The Fire Triangle, A Zootopia Fanfiction -- Part One: Fuel - 23

Disclaimer: Zootopia stories, characters, settings, and properties belong to the Walt Disney Co. This story is written under Fair Use Copyright laws.

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The Fire Triangle-A Zootopia Fanfiction

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Part One:

Fuel

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Chapter 3 - Day of Carrots and Blueberries

(Continued...Pt. 15)

"So they sold out all the T-Shirts, the kid has money to burn in his pocket and the rest of the Carrot Days Festival to do whatever he wants....and instead of going on the rides or anything, he volunteers to help out at the talent show. Pretty weird if you ask me, Nick."

"Uh-huh." The red fox answered laconically.

There were strolling through the flea market. It was late and the place was almost deserted; most of the stalls were dark and empty. Aside from the few still open, the only other activity they'd seen in the last ten minutes had been a clean-up crew, emptying trash receptacles.

"I mean." Judy waved her paw in the direction of the campground, "he practically begs Finnick to stay on through the end of the Festival, and then when he gets his wish all he want do is WORK."

"Uh-huh." Nick said.

She nodded towards amphitheater, (now also dark and deserted.)

"Well, at least we know how Conor got backstage without being stopped by Security."

"Uh-huh."

From a nearby light-pole a P.A. speaker crackled. "Attention...attention everyone: The Carrot Days Festival will be closing in fifteen minutes. Please begin making your way to the exits and thank you for attending. We hope to see you again tomorrow."

"Uh-huh." Nick Wilde said.

Judy looked at him with a twitching nose and a raised eyebrow.

"Did you hear about that big fight over by the Ferris Wheel, Nick?"

"Uh-huh."

"I think it's terrible that they're banning foxes from next year's Carrot Days, don't you?"

"Uh-huh."

She clasped her paws to her cheeks and pretended to gasp.

"Oh no, look, they've got Finnick in pawcuffs!"

"Uh-huh."

She pointed to a nearby dealer's booth.

"Will you buy me that necklace?"

"No, it's too much money...and nice try." (Now he was the one with a raised eyebrow.)

Judy stopped, harrumphed, and thumped her foot.

"All right Nick what's bothering you?"

He turned around with his paw on his hip.

"What's BOTHERING me, Carrots? What the heck are we still doing here? We should have left for home half an hour ago."

The bunny folded her arms.

"You can read to the kids anytime. Nick. And anyway, I made a promise and I'm going to keep it."

"Okay, fine." He was becoming exasperated, "But do we have to go looking for that floor-jack...?"

"Amplifier jack..."

"Whatever kind of jack; do we have to go looking for it tonight? And here...at the Carrot Days Festival FLEA-MARKET? Give me a break, rabbit." He lifted an arm and pointed. "What do you think is going to happen, that we're just going to turn around and...see one...right in front...of us?"

Judy felt her nose starting to twitch again. Nick's mouth had become a slackened clothesline, while his eyes were a pair of glass marbles and his ears looked ready to drop like autumn leaves. Now what the...?

"What Nick?" she asked.

The fox just tapped her on the shoulder and pointed over it and behind her.

Judy turned, and saw almost directly opposite, across the aisle, a dealer's stall with a pair of guitars propped against the front table. And propped against them was a sign reading, "$50.00 - Does Not Play!"

She turned to look at Nick again; her gaze seemed to snap him out of it, and he raised a fast finger.

"Before you say anything Carrots, remember-I'm the one who spotted it!"

That was good for a laugh, but only a quickie, and then Judy was bolting for the dealer's booth with the red fox right behind her.

"Is this day ever going to run out of surprises?" She asked herself.

Technically, it already had... but the wee hours of the morning would bring another unexpected occurrence, one that neither she, nor her partner would be aware of until after their return to Zootopia-and even then it wouldn't seem like any kind of bombshell.

But only in the short-term; in the long run, it would turn out to be perhaps the most significant event of that weekend.

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Muktuk Cold Storage Warehouse-Tundratown District, Zootopia - Saturday, 01:27 AM.

He wriggled easily through the drainage conduit, a space no bigger than an old fashioned stove-pipe. (Foxes had nothing on his species when it came to maneuvering in tight quarters.)

