In the first months after Cassandra Cain came to the
attention of the Bat Family, she lived with Barbara Gordon. Barbara was
open, patient and chatty, and while Cassie still preferred listening to
talking, Barbara soon decided the girl was ready to resume living on her
own. Bruce-Sensei gave her one of the identikit apartments he kept
around the city as a safe house and emergency changing station, and Dick
made several covert visits to help her ‘fix it up’ with personal
touches. He often used these secret flats as a teen, he said, and
Cassie could tell by his body language that he actually believed
Bruce-Sensei didn’t know. That seemed very odd. It should be anyone’s
first assumption that Batman knows whatever it is they’re trying to
hide, and Dick’s tells were the easiest to read of anyone in the Bat
Family. Cassie confirmed her guess when Bruce came to inspect her use
of the place, which he called a visit. His eyes shifted around the room
as they would around a crime scene, and lingered on the pillow and mug
Dick had brought the way they would linger on evidence that had some
inference to be drawn from it. The bean bag and milk crate from
Stephanie his eyes merely passed over as items of no importance.
After the third of these inspections, Cassie detected
disapproval. Bruce had that slight tension around his mouth that was familiar
to her from training. Some correction would always follow: an adjustment to her
battle stance, a note to keep her arm high during a follow-through or to shift
her weight for an offensive thrust... But when Bruce inspected her apartment,
no correction ever came. Cassie didn’t think it was proper to ask for
instruction, and the one time she tried, she didn’t have the words to make
herself clear. Bruce-Sensei just told her what she already knew: that all the
furnishings were bought in bulk as complete rooms from a corporate supplier, and
she should feel free to make the place more “her own.” She thanked him, just as
she would for teaching her a new block or a high kick, but that only brought a
different version of the disapproving tension, the one that moved slightly down
the right side of his neck and so was only visible when he was unmasked. Bruce
said he wanted Cassie to think of the apartment as her home (and once again she
thanked him) and not just a place he was allowing her to stay. Cassie
thanked Bruce-Sensei a third time, but she could tell by the new tension under
his ear that this wasn’t what was expected, so she let it go.
Now she understood. Bruce seldom visited anymore, but
Cassie knew he would be pleased at the way she had finally made the apartment
“her own.” The personal touches borrowed from Dick and Stephanie had been
replaced, one by one, as Cassie found interests of her own. The poster of
Viggo Mortensen as Aragorn had first given way to a poster of Buffy the Vampire
Slayer, and then to a more solid and stylized black and white image of Uma
Thurman from Kill Bill.
It was that she slept under now. Selina-Sensei taught that
it was every girl’s right to sleep in the morning of a ball, and that is exactly
what Cassie did. Then she got up, stretched, and performed the ritual
Selina-Sensei had taught her, rinsing off her face with icy cold water.
She could skip washing her hair today, since tonight was the ball and she would
be going to Antonio’s in a few hours to have her hair done—with ribbons and
rubrum lilies to match her new dress.
Cassie was both excited and skeptical about that. The
whole ‘Vine’ episode with Poison Ivy was long ago, but not forgotten. Still, it
was unseemly to question one’s sensei, and Selina said it was time to get over
‘the flower thing.’ Like all teenage girls, Cassie had lovely shoulders,
Selina-Sensei said, and tonight’s strapless gown, with her hair drawn up, a
splash of color from the lilies to catch the eye and tendrils of ribbon to lead
the eye down, would show them off to purr-fection. Tim would be dazzled,
absolutely dazzled, and Cassie would see that—even in a town where every third
woman had a grudge against Queen Chlorophyll—flowers could still be your friend.
So Cassie didn’t have to wash her hair, and that meant she
had time to run down to Petite Abeille for breakfast. The daily visits there to
unnerve The Riddler on Catwoman’s behalf were long over, but the memory of
almond croissants, spice tea and baguettes with nutella kept her going back. Today she opted to sit down rather than take out, and that meant she could get a
waffle or those mini pancakes whose name she could never pronounce. There was a
newspaper on her table, a Gotham Observer the last person had left
behind, so she glanced through it while she ate. There was another story on the
cat burglar. Not another robbery, just a rehashing of the previous ones and
noting that, in both cases, the victims had been guests at a Wayne party. The
paper didn’t go on to speculate if tonight’s event might produce a third victim,
but running the story the day of the third Wayne ball certainly left the idea
out there. Cassie took the paper with her and hurried back to her
apartment, wondering on the walk home if she should tell Selina-Sensei she had
been to the crime scene herself.
Not having the coverage of a tuxedo or Selina’s experience
stowing the means to change in the elegant minimalism of a woman’s eveningwear,
Cassie had to return home after the Fire Ball to get into costume before
starting patrol as Batgirl. Tim had offered to escort her home, but that meant
he would be changing into Robin at her place. They would both be
changing there, together. Taking their party clothes off before putting
costumes on, and that made her feel... squicky. So she said she’d meet him at
their usual rooftop, but by the time she reached it, Oracle had sent him on a
surveillance tag in Chelsea. She could have followed, but just then the
Bat-Signal was lit, so she thought she’d check it out instead. She arrived at
One Police Plaza just as Batman was leaving, and he said she should come along. She needed experience with cat burglar crime scenes. So Batgirl had walked the
physical space with Batman-Sensei, listened to his observations and analysis,
and answered to the best of her ability whenever he posited a question. She
harvested no forensic evidence, however. Instead, she watched Batman and was to
write up her own analysis of the samples he collected. The next day, she
was to consult his log on the physical evidence and compare their conclusions.
Cassie had noticed Batman’s manner was strained at several
points walking through the crime scene, but she never thought to connect it to
the fact that they were investigating a cat burglar. It was only when she went
into the log and saw the personal lockouts on ten different paragraphs and
subsections that she made the connection. All but the brief portion dealing
with the physical evidence was sealed with Batman’s personal password.
