"You want me to steal WHAT??!!" Catwoman said in disbelief.
"We want you to steal The Shroud Of Turin."
Catwoman looked at the odd assemblage of men in Dee's library. Besides Dee, there was Franklin Jameson, a brilliant biologist currently in disrepute for his experiments on human DNA, and "Reverend" Jimmy Blanchard, leader of one of the largest right-wing religious groups in the country.
"Why?" she asked. "I know it was widely believed to be the burial cloth of Christ, but wasn't it recently proven to be a fake?"
Jameson held up a sealed test tube.
"I was on the team that did the carbon-14 dating," Jameson replied. "Only I substituted a thread of known 13th century origin. This is the real sample from The Shroud, and it dates from about the time of Christ, give or take a hundred years."
"Didn't they also discover the marks on The Shroud were paint?"
"That was based on sticky tape samples taken from the cloth. Again no problem substituting tape samples from a 13th century painting. The real samples indicated the marks were scorched into the fabric, not painted on the surface. There was also evidence of blood."
"Think of it!" Blanchard pleaded, "This may be the actual burial shroud of Christ! The person in the Shroud suffered all the same agonies: crucifixion, flogging, piercing by a spear, even a Crown of Thorns!"
"I don't know," Catwoman pondered. "I'm not really into religious icons."
"My organization is prepared to pay you the sum of ten million dollars," Blanchard offered.
"If I get you The Shroud," Catwoman asked, "What do you plan to do with it? You can't sell it. No collector will touch it."
"I hope to extract DNA from the bloodstains on The Shroud," Jameson responded.
"And we will make a clone of Jesus Christ!"
This announcement sent Catwoman's mind reeling.
"You can't be serious! Even if you do manage to extract a DNA sample from The Shroud and grow a clone, it's not going to climb off the table and start giving The Sermon On The Mount. You'll have the body, but not the spirit of Christ!"
"Of course not," Blanchard replied. "We will raise him and train him."
"For what?" she asked hesitantly.
"To proclaim the Second Coming!"
"Oh, God, you are serious!"
"Yes, Catwoman," Blanchard went on, "The world is plunging headlong into Armageddon. Harlots like you can plunder almost at will because law and order is breaking down. Think what would happen if Christ reappeared, promising salvation and retribution!"
"Wait a minute. Why would people believe some infant is the Christ, or are you going to wait twenty-five years for him to grow up?"
"I have developed a process that will speed up the growth rate," Jameson replied. "He can be ready to face the public in less than a year!"
"OK, Even so, how will you convince people that he is the genuine article, not some actor you hired?"
"That's where you come in, Catwoman," Blanchard went on. "Once the news has spread that you have The Shroud, we will 'rescue' it and return it to the Turin authorities. In the meantime, you will become mysteriously pregnant and give birth to Our Saviour."
"After all, I can only develop the clone up to the fertilized egg stage," Jameson added. "I'll need to implant it in a woman to carry it to term. I can arrange for it to look like an immaculate conception."
"You guys are nuts!"
"I hate to disappoint you guys, but I'm not a virgin!"
"No problem," Jameson replied. "I know someone who..."
"I get the message. Won't people expect him to work miracles, heal the sick, and so on?"
"Of course," Blanchard answered. "His rapid growth will seem miraculous for starters. As for healing, I do it all the time, my dear. Ah, the power of suggestion! I couldn't survive without it!"
"Modern technology can reproduce the other miracles, such as walking on water," Jameson added. "Any good magician can do that!"
"The bottom line, Blanchard," Catwoman demanded. "What do you get out of this?"
"Just the devotion and donations of millions who will flock to my congregation once our clone proclaims it the one true religion!"
"What do I get out of this, besides ten million dollars?"
"You will be worshipped as the Mother of Our Lord, to be praised in sermon and song, a goddess in a purple catsuit!"
"So, what do you say, Catwoman?"
"I'm probably going to burn in Hell for this," she replied. "But Italy is lovely this time of year!"
"Here's your ticket for the next flight to Turin," Dee responded. "And a diagram of the security measures surrounding The Shroud, courtesy of Clutterbuck."
On the long flight to Italy, Catwoman had plenty of time to study the diagram and consider the consequences of her actions.
"The security measures surrounding The Shroud shouldn't be a problem," she thought. "Especially now that it's been 'proven' to be a fake."
In fact, she read that thousands daily still flock to view The Shroud, and church officials have put it on permanent display, charging a hefty admission. Only Catwoman knew the truth. The Shroud was geniune. Selina was starting to have misgivings about the plan.
"I certainly don't plan on having Jameson's monster implanted in my body!" she decided.
Catwoman thought about her sister in the old church and how she and the other nuns will react to the news.
