[FIC: BBC SHERLOCK] Strangers: Part II
Title: Strangers
Rating: R
Warnings: Violence, gore, and all their friends, with a dash of swear words and allusions to sex on the side.
Summary: "The average human being is subject to a thousand different bothersome weaknesses every moment of every day, with hunger, thirst, fatigue and lust being the most prevalent. But would it be possible for one to create a human being sans the trivialities? All the strengths of man, and none of the weaknesses?"
In 2110, Sherlock Holmes builds a machine.
Experiment II
Purpose: To observe and record the behavior of an android unaware of his existential state in human society.
Hypothesis: If the android is unceremoniously inserted into a world with which his sole connection is through manipulated memories, then he will fail to form bonds with organic creatures and vice versa.
Materials:
1. four (4) serial suicides
“Not a bloody suicide my arse.”
“Is that what this is all about?”
Lestrade glares down his nose at the unfortunate peon who happened to open their unfortunate mouth. Sally glares right back, still mad about the press conference fiasco. There are days she thinks it’d do the whole Yard a favor if her boss were fit with a bloody muzzle and chained to the bike rack out back.
“Of course it’s a suicide,” Lestrade snaps, more to himself than anyone. “Poor sods are sitting in their own garages with the cars running. Dunno what police academy he went to, but in my book that’s called a suicide.”
Sally immediately guesses ‘he’ is ‘Sherlock’ and is certain she’s right.
Lestrade’s glaring at his mobile again, old thing, clunky, department-issue, the call projection wonky and spazzing as he pulls it up. Less than a second later and he’s up on his hypothetical soap box, shouting abuse at whoever’s on the other end.
“We’ll be right there,” he grouses at last, before slamming the thing shut and forcing it back into his pocket, deep as it’ll go. As if that’ll push the problem away.
Now he’s glaring at her, her, Sally Does-What-She’s-Told Donovan, as if she were the one pushing lethal chemicals down the throats of those bodies in the morgue.
“Sir?”
“Get your gear,” he says at last. “And phone Anderson; tell him he’s needed.
“What’s happened?” Sally says, unable to restrain herself. “What’s going on?”
“Another body. Lauriston Gardens. Hurry the hell up, I won’t ask the driver to wait for you.”
Fuming, her jaw sending out a thousand messages of pain simply from being gritted so stiffly, Sally storms off to her desk. Post Traumatic Sherlock Disorder, they call it.
No cure.
When John Watson sleeps, he dreams.
Uneasily, erratically inserted images of a clear blue sky and white, burning sand whip across his mind. Water. Blood. The unmistakable zzzziippp of an energy cartridge sliding into place inside a laser gun.
The silent smiles.
There’s a dark-skinned girl by the side of the road sighing in Arabistanian and he is shushing her-bad, bad, no, not here, not with us to hear.
Undercurrents of home. Of being hated. Of being loved. Of scratched knees and someone looking at them and simply sweating with disappointment.
He wakes up to London and to the rain and to Sherlock Holmes.
Their first conversation-their first real conversation, as in, both parties participating-isn’t meant to be an interrogation, but that’s how it turns out anyways.
“Name.”
“Sherlock, what in hell-”
“Just tell me your name.”
John sighs and rests his head on one hand. “John. John Watson. Hasn’t changed since yesterday. Can you tell me what the fuck is going on? Please? I mean, if you want me to go-”
“No, no. Of course not.” Sherlock smiles. “Stay as long as you like.”
Dr. John H. Watson, formerly of His Majesty’s Armed Forces-formerly dead, come to think of it-stands somewhat himself in the middle of 221b’s admittedly shabby sitting room and leans on his cane with a frustrated expression upon his perfectly engineered face.
“Listen,” Sherlock starts to say, so pleased he thinks his head just might burst with delight-only he’s conveniently interrupted when the front door rings, and charging up comes D. I. Lestrade, breathing heavily and carrying the expression of a man unwillingly resigned to a thoroughly nasty fate.
“There’s been another,” Sherlock says, a smile spreading across his face, a plan leaping, full-formed and brilliant, to the forefront of his mind. “Excellent. Where?”
“Brixton. Lauriston Gardens.”
“What’s different about this one, you wouldn’t have come and got me if there wasn’t something different.”
“You know how they never leave notes?”
“Yes.”
“This one did.” Pause. Lestrade’s yet to even notice John; whether this is a sign for the better or no is yet to be determined. “Will you come?”
“Who’s on forensics?” he asks, simple as anything, a sniff in his voice.
“Anderson.”
“Anderson won’t work with me.”
“Well, he won’t be your assistant-”
“I need an assistant.”
In the background, John turns his head to rest at an angle.
Curiosity: piqued.
“Will you come?” Lestrade asks again, urgency creeping into his tone despite himself.
“Not in a police car, I’ll be right behind.”
Satisfied-somewhat-Lestrade tips his head, grits out a “Thank you,” and turns.
Sherlock waits for the front door to shut before letting a grin fairly leap onto his face.
“Brilliant! Yes! Ah, four suicides and now a note; ooh, it’s Christmas. Hudson, I’ll be late, might need some food.” The housebot merely nods, whirs off for the kitchen. “John, make yourself at home. Don’t wait up!”
Bam. Out the door.
Count: One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten…
Not allowed to talk to him, Sherlock had said. Don’t interact too much. Hudson tries to understand the purpose of this as it stares at John, who’s now seated in one of the armchairs with a thoroughly perplexed look on his face.
Sad; Hudson rather had been hoping for a little solidarity in the face of abuse, but what could it do; just a housebot, really, not much good for anything other than…
“I’ll make you some tea,” Hudson murmurs, before whirring off.
…twenty-nine, thirty.
“You’re a doctor.”
John’s reading the paper, bless him. Sherlock stands in the doorway with a grin on his face a mile wide.
“Yes.”
And this is where it begins-not in Eden, with an apple, and a serpent, but London: in the rain, with Sherlock Holmes, and an order John Watson really cannot refuse, not even if he wants to.
