“Did I say Ted Kord? I meant Einstein.” Barbara wrapped the ball of fluff up in her arms, relishing in the way his entire body wiggled right along with his tail. It was the small moments that truly made the Clocktower feel like home. It was Jason with his legs kicked up stealing her food, or Dinah finding new and inventive ways to break in. It was Ted, showing up out of the blue with Einstein for seemingly no other reason other than that he wanted to see her. Because, face it, out for a walk in Gotham?
It made Barbara feel warm in a way she’d never admit. She loved her tower, and her array of tech. She loved what she did more than anything. There was a certain amount of power and satisfaction that came with having the world at her fingertips, webs stretching like a net over the entire planet. She could be anywhere, at any time, with anyone. But it wasn’t always enough, it wasn’t a substitute for the people who had full access to the tower, in person. It felt oddly good to know they still wanted that access, even when they could fire up any radio or comm link or computer and find her just the same.
“Out for a walk in Gotham.” She spoke to the dog, only the dog. “And he thinks he has me fooled.”
She gave Einstein a satisfied pat on the head before pivoting back to her wall of screens. Displayed was a topographical map of Genosha as it had been one week prior. Barbara knew it changed, that nothing was set in stone, and it wasn’t exactly her intention to keep Genosha under strict surveillance. But there was something that wasn’t quite adding up.
“I’ve been keeping an eye on Erik Lehnsherr’s phones. It was a joke, at first, he goes through so many, but…” It had to be Ric’s doing, which added a layer of fun she hadn’t been expecting. But there was something that had piqued her interest. “I genuinely think he might be up to something. But I’m having a hard time getting to anything beyond his phone.”
Alright alright, sure. Maybe he was lonely and just wanted to pop in for company. Maybe he was half hoping he would be here on business, or whatever business might get thrown into his arms, prompting him to dust off the old Beetle-computer. He’d been temped to plug the old thing back in to full-force some days ago, staring at the block of mechanics he’d been meticulous about crafting, programming, mastering the project. What did he end up using it for? The secret server of geniuses, hiding behind aliases to save the world from the safety of their keyboards... Or what relative safety they could achieve. Encriptions on descriptions did nothing if you were found out. Luckily, Gordon was the best in the biz, she had everything locked down, as far as Ted knew. He was always more of a hands-on guy anyways.
Even Dan, his late mentor, had pointed that out, even before Ted had found out that Dan Garret was the Blue Beetle. After he’d died, when the scarab had come into Ted’s possession, he’d obsessed over the unbreakable bug for years. He just couldn’t get it to work. So, instead, he’d funneled all his know-how into his personal engineering, abusing his KORD funds and CEO status to make every manner of tech... Except what the scarab could do. The damn thing just didn’t want to work with him, so he focussed on keeping it safe over usable... And even now he was still befuddled by it, after hanging up the goggles for good.
Nah, it was never really over. But the world didn’t need to see a Bug. There were already enough Spiders to fill that role.
Reaching a hand up to scratch between the mutt’s ears, he had one more hand on the desk, bracing himself and letting his vision zero in on the code, the map, the lines that went on and on and on. “Lehnsherr?” The question sounded... Maybe a bit too bewildered. Magnet man and phones? The number of dead ones that must be piling up... “So, you need me to try digging past the phones on an island we’re not supposed to think about touching.” The grin that spread across his face was almost too mischevious for his own good. “You’re lucky Ein wanted to see you. Where would you be without me?” Without another word, Ted’s fingers were on the keys, excitedly weaving his way through frequencies already caught by the former Batgirl. “Did you try using cell towers outside of the island? You might be able to catch something off of triangulating signals. Even if they’ve got their own cellular service, those radio waves are still going to pass through their airspace.”
