CHAPTER 3

"I'll see you later, Dana." I said kissing my girlfriend on the cheek. I untangled myself from her arms and walked towards the car that Bruce had let me borrow again. Max was making her way towards me and she had a puzzled look on her face, something that I wasn't used to because she usually had everything figured out.

"Hey Terry ," She said when I was close enough to hear. "What's new?"

"Besides the usual stuff, Jokerz, failing biology and getting in trouble with Dana, nothing really. You?" She didn't even chuckle at my feeble attempt to be funny but instead grabbed the top of my arm and led me over to my car.

"You know the new girl?"

"Kat? What about her?"

"That's the problem no one knows. She suddenly doesn't exist anymore," Max let go of my arm and faced me. "I asked about her during English because I knew she was pretty smart and I wanted her opinion on Ringwald's, Humanity and Humanism. Apparently no one knows where she is. I picked the lock on her locker during lunch and it was empty, nothing…"

"Since when do you pick locks?" I asked, getting sidetracked. I was listening to her but it just sounded like Kat checked out of Hamilton High. It wasn't like she didn't have a history of moving schools. Her leaving was actually somewhat of a relief to me because I wouldn't have to deal with the problem of our attraction on my already long list of issues.

"That's when I got really curious. So in seventh period History I hacked into the school's main computer and found that they had no record of Kat being out our school at all. I mean she was the main attraction in school, the high achiever and they didn't even have a document showing that she was on campus for even a second when she was here a full two weeks."

"So what are you saying? Someone went into the schools main database and erased all traces of Kat from the files."

"Exactly." She folded her arms and was looking at me as if I had the slightest clue what this was about. "I'll ask into it. Maybe Bruce has heard about something."

"Thanks, Ter."

"Speaking of Bruce," I said checking my watch with a quick glance. "I have to go. He hates when I'm late and I'm not in the mood for a lecture. See ya, Max."

"Bye and don't forget about Kat."

"I wont." I yelled to her. I got in the car and closed the door. My head fell to the steering wheel. 'But I'll try.'

I sat in the living room of Wayne Mansion, curled up in the sofa with a good book, Ringwald's Humanity and Humanism. I had started it as an English book but it was good so I decided to finish it since I had nothing else to do for a while. A short trip back up to my room earlier confirmed that someone had disposed of the cat suit although I had planned to do it myself. I was ready to give up as much of my past as possible. I was basking in the first amount of normalcy I had had in years. The click of the front door pulled me from my quiet musings. Laying the book down next to me, I rose to see who it was. Mr. Wayne said that he would be in the house but not to bother him. He didn't say anything about expecting anyone to stop by. I turned the corner into the foyer and almost ran right smack into somebody.

"Kat?"

"Terry?"

"What in the -.." We both said at the same time. I had no idea what Terry McGinnis was doing in Mr. Wayne's house but I was going to find out.

"What are you doing here?" He asked beating me to the question.

"I could ask you the same thing." I said suspiciously.

"Ah. Terry, I assume you've met my visitor." Mr. Wayne, followed by Ace, walked down the long hall towards me and Terry.

"Yeah. We've met." He said, not taking his eyes away from me.

"Good. Terry is my intern." He said turning to face me and then back to the boy standing next to him. "We'll be busy. Come on we have work to do."

Terry's retreating steps were the last thing I saw before I returned to my book but I just couldn't concentrate now. Of all people he had to be Bruce's intern.

"What the heck is she doing here?" I asked Bruce when we had reached the sanctuary of the batcave. He took his time sitting down at the computer before he acknowledged my presence.

"I don't know what you're talking about. You are the one who sent her to me."

I stepped back in shock. The thought hadn't crossed my mind that I had delivered Kat to Wayne Mansion as Catwoman but it all made sense. She fought better than any person I had ever seen, friend or foe, and she had the air of someone with a secret. Bruce typed profusely and didn't seem to notice that I had left. I found Kat still sitting in the living room but she had dropped the book to the floor and was staring out of a large window.

"So Kat…it was you all along." She turned to me with a thought furrowed brow. There was not one trace of amusement in her expression.

"Yeah, I guess it was. I had no idea you worked for Mr. Wayne."

"If you did you probably wouldn't have come here."

"You're right." She said without hesitation. I wondered what brought about the sudden change in her attitude towards me but I didn't ask. Kat moved her eyes back to the window.

