9963/Upgrades For Jason

Upgrades For Jason
Date of Scene:	08 November 2019
Location:	Markovia Station, Old Gotham
Synopsis:	Barbara and Stephanie visit Jason, with pastries and computer upgrades.
Cast of Characters:	Red Hood, Spoiler, Oracle

---

Red Hood has posed:
Upgrade day.

Jason crashed at the Red Cave the night before rather than Kate's in order to be awake and ready. As usual he barely slept and so the morning had been spent in preparation making sure his system was ready and then, even more importantly, he went down the street to the bakery for doughnuts, returning with a fresh dozen before he set about making coffee.

Once all that was in place, Jason flopped into his chair and pulled out his phone firing off a text:

Jay >> Ready when you are.

Spoiler has posed:
The scent of the chocolate turnovers wafting out of the bag were enticing to Stephanie. Any other time she'd have grabbed one and been eating it on the drive over. But the woman is a bit manic about taking care of the purple Shelby Cobra remake that was a gift from Bruce on her twenty-first birthday.

Not wanting to get crumbs in the interior, she briefly debates driving while holding her head out past the driver's-side door so they would fall on the street. "Not safe," she says finally, grumbling. Getting in a wreck to avoid a few crumbs just didn't make sense.

So it is that Stephanie's bag of chocolate bliss is still untouched by the time the drive-in entrance to Markovia Station opens up to admit her. She backs her car into a guest space and then hops out, grabbing the bag. "I've got treats," she calls out to the secret lair as she heads over towards where Jason can normally be found, moving with a jaunty step.

Oracle has posed:
Babs can't speak for where Kate was last night, but it's a safe bet the apartment would have been better for getting sleep. She had packed up all the gear she'd need to upgrade Jason's computer system in a dufflebag which she strapped over a black Members Only jacket worn atop a slate gray hoodie. She's wearing a pair of black cargo pants and boots and her feiry red hair is pulled back into a neat ponytail-bun beneath the jet-black motorcycle helmet worn as she drives the hazardous streets of Gotham...

As usual, she's on her 2025 black Ducati. The suped up bike is quiet as a grave and packed with enough horse power to reach 88 miles per hour even with the tires flat and an arrow in the gas tank.

The hidden entrance to the station open before her, message splayed out across the built-in HUD on her helmets visor, but it's the squeal of breaks that signal she was already on her way ready or not. Helmet off, dufflebag strap adjusted, Babs makes her way towards the pair with the red framed glasses back in from a pocket on her coat, "Is that doughnuts I smell?"

Red Hood has posed:
Jason's barely sent out the text by the time Steph's car rolls into the Red Cave. Clearly, he was getting a slower start than he thought. The phone is tucked away and he waves to Steph. "You would be a morning person," he grumps good naturedly at Steph's early morning jauntiness. "What kind?" he asks about the treats. "I got some doughnuts too, you know, in case our costumes weren't tight enough," a smirk at that. "Coffee's on too."

A moment or two later Babs is there, on that errily quiet Ducati of hers. Jason waves to her as well, "Yep," he confirms. "And Steph brought stuff too, seems like we've got ourselves a party."

Spoiler has posed:
Stephanie heads over to where Jason is, turning back to flash Barbara a warm grin as the woman pulls in behind her. "Slowpoke!" she calls. Not that they were racing or anything. She turns back towards Jason and says, "Aw, you got donuts? Awesome. I was craving these chocolate turnovers. From a fast food place with a sign like a hat. Someone kept talking about them," she says, moving over to see what Jason has in the box.

"Help yourself, Louis," she says without looking up from the donut box. She picks out a frosted donut with sprinkles, and gets a cup of coffee for herself. "And my costume fits very well thank you!" Stephanie tells him, giving Jason a poke in the ribs. "I need the extra energy. Have you seen the workout routines they have me doing?" Stephanie asks. She has indeed been hitting the training programs hard, and hasn't dropped off in that increase since she became Batgirl. Except for where necessary to deal with actual patrols and incidents. "So what exactly is it you're doing, Barb?"

Oracle has posed:
Babs grins between Jason and Steph, shaking her head in the negative to donuts, "But I'll take a coffee.." One of them has to be responsible! She spent months living on a cereal diet and it took her almost that much time to get back in shape for the Batman suit Bruce had given her... "I have to keep my girlish figure." Patting her flat stomach with one hand as she drops the dufflebag near the computer station, kneels down, and starts pulling out gear.

