JustPaste.it

Kopernika. A city filled to the brim with different cultures from across the galaxy and many people of many kinds traversing the streets, doing window shopping or gazing at the skyscrapers that were under construction, so high that they literally could one day scratch the ceiling that looked remarkably like the sky from the surface. Occasionally, a hovercart would pass by, carrying two sterlars around as they patrolled the town, keeping an eye out for pickpockets and other criminals. One in particular returned the favor, looming over the streets as she lingered in the masses.

"Are they lookin' fer me or wha'?", she thought. "Grabbin' some money is hard enough as is..." With the cops still nearby, her eyes scanned the mass of people through which she was squeezing herself, always on the lookout for some loose hanging wallets or handbags while trying to look as non-suspicious as she could in her, for once, not completely torn clothes.

"How am ah s'possed to pay mah bills if y'are so damn cautious!" She was still fixated on the people around her. "S'there not a one stupid tourist 'round these days?"

The hovercart took a turn to the right, disappearing behind a discount boutique. Most people, had they followed the car with their own eyes, would notice by now that buying three pairs of kneesocks would net you a fourth one for free, colour choice included. Kayt, however, saw the opportunity to freely roam the pavement. A lot of the passerbys around her seemed busy enough to either gawk at the ongoing rise and progress around them or merely looking for a place to have lunch, but for Kayt, all that mattered was finding somebody to be her money dispenser.
And there was somebody; a sterlar woman carrying a wallet plainly visible in her backpocket. She seemed busy talking to a bevatigen man right next to him, though through the sounds of the streets, it was hard to make out what exactly they would be talking about. Their flirtatious attitude seemed to suggest that they were a couple, and mixed species relationships were hardly a new thing for Kayt, though she couldn't exactly think of herself dating a sterlar. No visible ears, no fur except on the head, no snout, no antlers and for some reason, you could pick any colour imaginable and one day, you'd run into a sterlar that had exactly that skintone. Those two didn't seem to mind each other, however, as they kept walking. Kayt began closing in on them, taking every step deliberately, but not even halfway there, the couple seemed to be distracted by something, throwing Kayt out of the loop.

“You saw what that was?”, Kayt heard the woman ask.

The man shook his head. “Just felt like something passed by my leg...”
"Don' scar me like 'hat", Kayt sighed to herself as she carefully continued to sneak up on them. She tried not to actively squeeze herself through the people anymore, instead just taking whatever chance she got to pass through every hole she saw without anybody actively turning to her. She did so until they reached the cross walk, having gotten just behind her “client” and waited for the barrage of vehicles to die down. "There betta be somethan in 'ere...", she thought to herself, waiting for the light of the red cross to turn off and the green arrow to light up. With a couple of seconds left, she flexed her fingers as she whistles a little tune.

As the hovercarts stopped passing by and a loud buzzing noise indicated that the street was now free, the crosswalk began to fill up with masses of people clashing into each other, more often than not bumping into other people before forgetting about it and keeping to go on their way. Right in the middle of the street, Kayt's hand reached out for the wallet, slowly and invisibly. Just as she was about to touch it, she made a quick step forward before bumping into the sterlar's side, swiftly pulling out the wallet and putting it into her other hand. “Oh, Ah'm sorry”, she told them, bowing towards them slight. The only response she got in return was the two only giving her a weird look. They then stepped off the street and moved on straight ahead, as Kayt decided she'd rather split off and walked into an alleyway. The people around her took no notice of her as she vanished into the slim slit leading nowhere, cramming out the wallet and eagerly opening it. Her joy didn't last long, however, as she pulled out a debit card and a couple notes. She flipped through the paper money, but there was no big catch among them. Under desperation, she dug deeper into the insides of the wallet, and still, nothing of value was found inside.

"Stupid plastic", she moaned, stuffing the notes into a pocket inside her coat. "But if ah hurry, there could still be somethan in it for me..."

"Don't worry so much", a voice called her from behind. "Where you'll be going, you don't even need any."

Kayt sighed. "You guys got a sixth sense for bein' a pest, don't you?" She then ran off through the alleyway, with her pursuer quickly going after her.

