I stick by what I said in the last chapter; that I'm not officially starting this story, but over a long period of time there may be the occasional update like this. So, please enjoy
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David Tennant as 'The Doctor'
Catherine Tate as Donna Noble
DOCTOR·WHO
Fun House
Doctor Who rights reserved to BBC et al.
Batman rights reserved to DC comics et al.
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The Doctor carefully went through the information displayed on the monitor, ignoring his bitterly depressing thoughts.
'Never again.' he reminded himself.
His thoughts still lay with Lady Christina de Souza, and her request to join him in his travels.
"Never again." he repeated aloud to the TARDIS.
The TARDIS was his only companion now. The Doctor looked at the aqua tinged column that rose from the middle of the circular console. In the past, some companions who had opted to leave him and return to a normal life had offered comfort by reminding him he still had the TARDIS. It was true, the TARDIS was the only consistent being that had remained with the Doctor throughout his whole life, but it wasn't quite the same as a person. Sure, the TARDIS was alive; it could think, and it was even telepathic. But it wasn't actually conscious.
The TARDIS had thoughts of it's own and sometimes it offered suggestions to the Doctor (or would just make decisions for him) but it didn't work in the same way that a conversation with a sentient, socially integrated life form did. The way the TARDIS communicated- the Doctor had never come up with a suitable comparison to describe it. Time Lords were one of the few races that had the correct senses and perception to understand the TARDIS' thoughts and feelings, so it wasn't easy to make people understand that although the time capsule was a living, thinking individual, it was no good as company.
He was lonely, but he wasn't looking for another companion. The pain he felt when he finally cut all ties to Rose Tyler, coupled with being forced to erase Donna Noble's memory and see everything they'd shared together come to nothing was too much for him. He couldn't take any more. Now he just wanted to be alone.
The TARDIS buzzed an alert, and the Doctor lethargically moved round the computer, changing settings and what not. In the same way in which the dimension that Rose was in had reacted to the reality bomb by having a faster time stream, so to other worlds whose time flowed quicker had been affected by the reality bomb detonation, even though it never actually took place. The resulting time/reality paradox threatened to make various worlds collapse on top of themselves and each other, leaving it to the Doctor, with occasional assistance from ruling bodies like the Shadow Proclamation, to repair the damage. He'd only returned to earth so recently because he'd thought the wormhole from San Helios was another crack in existence. He really wasn't in the mood to visit the human home world at the moment.
As he set a course for the reality crack, he vaguely wondered if he really would spend the rest of his life without a companion. He been hurt before, but right now was quite possibly the worst he'd ever been. There were times he'd gone for whole years without a single travelling partner because of some painful incident that forced him into solitude. This time might just be the one that made him permanently alone.
The TARDIS whined with a noise like a distressed cat, warning him the ship was right on top of the hole in reality. The Doctor set about investigating to find out exactly what sort of damage he was faced with.
The moment he hit the button to start the scan, the computer exploded from several points.
A klaxon sounded and the TARDIS abruptly lurched and tossed the Doctor into one of the twisting coral pillars that stood throughout the cavern like room.
"What the heck was that!" he barked out to no one in particular.
Another computer exploded and the TARDIS pitched the other way. The Doctor found himself sliding across the floor until he crashed into the console and nearly fell through a service hatch and into the engines. Above and around him, the sound of fire and hurricanes blared at deafening pitches. The TARDIS continued to roll and tumble through the fabric of existence itself, squealing as it threatened to snap in half under the immense pressure. The Doctor reached up and slapped blindly at a control panel, desperate to try and stabilise the ship, but the madness continued. The TARDIS cried out in his mind. The column that connected directly into the time vortex burned with snot green light as steam jetted from the base of it.
The Doctor managed to pull himself up onto the computer and looked up at the pillar in horror.
"This isn't just a crash," he said "something's poisoned you!"
The Time Lord made a slow and unsteady crawl towards a panel set into a section that bordered the controls. Smoke started to rise from the floor grating and small explosions racked the body of the ship. After making way to the hatch at a painfully slow rate, he slapped the surface twice, causing it to flip open and reveal the crystallised interior.
