CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO: THE WATCHFUL EYES OF ORACLE

The city never slept.

From his vantage point atop a crumbling rooftop in the Narrows, Nightwing watched the distant neon signs cast a dull glow over the rain-slick asphalt. Gotham had always been a battleground, but the gang war had turned it into something worse. In the chaos, new players were emerging—some were opportunists, eager to carve out their own piece of Gotham’s underworld. Others were vigilantes, trying—and often failing—to stem the tide of violence.

But this one?

This one was different.

Nightwing had been tracking her for weeks, ever since word spread of an unknown figure interfering in the gangs’ operations. At first, he assumed she was just another reckless idealist, another mask trying to make a difference.

Then he saw her fight.

She was good. Trained. Tough. More than she had any right to be.

He had spent enough time around metahumans to recognize the signs. The way she moved, the way she took hits that should have put her down, the way she fought—smarter than most brawlers in Gotham. She was stronger and faster than a normal human, but not quite metahuman. That meant one of two things: either she was using tech, or she had been enhanced.

Neither option was comforting.

He tapped his comm. “Oracle, tell me you’ve got something.”

Barbara Gordon’s voice came through, crisp and alert. “You’re impatient. I like that about you.”

“Babs.”

“Alright, alright. So, mystery girl in a mask—no insignia, no known alias or affiliation. I ran her image through Gotham’s criminal and civilian databases for any approximate matches. Nothing. Expanded to national records. Still nothing.”

“That’s not surprising.”

“What is surprising,” Oracle continued, the sound of rapid typing filling the silence, “is that if she’s not covering her tracks with some high-level obfuscation, then she’s either a ghost or she came out of nowhere.”

Nightwing frowned. “What do you mean?”

“It’s like she doesn’t exist.”

That wasn’t possible. Everyone left a footprint, no matter how careful they were. Even Batman—arguably the most paranoid man on the planet—had a past that could be traced somewhere.

But this girl? Nothing.

That set off alarm bells.

He exhaled slowly, rubbing his jaw. “Everyone leaves a paper trail. Even the ones who try not to.”

“Exactly.”

Silence stretched between them for a moment.

Then Oracle spoke again. “So, I went a different route. You said she’s been active in the Narrows, right? Helping out the locals?”

“Yeah.”

“Well, I tapped into street-level chatter, cross-referenced eyewitness accounts with recent suspicious happenings in the Narrows. Guess what I found?”

Nightwing straightened. “You found her.”

“Not officially. But I found someone who might be her.”

Keystrokes filled the comms. A file popped up on his heads-up display, and he scanned it quickly.

Name: Taylor Hebert. Estimated Age: 18. No fixed address—staying with locals in a makeshift shelter. Recently started working at a garage in the Narrows. No legal records in Gotham prior to six months ago.

“That’s thin, Babs.”

“It gets thinner. I dug deeper, but there’s no indication of where she came from. No previous employment history, no medical records. As I said, it’s like she just appeared out of nowhere.”

Nightwing’s eyes narrowed.

People didn’t just appear in Gotham.

“Send me everything you have,” he said. “I need to see this for myself.”

More typing. “Already in your feed.”

As the data loaded, Oracle added one last thing.

“Be careful, Dick. She’s hiding something. And if we found her, it won’t be long before someone else does.”

Correction: it was only a matter of time before Batman did.

And if there was one thing Nightwing knew for certain, it was that Batman didn’t like unknowns in his city.

He needed to find her again. Quickly.