Disclaimer: Batman is the property of DC Comics, movie rights is the property of Warner Brothers. In short; I do not own Batman. No profit is being made and no copyright infringement is intended. The only characters that belong to me are the original characters I've created, including Connie Tate, her family and some of her colleagues in research.
Author's Note: Again, sorry for the long update time. Unfortunately I'm not sure I can promise a swifter update on the next chapter, the reason being that I have to make school a priority, at least temporarily. I'm a third year student at university, and I've got no less than three essays all due in the course of the next weeks, not to mention my exams are coming up faster than I'd like them to. You have my word that I will try to get som fiction writing done in the weeks to come, but like I said, I can't promise you a quick update. On a much more pleasant note I would like to thank everyone who has reviewed this so far, and everyone who's added me and the story to their favourites-lists. Your feedback means so much to me, thankyou. I hope you enjoy this chapter.


He didn't like anger. He didn't like the feeling of it coursing through his veins, and he did not like the way it tried to get him to give up control. He didn't like anger, but now he was angry never the less. Everything had lined up perfectly, the church was empty, his cameras had worked just as they should, she had showed up, like he had expected her to, and his little stunt had gone off without a hitch. The only piece that didn't fit into the puzzle? The stupid bat-man! Who did he think he was, interrupting a well laid plan like that?! It was clear to him now, that it was time to raise the stakes. Show the city, and the bat, what he could do. And she was the key, although she didn't know it – yet.

Brushed steel felt cold against her skin as she leant back against the fridge. Her eyes were seemingly studying the label of a bottle of beer, but her mind was frantically replaying the events of the evening. There were so many questions racing through her head that a part of her wanted to scream. Why had 'Enigma', whoever it was, lured her to that church? Just to scare her? In that case, what was the point in that? And why had the Batman suddenly appeared? And, most importantly, how the hell had she got into this mess, whatever it was? She knew the answer to the last question, of course. Her curiosity had once again gotten her into trouble, though this time it seemed that she had outdone herself once again. Why could she never learn?

She sighed, drained the beer bottle, and got up. The kitchen was bare. It was one of the rooms in her apartment that she hadn't yet furnished, so large surfaces of black stone and appliances of brushed steel stood like monuments in the landscape. Along with her new job, her salary had increased dramatically, something that had allowed her to move to a much better neighborhood, and also presented her with the ability to go out to dinner more often. Because of this the kitchen had ended up near the bottom on her priority list of rooms to move into, after the bedroom, the living room, and the office.

As she made her way through the apartment and fell exhausted onto the bed, she thought that it was a good thing that the next day was Saturday. At least she didn't have to get up and go to work.

The winter sun was shining high in the sky when Connie woke up, and from her bedroom window she saw that a white, glittering layer of snow coated the city's rooftops. She smiled. Looking out at something so beautiful, who would know that this city was one of the most crime-ridden in the country?

She went through the living room on her way to the kitchen, found the remote control and turned the TV on. The screen showed a live segment from downtown Gotham, a male reporter was standing in the foreground of the worst traffic chaos Connie could remember having seen, and when you had grown up in Gotham, that said quite a lot. The image changed to an overview shot from what was probably a helicopter, and Connie turned up the volume to hear what was being said.

leaving all of the city's transportation systems temporarily disabled, when an unidentified hacker broke into the Gotham Department of Transportation's main computer. A spokesman for the Gotham City Police Department has confirmed that the department's Major Crimes Unit has been assigned to the case, and that unit technicians are now processing evidence collected at the Department of Transportation Headquarters.

Connie raised an eyebrow as the camera zoomed in on the traffic chaos downtown. She felt sorry for the police officers doing their best to cope with the massive crowd of very displeased people now stuck in traffic for a whole lot longer than they had imagined. As she listened to the reporter repeat himself, an unpleasant thought snuck into her head. It was unlikely of course, but what if this had some form of connection to what had happened to her the night before? To successfully get into a main server like the Department of Transportation's, and get out without getting caught, you had to be good. The same was true for the system at Wayne Enterprises. Jake hadn't seen anything unusual traffic on his monitors when 'Enigma' had contacted her, and to accomplish that while avoiding detection on such an advanced system took considerable skill, and considerable guts.

