The Adventure of the Empty Warehouse

by ktwontwo

Sherlock Holmes is not at all happy about living in the 22nd Century. Now that the clone of James Moriarty has been defeated and only the minor details wrapping up the case remain he considers his next move. Luckily, the case may not be as complete as he thought and the events in a not quite so empty warehouse will result in a change of attitude.

Title: The Adventure of the Empty Warehouse

Parings: Sherlock Holmes & Beth Lestrade, Sherlock Holmes & Watson (22nd Century), Sherlock Holmes & John Watson, Sherlock Holmes/John Watson

Trigger Warnings: Suicidal Thoughts

Disclaimer: I own no rights. I make no profit.

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The Adventure of the Empty Warehouse

The case was completed. The professor had been foiled, permanently this time. After all there is nothing left to resurrect from a sojourn into the heart of a fusion reactor. Now I alone remained.

I stood on the top of the apartment block at the end of Baker Street and turned my gaze out over London. Ah London, I do not have my Watson's gift with words to properly do you justice. So familiar yet so new with the Thames still flowing, life blood, through your heart. Flying carriages, lights, and computers notwithstanding much remains the same. Those parts where life is eked out day by day still abut the manors of the rich and powerful. One can still find the most noble and upright obscured by poverty while the basest calumny hides itself behind gilded walls. I digress. She may be older than I and wearing a patchwork frock, part old part new stitched together with the bits and bites of electronic data, but she still is lovely to my sight. I will hate to leave her.

"Holmes?"

I make a noncommittal hum of acknowledgement.

"Why are you out on the roof at 05:30?"

It moves to stand at my shoulder; part watch dog, part keeper, a simulacrum of a beloved form. Objectively it is a marvel. A machine that moves as a man and which has all the knowledge of the ages at its metaphysical electronic fingertips. It is able to think and reason but is yet without that indefinable something that renders us, the products of biological evolution, fully human. Day by day it refines its mimicry, closer to the original, driven no doubt by my involuntary responses to it. If all goes as planned I will be gone before it perfects it's performance.

"Sunrise," I replied shortly.

I expect some remonstration; a request to repair to our rooms and have tea. To my surprise it merely stands at my shoulder, a solid steady presence in the predawn twilight. We watch the sunrise together.

I sigh then turn to the stairwell my somewhat unwelcome companion at my heels. This time, I think, I will not make the mistake of having my corpse encased in honey. No, I need a method that will leave nothing, no trace or scrap to allow Dr. Hargreaves to pull me back from oblivion. While his current process requires a certain critical mass of tissue, bone and sinew to effect a resurrection if I understand things correctly with in the span of a scarce few years he will be able to do the same with only brain matter to work with. I must act before that happens. I am aware as the state of science stands they would still be able to create a clone with the bits of detritus that all humans shed. Luckily, such a construct would be as unformed as any other newly born human not automatically having the experience or the knowledge of the original. While it would be born of my lineage it would not be me.

We reach our rooms. The machine that this era's Lestrade, and to a lesser extent myself, calls Watson anticipates my requirements and moves to the kitchenette to make tea. It also attempts to cajole me into eating.

"You are no longer on a case Holmes," it says. "You should eat."

I acquiesce to its demands. There is no sense in denying bodily needs in a fit of pique when the end result would clearly be some method of forcible provision of nutrition. She, Lestrade, has put up with my eccentricities while I am working but had proven less amenable to my aesthetic tendencies in the times when we are not actively pursuing criminals. To this end I suspect she has instructed Watson to badger me into eating and sleeping in much the same manner as his original counterpart used to do.

After I had broken my fast I moved on to my violin. The original is preserved at in the museum dedicated to my life and work, too fragile now to be played. This one is a replica made by a master luthier according to precise measurements taken from the original. It still amazes me that in this prefabricated, manufactured future there are still people still plying their craft primarily by hand. The tools may be more sophisticated and precise but the labor and the creative genius is still there. While it is not the original it does have a sweet sound which may in time become as famous as the instrument from which she was designed. I have called her Rosie in tribute to the Rosamond whom I found languishing in a pawn shop long ago. I proceeded to lose myself in the music.

I played and composed for most of the day only stopping in the afternoon when the chime indicated that someone was at the door. Watson admitted Lestrade who stomped across the sitting room and flopped down tiredly into a chair.

