11188/Merely Chaos

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Merely Chaos
Date of Scene: 16 May 2022
Location: Midtown - Founders Island
Synopsis: No description
Cast of Characters: Lonnie Machin, Tim Drake




Lonnie Machin has posed:
    So roughly three days ago, Lonnie simply - left. He does this on occasion, gets so wrapped up in whatever he's doing that he doesn't respond to texts. He usually takes the dog with him if he's going to be gone for a long time though, and this time he... didn't.
    So it's been radio silence for three days. This morning, just after sunrise, the GCPD's internal communications system goes down - trying to tune into it elicits nothing but obnoxiously loud static.
    About 20 minutes after that, people's cell phones start going off. It's always calls from somebody on their contact list, but when they answer, all they get is a blast of agonizing digital noise in their ear. It spreads across the city, radiating outward from Founder's Island like a wave of discordant noise.
    ...Forty minutes after that, the traffic light grid desynchronizes. About thirty seconds after that is the first car accident.

Tim Drake has posed:
    Sure, maybe disappearing for days on end isn't something you'd expect a partner to do in a conventional relationship, but... you know, it works for them. Because sometimes Tim is so wrapped up in things that he won't disappear, per se, but he will be wildly uncommunicative for a couple of days until he surfaces from whatever investigation or extremely niche research project that has taken his attention.

    It's magic, mostly, nowadays. He's not reading cursed books of the damned or anything like that but there is certainly a bounty of information out there once you know where to look and how to differentiate the pop pagan stuff from the real thing. He comes up to breathe and finally sends a text to Lonnie.

    When it goes unanswered, Tim doesn't think much of it.

    Yap has an entire household of superpowered teens-slash-young adults to look after him (along with the rest of the herd that cohabitates with the Outsiders) so he's fine. And it's no bother to Tim, having him around. He's pretty much the best dog companion you could ask for. He's left watching tv on Tim's bed when he heads out on patrol. Late shift. It's a routine sort of night with little to report, at least until the sun's starting to come up and it's about time to wrap things up.

    Typical. Tim spends a few minutes trying to troubleshoot his connection to the GCPD comm-network before he gets confirmation that it's a system-wide problem. Thankfully the phone network isn't affected, so they can at least track the 911 calls as they come in.

    Which leads into the next problem.

    Tim's already figured out that the origin point is somewhere in Founder's Island when the issues with the traffic grid start. He swings down from his vantage point overlooking city hall to check on the occupants of the vehicles in the nearest car accident, but there's little for him to do. The proximity to GCPD HQ means there are cops in the area much better suited to handling this sort of thing, so he takes advantage of the confusion to... break into GCPD HQ instead. Yeah. This is a great plan. But the communications system going down was the first thing that happened as far as he can tell. Might as well start at the beginning.

Lonnie Machin has posed:
    Needless to say, there's an awful lot of confusion going on at GCPD HQ.
    Harvey Bullock is so angry, he hurls his cell phone against the wall. "Christ. Whoever decided to rip out all t' pay phones in dis burg needs to be taken out back an' WHIPPED WID A RUBBER HOSE!"
    Moving on. The thing about modern technology is that it works better than it ever did, more efficiently, with less need for oversight - because it all incorporates computers. So in the dispatch room, there's a lot of confusion going on. "Everything's down." One of the dispatchers complains to a Sgt. "Any command I input just spits out the same line. 'Nowadays people know the price of everything and the value of nothing.'"
    "Oscar Wilde." Another of the dispatchers says.
    "Huh?"
    "Oscar Wilde said that. I was an English minor in college." The dispatcher says. "...But it's only half the quote."

Tim Drake has posed:
    At some point they're going to figure out that the old ventilation system is how the Bats keep getting in. But that day does not appear to be today, because when Tim pops out of a vent in the basement archival room, there's no one there. Well, there's someone up at the desk, but that's on the opposite side of the room.

    In short order, Tim has hijacked the network connection of one of the computers down here for his own uses, tucked behind a couple of boxes as a backup in case the motion detectors he'd quickly put up at the ends of the aisles don't alert him in time. But once he connects, he runs into the same issue he'd overheard the dispatchers having as he crawled through the ductwork.

    He spends more time than he probably should trying to brute force his way in. Sometimes a puzzle is just a puzzle, though, and he's mildly concerned that this is going to lead back to the Riddler. A bit too tech-focused for Nygma, really, but... well, Tim starts typing in Wilde quotes. He starts with "A good friend will always stab you in the front," mostly because that's his favorite, but he does eventually get around to typing in the more fitting "Without order, nothing can exist - without chaos nothing can evolve." Then he hits enter.

