Heedless of who was watching or not, the TV set continued to fulfill its programmed function. It continued to display the sound and images of the current channel. It was time for the daily news on a gloomy Monday. A well-dressed female reporter stood in the Strip, giving a live report.
“It is not a happy Valentine’s Day for everyone though, Robert. We’re in Las Vegas where a different kind of treasure hunt is underway. Heiress and web-streaming model Catherine Wallenstein has offered up to two hundred thousand dollars for the return of her friend, companion, and service animal, Mr. Mouser. The American Wirehair is her constant companion in her streams where she displays her day-trading abilities.”
Back at the studio, the anchor continued, “Two hundred thousand dollars? That makes even me wish to buy a cat costume,” he improvised a very inappropriate joke. “Now, I thought only dogs could be service animals, Kelly.”
“No Robert, that’s no longer the case. Recent changes in legislation allowed for other animals, so long they can receive the proper training. We have miniature horses working as seeing-eye animals, and even capuchin monkeys helping victims of brain paralysis these days. After Miss Wallenstein displayed Mr. Mouser's amazing skills during an interview with CNBC a month ago, at least five other felines were certified in the country, raising the number of service cats to seventeen in the US.”
“What about this bounty? What effects it had on the city?” Robert asked from the studio.
“Thousands of residents went out on the streets searching for the missing feline, Robert. They searched abandoned buildings, parks, alleys, and some even tried to present any cat they found to see if they could get the bounty. However, American Wirehairs are very rare and expensive breeds even though they are easy to mistake for others.”
“And how is Miss Wallenstein reacting to the loss of her four-pawed friend?”
“According to sources, she’s devastated. She hasn’t streamed for a whole week since Mr. Mouser went missing. We contacted her manager for an interview but we were refused. They issued an official statement saying that service animals are aking to an extension of the person’s body, and wishes for the return of her feline companion and increased awareness for service animals’ rights.”
“And we heard rumors of the FBI being involved in the case, is that true?”
“The Federal Agency refused to issue a statement but some witnesses report that the FBI is also on the search for Mr. Mouser. Miss Wallenstein is allegedly a witness in a secret federal case.”
…
“Fuck them,” a girl groaned and hit the power button on the remote.
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It was obvious the FBI was looking for Mr. Mouser. The cat was the only way they could find people tainted by the demon. After the assault at the 7-Eleven parking lot, they used every security camera in the area and even cellphone telemetry data to detect who was part of the flash mob. They got facial recognition from several of the fake protesters and captured a few of them on the same day. Turns out they were a group of actors allegedly hired to shoot a commercial ad and were told the girl was also an actress.
That didn’t stop them from being charged with assault, and class B grand larceny because Mr. Mouser was evaluated at more than a hundred thousand dollars, for both the brand value and training received. Her lawyers were crawling over the members of this troupe, dropping every lawsuit they could on them.
A few unknown elements were identified but the actors honestly believed they were members of another acting troupe, as a single group didn’t have enough people to create the whole flash mob. As for the reason they abandoned their “protest props” and fled, was that someone told them there were armed people after them. They fled for their lives, they alleged before the judge.
The federal government didn’t care. They slapped every one of them with charges of federal obstruction and witness tampering while leaving them a way out of it. Identify the perpetrators and cooperate with the investigations, get the missing feline back to his owner and these charges would go away. The state charges and civil lawsuits, however, were their own problem for being fooled.
Without much choice, the actors agreed to work with the FBI to identify the real criminals. They were hired by a throwaway company that ended up being owned by a homeless who took some cash from people whose faces he didn’t see in exchange for his personal information and signature. That was a dead end as the hiring process happened mostly online and the actors’ agents didn’t meet who hired them in person.
But the real thieves of the feline were identified after a few days of work on the camera footage. The shopping center across the street from the 7-Eleven surrendered their footage and they had several high-resolution cameras. They were the target of a group of looters during the riots following the “Florida Walker” attacks and ramped up their security investments.
But to Cat, that didn’t matter. She felt as if a piece of her was cut off and taken away.
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She didn’t go to the military base that weekend and didn’t spend Valentine’s with Jack. Instead, she shut herself off in her rented studio apartment and did absolutely nothing.
