Reap What You Sow
by Allaine

Chapter 1  2  3  4  5  6  7  8  9  10  11 12  13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20

Chapter 4 


      Ivy briefly considered greening the taxi driver.  It would save her the fare, and she could be sure he would wait outside Arkham for as long as she liked.  She chose not to, however.  Considering her luck lately, he’d drive through a stoplight and plow into an eighteen-wheeler.

     She ground her teeth as this thought naturally led to the predicament she was in.  She should never have kept Cobblepot under her control that first night.  Or at least, she should have quit at paper napkins. 

     Her trip to the Curiosity Shop had yielded the answers she was looking for.  “Sacred Glen for attuning to natural elements, and Dragon’s Blood Resin and Flax Seed for converting negative energy into increased power and will for invocations,” the shopkeeper had told her, sounding almost exactly as she had that day at the Highland Games.  When she took her purchases back to the Iceberg and tried them out, Ivy experienced much the same sensation as before - a rush, an added "oomph.”  Her experiments on what little living plant life there was in the Iceberg proved that her control over plants had grown once again.

     At the Games she’d wondered if her new powers would enable her to green Galen McDougal - or rather, the man she THOUGHT was McDougal.  At least the real McDougal had an adequate knowledge of mosses.  Whoever that other man had been, he had not only resisted her thrall, but been unforgivably rude.  Faced with THIS sort of power, however, he might have humbled and prostrated himself before her divine and irresistible beauty, just as a man should.  Pity he was no longer available.

     But Oswald had been available, and Ivy had felt a definite change in him when she spritzed him.  It had seemed like even his powers of speech became dependent on her will alone.  She went to bed that night confident that the Penguin would be no less in love with her the following day.  And she fell asleep with a smile on her face, imagining the things she could have made the false Scotsman do.

     Oh yes, Oswald had remained properly attentive the next day, and every day since.  She’d become the center of his universe, and Ivy imagined that his universe was the better for it.  Oswald had rambled for quite a while about things like the insignficant Roxy, someone named “Lark Starling" (with a name like that, probably a Penguin groupie, a truly sorry class of individuals), and his good friend alcohol.  Whatever he had been before, happy wasn’t it.

     Now he was happy.  And she wasn’t.

     What she hadn’t reckoned on were the side effects of her heightened powers.  Of course greened individuals were always a little slower on the draw, having largely lost the ability to think for themselves.  Normally, however, they were still able to function provided she gave them direction.  Told to run the Iceberg as he normally did, the Penguin should have been fine.

     Instead, under the influence of her new, enhanced pheromones, Oswald had remained on his rear end all day AND all night, unwilling to take his eyes off Ivy for more than a few minutes, and apparently unable to take his mind off her at all.  Faced with a manager that would barely recognize his customers (or staff), let alone speak to them, the Iceberg had been forced to remain closed that night.  Too many things were in need of a guiding hand after three days of nonactivity.  Not only that, but the staff was mired in confusion, bewildered by both Oswald’s strange behavior and Sly’s failure to show up.

     At least, that was what the doorman had told her after she greened him.

     Much to Ivy’s dismay, the following day she’d discovered that Cobblepot could only perform the most menial tasks without her telling him to finish twenty times.  Managing the Iceberg was simply out of the question for him.

     This had left her with three options.  She could stop using the special incense and rely on her natural powers.  While this would (hopefully) leave Oswald with enough of his faculties to run the Lounge, it would also require her to go back to her old routine of greening him several times each day.  She might as well be chained to his side, a notion that repelled her.  Or she could walk away and let Oswald slip from her control, allowing him to do what he did best and manage the Iceberg without assistance.  The problem with that, of course, was that he had already been under her spell for several days.  The Penguin would be MOST upset when he regained his senses, and with the resources she now knew he possessed, he could make her life difficult in more ways than just banning her from his nightclub.  Never mind that it was those very same resources that had tempted her to follow this path in the first place!

     OR, she could try running the Lounge herself.

     Ivy was originally offended by the thought.  Her, taking up a trade?  Becoming some ordinary businesswoman?  Granted, it was all just a front for Penguin’s multiple racketeering operations, but she would be perceived in the same way that she had perceived Penguin until recently - a former criminal, semi-retired and running a BAR.

