Chapter 5: The Ghost in the Machine
Present day (Two years since Dulce et Decorum Est):
Whenever Dr. John Watson opened his fridge he half-hoped that he'd find someone's eyes, or their head or their thumbs or something equally stomach-wrenching within. He opened it again, this evening, painfully having to remind himself, yet again, that he wasn't going to see anything out of the ordinary anymore. Not since...
He had once-just the once. He'd woken up one morning with the worst hangover in the world and opened the fridge to find a flattened, bloody squirrel. For half a second, he'd felt a flush of sheer relief and happiness, until, that is, he realised that he'd put it there the night before, when he was pissed as a newt, as a morbid sort of housewarming present to himself. Never again did he want to feel that kind of disappointment.
But today there was no squirrel. Thank God; he hadn't been able to get the stench of decomposing road-kill out of his flat for days, he thought as he made himself a cup of tea with the last of the milk in the fridge. He'd have to go and get some milk later; not like there was anyone else to get it, he mused, sitting down to his laptop, where he'd been writing up that email asking his landlord to get the boiler fixed. Again.
221b had never had a dodgy boiler, not unless…his flatmate…had been tinkering with it, which surprisingly hadn't happened often. God, he missed that old place; he visited Mrs Hudson every so often, and she was always telling him that he was more than welcome to move back in, that she didn't want anybody else moving in just because 'Sherlock Holmes the Fake Genius' had lived there, once upon a time.
"I can't go back there. 's not right." He told himself, taking a tentative sip of his tea.
Just for a second, his eyes flickered to his computer screen and saw something simply bizarre.
"That's funny." He murmured as the mouse began to move across the screen without any interference on his part. He wiggled his mouse, but the mouse only seemed to move in the opposite direction.
He'd have thought that it was Mycroft being a smarmy, self-important bastard, demonstrating that he had so much power that he could hack into his very computer, but the mouse opened a word document. John was fairly sure that if Mycroft wanted to speak to him, he'd text or email or, more than likely, kidnap him off the street in one of those ominous-looking government cars.
"Dr. Watson, if you are there, would you please type?" The words suddenly appeared on the otherwise blank word document, as if a ghost had somehow infested his laptop. "Dr. Watson," it continued, "I can see you through your webcam; I know you're there. Please type."
With a bemused scowl, John began slowly typing: "Who is this?"
Again, the ghostly words rapidly typed: "I'm afraid I can't tell you, Dr. Watson. Suffice it to say that something is going to happen, and when it does, you will be needed."
Brow puckered even further in confusion and quietly building anger, John replied simply: "Why?"
To which the words appeared: "There is not enough time to answer all of your questions; we have approximately two minutes before there is a raid on your flat. When the time comes, you will be required to work with our associate. If need be, he can work without you, but he would prefer otherwise.
"Dr. Watson, it has been two years since Sherlock Holmes fell. But I think you should know that he never truly died."
Before John could furiously demand a straight answer from whoever was controlling his laptop, the last two words of this conversation appeared:
"Time's up."
Almost immediately, a whole troop of masked, black-clothed men brandishing AK47s broke down the door with a crash and a flurry of garbled orders, grabbed the doctor, tied his hands and shoved a cloth bag over his head. Then, as quickly as they'd broken in, they left, dragging John Watson with them.
In the meantime, all evidence of the ghost in the machine was wiped away…
Author's Note: As far as I'm concerned, it's about bloody time John showed up! XD Anyhoo, I want to thank everybody who's favourited and/or alerted this story; it really means the world to me. I also want to thank both Alaris24 and Magesa for reviewing – it's important for me to know what I'm doing right and what I could be doing better, so…*hint hint, nudge nudge, wink wink* ;)
Magesa-I hope I'm not being too much of a smart alec; I just love the fact that Sherlock is basically all about being a smart alec and I wanted to carry that into this, the only problem being that I haven't read the books and so can't make references in the same way Moffat and Gatiss do. :)
Lastly, the Soundtrack for this little chappie is (and though I'm not too sure about the relevance of the title or the lyrics, the music behind it really is the tone I was going for): 4 O'clock by Emilie Autumn.
Review? (Pretty please?) }-)