The Ghost in the Game (7/8)
Title: The Ghost in the Game
Author: EmmyAngua
Rating: 15
Genre: Thriller, Mystery, Darkfic
Warnings: Implied torture. Bad language.
Ships: Implied Sherlock/John, Molly/Other.
Summary: Moriarty has a secret. When Molly Hooper gets closer to it than anyone has before she knows her chances of survival are zero. But what is it? And how does it involve a missing scientist, Irene Adler, a deserted Manor House, and some mysterious hauntings at 221b Baker Street?
A/N: And this is it…the last official chapter. Just an epilogue to go…
Part 1 II Part 2 II Part 3 II Part 4 II Part 5 II Part 6 II Part 7
--
Chapter 7
Irene woke up six hours later.
Her mouth was papery and tasted of fermented fruit. Her skin was grimy and her clothes felt like they wanted to crawl away from her flesh.
She would have clawed them off herself, were in not for the fact she was strapped to a table. Her head was also pounding.
“Must’ve been some night last night,” she rasped to no one in particular.
“That it was.”
She jumped, then relaxed. “James?”
Her husband appeared over her and began to gently free her. “How’re you feeling Mrs. Moriarty?” he smiled.
“I can’t remember what happened…” she said.
Her mind felt on fire; like it was working properly for the first time. Random memories rushed back to her, like a suddenly remembered dream. Her childhood in London. Expulsion from private school after private school. Her father the art dealer. The art theft heists she’d joined him on as a teenager. The affairs. The money. The footballers. The parties. The blackmailing. James. The wedding. Their game…
“I thought we agreed I was going to stay an Adler,” she said for lack of anything else to say. “For professional purposes.”
“That we did,” he grinned.
“I know that expression,” she said suspiciously. “You look like I’m a new toy for you to play with.”
James smirked. “I’m just pleased the operation worked, darling.”
She tried to cast her mind back to the last thing she remembered. They’d been talking about her appearance. She’d insisted that she couldn’t look like simpering Molly Hooper any more if she was to pull off the plan. They didn’t need Molly anymore, and they couldn’t risk Sherlock recognising her…
“What’ve I had done?” she asked.
“Just a nose-job so far. You wanted to get going again as soon as you woke up.”
Irene nodded. That explained why it felt like she’d been punched in the face. She screwed her eyes shut as she tried to pull herself back together.
“I think that anaesthetic was too strong,” she murmured. “I need to clean up a bit too. Jesus this place is filthy, look at the state of me.”
“There’s a shower through that door,” he offered.
She frowned. “Why’re you telling me that? I know this place as well as you do.”
He kissed her forehead. “Of course you do, my sweet. You just seem like a new woman today, that’s all.”
--
Once the door was shut behind her Irene stripped as fast as she could, ripping the cloth where it was taking too long to get off.
There was no mirror in the shower room - it was designed for rinsing off blood and brain matter from the surgeons, not for prettying oneself up. Even without it she could see that something was wrong just by looking down at her naked body.
She was filthy. Not just filth from a disgusting laboratory, the sort of filth she associated with tramps and squatters. Blood from her period had dried between the cracks of her legs. Her legs and armpits were hairier than they’d been since she was fourteen and going through a hippy phase - yet she had a memory of shaving them just two days ago. Her nails were torn.
Something was up and she knew her husband far too well to take anything he said at face value. She’d been a javelin thrower at school, and so she trusted him far, far less than she could throw him.
She picked through the disgusting clothes cautiously. They were infested. Ugh
But wait…
One pocket felt heavy. Inside was a phone. She had no knowledge of how she’d come to own it.
It was on standby and when she turned it back on a message popped up;
This recording has reached its limit. Save recording?
She clicked Yes.
Play recording back?
Yes.
Irene stood, still completely naked, and listened to an hour of her life she had no memory of.
“-erlock Holmes was born in 1861. This is Sherlock Holmes in 1895…”
--
Irene stepped out into the laboratory an hour later, clean and wearing only an old lab-coat
“I was starting to worry about you,” said James. He didn’t look worried. He was tapping away at a laptop. She hoped he was arranging the Wernstar account they’d been trying to set up, and then remembered that she really didn’t give a shit about the Wernstar account. She wasn’t really a consulting criminal after all.