     There was also the work involved.  Gaia’s Goddess did not soil her hands with work unless she was working in the soil with the plants that were under her protection.  Gaia’s Goddess did not stay up until the middle of the night wearing one of those green visors and reviewing budgets like some common bookkeeper!  Some might think her lazy, but really it was just that someone like her was born not to serve, but to be served.

     And yet … days later, there were invoices waiting to be reviewed on what was temporarily HER desk at the Iceberg.  There were also invoices bearing her signature, authorizing payment.  That had felt positively unreal, sitting in a BANK with the Penguin while he added her name to the Lounge’s bank accounts.  It was only afterwards that she realized the impossible had happened.

     She was a civilian.  True, a civilian who was slowly coming to understand the inner workings of Penguin’s (his for now, anyway) criminal empire, and was slowly but surely taking control of it just as Japanese honeysuckle might invade a forest.  But still, a civilian – or civilian “look alike,” someone who had to maintain the illusion of being a law-abiding taxpayer.  There could be no more of her usual schemes, on a royal scale as befitted the Queen and Goddess of all things green.  She would have to act subtly, or everything would be taken away from her and she’d have nothing to show for all the triple-damned energy she was putting into this.  It felt oddly – diminishing.

     All because of her pride and her greed.  Too proud to admit defeat, too greedy to resist the lure of Penguin’s millions as they drew closer.  She sighed.  It was almost like something a - man would do.  

     Also like a man, Ivy was alone.  Even now that Oswald didn’t need to be spritzed every few hours, she found she couldn’t leave for very long anyway.  She couldn’t go to any of her sanctuaries to refresh herself because there was still too much to be done at the Lounge. And if they didn’t reopen soon, she wasn’t sure if the establishment could survive.  So she was alone.  Oswald wasn’t much of a conversationalist at this point.  Her babies were elsewhere.  And the hired help was out of the question.

     So that was the only reason she was going to see Harley.  It was purely selfish.  She was still Gaia’s Goddess in all her lovely omnipotence.  In the end she got what she desired, and today she desired someone to talk to.  It had nothing to do with checking on Harley, who had become a trifle emotional when her worthless ex was killed.

     Anyway, by now Harley had to see it was for the best.  Who knew?  Perhaps Harley had even come to realize what an act of self-liberation her role in Joker’s murder was.  Ivy had long fantasized about putting his miserable life to an end, but in her most cherished ones, his blood was on Harley’s hands just as much as it was on Ivy’s.  For Harley to be the one who actually gave those DEMON fools the order was both fitting and just, and Ivy knew Harley would eventually understand that.

     For now, though, Ivy would settle for a conversation between friends.  Visiting Harley had given Ivy an excuse to push work back another day.  The only thing that was helping Ivy get anything done at all was her new ideas for the Iceberg.  For all the Lounge’s charms, the decor had always been too cold and barren for her liking.  So if she had to be there every night now, instead of somewhere like Robinson Park …

     Then it should be a place with a little less icy white, and a lot more lush, tropical green.

     “So sorry to trouble you, Master Bruce,” Alfred said.

     “What is it, Alfred?” Bruce asked as he worked in the Batcave that afternoon in his costume sans cowl.

     “I thought you might like to know that Miss Selina is entertaining several unexpected guests in the study.”

     “Unexpected guests?” Bruce asked sourly after a moment.  That meant at least one of the Rogues.  He was more interested in the "several" part.

     “Yes, Master Bruce.  A Mr. Dent, Mr. Nigma, Mr. Crane, Mr. Blake, and Mr. Wesker.”

     With a powerful sense of deja vu, Bruce’s eyes rose almost unwillingly to look at the monitor on his left.

     .:At Large:.

     Riddler

     Two-Face

     Scarecrow

     Poison Ivy

     Scarface

     Catman

     “No Ivy?” 

     “No, sir.  Ms. Isley was not in attendance.” 

     Bruce changed out of the costume and into casual attire with maximum speed, and maximum annoyance.  Even before Selina moved into Wayne Manor, the Rogues had behaved as if her relationship with Bruce meant it was all right to come calling with increasing regularity.  But never FIVE at once.  The old record had been three.  The sheer number - coupled with the presence of Tom Blake, who despised her completely, suggested there was an emergency.

     As he approached the closed doors of the study, he took a moment to channel his worry and irritation into the befuddlement Bruce Wayne would naturally feel at finding so many criminals at once.

     “Bruce!”

