(XD I'm getting better with update times! Whoo! Anyway, I know I promised a fiction about Johnny or Bruce, but this one popped into my head and continued to develop. It developed so much, that this is a three-part story. I still need to write the other two chapters, but I practically have them all written out in my head. I just need to finish this before school starts [I do feel bad that I can't get out stories as fast as other writers]...
This story does have some terminology that I came up with, and it might be helpful to know them:
Rich Rat: One of the rich people in Gotham
Street Rat: The majority of Gotham; the poor and the needy [and the criminals]
High/Low Black Market: The Low Black Market is where the child and teenage criminals do business. Examples include prostitution, drug dealing on a low scale, bartering stolen goods, etc. The High Black Market is for the "upper class Street Rats" so to speak. Businesses include human trafficking, military-grade weapons trade-offs, skilled hacking for any computer heist, and everything in the Low Black Market, just on a higher scale.
Auction Stage: This takes place in the High Black Market only. Every few weeks, goods and services are auctioned off to the richer kingpins in Gotham's underworld.
Alright, that should take care of all the terminology for now. Hope you enjoy!)
Disclaimer: I do not own GOTHAM or any of its characters. I wish I did though.
Soothing an Angry Enigma
Part 1: A Cat Call Received
Selina tapped her fingers against the side of a street lamp, staring up at her target building. It was where she would find him, and she'd have to talk fast in order to clear things up. And if things got bad… she patted the pistol in the holster under her left arm, hidden within her favorite jacket, just to make sure it was there.
Just over a week ago, a museum had announced that they were showcasing a new wing they had just finished constructing. It was a wing dedicated entirely to the research and showcasing of rare gemstones, and while most of the exhibits would be fake (in order to disinterest criminals), there was one Rich Rat in Gotham that wanted to showcase her whole collection of precious stones for one night only. The collection was worth millions; the highest price Selina had seen listed on one of the gemstones was forty million.
To a sixteen-year-old living in an apartment that legally classified as a health hazard, stealing those gemstones was an itch she needed to scratch.
Selina had done nothing but devote her entire being to researching everything she could about this new museum wing. She had called in favors, acquired blueprints and the night guards' shift schedule, and had created a minute-by-minute plan that would allow her to steal the majority of the gemstones in the least amount of time as possible. Everything was perfect… except for one major problem.
The security technology was the property of Wayne Enterprises.
The security produced by Wayne Enterprises was the best in the world and was almost impossible to break into, and it would take an expert hacker from the High Black Market ten minutes at full speed to hack (but not disable) one security terminal. Selina couldn't afford any of those hackers, and it would be a waste of time for them to take ten or more minutes to disable one of the alarms.
She couldn't ask Bruce; he was vacationing in another country, and his company had made the final deal with the museum, not Bruce himself. He wouldn't be able to nullify the company's deal for reasons he wouldn't explain. Not to mention, it would alert Bruce that she was planning to steal from one of his Rich Rat friends, and as much as she enjoyed his company, he was way too much of a goody-two shoes. He'd have Gordon on her ass before she could step out of her apartment.
Her master plan was crippled by the advanced technology. If it had been any other technology, she could have disabled it before she got there or while she was there, at most hire an amateur hacker to shut off all the alarms.
But Wayne Enterprises security technology wasn't known for being any other technology. Besides being so dense and encrypted each coding could pass as a stand-alone legal document, each separate alarm had its own passcode, yet was also connected to a massive mainframe, and if it could tell it was being hacked, it would immediately set off every alarm in the building and alert any security guards to your exact location. If weapons were connected to the Wayne security… it never ended well for those involved. High Black Market hackers, after a few of their best were caught and put into police custody (or killed), shut down any offer that made them interact with the Wayne technology.
However, there was one man, if the rumors were correct, that could hack and disable the Wayne technology in under a minute and manage to re-encrypt the technology to act against the police. High Black Market hackers continued to deny the rumors that someone was better than them, but ever since they were hacked in front of the Auction Stage by this mysterious man a month ago, the rumors spread like wildfire.
