The Joker seeks some answers
A fateful meeting
The city car cut through the afternoon gloaming. In the rear, Appellate Judge Danial Rumpole read the file he had gotten at Gotham U. A large man, he still had the heavy stocky build of his days on the gridiron. He had used the football scholarship to study law, and spent his years as a public defender, then as an assistant district attorny before he was elected to the bench. While he always claimed to be a hard nosed law and order judge. But secretly he had always been more of a liberal. Where possible, he found technicalities to give shorter sentences.
Now he was facing reelection, and the people of Gotham had gotten even more hard nosed than he had ever pretended to be. Without a cause to bolster his ratings in the polls, he was looking at ending back in the DA's office, or worse yet, private practice. Then out of the blue he'd gotten the letter from Dr. Harleen Frances Quinzel, better known as Harley Quinn, the sidekick of the infamous Joker. Her suggestion had sounded so intriguing.
Until he had started reading this file. The woman was a full blown nutcase. The only positive for her was the fact that three weeks previously she had walked up to the door of Arkham asylum, dressed not in her Harlequin Motley, but in a simple dress. Her arrival had been greeted, according to the record, with a full strip and body cavity search. Yet she had only protested the brutality, not the legality of the act.
Once back in her cell, she had requested pen and paper, and written this letter. Actually, they had only allowed her only a tiny golf pencil, but even that stricture had been accepted. After she had handed it over to be read before mailing, she had requested a tape recorder, and recorded note of possible drug regimes that might be of use in the case of the man she had first broken out of Arkham, then associated with for a number of months.
The Joker.
He looked up as the car slowed at the door, and the driver opened his door for him. He climbed out, then jogged up the stairs to meet the Director of the Asylum, Dr. Fitzhugh. He was led to the elevator, and rode up.
"I was surprised you agreed to meet Dr. Quinnzell, Judge Rumpole."
"I understand why." Rumpole commented. "She no doubt knew you would read the letter, and if she were more blatant in her wording, I would have never received it. But when an inmate accuses the police and this Asylum of violating the rights of a citizen, even a criminal, an honest judge must respond."
"I don't see where the accusations came from. Perhaps when you are done, you can explain where they came from?"
"As long as it doesn't violate legal privacy, I will."
The doctor sighed, then slid his passkey, and pushed a coed into the pad beside the door. "I have asked the orderly to deliver tea. You stated a preference for Black tea? Did you want sugar, cream or lemon?"
"Just lemon and sugar, thank you."
He opened the door. "Down the hall, the only lighted cell at the moment. A chair and table has been set up for your use, your honor."
"Thank you." He paced down the hall. He wasn't sure what he expected. A woman hanging from the rafters drooling like a loon. Or maybe a female Hannibal Lector standing and waiting for him to walk into view.
What he got was a woman sitting in a folding chair at a small desk, writing industriously. Her blond hair was up in a bun, her glasses tilted slightly on her pert little nose, ignoring his presence. He sat in the chair, flipping open the file. It was an old ploy, you pretend you are so important; reading your important files so the other person fidgets, or starts to talk. But she kept working silently. He set his pocket watch down, and watched the hands while looking up occasionally. Ten minutes passed, yet she was focused on her work. Finally he closed the file.
"The patient displays an extremely virulent version of the Electra Complex, trying to gain her father figure's affections be committing acts of violence. He costume, unrelieved red and black denotes not only her nihilism, but also her penchant for violence. Like a lot of women who feel oppressed, she fluctuates between penis envy; her penchant for carrying large bore revolvers, and a Castration desire, denoting by her use of heavy objects like hammers to strike those she feels belittle her." Dr. Quinnzell set down her pencil, turning her head to look back over her shoulder. "Am I correct?"
He was surprised. "Yes, an almost direct quote."
"Not surprising. I know Dr. Fitzhugh would not have shown you my file from the facility, so you had to go to Professor Crane over at Gotham U." She stood, turning her chair around, then sat, crossing her legs primly. "If you would not mind, could you stand, your honor?" He did so. "And flex your hands as if you were going to hit someone." He raised his arms slightly, and did as she asked. "I thought so. When you picked up the file, did you notice that your very presence seemed to make Professor Crane nervous? That he seemed caught between flight and freezing in terror?"
