Three weeks later and she was still working out the kinks in her story.

Identity.

Story.

Very few people realize that those two words are interchangeable, she thought while painting her nails a dark silver. She had grown them out to match her cover persona's taste in expensive makeovers and was now giving herself a manicure.

Kaely Tress, she needed to start thinking of herself as the person she was pretending to be, not the one she had left behind as soon as she'd crossed the border out of Symetri. She could never be that person again if this was going to work and it would work. She would make sure of it. There was nothing for her to even go back to. She'd up and left her apartment the same night that she had found the drive, paid her rent and packed. Just in time too; the police had come knocking the next morning and talked to the super. She'd seen the interview online and been pleased when the landlord had shrugged and said simply that Larson wasn't liked by anyone. It was just the icing on the cake when the super had suddenly turned, looked directly at the camera, and said that Larsson had been in frequent trouble with police in the past. After that, the case had been closed, ruled a suicide. Although clearly not a suicide, she—Kaely, suspected someone in a place of power had paid the investigating officers off. Then again, if I were implicated in anything Larsson was selling, I'd pay off the police force too she admitted, cleaning up the corners on her pinky, underage adult videos are a dark business to be pulled into.

Bast meowed from down on the floor. Kaely glanced down at the tasteful black tiles and then at Bast. The cat looked at her intently for a moment and then decided whatever she had wanted wasn't worth the trouble.

Kaely turned her attention back to her nails and began adding French tips. She found the exercise strangely relaxing and it opened her mind back up to free thought again.

She had been thinking about her… "fan" recently. Ruminating on who it was, where they were, and, most importantly, what their intentions were for her. She wished that she had some way of communicating with them. To tell them that she wasn't about to be buttered up and trained for some sort of secret terms and conditions clause she had missed when accepting the, seemingly, good offer of getting out of Symetri City. She didn't like the idea of being used or the alarming feeling that the moment she had stepped foot into Gotham that she had essentially sold herself into indentured servitude for some unknown-power.

Some, rich, unknown power she reminded herself, glancing around the flat. It was all blacks and silvers. It made the penthouse feel not only small but dark and cold. Especially at night, when all she could see through the skylights were stormy dark clouds that covered the moon. It would never feel like home but then again, her apartment in Symetri hadn't felt like "home" either. It had just been a place to go back to. Stuff surrounded by walls. This place was no different, only it was expensive stuff surrounded by nicer walls. All of the appliances were new and top of the line with reflective surfaces everywhere, forcing her to constantly confront her new face. She still wasn't use to being Kaely, who was shorter, had a sharper, more narrow, face, and was covered in freckles.

She glanced to her left at the two pictures on the mantle. They were both in identical sturdy steel frames. Two faces stared out at her, both computer generated and worlds apart. The first was of Kaely Tress, her head tilted at an odd angle like she was squinting when the picture was taken, her warm brown eyes shone regardless. The second was of Tessla Skyre, she had grey wavy hair and overcast blue eyes and at first glance she gave the impression of frowning. On closer inspection, she appeared to be smirking slightly, like she knew a secret that everybody else was too stupid to understand.

She wrenched her eyes away from the pictures and contemplated taking them down, or at least turning them to face the wall. She had considered this multiple times already but had always decided against it. They were unnerving, sure, but at the same time they were a good reminder of what she was supposed to look like. She suspected that was part of the reason the flat was filled with reflective surfaces, so that she would never wake up with accidental highlights of her old black hair in Kaely's sun streaked brown. At least that's explainable, she thought, if I were to go somewhere with half of my old nose, or maybe an arm that's a different color and length, I wouldn't be what you'd call inconspicuous.

She inspected her nails one final time before blowing on them to help them dry, wondering whether or not to get dressed and take a walk downtown. She'd been padding around in her pajamas all day, trying to avoid going out in the cold. Gotham was a dark city and much lonelier that she might have thought; with all of its flashing neon lights and dance clubs, she had expected the streets to be flooded with crime and partying young adults. It should have been full of people during all times of day, it was a large city after all, filled with working people who had to keep odd job hours, moreover it should have been crowded, or at least clearly populated. It should have felt fuller.

But there was nobody outside after sunset. They had all secreted themselves away inside of their respective homes, each hiding from the indifference and iciness of their own city.

