Titan Tower was built in the late seventies. Originally it was used as the headquarters of Titan Industries, a computer technology corporation not dissimilar to Wayne Enterprises. At the time that the Tower was built Titan Industries was a fairly small company and the novelty of the tower being shaped like a T helped to gain national recognition, but as the company grew it was more often ridiculed by competitors for its letter-shaped base of operations. As the years went by, the board of directors grew less enamoured with their trademark tower, not only as the amusement wore off but also as it became increasingly unsuitable for the high-tech computer industry.
Plus, it could be really hard to get to.
Eventually, a choice was made to relocate to the slightly larger city of Overville. Whilst Titan Industries still owned the Tower, it was designed in an age where computers were still large and cumbersome, and a new use for the Tower was hard to find. Eventually, they gave up, switched off all the lights, and locked the doors. It remained dormant for five years.
The events that brought life back to the Tower were tragic. An experiment gone wrong in a Titan Industries research lab resulted in the deaths of three people and the horrible mangling of a young boy. As compensation, the boy's father (who was also one of the head scientists at Titan Industries) requested the use of Titan Tower in order to mechanically recreate parts of his son's body and restore to him some aspects of life that he thought were forever lost. Some of the rooms in the Tower were refitted for this purpose, and the father worked feverishly night and day to accomplish his goal. And eventually, he succeeded.
Thus did Cyborg come into being.
The boy's pain had not yet ended, however, as shortly afterwards his father was killed in a plane crash. Rule of the Tower passed to him, but without his father he was alone. Fearful of his reception in the outside world, he made sure it stayed that way.
Until recently, Cyborg's life had consisted of learning all he could about robotics in order to upgrade his own systems, all the while rarely leaving the Tower. That was until he realised he'd learned most of what there was to know, and found himself with nothing to do. Facing one of those questions that pretty much everyone had to face at some point, Cyborg had to ask himself what he wanted his life to be about. Before the accident he had been a promising athlete and was content to follow that path, but now that option was forever lost to him. His cybernetic parts also made other jobs impossible, but while some doors were closed, others were opened and he decided he wanted to help people. With that in mind, certain changes were in order to modify his existing body into more of a weapon. Advanced sensors and a sonic cannon in his right arm meant that no common thug or petty criminal could stand against him.
His nights were spent patrolling the city disguised by a hooded jacket, while during his days he carried out maintenance on himself and on the Tower. And this is where we find him; working at the main computer on an upgrade to the security system.
That is, until the phone started ringing.
Technically, there wasn't actually a phone as Cyborg had installed a communication device into his arm that provided the same function, but since it wasn't currently patched in to the Tower's systems the ringing was coming from a loudspeaker. In the way that people do, Cyborg's gaze shifted to the speaker, though of course he could not see anything from it. It wasn't all that unusual to receive a call, either from a wrong number or from a company that had not updated their address book, but the one or two people that would actually want to contact Cyborg had other means of doing so. Which was why he was so surprised when the caller decided to leave a message.
"This is Robin, protégé of Batman. I've been sent on a mission here in Jump City and was looking for the metahuman known as Cyborg, with the hopes that he could help me. I am currently standing at the end of Ocean Avenue. If you're listening to this Cyborg, I'd appreciate some kind of sign that you are interested in helping me. If not, I probably won't bother trying to contact you again."
Robin? Here? And looking for him? Cyborg hit a few keys on the keyboard and a window opened showing the view looking across the water towards the city. Zooming in, he confirmed that there was indeed a figure sitting on a motorcycle at the end of Ocean Avenue, and from what Cyborg could recall the costume was that of the Boy Wonder.
When the shock of the situation cleared from his mind, Cyborg was left with a choice: aid Robin, possibly risking life and limb, or sit in the tower and let the chance pass him by.
Okay, when it was put like that, it wasn't much of a choice.
Cyborg palmed the switch that would raise the bridge and waited only long enough to make sure that Robin got the hint before heading as fast as he could for the front door. A short elevator ride later (he checked how he looked in the reflective surface of the elevator wall; not his best, but as good as could be hoped for at such short notice) he found himself in front of the huge t-shaped main entrance. Cyborg keyed a sequence of numbers into the pad on his arm and watched as the double doors slid open to reveal a rain drenched figure standing beside a motorcycle, in the process of removing his helmet. In the background, the bridge was already descending back beneath the waves.
"Cyborg, I presume?" Said Robin, placing his helmet on the seat of his bike. The rain fell on his head for the first time, making his spiky hair droop slightly under the added weight of the water.
