*Author's Notes*
After 7 years in hiatus, I've decided to not do the rewrites I had planned. I made the mistake of deciding to do this, which locked me into a freeze of complacency and staring down a mountain of essentially duplicating my work and trying to recapture lighting in a bottle. Let this be a lesson to you, don't revisit your old work and try to remake it, let it stand in the time it was written. Barring a few spelling grammar fixes, don't try to "fix" old work, you'll just end up screwing yourself. So unflagging my as "Old Versions" vs "New Versions" and just letting them stand as they are. Sorry for taking so long…
Chapter 1: Another Day in "The Life"
Zootopia….3 Months later….Savanna Central
The streets of Zootopia are as harsh as ever, criminals and conspiracies growing like weeds, you pull one and another rises up to take their place. It's the sad fact of how this bustling metropolis works but it's the way of the world.
To every mammal in the city there is a choice, change the world for better or for ill, but most choose to simply act in survival, wake up, go to work come home, rest and start all over again the next day. Somewhere in all of this, families are raised, generations are nurtured and life goes on. But like the passing of day into night, darkness also finds haven here, people's stupidity, ignorance and unwillingness comes face to face with the grim streets. It is what it is, a conglomeration of youth, and the feeling of invulnerability.
If nothing happens then that youth gives way to practical pragmatism and eventually wisdom, for others their lives are tragically cut short by the unfairness of life.
This morning it seems has given way to the latter instead of the former. The scene a bridge in Savannah Central, a classic keystone arch pattern that calls out of something from eras bygone, or an architect with old world passion deciding to give this particular work a cry out from the past, in either case, the bridge was like any other bridge in Zootopia, except today it was an incident. A young tiger, celebrating his 21st birthday apparently partied just a little too hard and somehow found his way to this bridge, the question here was how this young mammal found his way to the top of the bridge, and looking at the scene would tell you how he found his way to the bottom of it.
A brown and tan, beat up sedan rolls up, parking just outside the police tape and gang of uniform and plainclothes officers around the scene, asking onlookers and gathering potential witness testimony. The front door of the sedan open up and from the driver's seat pops an interesting figure, a male cougar, mid to late 40's, plain clothes, with a gruff exterior that calls out to anyone as a mammal who had seen hard time on these streets. His yellow eyes surveying the scene as he has done a thousand times before.
"Ah god, not another one." muttered the cougar as he finished stepping out of his vehicle.
"Alright, you two, this should be a good case to cut your teeth on, come on." The cougar said, addressing the passenger seat of his car.
Two figures step out of the vehicle's passenger side, a familiar duo, a Fox and Rabbit, their uniforms traded in for professional looking attire befitting their new positions but still comfortable looking enough to blend into the population.
Nick Wilde and Judy Hopps, detective trainees under the tutelage and supervision of Senior Detective Casey Rollins, the three walked up to and under the police tape and onto the scene. The cougar pausing, turning slightly towards the two with an outstretched paw
"Remember, don't touch. You look and you listen, got that?" levied the cougar.
"Yes sir." Replied the two.
They continued on walking up to the corpse, numerous forensic teams were already on site collecting specimens, dusting for prints and taking of photographs, measuring, marking evidence bags , etc. The whole song and dance routine of a well-oiled and choreographed dance troupe doing their performance for the umpteenth time. The sad fact was this was routine, one could blatantly tell it was either suicide or homicide, the only question would be; what would the physical evidence show?
The cougar looked over the body, up at the top of the bridge and back down around the body.
"Suicide." The cougar muttered.
Nick and Judy looked at each other puzzled. "How can you tell" she asked?
The cougar pointed up to the bridge and back down to the body as if drawing an invisible line.
"Because, the poor bastard dropped straight down. If it was a murder, meaning pushed off, his horizontal motion would have pushed him away from the bridge as he fell, and we would of found him over there." Replied the cougar pointing a few feet away, perpendicular to the bridge.
"But no, from that angle, it means he stepped off and fell straight down. Suicide."
