On a mission

It was a normal case; weird occurrences reported in a nearby town, so Pete and Myka were sent out to deal with it. Unlike her partner, Myka was actually bothering to do the reading pre-mission.

A spate of nude photos of the various women of the town had been circulating, with no signs of photoshop and with every woman involved she had no idea of when the photo was taken. Once was an oddity, but consistently? That seemed to imply an artifact.

Myka turned over to the next page of the file; copies of all the known photos were displayed on it.

"You know, it's not fair you do all the work," Pete said, leaning over as soon as he glimpsed the page. Myka looked up sharply.

"Eyes on the road!" she said.

"Right!" Pete said, with a little .

Sometimes she still wondered why on earth they were paired together. He was meant to be driving; he'd refused to be the one to do the research on the way, but as soon as it involved...

Myka shook her head. Her cheeks coloured a little in sympathy for the women, though.

The photos only seemed to be set in two locations though; there was a small coffee shop where nude woman queued by the counter, or sat on a small table by the window, apparently oblivious to their current state. And then there was a street, a distinctive sign visible in a few shots of a cliche artist's palette.

There, too, naked women walked past with the same apparent obliviousness.

"What are we thinking?" Pete said. "Some sort of mind control, anti-clothes ray, what?"

"I don't know," Myka said. "But it seems to only take place in two locations, so if we can find them..."

"Split up?" Pete said. "I call dibs on the coffee place."

"Oh no," Myka said. "You're not taking time out to eat when we're on a case. You ask around for the plaque, I'm sure the coffee shop won't be too hard to find."

"Spoilsport," Pete said.

Rather quickly, Myka turned the page again. At least it made Pete focus more on the road when all there was to read was a long, dry list of facts about the town. It gave her the address of the shop though, and mentioned a local gallery.

"You start at the art gallery," Myka said. "If the plague's not there, someone there should know where it is."

"Fine," Pete said, sighing. "Save me a donut."

"Only if you do well," Myka said, allowing herself a moment to tease him.

It wasn't like she hated light-heartedness. There was just a time and a place.

They'd split up a while back, and Myka had quickly found her way to the coffee shop. She turned into the street, quickly caught sight of the familiar interior, and-And on the far side of the street was a familiar plaque displaying a palette. Huh. Well Pete ought to be due back here at any rate, and that did help matters; all the exposure was happening in this one place.

Being extraordinarily careful about what she touched, Myka made her way down the street. She pulled on one of the Warehouse's purple gloves, meant for safely touching artifacts, before she knocked on the shop's door. At any rate, that was a better way of getting attention than going in as a customer.

Plus it seemed to be a rather cluttered place, filled with knick-knacks, countless things that could potentially be the artifact and if there was any artifact Myka didn't want to come into contact with, it was this one.

A man, presumably the owner, came out to the door.

"We're open," he said. "You can come in."

"Not here for a drink," Myka said. She flashed her badge; "Myka Bering, secret service."

"What does the secret service want with-"

"I can't tell you that," Myka said. "But I have a few questions."

The man paused. Then after a moment he smiled, and nodded, stepping outside and closing the door behind him.

"Sure," he said. "Always happy to help. Just can we stand out of the way of the door? Don't want to block any of the customers."

Myka nodded. He moved in front of the window; Myka took a couple of steps to join him.

Inside the coffee shop however, the patrons shuffled to get a better view. None of them were quite sure how or why, not that any of them were going to look a gift horse in the mouth, but the window had been... strange lately.

Any woman viewed through it suddenly seemed to be missing her clothes. Whether they were inside or outside, they might be fully dressed when viewed from any other angle, but through the glass...

Obliviously, Myka was content to stand by it, unaware of just how many people were getting a clear view of her.

She stood side on, but was making no effort to cover herself. Her legs, a side view of the curve of her ass, the glimpse of a tattoo, some literary quote, doing down the small of her back, her tits...

"Has anything odd been happening lately?" Myka said.

The owner cleared his throat. "Just... business," he said.

"Nothing at all weird?" Myka said. "New arrivals, deliveries..."

"Had to replace this window a while back," he said, rapping on the glass with one hand. "Some hooligan threw a rock through it. That's about it."

Myka turned to face it, curiously peering at the glass. She jumped a little to see people staring at her, but shrugged it off; it probably was weird to have a coffee shop owner talking with the supposed secret service.

She lingered there, quite unaware she was giving an unobstructed view of her pussy.

"Mind if I ask who replaced it?" Myka said.

"Oh, that was me," the owner said. "Bit of DIY, always good to know how. Plenty of spare parts inside, as you can see."

So nothing new had come by...

There was a sigh of disappointment when Myka turned, the full-frontal view replaced with another sideways one.