2013.05.13 - Eye in the Sky

It's another dark night in a dark corner of a perpetually dark city. Another sort of night for bad people to do bad things, good people to try and prevent the bad things, and normal people whom all try to stay the heck out of the way.
Then there's people like Domino. Ever treading the line between light and dark and all that rot. People generally matter little and collateral damage even less. She's been doing some late night recon on a seedy auto body shop that's been growing in reputation amongst the carjacking scene. While their profile has generally been hovering beneath the more perceptive radars, all of that's about to change. Two calls, one stolen exotic car, and contract results in one mercenary with four guns and a night of excitement out on the town.
"Hello there, boys," she says to herself with one more look through a set of nightvision goggles. Exits have been marked. An approximate headcount has been taken. One classic Ferrari is accounted for. Goggles and trench get left behind as she steps out into the shadows, all armor and weapons and a wireless headset Bluetoothed to her phone.
The weakest link.
Oracle regularly scans the city for unusual behaviour -- even in those areas that fly beneath the radar of most other monitors. On this particular night, she's tracking down some very specific leads of her own, regarding a very specific case. Thus, it's really only chance that she happens to see the armoured vigilante approach the chopshop.
Barbara Gordon lets out a soft whistle as she notes the hardware the woman's carrying. Personally, she hates guns. Really hates them. Like with a personal holy passion hates them. But that doesn't mean she doesn't know them. She does. Very, very well. In fact, she could probably field strip most of them with ease, were she so inclined, she's learned so much about the things.
Running the vigilante's remarkable visage through her facial rec program, she's surprised at the number of hits she gets: Jessica Marie Costello, Luisa Mendoza, Christina Elizabeth Alioso, Hope Eldrige ... and hints of more than just them. Scanning down the various dossiers attached to those aliases, she lets out another whistle. "Well, Ms Patch," the all-seeing Oracle murmurs softly to herself, as she watches the woman move toward the autoshop in her camera view, "it looks like you've been quite the busy girl."
Though this scene has nothing to do, as far as she can tell, with her current search, she pauses to watch it unfold for a little bit longer -- just to take the measure of the woman.
It's a little shop of low-lifes! Safety is of little concern, Domino's got eyes for one thing and one thing alone. Fortunately for her, none of the other guys want to see the classic car riddled full of holes, either. They tend to lose value fairly quickly when that happens. With a clear quarter million on the line, the car may well be the safest item in the entire shop.
The first guy to hit the curb is standing outside smoking, more taking a break from the work rather than keeping the habit outside of the business. No one else at the shop seems to care. In a moment, neither will this guy.
"Heya partner, got a light?"
The scruffy guy jumps, turns, and gets punched out before he has a chance to go for a weapon of his own.
He also happens to lose his lighter.
Fun fact with cheap, disposable lighters. Under the right conditions one can be thrown striker-first at something solid where it makes a loud bang. This one happens to do just that when it collides with the wall across the shop, quickly gathering the attention of the other thugs.
Two more fall before the shooting commences, from both sides.
Always with the shooting. Why is it everyone resorts to shooting first? Oracle scowls faintly, shifting a little in her chair, the ghost of her injury making her momentarily uncomfortable.
As Ms Patch opens up on the car thieves, the info broker starts sifting through information and piecing together connections. It becomes quickly apparent to her that Ms Patch has been a busy little mercenary. Jobs all over the place, a myriad of different aliases, one clear pattern: She's very, very lucky.
A bit of footage catches the hacker's eye. In it, there's a dark alley, a demonic meta that looks remarkably like the man she met at the university library earlier in the day -- Herr Kurt Wagner, and a gypsy witch that does some unspeakably horrible things to him. The meta immolates... but Oracle is certain he's the same man she met earlier.
"My, my, Herr Wagner. You are an unusual individual, aren't you?" Truthfully, though, this scene doesn't seem to have much to do with the white-skinned, black eyed mercenary. Oracle is about to move on from it, filing it under Wagner, Kurt, for future reference, when she sees a blue skinned woman attack the witch, stumble briefly as something pierces her calves, and then engage in further battle.
Sitting up, Oracle rewinds and zooms in on that stumble. She slows the footage down. A bullet. A bullet? She starts running a trace of all the other cameras in a 2 mile radius around the alley to see if she can construct just what the hell causes the woman to stumble.
A bullet. Thirty caliber, fired from a little outside of a mile away upon a Gotham area radio tower. She wasn't even prone for those two shots, tangled up within the metal frame in what would have looked -highly- unlikely for an accurate shooting stance. Same woman, same MO.
