The suspect

(Judy POV)

On the drive to the diner, I find myself thinking: What if it had been Nick?
I try with all my might to push it out of my mind, but it pushes right back.
Every so often I glance at Nick, who is unaware of the battle taking place within my
head, as he glances out the window, seemingly deep in his own thoughts.

My thoughts continue to rage and swirl, the thought of losing him, almost unbearable.
Thinking of it in this moment, I feel as if I would never be right again, that I'd be broken, like Volin.
Volin. That poor Wolf, I could see it in his eyes.
He puts on a brave face, but that day we found the illegal weapons.
I saw beneath his mask, and the shattered heart he hides beneath.
Part of me is still wondering, who else was in the car?
Because he did say them after all.

This line of thinking isn't helping, I need to think of something else, anything else.
Finally my stomach growls, pulling my mind from the dark place that it had been.
It feels as if a weight has lifted off of my heart.
Yet something still doesn't feel right. Usually when I think forward to the diner's salad, my mouth begins to water.
Maybe it's just because I have a lot on my mind. I'm sure I'll feel differently once I have it in front of me.
I'm mostly hoping, but part of me feels that it won't be the case.

I'm then snapped from my thoughts by a knock at my window, followed by.
"Are you coming, Carrots?" In a voice I recognize as Nick's.
After a quick check of my surroundings, I find the passenger seat lacking one Nick.
Under even further examination, I find the squad car parked in a parking place at the diner.
"You okay, Carrots?" Nick asks, as I hop out of the squad car.
More then a little freak that I completely spaced while driving.

I find myself wanting to reply that I'm fine.
But after a moments thought, I decide that I'm not going to be one of those animals.
One of those animals that replies I'm fine, even though they're far from it.

So reluctantly I admit that I zoned out. Nick is quick to ask, what's going on?
I give him a quick rundown, as we walk from the squad car to the diner.
And before I can open the door to the diner, Nick pulls me behind the decorative hedges in front of the diner.
The hedges are almost right up against the wall of the diner, hiding us from view.
I fear he's gonna lecture me about returning to active-duty so early, and cutting our vacation short.
I'm fearing the worst when Nick unexpectedly gives me a hug, and kisses me on my four head.
"We'll be okay, Carrots." He says to me gently, while we look into each others eyes.

After another hug, we make our way into the diner, and find our booth empty as always, seemingly waiting for just us.
But it's only because Nick and I are the only two regulars that can even fit in the booth.
Nick and I take our seats just across from each other, and he plops the case folder Clawhauser gave us on the table.
I'm about to ask Nick where he was keeping that, when May arrives at the booth.

She starts by listing off what we usually order, including the change I made last time.
Nick this time, thinks to ask how she remembers our orders.
She replies with a chuckle, before stating.
"How can I not remember the orders of the Bunny Fox, cop, power couple!"
Nick and I glance at each other, both of us thinking that, maybe we're not as
good at keeping our relationship a secret as we thought we were.
A bit embarrassed, we both reply "Oh."

After watching May disappear behind the counter, I return my attention to Nick.
Whose face I find to be obscured by the case file. He carefully pulls the
folder away from his face, revealing an expression of fear.
I ask him what's wrong, but rather than reply, he turns the file around
pointing to the image in the upper right corner. Immediately my heart is
pierced with fear at seeing the bright lime green eyes, surrounded by snowy white fur.
I almost gassep, thinking immediately of Michael. But I push through the fear, and look more closely at the image.

I now see that it's not a Wolf's face at all, but that of a Fox's. And despite the eyes being lime green, they appear hurt, and worried.
His face also appears to be thinner than a normal fox's face, like he's malnourished.
I take the file from Nick, and begin to read it.

I start by reading the suspect's name and age: Jolten Maro, age 22.
I almost skip over the next part listing his species, but I'm glad that I paid attention to it.
Something I've only ever seen a pawfull of times, whether it's two or three different species.
It always indicating that the individual is hybrid. In this case, half wolf, and half Fox.
I'm always excited to meet hybrids, because I'm always interested to see how the two species mix together.
However in this case it shouldn't be too interesting, the two species look very similar.

Moving past my excitement I continue reading.
The next bit of info the file details is about the various jobs that he's been doing for the city.
The jobs that are listed are rather surprising for someone of his age.
Most of them having to do with some kind of security system, even rebuilding them from I'm reading here.

