"This circle is appalling. You're ludicrously lucky you got me instead of somebody else, you know that?"

"Tell you the truth," he says, "I wasn't expecting anybody to show up at all."

"...What, really?"

"Really really!"

"...Do you live under a rock?"

"Nope," he says serenely.

"Aaaaand," says Cam, "what year is this?"

"Two thousand annnd twelve."

"What fun!" he says brightly.

"Well, maybe, or maybe I can't get home. Which wouldn't be an unqualified disaster or anything, but I would've liked to know this sort of thing ahead of time."

"Mm, sorry 'bout that," he says. "If I'd known I was gonna get a real live demon I would've made better arrangements." He cocks his head and adds, "Maybe including not drawing a circle at all, but maybe - not. What's a real live demon good for?"

"Making stuff. Your circle is terrible so I don't have to do a thing you say, and if I were a very bad person you'd spend the rest of your life comatose while I ran around being a very bad person, but I am not a bad person so I might as well hear you out."

"Making stuff..." he muses. "What kinds of stuff?"

"...Stuff stuff. The stuff is just stuff, it still has to run on physics, but I can cheat on some details, especially if there's an extant version of the thing, and if it's two thousand and twelve I know a lot of science fiction gadgets relative to what you probably have."

"All right," he says. "So how about I tell you my problem and you decide if you feel like helping. The deal is, last week this clod calling himself Bane caved in a football field in the middle of a game and announced on live TV that he's taking over Gotham, on the authority of this big menacing round thing next to him." He gestures to approximate the size of the thing in question. It's pretty big. "Walks a guy onto the field with him, guy says he's a physicist, guy says the big menacing round thing's a nuclear bomb, guy says he's the only person in the world who knows how to disarm it, Bane kills the guy. And the next day he broke a buncha people out of prison and gave them all guns, but that I can handle, it's the nuke that's a little out of my league."

"...Okay, this is hard, and you really would have been better off with an angel, but I can probably do something. You know where it is? Is it on a hair trigger or a timer that would not allow me to throw it into the sun if I picked it up and made a little space shuttle and zoomed into the sky?"

"It's somewhere in the city, can't say beyond that. No idea what-all he's rigged it up with, besides that somebody somewhere's got a little button they can press to set it off anytime they feel like, and he's not saying who."

"Okay. I could try to muffle it in something, if it's too dangerous to try making off with it, but I'd still have to know where it is. And I'd need to re-read some of my physics notes to have a good guess as to what you wrap up a nuke in, but fortunately," he conjures up a little stick of a computer that projects a large screen of information for him, "I can do that."

"...Very nice," says the person in the weird makeup.

"Mm-hm." Read read. "This thing giving off any sort of radiation now or don't you know?"

"Couldn't tell ya, I'm afraid."

"Well, just in case -" Cam produces another device and waves it around, looking for any signal of unusual radioactivity.

"Maybe, I don't know, depends on whether he's good company. Think I can get away with an overcoat or do I have to saw my wings off to go unmolested on the street?"

"Well, I like him fine, but I don't always hang out with the best crowds. He's a cop, that make any difference to you either way?"

"A small positive difference. Seriously, how much of a problem am I going to have being publicly winged, I don't want to cut 'em off but I will to get a nuke out of a city if I have to."

"If you can fit 'em under a coat, you won't get that many funny looks unless you act like you're expecting funny looks. Love the tail, by the way."

"Thanks, made it myself. I think I can cram them under a coat if I tailor-make it, which, what else would I do -" He folds up the wings nice and tight, and then he is wearing a long black leather coat which is sort of lumpy in back and over his shoulders. "Do I look street-legal?"

"Perfectly. Anyway, we're not exactly gonna be walking around in broad daylight." He gestures to his face. "I'm a little distinctive. C'mon, I'll drive."

"Why are you made up like that, anyway?" Cam inquires, following.

"If you're from the future, it must be a long damn while. You could say I'm kind of a public figure," he says. "Gotta have the image."

"A public image that involves messily applied clown makeup. What sort of public figure has that?"

