Judy Hopps was sitting in a massive, faded purple armchair and nursing a de-caff latte, her thoughts on their predicament on hold as she watched Nick speak into his phone. He was wearing a brown suit inherited from his late father, the one he would be wearing for today's hearing. If Bogo was right about the Swift Justice Program, within a day Nick would be in the clear in terms of the law. The recovered bodies of their would-be abductors were more than enough to prove that Nick had been forced to break the terms of his probation. As promised, Starlight had sent an anonymous statement explaining her actions, including the fact that it was her who removed Nick's collar against his will.
Judy sipped her latte, frowning. As of this moment, Bogo was discreetly leading an investigation into the incident, specifically how the mercenaries had been able to track down Judy and Nick. Judy was being kept out of the investigation, to her consternation, even though she knew that technically she was one of the victims. All she knew at the moment was that the tracking device in Nick's collar had indeed been used to locate him. As for how they'd found Judy, the most obvious deduction was that the mercs had been tracking her movements for some time.
That meant that there was a traitor in the ZPD. The list of suspects had already been narrowed to a handful, and interrogations would begin very soon. Judy could only hope that the motive was bribery and not something else.
Nick's tone turned lighter. She could almost see the weight being lifted from the fox's shoulders. Just a little.
"Thank you, Benji. You don't know what this means. I'm sorry, if I could have afforded it myself I wouldn't have come to you." He listened to Ben's response. His jaw dropped. "Holy shit. You did not!" Before Judy could get worried he barked out a genuine laugh. "Please tell me you got a picture! Send it. Asap." He listened some more. "I'll call you after the hearing's done. Take care of yourself. Bye."
He hung up and fell back in the lumpy couch beside Judy. Between them was a plain wooden table.
"He'll pay?" She asked the obvious answer.
Nick nodded. "Yeah. He'll pay. And you're not gonna believe what happened to him this morning."
"What?"
"A surprise visit from Killer Croc."
Judy gave him a funny look. "You lost me."
Nick let his head drop back with a sarcastic sigh. "An Animerican Alligator broke into the kitchen. Scared the crap out of Benji and Elba."
"Sweet cheese and crackers, are they okay?"
"Yeah. They called some guys to remove it later that day. They're gonna return it to the wild when the vet gives it a clean bill of health."
"Let off with a warning, huh? That's good." Judy crossed her legs on the chair and gripped her ankles. "Should you have told him about what happened the other day?"
Nick frowned at her. "He needs to know. He could be a target, too."
"Nick, he has less protection from us. If Theodore was after him too, he would have been one of the first they'd come after. Besides, he didn't have any part in Tilda Swinton's death."
"Neither did we."
"You know what I mean."
"Does Theodore?"
Judy looked down at her crossed legs, and the nearly- empty latte nestled within them. Nick tapped at the arm of the couch with a claw. "Okay, maybe he'll be fine. The villa has a panic room that'll repel just about anything. If there's any trouble-"
"A big if, Nick. Let's worry about you for now." Judy looked at the time on her phone. One hour until the hearing. Their escort should be coming soon.
"Mercenaries, death-defying stunts, and now gators in the kitchen. I though we'd left the crazy behind us."
Judy couldn't help a snicker as she put her latte aside, got down from the chair and walked to the window. Their escort was going to be an unmarked car painted in grey, and Officers Doeson and Phillips would be driving. Sure enough, a grey car came around the corner of Rosewood and Ash. Judy held her breath as the car came to a stop in front of the building in which they were hidden. If anyone other than a deer and ox came out of there, she was getting her gun.
A deer and ox got out the car. Judy breathed out and left the dart gun in the holster she had hidden beneath her cardigan. She knew she would be forbidden from bringing her weapon into the courthouse, but their escort would hold onto it. "Nick, they're here."
Nick swung his legs up and then down, getting up with the need to use his arms. His agility, honed from years of running from cons gone wrong, was one of the things she physically admired about him. Not to mention how he managed to make a brown suit look so good…
And is this really the time and place to be having those thoughts?
Judy shook it off. "You're ready for this?"
"Not really." Nick said. "Four hours tops, right?"
She grabbed a roll of tape off the table. "Four hours tops."
