7.
~ Breaching the security of any bank wasn't easy. Banks were specifically built to be hard to rob. They were usually buried in a city, nowhere near a highway. This prevented a quick escape and made it easy for police to cut off any exit routes. Then there were the limited exits in the main building. Especially in the older banks. Most of these were built with only one door. A single point of ingress. Windows were high and far too risky. Still, it was her best shot. It wasn't like she could just walk in the front door of a mob boss's personal safe that was ripe with armed guards.
Selina looked over the massive building. It was built when the Narrows was a booming working class area. A new construction for the post war era when everyone was looking forward to the brightness of the future. But that time was long gone, and the Narrows had changed into crime ally. The bank looked the part of a sad, abandoned building that had seen better days.
Ivy drove her luxury car around the block again so Selina could take another look. She quickly saw she could gain access to the roof from a building a block away.
"It's nowhere near the bank." Ivy accused.
"Exactly, that won't see me coming. I can jump from the rooftops and land near that skylight. I'll be inside in less than thirty seconds and I'll deploy your little weapon." Selina explained.
"Only as a last resort." Ivy said. "It's a defensive weapon, not offensive."
"I don't understand why you just don't spray that mind control stuff in the bank and turn the guards into your slaves." Selina said as Ivy turned a corner and almost hit a homeless man.
"It doesn't work like that." Ivy told her. "I'd have to be close to the person I was taking under. It also isn't guaranteed to work on everyone. Some people are highly suggestible, some aren't."
"So I'm highly suggestible?" Selina accused.
"You're like all us street kids. Always imagining a better world is out there somewhere. You still want to believe that this isn't the only life there is." Ivy looked annoyed. "You still have hope."
"You don't?" Selina asked.
"The world is ugly." Ivy said bitterly. "My father was a mean drunk who used to beat us. But he didn't deserve to be shot like a dog by the GCPD. My mother was maniacally depressed most of her life. She slit her wrists open and left me an orphan. I had to sleep in filthy shelters and over crowded foster homes. The streets were a relief. One thing I learned, there is no humanity left in the world. No one is coming to save you."
"So what is your plan?" Selina asked. "Are you going to take out your anger on all of Gotham?"
Ivy looked wistful and Selina felt something unpleasant turn over inside her.
~ "She goes by the nick name Cat." Bruce said to the homeless woman. He held up the only recent picture he had of Selina. The photo from the dinner party that Vicki had taken all those months ago. "Have you seen her around lately?"
"I know Cat." The lady said with a grin full of rotted out teeth. "She used to hang out here all the time. Always came to see Mary when things were really bad. But I haven't seen Cat in months."
"Mary?" Bruce asked. "Who's Mary?"
"Blind woman who lives in the basement apartment about a block away. Cat used to live with her and take care of her." the old woman said.
Bruce fished in his pocket and pulled out some cash.
"Go get something to eat." he ordered the old lady who nodded happily.
~ The basement apartments were practically hidden from view in this dying neighborhood. Bruce had to look had for the apartment number the old lady had pointed out. He almost missed it due to the overgrowth of weeds and other plants growing unchecked around the door and window. Some plants were even breaking into the brick and mortar to tear the building apart.
He knocked on a steel door and listened for movement inside.
"Who is it?" a raspy voice called.
"I'm a friend of Cat. Selina Kyle?" Bruce called out.
"Go away!" the voice shouted.
"Miss, please!" Bruce called out. He could sense that he was being watched. No doubt the locals had spotted him in his well tailored clothes giving money to the old woman and they were looking to rob him.
"Go away!" the woman called out again.
"Cat's in trouble." Bruce said. "I think people have taken her. Bad people."
He waited a second and finally heard the turn of a lock. He could see nothing inside the dark apartment. The smell of dampness wafted out. The old blind woman inside was like a witch from a fairy tale inviting him in.
~ Mary Tapian was her name. She was born blind and had lived in this very apartment for over forty years.
"Cat came to me when she was just ten years old. Running away from some street thugs who were after her. I hid her here many times, but she hasn't been by in over a year now." Mary said.
Bruce looked around the basement and felt a keen sadness for the old woman. This was no place to call home. A run down kitchen. A sitting room that served as a bedroom with a little cot in front of a wood burning stove. There was a little door at the far end Bruce suspected was a bathroom.
"Does anyone come to look in on you, Miss Tapian?" Bruce asked.
"I do fine." Mary said. "I go down to the bodega every week for my canned goods. Welfare takes care of my expenses just fine. It doesn't take much for an old woman like me to stay alive."
Bruce had to disagree. This woman must have a very sad existence.
"When Cat was here, did she have any enemies? People who wanted to do her harm?" Bruce asked.
"Cat lived on the street, son. Lots of people wanted to do a pretty girl like that harm. If it wasn't the gangs, it was the pimps. Cat had it rough, but she kept herself out of that mess." Mary said proudly. "She used to come here, sleep on the couch and read to me on the rainy days. She was a good girl."
Bruce nodded.
"Since you asked." Mary said sadly. "A couple of women came here looking for her just last month. They sounded like a mother and daughter. They talked just the same."
"Talked the same?" Bruce asked.
"Oh yes. Very classy and smug. " Mary shrugged. "They wore nice perfume and their shoes made noises all across the floor. Asked if I had seen Cat and where was she."