It didn’t seem like something she should keep from Sensei
Selina. It didn’t seem like something she should reveal about Sensei Bruce. For nearly a week she had wrestled with the problem. Now she had this article
in the Gotham Observer. It might be a way to trick Selina into giving
her some cue. She didn’t like that word though. One should not try to trick
one’s sensei. They always knew, and that led to hours of deadlifts and overhead
squats. But it might be a way to nudge Selina into giving her some idea
about the cat burglar: if it was okay to talk about, if Batman’s investigation
was something to talk about. So, as soon as Cassie got home, she unfolded the
Gotham Observer, opened it to the page with the cat burglar story, and
refolded it so it couldn’t be missed. Now she just needed to find the right
place to put it…
The bean bag she’d gotten rid of and replaced with a low,
rotating, red and white table that matched the shelves and cupboards she already
had. It was the last of Stephanie’s stamp on the decorating, but Cassie had
added three mementos, two of Stephanie and one of Spoiler, to the shelf above
her stereo. Displayed on the rotating, red and white table was a pretty iron
tea pot and cups from the Chinatown Cultural Center where Jai had taken her. About once a month it sat there by itself, looking very pretty and decorative,
like a picture in a magazine, like someone was coming over for tea ceremony. Then the accumulations of living would begin to clutter up the table again. The
current clutter included a dinner card and centerpiece from the Fire Ball, a dry
cleaning ticket for her dress, the earrings Selina-Sensei had lent her, and a
page torn from Teen Vogue with a picture of the way she wanted her nails
done for tonight.
She wanted to run that past Selina-Sensei, because
sometimes the ideas from Teen Vogue were good ones, but sometimes they
were “too downtown,” “too brash,” “too old,” “too young,” and sometimes it would
be fine for another occasion but tonight it would draw attention from some part
of her appearance that “should have center stage.” So that was perfect. It
was just like hiding a weapon for easy retrieval once the target was in sight:
Cassie rearranged the clutter so the borrowed earrings were sandwiched between
the Gotham Observer and the page from Teen Vogue. She would have
to move the newspaper to pick up the earrings or to show Selina the magazine. Just like hiding a weapon… except not to kill, to get advice on how to paint her
nails for the ball. And find out if it was okay to talk about the cat
burglar.
She rearranged the order, placing the
magazine on top and the newspaper on the bottom.
Then changed them back.
Twice.
And might have done so again if Selina hadn’t knocked on
the door right then. Cassie knew it had to be Selina because everyone else used
the buzzer on the front stoop—unless they were in costume and came in through
the fire escape. Only Selina let herself in the front entrance without buzzing
and knocked only when she reached Cassie’s door.
Cassie let her in and, though her conversation was as
awkward as ever, her props handling was that of a master assassin. She handed
off the newspaper to Selina in order to get the earrings, returned those with a
polite thank you but immediately turned away so Selina couldn’t hand the
newspaper back, forcing her to tuck it under her arm while she put the earrings
into her purse. Selina went on holding the newspaper as she walked through the
tiny apartment. It would only be a matter of time before she noticed…
Except Cassie noticed something first. Selina had that
same little stretch of tension on the side of her neck as Sensei-Bruce in those
first inspections. Something in the apartment displeased her, and as with
Bruce-Sensei, she didn’t offer any corrections. Cassie asked, but Selina smiled
and said the apartment was very nice. Cassie asked again, and noting Selina’s
eyes, guessed it had something to do with the picture of Uma Thurman over the
bed. Again, Selina said everything was very nice.
“Selina lie,” Cassie announced petulantly. “Is try to be
polite. But polite no good from sensei. If battle stance weak, is no good to
say is fine. If not know what wrong, no can fix. Get knocked on butt.”
“Yes, that’s very true,” Selina admitted. “And if I
thought there was anything at all in your combat training that was amiss,
I’d tell you. But we both know that’s not too likely, because I am in no
position to be giving you notes on your fighting skills. And this is your home,
Cass, you can’t do anything wrong and there’s no chance of getting knocked on
your butt, okay?”
“Selina is sensei,” Cassie said stubbornly. “Not with
fighting but with Tim. With earrings and makeup and how to be kick ass but
still be soft and girl and fun. Something with picture is not right. Sensei
look at picture and make little tense around mouth, look again and make little
tense around neck. Something with picture is not right. Sensei have wisdom no
want to share. Say is not Selina place to give notes, but Selina is
sensei.
Is place to give correction, is place to share wisdom. Not have to. Humble student no can tell Sensei what must do. If no want teach, no can make
teach. But humble student begs instruction. Want correction. Want know what
wrong with Kill Bill Uma Thurman picture.”
Selina smiled kindly, laughed kindly, and led Cassie back
to the low red and white table that denoted the living area of the tiny studio.
They sat casually on the floor, and Selina looked around thinking how to begin.
“Remember when we talked about Lady Shiva?” she said
finally.
Cassie nodded. “Great fighter. Not much else,” she said,
repeating her words from that earlier conversation.
“The ones who duke it out for that ‘best fighter in the
universe’ tag never are,” Selina agreed. “Maybe that’s why they put so much
into pursuing it, because if they’re not that, what are they?”
“Selina think Kill Bill Bride like that?”
“Maybe a little. It’s her defining characteristic anyway,
the fighting. I wouldn’t want you to think it’s yours.”
Cassie said nothing but nervously tucked her hair behind
her ear.
“‘Has breasts and kicks ass’ is fine if that’s all you can
do,” Selina said. “But you have got so much more going for you than that,
Cassie. So if you want to put a goal up there, a role model or something to
aspire to you, I’d like to see you shoot a little higher than somebody known for
wiping out the Crazy Eighty—ohmy—” The last word was cut off by Cassie launching
herself from her seated position and wrapping her arms around Selina in a tight
hug. “—Eight,” she concluded with a laugh and a back pat.
Another day, the next half-hour might have been spent
talking about those alternative goals and role models, but the day of a ball is
no time for such frivolous pursuits. Instead, Cassie produced her page from
Teen Vogue and Selina pronounced her judgment: the wavy blue nail design was
ideal for the Water Ball, as long as Cassie was not going to wear any rings, and
it would work especially well with a bracelet. Cassie said she didn’t have a
bracelet, and Selina opened her purse and produced a beautiful rope of silver
links, like the most delicate band of chainmail for a particularly elegant
warrior princess.
