Author's Note: General content warning, Harleen has regular, brief (yet not detailed) flashbacks to the physical abuse she's suffered throughout this chapter. This will be a common occurrence as the story progresses and I delve into her psychology, so please be aware and take care of yourself accordingly.
Chapter Two
Beneath Twisted Lights
The flickering fluorescent bulb overhead cast a white-washed glow across Harleen Quinzel's battered body as she stared down at the clothes laid out on the bench before her.
She'd been locked in one of the private bathrooms meant for patients being prepped for discharge. Infrequently used and even less frequently cleaned, the space had a dank, musty odor and the once gray tile grout turned black in most places. This room had become one of the fixtures in Harleen's own personal circle of Hell. A continuous reminder of the day which would never come.
But now, a strange, powerful woman had crashed into her life, offering the impossible.
Harleen wasn't entirely convinced the pardon was real. While she was no stranger to faking official documents (she'd done it for Him even before Harley awoke) it wasn't a stretch to assume a government agent could draft something indistinguishable from the real thing. A con good enough to fool even her trained eyes. Still, the fact remained she had no choice but to follow this Miss Waller's orders. Harleen could tell the woman would have dragged her into this mess even if she outright refused. People like her were used to getting what they wanted. At least this new master appeared to have some degree of integrity, Harleen reasoned. A significant improvement from her situation thus far.
So, she'd give solving this case a genuine shot. Worst case scenario she'd wind up back here, slave to her usual circumstances. At best? Well… she was not one to have hope, but at this point Harleen would do anything – give up what little she had left – for her freedom. There was nothing to lose and everything to gain, really.
'Are ya sure about that?' the familiar, insidious voice in the pit of her mind called. 'Not like ya haven't been fooled before.'
"Shut up," Harleen said through gritted teeth.
Then the voice receded, banished by the fresh dose of medication coursing through her system.
Her attention turned back to the task at hand. In keeping with their established protocol, Harleen had taken the opportunity for a quick yet long overdue shower. Her freshly blow-dried and combed hair was back to its natural light blonde color. The filthy straitjacket lay in a crumpled heap in the corner, far away from the outfit she'd been staring blankly at for the past few minutes. After her first successful mission under his command, Jeremiah had given her free reign to design her own "uniform". A gift, as he'd called it. Perhaps the only genuine act of kindness he'd performed in his entire life, and Harleen had taken full advantage of the opportunity.
She'd modeled the outfit after the old detective movies she used to watch as a kid. At least, that was her intent, though it came off as more modern than old fashioned. The knee-high black combat boots were, of course, her personal taste. The kind she preferred even when Harley was in charge. The accompanying black pants were made of durable cotton, which allowed for more flexibility of movement than jeans while maintaining a similar look. A white, button-up shirt went over her torso, though it was almost always covered by a red leather jacket. The latter was her favorite article of clothing in the entire ensemble. It had an asymmetrical zipper and lapels that reminded her of Humphrey Bogart. Harleen was no hero by any stretch of the imagination, but she could still pay homage to the role. The final piece was a pleated black newsboy cap encircled by a red band. She'd stuck two diamond-shaped white pins into the hat as a memento. An addition she was surprised Jeremiah let her keep.
Harleen toweled off and changed into the clothes. They were looser than the last time she'd worn them. No doubt a result of the solitary confinement. She was lucky to receive one meal a day when that madman unleashed Harley, and sometimes the jester refused to eat just to spite him. Finally, Harleen retrieved her black-rimmed glasses from their perch atop the bathroom's narrow counter and slid them onto her face. She frowned when she looked at herself in the mirror. She'd have to get some makeup to conceal the bruises. Nothing she hated more than receiving unnecessary concerned comments.
Satisfied for now, Harleen pressed a yellow button built into the wall next to the door. The muffled ringing of an electronic bell filtered through from outside. After a moment there was a loud beep as the door unlocked. Harleen turned the handle and – with a somewhat false show of confidence – strode into the adjoining room.
Jeremiah and Miss Waller were waiting for her in the holding area. The orderlies had been dismissed, leaving the three of them alone. Her gear was laid out on the long table hugging the far wall. Harleen walked over it and began to pick up the items, starting with the black utility belt that would put Batman's to shame; full of small, non-lethal gadgets and a few burglar's tools. Next was a new, somewhat high-end cellphone with a fingerprint reader on the back.
"Your biometrics have already been uploaded," Waller said as Harleen examined the device. "The phone's functions are limited, and the only saved number will take you to an operator. Say the phrase, 'I'm looking for a cleaner', and they'll re-route you to me. The case file is stored under Documents. You'll find the address you requested listed in there."
"I suppose this has GPS tracking always enabled," Harleen said rather than asked.
Waller's expression didn't waver. "Naturally."
The blonde smirked and moved on to the next item: a familiar brown paper box. She knew an inhaler would be stashed inside. "How many doses this time?" she asked the monster in a doctor's uniform.
"Three days," Jeremiah said. "You will notify Miss Waller when your supply runs out. She will designate a rendezvous point where you'll make the exchange. Empty inhaler for a full one."
"Is that the only check-in?" Harleen asked as she removed the inhaler and placed it into a hard-plastic case attached to her utility belt.
"I expect at least one call a day," Waller said before Dr. Arkham could reply. "You will also notify me immediately if there are any new developments in the case."
The older woman frowned as she watched Harleen pick up the next two items. First was a rather large mallet handle made from wood, metal, and bonded leather. The word "POW!" was written in sharpie on the bottom, though it had faded somewhat with age. It fit into a loop attached to her belt and hung against the outside of her leg. Second was a standard issue nine-millimeter handgun. Harleen braced herself for the inevitable comment as she secured the weapon in a shoulder holster she hid beneath her jacket.
"Why, in God's name, are you giving a convicted felon access to a firearm?" Waller asked Jeremiah with no small amount of venom.
He – to his credit – didn't flinch.
