File Stealing

Part One

The first hint that there was a problem was when a story which first appeared on the Internet was published in the National Enquirer detailing Britney’s latest stay in the hospital under a protective/suicide watch lockdown. There were details about what she was wearing, what she ate, who came to visit her and what the long turn prognosis might be. Everything was completely accurate.

There were complaints filed by her family, an investigation was launched by the hospital and four employees were fired and later sued for breach of privacy rules and violating their contacts and professional standards.

It was quickly forgotten.

A year or so later there was another similar story, this time in People, detailing Angelina’s latest birth experience. There were the phone numbers lifted from Paris’ lost phone and the details regarding the celebrity twins who were close to death after a medication mistake.

Personal matters were no longer private.

The leaks kept cropping up; an actress’s personal honeymoon photos on a blog, a shady politician caught with his girlfriend while his wife and family vacationed in Europe. It was an old game and anyone in the public eye knew—or should have known—that they were potential targets. It was wrong, it was unethical (like anyone cared) and it was possibly illegal but nothing was done to stop it, not really.

The Superhero community were targets as much as anyone but for a long time their heightened security and the fact that many of them actually did live clean lives prevented much from finding it’s way into the wrong hands. There was also an intimidation factor at work; would anyone in their right mind really want to risk pissing off Batman or Wonder Woman? There were rumors about some outrageous and occasional promiscuous behavior, sure, but proof—or at least incriminating pictures—those were in short supply and a lot of the paps strongly suspected that x-ray vision and super-speed had something to do with that. Of course, no one admitted anything.

There seemed to be an unspoken agreement—the celebrities were almost fair game but the heroes were semi-off limits, assuming they kept their noses relatively clean. Well, among the higher grade of scum reporters, anyway. And the younger ones, the sidekicks? Aside from the teen romance garbage stories, they were largely left alone.

For a while, anyway.

Then the first blurb appeared on one of the gossip blogs. “Rumors are flying—or roof-jumping—that one of our younger but more experienced crimebusters has been keeping himself busy all night long with more than arrests and may have found some interesting alternate uses for those Batcuffs he favors…how soon they grow up…”

There was no response from any member of the Batfamily and after a couple of days the story died a natural death.

It wasn’t too long, maybe a week or so, when another blog, this time backed up by a small blind item in the Star came up with a follow-up. “We’d lovelovelove to be a bat on the wall of one of our better built young heroes bedroom wall, but are afraid we’d get whiplash by trying to keep track of all the—ahem—workouts going on. Here’s hoping he’s not keeping track on the bedposts because we’d fear that many notches would weaken the structural integrity. But, hey, we agree he’s earned some ‘down’ time. Work hard, play hard—as hard and as often as possible, we say!”

There was no response.

Another few weeks went by with no real new gossip showing up on any of the usual sites or in the usual tabs. There were some of the old rumors about how close the original Titans were back when they were all together with all those teenaged hormones running rampart. But there was really nothing new and nothing they took any notice of. It was just business as usual.

“A little bird just told us that a former, no longer married (female) member of the Titans was seen at a local Rite-aid looking at the pregnancy tests and ended up buying three—just making extra sure? We can’t help but wonder who was waiting for those results with the dark-haired beauty.”

Again, it was ignored though Donna ranted to Dick on the phone and ended up in tears at the memories of her broken marriage and dead son. She was an adult and what she chose to do on her own time, and whom she chose to do it with was no one’s business. This was hitting too close to home and Dick was angry on her behalf, wishing there was something he could do but public figures gave up part of their rights of privacy. It didn’t seem right, but it was a fact. Besides, anyone can go into a store and anyone can talk about what they see there. But it was just so—invasive.

For himself, he didn’t care. He’d lived in the public eye all his life and his parents had taught him early not to pay any attention to garbage; in fact his father used to make a game out of it, laughing at the absurd headlines and giving them the small shrift they deserved. It had become an ingrained habit and his years with Bruce and ongoing reports about his lay of the week had just reinforced it; he never read the crap and if he heard about something anyway, he just shrugged it off.