     The befuddled look became completely sincere as he entered the study and received the kind of greeting a regular patron might get upon entering his favorite bar.  There was nothing more surreal than having Jonathan Crane, seated in your father’s armchair with his legs crossed, treat you like an old college buddy.

     “Get off your duff, Dummy!” Scarface barked at Arnold Wesker, who was also seated.  “We ain’t never geen properly introduced, Grucie and me.”  He looked at Bruce.  “I’m surprised, Gruce.  Two respectagle men like us, not meeting in polite society gefore.” 

     Bruce had been mistaken.  While Scarecrow’s behavior was certainly strange, it was nowhere near as surreal as having Scarface stretch out his little wooden hand, obviously expecting him to shake it.  Bruce looked down at it thoughtfully then shot Selina an appalled glance. 

     Selina, who had observed all of this with weary bemusement, gestured for him to humor the insane ventriloquist.

     Bruce reached out and shook the little wooden hand briefly, feeling not a little ridiculous.

     “Woo, quite a grip you got there, Gruce!” Scarface said, waving his hand theatrically.  “Can I call yous Gruce?”

     “Selina?” Bruce asked plaintively.  “What’s going on?”

     “We were just getting to that,” Selina said with the gamely smile often assumed dealing with rogues en masse.  “Gentlemen – and Blake, what is it you want from me?”

     “Bruce,” Harvey said quietly, putting an arm around Bruce’s shoulders and steering him subtly away from the others.  “We’re sorry about the dummy,” he murmured.  “The first time listening to Wesker is always the toughest.”

     “Yes, I can see that,” Bruce replied, remembering full well his reaction the first time he’d encountered Scarface as Batman.

     “Look, we’ve got something of a disaster in the making here.  Actually, it concerns you too, so you should stick around.”

     “Is it serious?” Bruce asked.  His strategists mind was already cataloging the countless possibilities, and tentatively proposing responses for each.  A Rogue “disaster” could be anything from a police crackdown to - Aunt Gladys.  The one thing he was confident it WASn’t was Joker-related.

     “Bruce, Blake is in the same room as Selina.  We’d say it’s pretty serious.”

     “Here,” Eddie said as he joined them, shoving a green rectangle of paper into Bruce’s hands.  The three of them were now practically huddled in one corner of the study like a group of conspirators.  “Read this.”

     Bruce did so, albeit with trepidation.  As Bruce, he wondered how the contents of a single piece of paper could have these hardened criminals running to Selina.  Below the surface, meanwhile, Batman immediately noted the shade of green.  There was no question mark, but considering the identity of the person handing it to him, it was quite possibly a riddle.  He hesitated for the briefest of moments, regretting that he wasn’t wearing his gloves, but then he realized that Nigma was himself barehanded.  That meant there couldn’t be any sort of transdermal coating for transmitting drugs or toxins.

     And as it turned out, it wasn’t a riddle after all.  It was actually a flyer.  While vague on details, the important fact was that it claimed the Iceberg Lounge was reopening "under new management", rechristened as the “Toxicodendron Rydbergii" Lounge.

     “It’s another name for poison ivy,” Harvey explained.  “We looked it up.”

     Bruce was as familiar with the various scientific names for poison ivy as he was with the Rogues various nicknames for “Queen Chlorophyll.”  “Where did you get this?” he asked, his voice deepening slightly.  Ivy’s absence was suddenly making more sense, as was her mysterious disappearance since the Joker’s murder.

     “I went to the Iceberg to ask Oswald why it was taking them so long to reopen,” Eddie said.  “Some guy in construction overalls got me before I was three steps in and told me to leave.  There was a stack of those flyers by the door, and I grabbed a copy.”

     “Excuse me, boys,” Selina said, joining their little circle.  “I need to pull Bruce away for a minute.”

     Before anyone, including Bruce, could protest, Selina had him by the elbow and forcibly dragged him out of the study.  As he left, he caught a glimpse of Blake making a snide face and cracking an invisible whip.  Eddie, who had drifted back toward the others, smacked him across the shoulder.

     Bruce made a mental note to himself.  Next time Blake would go down a little harder than usual.  

     “Thanks for leaving me alone with the others, by the way,” she told him once they were far enough away from the study doors.  “Wesker, Scarface and Blake, not exactly my idea of a bridge foursome.”

