Chapter 35

.

AN: Check out the A03 version for some funky artwork by the great Ziegelzeig.

.

The warm sun of a Bunnyburrow afternoon lit the way as Carmelita, driving a car borrowed from the Hopps' motorpool, pulled up at the lot in downtown Bunnyburrow. While most had been a bit on the small side for her, there was a half-ancient convertible lying there and, after making sure it could run, the infinite headroom had been most welcome.

Bugs chirping in the blue sky, the wind in her head hair, the over eager running of the old engine. Never things she'd call perfect by themselves, but together?

It put her in a good mood as she got out, looking left and right. Across the road, a petrol station lay, one or two bunnies filling their vehicles up. This side, a collection of various buildings, some old but a fairly new-ish looking block of commercial units standing out in front.

Including, third from her, a certain bakery. She stepped over at a brisk pace towards it, only to freeze as a glance to the service alley behind picked up the front end of a van, mostly covered in a tarp but with the grill and flame decals standing out like the burning beacon on the Hero of Rhodes.

Her body shook itself back, fur stirring on its end as a deep swirl of feelings ran through her heart.

Out her breath went, any taking back cut short.

Up her paw went, to wipe away a spec of moisture from around her eyes.

Tense her cheek muscles grew as she firmed her face, stiffened her upper lip, but let a smile grow as she marched on at a brisk pace, an exhilarating wind at her back. She hardly noticed the looks of a few bunnies here and there, or even the yelling of a white bunny with brown spots along the base of her brown tipped ears, directed at one of the other shops in the row. Her ears being down and arms thrown out at the gall of the ear massage parlour being closed two hours early for no reason didn't register a dot to the vixen even as she walked around her, heading for the bakery.

That was where every ounce of her focus was pointed, to the point that Rattigan and each one of his allies could parade along the road and she wouldn't pay them a jot of notice.

Arm gripping the mid-low level pawrail of the access ramp, Carm leapt up it with one long stride and pressed the auto-open button on the door, before hauling the mega-fauna accessible door open with her paw anyway for good measure.

The building may have been fully up to code and accessible for all sizes, but the front of the house was very much set out for those Carm's size or smaller, various bunnies taking up most of the space as they ate and talked. There were plenty of other mammals, preds especially, here, far more than she assumed would be demographically natural. Not that she cared.

The two she was looking for would stick out like a mile high sore thumb.

And they weren't here.

Her mood flagged ever so slightly before she shook it off. She knew they were here, and were probably just in their van or something. Just because this wasn't a Hollywoof reunion didn't mean it wasn't going to be worth it.

"Ah, Good morning Ma'am, can I help you?"

She paused, turning down to see a wiry ferret standing there, smiling. "Oh, uh, hi…"

"Names Travis, do you want takeout, a seat, a…"

"I'm here to see a friend. Two friends," she said, the ferret scratching what Carm noticed was very thin fur behind the ears. A quick retake showed all his fur was thin and almost patchy, though even by those standards behind his ears were bad.

"Well, if I… uh… sit you down here," he said, moving her towards a free seat.

"Actually, I think the mammal and other individual I'm looking for are already here," she said, looking down at him with a smile.

His tail flickered before his eyes narrowed. "Hey…" he scolded. "We're… they're not some freak show you know," he said, his voice beginning to rise.

"Pardon? I never said…"

"You think you can just come out here to… I don't know, gawk at them like they're…"

"Travis," a new voice cut across the serving area.

"Like… like they're…" he stuttered again, as Carmelita saw a portly fox walk out.

"Now Travis," he said, voice soft but firm at the same time. "C'mon, she didn't mean it like that…"

"But… I don't like it when…"

"I know bud," he said, "Tell you what, take five now? Okay?"

"I…" he began, looking up and eyes narrow at the fox, before he breathed in and out and started walking off. "I'll let you handle it. Fine."

And with that, he was gone, the newly arrived fox clearing his throat. "Sorry 'bout that Ma'am. He's an old friend 'o mine from way back, but… Well, I think y'all can see, life ain't been the peachiest for him."

"No," Carm said, looking up. "No worries."

