It is twelve minutes from the moment Sherlock Holmes tumbles from the roof of the hospital to the moment when Mycroft Holmes learns he's dead. It is another eighteen minutes to the moment Mycroft Holmes is told that he is alive. His staff fully expect to be just as deceased as Sherlock for a significant portion of that time. When it is over and he tells them they have done an excellent job, they feel as though something very large and terrifying has just walked past without giving them a second look. The lecture he gives them after the praise steals any relief; for the sins of being competent, they've moved up in the world. Welcome to the jungle; you thought the woods were deep before? Well, you're really in it now, children.
He is in a meeting when Anthea steps lightly into the room. She lifts an eyebrow and he lifts his linen serviette to his lips, removing any invisible traces of the delicious duck comfit from his thin lips. "Pardon me, ladies, gentlemen," he says in a plummy voice and rises. "It appears my attention is required. Please do carry on without me." Anthea hands him his umbrella at the door, and they leave.
The surveillance team tracking Sherlock - and, by extension, John - have had a rough week of it. Permanent surveillance on one normal criminal is costly and exhausting, and surveilling a running Sherlock Holmes has been found, through trial and error, to be exponentially more difficult than surveilling an entire normal gang of criminals. They've had some practice in the past, but this time there are professional assassins. At least six, last count, and that's probably not the lot of them. George from the ID section, a middle-aged man with a beige jumper and gold-rimmed spectacles, grumbles that his ordinarily quiet facial recognition system is chirping like the cage full of finches in his grandmother's flat. And he hates finches.
Their shop is dim, intentionally so; the better to see their monitors. The equipment they use is a combination of brand-new and dinosaur-era. They have a shiny, glowing data compiler in the middle of the room ("do not place drinks upon this compiler on pain of death" is written out on four yellow sticky notes, one for each side, all laminated and permanently affixed); but the office chairs they sit in are elderly, with spots worn almost through where years of shift workers have parked their bums. Their computers are the sort of thing you'd see on a space shuttle; but drinks have left permanent stains in rings beside the keyboards. The monitors cover half the wall, but the keys of the keyboards are illegible, the characters either rubbed away or concealed by some foul brown substance. It's too dark, thankfully, to tell which. It's not what Fred was expecting, he thinks ruefully, when he passed his A levels and applied for a job maintaining computers. Nothing glamorous at all, really. The team lead - in his case, Patty - is the only one who has her own desk, in a separate office.
Fred has only been there a couple months when it happens. Even so, he's seen enough to understand. All three feel the tension, are aware that something is different about this case long before the fall. The problem isn't knowing that there's a problem - the problem is figuring out what's different this time. Sherlock's life is such a bag of snakes and rats, says Patty in despair as they all discuss the feeling, that it's nearly impossible to spot the lizard in the mix. George snorts; Fred stares in awe and wonders how to work that particular metaphor into his next conversation down at the pub on quiz night.
The trouble with trying to work out anything to do with Sherlock is that - no, strike that, there's definitely more than one problem with trying to work out anything Sherlock's involved in. The first trouble, then, is speed. He's not really superhuman, Patty the lead says kindly to Fred when he first settles into the team. He's just so bleeding fast - in what he thinks, and says, and does - that you're left ten steps behind trying to catch a moving train. They could easily replicate every conclusion he's come to, she's sure of it, but it would take them an entire criminal forensics unit and a couple weeks every time. He's got the same thing done in minutes. Hours, if it's an off day. There's just no way to keep up.
The second trouble is motivation, determination thereof, for the prediction of future behaviours. You're never certain why he's doing something. Is it important or is it pointless? Of course everything's important, given enough time, but right now, to the matter at hand; is it necessary to know what exactly is in the old yogurt container in the fridge? What about the trip to the chip shop - work or hunger? What's significant and what's noise? In any ordinary surveillance it's relatively easy to work out what the important things in a person's life are and what the dross is. Not so here. Fred tells George after a couple months that he thinks it's because Sherlock doesn't ascribe importance to things on a permanent basis the way most people do; everything, in his mind, is situational. Something could be pointless most of the day and suddenly, for a minute, become critical, then drop back down to useless thirty seconds later.
Fred programs up a lovely graphic display, comparing the attention a number of normal criminals pay to the objects on their work route to the attention Sherlock pays to objects at a crime scene one day. It would, Fred says, be far more accurate to use a stable environment like his flat - but surveillance never seems to work properly in there. At any rate, it's a legitimate field of study, and there are peaks and valleys and flowing numbers and multiple colours; it's a wonder to watch. All the normal criminals show trends and patterns which, over time, can be predicted; Sherlock's charts are scattered. Fred is excited; says it's a truly random distribution, like none he's ever seen.
