The familiar ping of the facial recognition program cut through the warehouse's ambient hum, pulling Selina's attention away from the Volkov financial records she'd been cross-referencing. She gnced at the alert window, expecting another false positive—the system had been running for hours, scanning through thousands of images and video files across the darker corners of the internet.

  But the confidence rating made her heart skip: 97.8% match.

  Selina clicked on the alert, and Tammy's face filled the screen. Not the smiling girl from the missing person photo, but the same distinctive reddish-blonde hair, the same bright eyes. Only now those eyes held something different—a mixture of nervousness and something else Selina could identify as she watched the preview frame of what was clearly a video.

  Her finger hovered over the py button for a moment before she clicked it.

  The video quality was professional, too professional for comfort. Tammy sat on a pink canopy bed next to another girl—dark-haired, maybe a year younger. Both were barely dressed, and within the first few seconds, Selina understood exactly what kind of production this was. Her stomach twisted as she watched Tammy respond to the other girl's touch, the way she moved and reacted suggesting this wasn't her first time being filmed.

  Selina paused the video, her hands shaking slightly as she pulled up the file properties. The metadata showed it had been uploaded just hours ago to a private server, tagged with keywords that made her skin flush with warmth. But what caught her attention was the production company listed in the credits: "Hatter's Productions."

  "Finally," she whispered, immediately opening new search windows to dig deeper into the company.

  The search results were frustratingly sparse. Hatter's Productions had a minimal web presence—no official website, no business registration she could find in public records, just references scattered across forums and private servers where people discussed and traded content she didn't want to think about too hard. But what she could find suggested they'd been operating for years, producing a steady stream of videos featuring young girls.

  Selina's programs continued running in the background as she manually searched, and within an hour, three more alerts chimed. Three more videos, all featuring Tammy. The timestamps showed they'd been created over the past several months, documenting what looked like a progression—Tammy becoming more comfortable, more practiced, in front of the camera.

  Each video made Selina's chest tighten with a mixture of anger and determination. This girl had been trapped in this system for months, being systematically exploited by people who knew exactly how to manipute and control vulnerable teenagers. And somewhere out there, more girls were probably going through the same thing.

  But where? Selina had the company name, but no physical address. No way to track down where these videos were being made.

  She leaned back in her chair, staring at the screens full of data, and tried to think like 47 would. What patterns could she find? What connections existed that she hadn't seen yet?

  Her eyes drifted to the map dispy still showing the location of Scarface & Wesker's diner. Tammy had st been seen there, talking to a man and a blonde woman who had convinced her to leave with them. That had to be connected to how she ended up making videos for Hatter's Productions.

  On impulse, Selina pulled up missing persons reports for the area around the diner, expanding the search radius to cover a few miles in each direction. The results made her breath catch—dozens of reports over the past three years, all teenage girls, all from the same general area of Gotham. Most had been cssified as runaways, which meant minimal police investigation.

  She refined the search, looking for patterns in the disappearances. Certain blocks seemed to be hotspots, areas where multiple girls had gone missing within months of each other. The pattern centered around a section of the East End known for cheap housing, homeless shelters, and the kind of desperation that made people vulnerable to promises of something better.

  Selina stared at the map, watching as her program highlighted the locations with red dots. It looked like a hunting ground. Someone—probably working for Hatter's Productions—was systematically targeting girls from this area, girls who were unlikely to be missed or aggressively searched for by authorities.

  The realization hit her like a physical blow. This wasn't just about Tammy. This was about dozens of girls, maybe more, who had been lured away from the streets and into whatever operation Hatter's Productions was running. And if the pattern continued, there would be more victims.

  Unless someone stopped it.

  Selina pulled up street view images of the area, studying the yout. It was exactly the kind of neighborhood she'd grown up in—rundown buildings, scattered streetlights, plenty of pces for vulnerable kids to sleep rough. If she went there, dressed down and looking desperate, she could probably blend in with the other street kids easily enough.

  And if whoever was hunting for girls approached her, she could let them take her. Find out where they brought their victims. Maybe find Tammy and the others.

  The pn formed in her mind, but she could already anticipate 47's reaction. He'd been protective during their training session, reluctant to let her take risks even in a controlled environment. Asking him to let her walk into what was essentially a trap would require careful persuasion.

  Selina minimized the video windows—she didn't need to see those images again—and began organizing her research into a presentation that would be hard to argue with. She pulled up the missing persons statistics, created a timeline of disappearances, mapped out the hunting ground with all its red dots marking lost girls.

  She needed to frame this not as a reckless gamble, but as the logical next step in their investigation. They had the pattern, they had the area, but they needed someone on the inside to find the actual location where these girls were being held. And she was the only one who could realistically pass for a vulnerable teenager on the streets.

  The hard part would be convincing 47 that the risk was worth it. But as she looked at Tammy's face in the paused video—still so young, still recognizably the girl from the missing person photo despite everything that had been done to her—Selina knew she had to try.

  She started drafting her argument, organizing the evidence and rehearsing the points that would appeal to 47's logical nature while addressing his protective instincts. This was their best chance to find Tammy and shut down an operation that had been destroying young lives for years.

  Now she just had to convince 47 to let a fifteen-year-old girl walk into danger, alone, and hope the monsters would take the bait.

  ---

  The phone buzzed against Carrie's ear as she walked down Lincoln Avenue, her boots clicking against the cracked sidewalk. Late afternoon shadows stretched long between the buildings, and she kept her voice low despite the street noise around her.

  "I found the location you were asking about," she said into the phone, watching a group of kids skateboard past a boarded-up storefront. "That Blockbuster was torn apart. Thorough job—someone wanted Marcus and his crew gone permanently."