Cassie reached for it, but Selina yanked it
back.
“Not that easy. Gotta earn it,” she winked. “First, read
what it says engraved into the clasp, right there.” She pointed, and as Cassie
carefully read “O. P. Orlandini,” Selina mouthed the syllables with her. She
repeated it so Cassie knew she had pronounced correctly, then nodded and pointed
to the laptop on Cassie’s desk. “Look ‘im up. I want a full report,” she
ordered.
Fifteen minutes later, a full report is exactly what she
heard: the artist himself, his atelier in a converted 14th century convent in
the Chianti hills, and the details of his hammering and shaping techniques that
dated back to medieval armor-making. Satisfied, Selina rummaged in her purse
again and pulled out a black box with a digital lock.
“Here you go,” she said, shutting the bracelet inside and
handing it to Cassie. “Get it open and she’s all yours to wear tonight.”
Cassie squealed with delight and went to work on the lock,
and Selina left her to it. Cassie was too absorbed to see the Gotham
Observer she left on the floor, or to care that Selina never even noticed
the article about the cat burglar.
Nine holes at the North Hudson Golf Course. It was a
tradition for Dick and Tim on the day of a black tie event they both had to
attend. Any subject related to the event was verboten, and today’s holes one to
three were spent on sports: hopes for the Rogues first round draft pick and the
Joker-level insanity of trading Ward to Cleveland. Holes four to six
dwelled on transportation: Dick’s love affair with the Pagani Huayra since the
Auto Show, and Tim’s desire for a motorcycle. Holes seven to nine compared the
charms of Stana Katic and Yvonne Strahovski, and the walk back to the pro shop
debated a slice at Famous Original Ray’s or Original Authentic Ray’s on the way
to collect their respective dry cleaning.
Tuxedo pickup accomplished, Tim returned to the dorm to
observe Single Guy Ritual, otherwise known as putting off getting ready to the
last possible minute. Dick, the poor bastard, was now a married man and rushing
home to shower, apply hair gel, dig out cufflinks, buff scuff marks off his
shoes and descend to other unmanly indignities. Tim returned to the dorm,
played an hour of Mass Effect 2 (decided Dick was out of his mind about Yvonne
Strahovski who voiced Miranda) and read the astronomy assignment for Monday.
He checked the time, debated running to the student union
for some cheese fries, but decided there’d be plenty to eat at the ball. So he
got dressed, despite it being a good fifteen minutes before he had to, and
headed to The Robinson Plaza. He passed a florist on the way, familiar to him
from his senior year when he escorted debutantes to this kind of party every
third night in December. He briefly considered stopping as he had then and
getting a corsage for Cassie. It was the kind of thing girls went crazy
over, and he did have a few extra dollars not spent on cheese fries. Unfortunately, what Tim didn’t realize was the year he had been an escort he was
enjoying the unofficial deb season discount offered to instill the habit in the
upcoming generation. The regular price of a regulation wrist corsage was
roughly four times what he imagined, and he wasn’t about to give up cheese fries
for a month! Cassie was a sensible girl anyway, he decided, and would certainly
appreciate a post-patrol burger at Nick’s more than a wrist-weed that would only
get in the way when they danced.
Not being one for the red carpet, Tim took his usual detour
around the park and came out near the little alley between the Gret Café and
Sarabeth’s loading dock. From there, he took the service entrance into the
hotel and was twisting and turning through the kitchen, where he always hurried
lest he be mistaken for a waiter, when he ran smack into…
into…
“Oh wow,” Tim breathed.
He blinked.
There was a muffled thumping in his chest from where he
bumped into the girl at full speed.
Muffled thumping that should have subsided after the slap
of impact, but wasn’t.
A weird frost seemed to be spreading up his brainstem, too.
Kind of like being hatted… if the hat was about two feet in
front of his face instead of sitting on top of his head. Floating in front of
his face and seeping in through his eyes, covering his whole brain in—
“Stupid Tim,” Cassie said.
“Yeah, stupid Tim,” he managed to agree. “I mean, SORRY,
Cassie, hi. Hi Cassie. Boy you look, wow, you look really—wow. Didn’t see you
there. You look… really wow. Really, really wow. I mean… Hi.”
Cassie giggled.
“Is okay. Tim funny. And no crush too bad,” she said,
re-fluffing the scallops of fabric at the top of her—uh, top. Tim tried—with
the force of will of a man actually hatted and trying to break free, Tim
tried to fight the magnetic pull and focus his eyes anywhere but
on the delicate blue-wavy-painted fingers deftly fluttering around… breasts…
He swallowed.
The breasts of a girl who knew at least thirty ways to kill
him.
Right here, right now.
Without crushing those gauzy silky pips on
the top of her evening gown.
Tim was saved from imminent death when a waiter pushed
gruffly between them and jostled him back to reality. The next minutes were
spent hurriedly making their way to the ballroom, where he spied Madison
Hargrove talking to a waiter—the same one from the kitchen?—and with a flash of
inspiration that only comes to seasoned crimefighters who have weathered
multiple mind-control episodes, he slipped away from Cassie and ran up to
Madison.
“Blue centerpieces are Sponsor tables, white ones are Angel
tables,” she was saying. “So you want to make sure when you’re passing out the
programs—”
“Hi,” Tim said, desperately pulling cash from his pockets. “Tim Drake, remember me? No, you won’t remember me. I was an intern at Wayne
Enterprises a few years back. I have sort of a… corsage emergency you could
call it. I will give you every dollar I have on me and volunteer for the rest
of my life if you can give me a flower.”
Madison stifled her laugh; the waiter didn’t even try. Then both smiles faded as they looked behind him and became serious a split
second before Tim felt a hand on his shoulder.