The fox smiled. "Good to hear you understand. Since I could, I been trying to make sure he gets somethin' in terms of stable an' gainful employment. I often feel I lucked out where he didn't, ironically enough from bein' the real bad one of the pair when we were kits. An' thus gettin' the help for it. So, least I can do I s'pose."

"It's a lot more than that," Carmelita smiled. "Mr…"

"Ah. Grey. But you can call me Gideon," he smiled.

Her eyes widened. "Ah, Sí! The Hopps told me plenty about you."

Surprisingly enough, his tail drooped, before he closed his eyes and raised it again. "Only the good, I hope."

"Let me say they are very appreciative of your blueberry contract."

He chuckled. "Oddly enough, I can say the same thing."

"Yes. And I have a friend back at their burrow who is in a bit of pain from a nasty encounter. Nothing that can't be fixed you understand, but he is a major fan of blueberries, so…"

"Ah, get well muffin or pie then?"

"I think pie," she said warmly, as he led her over to the counter.

"I'm afraid we're out of the fresh stuff, though I can take an oven ready one and have it hot an' tasty in a jiffy!"

"That sounds good," she smiled. "As from the sound of it, and the look of the van out back, I have two very old friends very close to here for whom a jiffy will be the minimum to catch up with."

The large fox paused, looking around and hushing his voice. "While my old friend might not have been the most, uhhhh, tactful. His concern did come from a genuine place. I hope you're not here to, uhhh, just look at something you haven't seen before. I can just check with them to see if…"

Carmelita cut him off, and her nose too, channelling an extra nasally voice through her muzzle. "You could do that," she said, doing her best to match a certain tempo, then shaking her head for the next bit to match the expected body language. "But honestly, the surprise for them will be far more humorous if you let me come in without any prior announcement. I know what I'm doing here!"

Gideon's jaw hit the floor, before he pulled it up again and smiled, letting out a long whistle. "Well I never, seems like you know 'em like the back of your paw. They're actually doing work in a back room, you'll have to go through the kitchen and…" He opened the door. "Hey Vittles, just someone coming through. Don't mind her."

Carmelita smiled, walking through past the ovens and prep stations, glancing to one side only to freeze as she saw a wheelchair…

With a legless raccoon sitting in it, white apron over his red shirt and chef's hat on his head, working a mixxer. He spotted her, wheeling himself around and adjusting his bowtie, smiling. "Well I won't mind her Gid if she won't mind me, but right now I'm thinking…"

"Sorry," Carm waved off. "You remind me of one… No, two, old friends."

"Ah, those two," he said, pointing.

"Sí."

"And o'course their 'coon."

She blinked. "They told you."

"I figured it out."

"How?"

"Big raccoon face thing they have like four times painted on their van."

"Ah," she said, deciding it was best to just walk off. She wanted to do this as fast as she could, didn't she? "Well, that makes the most sense, hahaha."

"That and the raccoon tail windcatcher. That too…"

"I'll," she smiled awkwardly, hurrying off.

"Old friends first, I get ya. New friends if ya ain't full for seconds."

If she noticed it and his wink, she didn't show it. Nor did she notice Gideon peek in after, looking down at the parapalegic protoconid. "Smooth…"

He shrugged. "Hey, you play the game or you don't partner. You play the game or you don't." With that, he wheeled himself back to work.

All as Carm, slowly entering the back room, paused and held her fist tight in glee at the sight. There, sitting down on a table hosting a few computer items, were the backs of two figures. Two that had occupied her dreams,drives, work, crusades… Backs she'd chased, then been forced to work with. Who she'd imprisoned and been imprisoned with.

Who she hadn't seen for nigh on the best part of a decade.

One huge, pink, looming up with a red shirt on the back. The other far smaller, green, khaki shirt pulled over his round green back, only for the ridged points on his shell to tent it up. Carm, deft on her paws, walked up to them, counting on the fact that they were way too busy in their work to notice. Or would at least assume that she was a different fox, making a delivery run.

