The Savage Dark Chapter 10

    Case File – The Savage Dark

    Reporting Agent: Code Name – Jack “Savage”

    Affiliation: Unknown

    Current Whereabouts: Unknown

    Agent Status: Unknown (Active)

    Recording Continues:

    “Finding a treatment for the Night Howler toxins that we encountered in the months prior to Nick’s – Excuse me, Officer Wilde’s – exposure had been problematic from day one. The first attempts made by the ZIA were very basic and expected. Night Howler already had a known antidote which was perfectly effective are reversing the effects of pure Night Howler exposure, even up to the concentrated extract used by Dawn Bellwether. This was the first attempt that the ZIA made to treat the new toxins, and it ended in failure: the normal antidote caused no visible change in the patients, no matter the species.

    “Further testing showed that these toxins had fundamental changes that caused reactions in the brain that were anywhere between two to six times more complex than your simple purple flower variety found in carrot gardens. This was achieved through the introduction of various refinements, purification processes, and some pharmaceutical chemistry that would make any drug company pay half their yearly profit margin just to keep the mind responsible away from their competitors. This is all too complex and boring for me to put on this recording, as anyone who’s not wearing a lab coat would fall asleep in the first half hour, but the basics should be explained.

    “You see; night Howlers are simple. Once the toxin reaches the nervous system, it dampens the nerve impulses in the evolved mind which allow us to think and build and form societies where we’re not trying to kill each other, ideally. At the same time, it excites the impulses in the primitive brain. Those parts of the mind that are responsible for things as simple as breathing and swallowing, or more complex needs like food, safety, and sex. So it does exactly what the ‘savage’ state suggests by causing these feral needs to take over our somewhat civilized minds. The sudden shift in thought pattern, the confusion caused while the brain tries to correct these changes, is responsible for the rage response. The need to survive, you see. Our brains want to think, they want to feel and speak and they want the world to make sense. When these things are not possible, it drives the need to survive to heights that turn everything into a threat.

    “Skipping past the older versions of the refined Night Howler toxins and moving straight to the one that Officer Wilde was exposed to, the difference is potent and devastating. The effects remain largely the same, but along with the time delay before the first signs of regression to savagery, there was also a clear indication that the effects were designed to be incurable by any known treatment. Including all known Night Howler antidotes.”

********

    “Blueberries?”

    Nick managed to sound incredulous even over the steady hum and repetitive beat of the helicopter that was currently carrying them away from the city of Zootopia. While not what could have been called a luxury craft, it was not at all what she had expected when they had first realized that their transport would be a helicopter. The passenger interior of the sleek black machine was easily large enough to carry upward of ten medium-sized mammals, which did make her feel slightly awkward leaning against Nick in the larger seat that they were buckled into. It was very opaque, in a way. The functional but far from comfortable seating made it so that two rows of passengers could face each other across an aisle that was wide enough to carry various sorts of cargo or equipment, but from the outside, it had looked nothing like any military helicopter she had ever seen.

    “Yes, blueberries,” Jack replied as he slid his paw over the screen of his phone without raising his eyes. “Whatever is responsible for your exposure did their homework, as was the case with every target. Your favorite fruit is blueberries, and we found the toxin in dozens of food items in your… Apartment, if you could call it that.”

    “Great,” Nick grumbled, and she gave a small smile as she patted his arm lightly. This drew his gaze, which as predicted was unhappy and grumpy. “Do you hear this? Now they’ve ruined blueberries for me. I may never touch another blueberry again!”

    “Of course you will,” she said with a small snort as she rested her head against his shoulder and let her eyes drop closed for a moment as she rubbed her cheek against the course fabric of his uniform. She was tired. Mentally and emotionally drained more than physically, but it was enough to leave her feeling listless and agitated. Two things that she didn’t want to be when Nick was still somewhat on edge. “One sniff of my mother’s blueberry cobbler will set your love for blueberries right back where it was.”

    “Hmph,” came his reply as he draped his arm around her lightly, his paw pads sliding up and down her arms slowly for a long moment. She almost assumed that he was going to let the subject drop before he added, “As long as I get some the next time we go visit, I guess I might recover. But you’re telling me, Jack, that these people broke into my apartment to… What? Inject Night Howler into individual blueberries and frozen pancakes?”

