CHAPTER TEN

"Happy Gas"

Jason felt like he was falling into a bottomless abyss, but through the plunge he kept hitting the sides of what he thought was a metal square duct just wide enough to house an adult-size man like himself shoulder-to-shoulder. He free fell through the darkness until he crashed down into some sort of box. His black cap falling off.

The hard thud made him cringe, but he didn't cry out. The pain had immediately forced him to shut his eyes, but when he opened them again, he found himself not in a box but in a cage with metal bars all around him, the kind that housed trapped wild animals in very close quarters. The top lid slammed shut and was locked in, and when he looked at who had done it, he couldn't immediately see her face, but her palindrome clown costume and long, sleek legs, were unmistakable. It didn't take any deduction to know it was Harley Quinn.

He shifted in his position and onto his back, and then kicked at the front bars, hard and angry—no one treated him like a caged animal—with but to no avail. The bars felt to be stainless steel. He kept kicking, not they wouldn't break.

Then came three hard slaps to the top of the cage and Harley leaned over with a smile on her face. "Hallo Puddin'; look what dropped down the laundry shoot," she said, and then crouched down, her legs spread out wide with her pelvis full frontal, her hands on her knees. He momentarily looked at her fully, then growled. "Don't be angry. If you'll nice, I'll bring you a bowl of water and maybe some tasty treats to munch on."

"Let me out of here!" Jason demanded, and banged on the bars again. She didn't flinch. All of sudden, she reached behind her back and produced a small water gun that must've been stuffed in her lower tights that he hadn't seen, and sprayed him in the face with it, chiding: "Bad Dog! Bad Dog!" He flinched when she got him directly in the eyes, stinging as if he had been poked by a needle. He backed off, and put up a hand up to cover his face. She continued to spray. Eyes wide shut, he protested, almost with a sinister smile. "When I get out of here, Harley, I'm going to enjoy beating you senseless along with your sadistic boss, you bitch!"

"Now, now—" came another voice within earshot. "Tsk, tsk, Jason, my boy; what terrible, nasty language from your mouth. Daddy needs to wash your mouth out with soap, or acid." Then came an all too familiar buoyant laugh.

Harley concluded her water attack, stood up and a walked away from the cage.

Jason wiped his eyes. He blinked several times, rubbing the watery fogginess out of his vision. It was then he saw him, his sworn enemy, leaning over, looking into the cage. At that moment, he felt utter rage at seeing Joker, and hence acted like the very angry caged animal he immediately portrayed.

Kicking at the bars on every side, he wanted nothing more than to ring Joker's neck. Suddenly, an even larger whack was heard on the top of the cage, as if hit by a large metal object, and a third person came to view. Jason stopped his tantrum, as he laid eyes on the lower half of a person who wore the same uniform as he, in fact, it was all too familiar. The big, muscular man backed off from the cage with a metal crowbar in hand.

Jason could now see Boss Hogg clearly. "You son-of-a-bitch!" he cursed. "You're in league with this piece of crap?"

He was genuinely shocked. In the beginning, they had got off on the wrong foot, but in the hours that followed, he began to respect the guy. He had to deal with so much at the nightclub. He had so much responsibility and was in charge of so many people. Anyone who could handle that,had to have great patience and trust so many. Cassidy had even remarked when she was shadowing him that despite his tough exterior, the man was a good guy.

Things were not entirely clear yet, but Jason was beginning to get the larger picture.

Joker put a hand on Boss Hogg's shoulder, then shrugged. "What can I say? The man likes money. In fact, he sought me out when I first attended the club," Joker explained. "He knew exactly who I was, he's not a stupid man."

"You're a fool, Boss! Joker will betray you. He never keeps his word!"

"You think I like working here?" Boss said back. "Do you know how difficult it is to keep this place running smoothly? Next to impossible, even with all the staff under my command. Most of them just want to party. And the turnover is beyond insane, most of the complaints I hear are about the heavy workload and the loud music. And don't think I don't know about what happened with you and 'Butch' Cassidy in the back alley. There are secret cameras installed all over this place that only I know about, for my eyes only. I hope you enjoyed your little rendezvous, because it'll be the last time you'll see her."

