When Fear Changes the World At that moment, the entire square was shrouded in acrid smoke, and a light breeze carried it toward the onlookers, who scattered in all directions.
A full-blown panic began, fueled by the acrid smoke and the complete inability to see anything.
Even the giraffe, despite his height, had to hastily run away from the smoke.
The smaller animals, losing their bearings in the acrid smoke, instead rushed at the barriers, knocking the police off their feet.
In their panic, they didn’t even know where to run.
Even the poor hamster got it, his curiosity having led him almost to the very epicenter of the crowd of onlookers.
Risking being crushed, he dove under the nearest police car.
In the general panic, the animals pushed and shoved, knocking each other off their paws and hooves.
Stumbling over those who had fallen, they fell themselves, coughing and choking on the acrid smoke.
Of course, it wasn’t lethal and couldn’t kill anyone, but it fulfilled its main purpose one hundred percent.
Complete incapacitation.
But while the whole crowd could run to the side, albeit in chaos, trampling each other’s tails, Bogo couldn’t retreat.
Overcoming himself, he acted clearly and decisively.
“Blow it!” he rasped into the microphone to the special forces team.
“Blow it faster.” Bogo couldn’t take it anymore and fell to his knees, knocking over the table and everything on it, which scattered in all directions.
Coughing constantly, he breathed heavily.
And the more he tried to fill his lungs with air, the more smoke he swallowed.
Nick was also completely lost.
He rushed away from the rapidly spreading smoke, clutching his phone in his paws, and completely failed to notice a police car parked nearby.
Running, he slammed his nose into it with all his might.
His vision went blurry, and Nick fell onto the asphalt.
Choking like everyone around him, he felt something warm dripping from his nose.
He pushed himself up to keep going, but was immediately knocked down by a huge rhinoceros, and Nick flew to the side, landing next to another police car.
Completely disoriented and unable to see in front of him, he instinctively began feeling the car next to him.
Glass, glass, rubber, metal — Nick felt it all with his paws.
Aha, there’s the door handle.
Nick strained, opened the car door, and instantly jumped into the cabin.
Inside the car, it was relatively safe.
Coughing, he began to come to his senses.
His vision was slowly returning.
He understood that the assault had failed, and now, with every heartbeat, through his tears, he waited for a huge, devastating explosion.
Chief of Police Bogo was waiting for that explosion too… Inside the Lemur Bank, right by the door where Harry was, at the start of the assault, a loud hissing sound came from the chemical reaction as the door was being burned through.
This alarmed and even slightly frightened the crocodile, making him set the explosives even faster, retreating further from the door into the depths of the lobby.
He understood he had been tricked and that there was no point in collecting the dynamite again.
He was just waiting for the steel door to open in a second, leaving him face to face with a whole army of police.
Harry had accepted his fate.
He was ready to die.
And although only the munitions he had set would explode, he smiled, sincerely hoping that the remaining bundles of dynamite on him would also detonate, causing even more damage to the whole building and to everyone who burst in trying to foil his plans.
And he couldn’t have cared less about anyone who might die by accident.
“It’s not my fault!” he shouted, addressing both the hostages and his own conscience.
“It’s all them!
It’s all the Lemur Bank’s fault!
They are the only evil here!” At that moment, a bright light appeared behind the metal door, which quickly went out, and then the smell of burning from molten metal poured through the small slits in the second wall.
Then came the crash of the first protective door falling.
Judy, holding her breath, watched what was happening from the ventilation shaft through the grate.
From the very start of the assault, she had believed and known that everything should happen swiftly.
In her head, like a pendulum, an internal chronometer ticked off the seconds.
“Oh, no!” she whispered, having counted to ten in her mind.
And by then, Harry himself already knew the assault had begun — and had immediately failed because of the second protective door.
And now the huge crocodile was grinning evilly, looking at the complete fiasco of the local police.
Despite all their preparation, lies, and deceit, luck and truth were on his side.
That’s what Harry thought, and completely devoted to this idea, the idea of the total superiority of his position, he laughed loudly and shouted through his laughter: “See — fate itself is on my side!” All the hostages, seeing the crazed crocodile ready to send everyone to the next world, who stood pompously puffing out his chest in the middle of the huge lobby with impunity, huddled together, embracing, and trembled, expecting death at any moment.
Obeying herd instinct and mad with fear, a zebra and a pair of gazelles broke from their spot in panic and rushed to the side, hoping that by running away from the crocodile they could avoid the deadly explosion.
