Judy's eyes snapped open; she was staring at her ceiling. Despite having been asleep not five seconds ago, she was fully conscious and alert; to day was the day, the big day. Judy squealed in delight and leapt from the bed, shedding her nightie and putting on her uniform in a blur of motion.

"Today," she said aloud to the mirror, grinning. "Today. Today! Todaytodaytodaytodaaaay!"

"Hey!" Pronk shouted from the room over. "Shaddup in there! Tryna sleep!"

"Dude, don't be an ass," Bucky chided. "She's getting that promotion today."

"Oh, right. Well, shaddup in there, detective! Tryna sleep!"

"Better."

Judy rolled her eyes and raced out the door to her car, trying and failing to keep the excited skipping to a minimum.

A few minutes later and Judy pulled up to the precinct, pulling her car into the underground parking lot. She waved hello to the various cops going about their business, most of them returned the wave or in some way acknowledged her back, a far cry from when she had first arrived some year and a half ago. Judy entered the foyer, her eyes searching the various uniforms ambling about until she found who she was looking for. Nick stood casually next to the reception desk, chatting with Clawhauser as the two shared a coffee and donut; at the onset of their partnership Nick had taken to schmoozing the tubby cheetah as an in for an extra set of eyes and ears. Clawhauser being not only the receptionist, but also the primary dispatch for the area, this practice had paid off on multiple occasions over the course of their time in patrol; and all it cost him was a dozen donuts a week. That was just one of the things Judy admired about her partner, his ability to scrounge up advantages and angles from seemingly innocuous places. She caught herself staring at the fox for a moment too long and bounded over to him.

Clawhauser saw her coming and waved excitedly. "And the better half of WildeHopps has arrived! Officer Wilde has been parked here like a puppy, waiting for you to show. Pining…"

Nick casually flicked a candied pecan from one of the donuts into Clawhauser's open mouth, sending him into a coughing fit that invariably turned into friendly chuckling. "*Cough-cough!* Good shot! *Cough!*"

The fox turned to her and smiled that practiced self-satisfied smile. Judy knew this smile, Nick was just as excited as she was, but was loath to show it. If there was anything she could admit to finding less-than-wonderful about him, it was his apparent inability to be frank and open. No matter the situation, Nick Wilde always kept something to himself. To call it frustrating was an understatement. "Morning, Carrots."

"Good morning, Officer Wilde," Judy said as she walked by, waving to Clawhauser. "Officer Clawhauser, how's life?"

"Sweet," he said through a mouthful of donut. "By the way, your whole department is meeting in the showroom today. Chief Bogo has a few announcements to make." Nick and Judy took a moment to exchange knowing glances, followed by playful elbow nudges. Clawhauser simply watched them contentedly. "…in five minutes. So you better hurry, WildeHopps!"

The duo made their quick farewells and set off for the showroom, Clawhauser sighed dreamily. "Ah, love…"

"What was that he called us?" Judy said as they speed-walked through the precinct. "Wild hops?"

"WildeHopps," Nick corrected, gesturing at himself and then Judy. "Clawhauser has some…ideas about us."

Judy felt a blush building up in her ears but willed it away, taking a page from the Nick Wilde handbook of obfuscation. "WildeHopps? Heh, sounds like a bistro."

"A good bistro," Nick agreed. "With a quaint little deck, a novelty wood-fired oven, and overpriced hot cross buns."

"And a special hops and dandelion salad with roasted almonds and blueberries in a basil balsamic reduction," Judy looked into the middle distance and framed the imaginary banner. "WildeHopps, where being hungry is a crime!"

Nick laughed and clapped her on the back. "Sounds like someone skipped breakfast."

"Can't eat, too excited!" Judy squealed. "Aren't you? I mean, we're going to be detectives! Solving crimes, busting cases, and really making a name for ourselves!"

