Chapter One	Chapter Two	Chapter Three
Chapter Four	Chapter Five	Chapter Six
Chapter Seven	Chapter Eight	Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten	Chapter Eleven	Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen	Chapter Fourteen	Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen	Chapter Seventeen	Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen	Chapter Twenty	Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two	Chapter Twenty-Three	Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five	Chapter Twenty-Six	Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight	Chapter Twenty-Nine

There is a New Villainess in Town

Chapter Twenty-Four

“Gloria Simons is an independent reporter, her articles mostly appear in The Village Voice” Pat explained over the satellite link. “She’s a digger, if there is a story she goes for it. So far no one’s caught her making things up but she does add the numbers up and occasionally guess’s. Thing is, when she guess’s she’s often right so if she is after you, avoid her.”

Fluffball leaned back in her chair, enjoying the sight of Pat’s black and white furred body. She wasn’t attracted to Pat, not sexually but she looked so much like Trigger, a cat from her own youth and besides, Pat was the only other furred human on the planet. At least to their knowledge. “Easy enough to do Pat” she admitted. “I gave her an interview, there is no possible reason for me to give her another.”

“What if she threatens to expose your coffee house or your friend Mist?” Pat asked.

“Then she exposes them Pat, I won’t be threatened or controlled by anyone but you people. You are my bosses, that gives you the right to threaten and control me. I won’t like it still I prefer to remain breathing and you people can seriously stop me from doing that.”

Pat looked surprised, being a feline herself Fluffball could not read the other feline woman’s expressions pretty well. “Your scared of us?” she asked, disbelief in her voice.

“Truth is Pat, like you I know that when you people don’t need me anymore or I become a liability I’m dead. Hopefully it will be quick but there is no escape. One day I will wake up to find that an assassin will have killed me.” Fluffball looked away from the pickup a moment, settling herself so the tears wouldn’t come just yet then looked back at the camera. “Yes Pat, I am absolutely terrified of all of you and that includes a certain perky black and white kitty. I am doing the absolute best I can because doing the absolute best I can means I keep breathing one more hour.”

“But...” Pat stopped talking, she could tell from Fluffball’s voice that this was no joke for the bobcat. “All right, is there anything else?” she asked.

“No” Fluffball answered before cutting her end of the communication. It was then that she started crying, getting it out of her system. Pat was right, Simons knew too much. She would have to stop going to the little diner, cut all communication with Mist, end her little social life. Simons was a go getter from what Pat had reported, one who didn’t care who she hurt just as long as she got the story and she had fallen right into the woman’s trap.

Standing from her communications panel she reached over, pulling the main breaker. This insured that the Professor couldn’t track her energy use even though the system was set up to feed through an innocent looking satellite antenna on the roof, one of several dozen in fact. Walking over to her secure computer, the one connected to nothing and had the wi-fi burned out she sat the breaker down and pulled up her schedule. Very quietly she began re-arranging her schedule, she would move her pattern West, away from the docks into more business areas. Mist wouldn’t see her again, neither would a certain diner and certainly not one Gloria Simons.