2014.09.17 - Updates

Pausing while putting the finishing touches on her latest project - a reproduction of Kowloon Walled City, rendered in Blockcraft - Barbara tilts one of the smaller monitors her way to read the biometric data that her terrace sensors are picking up. Nodding contently and then reaching further up to unlock the outer doors, her voice comes through an angled speaker outside, "Come on in." Checking the sensors again and comparing it to the profile showing up on another screen, she notes the discrepancy between the weight and dimensions displayed on the sensor readout versus the profile scan - 13" worth, accounting for the weight of sausage and mushroom - and keys the mic again, "There's an empty table to your right."

The window of time between getting inside and Babs keying the locks again is kind of snappy, but paranoia just runs in the family. Shutting down some of her side projects, she tilts back in her chair and wheels it around to face towards you, resting her chin in one hand and idly turning down the volume knob of her headset, "So. Good evening. You're kind of new here, right?"

The place she was stalking into was rather off to a girl that had been used to the worst of the juvenile care, prison, a strange medieval realm and even on the run from the law while living in the back of a car. The last time she had seen that much high tech was in the high school computer room and then in the interrogation room of the FBI, but now that stuff here was leagues bigger. Whistling once, the one eyed played with the communicator she had got from Dinah in her right hand, the left keeping the longer back on her back in its position. As the door falls shut behind her, she spins around, the communicator getting tucked into the front pocket, and almost in the same moment she pulls out a slim dagger, tossing it at the sound of snapping bolts. Seems like Babs is not the only one a tad paranoid. Seconds pass in which she stands almost without a movement, then the sound behind her started to greet her, and she drops the right arm which she had used to throw the steel at the iron door, only leaving a scratch. The shoulders slop down a bit as Robyn makes a step forward to pick up the projectile, the left still balancing out the long bag, which is maybe a foot longer than her, and then gives it a flip before resheating it to the pocket. "Seems like that." With a smirk she turned around, peering at the table "You sure the chair is not electrochuted?"

With just half-attention to you, Barbara has her head tilted to listen to the regular updates from her headset. No disturbances. No extra weight or kirlian imprints above normal thresholds. Time to relax a bit, as she wheels herself over to the indicated table, "It isn't currently. Do you need a little more charge out of life?" Her face remains bland and impassive as she looks up at you, the merest frown crinkling her eyebrows together as she starts to open up the pizza box laid out on the table. Yay, mushrooms, "Look, it's so much easier to get out of here than it is to get in. People I trust, trust you, so please treat this as my office. Not your target range." Resting one elbow on the table and resting her chin in that palm, she has a somewhat skeptical look. Just on a once-over, she's not terribly impressed obviously, "How's the weather? You like the Jets this season? Killed anyone lately?"

"What you consider as lately?" Robyn remarked as she went to the chair, lifting it up to turn it around before seating on it, the backrest used as a place to lean her front against. The long baggage is still attached to her back, but she keeps her hands on the table in front of her. "You mean Dinah, do you? Well, I guess... Sorry for the scratch in the door, but usually loud noises behind me mean I got someone there who wants a bit of pain."

[BOP]  Atlee decides to test this communicator she got from Black Canary, and her voice comes across the Birds of Prey comlink, "HELLO...? Bird lady, are you there?"

[BOP]  Batman stops and listens to the chatter.

[BOP]  Barbara Gordon: "Off hours for her. What's the situation?"

"My track record is totally wrong." Robyn answers with a smirk, eying the pizza. "Lacks about a dozen cases of mutilation on drug lords... Ask the cap-guy." It was some kind of snappy, but then the communicator in her pullovers front pocket chirps, most likely matched by the speaker of oracle's headset. "I don't think I am a Bird Lady, but anything to tell you? Kicked an MGH dealer out of the business, shot at some strange demon-drug ring and made it go out of biz, busted out a drug den with a guy who looks like America’s most favorite WW-2 hero... Shall I continue? What did you do on the other side to end in a wheelchair since I saw you at Dinah's?"

[BOP]  Atlee sounds rather excited, "hey, you're new! Haven't heard your voice before, I'm Terra! I was just testing if Black Canary can really hear me through this thing."

"That chip on your shoulder again. It's a liability." The next bite of pizza is kind of interrupted; both from her earpiece and your own communicator, with Barbara leaning in to listen a bit. Hurriedly swallowing she clears her throat before tapping at the side of the headset. She subvocalizes - the benefits of advanced technology - with a mild frown developing as it goes along. She even takes a few seconds to nibble at the crust before responding with the same open-mouthed, no-sound manner of speaking. And then it's back to you with her free hand tapping at the table, "Excuse me, are you trying to help anyone, or just get your kicks? Mutilation? Are you serious?"

[BOP]  Barbara Gordon: "That's.. not a good use. I'm sure she can."

[BOP]  Atlee: "Oh? What's a good use then? She didn't mention any rules!"

[BOP]  Batman a voice came in with a hard edge to it, "When the situation makes it necessary. When you need help, assistance, or information."

[BOP]  Atlee: "Another new voice! Just how many people have this thing?"

[BOP]  Batman: "Several. That's why you use when it's necessary. Batman out. *the signal cuts out from his end.*"

[BOP]  Barbara Gordon: "Enough." A half-filtered sigh. "We need a security update."

Robyn is not very good at reading lips, but as the chatter goes on in her pocket, she shruggs. "You think it gives me the kicks to get some people who have no respect for kids and health of people out of their biz? They play unfair with the innocent, so they get a few reminders. Assault mostly. A broken arm, a few scars." A few moments she stays silent, just eying the pizza, not daring to pick any pizza up. Then the chatter changes on the com-piece. Taking it out of her pocket and into her hand, she twirls it around her fingers once. Eventually she places it on her ear. "Security update?"

