2014-06-14 - Iron and Leather

Oracle has received a bomb threat tonight. She can't do anything about it herself. She gets on the phone, texting and actually calling around. Who's she got? Power Girl isn't taking her calls, Batman's on a call to Paris. She can't raise the Justice League because no idea, they don't consult us before going to work. Batgirl is apparently in a closet under gunfire. Oh this should be fun. She gets Black Bat on the phone and sends her to location.

Black Bat arrives at the Bludhaven/Gotham bridge. She has a scanner that detects some kinds of stuff that she didn't pay any attention to in the briefing, and waves it around as she sprints along the bridge. It's not beeping.

Wait. One beep. It seems to suggest upwards. So up the bridge Black Bat goes, running up the wires making an easily visible silhouette against the sky. Approaching the top, the scanny thingey just makes a hideous screeching noise. Thanks, yeah, it's close.

Meanwhile Nathaniel was in cab heading for Arkham Island, because he sincerely thinks it is an historical and therefore cool place. Which probably makes him a very strange person for Gotham. But that is alright, he is rather strange for other, better reasons.

The plan gets foiled when the police cuts access to the bridge just two cars ahead of the cab, much to the driver's annoyance. The driver now has much to say about the GPD incompetence, laziness and corruption, and Nathaniel nods politely before handing the man a few bills and stepping out of the car, "keep the change." He wasn't paying attention anyway; he was listening to intercepted police radio communications instead.

Bomb in the bridge, but it is a huge bridge. Could his armor sensors pick up an explosive among so much metal and concrete? At the very least he can help evacuating, he figures. He steps out of the road as his regular clothes shift into silver and red armor. Heads-up display fills with truckloads of information, most of it irrelevant. Filter, filter... look for unusual readings like... look at that! Someone is up there in the bridge wires, where regular people have no business being. He takes off, speeding up to intercept.

Cassandra Cain approaches the top of the bridge, breathing a little hard as she has to run up a fifty-degree angle at the end. She's got hella tread on her boots for this kind of reason, and leaps up the last bit to grab the top of the bridge, pulling herself over the edge. There are handholds and safety clips and a high wind, as she bends down to one knee and looks around the ten foot wide area for anything not bridgey.

Long poles up into the sky with red dots to keep planes from flying into the thing. Meh. Box with wires and some kind of funky squiggles that move. Meh. She goes right past the bomb, looking for a bomb, and circles around to come back. Then she kneels down in front of the box with its numbers counting down and peers at it like looking into a fishtank.

Nathaniel, or rather, Iron Lad, can see Cassandra's rather amazing climbing and slows down when approaching to the top of the bridge tower. It might be a superhuman, giving that speed. But the bat-looking outfit means it is probably one of the good guys. Batgirl or Batwoman? Who knows? It is Gotham.

He gets up there about ten seconds after Black Bat, the armor flying silent in anti-gravity drives. He is, however, not stealthy at all in shinny red and silver with golden circles of light on several points of his outfit. It is not a suit to hide in the shadows. "Good night, are you looking for a bomb?" He greets, his voice mechanically distorted.

The black-clad woman (girl?) spins toward the incoming person, a batarang appearing in her left hand, held across her body in throwing position. She narrows her eyes, still right beside said bomb, and inspects the arrival as he speaks. She doesn't fold away the batarang, showing a distinct lack of immediate trust.

"This?" She says, her voice sounding hesitant, but her right hand opening to wave toward the ticking timer. She keeps the batarang prepared, and uses the motion to palm some other tricks from her belt into her right hand.

This what? The head of the armored man turns to the bomb and he hovers closer. He seems unworried about the batarang, but not hostile either. "Yes, that... odd place to put an explosive. It can't do much harm here, except maybe to bring down the beacons." He lands on the tower, "do you know who but that device here? And... hmm, there is not much time. We should disarm it as soon as possible."

The Black Bat pauses. She looks uncertain, but slowly lowers her batarang and folds it until it fits in a pouch. She makes a decision apparently, listening to something in her ear as Oracle identifies the flier through the earpiece hidden in her ear canal.

