Chapter Text
[Chapter One]
"I wonder if somebody will try to swing from that thing," Judy Hopps remarked, looking up at an odd jumble of canvas and metal that hung from the ceiling, "I know it's supposed to be for those giant donuts you're still working on. Perfect thing to see right when you walk in." She glanced around the rest of the store, her eyes jumping around all kinds of wonderful pies, scones, bagels, and other treats littering the variety of shiny and new shelves. "But, who knows, some little one might not even see the signs and just leap up there."
Gideon Grey said nothing back yet smiled all the same. The fox brushed off his shirt a bit as he walked over alongside the bunny. So many hours carefully saving, writing business plans, going through blueprints, helping out with the actual construction, and more had went into the 'Opening Day' ceremony for his new 'Bakery Plus' location. It had been a surprisingly low-key affair despite the large number of families, elderly couples and bored preteens alike, flowing through the doors of his store complex. Yet that seemed just fine to him. The aisles looked spacious, the retro arcade game machines sucked in change, and the ATM and mailing devices lit up as expected.
"Just signs up there, though, for now," Judy said, turning around and looking up at the fox, "I'm curious. You still waiting for a bunch of stuff from Tiger-Corp?"
"Yeah, that is the oddest thing," Gideon replied, scratching the back of his neck, "I knew it was a long-shot sending them an application in the first place, what with all their franchises opening really anywhere but here. And yet I got plenty of cool things back." He glanced around at the fancy shirts, hats, bags of special dough, and secret recipe papers all the with huge Tiger-Corp logo on them spread on the front cashier counter besides him. "I'm thrilled, sure, but I've got no idea what to do next without all that legal and economic paperwork. They're breaking, I think, their own rules giving me this 'start-up kit one' with no 'kit two'. It's like seeing both a green and red light at the same time."
Judy giggled for a moment as she went out the door. "I'm sure that Nick would tell you to put a paw over one eye and then just drive on through."
"You know," Gideon whispered to himself as he waved his friend out, "it seriously would be really, really fun to swing from the canvas and metal up there."
That same night, miles and miles away in an elegantly set-up office suite in the middle of downtown Zootopia, a short tiger with oddly faded stripes and a growing headache shuffled through a bunch of file folders. The manager scowled as he put the last one into a nearby drawer and leaned back into his chair. He double-checked these two particular pages on a nearby yellow notepad, leaning back even more. Finding the same result as when he had looked the dozen times before, he pressed a red button over at the edge of his desk.
"You rang?" the receptionist called out from the speakerphone at the other side of the desk.
"Yes, get me Ronald please." The tiger rubbed his temples for a moment.
"Which Ronald, sir?"
"I mean Ronald the... the..." the manager strained to think through the many last names of his many employees, swishing around a paw in the air. "Just, you know, the annoying Ronald."
"Gotcha."
"Thanks," the tiger muttered, sitting up in his chair.
"Hey, sir, what can I do for you?" sounded off the familiar bright, chipper voice that the manager tried to hear as little as possible.
"Hello. So, I've been looking through the four 'failure to process' alerts the system spat out," the manager began, putting away the last bits of paperwork on his desk, "and I don't think that they cancel each other out. In fact, I'd say that they all conflict with each other, which means that instead of having four medium-sized problems we have one big choking hairball."
"It's time for a change of plans then, sir?"
"What do you see here?" the manager asked, knowing that the small tablet in front of Ronald's face in his office had just flashed various alerts.
"A failure to process, sir."
"And here? And there as well?"
"A-another, sir?"
"It leaves us with a problem. It leaves you with a problem"," the manager went on, standing up and walking a bit to the mini-fridge behind his desk, "first, some budding capitalist in Bunnyburrow gets denied for our standard half-and-half franchise development agreement. The regional area officer complains that we're pretending that most rabbits are predator-hating socialists and should just change our policy to work in Bunnyburrow already. Our system eats up that objection. Second, said capitalist gets approved for the agreement at the same time, apparently, and another officer complains that we broke our own policy. That objection in the other direction gets eaten up. Third, we get a report from what are labeled 'our spies' that somebody in Bunnyburrow is falsely representing themselves and selling phony products said to be ours, so we should go get him. Someone objects, rightly, that why would we have 'spies' in our employment. That gets eaten up as well." The manager let out all of his irritation into his voice, speaking directly into the microphone. "Finally, the piece-de-resistance is the last report claiming that the simultaneously denied and approved capitalist is apparently maybe not the same guy as the one selling phony Tiger-Corp stuff. Of course, our system eats that final report too."
"I understand, sir."
"It's not like going to a vending machine and putting in two coins but getting three candy bars. It's like putting in two coins, having the machine spit out a weasel, and then it explodes."
"I get it, sir. I'm ready for division team six to investigate."
"Do you get it? Because here we are in this mess and just investigating does us no good." The manager held up a tall energy drink in his paws as he closed his eyes for a moment. "This is not a mere glitch. It is a failure. It's your failure, and so you will send out those that will solve it. Get rough and pushy, get answers, yes, but just take care of it."