10679/Welcome to the Nest

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Welcome to the Nest
Date of Scene: 05 April 2022
Location: Historic Clocktower - Penthouse
Synopsis: Babs and Charlie meet with tim to talk about Nano Zombies, and Altoids.
Cast of Characters: Barbara Gordon, Tim Drake, Charlotte Gage-Radcliffe




Barbara Gordon has posed:
IT's early evening in Gotham City and Barbara Gordon is in her apartment in the sky.

"Come on, damnit." She says from behind her main computer monitor. Wearing a pair of large framed black hued glasses that she stares intensely at the screen through. The redhead's hair is tied up in to a bun on the crown of her head, she's in a black long sleeve tshirt, and some blue jeans. She's grumbling at the computer as she focuses on it.

The access to her apartment is open to friends and family, so any visitors on the 'accepted list' are able to get up through the lift quite easily. She is, of course, monitoring that access though ad her Oracle AI system will tell her of anyone on the way up, let alone SHOW her through the cameras installed around, and throughout the inside of the entire tower.

"Damnit!" Barbara says to whatever is happening on her screen.

Tim Drake has posed:
    Tim's not a frequent visitor to the Clocktower, busy as he is with his own team on the other side of town, but he does drop in for regular family dinners at the manor. They all have their own various responsibilities, and honestly Tim's surprised they see each other as often as they do.

    Out of costume, at least. Patrols and the ever-present Arkham breakouts tend to bring them together.

    He's planning on heading out for a few hours of patrol here soon, but at present Tim's still in civilian clothes. Jeans, Gotham Knights hoodie that he used to wear ironically and now he wears just because, the usual paparazzi smokescreen combo of a ballcap and sunglasses.

    Once he's on the lift, he casually waves up at the camera, and then tucks his hands into his pockets for the ride up.

    "Hey Babs," he calls out once the doors open again, and he pulls the backpack slung over his shoulder around to open up the main zippered compartment. "You busy?" No, he's not trying to snoop on what Barbara is doing. Scout's honor.

    Oh, who are we kidding. He's definitely snooping.

Barbara Gordon has posed:
It's World of Warcraft.

Yep. She still plays it. She's one of those people. Played it since before she could talk.

And as Tim arrives, her Raid party is getting wiped. Which has her grumbling, even cursing, and finally just flopping back in her chair.

Her black framed glasses are clattered to the desk surface beside the main huge curved monitor, and Barbara puts a hand against her face. Her headset is set aside, and she looks over at Tim. She summons up a smile for him.

"Hey." She says softly, calming down some at least. She moves to stand up, picking up the empty Mountain Dew cans on her desk and taking them down the small set of stairs to walk toward the kitchen on the northern wall of the large open apartment suite within the faces of the Clocktower.

"Want something to drink?" She asks him as she tosses the cans away. "Soda, juice, water? Beer?' She asks the last one with a grin as she pops her old timey lime-green fridge open with a pull on the big silver handle and a buzz of interior cooling noises iminating from within.

Charlotte Gage-Radcliffe has posed:
    There is a small flash of color, one that Babs at least is entirely familiar with at this point, over by the couch in front of the state of the art television and accompanying game systems. That spill of color comes in the form of pinkish purple smoke, pinkurple, or something like it. That' a color right.

    Charlie, in full gear goes from standing to flopping on the couch bonelessly with a "OOOF" noise and just lays there. That ooof sounded very tired.

    At the sound of... people ... a hand, gloved in slightly off batgirl leather, pops up over the back of the couch and does a classic Llama handsign, or maybe it is a yellow anubis. It pivots towards Tim. Then pivots towards Babs. Then headtilts.

Tim Drake has posed:
    Upon witnessing Barbara's party wipe, Tim lets out a low, sympathetic whistle. He's more an EVE Online kinda guy (which honestly says so much about him as a person) but he can relate.

    He follows after Babs, and once they're in the kitchen, he leans back against one of the counters, legs crossed at the ankle. "Just water, please. Thanks."