"Would you know them if you heard them again?" Bruce asked.
"No need to hear them again." Mary chuckled. "They introduced themselves right proper. Said their names were Ivy Pepper and Fish Moony."
~ Bruce left Mary with some cash money. All the singles he had on him and left. He could feel the street thugs watching him from afar as he spotted Alfred pulling up beside him.
"Wish you wouldn't go on these little field trips, sir." Alfred said. Bruce pulled open the door to the back seat and got in. Alfred quickly sped away.
"Thank you, Alfred." Bruce said happily. "I was being followed. It would have been an unfortunate situation if they attacked me." Bruce seemed to mull over his statement. "For them I mean." he amended.
~ Back home, Bruce was quick to research all he know about Fish Moony and Ivy Pepper.
"According to Gordon's records, Fish went missing a few years ago. No one has seen or heard form her in years. Although there has been rumors." Bruce explained to Alfred. The old butler had brought lunch down to the bunker next to the large computer Bruce was working on.
"This is the last time I bring the tea down here to you, master Bruce." he said setting the silver tray down with a disapproving thud.
"Fish ran the club that Penguin now has as his front." Bruce said. "She was one of Don Falcone's right hands until, rumor has it, she betrayed him."
"Sounds like Penguin's mess if you ask me." Alfred grumbled.
"Ivy Pamela Pepper." Bruce said and looked over the long social services record of the strange little red haired girl he only half knew. "Her father was Mario Pepper. Shot and killed by detective Harvey Bullock in connection with the…" Bruce swallowed. "With the murders of Thomas and Martha Wayne."
It never stopped being strange to read about his parents in police reports.
"Social services became involved after her mother's suicide. Placed her in foster care. She ran away and lived on the streets. Went missing over a year ago."
"You think this Fish Moony and Ivy Pepper are working together?" Alfred asked.
"Gordon thinks they are working together. I think they have Selina." Bruce countered.
"How do we know Miss Kyle isn't a willingly apart of their escapade?" Alfred asked. A certain smugness in his voice.
"We don't." Bruce admitted. "But I refuse to believe Selina is with someone like Fish willingly. She's always been a loner."
"Master Wayne, I know you've never wanted to accept the Miss Kyle is just as bad as those villains you have chosen to fight-" Alfred started to say.
"Selina isn't like that." Bruce interrupted.
"She's proven she is exactly like that." Alfred huffed.
"You just never liked her." Bruce accused.
"On the contrary." Alfred said soothingly. "I think Miss Kyle is good for you. But I don't hold onto any delusions about what kind of person she is."
Bruce felt his jaw clench.
"I should go on patrols tonight. There are several leads that have spotted Ivy Pepper and Fish Moony around the Narrows." he said.
"Sir," Alfred tried to stop him.
"I'll be home late!" Bruce shouted.
~ Selina ran across the rooftops of the Narrows like a gazelle. She had always loved the running and jumping over sky lights and ledges. It was amazing how quickly she cleared the large gap from the abandoned apartment building to the bank. One large jump, a tuck and roll and she was safely on the roof top.
She had expected to see armed guards waiting for her, but with the rain, they would most likely be on the stair well where it was dry.
She turned on her night vision goggles and spied the dirty sky light that looked directly into the lobby of Old Gotham Prime.
It was a counting house for drugs and cash. Workers were wearing paper suits to prevent theft. Selina peered in closer and saw the weapons and armed thugs working for Penguin.
'This is a bad idea.' she reminded herself. She tried to think of a way out, but she knew Fish and Ivy would find her if she tried to escape. She knew they were watching her every move through the camera in her night vision.
"This is the only way in aside from the stairs and I'm sure it's guarded." Catwoman whispered to Ivy listening in on the line.
"The canister I gave you has a short burst. Use it on the rooftop guards." Ivy ordered.
"You never did tell me what this stuff does." Catwoman remixed her.
"Don't worry about it, just put your gas mask on." Ivy said bitterly.
Catwaon secured her gas mask and slipped around the sky light to the far side of the roof top. Just as she suspected, the stairwell had two guards sitting out of the rain and smoking.
"Do it now!" Ivy ordered.
Selina was no fool. She hugged the shadows and was able sneak up right beside the guards without them seeing her.
No sooner had the noticed she was next to them then she sprayed them in the face with Ivy's smoke bomb. It was a short, powerful burt of liquid that came out like wasp spray.
The men gave out a short cry as Catwoman shot them in the eyes.
"Vey good." Ivy said in her ear.
Through the rain, with her info red goggles, Catwoam saw the work that Ivy thought was very good.
Large green leaves of plants were now growing out of the mouths and noses of the guards. Their necks bulging with the strange internal growth. Leaves were pushing the eye balls out of there sockets for more room to grow.
Selina felt nauseous at the sight of these men being smother and strangled from the inside out by the rapidly growing plants.
"It's killing them." Catwoman hissed at Ivy.
"It's doing what it's supposed to." Ivy said darkly. "I call it a green solution. Their bodies are going to feed plant life. In just a few hours, nothing will remain of them but a beautiful blooming plant."
Sorry it has been so long since I updated. Glad to see some feedback and reviews. Lets me know I'm on the right track.