"Don't you dare hurt her!"

Boss stepped over and slammed the crowbar on the top of the cage again to silence him. The sound was deafening. Jason wasn't prone to intimidation, but he did get the point. He reached behind his back and stealthy took out his cellphone that he had in a protective pouch. He pressed a side button, and it immediately triggered a silent beacon for Batman to home in on. One of Tim's toys, installed on every one of the Bat Family's phones. Something like a panic button. He placed his cell back in the pouch unnoticed.

"So what's a slime-ball like you doing with them? How did you get involved with laughing boy?"

Boss looked at Joker. Joker spoke instead, "Boss here has been helping me for nearly five years, almost the entire time, since the conception of the nightclub, in his capacity as Head of Security. Incentives have rolled his way for the club to be as successful as it is, for certain assurances to be kept, and he has not disappointed me. He's also turned a blind eye to certain things security related. You see, my boy, this club wouldn't have been a success without me. I finance the payroll, and I'm Paul Hudson's silent partner as well as the assistant to Mr. Jack Filou."

"Trickster," Jason said. "Filou means trickster in French. Does Paul Hudson know you've swindled him?"

"Swindled him? Oh, Jason, you hurt me…" But Joker laughed regardless. "Oh, in the beginning, Paul Hudson had a real silent partner, and his name was Jack Filou, and allis, of course, but eventually I took over."

"Did you kill the real silent partner? What was his real name?"

"Oh no, he's very much alive, and in good health, and in fact, he and I speak on occasion. He just has bigger fish to fry. He has his hands in deeper things that need his utmost attention. And no, he's not what you'd call a mobster. Paul has only spoken to his silent partner once and he has never seen him personally, only a fake computer-generated photograph that if the police ever attempted to track down would lead them to absolutely no where. Facial, computer-generated technology is a relatively new field, but my partner in this scheme, knows so many tricks of the trade. In fact, he has financed other projects for a number of fiends you and I both know."

Jason thought back to Mr. Freeze and Scarecrow, they both had mysterious benefactors that Tim was still trying to track down. "Are you telling me this person is that involved in crime—that involved in the Rogues?" Jason asked. He needed answers. If what Joker was revealing to him was true, then this would help Tim immensely to help narrow things down, if Jason survived this ordeal, that is? Freeze wasn't talking imprisoned in Arkham. And Dr. Jonathan Crane, Scarecrow, had forgotten his entire crime scheme when subjected to his own hallucinogenic drug when he encountered Dick, Tim, and Damian, at the most recent carnival that attended the waterfront.

Joker was about to say something, but then smirked instead. He raised a finger. He had taken his hand off Boss's shoulder only moments before. "Ah, nice…a detective to the last, Batman has taught you well. Get the villain to reveal everything and then foil it with stewardship and collective ambition, using intelligence to outwit your opponent." He tapped his temple. "I'm not stupid, Jason. You forget, my IQ is off the charts."

He had to antagonize Joker. He had to keep him talking. And the more time he wasted getting Joker to talk, he wagered, the more time Batman had to get here. "So, what's this new scheme of yours about?" He decided to get a little more comfortable since he wasn't getting out anytime soon and sat with his legs crossed. He already had a pretty good idea what the scheme at the club was, but he wanted to hear if from the horse's mouth.

"Oh, oh, let me Mr. J," Harley said, clapping. "Let him guess. How about a game of Charades?"

Joker got excited. "Oh goodie! I like that game! It will more fun for you guess, rather than tell you, my boy. How about that, it's not like you're going anywhere?" He laughed.

Jason cocked his head. "Would you mind if we just jumped to the end?" he said. "I have an answer."

"But I haven't started yet," Harley said.

"It's painfully obvious — money laundering. Am I right?"

Harley slumped her shoulders. "Oh, poo! What are you psychic or something?"

