"Freeze! Nick get up! We are on the move!" I yell. Nick flops out of the truck bed and into the street and starts running after me. Travis has already made it so far down the road. "Stop!"

I hear the ferret yell back at me. "Stop bunny! You need to stop!" It's Travis alright, that's his voice. I remember it slithering into my ear when he bullied my friends and I.

We keep running through streets. Animals looking on at us as we are in pursuit. Left, then right, then right, and again and again. Each turn Travis takes is so sporadic, he nearly loses Nick and I so many times. Travis runs so clumsily and trips twice over street curbs. He turns down this long alleyway in between to business streets. We begin closing in on him. We are all out of breath. He's two hundred steps away, one hundred, now fifty.

"Travis! Stop!" I try to yell at him, between gasps for air.

SCREEEEEEEEEEECH

A car squeals to a stop at the end of the alleyway.

Nick yells from behind me. "No! Don't you think about it!"

The passenger door swing open. A figure is sitting in the driver seat. Travis flies into the car and looks back at us. He still has that look of fear in his eyes. He yells out one thing as the door closes. He screams "I'm sorry!"

The car peels out and down the road. No license plates. Brown car. Nick and I are doubled over ourselves and catching our breaths. What is going on? I briefly lean against a wall at the alley exit. Nick leans next to me.

I throw my paws into the air. "How could he… why is he.. Agh!"

Nick put his paw on my shoulder. "We'll find him Judy. Let's just see if anyone around these shops saw where they went."

We walk out of the alleyway and into the street. Tire marks can be seen where the car started accelerating. The smell of fresh burned rubber flooding my nose. Pedestrians flock over to us and ask us about the car. Someone claims they nearly got ran over by it. Yelling could be heard in the cabin as they sped by. No one seems to recognize the vehicle. We start jogging in the direction the car first ran off. Nick and I run down streets trying to flag down anyone who might have seen them. Occasionally we find someone who says they saw the blur of a speeding car run by.

Nick stops to breath for a moment. "You know, this would be so much easier if we still had the truck."

"Yeah." I agree with him. "Or if we could find a cruiser." I look to the darkening sky far over towards the Wall and see the smoke has started to get thinner. "I hope they are doing alright." I can't help but feel bad about not helping at the Wall, but honestly, what could I have done?

"They will be Carrots." Nick smiles at me. I think he's trying to calm my consciousness.

I feel Nick's neckerchief in my pocket and look back at him. "How are you doing Nick?"

"Hopps… I'm f… I'm fine." Nick stares into the sky and exhales. "I keep thinking this is a bad dream, you know? Like a nightmare where I can't wake up-"

I cut Nick off. "Nick.." I step over to him and embrace him. "..you don't have to face this alone. Is there anything I can do for you?" I look up at him.

His eyes closed, he simply says "When we are done with all of this, help me take care of my mom's..."

"Of course Nick." I squeeze him tight.

"She would have loved to meet you. In another life, I'd like to think she did." Nick looks at me and lets out the smallest side-smile as his eyes hold back and soul bottles up again. He motions me to let go and starts walking down the street again. I stay still for a moment… and then catch up to him.

Nick claps his paws together and starts rubbing them. "Oook. So we know the car went down this road about an hour ago, but no one seems to know anything from here. What's around here?" Nick starts looking around for familiar shops or buildings. "I think we are not to far from downtown. Looks like we are closer to the Rainforest than the Tundra..." Nick looks around a corner of the street. "Ah!" He motions me over and I walk to him. He points to a subway entrance. "Look at that, the Grass Street metro entrance!"

Confused about Nick's sudden want to get into the metro, I look at him and ask "Nick, why would we go into the subway? We need to find the car."

"Because bunny, look over.." He grabs my head and turns me around. "..there!" Between the space of two buildings on the other side of the street. There it is, parked just almost out of sight.

"Senior officer first." Nick nudges me to walk over to the car.

I slug him back. "That makes me your superior." We start walking over to the car. There is barely enough room for a vehicle back here. The rusty, brown car is pulled up against a dumpster at the end of the space between the buildings.

I look into the back window. "No one's here." The tires still reek of burnt rubber. Trash covers the torn up seats inside. It looks like they've been living in here. "It's so filthy. You think they went into the station?"