A laptop with fiber optic cables, an external harddrive, and a case of thumb drives are all set out on the desk above her head. "I'm going to reenforce the user side firewall and install a signal booster program I designed. I'm calling it Oracle Away..." An obvious play on her own Array, "Not only will it give Jacina access to the Batcomputers extensive records, encrypted of course, it will give me access to his computing processor so I can use it to strengthen my mobile access further across Gotham." Indicating what she means by holding up her Prometheus phone.. which is in absolute no way stock knowing her.

Red Hood has posed:
"Wait those chocolate turnover things from Arbys?" Jason asks when Stephanie mentions the place with the hat. He makes gimme hands at her, "Forget doughnuts, I need one of those stat." What can he say, he's a fast food connoisseur, and those turnovers were about the only good reason to go to Arby's.

When she leaves him to get it himself, he jumps to his feet and rummage through the bag until he got what he was looking for. "Thanks Rick," he says with a wink to Steph. Yep, he caught the reference from the other night. "No comment," he says with a grin when it comes to Steph fitting into her suit. Good no comment? Bad no comment? Dealer's choice. He oofs at the poke int he ribs, before shaking his head at both women, "Diets? Work outs? What are those?" he says with feined innocence. "I just eat whatever and still end up looking like this," he says giving a little ironic flex of his arms. It was all lies of course, he might eat horribly but like the rest of them he worked out hard and often.

Jason follows along with what Oracle is laying out, before breaking into a laugh at being called Jasina, "Oh come on that was one time like eight years ago..." he says giving a little kick in Babs' direction, before leveling his gaze on Steph and pointing at her, "And you don't ask about any of this," he says with a grin knowing it's all but inevitable.

Spoiler has posed:
"Right," Stephanie replies to Barbara's explanation. "Reinforced firewalls. User signal side boosters," the blond replies with an overt nod made all the more vigorous to cover for her knowledge on the subject. Though with a cheeky grin for them, knowing they would be aware of said lack of knowledge.

Stephanie sticks her tongue out to Jason, no doubt having decided for herself what the no comment meant. "You named it Jacina?" Stephanie asks, completely blowing right past Jason's admonition like it was a Gotham speed limit sign. "THat's so cute!" she says. "Or wait, were you calling Jason that?" she asks. Her mouth is getting ready to explode into an even bigger grin if the answer is yes.

"Yep, from Arbies," she confirms finally, grabbing a turnover for one hand and the donut for the other. "It's like all the awesomeness they could manage went into that one dessert, and the rest of the food suffers for it, right? Though I do like their sauce. And the curly fries."

Oracle has posed:
Babs crawls up beneath the computer desk with a small box that looks more like a router than anything else and a drill gun. "When Jason first got to the mansion, Dick and I were hazing him." She says, not necessarily muffled, but defintely louder for the sound of her drilling bracket holes on the brick wall to fix the box beneath and out of the way. "I brought over one of my skirts and some makeup..." She doesn't explain further, letting Stephanie fill int he details for herself, probably to Jasons endless amusement.

"Arbies.. you know that's a play on Are Bee? Roast Beef.." She twists in a few screws to secure the booster and begins connecting it to the computer tower. "Admit it, your mind is blown. Mine was... they have one of the best Rudens from a fast food place anywhere on the planet, though." Which is odd since their whole thing is roast beef. "They lost a lot of points with me when they told me they had run out of Roast Beef one night, though..." True story. That actually happened.

"Steph, can you slide me my duffle bag?"

Red Hood has posed:
Steph's agreement with Babs gets a thumbs up and a nod from Jason, "Good cover," he informs her in a stage whisper before taking a bite of the chocolate turn over.

Jason's smirk at Steph's attempt to figure out the Jasina comment reads a very amused 'no comment' which grows even wider when Babs provides the needed clues. "And the pumps don't forget the pumps," Jason tacks on the end.

Yep, endlessly amusing.

"Mind is totally blown," he assures Babs about that revelation. Though the other one does surprise him, "Wait, so you're saying they're named for roast beef and they ran out? I am almost ashamed to be eating this right now," he says with a glance to the turn over. He still takes another bite though.

Spoiler has posed:
Stephanie starts bouncing up and down on her toes. "Tell me there's pictures? Please tell me there's pictures!?" she asks excitedly, grinning over to Jason. "Even if there's not, I'll draw it if I need to," she tells him.

Stephanie moves over to get the duffle bag. "I never knew, or suspected that. That's pretty wild. So you think they'd actually use good roast beef then, too." The bag is brought over to Barbara, and then Stephanie resumes work on the food. She gets a sip of coffee in between switching from donut to turnover and back.

