The Midnight City Social Hour

--VV, RR pt3

Cat Girl stopped the feverish turning of knobs and levers sometime after Mr. Kipples moved away from The Recruit. The cat was halted at an intersection. "I just have to press one more button and play one more sound," Cat Girl said. A button at the bottom of the digital interface turned Mr. Kipples's head and he was off. "Now I have to prepare his drink."

The Buzz Pills crushed up into a powder and stirred into 2% milk. Because Mr. Kipples didn't drink skim. 

Cat Girl walked into the kitchen; she rummaged through the fridge and the glasses in the cupboards. Tommy sat at her laptops and looked at the screens. The controls weren't so easily intuitive, but that didn't stop Tommy from messing around. A few of the digital buttons could change the angle, which part of town the cameras viewed. There was a park brought on screen; not the small park by The Recruit's apartment, a large morass of slopes and odd pieces of artwork further into the city. 

It had a reputation for hosting colorful characters and flamboyant drugs. Most people that Tommy talked to about this park, started with the drugs, the homeless. One of the knobs, flicked upwards, gave him view from many angles: stone benches and stone tables, a jungle gym with swings, large grass fields for dogs to run. And there were the homeless. Always in greater number during the midnight hours. 

Tommy wished there was sound. The visuals of men with their pants down, smoke billowing from what looked like strange pipes, didn't do much for him. 

"Do the cameras you set up ever lead to anything interesting?" Tommy asked.

Karl snorted, eyes on Tommy, "You have no fucking idea." Then he was back on his laptop. "But it's about watching the right people. The camera feeds you're looking through, you aren't going to see anything worthwhile."

"What about The Recruit?"

"Nothing strange yet. I really don't think anything bad will happen in public. Haven't bugged his house yet." Then Karl looked at Tommy again, "Mini has found an alternative for watching him, if we don't to get too illegal."

"When has that ever been a concern?" Tommy asked.

Karl didn't really know. "Anyways, we're already monitoring him. Just in case."

"How are we monitoring him?"

"Click that bottom button. The one all grey and black."

Tommy moved a switch. But nothing changed. "Nothing."

"Then our boy isn't online. We only get the feed when his computer is connected to the internet." Karl said, "When he signed up for that dating site we built, it gave us access to his webcam. And he doesn't have any variance with his passwords."