    And then he doesn't even wait for her to get it. "Sorry for dropping in unannounced, but there's something I wanted to talk to you about. I have a friend with a nanomachine problem."

    The pause after that statement is either for dramatic effect, or for Tim to see if that in and of itself is enough to spark some interest. Either way, he pulls out his tablet from his backpack and taps at the screen to unlock it.

    Then Tim turns it around to show off a slideshow of scans. Red and white blood cells under a microscope, with clearly identifiable (if tiny) foreign objects intermingled.

    "The good news is, all we have to do to fix the problem is roll back their coding to a previous version, but--." His explanation on what the bad news is, which is probably the direction he was heading in, comes to an abrupt halt as Tim does a slow head-turn in Charlie's direction. He looks at her hand. Then he looks back at Babs. Before he copies the headtilt (handtilt?) with a curious frown.

Barbara Gordon has posed:
Barbara gathers up a couple bottles of water out of the fridge as she listens to Tim's words. She does look immediately interested, but she also does look over to the hand at the sofa. She shows a quick little grin then to Tim. "It's cool. Don't worry." She tells him.

"Charlie Brown!" Babs calls out. "You want a soda? I'm gonna make a pizza here in a bit, I had all the fixings delivered this afternoon. You should help me with that." She says, already grabbing a grape soda out of the fridge for the young one on the sofa.

Tim's water is offered to him as she starts to walk toward the sofa now.

"That kind of tech is still very rarely found in the world...." Babs says to Tim's issue presented. "Your friend must be... in high places, I assume?" She asks, but doesn't really need to know.

"What can I do to help?" She then asks, which is more important to her, since she trusts Tim's reasonings.

The grape soda is then pushed against that hand puppet of Charlie's.

Charlotte Gage-Radcliffe has posed:
    The gloved hand closes the soda in Anubis's mouth and with that Charlie levers herself up to sit with a groan. "I do like 'za and am a master at flipping dough" she notes very seriously. She may have never tried it before though. She is prone to perhaps exagerating a smidge.

    The soda is set in her lap unopened for a moment and she uses both hands to peel the cowl off and then her goggles, making a small pile by her as the gloves follow.

    "Hey Tim." she chirps chipperly and flashes him a grin before raking her hands through her freed red hair. Then, and only then does she pop the soda open and take a big drink.

    "Nanotech for real, like ooOo danger of grey goo or .. is it like brainwashing .. or...." she blinks and takesd another sip of soda. Okay she is all in on this nanotech problem. Not that she is able to help. Still. Focus!

Tim Drake has posed:
    As Tim accepts the bottled water, he tucks his tablet under his arm. "She wasn't a willing recipient," he explains, regarding his friend with the problem. And like before he follows after Babs, relocating his lean so that it's against the couch rather than the counter.

    "Hey Charlie." He smiles down at her, and then turns the tablet around to show Charlie the images.

    Which, again, not actually much to look at. But there's definitely something up with those blood samples.

    "For real nanotech. Courtesy of Evil Science Laboratories, Incorporated."

    Definitely not their real name, but at this point all of them have started to blend together.

    When Barbara offers her help, Tim stands up a little straighter, his expression going serious. Lips pressed together, brows drawn downwards. He nods, and then he's busy tapping away at the screen. "We managed to infiltrate one of the labs but there were..." Zombies. Explosions. Randomly, an anvil that landed on Deadpool, ACME-style. "Complications. I only managed to pull about 70% of the file, but let me send it to you."

    Within a few seconds, the Clocktower's systems will receive a file sent from the Roost.

    "Lonnie and I are working to reverse-engineer the missing 30% but the work is slow-going, and we're short on time. I was hoping maybe we could collaborate on a solution."

Barbara Gordon has posed:
Barbara perches on the side of the sofa's back with one leg up now, her own bottle of water opened up via its cap, then a drink taken from it. She glances to Charlie, who's displayed enthusiasm gets a sly grin from the older redhead who recaps her water and sets it on the sofa cushion beside her. She now looks more closely at that tablet that Tim has displaying the images.