On the second day after Mr. Mouser’s cat-napping, Agatha flew from New York to check on her because she was worried Cat wasn’t even eating. She was right. The trauma of losing her companion caused an anxiety attack and she stopped taking her antidepressants, falling even deeper into the abyss. The young lawyer found her client buried in one of the beanbag chairs, dehydrated and wearing only a negligee.
The bounty was Agatha’s idea. She shoved the girl in the shower and dumped cold water on her until she came to her senses and ate something. After a week of constant prodding and back on her medication, Cat was almost able to function as a normal person. Dione visited a few times to check on her and Theresa would call her several times to make sure she wasn’t receding.
But the hole in her heart was impossible to fill. A line of people with cats of all breeds, shapes, and colors showed up at the temporary office Agatha rented but after the first day a picture of Mr. Mouser was posted outside the building with the sayings, “If the animal you brought doesn’t even look like this one, don’t even bother.” The message was a bit passive-aggressive but Agatha too was at her wits’ end.
To the young lawyer, however, was an opportunity to prove she deserved her position at one of New York City’s most influential law firms. She hired a team of local lawyers to help her, filed lawsuits on everyone involved as the investigation went by, and intended to make them pay for hurting the girl. She even got some private investigators on the case to gather information on Mr. Mouser by any means necessary. She went as far as telling them that as long as nobody found out, nobody got hurt, and the cat returned to his owner, they could even break the law.
Stolen story; please report.
She also took over the hiring process for video editors and jump-started Cat’s youtube channel with several dozen videos with clips of her streams. Agatha decided that this first channel would be an “entertainment/financial education”-themed channel, as its CPM was one of the highest on Youtube.
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News of a massacre in a construction warehouse in Black Hills northeast of Las Vegas was anything but ignored by the grieving girl. A group of twenty people was found dead, their bodies grievously maimed by what seemed like a bear attack. They were later identified as the real culprits behind Mr. Mouser’s disappearance by some of the actors. The mystery deepened because while black bears live in Nevada, they are only found in the western mountains and around Lake Tahoe and not at all-around a densely populated area like the Las Vegas region.
The feds took over the investigation as it was their jurisdiction but the case was closed soon after, the official story was that the deceased were animal traffickers that had an accident transporting a captured bear across the region. Evidence of broken cages and rotten meat was “found” in the warehouse and everything was placed under wraps. A pet leash too small for a bear was found in the warehouse but never recorded as evidence on file.
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Another week passed and no signs of Mr. Mouser. Cat posted a testimonial to her Youtube channel with her thoughts and feelings on the matter. She also set a crowdfunding page to raise money for animal shelters and promised her followers that she would post videos showing her donating the money and visiting the shelters.
Dione decided to not go ahead with their partnership. The real estate and construction markets were too expensive to invest in right now. She ended up using one of Cat’s suggestions and doing an online audition with the would-be models from their bedrooms, fully clothed to see which one of them had any talent and job ethics to work as a webcam model.
A heatwave struck Nevada and triggered an early Spring in the middle of February. Temperatures rose to eighty degrees during the afternoon and remained in the sixties during the night because it also triggered several wildfires and covered most of the state in a cloud of smoke. It burned more land in one week than in the previous decade combined.
Cat was sleeping with the window open one day as the air conditioning broke and the landlord had yet to fix it. She woke up in the middle of the night with something rasp scratching her cheek.
She opened up her eyes and saw a big cat lying on top of her, affectionately licking her face. He smelled of dust and smoke but even in the twilight from the street lights, she recognized him.
“Mr. Mouser!” She shouted in joy and hugged the Wirehair.
She rolled on the bed with him, squeezed the cat, kissed his snout and cheeks, and rubbed his fur until he’d shed all the loose hairs he could. He went for two weeks without his daily brushing session, after all. She giggled, squealed, whimpered, cried, and giggled again.
Agatha entered the bedroom and turned on the lights. “What’s going on? Is that…?”
It was. Mr. Mouser had returned on his own and was back to his former self after a bath and a long brushing session which he endured like a gentleman.
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A week ago, in a construction warehouse owned by a real estate development firm near Black Hills, northeast of Las Vegas.
