An Unlikely Encounter ch.21

CHAPTER 21

The party took on a bit of an uneasy vibe after Alfred's speech. The guests, all having lived in Gotham for the majority of their lives, were fully aware of the implications of a little seemingly unintentional (and unexpected) 'play on words'. Everyone's poses took on a more rigid stance, almost as if they were preparing themselves to jump up and run at a moment's notice. Most, even the elderly guests, were incredibly reluctant to sit down. One even went so far as to eat his food while standing up at the table!

I, on the other hand, was glued to my chair. The Joker gave me my signal, and I was supposed to initiate the first part of the mission. But to even begin to do that, I had to first, remove my ass from this God-forsaken chair.

I flinched away instinctively when Bruce tried to put his hand on my arm in what might've of been his attempt at a comforting gesture. Bruce looked a little taken aback at my violent response causing me keep my arm awkwardly suspended in the air while I scrambled my brain for an excuse.

"Uh . . . yeah, no I—don't take that personally, I just . . . am . . . a bit nervous . . . because of the speech," I supplied, trying to sound as honest as I could; it seemed to work though, as I watched Bruce's face slowly ease from a hard frown to a blank stare.

"There's no need to be paranoid Miss Quinzel," He stated firmly, unintentionally slipping into formalities, "That little . . . slip-up, won't cause you, or anyone in this building any harm. I promise,"

'Oh but it'll eventually cause not only me, but everyone major harm,' I thought guiltily.

There's not like there were any other options for me anyway, and I knew that if I tried to confide in Bruce with the Joker's plan, my head would end up stuck on a pike in the middle of Gotham city for all to see by next week, no matter how much 'protection' they'd say they'd put for me.

All I could do was nod to Bruce and hope for my sake that I wouldn't mess up anything that might compromise the mission.

Bruce accepted my acknowledgement of his words, and his eyes gave the room a quick scan. Seeing nothing, he then excused himself from the table to go converse with Alfred about something.

'Now or never,' I told myself reluctantly. I stood up languidly from the chair; a little part of me still holding out hope that the Joker would change his mind and decide that I wasn't best suited to be responsible for such a job, but as I crossed the ballroom floor, my chances of avoiding this event grew slimmer.

I was headed to the other side of the room to a restroom where I assumed it would be safe to read the Joker's plans that I wrote down on a little piece of paper. The doors automatically swung open for me when I approached them, and without missing a step, I entered the lavish room and immediately settled into what I believed to be the most inconspicuous stall.  

Luckily, no one happened to have had to use the restroom at that time, which meant that I could obtain the privacy I required to look at the paper without being paranoid.

My eyes swept the ceiling for any cameras, and, finding none, I reached into the neckline of my dress to pull out the paper hidden between my cleavage (a little trick Roxanne and I learned back in high school). I unfolded it as quietly as possible, and, taking a deep breath, began to read.

1.) "Your job my little Kitty," The Joker wrote, "Is pretty strait-forward."

"First, knowing your cute little ass, I believe you'd go in a restroom to read this. Well look at the marble wall behind you in your stall. Yes, your stall. Now, turn around . . ."

'How could he possibly know which stall I'd be in?' I thought exasperatedly. I paused for a minute before spinning my head around so that my body would be turned towards the wall.

And, now find the twelfth tile in the fourth row from the ceiling, and push it.

Number one ended there.

I looked up towards the ceiling of the restroom and began counting the rows of tiles before I froze.

Did he want me to start counting the tiles that were only in my stall? Or all of thee tiles on that side of the room? And how can I be sure that he really does know which stall I'm in? I mean, I could have just as easily chosen the next stall on the right! Oh God, am I really that predictable to him?

I realized that I was seriously beginning to let the weight of my situation get to my brain when I asked myself that last question. Now was honestly the worst time to be getting diffident about the Joker's opinion of me.

I knew that I might've been running a bit behind schedule, so in a radical leap of faith, I count across four tiles, down twelve . . .

