Chapter 6.
8 pm, London.
Sherlock was lost in a trance, fingers tracing random patterns over the envelope in his lap. Its contents wouldn't necessarily be considered explosive, at least not to anyone else. But to him, they represented nothing less than the loss of a lifetime's carefully cultivated mystique. Sherlock Holmes was above the impulses which drove lesser beings. Even food and sleep were bodily demands which he could push away at will. Relationships, with all their inherent messiness, were nothing he needed or wanted.
But that hadn't always been true.
He had just turned 18, she was 24. An age difference which would be barely noticeable at a later time of life was disastrous at this one. Especially since she had been his teacher.
She was different. A novice teacher on her first classroom assignment, Katherine noticed Sherlock. She praised his assignments and acknowledged his insights. In turn, he was slightly less rude to her than to his other instructors.
In time, Sherlock agreed to help her grade papers, in part because the other options for his time were few. Anything which required leaving his room risked interaction, which was seldom worth the effort. With Katherine, he could keep conversation to a minimum while enjoying the documented idiocy of his classmates. The intimacy of a shared task in a quiet room over numerous evenings escaped him.
Then she kissed him. Surely, she should have known better. Ordinarily, Sherlock would have shredded her pride for breaching his barriers. But he was young and hadn't yet acquired the control over his body that he'd have in adulthood. Instead, he reacted as any other boy swimming in a stew of hormones would, complete with a mild case of unrequited devotion.
Had Sherlock been a liked or even well-tolerated child, the school might have drawn a much deeper line in the sand. As it was, Katherine simply moved onto another position without even a goodbye. Sherlock quietly graduated and shut the door on relationships behind him (at least until Irene Adler briefly knocked it ajar two decades later).
From John Watson's point of view, Sherlock was certainly celibate and very likely asexual. Sherlock preferred it that way. If John knew about Sherlock's experiences with women, he'd have two responses.
First, he'd begin a very unwelcome matchmaking campaign. Sherlock shuddered at the thought of a parade of women being brought to his door, specially curated for him by John and Mary. Second, John would decide that he at last knew what made Sherlock tick, why he eschewed relationships with women.
It was the latter possibility which Sherlock found most abhorrent of the two. He needed to be inscrutable to those around him, even to his closest friend. Not quite knowing why Sherlock acted as he did ensured that mistakes or weaknesses would be written off as process.
More importantly, while his experiences may have shaped him, they didn't make him who he was. Sherlock made himself, and wouldn't allow anyone—especially John—to think otherwise. It would make him seem ordinary, just like other men, no one special enough for John to admire. So having John see him as a solved puzzle, a human Rubik's cube with all the colors in place, was to be avoided at all costs.
Then there was the other thing, the behavior he knew would damn him in John's eyes. Not even Mycroft knew…no, disclosure was simply unacceptable.
With a jerk, Sherlock leapt from his chair and threw on his coat and scarf. The sooner he ruined Moriarty's plans, the better. No more case, no more letters. It was time to end this.
As he left the building, Sherlock threw up his hand and, as usual, a cab immediately swung toward the curb. Before it could stop, however, a blast from the horn of a black Jaguar warned it off. Startled, the cabbie veered back out into traffic, nearly clipping the front end of a passing lorry. Sherlock snorted in disgust and turned toward the car.
"I thought you were supposed to be serving British citizens, not killing them," Sherlock snarked through the window Mycroft rolled down as the car stopped.
"My driver's record is clean of any incidents, Sherlock," Mycroft responded.
"Hardly the point, brother mine," Sherlock said from his spot on the pavement, still several feet from the car. "You've managed to keep my 'record' clean of all kinds of interesting offenses. Doesn't mean they didn't happen."
"Yes, and let's not make me regret that, shall we?" Mycroft sighed. "Get in the car, please."
"Why should I?" began Sherlock, then shook his head. "Oh, fine. I didn't have any cash for a cab on me anyway." He climbed into the car's backseat. "What do you want, Mycroft?"
"Against all odds your deduction about the Florida connection was correct. A virus was tracked back to an IP address for computers in Cocoa Beach which infected the signal maintenance systems for the GPS satellite network."
"Have you been able to trace the source of the virus?" asked Sherlock.
"We know that it didn't originate in the U.S. From its structure, the consensus is that it was likely written by Chinese hackers, but that information is awaiting confirmation."
"Consider it confirmed," Sherlock instructed.
"I can't go to Whitehall with one of your hunches, Sherlock," Mycroft said with mock patience. "But there is additional evidence."
"I don't have hunches," huffed Sherlock. "What evidence?"
"A message was delivered for you." Mycroft thumbed the voice recorder app open on his phone and handed it over to Sherlock. "You need to hear this."
Sherlock raised his eyebrows but said nothing. He pressed play on the phone and a voice filled the car.
"Mr. Sherlock Holmes. You don't know me, but I know you all too well. It is my personal mission to make certain that others learn the truth about who you really are. So they leave you as you should be, alone." The voice was cultured, with only the slightest of Chinese accents.