She's studying what she can see there as she takes in what he speaks of. Her lips curl up at the revelation of only having seventy percent of the files.

"Frog DNA." Barbara says to him then, before she smirks as she sits back on the sofa, her back straight now, hands in her lap. "I mean... you get the reference, I'm sure." She says to him before nodding her head a few times. "Give me everything you got, and I can ... splice in some frog DNA, so to speak." She states, obviously referencing Jurassic Park.

She glances toward her computer station as the Oracle AI announces the package arrival.

She looks back to him then. "Zombies? For real? I mean... of course... zombies." She then states with a heavy inhale, and exhale to follow.

Charlotte Gage-Radcliffe has posed:
    Charlie sips her soda and peers at the tablet when Tim shows her the results. She squints eyes narrowing as she looks at the blood samples. "Definitely looks odd." she agrees. "Now I can say I know what tiny micromachines in blood looks like I guess...."

    The frog DNA makes her blink and narrows her eyes very slowly for a moment there. "Frog DNA...." it takes her a minute to get it. I mean. Yes Babs has absolutely made her watch classics like Jurassic Park, but it isn't all that recent. "Ooh... dinosaurs." when she finally clicks it into place. "I bet it'll be no trouble for Oracle." not that she is insulting Tim or Lonnie but.... she is biased.

    Soda tanked she starts to work the armored jacket off revealing the hightechy underarmor mesh "hate breaking in a new jacket... can't believe the cat lady sliced right through all the layers of my armor with her dumb claws." there is a brief pause "Isn't Solomon Grundy basically a zombie on a Monday?"

Tim Drake has posed:
    Little known fact: Tim had a Jurassic Park-themed birthday as a child. So he gets the reference, yes, and despite himself the corners of his mouth twitch. "Just enough so that we can work out a solution. The last thing we need are for these little guys to lay any more eggs."

    Once the show-and-tell is done, Tim puts the tablet away. No reason to keep flashing his friend's blood samples around, even if (of course) all labels and signifiers have been sanitized so that it can't be traced back. Security is the word of the day, after all.

    Every day, in the Bat-family.

    "They're not even the first zombies made by a secretive science-based organization I've encountered in the last six months!" he says. Then he folds his arms over his chest. "Which should probably freak me out."

    Tim mulls on this for a moment or two before he moves on. Those sorts of things are best not thought about for too long, in his experience. He takes a long drink of water -- half the bottle emptied in one go -- then exhales, slowly. "That's why I brought it to her."

    He's very much in agreement with Charlie and her assessment of Barbara's skills.

    "Wear it while you're training, if you can. That's always worked best for me." Tim's teeth clench against a grimace. "Especially new boots. Those are the *worst* to break in."

Barbara Gordon has posed:
Charlie gets a glance from Barbara, who reaches out to muss up the other redhead's hair a bit more than it already was. She then stands up from the sofa, snatches her water bottle and starts back toward the kitchen. "Okay, well." She says as she goes. "You said there's a time crunch on this matter?" She asks then, reaching the open kitchen that is all decorated like its from the roaring 50s, or the Fallout franchise, if you're a gamer nerd.

"Got any specifics on just how little time we got here?" She then asks, her bottle set down as she starts to unpack those groceries she had delivered earlier.

"I mean, if the seventy percent you have here is well made, by a compitent designer, or designers, it shouldn't be too hard to get a feel for their style and mimmick it through to a finishing point. But..." She pauses then.

She shows him a grin from across the small distance. "If it's sloppy as hell, you know I may have to redo more than even thirty percent of what you give me. Just as a standards level. Time barring, of course..." She notes, on her way to putting a few things in to the cabinets above the sink area.

Charlotte Gage-Radcliffe has posed:
    Charlie tilts her head by instinct right into the hair mussing up. Hey it's done out of love and who doesn't like head pats. Salty people. That's who.

    Still being broken in jacket gets dropped in the pile with cowl goggles and gloves. They are all gathered in her arms and she to dump them out on a workbench before heading to the open kitchen as well. The groceries are studied as she looks over the unpacking. Taking any items handed to her to be put away if they aren't going to be used immediately. She is a helper and all.

