The Bird Catches The Cat

In roughly 42 hours, the Iceberg Lounge would be hosting the "Snowbird Charity Auction", a gala event to raise funds for the critically endangered Arctic Curlew. If one were to examine the guest list, they'd likely take note of a surprising lack of well-known, wealthy philanthropists for what was purportedly a charity event. Names like Wayne, Kord, Quinn or Holt were oddly absent and replaced with names like Sabatino, Maroni, Thorne, Falcone and Mannheim.

One didn't have to be the world's greatest detective to deduce the true intent of the event. The location. The unusual guest list. No information sent to the press. No publicly declared list of items up for auction. It all pointed to an underground auction of illegally obtained art and antiquities.

A layman might think that the greatest danger to such an event would be law enforcement. In other cities, that might very well be the case...but not in Gotham (in fact, Mayor Hill and the head of the Gotham FBI were both on the list of VIPs invited to the event). The Mona Lisa itself could go up on the auction block and no one would blink an eye.

The true danger was not law enforcement but the very art thieves that stocked the auction's inventory in the first place. Stolen goods couldn't be reported to the police (even in a city as corrupt as Gotham) and certainly couldn't be insured. Despite the common saying, there is truly no honor among thieves.

This was exactly why the items soon to go up for auction were being stored in Warehouse # 42 until they were ready to be sent to the Iceberg Lounge. From the outside, the warehouse was an unassuming gray brick of a building nestled among dozens of similar structures in Gotham's harbor district. The exterior bore a simple sign with the number "42" inscribed upon it. That anonymous, unremarkable facade was entirely by design.

Despite the building's bland exterior, the interior of Warehouse 42 was a cutting edge vault, filled with row after row of lockers. There were no human guards patrolling the building's dark corridors. Too unreliable. Too prone to bribery or temptation. Instead, sensors set into the floor would detect anyone walking across the floor, even the humble footsteps of a mouse would send an alert to the offsite security office.

That same security office also monitored a live feed provided by nearly a dozen hovering camera-drones. The little robots hovered on four buzzing rotors and followed a precise, ceaseless patrol route. Even if their off-site handler fell asleep at the monitor, they were quite capable of identifying and neutralizing intruders with their miniature machine guns. They were an AmerTek product, meant to be produced exclusively for the military. The beams of their small spotlights were the only source of light in the warehouse.

Anyone attempting to break into Warehouse 42 via traditional means would be dead in short order and it was unlikely the Gotham police would either know or care.

In the darkness of the warehouse's rafters, a slightly darker shape descended. If there had been anyone watching the rooftops of the warehouse and its neighboring buildings, then they would see that figure lithely bounding from rooftop to rooftop. Sometimes it used a long whip to snag a protruding duct or HVAC outlet. Sometimes it climbed directly up the walls, fingers and toes leaving claw marks in the cement and plaster.

It was inside the warehouse now, having entered silently through the rooftop. A chemical agent had cut a silent hole through the roof and into the HVAC ducts...Human guards might have noticed the burning scent...but drones didn't have noses.

The shape landed in almost total silence on top of one of the many rows of lockers. The dim, vestigial lights of the warehouse glinted off of the figure's rich curves, covered (but hardly concealed) by her glossy, skin-tight suit. The outfit covered her nearly head-to-toe, except for a glimpse of pale, creamy skin and a hint of cleavage around the suit's neckline. The bottom of her face was also uncovered, revealing lips painted with dark-cherry lipstick.

All this tech and it all goes to waste because they weren't smart enough to hire someone to think in three dimensions. Selina Kyle, known among her peers and the police as Catwoman, smirked as she wound up the microwire cable she had used to rappel down from the ceiling before tucking it into a small pouch by her waist.

I should really be charging Cobblepot for pointing out all the flaws in his security. A wicked smile crossed her full lips. Maybe I'll send him an invoice once this is all over.

She almost laughed out loud at the thought of the pompous little man fuming over the insult. The warehouse's security might have a blindspot above ground level but the drones had sound sensors and would be on her in a second if she were to burst out laughing.