Lonnie Machin has posed:
    Which finally lets him into the system and then - the whole thing just crashes. But not before he could get a glimpse at what was going on. Whoever did this was meticulous - the worm they introduced into the GCPD system is effectively targeting all the means the police use to communicate - dispatch, email - and shutting them down.
    What they're doing to the radio dispatch, that's old-fashioned and unsophisticated - nothing more than old-fashioned RF Jamming. Time was, before Tim was born, you could get the stuff you needed to do that at a Radio Shack-
    Most people Tim's age would have to check what that is on Wikipedia. But you can still just... do it. Though jamming the public safety spectrum in a way that covers the entire city would take multiple RF Jammers, and strong ones.

Tim Drake has posed:
    The brief look at whatever malware program someone managed to infect GCPD HQ with isn't enough to satisfy Tim's curiosity. Very few things ever do, admittedly, but this certainly isn't enough to write an effective counter-attack.

    Best to leave that to Oracle, he thinks. Besides, she's got an easier 'in' with the police.

    An RF jammer, though. Old school. That's interesting, and worth some more digging. Very possibly it has something to do with those strange phone calls people were receiving, too. It's going to take some manual signal detection to find where it's originating, given that it's already been pinpointed to Founders Island.

    How convenient that Tim's already here.

    He pops back out through the vent on the roof, careful to leave things as they were before his arrival. The collapsible antenna Tim withdraws from his utility belt feeds into his mask's HUD, so he can track both signal strength and direction as he spins in a slow circle, trying to determine where to start searching. Whatever exhaustion that might have started creeping up on him as dawn approached is now long gone, banished by the arrival of a new mystery.

    Though he wouldn't mind stopping for a coffee at some point.

Lonnie Machin has posed:
    "I can't take any orders," The cashier says, shaking her head. "Our system's down!" Noooooooooooo!
    Anyway, with all of that fancy ultra-modern equipment, it's easy enough to figure out where the signal jammer covering Founders Island is located. It's on the rooftop of the building where WGOT operates - though they switched to a digital radio signal years ago, the old broadcast tower is still there, and the RF jammer's been hooked into it, blasting out noise that's interfering with emergency dispatch across this entire section of the city.
    It's also got a bomb attached to it - one that's obvious, with a trigger to go off if the case housing the signal jammer is tampered with, exceedingly well-made using every day parts. You know, like one Lonnie would build.

Tim Drake has posed:
    Damn. Well, Tim's not so pressed that he's willing to reach for the emergency instant Batspresso in his utility belt just yet.

    A grapple line pulls him up to the rooftop of the WGOT building, antenna back in its pouch on his belt now that he's honed in on the signal source. No need for it now, with the RF jammer -- and its bomb -- easily recognizable.

    Maybe too easily. It's almost familiar, and as Tim crouches down, assessing it from a distance with the help of his mask's telescoping lenses, he allows himself to consider the possibility. Definitely not the Riddler's work, that much is obvious now. And it's too much like Lonnie's style to ignore.

    But where's the announcement? The manifesto? At the very least, there should be some indication somewhere that Lonnie's taking responsibility for this. Even if the traffic light grid interference seems too... dangerous, for Lonnie. Nowadays, at least. Would he really risk lives like that?

    Tim starts scrolling through the usual online haunts for potential Anarky postings. He needs to know who made this bomb before he tries to disarm it. Well, he'd *like* to know, at least.

Lonnie Machin has posed:
    ...There's nothing. Radio silence. Nothing on Reddit, nothing on the bulletin boards, Discord, Twitter - just nothing. It's like he fell off the face of the earth. Normally Lonnie would've at least explained himself. He always has a reason for doing the things he does.
    Not anarchy, merely chaos.
    And yet - the more Tim looks at the bomb, the more it's Lonnie's work. Simple components, technically perfect. Except that while he doesn't think highly of cops, he's not the sort of guy who's going to murder people with a shrapnel grade, and yet this thing's packed with nuts and bolts and nails.

Tim Drake has posed:
    Nothing. That's... is that good? Tim would rather Lonnie not be responsible for this level of... yeah, chaos. Which is distinct from anarchy, he knows. They've no doubt had several prolonged discussions about precisely that.

    Either way, the GCPD's communications need to be unjammed, which starts with the deactivation of the bomb attached to the RF jammer.

    A few anxiety-inducing minutes later, Red Robin stands with the disarmed device in his hands. It's with an appropriate amount (AKA: a lot) of care that he turns it over, examining it from all angles. A Bat-drone is already on the way to retrieve it for processing and eventual destruction.

    "Lonnie, this isn't you," Tim says to himself. And then he sends off another text to Lonnie, this time just a request for location.

