Wait for the Ricochet (1a)
Summary:
In a world where Mind Heist is a common espionage practice and Sherlock Holmes is one of the best Extractors, the slowly growing threat of Moriarty’s syndicate did not escape the eye of the British Government. Moriarty is captured and Sherlock accepts his brother’s plea to enter the criminal’s mind in order to retrieve a computer code that could possibly endanger the national safety itself. However, Moriarty proves to be more than a match for Sherlock’s abilities, catching him in a multilayered dream and forcing him to play games with him, making him lose round after round. When Mycroft realises that Sherlock is no longer able to wake on his own, lost deep in Moriarty’s snare, he finds one John Watson, former Extractor, who left the job for good after his wife’s death. Mycroft convinces John to enter the shared dream, become Sherlock’s companion, and defeat Moriarty’s schemes.
Many thanks to rranne and twistofapen for putting up with me.
Sometimes you’re looking at something happening in front of you and all you can think is- this is so surreal, it must be a dream.
It must be a dream, because expensive black cars don’t pull up by the kerb just two steps ahead of ordinary looking, middle aged, family sort of men- and if so, said men wouldn’t climb in through the rear door opened for them with only as much as a moment’s hesitation - as if it was the most natural thing in the world. You would think, well, abductions in broad daylight do happen, but someone has obviously abducted the wrong man here. Such cars don’t stop for such men, not even in the movies.
But as usual with scenes that happen in broad daylight, no one is watching; few people happen to be looking; there’s a difference between looking and actually seeing. John Watson has plenty of experience with that.
For a moment he, too, almost thought that they were indeed abducting the wrong man.
It was exactly this sort of attitude that made John’s former career climb skywards so quickly. From the boring haircut to the worn tips of his cheap shoes, John Watson was a personification of ordinary. You could stand behind him in a shop queue, waiting for him to realise that, yes, bugger, he’s left the wallet on the kitchen table; you’d miss your bus connection because of this delay but you’d be angry with the bus driver instead of the forgettable guy in the shop who was already fading into non-existence. Everyday streets were full of people like him, mistakable, indescribable, and invisible. The tube was full of these non-entities that you pushed past and left behind. Your subconscious mind was full of such Watsons; what difference was one more?
You could be happily skiving off in a pleasant dream about a weekend in Venice when at some moment a just-like-any-other looking tourist could ask you to take a picture of him in front of St. Mark, fumbling with the camera settings before pressing it in your hand; and you would take that picture of his beaming smile on that lightly-tanned face - perhaps two for good measure, this man and technology clearly didn’t get on - and he would thank you and you’d already be thinking about something else, not even remotely aware that the keys to the safebox in your hotel room are no longer in your breast pocket; and later, when you’d walk back into the room and find them laying on the nightstand, you’d convince yourself that you’d actually left them there in the morning; and when you wake, for all the love of God you wouldn’t be able to explain how your business plans for the next year could have leaked out.
Even the cautious and the careful who had taken the pains to train their subconscious mind to be on guard against unwanted intruders, didn’t get a look in when it happened. Men wearing cosy jumpers and crow’s feet around their eyes simply couldn’t be any threat, could they?
That’s why it felt like one of those dreams John Watson no longer dreamt when he was led up the staircase, his shabby shoes an insult to the richness of the carpet, to be ushered into a library. Shelves full of leather-bound classics lined the walls, giving the impression that the only read print around here were the newspapers, tossed carelessly on the coffee tables. Marble ceilings and hideous chairs completed the picture.
“How nice of you to come, Mr. Watson.” A tall, impeccably dressed man stood up gracefully from one of the chairs and offered John a hand with a flourish that went well with the friendly smile plastered on his face. Both signs were over-acted to a mere caricature of polite manners, adding to John’s feeling of how fishy the whole business looked. The hand felt like dead flounder and there was too much teeth in the eel-like smile.
“Please, make yourself comfortable. My name is Mycroft Holmes.”
The lovely woman who had kept John company in the car - well, if keeping company was the right word for her behaving as if John actually was invisible, which disturbed John a bit -came in with a tray of tea, setting it on the table by John’s left hand. Someone’s been observant, John thought as he watched his host pouring out two cups. Then he cleared his throat.