Connie shook her head. She didn't really want to consider the possibilities of what a skilled hacker could do to a modern city like Gotham, and she did definitely not like the possibility of anyone trying and succeeding to break into the computer system at Wayne Enterprises. What had happened to her the night before had scared her, but it hadn't proved dangerous. If someone got a hold of some of the sketches or prototypes stored at the company, things could get very dangerous, very fast. Every employee in the research and science departments still had the results of the disaster in the Narrows firmly on their minds. The Narrows incident was the reason that the Research department had spent months doing inventory, making sure that no other prototypes were missing. So far, everything in the archives had been accounted for, but if someone had the skill to hack into the database, there was no telling if something else might go missing, or what might happen if it did.

She changed the channel, and went to the kitchen to make breakfast. Well, 'breakfast' wasn't really the right term, since it was already past midday, but it was her first meal of the day regardless of what she chose to call it. She had no plans that day, except to maybe unpack some boxes and to figure out what to wear to the Christmas party for the employees of Wayne Enterprises that evening. She was looking forward to it. Well, not to the disapproving glances of Charles Levine and his friends in the finance section, but with some luck she wouldn't be seeing much of him, and the people she worked with in research knew how to have fun, so it would probably be a good night.

In the very secret basement of a very upscale apartment complex across town, Bruce Wayne sat in front of an array of screens, studying images he had managed to retrieve from the notebook computer. It hadn't been easy. Whoever this ghost in the machine was, he knew his computer security, and the laptop had been sealed tight. There was more to the laptop than those images, and he knew it, but the security measures taken, which included fingerprint authentication, made it impossible for him to figure out just what it was. It seemed only one person was meant to access it, and it wasn't him. He concluded that the woman, whom he had met at Wayne Enterprises as Bruce Wayne, and in the church as Batman, was the target. If 'target' was the right word…the windows were a dramatic effect, not designed to kill or harm. Maybe she was more of a messenger, the body of the ghost in the machine, lured into doing its bidding.

He could not make sense of the images. There were four of them, in high resolution, and all of them looked like they could be from postcards from around the world. Two he recognized, one was of the Rialto Bridge in Venice, and another was of the interior of a nightclub in the city he had been to a couple of times, called DEEP. The two others were of a lake and what looked like a coral reef, but more than that he couldn't say about them. He sighed, and pressed a button on the keyboard in front of him, making the screen showing the images go blank for a second, before coordinating itself with the rest of the screens. The screens began moving with different images, all from various TV channels and news networks. One caught his attention and he turned the volume up, just as Alfred Pennyworth walked into the room.

The city's Department of Transportation was temporarily incapacitated earlier today when an unidentified hacker broke into their main computer. This created large traffic jams and delays in public transportation all over the city…

"I was just about to alert you to that, sir. It seems some rascal decided it was a good day to create quite a bit of chaos…and it seems he attained his goal. Did you get anything from that laptop you brought back last night?"

Bruce shrugged.

"Something, yes. But there's more to it than what I can see…and I'm beginning to think that there's more to this as well." He gestured towards the screen showing the news report.

"I don't like this, Alfred. Chances are that there's just some youngster trying a new way to get his kicks, but…if it's something more sinister, then…" Bruce let his voice trail off.

"Then someone ought to dig deeper," Alfred finished.

Bruce turned to look at his butler and closest friend and saw a devilish glint in the old man's eyes.

"You know me to well, Alfred."

A small smile tugged at the corners of Alfred's mouth as he asked;

"Where will you start, Master Bruce?"

Bruce leaned slightly forward, extending his hand to press a few more keys on the keyboard in front of him, and two of the screens changed to show a picture of a woman plus her name, address, and other personal information. In one corner the logo of Wayne Enterprises was visible.

"Well, I'd like to know what role she plays in all of this. She was at the church last night, probably lured there by the same person who left the laptop there for her to find. My guess is that her fingerprint opens it…which means, that to figure out what's on it, I need to know what she knows."

It was around five o'clock, and dusk had begun to descend on the city. Connie sat on her bed, her hair full of curlers, surveying the dress she planned to wear. Another perk of her new job was that her paycheck now supported shopping more than once or twice a month. This dress was a recent acquisition, and she'd been waiting for an occasion to wear it. It looked vaguely like a kimono, it had a low v-neck and the skirt was made of dark grey silk. A broad belt in the same color as the skirt clung to a bodice made of a sheer fabric in a lighter grey color, embroided with a silver leaf motif, so that although the fabric was sheer, it covered the essential parts, and then some. The long sleeves were in the same fabric as the bodice and also embroided.