"Couldn't it be an accident? What if he fell?" asked Hopps.
The cougar turned casually towards Hopps.
"And pray tell what mammal in their right mind would willingly play on the edge of a bridge if not to kill themselves?"
"But it could be…." Judy tried to reply back.
The cougar waved a paw. "Listen kid, I know you're thinking you're hot stuff from the savage case and that plague case a while back, but not everything is a conspiracy, some people just do stupid things, and often times the reasons don't make sense."
"But we can't just discount that it could be something else."
The cougar nodded in seemingly agreement. And whistled to a nearby officer who was taking a statement, the officer upon hearing the whistle spun around, the cougar giving a "come here" gesture with his paw. The officer without a word approached, the cougar taking the notebook from the officer, and read it, and nodded his head sadly.
"I hate being right." He replied then jamming the notepad into Hopp's chest.
She took it and She looked at it offering Nick to read it, the testimony from the nearby business owners seem to confirm Rollin's theory, according to them the young tiger had been seen drinking to excess, was verbally and visually distraught, and the one convenience store owner whose shop lay just at the end of the bridge, stated that he saw the tiger climb up, and step off the bridge.
As Judy read it again, she covered her paw over her mouth. Rollins seeing this took a bit less of a gruff stance.
"Look, if you're going to work as a detective, you're going to have to get used to seeing this kind of stuff. That's what we do; we solve crimes after they happen. In this case, the perpetrator and victim is the same mammal, sad but true." He offered.
Nick still said nothing, his entire appraisal of the situation matched Rollins as soon as they walked up, he saw the same thing, the angle of the drop, the lack of any kind of struggle. He had seen enough stuff on the streets to know, some people get low, real low. Some decide they can't take it anymore and release themselves from this life. He offered a paw to Judy's shoulder anyway; this was the process of acceptance that sometimes their job begins when someone else ends and that you cannot save them all.
Judy composed herself and took a single deep breath; she looked up at Rollins.
"You're right, I understand, I'm sorry."
"It's ok kid, just never let people see the job get to you." Said Rollins.
Judy looked at Nick, those words seemed to echo his "Never let them see that they get to you." Nick simply looked back supportively.
"When we get back to the station, we'll check the Jam Cams, but I suspect they will confirm what we already suspect. For now, I want you two to observe the process of the crime scene."
"And Hopps, I know you were top of your class, know procedure inside and out, but that's no replacement for experience. So just watch and learn." Directed Rollins.
Judy and Nick followed Rollins around the scene, occasionally the cougar would ask a question about procedure or the why of it, some were obvious, others were esoteric a few even stumped Hopps because while not taught at the academy, they were old detective's wisdom that worked. That's what Rollins was there to do, to turn two good police officers and give them the information to turn them into great detectives, at least that is what Chief Bogo's intention was when he assigned them to the cougar.
The scene was processed in a little over an hour, the coroner came and packed up the poor tiger into a body bag, Judy felt a sense of finality as she heard the sound of the zipper closing, She glanced over at Rollins as he was discussing with two other officers, she almost wondered what they were talking about, almost, her thoughts still focused on the tiger.
She watched as the two coroners carted off the body bag on the stretcher and into their vehicle designed for such things. When this assignment started she questioned it, she knew what she was doing, yet why would she and Nick be assigned to a senior detective this way. Now she realized, it was the fact that despite all that she had seen, she still kept her emotions close to the surface. She gritted her teeth and winced, when she realized the real reason.
"Don't do this to yourself, Carrots." Said a voice.
She turned; she hadn't noticed Nick walk up, with two cups of coffee in his paws.
"Do what?" she asked, trying to keep her thoughts hidden.
"I've seen that expression before." He answered, offering her a cup.
"What expression?" she asked, taking the cup and popping open the plastic lid.
"The one that says 'This bothers me, and I shouldn't let it because I think it makes me look weak'."
Judy locked eyes with Nick, hesitating for a second, rolling the cup in her paws.