He nodded, and she chuckled gently. "It isn't surprising. I observed the professor on his occasional rounds here when I was an intern, then again as an inmate. When I was merely a subordinate, he was condescending almost belittling, but after my first psychotic episode and capture, his manner changed. He became nervous around me. I had proven capable of violent action. You frighten him because no doubt you remind him of the boys in school who routinely beat him up for his lunch money. I frightened him because a woman fighting a man is not fighting for dominance, she is fighting to protect her life. She is more likely to kill intentionally, whereas the man is more likely to commit murder by accident.
"I must admit that part of his animosity to me is because of his publication last year of his 'findings' regarding the Riddler. He claimed he is a sad pathetic man who constantly throws clues at the police to prove he is smarter than they are, something he is in point of fact. He scored very high in the IQ tests he allowed when he was first captured, scoring 160 or above every time. My rebuttal when I was still in my Harley Quinn Persona made the Gotham Psychiatric journal caused the article to be withdrawn. Naturally he was upset."
"So you asked me here for what? To get you released?"
"Oh nothing of the kind, your Honor. I know I have episodes where Harley Quinn rules my life, and for that I know I need treatment. I mentioned abuse, and I meant it. No one arresting me has abused me, if we leave out my return to the facility last month. A strip and full cavity search is normal when you expect the person you are searching might have concealed something you do not wish them to have. But there are not enough female guards assigned to have a full 'legal' search of a woman, so having a group of brutes holding your nude body down while some woman, who obviously thinks this the height of her day when it comes to fun, probes your body would have gotten any evidence thrown out if I were merely in the prison system.
"It was done more to degrade me than to find anything, since I didn't have anything to find." She stood. "I am speaking of the one person who is best known for capturing all of these men and women to put them in here, or back in here as the case may be.
"I am speaking of the Batman in particular, and Arkham Asylum as it stands." She motioned toward the walls as if toward the world outside. "You were probably busy when you were driven here, but have you actually looked at the facility? It's a mansion right out of a Gothic horror story. They should change the name over the entry gate to read 'Castle Frankenstein', and hire a lisping hunchbacked moron named Igor to shamble through the halls."
"That wasn't nice, Doctor Quinnzel." The judge started staring at the man in a guard's uniform who was pushing, of all things, a tea service on a cart.
"I am sorry, Igor. Oh, you have probably not met. Judge Danial Rumpole, this is Igor Piaseki, the evening guard on the woman's side of the facility. Igor, this is Judge Rumpole."
"Charmed." The man was almost as big as the judge himself, and while he looked like a street thug, he spoke like a university professor. There were two pots, and he sniffed one before pouring. "Black tea as requested. I will leave the cart in case you would like more, your Honor. And your favorite Earl Grey, with sugar, lemon and cream, Doc." Unlike the first cup, which was in a bone china cup, the second cup was in a wide bottomed Styrofoam soup cup. "Not supposed to give her anything she can use as a weapon, or to commit suicide." He explained.
He walked over to a rolling drawer, set the cup down, and slid it gently forward. Doctor Quinnzel removed her cup, blew on the liquid, then took a dainty sip. "Perfect as always, Igor, thank you." The guard blushed, pulling the drawer back out, and walked back the way he had come. "He is a treasure. The thing I miss most about this place. He knows exactly how I like my tea, and delivers it flawlessly."
"You were saying?" The judge sipped his own tea. Then added lemon.
"As a visitor, this is a place you go to because you must, but think of it through the eyes of someone who has been committed here. A Gothic monstrosity they should tear down to build a more modern one. It is the stuff of nightmares in stone and glass." She set down her cup on the desk, then did a graceful pirouette. "And the last redesign was obviously by someone who had seen Silence of the Lambs." She picked up her tea. "Honestly, one inch thick Lexan. Thick enough to stop a fifty caliber bullet from a high powered rifle. Sure they have the occasional criminal that might test it's strength, but I am not one of them.
She motioned toward her bed, a stainless steel slab. "They got a deal on old bunks off of scrapped warships for the beds. Anchored to two of the walls so it can't be ripped free, and all of what you have, clothing, female necessities, must fit in that storage area. When you open it to get something out, a timer is activated, and guards will be here when the alarm goes off fifteen seconds later to ask you why you are taking so long. Not that it matters, all of our clothing is supplied by people working in prisons to supply the needs of people in the prisons. So there is no nice frilly lingerie or underwear to choose from.
