The minute Batman and Robin were able to hit the streets of Gotham on Halloween night after the commotion had died down at the banquet hall, their first stop was to Arkham asylum, hoping they could find some answers there immediately that might give them an indication of what was going on and where the Joker had gone.
Their arrival immediately told them things were worse than they could've bargained for. The hospital for the criminally insane of Gotham's underworld was a smoldering wreck with the windows shattered out and black smoke continuing to pour out from a fire that had been extinguished hours ago. Nobody on the scene had any truly clear answers of what happened. All the staff was divided up in different units, different floors, nobody knew what first happened or where, everybody only knew when everything on their own floor, in their own unit, all went to hell. There had been several explosions, then the fire, and there was little time to actually figure out who had broken out because they had to divide their time and abilities between putting out the fire and evacuating the rest of the 'patients', along with the injured staff members who needed to be relocated to the local hospital for treatment, treatment for the injuries and burns sustained from the bombs going off and the fire breaking out.
"When did it happen?" Batman asked one of the doctors who had been spared from the explosions and was able to oversee the evacuations.
"Little after six tonight," the doctor answered as he assisted the paramedics loading up one of the nurses into an ambulance, "We have a built-in alarm system that goes directly to the police and to the fire department, the building's power source wasn't damaged in the explosion but the alarms didn't work."
"That's why we didn't find out about it sooner," Robin realized.
"They were already long gone by the time the police would've even picked up on the alarm, so there wouldn't have been anything you could do," the doctor told the Caped Crusaders.
"Except maybe pick up the trail," Batman remarked.
"How'd they get out of here?" Robin asked.
"They had to have an outside source ready for them," the doctor said, "The hospital transportation is still all here."
"That's not surprising," Batman said, "They're never really cut off from their connections on the outside."
"We do what we can," the doctor commented slightly defensively, "If it were up to us, half of our patients wouldn't even be here, we know they're not insane, not that insane anyway. We know they know what they're doing, but we don't get to make that call, the courts do, and the courts aren't willing to listen to us."
"That sounds about right," Robin dryly noted.
"Do you have any idea who all's missing?" Batman asked the doctor.
"Right offhand I'd say about every loony toon who never belonged here in the first place, only the real patients were left behind in the breakout," the doctor said, and looked back towards the asylum, "Including this one."
Batman and Robin looked where the doctor was looking and saw two paramedics wheeling someone else out on a gurney. They had a blanket strapped over the patient almost completely, only the head was visible, and that was enough for them to make an I.D.
"Harley."
The former psychiatrist-turned criminal sidekick was not responsive to her name. The paramedics already had an oxygen mask strapped on her and she looked like she'd been caught in one of the explosions, whatever had happened to her, it didn't look good for the deranged young woman.
"What happened to her?" Robin asked.
"When we were evacuating, we found her under a pile of debris from when the bombs went off," the doctor explained, "Nobody knows how long she was there."
"Joker planned this escape, and he didn't take Harley with him?" Robin asked. Of course it was well known that the man if he could even be called that, had absolutely no sense of loyalty and besides he'd already tried to kill Harley several times as it was, still, there was something about it that didn't add up.
"What hospital is she being taken to?" Batman wanted to know, "As soon as she's able to talk, we need to find out if she knew anything about what was going on."
And now it was back to the drawing board to try and figure out where Gotham's whole Rogue Gallery had disappeared to, especially the Joker.
It was quiet.
That was the first thing Jacqueline realized when she woke up on the floor. It was quiet, no more echoing laughter bouncing off the walls and through the air ducts. Ah, the Joker was gone, for now anyway, out somewhere, where? Why? It didn't matter much, so long as he stayed gone. Maybe with him gone, she realized as she pulled herself up off the floor, she could get a better look around the place and try to find…she didn't know, a way out, something she could use against him, something, there had to be something somewhere, he was smart, but he wasn't careful, not that careful, he couldn't possibly think of everything.
She didn't know how long she'd been asleep, but she must've slept hard because her whole body felt stiff and sore and where it didn't the circulation was going in and out and made her nerves prickle. Her short hair felt like it was sticking out in all directions from sleeping on the floor, she ran her hands over it a couple times to smooth it out, though she didn't know why, then she went over to the door, opened it up, and came face to…well, not quite face to face with a large hyena.
The creature was showing all its teeth and growling at her, and its tail stuck straight out, a sign it was ready to attack. Jacqueline took a step back but otherwise didn't move, then out of nowhere she drew her fist back and swung it forward and punched the hyena hard in the nose like an attacking dog. It yelped and whimpered and turned around and ran away with its tail tucked between its legs.
