Dawn was barely breaking at 7 am when two phones went off simultaneously, the cacophony of their competing ringtones enough to wake the dead. Veranda blindly grabbed for hers and turned it over to shut it up. It was useless as a phone, but she felt naked without it nearby. Sherlock sat up and began texting someone. She thought he must be very popular in certain circles…ones in different time zones.
Reluctantly she got out of bed and began rummaging through her suitcase, throwing everything on her bed. She'd packed for a vacation and had nothing she felt was suitable for the business ahead. She wanted to look polished and put together. Sherlock had gotten up and was standing behind her, peering over her shoulder at the sorry sartorial display. She looked back at him and suppressed a giggle. They were dressed in yin-yang pajama sets. Her t-shirt was blue and her bottoms mostly grey while his t-shirt was grey and the pants mostly blue. She bet they wore the same size; Sherlock was as skinny as a rat-tailed comb. He seemed to have the same thought as he walked over to his case and carefully unpacked until he found what he was looking for.
He had pulled out a shirt and returned to her where he held it out against her back. Apparently satisfied, he laid it over one of her plum-colored sweaters. He looked at her, standing with her mouth hanging agape at him. Slightly affronted he said, "It coordinates with your jumper…" She had to admit it was the same color and two shades darker…it looked good. She silently damned him and gathered all her clothes up on the way to the bathroom.
Showered and dressed, she stared unhappily into mirror over the dresser. Sherlock's shirt was somewhat too small and it gapped over her bust. The sweater hid a multitude of sins, though. She felt the oxford cloth pull around her shoulders and it was an oddly comforting sensation…as if he had his arms around her. She held onto that thought as she folded the too-long sleeves back over the cuffs of her sweater and began to argue with her hair. She wanted to do something sleek and sophisticated, but she was all thumbs. Eventually she gave up and pulled it back in a ponytail like she always did. She actually preferred short hair, but Kerry had asked her to grow it out and she never had the heart to cut it off even after he was gone. She watched herself in the mirror and could point out every single flaw in her appearance. She looked like a wreck, in her opinion. There was nothing to be done for it, though, so she pulled herself up to her full height and decided to face whatever was coming with every ounce of dignity she had left.
Sherlock came out of the on-suite bathroom, drying his mop of curls with one towel and another wrapped around his waist. He heard Veranda's gasp from across the room and smiled cryptically at her before poking around in his case. He finished drying his hair and threw the towel on the bed before going over to stand behind her in front of the mirror. They stared into each other's eyes in the mirror for a long minute before his expression became hesitant. He bit his lip and looked down at her neck. He put his hands on her waist and looked back at her in the mirror. Her eyes were beginning to widen and one eyebrow was hitching up slowly when he glanced back down. He decided that if he was going to be in for a penny, he had to be in for a pound and leaned down to plant a kiss just above her shirt collar.
He wasn't really expecting her to moan like that, but he didn't need his staggering intellect to deduce that it was a good thing and that he should keep at it. She growled low in the back of her throat, "Don't start trouble. Please."
She was making motions to shake him off so he took her lead and backed away. He looked at her reflection again, though, and stroked her ponytail. "It looks better down, you know," he said gently.
Her shoulders sagged slightly and she shook her head. "It just gets in the way. We need to get breakfast if we're going to get where we're going on time. Where are we going?"
He smiled thinly but there was a lilt to his voice. "That text was to Mycroft. You are to meet Dr. Tarr in his office at the university at precisely 9:30 am. He doesn't have classes on Monday so you have all day together."
"You're not coming with me?" She sounded a bit panicked.
"I'll be around. I won't be the only one there keeping an eye out. Apparently, Mycroft has decided that my tendency to read situations a bit too accurately has the potential to cause a distressing amount of damage—as it has before—so I am best kept as far away from the action as practical. He underestimates me." He winked at her before turning back to finish dressing. Veranda ducked into the sitting area to avoid the temptation to watch.
/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/
They stopped at a small café for a quick bite to eat before driving out to the university campus and Veranda had, in Sherlock's eyes, consumed a stunning amount of black coffee in a very short period. He expected her to presently start suffering from the effects of caffeine poisoning as they made their way from the car park. The morning fog had yet to burn off and the air was cold and damp, even to him. Veranda looked like a turtle retreating into its shell as she tried to pull her coat collar up around her ears, chilled, nervous and unhappy.
