Good news. Because of the summer break (free time!), I'll be picking up the pace on this story and drawing lots of pretty pictures to illustrate it. Yep, pictures. So far I have pics of five characters (though some of them won't be in the story until later…oops) and I'm slowly getting better. You can check them out by clicking on the hyperlink in my bio (my homepage).
My story constantly switches between two timelines: "Before Terr Disappears" (Italics font) and "After" (Regular font). Some people find this confusing, so I'm just going to stick this little guide at the beginning of every other chapter.
(Beginning) 2, 3, 4, 7 — unwritten —JULY 4TH— 1, 5, 6, 8, 9 — unwritten — (End)
Note: You wouldn't believe how often I use the words "shit," "crap," "guano," etc. in this chapter. …Ooh, "feces" too, I forgot about that one. But, hey, we're semi-adults, right? We can get through a chapter titled Guano without giggling like nervous kindergarteners. …Ha! Yeah, right. This chapter is comedic relief and fun action, my way of cheering up a very depressed Maxie, so laugh your asses off. (Also, for simplicity's sake (me simple, right), Max is now a SHE when wearing the bat suit.)
Sunday, August 4, 2042, 04:43:16
Max knelt before the cave floor's ledge and looked down into the chasm. She tried to gauge how far it had fallen—it being a spy camera she had recently hurled down there. She could argue that it wasn't her fault, that she hadn't known it was an important piece of technology. It looked like a nose ring, for Christ's sake. But she had to take the blame on this one. She had held that thing in her hand for a month and then thrown it away. She could have saved Terry a month ago. Now she might never know what clues that spy cam had held.
She pulled the bat mask over her head. Her posture shifted out of habit. She stood like a man. The electronic circuits in the neck lined up with the mask's and interlocked. The limp body armor expanded, and she took the shape of a man as well. It was a good ruse. Not only did the armor add several inches of protection between the bad guys and her vital organs, it also made her look like she had impressively sculpted, male muscles under there. It beat the hell out of the football gear she had to make do with the first week. She had been afraid to step out from the shadows then, it looked so fake. Now she was a fake who looked completely real.
She looked down into the darkness once more. Then, with a sigh, she stepped off the ledge and plummeted down into the narrow shaft of stalactites and cold, slimy rock. A colony of bats started as the large predator "flew" past. They took flight in the opposite direction, spilling up into the higher caverns.
Max fell. The idea was to drop for as long as she estimated the nose ring had. Then she would end up about where it had stopped. She counted in her head, '…16, 17, 18, 1—shit!'
She swerved fast and latched onto a stalactite, slipping on its slick surface until her claws extended and dug into the rock. Safe, she stared at her chest, which was slimed with a greenish white paste from the stalactite. Her face twisted in disgust. Then again, things could be worse. Her eyes slid down to the pool only a few feet below her—a pool of thick, molding shit.
Guano actually.
And she had almost nose-dived straight into it.
Max eyed the crusted chunks floating on top. There was no way in Hell she was going near that. When sure of her grip, she removed one hand from the stalactite and tried brushing the shit off her front. It came off her chest but caked on her hand. She made a disgusted noise and violently shook off the foul paste. It fell and hit the guano pool with a distinct plop.
She stopped in the middle of scraping more shit off of her. The nose ring had made a plopping noise like that, after she threw it. She looked at the pool. "Ah, …guano," she muttered. "You so owe me for this, Terr." She let go of the stalactite.
Plop.
XXX
The steam, the sluicing of water, the warmth that melted even the coldest and stiffest of muscles—showers were God. Especially right after a shit bath.
Max had never used the unit in the cave before, preferring to shower in the one at home where she knew there wouldn't be a bat hanging from the showerhead. Now that she was in the thing, though, she realized it had a pretty nice setup. All the amenities and pleasantly bat-less. Pleasant for the bats, because if there had been guano on the floor of the shower, she would have gone back out and drowned the whole colony in their own shit. It would be easy, too. She couldn't believe how much those things crapped.
She had stood underneath the spigot and rushing water for half an hour, trying to wash away the feeling of diving through chunky, solidifying shit. Who cared if the bat suit took all the crap? It was psychological. Good God, she had been swimming through moldy, white shit! Why wasn't she blowing chunks?
Probably because her stomach was tied up into too many knots to heave anything up. In any case, the sickened feeling wasn't going away. She spied some toiletries on a shelf. Soap. Soap was Jesus. Crap was the Anti-Christ, but the forces Good would prevail.
They had to.
She turned the spigot away and lathered liked the fate of the universe depended on it. Washing wasn't normally her thing. Maybe if computers were waterproof but, alas, no. So she usually did a quick in, quick out—except when she had more than physical dirt to wash away.
Herlast long shower had been after Graduation, when Terry had slipped in the mud and fallen on top of her. She remembered the look he gave her when he realized how minimal her clothing was under her robes. Okay, nonexistent. In the same moment, she noticed he had the Bat Suit under there. They both had their dirty little secrets.
Oh, it had been an innocent thing—after the first 4 seconds, after they remembered Dana was filming them. Well, two years of covering Terry's Bat-tracks had taught them a thing or two about creating distractions. So they became the instigators of a mud fight that pulled in the entire senior class and half the guests. Even Dana's vidcam was a splatter victim halfway through. Of course the prim and proper professors were horrified—watching their fellow teachers fling mud at former students.
