Judy cranked up the heating as she swerved into Tundra Town, the difference in temperature between Tundra Town and the city center was physically noticeable as soon as one crossed burrow lines. A soft sigh escaped her as the warm air washed over her, banishing the cold that threatened to pierce her fur, just because she could stand the cold did not mean that she had to like it. She was a farm bunny, born and raised and she preferred the feeling of the sun beating down on her fur compared to the cold nipping at her little toes. “I just have to take down Hugh and I can go get myself something nice and warm to drink, and a paw warmer” Judy muttered psyching herself up as her cruiser skidded around a corner, her cruiser’s tires screeching as they attempted to maintain traction on the frigid roads. The larger and more unwieldy vehicle compared to her parent’s truck was one part of her increased positions she was not fully used to, this combined with the natural treachery of Tundra Town’s slippery streets meant that despite being in a hurry she was staying well within the speed limit. Despite her inexperience with the wieldy cruiser and the slick roads, she was able to navigate her way through the burrow’s tight streets to the factory without damaging her cruiser.
Cutting the engine as she drove up to the gates she leapt out of the vehicle, paws skidding for a moment as she attempted to regain her footing as she landed right in front of the factory’s massive wrought-iron gates. The gates to the abandoned factory hung open as the district’s constant cold worked at the metal corroding and weakening it to the point where they nearly fell from their hinges. Stepping into the factories courtyard she paused long enough to examine the building, though she was sure she had typed in the address correctly it looked like nothing more than a skeleton of a building. The cold of the district working against the factory itself even more than the gates of the factory. What was left was nothing more than massive pieces of corrugated sheet metal interconnected in tight groups by rivets which acted as the walls and ceiling of the building.
As Judy walked closer she was faced with a set of massive doors that looked like they would simply slide away, probably bay doors for a cow-sized tanker trailer to carry the ice-cream out to market. A minute of searching eventually revealed a much smaller door off to the side to let the workers in, the wavy sheet metal and the sameness of the building hiding it from view. This employee entrance was still imposing to the little rabbit due to the difference in size, the handle just to open the door hung several feet above her head. Taking in a deep breath to steady herself, she leaped for the door handle, flipping in the air she brought her foot down in an axe kick before kicking against the door itself, snapping the handle down undoing the lock and setting the door ajar in one clean motion.
Judy slipped in through the crack though what she saw past the door left her speechless. Standing on either side of the massive warehouse-sized room were huge tanks obviously meant to store milk, row upon row of milking machines ran in front of the tanks, while the tanks themselves emptied out into just as massive mixing vats where cream and other ingredients would be added to the mixture creating different flavours. Walkways lined the top of the room, obviously meant to allow the facility’s workers to check on the ice cream mid-production as well as allow them to “tweak” the mixture as necessary as the walkways clustered around the mixing vats. As she walked through the facility Judy could not help but feel the cold of the place seep into her despite her warm fluffy fur, the corrugated metal walls and ceiling of the building seemed to retain rather than disperse the cold of Tundra Town. The concrete flooring of the factory did not help as it seemed to do much the same, freezing the underside of her paws with every step she took.
“O-ok seriously w-when I get my hands on you Hugh w-we are going to have words” Judy chattered, her hands brushing along her arms to give her some semblance of heat. “S-Seriously it’s T-Tundra Town, you could stick your ice cream o-outside the factory and it would stay cool, why would they need to make it colder?” Judy mused aloud; she did not have time to answer that question though as she moved swiftly to the back of the factory eager to get this over with. A door marked “Employees Only” led to a concrete staircase that descended several stories down into the frozen ground, the entrance to the stairs sitting beside an industrial size elevator that could fit a small vehicle inside it though that was obviously out of the question as it would let Hugh known she was coming. She took the stairs three at a time despite their larger size; her legs thankfully were powerful enough to absorb the impact of each leap. Much to Judy’s eternal delight the staircase unlike the factory floor itself was heated, if her luck kept up hopefully wherever Hugh was would be heated as well.
Several seconds were spent on one landing simply basking in the heated staircase, as the frost, which had gathered on the very edge of her fur melted away. Thankfully, the melted water was not enough to mess up her uniform in any way; unthankfully the melted water flowed right down her back. The staircase led to a single doorway at the bottom, which much to Judy’s chagrin led to a refrigerated corridor that was even colder than the factory floor above. To her surprise, the elevator from before also opened into this corridor. Unlike the factory above this hall was below the frost line, the sound of freon running through the walls and the whirr of fans cooling the air rang out from the ducts overhead alerting Judy to the fact that she was not alone. Hackles rising as she slowly advanced paw step by paw step down the corridor it took several freezing minutes for her to sneak down to the end of the corridor, but once she reached the entrance to the next room she carefully looked inside. Keeping her ears pinned back so they would not give her away; she only took a cursory glance but what she saw in the room beyond left her speechless. Hundreds of thousands of dollars’ worth of computer equipment lined the walls of what had to be the main freezer for the factory, the freezer itself was turned into a massive server farm, hundreds of little red lights flashing and blinking in the dark space beyond what area wasn’t filled with CPUs was filled with other computer equipment. The loading area of the freezer was turned into some form of experimentation area, one wall was filled with a massive metal ring held to the floor on some sort of platform with a ramp leading up to it and a small platform in front of that. With a diameter of twenty feet, the ring could fit five large mammals, depending on which they were, shoulder to shoulder. A much smaller version of the ring, only small enough for a mouse to fit through sat near a massive console that took up the majority of the center of the room, the smaller replica having a ramp and platform of its own. The whole room was filled with a soft gentle hum, as the machinery worked at its full capacity within the cold of the building. “I’m freezing my tail off for some computers!” Judy hissed angrily, though her little outburst was covered up by the constant hum of the machinery in the room beyond.
She paused as she looked in again, her keen eyes quickly sweeping the room as she looked around for her target. She spotted Hugh hunched over the massive console, the bovine only appearing once he stood up slightly. Standing more than five times her size and several dozen times her width and mass the cow with a mad glint in his eye was a rather imposing sight. Judy, however, was not intimidated, she had fought and taken down bigger, and besides that small fact, she had the element of surprise on her side. Carefully stepping forward she made it only a few steps before her paw landed on a stray piece of ice formed from a leaky pipe and though she tread softly not knowing the ice was there her weight came down on it fully causing it to *CRACK*. Though the sound was rather minuscule against the hum of the numerous computer banks, in the relative quiet of the room the ice might as well have been a gunshot. Hugh whirled around to face her, though much to Judy’s chagrin he looked right over her, she knew it was a stupid move tactically but she cleared her throat regardless her pride not allowing her to figuratively and literally be overlooked by the criminal she was meant to catch. To his credit Hugh locked onto her in moments, a small smile crossing his lips as the glint in his eye seemed to almost intensify as Hugh saw her.
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