Chapter summary: An overview of the world they live in following A Study in Pink.
Week 1
Key words: Dummy launch, Quality control
Description: Erratic influx of info. Occasional disruptions.
Comments: Urgent need for active navigation of activities into useful channels.
"Fantastic." This is amongst the first things Watson says to his assigned companion. It's what he is supposed to say, although he is genuinely impressed by his flatmate, going by the speed of his speech - there is barely enough time to process. And everybody else on the scene is so shocked too. How interesting.
"Do you know you do that out loud?" The detective looks at him as if the compliment had never been uttered before. Surely it can't be.
"Sorry, I'll shut up." Watson is slightly embarrassed. Was it that loud? Social etiquettes are such a mystery.
"No, it's…fine."
Much of the M-Lab is now taken up by five gigantic monitors. Moriarty watches intensely the one that replays Holmes's motions through Watson's eyes, while another is printing out strings of words pulled from the sound waves. The other three are less comprehensible, with lots of colourful graphs and charts, and incessant pop-ups of "White noise, removal suggested.".
"You know, I can reconstruct these feeds to make you see, hear and feel exactly like Watson does." Moran leans back against the bench, crossing his arms with a proud smirk.
Moriarty turns around to face his smug engineer. "Oh, no, I would rather keep calm and stay away from the thrill. Observing from a distance is fine - the Lauriston Gardens case is a dream launch. Behold the sheer beauty of the incoming data flow - Ah, it's Christmas also for me. Sherlock, thou art brilliant. Don't be jealous, Sebbie, you're brilliant too. Look how fond of our creation Sherlock is."
"In the words of Sherlock himself - the fragility of genius is the need for an audience, and we gave him just that. Even so, the rate of rapport establishment has exceeded my expectation." Moran cringes a little. "They stopped for food halfway – no preliminary study could predict such a thing. Could it be that our point charge is so powerful, it has come to disrupt the field under observation?"
"Of course it has, Sebbie, did you miss the part where our dummy goes all the way to save Sherlock's life?" Moriarty chuckles. "I amglad he's clear about his duties. The whole world owns our hand-crafted super soldier a favour, for Watson's presence reduces, if not eliminates, the risk of our subject of study losing his whacky self. That is a very welcomed disruption."
"Yeah, I suppose, less of a disruption than to simply drag Sherlock over here and plunge into his brain, as I would like to."
"Not to mention that we need his mind at work. Hence Watson, our second best. Get to the analysis, Seb, now that you have plenty to work on."
The case closes without much ado, if a dead psychopath and a narrow escape of the criminal-hunter count as normal. The next morning, Watson is munching on toast and wondering whether his M-Lab overlords would care to analyse the taste of strawberry jam from 221B's fridge, when Holmes suddenly speaks up.
"Stamford was clearly anxious when he introduced you."
Here comes a confrontation. Improvise. "Because you are in the room…?"
Holmes looks up with disbelief. "We've only been acquainted for less than a week, and you are sassing me?"
"Well, you're the one that suggested we move in together the first day we met, I assume you knew what's in store."
The lines around Holmes's eyes crease slightly, and Watson knows he has a point.
"Indeed, I do. Few relations, boarding school before enlistment. A good doctor in the United Solar Defences, but little experienced in the world outside. Did I miss anything?"
Watson flinches. The last bit is unexpectedly true. Remembering his task, he inquires, "And you knew it how?"
"Well-educated, impeccable manners, yet lofty and reluctant to form close emotional ties – most probably away from family since a young age, and not much connections thereafter, hence looking for a flat share with a stranger. Hair and posture military, medical education background, both are reflected in demonstrated expertise in violence and surgery at the crime scene."
"And about the world outside…?"
"Please, has no one else commented how you manage to dress like a grandfather and a toddler at the same time?" Holmes lazily flips through a news-tab above his cup of coffee.
Watson snorts. Thanks for the costume design, Moran. "No, they haven't."
"Is there anything I missed?" Now Holmes's eyes are fixed back on Watson.
Watson smiles at the eagerness for approval. "Spot on, except that I don't have few relations – I have none. 'Boarding school' is an understatement."