Instantly, he was struck blind; and then deaf. In a split second, every one of the Doctor's physical senses were drowned in a wash of psychic energy that escaped from the TARDIS. The Time Lord's mind was a kaleidoscope of wild, untamed mental power. The Doctor fell back as his brain teetered on the brink of destruction, the contaminated power coming from TARDIS turning the Doctor's comforting connection to the machine into a nightmarish leash.
The Doctor cried out as the pain reached its climax, and then he lost consciousness.
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With a powerful thrust from his legs, he jumped from the rock ledge and allowed himself to glide through the air. Below him, guards from both Blackgate and Arkham milled around in a disorganised mess. Without senior guards like Aaron Cash and treacherous Frank Boles to direct them, the former cut off in the overrun medical facility, the latter having been murdered on the Joker's orders after his use to the grinning criminal had run out, the security detail had fallen apart at the seams. Now they'd simply dug in with the hope they could hold off an attack from the Joker's hordes indefinitely. Unlikely.
With a 'whump' of jet black boots on concrete, he landed on the steps outside the botanical gardens, frightening an unsuspecting guard.
"Batman!" his gasped in surprise. "What's happening out there?"
"Joker's taken control; his crew is running wild." the dark knight explained simply.
"Aw, damn it!" the guard lamented. "Well, what should I do? Can I help?"
"Stay here and keep the gardens secure if you can. I work better alone."
The Batman turned away and headed down the steps. The guard looked like he was about to argue, but then the Joker's voice erupted over the island's general address system, and he scampered into the garden foyer like a wounded puppy.
"Listen everyone. Harley tells me that the Batman's car is still parked outside of the intensive treatment building. Now, we can't just have him up and leave us, can we?" the Joker left a sinister pause before continuing. "Ever thug, villain, murderer and kinder garden teacher that isn't carrying out party orders should head there now and smash it to pieces!"
As the message ended, the Batman's forearm mounted computer beeped with a proximity alert from his car. He quickly activated the communicator in his ear.
"Oracle," despite his familiarity with the information broker who used to be his partner in crime prevention, he still referred to her by code name "disable the Batmobile's countermeasure system."
Instantly, Barbara Gordon's smooth voice replied "I saw the alert on my computers. What's wrong? Where are you?"
"I'm outside the mansion. Harley Quinn probably triggered the alarm. If she's still got the commissioner with her, he might get hurt."
"Alright," he heard the sound of fingers racing over a keyboard "I've shut off the security. Do you think my dad's okay?"
Batman scowled as a hint of compassion for his old friend threatened to come to the surface. For years, Bruce Wayne had striven to bury all emotion whenever he took on the identity of Batman. He'd done his utmost to perfect the indifferent, subhuman personality that defined the Batman to his enemies. But there were times when his feelings couldn't be denied. Barbara had firsthand experience of how cruel the Joker and his puppet-like girlfriend Harley could be; it's was a bullet from the Joker's gun that put her in a wheelchair for life and ended her career as Batgirl. Her father, Commissioner Gordon hadn't fared so well on the same occasion either, only just escaping the Joker's clutches with his sanity intact. Now the city's most respected police officer was once again kidnapped by its most feared enemy, and he couldn't help but sympathise with Barbara.
"Joker won't have harmed him yet. He's using him as a distraction, not as part of his plan."
He began to head towards the tunnel that would lead him under the mountain like hill into the northern part of Arkham Island.
"I'm going to see if I can pick up Harley's trail at the Batmobile; maybe she'll lead me to Gordon."
"Alright, but be careful. Joker must be planning something big if he wants to be isolated on that island without escaping, and I've still no explanation for that massive energy spike that came from somewhere near the intensive treatment facility."
"I'll keep my eyes peeled. Batman out."
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The Doctor woke to the sound of whining gears and a low groaning. The moment he heard the noise he was on his feet.
Instead of appearing extinct and dormant as it was wont to when in parallel worlds, the TARDIS was wide awake and clearly suffering immensely.
"What's happening!" he asked as moved forward and stroked the column as though he could comfort the vessel. The column glowed dimly with a putrid emerald light that cast shadows in places that the blazing orange lights used to illuminate. It let out one of it's familiar wheezes, but the noise died and the teeth-clenching grinding sound started again.
"Something's infected the psionic interlinkers." the Doctor looked at the panel he'd opened, now closed thanks to the emergency system. With the power still partially working, the TARDIS had managed to sense the pilot's distress and responded accordingly.
