Chapter 2 – Dinner to Go
“Miss Catherine is still on her training trip?”
Laura blinked, bringing her eyes away from the window she’d been staring out of, and turned to look toward her server, one of Mr. Wong’s very girlish sons by the name of Mitsu. She never would have guessed he was a he if it hadn’t come up in conversation several months back while she and Cat had been enjoying a late dinner. In fact, the only one of Mr. Wong’s children that was actually a woman was Misao, who herself was more built than Cat and tended to dress more like a man would, usually in a sleeveless shirt of some kind that showed off her sizeable arms. She’d arm-wrestled with Cat a few times, and the two were pretty evenly matched as far as their wins/losses. The peculiars of that particular aspect of the Wong family Laura hadn’t delved into, though; some secrets just came in time. “Sorry, Mitsu, my mind was somewhere else…what was it?”
The young man smiled and shook his head, leaning over to refill her teacup. He wore the Chinese-style dress, in red and gold silks, that was the defacto uniform for the wait staff, his curvy hips, covered in dark stockings, showing through the slits in the side of the dress. “My apologies if I interrupted your thoughts, Miss Laura. I was just curious if your friend was still training?”
“Oh, yeah, yeah, Cat’s still not made it back yet. Hopefully we’ll see her before long, once she gets tired of all that running around and climbing mountains and such.” Laura smiled despite her knowledge that she hadn’t seen Catherine in over a month, and she was deeply worried about her friend’s whereabouts. “Thanks for the tea.”
Mitsu nodded. “Very welcome. Apologies dinner is taking longer tonight; very busy after that movie let out.” From the kitchen came an angry string of Korean curses from Mr. Wong himself. Mitsu sighed, bowing. “Father is very upset by it too. So sorry.”
“It’s fine, Mitsu. Don’t worry about it; I’m off the clock for the night anyway, and really, there’s nowhere else I’d rather be right now.” Laura smiled again as Mitsu straightened and headed back to the kitchen in a near run. Mr. Wong ran a tight ship, that was for sure, though he did seem a bit harsher than needed on his sons. As she sipped at her tea, Laura’s eyes returned to the window, looking out to the street. Traffic had died off this late, most of it concentrated closer to the center part of Sentinel City at this time of night. It was rather peaceful out there in the orange glow of the street lamps.
Her thoughts immediately went back to Cat, though. Her best friend wasn’t out training, but had gone missing while she was out doing her hero thing. Ever since that blue wave or whatever it was had swept the planet and she found out she could transform into a powerful cat-like form, Cat had insisted on being a heroic vigilante sort. It made it somewhat difficult on Laura being a cop and all, sure, but Cat was making a difference out there, so looking the other way hadn’t been that hard. Since her disappearance, Cat had been spotted a few times, but not like Laura had known her. “What’s going on, Cat…you need to let me know something…” she muttered.
The roar of an engine from down the street caught her attention. At first she thought it was just some kid doing a heavy-footed peel-out from a red light, or someone showing off their new wheels, but the roar continued, and a moment later a large panel truck whooshed by the restaurant’s windows. The haphazard paint job, and what looked like pieces of metal welded to the outside made her look twice, but by then it was already gone. Then two more panel trucks roared by as well, and she caught a glimpse of what looked like someone dressed as a maid behind the wheel.
Immediately sensing that something was amiss, Laura quickly downed the rest of her hot tea, wincing as she immediately regretted scorching her mouth, but struggled through the pain and got to her feet and headed for the front doors. Just as she pulled them open she heard the loud crash, followed by the squeal of brakes, and the blaring of an alarm. As some customers and some of Mr. Wong’s family came toward her, she waved them back. “Everyone stay inside; something’s going on down the street.”
As she looked back out, she saw more maids hopping out of the trucks, and all of them were packing rifles, a smattering of M4s and AKs that were just as likely to be full auto-capable as not, a few FN-FALs too. She immediately snatched her phone from her pocket and dialed the emergency line at the office. “This is Detective Conway,” she started, giving her badge number. “Spotted robbery in progress in Oakdale at Azata’s Jewelry store on 1st Street. Multiple suspects, all armed with automatic rifles; they drove a truck through the front of the building. Requesting all available units and SWAT down here NOW.” Laura waited for the acknowledgment and stuffed the phone back in her pocket before she drew out her own gun. Even though it was in .357 SIG, the M&P pistol looked sorely outmatched against what the maids were packing, and all she had in her unmarked car was a 12-gauge pump.