“I was disgusting,” she shrugged. “And now I need a coffee.”
“Make one for me,” said James without looking up.
Irene sighed. “If I must.”
“That’s my girl.”
Irene returned two minutes later with a coffee from the espresso machine he’d had installed. She placed the cup by his elbow and he took a gulp.
“Fucking bitter,” he winced.
“New mix,” she shrugged.
She asked him about the Wernstar account while she was perched on the slab she had woken up on. “Any progress?”
“Nah,” he grunted. “Haven’t got time. I’m having issues with the players.”
The players. It’s what they had always called Sherlock, John, Mycroft, Lestrade, and Mrs. Hudson. Up until an hour ago she had believed herself to have been a part of creating the technology that had rebuilt their minds into their current formats.
“Issues?"
“According to the reports from my sister all of the players are experiencing… hauntings. Sherlock and John have been researching the phenomena and talking to ‘experts’. Mycroft is concerned but unwilling to discuss it with her. Lestrade is putting it down to stress.”
“Hauntings?” she raised an eyebrow.
“We recreated memories from their ‘original’ lives to build their modern identities around. It was the only way we could keep the essence of them. Unfortunately their Victorian working model is interfering with their modern existence and it’s causing hallucinations. Hah-” he smirked as he read something from the screen “-according to this dear John has been overhearing sexual antics without realising he’s overhearing the sounds of the real Sherlock Holmes and John Watson at it!”
“You haven’t any proof they were ever at it. It was just your perverse sense of humour wanting to include that part of the Victorian working model. Just like you thought it would be funny to give Mrs. Hudson a murderer for a husband. And I said creating Victorian memories alongside modern ones was stupid and bound to lead to trouble.”
“The Victorian ones were only meant to be part of the subconscious. I’ll kill that psychiatrist who said it wouldn’t affect them. In fact, where’s my new phone…?”
He reached into his pocket and then, finding it empty, patted himself down.
Irene reached into her own pocket and stroked the missing phone as he grew more irritated and then stood up to look for it.
When he doubled over in pain, she smiled.
“What…the…FUCK?!” he panted.
“Never trust a coffee made in a laboratory,” she shrugged.
“You!” he groaned again.
“Me! You see, Molly or Meredith or whatever she was called… somehow stole this phone.” Irene held up the phone. He lunged towards it, but she hopped out of his reach. “And somehow she recorded your big villain speech. Apparently I’m Frankenstein’s creation. I’m designed to be your partner-in-crime. You’ve never read Frankenstein, I take it?
“What?!” James panted. He had tried to yell for help but she had sent the remaining lab staff away while she’d made the coffee.
“Frankenstein was at war with his creation. He spends the entire book running from it. It hates him and it resents him for creating it. I feel much the same way about you.”
“Who gives a fuck about Frankenstein?!”
Irene shrugged.
“It doesn’t matter. What matters is that within thirty seconds you’ll be paralysed. Dead in maybe four minutes. And then I’ll have access to our consulting business and I’ll have control of the game that we set up. I’ve never played well with others and now that I know that the love I feel for you is fake, then I see no reason to share the game with you James.”
He dropped to the concrete floor, still glaring up at her. He was still alive.
“This - ungh - ” she aimed a kick at his side, “is for Molly - ungh - and Meredith. And this - ungh - is for Hedley Sholes and - ungh - all - ungh - the people - ungh - whose lives - ungh - you’ve stolen.”
She kneeled down to look into his eyes. They were beginning to glaze over. She’d always liked it when his eyes did that - it usually meant he was planning to do something filthy to her. But, of course, those memories were false. The real thing was so much better.
“In my mind I planned their deaths alongside you. But now I’m guilt free because I didn’t exist,” she purred. “Irene Adler was reborn today, and I think it will be a lot more fun being an arch nemesis in 2011 than it ever was in 1890.”
She stood over him until she was sure that James Moriarty was dead. An hour ago his death would have destroyed her. Now he was just a man who’d killed her real husband, wiped her memories, and tried to trick her into loving him.
The King is dead, she thought. Long live the Queen.
