It has come to my attention that people are getting confused by the time changes…again. And this just bugs me, as you're only supposed to be confused when I want you to be.
I think the problem may be that the updates are spaced out (some more than others…), which makes the reader forget, among other things, what a chapter in Italics means. For that reason only am I going to do this for you guys. Welcome to the first ever "What Do We Know" Timeline. I hope you're all happy, because I now have to go back and fix all the dates so they actually work. Not really looking forward to it, but hey, for you guys?
Cue the TV announcer guy: "Previously, on What Dread Hand..."
May 29th, 23:42 — Terry infiltrates the Pride through an underground competition and is given a Spliced alter ego named "Pantharis." His fellows inductees come to be known as Bast and Lynx. The Pride's leader is Kahn, though he seems to have a female partner.
May 30th, 02:37 — Terry begins his use of the nose ring spy camera and records a brief rundown of his undercover operation
May 30th, 18:00 — Hamilton High Class of 2042 graduates!!
May 30th, 21:12 — Bruce "and Terry" leave Gotham for a globetrotting business trip. Terry gets a new face.
June 2nd, 19:41 — Terry makes a -cough- deal with Selena Kyle to keep the Isis Breeds.
June 4th, 04:56 — Max meets Terry's alter ego, Sean Kim and falls in love with his cats…and maybe him.
June 4th, 22:58 — Kahn welcomes Pantharis (Terry) to his world. Another of the newcomers to the Pride, a Detective Gupta, is tortured for information; Terry secretly watches this through the security system. The unseen woman makes a 2nd pseudo-appearance.
June 9th, 21:23 — Batman (Terry) patrols Gotham, learns Max is falling in love with Sean Kim, and gets trounced by a Cat Burglar (Bast, from the Pride)
June 10th, 08:15 — Pantharis (Sean Kim (…Terry)) has breakfast in the Pride with Kahn. Back in his apartment, Max reveals her loneliness…and her feelings for Sean, and when his shocked rejection causes her to break down, he does the only thing his conscience will let him do and kisses her.
June 13th, 05:09 — THIS CHAPTER
…
UNKNOWN
…
July 5th, 04:54 — A panicked Terry gives Max a garbage bag and a piece of jewelry (nose ring), tells her to act normally, and... Vanishes.
…
A MYSTERY
…
August 5th, 23:43 — Batman saves Mary McGinnis from being raped and killed. Terry has been reported missing for nearly a month.
August 6th, 18:48 — Max comes across a man named Keller close to unmasking the Bat in the same way she once attempted.
August 7th, 05:07 — The Bat pays Keller a little visit.
August 8th, 02:16 — Bruce confronts Max, who has been masquerading as the Bat; when he tries to make her hand up the cowl, Max kicks Bruce out of his own cave. She discovers Terry's secret camera recording.
August 8th, 04:43 — Max begins to look through the spy footage and discovers that Terry was in Gotham in June…and that she knew his alias.
…
UNKOWN
…
?THE END?
…Blinks. Okay, I think those dates all work. Voilà! We are now all on the same page.
The main thing to remember is that we have a mystery on our hands. There are large unknowns in our timeline. Each chapter reveals a little more, but whatever happened to Terry after 5 a.m. on July 5th will remain a mystery unless Max can find Terry
June 13th, 05:09
The diner, trendy as all hell, was quiet. On a Friday, that seemed near miraculous, though that being said, it was the break of dawn. The little period restaurant ran an authentic 24-hour shift. The catch was that any person up at that God-forsaken hour was either paid to do so or was insane. Max, mad, pink-haired, cat-crazed, computer scientist that she was, fit the latter quite nicely. Terry hadn't yet decided to which of the two camps Sean Kim belonged. Terry figured he himself was both. He had spent the night under the cowl, and though crime didn't pay, crime-fighting did: just a few creds over the minimum wage. As for the insanity plea, he was letting his alter ego go out with Max to one of the hottest places in town on a Friday under the cloak of nightfall. Yes, the sun was going to rise up out of the bay at any moment, but it still sounded dangerously like a hot date.
