2014.03.27 - Machine Code

Abandoned warehouse #46. It's where the signal Robo's team has been tracking originated; it's where Robo is going.

It's a large, old, dusty place -- strewn with the detritus of recent occupation by homeless and transients. The padlock on the front door -- a recent addition, by the looks of it -- snaps off beneath the pressure of a single metallic thumb.

Atomic Robo looks like something straight off the cover of an old pulp magazine. His head is spherical, with small metal 'fins' -- giving him that Art Decos look. His eyes glow a brilliant, cerulean blue -- and his body is a squat, well-fashioned series of interlocking metal parts. Currently, he is clad in 'adventuring gear', which largely consists of -- a red t-shirt that has a picture of a proton pack with the phrase 'BACK OFF, MAN - I'M A SCIENTIST', cargo pants, and -- a tool-belt equipped with what looks like a menacing pistol, a small power-pack, and a PDA.

"Hnzzn." His voice thrums out from his mouthless face; it has an unusual metallic quality to it, like it was being produced from a synthesizer. "Abandoned warehouse. It's /always/ an abandoned warehouse."

Yeah, that's Oracle's sentiment, too. She's of half a mind to talk to Wayne or Stark about buying up all the abandoned warehouses in the city and getting them to populate them with... well... something. Anything just to change the view.

However, her presence here does mean the place isn't entirely abandoned. She's already inside, on an upper floor, working on the lock of the main office. It's a little more sophisticated than a padlock, because what's inside is a lot more sensitive than the rest of the building.

Of course, to look at her, not many would really be sure of her gender. The digivoice that comes from the suits speaker's is androgynous and harmonic. The armor she wears is high tech, but designed to give no hint of the gender of its wearer. The color of the armor is black and dark, midnight blue, limned with green light that reflect sensors and give her the technical edge she needs to do what she does best. Which, of course, is hacking.

"Ha!" she says softly as the lock on the upper office thunks open. "Works every time..."

Robo is equipped with /very/ handy robot eyes. These robot eyes afford him a certain degree of excellent vision, and allow him to perceive the world in pretty much every electromagnetic spectrum we know of -- and a few we don't. So it doesn't take long for him to notice someone else is in the room, higher up.

What /does/ strike him, however, is the fact that this person is wearing something that is very clearly resisting any and all of his extensive sensory apparatus, leaving him with nothing more to perceive beyond a dark, nebulous void of information. This fact causes his 'eyes' to 'narrow' -- metal plates descending from above and below, his head craning up.

And then suddenly, Oracle is no longer alone -- as a very large five hundred pound metal man lands approximately five yards behind her, on the upper floor -- having just /sprang/ up the stairwell to reach her. The ground beneath him groans; his arms fold over his chest in a gesture meant to mimic a parent about to speak to a /very/ naughty child. "Who are you," he states with that metal thrum, "and why are you trying to hack into my company computers?"

The moment that huge figure lands, Oracle spins, a pair of batarangs in the fingers of each hand, position defensive. "Your company?" The digivoice is neutral, the harmonics are even, but still there's enough cant to the figure's helmeted head that one can imagine that raised brow beneath the faceplate. "My, Mr. Balcourt. How you've changed..." She doesn't identify herself any further than that, however. However, internally, the speakers put on mute, she says to her AI, DELPHI, "Get me a read on him. If that's really Balcourt, we're in bigger trouble than I thought..."

"Surveillance footage suggests this is not Marcus Balcourt," the AI replies. "I observed him snapping the lock out front and his team does appear to be using stealth techniques to access the property."

"And you chose not to tell me about this before... why?"

"You were concentrating on the lock."

"..."

"...are those..." Robo's bright blue eyes focus on the batarangs. "...throwing stars? In the shape of -- /bats/?" Said eyes swivel back down to stare at Oracle, arms still folded. "You realize I'm essentially a tank, right?" At the mention of Mr. Balcourt, the narrow-eyed expression shifts; those metal plates pull back, his eyes taking on a more rounded shape -- his arms unfolding from around his chest. "--wait, what?" And now he's staring at the door behind her, at the lock she's just -- unraveled, and... "Wait, wait, okay -- you're not -- /you're/ breaking into this place too, aren't you?"

"Actually," Oracle says now, straightening cautiously when it becomes apparent the metal man isn't actually going to try to squish her, "they're high tech electrically discharged, small yield, focused point explosives. Shaped like bats, yes. And you look like a walking tank. I figured I'd need something to crack the can open." There's a pause. The head cants. "So, you're obviously not Mr. Balcourt. Which means... you must be from Telsadyne." He can't likely see it behind the faceplate, but Oracle smiles faintly. "I'm Oracle." The name is legendary in hacker circles, but usually considered little more than a myth.

"--oh. Hzn. But -- why bats?" Robo asks, one metal eyelid descending to give him the illusion of an arched eyebrow. "Also, it's not a can; it's my skin. Though I guess that's an honest mistake -- y'wouldn't believe how many people think I'm Iron Man." He no longer has a threatening stance; indeed, he's just calmly walking forward to stand besides Oracle, inspecting the door she was about to step through!

