"Hang on Snarlof." Chief Bogo interrupted his officer, listening intently to the static blaring out of the radio on his belt. It was a harsh tone, deafening the quiet alley, though it had a certain rhythm to it. A steady rise and fall, as if it was breathing. The imposing buffalo cocked his head slightly, raising the volume at the same time. He had to mentally push himself to focus on the sounds, still not fully awake, but noticeably grumpy.
Everyone heard it at about the same time, in between the gentle oscillations of the transmissions, barely distinguishable to the untrained ear, were faint fractions of words.
"…go…Come in…ief…"
"Isn't that your priority channel?" Snarlof questioned, breaking the silent concentration of the mammals around him. A quick, harsh shushing from his superior shut him up.
"…Wild…pagin…ast call…"
"Wilde?" Fangmeyer wondered out loud, resulting in a similar treatment.
Bogo looked around, taking in the scene as he processed the information. Something about that static was familiar, the constant wave like tone, it did not sit right with him. Eventually the chief's eyes settled upon a young wombat conversing with a sheep a few feet away. On any normal night, the little fellow would have been behind the dispatcher's desk at the station. Tonight, however, Charles was taking a statement from a hysterical sheep, or at least he was trying to.
About twenty minutes earlier, the ZPD received a call from the very same frantic mammal. He was concerned about a large, unmarked box truck that appeared to be following him through the desolate city streets. Fangmeyer and Snarlof were sent out to make sure the frightened ram was okay. They found him taking shelter in that alley, staying out of sight only a block away from the station.
When a call comes in at two in the morning, officers have to be ready for anything, but the response the two ZPD veterans received upon making contact with the panicked sheep caught them off guard. The victim, who appeared excessively paranoid, refused any help from cops, barely even giving out his name, Shaun. Instead he began complaining about how they sent a tiger and a polar bear, a couple of 'dirty predators' to harass him. As hard as the two tried to help, he was insistent on only speaking to another prey animal. It seemed not everyone was fond of the changes the city was going through.
Thinking on the fly, Fangmeyer called in the only prey officer available, their dispatcher Charles. As the wombat swapped his setup, forwarding emergency calls to a mobile headset to take with him, he followed protocol, albeit reluctantly, and woke up the chief to notify him of the situation. A few minutes later and there everyone was, a rightfully irritated Bogo wearing some jeans whatever white t-shirt he had laying around, getting brought up to speed while wondering how much coffee he was going to need that day, and Shaun being taken care of by an officer whose job description mentioned nothing about interviewing lunatics at two in the morning.
The radio static abruptly went silent just as Chief Bogo realized why he recognized the tone.
"Who's at the station?!" The imposing buffalo barked sharply, quickly retrieving the radio from his duty belt, the only actual police kit he had on him, and adjusting the frequency.
"Uh... that weasel from Interpol, he was doing some research. But we let him know we were gone." Snarlof replied, rushing an excuse in hopes he would not get yelled at for leaving the station.
"This is Bogo, all units this net, respond, over." The all-call went out, but nobody heard it, not even the two officers directly in front of him. All they heard was the same wavy static from before.
"I knew it," The chief muttered, hastily putting his radio back before taking command, "Let's go, everyone back to the station right now!"
"Sir, what's going on?" Fangmeyer asked, as they rushed to the end of the alley, passing by the confused pair of prey.
"Someone's jamming our radios."
*Beep* *Beep* *Beep*
A high pitched tone went off just as the group got to the main road. It was being emitted from a small pager every officer carried on them, a secondary communications system reserved for very special emergencies. Bogo did not even have to look at his to know what was happening.
"It's the station's alarm! Double time it!"
Turning right out of the alley, the ZPD building was visible only a few hundred feet down, as well as the white box truck parked out front. With adrenaline pumping, they all entered into a full sprint to make it back. Only halfway to their target, the truck flipped on its lights, pulled a U-turn and screeched its way down the road.
"Snarlof, after him!"
Without hesitation, the polar bear switched directions and dashed back to the cruiser used to respond to the first call, sitting by the alley. A moment later he roared past, following the direction of the truck.
As Bogo and Fangmeyer reached the station, they drew their weapons, having to be ready for whatever might be going on inside. The chief led the breach, ready to use lethal force if necessary. Training took over every movement as the two headed carefully into the lobby, greeted by nothing more than the echoes of their own footsteps. Most of the building stood in darkness, the only light coming from the dim yellowed street lamps outside. With a solid 'click', the tiger's flashlight cast out a beam, feeling its own way through the darkened halls.
Cautiously, the pair continued forward, approaching the eerily empty front desk. The soft squeaking of a door caught their attention, Fangmeyer whipped around, bringing the muzzle of his tranq gun directly to the face of a very terrified wombat.