Epilogue
----
A/N: Not long to go now…
Author: EmmyAngua
Rating: 15
Genre: Thriller, Mystery, Darkfic
Warnings: Implied torture. Bad language.
Ships: Implied Sherlock/John, Molly/Other.
Summary: Moriarty has a secret. When Molly Hooper gets closer to it than anyone has before she knows her chances of survival are zero. But what is it? And how does it involve a missing scientist, Irene Adler, a deserted Manor House, and some mysterious hauntings at 221b Baker Street?
A/N: And this is it…the last official chapter. Just an epilogue to go…
Part 1 II Part 2 II Part 3 II Part 4 II Part 5 II Part 6 II Part 7
--
Chapter 7
Irene woke up six hours later.
Her mouth was papery and tasted of fermented fruit. Her skin was grimy and her clothes felt like they wanted to crawl away from her flesh.
She would have clawed them off herself, were in not for the fact she was strapped to a table. Her head was also pounding.
“Must’ve been some night last night,” she rasped to no one in particular.
“That it was.”
She jumped, then relaxed. “James?”
Her husband appeared over her and began to gently free her. “How’re you feeling Mrs. Moriarty?” he smiled.
“I can’t remember what happened…” she said.
Her mind felt on fire; like it was working properly for the first time. Random memories rushed back to her, like a suddenly remembered dream. Her childhood in London. Expulsion from private school after private school. Her father the art dealer. The art theft heists she’d joined him on as a teenager. The affairs. The money. The footballers. The parties. The blackmailing. James. The wedding. Their game…
“I thought we agreed I was going to stay an Adler,” she said for lack of anything else to say. “For professional purposes.”
“That we did,” he grinned.
“I know that expression,” she said suspiciously. “You look like I’m a new toy for you to play with.”
James smirked. “I’m just pleased the operation worked, darling.”
She tried to cast her mind back to the last thing she remembered. They’d been talking about her appearance. She’d insisted that she couldn’t look like simpering Molly Hooper any more if she was to pull off the plan. They didn’t need Molly anymore, and they couldn’t risk Sherlock recognising her…
“What’ve I had done?” she asked.
“Just a nose-job so far. You wanted to get going again as soon as you woke up.”
Irene nodded. That explained why it felt like she’d been punched in the face. She screwed her eyes shut as she tried to pull herself back together.
“I think that anaesthetic was too strong,” she murmured. “I need to clean up a bit too. Jesus this place is filthy, look at the state of me.”
“There’s a shower through that door,” he offered.
She frowned. “Why’re you telling me that? I know this place as well as you do.”
He kissed her forehead. “Of course you do, my sweet. You just seem like a new woman today, that’s all.”
--
Once the door was shut behind her Irene stripped as fast as she could, ripping the cloth where it was taking too long to get off.
There was no mirror in the shower room - it was designed for rinsing off blood and brain matter from the surgeons, not for prettying oneself up. Even without it she could see that something was wrong just by looking down at her naked body.
She was filthy. Not just filth from a disgusting laboratory, the sort of filth she associated with tramps and squatters. Blood from her period had dried between the cracks of her legs. Her legs and armpits were hairier than they’d been since she was fourteen and going through a hippy phase - yet she had a memory of shaving them just two days ago. Her nails were torn.
Something was up and she knew her husband far too well to take anything he said at face value. She’d been a javelin thrower at school, and so she trusted him far, far less than she could throw him.
She picked through the disgusting clothes cautiously. They were infested. Ugh
But wait…
One pocket felt heavy. Inside was a phone. She had no knowledge of how she’d come to own it.
It was on standby and when she turned it back on a message popped up;
This recording has reached its limit. Save recording?
She clicked Yes.
Play recording back?
Yes.
Irene stood, still completely naked, and listened to an hour of her life she had no memory of.
“-erlock Holmes was born in 1861. This is Sherlock Holmes in 1895…”
--
Irene stepped out into the laboratory an hour later, clean and wearing only an old lab-coat
“I was starting to worry about you,” said James. He didn’t look worried. He was tapping away at a laptop. She hoped he was arranging the Wernstar account they’d been trying to set up, and then remembered that she really didn’t give a shit about the Wernstar account. She wasn’t really a consulting criminal after all.