"Good boy," she said in a deadpan tone.
This place was a certifiable madhouse. So far so good though, no sign of the Joker anywhere, no sign of anybody anywhere for that matter actually. Where to go first? In the hallway everything looked the same, one way looked like the other, all the doors looked alike…it was like an optical illusion, it was like one of those 3D puzzles where they told you to find the start and there was no start. A set of stairs that went around in a climbing and then dropping square, no start, no end, where do you get on? Where do you get off? How do you is the better question? Where would she start? Of course she could expect some of the rooms would no doubt be booby trapped, that was what made it difficult. She knew, she knew the Joker wouldn't be gone long enough, wherever he was, for her to search the whole building and know where everything was. She had to pick and choose. How? That was the question.
Pull yourself together, Napier, she thought to herself as she hit herself on both sides of the head at once. She could do this, she just had to figure out a plan. Still, she'd feel a lot better about the whole thing if she knew once and for all where everybody was. Even if the Joker wasn't around, he never left her totally alone, he always had some of his goon squad around to keep an eye on her, and they had to still be around here, but where?
After thinking on it for a couple of minutes, she headed back the way she'd come earlier that morning, and once she cleared a couple rooms, she was able to hear voices, low voices, talking amongst themselves. Aha, she didn't know where she was, but she saw two of the Joker's flunkies sitting at a table discussing something while one of them read the morning paper. When they heard her enter the room, they both became quiet and turned and stared at her, both of them looking almost like a couple of deer caught in a set of headlights. For a minute, Jacqueline just stood in the doorway and put her hands in the pockets on her hospital pajamas and looked at them, and there was a nice long awkward silence between the three people, so much so that any of them would've been able to hear a gnat sneeze. Finally Jacqueline broke the silence by saying simply, dryly, "Boo", and watched the two men about jump out of their chairs.
"Huh," she said, "My reputations precedes me." She looked around and asked them, "So…where is he?"
One of the men answered somewhat uncertainly, "The boss went out earlier, he'll be back."
"Obviously," Jacqueline replied as she marched over to the table, and told both the men, "Scram."
Maybe they believed that she had inherited her father's murderous hair trigger temper, but for whatever reason, they did as they were told and got up from the table and left the room. Of course she knew they wouldn't go far, they'd keep their tabs on her, report back about her to her father when he came back, but for now she wanted a chance to look around the place without them being right on top of her the whole time. Through the corner of her eye she caught something on the newspaper lying on the table, so she turned her attention to the front page story.
Joker's Moll Hospitalized Following Breakout
At approximately 6 P.M. on October 31st, an as-of-yet unexplained explosion occurred within the center of the hospital, which supplied several inmates with the opportunity to escape from their cells, and the hospital entirely. Staff members were weighted down with putting out the growing fires starting in the building and with evacuating anybody injured, staff and patients alike; for unknown reasons, the asylum's alarm link to the Gotham City Police Department didn't function properly. Police arrived at the asylum approximately three hours later, after several escapees crashed the annual Gotham City Halloween charity banquet. Eyewitnesses described several of the escapees who crashed the banquet as being Gotham's top notorious criminals: The Joker, The Penguin, The Riddler, Poison Ivy, former professor Jonathan Crane better known as The Scarecrow, former Gotham City District Attorney Harvey Dent, better known as Two-Face. The gang of criminals terrorized and burglarized the banquet hall before making an escape following another though less lethal explosion likely caused by a modified stun grenade. Police are currently exhausting all resources to find a lead on where Gotham's now Most Wanted have escaped to. Among the evacuated patients of Arkham Asylum following the breakout, was the former Dr. Harleen Quinzel, whom the city of Gotham has come to know more commonly as Harley Quinn, accessory and accomplice to famed criminal, the Joker. Quinzel first came in contact with the Joker when she began an internship at Arkham Asylum several years ago and became his appointed psychiatrist. Shortly afterwards, the young doctor abandoned the world of criminal psychology for a life of crime as sidekick to the Joker, known by her alias of Harley Quinn. Quinzel has been incarcerated in Arkham for the past 22 months following her timely return to the asylum after a previous breakout headed once again by the Joker. During evacuation, Arkham staff found Quinzel trapped under falling debris and unresponsive. Quinzel was transported out of the asylum for hospitalization, though police have not disclosed the location for security reasons. Commissioner Gordon was quoted as saying…
"Moll my eye," Jacqueline said as she threw the paper down.
