Spoiler stared out over the building from a nearby rooftop. "That's the place."
"Doesn't look... too hard." Batgirl stared at the building through a pair of binoculars.
"Trust me Batgirl, the place is tougher then it looks. Lots of official documents and court records were kept there, they are in the process of transferring them to another building, so security isn't as tight as it used to be. Right now it has minimal security, only one guard, but it has lots of electronic surveillance devises. This is a government building we're breaking into, and I don't really want to get caught. Oracle said that you could break in pretty well near anywhere undetected so..."
"You decided... to get me... to do it."
"I don’t want you to do it for me, Batgirl. I just thought maybe you could help me. Hey, this is your kinda thing. I can disable the motion and heat sensors; I have explosives in one of power transformers down the block, when that blows it'll take down the whole block. They have no backup generators since the quake. But the cameras in the building run on a separate emergency battery system and the cameras record 24 - 7, all on tape. We destroy the tape someone knows that someone broke in, so we have to leave the tape intact. With this mini camera you can get close enough to the camera to record what it sees and put it in a playback loop. Because it's trained all the time on this one guarded door. You have to get in photograph the documents I want, and get out retrieve the camera, and split."
"Piece of cake."
"Yeah that's what I thought you'd say. It's all too easy for you isn't it."
"Yes."
"Showoff."
"Which room... has... generators?”
"They used to be in the basement, incidentally that's our point of entry."
"Our?"
"Yes our."
"You’ll get us... caught."
"Oh give me a little credit will ya. Look I'm not gonna slow you down or hone in on your action or whatever. I just wanna watch, see what you do, ya know, learn from a master type of thing. Don’t let that get to your already swelled head."
"You won't... interfere?"
"Well if you’re really getting your ass kicked, I might join in."
"I would... never... need help from you."
"Who said I’d be helping you? I figure if you’re really getting your ass kicked I might get a few good licks in. I haven’t been able to tag you yet. It's bugging the hell out of me
Batgirl smiled, as if pleased by this. "What documents?"
"No way Jose sister, I do that and the next thing I know I'm waking up, and everything's over"
Batgirl's smile quickly turned into a frown.

Steph looked at her watch, "Any second now," she muttered. Then she heard it in the distance, the explosion of the power transformer she had rigged to blow. Like tumbling dominoes, the lights of the city block turned off. "I felt safe using explosives on the transformer, it wouldn’t leave much residue behind. Besides, no one is going to look that closely at a blown power transformer. It’s not exactly suspicious."
Batgirl simply nodded at this, impatient. They approached the now darkened building, Batgirl saw that there were bars over the windows to the basement. She tugged at them firmly as if testing them.
"Planning on bending the steel bars with your bare hands?" said Spoiler sarcastically, as she approached behind her.
"No," said Batgirl, "Ripping bars... out of... concrete... mooring."
"Oh." said Spoiler incredulously "Move over Superman, there are simpler ways to do this." with expert skill, Spoiler used a mini laser torch to cut the steel bars surrounding the lower windows, "We can epoxy them back into place afterward, no one will ever know they were cut." They slid in through the window.
The basement was dark. They both turned on their night vision goggles. The place was dirty and dusty, the walls hastily done over with plaster in the areas where quake damage had cracked them. The main hot water tank and air conditioning machinery filled the large room. Batgirl walked over to an area where a large piece of equipment had been recently removed.
"According to the building plans that’s where the emergency generator was." said Spoiler. They must have taken it out of here and used it for some other purpose after the quake. Most of the files aren’t kept in this building anymore but in the new one in the rebuilt section of town soon all of the records will be transferred there. Good thing this place is being closed down, otherwise we might have a lot more security to deal with. The files we want are upstairs on the first floor."
Batgirl immediately started heading up the steps to the first floor.
"You take point, I guess" Steph bounded to catch up with her.
"Shh." Batgirl paused holding a finger to her lips. "No... It’s nothing," she said dismissing it. "Stop talking. I can't concentrate".
"Well sorry for breathing."
"You can breathe, just breathe quieter!"
Silently they crept up the stairs. The emergency lights lit up the area with an eerie reddish glow. Enough so that they were able to turn off their night vision goggles " The office we need is, right there." Steph pointed to a half visible door just around the corner." This is the main lobby. All remaining records are kept in that room, behind that door and that guard."