Selina had called in and promised many favors in order to discover his location and who he was. She was told his name was Edward Nygma, but didn't think about it until she got home that night. She groaned aloud when she finally realized who he was. It was the name of the man she had put in jail, and the man she had given the directions to in order for him to break out of Arkham (she heard he had failed spectacularly at that escape attempt). She did some more digging and found out he had escaped Arkham half a year ago, a few days after she had turned sixteen. He had been living in hiding for the past half year, but some of her sources had told her he was in the middle of creating a revenge plan against Jim Gordon.
He lived in the worst part of Gotham, and twice already Selina had been forced to fight her way out of a bad situation. She brought up her last memory of the Forensic Tech and couldn't believe he was living in the roughest part of Gotham. He looked too baby-faced and nerdy to live in a neighborhood that had about two fatal shootings a night.
She headed toward the building and slipped into a small alleyway. She mapped out the quietest route up the fire escape in her mind, and very delicately started her climb. Selina went slowly up the fire escape, not wanting to alert Nygma but also not wanting to alert any of the criminals in the nearby area of her presence.
Just as she placed her left foot on the balcony of the thirteenth level, she heard a gunshot crack through the silence of the night. Selina gave a rough estimate of where the gunshot originated based on where she was and how far the sound of a gunshot would usually travel. It should have originated a few blocks from where she was, giving her a silent message that she needed to speed up her climb.
She added a little speed to her ascent, but in doing so she sacrificed the safety of silence. Her boots clinked softly against the metal as she climbed the last few levels to Nygma's apartment.
When Selina reached the sixteenth floor, she paused and studied the closed, vertical window before her. One could never be too careful in the roughest part of Gotham; half the windows she had passed had some form of crappy alarm on them. What unsettled her was the fact that the window she was supposed to break into didn't seem to have any form of alarm.
She double-checked every side of the window, making sure she didn't miss anything. The only thing that caught her eye was a white strip on the frame that went around the length of the window. She didn't pay it much attention though. Many poor Gothamites, during the winter, would put any kind of sticky material around their window frame in order to block out the freezing cold.
Selina took out her small tool pouch and began to pick the lock on the window. It took her a few seconds to pick the lock. She gave a smug smile. This psycho knew how to hack, but he apparently didn't know how to keep himself safe. His nerdy face flashed through her mind. This might be easier than she thought.
Selina pulled on the window handle. It came open, but made a thunking sound as the window slipped past the white strip. She poked her head through the windowsill and looked around for a moment, hoping that there were no booby traps planted near her body. She heard a faint, low buzzing sound that was most likely a heater being turned on. After a minute, she inched her way through the windowsill and stepped into the apartment. She closed the window halfway, in order to have an escape route if things went south.
Through the darkness she could see a worn couch in the middle of the room. A small television stood across from it, its stand looking more than a hundred years old. Books littered the area around the couch and also served as decorative pieces for the T.V. The walls were completely bare, surprising for a crazy man who was supposed to be plotting revenge against Gordon.
She slipped silently through the room she was in, her eyes searching the darkness for any form of movement. She opened a door leading into the dining room slash kitchen, and paused for a moment. Everything her eyes took in was still, but her gut was telling her that something dangerous was hidden in the darkness.
Selina inched her way forward. Unfortunately for her, the danger was in the room behind her. She felt something crash into the back of her head and everything went black.
Selina slowly opened her eyes and stared at the tabletop. Her head was still throbbing from whatever hit her before she blacked out and her throat was painfully dry. She shifted in her seat, and felt rope scratch her wrists. She moved her fingers to the rope, and found an intricately tied knot in the space between her wrists.
"I wouldn't try anything funny if I were you."
Selina slid her gaze across the table she was sitting at and settled on a thin man wearing a wrinkled white T-shirt and green boxers. His short, brown hair stuck up in every known direction, yet his glasses were set perfectly on his nose. He studied her from where he sat, unconcerned about his bedraggled appearance. He had a thick textbook open in front of him, and his fingers twirled a pocketknife lazily against the page of the textbook.
