Fanfic: The Call, Falling Down
Oct. 10th, 2016 08:53 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jeriendhalIt’s a mask, not a muzzle, Nick told himself firmly. The heavy rubber gasmask of the suit covered his face from nose to the base of his ears, his peripheral version caged by two small, oval Plexiglas windows, inducing a feeling a claustrophobia that was hard to shake. He breathed in, tasting rubber in his mouth, the airflow restricted slightly by the mask’s filters, though not enough to choke him. His paws were inserted into equally heavy rubber gloves, little foam pads at the fingertips sheathing his claws so they wouldn’t tear through the rubber and expose his skin and fur to the toxic Night Hunter again. Over all of this was the protective suit, canvas coated with baby blue dyed rubber, like a baggy, heavy space suit. The sun wasn’t even up yet and he was already panting into the mask, sweat pouring down his back and gathering in the suit’s feet.
“Time check,” Bogo called into the secure com channel, standing beside Nick on the riverbank, similar clad and probably just as miserable.
“Ten minutes until dawn, Chief,” Clawhauser replied, safe back at the precinct house as he coordinated communications.
“Thank you. All units, com check, roll call order.”
The rest of the team, two dozen officers in all, called out their names over the radio. Nick dutifully reported, “Wilde here.”
“Wolfowitz here,” came the last voice.
“Team One?” Bogo asked.
“In position.”
“Team Two?”
“In position.”
“Aerial units?”
“In position.”
“Rescue Team moving out,” Bogo confirmed. “All units hold until my signal. Wilde, time to make contact.”
“Right.” Nick climbed into the inflatable rubber raft sitting half into the river, the Chief shoving off and climbing in behind him. The boat's electric motor hummed, guiding them towards the back of the asylum, and not incidentally towards the enormous waterfall it straddled. He pulled out his mobile, hit Finnick's number awkwardly with his gloved fingers, and hoped Clawhauser had successfully made the Bluefang connection to his headset.
“Yo, this is Finnick. Leave a message. I might get back.”
“That wasn't funny the first time, Finnick,” Nick growled.
“Hey, I gotta do somethin' to amuse m'self. Beats listening to Crazy Chick out there.”
“Where is she?”
“Talking to her homies inside the lobby. I can see her from the vent I'm near.”
“What's she saying,” he demanded.
“Do I look like I speak Russian? From the sounds of it though, it's all 'Blah, blah, blah, we're the greatest. Blah, blah, blah, New World Order.' You know.”
“How many do you see?”
“Maybe a dozen. The big ass polar is beside her, another one by the lobby door, and about ten wolves listenin’ to her shit.”
Nick quickly relayed the information to Bogo as the inflatable boat bounced against the asylum's superstructure, held in place by the current. “I don't think we're going to get a better chance than this, Chief.”
“Agreed. Get climbing, Wilde.” Bogo lifted Nick up to a barred window at the base of the superstructure. Working quickly, Nick molded small thermite charges to the bars, lighting each one and then shielding his eyes as they burned through. He pulled them off and tossed them into the river, taking a chance and breaking the window with a small hammer, counting on the sound of the smashing glass to be covered by the roar of the waterfall as he knocked the pieces out. Then he was pulling himself inside, Bogo following awkwardly as he squirmed his bulk through the window.
They found themselves in a small storage room, disused for some time going by the dust in the air. Well, at least with these damned masks on we don’t have to worry about sneezing, Nick thought. He got back on the phone. “Finnick, we’re inside,” he said softly. “Can you crawl down to the basement? We’re in a storage room. Just make your way to us and we’ll make sure you get the antidote and watch your back when while we arrest Volkov.”
“Don’t think we got that much time, Nick. She’s finished up yakking and they’re heading to the doors.”
“Shit,” Nick cursed. He turned quickly to Bogo. “They’re moving out, Chief. It’s now or never.”
“All units, suspects are moving. Proceed as ordered!” Bogo called into his radio.
