Working on a Case, chapter 12: Rock-Paper-Scissors
Characters: Titans as of the end of the Family Lost paperback, starting with Bart Allen (Kid Flash) and Tim Drake (Robin). This installment also includes Vic Stone (Cyborg) and Conner Kent (Superboy).
Rating: PG.
Content: Mystery with comic relief, or perhaps comedy with mystery relief.
Word Count: about 1,200 words per chapter. Unknown number of chapters.
Summary: Bart Allen as Kid Flash wants to help Robin on a Titans case involving a convict with a super-power and a strange police record. He knows honing his investigatory skills will require insight, concentration, and...what was the third thing? Having seen the video footage of a bloody escape from Alcatraz, Bart speeds out of the meeting in the secure room to talk to Tim alone.
Continuity: DC Comics standard.
Disclaimer: The Titans and its members are owned by DC Comics under copyright and trademark laws. This pastiche is offered freely with no hope of commercial reward.
Notes: It all started here.
Chapter 12
Rock-Paper-Scissors
Susanna yells, “Stop!” when I vibrate through the door into her office, and whips out a pistol, but by then I’m already past her going through the door to the warden’s office, so I call back, “Sorry!” and burst in on Tim.
He jumps a little, which is kind of funny ’cause the batguys are always sneaking up behind people, but I don’t have time to tease him. “Robin, Robin!” I say. “You told me a detective has to pay attention to everything, but there’s too much to pay attention to!”
“Crud,” Tim answers, but he’s not even looking at me.
He’s taken the warden’s computer apart into fourteen separate pieces, not counting the screws, and he has wires hanging out of both sleeves, and he’s staring at the screen, and he’s got his hand on a memory thingie that he stuck into one of the ports, and I deduce he’s still trying to find the spyware inside there.
But I’m talking! “Robin!”
“I’m listening, Kid Flash,” Tim says. “What did you see? From the beginning.”
So I tell him about the video of the Haumann model S-140 helicopter landing on the roof at 06:18:27, and Dr. Ignatieff coming out and talking to the pilot and giving him the cup and going around to the door on the other side. I can’t see Tim’s eyes through his mask, but I know he’s still looking at the screen, so I look at the screen, too, and it says:
Copying…
Copying…
CRob122.exe COPIED TO E:
Then Tim jerks the memory thingie out of the port, but a seventieth of a second before that the screen says:
CRob122.exe ERASED FROM E:
“Crud,” says Tim again, and he sticks the memory thingie back into what’s left of the computer. “Keep going.”
So I tell Tim about the helicopter door opening, and the helicopter taking off at 06:24:25, and then the machine gun shooting, and the screaming, and how it was really loud and scary!
And Tim is just watching the screen say:
Copying…
Copying…
Which is so annoying that as soon I see the word “COPIED” I yank the thingie out and slap it down on the desk and say, “Are you even listening?”
Tim looks down at his memory thingie, and at the screen, which now says:
CRob122.exe COPIED TO E:
CANNOT ERASE
INSERT E: TO ERASE
Tim looks up at me with a grin and says, “Thanks, Kid Flash.”
So I smile back and say, “You’re welcome! For what?”
“For disconnecting the memory stick before the Carob code fragmented and overwrote its critical details. Now I can boot up my sleeve drive and analyze the code through a sterile OS.”
And I nod ’cause I know what all of those words mean even if I don’t know how they go together. Then I remember why I came to find Tim: “So I told you all about how Cross Cut escaped in the helicopter with Dr. Ignatieff and the Marshals, and how those guards got shot, and…I don’t see anything to deduce!”
“Who was flying the helicopter?” says Tim.
“The helicopter pilot, duh! The Marshals said his name is Salman Mirani. Ooh, can we look him up in Batman’s database? Maybe he’s-”
“When the helicopter took off,” Tim asks, “was he flying it?”
“I don’t know!” I say. “There weren’t enough cameras, and the blades were spinning, and-ooh!”
I run back through Susanna’s office and into the hall and down to the secure room and through the double-locked doors and I shout, “Who was flying the helicopter?”
And the pilot with the beard who brought the marshals whirls around and points his finger at me and says, “I know what you’re implying by that, you little peckerwood!”
“You do?” I say, and I gulp, and now I really do need to go to the bathroom.
But then I hear Special Marshal Alioto growl, “Lay off the kid, Bukowski. You know we have to ask if Sal went rogue.”
