A Clever Fascination

Chapter 16 - Fool-Proof Plan

Jervis Tetch was a strange, jittery man with a lot of misplaced charisma. Edward had dubbed the man 'Nervous Twitch' as it sounded like his name and that's how the man seemed to react to Ed's plan of breaking out of Arkham.

"This won't work! I've tried, I did, but I'm back in the pot and under the lid!"

"I don't know what you're saying right now but I'm getting impatient. Are you going to help me or not?" Edward growled at the man looming over him as thought out his great plan of escape. The hatless hatter finally sat down in front of him at one of the tables and stopped his nattering and whining. "I'll take that as a yes. I'm not looking to unleash every psychopath onto the city, so keep this between you and I."

It had been days. He'd need time to learn the routines of security and think of something that might work. The issue was that the times he had successfully escaped from Arkham meant that he was being watch closely and biding his time was the only viable option.

"Once we are out of here, what then? If I play my role in this plot of yours, do I earn myself anything?" Tetch asked, it was the first time he'd spoken out of rhyme all day.

Though the Mad Hatter was mad and irritating to Edward, his abilities were unique and would help in retrieving his empire from Oswald. Though bringing another highly dangerous criminal into the mix was to risk Katherine. He would let her deal with the petty ones all day but bigger fish like himself, Oswald and Tetch were risky. Unfathomable that she had made herself an ally to one of them and an infatuation of the other. That one being himself. Of course.

Tetch would likely go after Gordon and Katherine wouldn't react well. She'd find a way to bring him down, like she did with Edward.

"Your freedom, obviously. But I will offer an alliance. Favours, if you will. With terms," Edward informed. "I am in charge. I call the shots, that is not negotiable. Secondly, the woman that put me here, Katherine Valentine. She's a detective with the GCPD-"

"-You want her dead?"

"No. Quite the opposite."

"You want her alive so you can kill her yourself?" Tetch was presumptuous in his bloodthirsty suggestion. And Ed didn't like to be cut off.

"No. She is off limits, no matter what she does. She could cut off your ears and you are not to lay a finger on her, am I clear?" Edward glared at the confused hatter as he attempted to put the pieces together.

"A lover?"

"No."

"A rival then?" Jervis' term wasn't entirely accurate but it was the closest thing Ed had to describe what Katherine was to him.

"Exactly. I want to pay her a visit when I'm out of this place. You'll come with me."

"To torture her?" Good God, what was this man's fixation with torture? Should Edward be worried about his constant suggestion to bring out such grizzly measures. His face of contempt and disgust seemed to move Tetch along to his next question. But the man only had more questions. "You've been here before, if you're as smart as you claim to be, why-?"

"Another thing. Do not question my intelligence. I know when to bide my time, when to wait. It has nothing to do with my competence or intellect. You've been skulking around in this hellhole for three years and haven't bust out yet, have you? Not until I got here."

Tetch eyed the man in suspicion.

"You know your way out off the island too?"

Once upon a time, Edward would have laid out every part of his plan, just to prove that he could. That was all he'd ever done once, try and prove himself to stupid cops and shallow detectives.

"Duh, Arkham is a four piece jigsaw puzzle. So, you know the plan; once you're in the announcement room you'll..."

"Tap on the tannoy three times." Tetch nodded and twitched. He was useful but God was he annoying. Ed had held a gun to his head before and he had no stipulations about doing it again.

"And I will know to cover my ears as I often do when you speak. Good. And then?"

"I send them all into a deep sleep. Out of the front door, you and I will creep!"

"Okay actually, one more thing, the rhyming. I know it's like 'your thing' but while ever I'm around, it's gotta stop, alright? It completely undermines the genius." Edward side noted. Tetch seemed to silently agree with Edward, though he wasn't all too pleased with the term. He was the Mad Hatter, he had to speak in rhyme! And the plan wasn't all that genius, it was just observation of staff's routine mixed with his hypnosis ability.

If this plan was to work it would require the two of them to stop bickering, which was often the downfall of Edward and his last partner in crime. He would deal with the backstabbing bird later.

"Let's go. We've got 13 minutes, the break room will be at its fullest and you have to make the announcement on the dot. Options; you can either fake an illness or I can stab you in the shoulder. Once a guard comes to take you to the med bay, you know what to do." Edward said, nonchalantly.

"The former. I'll need that knife to kill the guard." Tetch frowned at the suggestion.

Ed handed over the 'knife'. The glass half wrapped in a small piece of rolled up newspaper was to be their weapon to stab the guard that was escorting Tetch to the Medical bay. This would allow him to make his way to the announcement room. All Edward had to do was wait for three taps over the tannoy and not listen to Tetch's voice, he'd been doing that for the past hour. It was easy.

-

As expected, the plan went accordingly. Everyone Edward encountered was dozing. He stepped over other inmates as Tetch unlocked the Rec Room door for him.

"You're late, my friend."

"I found my hat." Tetch gestured to the top hat that he'd taken time to find.

"Yes, you did. Come on, we have places to be."

Walking out of Arkham, now armed with guard's guns, was easy. Taking a vehicle from out front, was easy. Killing the odd straggler who didn't hear the tannoy hypnosis, was easy. Once safely inside a car, Edward's mind raced with what he should be doing first.

"I need to take back my rightful place from The Penguin. He seems to think he's beat me but our two man army would put him to shame."  Edward grinned, watching the streets of Gotham fly by through the window.

"Whatever you say." Tetch agreed, eyes on the road and hands on the wheel.

"He's a fool, really. I used to think Oswald was everything I wanted to be but he's a pathetic excuse for a leader." The irony of his insults were not lost on the Hatter. For all of his scolding of Tetch, he himself was incredibly dramatic.

The empire that Oswald had was enviable. It had taken years for Edward to gain the levels of loyalty and fear that The Penguin had from his people. He knew how to manipulate people into doing his bidding well enough before but now it was on a much larger scale. Money, flattery, promises and threats were all just dressed up forms of manipulation so that Ed could get what he wanted, and he got it. Oswald was the last one standing that could see through his tricks and stop them in motion.

That was until the bright little Detective came out of the works and consumed his every thought and feeling.

"We're going after The Penguin now?"

"No, first I want to see Katherine."

"Your rival?" Tetch asked him, but Edward didn't answer him.

He had a plan. A bad one, but a beneficial one. But he wanted to give her one last chance to make her own mind up. Edward, thus far, was able to trust the Hatter. Telling him as much of the truth as he could, surely wasn't too bad. Making Katherine seem like their enemy wasn't a smart move anyway.