Needless to say, no one remembered those four breathless seconds of boy on girl. Except the girl. She'd tried to wash away those seconds long after the mud was sucked through the drain and the hot water was gone. Cold shower, seemed appropriate, but it didn't work. The secondswere still there two months later, even after the feeling of bathing in crap was gone.
Now the shower hissed, steamy and hot as ever. A stream of water fell at an angle onto the tile wall. White suds slipped slowly down rich brown skin. So did tears.
Then the tears stopped. The girl redirected the water's path and scrubbed everything off her skin. Her eyes, normally a polished mahogany, seemed as black as coarse jet stone.
XXX
She left the showering area draped in a robe that would have been bunched a foot on the ground if she hadn't been growing. As it was, an inch or two dragged across the stone floor as she walked back into the main cave. An automated dry-cleaning unit bleeped, declaring it was starting the fourth of six successive deep cleans. She glanced at the Bat Suit through the glass window, thinking six cleans might not be enough, considering how much shit had been caked onto it. She moved on to the computer.
The nose ring sat innocently on the console in the exact spot where it had been before the whole guano nightmare. The bat feces had been carefully wiped off and the golden surface gleamed just as brightly as it had before. It wasn't actually gold but a highly sensitive photoreceptor wrapped around the entire surface of the ring, or at least that was what Drake's notes said. Whoever he was. The camera boasted a 325-degree range of view, blocked only by the wearer's fat head. The audio capabilities were similar, meaning far better than any human's. It was also waterproof.
The real question was: was it shit-proof?
She sat and spent a moment hooking the upload device to the computer. The name Upload Device made it seem more elaborate than it really was. Basically it was a cord connected to a rectangular box with a small hole in it. When the computer registered the new hardware, she picked up the nose ring and opened the metal post. Instead of threading it through a hole in her nose, however, she pushed it into the hole in the upload device. 'Just stick the prong in the right hole. Basic Sex Ed.'
The computer and all twenty of its cooling fans went into high gear. A file transfer screen popped up with a ridiculously high amount of data listed as being moved. To put it in perspective, if she tried this at home, her computer would spit out the files vehemently and give her a message in flowery script reading Dearest User, I'll upload those files right after you cram an adult sperm whale up your pie hole. Kisses.
It took the bat computer fifteen seconds.
Then a message window opened. Camera 4 unresponsive. File "Cam4footage" has no backup. Create backup, Y/N? She hit Y immediately. There was no way she was risking losing everything after all the shit she had gone through to find it. Literally. File "Cam4footage" saved on backup hard drive 17.
Backup hard drive Seventeen? …Some people were just too damn rich.
She pulled the unresponsive nose ring camera from the hole. So it really was a disposable camera. Now it really was just a trinket. She dropped it into the pocket of her robe before setting about opening the infamous Cam 4 Footage.
It opened, and she opted to view the very first minutes of footage. She was rewarded with a painfully warped view of the world. The computer suggested she use the mouse to drag the blue rectangle over a section of the vid image she wished to view undistorted. She did, and the warped picture took second stage to the crystal clear vid of Terry looking into a mirror. He grinned. "Welcome to my world."
XXX
Cam4footage, 00:00:01
Terry snapped the nose ring shut. He looked at his other nose ring, the one he had worn earlier that night. He pocketed it. Then he looked at the full-length mirror. He frowned, not certain how to begin. A quote from some wise dead guy? Just launch straight in all serious-like? Or say something smart-ass that would elicit the usual Bat-glare?
Hmm, though choice.
He grinned. "Welcome to my world, Brucie."
Okay, now that he had the old man's back up, he could get down to business. "So. This is the Big One, and the Big One is a cult of cat Splicers who call themselves the Pride. Very smart; they know how to cover their tracks. The way I found them was this." He held a business card up to his nose for a moment. It was black with white lettering that read 'A Haven, safe from the Law.' The flipside had a Gotham address scrawled on it.
"Apparently there's a big gambling market for "Criminal Olympics"—fights, races, that sort of thing. And the Pride just happens to have the monopoly on it. They distribute these cards in all the right places, and the perps pour in. Every now and then they also arrange a police bust and arrest everyone stupid enough to get caught. See what I said about the covering of tracks? When the police hear rumors about the "Haven" cards, they think people are just spreading the hype about their busts. They don't investigate. They don't find out about the Pride."
He shrugged, a little nervous. "You're going to kill me, but I already infiltrated. Tonight…May 29th." He checked his watch. "It's…2:37 a.m. now, so it's really the 30th now. Anyway, the winner of the race or the fight gets a free ticket into Pride. I won." He tapped his nose ring. "I didn't have thiscamera yet, so I had to make do. There was a cam built into my helmet, and I bugged two people with short distance tick cams. They upload their images directly into a receiver—my trusty helmet—and fall off and "die," when the receiver moves out of range. I'll rewatch the footage some time and get it on camera for you to see.
"The first person was Erin Cross, one of the criminals. She's wanted in Texas, but I'm pretty sure the real reason she's running is that her ex-boyfriend Chase, a big time mob-boy, has offered a lot of money for her decapitated head. The second guy—I'm fairly sure about this—is the leader of the cult. He goes by the name Kahn, uses a White Siberian Tiger Splice. Very sophisticated. He fits the profile of a cult leader. Charismatic and very…easy to like."
He moved on quickly, not wanting to admit that he was starting to like the guy too. "Kahn also has a female second-in-command, but the cam on him didn't get a shot of her before it died. Anyway, I'm set to be introduced to the Pride—in a few days. That gives me enough time to set up an alibi…and to graduate tomorrow. And,"—he glared at himself in the mirror and practiced the lines he would say to Wayne the next time he saw him—"I am not under any circumstances: rain, sleet, or Apocalypse, putting on the bat suit on my Graduation Day. Kapishe?"