She tilted her chair back to gaze out of the window. It couldn't be later than ten o'clock, maybe nine thirty. She checked her nails to make sure they were dry before getting up and walking back to her room. She switched the light on and her closet opened automatically when she approached it. She thumbed her way through the clothes inside, looking for something soft and warm. Kaely felt like she was a soft and warm kind of girl. She pulled out a pair of dark blue jeans, short black boots, a tight grey sweater or shirt she thought, examining it closely, it really could be either. Damn ambiguous clothing. Nonetheless, she pulled the sweater-shirt over her head before roughly grabbing a jacket with fluffy white lining on the inside.

It all fit perfectly.

That was another one of the rather odd things about this place. All of the clothes fit.

She hadn't reverted back to her old body since she'd arrived at the flat, the first thing that she'd even done was sit and look at the picture of Kaely on the mantle, subsequently spending nearly four hours trying to get the face and body right only to discover that none of her old clothes fit Kaely's body.

She'd looked around the flat for some form of shapeless clothing she could wear until she went shopping, eventually happening upon the closet. It had opened and out of curiosity, she'd tried on the first pair of pants she'd found. Grey denim, sized for a slim and athletic build, fitting Kaely perfectly. She pulled on a second pair of pants, green this time, the same exact fit. Yanked on a shirt, bright red, long made for someone with slim shoulders, the underwear inside of a black dresser to the left of the closet, even a couple of t-shirt bras, they fit too.

All of the clothes fit Kaely.

All of them.

How exactly did my "fan" get tailored clothes made before they either of us even knew what my body would look like? She frowned as she tried to figure it out. Sure, there had been some basic information on what she would look like, and the pictures on the mantle, but measuring all of the parts to a human body is rather time consuming and difficult, so she'd had a lot of creative license when it came to the quirks. One of these quirks had been her hip to waist ratio, another had been the thickness of her thighs. And she knew enough about tailored clothing to know that there was no way to have made everything fit so snugly without those measurements.

She frowned as she thought about this, systematically turning off the lights in her flat as she grew closer to the door. It was cold outside and when she opened the metal door a bitter gust of wind swept in and played with her straight brown hair, tying it in knots and flinging it into her face.

She walked down the street slowly, it was dark, but the lamplights gave off just enough of a yellow glow to see by. It was evident by the lack of graffiti that she was in the rich part of town, clearly living above her old standards. In fact, she hadn't even seen one cockroach since she'd been living in the flat. Although good for her pantry, it made her cat antsy.

Bast had been wailing around the apartment for the past few months but whenever she—Kaely opened the door to let her out, Bast backed away with a hiss. The cat didn't seem overly fond of the city's constant electronic humming and automated transport systems.

Kaely moseyed down the sidewalk, her eyes glazed with thought, not paying attention to her surroundings. She rolled her shoulders beneath her coat and shivered, catching a glimpse of something out of the corner of her eye.

A boy, roughly the same age as her, maybe a little younger, went stumbling down below a concrete arch and into a dark ditch. She watched for a few moments more, waiting for him to wander back out again, confused, and likely drunk.

She stood and waited.

And waited.

She buried her fists in her fur-lined pockets.

And waited.

When he still hadn't emerged after nearly ten minutes, she took a breath and followed.

The first thing she noticed was how very quickly it got dark. The next most obvious thing was the smell. Puddles of rancid water lay about the floor, dark and menacing, giving her no hint to how deep any of them really were. She avoided them carefully; acid rain was common in cities if they didn't have the right kind of ecosystemic protection and she doubted very much that a place as loose with its corporation laws as Gotham would have proper environmental regulations. During the first part of the twenty-first century, the term "acid rain" referred to rain that was high in acidity. These days, however, acid rain was something more akin to diluted sulfuric acid, which hurts like a bitch and leaves one ugly-ass burn.

Kaely narrowed her eyes as they attempted to adjust to her darker surroundings. Something brushed gently up against the toe of her boot. She jumped a little before shaking it off, probably just rats, wouldn't have survived a day in Symetri if I had been scared of rats, Gotham's rodents won't be any different.

She ducked under a low concrete beam and emerged into what should have been the pitch black underbelly of one of Gotham's collapsed underground highways that had been abandoned and paved over. She turned her head in wonder, the damp walls of the underground highway were covered in a luminescent green moss, she ran a finger delicately over the soft green covering and it came away covered in emerald pollen and glowing. The weak light radiating off of the walls and gave a sickly green look to everything in the dark space. Kaely picked her way slowly forward, vigilant for rodent nests or loose rocks. She leaned forward around a corner and her eyes flew open in surprise.

Is that, furniture? Someone is living down here?

