The Long Game, A Zootopia Fanfiction

Co-op

Disclaimer: Zootopia and all Canon characters are owned by Disney. All other characters, product names, trademarks, and copyrights, belong to their respective owners.

.....

"Of course, good afternoon, ma'am."

Hanging up the phone, Mayor Karen Ackerbunn let out a sigh of relief. Drumming her claw tips on the desktop, she started to build a mental list of what she needed to do next.

A knock on her office door made her look up in time to see her assistant Ken poke his head in. "Hey Karen, how did it go with Chief Bogo?"

Waving Ken in and pointing at a chair, she replied, "I think it went okay, kind of hard to tell with him. He brings new meaning to the phrase 'A mammal of few words.' Fortunately, one of those words was 'yes.'"

The porcupine popped back up and leaned forward with his paw up, "Sweet, high four?"

Karen just looked at the quill covered paw and grimaced, "How about a raincheck."

Letting his paw drop, he smirked, "Yeah, I get that a lot."

Sitting back in his chair, Ken rubbed his paws together, "I love it when a plan comes together!"

Karen smiled, "Well, it's not together yet. Now comes the hardest part." Sliding a mug back and forth between her paws on the desktop, she thought for a few moments before adding, "I'm not sure I trust Hopps. If he backs out or worse has something up his sleeve that blows up, then we're the ones that are going to have to pick up the pieces."

"I don't know, maybe he's loosened up a little and changed his attitude."

Karen and Ken stoically looked each other in the eye. Neither moved or even twitched for almost five seconds until Ken finally broke first and started to laugh. "Okay, fine, I'm not buying it either, we'll just have to keep an eye on him."

Karen nodded, "Yeah, still, it was almost surreal seeing him...."

-/-/-

Two days earlier....

"Morning Daisy, how's our favorite Mayor doing this morning?" Ken Quillbert smiled at the elderly rabbit doe sitting at the receptionist's desk.

Daisy Moses, the Mayor's Executive Admin, swiveled her ears toward the set of wooden double doors behind her and was about to reply when a loud crashing noise caused her to jump in her seat.

"Never mind, I'm guessing she got my email."

Daisy pulled a box out of her desk drawer and gave it to Ken, "You'll need these, I think she's out."

Ken smiled at Daisy, knocked twice on the Mayor's door and then let himself into her office before being invited.

"I thought you said we'd have more time before the social media sites would start hammering us."

Glancing over at the broken ceramic pieces in the corner of the room, Ken sat down next to the Mayor's desk and sighed. "We should've had more time and I can't figure out why we didn't get it. The metrics don't make any sense. Some articles seemed to go viral and then suddenly die while other content is following a more normal lifecycle. I don't know."

Karen shook her head. "It doesn't matter why it happened, it did and if we don't think of something fast, we're going to be playing host to a bunch of protests and sit-ins."

Ken sighed, they'd tried yesterday to think of a solution, but nothing seemed workable, so they'd decided to think about it overnight and try again this morning. Unfortunately, the internet never sleeps and their time had run out. If they didn't come up with something to present to the Co-op board, right now, they were going to be neck-deep in trouble.