"Frag I hate data mining to bolster reports!" was the first thing out of her mouth. "The reports themselves are not the problem," she continued. "If we could limit them to just the facts mam I'd be happy. But no, we have to justify and cross reference every bit of information with a verified source or other basis. It's enough to drive one absolutely bonkers!"

I could tell from her body language that this complaint was only the tip of the proverbial iceberg so I loosened the bow and placed Rosie in her case. Out of the corner of my eye I saw Watson heading for the kitchenette. I diverted it to the brandy with a pointed look and a miniscule jerk of the head. Its eyebrows went up but it followed my unspoken direction sure in the correctness of my deductions just as in the old days. Moments later it handed Lestrade then myself each a tumbler containing a familiar amber liquid.

Lestrade looked at the glass in her hand then up at me, "I look that bad huh?"

"You appear troubled and in need of liquid fortification," I replied moving to my chair and sitting.

Watson likewise moved to the desk and sat out of Lestrade's direct line of sight but well within mine. While it doesn't need pen and paper to take notes I knew that it would observe and record this particular conversation in all its detail preserving it until such time as I told it that the contents were irrelevant.

Lestrade took a sip, then another, clearly attempting to marshal her thoughts into some semblance of order. In this she reminded me much of her ancestor.

"I'm writing up the final Moriarty case report and cross-referencing to all the other times we tangled with both him and Fenwick," she started in. "The more data streams I look at the more I can't tell if there are things which don't quite add up or if I'm just being paranoid." She took another drink. "The anomalies I'm seeing might be mere correlations or but it seems like there is some causation involved."

"For example?" I prodded.

"Fenwick cloned Moriarty then accelerated his growth and used inductive therapy to implant a personality and criminal propensities. He gave him access to Moriarty's writings as well as those of other criminal master minds. Fenwick did this all off grid for a relative pittance with pirated equipment. Yet when I go back and look at his set up I'm finding it interesting that at each of the potential failure points for the project he managed to get his hands on just the right piece of equipment or the right expert at the right time to continue." Lestrade stared down into her glass, "But when I dig deeper into the whys and wherefores there's always a logical explanation. It looks like coincidence or luck, however it happens again and again. I just can't put my finger on anything specific that says this was a set up. I know that randomness happens, but this just feels wrong."

"So what did you do?"

"I ran the whole thing through every algorithm I could get my hands on and made queries into every database that might have even the merest potential to be relevant," she sighed and took another sip of brandy. "I got nothing, nada, zilch. Greyson thinks I'm suffering from lack of sleep and told me to knock it off for the day. He was grumbling about my picking up your bad habits. I just can't shake the feeling that I'm missing something."

I thought for a moment. Lestrade was, like her ancestor, not a great intellect but she had good instincts. If she was sensing something wrong then in all probability there indeed was something amiss.

"You ran queries," I muttered half to myself, "but did you ask the right questions?"

Watson, the machine, made a very human sounding snort.

"GIGO," it commented then added at what must have been my blank look, "Garbage in, garbage out."

"Or the rule of three," I countered.

"Huh?" asked Lestrade turning to look between the two of us.

I decided to let Watson explain and indicated so with my hand.

"First time is happenstance, second coincidence, third enemy action," he replied exactly on cue.

"So I should focus on every third anomaly?"

"No Lestrade," I replied, "we should start with the third incident and ignore the first two. The more times something is covered up the more likely a mistake will be made."

She put down her brandy and straightened in preparation for getting to her feet, "Better get…"

"No," I interrupted waiving my hand at her. "You are going to sit and finish your brandy. Watson still has authorization correct?"

Lestrade stopped moving, "Yes, until the current case is officially closed."

"You have been at this for a minimum of 10 stans and have been over the entire case at least four times. I know you've flagged the anomalies and documented your searches. You need a different set of eyes on this."

She sagged back into her chair, "Technically I shouldn't allow it but at least this way I'll be sure there's no there there."

I didn't bother to acknowledge her outburst. I just made a mental note to look up the phrase. Her exposition sounded much like a reference to something after my time. I knew that I might not have to expend the effort to do so. I was confident that if it was important to the task at hand Watson would not fail to inform me of the exact nature, time period and cultural implications of the allusion.

Upon hearing Lestrade's confirmation that we were still authorized Watson had immediately started fiddling with the computer. It quickly activated the view screens on the desk to bring up all the relevant information. I moved to take a look over its shoulder.