Through the window, he watched the sunrise in all its Technicolor glory cast rays of light over a yawning paperboy as the milkman rumbled by. He heard the slosh of milk, the chatter of clinking glass, and the strange sounds unique to gas engines as the hulking milk truck passed the diner. He could almost believe he really was a century in the past.
"What do you think of my little secret?" Max had asked him as they met each other outside the diner.
Sean had confessed to loving it.
As for Terry, 'her little secret' made his heart (secretly beating inside the still-bruised chest of Sean Kim) ache. Her little secret. It was one secret of many, big and small, that she had been keeping from him: her best friend. Breakfast at this diner had been her early morning ritual since their senior year and, even though he had constantly been coming 'off shift' in the same area and hungry as all hell, she had never breathed a word about the place.
Though his stomach would never forgive her, Terry didn't mind. Or rather, he didn't mind that in and of itself. Everyone had secrets, some more than others, a few more than was good for their sanity, but they had them still the same. Terry's problem was that, big and small, Max was now revealing her secrets to Sean Kim with frightening regularity, even as she refused to speak two words to Terry.
He watched a barber open his shop across the street pensively. Along with that heartache and fear came worry. Max had a secret that wasn't hers to tell: Terry's.
She needed to unburden herself to someone, he could see that. She needed a confidante. Terry was beginning to see himself how important that was. Bruce had proved, if not a willing ear, at least a safe one. It was killing him to keep from spilling every detail and worry in a six hour phone call. Unfortunately, he knew that Wayne would hang up in the first two seconds and block his number if he tried. He was only supposed to call if 1.) his life was in danger, 2.) he needed to bail out, and 3.) he needed the man's help to do it. Or rather, Batman was. Sean Kim had no connection to Bruce Wayne. Terry wasn't even in the country.
He wondered how Max had managed to keep things bottled up for so long. He wondered why she hadn't confided in Terry. He was her best friend. She could tell him anything; couldn't she?
Food slid under Sean Kim's nose, and he blinked. Breakfast was served. Having gone without food for eleven waking hours, he immediately bit into the bacon, and then moved on to the eggs. He was halfway through the first plate before he realized he wasn't eating, only chewing and swallowing mechanically. He pushed the plate away and stared at it in disbelief. A checklist ran through his mind.
Eighteen years old. Check.
No appetite whatsoever. Check.
Male. He looked down. Check.
There was something seriously wrong with him.
He reached for his coffee, frowned to find that it had been refilled, threw in another sweetener, and knocked it back.
Max looked up at him from across the table. "Still asleep?" she asked, amused.
"Wishing I was," he retorted and jabbed a finger at her as he took another slug of coffee. "You forget. This a late dinner for me. I'm normally falling into bed about now."
She fiddled with the straw of her shake. "Thanks for meeting me. Not hungry?"
He realized she was looking at his food, only about a quarter eaten. He forced himself to shrug. "Too late to eat," he supposed. "Stomach's shut down, I guess." With a yawn, he stretched out, his arms going behind him and up, his legs straightening under the booth. One of his feet brushed against Max, and he froze. He immediately straightened and forced his legs to press up against his seat.
This time he caught the strangely-costumed server pouring more coffee into his cup, and he grabbed it up and gulped, forgoing the sweetener for an excuse to avoid Max's eyes. He had managed to keep things fairly platonic between the two of them the past four days. Footsie did not count as platonic, not after elementary school. They had decided on that unanimously at the age of ten, though Max had reserved the right to kick.
At that moment, Max was not kicking him.
He smiled. For Max he smiled, and then he faked a yawn. He laid his arms across around the top of the bench seat and let his head drop. Then he yawned for real. Thank God.
