The Gotham Police Department had left not long after detaining Justin for questioning, an arrest carried out right in front of nearly the entire class.
Ethan wasn’t the sort to dwell on petty victories, but he couldn’t help feeling a small flicker of satisfaction at the sight of Justin’s eyes watering as the two detectives marched him out of Gotham Academy.
After that, the rest of the afternoon passed with little incident, save for the constant undercurrent of gossip.
Every group of students seemed to be whispering about what they had seen, adding new layers of exaggeration with each retelling.
Ethan, however, barely heard any of it.
His mind was fixed on his earlier conversation with the detectives.
It was strange, the way they were operating, especially for someone like Creedence.
This wasn’t just a routine homicide investigation.
Barely a day after the man’s death, they already had suspects, leads, and were actively working them.
That kind of efficiency wasn’t typical for some low life drug dealer.
It was possible they were just model detectives, doing everything by the book.
But far more likely, Creedence was more important than he appeared.
‘They implied they could protect me if I cooperated,’ Ethan thought, tapping his pen against his notepad.
But that could mean different things.
A lighter sentence was one option.
Protection from retribution was another option, assuming Creedence had people who might want to settle the score.
Possible gang affiliation?
It would make sense.
No one sold in Gotham without being under someone’s umbrella.
The Cosa Nostra controlled the East End, but that still left the question of which of the five families Creedence belonged to, and that was assuming he was operating with permission.
It was always possible he was part of a rival gang pushing into another territory.
‘Speculation is a waste of time.’ He needed Creedence’s address.
The problem was, he didn’t know anyone who had been close to the man, he didn’t even know his name until the detectives had told him.
He didn’t know which gang he belonged to, and he couldn’t even be sure he lived in the East End.
It was possible he could set up a facial recognition software and run it through the city’s camera network when he eventually accessed the servers to erase his own trail, but that would take too long.
He needed something faster.
The bell for the last class rang, pulling him from his thoughts.
Students began gathering their things as they excitedly got ready to go home or to their various clubs.
“Hey, Ethan, are you coming to the club room?” a voice called from behind him.
He turned to see Barbara Gordon, smiling brightly at him.
Barbara Gordon, daughter of the Police Commissioner.
Ethan felt the corners of his mouth lift, the expression forming almost without thought.
She mistook it for a smile meant for her, and her own cheeks colored faintly.
“Yeah, let’s go,” Ethan said, slipping his books into his bag and standing up.
“Right…” Barbara replied, her blush deepening slightly.
They walked down the corridor together.
Ethan kept his pace just behind her, letting her lead the way, while his mind turned over the problem in a new light.
With her father being the Commissioner, it was almost certain that his home computer setup had secure access to the GCPD database.
If Ethan could get to that machine, it would be a simple matter to search for Creedence’s address directly.
All he needed was an excuse to be invited to her house.
That was the real obstacle.
While they’d known each other in passing for a few years, they’d only begun speaking properly over the last couple of days.
He wasn’t sure how to go about forming that kind of relationship, he wasn’t sure how to form any kind of relationship.
The only friend he had was Artemis and even then he wasn’t sure how that happened.
This would require planning something that felt natural enough to avoid suspicion but specific enough to get him where he needed to be.
Barbara unlocked the club room door, and they stepped inside together.
“I was thinking, since we worked on my project yesterday, we could do one of yours today, if you have one,” Barbara said, turning toward him as she set her bag down beside one of the desks.
Ethan gave a small nod.
He didn’t exactly have a prepared project, but an idea was already forming in his head.
The only real thing he’d been working on outside of the lab was a half-finished drone, but that was more for passing the time.
This, however, could be something far more useful.
If he was going to be more active in certain…
activities…
he would need to stay ahead of surveillance.
Cameras were everywhere in Gotham.
Avoiding them was possible, but avoiding them without being obvious about it was much harder.
He could think of a relatively simple device—something that emitted a narrow-band interference signal targeted at the CCD and CMOS sensors used in most digital surveillance systems.
The signal wouldn’t disable the camera, but it would create a consistent, localized blur or distortion in the area immediately around him.
With enough fine-tuning, it could even modulate its frequency so it didn’t trip automated tamper alerts.
That would be enough for one function.
But he could build in a second, with only a little bit more tinkering.
According to Dr.
Eduardo Dorado’s research, metahumans emitted a faint, unique form of bioelectrical energy—it was subtle, barely distinguishable from background noise, but measurable with the right sensitivity. New chapters come out on novelping dot com first.
Ethan already had detailed readings on his own metagene, so building a short-range directional scanner capable of picking up similar signatures was plausible.
It wouldn’t detect someone across the city, but within thirty or forty meters?
It was possible, and perhaps he could extend the distance later.
How to explain this to a Barbara…
The first function could be passed off as a test-bed for exotic particle interference on camera sensors.
The second could be disguised as an attempt to detect “exotic matter emissions” in an urban environment.
Perfectly harmless-sounding for a science club experiment.
He looked up at Barbara.
“I’ve got something in mind,” he said.
“I was thinking about building a small device to scan for exotic matter, or at least, phenomenon that shouldn’t naturally be present in an urban area.
The sensors would be short-range, so the idea would be to test them around the city and see if we can pick up anomalies.
It’ll need a portable power system and a custom receiver module, so we’d have to fabricate most of it ourselves.”
Barbara’s expression brightened as he spoke, her head tilting slightly as she listened.
She nodded along, clearly interested.
“That…
actually sounds fun,” she said with a bright smile.
“Way better than rocket boots at least…” Barbara tilted her head slightly.
“Where’d you even get the idea for this?
And do you already have the schematics?”
“I just came up with it,” Ethan replied without hesitation.