"We did all that just fine on the beat," Nick said and paused, leaning in and whispering, his eyes lighting up with genuine excitement. "But yes, I'm completely freaking out! What do you think the Chief has in store for us?"

"It's in the showroom, right? Maybe he's planning a big ceremony? Maybe–maybe he's gonna give us our badges in front of everyone!" Judy said, starry-eyed.

"I'm imagining all the beat officers lined up as we walk down the aisle, The Throne Room starts playing, and Chief Bogo, rocking a shiny silk dress and silver necklace combo, deferentially loops our badges around our necks," Nick said, pulling Judy close and swept his arm out in front of them, "…aaand scene."

Judy laughed and elbowed him gently. "Be serious, Nick!"

"I'm always serious!"

They entered the showroom; it was full of their fellow police officers, more than a few heads turned as they entered. They took their seats and sat patiently as Chief Bogo prepared his dissertation behind the podium at the fore of the showroom. Behind him the projector screen had been deployed, clearly for some kind of demonstration. He cleared his throat and addressed the assembled officers.

"Alright, first things first," the burly buffalo rumbled, gesturing glibly at Nick and Judy. "Everyone, meet our two new detectives, Detective Nicholas Wilde and Detective Judy Hopps."

A smattering of applause rang throughout the room; a few sarcastic quips could be heard. "WildeHopps out solving cases? Color me surprised."

"And this just in, the sky is blue."

"No, see, they're official now. They get assigned cases instead of stumbling bass-ackward into them!"

Bogo silenced the crowd with a snort and a glare. "Well, maybe now that it's actually your jobs, you'll follow procedure and do things by the book for once!"

"I will!" Judy announced with a salute.

"She will!" Nick quipped with a sarcastic salute, getting a round of laughter from the surrounding cops.

Bogo rolled his eyes shuffled the papers and pulled a suitcase from under the podium, opening it. "Anyway, second order of business; I am pleased to announce that our new self-defense units have just come in, allow me to introduce the Multi-Species Incapacitation Module."

"MSIM?" Nick muttered. "How long until we get our Miss'Ims, Chief?"

"Shut up, Wilde!" Bogo snapped as another round of laughter rose from the crowd. He pulled out the new weapon, Nick and Judy blinked and glanced at each other; it looked suspiciously like the dart guns used by the perps in the Nighthowler case. Bogo continued, turning on the projector as he did, "As you can see, this is a much different take on self-defense and neutralization than any system we've had before. The MSIM includes the standard pepper pellets and pepper-spray that we are all accustomed to, but has several new technologies that will allow even the smallest of us to apprehend and neutralize the largest of suspects. First and foremost, the zap-net:" the projector flicked and showed the projectile in both stages of deployment. "With the use of a laser range-finder, the net stays compact until a certain distance from the target, whereupon it deploys and ensnares the perp, reactive fabrics in the net become stiff and constrict. For smaller sized suspects the net can be a full-body restraint, this will make it exceptionally useful in Rodentia and other small-persons districts. Against larger perps, it can sufficiently restrict the range of motion enough for officers to subdue them manually."

" 'Zap'-net, sir?" an officer asked.

"I was getting to that. In the event where the suspect is not sufficiently subdued, the net also doubles as a tazer, with a transmitter on the gun beaming electricity to a receiver at the center of the net. Reminder, this function is strictly forbidden against any persons below forty pounds, the last thing we need is a police brutality case, especially after what we've been dealing with these past few months. Any questions on the zap-net? No? Moving on."

"Beam me up, Mr. Spock," Nick whispered to Judy. "We've got some new toys, Carrots."

"Shhh!" Judy hissed. "No more quips!"