Sherlock looked around a bit furtively and then smiled to himself as he wrapped an arm around her shoulders and drew her to his side. She stumbled for a couple steps before she got in sync with him and could snuggle appreciatively into the warmth and comfort of his embrace. He seemed to have made a career out of being an oblivious asshole, but every once in a while he branched out into acting like a thoughtful and amiable gentleman. He didn't do a half-bad job of it when he did, but it was undoubtedly damaging to his self-image so he kept his adventures in empathy to a minimum.
Dr. Tarr's office was in the engineering building and it was quite a long walk from where Sherlock had parked the Ford. He'd followed Mycroft's instructions about where to leave the car and which vehicles to park next too, but Veranda didn't know that so she assumed he wanted to park a mile away just to be ornery. It gave her mind several minutes too many to wander from whether she was going to be interviewed or interrogated, to what sex with Sherlock was going to be like and then on to a bitter struggle to get herself to disembark from that train of thought.
She'd been mostly successful in not letting her dirty mind run away from her, but she was still blushing by the time Sherlock disengaged so he could open the door for her. She smiled at him and looked down in one swift motion that gave the impression of extraordinary shyness. He looked after her suspiciously as she ducked into the building, but decided not to spoil what had been a pleasant moment with excessive examination. He was going to have to become accustomed to confusion if he intended to continue his foray into human relationships.
They found Dr. Tarr's office with some difficulty as the whole building seemed to be under construction. Workers were milling about and mixing with the small number of students who were trying to focus in the chaos. Sherlock was working overtime trying to read each and every person to ascertain who they were and whether they belonged. He didn't notice anyone who seemed out of place and therefore a possible problem, but it didn't mean they weren't effectively using the mayhem for cover.
They stood outside the closed door with a sheet of paper taped to it proclaiming 'DR. TARR' in 200 point Courier for a moment and Sherlock turned to face Veranda. First he put his hands on her shoulders and shook her gently, as if to impart some of his own strength into her. Then his composed expression collapsed into a morass of unreadable emotions and he took a deep breath before leaning over and kissing her on the forehead. "You'll be fine. You have my phone number. Don't hesitate to call me if anything untoward happens, OK?"
She nodded numbly and fingered the 'burner phone' in her coat pocket that he had bought for her the day before. She paused a moment to deliberately steady her nerves before knocking on the door. "It's open. Come in, please," called a muffled voice from within. She looked doubtfully at Sherlock and then threw her shoulders back as she turned the knob and eased the door open. A friendly-looking and quite young academician smiled at her and beckoned her inside. She glanced back and smiled at Sherlock as she slipped into the office and closed the door behind her.
She hadn't even gotten close enough to shake hands with the professor when she noticed who was occupying one of his two visitor chairs along the wall.
"Hello, Veranda."
"Mycroft. What a pleasure." The tone of her voice indicated that seeing him again was anything but.
"And a mordant morning to you, too. Dr.? You may leave now. Out through the laboratory, if you please." Mycroft gestured to the door on the other side of the room and smiled like he had to take a pickaxe to break the ice to do so. After the professor left he got up and carefully sat back down behind the desk. He waved at the chairs along the wall and said, "Do have a seat. You shall be here quite a while."
"Will I?" Veranda was debating the wisdom of simply waltzing back out of the office and trying to chase down Sherlock. She didn't like Mycroft and didn't trust him farther than she could throw him. She couldn't think of a good reason to patiently sit there while he heaped derision and abuse on her just because he thought he could get away with it.
"You will if you want to know what is going on and how you are going to get out of this alive."
"Oh." She took the nearest chair and dragged it closer to the desk before she sat down with a resigned sigh.
Mycroft folded his hands and placed them on the desk blotter as he regarded Veranda stolidly. He noted that she was wearing what appeared to be one of Sherlock's shirts and it vexed him in ways he couldn't quite put a finger on. Sherlock was a grown man, generally, but Mycroft had hoped that the emotional and professional damage done by Irene Adler would be enough to put him off women permanently and in no uncertain terms. He wanted to believe that Sherlock had the sense to not become ensnared yet again, but there was evidence his little brother was a bigger idiot than he had previously considered. It didn't matter either way; he was calling the game off today and the petty feelings of the playing pieces were not relevant.
"How well did you know everyone you worked with at EMF, Veranda?"
"I…um…I was really good friends with Morgan and Carl and I got along with Marc and Elliot…I looked after their son on more than one occasion. We'd hang out together and barbeque sometimes at Carl and Morgan's house. I wasn't close with Gerry and I only met Viktoria once. I mean…they were nice people, but they were in Denver most of the time and his job function didn't really require us to interact besides the odd email. He did a good job, though, and everyone liked him. Why?"
