ShreyF
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Felicia Hardy had always believed that a good security system should make a thief feel appreciated.
A cheap alarm insulted her. A basic laser grid barely qualified as foreplay for the brain. Pressure plates, infrared beams, rotating cameras, biometric locks, motion sensors, all of those at least showed some effort. Felicia respected effort.
That was why, when the luxury jewelry store advertised itself as “completely burglar-proof,” she took it personally.
At two thirteen in the morning, Black Cat slipped through its skylight.
Her white hair hung loose to the middle of her back as she lowered herself between a web of red laser beams. She twisted once, planted one boot on the edge of a display plinth, and landed without touching a single sensor.
Twenty-three minutes later she was sitting on the roof across the street, admiring an eight-carat necklace while police cars swarmed below.
“Burglar-proof,” she said, turning the necklace between her fingers. “Adorable.”
She tucked the jewels away and gathered her white hair into a high ponytail.
Maybe, she thought, she needed something harder.
By breakfast, the universe had apparently decided to answer.
Felicia was sprawled across her sofa with coffee in one hand when a news report caught her attention.
A museum had unveiled a new automated security system.
The Metropolitan Museum had acquired the legendary Fortuna Diamond, a pale-blue stone insured for more than forty million dollars. According to the morning anchor, the museum’s new security was so aggressive that it had already caught one attempted burglar.
The screen changed.
A young woman with violet hair appeared in an old photograph. Her hair fell well past her shoulders.
Then came a recent street photo.
Felicia stopped drinking.
The same woman now had a buzzed head.
“…That seems excessive.”
The report continued.
The museum had released an official capture photograph.
Felicia nearly choked on her coffee.
The thief was strapped upright to a metal processing column, wrapped from the shoulders down in white restraint bands. Her violet hair had been reduced to a deranged mess of uneven chunks. One side reached her chin. The other exposed her ear. Crooked bangs stuck to her forehead. Short tufts stood straight up from her crown.
Felicia laughed.
“They turned her into a science experiment.”
Then the anchor mentioned that the photograph had been taken before final processing.
Felicia stopped laughing.
A simple diagram appeared on screen.
RESTRAINT.
HAIRCUT.
PHOTOGRAPH.
CLIPPER PROCESSING.
FINAL IDENTIFICATION.
Her fingers moved automatically through the white waves hanging over her shoulder.
“They shaved her?”
The Fortuna Diamond appeared next.
Forty million dollars.
Felicia lowered her coffee.
“Now you’re just flirting.”
For the next two days, she investigated.
First she visited the museum disguised as a wealthy tourist, her hair tied into a neat low ponytail.
Then she returned as a maintenance worker, stuffing the same ponytail beneath a cap and down the back of her shirt.
She mapped visible cameras, hidden sensors, pressure floors and the route to the Fortuna exhibit.
At home that night, she found a leaked training video of the system.
The captured violet-haired thief sat frozen on screen with mechanical clippers hovering beside her head.
Felicia pressed play.
BZZZZZZZZ.
She paused it immediately.
“That sound is considerably worse when you imagine it next to your own ear.”
She stared at the frozen image.
Then pressed play again.
Strictly professional research.
Two nights later, Black Cat entered the museum through the roof.
Her white hair was tied into a high ponytail, secured tightly enough that it could not swing into any laser beams.
Nothing loose.
Nothing to snag.
Nothing to cut.
She moved through the museum like smoke.
Camera loop.
Laser grid.
Pressure floor.
Infrared detector.
All defeated.
When she finally stepped into the Fortuna chamber, she almost felt disappointed.
The diamond waited in a transparent case.
“This is the impossible security system?”
Felicia placed a bypass device against the lock.
BEEP.
The case opened.
She lifted the Fortuna Diamond between two fingers.
“Hello, gorgeous.”
Nothing happened.
Felicia smiled.
Then stepped backward.
CLICK.
Her smile disappeared.
“…No.”
The room exploded into motion.
Felicia jumped immediately, flipping backward as restraints fired from the walls.
One caught her ankle.
Another caught her wrist.
A padded arm wrapped around her waist halfway through the flip.
For one humiliating second, Black Cat hung sideways in midair with one leg raised and her ponytail hanging toward the floor.
“Oh, come on!”
The Fortuna Diamond slipped from her hand.
A mechanical tray caught it neatly.
The restraints rotated Felicia upright and carried her toward a polished column rising from the floor.
“Okay,” she said. “Very clever.”
Bands locked around her waist, thighs, ankles and wrists.
“Release me and we’ll call it a tie.”
A monitor lit up.
SUBJECT SECURED.
HAIR: LONG.
IDENTIFICATION PROCESSING READY.
Felicia stared at the second line.
“Hair?”
A mechanical arm reached behind her head.
Before she could pull away, it hooked beneath the elastic holding her ponytail.
SNAP.
The tie came free.
Felicia’s white hair spilled over her shoulders and down her back.
Several robotic arms unfolded.
One held a comb.
Another held silver scissors.
Felicia’s expression flattened.
“No.”
The comb slid through the hair beside her right cheek and separated a thick lock.
