UNDERWORLD
An Alternative Universe Sherlock Fanfic
Genres: Sci-fi, crime, romance, suspense
Pairings: John Watson/Sarah Sawyer, later Sherlock Holmes/John Watson
Ratings: T for now, but that might change depending on how evil I'm feeling
Plot:
John Watson works as an MD at a private clinic in 23rd century London. The medical practice is owned by Sarah Sawyer with whom John is dating, and everything seems to be going well for the young but accomplished Doctor - at least until John finds himself unexpectedly in the middle of a murder scene after his trip to Tiffany's.
Now nothing is like it once was.
Author's Note: So. This is the first story that I've ever managed to write more than 2,000 words of. Usually I get bored or/and get writer's block and have to start over with a new story, but I'm going to persist with this one. I'm not sure why I'm obsessing about getting UNDERWORLD out, but I guess there wasn't enough Sherlock sci-fi out there (or not enough of science fiction-fic all together), and this is my less than subtle way of hinting to you that something needs to be done about it. Like, now. So I can read more sci-fi fic. Or S/H-slash. Either or.
Speaking of firsts, this is also the first fic I'm putting out there for anybody else to read, so you should feel special! I hope you enjoy it and pop down to comment and review. : )
-Edit. No. 158
I keep having to edit because I'm really not as technically advanced as I'd like to think, and because I keep forgetting things like the Warnings:
Slash (S/H), vulgarity, descriptions of crime and graphic violence
- Hammering
CHAPTER ONE: THE LOOP
John was filling up paperwork on his touch pad data system about his latest patient, Mr. Domini Lear. He had been a corpulent man in his early forties, already with breathing difficulties and joint pain. From the expensive grey suit, the incessant ringing in his pocket and the nature of his phone conversation John gathered that he must be a company owner of some sort and a very important man, but who was weighed down, figuratively speaking, by the stress of the competitive nature of enterprising, and literally by emotional over eating and his thick wallet.
Mr. Lear's surname had been instantly associated with Lear AntiGravity Industries in John's mind, and a quick internet-enquiry on his phone confirmed that this Mr. Lear was indeed no other than the son of William Lear, the owner of Lear AGI. The fact that Mr. Lear had chosen the Sawyer Private Clinic out of all the existing clinics was a compliment of the highest degree and said something of the clinic's reputation. Sarah was sure to be pleased when he told her about his new patient.
John tapped open the patient file of Domini Lear and wrote under 'notes':
Patient is obese and has athralgia because of excess weight and a sedentary lifestyle. He says to be suffering from abdominal pain, loose stools, facial pallor and fatigue for the last few days. No masses detected upon palpitation. Some bloating. Irritable bowel syndrome or Chron's likely suspects, but lab tomorrow to test blood for celiac disease. Salicylic acid recommended for common warts on palms.
John had given Mr. Lear a tailored, gluten-free diet and exercise plan to follow until his bariatric surgery, and had requested that he keep a food and health-diary until his next check up.
With advanced CAT and MRI-machines, stem cell-treatment, gene therapy and oncolytic viruses being the corner stones of modern medicine, the process of diagnosing and treating patients was fairly fast and the majority of the population lived to an old age. Still, there were plenty of infectious diseases, cancer-cases and weight-related illnesses to come by, and especially, John sighed, in the less wealthy part of the nation who didn't have the resources to pay to have the genetic predispositions for ailments removed from their genotype, or the money to pay for new and expensive treatments.
John rubbed his tired eyes, checking the chronometer on his computer screen. Just a few patients left and John was good to go.
After a man with gout and a boy with systemic lupus, John went to the locker room to change into a pair of black shoes (that needed a shining, John noted) and hang his coat, after which he headed to Sarah's office.
The administrator's office was the most striking of all the neoclassical offices in the clinic. Natural light illuminated Sarah's heavy, mahogany writing desk through a gridded, stained glass dome ceiling. The center of the dome was decorated beautifully with leaded abstract decorative. Perpendicularly from the dome stemmed four gridded, arch-shaped windows, equal distances apart, displaying the darkening sky outside and a few fluffy clouds. The walls were egg shell-white and uniform, but the austerity of the walls was evened out by the rest of the paneled ceiling that had a painting, featuring characters from Huckleberry Finn inside each gold-lined panel, painted with a warm-toned renaissance-influence. A repeating character was a laughing, straw hat-clad boy, running around barefoot through a forest.