He's even designed new firmware for the massive climate control system for TundraTown.
I'm very surprised that he's even allowed to be close to that thing.
Not even chief Bogo can go into that facility without being accompanied by security.
And here he is designing new firmware for the thing.

The next bit of information I heard about on the news, however I did not know who was involved with creating it.
On the news everyone was happy to hear about the new cellular networking system the city had someone design.
According to this, Jolten is the individual solely responsible for designing the whole thing.
He even led the team that installed it throughout the city.

The only other thing on this page to read is sticky note.
Usually they just have some mundane information, so I ignore it for now.
I turn the page to get more information about the suspect, but find only
transcripts of interviews with the team he led to install the cellular system.

I then begin flipping through the pages skimping through paragraph after
paragraph, looking for any mention as to why he is our primary suspect.
A little fact that's been outlined several times within this folder, but no reason as to why.
Even the entirely pawwritten page by chief Bogo didn't outline as to why.

I'm beginning to get frustrated, and about ready to give up seeing as our food should be done soon.
On a whim however, I turn my attention to the sticky note on the first page.
I originally disregard them because it's usually something mundane or added last-minute.
However this one after examining it for more than a half a second, is in chief Bogo's pawwriting.

I guess I should feel a bit weird that I didn't notice it before.
The chief is the only one at the station that even writes in cursive. I find myself liking the
change, it's better than the usual shaky pawwriting I see on these notes.
However short than it may be, simply stating that, he is responsible for designing a new security
system for every bank that's been hit thus far.

"I'm a dumb bunny." I exclaim out loud, annoyed with myself for ignoring such a key piece of information.
Nick who had been quietly reading the menu, even though he never
orders anything other than the fish paddy cheese burger. Immediately puts his focus on me.
"No you're not." He replies in a way that sounds like he's correcting me, as he sits his menu to the side.
He asks me what led me to call myself a dumb bunny.

So I point to the sticky note, and informing him that this little bit of
information is why I went to the whole file. Nick trying to make me feel
better, states that the sticky notes usually just have mundane
information, and are never critical to the case.

However his attempt only proceeds to annoy. I'm about to open my mouth to exclaim that I already
knew that, but I'm cut off by the sound of ceramic plates clinking against the table.
I turn my attention to May to thinker before she goes to attend another table.
I then turn my attention back to Nick, who is still focused on me.

Thanks to May's interruption giving me a few more seconds to reflect.
I find myself surprised at my reaction to Nick, he was just trying to make me feel better.
In that moment, I wasn't thinking clearly, and I would have immediately regretted my hostility.
I almost want to go and thanked May for interrupting when she did.
I begin to feel my emotions swelling in my chest, pushing their way up.

I take a deep breath and push them back down. I'm beginning to get a bit
worried at having two strong emotional reactions like that.
I decide that rather than getting caught up worrying about my
emotional state, I should focus on my job. I can always talk to Nick
about this when we're off-duty.

I then turn my attention to my salad, now sitting in front of me, but I still don't find it as appetizing as I usually do.
After thinking about it for a moment, I realized that my stomach feels a bit weird.
I shouldn't really be that surprised, I've had quite a lot on my mind since I got back to Zootopia.
Part of my mind presents to me as an explanation, one that I accept.

Especially with the biggest thing on my mind being about Nick and I remaining as partners on the force.
I was expecting the Chief to say something about it when we saw him at the precinct.
I was thinking that he would assign me and Nick different partners for sure.
Suddenly my thoughts are derailed by something I find to be utterly surprising.

The smell of Nick's fish burger had crept its way over the time I was thinking, however I don't find it repulsing.
In fact it almost smells, good. I find it more than a little strange, but for now I'm just happy that I'm so used to the smell now.
As I begin to eat my salad, I flip open the file, and begin to read the interviews.
They mostly talk about how nice Jolten is, and how he mostly keeps to himself.

However I do find two interviews particularly interesting.
The first being from another hybrid that's worked with Jolten on one prior project.
To my dismay the project name is covered up by a black line.
But he does mention that he met Jolten at a kind of meet up for hybrids.
Not something relevant to the case, but interesting that hybrids have little meet ups.

The second one noting an incident where Jolten passed out while working.
The individual states that he drove him to the hospital.
But nothing else of the incident is brought up in any other interviews.

I continued reading through the file, taking a bite after every paragraph.
I finally get to the end of the interviews, and get to the completely pawwritten page by Chief Bogo.
It's mostly just a list of important questions to ask Jolten, but a paragraph at the bottom has me a bit worried.
Simply stating that, thanks to a CI, we know he also does work for private individuals.
Most notably stating that he's supposedly done a job for Mr. Big.
Nick is very doubtful of that statement, stating that Mr. Big doesn't trust computers.