Lonnie Machin has posed:
    And again, no response - though a ping on Tim's newsfeed now indicates that pretty much any vehicle built after 2012 has stopped on the streets and locked people in, which has brought traffic to the city to a screeching halt. Well, at least now the police can communicate again.
    Too bad a bunch of the cops are locked in their fancy new cars. But then again so's thousands of ordinary day-drivers and families.

Tim Drake has posed:
    There's no time for Tim to devote anything more than surface-level concern for Lonnie's whereabouts, not with people trapped in their cars. At least the weather is cooperating, which mitigates what would otherwise be more pressing time concerns. And the cops, at least, should be more than capable of breaking a window to escape.

    Here's hoping that's what they do, rather than stay stuck in their vehicles while people need saving while Tim tracks down whatever -- whoever -- is responsible.

    He starts scanning for another intrusive signal as he rappels down to street level. The drone is little more than a dot in the sky already, carting off its dangerous contents to an undisclosed location. And then he finds the nearest car stuck with its doors locked.

    "Hi, sorry, excuse me," Tim says to the woman at the wheel once he's managed to manually force the lock open, and then there's an awkward back-and-forth of Tim moving out of the way and the girl climbing over the center console to sit in the passenger seat before Tim finally ducks his head down into the footwell so that he can jack into the diagnostic socket.

Lonnie Machin has posed:
    The woman, middle-aged and quite surprised, simply says, "...Hello." She gets her coffee (where did she get it?) out of the way and she watches Tim rather awkwardly stick his head down into the nethers of her car before she says, "...Thanks for the rescue, but... what're you doing?" She seems very puzzled. "I'm... gonna get out of my car now." She says, as she tries to wriggle past Tim in order to get out.
    Meanwhile, Tim's drone picks up on the source - and they're currently on the observation deck of Gotham City Hall. Way up there at the top of the old art deco tower.

Tim Drake has posed:
    "Troubleshooting your car, ma'am," is the answer Red Robin gives. And then he's silent except for a quiet grunt when, in her haste to get out of the car through the door he'd forced open, she steps on him. Nowhere particularly tender, at least.

    After he's done with his impromptu IT session (which was more about trying to examine the malicious code itself rather than actually troubleshooting) Tim pops back up, seated behind the wheel of the currently immobile vehicle. Which is when he notices the blinking dot indicating the rogue signal atop Gotham City Hall. Bold choice, that.

    He can't just leave to continue investigating, not with so many people still trapped. Which is why he spends the next couple of minutes forcing open car doors until several GCPD officers arrive on the scene (on foot) to take over. They're still a block away, but that's close enough, and rather than sticking around for an awkward interaction (with a few notable exceptions, every encounter with police personnel is awkward as a vigilante... doubly so when it's daytime out) he fires off another grapple line and ascends to a nearby rooftop, making his way towards City Hall several hundred feet above streetlevel instead.

Lonnie Machin has posed:
    By the time Tim hits City Hall, the rain is coming down so hard it's hard to see. Even a leak-proof costume is uncomfortable in this kind of weather. Water, for something that takes the path of least resistance, seems to look tirelessly for any crack or seam in order to get in. Up on top of city hall, another bomb has been set. Even from this distance, the hardware in Tim's suit can give him a read on the bomb up there. Same hardware store make, impeccable worksmanship.
    ...Anarky is there too. He's currently leaning against the wall, out in the rain. Almost as if he's waiting for something, or someone.

Tim Drake has posed:
    Another bomb. Tim's not going to be surprised by that; as he'd made the trek towards City Hall in the distance, he'd come to the decision that this was the most likely outcome awaiting him.

    At least going through that mental exercise had been enough brainwork to distract him from the rain. He's used to it, and to be fair he only feels a little bit of damp creeping under the collar of his suit, while the seals everywhere else continue to hold strong. His hair's plastered to his skull and he can't get the taste of rain out of his mouth, though, and given that it's Gotham rain, it's not particularly pleasant.

    But when his final grapple line pulls him up and over the edge of City Hall's rooftop, Anarky's presence there is surprising. Not that it shows, and that's down primarily to the mask covering enough of his face. He does however pause, looking between the bomb and (presumably) its maker for a long moment, silently.

Lonnie Machin has posed:
    Anarky pushes himself off the railing, and casually steps aside. He gestures to the bomb, and then says, "Every moment you spend defusing one of these, I'm causing chaos elsewhere. Eventually, you'll run yourself ragged, Robin. I'm a step ahead of you." He pauses, and then, his voice garbled by the distorter he wears as part of his ensemble, he says, "There's a way you can stop me from causing chaos, but I know you won't do it."
    He walks toward the railing at the edge of the observation deck and puts a foot up on it, as if to leave. "You wear a mask for so long, you forget who you were beneath it." He says, before he climbs the railing.