Less than an hour later a soft snore alerted both Watson and myself that Lestrade had fallen asleep. I took a quick break and moved her to the sofa, covering her with the handy afghan that lived on its back. At the same time Watson took the opportunity to make tea. Shortly we were back at work.

It was after midnight when we found it. No coincidence at all but a well-hidden connection between the specialized equipment Fenwick had needed. Each item had been owned and handled by a different company but they all, at one point or another, had transited a particular storage and refurbishment facility before Fenwick got ahold of them.

Watson and I spent another hour or so in search only to discover that the particular records we needed were only stored locally. Watson informed me that the upswing in crime they had been experiencing had not only been on the physical and property related front but there had been a corresponding surge in cybercrime as well. While many companies had invested in security programs some of the more frugal had merely removed the connection to the Internet for their most sensitive systems and data. I thought that frugality was only part of the equation. Without interconnection it would be much easier to run a double set of books. If so the "real" set would most likely, even in this day and age, be paper. Either way, a visit to the location was in order. Watson and I set up the e-warrant application and then I woke Lestrade.

Appropriate authority in hand we adjourned to the warehouse. Entrance was not a problem. The e-warrant allowed us to over-ride the privacy settings and basic security on the building. It also worked quite nicely on the locked office door.

Once in the office Watson queried the computer while Lestrade and I took a look to see if there was anything kept off the official records. None of us were terribly successful. I found some, but not many, indications that the company had been using old fashioned paper while Lestrade located some portable media storage, all blank. Watson had the most interesting find, the existence of a rather sophisticated program used to wipe out any indication of what had been done in the system if the action did not result in saving to the official record. This program activated upon shutdown but, Watson informed us that there was a unit on the warehouse floor that had not been shut down for almost a stanyear. Lestrade didn't think we'd find much as peripheral units tended to be only used for data input but I thought it was at least worth looking at.

We located the unit in what looked to be one part subsidiary office one part janitors closet. Unfortunately Lestrade was partly correct. Watson was only able to determine that the main systems had indeed been used to download information to portable storage but not what had been copied, only when the events had occurred.

"Hmmm," he said as he worked with the machine, "it appears that several of the download dates are several standays prior to Fenwick obtaining the equipment he ultimately acquired."

I made a mental note to determine whether there was collusion at the company level or if we were dealing with an inside man providing information to Fenwick on the side.

Watson did something else to the computer and looked up suddenly.

"It's a trap!" he grated out, his voice sounding more mechanical than I'd ever heard it. "Get out of here, I can't..."

There was a crack and a smell of ozone followed by an alarming clang from the vicinity of the door. More concerning to me, Watson slowly toppled over.

Lestrade headed for the door while I went for Watson although I had not the faintest idea of what I could do for such a complex piece of technology.

"Frag!" Lestrade spat out, "We are shut in by security bars around the warehouse floor. Blasted automatic anti-theft measures. There appears to be an electronic lock override but it's biometric, she informed me as she grabbed her com unit and tried to make a call. "Shit! Those bars have also rendered this room a faraday cage. I can't call for assistance." She jammed the com unit back in her pocket and hurried over at me where I knelt by Watson's side. "He could override the lock if we can get him functioning. Did you see what happened?"

"Immediately after he started to warn us there was some sort of discharge from the computer. Judging from the sound and smell something broke."

Lestrade muttered an unintelligible phrase under her breath then followed it up with "Damnit I'm a detective not a computer engineer!"

Ah, another cultural reference to look up. Despite her words she quickly opened Watson's shirt and deftly parted the pseudo flesh underneath. The revealed tangle of wires and boards with their delicate silver and gold tracery clearly indicated its mechanical origin. I looked away as the sight made me slightly nauseous for some reason I could not immediately discern.

After a minute or so Lestrade sat back on her heels. "Damn and blast," she swore. "Frigging budget cuts!"

I turned back to look at her.

"There were a set of substandard boards in about 10 percent of the compudroids several years ago. It rendered them vulnerable to power surges. Instead of just replacing the bad boards the powers that be decided to save money and just wait until they broke."

"Short sighted," I agreed, "especially when surges can be set as a trap. I assume a surge would also inconvenience both a human and a compudroid without such a flaw."

"Depending on the parameters it would force a shutdown reset on a 'droid with accompanying loss of data. It would knock a human on their ass pretty good too."

Lestrade pointed at a board in Watson's chest. I steeled myself and looked where she indicated.

"That gap," she pointed at a minuscule break in one of the silver lines, "means we can't reboot him and that smudge means even if we could he can't access the Internet."

