JESSICA

Jessica came around the bend, jogging hard on the Gotham Central park path. She just needed to drop five pounds. Spinning class made her sick, some days, and besides, she couldn't look at Kristen without wanting to slap her for going to the movie with Kevin right after Jessica broke up-Who's this?

A preadolescent boy, looking lost, very slender came out of the bushes. "Ma'am…have you seen a little dog? He's my Mom's and I think someone might have run him over on his bike or scooter."

Ma'am? Oh, God, I'm not even twenty-four. But Jessica stopped. "Sweetie I haven't seen him, I've just started my run—" But the boy stepped a little closer and there was a flash of metal, and Jessica felt a sting around her throat

GORDON

On the roof, Commissioner James Gordon looked at the Batman with wary eyes. He watched Batman read the strange note by the light of the Bat-Signal.

Batman looked at Gordon finally. "How many now?"

Gordon shrugged helplessly. "Seven, we think. We keep finding a new one every twelve hours. It seemed like a prank. We get this sort of thing every day, "Release the great Joker or else" letters. He's bigger than Manson."

Batman nodded. There had been a time, some months back, when Joker imitators ran around the streets, causing mayhem in Joker makeup. It really did seem that the Joker was some sort of martyr, like Mumia Abu Jamal, or Manson, or even the Indian, Leonard Peltier.

"But what's significant, is the signer claims to be the son of the Joker. I didn't even know the Joker was married." This was lame humor on Gordon's part, but it had been a tense evening. "After the first three girls were found—one in a trash masher—we got a second missive, this time on the Internet, "Free my dad, isn't four enough?"

Gordon lit a Winston. " And then we realized there was another girl, and by the time we got in touch with you, there have been three more, and Bullock just told me he's been called to the park because some poor jogger, a law student had her head cut off. Beheaded. Unless it was the work of a machete wielding mugger, that will be the eighth to this lunatic's credit. He signs them in blood, each one, "JUNIOR" carved across the right breast."

Jim Gordon looked up at the Batman to see what his reaction was, but…the Batman was gone.

STEPHANIE

I can't get over how creepy this place is. When Daddy was in one of his more abusive Cluemaster phases, I used to stay at the Open Door runaway shelter, and they were so nice, a little strict, but…God, I hope Damian is okay. He looks so weird.

Damian looked at me. "This is the degeneracy of American youth. What sort of troglodytes raise creatures like this? You criticize my mother for putting me with the League of Assassins, but these creatures—"

Damian waves a small arm at three smoking dirt-bags on the Micah House's porch steps (we're sitting on the railings) True, one has a decrepit Mohawk that needs Elmer's Glue maintenance, and the other two look like roadies. But just to mess with old sober-sides, I do devil's advocate.

"Oh, Damian. They're just troubled youth expressing themselves, don't you know? This is a cry for help from them. Their dress, their um, attitude—"

It was hard. The Mohawk's attitude was disgusting, and the black kid next to him had a huge ring—like a thick hoop earring—in the side of his nose, like a bull.

And of course Damian wasn't even listening to me.

"And their grammar is appalling. I have never heard so many double negatives. And I heard one misuse the word like. You don't use 'like' when you mean 'approximately."

"I had, like five bucks this morning, but I blew it smoking shit, man" says Mohawk to one of the roadies. "I'm like, totally broke now."

Damian shoots me a triumphant glance. One of the thugs looks over at him—Damian is ten and short for his age, and I wonder if the kid is going to try and take Damian's money. I worry about this. We will never get the child sex pimps to recruit us from here if Damian puts one of these creatures in traction.

Blessedly, all on the porch are distracted by two new arrivals, coming up the walk. A pudgy type in his mid to late teens, and a shorter, very innocent looking kid—maybe twelve? God the poor things keep showing up here. Doesn't anyone take care of them?

"Jared, I hate stayin' in holes like this, man." The bigger boy was arguing with the cherubic one. Maybe thirteen? No older. And much more somberly dressed. He's not even wearing jeans, khakis and a pullover LL Bean sweater.

"We have little choice, Otto. We can hardly rent a hotel room. And you ruined things for us at the YMCA." The blond boy looks at the three hooligans on the steps.

"Tell me, guys…is this Micah House? Are there beds available?" He smiles at the Mohawk, like a toddler Mister Rogers.

