Chapter 1:

            Helena's car slowly rolled up to the edge of a sheer cliff providing her with a spectacular view of New Gotham lighting up the heavy rain clouds, which she completely ignored. She quickly reached down and tore open the brown envelope. She shook the contents out on the passenger seat and looked it over. There were a couple of bank account statements, a small handwritten note and a printed form of some kind. The bank account statements had posts for the purchase of Lexcorp electronics components, high definition plasma screen and the like. "Barbara," Helena thought with a smile. The training provided over the last 2 years by both Batman and Nightwing sprung forth in her mind and made her realize that a look into the logistics company's records, who had delivered these components, might give her a name and an address. The handwritten note was from her father, it had the name and address of some company and the remark recipient written below. Apparently Barbara or her father's friends had set up kind some cover company that Barbara's stuff went through. It was still a solid lead.

The form was a bit more cryptic, it was blacked out in places like a top secret document, and in fact the only thing that made sense on the entire page was a field called: "Name: Carolyn Desmond." Helena figured it was her only clue to find Dinah. As she restarted the car and sped back down the road towards Wayne Manor, she mused about the name. Dinah's mom had been Carolyn Lance and Dinah had been a foster child of the Redmonds. It was probably Dinah's new name. Helena's fast car raced down the last stretch of road towards the voluminous Wayne Manor garage.

She walked inside the house that she was actually only seeing for the second time in her life. She decided to walkthrough the kitchen. Alfred was making dinner. "Alfred I am gonna be in the Cave for a couple of hours alright," she remarked and walked through the house to the secret entrance, while the butler just nodded and congratulated himself for not unpacking Helena's suitcases.

Helena didn't really like the drafty bat infested cave that had been her father's base of operations for years, but she needed its supercomputers and uplinks to find Barbara and Dinah. She sat down at one of the terminals and began working albeit slowly. Computers still weren't her best friends and she took her time even using the different systems her father had set up to make access to protected information easy.

A search on the company name her father had noted only brought up one address in the West of Wyoming near a town called Jackson. There were only a few tax records and the like to go on and so she just decided to print out the address and look at the results on the search for the Carolyn Desmond name. It turned up several hits, but as she slowly ruled out those completely outside Dinah's age bracket, she was still left with eight hits. She would have to sort those out later.

Helena looked over her itinerary and tried to remember if she had read anything about the current climate in that corner of the US she was going. She knew it could get cold in the winter, but how cold was it in the middle of February. She shrugged and tossed another jacket into her suitcase and closed it. She heard the murmur of leather shoes coming down the hallway outside and recognized Alfred's pace.

"Miss Kyle," Alfred said from the door in a low tone to alert her to his presence, "your conveyance is awaiting you at the door."

"Thank you, Alfred," she said and grabbed her suitcase and a small handbag.

Alfred followed her downstairs. "Will you remember to give Miss Gordon and Miss Lance my sincerest best wishes?" He asked.

She stopped and put down her bag. Helena knew that Alfred hadn't known about her father's trick and he had been a good friend to both Barbara and Dinah. He was almost a father to all of them. "Sometimes I think that people overlook that you are like a father to all of us, but never think that I forget," she reminded him and gave him a hug that he awkwardly returned. Helena quickly let go and left the blushing Englishman in the huge hall.

Helena felt like a thousand butterflies were performing aerial maneuvers in her stomach, the second the Wayne private jet touched down in Salt Lake City. The rental car her father's people had arranged waited for her and as soon as she could the heavy Hummer was rolling up the high way towards Jackson in Wyoming.

"It has to be around here," Helena cursed and checked the laptop again. The road map she had been following told her that the address of the company that had received the Lexcorp electronics was in a small town called Jackson, but Helena couldn't seem to find the correct exit, when suddenly she realized that the tiny town lay in the valley that she was looking out over. This state was turning out to be quite a bit larger than she had expected.

It seemed that tourism was important to this place though, she had seen a lot of hints to that on her way already and as she came into the town of Jackson itself, it became apparent that skiing and the like probably attracted a lot of people to the area every winter.

The address, she had gotten, led her to a small warehouse. Helena examined the building using her abilities to access to roof and cast a glance inside through a dirty skylight. The building was empty and an undisturbed layer of dust coated the floor below. "I hope that this building wasn't just a transfer site, because then it will be really hard to find Barbara," she thought.

Helena began walking through the town even if the weather was several times colder than she was prepared or dressed for. She had filled her car with gas earlier and left it at the nice hotel she had booked in advance. Still she felt uneasy as she walked through the town with an old picture of her friend in her left pocket. She found a supermarket that had to be the place that the most people in town.

Helena walked inside and tried to look as pathetic and nervous as she felt inside as she headed directly over to the teller. "Excuse me," she asked.

"Can I help you," the woman answered in the local accent.

"Maybe… I am looking for my former foster mom. She moved to this area after I went off to college. I haven't seen her in ages and I was hoping if maybe you had seen her," Helena asked and pulled out a portrait that Wade had made a couple of weeks before he had been killed.

The woman looked at bit confused and cautious, but gave the picture a look and then looked up at Helena. "She looks familiar, but I am not sure," she looked back down.

"She colors her hair a lot; she might not be a red head any more. I mean she was when the picture was taken, but before that she was blonde and before that brown," Helena lied.

"Well I think I have seen her before, but I am not sure," the woman replied as a customer came up to pay for his things.