The name 'Domino' will call up hits for a solid decade from across the globe, though it would appear that they originated somewhere within America. She's specifically gone after jobs that seem to carry the highest risk factor, usually with the larger payouts. Some people have sought her out specifically due to her peculiar habit of turning the tides of battle in her favor.
The cameras situated around that auto shop may well say as much. It's like a deleted scene from the Matrix, the lone woman leaping and rolling from one spot of cover to the next, never getting hit while seemingly always landing attacks of her own. She's not even -aiming- half of the time, even shooting behind herself or over her shoulders and still catching baddies, or the weapons from their hands.
One of those shots even triggers the release for a hydraulic engine hoist, dropping a massive eight cylinder powerplant onto the foot of another guy as he's ducking for cover. The deafening -Wham!- is immediately followed through by an anguished yell, though the albino is too busy rolling over the hood of a Dodge and disappearing from sight to pay him any mind.
Good fortune cuts both ways, however. Those still alive and conscious within the shop are digging in, breaking out bigger weapons. Calling in their local buddies. Things are going to get a lot worse before they get better, it would seem.
As Oracle's feeds reconstruct the crime scene, presenting it to her on a small holographic display just beside her console, she's able to follow the bullet trajectory back to the radio tower. "Ms Patch..." she says with some surprise. "Huhn."
She turns back to the chopshop scene, sparing it a glance while her system starts compiling hits on the name 'Domino', discovered through cross-referencing. That particular dossier turns out to be a whole lot thicker than the others.
"Got you," she whispers softly, certain, now, about the woman's primary alias. There's an interesting trend in some of her jobs. Not all of them are lethal. They're all accomplished throughly and well, but several of them -- particularly a few that seem to cross paths with Herr Wagner and other metas/mutants -- show considerably more restraint.
It's that fact, and that fact alone, that suggest to Ms Gordon that Ms Patch may not simply be a stone cold killer out for a quick, flashy payday. And a glance at the monitor suggests to her that the woman could use some help... never mind be of some help.
It doesn't take long, based on cell tower tracking, for her to guess which signal belongs to the mercenary's phone. And a camera reveals the bluetooth earset. Jackpot. Dialling.
Oracle makes a connection with Domino's phone. "Looks like your odds are going a little downhill," the info broker notes softly in the mercenary's ear -- the voice over the headset non-descript in a Dragon-Naturally-Speaking speech recognition program sort of way. Neither male nor female, but distinctly digitized and android.
Something's vibrating. What the hell's vibrating? Domino flinches slightly as a stray shot obliterates the sideview mirror a few inches away from her head, glancing from one empty pistol to the other. It's all good, she's still got two more. And reloads across the board. But that -buzzing- at her hip--
Incoming call.
"This should be good," she mutters while switching two pistols out for one with rounds left in it, that arm sweeping back over the hood to crank out another few shots while she taps the side of her headset. "Hey, bad time--" BLAM! "--call me back in five?"
Something's not right. The woman pauses for just a moment before the phone is unclipped from her side, checking the caller ID. She pays good money to know who the heck is calling her. When this call comes up without anything useful to show for it she almost doesn't know what to think. Who could connect to her like this?
She's still staring forward in confusion as someone creeps around to the other side of the same car, quickly earning himself a blind ricochet as she aims upward and fires into the rafters, the shot singing off of a pipe then catching the man in the shoulder. "Tell me you're not SHIELD."
Gods, -please- let it not..be..SHIELD.
"Not SHIELD," Oracle replies. "Though, I do know them." And she does. They haven't decided if they like her very much. They're certainly not keen on the fact she can hack their systems pretty much anytime she wants to, and all their fancy top-of-the-line cyberdefenses are just so much tissue paper to her. IN fact, that out right pisses them off. But, since she hasn't done anything to hinder them (and has actually helped them out a couple of times), they haven't seriously tried gunning for her, yet. (Which isn't to say she hasn't amused herself a time or two by leading their latest crop of "crack" cybertrackers on a merry chase down the digital garden path.)
"I could connect them to you, if you'd like," she suggests. "Or, you know, I could do you a solid and bury your file." A beat. "For a price."
"Usually that's my line," Domino says back. For a price. Who does this joker thing they are! "Besides, I've been doing pretty well for myself so far. Though if you'd do me a favor and -not- bring my personal life into whatever it is you're trying to sell..."
It's kind of a warning, but kind of not. What's the worst that she could do, hang up on you?
"Nowhere left to run, Whitey!"
"Fudge," she mutters without realizing that the headset would pick up the word. "Look, if you're trying to blackmail me into paying your subscription fees then this really -can- wait, I'm kinda in the middle of something here." Pause. "And make sure I stay on SHIELD's 'do not call' list."