The Joker plotted this escape from Arkham and he didn't even take that woman with him, some moll, even Clyde fought to keep Bonnie. She picked the paper up again and skimmed over the article, wondering just why in the world the Joker ever got involved with her in the first place, and for that matter, what was wrong with her that she'd join forces with him? Well, Jacqueline supposed this just proved Aunt Harriet's theory that all headshrinkers were closet whackos themselves, if it wasn't an established fact already, this just gave heavy gravity to the argument.
"Fruitcakes, the whole lot of them," she said to herself as she turned around.
"I'm afraid flattery won't get you anywhere," the Joker told her.
Jacqueline's heart leaped into her throat and she took a step back from the insane clown who was practically on top of her, having sneaked into the room unannounced, then she reached forward and hit him and told him, "Don't do that! You scared me half to death."
His only response was a snide, "I'm sure I can make do with the other half."
"What did you do to that woman?" Jacqueline demanded to know.
"What woman?"
Jacqueline pointed towards the newspaper and told him, "The woman they're talking about on the news, the one you left behind at Arkham when you busted out."
"Oh yeah, her," the Joker responded, sounding slightly annoyed by having to answer, and shrugged nonchalantly, "Merely a case of collateral damage."
"Collateral damage," Jacqueline dryly repeated, "That's all anybody ever was to you: that woman, the people you killed, me, my mom!"
Nothing in the Joker's face changed one iota, not a single muscle moved, nothing gave away what was going through his mind at that moment, but something had changed, ever so slightly but Jacqueline could still tell that it had, but she didn't know what it meant.
Batman and Robin followed a nurse down the hospital corridor and she led them to the room where Harley was being kept for the time being. The room was eerily quiet aside from the hospital machines. The young woman was laying in the hospital bed seemingly asleep, definitely not peacefully though. Her face was bruised, she had a large bump high up on her forehead, one arm was in a sling and though she was in a hospital gown and the blanket drawn up to her chest, the nurse had informed the Caped Crusaders before hand that her ribs had been taped, and she'd sustained a concussion.
The nurse went over to the bed and roused the blonde woman, who slowly came around.
"These gentlemen would like to speak to you, Miss Quinn," she said.
"Hmmmm," Harley's head lolled to the other side and her eyes stayed shut.
The nurse backed out of the room, leaving the Caped Crusaders to speak with her.
"Quinn?"
She opened her eyes slowly and looked up at the two men, her voice tired and weak, "B-Batman…what're you doing here?"
"Where's the Joker, Quinn?"
Her eyes half closed, but she told them, "My…name is…Harleen Quinzel. I'm a doctor."
Batman and Robin looked at each other, nobody knew how long it had been since Harley had answered to her real name. What was going on here?
"Where's the Joker?"
"He's in his cell," she groggily answered.
"No he's not."
She forced her eyes open, "What do you mean he's not? You mean he escaped?"
"Him and half of Arkham last night," Batman told her, "You really mean to say you don't remember?"
The former doctor weakly shook her head from side to side and closed her eyes again.
"Not even the ceiling falling on you when the bomb went off?"
She opened her eyes again and asked weakly, "Is that what happened to me?"
"Yes and the Joker left you behind to burn to death when he escaped."
"What're you talking about?" she asked, "What would he want with me in the first place?"
"You really have no recollection whatsoever?"
She tried to shake her head but she winced in pain, "No, everything's fuzzy."
"Try and pay attention," Batman told her, "We have to find out where the Joker escaped to."
"So why are you asking me?" Harley asked.
"Because you were the Joker's accomplice, we need to know if he mentioned anything to you about the breakout."
"I keep telling you," she said, "I never did anything other than be his therapist, what makes this time he escaped so much more important than the previous times?"
"Because he took a hostage with him," Batman told her, "That's why."
"A hostage?" she repeatedly wearily and tried to clear the fog in her mind, "One of the doctors?"
"No, his daughter."
Her eyes opened again, "The Joker doesn't have a daughter."
"He had one before he became the Joker," Robin explained, "Also left them before he became the Joker."
"That's not true," Harley shook her head, "It can't be true."
"It is true," Batman told her, "That's why we have to find him."
She seemed to be thinking something for a minute, then she asked the two masked men, "How old is she?"
"18."
"The Joker has a daughter and he has her with him now?" Harley leaned her head back against the pillows and was all but unconscious as she murmured, "God help that girl." And then she was out like a light.