Clawhauser was standing in a large room of one of the ZPD’s departments.
He was covering Nick’s eyes with one paw.
With the other paw, he carefully moved him closer to the place he was leading him.
In this decently sized room were the personal workstations of every employee associated with this department.
Of course, not everyone worked here; bomb squad or special forces, or other units, had nothing to do here.
They had their own departments in another part of the police station.
But the rest of the patrol officers and police officers were entitled to their own personal workstation, which, by the way, was arranged quite distinctively, matching the one who worked at it.
The workstation was issued with a standard, identical set.
The size of the workspace matched the size of the employee.
The basic work items were placed there.
In general, nothing superfluous.
The desk and chair also matched the employee’s size.
Almost.
Of course, no one intended to customize it personally for each type of animal; that would be too costly, so there was a standard: large, medium, small, and very small.
And here, Zootopia’s engineers had to deal with many variables due to the colossal differences between species.
And they handled it quite professionally.
A clever trick was built into the design.
The chair, like the desk, could be lowered and raised in height thanks to special screws inside the legs.
So each animal could also adjust it to their own height.
Because besides the fact that animals differed in size by species, even within their own species, they were also distinguishable in size, though not as critically.
Shelves or drawers could be built into the desk, either on the left side or the right, for lefties and righties.
They could also come in different configurations.
For example, large drawers, but few of them, or conversely, small ones, but many.
It all depended on who would be using the desk.
Below, near the legs, ran panels that covered the lower part of the desk, giving it additional strength.
On one of these panels, on the side, there was a pair of power outlets for electricity and cables.
And finally, on the desk sat a monitor with input devices.
The monitor was also adjustable in its planes for convenience.
The input devices were usually a standard keyboard and mouse, as expected, in different sizes.
There was no system unit itself, only a monitor.
The thing was that the entire police station had one server, to which all other users were connected.
Therefore, there was no need to have a system unit under every desk.
Everyone was given their own password and login, and everyone connected to the server from their workstation.
And believe me, many from the criminal underworld had tried to get into the police server room.
And no one had succeeded yet.
The thugs of Zootopia had tried every possible method: hacking, password theft, identity substitution, and much more — nothing worked for them.
The only thing they hadn’t tried was a direct attack on the station.
And finally, as a bonus, the workstation came with a load of small items: stationery and the like.
And in general, swap the police uniform for the clothes of an ordinary employee, and this office would be no different from hundreds of others scattered throughout the metropolis.
Over time, the assigned spot, once ordinary and standard, acquired its own uniqueness.
For instance, walking past one police officer’s desk, you could notice a globe-shaped stand, but instead of Earth, it had the moon on it.
Could you guess who worked at that desk?
I think so.
And here’s another.
A ball of yarn peeked out from the edge of a drawer.
It had been hastily hidden.
And over to another desk.
There sat a New Year’s ornament — a round glass ball filled with water, and inside, a huge, frozen iceberg.
And many, many other things Nick would have noticed, if his eyes hadn’t been closed.
Clawhauser led him past the entire room and, removing his paw from Nick’s eyes, exclaimed with delight: “Ta-da!” Nick finally saw everything before his eyes.
He was holding a cup of hot drink in his paws, and he nearly dropped it when he saw his very first workspace as an intern.
Clawhauser, like a seasoned magician, stood next to him, smiling happily, as did many of the officers from his department behind Nick.
They had gotten up from their seats, watching the fox’s reaction, and were quietly chuckling together.
“The old intern spot,” Clawhauser said cheerfully, but with a hint of sadness.
His workspace was in the farthest corner of the room.
It was far from the windows, making the whole area poorly lit.
An old lamp hanging on the wall for extra light had burned out long ago.
Nick’s gaze fell on the desk.
It was enormous, probably meant for an elephant.
It was an old model of desk, made of the sturdiest wood and left here because of its weight, Nick thought.
Everything else in this department, in terms of style and design, was done in a modern minimalist, art nouveau, and — just a tiny bit — techno-art style.
And only this desk, as if from ancient centuries, stood proudly in the shadows, in a classical style, ruining the room’s composition with its very appearance.
There was no nameplate with a name and rank on the desk, which everyone else here had, displayed in a triangular stand.
Instead, someone had carved the word “Intern” in huge, crooked letters across the entire front panel of the desk with their claws.