Fudge? Oh, yeah. Stone cold killer, this one. Oracle actually smiles. Maybe, just maybe, this is a woman she can work with. That bodes well. Thus, she does a quick scan of the building, glancing at the full display of various camera angles available to her there.
"He's wrong," she tells Domino shortly, responding to the overheard threat. "Behind the cargo van is an access ladder that looks like it goes nowhere -- left over from an upper level. But I've seen you move. If you're lucky," and Oracle's pretty sure the woman is, "you can leap from the top of it to the HVAC system." Not in the vents, but on top of it. "Follow the broadest pipe toward the back cargo area. Otherwise, the six mooks that just arrived at the front door will add to your misery."
Dom makes an irritated face, "Well of -course- he's wrong--"
"No way, we've gotcha boxed in!"
"--Dude, shut up, I'm on the phone! Jeebus," she growls as another volley of shots slam into the car she's still lurking behind. The instructions which follow are closely heeded, despite what her attitude towards it all might suggest. "First hit's free, right? I know this dance."
"Come on out chica, it's over for you!"
"Excuse me for a moment," she tells her mysterious benefactor. The first move is too quick for the others to follow, three shots slamming out and taking out banks of ceiling lights as the woman-turned-whirlwind sprints for the ladder. Two kinds of cover, high ground claimed. Done and done.
"I've heard of eyes in the sky but this is ridiculous, now I've got Big Brother trying to guide me through a live fire zone. Knew all of that good karma would pay off sooner or later." Right. "How we looking, Prophet? I can't leave this party without what I came for."
By now, Oracle's traced footage of Domino back through several hours and deduced, thanks to phone records, just who it is that gave the mercenary the job -- and from that, just what he's after. "Car, right?" Oracle says now. "The cherry red one? Pretty Ferrari." Prophet indeed. "Recently in possession of the Bludhaven A.D.A., a 'gift'," the air quotes around that word can be heard even in the synthesized voice, "from one Cheong Chou, known on the street as the Flat Hand, one of the Triad's primary lieutenants. I imagine you've been promised a pretty penny if it's returned unscathed." Some of that is nothing more than educated guesses, of course.
"The cargo area has, remarkably enough, a lockable storage facility that was once an office. If you can lure your pursuers into it, I'll help you lock them down." Another beat, "But only if you promise to lay off the kill shots. No one else dies."
Is it possible for an albino to look pale? Domino may well be attempting such a feat as the words filter through the tiny speaker and directly into her ear. "How did you--" It doesn't stop with the vehicle in question. This person even knows who's paying to get it back. "In case you haven't figured this out by now? I -don't- like people nosing around in my business."
Still, you've got her cornered. She knows it. There's no hanging up now, not until she figures out who it is that's taken such an interest in her.
Then you tip your hand. No one else dies. Dom actually barks out an abrupt laugh, "No shit. You're one of the famous Gotham Vigilantes I keep hearing so much about, arencha? Listen Prophet, I can't promise anything. But, I'm willing to play those odds."
Now all she has to do is set the bait. There's a mighty large pistol filling her one hand. She barely thinks about the next course of action when she's firing at a fire extinguisher, blasting it apart with a -Bang!- and a ripple of white foam.
"She's in back!"
"Point to you," she mutters into the mic. "So you got a name or should I keep running with whatever's on the top of my head?"
"Oracle," the digital voice replies easily. Of course, what she doesn't say is that 'prophet' is probably one of the more benign nicknames any of her operatives have given her over the time she's been electronically sidling up to vigilantes in the dark.
Of course, to be fair, chances are that someone as well-connected as Domino has heard whispers of Oracle. The name has mythic connotations, beyond the usual academic association. Typically, it's hacker circles that whisper about the legendary uberhacker, but some of the more connected info brokers whisper the name as well. And the one thing they all say is 'you don't contact Oracle; Oracle contacts you'.
"Nice shot," she comments, regarding the fire extinguisher. It's not so much a compliment as it is an acknowledgement of the agreement made between them.
"The lock code for the safe room is 45987. Once they're inside, close the door, key the code, and press your phone against the box."
Names are important. They carry weight, reputation. Domino's not a super hacker, she knows enough to get by. Usually. But, she happens to know some pretty talented hackers, including good ol' Austin back in Madripoor. ProCys-7 in the cyber realm. That girl seems to pull wizardly feats out of nowhere and not even she would tangle with the one calling themselves Oracle.
"Must be my lucky day." Or, quite possibly, most -un-lucky, but she tries to be an optimist! "Thanks. Hey--are you serious? Four-fifty nine-eighty seven?" Pause. "That was my locker combination at the gym. Whup--might wanna mute your headset for a few seconds."
