This is a super-hilarious idea I got one night after watching a Star Trek Next Generation episode; might be a little confusing at first, but please stick with me, R&R!
Disclaimer: I own nothing but my soul.
Mad Hatter: She speaks the truth.
Me: And my wacko imagination. Go away.
Mad Hatter: Don't you like me?
All the World's a Stage, And We Are The Players.
The Joker rubbed his hands together, cackling. This was his best scheme ever, one guaranteed to put Batsy on ice -
An automated voice sounded in his ear. "Pardon, Mr. Napier, but there is a call waiting for you. Do you wish to exit and answer it?"
Jack Napier sighed. He had just been getting in the mood, really immersing himself in his Joker persona, but it might be something important. "Fine, fine."
"Exit engaging."
A few seconds later a metal door appeared on the wall next to him. Pushing himself up from the throne he had designed, Jack unbolted it and went through, bracing himself for the transition. A few seconds of sick dizziness and a topsy-turvy feeling, and he opened his eyes lying flat on his back on a white cushioned table, wires attached to almost every part of him. As soon as the machine sensed that he was awake, it retracted them, leaving him to slide off the table and make his way from the holoroom to his living room, where the call-waiting light glowed patiently on his phone. Glancing at himself in the mirror nearby, he took the time to pull a face and mutter "How boring," at his tanned skin, black hair, blue eyes and a nose that would make any Gotham movie star - if they really existed- jealous, then picked up the phone. "Hello?"
"Hey, Jack."
It was Leon; he had tried out the virtual reality once as a corny toy-obsessed villain called the Mad Bomber, but hadn't really liked it.
"Hi, Leon."
"I was wondering if you were free on Friday? My wife and I are having a few friends over, nothing fancy, but we thought you might wanna come."
"Sure. Is Tetch going to be there? I wanted to discuss some things with him."
"Yeah. What sort of things?"
"Just some questions about his virtual reality program."
"Okay. Well, 'bye."
"Goodbye." He hung up and sat down in a nearby lilac chair (he really did like lilac), thinking over what he was going to ask Tetch. The virtual reality was getting almost too real sometimes, but that wasn't a recent development; it had been like that since the young inventor first came up with the idea. When had it begun? Almost three years ago, actually, but he remembered it quite well…
* * * * *
"You're working on what?" Crane sounded incredulous.
"Virtual reality!" Jervis Tetch bounced slightly on the balls of his feet. He was dazzlingly handsome, in his early twenties, adored Lewis Carroll, and tended to speak in exclamation points and unfinished sentences. As an inventor, he was a bit scatterbrained and easily distracted, but when he finished something, it was usually enough of a success to last him until his next breakthrough. "I was just thinking this morning that there isn't any means for - wouldn't it be nice if you could just step into a story and - you could even be the villain and it wouldn't matter a -"
"Hold up, hold up!" Jack stopped him. "Now. Tell us, in one or two complete sentences, what exactly you are working on and-"
"Not just working on, my dear fellow, finished!" Jervis resumed almost hopping up and down, glowing with success. "Virtual reality! I got the computer to - actually, it seemed to practically do it on it's own, but I got it to generate an entire world! Well, so far I've only built up about half of the United States, using a random generator to make it a bit different from the real world - New York is named Gotham, like the Three Wise Men Of Gotham, and Chicago is Metropolis - but I just tried walking around in it a bit and it was amazing! It seemed so real!"
"Girls mob you there too?" asked Jonathan, his face showing a flicker of amusement. As a man claiming to - and, considering all appearances - be indifferent to girls, he liked teasing Jervis about the way he inadvertently attracted young women.
"Ah-ah, I thought of that!" Jervis held up a finger. "I added an appearance modifier, you can look like whatever you want to!"
"Sounds fascinating!" Jack's mind was exploring the possibilities already, especially Jervis' casual remark; "you could even be the villain and it wouldn't matter…" "Mind showing us?"
Jonathan rolled up his eyes and groaned, his mobile actor's face twisting into a 'Hail Caesar, we about to die salute you' expression.
* * * * *
"This is the appearance modifier. Just tell it what you want, it'll give you a visual and you stop it when you like it." Jervis hurried to the side of a screen the size of a full-length mirror and pressed a few buttons. "This is mine."