Tim Drake has posed:
    Nothing about that response gives Red Robin any reason to trust Anarky. And the concerns that have remained pushed firmly to the back of his mind now come to the forefront: either this is someone else, someone Tim doesn't know, or there is something VERY wrong with Lonnie.

    Neither of these things matter in the moment, though, on account of the elephant in the room. AKA, the bomb. So while the telescoping staff snaps to its full length in Tim's hand and he begins to circle around Anarky, giving him a wide berth, he's still headed for the bomb.

    "You can tell yourself that all you want, but we'll see who has more stamina in the end," he says, voice flat.

Lonnie Machin has posed:
    The last thing Lonnie said - that's a quote from 'V for Vendetta' - one of his favorite books, because of course it is. But why would he quote that now?
    Anyway, he's gone over the balcony, and Tim is left to puzzle over a bomb every bit as complex and as deadly as the first. He can disarm it - of course he can. But the point isn't whether or not he can disarm it, it's seconds, minutes. During which time more and more alerts pop up, as the intricate systems Gotham City depends on are thrown into - well, chaos. The city, a mighty beast to be sure, is slowly but surely being throttled, brought to its knees.
    Subways. Buses. Traffic lights. Power. Water. Police. About the only things he hasn't started to attack yet are 911 dispatch, the city's EMTs and the Fire Department. Yet.
    Still... there's something about it. He seems to be prioritizing things that are damaging but not immediately lethal. But the chaos is ramping up.

Tim Drake has posed:
    Lather, rinse, repeat. Defusing a bomb is never going to be something rote because of the danger involved, but soon enough another drone is carting away some very dangerous cargo, and Red Robin is left to survey the chaos currently holding the city in a death-grip, the morning sun little more than a few weak rays filtering through the dense bank of stormclouds overhead.

    Suffice to say, Tim's HUD is awash in a flood of warnings and notifications. Even speed-reading it takes him a solid few minutes to actually parse through it all, fingers pressed to the interface panel in his left gauntlet. By the end he has an updated map of Gotham overlaid with the sites Anarky is targeting, one after the other, and that's when he notices the pattern. The human brain has a prediliction for patterns, conscious or unconscious, and so much of criminal investigation work is really just about recognizing them. There are no doubt other bombs to defuse, but the thing is... there are other Bats who could do it. So Tim sends out the call and then lifts his grapple gun from his belt.

    He's never been to this particular abandoned warehouse (there's too many of them in Gotham for that to ever be possible) but he's fairly certain Lonnie has been. At the very least Red Robin has (or maybe had?) some civilian contacts in the local skateboarding community that he's aware of it as a hangout spot. Likely not to be particularly busy at this time of morning. But he'll find out either way, running full-tilt across rooftops in the hopes of getting to Anarky's next target before he does.

Lonnie Machin has posed:
    This warehouse is officially defunct - but local kids have made it their all. Tim's seen it before - the inside of it's covered with graffiti and has skate ramps set up. But right now it's deserted and dark, except for the lonely, solitary sound of a skateboard, the grind of the wheels against concrete and plywood echoing throughout the place. It's impossible to get a read on exactly where the boarder is. Then the noise of the wheels stops, and there's slow clapping.
    "Bra-vo." That voice. Deeper than Tim would remember, but the... well, the only way to describe it is the *douchey arrogance* of it - that hasn't changed one iota. "You really are a genius. I figured you'd wear yourself down to a nub chasing Lonnie, send him to jail, and I'd have achieved all my tactical goals for this sortie."
    There's a thoughtful pause. "But, zooming out a bit, I can see what Lonnie did. Clever little redheaded monkey, he drew an arrow on the city that pointed you right to me. Tch. Well, he broke the rules."
    There's the sound of a gunshot in the dark. "So he's the big loser today. Now the cops will be out to hang Anarky, the people will be baying for his blood - and the thing he was trying to stop me from doing, I just did."
    Another long, lonely pause. "That just leaves you. Fortunately, I've been planning for this for years. Let your plans be as dark and as impenetrable as night, and when you move..."
    He emerges from the shadows behind Tim. Tim's age, six feet tall, so jacked he's got to be juicing, dark brown hair, fashy high-and-tight with stars shaved into his scalp. Military camo pants, heavy combat boots, and an incongruous neat white button-down shirt. And a skateboard raised up to brain Red Robin across the back of the head.
    Ulysses Armstrong gives a grin of utter triumph. "...Fall like a thunderbolt!"