Something flashes by in Holmes's eyes. Ah, the camaraderie in loneliness alike, as Watson's clever endorsers have conjectured.
"Ugh, there's always something. So you did not enlist -"
"No, it was simply compulsory. Stamford is the closest thing I have to a friend, but he cannot claim to know me well. We met in med class before I got stationed. I just really need a place to live." Watson recites his lines about the fictional connection. It's quite a sad story, actually, almost sadder than Watson's real self. But just what is the real self, besides a 2-week old router for what the M-Lab wants?
Holmes's injection pulls his mind back into the current conversation. "How was the orphanage?"
Watson shrugs. "Most people don't just ask that, but then, you're not most people. Not much of a boyhood there."
"I would have thought. Possibly as dull as my own. Come, Watson, I will take you to London."
Watson blinks. "But we are in London."
"By which you mean the current stretch of air encompassing the skyline of what was known as Western Europe, and you're on the 221st floor of it. We are geographically closer to Frankfurt, going by old place names. Have you ever wondered what the ground floor looks like?"
Well, now that you mentioned it, I am wondering. Watson cannot fathom what his crackpot of a flatmate is up to this time, but somehow it sounds oddly exciting.
"Let us tour the original London, on an iconic device of boyhood from that age. To do that, first let us head to the Museum."
"That would be the setup validation you're looking for," Moriarty observes with satisfaction.
"Yes, quite." Moran curls his lips. "The attempt to weave up a family background would out-fuss the combined work of hacking the Citizen Record, the Civil Archive of Abandoned Minors, and the Defences database all together. Settling for the orphanage would also naturally lead to the military career. It's very reassuring to see our genius buying all that, but from now on, additional Watson-appreciation from Holmes will just be redundant."
"When the data stream stabilises, you can add a filter for the mundane conversations."
"No, even the bad data points are precious. I'd tell Watson to jack up the quality though."
The Terra Citadel is a hustling place, where jet-cars in different styles hover in and out. At the front gate of the Terra Museum, citizens line up to scan their wrists for admission. Watson notices the clones by the side, and hangs his head low. They are hard to miss, for the division is clear - every one of them bears a mark of servitude of some kind. A collar is the crudest, while an ankle ring is nicer, and high-end corporate or private clones may have invisible chips much like Watson's own. Unlike his peers, Watson enjoys a citizen Identity, as well as a family name, but he still irrationally fears the setting off of an alarm, should Holmes choose to go in. Fortunately, there isn't much time for Watson's personal lament, for Holmes deftly leads the way through the crowd, straight to the little-visited back.
"Welcome, Sir." The Museum storage unit swings open as Holmes scans a bracelet. "A copy of Mycroft's Identity. He probably knows." Holmes explains.
Watson's eyes open wide as shiny rows of two-wheeled vehicles are revealed in the dim vault, if vehicles they are. Holmes test-turns a few, and picks out two.
"These are the last productions before they fell out of use and became a collection. Facsimiles persist in gyms, but that's not what they were designed for. Termed 'the self-moving vehicle' in the Chinese language, it was a common form of transport before the drastic advance of geo-engineering in the 2300s that allowed for the elevation of the tropopause to contain the population, and the construction of jet-ways. Think, Watson, about the wonder of propelling yourself via the device, not by fusion between uranium atoms against torrents of air, but by processes inside your own very cells and friction against the ground."
The westward descend from London Grand Central is faster than Watson thought. As they approach Level 50, few passengers remain. Occasionally a conductor clone would shot a suspecting glance at their strange devices, which Watson has gotten used to by now.
"I'm dizzy."
"It's the abundance of oxygen. Level 43 marks the boundary of the metropolis, and the public shuttle will only bring us this low. Come this way, Watson, we're taking the maintenance passage."
Apparently Mycroft's Identity is capable of unlocking just any Staff only door, but even that could not save them the trouble of having to walk the final three levels, while carrying the bicycles. What a dumb name.
"This is a complicated trip – do you do it a lot?"
"Not in a while. It is well for us that these 2400s' productions are of titanium, not steel, or your arms would have been sore by now. They are also fitted with the marvellous auto-balance, without which you would have to learn to ride first."
