nexus_crossings | Manhattan's Diamond King

Manhattan's Diamond King

Jack had been wandering the streets on a night watch with Diamond. The people of the Party and their Ministry of Truth goons were getting bold. It made Jack antsy and he wasn’t sleeping. It was weird sometimes how he went days and weeks here and there without sleeping. No one knew how he could do it.

The scenery had changed oddly when he turned a corner, Diamond at his side whining. He reached down and patted the white mutt that went with him everywhere. Straightening, Halloween Jack shifted the automatic weapon slung over one shoulder that stood in stark contrast to his feminine clothing including spike heeled black boots and gaudy diamond bracelets and earrings. He came very close to shooting the hologram when it startled him by appearing on his blind side. He’d seen something like this before but couldn’t remember where. He listened to it all the while wondering why the guy was in the weird get up. It looked enough like a military uniform to make him suspicious of the Nexus.

Walking on he kept looking up at the building corners, the trees, anywhere something could be hung. Though the gun was back in a resting position, he remained jumpy and jittery.. one part drugs and one part nerves. Diamond was watching the people coming out into the plaza. Normal morning traffic of shops opening.

Jack narrowed his eye at the people and eventually asks. “There aren’t any cameras or drones here?”

He is confused as hell about what is going on. The dog sat at his feet, looking up expectantly at her one eyes master. In the back of his mind there is a lingering worry that this is some Party trap or that he had been caught again and this was something in his own mind.

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Diamond catches sight of the other animals and gives a growling yip. It is enough to pull Jack's attention to both the animals and the woman approaching them. Her outfits is appealing and gets an appreciative smile.

"Do they watch people with them?" He looks down at the device still in his hand, that he picked up around the hologram, with a great deal of suspicion. He wonders if the device is watching him now. His eye shifts from the device back to the building eaves with growing paranoia.

"The kind the Ministry uses to watch for deviants." Jack's words are even but his body has a tick. It starts in the brow over the patch and effects the right leg too which obsessively starts toeing at the dirt. The worst of it though is the twitch in his right hand and fingers. All of it from the attempts to rewrite his personality and shock treatments used to try to turn him out of his deviant behaviors. He resisted becoming a 'good citizen' which left a decent amount of his personality intacted but there was a neurological cost. Most people don't pick up on it but those with the right experience might know the condition.

"I don't suppose they're here." He glances at her with sympathy, grateful that she hasn't been subjected to their torment and fear tactics.

The paranoia is immediately noted by Harley. She snaps her fingers to get both the hyena and Mightyena back to her side, giving a little space to Diamond. And kneels down to pet her fingers through the fur of both 'puppies'.

As someone who has experience shock treatments for most of her time in Arkham, she also recognizes the tick that seems to control his body. She beams at him. Her own twitches from her treatment are written in that overly bright and cheerful smile. The half laugh that escapes her lips that she doesn't even seem to acknowledge.

"Deviants are welcome here. So I pity any Ministry that wants to watch them. We rule the playground."

"They can't catch you here. It is a good place to escape to."

Once his mind turns away from the surveillance, the ticks start to subside but he recognizes that kind of smile. He's had friends who went into the Ministry programs and came out like that. Totally different and way too happy. It causes a shiver to run his spine from fear and discomfort. It leaves Jack to wonder if this woman is from his world. There are other pockets of deviants like his but they are all too far away to visit or so far underground they can't be contacted.

He nods to the comment about being safe and reaches down to ruffle the greyhound's face. Diamond leans into her master's leg. She was never trained to be a therapy dog but their bond had formed that way on its own.

"We can't all escape here." He shoves the PINpoint in his pocket. "I'll have to go back."

His eye drifts back toward where he had walked from while hoping his people were safe. Though, enough of them had the expertise to take on any of the Ministry goons on the ground or if they came in on choppers. He might be crazy at this point but he's devoted to the rest of the people back home.

She seems safe enough and so he offers his hand to her. "I'm Halloween Jack, Madame of the Diamond Dogs."

"A lot of people who come here lose their door. And don't go back."

"And there are a few people who have found that no time passes in their world, while they are here. Maybe you are one of them." Harley shrugs. And twirls a ponytail.

Harley extends her own hand. Her skin is a pale chalky white that definitely is not quite right. "Harley Quinn. All around will do anything once gal. Pleased to meetcha'"

"I don't want to lose the door." The words come quickly after her comment but he's not exactly sure that he wants to go back. He probably should, had to because so many relied on him.

His own hand is fragile feeling, cold to the touch and rough from use. "So, no eyes in the sky here?"

A huge smile breaks his expression. "Is the booze real or synthetic?"

If he was going to be free of the Ministry maybe there was real booze instead of the regulated stuff.

"No one is out to capture anyone around these parts. Trust me... if there was someone hunting deviants around here... I would have been targeted on my first day." Harley proudly considers herself a deviant. She stands out in the crowd quite brightly.

"I have had places serve both. I can take you to the Viper's Pit. Get you good and drunk, if you wanna."

That's a relief for Jack. Several people have told him this is a safe place and for some reason he believes this woman more than the others. She seems like his type, the kind he lives with back home. That is also a comfort.

