Summary:Investigation into The Maggia continues Log Info:Storyteller: None |
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"I have the records you requested, Batgirl." Oracle has been compiling and cross checking police reports, Bat Family reports and other sources of intelligence for several hours now. Babs has decided to use her resources to try to get a picture of where the Maggia are with their little 'power play'. It was a very processor intensive operation and she knew it would be. Oracle has access to a LOT of information. Combing all of it takes time.
Ken has been over, making tea and talking. The two of them are working together on this and while they are not working RIGHT this second, or well he isn't, it makes sense for him to be here while this happens and if possible when the results come in.
"Finally." He says. It's been hours.
The redhead of the clocktower has been busy during the time. A reasonable amount of Oracles cycles have been taken up, it's true. For Barbara, she's been working on a couple of cases she's taken - small things and it's things she can do with minimal processing power. As well following ideas the two of them came up with while they talked.
"We could have done this with pen and paper, if you like …" Babs asides to Ken for the finally. She's teasing a little, it has taken hours.
"We'll come up Oracle."
That might get a quirk of the brow from Ken. As far as he knows this is the extent of the Clocktower. Still, Babs opens the elevator door and gestures for him to get in.
When the doors open again, he sees the monitoring room. Walls covered in displayed and the long, low bench where she works.
"We will?" Ken quirks a brow and then the elevator door opens. He steps in and up they go. He doesn't say anything mostly because he knows he will see when he gets there and once he does see he can ask more informed questions. And then there it is. The monitoring room. The place where the real work of the Oracle happens.
"I thought you said Oracle was a VI? What does it need a Bond villain lair for?" Which is the first thing that comes to mind. So many screens. To many to possibly see what is happening on all of them at once. But oh the things they could display either separately or together. This is one hell of a computer setup.
Babs hadn't expected Ken to say much. He never does.
"Oracle is. I made her, in my own image, if you like." Barbara answers, watching Ken very carefully, and just a bit nervously. This is the inner sanctum - he'd unmased Batgirl. But now he's going to get a lot more of the story.
"Oracle, turn the displays on and put the data you have on Screen Alpha-1."
When the screens illuminate, it's the feed of the city - traffic cameras, surveillance systems, all fed here. On the screen on the bottom left of the panel, the report that Oracle mentioned is displayed.
"Good Afternoon, Kennuichio-san." Comes the modulated, computerised voice.
Babs smiles faintly before glancing at Ken again. "What do you think I was doing in the six years of my recovery?"
"Is that why she sasses me?" Ken murmurs juuuust loud enough for Babs to hear. Barbara has been a wonderful student but Batgirl is ever the sass master. She often has a quip or a comeback and yes he'd noticed it. Stereotypical red hair, is it not?
"Good afternoon, Oracle-san." Ken replies as he walks over to the screen.
"I had thought you were building your PI practice. Clearly you were building more than just that, though. This looks…" Impressive. "… expensive."
That too.
The report has a list of heroes and villains along with the various degrees of confidence that Oracle has that they have been hit. On the bottom are the ones she believes they intend to hit but is certain they have not yet. At the top is a much smaller set of names that she is relatively confident that they have already and in the middle are the maybes. That's the longest list. There's… a few familiar names here. More than a few.
Ken whistles low. "How certain is she of all this, Barbara?"
Babs grins at the sotte voca from Ken "Perhaps a little. When I knew she was to replace me doing this, I had to make her as much like the real thing as possible." Replace her?
"You could say that I was doing that as well as other things. The city needed a guardian and … I became it. The family needed someone they could rely on to be here at all hours and others … needed the help that I could give them."
"Six years ago, the world had become information based but people didn't realise how much until I started pulling this type of information."
Babs looks over the report and lets out a sigh. "How certain, Based on all the data we could gather and it was extensive, I'd say 95% but let's go 80% - pareto principle." Eyeing the list, the redhead shakes her head. "Oracle, divide the maybe's into tech based and biological, please. I also want to see the last known location for each of them. Map them on the screen, if you will."
The map comes up on the screen, as well as the division on the list. Fluidly and smoothly. "Color code by confidence that their power has already been stolen." Ken requests.
And it happens. Blue for confident, shading toward red as confidence dims. It comes as no surprise that the ones Oracle is most confident have already been taken either operate in or very near Staten Island though there are a couple of odd outliers. There's also a notable clustering on the map when it comes to last known locations which would be rather useful if you were to track it over time and note patterns in that kind of thing. Tells you where people operate out of and likely where they operate from. But that isn't the aim of this exercise yet so Ken doesn't go there.
"Well. They've been busy. That's a lot of dots on the map." Beat. "What do we do about it?"
Barbara is quiet as she examines the map, green eyes moving over it as her mind works. "Oracle, get me what you can on the buildings in those areas where there are clusters. What are they and who are they owned by." It's another vector to work and it might result in nothing.
"Or they intend to be busy. These are powers that Oracle expects them to take, remember, but yes, that is a lot of dots and I'm not sure …"
The redhead sits on the counter, still considering as she looks at Ken. "I would say put the 'owners' in protective custody but I'm sure that will go down a treat." Hello, Mister Badguy, Batgirl is just trying to protect you.
"Surveillance at the least. We can get close enough that I can plant trackers on them all, and hit when we know they're being hit. Short term plan at any rate. We can't protect all of them. So we have to go after the source."
"That means identifying when and where is being targeted." Ken says folding his arms. "Which might be easier if you can compromise Maggia's information network. Can you?"