“What’s going on, Miss Laura?” Mitsu asked from near the counter.
“Nothing good,” she responded, looking back to him. “Stay inside, keep everyone away from the windows. I’m going to get a closer look. You hear any shooting, hit the deck.” She started out the door, but stopped before passing through. “Uh…I’ll take that dinner to go, by the way.”
She was heading down the street before Mitsu could respond, keeping low behind the few cars parked along the roadway. Dust mixed with smoke rolled out from the broken storefront, and a quartet of armed maids stood around outside, rifles held at low ready, keeping watch. Their choice of attire was odd, but then again, in the last six months, normal hadn’t been a thing what with all the supers showing up out of the blue.
The last car between Laura and the maids was a good two-hundred feet away, but she didn’t like her odds. Those rifles could reach out and touch her just fine at that range, and could shred the thin metal of the car without much trouble. She didn’t hear any sirens yet, but would at least observe the situation, maybe try to disable one of them if the opportunity presented itself so they could try to capture and question. It was a long shot with a pistol to be sure, but she had earned every marksmanship certification and award the department had to offer. SWAT had even tried to recruit her as a sniper a couple years back, but Laura’s brain was a lot more useful as a detective.
Keenly aware of the continuing lack of sirens, Laura’s ears did pick up another sound over the shrieking alarm. At first she wasn’t sure what it was, then thought it sounded like a jet engine; the only thing she knew for sure was that it was getting closer. “Don’t tell me I have to deal with a plane crash too…”
Looking around for the source, she spotted a brightly glowing streak in the cloudy night skies, coming in from the direction of downtown. It left a trail of blue fire behind it, but was much too small to be a plane of any kind, even a one-person glider. It was approaching at incredible speed, and she was certain it was going to crash into the jewelry store.
At the last second the fire died, and the shape shifted, flipping itself and slamming down onto the street in front of the maids, the impact tearing up asphalt and sending out a shockwave that Laura felt even at two-hundred feet away. Through the swirling dust, Laura caught sight of something big and bulky, over six feet tall. It turned its head, looking back and forth amongst the stunned maids, a glowing green visor where it should have had eyes. The rest of the body was all dark gray armor, in overlapping plates and panels that put Laura in the mind of riot gear, but definitely more military in nature, and solid metal if she hadn’t missed her guess. “More like a mini tank…” she said, wincing.
“Throw your weapons down and surrender immediately!” the walking tank ordered in a deep electronic voice as it drew a very large handgun from a rack on the rear of the armor, easily as long as the maids’ rifles but two or three times as bulky, a loud hum filling the air as something cylindrical mounted in the weapon’s frame began to spin up.
“Killer robots now? Holy shit!” Laura spat, snatching her phone from her pocket again and slammed her thumb down on redial. “Can’t just have a normal night, huh? Not in Sentinel, not anymore…” she muttered, cursing that the person on the other end was taking so long to answer.
This was going to be a long night…
Here we introduce Detective Laura Conway, who is set to become one of the major players in the heroics department in the near future. Originally I’d thought to have her be the sole POV character in this story and have it be a full-on mystery at first, but I much more enjoyed shifting the POV around to all the different characters involved and turning it into a more action-oriented story.
Though originally conceived for a more vanilla setting at my tabletop Mutants and Masterminds game, the kinky natures of the heroines will be revealed in due time. Expect to see things heat up in coming chapters, after the opening action. There should be some tasty bits coming up real soon…
Forgive any formatting errors on this one; I’ve been struggling with vision problems since last week, and haven’t even managed to write since then. I’ve been to my specialist and even received an injection in one eye, but while my vision is clearing, it’s still far from where it needs to be.
I’m trying to struggle through and stay on track with everything, and do have a bit of a lead-up on chapters for this one, but I’ve not made the progress I’ve wanted to due to this. I still am going to keep posting, though, and hopefully my vision will continue to clear, though there is a distinct possibility I may have to have a minor surgery to clear the issue I’m having now with my right eye (retinal bleeding due to diabetes; don’t recommend anyone experience that if they can help it!).
Seems like it’s always something to set you back, but the trick is keeping on keeping on, I guess, lol.
Till next time!
