"What do you think of this one?" Steph asked, stepping out of the changing room for what felt like the hundredth time.

"It's red," I replied unenthusiastically.

"You said that about the last one; I mean, how does it look on me, idiot," She snarled.

"The last one was also red, and they all looked fine."

"Fine?" Steph huffed, "No wonder you don't have a girlfriend. You're useless, man."

"Couldn't you have brought someone else with you?"

"No, because you're paying. And besides, I enjoy torturing you," She smirked before re-entering the changing room.

"Well, if you don't pick one soon, I'll be taking someone else with me tonight."

"Pfft, you need me, and besides, who's going to be your date?"

"At this point, I'm thinking of giving Roy a call."

Steph whipped her head around the curtain, "We both know he'd rather go with me anyway."

"Get back in there and get choosing, or next time you open that curtain, I'll be across the street getting coffee."

"Just tell me which one looked better, and I'll get that one."

"Go with the red one."

"Gah!" Steph exclaimed before dropping silent. She emerged from behind the curtain moments later in her normal clothes again with a pile of dresses over one arm, and a single red dress held carefully by its hanger in the other.

Not wishing to stoke her anger any further, I stood and took the pile of dresses from her as she approached the counter. I handed the discarded dresses to a bored-looking staff member then proceeded to pay for Steph's dress, the price of which made my eyes bulge momentarily.

"Picked the most expensive one, huh?" I asked casually.

"You can afford it."


We travelled back to the apartment, where I made the horrific suggestion of ordering pizza, which Steph saw as an attempt to sabotage the fit of her new dress. Frankly, it had never crossed my mind, but I surrendered and ate some of the questionable leftovers in the fridge nonetheless.

After a few hours of jabbing at one another and watching TV, Steph and I finally set off to the casino.

We arrived and sat down at the nearest empty blackjack table. Steph was acting strangely giddy.

"You know, I've never been to a casino," She explained, grinning as she threw down some chips, "Feels like I'm in a heist movie."

"Bust," the dealer said, Steph continuing to smile, completely unphased.

"Well, this isn't a movie," I said in a whisper, "And don't say heist."

A man sat down to the right of me, shoving into me as he did. The odour of alcohol seemed to be seeping through his pores. At first, he played a hand in silence, then Steph caught his eye, and he decided to open his mouth.

"Hey," The man said with a huge smile, "That's a lovely dress."

"Thanks," Steph said, returning the smile, albeit with less sincerity.

"You come here often?"

"No, this is my first time, my uh... Boyfriend here is taking me out," Steph explained.

"Boyfriend? Damn," He laughed, then looked me up and down and went back to playing cards.

I looked at Steph and rolled my eyes before placing a bet of my own.

The man sighed loudly, unable to keep his feelings to himself, apparently, "Seriously? This guy?"

"Sorry?" Steph said, laughing again.

"Why is it the pretty girls like you are always going for pampered princes like him," He said, visibly frustrated. He took his hand off the table and poked me in the chest, "What's he got that I don't?"

Steph laughed but didn't respond right away.

He was annoying me, much as I wanted to ignore him and be the bigger person. He prodded me again, this time in the cheek. Before he could speak again, I grabbed his finger.

"See, the good thing about being a pampered prince," I said, twisting his finger around dangerously close to the point of breaking as he winced like a wounded animal, "Is that I had the most expensive karate teacher in the city."

The blackjack dealer opened his mouth to speak but seemed to decide against it.

I let the heckler go, and his hand fell back to the table with a thud. He blushed with embarrassment and mumbled something about nice guys again under his breath before grabbing his chips and walking away from the table.

Steph looked at me with a raised eyebrow, "Almost seemed like you were jealous."

"Ridiculous," I replied, feeling my cheeks redden.

"For the record, I can handle sleaze bags like him - I don't need you to protect me."

"Oh, I know, I was defending my own honour, and the honour of all pampered princes the world over."

"Fair enough, just thought you might be getting a little too into this boyfriend thing."

"Hey, you're the one that started throwing that term around. A friend-date would have been a perfectly reasonable cover story."

Steph's cheeks went a little red too, and she looked as though she wanted to say something, but I was distracted by a large hand on my shoulder and a striking odour of expensive cologne. Maxxie Zeus beamed down at me like I'd just found an extra present under the Christmas tree after he thought he'd opened them all.

"Mr Grayson, so good to see you again," He boomed, "I hope that gentleman wasn't bothering you too much. I've had him removed from the premises."

"Thank you, Mr Zeus, that's very considerate of you," I replied.

"Could I tempt you and your lovely companion with the high stakes tables tonight?" He asked.

I pulled a thoughtful face then looked over at Steph, shrugging.

Steph put her hand on mine and said, "That sounds good to me."

"Well..." I said, pausing for effect, "What the lady wants, the lady gets."