“I’ve got this,” Bruce said, steering Tim firmly away from
the group. Then he shoved a piece of plastic into Tim’s hand as if covertly
passing him a batarang. “Go downstairs to the lobby. The gift shop will still
be open. Pale peach or lilac should go with what she’s wearing. Next time,
come prepared.”
Tim started to squeak out a thank you, when the words froze
on his lips as Robin instinct kicked in. Bruce’s eyes had refocused on
something across the room, and Tim was suddenly on hyper-alert before he
consciously realized why. He shifted his neck imperceptibly, glanced, and let
his peripheral vision pick out what Bruce was looking at: Gregorian Falstaff
making his entrance.
“Pass him on your way out,” Bruce ordered without taking
his eye from the pudgy figure that looked so much like Oswald Cobblepot. “If
you’re able to hear without dawdling or being conspicuous, find out what
tonight’s flavor of Wayne-bashing is going to be. But don’t worry if you can’t
manage it discreetly. He can’t do any real harm. He’s just… extremely
annoying.”
“I know,” Tim said. “Last week Dick was saying he wished
Penguin was still active ‘cause it’d feel really good to punch that face a few
dozen times.”
“What did he do to Dick?” Bruce asked sharply.
“Selina didn’t tell you?” Tim said. “Oh man, well… She
lent Barbara some dress for the Fire Ball last week, and I guess there was a lot
of ruffled fru-fru around the bottom or something, to be, like ‘flames.’ And
Randy’s mom heard Falstaff saying to Mrs. Wigglesworth that the gown was ‘made
for the dance floor’ and it was a shame to see it ‘wasted’ on somebody in a
wheelchair.”
Bruce’s lower jaw stiffened the way Tim had seen at the
Bat-Signal when there was news about Joker.
“I see,” he said darkly.
“So now Mrs. Wigglesworth thinks Falstaff must have
something to do with politics or cable news or something, ‘cause nobody can be
that offensive except on purpose.”
Cassie knew without checking that she would be seated at
Table Two, next to Dick and Barbara. For her, the first kick of a formal event
was the way the men already sitting at a table were supposed to stand up whenever a
woman came to join them. The little tells right before their bodies started to
move were so cute! Tim, for example, was usually late, only remembering
he was supposed to stand once he saw the others start to move. He would get
that little pucker in the center-right of his chin, just like when he played
Phoenix Ninja and he realized his avatar was about to die again. He would
catch up by only rising an inch or two out of his seat and joining the other men
on the way down.
Dick and Barbara were both seated at the otherwise empty
Table Two when Cassie arrived. As usual, Dick was in motion almost
instantly, his move telegraphed by a fleeting crinkle above his eyebrows that
looked so much like Alfred Pennyworth.
They talked for a few minutes. Barbara noticed the
bracelet at once, guessed that it came from Selina, and asked if Cassie knew
anything. She hissed the last words in a strange way, and Cassie shook her
head, confused. Barbara tried again. When Selina gave Cassie the
bracelet… and here Cassie interrupted to explain that Selina hadn’t exactly
“given” it to her but had locked it in a box as part of a training exercise… and
Barbara waved impatiently as if shooing a fly.
“But you saw her,” she whispered hoarsely. “You saw
her in person. Did you get anything?”
“Get bracelet,” Cassie said, repeating the obvious.
“Body language, Cassie. Did you pick up anything from
Selina’s body language or any of the other stuff you see? Do you have any idea
what’s going on with her and B?”
“Their comm channel has been offline all week,” Dick
explained. “Babs tried to run a diagnostic and ran into a bunch of new
lockouts.”
Cassie remembered the sealed paragraphs in Batman’s log and
that she never got anywhere feeling out Selina with that article in the
Gotham Observer. Still, Cassie had been trying to decide if she should keep
one sensei’s secrets from another. Telling a third party like Barbara was
something else entirely. Luckily, because of the way Barbara was asking, Cassie
didn’t have to lie.
“Not see anything in Selina body language,” she said, and
changed the subject to the band setting up, which looked like the same one as
the Earth Ball that she liked so much, and the funny Falstaff man who looked so
much like Penguin going round to all the tables as if he and not Bruce was the
head of the foundation hosting the event.
Since Bruce said Falstaff’s posturing couldn’t do any real
harm, Tim hadn’t figured on hurrying back with a report. He’d find Cassie,
present her corsage and give Bruce the sitrep when he returned the credit card. That was before he heard what Falstaff was saying. Tim couldn’t get the first
snatch of conversation out of his head the whole time he was in the gift shop
staring at the rotating cooler of pre-made corsages. He didn’t even register
whatever the clerk said to him as he paid, and all he could think about on his
way back to the ballroom was finding Falstaff and hearing more of tonight’s
talking points before reporting back to Bruce. Cassie’s corsage was forgotten
until he physically handed back the credit card and remembered what it was for.
Then he met his mentor’s eyes and gave a full report on
Gregorian Falstaff’s talking points for the evening. It was quite a switch. He
didn’t have a word to say against Bruce or the Foundation this time around, and
he was full of praise for Wayne Enterprises. He had been waiting all week to
see the items Atlantis had donated for the silent auction—an alliance they all
knew had sprung from the marvelous work Wayne was doing with Sub Diego. The
robotics alone would have represented the most significant advances in a
decade; the communication matrices alone deserved nothing less than a
Nobel Prize. And the integration of those cutting edge robotics with
state of the art communication nets was, quite simply, the most important
dual-world achievement in a generation. Not since the undersea kingdom made
itself known to us had there been such an inspiring initiative to show
Atlantis what the surface world was capable of. Unquestionably, Wayne has risen
to represent us to that advanced culture in a way that did honor to Gotham.
“I see,” Bruce said in the same tone he’d acknowledged
Falstaff’s earlier outrage about Barbara.
“Bruce, what’s it mean?” Tim whispered.
“I have no idea,” Bruce admitted.
“So you didn’t, like, buy him off?”
Bruce glared hatefully.
“Selina didn’t borrow a mind control chip from Tetch or
something?”