"It fires rubber bullets, not the real thing," he said. "Painful enough to be of use in an emergency, but without the risk of adding to her body count. Besides, Dr. Quinzel is good at following orders. If you tell her to avoid killing, she will."
Waller leveled her gaze at Harleen. The blonde could see the faint stirrings of – not quite doubt, but momentary reconsidering – buried deep behind her stern façade. Harleen couldn't blame her. Dr. Quinzel was the last creature on Earth anyone should trust.
"If you try to run…" Waller let the threat hang in the air.
Harleen shook her head. "I can't. Not without an endless supply of the medication, and I meant what I said earlier. I don't enjoy being a slave to insanity."
The declaration was enough, it seemed. Waller nodded to the last item on the table – a slim, black wallet. Harleen reached out and flipped it open. The only things stashed inside were a copy of her driver's license and a metallic credit card. She pulled the latter out to inspect it. The card was blank, aside from the required numerical sequences and a subtle variation of the VISA logo, familiar enough for the differences to be missed by the casual eye. No bank was listed on the card. No corporation. Nothing to tie the funds back to a specific source.
"I've allotted you a five-thousand-dollar budget for this mission," Waller said. "There's an app installed on your phone that will let you keep track of how much is remaining on the card. I suggest you don't abuse it."
"What's your stance on bribes?" Harleen asked. "That's often the quickest and most efficient way of getting information out of my fellow Rogues."
Waller narrowed her eyes. "You will clear it with me before you go handing out government funds to criminals. I will also be tracking the receipts for every purchase you make. This isn't a vacation. Don't treat it as such."
Harleen couldn't suppress the smile that ghosted across her lips. "Gotham's a shit destination, anyway."
To the blonde's surprise, Miss Waller let the remark slide.
"I want to make one thing perfectly clear, Dr. Quinzel," the older woman said. "You're not a government agent or someone under my command. You are a convict being allowed a temporary reprieve for good behavior, and I will deny any association with you if asked. Furthermore, if you get into trouble while on this assignment, I will not be able to help you. Aside from our check-ins you will be entirely on your own."
"I understand," Harleen said as she shoved the wallet into one of her jacket pockets and closed the zipper.
Waller's chin tilted in a slight nod. "It's late. There shouldn't be anyone to greet you when you arrive. You'll find the key stored in your belongings." The hard edge remained in her eyes as she spoke. "I expect an update tonight."
"Then I should get going."
Jeremiah escorted the two women out of the holding area and into the Asylum's underground parking garage. Harleen's mouth split in a wide, giddy grin at the sight of what was perhaps her only true joy in life: a red and black Harley-Davidson Street Rod. One of the orderlies had parked it in an empty space right outside the door and was gracious enough to leave her white helmet perched atop the leather seat. Miss Waller made a face as the blonde rushed over to her bike.
"You're not exactly subtle with the color scheme," Waller said.
Harleen shrugged, unperturbed by the snide comment. "I might have been forced into retirement, but it's important to maintain an image in this town."
She removed her cap and stored it in the compartment underneath the seat. Harleen pulled the helmet over her head, leaving the visor up, as she swung her leg over the bike. Once settled, she looked back at Miss Waller, waiting for her cue. An act of obvious deference, and in that brief moment of silent understanding the pact was sealed.
"Keep respecting me and I'll show you the same in return," Waller said with a slight nod.
"We'll get along just fine, then." Harleen flipped the kickstand up with the back of her heel. "I'll call you in a few hours."
Time passed in an unidentifiable current within Arkham Asylum. Harleen didn't know when her last mission was. Could have been a mere few weeks ago or half a year. But now, breathing in her first gulps of fresh air in a veritable eternity, her heart began to pound with excitement.
At last, she could play again.
'I have a theory. Believed in it since I was a little girl. It's a simple thing, basic. Doesn't even really require the whole hypothesis/study/thesis fiasco in order to prove. Goes like this, "Humanity never changes."'
Harleen Quinzel turned on the ignition and felt the beast rumble to life beneath her. She lowered the visor on her helmet, her fingers already itching to twist the throttle. How long had it been since she'd let loose? Pretended she could still make a choice and have some manner of control over her life?
The engine roared in her ears.
'The human race is full of constants, you see. Restraints that, regardless of how much society tries, we've never been able to break free of.'
With a harsh squeal of her back tire she was off, speeding towards the garage exit, leaving her masters behind. A couple sharp turns later and she caught her first glimpse of it at the end of the concrete tunnel. The misleadingly beautiful skyline of Gotham City. Its bright lights beckoning in the nighttime darkness.
'There will always be a vacuous gap between the rich and the poor. There will always be undeserving men who steal the seats of power.'
She breathed it in. Let the anticipation alight in her bones. Willed the fantasy to begin, and – without much concentrated effort – the lie solidified.
She was Harleen again. Just Harleen. The singular entity, preening with glee as she drove back to her one-room apartment after a successful job interview at Arkham Asylum. She could barely believe it. A young woman with the ink still drying on her doctorate being accepted into one of the most notorious mental institutions in the world? It wasn't just unheard of; it was impossible.
'There will always be the naïve child trying to play the hero, and the lurking villain who teaches them real heroes don't exist.'
But she'd done it.
'There will always be saints. There will always be murderers.'
Harleen laughed as she fled into the night, and for a blessed few minutes the past seven years of her life ceased to exist.
'And me?'
Doctor Jeremiah Arkham and Amanda Waller watched in silence as the motorcycle turned a corner and left their line of sight. Dr. Arkham didn't speak for a few long moments. She suspected he was waiting on her, but when it became clear she had nothing else to say the doctor decided to fill the silence.
"I've spent years trying to help that woman, but for all my efforts I keep forgetting one simple fact." He chuckled low in his throat. A sound which could be interpreted as defeatist. "You can't fix something that broken."
Amanda Waller didn't spare him a look or grace the man with a response. She turned, pivoting on her heels, and with a flourish of unmatched authority strode back into the confines of Arkham Asylum.
'I will always be a monster.'