She took a step closer towards a worn out couch, running her hand over the back of the discolored floral print. She looked at her palm and considered the implications, no dust. No pollen, someone is going to a lot of effort to keep this place nice. Even the floor is clean, no rock debris or rat droppings.

To the left of the couch was a large stack of books and magazines, some were older classics, others new age science fiction literature, all of their spines were cracked from heavy use. She pursed her lips and took another step into the room, a rickety wooden table, a single metal folding chair; a natural fissure in the concrete wall had been turned into a shelf, filled with junk food and home to three green apples.

Again, she ran her hand across the wooden table to test for dust and pollen. She winced when it came away with several splinters but no dust or pollen. She dropped her hand uninterested and the skin of her palm convulsed momentarily and spit out the splinters onto the concrete floor.

"Wha-what are you doing?"

Kaely started at the sudden sound and whirled around.

The boy she'd been following stood, backed into a dark corner. He had his hands crossed protectively over his midsection but he still found the gall to frown at her from behind a pair of gigantic wire rimmed glasses. She took in his appearance closely, a hatchet face and a long nose along with a seriously godawful haircut. It gave him distinct impression of someone who'd far rather be behind a computer screen than having to deal with other humans. He wore a yellow vest with all black clothing underneath it, tight black clothing she thought. Her eyes gave him another once over, he was thin, in a gangly kind of way, with delicate hands that he had begun to wring in unease.

Her eyes traveled back up to his brown ones and she straightened, "What do you mean?"

He blinked, unnerved by her scrutinization of him, "Here. Wha-what are you doing in here?" His fingers pinched the olive skin of the inside of his forearm.

She wondered briefly how to respond (how would Kaely respond?) until she finally settled on flat-out honesty. "Following you."

"Why?" He didn't stutter this time, instead he leaned farther back into the dark corner.

"I wanted to know where you went." She cast her eyes around the room, "And now I know."

"And now you know." He said, his eyes narrowed in suspicion.

She smiled and approached him slowly, carefully, "My name's Kaely."

His eyes were still narrowed but he had stopped wringing his hands. "Willie."

She nodded slowly, "Good to know."

Willy stared at her hand by her side as if wondering whether or not she would offer a handshake and when she didn't seemed relieved.

Neither of them spoke and the only sound that could be heard was the steady dripping of water outside of the moss-filled room.

She put her hands in her pockets and asked, "Do you want me to leave?"

He shook his head vehemently before checking himself and settling for a cooler, "No, you don't have to."

She pursed her lips and backed away to give him space, opting to go back to examining the stack of books and magazines.

"Most people just throw these things out, go for the electronic versions." Kaely's eye flew wide open when he spoke from right behind her, damn he moves quiet she thought, he kept talking, "But there's nothing like the feeling of paper and the smell of ink." He told her as she lifted a copy of The Stand and examined its cover. He didn't stammer when she wasn't looking him in the eyes.

She barely glanced at him as she flipped the book over to look at the back cover.

"Do you want to sit down?" He voiced the question timidly, crossing to the other side of the couch and lowering himself slowly onto the cushion and as far away from her as possible.

She replaced the book on the stack and turned to face him, "I wouldn't mind." She climbed over the arm of the couch, next to the pile of books and on the opposite side from him, dropping down on the cushions with a soft thump. She unzipped her coat and pulled it off, setting it to the right of her thighs. "Do you live here?" She queried, rubbing the palms of her hands up and down on her jeans.

Willie let out a bitter laugh, "No, I just come here sometimes."

"To get away?" She tested his boundaries, determined to see how much he would tell her.

He didn't answer her question and she let it drop.

"What do you usually do?" She tried again, checking her nails.

He shrugged and cast a glance towards the stack of books, "Usually I read. Sometimes I do schoolwork."

"Schoolwork?" She turned to face him, interested.

"Yeah, I go to Hamilton Hill." He confessed.

She worked hard to kill the smile at the corner of her lips, "I enroll next week."

He leaned in, his elbow resting on a knee and his chin in his hand, "Why register in the middle of the school year? Where did you move from?"

"I was homeschooled." She replied far too quickly and awkwardly tried to recover some of her composure, it sounds like I'm reading answers off of a notecard damnit, "I mean, I lived in Gotham before, just, I was homeschooled was all."

He didn't believe her. "So why go to high school now? I sure as hell wouldn't if I didn't have to."

If I had any doubts about the social outcast/nerd figure, I don't anymore. She thought, storing the information for later.

