2014.04.19 - Light Show

Just across from the amusement mile there is a small office building, upon which a cellphone mast has been errected. Perched on one of the antennas is a black form, the back leaned against the structure, the left hand taped to the only box-shaped object mounted to the mast that was not an antenna. It was a beamer, slightly modfied with a stronger lamp and a better cooler, but besides that it was an off the shelp item with the shell removed and placed in a bigger one.

At first it was just a white trapezoid that fell upon the different buildings and structures of the amusement mile, then the settings changed and eventually they formed a picture, but it was only possible to see what it was from one angle, as any other angle did not bring the parts of the structures together right. But if aligned right, roughly from where the beamer casted it’s light, it was easy to see what it was - a pillar of fire, like from the biblical story, but around it swarmed a crowd of bats. A nice piece of photo art fitting for the Easter Saturday night, but was it possibly more?

Batman almost ignored the strange pillar of light with its swarm of bats when he saw it from far away. There are more pressing matters in Gotham. Villains running free. Criminals of every stripe prowling the streets. The Owls. But in the end curiosity gets the better of him. Surely this is some attempt to attract his attention? He observes the perpetrator from the darkness, unseen and unheard, before finally stepping forward. The shadows cast by the beam of light slide off him like a cloak.

"What is this?"

The Body on the antenna does not even move, seeming to try to be just another shadow, the hand on the box casting the animated picture down at the park and over the Batman. But there is an answer, from a few bluetooth speakers scattered over the rooftop. "You can't appreciate Art when you see it? You just made yourself a piece of it as you stepped into the light."

The picture changes from the predominant red and black to green and black, forming instead of the pillar of fire, that lead the Israelites (and batman) here into the shape of a rough oval, but a second later it is more a face, roughly resembling DELPHI's persona. "Take a look at the art, and tell me what you see."

The sight of the face, so like Oracle's, gives Batman cause to frown. The fact that one of his agents is missing has been a troubling thought and he knows enough to realize that this isn't here. He clenches his fists, a batarang emerging between the cracks of his fingers as he glares up at the visage.

"No games. What do you want?"

The speakers crack again, as they relay the voice, which has a slight distortion in it. "Pass a message. I may not know where she is, or who did it with her network, but I can tell what I found out. If you might turn and look, you might understand."

The pictures change again, this time showing a rough, decentralized network plan "Assume that is O's. You know it is no more, but you know what happened? I guess not, you don't seem to be a hacker or such and you definitely can't read code in the way I do. So I try to make it simple. If that is O's, the green one is her mainframe, the others are systems she runs somewhere else. Now, the network is dead. Not by separating them, but an attacker destroyed the main nexus."

The picture changes again, this time showing a few white fragments of code on black, each of the small runtimes no longer than three or four lines and even then they lack signs "Whoever did it turned Delpohs into ruins, and that is all of the rubble I was able to pick up and put together. The rest was grinded to sand, so to speak. What do you think about the attacker?"

Batman bares his teeth in frustration. This is hardly the sort of game he wants to play. With Barabara missing and in who knows what kind of danger he hardly wants to pick apart puzzles. He growls, reluctantly turning to look at the pictures on display. Each one is captured by the cameras in his cowl and relayed back to the BatComputer for later analysis.

"I don't think anything about them," the Bat growls, "They didn't leave a trace."

"He left a trace - at least enough for me to form a profile." The speakers answer again. The pictures used for the network had been coming from an online course on network administration, but the code fragments were indeed from Delphi. "I may not know who he is, but he infiltrated the network and then destroyed it from within. That cuts down the suspects to just two possible groups, and I hope you are better at grasping technobable than Conan. The first one is people with a high speed interface, extreme skill and most possibly cybernetic interface or power to access data with the brain directly, the other one Artificial Intelligences that are of rivaling complexity or higher to the destroyed network, presuming they exist."

"Tell me their names," Batman says curtly, only now putting away the batarang that he's been holding in his hand the entire time. There's no time for games or guessing. If this person has the information he needs to find Barbara then he wants it yesterday, "Now."

The beamer suddenly turns off as the Batman turns to threats again. "I have no names. All I know is that the invader interfered with the code directly. He invaded Delphi, overwrote her and then implanted a virus to rip her apart. THAT is all I could get from the little fragments. If you want to know more, you have to dig it up yourself. Even though I can tell you who wrote a program from his code, the fragments I saw do not match anyone I know - and that includes most hackers worth mentioning. But I bet you do not appreciate help as you don't appreciate art."

"Stop sulking," Batman demands, frowning once again as he turns away to stalk to the edge of the rooftop, "If you want to help, then help. If you want to play games then stay out of my way. Bring any information you have here. There'll be a dropbox. If you want to meet in person again, use the lights."

That said, he steps to drop off the rooftop. There's more than just this matter calling for his time and he doesn't have time to pay the art installation the homage it deserves.