XXX
Max's eyes, bright as gleaming mahogany, danced, remembering exactly what big, black techno-Kevlar suit he had been wearing underneath his graduation robes. She was in a brighter mood, seeing Terry alive and well and…well, being Terry. Her hand found its way to the keyboard. She mused, "I wonder how…ah, what the Hell." She pushed forward the recording time fourteen hours to the Graduation of the Class of '042.
XXX
"Goddamn, this is even more boring the second time through," she moaned an hour later. The only interesting part had been when the nasal voice announced 'Gibson, Maxine,' and she watched herself walk. She'd bolted straight up in her chair and cried, "I knew it! I knew those robes made me look fat!"
Then, boredom. Tedious, mind numbing boredom.
She found the fast forward button. All of the numerous G-named graduates moved in hyper speed. The novelty wore off in three seconds. Then she heard the words that would change everything.
"Gebyuressndr debrndtnds nwmbnnes."
She slowed down and replayed the last part.
"Get your ass under the grand stands. Now, McGinnis."
XXX
Cam4footage, 15:23:18
Terry slumped in his folding, metal chair, not willing to believe what he was hearing.
"Now, McGinnis."
He folded his arms and glared at the man sitting in one of the guest of honor seats. He didn't know how Wayne was managing to talk to him from two hundred feet away. He didn't care because he was not listening. La-la-la.
"Terry, there are Jokerz under the stands, wiring a bomb. If people find out, there will be a panicked mob situation."
He groaned. Panicked mobs meant stampedes, and that meant lots of small and weak people trampled to death. Like, say, Max, Matt, Dana, his mother…Goddamn it, why were all the people he cared about short!
On the other hand, a bomb blowing up meant lots of dead people, and then lots of small and weak people trampled to death when the survivors became a panicked mob.
He hated this job.
Audrey McFinn and Maeve McHallow exchanged surprised glances as the young man seated between them suddenly vanished.
Terry made his way towards the back of the grand stands quickly and quietly. One could argue that was impossible when wearing billowing purple robes, but—hey, he was Batman. ...In billowing, purple robes. Okay, he got a few stares.
Fortunately, the shadows right under the stands were empty, so when Ace appeared with a familiar backpack in his teeth, he could glare daggers at the mutt in peace. He ripped off his graduation cap, then froze and stared at the small speaker taped on the inside. Oh, he was going to kill Wayne, all right. The only question was in how many ways?
He grabbed the suit, kicked off his shoes, and wrangled the damn thing on up to his waist. Only then did his pull off that damn purple gown to reveal his upper body—his bare, utterly devoid of all clothing body. And judging by how the suit clung to his hips, there wasn't anything on under there either.
XXX
"He…he went skivvies!"
Max glared at the image of Terry looking down at his naked chest, trying to pull the bat suit on fast. And he had given her a hard time for going skivvies to graduation? Hypocrite! "Oh, he is so dead when I get my hands on him," she growled.
Then she blinked when Terry jammed the Bat mask right over his head without bothering to take off the nose ring. The screen went dark, and then…
Cam4footage, 15:27:47 –PATCHING…
The image turned colors of black and red, and she recognized the way the world looked from behind the Bat mask's electronic eyes. Oh. Well, that was convenient.
XXX
Cam4footage, 15:28:14
The grand stands were enormous wooden affairs completely covered to keep the small children attending from falling through. The backside was open near the bottom, though, and light spilled in along the ground underneath, growing less and less until darkness filled the space between the creaking rafters.
In the deep shadows, a group of Jokerz laughed among themselves. "Time to teach these kids about the Big Bang!" one crowed. Crowing made sense with him; he wore an extensive number of crow feathers—in his dark braided hair and stitched into his black leather shoulder plate and leggings. A stylized crow tattoo stretched across his bare chest. For old movie aficionados, he also had on the signature sad clown mask of white and black face paint. Very striking on a Native American.
The rest of the clowns were birds of a feather: males dressed all in black with a feather or two braided in their hair. The one with the tattoo was obviously the leader. Just guessing, but he called himself the Crow. Or possibly Draven.
A lone girl wearing round scientist's goggles came into view, looking up from a box heavily chained to one of the stand's support posts. "All right, we're set. Big Bang in ten, Draven."
There was something to be said for watching old movies.
Up above, the announcer called out the name 'Jeffries, Bryce.'
Draven grinned crazily. "Right. Let's clear out, boys." The girl ignored that and brushed off her fishnets as the Crow leapt from the diagonal beam he had been crouching on back down to the ground.
One of the crow clowns walked off into the shadows towards the parking lot. A moment later he was thrown back towards the rest of the group, knocking down two of his fellows. Bowling for Buzzards.
Batman walked from the shadows, waggling a finger. "Let's clear out…boys?" he repeated, scandalized. He gestured at the girl. "Didn't your mother ever teach you about 'Ladies First'?"
"Sarah's no Lady," one of the clowns laughed right before she kicked him someplace not so nice. Guess she really wasn't a Lady.
Draven didn't seem to notice Sarah's outburst, his eyes on the Bat. "Why, Hello," he grinned. "Didn't think you were one for the Daylight hours, Bat." He shrugged. "Then again, I could say the same thing about ourselves. Most of us are still asleep in our beds. Sorry, Bats, but you'll have to be satisfied with getting your ass kicked by us few early birds."