“Are you certain you didn’t pick up the wrong guy?” he asked, faithful to his role.
“Oh, quite certain, Mr. Watson.” Holmes flashed another of his lupine smiles. “I’ve been aware of your return to London for some time; very bold of you, I must admit. But then, your ability to blend in among the ordinary has fooled people far more observant than the police, hasn’t it?”
John shrugged. Badmouthing the police - even in such a furtive way - wasn’t an uncommon tactic of his former clients in such situations; he assumed they wanted him to see which side of the law they stood on when they hired him. As if John needed such an assurance - after hiding in the plain sight for so long, he didn’t lose his nerve that quickly. You don’t invite people to private clubs for tea when you want to hand them in to Interpol, after all.
“Then you know that I’m not dealing in this anymore.”
“Yes, I know that you’ve dismissed a pretty number of contracts after that unfortunate one where your-” Holmes had enough grace not to finish that sentence when he saw the way John’s jaw tightened almost imperceptibly. The unspoken words hung heavily in the air.
“I also know that no more contracts have been offered to you after the fiasco of last year, when you decided that the time for mourning was over and accepted the contract for Scott and Co.”
This time, Holmes didn’t mince words. Neither did Gloria Scott, when she had realised that her investment had gone horribly awry. She retaliated by bringing the entire matter to light - the police promised her to raise no charges against her in exchange for her testimony. They’d do anything to catch Watson. Well, they didn’t catch him.
“Just so, Mr. Holmes,” John nodded, the sudden matter-of-factness wiping the easy smile from his face. “Why are you compromising yourself with a convicted criminal? You know I don’t do extractions anymore.”
“I wouldn’t bother one of the best men in this field with such a mundane task.” Holmes sipped on his tea as if he was discussing the standards of London tailors. “I would like you to perform an inception.”
John huffed out a soundless laugh. “You can’t pay me enough to do it.”
“Everyone has their price, Mr. Watson,” Holmes drawled. He made the universal truth sound like an opening to a fairy-tale. The first move of a pawn in a game of chess.
“Okay, let me re-phrase.” John tossed the imaginary chess board off the table. “I’m not that desperate to do it.”
Holmes smiled. “My position has certain...merits to it. What I am able to offer you cannot be bought by money. What about - a clean slate? It is within my powers to erase your record; to call off any charges you’re currently facing.”
Something in those calculating eyes told John that despite his demeanour of a stuffed peacock, this man wasn’t just pulling his leg.
“I could even revoke the cancellation of your medical licence. You could resume your career as a GP, should you choose to stay on the side of the angels...” His voice trailed off, implying that for all his intents and purposes, Holmes would prefer John to become an illegal Extractor again.
John shifted in his seat. “Look, Mr. Holmes, there’s a reason why we- why people don’t do inceptions. ‘Careful what you wish for’ - that’s what they say. It’s easy to go down there and take something out. It’s a completely different thing to leave something there.”
Holmes’ eyebrows rose as if he couldn’t believe he was being lectured in his own club, but John wasn’t a man to be intimidated by a blatant show of power. He continued: “You never know what will come out of it. The human mind is tricky. Even the most basic of ideas get interpreted-”
“The idea I want you to plant is indeed the most basic one. You have to convince the target that what he believes to be true is, in fact, not.”
John stopped his tirade, taken aback by the bluntness of that statement. That sudden absence of woulds and coulds, as well as the turn to matter-of-fact announcement from the previous slippery talk, put him on his guard. He fell back evasive tactics.
“If your target is delusional, the best way to help him would be psychiatric treatment. I’m sure that-”
“The only way to help him is an inception.”
Okay. I’m dealing with a nutter. Posh one, but still a nutter. John decided to call on the practicalities. It would be better to convince Holmes that the job couldn’t be accomplished - if not per se, then because of other problems.
“I would need an Architect and no one would work with me.”
Holmes shook his head. “The participation of an Architect won’t be necessary.”
“It bloody well would.” John raised his voice a bit. “You know that I have a Shadow. I can’t be the one who’s designing the maze. My...the Shadow would use the knowledge against me.”