    “Just the fact that you eat frozen pancakes that contain fruit is cause for concern, Wilde,” Jack replied dryly, and she could actually agree with him on that subject. When she opened her eyes, she found that he had tucked his phone away and was watching the two of them closely. “And yes, that is exactly what happened. As I said last night, I was hoping that they would either return to find out why you had not been infected or attempt to acquire you for that same reason. They have not tried to enter your apartment again, however, and the agents watching your apartment have seen no sign of unusual interest. At this point, it looks as though the idea of you being a lead has run dry, so we will have to turn our attention to other possibilities.”

    “What other possibilities?” Wolford asked, speaking for the first time since they had boarded the helicopter. “You have other leads?”

    “Yes,” Jack replied, his nose twitching a bit for the first time that Judy could remember when his gaze focused on Nick. This made it clear to all of them that he was talking to her partner when he continued. “Though I doubt you’re going to like it.”

    “Stoat,” Nick said flatly, and she watched his eyes narrow as the two males locked eyes.

    “Yes, Stoat. We are certainly at this point that he is not directly connected to the person or persons producing the toxin. It would make no sense for someone with such a carefully laid trail of unknowns and dead ends to have a low-level drug pusher spreading an early form of the toxin on the street as candy to the junkies,” Jack checked his watch, a little too intently for a moment, before he returned his gaze to Nick. “We suspect that someone has grown impatient and is supplying him with an easy to produce, short-term version of the drug for the sake of making a little extra money on the side.”

    “So, what?” Judy asked, her paw slowly stroking over Nick’s stomach as she kept her ear on his heart rate. It had picked up slightly, but was still a long way from what she thought might cause him to snap. “You took him into your custody? You’re going to question him?”

    “We released him two hours ago,” came the calm reply. She felt Nick’s muscles tense to suddenly that the straps holding them in tightened around his chest and his ears twitched, though they didn’t drop back fully. “He is under constant surveillance, of course. We hope that he will lead us back to his supplier, if he is stupid enough to do that anytime in the near future. Which I personally think he is.”

    “Isn’t that risky? Weasels are very slippery,” Wolford suggested, his gaze ticking between the three of them curiously and cautiously. “I mean, it only takes one wrong turn before he drops off the radar and we’re back to square one, right?”

    “We have three agents following him separately to make sure that doesn’t happen. A weasel, who is well aware of the tricks Stoat might use to disappear. A wolf with the best nose I’ve ever seen. She could track a mouse through Savanna Central at rush hour, an hour after the mouse left the area. And,” he continued, but was cut off when the low buzz of a cell phone was heard over the sound of the helicopter. He paused to drag it out and look at the screen for a moment before he tucked it into his jacket pocket again without comment. “And a cheetah. I don’t need to tell you why we chose him. We won’t lose track of him.”

    “Yes, and my trust in you and your various agents is flying high at the moment, Jack,” Nick said, his tone sliding between sarcastic and annoyed. It was a tone that she knew very well herself; one that said he knew he was stuck in this situation and just couldn’t see any way out of it. “Of course, that’s only because I’m actually flying at the moment, otherwise it would be closer to ground level or below. Can you at least tell us that there has been some progress because of his release?”

    “We only had him released this morning,” the rabbit said, leaning forward to rest his elbows on his knees as he continued to watch Nick. From what she could tell, he was un-phased by the sarcasm. “So far he has returned to his hovel, wasted no time in scratching up a hidden stash of the drug, and went right back onto the street to sell. Given his haste and the danger of putting himself out there again so soon after being arrested, we can assume that he is unafraid of the police or he has a deadline to meet. I favor the second scenario, because it means he will have to meet his supplier in the near future to exchange the cash for more Feral Blue.”

    “So you’re just letting him spread a drug that turns people savage to gain a lead?” she asked, her muzzle turned into a slight frown as she watched the stripped rabbit. That didn’t sit well with her, at all. Even beyond the fact that they had released someone who had broken multiple laws, including battery on a police officer when he exposed to the very same drug.

    “Of course not,” came the scoffed reply, making the other bunny sound as offended as he looked. “Not that we wouldn’t if it were necessary, but in this case it is not. We are picking up those he sells the drugs to once they are out of visual range of the target. Each bag he sells is a sample that we can use to further work towards a cure, after all. Added to that, we will be able to tell if they come from different batches, use different formulas which will tell us if they possibly come from more than one supplier, or if there has been further refinement.”

    That did ease her mind somewhat and directed her attention on another, extremely important subject.

    “And has there been any progress in finding a cure?” The question hung in the air for a moment as Jack seemed to hesitate to answer, causing her to raise her head from Nick’s chest so she could focus her eyes on him with a frown curving her muzzle. “Has there been progress, Jack?”