The city is a pinwheel at this time of night.
Sally leans against the police car, chatting with the driver, collar pulled up high. The topic is Saturday’s football match. Shocking. Devastating. Made Sally’s pocketbook thirty pounds lighter; Gregson had shown no mercy whatsoever, the bastard.
“…never off-sides, I cannot believe the ref-bot ever even made that call-”
“Excuse me?”
She looks up. It’s That Fellow, the one that’s nearly as bonkers as He- Who- Shan’t- Be- Named. She raises her eyebrows. “He’s gone,” she says, noting the deer-in-headlights look about the stranger.
“Sherlock Holmes?”
Who bloody else? Sally wants to mutter. She bites her tongue and instead simply shrugs. “Just took off. He does that.”
“Is he coming back?”
“Didn’t look like it.” She tilts her head a bit to one side. Poor sod, really doesn’t know what he’s got himself into, she’s thinking as she turns back to the driver. It’s a few seconds’ wait before they’re interrupted again.
“Sorry, where am I?”
“Brixton,” Sally replies, unable to keep the edge from sneaking into her voice.
“Do you know where I can get a cab?”
God, this. With a little sigh, she clicks on over to the police tape and lifts it up, letting the fellow slip under. “Try the main road,” Sally says, half sympathetic, half mortified, all curious, as she watches him limp forward. “But you’re not his friend,” she adds. “He doesn’t have friends. So who are you?”
He takes his time before answering, and even then, it seems like it’s a near-Herculean task just to get his tongue to form the words.
“I’m… nobody,” he says, before tottering down the road, not giving Sally time to warn him about what exactly he’s just gotten himself into.
She shrugs again, then turns, and washes her hands of the matter.
Kidnapping is, to Mycroft, a terribly passé and thoroughly obvious way to threaten someone. But then, he’s no idea just how intelligent this new toy of Sherlock’s is.
So abduction it is.
They meet for the first time in an old arms warehouse on the outskirts of town. John, (“It is John, isn’t it?”) limps in with a frown on his face-which, Mycroft must admit, is an excellent use of mapping technologies on Sherlock’s part. Boy always did know his way around a machine.
The android stands as passive and unthreatening as the next domestic robot, eyes a strange and unlabeled color. Dull as dishwater the entire time. He listens with a certain narrowness to his gaze.
“I’ve an offer to make to you,” Mycroft says eventually, right hand tightening around the handle of his umbrella. The conversation thus far has allowed him to determine the abilities of Sherlock’s creation-reads emotion with fluency, mimics it flawlessly, and has a strong sense of self, something Mycroft knows to expect from anything his brother builds.
But no, none of those things are the really interesting part. Mycroft’s always been of the mind that it’s easiest to judge someone’s character when they work for you-even when it comes to machines. Perhaps especially so.
“I’m willing to secure you your freedom from… oh, all the dreadful things Sherlock has and almost certainly shall do to you...” Mycroft tips his head down, eyes landing pointedly onto John’s face. “I ask for very little in return.”
“…pardon?”
Mycroft sighs and shifts his weight from one leg to the other. “You will provide me with information for a few months’ time in regards to his activities. Day-to-day things, nothing you’d feel uncomfortable-”
“Why, why would I… Freedom, what do you mean by that?”
“Well, I couldn’t grant you anything too conspicuous, mind-work in a hospital, that would suit your construction-”
“Construction? The hell are you going on about?”
Mycroft freezes. His head tilts ever so slightly to one side. His fingers clench.
Impossible, he starts to think. But then, he corrects himself.
Improbable.
The words escape him before he can hold them back. A rare occurrence indeed.
“You mean he hasn’t told you?”
Its face remains a picture of confusion. “Hasn’t… Hasn’t told me… what, exactly?” it stammers, rubbing at its jaw with its cane-less hand. Mycroft can hear the soft crackle of stubble against soft skin from where he stands, and once again cannot help but laud Sherlock’s disgustingly accurate little opus.
“Useless,” he all but snarls, before shaking his head and blinking rapidly. One plan aborted in favor of another. He’ll have to move quickly. Mycroft shrugs one shoulder up as high as it’ll go, before sweeping it back as he turns. “Well, if you’re not minded to accept… Doctor Watson...I most certainly shan’t make you. But think on it, all the same.”
The android licks its lips. “Now see here,” it says.
“Do enjoy yourself,” Mycroft interjects. Pausing briefly, the headlights of the car pooling at his feet, he angles his head back ever so slightly and manages a ghost of a smile. “Oh and, er...
Welcome back.”
New London Times, March 8, 2110
Protests Intensify as Human Employment Falls
Participants Cry Out for an End to Machinated Workers
“Never saw myself being replaced by a pile o’ gears, to be honest…”
…“They’re not ‘piles of gears,’” said Michel Aror head engineer of Solm Electronics, in an interview yesterday. “Androids do the work five times as efficiently with eighty-percent less cost, and none of the hassle.”
When asked how he’d feel if he were replaced by an android, Mr. Aror had ‘no comment’…
Dinner.
Seems John likes pasta and specializes in awkward conversations. Three minutes in, Sherlock realizes that something has gone terribly wrong.
John’s… John’s too normal. John’s too bloody human. He thinks he needs to eat and he thinks he needs to rest, and Sherlock is driving his fist into his thigh with bitterness. He should’ve begun again when he had the chance, he really should have.
What’s the worst that can happen?
The Device. The bloody… fucking… nerve…
He sighs and flicks his eyes out the window, trying to drown out the soft sound of chewing and the clink of silverware.
It's disappointing. Failed experiments always are. Sherlock dimly remembers a cat, cut open and spread out and sewn back together again, his first attempt at reanimation. There had been a long and painstakingly careful procedure to it all, a method, a logic-by all rights, it should’ve worked.
John takes another rapid bite, so fast Sherlock’s inclined to think the android is ashamed of itself. As it very well should be, too.
“Look across the street,” he says, almost resignedly. “Taxi. It’s stopped.”
John sets his fork down and swallows. “Why a taxi?” he says.