Over the roar of the falls, Nick heard the beating of helicopter blades, as two ZPD aerial units rose above the ridge of the flanking hills, shining their spotlights on the left and right side entrances to the asylum, the amplified voice of the lead pilot shouting, This is the ZPD! You are under arrest! Lay down any weapons and leave the building peacefully. Repeat! Lay down any weapons and leave the building peacefully!
Though he couldn’t see it, Nick could visualize what was coming next. From either end of the bridge connecting the asylum to the mainland, ZPD cops would be approaching, elephant, rhino, buffalo and other megafauna officers up front with bulletproof riot shields protecting themselves and the line of smaller officers behind them.
“Finnick! You need to get down here right now!” Nick called. “They’re going to be firing tear gas!”
“Yeah, I see that! Watch yo ass!” The phone clicked off.
Nick rattled the door handle and found it to be locked. He turned to Bogo and managed to grin as he said, “Uh, Chief. I think this situation calls for your specialized training.”
“You’re hilarious, Wilde,” Bogo growled. The chief backed up a pace, then charged forward, slamming his shoulder into the door. It snapped off its hinges and crashed into the wall on the opposite side of the hallway. Then he turned to glare down at Nick and said firmly, “If I hear a word out of your mouth about me and china shops, I’ll put you on report.”
“Having seen you dance at Gazelle’s last concert, I would never dream of making such a crass remark about your physical dexterity,” Nick assured him.
The chief grunted in what almost sounded like amusement. “You must be feeling better if you can crack stupid jokes. Come on.”
Nick followed behind Bogo as the chief drew out his taser, keeping it aimed at eye level while Nick lighted the way with his flashlight.
“Clawhauser, what’s the situation?” Bogo called into his com.
“Teams One and Two report that they’ve secured the causeways,” Clawhauser called back. “All the barrels that were sitting out there have been accounted for.”
Nick felt his shoulders sag in relief. “So it’s over. They’re trapped. We grab Finnick and get him out of here, and then we can just gas or starve them out until they give up.”
“It can’t be that easy,” Bogo muttered. They moved carefully up the hallway towards the stairwell. “Get your buddy back on the line, Wilde. I won’t be happy until we’ve got him to safety.”
“Me neither,” Nick agreed. He dialed Finnick’s number again. It rang several times, and he felt his stomach begin to twist in worry, before it finally picked up. “Finnick, you there?”
“The little junior detective is occupied, I am afraid,” came the answer. The voice was female, vastly amused, and terrifyingly familiar.
“Volkov! What have you done with Finnick?” Nick shouted into the phone.
“He’s right here beside me. If you want him to stay alive, you’ll meet me on the roof,” she said.
“Let me talk to him first.”
“Mm, let me think about that. No.”
“Let me talk to him, or there’s no deal,” Nick repeated.
The vixen chuckled. “Who says I want to deal?”
“You’re trapped, Volkov. Unless you’ve got a helicopter handy, or you’re an Olympic high diver, there’s no way off that roof except through a line of police. Now let me speak to Finnick,” he said, his paws bunching into fists inside the thick rubber gloves of his suit.
“I will be generous, and let you speak to him,” she finally agreed. “Say hello to your father, little one.”
“Daddy?” came a fearful, high-pitched voice. It took Nick several precious seconds to realize that it was Finnick, in the little fox kit’s voice he put on when they used to run their father-son scams. She doesn’t know he’s an adult. Finnick, I think I love you.
“Son, are you all right? How did they find you? Did they hurt you?” Nick demanded, while he could see Chief Bogo’s eyes widen behind the lenses of his gas mask.
Finnick sniffled once. “The lady has a gun. She heard me crawling in the vents and had one of the big polar bears yank it out of the ceiling.”
Nick put on his best angry-fearful daddy act, not that it was too hard to sound scared at this point. “I thought I told you to stay at home!”
“But I just wanted to help! Please Daddy, I’m scared! She says she’s going to hurt me!”
“I’m not going to let that happen, son. You just stay calm. Daddy is going to be up there in a minute. You can count on it.” He waved at Bogo to start moving towards the elevator. “Put the lady back on the line.”