In the middle of the office laid Sarah's wooden desk that looked like a miniature baroque temple with its sculpted, pillar-embellished shape and the panel motif that linked it to the ceiling. There wasn't much furniture; only the desk and two Prussian blue divans on both sides of the desk, but what the interior design lacked in abundance it made up in opulence.
Paid by Sarah's old money-parents of course, all of it. The same parents that had initially made the thought of dating Sarah more terrifying than exciting when the two started going out about two years back. Becoming Sarah's suitor had meant stepping into some big shoes, since getting the acceptance of Sarah's parents was no easy feat. Especially if you were as ordinary as they came, you were from a middle class family with a sister suffering from alcoholism, and you had no special skills to display like playing the cello, or cool hobbies like polo or fencing to discuss in the dinner table. Still, what had apparently gotten him Mr. Sawyer's seal of approval was the great esteem John enjoyed in the Army, even if he'd gotten shot in the shoulder, limped like an old man, and had gotten discharged from service for being utterly useless, but John's injuries had always appeared to only enforce the positive image Mr. Sawyer had of John.
"Hey." Sarah looked up from her embedded table monitor briefly and flashed a smile in greeting while John bent down to press a kiss on her temple. She was dressed in a white satin shirt and a black, form-fitting pencil skirt. Red lipstick was swiped on her lips, and silky strands of ashy brown hair had escaped the ponytail she had pulled it into. John tucked the loose hair behind her and scented her skin quickly. She smelled of powder and expensive perfume. She looked like an extension of the room she was sitting in; classical and refined.
"Hey, you. I'm just gonna answer this email first but I'm going to be right with you."
"Busy, as always, Doctor," John chuckled as her fingertips tapped and swiped furiously on the screen. There was a bell-chime that signaled that the missive had been sent.
"There!" Sarah cheered and turned her frame towards John.
"Very busy, but I think there's a one minute-gap in my schedule for you to kiss me properly." Her expecting gaze was seemingly innocent but there was an undertone of laughter and lust swirling in her grey eyes.
"Oh, really?" John smiled flirtatiously. He put his hands on both sides of her and leaned over the screen until only an inch remained to separate his lips from hers. His right shoulder protested and John eased some of the weight onto the left. "No more than a minute?"
She grinned but grew serious again as she pretended to muse.
"Well, maybe three." She inched closer in turn when he stopped advancing.
"Oh? I feel special."
"You should." Her eyelids fluttered shut.
John closed the gap between them. The kiss was sweet and unrushed as they locked lips in a slow give and take, just brushing each other's lips at first, lightly pecking, but after a while Sarah wrapped her arms around his neck and tucked him closer for a deep kiss. Her perfume filled his nostrils with daisies and vanilla, and her nape was soft and warm under John's fingertips. Sarah's lips turned more demanding before John pulled back and smiled at her amusedly.
"Would there be some room in your calendar for dinner at the Ritz tomorrow night?" The Ritz was one of London's most sumptuous and renowned restaurants, and Sarah's favorite place for French cuisine. Of course the Michelin-starred the Ritz was also one of the most expensive food places, but Sarah's delighted expression made up for it. John felt slight smugness; he knew she'd be pleased.
"John, The Ritz - Of course I'd love to go for dinner with you. We're both in luck since the meeting I was supposed to have tomorrow evening was moved on Thursday."
John put his hands in his trouser pockets and whistled innocently, looking innocently around the room and swinging on the balls of his feet. There was a moment of silence as Sarah simply stared at John, flabbergasted. Then she hooted and John found himself with armfuls of Sarah.
"Oh John, you are just perfect! But what's the occasion? It isn't our two year-anniversary until December."
"The occasion is that I can't believe you actually agreed to date me almost two years ago, but you did, and we should celebrate your ongoing lapse of sanity. Although you might want an MRI of your head to see if everything's all right in that beautiful knob of yours- "
Sarah interrupted John with a heated kiss. She disjointed their lips with an audible smack.
"When should I see you there?" she beamed.'
But there was another occasion, John thought as he left work late the next day to get the ring he'd made a reservation for at Tiffany's jewelry store.
