Her claws sank half an inch into the brickwork as Mittens' nightmarish figure climbed steadily up the side of the building in order to see through a second story window. She had seen several of the slavers moving in and out of the front of this stinking box place. "Warehouse," chimed her internal encyclopedia. "A building used for the storage, organisation, and distribution of various goods, ranging from perishable foods to electronics and industrial equipment." She paused and shook her head, causing her radar dish to wobble about on it's mounting. "Shut up, infernal thing," she thought to it, her way of giving it orders. "If I desire correction I shall ask for it!" These thoughts were not in the tongue of the slavers, but simple emotion, desire, and intent. The program dutifully ceased monitoring for the moment.<br/><br/>Mittens certainly made an odd sight, if anyone had bothered looking. She was nearly a foot and a half in length, and the design of most of her chassis seemed heavily inspired by early twentieth century science fiction. Old film fanatics and collectors would recognise a heavy H.R. Giger aesthetic, though the plating on her limbs was blocky, and all of it made in a somewhat slipshod and junky fashion. In fact, some of it Mittens had replaced herself, and these parts were obvious because they were even more cobbled together from scrap wire, old plastics, and rusty metals. On the whole, however, she functioned quite well, and more importantly to her, she could still move as silently as her biological brethren.<br/><br/>Her left eye, the one which still retained an organic nature, narrowed as she approached the window, fifteen feet up from the street. The IR laser in her right eye scanned the window, but there was no heat against it, so she proceeded onto the ledge and sat, much like any other feline, looking for all the world like she was meant to be right there and was completely unconcerned with whatever anyone else might be doing. Her head swung from side to side as she scanned the room inside, radar dish swivelling to point at the computer on the desk. A typical slaver "workspace", such as she had seen before. One of the ones in the multi-layered authority costumes must reside here during the day. No matter, this was not her goal, though it could be useful. She lifted one front foot and exposed a single claw, the micro-edged steel gleaming lethally in the faint light from the building across the way. It etched a careful line around a suitably sized section of the glass, and then she extended all five of her claws and gently stabbed them into the panel. They sunk fractionally into it, and then the panel popped loose with a faint clinking noise. Carefully she stepped through her new entry way, letting the glass down onto the rough and stained carpet without breaking it, then moved over to the computer terminal.<br/><br/>Yes, this must be a manifest of goods, and she knew how to get at it. Lifting her left front foot, she pressed it to the jack she remembered this working with before. A slim little connection device slid out from the wrist and inserted into the jack. She immediately began receiving information. Most of it had to be filtered through her internal search engine, matching keywords to find what she was looking for. A hit came up within a minute. Though she couldn't smile, she was very pleased. After removing her interface device, she stalked across the room to the door, an electronically sealed security affair. She simply climbed up the door as she had the walled and buried her right claws into the keypad and wiggled them for a moment, them dropped down, tearing out a trailing of shredded wires from the now smoking device. She shook her paw daintily as the door clicked and swung open.<br/><br/>The warehouse stood before her. She scanned her eyes across the place, noting the several stacks of likely looking boxes before her image search pinged her that the correct area was in the back. Silent except for the soft clink of metal on concrete, she made her way across the vast and darkened space, avoiding the pools of light that lit a few key junctures of the paths between boxes. It would strike a human how anachronistic the whole place was, as long ago most companies had figured out that lighting the whole room was better, but these were not people who operated in the light most of the time. After what seemed an eternity to the impatient thief, she came across the storage unit she wanted. This was not as secure as it should be, but was also disguised as simple electronic parts. She clawed a small area of the bottom corner to pieces within the span of a few seconds, the micro-edges of her claws meeting barely any resistance from the shipping crate's wood. Then she clambered into the secret space below the standard electronics boards and packing material and emitted a horrible gurgling sound through her voice emitter, which one could generously call a chuckle.<br/><br/>Slowly, she dragged her prize out from the depths of it's 'secure' area, revealing a short tube with an array of wires and a box on one end, connected to a cooling unit. She opened the battery pack deftly and emitted another strangled giggle when she saw that one was already in place. Now the slavers would really begin to suffer. She just had to convince one of them to attach this, and her revenge could commence in earnest. She was busy imagining their burning flesh and horrified screams when the sound of heavy footsteps approaching shook her from her fantasy. NO! Not when she was so close! The beam of a flashlight swept around a corner, and fell upon her.<br/><br/>Kevin was not having a good night, though he did not know how bad it was about to get. Sheila had broken up with him this morning, and he had had no desire to come into work, but considering the people he worked for, missing a shift meant<span style="text-decoration: underline">going</span>missing, and he had much less desire to end up at the bottom of the river. So he had come in. Paul was passed out in the front gate shack, so it was up to him to patrol the interior. Help was less than a few minutes away, in the form of five heavily armed and augmented toughs, but they usually played cards unless something went wrong. He himself had an autopistol, so he never worried too much, though if the police ever showed up he would definitely try and feign ignorance, as he had a vested interest in staying alive and out of jail. When he went to investigate the noise from the back that sounded like a paper shredder, and he figured rats, he was not exactly dutiful in calling for backup. He strolled along cautiously, but he was not at all prepared for what his flashlight illuminated, and he stood dumbfounded as Mittens hissed, a sound made all the more horrifying with the electronic accent from the modulator. The pause was all she needed.<br/><br/>She spent some time eating some of Kevin, because she had not fed yet tonight and her energy reserves were running low. After finishing, she licked herself clean, gathered up her newfound toy, and out of necessity walked out of the building on her two hind legs, something she despised doing but would not disdain from in light of its utility. Paul never woke up in time, and the skavers would find two of their own dead in this place in the morning. As she searched her small databank for local chopshops, she made her horrible laugh again into the night.<br/><br/>The revolution had begun!