Three feet ahead of him a set of iron bars had been sunk into the ground at the fence-line, supposedly blocking the way. Ahhh, but some wiseguy who was either cheap, stupid, or all of the above had decided to employ rebar for the purpose, either forgetting or unaware that Muktuk Cold-Storage used rock salt (illegally) to keep their truck yard drivable on icy days. And when that saltwater-ice melted in the high days of summer, it flowed straight through this drainpipe...and salt had a rather interesting effect on iron. When he'd shown up to case the joint three nights ago, bang! The rebar had been as rotten as tree branches in the wake of a bark-beetle infestation, practically disintegrating at his touch. (He had replaced them with fakes made out of painted bungee cord, an almost childishly easy task.)

That had been two nights ago. He would have made his move right then and there, but he'd needed to wait for the swag to arrive first.

A whole truckload of Spot Prawns, a fantastic score for anyone who could grab a piece of it; seafood was always easy to move. (He knew of at least a half dozen joints in the Canal District that'd take anything he brought them, no questions asked.) And for Spot Prawns he could practically name his own price; the season on these babies was maddeningly short.

The info had cost him two C-notes, but it had been worth it. Mason's intel was always reliable, (he worked dispatch for a local air-freight company,) and this time the hog-nosed skunk had steered him right into what was almost a dream set-up. The Muktuk yard had a huge a blind spot along the fence-line and the security at the construction site on the other side was worse than a joke.

All he'd needed was for the shipment to arrive, and it had rolled in through the gate at 9:30 on the dot that morning. (He'd been watching.) And now here he was, ready to make his move, with everything was in place. He had a flatbed truck-rented under a phony name-parked and ready beside the fence, and a construction-site crane hot-wired and all set to go; he had an access card, lifted from an employee's wallet at the lunch-wagon that afternoon, and the security codes from Mason. In fact, there was only one thing missing from his checklist

Backup-he was running this heist completely on his own.

Oh he'd tried to bring some other guys on board...and in every case the response had been the same...excitement, enthusiasm, and eagerness. But then when he'd mentioned that the score was going down in Tundratown...

"Forget it pal, I ain't playin on that turf."

"Tundratown? Count me out."

"What, you gotta death wish or sump'n?"

"Sorry homes, I gots better things to do than end up on ice."

Bunch of losers, he'd finally concluded. If Mr. Big had owned Muktuk Cold Storage-even had a piece of it-then heck yeah, he wouldn't have touched it with a 53-foot truck-trailer either.

But the arctic shrew didn't have his paws in the joint; heck Muktuk Cold Storage wasn't even paying him protection money; (that had been a ginormous surprise, he'd had to double check, just to make sure.) In fact, the word on the street was that Mr. Big was actually moving away from the rackets and putting more and more of his resources into legitimate enterprises...and doing it legally. Whatever, the important thing was that the Tundratown crime boss had exactly zero investment with Muktuk Cold Storage.

But none of that had been enough to persuade any of the guys he knew to come in with him. In fact, he'd come that close to giving it a pass himself. (Better than most mammals, he knew what happened to anyone who ran afoul of Don Antonino Grandi, aka Mr. Big.)

And he would have let it slide if it hadn't been for Roscoe; when he'd laid the proposition on his sometime accomplice, the badger had not only rejected the idea, he'd nearly fallen over, laughing his tail off.

"Tundratown...you made out your will yet? Bahahahahaaaaa. May as well go with it, you got terminal stupidity anyway. Bwawhawhawhawhawwww!"

"Okay, fine...!" he'd hissed and stomped out the door.

All right, if no one else wanted in, he'd go it alone. The take would be smaller but he wouldn't have to share it....and then they'd ALL be sorry they'd shined him on, especially that wise-mouth badger.

"See how funny ya think it is when I start wavin' a wad of cash under yer nose!" he sneered at the absent Roscoe, brushing away snow as he emerged from the culvert.

Before proceeding any further, he rolled up the sleeve of his snow-suit and checked his arm. Yep, he was still good to go. As an added precaution he had temporarily dyed his fur white before setting out on the score. The purpose here was twofold. Not only would it serve to camouflage his appearance, anyone getting a look at him would assume he was a resident of the district-his was a species that changed color in the winter, the perpetual season here; and as with everywhere else in the world, the residents of Tundratown were far less suspicious of locals than outsiders.

Moving along the fence-line, he scurried to the edge of the loading bay, skittered up the access ramp and onto the freight dock, keeping flat against the wall as he edged his way towards the employee entrance. Okay, now here came the tricky part. There was a security camera aimed directly at the door and no way to avoid it. He could unlock the entrance from outside of the camera's POV, but he couldn't pass through it without being seen; he'd be visible for only a hint of second, but he'd still be visible. The only good news was that if he was spotted, he'd know right away; the warehouse would instantly lock down, trapping him inside. (The thought made a brick rise into his throat.)