"AHHHIMM on your side!" Charles burst out while trying to shield himself.
"Calm down Fangmeyer," Bogo sighed as he flipped a switch behind the desk, bringing up the lights, "there's no one here."
The tiger quickly lowered his weapon, much to the delight of his dispatcher, but without falling into a sense of safety just yet. To be completely sure, he performed a quick sweep of the lobby while the chief took a good look at the front desk. Someone had triggered the silent alarm located on it, but looking at the display of security cameras showed that there were no other mammals in the building.
"All clear." Fangmeyer called as he came back around to the chief.
"Good." Bogo responded, starting to devise their next move.
While the trio stood there unsure just what to make of the situation, sirens could be heard approaching outside. One car pulled up, then two, not police cruisers, but personal vehicles with lights and sirens, off duty cops coming in blind to a department wide alarm. Slowly but surely, every able bodied officer made their way to the station, ready to aid no matter the situation. With no information provided about the emergency, these first responders sat confused and exposed, spread throughout the street and parking lot.
"Charles," The chief moved to get things organized, "get me the security footage, I want to know exactly what happened here."
The dispatcher immediately got to work at the desk's computer, Bogo stood up to meet the officers out front. This type of situation was trained for, but had not been executed in a long time. Every member of the ZPD knew what they were supposed to do, but the lack of communication and heightened nerves made their effects known on each officer's face as they arrived to the scene. This kind of structured chaos required a cool and confident chief to brings things to any semblance of order. Whatever trivial annoyances plagued the buffalo earlier that night vanished as he stepped out the station doors.
Not wanting to waste any time, the chief gathered everyone in the parking lot and ran through the details. From there, the officers were organized into groups, a few of the veterans were tasked with finding and supporting Snarlof, while the rest split up to secure the area around the station and perform a thorough sweep of the building's interior. Fangmeyer was put in charge of the exterior unit, briefing anyone else that came in afterwards.
"Uh chief, you might want to take a look at this." Charles's voice was heard just as things got moving outside, much to Bogo's surprise though, it was through his radio.
"Fangmeyer," the buffalo called to the cop a few feet away, "radios are up, see if you can contact Snarlof."
"Yes sir!" the reply was heard as the chief made his way back into the station.
"So, the radio is working." Charles commented, noting how his message got through, only because he was too lazy to actually get up and walk outside.
"It would seem so," Bogo said, walking back behind the desk, "Odds are that jammer was inside the truck, which means Snarlof is probably still within its range."
"Uh huh, that's great and all, but right now we have bigger problems than Snarlof's radio." The wombat directed attention towards a monitor displaying the security footage.
They both watched as the video began to play. Nick and Judy entering the empty lobby, talking with Winthrop, trying the radio, the truck pulling up outside, it was all caught on multiple cameras. The part that had Charles concerned was a moment later. The Interpol weasel seemed to say something to Nick and Judy before taking off towards the back of the station, leaving the two officers alone. Unfortunately there was no audio to the recording, so whatever he said remained unknown, but neither parties liked it either way. From there, the lone cops gave each other fearful looks while slowly backing their way towards the desk. Nick glanced to his left, mouthing something to his partner at the same time. A second later the fox jumped over the front desk, hit the alarm, and the pair bolted out of frame. Not far behind, two rather unfriendly mammals followed after them.
Switching camera angles on the computer continued the view of the chase. The cops managed to increase their lead as they went, gaining precious seconds on the armadillo and panda behind them, an unusual pairing to say the least. The mad dash continued down a side hall leading out to the station's garage. Nick and Judy sprinted through and kept going, leaving the building grounds entirely, falling out of view of the last camera.
Strangely, as soon as they saw this, the two giving chase seemed to just give up. They stood in the garage for a moment, looking on as their intended targets disappeared into the night. This pause gave Bogo a good look at the assailants, everything about them appeared fairly normal, except for a set of black collars resting snugly around both of their necks. Suddenly, a green light blinked on the bands and the two ran back to their truck. Their lights kicked on and a U-turn led them barreling down the road. Seconds later, the chief came into view on the video, his group was only a block away when the whole ordeal in the station went down.
"Hang on, go back to that one." Bogo said after scanning the various vantage points the security system had, pointing to one of the views on the display. Even though the near miss had him more than a little irked, he knew if he wanted to find his two officers, all attention needed to be on the investigation.
Charles brought up the camera, went back thirty seconds and hit play. The monitor showed outside of the station's garage, facing the road and a few buildings across the street. As the clip progressed, Judy and Nick could be seen running past, brushing in and out of sight in a blur of motion. The wombat stopped the video to go back to the start of the action, but was interrupted.