“Don’t.”
The machine pulled the lock straight.
The scissors opened.
Felicia watched them in the monitor.
She had known this stage existed.
She had watched the footage.
She had studied the diagrams.
Knowing about scissors and watching scissors close around your own hair, she discovered, were entirely different experiences.
“Wait.”
SNIP.
The lock separated at jaw level.
For one instant it lay across her shoulder.
Then it slid over the white fur trim of her costume and fell toward the floor.
Felicia’s eyes followed it.
The newly shortened section bounced beside her cheek.
Everything behind it still reached the middle of her back.
“There it goes,” she muttered.
The comb was already separating another section.
SNIP.
A second long lock fell.
Felicia twisted her eyes toward the monitor.
Two short sections now framed the right side of her face.
The rest remained long.
“You could just arrest me.”
“ALTERNATIVE NOT SELECTED.”
SNIP.
Another lock landed beside her boots.
The machine worked with maddening patience.
It did not gather her hair into one dramatic ponytail and remove everything at once.
Instead, it divided the length into narrow sections.
Comb.
Pull.
Scissors.
SNIP.
Comb.
Pull.
SNIP.
Each cut changed her silhouette by a fraction.
Felicia watched a thick section from behind her right ear fall.
Another came from farther back.
Then one from the lower side.
The growing pile at the base of the column spread outward in white ribbons.
“How many times are you planning to do that?”
“CALCULATING.”
SNIP.
Felicia grimaced.
“ESTIMATED CUTTING OPERATIONS REMAINING: TWENTY-SEVEN.”
“…I shouldn’t have asked.”
The right side gradually rose to her chin.
The left remained completely long.
Felicia turned her head as far as the restraint allowed and stared at herself.
One side looked almost like a bob.
The other still flowed over her shoulder and down her back.
It was ridiculous.
“Okay,” she said. “You’ve made your point.”
The monitor displayed a progress bar.
PROCESSING: 31%.
Felicia blinked.
“…Thirty-one?”
A second pair of scissors opened behind her.
CLICK CLICK.
“Don’t answer that.”
The machine moved to the back.
A comb pulled a long section straight down from the crown.
SNIP.
Felicia felt the sudden absence of weight before she saw the lock fall.
Another rear section followed.
SNIP.
Then another.
The long curtain covering her back steadily disappeared.
The cool museum air began touching areas of her neck that had been covered by hair minutes earlier.
She caught herself staring at the floor.
Long white locks lay everywhere.
Some were thick and wavy.
Others were narrow sections cut during blending.
She had never realized how much space her hair occupied until she saw it detached from her head.
The machine shortened the left side next.
SNIP.
A long piece slid over her chest.
SNIP.
Another bounced from her shoulder and dropped between her boots.
Now only a few longer pieces remained at the front.
The scissors changed position.
The cuts became smaller.
More precise.
The machine trimmed around her ears.
Shortened the nape.
Lifted the crown.
Layered the sides.
Felicia watched the transformation settle into something unexpectedly coherent.
The monitor rotated her image.
She had a bixie.
Soft white layers curved around her cheekbones. The nape was short. The fringe remained slightly longer. The crown had enough volume to still look unmistakably like her hair, only drastically reduced.
Felicia stared.
“…That’s annoyingly cute.”
“INTERMEDIATE STAGE COMPLETE.”
Her smile vanished.
“Intermediate?”
The machine answered by reopening the scissors.
“No.”
A mechanical arm lifted a thick section from the crown.
“We are done with those.”
CHOP.
A large piece dropped onto Felicia’s shoulder.
A short tuft sprang upright.
“HEY!”
Another arm attacked the hair above her right ear.
SNIP.
Suddenly one side was much shorter than the other.
“It was cute!”
“COSMETIC APPEAL IS NOT A PROCESSING OBJECTIVE.”
“You are terrible at customer service.”
The machine moved to her fringe.
Felicia saw the scissors appear in front of her forehead.
“Don’t you dare.”
CHAK.
Part of the fringe became crooked micro-bangs.
Her eyes widened.
Another section near the crown disappeared.
Then another.
SNIP.
CHOP.
SNIP.
The tidy bixie dissolved into chaos.
One ear was almost completely exposed.
The opposite side retained a longer shelf of hair.
Tufts stood upward.
The back no longer matched the front.
Short white pieces stuck to the fur collar of her suit.
Felicia looked like she had attempted to cut her own hair during an electrical storm.
“You’re enjoying this.”
“PHOTOGRAPHIC IDENTIFICATION READY.”
Felicia froze.
A light appeared directly in front of her.
“No.”
The camera focused.
“Absolutely not.”
FLASH.
Felicia grimaced.
“You are deleting that.”
“IMAGE UPLOADED.”
“Of course it is.”
The scissors retracted.
Felicia exhaled.
“Fine.”
She looked at the disaster reflected on the monitor.
“Hair grows.”
The screen changed.
FINAL IDENTIFICATION PREPARATION.
Felicia went still.
A compartment beside her opened.
The clippers emerged.
BZZZZZZZZZZ.
