Sunday, 10:46pm: Alley in the club district

Helena winced at the crunching sound the mugger’s cheekbone made as flesh met bricks. “That’s gotta hurt,” she said, picking the stunned man up and shoving him against the wall again. “Maybe next time you’ll pick on someone your own size. Or better yet,” she said, pulling the zip tab on the plastic handcuffs, “stay home and watch TV.”

< Alarms are going off in a jewelry store on Fifth. >

“Is there some sort of criminals’ convention in town we don’t know about?” Helena asked as she made the jump up to the fire escape and then up to the apartment building’s roof.

< I wouldn’t know. I’ve let my trade journal subscriptions lapse. Convenience store clerk on 13th just hit the silent alarm. >

Helena bounced on the balls of her feet. The apartment building she stood atop was on Ninth street. “I’m taking the convenience store,” she said, running for the edge of the roof and making the jump to the next building easily.

< Good call. Alarms are going off in every neighborhood in the city and NGPD is spread thin as it is. I’m rerouting as much as I can but let me know if there’s anything I can do. >

Barbara could practically hear the grin spread itself over Helena’s lips.

< I can think of a couple of things you can do, Oracle, but I’d much rather show you some things I can do first. >

Helena’s voice was low and silky. Barbara chuckled even as she routed a silent alarm call to a private security company before it hit the NGPD call center. She closed that window and in a blink another popped up on her screen. She tracked the call with a brief flick of her eyes. Houseboat. Interesting. Barbara let that one go through to the NGPD switchboard while she rerouted two from office buildings to another private security firm.

“Cat got your tongue, Oracle?” Helena asked in the silence that followed. Turning the corner onto Ninth, Helena spotted the convenience store easily. The low sound that came back down the open comms line stood the hair on the back of Helena’s neck on end; the content of the reply didn’t help matters any either.

< If she’s good, I know a certain little cat who will be getting my tongue later, Huntress. >

Helena was still shaking her head with laughter as she clothslined the armed robber who was trying to divide his attention between keeping the clerk covered and exiting the store. Quality banter was definitely going to make sweeps a lot more fun.

Sunday/Monday, 2:17am: Clocktower

Barbara barely registered the elevator doors sliding open as she routed two more silent alarms at high-end retail establishments to private security companies. She closed the windows confident that the macro she’d written to track the alarms’ addresses would dump the data in the right file. “You must be tired,” Barbara said, not looking away from the monitoring systems open on the screens in front of her. She shivered as she felt Helena’s fingers brush the hair away from her neck.

“What gave you that idea?” Helena whispered as she caressed the back of the redhead’s neck with her lips.

The smiled turned Barbara’s mouth unwittingly and it occurred to her that smiling was something she could very easily get used to. “The low level of sarcasm and lack of complaints, plus, you used the elevator.” She turned her chair in a tight circle and couldn’t control the sharp intake of breath at the sight before her.[Continue Reading…]