The Smartest Men in Gotham

The Loch Ness Monster

Information on The Loch Ness Monster can be found here:

https://www.britannica.com/topic/Loch-Ness-monster-legendary-creature

IS THE LOCH NESS MONSTER REAL?

The guys have started over in Scotland.

Lucius establishes a business in Inverness, loosely based on a "ghost harassing" model, where he takes tourists out onto Loch Ness and smoothly debunks all current theories that would support Nessie being real. Following that, he takes them to the Inverness Highlands . . . Used to the more "polite" ghost hunters from the United Kingdom who come to interact with them, the ghosts there refuse to manifest for the "rude American" who doesn't even believe in their existence. Still, Lucius makes quite a bit of money from fellow skeptics who like to be proven right. Oswald thinks that Lucius' business model is all shades of wrong, so he sets up his own business to do it correctly. He strongly believes that tourists want to be wowed, so on his tours, they get fabulous displays of The Loch Ness monster . . . even if they aren't real.

Turns out that Jeremiah's the one to prove that Nessie – or rather, nessies – are quite real. He poisons Loch Ness in order to demonstrate this and all the poor creatures float to the top, dead. Oswald, completely horrified by this, joins the UN and assembles an emergency Wildlife Protection and Enforcement Task Force. Jeremiah is taken into custody by Interpol and fined severely. And somehow the money makes it into Oswald's pockets. Now he's richer than ever.

Ed, also horrified by what Jeremiah has done, repopulates the loch with nessies through genetic engineering using material he's retrieved from the corpses that had floated to the surface. Before that, he had removed the toxic chemical from the loch using an extensive and convoluted chelation and ultrapurification process. His setup is so novel that he receives a patent for the process and a Nobel Prize for restoring a beloved cultural icon.

Oswald helps fund Edward so that he can appear magnanimous (and so that people don't look too closely at where the money from Jeremiah's arrest might have gone). Then he easily gets elected Provost of Inverness and moves up the political ranks within Scotland and the UK. He shares some of the money he had taken (stolen) with Edward as a thank you for his service to Inverness (and so that he can provide a money trail to make it look like it had gone to a rightful cause – Edward's 'continued research' – in case he gets caught).

In the end . . .

NESSIE IS REAL

. . . And . . .

Ed & Oswald live happy, healthy, wealthy and wise forever after.

Ed & Lucius each have earned Nobel Prizes. Now they're matchies!

Lucius finds a new and very satisfying career recombining various nessie genes that Edward had discovered to create all new species to populate Scotland's many lochs. The Queen knights him for his service to the realm.

Jeremiah is a prisoner of Interpol, never to be seen again. Or is he?

I think they might have let him loose in a maze somewhere . . . Off the coast of Greece perhaps?

THE END

Or is it . . ?