Nick sighs. "It would be the best place to lose us around here. Especially if they make it to an entrance back into Nocturnal, they obviously know the place."

I look up into the sky and see the night encroaching on the city. "Then let's get moving. They aren't here and Clawhauser still hasn't responded."

We rush over to the subway station entrance. Great. The power is still out. I motion Nick to turn on his flashlight and I turn on my phone light. We enter Grass Street Station. The metro hasn't really been my thing after we nearly got killed the last time I took a train, I get shivers entering the dark tunnel system. There are two sets of tracks here. The far tracks has a train stopped, blocking the entrance to the tunnels. Looks like they were picking up or dropping off some animals when the power went out because the doors are still open.

Nick starts walking down the open tunnel towards the Little Rodentia stop. "There's a Nocturnal stop about halfway through this tunnel to the next place. Finnick and I used it a few times before."

We keep walking down the large, dark tunnel for what feels like an eternity Nick says he can't remember which side of the tunnel the Nocturnal entrance is, so he walks on the right side of the tunnel, and I on the left. Graffiti litters the walls of the tunnel. We take turns pointing out ones we find on our side we find amusing. Nick finds a couple signs of some groups he met a few years back and tells me stories of how he came across them. I point out a couple of neat designs I find, some animals are pretty good artists.

I see a few designs which remind me of my youth. "You know, when I was in school, I was really good in art class."

"I bet you were. Not like there is much else to do on a farm anyways." Nick smirks at me and laughs under his breath.

"Hey, I did work too! I just had a lot of free time at night!" I shine my light in his eyes.

That's when I see it. As I turn my flashlight back to my side of the tunnel I see an old and crudely painted message on top of some other graffiti.

The Wall will fall. Memory is the key.

"Nick. Look." I point to the message. "They've got to have been here."

Nick waits for his eyes to readjust. He looks just as puzzled as I do, and whispers to me. "Memory is the key? What is that supposed to mean?"

"I don't know, but it's clear they are using the tunnels around the Nocturnal District." I feel chills run down my spine. I take out Nick's neckerchief and start nervously messing with it. "Nick. I need to tell you something."

Nick still walking, looks back at me and asks "About what?"

"These guys. They have been following us since your mother's house. They left a note in the truck. I saw it before you woke up. They-"

Nick cuts me off. "Why are you just telling me this now? What did the note say?"

"Well.. they keep sending me notes to stay away from this. To stay away from you. Like they are trying to protect me." I stop to look behind us. I feel eyes piercing through the darkness behind us and ice along my back. "They've been steps ahead of us the entire time. That message, and the ones they are leaving… I just feel this is going to end badly."

"Judy, these guys aren't normal. They'll twist anything and everything to justify their actions. Maybe they think telling you to stay away they think it will justify what they've done… they slipped up though, and we have the lead on them." Nick motions me to keep moving. "We are getting close."

I try to convince myself Nick is right. No sane animal would go this far, would they? We enter a small opening in the tunnel. The Nocturnal door in the room. We climb up the platform to see the door. Nick turns off his light and I dim mine. The door is massive. Sleek metal handles on a steel door. A sign on to the right of the door reads Nocturnal District Residential Caves South. A length of police tape lays on the ground. I pick it up to read it. Evacuated. Keep Out. They must have evacuated parts of the city in fear of more explosions. Nocturnal could've had their ceilings collapse.

"I'll open the door this time Carrots." Nick puts his paw on the door and opens it up. We just see darkness.

I turn my light back up and shine it inside from behind Nick. I can see glints of light off of the artificial cave homes and unlit Moon light lamps. Nick takes a step inside.

"Now!"

I jump. "What was that?"I start looking all around. "Nick!" He's on the ground. "Nick! Oh no, Nick! Show yourse-"

Whack!

Blackness. Voices. Nick? Travis? Ow. Mom. Dad.

I hear a voice. My vision blurry and fading, room spinning and head throbbing. "No Travis, we take her too! She's responsible as well!"

I think I hear Travis. "No, we don... the fox... her alone! Listen...me...nce."

I feel someone pick me up and I begin to fall out of consciousness. "..Nick..."