Heroes of Zootopia
Chapter 9 "Suspicious Minds"
By DragonMan1997
Zootopia © Disney
Nick rested his head against the steering wheel of the interceptor as he waited for Judy. "I don't know, Judy, if I can keep pretending." He felt himself slipping every day. The drink kept calling him. And the only cure, Nick could find, was working with Judy as he always had. Nick smiled at his little predicament as he mimicked the really bad movie he had watched the other night. "You're tearing me apart Judith!" He sighed as a small laugh made him forget, for a moment, about his situation with his partner, and best friend.
Nick remembered hearing his parents say something about how you should marry your best friend. He never thought that would come back to taunt him. Then he wondered, what if he had asked her? Would it all be different?
Nick looked up to see Judy waving at Gideon Grey, who had little Judy Big perched on his shoulder. "You deserve a friend Nick." Nick shook off the joke. Was it a joke? Didn't matter. It didn't make him hate Gideon less than he already was starting to.
"Hey Nick." Judy hopped into the passenger seat.
Nick tapped the steering wheel before singing, "Hey Jude!"
Judy shook her head but she couldn't stop herself from smiling. "Ugh, Nick!"
"Don't make it bad, take a sad song!" Nick snorted with laughter as Judy squeezed his jaw shut.
"Listen you!" Judy pulled out a gift wrapped box. "Happy birthday."
Nick went silent. "That's today." He had to think about it.
A look of concern swept over Judy's face. "Did you forget your own birthday?"
Nick shrugged. "I must be getting old."
"Oh stop." Judy shook her head again. "You're only forty two. You're still young."
Nick raised his brow at Judy. "Thirty nine is still young. Which means you only got three years left of being young." Nick gasped dramatically as he pointed at Judy's head. "Is that a gray hair?!"
Judy was about to reach for the top of her head when she remembered, "Nick," she deadpanned, "all of my fur is already gray."
Nick slapped his chest in fake surprise. "What?! I never noticed?"
Judy held her face as she laughed. "Nick! What's up with you today?"
Nick forced a smile. Judy, I just wanted to tell you. I wanted to tell you for a long time. "I'm just happy to see my partner." Nick smiled away the lie as he began to drive towards the station. I love you.
Judy shook her head, yet again at her partner's antics. "Glad to see you too."
Nick hadn't driven more than a mile when he saw the line of honking cars with angry passengers standing in the street. "What's this all about?" Nick parked the interceptor next to the curb and cut the engine. Stepping out he could see animals on their phones, probably explaining why they'd be late for work. Nick hoisted himself onto the roof of the interceptor.
Judy popped her head out. "What do you see?"
Nick held his hands just above his eyes to block out the morning sun so he could see what was up. "The whole road is blocked off in front of the court house."
One driver yelled out. "There was no road block scheduled for the day. You know anything about this?"
"No." Nick yelled back.
"Nick!" Judy called out. "Do you hear that?"
It was faint, but then it came like a tidal wave that slowly grew into existence. It was music. It was classical music. A flurry of bells was joined by swelling voices. Nick recognized it as an overture from some concert Judy had dragged him to years ago. The music grew louder and louder as it neared the crescendo. "I've got a bad feeling about this."
The crescendo hit!
Nick fell back as the windows of the courthouse shattered with flames bursting outward. Level by level, the flames traveled upward. Explosions went off to the beat of the song. Nick and Judy watched as multi colored flares and fireworks sprung up from the courthouse. The structure's dome collapsed as wood and metal bent to the will of the continuous explosions.
The finale hit, sending one final shockwave across the whole area. Then there was silence, and the courthouse was gone.
The little intercom buzzed to life. "Chief Tigre, Hopps and Wilde just got back."