There was the sound of the phone jostling, and Volkov’s voice came back on the line, “A single father, how sweet. Tell me, were you divorced, or widowed?”
“You hurt Finnick, and there’s no hole deep enough for you to hide in,” Nick growled as they stepped into the elevator.
“Better hurry then.” There was a squeal, as if small child’s ear had just been tugged hard. “I’m getting impatient.”
“We’re on our way up now,” Nick said, hitting the button for the roof and hitting mute on his phone.
Chief Bogo stared at him for a moment as the elevator moved upward, then finally asked incredulously, “Daddy?”
“We used to pull a father-son scam all the time back before I became a police officer,” Nick explained. “Like I said at the briefing, Finnick can pass as a kit when he wants to. It looks like that’s what he’s doing now, to put Volkov off guard. It might be an advantage somehow.”
“Maybe,” Bogo agreed reluctantly.
The elevator dinged and the doors opened up onto the roof. Nick and Chief Bogo stepped out, to find Volkov, silhouetted against the rising sun, standing in front of them near the last remaining barrel of Night Hunter, sitting hallway over the edge of the building. She had one arm wrapped around Finnick’s neck, forcing him onto his tip toes, holding him like a shield in front of her, the muzzle of her gun shoved into his ear. “That’s far enough,” she said. “Put your weapon down,” she told Bogo, who was pointing his taser right at her.
“No, I am not disarming myself in front of an armed suspect,” Bogo growled back at her. “Let go of the child and surrender.”
“No,” Volkov replied serenely. “You are going to let me and my soldiers go, and then you are going to watch as Zootopia consumes itself!”
“Soldiers?” Nick asked. “What, you think you’re an army now?”
She grinned wickedly at him. “Soldier, terrorist, freedom fighter; they’re all words to describe the same thing; someone who is willing to spill blood for their cause.”
“Sowing chaos isn’t much of a cause, Volkov,” Nick pointed out. “What do you get out of all this?”
“Freedom,” she said. “Freedom from the collar of civilization that has been locked around the neck of every predator ever born in the modern age. We bow and scrape and play so nice with our prey, pretending to friends, when they should be cowering at our feet, grateful that we let them have a portion of life before we feed upon them!”
“I don’t cower, Volkov,” Chief Bogo rumbled. “I will give you one last chance to put your weapon down, before I fire.”
“You do that, and I’ll blow this child’s brains out and let them fall into the river,” she snarled, lifting Finnick off his feet and pressing the barrel of her automatic deeper into his ear. Finnick, able to keep his cool after a hundred cons, merely squeaked in supposed terror, though his eyes were giving Nick a look that said, You better have a plan, jackass.
“Wait, wait, wait,” Nick said, waving his paws urgently. He reached up and pulled the mask off his face, the wind at the top of the building shockingly chilly against his ears after being confined in his suit for so long. “Before you do anything, I just want to ask you one question.”
“You’re stalling,” Volkov growled.
“Humor me,” he said. “Like you said, you’ve got all the cards right now. We make a move, my son dies. What have you got to lose?”
“Fine, ask your question,” she said, letting a smile creep up onto your face.
“Okay then.” Nick took a deep breath, and asked, “Who hurt you?”
Nonplussed, Volkov’s smile changed to an expression of confusion. “What do you mean?” she demanded.
He spread his paws in supplication. “Look, no one’s born wanting to burn cities down to the ground. Bellewether developed Night Howler to get back at all the preds that had put her down and dismissed her as just a cute little sheep over the years. I was a cynical sonovabitch for longest time because all the anti-fox prejudice I had to swallow. Who hurt you so badly that the only way for you to ease the pain was to make everyone else’s life miserable?”
Volkov’s confused expression turned to one of pure rage. “You… you pathetic, groveling, myagkoserdechnyy…” She sputtered in Russian for several seconds, too outraged to form words in English. Finally she spat out, “I am not some weak, sentimental plant-eater! I was never broken, no matter how terrible the pain! And I will not take such an insult from you!”