Mycroft held up a single finger in an ominous fashion. "What I am about to tell you cannot leave this room. Ever. If you breathe a word of it to anyone—especially Sherlock—everything we negotiate will be null and void. You can agree and I will make certain that you leave Britain alive and have a substantial chance of remaining so into the future. If you decline? You will be on your own. Which is it?"
Veranda looked at him incredulously. "I don't mean to seem ungrateful, but I'm not buying your pig-in-a-poke Mycroft. You're just the type to offer me a Faustian deal because you think I'm too stupid to realize that you are a sick, sick puppy who gets his jollies from maneuvering people into untenable positions. Your own brother wouldn't turn his back on you—why would I have any faith that you have a single one of my best interests at heart? What, exactly, am I agreeing to? At this point I hardly care why all this crazy crap has happened, so that leaves my life as the only chip on the table…and it's not worth very much, let me tell you."
Mycroft took a pained breath and rubbed his thumbs between his brows before exhaling slowly. "What I am offering you might well be interpreted as a somewhat Pyrrhic proposal; however, I do wish to disabuse you of the notion that I am the villain in this scenario. I have done the best I could and I would appreciate your forbearance because the results have not been ideal. Believe me—I do not enjoy being made a fool of anymore than you do. This entire affair has been a trial and I am looking forward to being able to wash my hands of it."
"What am I agreeing to?" Veranda's expression and tone of voice had softened, but she was still skeptical of Mycroft's intentions.
He stared her down frigidly and said, "Veranda must die."
She whipped around and looked behind her to see who else he was talking to. She turned back to him, squinting suspiciously. "I thought that was what I was trying to avoid?"
Mycroft rolled his eyes. "Don't be absurd. What I am proffering to you is something of an unofficial 'witness-protection program'. You are not currently a target, but the time will come when your utility has been exhausted…"
"And I'll be terminated."
"I see you have adopted my brother's flair for the overly-dramatic."
"Sherlock learned from the best, Mycroft."
He scowled at her and she glared back at him, undaunted. He had just taken a breath to speak when someone knocked on the door and they both jumped.
"Mycroft, I know it's you. May I come in?" It was Sherlock.
Mycroft threw his face into his hands and grumbled something incoherent before he sighed angrily. "Come in, dear brother."
Sherlock stepped swiftly through the doorway and nearly caught his coattail as he shut it without looking. He flashed Veranda a quirk of a smile before he confronted his brother across the large oak desk. "Really, Mycroft? Whatever made you think this sorry bit of masquerade would be sufficient to elude my ratiocination?"
Veranda threw her head back with a laugh and stuck her tongue out. "Jesus Christ, Sherlock. Do you get paid by the syllable?"
Both brothers turned to glower at her. She held her hands up in surrender before putting them over her mouth in a waggish show of being quiet. Then she pretended to find something fascinating about the skirting-board behind Mycroft's chair.
Mycroft rubbed his temples and shook his head. "Can no one accept that I have no nefarious, ulterior motives and that I have acted to ensure everyone's welfare by being recondite?"
"No…" Sherlock began, but was interrupted by Veranda's hysterical giggle.
"Is this some bizarre game between you two? Like verbal Scrabble, but with points for the most arcane argot? Because you two are trying so hard that it's kind of funny. I can keep score if you'd like, however, my life is sort of on the line right now. I'd be indebted to you both if you save the vocabulary Olympics for later so we can get on with…whatever the hell Mycroft has got."
Sherlock made a gesture of resignation and retrieved the second chair from the wall. He hung his coat on one of the hooks by the door and seated himself with quiet disdain. He looked to Veranda, who was still bundled in her jacket, with an expression that embodied 'que sera, sera'.
Mycroft had his eyes closed and looked to be channeling every ounce of Zen that the universe could provide. "I shall begin from the top," he intoned gravely. "The CFO of EMF, Gerry Nilsson, found himself in a financial predicament due to the lavish lifestyle he and his girlfriend, Viktoria Eklund, were enjoying. He decided to make some money on the side by making it known in certain circles that he had access to some highly advanced and very valuable fuel cell technology. A buyer was found, some money traded hands and some information was exchanged."
Veranda was thunderstruck and began to turn slightly green. Her jaw hung slack as she struggled to square this new information with her former opinion of Gerry.
Mycroft continued, "This information passed through several unsavoury intermediaries until it landed on the desk of a man who saw beyond its immediate applications and onto a point where it would interfere with the way he conducted his business."
