Chapter 6 – Cleaning Up the Gang
Laura had been crouched behind the truck the walking tank had pulled the engine out of, hearing gunfire and explosions from inside the store, loud crashes, all hell breaking loose, especially when that group of maids had been brought out and wrapped in a light pole by said tank. She’d stayed on the line with the office, and finally heard the sirens getting close about the time everything had gone quiet with a final loud, heavy thump.
Against her better judgement, she made her way over to the hole in the front of the building. She spotted several other maids strewn across the floor, and two standing figures, the humanoid tank, and another she’d not seen before, turned toward the pink-haired maid laid out on the floor. She raised her gun toward them as she rounded the corner and shouted “Freeze!”
Both figures turned toward her, then looked at one another. The tank raised a hand, holding it open and not directly at her. “We’re not going to hurt you, officer,” it said, sounding like the robot it probably was, deep and metallic. “All the maids have been stopped; there is one in the back, possibly with more explosives on her person.”
“Like, totally! The one in the back and this pink-haired one are like, super ill-tempered, ya know? Be really careful when they wake up!” said the goth-looking one, with a very pronounced valley-girl accent as she raised her hands.
Laura was momentarily caught off guard at the clash of look and sound of that voice, but kept her gun trained on the neon-haired woman nonetheless, as it might actually be effective against that one. The various scrapes on the paintjob of the tank from the massive amount of firepower it had absorbed told her all she needed about how well her M&P would do against it. Still, she didn’t actually feel threatened by either of them, at least not like she would have against the maids. “Who are you?”
“Oh, like, you can totally call me Cyber Seer,” said the one in black and green, and with the thumbs up she gave Laura, the detective could almost imagine her with a goofy grin on her face behind that mask.
The tankish one said nothing for a moment, then finally replied with “Mecha Musume.”
“I don’t know what the two of you were thinking, but I’m going to hold you for questioning, if not arrest you.” Laura realized just how ridiculous that sounded as her eyes looked the walking tank up and down.
The tank and the goth girl looked at one another, then back to Laura, with the goth flicking two fingers on her hand, suddenly holding a small bit of plastic between them. Laura adjusted her aim in a moment, but she still didn’t seem to be threatening her. “Careful!”
“Like, chill out, man,” said the goth, casually tossing the piece of plastic to the top of the one remaining display case, miraculously untouched by the chaos about them. “There’s like all the info on the maids except the pink-haired one, ya know? From what I can find online, they’re like, called the Clean Sweep gang or something. Oh, and totally keep your eyes on that one in the back; she’s like, a rattlesnake or something, just ready strike, ya know? Oh, and like, they didn’t actually steal anything; we stopped them before they could, but I think someone like, beat them to it and stuff. Some pink catgirl, yeah?”
Laura’s eyes glanced at the display case, finally seeing that the little piece of plastic was an SD card. Tires squealed outside, blue and red lights filling the inside of the store, and at the mention of a pink catgirl, her eyes darted back to the pair. In that moment of distraction, the tank took a step back and fired off some rockets, sailing through the window and upward out of sight. Though her gun had been pointed squarely at the goth, she had vanished without a trace. Laura looked back and forth quickly, but saw no sign of where she could have gone. “Son of a…”
Her mind was momentarily overwhelmed at the huge amount of paperwork that was coming her way at losing two suspects, witnesses, whatever they were, who were standing right in front of her. She might have been able to deal with it had the added weight of another Pink Pussy theft not been plopped on top of it. She closed her eyes, sighing heavily as she holstered her gun, rubbing her temples.
About Thirty Minutes Later…
“Well, this is some kind of mess you’ve gotten us into tonight.”
Laura raised an eyebrow, looking at her partner. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Where do I start? Hundreds of shell casings, over a dozen suspects, two missing persons of interest, massive property destruction…and another possible Pink Pussy snatch job.” Jerry blew out a mouthful of smoke, shrugging as he crushed his cigarette butt against the nearby trash can, checking it to make sure it was completely out before tossing it away. “And we haven’t even done a once over of the vault yet. You sure know how to pick’em.”
“I was just trying to have dinner,” Laura replied, her stomach rumbling, making her grimace. “It’s not like I had intended to step into a war zone tonight.” She looked around at the multitude of police cars and trucks, not to mention the crowd of onlookers that had gathered further down the street. Did nobody have anything better to do after midnight?
An armored SWAT officer approached them, motioning back into the store with his thumb. “Bomb squad cleared the building, Detective Conway. Found a few more grenades strapped to that little girl, but nothing else like what blew the vault door. Sure takes some kind of fucked up mind to bring a kid like that into this kind of job.”
“Yeah, you’re telling me,” Laura replied, though after what the one calling herself Cyber Seer had said, she wasn’t so sure. “We’ll take it from here, then. Let’s go, Walsh.” Laura walked back into the jewelry store, pulling on a pair of latex gloves as she made her way into the back, shaking her head as the CSI team was hard at work marking all the various shell casings and automatic weapons lying around.
As she stepped around the vault door, she noted a particular indention in the floor next to, vaguely human-shaped but a lot bulkier. Had the door been on top of the tank? The one that had called itself Mecha Musume? She had her flashlight out and scanned around the outside of the vault while Jerry went on inside. Some more 9mm casings, lots of burns from the explosion that had sent the vault door into the next room, but no merchandise had apparently made it beyond the vault.
“So, Jerry, you ever hear the names Cyber Seer or Mecha Musume?” she asked as she turned into the vault, looking at the various drawers that had been opened.