"On the woman's side you get a proper mattress, sheets, even a book shelf or desk if you ask for it. On the man's side you get the bare walls, and have to beg for anything but a foam rubber pallet. It's a brutal place, and even the walls show it. On their side they are painted that institutional green the inmates call 'broccoli puke', but here I can actually ask for another color. But why bother? No reason to try to make it more homey. It's gilding a dead flower to make it pretty again." She sighed sadly. "Even that drawer so they can pass me my meal trays and this tea. Remember the scene in Silence of the Lambs when Lector passes Clarice Starling a towel? You can't do that here because it will not slide from this side, a hook engages to stop it. Seems one of the inmates was something of a wizard of a chemist, and built a bomb to blow the Lexan wall down, so they redesigned it.
"And for a mental patient it is worse than for a common criminal. A common criminal has a sentence, a measure of time he must endure before being freed. A mental patient is held until the doctor in his or her case judges them, in his opinion, to be ready to reenter society. So what we have here is just a modern day version of the old Oubliette. The name means 'little forgetting'. A place to stick someone you don't want to deal with, where they can just disappear," she made a motion like a stage magician causing a card to appear in his hand, 'and die, and good riddance to them."
She returned to her seat, sipping the tea appreciatively. "Did you know that of all medical science, the Psychiatric and Psychological are the only ones where the doctor's opinion has more weight than the clinical evidence? The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders is the American Psychiatric Association's standard reference for psychiatry which includes over 400 different definitions of mental disorders. The International Statistical Classification of Diseases and Related Health Problems is published by the World Health Organization, and it contains a section on psychological and behavioral disorders. But if you compare the two, the checklists used to 'prove' the patient is insane are completely different. So it comes down to the doctor saying, 'I think he is crazy'.
"Have you ever seen the movie One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest? A man who pretends to be insane so he can spend his last few months in an asylum rather than prison, then finds that until the doctors say he isn't crazy, he's trapped in that system. It's the same here." She cocked her head. "Funny, I hadn't thought of it before, but the woman who did the probing on me reminds me of Nurse Ratchet, the villain of that piece."
The judge poured another cup, and fixed it the way he liked. "So that explains why you are upset with Arkham. But the Batman? What's the matter with him?"
"She sighed again. "Your Honor, does anyone know who the Batman is? Or is there more than one man running around in the cape and cowl? I wonder what the defense lawyers have not been doing all this time. 'The Batman caught him. And he delivered all this evidence. Did he had a warrant? Did he serve it properly before searching, so we have a proper chain of evidence?'. Or the courts. 'Oh, he's a criminal who wears a costume, he must be crazy'." She shook her head. "By that definition, carried out to the logical extreme, every cop who commits crimes for whatever reason, every uniformed soldier who has been proven to have committed a crime is also a costumed criminal, and should end up here.
"Exactly one of the inmates in this facility is here merely because of special needs, and that is Professor Victor Freeze. Everyone else is 'costume means insane'. By that definition, the Batman should have his own cell.
"Now take my first episode as an example. I am here as an intern, and meet this sad man who hides his pain behind a face disfigured in a chemical vat. We still don't know if the Batman pushed him or whether he fell into it, but let us leave that for conjecture. I begin working with him, and feel I am making some progress when he escapes. I understood why; for the same reason a wolf in the wild will bite through his own leg to escape the trap. He wants, needs to be free.
"Then I see this patient being dragged back through the halls by a hulking brute in a costume, and have him thrown at my feet like a cat delivering a dead rat to it's owner to prove how much he likes them. So I snapped. Rather than have him take another chance at breaking out, and this time ending up in the morgue, I helped him. I assumed the mantle of Harley Quinn. Since the Joker likes to deal with intelligent people, he tends to get nervous when they are around him constantly, so I put on the Mainland accent that everyone thinks of as dumb hicks, and was with him that way, to help him, and bring him back into society.
"My costume which Professor Crane claims to denote nothing but violence is merely a modern form of the Harlequin of the old Commedia Del Arte, The staged plays where the Harlequin is the rascal who is always smarter than the people he deals with. If you ever get a chance, go by the Gotham Renaissance Fair and watch one of their shows. Except for Harlequinno, the characters are all stereotypes of the pompous and greedy, and he always outsmarts them and escapes with all their Scutti."