Cyborg grinned, his organic eye showing the amusement the mechanical one could not. "What gave it away?" He turned slightly, gesturing for Robin to enter. "You can bring the bike in too, if you want."
"Thanks." Robin replied, wheeling the bike through the doors. He set it on its stand and began dusting the water from his costume as Cyborg closed the door behind him. "Interesting place you have here." Robin commented, as he surveyed his surrounding. The main hall was carpeted down the centre and lined with chairs, but otherwise unremarkable. The only door in the corridor led to the elevator.
"It's not really mine. Not officially, anyway. I get to stay here, and I can do what I want with it, but I can't sell it. Not that I'd have anywhere else to go if I did sell it..." Cyborg trailed off as he realised he was babbling. Seeing that Robin had finished arranging his costume, Cyborg set off down the hall. "So, what brings you here?"
In response, Robin inquired "What do you know about Raincoat Corporation?"
Cyborg paused for a moment, considering the question. "Not a lot. Only that they're a relatively new business around here, and that they have a large research facility just outside of town. Are they doing something illegal?"
They had reached the elevator, Cyborg gesturing for Robin to enter first. Considering his options, Cyborg hesitated slightly before pressing the button to take them to the control room. He did not usually permit visitors to the Tower to see the place where it was managed from, but this was Robin. The Boy Wonder. Batman's sidekick. Cyborg was not too old for hero worship.
A very slight judder indicated the elevator was moving, so Cyborg returned his attention back to his guest.
"We suspect they've been kidnapping metahumans and experimenting on them." Robin said. "We're not sure exactly what the experiments entail, but whatever it is it can't be good. My intention is to first confirm our suspicions, and then put a stop to it."
"That explains why you're in Jump City," Cyborg replied "but why are you here?"
At that moment the elevator door opened, and Cyborg led the way out into the corridor. There were a number of corridors leading off in different directions, and many closed doors, but Cyborg headed straight for a set of double doors at the end of the passage facing directly onto the elevator. In other words, straight ahead.
"Well, I've never been to Jump City before. I don't know my way around, I don't have any reliable contacts, and to be honest I'm not used to working on my own." Robin stopped just before the doors, turning to face Cyborg fully. "I'd really appreciate your help."
Though his eyes were hidden by a mask, Cyborg could still tell how earnestly Robin was speaking.
"You name it, you got it." Cyborg replied.
"Cool." Robin said, a smile on his face. The door opened beside them and they turned and entered the room.
The control room of Titan Tower was a mess of power cables and computer parts, a rough path almost visible leading to a large number of computer screens at the far end of the room. Behind it was a huge ceiling-to-floor window looking out across the bay, the rain still hammering against the glass. Cyborg carefully picked his way across the floor to the computer. He looked around for a second chair, but finding none, he gestured to Robin to sit while he grabbed a nearby box and pulled it over.
Robin was already loading a disk into the computer and pulling up the plans for the Raincoat facility.
"Okay, so it looks like there are two separate buildings." Robin said, reading the diagram. "One seems to be offices and such, most likely their main administrative building. Six stories above ground and one basement level. The other building is all on the ground floor and is probably where most of the research is carried out."
"This isn't really my area, but I think there's something wrong with these plans." Cyborg said.
"What?"
Cyborg pointed at the screen.
"It says the date on them is 1973. That should be roughly when the place was first built."
"So why is that a problem?" Robin asked.
"Well, Raincoat only bought the place last year, and when they did there was some major redesigning going on. With the amount of trucks going in and out of that place it would probably have been easier just to build from scratch. With so much work being done, wouldn't the plans have been changed or updated?"
"They should have been." Robin said, grimly. "This changes things. If they've somehow managed to keep the current layout of the facility out of computer records there's no easy way to get them."
"So we do nothing?" Cyborg said.
A ghost of a smile appeared on Robin's face. "Do you always give up so easily?"
Cyborg bristled at that. "What do you suggest then, fearless leader?"
"A recon. We go to the facility and check it out."
"Okay." Cyborg replied. "When?"
"Tonight."
Once it was decided, there wasn't much more to be done. Robin told Cyborg to find some dark clothes to help with stealthing about, and then wondered why Cyborg collapsed on the floor laughing and pointing at the Boy Wonder's own uniform. Cyborg showed Robin to a room he could call his own while staying, and then gave a short guided tour of the tower. Then, with nothing better to do until darkness fell, and to prove a point, Robin challenged Cyborg to a game of hide and seek.
Even though he had much better knowledge of the Tower, Cyborg lost.
Badly.