Chief Tigre held down the intercom button. "Send 'em in, Clawhauser." The tiger reached into one of his desk drawers and pulled out a bottle of pain killers. "Down the hatch." Popping the lid, he carefully shook two capsules out and tossed them in his mouth. He groaned as he swallowed the pills, dry. It had only been a year and a half since Bogo left the ZPD and left Tigre as the new chief. The tiger was now beginning to realize why Bogo retired so early. The job had its fair share of stress to be had. And, stress was always in full supply at the ZPD. Now, more than ever.
KNOCK KNOCK
"Come in." Tigre tapped his face as he faced the opening door that revealed Nick and Judy. "Hopps, Wilde, you okay."
"We're fine, chief. Still a bit shaken up though." Judy Looked at Nick who seemed to be somewhere else. "Nick?"
Tigre clasped his paws together as he addressed Nick, "Officer Wilde."
"Good." Nick blurted out.
"You sure?" Tigre wasn't quite convinced by Nick's response.
"Yeah." Nick nodded. "Just going over details."
"Convenient." Tigre gestured for Nick and Judy to sit down. "Lay it on me. How many people were injured?"
"None." Nick shook his head." He recalled the blast. The road block. "Everyone was well out of range of the explosion. The road was blocked off, so no one could get close enough."
"Okay." Tigre nodded. "Anything else."
Judy cleared her throat before speaking, "There's a problem. We checked in with the city, and there was no roadblock scheduled. We think this was planned by someone."
Tigre shut his eyes for a moment as he prayed for the painkillers to kick in. "You're suggesting this was an act of terrorism?"
"Quite possibly, yes sir." Judy nodded.
"Quite possibly." Tigre breathed deep as his headache miraculously fled from his skull. "Well, I just got off the phone with Mayor Swinton who explained that the court house was being prepped for demolition and that the explosive charges went off prematurely."
Nick scoffed at the idea. "Then how do you explain the flares and the fireworks?"
"She said they were sending the old court house off with a 'bang'." Tigre leaned in over Nick, pointing his pen at his chest. "Officer Wilde, I hope you're not letting your political views interfere with your job."
Nick put up his paws defensively. "Granted that I'm not a huge fan of Swinton, I'm just making sure we check all our corners. Everyone's innocent until proven guilty, but during an investigation, everyone is still a suspect."
"I have to agree with Nick." Judy chimed in. "There's obviously conflicting information between what the city workers said and what Swinton said."
Tigre agreed with this. "Okay, well you two should get on that. Either the workers are lying or the mayor is lying. I want you to figure out who it is ASAP. Capiche?"
"Yes sir." Nick and Judy both saluted.
"Alright." Tigre sighed. "Now where is that quoll?"
The door burst open at the hands of a small animal dragging papers and files. "Chief! Why weren't these files processed like everything else?! I hope you appreciate me for digging through the basement to find this information."
Tigre suddenly felt like the painkillers had failed to contain the floodgates which had burst with the presence of the very quoll he had mentioned. "Q, I'm not-"
"Paper! I had to look through paper to find all this information." The quoll continued his rant. "We have technology, computers that make all this information accessible, we're not cave mammals!"
"Do you have the information or not Q?!" Tigre slammed a fist down on the desk.
Q huffed at the tiger as he pulled out the main paper needed out of the stack he had dragged with him from the basement. "Yes. I have the info on the explosives. And guess what, these ain't your family friendly run of the mill explosives approved for demolition purposes." Q looked at Nick and Judy. "You saw fire, right? Coming out of the court house?"
Nick and Judy both nodded.
"You see Tigre." Q slapped the paper in front of the chief. "Regular demolitions are typically flameless implosions. This fireball of a stunt could not have come from the quote on quote, standard issue."
Tigre looked over the paper. "Criminy. This is what you found traces of?"
"Yep." Q dumped the rest of the papers he was carrying on the floor beside him. "Straight out of the Cookbook."
"The what?" Judy asked.
"Anarchist's cookbook." Nick elaborated. "A collection of recipes, do it yourself bombs and explosives. But, that book was banned, long ago. Copies are almost impossible to comeby now a days. Everything is online. So anywhere it's put up, it's almost instantly taken down."