The desk was completely cracked with age.
In places, people had tried to repair it, even glue it.
Pieces of tape mixed with wood glue were visible on different sides.
Someone had tried to fix a large crack on the right side.
But they hadn’t done a very good job, leaving pieces of tape and frozen drops of glue spread across the whole side.
Here and there, nails that hadn’t been hammered in all the way stuck out, bent, protruding from the desk’s legs.
From constant contact with water from a dripping pipe, the left side of the desk had swollen.
The plumbing lines ran directly above the desk.
The desk was littered with a lot of old, useless junk.
There were various scraps of paper with incomprehensible numbers, symbols, and other illegible nonsense: a broken pencil, pens, rulers, and the like.
“What’s that?” Nick said, interrupting his observations and staring at a donut lying on the very edge, under a pile of papers.
He pointed a paw at the dried-out donut under the stack of paper.
Clawhauser, pushing aside some of the papers, perked up at the sight of the find.
He spoke, clarifying the situation: “So that’s where I left it!” He picked it up in his paw.
Delighted with his find, Clawhauser tapped the desk with the hardened donut, causing a little cloud of dust to rise from the surface.
“It’s been lying here for a very long time,” he said, putting the petrified donut back on the desk.
“Welcome to the interns, red tail!” came a voice from the crowd of onlookers, followed by a chorus of laughter.
“Are you serious?” the red tail in question asked, not believing those around him.
“Oh, stop your grumbling,” snorted Lars the rhino, walking past Nick.
“We all went through it.” “Yeah, right?” Nick was surprised.
“Yes!
Look here,” Lars confirmed, leading Nick closer to the desk.
“Look underneath.” Since the desk was for an elephant, Nick could only see what was on the sides and below.
Nick looked under the desk and saw a huge hole in it, the size of his paw.
A beam of light fell from the hole down under the desk.
“I made that my first day as an intern when I got upset,” Lars continued.
“So I just lifted the poor thing up on my horn.” Laughing merrily, the rhino went on his way.
Nick watched him go and resigned himself to his fate.
“There’s a chair here too,” Clawhauser said, happy about something Nick couldn’t understand.
Next to Clawhauser stood a miniature chair.
It was smaller than Nick.
Noticing this, he said: “I can’t even fit in that.
Is it for a rabbit?” “Right, we forgot to take it away!” Clawhauser remembered.
“Don’t worry, we’ll issue one your size from the supply room.
Probably tomorrow or the day after.
I need to talk to the quartermasters…” Clawhauser’s voice grew sad, and Nick understood that the conversation with the quartermasters wouldn’t be the easiest.
The cheetah soon fell completely silent, and, eyes lowered to the floor, scratched the back of his head and continued mumbling something.
“Alright,” Nick said, looking at Clawhauser with a smile, “I’ve seen worse times.
Besides, this won’t be for long.” “That’s the spirit!” Clawhauser encouraged him.
Nick tried not to lose heart.
And what could be the best cure for that ailment?
Right, a cheerful conversation with a partner.
Nick took a sip of the hot drink from his cup.
He thought that a whole cup of coffee this size was too much for him alone, but if he shared it with Judy, he was sure she’d be happy about it.
And most importantly, it would give him something to start a conversation with, and then, who knows, maybe everything would work out.
Thinking this way, he headed towards Judy’s workspace.
“Alright,” he waved goodbye to the plump leopard and, smiling, continued, “You’ve already cheered me up, now I’m going to go cheer up Judy.” Nick took another small sip and, as if strolling on a beach, walked on relaxed, until Clawhauser called out to him: “She’s not here.” “What do you mean, not here?” Nick asked, turning around, and then added another question: “Where is she?” Clawhauser made a face.
If he wanted to tell Nick, it certainly wasn’t in front of everyone.
Seeing him hesitate, Nick quickly came back.
“So, what happened?” he asked the cheetah in a whisper.
“Well, actually,” Clawhauser began cautiously, “I’m not supposed to talk about it.
But I know you’re Hopps’s partner and intern, so I’ll tell you in secret.
Bogo sent her to the prisoner’s room.” “To Harry!” Nick almost shouted.
“Shh!” Clawhauser hissed, bringing a finger to his lips.
“What?