    “We are testing various possible antidotes,” he said at last, though the reluctant tone of his voice made her lean forward as Nick did the same beside her. Both of their ears were perked, giving him their full attention as he continued. “So far, none of them have proven effective as a long term cure. We do have one that offers a short-term easing of the symptoms – the symptom – but it has to be administered and monitored carefully, requiring sedation and bed rest for the duration. So that is not ideal, given that Wilde is already ‘curable’ in a similar way by love and attractive bunnies.”

    “One very attractive bunny and a lot of love,” Nick corrected, and she watched him lean back in the seat, grunt, and cross his arms over his chest as he mulled over the fact that there was no cure in sight. But to her, progress was progress, even if it was not complete yet. It meant that they were trying.

    “How exactly does that work, anyway?” Wolford asked, drawing all of their gazes to him this time. “I mean the part where she can calm him down. I’ve never heard of anything like it with Night Howlers before, and we’ve seen married couples where one was affected. Otterton was the first case, and he didn’t even seem aware that he wife was – Well, his wife.”

    “The power of love?” Jack supplied, giving a small shrug of his shoulders when all returned to him. She frowned at his glib reply and was surprised when he looked at them blankly for a moment; as if he had given them the answer they wanted. “I’m being perfectly serious.”

    “You actually believe that the fact that I love her is the entire reason she can keep me calm?” Nick questioned, flicking his gaze down to Judy with a slight grin on his muzzle. “While I am inclined to agree with that hypothesis, I never would have guessed that you could be such a romantic soul, Jack. I do believe my heart is aflutter.”

    “I’m not without my romantic charms, of course. But my reasons for believing that is entirely based on actual facts rather than fanciful beliefs in the heart winning out over common sense or modern pharmacology,” Jack replied with a dismissive wave of his paw. “Foxes mate for life.”

    “Well, yeah,” Wolford said, even as Judy tried to control the trip those words caused in her chest as she glanced at Nick and found that his gaze had not moved from Jack. The trip was caused by the fact that Nick didn’t look even a little bit surprised by the statement, or what it implied. “A lot of people get married.”

    “No, that’s not what I’m talking about. Marriage is an often failed institution where two people who may or may not be in love bind themselves together legally, and it as often ends in divorce and misery as it does in a lifetime of babies and happy memories.”

    “Well, I’m afraid I’ll have to suspend your membership to the Romantic’s Club,” Nick mumbled after that, Judy releasing a little chuckle as she nudged him to lift his arm again so she would rest against his side. Now she did it because she simply wanted to be close, relax a little, digest what she was hearing from Jack. Something that Nick still seemed to have no interest at all in disputing even as the rabbit continued.

    “Yes, well. What I am talking about is older than that. Back into the days when we were all savages; days that are not as far removed from our DNA as many of us would like to believe. Back when rabbits ate grass and foxes hunted rabbits to consume their hard earned body fat and protein. And don’t give me that look, Wilde,” he said coolly, and from the tension that had come into the arm he had wrapped around her, Judy could imagine the look Nick gave Jack to be annoyed/boarder-line angry. “Stating a fact about the natural history of the many species in our fair city is no more specist than saying rabbits still eat green things and predators still need large amounts of protein to survive. And that’s not the relevant subject anyway. What is relevant is the fact that back in those days, foxes mated for life. Even so recently as the formation of the society that would become Zootopia thousands of years ago, foxes were well known for their monogamous tendencies. And while they certainly were not the only ones – rabbits and wolves also mate for life, for example – there is a large difference specific to male foxes.”

    “We don’t remarry,” Nick stated simply, drawing her wide gaze up to him. A gaze which he met after a moment, with something like an uncomfortable look on his face. “Vixens usually don’t either, but male foxes very rarely get married again.”

    “Especially,” Jack interjected easily, “in cases where their mate dies, no matter the means of death.”

    “So when Wilde starts to go savage, he what?” Wolford asked, his ears perked and his eyes focused on Nick with avid interest. Obviously, the wolf was pleased and fascinated by the subject at paw, while in Judy’s eyes Nick almost seemed distant and dismissive about it. “His instincts take over? Sees her as his mate rather than food?”

