Chapter 1: Code of Love
A/N: Okay, chapter one is here. I hope you all enjoyed the prologue. I wanted to make a couple of announcements though; I sent LitBC to ZNN and hopefully it gets accepted. I also drew a concept sketch for the cover of this story. If you guys want to see it, head to Instagram and find ones-and-z3ros or DeviantArt and find Ones-and-Zeros. But anyways, enjoy the chapter.
James
I turned around to see Felicia slumped on the ground, crying. I rushed over to her, and tried comforting her. "Why? Why him? What does have against my family?" She kept saying that the entire 15 minutes it took to calm her down. I was heartbroken to say the least. First her, now Kyle. Once she was calm enough, I pulled out my phone and called Cameron. It rang 3 times before she answered. "You saw it? The space is ready for your arrival. Hurry here." Before I could get a word in, the call ended and a message from here appeared on my phone. I turned to Felicia again, and said "Alrighty then, I guess she was waiting." She nodded then sniffled a bit. "Let's get ready and go." She stood up and went to our bedroom.
It took ten minutes for us to get ready, but we finally made it out the door and on our way. As we passed the Tundratown DOT building, everything became familiar, and gave me a serious case of deja vu. Apparently, the address was to the warehouse next door to Bellwether's. After the raid, the ZPD seized the warehouses immediately surrounding it. Luckily, Cameron was able to work out a deal with Chief Bogo to let us have the warehouse if we stayed out of their business. Once we pulled up to the building, I wasted no time unloading our equipment consisting of two laptop bags, a toolbag (most likely Felicia's), and two duffle bags of clothing.
As I was unloading the duffle bags onto the equipment cart, Cameron came up behind us and started talking. "So, hows she holding up?" I had a feeling this was about Kyle, so I told her what I knew. "I'm no fox, but from what I can see," I looked inside at Felicia, and continued, "she is having an internal emotional breakdown. Hontesly I'm scared for her and her family." I shook my head and continued unloading the truck.
After another 20 minutes of setup, we were finally ready to start. Granted, it was just the computer systems, so I think it kinda left Felicia out of the loop. Right now, we were waiting for the email from Chief Bogo about a new case. I was so focused, I didn't notice my girlfriend sneaking up behind me. "BOO!" I jumped a few inches in my seat, and it took a second to calm down, the whole time both girls were laughing. "Oh haha, very funny. Now tell me, whose idea was it?" I looked at the two of them expecting Felicia to come forward. Surprisingly, it was Cameron. She had a sheepish smile that screamed guilty. "Huh, not what I was expecting." She looked surprised by my comment, but only briefly since she dawned Nick's sly smirk. "Well, you have been uptight lately. So I convinced your girlfriend to help me brighten your mood." Well, I guess having your girlfriend kidnapped and almost killed is gonna take some time to get over.
Simultaniously, our computers and phones notified us of a new email. The chorus of notification sounds continued for about 10 seconds. I was the first one to open the new email, which happened to be from Chief Bogo containing an audio log and zip file. I downloaded the files, and promptly opened the video inside the zip file.
"Alright. Timberland, Fangmeyer, James; the following is a case involving a recent hack of Mammal Nation Credit Union. The hackers were able to access 121 different accounts in the span of 4 minutes. The reason this takes priority for you three," Bogo's face fell in an instant as he continued. "is that the hackers accessed accounts of myself, Officer Clawhauser, you three, Officers Wilde and Hopps, and Officer Fangmeyer." Felicia sank to the ground beside me at the mention of her cousin. I don't know what, but the message was still relaying information. "Now, I want these mammals found and arrested. The other accounts were hacked to mask the attack on our accounts. Please be quick with this." At that, the video ended and left us in a state of shock. That lasted for a brief period, as almost instantly we pulled up the official case file.
~Case No. 1974
~Date: 3/19/17
~Reporting Officer: Lieutenant Luke Wolfard
~Prepared by: Chief Abasi Bogo
~Incident:
At 7:30 am on the day of Sunday March 12, 2017, an employee of the Mammal National Credit Union arrived to his teller terminal ready to start work. As he approached said teminal, he found his computer to be on, and running the standard teller program. It was reported in the previous case file that an investigation had occured about the intruder, but soon went cold days later. After this first case went cold, the bank was never bothered. Skip to 7:45 on the day of Sunday March 19, 2017, a full week from the first attack. This same teller arrived at his terminal to find it running a programm not previously found on this terminal. The police were promptly called, along with CSI units from Tundratown. Upon arrival and on-site rundown by the tech team from Tundratown CSI, it was noted that one hundred and twenty-one different accounts were accessed, including ones owned by members of the ZPD.