"But the Batman is a force for good-"
"Oh really, your honor. The Joker was tested once back when he was first captured after his 'accident', and was judged insane then. That has been revisited only here," she pointed at the floor, "at Arkham, and it is always easier to simply say 'no change' than actually work to find out why and correct the problem. If I were to bring a case against the Batman, I would point at the illegal methods used by this 'force for good'. No warrants, illegal searches, beating his opponents into bloody pulp before delivering them to the authorities, no badge. Oh he does serve and protect, but it's on his terms. He is a vigilante; judge and jury, and has barely escaped adding executioner to that litany several times from what I have seen here. What if he suddenly decided to go after shoplifters? Illegal parking? Jaywalkers? How many other citizens must be harmed before this menace is at least muzzled?
"No one has charged the Batman with brutality. Honestly, if he were a street cop, he would have been up for review within a week of hitting the streets, and fired or imprisoned before he spent a month on the force!"
He looked down at his hands on the desk. Total nutcase or not, she had a point. "So what would you suggest I do?"
"I would bring in a panel of psychologists from across the country. Better yet, ask the World Health Organization to pick the members. Not throw the inmates back to that wolf pack we have here in Gotham. Have them do a case by case determination to see if the prisoner is actually insane or not. If they are, then by all means put them back. But if they are not, allow them to stand trial as the law requires. Give them hope that our legal system is a legal system, and not just a rubber stamp for the Batman to hit them with whenever he thinks they are doing wrong. And to prove it, start where the Batman did in his reign of terror. With the Joker." She looked around nervously. "I just hope I am still alive when you decide. When the press heard I had turned myself in, they were swarming over the cell block like maggots on roadkill. The fact that Poison Ivy and I had a screaming argument before I did was front page news. She will get her revenge."
"I will consider the matter."
She sighed, talking back to the drawer. "Could I get another cup of tea, please?" He shoved in the drawer, poured her tea, then fixed it as she directed. "Shove it slowly, please. Even these wide bottomed soup cups will spill if you do it too fast." He did as instructed, and she took the cup out.
"What you really mean is you will think about it, then ignore it. I know I am asking a great deal, your Honor. You're up for reelection, and the press is already hammering you about lenient sentences. But we're talking about basic human rights here. She touched the lexan, leaning her head against it. "Rights guaranteed by the Constitution, and trampled on by the Batman, and the corrupt forces that would rather say he is right and the Constitution must be wrong if the Batman says so." Give us back our rights, your Honor. Please." She stood away, wiping tears from her eyes. "Good evening, Your Honor. Have a pleasant night."
As he walked away, She smiled. If you don't have glycerin for fake tears, a face full of steam from say a hot cup of tea will fake it just as well...
Harley couldn't wait until she heard the announcement. Having her disappear, apparently kidnapped maybe killed by Poison Ivy would be the last nail in his liberal coffin. Oh she knew there would be a lot of haggling going on before it was set in motion, but now she could make her break. She worked, ignoring the time; she had always been a night owl, and being a patient rather than a doctor had not changed that and felt she had laid enough ground work. She went to that hard 'this is just another punishment' bunk, opened it and took out her shower gear. The guards would search, but there were some things they just would not look into. She closed it, and opened the sack that held her dirty clothes, and especially the used feminine napkin she had stashed there.
Any female guard would have tossed it (Which would have meant using plan B) but 90 percent of the guards were men, and they'd act like they were superman when he found out someone had put a chunk of Kryptonite in his oatmeal. So it was still there. In fact it had stayed there because they would have her take it out, complaining about how women should learn to clean up after themselves.
It was lucky that it was the weekend. Fewer guards. The usual ones were either home boning their wives, or hanging out in bars with clever names like the Dew Drop Inn, or if they thought they were attractive, at one named the Meet Market.
She walked into the bathroom enclosure the women were allowed. The men had to squat or stand in full view of any guard who passed by. But Poison Ivy (Who was admittedly attractive) had protested that whenever she used the facilities, especially when she took a shower, just about every guard would just have to wander down and get an eye full. So the sink, shower and toilet were inline with the last two behind a screen that came up to knee height and ended at the neck so they could tell that yeah, she was in the shower, but they couldn't see anything. The toilet itself had a full screen from floor to neck.