"Keep going." The chief said firmly, focused intently on the screen.
Resuming showed a practically static image, nothing but an empty nighttime road, everything of importance happening elsewhere out of view.
"Right there! Go back!" Bogo reached forward, taking over control of the computer, running the video back one second. Advancing through frame by frame, the buffalo found exactly what was after, the not so obvious clues that he knew to look out for. Reflected in the windows of one of the buildings quite clearly was a white box truck. He checked the timestamp on the recording before letting out an angry grunt.
"Alright... Whats so special about a mirror?" Charles questioned uneasily.
"It's not the same one." The answer came out under his breath, barely even paying attention to the now lost dispatcher.
Looking back at the other cameras' views of the same time revealed this occurred while the group of cops were clearing the empty station, meaning the original vehicle was long gone by that point.
"Must've been parked out on some side street, right in our blind spot. Waited for us to take the bait then took off in the other direction. The same way Hopps ran off…" Bogo started pacing, mumbling to himself, each sentence sounding more annoyed than the last.
"So, uh, what exactly does that mean?"
"It means we've been played!" The chief stared down the poor mammal, "Whoever set this up knew we wouldn't be looking, knew we'd fall for the bait. Now I've got one officer chasing an empty box, and a dozen more trying to find him. I could be sending them straight into a trap for all I know!" His hoof slammed down onto the desk, "They dangled a carrot on a string and we ran straight for it!"
Bogo closed his eyes and let out a sigh, trying his best to relax, the mental stress mixed with a lack of sleep were not helping his condition.
"Call up the cars that just went out, make sure they understand the situation, and try to keep things organized radio wise. I have to find out where in the world Hopps and Wilde might be right now." The tough, commanding tone characteristic of the buffalo had faded, a rare state for the grizzled cop. Instead it was replaced with a soft, almost defeated sound, matching his now slumped stature.
Staring blankly at the desk below him, the chief noticed a small folder sitting only a few inches from where his hoof was resting. Curiosity persuaded him to open it up. Inside was a stack of seemingly irrelevant paperwork, shipment invoices, staff scheduling, and inventory manifests. Bogo was ready to dismiss it until he noticed a name stick out from the rest. Immediately he straightened up, rapidly flipping through sheet after sheet, looking for details, anything that could explain why Judy Hopps was listed under 'inventory'.
"Where did this come from?" With authority, Bogo questioned from behind the open file.
"Beats me." Charles responded, unaware of the document's significance.
"There." Chief Bogo turned to leave, having located an address for the company named in the paperwork, "Find out where this came from, radio me when you do. I have to go."
The young wombat watched as the chief of police hurriedly made his way out of the station, leaving him without any explanation. He didn't question it, simply getting to the work assigned. The night had already been strange enough as it was.
Outside, Bogo gave a few brief commands, instructing anyone who did not want to have their heads mounted over his fireplace the next day was to gear up and follow him. Immediately, the building became a frenzy of activity. Every officer not left as security ran inside, equipment was handed out, keys were issued, and two more dispatchers set up at their own computers, beginning to get things organized. The commotion flowed into the garage, until squad car after squad car raced down the road. Just like that, the ZPD station was brought to life. The fact that it was the middle of the night meant nothing to everyone there, phone calls were made, proper communication formed, information sent out, soon the place would be command central for the operation. As the red and blue lights of the last stragglers flashed into the distance, the chief came over the radio.
"Alright everyone, listen up. This is a high priority search and rescue. Officers Hopps and Wilde are MIA, possibly related to their most recent case. We have a lead on a location, but here's the deal… Whoever is behind this knows what they are doing. Odds are we are heading for a very dangerous situation. When we arrive on scene, look to me for direction. I want a rally point set up just outside the property, headcount and final prep will be made there. There is a chance we will lose radio contact, so I'm going to say this now: I do not want any one of you to be a hero tonight, we go in, do our job and come out, all of us. Heads up. Stay alert. And leave no mammal behind."
THINGS! EXCITEMENT! EXPLOSIONS! Okay, no explosions, but stuff is happening. In fact we are closing in on the end, only two or three chapters left to go. I'm not sure how well this chapter will go over, there is a lot going on in a very specific manner. If you don't understand something, please let me know. Timing wise, I know I suck at getting things done in a reasonable time frame (no excuses) but at least I'm getting them done at all. As far as the mystery aspect goes... I just want to say taking a look back never hurts, every chapter has its secrets ;)
Thank you all for putting up with my terrible upload schedule (or lack thereof) and more importantly thanks for reading. As always, I will see you in the next chapter.
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