Barbara arrived at the Clock Tower late, it had been a long day. She
wheeled toward her desk and put some books down. The place was a disaster.
She rarely left the Clock Tower, she was closed off to the world, immersed
in her computers and crimefighting activities. Her father and Alfred
scolded her often for avoiding any social activities. After the terrible
night when Joker had shot her, her life had changed drastically, she had
closed her life and heart to all the world.
She wheeled toward the kitchen and opened the fridge. Alfred always left her some food on the days that he was at the Clock Tower, usually Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays; today was Friday.
"Barbara?"
The red head turned her head in surprise. A teen was standing up on the other side of the kitchen. She was blonde and her clothes were dirty. The girl looked like an urchin. She took off her batons. Maybe she was a common thief, but how could she break the security system in the Clock Tower?
"Who are you?" Barbara asked angrily, preparing to attack. "What are you doing here?"
"Barbara, calm down." The girl stepped back. "I'm a friend. I came here to talk with you, please, let me explain."
Barbara aimed a hit that the teen avoided and, before she could throw a second blow, her sticks were taken from her hands and smashed against the wall. She watched it crash against the wall.
"Was me..." the blond girl said. "Sorry, I want to talk with you. I don't want to hurt you."
"You?"
"I am telekinetic... I'm meta, my name is Dinah, Dinah Lance. Please listen to me." She raised her hands. "I don't have weapons, I came here alone."
"How could you get past all the security?"
"It will sound insane, but you taught me."
"What?"
"Barbara, this is a long story, please, could we talk? I can explain everything," the blonde pleaded.
"Okay, talk." Barbara said suspiciously; she didn't really have any other choice.
Dinah relaxed slightly and began to tell her story to the red-head. "I'm a meta-human. I have mind powers. I am a touch-telepath and I can move objects."
"Yes, I saw that."
"My mother is Carolyn Lance."
Barbara opened her eyes in surprise.
"Yes, I have the canary cry," Dinah kept talking, "I am still developing it, but I have it. My cerebral cortex activity is over fifty percent."
"That is incredible."
"Well, to avoid questions , I sometimes act stupid in High School." Dinah put her hands on her pockets. "May I sit?"
Barbara nodded, the girl didn't look too dangerous and, if she wanted to attack, she would have already done so. "Want some coffee?" she asked.
"Let me prepare it for you." Dinah said. Before Barbara could react, the girl walked to the cabinet and opened it. "You like it black, sugar, just one spoonful, and cookies." The girl seemed know where all the things in the kitchen were placed.
Dinah put the coffee in front of Barbara and sat down. "I know these things because I have been here before."
"Who are you?" Barbara asked. "How could you get through all my security?"
"You taught me all the codes."
"I've never seen you before"
Dinah took a piece of paper that was on the table and wrote some numbers "I lived here with you, and with Helena."
"Helena?"
"Helena Kyle. We are crimefighters. You are our mentor."
Barbara moved her head "Excuse me, but this joke is going too far..."
Dinah gave her the paper "I wrote there the access codes to Delphi and to the main access to the Clock Tower."
Barbara read the numbers, she looked the girl, stunned. "Are you a hacker?"
"No, of course not!" Dinah sighed. "Helena is Bruce Wayne's daughter, Batman's daughter.... and you were batgirl."
Barbara froze, her heart racing that this girl knew her secrets. "How...?"
"Barbara, this is the craziest story that you've ever heard, but it's true. You, Helena and I were a team, a great team. Crime fighters. You took care care of Helena after her mother's death; you trained her. Many years later I came here and you gave me the opportunity to learn. One night we were looking for Dr. Destiny."
"I know him, he's a criminal that we can't stop now. He is a terrible criminal. The king of underworld."
"He recovered the Materioptikon-- the ruby dreamstone that can alter reality to his whims. He was pissed because we had been stopping his robberies. We are living a nightmare that he created for us. He traveled to the past and changed it."