Several things seem to happen at once. At a later point Nick would reflect that the total time couldn’t have been more than a second, but his memory would slow events down so that every action was engraved upon his mind.
First Volkov raised her pistol, pulling it away from Finnick’s head to try and aim it at Nick.
Second, before she could complete the motion, Finnick turned his head and bite down hard on her forearm, causing her shot to fly past Nick and Bogo and embed itself in the door of the elevator.
Third, Bogo, now that Finnick no longer had a gun to his head, fired his taser, the twin darts flying out, copper wires trailing, to embed themselves in Volkov’s chest. Fur smoked and she began convulsing, flinging FInnick off the side to land in a tumbling heap on the tarpaper roof, as she fell backwards against the barrel.
Four, Nick saw what he missed earlier, the small two inch metal cap from the top of the barrel, sitting on the ground, where Volkov had dropped it, obviously intent on pouring the first load of Night Hunter herself from the highest point over the falls, with her soldiers to follow her lead when they saw the signal.
Finally fifth, he felt himself jump forward, crossing the gap in a leap that would have done Judy proud, fingers grabbing the edge of the barrel as it began to tumble, unable to stop it as mass and gravity yanked it over the edge, Nick and Volkov’s bodies tumbling after it.
Nick wrapped his legs around the body of the barrel, jamming one rubber gloved paw almost up to the elbow into the opening, trying to ride it down for the seeming eternity of the fall, all the while thinking, Twice! How the hell does one guy fall off the same damned waterfall twice?
Then the barrel hit the water, Nick atop it, landing with an enormous splash that rattled his fangs and sent a shooting pain into his forearm and shoulder. He let out a loud scream, only barely clamping his mouth shut in time as the barrel sank beneath the turbid waters of the river. The outflow of water from the waterfall sent the barrel tumbling forward, even as it continued to sink, finally bouncing against some muddy rocks lining the river bottom, the current clutching at Nick, trying to pull him free.
He jammed his arm deeper into the barrel’s opening, trying to hold it in place even as he felt his lungs begin to burn from lack of air. If he pulled it loose, the contents of the barrel would flow out into the river, poisoning it. How potent was this stuff? Would just fifty gallons of poison be enough to effect people out of the millions of gallons of water that had to flow through Zootopian pipes every day? Volkov had about a hundred barrels that they had spotted, five thousand gallons. Would even that have been enough? Could he take the chance if he was wrong?
Helluva time to start believing in homeopathy, Nick, he told himself. He clung to the barrel, his free paw clamped to his muzzle, trying to hold back the stream of bubbles slipping from his lips as his lungs told to just open up and gulp in the water, damn the consequences.
Judy is going to so upset when she wakes up, he thought, closing his eyes as his chest spasmed, and he gulped for air that wasn’t going to be there…
…only to feel it enter his lungs anyway, as someone jammed a mouthpiece between his teeth. Nick’s eyes snapped open, to look into the face of an otter in an orange swimsuit, a scuba tank strapped to their back, the tank’s backup mouthpiece pressed to Nick’s face.
Of course Chief Bogo would make sure a water rescue team was in place, since we were operating so close to the falls, he thought, as the otter examined his predicament with the barrel. Because while Bogo might be an asshole, he did watch out for his officers.
Finally the otter reached into a pouch at his weight belt, unfolding what looked for all the world like a large rubber balloon. Weaving around the barrel, he run straps around it, then took a deep breath and attached his air hose to a valve on the balloon. It inflated rapidly, and soon Nick, the otter, and the barrel were rising to the surface.
Nick kept the mouthpiece clamped in his jaws as he breached the surface, feeling himself slip back down even as he held on, a rescue boat turning quickly towards him. By the time he was pulled aboard and the barrel secured, allowing him to finally pull his broken arm free, he was shivering violently from the cold. Soon though they had cut him out of his flooded hazard suit and wrapped in a heated blanket, as the boat steered gingerly with its dangerous cargo towards the shore.
“Finnick, the civilian, is he okay?” he said between chattering teeth.
