Pixel - The Binary Ghost [https://i.imgur.com/hdDoxmm.jpeg]
IV - Busy Izzie
— Fucking assholes, muttered Izzie as she opened drawers, cabinets, and desktops, scattering their contents on the floor in search of a miserable piece of paper that, according to her source, held the seeds for recovering a wallet she needed to access at all costs.
Izzie was tirelessly searching the crime scene. She had entered the apartment during the most suitable period of the night, which represented the change of shift for the police. She did not have much time to find what she was looking for, disappearing without leaving any trace of who had really been there.
That was how Izzie was known in different sectors of the city. She had the reputation of being like a curtain of fog. Seeing Izzie with one's own eyes represented almost a mere illusion to the observer because she may have been the true inventor of the term low-profile. Stealthy as a fox, temperamental as a volcano, and relentless as time. Izzie was never alone; that was the wildcard in her sleeve during missions because Pixel was always lurking.
The audio device in her ear vibrated, and she immediately accepted the call.
— What kind of shit have you gotten me into now, Matrix? Nothing in the fucking briefing mentioned that this place had just been raided by the police and that they wiped all the evidence. In fact, if I watched TV, maybe I would have known before, that this was all over the news! Yelled Izzie with pure discontent.
— Calm down, Izzie. I was informed that the asset is inside a 144Hz monitor. Be alert, over and out.
— Monitors? There are at least fifteen monitors in this shithole! Shouted Izzie as she clenched her fists tightly and forgot that perhaps silence would be more opportune on that occasion. Started thinking "144 hertz? Why would anyone need a high-frequency monitor to mine cryptocurrencies?"
She was quick to realize that among the several tables in that room, only some should be used for games, and it would be easier to start with the monitors that had mechanical keyboards in front of them. She tore a curtain and lined the floor where she would start an atrocious and silent massacre of hardware until she found the mission's asset.
Izzie hated technology, for her it was one of those things she was forced to endure because it was everywhere. "Of all the timelines I could have been born into, I ended up in the period when humanity kneels and prays to screens and algorithms" was just one of the several things she thought when she revolted against her own existence.
Something about that brief sport of pulling the cables out of the monitors, grabbing them with her hand, and throwing them with all the force of her anger to the ground fed deep joy in her heart. When she finally came out of that trance of fun, she realized that there was no monitor left in the room, and only debris remained to be searched.
— Meow.
A shock awakened her heart, and Izzie's spine immediately froze when she heard Pixel's meow, who climbed onto a table and began to lick one of her paws. She had trained her sidekick to stay in a strategic location outside the building, like an immovable stone gargoyle, a sniper sentinel, a furry guardian angel who always alerted her tutor when danger was imminent. She was strangely able to translate her meows and knew that one signaled that someone was approaching.
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Izzie immediately hid in the doorjamb that led to the dwelling hallway and waited in silence with her hand on the holster.
She signaled for Pixel to get off the table and gestured with her mouth the words: "I'll strangle you if you don't get down from there now, you furball."
Pixel continued her bath.
She began to hear heavy footsteps coming in the perfect direction of the apartment she was searching for.
— Meow.
Izzie widened her eyes at Pixel and began to get angry, making an expression of profound anger and gesturing with her mouth, began to transmit another message to the feline: "You son of a..." Interrupting that mimetic dialogue between species, a man of about five foot seven, wearing a hat and an overcoat, entered through the door, and Izzie, with lightning-fast reflexes, drew her revolver and pressed it against the side of his head, synchronizing the sound of the gun cocking with her verbal warning.
— Hold it right there.
The lack of surprise in the man's expression as he turned his face and centered the barrel of the gun on his own forehead intimidated Izzie in a way that she kept her finger on the trigger just a few decimal newtons away from firing.
— Let's save this bullet, shall we?
— Maybe if you don't play smart.
— Let me rephrase, I have one in my pocket with my name scratched on it, it would make perfect sense, can I get it?
— What's your problem?
— Right now, it's you.
With her arm and aim fixed on the target, Izzie began to rotate in a way that left the man with his back to the hallway, preventing him from going further into the apartment and leaving Pixel at his rear.
— A detective in a hat, overcoat, and a corporate suit? What fucking movie did you come from, man?
— From the best blockbuster of your life.
Giving an ironic laugh and completely changing her tone of voice to a serious and arrogant frequency, Izzie repeated the question.
— What fucking movie did you come from? Izzie yelled with the rage of a volcano dripping lava.
— From the fucking Titanic, bitch.
Like a tonnage ship sinking into the depths of the ocean, Izzie's revolver butt traced a diagonal dive toward the man's nose, who started to bleed without apparently feeling any pain.
— What did you come here to do, who sent you, and what's your name? Just answer quickly, Titanic, I'm in a hurry.
— I'm looking for Satoshi Nakamoto; Freelance detective; call me Uncle Sam. Pleasure.
Looking puzzled, Izzie glances at Pixel and starts laughing, this time without irony. — Pixel, are you listening to this guy? I already know what movie he came from.
Izzie notices something strange and, as she backs away, looks at Pixel again, noticing that she's carrying a paper in her mouth. She is absolutely certain that it is the asset she was looking for and gives the command she had trained her feline for the moments of escape.
— Forrest Gump.
Pixel shoots towards a slightly open window with an emergency ladder and heads towards the meeting point outside where she knew she should wait for her owner.
Assuming the role of the titled character and as Izzie retreats, the man quickly puts his hand in his pocket, takes out a bullet, and throws it with all his might, aiming at Izzie's face as he runs towards her with the sole purpose of knocking her down to the ground.
In a surge of adrenaline that sharpened her senses and slowed down time, Izzie grabs that strangely fired projectile by hand in mid-air and shoots her revolver towards the man who blocks the shot with his right hand.
She picks up a loose drawer from a table and throws it at the man while releasing a stun grenade on the ground and disappears forever from that room during the blinding and deafening explosion.
She jumps out the window and down the emergency stairs to reach the ground and meet Pixel, checks the asset, and confirms that the mission was completed as she takes that mysterious bullet in her hand and reads the initials "W.C." scratched on the metal alloy.
— What the hell was that, Pixel?