~Actions Taken:
The investigating team handed the case over to Precinct 1 to investigate. Due to the intensity of this case, this case has been labelled as Classified. The incoming officer/team to investigate this case will be decided by the Chief at Precinct 1.
*Case given to trusted associates of ZPD*
After reading the report, we moved on to the pictures attatched inside. They looked pretty normal, to a hacker's perspective. It had what would be required for a database hack, not that I've ever tried one. I saved the photos to an external hard-drive for later because something about the code looked off. The next document was a list of employees and suspects for the case. I let Felicia have that one since she had no reason to stay in here right now. That left me and Cameron with the job of piecing together the code. As we got ready to start, Felicia pulled me to the side.
"Hey, what's up?" She didn't look too happy, so I decided to play the safe route. "I..I..I'm kinda nervous right now. I know I'm supposed to check out the suspects and employees, but I don't think I can do it without you." She was shaking in my arms, then I realized what she was talking about. "Shh, shh, shh, it's ok. I think I have a solution, let me try something." She looked at me with confusion as I reached for her paw. She finally understood what was going on, and placed it in my paw. I then drug her paw up my shirt, stopping at my chest, and rubbed the whole thing around my chest, effectively scenting her hand with my scent. "Here we go, that should last you for a while." I looked at her face and saw some slight confusion, which quickly turned into understanding. She nodded then hugged me, taking deep breaths. "I'll be back soon. I love you J." she said quietly before releasing me. As we walked back to Cameron, Felicia grabbed her stuff and left. I quickly remembered she didn't have a car, so I called out to her. "Felicia, catch." She turned around and I tossed my keys to her before we turned to our respective places. Let the games begin.
Felicia
As I left, I could tell James's mark on my paw was working. I hopped into the truck, and me being the quick learner that I am, expertly drove it around Tundratown en route to Savannah Central. Before I got to the tunnel, I called Nick to let her know about my investigation and that I'd need some police accompaniment while questioning people related to the case. Since I couldn't tell him that true nature of the case, I had to tell him it was a mission from Bogo. It seemed to work, and he agreed to be with me. 10 minutes later, I passed into the sunny Savannah Central and on my way to the ZPD to pick up Nick. I also called Bogo to inform him that I would be 'borrowing' Officer Wilde for a while. When he asked why, I simply told him it was about our assigned case. After a few moments of silence, he agreed. By that time I was pulling up to the ZPD, and saw Nick hanging out on the front steps.
I called out to him, and he seemed to be startled, before heading over to the truck. As he hopped in, I turned to him and asked "Huh, I thought you would've been on patrol today. Paperwork instead?" He nodded and said "Yeah, it was getting boring in there. Even with Judy." I chuckled. I looked over at him again, and it looked like he was trying to find a scent. "Hey...um...is this James's truck?" I wasn't all that surprised by his question. "Yeah, why do you ask?" What he said next took me by surprise. "It..um..smells like sex in here."
I immediately pulled over, much to the displeasure of the car behind me. I turned to him and said "Look here Officer Wilde," I was surprisingly formal right now, but mad at his insinuation. "James and I have been through alot. If you are insinuating that he did it with a minor, then you are mistaken. See my right hand? Sniff it. I'm sure you'll find the smell you've been trying to place."
If my eyes could light a fire, the truck would've been up in flames. I took a few minutes to calm down before speaking again. "My birthday is this weekend. On that day, I will be 18. Now, if you insinuate anything related to this topic, I will not hesitate to throw you out of this vehicle. Cop or not."
I looked at him, since I had my head down the whole time I spoke, and his face was not what I expected. I half expected him to look smug, but what I say in his eyes was a mix of fear and admiration. I was about to blow my top, until he started chuckling. "Okay, wow. You must really love him. I'm sorry for trying to hustle you like that," F*^!king called it. It was a hustle. "but honestly did not expect that reation. Though, are you serious about throwing me, a cop, out of a moving truck?" I glared at him, hoping it answered his question, which it did. "Okay then, next thing of three. I knew you guys never did it, and I can tell the scent of sex to regular mammal musk. I'm not that stupid." That did not help, but I let him continue. "Now, third thing. You are headed to interrogate someone, so that would be the only reason for taking me away from paperwork." Still with eyes on the road, now calmed to a respectible degree, I pulled out my phone to show him the list of mammals to interrogate.
