By: Kagmichiru and DracoCron

Disclaimer: Nothing belongs to us, except possibly Whisper and some of our own interpretive work.

Character forecast: 100 chance of Joker and Riddler all next week, 90 chance of Gordon later in the week. High chance of explosions.

The barge was, as the papers had implied, impressive. The Joker would have estimated it to be roughly the size of a floating city block—although, knowing nothing about barges, he really couldn't say whether that was an extraordinary size for one. From what little he did know about barges, he'd expected to disembark from his speedboat and climb on top of the thing—but instead he found a narrow ledge for docking, with a small door. The rest of the thing rose a good thirty feet out of the water, making climbing it impossible.

Shrugging, he stabilized the little boat with one of the trailing moorings provided and climbed out onto the ledge. He examined the door—green, of course, with a silver question mark in the middle—and put his hand on the knob tentatively.

Nothing happened.

He turned it, slowly, thinking to himself that he was either paranoid or missing something—not that the first scenario would be news to him—and stepped through into the dark passageway beyond.

The hall had a funhouse-like quality to it. The walls seemed to be cut at odd angles and curved to produce illusions of distortion. Every ten feet or so, a patch of wall would turn into a patch of mirror, yielding distorted views of any passerby who happened to glance up. The Joker paused to examine his own reflection in one of them. The prison uniform no longer had quite the desired affect, he decided, and dusted it off, loosing a choking fog of ash and dust. He coughed, chagrinned, and waved his arms to clear the dust.

Maybe green and purple was the better choice for him. He'd have to order a new suit when he got out of here.

Continuing to stroll around the corridor, he wondered if the place was meant to intimidate him. Nigma should've known better; he was the Joker, for God's sake. All things bizarre and warped were practically his element.

Suddenly, he stopped in his tracks as a large panel lit up on the wall beside him and a chord sounded from unseen speakers. It sounded like a madman on a synthetic piano.

He turned to face the wall segment that had lit up. It was an enormous sign, he saw, a digital screen displaying what appeared to be an enlarged version of the Gotham Times. But it didn't take much to see that the version displayed on the screen had been tampered with.

"HARLEEN QUINNZEL FOUND DEAD" the headline blared. The article read strangely:

"Female remains believed to be those of Harleen Quinnzel, the Joker's former psychiatrist, were found today in the midst of a fire much like the one from which she mysteriously escaped on Tuesday. The previous explosion, engineered by the Joker himself, nearly claimed the lives of Gotham City's Police Commissioner, James Gordon, as well as his wife and two children who were being held hostage at the time."

A picture of the Joker grinning cheerfully in a mug shot was stationed to the side of that paragraph with the caption: "Clown Prince of Chaos."

"With her were the remains of another female, thought to be former Nigma Corp employee Whisper Lieng. How the two came into contact is unclear, though it is suspected that they may have met during the Joker's brief capture of Lieng after the raid and bombing of the Joker's headquarters."

Now that isn't right. The Joker thought. had taken Whisper Lieng from the GCPD headquarters days before his own lair was raided. And according to the previous paragraph, the paper should have said his headquarters self-destructed, not that they were bombed by another party. There was no reason for his name to have been repeated twice in the last sentence; they could have used "his" for the second instance. And what was with the underlining? He squinted, leaning closer to the screen, and experimentally poked the first instance of his name with one finger.

His name vanished, and a blank appeared. A small keyboard was projected to the side of the text.

"The previous explosion, engineered by the himself—"

It was Nigma who did it. What's that nickname of his… Into the blank he typed "Riddler."

Another chord sounded through the corridor, this one a sweet and victorious sound. "Riddler" became set in type-face, seamlessly replacing "Joker" in the sentence. To the right of the paragraph, the Joker's mug shot was replaced by Nigma's smiling image.

Well that's an awfully elaborate way to admit to something obvious, the Joker thought. Did Nigma really think that he wouldn't have figured it out? Then why leave the newspaper on the speedboat, reporting on the blast?

Because that's not all there is to the message. That's a hint.

"—they may have met during the Joker's brief capture of Lieng after the raid and bombing of the Joker's headquarters."

He tapped on his name again and repeated the procedure, entering "Riddler" in its place again. Then his eyes lit up. He clicked on Lieng and typed "Quinnzel." Another victorious chord sounded. The article now read:

"Female remains believed to be those of Harleen Quinnzel, the Joker's former psychiatrist, were found today in the midst of a fire much like the one from which she mysteriously escaped on Tuesday. The previous explosion, engineered by the Riddler himself, nearly claimed the lives of Gotham City's Police Commissioner, James Gordon, as well as his wife and two children who were being held hostage at the time."

With her were the remains of another female, thought to be former Nigma Corp employee Whisper Lieng. How the two came into contact is unclear, though it is suspected that they may have met during the Riddler's brief capture of Quinnzel after the raid and bombing of the Joker's headquarters."

He's telling me what happened to Harley! Does he have her? At this the Joker felt a strange mixture of joy and trepidation; if Nigma had Harley, that meant she was still in the game, and his joke wasn't ruined entirely. But if Nigma had anticipated that he'd see a unique value in her above his many other hostages…that implied that Nigma understood his sense of humor. He was suddenly far less certain he'd leave this barge alive.

He turned his attention back to the first paragraph, where only the words "mysteriously escaped" remained underlined. Nigma had already falsified that; the second paragraph said she'd been captured after the raid.

"Mysteriously escaped" isn't right…and she ended up in Nigma's clutches. He tapped on the words and entered "was rescued."

"Female remains believed to be those of Harleen Quinnzel, the Joker's former psychiatrist, were found today in the midst of a fire much like the one from which she was rescued on Tuesday."

The screen lit up, then went dark. Everything went dark, in fact; even the intermittent lights were extinguished.

So that was it, the Joker thought; Nigma figured he'd rescued Harley from the explosion of his own design. But what was the relevance of her meeting Whisper, and why did the news article list them both as dead. Had Nigma really killed them both? Had someone else killed them, and this was merely Nigma's way of informing the Joker of it? Or were they not dead at all; did the message of fire and death have another meaning?

The Joker shrugged and walked ahead into the darkness. He'd find out soon enough.

We think next week or the week after should see the end of this story. That's a weird thought, isn't it? Keep the feedback coming!