Zootopia: Worlds Apart

2. Late

Zack's POV

I quickly got myself together; I grabbed my uniform, keys, phone, watch, and a slice of toast that Luke made whilst I was frantically running around the apartment getting myself ready. It reminded me of a theme park attraction I saw when I was a kid where there was a guy that was late for school and had to get ready extremely quickly. I can't remember the name of said attraction, but I remember it being a good one.

I stopped dawdling away from reality when I saw Luke waiting for me by the door, slinging his keys around on one of his fingers. When he saw me advancing on the door, he started walking out of the apartment.

I went out the door and locked it, then began to follow him down the hall and towards the elevator. When we got there, we were surprised to see that it was out of order.

"How long's it been like that?" I asked.

"Don't ask me." He replied, making his way towards the stairwell. I looked at my watch. 9:17AM it read. We were now nearly 20 minutes late.

Bogo's gonna kill me I thought, making my way down the stairs.

When we got to the bottom, Luke dashed far ahead of me and out the door to the building. I saw him turn the corner and rush out of view. I knew what he was doing, so I waited. I looked around at the vast and empty lobby of our apartment building, glancing at the intricate details of the very 80s style artwork and wallpaper. I strolled around the lobby, still waiting for Luke to return. If he was getting his car, he'd be back by now. Luke usually likes to do things quickly, so this was quite out of the ordinary for him. Then, I heard a loud honk from outside the building. I looked over to see that Luke was there in his old Ford, looking at me with a mixture of worry and raw anger. I quickly made my way out of the building and got in the car.

"You took longer than usual." I commented, slipping my seatbelt on.

"I thought you were right behind me." He replied, speeding off towards 13th street.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Eventually, we got to the ZPD. It was extremely crowded that day, most likely because we'd recently put quite a big criminal in prison. Her name was Dr. Pamela Black. She was an associate of the late Dr. Lambert and the late Simon Vox, the two evil masterminds that were killed after almost bridging the gap between Zootopia and our old world. After the two of them died, pretty much the entirety of the ZIA was arrested for being involved in Operation Whitehouse, where Luke was drugged, and Operation Phantom Bridge, where they attempted to bridge our worlds. Luckily, we managed to get Madge out of the purge of arrests, but unluckily she had her medical license revoked and all of her equipment seized. I remember the day when the arrests happened, they were all sent to prison for life; I remember when the prison vans came to take them to the County Detention Centre; I remember being so happy that they were all finally getting their just desserts. Me and Luke both called that moment 'The Hour of Joy'. We don't know why, it just sounded fitting.

Me and Luke got out of the car and made our ways towards the front entrance of the ZPD. We barged past multiple mammals in the process, eventually getting some room at the front of the station where there was a hoard of officers holding the flood of people back. Me and Luke decided that we were late enough as is, so we headed inside to clock in. 

"Why hello, if it isn't my two favourite human-wolf guys!" Clawhauser rejoiced from the front desk. "You made it in before Nick this time!"

"We're always in before Nick." Luke said, taking out his ID card and handing it to Ben. I did the same.

"Is Judy in today?" I asked. I remember a few weeks ago, Judy was late for the first time ever, so I was just checking if she was on time today.

"Yep, she's in a meeting right now." Ben replied, swiping our cards across a reader and typing on his keyboard.

"What meeting?" Luke asked.

"One that you're supposed to be in according to this." Ben replied.

"Uh oh." I gulped. We quickly took our cards back and made our way to the briefing room.

I got to the door and looked through the window to see Bogo doing some kind of speech. I stood there, unsure whether to open the door or not. Then, I saw Bogo looking right ant me. His expression was quite stern, not like it ever changed of course. He pointed to me, then gestured for me to come in and sit down. I opened the door with my head low. Luke did the same.

"Hartdegen, Dawson, how wonderful of you to join us half an hour late." Bogo barked sarcastically. 

"Sorry sir, I didn't-" I began.

"Siddown and shut up, I'll see you in my office after this." Bogo interrupted.

Me and Luke both did what we were told, sitting down at the back of the room. If Nick decided to turn up within the next 10 minutes, he would surely get an equally harsh telling off.

"Now then, before we were rudely interrupted, let's get back to Section 14, Subsection D. Health and Safety." Bogo announced after a momentary silence. We heard an audible groan from the rest of the officers as he said this. This was going to be one hell of a long day.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

After the meeting finished, we watched as the rest of the Officers slowly filtered out of the room. As soon as we were the last ones in there, Bogo marched towards us and sat right opposite us.

"Let's go and have a chat, eh?" He said, pointing to a door on the other side of the room that lead to his office. We nodded as we got up and started following him out of the room. Just as we were about to leave however, we heard the door behind us swing open.

"Sorry I'm late sir.. heh, heh.... my car.. it wouldn't start... heh...." A voice panted from behind us. We turned to see Nick stood there, shaking. "Luke, Zack..! Hey!" He waved at us, before taking a seat near the door.

"Wilde, you've used that excuse far too many times now," Bogo grunted. "Now, come to my office and we'll all have a chat about this."

"I didn't know I was that popular." Nick sneered as we made our way through the door and into Bogo's office.