"Okay, turn here" "Look, this is Mr. Wayne's car. If this gets it ruined or stolen in any way, you're paying for it" "…Duly noted" Terry rolled his eyes at the gaunt boy next to him, perched on the very edge of his seat, seatbelt taught around his waist, looking out of the windshield with wide and searching eyes. Terry sighed as Ghoul pointed out a few more turns and they ended up in Hacker territory. Huh. "You socialized with more than Jokerz, then?" Ghoul looked at Terry with a 'are you pretending, or are you really that dumb?' look and nodded for Terry to pull up into one of the dilapidated parking lots. Ghoul had the belt unbuckled and was halfway out of the car before Terry had fully braked. "HEY!" Terry unbuckled his own seatbelt and lunged, grabbing Ghoul's wrist and pulling him back into the car. Ghoul gritted his teeth in annoyance. "What? I wasn't trying to run away, you've got a car! You'd run me down before I got twenty feet" Terry raised an eyebrow. "You know this area of the city far better than I do. You'd lose me" Ghoul sighed theatrically and shook his wrist free of Terry's hand. "My, so you do have a brain. I owe someone forty dollars and six internet codes" "Who do you owe?" Ghoul turned around and looked at Terry with a leer. "I said someone for a reason. Though I think it's a she. Another hacker going by the name '0rAclE', she said, and I quote 'Terry isn't a stupid ignoramic monkey, his test scores are too high'"
The black-haired teen rolled his eyes, a bit affronted. "You called me a stupid ignoramic monkey?" Ghoul leaned into the backseat and pulled out the bag he'd brought with him, which, when Terry had peeked into it, was full of jump-drives. "Not the point. The point is, you're not as stupid as you appear" The blond got fully out of the car and slammed the door shut, waiting for Terry to come around to his side before heading to one of the buildings. "That sort of is the point…hey, where are we going?" Ghoul gritted his teeth. He was going to have to deal with this insufferable moron today? For more than an hour? The guy who couldn't keep his fists to himself? It was going to be a long day…
"we're going to a code convention-a sort of festival, kind of. Anyway, this one has new games made by fellow computer nerds so while I'm trading info and hacks and codes-" He held up the bag and Terry understood that each of those jump-drives held special information that was probably getting traded similar to Creds. "While I'm dealing, you can play the games" Terry tilted his head. "And if you give me the slip while I'm playing these home-made or bootleg games?" Ghoul faltered slightly in his step and Terry snorted. Busted. "Look, Commissioner Gordon gave me handcuffs and I'm not against handcuffing us together to keep you from running Ghoul" the blond looked up at the sky and muttered what sounded suspiciously like 'It's like being babysat by a toddler'. Terry promised himself he was getting the rich-boy back for that comment later. They both sighed silently. It was going to be a long day.
Terry fidgeted with boredom and the urge to go and change into his Batsuit and arrest every one of these pasty techno-freaks. Though if he did, there was the problem of not catching them all, and he knew with a cold certainty that Ghoul would probably be one of the ones that got away. The goth in question looked over his shoulder at Terry as his transaction ended and on a whim decided to have mercy on his 'babysitter' who looked decidedly out of place in his surroundings. Ghoul collected his 'purchase'-a new hack and blueprints into one of the WaynePowers facilities and pulled on Terry's coat, yanking the black-haired teen in the direction of the games. Terry made an interesting squawking noise, but quickly caught on and followed Ghoul.
Ghoul looked at the games with detached interest as Terry beside him gawked. The games ranged from homebrews like 'Booster Gold and Doctor Who: Ultimate Timeline Smackdown' and 'My Little Massacre: Revenge of Pinkamina' to direct lifts from military programs that were modded for civilian use. "Hey. Are these legal?" Ghoul almost facepalmed at the question. For someone who acted so jaded, Terry was heartbreakingly naïve. "No, most of these are not legal. Half of these guys are going to most likely end up in prison in the next three months because of these games shut down or confiscated. However," Ghoul grinned and wagged a finger in Terry's shocked face. "That doesn't mean we can't chat up the vendors and enjoy the games right now" Terry gave a wry and slightly disbelieving smile at what he was doing as Ghoul pulled him over to one of the military lifted games.