Bruce raised an eyebrow.
“Yeah. Okay. Took a shot. Thanks for the, uh,” Tim said,
holding up the corsage helplessly. “I better go find Cass.”
Cassie could tell as Tim approached the table that he had
something hidden in his jacket. At first, she didn’t think it was a present for
her, because it was Dick and Barbara that he was hiding it from… No, just Dick,
she decided by the angle Tim stood at when he reached the table. So if it was a
surprise, her first guess would have been that it was a surprise for Dick—but it
was her that Tim asked to see outside.
She smiled like when he asked her to dance, took her purse
and left her napkin on the chair in one fluid move like Selina-Sensei had taught
her, and led Tim to the little alcove she’d found behind the bandstand that had
the most privacy. There was a blind spot where a couple couldn’t be seen from
anywhere except this one little cubby hole. Going to check if that observation
point was clear, Cassie saw that while it was empty, the blind spot it
overlooked was already occupied.
“Ruh-roh,” Tim said, looking down on Bruce and Selina
huddled in tense conversation.
Remembering Barbara’s words, Cassie took the opportunity to
study Selina’s body language. She had a Catwoman posture. Defiant. Aggressive
defiance. Confident in her defiance. Not defensive. Defiance as her
birthright… Confident. Strong. Unafraid. Is who she is. Don’t like it, go
elsewhere. Cassie gave a quick, curt nod, liking the way that sounded. She
unconsciously tilted her head and set her mouth, sampling the idea like a taste
of ice cream on those tiny plastic spoons. Is who she is. Don’t
like it? Go find what you like. Oh, she liked the way it felt and gave another very
slight nod. Then she turned her attention to Bruce.
The top layer was Batman, trying to conceal everything
going on underneath. Like he always did with Catwoman. It never worked. Still
he tried. Under the Bat layer was surprise. Something was unexpected. Couldn’t be defiance. Surprise at defiance in Catwoman was like surprise at
rain when the clouds were dark. So it must be something else that was
surprising—Got it!
“Hey!” Tim said as Cassie pinched his arm excitedly.
“Bruce start it,” she explained in a thrilled whisper. “Selina react. Bruce surprised by the way Selina react. Maybe say is feline
logic. Selina defiant because Bruce no have right be surprised. Maybe say is
jackass.”
“Well, I guess we were overdue for some fireworks,” Tim
sighed.
Whatever was going on between Bruce and Selina, they kept
it concealed with the practiced skill of Gotham night people whose lives depend
on keeping a secret identity secret. Not a hint of tension could be seen by
anyone but Cassie, and even she wouldn’t have noticed if she had only their
public demeanor to go by. It was only those few moments of conversation
glimpsed in the private alcove that told her where to look.
She thought about it during dinner, wondering if those
sealed passages in Batman’s log and the silent channel on the OraCom were
related. She also sensed that Barbara would press her for information again if
she got the chance, so she turned the other way and spent the whole dinner listening
to Tim. She didn’t follow much of what he was saying about his classes at
Hudson, but she was glad he said the Falstaff-sponsored concert was over and all
the signs and decals advertising it were taken down.
“I just wish they’d caught it in time and Photoshopped it
out of all those pictures on display at the Earth Ball,” he said with that
little inhale that pulled his upper lip back from his teeth and meant a joke was
coming next. “I mean, that was the week benefiting Education & Youth Programs,
right? And you’ve got Falstaff’s logo all over the Hudson campus: big, block
letter ‘F’ inside that great big red hexagon. It’s like the international
symbol for ‘I'm Flunking Algebra.’”
Cassie joined in the table-wide laughter although she had
no idea what was supposed to be funny. After dessert, Tim wanted to go down to
see the silent auction and Cassie said she would meet him. She went to the
powder room and took out the little vial of Visine Selina-Sensei told her to
always carry in her purse. She applied the eye drops to forestall any redness,
then a fresh layer of light peach lip gloss, and finally she went into a stall
to make a few adjustments to her pantyhose. It was then that the door opened
and two women entered with sensei’s name on their lips.
“…always thought Catwoman overlooked the stature of
the Littleton jewels, that’s all I’m saying. I mean really, Matilda Markel’s
little baubles might be canary diamonds, but so what? There’s no law,
surely, that says Catwoman can only steal jewels with a cat tie-in. Matilda’s
canaries were nothing special, only a present from Chester when she found out he
had a mistress. There’s no history to them. This ring was made by Frederick
Mew of Cartier in 1952 at the same time he was working on the Williamson brooch
for Queen Elizabeth!”
“Perhaps you should mention that to Selina,” a second voice
said quietly.
“I have,” the first said firmly.
“What did she say?”
“Oh, something about a controversy if it was the Williamson
pink diamond or some Persian thing that was the inspiration for the Pink
Panther. As if she herself hadn’t tried to steal the Williamson twice. I mean
really, all the way over in England, when the Littleton jewels are right here in
Gotham, year round. If she can’t recognize that kind of an opportunity, I
certainly hope she hasn’t gone back to it. If this cat burglar is someone new,
perhaps they will recognize quality.”
“Well I hope it’s her. That will be the end of her and
Bruce, she can go back to Batman and my Annie can have another crack at becoming
Mrs. Wayne.”
“Bite your tongue. Don’t you remember what he was like
before? RSVPs to a dinner party, then calls an hour before and cancels—or
doesn’t show up at all. Or brings two Swedish models with him who don’t speak a
word of English and spend the entire meal pouting and pushing their food around
the plate. If I had a dollar for every time that man threw my seating
arrangements into chaos. Since Selina, an RSVP means—”
“Means you get to remind Clive who reminds Perkins
not to serve Château de Poulignac because there’s some mysterious history
between Selina and the Count de Poulignac, and that would be so awkward
for Bruce.”
Both women erupted into peals of laughter, and Cassie
pushed open the stall door like a pugnacious gunslinger entering the saloon. She looked both women up and down as if sizing up a fellow assassin. Then she
primly extracted the tube of pale peach lip gloss from her bag, even though
she’d already touched up.