He swallowed it and got down in a runner's crouch.

"Okay, 4...3...2...1...Go! Get to the door, keep low, swipe the card, open the door. Urgh, this thing's too heavy for my species! C'mon, HEAVE. There, good. Now get yer tail inside that warehouse. Awrite there's the alarm control- panel; hit 'function', hit 'alarm', hit 'turn off', punch in the code , hit 'enter' anddd..."

He winced and looked away for a second trembling inside his snow-suit, his breath forming gray puffs in the frigid air of the warehouse. It was cold in here but not that much more than it was outside. (Not that it mattered, he would have been shivering right now if this was the middle of Sahara Square.) All right, $64 G question; had he made it through the door without being spotted? There was only one way to find out. He looked at the display panel again, 'Alarm Off'. Awrite that was good, but...

He pushed on the door-handle, felt it give way.

YES!

All right now where was the stuff he was looking for? He pulled out the map that Mason had drawn and looked it over quickly. Row C, third one from the left, spaces 19 through 48 levels one and two. It was only the ground-floor level that interested him, and the spots near the back of the warehouse.

First thing, however, was first.

On his left was the dispatchers office, and on the other side of that should be...yep, there they were, a long row of electric pallet jacks. Most of them were set up for larger mammals, but the two on the end were geared for smaller species, and just like Mason had said, the second one was just his size. Before doing anything else though, he opened the door to the dispatch office and left it that way. When the critical moment came, every second would count.

Sprinting back to the pallet jack, he unhooked the umbilicus from the charging station, climbed aboard, and set off.

He had to take it slow at first; he'd never driven one of these things before. It was galling, but better than flipping out, going around a corner.

Avoiding Row C for moment, he rode the pallet-jack down the first aisle-way, keeping close to the wall and out of sight of the security cams. Around the back of the enclosure at the far end of row C he found what he was looking for, a long line of sky-blue plastic bins, each of them four foot square by 40 inches high, with slots in the bottom for pallet-jack and forklift blades and lids held on by rubber bungee cords; they reminded him of giant Leggo pieces. He was tempted to snap the cords on the first one and check out the product, but knew he didn't have time.

He slid the pallet jack under the first one, raised it, and pulled out backwards, returning the way he'd come. It took him longer than he'd have liked, but his time improved considerably on the next two loads. He would have loved to grab more, but working alone, three bins were the most he could handle, (and the most the flat-bed truck could carry anyway.)

He parked them in front of a roll-up door, jumped off the pallet jack, and scurried inside the dispatch office, grabbing the keys to the cargo-doors off of a wall peg as he went.

Bellying up to the security console, he surveyed the images on the monitor screens. Nuh-uh, there was no way he could pull this off without showing up on at least two of them, UNLESS...

Like most businesses these days, Muktuk Cold Storage used a DVR-based security camera system. Much more efficient than the old VHS-tape model, they could store a week's worth of footage at a time.

There was one disadvantage to this system however, one tiny Achilles' heel, a power outage, even half a second's worth, would cause the system to reboot, a process taking anywhere from five to ten minutes. And during that time, the last image on the security cameras would freeze in place. It was a flaw that had been corrected in all of the newer models, but this one was anything but state of the art. (He had learned that by scoping out the model number on the gate-side camera through a pair of binoculars.)

Kneeling down under the security desk, he began looking for the proper plug...and was delighted to find something even better, a surge protector with a reset switch. Could this score possibly get any easier? Now when he cut the power, they'd never know it wasn't just a glitch...not until they noticed the trio of missing bins, and by the time that happened, he'd have unloaded them for a cool payoff.

"You coulda been IN on this with me Roscoe, but nooooooo...!"

He took a breath and pressed the reset button. The lights in the office went out for a second and then came back on again.

Getting up quickly, he fished a small rubber ball out of his pocket, and rolled it out the exit and across the concrete, all the while keeping his eyes on the monitor screens.

Nothing, no sign of the ball on any of them; all right, now was the time to move.

He dashed to the roll-up door, grabbing the ball on the way. Slipping the key into the lock he turned it to the right and then reached up and pressed the 'open' button. A hum and a clatter followed as the door began to rise. Before it was even halfway up, he was already back on the pallet jack and picking up the first of the plastic bins.