She rose from the bed, took the dress from its hanger and slipped it over her head, enjoying the brief feeling of cool silk against bare skin. For a moment she surveyed herself in a full length mirror beside her dresser, thinking that she wouldn't look half bad once she got the curlers out of her hair, and put her high heels on. She headed to the bathroom, and began removing the curlers from her hair. When she was done she ran her fingers through her hair a couple of times, brushing some of it away from her face and securing it with an ornate butterfly. On her way back through the apartment she put on her shoes and pulled a large, black shawl from her closet.

Connie didn't know a lot about Bruce Wayne, except for what was in the news and in the tabloids, but as far as she could tell when she entered the ballroom at the Gotham Grand, he knew how to throw a party. Officially it was the entire Board of Directors who had treated their employees to this party, but when she looked out over the ballroom at how spectacular everything was…well, then it sufficed to say that Charles Levine couldn't have thought this up in his wildest dreams.

The ballroom was a large, rectangular room where one of the long walls were entirely of glass, creating the illusion that the ballroom itself was an extension of the garden outside. The decorations inside built on that illusion, because, at least to Connie, it felt like walking into a castle of ice. She descended the main staircase while scanning the room for familiar faces and found a few, most of them from Research. When she reached the bottom of the staircase a colleague from her department emerged from the crowd, greeting her by pulling her into a hug.

"Connie…! Hi, nice to see you."

She recognized the bushy, blonde hair and the broad smile immediately. It belonged to an engineer called Kevin Merrick, who had lately spent his working days in one of the department's rooms on sub-basement level, trying to think up workable designs for what might be revolutionary audio equipment.

"Hi, Kevin. Good to see you above ground."

The look on Kevin's face gave away that he too was glad to be out of the Research department, for a night at least.

"So listen, Abby, Charlotte, Susan, Damien and me have pretty much occupied one of the tables, so if or when you get tired of mingling with people who think they're better than you, come find us."

Connie laughed and nodded as Kevin smiled again and moved past her into the crowd. She looked around, and saw many people she recognized by appearance but didn't really know. She felt a brush of relief when she spotted Lucius on the other side of the room, and headed in his direction.

Lucius Fox greeted her with the same enthusiastic smile he always seemed to have, and swiftly grabbed a glass of champagne from a passing waiter and handed it to her.

"You look like you could use a drink."

Connie nodded, and smiled gratefully.

"Yeah…thanks."

Before any of them could say anything more, a sensational whisper swept across the room, and Connie turned to see that Bruce Wayne had just entered the room escorting two extraordinarily beautiful women, one on each arm.

Smiling, Connie leant towards Lucius, whispering;

"He sure knows how to make an entrance."

Lucius grinned and nodded in agreement. They both watched as the crowd parted for Gotham City's golden boy and his good looking entourage. Connie couldn't resist a smile. She hadn't thought it possible for one man to feed all the gossip columnists and glossy magazines of Gotham, not until the unexpected return of Bruce Wayne. After that, she was thoroughly proved wrong, as it seemed she could hardly pick up a newspaper or magazine without seeing his picture.

After a few more minutes of buzzing whispers, the conversations around the room returned to normal, and Connie and Lucius began a discussion on one of the Research department's newest developments. What had drawn Lucius Fox to Connie Tate was a perception of shared enthusiasm. Their first meeting had been after a lecture he had given, where Connie had been an eager listener. She was not afraid to ask question, pose arguments or opinions, and she was truly enthusiastic about her craft. As he got to know her, Lucius had discovered that her enthusiasm extended to most other things in life as well, and that Connie Tate had an inexplicable ability to turn your bad day into a better one. In addition to that she was good at her job, usually had an easy-going disposition and as far as he could tell from the feedback, she had quickly become well liked and respected by those who worked under her supervision.

The two of them stood deep in conversation for a while, until Lucius was called away, and Connie decided to see if she could find her colleagues from Research. On her way around the room she passed one of the glass doors leading out to the garden, and saw another colleague, Ethan, on the outside, a cigarette in his mouth.