"It wouldn't hurt you to put on a pair of pants, would it? Maybe comb your hair?"
He leaned back in his chair and gave her a stubborn look, as if she was the scolding mother and he was the teenager rebelling against authority. Oh brother, he was one of those guys.
"I don't think we've properly met before, Selina Kyle."
She was about to ask him how he knew her name, but it occurred to her that her name was well known on the streets when it came to cat burglary.
"Well, there's no time like the present, right?" she said, acting as if nothing important was happening at that moment.
He sneered, but then gave her a big smile that was as warm as a popsicle. "Of course, my little Street Rat." He stood up and gave her a small, somewhat mocking bow. "Edward Nygma, former Forensic Tech from the GCPD and premier criminal of the century."
Selina noticed his shift in attitude. When he was in the GCPD, he had been deep in the background, hard to spot on a good day. When he was in Arkham, he had been more showman and just a little bit more assertive. Now, he seemed to act as if he was the center of the world. Considering how bold he was getting with his escape from Arkham and the hacking of the Auction Stage in the High Black Market, it stood to reason that he would become a little more arrogant.
He stared at her, as if she was supposed to fall to her knees and beg for his forgiveness. Selina forced a pleasant smile. "My name is Selina Kyle, I'm a cat burglar and I've been stealing on the streets since before you got a job at the GCPD. Don't start with that superiority crap."
Nygma chuckled. "Feisty, I like it. Bonus points for knowing and correctly using the word 'superior.' You're much better than all the other scum that break into here."
Selina looked at him, suspicious. "Speaking of which Eddie boy, how did you know I broke into your apartment?"
He scoffed. "Well, besides you just telling me you did…"
Nygma left the dining slash kitchen area. He came back a moment later with an iPhone held loosely between his fingers. He twirled her chair around, dancing almost as he moved her chair to face the window she came in from. He placed the phone in her lap and headed for the window.
Nygma stood by the window, motioning towards the window and making a cheesy surprised facial expression. Selina felt a sinking feeling fill her stomach, and a part of her brain told her that Nygma was doing this just to make her feel stupid. He stuck his hand outside the window, past the white strip, and paused. Selina sat there for a moment, until her patience wore thin. God, he was already starting to grate on her.
"Why are you just standing there with your hand out the window? Weren't you trying to prove to me that you are better than me, Eddie boy?" Selina asked, failing to cover her growing annoyance.
"Pity," Nygma mocked, "I thought you would connect the dots without my help." He pulled his hand back to him.
Immediately, the phone went crazy. It vibrated so violently Selina thought it was going to fall out of her lap. The lock screen flashed the message, BREAK IN OCCURING!
Motion sensors.
Selina flinched as Nygma grabbed the phone out of her lap and roughly swung the chair back around. He pushed his face into hers. "Call me Eddie again," he snarled with his arms on either side of her head, "and you'll end up like the many that broke in here before you." He plopped back down in his seat, a murderous look on his face.
Selina could've guessed the answer, but she asked the question anyway. "What happened to those before me?" she asked softly, not with a voice full of fear, but a voice filled with caution and curiosity.
Nygma gave an evil smile. "They helped me in fact. They helped me become a better person."
"More like a better psycho."
His smile didn't waver. "They helped me with studying the books I checked out from the library," he said, childlike glee flooding his voice. He tilted the textbook up a little bit to where Selina could read the title.
Introduction to Human Anatomy.
He picked up the pocketknife again and looked down at the page he was reading. Selina caught the words "Nervous System" and became very aware of how bad things were getting. She looked back up at Nygma's face and found him giving her an evil smirk.
"Riddle me this," he said, clearly enjoying the power he had over her, "what do a million dollars and a herd of male deer have in common?"
Selina paused and thought about the riddle. As much as she would have loved to blow off the game of 20 Questions, she had already made him pretty mad, and insulting him by not answering his questions would probably just make it worse.
