1722/Titans of Tech

Titans of Tech
Date of Scene:	17 May 2020
Location:	Labs - Titan's Tower
Synopsis:	The Titans use tech recovered in the field to identify the next steps they'll have to take in their fight against HIVE.
Cast of Characters:	Victor Stone, Samuel Morgan, Naomi McDuffie, Damian Wayne, Kyani Kohanna, Kate Bishop, Donna Troy

---

Victor Stone has posed:
The shielded communications rig Cyborg recovered from the helicopter used to attack the lab in St. Martin's has been mounted in a diagnostic rig in the Titans labs. Vic himself is at a wall of computer monitors nearby, looking at a scroll of data thoughtfully. He put out a general call over the T-Comms to see if he could bring in any extra tech expertise, and anyone who heard should be showing up soon. He could probably investigate on his own, but he'd like to see how some of the new recruits handle themselves in a lab. Besides, there's always a chance he'd overlook an important detail, and extra sets of eyes are a good insurance policy against that.

Samuel Morgan has posed:
    It was still an odd sensation, once again belonging to a team. Not starting at the bottom and working his way up again, that was entirely expected... but the knowledge that he again was part of a whole and had purpose was slowly beginning to dawn on Sam Morgan, the recruit that had come in on tail end of the Metropolis shadow monster defense.

    When he walks into the lab, he pauses for a moment to take a look around and get a feel for the layout. Dozens of technological signals make themselves known, and for a technopath it's very much like stepping into a warm shower after a cold field exercise. The pockets of his combats are bulging with toolkits, diagnostic tools and odds and ends he expects to need, in the pursuit of technological discovery.

    If there's any surprise at the sense he's getting from Victor, the teen masks it as he steps in, his combat boots gleaming. "How can I assist?"

Naomi McDuffie has posed:
Frankly, Naomi had no clue at all about any of this. She was pretty good at investigating people, finding out information and the like. Sure, she knows how to use her smartphone and computer but she hardly has any clue how to deal with it on a code level. What she can deal with, however, is snacks. She knows that whenever people get into their work, they often forget to eat. So, she comes walking into the lab with some of Caitlin's Snacky shakes, some cut up sandwiches (turkey and ham with provolone), and a few other various finger foods. She sets the tray down where Victor and Samuel can get to it, "So...what did you find?"

Damian Wayne has posed:
     Damian had announced to Raven and Donna, and Sam. The revelation that he himself was now Robin.

  But that is the extent of the announcements that had been made to the Titans. The only other indication, would be that the T-Com he carries is Red X's.

  Robin steps in, in full uniform, armor undersuit, pads on his knees and elbows of emerald green, likewise with his gauntlets and boots. And a tunic of crimson and embellished with gold accents. His mask was a distinct Hunter green, and eyelets covered where he looked, the HUD being projected in his eyes giving him a constant feed of information. Finishing if off was a cape, Black with golden piping and a gold lining, topped with a hood, which no Robin before him was ever allowed.

  It was as iconic as Superman and Batman, and even Wonder Woman. But his own suit was distinct, not exactly like those who came before him. But still sticking with the theme.

  As he walks in, his footfalls are determined. "What is the situation?" He asks, very to the point, but without harshness, for now.

Kyani Kohanna has posed:
    Kyani makes it to the Tower, he's had to finish up some deliveries that needed to be done. He stopped and topped off with food and drink before getting here. Once he is there though, he makes his way to where the others are, seeing some of the members of the Titans are in costume, he's not seen Robin before, but the others he's met. "Hello, what's going on?" he asks.

Victor Stone has posed:
Vic glances over his shoulder as Sam approaches, then turns around fully as more Titans join him. He flashes smiles at Naomi and Kyani when they arrive -- this turns into a broad grin when he spies the former's tray of snacks -- and his artificial eye flickers as he pulls up basic personnel files on the unfamiliar faces. "Sam Morgan -- you're the unexpected visitor from a couple weeks ago, right?" He turns to take in Damian as well, eyebrows lifting. "And... another Robin. Huh." Whatever he finds in that personnel file only seems to leave him more nonplussed than before, but he moves on quickly enough. "Welcome aboard, guys. Vic Stone, or Cyborg, if you want."