"So-" Stephanie says and then her phone rings. She pulls it out and looks at it. "Oh, it's mom. This might take a little bit," she says apologetically, before moving off to take the call in a more private area.

Oracle has posed:
Babs smirks out from under the table and nods appreciation to Steph when her bag is brought over. She slides it in beside her so she can easily get at the contents within, "There are." Pictures, "But I made certain promises for certain promises... you want to see them, you have to convince him." Pointing her drill gun out at Jason with a smirk.

She pulls a bit more cable from the bag and hooks everything up, first to power, then to the computer itself. "You should have an endless signal strength to a server side internet provider I borrowed outside of Gotham." Which is why she rarely loses net, no matter what might be going on in the city. "Only a signal user access, too.. so it's stronger than most..." A head tilting look at Jason, "Do /not/ download porn on high speed internet... I'll know, Jason... You know I'll know and you know I'll punish you."

It's said good natured with a grin...

but she will.

Red Hood has posed:
Shaking his head Jason says, "Well I probably would have let Babs show you the pics if you asked real nice, but now I'm intrigued by the whole drawing angle, so, tell you what Brown, you draw me those pics and I'll show you the originals. Deal?" Though the answer will have to wait until the phone call is done.

Jason nods "And I assume you being you, nobody's going to discover you're borrowing it and cut us off?" he asks, it was a needless question but Jason liked to watch Babs do her nerd flex thing. As to the porn thing, Jason crouches down by the desk finishing the last of his turnover and sucking a bit of chocolate off his thumb. "So, what I am hearing is I should stick to streaming porn?" he says grinning back. "Or am I somehow missing the point?"

Oracle has posed:
Babs does her level best to ignore all this talk of drawing and pictures of scandulously dressed Todds, but she's snickering beneath the desk as she continues fixing the antenna and powering up the booster. When she's finished, she scoots back out and kips up only to drop right down into the seat before the keyboard. One of the fobs is slipped into a drive so she can install the root kernal to access the remote servers.

A glance back at Jason who is inadvertantly questioning her nerd-dom, "Oh you." She teases, returning to her command prompt.

>cmd C: Root.kernal.access (remote) <
    access (primary.hood) 'iftrue.directory
        :no.answer.access(primary.server.permission)=yes

"I just redirected traffic through the host server to one of the Wayne server farms." She explains while brushing her fingers over the keys, "Gives us unilateral access through the secondary site on a largely under used access line directly out of Bludhaven... Not that anyone would notice, obviously, since I pinged it out of New York State by way of New Hampshire by way of Colorado."

Red Hood has posed:
See? Nerd flex achieved, he even understood most of it. When Babs gets out from under the desk, Jason kicks his chair over to her and leans up near where he has his coffee machine.

"So, basically they'd have to care enough to look at the Bludhaven line, and then make a titanic effort of nerdery to track down the where things are being routed to?" he asks honestly a little curious, of all the skills Talia sprung for him to learn on his League terrorism scholarship program, hacking wasn't one of them.

"And when we're set up, everything on my system is accessible to the rest of the family?"

Oracle has posed:
"You got it." Babs says once she's given his computer full access. There are other programs she's installing, of course, but most of them are shadow server prompts for annonymous access to a host of less than reputable servers. Most of which Oracle has established for information storage offsite in the case of a system infection or shut down, which is unlikely, but ... prepared.

Last is the program that gives her access to his computing processor by hooking up the external hard-drive full to the Gig with root code. Oracle sees all in Jason's sphere now. The finished product has her grinning to herself, and when she turns, grinning at Jason.

She leans back in her chair like a Bond Villain, one leg crossing over the other. "No, not everyone in the family... just me. But you know the deactivation code whenever you're done playing little brother. Give me a heads up before you use it though? So I don't have anything running that might be mission critical when you shut me out."

Could she regain access? Sure, but would she? Not if he made the effort to unhook her from his system. Trust is important to her because it's important to Jason.

Red Hood has posed:
There might be a bit of a proud smile on Jason's face when he hears he got it right. Like most of the family, he liked to challenge himself and he liked to win.

Jason's eyebrows raise as Babs turns around all sinister like, "Why does it make me feel like I'm selling my soul to the devil?" he says before thinking. He flinches. "Too soon?" he asks.

He nods about shutting things down when its time for him to move on again, "I'll give you warning, or if I am just straight up bailing, I'll let you know you can shut it down when you're ready to," he says with a frown. Leaving which seemed like such an urgent need when he arrived, was definitely becoming much less appealing. "Anyhow, it'll be a little while before Bruce is back to himself, even with Wonder Woman as his personal trainer."