He leaned over the table, his smirk fading. The new, murderous look that was working its way onto his face told Selina she needed to hurry up, or she was going to become a test subject to a psychotic showman.
Suddenly, as if the universe gave her the brilliance she needed in order to answer the question, she got the answer. "They're both a lot of bucks," she said hesitantly. A miracle would only be able to help her if she was wrong.
Nygma smiled warmly this time. "Correct," he stated.
A moment went by before Nygma seemed to deflate in his seat. "Here's my problem. You were one of the reasons I was put in jail, so I must commit some form of revenge in order for you not to think that I am some lowly doormat. However, you did try and help me break out of Arkham, so I am now at a crossroads." He leaned back in his chair and put his hands behind his head. "Tell me, Selina Kyle, how am I supposed to help you pull off your heist when I don't know how to feel about you?"
She didn't say anything right away, he knew too much and she was trapped. Now was the time to get out of the ropes, pull out the pistol and beat it while she-
"I searched you before I tied you up," Nygma said in disgust, eyeing her determined face. "Just how stupid do you think I am?" He got up from his chair again, went over to the small kitchen area, and brought back the pistol she had brought with her. He cocked it and pointed it an inch from her forehead. "Let's try this one last time. How can I help you out with your heist when you are determined to make trouble? I am not going to accept a job only to have you turn me in to Jim Gordon again."
Selina had been planning to do that. She shuffled her hands one last time, testing the rope. It wouldn't give her any room to move her fingers up to the knot.
She was truly out of options.
She sighed. "Alright, Nygma, what do you want out of this heist?"
He smiled, glee dancing in his brown eyes. "Ah, now we're getting somewhere. What are you going to give me if I accept this job?"
Selina gritted her teeth. She knew where this was going to go, and she was cursing herself for her stupidity. She was at his mercy; he could demand any price, hell, he could take all the gemstones from her. "I was going to give you three gemstones that rounded out to about five million dollars."
She waited for him to demand more, to demand that she steal every jewel in the museum to pay for his "one of a kind services" that no one else could match.
Nygma continued to point the pistol at her forehead, but seemed to think over her offer. "I would like the money, but there is something else I want, something more."
Selina inwardly winced.
"I want you to steal another gem for me." Nygma looked her dead in the eyes. "This gem is going to play its part in my revenge against Jim Gordon. If you do not get this gem during the heist, I will put every law enforcement officer on your ass before you can beg for mercy. Say yes now, and I won't have to clean your brains off my floor."
Selina closed her eyes and sighed. It wasn't that bad. All she had to do was grab a certain gem and give it to Nygma. She just hoped it wasn't the gem that cost the most. "Sure, Nygma, I'll swipe the gem for you."
He lowered the gun and gave her a warm smile. "Good," he said, his mood swinging like a child's swingset. "I'll make us some tea, and then we can get down to the nitty-gritty details of this heist." He stood up from his chair, grabbed the pocketknife and sawed through the ropes on Selina's wrist. As she rubbed her red wrists, he headed off into the kitchen area to make tea.
Selina sighed. No double-crossing, this guy was too good. It didn't matter if he was a psychotic killer that resembled a nerd that never left his teen years, he could definitely hold his own weight. Plus, if he was able to get her past the Wayne technology, then he could be a useful contact to have in store for future heists…
Nygma came back out of the kitchen with a notepad and pen. He sat down in his chair and placed the writing utensils in front of her. "Alright, Ms. Kyle," Nygma said, in a matter-of-fact tone of voice, "what is the plan for this massive heist?"
Selina eyed him warily. "How did you know I was pulling off a heist anyway? I told my sources not to mention anything involving my plans."
Nygma gave a wicked grin. "I have my own sources, Ms. Kyle." He tapped a finger against the tabletop, the sound mimicking a heartbeat. His grin only seemed to grow wider and his voice lowered, as if he was a young child telling her juicy secrets he had learned on the playground. "However, your sources are not the best at keeping secrets." His finger stopped tapping and for a minute everything seemed to remain still.
