Chapter 23 - [AT] Behind The Brick Wall...

[After Transition]

My feet land on the floor and I then endeavour to take in my surroundings, I'm surrounded on all sides by crap, crap, junk and garbage with what looks like a hefty pile of rat carcasses in the corner. With the amount of cats around here I can tell what the rat pile is doing here and I suppose it's good for Selina to have all these cats around, stops the rats nibbling and ruining her stash(rats can chew through anything if they go long and hard enough at it. Unfortunately there seems to be quite a lot of cats in the bas.e.m.e.nt and I've no doubt that if they're able they will yowl(do cats yowl?) if they see me, it's Selina's personal alarm system and I bet it's part of the reason she's chosen this location for her stash.

I look around but I can't tell where Selina's gone, there's too much garbage and debris down here for me to tell and I have to be careful not to gain the various cats attention. I carefully eye my surroundings to see if there is anything out of place, if there is some kind of clue and I find it. It's something that would be easy to see if it was daylight and there wasn't so much crap strewn about but that doesn't matter because I have night vision and can see in the dark, I can clearly make it out.

There are scratches on the floor to the left of me, scuff marks as if something has been dragged back and forth numerous times and I can wager a guess as to what that certain object is. As soon as I landed I was facing debris with a brick wall behind me with some stuff up against it including a little bedside drawer, the reason I took a while to find out where Catwoman went is because I was looking in the wrong direction. The scratch marks on the floor are directly beneath my feet and that's why it took me a while to find it, the entrance to cats stash isn't in this bas.e.m.e.nt it's in the bas.e.m.e.nt next door which also is collapsed and has no entrance.

I turn around and gently grab the little bedside drawer and I start to carefully pull it back making sure not to make any noise, wouldn't want to alert Selina that something is wrong. Once the bedside drawer is removed I can clearly see what it is covering up and I can't help but be impressed at Selina's ingenuity, behind the drawer is a brick wall but certain bricks look like they have been hammered out to make a narrow hole that only someone nimble would be able to get to. No man would be able to fit through there, no ordinary man at least and The Batman would also find it tricky without risking the structural integrity of the wall but that's why he has Robin. Robin is small(because he is a child, at least most versions of Robin) and is able to get to places that The Batman can't, sometimes I think that that may be the reason why Batman actually has a Robin so that he can be more effective with a sidekick that covers some of his weaknesses.

I quietly crawl through the narrow hole in the wall, once through I slowly turn around and gently pull the little bedside drawer back to its original position to cover my tracks. I then turn around and once more take note of my new surroundings and I can say that it's definitely different from its neighbour, I. The fact that there is no debris or garbage, just a lot of dust and a hole bunch of old furniture. I guess whoever used to own this stuff didn't care enough to try to get it back when the building collapsed, either that or they were inside the building when it collapsed and if it's that then they have a whole lot of other problems to worry about then their old furniture. This room is equally dark as the other and there are no sources of light, I have to be extra careful now as I know that Catwoman is lurking somewhere around here and she has night vision goggles on. How else do you expect a thief to rob efficiently, they can't just go and turn on all the lights in the house they're robbing, that seems like it would alert someone.

I start to look around the room and after making sure that this bas.e.m.e.nt is in fairly good condition and the walls were stable I began to wall crawl on them to explore the rest of the bas.e.m.e.nt, people hardly ever look up when they think that someone is after them they're always looking around for someone on the ground. Silently crawling along the ceiling of the bas.e.m.e.nt making sure to look where I'm going to place my hand before I do so, I've already had one dangerous fall today and I don't won't another, I finally spot Selina. She has pulled the white tarp off of what looks like an old c.h.e.s.t(c.h.e.s.ts are sturdy and can survive quite a lot before they break), and is placing all the stuff we stole inside it while also making sure to go through the other contents of the c.h.e.s.t and make sure everything is accounted for. And then I spot it, my precious memory stick, my memory stick that will make my life here infinitely easier. I'm glad I at least had the sense to grab it when I was having my little meltdown and decided to leave the Marvel universe.

It seems like she has placed it on the ground to the side while she continues to take inventory of all her I'll gotten gains while making sure to put her new stolen good in the c.h.e.s.t as well, she is quite organised for a burglar. The fact that she has it out might mean that she actually intends to give it back to me and I am kinda grateful that it looks like she is sticking to the deal, a lot of the people I've met(some of them aren't even criminals) don't even do that. Unfortunately, I can't take the chance that she is sticking to the deal, that memory stick is too important for that. Too important to leave such things to chance and I'm not going to risk my memory stick on the chance that a notorious thief is going to stick to a deal.

Sorry Cat but it looks like you are about to lose you're only leverage on me..

Actually, I'm not sorry, not sorry at all...

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<AN> I now have a Pa treon up and running and their are already some advanced chapters on there, take a look.

(pa treon.com/GutsyRipper)