IXI
The rain had abated during her discharge process, leaving behind a cloudy, moonless sky. It took her less than fifteen minutes to reach the city proper. Harleen's various returns to Gotham were always bittersweet affairs. The city was a mere extension of Arkham, at this point, though it had lorded over the blonde her entire life. It was pretty to look at, from above, with the bright city lights illuminating the classic gothic architecture Gotham was known for. A mixture of the ancient and the modern, its antiquity seen mostly in the gargoyle statues, outcroppings, and arches which lined the heights of the city's skyscrapers. Cover enough for both heroes and villains to hide in, amongst those stone beasts.
The city changed in aesthetics near street level, as neon signs began to abound, and those magnificent black steel buildings ended at filthy streets. Trash clogged the sidewalks; papers, cups, and discarded wrappers always swirled in the breeze and coalesced in corner pockets. Graffiti littered the walls in sight, covered every back alley, adorned the trash receptacles none but the most optimistic Gotham residents used. What always struck Harleen – even now, as she wove her motorcycle through the late-night traffic – was the harsh chiaroscuro of the cityscape. There was no gradient or gentle fade from light to dark. Only a distinct, hard delineation between adjacent slabs of bright artificial light or overwhelming shadow. It looked coordinated, almost. As though Gotham itself didn't really exist and instead inhabited some weird pocket dimension sliced into reality. The visuals concocted by a photographer in Photoshop who took the class on level variations too much to heart.
It was past nine, per her cell phone's clock. Time when Gotham's more sane residents would be locking themselves in their homes for another night of assured villainy. Still, despite the late hour Harleen was a creature of distinct habits, and she'd formed a specific routine she followed upon release at the start of every new assignment. Her first stop was at a nearby twenty-four-hour drug store. An off-brand CVS or Walgreens, locally owned based on the proud signage hanging in the front window. The distinct smell of body odor hit her full force as she walked in, but the blonde was used to enduring that stench by now.
Harleen grabbed one of the available hand baskets and made her way to the snack and drink aisles. She filled the basket with protein bars, beef jerky, and room-temperature energy drinks. Things that could stand to be stored outside of a refrigerator for their lifespan. Despite the urge, she avoided the candy aisle, except for a large bag of assorted Dum Dums that were vital to establishing her detective persona. Her substitute for the classic cigarette. She swung by toiletries and picked up some travel-sized essentials before making a final stop for a large bottle of extra strength Tylenol (NSAIDs didn't mix well with the anti-psychotic, she'd been told). Finally, she picked up some makeup, going for the largest bottle of concealer she could find and a swath of disposable sponges.
The cashier, a greasy woman in her late fifties, eyed Harleen's outfit as she swiped her card. The blonde ignored her stare with practiced ease. Gotham had an unofficial dress code; certain color combinations were usually avoided by the average civilians out of understandable concern they'd be mistakenly associated as being in league with one of the various Rogues. Even after three years people were still hesitant to wear any mixture of green and purple, though it would probably take at least a decade for that particular fear to wear off. Harley Quinn had carved her way into Gotham's mythology wearing red and black and white. Sure, she'd only been in the big leagues by association (Harleen could admit the truth, Harley still argued with vigor), but her outfit was enough to make people wary. Add in the blonde hair and oddly pale skin and, well, people tended to give Harleen a wide berth. However, the image ensured one important thing: people listened when she talked.
Harleen stowed her purchases in the Street Rod's seat compartment. The haul just barely fit but utilizing her childhood Tetris skills she was able to make it work. She opened the Dum Dums right away and shoved a handful into one of her jacket pockets before tying off the bag again. Her first task complete, Harleen headed for the second stop on her list. Mo's Diner, just off sixteenth, a favorite of hers since the psychiatry days, pre-Rogue identity. It had the traditional East Coast diner aesthetic, with the bright neon lights, large windows, and fifties iconography in the interior design. The waitstaff didn't recognize her, even after all these years. No doubt due to her ever-changing visage and the infrequency of her now erratic visits. Harleen chose a booth in the far corner, ensuring her back was to a wall and affording her a clear view of the rest of the diner. She tried joking, once upon a time, that she followed Mafia don restaurant dining rules, but all the quip earned her was a black eye as opposed to the polite chuckle.
A college kid with a too cheerful demeanor took her usual order. One of her favorite things about Mo's was the kitchen staff. They were consistent and fast. Her food was out in less than fifteen minutes. Two Belgian waffles, Mo's Famous Burger, a large strawberry milkshake, and a diet soda, because if Harleen was addicted to anything it was aspartame and caffeine. She took her time devouring the sprawling meal. Breaking an Arkham-induced fast the proper way required her to taste the food and appreciate every calorie laden bite.
Harleen inspected her new phone as she ate. As Miss Waller had warned her, the functions were sparse, at best, with less than ten pre-installed apps and a distinct lack of store capabilities. The internet browser was one she didn't recognize, and – after some experimentation – she discovered it wouldn't let her download program files. Harleen wasn't tech savvy or stupid enough to try and jailbreak the thing but acquiring a second phone was an easy task. Satisfied for now, she browsed to file storage and pulled up the affiliated case documents. Time to get to work.
As she feared, it was the bare bones of a case file; just enough information was left un-redacted to give her a sense of what this mystery entailed. A heavily blacked-out biography on the victim told her little more than the basic details of his anatomy and included what was clearly a government ID card photo. Waller had been kind enough to include the autopsy report and photos of the crime scene. Harleen didn't spend too much time looking at those. She always waited until she was at the scene itself before she dove into that set of details.
One file in particular caught Harleen's attention. It wasn't a PDF like the rest of the documents, but a txt file only a few kilobytes in size. She opened it to discover they were vague, clearly edited notes that appeared to have been written by the victim. Perhaps lifted from a hand-written notebook the investigators decided to transcribe. Harleen chuckled into her milkshake at the thought of this black ops agent's handwriting being too atrocious for documenting purposes. As though the United States government couldn't handle that additional embarrassment.