They turned the corner to see the security guard. He paced back and forth, alert.
"The file?" whispered Batgirl in Spoilers ear.
"Brown, Arthur." whispered Spoiler back. She handed her a small card with the name written on it. "If you knew how to read you'd, see the door there reads prisoner medical records."
Intrigued by this Batgirl whispered back. "Your father... and you couldn't do this... yourself."
"It's not that I couldn't. I just didn't want to take that risk if I didn't have to. The last thing I want is a criminal record, bad enough having a criminal father."
"You couldn't...  that's why you... asked me."
" Bull! I could do this. It’s just harder for me them for you. I didn't want to. Too risky, ok"
Batgirl looked toward the alert guard and saw that Steph looked his way as well. When she saw him doubt began to creep over Steph's face. Batgirl said, "I could... get the keys... from his... pocket... without him... noticing. Can you?"
"Yeah, sure I could"
This time she knew she saw doubt in Steph's face. She pressed her, "I bet you can’t... get the keys... from his pocket."
 "You bet me?"
"I bet you."
"How much you wanna bet?"
"Whatever you... wish... you can't win."
As if making up her making about something, Steph said, "Ok, I do this I get a free one. You just stand there and let me hit you. That’s the bet. "
"A free one?"
"No dodging. No blistering counterattack!  A free one."
Spoiler held out her hand, and Batgirl looked down to take it. "Sure a free one."
"Agreed!" said Spoiler, but with now a new confidence in her face, that made Batgirl doubt she had mad a good bet.
Spoiler silently went down the stairs and began to undress.
Batgirl stared in amazement. "Having a... nervous breakdown?"
Spoiler held a finger to her lips. "Shh..."
That was unnecessary however as Batgirl was speechless at she saw. Spoiler peeled off her costume piece by piece. Soon she was completely nude, save for the spoiler mask. She walked brazenly past Batgirl and up the stairs, out the stairwell to the area where the security guard was pacing. From the corner of his eye she caught his attention. The security guard looked up and stared at her. "Holy cow," he shouted.
"Great! He sees me naked and the first thing out of his mouth is cow,” thought Steph.
She beckoned him with a curved finger. "What’s your name?” she asked
"V... V... Victor," he stammered as he slowly walked toward her.
"Well," she said as she put her arms around him, "to Victor goes the Spoiler." she said as she reached into his pocket ad extracted the keys without him noticing. She broke her contact, then backed away from him, again crooking her finger at him. "Come to the Spoiler, Victor," she said as she walked passed the stairwell where Batgirl was hidden, she tossed the keys to Batgirl and ran off down the corridor. Victor followed eagerly behind.
 Batgirl snuck to the corner of the room where the camera was and after capturing the cameras perspective on video, she played it back on the screen on her recorder. She then placed the mini viewing screen in front of the lens of the security camera, so that the security camera and its corresponding recorder were fed a playback loop. "It was a dirty trick." she thought, "She knew she couldn’t rely on her skill, she knew she wasn’t good enough, so she resorted to trickery."

Spoiler began to pick up speed as the guard began to run to catch up with her, "This way." she called behind her. Already the guard was huffing and puffing, completely out of breath. She began to run faster, he tried to keep up but couldn’t help but fall behind.
"Wait." he said weakly. He stopped, completely out of breath, and slumped to his knees. Spoiler stopped and walked back toward him. An expectant smile came to his face.
 "Go to hell, you disgusting pervert!" said Spoiler as slapped him hard in the face. Then she turned around and took off down the corridor.