"Now it's time to return the favour old girl." he said as he gave the pillar one last pat before moving away. Something from outside had managed to infect the TARDIS, and the only way it was going to work again was if the infection was cut off at the root.
The Doctor checked himself before opening the door. His mud brown hair was slightly singed by a stray spark in the crash, but apart from that it looked the same as it always did; wild and spiky. His pockets were full of random paraphernalia for any situation he might encounter (well, nearly any situation, providing it was strictly a casual, non life threatening situation). He didn't have anything with him that could be recognised as being from an obscure or bizarre world, so he would be more or less inconspicuous, apart from being amazingly tall and thin and wearing white trainers with a blue suit. He didn't bother to take his long coat; he always felt it clashed slightly with the suit, and there was no time to change. He regretted this as soon as he stepped outside the blue box. The air was chilly and a strong wing sang through the gaps in the decaying brickwork. It had clearly been raining.
The TARDIS had crash landed in a crumbling building. From what he could tell it was the size of a small house, yet he could deduce from the layout of the remaining walls that the structure had been created without domestic activity in mind. It looked as though it may have been once used as some sort of small office building.
Steeling himself against the cold, the Doctor locked the TARDIS door and made his way through the building's empty door frame. It was night. The Doctor looked over to his right and saw he was in some sort of secure compound, complete with a pair of guard towers and walls creating a box around a five hundred yard area, passage through the walls being given by a pair of huge metal sliding doors in each corner of the 'box'. On the far side of the landscape, a huge facility dominated everything. The Doctor could tell it wasn't particularly old, but it had a certain gothic feel to it. The lower story was wider than the upper story, leaving plenty of surfaces that could be walked on, but they had been secured from such a thing by long and bulky spikes sticking out of the lip of the first floor roof. From the top of the building, hideous gargoyles leered down, dragon and demon like faces acting as a personification of thinly veiled threat and disgust. Between him and the building, the Doctor could see two other structures through the bases of the guard towers that looked more like sheds. Possibly they were checkpoints, but the Doctor couldn't make them out properly.
In front of him, the wall changed into a cliff face. He could make out a glass dome peaking over the top of the rocks, its base somewhere on the other side. There was nothing else of interest, except for weeds and a rather out of place old see-saw. His gaze moved to the left where another wall stood between a pair of cliffs, with a wrought iron gate in the middle of it. A metal arch over the gate had letters spelt out in twisted iron bars. From where the Doctor stood the words were backwards, but he could see they spelt out 'Arkham Asylum'. He didn't like the thought of being in a mad house, but even worse was the fact he recognised the asylum name, and if he was right about where it came from, things were about to get very complicated.
"Freeze!" a harsh voice ordered.
The Doctor spun on the spot to face a man who'd just come from around the corner of the ruined building. If the place really was an asylum, the man he'd encountered was most certainly a security guard. His attire was completely black. The jacket and trousers he wore were padded, though not actually bullet proof. He wore a helmet with a metal grille for a face plate, which obscured his features even though the bars were pretty wide. The man was holding an assault rifle in his hands. The Doctor had no way of telling if the gun was loaded with rubber bullets or genuine ones, but he decided not to risk it. He raised his hands in the air quickly.
"Don't shoot; I'm unarmed!" the Doctor cried out.
"Yeah, like that means you're harmless, wacko!"
The guard gestured with his gun for the Doctor to move out into the open. He complied easily. The guard hands were shaking and his voice was breathless; he was obviously tense and highly strung. The Time Lord decided he'd best try calming the man down before he started shooting.
"Look, I'm not actually one of the patients here."
"If you're not one of the freaks, your one of the Blackgate scum, and that means one too many."
The guard cocked his weapon. The Doctor observed the barrel nervously. Possibly the guard was just making a hollow threat, but he certainly seemed prepared to kill an unarmed man. He could see it in his eyes. His eyes were full of fear.
"Look, if there's some sort of problem I'm sure I can help out, but first you've got to stop waving that gun around."
"I ain't taking orders from some ugly looking-"
The Doctor lost interest as the monologue took on a more obscene tone. As the Doctor looked around, his eyes noticed something peculiar- a pair of clockwork joke teeth, happily snapping away as it trundled across the ground on tiny little wheels, accompanied by a second set of teeth as they came from the direction of the facility towards the Doctor and the guard.
