2014.02.12 - Swap Meet Trouble

The Gotham Regency Hotel is one of those hotels that really doesn't ask for much information as long as the people renting its spaces have the money to pay their exorbitant fees. Today one of the smaller meeting rooms has been set aside for a group that is only advertised on the events board as "Swap Meet" which however has a rather large and imposing man in a dark suit standing at the door and checking names off a list.
Button flounces up to the man and looking up at him, way up in her case since he's almost 3 feet taller than she is, "Minerva Cagliostro. I'm expected." Behind her she's pulling a trunk that she could fit in twice over.
The big guy is in the process of nodding to Button and stepping aside when he looks behind her and frowns. Not at the trunk. At the person coming up next. Well, people.
A blonde woman with streaks of red and black in her hair, wearing a red and black dress, is walking alongside a silver-haired woman who could be recognized as the Harpy, if anyone knows who the Harpy is, which they don't. "--actually, Crime Doctor does a good job," the blonde says. "I was worried because he wears those terrible glasses and, y'know, glug, glug, but everything went great. I thought there was a scar but then I remembered it was an old one, y'know, unrelated. Ha!"
The blonde walks up and puts her hands on her hips. "/Doctor/ Harleen Quinzel." The suited man shudders and nods, letting her pass.
The silver-haired woman is not let in. Because no one knows who the Harpy is.
Minerva walks up to one of the tables around the room, for the moment ignoring the other people in the room. Setting down the handle of her trunk she moves over to its side and hit a button. With a small hissing in take of air the lid to the trunk opens up silently and from inside the trunk a robot folds itself out. "That was horrible, Mistress! Why did I have to be all cramped up in that trunk when I could have just walked with you?" Minerva rolls her eyes at the robot and looks over at it, "Panic, we went over this. When you want to keep a low profile a six foot plus robot is not the way to go. And just like I told Delete the other day in the moving truck, you haven't been programmed with pain sensors so there is no way you can be 'cramped'. Now pull out the sample of superconductor wire and set them up on the table please."
The swap meet is certainly busy. It's a small space, but there's a lot of foot traffic. People trade ancient cursed swords for modern cursed automatic weapons. Information for stolen fine art. Some just walk around buying things with a surplus of cash. And some just linger at the edges, watching, probably there as enforcers.
Harley moves from table to table, eyeing this and that. She gets to Minerva and the robot, and stops, stroking her chin. "Don't think I've seen you 'round here before," she squeals in her thick Brooklyn accent. "Harley Quinn. Pleased to meetcha." She offers a hand...
...to the robot. "How come you're settin' up, though, and not your teen sidekick over there?"
Panic stops for a moment and stares at Harley just like Minerva is doing. After a few moments Panic 'eye' dim and then brighten in a robotic version of a confused blink then he says, "Mistress? Who is this lady and am I allowed to speak to her?" in his version of a ten year old boy's voice.
Minerva gazes at at Harley for a moment longer than Panic does and finally she says, "I will be happy to let you know that Panic is my robot, I am not his sidekick. She reaches out to shake the other woman's hand with her bare right hand. Her left one is covered in an elbow length glove that seems to be made of some thick, metallic fabric. "Where you looking for something specific today, Ms. Quinn?"
"A Valentine's Day present for my guy. I was thinkin' somethin' in the way of a lethal chemical agent, the less controllable the better? But hey, I'm just here bein' the welcome wagon." Harley grins. "An' call me Harley. Ms. Quinn is my father."
A few of the enforcer types seem to have noticed the Cagliostro heiress, and possibly recognize her. From a distance, they make quiet conversation, occasionally looking over.
"So, you want me to show you the ropes'a these things?" Harley claps a hand onto Minerva's shoulder. "First, if you're gonna buy coke, do it from Captain Stingaree. Never, ever, ever from Doctor Milo, or really anyone who goes around callin' themselves 'Doctor' anything. That's how you end up snortin' crazy werewolf solutions."
Minerva blinks a few more times at Harley trying to figure out just what to do with her. In the meantime Panic sidles a little closer to his Mistress and leans way down to 'whisper', "Mistress, I think this lady might be a bit cuckoo. Are you sure we should be talking to her? She might try to disassemble us or something." Sadly, the robot really doesn't have a whisper setting so it comes out loud enough for Minerva to sidestep away from him and for Harley to hear him too. And maybe even some of the other people near the table.