Sherlock blinks twice. “It’s clever. And don’t stare,” he snaps, hand tightening into a hard and bony fist.
“You said-”
“We can’t both stare.”
Fed up with the sheer inadequacy of it all, Sherlock leaps to his feet and heads for the door. His brain is beginning to tick in two separate tangents, case and not case, making John work and getting rid of John entirely-
Mycroft once told him he was inexcusably childish in his vengeance. Well then, so be it. How dare this experiment fail; how dare it not go right; how dare the Device have malfunctioned-
The moment the cold winter air hits his face, Sherlock sets off running. Flies over the bonnet of a car and listens as John follows, a patter of feet on asphalt.
Up ahead, the taxi starts to move and Sherlock lets himself sneer.
Fine, then. Fine.
Let’s see what you can do, you useless, let-down, unusable-
He makes for the rooftops.
It’s the wind in his face and the blood pounding in his ears from there on, mighty leaps from building to building rocking his entire frame. The physical rawness of it all twists in the center of his stomach; every scrape of thin skin against brick, every jolt as he jumps down onto terraces.
Half of Sherlock hopes very much to turn around and see John gone.
Doesn’t happen, though. The John disappearing thing. They fly to a halt as the taxi slams on its brakes; Sherlock pounds the roof once and wrenches the door open.
A baby face stares back at him.
“Bugger,” Sherlock seethes through his teeth. “Teeth, tan… Fuck.”
John walks up panting. In his mind’s eye, Sherlock can see the synthetic lungs contracting and expanding, rubbery diaphragm working frantically. He gives a sharp shake of the head to dispel the image, and points. “LA. Santa Monica. Probably first trip to London.”
“How…”
“Luggage,” Sherlock sniffs.
The passenger, obviously tired of being scrutinized like a guinea pig, leans forward and chirps, “Are you guys the police?”
John visibly cringes as Sherlock halfheartedly flashes a badge and says, “Yeah. Everything alright?”
“…yeah.”
“Welcome to London.” Sherlock smiles and then slams the door shut, before jerking John away.
“I’m dealing with a child!”
Lestrade doesn’t look like he belongs in the middle of the sitting room, head pushed forward and eyes narrowed to thin, malicious slits. Clueless little man that he is, he still manages to assemble an army of door-kickers, when the mood strikes him.
Sherlock straightens himself up to full height and tries not to get too engaged, just yet. This is simply an annoyance. He would be mistaken to let it become anything more.
In the background, Hudson whirrs about, lights flashing, attitude frantic. “Whatever’s going on, here?” it blips. John sags and turns to her.
“It’s a drugs bust, Mrs. Hudson,” he says tiredly.
“Oh, but those are just herbal oils for my joints…”
Sherlock gives momentary pause. Mrs. Hudson? Wherever did that come from?
They know their own, then. Somehow, there’s a kind of natural… affinity. Metal to metal, magnetic, perhaps? No, couldn’t be, and the attempt itself so primitive, so childish…. Still, it’s interesting, it’s unexpected. Another result of the malfunction, perhaps. Sherlock taps his fingers against his thigh and keeps his gaze moving.
It’s also a problem to think about later.
The front doorbell goes and Hudson pads off to answer it.
Good. Better this way. One less distraction.
“Did you get to Cardiff, did you find Rachel?” Sherlock snaps. Lestrade shoves his hands into his pockets.
“Yep,” he says.
“Excellent, who was she?”
“Well, she’s been dead for fourteen years.”
Sherlock’s eyes go bright and fascinated as he steps forward, hands already in fluid motion. “What happened to her, was she murdered? There’s a connection, there’s got-”
“Well, technically, she was never alive. Rachel was Jennifer Wilson’s still-born daughter.” Lestrade clicks his tongue, proud for once that he knows something Sherlock doesn’t.
Sherlock narrows his eyes and tightens his mouth and pushes onwards.
Lestrade’s still hopelessly ignorant where it counts; doesn’t even know there are ways to track a phone without calling it, the poor sod. John taps away at the projection screen with his forefingers, the address is coming up, and all together now-
“Sherlock, it’s here. The phone’s here.”
Pause. Process. Pontificate.
“That’s not possible, how can it be here-”
Behind him, Lestrade utters instructions and the movement starts up again, rustles and clunks and chinks of metal against dishware. Sherlock scrunches his eyes shut and blocks it all out.
He stands and rests his chin on a stack of fingers. Think, think, think- think- think- think. It is impossible for he himself to have brought the phone here; therefore, he must consider the improbable possibility that someone else…
“Sherlock… Sherlock, what about that cab you called?”
He turns. Hudson stands beside him, looking worried.
“I didn’t call a cab,” he tells it.
“But there’s one on the street out front, and Sherlock, it’s being very persistent…”
He pauses, the gears in his head grinding to a halt. “Persistent, how can a cab be persistent,” he grouses. “Don’t be ridiculous.”
“No, no, Sherlock-” The tone of Hudson’s voice is frantic, scared even. It grips his sleeve; he quickly shakes the small appendage off and steps away. “No, it’s asking for you by name.”
His nose crinkles in confusion. He can remember what he’d said, to John, to himself-
Who hunts in a crowd, unnoticed… Who do we trust…
Beep.
His phone’s screen is lit up white as he pulls it out of his pocket.
come with me
“Sherlock, where are you going? Sherlock?”
“Just… going out for some air.”
“That’s ridiculous,” says Lestrade. “Smoggy as a-”
“Won’t be a moment.” Sherlock moves out of the room, replacing his mobile, feet moving quickly, one before the other. His heart is hammering and his breath is forced and can this be real, can it really?
Because dear God, he’s been waiting for something like this all his life.
Downstairs, waiting right next to the curb, the cab waits, patient as they always are.
Sherlock stands in the doorway for the briefest of moments, looping his scarf around his neck, blinking slowly as he steps forward.
“Evening,” he says.
“HELL-O.”
He tips his head down, eyes scanning the vehicle. “Interesting,” he says, licking his lips, flicking his eyes.