"Erm, sorry," the Doctor interrupted the guard's ranting "but I think you sho-"
"Shut up! I don't wanna hear a single word out of you!"
"I know, it's just that there's-"
"I said shut it!" the guard shoved the Doctor back several paces. "I want answers. What's going on in this place and what are you guys up to? And where's-" the man went on shouting while the Doctor did his best to ignore him and watch the progress of the teeth. The first one seemed to home in on the guard as though something were drawing them together. The guard didn't notice it at all until its chomping teeth bit down onto his boot.
"What the-"
The teeth exploded with the force of a grenade, throwing the Doctor flat on his back as magnesium blazed and coloured sparks whistled from the blast as though it were a firework.
The Doctor immediately looked up, but from where he lay there was no sign of the guard. The Doctor was allowed no time to grieve as a chattering came from his left. The second set of teeth was coming at the Doctor now, gnashing with menace.
The Doctor scrabbled along the ground like a crab, seeking to get away from the deadly novelty. The teeth continued to almost glide across on a collision course with the Doctor's hip. The Time Lord quickly got to his feet with a clumsy roll and hopped backwards as fast as he could. The teeth continued to follow.
Suddenly, the Doctor found himself back up against the wall. It was too high to climb and the gates were locked. With only one option available to him, he pulled the sonic screwdriver from his top pocket and directed a blast of energy at the thing that was now at his feet.
Quite to the Doctor's surprise, the teeth stopped instantly.
"What, is that it?" the Doctor asked himself. He looked down at the teeth, before he felt satisfied the danger had passed and scooped up the object.
"Well, well, well. What have we here?" he mumbled as he inspected it. He looked down at the small crater which marked the demise of the anxious guard. What started as a look of pity turned into horror as a third set of teeth sped out of the tall grass round the derelict house towards the Doctor.
The Doctor struggled vainly to pull the screwdriver out again as the teeth came within biting distance.
A loud 'BOOM' erupted from a nearby revolver, and the joke teeth were blown to smithereens. A few sparks leapt from it as substances inside were ignited but the chemical reaction necessary for the full explosion failed to take place.
The Doctor swung his head towards the origin of the shot and saw a man with a very wide build, dressed in a formal looking suit and grey trench coat, pointing a gun at him through the gate.
"Your lucky night buddy," he drawled thickly "at least it is till I find out exactly who you are. Tony, get this gate open."
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Leaning against the side of a squad car, the Doctor found himself alone with the young police officer, Tony. The one in charge, detective Bullock, was trying to speak to someone over the radio of an unmarked police car, with apparently little success. What sounded like laughter and agonised screams kept blurting out of the receiver at random intervals. It looked like the Doctor would have some time to himself, as no one else seemed particularly interested in him.
There were three other police officers and two asylum security guards. The skeleton crew seemed nervous, and kept shooting glances at both the asylum and at the Doctor. From somewhere nearby the facility, the noise of an angry crowd wafted through the air. Clearly, something very bad was happening at the asylum.
"So, what's going on exactly?"
The policeman next to the Doctor looked at him vaguely and said "What?"
"Just, 'what's going on'? In general I mean."
"You're telling me you don't know? If that's true you're the only person in the city who doesn't."
"Well that's me." the Doctor grinned sheepishly. "So come on. Gimme a quick rundown of things."
"Can't you tell? Those maniacs have taken over the whole asylum and we're cut off from the mainland."
"That crowd in there doesn't sound like people with psychological disorders to me." the Doctor pointed out. "Sounds more like a restless lynch mob."
"They're the ones transferred from Blackgate prison, but they're just as crazy as the psychopaths."
"Why did they get sent here from a prison? And shouldn't there be more of you here to deal with this?"
The guard scowled at the Doctor. "Don't you know anything? The Joker's the one responsible for this. He obviously started the fire in Blackgate that got those prisoners sent here, and he was on radio just a minute ago saying if anyone comes on or off Arkham island he'll start blowing up bombs at random round the city."
"Oh I see," the Doctor rubbed his chin thoughtfully "someone's orchestrated this from the beginin- hang on." the Doctor's tone suddenly turned sour. "Did you say 'Joker'?"