“Law says no steal with or with-out cat tie in,” she said,
her odd speech pattern covered by the dabbing of lip gloss. “Pink Panther based
on Darya-ye Noor. Is Persian. Pink diamond. Part of. Iran’s. Crown jewels. I think. And is tacky making private club around who knows about Selina and
French count.”
With that, she dropped the lip gloss in her purse and
snapped it shut, then pointed to the first woman’s finger and said “Is nice
ring” before she left.
Atlantis and Sub Diego were indeed the centerpieces of the
silent auctions. Other balls had the usual selection of golf weekends,
autographed footballs, shopping sprees and spa treatments donated by Gotham
businesses and Wayne Foundation supporters. The Water Ball was different. Only
nine items were offered for sale, nine items whose exotic rarity was underlined
by the small number. Where previously auctions had the items arranged on
long tables with a clipboard set beside each for patrons to record their bids
throughout the evening, tonight’s auction room featured six round tables with
vivid aqua blue cloths, their items glistening in a column of light streaming
from a trio of tinted lamps positioned directly overhead, showing off each piece
like an individual jewel.
Atlantis had donated three pieces: a painting, a carved
bowl, and a pair of glass orbs, which each stood alone on their own table. The
orbs were the subject of the most conversation. Stacked one over the other in a
gold and crystal encasement, they were said to be a time piece, functioning
something like an hourglass underwater, but none of the guests were quite sure
how. Tim was pretty sure it had something to do with sea pressure, but he
wasn’t stopping to figure it out. He was more interested in the items from Sub
Diego. Each of their tables featured two items, and each of those reflected the
city’s closer ties to surface culture. The most popular by far was a high-def
photo of the submerged Grand Del Mar resort signed by dozens of Sub Diego
residents.
Tim was thinking there might be a sociology paper in it. The Atlantean stuff was more refined, the aesthetic like something from the
fairy forest in a fantasy novel. They’d probably see the Sub Diego efforts as
barbaric and crass. Items carved not from native undersea materials but from
bed posts and belt buckles that had started off on land and were submerged with
them. ‘How tacky, how macabre, how perverse,’ the Atlanteans might say. But
the people of Sub Diego were all born and raised in the continental U.S. They
knew the power of celebrity, the link between celebrity and news, what the
relics of a disaster would be bring… Yeah, that would work. Find a quote or two
about stuff salvaged from the Titanic, that would give him a couple print
sources for the bibliography. Everything else was timely, so no trip to the
library for quotes from some stuffy Max Weber lectures. No notecards, YAY! Any
paper Tim could write in his head, on patrol, without time-consuming research
cutting into his out-of-costume time was always welcome.
He looked around the room, wondering who to hit up for a
quote. He saw Lucius Fox, figured that was a good place to start, and lucked
out more than he could have imagined. Mr. Fox walked him over to a Mr. Anders
who was huddled with a guy closer to Tim’s age, called Norm. Turned out, Norm
was the point man for all the Wayne Foundation’s interaction with Sub Diego, and
after the introductions, Lucius told Norm to ‘show him the gizmo.’ Norm turned
over the tablet-sized object he and Anders had been huddled around. For a
split-second, Tim thought it was a bad video-feed from a bar with some weird
blue lighting, then he realized it was amazingly good video of people in
a room under water.
“These are my buddies from high school, Juan and Alan,”
Norm said. “Juan’s girl Cara and Alan’s partner Scott. All residents of Sub
Diego. Guys, this is Tim Drake.” All but Cara waved when Norm said their
name, so Tim knew who was who, and they all chorused “Hi Tim” with another round
of waves and smiles when Norm was through. Tim noted that all were dressed for
a formal party, and Cara had her hair up in a style similar the one Cassie wore,
topped with a tiara made of some kind of shells. Their voices were all
remarkably clear, considering they were under water. Tim had to assume it
had something to do with a jellybean-size pellet of silica each had clipped to
their lower lip.
“Juan and Alan were the first employees of the Sub Diego
office,” Norm concluded. “They’re able to attend tonight thanks to the
communication system Wayne Tech recently deployed down there.”
“That’s the public relations spiel he feels compelled to
give while I’m standing here,” Lucius said with a grin. “So I’ll just be on my
way and leave you young people to enjoy yourselves.”
The tablet began giggling once Lucius was gone, Scott
grabbing the tiara from Cara’s head and wearing it himself. Alan and Cara
both producing oblong orbs that looked like gelatinous balloons that Tim could
tell by the way they held them were the Sub Diego equivalent of beer bottles.
Tim mentioned the auction items and was thrilled to learn
that Scott had come up with most of the ideas and Juan had put it all together. He was talking to the best people possible to help him with his paper, but as
soon as he started fishing for a quote, they waved him off. This was a party,
and they were here tonight to enjoy themselves. But they would be happy to help
him out. They’d be open for business Monday and Tim should “come see them at
the office.” Norm explained that the tablet he held was just a tiny piece of
the complex Wayne Tech system. It wasn’t mobile outside the Wayne Tower
yet, and he had improvised so the Sub Diegans could attend the ball and see the
auction first hand.
“Yes, Norm is our date!” Juan called out, and
all four cheered as Norm held the tablet out to the side and posed as if for a
prom picture.
Technically, Tim realized, he was going to be doing as much
time-consuming out-of-costume research on this as he would at the library
working on a more traditional paper—but it was going to be incredibly cool
research. Probably cooler than anything he’d be doing as Robin in that time. He asked if he needed to make an appointment for this meeting, but got a
confusing response. As Juan shook his head with a flippant ‘come in any time’
gesture, Norm was nodding yes. Juan and Scott’s time might not be strictly
regimented in their office, he said, but their “Land Doubles” were on a
restricted access floor of the Wayne Tower. (Scott made an exaggerated
‘la-di-da’ gesture at that) Norm said he would put Tim’s name on the list at
the front desk so he could get a visitor’s badge first thing Monday morning. (Scott then began humming the James Bond theme while Cara and Alan posed
back-to-back with finger-pistols.)
