Chapter 7 - We'd Like To Know A Little Bit About You For Our Files

"So, what do you think?" she asks, parading around in her home-made Robin outfit.

"And you're going out dressed like that?" I reply incredulously.

"You bet. Cassie the Girl Wonder," proclaims Cassie.

"But you can't call yourself Cassie the Girl Wonder," I point out. "It's your real name. Robin's real name was Dick, Jason or Tim, depending on your timing. It definitely wasn't Robin. The last name somebody called Cassie should pick is Cassie."

"Exactly, and that's the beauty of it," she replies with a conspiratorial wink.

At that point, Robin (Tim, rather than Dick or Jason) turns up.

Happy to curtail my conversation with Cassie, I treat her and Tim to a brief summing-up of the Hugo story thus far. I then pass Robin the letter that was left for me at Hugo's grave.

"Are you thinking what I'm thinking?" I ask, not having any idea what I'm actually thinking.

"Drawings of a square and a circle?" he muses.

"Looks like another riddle," I add, showing that I, too, can state the obvious.

"The circle probably represents an angle of 360 degrees," he continues.

"Or 2 pi, the pi will be Poison Ivy, and the 2 will be Two-Face. That's just what I was thinking," I say smugly.

"No, Two-Face hasn't got anything to do with this. Poison Ivy's real name is Pamela Isley. In both cases her initials are PI, which gives us the 2 pi. You really haven't got the hang of this riddle business, have you?" he replies, shaking his head despairingly.

"What about the square?"

"Have you measured it? You'll no doubt find that it's 4 inches by 4 inches."

I find a ruler, and, annoyingly, it turns out that's he right.

"So?"

Tim looks at Cassie, pleading for her to intercede.

"Holy headgear, Barbara," Cassie exclaims, punching her hand for added emphasis, "4 by 4 is 16. So's 10 and 6. 10 and 6 was the price on The Mad Hatter's hat. It's so simple."

"Just testing, kids. Now, Robin, you go and question The Mad Hatter, and Cassie can take care of Poison Ivy." Then, I add, just to show that I've thought things through, "I don't think you're ready to handle them the other way around yet."

They leave quietly, as I suddenly realize that my last sentence was the last thing that I should have said.

Five minutes later I get Robin calling me on the comm-link: "Hi, Oracle, me and Cassie have been doing some talking. We've decided to swap assignments round. Just thought I'd let you know."

I could try arguing with them, but I'm sure it'll get me nowhere, so I have to concede. "OK, Robin, but make sure Cassie ditches the fancy dress outfit before she gets there and gets back into her Batgirl costume."

"OK, Oracle. I'll talk to her. Over and out."

Poison Ivy

While Robin goes in to interview Poison Ivy, I ask Batgirl to wait outside just in case anything goes wrong. She tells me that it's totally unnecessary but finally agrees.

Inside the cell, Robin doesn't even have time to ask a question before Ivy launches into her monologue:

Hello, Robin. Come closer. No, closer still. Don't worry - I won't bite. Not if you don't want me to. I've got a story to tell you. It takes place a short, short time ago in a galaxy far, far away. There was a planet called Rann, a city called Ranagar, and a man called Adam - Adam Strange. Just as in this world, the planet's inhabitants did not care for the environment, and eventually, as a result, the landscape became a barren wasteland. Fortunately, the being known as Swamp Thing, shortly after his noble, but doomed, attempt to convert Gotham into a forest, found himself on the planet Rann and managed to convert the wasteland into lush vegetation. The land however was not the only thing that had been barren - no children had been born on Rann for many cycles.

For those banished from Ranagar, who had been living in the wasteland, the new growth brought new fertility, and babies were born once more. However, for those living in the city of Ranagar, things were not so idyllic. The only child that had been born in Ranagar in recent memory was to Adam Strange and Alanna, and Alanna herself had not survived the childbirth (or so it was thought at the time). The women of Ranagar were not getting any younger and were fearful of falling pregnant lest they too wouldn't survive. An irrational fear, but one that would successfully stop the race dead in its tracks.

It was about this time that Adam Strange returned to Earth. While he was there, he looked up his sister. She put him in touch with a long-lost uncle who'd gotten in touch with her following the death of Adam's father. That uncle was Hugo Strange.

When Adam returned to the planet, he returned with a potent cocktail of pheromones, courtesy of yours truly, and fear-inhibitors, courtesy of Jonathan Crane. Following the release of that mixture into the environment, scenes of debauchery beyond your wildest imagination reportedly took place, and nine months thereafter the race of Rann began anew. It was a year ago that the mixture was released, and now, this year, on the anniversary, they'll be releasing it again. Batman and his mystery woman are now on Rann, conveyed there courtesy of a Zeta-beam, and pretty soon now, thanks to my pheromones, they'll be bumping cowls.

