Fill 1/? - Zero Sum Game
anonymous
July 6 2011, 21:52:03 UTC
Right, here we go. I hope this turns out something like what you wanted, OP... The branch of mathematics in which Jim is working here is called category theory. a!a is happy to define/explain terms and concepts, if desired.
James Moriarty cares about three things: mathematics, the game, and understanding what makes Sherlock Holmes tick. When he can combine two of those things - glorious. When he can combine all three… He thinks of that sometimes, while Sebastian is doing unspeakable things to him, and Sebastian can always tell, changing his rhythms, pulling him back jealously until Moriarty winds his fingers through his hair and tugs, and it’s enough to distract Sebastian for a moment. Sebastian should know by now, he thinks. Of course no one could occupy him the way his favourite problems do - at least, no one whose brain he can deconstruct and lay open, reading the neural pathways like so many fractal patterns in his mind. And that doesn't leave many options - just one, just Sherlock Holmes. Their sets are isomorphic, his and Jim’s; one to one. And so Jim wonders.
Sometimes it seems to him that they are the identity functions of one another, their brilliant brains mapping onto each other’s images like two objects in a psychopathic groupoid. Other times, it seems almost as if Sherlock is the right brain to Jim’s left, which would seem absurd to anyone who knows Sherlock. But it's true - whenever Sherlock does his ‘science of deduction,’ he relies on the connections his mind makes across the entirety of the crime scene and his vast storehouse of knowledge. He knows what people feel and how they react and why they do it, even if he himself does not subscribe. Jim knows none of that, and doesn’t care. Jim only makes things work.
Dear Jim, please can you fix it for me…
Yes.
* * *
He and Sherlock have so much in common that they might almost be friends, if they had friends, and if they didn’t hold one another in such contempt that they share everything from opposite sides, Sherlock over a body Jim has given him, a gift, and Jim over grainy surveillance tapes that Sherlock doesn’t know exist. Sometimes he thinks it would be wonderful if they could share this too, the madness and the mathematics that are constant in his mind. But there is one obstacle to reaching Sherlock’s vast and complicated brain, one simple switch that must be catered to.
Sherlock will only care about things that are relevant.
So Jim will have to make this relevant, too.
“I need a body,” he says to Sebastian, already sounding bored. He is bored - this is just the rigmarole, the opener to the dance. “And kill him quietly. I’ll need to do it loudly later.”
Sebastian nods, starts to slide a knife into the sheath hung at his belt, until Jim’s hands stop him.
“No, no, no,” he says. “I'll need him to bleed as well, when I’m ready for him. You can be a little cruder.”
Sebastian finally leaves with a vial of abrin and a set of tools. He prefers to do his work by hand, but this time they need something else.
He does well. Jim is very pleased and lets his fingers trace a map of complicated functors on the smooth skin of his subordinate’s bare stomach. Sebastian gasps.
Later, Jim plots out every point of blood around the body his right-hand man has prepared for him, smooth, continuous curve of evidence if only Sherlock sees it. Each drop precisely positioned, a pattern, an equation there to be interpreted, and maybe he is rather showing his hand a little, but he wants the message to be found.
And as he places every tiny silent witness to the crime, he smiles.
Some might see what he’s doing and suggest that it is Jim who is the artist, Jim who is the right brain. Those people would not live to see the completion of Jim's work, because they are wrong, wrong in a way Jim cannot tolerate and never will. Jim is the science and the logic, and it's more than a life’s worth to suggest more to it than that.
The branch of mathematics in which Jim is working here is called category theory. a!a is happy to define/explain terms and concepts, if desired.
James Moriarty cares about three things: mathematics, the game, and understanding what makes Sherlock Holmes tick.
When he can combine two of those things - glorious. When he can combine all three…
He thinks of that sometimes, while Sebastian is doing unspeakable things to him, and Sebastian can always tell, changing his rhythms, pulling him back jealously until Moriarty winds his fingers through his hair and tugs, and it’s enough to distract Sebastian for a moment.
Sebastian should know by now, he thinks. Of course no one could occupy him the way his favourite problems do - at least, no one whose brain he can deconstruct and lay open, reading the neural pathways like so many fractal patterns in his mind. And that doesn't leave many options - just one, just Sherlock Holmes. Their sets are isomorphic, his and Jim’s; one to one. And so Jim wonders.
Sometimes it seems to him that they are the identity functions of one another, their brilliant brains mapping onto each other’s images like two objects in a psychopathic groupoid.
Other times, it seems almost as if Sherlock is the right brain to Jim’s left, which would seem absurd to anyone who knows Sherlock. But it's true - whenever Sherlock does his ‘science of deduction,’ he relies on the connections his mind makes across the entirety of the crime scene and his vast storehouse of knowledge. He knows what people feel and how they react and why they do it, even if he himself does not subscribe. Jim knows none of that, and doesn’t care. Jim only makes things work.
Dear Jim, please can you fix it for me…
Yes.
* * *
He and Sherlock have so much in common that they might almost be friends, if they had friends, and if they didn’t hold one another in such contempt that they share everything from opposite sides, Sherlock over a body Jim has given him, a gift, and Jim over grainy surveillance tapes that Sherlock doesn’t know exist.
Sometimes he thinks it would be wonderful if they could share this too, the madness and the mathematics that are constant in his mind. But there is one obstacle to reaching Sherlock’s vast and complicated brain, one simple switch that must be catered to.
Sherlock will only care about things that are relevant.
So Jim will have to make this relevant, too.
“I need a body,” he says to Sebastian, already sounding bored. He is bored - this is just the rigmarole, the opener to the dance. “And kill him quietly. I’ll need to do it loudly later.”
Sebastian nods, starts to slide a knife into the sheath hung at his belt, until Jim’s hands stop him.
“No, no, no,” he says. “I'll need him to bleed as well, when I’m ready for him. You can be a little cruder.”
Sebastian finally leaves with a vial of abrin and a set of tools. He prefers to do his work by hand, but this time they need something else.
He does well. Jim is very pleased and lets his fingers trace a map of complicated functors on the smooth skin of his subordinate’s bare stomach. Sebastian gasps.
Later, Jim plots out every point of blood around the body his right-hand man has prepared for him, smooth, continuous curve of evidence if only Sherlock sees it. Each drop precisely positioned, a pattern, an equation there to be interpreted, and maybe he is rather showing his hand a little, but he wants the message to be found.
And as he places every tiny silent witness to the crime, he smiles.
Some might see what he’s doing and suggest that it is Jim who is the artist, Jim who is the right brain. Those people would not live to see the completion of Jim's work, because they are wrong, wrong in a way Jim cannot tolerate and never will. Jim is the science and the logic, and it's more than a life’s worth to suggest more to it than that.
* * *
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