Batgirl snuck up to the door used the keys and opened to it.  There were many filing cabinets in the room. She approached one of the cabinets marked B. She had learned the sequential order of the alphabet and was able to match up the name of the file from the cabinet with the name on the card she was given without much difficulty. What she couldn't understand was the symbolic meaning of the letters of the files she was to photograph, psychiatric reports by one Simpson Flanders and some by one Dr. M. I. BonCuers. To her the text was still just gibberish. Another reason Spoiler had chosen her. "She’s really tricky,” she thought.
Upon getting all the files on film, she headed out the door, and noticed that the security guard was back, looking like he had run a marathon. "She tricked him too,” she thought. Sweat beaded off his forehead and he was panting loudly. He was talking to himself deliriously.
 "That’s it!" He slammed his fist down onto the desk. "Ok Lord, I don’t need no more urgin'. I'm givin' up my sinful ways." With that, he bent over and opened one of the draws on his desk. He reached inside and withdrew a huge stack of magazines. He got up and headed over toward the garbage can, and tossed them all inside.
Batgirl used this opportunity to head over and retrieve her mini camera, over by the security camera.
She looked toward his desk. “I could leave the keys on it.” she thought. "It's out of view of the security camera. In all likelihood, human nature being what it is, the guard will never notice that the keys have been removed from his pocket in the first place, no sense taking the extra risk." It was a notion she quickly dismissed however "No, no, no, that’s stupid. Risky? That’s what that little trickster thought, for her it's risky because she’s so unskilled, she needs to trick people. But me, I know exactly what he's going to do.  This isn't risky at all."
 Victor stopped and looked inside the garbage can, "Oh Lord! Miss May, don’t tempt me." Then he broke down reached in and grabbed the magazine. "Lord, forgive me," he said.
She approached him swiftly as he stood by the garbage can. She proceeded to put the keys back into his pocket. She had jet reached into his front pocket, when clumsily he stumbled over his own feet and landed squarely on top of Batgirl. It was an action he had not intended, and thus Batgirl was not able to read his intentions. She was caught by total surprise.
A look of confusion crossed his face first, then his eyes widened in terror, " Demons! Demons from hell!" he screamed. As he did so, he stumbled backwards off of her; he slipped again and fell backwards onto the garbage can, which rolled him to the other side of the wall, where he hit his head on the fire alarm, which read in case of fire break glass. He had knocked himself out cold. The next instant the alarm blazed. Batgirl was horrified. She rushed down to the stairwell, expecting to be greeted by Spoiler. But she saw instead was Spoilers costume missing, "She must be outside" she thought, "Once she heard the alarm, she left." With that, Batgirl crawled out the window.

Shortly thereafter, on a nearby rooftop, Batgirl scouted the area, on the lookout for Spoiler. Below her, fire trucks and police rolled in. There were a lot of them. A large group of uniformed police and firemen ran into the building.  " It really must be an important building. Spoiler where are you?" she thought.

"Where is she? Where’s my costume? I'll kill her!" thought Spoiler. "She did that on purpose I bet, took my costume, pulled the fire alarm and skedaddled. This is because she lost that bet I'll bet. I'll kill her!"

Inside the building detective Furman saw Victor, the security guard, unconscious, surrounded by the magazines spilled from the garbage." This look suspicious to you?" he asked his partner "The guard knocked cold in a pile of "trashy" magazines."
" There’s someone in the building!" shouted one of the policemen. He rushed past with his gun drawn.
 "Down that stairwell,” yelled another, a group of officers ran down the stairs.

"I have heard gunfire many times before. When I was growing up it was so routine at that it seemed more akin to the ordinary sounds of life, bacon sizzling, doors slamming, gunshot, all of equal value. Most people are terrified by the sound of a gun being fired, they are immediately fearful, but not me. I've never needed to fear them. Nowadays when I hear a gunshot. I’m ready, alert, prepared for action, just like I've always been, but mostly, I just feel a kind sadness. When I read peoples faces, whenever they hear a gunshot, it's always the same: panic, terror, dread. I never knew exactly what that felt like until this very moment"

In the next instant 3 shots rang out, from inside the building. Batgirl's jaw dropped, as she stared on in horror, immobilized by her failure." Oh no, my fault!"
She was about to rush in when a cop came out yelling, "A young blond has been shot. Get the paramedics."

Batgirl felt her heart sink.
A group of firemen were hauling a stretcher out and put it in the back of a nearby ambulance, which took off. Batgirl leapt to follow it.  There was no police escort, the police electing to remain at the scene of the crime. Quickly she was on top of the ambulance.

Detective Furman interviewed Victor, as a medical attendant was bandaging his head. "So let me get this strait," said Furman looking down at the notes he had jotted down on a small pad, " You were visited by sex demons, from hell?"
"Yes, that's right, two demons from hell. One was this naked chick with huge... " He paused as if looking for the right words.
"Tracts of land?" offered Furman.
"Bug eyes." continued Victor.
"Bug eyes?"
"You know, like Spiderman when his costume changed."
"I see," said Furman shaking his head, " and the other one, the one in skintight black leather, you claim grabbed for your crotch?"
"It's true, they were all over me! I tell ya!"
"Big demon in leather, give me a break!" said Furman.