"4.17 Caught wind of potential lead in Iceberg, rumor too specific to be false, will follow up
"4.19 [ILLEGIBLE]
"4.20 Contact made, Jason vouched for previous work, will put word in with potential Subject
"4.23 Investigated, had to lay low in safe house, address forwarded, empty now, will watch for cycle
"4.29 Subject sent message, waiting on Ma'am to respond"
She stared at the sparse notes for a time, willing for more detailed information to appear on the screen.
'Just like those government fuckers to leave out the good stuff.'
Harleen shook the Harley-esque thought away. To distract herself from the mentality shift, she switched back to the autopsy. As Waller had said, there wasn't much to go on via cause of death. The photos of the neck wound were grizzly to look at, though the rest of his body was devoid of signs of harm, aside from some already healing bruises.
She'd only spent maybe half an hour in Miss Waller's company, but it was enough for Harleen to generate an assessment of her character. Waller was a thorough woman by nature. The kind of personality who thrived on having authority; status in which they were given the brand of respect their inner machinations demanded they deserved. Harleen had no doubt Waller helmed a well-run machine. An operation almost obscene in its attention to detail, yet Harleen had met such people before, and their biggest failure was in assuming their lackeys were an extension of themselves. That those lower on the totem pole saw the world the same way Waller viewed it through her dark eyes. You could be careful in your personnel selections, leave no stone unturned in your training, yet – on any given day – there would always be someone who slipped through the cracks. A person of otherwise solid integrity who found themselves in temporary or fleeting circumstances where they didn't care enough to open their eyes and see.
Harleen counted on natural human error. Thrived on it. The more fuckups by Waller's people the greater her chances of actually picking up a solid lead.
She finished almost the entire meal, save for a few stray fries and syrupy bits of waffle stuck to the plate. Harleen paid at the register, left a generous tip, and headed back to her motorcycle. It was half past ten at this point, and despite the hour she was feeling more than alert than she had in months. A delightful caffeine and sugar buzz thrummed in her veins as she revved the engine and sped off towards the Narrows.
Gotham's most famous ghetto was a destination Harleen had heard endless urban myths about as a kid, instilling in her a naïve, innocent sort of fear, only to find herself taking refuge in its winding depths as an adult skirting the law. The neighborhood possessed a similarity to the Brazilian favelas; high, narrow buildings constructed on top of each other across the island's uneven terrain. Its roads thin and winding as the structures encroached upon each other, a side effect of too many people living in too small a space. Everything was dark here at night, no colors to be seen, all surfaces in sight dipped in sorry shades of brown. A misty haze seemed to always envelope the island (speculated to be a by-product of the surrounding water's heavy pollution) and diluted all light sources into an evanescent glow.
Harleen was able to find her way to the listed address without using her phone. She still had most of the layout of the Narrows memorized. The building itself was unremarkable, one of the many run-down apartment complexes dotting the ghetto's landscape, with a few people milling about on the front steps smoking joints and cigarettes. Harleen parked her Street Rod in an alley around the side of the building and engaged the security system in case anyone decided to get too handsy. She exchanged her helmet for the newsboy cap, locked the seat compartment, and headed towards the building's entrance.
The locals eyed her as she walked past them, up the crumbling steps and to the front door. She watched them for any signs of aggression, but they mostly took cursory note of her bold color scheme before returning to their drugs of choice. People in the Narrows tended to be much more forgiving of silent allegiances than in other parts of Gotham, granted you didn't run into a rival Rogue's cronies. Harleen decided to ignore their stares and, finding the door to the building unlocked, went inside.
The interior had much the same decaying aesthetic as the exterior. The gray, carpeted hallway floor was covered in stains, paint was peeling off the walls, and the panels in the ceiling held water damage with some panels missing or knocked askew. Harleen searched the apartment listings hung up on the wall to her right and noted her destination was on the third floor. She took the adjacent stairs and exited into another hallway mirroring the ground floor in appearance. She walked past a few rows of dark brown apartment doors before she saw the distinctive police tape hanging across a door at the end of the hallway. Smirking, Harleen quickened her pace until she was standing in front of it.
Surprisingly, the tape hadn't been disturbed, though there remained enough space for someone to duck underneath. Harleen had found the apartment key stashed in her Street Rod's seat compartment while she was putting her groceries away. How Waller had gotten it there without Jeremiah's direct involvement she had no idea, but the woman possessed ingenuity, Harleen would give her that. She pulled the key from her coat pocket, fit it in the lock, and turned, hearing the dead bolt slide back as she did. With a satisfied smile, she opened the door and entered the crime scene.
Harleen ignored her surroundings, at first, as she closed and locked the front door behind her. She pocketed the key and reached into her stash of Dum Dums, pulling out one of the lollipops and unwrapping it. She slid the candy into her mouth, noting the fruity taste, and closed her eyes as she let her arms hang loosely by her sides. The blonde took a few deep breaths, grounding herself, pulling all focus into the microcosm of the universe she currently occupied. Everything fell away in her mind; Jeremiah and her imprisonment and the chain tethering her to various masters. Nothing else mattered but the work; but seeing the truth in front of her.
Then, once her mind was still, she opened her eyes and assessed the room.
She was standing in a combined living room and kitchen area. Light from the nearby streetlamps filtered in from outside through a large window built into the opposite wall; the rays falling upon the interior of the room in long rectangular bars through the tilted slat blinds. A ratty, L-shaped couch and low coffee table stood in the far-left corner, across from a particle board entertainment console holding an old, bulky flat-screen television. To Harleen's right was a galley kitchen with faded brown cabinets and checkered tile; the area between range and counter too narrow for more than one person to stand in at a time. There were two doors immediately to her left, both closed now; she'd come back to them later.