"So, that's my story," concludes Ivy, "But stick around a bit longer, won't you?" she continues in her sultriest tones. "I don't get many visitors, and the days and nights are so long and hard. I'd be so, so grateful."

I hear a squelchy noise in the background and suddenly realize that it's the sound of flesh again Plexiglas.

"Sorry, Ma'am, I've got to go now," replies a flustered Robin.

"What's the matter? Has something come up? I can't tell with the way you're holding your cape - so that's why you crimefighters have capes, is it? Don't worry, Boy Wonder. You leave. It's OK, I'll stick to Harvey. He may not be much of a looker, but when he's good he's very good, and when ..."

I hear the cell door closing.

"Robin will stand guard while you're with The Mad Hatter," I reassure Cassie.

"Looks like he's already started," replies Cassie.

The Mad Hatter

I hear Cassie as she walks towards Jervis Tetch's cell. She's not much older than I was when I first met him. That how's all of this started - following my kidnapping, Dad sent me to Hugo for counseling to help me get over it. I eventually got over Jervis, but I don't think I ever got over Hugo. I'm glad I persuaded Cassie to ditch the Girl Wonder outfit, otherwise Jervis would be drooling all over her. She may as well have gone in wearing a sign saying "Eat Me".

"You know all about The Mad Hatter and Alice?" I ask her.

"Sure, cool game," she replies. "They're making a sequel."

"I guess that would be American McGee's Snow, a platformer mixed with a dwarf-tossing sim."

"No, You've got your facts wrong, Oracle. The sequel's about Oz."

Sometimes my sense of humor's completely wasted on Cassie.

Then I hear the cell door open, and, following that, I hear Jervis's small creepy whiny voice. After all these years, it still disturbs me.

"Hello, dear child. Make yourself comfortable. Have a look around if you'd like ... Would you care for some tea? It contains my own secret ingredient."

"No thanks, Mr. Hatter."

"Call me Mad. And you are?"

"Robyn the Girl Wonder," she replies. Half of me's angry that she didn't change her costume after all, the other half's glad that at least she listened to my comments about the name.

"You've had a sex-change?" shrieks Jervis. Maybe she should have stuck with her original choice of name, after all.

"No, I've always been a girl."

"Of course you have, my dear. I'm dreadfully sorry. Now what can I do to help?"

"Do you know anything about OR?"

"Of course I do, my dear, but you'd have to beat it out of me, I'm afraid. Hugo swore me to secrecy."

"Tell me about Hugo."

"You don't know what crazy, mixed-up kind of insect you're dealing with. Hugo let me set most of the riddles you know. All of the numeric ones are mine. I wanted to use complex numbers for them all - I thought it would be more fitting. You know complex numbers, part real, part imaginary - like my friends. Or are they irrational?"

"Is that everything?" asks Cassie, getting bored of his ramblings.

"He also let me design a hat for his friend. He's not a number. Hey, don't look there, Robyn, I don't want things getting disturbed."

"Don't worry, I'm being careful. Wow, you've got a lot of comic books for a grown-up, and hey, what are these videos? Alice In Chains is the only one I've heard of. They're a cool band."

"What, oh .. eh .. yes. They're my favorite."

"So, Mad, have you got anything else to tell me?"

"That's it."

"No final riddle?" Cassie asks, after my prompting her.

"All of the riddles have run out."

Thank goodness for that. I don't think I could take any more riddles.

Cassie leaves the cell. I ask her if she's OK. She tells me that she's fine. I was afraid her ability to read body language would let her know what was going on in Jervis's mind, but maybe his body language doesn't betray him, maybe it tells a different story altogether, or maybe I've just misjudged Jervis.


At last The Mad Hatter's given me a clue I understand, and at last watching The Prisoner has paid off. Hugo's friend isn't a number - he's a Freeman. Christopher Freeman to be exact, AKA Kid Eternity. The only problem is that he's supposed to be dead, but then again so's Hugo. One phone call later and I'm talking to his brother Freddy Freeman AKA CM3 AKA Captain Marvel Junior.

"Hi, Freddy. It's Oracle. What can you tell me about Kid Eternity?"

"He's dead."

"That's not what I heard."

"But he's always been dead. That's how he became Kid Eternity. He died before his time, so he got to wander around with a bald guy summoning figures from history."

"OK, how dead is he?"