George keeps his mouth shut, but secretly he thinks it's a load of bollocks. He's been watching Sherlock for over a year now. He reckons that he's due for a promotion to a cushy managerial position after this, or medical retirement for his nerves. Either or. He suggests Fred run the program against John Watson; this keeps Fred busy for weeks. When he comes back, he says John has the most regular patterns he's ever seen, mostly; but the computer seems to think there's something off and refuses to use them as predictors. Fred thinks his program is broken and mournfully goes back to work on it.
The third problem in trying to surveil Sherlock Holmes is that he is a sneaky bastard. Look at him one second on thermal and he's lying around on his couch; look back after a sip of tea and he's gone, and it's not until facial recognition picks him up half a block away that you realize he's gotten out of the flat at all. George persuades Patty to tell the story of Fred's predecessor, Collins, an old-school Cold-War era gentleman who'd once been assigned to the team.
Collins never quite got the hang of the modern world of remote surveillance, Patty said ruefully and shook her head. He swore by his old little gadgets. Every one of them failed, one way or another. He blamed engineering; he blamed parts made in China. Eventually, he was told to stop. Still, he didn't give up. He designed and built his own little tracker, one he swore would work. Put it under the collar of Sherlock's favorite coat. When it turned up under the hat of a sheepherder in Surrey, he swore and stomped his feet and threw a fit and a coffee mug at the old data compiler. They got a new data compiler; Collins was gently retired later that month, with a full pension. Last she'd heard of him he was living up in Scotland, running a tab at a pub and swearing the government was concealing evidence of aliens. Patty was silent a moment. The design for his tracker, she said thoughtfully, was being used by the folks over in Afghanistan these days.
Fred was never sure how much he should believe of Patty's Sherlock stories, until after the fall. Then he believed them all.
It was the worst twenty-six minutes of his life. They've all been awake, taking shifts and living off coffee, tea and energy drinks for days now. Waiting for this to resolve itself. It's nothing new, there've been times like this before - the bomb in the pool, the week up in Baskerville. That had been frankly horrid because it was so unexpected. They had no coverage, no resources that far outside London. Whoever expected Sherlock bloody Holmes to go rusticate in the countryside? Fortunately, management had a man, and they were saved. Still. This feels different. They're all on edge.
And then it happens. One second he's got the audio feed from Sherlock's cell going and he's trying to aim the external capture to better pick up the spots of dialog muffled by Sherlock's coat pocket; the next Moriarty has blown his own head off, and Fred sits up straight with a gasp. This is it, he thinks, we've won, no we've lost the key forever, no it was a lie or Sherlock has it - but why did he *do* that? Then before he can really do more than gape at the monitor, Sherlock is telling flat-out conkers to John and there's no time because he's off the roof, arms and legs going as he falls, and nobody ever tells Fred that he screams a short sharp cry in a high-pitched register at this point. He slaps the all-call button.
George was just coming back in from getting coffee. Patty was crashed out on the sofa in the break room. The all-call sends a whooping alert through the small area, and George's coffee is in the bin and his hands are flying over the feeds while Patty stumbles in with her hair a mess and leans over their shoulders. Report, she says, and it takes Fred a full nine seconds to get the words out. Then it takes two to get back to the scene he wants and forty-four for Patty to watch it through and turn a terrible shade of grey. Then she shuts off the all-call. He's already on his way, she says dully. Oh gods. Oh, on our shift, we're - we need to get this perfect, she says into the ringing silence, her voice horrified. Absolutely perfect or he'll kill us all. And there's such conviction in her voice that they all turn back to their screens and work exactly as though their lives depend on it.
Every bit of surveillance is brought up. George breaks it down: lead-up, event, followup. Multiple camera angles. He passes it to Fred, who runs it into the mapper, which puts it all together into one presentation. All the audio sources, all the video feeds, and it comes out comprehensive and polished. Patty is at her rarely-used terminal, bringing up the police scanners, tying their feeds into the mix, calling in the second team for coverage and calling up the nearest external squad to send them flying down to the scene.