Jack burst out laughing at the image and Jonathan's mouth quirked. "You made yourself look like…"
"Okay, so I based it off the Mad Hatter." Jervis grinned at them. "It's fun to play around, make it really exaggerated and different from you. Try it, Jack?"
"Okay." Still chuckling as Jervis cleared the screen, he stepped in front. I need inspiration. He felt in his pocket. A playing card? When he saw which one it was, he had another fit of chuckling, then spoke to the screen, which was reflecting him like a mirror. "Let's start with dark green hair, white skin, red lips, yellowed eyes…"
"You say I made my avatar look strange?"
"Shhh! A bit thinner. Nose sharper and longer. That's it. Hmm… a different style for the hair. Sort of slicked back. No, no… YES! Perfect! Lilac suit. Brighter. More garish. Yellow waistcoat, orange flower…"
"Your turn!" Jervis addressed Jonathan as Jack saved his avatar, ready for use, and stepped away.
"I really don't know…"
"If you don't want to make yourself completely different, make a caricature of yourself. Please? I want to show you how well it turned out. Please?" Jervis gave him Puppy Eyes full force, the effect enhanced by his slender face, golden-brown hair cut long and china blue eyes.
"All right, just stop it." Jonathan stepped up and studied himself in the mirrorlike surface. He was tall and lean, with a long, dark face and deep auburn hair; he played the protagonist in a television series about a highwayman, and suited it well. After a few moments, he began to see how things could be enlarged, so to speak…
"Much thinner. Really thin. Shorter chin, pointier. Might as well make the ears pointy too. Hair shorter, bright orange… not quite that thin. I am not Stickman. Now…"
He couldn't help grinning; it was fun. After five minutes, he ended up with something that looked like a cross between Jack Skellington and a scarecrow. He pressed the button to save it and turned to Jervis. "Let's go in."
* * * * *
"Wow."
"That's all you've said for the last five minutes."
"Jervis Tetch, you are a genius."
"Thank you. That's better. And, Jack, this would be easier if you made your avatar more normal-looking. These fellows are supposed to respond like real people, and we're drawing some strange looks already."
Jack stuck his bright red tongue out at a hamburger seller who was staring at him. "What's the matter, Mac? Never seen a clown before?" He had practiced a high, almost Irish accent. The man looked away quickly, and he turned back to Jervis. "Speak for yourself, Mad Hatter."
The world seemed amazingly real; children rode bikes, newsboys shouted, cars spun by, advertisements flashed. It was a wonderful combination of the 1930's and touches of their own technology. Women wore short skirts and blouses, men wore suits, the cars all had a rounded look, but they could see televisions and computers - albeit black-and-white ones - in the stores. The street felt gritty and damp and smelled of gasoline, people all around them were carrying on thousands of individual conversations, and when Jonathan bought a bag of nuts for the experiment they even tasted real. Jervis located a newsstand and they flipped through a paper, reading out snatches.
Jack had quickly had his fill of 'just looking'; he wanted to start doing. As Jonathan and Jervis chuckled over a advertisement that sounded just as pushy as the ones in the real world, his eyes wandered down the street and fell on a sign; FIRST NATIONAL BANK. Grinning, he looked in the other direction and found an firearm store.
"Hey." Jack tapped Jervis' shoulder. "You say nothing we do here really matters?"
"Yes…"
"See you in a minute." He headed down the street towards the store. The other two watched him go, then Jonathan turned to Jervis. "Way to go, Tetch."
They braced themselves for the inevitable yell of "Stop thief!" as Jack strolled out of the store a minute later, a gun tucked under his arm. Sirens began blaring as he headed towards the bank.
"Lunatic…" muttered Jonathan as Jack went past them.
"Well, we can get out anytime. Just say 'Engage exit,' and -"
A door suddenly appeared in the wall next to them. "-that happens. And then you can just say "Deactivate exit-" the door vanished "-and it's gone. Voila!"
Sirens sounded in the distance as Jack headed into the bank. They walked a little ways down the street to get an inside view, and were treated to Jack striking a pose just inside the door and proclaiming "Good evening, folks, I'm the Joker!"
"Where'd he pull that from?"
Whispers came from all corners of the bank.
"Who's this looney?"
"Is that face paint?"
"What is he doing? Did he escape from Arkham?"