Bogo gestured at the cylindrical piece under-slung on the barrel. "This is a flashlight." Judy glared at Nick, who made a dramatic show of biting his knuckle in restraint. "It also houses a laser sight and a dazzler. Be careful with the latter as species with keener eyesight will react more strongly that those without. In most species, effects range from vertigo, flash blindness, and severe nausea. Like the net, it's meant to facilitate manual takedown. Any questions on the dazzler? Alright, that covers it for the Miss'Im– erhg…the MSIMs, you will each be issued one by the end of the day. Now, onto item number three…"

An hour later and Judy and Nick sat about their desks, languidly filling out paperwork and arranging contacts in order of value. Judy sighed and leaned back in her chair. "Man…he didn't even wear the shiny silk dress."

Nick snickered and spun around to look at her. "I guess we should have expected that. We've kinda been a tick in his ear for a year and a half, figures he'd want to mess with us."

"Yeah…" Judy said, rubbing her belly. "You down for brunch? I'm starving!"

"I could eat."

They rose to their feet and made for the door when Chief Bogo surged into the room. "Listen up, people, listen up! We've got a B'n'E near Savannah Central Park, Rikko Electronics Warehouse. We have a perimeter set up and crowd control in effect, forensics teams are just wrapping up the prelim, so we need to get some feet on the ground and survey the scene."

"Any witnesses?" Officer Fensworth asked.

"That's what we're going to find out," Bogo pointed at Judy and Nick as they gathered their things. "Detective Wilde, Detective Hopps; you're on the case."

The two detectives looked at each other and nodded, their expressions suitably indifferent as they gathered up the necessities before heading off to their squad car. Only when they were in the squad car did Judy loose a triumphant squeal, jumping over and hugging Nick. "Our first case!"

"As detectives," Nick clarified, hugging her back as aloofly as possible. "You still up for brunch?"

"We'll have make it a drive-through," Judy said as she turned the key, the squad car roared to life and thundered out of the station's underground parking lot.

The cruiser pulled up to the perimeter of the crime scene, beat patrol cops served as security and crowd control as forensic teams picked the building apart for clues. A flash of their badges and they were escorted into the crime scene. The building was large and spacious, a store front with a sizable warehouse in the back. The only point of entry was the large portal where the storefront window had been, a great fan of broken glass stretched out on the floor, the shards shimmering as the forensic teams took pictures with high-flash cameras. The on-site officer, a burly goat named Hircus, clopped his way over to them.

"Detectives," Lieutenant Hircus grunted. "Looks like a pretty standard break and enter. Earlier this morning the storeowner, one Mrs. Mabel Hannity, came in to open up, only to find the window blinds swaying in the morning breeze. None of the other storeowners or passersby noticed the window was broken, and no witnesses to the actual crime have come forward. Mrs. Hannity has given us the inventory list so we can find out exactly what was stolen, so far it seems like they targeted the big LCD TVs and laptops. I've got a team on it and they're wrapping up as we bleat. Projected losses are coming in at maybe fifteen, twenty grand. A plucked eyelash for a place like this."

"Good, get that to me when you've compiled the list so we can put out an APB for any of the goods that show up on the streets." Judy jotted down in her notebook. "Detective Wilde, do you have any contacts out there that'll be able to keep their ears up for this kind of thing?"

"Already on it, Detective Hopps," Nick said as he thumbed at his phone, drumming up a list of middlemen and peddlers to call. "Yeah, I got two or three…dozen. Big fancy TVs and small, overpriced laptops? Easy sell, low-level hawkers and flea markets will probably be our best bet, and it doesn't take much to make those guys squeal."

Judy smirked, Nick was never an actual criminal, in fact he'd never even been arrested before joining, but he knew people, knew organizations and, most importantly of all, knew exactly who did what in Zootopia's seedier markets. He'd done business with them all at one point in time or another during his twenty years on the streets, and knew how to keep tabs without looking suspicious. It was another thing she admired about him, how he so gracefully and organically used his checkered past to his advantage and turned a once small-time conman into a valuable resource for the ZPD. It was almost inspiring.

