Clad in a girly cat costume, I stood in the darkness behind the crumbling remains of an abandoned Hypermart, frowning at my Blipp app.

Not somewhere I wanted to be in the dead of night, especially not in my kitty cat getup. The place, scattered with broken bottles, smelled like piss, and had graffiti spray painted on the boarded windows.

...Whoever had the lights on in there...didn't trust them. I hoped the taser flashlight and the mace I had tucked in my top would be adequate defense.

"Guess I need to update my profile," I muttered. "They must think I'm a security guard."

My eyes searched the darkness surrounding the building. I walked to a broken window. "Hello! Chickendude-X! Did somebody order a Blipp?"

No response. I checked my phone again.

Brilliant Blipps: Performance Art on Demand

Blipp 15987788

PAID: $50

Time: 4:00-5:00 AM

Site: 8501 Strangeline Rd.

Duration: N/A

Preferred Costume: Kimikat

Blipp Description: Light private investigation. Use key in Geocache, PM back your findings.

XXX situation? No

Blipperid: Doctor8816

Usually, Blippers send more detailed instructions. I'd sent `Doc' Blipp messages, but they appeared to have ghosted me after sending the Geocache coordinates.

Well, $50 was $50, and few people actually requested the PI service I offered on my profile. My biggest complaint: I never advertised Kimikat on my Blipper Profile.

I'd answered the Blipp for Kimikat earlier that morning:

Special event: Snack Food Demo

Blipper Gender: Not specified

Duration 1-3 hrs. Pay $35-$100

XXX situation? No.

Free Costume and samples

That's how I ended up in a grocery store, giving free samples for Busan Bake in a fuzzy bikini for three hours. Seafood flavored chips and crackers. Cuttlefish, octopus, shrimp. Bland Hostess knockoffs.

Still got five cases of the stuff out in my car. The Blipper paid $40 for the job. Probably would have paid more if I'd been female or actually moved some product, but the guy still gave me five stars, plus an offer for swag from Kimfoods, (the Busan Bake umbrella) every time I'm seen in `uniform.' (Makes sense that I'd get free swag - the suit had a giant Korean logo printed across the chest).

Also, since you do a selfie with your Blipper at the end of each job...much to my chagrin, the guy posted footage of me in costume.

A couple hours after the job, I got another request for Kimikat...a seventy year old woman wanting me to install her toilet safety rails and hang pictures.

I still cringe at the way that gnome-like woman looked at me, and flashed those crooked teeth.

I stuffed my phone into my top and shivered. A cold night for a bikini, even a furry one with an ear hat. I rubbed my bare arms and followed the coordinates.

`Doc' had hidden the cache in a field of weeds. I had to circle the field five times to spot the damn thing. I kept expecting a security guard to come harass me.

"Gee, why make anything easy?" I would have taken the money and ran, had I not known that Blippers can hit you with negative ratings for the slightest of infractions, even bad singing on a telegram.

A metal cylinder had been wrapped around a scraggly plant, beside a cluster of rocks. Inside, I found a key...of sorts.

Not up to date on the latest locksmithing and/or lockpicking technology, but it didn't look one hundred percent legal.

I grinned. The cold, the walking waist deep in chigger infested brush with no pants, getting my costume tail piece caught on brambles, it was all worth it. "Aw yeah! Sam Spade, you're now in business!" I frowned at my plush outfit. "Or should I say, `Sam Spayed?'"

Eager to try out my new toy, I hurried to the back door of the warehouse.

The door swung inward the moment I touched the key to the lock. It appeared as if someone had been there before.

"Great detective you are," I muttered to myself. "Didn't even check the handle."

Just as dingy on the interior. In its heyday, it used to be the place to shop, and the staff at this particular location used to roll down the aisles in skates. But now...

No electricity. I searched the darkness with my cel phone light. Still smelled of booze and urine. No product, metal shelving broken down and rusting in stacks, cash registers and equipment auctioned off long ago. Black marks on the floor and ceiling indicated that homeless people had occasionally started fires in the building, but the overall lack of mess...plus the bootprints in the ash indicated security.

If my amateur detective work hadn't been enough, the charred skeleton in the `Homeland Security (no governmental affiliation)' uniform provided another big hint.

"Oh shit shit shit," I whispered, backing away. "What the hell have I gotten myself into?"

I froze, straining my ears for any threatening noises.

Mechanical sounds. Something whirring. My mind immediately conjured scenes from horror movies where the killer threw victims into a chipper shredder...Or meat processing equipment.

I continued reversing direction, considered shutting off the light, but decided I'd die quicker if I couldn't see how to get out of there.

A sudden blinding flash of light prompted me to freeze in my tracks.

Not your average policeman's flare. Something lit the place up like the noonday sun. I thought for a second that someone had dropped a bomb, or installed fresh fluorescents and just flipped the breaker. I instinctively dove behind a stack of shelves - pretty much had to press my whole body to the floor, not to be seen...and of course it had to smell like booze and cigarettes and a toilet.

I don't know what I expected, but what I saw...wasn't it.

A massive machine had been set up in the center of the building, giving off a multicolored laser light show as...industrial strength 3D printing equipment...constructed...fiberglass bunnies?

They had them all over The Plaza during Easter time. Shiny, man sized sculptures of rabbits in old timey outfits. Glowing pink light bulbs for eyes.