Just to put things in perspective, it was 6 p.m.
The rest of the crows had been nervous, but seeing their leader totally blow off the Bat gave them courage. They drew out the usual weapons of a gang: knives, chains, and—uh-oh, an old fashioned but very effective silenced gun. He went after that one first, hurling the batarang and diving. He did both actions quicker and harder than he should have, and his muscles screamed because of it, but he much preferred that pain to a bullet in the crotch. Sarah's gun went off after the batarang hit her arm blunt side first, and the bullet went wild, punching a hole through a wooden support post. The firearm flew from her hand.
He turned his dive into a side roll and powered towards the fallen gun, trying to take it out of play. Then Draven's feet slammed into his gut. As he fell, the Crow swung around the support post once more before releasing his grip and landing on the Bat's back.
Batman was driven back into the ground and felt the air be forced from his lungs. Air that he had just managed to suck back in after that gut pummeling. To make matters worse, Draven had stuck a perfect dismount—on him. Damn, but did he hate trained gymnasts. Martial artists he could handle; gymnasts could kick his ass and make it look choreographed.
He heard the knife rather than saw it. Air or no air, he rolled quickly. Rather than tripping, Draven leapt up and came back down, ready to stab the Bat in his new position. But this time, the Dark Knight was on his back, and he could see the knife aimed at his chest. He got hold of Draven's wrist somewhere close to the last second (the bat on his chest had a little slit in it now), and he hurled the man sideways.
He was finally able to inhale. About bloody time.
The Crow hit the dirt in a forward roll, followed by a flip with a half twist, ending with a perfect landing accented by a sardonic bow in the Bat's direction. The knife was still in his hand. Good God, he hated gymnasts.
Oh, great. Sarah had the gun again. He eyed the other clowns warily. He'd only faced the two of them so far, one at a time. The rest seemed to be hanging around, watching, and this wasn't even the entire group. He did not want them to decide to team up on him. Time to get sneaky.
He jumped up and fired his rockets, flying up into the shadows of the stand's rafters. Then he killed the rockets. The flames died, and he disappeared into darkness. He moved along the rafters quickly. Okay, Sarah had told Draven the Big Bang would happen in 10. It had been a little over 20 seconds of polite hero/villain banter, followed by 15 seconds of getting his ass kicked (just 15 seconds? …wonderful), so he guessed she had meant 10 minutes.
Oh yeah, he had plenty of time. They'd run off, he'd dismantle the bomb, change back into the cap and gown, and graduate smiling.
Only one problem: Wayne hadn't taught him how to dismantle a bomb yet. The bomb was chained and quite possibly welded to the support post. And judging by the way the gang avoided it, he was willing to bet it was pressure sensitive too. …Actually that was a lot more than one problem.
Oh yeah, he was doomed.
He looked down at Sarah. Well, she had set up that bomb; she could take it apart. Now if only he could get to her—through Draven and the rest of his thugs. And her gun. He was beginning to see why Wayne hated the things so much.
Well, time was a tickin'.
He turned on his suit's camouflage and melted into the shadows completely. Then he dropped down on the clown he had thrown from the shadows earlier. That one seemed easy enough prey.
He was right. He knocked the clown down and then threw him up to a support post, pulling out dark cord from his belt. He wrapped it tightly about the clown's neck and the post and tied it off before moving on to the next adversary. He didn't like the idea of choking a man unconscious, especially just after he himself had been gasping for air, but he didn't have time to be overly ethical.
As he charged the nearest clown, he noted how quiet the whole thing was. The suffocating ofa clown, a few startled grunts as the others tried to figure out where the Bat was (thank you, camouflage), and the annoying voice that called Samantha Kaye to the stage—that was it. He had never met a quieter group of criminals. Actually, he was used to them being quite loud. Then again, he'd never fought a gang in broad daylight directly underneath a crowd of thousands, either. He guessed they didn't want the attention.
He got hold of the next clown's knife and slammed the butt of it into the guy's head before hurling it up into the rafters. The clown fell to the ground. The knife thunked solidly into one of the wooden beams. Good, getting rid of the enemy's weapons in a fight was always a good idea. Sarah swung the gun in his direction. Case in point.
Freezing, he realized he had been moving too fast for the camouflage to hide him. There was probably a big Bat-shaped outline of him in the air right now. Okay, time to visit the nice rafters again.
Oh, yeah.
About that man choking to death over there…
He threw a batarang. The black cords were sliced, and the clown hit the dirt unconscious. He couldn't tell if the man started to breathe again. He couldn't do much to help, even if the clown wasn't breathing. He'd already hightailed it to the higher parts of the grand stand, and the aim of Sarah's gun was catching up fast.
Then a savior came in a strange disguise.
Draven slapped her hand down. "No!" he snarled quietly, "You'll hit one of people sitting up there, and our cover will be blown. …How long have we got?"
She glared at him but answered, "Bit more than eight minutes."
Batman took the opportunity to move to the side and drop down on another of the crow cronies. He leapt out of the way as Sarah whirled, leveling the gun. The only thing she ended up aiming at was an unconscious clown. He had disappeared again. "I am so sick of this clown!" she growled.
Someone behind her retorted, "That makes two of us, Lady."
The Bat hit the ground as she spun and fired. Okay, maybe his normal wiseass-ness wasn't helping him here. He rolled as she pulled the trigger again, then just barely registered Draven's foot before it slammed into his crotch.
Um, ow?
