Act V: Stealing the Future

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Watson sat cross-legged in the middle of the room, arms folded, thinking. While a lot of his thoughts and memories were green camouflage tinted, later ones were based in the sitting room of 221B Baker Street. He smiled to himself, looking at the floor, weighing up the strangeness of everything that had happened in the few months he had moved in with the most impossible, eccentric lunatic he had ever encountered.

A muffled beep sounded and he was just considering how he could imagine a phone alert at a time like this when he felt the accompanying vibration in his pocket.

He frowned at the door, thought for a moment, and then - very very slowly - put his hand in the pocket and withdrew the phone.

'1 new message'

"You are kidding," he breathed, before his thumb pressed the button. He squinted in disbelief at the words that awaited him:

'If asked, say Doctor has generator. Sit tight. SH.'

He looked up again at the door, hoping against hope that whatever had made the message possible would do the same for a reply. Then his eyes flicked back down and his thumb went over the buttons carefully. He pressed 'send' and hoped for the best.

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The Doctor grinned and then tapped the monitor. "He got it. And… we have a reply!" he cried happily, pushing the monitor round for Sherlock to read.

'Sit tight? I'm on a BLOODY SPACESHIP.'

"Hmm. His ship must also be disguised," Sherlock mused, his eyes narrowing. He looked at the Doctor. "Can you find it?"

"Now I have more of a location to go on, yes," he said simply, swinging the monitor back toward him. Then he frowned and stood back as a rather petulant beep interrupted his ministrations. "Oh. Not good."

"What?" Sherlock blurted, pushing him to one side to see the screen.

'Very clever. Now I have your contact frequency,' the newest message read. 'If you want your companion back alive, Doctor, I suggest you bring me the feed generator in the next three hours. You know where I am.'

"Damn!" Sherlock exploded, twirling away from the console in a cloud of anger.

"Just slow down!" the Timelord called at him, already pulling the monitor straight and playing with controls. "Now he's contacted us directly he's given us the location of his ship, and we can get John back - alive and swearing."

"We have to find it in under three hours!" He swung away, his hands in his hair as he growled in impatience. "Where is it? Why has it just disappeared! This is impossible!"

"Oh don't be such a drama queen!" the Doctor cried, his voice pitched high in incredulity. "We'll just have to find it!"

"Oh yes, because our search so far has gone so very well," Sherlock snapped with more sarcasm than would have fitted into the TARDIS. "I will not let this candlestick beat me!"

"Or John die," the Doctor added pointedly.

"He won't die, whoever has him needs him as a bargaining chip."

"And when we arrive in three hours without the generator?" the Doctor snapped. "What happens to your friend then, Sherlock?"

"Blogger! He's just a blogger!" he raged.

"Just a blogger?" the Doctor accused. "You really have no idea, do you? Don't you realise how important he is?"

"Of course he's important," Sherlock snapped. "He's useful, unlike most of this city! He's a war veteran and a crack-shot! He shoots bloody awful cabbies! Has a lot of common sense, draws attention to those useless little things I don't care about because he's cursed with someone else's idea of a conscience and sometimes he looks at me with this unfed-fish look on his face and I realise I've crossed some stupid boundary that only the vacant masses value - but none of that is relevant to finding this bloody candlestick!" He huffed, ignoring the way the Gallifreyan's face went dark with disappointment. "Or finding this blundering alien idiot who thinks John's your travelling companion!"

"A friend," the Doctor stated firmly, "who buys your tea and milk, who's dependable and always right there when you need him - and sometimes he looks at you with that unfed-fish look on his face and you realise you've crossed some 'stupid boundary that only the vacant masses value'." He sighed, a touch sadly, Sherlock noted with curiosity. "And that's why even I - with an IQ roughly three times yours - need someone to give me that unfed-fish look so I know when I've crossed a line."

Sherlock looked at the Time Rotor hastily, lifting his chin and clearing his throat.

"You're a genius, and that's great," the Doctor pressed. "But you need someone to point these irrelevant things out for you - because you think they're irrelevant. They're not - not to everyone else. Now do you see how important he is?"

"Of course I see - I see everything," Sherlock retaliated rather petulantly. "It's just not relevant."

"Really? Then why does it bug you that it matters to John, and everyone else?"

The detective didn't answer, but it was hardly necessary; his eyes slid away to the left, keeping his shoulders back in stubborn refusal to play anyone else's game.

"Everyone might think you're odd. Doesn't mean it's a bad thing. And John Watson is most definitely not everyone," the Doctor added with a smile, sensing victory.