The Scott’s case was his mistake - he shouldn’t have taken on any job after - after. Everyone knew what happened to Extractors when they developed a Shadow - but he couldn’t stay out of it, not for long.
“I am well aware of this impairment,” Holmes continued with the air of a man who could arrange everything. “However, it is not relevant in this case. You see, Mr. Watson, we don’t need to create a dream. This particular dream already exists. You would only have to enter it.”
“You mean - I wouldn’t be the Dreamer?” John assured himself.
Too risky. I can’t avoid meeting Mary; and if she wanted to do it again, I’d die for real. To die in a dream that wouldn’t be my own - no collapse and brutal awakening this time; it would be a straight drop into the Limbo, just the thing. No one maintains a comatose Extractor who lost his mind where nobody can find him.
“I’m sorry, Mr. Holmes.” John lifted his own cup and then cursed under his breath. His traitorous hand chose precisely that moment to show the intermittent tremor - a physical keepsake of his bereavement, a constant reminder that the Shadow was not his only impairment - as the cup clattered against the saucer, spilling half of its contents on his hand and sleeve.
“Very interesting,” Holmes inclined his head, studying him like a specimen under a microscope. John lifted his chin, eyes narrowed. “So I have a stress syndrome. I’m haunted by my past. What of it?” he dared, anger ringing clear in his voice.
“Are you aware that your hand didn’t tremble at all while we’ve been discussing my offer?” Holmes asked quietly, pointedly omitting the rest: It trembled only after you refused.
He leaned forward in his chair, holding John’s gaze. “You’re not haunted by the Mind Heist. You miss it.”
John clenched his teeth.
“Think of all you could win, Mr. Watson. And then think, carefully, of all you could lose.”
John looked at his hands, at the bleary London streets behind the window. He thought of his small bedsit, of the suffocating boredom of his existence, of the illegal gun at the bottom of his drawer. Damn you, Mr. Holmes. You’ve picked up exactly the right guy.
“Who’s the target?”
. . . .
.
Next chapter
.
In a world where Mind Heist is a common espionage practice and Sherlock Holmes is one of the best Extractors, the slowly growing threat of Moriarty’s syndicate did not escape the eye of the British Government. Moriarty is captured and Sherlock accepts his brother’s plea to enter the criminal’s mind in order to retrieve a computer code that could possibly endanger the national safety itself. However, Moriarty proves to be more than a match for Sherlock’s abilities, catching him in a multilayered dream and forcing him to play games with him, making him lose round after round. When Mycroft realises that Sherlock is no longer able to wake on his own, lost deep in Moriarty’s snare, he finds one John Watson, former Extractor, who left the job for good after his wife’s death. Mycroft convinces John to enter the shared dream, become Sherlock’s companion, and defeat Moriarty’s schemes.
Many thanks to rranne and twistofapen for putting up with me.
Sometimes you’re looking at something happening in front of you and all you can think is- this is so surreal, it must be a dream.
It must be a dream, because expensive black cars don’t pull up by the kerb just two steps ahead of ordinary looking, middle aged, family sort of men- and if so, said men wouldn’t climb in through the rear door opened for them with only as much as a moment’s hesitation - as if it was the most natural thing in the world. You would think, well, abductions in broad daylight do happen, but someone has obviously abducted the wrong man here. Such cars don’t stop for such men, not even in the movies.
But as usual with scenes that happen in broad daylight, no one is watching; few people happen to be looking; there’s a difference between looking and actually seeing. John Watson has plenty of experience with that.
For a moment he, too, almost thought that they were indeed abducting the wrong man.
It was exactly this sort of attitude that made John’s former career climb skywards so quickly. From the boring haircut to the worn tips of his cheap shoes, John Watson was a personification of ordinary. You could stand behind him in a shop queue, waiting for him to realise that, yes, bugger, he’s left the wallet on the kitchen table; you’d miss your bus connection because of this delay but you’d be angry with the bus driver instead of the forgettable guy in the shop who was already fading into non-existence. Everyday streets were full of people like him, mistakable, indescribable, and invisible. The tube was full of these non-entities that you pushed past and left behind. Your subconscious mind was full of such Watsons; what difference was one more?