Jason snorted. "No, just intuitive, sweet-heart, and I listen," he said. "Dealing with you two all these years, it's easy to manipulate you in revealing your schemes." He tapped his temple. "And I have a high IQ, too. Unlike fat-head there…" —he indicated Boss Hogg. Hogg gripped the crowbar in his hand tighter and grit his teeth when insulted.

"Very good, Jason," Joker confirmed with a thin smile. "You see, my boy, even though everything here is tap card, the money is deposited in to a collective account to be later distributed to different departments for such things like operations and payroll. But before its re-distributed, I funnel the daily take into several separate secret accounts, fudging the intake total numbers with help from someone in Accounts. I even have some guy — I think his name is Steve — in Ops, who actually handles everything up there; the man is a genius with computers. Paul Hudson trusts him completely, so he has no idea Steve is working for me."

Jason nodded. "That answers one question I had. And once Paul finds out, his life long dream of running a nightclub is ruined thanks to you. You ruin so many lives, you bastard!"

Joker shrugged. "I've ruined so many people's dreams, what's one more? One more notch on the bed post, per se."

"Fine," Jason said, then: "So, explain to me the craziness that's happening out there right now?"

"Oh, you mean why everyone is so carefree and happy? It's all about business and without repeat business the novelty soon wears off. I said before, Boss here has helped me in his capacity to maintain a certain amount of secrecy, turning a blind eye to the real success behind The Awakening Nightclub. And it's all about having a good time. See, when you're happy, you let loose, and when you release all your inhabitations, you enjoy that sensation — think of it like an addictive drug, some people can't get enough. When you feel good, you want more and more of it."

Jason thought back to the ventilation system. It began to make sense. He was using some form of mind-manipulating drug to force the night clubbers to have a good time, so that feeling was continuously reinforced to make the club a success. The more repeat business the more money and he was stealing all of it under Paul Hudson's noise, using him as a pigeon under the guise of real nightclub.

Joker explained how he altered his patented Joker gas, filtered it to make it less potent. He called it 'Happy Gas', because it reinforced feelings of happiness, and then used the ventilation system to spread it throughout the club. And it was switched on during peak times for maximum effect, staying in the system for days, reinforcing 'happy' feelings.

That now begged the question whether Cassidy had been affected when he and she had sex? How many others had she been 'happy' with during her time employed at the club? Did he even want to know?

Joker frowned, and leaned in closer to Jason. "But I'm at a lost why it hasn't worked on you?"

Jason produced a crooked smirk. "Because I'm immune to your bullshit! The day you murdered me was the day my life as a human being came to an end. I guess they call people like me meta-humans. Your gases have no affect on my system, I have a strong resistance factor."

Joker nodded. "You do have amazing regenerative abilities, among other things," Joker returned. "You and I have a very special connection and our lives will forever be intertwined, until one of us dies. In your case, to die again…" He straightened up. "But, I have things to do, and no time to baby sit you. Harley, if you please…"

"With pleasure, Mr. J," she said, with a large grin. Harley often carried a large mallet as a weapon with a number of other assorted arsenal. She had her mallet with her. She screwed off the hammer and pulled something out Jason didn't immediately recognize, but when it was fully shown, housed from inside a hollow portion of the handle of the mallet, Jason realized the full impact of what it was — an electro-cattle prod. And something like that only had one purpose: to electro-shock cattle an animal into submission. Harley switched it on, and blue electricity danced at its two-prong tip. "Time to send you to nighty-nights ville, junior bat-boy."

Jason scurried to the back of the cage, but as all four sides were open bars, he had little place to go when Harley started her attack. She poked through the front bars with the cattle prod, and Jason jerked away, trying to kick the cattle-prod away, almost in a panic, banging into the side bars. Harley then poked again, and this time she managed to strike his left leg. He yelped and it immediately went numb.

Then Harley used that moment of distraction against him and zapped him directly in the middle of the chest, depressing the cattle-prod switch at what felt like full power.

And it was lights out.

To Be Continued…