"Is this going somewhere?" Sherlock interrupted testily.

"And who else would you find to put up with your tantrums - all those times you throw your toys out of the pram - and your violin-fussing-"

"Yes yes, all that, he's a hero," Sherlock rattled off dismissively, flapping a hand at him.

"Just you remember that," the Doctor warned. "And he doesn't even goes on at you about your 'seven percent solution' when you're bored-"

"He doesn't know about my seven percent-." Sherlock stopped dead, regrouping. "How do you know about my seven percent solution?"

"Read it in a book," the Doctor mumbled, his face averted.

"What book?" he demanded.

"Alright, fine," the Doctor grumped. He yanked the keyboard of the monitor closer to him and banged away at the symbols thereon. "Sherlock Holmes, the Adventures Of," he said under his breath. "Now, take a look at this book and tell me-. Oh," he cut himself off, and Sherlock watched his face turned terribly vexed. "Not one reference to you in the Encyclopaedia Galactica? What? Behave!" he warned the monitor, fetching it a slap with the heel of his hand. He banged away at the keys again. "Author, author, here we are… And-. Oh." He halted again.

Sherlock whisked up to his side and looked round his shoulder. "Nothing. See? No mention of anyone ever having written about me," he said, eyeing the jumble of information on the screen. "I am actually me, and you're mistaking me for someone you once read about in some newspaper."

The Doctor bit the inside of his lip, before looking at the man peering right through his personal space at the screen. "You may be right," he muttered thoughtfully. "I just can't work out how that's possible."

Sherlock rolled his eyes and backed away again. "This is just a distraction, useless time-wasting," he announced. "This - this - this whole case has been wrong. Why a lenticular alignment feed generator? Why was it stolen in the first place? How was it stolen from a locked room with no signs of forced entry, no signs of egress or exit? Who would have bothered? Why steal it and then keep it in the city - no, why steal it and then just keep it? Have no plan to sell it or use it or-." He stopped dead. His hands went out as if for balance as he looked around the huge room with sudden calm.

"And it got itself stolen just before I arrived and needed it," the Doctor put in. "And right before this grainjellian wanted it, too."

"This what?" he asked irritably, his brain trying for 4,200 rpm and coming very close.

"Grainjellian. The man who looks like a normal bloke - the one on the riverbank. He's not human, he's grainjellian. They specialise in system disruption for a price. Letting him have the generator would be very very bad."

"You mean solar system?"

"Yes."

Sherlock gasped suddenly, taking off at a run. He skidded down the ramp toward the front door. The doors were ripped open and he disappeared. The Doctor looked up, thought for a second, then went back to the monitor.

Barely a minute went by before Sherlock jumped in through the open doors, slamming them behind him. He leant on them and grinned. The Timelord looked over, mystified.

"You stole it!" Sherlock cried happily.

"What?"

"You stole the generator! Think!" He let go of the doors and flew up the incline, coming to a stop so close to the Doctor's large eyes it was a wonder they didn't give a short sharp girlie scream and stagger back in his head.

"Me?"

"Oh come on!" Sherlock implored, his hands out in supplication. "You're clever, used to four dimensions, work it out! How else could someone get into the museum with all the doors locked and pick up the generator before simply disappearing with it! You'd need something that could materialise right there, in the very room, and then take you away again afterwards!"

"How did you know the TARDIS can materialise-"

"No scuff marks or wheel treads or burns or disturbance of any kind outside so you must have materialised here," he barked. "Think about it, Doctor! That's why no-one's seen it or heard of it since it's been stolen - because you are about to have gone back in time to bring it straight here, from this afternoon to now - so it's physically nowhere for the twelve hours that we've been looking for it! Don't you see?"

The Doctor looked from the man's paler face to the decking. "Well cover me in flour and eggs and bake me for twenty minutes," he marvelled. "I think you're right." Then he frowned. "But that would mean if I don't steal it now, none of this will have happened - it won't have gone missing twelve hours ago-"

"-And the alien will have it and cause havoc," Sherlock interrupted. "But it will happen because it already has!" he urged. "It's already been stolen because you haven't not yet already will steal it! You see!"

"It's so refreshing to talk to someone who understands time," he said to himself with a daffy grin. "So let's go steal a candlestick!"

"It's not a candlestick," Sherlock corrected.

"Hold on!" the Doctor cried, already reaching for levers.

The TARDIS shuddered. She disappeared.