"The Joker, of course." He smiles. "Sorry, sorry. It's a long story and kinda hard to summarize. You could say I'm an entertainer. You could also say I'm a retired terrorist. Although I haven't quiiite got around to announcing my resignation. Somebody's been hogging all the media time."

"How inconvenient of them. What kind of terrorism are we talking about?"

"Killed some people, blew up a building or two. Nothing too exciting. Although Johnny might have a different take on it." Out of the warehouse they go, and into a nondescript little car parked in the loading bay; he's still talking as he opens the door and gets in. "Those law and order types can be funny that way."

"Maybe I'll ask him. I can't think of a good reason for there to be a ticky Geiger counter inside a city, anyway, so I'm assuming you're up and up as far as that goes. We collecting your friend first or following the breadcrumbs?"

"Collecting my friend first. I'm sure he'll be very reassuring."

"We'll see."

"Mm. I don't think I got your name, by the way."

"Cam. Have you got a non-stage name, so to speak?"

"Not so much, no. Good to meetcha."

"Charmed I'm sure," says Cam, supervising the scenery. "Yeah, this looks 2012-ish all right."

"I love my city," the Joker says contentedly.

"Hence the explosions?"

"Don't you ever love something so much you just wanna set it on fire?"

"No. Demons have a reputation for being pyromaniacs, but that's because black holes took a while to discover so lakes of fire were the conventional disposal method for used stuff."

"I mmmay have been kidding."

"So, why the explosions, then?"

"It's complicated," he sighs, tapping his fingers on the steering wheel. "Hard to explain. And most people who ask don't really wanna know, they're just hoping in the back of their minds I'll suddenly figure out I never had a reason, you know?"

"I doubt I will think much of your reasons, but I'm optimistic that they exist in some form."

"It takes explosions to draw her out or you just wanted plenty of margin of error or what?"

"Or what. Getting her to beat me up was not my precise and literal goal. You could just as easily say I wanted her to make interesting choices where I could see 'em. Or that I wanted to play a game."

"Huh. And you do not appear to have gotten very caught."

"She caught me all right. I still have the scars. Did some time in the local criminal nuthouse, too, and then I escaped when I got bored, because their security is a shameful disgrace."

"And now you're friends with a cop, who you visit while wearing your extremely distinctive makeup."

"I won't say it was easy. But, y'know, desperate times. He doesn't like Bane much either."

"That's Mr. Nuclear Bomb?"

"Yep."

"What is up with terrorists hereabouts going by peculiar stage names?"

"Damned if I know."

"Well, why yours?"

"It's a whole theme. It suits me. Clowns are scary, didn't you know?"

"I'm indestructible and demonic, you're not gonna keep me up at night for my own sake."

"I'm not trying to scare you. No comment on whether or not I could. Maybe if I got to know you better. No, but I mean - clowns are this thing that's supposed to be fun and lighthearted, but people find 'em creepy all over the place. The jokers are the wild cards, not really in the deck and not really out of it either. I wear an expensive suit, but it's purple and scruffy and the vest clashes with the jacket. There's a whole aesthetic to it, see?"

"Maybe it's lost on me."

"Mm, it's lost on a lot of people, honestly. I think Johnny's starting to get it, though."

"Maybe he'll explain it to me."

"I set a billion dollars on fire once," he says, which may or may not appear to be a bit of a non sequitur.

"Why did you have a billion dollars in paper form?"

"We-ell, that's a story. See, I stole some money from the mob, and through some crazy hijinks, that led 'em to hire me to find somebody else who took the rest of their money. Which I did, and then there I was with the thief - what he actually did was more complicated, but for simplicity's sake, call him a thief - on top of a great big pile of cash, and I lit the whole thing up in front of one'a the guys who hired me. Of course," he grins, "I was only burning my half. It's a joke, see? Make 'em think I'm in it for the money, and then burn that theory to the ground."

"By 'you were only burning your half' you mean 'there was obviously no sense in which that was physically what you were doing', right?"

"Mm? Nah, that part was straight. Their half was in a different pile."

"And the fire didn't spread?"

