[DING]
[You have a new part-time job available. Please check it out.]
Jude was driving through Gotham's streets when the long-absent system notification chimed in his mind. He'd almost forgotten what that sound felt like—the digital ping that heralded some new impossibly dangerous task disguised as an employment opportunity.
He hadn't received any odd jobs from the system during the entire prison project period. Weeks had passed without a single notification. Which seemed to indicate that the system wouldn't trigger missions when his activities were unrelated to superheroes or supervillains.
He'd considered leaving the Gotham Rehabilitation Project entirely to Bruce, Harvey, and Gordon—letting them handle the administrative work while he went out searching for something that might trigger a new mission. But he'd spent a full week wandering Gotham's streets looking for trouble, and found absolutely nothing that activated the system.
Meanwhile, the prison genuinely needed someone who could keep the inmate population calm and compliant. Someone who was intimidating enough to deter violence but non-threatening enough to avoid constant confrontation. Such a person was extraordinarily hard to find in Gotham City, where most intimidating individuals were themselves criminals with their own agendas.
Jude had been quite helpless about the situation. But he'd also accepted a fundamental truth: good work shouldn't only be done when there were system rewards attached. The Rehabilitation Project was of extraordinary significance to Gotham's future—potentially the difference between the city slowly healing versus continuing its generational decay.
And it had been his idea. His design. His plan from the beginning.
So he'd made a decision and asked Batman to arrange something.
[Flashback]
"Why?" Poison Ivy had asked, genuinely surprised. "Does that bat actually need help sometimes? I thought he was pathologically independent."
She sat in the interrogation room at Arkham Asylum, looking remarkably calm for someone who'd been imprisoned. Her plant-fiber clothing had grown back naturally—her body produced it like some people grew hair.
Batman stood in the shadows, silent as always.
Jude sat across from her at the metal table. "We need someone to manage inmates at a private facility. Someone who can maintain order without excessive violence. Someone the prisoners will fear but not hate enough to riot against."
"You don't look particularly angry," Jude observed. "I expected more... resentment about being in Arkham."
Poison Ivy shrugged, and as she did, the vines she controlled easily formed into a simple piece of clothing—more modest than her usual attire. Jude was very grateful for this small consideration. It showed she'd actually listened to the suggestions he'd made during their last meeting about respecting social norms when working with others.
"I sense that someone in Gotham has been planting trees since St. Patrick's Day," she replied with a genuine smile that transformed her face from threatening to almost peaceful. "A lot of trees. Systematically. With care and intention."
She glanced at Batman. "The bat told me that you and he also planted a few trees together. Cypress trees."
"Ah." Her expression softened. "Cypress. The tree that mourns the dead. How poetic."
Poison Ivy shrugged again, settling back in her chair. "I don't particularly care about the reason people plant trees—their motivations are irrelevant to the plants themselves. But there have been more trees planted in Gotham in the past few months than in the previous decade. This makes me feel... good."
She paused, choosing her words carefully. "Since I was locked up until now, the city's green spaces have expanded noticeably. The air is cleaner. The roots are stronger. This is progress. So I'm willing to listen to what you want."
"There's a private prison that needs someone who can keep control," Jude explained. "It's best if this person is technically a criminal themselves—someone who can circumvent certain legal rules and restrictions that would apply to regular guards. Someone who can deter the prisoners through reputation rather than violence."
Poison Ivy yawned dramatically when she heard this, the gesture suggesting profound boredom.
"Oh, forget it. That doesn't sound like it has anything to do with plants at all. There's no ecological benefit. This job sounds incredibly boring and I'm not interested."
"The regular compensation is admittedly boring," Jude acknowledged. "However, I'm willing to offer a different arrangement."
He leaned forward. "Guard the prison for one month, and I'll give you something special."
Poison Ivy raised an eyebrow, skeptical but intrigued.
"This job would be long-term, potentially months. So how about this—I'll give you a flowerpot and some fertilizer as payment."
"A flowerpot and fertilizer." Her voice was flat, unimpressed. "That's your offer for months of work? You do realize I can literally create plants from—"
"It's the same flowerpot and fertilizer you saw last time," Jude interrupted. "In my apartment. You should be able to sense that any plant can be grown in that container—any plant, regardless of normal growing conditions or environmental requirements."
Poison Ivy went very still. Her eyes focused with sudden intensity.
"So if there are plants in the world that are about to become extinct," Jude continued, "or plants that are particularly difficult to keep alive under normal circumstances, you could nurture them in this container. They're guaranteed to survive. To thrive, actually."
He paused. "Dimensional soil. Not from this world. You examined it yourself, remember?"
Poison Ivy's expression shifted through several emotions—disbelief, calculation, desperate hope, and finally cautious acceptance.
"How many flowerpots?"
"One for every month you work. Plus fertilizer supplies."
"...Deal."
And so Poison Ivy joined Wayne Prison's administrative staff. Problem one solved.
[Present Day]
But having only Poison Ivy still wasn't enough for long-term stability. So while Jude was handling prison administration, he'd asked Bruce and Gordon to find a second super-criminal candidate who could potentially be recruited to their side. Someone with abilities that would be useful, but more importantly, someone with motivations that aligned with helping rather than hurting Gotham.
Once they found the right person, Jude could arrange his own convenient "escape" from prison—technically fulfilling his sentence while moving on to the next phase.
Both Catwoman and Batman had to be ruled out immediately. Catwoman was too independent, too wild, would never stay in one place quietly performing administrative work. Batman was too busy dealing with the hundreds of ongoing crises that Gotham generated on a daily basis.
At that point, Jude's ideal candidate became obvious: Mr. Freeze, who had recently destroyed Goth Corp in spectacular fashion to rescue his cryogenically frozen wife.