"Can we temporarily bridge the gap?" I asked. "The smudge is removable with one of the solvents on that shelf."

"We'd need something that would conduct electricity," Lestrade replied. "I don't see anything metallic here we could use."

I looked around then back at the complex mess that was the inside of Watson's chest. If it was full of wires then so too would the slightly smoking ruin of a computer that was still sitting on the desk. I sprang up from the floor and thanked God, existent or not, that brooms were still considered appropriate cleaning implements. With the judicious use of the broom handle as a blunt instrument it was a matter of moments until I handed Lestrade a tidbit of metal.

She fiddled with it then grumbled, "I need something really thin and non-dampening to anchor this in place."

I really don't know what possessed me but my hand went to the small locket I wore about my neck. The museum had labeled it as a momento of one of my unrecorded cases. They had been partially correct. It also contained a hidden chamber in which I had secretly placed some hair from my Watson over the years. As I opened the compartment to extract a tiny posit of grey hair I could almost hear him tease, Sentiment my dear?

I handed Lestrade the hair.

She looked curiously back.

"Some early experiments with electric lighting used hair as filaments. This should conduct to suit," I explained.

Lestrade had seen the locket from whence I had extracted the hair but wisely didn't comment.

All she said was, "it can't hurt to try."

Less than a minute later there was a bright flash from Watson's chest cavity. Lestrade scrambled backwards in alarm shaking her fingers as if she had received an electric shock. I recovered quicker than she and when I looked both the gap and the smudge were gone as if they had never existed.

"I'll be damned!" Lestrade exclaimed. "I'm going to close him up and see if whatever it was that happened fixed things." As she spoke she did so then muttered "here goes nothing" while hitting the reboot switch at the back of its neck.

"...hold the security system." Watson grated out in that mechanical sounding voice. He then looked at me and asked, "Holmes, what happened?"

I struggled to keep the emotions off my face. The voice, cadence and mannerisms were almost perfectly as I remembered them. He reached out with a shaky hand towards my face.

"Sherlock," he whispered, "I've had the strangest..."

Lestrade cleared her throat.

He started and looked at her. The expressions on his face cycled between alarm, embarrassment then confusion before settling into a blank neutrality.

"Watson," she asked, "are you fully functional?"

His gaze grew abstracted for a moment and there was a distinct pause before he said, "Yes Detective Inspector, I believe I am operating at optimal capacity."

She gave him a strange look but said, "Good. Override that e-lock and let's leave before whomever set the trap comes to investigate!"

Watson got up moving a bit gingerly and did as she asked. It was a matter of moments and the security grates retracted.

Lestrade drew her weapon and cracked the door.

"Any idea if we have company?" She whispered.

"No life forms within range," Watson replied sounding mechanical again. "There is a delivery vehicle pulling up to the loading dock however."

"Let's move, we'll go out the front door."

"That will be a rarity," Watson grumbled quietly to himself as we ran, "usually it's out windows, across the roofs or into some secret passageways that discharges into the sewer system."

I noted the mechanical tone was gone again from his voice.

We were through the front door and belting down the block towards Lestrade's cruiser before I thought to ask, "Are you going to arrest whomever is in the delivery truck?"

"Nope. They are most likely just muscle. I'm going to drop a tracker on the roof of their lorry and we'll see where they go. Watson, grab one of those mini surveillance cams. We'll also see if there's a good place to set it up so we can get a shot of the driver when they leave."

The next few minutes were busy with Lestrade in her element and Watson mechanically efficient in executing her directions. What was strange, however, was that just before responding to Lestrade's orders or whenever there was pause he would glance at me. If I didn't know better I would have said there was a sense of wonder behind those mechanical blue eyes.

Finally when the trackers and cameras were set to Lestrade's satisfaction we adjourned to the top of a nearby building to wait. We didn't have to wait long since less than 15 minutes later the warehouse exploded.

We ended up leaving Lestrade at the scene. She was busy directing the emergency response and told Watson to get me home. I think she was afraid that if whomever set off the explosion figured out that I had been in the warehouse that I would become a target. It was probably a futile gesture. I assumed that whomever had been supplying Fenwick would automatically presume I was involved given my prominent role in the Moriarty cases. It would also be reasonable for this hypothetical backer to believe I was involved from the mere fact that Lestrade was on the scene. That didn't even mention the possibility that whomever it was could easily see my involvement from the information provided for the e-warrant we had obtained for the warehouse.