The whistle on the teapot shrieked, cutting through the silence. Nygma hopped up, and hurried off to pour the tea into teacups. Selina sat there, a little ticked off that her sources had mentioned her plan to Nygma, but finally getting the answer as to why a few of them had quit talking to her after they got the information she needed, and why some of them had disappeared altogether.
She watched as Nygma came back with two teacups and a small kettle. He set them delicately on the table before going back into the kitchen area. "Do you want anything to eat, Ms. Kyle?" he called, slamming pantry doors as he looked for his own snack.
"No thanks," Selina called back. "When I'm around you, I suddenly lose my appetite."
Nygma snorted as he grabbed a jar of peanut butter from one of the upper cupboards. "I'll choose to take that as a compliment, Ms. Kyle. You wouldn't want me to point the pistol at you again, would you?"
Selina took a deep breath as she tried to quell her rising anger. Nygma made her helpless, and he took away every option that gave her an upper hand. Hell, she couldn't even insult him or be sarcastic because she was essentially weaponless while he had a loaded gun and a pocketknife at his disposal. She was in his home turf, the belly of the beast, and she couldn't do anything without being threatened with the possibility of death. It infuriated her to no end, and she swore to herself then and there that there was no way in hell she was ever going to be in this position again.
She watched as Nygma grabbed a package of crackers off the top of the refrigerator and a paper plate from one of the stacks off the counter. He shuffled around in one of the drawers and pulled out a small butter knife. He sat back down at the table, and waved at her to start outlining her plan.
Oh good, now he was treating her as if she was one of the hundreds of amateur thieves he found off the streets. She gritted her teeth and took another deep breath. She grabbed the pen and wrote down keywords of her plan.
"Alright, here's what I came up with. All in all, the target number of gemstones I plan to steal is twenty, now twenty-one with the certain gemstone you want me to swipe. The gemstone wing will be showcasing between 11 PM and midnight. First, the museum will present the gems on a stage, then they will quickly place them in exhibits so everyone can ogle them. I want to steal the target twenty before they start showcasing."
Nygma popped a heavily peanut-buttered cracker into his mouth. He held up a finger, pausing Selina's speech. He gave a sly smile, and swallowed his mouthful. "You want to send a message?" he questioned, lifting his teacup to his lips.
Selina nodded. "Yeah. Now that you're part of Gotham's criminal underworld, you know that appearances mean everything. A thief's message: 'Your precious objects are not safe from my grasp- '"
"Dramatic!" Nygma interrupted. "Don't worry Selina. I understand completely." Something danced in his eyes, and the way he said the last sentence implied to Selina that she better start watching her back, and what she planned to steal.
"Anyway," she said, stretching out the word, "the prime time to get the gemstones is when they are moving everyone into the showcase room but just before they come to present the gems to everyone."
"The guards would be busy corralling the rich people instead of focusing on the gems," Nygma said, popping another cracker into his mouth.
"Exactly," Selina confirmed. "The guards and wait staff would be busy with the Rich Rats, providing a small window of time for me to steal the gemstones."
Nygma took another sip of tea and took the notebook away from her. He flipped to another page and went into another room to grab another pen. He came back with a pen and he scribbled his own set of notes on his paper. Without looking up, he asked, "How big is this window of time?"
Selina grimaced. She knew he wasn't going to like it, but her math didn't lie. With the plan's specific time table, she would have to enter at a certain time, be at the gemstone exhibit at a certain time, and she needed to add extra time for any delays or unexpected situations. "Five minutes."
Nygma paused and looked up, but kept his face expressionless. "A five-minute window. That means I would have to start hacking some of the security before you enter the room."
"It's risky," Selina commented. That was an understatement; hacking some of the security too early could catch the attention of the security guards, and they could shut the gems away before she could get into the room. Not to mention, her and Nygma would risk being caught and thrown into a small cell in Blackgate, and the last thing she wanted was Nygma as a roommate. She risked the chance of losing everything if things went wrong, but she had looked at it from every angle and there was no other way.
