Justice League Femme

Chapter Four: Batgirl

There was a cool breeze that carried a red and orange leaf past me.  The sun shone through the cloudless sky as I walked along the pathways through Gotham State University's campus.  A techno-pop song pumped through my earbuds.  I carried my violet and yellow backpack to a gray building.

"Sup, Barbara!" someone shouted.

I lifted my hand up, acknowledging their greeting.  Other kids walked around the quad from building to building with book-bags strapped on their backs.

Suddenly, I felt a tap on my shoulder.  I turned around.   

"Hey, Babs," a tall girl with short black hair greeted.  There was a warm smile on her olive-colored face.

I smiled.  "Morning, Alysia."  We started to walk around.  "How have classes been for you?

Alysia shrugged.  "Could be worse.  It's worse without a caffeinated pick-me-up."

I chuckled.  "And Jo?"

Alysia nodded.  "Very well."

I smiled. 

"If I never joined that environmental activist group, I would've never met her," Alysia added, "still can't believe I would've found someone like her in a place as big as here."

"Gotham isn't that big."

"But big enough to get lost."

I nodded slightly.  "All because of that drama that happened earlier this year, huh?"

Alysia shrugged.  "I guess so."  She paused for a moment right before her smile faded away.  "Hey, did you hear?"

I furrowed my eyebrows.  "Hear about what?"

"There's the sickness going around," Alysia said, "a lot of the boys on my floor of my dorm caught it.  They've been hacking away so loud I can barely sleep."

"Damn, really?"

Alysia nodded.  "That bad."

"What about the girls on your floor?"

Alysia shook her head.  "Not yet," she answered, "but it's only a matter of time."

After a couple moments, we went up to the building's door and slipped inside.

The classroom's walls were a navy blue.  Desktops covered the many tables in the lab.  I sat by one of the bulky computers and turned my chair to face the front.  Students walked in after me.  Many of the boys that flooded in were coughing.  Some were ghostly pale.  My eyes widened slightly at the sight.  Their faces looked almost...clownish.

I swiped out my phone from my backpack and snapped a picture of one of the boys while they were signing onto their computer.  I quickly opened the Messaging app.  I sighed at this and starting typing.

"Doesn't this look familiar to you, Dick?" I texted before attaching the picture to the message.  With that, I hit send.

I was about to send the picture to Dinah before I heard the door swing open.  I tucked away my phone into my backpack as a lanky man with gray-rimmed glasses.  His face was incredibly pale.

"Good morning class," he said.  He let out a raspy cough, covering her mouth with a fisted hand.

"Morning, Professor Krupke," I greeted.

Professor Krupe nodded at me before he let out another raspy cough.

"Um...are you okay?" a girl behind me asked.

Professor Krupke nodded.  "Just a bit under the weather this morning."

I rose an eyebrow.  "A bit?"

He walked over to a thermostat on the other side of the wall.  He cranked the heat up as high as he could.

"Professor," another girl said, "it's mid-September."

"It's cold in here," Professor Krupke replied.

The air in the computer lab was about 65 degrees.  It was toasty enough for mid-September.  To Professor Krupke, though, it didn't matter.  He walked back to the front of the class.  "I apologize, class."  He let out another cough.  "Take out your homework from last class."

The class seemed to drag with Professor Krupke's coughing.  When the class ended, I was the first out.  In the halls, I passed numerous boys with the same symptoms: coughing and pale skin.  My eyes widened at this.  I understood that in college, sickness spread like wildfire, but this seemed too irregular.  I took out my phone.

One new message from Dick

I opened the text message.

"This definitely sounds like Joker's doing," Dick texted, "but I think if you're really gonna want to get down to it, you're gonna have to hunt down Harley for this one."

I sighed as I read Dick's text.

Harley Quinn. This was a name I haven't heard in a long time.  I remember what Bruce told me about her.  She was a registered psychiatrist at Arkham Asylum.  During her time there, she had to treat Joker, the only person who is truly "untreatable".  But Harley, or at the time, Dr. Harleen Quinzel, thought she could cure him.  As she thought she was getting closer to a cure, she realized that she was falling in love with the Clown Prince of Crime himself.  To grab his attention, she found harlequin grab and dressed up in it, all while breaking him out.  If it wasn't bad enough, the thing that binded her to him was when he dragged her to Ace Chemicals.  He pushed her into the same toxins that infected his mind and bleached his skin.  To him, it was a test to see if she was as desperate as she had displayed.  And she was.  With that, she became the Clown Princess of Crime in Gotham City.

It wasn't until not too long ago when she finally realized how much of a manipulative, ruthless, twisted, clown that he is.  From what I heard, she set Joker up, got away scott-free.  All I know now is that she's in Gotham.  Where in Gotham?  Who knows.  If I know Harley as well as I do, she's barely keeping a low-profile.  She's doing something.

But the question remains, was she behind this?  Despite her split, Harley Quinn had the mentality to do something as devious as this.

"Maybe," I texted Dick back.  I went over and sent the picture to Dinah.  "Something's up and I need your help."

She quickly texted back.  "Who do you think is behind it?"

"Dick said it was either Joker or Harley."

"This definitely looks like something Harley would do," Dinah texted, "I know she broke up with the Joker, but you know how she is."

I sighed.  "Okay, we might need another person to help us find Harley."

"Who do you have in mind?" Dinah texted.

I smirked as I typed in my response.  "You remember Kara?"