“He's fine, sir,” the otter said. “They've got him at the aid station. A few cut and bruises, that's all. Chief Bogo said you'd want to know.”
“Thanks,” Nick said. “And Volkov?”
“No sign. But we'll be searching the river bottom soon. She had to have drowned, falling like that after being tazed.”
“Yeah,” Nick agreed, slumping back in the boat. Somehow he couldn't bring himself to believe it yet. For now though, it could be someone else's worry.
* * *
To Be Concluded
“Time check,” Bogo called into the secure com channel, standing beside Nick on the riverbank, similar clad and probably just as miserable.
“Ten minutes until dawn, Chief,” Clawhauser replied, safe back at the precinct house as he coordinated communications.
“Thank you. All units, com check, roll call order.”
The rest of the team, two dozen officers in all, called out their names over the radio. Nick dutifully reported, “Wilde here.”
“Wolfowitz here,” came the last voice.
“Team One?” Bogo asked.
“In position.”
“Team Two?”
“In position.”
“Aerial units?”
“In position.”
“Rescue Team moving out,” Bogo confirmed. “All units hold until my signal. Wilde, time to make contact.”
“Right.” Nick climbed into the inflatable rubber raft sitting half into the river, the Chief shoving off and climbing in behind him. The boat's electric motor hummed, guiding them towards the back of the asylum, and not incidentally towards the enormous waterfall it straddled. He pulled out his mobile, hit Finnick's number awkwardly with his gloved fingers, and hoped Clawhauser had successfully made the Bluefang connection to his headset.
“Yo, this is Finnick. Leave a message. I might get back.”
“That wasn't funny the first time, Finnick,” Nick growled.
“Hey, I gotta do somethin' to amuse m'self. Beats listening to Crazy Chick out there.”
“Where is she?”
“Talking to her homies inside the lobby. I can see her from the vent I'm near.”
“What's she saying,” he demanded.
“Do I look like I speak Russian? From the sounds of it though, it's all 'Blah, blah, blah, we're the greatest. Blah, blah, blah, New World Order.' You know.”
“How many do you see?”
“Maybe a dozen. The big ass polar is beside her, another one by the lobby door, and about ten wolves listenin’ to her shit.”
Nick quickly relayed the information to Bogo as the inflatable boat bounced against the asylum's superstructure, held in place by the current. “I don't think we're going to get a better chance than this, Chief.”
“Agreed. Get climbing, Wilde.” Bogo lifted Nick up to a barred window at the base of the superstructure. Working quickly, Nick molded small thermite charges to the bars, lighting each one and then shielding his eyes as they burned through. He pulled them off and tossed them into the river, taking a chance and breaking the window with a small hammer, counting on the sound of the smashing glass to be covered by the roar of the waterfall as he knocked the pieces out. Then he was pulling himself inside, Bogo following awkwardly as he squirmed his bulk through the window.
They found themselves in a small storage room, disused for some time going by the dust in the air. Well, at least with these damned masks on we don’t have to worry about sneezing, Nick thought. He got back on the phone. “Finnick, we’re inside,” he said softly. “Can you crawl down to the basement? We’re in a storage room. Just make your way to us and we’ll make sure you get the antidote and watch your back when while we arrest Volkov.”
“Don’t think we got that much time, Nick. She’s finished up yakking and they’re heading to the doors.”
“Shit,” Nick cursed. He turned quickly to Bogo. “They’re moving out, Chief. It’s now or never.”
“All units, suspects are moving. Proceed as ordered!” Bogo called into his radio.
Over the roar of the falls, Nick heard the beating of helicopter blades, as two ZPD aerial units rose above the ridge of the flanking hills, shining their spotlights on the left and right side entrances to the asylum, the amplified voice of the lead pilot shouting, This is the ZPD! You are under arrest! Lay down any weapons and leave the building peacefully. Repeat! Lay down any weapons and leave the building peacefully!
Though he couldn’t see it, Nick could visualize what was coming next. From either end of the bridge connecting the asylum to the mainland, ZPD cops would be approaching, elephant, rhino, buffalo and other megafauna officers up front with bulletproof riot shields protecting themselves and the line of smaller officers behind them.