But as soon as they started, despite all their speed, their plan failed — they didn’t manage to get far.
Harry immediately turned his back to them and sent them all flying back into the crowd of hostages with one powerful swipe of his tail.
Having delivered his blow, he turned his snout back to his victims.
The powerful blow sent the zebra crashing into a couple of pigs frozen in horror.
As a result, all the hostages were mixed up together.
Taking a step toward them, Harry let out a loud roar.
After that, no one would even think of moving.
“Unbelievable, how fast he is!” Gren marveled, watching the whole situation.
“Can the special forces really handle him?” Gren still hadn’t realized there would be no special forces.
Judy watched everything through the ventilation grate.
A grimace of pain and hatred appeared on her face.
She clenched her teeth with all her might.
Seeing this whole nightmare and having the ability to help, deep down she understood she was completely powerless to do anything.
If she lunged at the crocodile now, he would see the police uniform, blow everyone up, or crush Judy.
She also couldn’t lead the hostages away, even by showing them the exit through the ventilation.
She had absolutely no time.
Gren lowered his head, trying not to watch as the crowd of morally broken animals sobbed, awaiting their end.
A droplet of liquid flew past him.
He involuntarily looked up, thinking it was another drop of sweat from Judy’s head.
But as soon as he saw the rabbit’s face, he was horrified.
Clutching the grate with her paw until the bones ached, Judy was crying.
Moreover, there was no sadness or regret on her face; she was crying while glaring angrily at the crocodile.
Deep inside, she hated him just a little less than she hated herself.
For all her helplessness.
For the first time, she felt like what she had been running from her whole life, trying to prove to everyone that she wasn’t a small, defenseless rabbit.
And only now, being here, did she understand her own weakness.
And this hateful thought kindled a fire of hatred within her, awakening the wild beast, causing common sense to begin leaving her under the onslaught of feelings of anger and her own helplessness.
“It’s better to die saving them!” she whispered barely audibly, as if setting herself up for a future action.
“Better than sitting in a hole like a cowardly rabbit.” Gren, standing on her paw, felt her fingers begin to slowly rise and clench into a fist.
Gren suddenly realized the rabbit had completely forgotten about him and was about to crush him.
Her body moved forward.
One more second and Gren believed she would break and rush at the enemy.
And that had to be prevented.
He instantly, choking from the incredible heat, jumped onto a small ledge in the ventilation — the spot where the ventilation grate was, ending up between it and the tear-streaked face of the rabbit.
But she seemed not to notice him, slowly approaching the grate like a predator preparing to pounce.
“You’re not a wild beast, Judy,” said a familiar, hoarse, barely distinguishable voice.
These words stopped her; Judy froze as if at a command.
Her face stopped right next to Gren.
Through eyes full of tears, she could barely make out a reddish blur.
“Nick,” she whispered, wiping the tears from her eyes.
But after wiping her eyes, instead of Nick, she saw Gren.
“If you attack him now,” Gren spoke quickly and quietly, not even hearing her words, “he’ll tear you apart.
We need to think, we need to outsmart him.
It’s so hot in here that he’s even faster than rabbits, he’ll…” Judy looked at Gren, listening to him attentively.
Her fears were receding, and her mind was becoming clearer and cooler.
And only now did a plan form in her mind.
Sniffling, she instantly lifted the mouse off the ledge and set him down on the floor of the ventilation shaft.
Gren fell silent for a moment, not knowing what to expect from Judy.
“The ventilation control room you showed me when we were sneaking in here,” Hopps said quickly and clearly, “does it have an air conditioning system?” Gren nodded in agreement.
“And you have access to it?” “Yes.” “And what’s used as a coolant?” “As far as I remember, the technician told me, it’s a kind of light liquid nitrogen mixture.” “How dangerous is it?” “Not lethal,” Gren recalled, “but if it gets on you, it can severely freeze the skin, you could get frostbite, and prolonged exposure would lead to severe freezing.” “Just what I need,” Judy took a risk, but she had no choice.
Judy smiled happily, baring her teeth a little, like a hunter driving its prey into a trap.
Gren even felt a bit scared.
“Freeze everything in here,” she said confidently.
“Run it through the ventilation cooling pipes and radiators.” “Then it’ll get cold, the crocodile will be very sluggish and slow,” Gren guessed.
And smiling, he added: “Now that’s the ticket, Miss Hopps.
But it’ll take time.” “Do everything you can to turn this place into Tundratown,” Judy replied.
