Chapter Seven

In the Safe House

Author's Note: Fear not, for the pace will pick up soon. Things are going to get crazy. Please review! It would help me a lot. There are so many more chapters to come! I write a good many before I post them. But your input can alter the unpublished ones.

When Fury left, the Doctor said briskly, "Right then! You, Sherlock Holmes, are supposed to know the most about this case. What can you tell us?"

"Why don't you find out on your own?" Sherlock asked. He pulled a cigarette out of his pocket. John glared at him, but he ignored the glare. He put the cigarette in his mouth and lit it.

"Is that what you did, then? Figure it out on your own?" asked the Doctor. "Because Nicholas Fury said your brother told you all you know about it." Sherlock said nothing. "Look, Mister Holmes, I'm a time-traveling alien. If anyone here needs to be in the know, it's me."

"My brother Mycroft told me that the three victims were agents of SHIELD. They were working on a project involving new military technology."

"A teleporter?" asked the Doctor.

Sherlock had been about to speak, but he stopped and cocked his head. He seemed impressed for the first time. "How did you work that out?"

"Never mind, tell me more."

"Apparently some spies are killing the agents who know about the teleporter. It's not a simple cover-up, or Mycroft wouldn't be involved. My brother may be a busybody, but he is not easily frightened. And believe me when I say that he's worried. He thinks it quite likely that this teleporter will get into the wrong hands."

"And then what? Global warfare, armies slaughtered by armies that disappear as quickly as they came?"

"That seems to be what Mycroft thinks."

Booth swore again.

Temperance asked, "Do you have any clues concerning the identity of the killers?"

"No. I haven't examined the bodies, because I expected the crime scene to be contaminated by common investigators like you. They always get in the way of my work."

Booth said, "Ignore that, Bones, you're above it."

Bones said, "Ignore what?"

Rose interrupted. "Sorry, I'm still a bit confused."

"Hardly surprising," said Sherlock.

"There's a teleporter, and SHIELD has it, but some spies are trying to get it. But I don't understand, what are they trying to gain by just killing off people who work for SHIELD? How will that get them closer to it?"

"Not bad," said Sherlock. "That's what I've been puzzling over ever since Mycroft told me about the case. There was no evidence of torture or other means of interrogation. Nothing was taken from the bodies, as far as anyone can tell. And two of them were killed at home, with their possessions undisturbed."

Rose said, "Right, but the other one. Edgar Something."

"Arlington."

"He was killed in the Pentagon a long time after he should've left. On a floor he didn't work in."

"Yes, and it turns out he was an agent of SHIELD. Infiltrating the Pentagon, perhaps?"

"You think the Pentagon's behind this?"

"I didn't say that, best not to jump to conclusions. But it may be instructive to see what's down there, in the Pentagon basement."

Booth said, "Yeah, but the PFPA people we talked to said there was nothing unusual down there. Just maintenance and offices."

Sherlock replied, "Are you really naïve enough to believe that the Pentagon tells everyone what they're up to?"

"Fair point. So, how do we get there when we're stuck in this safe house?" Booth asked.

"We don't," Sherlock said. "We get Fury to find the information we need. He must have other agents working in the Pentagon who could find out."

"And what happens if they get killed, too?" Rose asked.

"Well, then we'll know we're onto something, won't we?"

She stared at him as if trying to tell whether he was joking, although she knew that he wasn't.

Will spoke up. He sounded as if he were forcing himself to speak. "There won't be another death at the Pentagon. Whoever killed Edgar Arlington was on a crusade. He went straight from there to the other two victims." He shuddered. Hannibal put a hand on his shoulder. "He wasn't protecting anything. He was eliminating a target."

"You're sure about that?" asked Sherlock.

"Yeah."

"Well," said John Watson, "I'm famished. Anyone care to join me at the salad bar?" Mary held his arm and gave him a reassuring smile. She seemed to know that his question, like his desire to leave the discussion, was not casual.

"I do love a good salad," said the Doctor. "Earth has a remarkable variety of flora. You can't imagine what it's like trying to find decent vegetables on the planets around Rigel Four."

"Yeah, you're right, I can't," said John, as he and Mary walked over toward the salad.

The Doctor followed them. Rose looked after him, then back at the circle of people discussing the murders. She thought about following the Doctor. But then she looked back at Sherlock Holmes and decided to stay.