MARTIN "SCALPEL" SANDERS

Scalpel had had a bad fuckin' week, man. Dad in Blackgate, and he came home and found his step-mother shooting up his stash, and he kicked her upper plate in, and she threw him out, and now he was in this Micah crap-fest. And he hadn't gotten high in THREE HOURS and no scratch, man. Not a dime.

He looked at the little queer-boy standing in front of him. The kid looked like he might have some bucks, and the older one, Blubbo, didn't have any balls.

"Yeah. There might be beds available." Scalpel winked at Rajul, who was sitting next to him, and Rajul snorted. Scalpel and Rajul had been in opposing gangs locked up in Bludhaven Youth last year…but now they were pretty cool. And Rajul was scary. The ring in Rajul's nose was so cool—thick, and no-nonsense.

Scalpel wanted to get facial piercings, but in his heart, he was such a pussy. The giant swastika on his chest (which he kept blessedly hidden in this mixed race environment) had put him in bed for a week.

Clematis, Rajul's younger brother sat on the other side of Raj on the porch, and Scalpel knew that Clematis had a huge piercing on the inside of his lip, that he said the ladies LOVED. But Scalpel was just a wimp…he couldn't do that shit.

But he could bat this little turd on the steps around.

"Yeah you might be able to get into this shelter." Put a little menace in it.

"Excellent, Come on, Otto." The kid began mounting the steps, followed by Baby Huey, and Rajul stopped him, putting a large black paw on the boy's narrow chest.

"You got to pay a toll to get in, boy. This ain' no free ride." Rajul pronounced it "riiide"

The blonde bitch with the good tits standing with the little tiny kid on the porch stepped over to put her nose in. "Hey, Rajul, just let him in. They don't have any money, same as us."

Scalpel looked at the blonde, Steffi something. Was the little kid her brother? They'd been here for two days. Stuck together. Scalpel wouldn't mind grinding on a little of that.

And now Rajul was slowly standing up. "Shut up, Stephanie, you stuck up skank cracker. You see this ring in mah nose…it's here 'cause I'm a raging bull."

Clematis grinned, showing two gold teeth. He was tremendously proud of his brother. The week before, the two of them had ripped an ATM from a bank, emptied it, and thrown it in the river. And then had a 72 hour crack binge, and were broke again. Life was like that.

"You hear me, white boy? I'm a raging, roaring bull, an' I get what I want."

"A bull? Like Ferdinand." The boy looked up at him. The other fat kid looked a little bored. He apparently was not worried about his friend being stomped to death by Ragin' Rajul.

"Ferdinan'?" Rajul looked confused.

"Yes, it's a great children's story about this big, dumb bull who sits in a field until he's stung by a bee, and then he goes wild." The boy just talked to Rajul like they were at a goddamn cocktail party!

"Yeah, okay, but I also go wild and I sting little bees who don't give me they money…or those shoes. I like those shoes." Rajul had pulled out a knife. Not a switchblade, but a big buck knife that scared even Scalpel, who had once chopped a school secretary's thumb off with an office paper cutter.

Rajul bore down on the kid, six feet tall he was, and the boy, five two gave him another big smile. Scalpel wondered if maybe the kid was a schizophrenic, and didn't understand. No, even a nut would see. Maybe the kid's legally blind, and…

"I just love that ring." The kid reached up and TOUCHED the ring on Rajul's nose. "Do you see it, Otto?" The kid pulled the ring with two strong little fingers, and dragged Rajul's nose to the fat kid's attention.

Rajul began waving his arms, the knife in one. As the kid pulled the ring with his right hand, he took his left and grabbed Rajul's cheek.

"I think I want to see how this ring would look on my finger."

But now Rajul was out of shock and swung the knife towards the little kid's chest. Scalpel got up, to grab Fatso if he interfered, but Fatso was just watching, with a grin on his face.

The little kid shook the ringed nose (And Rajul's screaming head) a couple of times. And then, he noticed the surging knife. "Yes, that would be helpful. Thanks." SNAP! It looked as if the kid just touched Rajul's wrist, but it bent backwards and Rajul REALLY screamed, and then the kid caught the buck knife as it fell.

Now Rajul had a broken wrist, and the little psycho was using the knife to—ugh.