He whipped around and gave the same to Draven. The Crow buckled and hit the ground. He jumped to his feet and picked the man up as a shield between himself and Sarah. Hopefully these crows had a Don't Shoot the Leader policy. "Little factoid," he growled into Draven's ear as he moaned. "A man can only get kicked in that area so many times before he adds in a little extra armor. Got me, Crow Boy?"
Yeah, he was a wiseass. It was in his nature, couldn't help it.
"Let him go or I'll shoot you in the ass." Sarah warned, cocking the gun. Five seconds later, she hadn't shot. Oh, so there was a Don't Shoot the Leader policy. Meaning…
"Catch!" he called and hurled Draven straight at her. She dodged, but Crow Boy flying by was enough distraction that she didn't notice the Bat coming up fast until he barreled into her. He got the firearm into his hand and pressed up against her temple. She froze. Good girl.
He spared a glance up at the rest of the crow clowns—the conscious ones anyway, all eleven of them. Okay, the odds sucked in his favor. He put on his game face—and his evil voice. "…You do realize you've got a Get out of Jail Free card here."
They ran over each other hightailing it out of there. Convenient, that.
"Ah, the power of suggestion," he chuckled when they were gone, and then frowned down at Sarah. He dragged her over to the bomb. "Okay, we're going to play a little game. We sit here until you dismantle the bomb."
She laughed bravely. "I'm not afraid of a little Kaboom."
He threw a batarang with cord attached behind him. Draven, Mr. Fancy Gymnast, fell ungracefully into the dirt, the cord wrapped around him from ankles to elbows. Oh yes, revenge was sweet. The knife fell from the Crow's hand, and before he could wriggle to retrieve it, a second batarang knocked into his head, blunt side, and he went limp.
The Bat smiled back at Sarah, who suddenly didn't look so brave. "You were saying?
She gulped and pressed a button on the side of the bomb. The countdown stopped.
He blinked. "That's it?" Shit, his little brother could have done that. Groaning, he hit her on the head with the butt of the gun. He spent a minute tying up all the unconscious crow clowns, then walked out of the grand stands. He found Ace lying curled by the last support post before sunshine looking off into the distance, probably in the direction the clowns had run. "You could have helped me, you know," he told the lazy mutt.
The dog snorted.
Terry ripped off the mask and wiped the sweat off his face.
"Mayer, Rodney," the announcer called.
'McGinnis, Terry' jerked, realizing there were maybe three people left before he would be called up there. "Shit!" he snarled and kept repeating the word as he grabbed up his cap and gown. He looked down at the bat suit. No time. He ripped off the gloves and stuffed them into his belt along with the mask. Running towards the podium, he pulled the purple gown over his head. Next came the cap, adjusted at just the right angle, an angle made up by some uppity Etiquette expert over a hundred years ago. Why? Because the Bastard could.
The man on the podium, just as bored out of his mind as the rest of the assemblage, called the next name on the list. "McFinn, Audrey."
Terry jumped the twenty feet from the base of the podium to the top, landing in a crouch on the edge. Go Batsuit. His cap angle got skewed. Oh, who really cared anyway? He quickly jumped in front of the procession of graduates lined up to receive their diplomas. The girl in behind him, Maeve, he thought her name was, eyed him oddly, but then the announcer called "McGinnis, Terence."
He winced at his full name but smoothed out his face quickly and walked up to the school Principal.
"Looks like you finally managed to show up on time," the man said through his teeth as Terry smiled back, looking genuinely happy to see the man. Terry had taken more acting lessons. He finally got handed the diploma.
A cheer rose up from certain people in the audience. His family, Dana, and Max, of course, but also the nerds, the bully-targets, the ex-cons, and every freak in the school. Yeah, he was wildly popular in some very unpopular circles.
The person who really caught his attention though, wasn't cheering but applauding politely. The elderly gentleman sat among the honored guests at the side of the podium. Terry smiled at him and mouthed the words, 'You owe me.'
The man nodded simply and smiled back.
Terry fell slack jawed. Bruce, he…he had just smiled. It wasn't a game face. He had genuinely smiled. At him. The smile came back to his own lips a thousand times brighter.
Oh yeah, this was a great moment.
XXX
Max sat in the chair dumbly, her jawed dropped. She stared up at the enormous computer screen showing a picture of the school principal kicking Terry off the podium. Then:
"Shit! That was frickin' sweet!"
The old Max was back, bright eyed and bouncing in her chair like an excited preschooler.
That had been, by far, the most killer thing she had ever seen. It was like watching the best TV Show ever made…with no commercials! She pulled the nose ring out from her robe's pocket and looked at it resting in the palm of her hand. What else had been stored inside that one little piece of jewelry?
She pocketed the nose ring again and fiddled with the program. She found an option that displayed a list of snapshots of the footage, one for every twenty minutes. The programming in that nose ring was amazing.
She scrolled through the images. The first few were all the same shot of Terry's bedroom ceiling. Then breakfast cereal, his brother Matt wrinkling his nose, the inside of a car, way too many shots of the kid sitting in front of him at graduation, one stellar picture of Draven driving his boots into the poor guy's stomach, then another two dozen shots of that kid in front of him at graduation.
She paged through more snapshots, looking for something interesting. A whole lot of it seemed boring. For example, there were eleven consecutive shots of Bruce Wayne standing at the exit of the Bat Cave, glaring down. Like she hadn't seen that before.
She skipped the rest of that page entirely.
All seemed lost; things would slip into boredom completely. Then she jumped up in her chair at the sight of one shot.