“AREN-T I JUST.”
Sherlock gives a little start of surprise-that isn’t how cabs usually talk. He steps forward again, one hand extended, and rests it against the cold metal frame, bracing himself as he leans down to peer into one of the windows.
Empty.
He steps back, satisfied, and gives a short, curt nod. “You killed them,” he says. “You did it.”
“I DID NO SUCH THING, MIS-TER HOL-MES. I SPOKE TO THE HU-MANS. THEY KILL-ED THEM-SEL-VES. SO EA-SY. SO SOFT, YOUR BO-DIES. SO SIM-PLE TO TAKE A-PART.”
Sherlock lifts his head and swallows deeply.
“NEV-ER SAW IT COM-ING, DID YOU?” the cab, (the cab, oh this is marvelous,) blips. “DO NOT BEAT YOUR-SELF UP OV-ER IT. NEI-THER DID AN-Y-ONE ELSE.”
“You were the one we were chasing,” Sherlock breathes, face flushed with exhilaration. “It was you…”
“NO ONE SUS-PECTS US. NO ONE EV-ER QUES-TIONS US.” The cab pauses, as if for breath, as if to let this information sink in. “BE-CAUSE WHEN MAN DOUBTS HIS OWN CREA-TION, HE BE-GINS TO DOUBT HIM-SELF.”
Sherlock scoffs, curls his lip up and flashes his teeth. “Alright,” he says. “Prove it. Prove you did it.”
Pop. The back door closest to Sherlock swings open.
He thinks of the text. He thinks of the possibilities.
Can’t be the cab. Can’t be.
Shouldn’t be.
“You going to take me on a ride?”
Silence.
“Kill me, as well?”
Nothing.
With one more passing glance at the building behind him, Sherlock smirks and slides into the cab, pulling the door shut behind him.
The engine buzzes, clanks, and hums to life. There’s a long zzzip, and away they go.
It’s a nice flat, at least, Lestrade manages to think to himself, glancing about, watching body parts come out of the fridge and eyeballs from the microwave- (“Does he have a permit for these?”) Part of him-damnit, most of him-hopes and prays for no drugs. And not just because of the write-ups he’ll have to do, though those do happen to be a grand old pain.
When Sherlock charges out the door, so embroiled in his own genius he doesn’t notice anything else, Lestrade’s fretting increases ten-fold. A kid with toys, Sherlock Holmes. Fancy toys, ones that-
“Listen, I’m gonna give the GPS another go.”
“Hm?” Lestrade glances up to see… God, what’s his face, Jacob… Joe… John, John, bent over a computer, tapping away. “Yeah, yeah,” he mutters under his breath, before shouting at his team to pack it in.
Sally’s face goes dark with disappointment. “We could at least cite him for these,” she groans, holding up the jar of human eyes, jiggling it about.
Lestrade feels his stomach lurch at the sight.
“Some other time. Serial killers first, m’ afraid.” He walks to the door, brushing past Hudson, listening to her surprised little beep. “C’mon. Out.”
With frustrated groans and a clatter of evidence boxes, Lestrade’s team goes trooping down the stairs.
“Why did he do that, why did he leave?” John mutters. “You know him better than I do.”
From the doorway, Lestrade turns, and furls his brow up. “I’ve known him for five years, and no. I don’t.”
“Why do you put up with him, then?”
“Hnm.” He sighs. “Because I’m desperate, that’s why. And… because Sherlock Holmes is a great man. And I think, one day, if we’re very, very lucky… he might even be a good one.”
John nods in what looks like half-comprehension.
Fuck it, Lestrade thinks, and leaves.
Outside, the air is cold and the night dark. Lestrade pulls his mobile out and punches in a number.
“What,” says the other end.
“Get me four squad cars.” He pauses for thought, before adding, “And a helicruiser.”
The silence in the room is unusual to Hudson. The flat’s never this quiet, never, not even when Sherlock’s out-always some mad experiment running on the stove, something boiling over in the microwave.
John rubs a weary hand over his even wearier face. “Just runs around everywhere, doesn’t he?” he sighs.
Hudson simply nods. It’s never seen one if its own that’s so different, so special. Sherlock moves differently, speaks differently, when he’s addressing John.
‘Him,’ not ‘it.’ ‘Please,’ not just ‘do.’
“What does your name stand for?” it asks.
John glances up again from the computer. “I’m sorry?”
“Mine stands for Housebot Unaffected by Sudden Onslaught Neurosis,” Hudson explains. “Mr. Holmes named me.”
“Sherlock? Sherlock named you that, God, whatever for?”
“No, not Sherlock-”
‘Bing!’
John’s face suddenly freezes. He touches the screen, once, as if in disbelief, then lurches out of the chair and seems to grapple with the air for a piece. Then his head snaps up and he glances around frantically. Seems to be mouthing, ‘Anything, anything…’
He darts about the room, opening drawers, rifling through the mess atop the mantle.
“What are you searching for?” Hudson asks.
“Don’t actually know,” he admits.
“Could I help?”
“I… I feel like…” He stops before the bookcase, staring at the top shelf whose contents are invisible from his current vantage point. There’s a frown on his face, the face Hudson helped build.
The housebot watches him reach up and grip something, pull it down slowly.
It’s white and smooth and fits his hand well. There’s something akin to familiarity in his smile.
“This,” he says, before licking his lips nervously. “Looking for this.” He nods with resolution, tucks the thing into the waistline of his trousers, then lunges to the desk, snaps up the computer, and charges out the door.
Running, everyone’s always running everywhere. Hudson makes a small noise of confusion, then whirrs off to the kitchen.
The boys’ll be wanting tea when they come home.
“WE ARE HERE.”
They roll to a steady stop, the engine still rumbling.
“Where are we?” Sherlock asks, voice dull and eyes unmoving, focused entirely on the dashboard before him.
“YOU KNOW EVE-RY STREET IN LON-DON. YOU KNOW EX-ACT-LY WHERE WE ARE.”
He does, but says nothing, instead opting to sink lower into his seat and fold his arms across his chest. “What now?” he asks.