John knew it was two months before their two-year anniversary, and it would've made sense to wait until then to propose, but John and Sarah had been dating long enough. They both knew each other's good and bad sides and still loved each other regardless, so why wait two months longer when he knew that he adored all sides of Sarah? She was the love of his life! Besides, proposing on their anniversary would've been predictable, and John wanted to give her the element of surprise. Yes, that's why. Besides, maybe now Mr. and Mrs. Sawyer would stop nagging him about making Sarah an honest woman. Of course, they really hadn't been nagging, per se, but they might as well have been, as they very discreetly and subtly threw meaningful glances into his direction and discussed all those lovely couples in their acquaintance marrying already after 6 months of dating.
John halted at the foot of a public transit station to wait for a black capsule lift, and suit-clad men and women pooled around him with the same intention. Blurs of colour rocketed over their heads soundlessly in transparent, pillar-supported tubes that extended in every direction 35 feet above street level. John was still amazed at how the people inside didn't get dizzy when they looked outside the window. One particular center-line train on the platform was hurriedly boarded by a flock of people, after which it closed its doors with a click and a whoosh as the air was sealed out. It started slowly first, but had already accelerated off when John blinked his eyes.
They were called Vactrains.
London's trains and subways had made way for antigravity technology in mid-21st century. The antiquated tracks had been removed and replaced with ferromagnetic or paramagnetic 'guide ways' that utilized magnetic pressure to suspend and propel the trains. The transition in favor of MagLevs and Vactrains was made first in Germany and Japan, but when the rest of the world witnessed the trains that needed no wheels, oiling, or fuel, and that flew off faster than a NASCAR race car on a sunny day, they rapidly followed, and by 2070 the MagLevs and Vactrains were everywhere.
The Vactrain, which was short for vacuum tube train, was made with aluminum and composites that made the train very lightweight and enabled it to better overcome gravity, as it levitated ten millimeters of the track in a vacuum tube. There was no air resistance or friction to hinder it, and so it effectively surpassed even military aero planes with top speeds of 3500 kilometers per hour. The Vactrains were lightning fast, silent, smooth, and utterly revolutionary.
The Vactrains came first underground where the construction of the vacuum tubes was already pretty much half way done, and then gave new meaning to the phrase "taking the tube" when the system was adopted aboveground.
In street level, magnetically levitating cars, cabs and double-deckers glided through the air. They were equally wheeless and had low barymetric centers, but being subject to air resistance and speed limits made them seem sluggish juxtaposed with the Vactrain. Once in a while some douche bag behind the wheel made a rapid turn and two vehicles got too close to each other. That's when the magnetic resistance in the cars surface kicked in and the cars repelled from one another causing an amusing domino effect of bouncing cars.
John gazed at the view of the London cityscape with heavy eyelids as the lift was launched into the air. Yellows, oranges, reds and blue hues painted the sky as the sun set somewhere behind towering skyscrapers made of metal and glass, casting shadows on the clouds and the edifices, and the glass windows were blindingly bright as they reflected the light from the fire that seemed to blaze behind the buildings. Quickly the warm hues of the sky were replaced by darker blues, reds and purples.
John resisted the urge to doze off. He hadn't slept too well last night. Nightmares. Again.
A girl, maybe five years old, with a green hijab framing her delicate face. Black lashes rest against olive skin like feathers of an ostrich bird. Her right hand is lying on her stomach, plump, small fingers spread. Tiny fingernails. Her left hand rests on her side, palm bare. Open. She's wearing a new dress that her father bought her. She was so excited over it she had to wear it right away and show it to her friends. They're with her now, next to her. One boy and another, older girl. Soft, silent children.
The girl's features are relaxed, her small lips closed like two pale, touching petals of a rose. She looks peaceful, so peaceful.
She'd look like she was sleeping if she wasn't lying on the ground with her feet separated from the rest of her body, two feet from her.
The stumps of her feet are reduced to pulp, broken femurs protruding from under her harem trousers, bits of skin and flesh hanging on them. The gravel below her is red, but she's not bleeding anymore.
"They're dead! There's nothing you can do! We need to move. John. John!" Someone is tugging on his arm. Sounds of explosion and shots in the background, but they sound distant like coming through a tunnel. John just sees the tiny fingernails. Then there's a loud bang, and white pain sears through John's shoulder.
