Gotham City, The Narrows
Earl's Body Shop
10:15 PM"I'm heading out. You good to close up shop tonight, Jay?"Jason Todd wiped a bead of sweat from his brow as he finished another late-night break job, rolling himself out from underneath a recently restored Sedan. His boss, Earl Cooper, was just getting his coat on in anticipation of the coming rain. Jason looked back at his hand and smirked, noticing the grease marks on his gloves. He had only been employed at the shop for around four months, now, but Jason had long forgotten what it had been like to earn his way in a legitimate line of work. Before this, he had survived by living off of all of the skills his drug-pusher of a father had taught him at an early age. Theft, smuggling, beating people to a pulp to collect protection money. He'd practically considered it secondhand by the time he'd turned thirteen. But one night had changed everything, and now, the twenty-two year old had traded a life of physical abuse and reckless disregard for everyone and everything around him for a cushy apartment five blocks away, a girlfriend that had helped him on his road to recovering from a life that'd left him bloody and ravaged, and most importantly, a great job under a decent man who treated him with respect he never knew. Jason thought long and hard about how far he had come in just a few short months as he stood up and put away his mechanic's tools for the evening. Sometimes, it was good to remember what life had taken away to reinforce just how great things had ultimately turned out.
"You got it, Earl. Er, Mr. Cooper."Jason nervously grinned as the old man chuckled.
"I keep telling you, kid, Earl is just fine by me. You have a good night, okay?""Can't hurt me to try, can it?"The lights hovering above the front entrance of the shop flickered off as Earl gave his employee a customary nod and pulled out his umbrella, opening the door to a torrential downpour. Gotham City was notorious for it's evening showers, and no area ever got hit like The Narrows. It was as if God were punishing the city just for daring to exist, casting down a black cloud over it's most economically fractured area. If one believed in that sort of thing, of course. And Jason was a believer, given that the Irish Catholic blood ran deep on his mother's side. Tearing off his leather gloves and soothing his battered, overworked hands under the cool stream of water in a nearby sink, Todd took a look at his reflection before dunking his head down to splash the grease off.
By the time that he looked back up, however, something else was staring back at him in the far distance. A pair of white slits for eyes that glowed in the shadows cast over a corner of the building. Immediately springing into action, Jason showed the prowess of an acrobat as he leaped over the car's hood behind him and grabbed a rusted old crowbar, ready to hurl it at the intruder in the darkness. But whenever he turned back around, the "intruder" had stepped forward, catching his throwing arm in an iron-tight grip. Jason gasped as he realized what he was doing - and more importantly, who he had nearly just tried to mangle.
"HOLY SHIT!"The Batman narrowed his eyes as he snatched the crowbar from Jason's hand, letting it fall to the floor. Todd turned around and leaned against the car, looking to catch his breath after the short burst of adrenaline had overtaken him.
"Christ, man. You just about gave me a freaking heart attack. I could've taken your head off! Anyone ever tell you not to sneak up on people like that?!"Batman's glare indicated that it had never been an option. Jason apologetically held up his hands in defeat.
"Right, I forgot. You generally punch people first and ask questions later. Because nobody's ever gonna get the drop on the big, bad Bat."Unphased by the comment, The Dark Knight advanced past Jason and walked towards a lever jotting out from the northeast wall of the shop. Knowing exactly what that meant, Jason hurried ahead and joined the masked vigilante as he reached up and pulled the lever down.
"That's the problem. Someone already did."Turning back to the Sedan and the skeleton of another car that he and Earl had just started to work towards bringing back to life, Jason watched as the floor infront of him gave way to a series of hydraulics systems. It wasn't so much that the floor came alive, it just flipped in on itself in a gentle, but effective manner that thankfully didn't damage the vehicles that were now being held in place by electromagnets. On the new topside floor stood a series of titanium chests, flanked by a large computer screen that glowed with the insignia on the armored torso of the man to his right. Jason smiled, approaching the workbench that his mysterious benefactor had set up for him after talking Cooper into giving him the job.
The night that had changed his life? It may have also inadvertently given him a nice little side career as an anonymous contributor to Gotham's most wanted man in black. A fact of which gave him the only rush that he needed to stay away from pickpocketing old women and mobsters for good.