"Well," Judy shrugged, "can you trace the source of the materials at all?"
"That's the thing," Q sighed, "the ingredients in these makeshift bombs can be found in any household, making it difficult to trace."
"Nick," Judy turned to her partner, "you know everybody. Know anyone who'd sell or supply explosives like this."
"Unfortunately, no. And for the record, knowing everyone doesn't include their secrets."
Q hummed to himself. "I haven't seen stuff like this since the Raven was around." Everyone in the room froze a bit at the mention of the Raven.
Nick felt the deepest pain. He still had anger, mostly for himself in being so blind. He had been engaged to a vixen by the name of Kit. As it turned out, she was the Raven, the mind behind the radical predator group that terrorized Zootopia in the reincarnated form of an evil of the old world. Nick had been blind to the fact that Kit was evil and that he should never have trusted her. He let Kit blind him. He lost sight of his friend, Judy.
Judy furrowed her brow at Q. "You're talking about the weapon caches. Do you think we might have missed some?"
Q snorted as he scratched his chin in thought. "Even so, these type of explosives don't always keep."
Tigre pulled his phone out of his pocket. "Speak of the devil."
"What is it," Judy made her way back to Tigre's desk.
"News story." Tigre groaned. "Swinton's speaking soon about the premature detonation." Holding his phone up to the screen mounted on the wall, he swiped the video feed onto the screen for all of them to see.
The regular ZNN anchormammals were on display behind their desk with notes in thier paws even though they'd just read them from the teleprompter. "...detonation was premature according to Mayor Swinton-" the suit clad narrators stared blankly into space as they broke down into incoherent stutters. "No wait!" Their grunts barely sounded out as darts hit their necks. Four animals dressed in combat fatigues and harnesses strolled in. Their faces were covered by identical white bird masks with black beaks.
"What the heck?" Nick stared in disbelief as the masked animals dragged the passed out bodies off camera.
Tigre slammed on his intercom. "Clawhauser, send all available units to the ZNN studio! Now!
"Looks like fake news ZNN is having some technical difficulties." A voice off camera cackled. "Boss, it's showtime."
"Nick!" Judy flipped out the keys to their interceptor. "Let's go."
Everywhere in Zootopia, the multitudes stared down at phones, up at screens, and all manner of devices as the same feed from ZNN took over everything. Animals began to freak out as the same empty desk appeared everywhere. Everyone watched as the desk was filled by a figure dressed in white with the same white bird mask as the animals who relieved the usual hosts.
"Good evening Zootopia. I would like to apologize first for this interruption. I must admit I enjoy a good news story just as much as any mammal. But there is business of utmost importance, the record must be set straight. I hope you're listening carefully.
"As I said it is business, the company's business. We started so small from humble beginnings. My-my-my, has it really been thousands of years since you quadrupeds liberated yourselves from such a primitive existence when you dared to walk on two legs and decide not to eat each other? Then you scrambled together into tribes, ah yes, the business. Family owned at first, you carried opportunity further with caravans between towns, from towns to cities, and from cities to countries. Yes.
"You animals have served us so well for so long, but I'm afraid all the years of your past honorable service are insufficient to spare you the consequences of your recent sloppy work habits. You've been slipping up lately, no don't act so surprised. I know, you were counting on your long term dedication to the company to shield you from the consequences. But, the company relies on all assets. And quite frankly, it dangerously close to bankruptcy. How did this happen? I know you're wondering it as much as I. While I know, I still wonder it.
"It was your carelessness that brought you here, today, my fellow Zootopians. You've neglected your responsibilities to the new members of the company. We are now horribly understaffed in competent reliable workers fit for the task of contributing wholesome work that is essential to progress. Now we are grotesquely overstaffed in weak minded and self destructive children who seek rewards where none shall be allowed. The company does not pay for the antithesis to progress.