"Let me just get the blade pry this—ah yes. Sorry about your nose, friend. But this ring is great!"

Clematis, on Rajul's other side, came alive and dove at the little kid who distractedly stuck the knife in Clem's left eye, and then Clem was also down for the count.

Rajul lay on the steps howling. The kid dropped the very bloody buck knife on Rajul's writhing chest. After experimentally putting the ring on his own finger, he shrugged.

"Aah. I'd rather have a mood ring anyhow." The little kid tossed the ring right at Scalpel, whose mouth was wide open, and Scalpel swallowed it…well sort of.

As Scalpel choked and spit, and Rajul held what was left of his nose with his one working right hand, and Clematis used his left eye to watch his right eye be picked off the sidewalk by a visiting sparrow, the little blond kid nodded to the bitchy blonde and the ten year old, and went into Micah House.

"Yes, Otto, it's good to be home."

DOCTOR FERNALD WILKES

"Now, Batman, these visits are highly irregular." The little bald doctor looked up at the large man in the mask and long cape. "I just transferred to Arkham from West Seattle Neuropsychiatric, and I must say, I think there's much too much authority given to you people without any sort of identity. What's that costume about, anyway?"

The big caped man looked down at Dr. Wilkes. "About?" What a deep voice. Too much repression.

"The desire to keep your face hidden. Is there shame? Were you properly toilet trained? I'm not being intrusive, of course, but—"

They arrived at the cell door, and a guard opened it.

There was the Joker, in a gray jumpsuit, his feet on a table., reading the "New Yorker".

And he looked up. "Bats! Buddy! A visit? How kind of you!"

Dr. Wilkes smiled. "Joker, I hope you don't mind if Batman comes to see you briefly. He has a few questions for you, and if you can help him, we'll give you some extra privileges."

"Oh! Like pudding, or maybe I can watch the "Beverly Hillbillies" What fun!" The Joker put his feet down and rested his bright white chin on his hands. "What can Mister J do for you, old masked thing?"

Batman folded his arms and looked down at the Joker. "The police have been getting letters from someone purporting to be your son. The writer has stated that a young woman will be killed every day until we release you with one hundred thousand dollars, quote "seed money". Do you know anything about this, Joker?"

The Joker stopped smiling, and looked up at Batman as if he were an interesting specimen. "That's so interesting. Have many young women been killed?"

"There have been seven—perhaps eight women killed so far. It's been a week."

"Gosh, are you going to let me go? Or is there an over-abundance of the sweet young things…do you want to thin the herd?

I know that since the National Wildlife Service eliminated mountain lions and bobcats, there have been way too many deer running around the Gotham countryside." The Joker giggled. "Perhaps there are too many girls. You should free me otherwise, doncha think?"

Dr. Wilkes hastily intervened. "Joker, please. Or…Norman." To the Batman, Dr. Wilkes said "I told the Joker that we perhaps should give him a regular name, since he can't seem to recall his birth name…"

Batman gave the doctor a disgusted look. "He just won't tell us what his name is."

"Well, anyway, I am hoping to get the state to finance an operation where the Jo-Norman's face and body could be transformed, through plastic surgery to make him look like a regular person again. And then perhaps he could return to society."

The Joker looked up at Batman earnestly. "I chose the name Norman. It reminded me of a motel owner in a movie I saw once. I did tell Dr. Wilkes that plastic surgery didn't really work for Harvey Dent, but he is ever optimistic."

Batman looked daggers at the Joker. "Joker—"

"Norman, please." The Joker covered his mouth to keep from chortling.

"Recently, I heard from the Atom, who told me he was a prisoner of yours in an ant farm."

"Wee Willie Winkel. Yes, and then I got bored and flushed him. Glad he survived."

"Yes. He didn't come back to charge you with kidnapping, you're lucky."

"Stoic little fellow, the Atom."

"But he told me that he had an encounter with an adolescent boy who also said something about being your son. The boy found a way to disable the Atom's belt and then send him to you while only an inch tall…who was this kid? Tell me, Joker!"

The Joker turned to Dr. Wilkes. "I think Batman is not being productive for my therapy. I feel insecure. Can I go back to solitary now?"

The doctor turned to Batman. "You are upsetting Norman's quiet time, and you'll have to leave. However, if you want to deal with the costume issue, I will give you my card. I do take Blue Cross."