“I was disgusting,” she shrugged. “And now I need a coffee.”
“Make one for me,” said James without looking up.
Irene sighed. “If I must.”
“That’s my girl.”
Irene returned two minutes later with a coffee from the espresso machine he’d had installed. She placed the cup by his elbow and he took a gulp.
“Fucking bitter,” he winced.
“New mix,” she shrugged.
She asked him about the Wernstar account while she was perched on the slab she had woken up on. “Any progress?”
“Nah,” he grunted. “Haven’t got time. I’m having issues with the players.”
The players. It’s what they had always called Sherlock, John, Mycroft, Lestrade, and Mrs. Hudson. Up until an hour ago she had believed herself to have been a part of creating the technology that had rebuilt their minds into their current formats.
“Issues?"
“According to the reports from my sister all of the players are experiencing… hauntings. Sherlock and John have been researching the phenomena and talking to ‘experts’. Mycroft is concerned but unwilling to discuss it with her. Lestrade is putting it down to stress.”
“Hauntings?” she raised an eyebrow.
“We recreated memories from their ‘original’ lives to build their modern identities around. It was the only way we could keep the essence of them. Unfortunately their Victorian working model is interfering with their modern existence and it’s causing hallucinations. Hah-” he smirked as he read something from the screen “-according to this dear John has been overhearing sexual antics without realising he’s overhearing the sounds of the real Sherlock Holmes and John Watson at it!”
“You haven’t any proof they were ever at it. It was just your perverse sense of humour wanting to include that part of the Victorian working model. Just like you thought it would be funny to give Mrs. Hudson a murderer for a husband. And I said creating Victorian memories alongside modern ones was stupid and bound to lead to trouble.”
“The Victorian ones were only meant to be part of the subconscious. I’ll kill that psychiatrist who said it wouldn’t affect them. In fact, where’s my new phone…?”
He reached into his pocket and then, finding it empty, patted himself down.
Irene reached into her own pocket and stroked the missing phone as he grew more irritated and then stood up to look for it.
When he doubled over in pain, she smiled.
“What…the…FUCK?!” he panted.
“Never trust a coffee made in a laboratory,” she shrugged.
“You!” he groaned again.
“Me! You see, Molly or Meredith or whatever she was called… somehow stole this phone.” Irene held up the phone. He lunged towards it, but she hopped out of his reach. “And somehow she recorded your big villain speech. Apparently I’m Frankenstein’s creation. I’m designed to be your partner-in-crime. You’ve never read Frankenstein, I take it?
“What?!” James panted. He had tried to yell for help but she had sent the remaining lab staff away while she’d made the coffee.
“Frankenstein was at war with his creation. He spends the entire book running from it. It hates him and it resents him for creating it. I feel much the same way about you.”
“Who gives a fuck about Frankenstein?!”
Irene shrugged.
“It doesn’t matter. What matters is that within thirty seconds you’ll be paralysed. Dead in maybe four minutes. And then I’ll have access to our consulting business and I’ll have control of the game that we set up. I’ve never played well with others and now that I know that the love I feel for you is fake, then I see no reason to share the game with you James.”
He dropped to the concrete floor, still glaring up at her. He was still alive.
“This - ungh - ” she aimed a kick at his side, “is for Molly - ungh - and Meredith. And this - ungh - is for Hedley Sholes and - ungh - all - ungh - the people - ungh - whose lives - ungh - you’ve stolen.”
She kneeled down to look into his eyes. They were beginning to glaze over. She’d always liked it when his eyes did that - it usually meant he was planning to do something filthy to her. But, of course, those memories were false. The real thing was so much better.
“In my mind I planned their deaths alongside you. But now I’m guilt free because I didn’t exist,” she purred. “Irene Adler was reborn today, and I think it will be a lot more fun being an arch nemesis in 2011 than it ever was in 1890.”
She stood over him until she was sure that James Moriarty was dead. An hour ago his death would have destroyed her. Now he was just a man who’d killed her real husband, wiped her memories, and tried to trick her into loving him.
The King is dead, she thought. Long live the Queen.
Epilogue
----
A/N: Not long to go now…