“There’s no goddamn way,” says Bukowski, turning back around, and I grab my chance to zip over to my chair beside Kon and sit down quietly. “Every morning we chopper jocks play rock-paper-scissors to decide who takes first flight. This morning Sal came up first, but it could just as easily have been me or Harry.”
Vic points to the video screen and says, “So was your man flying the chopper when it took off?”
“Sure,” says Bukowski. “This Crossley guy had Margie as a hostage, so Sal was stalling for time. He’s gotta be.”
Vic nods and looks around. “Anyone else in there know how to fly it?”
The young marshal who’s been setting up a laptop and other machines on the table clears his throat. “Ginny Parley was taking helicopter lessons. She told me about a month ago. She didn’t say what model.”
“Damn. Another possible,” grumbles Alioto.
“And we don’t know what training Crossley got when he was on the Mongoose Squad,” says Easton. “For all we know, he could’ve been at the controls himself.”
So I’m thinking, Thanks for the suggestion, Tim! ’cause now we’re have three people in the helicopter who could be secret double agents, and we haven’t even talked about-
“If I could have your attention,” says Chief Marshal Rawlins, standing by the young marshal with the laptop. “Gill has his equipment set up, so we’re ready to begin the office’s standard pursuit procedure.”
And the young marshal Gill pushes a button on one of his machines, and it lights up, and a big blue square appears on the wall, and I deduce that we’re going to see the JSO’s best criminal-hunting in action! The square turns yellow with a stripy pattern at the top and bottom, and in the middle in red letters it says:
C
H
A
S
E
“This is our CHASE system,” Chief Marshal Rawlins says, and pushes a button, and the screen changes so now there are more words in blue:
Clues
Habits
Associates
Suspicious
Events
I don’t think Tim has the CHASE system since he’s never talked about it, so I sit up and watch, thinking that I’ll be able to teach him something when he’s done playing with the warden’s computer.
“The C in CHASE stands for Clues,” says the Chief Marshal-which actually I figured out for myself, and I’m pretty sure Tim already knows to look for clues.
“The H in CHASE stands for Habits,” says the Chief Marshal. “What are our target’s regular behaviors, hangouts, patterns of movement?” I know what habits are, and I know what the rest of CHASE stands for ’cause it’s right up there on the screen, and I’m wondering when she’ll get to-
“The A in CHASE stands for Associates. Our target’s relatives, friends, past co-conspirators, business-”
There’s a knock at the door. “Oh thank god,” mutters Kon.
Continued here.
Rating: PG.
Content: Mystery with comic relief, or perhaps comedy with mystery relief.
Word Count: about 1,200 words per chapter. Unknown number of chapters.
Summary: Bart Allen as Kid Flash wants to help Robin on a Titans case involving a convict with a super-power and a strange police record. He knows honing his investigatory skills will require insight, concentration, and...what was the third thing? Having seen the video footage of a bloody escape from Alcatraz, Bart speeds out of the meeting in the secure room to talk to Tim alone.
Continuity: DC Comics standard.
Disclaimer: The Titans and its members are owned by DC Comics under copyright and trademark laws. This pastiche is offered freely with no hope of commercial reward.
Notes: It all started here.
Chapter 12
Rock-Paper-Scissors
Susanna yells, “Stop!” when I vibrate through the door into her office, and whips out a pistol, but by then I’m already past her going through the door to the warden’s office, so I call back, “Sorry!” and burst in on Tim.
He jumps a little, which is kind of funny ’cause the batguys are always sneaking up behind people, but I don’t have time to tease him. “Robin, Robin!” I say. “You told me a detective has to pay attention to everything, but there’s too much to pay attention to!”
“Crud,” Tim answers, but he’s not even looking at me.
He’s taken the warden’s computer apart into fourteen separate pieces, not counting the screws, and he has wires hanging out of both sleeves, and he’s staring at the screen, and he’s got his hand on a memory thingie that he stuck into one of the ports, and I deduce he’s still trying to find the spyware inside there.
But I’m talking! “Robin!”
“I’m listening, Kid Flash,” Tim says. “What did you see? From the beginning.”
So I tell him about the video of the Haumann model S-140 helicopter landing on the roof at 06:18:27, and Dr. Ignatieff coming out and talking to the pilot and giving him the cup and going around to the door on the other side. I can’t see Tim’s eyes through his mask, but I know he’s still looking at the screen, so I look at the screen, too, and it says:
Copying…
Copying…
CRob122.exe COPIED TO E:
Then Tim jerks the memory thingie out of the port, but a seventieth of a second before that the screen says:
CRob122.exe ERASED FROM E:
“Crud,” says Tim again, and he sticks the memory thingie back into what’s left of the computer. “Keep going.”