“I’ll buy us the time.” Gren, not wasting a second, quickly rushed back through the ventilation.
He even switched to running on all fours.
He scraped his little claws against the metal casing as he turned, skidding around the corner like a race car.
“1756789 GRN5,” he recited the access code to himself.
Reaching the well-lit door, Gren, without even realizing it, instantly entered the code and, inserting the access card, turned a small lever to the right.
His biggest fear was panicking and taking too long with the door.
He even remembered a time when he was checking the ventilation system after its modernization, along with the commission and his boss, a mouse named Sam.
He got so nervous that first he couldn’t enter the code correctly, then, after getting a reprimand from his boss, he dropped the card.
And all of this under the disapproving clicking of the commission.
And the icing on the cake of his shame was when his boss Sam pushed him away from the access panel with the words: “Neudachnik, give me that.” Sam took the card from him, performed all the actions to open the door, while Gren sat on the floor with his head down.
But now he was so confident that he unlocked the door on autopilot and flew into the room.
He didn’t even have time to wonder what had given him that confidence.
Maybe it was the responsibility for all the animals trapped in the bank lobby.
Or maybe that confidence was given to him by the little police rabbit who was now staying face to face with the terrifying beast, and her only trump card was a weak little mouse named Gren.
The room was small; on the far wall was a sizeable computer that automated the work of all the ventilation systems.
Along the side walls ran numerous pipes with round valves of various sizes attached to them.
“Let’s see…” Gren said, running up to the main computer, or rather, a special control panel designed specifically for mice, which duplicated everything happening on the main computer.
Gren quickly entered the access command and set the system to maximum cooling.
Commands appeared on the screen as the system loaded.
Gren breathed a sigh of relief.
But it was too early to relax.
The fact was that the minimum temperature in the cooling system could not drop below plus fifteen degrees.
The computer made this perfectly clear to Gren by displaying a table with the corresponding entry on the large screen.
“Too little and too slow!” he said in horror.
“I need… I need… what do I need?” Gren thought feverishly, staring at the monitor.
“Then we’ll break the whole system and cool it down by force!” he figured out, looking at the valve located on an iced-over pipe.
If he opened it, the cold mixture would instantly spread through the cooling system and freeze it much faster and more intensely.
True, many communication lines would be destroyed in the process, but that was the least of his worries.
Gren rushed to the valve with the firm intention of opening it… But it was already too late.
The animals had already accepted their fate and were peacefully awaiting the inevitable.
The crocodile’s paw firmly gripped the metal detonator.
Rhino, who was in his tight grip and closest to him, had long since lost consciousness.
An expression of boundless happiness was frozen on the crocodile’s face.
He had fully carried out his vengeance.
Outside, the special forces were unsuccessfully trying to blow up the doors, causing plaster to fall from the ceiling inside the bank.
And the remaining police officers without gas masks were scattering along with the civilians, getting as far away from the bank as possible.
The gas, though not poisonous, suffocated all its “victims” with prolonged exposure, after which they lost consciousness and died from asphyxiation while already unconscious.
Somewhere deep in the acrid smoke, choking, the fearless Captain Bogo was slowly crawling toward a huge armored truck, coughing up something red.
Along the way, he saw an unfortunate sniper squirrel who was trying to stay in position in a tree, thinking the smoke wouldn’t reach her.
But apparently, she was wrong.
Bogo lifted her and threw her further out of the smoke.
And half a meter away from him, in a wrecked car, battered by constant impacts from large animals, covered in blood, Nick lay on the seat.
The car was no longer so airtight, and the cabin had long since filled with smoke.
The blood from his nose wouldn’t stop; Nick coughed constantly, barely able to make out anything around him.
He cringed in fear, waiting for the strongest pain in the world — not the pain that appeared with every breath, weakening him more each time, but the pain of loss.
He waited for the explosion, watching the screen of his phone out of the corner of his eye, as much as he could still see.
On it was an image of a ventilation pipe and a removed grate leading into the bank lobby.
In the bank, on the floor of the ventilation shaft that had served as Judy and Gren’s refuge, lay Judy’s phone with a headset connected to it, and her belt.
She hadn’t been here for a long time.
Nick only saw the open ventilation.
He slowly and hoarsely spoke the same words one more time before finally losing consciousness: “You’re not a wild beast, Judy…” The crocodile’s powerful, clawed finger pressed the red button on the detonator.
A barely audible click sounded.