Chapter Three: The Nature of Evil
Pam sat up on the windowsill of her dormitory. It was late, but despite the hour of the night, the lights from the city still danced in the distance like huge groups of artificial stars. She wasn't used to the noise. Things closed early where Pam was from. She used to be able to see the lights from Seattle across the harbour, but the city lights had never been this close, and the city had never been this loud.
"I hate this city." She sighed, pulling the elastic out of her hair and chucking it carelessly on the ground.
"Join the club." Harley chuckled.
"It's beyond me why anyone comes here." Pam mused. "It's so….so….I dunno, what would you call it?"
"Shitty?" Harley joked. "Is that it? Jeez, Pam, if you hate Gotham so much why don't you just leave?"
Pam shrugged. "It was available. I was always homeschooled, so it was hard for me to get recognised by good universities. Gotham was the only college that I could get into."
Pam hopped down from the windowsill and grabbed her hairbrush.
"How 'bout you, Harley? Why did you choose Gotham?"
"I came for the criminal element." Harley explained. "I got into Psychology because I want to unlock the nature of evil. Why good people do bad things and all. You can study criminal psychology at any old university, but Gotham seemed like the perfect place to see the common American psychopath in its prime natural environment."
Pam couldn't help but grin at the analogy. "Like what do you mean?"
"What?"
"What makes Gotham City's criminals so different from criminals in, say, Las Vegas?"
"I don't know." Harley shrugged. "But they are definitely more interesting. Take…this guy for example," Harley reached into her portfolio and pulled out a newspaper clipping to show to her room mate. "They call him 'The Penguin.'"
Pam examined the photo on the page. It was black-and-white, and it showed a short, round man in a Victorian-style dinner suit and top hat with ratty black hair and a hooked nose. To Pamela, he didn't look threatening, but what did she know.
"His real name is Oswald Cobblepot, of the wealthy Cobblepot family. He's a master jewel thief who trains birds to commit crimes for him."
"He sounds like a real nutter, all right." Pam laughed. "Got any more pictures I can look at?"
Harley nodded. She pulled out another newspaper clipping. This photo was in colour. It was a photo of a man who seemed to have an invisible line down the centre of his body. On his right side, he looked like an ordinary man, with neat hair and a smart grey business suit, but on his left side, he looked more like a corpse. His skin was covered in scars and burns, and his eyelids, lips and a good portion of his cheek were rotted away- exposing his left eye socket, face muscles and part of his skull. On this side, his suit was splattered with black and red paint. A chill went down Pam's spine.
"Yuech, who's that?" She cringed.
"Harvey Two-Face." Harley said, her voice hushed and exited, like a child telling a ghost story. "He used to be the district attorney, you know. As the story goes, he had an innocent man sent to prison. After the trial, the guy ambushed him in the parking lot and dumped a big thing of Hydrochloric acid on him. He survived, but the acid burned off allot of his skin. He went nuts after that." Harley paused for dramatic effect. "The people at Arkham Asylum say they can hear him in his cell. They say that the two sides argue with each other."
"That's creepy." Pamela said.
"Yeah, I know." Harley said, grinning. "The really interesting thing is, allot of Gotham's worst criminals come from unlikely places- businessmen, actors, members of the upper-class, even members of government! It's scary, when you think about it. The people who you least expect can just…turn evil. Just like that." She snapped her fingers. "And that's what I want to research. That's why I came to Gotham."