Tim laughed—and then spotted Cassie. She was at the table
displaying the bowl from Atlantis, walking around it slowly with a thoughtful
frown, giving a very convincing performance of a serious art scholar
scrutinizing a new work. Tim guessed what she was really doing was keeping an
eye on him, waiting for him to be alone, so he went to join her.
“You can always come over and join me when I’m in a group
like that,” he reminded her.
“Is awkward when see Tim laughing in group. Too often not
get joke.”
“You do fine, Cassie. When you don’t get the joke, it’s
just like when you’re quiet. Most people won’t even notice, and if they do,
most won’t think anything of it, and if they do, they’re just going to think you
haven’t been here that long.”
“Woof,” Cassie said.
“Woof?” Tim laughed.
“No say it right?”
“You said it perfectly,” Tim assured her.
Once again, Cassie refused Tim’s offer to see her home, but
this time, he was ready. He’d talked to Dick about the way the last two balls
had ended, and Dick helped come up with a plan that neither wanted to call a
protocol:
Leaving a formal party like the Wayne Gala alone was not
the typical experience, Tim said. Most people came and went to events like that
as a couple. If Cassie wanted to build up more experiences like normal people
have—not just for the sake of her ID but so she’d have more to talk about in
social situations, get more of the jokes and so on—she owed it to herself not
to be going home alone all the time, kicking her shoes under the bed and tossing
her purse into the nightstand in an empty apartment. She should finish off the
evening just like any young woman who wasn’t Batgirl. Say goodnight to her date
as if he wasn’t Robin and she would not be seeing him again on the rooftops.
And only then, once Cassie Cain’s night was over, once the door had closed
behind Tim Drake, should she change into costume and begin the night as Batgirl.
Cassie knew it was a crock, but it was a clever crock, and
Tim delivered it very well. She also liked what Barbara had said about ‘a snog’
at the end of the evening being the best part of getting all dressed up.
So she let Tim take her home.
As they left by a side door, Tim pointed to the front
circle where Alfred stood formally beside the Wayne Bentley. Bruce and Selina
were coming out the revolving door, party smiles in place. A final air
kiss to Bunny Wigglesworth, a manly wave to Ted Endicott, and they both climbed
into the back of the car.
“Think they patched it up?” Tim asked, meaning ‘What can
you see?’
Cassie pursed her lips and studied Bruce’s jaw as the car
door began to shut. In the split-second before he vanished behind the tinted
window, she saw the little pull that indicated his expression was about to
change.
“Happy performance over,” she said, shaking her head. “Get
ready to have new face soon as door shut. No can tell why. Might be pretending
happy to hide he is mad at Selina. Might be pretending happy because is party
and supposed to be happy.”
“Yeah, hard to tell with Bruce. Maybe you should have
watched her instead.”
Cassie directed a slow burn at Tim, who quickly changed the
subject, reiterating how pretty Cassie had looked tonight. It was enough to
save his invitation inside when they reached her front stoop. The invitation
was for a cup of herbal tea that was never brewed. Instead, Tim left fifteen
minutes later with his tie in his pocket, two shirt studs hanging loose in their
holes, and a love bite on his neck that Robin’s costume wouldn’t conceal.
There was a subway stop at the end of Cassie’s block that
made a convenient place to change, and he was halfway to the rendezvous out of
habit when he remembered the new spot. He kicked himself for not reminding Cass
and could only hope that she would remember. Their old roof in NoHo had been a
great place to meet up until “Nite Fry” opened down the street. Robin was
normally a big fan of any restaurant, food truck or diner staying open past 4
am, and a late night pizza parlor opening in the same block as his favorite
rooftop hangout should have been the jackpot. A late night pizza parlor that
deep-fried the pies should have been the powerball of late night troughs for
the growing vigilante with a healthy appetite—which was kind of the problem. Nite Fry smelled 10 kinds of wonderful. The whole block had this ebb and
flow of aromas. First you got a noseful of flash-fried salami piccante sizzling
in sunflower oil, and then, before that delicious odor became familiar so you
stopped noticing, it was wiped out by aromatic waves of baking rosemary bread. Not something you could ignore.
So, in the interests of actually starting patrol and not spending the first hour
obsessing on the nosh they weren’t having, Robin and Batgirl now met on the
Southernmost steeple of St. Paul’s.
Luckily Cassie did remember and Batgirl was waiting for
him—with the first project for tonight’s patrol already picked out. She had
discovered a pattern of suspicious activity down the street from an open air
parking lot and was sure either guns or drugs were being exchanged, but she
couldn’t figure out how. So Robin went to watch with her. First, a car
appeared and parked on an adjacent street. After a few minutes, the driver got
out, walked to the parking lot and returned a few minutes later in a different
car. She parked Car 2 next to Car 1, got out, went back to her original car and
drove off. A few minutes later, she was back, parked in the original spot,
walked back to the other car and drove off again… Robin agreed something strange
was going on. A quick check on the license plates turned up nothing, and
rather than try more sophisticated searches through the limited Batcomputer
interface in his belt, he had Oracle tackle it.
“Sounds like Dick took the night off,” he
noted, hearing a murmured voice in the background.
That was confirmed by Barbara specifying “No tea, sweetums,
just water. I’m parched from all that—aw crap, they changed the passwords
again—champagne. Just a big glass of water with lots of ice, please.”
Tim thought the Dick-murmur was saying something about
liking it when she was ‘bubbling on bubbly,’ but when open communication
resumed, Oracle had a very different message to relay.
“Dick wants to know how are there two empty parking spaces
right next to each other on that street. That doesn’t just happen. And it’s
going to take a few to run the makes and models against stolen car reports and
scan for any patterns, so while you’re waiting, maybe check around to see if
there’s some kind of gang signs or even a vagrant that could tell you if
anybody’s been around to intimidate the neighborhood about parking there.”
