Chapter 1, A bad day
The heat from the coffee cup warmed the side of her face as she tried, in vain, to push her thick, curly red hair away from her eyes. The coffee sloshed in the cup as her finger caught in a knot and a small growl rose in her through as she cursed, not for the first time, her uncontrollable mane of hair and the weak hair band that had snapped five minutes earlier as she was ordering the hot drink. As the band had snapped and her hair bloomed out she was met with the cat calls of 'Floof' and 'fire head' that had followed her through her life and she had left the coffee shop in a hurry, her cheeks flushed red with embarrassment, the childish nature of the insults grating at her. She weaved in and out, seemingly unseen by the of the crowds of people. 'Typical' she though 'I'm either invisible or the fire headed floof'.
Her arm jolted as someone bumped in to her, she started to feel a wet warm patch spread just above her waist when a voice shouted out.
"Oi! You stupid woman look where you're going."
Looking around she saw the man who had just bumped into her, he opened his mouth to say something else and then stopped and put his hand on his jacket.
"What the hell, is this coffee. You stupid bitch, you got coffee on me. Come here, you're paying for the cleaning."
The man stepped forward but the flow of people went against him and she lost sight of him. Before he had the chance to get past the crowd she ran down the street.
The receptionist, who was bent over picking something up from behind the counter, looked up as she entered the building.
"Wow Kat, what happened to you. What's with that mane, you look like little lion who just lost a fight."
Katheryn resisted the urge to slap the receptionist round the face, not only had she joked about her mass of hair but she'd shortened her name and she hated that. Forcing a smile, she said.
"There's so many people out there, it seems like you can't get anywhere without some idiot bumping into you."
"Well it's the evacuation. Wait what are doing back here anyway?"
"Well I do work here, I only went out for lunch." Katheryn held the paper bag and half empty coffee cup up to emphasis her point.
"Yes." The receptionist said with a sigh. "But we've all been sent home. Both S.T.A.R. labs and Lex corp. have sent out an alert."
"Why, what's happened?"
"No idea." The receptionist replied picking up her hand bag. "But we get to knock off early so get out so I can lock up."
Katheryn looked at the throngs of people heading home from their offices and shops, if she had known about the evacuation she could have saved herself the embarrassment at the coffee shop, as well as the run in with the man in the crowd. She took a sip of the coffee and found that, not only was there less than half a cup but now it was cold. With a sigh she headed down the office steps and into the busy street. Ten minutes later the sky darkened, and Katheryn looked up, cursing the dark clouds she expected to see and rain she knew they'd bring. Instead of clouds she saw something hanging in the sky and the crowd's around her began to stop as everyone else noticed the strange object. Of course, it wasn't the first space ship she had seen, if you made it through two months in Gotham without seeing something strange in the it was considered a quiet time but it still fascinating. Some of the crowd started to move, some running from a possible danger whilst others just carried on their journey, unimpressed or jaded by the regular occurrence of strange objects in the sky but Katheryn stayed to watch. At first nothing happened then a small hatch opened and the object began to move, dropping small objects as it went. The remaining crowd, including Katheryn ran but something hit the ground in front of her and she stopped not wanting to knock whatever it was in case it exploded. Bending down she saw that the object was a small, sliver canister with a green flashing light on it. The light turned red and the canister hissed, Katheryn jumped back but nothing happened. Slightly disappointed Katheryn continued back to her flat.