Liz tossed her cell phone onto the passenger seat of her Lamborghini, turned off the ignition, and hopped out. Then, remembering her disguise, she reached for a pair of dark sunglasses off the dashboard and slid them over her eyes with a sly grin. The ‘chief’ was up ahead, no more than a good ten yards away with his back to her, talking to a couple of his lackeys, who were just nodding and pretending to care.

“Can’t let Alex down!” she told herself, straightening her mini-skirt so that it was almost finger-length. “Have to look my best.” She strutted over to the officers, but her eyes were elsewhere, watching blue-uniform cops wheeling out barrel after barrel of lemon-flavored Crystal Light and loading it into the back of an armored semi.

Noticing his lackeys gawking at something other than his ugly mug, the chief suddenly turned around and saw a girl dressed in a cheerleader uniform, rimmed sunglasses like him, and a skirt barely long enough to make it as a belt.

He looked her up and down (more down than up) and then lowered his shades. “Excuse me, young lady, we’re conducting very important business here. I’m afraid I’m going to have to ask you to vacate the premises.”

“I’m sorry, sir, even if I knew what those words meant, I’m not moving until you answer some questions for me.”

“That’s fine by me,” one of lackeys whispered to the other.

The chief glared at the girl, trying to focus on her eyes. “Who do you think you are?”

“No, who do you think you are?” she retorted.

“I’m Captain Jimbo Crow of the State City County Police. See my badge? It means I’m important!”

“Yeah, I used to get gold stars on my spelling tests all the time in kindergarten. I’m important too.”

“Well, my car makes noises and lights up when I flick a switch.”

“I drive a Lamborghini.”

“Well, I—” the chief started to say, but one of his lackeys interrupted him.

“Sir, isn’t that the daughter of Thurston Howell III?”

Captain Jimbo’s glasses almost fell off his nose as he reeled his head back around. “B-by Heaven’s name! It is! Miss Elizabeth, you must forgive me. I did not recognize you in that…attire.”

“But I’ve had those tires on my Lamborghini for years.”

“Please, you must forgive me,” the captain bowed again. “I had no idea it was your Highness. If I could have your hand, I would kiss it.”

“Sorry, I already have a boyfriend. Plus, I’m on a top secret mission.”

“Right, you came wanting questions. I am an open book.”

Liz raised an eyebrow behind her sunglasses. “Okay…?”

“Ask away.”

“What?”

“Your questions.”

She stared at him, dumbfounded. “Uh… Do you… … Tell me everything you know.”

“That’s…not really in question format, sweet Elizabeth. I was told by my boss to only answer yes or no questions asked by citizens, so as to not expose my ‘imbecilic hillbilly cop nature to the general public’. Or something like that.”

“Okay, ummm…” Liz chewed on her upper lip. “Tell me everything you know or else you’ll be earning your paycheck through waxing my car?”

“You wouldn’t really do that to ol’ Jimbo, would you?”

She tapped her foot. “Gee, I do believe that’s not in answer format. I didn’t hear a yes or no, did you? Perhaps your boss knows the answer. Shall we ask him?”

“Okay, okay,” the jovial cop responded, shooing his lackeys away with a wave of the doughnut in his hand. “Follow me and we’ll talk.”

“That’s more like it,” Liz replied, walking beside Jimbo as they headed towards the front doors of the Crystal Light plant. “Now, what are all these cops doing here? If this is some kind of party and I wasn’t invited, I’ll have your badge hanging on my trophy wall.”

“No party, I’m afraid, or else you know you’d be the first one with an invite.” Reaching the doors and finding them shut, though not locked, the chief whistled to a pair of guards who were busy loading barrels onto the semi. The guards quickly dropped their work (quite literally) and scuttled towards the doors, throwing them open for Jimbo and Liz and bowing their heads as the two walked inside. Liz felt right at home.

“Aw, look, a sunroof!” she exclaimed, pointing to a very gaping and very jagged hole in the ceiling. “This really is just like my house.”

“No, actually, that’s where the meteor struck the building.”

“A meteor? The kind that live in space?”

“Most of them do live in space, but every now and then they come to visit Earth. A few nights ago, one of those hit this very building in that very spot. Left no survivors.”

“That’s terrible!”