Her heart thumped in her chest, harder and harder as she came up and looked over Bentley's 'shoulder'. Catching a glimpse of his computer as he surfed and flicked through the dark web and back alleys of the internet. And then, minimising for a second, revealed a background she knew from a long time ago.

There they were, the Cooper gang at their biggest and proudest. Just before the raid on Kaine Island. Murray and the Panda King at the back, the second a face she'd never think she'd see anywhere near the group anytime ever, only to be surprised, shocked and… then happy when she learnt about it. Esos ladrones astutos, trabajando en su cerebro. And then there was the other who'd swapped bad for… less bad. Dmitri over on the right. And in the bottom left the koala Guru. And on the bottom right, Bentley himself, the turtle in his wheelchair with… Carmelita felt the mood deflate, she'd never wish another Neyla on anyone, but for Bentley it had come in the form of a small mouse who was sitting… Or should be sitting on that wheelchair. Only Penelope wasn't there…

Removed? Photoshopped out?

Either way, the mood killer was painted over as she saw the picture of the raccoon in the centre.

Sly…

Oh how long had it been.

The picture of him was cut off though as the screen to the dark web returned, lines crawling back on. Bentley, using the pseudonym PanzR-CrackR, busily typing to 'Eifeelsogud' about how he'd literally scientifically peer-reviewed proven that he didn't, would not, and never would, 'like Mareillion.'"

The vixen smiled and shrugged. No time like the present. "I'd hate to find you two doing anything that breaks your statute of limitations, you know?"

"WAAAAHHH!" It was Murray, not Bentley, who had by far the biggest reaction to that. Up he shot, turning, blinking for a second or two as he looked at her. "C-C-Carmelita!?"

"No, I am her secret twin…" she began, only to be squeezed up into a rib cracking hippo hug. "Aaaaacckkk…"

"Oh this is GREAT! This is GREAT! The Murray is SO happy!"

"Aahhhhh…."

"As long as you're not here to arrest us. In which case I have mixed feelings!"

"Dooo you waaaannnt to get doooone….." she croaked.

"But mostly happy! It's been soooo long Carm! Where have you been?"

"Foooorrr asssaultttting a…"

"How are things at Interpol?"

"Laaaawwww offficcceeeerrrr…"

"We have so much to catch up on."

And with that, he thankfully let her go, the vixen taking a giant breath in and out. "With muchas gracias to the statute of limitations," she said, finding her feet. "It is good to see you two again. It has been too long."

"You can say that again," Murray said, as Bentley spoke up in his ever familiar high pitched nasally know-it-all voice.

"Likewise. And in this case, I'm not making it up when I say the social familiarities may have to be curtailed. Hearing you were in Zootopia, we may have contacted you anyway, though I figured you'd likely stumble onto us before then."

"And so I have," she said, jumping over the top of the seat and settling down onto the edge between Murray and Bentley's wheelchair. She paused there for a moment, looking at the latter. While far fewer reptiles had managed to push and thrive into the realms of sentience, many failing and just leaving their unevolved counterparts, the crocodiles and alligators of various impenetrable swamps across the world had always had the cards in their favour to make the leap successfully. And, less known amongst them, were various species of snapping turtle, the largest being the alligator snapper. Most mammals would think Bentley was a giant tortoise, most likely from the Galapagos, but she'd done her research and knew the truth. Not that his general and species-bizarre dislike of non-treated water, and hatred of dirt and grime, helped him in any way. His shell and body were clean, green and shiny, a far cry from others of his kind. Even then, he was a lot less… gnarly, than the average specimen too. But all that still didn't subtract from the fact that the non-mammal in front of her was not what a lot of individuals would call handsome, or graceful, or even huggable… A hard bone shell permanently cracked around the waist didn't do any favours in that last regard.

But there, then, both of them decided that, to heck with it. Some of the social famillarities were desperately needed right here and right now.

So, before returning to whatever pressing matters there were, no matter how complicated with a capital C their relationship had been and still was.

They hugged.

They hugged hard.

They hugged until their arms hurt, and letting go was only part filled with the sense that they wanted more.

.

.

"I presume," Carm said sadly, looking over to the computer screen as she did so. "That there's been no news."