"A different pile in a different building," he clarifies. "The fire never got out of the warehouse. It wouldn't have been as funny if I'd burned their money too."

"Maybe I'm just having a little trouble with your sense of humor."

"Have you considered moving into a more accessible genre?"

"I did say I'm a retired terrorist."

"Congratulations. You want a slice of cake with two letters from 'we'll all miss you at the office' on it?"

Cam lets himself out of the car. He seems to know how cars work, despite being a demon from the future.

The Joker leads him to some stairs, and up the stairs to the roof of the garage, and across the roof to where someone's living room window has been slightly modified to swing open like a big glass door. In he climbs, whistling.

Cam follows him in. "This where your friend is due to meet you? At some point?"

"I told him he could come by while I was out. For all I know, he's already here."

"All right. I would like to get on finding the nuke relatively promptly, but I guess I don't know what I'm going to wrap it in yet."

"Part of the reason I wanna introduce you is so you can have somebody along who knows the city and the situation but isn't as eye-catching as I am," he says. "Even if I took the makeup off, these scars are pretty famous by now." He taps his cheek illustratively.

"I could fix 'em - but I'm not sure I am disposed to and since I'm not an angel it'd be more unpleasant than getting them in the first place was."

"Getting them in the first place wasn't exactly unpleasant," he says serenely. "Fixing 'em up would probably be just as much fun. But I like 'em, anyway, and I get by okay like this. I'll ask you for it if it seems like a really good idea for some reason, but I'm nnnot jumping at the chance."

"Okay, noted." Cam glances around the apartment.

It's clean, but cluttered - playing cards litter the floor, although most of them have been swept under furniture, and there are piles of assorted sharp objects on two of the three small tables in the living room. (The third doesn't have room for anything other than one ancient-looking TV.) There are mysterious stains, scratches, and scorch marks around the front door. The kitchen, adjoining the living room and separated only by a long counter island, is by contrast completely immaculate.

From just down the hall, there comes the sound of a toilet flushing.

Cam conjures himself a churro and bites into it, waiting.

"Hiiiiii, Johnny!"

"I find I'm not questioning why the Joker decided to bring a shirtless, barefoot fashion model into this so much as where he found one. Hi," he says. "John Blake. Please call me John."

"I'm not a fashion model - although I am flattered - I'm a demon, and he summoned me, by some combination of dumb luck and freak accident," says Cam. Then, realizing belatedly that it's 2012 and he's still wearing his new leather coat, he shrugs the coat off and unfurls his wings a little.

"He's a nice demon," the Joker contributes. "Don't worry."

"What a solid recommendation. I'm convinced."

"I am a nice demon. He summoned me really ineptly and I can do whatever the hell I want - so to speak. I am sitting peacefully on this couch, eating a churro. Do you want a churro?"

"Sure. Why not."

Cam makes him a churro.

"I'm re-reading my old physics notes to find what you might want your nuke wrapped up in, since it may be that I do not have time to put it in a small spaceship and haul it into space. I already made you a - call it a Geiger counter. It picked up some things." He tosses the Geiger counter to John. He resumes re-reading his physics notes with one hand while he handles his churro with the other.

John examines the Geiger counter, more to investigate its general sci-fi look than for anything it can tell him; he doesn't expect to be able to operate the thing without at least a short explanation.

"The major question is how to get close to it once we know where it is - since I bet there's somebody by it, possibly somebody with an 'on' button. Also, it is looking rather difficult to contain nuclear explosions even with 2159 tech. You really would be better off with an angel for this job, although they'd still have to get close to the thing. It's possible you should just summon an angel, I can teach you how."

"Okay," says John. "How do we summon an angel?"