Barbara kept listening with interest.
"We were fighting. Helena and I surprised him when he broke the security box to steal England's treasure on exhibition in the New Gotham Museum. But before we could stop him, he used his ruby and he wished go to the past. I jumped on him before he disappeared. We appeared in an alley. We fought, he threw a blast of energy at me, I used a shield with my mind power and the energy went back to him; it hit the rock breaking off a piece of the Materioptikon. He angrily charged against me and he knocked me down."
"I woke up the next morning in that alley, it was raining. I looked around and could see the small piece of the ruby that had been broken on the ground. I took it." Dinah rubbed her eyes. "I came here, to the Clock Tower, but I found that it didn't exist. I was confused, I didn't know what was happening. I walked by the street and I found a newspaper. It shocked me, the headlines said Selina had been murdered and you had been shot. I understood I was in the past; we had traveled in the time. I went to see you to the hospital but you were bad, very bad. I couldn't find Helena. I went to the police department, looking for a friend, Jesse Reese; but they told me they didn't know him."
"Jesse Reese?" Barbara asked, surprised.
"He is Helena's boyfriend."
"Is that a joke?"
"No. He helps us in some cases." Dinah explained.
"Okay okay" Barbara moved her head "What happened next?"
"I read in that newspaper that Selina's lawyer had been murdered in a big fire inside his office; all the papers were lost. Everybody knows that Helena is Selina's daughter, her pictured appeared in all the newspapers. She used to fight without a mask. He recognized her; I'm sure of that, he traveled to the past to change it. His only clue was Helena, and in some way he could change her past."
"She disappeared two days after her mother's death." Barbara remembered, sipping her coffee. It was good, exactly as she liked it. "We lost track of her. He told me many years later that his uncle took her to Europe. He left her in a boarding school and disappeared. She escaped from there two months later. She learned to survive on the streets and turned into a burglar...a very skillful burglar at that... and learned quickly how to get easy money."
Dinah felt a great sadness inside. "I understand now. I looked for Helena again to find that she had gone, a neighbor told me his uncle had taken her out of the country. He knew Selina didn't have family; it killed him to leave her alone. I understand his plan. With Selina's lawyer dead you would never know that Selina had given you custody of Helena."
Barbara blinked and leaned forward "Say that again."
"Selina gave instructions to her lawyer; if something happened to her you would have custody. Dr. Destiny knew that someone had taken care of Helena but he didn't know who it was, so he took her away from here to prevent anyone from helping her."
Barbara moved back, that story was terrible, she couldn't believe it was true.
"Helena had so much anger and pain inside." Dinah began to analyze the situation "It was hard for you help her to manage that anger. Being alone, she let her anger control her life. She was taken too far from everybody."
Barbara interrupted "Nobody would ask for her in another country; I looked for her for several months later but I couldn't find any trace of her. Bruce Wayne didn't know that he had a daughter, neither did Alfred or Dick until many years later."
"Oh, poor Helena." Dinah felt tears in her eyes. Destiny had planned everything to destroy her life, and he was getting away with it.
"How could you be here?" Barbara asked her "He left you in the past, seven years ago."
"I was stunned, lost, I thought we had lost this fight. Until I remembered the Materioptikon that I had picked up. I took it between in my hands, maybe if it can do his dreams come true, my dreams too. I wished that all would go back to reality, but the piece is too small and not as powerful as the big one. The most that I could do was move the time forward and get back to the present. I came here, knowing that you have the equipment to face him. But I wasn't sure if the Clock Tower would exist...or Oracle"
Barbara couldn't believe her words, that story was fantastic, but out of all reality. She shook her head, it was terrible, it couldn't be. Dinah read it in her eyes.
"Barbara, I know it's hard to believe," the teen said taking her hands, "but I need you to trust in me. I looked around a few days, I needed know how much your life had changed. Two days ago I knew that Helena was now a burglar; I read in the newspapers about the police trapping her... that the police think she is a murder. When I read that you were looking for a lawyer I understood that in some way you too had kept in touch. It gave me hope."
