clicked.

"No! I won't listen!" yelled Nick. "Not Judy! No, go away! Get out of my head!"

Judy raced to the kitchen and snatched the baby chick doll. She tore it open with her teeth and found the chirping mechanism. Opening it, she quickly took the battery out and it stopped.

She heard Nick's thrashing stop. Quickly she returned to his side to find him whimpering.

"Noo…don't…not Judy…not my Judy…go away…"

"Nick," said Judy softly, straddling him and looking into his eyes as she held his cheeks gently. "Honey bun, I'm right here. You're safe now. Nobody is going to hurt us."

She untied him and threw the tablecloth to one side. Nick pulled her to his chest and embraced her with a tight, desperate hug, wrapping his arms and legs and tail around her as if wanting to keep her from slipping away from him.

"It's okay, sweetheart," said Judy softly, hugging him tight. "I'm here now. Nothing bad will happen to either of us."

She moved her face closer to his and kissed him. They said nothing for a long time, just snuggled together on the carpet, hugging tightly and feeling each other's warmth and wishing they could stay like this forever and ever.

Judy placed the pieces of the baby chick plush doll on the coffee table as Nick brought two mugs of freshly-brewed camomile tea to soothe their nerves.

"This is it, Nick," said Judy, pointing at the little chirping device she had pulled from the plushie. "This is how they do it. Every perpetrator who committed those crimes did so unknowingly, against their will. And every one of them won a baby chick plushie from Old Todd's booth. And here's how Madame Mystique controlled them from a distance. With these baby chick plushies."

"So this is kind of like a wireless mind-control device," said Nick, looking at the chirping mechanism. "Old Todd made the customers win, Madame Mystique placed them under her spell, and she somehow made them respond to the chirping in this plush toy."

"Yes…but there's something else."

Judy looked at Nick.

"Why didn't it affect me?"

"You weren't hypnotised by Mystique."

"Neither was Fangmeyer. But he was at the bank robbery."

That was true. It didn't make sense. If Fangmeyer was never under Madame Mystique's spell, then why was he affected?

"And why are all the perpetrators members of the canine family?" asked Judy.

"Maybe she can only perform her trick on dogs and wolves," said Nick.

"And coyotes…and foxes," said Judy.

They went quiet. Judy edged closer to Nick and hugged him around the waist. Nick stared into empty space, wishing he could make sense of it.

Suddenly, a thought occurred to him.

"This is some high-tech stuff," said Nick.

"It is," said Judy.

"I…know someone who might be able to help," said Nick. "An old…associate of mine. He's totally into this tech stuff."

Judy looked up at him.

"I'll just bet that if we take him this plushie and show him all the parts, he might be able to tell us more," said Nick.

Judy nodded. Any little bit of extra information would help.

Suddenly, beneath her arms, Judy felt Nick's tummy rumbling.

"Oh…um, sorry," Nick looked embarrassedly at her.

Judy smiled understandingly.

"You know…we could always order a pizza."

The building they stood before looked like it was new…in 1955.

"Are you sure about this, Nick?"

"Trust me, if anyone knows about tech stuff, it's Garth. He's a wizard with everything electronic."

They walked into the building. The entrance hall led into a dusty lobby. Judy followed Nick to the far side where a door to the basement stood ajar.

"Charming," she thought as Nick pushed the door open and they descended along a creaky staircase that ended in a single landing with a door that had a 'Radioactive' sign painted on it.

"He's pretty eccentric with his décor," said Nick as he opened the door.

"You don't say."

The only way she could describe the room they were in was as an in-door junkyard. Old computers, tables piled high with gadgets and gizmos, hunks of metal with levers and meters on them, tools of every kind…it was a madman's playground.

"Oy! Garth! I know you're in there…somewhere!" said Nick.

"Nick!" said a voice from among all the junk. "Long time no see, old buddy!"

An enormous pair of eyes suddenly emerged from behind a hulking old computer. It took a few seconds for Judy to realise that it was a young opossum wearing oversized goggles, dressed in greasy overalls and several tool belts.