And under the guise of exhaustion, only half a lie, he avoided any other moral dilemmas until he had paid the check and they were outside by his bike. Max had walked to meet him at the diner. The right thing to do was to offer to drive her back home. The right thing was all well and good until his fogged brain remembered what he drove. He stared at Blüdhaven's latest model balefully. Sex on wheels. Shit. For the first time in his life, he wished that he drove a car.
Unfortunately, no cars fell from the sky to either give him a passenger seat or crush the bike and grant him a reason to call a cab. So with no excuses and a conscience that forced him to say 'hold tight,' he began the longest ten minute ride he had ever driven. For, even though Terry had frequently given Max rides, it was Sean Kim's first time going double with her.
Things went fine at first. But as they were waiting for the green light to enter the auto-lift back up the fortieth level, he felt her hand slip under his jacket to caress his stomach, and his skin crawled in a way that, depending on how you looked at it, was either good or very, very bad.
—
It wasn't until his head hit the couch that Terry realized how very little of his show of being dead on his feet had been an act to avoid Max and the complications and moral dilemmas found within her smile. He was asleep as soon as his cell's alarm had been turned on and he had rolled onto his side to put the phone's faint but annoying glow at his back.
The tentative knock on the door two minutes later, needless to say, went unheard.
-—-
He groaned several hours later as a hand shook his shoulder and an annoying ring played in the background. He turned his head into his pillow, only to pause, knowing full well that there hadn't been a pillow there when he'd fainted dead onto the couch. He raised his head. He felt hot, still half-dead, and like he had maybe two drops of moisture spread throughout his entire body. Such were the joys of falling asleep while fully dressed.
He turned to the owner of the hand and blinked. "Max?"
"Hey Sean?" She smiled at him. "Your alarm went off."
Sean, right. He tried to rise but found his shoulders had been cocooned in a blanket…which also hadn't been there when he'd fallen asleep. Eventually he freed himself, at least from the waist up, and pulled himself upright. "Did you hear it through the walls?"
"No, I was already here. In the bedroom. Playing with Gyrados."
He blinked. No, that statement was in no way completely disturbing. "Gyrados?" he repeated, aghast.
She laughed and shook her head. "She's really not all that bad, Sean. Just proud. More bark, less bite. Far too devious and cunning, but you can avoid the traps if you plan far enough in advance. You know, put that way, she kind of reminds me of Terr…a classmate's boss."
Scratch that, he was completely and utterly disturbed. Bruce Wayne was not to be compared to a kitten; no matter how deadly said kitten was, it was just not done. It was an image he couldn't afford to entertain the next time he saw his boss. The unavoidable snicker when he thought of Miss Kyle's name, 'Wrinkly Wings,' was going to get him in enough trouble. The mental image of the old bat with cat ears as well as wings would probably send him over the edge into hysterics and force Bruce to finally make good on the threat to send him to the Elysian shrinks.
He heard the alarm in the background again. Oh, yeah. Shit. He rolled off the couch. Somehow, he wasn't quite sure, he managed to disentangle the blanket from his legs without toppling. "I need to run." He ran a hand through his hair, pausing as he felt the oil. He remembered what part of town he had to be at in an hour. God forbid a speck of dirt come within a hundred feet of the place. At least being fashionably late was currently in. "After a shower," he amended.
—
An hour and an incident involving a towel later, the latter never to be mentioned again, he jetted into the Hamlet: 'A high-end community, uniquely positioned to offer clear skies and old-time charm at the heart of Gotham'—or some such bullshit. After the automated voice finished describing the district's wonders to him through his helmet's speaker, he muttered under his breath, 'The Hamlet: a high-end community where the pampered, gray-haired brats can't drive for—shit!'