"Hope?" Barbara laughed. "She killed twenty people, they think she deserves the death penalty."
"You can't believe she could do that. I know her, she couldn't."
"The evidence was in her apartment..."
"I read that too, I'm sure he wants to finish with her; I'm sure he put those proofs in her apartment. He killed those people. You told me he is here and that nobody can stop him."
"Why he didn't kill you that night?" Barbara stirred her coffee with a spoon.
"He thought I was trapped in the past." Dinah explained. "And about you... he didn't know that Oracle exists."
"So... he wants the police to think she is a murderer and..."
"The justice system will kill her. No Helena, no Huntress, no more problems."
"Huntress?"
"She calls herself Huntress."
Barbara sighed and rested her back in the chair crossing her fingers on her waist. She looked the blond girl in silence.
"And you want me to believe that story?" she finally asked.
"I hope... or we are lost."
"How? How can I believe something I have never lived." Barbara moved her hands nervously trying to understand what was happening. "Why I must believe you? I don't know you... You are just a teen, maybe addicted to drugs. Look at yourself!"
Dinah examined her clothes. She had been living in a shelter the last eight days. "I know, I know," she said, "But I have this." Dinah put a small piece of a gem stone, almost .39 inch, on the table. "The Materioptikon."
Barbara looked the small piece of ruby over the table and she opened her eyes in shock. "Oh my God! It can't be."
"You can examine it and prove I'm not lying, the composition of the stone is in the database."
Barbara sat, unmoving, not sure what to do.
"And with this..." Dinah leaned forward and took Barbara's wrist. Several images appeared in Barbara's mind like flashbacks. About her past, present. About her and the girls at Clock Tower.
Barbara pulled her hand and breathing faster "What was that?"
"Our reality, the present that he stole from us. You saw it."
Barbara looked her hands; she really had seen Helena, Dinah and her. The girl was telling the true. It couldn't be, all her life, all her present... She wheeled back. "I need air."
Dinah watched her go. She closed her eyes and covered her face hoping desparately that Barbara would believe her words.
She wheeled toward the kitchen and opened the fridge. Alfred always left her some food on the days that he was at the Clock Tower, usually Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays; today was Friday.
"Barbara?"
The red head turned her head in surprise. A teen was standing up on the other side of the kitchen. She was blonde and her clothes were dirty. The girl looked like an urchin. She took off her batons. Maybe she was a common thief, but how could she break the security system in the Clock Tower?
"Who are you?" Barbara asked angrily, preparing to attack. "What are you doing here?"
"Barbara, calm down." The girl stepped back. "I'm a friend. I came here to talk with you, please, let me explain."
Barbara aimed a hit that the teen avoided and, before she could throw a second blow, her sticks were taken from her hands and smashed against the wall. She watched it crash against the wall.
"Was me..." the blond girl said. "Sorry, I want to talk with you. I don't want to hurt you."
"You?"
"I am telekinetic... I'm meta, my name is Dinah, Dinah Lance. Please listen to me." She raised her hands. "I don't have weapons, I came here alone."
"How could you get past all the security?"
"It will sound insane, but you taught me."
"What?"
"Barbara, this is a long story, please, could we talk? I can explain everything," the blonde pleaded.
"Okay, talk." Barbara said suspiciously; she didn't really have any other choice.
Dinah relaxed slightly and began to tell her story to the red-head. "I'm a meta-human. I have mind powers. I am a touch-telepath and I can move objects."
"Yes, I saw that."
"My mother is Carolyn Lance."
Barbara opened her eyes in surprise.
"Yes, I have the canary cry," Dinah kept talking, "I am still developing it, but I have it. My cerebral cortex activity is over fifty percent."
"That is incredible."
"Well, to avoid questions , I sometimes act stupid in High School." Dinah put her hands on her pockets. "May I sit?"