    "were they nanite zombies?" still stuck on the zombies. "I've seen one incident of magic zombies... no nanite zombies yet tho... also are they laying eggs?"

Tim Drake has posed:
    Babs's question gets a quick nod in response from Tim. "No specifics, but the nanomachines are killing her."

    Though he frowns at that and shakes his head. "Which, uh, grammatically is not clear. They kill her when they activate; it's only her X-gene regenerative abilities that bring her back after her heart's stopped. And we don't know how long that's going to keep working."

    The unease on Tim's expression only deepens. "From what I can tell, the code is stolen. Still running the details down on that, but aside for the--yep, they're responsible for the zombies too--" That bit was said to Charlie, "Aside for the dubious nature of the code's purpose, it's solid enough work."

    Tim's shoulders go up, closing off his body language even further. His struggle with this, the nanomachine problem of this nameless friend, seems to run deep.

    "No, no eggs. Pretty sure the compound's self-detonation protocols wiped them out, at least for now." He bites his lip. "I'll see if I can run down more info on the code's origins."

Barbara Gordon has posed:
Barbara is pulling a few things out of the bags to hand off to Charlie when she joins her in the kitchen. Some Capri Sun boxes, and some confetti cupcakes, the essentials, and help is always welcomed with this kind of chore duty.

Babs just winces as she hears the situation a little more laid out. "Okay... uh... maybe we'll have to do take out tonight, again." She says when she hears a bit more about this person's life on the line. She walks to the sink and starts to run some water to wash her hands off.

"I'll get started on it immediately then, Tim." She says over her shoulder, reaching for a towel to dry her hands then.

She turns around with said towel still being wiped over fingers and palms.

"I'll work through the night if needs be, and I'll contact you the moment I get a sense of how long it'll take me." She lets him know then before folding the towel and draping it over the edge of the counter.

Charlotte Gage-Radcliffe has posed:
    There is a happy hiss of a noise as she is handed the confetti cupcakes "Ah yissss" and she ferries them and the caprisuns away to be put in there proper places. It is the noise a goblin or kobold might make.

    "Ooof that sounds like a priority yeah...." very understanding of the takeout for tonight instead of home making the 'za. Someones heart being flatlined by evil nanites and restarted constantly sounds dire AF. Not that Charlie would say even AF out loud though. Let alone what it stands for.

    "I'll finish putting stuff away." keeping busy.

Tim Drake has posed:
    Tim wanders in the general direction of the kitchen. He doesn't know where anything goes, so in lieu of offering to help without having any way of actually doing so, he just keeps out of the way.

    Which means he's in prime viewing position to stare covetously at the Capri Suns. "Do either of you remember those Altoids that were, like, fruit flavored and extremely sour? So sour they would make the insides of your mouths peel after a while?" he asks. The sigh that follows is nostalgic as all heck.

    "She's okay right now. Stable. We just have no idea when the signal that triggered the nanomachines will start broadcasting again." Hands in his pockets, Tim lingers at the edge of the kitchen, watching Barbara and Charlie tackle the groceries together. Despite the grim nature of his reasons for being here, Tim smiles. Then adds, "She probably would tell you that pizza is totally worth it and to not put it off on her account, if I know her at all. Besides, there's three of us working on this, now. We'll make it happen."

Barbara Gordon has posed:
Barbara watches the reaction to the cupcakes which has her grinning lightly for a moment or two before she looks back to Tim. She exhales again, and shakes her head once more. "Nah. It's fine. We'll get that fancy pizza place down on fifth and Munroe. Miracle Pizza, the uh... hockey themed place. Who knew a hockey place would make the best pizza? But they actually do. Besides--" Babs starts to walk to the counter with her water on it, the bar top counter. "Now that I know someoen's life is on the line here, this is gonna be all I think about until its done."

She smirks to Tim as she starts to walk back toward her computer console level of the penthouse.

