Chapter 2

*About two years earlier*

As soon as John has left the living room, Sherlock jumped up from the armchair. He had a job to do. He picked up the pink cell phone and the data stick which he had stored in his house shoes.

Quickly, he put on his jacket and scarf and left his house in Bakerstreet. It was a cold evening and the night has already begun. He waved over a taxi and entered. "North swimming pool," he said and leaned back. He watched the bright neon-colors rushing by, London was even more awake at night than during daylight.

Suddenly, the car stopped. Sherlock wanted to ask what the matter was but then he saw it. This street was shut due to the beginning of the Olympics which took place in London this year. The impatient Sherlock paid the taxi driver and got out the cab to walk the last few hundred yards himself.

He tried to get past the crowd but obviously the torch was about to arrive. Sherlock sighed and knew that he had no chance of arriving at the swimming pool in time. He saw how the guy came running down the street, he was already breathing heavily.

But suddenly, the detective noticed something strange. It only was a matter of a few seconds, but he thought that he has just seen something disappearing into the torch. The athlete stumbled a few times, then caught himself but all of sudden, he broke down and fell on the ground. There were loud screams from all over but the police held everyone back – except for one guy.

He managed to get on the street, took the torch and continued heroeicly the run down the street and toward the Olympic stadium. Sherlock raised an eyebrow. He must have met this guy before. He was absolutely sure about it, but right now, he had no time of thinking about this.

The crowd was slowly disappearing and he continued further toward the swimming pool.


*About seven years earlier*

It was that sound that made Sherlock look up. He had been so concentrated in his books that he hardly paid attention to his environment. But there it was, that awkward noise. He walked a few steps backward and suddenly noticed a blue police box standing around the corner. He could swear that it hadn't been there before.

A girl came running out of it and fell into arms of obviously his mother, both blond, both the same eye color. And the boyfriend, Sherlock thought shaking his head. Looks like they haven't seen each other for some while. Then, someone else came out of the box, it was a man, mid-twenties, brown hair, leather jacket.

"Who's that?" the mother asked surprised. Sherlock hid himself around the corner. Although nothing surprised him anymore about human reaction, it was awkward that both the young girl and this man had been inside the police box – which has suddenly appeared out of nothing.

"It's the doctor!" the girl shouted and repeated her sentences.

Sherlock gathered his books together and continued his walk. He needed to finish his experimental work today for the last few pages of his final exam. And as today was Christmas Eve, surely no one was in the lab and he could be all on his own. He has just arrived in the basement of the university when his cell phone rang.

"Mycroft, what do you want?" he answered coldly and sorted the books in a chaotic order and while talking cleaned the experiment table.

"I thought mother would like to hear from you."

"Have you called her?" Sherlock asked bored.

"Yes. She hasn't heard from you in ages."

"And she won't here from me in ages," the scientist answered with a smile and hung up the phone. Before his brother could redial the number, he put it on mute and stored it in an empty conical flask and let it vibrate for some while.

He hasn't even notice that the sun has risen again until a sudden shadow fell on the distillation apparatus. He looked up and couldn't believe his eyes. It seemed as if a huge, gigantic rock was hanging over the earth. For the first moment in his whole life, his mouth dropped open and he couldn't realize what he was seeing right now.

It seemed so unnatural, so extraterrestrial. After a long time, he had given up believing in a first contact, at least for the next few decades. Suddenly, he saw the university gardener walking right over his recently planted flowers.

He seemed like in a hypnosis, Sherlock knocked on the window but he didn't react to the sound. "That's…fascinating," he commented and ran out of the lab. In the hallway, he met the librarian who was one of the few working early on Boxing Day.

She also seemed like in trance and didn't react to Sherlock's shouting or his grip. "Where are you going?" he wanted to know and followed her climbing up the stairs. Only then did he realize that she was about to step onto the roof.

"No!" he yelled and ran after her. Luckily, she stopped short at the edge of the roof, but only then did Sherlock realize that they weren't alone up here. It seems as a third of London was standing on roof tops, waiting for the order to jump or whatever was going to happen.

"Oh my," Sherlock sighed and heard the shouts of people who wanted to protect the friends and family from jumping down. Sherlock walked on, there were only few people on the ground looking up and praying for nothing bad to happen.

Then he saw that man again, 'the doctor' as he had been called, and also the girl and her mother, as well as the black guy, all staring up. The three of them carried 'the doctor' dressed in a pyjama into the police box. "Funny," Sherlock muttered but widened his eyes, when the whole blue box seemed to disappear into the sky – or rather toward the rock that was still flying all over them.

There happened nothing for quite a while. But then it seemed as if a part of the rock was breaking away and with it some sort of lifeform. Sherlock couldn't spot its landing point, it was too far away.

But however, all people came to life again. "What happened?" the librarian asked and stepped away from the roof top.

"I don't know," Sherlock admitted with an uncertain feeling. He went to the edge of the roof again and saw the blue box once more. There were some people gathering around and he wanted to take a closer look but suddenly the whole rock which has been flying away already exploded with an enormous noise into millions of tiny pieces.

"Oh my god!" the librarian shouted and searched shelter inside. But Sherlock stayed on the roof for quite a while and watched 'the doctor' and his companions down on the street a few blocks away. Then, the young girl followed him into the police box and the blue light began to blink and – it disappeared. Sherlock blinked twice.

Has it disappeared into nothing? Where was it gone? He closed his eyes and in the mid of the university roof top of London, he entered his mind palace, sorting and storing his thoughts. But he didn't come to any conclusion that day. And neither did he the following weeks…


*Another few months earlier*

It was the day of the final exams. Well, it had been the day. Sherlock was finished and could now fully concentrate on his last practical work of the university. It was a fascinating matter – although his professor thought differently about his topic. But he didn't care.

As most of the other students celebrated the evening with large amounts of alcohol and drugs, Sherlock preferred to rather stay alone. He settled down on a bench in a nearly empty park and put his collar high up. He opened the latest science magazine which was already full of his notes and improvements. He took out his packet of cigarettes and cursed his brother for having replaced all of his current packages with low tar ones.

Slowly, he lit the cigarette and inhaled deeply, breathing slowly out the smoke and feeling it glide through his lips and teeth. "Now I can think," he muttered and read on the article.

But whatever he tried, he couldn't quite concentrate. Something was bothering him, something he had noticed. There has been this explosion a little while ago, in a shop somewhere close to the Piccadilly circus. There hasn't been found any trace of reason, neither a fire accelerant nor the origin of the source.

He had proposed several things to that young cop, Lestrade and he had even supported him with some burned plastics that he had bagged at the crime scene. But what Sherlock has found was simple plastic, and it stayed plastic whatever he tried. But whatever has happened, it must have burned with an incredible heat, more than just the normal temperature of a fire, not even an explosion.

This was what unsettled him. He inhaled the last drag of his cigarette and grinded it on the ground. Slowly blowing out the smoke, feeling the nicotine and several other toxins whose formula he could easily write diffusing in his blood, but not reaching his mind.

Something was blocking it…something – shouts. No, not shouts. It was what he heard, people screaming and yelling in panic. He stood up immediately, nearly dropping the magazine.

It came from downtown, suddenly there were blasts of fire and people running for it.

Without thinking twice, Sherlock wanted to see what was happening.

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