Jack's grin grew wider. He was obviously having the time of his life. A boring job as a librarian, where he had to be polite and sober all the time, left him little room for expressing the wackier side of his personality; this was fun. "I'm living proof that you don't have to be wacko to rob a bank, but it helps! Now, I would like all your Indian Head pennies, 1876 quarters and counterfeit bills. And at least look like you're enjoying it, I don't like glum faces!"
Everyone stared at him, then at each other. Outside the bank, police cars were pulling up as, in the shadows to the side, one man was doubled up with silent laughter and the other shook his head at the newly-named Joker's antics.
Jack tapped his foot. "I'm getting impatient." Raising his gun, he fired it at the ceiling; the effects were amazing. Glass windows and wood shattered and splintered realistically, people screamed, and when a piece fell on him it scratched his cheek, leaving a thin line of blood. He raised his voice to be heard over the panicked yells. "I haven't got all day!" One of the cashiers, apparently deciding that the wisest warrior was the one who knew when to give up the ship, spoke up.
"We d-don't have any counterfeit, but there's a box of Indian Head pennies over there…" she pointed with a trembling finger "and the 1876 quarters would be mixed in with all the rest of the change. It would take days to sort them out."
Jack pulled his red-lipped mouth down in an exaggerated frown. "Oh well. I'll have to settle for less. Put it in a bag, that's a good girl."
Sidling over to the box and keeping her eyes on him, the girl dropped the box twice before she got it into the bag. By that time, the police had come in, but Jack had merely moved the range of his gun to accommodate them and answered "Then go right ahead," to the captain's warning of "We will shoot!" Now everyone in the room stared at him, taking in the white skin, narrow black and yellow eyes, garish suit and green hair.
When the girl finally succeeded putting the box into the bag, she edged toward him with it at arm's length, as if she were approaching a dangerous animal that might bite. Jack took when it was within reach, then spun around and said "Boo!" to her. She fell over getting away, and Jack was still giggling as he headed out the door.
Jervis and Jonathan pounced on him the moment he was out of sight of the door.
"That was brilliant!"
"I just realized -"
"We can do absolutely anything we want to in here!"
"I think I'll start out more normal, though," said Jervis as Jack carelessly deposited the bag in an alley and they got on a bus, Jack hiding his features behind the collar of his coat. "If this is like a parody of New York -"
"Don't you know?"
"Not really. As I said, I was just trying to get the computer to create a virtual realm and bits and pieces of this started popping up like it was pulling things from memory. I think the old inventor who owned the computer before me - he died of a heart attack - might have been experimenting with virtual reality too."
"Interesting." Jonathan leaned back in his seat. "You know, I studied psychology - fear and phobias especially - before I decided to become an actor. Perhaps I might resume my work in here."
"I'll stick to inventing." Jervis was studying the city out the window with avid interest. "We'll have to be careful, though - leading 'double lives', so to speak, could have some psychiatric side effects."
"Yo ho, yo ho, a supervillain's life for me!" Jack ignored the stares of the other passengers as he crossed his legs. "That was the most fun I've had in years! Soon, the whole city shall know the name of the Joker!"
Jervis cast a look at Jonathan. "Do you think he heard what I said about 'careful?"
"You know," continued Jack "when we've finished this time, I think we could tell a few other people. I know that Harvey - you know, Harvey Dent, the attorney, my friend - and his wife Grace would love it, and I think my sister Pamela would too. Man, we haven't left yet and I can't wait to get back!"
* * * * *
In a back alley somewhere in Gotham, a casual observer might have noticed three figures disappearing through a silvery door set into a brick wall, their means of egress vanishing behind them as soon as they had gone. That same observer would have seen very little change about the scene for the first few hours after they left, except that the shadows grew longer and the sky darker. Every now and then, a passerby walked past the brick wall, their footsteps echoing through the alley. Then in the early hours of the next morning, the observer, though very tired from keeping an all-night vigil, might have seen a crumpled newspaper skittering along the alley floor. It bounced and rolled along the wall, and then a gust of wind suddenly flattened it out against the brick. The headline was enough to make anyone who saw it look again.
MYSTERIOUS VILLAIN CALLING HIMSELF 'THE JOKER' ROBS THE FIRST NATIONAL BANK IN A STRANGE PRANKLIKE CRIME.
It was caught by another gust and skittered past the place where the gateway to another world had so briefly made its appearance.