17977/The Military Grade Hacker

The Military Grade Hacker
Date of Scene:	17 May 2024
Location:	Barbara's Penthouse (Clocktower - 25th Floor)
Synopsis:	Carrie updates Babs on the new hacker in town and their very explosive first move.
Cast of Characters:	Carrie Kelley, Barbara Gordon

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Carrie Kelley has posed:
Carrie has hit the limit of her ability and that concerns her. There's only one person to turn to now and that's her mentor. A knock-knock on the door before she pokes her head in. "You awake?" comes the whisper but the answer is clear right away, so she enters.

"I've - we've got a problem." She is in uniform but also wearing a hoodie because her time as Delphi in the computer room only just finished. A slightly more action packed night than usual all because it started off too quiet. No one used the Q-word though.

Barbara Gordon has posed:
Barbara Gordon, Mistress of Mainframes, The Electron Engineer... no, no, that last one actually sounds /more/ like a villain name than 'Mistress of Mainframes'. She's your friendly neighborhood geek who sometimes kicks butt and takes names (Because something's gotta go in those mainframes).

But just because she's seemingly always awake, and just because she actually /is/ awake and tapping away on keyboards when Carrie arrives doesn't mean Babs is keeping eyes on her friend... so when she says they need to talk about trouble? Eyebrows perk up. Lips press in a thin line of genuine concern. "What kind of problem? ...I mean, it's definitely not electronic. Anything I can do on that side, you can handle on your own unless it's... /big/ big..." Eyebrows perk, "...Cape problem? Or like... I should make us some tea and prepare for girltalk problem?"

Carrie Kelley has posed:
Carrie shuts the door behind her and joins Babs at her desk. "Cape problem. /Big/ big. Probably bigger..." She presses her lips together a moment and points to Babs' terminal. "Bring up the log from 30 minutes ago. There was a massive terabyte boost through Gotham's pipe and then a National Guard mobile artillery vehicle shot a missile at the old bailey wharf."

She can summarise the events pretty easily thanks to having Robin on scene quickly and a drone near enough the National Guard. "I checked who was in the area. The Gotham Gazette investigative reporter Brick Galaway. Right now we're the only ones who know he's dead. And whoever pulled the trigger on this hack. We're not sure why he was out there or why he was targeted. My guess - he was meeting with an informant. Presumably the informant is toast too."

"The point is - there's a hacker out there who can fire military missiles remotely and assassinate a target. That's pretty big. We only have a partial of the data burst and what I looked at looked like a bunch of gibberish."

Barbara Gordon has posed:
Babs's shoulders slump for just a moment, the briefest half-second of resignation... before she's sitting more upright, fingers beginning to fly, screens flashing through a whole myriad of windows opening, closing, resizing. "Okay. That's... bad. Big cape problem is bad." She pulls up the requested log and frowns instantly. "Okay. Yeah. That's..."

Yeah, Babs. Bad. You thought that already. Eyebrows perk and lips press into a thin line, and another window blossoms to life as Babs's digital tendrils snake out to begin gathering, categorizing and dissecting the life of the recently deceased Brick Galaway, intrepid reporter. Though apparently not that intrepid.

"Yeah, that's... not... unheard of. But 'hacker firing off military assets' is..." She tilts her head and her face goes deadpan for a moment. "Okay, not actually any better or worse than the military firing them off on journalists. But it's different. And there actually aren't that many known factors who can do that, so..." She sighs and nods her head, "Well, could be some encryption we've never run across before. But this /is/ important. I'll make sure everyone gets a data burst about it."

Eyes glance, then linger on Carrie. "You're good though?"

Carrie Kelley has posed:
Carrie looks a little relieved as Babs confirms that this is as bad as she thought it was. She nods along as Babs starts to realise the various bits of the puzzle. "He's analogue. I'm going to break in to his office and see if I can find any clues as to who he was meeting. Whoever they were they left no trace on the way to the bailey. Brick did though. His cell tracks with his car right up to the dead zone. Smart place to meet if you're worried about being tracked."

She nods her head at the question. "Yeah. Robin was able to get there quickly though there wasn't anything recoverable. I've been thinking about why so much data for the hack. In the cold war the Navy would blanket the skies with data so that their submarines could get the message without revealing their location. Perhaps they hid their trick amidst too much data to capture. We'd have to get really lucky to catch the actual payload."

Barbara Gordon has posed:
Babs sighs, fingers lacing together under her chin, propping her head up as her eyes dart, flicking from screen to screen... is she following the data? Working out a hypothesis? Or just watching all the numbers and file names scroll by? She'll never tell! Her lips press in a thin line again, teeth appearing briefly to tug on the corner of her lower lip. "That's actually not a bad guess. Throw up enough chaff and we wind up chasing our tails running down all the false leads and random junk data."

She huffs out a sigh and almost snickers. "It's actually kind of depressing that... if that's their angle, our best hope might be that their victim /didn't/ take a real hard line on information security and you like... find a datebook in his cookie jar or something."

Carrie Kelley has posed:
"I have a bad feeling this is just the start of something worse. Someone in Gotham knew too much - but that doesn't mean this isn't some international thing. They are operating here though and no one gets to do that without us finding out eventually. They must know that the Bats aren't going to let this stand."

There's a niggling concern in her stomach though. Someone better than Oracle might have started pulling strings. Doubts about her own ability gnaw at her confidence. But she's not going to admit defeat - that'd be very unlike her. "They made a mistake and had to cover it up with a big boom. They'll make another. Hopefully more people won't have to die though."

Barbara Gordon has posed:
Babs smiles, crooked but confident and bobs her head, "You're right... about them messing up. We're onto them now... and don't focus on the ones we can't save, Carrie. Focus on just... doing the best you can. /Superman/ can't save everyone, and he's got actual laser eyes and like... five sidekicks that /also/ have laser eyes."

She offers a little wink and murmurs dryly, "So remember, you've got your own talents kiddo. And you're amazing." She glances back up to the screens and presses her lips into a thin line again, "But this is going to take awhile. And you should probably get some sleep... okay, /I/ should also get some sleep before that big weird ball of light gets too high in the sky."

Carrie Kelley has posed:
"The sun.. it's called the sun," Carrie says with amusement. "You know, out in the big blue room?" She rises up and taptaps a finger on Babs' fancy desk. "They're still just a person. Or may be a group of people. And people are always the weakest link in any operation. That's why Batman taught us the way he did- this hacking murderer and whoever is funding them don't know what hell they've just opened a can of on themselves."

A hand covers her yawn, "But yeah. My shift is done. Time for me to get some sleep and then pretend to be a real person again tomorrow." She flashes Babs a peace sign, "See you later."