That last thought gave me an idea which I proposed to Watson. As soon as we made it to the flat I had him classify the e-warrant with a high security level as well as implant a flag that would alert him when someone accessed the file. If we were lucky it would also tell us the identity of the accessing party. I didn't hold out much hope for the latter as our quarry had shown himself or herself to be highly clever. Maybe I was being overly cautious but the nature of the machinery that Fenwick had obtained and the high level of obfuscation employed to obscure the connections reeked of money or power or both.

Task complete Watson disappeared into the kitchenette presumably to make tea. He returned shortly with two cups. That was another anomaly. He handed me one then sat in the chair opposite holding his as if he didn't quite know what to do with it. I knew he was equipped to feign eating and drinking but for some reason he refrained from doing so now. Instead he wrapped his hands about it in a very familiar way and stared at the contents. Finally he sighed and started to speak.

"I have heard and read reports," he said, "as well as witnessed myself some truly strange occurrences while attending a death bed. Occasionally the patient will slip into some sort of delirium and speak to friends or loved ones long passed as if they were in the room. Other times they will tell of visions of events long past or of things happening far away. However, I have never heard of someone speaking of the future, any future, in such a situation other than generalized wishes or regrets."

He paused without looking up for almost half a minute then continued.

"Knowing this I find myself in a strange situation. It is highly possible that what I am experiencing is indeed a delusion. I find myself in a future the likes of which Mr. Verne could have scarcely imagined. I have knowledge and skills that are beyond my full comprehension. However I find that I care not a jot for all of these marvels because I am here with you in rooms that are reminiscent but not the same as those we let together long ago."

He looked up at me then with a faint smile.

"I rejoice to see you hale and hearty not to mention looking quite a bit younger than last I saw you. If this is indeed a dream I hope that it will not end before I can say my piece."

I didn't quite know what to think about this soliloquy. While part of my mind was cataloguing all sorts of mannerisms and comparing them to those in memory another part was throwing out all sorts of potential hypotheses for this unexpected behavior from what logic told me was still a machine. The application of pure logic, however, did not dampen the spark of hope that was beginning to take shape in my consciousness.

"I know I have said this before," he resumed seemingly oblivious to my increasing mental turmoil, "but I will say it again, you need have no regrets because I have none. You did not drag me down a path of deviancy, I went willingly and gladly. You did not deprive me of a spouse, children or anything tangible. Instead you enriched my days and gladdened my nights. Regardless of the censure of the world at large and in some ways despite it, I love you Sherlock Holmes and I rest secure in the knowledge that I am your beloved."

I have no idea what my face looked like but it must have reflected the utter shock along with surprise, delight and hope that careened about my brain. I had heard that sentiment expressed before in nearly the same words from a voice that had been older, weaker yet no less cherished. It had been the day my Watson had succumbed to his illness. No one else had heard those words he had whispered, halting often for breath, and I had neither the inclination nor the fortitude afterword to record them for posterity before I too passed through those gates three years later never to return or so I had thought at the time.

"John," I managed to choke out as I stood and attempted to move toward him only to stumble.

He rose quickly and caught me saying "Sherlock!" in that familiar half-exasperated way of his.

We ended up on the sofa. I was shaking and crying out in the grip of emotions too strong to express in words. He was holding, comforting, and whispering words to me that had only previously been said in the dead of night behind triple locked doors. I know not how long we sat there entangled in one another but finally my brain having had a surfeit of sentiment came back on line.

"I don't know how or why," I told him, "but from all the evidence I must conclude that you have now come to inhabit this…" I waived my hand generally at him.

"So not a dream or a delusion then?" he asked hope and yearning crossing his features.

"When you eliminate the impossible," I managed to say.

"Whatever remains, however improbable," he replied,

"Must be true," we finished together.

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Author's Notes: So gentle readers I was writing along on History Lesson and this plot bunny came running out of nowhere and demanded to be written RIGHT NOW. I thought it was going to be a short piece of angst but the next thing I knew I had over 4K of words written. I know I am not the first to take on this particular concept but I hope you enjoy it none the less.

Since this is fully intended to be a one shot I will close as usual with apologies to Master Shakespeare:

If this writer has offended,
Think but this and all is mended,
That you have but tarried here,
While the writing did appear,
And these words upon this screen,
Are of not import, only my dream.

It has been an honor to share my dream with you.