She trotted across the top of the row of lockers and leapt to the next one over. Her heels had cushions and shock absorbers and the faint sound of her footsteps was completely lost under the sound of the drone's own rotors.

First mistake, Cobblepot. Don't put these things so close together. Selina shook her head. Why even make them flat on top? Put an angle on it and no one would be able to balance on it at all.

Maybe I actually should do this for a living. Selina pondered as she hopped easily from one row of lockers to another. She knew a few thieves who had gone "white hat" and used their talents to design and stress test security systems. She could probably make good money from that. A lot safer too...those thieves probably didn't run their tests with live rounds in the guns. But it just wouldn't be any fun without the theft. No jewel glitters as brightly as a stolen one.

Catwoman crouched on top of one of the reinforced concrete locker units. The tight, glossy material of her suit stretched across her long, slender legs and over the taut curve of her hips as she leaned over the edge. One of those AmerTek security drones was approaching. She retrieved her tightly coiled whip from her waist, carefully judging the distance between the warehouse's rafters and the floor. With a snap of her wrist (careful not to crack the whip) the tip of the whip spooled tightly around one of the firmer-looking anchor points just above her head. She gripped the handle tightly and wrapped the length around her wrist a few times to make sure it was secure, before jumping headfirst off of the ledge and towards the drone below.

Her instincts were spot-on and the whip reached its full extension a few feet above the drone, right as it began to pass underneath. A foot further and her head would have smacked into the machine and a moment sooner or later and the drone's 360-degree cameras would have spotted her. Unfortunately, the designers had failed to account for the blind spot directly above their tiny murder-bots.

Catwoman hung upside down by her whip. Her legs were wrapped tightly around the taut cord, pressing it against her belly and causing the quivering length of the kevlar whip to press against her chest, right between her breasts.

Who knew those pole-dancing classes would be so useful?

Held gently between the clawed fingertips of her free hand was a small, disk-shaped device about the size of a silver dollar. As the drone passed right underneath her she reached down and carefully placed the disk on the top of the drone's chassis. There was a soft click, and the drone bobbed slightly as the device's magnetic coupling engaged. A tiny LED light on the disk's surface began to blink green, indicating a successful connection.

Catwoman quickly pulled herself back up the whip and swung onto another one of the convenient locker units. A quick tug freed her whip, which was quickly returned to her belt. A new device was produced, this one far more mundane: a smartphone. Making sure to retract her claws she checked the phone to confirm that she was receiving a signal from the device she had just planted, before tapping a few icons in rapid succession.

The remote interface and hacking app were gifts from a friend, a hacker by the name of Giz. Selina knew a thing or two about handling computerized security but some things were best handled by professionals.

...such as creating a program to hijack the controls of the warehouse's entire drone network. Within moments her smartphone had access to each of the miniature gunbots. A few more minutes and they were shut off, leaving them hovering in place. Their offsite handlers were receiving nothing but a looped playback of the last hour's worth of footage.

And that is exactly why you can't rely too much on machines. A self-satisfied smile spread across Catwoman's face. Toys like this are nice...but they break so easily.

Slipping her smartphone back into its holster she tapped the side of her goggles, smirking at her own slight hypocrisy as the high tech overlay flicked on. Some toys were just too fun not to play with.

Through the lenses, Catwoman could see the entire warehouse outlined in shades of ruddy orange. Bright spots marked the locations of the disabled drones and she could make out the blurry lines indicating the weight sensors in the floor.

In the far corner of the warehouse was a location marked by a pair of rotating concentric circles: her goal. The warehouse wasn't the first place she had hit tonight...her first target had been the office of the head of Cobblepot's security. A few minutes sifting through his hard drive had produced a complete list of all the items up for auction and their location in the warehouse...as well as hundreds of gigabytes of rather questionable pornography. She made sure to forward a few choice pieces to the Gotham PD's SVU department, along with the man's name and address.

