Focus Testing (Closed)

Participants: Barbara Gordon and Dinah Lance
Open/Closed: Closed
Location(s): Birds of Prey HQ, Kord Tower, Gotham City
Time of Day: Mid-afternoon
Weather: Overcast
Summary: A narrative summary of the setting and intents of the thread. If you have any specific desires for the thread as the creator, mention them here.

The training room on premises was, admittedly, not very large. Barbara only had so large a footprint to work with for the Birds of Prey since their most recent relocation, though. Occupying the uppermost floor of a sky needle limited some horizons. Still, it served its purpose. And it was insulated and defended to prevent people in the next room, let alone the civilian floors below, from knowing what went on in it.

That was a very, very important fact, just then.

Oracle sat on the other side of a clear viewing panel - the same kind the Batmobile and Watchtower used, in terms of durability - and adjusted a few settings on the tablet she held in her lap. On the other side of it, a blonde lounged, being a much better sport about the task at hand than Zinda or Helena would've been. The former would've unintentionally derailed things with her special grand of chaos; the latter would've intentionally derailed things with her brand.

"All right. Scanners prepped. Give me your average note." Placed on a pedestal in front of Dinah in the training room was an assuming earpiece. The latest prototype that Babs and Savant had been tinkering with for the Birds of Prey to use. The precise function being assessed in that moment was a new one that'd been Creote's idea: the ability for the communiques to switch over to protect the wearer's eardrums when Dinah let out a Canary Cry.

No more friendly fire... To a degree... Barbara hoped...

Dinah lounged against the wall beyond the viewing panel, slouched against the insulating material that covered the small space, hands pushed deep into the pockets of her tattered black jeans. Beyond the resilient glass, Barbara made a few last minute checks, tapping away at the tablet seated in her lap – the device as much a part of Oracle as heavy, black boots were the Canary. Occasionally, the blonde’s gaze flicked to the earpiece situated in the middle of the room, positioned atop a clear pedestal as if it were a microphone in a recording studio, though it was infinitely smaller. And hopefully, infinitely more resilient.

That’s what the testing hoped to prove, at any rate.

The Black Canary reserved utilising her Cry for the direst of circumstances. Its potency was undeniable – she could shatter glass, hurl people from their feet and burst eardrums. It was an incredibly effective weapon, capable of turning the tide when situations were getting quickly out of hand. It also proved an excellent way to cause her allies – those on the other end of any open line of communication – long lasting and aggressive bouts of tinnitus.

It was with this in mind that Barbara, Creote and Savant had been tinkering for weeks over a new prototype – the unassuming earpiece in the middle of the room – which was meant to pick up the frequency of Dinah’s screams and instantly cut off direct communique with the Black Canary, thus protecting the user’s eardrums from potential rupture.

All that was left was to put the device through rigorous paces.

‘All right. Scanners prepped. Give me your average note.’
Dinah slowly pushed herself into a standing position with her elbows, sauntering toward the ear piece. She stopped a few feet away. “Middle C, right?” The 'C', in this case, stood for Cry. She hummed, warming up her vocals, before taking a deep breath, filling her lungs with air. Then she screamed – not at full volume, but still a high-pitched, ringing sound that would have easily caused any listening in to grab at their ears and collapse to their knees.

She held the note for a good few seconds, before letting it die, looking at Barbara with raised brows, her head tilted. “How did I sound?”

Barbara Gordon

All the long years of their friendship, and Barbara was still consistently impressed at how smug Dinah could seem just standing there. And not the grating, aloof, arrogant way that Helena had struggled with for the longest time (still did, just a lot less). Somehow, Dinah's translated as self-confidence; trust in her own hyper-competence. It was one of many traits that made the Black Canary so magnetic, and kept anyone from questioning why she was one of the figureheads of the Justice League.

Babs pressed her lips together to fend off a smile, watching Dinah drift closer to the center of the room like she had all the time in the world. The middle C joke didn't earn the blonde a comment from Oracle, but she did give an exasperated sort of look that conveyed a sarcastic "you're hilarious" without any need for speech. Babs watched Dinah's chest expand with her inhale and her eyes darted back to the tablet.