     “Why did they come anyway?”  Bruce demanded.  “Harvey or Nigma I can see, but the others don’t even like you!”

     “Apparently Crane and Blake wanted in because they see this as affecting them as much as anybody else,” Selina said.  “Wesker, well, I think he just wanted to come here as a guest.  All the other Rogues get to.”

     “Sure, why not him too?” Bruce muttered, rubbing the bridge of his nose.  “Why did you have to pull me out of there?  This is important.  I just came from closing the file on the Joker’s murder, the most responsible party is the one who’s going to get away with it, and a Rogues committee is finally giving me a lead on her whereabouts!”

     Selina blinked.  There were times she really had to stop and marvel at how even Bruce could fall victim to the breathtaking myopia of the crimefighter mindset and completely miss the obvious. 

     “I pulled you out because I can’t exactly talk to Batman when I’m in the room with those guys,” she said, exasperated.  “Never mind the fact that I love Harvey and Eddie dearly, but when you put them in a room with the rest of them, there’s a critical mass.  They just drive me nuts.”

     “Okay, fine,” Bruce said in his Bat-gravel.  “Why did they come to you with this, anyway?”

     “Isn’t it obvious?”  She took a step back and spread her arms, twisting her body left and right.  “Someone’s got to talk to Ivy, and it can’t be a man.”

     Bruce’s expression became thoughtful.  “And you’re the only woman in Gotham with the stature to make Ivy back down from this scheme.”

     “Well, I think they were counting more on my claws than my stature,” Selina said, smiling a little.

     “Are you going to do it?” Bruce asked.

     “If it gets them out of the house, yes,” Selina replied.  Then she sighed.  “I’ll go see her, although I haven’t any idea what I might say.  It’s nice that those guys fear the claws, but really, Pammy isn’t the type you can reason with that way.  For that matter, she can’t be reasoned with any other way that I know of.  You can’t tell her something she doesn’t want to hear.”

Bruce said nothing – none of this was news to him. He would never say so to Selina, but trying to intimidate Poison Ivy was very much like trying to intimidate Catwoman.  It practically guaranteed that either woman would go ahead with whatever it was you tried to talk them out of.  They would do it with twice as much vigor as before, and with a So-There grin aimed in your direction. 

Selina bit her lip thoughtfully.

“But if Ivy is really going through with this,” she resumed, “that means she must have kept Oswald under her thumb all this time, since the night of Joker’s …and she must be planning to keep him that way for a long, long time.  Much as I hate coming down on the side of what’s right and wrong, he certainly doesn’t deserve that.”

     “You’re right,” Bruce agreed, "but we need to understand WHY she’s doing this.  It’s insane—”

     “Like Pammy.”

     “No, not like Ivy at all.  Not the usual ‘kill all the people so plants can rule’ insane.  It’s insane because it’s the complete opposite of Ivy.  Can you think of anybody less qualified to run a nightclub?  Anybody with worse people skills, or a worse grasp of the idea of customer service?” he asked.

     Selina frowned.  “Well, one, but he recently passed away.”

     “Ivy likes things to be handed to her, and nothing about running the Iceberg will be easy.  It’s possible this is part of a new scheme of hers.  A plan to poison her customers, perhaps.”

     “I think you’re highballing the number of people out there willing to enter a bar owned by Poison Ivy, much less drink something served by her.”

     “Yes, which brings us to something Harvey was right about, this DOES concern me,” Bruce admitted, "but not in the way he thinks.  The Iceberg makes Batman’s job a little easier, the way it draws criminals like moths, makes it easier to track their movements.  If Ivy runs that place into the ground, the criminal element will go back to frequenting a hundred different establishments…  PLUS there’s always a possibility that this could give me the break I need to prove Ivy’s role in the Joker’s murder.” 

     He looked at her.  “You haven’t said if you’re definitely going to do this – and I’m going to look into this whether you say yes or not, but …"  He paused again, glanced at the door to the study and back at Selina.  “I’m asking for your help on this.”

     Selina chuckled.  “So let me get this straight, Dark Knight.  You are in agreement with Two-Face, Riddler, Scarface, and Catman. You and half the Arkham east wing are all on the same page. You and the most notorious criminals left in Gotham are all trying to hire my services?”

     Bruce didn’t respond to that, as she knew he wouldn’t.

     “All right, you talked me into it.  Not Eddie, not that despicable Catman, YOU.”