As a result, he ended up paying for the pizza they got delivered for dinner. Cyborg was having more fun than he could remember in a long time, despite – or perhaps because of – the competitive air between the two. It didn't seem long before they were heading out across town to the Raincoat facility, the two of them on Robin's motorcycle. The facility itself was actually outside of Jump City, although with the rate of growth it probably wouldn't remain that way for long.
They pulled off the road a mile or so away, and with the R cycle sufficiently hidden in amongst bushes, they walked the rest of the way. It had thankfully stopped raining at some point in the afternoon.
Robin whistled as they rounded the last bend in the road and got their first look of the facility. Or the front gate, anyway.
"It looks more like a military base than an R&D site!" he exclaimed quietly. Cyborg spotted four armed guards at the gate, which was ten foot tall and looked to be about a foot thick. Barbed wire fencing of equal height to the gate extended in either direction.
"They've even got guards walking the perimeter." Robin said, and Cyborg turned his attention to where the other teen was looking. Sure enough, there were two armed guards walking a path inside the perimeter. Cyborg hadn't even noticed them, and knew Robin had taken pleasure in pointing them out.
"Unfortunately we can't see the actual facility from here, it's too far away in this light." Robin continued. "We'll have to get closer."
Feeling it was his turn to be smug for a change, and about time too, Cyborg said "Maybe you can't see it from here, but I can." He tapped his head beside his mechanical eye, which he then zoomed in on the location. Seeing nothing but darkness, he switched to nightvision…and swore. The glare from the lights on the gate made it impossible to see past them. When his vision returned to normal, he could see that Robin was smirking.
"Did you think I don't have access to night vision goggles?" Robin asked. Unwilling to respond, Cyborg changed the subject.
"So what now? How do we get in?"
"Now, we get a little closer, see what the facility looks like. If we can do it tonight we'll get inside and I'll try and find some plans or blueprints of the place. But it's possible it's not worth the risk of getting past the fence, I may need some special equipment for that." With that, Robin turned and led them into the woods, travelling quite a long way out from the road before finally turning in towards the facility. They reached the fence, but stayed beneath the cover of the trees, most of which were cut back a good couple of metres away. From here they could finally see the place they had come to infiltrate.
It looked remarkably similar to what the blueprints said it should look like. The only major difference was that where the plans indicated two separate buildings, it seemed like they had been extended to meet each other. The extension was also only at ground level, leaving the only thing with multiple floors as the admin section.
"That still doesn't look right." Cyborg said, after considering it for a few minutes. "The amount of stuff they were bringing in here…well, it looked like they could have built something twice the size of this."
"You're sure?" Robin asked.
"Yup. Dead sure."
"Okay. Looks like we're going in. There are too many sensors they could have on the fence to risk going through it without more specialised equipment. Cameras every fifty yards or so. Best chance is to find somewhere to go over."
"Over?" Cyborg looked up at the imposing, ten foot tall, topped with barbed wire fence. "Maybe Superman has been giving you lessons in how to jump tall buildings in a single bound, but there's no way I can clear that."
"Not even with a little help?" Robin said, nodding his head towards an area where the trees were growing slightly closer to the fence. One of them had branches that extended almost to the barrier. Cyborg grinned.
"Well, with a little help, I might be able to manage it." He turned serious. "But how do we get out again?"
"That's the easy part." Robin responded. "Places like this are designed to keep people out, not to stop them from leaving."
They made their way along the tree line until they reached the right spot. Surprisingly, Cyborg had more trouble getting up the tree than he did going over the fence. The smooth metal of his hands and feet found it difficult to gain purchase on the bark of the tree. He'd have to look into that.
After Robin had lowered a rope he finally made it up onto the branch, and from there, over the fence, pleased with himself when he landed quietly. Robin, of course, didn't make a sound.
"The guards will be here in five minutes. We'd better move away from the fence and find somewhere for you to hide." Robin said.
"Hide?" Cyborg frowned. "I'm supposed to hide somewhere?" Robin sighed.
"Look, no offence, but there's no way you'll be able to sneak around in there without getting caught. The only chance we have to get in and out without being seen is for me to go alone." Seeing that Cyborg was about to protest, he went on. "This is just the recon, remember? Once we know the layout of the place, we can both come back to rescue the people they're holding. I'll definitely need your help on that mission."
Somewhat mollified, Cyborg nodded, and they made their way towards the facility until they came across a stack of empty crates for him to hide in.
"If I'm not back in…oh, an hour, it's probably safe to assume I won't be coming back." With that, Robin left, disappearing into the shadows. Cyborg switched his eye to infrared and followed the other teen's progress, until he rounded a corner and was out of sight. Cyborg had one more glance around before settling down to wait.