“Now we know that sometimes we tend to focus on our subjects social life but we’ve become concerned—truly—with the physical side of things regarding our younger heroes. No, not that physical part, we’re talking about basic, run of the mill good health. Our little bird has some information which has us seriously worried about just how dangerous this crime-busting stuff can be. We’ve heard tell of numerous broken bones, multiple concussions and such exhaustion related symptoms as severe nightmares, and stress related problems we wouldn’t wish on the Joker. (Okay, maybe we’d wish them on the Joker…) We’re begging you, sweetbatbuns—take care of yourself, okay?”

Dick saw the blurb on his computer, part of an e-mail from Wally, and he was majorly annoyed by it. Could someone have cracked his personal medical records and sold them to some frigging gossip columnist? Okay, he knew his privacy was compromised but his sealed medical records? Nah, unlikely. It was just a lucky guess, a shot in the dark. The odds of someone actually getting ahold of his personal and heavily secured medical files were almost null.

Unless…Crap.

Okay, maybe someone was just taking a few lucky guesses, but maybe not.

The clincher came a few days later when Roy showed him the latest; ‘Honeybatbunny, you’ve got to take better care of yourself. We all know you have a killer bod, but it’s become a target for too many killers over the years. Three bullet wounds? Seven broken or fractured bones? Two concussions serious enough to have you in a private hospital for a few weeks? Too many sprains and torn muscles to count and a case of pneumonia that had you on a respirator last winter. Tales of torture at the hands of the world’s most hardened baddies? Birdboy—if we were your parents we’d send you up to your room, lock the door and throw away the key until you were old enough to make your own decisions about these things and had the sense not to listen to a grown man who dresses up like a…well, you know what he dresses up like. You be careful, you hear us?’

Christ, someone knew way the hell too much about things and he knew they hadn’t come by it legally. Sure, he could try to just catch whoever it was who was getting paid for this stuff, but maybe if he approached it from another angle…He had to do something about this so handled it the simplest way he could think of, he picked up the phone and made a call to the Editor-in-chief of the Star. Not too surprisingly he was put through immediately.

“Ms. Parker?”

“Yes, forgive me, but is this really Robin?”

“Yes it is. I assume you have caller ID? Check the number—I’m calling from my office at GCPD Headquarters. That should be easy enough to verify.”

“I’ll have an assistant do that while we talk, if you don’t mind. I assume you’re calling about the series of blind items we’ve run the last few weeks?”

“You have to know the danger you’re exposing me and my friends to by printing these things.”

The woman may have been publishing slime, but she wasn’t stupid. “Then you’re not issuing a denial?” Her secretary caught her attention through the glass wall dividing them, she was nodding and pointing to the phone—whoever the person on the other end of the line was, he was calling from Police Headquarters in Gotham.

“I’m not making any comment at all about what you’ve written; I’m pointing out a fact regarding the safety of myself and people who matter to me. You’re compromising what I do and I’d like to ask you to stop. I’d also like to point out that medical information is privileged. You’ve violated the law by buying or stealing that information and compounded it by printing it.”

The woman tried not to smile; the kid on the other end of the phone sounded so earnest that it made her picture Little League baseball games and small boys with dirty faces eating melting Popsicle’s on a hot summer day. It was kind of sweet, even if he was angry. “You have to know that you sell papers and that’s what we’re in business to do; you’re moving a lot of units for us. Newsstand sales are up almost fifty-thousand copies since we’ve been running the blind blurbs and put your picture on the cover.”

“You’re getting in the way of my job and that means that criminals are going free who should be behind bars.”

“Gotham has more cops than Orville Redenbacher has corn fields. They’ll manage.”

“Then you refuse to stop running the items?”

“I’m in business to make money for myself and my employers. I’m sure you understand. Is there anything else I can do for you today?”

“It would seem not. Goodbye.”

