A Misled Lamb 36. Drive

36. Drive

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It was not often that Young thought as she drove to work, for she knew that not paying attention to the road could lead to serious accidents (and one could never be to sure around Arkham anyways, so paying acute attention was a trait good for one's health). This particular ride she found her mind wandering, as had been common to her in recent occasions.

Unsure as to why she was having a harder time concentrating on any one thing, Penelope decided to do her best job focusing on the road. She could not help but notice more things on her way than normal though.

Two men mugging a senior citizen in the Narrows…a young woman running down a street with some jewelry in her hand, likely grabbed from the other woman screaming down the street…two gangs beating each other with pipes and baseball bats…

Penelope shuddered as she watched a normal day in Gotham unfold before her…it was easy for her to understand why her father disliked the city so much, and even urged her to leave it subtly whenever they met. If it weren't for her projects then Young had no doubt that she would leave in a heartbeat, for she was to dedicated to just up and leave as it was. There was no use in calling the cops or alerting any kind of authorities of these incidents, for the few honest cops there was all were tangled up with fighting Rogues and the others were crooks themselves...

Continuing onto the long road to the asylum itself, Young groaned as she saw the sign that warned those driving to Arkham that hitchhikers may be escaped patients…it totally underscored the serious manner that Arkham held for itself as the top facility of its kind…

As she drew closer to the asylum itself, Young could see other cars coming in behind her. Wayne Enterprises had long taken an active interest in maintaining the asylum, upgrading the security whenever an advancement in technology was discovered by their top scientists. Arkham was practically run solely by things created by Wayne's technology head, Lucius Fox.

With this in mind, Young did not at all find it odd that so many Wayne Enterprise cars were behind her. Warden Sharp was paranoid on many levels, and he willingly complied with every security enhancement offered to them, his distrustful nature enhanced by the free technology given to him. Young was grateful for all the praise given to her by the warden, but she disliked him like every other member of Arkham. The man was demanding and at times very unprofessional, caring more about his personal ambitions than the asylum he was supposed to direct.

The Warden was even trying to run for mayor…like anyone would actually vote for him! That thought alone made Young want to laugh, thinking of what a failure Sharp was. Even with the handouts of amazing equipment he still never managed to keep the Gotham Rogues inside the facility for the rest of their unnatural lives.

Thinking of the memo she had gotten the day before, now there was going to be electrical field generators that shock any who attempt to pass through them horribly, not to mention upgrades to the existing control systems of all the various machines within the asylum. Now they would have a stronger encryption that could only be overridden by a high clearance security officer, the warden, a select few others, or a hacker on the level of the vigilante Oracle or that weirdo Calculator guy…even Lex Luthor wouldn't be able to touch these systems without doing quite some work. That's the quality of Wayne Enterprises for you. So good that it would take a member of the Batman cadre to break into it. The equipment would probably become ruined given some time, as nothing within Arkham seemed to last very long.

Given her psychotic patient's recent breakout (who Penelope wasn't missing in the slightest), the upped security was even more important to prevent further problems. The only way Young could see someone breaking out now would be to have key members of the staff under their thumb, members like Cash and herself who had full clearance to the facility (at least she did at the moment. Paranoid Sharp could always change that). But then again the staff of Arkham was screened to be sure that there would be no more Harley Quinn incidents…Young supposed that a guard or scientist could always be turned after joining the staff, but she felt reassured that no-one was pulling her strings. She only worked under the Warden and worked for their sponsors of the Titan project, no deadly contacts and side-employers to worry about.

In the passenger seat next to her laid her lunch, alongside it lay a similar order of her patient's. Jonathan turned out to be a picky eater albeit a grateful one, for he disliked 'tainted' foods such as bread with sauce on it or in this case rice with sauce on it. As such his General Tso's chicken was separated from his rice and broccoli while Penelope's was all together.

Penelope chuckled a little as she imagined Jonathan's response to mixed up food like hers. If he was not crazy, he was definitely eccentric. While Penelope wasn't exactly the most normal person on the block, in her opinion at least, she could still laugh at how horrified he appeared when she almost forgot to have his order be separated the other day (they had stayed so late that she ended up getting them dinner as well, as she noted Jonathan could eat quite a lot if he liked the food).

Now that they were going to be working together Young was sure that Jonathan could be proved to be a normal, sane person given the fact he would be working with her research team (the bumbling idiots they may be). Others would pick up on what she was feeling, and then Jonathan could just walk free.

Free…that idea made Penelope feel a little empty. Her favorite patient would be gone, if not now then in the relatively near future. His help would surely speed up the Titan project extremely, and by then Young would have the proof she needed to free him.

An idea struck Young like lightning, and she grinned.

When he went free, who would be better able to help troubled minds than a former psychologist who had one of the worst childhoods imaginable?

Pulling into Arkham and getting out of her car, Penelope didn't feel that bad. After taking her bags and the food out of the car she walked into the front of the security checkpoint with no hassle.

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As soon as she could physically place her bags down in her office, the day's first annoyance showed itself.