"So, what am I looking at?" Ghoul eyed the game critically as the skinny kid with a bowler-cut (that apparently Terry knew) stumbled over himself to explain. Ghoul grimaced as he couldn't understand the half-mumbled and stuttered words and looked over at Terry, who was glaring daggers into the kid. "Would you calm down? Whatever he's done to you, he's not doing it now. I want to know more about this" Terry closed his eyes and looked away as Ghoul went back to-the nametag said 'Willie Watt'. Watt gave him a thankful look and nodded at his game proudly. "I took it from a training facility near Battery City; the program is a state-of-the-art. Designed to train and heighten reflexes and dexterity" Willie leaned forward with a devious grin on his face. "I heard it was designed for the new Batman" That got Terry's attention then. He pulled out the Creds needed to try the game (six Creds or four mechasuit hacks) "Hook me up" Ghoul blinked, surprised, but grinned and pulled out the hacks needed. "Make that both of us"
Terry looked around nervously with the helmet and the gloves on. There were also cloth booties he and Ghoul had had to put on, but they weren't really noticeable so he ignored them and looked at the virtual world through the helmet lense. He didn't like Willie at the best of times, the telekinetic had almost killed him (both as Terry and as Batman) a few different times, and had destroyed plenty of property when he was annoyed, which was often, but he had to hand it to the kid; this bootleg version of a training simulator he had yet to receive was pretty cool, maybe he could convince the old man to use this version and not the most likely sterile and not video-game like official program. The virtual world was what appeared to be a dystopic area of floating buildings, islands, and 'monsters'. He looked down at his avatar's outfit-a sort of Japanese-y tunic and leggings in black and red. There were other elements to his outfit he couldn't really identify, but he had a feeling it was some sort of soldier wear. He could only assume he looked like something from one of the old non-4D virtual reality games as when he looked at Ghoul, the goth looked like his old self, the tattered orange and black, mixed with some sort of freedom fighter gear.
In real life, Terry knew he was on a sort of treadmill, though it was long enough for him to jump and do a roll if he needed. It was a crude version of his own training room in the Batcave. Someone unseen tapped his helmet and Terry reacted by batting at the unseen hand. The perpetrator laughed. "Right, they're working. Okay, goal is receive no damage while you're running, don't stop till you reach the goal. It's a sakura tree with a red lantern on the branch. Story: you're fugitives from the law of Neo Gothica City. Blondie, you're a rebel and information techie of the Clown Syndicate, McGinnis, you're a rogue cop on the run after the city you fought to protect turned on you. You're both on the run and decided to team up to reach safety" Terry could almost hear Ghoul roll his eyes as he responded dryly. "Come up with that just now, did you? Story needs work, but I commend you on the spur of the moment story-telling skills" Terry turned his head to Ghoul. "Um, I wouldn't annoy him; he's got control of the difficulty level" he could also mention the explosive temper and the telekinesis, but as Terry was already trusting Willie this much, mentioning that would probably be stupid and a moot point.
Music started-Terry didn't know who it was, but it was from an old band-and they began running. Terry smiled grimly half a minute into it. Yea, typical Bruce, getting the most back-breakingly difficult program he could find to subject Terry to in his never-ceasing efforts to create the perfect Batman Gotham needed. No matter what flew at you, you had to make sure you were still moving forward. Dodge, duck, roll, jump, but don't stop, keep going. It was exhausting.