Helena nodded to herself and walked out of the supermarket. She wandered around tower thinking how she could find Barbara in this place, when she came across a small internet café as a part of a small restaurant. She didn't really think about it until nearly a block later, but the place had ramps not steps leading inside. Quickly she went back and inside. She seated herself at one of the computer and found a machine setup in some way to only allow her access to the Internet and then there were a lot of security measures installed including a very clever software program that stopped her from opening a file she knew was a Trojan often used by hackers. Smiling slightly to herself Helena got up and walked over to the counter. A girl was making coffee, but turned around to serve her, when she stepped closer. "Excuse me, I was wondering, who has done such a wonderful job setting up your computers. I have a small company and I really need someone able to do the job as good as that," Helena explained.

"Oh, I am glad you asked. It was done by a regular customer. She set up the entire system, computers, cables and all. She really is very good with those computer things. I don't know her name though. Henry, the owner, handled paying her and all that," the waitress admitted.

"She's a regular you say. Do you think she will come here today?" Helena asked.

"Yeah, she usually shows up when my shift ends… around dinner time," the girl chuckled, "she claims to be a horrible cook, so she usually eats out here in town even if she lives alone up near the national park."

Helena glanced down at her watch. It was still a couple of hours until dinner time. "Great I will swing by later and have a talk with her then," she remarked and left a 10 dollar tip on the counter.

An hour later, Helena sat with her laptop and a magazine in the back of the restaurant. She was enjoying a cup of coffee and a cake, while her thoughts whirled about in her head. "What am I going to say to Barbara? How do I explain what happened back then? Is she okay? How much did the Joker hurt her? Do I even have the right to disturb her, maybe her new life is better and she has finally found someone she is happy with."

Suddenly the bell over the door tingled and a woman with brilliant red hair and mirrored sunglasses maneuvered inside in an elegant motorized wheelchair. Helena felt her heart jump into her throat as she watched a brilliantly smiling Barbara being received by the owner, a kind old man with a pleasant smile and only little wisps of white hair on his head. He had replaced the waitress at the counter a half hour ago.

Helena watched with her heart pounding as her long believed dead rolled into a space facing the door and a menu was gently placed in her hands. She staggered to her feet as Barbara took the clip-on shades off her glasses and gave the man her order.

Helena carefully walked over to the table deciding that there was only one way to do this and hoped that Barbara's heart was still strong. "Excuse me is that seat taken?" She asked and walked around to stand opposite her friend.

Barbara jumped with surprise, went pale and had to visibly restrain herself from crying out. "I-I don't understand. Helena is that really you?" She said and reached over to touch her hand as Helena sat down.

"I thought you were dead," Barbara said in a tone as if she didn't dare to believe what sat before her.

"Well I was led to believe the same," Helena replied in her regular cheeky tone.

"How did you survive? And how did you find me?" Barbara asked.

"I think we should talk about it somewhere private," Helena suggested after looking around the nice but frightfully insecure restaurant.

Barbara nodded and called out, "Henry, can you put my food in a bag? I have to go."

Helena calmly followed Barbara as she drove her wheelchair down to her van. Some remote signal made the back ramp open and Barbara professionally drove her wheelchair inside. Helena walked around to seat herself besides her friend, who had already locked her wheelchair into the driving position of the car. "Nice set of wheels," Helena couldn't help commenting.

"Thank you, I've designed the car myself," Barbara replied and put the van into gear.

"When are you going to tell me what happened?" Barbara asked as they were on their way out of town.

"My dad rescued me just like he saved you. He didn't want us to know we were alive in case the Joker captured one of us. He even arranged it so that we all disappeared even from him," she explained.

Barbara drove on in silence for a moment. "The Joker is dead now though," she commented.

"Yeah, I guess it even made the news here huh," Helena noticed Barbara nodding out of the corner of her eye.

"So you have contact with Bruce," Barbara stated.

"He helped me recover from the torture… And a lot of other stuff as well, we have had several rather long discussions about abandonment and the like. We're mostly okay now," Helena replied.

Barbara slowly guided her car onto a smaller road. "I knew he had saved me. I thought I was the only one though. The evidence he brought was so convincing, but then again he has always been a good manipulator… Bruce took me to Australia for my recovery and to hide me from any further retribution from the Joker. I stayed there for quite a while, had reconstructive surgery and even more recovery. Finally one evening Superman and a couple of the other members from the Justice League showed up at my bungalow and explained to me that they had arranged for a new place and identity for me. They moved me here that same night," she explained and drove the van up a small dirt road.

"I was supposed to go into hiding as well, but circumstances changed and I joined my father and Nightwing in their hunt for the Joker. I was there at the end… I had to fight him in memory of you and Dinah," Helena said in a rough voice.

"Poor Dinah," Barbara remarked in a desolate, "I watched that bastard torture to her for a while at least… In a way I am guilty that she never had a good life. Have you ever thought about that she almost never had a happy time in her life, like you had with your mother or I had with my family. She went from abandonment to abuse to horrid danger and finally her involvement with us got her killed."

Helena looked askance at Barbara and debated what to say. Should she conceal Dinah's survival or be honest? "Dinah is alive somewhere," she finally said.

Barbara looked at her and a small tear appeared in the corner of her eye, but it didn't drop. The van stopped in front of a large stone building that to the casual observer looked like just another sturdy building, but Helena's trained eye easily caught the hidden parabolic antenna out in the forest, the myriads of sensors securing the area and the faint traces of hidden weapons everywhere.

"Come on in, we have a lot to talk about," Barbara offered.

Meanwhile in New Gotham someone was watching a blurred video of the Wayne section of the old Gotham graveyard. A phone was picked up and a clearly foreign accented voice said, "The Bat and his progeny lives."