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CHAPTER FOUR: SLEUTH
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Selina took a large suction cup from her pack and placed it on the glass. With a few button presses and a short hiss, the suction cup's indicator light blinked green, signifying it was fully engaged. Selina then extended four sets of rubber grips from the suction cup's center.
With the tool fully deployed, Selina activated a laser cutter, hidden in her right pointer finger. She sliced a hole in the glass, precisely the size and shape needed for her nimble chassis to fit through.
With the hole cut, Selina turned off her laser cutter and pressed another button on the suction cup device. With a steady motorized whir, the four rubber supports dug in around the hole and the suction cup raised the newly separated chunk of glass about two feet into the air.
From the utility belt wrapped around her slender waist, Selina then extended a length of rappelling cord. She clipped it onto a mounting fixture built into one of the rubber supports and squeezed herself down into the freshly cut hole.
She felt the locking mechanism in her utility belt engage as the cord took the full force of her weight. She pressed the DOWN button and the built-in motor silently lowered her from the ceiling.
Selina looked beneath her and her advanced optics locked onto two targets 38.2 feet below. The atrium was large, with vaulted ceilings. She focused in on their distinct golden collars and immediately Bruce's voice came on through the Comms-Link.
"Looks like a few of Joseph Francese's hired thugs. That kid won't be satisfied until he either runs the mob in this town or dies trying. We've got to find out how he fits into all of this."
Selina knew that Bruce could see, and frequently watched, every bit of data that her digital camera eyes took in. No matter how often he did it, her systems frequently underestimated his ability to process the scene in front of her and make observations faster than she. Even in old age, the man's instincts were uncanny.
He continued, "I know that in the past, the mob and Freeze did NOT get along, so I wonder what they're up to. Remember Selina, this is information retrieval ONLY, the last thing we want to do is tip them off that we know what they're up to."
"Understood Bruce."
She refocused her attention on the scene below; each man carried a sidearm, but nothing that would pose a threat to the integrity of the reinforced kevlar mesh that covered her entire body just millimeters beneath her synth-skin.
Selina pulled her incapaciTASER from its slot in her utility belt. She continued her descent, stopping 15 feet above the two armed men she stopped her descent. She armed the high-tech stun gun, disengaged from her rappelling cord, and fell forward with purpose.
The heel of her heavy combat boot made first contact, striking one of the men on the back of his neck. He crumpled to the ground immediately and just as the other thug turned towards Selina she knocked him off of his feet with a low, sweeping kick. She buried the stun gun in the small of his back until satisfied he was unconscious. Then she turned her attention back to the first man who lay on the ground writhing in pain and moaning. She pulled a cat-shaped gag from her belt and fastened it over his mouth, rendering his moans all but silent. She did the same thing to the unconscious thug before binding their arms and legs.
She whispered, "Sorry boys! Nothing personal. This cat's just a little curious about the operation you're running here. I hope you don't mind if I explore a bit more?"
They didn't respond.
Tiptoeing down a near set of stairs, Selina's round derrière wriggled enticingly in her black skintight nanofiber lattice catsuit.
Using her long-range sonic detection capabilities to listen for further noises in the building, Selina continued down several more flights of stairs uninterrupted. Eventually, she picked up on the voices of what her systems quickly estimated to be a group of four thugs.
She tossed a concussive smoke grenade around the corner and pounced the instant it erupted in a flash of blinding white light. Activating her Thermal Imaging Suite to see through the smoke, she leapt upwards and wrapped her legs around one man's neck before spin-flipping his face into the ground.
"What the fuck!?" Another man shouted and began firing at random into the smoke as he shielded his eyes from the dense white cloud.
The bullets he fired weren't even in her direction; Selina saw one of them slice through the thigh of another thug, who crumpled to the ground immediately. That left two remaining threats for Selina.
She prioritized the man still aimlessly shooting his pistol. One shot whizzed by her chest. She ran towards him before sliding feet-first right up to him. She put her heavy combat boot straight through the front of his knee, blowing it out backwards. He twisted down to the ground in an undignified heap.
Just one thug was left standing.
Selina scanned and found him fleeing in a panic. Her incapaciTASER had just finished building its charge so she put a round directly into his back, bringing him down and rounding out the whole group.
Three minutes later she had the four men all gagged and bound together, just like the two from earlier. They were injured, scared, and shocked, but alive. That was a line she couldn't cross, a carry-over from Bruce's days as Gotham's Dark Knight.
"Well that sure was a lot of security for one little pussy, and yet you four let me slip right through. I guess that makes me a slippery little pussy." She blinked several times in quick succession before flashing them a wide, shit-eating grin.
Bruce cringed at his display; he would definitely have to fiddle with her humor settings.
Surveying her surroundings, Selina found herself in front of a massive set of iron swinging doors. She flickered through her various imaging capacities and stared at the doors, approximating their thickness at around 15 centimeters. The locking mechanism was sealed tight and looked equally sturdy.
She flipped her Comms-Link on, "Bruce, I think I'm stuck. I won't be able to get past these doors."
"Hmmm well let's think, little cat. Let me see if I can pull up the blueprints for the building and find you a different way in."
"Understood Bruce." Selina instinctively slipped into a pre-programmed 'standby' subroutine, sexily shifting her weight back and forth between her buxom hips, as she waited for his response.
"Okay, I think I found a path for you into the main gallery. They've got to be meeting there based on the parts of the building you've already covered."
"Understood Bruce. What is my route?"
He chuckled, "Well you may not like this, but you're going to have to crawl through an air duct to get there."