"Moriarty," said Sherlock.
Mycroft set his steely gaze on Sherlock. "And now you know why I took such great pains to keep you as close to the periphery of this matter as I could."
"Who the hell is Moriarty?" Veranda still looked ill, but now she was queasy and confused.
Sherlock, with uncharacteristic hesitance began, "James Moriarty is a devil…"
He was cut off by Mycroft. "James Moriarty is the yin to Sherlock's yang. He is a criminal mastermind with such an intricately crafted organisational structure that the official apparatus cannot trace any illicit activities back to him. He and Sherlock have an unhealthy obsession with one another that manifests itself as a game of cat-and-mouse in which innocent bystanders sometimes die."
"So why did you involve me at all if you wanted me away from Moriarty?" Veranda silently agreed that Sherlock had a point.
"I had no choice." There was a pang of regret in Mycroft's voice. "Moriarty intuited that such miniaturised fuel cells' most obvious eventual use would be in drones and that drone warfare would supplant conventional armed conflicts if they became practical at long ranges and inexpensive to operate. Drones cannot be bribed and bought; they cannot be persuaded or blackmailed into divulging sensitive information. To a man who capitalises on the vulnerability of people in stressful situations—drones are the beginning of the end of the world as he knows it. They are anathema to one who depends on the weakness of the human will and the meagre moral code of the common man."
"So he decided that rather than take a chance on his vision of the future being flawed, he would obliterate all traces of the company which was poised to deliver such revolutionary technology to the world. This included killing the fortunately small number of people employed by EMF, burning each and every one of their houses to their very foundations, and utterly destroying the headquarters for his hat trick."
"That's insane," murmured Veranda.
"That's Moriarty," said Sherlock.
"He is Sherlock in a funhouse mirror. Moriarty favors the most straightforward methodology which will, nevertheless, yield flamboyant and meretricious results." Mycroft paused for a moment and leaned back in his chair.
Veranda blinked at Mycroft and looked askance at Sherlock. "Like two sides of the same coin? Sherlock's always after the most convoluted solution to the simplest problem."
Sherlock crossed his arms in a huff and Veranda could swear he was pouting.
"Precisely. Unfortunately, Moriarty shares Sherlock's tendency to be beset by boredom and will go to extravagant lengths in order to alleviate it. That is why I was forced to embroil you, Sherlock, in this whole sordid incident. When Moriarty's hit men went to collect their paycheques, he was looking over their proof that the work had been completed. It was then that he saw they had accidently murdered the wrong woman. Not being a man of compassion, he was not concerned that a pregnant woman had died because she bore a striking resemblance to you, Veranda."
"Yeah, that connection's already been made." Veranda looked pained as she briefly recalled looking into Viktoria's body bag at the morgue while the slightly too-eager Molly had hovered nearby. That girl enjoyed her job far too much.
"Your discursive itinerary proved too confusing to Moriarty's accomplices and the protracted wait for your arrival gave him time to think. He had to know that you were something of a hapless flunky to your esteemed colleagues and that as such a low-level associate, it was unlikely that you actually possessed any information of value that could be used to recreate the material he had already incinerated."
Veranda's expression soured as she fought the urge to leap up and bust Mycroft one across the mouth.
He kept talking, obdurately unaware of her rising anger at his thoughtless words. "Moriarty was also cognizant of the fact that Sherlock was suffering a dearth of engaging cases and was growing restless, so he created a ploy that would abrogate both his and Sherlock's boredom, plague me with yet another distraction and, in the end, dupe me into playing a game that could not be won. I would say you were a pawn, Veranda, but in reality…we all were."
Sherlock leaned forward to address Mycroft. "How would he know I was lacking work unless someone told him?"
Mycroft looked cross. "I don't personally bother to monitor your comings and goings, Sherlock. And I only receive a report when…" He wrinkled his nose in annoyance. "…when you're getting too close to something I would rather you not. What you do to keep yourself entertained is not my concern. I would most certainly not disclose such information to Moriarty. He could have your flat bugged for all I know—I am not your claviger. I would suggest you accept some accountability if your archenemy seems to have exceptionally detailed knowledge of your enterprise."
Veranda snickered and the brothers scowled at her. She shrugged and said, "That makes you the only person I know with an archenemy. It's funny. You should go buy a cape or something. Maybe get a secret hideout."
"Who's to say I don't?" Sherlock didn't sound like he was joking. Veranda raised her eyebrows and decided to stay quiet from here on out.