“Finnick! You need to get down here right now!” Nick called. “They’re going to be firing tear gas!”
“Yeah, I see that! Watch yo ass!” The phone clicked off.
Nick rattled the door handle and found it to be locked. He turned to Bogo and managed to grin as he said, “Uh, Chief. I think this situation calls for your specialized training.”
“You’re hilarious, Wilde,” Bogo growled. The chief backed up a pace, then charged forward, slamming his shoulder into the door. It snapped off its hinges and crashed into the wall on the opposite side of the hallway. Then he turned to glare down at Nick and said firmly, “If I hear a word out of your mouth about me and china shops, I’ll put you on report.”
“Having seen you dance at Gazelle’s last concert, I would never dream of making such a crass remark about your physical dexterity,” Nick assured him.
The chief grunted in what almost sounded like amusement. “You must be feeling better if you can crack stupid jokes. Come on.”
Nick followed behind Bogo as the chief drew out his taser, keeping it aimed at eye level while Nick lighted the way with his flashlight.
“Clawhauser, what’s the situation?” Bogo called into his com.
“Teams One and Two report that they’ve secured the causeways,” Clawhauser called back. “All the barrels that were sitting out there have been accounted for.”
Nick felt his shoulders sag in relief. “So it’s over. They’re trapped. We grab Finnick and get him out of here, and then we can just gas or starve them out until they give up.”
“It can’t be that easy,” Bogo muttered. They moved carefully up the hallway towards the stairwell. “Get your buddy back on the line, Wilde. I won’t be happy until we’ve got him to safety.”
“Me neither,” Nick agreed. He dialed Finnick’s number again. It rang several times, and he felt his stomach begin to twist in worry, before it finally picked up. “Finnick, you there?”
“The little junior detective is occupied, I am afraid,” came the answer. The voice was female, vastly amused, and terrifyingly familiar.
“Volkov! What have you done with Finnick?” Nick shouted into the phone.
“He’s right here beside me. If you want him to stay alive, you’ll meet me on the roof,” she said.
“Let me talk to him first.”
“Mm, let me think about that. No.”
“Let me talk to him, or there’s no deal,” Nick repeated.
The vixen chuckled. “Who says I want to deal?”
“You’re trapped, Volkov. Unless you’ve got a helicopter handy, or you’re an Olympic high diver, there’s no way off that roof except through a line of police. Now let me speak to Finnick,” he said, his paws bunching into fists inside the thick rubber gloves of his suit.
“I will be generous, and let you speak to him,” she finally agreed. “Say hello to your father, little one.”
“Daddy?” came a fearful, high-pitched voice. It took Nick several precious seconds to realize that it was Finnick, in the little fox kit’s voice he put on when they used to run their father-son scams. She doesn’t know he’s an adult. Finnick, I think I love you.
“Son, are you all right? How did they find you? Did they hurt you?” Nick demanded, while he could see Chief Bogo’s eyes widen behind the lenses of his gas mask.
Finnick sniffled once. “The lady has a gun. She heard me crawling in the vents and had one of the big polar bears yank it out of the ceiling.”
Nick put on his best angry-fearful daddy act, not that it was too hard to sound scared at this point. “I thought I told you to stay at home!”
“But I just wanted to help! Please Daddy, I’m scared! She says she’s going to hurt me!”
“I’m not going to let that happen, son. You just stay calm. Daddy is going to be up there in a minute. You can count on it.” He waved at Bogo to start moving towards the elevator. “Put the lady back on the line.”
There was the sound of the phone jostling, and Volkov’s voice came back on the line, “A single father, how sweet. Tell me, were you divorced, or widowed?”
“You hurt Finnick, and there’s no hole deep enough for you to hide in,” Nick growled as they stepped into the elevator.
“Better hurry then.” There was a squeal, as if small child’s ear had just been tugged hard. “I’m getting impatient.”
“We’re on our way up now,” Nick said, hitting the button for the roof and hitting mute on his phone.
