A blond man in a black wind breaker, light blue t-shirt, and khaki pants was sitting at an outdoor cafe, people watching while drinking a chi tea late and generally feeling quite good about himself. He was in such high spirits because he had just finished taking out an ad in the Baltimore Sun and was now engaged in one of his favorite activities while drinking one of his favorite beverages. As a burly businessmen man bustled past, phone to ear, briefcase in hand, intent on some meeting, the blond man idly wondered what the papers advertising department would think of his submission, it was, after all, a very unusual ad: he was standing in his traditional business uniform with his logo, a dragon winding it's way up a stylized rose before arcing over the edge of the blossom and striking down at it's core, directly behind him; around the edge was written “In celebration of my upcoming tour I shall be giving a private performance of my great show, during the course of which I shall steal a Mother and Child. All law enforcement officers, the honorable members of the fourth estate, and the esteemable agents of ACME are invited. The show will begin promptly at 7:00 Sunday afternoon. Admission, as usual, will be free and on a first come first serve basis. There will be a door prize!”. Yes Epsilon Rose was feeling quite pleased with himself.

 

(Sorry for being so late in posting this. A final bit of information before I send you on your way, this ad will appear in the Monday addition of the Baltimore Sun making this post occurs on Sunday. I have no plans to act before the theft though I will if prompted; please post when you are ready for the story to advance to the time of the theft.)

MONDAY, 5:24amPST

It was morning.  The uncovered legs of ACME's newest Special Agent poked out from under her blankets at random angles as she hugged her pillow, snoring into it softly.  The first of morning's rays peeked through the crack in her curtains, safely hitting the wall across the room, a safe distance from Missy Wayward's eyes.  Her mouth left open just a little it was questionable whether or not she was drooling when her communicator went off. 

She continued to snore as the sound, at first a soft beeping, started to get louder until finally Melissa opened one eye and grabbed the communicator from the nightstand, fumbling to try and turn off the alarm as her eyes squinted to read message details without her glasses.  Yawning and wiping sleep from her eyes Missy stood, letting the blanket fall from her form leaving her in a t-shirt and pair of boxer shorts, and turned on the lights before reaching for her glasses (as she had yet to put on her contacts.) 

---

ACME Control Case Assignments
URGENT
Agent:  Melissa Wayward
Supervising Detective (Temp. Case Supervisor > Chase Devineaux)

Reported 8:02amEST- An advertisement was taken out in the Baltimore Sun.  

"In celebration of my upcoming tour I shall be giving a private performance of my great show, during the course of which I shall steal a Mother and Child. All law enforcement officers, the honorable members of the fourth estate, and the esteemable agents of ACME are invited. The show will begin promptly at 7:00 Sunday afternoon. Admission, as usual, will be free and on a first come first serve basis. There will be a door prize!”

Accompanied with the following image. 

Baltimore Police have contacted ACME and are ready with full cooperation. 

---

Missy groaned, letting her hand with the communicator drop to her side as she moved to the bathroom to start brushing her teeth and putting in her contacts, grumbling unhappy sentences to herself as she did so. 

"A by the book case of a cocky thief... sure, lets sick Special Ops on that one... that makes sense..."

Grabbing a pair of pants from the bathroom floor and a button down shirt hanging from her laundry basket Missy was dressed quickly and, after twisting her hair into a makeshift bun, starting to send a message to the younger agents as she threw together her laptop bag. 

---

All New ACME Agents

      Please report to Meeting Room B on the fourth floor for new assignment.  Bring coffee. 

Melissa Wayward, Supervising Agent

Chyenne looked slowly to her side as she heard her laptop beep with a new email. She groggily sat up and looked to her computer on the nightstand.  For some reason, she couldn't sleep well that night so she was stuck between tired and wide awake. Her body knew it needed more and didn't want to get up, but her eyes were wide open and her mind in full gear.  Once she read the message, she re-read it to make sure her sleep deprivation wasn't getting the better of her.

She quickly set her music going and rushed to get dressed, tugging on a t-shirt and jumping into a pair of jeans. She grabbed her messenger bag, which held her money, her cell, ipod, favorite manga, drawing stuff, passport, and ID before going back to the laptop to respond to the message.
"Any specific kind?"   With that she closed and placed her laptop in her messenger bag and headed down and out. "TAXI!" she cried and whistled. For being a country girl, she learned how to deal with the city quickly. Plus, she had learned how to yell and whistle loudly back home.  She got in and told the driver to go to Starbucks and she'd give him extra cash if he could wait and take her to the ACME building.  He agreed and she waited for her email response to come in on her cell.

