Sherlock and Clara were getting along as they had for most their adventure, horribly. They knew they had enough intellect to make any sentence into verbal feud so they respectfully skulked about the compound in bitter silence. The security center they were meant to disable was not far away.

So far no guards and no cameras or other signs of security came their way. That didn't stop Sherlock was holding them up every few seconds to scan everything from the floor to the ceiling. Clara didn't mind except for the fact that he always made an effort to scoot her into a corner as though she disrupted his thought process by breathing.

"I don't believe the tiles are going to come to life and bite us." Clara said.

"You apparently travel through time and space and don't take precautions," Sherlock muttered while not taking his eyes off the ground. "I assume this Doctor you mentioned is the proper brains between you two."

"Excuse me," Clara growled. "I carry my own weight. Saving time and space is a group effort and while my Doctor is clever, he can be a bit clueless at times."

"Well he certainly has an interesting taste in colleagues."

"With that kind of attitude I wonder how anyone can work with you."

"A sentiment shared by the majority of Scotland Yard, my landlady, and my dear older brother." Sherlock muttered as he craned his head towards the ceiling.

"What about Watson?"

Very few things in the universe made Sherlock pause but very few people had the nerve to bring up John. The detective turned about gave Clara the rare sight of his full dark rage, the thing that proved that even though he was on the side of the angels he was not one of them. Even the usually calm and clever Clara was at a loss for words at the sight of the detective.

"Listen I di-"

"You don't speak until after I finish," Sherlock snarled.

Clara was silent and looked at the detective, for once willing to hear Sherlock out.

"Let me explain something that has escaped all of your grasps," Sherlock said. "I have heard and seen how you consistently gawk at me as though I jumped off ink-pressed words on a page. What was fiction for others has been Hell for me. I lost my good name and had to fake my own death just to keep people I care about safe; all of this was not entertaining for me and sickens me to believe it was entertainment for anyone else. Don't you dare speak about my life and my friends as though you actually know a single thing about me. What you've read was overzealous fiction of a man who is very real and suffered true agony. I couldn't even tell my only friend, John as you casually say his name, that I am alive even though the uncertainty is killing him. Not so appealing to see the hero is a victim, is it?"

He didn't care to hear a response, already trudging down the hallway. It was the first time in a deliberately long time that Sherlock had ever truly bothered to express himself emotionally. Intellect was his weapon but intellect was burned away at the idea of John being talked about as though he were as fictitious as Sherlock apparently was claimed to be. Even if they were fiction in some universes, they were real in his and that was the world Sherlock valued above all others. The sooner he completed this mission, the sooner he could get back to that same universe.

"It gets better for you."

Sherlock was not one violence even under the worse provocation but Miss Oswald was proving to be an above-average nuisance. He turned about and stomped towards her. He was impressed that she managed to stand her ground.

"Your tale doesn't end with Moriarty, you come back."

Those last three words made him stop. He looked at her, the rage just under the surface. Even though he didn't ask for an explanation, Clara gave one.

"It sounds different from the way I heard the tale. All I remember is it ended with you and Moriarty being pitched off a waterfall but that wasn't the end for you. You come back after stopping Moriarty's remaining assassins and take up cases again openly."

Clara seemed to truly regret hurting Sherlock, apparently now realizing that he is a human being whose had to just recently deal with the reality that his life was written for entertainment; it must have seemed like a cruel joke. Clara almost felt a tear form in her eyes at that kind of pain. But storytelling worked both ways.

"People don't view your stories as tragedies, Sherlock. You're a hero, considered the world's greatest detective. The very idea of being a good detective or holding a magnifying glass to the ground all come back to you. Almost no other individual, fictional or otherwise, can dare equal how you redefined how intellect can battle crime. It is an honor to work with the Sherlock Holmes."

Sherlock was stunned. The words had a monotonous appraisal of his skills, and he assumed that he must have been successful to be so acknowledged. But to hear his name spoken with respect for the first time after his whole world played him up to be a joke, to truly have someone see him as the consultant detective was an amazing feeling. His eyes managed to get wet before they dried and he regained a mischievous grin.

"Thank you." Sherlock said.

"For what?" Clara asked surprised by the growing excitement in the detectives face.

"For reminding me to stop grieving over a death I never achieved." Sherlock said. "It seems I've grown far too used to being dead, rather boring actually. But here, here in this maddening landscape, I am alive, active, and therefore the case is as good as done."

Sherlock seemed to stand straighter, a weight seemingly crawling off his back with the weight of an elephant. Welcome back to the world of the living, Clara thought happily. The detective seemed to share her sentiments as his eyes shined with anticipation.

"Come along, Clara," Sherlock said excitedly. "We have a multiverse to save and I admire assistance on a case. By some miracle I will say you're still not as bad as Anderson."

The detective then confidently moved forward, no longer stopping to waste time searching for clues.

"He struts like the Doctor when he's happy." Clara muttered to herself with a grin as she followed the Detective.

The two arrived at what looked like a dead end until Clara noticed the electronic console in the corner. There were sixteen buttons on the device but no screen to register if someone were punching in the right code or not.

"Who would make something you can't even tell if you're using it right?" Clara asked.

"Someone who knows they could never get it wrong," Sherlock added as he inspected the device. "There's no alarm system connected they'd make it obvious for such an elaborate building built on ego, they always do. Which makes this a trap meant to make us waste our time until security can properly kill us."