She showered with a bathing cap to keep her hair dry, then brushed her teeth first, because she would so not want to brush them after she had used the tooth glass, (actually tooth Styrofoam cup) for what she had to do with it next. She then went with the towel wrapped around her into the toilet cubicle, and used it, dipping the cup into the tainted water. Then she opened the napkin.
The Seed Red had given her was the size of a full date, and it had been a real pain in the throat to swallow. But since she had swallowed it, and the unlubricated condom they had used to wrap it in less than an hour before she knocked on the door, it had still been too high up in her intestines to be spotted. A good thing they hadn't taken an X-ray; if they had it would have been plan B time again, after she recovered from having them cut her open to get it out, that was. Instead she had let it pass, and taken it out, unwrapped it, and put it in the used napkin. The blood was important, since Ivy had explained that the plant inside it was like a homing missile, and would track it's way back to that person when fully activated.
"Well, here I get my chance to pass through the Alimentary canal." She muttered. She took the seed, and dropped it into the tainted water. It would take several seconds...
The seed cracked open, and a green shoot began probing for the surface. She squawked in alarm, dumping the cup and contents into her toilet then flushed. "Jeez, Red, I could have used a little time to dress!" She ran to the desk. Since she was here, and while a patient still somewhat trusted, she had asked for the files of those patients she knew to review. Since she had been a known associate of Ivy, they had allowed it. Of course they would go over her notes, just to assure themselves she wasn't suggesting they just be released.
She had Ivy's file. A pity they hadn't let her have her own file to review. "Physician, heal thyself!" she whispered. Let's see, it was what eighty, ninety feet down the the sewer line that dumped into the river, about two hundred yard to the river itself if it grew that far. She had to hope the clothes she had left there were still hidden. Sure a guy would pull over to pick up a nude woman hitchhiking, even smelling like a sewer. But only because he would expect to take her home, clean her up, and get her to pay him back in time honored fashion. That would open up an even nastier can of worms. Of course if she ended up hitchhiking, she would be in the mood... She grabbed the plastic gallon sized Ziploc bag stuffing the file in with the other towel and a precious bar of soap and shampoo, because she would definitely not want to use this one when-
There was a rumbling, and emergency alarms began blaring just to add to the confusion. Then with a scream of tortured porcelain, the toilet exploded upward. She saw the vine questing around blindly. She knew from her old science classes in middle school that some vines will recoil, actually move away if struck with a stick. This one? It would probably chase you around the room take the stick away, and return it as a suppository! She zipped the bag shut.
The guard came running. Lomax. Him she would love to see being throttled by Ivy's plant, but he wouldn't risk his life to rescue her. But he was the audience she got. "Stay back! It's Ivy's revenge! It will kill you if you get in the way!" She warbled as if in terror.
The idiot unlocked the Lexan, muscling it aside, and drawing his cattle prod. No simple truncheon for him. Another guard came running. Heath. Aw man, she liked Heath! But he wisely slammed the plate back in place where it automatically locked.
Lomax tapped the vine with the cattle prod, and it jerked away from the electric charge. He grinned, moving forward, and like a rattlesnake it coiled and struck. He shouted as it caught him by the ankle, a shoot coming out to grab the prod from him. Then, as she had mentally predicted, it shoved the cattle prod where the sun don't shine active end first. He danced as it electrocuted him, then dropped the body. She wanted to cheer and do a war dance in celebration, but it would have broken character.
"I don't want to die!" She wailed. The plant turned, again like a snake, then she felt herself wrapped in bonds as strong as steel. It dragged her toward where the toilet had once been, She gave another wail as it went down dragging her with it.
Of course if it had been one of Red's usual plants, it would have merely stopped growing when it reached the cast iron of the pipes themselves, meaning she would be dragged through a hole only about four inches across. But this one had expanded until it shattered the pipes, the bricks surrounding them, and the stone the original septic system had been built into. So it was like being dragged through a tunnel about two feet across, and the vine itself cushioned the impacts as it went down. Then the direction shifted from vertical to horizontal, and she was dragged down, and when she reached the river, it unfolded like a flower, and let her slide out.