That cat...
XXX
Cam4footage, 02:17:04:26
Sean—no, Terry. Terry sat slumped in a chair in the darkened living room of the apartment he was renting.
He felt something and looked down. A kitten had both paws on his knee and was staring up at him. It was one of the cats he had borrowed for his alibi. The black cat was turning out to be Terror on four legs and the Persian was better described as a fluffy bowling ball with a generalized anxiety disorder, but this one, the tabby, was okay—when he wasn't sleeping inside the blender. Or in the microwave. Or the dishwasher. Or the vacuum cleaner (he still didn't understand that one).
The kitten mewled, looking up at him wearing the most pitiful expression he had ever seen. He caved and pulled the little guy into his lap. "Well, at least you care," he sighed, scratching his tawny gold ears. "So, do you want to hear about my bad day?"
And what a very bad day it had been. To summarize, he had become a stranger, a face in the crowd, the person in front of you in line, that guy who was just passing through your life and didn't matter one damn. He was nobody. He was nothing, and it was driving him crazy.
"I feel like I'm back in Juvie," he sighed. The kitten cocked his head, and he elaborated. "Juvie, it's like…it's a little like the genetics lab the bad people put you in." The little guy curled into a ball. Terry stroked him comfortingly, but he sighed, "Yeah, that bad."
Juvie. The first thing they did to you was to strip away your identity. They cut your hair. They lazered your tattoos away if you had any. Whatever possessions you brought with you were locked away until you "earned" them back. Every day it was the same thing. Stay in line, "Nobody." Don't talk to me; you aren't a person anymore. When he needed someone to cling to the most, he had found himself all alone. When he had earned enough good behavior creds to talk to his family, the parentals had just divorced. Bad time to get a phone call from him. He'd ended up calling Max once a week just to stay sane. Her mom and dad had split about the same time, and from what he gathered, she was on probation. The only differences between the two of them were that she had done white-collar crime while he did blue, and that a really good deal had been worked out for her outside of court. Technically, she hadn't even been booked. He hated her for that sometimes, but mostly he was glad. Max was the sort of person who deserved sunshine and butterflies.
"Sort of like you," he smiled, stroking the kitten. "They must've called you Butterfree for a reason. Don't worry. In a few days, you'll have a rich old grandma slaving over your every whim. Whole fields of butterflies for you." The kitten perked up at that, eyes bright. He really seemed to understand everything Terry said.
All three cats did. Terry laid the blame for that on their previous home, an unethical genetics laboratory in Eastern Europe, now permanently closed down. Even if he hadn't known that, he could have guessed their genes weren't normal. Easy. The things were enormous, the size of large adult housecats and still only kittens. Even Butterfree, the youngest and daintiest of the three, took up a sizeable part of Terry's lap.
According to their files, they were all something called an Isis breed, the important thing about that being they were worth millions of dollars apiece. He was acting as a halfway house for the kittens until they got shipped off to the Humane society. They'd be gone in a day or two. And he'd be completely alone again. He sighed. If only…
He blinked. Wait, what was he thinking?
Butterfree was a kitten. Granted, the little guy was genetically screwed with, probably had a higher IQ than he did, and was named after a frickin' Pokémon, but he was still a kitten. And besides, what little he knew about taking care of cats came secondhand from Max. She had a habit of blathering on about them every time her birthday came up, raising her eyebrow pointedly every 2.6 minutes.
He sighed. He had promised he would keep the cats only long enough to get their scent on him and make his disguise rock solid. Then the little hairballs were off to Gotham's Humane Society chapter, where they would be auctioned off to billionaire cat lovers to raise money for charity. He'd promised, and that was that. In the morning they—
He looked down and discovered that the striped tabby was purring into his chest contentedly. It paused and stared up at him, unblinking.
He pulled his cell phone from his pocket and dialed an unlisted number in Gotham. He muttered curses about kitty eyes as he waited for the call to be routed through a couple dozen satellites, bounced around the Internet a few times, and then finally sent to an unknown location, probably somewhere near a reserve for an endangered species of big cat. Did he really want to do this? He frowned at the phone. Okay, if the person didn't pick up after two rings, he was gone.
The old woman on the other line answered almost immediately, "If I know you, start talking."
Damn. He took a deep breath before saying, "Hi. It's…"—he paused and looked up pleadingly at the ceiling—"the new Bat."
"Ah, the young protégé." Her voice was suddenly incredibly silky, from Grandma to Vixen in an eye blink."Come to chat?"she asked. "Or are you all business, like Old Wrinkly Wings?"Somehow, she made that nickname seem affectionate. She didn't give him time to answer, launching straight into small talk. "What's crime been like in Gotham lately? And don't tell me about the Jokerz; there's always Jokerz running around. Bloody annoying."
"Tell me about it." He knew he shouldn't be chatting. In his mind he could see Wayne glaring at him, a vein in his forehead ticking. He couldn't help it. It was the first time all day he'd talked to someone who knew who he was. Well, sort of. She knew he was Batman. "If not Jokerz, how about Catgirlz?" he asked with a smile.
Slinky voice. "Oh, do tell."
"Teenage girls dress up in cat suits and try to be you."
"I should sue. …Are they any good?"
"Besides the fact that they routinely set off alarms, trip over their high heels, and fall off the sides of very tall buildings? Personally, I'm beginning to think they fall on purpose so I have to catch them in my arms."
"Let me guess: they think it's destiny and that you should fall madly in love with them."
