Must Love Hyenas

09: Breakout

Harleen walked the cold and dark hallways of Arkham. It was still in the early hours of the morning. The sun had yet to rise and most of the staff hadn't arrived yet. She'd spent the previous night in her office, pouring over the ideas and plans she'd put in place and checking to be sure she hadn't overlooked anything important. 

Administrator Cook had been bothering her more and more of late, constantly reminding her with all the subtlety of a brick through a window that her time was running out. She'd need to provide definitive evidence of progress with John in the next nine days, or she'd be taken off his case. Harleen thought bringing someone out of a catatonic state should've been considered a sufficient level of progress for her to continue, but it didn't seem to matter to Cook. She wondered if anything would beenough. Ultimately, it didn't matter because today was the day everything would be set in motion. Harleen would either see her plans succeed or fall to ashes.

Her thoughts, turning over and over in her mind, made her lose track of time. She only realized what time it really was when the morning sun shone through one of the windows of the tall, cathedral style walls and filled the corridor with golden light.

Seeing where she was, Harleen stepped briefly into the staff bathroom and checked her appearance. She could barely hide her grin as the mirror revealed nothing except what she wanted to project to the other members of the asylum staff. In every way, she appeared the consummate medical professional. Biting the edge of her lower lip to keep from giggling, Harleen departed from the bathroom and headed toward the patient containment area where John currently resided.

It wasn't necessary to wake him as he was already sitting up on his bed and hugging his knees. His standard inmate jumpsuit of bright orange had been unzipped to the waist, the sleeves tied around him like a belt. The sleeveless white shirt he had on showed the lean muscles of his arms as well as a glistening layer of nervous sweat covering him like tiny gemstones.

"Another nightmare?" Harleen asked after she swiped her keycard through the scanner to unlock the door and entered the cell with him.

"What else is there?" John grumbled.

"There's this," Harleen suggested. She pulled a small, silver canister from her pocket and held it out to him. The canister had no identifying marks and nothing was written on the smooth surface. A valve and pressure gauge were mounted on the rounded top.

"What is it?" John questioned.

"I've been working with a colleague," Harleen explained. "He's been trying to create a substance to heighten a person's fears in order to study the root cause more directly."

"How is that useful to me?" John demanded, letting go of his knees to put his feet on the floor and sit a little closer to the edge. "I'm trying to get rid of the nightmares, not amplify them!"

"I only told you what he was working on," Harleen deflected. "I didn't say it was in the canister, did I?"

"What is in it?" John inquired.

"I suggested if fear could be artificially created, it could also be blocked," Harleen went on.

"It makes sense," John agreed. "Are you going to use it to suppress my nightmares?" John inquired.

"More than that," Harleen promised. "I'm going to free you of fear completely."

John's eyes went wide. "What do I need to do?"

"Breathe deep," Harleen instructed. She held up the canister and opened the valve under the pressure gauge. The canister emitted a hiss of escaping air, but nothing was visible.

John took a deep breath of the gas being released into the air, then another. Harleen shut off the valve before he could take in any more.

"Let's see how that dosage does before we go further," Harleen suggested. She stepped out into the hallway before releasing the breath she'd been holding so as to not be affected by John's treatment.

"I don't feel any different," John told her.

"It may take some time to kick in," Harleen explained. "While we wait, let's go for a walk."

John followed her out into the corridor and through the long passageways toward the cafeteria.

"You know," Harleen began, "today is a very special day."

"It is?" John questioned. "In what way is it special?"

"You're getting paroled today," Harleen told him with a wide smile.

"I haven't heard anything about it," John countered.

"No one else knows about it yet," Harleen snickered. "It's kind of unofficial."

"They're not going to let me go," John stated, hanging his head.

"You're assuming they have any say in the matter," Harleen pointed out, a firm edge creeping into her voice. When they reached the cafeteria, she pulled something from her pocket and handed it to him.

"What's this?" he asked.

"A smoke bomb," she replied. "Pull the pin and toss the canister into the corner over there."

When John hesitated, she added, "Trust me."

John pulled the pin and tossed the smoke bomb toward the indicated corner as it started to billow grey clouds. When the smoke reached the ceiling, it set off the fire suppression system and Harleen's plan.

When the sprinkler system had been flushed, the barrels of water she'd altered had been used to refill the system. The added ingredient was one of the primary components in bubble solutions. Combined with the small attachments she'd placed on the sprinkler heads, the mixture spraying from the sprinkler system came down in a flurry of drifting bubbles.

"Whatcha' think?" Harleen asked, shedding her doctor's coat and unbuttoning her shirt.

John was transfixed by the bubbles cascading down everywhere around them, a smile spreading out upon his lips. When he turned to face Harleen, he found she'd slipped out of her doctor's attire and had been wearing the jester costume underneath. She quickly twisted her blonde hair into a pair of pigtails.

"Harleen?" John asked in confusion.

"Nope," she told him with a wide grin. "It's not Harleen anymore. It's Harley, Harley Quinn. Let's split this joint."

She grabbed him by the hand and pulled him toward the door. The two of them made for her office, and the security personnel were too busy trying to get the inmates back to their cells to bother them. The soapy residue from the burst bubbles made footing unstable, and many people were falling down around them. John and Harley couldn't help but laugh at the spectacle, and Harley knew her planning had paid off.

Arriving at Harley's office, she motioned for him to wait outside while she went in momentarily, coming back out within a minute. She told him to cover his ears, and he barely had time to do so before a sizable explosion rocked the facility. Alarms not related to the fire suppression system but the security grid began blaring for attention, but Harley didn't care.

Taking John by the hand again, she raced across the shattered remains of her office and through the hole blasted in the outer wall. With no security on that side of the asylum, Harley and John were able to escape to her car waiting on the street. John's purple suit was draped across the back seat. Firing up the engine, Harley slammed on the gas and left a trail of rubber and cloud of smoke behind her as the car sped away from Arkham.