"Kirk, I got her visual", the man mumbled as he kept chasing her. "Sector B7, approaching upper left cross section. Block her escape route. She's wearing the same stuff as last week."

Taking a sharp turn to the left, Kayt went straight for a fire ladder to the left and climbed it, all the while the cop ran after her, leaping onto the ladder and following suit. She ran up to the roof of the building, as the cop kept talking to himself.

"Change of plans, Kirk. Still in the cart? Good. Get to the crossing and drive south from there. She's trying to escape over the roofs." For a moment he paused, focusing on what came to his ears before responding again: "Yes, first left turn. Then wait for my signal."

He was hardly out of breath once the ceiling was in arm's reach, taking the last couple steps as he kept pulling himself upwards. Once his head was high enough to actually look at the ceiling, however, he got greeted by Kayt's fist flying towards his face, only barely blocked by his arm before she jumped downwards, grabbing the fireladder and letting herself fall a couple floors at a time so she wouldn't just break all her bones upon impact.

Once he collected himself again and looked down the alleyways, he noticed that Kayt was already gone, vanished and no longer locatable. Annoyed with himself, he said: "Kirk, discard the plan and get back on patrol. Pick me up when you see me. She slipped by." As he looked on the ground, he noticed a wallet lying on the ground. “Mmmh, why did she leave it here...” Grabbing it off the floor and looking inside, it didn't seem like anything was missing, aside from the lack of paper money. "Doesn't look like she took much..."

Feeling like he's down on his luck, he stepped down the ladder and made his way back to the streets, where he noticed a couple standing by the side and looking through every pocket on their bodies like they'd been possessed.
"I know I put it here somewhere!", the sterlar woman noted, her hands stuck in a pocket each.

“And yet it's clearly not there”, her male bevatigen friend noted. "Where did you put it after you paid in the cafè?"

"Well, I gave him my money", she started to reenact what she did earlier, "then I took the change, put it into my wallet and then stuffed it into my back po-"

As she continued, the cop got out the wallet again and looked at the papers, noticing the ID card inside. The picture on it matched the woman in front of him, so he went to her and asked: "Excuse me, is this yours?"

She stopped in her tracks, tearing the wallet out of his hands and asked: "Just how did you get this?"
"Following your robber, ma'am", he explained himself. "She escaped, but dropped this in the process." While she kept looking through its insides, he asked: "Nothing important missing, I hope?"

"Credit card, ID, work pass, restaurant discounts... everything's here, except my money."

"I'm sorry to hear that", he said, acting slightly embarrased.

"Oh, that's no big deal", she clarified. "I don't carry around too much hard cash. That just bloats the wallet for no reason."

"Ray!", a voice called from the distance. "Get over here!"

On the other side of the street, he saw a hovercart floating with his colleague waiting for him there, waving him over.

"You must excuse me. Duty calls", Ray told them. "If possible, take your case to the police station. They might be able to refund your losses."

"Thanks, but there's really no reason for it", she assured him. "Double digits at most."

"If that's the case... take care of yourselves", he told them before making his way to the hovercart, where Kirk was already getting a bit impatient.

"Just what's she doing that she always gets away?", Kirk asked as Ray entered the car.

"I was impatient, is all", Ray admitted before Kirk started up the car again. "You'd think there's no escape from those roofs..."

"Don't ya think you're too focused on catching a little pickpocket?", Kirk asked while aligning himself back into traffic.

"This isn't just some little pickpocket", Ray tried to make clear. "She's been messing with us for over two grand cycles! Thinks she can do what she pleases as if the rest don't matter..."

"You do realize that there's thieves other than her roaming the streets, right?"

"And you're talking like there are more of her caliber! Usually, if you snatch them off the road, it's always a different face, rarely the same one popping up. She, on the other hand... so damn persistent."
"If you say so", Kirk commented, his eyes focused on the street, as they kept cruising through the streets. "How about we get some lunch? Seriously starving right now."

Ray sighed. "Fine. Let's drive to Milana's as usual", he commanded. "She told me her roasted pork is on the daily menu again."

“With cream and sliced lemons?”, Kirk said and started fantasizing. “Musta been ages that I had a taste of that...”

“How about you focus on the street instead of what you might eat later”, Ray scolded him. “I can tell when you're not looking, you know.”