The tile gave way easily under my fingers, and as soon as I pressed that tile, another one two spaces away, a different tile jutted out towards me. I grabbed the tile that was sticking out, and pulled with all my strength, but it wouldn't budge that way.

I quickly realized that the tile that was coming out would only move if I pushed the one going in. Wasting no time, I repeated the process of adding pressure to the "in" tile that would cause the "out" tile to jut out, until the "in" tile could go no further.

That's when I tugged on the "in" tile, which turned out to be surprisingly longer than I initially assumed it'd be, until it removed itself entirely from the wall. The tile was much denser and thicker than I had anticipated it to be, and so I almost dropped the chunk of marble into the toilet from the unexpected weight.

"That would've resulted in a rather unpleasant experience," I muttered aloud after correcting my grip.

Hesitantly, I peered into the hole that the tile had formed, and saw nothing within the darkness. I'm not sure what exactly I assumed I would find once I pulled out the tile, but ominous darkness definitely wasn't my first guess.

I forgot that I had been clutching the tiny piece of paper in my hand until that moment. I could've slapped myself for not consulting it earlier. I once again unfolded it carefully, and began to read on.

2.) "See? Now that wasn't too hard! And to think that you didn't trust me for a moment there! All right now, but enough with the funny business," I smirked and rolled my eyes.

"Reach your hand inside the hole and pull out a little card. Inside the card you'll find a password,"

I peered into the hole once more, trying to see if something inside was going to slice up my hand or something, but I found only darkness.

I grit my teeth, and carefully slid my arm into the diamond-shaped hole. It was just big enough for my hand to fit into, and the longer I felt around in there, the more confident I was that nothing was going to attack me.

I let out a little uncharacteristic squeal of joy when my fingers felt something. I pulled out the paper in my hand, and, like the Joker promised, was a little card. The cover had the face of a clown on it of course.

I opened up the card, and sure enough, only a complicated arrangement of numbers, words, and symbols written down neatly in electric green ink.

I looked back at the instructions.

"That's no ordinary password, Sweet Cheeks.  That password can break any security pin or password or code for every computer found Wayne Enterprises, including the laptop belonging to none other than Mr. Whiny—oops, I mean Mr. Wayne himself!" My eyes widened considerably at this statement, and I looked down at the password incredulously before returning to the piece of paper.

"It wouldn't take a genius to figure out what I'm about to ask you to do now would it? I'm sure you already know, but I want to use that fucking hot-ass bod of yours to woo Mr. Whiny so that he's so distracted, he won't notice that you've used his computer to hack into the W.E. network, as directly send me all the their information! Why, that'd be the very LAST thing he'd expect now wouldn't it? Hah hah hah hah hah hah hah  . . ."

There was that sinking feeling in my stomach again. As much as the Joker intrigued and attracted me, I wouldn't willingly participate in a mission that would result in the complete decimation of every life in Gotham! Everyone knows that W.E. holds valuable information on all of the citizens as well as the weapon transactions all throughout the world. If the Joker gets his hands on that then . . . well, we're going to need a bigger hero than just Batman to save us.

My eye caught a bit more writing at the bottom of the page.

"Don't dawdle too much Kitty Kat. I'm not a very patient man, and if anything goes wrong . . . well," I pictured him pausing to lick his lips, "I'm going to hold YOU, per-son-all-y account-able. Hop to it."

"SLAM!"

The sound of the bathroom door closing behind me awoke me from the foggy haze that was my mind. My eyes snapped up, but when I saw that no one was regarding me with any suspicion, I relaxed somewhat.

"Katherine?"

I yelped in surprise when I heard Mr. Wayne's voice. I turned around to find him standing not even two feet away from me. I had no idea how he managed to sneak up on me like that without being noticed, but from the looks of it, he didn't appear to be preparing to confront me about anything.

In fact, he looked a bit worried himself. He didn't even seem to have noticed the mini epileptic fit I just had from his sudden apparition behind me, much to my relief.

"Bruce?" I answered quickly after realizing that he was expecting some form of a response.

