Sorry for the long wait, I had a little trouble... Well, that's all you need to know. For now. And thus, without further ado, here is the second chapter. The next few chapters are going to be shorter, but more frequent, FYI. It's more fun that way. :)


Mycroft let the creamy phone slip for his hands and tumble onto the receiver with a deafening clatter. The line had been cut, just as soon as Mycroft had described the situation briefly. He hadn't even been given the time to explain to his brother exactly what he was walking into. Not that he was so certain anyway.

No one spoke, and the room tingled with the silent anticipation. While they waited for Sherlock, and while Moriarty had no use for them the only thing left to do was to wait; gripped by suspense and fear, trying not to imagine all of the possible horrors that lingered in the walls of Baskerville waiting to be unleashed upon them.

Mycroft found a chair nearby and eased himself into it, crossing his legs and allowing himself to get comfortable. With the train, the drive, and the time it would take Sherlock to get down into Baskerville, around Moriarty he felt they had plenty of time to wait, and it might as well be peaceful at the very least.

"So now what?" Major Barrymore barked.

"Now we wait." Anthea said finding another chair, several feet away from her boss and pulling out her Blackberry phone. If she could only get a signal, she might be able to call in some Calvary of her own. Being former M16 meant she had friends in high places.

"Wait?" he spat. "Wait? Wait for what?"

Dr. Stapleton had become as pale as a ghost, and looked as though gravity had collapsed over her shoulders. She clutched at a table and stared off into empty air. She summoned a laborious breath and whispered a feeble response.

"Wait for anything. It's all we can do."

"Damn!" Major Barrymore began to pace like a caged lion, shooting poisonous glances at the intercom every few seconds, and at the crowd that formed a ring around the circle he was wearing into the floor at every other moment.

"We have some stuff here." One bold scientist stepped forward, tucking her flaming red hair behind her ears with both hands. "We could make an acid or something to burn down the door."

"Pfft," one dark-skinned man scoffed as he leaned up against the monkey cages. "Leave it to an immunologist…"

The red-head made an intimidating advance, "Richard, I've had it up to here with you and my work."

The man put his hands up in mock-surrender "Okay, okay, but look, here's the thing: A chemist is the one who'll actually be doing the work. You don't know what you're talking about."

"Dick, you've been riding our asses since the start of this project." One blond (Another immunologist thought Mycroft) stood up and moved beside the red-head. "Lay off."

"He's right though." An Asian man, apparently a chemist, explained. "We know what we're doing, and no offense but you don't. We went to school for this."

"We had to take four years of chemistry in college too." The red-headed immunologist shot back.

"And now you play with the common cold all day." Richard the chemist laughed. He earned himself a withering glare from red-head and Blondie while the Asian made a despairing look and the other three scientists watched with detached interest.

"We're specialists; I'd like to see you injecting something into a cell with a needle ten times thinner than a hair!"

"Oh yeah? Well at least I know when my experiment works, I can see it! You guys are all guess and check. How many times have you lost a virus in the lab?"

Anthea looked up from her phone, slightly alarmed.

The red-head hissed in a feral display of her anger "How many times did you leave sodium-what-ever- in a flask and ruin other people's work? You're nothing but a careless, brainless—"

"I think that's enough!" Dr. Stapleton shouted with an echoing intensity. The room fell into shocked silence. Major Barrymore slowed to a halt and the two feuding scientists looked at the floor sheepishly.

"Don't you see what you're doing?" Dr. Stapleton said in a low quivering tone, "You're playing right into his hands. He wants us to fight; he wants us to tear ourselves apart!"

The Asian's jaw dropped, the red-head dropped her face until her nose was vertical to the ground, hanging in shame and her tangled curls of flaming hair hung in a curtain hiding her face, Richard the chemist didn't move at all, his expression never changing, only the tightening of his lips signaled any thoughts at all.

"He's only just started and you're already at each other's throats. We need to band together, not rip ourselves apart! We need unity. We need to protect each other! This lab has always been a family for me, even if we did have our little spats."

Stapleton rocked on her feet and stumbled onto a barstool that was conveniently nearby. "I've always thought of this lab as a family, more so than my own. Now we need to come together. We need to protect each other." Her voice faded away like a noise floats away on a night breeze, the emotion in her weak tone better conveying her meaning than her awkward words ever could.

To Mycroft's trained eyes, he could see that the fear and disbelief were working themselves on Stapleton's conscious mind. If she didn't find some support soon she would soon be an emotional wreck. He sneered slightly, almost unnoticeably. He thought she was made of sterner stuff. If a little issue could cause such paralyzing stress, he couldn't imagine her working under the new system. He made a mental note to reconsider her for the job.