  The moduted voice on the other end was as emotionless as always, processed through whatever device her mysterious client used to hide their identity. "Interesting. What else?"

  "Found a connection to something called Hatter's Productions. Did some surveilnce—it's not what you'd call legitimate filmmaking." Carrie paused at a crosswalk, waiting for the light to change. A bus rumbled past, belching diesel exhaust. "Pce is crawling with security, and from what I could see, they're involved in some seriously sick stuff. Kids, probably trafficking."

  She expected some kind of reaction—shock, disgust, maybe questions about the children. Instead, there was only a brief pause before the voice responded with the same ft tone.

  "That's interesting, but what about this mysterious person who's disrupting the criminal ecosystem? That's what I'm paying you to investigate."

  The dismissal hit her wrong, like a cold knot forming in her stomach. She'd just described what was essentially a child abuse operation, and this person was treating it like irrelevant background information.

  "Still working on it," she said, keeping her voice steady. "When I get more information, I'll let you know."

  "Good. I appreciate your thoroughness. You were recommended to me as one of the best in the business. Keep up the good work, Miss Kelley."

  The line went dead.

  Carrie stared at her phone for a moment, then shoved it back into her jacket pocket. The light changed, and she crossed the street, her mind churning. Who was this person? And why the hell wasn't he interested in Hatter's Productions? Any normal client would have wanted details, would have asked if she was going to report it to the police. But this guy seemed to care only about whoever was shaking up Gotham's criminal underground.

  That made her even more suspicious.

  She was so lost in thought that she almost walked past Joe Coyne's cart without noticing. The street vendor had set up in his usual spot near the subway entrance, his small folding table covered with penny-themed merchandise. Penny t-shirts, penny hats, penny cups, penny keychains—everything adorned with images of Lincoln's silhouette or clever slogans about pennies and luck.

  "Hey there, Miss Kelley!" Joe called out cheerfully, his weathered face breaking into a grin. He was probably in his fifties, with salt-and-pepper hair and the kind of enthusiasm for his unusual business that bordered on obsessive. "Got some new items today—erasers shaped like real pennies!"

  Despite everything weighing on her mind, Carrie found herself smiling slightly. Joe was eccentric as hell, but there was something refreshingly genuine about his passion for penny-reted novelties. In a city full of liars and predators, his weird obsession was almost comforting.

  She walked over to his cart, examining the small erasers he held up. They were perfect copper-colored replicas of Lincoln pennies, complete with tiny detailed engravings that mimicked the real thing. "These are actually kind of cute, Joe. Tim might get a kick out of them."

  "Ten pennies!" Joe beamed, his eyes lighting up. "Your boyfriend's a teacher, right? Kids love novelty erasers."

  Carrie smiled and dug into her pocket, pulling out a small handful of change. She counted out the amount, watching Joe's face practically glow with satisfaction as she pced each copper coin into his weathered palm. This was what made Joe unique in Gotham—in a city where everyone was chasing big money and bigger schemes, here was a guy who genuinely got excited about pennies. Only pennies.

  "I swear, Joe, you're the only person in this city who gets happy about copper coins," she said, taking the erasers.

  "People don't appreciate the value of a penny," Joe replied earnestly, carefully pcing each coin into a separate compartment of an old cigar box. "They think it's worthless, but pennies add up. Pennies have history. Every penny tells a story."

  She found herself studying his face as he organized his coins with ritualistic care. He was always here, day after day, talking to everyone who passed by, but only ever accepting pennies as payment. If anyone knew about unusual activities in this part of the city, it might be Joe.

  "Hey, you notice anything weird going on around here tely?" she asked casually.

  Joe's expression grew thoughtful as he arranged the pennies in his cigar box. "Funny you should ask. People have been talking about... well, this sounds crazy, but they're saying there's some kind of bat creature hunting the streets at night. Attacking people. Got folks real scared."

  Carrie raised an eyebrow. "A bat creature? Like Dracu or something?"

  "Not exactly," Joe said, his voice dropping to almost a whisper. "They're saying it's big—maybe six feet tall. People have only caught glimpses of it, but those who have... they say it moves like nothing human. Fast, silent. And it's been going after some real bad people, from what I hear."

  She felt a chill run down her spine that had nothing to do with the evening air. "Do you believe it?"

  Joe shrugged, but his eyes remained serious. "This is Gotham. Who knows what's real these days?"

  Carrie nodded, filing away the information. A six-foot bat creature going after criminals? It sounded insane, but in Gotham, the line between urban legend and reality was often thinner than people wanted to believe.

  "Thanks, Joe. Keep your eyes and ears open, okay?"

  "Always do!" He tipped his penny-covered baseball cap. "You take care of yourself, Miss Kelley."

  "Stop calling me that," she said with mock exasperation. "We've been talking to each other for years."

  "Sorry, Carrie. Old habits."

  "See you ter," she said, giving him a small wave as she walked away.

  But as she continued down the sidewalk, her thoughts returned to the phone call. Her client's complete ck of interest in Hatter's Productions nagged at her. Most people would have been horrified, would have wanted to know more, would have asked what she pnned to do with the information. But this person had brushed it aside like it was just another piece of irrelevant data.

  That wasn't the reaction of someone who wanted justice or even information for its own sake. That was the reaction of someone with a very specific agenda—someone who already knew about pces like Hatter's Productions and didn't care about shutting them down.

  The question was: what exactly was she helping this person accomplish? And were the rumors of some bat creature stalking Gotham's criminals connected to the disruptions in the criminal ecosystem her client was so interested in?