Her younger partner, only by a couple years, shook his head. “Nope, neither one rings a bell, though I’ve heard the term ‘mecha musume’ before.”
“What is it? Sounds Japanese.”
“You’re right; it’s basically a term for girls that dress up in powered armor, some if it skimpier than others. Tons of artwork out there.” He turned and grinned at Laura, shrugging. “I was a bit of a weeb back in high school and college.”
“Never would’ve guessed that,” Laura replied, rolling her eyes as she recalled the multitude of times she’d caught him reading some kind of Japanese comic books in their precious little downtime.
“Now here’s a name I do recognize, though,” Jerry said, reaching into one of the drawers and taking out what looked like an 8”x10” photo. “There’s no diamonds in these drawers like the labels say, and this pretty much confirms our old friend is back again.”
Laura took the photo, a sinking feeling in her stomach. Sure enough, there was that familiar face winking back at her. “Pink Pussy…” Laura grimaced as she looked at the photo. It was an unmistakable calling card, one that this particular cat burglar couldn’t help but leave behind, apparently. It had been a quirk that the former heroine had taken to when she left bad guys for the cops to clean up, not unlike a cat leaving a mouse for its owner. “Give me a rundown on what you think happened here tonight.”
“Well, I’d say this was a particularly over the top heist job on the part of the maids. They wanted the diamonds based on what I’m seeing here. They got interrupted right out of the gate by your missing pair, but not before they managed to put up a fight. Since the little girl was found drugged in here, one of the two mystery heroines got to her just after she made her discovery that their loot was already looted. Probably the one not armored up. The real question is whether or not those security cameras actually picked up the Pink Pussy getting in here, and if so, how she did it without a combination to the vault door. The owner has already said he had no alerts of it opening or any motion being detected. Pretty crazy series of events, I know.”
“That tracks for me,” Laura replied a moment later, her eyes still staring at the photo. She pulled an evidence bag from her pocket and slipped the photo inside. She looked back to Jerry with a tired grin. “Let’s see what else you can find in here before we let CSI have the run of the place; I’m heading back up the street to get my car and laptop; I want to see what’s on this SD card our mysterious cyber-girl left us.”
Laura’s thoughts were all focused on Pink Pussy as she headed out of the building, though. This was the fifth confirmed robbery she’d been responsible for in just over a month, and without a doubt the most costly if she’d stolen a bunch of diamonds. She’d been escalating, and with the last one just a week ago, speeding up in frequency.
It had been a sudden change; for a few months Pink Pussy had been tackling crime on the streets, and making a star of herself online. She even had a rival, someone else with a feline persona who called herself Shadow Lynx, and had made appearances at a few comic conventions to tons of fans. Though the police and local government couldn’t officially endorse such vigilante activities, they hadn’t made a serious effort to stop her, either. She had been doing good by them.
Then out of the blue she’d gone quiet on her social media, and before they knew it, her first photo, her calling card for the cops, or that she gave to fans she met, had shown up at a crime scene. What limited surveillance footage they had seemed to show her in the act, and pink fur had been found at the scenes. It seemed pretty obvious she’d turned to a life of crime, but nobody could figure out why.
The case had been assigned to Laura and Jerry, and thus far they’d not managed to get any solid leads. Nobody on the street seemed to know what the deal was with Pink Pussy, and nobody had spotted the usually photogenic feline in person. None of the online community could help them either, as all the forums and commenters were just as lost as the police; well, those who weren’t solidly in the Shadow Lynx camp, who seemed to delight in taunting the diehard Pink Pussy fans, even though their darker heroine had openly stated she was going to bring her rival to justice, and at least hear her side of the story.
There was a deeper layer to the whole Pink Pussy case, though, one that only Laura knew about. It wasn’t exactly something she could let out into the open, either. She had a personal link to Pink Pussy, even knew who she really was.
Her lifelong friend Catherine wasn’t out training as she’d been telling everyone. She and Pink Pussy were one and the same, and she’d not heard a peep from Cat since she’d gone missing and later turned up on the wrong side of the law. The last thing she’d told Laura was that she was trying to piece together a new case, but had kept tight lipped about it since she hadn’t wanted to distract Laura from her caseload at work without enough evidence to make it worthwhile.
‘Conflict of interest’ didn’t even begin to describe her situation right now.
As she reached her car, Laura heard high heels on the pavement, hurrying toward her from the direction of Mr. Wong’s restaurant. “Miss Laura! So glad I caught you!”
She turned, seeing Mitsu headed in her direction, with a plastic bag loaded with food containers. Her stomach made itself known again, and she felt her cheeks heat. “Oh, Mitsu, you didn’t have to wait for me…but I’m really glad you did.” She took the offered bundle gratefully, surprised that the containers were still warm.
Mitsu smiled at her, bowing quickly. “You one of our best customers, so it’s no problem.”
Laura reached into her coat’s inner pocket and pulled out her wallet, tugging a couple of twenties from it. “Here, don’t worry with change. You’re a lifesaver, Mitsu, thanks so much.”
Mitsu accepted the cash, holding his hands together as he bowed again. “You’re very welcome, Miss Laura. Will you be heading home now?”
Laura shook her head. “No, I’m just going to drive up the street and go over some more of the crime scene; they might even have those maids out of that lamp post by now…” She offered Mitsu a tired smile. “I’ll be a few hours yet, but at least I’ll have a hot meal for breakfast!”
The plot thickens!
Hope you’re enjoying the story so far! Things are about to heat up, and not just on the streets. Just wait till you see what happens in the bedroom next chapter!
Hope to see you there for some of the kinky stuff you’ve been waiting for!
Till next time!