I found the things unsettling as they were, but to have them secretly mass produced in an abandoned building? At the wrong time of year?

At least a dozen of them already stood ready to go. Didn't see anyone running the machine...of course, AI had become pretty sophisticated these days.

Still didn't know how that security guard got roasted. I mean, I had ideas, but a lot of them came from movies...nothing you could seriously put on a police report. For this reason alone I didn't bug out.

...Well, until I saw a bunny in a floral print dress turn its head around like the girl on The Exorcist and flash its pink eyes.

I pulled my phone out of my top, cupping my cat-gloved hand over the screen to limit the amount of light, as I typed this note:

Found some kind of 3D printer making a bunch of those Plaza bunnies. You know, those creepy fiberglass statues with the glowing pink eyes that they put up around town every Easter?

Only when I finished typing did I realize how deafening those digital key clicks sounded in such a big empty place.

The industrially replicated bunnies could not only turn their heads around 360 degrees, they could also walk. When they moved, they made shifting fluid sounds, almost like a dishwasher, if one used single jets of water. Although I risked discovery, I messaged that additional detail as well.

Doctor8816 suddenly broke `radio silence' to send me this one Blipp message: They're Autons! RUN!

I jumped up and bolted for the door.

Bright light flared behind me, blinding in intensity, leaving afterimages in my eyes. Probably wouldn't have been able to see at all if I'd been facing that way.

"Oi! Kitty Cat! Duck!" a woman's voice shouted from somewhere unseen.

Lucky thing I took the advice seriously. The moment I dropped, a laser beam blasted a hole through the stack of wooden pallets in front of me. The splintery stack burst into flame, more or less explaining (I think) the crispy rent-a-cop skeleton.

I darted around the corner of the burning pallets.

The flash and the smell of burning polyester fiber indicated I'd been hit...somewhere.

Didn't hurt. I glanced back and found my tail on fire.

As I rushed behind an unburned stack of pallets, pounding out the flames, a fiberglass bunny in petticoats shuffled around the corner, eyes flaring with red light.

Close enough to smell. Not...right for fiberglass...More like motor oil and melted plastic.

An identical bustle wearing rabbit approached from behind me, bearing a plastic basket of Easter eggs. I shielded my eyes as its eyeball lights flashed.

"Get out of here!" Unseen Woman hissed. "Now!"

The moment I sprinted off, the stack of pallets came crashing down.

Realistic rabbit's head. Teal dress. Giant red bow decorating a fat bosom. Laser beams blazed from the statue's eye sockets, causing an explosion of flaming, splintery pieces of wood.

"Meow!" I yelped as I made a mad dash to the exit.

I didn't go home. Instead, I hung back by the fire escape, squinting into the semi-darkness, to identify the person who rescued me.

The lasers flashed, and I could see her: Blonde, clad in a gray lab coat, a rainbow shirt and blue pants.

The woman raised a copper tool of some kind. A button press on the object caused mechanical shrieking noises. The overhead fluorescents flashed and showered down sparks.

I gaped in astonishment as the fiberglass bunnies writhed in apparent agony.

The woman came running my way. "Oi! Chickendude-X! Why haven't you left?"

My jaw dropped. "You're Doctor8816?"

"Just `Doctor,' please," she groaned. "I told you to go home! You got a death wish, cutie?"

I blushed. For once, I didn't mind getting compliments from an older woman. Plus, in awe of how she fought those killer rabbits. "N-no. It's just...uh, did you want your skeleton key back?"

She gave me a dismissive wave, like she couldn't be bothered with such trifles.

I swallowed, nervously glancing back at the fiberglass rabbit production machine...and my attackers, which, at present, did not appear to be mobile.

"I mean..." I flinched as I suddenly noticed movement near the rabbit production machine. "I-If you no longer require my s-services, and you b-believe you got your fifty dollars worth, I-I just need a selfie to upload on Blipp...If you want to step outside a moment—"

The woman rolled her eyes. "Are you serious right now!"

She snatched the phone out of my fuzzy glove, forced a smile with her arm around me, snapped a picture. "There! Now go home, kitty! Before you get vaporized!"

"Y-yes, ma'am!"

As I was leaving, the woman swatted me on the butt.

I stopped, casting her a questioning glance.

I thought her face flushed a little red, but it could have been the fiberglass rabbits stirring from their previous inactive state. "Your tail was smoldering."

I rushed out the door, making a beeline for my car.

I collided with a tall wooden box. I swear it hadn't been there before.

Sitting on the dirt, I rubbed my injured leg, scowling at the strange obstacle.

Blue. Bright light shining through its little glass windows. Circular decal for some British hospital.

Police Telephone

Free For Use of Public

Advice & Assistance

Obtainable Immediately

Officer & Cars

Respond to all calls

Pull to open

No idea how it got there. I figured someone wheeled it in on a dolly. "The hell?"

Groaning, I staggered to my feet. I briefly considered trying the police, but, in between the unbelievable story, and the rent-a-cop, I had little hope in their `assistance.'

I glanced back at the Hypermart.

A lot of flashing lights, shrilly noises. Something exploded.

I leaned on the phone booth, wondering if I should help the woman. I mean, the woman appeared capable of taking care of herself, but I'd hate to see another charred skeleton inside the Hypermart...

On the other hand, what could I do about it?

"You said to go home..."

I got in my car, starting the engine.