John had woken up screaming. The dream had felt so real, like he was back on the barren hills of Negev with his comrades, finding shelter behind rocks and in shapes of the earth, sweat dripping as the sun scorched their skins and projectiles flied over their heads.
John wondered if Palestine was all he was ever going to dream. He could only hope it wasn't.
"Good evening, Mr. Watson," Bavana gave John an easy smile which John returned.
She was a woman in her forties and one of the meticulously-dressed vendors at Tiffany&CO. She represented her company well in a cream colored trouser suit that complemented her mahogany skin, and her long, curly hair was clipped back professionally into an ornamented hair clip. John had met her only once before and that was when he had come to decide on a ring, but he got the impression that Catalina was one of the people who always had a warm hint of a smile on their face and a twinkle in their eye.
"Come to get your ring, no?"
"I sure have, Bavana. You haven't sold it off already, have you?"
John grinned and Bavana chuckled heartily. "Don't worry, Doctor. There was an oil sheikh that came earlier this week and offered a million pounds for it but I told him that the ring was taken. Your ring is safe with us." She winked at him. " It's under the cabinet, hold on."
John circled the room with his blue eyes. The interior of the shop was minimalistic with six black displays in the large white room, each shaped like half of a honeycomb and two halves facing each other, leaving a smaller honeycomb-shaped space between them. Inside the spot light-lit displays were glistening rings, medallions, necklaces and earrings of silver, gold, alloys and precious stones, resting against white velvet.
Bavana had reached down to open one of the jewelry-filled drawers under the display. She picked out one of the red velvet boxes with the nametag 'John H. Watson' attached on it.
"I think your girl is going to love this one. You have good taste, Mr. Watson," she said as she opened the box to reveal a diamond ring.
The angular band was made of silver and had small, colorless diamonds embedded on the outside surface, while the side of the band featured an art deco leaf-pattern. The center stone of the ring was a cushion-cut dark blue diamond. It was of modest size, but anything bigger than 0.30 carats and the ring would've lost some of its elegance.
"So, when do you plan on popping the question? I'm sure you have some special plans." Bavana prompted as John rotated the ring in the light.
"Yeah," John answered absentmindedly, "we're going to the Ritz for dinner tomorrow night. I'm going to propose to her there. I've planned something of a speech; I'm just going to kneel down on my good knee, tell her how special she is to me and ask her to marry me."
Bavana's smile softened, and she nodded with approval.
"Lovely, just like my own husband proposed to me. Some people get all overly complex with their proposal and hire a jet to write the question on the sky, but sometimes a traditional proposal is best. Just having the man humble before you, looking into your eyes and telling you how much you matter makes a moment to treasure for years to come."
" Not that there's anything wrong with a flashy proposal," she hurried to add," But the perfect proposal just depends on the couple."
John chuckled. "I'm not a flashy man."
John had thought about proposing with his grandmother's old ring. It was a simple golden band with a small, rounded diamond as a center stone. She and John's grandfather had been poor when they'd been dating and it had taken John's granddad a year of saving and a second job to save enough money to buy his doll a proper ring. When John had been just a boy, he had wondered to his father how two people could love each other so much after more than twenty years of marriage, and John's father had but chuckled and told John how his grandparents had always acted like two youngsters in love and how they would probably continue to do so even after one of them kick the bucket.
True enough, when Hamish and Annabelle Watson were separated by Hamish's death in the ripe age of 92, she'd lived on for five more years, telling stories about their youth and their early marriage with a fond smile on her wrinkled face, petting the photograph of her late husband and talking like he lived in the frame.
In John's eyes the ring definitely had sentimental value. The back story behind it and the love and toil the ring symbolized made it all the more beautiful, but John wasn't sure that the ring was the right fit for Sarah. She was from a completely different world than he was, she'd been brought up surrounded with splendour and high quality-things in their lavish South Kensington-home. John couldn't imagine her wearing her designer dresses with the golden band on her finger, the image just didn't seem right. The silver ring on the other hand had Sarah Sawyer written all over it.
John clicked the velvet ring box shut with resolve.
"Let's move to the counter, shall we?"
Pocketing the expensive ring in the pocket of his black winter coat, John wrapped his scarf and coat tighter around him in the autumn air, and made his way through darkened streets. He still had something he needed to do before heading home.