Why?” “Well, it seems like…” the leopard continued to mumble, “he wants to see her, wants to talk to her.” “What if he grabs her!” the red fox began to worry.
“Who?
Hopps?” Clawhauser looked at him skeptically, then continued in a confident tone: “I was there when I escorted her.
That crocodile has more chains on him than we have in the supply room.
Plus, Keks and Zerni are there, and you don’t want to mess with those wolves.
Not to mention Paddy.” Nick remembered the huge lion.
Clawhauser’s confident words calmed him down a bit.
“Can I get in there?” Nick insisted.
Clawhauser shook his head negatively in response.
“But if…” Nick began slyly, but was rudely interrupted by the heavy, bassy voice of Jonsi the hippo.
He appeared behind them so suddenly that they both got scared and spun around sharply to look at him.
“Well, what’s this,” Jonsi began, “how much longer are you two going to coo?
While Bogo’s busy, I’m in charge here!” Nick and Clawhauser involuntarily snapped to attention.
“Clawhauser,” Jonsi continued, imitating Bogo, “did you show the intern his workspace?” “Yes,” the cheetah answered quickly.
“Then get to your station, you’ve got a line waiting!” Clawhauser quickly ran off.
“So, settled in, intern?” Jonsi turned his gaze to Nick.
“Now give me a report on what you did during the operation.
Just like Bogo said.” The hippo extended a hoof, demanding the report.
“I can’t, sir,” Nick answered quickly, as he’d been taught at the academy.
“What?
Why?” Jonsi was surprised.
“Not enough time?
You watch yourself!
I’m stricter than Bogo.” Nick would have been happy to believe that, if not for one thing.
Behind him, the huge rhino Lars was mimicking Jonsi, caricaturing a fat hippo trying to be a tough boss.
Everyone else was quietly laughing at the scene.
Nick couldn’t help but stare at them while Jonsi was talking to him.
Finally, when the hippo finished speaking, Nick only caught his last word: “…understand?” Nick snapped back to reality and quickly nodded, but just as Jonsi was about to leave, he added slyly: “Sir, I have a problem.” “What is it?” “I can’t write a report about the ambush the four of us were in.” “Why?” the hippo asked, confused.
The sly fox continued: “Because Keks, Zerni, and Judy aren’t here with me.” “And?” Nick was getting a little tired, but continued in a clear tone: “Our statements have to be the same, right?” “Naturally.” “So how are we supposed to write the same statements?” Nick quickly laid out his thoughts, stepping back.
“We were actually in different places, and we’re not together now.” Jonsi was silent, trying to understand what the red fox was talking about.
Nick looked at Jonsi and, after a moment, continued: “To know what to write, we all need to discuss it together, in one room.
Otherwise, inconsistencies will show up in the small details.” “Well, yeah,” Jonsi agreed.
“Look, you really are clever.” He smiled a little, showing the true character of a kind and gentle animal.
“Alright, stay here, I’ll think of a task for you!” Jonsi said, but that wasn’t what Nick wanted to hear.
The sly fox kept steering him toward his goal.
“But the reports are needed urgently.” Nick grabbed the edge of the desk, then, diligently helping with his hind legs, pulled himself up as best he could and quickly climbed onto the desk.
He stood level with the hippo to give his words more weight.
The desk wobbled a bit because not all its legs were the same length.
Nick kept his balance.
“And what do you suggest?” Jonsi asked him distrustfully.
“Well, maybe you could take me to them, in the basement, so we could all…” Nick was interrupted again.
“That’s classified!” Jonsi rattled off.
“I won’t tell anyone!” Nick answered, raising a red paw.
“Fox’s honor.” The desk wobbled again, and Nick with it.
“Then keep quiet,” Jonsi said more sternly, “stay here, we’ll get to the reports in time.
I’ll find you some work.” Nick’s ears drooped, and with an expression of sadness and utter defeat on his face, he watched the departing hippo.
Sighing in despair, he sat down right on the edge of the desk and lowered his eyes again, resting his chin on his paws.
He looked down and swung his paws in frustration and sadness, partly also because he was bored.
His right red paw flickered before his eyes, then his left, then his right again…
Then it started to hurt a little.
He accidentally hit his side with his elbow.
Nick winced slightly.
He pressed on the bruise, and a dull pain shot through him from his very recent injuries.