Cam finishes his churro and conjures a clipboard with a piece of paper clipped to it, and a pencil. "I'm not positive it'll work. I don't know why I'm here. Maybe whatever glitch let me land in the wrong universe doesn't apply to angels, or to anybody but the first summon, or something, I couldn't possibly tell you. But if it works like it should -" He sketches a angel-summoning circle. "You draw this on the floor, any medium works, I've seen everything from blood to suntan lotion to watercolor, and then you get an angel. Since this circle is not incompetent, the angel stays put in the circle until you have agreed on a task for the angel to do and what the angel gets out of it. Then they can leave exclusively to complete the task and collect their payment. You can get rid of the angel by concentrating on meaning to do that for a minute or so at any time before they finish their task or after they've got what they agreed to take as payment, but not when they've held up their end of the bargain and you haven't. Some people like to pay in advance for that reason. Daeva of any kind can't go home on our own recognizance once summoned unless we kill our summoners but angels are sort of culturally unlikely to do that. Not that that's a guarantee. If you can't agree on anything with the first randomly chosen angel you get, you dismiss them by concentrating on meaning to do that for a minute or so and you have to draw a new circle, old one's used up. I'd recommend a specific angel but I don't know any who are noticeably better than average and all my knowing's way out of date anyway."

"I have markers," chirps the Joker.

"Sure. Okay. Let's summon an angel. Does it matter which one of us draws it, besides who has to do all the - concentrating?"

"I can't do it, but unless the glitch that brought me here is something about this guy in particular either of you could do it."

The Joker tosses a black permanent marker to John.

He catches it easily. "I'm not even going to ask if I can draw on your floor with this," he says, "because, God help me, I know you. Can I see that clipboard?"

Cam hands it over.

John carefully copies the angel circle onto the floor by the front door.

"Whoa! An angel!" says Cam, rolling his eyes.

"I'm gonna go out on a limb and say you were expecting me ahead of time," she retorts.

"I told them how to summon you. They know exactly nothing. I'm off-leash and also here for some reason it is the year 2012 and there is a nuke in this city I've never heard of and I was like 'an angel would suit your needs better, gentlemen'."

The angel throws up her hands in exasperation. "Great. Awesome. At least this is a job I'll be good at. Lemme at your nuke. Why is there a nuke?"

"Because someone made poor life choices, obviously. Tell the nice amateur what you want for turning the nuke into a cloud, angel."

"My name is Tony. Nice to meet you," she says with an attempt at withering sarcasm that lacks the requisite edge. "I don't know, what even is there to trade me in 20 fucking 12? I mean, that's not saying I won't do it, it's defusing a nuclear bomb in a city, I'd do it for a paperclip, it's just I'm really into techie stuff and all the things I'd usually ask for are going to be hopelessly out of date and compatible with nothing."

"I can give him something to pay you with if you want," Cam points out.

"...yes you can," she says, eyes lighting with a speculative look. "Okay. Have your demon buddy make me... how complicated are you willing to get, here? 'Snazzy new computer off the top of your head' is fine, but 'I left some blueprints at home, can you get those and then make me a few things' is better. You could save me so much work."

"I'll blueprint you some things if you want, I don't mind."

She bounces up and down gleefully. "Awesome! I'll take it!"

"Sounds good to me," says the nice amateur. "I'm John, by the way."

"And I'm Cam, and this is apparently 'the Joker', who has no non-stage name," Cam tells the angel.

"Actually non-sarcastically nice to meet you, Cam! I feel weird about your aesthetic choices, Joker!"

"Don't we all," says John.

The Joker giggles.

"Anyway, I am literally the first daeva to be summoned here as far as anyone in this room knows, so going around with wings on would attract attention. I have solved this problem with a snazzy leather coat. You have a much easier time of stealth, I imagine."

"That is a pretty snazzy leather coat," Tony agrees, stepping out of the circle. "I can poof your wings for you if you want, but I guess you might still have a gruesome time of it putting them back on later if I wasn't around, how does that even work? Also, poof." She sweeps one wing in front of her and transforms it into a fluffy cloudlike material, which detaches from her back without trouble. Then she rolls that up into a big ball, rather like poofy glowing clay, and puts it down on the couch next to Cam, and commences doing the same with the other wing.

"Actually, adding stuff is painless. If you want to unwingify me - and maybe get the tail too - I would be much obliged. Sawing them off would be painless too because I thought ahead, but it's still less - tidy than your version."