He set his bag on the table, unzipped it, and pulled out a spiral notebook and a mechanical pencil.
Without any further explanation, he began sketching shapes and component layouts.
Barbara found herself watching him closely, her eyes fixed on the way his hand moved over the page.
She could feel her cheeks getting warm, but she didn’t look away.
Ethan didn’t seem to notice, his focus was locked entirely on the diagrams.
It wasn’t until he suddenly looked up and asked, “What materials do we have on hand?” that she snapped out of it.
He then held up a piece of paper with the different materials that the device would need.
“Uh—uhm,” Barbara stammered, startled by how intently she’d been staring and feeling a little embarrassed.
She cleared her throat and looked at the list.
“We have a couple of R+ Pi boards, an Arduino Mega, micro-servos, a set of LiPo batteries, heat sinks, old camera lenses from a disassembly project, basic resistors, capacitors, some RF modules, and a box of miscellaneous sensors I’m not sure about the rest, though we do have quite a lot of raw materials.”
Ethan paused mid-sketch, then methodically crossed out certain parts of his design.
He started adjusting the schematic to compensate for what they didn’t have—substituting the Arduino in place of a custom PCB, swapping the ideal frequency-tuned transmitter for the RF module, reworking the power system around the LiPo batteries.
Barbara leaned over to look at the page, her hair brushing lightly against his shoulder.
“Mmm,” she hummed thoughtfully.
“That’s clever, changing the RF setup to dual-purpose.
You could actually route the sensor feedback through the same channel to reduce wiring.”
Ethan glanced at her.
“You’re right…”
“And maybe,” she added, “replace the lens housing with one of the old phone camera mounts.
It’ll be smaller and more compact.”
He studied the note, then gave a small nod.
“Yes, it would provide more space for an amplifier.” He went about to making the corrections while Barbara watched him.
“This is really good, Ethan,” Barbara said, smiling at the layout.
“It’s hard to believe you just thought of it.”
Ethan gave a small shrug and went back to work.
Once the design was roughed out, he stood and headed to the large storage room across the club room.
He turned the handle, but it didn’t budge.
“Oh, sorry,” Barbara said quickly, walking over and joining him.
“We keep it locked when it’s not in use.
Too many expensive parts in there.” She pulled a small key from her pocket and unlocked the door.
“Probably a good thing, too, since the science lab door broke last night.”
They stepped inside together, scanning shelves filled with neatly labeled bins and stacked equipment.
They collected the components they needed, placing each on a tray.
As they worked, Barbara glanced at the 3D printer in the corner.
“You know, we could print the base casing for this.
That way, we can get the hardware fitted perfectly without having to build a frame from scratch.”
Ethan nodded.
“Agreed.”
They set up at the main table and began building.
Ethan’s plan to get closer to her was nagging at him, he knew he had to do something but he didn’t know what—he wasn’t good at social interaction, on any level deeper than the surface.
Ethan tried conversation and found himself asking what he found were the most logician questions questions.
“Do you always stay for science club?”
“Most days,” Barbara said, smoothing filament across the printer’s feed.
“It keeps me from climbing the walls at home.
I like fixing things.
My uncle got me into soldering when I was little.
I fried a motherboard once trying to overclock it and learned a lot about smoke detectors…”
Ethan nodded.
“You must have a good base in coding?”
“Yeah.
Python for most of it, C when I care about speed, a little Rust when I hate myself,” she said, laughing.
“I did a summer course in embedded systems.”
“I see,” Ethan said.
Barbara then looked up at Ethan.
“What about you, what do you do out of school?”
“I build small things.
Drones.
Tools.
Some other stuff.”
“What do you do on weekends?” she asked, curious.
“I stay in,” he said.
“I workout.
I cook.
I study.”
She glanced at him.
“Any siblings?”
“No.”
“Favorite class?”
“Math.
And chemistry,” he said after a beat.
“Favorite food?”
“Rice and eggs,” he said.
“It is easy to make.”
She smiled at that, then filled the space again without making it feel forced.
She told him about a robotics competition she wanted to enter next term, about trying to decide between Gotham U and an out-of-state program if she got in, Hours passed, the two of them soldering, assembling, and testing.
By the time they had the main body and hardware complete, the clock on the wall showed just past six.
Barbara rubbed her forehead and gave a satisfied smile.
“We made good progress today.”
Ethan, however, frowned faintly.
“What’s wrong?” she asked.
“I was hoping to finish the device today,” he said.
Barbara gave a small, understanding nod.
“Me too.
But the academy will be closing soon.
They’ll probably ask us to leave.”
“I know we could finish it if we had just a few more hours,” Ethan said, brushing his hair back with one hand.
Barbara’s heart skipped at the word we.
In her mind, it meant he wanted her there with him to complete it.
She felt a sudden, nervous rush, a flutter in her body.
“W-we could…
um, if it’s not too forward, we could go to my house,” she said quickly.
“I’ve got a workshop in my garage.
It’s got enough equipment to get this finished, we only need to program it right?”
Ethan looked at her with a thoughtful expression.
To Barbara, it seemed like he was weighing whether to turn her down.
In reality, he was stunned.
He’d been close to giving up on finding a way to get an invitation; ready to write it off as a puzzle he couldn’t solve, and now she had handed it to him.
He was still unsure why she’d offered, but he wasn’t going to reject it.
“That sounds like a good idea,” he said, already beginning to pack away tools and materials.
Barbara was caught between shock, excitement, and nervousness.
She opened her mouth to speak, but the words didn’t come.
“Let’s go,” Ethan said, breaking the pause.
(AN: Ethan already coming up with a way to track Metas and bullshitting Barbara who might’ve seen through it if she wasn’t simping.
Anyway hope you enjoyed.)
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