But there was good news too — thanks to the coffee, the scratchiness in his throat and the pepper-like sensation had finally gone away.
And then he suddenly jumped up a little and fell back onto the same spot he was sitting on.
A huge, tall stack of reports landed on the desk next to him.
Nick shifted his gaze from it to the enormous Lars.
“These reports need to be converted into electronic format,” he explained.
Nick stood up, rubbing the sore spot, and picked up the first paper from the stack.
He even had to stand on his tiptoes to do it.
“‘Form 18′,” he read, remembering what he’d been taught at the academy.
“What year is this from?” “I don’t remember,” Lars replied and headed to his own desk.
Nick looked at himself first, then at Lars the rhino, cast a glance at the pile of paper in front of him, and finally at the desk.
“I don’t even have a monitor!” he cried out in despair after him.
“I feel for you,” someone in the room tossed out ironically.
Nick couldn’t see who had shouted.
A large crowd of animals, his future colleagues, was constantly moving around.
They were all busy with their own tasks, occasionally glancing his way.
The huge stack of paper wobbled dangerously on the desk, looking down at Nick.
It was disgustingly poorly stacked.
And it kept threatening to fall.
“Well, alright, you don’t know who Nick Wilde is yet!
I’ve handled tougher jobs than this, and been in trickier situations!” Nick thought proudly, cheering himself up.
Nick held the stack of paper with his paws, trying not to disturb its precarious balance.
“Hey, intern!” came a voice from somewhere to the side.
Nick instantly turned at the words.
And at that very moment, another identical stack of dusty paper crashed down next to him from that side.
He didn’t even see who brought it.
It was as if it had fallen on him from the sky.
Whether from the shockwave of the second stack falling, or because all the desk legs were crooked, at that same moment the second stack tilted heavily, right towards the first.
Nick rushed to hold it, accidentally hitting the first stack with his tail, which then tilted into the second.
Trying to hold both stacks, Nick desperately tried to keep his balance on the desk.
The first one tilted right.
Nick straightened it.
The second one — left and forward.
Nick frantically grabbed it and saved it from falling.
Wobbling in all directions, the stacks of paper stood on the desk, barely swaying, along with the red fox.
Nick exhaled quietly, so as not to create a breeze and thus destroy the precarious “idyll” he had established on the desk.
He quickly thought about how to carefully take it all down without destroying it.
“Maybe I could ask someone for a chair and take the tops off the stacks, and then…” and again his thoughts were interrupted, for the umpteenth time.
“Last one,” Jonsi said cheerfully.
He tossed it onto the desk with the same flair.
A huge pile of paper fell next to Nick.
That was it!
The balance was broken.
And all the paper, flying in all directions, buried Nick up to his neck.
His disgruntled face poked out of the pile of scattered paper like from a snowdrift.
He blew slightly to the side, trying to dislodge a sheet stuck to the right side of his face.
Everyone around was laughing, looking at him.
For some reason, this made him sad, and he lowered his eyes.
Lars, wiping away tears, came up to him and said: “Look at his face!” He was laughing so hard that he even banged his fist on the desk, sending some of the sheets flying again.
Lars just had to point a finger at Nick.
Oh no, Nick couldn’t allow that.
He’d had enough humiliation.
He had tried to be friendly and was ready to work hard to earn his colleagues’ respect.
But seeing how they treated him, Nick started to get angry.
He’d been pushed around enough at the academy, and now here too.
He wasn’t some little fox kit!
He could stand up for himself, and he’d show them right now.
But before Nick could do anything, he suddenly heard: “It’s just like yours on your first day,” Nick heard from Jonsi.
He was standing nearby, chuckling, talking about Lars the rhino.
“No, it’s not the same,” Lars laughed in response, hugging Jonsi.
“Trust me, an exact copy!” Jonsi replied, laughing until he cried.
“Only your face also had a desk on it!” Then, more seriously, he added: “Alright, guys, we’ve had our fun, that’s enough.” Nick watched it all and didn’t understand anything.
“Hey,” Nick couldn’t help saying, climbing out of the pile of waste paper, “I see you like jokes, but every joke has its limits.
How am I supposed to sort all this by date?
Are you out of your minds?” “Alright, that’s enough!” Lars said more friendly.
“Don’t take offense too soon and don’t worry, red.