Leaning in her doorway was the scum known to the human race as Frank Boles, "Hey Doctor Young, you mind if I stick around awhile? I might be into doing a full body search if you know what-"

Not even turning to face him, Young put her things away as she replied curtly, "No, and it would still be a no even if you weren't a drunkard. Go bug someone else Boles, I'm sure at least someone here can put up with you."

Displeased that he had just been shot down, Boles frowned and turned to leave, "Fine Ice Queen, I'll go see if any of your researchers wants to-"

Still not facing him, Young replied in a monotone this time, "Leave this building Boles or I will write you up for inappropriate behavior."

Knowing that she had done so in the past, Boles held his arms up in defeat and left the room, "Sheesh, I'm going, I'm going."

Despite his compliance Young was going to write him up anyways, just as any of the other times he tried to speak with her. She had little tolerance for stupidity, but Boles pushed her buttons. All he ever seemed to want to do was drink cheap alcohol and try to be macho around his coworkers…not even the loosest of the women at Arkham would touch him, and none of the men really wanted to be seen around him. A few of the security staff played poker with him, but that was only to get a small and constant stream of money to supplement their income. Boles was horrible at playing, and everyone but him knew it.

Young had suggested to the other staff multiple times that Boles be let go, but with so few experienced security officers willing to work in Arkham these days they never put to much thought into it. His drinking problem had led him to be suspended in the past but that didn't stop the man from carrying his flask everywhere like the drunk he was.

Penelope sighed, deciding to push the vile man from her mind and replace him with more important thoughts concerning her projects…and luckily for her, her second project was now helping her with the first one so the two were easy to think about in conjunction.

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Jonathan was currently in "Believe in Harvey Dent" mode, although he would never see it as such…at least not with that catchphrase that his evil fiancé had started. Two-Face was busy proving his superiority over some of the other major Rogues who wished to 'own' Arkham, so it was Jonathan's 'duty' to coerce the other ones into stepping down and bowing to the king of Arkham.

The coin had come up on the bad side for Jonathan, so he was stuck doing this cleanup of lesser Rogues while Nigma got a free pass for getting the good side. Jonathan didn't mind so much because the targets he was given was limited to Tetch, who was too mad and schizophrenic to pose any threat coupled with his respect for the Scarecrow, Firefly, who was itching to fight him but to fearful to do it, and Killer Moth, who basically groveled at Crane these days.

Harvey was busy with an upstart new guy to the Asylum who wasn't like any of them…he was a vigilante rather than a Rogue, and he had only been passing through the town when he happened upon Batman. Thinking that the "inkblot man" was a new Rogue, he was fought with extreme difficulty by the Bat and dropped off at Arkham after Robin finally helped wrestle the man down. Jonathan would feel sorry that an innocent man had been sent to Arkham because of his chosen attire, but then again it was a vigilante who killed people like himself for a living, so Crane was not about to shed any tears.

The two faced former lawyer had decided to talk with the vigilante after yet another toss of his scarred coin coming good side up. Rather than wage war with a dangerous vigilante, as some lesser criminals learned via death in the recreational room, Harvey was going to attempt to persuade him to stay out of everything…Jonathan suspected that the man would have done that anyways, given that he didn't appear to have any wish to gain control in Arkham nor was he a villain, but he didn't question a man who would give anyone's life to chance over practically anything these days…Jonathan suspected that Harvey was beginning to get fed up with Arkham and merely was trying to take over Joker's place until he could escape.

For now Jonathan was fine with donning his mask if it meant that he could get his test subjects for the time being as well as have an established ally for when he finally decided to leave, likely after crushing Young.

Riddler was forming ties with Black Mask, who Jonathan failed to recognize as a true Rogue outside the fact that he had severely wounded one of the Bat family, and was teaming with Two-Face at the same time…if a gang war to emerge, the Riddler would be caught between them and that idea did not please Jonathan. Crane would dislike losing one of his two major supporters, his benefactor notwithstanding, to a petty gang war.

Jonathan would not get in his brainiac ally's way though, for it is up to people to make their own mistakes. He was looking into taking Black Mask out and assuring Two-Face's position in the underworld though…Joker and Penguin excluded, for Crane would never be foolish enough to wage war on either of them. With no henchmen it would be a very short-lived conflict for Crane.

And despite Harley's recent suggestion that all the Rogues get henchwenches like herself so that she could finally hang out with girls, the Scarecrow was not looking into any such matter. He made sure to emphasize that to the childish woman when she last spouted that nonsense, and not even Harley could ignore a threat of fear toxin grade four…only one grade below what he used on most test subjects and three grades below the untraceable kind that was hard to produce…

Harley may be an idiot by his standards, but Jonathan seriously did not wish to harm her. She had enough abusive relationships already…one that is, but that one was with the Joker. Wishing to differentiate himself as another kind of crazy than the Joker, Jonathan had long before decided not to harm the blonde woman.

She made that pledge very, very hard to keep though at times. It had taken both Riddler and Two-Face to keep her from visiting the 'new guy with the freckles', even though she full well knew that the man had killed more criminals than half the Rogues together had killed innocents.

Arriving at his first stop for the night, Jonathan looked into the Mad Hatter's cell to see the man clutching a copy of his favorite book…

Thinking to himself, Jonathan sighed, 'Better make this quick or he may invite me to some stupid tea party…'