He's not sure whether that question will be, er, insulting or not. She is after all very good at this information thing. A good hacker, one might say. She's good enough to have built a beyond state of the art system and a VI to match. So maybe she has already cracked it.
Though he suspects that criminals, the smart ones, take precautions.
"I generally agree that we can't take them into protective custody. Can we just get them arrested? Or does that leave them even more vulnerable."
"That's a good question and if I can, it won't be without risk. Any connection I have can be traced." Barbara answers. It's not an insult, Ken has no idea what she's capable of and she's kept it that way until now. "Oracle which of the networks do we have access to?"
"Most of the ones you gave me, Barbara." The VI is able to discern when it's Barbara or Batgirl. "We've been monitoring some of these networks for years."
"Can we get the surveillance information we seek?"
"Possibly. Unless they move to a new network or change their encryption. In either case, it will be only a matter of time before we can."
Barbara quirks an eyebrow at Ken and smiles. "One of the things about OracleNet is the backdoors I created to many of the networks around town." beat "What do you think about getting them arrested? Can we trust the police in totatlity?"
"Given that the police were allegedly the ones who allowed the cryo-tech to be taken to begin with it is a relatively sure bet that they cannot be trusted at least at some level. On balance?" Ken considers that.
"I am not sure. I think the New York Police as a whole will be solid. The problem is that the Staten Island Branch appears to be badly compromised and those who operate here regularly know that they will be able to game the system so long as they can keep things 'in house' so to speak. If we can lure them somewhere that they will be outside this closed island system that might be ideal."
Or if they can arrange to have some other authority arrest them but that is actually a lot trickier than it sounds.
"Not Staten Island police and some of NY police. It's true though, that other precincts might be a safer option. My concern would be that we can't guarantee the prisoner would be left in the right precinct and then …." Babs sighs and leans on her hands as she looks at Ken.
"Luring them would be difficult but possible. If you want to try it, we can. I just don't know if we'll be giving the Maggia what they want on a plate."
"And once they actually start getting prosecuted then there's all sorts of legal tricks available." Ken sighs. "Well maybe we will come up with something workable. Until then we just have to focus on trying to intercept the Maggia whenever they make a move. Do you have any idea how long it will be before we have some ability to do that?"
He's not well versed enough to make a guestimate even with what he now knows. Tech is just not his thing.
"What would you do, Kennuichio-san, if you had to protect someone and not tell them? Forget the tech and the amount of tracking we can do. What would you do … and if you can't answer that, how would you go about comprising them to attack them?"
Barbara is well aware of Kens background and she knows that he used to work for similar types.
As to how soon, Barbara draws her eyes from Ken and looks at the screen. "I'd say a day or two for 80 percent of the networks. I'll have to put some safeguards in place in case we're traced. Send them looking all over the world."
"Well a younger me would abduct them and lock them in a very comfortable basement." Ken says. "But that is not helpful for our present situation. I would put people on them. People I trusted. People who could go unseen and intervene when there was trouble. Of course this presumes that the people you're trying to protect aren't running from you." Which would be the case for the criminals.
"From the other end? You watch first. Learn patterns. Learn who is around them. You pick a moment when they are likely to be isolated and strike. Of course the Maggia needn't actually attack anyone. They want tech and genetic samples. I suspect if they can steal them without headline grabbing attacks, they will. I would. So they will seek security vulnerabilities, common places where people keep bits of themselves and look for secrets about where technology may be hidden."
"We can do some of the latter - put people on them. We don't have enough to cover them all but I can get Zeal and some of the others to watch out top suspects … and provide aid if that's needed." It will just look like they're following them if they get caught.
"Oracle, for the networks of those on the list that we have access to, put some counter scanning on them. I want to know who is accessing them, or trying to access them, and what it is they're after. We'll need to prepare some nasty surprises for those that are trying to hack this information as well."
"Depending on what type of genetic samples they need, that could be a simple as brushing against someone in a crowd." Barbara muses. "Though I rather suspect they'll need a full spectrum of samples. Blood and tissue at the least and they'll need to keep it sterile. So they'll take the 'victim' they can do that." It's then the redhead looks at Ken, a faint blush on her cheeks. "Sorry. I tend to think aloud when I'm working. What do you think? Will they have a facility they could do that?"
"Most of the better doctors facilities in the city would work and the Maggia could have infiltrated any one of them. You could do that on the sly if you could get them to come in for an appointment." Ken muses. "But yes they will have rather a large number of potential facilities. Enough that I suspect the one they make themselves will not need to be very large."
Which means it will be harder to find.
"In fact they could just burglarize these people's primary care physicians if they could buy someone off and find the right identities."
So many options really. "And it's alright. Thinking aloud means I can keep up with you. It sounds like we have work to do."
"Oracle …" Babs says again after listening to Ken. "Get a list of a medical appointments our shortlist has, the biological candidates, not the tech ones. Find out who they're meant to be seeing and where - then cross check them. That's an easy vector to compromise and one we should be tracking."
There's a smile for a Ken and Babs turns to face him. "Oracle has a lot to do, then we will, yes. What shall we do next, then?"
"Well next…" Ken pauses for a moment to think and then decides. "We have tea. And enjoy it. After that we can start on preparing for the evening." Night is after all when the Bats come out to play.
And tea. Yes. It's very Ken. And very Japanese. There is a lot going on and it could go wrong at any moment. But that's no reason to rush everything and not take a moment to enjoy some quiet tea.