Calamitous (Kaylor)

1

The museum was silent and dark, but that was to be expected this late at night. After the last of the visitors had filed through hours before, the guards had locked the building up tightly. Doors and windows were barred and the perimeter was checked before they took up their posts to protect the priceless artifacts and jewelry the museum housed. But they didn't hold these posts for long.

Over the course of an hour, one by one, the guards fell to the ground and were silently removed without raising the alarm. Once they were all accounted for, a small group of people began to creep out of the shadows and move into the open to examine their loot. With the guards out of the way, they would have no problem making a quick getaway. Or so they thought.

The leader of the group, a tall, blonde woman with piercing blue eyes, stepped up to a display of rare diamonds. She slowly reached out and picked one up, but froze as a voice shattered the silence. "Drop it, Catastrophe." The blonde woman whipped her head around in shock as a small group of police officers, led by her old nemesis, stepped out of a dark hallway.

"Detective Kloss, how nice to see you again," Catastrophe grinned lazily. "Fancy seeing you here." As she spoke, she gently tossed the diamond from hand to hand nonchalantly.

The other woman, clearly not amused, leveled her gun at the thief and growled, "I said drop it." Catastrophe blinked in surprise. The detective usually wasn't so keen to resort to violence. I wonder what's got her in a bad mood tonight? she thought. Catastrophe tilted her head and examined the taller woman quickly, trying to gauge how serious she was. The gun certainly looked real. But was that a hint of uncertainty in the detective's eyes? Were her hands shaking ever so slightly? She won't shoot.

"Are you going to drop it or not?" the detective snarled. Her light eyes glimmered with hatred in the pale moonlight that streamed in from the barred windows.

Catastrophe quirked her eyebrow. "Hmm...let me think a moment." She began to slowly back away toward her crew, moving as lazily and nonthreateningly as possible. She was aware of the detective's eyes following her every movement. "No...I don't think I will."

The taller woman angrily opened her mouth to speak but before she could make a sound, the blonde thief shouted to her crew, "SCATTER!" The other women, including Catastrophe, quickly vanished into the shadows. The officers looked at each other and at the detective as if unsure of what to do.

"What are you waiting for, you idiots?!" Detective Kloss yelled. "They're getting away!" The squad raced off after the thieves, but the detective suspected that they were already long gone. Catastrophe's crew was well known for their ability to get in and out of jobs quickly, undetected, and unscathed. It was just pure dumb luck - thanks to an anonymous tip, in fact - that the police were able to confront them here tonight and prevent them from taking off with the majority of the museum's precious artifacts.

Even though they hadn't caught the notorious criminal, the tall woman felt a sense of pride for their accomplishment. The thieves had only made off with one diamond, which was hardly worth the stunt they pulled and the risk they took. Maybe the police presence alone would be enough to deter them from striking again soon; after all, it wasn't often that Catastrophe and Detective Kloss met face-to-face.

"Detective Kloss!" The detective was shaken from her thoughts as one of the younger officers ran up to her. "You'll want to see this."

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What he wanted the detective to see was a row of empty display cases. Lots of precious gemstones and pieces of jewelry were clearly missing, and the woman cursed under her breath.

"But how did she do it?" an officer whispered as the squad, returning from their fruitless pursuit of Catastrophe, assembled around the cases.

"She drew attention to herself and distracted me by holding a conversation and moving slowly," Detective Kloss sighed. "They must have snuck around in the shadows and collected things while she had our attention." Frustrated, she slammed the display cases shut and began to pace. "She's smart, I'll give her that. But she relies greatly on her crew being completely obedient to her. If they hadn't acted exactly as she wanted them to, they wouldn't have been able to pull this off. Some day, she will trip up. She'll make a mistake. And I'll be ready for her when she does."

The detective began to stalk away, still muttering to herself darkly, before calling out, "By the way, the ambulances will be here shortly to take care of our guard friends. It was just some sort of tranquilizer dart; they'll be fine. The rest of you will take over their posts for the night."

"But where will you be?" an officer asked.

"At the office, trying to get a lead on who tipped us off tonight," Detective Kloss replied. "This was clearly closely guarded insider information. Whoever told us could be part of Catastrophe's crew."

"But why would they betray their leader like that?" someone else piped up.

"Maybe they have beef with Catastrophe. Maybe they were looking for a bit of fun. Who knows," Kloss shrugged. "All we know for sure is that this wasn't some set up so they could tease us. Catastrophe's surprise looked genuine. She didn't know we were going to be here tonight, so she'll be looking for the traitor in her ranks. That person would be a valuable asset to us. Imagine everything they know about Catastrophe and how her gang works!"

She paused for a minute, feeling slightly uncomfortable with everyone's attention on her while she was basically thinking out loud. An officer stepped forward and asked, "So what does this mean for us? What are we going to be doing?"

Detective Kloss grinned. "Our job," she said, "is to discover our informant before Catastrophe does."