Chapter 6 – by Jacqui Holmes aka Crazylittlecheezer
DISCLAIMER: All events, characters, and things related to the Sherlock Holmes in the 22nd Century show are not mine. Therefore – DO NOT SUE ME!
Lestrade found the graveyard to be a very frightening place, the fog swirled in many patterns bringing with it the terrible howling of the wind. All of these distractions and the constant thought of the horrible abyss of the tombstones and the dead trees made it quite hard to keep her concentration. However, she soon found what she had been looking for, the next clue. Yet, to her dismay the clue could not be removed from the cemetery.
"Zed! Zed it all!" the Inspector shouted, "It figures I'd be stuck in this place till I solve the ruddy thing!" The clue she found had been carved into a tree. To her relief it didn't rhyme like the first and was very blunt on where she would find the her next hint.
"Hmmmmm..." she started, "that's strange; it should have been harder than that. There has to be a catch, yet, I don't see one. It says to go to the textile factory in central London." Lestrade, just to make sure she had seen the whole message, took a few trips around the base of the tree and looked its trunk over from root to sky. "Well, I suppose I might as well get going," she thought to herself.
She walked out of the eerie graveyard and climbed back into her hovercraft. As it took to the sky many thoughts went through her head, but she quickly dismissed them all, telling her not to lose hope. "Moriarty obviously wants me to find Holmes for a reason," she thought, "I just wish I knew why."
With that in mind, she soon landed her hovercraft on the side of the street outside the textile factory. Before entering the large building she looked it over, remembering the time she had nearly lost her life inside of it, because of Moriarty's antics with the Musgrave Sword. Then thoughts of Holmes invaded her mind again; if he had not been there to find her in the rubble, would she even be alive? She could have been injured or worse. "Not only that," she thought out loud, "but if he hadn't guided you in the right direction, you probably would be out of a job." This thought gave her mixed feelings of fear, hope, and sadness as she entered the building. However, the thoughts soon subsided as she entered the main area of the factory; all of the machines were located there.
"Now to look for the clue," she stated. To her surprise she didn't have to look very far. Suddenly she turned to come face to face with a man. He was of natural height and builds and was quite handsome, in her opinion, almost reminding her of a certain Detective she knew. He smiled and began to speak to her.
"You wouldn't happen to be Miss Lestrade, would you?" he looked at her with hope-filled eyes, "'cause I've been lookin' all over this place and you are the first woman I've seen." At first Lestrade cringed at being called Miss; after all she was still on duty with her badge in plain sight and hoped to be recognized as an Inspector. Though, she soon remembered she had bigger problems on hand at the time.
"Yeah," she replied quite agitated, "that's me."
"Oh, wonderful, I was told by a postman to give this to a Miss Lestrade. I'm happy to have found you." With that the young man handed the package to her and was on his way. She was quite surprised by the size of the package; however, she was happy that she didn't have to do much to find the blasted thing.
"Well, let's see what we can figure out!" sarcastic excitement laced in her voice.