Hey fans,

It's been a while since I updated. I've been pretty busy but as of yesterday I might be getting some time here and there. I hope you stuck around!

KR,

16. Back On The Job

==Judy==

The trip to the ZPD was tense and quiet. Literally, not a single word was being said. Not even when an old lady decided to randomly cross the street, causing Nick to push the brake pedal through the floor of the car. As he scraped himself off the windshield, he gave me a look of concern. I gestured it was fine. It wasn't exactly true, but I was too nervous to be the first to speak up. And then our silent trip continued.

The silence wasn't uncomfortable as it gave me time to process the events. I was still overwhelmed from what happened in my apartment. It had been what I had dreamt of, no doubt. He had assured me we'd be partners forever. And yet, somehow a part of me didn't think it was enough proof. It was so easy to interpret the words differently. Perhaps he had only meant that no matter what I thought of him, we'd be able to work together or that even though we'd split up, we'd still be partners. Ridiculous ideas, I know, but I couldn't seem to shake them. I glanced at him. His emotions were always impossible to read. If only I could get him to put it to the exact words. To ease my subconscious doubts.

The precinct came into sight. If I didn't want anyone to intervene on such a private topic, there wasn't much time left to ask it.

"Hey-uhm… Nick."

"Hmm?" He responded, driving onto the parking lot.

"I-eh… I was thinking about what you said earlier."

"What I said?"

He carefully parked the car next in the line of three and switched the key to turn down the droning engine. Then he looked at me with his full attention. His gaze unnerved me a little. Despite I knew he answered my feelings of affection, I wondered if I'd ever be able to act normally in his presence.

"You said, we'd be partners forever, right?"

He nodded slowly, evidently gauging where I was heading.

"I was wondering what you mean by that…"

"I-errr… I don't think I understand."

For the first time in my history with him, I could read a certain discomfort in his eyes. I felt guilty for putting him in this position, just because of my own self-doubt. I knew what he had meant, it had been blindingly obvious. Then again, I would also love to hear him say it again.

"You see… I want to be sure that there would be no misunderstandings."

"Misunderstandings?" He replied evasively.

"What I mean is…" I took a deep breath, "Did you or did you not imply a partnership outside office hours."

God, that was the most horrible choice of words I had ever come up with. Way too formal and emotionless for a topic as tender as romance. He laughed and I did my best to avert the imminent reddening of my entire head long enough for him to answer me without making a comment about it.

"Yes, Carrots, I implied a private partnership."

I smiled widely and the tension made the blood rush to my ears, turning them red. I knew as I caught Nick looking at them.

"Just do me one favour, okay? Don't tell anyone about this."

"What? Why not?" I asked surprised.

"I'eh… I'm not sure it's appropriate on the work floor."

"Not appropriate? Nick, don't be ridiculous."

"Please, Judy. For a few weeks, that's all I ask."

"Okay. But I still think it's unnecessary."

He smiled gratefully. I had no clue why it troubled him so much, but I didn't want our first day as a couple to begin with a row. As we walked towards the entrance, I couldn't stop peeking at Nick. We were an actual couple, me and him! How amazing was that! Now I had to somehow act normal to keep my friends at the ZPD from finding it out. That was going to be a hard task. I wasn't as good in hiding this kind of stuff as Nick and after all this excitement, I didn't quite know how to pick up daily routine either.

==Nick==

With a sigh, I set myself down into my chair. The quiet in the office today was remarkable, even for a Saturday. No background chitchat, no music, no whispering. Just the humming of my computer's ventilator and my neighbour ticking on his keyboard. I tried to recall who was sitting on the other side of the blurry, plastic fence that separated our desks. I couldn't. Frankly, I didn't really care much. There was work to be done.

"Alright, let's see what we got."

I logged in and opened the ZPD's mammal database. I planned to find out all there was about that mystery man on Judy's whiteboard: Yao Chang. I started typing his name when I heard a laugh. Judy's laugh. This made me curious, but I couldn't blandly rise to my feet to look. That would be too showy. Instead I faked getting up to grab something that was out of reach. My eyes scanned over the cubicles until they pinned down on Judy's ears. It was the only part of her that reached out above. Next to her I saw Clawhauser. He was really enjoying his conversation with her. Was the topic what I thought it was? I frowned ponderingly. Judy gave me her word. Damn it. I was so hoping she'd be able to keep quiet and now she was throwing it around like rice on a wedding.