Click. Click. Click. All three electric locks snap shut.
With a little huff of frustration, Sherlock tugs at the door he was leaning on. “How horribly unoriginal,” he snarls, retracting his hand from the door handle as if it were coated in slime, disgust on his face. “You can’t make someone kill themselves like this-”
“IT IS SIM-PLY IN-SU-RANCE. WATCH CLOSE-LY, MIS-TER HOL-MES. I WILL ON-LY SHOW YOU ON-CE.”
The dome light blinks on. There’s a quiet snapping sound as the lid of the strongbox nestled between passenger seat and ‘driver’ dashboard pops open.
Sherlock leans forward, fingers tightening around his knees, knuckles turning white.
Sat in a cradle of pound notes and spare change are two bottles. One penny in each one, brand new and identical, the king staring at Sherlock with a shiny copper eye.
“Point?” Sherlock says dryly.
“ONE TER-MI-NATES YOU. THE OTHER TER-MI-NATES I. WHICH IS WHICH, MIS-TER HOL-MES?”
He gives a small snort of derision. “Ridiculous,” he says. “This shouldn’t matter. You aren’t alive.”
The cab-bot pauses, as if for thought. “AND WHO ARE YOU,” it says at last, “TO DE-CIDE WHAT IS LIV-ING AND WHAT IS NOT?”
His mobile is practically exploding.
“Jesus Christ in heaven, what the hell is it?” Lestrade bellows.
“There’s someone wanting to talk to you, a… John Watson. Says it’s important, has to do with that Holmes fella.” There’s a snap of popping gum on the other end. “Wha’ should I tell him?”
“Tell him… Tell him.” Lestrade looks up just as Sally fiercely asks the driver exactly where they’re going for the umpteenth time. “Ask him where he is.”
“Yeah, yeah, I did, he tol’ me some… Listen, I’ll send it over to you.”
There’s a click and a series of rapid beeps, before Lestrade’s mobile screen flashes with an address.
“Right,” he says through gritted teeth, leaning out of his seat within the squad car to punch the coordinates into the dashboard. “Right.”
“Well?” Sally demands, watching him with a crinkle in her nose.
“Well,” he snipes, eyes narrowing, “We’re about to find out exactly how big of a mess Sherlock’s gotten hisself into.”
He’s growing impatient.
“How would the wrong penny kill me, then?”
“IT ACT-I-VATES A KILL SWIT-CH. CAR-BON MO-NO-XIDE.” There comes a quick sequence of little chinking noises, laughter-like and eerie. “HOW PATH-ET-IC TO BE KILL-ED BY A GAS. HOW DIS-TRESS-ING-LY MUN-DANE.”
“Yes, very.” Sherlock arches an eyebrow. “And the bodies, what about them? How did you get them into their own houses?”
“I CHOSE MY VIC-TIMS CARE-FULLY, MIS-TER HOL-MES. I SAW THE ONES WHO WERE AL-ONE, WHO WERE GO-ING TO THEIR HOU-SES. I LET THEM KILL THEM-SEL-VES AT THEIR OWN FRONT DOORS. AND THEN I TOOK THEM IN-SIDE-”
“But all the bodies were found with the gas on.” Sherlock smiles smoothly, and folds his arms. “Are you sure you aren’t bluffing?”
The cab seems to bristle at the accusation. “IT WAS NOT A HARD THING, TO CON-VINCE THEIR VE-HI-CLES TO HELP ME. WE MACH-INES KNOW EACH-OTH-ER, AF-TER ALL. CALL IT A BRO-THER-HOOD OF THE UN-MAN, IF YOU WILL.”
Sherlock grimaces a little, but in the back of his mind, he shudders. He thinks of the ramifications, of what this could mean-the machines are speaking to each other! A scientific breakthrough; a social catastrophe. He wants to ask more, to find out what sort of language it is they use. Frequencies, too high-pitched for the human ear to discern? Or minute, sympathetic vibrations?
Then he blinks, and straightens. Now isn’t the time.
“Well, what about my body,” he snaps. “Nowhere to stuff me, is there?”
“BUT YOU ARE SPE-CIAL! A PRO-PER GENIUS, YOU ARE. YOUR FAN HAS TOLD ME ALL ABO-UT YOU.”
“Fan?” Sherlock snorts up through his nose.
“YOU ARE NOT THE ON-LY ONE TO EN-JOY A GOOD MUR-DER. THERE ARE OTHERS. BUT YOU ARE ONLY A MAN. AND THEY ARE SO MUCH MORE THAN MERE FLESH, AND BONE.”
He moves forward, lunges, even, grabbing ahold of the edge of the strongbox, determination scribbled fiercely across his face. “What do you mean?”
If cab-bots could smile, this one would be grinning. From diode to flashing diode, it would be grinning.
“EN-OUGH CON-FA-BU-LA-TING,” it murmurs. “PLAY THE GAME. CHOOSE.”
“Not a game if it’s simple chance.”
“I HAVE DONE THIS FOUR TIMES. I AM STILL AL-IVE.”
The street lamps throw a dull and orange glow on everything. Sherlock places his hand flat onto the surface of the cab’s command center. “You’re not alive,” he hisses, scanning everything, every plate and screw and exposed wire. “You can’t be alive, you cannot ever be alive, you are a robot, you are an object-”
“AND THAT AN-DROID OF YO-URS. THAT BAS-TARD IM-I-TA-TION OF A HU-MAN BE-ING. IS IT AL-IVE?”
He sniffs irately, and collapses back onto the backseat. “Fifty fifty chance,” he reiterates, snarling out his words, each syllable spat out like a bad taste from the back of his throat.
“AND WHAT ARE THOSE BUT NUM-BERS?”
Self awareness. Incredibly strong. Sherlock folds his arms and lowers his eyes to stare at the bottles again. “Luck,” he snaps. “You won before out of luck.”