“Goodbye and feel free to call me anytime, Robin.”

 

* * *
 

The blind items continued over the course of several long months.

“We’ve a new worry about one of our younger heroes. It seems that our little bird hit the bull’s eye when we learned that one of the lads has a serious drug problem and no one seems to be doing anything about it. With any luck someone will open their eyes, bow to the inevitable and arrange a room in one of the better rehab centers ASAP. And we mean ASAP.”

A few weeks later another item appeared.

“Yet another little bird clued us in about our young drug dependant hero—it seems he has good friends, indeed. One of whom has taken the lad under his wing for some one on one, up close and personal cold turkey several months before Thanksgiving. We hope it takes. Whether they’re holed up in a cave or not, we wish them the best.”

There was still no comment from any of the hero groups but the items were getting more and more attention, raising eyebrows and being repeated on the evening news, the morning shows, the entertainment shows and the weekend report devoted solely to hero doings of the week. Finally, the JLA requested a meeting with the Teen Titans to see what, if anything, might be done.

“And yet one more thing for our young hot shot to be concerned about—it seems that several tests for several of the nastier strains of STD’s have come back positive, poor dear. We strongly suggest that he consider keeping it in his tights while he recovers, for the sake of everyone involved. What are they teaching kids nowadays?”

“Dick, do you know anything about this? Obviously this is Roy, but how the hell did it hit the media? Don’t you have any security in place for yourselves?”

Dick almost, but not quite, exploded at Bruce’s unfairness and naivete. How the hell did he think this stuff got out? Someone found it, probably illegally, stole it and sold it to the highest bidder. Talk about a no-brainer. And clearly the leaks were continuing since the crap they were printing was pretty up to date.

‘We’re thrilled to report that out strung out young hero has been taken under the wing of a close friend (no—not that close, kiddies!) and is now clean and drug free. We gather it was a rough two weeks or so and involved the need for new paint, furniture and window glass at their chosen hideaway, but all’s well that ends well. Here’s hoping that the boys keep their respective noses clean.’

“Where is all this information gathered? I mean, is it in one place, on one file or something along those lines?”

“It’s scattered in a few places, Clark. The stuff about our personal medical information is supposed to be on secured drives protected by just about every security system we could find. The stories about Roy and his going cold turkey isn’t anywhere on any of our hard drives.” Dick saw the disbelieving looks. “Okay, it may be on my personal journal on my laptop but I never connect that computer to the Internet. There shouldn’t be any way to get it. It almost never leaves either my room at the Manor or my quarters in the Tower. Donna’s personal life is her own business, I don’t know who she talks to but I know she’s too smart to be indiscrete.”

Green Arrow stood up. “So you’re saying that everything is secure, no one made any slips or mistakes and you don’t have any idea how all this classified information has been spread all over the world? Bullshit to that.” He slammed his hand down on the table, rattling the coffee mugs. “You have any idea how compromised we now are?”

“Look, Ollie, it’s not just the Titans. Have you seen TMZ today?” Dick brought the site up on the main monitor.

‘Word from good sources is that Mrs. Flash is expecting twins—shades of Angie and Brad! Our congratulations and best wishes to the happy couple!’

This was followed by a blurb on PerezHilton: ‘We happened to be at the Roxy last night and who should drop in but the man himself—Green Lantern, we mean and we don’t mind telling you that we wouldn’t mind a piece of that! Sadly, he had eyes only for a va-va-voom blonde at the bar who left with him in the haze of a green glow. Come breakfast, said damsel was seen hailing a cab, last night’s clothes rather haphazardly thrown on. You know what we always say—work hard, play hard and these boys (and girls) deserve some R&R!’

“Well crap—has anyone checked with the medical files we all have out there? Maybe there’s been some kind of screw up in their security.”

“A security breech at Star Labs? Yeah right, Arthur.”

“Shove the sarcasm, Kyle—you know as well as I do that everything has a price and do I have to add that you might consider finding your entertainment in some place a little more private that whatever the latest hot club is.”