It took a while, but we finally arrived at our first destination out of 12. This house belonged to the bank teller whose terminal was hacked. As we approached the door, my phone rang. I looked at Nick, then back at my phone, before answering it. "Hey J, what's up?"
Nick
I looked at Felicia, who happened to be rather calm right now. We were almost at the door when her phone started ringing. She looked at me with a desperate look, before reaching into her pocket and answered the call. "Hey J, what's up?" Her face immediately dropped. Something happened, and before I could go to her, she rushed to the truck still on the phone. The last thing she said was "I'll be there in a few."
I hopped in the truck, and before I even got my seatbelt on we were already peeling out onto the main road back towards the ZPD. It took a while, but we eventually arrived, and we both ran inside. Me back to a shared cubicle with Judy, and Felicia to Chief Bogo's office.
James
It wasn't long before the door burst open to Chief Bogo's office, and in the doorway stood my out-of-breath girlfriend. She walked over to me and sat in my lap. It was kinda nice, but considering the fact she was still a minor and I was only 20, it created a tear in my morality. Bogo finally started.
"It has come to my attention that James and Cameron have found something interesting within the hacker's program." I looked at Cameron, then back to Bogo. "It is a message from the hackers, and if you would please explain what it is Cameron." Cameron stood up, then pulled the crime scene photos and decrypted 'message' out of her satchel. After a bit, she hopped on Chief Bogo's desk, and set the pictures down in front of us. "Here's what James and I found out. The extra bits were numbers linked to an IP address ant port number. The website was a simple message saying: 'We strike by night. Expect us. The Black Mongoose.' After some digging on James's part, we stumbled upon something good. A backdoor into the host's computer." She reached out for a fist-bump, but having a mammal on my lap made it hard to return the bump.
After an hour of explanations, we all left Chief Bogo's office in a slightly better mood. When we left, it was pretty late, so we decided to split ways and head home. It was good to get back in my truck, and thankfully Felicia and I were the same size so the seat was not adjusted. Once we were ready, I turned to her and said "You remember how I said my dad and I built this truck custom?" She nodded before I continued. "Well, it has two transmission styles. Automatic, and my personal favorite Dual-Shift Manual transmision." She didn't look surprised, that was until I flipped a button on the dashboard, and the shifting patterns to the right of the gear shift unlocked. She looked so surprised, all I could do was chuckle. As I started the truck, I took advantage of her amazement to rev the engine slightly, which broke her out of the trance.
The whole way home, she kept asking me questions about the truck. I finally relented and confessed. It had been tough to create a custom transmission, along with the related components, and have it all fit and be acceptable. It was a hell of a time registering it at the DMV, and it took another long time before the government itself sent us a letter approving it's use on the roads. We finally got to my apartment, which became a whirlwind of action within 5 seconds or so.
We were getting ready for bed, well I was. Felicia was already in bed waiting for me. After another minute or so, I came into the room and got in bed. We were both silent, and the only thing that was said before we turned out the lights was "Goodnight."
(Later that night)
I awoke to the sound of Felicia wimpering. I looked over at her to see her still asleep, but rather fitfully. I tried to soothe her, but it didn't seem to work. I just watched as she tossed and turned in her sleep.
Felicia *In Dream*
I was walking around inside an old apartment complex. It looked quite rundown, but still in use. I traveled down the end of the hallway, until I came to the apartment door. I tested it, finding it unlocked, and walked in. As soon as I entered, I instantly regretted it. Lining the walls were pictures of my cousin. Everywhere. Social media pictures, highschool photos, even pictures like you would see in mystery movies. I turned the corner, and all I could do was scream; which woke me up in the process.
A/N: Finally, it's done. This chapter gave me so many problems, but with help from Davebo1007, I was able to complete it. Thanks bro. Now, I want to welcome akanomie1 to the community, and thank Dave again for keeping up with my stories. I hope everyone who reads this in the future will like this story as well. Anyways, I'm off to draw a commision and other story-related activities.
~1's-n-0's