"Shall I continue?" Mycroft didn't wait for any acknowledgement. "Moriarty was, of course, very aware of the series of catastrophes you caused by your involvement with Ms. Adler." Veranda gave Sherlock a very pointed side-eye and he was just as obviously ignoring her.
Mycroft looked from one to the other as he saw his fears confirmed. He took a deep breath and kept on, "He was also quite well-versed in what had happened at Baskerville and how you abused my security clearance to break into a secure research facility—so you could chase a rabbit!" His sudden animation was brief, but startling to his audience.
Sherlock sat up and tried to defend himself. "Baskerville was not…"
"I don't care! I'm still trying to explain to several of my peers how you are not a major threat to British national security, Sherlock. I would appreciate if you would pay attention when I am castigating you!"
Veranda's mouth got ahead of her brain. "The Lagomorph of Baskerville?"
The Holmes yelled in unison, "Shut up!"
She slumped for a second and then sat up straight. "I don't like your tone of voice, you two. Where is this all going?"
Mycroft flared his nostrils and calmly refolded his hands on the desk before him. "The point to all of this is that James Moriarty is keenly aware of the fact my brother is a loose cannon and prone to causing nearly as much trouble as he prevents. He also knows that Sherlock has a certain allure, especially to the female half of the species, but is tragically naïve in regard to his…charms. Thus, when he found himself with a spare woman of only tangential importance to his immediate designs, he saw an opportunity to make merry with his favorite toys and there would be essentially no chance of repercussions. I imagine he cackled at some point."
Sherlock sat, impassive, with only a slight hint of irritation creasing his brow.
"Moriarty called me, hours before the bodies in the van would have been discovered, confident that there was no way to trace the killings back to him and his people. He said that he had bought everything Mr. Nilsson had made available and that he could start producing the fuel cells in just a few weeks once all the data was hacked and collated from the computers of the murder victims. He indicated that there was one computer missing and that although it contained a fairly minor piece of the process, it would nevertheless be very nice to have. He had experienced a sudden pang of guilt, in addition to realising he had no interest in becoming a manufacturing baron; however, it would be a shame to let this radical technology go to waste so he proposed a deal: If I would send Sherlock to get the woman from EMF and see that she remained uninjured, he would shortly hand everything over to me to do with as I saw fit."
"Moriarty described it as a turn-key operation that could easily be made into a black project so no one would ever know that it had been obtained by illegitimate means and had several murders attached to it. It would be an amazing coup for the British government and everything had already been neatly laundered. The dirty work had been completed and could not be undone, so there was no crisis of conscience necessary."
"Moriarty is incapable of regret," Sherlock said coldly.
"I know that," Mycroft spat. "I also know that he no functional sense of altruism. There had to be more to it, but I could not take that chance. I had to see if there was something to his machinations."
"You were willing to take all of our hard work—soaked with blood—including the blood of an unborn child—and skip off into the sunset whistling a jolly tune because all the nasty wet-work had already been taken care of? You slimy mother-fu…gah!" Veranda had already launched out of her chair and Sherlock only caught her around the waist because he had been waiting for her to lose her composure.
"Let go of me! I will kill him and I will stand on his mangled corpse and I will howl to the moon! God dammit! Sherlock!" She was struggling wildly, but there was no way she was going to get away from him.
He bent down to her ear, "Need I remind you that Mycroft is my brother? He didn't kill anyone…and if the option was Moriarty savoring the fruits of your labors and gloating over the lengths he went to get it…Mycroft is the lesser evil." He shifted his stance slightly so the restraint became more of a hug and he gently nuzzled the side of her neck, an impish glint in his eye as he observed Mycroft's look of disgust.
"Goddammit! God damn everything! Everyone! So this psychotic little prick has everyone dancing on a string because he's just the worst?" Veranda sagged back against Sherlock's chest, her anger boiled off with her loss of faith in humanity.
"After a fashion," stated Mycroft. "The fact remains that the initial resource investment was low and the potential dividends were great." Sherlock glared at Mycroft over Veranda's shoulder before tugging her backwards and encouraging her sit back down. They both took their seats and Mycroft continued, "I dispatched John to Dublin and Sherlock to Heathrow. Once I found out what flight you had finally boarded, I joined him in order to provide some additional impetus should you not be amenable to his offer of accommodation and assistance. I had your phone disabled and concocted a story that contained enough verisimilitude Sherlock would accept it at face value and his inevitable investigation would not uncover a fraction of the truth."