John and Mike Stamford were old friends since their days in St. Bartholomew's Hospital. They used to hang out all the time before John joined the Peace Corps and Mike became a teacher at the hospital. Seven years had changed them both, so John didn't recognize Mike when he passed him in the park a week ago. Mike was a lot meatier than John remembered, but his witty, humorous nature and easy smile had survived the test of time. They caught up that day in the park and since they still enjoyed each other's company, they agreed to see for drinks sometime. And today, the weight of the ring box made John feel on edge. He hadn't been so nervous before today, but having done something as tangible as actually buying the ring made John realize that he was actually doing this; he was actually going to propose to Sarah, and it was already the eve of the day that would drastically shift the course of his life.
John needed to de-stress, preferably over a beer and with some good company. So he'd called Mike and asked him for a pint or two at the restaurant they used to frequent together back in the day; the Criterion.
The fire in the horizon had completely died out now and the city lights were the dominant light source while the stars were their pale reflection on a canvas of black night sky as John treaded and admired the constellations. It was so cold that John's breath fogged, but it was a beautiful night and the streets were quiet and serene, people chased in by the cold, and John knew that walking would calm his nerves. Besides, he still had an hour and a half to kill before he was supposed to be at Piccadilly.
After some strolling John found himself in a park, under tall, leafless trees. It was dark and the dense branches cast the area in shadow so that John couldn't see where he was stepping. This was probably the only time he was thankful for his cane, as it came handy for stepping over rocks and roots.
For most, walking about at night made them a bit apprehensive. Either they saw figures in the dark that weren't there or got paranoid about passing strangers. Even wildlife seemed to have the same reaction to the setting of the sun; John could hear no singing of birds and detect even the tip of a squirrel's tail among the branches. There was just the blowing wind and the sound of snapping twigs and rustling leaves under John's shoes.
John, however, wasn't easily shaken, and he could imagine nothing that would prevent him from enjoying one of his late night walks, and they reminded John of his whereabouts after one of his nightmares. The rain and cold breeze chased away the sand and desert wind from his hair. The memories from his head.
Fog had started collecting around the trunks of the trees when John's cane got stuck. He'd been walking full stride, so the momentum of his steps flew him forward and he stumbled on something big and solid.
"What in God's name-" he grumbled as he wiped the most of wet leaves and mud off his face. He pulled his gloves off and grimaced as he peeled slime off his cheeks and lips using the edge of his fingernails. Well, at least he hadn't fallen head first into a bunch of rocks or a tree. John was winded and he'd knocked his jaw but he didn't seem to be otherwise injured; the long grass had softened the blow.
He got up swiftly, but his trousers had already started sticking to his skin. John patted himself down. There was caked mud on the trousers, and his winter coat. His only winter coat. Great, he sighed in irritation in spite of himself. What had he stumbled into anyway? It wasn't a rock; the obstacle wasn't as hard as that. It had felt softer. More like a moss-covered mound. Or…
His cane was sticking off the ground a few feet away and he leaped to pull it from between knotted roots. Turning back towards the general direction of the spot he'd stumbled at, he kneeled down and for the obstacle in pitch blackness. He grasped at nothing for a second and frowned. The screen on his phone wouldn't be much help, the light was too dim. He didn't have anything else on him that would help, did he? John dug in his pockets, and froze.
Oh shit.
Apart from his phone and gloves, John's pockets were empty. Which meant that the ring box wasn't where it was supposed to be.
John grasped furiously at the hay for the small box. Oh shit shit shit.
John pulled at his hair and cursed. John had paid one and a half grand for that ring and he wasn't about to lose it. Could he have dropped it somewhere earlier on his walk? Impossible. He would've noticed the absence of the digging in his side.
Instead of the ring, Watson's hand came across the culprit for his fall in his furious search. His fingers brushed against fleece, and John's breath caught.
This was no mound. It wasn't even a bore, even though it was the size of one. This bulky thing was a body. A body of a fat, dead man, if the rigor mortis and bodily structure were anything to go by. A wetness stuck to John's hands from the fleece jacket the man was wearing, but the stickiness indicated blood, not water. John's hand moved up and grazed the handle of a knife in the man's chest.