Batman: Genesis

Chapter Seven - The Cat Burglar

Jim Gordon woke up suddenly. He glanced at the clock and saw that it was already ten o'clock in the morning. He was late. He grabbed his phone to see that he had about five texts from Harvey telling him to get his 'lazy carcass' to work. Jim hastily straightened his tie, realizing he had fallen asleep in his uniform, and headed out the door of his apartment.

He sped to work and stumbled into the doors of the GCPD. Everyone in the apartment turned to stare at Jim. He grunted to them and walked up the steps and over to the desk he and Harvey shared.

"Wow, you look-" Harvey started.

"Shut up, Bullock," Jim growled, grabbing one of the files laying on the desk. "What do we have today."

"Reports of multiple robberies of grocery stores, food joints, and jewelry stores," Harvey said, taking a document out of the file Jim picked up.

"Where?" Jim asked.

"Davis Avenue," Harvey replied.

"Let's go," Jim said, tossing the file on Harvey's side of the desk.

--

"Whoever this was, they know how to cover their tracks," Bullock said, getting in the car.

Jim and Harvey were headed to the grocery store that had been robbed the night before. They had already checked the jewelry store, and they couldn't find anything that had been stolen, although a hidden alarm had gone off.

"This place looks familiar," Jim said, poking his head out of the window.

"We're about to pass the alleyway where Johnson was killed," Harvey said. "We came through here when we investigated the murder, remember?"

"Oh, yeah," Jim replied.

They passed by the alleyway, seeing a man standing in the middle of it.

"Is that who I think it is?" Jim asked.

"Yep," Harvey said. "Bruce Wayne."

"He is one curious young man," Jim said.

"Sure is," Harvey agreed, coming to a stop outside of the grocery store. "We're here."

A man ran out to greet them.

"Please, 'elp us," the man panted in a heavy accent. "The burg'lr is back!"

Jim and Harvey stepped out of the car and ran into the grocery store. They ran past shelves stacked high with cans and bags, searching for the burglar. Jim rounded the corner and saw the culprit, a female dressed in black and trying to hold three half gallons of milk. Harvey caught up with Jim.

"Hey!" Harvey ran towards the burglar.

She dropped one of the half gallons of milk she was holding. It burst on the floor in front of Harvey, who slipped and ran head first into one of the refrigerators. Jim pulled out his gun, but the burglar was already running. Jim chased after her. She ran out of the doors. Jim followed, but didn't see her. He looked left and right, searching for the direction in which she went. Then Jim was knocked to the floor by the burglar, who was waiting above Jim. Jim slowly stood up, waiting for his vision to clear back up. Harvey ran out of the grocery store, having recovered, but the culprit was already long gone.

--

[Bruce]

Bruce Wayne stood in the middle of the street where his employee had died. There was something vaguely familiar about that street, but Bruce couldn't place his finger on it. He stood there thinking about the murder as well as his failure the previous night. The street was more like an alleyway than an actual street, as all the houses on the street were raggedy and worn, looking as if a gust of wind could topple them over.

He had known that the residents of these houses were poor, but he had no idea how much crime happened here. But that was to be expected, as this alleyway led right into the infamous Crime Street.

"Hey, rich boy!" A voice called from above Bruce.

Bruce turned to see a female figure jumping off the rails on one of the houses and landing in front of him, out of breath. She looked as if she had been running. She was dressed in all back with a hood covering the upper half of her face. Rusty goggle laid on her forehead. Bruce could only see part of her nose and her mouse, lips covered in bright red lipstick. She looked to be in her early twenties.

"Who are you?" Bruce asked, trying to calculate how high the mysterious girl just jumped from.

"Call me Cat," the girl said, looking Bruce up and down.

"That's your name?"

"No, but it's what you're going to call me." Cat said matter-of-factly.

"Okay..." Bruce muttered. "So, why are you here?"

"To see if you have anything valuable on you." Cat said, walking past Bruce.

"Even if I did, you're not going to take it!" Bruce called after Cat.

Cat turned back and grinned, holding up Bruce's watch, "Already did!"

With that, Cat jumped up on a curved latter hanging from someone's balcony and used the random items outside people's houses to climb up a tall building and disappeared, leaving Bruce standing there, mouth open. Bruce realized the direction the cat girl was going. Right into Crime Street.

Bruce shook his head and looked at his wrist, forgetting he no longer had a watch on. He pulled out his phone and checked the time. Noon. Alfred was waiting for him.