"Sure, no problem!" She puts the second ball of fluff down on top of the first one and reaches for the nearest of Cam's wings, which - "poof!" - becomes a glowy white wing-shaped cloud which she proceeds to roll up into a third ball. "You have a tail, that's adorable."

"They're very fashionable. And fun."

"I bet! Now I want a tail. Gimme your other wing?"

He waves it at her. "What kind of tail would you get? I had my role models all lined up neat and all I had to do was decide on a length and color."

"Go ahead and un-tail me, it'll take like two seconds to replace if I want it just alike and it's a reasonable opportunity to think about a new color scheme or something anyway."

She grabs his tail and poofs it, then adds it to the pile of other poofed limbs.

"This is definitely in the running for weirdest day of my life," remarks John.

"In the running, huh? It must have interesting competition. Anyway, Tony, how do you want to handle nuke-hunting? I made a radiation dowser - John has it - but perhaps you have a better idea."

John holds up the radiation dowser.

Tony glances at it, then hmms thoughtfully.

"I think the current default idea is 'follow dowser, angel your way in, I distract anybody who tries to stop you, you angel the nuke'."

"Seems pretty solid to me, but I don't know the situation. Who has the nuke? Where'd they get it? Why is it in a city?"

"It was originally some kind of clean power initiative. A man calling himself Bane stole it and got someone to turn it into a bomb for him, and now he's declared anarchy in Gotham. The bomb is supposedly in a guarded truck somewhere, being moved around the city to make it harder to find. I can verify that there are guarded trucks going around, but I don't know which ones are decoys or if they're all decoys and the bomb is actually somewhere else."

"Okay, so maybe we have a little car chase ahead of us. Tony, I don't think your range is quite what mine is, but can you mess with something in a truck from a car tailing it, if that's where the dowser takes us?"

"Yeah. I prefer to get hands-on, but it's not a requirement. I'd have to see what's in the truck first, but I can just mess with the walls, no problem. Are we equipped for a car chase?"

"We have a car," says John. "I'm not sure how much chasing it's up for."

"Cam, feel like making us a better car?"

"I can make us a better car. The humans are probably useful for knowledge of the city, since the dowser'll only do direction and not street directions."

"Yeah," says John. "Either one of us could be your navigator. I'll probably draw less attention, though."

"I can imagine circumstances where it'd be good to have me along. But John should probably drive. I can sit in the back, in case we need anybody intimidated."

"Sounds like we've got ourselves a plan," says Tony.

"Okay. Any preferences on car type?" Cam inquires, stretching his arms in front of him.

"It had better be something that won't stand out too much. 2012 on the outside, but nice and modern under the covers. How much do you need specified? How much do you know about cars? I know a lot about cars."

"I don't know that much about cars, but if you give me a make and model I can basically fake it, and combining an ancient chassis with a higher-tech something under the hood shouldn't be hard."

"You could copy the car we drove here in, if you want a perfect example of 'boring, unremarkable local vehicle'," says the Joker.

"Okay," says Tony. "Show me this car and I will tell you what yummy chocolate filling you should be giving it."

"Shall we?" inquires Cam, heading for the same window they came in by.

"Why are we shall-ing out the window?" inquires Tony, following.

"Fastest way to get to the garage," says the Joker.

"The Joker has some kind of philosophical objection to using his front door," says John.

"My information about 2012 is really out of date and I don't remember ever hearing about this city in any year, so I wasn't even sure it was weird," snorts Cam.

"Okay..." says Tony, circling it to make her inspection. "Yeah, this is doable. You know what would fit perfectly in this? A first-generation Estelle Apsis. The interior even almost matches; the upholstery came in this shade of grey. Just take all the guts of the Apsis and tuck it in this chassis with these hubcaps."

"Cool," says Tony approvingly. "That is cool and you are cool. Let's go, everybody. Cam, you made the dowser, presumably you know how to use it, you can sit up front and dowse."

John will trade Cam the dowser for keys to the car!

Cam hands John a - keylike thing - a very futuristic keylike thing - and takes the dowser and hops in the passenger seat.