Chief Bogo stared at him for a moment as the elevator moved upward, then finally asked incredulously, “Daddy?”
“We used to pull a father-son scam all the time back before I became a police officer,” Nick explained. “Like I said at the briefing, Finnick can pass as a kit when he wants to. It looks like that’s what he’s doing now, to put Volkov off guard. It might be an advantage somehow.”
“Maybe,” Bogo agreed reluctantly.
The elevator dinged and the doors opened up onto the roof. Nick and Chief Bogo stepped out, to find Volkov, silhouetted against the rising sun, standing in front of them near the last remaining barrel of Night Hunter, sitting hallway over the edge of the building. She had one arm wrapped around Finnick’s neck, forcing him onto his tip toes, holding him like a shield in front of her, the muzzle of her gun shoved into his ear. “That’s far enough,” she said. “Put your weapon down,” she told Bogo, who was pointing his taser right at her.
“No, I am not disarming myself in front of an armed suspect,” Bogo growled back at her. “Let go of the child and surrender.”
“No,” Volkov replied serenely. “You are going to let me and my soldiers go, and then you are going to watch as Zootopia consumes itself!”
“Soldiers?” Nick asked. “What, you think you’re an army now?”
She grinned wickedly at him. “Soldier, terrorist, freedom fighter; they’re all words to describe the same thing; someone who is willing to spill blood for their cause.”
“Sowing chaos isn’t much of a cause, Volkov,” Nick pointed out. “What do you get out of all this?”
“Freedom,” she said. “Freedom from the collar of civilization that has been locked around the neck of every predator ever born in the modern age. We bow and scrape and play so nice with our prey, pretending to friends, when they should be cowering at our feet, grateful that we let them have a portion of life before we feed upon them!”
“I don’t cower, Volkov,” Chief Bogo rumbled. “I will give you one last chance to put your weapon down, before I fire.”
“You do that, and I’ll blow this child’s brains out and let them fall into the river,” she snarled, lifting Finnick off his feet and pressing the barrel of her automatic deeper into his ear. Finnick, able to keep his cool after a hundred cons, merely squeaked in supposed terror, though his eyes were giving Nick a look that said, You better have a plan, jackass.
“Wait, wait, wait,” Nick said, waving his paws urgently. He reached up and pulled the mask off his face, the wind at the top of the building shockingly chilly against his ears after being confined in his suit for so long. “Before you do anything, I just want to ask you one question.”
“You’re stalling,” Volkov growled.
“Humor me,” he said. “Like you said, you’ve got all the cards right now. We make a move, my son dies. What have you got to lose?”
“Fine, ask your question,” she said, letting a smile creep up onto your face.
“Okay then.” Nick took a deep breath, and asked, “Who hurt you?”
Nonplussed, Volkov’s smile changed to an expression of confusion. “What do you mean?” she demanded.
He spread his paws in supplication. “Look, no one’s born wanting to burn cities down to the ground. Bellewether developed Night Howler to get back at all the preds that had put her down and dismissed her as just a cute little sheep over the years. I was a cynical sonovabitch for longest time because all the anti-fox prejudice I had to swallow. Who hurt you so badly that the only way for you to ease the pain was to make everyone else’s life miserable?”
Volkov’s confused expression turned to one of pure rage. “You… you pathetic, groveling, myagkoserdechnyy…” She sputtered in Russian for several seconds, too outraged to form words in English. Finally she spat out, “I am not some weak, sentimental plant-eater! I was never broken, no matter how terrible the pain! And I will not take such an insult from you!”
Several things seem to happen at once. At a later point Nick would reflect that the total time couldn’t have been more than a second, but his memory would slow events down so that every action was engraved upon his mind.
First Volkov raised her pistol, pulling it away from Finnick’s head to try and aim it at Nick.
Second, before she could complete the motion, Finnick turned his head and bite down hard on her forearm, causing her shot to fly past Nick and Bogo and embed itself in the door of the elevator.