And as the luxury car in front of him almost turned left only to change its mind for the fourth time, he braked hard to keep from rear-ending it. Finally, he spotted the building he had been told to look for. He swerved around to cut in front of the offending vehicle, which was dithering with its left turn signal again, and came to a stop in a controlled skid in front of a valet. A valet who nearly jumped out of his skin. The man's reaction caused him to pause and reflect that perhaps they didn't get much of his kind in the Hamlet.
"I'm sorry sir, but the Inn is closed to the public, invitation onl—oh."
Butterfree had chosen that moment to jump out of the unzipped front of his jacket. The oversized kitten dance around on the plush welcome rugs a bit before turning to the valet, looking bright-eyed and eerily like the Cheshire cat. Watching the Isis breed, he managed not to wince from habit. He knew that grin; it usually went hand-in-hand with the excited words, "Terry let me do something bad!" and was followed shortly thereafter by a parental glare and a grounding.
The valet, abashed, offered to have the bike parked in front of the building. He assented, knowing full well it was because no one on staff would have a clue of how to drive the thing. As he focused on the task of herding the giddy Butterfree in through the door, he watched an middle-aged couple emerge from the annoying car that of course had decided to finally turn left at his stop. They were staring as the valet carefully steered the idling motorcycle up onto the curb.
He broke from his fuming mood long enough to smirk. They definitely weren't used to his type in the Hamlet. Personally, it served Kahn right. If the tiger was going to force him to be awake and sociable in broad daylight for a goddamned lecture, he figured he had not only a right but a duty to rile the natives.
—
Of course, the natives were doing a pretty good job of riling him right back. He was overheating in his leather jacket. He was wearing a leather jacket. He'd been forced to pick his jacket back up from the coat check because without it on they mistook him for one of the help. He looked plebian. They had been born utter snobs. He had been born.
And of course Butterfree had deserted him for the joys of the kitty playroom in the first four seconds, so the only familiar face present during his grand introduction to the Pride's Upside elite was Sean Kim's. Sean Kim: a person he would be plotting to strangle under different circumstances. He glared at the young Korean-Irish crossbreed as he eyed his reflection in his wine glass before draining the pale liquid. He all but slammed the glass down on the long table set up against the wall. Max. Sean. Towel. How could three small words combine to make such a mess?
Head bowed and eyes dark, he wondered how his life could possibly get any more complicated.
…It was about then that he caught a blur of motion at the corner of his vision. In one movement, he slid to the right and grabbed a rambunctious kitten from the air as it tried to pounce the lox platter.
"Impressive reflexes."
He ignored the rich, amused voice as he tried to get a better hold of the overexcited feline. Unfortunately, the creature was squirming worse than a toddler Matt McGinnis near the toy aisle. With a frown, he set the impetuous thing down at his feet, but not before staring the young calico right in the adorable kitty eye and giving it the patented Mary McGinnis 'behave' look. Not that it was likely to do any good, but it was worth a shot.
On bended knee, he scratched the kitten's ear in time to a deep chuckle from above. He looked up from calico fur and inquisitive gray, almond-shaped eyes to dark hands and impressive cuff links. Sean finally forced his gaze up the rest of the Armani suit, and then he was pinned, nailed to the floor by two piercing blue orbs.
"Hmm, he seems to have adopted you already," the tall, dark stranger mused. "But then he always wanted an older brother." He crooked an arm and the cat left its ear rub to leap up into the offered perch. "So. Do you have a name, or shall I call you son?"
"Kim," he answered, perhaps a hair too quickly for his pride but nowhere near fast enough for his nerves. He rose from his kneeling position. He came up shorter than the man, less broad of shoulder, more slender limbed, and a lot younger, but he was standing and his nervousness let up a bit.
The eyes glinted back at him. "Kim. I prefer Tygrus over that, but,"—there came a genial smile—"as the name is taken, may I call you Sean?"
—
Ack, short, but I promised a reviewer to get this out, and since I couldn't decide which direction to take the Kahn-Sean thing, I decided, 'heck with it, y'all are getting a cliffie.' Byes.
—B.W. Butterfly