Spoiler has posed:
Stephanie has returned from the phone call, and retrieved a pad of paper. She wets the tip of the pencil on her tongue, mainly for the look of it, before drawing for awhile. She looks at Jason, holds up the pencil as if gauging proportions but then goes back to drawing.

After a minute or so of this, she tears off the paper and wads it up. "Ok, I need... you know. Colored pencils. Better quality paper." She tosses the wadded up paper towards the trash can, swishing it. "Drawing talent," she adds in a softer voice.

Stephanie looks at what Barbara's doing. "I swear you could be typing that in Greek and I wouldn't know the difference," she says, exaggerating a bit. She's actually been doing ok in her training when it came to computers. But she probably wouldn't be able to do much more than break into a laundromat. And that, maybe only if they left their password as 'password'.

Stephanie leaves the rest of the pastries and just fills up her coffee. "So Mom's having a rough stretch. I might swing by after," she says, keeping her voice level but it shows on her face the call wasn't a good one.

Oracle has posed:
"Appreciated." Babs says with a slow spin in the swiveling chair that stops when she's once again facing Jason and, by extension of direction, Stephanie. Just in time for the wadded paper to swish through, "Never too soon for a bad joke." She chims over to Jay with a smirk.

"Anything we can help with?" This is to Stephanie, smirk turning into a quieted frown at the mention of 'mom' being in poor stretch. She runs her fingers up through the bits of hair beneath her ponytail, "Not sure what we could possibly do, but you know we're... and I'm voluntolding Jason too... here if you need anything, right?"

Red Hood has posed:
Nodding seriously to Babs, he says, "No problem," he says about the warning before breaking into a grin about the joke, "Oh good, I figured you made enough of them to know for sure," he teases good naturedly.

"Thanks for setting all this up by the way," he nods to the computer set up. "I feel all warm and fuzzy and part of the family."

Steph's artistic endevours are noticed and smiled at, especially when she hams it up wetting the tip of her pencil and the whole thing. Though that the pic gets thrown away has him raising his brows and digging into his waste paper basket to have a look anyhow. "Babs, show her a pic for effort," he says of the real shots of him in that drag.

Though his attention goes from the artistic to the sympathetic when Steph tells them about her mother. "Shit, sorry to hear that," he says before snorting, but nodding at being voluntold to help out. "Yeah, whatever you need Steph, just ask."

Spoiler has posed:
The drawing Steph had started of Jason is actually not horrible, if also still well short of good. She gave him a feminine figure as far as the outline goes, and a skirt and heels, and with a Red Hood mask. It's not particularly artistic but one can at least see what she was going for.

Stephanie gives a little shrug and says in a somber tone, "She had a relapse. So we need to break out the 1 day sober chit again. Thanks. Just having you guys helps." The blond's words tried to have an optimistic slant, but the tone is that of someone who has been here before and knows she'll be here again.

She grabs the bag of turnovers, holding them in offer to Jason and then Babs. Distracting with sweets. "You are part of the family," says the girl who less so than anyone else present. "I think it meant a lot to Bruce having you there the other night. That whole thing was... bizarre. I'm glad it seems to have worked."

Oracle has posed:
"You sure?" Babs is fishing her phone out of the pocket of her jacket and bringing it out of sleep mode with a press of her thumb on the biometric scanner pad at the base of the blocky device. The Prometheus is not as sleek as the Stark Phone, more angular and blocky, and Babs is even more so. A first generation, likely prototype, pre-pre-production model which she's reenforced with a metal case so it could, if she wanted, actually be used as a weapon. It ways a solid pound, easy.

With remote access to the Array, she delves through old photo dumps until she brings up one of a very young Jason Todd in a sparkly gown. Likely 14-15 years old, wearing a dark brown wig with over exagerated makeup and pumps. Even back then he had the best Caffs in the family.

The phone is held out to Stephanie to get a good look, a smirk on her face. "We were a lot more shitty back then to the new blood.. but in his defense, and mine, Jay Jay rocked it..." Clearly she thinks it will prove another distraction to the woes that are their personal lives.

"Wish I'd been able to be there." So meta.

Red Hood has posed:
Jason chuckles warmly at the drawing and holds it out for Babs to have a look as well before he sets it down across the keyboard. Yep, he's keeping that shit. He checks the pic that Babs digs up and smiles, "Yep, definitely rocked those pumps. And what? You mean you and Dick didn't do that to Tim or Damian?" the last one just makes him laugh picturing what they'd have to do to get him to go along with the hazing.

