Unoccupied Premises
by Lucy Gillam

The building itself was easy enough to get into. The windows were alarmed, but only opening them would trigger it, not cutting right through. And after three nights in a row of false alarms due to birds mysteriously finding their way into various parts of the building, all the motion sensors had been turned off while the alarm company and the building maintenance looked into the problem.

Dick paused to pick a lock on the accountant's file cabinet and scatter a few files out, open a few desk drawers, and generally create a sense of chaos.

It doesn't matter if they know you were in the building, Selina had said, as long as they're wrong about why you were there. Better to do it now in case he had to make a hurried exit.

He hoisted himself up on the file cabinet and carefully pushed aside one of the ceiling panels. The struts were a bit flimsy, but they would hold long enough to get him up to something he could grab onto. He hoped.

Take your time, Selina had told him. Places like this don't get broken into often, but that doesn't mean they haven't taken precautions. Don't rush anything.

It was only an information-gathering job, a preliminary to something real, but it was his first solo trip, and he'd argued for hours to be allowed to handle it alone. If he did well enough, Selina might let him come along on the job the information was for. He was really looking forward to that, and not just because it was fun: he was starting to get worried about the things Selina did by herself. He knew she could take care of herself, but he'd seen the occasional tears in her costume. Not often, but sometimes. Maybe that wouldn't happen if he were there.

For now, he could do this much on his own. Besides, she was always saying that the stuff that happened before the job was as important as the job itself.

Almost nothing in this business is really spontaneous, she'd told him. Planning and information are the difference between a comfortably well-off thief and a broke crook.

The small law office of Ahler & Associates was on the corner of this floor. The sense of direction he'd acquired from years of having to know which way to turn out of a flip served him in good stead, and he was able to drop down into the middle of the office.

Showtime.

Dick found the desk Selina had told him to look for, the one with nameplate that read "Larry Ortiz, CLA."

The assistant's computer will have the information we need, and it's less likely to be password protected.

Dick pulled up a chair and set to work.

He'd been surprised when the first thing Selina had insisted on was that he catch up on his education, even going to far as to enroll him in school last fall.

There's more to this job than balance and dodging motion detectors. There are things you need to know, and it's better for you to learn them now than try to catch up later.

Dick hadn't been thrilled about the school part, but he'd gotten enough lectures on the Importance of Education from his mom and dad, even if it had been the homeschool kind, to know she was right. Besides, there had been something in her face when she'd said it, something almost sad, that made him decide not to push it. Selina only rarely talked about her life before they'd met, and never answered questions, but he was slowly learning the places where her own scary things lived.

And it had its uses, like the basics of finding things on computers. It freed up his time with Selina for things he couldn't learn at school.

All we need is the list of assets being auctioned, she'd told him, giving him a few ideas of things he might use to search for it. Dick had felt a twinge of pride when she'd left the specifics to him. He let the computer do its searching of files containing a few key words and...

Bingo.

"Teach you to use a rinky-dink law firm," he muttered, although he was not entirely sure who he was muttering it to: the dead woman, maybe, or her heirs. He'd felt a little squeamish at the idea of robbing from a dead woman, but Selina had pointed out that her kids were just selling all her prized possessions anyway. It wasn't like any of them actually cared about the stuff, only the money.

He printed the document out and saved it onto disk, as well. Better safe than sorry, Pop Haley had always said. Selina hated it when Dick said that to her, but she never argued with the things he used it to justify. He tucked both the disk and the print-out into the bag she'd given him for his last birthday, and started back towards the office he'd used to come in.

It was a stupid, amateur mistake, putting too much weight on one of the fragile struts. Dick managed to roll just enough as he crashed through the ceiling to avoid the desk just below him, but not enough to avoid pulling a computer and phone down as he fell.

Oh, no fair, he thought as the alarm went off. Who rigged an alarm in their computer? A quick look at the name on the door as he ran out told him that a computer security firm did.

Probably should have known that was there, he reflected. Selina would have.

There was no time for subtlety, just a quick dash to the end of the hall where he knew the fire escape was, and an even quicker dash up it, knowing that the police were probably already pulling up on the street. Even in Gotham, that kind of alarm got a fast response.

It took some doing to get a safe distance away. The building was bound in on all sides, counting the street, and was significantly shorter than any of the surrounding buildings. Still, this was the whole reason Selina had been interested in him in the first place, and in no time at all he was four buildings away, looking back at the reflected red and blue lights.

"Score!" he said, lifting his arms, only to have a blinding pain suddenly shoot through his ear.

"Not bad, junior. But you just got nabbed."

"Ow ow ow!" Dick turned to see the smirking face of his mentor, who at least had the good grace to let go of his ear. "What was that for?"

"Like I said, you got nabbed." Selina smoothed a nonexistent wrinkle out of her costume. It was a newer version, all-black instead of purple. Dick liked it better than the last one, but he still wasn't quite used to seeing her in it. She'd broken that bit to him slowly, and he'd almost bolted when she'd first shown up in, but he had to admit that a cat burglar in a cat costume was considerably less weird than most of what went on in Gotham.

"No way! I mean, yeah, the alarm went off, but I'm here, and there's nothing to tell them what I was actually after!"

"Doesn't matter. I nabbed you."

"You knew where I was in the first place!" Dick heard a faint hint of a whine in his voice and stomped it ruthlessly. "No one else would have found me," he added more calmly.

"No?" A delicate eyebrow crept up the eyehole of her her mask. "Do you know why I changed my mind and let you do this by yourself?"

"Um…because I was really, really convincing?" Even as he said it, he knew it wasn't true.

"No. Because the Justice League is embroiled in some international crisis over in Russia."

"What does that…Oh. Oh." Dick felt his eyes go wide, and he looked around the rooftop.

"He's not here. I checked. But if he had been, you'd have been nabbed."

"How can you be so sure? Maybe I would have gotten away from him."

Selina laughed. "Trust me, kid, you wouldn't have. I know." She reached out and ruffled his hair. He really was going to have to ask her to quit that someday. "You're good, kid. Really good. But you're not ready for him. Yet." She looked at him and smiled, the same smile she'd given him nearly a year ago, the moment she later told him she'd decided he just might be worth her time. "But you will be when I'm through with you."

Dick smiled back. "So, does that mean I can go with you when you go after this stuff?"

"Not yet. But soon. Very soon, I think, if you keep up what you've been doing."

"Cool." Dick had never been afraid of a little hard work, and if it meant he could start going out with her, he'd work that much harder. "What do we do next?"

Selina draped an arm around his shoulders, giving him a friendly squeeze. "You go home and get some sleep. School day tomorrow."

Dick rolled his eyes. She really picked the worst times to remember that she was a grown-up.

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