"That's a very open question with a lot of open variables," Bentley replied, adjusting his thick glasses and looking back. "But I think I can extrapolate the main source of news you're enquiring about. It's… complicated."

Carmelita blinked. "Pardon?" She felt her heart flutter. "You mean there's…"

"Nothing concrete," Bentley said, pausing as Murray went digging around in a rucksack.

"We actually missed it for about two years or so. It was only when I went digging about that I saw something a bit off." Out he pulled a familiar dark blue item, one used so often by the gang. Bentley's patented Binocucom. "I was looking through trying to find this jar of honey I got from the himalayas about a decade ago and so I went rattling through the old tech bag. And I saw that this thing had a bunch of unanswered messages."

"If… If Sly was sent back," Carm said, pausing. "How would he be able to access one of those? I thought your whole plan was to scan around old records, the Thievius Raccoonus, seeing if he left a message for you or anything."

"I thought that too," Bentley said. "But then again, there's the not out of there possibility that he didn't get sent back."

Carm paused, ears going up. "He was sent forward? Maybe to now? Or… Or to the infinite future, forever out of our reach."

"We don't know," he shrugged. "The system I and…" he trailed off for a bit, eyebrow ridges frowning, before pushing on. "That we used could only travel between the present and past."

"Sí," Carmelita said, "you needed an item to anchor on, to draw you back to that time period. So travelling to the future, out of the remit. But Le Paradox, his system…"

"Didn't need an anchor, not that I'd want to trust it," he huffed.

Carm's ears went askew. "I'm not following…"

He looked at her. "We didn't actually need the items for travelling back in time. Their actual use was for geolocational and astronomical location fixing."

…

"¿Qué?"

"It's the classic teleportation issue," he said. "Sure, you can move yourself from one location in space-time to another, but oh boooy is it a bother to make sure you end up in the right location. A tiny bit out and you will be subjected to any manner of quite frankly horrible deaths. Most likely asphyxiation in the cold vacuum of space, but also up there as an infinitely small but still potential chance of having all your individual atoms spliced at the molecular scale with ultra high temperature magmatic atoms at intolerably crushing pressures!"

"¿Qué?"

Murray filled it in for her, inbetween some snacking on a bunch of cookies. "You know… You know that the earth goes around the sun, right?"

"Ah,"

"And the sun is flying through space too, and the earth is spinning too."

"I get it. You needed the items so you could… -what, locate them where they were and use that as a fix, to guide yourself to where in the universe they were at the time?"

Bentley nodded. "In layman's terms, that is broadly accurate. Now, to speed the process up I had a computer simulator point the scanner in roughly the right area anyway, and yes it was perfectly capable of broadly getting you down safely. But there were still all manner of uncertainties and errors, which is why from its fundamental lowest level I built it to need the souvenir in order to function. Like the utilities and roads in a city, you can't just tear them up and rebuild them. Whereas Penelope and Le Paradox built their system without that safety level in check. Meaning they could go anywhere, anywhen, just with the minor chance that, not accounting for something, the first time to a specific location would cause their imminent and catastrophic termination of life functions."

Carm nodded, only for her ears to go back. "If that's… That's true, at the end, with the tunnel going haywire… He… Space, or in the earth, or over the sea or in the air…" She looked down, a cold chill running through her. He…" Even if she'd never get him back, she always tried to tell herself that chances were he'd have a good life, wherever and whenever he ended up. But with this context?

"-From what I gather, and I know there's a good chance I'm wrong here, it was extrapolating from previously traversed locations in its temporal cache. Like my system, once it knew how to get to a certain location safely, it could replicate that trip without any of the additional risks."

"So in that case," Carm said, suddenly perking up. "Sly would have had to have gone to the past! And to somewhere safe! Not the future. Not into space."

"-Unless," Murray filled in. "Le Paradox went to space once. Or, if he wanted to go to the future to get data on the stock market. Footballing wins. All that."

Carm clicked her finger. "So in that case he'd have only gone to the near future… Like right about now! So if Sly got pulled that way!"