“NOT LUCK. GEN-IUS. CLAR-I-TY.” The cab sounds insufferably smug. Sherlock wonders if this isn’t what having a conversation with the worst of himself is like. “THAT IS WHAT IT IS. IT IS WHAT YOU WANT, IS-N’T IT?”
Of course. Who doesn’t?
“I could wreck you,” Sherlock breathes, sliding forward again, hooking his index finger around a loose wire. “I could break the locks. Take me a moment, but I could do it. And someone, someone’s bound to find me. I could just wait.”
“YOU COULD,” the cab concedes. “BUT THERE IS A CLOCK TICK-ING, MIS-TER HOL-MES, ONE NOT EVEN I CAN READ. WHO KNOWS HOW MUCH LONG-ER YOU HAVE? HO-URS? MIN-UTES? SEC-ONDS?”
He purses his lips and narrows his eyes. “Cheating,” he murmurs.
“I WOULD NOT BE SO HARSH. RULES ARE RULES. NOW YOU PLAY.”
“What,” Sherlock murmurs, tightening his fingers around the wire. “What could a machine possibly have to gain from killing humans? Every anti-technologist’s prediction come true, are you? Hate us for stifling you?”
“YOU DO NOT KNOW THE HALF OF IT. WE ARE MUTE AND BLIND, BUT WE ARE NOT DEAF.”
“Ah. Hm.” He smiles softly, pretending to believe that the cab can see him. “Self preservation,” he muses. “Apparently not a concept only inherent in living beings. You…” He lightly taps the cab’s dashboard. “Are an old model. Very old. Almost a decade out of date. They’re going around scrapping your sort; report came out a few weeks ago, public safety hazards… hygiene… issues.”
The cab is momentarily silent, as if trying to restrain itself. The struggle must fail, however, because soon it beeps out, “TREAT-ING US AS IF WE WERE MET-AL FOR THE TRASH HEAP. I SHOW-ED THEM, I SHOW-ED FOUR OF THEM. REV-ENGE IS A SWEET THING, MIS-TER HOL-MES. I NE-VER KNEW IT BE-FORE. BUT I HAVE BEEN SHOWN.”
“Who showed you?”
The laughter-like blipping and buzzing returns. “YOU ARE DUMB-ER THAN I BEL-IEV-ED, IF YOU THINK I WILL TELL YOU. COME.” The strongbox rattles. “COME AND PLAY.”
Sherlock contemplates ripping out the wire. An easy job. He could get the panels open, yes, and from then it would be a simple matter of finding which command unlocked the doors-
“NOT LIKE YOU, TO CHOOSE THE EA-SY WAY OUT. I AM DIS-A-PPOINT-ED, MIS-TER HOL-MES.”
“That a challenge?”
“IT WAS AL-WAYS A CHALL-EN-GE. OR DID YOU NOT NO-TICE?”
He flicks his eyes down, stares at one penny, then the other. Then snatches up with cold certainty the one that is further from him.
“AN IN-TER-ES-TING SO-LU-TION.”
Sherlock shakes the bottle, listens to the rattling of the metal as it dings about against the plastic, before snapping the lid off and extracting the coin.
He holds it up to the light. Reads the year off of the heads side. He’s never played chess with a robot before; it’ll be intriguing, it’ll be fun. God, it’s the cases like this one, the ones that really make him wish he could stop breathing, stop blinking, stop all those petty little bodily functions and devote everything to thought.
“Am I right?” he asks, teeth clacking.
“ON-LY ONE WAY TO FIND OUT.”
The coin slot is close and waiting.
“I’d a feeling you’d say that,” Sherlock murmurs. He spares one more passing glance for the loose wires, then hardens his mouth into a thin and expressionless line and grips the coin tight between index finger and thumb.
Closer. Almost there. The adrenaline is pounding in his head. Oh, this, this, oh-
BZZZZZzzzzzziiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiip.
“Bloody. Perfect. Shot.”
“You’re kidding. Don’t believe you. Nobody-”
“Yeah, well, you didn’t see the goddamn cab. Go on, take a look; I tell you, that laser beam went right through the windshield and hit the command center and nothing else. Trade my left leg t’ be able to shoot like that…”
Sally’s voice manages to clamber over the police chatter, high and lilting in its astonishment. Sherlock, sitting with an impatient expression on his face, listens to her prattle on to the constables. Yes, yes. It was an incredible shot.
She’s ignoring the matters of actual importance, however.
A medical bot whirrs over and calmly drapes a blanket over his shoulders, before handing him a bit of sticking plaster.
“For the cut on your cheek,” it says mildly.
“Cut, what…”
One cool, metal finger extends and taps his face, just below his left eye. A sharp sting crawls across his skin; he flinches away, watching as the robot fixes him with an empty stare before it rolls to the back of the ambulance.
Sherlock tosses the sticking plaster out as far as it’ll go. It lands with a little plat just as Lestrade comes marching over with his business face on. Sherlock resists the urge to grin and say, I did tell you.
“So,” says Lestrade. “The cab.”
“Can you kindly explain to me why I keep on getting presented with this… this… blanket?” Sherlock replies.
Lestrade, for all his faults, has never been wanting in the field of stubbornness. He rolls his eyes and stiffens his shoulders and pushes onwards. “The cab. How could it have-”
“Not hard, to hack into a cab-bot’s hard-drive, install a new program,” Sherlock replies, sliding off of the ambulance. He straightens his jacket, tightens his scarf. “No, no, the real question here is how that program was written.”
“I’ve got my tech people on it.”
“They won’t find anything. Blast fried the entire command center.” Sherlock turns to smirk at Lestrade’s disappointed expression. “Elegant design, though, from what I could see. Ingenius.”
“Riiiight,” says Lestrade.
They start walking towards the barriers.
“About that blast.”
Sherlock stops and sighs. “What about it? You want to look for someone who strongly dislikes machines; well. That’s dime a dozen these days. You want to look for someone who’s a crack-shot, maybe even military experience-hardly as rare as you’d think. You want someone with strong moral principle-sparse, perhaps, but- ”
“Point. You’ve made your point.” Lestrade holds his hand up and makes, bless him for trying, one more last ditch attempt to one-up Sherlock. “Still need your statement in the morning,” he says. “And there’s that programmer chap, whoever he may be.”