"Tesladyne, yeah," he thrums back to her as he lowers his head to investigate that electronic lock, scratching at his 'chin'. "Oracle, huh? Think I've heard that name -- oh, wait. This is /Gotham/, isn't it?" He straightens back up, swinging his head around to /peer/ at her. "Is this -- a Batman thing? Wait, wait --" And there might just be a /hint/ of giddiness in that next question: "/Are/ you... Batman?"

Oracle looks the robot up and down. "Yeah," she says slowly. "I know Iron Man. You're not him." A beat. A snirk. "And no, I'm not Batman. If you'd met Batman, you wouldn't have to ask, trust me. I am one of his allies, though, yes." Another beat. A half-shrug. "Welcome to Gotham. The place is lousy with us." That was a joke.

With a light push, she causes the door to swing open, willing to let him precede her into the darkness. The room itself is empty of everything save a desk, a chair, and a bank of blinky-light electronics down one wall that house the brains of whatever this outfit is. "You got a name, Telsadyne?"

"Oh, man. You mean -- seriously? He's /real/? I knew it," Robo says, ever-so-cheerfully. "Jenkins owes me ten bucks." As the door opens, Robo steps forward -- entering first. Like the man said; he /is/ basically a tank. He sweeps the room with his eyes, briefly focusing on the flickering lights. Beginning to approach them. "--oh, right. Atomic Robo. CEO of Tesladyne Industries. Pleasure to meet you, Oracle. Apparently," and now Robo is crouching down to investigate these blinkity-blink lights, "someone tried to hack our systems, last night. Steal some blueprints for quantum computing. But I'm wagering a guess here that you already knew that."

Atomic Robo is -- well, the name might ring a bell. He's a minor celebrity in science circles; a form of 'Automatic Intelligence' produced by Nikola Tesla. Known for engaging in all sorts of 'high-science' hijinks. According to the rumors, he's not even legally human, or a citizen of the US -- rather, he's filed under the heading 'Nuclear Armanent'. He is both CEO of Tesladyne /and/ Tesladyne property; occupying the nebulous space of corporate personhood.

Oracle nods faintly. "Your latest processor prototype, yeah. I installed a shunt on one of Balcourt's other systems that alerted me. He's very good at keeping off the grid and offline. Without the shunt, I'd never have found this place so easily." Indeed, each of Balcourt's computers are linked through quantum entanglement and not through the usual means. Even the usual cutting-edge advanced means. This stuff is based on alien tech. "I've been going through his data for weeks. His o/s is lightyears ahead of anything I've seen. I think he needs your chips because they give him more speed than anything conventionally available."

Chances are good Barbara's read something about Atomic Robo before now. Heck, she probably spent time researching him. And with her eidetic memory, she doesn't forget anything she reads. So, he's certainly a curiosity. "Balcourt used to own Dynamtech -- they were a mid-range electronics firm that suddenly bumped themselves up to the big leagues with some revolutionary hardware designs. They were also, however, performing illegal human experimentation to create a technorganic transhuman constructs. Balcourt disappeared right before his arraignment about six months ago and hasn't been seen since. But, this stuff here has his fingerprints all over it."

Robo continues staring at the computer, and the blipping lights. Those blue eyes of his are narrowed sharply; as if he's reading the /interior/ of the computer. "--these things are -- what the hell is he trying to do? The architecture inside of these things is ridiculous. Is he --" Robo's head lifts; he straightens again, turning to face Oracle. "--why would you need this much processing power?"

Oracle raises her hands lightly in a sort of 'I have no clue' gesture. What she says, however, is, "A little less than a year ago, Balcourt arranged for the District Kings--" a local gang who's become increasing influential over the last year or so-- "to kidnap Shelby Knox. She was the daughter of Knox Industries CEO, Christian Knox. At least, she was on paper. Turns out Knox and Balcourt were best friends in university, and were doing a lot of work on Synthetic Intelligence." Something the robot might know a thing or two about. "They also had a thing for the same girl, who eventually married Knox. Her daughter, however, was actually Balcourt's, not Knox's. So you could look at it as a custody battle that got ugly. The fact is, though, turns out Shelby was the first of these constructs he'd been working on. They'd been working on together. He got his hands on some alien tech, and that's what solved his latency problems, and allowed him to figure out how to take fully mature subjects and give them the cybernetic makeover..." She looks at the computer casing. "So... my guess is the extra processing power is to take things to the next level."

Whatever that may be.

"...next level." Robo repeats this phrase; his eyes are focused on a point well behind Oracle. "--you know, one of the side-projects Tesladyne has been running is an attempt to simulate a human brain inside a computer. The biggest hurdle is -- processing power, actually. You need ridiculous amounts to just simulate /one/ neuron..." His head swivels back to the machine. "...either way, he's trying to steal Tesladyne technology and use it to hurt people." Those blue flourescent lights give a pulse, as if Robo was coming to a conclusion: "I don't like that. How can I help?"