"Right. So we'll remedy that. What'll it be tonight, boss?"Batman approached the terminal and placed his palm onto the onboard scanner, activating it. He had displayed some degree of trust in the young mechanic by allowing him to help with certain matters that Lucius Fox of Waynetech couldn't quite deal with under the radar, but there was still a measure of control that he needed to maintain over their agreement. And one of those conditions was that Todd not be allowed to use the computer unsupervised, in the event that the former criminal decided to try and utilize it for purposes outside of it's intention.
"I need to know the current operating status of our side-project, and how soon you can get it up and running."Jason's eyebrow shot up as he heard that.
"Up and running? What, you mean now?"The Caped Crusader typed in a series of commands, bringing up a set of advanced technical schematics that had been supplied from a source he had withheld from Todd. He didn't need to know the source of this project, just that his role was to repurpose it for Batman's specific needs.
"Uh, I mean, I can get you a working version online within the hour, if you really need it. But we're still a few weeks away from a complete demo, let alone anything you wanna take out into the field."Batman gave a slight nod as he indicated that Jason take his place at the terminal.
"There's an assassin loose in the city. A new player, by the look of it. My usual contacts are unlikely to give me anything to use, if they're even willing to talk."Jason shrugged.
"What, and you can't get them to talk?""I don't have the time. There's too high of a probability that he'll try and take out his target again. I need to get the assassin's location before that happens."Todd nodded, beginning to work his magic.
"Right. And you'll need a skilled super-hacker such as myself to get our baby boy to start walking. Or maybe crawling, since I can only get you a barebone interface to work from."Batman grimly looked over the files as Jason began to digitally piece together the patchwork framing of a highly advanced artificial intelligence that was meant to serve as a guidance system in the modern theater of war. Soldiers that were currently stationed in Qurac and Kahndaq during one of the worst civil wars in Eastern history were supposed to have this technology readily available to them already, but a hostile takeover of Waynetech's R&D division had forced the project to be shelved. Luckily, Lucius Fox was able to save his employer a few working scraps for Jason to build off of.
It was alot to ask of a young man, much less any man, but Todd had proven himself to be more than up to the challenge if given the chance. And that's exactly what the amateur thief had needed all his life - one chance to make everything right. Perhaps that was why, when catching the thief in the midst of stealing the front tire off of The Batcycle during one of his earliest cases, Batman took pity on this particular unfortunate soul rather than inflict the usual physical punishment. Jason hadn't handled himself like a man out to cause anyone harm. He had handled himself as someone rendered entirely desperate by a system that had forced him into homelessness and starvation, as evidenced whenever Batman looked into Todd's troubled background. A few weeks later, the vigilante returned with an offer.
It wasn't much in the way of changing how Gotham worked, but it was a start.
"Annnd... boom. Ready to lock n' load."Batman scanned the data as it was uploaded into a thumbdrive that could be easily ported into his suit. It wasn't going to give him the expansive remote control of Gotham City's power grid, as he hoped, but it was going to be enough to at least get a lead going on Deadshot's whereabouts. And with Harvey Dent's life hanging in the balance, that was as much as he could hope for.
"Good work. I'll contact you again if there are any problems."Removing the thumbdrive as soon as the rendering process had been completed, Batman readily placed it into his belt. As he moved to pull the lever that would restore the actual workspace that Jason thrived in, the vigilante noticed that the young mechanical engineer was giving him a certain look.
"There aren't any problems, are there?"Jason awkwardly rubbed the back of his own head.
"No, not with the interface. I just... there's no easy way to ask this, so I'm just gonna do it. Promise not to get mad?"Batman glanced back at him.
"The things they're saying about you on the news. About, y'know, Harvey Dent. You didn't really try and do that, right? Because I appreciate everything you've done for me, but if I'm working for a guy looking to off..."The vigilante held up his hand in a bid to cut off the sentence.