This is Form ’18’.
It doesn’t need a date.” Nick picked up one of the papers and looked at the form.
He squinted one eye and remembered everything he’d been told about it at the academy.
“Well, that changes the joke a bit,” Nick thought and started to get a little less angry.
But a hidden resentment still remained in his soul.
For now.
“And also,” someone in the room added.
Nick still couldn’t make him out among the rest of the crowd of onlookers, “a red mark on Form ’18’ means the form is for destruction, a green one means for extension.” Finally, Jonsi came up to the slightly offended Nick: “It’s an old joke.
Good thing someone told you.
On my first day, I sat all night entering data.
By the way, I need to remember to give you a monitor.
Look here,” Jonsi swept some of the remaining papers off the desk.
Nick involuntarily looked at them.
They were indeed almost all marked with red.
The hippo’s hoof pointed at the desk.
Nick’s gaze fell on the same spot.
There was a drawing — a sad hippo and the number “18” next to it.
“I was so upset that I drew this,” he said with a smile and a sigh.
“My first day.” “There’s mine there too,” someone in the room said again.
And again Nick didn’t see him.
“Yes, yes, we all know,” Jonsi replied, shouting over his shoulder.
Nick, pushing papers aside with his hind legs, looked at the desk.
It was like a cave painting; everyone who had worked here had left their mark on it.
“And that’s why it’s so important,” Lars said about the desk, coming closer to Nick.
“Even if it sounds stupid.
It’s precious to all of us.
It’s like the history of our entire police precinct.” “Except for that time you, Lars, poked a hole in it with your horn,” came a voice from the back of the room again, “breaking my drawing.” “Well, you flooded it with water,” Lars replied.
“And did you prank Judy too?” Nick interrupted them, smiling slightly.
“No, Bogo sent her to write parking tickets on her first day,” Clawhauser answered.
He had also come up to Nick.
“Yeah, he’s capable of that!” someone from the crowd of animals surrounding him confirmed.
Nick, looking at the drawings, hadn’t even noticed how everyone in the room had gathered around him.
He lifted his gaze to the animals and then lowered it again to the desk when Clawhauser pointed to a spot on it.
He said: “But she left her mark too.” Nick, smiling, examined a small drawing of a carrot on the corner of the huge desk.
“Now you’ll leave your mark on it too,” Jonsi said.
“Welcome to the family!” Lars said proudly and gave Nick a light shove on the shoulder, making the fox sway from side to side.
“Wilde.” “Alright,” Jonsi raised his voice, “initiation is over, everyone get back to work.
Or I’ll tell Bogo, and he’ll fire you all.” “Or just you!” one of Nick’s colleagues shouted.
“Because, I think, you’re the only one walking around here not working.” The animals standing near Nick quickly began to disperse back to their own tasks.
“Come on, intern, get to work,” Jonsi joked as he left the office.
“You’ve made a mess of your desk.” Nick watched them all with a kind look.
He was glad that he was sometimes wrong about animals’ characters.
Watching them all go, he began to clear the sheets from the desk.
And more and more new symbols of the ZPD officers were revealed to his eyes.
There was a carrot drawn on the desk.
Next to it, on the side, was a donut.
In the middle of the desk was a huge elephant paw print.
Nick could fit completely inside it.
Nick swept a sheet aside.
And there were two wolves hiding in the bushes, as if in an ambush, holding sniper rifles in their paws.
Nick swept another sheet aside.
Someone had written “Paddy was here!” on the side.
And over in the corner, under another sheet, was a drawing of a large, muscular bicep of some strong animal, with the inscription “Everything for the dream!!!” next to it.
Nick examined this inscription very carefully.
A red print of a right paw from some predatory feline fell directly on top of it.
He was drawn to this inscription and the seal.
He stopped, crouched down, and stared at it.
Nick noticed that everyone who had left their symbols here had tried not to draw over others.
Only these two symbols from two different animals seemed to be deliberately superimposed on each other.
He had seen many different symbols of various gangs, groups, clans, and such, living in his district.
And he had an idea about their symbolism.
To get a better look at it, he swept his paw across the desk again, wiping up the spilled cold coffee.
And he couldn’t shake the feeling.
Nick felt that this wasn’t just a random mark or coincidence; it was a kind of treaty, sealed long ago.