Third, Bogo, now that Finnick no longer had a gun to his head, fired his taser, the twin darts flying out, copper wires trailing, to embed themselves in Volkov’s chest. Fur smoked and she began convulsing, flinging FInnick off the side to land in a tumbling heap on the tarpaper roof, as she fell backwards against the barrel.
Four, Nick saw what he missed earlier, the small two inch metal cap from the top of the barrel, sitting on the ground, where Volkov had dropped it, obviously intent on pouring the first load of Night Hunter herself from the highest point over the falls, with her soldiers to follow her lead when they saw the signal.
Finally fifth, he felt himself jump forward, crossing the gap in a leap that would have done Judy proud, fingers grabbing the edge of the barrel as it began to tumble, unable to stop it as mass and gravity yanked it over the edge, Nick and Volkov’s bodies tumbling after it.
Nick wrapped his legs around the body of the barrel, jamming one rubber gloved paw almost up to the elbow into the opening, trying to ride it down for the seeming eternity of the fall, all the while thinking, Twice! How the hell does one guy fall off the same damned waterfall twice?
Then the barrel hit the water, Nick atop it, landing with an enormous splash that rattled his fangs and sent a shooting pain into his forearm and shoulder. He let out a loud scream, only barely clamping his mouth shut in time as the barrel sank beneath the turbid waters of the river. The outflow of water from the waterfall sent the barrel tumbling forward, even as it continued to sink, finally bouncing against some muddy rocks lining the river bottom, the current clutching at Nick, trying to pull him free.
He jammed his arm deeper into the barrel’s opening, trying to hold it in place even as he felt his lungs begin to burn from lack of air. If he pulled it loose, the contents of the barrel would flow out into the river, poisoning it. How potent was this stuff? Would just fifty gallons of poison be enough to effect people out of the millions of gallons of water that had to flow through Zootopian pipes every day? Volkov had about a hundred barrels that they had spotted, five thousand gallons. Would even that have been enough? Could he take the chance if he was wrong?
Helluva time to start believing in homeopathy, Nick, he told himself. He clung to the barrel, his free paw clamped to his muzzle, trying to hold back the stream of bubbles slipping from his lips as his lungs told to just open up and gulp in the water, damn the consequences.
Judy is going to so upset when she wakes up, he thought, closing his eyes as his chest spasmed, and he gulped for air that wasn’t going to be there…
…only to feel it enter his lungs anyway, as someone jammed a mouthpiece between his teeth. Nick’s eyes snapped open, to look into the face of an otter in an orange swimsuit, a scuba tank strapped to their back, the tank’s backup mouthpiece pressed to Nick’s face.
Of course Chief Bogo would make sure a water rescue team was in place, since we were operating so close to the falls, he thought, as the otter examined his predicament with the barrel. Because while Bogo might be an asshole, he did watch out for his officers.
Finally the otter reached into a pouch at his weight belt, unfolding what looked for all the world like a large rubber balloon. Weaving around the barrel, he run straps around it, then took a deep breath and attached his air hose to a valve on the balloon. It inflated rapidly, and soon Nick, the otter, and the barrel were rising to the surface.
Nick kept the mouthpiece clamped in his jaws as he breached the surface, feeling himself slip back down even as he held on, a rescue boat turning quickly towards him. By the time he was pulled aboard and the barrel secured, allowing him to finally pull his broken arm free, he was shivering violently from the cold. Soon though they had cut him out of his flooded hazard suit and wrapped in a heated blanket, as the boat steered gingerly with its dangerous cargo towards the shore.
“Finnick, the civilian, is he okay?” he said between chattering teeth.
“He's fine, sir,” the otter said. “They've got him at the aid station. A few cut and bruises, that's all. Chief Bogo said you'd want to know.”
“Thanks,” Nick said. “And Volkov?”
“No sign. But we'll be searching the river bottom soon. She had to have drowned, falling like that after being tazed.”
“Yeah,” Nick agreed, slumping back in the boat. Somehow he couldn't bring himself to believe it yet. For now though, it could be someone else's worry.
* * *
To Be Concluded