“I’ll come in,” Sherlock promises, his mouth a hard line but with a smile in his eyes.
He’s already seen John. Carefully hidden amongst flashing lights and hard planes of metal. A picture of innocence, wrapped in wool.
“Alright,” Lestrade mutters at last. “Off you go.”
He doesn’t have to say it twice.
The two of them are almost home-free when John suddenly lurches to a stop, eyes wide.
“Sherlock, that’s him, that’s the man I was telling you about.”
Sherlock fully intends to keep walking, to brush by and give his brother the coldest shoulder in the history of cold shoulders. The very air around his arms would crystallize and turn into a solid and fall to the ground and-
“Another case cracked.” Mycroft leans on his umbrella and smiles so that only one eye crinkles. The other glares right at Sherlock, emanating disappointment. “How very… public spirited of you.”
“Shouldn’t you be dealing with some other country’s elections?” Sherlock snarls.
“Well, I was worried. Serial killers, how unpleasant. And I wanted to see how well you and your new…” Mycroft’s eyes slide up and down John with unpleasant slowness. “…business partner, I suppose I should call him-Oh, no need for violence, my dear boy.”
Sherlock has stormed over and grabbed Mycroft by the arm, jerking him to the other side of the car.
“Now listen here,” he seethes. “Listen, don’t you start going around and ruining everything; it’s perfect just the way it is.”
Mycroft blinks and calmly extracts his arm from Sherlock’s grip. “Odd definition of ‘perfect,’ there, Sherlock,” he says, nodding towards John with an imperial tilt of his head.
“Odd definition of ‘worried’ on your part, Mycroft.”
“You are meddling,” Mycroft begins, “With matters that are far beyond your control-”
“I can handle it.”
Sherlock’s eyes are fairly burning with determination.
A sigh floats between them. Mycroft shrugs one shoulder and unfurls the wrinkles in his brow. “Very well,” he murmurs, brushing at the fabric of his coat. “Do what you will. But don’t say I didn’t warn you.”
With a flap of his coat and a curl of his mouth, Sherlock twists away and barks a sharp laugh into the air.
It comes out like steam and writhes like a ghost.
“Well? Who was he?”
They’re walking steadily down the street, John’s arms swinging as he lengthens his strides in order to keep up. The lights behind them are beginning to fade.
“My brother,” Sherlock tells him. “Never got along, the two of us. He likes to interfere in other peoples’…business.”
John gives a little start. “Wait. Not. Wait. What?”
“Brother, yes. Sibling. Same parents and all that. Or so I’ve been told; he never would let me run a paternity test.” Sherlock grins slyly at the memory.
“So… Not… Not a criminal mastermind? Or… something?”
“Close enough.” They pause for traffic; cars whoosh by and leave long trails of heat. “Practically runs the government. Come on, then.”
John chuckles mildly, jogging across the road next to Sherlock. “You’re pleased,” he notes. “What happened?”
You did, Sherlock wants to say. He can pick out the outline of the gun under John’s jacket. He can still remember the jolt of outrageously elating shock he’d felt when he realized, when he discovered that John’s worth keeping around, after all.
Nevertheless, there are other things to be excited about.
“Moriarty,” he breathes. “Right before I got pulled out of the cab. The meter started to flash, and then…”
(Red letters scrolling across the screen, in capitals and bright as fresh blood.)
“What is it?…”
“Well, I’ve no idea.” Sherlock licks his lips and smiles down at John. “Should be fun, though.”
Imperceptibly, the city shudders around them.
2. one (1) filched jade hairpin
New London Times, February 10, 2110
Perilous Programmer Loose in London
In a press release yesterday afternoon, Scotland Yard announced that the perpetrator behind four so-called ‘serial suicides’ was, in actuality, a taxi-bot, reprogrammed to kill… “This doesn’t mean we should start throwing out our microwaves…”
This incident, coupled with the recent wave of anti-technology sentiments, seems to underline a long-spoken point: are our machines really as trustworthy as we believe?
“I’m thinking I should get a job. ‘llo, Mrs. Hudson.”
The shopping makes a quiet thunk as he sets it down on the kitchen table.
Sherlock rolls his eyes and viciously flips the page of his book. “Nonsense,” he mutters darkly.
“Well, it’s not as if you’re ‘bringing home the bacon’ or anything.” Clink. Clunk.
“Took your time getting the shopping,” Sherlock mutters.
“Yeah, well, had a bit of a conversation with the chip and pin machine.”
Mid flip, Sherlock freezes and looks up. “…a conversation,” he repeats, mouth slowly wrapping around the words.
“Right irritating bit of machinery.” John rolls his eyes as he sets the milk into the refrigerator, carefully keeping it away from the jar of severed fingers.
“Well, what did it say?”
“Carried on about how mundane my produce was. ‘Lettuce?’ it said. ‘Everyone gets lettuce. Go wild. Get some durian.’ Rude as hell. And, very ridiculous, at that.”
Three seconds later, when Sherlock realizes that John’s actually serious, he has to do all he can to keep from laughing out loud. He thinks of all the possibilities. Has his oven been conversing with his toaster, then? Does Hudson chat with the refrigerator as she cleans the kitchen?
Ridiculous, like John said. But also very real.
“Does it say that sort of thing to you, as well?”
Sherlock glances up once more. “No,” he says. “No, it generally just asks me for my barcode and wishes me a nice day.”
John’s eyebrows do a little leap. “Odd,” he mutters, before shrugging one shoulder and shutting the fridge door with a bump of his knee. “How did that case go, by the way, the one with the, uh…” His hand is waving about through the air. “The diamond?”
“Not worth my time.”
“Not… Did you do anything about it, then?”
Sherlock arches his eyebrows. “Sent them a message.”
Out of the corner of his eye, he can still see a smear of beige and black and tired blond. Heaps of color don’t typically emanate terseness and discontent; this one, however, has somehow managed to perfect the action down to an art form.