"Alright guys, you got me. I'm just gonna put my gun down nice and--"
BAM! One impeccably well-placed 'misfire' cuts the power line connecting the lights to the rest of the room, plunging them all into darkness.
"--whoopsie."
The next moment is utter chaos. Only one of them knows where to go and what to do next. She's at the keypad, number punched in, voice returning to the mic. "You're up!"
Just what the heck you're going to do with (to?) her phone, she has absolutely no idea.
"Might want to mute your headset for a few seconds," Oracle echoes, returning the favour. She sends a digital pulse, which sounds like R2D2 overloading if it's not muted, through the phone, having taken the opportunity of the chaos to install a small app on Domino's phone. It allows her to reprogram the keypad on the fly. So, no one's breaking out from the inside. And no one other than the authorities to whom she will ultimately give the new code to will be able to free the mooks trapped within.
As the headset reactivates, Oracle's fingers click over her keyboard swiftly. "Right," she says amiably, now. "Go grab your car and finish your job. No sense wasting all that work, after all."
Dom's approximately a quarter second too late, flinching with a "Gah!" while reaching around with the gun hand to mute the headset. "Can't say they didn't warn me..."
Also, hey. -How cool- is this little trick? Something like this could be all sorts of useful, if she only knew that it's on her phone. And if she knew how to operate the program. Already there's heavy pounding upon the door that refuses to open with the old code, prompting a lot of heated words to get exchanged among the group contained within.
"Okay, I'll admit it. That was pretty neat."
It's a walk in the park at this point. Where the others had to break into the car and hotwire it, she's got the -key.- Fancy that! She's back to the garage floor, in the car, and out of the garage with her prize of the evening in less than eighteen seconds.
"Time to get to brass tacks, Oracle. Nothing comes free, so what's the catch?"
And, indeed, Domino's probably a good 10 minutes away before the police Oracle called finally arrive on scene and clean up the mess. Long before then, however, she's responding to Domino's question. "What can I say?" she replies lightly -- somehow the digivoice doesn't quite translate the glibness, lending it a more serious tone. "You caught my eye with that shot off the radio tower a couple of weeks back." The one where Herr Wagner was immolated, of course, though she doesn't add that. "Pity it didn't do more than graze your target. Lucky shot, nonetheless. I could use a bit of luck, myself. There's girl who's been kidnapped. I'd like to find her. So, here's the deal: Quid pro quo. I help you; you help me. I'll supply you with what information I can, when you need it; in return you do a job for me. The rules are simple: For every job I help you with, you help me with one. The only caveat is that if I'm at all involved, you do it all without intentionally killing anyone." She understands that accidents happen. She's also good enough to figure out what's an accident and what's not. "You go kill-happy on me, I sic the Bat on you. Or someone similar." A beat. "SHIELD, if I have to." Another beat. "Though, that's not my first choice." Yeah. She'll keep Domino on their do-not-call list. For now.
Oh man. You knew about that evening. Well, sorta. "-Graze?-" Domino quickly repeats. "I caught her through the calves then followed up with a taser slug, wasn't trying to kill that particular nasty."
Pride. Sin to some, lifestyle to others.
It's hardly the focal point of the conversation, and with good reason. Things are suddenly becoming much more interesting. Maybe not quite high stakes, but with a steep raise and a much bigger pot. Having friends in high places is always helpful, and her schedule is feeling a good deal more open now that she's out the door with a prior engagement or two. Heck, most of her domestic work happens in the Gotham area! What if she could continue to operate withuot having to worry about running into the Batfolk, all for the occasional bit of underground community service?
Things seem to be looking up for her every day. Which..is a good thing, because with her conscience there is -no way- she can say no to a missing girl case. Darned trump cards.
"Alright, Oracle. You've hired yourself a merc."
Wonder how long we'll be able to keep this relationship going.
For just a moment, Oracle considers retorting with a full description of what she knows about that night -- from Mystique's butchery to Kurt Wagner's survival. But, she thinks better of it. Given how often Mr. Wagner seems to pop up in the footage with Domino, she can deduce he's fairly important to her. No sense tempting fate. The woman might get lucky, after all, and Oracle doesn't want to get unlucky.
So, instead, she merely smiles as she accepts the deal. "Glad to hear it, Domino. I have a feeling this could be the beginning of a profitable relationship for both of us."
Her final instructions? "Once you've ditched that car, check your email. I'm forwarding you all the intel I have on the missing persons case -- the kidnapping of Shelby Knox. In the meantime, do me a favour: Toss a dart at a map and tell me where it lands. You never know, right?" She even chuckles softly. "I'll be in touch."
Category:Log