He turned as she opened the door, and nodded a greeting. Ethan was the polar opposite of Kevin, quiet, bordering on brooding, and definitely not the life of a party, but smart as hell.

"You needed a time-out from being sociable, Ethan?"

He nodded, unceremoniously throwing the remainder of his cigarette into a bare flowerbed nearby.

"Yeah. You?"

Connie sighed.

"I'm bored. Apart from you, Lucius Fox, and the rest of our gang in Research, I don't know anyone here I can have a civilized conversation with. Regardless, I mean, do I look like I care if the stock prices soar or if the latest Dior couture collection is to die for?! Because I hate having to pretend that I do."

Ethan laughed a short, bark-like laugh and pulled out another cigarette, turning away from her and sheltering it with a hand to get a light. Connie found that she was standing next to a tall stone flowerbed, and almost without thinking she let one hand glide gently over the snow that lay on the edge of it. Suddenly an idea formed in her head. Maybe there was a way to have some fun here after all…

She looked up at Ethan, who was still trying to light his cigarette, cursing the gentle but cold wind that caused him trouble. In a split second she made up her mind, scooped up a handful of snow in her hand and gently squeezed it into a ball. The snow was light and dry, so the ball wasn't very solid, but it would do just fine. Quickly, before Ethan could realize what was coming, she threw the snowball at him, aiming for his hands where they sheltered the cigarette in his mouth.

Although the snowball nearly disintegrated before hitting him, the effect was still instantaneous. Ethan straightened, and his eyes quickly found her.

"Connie! What the hell?!"

Connie couldn't keep a grin off her face.

"Ethan, I couldn't resis…"

That was all she had the chance to say, before Ethan retaliated, and she had to duck. She only partially avoided the snowball and shrieked in delight when she felt cold crystals of snow against the bare skin of her neck.

When she looked up again she discovered that two more of the Research crew had come out to join them. She saw the surprised looks on the faces of Susan Asher and Abigail Lindley, before the looks turned to common mischief, and the two of them joined in on the action. Connie couldn't help but grin again, and thought of how lucky it was that the people she worked with had the same humor and talent for good natured mischief as she did. She wouldn't have lasted a day in finance with the likes of Levine, that's for sure.

If you've ever done anything that resembles starting a snowball fight at a company party, in a company like Wayne Enterprises, you will have discovered, like Connie and her colleagues now discovered, that you are bound to attract attention.

Connie looked up and, to her initial surprise, saw that their snowball fight had gathered quite a few spectators, who now stood watching them through the glass wall. When she saw Lucius' grinning on the other side of the glass, she laughed out loud. Then she noticed another familiar face on the other side of the glass, this one belonging to Bruce Wayne. Next to him, one on either side stood the two women who had accompanied him in earlier, both sporting expressions somewhere in between shock and humorous disbelief. But the look on Bruce Wayne's face did not resemble that of his escorts, he was smiling, and it was a smile unlike what Connie had seen before, knowing, like perhaps he could have been out there with them had he not been Bruce Wayne.

Connie felt someone grip her arm, and turned to see Susan Asher at her side, smiling and nudging her to go back inside. The fun was over now that they had discovered their audience, and still laughing and brushing snow off of their clothes, the four of them were back to the warmth of the Gotham Grand ballroom.

Inside they were met by a mixture of reactions. Some looked at them with disbelieving eyes, others applauded, and a final portion of the people present chose to ignore them completely. Connie shook her head slightly in disbelief. Could an innocent snowball fight really cause this much fuss in this crowd? Apparently, the answer was yes.

"They're only disappointed that I wasn't out there with you…then the gossip magazines would have a story to print tomorrow."

A familiar voice behind her made her turn, and she found herself face to face with Bruce Wayne. Surprised, Connie smiled at him.

"Oh, I'm sure the magazines will find something to print anyway…" Connie paused for a moment, and then added;

"I didn't know billionaire playboys engaged in snowball fights? I would have thought yachting around the Caribbean with a boatful of beautiful women was more your thing…"

He smiled, his teeth were white and even, but not fluorescent like many other's seemed to be these days.

"I'm actually quite versatile for a billionaire…you'd be surprised."

Connie raised an eyebrow, but continued to smile. She had to admit that she found him charming, but he was not her type. And judging by the looks of the two women he had brought to the party, she wasn't his type either.

