<div class="floatleft">(http://www.eklettica.com/pictures/Illustrations/deathstroke1.jpg)</div><hr/><strong>Name:</strong>? ? ?<br/><strong>Nom de Guerre:</strong>Deathstroke "The Terminator."<br/><strong>Affiliation:</strong>The Highest Bidder.<br/><strong>Time:</strong>Saturday the 17th of October 2015, 20:15<br/><strong>Location:</strong>S.T.A.R Labs, Gotham East.<br/><strong>Tagging:</strong>Superboy, Nightwing, Batwoman, Spoiler.<br/><hr/><br/>Getting in? That was easy. Almost depressingly so, in fact, even for a man of<em>his</em>unique and not-inconsiderable skill; given that the S.T.A.R Labs in Gotham was the biggest of the three facilities, was the most advanced research centre in the country - and, officially speaking, the world - and housed some of the most dangerous and deadly weapons known to man and even some not known to man, he would have thought that even he would have struggled a little bit to break in so efficiently, but....apparently not. As always, no matter how good your security system was, it needed human oversight to make judgement calls on unique, unforeseen scenarios and to provide a "critical eye" on proceedings...though artificial intelligence was making leaps and bounds in recent years, it wasn't yet at the level where it could effectively replace human security guards or mechanics, and even if it could, the humans - wisely, in Deathstrokes opinion - wouldn't trust it to do so without turning against them. Whether through Artificial Greed or disgruntlement or even just a glitch in the system, computers shouldn't be trusted to monitor computers; there should always be a human standing over it, ready to pull the plug, just in case. So, obviously, instead of trying to hack into the outer doors and risk being discovered, he had simply attacked the weak link; the external security guards. He hadn't killed them, of course - he had been hired for a simple burglary, and though he had no issue with killing, adding murder on top of theft just added a whole new level of heat that he didn't particularly feel like dealing with; if the burglar also killed several people, the manhunt would be much, much more intense and though he would eventually escape like he always did, it would be far more trouble than it was worth - and had only knocked them out with a variety of blows and holds. They would wake up in several hours with a headache and possibly without a job, but they were alive if nothing else.<br/><br/>Meanwhile, of course, he had their security keys. See, every guard needs to get into the building after Lockdown somehow, and that's the weak link in any security system; steal how the guards get in to the main foyer, and you have access to the entire building! The vaults and the internal doors and the offices and the labs and whatnot would obviously have a fingerprint scanner and a voice recognition module and all that high-tech jazz, but at the end of the day, the doors to reception could only ever be accessed via keycard due to the likely high level of turnover that they had in regards to security guards in Gotham. It's a high risk job anyway, but he looked into it....security guards and Rent-a-cops in Gotham had a<em>far</em>lower life expectancy than in - for example - Metropolis or Central City. It was<em>Gotham,</em>after all. Even by todays standards, with all the superheroes and supervillains running around, Gotham seemed to get the worst of the worst in every sense of the word, and despite himself, he did actually feel a little bit sorry for the residents. He had been in town for a matter of days, and he<em>already</em>couldn't wait to leave. The food was depressing, the housing was bleak, the weather was atrocious and the criminals were all batshit insane even by<em>his</em>considerable standards. Even some of the<em>Heroes</em>they had bordered on supervillain, which has to be terrifying if you lived in a run-down area which, to be fair, was most places that weren't Gotham Heights. And even Gotham Heights had it's somewhat depressing, oppressive-feeling areas, so the "posh" area of town really wasn't that posh anyway. But anyway...he digressed. He had entered the foyer with little difficulty and managed to subdue the security guard inside with little to no effort and quickly stashed the body in the utility cupboard nearby; he wouldn't have bothered, but he couldn't risk him waking up early while he was working. The guards outside were no issue since they no longer had their key cards, but that one? Well, hacking required concentration, and he couldn't afford to let his be broken.<br/><br/>The hacking itself hadn't taken much time; he had plugged his decryptor into the computer directly and begun the process of opening up the locks he needed; in this case, it was all of them. See, S.T.A.R Labs had a top of the line security system, so hacking in and shutting down the security protocols for one or two doors was nigh on impossible due to the high levels of encryption and the constantly shifting cypher that made it practically impossible to guess the codes unless you already knew them...there were hackers out there who could do it, of course, and there were definitely people who could just bypass it altogether by phasing through the walls directly, but he was neither of those things. What he did have was a computer-like brain built for problem solving, a talent for gathering intelligence and the ability to think nine times faster than an ordinary human, at least. So, he was able to come up with a work around; every big building had a Fire Protocol; a series of measures that were taken in the event that a fire was detected in any section of the building in order to protect its employees and its important assets. S.T.A.R Labs had a very specific one; since all of the doors were fire doors anyway, them being locked wasn't necessarily compulsory...so the Fire Protocol unlocked every door in the stricken section so that employees could flee quickly without having to scan themselves through one at a time...and thankfully, what he was looking for was located in the Archives, the warehouse-like facility where technology was sent when it wasn't being actively worked on for whatever reason. It was like The Vault in that the security was top-notch, but he had a solution for that....he just had to get there. Luckily for him, it was directly below where he was standing and unlocking the Fire Doors in this immediate section gave him a direct path to it.