2014-03-06 - Shadow Games: Going Over the Evidence

<< Follows the events of Shadow Games: A Deal Gone Wrong >>

Bat Cave, Gotham City

Upon the return to the cave, Robin excuses himself to get cleaned up and leaves Nightwing to deal with his erstwhile partner, Damian who is sitting at the Bat Computer looking over the data uploaded from Robin's sensors before the fight. "Dick," Damian greets as he looks up at the screen. He is dressed in his usual hoodie and jeans combo with a cup of cocoa in his hands while Bat Computer processes things. Nightwing grumbles as they return and takes off his mask, "Squirt." he responds, "Things got hairy in Bludhaven, Lynx and Crimesmith were there, and Crimesmith is different, actually walks like a killer, so I do not think it's the same guy, combined with the fact said guy is dead." He scowls and takes a seat, "But at least Robin got a voice sample, the guy was using a mixer, so we can maybe sort that out."

Damian glances back "Tt. What does squirt even mean?" he grouses as he works. He pulls up the file on Lynx on one screen and the Crimesmith on the other. Titling the new data as Crimesmith II. Then he pulls up the voice print from the files Tim uploaded, and runs the processor. Damian may not be much of a detective or patient investigator but he knows his way around the Bat Computer at least. "Running checks on the other data as well," he reports. "The plates all came back stolen; I know, I was shocked too. But detected residue is still being analyzed." Dick shrugs, "Just a thing often said to refer to children," he grins. "I know, shocking that stolen plates would be used in this case. Criminals have this nasty habit of breaking the law." Snark is evident, "We will do what we can on this, but that voice might be key, since we have those bugs in place."

"Not a child," Damian counters though at this point the banter has become a routine back and forth rather than anything hurtful. The boy-terror can't help but smile "Ah, is that why they call them criminals, so good to learn from a veteran crime fighter," he says before he looks up at the screen as the voice extraction counts its way up to one hundred percent complete.

Once it's ready Damian glances back, finger over the play button. "And here's our Crimesmith," he says and he plays back the recording, the modulator's efforts stripped away. It's a man's voice, with the faint accent of a native of New Jersey, and the way he shapes his words speaks of the poorer areas of Gotham or Bludhaven. The computer confirms that analysis, and provides a voice print to be compared against further samples. "Sound like anyone you know?" Damian asks. It does, lots of people, cops, crooks and civilians, who Dick runs into in his day to day. Though the voice print does elevate this above a needle in a haystack. "So you say," Dick says and listens to the sample, "Dang, yeah that doesn't help the most, but it is something. The accent might not fit, but maybe cross reference it with records from the Whaler's Club. Maybe we can get something out of that." He grumbles to himself, "Yeah, this might not give us much, but at least we know the gang he runs around with, those Outsiders, and that's something new.”

Damian nods and opens up the recording files on from the Whaler's Club as he sets up the system to start pulling voice prints from the recordings. He takes a sip of his cocoa, it's going to be a long night. "Will do, even if it's a bit low class for the Whaler's Club, perhaps it's one of the staff," he suggests. Then a thought strikes him. "Or if we can get me near some of those Outsiders," he pauses, plays back the recording and then closing his eyes he says "We appreciate the help, we might need more," in the voice of the Crimesmith. "Tt. I can do better, enough that I match the voice print 9 times out of 10, but, I talk to them in their bosses' voice maybe they get dumb and give us something. What do you think?"

"Maybe, once you are ungrounded.*" Dick says, "Not going against your dad on this, we are kind of here since he lets us. But once again you are allowed in the field we can try that, with me looming in the wings, not letting you infiltrate gangsters alone, because that would be a bad idea." He flexes his hands in his gloves, "Yeah, it's something we could try. Especially if we can rig up a copy of the Crimesmith's getup."

[*Editor's Note: See The Awakening: ...The Demon is Grounded... ]

Damian tts when his plan to get out of his grounding early fails. "You could just /ask/ him, he'll listen to you, he trusts you," Damian says about getting sprung from the manor. "I'm bored, and my talents are wasted here, Pennyworth could do this just as well as I could." He brings up pictures of the suit, the man inside is definitely taller than Damian, but about the same height as Grayson. Damian quickly closes the picture, seeing his chances to be sprung for an actual mission getting smaller if Dick can do the infiltration. "Sorry, not going to undermine the boss man. You think this is bad? It would get worse if I let you go with me." Dick looks at the picture, and nods, "Hmm, curious as to who this could be, but judging as he is running with the new guys, might be brand new to the scene or could be an exile from the powers that be."

Damian frowns and sets aside his cocoa and steeples his fingers. "Whoever he is he has training," he says. "Probably military or police, the way he moved said he could handle himself, and soldiers move a certain way. He reaches out and calls up the picture again now that it's not likely he's going to be escaping. "He's also roughly your height, it might be possible to mock up the costume and something to change your voice," he says then sighs. "If so, then you could do the infiltration." "Yeah, I could probably pull it off. Would need to be careful and need backup on that, because if things go bad on that, they go real bad fast." Dick mutters, "Will need more intel on those new guys, so once we get some of that, we can start not only infiltrating, but maybe even driving a wedge if that is the best course of action."

Damian nods and glances back up at the screen. He reaches for his cocoa and has a sip. "That would work, as for intel, maybe Tim's scanner picked up something useful, the analysis will be done tomorrow. Other than that I guess it will just be up to legwork, shame you're down a partner," he says smirking into his cup. Once Damian has had a sip he glances over at Nightwing. "Anyhow I can pull the voice prints off the surveillance records if you want to go sleep. It's boring work, but it's not like I have to be up tomorrow." "Yeah, I can probably take Tim or Carrie if I need backup, or even Batman. Or once you get your wings back you can fly with me," Nightwing chuckles, "But yeah, once we can get some more data, the more trouble we can cause them, and I'd rather they be busy looking for us than causing trouble elsewhere."

"Hm, agreed better they're reacting than we are,"Damian says as he begins pulling voice prints from the surveillance logs. "Anyhow, hopefully my wings will be back when it's time to do this. I don't want to miss it." "Trust me, I'll try to see if you can be involved in any way, even it it's running command and control here." Dick nods, "Then stay under the radar and don't cause trouble, attention is bad in this case, since good attention is nearly impossible."

Damian looks over at Dick, his expression serious and for once listening intently. "Thanks," he says that most rare of words. "As for Father, how did you ever get him to let you do things? He doesn't seem capable of extending the same consideration to me." Dick shrugs, but first gives a nod of thanks for that very rare word. "Eh, we got into a fight, so I was kind of on my own. Before that I ran with the Titans when Batman and I didn't exactly get along. Trust me, you've got it easy, you get to spend your day hanging out with Alfred."

"Which is not terrible, but I think he cheats at chess," Damain confides of Alfred, or more likely Alfred is beating him and Damian hasn't figured out how yet. "Anyhow, I'd much rather spend time with him that the Titans," he adds. "So I suppose I will endure." "Psh, the Titans are awesome, but hopefully you learned or are learning your lesson, fly straight kid. Also, Alfred doesn't need to cheat, he is just that good. I'm going to hit the hay, but probably going to run ya tomorrow, if you can't go in the field, you are going to hit training pretty hard." With that, Dick goes to change into civilian garb and returns upstairs.