     “Thank you.  I’d appreciate it if you gave me a little time before you choke some sense into Ivy.”

     “I was going to track down Sly first anyway.  He’d know more about what’s going on then anyone else.”

     “Excuse me, Master Bruce?  Miss Selina?”

     Bruce and Selina turned to see Alfred standing there.  “Yes, Alfred?” Bruce asked.

     “I regret to inform you that Misters Nigma and Blake are wrestling on the floor of the study.  One would not wish to open oneself up to charges of eavesdropping,  however one did overhear words to the effect that Mister Blake expressed an intent to scratch the furniture.  Shall I do something about it, sir, or—”

     “No, no, let me,” Selina growled.  “It’ll be my pleasure.”

     Ivy narrowed her eyes.  “Visiting hours aren’t over yet,” she said.

     “I’m sorry, Ms. Isley,” the woman at the front desk said, "but you can’t see Ms. Quinn.  Doctor’s orders expressly state you’re not allowed.”  Poison Ivy’s name had in fact been written on the “Do Not Admit" list in red capital letters and circled several times by Dr. Bartholomew himself.  He’d also stipulated that, for the time being, only female orderlies and nurses would be dealing with visitors.

     Ivy was not in the mood to let some fool man to keep her from seeing her friend.  She considered slipping the nurse a fifty, since she was well acquainted with the low salaries Arkham staffers received, but she’d already paid the taxi driver.  What was the point of having increased powers if you couldn’t use them?

     “All right then,” Ivy said.  “What about Eddie Nigma?  Is he in?”

     “Mr. Nigma is not currently—”

     “Jonathan Crane.”

     “No, I’m afraid—”

     She couldn’t bring herself to ask for Harvey.  “Victor Fries?”

     “Er, yes, he is a patient at—”

     “I wish to see Victor Fries.”

     The nurse could guess at what she was doing, but there were no rules stating that Poison Ivy couldn’t see anybody at Arkham.  And a female orderly would take her to see Mr. Freeze, so it should be all right.  “All right then,” she said.  “I’ll have someone take you to a room.”

     Ivy smiled, and when another woman arrived to take her inside, her smile turned into a sneer.  They thought they were so clever here.

     The orderly left her in one of the visitor’s rooms and then went to get Victor.  Of course Ivy had no intention of talking to Fries for even a moment.  It was too depressing.  She simply exited the room again, found the nearest male doctor, and persuaded him take her to Harley’s room.

     Ivy’s first surprise was finding Harley in one of the padded rooms they used for patients who were a possible danger to themselves.  She’d been there for over a week.  Surely this wasn’t necessary.

     The second surprise came when Harley saw her and jumped.  Not the happy kind, but the kind you made when you got a scare.  Of course, her arrival had been quite unexpected.

     “H-heya, Red,” Harley said timidly.

     “Harley,” Ivy replied.  “It’s been too long.  How are you?  You look terrible.  It’s the food and the lighting here, isn’t it?  You need more sun.”

     “It’s not so bad,” Harley mumbled as Ivy sat next to her.  “Howre you?”

     Ivy smiled.  It had been too long since someone had asked her that, and where she could give an honest answer.  “Well, I’ll tell you this, and you’re the first to know.  I’ve taken over the Iceberg Lounge.”

     Harley blinked.  “You what?”

     “Well, of course you remember how I greened everyone the night—”

     “Yes,” Harley said all too quickly.

     Ivy realized that probably hadn’t been the best thing to bring up.  “Er, right.  After I did some investigation, I discovered that Oswald has quite the criminal organization in place.  I mean, really, who knew?  I thought he was retired like everyone else!”

     “Uh-huh.”

     “So he’s been greened all this time, and I’m going to keep him that way,” Ivy explained, feeling a bit more cheerful now.  At times it was easy to forget that the Penguin, one of the most respected members of Gotham’s "old guard", was completely under her thumb.  It was really quite gratifying, especially when coupled with the death of the Joker.  “That does mean I’ll be running the Iceberg as well as the illegal operations from which he gets most of his profits.  There will be changes, though.  Oh, there are going to be changes, all right.”

     “That’s - nice, Red.”

     “In fact,” Ivy said, bringing up something she’d thought of on the way, “I was thinking that as soon as you’re out of here, you can come by the Lounge, we’ll have a girl’s day together and get you all freshened up, and then maybe you can come and help me run the place?”

