One slight detour to find coffee late the group arrived at the rathe extensive lab building on campus. Despite their tired and slightly hungover states, both Nick and Judy genuinely marveled at some of the advancements the students were making. They passed by several labs that had complex chemistry infrastructures and large partially assembled machines. On the third floor they reached the chemistry lab belonging to the students only to find a large spotted hyena bending over one of the tables. "Shenzi," Terry smiled, startling the female who turned and then smiled at the groups arrival. "Terry! Didn't expect to to see you this early. Figured you'd be sleepin' in." "Likewise," The bull smiled and turned to their guests, "Officers Hopps and Wilde, this is Shenzi Owusua. Our previously missing fourth member." Unlike the other students who had dressed nicely if semi formal for their meeting, Shenzi was about as informal as it got. She looked like something out of an 80's magazine with most of her clothes either looking shiny or having tiny studded sequins. She wore purple shin high shiny boots, a lavender skirt that hung just low enough when standing up but not so low Judy and Nick hadn't seen her pail pink panties on display when they'd entered the room. Up top a turquoise shirt was stretched over a large belly and breasts with a black faux leather jacket. Late hoop earrings adorned her ears and helped frame the black dreadlocks she'd shaped her mane of fur into. She smiled at the pair, running her tongue over a large black lower lip in a way that might have been teasing but came on a little too strong. "Nice ta meet you," she smirked, "I take it these are the boy and girl in blue who's gonna guard our little project? I expected they'd send their biggest and toughest."
Judy bristled but Nick kept his cool. "You don't strike me as a scientist. You look more like some grunge band roadie."
"Well to each their own Hot Fuzz," Shenzi grinned, "Style is what you make of it."
"Alright knock it off," Terry stepped between them, but he smiled good naturedly as he did so, "Why are you here, Shenzi?"
"Well, last night I left in a bit of a hurry, remember? And somethin' was bugging me all evening about the settings on the centrifuge," she pointed to the machine where she'd been working, "The speed just seemed too slow for the settings. And I heard this grinding noise too. So I came in this morning to see if I could take it apart and find out what was wrong. Maybe see if the machine labs had a spare gear if that was the problem.
"You didn't have to do that."
"well you said we had some presentation to a couple of important folks so I figured I might as well make sure everything was working right."
"Don't worry about it, we're not very technical," Nick reassured her, "So how about enough beating around the bush and we hear what the breakthrough is."
The students looked at eachother as Terry spoke. "You know of course this is very secret and we can't let it get out..."
"Like I said," Nick gave his most trustworthy smile, "Spare us the details and give us the gist of it."
"Very well...," Terry cleared his throat, "We may have found a completely organic way of dramatically increasing milk production..."
"So?" Nick shrugged.
"In all mammals, regardless of whether they're pregnant... or even female."
"Wait... seriously?" Judy blinked in surprise.
"Oh yes," Terry smiled, "If this works not only will anyone of physical maturity be able to produce milk, but they'll be producing it at roughly a hundred times their normal capacity. It would take only a small team of a hundred or two moderate sized mammals to supply all of Zootopia with all the dairy it could need."
"Unbelievable," Judy marveled, "And it works?"
"We have a small group of volunteers we've been testing with," Terry explained and blushed a little, "As well as....
testing it ourselves some.. But those tests have all been highly diluted with carefully controlled micro-doses. The effects barely last a day or two. Sadly we are running short on volunteers we can trust though.""Where are the samples?" Judy asked.
"We keep them locked in the fridge over there," he pointed to a white box in the corner of the room next to a black box, "After the break in we also chipped in and bought a safe for the most crucial notes we have. And as an extreme precaution the current final formula is not written anywhere and each of us have committed a piece of it to memory."
"Wow, sounds like you don't need us after all," Nick smirked.
"Guess again bushy tail," Shenzi replied, "When I got here this morning the lab door was unlocked. Now that could have been a mistake but I doubt it. I also noticed several pieces of equipment had been moved. And if you look there's scratches around the locks on the fridge and safe."
"Great," Terry groaned, "Now I'm going to be paranoid about break in every night."
"Well not with us here," Nick smiled and Judy tried to look confident, though she too had concerns.
1.) That night there's an attempted theft.
2.) Nothing happens during the night, but the next morning finds more oddities in the lab.
3.) Curious and eager to help out, Judy volunteers to try the serum.
4.) Judy wonders if the gun she has might be able to assist them or if it even came from such an advanced university.