When the call comes in Patty has abandoned her terminal and is sitting in her office, hands clenched on the desk in front of her. Her eyes are tracking the screen on which she's seeing everything Fred and George are putting together. When the call comes in she closes her eyes, opens them, smooths her face, and accepts. It has been twelve minutes since the fall, nine since the all-call. The other end of the line is silent after her report for nearly four minutes. She does not ask if he is still there. He has begun to speak when George slaps open her door. She stares at him, horrified. You've got to see this, he says, urgently. She turns her head and looks frantically at the phone. Go, says the voice on the line, as though he can see her, and a shudder runs down her spine. She bolts form the room.
It's not much. The surveillance was mostly blocked by a truck but…. but. Things aren't adding up in the post-review, George says. Fred is staring at him, doubt on his face. George is firm, sure. Look, he says, look. John running, the bump - classic, says George, his plump face creasing in admiration. We've got a player here. Look at the placement of everything, look at what we can't see. His voice is urgent. Patty gives him an odd glance which he doesn't notice. It's right there, it's obvious, George says, and points to the screen, and Patty looks. Really looks.
It's eight scrambling minutes later before they get a clear ping off a side camera that has an oblique on the scene's reflection off a glass coffee shop door, three more before Patty can call it confirmed, and then it takes her a minute to get back into her office and calm herself down enough to word what she's got properly. Alive, she says, her voice awed. She speaks before wondering if he'll be there on the other end of the phone. He is there. He does not sound surprised; his voice is dry.
They are gathered in the break room, which often doubles as a conference room. It has a downtrodden sofa and an elderly fridge, kettle and microwave. There are cupboards. Management is standing there. He makes the room look shabby, wearing a tailored thousand-pound suit with his polished shoes planted on their cracked and yellowing tiles. Only Patty has ever met him before; she stands by the sofa with a slightly ill expression, and swallows with a click. Her tension communicates itself to the others. Fred and George sit stiffly on the sagging springs. There's a stunning woman in a very nice dress texting in the corner; she doesn't look up.
You did an excellent job, management tells them dryly. Impeccable work. Fred relaxes; George tenses. Patty seems to finally let exhaustion catch up with her. Management looks them over, his eyes assessing. Now though, management says, hands resting on his umbrella. Now we begin the real work. George's face turns grim; Patty straightens her spine. Fred looks around at them, confused. Management's smile twists. Best break it off with that girl for a while, management tells him gently. Glances at the others. You're the only three who know about this and you're the only three who will know, so it's all going to fall on you. You won't have a moment's free time from now until the entire empire is disassembled and all the pieces are lying at my feet.
They are silent; he scans them, meeting their eyes one by one. Sherlock Holmes is dead, he says, and only Fred's eyes widen. Patty and George look as though this is just confirmation for something they already knew. You will each receive a secure phone which you will keep on your person at all times. You will be officially reassigned. You will be operating from a different location from now on. It will be put about that this is a demotion; nothing could be further from the truth. You are, from this moment on, seconded to my person. Make whatever plans are necessary; you will all enjoy a significant lack of holidays and sleep. Management's smile is predatory. He looks them over; they stare back, wide-eyed.
Patty scrubs her hands through her hair and sighs, then nods. George slowly creaks to his feet, and Fred follows. Management eyes Patty; she gives his raised eyebrow a sharper, more committed nod. He nods in return. Excellent, he says jovially. Turns and leaves the room. The gorgeous woman who has stood silent in the corner gives them all a thoughtful once-over, then hands Patty a memory stick. "Plug it into the system; set it to wipe everything we want to hide and store everything we need," she says mildly. "Bring it with you when you report for work at the new location; we'll need that data." Then she's stepping out the door after management. Her voice drifts back to them. "I'd hurry if I were you." A moment later, Patty can hear the shift she'd called in coming noisily down the hallway wondering what the fuss is about; her eyes widen. She turns and bolts for the computer room, Fred and George on her heels.
"What do we do?" Fred whispers in a worried tone to George while Patty briefs the oncoming shift on the disaster and their replacement. The memory stick is burning a hole in Fred's pocket. "He wants us to… Patty's sabotaged the system, that's against the rules, we'll get into trouble - " George sends him a sharp look. "What do we do?" Fred can't help but repeat plaintively. Oncoming shift is looking stunned and voices sympathy, but edges away from them physically as though they've got the plague. Fred winces.
"Whatever management tells us to," George says, grimly. He looks at the younger man. "Well, you were always saying you wanted a bit more excitement, eh?"
Fred just looks ill. Excitement, he thinks, isn't exactly all it's cracked up to be.