Barbara nodded, the girl didn't look too dangerous and, if she wanted to attack, she would have already done so. "Want some coffee?" she asked.
"Let me prepare it for you." Dinah said. Before Barbara could react, the girl walked to the cabinet and opened it. "You like it black, sugar, just one spoonful, and cookies." The girl seemed know where all the things in the kitchen were placed.
Dinah put the coffee in front of Barbara and sat down. "I know these things because I have been here before."
"Who are you?" Barbara asked. "How could you get through all my security?"
"You taught me all the codes."
"I've never seen you before"
Dinah took a piece of paper that was on the table and wrote some numbers "I lived here with you, and with Helena."
"Helena?"
"Helena Kyle. We are crimefighters. You are our mentor."
Barbara moved her head "Excuse me, but this joke is going too far..."
Dinah gave her the paper "I wrote there the access codes to Delphi and to the main access to the Clock Tower."
Barbara read the numbers, she looked the girl, stunned. "Are you a hacker?"
"No, of course not!" Dinah sighed. "Helena is Bruce Wayne's daughter, Batman's daughter.... and you were batgirl."
Barbara froze, her heart racing that this girl knew her secrets. "How...?"
"Barbara, this is the craziest story that you've ever heard, but it's true. You, Helena and I were a team, a great team. Crime fighters. You took care care of Helena after her mother's death; you trained her. Many years later I came here and you gave me the opportunity to learn. One night we were looking for Dr. Destiny."
"I know him, he's a criminal that we can't stop now. He is a terrible criminal. The king of underworld."
"He recovered the Materioptikon-- the ruby dreamstone that can alter reality to his whims. He was pissed because we had been stopping his robberies. We are living a nightmare that he created for us. He traveled to the past and changed it."
Barbara kept listening with interest.
"We were fighting. Helena and I surprised him when he broke the security box to steal England's treasure on exhibition in the New Gotham Museum. But before we could stop him, he used his ruby and he wished go to the past. I jumped on him before he disappeared. We appeared in an alley. We fought, he threw a blast of energy at me, I used a shield with my mind power and the energy went back to him; it hit the rock breaking off a piece of the Materioptikon. He angrily charged against me and he knocked me down."
"I woke up the next morning in that alley, it was raining. I looked around and could see the small piece of the ruby that had been broken on the ground. I took it." Dinah rubbed her eyes. "I came here, to the Clock Tower, but I found that it didn't exist. I was confused, I didn't know what was happening. I walked by the street and I found a newspaper. It shocked me, the headlines said Selina had been murdered and you had been shot. I understood I was in the past; we had traveled in the time. I went to see you to the hospital but you were bad, very bad. I couldn't find Helena. I went to the police department, looking for a friend, Jesse Reese; but they told me they didn't know him."
"Jesse Reese?" Barbara asked, surprised.
"He is Helena's boyfriend."
"Is that a joke?"
"No. He helps us in some cases." Dinah explained.
"Okay okay" Barbara moved her head "What happened next?"
"I read in that newspaper that Selina's lawyer had been murdered in a big fire inside his office; all the papers were lost. Everybody knows that Helena is Selina's daughter, her pictured appeared in all the newspapers. She used to fight without a mask. He recognized her; I'm sure of that, he traveled to the past to change it. His only clue was Helena, and in some way he could change her past."
"She disappeared two days after her mother's death." Barbara remembered, sipping her coffee. It was good, exactly as she liked it. "We lost track of her. He told me many years later that his uncle took her to Europe. He left her in a boarding school and disappeared. She escaped from there two months later. She learned to survive on the streets and turned into a burglar...a very skillful burglar at that... and learned quickly how to get easy money."
Dinah felt a great sadness inside. "I understand now. I looked for Helena again to find that she had gone, a neighbor told me his uncle had taken her out of the country. He knew Selina didn't have family; it killed him to leave her alone. I understand his plan. With Selina's lawyer dead you would never know that Selina had given you custody of Helena."