Outside the apartment, Judy gestured for Nick to wait, then turned around and stuck several strips of tape to the door and frame. If anyone broke in during their absence, she would know.
Six hours later, it was over in more ways than one. As it turned out, Nick wasn't even supposed to be issued a collar in the first place. Seemed someone high up in the justice system forgot that he had been given a presidential pardon, and there was no confirmation if they were going to face repercussions or not. Of course, Judy had been ticked. She still was. But Nick had urged her to let it go.
The fox wouldn't stop rubbing his neck for the entire drive back to the safe house. Judy couldn't imagine what it was like to be forced to wear that blasted thing all your life, then no longer need to so suddenly. He'd told her the story last year, the one about the day he'd had the collar taken off for the first time in decades.
"Remember those gerbils, the ones who kept running over my tail at the bus stop? This one time they did it, I stumbled into oncoming traffic. I wasn't too banged up, lucky for them, but the vet decided he needed to take a closer look at my neck. That meant taking off the joy buzzer. I didn't think it was any big deal at the time. Other than, you know, the body armour. And the heavy duty cage over my head. And the big red button. Then the collar came off."
Nick hadn't been able to find the words to properly describe the feelings that had ensued, but Judy could guess. After that day, he'd decided to share that feeling with the other predators of this city, and thus Wilde Times had been born. Overall the story had been pretty brief, with a lot of details intentionally omitted. Judy had had the sense that Nick still felt guilty for his initial motivation for starting the illicit business. The richest mammal in Zootopia. That was what he said. It had been a reckless plan. A dangerous plan. And that was before Swinton had discovered the scheme and exploited it for her own ends.
Using me to do it, Judy thought with a hint of bitterness. A naïve hick from the burrows a little too eager to make her mark. If I'd just even tried to check out Nick's story about the wolf, Bogo wouldn't have that scar on his neck…
Judy let her head fall against the back rest. That was quite enough. Nick had told so many lies before then that it was only fair that Judy hadn't believed him. Nick had said so himself. And Tilda Swinton was gone, her lies unearthed for all to see. There was only Theodore now.
They were dropped off outside the building, and Judy escorted Nick inside. Neither of them spoke as they stepped into the elevator. Judy wondered what Nick was thinking about the options Bogo had explained to them. The sensible thing would be to go into witness protection until Theodore was found. Judy didn't know what Nick was going to do, but her choice had already been made.
To heck with witness protection. She wasn't going to give up everything she'd worked for just to hide in a dark corner on the other side of the states. If Nick made that choice, she wouldn't judge him. He'd been through enough. But Judy was going to hunt Theodore down and finish this once and for all.
They left the elevator and reached their door. Judy checked the tape she'd left on the door. The strips were intact. She opened the door, pondering how to tell Nick about her plans, and then she froze.
The window straight across from them was open. Sitting in the couch, illuminated in pale grey daylight, were Gabriel Mossberg and Starlight Foxtrot. Both were dressed in casual waterproof clothing.
"How did it go?" Gabe asked. A shotgun, the model which shared his surname, was propped against the couch beside his legs. One of his lethal kukri blades rested on his lap. Starlight bore no visible weapons, but Judy was sure she had a pistol and a few knives somewhere on her person. Though she knew they intended no harm to her and Nick, she couldn't prevent the brief chill in her blood. She was trained in paw-to-paw combat and firearms, as per the usual ZPA education, but these two mammals were a whole different level. They were lethal. They'd killed people, though Judy doubted they'd taken any innocent lives. As an officer of the law, Judy usually frowned on mammals like them. But it was that same lethality that saved her from being bundled into an unmarked black van.
"Without a hitch." Nick said. "Other than the fine, I mean."
"What about the collar?" Gabe had noticed the lack of one around Nick's neck.
"I no longer have need of it."
"Good." Gabe had a half-smile on his face. Judy remembered suddenly that Gabe and Nick didn't get along.
"So what brings you two to our little sanctuary?" Nick asked.
"We tracked down the remaining goons to their hideout in the Nocturnal District." Starlight hefted a mug that smelled of coffee. Someone has been helping themselves. "An anonymous tip was sent to the precinct this morning. You probably won't hear anything about it until later."