The most charming smile appears. "Who would turn down a drink from a woman this beautiful?" He offers her an arm or hand, friendly and more like girlfriends heading out than anything on the sexual spectrum. "Show me what's fun here, beautiful."

Harley is quite comfortable linking arms with him. She laughs softly. "A lot to be seen. But we will start out at the Vipers's Pit. Once of the best places to get drunk around here."

"Sounds delightful." He leans in and kisses her cheek as they walk. He is a flirt by nature; harmless and charming most of the time. "Lead the way beautiful."

It doesn't take long to lead the way to the Viper's Pit. And Harley beams with joy as they enter. It is just the kind of place she loves to be. Lots of people. Booze available. And of course, a few posters that promotes the different events hosted, including her own aerial performances. She is like a butterfly, floating around and chatting with people before she makes it to a seat.

"What will you have?"

Jack likes this setting too, at least what he sees and perks up. He is a social butterfly too but doesn't know enough people yet to flit around as Harley is now. Jack tries to keep track of the people she talks to but loses track simply from distractions.

"Irish coffee if they have it, or whiskey on the rocks." He slides into the seat beside her.

There is plenty of distractions at the Viper's Pit. That is part of the reason it is one of the top places Harley loves to visit, when she is in the Nexus. It is the bar where 'everyone knows her name'.

"Oh they have everything here. That is the perk of the Nexus."

She orders his drink and herself a super sugary drink, one that is pretty strong in the alcohol content. With a side order of wings.

"The other lovely thing is the whole concept of trade and bartering is alive and well here. Not everyone carries the same kind of cash, after all." Harley had put their entire order on her tab.

Jack gets an Irish coffee that frombthe sounds of it is more half and half than a coffee with a shot and some of the fresh chips.

"I hope it's nothing like the bartering system where I'm from." The idea of all of these people being turned out for thier tabs doesn't sit well, but from what he's seen so far, Jack doubts that is the case.

"Why don't you tell me about yourself?" He asks just to keep conversation going and because she seems interesting. Her appearance alone makes her feel like she could fit in on his island.

"Since I don't know how it is like... where you are from... can't really make any comparison." Harley grins, as she savors a piece of fruit that accompanied her drink.

"Me? I flipped my way through university... gymnastics scholarship... got my psychiatric degree. Went into the most infamous looney bin in the whole damn world. Fell head over heels for the most dangerous criminal behind bars. Freed him. Leapt into a vat for him. Spend a lot of my god damn time by his side trying to impress him."

"Found this place. Found real friends. Broke up with the sicko. He tried to hurt my friends. Killed him."

"And right now... just doing side gigs for people in need."

"And you?"

"I sell myself for food and anything else." Jack isn't ashamed but the treatment he retrieves sometimes is not the best. "Sex is one of the few things worth much because it's illegal to enjoy it."

"I'd kill him too from the sounds of it."

Jack sighs and takes a drink. "I don't know. I don't remember anything before five years ago. I escaped vaporization; having my mind erased and rewritten into a better citizen. They weren't totally done when I got free. I remade myself through a lot of bad experiences. Survived a plague. Started a gang and we're a sanctuary for people trying to escape the same treatment."

Jack reaches down and strokes the dog. "Diamond was there when I woke up in the streets after... escaping the Ministry. I take care of a couple kids that parents brought. The Party kills babies born with defects or kids that get injured too badly. I look after my girl too since they erased her personality and broke her mind. She can't make memories any more, I don't think."

It was more than Jack's eye that made him sympathetic to the three children he kept but his own physical oddities did play into it a lot. "The Ministry says I'm like a punk Peter Pan with murderous lost boys."

"Illegal to enjoy sex. Um... how in the hell do they monitor that?" Harley tilts her head. Very upset to hear that Jack has to break the law to do the thing he enjoys doing.

"A gang! I LOVE gangs!" Harley beams. Meaning it. "If you ever need a helping hand. I am available."

"And it definitely sounds like you are fighting an up hill battle."

"Ohhhhhhhhh I collect Lost Boys. Had a hold horde of them at one time. I guess that sorta makes me the Wendy in this story. Always willing to help her Peter Pan and the Lost Boys."

"There are cameras and microphones everywhere, even out in the forests." Jack had lived with it so long that it didn't seem too strange. It actually felt uncomfortable without the worry in some ways.

"We're the Diamond Dogs." He smiles proudly. "If you're ever interested in causing some mayhem you can come along."

"They erased my Wendy's mind." Jack mentions sadly. "Most of them are children, teens. Either their parents were taken away for vaporization or their parents brought them to us to protect them from the brain washing or being killed for being defective."

The truth of his world is very harsh and the more he talks to people the more clear that is becoming. However, Jack is always trying to remain optimistic and strong. "I have three kids of my own, adopted when their parents hid them from being killed."

"I LOVE Mayhem. It is my middle name. Harley Mayhem Quinn." She grins.

"I know what it is like to have your mind messed up with... but nothing as bad as getting my memories erased."

"I am a psychiatrist… or was... maybe I can help them get their memories back."

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Manhattan's Diamond King

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