Judy and Nick made their way into the warehouse where nearly a dozen SOCOs were meticulously checking the inventory of the spacious warehouse. Judy closed her eyes and inhaled deeply, the smell of cardboard mixed with the dusty scent of concrete served to underline the richer, more verifiable scents of the mammals within. She could smell sheep, she could smell various felines, and she could even scent the raccoons and lemurs checking the inventory in the upper level some twenty feet over their heads. Her ears rose slowly in dawning alarm: something wasn't right, there was something…hidden?

"Uh-oh," Nick intoned. "I know that look. What's eating you, Carrots?"

"Not sure," she said, sniffing again. "Take a whiff, tell me what you smell."

Nick sniffed the air; his nose was somewhat more attuned to animal scents than hers. "Yeah…yeah, this is interesting. Someone was here that isn't here now, someone musky, but the scent is covered. I smell…bleach and…something soapy. Cleaning supplies? Something else, too, something, I dunno…"

"Yeah, kinda smells like…like a fridge?" Judy offered.

Nick blinked, his own ears perking in alarm. "Uh-oh."

"What?"

"Scent-blocker," Nick huffed again. "Unscented fur products mixed with hydrogen-peroxide and baking soda, fridge deodorizer, it neutralizes natural smells. Someone didn't want us knowing who or what knocked this place over."

Judy drummed her fingers on her arm, her keen mind humming; she turned to an ocelot SOCO walking by. "Do we know what the egress point was?"

"Loading bay," the SOCO jabbed a thumb at the shipping area. "Hard pack dirt and gravel out there. Tracks suggest a two-ton flatbed or box truck."

"Tracks? Any prints?" Judy's carrot pen danced as she made notes. "Foot prints, paw prints?"

The SOCO shook his head. "First thing we did was dust the place down and check for trails. What we found were inconclusive, they were these big wide indentations."

"Flat-foots," Nick said with a sigh. "They're these padded planks some crooks use to hide their tracks. Tell me, what are we looking at for hair? Any shedding, fibers, or catches?"

"Yes, we have hair, but keep in mind that this place has twelve workers, Detective, and three species amongst them." The SOCO flipped through his notes. "We'll run a quick DNA match with samples from each worker and wire the findings to you."

"Much obliged," Nick said, signaling his partner to follow him. "You thinking what I'm thinking?"

"Fur-nets," Judy replied. "Combine that with flat-foots and scent-blockers and we've got some awfully careful burglars."

"Yeah…we're gonna wanna check the security system when we get back to the precinct. Place like this, stuffed with electronics and other expensive toys, ought to have a pretty good one."

"Cameras" Judy said, pointing at the little black sphere hanging from the ceiling. "And all those doors and windows are pretty wired up. So why didn't we get this call last night when the alarms went off?"

"Because they didn't," Nick cocked his head; this whole thing was really starting to rub him the wrong way. "You thinking a hack-job?"

"Or something," Judy shrugged. "In either case, it's a lot of work and planning for, adjusting for street mark-down, ten-maybe-fifteen grand? They wouldn't be able to fit much more than that in a two-ton."

"And that's before re-sell, risk assessment, the whole nine," Nick rubbed his chin, Judy was right: this case stank. "Not to mention you'd need three or four big fellas to move the goods quickly, a driver, a lookout, maybe a hacker. So split a small pot more than five ways…would it even be worth it? They should have brought a bigger truck, no reason not to."

Judy nodded thoughtfully. "No reason at all."

Judy and Nick stepped out of the storefront and scanned the street, a few rubberneckers had shown up to gawk for a bit, but by and large the crime had gone relatively unnoticed.

"Thoughts, Detective Hopps?" Nick said, putting on his sunglasses.

"Standard break and enter," she answered, not even bothering to sound convinced. "Perps break in, say, two or three in the morning. Newer, nicer part of town, not many nocturnals about so no one sees boo. They get in, grab the TVs, and have their truck in the waiting. In and out in maybe half an hour."