"He'd be turning up around now," Bentley said. "So when Murray came to me saying we'd gotten messages on the Binocucom system, I naturally wanted to investigate." He opened up a video player and pressed play. It let out a brief, half-a-second long, bit of white noise. Then, silence. Until, ten seconds later, it repeated. And then, finally, twenty later, one last burst at the end.

"That's all?" Carm asked.

Bentley nodded. "I think it's only a fraction of a fraction of a message. Likely someone tried to get it onto the bandwidth, only to do a bad job. Only the tips of the tips of the iceberg are showing. But it's something, at least. And it's incredibly regular."

"How regular?"

"Tracing back, I'd say the first group were every ten minutes. We don't know about anything now though."

"Explain, please?"

"Most of the time, we were completely out of range of whatever transmission this was. Tracing back, we only received the set we got during a trip through Boaregon years ago." He cleared his throat. "A particularly notable member of my online community wanted a new life, away from any indentured servitude to particularly unpleasant family members. Given a chance to help him out, and rid some exceedingly unpleasant crooks of their biggest cyber asset at the same time, I was all too happy to help out, faking one sea mink death and setting him up with a new life not that far from some of his other, nicer, family members. Regardless, during that we entered the correct range, but by the time we discovered and traced back to roughly around here… The signal had died down considerably. We've had two pigs so far, one month apart, but it's not enough to triangulate its position or establish a reliable frequency pattern. There's still a chance it's in the other direction, deep in the Boaregon woods rather than central Zootopia."

"Yeah," Murray added. "The first set basically filled up the answerphone on these things. And by the time we got back, they were so not-frequent we thought they'd stopped before we got one."

"Uh-hu," Carm said. "So…" She thought it through. "Did Sly have a Binnocucom with him?"

"Looking at our inventory, yes," Bentley agreed. "So, it's not out of the question he left one as a time capsule or something, a beacon to try and lead us to a clue."

Carm couldn't help but let her tail wag. "You might find him," she whispered, wiping a tear from her eye. "You might actually…" She breathed in and out.

"It's the closest thing we've ever had to a lead, yes," Bentley said, nodding. A smile grew across his beaky face. "Though this suggests he was certainly sent back in time, probably to a pre-colonial period given the lack of historic records… Or anything new in Tennessee's Raccoonus entry."

Carmelita nodded. "So, that's… That's good news!"

"Indeed, and I hope it tempers what I have to say next."

Her ears fell. "Penelope?"

There was a long, long pause, the turtle's neck bending down. "No… Nothing from there…"

"I'm sorry," she said, paw coming up and resting on his shell. "I know… How much it hurts…"

"To lose the mammal," he said, looking up. "The first one who you can picture yourself living a small but significant minority of your life with, and she the rest of hers in return. Yes. Even if there wasn't the same passionate spark you and Sly had, just having someone being there, a confidant. I…" He sighed, looking down. "I ask myself every day, if I did something wrong, if there was something I didn't read or I couldn't meet her desires and…"

"No, Bentley," Carmelita cut in, leaning over. "None of this is on you. It's all on her. Just like with Neyla. Pure unbridled ambition, for themselves, or for 'the ones they loved'. However twisted both were, I… We both didn't see it coming. That's neither of our faults. It's theirs. All theirs. And, given that she is a genuine fugitive at the moment, escaping from a sentence and not merely waiting out any statutes, I can promise… If I catch her… To treat her to the bare minimum of rights afforded to all prisoners."

"No Jellybeans then?" Murray asked.

Carmelita chuckled. "Only if there's no bread and water, my special Prisoner 0-0-0-0-1."

"The Murray remembers that experience, and advises that your next impromptu holding prison is installed with superior heating."

That brought a chuckle even from the turtle to her side, something Carmelita was thankful for. Though, as she watched on, she saw his look fade. "There's something… pertinent, Murray needs to tell you."

"Oooh, yeah!" he said, digging in his bag and bringing out something. He unwrapped it, revealing a massive Lucha-Libre poster, a big female hyena centre stage, cackling madly as she yeeted a lion full on out of the ring. That wasn't the important thing, nor was the signature of the mammal herself. Instead, it was the picture lying in the middle. Murray, alongside two mammals. One, a koala, Carmelita recognised instantly. The other, a kangaroo, she didn't. "My spiritual guide has a number of contacts out in Zootopia. That, is Protein!"