"Excellent! Excellent!" Zeus exclaimed, clapping his hands together, "If you'd like to follow me, we can get you set up."

I nodded and stood up, Steph following, as Zeus stopped and turned to her, "Forgive me, where are my manners, Maximilian Zeus," he said with an outstretched hand.

"Charmed," Steph said in a weird British accent, which I think surprised her as much as it surprised me, taking his hand before continuing "I'm Stephanie," in her own accent.

"A pleasure, Stephanie," Zeus replied, taking no notice of Steph's odd behaviour.

I shot Steph a look, which she met with a shrug and whispered, "It just came out."

Zeus guided us up to the high stakes tables, where I again saw the security room. I made a quick gesture to the keypad by the door, and Steph nodded, stumbling on cue and almost falling over.

Zeus reached out and caught her by the arm, "Careful there, my dear."

In the momentary distraction, I slipped a device the size of a quarter under the keypad, which, according to Barbara, would work out the code to the door when the next person typed it in. I just had to hope I'd understood how to use it correctly and that no one saw the device.

On the way into the high stakes room, I noticed a small table with matchboxes like the one in Nate's apartment and some other branded trinkets. This room contained a small stage currently occupied by dancers being ogled by a few of the guests.

The clientele looked a little different to the folks downstairs, in some cases much richer and in others much more criminal. I recognised a couple of the people playing poker, a former lieutenant of Oswald Cobblepot who I distinctly remembered punching in the at least face once before and Mitchell Mayo, a.k.a. The Condiment King. The king was a one-time crook who tried to rob a bank with water pistols filled with ketchup and mustard - he ended up serving a short stint in Blackgate before starting up a successful company selling condiments to fast-food restaurants, his autobiography 'Relishing in Success' sold surprisingly well.

"The Blackjack tables are over here since that seems to be your game," Zeus said, pointing to the tables, one of which had a convenient view of the security door, "There are plenty of other games if you're interested, of course."

"Blackjack will do nicely, for now, thanks," I said, moving towards the table with the best vantage point.

"Fantastic," Zeus laughed, "You get yourselves comfortable, and I'll have some drinks brought over for you."

"Thank you, sir," Steph said with a small bow.

"You could at least try to act natural," I mumbled as Zeus walked away.

"I've got no idea what you're talking about," Steph said, once again using her bizarre British accent.

"Stop it," I laughed.

We sat down at the table and started placing some bets. Not long after, one of the women who had been dancing on the stage approached our table with a tray of drinks.

"With compliments from Mr Zeus," She smiled.

"Thank you, uhm..." I said, looking around for a name-tag that wasn't present.

"Faith," She said, still smiling.

"Thank you, Faith," I returned the smile and took the drinks from the tray.

"If there's anything else you need, you feel free to wave me over."

"I'll be sure to do that," I nodded.

"I'll be sure to do that," Steph mocked under her breath, taking a large gulp of her drink.

"Sorry?"

"Nothing," Steph replied, "Hey, look."

A security guard was punching in the code at the door. I watched him as the door swung open, revealing a good view of what was inside. The room looked much larger than I'd imagined, staffed by at least three guards, including the one walking in, each manning different sets of screens.

I leaned in close to Steph's ear, "Act like I'm saying something funny. I need you to create a distraction for me so I can get in the room."

"No problem, you got the code?" She whispered before letting out a loud, fake laugh.

"It should have been sent to my phone; I'll go stand at the bar while you do your thing."

Steph polished off the rest of her drink fast and placed a large bet as I headed to the bar. I heard the dealer say "Blackjack", followed by Steph wooing at the top of her lungs.

She continued to play up her fake drunkenness loudly, but no one on the poker table, which had a direct view of the door, seemed to be taking notice.

Faith, who had brought our drinks over earlier, approached me at the bar, "You didn't have to get up. I could have brought your drinks over."

"Wasn't sure what I wanted," I said politely.

"Sure you weren't trying to get away?" She asked, gesturing to Steph, who was still being very boisterous.

"Well, now that you mention it..." I laughed.

Faith and I chatted back and forth. I was fairly certain Zeus had asked her to flirt with me, but for what reason, I wasn't sure. Eventually, she went back to work, and I continued to sit at the bar.

Steph stumbled over to the poker table, "Aren't you Karl Ketchup?" She yelled loudly.

"It's Mitchell Mayo," The man replied frustratedly.

"Miss," A staff member said, "If you could please step away from the table."

"But I wanna talk to Martin Mustard."

Part of me wanted to stay and watch the outcome of Steph's insane distraction, but since it was working so well, I had to get to that security door.

I hammered in the code and quickly pulled out the small stick from my inner jacket pocket. With a click, all of the lights and screens in the corridor, security room and the high stakes room blinked out for a moment, allowing me to slip inside and duck under one of the security tables.

