Sunderance - Chapter 13.2: Glacial Surge (Patreon)

The sloth looked so incredibly amiable as he slowly stepped to the side, at a pace that made her want to tap her foot on the ground as they waited, that she almost wondered if they were talking to the right mammal for what she could only assume was black market information. But, by the time he extended his arm, the long claws of his paw outstretched to invite them in, she was already ready to climb back up the shaft and break her way out if need be. Nick, however, calmly guided her into the room. Or lair, as she quickly came to think of it as she looked around in awe.

It had her completely forgetting the sloth as he started the tedious process of closing the door and walking across the room. Monitors covered one wall entirely, though what was being broadcast on them was nothing more than local news stations and what she could have sword was a cooking show for sloths. On another wall was a series of devices that she couldn’t even begin to guess at. Dials and speakers; small screens with various readings that confounded her ability to describe; graphs, longer strings of numbers. Lists of names. The wall furthest from the door they had come through had another door flanked by two massive computers, which even she could tell likely ran all of the electronics to gather and hold all of the data an information broker would need to stay in business. It was all very surreal, very spy thriller or sci-fi movie, which made since when she put her mind to it. No better place to hide than right under a government building that most mammals avoided like the plague unless required to go there.

Her attention was drawn back to Flash as he sat in a chair within a circular desk in the center of the room. The desk itself was made of glass or something similar and her eyes widened in wonder when, as one long claw tapped the surface, the desk came alive with some sort of complex user interface. The rest might well have been for show, she realized. Out simply outdated when the glass top of the desk lit up much like the screen of her phone, only holding more transparency. Nick guided her forward as she took it all in, her gaze following the claw on the desktop as it dragged a box with various symbols she didn’t even recognize in front of the sloth. The claw tapped one such symbol.

“I’m glad to see that you’re impressed, Miss. Hopps,” came the modulated voice again, this time clearly recognizable as Flash’s computerized cadence. It still caused her to jump as the benignly smiling mammal’s eyes twinkled with amusement. “It is not every day that I am given a chance to show off my base of operations. Though if Nick trusts you, I am inclined to do the same.”

“How?” she asked as she stepped forward, not even sure where she was directing the question. From what she’d seen, he had only pushed a single symbol!

“A long and complex explanation,” the voice admitted, surprising her with the note of humor in the tone.

“Right,” she said, realizing that she was being incredibly rude by asking how anything in the room worked when she’d only just met the mammal. Her ears popped upright and her eyes followed in fascination as the claw moved to another symbol on the table top, a screen appearing with numerous files that were coded in the same symbols. She realized that it was either scrambled or he had invented his own language to make more difficult for hackers to decrypt. Though how someone could hack a system like this, she wasn’t sure. “We’re here about the Emmitt Otterton case, Flash. Nick said that you might be able to help?”

“There may be something to find that hasn’t been found,” he said, causing her heart to race just a bit as she stepped closer to the desk. “As long as you understand that my customers don’t always like what they find.”

“I understand,” she said quietly, glancing at Nick with an uneasy twitch of her nose. He gave her a small nod, which she returned before she looked at the sloth. “I am only interested in the truth. What do you need to get started?”

With a slow motion of the claw that seemed to constantly touch the screen, an icon popped to life on the edge of the table closest to her. It only took one glance to realize that it was a microphone icon, one which started to glow faintly to show that it was active. “Information,” he replied simply, one slow blink the only motion she could see aside from his claw’s faint tapping.

“Everything you have on the case. The date of the murder, times of ever relevant event, addresses, names, charges filed, murder weapon. We will start with that. Afterward, if it’s needed, the stories of those involved.”

Swallowing as she reached into the inner pocket of her jacket to extract her note pad, she considered how odd all of this was for a moment. Was it even legal? Maybe not, probably not, but there was a mammal’s freedom on the line and people wanted her dead. She had to know the truth. So, flipping to the first page, she started to feed information into the system one item at a time. When she realized that the box with the file system had started to move, she understood that everything she was saying was being filtered and sorted. It was a fascinating process. Unlike search engines she’d used in the past, there was no obvious search box. No system to show her what was being searched where. It simply happened and happened very quickly from the looks of the coded files filling and vanishing from the screen with everything she added to the filter.

“It will take a few minutes for the system to finish sorting the information,” he said, and though his eyes were on the screen now. “The mammals involved in this case concern me and that forces me to ask, before I give over this amount of information, if you really want to risk your life further?”

“Did Nick tell you to ask me that?” she groused, the frown that formed on her muzzle directed at the fox who gave her a perfectly innocent shake of his head.

“Ah, I see that subject has already been settled,” he stated, his gaze moving between the two of them slowly before he directed his eyes onto Judy. “Then I hope the information I have can help, at least.”

“Hey, Flash?” Nick said suddenly, cutting through the few seconds of uncomfortable silence that followed and drawing her gaze to his smirking muzzle. “Wanna hear a joke?”

When the sloth removed his claw from the screen and turned his eyes to the fox, she was further surprised when he spoke with his real voice rather than the modulated tone of the room.

“Sure.”

“What does a buffalo tell his son when he leaves for a long trip?” the fox quipped, the jovial, clearly playful tone in his voice and animated hand motion causing her to forget what they were there for momentarily.

“I don’t… know,” came the slow reply, the snail’s, or sloth’s, pace of his words making Judy’s eye twitch slightly when he continued. “What does… A buffalo say… To his… Son when… He leaves… For a long… Trip?”

“Bison!” Nick finished, obviously pleased with the horrible joke when he released a short laugh and nudged her. She raised her paw to her forehead, suppressing a little groan and releasing a sigh as she turned her eyes back to the sloth. She watched, dumbstruck, as the placidly amiable face slowly, very slowly, spread into a wide smile. The laugh that followed, like everything else about the sloth, came slowly and lazily and she found it oddly endearing to hear it.