Cam just sort of looks at him. "What? It's fueled up."

"You're not wearing your seatbelt," he points out.

"I am indestructible and I can't teleport. The bullshit about being 'thrown clear' which humans use as an idiot excuse actually applies to me."

"Is someone going to pull you over for a seatbelt violation while there's municipal anarchy and you are, so I'm told, a cop?" Cam inquires archly.

"No, which is one of the reasons I'm not going to waste time arguing."

"Anyway, we want to go northeast, looks like."

Cam continues providing cardinal directions as they weave through the city.

"Tony, you want to work while it's moving or should I flatten some tires?"

"This is weirdly easy," she says. "I can work while it's moving, but I wanna get closer first. See what I'm doing."

"I mean, it could be a decoy of some kind."

"I'm not sure they have the resources to make a decoy that's radioactive," says John. "I guess I wouldn't be that surprised if they do."

"Cam, if I take the doors off the back of the truck can you put them back on just how they were when I'm done messing with what's inside? If we do it fast enough, they might not even notice we did anything. And then we can dowse some more, see if they've got another one."

"Yeah, I can replace them no problem, but why wouldn't you just turn them to glass and back?"

"Because if I turn them to air I can see better, and this is not the kind of thing where I wanna be distracted by a reflection."

"Okay, yeah, air them and say when."

"Dowser thinks that did the trick."

"We-ell, it's not over yet," the Joker points out. "The nuke was a big deal, but it's not the only card on the table. We've got some cleanup to do."

"God help me," John mutters, but he sounds slightly affectionate.

"Tony has completed her task and is now authorized to shake John down for goodies," Cam mentions. "And can't do a whole lot outside the scope of said shakedown. Probably you want to stop the car and I should make her whatever she wants and you should send her home and you can call her back in later if you want."

"It might be a better idea to get back to the Joker's place first. Assuming you don't mind, Tony."

Tony shrugs.

"I'm not gonna object. I am off leash. It's pretty cool."

"Does that not usually happen?"

"Most summoners don't even let me talk."

"I show up in the circle and all I get to say is 'yes, summoner' or 'no, summoner'," Cam expands, "depending on if I like the deal they propose or not. They are concerned I will tempt them out of their souls if I get to say anything else. Tony could probably answer summons every week for a century and never get gagged once."

"Because angels never tried to trade anything for anybody's soul," snorts Tony. "I mean, not that I'm saying gagging demons is the best solution to the problem, but the problem exists."

"What?"

"Oh, I don't know if I should say."

"C'mon, share the joke."

The Joker takes one look at Tony's face and starts cackling.

Cam smiles a little. "I don't think this should be common knowledge among summoners. Because the situation where it comes up, practically speaking, is one where you have a summoner who's that desperate and a demon who's that much of an asshole. I would rather those two find something meaningless to trade than have common knowledge of its meaninglessness and have to move onto something with effects."

"I see what you mean," Tony concedes. "But wow. Wow."

"I don't actually know how the rumor got started, and I will concede that it's often personally inconvenient for us non-asshole demons, but yeah."

"Okay, and while we're talking about things nobody talks about in the world where it doesn't matter that we're talking about them - you're an ex-summoner too, right?"

"What gave me away?"

"Well, one clue was the fact that you had to be the person who explained to these guys how to summon an angel. But apart from that, I dunno, I was just picking up a vibe."

"I didn't know about you. I have the impression we're very uncommon compared to the naturally occurring daeva."

"Yeah, same. I only know one other for sure."

"Ex-summoners?" inquires the Joker.

"Yup. I got murdered and woke up in Hell, it was very exciting."

"That would be exciting."

"...Is this a thing all summoners should be worried about?" asks John.

"Getting murdered, no, turning into daeva, I wouldn't know about you because this is the wrong world, and I wouldn't say worried, the alternative's worse."

"But 'all summoners', check? Assuming it works the same way here that it does there, which it sure seems to? See," says John, "this is the kind of thing that should've come up when I asked if it made any difference which one of us summoned the angel."