"You see, I know about being alone. And you are the reason why I learned the lesson so well." The man's voice became several degrees colder. "I was raised by my aunt. She lived her entire life with me in Beijing. She was my only family, my world. Then she went to London and met you. She was dead within days, killed by her employer. All because you got in the way of his plans and prevented her from doing her job." A few moments of silence followed, then the voice continued.
"In China, we believe that there are good and bad endings to life. Which you suffer will determine your afterlife. Thanks to you, my aunt had a bad ending. She was killed for letting you live." Mycroft raised his eyebrows at Sherlock, who didn't remove his gaze from the phone.
"But you won't have the honor of a good death, or even the relief of death at all. Instead, you will lose every person in your life who might give you any degree of comfort. Every friend, every family member, all will be alienated from you. If you replace them with another, I will make certain that relationship fails as well. If it does not fail, then we will take the person from you by other means." At this, Sherlock looked quickly at Mycroft, who nodded his acknowledgement that their parents were secured.
The voice became tinged with scorn. "You hold yourself out to the world as being invulnerable and brilliant, Mr. Holmes. Nonetheless, a few deluded souls have surrounded you with companionship. I will return you to your isolated reality. The people who admire you will know you for the weak, foolish person you are. They will leave you like rats from a sinking ship."
"Trust me when I tell you that every step you take will be a lonely one. When at death you look back on the emptiness that your existence has been, only then will you understand the pain you have brought to me. This will be your curse, to suffer as I do, with no means of recovery." The last words were said in a growl, followed by a click as the recording ended.
Mycroft turned his body toward Sherlock, trying to catch his eye. "You know something about who this is, yes?" he said softly.
Sherlock didn't react, instead staring ahead through the windshield.
Mycroft sighed. "Sherlock, this is utter nonsense. No one will care-".
Sherlock interrupted him. "She was pregnant," he said flatly.
"Excuse me?"
"Katherine. Before she left school, left town, she told me she was pregnant." Sherlock now turned toward Mycroft. "I did nothing. Just let her go. Don't tell me that is something John will overlook. Or Molly. Or-".
Mycroft interrupted him. "She wasn't."
"Say that again?" Sherlock fired back.
"Ms. Sutton. She was most assuredly not pregnant. You think I didn't follow up on her over the years? Do you imagine that she left the school out of the goodness of her heart? Of course not. She was a threat to you, Sherlock, and was neutralized accordingly. The pregnancy claim was just her way of anteing up for more money to go."
Sherlock snapped. "Why in the hell didn't you tell me? You let me think—".
"I didn't know that she had said anything to you about it, Sherlock. As soon as we—" Mycroft nodded. "Yes, our parents knew too." Sherlock looked away as the blood drained from his face. "As soon as she made her relationship with you known, I ensured that it would end for good. She had resigned and was leaving for new employment which I secured when the pregnancy claim came up. For another 10,000 pounds, that was a claim you weren't to know about." Mycroft shook his head. "It seems she deceived us. No honor among thieves or predators, I'm afraid. I'm sorry." Mycroft nearly reached out to Sherlock, then pulled his hand back at the last minute.
"It doesn't matter. Pregnant or not, I thought she was and let her go. John is about to become a father. That was a failure on my part he won't forgive."
"As always, you fail to understand sentiment, Sherlock. You greatly underestimate Dr. Watson's devotion to you. He will understand a mistake of youth, I'm sure."
"No," said Sherlock, then he turned to Mycroft with an expression that said the topic was closed.
"In any event, I know who the message is from. It must be the nephew of General Shan. She was the woman behind the Black Lotus' murder of Soo Lin Yao in 2011. Soo Lin was a museum worker whose brother was part of a smuggling scheme run by Shan. Moriarty must have been behind it—I didn't know Shan was dead, but it makes sense. Disappointing Moriarty always did have a tendency to be fatal. The nephew must be the source of the attacks."
Mycroft nodded and took his phone back. "I'm afraid that others may require a bit more evidence before engaging with China over yet another cybersecurity breach. The Chinese government is still smarting over having to arrest the people behind last month's theft of data from the U.S. Office of Personnel, especially since several of them had government ties. It will be reluctant, to say the least, to reopen that particular can of worms so soon. But we can try to find him."
He dialed a number then began issuing instructions without preamble. As he spoke, Sherlock pulled the car door open.
Covering the mouthpiece, Mycroft hissed, "Where are you going?"
"I have my own ways of finding people. I'm not going to stand by and let my life be destroyed." He stepped out onto the curb. "Goodbye, brother mine. Don't hit anything on your way home. Wouldn't want to blemish your driver's 'clean record'."
Mycroft raised his voice just as Sherlock went to close the door. "You can't leave the country, Sherlock. You aren't allowed to travel outside of London yet."
Sherlock smiled grimly. "Who said I need to go anywhere? I'm the brilliant Sherlock Holmes," He said sarcastically. "They'll come to me."
Mycroft watched as Sherlock walked away. He returned his attention to his phone.
"Put level 5 surveillance on my brother too. I don't want him to sneeze without knowing about it, preferably in advance." Mycroft listened. "What should you expect him to do? Something very, very stupid, I'm afraid."