"Well, Mordru killed him recently, but it still wasn't his time to die so he got back out of Heaven on the same technicality as the first time round. Either that or he summoned himself back to life. It's quite hard getting a straight answer out of him sometimes."

"Is it right that he's an agent of Chaos and doesn't actually summon the historic figures but merely demonic copies of them?"

"I bet you read that on the web. That's so untrue. You don't want to believe everything you read. He's actually on the side of God, but he thinks that's so uncool, so he comes up with all of these stories. He raises people from the dead - it's that simple. They come back in their prime, all their worldly memories intact. It's not a wonder he denies it, otherwise he'd be inundated with requests from all sorts of people, from religious groups to Hollywood producers to Elvis fans. He could bring back Jesus if he wanted to. To put it bluntly, Kid Eternity is the most powerful superhero you'll ever meet. If he ever fell into the wrong hands ..."

"Thanks, Freddy, that's all I needed to know."

So, Hugo's got the most powerful superhero in the world on his side, being controlled by one of The Mad Hatter's hats. Not the best news I've had today.

I look through Hugo's file on Kid Eternity looking for any further information, but I don't find any. While I'm looking at Hugo's files, I also check out what he has to say about Harleen Quinzel. It doesn't make for pleasant reading. It tells in excruciating detail how Hugo took a young innocent girl, manipulated her in any way he saw fit, and then dumped her. She had to go into therapy for months afterwards, and then, just when she thought she was OK, The Joker came along and unraveled her again. I almost feel sorry for her.

And then there's the file I've not looked at yet, Barbara Gordon's file. I open it up expecting a similar write-up to Harley's, intricate details of how Hugo manipulated me without my realizing it, but that's not what I find. I find disturbing details, but that's just my outpourings to Hugo about my alcoholic father and The Mad Hatter. After that I find that Hugo's falling in love with me, and that he's trying to resist me, because I'm his patient and I'm so young and fragile, but he can't. And then I find details of our times together, memories that I'd forgotten, and finally we come to the reason he got rid of me and broke my heart, and I realize my heart wasn't the only one that was broken that day. Hugo got rid of me to protect me. He had a brain tumor that was affecting his behavior, his personality, and Hugo knew this, along with the fact that the tumor would eventually kill him. No surgeon could remove it - well, maybe his son could have done once, before the accident, but it was too late now. And that's where the file ends, except that it doesn't. There's literally thousands of pictures taken of me in the months following our break up. Hugo had been stalking me without my knowing it. I close the file and get back to some other work to take my mind off Hugo.

First I call Dr. Leslie Thompkins to find out if there's been any progress in working out Myst's hair color. She tells me that the sample of hair she took from Myst, that was dyed black, turns out to be exactly the same color when the dye has been removed. It looks like Hugo was just trying to confuse us.

Then I do what I should have done as soon as I learnt about the OR clue. It's time to go back to my old profession: Barbara Gordon, librarian. I go to my library, pick up the dictionary, and then start reading through the O section. It takes a while, but finally I find it. "Gordon, you're a moron," I tell myself when I finally realize what OR stands for - I should have been the first to get it (Hugo and Batman were right). So now I know what OR means, and, because I know what OR means, I now know who Myst is and I'm even suspecting that Hugo's last word wasn't "Joker" after all.


It's late, but I find myself worrying about Cassie and her encounter with The Mad Hatter earlier today. I try calling her but she's not replying, so I call round. Eventually she answers the door. The encounter affected her more than I realized. She's just been showering, for the umpteenth time that night, but she tells me she just can't get clean. She's already burnt her Girl Wonder costume - it's now just a pile of ashes.

I stay up all night with her, consoling her, comforting her, but, mainly, listening to her. For once she can't stop talking.


It's Wednesday, and I'm getting ready for my date with Jack. Dinah's come round and we're chatting about things. She offers to have a word with Cassie, who she's not seen since her return, if I think that it'll help. As she passes me my coffee, and she tucks into a chicken and egg salad, we somehow find ourselves discussing mandroids.

"Have you ever thought that you might be one of Hugo's mandroid and just don't realize it?" asks Dinah. "Wouldn't that be just too Blade Runner?"

"I'm sure I'd know," I say, wondering how we got into this conversation in the first place.

"Just kidding. I'm the mandroid round here. The real Dinah's back off vacation tomorrow"

I put down my coffee and assume a fighting position.

Dinah remains sitting down, still eating her salad. "No need for a prolonged fight scene, Barb. It wouldn't really be fair on you - not now that you've drunk your coffee."

As I collapse to the floor, the last thing I hear is Dinah's voice.

"This is the bit where you die ... or maybe I'm just kidding again."