Karen Skippel sat at her workstation at the ZPD, looking at the status of the network. She swore there was a setting that she didn't remember making; the arctic hare wondered if someone had messed with something while she was away from her computer.
It was a fairly quiet morning at the Zootopia Police Department. The atmosphere was laid back and serene, and the chatter around the office was kept to a blessed minimum. Most likely that was due to those class clowns Judy and Nick being out on their rounds already.
Karen exhaled through her nose in a burst. She'd seen the news stories and she'd read the reports, but she had no idea how those two misfits ended up saving Zootopia. It didn't make any sense to her.
The peace around the office was not to last. For her, anyway.
The arctic hare surged with irritation as she noticed a file getting accessed on the network from an unauthorized source.
"Hmph, here to try to access those sheep criminal files again?" Karen asked, addressing a persistent hacker she had problems with as if they could hear her.
As if in reply, more and more files were accessed. Not just of sheep files, but of almost everything she could think of, as if the files were on a supermarket shelf and an elephant was scooping them up into a cart with their trunk.
"Nh, what...!?" Karen felt a chill as the attack was much more malicious and random than most. Panicking, she restricted access to the network, then outright disabled it.
Karen took a shaky slurp of coffee and pulled a wood dowel out of her desk, nervously chewing it.
"No no, no no no... I just changed the settings on everything, did I miss something...?" Karen folded her ears over her eyes, letting them go as they comically sprung back upwards. She was notorious for at the very least triple checking everything she did. If she left a vulnerability in the network, she'd be very, very upset with herself.
"Great... now I have to change all of the network settings and see if I can find where that weak point is..." Karen chewed on her lower lip.
Karen's eyes flicked back from her monitors to the tigress that was approaching her.
"I can't access the records database," Fangmeyer gestured back to her computer. "What's going on?"
"A little technical difficulty," Karen grumbled.
The arctic hare's voice wasn't nearly placating enough to the tigress as she barely looked at her. "Well, ETA on it getting back up?"
"I'm working on it, okay?" Karen snapped. "I know everyone needs the internet here; I'm working on it!"
"Mm," Fangmeyer sighed, waving at another coworker. "Where ya goin', McHorn?"
Karen involuntarily cringed at even the mention of the rhinoceros officer, a shiver traveling up her spine. She'd long had a phobia about being crushed by larger animals, but had never been able to explain it. Her eyes squinted shut as she felt the presence of the rhino as he walked behind her.
"Gonna run this sample through the mass spectrometer," McHorn waved an evidence bag, heading off.
Karen shot up in her chair as if she'd been electrified.
"Whait!" Karen spat, the mixture of "what" and "wait" confusing the two larger mammal.
The arctic hare leaped out of her chair and rushed around McHorn. She didn't like talking to other mammals, especially titanic ones, but there was no way she was letting McHorn just "run something through" that machine.
"McHorn, what are you going to run through the mass spectrometer...?" Karen stared up at him with grave, piercing eyes.
The rhino held up the evidence bag. "Not really sure, that's why I'm gonna run it. Found this material at a crime scene; don't know what it is. That's what the machine's for, right?"
"Ija... gghk...!" Karen held her paws up near her face, her jaw slightly jerking to the side, almost flailing as if she was trying to keep something from falling over. "If you don't know how to run the mass spectrometer, I don't want you anywhere near it!"
"Why, cause I'm a huge clumsy rhino?" McHorn snorted, a hand on his hip.
"NO... because it's a delicate machine and if you just 'run something through' without the proper precautions you could ruin it!" Karen ran a paw through her ears, almost out of breath from her stress. "No matter how big you are! Hopps wanted to run a ruby through the machine the other day. She wanted to put a ROCK through the mass spectrometer, McHorn!"
"Uh, jeez," McHorn, nodding as if he understood the import. "That's... bad."
"McHorn, is there any chance that sample you have has organic material on it?" Karen's voice dripped with desperation.
"It's possible," McHorn frowned and stared hard at the sample, as if it would tell him.
"Then would you please..." Karen clasped her paws together and then moved them both to the side. "Take that sample away from the mass spectrometer, and see if Doctor Pedshark will look at it for you?"
"Ah, sure, that sounds like a good idea, Skippel," McHorn nodded, altering his course.
"Huaaaah...!" Karen exhaled a huge sigh, grasping her forehead with a paw.
Fangmeyer had a huge smirk on as she took in all the ruckus, then turned to go back to her own cubicle.