You'd think a security professional would know better than to have their password set to "password". Catwoman shook her head, mentally adding another entry to the invoice she was going to leave in the Oswald Cobblepot's office. Hiring someone new will probably do wonders for Cobblepot's security. He should really be thanking me.

Moving as lithely and quietly as her namesake, Catwoman lept from row to row, following the AR indicator to her goal. Finally, she crouched on the row of lockers she sought and flicked her goggles to a more refined night-vision mode. The item she was looking for was in one of the smaller lockers, about five feet from the ground.

There was a burst of compressed air and the sound of metal on concrete as Catwoman embedded two anchors into the top of the locker unit. She paused for a moment, ears straining for any signs of danger. Intellectually, she knew that with the drones disabled there was no risk of discovery so long as she stayed off the floor but her instincts told her to stay on edge.

For a brief moment, she thought she heard the faint echo of footsteps. Her heart raced and she held her breath, straining for any other sounds...everything was quiet.

You're imagining things, Selina. She chided herself. Anyone walking around down there would set off the sensor plates.

She forced herself to calm down. Thieve's couldn't afford to be jumpy. Alert, yes, but not jumpy. She tried taking several deep breaths to steady her nerves but the tight material of her catsuit made that a little difficult. She pulled down the zipper a few inches to allow her generous chest a little more room to breathe. The skin between her breasts was damp from tense sweat and the cool night air felt delicious as it wicked away the moisture from her skin. She pulled the zipper down further down, almost to the bottom of her rib cage. She purred at the intimate touch of the cold air on her skin, her breasts barely contained by the figure-hugging material of her catsuit.

Not like anyone is around to see me, is there? The thought of committing a robbery completely naked flitted idly through her mind and a wicked gleam twinkled under the lenses of her goggles. It certainly would be interesting to be caught by the big bad Bat in that particular caper. She spent a few moments distracted, wondering how the vigilante would react, before shaking her head. That's enough, Selina. No naked burglaries, you need somewhere to keep the lockpicks, don't you?

Laughing silently to herself, Catwoman clipped the newly anchored cords to her waist and began to lower herself down to the locker waiting below. She settled in, waist supported by the two cords and feet spread out to steady herself against the wall...only inches from the sensitive pressure sensors on the floor. The position left her hands free to work.

All of the lockers in this unit were about the size of a bank deposit box and bore an electronic lock, controlled by a keypad. On the upper right corner of each locker door was a small inscription, "TRTL-60", indicating that each was designed to withstand at least an hour's work with a diamond-tipped drill.

Cobblepot's perverted head of security had been stupid enough to leave the pdf of the locker's owners manual on his hard drive. In a folder named "IMPORTANT WORK STUFF" no less. The included schematics indicated that each locker was equipped with a sophisticated alarm system: shock, thermal, seismic. Any attempt by a thief to force their way into one would almost instantly sound an alarm.

Of course, that assumed the thief didn't have access to the locker's keycode.

That would be nice, wouldn't it? Catwoman mused with a small frown. Unfortunately, a convenient list of combinations and their corresponding lockers was one of the few things that the buffoon in charge of this place wasn't stupid enough to leave laying around his hard drive. No problem. Challenging problems just require creative solutions.

She pulled a thin plastic tube from one of her pouches, capped at both ends. She removed the seals, making sure not to let them fall to the ground, and placed the tube between her pursed, dark red lips. Leaning in, she blew a long puff of air through the tube directly at the keypad before removing the tube (its tip now slightly stained with lipstick) and placing it back in its pouch.

Looking closely at the keypad, she began to adjust the settings on her goggles. The tube had contained an extremely fine, practically invisible powder...invisible to the naked eye at least. It emitted tiny quantities of radiation outside of the visible spectrum, which appeared clearly under the right vision mode.

With her goggles, Catwoman could see the entire keypad spattered in a thick dusting of the powder. With a gentle puff of air, she blew most of it aside...leaving distinct fingerprints visible in the glowing UV light, indicating which keys had been pressed last.

Catwoman increased the magnification from her goggles, getting as much detail as possible on the fine swirls and loops of the glowing fingerprints.