The space had an atmosphere of what Harleen would describe as "clean dirty". A trait she'd seen in other dwellings used by undercover cops who were trying to throw off suspicion by subverting their own natural tendency towards order. There was no dust in the apartment, but the person living here also hadn't expended any extra effort to scrub away more built-in grime. A single jacket was thrown over the back of the couch, but no other stray pieces of laundry were in sight and two pairs of shoes were placed in a neat row beside the front door. No, the man who lived here was the kind of outsider who lived under the assumption that criminals were messy personalities by nature, though none of them took care to note Eddie's freshly ironed outfits whenever he hopped onscreen to present a ridiculous riddle to the masses.
Harleen sucked on the candy in her mouth as she began a sweep of the apartment, noting the scattered numbered markers the investigators had left in their wake. She looked first for what was missing. Anything one would expect to find in a home that was no longer present. As noted, the TV hadn't been touched, and the appliances weren't tampered with. Strange, she mused, that the locals were hesitating to sink their teeth into a vacant apartment with a literal welcome sign on the door. Something was keeping them away, but she'd mingled enough with the Narrows' denizens to know no truthful answer would be forthcoming even if she tried to mount an interrogation. Besides, Harleen empathized with their struggle too much to ruin some poor soul's day. She wandered over to the stove and lit the range, affirming the gas line was still in operation. Harleen opened a few kitchen drawers, found the utensils, and noted all the knives were missing. There was also an empty square space on the counter where a wood block for a more elaborate knife set might have been. Considering the victim's neck wound she surmised all sharp objects had been confiscated in case one of them had been used during the act.
Curious, she took out her phone and opened the crime scene photos. She made another sweep of the room, comparing the images to its current state. Not much – if anything – was different, aside from the knives (there had been a knife block there, put one up on the board for Harleen) no other physical evidence in this first room had been whisked away to a secret government lab for testing. There were some photos of fingerprints lifted from the TV and refrigerator, though they could have been left by anyone, the dead man included.
Waller was right, there was no sign of a struggle here. No hint anything was amiss. The first notes of excitement burned in the pit of Harleen's stomach. For as much as she hated being a slave to anyone, she was addicted to the thrill that came when someone presented her with a challenge. A puzzle or great mystery to overcome using her own mental prowess. Better yet if said challenge was one where other people had tried and failed before her. That was the temptation which drove her to psychiatry and Arkham in the first place, right into His awaiting arms. Jeremiah knew this about Harleen – her burning need to win the game – and chose his assignments for her accordingly. Waller must have done her research too, the blonde acknowledged, because this case, with its perplexing lack of details and stumping of higher authority, fit almost too perfectly into her preferences.
Riding the rush of adrenaline, Harleen decided to check the rest of the rooms in the apartment. She opened the first door on the left, the darkness which greeted her hiding its contents. She felt for a light switch and located it next to the door. She flipped it and a single, naked bulb lit overhead, revealing a small full bath. The room was bland, everything a shade of off white, but the dead man had allowed himself to do a more thorough job of cleaning this room as it was lacking in grime or soap scum build up. There was a mirror attached to a medicine cabinet over the porcelain sink. Harleen pulled the cabinet door open, only to find the shelves empty. Her suspicions raised, she scrolled through the crime scene photos until she came across one of the cabinet's fully stocked interior. So, they'd removed everything for testing, perhaps to see if his medication was laced. There weren't any prescription bottles in the photo, just the usual OTC offerings one would find in a general first aid kit. Recognizing she wouldn't come across any answers here, Harleen shut the cabinet, exited the bathroom, and headed to the second closed door.
The acrid scent of cleaning fluid hit her nostrils the moment the door began to swing open. Harleen scrunched her nose but ignored the awful smell with the sort of practiced ease one could only learn from hopping between various abandoned hideouts on a nightly basis. She took stock of the revealed room. A window to her right allowed in more light from outside, though the blinds were fully drawn back, eliminating some of the shadow play. There was a mattress lying on the floor in the far corner of the room, sheets and bedding removed. Next to the mattress was a dresser (another major piece of furniture made of particle board). A desk with a rolling office chair stood to her right, against the wall. Nothing was hung up on the bedroom walls, no photos or artwork or even a tapestry, making it feel empty and lifeless. Her eyes only made a cursory scan of the furnishings, however. Her attention fixed almost immediately on the hardwood floor, where a white outline of a body was taped on the ground near the center of the room.
Harleen opened the photos of the corpse as she walked over to the outline. She glanced between her phone and the empty span of flooring. A massive pool of blood had formed around the man's head and torso postmortem, a natural side effect of his assailant rupturing a major artery. The cleanup crew had done an excellent job clearing away most of the residue, though – as Harleen knelt to get a closer look – she could still see a few reddish grains of linoleum scattered about, stained beyond repair. She fiddled with the lollipop in her mouth as she studied the floor, chewing on the stick, a nagging feeling in the pit of her stomach. Her eyes turned back to the photos, flipping through them at a slow pace. Something was off, she knew, but couldn't discern what.
Her eyes lingered on one of the photos of the man's head, taken from a more distant vantage point. She stared at it in silence for minutes, making a slow scan of the image, when – at last – something caught her attention. The photographer had kept the flash on when taking the photo, and there, in the top right corner, was a speck. A single pixel of white where there shouldn't be one, yet easy to miss if you weren't looking for it. Harleen zoomed in on the area in question. It was difficult to see what had caused the anomaly, it being almost out of shot, but she was convinced it wasn't a compression artifact. More of the image would have been distorted if that was the case. She chewed harder on the paper stick in her mouth as the pieces slowly fell into place inside her brain, slotting the meaning together.
And then it hit her.
The white pixel was the light of the flash reflecting off something. An object that wasn't in any of the other images. She fell to the floor, crawling on her hands and knees as she lined herself up alongside the outline of a head. Upon closer inspection, there were thin yet sizeable gaps in-between the warped floorboards. A result of the cheap, hasty construction that pervaded throughout the Narrows. Harleen turned on her phone's flashlight and aimed it into the dark crevices, searching for her quarry. After a few minutes of slow, careful progress a white glare greeted her from one of the gaps. She made a triumphant noise as she hovered over the area in question.
