Catwoman #29

Issue Details

Synopsis

CRASH AND GRAB Selina Kyle is attending a party at the Taylor Pharmaceuticals building. The company had developed a new chemotherapy drug with minimal side-effects called MR-40, and was subsequently bought out by WayneTech. This party is the big bash before the deal goes through, and everyone except Taylor's well-moneyed CEO begins working for Bruce Wayne. Sidling up to a nervous looking employee, Selina's scandalous neckline immediately endears her to him, and while he is distracted by the CEO's toast, she snatches his champagne.   She sneaks out into a stairwell and prevents the security camera from watching her change by loosening the lightbulb, and darkening the view. Seeing the security feed go dark, though, someone is sent to check out the bulb. Before anyone arrives, Catwoman is out in a hallway connecting with the company's labs, having duped that hallways' security camera with a video-loop played over he smartphone, and strapped in front of the lens. Still, with the knowledge that this drug is worth thirty-million, she figures security will be more advanced than that. Lowering her infrared goggles, she spots the light-beams that, if crossed, will trigger the alarm system.   The randomizing pattern of beams and the pressure-sensitive floor panels mean that Selina has just four seconds to cross the hallway before the pattern changes - all without touching the floor. Even after doing that, she needs to bypass a fingerprint-locked door. Fortunately, she managed to capture her new friend's thumbprint from his champagne glass on a second smartphone. Once through the door, she collects the drug for her client, but is startled by the sound of the alarms - which is worrying, because she didn't trip them.   On her way out of the lab, she runs into the security guard who was sent to check on the loose bulb. Having grabbed a second drug - also at the client's instructions - she hurls it at her attacker, and makes a run for it. She is disturbed to see that it transforms him into a muscle-bound hulk. She can't seem to escape him, and soon the rest of the security staff comes running. They bust through the blocked door, and provide the distraction she needs to slip out down the hall.   The hulking man chases her into the crowded banquet hall, sending the guests and party-goers screaming, and though she wants to get out of there, Catwoman feels some sense of responsibility for this, and lures her pursuer away from the crowds. As he corners her, though, he collapses suddenly, having taken a fist-full of sedative syringes in the back, courtesy of Selina's acquaintance, who happens to have been the lead scientist behind the development of MR-40. Naturally, he is eager to see her captured, having stolen his life's work.   Catwoman makes a run for it, leaping through a window, and swinging out by her whip onto a neighboring roof. As she rushes home to her client, she is stopped dead in her tracks by Batman. Smirking, she comments that it's about time he showed up, tossing him the drug. He asks her if she destroyed the second drug, as he instructed, but when he learns that she used it on someone, he is furious. The drug was an offshoot of Venom. Catwoman explains that nobody was seriously hurt, and demands to know why she was asked to steal the prototype for the chemotherapy drug when Taylor could just make more. He responds that he wiped their servers.   Angrily, Selina realizes that the whole theft was a misdirection. Batman confirms that the theft of a 30 million dollar chemotherapy drug would surely overshadow the loss of an untested steroid - the Venom. He expects that Bruce Wayne will reallocate those who were working on the steroid to working on the MR-40 come tomorrow. Selina realizes suddenly that it was he who tripped the alarms on her. Still, she forgives him, reminding that someday soon, she will collect on the debt he now owes her.