He gestures to the boxy device clamped into the diagnostic system -- a low table festooned with various scanners, tools, clamps, and magnifying glasses on articulated arms. "This was bolted into the cockpit of a helicopter that brought the first wave of attackers to that spider mech lab. If we're going to track them down and get back what they stole, this is our best lead." He intercepts one of the shakes from Naomi's tray and adds, "It was pretty well shielded, but judging by the signals it was putting off before I yanked it, it's some kind of communications system. Anyway, I've got the casing open and we can really dig in and figure out what it's for, now."

He finally takes a sip of the shake, gives a thoughtful hum, and says, "Man, I've gotta get all my lab time catered. That was good thinking, Naomi -- thanks."

Samuel Morgan has posed:
    A round of nods as people enter, although he does linger a bit longer on Robin than the others. "That's me. But feel free to call me Techno in the field. It's a pleasure to meet you. All of you." Yes, even Robin. No, no further explanation is forthcoming.

    For the moment he's ignoring many things, including the food. Although, to be fair, the lure of ham and turkey is strong. Is that a smile? It sure looks like a smile. This smiling Sam walks up to the Black Box and cants his head slightly to the side, taking it in. "I take it an analysis of the shell is showing no distinguishing marks? And that a full spectrographic scan has already been taken?" Which leaves only the more fun methods of inquiry...

    The antistatic strap around his wrist is mag-clamped to the bench via a flexible lead, as the technopath retrieves a roll of tools from a pocket. Some of them have been hand-machined, the product of years of experience in breaking into and subverting electronic devices. Fingers trace around the casing, looking for a seam, a metal spudger in the other hand. "It might be best to restore power to the initial circuits, to get an idea of the base level command circuitry and what kind of chipset we're dealing with. Five volts, just to get an idea... but it's your lab, Victor, your call."

Naomi McDuffie has posed:
A smile over at Victor and she shrugs, "I am not really going to be able to help you with that, but I can help with food. That and ideas." She shrugs, "I'm pretty good at ideas." She then smiles to Kyani first before looking over Robin and hmming softly, "Hi." Yes. She's judging him by his height. She doesn't spend too much time on it though as she instead turns her attention back to what Victor has to say. She finds a good spot to sit and grabs her own drink and begins to sip on it. Something she's still not used to. Never ending eating.

Damian Wayne has posed:
     "Techno, Cyborg." He comments, crossing his arms and paying attention to the box.

  The newest Robin catches the measuring up of himself by turning his head to Naomi, then mustering up a response. "Something troubling you?" He asks, even if she did not spend much time watching him, it was enough for him to be a bit defensive.

  Robin then continues to watch as the situation unfolds, the light blue outlines around his sclera move all around the device as he inspects and observed what is going on.

Kyani Kohanna has posed:
    Kyani is looking at the box thing that Cyborg is working on and talking about, "Are we talking about the Shadow Creatures or this is something else?" he asks. Kyani has been seen around the Tower trying to read up on what he's been told he needed to catch up on things, but he's not finished hence why he asks.

    "Robin?" he asks as eh looks to Robin, "You work with Batman right?" he asks with a bit of a smile on his face, he shakes his head, "Sorry don't mean to cheese out, but I forget most of you all are seasoned people and all."

Victor Stone has posed:
"Yeah, it's definitely a custom job, no manufacturer's marks anywhere on the case," Vic verifies for Sam. He taps the left side of his own head, indicating his red artificial eye, and continues, "Spectrograph shows it's a pretty common nickel alloy. When it was mounted, it would have grounded any electrical attacks in the helicopter's chassis, but radio signals got through alright. You can power up parts of it, but I wouldn't just turn the whole thing on until we know what it actually does."

The seam Sam is looking for is easy enough to find, and the bolts that held the case together have already been removed, so it'll pop open almost immediately when he pries at it. This reveals a densely packed interior, the most notable feature of which is a radio transmitter/receiver mounted on a motorized gimbal.

"Not the shadows -- it was a strike team that was stealing tech from Hunan Industrial Vehicular Engineering. The spider mech guys?" Vic clarifies for Kyani. "The leader was a little guy in a flight harness -- one of those gadget guys, you know the type. He got away with a trove of lab data, and we're still not sure what he wanted it for."

This leads him to smile over at Naomi. "So as usual, ideas are more than welcome." He glances between her and Robin with a raised eyebrow, but doesn't step into the potential conflict just yet.

Samuel Morgan has posed:
    "So seasoned I'm full of splinters." Sam jokes as he takes the spudger to the seam, just enough to get the top shell to lift slightly. A plastic tool is used to run the circumference of the casing, checking for any switches or leads soldered to the case body, a careful sweep that almost looks like a surgeon at work. When he takes the top shell off, it's done with a slow, deliberate, straight lift, in case something was missed after all, and then a visual inspection of the rest of the device to make sure nothing is sticking to the top. What a paranoid mind he must have...