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Watson looked up as the door opened again. The man loomed in the doorway, smiling slightly.

"Nice place you have here," the ex-army doctor said genially. "If I may ask… where exactly is, um, here?"

"My ship. Thank you for replying to your friend's message. It helped me find him."

"Bugger!" Watson tutted, slapping his hands to his head and turning away. He let his fingers slide from his face slowly. He turned around again to look at the man. "So what do we do now?"

"We wait," the man said cheerfully. "Your friend and his consulting sidekick are no doubt locating the generator as we speak."

"Sherlock? A sidekick? That'll be the day," he snorted in amusement. The man turned to go, but Watson took a step closer. "Tell me - when you get this generator, what do you plan to do with it?"

"Use it," the man said simply.

"Oh. I was afraid you'd say that," he sighed.

The man appraised him for a long moment. "Would you like some… refreshment?"

Watson just blinked, before pulling himself together. "Uhm, no, thank you. If it's all the same to you."

The man inclined his head and retreated from the room, closing the door. Watson went over to the window quickly, poking his head out to look left down the corridor. He spotted the shadow of someone on the decking and smiled maliciously.

"Wouldn't mind a bathroom though!" he called.

The shadow paused, then grew darker as he watched. A head appeared round the corner and Watson's smile vanished.

The head - green and scaled, sporting thin, wispy tassel-like hairs from a seam running right over the centre - bent its wide orifice into an ellipse. "I'll see what I can do," it wheezed.

Every shred of decorum and manners that Watson possessed got into an instant fight with his shock, beating it over the head and coming up victorious. As a result, Watson neither shrieked in fright nor blurted out his terrified realisation regarding the man's ancestry.

Instead, his mouth opened and he managed to deliver the best of British, if in a somewhat stammered fashion: "Th-thank you."

Then he pulled his head back in the window and moved to the other side of the room to lean on the wall, his eyes pinned to the window. He slid his back down the stable surface, crouching and watching.

Very carefully.

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The TARDIS lurched slightly, making the two men make a grab for something to steady them. Suddenly she slammed to a stop, sending them into the decking. The Doctor rolled to his feet first, looking around and spotting a black shoe dragging itself out of sight around the other side of the Time Rotor.

"You alright, Sherlock?" he called hopefully.

A flounce of black hair shot up from the opposite side. "Are we there yet?" he asked irritably as he dusted himself down with his one free hand, but the Gallifreyan smiled.

"Think so. Ready?"

Sherlock raised the generator in his right hand, looking it up and down carefully. "As I can be." He paused. "First time I've broken into a museum."

"And?" the Doctor grinned.

"Beats pickpocketing Lestrade," he shrugged. He scrutinised the generator as he slid a finger over the rusty armature at the end, finding one of the red tips.

"Careful!" the Doctor warned.

Sherlock looked at him quickly, then back at the artefact. "Quite." He sniffed and reversed it, coming round the console and offering it to him. "There. Before I misalign something."

The Doctor smiled and took it, his eyes running over it. "So this other alien - you're not fazed that he is an alien?"

"No more than you are," Sherlock said mildly, his face a picture of enigmatic amusement. Then it pinched slightly in concern. "Are you going to accept the fact that I'm not a character from a one hundred-year-old gazette, or book, or whatever?"

The Doctor's expression melted into a thoughtful frown. "Y'know, I don't think you are. At least… not yet."

The TARDIS gave a soft, polite ping and Sherlock immediately looked toward the doors.

"Well?" the Doctor said. "Shall we?"

Sherlock swished his open coat-edge out of the way and set off down the incline to the exit. He had given the left door a smart push and take a step outside before the Doctor caught him up.

They stood and stared, eyeing the large, decaying house thirty feet in front of them.

"Looks like it should be a listed building… but it's not," Sherlock assessed, taking off left to come closer, following the edge of it. "The bricks aren't old, they're new but made to look distressed," he called, reaching a hand out to rap a knuckle into one at knee-height. It gave a tinny echo and he stood back. "Metal. So this is a disguised ship, same as yours?"

"Nothing like mine," the Doctor snorted. "This is a grainjellian tech. scout vessel. Mine's a… home-grown imprimatur-based transcendental companion."

"So where's the door?" Sherlock mused, already turning and coming back. But he passed the brown-suited alien and went on by, studying the rotting windows frames, the chipped brickwork, the sagging ivy on the outside of the three-storey townhouse that had seen better days. He stopped as he came to a white portico framing a rather elaborate front door. He looked over at the Doctor before putting his hand out to try to grasp the heavy brass knocker. The ring turned out to be real; he lifted it to ninety degrees and then simply released it. It fell into the door and a huge boom reverberated on the inside.