Karen rushed back to her station to take another sip of life-giving coffee, but her thermos had run dry. Cursing silently, she took the thermos and headed downstairs to the break room to get a refill.
Clawhauser's eyes widened as he saw the stressed-out hare wandering towards the break room.
"My goodness, that's one frazzled-looking hare!" Clawhauser noted with a couple of blinks. He smiled broadly. "Or maybe all of them are frazzled, huh?"
Karen didn't even react to the attempt at humor.
"Aw, what's wrong, Skippel?" Clawhauser pouted, the round cheetah peering over his desk to look at her.
"Kind of have a lot on my plate, Clawhauser," Karen slashed her free hand through the air. "Need to relax."
"Wanna know how I relax...?" Clawhauser had one of those paradoxical innocent-mischievous faces on that only felines could correctly execute.
"No offense, Clawhauser," Karen looked up at him, "but I think that's kind of obvious."
"I can teach you a secret technique I know to let your troubles drift away," Clawhauser insisted.
"I have my own systems, Clawhauser, I'm dealing with it," Karen shrugged an arm with her hand held out.
"Cheetahs are naturally anxious mammals, Skippel," Clawhauser folded his paws together and tilted his chin up authoritatively. "So, maybe you should be asking why I'm so happy all the time?"
"Because you eat lots of donuts," Karen's eyes half-lid.
"Exactly!" Clawhauser swished a finger. "The opposite of 'stressed' is 'desserts'!"
"Wonderful," Karen groaned, "I like the wordplay." It didn't sound like she was being honest.
"Okay now, what kind of donut do you like?" Clawhauser rooted around in a box of donuts that were merely bite-size to him.
"...Just glazed is fine, really," Karen didn't quite know why she hadn't moved away yet.
Clawhauser daintily put a small glazed donut in Karen's paw. Karen moved to take a bite, but Clawhauser gasped.
"No no no, wait!" Clawhauser held both paws out to halt her. "If you really want a dessert to 'de-stress' you, you have to savor it! Take each bite slowly; focus on the flavor, and only that. Soon your troubles will be put out of your mind, if only just for a moment. It helps, honest!"
Karen's brow furrowed skeptically, and she looked between Clawhauser and the donut a few times before closing her eyes and attempting to eat and savor the donut. After each bite, she focused on the sweetness, the yielding texture of the confection, and the goopiness of the frosting coating it. After it was gone, she looked perplexed.
"Huh, I do feel a little better..." Karen was confused. Some of the tension had seemed to leave from her neck and shoulders.
"See!?" Clawhauser giggled in delight. "You're welcome to more stress-destroying donuts whenever you want 'em, Skippel!"
"I uh... thanks, Clawhauser," Karen barely smiled, moving to the break room. "Oh gah...!"
In front of it was Chief Bogo, who glared down at her.
"Skippel," he huffed. "Heard you gave McHorn quite the talking-to."
"Um, yes sir! I did do that," Karen held up a finger with a guilty grimace. "I- he- he was... he was about to haphazardly use our mass spectrometer, and we just got that new model in, and I just- I um..."
"Well, fair enough," Bogo chuckled slightly, rubbing his chin. "Don't want that part of the budget to go to waste, after all. Just thought it was amusing. Do all of you lapines have that fire in your bellies, or is it just you and Hopps?"
"Ugh," Karen ground her teeth a little, "please warn me if I ever get like Hopps."
"Hmhm..." Bogo smirked, but then his expression fell to grim seriousness, "also, what happened to the network?"
"Uh!" Karen's pupils looked like pinpricks in her icy-blue eyes. "Had to take it down, sir! Malicious hacker tried to access a huge swath of criminal files. Trying to determine if it was a sophisticated attempt or..." Bogo's commanding presence almost made her say "my own ineptitude", but she caught herself.
"And is something in the break room going to help with that?" Bogo's eyes half-closed.
"Coffee," Karen held up her thermos. "...Indirectly."
"All right, carry on, but get your tail in gear," Bogo snorted. "You are our Chief Technical Officer after all, so I expect the network to be back on line ASAP, understand?"
"Yh- yes... yes sir," Karen nodded emphatically, then Bogo stomped away.
Karen exhaled an enormous breath she didn't even realize she was holding. Her paws trembled as she poured her coffee, and she gnawed her lower lip. She slowly turned her head to the entrance of the ZPD, looking at the merry cheetah at the desk.
"Hey... hey Clawhauser?" Karen said, suddenly rushing toward him.
She was going to need another donut.