"Yeah. Why; you're not going to tell me you haven't heard of him either?"
"Oh no, Tony, not at all." the Doctor looked grimly towards the ominous asylum gates. "I know precisely who he is."
The Doctor couldn't believe it. Of all things, he'd crash landed the TARDIS in the parallel world that provided the basis of 'The Batman' in his own world. The Doctor had seen enough of the films to know that the Joker wasn't someone you'd like to meet in real life. And from what young Tony was saying, he was accompanied by a horde of dangerous criminals and potentially psychopathic asylum patients.
"Why can I never crash land somewhere nice?" he asked out loud.
"Crash land?" the policeman asked. "You get here by plane or something?"
"Boat actually." the Doctor made up as he thought. Perhaps it was the combined madness of all the maniacs in the asylum that had contaminated the psyche of the TARDIS, although the machine had survived encounters with Bedlam and Deolali so there had to be some more to it. He had to find out what had damaged his ship and rectify it as soon as possible, otherwise he'd never be able to leave.
For now, however, he had no choice but to endure being a prisoner of the Gotham police force. With the free time he had, the Doctor decided to start examining the joke teeth he'd found.
Since the sonic screwdriver had been confiscated, the Time Lord had to handle the device with his hands. After about a minute of fiddling around with it, Tony asked gruffly "Do you have to keep moving around like that?"
"Well if you insist on wearing these," the Doctor nodded towards the handcuffs that held them together "Reminds me of friendship bracelets. Do you remember when friendship bracelets with big? 'Course, they didn't keep people chained together; that sort of thing probably gives out the wrong message to young children, but there was this one society I met that did exactly that- a friendship ceremony where two people would spend one day with their hands tied together. They let me take part in one, but their skin was very uncomfortable, and corrosive, so I had to duck out."
The officer looked away for a moment as he tried to make sense of what he'd just heard. The Doctor used the quick opportunity to crack open the teeth and look inside.
"What the 'ell are you talking about!" the man suddenly protested.
"Just saying, about how these handcuffs remind me of friendship bracelets. Bet the bloke who made this little nick-nack doesn't have many friends though- look."
He held the exploding teeth between them, with its workings exposed for all the world to see.
"Very nicely done. The winder that keeps the teeth moving is also the detonator. There's a small power cell at the back with a turbine generator that's turned by the movement of the jaw, to give extra power and prolong the time that the teeth can work. It has a thermal sensor disguised as the tongue to lead it to people via their own heat signatures. When the teeth bite down on something they jam and the winder snaps lose, setting off the explosion by igniting compacted semtex. The magnesium, phosphorous and other metals that give the firework effect are in the tips of the teeth, and they're shaped to look like fillings. Seems the Joker has an interesting sense of humour."
"Sense of humour?" officer Tony gave an ironic laugh. "That's one way to put it."
Just then, detective Bullock threw down the radio he was using in disgust and turned towards the Doctor. The Doctor quickly dropped the teeth into his pocket and straightened his suit politely.
"Ah detective," his said brightly "I was wondering when I'd get the chance to speak with you."
"You'll speak when you're spoken to, inmate."
The Doctor ignored the man's rudeness and went on. "There's been some sort of mistake. People seem to think I'm one of the prisoners from Blackgate prison, and that is just not true."
"I can see it isn't. I guy like you wouldn't last three seconds in Blackgate."
"Then why have I been arrested?"
"From the way you talk, you could easily be a nut escaped from the penitentiary."
"A what!"
"Alright, cut the act limey-"
"Limey!"
"I wanna know everything. Who you are, what you're doin' here, and what's goin' on in the asylum."
"Well, actually," the Doctor reached into his inside jacket pocket to get his psychic paper "I'm here for you gents. John Smith, public liaison officer between the local police and the citizen's police oversight committee."
The Doctor found himself disappointed with how slight Bullock's reaction was to the false revelation. He leaned forward to get a closer look at the psychic paper, then sneered at the person holding it.
"Well, well. I never thought I'd see an L.O. risk getting their hands dirty in a place like this. What you doin' here then?"
"I was..." the Doctor looked at Tony, aware that he'd already claimed he'd arrived there by boat and had crash landed "out, just rowing in the river, aaaand I," the Doctor strained to come up with something feasible "took a wrong turn, and ran aground on some rocks, and had to leave my boat and come to the asylum to look for help."