((was that ok?))

((yes, that was perfect.  So no one else wants to post in this, huh?  Okie dokie then...))

Closing the door to her ACME dorm and shouldering her bag a little better Missy felt her blackberry vibrate at her hip.  She pulled it from her holster and started to bring it to her eyes as she yawned.

"Any specific kind?"

Missy recognized the name of the sender a little bit but to ask her to fully remember new recruits at this time in the morning was simply cruel.  She groaned softly as she put in her reply with one hand, leaning against the wall as she did so. 

[ Caffinated, skim milk, sugar]

Hearing the ding of the elevator Missy ran towards where she knew it would be just starting to close.  She DID have places to be afterall. 

Missy arrived at Meetingroom B looking no better or more conscious than she had minutes before and hooked up her laptop to the room's ceiling mounted projector, lowered the white projection screen with the press of a button and loaded the specifics on the case which had arrived in her email only moments ago. 

"Chase had better have a good reason to miss this..." she grumbled softly to herself once the set up was completed.  "Waking me up at 5:30 in the morning... its a crime in itself."

"Hmmm?" Missy half groaned, half muttered as she looked up at the voice that reffered to her by last name and found herself looking at a Starbucks cup with one of those little green stoppers on the top.  As she took the cup from the girl's hand she looked up at her face, connecting the face with the name from the text message.  "Mmmm.  Thank you Cheyanne."

She took a couple of sips and started to stretch.  "I hope this isn't going to be everyone..." she noted, taking into account that so far there were only the two of them.  A bad attendance meant more work for her.  Opening her mouth to say something else she paused as her blackberry at her hip went off and she pulled it to her eyes. 

---

"Anything fancy?"

---

'Thank god, more people.' Missy thought to herself as she typed back an answer. 

---

Got coffee.  But if you're in the area get some donuts

---

Smiling a little more Missy started to pull up her information.  Once all the detectives for this case were assembled, no matter how small the number they be, they'd start going over information. 

{{you so butchered my name XD lol}}

Chyenne smiled widely.  "No problem ma'am!" she responded cheerily before going back to her seat and taking a big sip of her strawberry cream...with extra whip cream.  She had such a sweet tooth, it was a wonder she wasn't diabetic...that's what you get from growing up in the south!  "So....how are you this morning?"   She didn't like the silence so she tried to start up a conversation.

---

"So....how are you this morning?"

---

 Looking up from her coffee and to, Che-Chy- oh man, what was this girl's name again?  Chyenne, with a sideways glance Missy felt the crankiness of the morning trying to conceal itself.  It was absolutely nothing personal against the new agent anyway, in fact quite the contrary.  Missy just didn't like having to greet the day before the sun did for matters that weren't emergencies.  A veteran to a number of life or death situations Missy knew a crisis state when she saw one and, surprise surprise, Missy did not consider ads in the Baltimore Sun for museum robberies to be the cause for one. 

"About three hours short on sleep and a quart low on patience but I'll survive." she replied, stifling a yawn.  "How about you?  You're pretty perky for six in the morning..."

---

"I hope I haven't missed much."

---

The voice in the room caused her head to turn to find the donuts box already heading for the table.  "Perfect timing." she said vaguely, though the thought was more fit to her need for the glazed donut which she grabbed with ninja like speed before turning on the projector with the panel at the front of the meeting room.  "Ladies, if you'll grab your breakfast items and take your seat we'll begin the briefing."

Once both women present had finished getting seated Missy lowered the lights and projected an image of the newspaper ad on the white projector screen. 

"This is the reason we're here.  ACME was informed of the presence of this advertisement in this morning's Baltimore Sun somewhere around 5 this morning.  Baltimore police say they've never seen the symbol before but ACME's databanks list this sign as one that has been used in this kind of thing before in other cities..."  She took a sip of her coffee.  Clicking her laptop's mouse the image zoomed in on the text. 

---

In celebration of my upcoming tour I shall be giving a private performance of my great show, during the course of which I shall steal a Mother and Child. All law enforcement officers, the honorable members of the fourth estate, and the esteemable agents of ACME are invited. The show will begin promptly at 7:00 Sunday afternoon. Admission, as usual, will be free and on a first come first serve basis. There will be a door prize!”

---

"Our main objective in this briefing is to figure out what his clues mean, where he plans on striking and what he plans on taking."

          While I was ready to do a crime in Baltamore, I read that some wannabe crook was going to steal something that involved family. "Finally, a new challange." I said as I got out of my hide-out. I made it to the museum before any one else to get the best seat for this.