The clear panel in front of her hummed slightly, the only clear indicator of what was going on on its other side. Barbara watched the readings that were being registered, needlessly memorizing them, since they were being recorded and catalogued for reference. Babs looked up in the last few seconds of Dinah's Cry, seeing the air waver with the sonic force.

"Perfect pitch as always," she answered, when Dinah had finished. Her fingers tapped and slid over the tablet. "So far so good on this end. The noise cancelation is keeping up. Try a little more punch. Not one of your Fat Ladies, though. Not yet." Oracle smirked wryly. To be frank, she wasn't sure if the little training room, for all of its insulation and advanced barriers, could withstand the devastation of Black Canary's shrillest note.

Dinah Lance

Upon finishing her scream, Dinah’s eyes instantly flicked to Barbara. If the ear-piece failed, it was her closest friend that risked suffering the deafening repercussions, and while she had the utmost faith in the technology Oracle employed, logic was, in this case, overcome with care, wishing the best for a woman that she considered family. When she casually suggested the shriek had been ‘pitch perfect’, any mild concern evaporated, and Dinah winked playfully.

While Babs recalibrated whatever computer programs ran on the electronic slate in front of her, Dinah leant into the ear-piece, examining it with raised brows. Small and sleek, it looked like most of the technology Gordon employed, baring definite hallmarks of the ‘Bat’. She resisted the urge to raise a finger and tap at it – not wanting to risk the quality of results.

‘Try a little more punch. Not one of your Fat Ladies, though. Not yet.’

Glancing back to the red-head, the Canary nodded. “Got it. I’ll aim for something between glass-shattering and people-flooring.” Adjusting her stance, giving herself a wider base, Dinah took another deep breath. Then, focusing on the earpiece, she cried, judging the strength of her shriek by the amount of ‘wobble’ the device-bearing plinth suffered.

She held her note for longer than the first, and when she finally fell quiet, dropping the sustained sound, she raised a hand to massage her throat tentatively. “This thing doesn’t double up as water cooler, right?” Depending on how many more cries Oracle needed, Dinah was likely to need a drink sooner rather than later.

Barbara Gordon

Again, Babs watched the spread of readings running through her tablet during Dinah's test. The pane in front of her hummed a bit louder, but otherwise there were no clear indicators of what was going on in that test room. Oracle's keen blue eyes narrowed at one of the thresholds of data dipping into the red on her knee. By the time Dinah was done, quipping and kneading her throat, Barbara was already at the door.

Air hissed around the panel, unsealing it, and the thing slid open by itself. Barbara moved into the little test booth, shaking her head and grimacing a little bit. "You're in luck. That's all we'll be able to do today." Oracle reached up and plucked the communicator off of its pedestal. She turned it over in her fingers, looking for any cosmetic damage.

The gadget had held up extremely well - beyond projections, even - in all categories but one. Babs and Savant were going to have to tackle it from a different angle to make progress on that single front. Oracle tucked the object in a pant pocket and turned her chair, headed back to the door, which opened again at her approach. "Wanna chat? Or we can find someone for you to beat on in the area. Either way."

Dinah Lance

Air hissed about the screen that separated Dinah from Barbara, and it slid open unaided, allowing Oracle access to the testing booth. She moved directly to where the ear piece sat upon the raised plinth, eyeing it critically, before suggesting they were finished putting the communicator through its paces for the day. “It lasted two cries, which is more than I can say for most things.” It might have sounded as though the Canary was trying to comfort her friend, but Barbara knew her well enough to understand that wasn’t the case. Dinah Lance was impressed – plain and simple.

Plucking the device from its perch, Barbara scanned it over for cosmetic damage, before pocketing it and leading Dinah from the room. As they exited, she suggested two rather different activities, both of which happened to rank amongst Dinah’s favourites. Grinning over at her red-haired friend, she nudged her gently. “Why limit ourselves? We can do both.” After all, Barbara could multi-task better than anyone the Black Canary had ever known.

Heading toward a nearby desk chair, Dinah dropped into it, sliding across the ground until she came to a halt at her friend’s computer, the screens of which took up most of the wall. Propping her chin up on her hand, she grinned. “So, how are things going with the Bats?” By which she meant, ‘How are things going with Dick Grayson?’ She was certain Babs would pick up on the implied query, and if she didn’t she was more than happy to clarify.

Barbara Gordon