Silence hung in the air as Bullock processed his story. The Doctor felt the pressure as the officer next to him looked on with an unconvinced gaze and Bullock sneered horribly.
"Some boatman you are, Smith." the detective scoffed before turning back to his car. Both the Doctor and Tony watched him go in surprise.
"I can't believe I got away with that!" the Doctor stated with pleased surprise.
"Sir," the police officer took a step forward, pulling the Doctor along with him by the handcuffs "his story doesn't sound genuine. Maybe we should question him further."
"Forget it, he's got I.D. and we ain't got the time." Bullock picked up the radio handset and tried to tune the reception correctly. "Un-cuff him and help me get a signal on this thing; looks like someone's trying to send a message from inside the asylum."
The Doctor grinned smugly as, with some reluctance, Tony removed the handcuffs from his wrist.
"Just stay there and be quite, Smith." Bullock warned. "Remember, no one's to leave the island, and we don't want no help from a civilian, and in case you're having any bright ideas, we ain't answering no questions about police brutality. This is an emergency."
With that, Bullock turned away from the Doctor, and everyone seemed to forget about him instantly.
The Doctor looked on for a moment as the tiny force went about their business, Bullock and Tony trying to find a channel that wasn't taken up by the sound of chaos, the others guarding the asylum gates and checking the walls for places people might climb over.
Displays of human courage never failed to impress the Doctor. True, most courageous humans insisted of resorting to violence in such situations, but he couldn't deny the admiration he felt when ordinary people were prepared to do the most illogical things because it was for a good cause.
'Well I'm already here, so a slight delay can't hurt, can it?'
The Doctor fiercely buried the disobedient thought. He hated the idea of leaving while there was a crisis, but this was a parallel world and he'd merely fallen into it by accident. He couldn't just dive in and start getting involved. As a Time Lord, it was his duty to leave before he influenced the goings on of that world too much and then seal up the gap in reality that had allowed him to fall through in the first place.
"Hey limey!" Bullock suddenly called, distracting the Doctor from his thoughts. "Get over here will ya."
"Look detective, I really don't think I should be getting involved with police matters." the Doctor swore he felt his hearts skip a pair of beats. The Doctor, giving way to an official authority and protesting about getting involved? Unheard of!
"Never mind that. Your weird stick thing has damaged my radio."
In the blink of an eye, the Doctor was their protesting "What do you think you're doing with my sonic screwdriver!"
"A what screwdriver!" Bullock asked. "What's it supposed to do?"
The Doctor snatched the device from Bullock who was holding it between thumb and forefinger as though it were toxic.
"Why were you using it?"
"I was checking it. I saw you trying to use it to control those exploding teeth. Thought maybe it was one of the Joker's toys."
"It's my toy actually and it's not for controlling those teeth. It's a delicate tool."
"Well it's gone and messed up my radio. It won't work at all now. Some tool."
With an exasperated sigh, the time/space traveller switched settings and activated the sonic screwdriver against the side of the fitted radio in the car. The radio spluttered into life, and got through to a clear channel instead of the screams and laughs that had haunted the waves before.
"There, see? Good as new!"
The Doctor put the sonic screwdriver back in his top pocket and turned away.
"Hello! Is anyone there! For God's sake, just answer already!"
Detective Bullock snatched up the hand held radio transmitter while the Doctor turned back at the sound of the voice coming from the receiver.
"This is Bullock; go ahead."
"Bullock? What d'you mean, Bullock? Am I through to the police or a farm yard?"
The Doctor's eyebrows narrowed. There was something wrong with the voice coming from the radio.
"Who is this!" the detective demanded from the voice. "You're not from police HQ!"
"No I'm not, and I never said I was so don't get shirty with me pal!"
Then it came to the Doctor. There was nothing wrong with the voice, it was the accent. It was English, not American.
"I said 'who is this'?"
"Nurse Danielle Noble; Arkham Asylum children's ward."
The Doctor's knees buckled in shock.
Noble? Noble!
The Doctor tried to get to grips with what he was hearing.
Danielle Noble; a voice that was so recognisable, and an attitude that left no doubt.