"And how do we avoid such a charming fate?"

"By getting it right, of course, now please be silent while I enter my mind palace."

Clara tried to ask him if she had heard what she thought she had heard from Sherlock lips but the detective was practically a statue. Only his eyes burned with life as they performed all sorts of things that Clara couldn't bother to understand completely. However, this didn't feel like an obstacle as much as an opportunity to see the great detective at work.

Sherlock was frozen in place, eyes fixed on the device. Clara was almost tempted to poke him just to see if he was still on this plain of reality. She decided better though since failure might result in them all getting blown up. She even backed up, just in case intellect really is affected by personal space.

Finally the detective came up with a surprisingly obvious conclusion.

"I can't deduce the combination."

Clara's heart sank at the revelation.

"However, I'm looking at this facility and notice that it is surprisingly vacant. No one comes here often which means that there would be less precautions since there's lack of guard shifts. Which should include among other things the combination. I wonder…"

Sherlock took something out from his pocket. It looked like a makeup kit with a brush and pad. But Clara was beginning to see what the detective was up to.

Carefully dusting off the fingerprints both Clara and Sherlock were amazed to find actual fingerprints. Nearly every button was used in the combination.

"Well that doesn't help things." Clara noted.

"You see but you don't observe," Sherlock said. "Look closer."

Clara leaned in and saw that the black powder had settled into into fingerprints but some were clearer than others.

"The oil that creates a fingerprint fades overtime," Sherlock explained. "This combination was meant to drag out as much time as possible but there is a clear sequence. The ones that are more crisp came later while the ones that are blurred came first."

"So it's just matter of connecting the dots." Clara said.

"And just as simple, all I have to do is follow the path."

Sherlock proceeded with what he preached and rhythmically pressed every other button with incredible speed. Clara could barely discern some of the fingerprints but Sherlock saw the deeper signs of age in the marks. He cracked the code in less than a minute: a little slow for his liking but he was out of practice.

The panel beside the console slid away. Inside was a series of wires, buttons and screens that displayed the entire facility. No one was inside however. It seemed odd to both Clara and Sherlock. After exchanging a glance the two carefully walked into the room. Everything was built into the walls and the room lit up when they entered making it even clearer that they were alone. A series of buttons and knobs were beneath the monitors. They couldn't understand the words beneath the devices but the alien languages began to resemble the English language.

"It must change to fit the facilitator's needs," Sherlock deduced. "Making everything nice and boringly predictable for everyone and robbing us of any need for actual effort, that's technology for you."

"I know what you mean, I prefer being hands on with problems too." Clara said. "You wouldn't happen to see the off switch would you?"

Sherlock looked at every switch and button until he nodded. Then with several slight adjustments the sound of something dying down was heard. All the power was still on, but something definitely felt different.

"What just happened?" Clara said. "What did we just shut down?"

"Nothing."

Clara and Sherlock turned to see Mary standing in the security center.

"You just helped unlock the door."

Something was wrong. The suited woman and male colleague were lurid but now the woman's face was full of vicious malevolence. Sherlock realized their thoughts had crossed Mary's mind, which made her smile all the more menacingly.

They needed to get out of that control room.

"Run!" Sherlock screamed to Clara as he charged at the super woman.

Sherlock threw a worthless punch in the hope of catching Mary off guard. His fist hit empty air. Where was she? A small whistle made him turn around to see she had teleported behind him. She gave him a small wink before thrusting her palm onto his arm. Sherlock cried as bones shattered in his arm and he was sent flying down the hallway. He stumbled on the floor but remained alive just horrifically bruised.

The detective looked up and saw for the first time where Clara really stood compared to all of them. Sherlock rarely made mistakes but when he did, the results were never pleasant.

"Clara!" Sherlock screamed as he struggled to his feet, trying to reach the girl.

Clara ran for the door.

Mary waved her hand.

The door shut, cutting off her escape. She hit the door, fumbling for some kind of latch or button but found nothing.

"Sher-" Clara screamed before a hand clamped over her mouth.

Mary's other arm hooked around Clara's chest, pinning her arms to her side. The woman was impossibly strong but that didn't stop Clara from struggling, kicking, and giving off a stream of muffled cries for any of her team to help her. No one came.

"You're so weak, so noisy," Mary snarled into Clara's ear. "This I do on for everyone who's had to put up with you, you clever little worm."

Mary removed her hand from Clara's mouth. This allowed Clara to scream at the top of her lungs but the result wasn't any better. Her cry was cut off as Mary her finger into Clara's neck. Clara couldn't utter a sound, in fact she couldn't do much of anything. Her body seemed to be growing too heavy and sluggish to move. Her legs buckled, the only thing keeping her upright was Mary.

Mary turned to now limp Clara so they were facing the monitors. She tilted the girl's head so that she could look up at the screens. Clara could see her teammates, the hallways, and… oh god no…

"That's right Clara, Gary brought them in just help clean up the trash. We don't need your friends anymore. Don't worry, you're just going to sleep for a bit. I just decided to be thoughtful and make sure you realize just how dead your unofficial bodyguards are."

Clara couldn't make sense of a lot of what she was hearing. Her mind was drifting into darkness and she was finding it very hard to keep her eyes open. Before everything went dark, she kept her horror-filled eyes fixed on what was coming for her friends. Even though she couldn't hear them, something from the past echoed their nightmarish call.

EXTERMINATE, EXTERMINATE, EXTERMINATE!