"The data is more secure this way, you said," Barbara glares up at the monitor. It casts a green light on her face, reflecting off her glasses and painting down metal of her wheelchair. Her fingers move a mile a minute over her keyword as she juggles the CCTV feed and taps in the facial recognition program, but most of her energy goes into running all the tech support the bats need in Gotham's latest crisis (killing cameras, putting others on loop, watching their backs through the little cameras on their suits, hacking into the FBI database, putting in calls for ambulances here and there, running DNA samples and who-knows-what samples through all the databases, hacking into the traffic lights system to make sure the city is evacuated as cleanly as possible but also giving the Bats all the leeway they need to get where they're going fast. It's a whole thing). "There won't be a third-party server, you said. The communications will be faster, you said."
"She's been down for months and is under the influence of enough sedatives and painkillers that she shouldn't be moving, period." Dick's voice- no, Nightwing's, the voice dropped, but the edge of concern was all Dick-"Did this have to happen right now? How is this happening right now?"
"This is happening right now because I was dragged out of my Clocktower, and she woke up dark, new place, all alone, and mentally inhibited. If I'd been there, things would have been fine. I could have calmed her down or at least knocked her out again till everything passed over."
The CCTV feed beeps, a red square falling on the face of their little runaway. Barbara bites her lower lip and watches the girl fumble around, the zooms in as she enters a nearby gas station. The feed ends there. Barbara groans.
"How'd she even get out? The Clocktower was locked down."
Barbara's nose scrunches. She'd set the Clocktower on lockdown, sure, but that just kept people from coming in. The set of procedures to keep people from going out weren't in place- she'd been in a rush, and there hadn't seemed to be a need. Coma-girl had been under for months with no signs of waking up, and no one else was there.
She glares at her monitor, where she can see him flipping over one of the green, goblin-like aliens, and landing a kick in the back. "I'm still not hearing an apology."
"Tell me how she got out and-"
Cass's voice cuts through. "Priority: where girl, no how or why girl."
This is why Barbara likes Cass. Well, there were a lot of reasons, but this was one of them for sure.
"Orphan is right. We can't undo it, but we can fix it. Did you find her?" Nightwing punches the guy on his left. "Also, how's the bridge situation looking?"
"In Flinn's gas-station. And the bridge is falling apart." Barbara's already got a list of possibilities running through her mind. Who to send?
Stephanie would be ideal, but Barbara doubted Stephanie would be able to stay away from the main event for long. She could ask Steph to drop her off with the rest of the civilians in the emergency cave system; but no, it would be too easy to lose the coma-girl in the masses. The person needed to stay with the girl- which meant they either needed to be non-essential or could contribute equally from a distance.
"Wait, isn't the owner of Flinn's on our list of…?"
Barbara rubbed her forehead. "Exactly. Or else I would make her wait."