"I'm that easy to read, huh?" she asked
"Only to me." He confided.
Judy scoffed "Rollins seemed to have figured it out."
"He figures this bothers you because it's new, it's not something we're used to seeing."
"You don't seem bothered by it."
"Of course it does, but I've…..seen this kind of stuff before, and I've made a career out of hiding my true emotions. But yes, Carrots, it does bother me. A lot of things bother me."
Judy thought about that statement for a moment
"The dreams?" she inquired
"Yeah, they uh…keep me up."
"Do you want to talk..."
"It's the same thing. At least if it was something new it would be different, but it's the same thing. Over and over."
"Ya know, you could have always woken me up to talk about it."
"I didn't want to bother you; at least one of us should get a good night sleep."
"You're never a bother to me, Nick. I want you to know you can always talk to me about anything."
"Besides, if you up walking around in the middle of the night, I get cold." She smirked, joking for levity.
"Oh, so you just want your blanket back?" he countered with a smirk of his own.
"Let's just say knowing your close makes me feel better." She smiled sweetly.
Nick, Judy and Rollins, had left and made their way back to the station to check the Jam Cam feeds, it was strange to watch jam cam feeds, as they made one feel like they had travelled back in time, at least that what Judy felt as they queued up the video from the cameras, they watched the feed of the youth walking up to the bridge, and climbed up on the edge and tilted his head down, presumably looking towards the ground below the bridge, unfortunately the camera angles didn't allow to see his expressions. But Rollins just nodded waiting for the video to play out, Judy winced when she saw the youth finally step off the edge and disappear from view of the camera.
"Well, there you have it." Rollins said sadly.
Nick shook his head and heaved a sigh; Judy stared off seemingly into the distance, trying fathom why someone would just end their life like that.
"Isn't there anything we can do?" she asked
"Such as?" asked Rollins
"Like why he did it, why he decided to…End it?"
"You want the diplomatic answer or a straight answer?" asked Rollins frankly
"Straight."
"No, we don't, we're cops not grief counselors, our job is to figure out who did what, gather the proof and provide it, the proof says, this kid for whatever reason killed himself. Case Closed. Personal issues aside. "
"You got anything to say Wilde?" asked Rollins tilting his head towards the fox.
"Not really, it just sucks." Nick replied.
"Yes it does, and it's about to suck a whole lot more, at least for me." Replied Rollins
Nick and Judy looked at Rollins puzzled.
"Well I gotta go tell his folks." He said standing up and getting ready to leave.
Nick and Judy stood up to leave with Rollins when he raised his paw.
"I would prefer to do this by myself, if that's ok." He asked.
Nick and Judy nodded and stayed back.
"Do me a favor and do something else, this whole business is depressing enough as it is."
Rollins departed leaving Nick and Judy, since they were technically still patrol officers, they were to go on patrol once dismissed from Rollins charge, and that's exactly what they did. The patrol was a welcome distraction to this morning's case. Nick and Judy started the car and took up floater duties on the patrol route.
A floater would be a car not assigned to a particular route, and would be on point in case a backup call would come in, or if they happened to see something the assigned patrol didn't catch. It added a random element into the patrol routes to keep criminals from scheduling crimes around when cops were and weren't going to be in the area. But today, they were just glad to be driving around, it was work that otherwise filled their minds.
Meanwhile…..Later….
It started with a hiss, the puff of vaporized chemical hitting the lungs, the sudden burn in the chest, it travels through the blood, hitting the brain, the pulse gaining speed, the adrenaline flowing , and the colors become brighter, the sounds becoming clearer, like as if the world existed in muted tones and suddenly come into crystal clear focus. At least that is what this young cheetah thought, within moments he was running, nowhere in particular just running, climbing, jumping, moving with a smoothness and speed that harkens back to more simpler times.
It was in a nearby central city train station that his state of mind became an issue, the young cheetah had climbed atop one of the trains and was jumping nimbly from car to car, and some were moving to a stop others were not. The cheetah was enjoying himself thoroughly, he didn't at first hear the voices calling out to him till he stopped and focused on a particular voice, it was a Hippo, wearing black and white of the transit authority security.
