Managing expectations

When the food is all gone and you’re wiping stray ketchup from her mouth, you ask “So how’s that escape plan going? Or are you just waiting to be rescued?”

You see a moment of strain in Diana's eyes as the lasso forces her to talk about things she’d rather not. “So far I have been unable to formulate an escape plan beyond waiting for you to get sloppy. I do however expect I’ll be rescued any day now.”

“Really? How so?"

“If I’m missing more than a few days and not answering my League communicator, the Martian Manhunter will attempt to contact me telepathically. Or Zatanna will locate me via mystic means. If those fail, I'm sure Batman or Mr. Terrific could work out some way to enhance the signal to my communicator through the shielding and locate it that way.”

You lean back in your chair and look thoughtful. “Oh yeah, wow. I never would’ve even considered telepathy or magic, let alone have any idea how to counter them.” You reach over to the next table and grab a 3-ring binder labeled H.I.V.E. Underground Facility Operations Manual. “Fortunately someone else did.”

You open it to a section you bookmarked and read aloud, “This facility is equipped with active and passive defenses against both psionic and magical probes, ensuring it remains undetectable by both telepaths and mystics.” You look up, “There’s a whole section on how to maintain those defenses, which is good because I’d have no clue otherwise.”

“Which explains how this part of the base escaped detection,” Wonder Woman nods thoughtfully.

“Bingo. As for your communicator,” you flip to a different section, “All captured communicators, cell phones, trackers, or other devices that could potentially send or receive a signal from outside the facility must be run through the industrial shredder and incinerator.”

You smile at the heroine across from you. “There’s a bunch of stuff like that. I feel most of them could be tagged This Is How We Got Busted Last Time So Be Smarter.”

“I see.” The Amazon keeps her expression neutral as she mentally recalculates the odds. “Well I suppose I will be here a little longer than I thought. But when one of your best friends is the World’s Greatest Detective, it’s only a matter of time before he finds you.”

“Ok sure but… you didn’t really leave much of a trail, did you? I mean I doubt you took a cab to meet me, or anything that could be tracked?”

“No, I flew.”

“And nobody knows you were going to meet me. Nobody even knows I exist, right? Ironically you're probably the only woman in America who would go meet a strange dude without making sure her friends knew it."

"I feel my self-confidence is generally well justified..."

"And they certainly would have no reason to connect your disappearance to that parking garage you randomly crashed into last week?”

“That is fair.”

You snap your fingers, “I know – facial recognition scans! We must’ve passed a couple cameras on the way… oh wait those glasses of yours, the ones you specifically picked to obscure your face? You don’t think they’d mess with facial recognition algorithms, do you?”

Again, the lasso doesn’t care how rhetorical the question is, “Now that you mention it, they probably will.”

“No social media posts or uploaded brag videos to trace. I guess a lot of guys trip up because they brag to their buddies or their family or a girl, and someone gives them up. But I’m a borderline-antisocial lone wolf with trust issues. I ain’t told nobody nothing.”

Wonder Woman nods. “Batman and the others will never stop looking. But you’re right, it could take awhile.”

“More than enough time to finish up here.”

She meets your gaze again. Her eyes are still hard but you think you detect a hint of uncertainty behind them. “And what exactly does 'finished' look like?”

You give her your biggest smile, “Well that is the question, isn’t it?”