She slides out of the way so that the person can see the bomb a bit more clearly, and says, "Iron ...lad. Was going to...throw into the bay.." with a motion suggesting flipping the bomb casually overboard. Her voice sounds very, very rough. Like it's not used often.

That is not the kind of solution Nathaniel expected to hear from one of the Gotham Bats. "Throw it? Well," he glances down, "I suppose that work, but shouldn't you disarm it so it can be analyzed? I mean, someone built it, likely using illegal materials that should be tracked down to the providers and... you know. Police procedure." They do teach some useful stuff at the Avengers Academy, see?

The Bat shrugs slightly, then looks more closely at the bomb. She says, "How disarm?" as she peers, eyes squinting as she looks closely at the arcane wiring and magic that might as well have been used to put the thing together. "Never done this before," she admits, as Oracle tries to get her to do some things in her earpiece. She grabs the LED timer and rips it out of the bomb without being so rough that she breaks wires, just gets access to the innards of the bomb, as Oracle goes 'that works I suppose' at the very limit of even electronically enhanced hearing.

"Who are you?" Asks the armoured man. He kneels to examine the bomb, going over it with the suit sensors. He winces when Cassandra tears out the timer. "There is not much explosive, the bulk of the device is... uh oh. It is a complex cocktail of chemicals that... poison. It would spread into the city. Stop." He tries to grab the girl's wrist.

The girl isn't exactly moving fast to stick her hands into the guts of the bomb, listening as Iron Lad talks. From the look on her face she is a bit overwhelmed by the bomb, and the fact that it's apparently some poison bath isn't making her want to dive on in any more. Her wrist is grabbed as she says, "C.." and is interrupted by both the grabbing and Oracle shouting at her. She looks, her face going calm, at Iron Lad and says "Black Bat." She holds very, very still, but her voice suggests a touch of temper. "Teach me how to do, then."

"This is not a very good moment to teach you," mentions Nathaniel, smirking behind his faceplate. "But alright..." he looks at the timer. They have time, mostly. "Watch," the wrist of his armor opens, revealing a complex mesh of circuitry, pulses of light running through what seem thousands of hair-like liquid crystal wires. Then a small machine seems to form or grow out of the mesh. In seconds, it forms a holographic projector and Cassandra can see an 3D image of the bomb insides.

"It is a simple device. The timer will send an electric discharge through these wires. The discharge is powerful enough to ignite the explosive, which is TNT. Now, TNT is usually stable enough, but only if properly maintained. If it is aged or poorly cared for, it leaks nitro-glycerine. Since most illegal explosives are done with stolen materials, it tends to be the case, and that means it can explode if handled roughly." He points to the hologram. "This is the cable. A devious criminal could have trapped them, crafting a complex circuit so cutting one would still trigger the bomb. But I don't see anything tricky here, so," he fires a down a beam of light from a finger, cutting through the bomb casing and severing the cable in the hologram. The LED blinks out. "It is disarmed. But still dangerous to move."

Black Bat holds the LED display in her right hand as she pulls a few tools out of her utility belt with her left. Wire cutters, a small cutting laser, a small bottle of something that she unstoppers with one hand and then drinks with a swift motion. She tosses the empty bottle into her belt again. This is all done by the time that Iron Lad has finished with his display, her eyes on the hologram. Possibly the first time in her life that she's listened to a briefing, and Oracle takes notes on how to get Cass to pay attention. Just put her life in danger first.

Black Bat takes up the wirecutters and looks into the bomb trying to figure what to do next. She sets the screen down as it changes down to 9 seconds and reaches into the bomb, flicking a wire cautiously, then clipping it the way she was shown a moment ago. The timer stops, the correct wire was cut.

"Yes, that is it," confirms Nathaniel. "Now the bomb should be carefully dissembled and a forensic analysis done looking for fingerprints and other evidence. Unless you need the evidence yourself urgently, we think should let the police do it." He stands up, "Black Bat, hmm? Nice to meet you."

For once, Black Bat is the one left to deal with the police, with Iron Lad seen in the night sky. She turns the bomb over to the bomb squad under the judging eyes of the GCPD with only her name given, locking her into the police files as one of the Bat family, and to the news as another of a line of costumed vigilantes to protect and serve.