"Normally we'd deal with them ourselves, but it was highly unlikely they'd leave information on their employer just lying around. And we do have a family to consider." Starlight added.
"Yeah, how are Lance and Sherry?" Judy hadn't seen the children since the parents left Zootopia after the Red Queen debacle.
"Has little Lancelot shacked up with little Gwen, yet?" Nick smirked.
"Nick." Judy said sharply, as Gabe's blue eyes glinted dangerously. Nick's incessant wisecracking was the reason Gabe didn't like him.
"They're great." Gabe said with a bigger smile than before, quickly forgetting the fox's cheek. "Sherry still misses her first parents, but she seems to like us just fine."
"We're still waiting on Lance's first word." Starlight said.
"After two years?" Nick asked. "Sounds like he's gonna become the strong, silent type."
"Yes." Gabe's eyes flashed with sudden anger. "That's what happens when your child spends the first few months of their life in a mad scientist's laboratory."
The smirk slid off Nick's face, and Judy felt just as sickened. When Cheryl had delivered the baby Lance to them, Nick and another, certified doctor had given the infant a clean bill of health. But that left whatever unseen marks Slothfeld had inflicted before Cheryl had broken out and rescued the cub. Their only hope was that Slothfeld had decided to wait until Lance was older before beginning his experiments.
"I, I didn't mean…" Nick fell quiet.
"Moving on." Starlight said, her tone as cold as Gabe's glare was hot. "We did learn that the mercs were part of Roarcadia's original NEST organisation, before the city went to hell."
Judy quickly went over the acronym in her head. Nautical Exploration and Special Tactics. They not only conducted special operations on the island, but the waters surrounding it.
"TUSK's predecessor?" Nick asked. Starlight nodded in confirmation.
"Officially they were disbanded, but those that didn't find new careers became a private military company operating pretty much anywhere. The ZIA thought that the Swintons still hired them from time to time, but Honey reckons that they were actually lending them out."
"Theodore has owned them all this time, lending them out to clients, using them to maintain his power even after he faked his death." Gabe said. "And we're their latest assignment."
"How many members are still out there?" Nick asked.
"About five hundred."
"Five hundred." Nick repeated.
"Yeah."
"Right." Without another word, Nick stood up and went to the kitchen. He stopped in the doorway, propping himself within the frame with his clenched fists. Judy began to stroke her ears with wide purple eyes. Her heart pounded in her ears. Five hundred.
"We have to find Theodore and bring him down. It's the only way." Gabe said. "Shame we don't have a clue where he is."
"Not yet, anyway" Starlight removed the large handbag she'd been carrying and set it on the table. "We're expecting Honey to pass a message from Agents Savage and Skyefall soon. Hopefully one or both their agencies found some intel after what happened in Moray."
"And if they don't?"
"We find the truth and deal with Theodore on our own." Gabe's kukri glinted as he shifted in his seat. "Permanently."
"We already are on our own." The low rumble in Nick's throat as he spoke turned everyone's heads. His head was hung low, his ears flat and rigid. There were shallow gouges in the wood frame beneath his clawed fingers, which kept twitching, as if resisting the desire to dig them in deeper.
Judy swallowed nervously. Nick wasn't even trying to hide his true feelings now. The fox turned in the doorway to glare daggers at the two killers on the couch. "Is that all you came here for? To sit there drinking my coffee while you tell us how fucked we are?"
Gabe and Starlight traded looks. Then Starlight unzipped her handbag. "Actually we came here for a much more important reason. Something that might help us beat the bastard at his own game."
She procured a printed paper photograph and laid it on the table before Judy's curious gaze. It looked like a flattened leaflet, tanned with extreme age and covered in odd symbols. "We're not the only thing Theodore's after. Know what this is?"
Nick stayed in the doorway while Judy leaned over the table. "Hell if I know."
"It's called a codice, apparently. A mayan text. Theodore's founder… appropriated it centuries ago. It was stolen by a black-market dealer after Mayor Tilda's untimely death, and now Theodore's risking exposure to get it back."
"What does it say?" Judy asked. Her first idea was treasure, a thought made in jest to alleviate her distress.
"No-one knows. The Swintons kept it close to the vest. This artefact could be what we need to get ahead of the game." Starlight locked eyes with Judy. "And we may need your help to get it first."