    “In the simplest terms, yes,” Jack agreed, leaning back in the oversized chair. Amazingly, it didn’t really make him seem any less Jack because of the size of it. He simply owned the space around him with the ease of someone who was very familiar with their current mode of transportation. “This is all speculation, of course. I have no proof, other than the fact that Wilde is here with us and is not currently trying to eat anyone. Added to his instinctively recognizing Judy as his mate, as I believe, this variation of the Night Howler toxin works on a delay for reasons we haven’t determined yet. The slow progression from intelligent mammal to full blown savage is interrupted by her presence, as I have now seen twice. Wilde, can you tell me how you see us when you’re in the half-savage state?”

    Nick seemed to hesitate for a moment. From the way he shifted against her, almost seeming to want to escape contact, she could tell that he was not comfortable with the subject. Once the motion stopped, though, he relaxed his arm around her and allowed two of his fingers to slide up the curve of her side slowly. Watching him, seeing the way that his ears went from splayed to the side to calmly erect and his muzzle relaxed, she wondered exactly how much comfort he did take in simply touching her that way. All of this was new to her. Her studies had touched around the ancient mammalian history of Zootopia, but largely because of where she had been raised, that history focused on prey rather than predator. And now that she was actually thinking about that, she realized that a lot of the misconceptions about predators would be lifted if they were included in something as basic as a high school biology class. She saved the thought for another time when Nick opened his long muzzle to speak.

    “Put simply in your case, Jack, I see a threat,” he began, his tone now as at ease as the state of his body from what she could feel. “It’s a little hard to describe. I don’t want to say rival for Judy, though that would be the first thing that came to mind when you barged into her apartment last night.”

    “He’s not a rival for anything,” Judy mumbled, though she kept her tone low enough so that they wouldn’t think she was trying to interrupt. She saw Jack smirk slightly and felt the trace of Nick’s paw pads up against her side again. This time, the motion was firmer and caused a little, unseen shiver to race through her as a tingle trickled down her back.

    “I am pretty sure I see almost everyone as a threat, though,” Nick continued after sending her a slow smile. “Even the Chief would have been on my list if he had kept coming towards us. Wolford was a threat at first, too, but…”

    When he didn’t seem to want to continue with what he was saying, Wolford filled in for him. “I submitted.”

    “Right,” Nick said, drawing out the word a bit as he sent a grateful glance at the larger predator. Even Judy knew that wolves didn’t submit normally unless forced to, or unless they respected someone enough to do it. From what she could remember Wolford had never submitted to anyone, especially in such an open away. “I suppose that goes along with the savage instinct as well. He submitted and quickly became less threatening. I say ‘less’ threatening because he stopped moving closer. I think if he had come closer, I would have attacked him. No offense, buddy.”

    “No, no,” Wolford said, waving his paw while obviously forcing his ears to stay upright. “I get it.”

    Judy couldn’t decide if he looked more downtrodden because Nick had still been ready to attack him, or uplifted because Nick had called him buddy again. She was going to have to ask him where his obvious desire to be Nick’s friend came from someday. So many things to do, once she had time to stop worrying about what was going to happen to the fox she loved.

    “And what else?” Jack asked easily, a tone that made her feel a certain level of disdain that only added to how tired she was. The rabbit kept pushing Nick, kept “testing” him, and it was grating at her every time she laid eyes on the banded rabbit. She was more aware, however, that Nick hesitated again before he answered.

    “I want to get away from everything, except Judy,” the fox continued, his brows furrowed as he seemed to be focusing on actually defining what he felt for the first time. “There are too many smells, too many mammals. I want to take her and hide away somewhere away from everything, which would be hard to do in Zootopia. Not a lot of quiet spaces outside of small spaces. Her apartment? Which is why I wanted to kill you when you barged in on us. It felt exactly like you were invading my territory.”

    “Your territory?” Judy grinned as she looked up at him, that little bubble of amusement mirrored in his expression when he tipped his head and met her gaze. “Last I remember; we never did finish the conversation about living together.”

    “So adorable,” he quipped, his tongue poking out of the front of his muzzle for a moment as she lightly slapped his stomach. “A conversation that we will finish once we’re in more familiar surroundings, Carrots. But you’ll give in and ask me to move in with you in no time. I can be very persuasive.”

    “And her?”

    Jack’s voice didn’t exactly end her good mood at his light joking, which was more like the Nick she knew then she had seen since they had walked into the ZPD that morning, but it didn’t help her hold that mood when she turned a curious gaze towards him. Caught off guard, with her mind on Nick and the possibility of living with him, she didn’t frame the question back to the subject at paw as quickly as Nick obviously did.

