fluxscape | closed; It's not like I'm walking alone into the valley of the shadow of death

What; Just a guy who was hired to salvage turning in his haul...at first
Where; Wayne "Manor"
6/3; Evening
Warnings; None now, will update as needed.

Odd jobs, something Biggs was much more familiar with than the steady 9-5 at the repair shop. He didn't dislike the job there, far from it, but it was...weird. It gave this already surreal situation a dream-like feel he longed to escape from.

Either that, or the heat of the days was getting to him more than he cared to admit. How this planet survived with the meager resources it was able to produce with two suns scorching overhead was beyond him. He wasn't an idiot, not by a long shot, but that sort of science was beyond him. Maybe the plants here needed less shade or something. Granted, aside from the suspiciously unscathed interiors of any buildings that came with them, this place had seen better days, decades ago by the look of it. Unlike Midgar, a place of refuse from the upper crust above, Haven seemed more like a neglected tooth, rotting and forgotten.

It made him uneasy, all the perfect interiors and stocked cabinets in their apartments when all these people were struggling. No wonder they hated them. When the call came from Bruce he jumped on the opportunity. It gave him the chance to see how these people used to live before whoever left them here abandoned them to this fate. He'd spent the majority of his time filtering through an old electronics store today. You could never have enough switches, diodes, or wiring, and it gave him the chance to fill the saddlebags of his bike for himself while he collected what Bruce had requested.

The suns were setting as he pulled up in front of Bruce's home, and he shot a quick text to the man as he rolled to a stop, slinging a filled rucksack meant for his temporary client over his shoulder.

un; justbiggs: incoming

He headed toward the drop-off point, fully expecting to just get his money and go. Bruce was a busy guy, after all.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

For his part, Biggs didn't really understand the breadth of what he was signing up for. It wouldn't be the first clandestine organization he'd been affiliated with, but he also wasn't expecting it. Bruce was clearly not on the same level as him, he could hear it in the way the man talked, carried himself. He was used to being in charge.

That suited Biggs just fine. He was able to fund his little side-project of putting a watch together by doing odd jobs, and Bruce got to do...whatever it was he wanted to do with these electronic components. He'd be lying if he said he wasn't curious what that was, but that was Bruce's story to tell.

He waved to return the greeting, swinging off his bike hoisting the rucksack on his back. "Bruce. I got a lot of toys, well, pieces of them, anyway."

"That's a good enough starting point as any." He nodded behind him to the house. As Biggs approached, he rolled his sleeves on his shirt up. "How good are you at working in caves?"

Well, that wasn't ominous or anything.

It had been some time since he built a cave from scratch. Twenty years, in fact. Instead it had been constantly upgraded and improved on. This was from scratch with whatever they could find of realities going forward. Something of a project for everyone to pitch in on, even if they didn't realize it.

"I left my spelunking gear in my other bag." While the joke was sincere enough, he frowned slightly at the implication while he followed Bruce.

"Is that code for something?"

A smirk barely cracked the hardened exterior of Bruce Wayne's face, but, it was still more than most people had received as of late. At least the joke was a good one. Generally his tended to fall flat unless they were trying to make an entire party room filled with rich self-serving people laugh.

"No," Bruce clarified as he motioned for Biggs to follow him. "I mean a real cave. Specifically one that is underneath the rock face here."

"I've done a lot of work underground, sure." At first what had begun as a simple mission was quickly becoming something else entirely and he wasn't sure how much he should say.

"Is there a lot of call for cave work around here?"

That was the normal pace with working with the one and only Bruce Wayne. He had a habit of presenting something at face value only to show what it really was underneath. How else could he keep being a vigilante in Gotham for twenty years? Not that Biggs was aware of that.

"Just from me." Bruce began to lead the way. They'd go in the obvious exit, not the one he found in his house. "It's a project I've been dancing around ever since we came to Haven. I figure it's a good enough place as any to set a base of operations up in."

"I guess there aren't many people who'd think of looking in a cave for a hideout if they aren't looking for smugglers, sure." He followed along dutifully, because he was curious and because he had no idea where he was going, but it was obviously somewhere specific.

"And what is this project exactly?"

He smirked at the analogy. Biggs wasn't wrong about that. Thankfully, no one had come poking around in the Cave just yet. Maybe that was because he found the location and schematics in the house he called home. Which meant, of course, someone larger at play was fully aware of his plans already. That or maybe some cosmic entity thought subconscious manipulation was funny.

Bruce was betting on the latter if anyone was curious.

"For now? It's going to be a base to store information in. Maybe even set up our own network down the line if I can secure the right things for it." Bruce shrugged slightly as he started his way down the path on the cliff face. "Namely if I could get it running back door on the phones as we have them. Otherwise, it'll be a place that we can keep an eye on things."

He crossed his arms, not commenting immediately on the information but giving a look around the place, instead. It was close by, accessible, but there was something about it that just made the whole business seem really convenient, contrived. It made the hairs on the back of his neck stand up.

"If you want to set up our own network, making it from scratch is going to be the most secure." He turned to the other man, though, looking thoughtful. "This is the only cave complex I've seen around here."

He nodded in agreement to both statements. "Scratch is going to take awhile, but, I'm invested in the long haul if others are. There might be some caves further out beyond the city boundaries, but, I've yet to find another here. Trust me. I've been combing the area through to find whatever I can that might be unwanted."

Which was to say he still didn't trust the place entirely. Just a little.

"I kind of get the impression most of this place is unwanted, at least by someone." He looked around at the structure. It was even, and he moved to a cave wall, rapping his knuckles on the stone. "Sturdy and dense. Signals are going to have a hard time penetrating it. That's a good thing."

"I don't like the idea of someone being able to pluck us out of our realities and drop us somewhere else on a whim." Bruce stated plainly, even if Biggs wasn't necessarily referring to him. It was best to discuss and set up ground rules.

He nodded in agreement. "Outgoing signals might be difficult if we're trying to keep things off the network grid."

Biggs nodded at that. "That we can agree on."

He looked thoughtful for a moment. "If we keep the servers here, sure. What guarantee do we have that everything we do down here will come with us?"

"None. Which is probably why we should keep as little as possible down here for now. The basics; things we can remake." He looked back to Biggs. "It's a good point."

There was the possibility that they wouldn't have any of this when they went to the next reality. Better to make a mock frame and see what transferred over with them. If it does? Then they can move forward.

"I try to have those occasionally." He smirked, crossing his arms. "Okay, so, maybe we start small: surveillance relay and a few cameras, something we can use to monitor the wall, maybe, and see one, how that takes, and two, how it stays."

A nod. "Entrance at the front of the cave and the potential work area? Unless you have a better idea of where to put them."

Bruce turned his head up and gestured to the ceiling. He could find a way to run a line through it. "We won't be out too much if it doesn't come with us."

He shook his head. "Something easily replaceable is probably best."

He looked thoughtful for a moment. "Yeah, I think we can pull this off. I bet there's surveillance equipment laying around the mall, too."

closed; It's not like I'm walking alone into the valley of the shadow of death

never too late

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