"If I go through with this, it will probably destroy everything they believe in." she thought. "There would be elation at first, but reality would rear its ugly head as millions flock to the new 'savior', abandoning old beliefs and religions."
She imagined tremendous termoil between the various religious orders, some embracing the new Messiah, some denouncing him as a false prophet.
"Maybe I can steal The Shroud and sell it myself," she pondered. "I do know some collectors that would snap it up, even if it was a fake. After all, even if it's a fake, it's still a 13th century artifact!"
Suddenly a shaft of light burst into the window of the plane, flooding her with light. This was followed by a clap of thunder that shook the plane violently.
"I don't think this is a good omen!" she thought.
Selina landed in Turin, Italy in the late afternoon. The sky was absolutely clear and a blazing Mediterranean sun shone down mercilessly. She looked at the crowds at the airport. There were dozens of tour buses ready to take people to the Cathedral.
"Well, I least I won't have to ask directions!" she thought.
After settling in at a small but pleasant hotel, Selina joined the "touristas" on the first bus next morning.
"I'd better case the joint, first!" she decided.
The tour bus quickly arrived at Turin Cathedral. A huge line of people extended out of the entrance and down the street. Some were nuns, wearing the habits of various orders from around the world. The hot sun seemed to be baking everything and everybody.
"Whew! It's going to be a long day," Selina muttered.
The line inched along and she finally got close enough to see the entrance.
"Hmm...no guards or security personnel here!"
Finally she got inside and saw The Shroud for the first time. It was enclosed in a long glass case, hanging on the wall about ten feet off the ground. The crowd was not permitted to get closer than about twenty-five feet to the relic. Several people kneeled or crossed themselves. Selina strained to make out anything on the cloth itself.
"It's so faint!" Selina observed. "From here, it looks like a dirty tablecloth! All I can see is a regular series of patches."
She looked around the room.
"No sign of alarms, sensors, or light beams..." she noted. "This should be a piece of cake. They must have figured it wasn't worth protecting with expensive security measures anymore!"
In just a few short minutes, it was all over. The group was hustled out of the Cathedral and the next group ushered in.
"As Ah-Nold would say, I'll be back!" she thought.
It was still early afternoon when Selina got back to the hotel.
"I think I'll cool off a bit before tonight," she decided. "Too bad Turin isn't on the coast. I'll have to settle for the hotel's swimming pool."
Selina reappeared in a very sexy thong bikini and made her way to the pool.
"That wasn't too bad," she observed. "I only had to deck two Italian men who tried to pinch me!"
She took a quick swim in the pool and then settled down in a deck chair and soaked up some rays. Her reverie was frequently interrupted by distracted men accidentally falling into the pool. She heard several men being dragged off by their wives, who glared at her even while their protesting husbands continued to ogle her. Selina just smiled.
Selina had no problem finding someone for dinner that evening: a smooth Italian with a very fast Ferrari. She got a whirlwind tour of the countryside. All he got was a kiss on the cheek when they got back.
"Ouch!" she cried.
He did manage to get in a pinch on her rear. He roared off laughing.
"Men!" she muttered, rubbing her derriere. "I wonder where that quaint custom got its start!"
Selina returned to her room to get ready for the night's adventure. She still had some lingering doubts.
"Get over it, girl!" she thought, "It's only a piece of cloth!"
Images of the opening of The Ark Of The Covenant in "Raiders of the Lost Ark" kept sneaking into her thoughts.
Midnight: a certain purple cat prowled the streets of Turin. Ominous clouds were gathering in what started to be a clear moonlit night. A cold breeze came out of nowhere. Catwoman shuddered.
"Feets, don't fail me now!" she thought.
She easily broke into the Cathedral. In fact, the doors were still open, even though it was well past closing time. The faint sound of organ music could be heard.
"This is the first time I've ripped off a church," she mused. "And it will be the last!"
Catwoman made her way to The Shroud in the dimly lit cathedral. She carefully examined the case for alarms. All she found was a wire, which was easily bypassed.
"My local Seven-11 has better security than this!" she muttered.
Catwoman opened the case and got her first close look at The Shroud. It was fourteen feet long and four feet wide. She first noticed the series of triangular patches used to repair the cloth in the sixteenth century after it was nearly comsumed in a fire. As her eyes adjusted to the dark, she could make out faint amber smudges that traced the front and back images of a man in repose, his arms crossed in front of him. He was nearly six feet tall, with a beard, and evidence of scars and other signs of torture. The image was like a photographic negative. There were also stains on the cloth that appeared to be bloodstains, running from his wrists, forehead, feet, and left side.
Catwoman touched The Shroud. Her hands were shaking. At that instant, a lightning flash and a loud clap of thunder split the sky asunder. The wind seemed to be reaching hurricane proportions outside. She was definitely having second thoughts now.