Flinching at the news Jason crosses to Steph and puts a hand on her shoulder, "Hey, at least she's trying to get better, and she told you she relapsed, that's way better than either not giving a shit or keeping her using a secret," though he wished her luck if she wanted to try the latter on Steph. "But I've seen people kick it back in the old neighbourhood, it can be done if they really want it."

"Engh," he says though of being part of the family. "Definitely the distant fucked up cousin if so," he says downplaying it before he nods about the whole ritual thing. "Yeah, it was sort of wild, and somehow I wasn't the one to lip off the spirit thing, so, progress?" though there is a touch of concern to that jibe, after all while he kept his mouth shut Carrie hadn't. "Really need to ask Zach or Zee about that stuff," he adds as a sort of mental note.

Spoiler has posed:
The hand on her shoulder draws a grateful look from Stephanie. "Yeah, you have a good point," Stephanie concedes with a small nod. "Baby steps, right?" she says with a little sigh, but at least a more contented one that it would have been without the comment.

Stephanie takes a look at the picture that Barbara has to show. She breaks out in soft, delighted laughter. "Oh you're just adorable. Listen, Louis or Louetta, I absolutely support your choices of expressing yourself," she teases Jason.

Stephanie sips her coffee and winces a touch. "Yeah, what gives when you and I hold our tongues and it's someone else that ignores the 'don't spar with the supernatural being' speech?" Stephanie asks.

She gives a little shiver. "At least it wasn't worse. That whole magic thing is kind of freaky to me. Don't really have much experience with it. Beyond what I see in the movies. And from what I recall, plucky blond girls who provide comic relief don't usually fare very well."

Oracle has posed:
Babs looks at the drawing with a grin and settles it down on the keyboard for Jason, "Put that on your fridge, Jay Jay." She teases, leaning back in the seat with her hands, and phone, back behind her head like she were relaxing on a beach somewhere and not an abandoned subway station.

She looks sympathetically over to Stephanie, but she's precious few experience with rehabilitation and wouldn't be able to add much other than agreement with Jason, so she nods, but otherwise remains quiet save. "Like I said, if you need anything, I'm always a text away." It's easy, simple, but genuine.

She has even less experience with magic. That's why she employs other people, Shadows and such, to deal with it. "I saw Tim's recordings.. not sure what the fuck was going on, but I bet it's a couple zeroes above my paygrade." There's another nod at Jason speaking with Zee and Zach about it, then a frown at mention of someone smarting off to a spirit. "Who was it...? That smarted off, I mean?"

Red Hood has posed:
"Yeah, I know it's frustrating, and it sucks to see someone lose all the progress they made, but sounds like she hasn't given up, that takes strength," Jason assures her before his expression becomes one of introspection, as though his words triggered something in his head. The look is there one moment then gone the next. He squeezes Steph's shoulder and lets go, this had probably been the longest amount of time he'd been supportive in a good couple of months, he needed to pace himself.

He slips easily into the banter about the picture, "It's Louisa, duh," he corrects with a grin. "And that was one time, but hey, I'm secure enough in my manhood to know I rocked that shit." A nod is given to Babs, "And definitely putting that up on my fridge," he confirms.

As for the magic, "I know right? I figured I'd slip up and say something dumb but I guess all this time around 'the Devil' and wizards is rubbing off on me."

"The deliquent guy usually doesn't do too well either in those movies either if I recall. And yeah, we've definitely got an extra large dose of weird this year, too bad it didn't get the memo that Halloween was over a week ago," he says before answering Babs' question. "Carrie, she said something to the spirit and it /definitely/ noticed her. No clue what that means, but it can't be good."

Spoiler has posed:
Stephanie nods about what Carrie said. "I think anything we said could be taken as part of its deal with Constantine. She said something about 'she'd make sure next time it's rum' instead of whiskey and it replied something about, so we have a future together then. Something like that," Stephanie says, frowning just a bit.

She rises from where she'd sat down. "Thanks, both of you. It helps, knowing I've got people," she says, looking away from them as she does. Not because it isn't sincere, but because knowing she isn't alone anymore can make her a bit emotional when she references it much.

"I'm going to head home and sit with her for awhile," she says. "Thanks. I'll catch back up with you both later. Jason don't eat all the turnovers or you'll never fit back into that slinky, sparkly number," she says with a little more normal Stephanie tone in it.