"So, we get Fury to tell us what's down in the Pentagon. Then what?"

"Well, we can't plan ahead until we know what's down there. But we can start pursuing other lines of inquiry at the same time. There are plenty of us for that."

Temperance said, "I think it's crucial that we determine the weapon which caused those fatal wounds. That might give us the evidence we need to figure out who committed the crime, regardless of the motive."

Will said, "I agree. The weapon was carefully chosen. It's meant to be a reflection of the grandeur of the killer."

Rose said, "The Doctor told me something about it. He said it looked as if it came from another world. Something about a world where you have to bring order to disorder."

"Sounds like this one," said Sherlock.

"He meant at a basic level. A world where, I dunno, the laws of nature are imposed on chaos."

"There's no such place," said Temperance. "The laws of nature are uniform throughout all the reaches of spacetime. Even irregularities such as black holes can be accounted for. They're obeying the same laws, just in unexpected ways."

"Yeah, but you don't understand. The Doctor's been to so many places. What if he meant there's another world, one that's not part of our universe at all? Like another dimension or something."

"The use of the word 'dimension' to denote a separate universe is misleading. Do you mean a portion of spacetime which is isolated from this one?"

"Right. One with different laws. Running parallel or something."

Sherlock snorted.

"The idea has precedence in scientific circles," said Temperance. "Steven Hawking has entertained it. I regard it as a matter for speculative physics rather than empirical investigation, but this weapon might show otherwise."

"And how would it get from that world to this one?" Sherlock asked. "Parallel universes are supposed to be causally isolated. They can't affect each other."

"At one time, it was believed that no new heavenly bodies could be produced," said Temperance, "until a supernova was observed in the sixteenth century. Maybe the arguments about causal isolation have just been similarly debunked."

"More importantly, why would an inhabitant of a parallel universe concern himself with the military espionage of Earth? It doesn't make sense. Why travel across the impossible just to kill some cosmic strangers?"

"Maybe it's that teleporter thing," said Rose. "I saw this movie where aliens didn't care about us until we had invented a nuclear bomb. And we're still a Level Five planet, actually."

"A what?"

Rose went on, "Maybe the people in this other universe are worried because we could use the teleporter to reach their world somehow."

Sherlock said, "Interesting." He looked away from them toward the floor, and he steepled his fingers in front of his face. Then, suddenly, he groaned and threw down his hands. "No, no, no! It's too speculative! We need some evidence, we need at least some information about this other world. Where has that Doctor gone to?" He rushed over to the salad bar, where the Doctor was making Mary and John laugh with genuine laughter.

Rose, Temperance, and Booth looked at each other.

"Well," said Booth, "I am totally out of my depth here. Give me people to interrogate, give me a target to shoot, fine. Other universes? One is plenty to worry about."

"Yeah, I know what you mean," said Rose. "It's an awfully big universe, too."

"How many planets have you been to?" Temperance asked Rose.

"Oh, I dunno. You lose track after a while. And then there's space stations and asteroids and moons…"

"It sounds fascinating. I think that I would enjoy it."

"There's nothing like it," said Rose, with a strange smile.

"I think that the Doctor would be a good traveling companion. Are you in a sexual relationship? Is he capable of reproducing with humans? His sexual anatomy seems roughly compatible."

"Oh gosh, Bones!"

Rose laughed. "No, no, we're not—Definitely not. Nothing like that." But then she turned around to look at the Doctor, and Booth doubted her denials.

Meanwhile, Sherlock had begun asking the Doctor about the multiverse theory.

"I'm almost sure that's what it is," said the Doctor. "Trouble is, I can't remember which world that thing reminds me of. There's so many, you start to lose track. Order out of disorder…A world without laws of its own…"

"It sounds considerably more interesting than this one," said Sherlock.

"Yes, I imagine it would be," said the Doctor. "Dangerous, of course. You'd have to value courage in a world like that. Only the heroes would prosper." He took a bite of romaine. Then, he spit it out as his eyes popped fully open. "Hang on! That's it! Heroes, courage! Why didn't I see it before? I've got to tell Fury."

"What?" Sherlock asked eagerly. "What is it?" Now that they had moved out of sheer speculation, his bloodhound heart had picked up its pace.

"The Nine Worlds! Valhalla, home of the heroes! Oh, of course!"

John asked, "Doctor, what are you talking about?"

The Doctor shouted loud enough for all of them to hear, "Loki!"