"Hang in there, I'll be right with you," said Garth, removing his goggles and jumping up in the air, latching his long prehensile tail on the pipes that ran on the ceiling and swinging dangerously above the metal piles.

With a tremendous leap, Garth the opossum did a somersault and landed right in front of them. Judy was stunned at his prowess.

"Nicky P, my main man! The fox that rocks, the name of the game! The one and only dungeon-master of mischief himself!" said Garth and gave Nick a complicated series of high-fives and pawshakes.

"S'up, Garth?" said Nick,

"Hey! You brought company! Hello there, Officer Hopps!" said Garth, taking her paw gallantly and kissing it in the old-fashioned manner.

"I read all about you in the Zootopia Times," said Garth. "Not to mention the Duckburg Daily and the Cape Suzette Gazette. You're quite the heroine."

"Um, thank you very much," said Judy, still unaccustomed to being famous.

"Did I mention I have your body pillow?"

"Er…what?"

"Uhh…so, let's get down to brass tacks, shall we?" said Nick loudly and quickly.

"Alright, Nicky mah boi! What'll it be?" said Garth, turning to his main computer, which was camouflaged among all the other computers and gadgets. "Any public records you need your name wiped off of? Or do you need to tinker with the stock market a bit? Sneak peek into McDuck Enterprises, perhaps?"

"Erm…not this time, Garth," said Nick sheepishly, giving Judy a sideways glance.

"Well then, set the course, Cap'n!" said Garth, moving an imaginary warp drive lever with his paw. "Warp Seven, engage!"

"I need you to tell me what this is," said Nick.

He held the baby chick plush doll and the chirping mechanism in his paws for Garth.

"Well, hello poultry plushie," said Garth, taking the baby chick and the chirping device.

He examined them for a few seconds.

"Hmmm…interesting. Let's go to the operating table and see what little fluffy here has inside, shall we," said Garth, moving to a table amidst the junk piles. It was lined neatly with tools.

Judy and Nick watched as the opossum took a tiny screwdriver and opened the chirping device, then put on his magnifying goggles and looked at every little piece of the device, taking it apart and examining it thoroughly.

After twenty minutes of silence, Garth spoke suddenly, making Judy and Nick jump a little.

"Well, folks, to end your suspense," said Garth, "this is a radio transmitter. Much like the ones inside mobile phones. It's not terribly uncommon, but I've never seen anything like this one before. It's been heavily customised and some of the parts used in it came from a vintage 1977 Sloth Wheels model car. I've only ever seen one toy store carry them, and that's Lady Hypanthia's Toy Emporium in downtown Savanna Central. The radio portion is pretty run-of-the-mill, but there's something super strange about it. Let me connect it to my computer and I'll show you."

Garth took the tiny device and connected some wires to other wires on his computer and opened a programme that showed a sound graph.

"Okay, now pay attention."

Nick cupped his paws over his ears. Judy understood his reaction.

"Don't worry, Nick, you won't hear it," said Garth. "I've muted the speakers."

Nick was reassured. Garth tapped a few keys on his computer and the sound graph distorted to show some green lines in what seemed like a pattern.

"When you power it on, it transmits a signal," said Garth. "It repeats it at 2.5 second intervals. But I don't get why they'd transmit a signal that practically nobody will hear."

"What do you mean?" asked Judy.

"The signal is transmitting at 60,000 Furtz," said Garth. "That frequency is way too high for most people to hear. Heck, it would take a bat or a wolf to hear something like this."

"Or a coyote," said Judy.

"Or a dingo," said Nick.

"Bingo!" said Garth. "Most canines would hear it. Didn't you say your perps were all canines?"

"We didn't say that," said Judy.

"Oh, must have read it in your files, then," said Garth matter-of-factly.

"Read it in…hold on! How did you read…?"

"Please! ZPD's firewall is good for skipping rope with."

"Erm, more importantly," said Nick quickly."What is the message saying? Can you decipher it?"

"Let me bring it down a few notches, then we can listen to it without having our ears bleed," said Garth as he tapped some keys on his

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