"I think it's best we sit down and eat now," He stated a bit too calmly, "Won't do any good to let the food get could now would it?"

"I . . . guess not. Alright" I replied meekly.

Bruce placed his hand on the small of my back as he led us back to our table, only this time, it was filled with an assortment of all kinds of foods; the table almost resembled a mini buffet in my eyes, and it was at that moment that my stomach made its presence known.

He pulled my chair out for me as if it were habit to him before taking his own seat. Immediately he began taking food from all the dishes laid out on the table. He did this while wearing a slight frown, and that alone told me that he already suspects some foul play.

He paused with a fork half-way to his mouth before looking up to make direct eye contact with me.

He raised an eyebrow questioningly, and that was when I realized that I had been staring at him the entire time without blinking.

I turned my face down to my empty plate, my face red with embarrassment. I head him lightly chuckling to himself, no doubt believing that my blatant staring had been the result of an attraction for him—which isn't necessarily untrue—and that fact only added to my embarrassment.

Bruce glanced at my tomato-red face, and frowned in confusion.

"You're not hungry?" He implored.

I looked up at him questioningly.

"I seemed to have recalled at some point during our conversation that your stomach screamed for your attention," Bruce supplied with a smirk.

'Did it really?' I thought, mortified.

"That's why I set up this little assortment of food for you," He continued, "I wanted you to not have to wait in line for food when you came out of the bathroom."

My heart clenched in guilt at his amiable consideration for me.

"You didn't have to do that!" I exclaimed, "I was more than capable of getting my own food. I'm sorry, I didn't want to burden you with such trivial matters."

This was Bruce's party and here he was taking care of the woman who would eventually be an accomplice to the utter demise of his company as well as the entire city.

"I'm well aware of what I do and do not have to do Katherine," Bruce said looking amused by my reaction, "I wanted to do it. I thought you might feel a bit grateful,"

"Oh no! I am grateful! I am so grateful!" I declared vehemently, horrified at my lack of manners, "Thank so much, I really do appreciate it, it's just that I realize that you're busy welcoming and speaking with your guests, and so I didn't want your valuable free time to be wasted on a person like me! You could've been—"

"Stop right there Katherine," Bruce interrupted, "My time had not in any way been wasted. I wanted to help you. I didn't feel compelled to do it just because! I honestly just take pleasure in making people happy. Don't underscore yourself Katherine. You're a beautiful woman and I'd only be too happy to care for you,"

Bruce gave me and intense look.

I couldn't help but roll my eyes, "You've had too many glasses of champagne Mr. Wayne,"

"Call me Bruce,"

"You've had one too many, Bruce" I reiterated.

"Katherine, I'm not drunk. I meant every word." He said, looking dead serious.

I just laughed and shooed away his comment with my hand. Bruce Wayne believing me to be beautiful? He must be intoxicated. Or I must be intoxicated. The idea of someone like him, handsome, rich, intelligent, powerful, liking me is just too unbelievable for my mind.

Bruce caught my hand with his and held it. He took my chin and forced me too look into his eyes. I saw nothing but warmth within them, and that feeling was directed towards me.

'Oh,'

Bruce's face tilted downwards a bit, and I noticed that his gaze was trained on my lips. His tongue darted out and swiped across his lips briefly—moisturizing them.

His eyes flickered up and caught mine like a predator attacking an innocent doe. I never stood a chance. Before my mind could process what was happening, Bruce's face was no more the an inch from mine.

It was as if someone had set our bodies to be polar magnets, and we couldn't help but be attracted to each other. I could feel his breath lightly fan my lips, and they parted slightly of their own accord.

Bruce let out a light chuckle when he saw my eyelids droop, and he advanced towards me ever so slowly . . .

Someone cleared their throat behind us. Our heads separated so quickly, I became slightly dizzy with the sudden rush of motion. Bruce and I both looked towards the source of the unfortunately timed interruption, only to see every head in the room turned towards us, and about two hundred pairs of eyes trained on our faces.