Barbara blinked and leaned forward "Say that again."
"Selina gave instructions to her lawyer; if something happened to her you would have custody. Dr. Destiny knew that someone had taken care of Helena but he didn't know who it was, so he took her away from here to prevent anyone from helping her."
Barbara moved back, that story was terrible, she couldn't believe it was true.
"Helena had so much anger and pain inside." Dinah began to analyze the situation "It was hard for you help her to manage that anger. Being alone, she let her anger control her life. She was taken too far from everybody."
Barbara interrupted "Nobody would ask for her in another country; I looked for her for several months later but I couldn't find any trace of her. Bruce Wayne didn't know that he had a daughter, neither did Alfred or Dick until many years later."
"Oh, poor Helena." Dinah felt tears in her eyes. Destiny had planned everything to destroy her life, and he was getting away with it.
"How could you be here?" Barbara asked her "He left you in the past, seven years ago."
"I was stunned, lost, I thought we had lost this fight. Until I remembered the Materioptikon that I had picked up. I took it between in my hands, maybe if it can do his dreams come true, my dreams too. I wished that all would go back to reality, but the piece is too small and not as powerful as the big one. The most that I could do was move the time forward and get back to the present. I came here, knowing that you have the equipment to face him. But I wasn't sure if the Clock Tower would exist...or Oracle"
Barbara couldn't believe her words, that story was fantastic, but out of all reality. She shook her head, it was terrible, it couldn't be. Dinah read it in her eyes.
"Barbara, I know it's hard to believe," the teen said taking her hands, "but I need you to trust in me. I looked around a few days, I needed know how much your life had changed. Two days ago I knew that Helena was now a burglar; I read in the newspapers about the police trapping her... that the police think she is a murder. When I read that you were looking for a lawyer I understood that in some way you too had kept in touch. It gave me hope."
"Hope?" Barbara laughed. "She killed twenty people, they think she deserves the death penalty."
"You can't believe she could do that. I know her, she couldn't."
"The evidence was in her apartment..."
"I read that too, I'm sure he wants to finish with her; I'm sure he put those proofs in her apartment. He killed those people. You told me he is here and that nobody can stop him."
"Why he didn't kill you that night?" Barbara stirred her coffee with a spoon.
"He thought I was trapped in the past." Dinah explained. "And about you... he didn't know that Oracle exists."
"So... he wants the police to think she is a murderer and..."
"The justice system will kill her. No Helena, no Huntress, no more problems."
"Huntress?"
"She calls herself Huntress."
Barbara sighed and rested her back in the chair crossing her fingers on her waist. She looked the blond girl in silence.
"And you want me to believe that story?" she finally asked.
"I hope... or we are lost."
"How? How can I believe something I have never lived." Barbara moved her hands nervously trying to understand what was happening. "Why I must believe you? I don't know you... You are just a teen, maybe addicted to drugs. Look at yourself!"
Dinah examined her clothes. She had been living in a shelter the last eight days. "I know, I know," she said, "But I have this." Dinah put a small piece of a gem stone, almost .39 inch, on the table. "The Materioptikon."
Barbara looked the small piece of ruby over the table and she opened her eyes in shock. "Oh my God! It can't be."
"You can examine it and prove I'm not lying, the composition of the stone is in the database."
Barbara sat, unmoving, not sure what to do.
"And with this..." Dinah leaned forward and took Barbara's wrist. Several images appeared in Barbara's mind like flashbacks. About her past, present. About her and the girls at Clock Tower.
Barbara pulled her hand and breathing faster "What was that?"
"Our reality, the present that he stole from us. You saw it."
Barbara looked her hands; she really had seen Helena, Dinah and her. The girl was telling the true. It couldn't be, all her life, all her present... She wheeled back. "I need air."
Dinah watched her go. She closed her eyes and covered her face hoping desparately that Barbara would believe her words.