"Well, I'm sure Bruce has something for me to do. I'll see you later."

Her eyes darted across the space between us and met mine.

"You came all the way up here to say 'hello'."

"Yeah. Hello Kat." Her eyes never left me, even as I left the room. They had morphed from piercing to extremely suspicious but I refused to give her one hint as to what I was thinking. Bruce was still at the computer when I reached the batcave.

"How was your little visit?" He sarcastically asked me while he eyes continued to focus on the large screen in front of him.

"Not exactly heart warming." But then again I hadn't really expected her to welcome me with open arms. She was Catwoman, at least she had been. She was used to being left alone and helping herself. Now she was confined to a house and given rules and as much as she probably appreciated what Mr. Wayne did, she was a trapped cat.

"I got some information on the Richmond character she kept talking about. My suspicions were confirmed." He gave the keyboard a few quick swipes and what appeared to be Richmond entered the screen. "Wallace Richmond, he works for a major Crime Lord here in the city."

"What's their name?"

His face remained impassive. "Crime Lord."

"Well, you have to give him kudos on the originality." I said.

"Crime Lord has been linked to hundreds of thefts, murders, gambling projects etc. but since no one has any idea who he is much less how to get to him, there is no way to stop him except by getting rid of the little people he has under him."

"Like Richmond."

"Exactly. I have a strong feeling that Crime Lord also has a connection to the Blake case."

"Why?"

He leaned back in the chair and made an arch with his fingers. "I've heard from sources that Crime Lord has a certain serum that may be the one that will keep Blake alive."

"So this Crime Lord guy holds the serum over Blake's head to get his own motives accomplished just like he did with Kat."

"Precisely. The only questions left are what does he need Blake to do that he can't get his own monkey's to do and what is his connection with Kat."

"Well it looks like I'll be doing some detective work tonight. I'll make a quick stop in at Blake's old lab before finding Richmond."

"Good luck."

I left the batcave and prepared to leave the house when I walked by the living room. I gave into the urge to go in and see if Kat was still there. A curly mass of dark hair could be seen cascading down the side of Bruce's favorite armchair. I quietly walked over and noticed that she clutched a book in her arms. I inched my head closer to get a better look at the title. Then in an instant, I felt myself being thrown against the far wall of the living room and trying to re-catch the breath that the seemingly sleeping girl had knocked out of me. Kat stood at the far side of the room in fighting stance alert and awake. Her eyes swept the room until they rested on me. Perplexity and then shock ran across her face in a wave.

"Terry!" Kat ran over and knelt beside me, giving my body the once over to check for outward signs of injury. "Are you alright?"

I moved my lips to respond but nothing came out. A few, deep, shaky breaths later I was able to respond. "Yeah…I think…I'll be okay."

"Good." Kat said and then she punched me in the arm, hard.

"Ow! What was that for." I said grimacing in pain. She helped me to my feet and then stared at me in indignation.

"What were you thinking?! Never do that to a fighter, our first instinct is to react now, apologize later."

"Which you still haven't done." I said under my breath but she heard anyway.

"I don't apologize for other people's stupid mistakes and assumptions, I would remember that but I will apologize for the injury I might have caused you."

"Thanks…I guess." She nodded and went back to the arm chair. I wondered what had happened to the sobbing, vulnerable girl that I had left the night before. She had been replaced by the tough, fighter who, I had forgotten, flipped a football player over her back.

"So you're Bruce's gopher. I never thought it would be you, you don't seem like the intern type." She said casually inspecting her nails.

"Well, I never thought you would end up here. We all have our secrets."

"Just like Batman." She said dreamily. Noticing that I was watching her she put her guard back up.

"Batman," I tried to say as nonchalantly as possible. "You know him personally?"

"You could say that. He's the one that brought me here. I've been thinking about him a lot lately. He was so strong, even when…uh…certain circumstances arose," She looked up at me with a slight smile. "If you weren't such a powder puff, I'd think you were almost like him."

"Really?" I asked trying to sound hopeful and keep myself from laughing histerically at the same time. Powder puff…little did she know.

"The keyword here is 'almost'." We laughed together and then saying good-bye I left the living room, Wayne Mansion and Kat which, I realized, was getting harder and harder to do.

I was in my room finishing up a paper on my laptop when Bruce called me from downstairs. He stood in the foyer in a tuxedo with Ace by his side.

"There's a benefit dinner that I forgot all about, tonight.