"Charlie, you wanna place the order? Get extra breadsticks and the hot wings too?" She asks as she ascends the few steps up to that raised platform that her computer systems rest upon.

"Are things good beyond this, Tim?" She asks him next. "Everyone is okay otherwise?"

Back in her chair, her glasses back on. She closes out of Warcraft and sends a couple dirty messages to the Guild members who got them wiped tonight, then sweeps her cursor over to the waiting package that was sent to her.

Charlotte Gage-Radcliffe has posed:
    Charlie nods "Ye I can handle it." serious tone, she is on top of this. Pizza ordering is a sacred task in her mind.

    That doesn't mean she doesn't fish one of the Caprisuns off and hand it off slyly to Tim as she walks back by towards a phone on a charger by the couch, which she fishes up and starts to fiddle with. Putting in the pizza order, breadsticks, wings. She pauses though at this point. "Also, I know what 'za Babs and I get, what kind do you want Tim." pause again. "Are you staying for 'za?"

Tim Drake has posed:
    "Otherwise?"

    Tim pauses. His eyes flick down towards the floor, and then back upwards. His chest expands with his next breath, which is a deep one. "...Yeah. My life is, and hold on--look, I don't believe in superstitions, but--" He walks over to the nearest wooden piece of furniture and knocks on it rapidly. "--Just in case. Things are great."

    His shoulders hunch up again, but his posture is open, hands back to being tucked in his pockets. "Really great."

    He also tucked his hands into his pockets to hide the Capri Sun Charlie just palmed him. Though the way he grins at the back of her head as she walks away probably gives the whole gig up..

    The offer, while obviously very tempting by the way his face immediately lights up, gets turned down by Tim with a sad shake of his head. "Sorry, I can't. I'm on duty tonight."

    Well, they all know he means by on duty.

Barbara Gordon has posed:
Barbara is already looking at the files that were sent to her systems. She spent a moment doing something before she looks over at the both of them. "On duty tonight... gotcha." She smiles then before she taps her screen. "Well. I just ordered you a case of those Altoids. So when they arrive at your place, bring some of them over, because no... I in fact do not remember them, and they sound amazing."

"And thanks, Charlie Brown." She tells the young one placing the pizza order. "I'll let you eat half the cupcakes tonight, if you want. Though I claim the other half for Lady Barbara."

Back to looking at her monitors, she's already got her AI helping sort out the code in to different displays.

"I'm glad things are going good though, otherwise. I mean it too, that is a relief to hear, considering the stuff we get ourselves in to around here. Nano Zombies, and so forth..." She groans then after having to say 'Nano Zombies' outloud.

Charlotte Gage-Radcliffe has posed:
    The nice part about teleporting and training like this. She seems to burn through an almost infinite amount of calories. Which means very little guilt about eating half a container of cupcakes.

    "You are on Lady B." then she pauses "I want to try mouth melting Altoids." there is a puzzled noise "What is an altoid though.. is that like a sour patch kid like the theaters have?"

    "I'd take nano-zombies over that cheetah lady tho... probably safer."

Tim Drake has posed:
    Tim presses a closed fist against his mouth, eyes squeezed shut. Perhaps he is uttering a prayer for the health of his tastebuds, because as soon as those reproduction Altoids arrive, he's going to scour them within an inch of their life with the wonders of citric and malic acid.

    "Thanks, Babs. For the candy, and for your help." His weight shifts from one foot to the other. "The sooner we've dealt with this problem," he adds, "The better. And I'm sure she'll be relieved to be free to go off on her own. We've had her on medical rest with only my Lego collection for company."

    He smiles, tightly. There's probably more to it; there's lots of trouble one can get up to in the Roost, after all.

    "Hmm... no, they're sour but they're also hard candies. Regular Altoids are mints, but these ones were fruit flavors. The tangerine one was the best."

    Still reminiscing, Tim only acknowledges the alarm that beeps from his smart watch with a quick swipe of his fingers to dismiss it. Time to go, if he wants to make it back to the Roost in time to gear up without having to rush.

    "Definite raincheck on that pizza, though, okay?"