Chapter four

Every day for a week, Dominic Gîte had watched the blonde girl hurtle down the corridor outside his cell, then sprint back again, screaming obscenities at the unfortunate guards pursuing her. Well, perhaps obscenities was a somewhat extreme way of describing words like 'Fart-breath' and 'Butt-head', but the sentiment was clear. The chase would go on, the girl evading her pursuers with feints and somersaults. But every time, just as Gîte was sure she was she was going to escape, she would seem to give up, almost as if she was bored, and allow herself to be handcuffed and taken back to her cell.

She'd been brought in a couple of weeks back. Dominic had hoped she was a new rogue, someone to take any residual attention off himself, but judging by the mix of jeer and words of encouragement, she in wasn't a newbie like himself, but an old friend who had been recaptured. He'd watched as the blonde girl was frogmarched past his cell, already in a grey, asylum issue jumpsuit, the only indication of who she was outside the asylum being the remains of a black and white painted face, smeared from her capture. Dominic supposed even that would be gone once they got her to hold still enough to apply a damp cloth to her face. He'd felt almost sorry for her, but in the middle of that thought she noticed him looking at her and yelled at him through the bars of his cell "Whadda you lookin' at?" He'd retreated back into his meagre living quarters and gone back to watching his cellmate, the Ventriloquist, sit and talk to his hand.

She'd been out of sight and, more or less, out of mind for a week, while she was kept in solitary confinement. He'd overheard some conversations (which he'd discovered was the best way to find things out without actually having to talk to someone), and had heard her referred to as 'Harley Quinn'. Once she was out of solitary however, that was when the ritual non-escapes began. Now, after having been in the asylum for almost a month, Dominic was becoming accustomed to the insane antics of his fellow inmates, but this display confused him. Why let herself be caught when she clearly had the upper hand on the people guarding her? It took him seven repeats of this before he was brave enough to ask someone. Of course, he didn't ask any members of staff; in his short time here he'd already learned if he wanted answers, he'd go to his friend Edward Nigma.

"Oh that," Nigma had said, as though it had been obvious since the start, "she's trying to get into higher security."

"Oh..." said Gîte, as perplexed as ever, "um, why?" Nigma rolled his eyes, and Gîte wondered if he was being stupid in some way.

"Because she thinks she'll get to see the Joker. Incidentally," he said, catching Harley's arm as they walked down the corridor, "you do know it has no chance in hell of working, right? Come now, even an imbecile could see what you're trying to do." Harley stuck her tongue out at him before being led in the opposite direction by a scowling member of staff. The Riddler shrugged, and Dominic followed him into the rec room. He found he spent most of his time following the Riddler around like a love-sick puppy. Or, perhaps more appropriately, a shadow. Well, at least hanging around the Riddler meant his many unvoiced questions got answered anyway, courtesy of the fact that he just talked so much.

For instance, as they sat down (on the same couch they sat on every morning. Both men were fond of consistency), Dominic was wondering how exactly the security levels worked. He supposed the staff were wary about giving even seemingly innocuous patients like him too much information, lest it be used in a breakout. But just as he was resigning himself to not knowing, Nigma started chattering about it. The Riddler seemed to know a lot of things that ought to have remained secret.

"Okay, here's how things work round here. There are four levels of security: low, medium – that's us by the way – high and extra-high, the latter of which is rumoured to have been created especially with the Joker in mind. Just so you know," and now he eyed Dominic significantly, "it's rare you see someone here in medium that doesn't have some sort of...public persona. You see, if the press found out we were on low security, they'd go ballistic over us not being," he inserted the finger quotes, "'properly secure'."

This invoked a laugh from Crane, who was listening in from behind his outdated newspaper, as though his Edward had referenced an in-joke. Gîte glanced quizzically at him, and Edward said "Oh he just finds it funny that the press still thinks this place is secure at all. Honestly, next time I break out I may have to make it more difficult to prevent boredom setting in.

"Anyway," he continued, "this means that those who aren't dangerous enough to go on high security, myself included since I prefer to use my mind rather than brute strength..."

Again, Crane snickered out loud to himself, although this time the laughter was considerably more derisive.

"As I was saying, if we don't go in high then we invariably get put in medium. You find most of the, well, unmasked patients get shuffled down to low." His mouth twisted into a cynical smirk. "The beloved folks who run this place clearly think they have more to gain from investing in those of us that the press are interested in. It's why Zsasz – oh he's high security, you won't have met him – isn't rotting in Blackgate with all the other serial killers. Because he has his tally marks, something with which to distinguish him. Other than that he's just a murderer, and a messy one at that.

He shrugged. "C'est la vie. And people wonder why more and more people are donning Halloween costumes every time they commit a crime. Honestly, at least when Crane and I started it was original.

"So what did you do that makes you so special?" The unexpected shift from his tract about Gotham to this knocked Dominic off balance, and for a second he just stared slack-jawedly at Edward.

He seemed to take this for incomprehension. "How did Dominic Gîte, someone so conspicuously gimmick-less that I'm sure some of the folks at Blackgate could give you a run for your money, end up in here with Scarecrow, The Ventriloquist, Poison Ivy, Harley Quinn and The Riddler?"

Panic seized Dominic in a breath stealing grip. This wasn't happening, he couldn't talk about that, why did people always ask? Police, doctors and now even his fellow inmates! He opened his mouth to try and formulate some sort of reply, but the words still wouldn't come.

Nigma laughed at his gormless expression, making Gîte wonder for the umpteenth time why he still regarded him as a friend. "Oh don't get yourself in a twist; that was at least partially rhetorical. But just bear in mind: I will find out. I always do."