What am I doing here? he thinks to himself as he waits on the roof of a warehouse by the dock, hidden in the concealing shadow of an air vent. Several hundred meters away the Pier shopping mall is ablaze with electric stars and marquees and tangles of neon. The light show of the amusement park beyond that is even more riotous. But this dock, by contrast features few lights and many shadows. Although it is close to crowded places in terms of physical distance, in terms of atmosphere it might as well be a hundred miles away, since it's as empty as those other places are full. And it's a perfect place for a clandestine meeting, because so many people can see it but nobody actually notices it.
But the idea of meeting with someone this way, for any reason, makes him uncomfortable. It's like something a crook or drug dealer would do. So he keeps asking himself why he's doing this – why he's here five minutes before midnight, waiting to meet someone he doesn't know at a rendezvous set up by someone he shouldn't trust. Is it because he's curious? Because he's concerned? Or because Melanie is involved, even if only in some minor way?
Terry's trying desperately to convince himself that this isn't about Melanie at all. Might as well try to make himself think that two plus two equals five.
He wonders what Mr. Wayne will have to say about this. He'll probably give me a thorough chewing-out for this, Terry supposes. I sure as hell deserve it. But, foolish though it may have been, he promised he'd be here and he can't just leave.
"Three minutes to midnight," Max says into his transmitter, startling him a little. Until recently she could only talk to him through the Batmobile's communications system, since Wayne had designed the suit's transmitter to be accessible from the computer in the cave and nowhere else. Obviously Terry could not let Max into the cave without Wayne's permission (which he wouldn't be getting anytime soon), so she'd had to figure out a way to hack the channel from her own computer – which, of course, she had managed to do with about two hours of work. She couldn't manage a video link, though, since her computer isn't powerful enough for that. "See anything?" Max asks him.
"Not yet," Terry answers as he scans the desolate, crate-covered expanse between the dock and the mall. Then he catches something, a person walking the narrow alleys between the stacked crates. "Hold on," he says. He squints at the figure in the distance. After a moment the synaptic sensors in his cowl get the hint and the display before his eyes changes as it telescopes in on the person, until it's as if Terry's only two meters away from him instead of half a hundred.
Correction: it's a her. The light amplification systems in his mask allow him to see her clearly. He recognizes her – he last saw her almost a week ago, when one of the Kobras who broke into VibranTech tried to take her as a hostage. And, since she is supposed to be Melanie's boss, she's almost certainly the person that Commissioner Gordon was speaking to on the holophone a few days ago. He'd thought the voice sounded familiar at the time, but he wasn't sure.
"I've got an ID on her," Max tells him. "Natalie Milou, president of VibranTech Industries." That confirms Terry's guess. "Hmm. You think she'd have a bodyguard with her or something."
"Not if she wants to keep this private," Terry says. And after seeing how she handled the Kobra who put a knife to her throat, he's inclined to think that maybe she doesn't need a bodyguard.
"If she does, maybe I should log off," Max suggests. "Wouldn't be fair to listen in." Typical Max – doesn't have any qualms about hacking into the Defense Department's network, but feels that it's wrong to eavesdrop on a private conversation.
Terry thinks for a moment. Would Mr. Wayne be okay with staying on the link in a case like this? Yes, probably, but then again he wouldn't have approved of this meeting in the first place. But Max isn't Wayne, and he's not sure if it would be a good idea for her to hear this. And there's more to it than ethics – he hasn't completely dismissed the possibility that this might be a trap of some kind. Should he let her hear, or not?
Eventually he decides to leave it up to her judgment. "If you want to," he says.
"Okay. Just call me back when it's over," she reminds him. Then he hears a click as the channel between them is closed. He's on his own now.
Looking down, he sees that Milou has reached the beginning of the dock itself. She's sticking to the shadows, so she's near the wall of the warehouse he's sitting on. The woman isn't half-bad at sneaking – if Terry didn't have the mask, with its sound and light amplification, he probably wouldn't know she was there at all. She comes to a stop with her back to the warehouse wall, and starts looking around for him.
Terry slides to the edge of the roof, then takes a little jump when he reaches the edge and twists around in midair so that he lands facing Milou. He's obviously startled her, because she has dropped into a standard ready position, facing him side-on with her hands up and her feet one shoulder-width apart, with one slightly in front of the other. But it takes her only a second to see that it's him and return to a neutral pose.
She's not dressed in a fine tailored business suit this time, having eschewed that for a black sleeveless t-shirt and close-fitting black denim jeans, which are more practical in present circumstances. Her shoes are a cross between sneakers and low boots, black like the rest of her clothes. A slim black-banded watch on her left wrist and a pair of silver stud earrings are all she wears in the way of jewellery. With the small leather backpack she's wearing, she looks like a perfectly ordinary twenty-something girl out for a night on the town. Then again, her outfit would also be good for a professional burglar, assassin or spy.
Milou nods a greeting. "Good of you to come," she says, as if the two of them are much better acquainted than they actually are. But the meaning of the phrase changes completely when he realizes that she's not just saying it – she was actually worried that he might not show up.
"I try to keep my appointments," Terry replies. Of course I don't always succeed, but… "And I guess you could say you've piqued my curiosity."
She raises an eyebrow at him. "If that's what you want to call it." Then she puts a thoughtful finger to her lips. "I thought you'd be surprised to see me again. But I suppose you did some research – or you keep tabs on the big ones you put away, something like that." She says the words casually, like she's just making small talk. It strikes Terry as being a bit ridiculous, and also a bit amusing. He just nods in reply.
"Ah. In that case, you might know why I wanted to meet with you." She cocks her head to the side a little, her eyes turning the statement into a question.
Terry thinks for a moment, assembling the information he has on her into some kind of theory. A year of working with Mr. Wayne has taught him how to use the particular combination of logic and intuition that lets him do such things with relative ease. "You've found out who hired Kobra to break into your plant?" he asks. There's a little more to it than that – she's probably meeting with him because she can't deal with the threat to her company through standard agencies of law enforcement, or at least not in the way that she'd like to.
"That's one reason," she says. "There was another attempt yesterday. More subtle this time. They sent in a man disguised as one of the computer technicians. Luckily a guard caught him trying to bypass a retinal scanner. I had his equipment checked out before we shipped him to the police station – a good thing, too, because he died before he could be interrogated. I think his employers gave him some kind of time-release toxin, but I can't be sure until an autopsy is done." Milou looks around, as if checking for snoopers, before continuing. "My people are analyzing some of the software and gadgets he was carrying. Soon we may be able to figure out who he was working for."
Terry's not sure he likes this. "You didn't give them to the police?"
Milou frowns slightly. "As you well know, law enforcement agencies are not always effective. Especially in cases like these."
He can't deny that she's got a point. Terry lets the subject drop. But there's something else bothering him. "Okay. You said that was one reason for this meeting. What's the other one?"
She grins, her teeth a bright flash in the surrounding darkness. "Something you'll be very interested in. It concerns Kitsune."
Oh, he's definitely interested. But he instinctively hides it, toning it down to mild curiosity. "What about her?"
Milou sighs and looks upwards for a moment. "There's really no delicate way to say it, I suppose." She looks him in the eye again.
"Kitsune, and the others like her, are working for me."