"Good plant." She said in her Harley Quinn voice patting it as if it were a dog she knew, then looked back at the Asylum, lit by searchlights, with guards charging around aimlessly. "It's not nice to fool with mother nature guys." She looked around. She was soaked in filth, the still sealed bag in her arms, and had to get far enough away that they wouldn't just sweep down and catch her in the next few minutes. Since she had known she would end up where raw sewage was dumped, she had wisely planted the clothes upstream, and hopefully far enough away that she had time for a quick bath before she dressed.
She looked at the asylum again longingly. "Soon enough, Puddin'. Either the Judge does what I suggested, or I go to plan C." She gave a feral grin. "They definitely won't like plan C. C'mon Snookums. We need to leave before they get out the weed killer."
Forty minutes later, she had lost any good humor she had gained from her escape. Her clothes had been missing, and while the shampoo and soap had been a blessing, the towel was one of those in between sizes, not hand towel or bath towel. So she was striding along the road with her keester hanging out, and if she took a deep breath, she'd be flashing the neighborhood. The only good thing that remained was the plant Snookums, which had decided to follow her. What do you feed to a killer vine? Muggers? Beggars? She heard tires on pavement, and looked back. A Ford F-150 was cruising down the road, and she was caught for a moment in the headlights.
Then it was past. No, it stopped, then backed up headed for the shoulder, and before she could stop it the truck ran over her plant! "Snookums!" She screamed, dropping to her knees, grabbing what might have been it's head, but it came apart in her hands.
She cried silently, hearing some mouth breathing idiot walk up on her. "Hey, little lady. Get dumped out here by your boyfriend?" Not only that, he sounded half in the bag too. He bent over, lifting her chin, and instead of some girl who was woebegone about her situation, he looked into blue eyes blazing with fury. He stepped back, then looked back down the road the way he was going, and the searchlights at the Asylum. He walked to the cab, pulling his Winchester .30-30, jacked the lever as he spun around, but she was right there, her hand wrapped around the stock where the lever would sit, her thumb and fingers blocking it from completing the cycle. Just to be safe, her arm trapped the barrel against her side.
"You. Killed. My Snookums!" She screamed, then kneed him hard enough that his grandfather probably winced. As he fell forward, his hands going to his crotch, he looked up as she brought the rifle back holding it as if the stock was a baseball bat, and swung it. Hard.
Harley looked down at him, then at the bent barrel of the rifle. She took off the towel, wiping the fingerprints off it, then dropped it on the body. "Coup de Grace, Bozo." Then she began to strip off his shirt. That made her feel so much better. The guy was big enough she looked like a little girl wearing her daddy's shirt. She adjusted the seat, put it in gear, and drove toward the lights of Gotham.
Ivy is not at all Happy
It was almost two O'clock when Eco-terrorist Poison Ivy, set down the trowel, looking at her plants. Most were just rare specimens from around the world, but some were just ones she loved.
Like the Passiflora Amazoni Isleii seed she had sent with Harley. Ivy's Guardian she had named the species. A very rare passionflower species from near the headwaters of the Amazon. The only variety which had combined the actions of the flower everyone knew, with the attitude of any carnivorous plant. In the wild they would wrap around small animals, the hollow thorns biting in to drain the victim dry, then the remains would be dropped near the roots as fertilizer. More proof that mother nature was starting to fight back. Her kind of plant, even before the modification she had done to make it larger and now deadly to a human sized victim.
People believed she hated mankind, but it was their attitudes she hated. Those who weren't willing to resort to violence, the tree huggers, were always going on about 'saving the planet' when quite honestly the planet would survive anything man did given enough time; the fact that the species had been decimated down to less than one percent surviving eight or nine time proved that. And those beknighted fools had pretty much poisoned the well when they fought successfully to save the Snail Darter, tying up the TVA for decades, only to find the damn thing lived all across the American Southeast!
They also thought she hated men as in the gender specifically, but she had found many uses for them. Taking out the garbage, getting things from those shelves designers always put in that were too damn high, opening pickle jars, and of course moving heavy furniture. But if all else fails, they also made excellent fertilizer if treated right.
But enough of that for tonight.
She walked into the kitchen, poured a cup of her favorite herbal tea, and flopped down on the couch. She looked at the TV guide in the paper... With cable, she had five hundred channels of mostly garbage. Wait, a documentary about the expedition into the upper Ganges, where she had found several plants she used in her work. She turned the TV on, but didn't change the channel because there was a news bulletin.