I finish eating, and find myself rereading a few of the interviews.
However I close the file after hearing Nick trying to get the last of the soda from the bottom
of his glass. We then split the bill as we always do, and return to our squad car.

On the drive to the suspect's apartment, Nick begins to read the rest of the file to me.
I take a quick glance and when he audibly expresses interest in something in the file.
"Listen to this." Nick says before reading the important information out of the file.
"To help undercover cops deal with more tech savvy criminals.
Jolten Maro supplied the ZPD with 25 completely untraceable cellular phones."
I glance at Nick, whose expression seems puzzled as to why I don't find the
information is interesting as he does.

After a moment my eyes widen. The connection being made.
Now on the same page, I glance back at Nick.
Our eyes only meet for a moment, but he seems more than sure.

After a few more moments of driving we arrive at a plain but ornate building, easily dwarfed by the others around it.
Upon entering the building we find a reception desk, however it appears not to have been
used for quite some time, judging by the amount of dust on it.
Nonetheless Nick presses the bell resting on the desk, but after hearing it barely make a sound.
We glance at each other and come to the conclusion that no one is back there.

Nick and I scour the lobby and hallways trying to find the elevator, but when
we do, we find the dreaded out of order sign taped to the door.
However we find the door to the stairwell just around the corner.
Nick and I pull open the rather heavy door, but immediately let it slam back shut.
Neither of us were prepared to be bombarded with such a horrid foul odor, leading us to
believe that the stairwell had been used for a toilet at some point.

From the very brief view of the stairwell that we got, there does not appear to be any waste or garbage of any kind.
But when there had been, it was there for so long, that the stink had seeped into the walls and floor.

However we need to get to Jolten's apartment.
So Nick and I close our noses, open the door once more, and push through the smell to the ninth floor.
All the while hoping that the stink doesn't seep into our clothing.
After the long climb up the stairwell, we find ourselves on the ninth floor and outside of Jolten's apartment.
We take a moment to relish in the clean air, taking in deep breaths.
I then step up and knock on the door. After a moment, it carefully
opens, stopped only by a safety chain preventing it from opening fully.

A figure becomes visible through the crack, and bright lime green eyes peer out.
The unnaturally colored eyes still making me feel uneasy. Nonetheless, I begin to speak.
"Jolten Maro?" I ask gently, trying not to let my uneasiness work its way into my voice.

"That's me. Can I help you?" He responds with a soft voice, seemingly worried
that two police officers have shown up at his door.

"I'm officer Hopps, and this is my partner officer Wilde."

"Yea, I know who you two are." He states informatively. "You two are like, the two most
famous cops in Zootopia. I mean even Gazelle knows who you are."
Nick and I glance at each other, before Nick asks.
"Where just here to ask you a few questions. May we come in?"

"Sure." He says gently before shutting the door.
We then hear the chain slide, and the door opens once more, revealing the suspect to be shirtless, wearing only a pair of shorts.
"Just come in and make yourselves at home, I'll go grab a shirt." He says before turning, revealing a pale orange stripe
that runs from the top of his neck, down his spine, and stopping before it reaches his tail.
It appears that he had bleached it before, but has since stopped.

Once we step into the apartment, it opens up before us. Like we had been in
some cramped box before stepping outside. The view through the massive window
of the central district is not only breathtaking. But somehow makes the already
large apartment feel even bigger.

I turn my attention back to the suspect, as his snowy white body is enveloped by a red sea of velvet.
I look up to see that the curtain is anchored to a loft just above the area the suspect went into.
Nick points out a sectional sitting in the middle of the apartment, and we begin making our way to it.
The view out of the window appears to get larger as we approach it.
Once Nick and I about to take our seats, I noticed something with the window.
It was just a slight thing, but nonetheless I noticed it.

I dart up to it, taking a closer look, and find a mesh over the entire window.
I grab my phone and take a quick picture, and at the same time
notice that I don't have a signal in here. I'm more than a little concerned this, especially
since they're supposed to be complete coverage over the entire city.
I even remember having a signal outside the building when I checked to see if we had the right place.

Nonetheless I put my phone away, and return to the sectional.
Upon turning around I've noticed the kitchen for the first time.
The reason I did notice it before, is because there's a wall between it and the interest.
It looks incredibly out of place in this old apartment, appearing to be brand-new.
And now looking at the apartment from this angle, it appears that it wasn't meant to be lived in.