The view, it turns out, is quite worth the trouble. Remnants of bridges, ports and cathedrals are scattered along the winding river, their former splendour covered by vines, giving the landscape a desolate beauty. To weight down on the tyres against a mixture of grass and concrete and propel oneself forward is a wholly unregistered experience. A furry white creature gives Watson a jump – rabbits, his knowledge module reacts seconds later. He inhales deeply in the rampant greens, an impossible luxury in the metropolis overhead, where dirt is precious, and floating gardens are always crowded.
"Here we come to the wide part of the river, which give rise to the name London. Unlike the toxic waters surrounding Neo-Seoul, the Old Town actually remains habitable, if one has no desire for society." Holmes makes a swirling turn, his coattail all the more dramatic. "Isn't it curious how some parts of humanity never change?"
"Like, sticking to old place names?"
"Yes, but more than that. We are not far from the Prime Meridian; here in this town is where they thought the world starts, and rightfully so, as they were amongst the first to chart this world through exploration. The ancient Empire still proudly justifies her dominance by entrepreneurship and science."
Watson nods. All these knowledge, or information, have already been installed in his brain, but to have someone pointing things out to him and talking to him is a different matter. It's thought-provoking.
"Yes, but to feed these high-maintenance drivers, the accumulation of the start-up capital has often involved the systematic exploitation of fellow humans. Caste, race, religion, gender, socioeconomic class – any difference was seized as an excuse for discrimination, oppression or even slavery."
"True. Thanks to thousands of years of civilisation, those grim days are far behind. All citizens enjoy the same rights now, do we not?"
"Yes, so did citizens of Rome. The word citizen is often discriminatory in itself."
"Hmm, so should clones be our equal? Good political question, can't answer. …Why are we talking about this?"
Watson's voice falls a little flat. "Oh, no reason at all. It's just a thinky environment, I guess. Oxygen invigorates the mind, you know."
After climbing three levels, the public shuttle is almost out of service by the time they reach the platform. Things are less than smooth, when they sneak back to the Museum while hurling the antiques. Instead of the recorded welcome, the pair is greeted by the Museum superintendent.
"Your Identity hack is quite extraordinary, kids, but if you think a senior visit at this ungodly hour will go unnoticed, think again. Drones!"
Watson glances around at the furious robotics closing in, as Holmes grabs him by the hand and whispers,
"Run."
Slamming the door behind shut, Watson finds his own uncontrollable giggles annoying, although his medical science module informs him that it's just the natural release of dopamine from the aerobic exercise. He looks to his partner in crime, who is equally sweaty and out of breath, and with an equally huge grin. "That was clever, how you used the narrow valley, it was awfully clever. Poor little robots."
Holmes chortles. "They will get repaired in no time." He lets go of Watson's hand to shrug off his coat. "This has not happened for years."
"What, you breaking into high-security places just for the kicks?"
"No, me getting caught."
The mechanism of a shared laugh is not explained in Watson's extensive knowledge module, but it is a strange fuzzy feeling.
"This is outrageous," Moran taps at the delete button aggressively, "a bicycle trip on the ground and a debate of philosophy? What next, a trans-Atlantic cruise to study the whales? A shuttle to the Moon to observe an Earth-rise?"
"I will take you to the Moon for an Earth-rise if you so desire," Moriarty laughs. "As long as our chips are up, there is no harm in a little fun. Sherlock is quite an explorer, we'll give him credits for that. It could be an indispensible component of the genius mind."
"Yeah, along with all other non-quantifiable crap." Moran slams his hands down to the bench. "When I designed the perfect company for a sociopath, I built him to sustain prolonged disappointment, humiliation, neglect, not these useless sparkles of endorphin. Every non-useful minute is our loss, Jimmy. Time to bring our dummy down from the high."
After bidding Holmes good-night, Watson is still grinning to himself in his room. Out of nowhere, a wave of guilt and anxiety sets in, and he shudders.
"That was a day of good idle fun, John Watson. But remember, you are on a mission. Make him think. Make him talk."
Ouch.