How can he help? Oracle shakes her head lightly. "Beef up your firewalls, screen your employees." She gives a mild shrug that masks her concern. "The only reason I've gotten as far as I have with this is because I'm a paranoid sort. Balcourt's disappearance was troubling. But, even now, I don't have any concrete evidence it's actually him behind all this. All I really know is that the base tech that started all this was based on Dynamtech stuff. The company is officially defunct. All of its research was confiscated. But, this stuff is out here. None of my investigations have shown any leaks anywhere else, other than Balcourt's disappearance. So, the circumstantial evidence is fairly leading." If not openly damning.

"--what ever happened to Shelby?" Robo asks. "Could set up a trap; I don't know how much of the quantum computing stuff he got, but there's more where that came from. Give him a juicy bit of data to snack on, shove ye olde classic Trojan Horse into it. You'd have to build the program to interface with his o/s, though. Sounds like you know enough about it to pull it off, maybe? Surprised he left the computer here," he adds.

"Shelby Knox has been returned to her family and put under government protection." Which actually isn't Barbara's idea of a good time. "The tech in her body was largely neutralized, but she's going to be dealing with the effects of it for the rest of her life." She shakes her head lightly. "She's also only 17. I'm not using her as bait for anything."

Nevertheless, she nods as she considers his plan. "A trojan horse like that might work," she concedes. "Particularly if it were built into the hardware itself, rather than simply the interface." A machine-code virus. She glances to the machine beside them. "I'll need to get a better look under the hood..."

She kneels, then, and carefully begins removing front panels to see just what she's dealing with. Internally, she says, "DELPHI, get me full scans of this." Without Balcourt's agents baring down on them, she might as well take advantage of it.

At least, she is until DELPHI says, "Oracle, I believe that blue pulse in the upper third of the main panel is a count down. Its rate of flashing is reducing by regular increments."

The hacker's head comes up and she focuses on that little blue light. Aloud, she says, "Crap. Booby trap." Guess that's why he left the computer here.

"And it just so happens I'm fluent in machine code," Robo points out, before adding: "Because I'm a machine. Get it? I--yeah, okay, that's actually kind of stupid. Hn?" His eyes settle on the flickering blue light, catching the pulses -- and Oracle's comment about a trap. A rough, instant assessment of just how much time is left before the flicker becomes a solid light.

"Bat-star. Ceiling. /Now/." Robo's not waiting for confirmation; his arm is already swooping out to try and curl around Oracle's waist -- and /jump/. Hard, fast, and up -- at a slight slant. His free hand extended out to /smash/ through whatever remains of the hopefully weakened ceiling. Up and out of the warehouse -- to land somewhere on the roof. At which point, he'll just keep /going/.

Oracle lets out a surprised yelp, which is a funny sound from that androgynous, harmonic voice. Automatically, she wraps her arms over her head, as the ceiling smashes around her and she's hauled bodily up onto the roof... and somehow ends up another roof or two over, still caught in his arm.

Just as well, really, since by the time they're landing, the building is flashing apart with a bright white light DELPHI's sensors have recorded before. It's the zero-point energy-fueled explosive device the District Kings have used before.

And even as DELPHI is providing that analysis to Oracle, the hacker is pushing on the arm about her waist so she can stand on her own two feet. "Thanks for the lift, big guy..."

CLUNK. Feet slam into the next rooftop over; concrete and metal buckle a little beneath his feet, but manage to hold his weight. He's instantly letting go of Oracle, head swiveling around to regard the explosion with a mixture of curiousity and regret: "Hnh. Izzat -- whoa, where are they getting /that/ tech...?"

At her mention of a lift, Robo turns back to her: "Don't mention it, mister. You alright?" Of /course/ he presumes she's a guy. "You need a hand with this, don't hesitate to get in contact. I think I have a card..." The fact that he's nearly been exploded in a renegade zero-point energy reaction doesn't seem to phase him; instead, he spends a moment patting himself down, searching for the appropriate -- ah! Here we are. His business card. Doctor Atomic Robo Tesla, CEO of Tesladyne Industries. Phone number, email address, fax number.

Everyone presumes Oracle's a guy. Babs is used to it. So used to it, she doesn't even blink. "I'm fine..." she says, looking at the fading light of the flash, and the pile of rubble where the warehouse once stood. "Yeah," she says dryly. "See? That's why I shut Dynamtech down." She sighs, too. Stark's not gonna be happy when she tells him that little package of death and destruction is back on the market.

She glances over to the robot as he hands her his card. A brow arches. "Thanks..." she says, taking it. "If you need me, call the Watchtower. They can get a hold of me." Yep. Oracle is part of the JLA. Albeit a mostly invisible part. She glances at it, thereby memorizing it, and slides it into a thin pouch. "If I need anything, I'll be in touch. Count on it."