"What the hell was that?" One of the guards said as the screens flickered back to life.

"No clue, I'm gonna go check the main floor. If anything happened to the slots, we could be in trouble," Said another.

"Chill, the cameras will be back on any second."

It seemed the other guard didn't want to chill as he stormed straight for the door despite his colleague's suggestion. I crawled around to another desk where I could see a USB port. I reached up and inserted the specially formulated memory stick, which was set to download as much recent data as it could fit on it.

Another problem arose as I glanced up at the screen, something I hadn't considered. The camera outside the door would have seen me using the keypad. I had to erase that footage.

I'd only brought the equipment for breaking into the room, but nothing to incapacitate any guards, so I'd have to do that the old fashioned way with the added wrinkle of not being seen.

Thinking fast, I flicked a $100 chip I'd slipped in my pocket over to the corner of the room, both of the men looked over. One was stood up, and the other sat in a swivel chair.

I crept up behind the guard in the chair and pulled him into a chokehold, swinging him around with me as I kicked the other in the back, sending him careering into the screens in front of him. Dazed, he fell to the floor as his seated colleague passed out from the chokehold.

Quickly, I threw the unconscious guard to the ground next to the other one, who was groaning. I tied both of their hands and feet together using cables from the computers, which I quickly wiped down to eliminate any fingerprints.

"You won't get away with this," The conscious guard said, wriggling, "You don't know who you're screwing with."

I ignored him, proceeding to delete the last few hours of footage and disable the camera in the hallway outside.

The memory stick, having finished its task, I stuck it back in my pocket and got ready to leave.

Suddenly, the door swung open, and the other guard gasped, "What the hell?"

The EMP stick had one last charge, which I used to turn out the lights again. I charged towards the other guard in the darkness and pulled him into the room, throwing him toward his friends before slamming the door closed behind me with my foot.

I gave the keypad on the wall a quick wipe before slipping back into the high stakes room and taking a seat at the bar as the lights came back on.

Steph was sat at the bar, too, looking satisfied with herself.

"Hey, I thought they'd have thrown you out," I said.

"Nah, I calmed down as soon as the lights went out. Did you get it?"

"Yeah, but there was a complication."

"Oh?"

Before I had to explain, a guard burst out of the security room and blurted into his radio, "We've had an intruder in the security room, lock down the vault and get the boss somewhere safe."

Steph looked at me, disapprovingly, "You got caught?"

"Not exactly," I replied.

The guard entered the room with additional security guards behind him, "Sorry, everyone, we're going to have to ask you to evacuate to the nearest fire exit for your own safety."

A low hum of grumbles and talk erupted as people started to leave their seats and head for the nearest exit.

"Perfect," I said, "Let's get out of here."


Back at the loft, I dropped into my chair and booted up the computer. Hours of footage began transferring across as soon as the memory stick was plugged in, flashing up on the screen as stills.

"Barb says the facial recognition software should do the work for us, but it could take a while," I told Steph.

"Thank god, I wasn't looking forward to sitting through hours of footage," She replied, "But what happens if it doesn't pick anything up?"

"Well, either the software isn't working, or Nate was never there. In either case, we'll have to scrub through the footage and see if there's anyone else we recognise."

"So whatever the result, we lose," Steph said, rolling her eyes.

I sighed, "If it means I can squash some of the doubts I'm having about Nate, I'm more than happy to scrub through days of footage."

"I had fun tonight," Steph said quickly, like some sort of word vomit she hadn't meant to say out loud, "Considering it was a mission and everything."

"Me too, you were definitely less annoying than usual," I replied.

She chuckled, "Hey, I never said you weren't annoying, dude. The environment just distracted me enough that I didn't notice as much."

A sincere smile passed between us for a brief instant before Steph continued, "I'd better go change. This dress is a lot less comfortable than it looks."

"Alright," I nodded, turning back to the computer, which was flashing through footage with the words' no match found' still at the bottom.

Steph stomped back into the loft, "Don't read into this. It's not like, a move or anything..."

"What?" I asked, turning around.

She looked visibly annoyed, "I can't unzip the damned dress; you're gonna have to help me."

"Is that right?" I laughed, "Why would I think that was a move?"

"I don't know, I've seen movies, they can never unzip their dresses, and it ends up being a thing."

"You might be overthinking that a little," I said, getting up.

She huffed and turned around, leaning her head forward so I could yank the zip, which in her defence was pretty stuck. After a few sharp pulls, I got it to move, "You'd think for the price, it might have had a better zip."

Steph turned around to face me, "Told you it was stuck," she said softly. My breathing got away from me for a second before she looked to the side of me and exclaimed, "Shit!"

"What is it?" I said.

Steph pointed at the screen, emblazoned on it were the words 'MATCHES FOUND'.