The reason I had asked her to stay quiet, was that I didn't want people to think that I joined the police force, solely to hook up with her. Sure, I loved being her partner and I wasn't sure that I'd like this job as much if she wasn't around, although the actually reason I joined the force, is because Judy had shown me that I didn't have to lead a life of crime. That there had been a chance to break the stereotype that community had made me. This chance had become reality once she had vouched for me. The ZPD's best, and at the time most famous member, recruit had recommended my appointment at the precinct. How could they have said no?

I bit my lip. If they all heard how Judy and I had gotten into a relationship, one month after I had officially joined the police, it would corrupt the entire ideology behind my signing up.

I plumped down in my chair and tapped the desk annoyed. The indicator flashed on the search bar. What was I doing? Oh right, Yao Chang. I typed his name, pressed enter and after a few seconds, I got a hit. I opened the file and scoured the information for anything out of the ordinary. So far, everything that had been on Judy's list was in the file too. He was sixty-two years old, had grown up in an orphanage in a village called Ton-Chin and was unmarried. He had quit school early and had started working for a delivery service. From there on, his career had gradually risen to the point where he was eventually the owner. Not long after, he had opened up a second service in Zootopia, and the route he had established between the two locations made him so rich, he had been able to buy various more services both in and out of Zootopia, including Frost Transport.

All in all, it sounded like a man with talent for business. But if he was so successful, why had I never heard of him before? All of this stuff sounded too good to be real. Or too ordinary. Or whatever. As a hustler, I had developed a sixth sense for detecting a fake story. There had to be something in his history that wouldn't add up.

And indeed, the more I dug into his background, the more evidence I found that my path ought to have crossed his sometimes. Unfortunately, it was a still circumstantial. There was always a small chance that I had merely missed him at every occasion. Maybe I was chasing ghosts here. Just when I decided to give up, I found an old newspaper article. It stated that Chang was one of the sponsors for the construction of the Junior Ranger's Club. I cracked my memory. If I recall correctly, there was a list of all the benefactors in the hallway of the club.

"Hey Nick!"

Judy's voice spooked me from my sleuthing trance. In a reflex, I minimized everything to attain the bare, normal ZPD desktop on my screen.

"H-hey! You startled me."

She giggled.

"I noticed. What were you doing?"

I looked from her, to the screen, and back to her.

"Nothing. What's up?"

"It's time for coffee, remember?"

I checked the clock. Ten past eleven. Whoa. I had been researching for two hours straight.

"Oh yea."

We were greeted at the coffee machine by McHorn, who complained about the coffee being weak and then ambled away.

"So what have you been up to?"

She raised onto her toes and whispered.

"Thinking about you."

I nearly swallowed my coffee the wrong way. She laughed when she saw my reaction.

"Just kidding. Relax Nick."

"Yea." I said, a little ashamed I had been unsettled so easily.

"I've been looking into Jake Hare. Sadly, there's not much we have on him. According to the records, he's been charged with arms trafficking three times, but never convicted. But… Guess who helped him out each time?"

"Alfred Weaselton."

She nodded.

"Exactly. But that's not the only thing I dug up. In one of the occasions, the person he allegedly delivered the weapons to, was Ganesh Smallear."

"Smallear?" I laughed.

"What?"

"Nothing, I just never knew his last name." I thought of Ganesh with a grin. "Smallear."

She shook her head disturbed.

"Anyway. The delivery included machine pistols called Skorpions."

"And?"

"And one of the attacks on Big was a shop being perforated with Skorpions."

"You discovered all of this in two hours?"

She looked at me quizzically.

"Yea, why?"

Her efficiency was incredible.

"Nothing."

I rubbed my chin.

"So you think all of it is connected?"

"Maybe. Suppose we've been looking at this the wrong way. What if not one person is responsible, but multiple? Together they surely have more than enough resources to accomplish it all."

"Hmm."

It was a very interesting theory. And disturbing. If all these players were to coordinate their efforts to get rid of Mr Big, he must have done something terrible to get on the bad side of half of Zootopia's criminals. If so, he would never admit doing that. Not even to Judy.

We were interrupted by the precinct's intercom. It was an urgent message.

"Attention all officers. We got a 10-65 at Lemming Brothers. Major backup requested. All standby units to the scene asap."

I tried to remember what the code meant.

"Hey Carrots. What's a-"

"An armed robbery." She said alarmed. "We gotta go, Nick. We're on standby too!"

As I hurried myself to follow her to the locker room downstairs, I thought of asking about her injury and whether it was wise for her to go because of it. She had warned me not to remind her too much of it, yet she was my girlfriend now. That gave me the right to worry.

