"Why is a raven like a writing desk?" Alice asked. Jervis looked up from the book.
"You know it has no answer." he responded. Alice's Adventures in Wonderland was Alice Tetch's favorite story, and Jervis loved it even more than she did. "There has to be some answer to it." Alice insisted. Jervis looked surprised, then smiled.
"We'll think about it, and tomorrow after school maybe we'll have an answer. Now go to sleep." he kissed her on the forehead, and closed her bedroom door. His smile soon faded as he trudged down the hall to his laboratory. Though he ran his late wife's tea shop, he was actually a scientist, working on a way to train animals quickly by manipulating their brains. He missed his wife terribly. Now, it seemed like Alice was the only thing keeping him from insanity. He worked late into the night, then trudged sadly to his bedroom, and slept. Alone. Like every night...
The next morning, Alice woke him up, excited about her class feildtrip to the Gotham First National Bank. Jervis waved her good bye, and went back to work on his brainwave manipulator. He turned on the radio, and set to work. He was getting very close to completeing a working prototype, when the music stopped on the radio. "This just in...Hostage situation at Gotham First National Bank..Several armed gunman entered the building, trying to rob the vault..Police arrived...Second grade class taken hostage...More as it comes.." the anchorman said, between fits of static. Jervis stared at the radio, and began to panic. He lept up, ran out of the room, closed the shop, and jumped in his car, speeding to the bank. All the while, listening to the radio for updates on the situation. "The Batman has arrived on the scene...Is entering the building...Sound of gunshots..Screaming..." Jervis was getting increasingly worried, and when he arrived the Batman had already taken out the bank robbers, and the class and all the bank staff and visitors were outside, being questioned. He saw several people being loaded into ambulences, and he ran to the teacher."I'm Jervis Tetch, Alice's father. Where is she?" he demanded, and the teacher frowned, looking at the ground.
"Mr. Tetch...Your daughter was shot during the fight. She's dead."
The next several days were a blur to Jervis, who hadn't fully wrapped his mind around the fact that Alice was dead. He hadn't said a word since the funeral, and spent most of his time either absent mindedly working on his experiments and reading Alice's Adventures in Wonderland by his daughters bed. "Why is a raven like a writing desk?" he thought to himself. That's all he could think of. That, and Batman. Batman could have saved her, if he hadn't gotten he hadn't burst in, no one would have died. She wouldn't have died. Why is a raven like a writing desk?
He didn't remember much after that. He had finished the mind control device, he knew that. And he had tested it, on a human subject. When he awoke, he was in a blue dress coat and green pants, wearing a large top hat. Why is a raven like a writing desk? Sitting at a table, with tea set out, across from a man wearing rabbit ears and one of his devices. Why is a raven like a writing desk? The man also had a bullet hole in his head. Why is a raven like a writing desk? The Batman would pay for this...Why is a raven like a writing desk?