"I set people about discovering everything that could be found about EMF and their still-confidential technology. I'm afraid Sherlock gave me your hard drive, Veranda, and swapped it with a facsimile. I would like to compliment and possibly hire the person who wrote the encryption software—our best people have yet to break into it."
"He's dead." Veranda had taken on a distinctly zombie-like appearance herself.
"Oh. How unfortunate. Regardless, by Saturday morning I had come to the conclusion that Moriarty was bluffing—completely and utterly. He had nothing of any conceivable use to anyone and no apparent motivation to spare you other than to know that Sherlock was cooped up with a strange woman in his flat for several days."
Sherlock held his hand up. "So that little escapade with the bicyclist…"
"Was a sham. You were never in any danger. It was a contrivance to spice up a story that, to him, had insufficient drama. He informed me of what had taken place so I called John to have him check up on you two. I wanted to be certain that his little set-piece had no unintended consequences."
"And I thought you two were messed up. What is going on in that guy's beady little mind? Why would he do any of this? Why would he care?" Veranda was puzzled beyond belief.
Sherlock shrugged. "Why does Moriarty do anything?"
"Why don't you stop him?" she asked accusingly.
Mycroft was cross again. "If you think we haven't been trying, then you are sadly mistaken. He has made an entire career out of being a slippery eel. I decided that I had quite enough of his chicanery and I wanted to end it before anything else embarrassing or ruinously expensive could happen. I wanted Sherlock to finish this adventure as uninformed as he had been at the beginning so I had to separate him from John and get him out of London, where he feels pressure to perform his 'consulting detective' act."
Sherlock resumed pouting.
"I thought a quiet little seaside town would be a good backdrop for a bloody death that I wanted to go unnoticed by as many people as possible. Bad for tourism, you see? There would be few questions asked, especially as the body would never arrive at the local morgue—shipped instead to Bart's Hospital where a facile Molly would do a thorough post-mortem on a non-existent corpse. The victim would then go on to live a full life somewhere else—somewhere far from Moriarty, far from Sherlock and far from me. I could tie it all up with a tidy little bow and no one would be the wiser. Moriarty would lose his sway over me, Sherlock would be innocent of the part he played in the charade and I could get back to my work without having a seventh…eighth…body on my soil."
"You discount my abilities at your own peril Mycroft," Sherlock said smugly.
"That is neither here nor there," retorted his elder brother. "The damage is done, but it is minor…because you will not interfere. Do you understand me? Barring a few minor details, the plan is in place. Veranda will be 'murdered' in a fashion befitting that of all EMF employees and she will leave the country under an assumed name. I will provide her with all that she needs to begin life as a new person and then she will be free to carry on. She can decline, but I think she can also conclude how that course of action will end."
Veranda had been slowly sinking down in her chair until she had nearly submerged back into her coat collar as she stared vacantly at the floor. She could take Mycroft's offer and get the hell away from all the insanity or she could try to go it on her own, but there was really nothing from her old life worth saving—there was nothing from her old life left. There was only Sherlock and she wasn't foolish enough to think that they had a future. Hell, they hadn't even slept together yet. This was actually the best possible scenario for someone in her situation. She'd been running from her past for the last several decades and this was the ultimate turning over of a new leaf. It wasn't even a real decision because that implied there were legitimate alternatives; saying 'yes' to Mycroft was the only rational path forward.
"I'll go," she said in a barely audible voice.
"Splendid!" Mycroft exclaimed and jumped to his feet. I'll be on my way and see that the last few particulars are put to order. You two stay here for now. I'll call you when you may leave the campus. It may take a day or two to iron out the minutiae, but I'll be certain to contact you the instant we have a 'go'. Ta ta."
Veranda looked up at him with a hollow expression. She still couldn't quite accept the import of what was about to happen to her. "Won't Dr. Tarr want his office back?"
"Oh, there is no Dr. Tarr," Mycroft said brightly. "He was just someone I hired from the corridor. 20£ will buy a lot of cooperation from the average university student. Cheerio!" With that he fairly strutted out of the office, grabbing his umbrella along the way and slamming the door behind him.
"I hate your brother."
"You are but one of many."
AN: I was originally going to apologise for my 'deus ex Moriarty' plotline, but in the end I think it fit the raging stupidity and pointlessness of the rest of the story very well. TBH, it isn't much more ridiculous than the paper-thin plots and character motivations that have been foisted on the unsuspecting viewers of the show by the scriptwriters. BBC Sherlock, I love you—but you cray-cray.
And yes—I finally discovered the keyboard shortcut for the em-dash. Yay me.