"I always knew I'd never reach perfection,
And if I did I wasn't trying hard enough"
Huh…he'd have to get the old man to listen to this song; maybe he'd get a hint and let up. Though Terry doubted it, it couldn't hurt to try… "Watch out" He flinched reflexively at the warning and almost didn't dodge the 'planet' he had to roll under to avoid. Terry risked a glance at Ghoul, who was a bit behind him, and obviously out of breath, but not doing too bad. "Thanks" He looked forward again and grinned grimly as he saw the sakura tree in the distance. A last dash and he reached it, Ghoul getting there a few seconds after him, with damage. Terry grinned. "Looks like I win" Ghoul scowled as they took off their helmets. "It wasn't a fucking competition!" Terry gave him a 'oh really' look and gave Willie his equipment back, Ghoul following suit and growling softly under his breath. After a few minutes of them walking, he groaned and began heading for the exit. Terry double-checked and hurried to catch up with him. "Hey! What's up?" Ghoul rubbed his temple. "Unless you want to get arrested, we're leaving" Terry saved the rest of his questions for when they got in the car.
They pulled out of the garage and were on the street when two police cars went whizzing by. Terry blinked and looked at Ghoul. "Um, how did you know the cops were coming?" If this was sixth sense, he'd never showed it in any of their encounters when Terry was Batman. And if he was developing a psychic ability, the old man was going to hound Terry until he'd found the reason. Ghoul rolled his eyes and leaned back in his seat. "I noticed some twips were hacking into the police mainframe, creating a game out of it. Total morons, the way they were going at it, of course the cops were going to get alerted to it. The commishioner, the one you seem to be acquainted with-" "Hey, she's Wayne's ex. Of course I'll know her. She comes over to make sure the old man hasn't died" Ghoul gave a nod to indicate he was filing that away for later and continued. "The lady's a fucking whiz at computers. Not as good as I am, but she's good. Unless it's one of the better hackers-and those two weren't, she'll catch them" Terry smirked as he focused on the road. "Would you be able to pull off a hack under Gordon's nose?" Ghoul grinned like the cat who got the mouse, cream, and fucking canary in one fell swoop. "I've done it twice to break some Jokerz out of jail. They thought it was an electrical bug, too bad they seemed to have wised up to it by the time I got there though…" He stared moodily at the ground and Terry shrugged. "I don't think they wised up to it, besides Gordon, Gotham's finest should be called Gotham's specials" that got a snort of laughter from the ex-criminal. "They probably figured that a hacker and a computer together would be a bad idea" another dry chuckle, and Terry smiled slightly.
They sat in silence until Terry pulled into the drive of Ghoul's home. The skinny teen got out and looked shrewdly over at Terry. "This doesn't make us friends" Terry blinked, then rolled his eyes. "Yea, I know. You're the prince of paranoia, but you're not weasling out of next week" Ghoul narrowed his eyes slightly. "What are we doing next week?" at this point Terry became extremely animated, leaning over and slamming the door closed, revving the engines and grinning at Ghoul. "You're coming to a fair hosted by my high school with me and a few friends next week. Okay, gotta go by-see ya~!" Ghoul stared dumbstruck as Terry peeled out of the driveway, and then grumbled as he made his way up the steps and into the house. Stupid black-haired teen. Although, he'd be lying if he said he wasn't at least a little pleased. Another excuse to get away from his house and constant monitoring of his parents. Yes!
Terry looked anywhere but the cold blue eyes boring into his soul. "You took a hacker to a convention for hackers, and were almost caught by the police" Terry grimaced. "Okay, in my defense, I didn't know where he was taking me" "So you follow like a sheep. If he gave you directions to take the car off a cliff, would you have followed without question?" Terry swallowed. "Well, no…" Bruce Wayne was out of the chair and staring Terry down in less than a minute. "Have you forgotten who he is?! WHAT he is?! What he's done?! And don't tell me he's changed, Terry! It's too soon for that!" Terry bowed under the tirade, until finally snapping and looking up angrily. "Look, I won't make that mistake again, okay?! I know it's too soon for him to change! I won't make the same mistake!" He glared at Bruce, who didn't look surprised, just calculating, and stormed up the stairs. For the moment, he was done with the old man. But, he would take his words to heart. He wasn't going to be so trusting with Ghoul again.