    But the box comes apart without any pyrotechnic charges going off, which is always a good start. And now the internals are revealed. "Oh hello there. Directional radio transceiver, that narrows down the purposes quite nicely." The magnifying glass is pulled over, and a soldering iron flicked on. Bits of spool, solder, wire and other odds and ends appear from his pockets, removed and placed on the bench even as he looks over the circuitry, to identify any distinguishing marks on the chipsets. Even the most accomplished of all technological master criminals don't make their own microprocessors. "I'm guessing this was wired into the comms system of the helicopter? I don't suppose you were able to salvage the vehicle? Its inertial flight management system might have been able to tell us something."

    Two flicks of a switch on a modular power supply, and it's time to start soldering temporary power leads to what appears to be the main power bus.

Naomi McDuffie has posed:
Looking over at Damian, she is distracted from what Sam and Victor are saying for a moment as she arches an eyebrow at him before she shrugs a little and then considers, "Just...how old are you?" She hmms and then looks him over again before looking then to Victor and giving him a nod with a smile as she listens to Sam speak but she is kinda keeping Damian in her field of vision. She briefly does glance Kyani's way but then she's not super hyper about super types...well, except maybe a little with Victor. Just a tiny bit.

Damian Wayne has posed:
     Damian's light olive skin turns a shade of slight red as Naomi asks how old he is. Is this what normal people do? "Old enough to get the job done." His voice was still a bit high, with a slight deepening, he couldn't be that far from his mid-teens. "What's it to you?"

  By now his attention was off of the box in front of Vic and Sam, and talking to the others. "Cheese out?" He asks Kyani, never having heard such slang, obviously he led a sheltered life, sort of.

Victor Stone has posed:
"The helicopter's intact, but Metropolis SCU has it," Vic answers with a shrug. "Turns out there's an upper limit to the amount of evidence you can just steal from a crime scene," he adds, smiling wryly. He glances at the new Robin and amends, "Well, unless you're Batman, I guess. Maybe he could give me some pointers."

Sam's check of the processors will indeed reveal that they're standard commercially-available chips, although the boards seem to be custom printed. As he restores power, the gimbal is going to come to life, swiveling to point the transceiver upward, but at a slightly different angle from before.

"The Titans /were/ originally formed to give younger heroes a way to contribute, even if some of us are old enough to rent cars now," Vic continues, trying to give Robin a little cover. "I guess we didn't do such a bad job with Nightwing -- maybe now we're like an internship Batman puts all the Robins through when they're old enough to leave the, uh" -- the pun hits him just before he makes it, but it's too apropos to avoid -- "the 'nest.'"

Samuel Morgan has posed:
    As the exchange goes on behind him, Sam just smiles and shakes his head while soldering new power connections to select portions of the board. Custom or not, he's built enough of his own to have a good idea of the layout. There's only so many ways you can integrate a circuit after all...

    "This looks very much like the... ahah!" And so, the gimbal comes alive and the transceiver goes through its checks. That alone tells Sam a few things, but it's what it does once it establishes where it is that really gets his attention. He watches the transceiver go live, grinning, leaning on his elbows on the bench as he watches it orient itself. "Oh please, yes. Please connect with that comm sat in orbit, tell me everything you know, little one."

    Just in case, he has his tools nearby, hovering them over the power connector to the transceiver array. "Don't worry guys, it's blind. I mean, it knows where it is, it's connecting to whatever it's designed to connect to, but I'm not letting it report back its location."

Naomi McDuffie has posed:
Naomi's eyes go a little wider as she nods her head a little, "Got ya." She states to Damian and then looks to Victor as he speaks. She hmms and nods her head, "I got ya..." She just is wondering if this four foot tall guy is 8 or 18. It's rather unclear. She just looks instead to Samuel next as he speaks up. Seeming like he might have found something with that noise. She then hmms as he speaks and then she tilts her head, "I mean, I'm not super concerned if htey know where we are. Our building is a giant T and we just got through helping Superman take down a giant shadow monster." She grins a little at that. Was a super cool day.

"I mean, honestly, we aren't exactly playing the hidden game here." She then looks again briefly to Damian. Is it on purpose? No, that's silly...but then again...