"If.. hold on." Tapping at her headset again there is a distinctly displeased look on Barbara's face from the combination. She bites off a chunk of the pizza in her hands and chews aggressively for a moment, swallows, and then pushes the box closer towards you, "These are not toys. And when.. and when a certain someone butts in, it's embarassing." Getting right down to the crust finally, she uses that as a pointer. Kind of waggling it back and forth before gesturing at you, "I hate having this conversation but, the work we do isn't about you. Get a therapist. Talk to someone. Anyone."

"Sounds like you don't like the Batman." Robyn remarks, relaxing a moment as she listens to the empty channel. Then the word therapist falls and her form stiffens. "The work we do sounds awfully big for not telling me what to do and what not. So I do what I did before getting this communicator thingy: Kick the ass of those that extort people. Who harm Kids." Robyn straightens her back, the hands forming fists as she speaks, peering at the pizza in front of her.

Pantomiming for a moment, Barbara gestures to the pizza, then to you, and makes a questioning hand waggle. Then she grabs her second piece after prying it away from the rst of the pie, "You recognized his voice? Did he kick your ass?" Lunch, dinner, whatever it is, Barbara spends a lot of time wrapped up in herself. Little team meetings like this keep her from relying on instant noodles, "Is there a difference between you and kid fiddlers?"

"The Batman? No. But he just said Batman out, so rather obvious, isn't it?" Robyn eyes the pizza again, stretching out the hand to pull at the slice and pry it free from it's cheesy connection. "The difference? I take from those that take from the poor. They take from the poor. And I give the bucks to Gotham Free Clinic and such."

"That's nice of you. I mean that the victims of abuse are more likely to become abusers themselves." She continues eating Barbara eventually gnawing on the crust again. Just a bite and tug as she keeps her eyes on you, "Exhibiting such pathologies as ‘’mutilation’’ along the way. You're throwing up a lot of things to obscure that, but you have serious problems." Holding her half-eaten crust in one hand, the other hand points at you, "Batman won't stand for that. I won't either."

"Ask the Law. An arrow through the arm counts as mutilation. Not killing them, but some just don't recover the arm the same way." Robyn answers, rolling the pizza all around the crust to make it a roll to eat. Removing her eye patch from the dead globe, she looks back of Barbara before taking a bite. "Is that too harsh for you? You know how I lost the eye. I know I am not a good person."

"You seem dedicated to that. Being some bad-ass shadowy operative and doing what you want; which won't work." Barbara is sitting across the table from Robyn, and on her third slice of pizza. Hacking takes a lot of calories okay don't you judge me. It's gotten a bit tense so far, with Barbara leaning in and staring at Robyn directly even after she reveals the open eyesocket and glaring ball there, "Do you know why I can't walk?"

"I know you did walk into Dinah's shop a few months ago, so something recently I guess. Someone broke your back?" Robyn answers, taking a slow bite of the Pizza "Dedicated to try to do a change, and be it a day with fewer drugs on the street, any means necessary."

"What are you.. look. You need to sort your stuff out. Post haste." Nibbling on crusts, Barbara isn't the most confident about that. She's looking at you with an uneasy tilt, not sure how to process a new vigilante, "But this is what I'm telling you. Get help. You're too young to be doing this."

Robyn bites the last of her Pizza-roll, munching it away carefully before speaking up again. "Anyone is too young to lose an eye or getting the back broken, but it makes us what we are. When you go through tough childhood, having to steal money from the local bruisers to get your mom some medicine you learn something: the world is smiling at you with rotten teeth, so smile back, even if it hits you hard. When people mutilate you for they don't fear the cops you learn that 'All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others.' When a tyrant sends his bloodhounds after you for you are not from there, you learn to strike back. And when you become the face of a rebellion, you learn that sometimes hurting people can achieve good, if you hurt the right ones. What do you think is the right punishment for a guy who trades cocaine for the blood of mutant kids and then MGH for money extorted from addicts? What is the right sentence for someone who deliberately ruins the lives of the producers of his goods as well as the ones of its consumers? What you think is proper for a pimp who beats his girls and drugs them to make them obey what their clients want? How should you handle the very dregs of society, who lash out to press people under their control and make them slaves?"

"So you're better than they are, or you're on their level? No wait don't answer that because I already know." Turning herself your way, Barbara leans over the table and lays both hands down. Flat. Totally nonthreatening. "If you want to be with us, you need to put your own petty vengeance on the side. Your rebellion has done jack and shit, and jack left town months ago." Up come the fingertips, tenting underneath her chin. And it isn't a situation where she isn't tempted to take out another slice of pizza, either, "You're punching at ghosts. Do you really think that taking revenge on your own bullies is going to do anything meaningful?"

"My bullies are dead and buried." Robyn answers coldly, hands on the table just like Barbara, just that she is not in the mood for another piece of pizza. "Taking out the trash, isn't that what the Batman does? Kicking the ass of Gotham's not-so-finest and sending them to Arkham? We are not so much different I guess. Just that I don't hesitate to hurt them a bit."

"Let's count the corpses you've left behind. One, two, three.." Going off of your police record, Barbara extends one finger after the other. "And then Batman... wow, what a difference! If you ever kill anyone else, you're not just leaving this group, you're going to be hunted down and prosecuted for everything. Every. Last thing." Both hands slap against the table as she leans onto it, pushing towards you, "No killing. No mutilation. Are we clear on that? Are we crystal? If you take one tiny step out of line, you're on your own."