    “Protect,” came the first simply reply, and one ear flick later, “But that’s not really unusual. I always feel protective of her.”

    “You are?” She hadn’t expected that, and couldn’t think of a time that he had actually be protective of her outside of the last few days.

    “I mean, I don’t run around thinking ‘I have to protect Judy!’ every time we’re on the beat, but when I see you stand toe-to-toe with a predator three or more times your size on the streets, I have to resist the desire to be the one doing the toe-to-toe part. It comes off as a little macho, so I keep the urge kicked down in the back of my mind,” he explained, doing his best not to look as embarrassed as he obviously was. “I mean, I’m pretty sure you could beat my tail in a fight, Carrots. We’ve sparred before and it’s all I can do to keep up with you.”

    “I’ve been thinking the same thing since you got back from the academy,” she said with a little snort, though keeping her pleasure at his praise a secret wasn’t really an option as her ears flushed and he grinned down at her.

    “Well I can’t keep up with either of you,” Wolford groused, though he didn’t actually look too put off by the fact. More amused when he continued with a gesture between the two of them. “I’ve only managed to lay a paw on Nick once or twice. And you, Hopps; you’re like some kind of crazy jumping dervish on the mat. I can’t think of anyone other than Wilde that’s managed to even get close to you. Er… Again, on the mat.”

    “Well, that is sort of the point,” Judy said, grinning at the blush creeping up the wolf’s ears at his self-correction. “’Small, meek, fragile’. Something like a tiger landing a solid hit would be like you getting hit by an elephant, which is why you make sure not to let that happen, right?”

    “Yeah, I get it,” he replied with a lupine grin that showed all kinds of sharp, predatory teeth. It must have said something about her relationship with Nick that this made her nose twitch once or twice before she controlled the little flutter in her ‘run for your life’ instinct, but when Nick did it the result was a flutter of an entirely different kind. “That doesn’t make it less embarrassing when I end up on my back with a bunny on top of me.”

    “Funny. That’s become the favorite part of my morning. And afternoon. And a few times last night,” Nick said, grinning when Judy jabbed her elbow into his side. He looked about as contrite as kit who’d made off with the cookie jar without getting caught, and she had to fight back her own grin as she rolled her eyes up at him. “What? You seem to enjoy it, too. If not, we can always… Oomph!”

    “What else, Wilde?” Jack said, though he did seem amused by the banter between the three of them. “Protection is the most obvious and is one of the triggers to set you off. Sex is another, likely because mating is one of the more primal acts that has changed very little over time.”

    “I hope that’s not true,” Nick smirked, his paw resuming the slow slide up and down her side as his green eyes rested on Jack. “Otherwise, you’re not having very good sex.”

    “I would argue that if you can’t go a little savage now and then, then you’re not having very good sex,” Jack retorted easily, his mouth quirking upward in a smirk of his own.

    “Huh,” Nick said with a quick tilt of his head to the side to concede the point. “You got me there, rabbit. But to answer your question; I want to be close to her, non-sexually. I don’t want anyone else close to her. Eh, that’s sounds possessive, but…”

    “But you’re trying to put words to a feeling. What feeling?” Jack asked, his head tilted just a bit to the side as he watched Nick try to sort out the words. “We’re trying to get a handle on why exactly Hopps may be the reason you haven’t gone and stayed fully savage like every other mammal exposed to these toxins. Don’t think about it. All of the feelings you have, wrapped up into one thing that you’re not saying and even I can see it.”

    “Mine,” Nick said suddenly, and just saying the word aloud caused him to twitch against her side and his arm to tighten around her possessively. “Not like ‘my partner’ or ‘my lover’ or even ‘my mate.’ Just… Mine. I don’t want anyone else near her, even now. I don’t want anyone else touching her, or threatening her, and I know without a doubt in my mind that if she is hurt I won’t be able to control myself. She’s mine to love, mine to care for, mine to protect.”

    She was silent and unmoving against him as she listened to him speak. She was pretty sure that she was the last person anyone who knew her would have called overly feminine or of the type to want a big, strong male to take care of her. The protection of a strong male, be he a fox or another bunny, had never been on her list of needs or even wants. Her siblings had joked that she would always wear the pants in any relationship she found, and her dad had even nicknamed her ‘Jude the Dude’ because of her generally tomboyish ways growing up. But she would be damned if her heart wasn’t beating faster and her stomach wasn’t fluttering. She wanted to be his; and him saying, even now when he was calm, that he felt that way made her almost giddy. It was stupid, and girly, and she knew that sooner or later that attitude might clash with her need for independence, but right now it just felt good.