"If you are subject to the same rules of afterliving, which would surprise me because no one has landed thinking it was 2012 since 2012, you are now much better off. Limbo is terribly disappointing. But yeah, I probably should have warned you. I didn't know about it last time I was teaching somebody to summon."

"And, just to make sure we're on the same page here, you're saying Hell is better than Limbo?"

"Hell's really nice! Kind of tacky, but very comfortable. Limboites don't get any magic powers and really limited not-notably-magic stuff. My parents got pretty lucky with their 'one thing to a customer' things, and I'd still much rather they'd been summoners."

"Okay. Sure," says John. "Dare I ask what's tacky about Hell?"

"Large population of demons who can make, but not destroy or recycle, any material object they like." Pause. "Most of 'em live on a plane of solid gold sixteen times the surface area of the Earth and thick enough to exert a little more than a gee."

"The discovery of the black hole was really convenient. My house uses one for local gravity. Before that to get rid of stuff folks would toss it into lakes of fire."

"Well, that sounds..."

"Thematically appropriate?"

"Mm-hm."

"We're here," John mentions for the benefit of the guests, and indeed immediately turns onto the street containing the Joker's shabby-looking apartment building.

"What-all things are on your shopping list, Tony?" inquires Cam.

"Still kind of torn about that, actually. I can't decide which I want more, the shiny toys or the facilities to make more shiny toys. Think I'm gonna go for a little of both. Modulo what can fit in the Joker's living room."

Cam snorts. "Sure."

"Best demon."

"Did you even summon any demons when you were alive?"

"No way. Angels and fairies. I am very protective of my shiny toys and didn't want anybody making more of 'em. I'm kinda more relaxed about that now, and also, you're the best demon."

"So you have probably never, ever met a demon before, how do you know I'm the best one?"

"I have too met demons, I've been to a concordance. Also, I'm exaggerating, duh."

"I've never even tried to get near a Heavenly concordance. There are some deeply anti-angel folks who make it more trouble than it's worth."

"Same deal on our side. But my fellow ex-summoner wanted to see what they were like, so I came along to back her up."

"Maybe I'll send you a letter next time we get Fairyland. Hi, Tony, how are you, I am still a demon."

John parks the car in the garage next to its decrepit quasi-twin.

"I'll send you one too! Hi, Cam, what's up, I'm still an angel, what colour did you make your new wings?"

"Of course, it depends on fairies to accomplish the extremely challenging task of mail."

"Yeah, it might take years for me to find out what colour your new wings are."

"It will certainly take years, unless I'm mistaken about when you get Fairyland relative to us. Unless our summoners decide to sit on us here for long enough that I make myself a set. I'll probably just keep the color, anyway."

"Aww, but this is your chance to try something new!"

"I like blue, and I can probably pull off a color change with careful bleach and repigmentation anyway, and I'll get funny looks if I show up with non-bat wings and if I change the shape much I'll have to re-learn how to fly, so it's probably gonna be the same. Why, what are you going to do next, pink polka-dots?"

Cam follows. "Let's see the to-do list."

Cam makes the blueprints based on her reference to them and gets to building.

"It's very special effects, what are you planning to do with it?"

"Fly. Really. Fast."

Cam giggles.

"I wanna hug you," she declares, and makes the suit fold itself up into a neat gleaming feathered package.

"Sure, why not."

She hugs him. Very enthusiastically.

"Awwww," giggles Tony. "It's less weird for me, mine are on and off all the time."

"I'd imagine. Yeah, I just don't feel like I am actually hugging you, I feel like I am sort of awkwardly avoiding hugging you."

"Put your wings back on, then!"

"Hey, humans, am I going to want to be incognito a lot in the next while, you think?"

"Bet not. And you've still got the coat for emergencies," says the Joker.

"Aww, tail," she says delightedly, hugging him back.

"You are both adorable," says the Joker.

"Yes," Cam agrees. "How long are you planning on keeping us?"

"How long do you wanna be kept?"

"I won't even start having mixed feelings about it till the next time we get a Limbo concordance, because I don't wanna miss a letter from my parents, or a chance to give them one, but if you just sort of leave me running around off-leash I will do things and if there are any you'd take offense to and send me home for I'd rather know in advance."