DICK GRAYSON

"Faith, an' I just don't know where Jeannie has gotten herself to." Bridget Clancy said as she sat with Dick and Gar Logan at Paco's Tacos.

"Maybe she got freaked out by my um, lime race, y'think?" Gar looked at Dick with a not quite cheerful grin. "We did get on really good in the e-mails."

Clancy smiled and touched Gar's hand. "No no…As an Irish girl with Asian skin, I can see why ye'd be worried about bein' different, laddie, but Jeannie was charmed by your pics. She told me she doesn't like bein' set up, but you got her little heart a' racin' you did."

Dick laughed. "Now don't give Gar too much confidence. He'll be swaggering all over the place when Jeannie finally shows up. You know he's unstoppable. He used to bother my old girlfriend Kori—"

"Who had ORANGE skin, and beautiful pure green eyes—" interrupted Gar.

"That's right. She was quite diverse." Dick said, a little worried by the pain in Clancy's eyes. Dick liked Clancy, but more as a friend with benefits, and if not that, then just a friend…because he couldn't get too serious with a girl, any girl. By day he was a cop, and at night he was trying to drive the scum out of the Haven…no time for "Grey's Anatomy" type drama.

Clancy's phone beeped, and she looked at it, smiling. "Ah there's our long lost girl. Why's she callin' meself, instead of showin. Jeannie!" Clancy smiled, and then looked worried. "What? Where? Barbed wire?"

Dick leaned over. "What's wrong, Clancy?"

"Begorrah an' I'm about to faint. Jeannie's just met up with a looney who tried to strangle her with barbed wire! She's a hidin' in an alley on 10th and Maribault!"

Dick ran out of the restaurant, Gar at his heels. When they got outside, Dick ducked into an alley, and came out as Nightwing, and Gar by this time had transformed himself into a rather large green condor, or perhaps an enormous eagle.

Nightwing took Beast Boy's claws, and the green vulture-eagle-condor-bird thing began flying and they landed on the corner and ran into the alley. They found the frightened girl, who was desperately trying to sop blood out of her torn neck.

Gar, deciding he didn't want to freak her out just then, became a flea and bounced on the edge of Nightwing's mask.

"N-Nuh-Nightw-wuh wing!" The girl gaped up at him with tear streaming eyes. "I-I guh-got attacked!"

But there was just a little bit of blood seeping from her neck, and Nightwing, evaluating the situation, picked Jeannie up and carried her out of the alley, and then mounted the world's largest green cheetah which ran quickly to Gotham General.

BATMAN

Batman arrived at the hospital a half hour later, coming in by window. He nodded to Dick Grayson, Bridget Clancy and Gar Logan, and Commissioner Gordon, and the Danish chomping Harvey Bullock.

"Miss, I don't want to upset you, but can you just tell me something about what happened? Who assaulted you?"

"It was a young teenaged kid, and then a kind of pudgy older one." The girl looked very small with her curly blonde hair and bandaged neck. "I was on my way to my date and the fat one approached me and said something about me being all tarted up, and I gave him the finger, but then I felt this thing around my neck from behind, like a um, garotte from the Godfather, you know?"

The Batman nodded grimly.

"But my Dad taught me a little self-defense, and I kind of stepped backwards onto the choker's foot, and I think I broke his instep."

"Good for you, lass!" Clancy clapped her hands, and Gar and Dick grinned.

"Yeah, but then the fat one kind of tried to grab me, and he fell over an open can of motor oil, I guess someone must have had car problems, and he fell and I ran…but I felt myself bleeding, and I just know they wanted me dead. Not my money, but DEAD."

"Batman, there have been other reports of these two young men approaching women…twice girls have run and called the police." Gordon said.

"Commish, they ain't muggers, neither. One chick, who I uh, interviewed—"

"Harvey, please don't talk with your mouth full?"

"When ain't it full? Anyhow, One of these skirts saw two kids, one about five foot two or three, and then a little bigger one, take her girlfriend by the goddamn neck an' drag her off into what turned out to be a stolen van—we checked the plates—and we still haven't seen or heard nothin'."

Jeannie turned her bandaged neck to the green boy sitting on the chair.

"Gar I still want to go out with you…and will you stay with me tonight?"

At least one person was cheering up.