There it was, a cylindrical metal object, hidden so deep only direct light would be able to reflect off it. She palmed beneath her jacket to her utility belt and withdrew a small tool kit, retrieving the pair of tweezers nestled inside. Harleen lined herself up, hand steady, before she reached inside the crevice with the tweezers, waiting until she hit the bottom before she squeezed. She held her breath as she pulled back, smiling as she saw her prize held between the tweezer's pointed tips.
Harleen sat back on her knees as she held the object up to the light. She recognized it immediately, having seen plenty of them throughout med school and her psychiatry days. The cylinder was a small hypodermic needle meant to be used in a syringe. It must have rolled into the crevice after someone dropped it. The investigators who swept the apartment wouldn't have one of these on them, and the photos would have been taken before the coroner touched the body. A whole world of possibilities birthed in Harleen's mind regarding why the needle was here and what purpose it'd been used for, but she'd save those theories for later, once more pieces were revealed. For the time being, she pulled a small plastic evidence box out of her belt and stored the needle inside, careful not to touch it directly in case any substances still lingered on the point, and returned it to storage.
She stood upright as her eyes made another sweep of the room. The murdered man was a black ops agent, someone working undercover for a branch of the United States government. A man of that caliber had secrets to hide. More than a single stray hypodermic needle. She settled on the desk first, walked over to it and threw open the drawers, only to find them already empty. Their contents whisked away by his still living bedmates. She prodded around the bottom and undersides of the drawers, looking for hidden compartments, yet nothing was forthcoming. It made sense, when she thought about it. The desk would be the first place someone would look for sensitive documents or hidden evidence. Harleen stepped back, pulling the sheared wrapper of her finished Dum Dum out of her mouth and exchanging it for a fresh lollipop.
With only two culprits left, she turned to the next likely candidate. The dresser drawers still had clothes in them when she pulled them open; folded into neat little piles and arranged by color. Harleen allowed herself the smug satisfaction of once again being proven right in her initial assessment. Classic obsessive-compulsive type, this dead man. Living in the Narrows must have been Hell for him with everything – even the buildings – all askew and no right angles. She almost felt sorry for him, but reasoned his torment was at a logical end now.
Ignoring any need to keep the crime scene intact, Harleen began to pull the drawers out of the confines of the dresser and turn them over, spilling the clothes on the floor as she checked the underside and back of each one. She'd search for hidden compartments if it came to that, but usually false bottoms fell out when you flipped a drawer upside down and so far no dice. Then, on the final drawer – the one in the bottom left corner of the dresser – she found it. A white sheet of paper taped to the back, completely hidden from sight. She carefully removed it, making sure not to tear any of the edges, and flipped it over.
Printed on the other side of the paper was a photo. A blurred image of one section of a whiteboard with something written on it in black ink. The writing was near illegible, the photo obviously taken by someone trying not to get caught in the act, and there were lines crossing the board in an odd sequence. Harleen stared at it for a few minutes, trying to decipher the photo's meaning, before she had to begrudgingly concede defeat. Still, it was important enough to hide, so she folded it carefully and stashed the paper in a zipped coat pocket.
Sensing she'd gleaned all the apartment had to offer, Harleen debated calling Waller and reporting in. She quickly decided against it; she knew from experience the walls in these complexes were paper thin, and she didn't want to run the risk of anyone overhearing their conversation. Waller wasn't magic, but Harleen had more than an inkling suspicion the woman had a close ear to the ground where gossip was concerned. If anything confidential got out, leaked onto the streets, Harleen could kiss whatever chance she had at freedom goodbye.
She left the apartment without cleaning up the clothes, making sure to lock the front door behind her. When Harleen exited the building she noticed there were a few less people milling about on the outside steps. Her suspicions raised, she turned the corner into the alley, finding her bike still intact but the trash cans next to it knocked over and bags of urban refuse smushed, as though someone had fallen into them. The blonde shook her head with a slight roll of her eyes as she disengaged the security device on her Street Rod. People never could keep their hands to themselves.
A few minutes later Harleen was speeding out of the Narrows, heading towards Midtown. She liked to set up base camp near the center of the city until whatever case she was on narrowed to a specific neighborhood. It took her about thirty minutes of maneuvering to reach her lodging of choice, the Black Swan Motel. An older establishment with two floors, the motel was relatively clean, reasonably priced, had undiscerning clientele, and was the sort of treat she deserved after suffering through being Harley Quinn for a week. The little old lady at the reception counter greeted her with a smile and was accommodating when Harleen requested an end room on the top floor. It would cost a little extra, but not enough to break the bank. Harleen maneuvered the Street Rod into the parking space below her room, unloaded her bags from the seat compartment, and headed up the external staircase. The Black Swan still used old fashioned locks and keys, and with some slight shuffling of the plastic bags in her hands she was able to get the door open.
She flipped the light switch with her elbow and the room was illuminated by two bulbs installed in an overhead ceiling fan. The room was a single, with one king sized bed against the left wall, a nightstand, dresser, and TV perched atop a shelving unit on her right. The décor was, admittedly, dated, with striped pastel wallpaper, a floral bedspread, and a few mass-produced oil paintings hung up on the walls. Harleen kicked the door closed with her foot, dropped her bags on the floor, and headed for the bathroom. Attached off an alcove in the back of the suite, the bathroom was surprisingly large and containing a full, pristine white porcelain tub.
Harleen smiled to herself. That tub was going to be glorious.
But first she had a phone call to make.
She returned to bed and sat down before unlacing her combat boots before kicking them off. She pulled her cell phone out, unlocked it, and opened the Contacts. Sure enough, there was a single saved number simply titled "Work Call In". Harleen hit the automatic call button and held the phone to her ear.
It rang once before a clear, female voice sounded from the other end of the line. "Operator."
"I'm looking for a cleaner," Harleen said in as neutral a voice as she could muster under the overly dramatic circumstances. This couldn't be any more cliché secret agent if she tried.
"Please hold."