At first she was ecstatic. Harley had not only gotten into Arkham, but gotten out! Then her mood soured. Ivy was accused of attempted murder, murder, and kidnapping because of all that crap in the papers last month about how she had supposedly vowed revenge on the little white faced clown. A story Harley had come up with on the fly, no doubt to explain the escape Ivy had helped her plan!
"Damn it Harley!" She shouted, then suddenly looked around. She may be a wanted Eco-terrorist, but right now she lived in a brownstone row house with neighbors on both sides. And they never worried about complaining! Besides, if one of them called the police, she'd have to find another place. Even as she thought of that, she heard a tentative knock on the door. Probably Mrs. Ralston from the house on her right. A sweet old biddy, she would complain, but it was like she was afraid you'd get mad if she did, so she would hem and haw so sweetly, with tears just waiting to fall at the first harsh word, and you'd stop doing what was bothering her just to make sure she wouldn't cry.
She sighed, walking to the door, and using the peephole. She may be a wanted Eco-terrorist even the police feared, but only a complete idiot just opened the door in this neighborhood! She looked, and at first seeing Harley's face, wanted to throw open the door and scream at her, neighbors be damned. But a moment later she was unsnapping locks, removing chains, and finally the 2X4 bar to fling the door open in welcome. Harley had brought a gallon of Rainbow Sherbert!
She had first the confection, then a horrible smelling bag thrust into her hands as Harley rushed past screaming, 'Give me a minute, Red! I been walking for blocks and holding it all the way!" She watched the cute little towel covered keester run past, the bathroom door slamming. Bemused, she walked past to the kitchen, dropping the envelope into the kitchen sink, and the frozen goodies in the freezer. As she did that, she was bombarded by Harley talking about her travails; getting sucked down into a sewer line, having Snookums (?) killed by a drunk in a truck, forgetting to steal his wallet for cash when she abandoned the stolen vehicle over near the end of the Mainland El, then having to mug one guy (He deserved it! He pinched my ass!) to get the subway fare, then getting off at the closest subway station (five blocks barefoot! With all those pervs watching me walk!)
The door opened, and the same smell as the envelope billowed out. Harley saw her look. "Sorry, Red, I didn't have enough soap to do a full cleaning job. So I brought your favorite ice cream in apology."
"I thank you for that, Harley. My question, is what is that?" Ivy asked, pointing at the envelope in the sink.
Harley looked, head cocked in speculation. "A Kohler Kitchen Sink, circa 1931, though they made the same basic style up through the 1950s. When you talked to the landlord, he claimed it was Art Deco, which we both know is for furnishings appliances and lighting fixtures, not kitchen build ins."
Ivy looked away, smiling. She talked like a ditz 90% of the time, but Harley was a doctor herself, and could speak like one at the drop of a hat. "No," she lifted the bag enough so that Harley could see it. "I meant this?"
Harley grinned. "I told you I could get them to trust me enough to hand me your file. That's the complete one of a kind no copies (Unless Bats has made one) medical record of one Pamela Lillian Iseley, AKA Poison Ivy."
"I am impressed. But who or what, is Snookums?"
"The plant you sent in to break me out? Once I was free, it followed me around like a puppy I once had, so I named him Snookums." Harley sniffled. "And that drunken bozo ran him over! So I beat him with his own rifle, then stole his shirt and his truck!" She sniffed herself. "Red, could I use your tub? I see several good things in my future."
The Ditz has returned with a vengeance. "Several good things?"
"Sure! A nice hot tub bath with nice smelling soap, then afterward..." She looked down coyly, but was looking up through her lashes. "maybe I can do a little gardening? Playing in the bush, if you know what I mean."
Ivy smiled. "You'd better not be teasing, Harley."
"Oh but you like me to tease." Harley chirruped. "Join me in the tub?"
"You're on. But I need to do something in the arboretum first." Harley ran upstairs, and Ivy followed more sedately. She stopped at the bottle of Guardian seeds, looking at them pensively. Maybe it was because of the modification to have the plant home in on her DNA, but up until now, all of her plants had been 'one woman' oriented. She took the card marking them, erased her own name for it, and wrote instead:
HARLEY'S SNOOKUMS, then beneath it, Passiflora Amazonis Quinzelli.
So off to take a bath...