Downtime
Nick wandered through the relatively quiet streets on the way to his rented apartment. Even though his mother had insisted that he could stay with her for as long as he wished, Nick resolved to pay for his own place, to save his mother the trouble of having to provide for herself and him, even though he knew that with Officer Oates' investments his mother would have no shortage of money at all.
He pawed through his pocket to stroke at his wallet, to again remind himself tangibly that everything was still there. Judy hadn't been kidding when she said she'd give it back to him. His head hurt again just thinking about the incident. Thieves with honour? In all his 23 years of life, Nick never believed such a concept existed, and yet here and now the evidence for it lay in his pocket. This day had just been one big wowser, to say the least.
He soon arrived at his condominium room at the Sequoia Towers, and stepping through the door into his room, he laid his handheld equipment onto his bedside desk. Strutting briskly into the kitchen, he grabbed a small bag of frozen crickets from the freezer and placed them in the microwave. He then fetched some English Breakfast tea from his pantry, and mixed it from some hot water from his teapot into a mug that would be ready for him to drink after he downed his dinner.
Just as he was about to flick the computer on, the ring of his phone stopped him. He picked it up with a paw and glanced at the brightened screen, squinting a bit. Mom was calling. With a much more lively spirit now, he smiled with joy as he tapped a digit at the answer button.
"Hello, baby!" his mother's voice came through, "How was my little fox's first day on the force?"
Nick held back a wince. Not brilliantly, he would say, but since he didn't consider himself to be in an emotionally stable state to be the judge of that, he just fell back on a popular, primary strategy. Lying.
"It was awesome, Mom," he said, flashing a grin, "My friends and I really integrated well with kickstarting the success of our dreams."
"And how are your friends doing? You check on them yet?"
"Not yet, exactly," Nick admitted honestly, "I just got back from the grocery store. But I do know that Harry, Brad and Benji are taking their assigned tasks well. I'll check on the others after I eat."
"That's good, baby. Keep living your dream and making the world the better place. I'm proud of you, Nicky. Always have been and always will be," said Marian before delivering the parental farewell words, "Love you."
"Love you too, Mom. Goodnight," Nick replied, smiling as his finger glided over and pressed down on the end button.
"Hi there, fellow Zootopian. This is Doctor Apprentice Madge Honey. Sorry I can't come to the phone right now, because duty demands that I'm still needed at the hospital. Please leave a message after the beep," buzzed the voice of Madge's automated call receiver.
Nick sighed and ended the call. It had been the same case with Flash too, though the fox suspected that it was only because the sloth just took a long time to get home from work. He glanced at the clock.
7:30 pm.
He still had time to call the others.
Ollie and Kirby were still on their patrol through the Canal District, and were staying the night at the suburb's precinct. Unfortunately, the TV weather broadcast reported that there was a fierce autumn thunderstorm raging through the canals, so the signal was too poor for Nick to be able to make contact with them.
He found much better success with Andy.
"All was peaceful today, bro, so the sergeant just had us do a few drills around the course to pass the time. An impromptu competition was started, and I came in 2nd place overall. Pretty slick, wouldn't you say so, Nick?" the zebra rumbled mirthfully. On the other side of the line, Nick beamed. "I'm so glad you were able to accustom yourself so well and so quickly."
"And what of you?" the zebra inquired, "Is copping everything you hoped it would be?"
Nick decided to be a bit more truthful and upfront this time.
"It was kinda disappointing and anticlimactic, really," he spoke through his phone, "The chief of precinct one gave all the other officers, bar me and Benji, actual field assignments to do. Me and Ben just got dibs on assigning parking tickets."
"Ooh, that's a very rough business to be in," murmured Andy in sympathy, "I assume and hope that the others will try to–"
"Make time pass quicker for me. Yes they told me they would do that," Nick finished, confirming his friend's educated guess.
"At least you're not alone, Nick. You will never be alone."
"Yeah… have a good night, Andy."
"You too."
After hanging up his call with the zebra, Nick dialed up Finnick's number. How was the fennec getting on?
"Yo, this is Finnick. Whoever it is, I'm terribly sorry but I have a bit of a cold right now, so my voice is crap for the meanwhile."
Upon hearing the burly voice of his diminutive friend, Nick smiled. "Hey Finn, how did your assignment go today?"
"You serious, mate? Why do you think I feel like horsecrap right now? Us fennecs are not bred for the freezing tundras," Finnick groaned wearily from the other side of the line.
"I feel for ya. Another things us foxes are not bred for is for an environment where we are outsmarted by the wits of our ancient prey," Nick mumbled in tiredness as well.
"Wait… are you saying–"
"That I got conned by a bunny, I got that!" Nick grimaced as he recalled his tale to Finnick.
"Well… crap man. Are you gonna report that tomorrow?"
"I'll try, though my guess on the outcome is that the chief won't give a piss about it. Now that I also put my mind to it, I think he also deliberately assigned you to investigations in Tundratown so that you'd be pushed to your limits. I'm gonna ask for you to be shifted to a better environment."
"I would not do that if I were you. We're bloody fresh fish in an ocean, Wilde," Finnick said, mild consternation leaking into his voice, "Though I do appreciate the gesture. I just don't think we have that kind of power in our paws yet."
"We should have," grumbled Nick, "We're police officers serving and protecting in the line of duty. We should be getting respect from everyone, not just from our friends."
"Agreed, but for now we should just hoist our sails and do our best to ride out the storm. I'm sure tomorrow might bring a better catch," Finnick spoke, sounding rather sagely to Nick.
"Enough with the metaphors, alright? That's an order," the red fox retorted playfully.
"Oh yeah, and when were you my senior in rank?"
"Ever since I trained to become an actual officer, and not just a glorified taxi driver?"
"Har har. Good night, Nick."
"Good night, buddy."
With that, both friends tabbed the end button.
With nothing else to do for the night, and with nothing good on TV at the moment, Nick decided to turn in relatively early for the night.
The clock now said 9:30 pm.
"Oh yeah, much more early than I'm used to," Nick thought as he brushed his teeth and went about his nightly business.
After saying his evening prayers, he switched off the lights and slid under the covers of his bed.
"Tomorrow's another day," he thought dreamily as he let sleep overcome him.