He made a face. "That, and they keep mentioning being your heir or your daughter."
"I'm guiltless, honest!" she gasped. "…Well, about that, anyway. And a kid? Me? This girlish figure has never had a baby packed onto it in any way, shape, or form. …Well, there was this pregnant suit that I stashed a gold cat statue in during that one daylight museum heist…"
"Miss Kyle," he began, unable to believe that she would actually tell him that, of all people.
"Statute of Limitations, darling," she purred as he groaned. "My favorite government loophole. Anyway, what does the Old Tiger think about these cat imposters?"
Terry shrugged, absently stroking the kitten. "Actually, we haven't talked about crime in a while."
"You're saying he doesn't spy on you every second of the night?"
"Not lately. Some right of passage thing. He's sworn off watching me, or at least he says he is and keeps what he's seen to himself."
"It's probably that second one. He always had to know everything and couldn't bear to share any of it. So I hear you're in London with Brucie Bats now."
A chill ran up his spine. He tried to calm himself. Okay, so Catwoman knew the identity of Batman—frickin' both of them!
"Ooh, big stony silence. Are you sure you're not related to him?"
Oh, he was so going to kill Wayne. He tried get back on subject before he had an aneurysm. "About the kittens…"
"Oh, how are the darlings!" she cut in, grandmotherly again, much to his relief. "Not too much trouble I hope."
"The black one has a death glare as bad as…Old Wrinkly Wings," he sighed. "And the claws to match. The Persian's afraid of his own tail; he spends a lot of time running away from it. The tabby's okay, though." The tabby was actually sane. He glared down at the purring kitten, not believing what he was about to do. "I have a favor to ask," he sighed.
She all but pounced on him through the phone. "Oh, anything, darling."
He looked down at Butterfree and muttered "Damn kitty eyes" under his breath. Smiling, into the phone he said, "The whole point of this is to get these cats good homes. …about the tabby, Butter—"
"Oh, I thought you'd never ask!" she exclaimed. "Of course you can keep them. I'll have their ownership papers signed in your name—privately, they can go public after you're done with your little criminal game."
"Wait, hold on! Miss Kyle!" he had been shouting the whole time with absolutely zero effect. He finally caught a word in edgewise. "No, just the tabby, just Butter—"
"Oh, I can't split them up!" she mewled. "They've been through so much together. They're a family, and that's final. Don't worry, you four will have a wonderful life together. And there's no need to thank me." Her voice hit full Vixen again. "Just swing by the Hanjii Nature Reserve in four months. I keep a house near there."
He protested, "Miss K—"
"Selena."
"Sel—"
She interrupted him—again. "It's common knowledge I was the Catwoman. The identity of the Batman, however, you'd rather keep that a secret. Am I right…Terry?"
Shit. Shitedee, shit, shitty. "Any…particular day?" he chuckled uneasily.
"Surprise me. Remember Terry, you owe me. And Terry?"
"Yes?"
"It's a date."
He was left staring at his cell as she hung up. "Did she just…" He dropped the phone, shuddering, images of a female Wayne wearing a shredded catsuit stuck in his head.
Butterfree stared up at him innocently, and he glared back. "You had better be worth…this…" He trailed off.
He cradled his head in his hands. "…Damn kitty eyes. Damn them to Hell."
XXX
From the Peanut Gallery: "Note to self, Kill Catwoman. Kill her dead."
Take away the threats of violence, though, and Max was shaking. Those cats. She knew those cats.
Like a woman possessed, she resumed her hunting through the list of images. She was looking for...she didn't know what she was looking for. That was why she skimmed over one picture without it really registering. For three seconds. Then she whipped her gaze back to the snapshot so fast her eyeballs rattled in her sockets. Mocha skin, pink hair—yes, that was Max Gibson in that picture. She checked the time listed for the clip, added that to 2:30 a.m. May 30th, and came up with 5 am-ish, June 2nd. But Terry had been in London by then. And she was pretty sure she didn't have an evil British twin.
"What the Hell?"
She played the clip, and she watched the picture of her spring to life.
XXX
Cam4footage, 03:02:29:40
Max yawned as she closed the apartment's door behind her. Off to the diner for breakfast, then. She'd gotten in the habit of going there during the school year early enough to eat in peace and then head off to school. She didn't know why she kept coming now that the summer break had started. Habit, maybe. The fact that it got her out of the empty apartment that much quicker, perhaps. The ability to Hack in peace—ooh, definitely. She slung the backpack with her laptop in it over her shoulder and headed towards the elevator.
To her surprise, there was someone else the hall, punching in a code to open the apartment next door. New neighbor? Someone to chat with. She frowned. Funny, he was coming in as she was leaving. His door slid open just as she was passing by. She heard him swear and turned to watch an enormous black beast hurtle from the dark depths of the apartment straight at her. The thing hit, and there was a noisy wham as she got slammed back into the hallway wall.
"Oh, shit! I am so sorry!" the man gasped, rushing forward. He tried to pry the animal off her, but the thing flashed impressively sharp teeth, and he snatched back his hands in the nick of time. Then the dark creature went back to…purring into her chest. Oh, it was a cat—a very big cat—a kitten, upon closer inspection. Okay, so it was a black kitten as big as a medium sized dog on her chest. Um, what?
"I'm sorry!" the man repeated. "I think she was aiming for me."
She looked up into slanted green eyes full of concern. "To bowl you over and purr on you?" she asked, a little weakly.