"I don't doubt it," she said finally.

"Can I get you a drink?"

To say that she was surprised at that final question would be an understatement. It was the last thing she had expected him to say, if anything she had expected the conversation to end abruptly at her last utterance. She glimpsed Bruce Wayne's two escorts over his shoulder, and thought that it would be a bad idea to try and steal their catch away from them. But she couldn't resist leaning slightly towards him and half whisper;

"You'd better not. Your two models are right behind you…I wouldn't want to get between those two and their prey."

She watched as his smile faded ever so slightly, and took a step back to watch as the two women came up to him, one on either side. Connie remained standing, watching as his expressions changed from what seemed a genuine smile and back to the expression of the suave playboy, again untouchable to a mere mortal like her.

She shrugged, and finally found her way to the table that her research colleagues had occupied for the better part of the night. She spotted Susan, Ethan and Abbey already sitting there, laughing, presumably gauging the reactions they had gotten from the impromptu snowball fight. With a sigh, Connie let herself slide onto a chair and joined them.

It was past midnight when Bruce Wayne re-entered his penthouse apartment. The top three buttons of his shirt were undone, and there was a faint trace of lipstick on his collar, but he was alone. He went past the panoramic windows without stopping to admire the spectacular view of Gotham at night. He knew too well what the city looked like at night, and it was nothing like the view from these windows on top of the world. Without breaking step he walked through the living room area and the kitchen and out into another hallway. The sound of another person's footsteps behind him told him that Alfred had picked up on his presence. As he moved to put pressure on the wall that would shift and allow him entrance to the underground level where the part of him that was a creature purely of the night dwelt in the daylight hours, he heard the familiar voice of his butler.

"I take it your pursuit of this Ms. Tate at the party was unsuccessful, Master Wayne?"

Bruce stopped and turned to face Alfred, offering a wry smile.

"Never knew that a couple of models could actually ruin an evening."

"What will you do now, Master Wayne? Try and scare some answers out of the poor girl?"

Bruce shook his head.

"No. I have another idea on how to approach Connie Tate, but it will have to wait until Monday. Now, I think it's time for Batman to approach Commissioner Gordon, and find out what he knows about this sabotage."

With those words, Bruce Wayne disappeared through a hole in the wall and out of sight.

The sky over Gotham city was a clear line of deep blue, scattered with stars, and crystals of frost crept over every available surface. Gotham City Hall was a tall limestone building dating back to the mid-19th century, with broad columns and elaborate stone carvings adorning its roof. Among the carvings a gargoyle-like creature crouched, as if frozen in mid-motion. The only indication that this gargoyle was not part of the planned architecture was a white, frosty mist coming from its mouth, betraying life.

City Hall was quiet, as you would expect on a Saturday night. Government employees in Gotham couldn't exactly be said to be that eager on the overtime, except maybe one… The light in the Police Commissioner's office was still lit, just as Batman had expected. What he hadn't expected was to find the window of the Commissioner's office wide open in mid-winter. But, he thought, maybe Gordon had learned something about when to expect him.

He attached his grapple to the ledge of the roof and leapt effortlessly over the side of the building, using the grapple to steady his decent, and landed on the windowsill of the Commissioner's office.

James Gordon was instated as Police Commissioner of Gotham City when the city was in worse of a mess than it had been in decades, but had somehow managed to keep his head above water and get some control back over the city. Now, five or so months after his instatement, his days were still the longest of anyone on the Force, and his family had all but forgotten what he looked like, but at least his hard work contributed to calm the ripples of the Joker's destruction.

"I was beginning to wonder if you'd show up."

Gordon sat with his back towards the open window, but turned as Batman stepped down from the windowsill.

"I'm going to take a wild guess and say that you're here about the hacker?"

Batman nodded.

"What do you know about him?"

Gordon shrugged, and grabbed a folder from a stack on his desk, containing only a few sheets of paper. He handed the folder to Batman.

"Not much. Techs from CSU have been trying all day to find evidence that someone was even inside the system, but no luck. If it wasn't for the chaos he caused downtown, no one would know this guy even existed…"

"And that's exactly why he's doing it…whoever he is. He wants attention…"

"He's getting it… You think that's all he wants?"

Gordon could see the eyes behind the mask surveying him. They both knew the answer to that question.