So I tell Tim about the helicopter door opening, and the helicopter taking off at 06:24:25, and then the machine gun shooting, and the screaming, and how it was really loud and scary!
And Tim is just watching the screen say:
Copying…
Copying…
Which is so annoying that as soon I see the word “COPIED” I yank the thingie out and slap it down on the desk and say, “Are you even listening?”
Tim looks down at his memory thingie, and at the screen, which now says:
CRob122.exe COPIED TO E:
CANNOT ERASE
INSERT E: TO ERASE
Tim looks up at me with a grin and says, “Thanks, Kid Flash.”
So I smile back and say, “You’re welcome! For what?”
“For disconnecting the memory stick before the Carob code fragmented and overwrote its critical details. Now I can boot up my sleeve drive and analyze the code through a sterile OS.”
And I nod ’cause I know what all of those words mean even if I don’t know how they go together. Then I remember why I came to find Tim: “So I told you all about how Cross Cut escaped in the helicopter with Dr. Ignatieff and the Marshals, and how those guards got shot, and…I don’t see anything to deduce!”
“Who was flying the helicopter?” says Tim.
“The helicopter pilot, duh! The Marshals said his name is Salman Mirani. Ooh, can we look him up in Batman’s database? Maybe he’s-”
“When the helicopter took off,” Tim asks, “was he flying it?”
“I don’t know!” I say. “There weren’t enough cameras, and the blades were spinning, and-ooh!”
I run back through Susanna’s office and into the hall and down to the secure room and through the double-locked doors and I shout, “Who was flying the helicopter?”
And the pilot with the beard who brought the marshals whirls around and points his finger at me and says, “I know what you’re implying by that, you little peckerwood!”
“You do?” I say, and I gulp, and now I really do need to go to the bathroom.
But then I hear Special Marshal Alioto growl, “Lay off the kid, Bukowski. You know we have to ask if Sal went rogue.”
“There’s no goddamn way,” says Bukowski, turning back around, and I grab my chance to zip over to my chair beside Kon and sit down quietly. “Every morning we chopper jocks play rock-paper-scissors to decide who takes first flight. This morning Sal came up first, but it could just as easily have been me or Harry.”
Vic points to the video screen and says, “So was your man flying the chopper when it took off?”
“Sure,” says Bukowski. “This Crossley guy had Margie as a hostage, so Sal was stalling for time. He’s gotta be.”
Vic nods and looks around. “Anyone else in there know how to fly it?”
The young marshal who’s been setting up a laptop and other machines on the table clears his throat. “Ginny Parley was taking helicopter lessons. She told me about a month ago. She didn’t say what model.”
“Damn. Another possible,” grumbles Alioto.
“And we don’t know what training Crossley got when he was on the Mongoose Squad,” says Easton. “For all we know, he could’ve been at the controls himself.”
So I’m thinking, Thanks for the suggestion, Tim! ’cause now we’re have three people in the helicopter who could be secret double agents, and we haven’t even talked about-
“If I could have your attention,” says Chief Marshal Rawlins, standing by the young marshal with the laptop. “Gill has his equipment set up, so we’re ready to begin the office’s standard pursuit procedure.”
And the young marshal Gill pushes a button on one of his machines, and it lights up, and a big blue square appears on the wall, and I deduce that we’re going to see the JSO’s best criminal-hunting in action! The square turns yellow with a stripy pattern at the top and bottom, and in the middle in red letters it says:
C
H
A
S
E
“This is our CHASE system,” Chief Marshal Rawlins says, and pushes a button, and the screen changes so now there are more words in blue:
Clues
Habits
Associates
Suspicious
Events
I don’t think Tim has the CHASE system since he’s never talked about it, so I sit up and watch, thinking that I’ll be able to teach him something when he’s done playing with the warden’s computer.
“The C in CHASE stands for Clues,” says the Chief Marshal-which actually I figured out for myself, and I’m pretty sure Tim already knows to look for clues.
“The H in CHASE stands for Habits,” says the Chief Marshal. “What are our target’s regular behaviors, hangouts, patterns of movement?” I know what habits are, and I know what the rest of CHASE stands for ’cause it’s right up there on the screen, and I’m wondering when she’ll get to-
“The A in CHASE stands for Associates. Our target’s relatives, friends, past co-conspirators, business-”
There’s a knock at the door. “Oh thank god,” mutters Kon.
Continued here.