Catwoman backed off momentarily. The storm seemed to abate. She decided to go for it and grabbed The Shroud. Outside it sounded like all Hell (Heaven?) was breaking loose. She swore she could feel the ground trembling. She pressed on and carefully folded The Shroud and placed it into a waterproof satchel and dashed out of the cathedral. Into the teeth of a gale of Biblical proportions.
Catwoman slowly made her way down the street, barely able to stand up, dodging flying debris and falling trees. After what seemed like an eternity, she made it back to the hotel. She could hear people screaming and emergency sirens going off all over the city. She collapsed on the bed, still wearing her catsuit, soaking wet from the storm.
"What have I done?"
The new day dawned with an eerie silence. Selina looked out the window and saw devastation on a scale she hadn't seen since Gotham City was leveled by that earthquake. She turned on the television and found an English language station reporting on the disaster:
"Last night around midnight a mysterious storm hit the city of Turin, Italy, causing millions of dollars in property damage and leaving thousands of people homeless. Officials are unable to explain the sudden appearance of the storm, but have declared the city a disaster area. Troops have been brought in to help in rescue efforts and prevent looting, which has already claimed the fabled Shroud Of Turin, recently proven to be a forgery. Miraculously, while there were hundreds of people injured, no one was killed as a result of the storm. Stay tuned to this station for further details as they become available."
Selina was relieved to hear no one was killed, but was disturbed to hear of the devastation. She had prided herself on making sure no innocent bystanders came to harm on any of her crimes. Out of curiosity, she removed The Shroud from the satchel and examined it. She was still skeptical of its authenticity.
"Let's look at the bloodstains," she thought. "That's the part Jameson and Blanchard are interested in."
She noticed there was blood running from the figure's wrists, not the palms, as usually depicted in religious art.
"That's right," she noted. "The Romans crucified people by driving nails in their wrists. The palms couldn't support the weight of the body when it was hung on a cross. It was a horrible method of execution, the victim remaining alive for days, slowly dying of suffocation."
There were also bloodstains at the feet.
"Again right. The Romans would drive a single nail through both feet into the cross to partially support the body. This served to prolong the agony. This man was definitely crucified. If this was a fake, how could some 13th century artist have known this? It took modern archeology to discover these facts."
The other bloodstains matched Biblical descriptions of Christ's final hours: The Crown of Thorns, the piercing of His side by a soldier with a spear, the flogging scars, and so forth. Selina examined a picture postcard of the overall image, photographically reversed to render the figure more lifelike.
"Amazing! It doesn't look like a painting at all! It's as though I'm looking through a portal at the figure directly. Perspective drawing wasn't worked out until hundreds of years later, yet here is a 3-D rendering worthy of the best animators today!"
With some difficulty, Selina managed to smuggle The Shroud out of the country in a hidden compartment in her luggage. The confusion caused by the storm helped, as the harried officials had their hands full dealing with the emergency.
"I'll be glad to get rid of this thing," she thought. "I'm still not sure how I'm going to deal with Jameson and Blanchard and their crazy cloning scheme."
The flight back to Gotham City was an ordeal. The plane was tossed by inexplicable crosswinds and downdrafts, even though the sky was perfectly clear. They nearly crashed on landing. The passengers staggered off the plane, one kissing the tarmac. Even the cab ride from the airport was scary. Cars would suddenly veer directly in front of them and huge potholes would appear out of nowhere in the pavement, causing the cabbie to have to constantly swerve from side to side like he was running an obstacle course.
Selina decided not to keep The Shroud in her apartment. Instead she went out that night and hid it in her secret hideaway, her equivalent of the Bat-cave.
"The foundations of my apartment building were weakened by the earthquake," she thought. "Better not push my luck. I think The Shroud is cursed!"
A wise precaution, as the city still trembled from repeated aftershocks. It was as though divine retribution was being administered to the hapless citizens of Gotham City. Catwoman carefully placed The Shroud on a shelf. That's when she noticed a shadow on the floor. The shadow of a bat.
"Batman!"
"Welcome back from Turin, Catwoman," he replied. "You certainly have been the little troublemaker, haven't you? This has got to be the lowest you've sunk yet."
"What are you talking about?" she snapped back. "I'm just a thief who stole a forgery."
Catwoman decided to come clean and told him the whole story, including the cloning part. Batman just shook his head.
"I'm used to dealing with megalomaniacs and their crazy schemes," he said, "but this takes the cake. If they succeed in making their clone, it would cause upheavals around the world. There would be holy wars, persecution, and civic unrest. After the earthquake, you've got half of Gotham thinking the end of the world is at hand! Tell me you weren't going to go through with the implantation part."