To her surprise, some royalty free music began to play as she waited. It was a basic orchestral track, nothing to write home about, and only played for about ten seconds at most before a familiar voice cut through the violins.
"I see you decided to take your time," Waller said in a gruff tone.
"That's not a bad thing," Harleen said. "I needed to be thorough."
"Not by investigating the crime scene, though. You made two unnecessary stops along the way and consumed an ungodly amount of fast food in the process. I didn't bring you onto this assignment so you could gorge."
Harleen rolled her eyes. "I assure you the meal was necessary. I don't think well on an empty stomach."
"Next time I tell you to go somewhere I expect you to go immediately," Waller said, her voice leaving no room for argument.
The naturally rebellious part of Harleen wanted to make a show of defiance, but she was older now, wiser, she knew better. "Yes, ma'am," she settled on saying.
A brief moment of silence stretched between them.
"What did you find?" Waller asked; tone still retaining a hard edge.
Well, it was nice of her to assume the best.
"So, you do have high hopes for me after all," Harleen couldn't resist saying.
Waller made a gruff chortling noise into her phone's mic. "You're mixing up 'hope' with 'assurance'. If you fail me I have others who can take your place, but desperation gets results."
A slight smirk tugged at Harleen's lips. She should have known.
"The apartment itself was tidy," the blonde said. "Your man appears to have been a low-key neat freak, though he tried to mask the trait while living among people he generally viewed as unclean. There was no sign of a struggle, as you said. Nothing was out of place, aside from what your investigative team cleared out when they made their sweep. There wasn't much left behind to puzzle over. However." She took a deep breath for added dramatic effect. "I did find something near the body."
There was a palpable shift in the conversational air when Harleen said those words.
"What?" Waller asked, her voice neutral aside from the slight hint of intrigue she couldn't fully eradicate.
Harleen reached into her utility belt and pulled out the clear plastic box containing the retrieved needle. She held it up to the light, her blue eyes staring at the small metal piece, brow furrowed in assessment.
"A hypodermic needle," Harleen said. "It'd fallen into a crack between the floorboards. Your boys must have missed it."
"How'd you find it?"
"I noticed its reflection in a photo taken of the corpse. Which means it was there before the coroner arrived for their assessment. I'd guarantee the needle belongs to either your dead man or his assailant."
"It's the murderer's," Waller interjected immediately.
"You sound pretty convinced." Harleen titled her head to the side. "There were no drugs in his system, correct?"
"None," Waller said in a clipped tone. "I don't abide junkies. Especially not among my ranks."
"Right," the blonde said with a frown.
"I want the needle analyzed."
"And I want to see the body," Harleen fired back without hesitation.
Waller made another disgruntled noise. "You have photos of the corpse and the autopsy report. That should suffice."
"Unfortunately, it's not enough," the blonde said, making sure to keep her frustration out of her voice. If Waller caught wind, it would kill her chances before she could make her case. "I need to see evidence with my own eyes – make my own observations – to get any traction on the theories I formulate. I told you, I'm a hands-on type of person. Always have been, just how my brain works."
"And what are these supposed theories of yours?"
"Too jumbled to say at the moment, but…"
Harleen paused as she considered her approach. Normally in this situation she'd employ bargaining as a means to her end, using the needle as a hostage to force Waller's hand, but such an approach wouldn't work here. It'd only serve to make an enemy of this woman Harleen needed to stay in the good graces of. No, Waller thrived off a feeling of importance, of having people grovel at her feet. The blonde needed to placate the older woman's ego; appease her with a display of subservience.
"You brought me onto this case for a reason, ma'am," Harleen continued. "You want results, and I can give them to you, but I have a method to my investigations. I need to see the whole picture – get my hands dirty – for the pieces stored in my head to slot into place. Jeremiah knows this about me, accommodates accordingly, and you've seen firsthand how well it's worked for him. I can work well for you, too. Your men missed a key piece of evidence, but I found it, and if you give me the proper tools I can locate more overlooked details." She took a deep breath. "I know there's something off about the body. Give me half an hour with the corpse, that's it, and I'll have an answer for you. Then I'll be one step closer to finding your killer and you'll get another win under your belt."
There was a pause as Waller considered the offer.
"I'll text you an address," the older woman said with some reluctance. "Be there at nine tomorrow morning. If you keep me waiting I'll rescind the offer."
A genuine, satisfied smile blossomed on Harleen's face. "Understood, ma'am."
"Is there anything else?"
"Yes, actually. Two things, in fact." Harleen restored the plastic box to her utility belt and pulled out the folded photo. She opened it with one hand, staring at the perplexing image. "First, I found a photo taped to the back of one of his dresser drawers. Yet another thing your people missed. It's blurry, and I can't quite make out what it's of, but obviously it's important. He wouldn't have gone through the trouble of hiding it otherwise."
"Bring it with you tomorrow."
"Of course."
"And the second item?" Waller asked.
"The apartment wasn't touched after your investigators left," Harleen said as she fiddled with the piece of paper in her hand. "The television and appliances were still present and intact. Nothing had been stripped for metal, which is perhaps the most suspicious part of this whole fiasco. Police tape in the Narrows is a beacon to the locals, a giant sign stapled to doors saying, 'no one's here, please clear me out'. Only something's keeping the vultures away this time."
"Nothing of value was left in the apartment to steal," Waller said in a dismissive tone.
"Even scrap is valuable."
There was another uncomfortable pause. "What are you suggesting, Dr. Quinzel?"
"I'm just noting the oddities, is all. It's my job to notice when something's off in an investigation, but I don't have any answers for you yet."
"Well, next time I suggest you only voice your opinion if you have an answer for me." Waller's words carried what Harleen was beginning to identify as her standard no-nonsense tone. The older woman only had a few tonal variations in total, but all of them were somewhere on the spectrum between displeased and apathetic.
If Harleen were a lesser woman, the admonishment might have stung. It might have called her intelligence into question or dredged up horrid memories of other instances where someone had yelled at her to be quiet, following up the command with a hard punch to the face. If she were a lesser woman, she might begin to conflate Harley's experiences with her own.