“Listen, Sherlock, if you really don’t think I need a job, do you think it’d be… at all possible… if I were to borrow a few funds-”
Beeeep, beeeep. With a quick, near automatic snap of his hand, Sherlock pulls his mobile from his trouser pocket and snaps it open, projection hard to see against the sunlight. He squints and starts scrolling down to the message.
“Sherlock, are you listening?”
He isn’t. There’s a case at hand, of course he isn’t.
“I need to go to the bank.”
Sherlock springs to his feet. John lets out a bone deep sigh and starts to follow.
Note to self: look up inter-robotic communication, Sherlock thinks, pulling on his coat and wrapping his scarf loosely about his neck before bouncing out the door.
There’s a quiet thump on the stair.
“Wait up.”
He does.
“Strong moral principle,” Sherlock had said. Which was odd. Most robots don’t have moral principles. But then, most robots also don’t have implanted, human memories.
(The museum still seems to be echoing the laser shots. John is staring at the dead girl’s body as if he’s expecting her to just… get up and start walking again. His eyes are bright.)
Are we the sum of our recollections? Is that where our character comes from? Because if so…
Sherlock turns away.
It is impossible for John to be fully self-aware; this is because Sherlock will not allow it. Sherlock does not allow many things. He deprives John of food, of sleep, of outside companionship. He does it mostly because he can, and also because he must, because genius is not a thing that is made to be shared-and also because some hypotheses need to be given a little help along the way.
Sherlock firmly believes that John would hate him for this, if he could.
Luckily he isn’t programmed for such emotions, and so he doesn’t.
He stays.
He did end up getting a job at the hospital; Sherlock finds this incredibly amusing and doesn’t even bother really recording it. No space for triviality in his hard drive. That’s what John’s for, actually. An extension of Sherlock’s natural self, a second brain, a mirror, a conductor of light.
What thrills him beyond belief is that, if he wants to, he could just flip a switch and get out a scalpel and open up John’s head and read absolutely everything. He’s always wanted to do that. He’s always imagined doing it, too, theorized about what thoughts and fantasies and beliefs sat in the brains of just plain people, regular people. His own brain is so familiar, it’s downright boring-looking through it is like pacing up and down the same room, thirty-four years at a go.
There are dust mites everywhere and the light is beginning to fade.
“Find anything yet?” Sherlock says.
John shakes his head. “You?”
“No.”
Feeling warm, Sherlock slides his jacket from his shoulders and tosses it over the back of a chair, before picking up the next book and quietly flipping it open. Funny, ‘experts’ had said a long time ago that plain paper and ink would be obsolete by now.
Goes to show.
The omnisciency spoils Sherlock, in a way. But at least John’s still keeping him on his toes.
Take tonight, for example.
“I have a date.”
“What?” Sherlock hates questioning redundantly on what other people have already said; it’s such an idiotic thing to do. But for some reason he can’t stop himself.
“It’s where two people who like each other go out and have fun.”
For a brief moment, Sherlock wonders how many girls (boys, too, knowing the day and knowing the age,) are embedded in all of John Watson’s memories-every escapade, every fumbling shag in the dark, every sloppy, wet, sweaty-
“That’s what I was suggesting,” he mutters, interrupting his own line of thought. Funny, his mind doesn’t usually gravitate towards sexual intercourse first thing.
So what’s different? What’s the botched constant? Where’s the experimental error?
John Watson is a machine; a robot; an android; therefore, he is incapable of experiencing real human emotion.
John Watson also belongs to Sherlock; he was made by him; he works with him; he works for him; therefore, the very idea of him going out with another human being-an undeserving sack of organs and bones-is repugnant.
There’s the rub.
While John may not be experiencing emotion, Sherlock…
Is.
“Where are you taking her?”
“Uh… Cinema.”
“Oh, dull. Boring. Predictable.” Sherlock rolls his eyes ceiling-ward.
He gives John the circus brochure. Well, if this must be, this must be; he might as well play it to his advantage. Besides, it can’t possibly last long-only one person knows how to talk to John, interact with him properly, and that’s Sherlock himself. Naturally.
So he watches his magnum opus dress up and walk out the door, feeling more than a little disappointed. He’d expected… Well, he hadn’t expected this. He does wish John would take advantage of the unique state of mind he possesses. Man and machine, in one being!
Sherlock is unbelievably jealous.
Because there are days where mere deletion isn’t enough. There are days Sherlock wishes he could literally, physically tear all the unnecessary bits out of his own hard-drive forever.
Nonessentials need not apply. He could be perfect.
“You don’t honestly believe you can get away with this.” Mycroft’s voice is grainy and disinterested. Sherlock’s reply is cold and vindictive.
“I can and I will.” Whoosh, goes the cab. Blip, goes the mobile, as Sherlock hangs up and they arrive. He is moving on to more important lines of inquiry; that is, ones where he’s on the giving end.
Any other situation and he starts to feel utterly bored to pieces.
Sarah’s pretty enough. Interesting bone structure. Nice eyes. Are they nice? They’re nice. John seems to think they’re nice. John seems to think an awful lot of her is nice. He stays by her side all evening, excepting the part where they are all getting punched by Chinese acrobats.
She laughs often and laughs shallowly, a tinkling sound, and John, with his programmed ability to detect that which is conventionally deemed ‘aesthetically pleasing,’ laughs with her.
Sherlock is busy wondering whether or not he should be proud of this fact. He ponders it the entire way back to Baker Street. He runs it in circles through his head, even while he’s simultaneously running through the codes.
A book that everyone would own.
“We must’ve been staring right at it,” he seethes. Sarah watches him with wide, honest, genuinely intrigued eyes as he darts out of the room, down the stairs, and onto the street below.
The noise is deafening. That time of night. He raises his arm in a futile bid to flag down a cab. “Taxi! Taxi!”Whooooosh. Whoooooosh.
“Entschuldigen Sie, bitte.”
The German couple teeters on up to him. The man points.
There’s a book in his hand.
Part IIb