<br/><br/>Unfortunately, of course, something went wrong; he was notified a moment too late on his Decryptor that he had triggered some kind of secondary alarm that had already broadcast a distress beacon to an unknown receiver....given that it was embedded in the Source Code, it was obviously not<em>supposed</em>to be there, especially since Mockingbird had failed to mention it as a line of defence, so the chances were that it wasn't broadcasting to the police. Rather, it appeared that somebody else - probably a vigilante or somebody who knew a vigilante - had hacked in first and placed a subroutine that would alert them under certain circumstances....and apparently, as soon as he forcibly tripped the Fire Protocol, that had counted as "unusual behaviour." Of course, any hacker who could insert an entire subroutine into S.T.A.R Labs security system and get away with it was leagues better than him...but he had the aforementioned advantages in that his brain was a problem solving computer and he could think 9 times faster and more efficiently than any other human....so he promptly shut down all cameras and all remote access outside the building. He effectively cut off S.T.A.R Labs connection to the outside world using their thoughtfully placed "Cyber Attack Protocol," designed to defend against Cyber Attack. Minus the Lockdown, of course; that would be bad. Of course, his break in would still be detected and guaranteed there were already Masks en route, but....well, if they came in blind, he would have the advantage, especially since he doubted that anybody still alive had fought him and walked away. The only person he could remember fighting him to a tie was Batman himself and that little Boy Wonder...but Batman was dead, and Robin had disappeared years ago, so far as he knew. And really, in that team, it was Batman that was the threat, not Robin.<br/><br/>Still, he needed to at least try to finish the job before they arrived. Fighting Masks was not part of the contract and even if he won, they inevitably complicated matters somehow, and he really just wanted to finish this job and get out of that hellhole of a city as fast as possible. Therefore, unplugging his Decryptor from the server, he turned and made his way through the newly unlocked door behind him and down towards the Archives. As he had planned, all of the doors between him and the main Archive Door were unlocked as if there was an inferno raging down below, and he pushed through them carelessly, not even paying attention to the camera's or any kind of extra security that might be present; the Fire Protocol largely disables the pressure plates and laser grids for easier and quicker evacuation. Good for safety...not so good if a thief knows about the subroutines and has the equipment to crack and manipulate them. That's the thing; the more Protocols and safety measures you take, the less secure your system is and the more back doors are created. At least, in his experience; it was entirely possible that there existed a system with no back doors and no way to manipulate the Protocols, but...well, this was not one of those systems. Honestly, he expected more from a building that Lexcorp itself funded...but, they were only human, and humans made mistakes. As he said earlier; the weak link in any security system were the humans operating it. After pushing through several doors and descending down several flights of metal, railed stairs, he finally reached the door he was looking for. That one wasn't an issue; Mockingbird had somehow gotten access to its security protocols, so all he had to do was plug his decryptor - which was built into his left gauntlet, by the way - into the wall and he was good to go. After a few moments, it let out a little series of beeps and the heavy, lead-lined Promethium door rumbled open. It was a good thing Mockingbird was so connected somehow; being Promethium, he likely would have never gotten through the door without that algorithm Mockingbird provided him. Once the door was only half open, he stepped inside and looked around.<br/><br/>The Archive was a large, dingy room, filled with rows upon rows of warehouse-like shelves that were filled with variously sized boxes and crates, all marked "Hazardous" or "Dangerous" or "Top secret" or something silly like that. Some lights flickered on, but they did little to help with the general low-light conditions of the room, but what they did illuminate was just...depressing. Bland concrete walls, a flat, featureless floor and row upon row of boring-looking boxes, crates and packages. Oh, and the sprinkler system had activated, of course...a side effect of activating the Fire Protocol and not being able to access The Archives isolated circuit directly. Oh well. It was only a bit of water. For all its boring appearances...The Archive was filled with some fairly powerful stuff. All the current experiments were kept in The Vault, along with what they considered "high risk targets," but for some reason, they'd put The Device that he was looking for down here, in The Archives...perhaps they wanted to shove it to the back of the pile, or maybe they wanted it away from the rest of the high risk targets so that if the Vault was broken into, it wouldn't go missing as well. Either way...it was a mistake. The Vault would have been much harder to get into. Sighing, he set to work as quickly as he could; he knew exactly where the box he was looking for was - it would be filed away with the rest of the Aborted Military Contracts, and was the smallest thing there - so he made a beeline straight for it, weaving his way through the neat stacks and rows of fortune-making equipment that any other thief would have grabbed as they walked past. But not him; he had a job to do.<br/><br/>He found it soon enough, a small, nondescript crate wedged away between two slightly larger ones and dislodged it with a healthy, hefty pull. Setting it down on the floor, he pried open the top of the box to check what was inside - a smooth black cube, about a foot long on each side, with no discernible markings or features of any kinds save its smoothness - and nodded to himself in satisfaction. After a moments thought, he fished around in one of his many pouches and produced a small, equally smooth black key, provided to him by Mockingbird, just in case. Reaching down, he pressed it against the center of the cubes top face and after a moment of nothing, a small hole appeared on its surface. The key slipped in easily. He twisted it to the side, then pulled the key out. The device was now active; if the Vigilante's undoubtedly en route were aliens or Metahumans, they would be in for a nasty shock; this device appeared to radiate a magical field that depowered almost every type of Metahuman and alien known to man...for some reason, it didn't affect those inflicted with a Super Soldier Serum like himself, but he wasn't about to complain about his apparent immunity. It would give him a<em>huge</em>advantage in the fight to come, provided none of the heroes had a similar source for their powers. Placing the lid back on the crate, he heaved it up to his waist and began his journey out, crate under arm. Unfortunately, there was no other way out besides that door; it was impossible to close through the control panel - the algorithm saw to that - so there was no chance of him being trapped in...but that was only built in because there was no other way to breach The Archives. The weak point was the door...so he needed to get out before the Vigilante's arrived. He was running behind schedule anyway...so he needed to hustle. He stepped out from the rows of crates and boxes and began moving towards the door as quickly as he could whilst maintaining his grip on the box. With any luck...he'd be gone before the planters of that subroutine got there. He didn't need a fight complicating his Contract.