[i]"Ms. Bertinelli, have you always felt this kind of anger?"[/i]

Karl could sense what remained hidden behind an exterior that gave no sign, no hint, of the hidden anger inside. "...yes. What do I need to do?" 

[i]"That's...I don't think I've ever been this angry in my entire life. You seem to get that angry very quickly. It's...useful to you."[/i]

After tying off her arm with the rubber strap and pulling the needle's cap with her mouth, and spitting it out, she smirked. "Very, now, focus. What do I need to do?"

There was a long pause. It never mattered to Helena how angry she got. Anger had always been under control. When the masked monster kidnapped you and raped the girl held in the same shipping container as you to death in front of you, beating you and burning you until you watched every twist and grip and thrust, every drop of blood and sweat, you learned to control yourself. Or else you were next. When your closest confidant was one of the world's most accomplished assassins that could hurt you more emotionally than you ever thought possible if you let your anger get the best of you, you learned to control the shit. 

[i]"Just take the blood sample, and study it under an electron microscope. You'll see what we're looking for."[/i]

Her eyes flashed up to Damian Wayne. The burning hot coals of the Huntress' eyes running like a jack knife into Damian's eyes. Anger, heat, violence, cunning, and the unmistakable desire to rip the kid limb-from-fucking-limb was hard to miss in the moment as she stuck herself with the needle and let blood do it's thing. As she pulled blood into container, her neck bent to one side. [b]Pop, crack, pop.[/b] Slowly, it moved to the other side. [b]Pop, crack, POP.[/b]

Never once did her eyes leave the kid's. Brown eyes that could be so pretty suddenly sharper than a knife at the kid's throat. "I have a voice in my head. His name is Karl. Don't be a little bitch about it."

Her voice was so calm, so placid, Helena would've been lying if she said it wouldn't have freaked her out a little bit if she were Damian. And that was the point: if she could freak herself out, odds were good in giving the kid at least a moment's hestiation of ohfuck. Rarely did Helena, or the Huntress, ever have to actually prove that she could fuck someone up. Usually all it took was the person looking into her eyes, studying her body language, and realizing that they stood on the cliff's edge of irrepairable damage. "You're bored, kid. I need a car. I'm stealing one of the Batmobiles. Go pick out a good one, and I'll let you drive. I shouldn't drive right now."

She said, grinning, her eyes alive with the hint of madness.

Was she mad? No. Well...weren't they all? On some level? Every night was a possible death sentence. One slip, and you were dead, in this line of work. No one had this hobby and had complete sanity. Maybe you were like Dick or Barbara or Tim, and your sanity was in place, and the hobby corrupted you. Or maybe you were like Bruce, Jason, and Helena herself--maybe the universe just had made you the right amount of crazy FOR the hobby to begin with. Maybe, for you, it was inevitable. 

Frankly she was still trying to read which one Damian was. If she had to bet.....he was like his old man. And like her. The way in which he narrowed his eyes at her words and demeanor was one thing, but the way he showed her his back and went to go find a Batmobile to take gave her one hell of a big hint as to which side of the spectrum Damian Wayne fell into. 

And she liked it. 

Into the BioHazard bin went the needle, and the strap, and the needle cap. The screen just off to the side came alive. [i]"This is a hard computer system to synch with...it's...got alien tech in it? It's strange, never seen anything like it before, but I think I connected. I think I'm figuring it out. Look at the screen. Do you see it?[/i]

He wasn't, she realized, asking if she saw the screen itself. Of course she did. He was asking if she knew what she was looking for. And her heart sank, because, at least, she thought she did see what he was hinting at. "There are nanobots in my bloodstream."

[i]"Yes, you see it, then. They are self replicating nanobots. Get one on you, and in very little time, there can be an army of them inside you, self replicating, connecting their own little network using themselves as a battery and signal connector and emitter. I designed the system, I designed the first nanobot."[/i]

Dry, cold, the Huntress just stared at the screen. "What went wrong?" It was an assumption, but it was an easy one to make. Why would Karl be in her head if everything had gone according to plan? It wouldn't. Something haywired, something went a way it wasn't supposed to. 

[i]"It's all ran by an A.I. Except it's not a genuine A.I. It's...complicated. It's a long story.[/i]

"We don't have enough time?"

[i]"No. Not unless you want to become like me."[/i] Strangely she heard more dread from Karl than she felt in that moment. Maybe it was because he knew if she became like him, it was, ultimately, his fault. His sin. [i]"It isn't a pure A.I. There is a person in there, too, a brain I used as a short cut. A brain entered into a holographic matrix superimposed into a crystalline structure that acts as a large capacity data device. A brain I thought I could trust."[/i]

"Computer, delete blood sample. How much time do I have?"

[i]"I don't know, honestly. It took the system only a day before I lost my body to it. But you're different...every difference is another variant in the equation, so it's almost impossible for me to predict. But I wouldn't imagine you have much longer than a day, yourself. Maybe a day and a half? It's been busy, my system, according to what I'm reading from Batman's computer there were a few break ins last night that I would think are related: Wayne Enterprises, microchips. And the other...Integrated Power Systems of Gotham, company."[/i]

Helena's head...tilted. "I own that last one. It deals in experimental battery designs for aviation."

[i]"That's not good. We need to learn more about each break in, the system is up to something. We need to stop it so you can save yourself."[/i]

Cynically, maybe even bitter, Helena snapped back quietly. "And save yourself."

[i]"I don't hide that hope from you, Ms. Bertinelli. Please. We need to know what the system is planning, because it's planning something."[/i]

[i]Of course it is.[/i] "KID! Need that Batmobile..."