Ducking down as he went under the door, he swung right and backwards, rolling down the access ramp and towards the fence-line. At the correct spot, he toggled down on the raise/lower switch, dropping his load neatly beside the fence, and then swinging back around and up the ramp again.

The second and third bins took longer than the first; he couldn't drop them on the fly, but had to turn around and push them up against the other(s). Nonetheless, in short order, he had all three containers lined up next to the fence. Okay, then...up the ramp, back inside the warehouse, and close the door...

The door dropped only an inch and then it stopped.

And close the door...

He pushed the button a second time.

Once more the door fell only a short distance before quitting.

And close the door...

And so he pushed the button again.

Close! The! Door!

And again...

CLOSE THE DOOR!"

And again...

"Will you CLOSE awready, ya stupid, blankety-blank...? D'agghhh, RIGHT!"

He'd finally realized; he had to keep pushing the 'down' button to make door to close all the way. It made him want to throw something; these were precious seconds that he couldn't afford to lose.

Well, he could rant about it later; right now, he had to get moving again

Okay, door's closed; get the pallet jack back on the charger, door-keys back on the peg, close up the office, reset the alarm, and get back outside before it activates. Wait...the ball, had remembered the...? Yes, there it was in his pocket. Okay, back to the fence and through the drain-pipe again, be sure to put the 'bars' back and then into the construction yard.

On this side of the fence, about five yards away from the drain-pipe was the crane he'd gotten set up before going through into the warehouse. Normally it was used for lifting loads of masonry to the upper floors of the unfinished project, but here it would serve a different purpose.

He slipped inside the cab. It was built for larger species than him, but by setting a couple of books on the seat and strapping a pair of homemade stilts to his legs, he found he could manage the controls decently if not perfectly.

Cranking up the engine, he raised the boom and swung it out over the Muktuk yard. Letting it come to rest directly over the first bin, he lowered the cable until it just barely brushed against the lid. And then he killed the motor and scurried back through the culvert.

Very conveniently, the bins all had tie-down points at each corner....and the crane cable just happened to splay out into four smaller cables at its end, each one fitted with a small cargo hook; wasn't that conveeeeenient? He attached them quickly, checking to make certain each one was secure, and then hurried back through the drain pipe and into the cab of the crane again.

Here was where the process really became achingly slow. It was one thing to operate a crane carrying no cargo, but with a load attached to the cable, it was whole 'nother ball game-a game for sloths, not a fast-moving species like his.

Okay, haul back on the cable until the load is higher than the fence. Agghhh, he'd need to raise the boom up higher; okay, do it. Higher...higher than that; okay, good. Now swing it over the fence, take your time. Get it over the flat-bed truck. No...that's too far, go back a little. There, now wait'll the load stops swinging. Stop swinging, dangit! Awright, lower it down to the truck...little more...little morrrrrre...annnnd perfect!

As before, the second and third times went more easily. In short order, he had the flatbed stacked and ready to go...almost

Lowering the boom back into the position where he'd found it, he shut down the engine, and jumped out of the cab, dashing to the truck and quickly getting the load tied down. (NOW he was able to move at a speed more to his liking.)

He was just about to climb up into the truck, when he remembered something; the hot-wire...he needed to pull the hot wire. No sweat, that wouldn't take more than a few seconds.

Scurrying back in the crane cab, he reached under the steering wheel, and...

And at that moment a beam of light stabbed out of the darkness, pinning him like a butterfly in its harsh, ammonia glare.

Before he had time to react or even to think, a second beam hit him from the opposite direction, catching him in the crossfire.

No time to run, no place to go. He could only hope it would end here instead of in the ice-pit.

But then more lights came on, not white, but red, blue...and flashing. And then a siren whooped amplified voice called out from somewhere beyond the illumination.

"You...inside the crane! Stay where you are and get your paws up where we can see them, this is the ZPD!"

He relaxed slightly; cops...it was the only the cops.

He lifted his arms as instructed.

"Don't move; keep those paws up!" the voice commanded, and now he could see figures running towards him through the construction yard.

It was only the cops not the Big Shrew's enforcers. He might still get out of this.

But not until after they booked him; he couldn't play his ace until then.

He heard the thump of footfalls coming from all around him, and then the door was yanked open and four big paws hauled him roughly out of the cab and into the glare of the spotlights.

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The previous chapter's Easter Egg's were...

Conor asking Erin, "What are you a couple of March Hares?"

Bobby Catmull's reference to a 'Morty-Mouse' repair job. (Mortimer Mouse was Mickey's original name.)