Damian Wayne has posed:
     Damian's face goes from slightly angry to 'really?' in no time flat, as Cyborg gets that face, and one thing is for sure, the pun was not amusing.

  Damian brushes off the second glance, paying more attention to the matter at hand. "What do you have, Techno?" He asks, getting closer to Sam, and the box. He was techy enough. But Cyborg and Sam were on another level altogether. He did not have any pretense of grandeur there.

Victor Stone has posed:
Vic stands and heads to the wall of computer monitors, looking closely at the transmitter, his red eye lighting up. "The beam that thing is sending is /really/ tight," he comments, pulling a keyboard over and tapping away at it. A holographic projection of the earth bounces up out of the tabletop, a red line rising from Metropolis into space. "If the box weren't right here, that signal would be nearly impossible to intercept. I wonder who it's trying to talk to?"

The device will establish its link quickly enough -- there is a satellite up there to connect to -- but once made, the connection goes silent. Either the satellite was never intended to send information to the box, or it has been reprogrammed not to.

Kate Bishop has posed:
Kate queried the system after she got back to the tower from having to to up to NYC to have a brunch session with her father, sister, brother inlaw, and such. Family responsibilies that she honestly would rather avoid. Still appearances and secret identities must be maintained. This of course meant a lot of questions about how she is doing in school, fine thanks, and how why they haven't seen as much of her. That last one is trickier but she just fell back on the old school is keeping me busy business.

Heading up to the lab she pauses in the doorway now. Lets see. Naomi. Kyani. Vic. Check. Sam from the breakin. An actual Robin. Okay that last one is pretty new. Neat.

She has on her trademark purple sunglasses, with tech, but otherwise is dressed casual which consists of expensive jeans, cute boots, and a emerald blouse with an expensive half jacket of leather over it.

She is right in time to catch the end of Vic's joke and Damian's reaction. She manages to school her face like a good socialite and just leans on the door to the lab. "What is the transmitter from Vic?"

Samuel Morgan has posed:
    "Tightbeam communications. It's the only way to make sure your comms are secure." Sam clarifies, for both Robin and Victor at the same time, before embroidering for the sake of the less tech savvy around. "This was likely the hub of their local network, part of the command, control and communication system. The only way to intercept the way that helicopter communicated with home base would be to fly directly between it and the comm sat it was programmed to communicate with. These guys were no amateurs."

    His eyes narrow for a moment, before rattling off a series of degrees of inclination to Victor. "It's gone silent on me, not that it matters. Orbits are known, all you need to do is check what's reporting on that particular position."

Naomi McDuffie has posed:
A look to the new arrivals and Naomi offers a smile, giving Kate a wave, "Hey there." She nods her head and then looks over at Victor and Samuel speak. She hmms a little as she looks at the device and then she nods to each as they speak, "If it is a communication device, wouldn't it have a record of all the communication it has done?" She asks and looks to Samuel and then Victor questioningly, "I mean, cellphones keep records of all calls that come and go out at the bare minimum. Could you not use all those communications to maybe determine origin points?"

She shrugs, "Sorry, not really my area but I do know triangulation is a thing and if it does know every spot/place it has talked to then you could determine a lot more about this other group's operations, I'd think."

Donna Troy has posed:
    "You guys be careful with that thing," Donna speaks from the doorway. "I've been dealing with the SCU. The other vehicles appear to have had similar devices, but they haven't been able to get much out of it. Whatever Kian did to those guys' vehicles was pretty thorough, and our one is the only one that isn't a rather uninteresting collection of fried electronics."

    Donna enters the room, dressed in civilian gear rather than her armor, an unusual sight in recent days. She's dressed smartly and mostly in black, the only thing that really stands out being the coil of slightly metallic-looking rope hanging from her belt. It's not glowing right now though.

    "The armor the soldier guys were wearing just had short range relay transmitters," Donna adds. "Presumably everything was going through those comms boxes. What have we got, Vic? Techno?"

    She steps closer to look over Sam's shoulder at the device, giving a nod of her head to the others. "Hey Hawkeye. En, unlikely it's recording anything at this end. Insecure, these guys seem pretty serious. Kyani right? We haven't met. I'm Troia. Robin. Keeping everyone focused on the job in hand?"

Victor Stone has posed:
Vic taps in a query as Sam gives him the coordinates. "The satellite's probably geosynchronous," he murmurs. "Let's see if the ITU has an entry for the spots along that path."