     “W-what?”

     Ivy wasn’t used to doing all the talking - normally Harley chattered enough for three people - but they must have had her sedated.  “Well, it would be really nice if I had someone there who I could talk to, maybe someone who can talk to customers better than I.  And you’re, how to put this delicately—”

     “Out of a sidekick job?  For good?” Harley asked.

     “Well, for good, yes.”

     Harley barked a short, nervous laugh.  “Unless of course I come and be your sidekick, right Red?!  Unless I come be your sidekick.  First Jervis, now you.  Jervis Ivy, Ivy Jervis.  Jervisivy.”

     Ivy looked at her uneasily.  “What about Jervis, Harley?  What about him?”

     “He asked me to be his new sidekick.”

     “He what?!” Ivy burst out.  How dare he move in on Harley before she -

     “And now you want to give me a job,” Harley went on.  She tittered.  “Everybody’s thinking about my future.”

     “Harley—”

     “Well, good!  You can think about my future, because I don’t wanna!” Harley snarled at her.

     “Oh for Gaia’s sake!” Ivy burst out, her patience completely used up.  “This is about HIM, isn’t it?  You’re still grieving over that filthy man, aren’t you?!  It’s been almost two weeks!”

     “Don’t talk about Puddin that way!” Harley screamed.  “And it hasn’t been almost two weeks, it’s been twelve days, fourteen hours, and, and …and I’d know the rest if I knew what the time was!”

     “He’s dead and you’re not, Harley,” Ivy retorted.  “It’s time you thought about living again.  He was a waste of your life when he was alive.  Don’t let him waste the rest of it!”

     “My time with Mistah J was the best years of my life!” Harley whined.  “What good is the rest of it gonna be?”

     “Have you already forgotten that he had already broken up with you before he died?” Ivy said, infuriated.  How dare she not be over him yet!  “You were angry with him that night!  You even gave the command for them to—”

     Ivy froze.  Harley’s eyes had become entirely too round.  Her mouth opened and closed like a fish, but no sound was coming out.  She started shaking her head left and right.

     “Harley—”

     “No.  Nonononono,” Harley moaned.  “No, it wasn’t me, wasn’t me, wasn’t me.  I didn’t do it, dindoit, dindoit.  Because I loved Puddin and he loved me and I would never and he was my world and I would never because that would be like killing me and I never killed him and you take that back!”

     Ivy suddenly understood why Harley was in a room with padded walls.  This was not ordinary grief.

     Harley scrambled to her feet and backed away.  “I didn’t, I didn’t, I never meant to,” she babbled.  “I never thought - how could I - not my fault - not my fault - not my fault - oh Red, what am I going to do, I’m the one who should be dead, I’m bad, why isn’t it me?!”  She began slapping at the walls with her hands, trying to find some purchase.  When that failed, she resorted to slapping and scratching herself across the face.

     “Harley,” Ivy said, becoming frightened as she got to her feet, "you stop this, you stop this right now!”

     But her friend was beyond talking at this point.  She turned and ran into the wall, bouncing off it and falling to the floor.  She wailed as she got up and charged the wall again, while Ivy stood transfixed.

     The door burst open and two men barreled in.  “Aw fuck, who let you in?!” one of them growled as he got a look at her face.  “Charlie, get Isley the fuck out of here!”

     “I didn’t - she just—” Ivy said, horrified, as a third man pulled her out.  She didn’t resist as she watched the first two orderlies struggling to get Harley into a straitjacket.

     Charlie slammed the door behind them and looked at her.  “This was one of her good days too,” he said bitterly.

     Ivy thought back to the woman she’d seen when she came in - pallid, unhealthy-looking, miserable.  This was a GOOD day?

     “Are you going to go, or do we have to get the special team in here to deal with you?” he asked her.  

     She snapped her head up.  “No, I think I’ll leave now.”  Harley obviously wasn’t ready to deal with what she did, and Ivy had gone and brought it up anyway because she was angry.  She’d been - at fault.  Maybe.

     Ivy was out of Arkham and in a taxicab within a few minutes.  When she got back to the Iceberg, she went to Penguin’s office and looked at that mind-numbing stack of papers that really needed to get done.  She really didn’t want to -

     Or she could think about what just happened.

     Mind-numbing sounded good.

     She sat down and got to work.

     To be continued …

 

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