Minerva glares at Panic, "Panic! I've told you time and again, you don't have a whisper mode. If you want to communicate unheard by people nearby use the radio." Then she turns back to Harley and smiles a little uncomfortably, "Sadly I don't specialize in chemical. Is you want a weapon or even something robotic I could do it thought. And I don't do drugs. People think they're fun but they're not really. They just dull the senses and take away the fun. And wouldn't Ms. Quinn be your mother? Or are you one of those girls with two mothers that just calls one of the 'father'?"
The line of questioning regarding Harley's parents is met with a small shake of her head and a casual "Nah."
"Anyway, there's other stuff you gotta watch out for too," Harley says, giving the robot a /look/, before returning her attention to Minerva. "Cute redhead like you, don't accept a drink from anyone. Don't buy any of the paintings. They're all forgeries. And if anyone tells you they know who Batman is, they're just tryin' to scam you." Harley puts her hands on her hips. "...mmmm, robots, huh." It's like her mental record skipped a track. "I dunno if Mr. J would want a robot... Hey, Gizmo, you do jokes?"
Panic turns to look at Harley again then says, "What did the doctor say to the patient when he finished operating? That's enough out of you!" The delivery and the robot's laughter matches his voice. Exactly what you would expect out of your average 10-year-old boy.
Minerva sighs at Panic's joke and mumbles something about changing his comedy subroutines. Then she turns her attention back to Harley, "Ummm... I know I'm short but you do understand I'm at least as old as you are, right? What's really important is who do you think might want some superconductors? Maybe in exchange for some missiles or high explosive ammunition?"
"Really? 'Cause I'm 12," Harley notes. "So don't go gettin' any ideas -- they /really/ don't treat that kinda person nice in prison."
"And the joke, ehh, let's give it a 6 outta 10 for effort. What does tupperware have in common with a kinky walrus?"
The punchline makes the person at the next table audibly groan.
"As for superconductors, I ain't much of an opera gal. You tried lookin' up the Fiddler? Do they even use fiddles in opera?"
Minerva arches an eyebrow, looking Quinn up and down while Panic says, "She is, she is loony, Mistress! Scan her for weapons, scan her for knives, scan her for /screwdrivers/!"
Minerva ignores the robot to tell Harley, "You have to be at least twice that age. and I hope that you don't know what they do to someone like that in prison through experience. What do you specialize in, by the way, besides being a court jester?" Then the comment about opera clicks making her stop mid stream of thought and recover with, "And superconductors are materials that are highly efficient transmitting electrical signals. They have nothing to do with opera, which I'm also not a fan of."
"You say it like bein' a court jester is a /bad/ thing," Harley says, with a flip of her hair. "I don't like to /namedrop/," she continues, "but if I tell you my partner-in-crime, maybe you'll get the picture. Hey, cinnamon stick, you ever heard of the J--"
Harley is grabbed from behind by two Italian lugs in suits. "This clown botherin' you, Miz Cagliostro?" one of them says.
The other speaks to Harley: "You been warned about wastin' people's valuable time!"
Minerva's eyes open wide for a second then she looks up at Panic with a mischievous smile on her lips, "Panic, take care of these boys, please? Not too rough. They /are/ trying to be helpful, misguided as that might be."
Panic reaches out and picks up one man in each hand, lifting them by the front of their suits. In the process of lifting them off their feet Harley comes up to, for a moment as the lugs are slow to realize what's happening and forget to let go of her. Minerva looks first at one and then the other and smiles the kind of sweet smile that's the expressive equivalent of poison masked by honey. "Boys, does it look like Panic wouldn't be able to take care of her is she was bothering me? Please let her go, it sounded like she was about to tell me a fun story. And entertaining me is no waste of time. Best thing anyone can do, really."
Harley clamps together her thighs as she's lifted into the air. "HEY! A lotta these pervs have cameras!" she notes. She /is/ wearing a dress.
"I'm sawrry, Miz Cagliostro," one of the goons says. "But your folks, I know it'd break their hearts if anything was to happen to you, if you got involved with his one, she's crazy, she runs with the Joker of all people--"
Harley's eyes flash in anger. "You're gonna talk bad about my puddin', goombah? Robo! Crush him! Crush him until he's just paste, and... and ribs!"