"The assassin that I'm hunting is responsible for this, not me. I was trying to protect Dent. He's... a friend."Jason quizzically stared back, wondering if what he had just heard was true. It definitely didn't
seem that way from how the District Attorney had talked about Batman to the press, but the more that he thought about it, the more it made sense. A public face of venom, a private face of trust. Just as his alliance with Jason himself was a secret, an alliance with Harvey Dent was certainly not out of the question for The Dark Knight, and having the D.A. publically rally against him was just the sort of thing that would ensure no one suspected the vigilante of having a series of allies.
The relatively brash young man had often wondered if he was the only one, and it seemed as though that was clearly not the case. Jason smiled, thinking of how cool it'd be to be apart of a whole network of people working for a man who beat the hell out of criminals on a nightly basis. It was like something out of
The Gray Ghost, or one of the comic books that he had grown up reading.
Of course, that was a kid's way of looking at it.
In reality, he was aiding and abetting a known fugitive.
But to him, what else was new?
"Sweet. All I needed to know."Looking back at the platform as it flipped over once more, revealing the two cars that were going to be giving him hell tomorrow morning, Jason began to think aloud.
"You know, I've been thinking about that ride you've been handling ever since we met. And not to knock it, but you're in need of a serious upgrade. Maybe if we collaborated on something, we could get you a new set of wheels..."By the time Jason had turned back around, Batman was nowhere to be seen.
He smirked, his mind already brimming with ideas.
"I'm not taking that as a no."Gotham City, The Narrows
The Rooftops
10:35 PM"Alfred. I'm uploading a sizable data file into the Batcomputer's secure server. Make sure it gets through."Pulling back the black leather cowl that adorned his head, making sure to stick to a heavier set of shadows to ensure that his identity wasn't compromised, Batman plugged the thumbdrive into a USB port that was built into the base of the armored helmet that he wore beneath the mask. Made up of a series of carbon fiber plates with a tri-weave layer of kevlar and nomex, the helmet itself looked like something best described as a monstrosity out of Cyberpunk novel, with exposed wires and a series of complex rivets and circuitry barely hidden away by steel plates. It was all protected by a thick plastic shell that made up the inhuman shape of the cowl itself, but even so, the vigilante wondered if he could do with building something simpler to fit his purposes.
"I'll see that it does, lad. I assume that whatever this is, it's the project you were referring to that'll aide you to entrap the esteemed Mr. Lawton?"Batman smirked.
"You're partially correct. In reality, though... this is going to go alot farther than that."Even as he spoke, The Dark Knight watched as a digital grid began to interface with his cowl's digitized readout of the cityscape ahead of him. Everything began to take on a blue tint, followed by a red one, then a green. Before finally settling on the chosen color of yellow, building up the beginnings of a program that would become instrumental in Batman's escalating war on crime.
"Alfred. I'd like you to meet Ace. Say hello, boy."From the other end of the line, Batman could hear his friend gasp in shock as a three-dimensional face stared back at him, partially resembling a great dane. The program had been modelled after Bruce Wayne's late childhood companion, who had ran off into the woods behind Wayne Manor and never returned, only to be discovered by the billionaire later in life after stumbling into the cavernous depths beneath the mansion's grounds. The dog had fallen in and never made it out. This was Batman's way of paying a bit of tribute to his old friend.
Scanning. Subject identified as Alfred J. Pennyworth. Known associate of billionaire Bruce Wayne, former Agent of SHIELD. Authorized user of this interface. Greetings, Alfred J. Pennyworth."My word. You and your friend have certainly been busy, haven't you?"The vigilante wordlessly placed his cowl back over the shell, again peering out at Gotham as he prepared to take his new weapon out for a test run. Stepping forward, he allowed the A.I. program to observe the city as Batman himself saw it - cold and gloomy on a rainy night, with shades of hope seeded throughout. Somewhere in the darkness, Deadshot was more than likely to still be waiting to take another shot at his friend, awaiting release under heavy guard from Gotham General. With Ace on his side, there was a slight chance that Batman could prevent that from happening. But he had to hurry, as the poison-induced coma that Bruce Wayne had sustained from their first encounter had the vigilante at a slight disadvantage.
Awaiting your command. What shall I do first, Mr. Wayne?"Secure a private connection to the Waynetech satellite. Triangulate it to map out the rest of Gotham, and use that data to find a man named Floyd Lawton."
"We're bringing him down." 
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