"Hey Kid, get down from there, it's dangerous."
The cheetah simply laughed at the guard
"You sound funny, sir." Replied the cheetah and continued to run along the train cars.
The hippo spoke into his radio "Dispatch, I got a possible 10-50 maybe 10-96, Send back up. "
"10-4, Sending back up." Chirped the radio.
The hippo not being able to climb onto the trains ran down the ground between the trains trying to keep up with the feline youth.
"Come on kid, stop, it's dangerous up there, you gonna get hurt." Yelled out the hippo.
The cheetah got even bolder; he saw a train that was leaving the station, and made his way towards it, bounding off the stopped trains.
"Kid, stop!" called out the hippo.
The cheetah continued to bound, laughing oblivious to the dangers around him. Onlookers looked on at the spectacle going on in front of them, in absolute shock. The cheetah tried to jump to the moving train but was finally grabbed by the hippo who wrestled him to the ground.
"What's the matter with you kid?!" grunted the Hippo as he tackled the youth.
"No!" the cheetah whined.
"I just want to run, come on, just let me run." Pleaded the cheetah.
"No more running for you today kid." Scolded the Hippo
The cheetah managed to wriggle out of the hippo's grip, and made a break back across the station towards the front doors, the pitter patter of his footpaws clicking against the floor and the sound of his breath, panting, the pulse of his heartbeat, the happy elated expression of his face. He broke out through the doors and into the front courtyard of the station, he continued to run just as a ZPD squad car rolled up and stopped, its occupants were just about to get out of the car, when the cheetah dashed over the hood of the vehicle.
The hippo finally made it to the front and called out to the ZPD squad car, panting heavily.
"Stop…..that kid…..he's on something…." Wheezed the Hippo.
The ZPD squad car sped after the cheetah, who was now already half way down the block, siren blaring, lights on. They caught up quick to the cheetah; he had now dropped to all fours and was running even faster, the car sped up. One of the occupants of the vehicle spoke over the loudspeaker.
"Hey kid, stop, we're not going to hurt you, we just want to talk" said Nick.
The cheetah replied back with a simple laugh and a flick of his head.
"OK, well that didn't work Carrots, any suggestions?" asked Nick
"Dart him." She ordered
"At this speed you must be doing what, 50?"
"Try 70. Come on Nick, you can hit him. We got to stop him before he hurts himself." She replied.
"Alright." Nick relented.
Nick readied his ZPD dart gun with a tranq dart, and rolled down the window.
"Can you get closer?" he asked
"You got it." She replied
Judy steered as close to the sidewalk as she could without jumping the curb. Nick sat up on the window frame and carefully took aim, trying to give enough lead on the dart so as to hit the boy.
"Get right up on him!" Nick yelled.
Judy pulled up closer and Nick took the shot, he managed to hit the boy in the back, but he kept running.
"What the hell? Isn't this stuff supposed to be practically instantaneous?" he asked
"Yeah, it is." She replied
"What do I do?" he asked flabbergasted
"Try again." She answered.
"I don't want to overdose the poor kid." He replied concerned.
"Nick, we got to stop him." She explained.
Nick sighed and reloaded his dart gun again, he took aim praying that he doesn't kill the kid with an overdose, he took the shot again tagging the boy with the dart.
The boy ran a few more blocks before slowing down and eventually started to stumble, Judy pulled the car over and the duo jumped out of the car to collect the boy. Nick and Judy carefully approached him, the boy plucked the darts out of his back, and stumbled some more clearly disorientated.
"Aw come on, I just wanted to run, what's so wrong with that. I just wanted to…" said the boy as he fell over into a slump.
Judy and Nick quick ran over to check the boy's pulse, it was strong, too strong in fact, his heart was racing even though they just knocked him unconscious. They collected him and immediately decided to take him to the hospital instead of the station.