He'd just encountered Donna Noble's parallel dimension alter ego!
Bullock went to answer, but instead ended up doing a double-take as the Doctor's rapier thin body slipped round his bulk and into the seat of his car.
"Wadda' think your doin', Smith!" he objected.
"I'm the public liaison officer." said the Doctor, and grabbed the transmitter from Bullock's hand. "Hello? Don- Danielle, can you hear me?"
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"Of course I can hear you! That's what I just asked!" Danielle raged into the radio. She did her best to ignore the fact that the radio was dripping with blood from the guard who used to own it. Around her, the whimpers of children filled the air while another very stressed out nurse tried to keep them quite. One of the killers from Blackgate had already been and gone, but there was no telling if or when they might come back.
"Alright, just stay calm and tell me what's wrong."
"What's-wrong?" she hissed like a python. "Do I really need to give you a description? There's lunatics all over the place. What else could be wrong?"
The person on the other end of the radio seemed to give a sigh of frustration before continuing with "Okay then. Now give me all the details so I know how best to deal with it."
Danielle thought she might scream with impatience, but knew she had to stay calm if she was going to get anywhere with this person.
"Me and another nurse are hiding in the children's ward. Someone came here a moment ago and they killed the guard outside! They've gone now but I don't know where, and all the other guards are dealing with people in the rest of the medical facility."
"Alright, tell me where the medical facility is and we'll get you out of there."
"What do you mean 'Where is it'? Haven't you got a map or something?" Danielle said, but her words were ignored as someone else on the other end of the line started shouting "Wait a minute; I'm the one who gives orders and no limey is goin' over my head!"
She wondered if she were really through to the police after all, instead of another one of the Joker's trick broadcast channels. With no other option, however, she went to speak again.
Just then, the doors to the hallway were kicked open.
"Well, well; what have we here?" Harley Quinn strode into the room, her garishly coloured costume like a blot against the pure white walls of the small reception.
"They built a children's ward. Isn't that cute? Mr J's gonna be thrilled when he finds out even the kids of Gotham are losing their minds as well."
There was a slam from the other end of the room as the second nurse shut the doors into the ward itself. The sound of a lock turning was followed with deathly silence as those inside waited to hear what would happen with those outside.
"Oh you have got to be kidding me." Danielle whined as she looked at the closed double doors, leaving her with no other exit from the reception except the one guarded by Harley's goons.
"Bad luck, Red. Guess you're stuck with me now."
Danielle turned to face the super villain with an exasperated glare, the sing-song voice already grating on her nerves.
"Looks like it. Nice get up, by the way. Looks like something that escaped from a sixties disco."
While Harley's face looked as it always did, with white powered skin and a black mask across her eyes like something out of a masquerade ball, her costume had changed from the usual jester style bodysuit to fire engine red corset belted over a white blouse, and fingerless gloves with long sleeves that stop just above her elbows. The tops of her thighs were left bare by the white skirt she wore, and were further exaggerated by fishnet stockings poking out of the top of platform boots that went all the way up her legs. She'd dispensed with the fool's cap she used to wear, and now her sunny blond hair was revealed in two wavy pigtails either side of her head.
"Don't try and be clever, babe." Harley warned as she brandished a wooden cane that had previously belonged to the warden. "Mr J is the one in charge of the laughs round here."
"Well I don't hear anyone laughing right now."
"Oh don't worry Red. Things'll really liven up once the kids join the party."
With that, Harley tossed the cane down on a nearby desk and pulled an assault rifle from where it hung from her back.
Donna slightly recoiled as the younger women approached the door. She couldn't even begin to imagine the nightmare that would take place if the Joker got his hands on the dozen or so children in there, and it wouldn't take Quinn long to shoot the lock off the door, yet there was no one around who could stop her. No guards, no police.
Just her...
'Why have I got to do this?' Danielle thought. 'This is so not my job.'
Nevertheless, she reluctantly stepped forward to challenge the crazed villain.
" 'ere, that's far enough you fruit cake. No one goes into my ward without my say so."
Predictably, Harley turned and pointed the gun at the nurse instead.
'Nice work. What's the encore, grenade juggling?'
"Who you calling a fruit cake, lady? Do you even know who you're talkin' to?"
Danielle's mouth opened to reply, but Harley, sensing facetiousness, ploughed on.