The vibration made the uneven tufts near her ear tremble.
Felicia’s eyes widened despite herself.
“I knew about this,” she whispered.
The clippers moved toward her forehead.
“I literally came here knowing about this.”
They touched the center of her hairline.
“…Still hate it.”
BZZZZZZZZ.
The first pass ran straight from her forehead toward the crown.
A pale strip appeared through the center of her white hair.
Loose fragments tumbled down both sides of her face.
Felicia stared at the monitor.
“Oh, that’s horrible.”
The machine lowered the clippers again.
BZZZZ.
A second pass removed the right side.
Hair rolled away from the blades in soft clumps and fell across her shoulder.
The short, ruined remains around her temple vanished.
Only white stubble remained.
Half her head was now buzzed.
Half was still shaggy.
Felicia gave the monitor an exhausted look.
“Half a haircut. Again.”
The clippers swept around her ear.
BZZZZ.
Then up from the nape.
She felt the vibration travel across the back of her skull.
More clippings rained down.
The floor now held two completely different histories of her hair.
Long locks from the first stage.
Tiny white fragments from the clippers.
The final messy section disappeared from the crown.
BZZZZZZ.
A brush swept loose clippings from her face.
Felicia looked at the result.
Uniform white stubble covered her entire scalp.
“CLIPPER PROCESSING COMPLETE.”
Felicia blinked.
Then lifted one eyebrow.
“…You know what?”
The buzz was shocking, but not completely disastrous.
“I’ve had worse.”
A compartment opened behind her.
A shaving brush emerged.
Felicia saw it in the monitor.
“No.”
The brush approached.
“No, no, we’re short enough.”
FWOMP.
Thick white shaving lather spread across the top of her head.
Felicia stared forward in disbelief.
The brush swept around the sides.
Then the back.
Foam covered every trace of stubble.
“…You have GOT to be kidding.”
“PLEASE REMAIN STILL.”
Felicia strained against the restraints.
“I’M BOLTED TO A POLE!”
“COMPLIANCE ACKNOWLEDGED.”
She shut her eyes.
“You’re impossible.”
The razor appeared.
It touched the front of her scalp.
SHHHK.
A clean path of lather vanished.
Bare skin appeared underneath.
Felicia opened one eye.
The razor reset.
Another pass.
SHHHK.
Another strip became smooth.
The machine worked with the same methodical patience it had used with the scissors.
Forehead to crown.
Side to center.
Around the temple.
Across the back.
Every pass removed another white stripe of foam and the last remaining trace of hair beneath it.
Felicia watched in the monitor.
Mid-back hair this morning.
Bare scalp now.
The final patch of lather disappeared from near the crown.
A warm towel pressed over her head.
For several seconds, the monitor showed only white cloth.
Then the towel lifted.
Felicia Hardy stared back at herself.
Completely bald.
No white fringe.
No short layers.
No buzz.
Nothing.
At the base of the processing pole, her hair lay in every stage the machine had taken it through.
Long waves.
Bixie-length locks.
Short chopped pieces.
Tiny clipper fragments.
The machine announced:
“POLISH COMPLETE.”
Felicia stared at the reflection.
“Do not call it polish.”
A new mechanical arm unfolded behind her.
Felicia saw it.
“What now?”
“FINAL IDENTIFICATION MARKING.”
Her eyes narrowed.
“…Marking?”
A small printer-like device pressed briefly against the back of her head.
BEEP.
The monitor changed to a rear view.
Felicia read the neat black marking across her newly bare scalp.
THIEF.
CAPTURE #027.
METROPOLITAN MUSEUM SECURITY.
Temporary duration: four to six weeks.
Silence.
Then Felicia smiled without humor.
“…I’m stealing this entire building.”
The restraints unlocked.
The Fortuna Diamond had already been returned to its case.
A side door opened.
“THANK YOU FOR VISITING.”
Felicia stepped into the pre-dawn street carrying absolutely nothing.
“I hate museums.”
By lunchtime, the museum had published her photograph.
Not the bald one.
The worse one.
The crazy-scientist stage.
Felicia found it on three news sites, fourteen social media feeds and one meme page before breakfast.
Someone had placed her famous flowing white hair beside the security photo under the caption:
BEFORE FORTUNA.
AFTER FORTUNA.
Spider-Man eventually found her standing on a rooftop wearing an enormous black hat.
He looked at his phone.
Then at Felicia.
Then back at his phone.
“…I’m absolutely not commenting.”
“Correct.”
That evening, Felicia stood alone in front of her bathroom mirror.
The hat lay beside a wig, a scarf and several failed attempts to hide the museum’s temporary marking.
She rubbed one palm slowly over her bare scalp.
The sensation still felt alien.
Her hand reached the back.
THIEF #027 remained stubbornly visible.
Felicia grimaced.
Then looked at herself again.
The grimace faded.
A familiar smirk returned.
“Fine,” she said.
She tilted her head.
“I kind of pull it off.”
Behind her, the television announced that the Fortuna Diamond remained safely inside the Metropolitan Museum.
Felicia’s eyes shifted toward the screen.
“For now.”