Robin held up his hand. “Let’s try to stay on track here. And we’ve already checked the selling gossip route; nothing.”

“And I’m gonna believe a sixteen year old kid because why? You wanna answer that one for me, Boy Wonder? Of course someone’s making money out of this.”

“That’s enough, Ollie. Roy became a drug addict under your nose and you didn’t notice; you’re in no position to say anything here.” That stopped Arrow; no one messed with Wonder Woman.

“All right, clearly we have to find wherever this leak is and stop it. Rob, anything you can give us would be helpful and I’d like to ask the Titans to put their efforts into helping us, if that’s agreeable to you.”

“Sure, of course, Clark.”

They went back and forth, reviewing the security systems and the back ups. They went on about who they associated with out of costume, they thought about co-workers—the ones not in spandex they saw with regularity. They thought about their neighbors, teachers, students, ex’s. The problem was that though they all had someone they could reasonably suspect, there was no one who would have access to everyone’s info and that was the sticking point.

The obvious suspects, paps or reports out to make money or criminals looking for revenge were tossed around without any results, as well.

‘We’re undecided about whether to be shocked or pleased as punch to learn from our little bird that a wonder of a boy may now be considered a man, if you catch our drift. Some may think this is a—ahem—little premature, but with a young man as precocious as this one, well, we say—more power to you, darlin’!’

“Richard!”

“Like, big deal, Bruce. And my role model is who…?”

“Hardly the point, are you actually going to stand there and not even attempt to deny this?”

Dick shrugged and started to walk away, unconcerned and a little annoyed that he was being grilled about something he didn’t think was anyone’s business but his own.

“Consider yourself grounded until further notice.”

Oh, please. “Why?”

“Don’t even try that. Upstairs and we’ll discuss this later.”

Amid rolled eyes, Bruce heard the too clipped ‘Fine” as the boy went upstairs.

Christ. Teenagers. But if this was true, it was past time he sat the kid down for a talk about the realities of being ‘active’. Maybe Alfred would handle this better…

 

* * *
 

Two weeks went by with the reports and blogs continuing, though with nothing of import. Finally Dick caught a hint on one of the sites.

‘So, we’ve been keeping our ears to the ground, but it seems that things are way too quiet in the Hero business, as it were—or just business as usual, I guess you could say.

Except for one lil snickerty-snack I happened upon just last evening.

Two of our senior heroes were out crime-busting, looking almost like twins in their oh so dark and way too form fitting uniforms (not that we’re complaining!) when they accidentally dropped a clue about their dual identities. Now I’m not saying anything and heaven forbid I drop that kind of serious info, but you can bet you bottom two dollars that this is too juicy to keep hidden forever.

Just a word to the wise, but these boys need to be a scoot more careful.’

He called Bruce with his suspicions.

“But he’s in jail.”

“I didn’t say ‘him’.”

“Meaning?”

“C’mon, Bruce, it’s not like you to need me to draw you a map.”

“…Of course.”

‘According to our little birdie who knows about these things, it seems that Mr. Tall, Dark and Brooding—the Bat-Guy himself, has once or twice sought the assistance of professionals to help him cope with the different demons which darken his head now and then.

Well, we all need someone to talk to now and then, but we’re surprised that he didn’t just have a sit down chat with his own lil Side-kick Baby-bird…’

A week later this appeared;

‘My special friend who knows about these things tells me that our favorite little crime-busting baby bird has been battered and bruised more times than we can count in his quest for truth, justice and all of that. Broken bones, torn muscles, too many stitches to count, illnesses brought on by exhaustion and the stress of being under inhuman and impossible standards to maintain—and all of this while still jailbait. We’re just saying that a sixteen year old might be too young to make the kind of life-style decisions required to live this kind of life and we’d hate to have to read an obituary for someone still in high school. Are we the only ones who think that sidekicks might not be the best idea ever hatched?’

TBC
 

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