He'd asked Bruce and Commissioner Gordon to compile comprehensive information about Victor Fries—to confirm which version of the origin story applied in this timeline.
The file was depressingly straightforward:
Dr. Victor Fries, PhD in Cryogenic Engineering from Gotham State University. Young, brilliant, promising career ahead of him. Married to Nora Fries. By all accounts, they had a wonderful relationship—the kind of genuine partnership that was almost mythical in Gotham.
Nora Fries's medical file: Terminal diagnosis. Rare cancer. With current medical knowledge and technology, treatment would cost hundreds of thousands of dollars with uncertain chances of success. More likely to bankrupt the family than save her life.
Employment history after diagnosis: Victor quit his university teaching position to pursue higher-paying work that could afford Nora's treatment. Applied to dozens of companies. Rejected by most. Finally accepted by Goth Corp, a startup with more ambition than actual achievements.
Goth Corp employment: Victor proposed a revolutionary cryogenic preservation technique—a way to freeze terminal patients in stasis until medical science advanced enough to cure their conditions. The research was genuinely groundbreaking. Made him somewhat famous in scientific circles.
The incident: The director of Goth Corp had a conflict with Victor over the research. Some kind of dispute about patent rights, profit sharing, the usual corporate exploitation. A catastrophic accident occurred in the laboratory—fire, explosion, chemical exposure. Victor disappeared that same night.
The aftermath: Goth Corp seized Nora's cryogenic chamber and used her frozen body to publicize their "revolutionary technology" and solicit investments from venture capitalists. They turned her into a marketing prop. An exhibition piece to demonstrate their scientific capabilities.
Mr. Freeze's response: He returned and destroyed the entire company. Burned it to the ground. Successfully rescued his wife and disappeared with her cryogenic chamber.
The file closed with surveillance photos of a figure in an armored cryo-suit, frost spreading from his footsteps, carrying a frozen woman like she was made of glass.
When Jude had first seen this information, he'd breathed a sigh of relief.
This was clearly the sympathetic origin version he remembered from the comics. Victor belonged to the neutral-lawful camp—someone driven by love rather than malice, someone who committed crimes not because he wanted to but because Gotham had left him no other choice.
He could be recruited. Could be reasoned with. Could potentially become an ally.
Of course, when Bruce had seen the same information, his expression had been terrible—guilt and self-recrimination warring across his normally controlled features.
"Why would the company miss out on such a genius?" Bruce had asked quietly, reading the rejection letters. "Someone who achieved what could legitimately be called epoch-making research? How did we not hire him?"
Jude hadn't said anything at the time, thinking privately that it wasn't just Wayne Enterprises. Barry Allen's Star Labs had also rejected Victor. Lex Luthor's LexCorp had turned him down.
In a very real sense, the three smartest organizations in the DC universe had all been blind at exactly the same time. They'd all rejected the brilliant scientist and created a supervillain through their collective indifference.
Corporate HR departments destroying lives through bureaucratic incompetence. Very Gotham.
The story was painfully similar to Drake and Camilla—a desperate husband trying to save a dying wife, forced into criminal activity by a system that offered no legal alternatives for the poor and powerless.
Except Drake had been lucky. Camilla had recovered. They'd gotten their miracle.
Victor had not been so fortunate. He'd become Mr. Freeze and now relied on illegal means to keep his wife alive, one stolen diamond at a time, funding research that might someday cure her.
[Present: Abandoned Warehouse]
About fifteen minutes later, Jude arrived at an abandoned warehouse in Gotham's industrial district. According to Alfred's precise GPS coordinates, Mr. Freeze was currently inside, probably having just returned from the bank robbery that morning.
Jude parked several blocks away and prepared methodically.
First, he took out a bowl of nanakusa-gayu and consumed it quickly. The system confirmed: Cold Resistance Buff Applied.
His body temperature regulation would now withstand sub-zero environments without hypothermia.
Second, he unwrapped a piece of fruit candy and a piece of milk candy, placing both in his mouth to activate their healing properties. Ready for immediate deployment if needed.
Third, he held the pumpkin head mask ready in his jacket, prepared to equip it at any moment if the situation turned violent.
If things went smoothly enough, these advance preparations probably wouldn't be necessary. But Jude had learned from painful experience that "smooth" wasn't really Gotham's style.
Finally, he opened the system panel and examined the new mission notification:
[SYSTEM MISSION: GOTHAM CITY'S NO. 1 AFFECTION]
Mission Introduction: There is no doubt that there are many couples in Gotham City. Same-sex relationships, opposite-sex relationships, neurotic partnerships, love-hate dynamics, and logically confusing romantic entanglements that defy explanation. No matter how you analyze them, these relationships can generally be described as chaotic, dysfunctional, or actively toxic.
Therefore, a normal, healthy relationship between a man and a woman like Victor and Nora Fries—faithful partners devoted to each other for life, without drama or betrayal or secret identities—actually seems a little unreal in Gotham's context. Almost fictional.
System Note: Tired of all the love triangles, love quadrangles, routine one-night stands, secret affairs, and melodramatic family dynamics between superheroes and supervillains? Exhausted by the endless relationship drama that seems to define this universe? Take a look at Gotham's most genuinely affectionate couple—Mr. Freeze and his wife—and let their simple, honest love refresh your cynical mind.
Status: Ongoing
Objective: [Help Victor Fries save his wife Nora]
Rewards:
Mr. Freeze's genuine friendship and loyalty
Permanent increased cold resistance (passive ability)
Jude nodded with satisfaction. The specific requirements were exactly as he'd expected—cure Nora's terminal cancer and save her life, thereby solving Victor's fundamental problem and eliminating his need for criminal activity.