I turn my head to the large curtain, noticing that it had moved.
After a few seconds Jolten emerges wearing a light gray shirt.
He apologizes for being indecent, as he put it, before taking a
seat on the sectional, as far away from us as he possibly can.

I find myself staring at his eyes. For not only are the unnaturally colored, but are unnaturally bright as well.
I think back to his image in the file, trying to remember if his eyes were this bright in that picture.
After summoning the image into my head, I recall that they were not this bright.
And come to think of it, he's also not as thin as he was when the picture was taken.
I also notice a cloth band around his wrist. The only reason I find it of any
interest, is that it appears to have something underneath it.

I start by asking him if he knows why were here, to which he replies with a simple no.
Nick and I glance at each other while he states that he hasn't been following the news as of late.
Nick opens his mouth to speak, but pauses for a moment when Jolten suddenly appears petrified.

Nick tries to inform him, but only gets to the part about the four bank robberies.
His expression turns to concern, but quickly changes to annoyance, and even anger.
"No no no no no, that's not possible! You'd have to be-"
He pauses midsentence before apologizing. He then darts over the sectional and through the curtain.
We were expecting for him to be that fast, and barely had any time to react to where he was going.

Upon making our way through the curtain, we're met with chilling air. It takes a moment for my eyes to adjust to the dark.
As I'm slowly able to make More and more, I noticed a workstation to the right, with something underneath a sheet on a worktable.
After seeing some motion towards the left, I turn my attention to it, and see Nick is already walking in that direction.
Suddenly a bunch of computer monitors come to life, illuminating Jolten now sitting in an office chair in front of them.

A few of the monitors are blank desktops, but the rest are code that he appears to be working on.
He mainly focuses on the center display, which switches to a overview of the city after a moment.
Nick pulls my attention to a another set up, just to the right of the monitors.
We try to get a closer look at it, but it turns off. It had a lot of horizontal zigzagging lines on it, much like an EKG.
upon turning my attention back to Jolten, I see the reason as to why this part of the apartment is so cold.
It needs to be cold so that the six server towers that the monitors are connected to, don't overheat.

Now standing just behind Jolten, I begin asking what he's doing.
He barely seems to register our presence, the only indication I got that he even heard me, was his ear swiveling in our direction.
He then turns his head to look at us for a moment before apologizing.
"I-I'm sorry officers. Thanks for bringing this to my attention." He returns his focus back to the monitors before continuing.
"I don't mean to push you out before you've finished asking your questions, but I really need to work."
He states with a certain urgency. "I'll call you if I find anything." He states carefully.

"Whoa whoa whoa." Nick exclaims. "We haven't started asking you any questions."
Jolten's ears appear to lay flat against his head as he turns to look at us.
He apologizes, but insists that he needs to get to work if somebody's hacked into the security system he designed.
We convince him to answer a few questions, two the Chief wanted us to ask, and one of my own.

Throughout the first two questions, he proclaimed his innocence. Stating that he would never
be involved with any kind of criminal activity whatsoever. Nick tries to state, even for money.
To which he informs us of the amount of money he gets paid for the jobs he does.
The amount completely eliminating money as a motive.

Nonetheless I continue with my question.
I express my curiosity about why there is so little information about the security system he designed for the banks.
To which he replies that the program and the technology it runs on are both deemed classified, and whoever
informed us about it could be in serious trouble.

Nick and I express our concern to each other with a glance, before I state that
we'll no longer take up any more of his time. He assures us again that he will call us if he finds anything.
We then make our way out of the apartment. Once in the hallway we make her way around
the building, and sure enough find a service elevator. It's far more pleasant than taking that horrid stairwell.

On the ride down Nick asks if I saw the empty IV on its rack near the worktable.
Which I reply with a no, and state that it was too dark in there for me to see things clearly.
Once we get off the elevator we navigate our way to the hallways, and find ourselves back in the lobby.
As we approach the exit, a tall animal wearing a trenchcoat appears to take notice of our
squad car, as she appears to make her way into the building.

She keeps her eyes on the squad car as she pushes her way through the doors.
Having our suspicions as to who it is we both cross our arms and wait for them.
When she finally gets through the door, she turns, and immediately locks eyes with us.
She seems more than surprised, however, we are not.
"Hello, Kai." Nick says with a tone usually reserved for teenagers sneaking in late.

End part #9