You could be happily skiving off in a pleasant dream about a weekend in Venice when at some moment a just-like-any-other looking tourist could ask you to take a picture of him in front of St. Mark, fumbling with the camera settings before pressing it in your hand; and you would take that picture of his beaming smile on that lightly-tanned face - perhaps two for good measure, this man and technology clearly didn’t get on - and he would thank you and you’d already be thinking about something else, not even remotely aware that the keys to the safebox in your hotel room are no longer in your breast pocket; and later, when you’d walk back into the room and find them laying on the nightstand, you’d convince yourself that you’d actually left them there in the morning; and when you wake, for all the love of God you wouldn’t be able to explain how your business plans for the next year could have leaked out.
Even the cautious and the careful who had taken the pains to train their subconscious mind to be on guard against unwanted intruders, didn’t get a look in when it happened. Men wearing cosy jumpers and crow’s feet around their eyes simply couldn’t be any threat, could they?
That’s why it felt like one of those dreams John Watson no longer dreamt when he was led up the staircase, his shabby shoes an insult to the richness of the carpet, to be ushered into a library. Shelves full of leather-bound classics lined the walls, giving the impression that the only read print around here were the newspapers, tossed carelessly on the coffee tables. Marble ceilings and hideous chairs completed the picture.
“How nice of you to come, Mr. Watson.” A tall, impeccably dressed man stood up gracefully from one of the chairs and offered John a hand with a flourish that went well with the friendly smile plastered on his face. Both signs were over-acted to a mere caricature of polite manners, adding to John’s feeling of how fishy the whole business looked. The hand felt like dead flounder and there was too much teeth in the eel-like smile.
“Please, make yourself comfortable. My name is Mycroft Holmes.”
The lovely woman who had kept John company in the car - well, if keeping company was the right word for her behaving as if John actually was invisible, which disturbed John a bit -came in with a tray of tea, setting it on the table by John’s left hand. Someone’s been observant, John thought as he watched his host pouring out two cups. Then he cleared his throat.
“Are you certain you didn’t pick up the wrong guy?” he asked, faithful to his role.
“Oh, quite certain, Mr. Watson.” Holmes flashed another of his lupine smiles. “I’ve been aware of your return to London for some time; very bold of you, I must admit. But then, your ability to blend in among the ordinary has fooled people far more observant than the police, hasn’t it?”
John shrugged. Badmouthing the police - even in such a furtive way - wasn’t an uncommon tactic of his former clients in such situations; he assumed they wanted him to see which side of the law they stood on when they hired him. As if John needed such an assurance - after hiding in the plain sight for so long, he didn’t lose his nerve that quickly. You don’t invite people to private clubs for tea when you want to hand them in to Interpol, after all.
“Then you know that I’m not dealing in this anymore.”
“Yes, I know that you’ve dismissed a pretty number of contracts after that unfortunate one where your-” Holmes had enough grace not to finish that sentence when he saw the way John’s jaw tightened almost imperceptibly. The unspoken words hung heavily in the air.
“I also know that no more contracts have been offered to you after the fiasco of last year, when you decided that the time for mourning was over and accepted the contract for Scott and Co.”
This time, Holmes didn’t mince words. Neither did Gloria Scott, when she had realised that her investment had gone horribly awry. She retaliated by bringing the entire matter to light - the police promised her to raise no charges against her in exchange for her testimony. They’d do anything to catch Watson. Well, they didn’t catch him.
“Just so, Mr. Holmes,” John nodded, the sudden matter-of-factness wiping the easy smile from his face. “Why are you compromising yourself with a convicted criminal? You know I don’t do extractions anymore.”
“I wouldn’t bother one of the best men in this field with such a mundane task.” Holmes sipped on his tea as if he was discussing the standards of London tailors. “I would like you to perform an inception.”
John huffed out a soundless laugh. “You can’t pay me enough to do it.”
“Everyone has their price, Mr. Watson,” Holmes drawled. He made the universal truth sound like an opening to a fairy-tale. The first move of a pawn in a game of chess.