He laughed self-depreciatingly. "More like maul me with her claws. Again." He cocked his head at the kitten, shocked. "She…she really likes you," he said, scratching his head. "Wow. I thought Gyrados had a grudge against the whole human race."
It clicked just then. An enormous kitten named after a Pokémon. Max stared down at Gyrados. "An Isis breed?" she gasped. She looked up at the guy. "She's an Isis breed!" Back to the kitten. "Aw, she's adorable!"
The man scratched his head again. "Are we talking about the same cat?" When both cat and girl glared at him, he cringed.
Max ignored the man and went back to admiring the cat. She'd always wanted one: a stray, a mangy little thing—heck, she wouldn't have cared if had three legs, but now there was an Isis breed in her arms. Okay, it didn't belong to her, but she was holding an Isis breed! They were the gods of cats. As smart as humans, more loyal than dogs (if they decided they liked you), and they didn't shed…or do that hairball thing. More than anything, though, they were companions, something she would have given anything for more times than she could count.
She looked up and noticed the man was staring at her. Okay, she had pink hair. Why could people never seem to get over that? It took her a minute to realize that she was staring back. Until then, she was taking in the raven locks, the Asian features, the muscles. Killer nose ring, too. Kinda reminded her of…no, that was just wishful thinking. Terry was in London, too busy partying with sexy Brit chicks to call.
"Um, hey," he said, "I'm really sorry." His accent wasn't very Gothamite, she noticed. More…New York-ish? Oh well. At least it wasn't Jersey. "Why don't I make it up to you?" he went on."You hungry?" He pointed back into his apartment. "I'm sure I can dig up something. I've got cat food, for sure."
Gyrados seemed to suddenly remember she was starving to death and dashed away into the apartment, presumably towards food.
The man laughed and held out his hand to help Max up. He explained, "I know I've got cat food because if I didn't, I'd be dead. Gyrados would have eaten me alive. Literally. You wouldn't believe how much food she goes through in one day."
"About one point three times her body weight?"
He stared at her a second. "Yeah, that would be about right. So…are you coming?"
She looked at his hand and thought about it. She had been planning to wallow in loneliness at a diner in the bowels of Gotham, but now a strange man whom she had never seen before was inviting her to eat with him. In his darkened apartment. With his Isis breed kitten.
Was there a downside to this?
She took his hand, and he helped her up. She walked into the apartment and he followed. He stopped at the door, shut it, flipped on a few lights, then leaned against the wall and studied his reflection in the front hall mirror. Asian, green-eyed, New York-type accent. Oh yeah, this would work. He'd totally fake out his best friend since toddler-hood into believing he was a total stranger. …What the Hell had possessed him!
He sighed. He had originally rented the empty apartment next to Max's because he knew the building, and if something went wrong, he knew every way in and out. He had also done it for sentimental reasons. His family used to live in that exact same apartment—before the hard times.
He studied his reflection. It looked lonely. Okay, that was what had possessed him. He was lonely, and his best friend had just been bowled over by one of his three insane kitties. He had seen the opportunity and he had taken it. Now he was here. "Way to go, Terr," he muttered under his breath. Louder, he called, "My name is Sean Kim, by the way!"
She replied, "Max Gib—Oh My God, there's three of them!"
XXX
Max stared at the reflection of Terry: the man she knew as Sean. Her jaw dropped in disbelief. "Sean…Terr. But the eyes, the skin, how did he…when…Oh My God, I'm going to kill the little creeps! I mean, the Creep!" She cradled her head in her hands. "Ow. This makes my brains hurt." She winced. "My brain. I have one brain. And the two of them are one person. Shit. Okay, I am going to find Terry and kill him. Then I'll bring him back to life again so I can kill Sean too."
She smiled darkly, eyes glittering in the dark. "Great, I have a plan. Now let's get down to business, look through the rest of these files seriously, and find Terry so I can Goddamn kill him!"
Shit, that was long! …and I've just used yet ANOTHER human waste expletive. Hmm, ever see that South Park episode where curse words were actually "curse" words, and if people said them enough, you summoned a demon? Well...
BWB: looks behind shoulder
Sesshoumaru, Demon Lord of the West, very sexy: sits on her couch and glares back
BWB: (defensively) "Hey, if I'd known cursing that much would bring you here, I would have censored the swears." (under her breath: "actually, I would have cursed that much years ago!")
Sesshie: cute, elfin ears twitch "I heard that!"
BWB: "…uh-oh." Runs away.
Sesshie: runs after…draws evil sword
BWB: "Oh, Shhhhhhhhhhiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiittttttttttttttttttt!"
Inuyasha, Sesshie's brother: suddenly appears, scratches head. "Um, what?"
Heh, heh. Yeah. Anyways, I hope the chapter didn't totally suck. I have a habit of occasionally writing random scenes that I think are hilarious…though I could be wrong…easily. This was just my way of fitting in one…or five…of them into the story and getting this stupid chapter over with so I could start on the next one. I REALLY like what I've got planned for chapter 10. And yes, I'll work on it as fast as I can.
Happy Summer, Peoples! (And Knottaclue, if your kids are still young, you've got my sympathy. Can I have yours? My qualifications: toddler brother with scissors, loads of fine china (my inheritance) in hand's reach, markers to draw in my books with,a nasty habit of scratching (my) DVD/CDs, shouting fests, fragile psyches, and...hmm, have I forgotten anything? ...Oh, yeah. Potty training and new carpeting...BAD MIX! ...sigh, where is the Goblin King and that bloody Labyrinth when you need them!)