The Doctor hurried up behind him, looking over his shoulder.

They waited. And waited. Finally Sherlock lifted the knocker again and dropped it once into the door.

Again they waited.

And… waited.

Sherlock snatched up the ring and belted it repeatedly into the door. "Oh come on!" he cried impatiently. "The ship isn't that big! Stop making us wait!"

He hammered it over and over into the metal housing until the Doctor grabbed his wrist, prompting him to let go of it. Sherlock cleared his throat and the Doctor opened his hand. Sherlock's hands went into his pockets and they both concentrated steadfastly on the door.

At last there was the sound of metal shifting. The door, contrary to its appearance, was sucked inside about a foot before it slid neatly to the left. A man stood, looking out.

"Hello again," the Doctor said cheerfully. The man simply blinked. "We met on the riverbank."

"No…" Sherlock mused, "…we didn't. He looks almost identical, but… he's not. Supposition: any and all of the aliens on this ship only have one human model to copy, so they do. They'll all look like him," he said offhand.

The Doctor nodded. "Possibly. Let's find out."

The man opened his mouth, even as Sherlock was trying to see round him into the 'house'. "You will come with-"

"Which way?" Sherlock demanded, barging past him and finding himself on the decking of a large square room that owed a lot to metal structuring and nothing at all to do with a Victorian townhouse. He whirled around, his eyes narrowed, taking in everything around him. "Where's the man in charge? The man from the riverbank?"

The Doctor wandered in slowly and the man put his hand to a small square panel in the wall, prompting the door to slide across and then squeeze back into the gap. He turned to look at the two men. "Follow me," he said tonelessly.

The Doctor and the detective fell into step behind him, and two sets of ruthlessly inquisitive eyes went over the corridor they were led into. Grey and shiny, the decking beneath their feet was lit by a green glow from below, casting odd shadows over the panels and squares of patchwork metal that made the walls. The Doctor's Converse made no sound as they moved, Sherlock's shoes tapping in an expensive manner as they turned left and carried on walking.

Finally the man stopped and waved a hand at an old-fashioned wooden door in front of him.

Sherlock stepped in front and, without a word, grabbed the doorknob and flung the entrance open. He was in before the Gallifreyan could warn him. He hurried after him.

And then stopped dead.

Watson looked back at them from across the room, only the man from the riverbank between he and the two newcomers. Watson waved a hand in greeting from behind him.

"Are you alright, John?" the Doctor asked quickly, noticing Sherlock was much more interested in the room.

Watson gave a half-smile. "Yeah, I'm ok."

"Good," Sherlock snapped, transferring his gaze to the man. "Now hand him over or we 'realign' your little ship here to a place you won't like."

The man from the riverbank smiled, coming forward to pin Sherlock with an amused eyebrow raise.

"Really. Hand over the lenticular alignment feed generator or your companion here will be the first of your kind to travel in space unaided."

"Excuse me," the Doctor said quickly, elbowing Sherlock smoothly to one side. "You're grainjellian. You're not map makers. What do you want it for?"

"That is not your concern."

"Obviously it is," Sherlock sighed wearily, rolling his eyes. "Look, we know you want to disrupt some thing or planet or galaxy, and you know we know you know how to use the generator. What you don't know is where the generator is, and we do. We don't need it, we could simply go home and destroy it." He took a step forward and an ugly weight of murderous intent seeped into his eyes, turning them into something that could have punctured the hull if thrown. "So hand over the human and no generators get hurt."

The man laughed suddenly, making Watson take a step back toward the wall. He looked to his right, saw the open window not too far away, and edged slightly closer to it.

"Yes yes, it's all fun and games until someone loses a generator," the Doctor warned, before looking over his shoulder as he heard the door swing on its hinges.

"It's over," Sherlock snapped. "Make a-"

"Sherlock," the Doctor said urgently.

They both looked round to see nine men, all ostensibly identical, filing in through the door.

"Ah," Sherlock said abruptly. He turned back to look at the man. "You can't hide in them. I can tell each one of you apart."

"Hide?" he laughed. "No. Search you two and, if need be, get the location of the generator out of you? Yes."

Men came forward and grasped their arms from behind, and the doctor and the detective found themselves held fast.

"This should be interesting," the Doctor managed, eyeing his two captives a little nervously.

Sherlock said nothing. But his eyes burned.

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