“Okay, let me re-phrase.” John tossed the imaginary chess board off the table. “I’m not that desperate to do it.”
Holmes smiled. “My position has certain...merits to it. What I am able to offer you cannot be bought by money. What about - a clean slate? It is within my powers to erase your record; to call off any charges you’re currently facing.”
Something in those calculating eyes told John that despite his demeanour of a stuffed peacock, this man wasn’t just pulling his leg.
“I could even revoke the cancellation of your medical licence. You could resume your career as a GP, should you choose to stay on the side of the angels...” His voice trailed off, implying that for all his intents and purposes, Holmes would prefer John to become an illegal Extractor again.
John shifted in his seat. “Look, Mr. Holmes, there’s a reason why we- why people don’t do inceptions. ‘Careful what you wish for’ - that’s what they say. It’s easy to go down there and take something out. It’s a completely different thing to leave something there.”
Holmes’ eyebrows rose as if he couldn’t believe he was being lectured in his own club, but John wasn’t a man to be intimidated by a blatant show of power. He continued: “You never know what will come out of it. The human mind is tricky. Even the most basic of ideas get interpreted-”
“The idea I want you to plant is indeed the most basic one. You have to convince the target that what he believes to be true is, in fact, not.”
John stopped his tirade, taken aback by the bluntness of that statement. That sudden absence of woulds and coulds, as well as the turn to matter-of-fact announcement from the previous slippery talk, put him on his guard. He fell back evasive tactics.
“If your target is delusional, the best way to help him would be psychiatric treatment. I’m sure that-”
“The only way to help him is an inception.”
Okay. I’m dealing with a nutter. Posh one, but still a nutter. John decided to call on the practicalities. It would be better to convince Holmes that the job couldn’t be accomplished - if not per se, then because of other problems.
“I would need an Architect and no one would work with me.”
Holmes shook his head. “The participation of an Architect won’t be necessary.”
“It bloody well would.” John raised his voice a bit. “You know that I have a Shadow. I can’t be the one who’s designing the maze. My...the Shadow would use the knowledge against me.”
The Scott’s case was his mistake - he shouldn’t have taken on any job after - after. Everyone knew what happened to Extractors when they developed a Shadow - but he couldn’t stay out of it, not for long.
“I am well aware of this impairment,” Holmes continued with the air of a man who could arrange everything. “However, it is not relevant in this case. You see, Mr. Watson, we don’t need to create a dream. This particular dream already exists. You would only have to enter it.”
“You mean - I wouldn’t be the Dreamer?” John assured himself.
Too risky. I can’t avoid meeting Mary; and if she wanted to do it again, I’d die for real. To die in a dream that wouldn’t be my own - no collapse and brutal awakening this time; it would be a straight drop into the Limbo, just the thing. No one maintains a comatose Extractor who lost his mind where nobody can find him.
“I’m sorry, Mr. Holmes.” John lifted his own cup and then cursed under his breath. His traitorous hand chose precisely that moment to show the intermittent tremor - a physical keepsake of his bereavement, a constant reminder that the Shadow was not his only impairment - as the cup clattered against the saucer, spilling half of its contents on his hand and sleeve.
“Very interesting,” Holmes inclined his head, studying him like a specimen under a microscope. John lifted his chin, eyes narrowed. “So I have a stress syndrome. I’m haunted by my past. What of it?” he dared, anger ringing clear in his voice.
“Are you aware that your hand didn’t tremble at all while we’ve been discussing my offer?” Holmes asked quietly, pointedly omitting the rest: It trembled only after you refused.
He leaned forward in his chair, holding John’s gaze. “You’re not haunted by the Mind Heist. You miss it.”
John clenched his teeth.
“Think of all you could win, Mr. Watson. And then think, carefully, of all you could lose.”
John looked at his hands, at the bleary London streets behind the window. He thought of his small bedsit, of the suffocating boredom of his existence, of the illegal gun at the bottom of his drawer. Damn you, Mr. Holmes. You’ve picked up exactly the right guy.
“Who’s the target?”
. . . .
.
Next chapter
.