"These new employees of yours have made some horrible decisions which you have neglected to respond to. That's not to say it's purely you're fault alone. No. There is a definite management
Issue that ought to have been taken care of, and that responsibility falls to you who so blindly accepted the leadership of the miscreants that have been in charge. It would seem that instead of constructive criticism, you would rather take lies that make you feel good about yourselves. You chose flattery over truth. Again truth, you waste it along with the company's time as you sit in your miserable comforts while the corrupt management, you yourself promoted, puckers her lips beneath your tail with a paycheck you never truly earned.
"Proud of yourself?
"With all that has gone so horribly wrong, I'm afraid the company is going to have to let you go unless you change, if there's any company left to let you go from. I hope you ponder these words I have shared. Their meaning, I don't expect to come easy to you. You've all been spoonfed long enough. If you have any ounce of dignity left, if you value freedom, you friends, and your families, then wake up. Open your eyes to the injustice that's been done.
"Mayor Swinton has claimed, or rather was going to claim, that the destruction of the court house was an accident. I can assure you that it was no mere accident. I blew up the courthouse. It stood in vain as judges paid expressly by Swinton sent innocent mammals to prison, even death row. Follow the money trail, the truth with spring up before you. Ah, yes, truth. Fear. That's why I did it. Fear and hunger are the ultimate motivators. To think, it took blowing up a building to gain your attention.
"Now that i have it. I offer you a choice. You can sit idly by while you consume Bug-Burga and Snarlbucks as the ones you've placed in charge slowly poison your fatty feast, or you can join me in exposing the corrupt hierarchy of fiends who foolishly feign to recognize their agendas above the basic freedoms you truly deserve but have been trained to deny. Complacency or justice.
"While Swinton will offer you false promises of impossible reward without work, little children, I offer you a chance, to take back your dignity. As, I, take back mine. My voice and words were manipulated once before, but no more. Those who claim to be above us used me to strike fear into you some ten years ago. But, no more. My first act in my path of repentance is to avenge you. They used me to give you fear, but now I serve you to give them fear, where fear so rightfully belongs. You need not fear me, nor them; it is they who should fear us.
"And to you, Mayor Swinton, you should have killed me when you had the chance."
Nick and Judy ran up the staircase with multiple officers towards the main news studio.
Once there, they were surprised to see two of the masked animals tied up in the center of the studio. The news crew was surrounding them, all shaken. Some, you could read the terror on their faces. Others were lost in thought over the words spoken to the world.
Nick kept his tranquilizer gun high and straight in the direction of the masked animals. He kept his distance in case either of them decided to try anything. He looked at some of the news crew. "Did you tie them up?"
"We told them to." One of the masked animals spoke. "We stayed behind."
"As testifiers." The other, chimed in.
Nick could tell by the horns that they were both gazelles. "Testifiers?" Nick kept a bead on them as four officers approached the masked gazelles with handcuffs. "Who are you exactly?"
The masked gazelles looked at each other and back to Nick. "We are no one. Yet we are one. We can't forgive, and we can never forget."
Judy pulled Nick's arm down. "Nick." She gestured to the floor below. Small drops of blood had been dripping from their masks.
"You can expect us to come again." They both began to gasp. "Veni, vidi, vici."
Nick dropped his tranquilizer as he backed away from the two masked gazelles that fell silent, resting against each other. His mind cried out in absolute terror as he saw the Raven coming back to get him. "No," Nick slipped as he continued to back away, "no, no, it can't be."
"Nick!" Judy ran to her partner as he cowered at the sight of the now faceless white raven masks. "Nick, what's wrong."
He remembered, that motto, it was hers. I came, I saw, I conquered. "The Raven." Nick's breathing grew more erratic with every second those masks dead eyed him.
"Nick, you need to calm down." Judy saw Nick reaching for his left arm. The realization sent a shockwave of terror through her and the other officers. "Get an ambulance! He's having a heart attack!"