Nygma rolled his eyes, recognizing the understatement. He sighed, and scribbled "Five Minutes" onto his paper. "Ms. Kyle, this better be worth it. Not that I couldn't hack the technology, of course. I just wouldn't want us to be caught because of your weak planning skills."
Selina forced a pleasant smile. It was only going to last one night; she would steal the gemstone he wanted and leave as soon as she got the chance.
"By the way Nygma," Selina said, resting her elbows on the table.
"MR. Nygma," he snapped, glaring hatred into her eyes.
"Whatever," Selina said, wishing she didn't have to deal with this stuck up son-of-a-bitch anymore. "What is this 'special gem' you want me to steal?"
He smirked. "'Curiosity killed the cat…'" he said in a sing-song voice.
Selina smirked back. "'…And satisfaction brought it back,'" she said, mimicking his mocking tone.
"What?" Nygma seemed surprised.
She tapped her pen against the notebook, letting her finger play lazily with the pen. "Come on, you don't think I've gotten that a million times by now because of my nickname? The other part of that stupid saying is '-and satisfaction brought it back.'"
Nygma's face put on a sour look. Selina inwardly cheered at the sight of his miserable face, but continued to frown as she realized that they were beating around the bush. "Just tell me what the name of the gem is. We're getting nowhere with these silly games."
He smirked again and leaned back in his chair, looking as if he was about to spin an epic tale. "The gemstone is a ruby, not manmade as most of them are." His eyes slid up to the ceiling. "It is said to look different in different types of lighting; the colors shift to make it look like it is mimicking an actual heartbeat. It isn't it the original donor's showcase, another one of the upper class is showcasing it out of the kindness of his heart."
Selina inwardly groaned. Nygma made the gem sound painfully cliché. "What's it called?" she asked, hoping he wouldn't wax poetic over its name.
"Ironically enough, the gorgeous ruby is known as El Corazon, 'the Heart.'"
She was stupid.
Fiery and tough, but stupid. He wished she had put up more of a fight so he could have had some entertainment for the night. But alas, he needed her so he could carry out his revenge. If only he could have given her a few scars to remember him by…
Edward Nygma was not stupid. He made sure to take everything away from her, to cripple her until she was forced to answer to him in order to survive. He didn't want her to refuse his deal, or worse, betray him to the GCPD before he got the ruby.
She had been too confident in her lackluster abilities, as implied by the obvious pistol bulge in her jacket. She thought she could just barge into his hideout, hold him at gunpoint, force him to hack the damn Wayne security, and then turn him in to Gordon as if he was a useless, chewed-up pet toy. No, that would never happen. Not while his brain was still active and planning.
He watched her roll her eyes and go back to outlining her average plan.
The new Edward Nygma did not forgive, and he certainly did not forget. If she had not tricked him into a trap, he would have never gone to jail in the first place. She and Gordon had outsmarted him, and he refused to let her off because she gave him weak directions out of Arkham's ventilation system.
He wasn't going to be outsmarted by some guttersnipe that answered to Gordon's every word. He was going to make her suffer for making him lose the safety of his old job and hideout. He was going to make her feel helpless and vulnerable as he killed the thing she loved most right in front of her eyes. He was going to set a trap that would tear her up inside and ultimately kill her in the end.
And she was going to help him set it all up.
Hope you guys aren't mad about my sort of lie. I do plan to write those, but this literally popped into my head and I just had to write it down. Hey, Eddie isn't handcuffed to a chair this time, he's actually doing something. Yay! If Eddie seems out of character, it is because I gave him his enormous ego (and the Intro to Anatomy textbook was used as a fear tactic against Selina, and not because I forgot Ed conducted autopsies until the last minute). I do wish he develops the famous Nygma Ego soon.
I don't know when I will upload the next chapter but I hope to do it within the next two weeks. I hope all of the characters were in character and that this seems realistic enough. And hey, if you liked it, leave a review and check out my two other GOTHAM fics: A Question Yet To Be Asked and A Joke The World Will Know.
I can't wait to see how part 2 ends up.