“Not really. Nobody was around to see it.” Jimbo took off his sunglasses and clipped them to his gray shirt pocket. “They say it must’ve happened some time over the weekend. When the manager came the other day, he found that the meteor had landed and broken apart in one of the vats of lemon-flavored Crystal Light powder. There have been a few automated delivers since then, but we’ve managed to recall most of the stuff from the shelves of the city.”

“That’s good.”

“They don’t call us ‘super cops’ for no reason! That’s why the Crystal Light people had the brains to call us in. ‘Course, we didn’t see anything wrong at first. Just a big rock had fallen from the sky; happens all the time back home. But I guess one of our city-slicker scientists noticed strange little crystallites mixed among the lemon powder. You want to see?”

“Sure,” Liz shrugged.

Jimbo pulled a small plastic bag from his pocket and held it up. “Look how it sparkles.”

“Very pretty,” Liz smiled. These crystallites were bigger than the ones she had seen in Alex’s sample. They weren’t changing sizes either, and with any luck, the police didn’t know the true power they possessed. But Liz knew. And she grinned all the harder because she knew. “Can I have it?”

“You mean the evidence!?” Jimbo exclaimed.

“I just want what’s in the bag. It’s such a teeny, weenie bit.”

“No way, Miss Elizabeth! You may be the daughter of the most powerful man in the state, but I can’t go handing over police evidence to you! This stuff could be dangerous. The crystallites could, like, get caught in somebody’s throat and cause them to choke or something. Ha, not on my watch, little lady! Not on my watch. I am ever vigilant. Eyes like a hawk.”

“Sir,” one of the guards said, peeking his head through the door, “the last barrel has been loaded into the truck and the vat’s been cleaned. Our work here is done.”

Jimbo waved him away. “Good, good. I’ll take the semi, dump the cargo in the ocean next to the water supply tank, and meet you all at Ducky’s.”

“Right on!” the guard cheered and disappeared, leaving Jimbo and Liz alone in the Crystal Light plant.

“Another meticulous and thorough police job done to perfection thanks to my expertise in the field,” Jimbo said, stretching his imaginary overalls with his thumbs. “And it only took the shutting down of a major corporation, many days of painstaking labor, forty-two coffee-and-doughnut breaks, four miles of yellow crossing tape, sixteen police cars, and an entire police force to load one average-sized semi trailer. Yes, siree, I smell a reward from your father in the near future.”

“I’ll make sure you’re condemned for your hard work,” Liz said, not realizing the irony of her mis-wording, like always.

“I’d appreciate that!”

Apparently he didn’t realize it either.

Liz smiled up at him and pulled out her checkbook. “…Two thousand dollars.”

“What?”

“I’ll give you two thousand dollars for that entire shipment of Crystal Light.”

“I don’t think you understand the gravity of this situation, Miss Elizabeth. If my boss knew that I had been bribed…” He ran his finger across his throat, trying to impersonate a knife cutting him.

“And if my father knew that you physically abused me…” She tied an invisible noose around her neck and pretended to hang herself, rolling her pupils upward so that only the white of her eyes showed through and stuck out her tongue limply.

“Abused!? I did no such thing!”

“Ow!” she cried out in pretend fun. “Stop it, Jimbo! No, I will not do that with you! What are you doing!? Put those handcuffs away! Sick!”

Jimbo placed his hands on her shoulder, trying to calm her down. “Not so loud,” he said in a hushed voice, glancing around. “…Make me a better offer.”

“Now you’re speaking my language. You want something greater than two thousand dollars?”

“Yeah.”

“You couldn’t handle something greater than two thousand dollars.”

“Yes, I can! I’m from Texas.”

“You don’t have what it takes,” Liz taunted.

“Show me the money, girl! Show me the money!”

“Okay, try this on for size.” She clicked her tongue, speaking the words slow, sexy, and deliberately, “One thousand…two hundred…ninety-four dollars…and sixty-one cents…”

“Deal!” Jimbo panted. “Girl, you’re going to make me one rich ass cop.”

“Well, I can certainly make you an ass,” she smiled, filling out a check and handing it to him.

He stared at it, drool forming on his lip and sticking to his hairy moustache. “So many numbers…”

“Yes, well… I’ll be taking the keys to the semi now.”

“Oh, right,” he dropped them in her palm, never taking his eyes off the check. “Wait… How am I going to get to Ducky’s?”

“Walk,” she said, patting his beer belly. “You could use the exercise.”