The first button-press will have the most oil from the fingertip, so it'll leave the clearest mark. Each button after the first will be slightly more degraded. She tapped her claw-tipped fingers on the keypad, entering the code. There was a brief pause, long enough to nearly stop her heart from stress, before the lock chirped happily and a light above the keypad blinked green. The locker popped open with a soft hiss as the airtight chamber inside equalized pressure.

Catwoman hooked the tips of her claws around the door and pulled the locker open. Nestled inside the plain metal box was a single object: a plain, black jewelry box. The box was sealed with a strip of tamper-evident tape, notarized by one of the city's most trusted and reliable fences. Plucking the box from its resting place, Catwoman cut the tape with a quick swipe of one clawed fingertip.

Still hanging from the anchored ropes, Catwoman opened up the box to reveal the prize inside. Nestled in a padded, velvet-lined case was a choker made from black calf-skin leather, designed to resemble a collar. The peculiar design was one of the things that had caught her attention.

Oh dear, this thing looks even more hideous up close. The collar wasn't particularly impressive to look at. The materials - fine leather, white gold fittings and dozens of red-tinted accent diamonds - were expensive but the design was atrociously tacky. The aesthetics were poor enough that the entire thing was likely worth less than the sum of its parts. Selina might be able to sell the diamonds and precious metal fittings for a few thousand dollars but that was hardly worth the risk she had taken getting in here. Who in the world made this ugly thing? I'm not usually the shark-tank sort but if I ever meet the designer then I might make an exception.

But that was because she hadn't risked her neck for the ugly collar...her true goal was set in the collar's platinum "nametag". It was an incredible red diamond, slightly wider than a quarter, cut and polished into the shape of a heart. Even in the dim light of the warehouse, the jewel seemed to sparkle with an intense, fascinating inner light.

Amazing...I really had my doubts. Naturally, Catwoman had an encyclopedic knowledge of valuable antiquities and jewelry...and she had never heard of this stone before browsing the security officer's hard drive. The auction list had called it the "Bound Heart Diamond" and noted that the bidding would start at 10 million dollars. Over one hundred carats...rich red color...exquisite cut. Where in the world did you come from? How did that oaf Cobblepot get ahold of you without me finding out?

She stared deeply into the heart of the stone, where its tiny, perfect facets focused light into a glittering, hypnotic flame...

...

...

...

A small message popped up in Selina's field of view, a message displayed via her goggles: 12: 30 AM, DON'T FORGET BUTTON'S PILL.

"What the fuck?" Selina was so shocked that she accidentally blurted the words out loud. Button was the name of one of her cats and the dumb thing had gotten into her underwear drawer and eaten a thong three nights ago. Fortunately, the vet was able to extract the ruined g-string from the cat's stomach but he had an antibiotic regime every 6 hours until he got his stitches out.

...but it had been at least five minutes shy of midnight when she had hacked the drone network. It couldn't have taken her more than ten minutes to get to the locker.

How long had she been staring at the gemstone?

Catwoman's head snapped up, pushing confusion to the back of her mind. There was a sharp, echoing sound in the darkness.

Click. Click. Tap.

Click. Click. Tap.

Click. Click. Tap.

Footsteps. The sharp, crisp sound of finely heeled shoes on concrete. Accompanied by the lighter tap of a walking stick or cane. She didn't know why the floor sensors weren't sounding the alarm. It didn't matter. The footsteps were close...whoever it was would be turning the corner any minute now.

Catwoman gripped the glittering collar tightly in her left hand and cut the anchor ropes with the claws of her right. She pushed off the wall and landed with both feet on the ground...no alarm. The system had been shut off.

Suddenly the industrial lights over this row of lockers snapped on with the sound of electrical relays slamming into place. She hissed as her night vision goggles were overloaded by the sudden flood of light, squeezing her eyes closed and to pull them away from her eyes and up her forehead, exposing her pale, heart-shaped face. Short, black hair peeked out from the edges of her cowl. She squinted her sharp, green eyes against the sudden brightness.