Because Bonnie was good. Her plan for dealing with Eddie's collection was better than anything Catwoman would have come up with on her own. And her photography---

Catwoman paused to look at the Lucite-mounted photograph dominating the corner where she did her exercises: a sleek black panther drinking warily from an autumn forest stream. The panther reminded Selina of Catwoman. The forest reminded her of the woods not far from her parents' house where she'd hide when things got unbearable. Of course, black panthers weren't native to North American forests. Bonnie described---at great length---how she'd photographed the stream while hiking in Canada and the panther at a zoo, and then combined the two.

"It's not real," Bonnie had explained when she noticed Selina staring at it that first night while they sat on the floor eating take-out food. "The camera can't lie. It's not like your eye or your brain. It sees exactly what's there. Bars on the cages, garbage on the banks of the stream, telephone poles growing out of your grandmother's head. I think like a camera when I'm holding the camera, then I go behind closed doors and mess around with reality."

Selina wanted the picture. She was trying to think how Catwoman could get it, when Bonnie yanked it off the wall.

"Here, take it---it's yours."

Selina had held her hands tightly against her sides. Accepting a gift was not her style. Gifts made debts and obligations. She preferred to live without debts or obligations. But life did not always go the way one preferred. In costume, poised on the windowsill and looking back at the picture, Catwoman recalled how her hands had tingled. "It's just a photograph," she'd said, working herself up to take the gift. "I bet you made a lot of them."

Motormouth Bonnie had been taken aback. "No. I only make one. I even destroy the negatives. One's a dream; more than one would be cheating. But this is your dream. I saw it in your face when you looked at it."

Now the picture hung in Selina's room---very nearly the only thing not stolen, scrounged, scavenged, or purchased secondhand---and Catwoman had a partner. She descended the fire-escape ladder that went past Bonnie's apartment and scratched the glass with her claws. Bonnie came running out of the chipboard enclosure that united her kitchen and bathroom into a single, well-equipped darkroom. She was dressed in baggy, dark clothing with an army-surplus web belt slung low around her hips and well-used hiking boots.

Both women were surprised. Catwoman had expected to find Bonnie in L.L. Bean pastels. When Catwoman was surprised, she was quiet, but Bonnie started talking before she got the window unlocked and opened.

"The fire escape. I should have known. I mean, I shouldn't've expected Catwoman to ring the bell. That was silly. Standing there, listening for the doorbell and nearly jumping out of my skin when I heard scratching at the window. I'm almost ready. Do I look all right?" She retreated from the window and spun around like a little girl at her first ballet recital.

Catwoman nodded.

"I thought: surveillance, urban guerilla spy versus spy stuff---I'd better dress appropriately. I've got real camouflage for photography, but it's all orange blaze. Great in the outback, but silly here in the big city. So I just went dark, and matte, on account of light. Do you have any idea how much ambient light there is at night in this city, Selina? It's never really dark---well, maybe in the back of alleys and places like that, but on the sidewalks, you don't even need to use flash. I've got my flash guns, though. No telling what sort of light we're going to find, right? Two cameras, extra film, extra flash, extra batteries. It's all right there." She pointed at a dark nylon backpack on the sofa. "Check it out---tell me if you think there's anything I've forgotten. Like a tripod. You've been there. Do you think I'll need a tripod?" She reentered the jury-rigged darkroom. "I'm almost ready."

Catwoman let out the breath she'd been holding. Had she heard Selina's name, or had she imagined it? She'd told Bonnie outright, whenever she had the opportunity, that Selina, who'd come to the Wilderness Warriors, and Catwoman, who would get Bonnie and her cameras inside Eddie Lobb's apartment, were not the same person. Catwoman was one of Gotham's costumed characters, and Selina Kyle simply knew how to get in touch with her.

The laws of the universe affirmed that adult human beings tended to believe whatever they were told, but Bonnie had some distinctly un-adult characteristics. Maybe the laws of the universe didn't apply to her.

Catwoman shrugged and gave the contents of the backpack a cursory glance. Professionally she recognized a couple thousand dollars' worth of equipment, but she already knew that Bonnie's family had money and that they lavished it unstintingly, along with love and optimism, on their only child. Bonnie wasn't spoiled, not in the way Selina thought rich kids were spoiled; she simply assumed she was going to succeed.

When the world slapped Selina down, she felt shame and humiliation. When it slapped Bonnie around, Bonnie blithely assumed that the world had made a mistake and would correct itself at the earliest opportunity.

Leaving the backpack alone, Catwoman moved stealthily to the doorway to see what Bonnie was doing. She was standing in front of a mirror wrapping her hair in a dark print scarf. When that was completed, she began smearing black goo across her face.

"It's the stuff football players use---you know, those warpaint lines they make on their faces. Especially the quarterbacks. Do you realize that war paint and camouflage are essentially the same thing? Anyway, I got it from my roommate's boyfriend. He thought it was funny that I'd want to use it while I was hiking, so he stole a whole thing of it from the locker room. Wow---that's special! He stole it from the locker room, now I'm using it to steal from this Eddie-guy---"

"We're not going to steal anything," Catwoman heard herself say. "We're just going to take a few pictures and get out."

Bonnie gave a final swipe to her cheek and turned around. "We're stealing his secrets, Selina. What more could we take? Things can be replaced, but not secrets."

They stared at each other. Catwoman blinked first.

"Why do you keep calling me Selina? I'm not Selina Kyle. She's just someone... someone I know."

A long silent moment passed while Bonnie examined the black-clad woman facing her. Except for her eyes, no part of her moved. But the green eyes took everything in, slowly, methodically, and when they were done Catwoman had an entirely different opinion of innocence.

Bonnie swallowed everything she had seen. "Yeah, I understand now." She nodded several times, affirming something to herself. "Catwoman. Not Selina. My mistake. We don't have people like you out in Indiana, you know," she said, as if that explained something important. "I mean, we see the news on television and all, but nothing interesting enough happens in Bloomington to make it worth your while. So I had no idea how you do what you do. I thought it was like acting, playing a part---but I see I was wrong. You're not anything like Selina Kyle. You're Catwoman, pure and simple, right? And I better not forget it if I know what's good for me, also right?"

Catwoman stepped aside. Her mask was no better at hiding things than that guileless shrug and smile. Bonnie was, after all, the young woman who had spliced a black panther into a forest of pine trees and sugar maples.

"I'm ready if you are," Bonnie called from the window.

Catwoman led the way. She had to help her companion in the more difficult passages, but Bonnie understood---without being told---that this was a time for obedience, not conversation. She carried the heavy backpack without complaining, she did exactly what she was told to do, and she didn't say a word until Selina had them inside Eddie's apartment.