrance to the building, where my chauffeur will pick us up."
He said everything so matter-of-factly that it was hard to believe that anything else could possibly happen differently.
"Alright, sounds good to me!" Judy claimed excitedly: She took this as an opportunity to delve more into Jack's personal life for Intelligence purposes.
But alongside that, she figured that it might be nice learning a bit more about Jack other than the fact that he likes "good business", and is a hopeless alcoholic.
Jack broke eye-contact with Judy and walked over to the desk, eyeing the stack of papers every step of the way.
"Well-done, Alaina!" He said as he plucked a single paper from the stack. "I'll be needing these papers for the meeting, so I'm pleased to see that you filled them all out."
The female bunny shifted her weight from foot to foot and fiddled with her thumbs.
Chief Bogo never complimented her on finishing her paperwork so quickly... It was nice to be appreciated like that.
"Why, thank you." She said timidly, trying to avoid his piercing blue gaze. "Is there anything else you'd like me to do?"
"No, not at all: I think you've done quite enough for today." Jack stated, patting the stack of papers for emphasis. "Besides, didn't I say you had an easy day today?"
Judy did recall Jack's previous words, about how that stack of work was virtually all that he had planned for her that day.
"Yes, yes you did, sir." Judy said.
"Indeed... You're excused for the rest of the day, m'lady... Just be sure to meet me in the lobby at seven, and we'll let things unwind from there, I suppose!"
Jack gave a half-lidded smirk that looked nearly identical to the one that Nick gave so often.
"You're free to go, Alaina. Besides, I'm sure that you could use some lunch at this point." Jack stated, pointing his thumb behind him and toward the clock on the wall.
12:08
"Okay, thank you sir!" Judy said one last time before grabbing her things and exiting the office, smiling the whole way back to the elevator. When she stepped inside, she tried to ignore the closed doors of the opposing elevator, which still stood dark and quiet across the hall. After her elevator shut it's doors and began sliding down to the lobby, she pulled out her phone and placed a call to Nick.
A few seconds of silence were concluded when the fox's voice spoke out from the other side of the line.
"Hey, fluff-butt! What's the occasion?"
Judy smiled and made a hmm sort of sound before responding.
"Oh, well I just got done with my shift, and I was wondering if you wanted to meet up for lunch or something?"
"Lunch... Yeah, I could use some lunch! My shift just ended too, so I'll meet ya in the lobby, okay? Just gotta catch this elevator first..."
As soon as he said it, Judy's elevator slowed down and came to a sudden halt. The doors slid open, revealing Nick as he stood in the hall-way, phone held up to his face.
"Oh, well would you look at that!" Nick's voice stated from both the phone and in front of her. The fox stepped inside the elevator, pretending to ignore Judy.
"Alright Judy, I gotta go, there's this dumb-bunny in the elevator who won't stop giving me weird looks... I'll see you in the lobby!"
Nick promptly ended the call and put his phone away, as soon as it was gone, he donned a look of surprise and excitement.
"Hey, look who it is!" He wrapped his arm around Judy's shoulder and pulled her until their sides met. "It's my best-buddy, Alaina Ryder"
Judy rolled her eyes and elbowed Nick in the sternum. That action effectively removed the fox from her shoulder, but he still smirked victoriously.
"So, off early you said?" He asked while adjusting his brown tie: Judy loved how it matched his identically colored eyes.
"Yep. Jack let me off early, but I-" She hesitated.
Should I tell Nick about dinner with Jack? He doesn't need to know, does he? It might be better for the investigation if he doesn't know, for now... She thought to herself.
"I-I'm gonna do some overtime at around 7:00... I'm hoping I'll find some more evidence that might help us on our case." Judy claimed.
She hated herself for being untruthful, but she truly believed that it would be for the best if Nick was kept in the dark about this one.
He seemed to have bought it, as he nodded his head in understanding. A few seconds after that, the elevator stopped with an audible ding, and the doors slid open to reveal the busy and bustling lobby.
"Speaking of evidence, I think that I made a major breakthrough back in Sector-A... I'll explain it to you once we find a place to eat..." Nick claimed.
As they stepped out of the lobby and exited the building, Nick glanced at Judy and smiled before asking the million-dollar question of everybody's afternoon.
"So, fluff... What's for lunch?"
Hey everyone!
I certainly hope you enjoyed this latest chapter! Be sure to tell me whatcha think! :)
'Till next time, everybody...
Peace!