It was a good plan, and Batgirl immediately dropped to
street level while Robin took up a position down the block. “Hey Ron!” he
called out. It wasn’t terrifically loud, it wasn’t dramatic, and it wasn’t
meant to make everyone involved in the car swaps stop and look around wondering
“Gee, what was that.” It was nothing but a momentary sound to pull just that
much focus for a fraction of a second while Batgirl moved into the observation
zone. He had a car alarm and siren sound effects too, if anything happened that
required a more serious diversion. He squinted into the dark patch where he
last saw her, looking for some sign of movement so he could provide another
shout out to camouflage her return… when he saw the pointy-eared shadow fall on
the patch of fire escape under his left foot.
“No need ‘Hey Ron,’” she said.
Robin said he knew that, but he was trying to help. Batgirl said she knew that, and there were symbols for the Jade-Five Triad
chalked onto the curb and pavement of both parking spaces. They relayed that to
Oracle, who said she would notify the GPD.
“I hate this,” Robin said, meaning the police operations in
place to monitor the various organized crime outfits trying to fill the vacuum
left by Falcone. Batman had been clear: with so many undercover operations
underway, no action was to be taken in cases like this unless lives were in
danger.
“Me too,” said Batgirl, flipping a batarang between her
fingers like a pianist’s warm-up exercise.
“Know what’s always good for some action?” Robin asked with
a grin.
“Muggers in park,” Batgirl answered, her voice revealing
the smile that her full-face mask concealed.
They fired their lines in tandem and traveled uptown
towards the park. At 59th Street, the plan changed.
“Is that Catwoman?” Robin gaped.
“Salute you world’s greatest detective,” Batgirl said
flatly.
“Should we go and say hi?”
“Sure, more fun than muggers.”
She was perched on a gargoyle on one of the mid-size
buildings, lying on her back, legs scissoring in a slow, thoughtful rhythm. By
the time Robin and Batgirl reached her, however, she was back on her stomach,
legs bent at the knees. She had a trio of gadgets positioned around her, a
central tablet linked to two phone-size devices. The tablet flicked slowly
through a slideshow of spectacular jewelry. When each new ruby necklace or set
of teardrop earrings appeared, the gadget on the left displayed a record from a
database, the gadget on the right, a satellite map.
“Hey guys,” Catwoman said with a wave. “Bored with the
Russians? Or was it yakuza?”
Boredom was admitted, but when Robin said it
was one of the Triads behind their drug case, Catwoman shook her head.
“Nah, that’s the Russians. They’ve got a poker game in
Chinatown. Jade-Five boys lost big a few weeks ago. Working off their debt.”
“O-kay,” Robin said quietly.
“No, I am not channeling Batman,” Selina said, noting his
reaction and guessing it was the kind of behind-the-scenes crimefighter detail
he’d toss out when a sidekick had less than up-to-the-minute information. “It’s
just that I had fifteen go-rounds with the Batcomputer getting all this set up,”
she said, pointing to the tablet. “Every reboot, it starts up on that same
Daily Blotter for the GPD. I can also tell you that the raids on Canal Street
knockoffs have been suspended for the week because they need the extra bodies
around the U.N. and twenty lots of counterfeit Blu-Rays were slated to be
destroyed at the 9th Street Impound at 4 o’clock. Robert Wittman,
formerly of the FBI’s Art Crime unit, was scheduled to give a lecture at One-PP
but Hudson University cancelled the event he was really coming into town for, so
the whole thing’s been postponed. Also the last of the Feds vetting Muskelli
for that appointment to the Justice Department have officially ‘left the
building’ and boy is the front office happy to see the back of them.”
While she chattered, Robin and Batgirl both squatted down
and repositioned to get a better look at the screens. Tim had a hacker’s
interest in the uplink she established with the Batcomputer. Cassie had a
personal interest in the ruby and diamond necklace currently being displayed.
“Synchronized tri-tier uplink with an encrypted
self-modulating pulse, integrated with the Foundation mainframe and WayneTech
satellite” she told Tim. “Harry Winston, two baguette and brilliant-cut diamond
rows suspending a fringe of oval and cushion-shaped rubies, mounted in
platinum,” she told Cassie.
“Cool,” they said in unison.
“At first, I had this cat burglar pegged as an idiot,”
Catwoman said conversationally. “I told Bruce after we saw that movie: if
you’re a jewel thief, there is just no point in breaking into the Brewster
townhouse while they’re attending the Wayne gala, because the best pieces—in
this case, that little piece of Piaget on the screen right now—are across town
hanging around Mrs. Brewster’s neck.”
“Sure, makes perfect sense,” Tim agreed.
Cassie nodded, and Selina smiled.
“Well that’s a breath of fresh air. A little recognition
of Kitty’s expertise, thank you very much. All he did was argue. But
this time, he was right. There could be a point in hitting the Brewsters
or the Lowells or the Auchinclosses when they’re at the Wayne gala. To
embarrass the Foundation or Bruce personally.”
“Whoa,” said Tim. “Ya think? Really?”
“It’s early to say. We’ll know more if there’s another one
tonight. That’s why I made up this database: all the best jewelry owned by
Foundation donors, linked to their dossiers and the location of their primary
residence in Gotham. Now we wait. If someone’s getting hit strictly because
they were attending a Wayne event, it would have happened already, during the
ball. But when they’ll discover it is anybody’s guess.”
“And there’s too many to check beforehand, right?” Robin
asked.
“Not a productive use of my time—grunt,” Selina said in her
imitation of the bat-gravel. “I did pick the three I thought were most
desirable—the pieces I would go for that were worn at one of last two balls
so presumably would be back in the safe tonight while the owners wore something
else. He checked them but… nothing.”
Tim let out a low whistle as Selina touched the corner of
the tablet and the three items she had selected came up on the screen while the
map refocused to show a greater portion of the city and all three locations
blinked with tiny purple dots.
“You put a lot of work into this,” Tim noted.
Selina shrugged.
“He asked for my help,” she said lightly. Then her eyes
darkened and the corner of her mouth dipped into an injured scowl. “This he
asked me,” she growled.
To be continued…
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