She cast her eyes away and tried to make them shiny with unshed tears, hoping to sell this answer better than her last one. "My parents… they… they..." She paused for dramatic effect and lifted her face to look him in the eyes, "They," Wait for it, wait for it… "Passed recently."

"Oh," He breathed, "I-I'm sorry." He dropped his eyes down to the couch's floral print. "I didn't mean to—"

She gave a convincing sniff, "'S okay, I know that they would have wanted me to move on, so I try not to think about it too much." She snuck a glance back at his face to gauge his reaction. Crap, I think I overdid it. Were the tearful eyes too much?

Willie just looked uncomfortable; the previous look a vague disbelief was gone. Kaely clenched and unclenched her fists in relief. She had successfully sold a key part of her cover story.

As the silence lengthened Kaely searched for something to say, a question to ask, an open statement even, anything she could to break the discomfited feel to the silent room.

He beat her to it.

"What classes are you taking?" He swallowed, "If you don't mind me asking."

She shook her head, "Mostly just the basics, nothing too special."

"How about your electives?" He asked.

"AP Architecture, AP Art History, something having to do with forensic sciences and due process of law, and then a journalism club after school." She said.

"You're interested in law enforcement?" He questioned, "You might not know much about Gotham, but law enforcement isn't exactly our strong suite."

Kaely thought a moment, "Precisely why I decided to take it, I want to know exactly what my rights are and how to protect them." She gave him a serious look, "It's the corrupt cities that you have to look out for, if you can't protect yourself from those employed to protect you, you're setting yourself up to be screwed over." Kaely is making herself out to be the perfect, law abiding girl, all the better to avoid suspicion with she thought.

Willy considered this before nodding, "Makes sense."

Kaely wanted him to ask her another question, partly because she wanted to further prove to herself that she could successfully establish her cover identity but mostly because when he asked her questions, he relaxed.

She got the oddest vibes from him, he clearly was unsure of himself but at the same time knew exactly who he was and what he was supposed to do with his life. For him, high school is just a particularly nasty stop between childhood and becoming an adult, between him and becoming who he wants to be, Kaely thought.

"You know what you like." He blurted.

She looked at him confused, "What do you mean?"

"All of the classes that you chose to take, your electives, I mean, they are all AP." He explained.

Kaely nodded after thinking that through, "I guess." She answered noncommittally, not wanting to tie herself to any sort of assumptions before she had more opportunities to test-drive Kaely's—her—personality.

"You seem pretty well adjusted for a home schooled kid." He said.

She gave him a look, "What's that supposed to mean?"

His blink-rate sped up and he drew back into himself, "Just that you probably won't have a hard time fitting in at Hamilton."

Kaely paused a minute before asking, "Do you have a hard time fitting in at Hamilton?"

His face gave away the answer to her question before he even opened his mouth. "You don't need to fit in to graduate and move on."

"So it's that kind of school… isn't it?" Kaely didn't expect an answer and he didn't give one.

Her phone buzzed in the pocket of her pants. She narrowed her eyes, nobody has my number, this is a new phone, it was on my pillow in my bedroom when I first arrived, still in the box… She kept her face blank as she pulled it out of her pocket it and read the text displayed across the screen.

Say goodbye to your new friend; it's time to go home.

-Your Biggest Fan

Blocked number, she thought, the hair on the back of her neck stood on end and she slowly slipped the phone back into her pocket. She was being watched, she'd had a sneaking suspicion that she had been watched from the moment she'd stepped foot in Gotham, this only served to confirm it.

"I have to go," She told him and stood abruptly, grabbing her coat she roughly shoved her arms through the sleeves and zipped it up.

Willie stood up too but said nothing, his arms hung limply at his sides.

She started to walk away but stopped and turned to look over her shoulder, "See you at school, Willie."

He nodded, "It was n-nice to meet you, Kaely." At the return of his stutter he cast his eyes to the floor.

Kaely turned back around and retraced her steps to find the exit.

A part of her felt it when Willie raised his gaze from the floor to follow her as she left.

When she reemerged from the tunnel, a gust of wind snaked down the front of her coat and slid across her skin, chasing away the damp warmth she hadn't realized the tunnel had possessed.

A streetlamp flickered as the wind became fiercer and tossed her hair into her eyes, she looked back at the entrance to Willie's underground lair, geez, don't call it that, it makes it sound like he's some kind of psychotic evil-genius. She ran a hand through her hair in an attempt to pull in out of her eyes, I think that I'm going to be back here, she thought, he needs the company.

She began the walk back to her flat, I need the company.