"No way," Catwoman replied. "I originally thought that even with their new evidence, The Shroud couldn't possibly be the actual burial cloth of Christ. At best it was a genuine artifact graphically depicting a crucified man, at worst, a 13th century forgery. After all that's happened to me in the last few days, I'm not so sure. You're supposed to be the world's greatest detective. Is this thing real or not?"
"I'll have to take it back to the Bat-cave," Batman replied. "I'll need your help."
"Ooh, I thought you'd never ask," Catwoman purred.
"Do I get to ride in the Batmobile?" Catwoman purred.
"Of course."
A hour later the Batmobile screeched to a halt inside the Bat-cave. Batman stepped out of the cockpit alone and strode to the back of the car.
"You didn't tell me I'd have to ride in the trunk!" she complained.
"Can't be too careful. I don't want you to figure out where we are."
Catwoman clambered out of the trunk and stretched her limbs, stiff from the cramped ride. She let out a gasp as she looked around.
"Welcome to the Bat-cave! You realize that now that you've seen it, I'll have to kill you."
The fabled Bat-cave was everything she imagined it would be and more. She was given a tour: the trophy room, the vault where he kept his costumes, the laboratory, the computer room, the airstrip, the garage, the dock.
"You know, the place could use a woman's touch," she purred.
"Let's get down to business, shall we?" he answered.
"I've been wanting to get down to business with you for a long time!"
For the next three days the duo went over The Shroud with a fine-toothed comb. Batman would go over every detail of the cloth, and Catwoman would supply the details of Christ's crucifixion, thanks to her sister's Catholic training. Every detail matched.
Alfred, whom she never saw, would leave meals for them at regular intervals. Each night she would be escorted to a bedroom and locked in. Try as she might, she couldn't convince the Darknight Detective to join her. There was a surveillance camera in her room, but she quickly found it and blocked the lens whenever she changed clothes, much to Robin's annoyance.
"Amazing," Batman finally said, "Absolutely amazing."
"That's what I keep saying."
"As far as I can determine, The Shroud is a genuine artifact dating from the first century, A.D. There's no way of knowing who the crucified man is, of course, but the real mystery is how the image was made. This is no painting. Gases generated by a decaying body, even when combined with burial oils, wouldn't produce these markings. It's as though the image is burned into the fabric. The bloodstains appear genuine, too. Jameson might just be able to extract a DNA sample."
"We can't let Jameson and Blanchard go through with their scheme."
"I've got a plan..."
The next day Catwoman met with Jameson and Blanchard in Dee's library.
"Well, did you get The Shroud?" Blanchard asked excitedly.
"Well, sort of," she replied. "Watch this..."
She turned on the TV and turned up the volume so everyone could hear.
"This is Summer Gleason with the evening news. Our top story: Batman, our ever-vigilant guardian, has caught the notorious Catwoman in a daring attempt to steal the Shroud Of Turin. She took advantage of an unexpected storm to break into Turin Cathedral and steal the priceless relic. When she returned to Gotham City, Batman was able to apprehend her as she attempted to sell The Shroud to the highest bidder. The icon was returned to the Turin authorities, who say it was slightly damaged, but intact. It will go back on display tomorrow."
"How did you escape from Batman?" Jameson asked.
"Let's just say I know how to distract a man," she purred.
"I suppose this means you no longer have it," a disappointed Blanchard said.
"On the contrary, I managed to cut a swatch out of the cloth with a blood sample on it!" she replied, holding up a sealed vial.
"Hallelujah!" Blanchard cried.
"I'll get this sample to the lab right away," Jameson said, grabbing the vial from Catwoman.
"Here's your fee," Blanchard said, handing over a check. "Payable to your favorite animal-rights group."
"Call me when your clone is ready."
The two men dashed off with their prize.
Catwoman turned to Dee. "Don't ever do this again. I don't do religious icons!"
The Bat and The Cat met on a rooftop that night.
"Did you give Jameson the sample?" Batman asked.
"Yes," she replied. "He's probably mixing up his DNA witch's brew right now."
Batman smiled. "Is he in for a big surprise!"
"I want to see them try to explain why their clone is female! That was a great idea, giving them a sample with my blood on it!"
"It wasn't easy doctoring the sample to make it look very old."
"You know, we make a great team," Catwoman purred, stroking his chest emblem with her claws, "Can't we get together sometime without fighting, without the masks?"
"Maybe," he replied. "If you would only give up your criminal ways. I could support you in the manner in which you are accustomed."
"Oh, please," she answered. "You might as well ask me to marry that boring Bruce Wayne! I'm sorry, but our destinies seem to lie elsewhere."
With that, Batman was gone.
"Damn," Catwoman said with a smile, "Almost got 'im!"
This story is by Al Tootikan. He is a big Catwoman fan and writes most of his fanfics about them. I personally thought this one was pretty good. Be sure to email with your comments and feedback.
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