But she knew better than to cross that line in her bleak mental landscape.
"As you wish," Harleen said, surrendering once again to someone else's authority over her life. "Is there anything else you wanted to discuss? If not, I'd like to get some sleep. It's been a long day."
"We're done." Waller paused, and Harleen almost hung up before the older woman resumed in a more neutral voice. "Good work. Keep at it and you may just get your pardon."
It was, perhaps, the closest thing to a compliment she'd be able to get from her new master.
A confident smirk tugged at Harleen's lips. "I intend to."
Then Waller hung up.
Harleen looked at her phone with a bemused shake of her head. Despite Waller's callous demeanor, she was easier to deal with than Jeremiah, who insisted on updates every three hours – regardless of where she was or what she was doing – and hid his cruelty behind a faux kind nature. Waller, at least, was honest about herself; genuine in who she was and how she dealt with others. For as much as Harleen was addicted to diving into the complexities of the human psyche, peeling away masks to discover the secrets lying beneath, she still found it refreshing when encountering the rare soul who didn't play at subterfuge. Who discarded the typical human facades in favor of showing their true self to the world. No, she didn't like Waller, but Harleen would always know where she stood with the other woman, and that was a blessing the blonde hadn't been bestowed in years.
The caffeine and sugar rush from earlier was starting to cycle out of her system, leaving a bone-weary tiredness in its wake. Harleen needed sleep, especially with her tight morning deadline, but she'd committed to a bit of self-care first. The blonde stood, shed her clothes, and folded them neatly into the nearby dresser drawers. Harleen, in an act of curiosity overriding basic rationale, looked down at herself to assess the full extent of the damage she'd incurred as Harley. Her unnaturally pale white skin was studded with a patchwork of purple and green mottled bruises, spreading from her feet all the way up to her neck and face. A pang of intense loathing burned in the pit of her stomach at the now-familiar sight of her skin's complexion. For a moment she slipped – going back to those horrid moments, drowning in the vat, her flesh alight with the infernal pain of venom seeping through layers of dermis, branding body and mind for life. Then Harleen shoved the memory away, back into its damnable restraints.
As counterintuitive as it might seem – a woman with a doctorate in psychiatry actively practicing in emotional repression – Harleen knew there was a time and place for everything. You never dove into your own psyche alone. Delving into dangerous waters by yourself, without anyone to throw you a lifeline when you reached the inevitable whirlpool, was more dangerous than never addressing trauma at all. But Harleen Quinzel was a woman adrift; isolated from society and trapped within a system who benefited more from keeping her broken than fixing her. Jeremiah, for all his purported advocation of her mental health, didn't want her to progress in therapy. It's why he only scheduled her for solo sessions with him personally. It's why he stuck to outdated Freudian methods, never once employing the tried-and-true path of cognitive behavioral therapy. It's why she was never allowed visitors, though Jeremiah marked it down in the books as a lack of phone calls or letters due to previous ostracization from her remaining family. And even if someone could get through Jeremiah's blockades to speak with her, sit down with the infamous body hosting two distinct women inside its shell, how could a normal citizen even begin to understand what Harleen/Harley had experienced? The things she'd seen, the intricacies of the Gotham underworld, the hidden cruelty of glorified heroes, the atrocities she'd committed in the name of love – of a great purpose beyond herself – and the preluding ghosts of madness which had hounded her throughout her entire life?
No, Harleen Quinzel was alone. The rare breed of monster who could recognize herself as such. She'd known the truth for decades now: that only a monster could truly understand the soul of another monster. Except the same thing always happened when two monstrosities got too close to each other or – god forbid – tried to bond.
Mutually assured destruction.
And Harleen would never fall prey to that mistake again.
She pulled herself away from the sight of her own naked body and walked over to her plastic shopping bags. She rummaged around inside of one until she pulled out the green tea bath bomb she'd swiped from the drug store's toiletries aisle. Harleen held it up to her nose and inhaled; the scent earthy and delightful, reminding her of green gardens and the matcha drinks she drank in abundance during grad school. She rose, grabbed her phone, and headed into the bathroom.
The blonde closed the door behind her to keep heat from escaping, put the stopper in the bathtub's drain, and ran the water on warm. She watched it fill, waiting until there were only a couple inches left in the basin before turning off the water. The bath bomb was wrapped in a film of plastic and Harleen used her nail to peel it off, discarding the remnants in the waste bin. She plopped the green sphere in the water and a small, giddy smile lit up her face as it dissolved with a dramatic fizz. Truth was, Harleen was more of a shower person than a bath aficionado, but goddamn if the whole bath bomb process wasn't completely satisfying.
She propped her phone on the counter and had to pull up YouTube on her browser because Waller apparently didn't think she was responsible enough to be afforded the actual app. After a quick search for the proper mood music she found a video with the delightful title "UMBRA – A Chill Synthwave Mix Special For Acquired Ears" and it hit right on the crossover of the Venn diagram distinguishing "Things Harleen Enjoys" and "Things Harley Obsesses Over". Harleen put it on and the first soothing electronic notes played as she lowered herself into the pale green water.
Harleen leaned against the back of the tub with a sigh, resting her head against the tiles of the rear wall. The warmth of the water soothed her tense muscles, unwinding her, as she took deep breaths in and out. She let herself drift, forgetting the stress of the day, waking up as someone else only to be thrust into another game between law enforcement and the criminal underworld. Harleen didn't know where this case would take her. Couldn't see enough of the board to envision any potential outcome, but – for the time being – none of that mattered. All she needed to care about was staying in this calming bath for as long as possible. She let out another deep sigh, a knot coming undone in her chest on the exhale.
And then – for a brief, glorious moment – Harleen Quinzel's life wasn't in chaos.
End Note: Yes, that's a real playlist, in case anyone was wondering what type of music I listen to when I write (though it's mostly been darksynth and cyberpunk mixes for the mood of this story so far).