"Protein?" Carmelita asked.

"Uh-hu, it's the name he picked after finding the faith. You… You know how The Oscar's had that spiritual phase?"

"...No."

"Well, that was due to them having a break with my master as their spiritual guide. Anyway, Protein used to be one of their roadies, but found himself again there. And here he is."

"Okay…"

"Anyway! The important thing is that while he was meditating, he…" Murray cleared his throat, before looking left and right, a sudden sense of unease growing over him. "He stumbled upon… a ghost."

"A ghost?" Carm asked, confused.

"Of the…" he pointed two fingers together. "Monstrous, dead… variety."

Carm's eyes widened, vastly. "I understand, indeed I think I know what it is."

They both turned to her, watching her like a hawk, hooked on every next word. Indeed, it was her turn to speak, and to be solemn. "Do you remember what I last communicated to you two," she said, "from Interpol's cover up in Svalbard. The Bolvangar site."

"The fields of evil," Murray whimpered.

She nodded. "I believe… I know Padriach Rattigan is in Zootopia, hunting for an ungerminated seed in the care of a polar bear called Pyotr Kozlov."

"He can't be allowed to get it," Bentley cut in.

Carm nodded. "He's had lucky escapes so far. But we need to get him, to get that. He's paranoid though, running scared. We need all the help we can get."

Bentley nodded. "Any additional information?"

"From what I gather, the seed may have originally been taken by the Imperial Russian army from an Efrafan site in Armyeenia called Nieldelienes…"

"Oh that checks out," Bentley nodded.

"And," she huffed, "a lot of damage had been done, particularly to the family of an academic in the city, an expert on it."

Bentley nodded. "The father of Kristoffeson Silverfox, aka The Anonymous Vulpine."

Her eyes went wide. "H-how did you…"

"We have contacts," he smiled, waving at his computer. "If you ever need a bunch of biker wolves on your side, just ask."

"If it comes to that," she began. "But I want you two close by. Researching, and protecting…"

"Uh, how can we protect it if we don't know…"

"Not that," Carm said. "There's another relevant item, currently being investigated by the city museum. It's in good paws, and set for transfer to Interpol soon. But, in the meantime…" She looked down and smiled. "I'd like it if my favourite crooks in the whole wide world were there on call."

Murray nodded. "The Murray would be more than happy!"

"Give me a chance to set up some monitoring stations and wrap up some things here, and we'll be on our way," Bentley smiled. "Indeed, I'm glad we never did anything in Zootopia before this. We've got nothing to fear, from the legal side, at least."

"Good," Carm said. "I… have good mammals working on my side. Ones I want to keep out of the know, for their sake. But I'll send you as much information as I can. I've only scratched the surface right now. About this, about the many things he's pulling… Maybe you'll be able to put a new perspective on it, make sense of it all."

"Oh I'll do my best," he promised. "Though the more clues the better."

"Indeed," she smiled. "Indeed."

She was broken off by a knock on the door. "Heya, guys?" It was the ferret, Travis. "Just to let you know, your pie's all ready. Oh, and Miss, sorry about earlier. I can get, kinda…"

"Apology accepted," she said, "just keep on going, you're doing good."

"Thanks," he smiled, leaving.

Carm looked to either side at the two Cooper Gang members. "Stay safe, and see you soon. Oh, and…" She wrote an email down. "Let's stay more in touch. There's much I didn't get in and we really need to talk about."

"I'll make sure to send you far more secure and discrete methods of communication, and the instructions for you to follow," Bentley promised, before pausing. "It's good to see you. Stay safe up at the front."

"Yeah," Murray added, giving her another BIG hug. "Don't go doing anything too risky."

"Nnnnn -nothing we haven't done before," she joked, before being let go.

Bentley spoke up. "That doesn't inspire much confidence. But I hope you the best. Against all our enemies."

She took a breath in, a breath out. "You too, friends. You too." And with that, out she stepped, a spring in her step.