Ratcatcher walks by, below. "Hi, Harley."
Harley says, nonchalantly, "Hey, Otis." Then she goes back to full mania. "ROBOT! I command you to KILL! You have to obey me, it's one of your directives, like in RoboCop!"
Panic looks back and down at Button starting to sound a little worried, "Mistress? Why is the loony lady giving me orders. Have you told her anything about my programming? Please tell me she doesn't know about my programming. I'm scared what she could do if she new about my programming! And my hardware. I shiver to think what she could do if she knew about my hardware! Are you /sure/ she doesn't have a screwdriver!?"
Minerva cranes her neck to look up at the trio who's so far higher than she is right now, arching both eyebrows as Harley goes into her manic verbal attack on the mobsters.
"Panic! Hush! She doens't have a screwdriver. Boys, I know what I'm doing. Thanks for the help but I'll ask for it when I need it. And no, Harley, Panic is not going to be crushing them to paste and ribs. Psychological violence is always so much more fun than physical violence anyway."
Harley slips down from the entanglement effortlessly, as if she could have at any time but simply didn't want to. For some reason. She brushes herself off. "I agree. I /am/ a doctor. And speaking as a doctor," Harley says, finishing her sentence by taking the goon's shoe off and hitting him in the testicles with it. "That's for talkin' about Mr. J!"
Minerva cringes in sympathetic pain, "let them down, Panic." As soon as the robot puts the goons down the both crumple wrapping themselves around the bright balls of pain sitting between their legs.
From around the room a few different men and women, all in dark suits matching the one worn by the man at the door, converge on the woman and the groaning men, "Violence is not allowed at the Swap Meet. unless we're dishing it out," says one of the larger men, "so we are going to have to ask you both to leave now." All of the enforcers move the sides of their jackets so that a variety of weapons are visible. The unspoken answer to 'and if we don't?'
Harley lets out a theatrical sigh. "Every time!" She drops the shoe with an exaggerated huff. "Where were you when I was gettin' manhandled? Talk about sexism." She starts to saunter off, then pauses. "Hey, Robo!"
Harley inches a screwdriver out of the neckline of her dress. Then she pushes it back down and winks, before continuing to walk.
Panic rounds on Minerva, "She had one! She had one! You said she didn't have a screwdriver and she had one!" in response to which Minerva sighs while she goes to the trunk and dumps all her samples into it before sealing in while saying, "Panic! She needs a whole lot more than a screwdriver to disassemble you. Get the trunk."
The robot goes over and pick the trunk up with one hand, tossing is to hang over his back as if it didn't weigh much at all. Minerva follows Harley out since the request for them to leave was clearly meant for them both, "So, what do we do for fun around here?"
Harley looks over her shoulder. "WE?" she asks. "Listen, Twizzler Nib, I'm flattered but I like my redheaded broads a little more leafy." Harley continues walking, though. "Well, now that I can't get Mr. J some kinda horrifying biological agent that would put us both on trial in the Hague, I was thinkin' I'd just get drunk an' feel bad about myself, before decidin' it's everyone /else's/ fault and doin' somethin' profoundly anti-social."
Minerva arches an eyebrow then shrugs and reaches back to where Panic is standing behind her. Touching a section of his chest that looks just like the rest of his chest causes a little white card to pop out of his mouth, kind of like he sticking his tongue out at Harley. Minerva reaches up to grab the little cardboard rectangle and offers it to Harley. "Suit yourself. If you ever want any tech call this number and leave a message. The more complicated the request the more likely I am to help out. And I only do custom pieces, so if you can buy on the regular or black market, don't bother asking, it'll be too boring to work on."
Harley takes the card and sleight-of-hands it to... somewhere. In its place, she holds what appears to be a wallet-size boudoir photograph of herself, holding a sheet to prevent any visible naughtiness. "Wait. Wrong one." She sleight-of-hands /that/, and produces someone else's business card -- a lawyer's -- with most of the stuff crossed out, and Harley's name and number written on it. "Call me if you need a laugh. If some English girl picks up, just ask for me."
Category:Log