    “You said you feel that way now. Do you think it might just be normal for you?” Wolford asked, her ears perked and his nose twitching as he looked between the two of them. Which made Judy want to slink under the seat because those good, mushy feeling had also come with the darker tingle of mild arousal.

    Damn predator noses.

    “I’ve never been in love before, so I don’t really have anything to compare it to personally,” Nick said, his tone more at ease now. Relaxed, light as his grip on her eased into the slow up and down strokes again. “I doubt it, though. I am sure someone somewhere in my life might have warned me I would turn into a prehistoric lunatic if I ever fell in love.”

    “Do you think it might be because I’m a bunny?” She knew exactly where the question had come from because she had been thinking about it since she had learned that she was the reason he hadn’t gone completely savage. She hadn’t expected all of them to clam up and turn their attention to her as though she had just said something either monumentally stupid or amazingly intelligent. She raised her paw without raising her head from Nick’s chest, waving it in an offhand way as she tried to expand on the thought. “I mean, that could be a part of it, right? It’s not like there have been a lot of foxes and bunnies in our situation; both the being in love, and being exposed to Night Howler. Which happens to us a lot, Nick.”

    “We should get T-shirts. ‘Mammals Most Exposed to Night Howlers and Night Howler Related Crime’,” he said, spreading his paws apart and making a square with his thumb and forefingers as if to frame the spoken words. “Then printed on the back yours could say ‘I’m with Savage’ and mine would say ‘I’m Savage’ with little arrows point to each other.”

    “Oh no,” she groaned, pressing her paws against him to shove him away playfully. “If I get that for a birthday present, I’m never talking to you again.”

    “Liar,” he muttered and grinned when she tipped her muzzle up to let him nuzzle his nose against hers lightly.

    “It is possible,” Jack said before the nuzzle could evolve into the kiss it had been close to. “Obviously your relationship is unprecedented. There would be a predator/prey angle we haven’t considered or seen before. His possessive attitude could be perfectly normal in a case like this, at least as far as we know. And that is a question we may not have the answer to until there are more cases like yours.”

    “You expect there will be more cases of foxes and rabbits falling in love?” Nick asked, one brow popping up in obvious surprise before she turned her own surprised gaze to the other rabbit.

    “Society is a funny thing,” Jack said and paused for a moment when his phone buzzed again. He stared at the screen a little longer this time, his muzzle quirking in a slight smile. “When something is as taboo as predator/prey relationship, a lot of mammals assume it’s just not possible, especially with two species so clearly conflicted as foxes and bunnies. Until they are shown otherwise, in which case they become curious. Your sister is an example, Hopps. I would wager that she had never considered the idea of a fox and a bunny being lovers until your family literally stumbled on it. Others will react exactly the same, though perhaps on a less enthusiastic level.

    “Then there is the fact that you two are minor celebrities. The first bunny ZPD officer and the first fox ZPD officer, in a relationship? Two previously unheard of things, combined with the romance angle. I expect your story will be all over the news at some point, whether you like it or not. You have avoided it so far, not for lack of trying to make your relationship known to the world. And since keeping it secret is something that you haven’t done very well in the slightest your lack of entertainment news coverage is pure luck, I assure you.”

    The fact that the last part came with a knowing grin on the rabbit’s muzzle made Judy’s ears twitch as the idea that Jack had somehow prevented them from being exposed settled in. It made perfect sense if they were being investigated as a part of a conspiracy that the public was being kept in the dark about. Nick seemed to have come to the same conclusion when he spoke up.

    “Uh huh. Well, I suppose I can thank you for that at least, Luck. I want to be able to tell my mother myself. And can you tell me what’s so damned interesting about your phone? Getting sext messages?”

    “Ah,” Jack said as he tucked the phone that he had been staring at back into his jacket pocket before he leaned back and looked between them. “That was our resident expert on Night Howlers. He’s been updating me on the status of our research into a reliable cure and he may have found something promising.”

    “How promising?” she asked, pulling away from Nick and sitting fully upright with her ears perked in the other rabbit’s direction. The feeling of hope couldn’t really be pushed back, though she tried to temper it.

    “He can only give me minor details over the phone,” Jack replied, and even as he spoke there was a call from the front of the pilot warning that they would be touching down in two minutes. “But we will change our plans, and make his lab our first stop once we’ve landed.”