He reaches up to give Kate a little salute as she enters. "Grabbed it out of a helicopter that brought a team of thieves to the Hunan Industrial lab," he answers her. "If we can figure out who they were talking to, maybe we can get back the data they stole."

Donna gets a nod of greeting as she arrives and explains the networking system the strike team was using. "Yeah, it does pose a security risk if, hypothetically, someone manages to get in their helicopter and yank the box. Someone being me, in this--"

He's cut off by a bleep from the holographic display, and a white representation of a satellite appears, skewered on the red line of the beam path. "Bingo. That orbital slot is registered! To..." He taps a bit more on the keyboard, and a couple of web browsers appear on the wall screens, showing flashy but content-light landing pages for a pair of tech firms: Hindustani Infotech and Vantage Electronica. "Hmm. Never heard of these guys."

Kate Bishop has posed:
"Oh right.. missed that one, also nearly missed that whole shadow disaster when they turned the hyperloop off due to Metropolis under siege." she just sighs having been in New York at the start of that whole affair. It will be much easier once she is out of High School up in New York and in college down in Metropolis.

Hell it would be even easier if she could teleport like Raven or Vorpal or Fly or ... just about anything other than ride her bike and take the Hyperloop. Alas.

"Those sound like shell companies... and I know a thing or two about shell companies." she notes with amusement. "I imagine you will need to slink into their remote registrations in the Caymens and then hack their lawyers and accountants who shield them and untangle a rats nest."

Samuel Morgan has posed:
    There are times when it's nice to be right. Orbital mechanics are predictable, and as the late lamented grandfather of all engineers said, 'ye cannae change th'laws o'physics'. Still, he was expecting this to be a bit more difficult. Remote hacking into a comm sat would have been fun. Having done his bit, Sam starts to disassemble his work, reversing his steps exactly to avoid shorting anything out. If this is the only remaining example, it was important not to take any risks.

    "Don't worry, I'm treating it like it's a one of a kind masterpiece put together by Turing himself." Which is when he looks at the orbital data. A deep breath as his eyes close and he weakly gestures at the name. "Check that acronym, Victor."

Donna Troy has posed:
    Donna stands for a while staring at the two web pages that Vic has summoned up, as if they're going to reveal some dark secret. Apparently they have.

    "This was not a theft after all, it was a /recovery/. Techno has it right. They must have been recovering their own data from the crime scene. It was locked down by the police, they must have had something on site they were very eager to avoid falling into the hands of the authorities."

    She leans over to the keyboard and taps a few things in herself, and after a few moments one of the screens switches over to some footage of the SCU taking a group of yellow-and-black armored soldiers into custody after the Titans had defeated them. She pauses a frame, then steps over to the screen and zooms in to the chest of one of the soldiers with a gesture.

    The screen is filled with the black panelling of the armored breastplate, bearing a symbol there. Six tesselating hexagons filled in yellow.

    "Hunan Industrial Vehicular Engineering will turn out to be a shell company too. I guess we now know what these guys call themselves. Next step is figuring out who the hell they actually are."

Naomi McDuffie has posed:
As they seem to get the info without her idea, she shrugs and nods at the info, "HIVE." SHe nods her head, "I have...no idea who or what any of this is but I can help punch it or blow it up if the time comes." She nods her head, "This just isn't my area of expertise." She then sips at her straw and causes a loud bubbling noise before pulling her lips away and shifting, "Sorry."

Kyani Kohanna has posed:
    Kyani was trying to follow what all was being said, he was never really good with tech outside of you know the basic stuff. This is something else, still he tries to make sure he's paying attention to whats being said around him. He moves to stand next to Naomi as he noticed her looking over at him, he leans against something and watches, "I still have to read the reports on all of this." He says more to himself, but Naomi may here him. "Sorry Robin, just a bit of slang from where I come from. It means, someone constantly smiling at someone and being a bit dumb around someone popular." he explains.

    When Hawkeye comes out, he nods to her and he looks around at the others, he has heard of what triangulation is. "Hello Troia, yes I'm Kyani I have a callsign Nitro." he says as he smiles to her. "Nice to meet you." he says to her. "I can do recon if you need info fast." he states.

Victor Stone has posed:
Vic holds up a finger as Kate suggests digging into the shell companies' finances. "Second best thing -- I can check on the domain registration for these websites right this second," he answers. Another couple of browser windows pop up... An address in India for HI, and a much more convenient address in New York for VE. "I think we might have our next step ready to go," he says with a satisfied smile. "Who's up for a field trip?"