"Open and shut," Nick said with a nod. "All we have to do is wait for the itinerary to come in, get a couple beat cops to shake down the schmucks selling stolen goods, they squeal, we get names, arrests, convictions. Bam. The first official WildeHopps case closes inside of a week. Clean, pretty, and a nice shiny star on our record."

"Case seven, closed," Judy smirked wryly. "Truly, we are the juggernauts of the ZPD."

Nick grunted and struck a muscleman pose. "We just! Can't! Be! Stopped!"

Judy sighed and looked serious. "But it stinks."

Nick grinned and nodded. "Like a hippo's privy."

"And neither of us can put a finger on it!" Judy exclaimed. "It's just…"

"Too clean," Nick opined, counting off the points. "Hacked alarms, broken window, missing stock, tire tracks…"

"But no prints, no scents, and probably no fur," Judy added. "It's like a crime just happened without any people being involved."

"A grim thought," Nick grunted, pointing over at the cafe across the street. "What say we grab a coffee and interview the neighbors?"

"Sounds like a plan, Mr. Man," Judy said, skipping over to the café called Beans'n'Beyond.

Across the street three mammals sat in a white Ford F-150, watching the cops scurry hither-thither about the crime scene. The trio had seen their share of police cordons and CSI gatherings, and this one filled them with confidence: even the geek-squad of forensics was desultory and uninterested. This case would be shut inside of a week.

"I still don't like it," said the muscular Lynx behind the wheel. "It's too much attention."

"You kidding, Grigori?" the gnu in the seat over snorted. "A broken window and nothing stolen would have drawn the wrong kind of eyes; neighborhood watch, old bored shut-ins with binoculars, not to mention the owners and workers getting antsy. And if they did call the cops, who knows what they'd be looking for or what they'd find? Nah, this way the cops keep the busybodies out and focus on finding a bunch of TVs and laptops, instead of what they might find if they didn't know what to look for. It's strategy."

"It's stupid," Grigori growled.

"Beat me at chess and we'll talk." The gnu laughed.

"Plus…" said the ferret in the back seat. "We each get a free TV and laptop!"

"Still," Grigori reprised. "The operation is compromised. There are police maybe five feet away from six kilograms of thermite and high explosive, not to mention the catalyst."

"Oh, I'm not saying that this wasn't a colossal fuck-up," the gnu agreed, gritting his teeth. "What a time for Dick-Dick to grow a conscience. I swear, when I get my hands on him…"

"You'll give him to me, right?" the ferret chuckled, flashing a wicked shark-like grin.

Grigori shuddered at the thought and pointed out at the police cordon. "Wait…I know them."

The gnu and ferret looked over to see a fox and rabbit in detective garb bantering with each other. "Yeah…that's, uh, those hero cops. You know, the ones that stopped the Shearer vigilante."

"And a bunch of other stuff, like the Nighthowler plot," the Grigori said pointedly. "I told you this was a bad idea."

"Cute, cute, cuuuute bunny…" the ferret crooned, licking his lips.

"Calm your glands, Finn," the gnu snapped, his brow creased with worry. "This is fine. No, we're okay. These two basically walk into huge plots and conspiracies all the time. There's no way they'd take a break and enter seriously!"

The three sat in tense silence as the pair walked across the street and into a café, they could tell that neither of them liked the smell of this case, them and their damned instincts. The gnu hissed a string of foul curse words and punched the dashboard. "Finn, when we get Dick-Dick, can I watch what you do to him?"

"You bet, Elim," Finn chuckled, his tongue racing across his shiny white teeth. "Oh, I love an audience, really inspires me to get creative."

"If anyone deserves it…" Elim rumbled, turning to Grigori. "Let's get the fuck out of here. We need to lay low for a while."

"I hear that," Grigori replied, firing up the truck and pulling away in a casual manner. "Should we tell the boss?"

"Not yet…" Elim muttered. "But let's keep tabs on this case. Reeeeeal close tabs."