"Hey Carrots…"

"Before you ask: I'm fine." She replied, holstering her tranquilizer gun.

"Okay. I was just wondering." I replied, opening my locker.

It was going to be impossible to talk her out of it. Best follow her lead then and I retrieved my tranq-gun from my locker. Suddenly, she jumped onto my back and gave me a quick kiss on my cheek.

"Less thinking, more acting. Now hurry up, or I'm leaving without you."

==Judy==

We followed the other three police vehicles to the Lemming Brothers' Bank with screaming sirens. It drew the eyes of all we passed and cars moved aside to grant us passage, as our convoy raced through the streets. Meanwhile, I stood on trial for my action in the locker room, which had been entirely harmless in my opinion.

"What are you worried about, there was nobody there." I replied agitated.

"Yea, but what if there had been."

At first, I thought it to be good fun to have to hide our relationship. I figured it would mean secret kisses, like the one in the locker room, but Nick was way a lot more serious about it than I thought. He acted seriously distressed at the idea that somebody would find out.

"I really don't understand why you're making such a big fuzz out of it." I complained.

"I'm not. I only ask for not everybody knowing it yet."

"Why not?!"

He frowned and focussed on the road.

"Nick. I hate it when we disagree on something this important… Please."

He sighed.

"Okay look. I… I don't want people to think, I joined the force just to date you."

"What?"

"You know. That I'm only doing this to be with you. That I don't take this job seriously."

"Why would anyone think that?"

"I don't care why! They will! And I don't want to be known as that guy who joined only to be with a girl."

So that was the reason. It was all about his image. All this time he had me believe that he couldn't care less about other mammals' opinions, yet this was proof of the absolute opposite. Clearly, a lot has changed in him since we first met. I rolled my eyes. Men and their bloody pride…

"Don't be silly Nick."

"I'm not being silly! Look, can we not do this now. I'm trying to drive." He snapped.

He scared me a little. Apparently it ran deeper than I thought. I decided to remain silent for the remainder of the road. I'd talk to him when he'd be less preoccupied.

"We're here." He said after a few minutes.

I glanced out the window and tried to take in as much details of the scene as my memory could save. A white van was parked on the sidewalk outside the bank; they had ran over a lamppost in order to park there. The rear doors were wide open, nobody was left inside the van and its engine was still rolling. The street's occupants had fortunately cleared out by themselves. When I saw bullet holes in the windows I understood why. My eyes drifted to the street sign: Baobab Avenue. I've read that name somewhere before.

Nick closed ranks at the back with the other three cars, together we all encircled the building. Each of us jumped out of their car and positioned themselves behind it for cover.

"Alright, who's got the megaphone?" McHorn called.

"No need for that!" Nick cried back. "Here they come!"

Indeed, the large mammal entrance was violently thrown open and five masked figures stormed outside. Immediately, the first two opened fire at us with machine guns, pinning us down. I felt my heartbeat pound in my eardrums. This was my first firefight and it already involved heavy weapons. I recognized the sound of the guns. AK47s. Their noise was very distinctive, and they were about as common as you could get in illegal arms.

I peeked underneath the car to see where the attackers were standing. They weren't aiming. They were laying down cover fire for their team to load the truck. I imagined the exact position they would be standing. One of the shooters was on our side near the back of the van, the other at the front. Only the former would be able to hit us, however he had the advantage as I had to get up and aim first. I would have one shot at taking him down, literally. That idea made the blood in my veins run even faster, although I remembered my training and believed it was going to help me achieve this. I pulled back the safety of my tranquilizer gun and took a deep breath. All those days at the firing range, I hoped they were going to pay off. Okay, on the count of three.

One…

Two…

…

Three!

I reared up from behind the car. More or less automated, I placed my arms on the hood, aimed for the trigger-happy villain and fired. It all unfolded in slow-motion. I saw the green plume of the dart fly towards my target with a rightward spin and at the same time, he took notion of my appearance and turned his gun barrel towards me. I heard Nick shout out my name as it happened and as I duck back behind the car, I already saw the black cylindrical end of death staring at me. I moved as fast as I could and heard the whizzing sound of bullets overhead not a moment too late. I made myself so small, I almost kissed the asphalt when I reached it. Never before had I been this scared. In the raging chaos, I heard faint shards of Nick's voice, but I couldn't hear what he said. The noise of the shells hitting the metal hood was so loud, I was hardly able to think.

Then, after three excruciatingly long seconds, the barrage of gunfire ceased and I heard the clattering noise of the AK hitting the ground, followed by his unconscious owner.