"I'm Harley Quinn, the Joker's right hand girl and his sweetie pie!" Harley practically swooned with delight, and Danielle's face crumpled in disgust. "Guess you being a Brit means you're pretty out of touch with all the hot news."
Danielle's eyes narrowed at the slur against her.
"I don't need to know all the hot news to guess that you're the Joker's girl. He looks like he goes for the dumb blond type."
Now it was Harley's turn to narrow hers eyes, her day-dreamish grin falling into fury.
"Hey, where d'you get off speaking about me and my puddin' like that! I ought to plug you right now, and some of kids along with you!"
"Well," the nurse decided to take the chance she'd been waiting for "why don't you take me wherever you're going and I can really tell you what I think of you and 'puddin'? I don't really want to say these sort of things where the kids might hear me."
Quinn stalked over to Danielle with an evil glint in her eye. The nurse thrust her hands into the pockets of her green nurse uniform trousers and glared defiantly back.
"Oh, I see your game now." Harley sneered. "You want me to take you to where we're gonna hold up and leave the kids behind. Nice try, but why do you think I'd ignore them just for you?"
Danielle shrugged and said "I don't know. Maybe because of..." she removed a hand from one of her pockets- "this?" - and sprayed a can of CS gas she'd taken from the dead guard right into Harley's face.
The former psychiatrist screamed as the gas stung her eyes even as she darted back out of Danielle's range. The nurse went to follow her, but one of the thugs who'd been waiting at the door stepped forward and slapped the spray out of her hand.
Harley quickly recovered from the attack and spun around, catching the butt of her rifle against Danielle's head, knocking the woman cold.
"You little bitch!" Harley's banshee howl echoed though the empty hallways of the medical facility.
"You!" she barked at the lackey who'd come to her rescue. "Grab her by the hair and drag her along with us. I'm gonna make her wish she'd never been born."
As the Blackgate prisoner dragged the stunned woman to the door, the other grunt asked nervously "What about the kids, Miss Quinn? We takin' 'em or not?"
"Forget them; it's not like they're going anywhere." she answered with a disgusted look at the man.
Taking the hint, the guy shut up as Harley stormed out of the children's ward reception and down the hall
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The Doctor listened silently until the footsteps had died away and nothing more came through from the discarded radio.
'Donna, what have you just gotten yourself into?' he thought with dread.
"Wow, what a crazy girl." Bullock muttered. "Who'd be stupid enough to take on someone like Quinn?"
The Doctor got out of the car and faced the detective with a dark look. In his anger he seemed to tower over the police officer, even though he was only an inch or two taller.
"She just stopped a dangerous psychopath from taking a dozen or so children hostage. She put herself at risk to try and protect innocent people from coming to harm. Last time I looked, the police were hiding behind a wall. I don't think you're in any position to judge nurse Noble."
"Hey, get off my case." Bullock protested. "We're doin' everything we can right now."
"So what are you going to do about the people trapped in the medical facility?"
"Well, what can we do? We go in there with just the seven of us we'll be torn apart."
"So you're just going to wait while a massacre takes place and not lift a finger to stop it?"
"We're going to do somethin'," Bullock growled, aiming a threatening finger at the Doctor as though it held destructive powers "as soon as we work out a sensible strategy. We don't need tellin' what to do from you."
"We haven't got time to come up with a sensible strategy, and I'm not going to wait around while you come up with one." hissed the Doctor, before pushing passed the detective angrily.
The Doctor felt a rage and determination well up inside him. Donna was somewhere in that complex, just as stupid and small minded... and wonderfully brilliant as ever. She was facing certain death, just like she had just few months ago. Only this time, he wasn't powerless to help her.
Damn the rules, and damn the consequences! Donna had sent him a heated command to be rescued, and he was going to answer.
"You're not going anywhere!" Bullock shouted as the Doctor headed towards the asylum gates. "A public liaison officer and you think you can take on hundreds of criminals and loonies! Who d'you think you are, Smith!"
"I'm not just public liaison." the Doctor spun round and pulled his psychic paper from his pocket. "Former Gotham City homicide detective, now private investigator, known throughout the underworld circles as the Doctor!"
Bullock sighed.
"Great, another wacko vigilante with a dumb name and a bad costume."