Nick had hoped that it would take a bit longer for them to set off an alarm, but there was no sense worrying about it now. Right now they had a job to do. Rushing down the stairs, the Scarlet Rogue and the Tawny Bandit headed straight for the server room. Reaching the door, Nick gave it an experimental shove.
"Locked!" Finnick reached into the bag that he had carried with him and took out a stick of dynamite. "Well, our cover's blown anyway."
Sticking the dynamite to the door with a bit of tape Nick and Finnick rushed back to the far end of the hall. Taking out his phone Nick flipped through a few screens and pressed one of the buttons that had appeared. An ear shattering boom came from the other end of the hall as the dynamite exploded and busted open the door. Finnick motioned for Nick to get going.
"Come on man, let's go!"
They ran past the smoke and dust from their little explosion and found themselves in front of the huge server racks of the Zootopia city government. On these servers were stored all of the city's official correspondence and many of the government records of its citizens. Nick took out his phone and looked for a port to plug it into. Finding one, he grabbed a cable from his bag and jammed one end of it into the server and the other into his phone. The screen went black before turning back on with a skull and crossbones emblazoned across it. Nick thought it was a bit silly.
"Huh. Cute."
After a few loading screens the words 'connection established' flashed across the screen and Mabel's voice could be heard. Not missing a beat Nick figured that he ought to check in on the Kits.
"The Kits asleep?"
"Yes Nick. Though that wasn't easy."
"Yeah, Nicole can be a bit rambunctious. Anyway, back to the task at hand."
"Right. Well it seems that their security is even worse than I thought. I am downloading as many emails as possible right now to our servers back at the base. I am also searching for Santiago's name change form."
"How long is that going to take?"
"Got it."
"Really that was –"
"Fast? Yeah, I'm the greatest. Anyway, the city's copy of the form is going to be in record room 15K. You are going to need to get into filing cabinet 7B and look for the file alphabetically."
"Great! Anything else?"
"Yeah, I have the camera's running on loops around the city. They won't notice right away but I don't know how long that will last. Get going Rogue, the cops on converging on your location."
Nick nodded to Finnick as he got going towards records. Unfortunately, it was back upstairs. Which meant running towards the police rather than away from them. Nick reached into the bag that Finnick had with him and took out a few smoke bombs. Nick gave Finnick a few instructions before he left.
"Bandit! Make sure that you place the charges exactly where I have them marked on the map okay?"
"Got it! You sure this is going to work?"
"No, but with enough high explosives the sky's the limit."
"You're funny."
Nick ran back up the stairs and looked for the record rooms. Consulting the map that he had printed out beforehand, he got his bearings and started racing towards the back of the building. Running down the halls and passing by the other different filing rooms, he came across room 15K. Smacking the door he realized that it was locked, and looking to the side of the doorframe that it would also need a keycard. He smacked his head against the door in frustration, a second later the keycard reader beeped and he heard the door's lock turn over.
"Thanks Mabel."
Nick got into the room and looked for the filing cabinet in question. This time, it was practically standing right in front of him at the head of a nearby aisle. Grabbing for one of the filing drawers he gave it a hard yank. Apparently, this one was locked too and it didn't look like it been upgraded to digital. Looking around, Nick tried to find something that would help him. On the other side of the room was a CO2 fire extinguisher.
"High school chemistry don't fail me now!"
Grabbing the extinguisher, he took it over to the cabinet and blasted the lock with the CO2 spray. Letting the tank run until it was empty, Nick then took it and hoped that he had made the metal brittle enough with the freezing CO2 that the lock would shatter. Smacking the fire extinguisher into the lock with all of his might, he sent the massive filing cabinet crashing to the ground, it's lock completely mangled and several of the drawers having flung open, their contents scattered about the floor. The 'S' drawer however, had remained closed. Ripping the drawer open, Nick flipped through the files, searching for the one marked Santiago Ramirez. He found it. Pulling it out he quickly inspected the piece of paper. It did indeed say 'Julio Sanchez' under original name. Nick tucked it in under his robes and allowed himself to relax for a second.
Outside in the hall though, he saw the dancing beams of flashlights as the footsteps of officers pounded towards his location. Nick grabbed several of the smoke bombs and lit them, hoping that he had gotten the timing right in this situation. Bursting through the door as the smoke bombs went off the officers were caught unaware. Nick rushed through them, skirting their legs as he rushed back down the hall through which he came. Other officers were in the hallway too, Tasers at the ready as he jumped and slid past them in a desperate bid to make it back to the basement. He could hear Judy's voice on the radio's that the officers were carrying, instructing them to try and surround him to prevent his escape.
Making it back to the stairway, he jumped to one side and slid down the banister to reach the bottom as quickly as possible, the rest of the task force not far behind. Grabbing a few more smoke bombs, he threw them down to the bottom of the stairs and ran past them as he got to the server room. Grabbing the phone, he ran through the server room to the pumping room on the other side where Finnick was waiting impatiently.
"Did you place the charges?"
"Yes I placed the charges! Where have you been?"
"Doesn't matter, we got to go."
"Well then press the button and let's blow this popsicle stand!" Nick looked back at his phone to check the time.
"Have to wait a minute."
"A minute for what!? For them to catch us!?"
They could hear the officers getting down the stairs. Thinking fast, Nick went over to the door leading out of the server room and locked it. He heard the first of the officers bash into it. Nick knew that it wasn't going to last long. Looking back at his phone he checked the time again. As the minute changed he shouted at Finnick to get down as he detonated the dynamite that he had placed in the floor. He called out to Finnick to follow him.
"Come on, let's go!"
Finnick followed behind Nick as he jumped down through the hole and onto a speeding subway car. Nick tumbled a little as he struggled to get a grip on the slick metal surface, grabbing Finnick as he slid past. Nick decided that now was a great time to make a quip.
"Say what you will about Lionheart. But at least he really does make the trains run on time."
"You could have told me that you were planning on catching a train earlier."
"And ruin the surprise? Not a chance! Now, let's get changed. Even if Mabel was able to make sure that the cameras don't catch us exiting the station, we still have to worry about being spotted by commuters."
Removing their disguises and shoving them into the bags that they had with them Nick and Finnick went back to their normal outfits. They then waited patiently as the train came to a stop at the next station. Nick carefully peeked over the edge of the car to try and see if anyone was leaving the train and was off the platform. Waiting until the train started to move again, Nick jumped off the last car and took Finnick with him, landing gracefully on the platform. Finnick cracked his back and gave Nick a mean stare.
"Couldn't we have just used the sewers again?"
"Ha! Judy is a lot of things, but she isn't dumb. I promise you that she had cops placed in every pipe before she even sent in officers into the building."
"You know; we probably wouldn't have made it this far if it wasn't for the fact that you happen to be married to her."
"Yeah well, I knew you guys needed the help. Come on, let's get back to the safe house so that I can get back home."
They left the station looking just as casual as could be. Nick hadn't made use of a lot of the skills that he had honed as a popsicle hustler, but one that he had definitely kept was the ability to look calm and collected no matter the situation. The two of them left the station and got into a van that was being driven by Mr. Ming and set out to drop off the proof that Santiago wasn't who he said he was.