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Mr. Mouser laid quietly in the pet carrier. The bad people that took him away from old-Catherine and new-Catherine usually left him alone if he did that. He was considering breaking out of the carrier but he didn’t think it was the right time. Alice had told him he should be careful when using his powers and keep humans from finding out at any cost. Only in a true emergency, he should act and he had to make sure nobody would see it.
Mr. Mouser had a secret. He gained a gift from Alice. She said that after they fought the smelly man and Catherine got hurt again, she could make another animal friend like the four wolves. She asked if Mr. Mouser wanted to be her animal friend and in exchange, he would get the power to help Catherine. He accepted but Alice said nobody could ever know that. She would tell Catherine what happened once they met again.
He thought he was already Alice’s friend as Alice was new-Catherine and old-Catherine’s best friend. So accepting her help was no big deal. And Mr. Mouser felt more things making sense after that, not to mention that he could now go with new-Catherine to all places instead of staying in the house where the bad mother used to harm old-Catherine.
He was now the best hunter ever. No mice, rats, birds, squirrels, and even bad humans wouldn’t see him coming for them. Like all good hunters, he saved his energy and waited for the right time. Maybe old-Catherine and new-Catherine would come and get him back, maybe he could escape when they weren’t looking. He needed to be at his best to act so he laid at the bottom of the carrier and did nothing.
Just like with old-Catherine after she decided to live in the same body as old-Catherine, he couldn’t understand what the people around him were saying. With new-Catherine he had learned to interpret what she was saying and those round things helped the girl a lot. Most humans were so slow to understand things.
Things changed when a woman whom the bad people called bowss or something like that arrived. First, she smelled bad like the smelly bad man that wanted to hurt Catherine, as Alice taught him to recognize. She manically lifted the carrier and stared at him through the door grate. She was baring a lot of teeth and staring at him like he was prey. Then she shoved the carrier on a bad man’s lap and became even more stinky. The bad smell now was overpowering him so Mr. Mouser decided to act.
He swiped at the door next to the pin thing humans used to keep the door in place.
> Skill Claws of the Lion King used.
A blue box appeared next to him, annoying him greatly. But Alice said the blue boxes were friends and they helped him so he let the box do its thing. His claws grew to enormous size and broke the hardened plastic of the door like bird bones. He jumped out of the carrier and on a table, sniffing the air. Now all the bad men smelled badly like real bad like the man who wanted to hurt both old-Catherine and new-Catherine.
They shouted something. Mr. Mouser attempted to decide what he should do when the conclusion became obvious. He needed to keep the blue box a secret and these people surely had seen it glowing in front of him. And they were bad and they probably wanted to hurt both Catherine. They were prey and he was the hunter. One of the bad men tried to catch him and he swiped at his face.
> Skill Claws of the Lion King used.
>
> Claws of the Lion King reached level 2.
>
> You killed a human (level unknown).
> You gained a level! 5 Skill Points Awarded.
>
> You gained a level! 5 Skill Points Awarded.
>
> You gained a level! 5 Skill Points Awarded.
>
> Auto-allocating Skill points. Claws of the Lion King reached level 5. You learned the Bleeding Swipe technique.
> [Bleeding Swipe]
>
> Your claw attacks may cause the [Bleeding] status, dealing damage over time.
The blue boxes made his claws stronger and bigger. They didn’t resemble a cat’s claw anymore but only when he needed them to. Mr. Mouser decided the blue boxes were helpful even though they glowed too much for his tastes, ruining his vision.
> Adjusting interface brightness. Night mode activated.
The blue boxes became gray boxes. Gray boxes were definitely better than blue boxes. And they made him stronger than the blue ones too. He could move faster, with more precision, and swipe his claws with deadly accuracy. Soon, the stinky people were no more.
> You gained a level! 5 Skill Points Awarded.
>
> You gained a level! 5 Skill Points Awarded.
>
> You gained a level! 5 Skill Points Awarded.
>
> You gained a level! 5 Skill Points Awarded.
>
> You learned the skill, [Dodge].
>
> Auto-allocating Skill points. Claws of the Lion King reached level 6. Dodge reached level 5. You learned the [Graceful Maneuver] ability.
> [Graceful Maneuver]
>
> Opponents are staggered for half a second every time you dodge an attack.
Mr. Mouser groomed himself and left the stone box humans like to live in. He needed to find Catherine.