He reflected over the day he had had, which first began like any other but had shortly been interrupted by the Boy Wonder, protégé to Batman himself, Robin. Cyborg found it hard to associate the legend of Robin with the teenager he was dealing with. At times he was everything you'd expect from such a person; stoic, uncompromising, and better than competent at absolutely everything. At other times though, he just seemed like a normal teenage boy. The game of hide and seek, for instance. Cyborg was sure there was some ulterior motive to it, to see how good he himself was at being stealthy, or something along those lines, and yet he also knew that Robin had enjoyed it for the simple game that it was.
Or possibly he just enjoyed it because he was so damn good at it, Cyborg thought ruefully. Despite being out-done at absolutely everything so far, though, Cyborg decided he liked the kid. Even if he did use too much hair gel.
And what they were doing now, although perhaps not the most legal of things…it felt right. They were doing it to help people. On a bigger scale than just petty thievery or muggings. Suddenly Cyborg knew that this is what he was supposed to do. Jump City was his city, and he was here to protect it. Maybe he could get a team together if he could talk some other metas that he knew into helping, and they could operate out of the Tower. If not, he'd just have to work alone.
He checked the time: almost twenty minutes had passed. He wasn't sure when to expect Robin's return, but the one hour deadline was still quite a way off. Then, in the distance, but still loud, he heard an alarm go off.
Swearing, he leaped out of the crate, only to come face to face with a guard. The guard seemed equally as shocked as Cyborg was, but reacted faster, bringing his gun up to point it at the teen.
"Freeze!" he shouted, somewhat needlessly. Cyborg hadn't gotten around to moving yet.
"Put you hands in the air, slowly." Said another guard who had been slightly behind the first. Both were now pointing their weapons at Cyborg.
"Okay, I'm raising my hands, no need to get trigger happy…" Cyborg said, as he did what was instructed.
He let his hands get half way into the air before firing his sonic cannon, which at that point was conveniently pointed directly at the guards. Both of them were blasted backwards, and when they landed, they didn't get up again. Cyborg stood watching them for a few moments, urging his breathing back to normal as he got over how quickly it had all happened. He got a second shock a few second later when a voice muttered in his ear.
"Nice work."
He jumped around, bringing the sonic cannon up to fire again, but stopped himself at the last moment when he saw it was Robin.
"Man, don't scare me like that! What the hell do you think you were doing? I swear, if I had a proper heart it would have stopped beating by now."
Robin smiled in apology.
"We better get going, they won't be too far behind me."
"What happened?" Cyborg asked. Robin had the grace to look sheepish.
"They had a much more advanced security system than I thought. I barely even got in before I tripped a sensor. Unfortunately, this complicates things even more." Robin started jogging towards the fence then, and Cyborg kept pace with him. "They know we're on to them, so security will be even tighter. I'm not sure how we're going to do this."
They had almost reached the fence then, and Cyborg slowed, wondering how they were going to get past it. But Robin kept going. Cyborg saw him reach into his belt and pull something out, before tossing it at the barrier. It exploded on impact, blasting the metal fencing apart.
"There's no point worrying about stealth now." Robin said. Then he pulled something else from his belt, and dropped it in the middle of gap that had been made. "Besides, now they'll definitely come this way, and they'll find a surprise."
He sprinted off into the trees, and didn't slacken the pace until a few minutes later when they heard a muted explosion. Even then, he didn't slow much, so it was between gasps of breath that Cyborg spoke.
"What was… the surprise?"
A couple of gasping breaths.
"Itching powder." Robin responded. Cyborg would have laughed if he could have spared the oxygen. There was a few minutes of silence before Cyborg asked another question.
"Is it always this much fun?"
Robin's grin, feral in nature, visible only by moonlight breaking through the trees, was all the response he needed. He grinned back and kept running.
In no time at all, and also eternity, they reached the motorcycle and disentangled it from the bushes where they had hidden it. Without sparing even the time to put on their helmets, they were off and away, roaring down the quiet roads at speeds Cyborg didn't even want to know. After a couple of minutes Robin turned around and shouted something along the lines of "we're safe" and he slowed to travel at more humane speeds, but it wasn't until he was back on his little island with the bridge disappearing once again beneath the waves that Cyborg truly relaxed.
Despite the late hour, he knew he wouldn't be able to sleep, which was lucky as it seemed they had a lot to talk about.
"I screwed up." Robin said later, as they both sipped on hot chocolates.
"You couldn't have known." Cyborg offered in response, but Robin shook his head.
"I should have known better, I should have been more careful. Now, I have no idea how we're going to do this without help."
Cyborg considered this.
"What kind of help?"
