Selina

Prologue

No one stays good in this world.

June 22nd, 2018, 1:43 A.M., it was approximately 77°, the sun had set, and I was going to rob Wayne Tower.

To say this job was difficult would be an understatement. Wayne Tower, the tallest, biggest, most secure building in all of Gotham, and there I was, just one girl, about to sweep it clean. Well, about to try, but you should never go into a job with a trying attitude. Personally I've never been one for optimism, but with this gigantic challenge ahead of me, I was willing to try anything.

I'd been casing the joint for weeks now. I applied for a loan from the Wayne monetary fund just to get my foot in the door, and after that it was a matter of exploring every cavernous hallway a student was allowed to explore before security set me back on course. Then it was midnight socials and early morning brunches with as many high-ranking Wayne employees that I could find. It wasn't hard, of course, with my charm. I made sure to wear low-cut tops and short-shorts whenever I met a particularly important employee for lunch.

This paid off in the end when I lured a regional banking manager back to my apartment and stole his building key card. I had Ivy copy it while I kept him...busy. We're a team, she and I. I do all the dirty work of course.

Finally, I just needed to find an entrance a bit less conspicuous than the front door. That wasn't hard, when the night before the whole thing I spotted a vent poking out of the roof. Vents were my bread and butter. My slim frame allowed me to slip through any size vent, which meant that any building with airflow was a sitting duck in my eyes.

So there I was. June 22nd, 1:43 in the morning, all employees had gone home for the night, which meant all that was left was security. Every floor had at least one roving guard, and every guard had at least one handgun. Ergo, any misstep that caused me to get caught would be my literal undoing.

No pressure.

I launched the grappling hook across the gap between Wayne Tower and the FedEx tower I was standing on. The hook part landed on the pebble-stone roof, and when I reeled it in a bit, it got stuck on the ledge, its pointy hooks digging into the concrete. I pulled the rope a few times to make sure it was nice and taut before I began climbing across.

I wrapped my legs around the rope and gripped it tightly with both gloved hands. The buildings were street-length apart, and at this height, every inch felt like a mile. As I began moving, the wind picked up, and I tried to not let the swaying of the rope distract me. It didn't get too harsh, but even the subtle swooshing had me breaking out in cold sweats. I reminded myself over and over how expensive this grappling hook was, and how price meant quality, and how quality meant that if this rope snapped or came loose I was so suing. So, with that in mind, I kept moving.

I was halfway across when I chanced my first glance down. Twenty-two stories up and I could damn well feel it. The ground looked to be infinitely far away, like an endless spiral that only went down and down and down and down... On top of that, I had never seen a road that looked so solid, so concrete, so If-You-Hit-This-Surafce-From-Your-Height-There-Is-No-Chance-You'll-Survive.

My face shot forward. No more looking down.

I kept moving. I was so close.

I heard a thud—I froze. It sounded like something had hit the roof of Wayne Tower hard. I waited a few seconds. I ran through every possible scenario in my head before coming up with one that I liked: "It's the wind, Selina. It's just the wind."

After that, I made it to the roof no problem. Making it from the rope onto the roof was a little awkward, but eventually my hands and knees were on solid ground, and I couldn't be more elated. I kissed the pebble-stone roof and whispered sweet nothings as I reveled in the feeling of being grounded once again.

"What do you think you're doing?"

I looked up and shit my pants. Standing over me, on June 22nd in the middle of the night on Wayne Tower was a man dressed like a bat. I had been caught by a cosplayer.

He looked like an iron statue clad in black and grey, his eyes a bright white, his bat-ears pointy and tall, and his cape enveloping his entire body. "What are you doing here?" he repeated, his voice gravelly and deep, with some tinniness to it—modified, electronically.

"I—I—I," I stuttered. He was blocking the moon, casting a forlorn shadow over me.

"You were going to ransack Wayne Tower," he said.

"No," I shot back quickly. "No, no, no, I was just practicing...my tight rope." He didn't laugh. Clearly jokes were not my friend at the moment.

He just stared at me for a long while. It occurred to me that I was still on my hands and knees, but I didn't know if standing before him was any smarter. He never moved, though the wind did manage to get the hem of his cape flapping like a flag. As it happened, that flapping was the only sound between us.

That is, until a woman screamed loudly from the streets. It sounded close, and it sounded urgent. The man-bat's head shot up, and he listened for the sound again. It came, and he launched into action. "I'll be back," he warned before jumping off the roof.

I won't, I thought as I scrambled over the ledge and grabbed on to the rope again. Ivy is not going to believe this.