"I'm pretty hard to offend."

"All right. So keep me for eight years and don't do anything that makes me want to murder you and we should be good."

"Sounds perfect."

...John looks like he really, really wants to say something and doesn't quite dare.

Cam raises an eyebrow at John.

"I just have this feeling," he says, eyeing the Joker, "that he's the type to take that kind of deal as a challenge."

"To what, make me want to kill him?"

"Yeah."

Cam looks at the Joker.

"Well, not until this Bane thing is settled," he says. "And then - maybe, maybe not."

"If you want to see which kinda wings your future neighbors have you don't need me to do it."

"Believe me, I know," he says. "It's the game."

"Does it make any difference that I don't think it sounds fun and would rather be giving nice presents to the impoverished rather than worrying about you trying to provoke me?"

"Some."

"Well, this conversation just got way less cute," remarks Tony. She looks over the pile of things Cam made to verify that it contains all of the things.

It does.

"Yeah, I think I'd like to take my stuff and go. No offense to you guys and your murder conversation."

And poof goes Tony, with all her stuff.

"Mm, you got a point there, Johnny." He flicks a glance at Cam. "No promises, though."

"Oh, come on," John groans. "Are you really so married to your principles that you're gonna make me translate everything you say because you can't come down to our level and talk normal person English for five minutes?"

He shrugs.

John turns to Cam. "Do you want me to explain him?"

"Could be useful."

"Fine. Okay. So our friend here," he gestures at the Joker, "has some kind of philosophical objection to promises. As far as I can tell, he just doesn't make them, and if he does, he's probably lying about something. Or kidding, for his very special definition of kidding. But if he goes as far as to actually say 'no promises', that means he would be promising something, if it wasn't against his quirky cynical self-obsessed religion. It's sort of the closest you're gonna get."

"So, 'no promises' means 'insert counterfactual promise here'."

"Yeah. Except when it doesn't. But this time it did."

"How did you learn to interpret this, exactly?"

"I've been getting a lot of experience this past week."

"And you're naturally talented," the Joker chirps.

"So in your talented-amateur opinion, I have what from a normal person would be a promise that he's not going to do anything so appalling as to make it worth prematurely going home to stop him. Is that the size of it?"

"Yeah," says John.

"Okay, cool. Is there anything else I should be doing here before I go - hmmm, 2012 - patch your ozone layer and feed your Somalians and cure colony collapse disorder and refill some aquifers and stuff like that?"

John glances at the Joker.

"Nah, we're all set to handle things from here," he says cheerfully.

"Okay. If I want to go back sooner than eight years from now, or if it seems that in eight years you have forgotten about me, where do I find you?"

"Who knows?"

"It might be easier for you to find me," John puts in, "and get me to find him. Assuming he's not back in Arkham Asylum or still living in this apartment, which are the first two places you should check."

"Okay." Cam picks up the stick-shaped computer he made earlier from where he set it down and makes a note of this - "What's the address of this place, and how do I find you?"

He gives the address of the building. "Apartment 203, but I wouldn't recommend trying the front door if you don't know who's home. The window is safer. You can find me in nice, normal ways, like the phone book and Google."

"Awww, Google. Phone books! Trouble is, I can make stuff, but 'data and phone service on a preexisting network' is not 'stuff', so in case it's inconvenient to acquire same - you don't still have pay phones now, I think, and if you do they're definitely gonna be gone in eight years - can I get an address?"

"Sure," he says. "I just don't know if I'm still going to be living there in eight years." Regardless, he rattles one off.

Cam notes it. "Right, but it's a place to start. Okay, anything else you want before I go find someplace to build myself a tidy little base of operations?"

John hesitates, but then shakes his head.

"I'm good," the Joker says sunnily. "Have fun."

"All right. Oh, one more question - where, loosely, am I? I have never heard of Gotham, I don't think my world had one, it's a big enough city I would've heard of it. Is this America? Are we in a state?"

"Yeah, New York."

"Go for it," says the Joker, waving.