At that moment, the door to the ambulance opened and Batgirl stood there, confused at the sight before her. Furman, Victor and the attendant stared back at her. Noting quickly that Steph was not there, she nodded to the ambulance attendant who she seemed to recognize, and she closed the door.

She rushed back to the building and took out her miniature police band radio. She plugged the earphone.  " No rush on that ambulance, they’ll be in no hurry to get to the morgue, Time of death..."

She didn't want to hear anymore. Sometimes, it seemed, words were a curse, rather than a gift bestowed upon her.

"This can't be happening,” thought Batgirl.
"How could you die? Do you know what kind of trouble I’m going to get into! Oracle will kill me! This isn't happening.  You can't be dead! This is a stupid trick, you stupid, unskilled amateur. Any second now you're going to appear and..." She stared vacantly as the officers brought out the body; a sheet covered it up to the forehead. Blond hair sprawled onto the white stretcher. They piled her body into an ambulance.
"You can't be dead. You were my only friend."
 

She couldn't go home, how would she tell Oracle. The total calamity of the events sent Batgirl into a state of shock. She sat there on the rooftop immobilized, staring into space, until the sun started to come up over the horizon, and then it hit her...

Her face was twisted backwards, as she received, a roundhouse punch that knocked her off her feet. "You... " she muttered.
"You?!? I can’t believe you did that, that's two you owe me. You psycho bitch!" Steph was dressed in men's clothing several sizes too large for her. She delivered another swing, Batgirl was again rocked backwards but clearly stunned more by the surprise of seeing Steph alive, then the kick delivered by her well connecting punches.
"You're alive!" Batgirl jumped up and strangling Steph with a huge hug.
"What's this? Some new martial art technique?" She struggled to push Batgirl away from her. "Why'd you leave me in there?   Surrounded by cops? With no costume! And why did you pull the fire alarm? Do you want to get me busted?"
"What?... I don't.... I thought you were dead!"
"Oh so that's the game you're playing, huh? Back to your old tricks, Cassassin Cain?!"
"Stop!... Wait!... You don't... understand!  What happened... the shots?"
"You don't know either?"

Just then Spoiler's intercom beeped.
"Oracle to Spoiler."
"Uh yeah?"
"Did you ever hear of a place called the records hall?"
"Yeah, I might have heard of it."
"Just about 5 hours ago there was a break and entry there. A young man named Blonden Von Blondison was gunned down, when he fired twice at police officers. When they searched his body, they found a copy of his prison psychiatric reports, which he had stolen, and for some reason they found a copy of your costume. I was just wondering if you knew anything about that."
"I don't know anything about that. I've been with Batgirl the whole night."
"Don't lie to me Steph. Been with Batgirl the whole night! All you two do is fight."
 Batgirl interrupted, "Hello Oracle, I'm here."
What exactly were you two doing the whole night then"
 "Um... reading" said Steph
"Er... training" said Cass at the same time.
"Uh huh, well I’ll see you back here, where we can discuss this further."

"So you didn't take my costume.  Great! Now I've spent 5 hours, naked, hiding in a ceiling vent, while cops swarm the place, hating you, wanting to get back at you, and it turns out that you didn't do it. Now I don't have a valid reason to hate you, and I hate you for it." Then she smiled broadly. "Ha! I socked you pretty good didn't I."
"You Cheated."
"You just can't bear the thought that I won the bet."
"Can't bear the thought? That's not it.  I just... never thought... that you'd be bare.  You used trickery."
"Trickery? You mean cunning, no pun intended."
"You didn't... use your skills."
"You mean I didn't use your skills, I didn't have to. I did it my own way."
Batgirl thought about this for a moment, then said frankly "I'm sorry." She paused, as if trying to find the words, then continued "The alarm is... my fault," she said guilty, "I made a... mistake."
"Did I just hear you right! Little miss perfect, makes a mistake?"
 "I put the keys back... in his pocket...  didn't need to... more risk... no gain."
" And you got caught with your hand down his pants. This is too good to be true."
Batgirl turned away from her. She spoke with great earnestly, "You could have died... because of that."
"Ha! You wish!" She squinted, looking at Batgirl's face " Hey look! Your eye is starting to swell up a bit. Ha, I really did nail you!"
"You make it... difficult... to like you." Batgirl replied angrily.
"Same thing here, toots. Think Oracle is onto us?"
"Maybe. Can you think... of a... cunning... cover story?"
 "Oh, I'm sure we'll think of something."

"In Flanders Files..." m

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