Chapter 8: Immersion

Sherlock's senses were enveloped by a familiar warmth as he felt the world around him blur away. The air hung perfectly still, suspended from movement as his consciousness blocked out the existence of 221B Baker St. A deep breath, and he clenched his fists, allowing the tension to build with a tingle before releasing.

"Open your eyes."

He found himself surrounded by the Business Square, the light of the summer day bouncing off the graying concrete.

It was his memory, his experience, his encounter in the pristine state he had viewed its shadow multiple times by that point. But this was different from simple recollection; the wall that had blocked his deductions for the past two days fell. This was Immersion. He was no longer just viewing his own memory; he was manipulating it. Through his Mind Palace, he could observe everything through his own methodical, systematic lens; a three-dimensional diagram of his own memory. This was what he had been searching for; this was what he needed.

It was the moment before the explosion, a murmured silence buffing the sounds of the summer day. Business men and women were still lounging about on the granite benches in peaceful bliss, frozen in time. They became statues, hanging about in eager positions, waiting to resume. In Immersion, he controlled all time and space, directing his own recollections to his own analyzing needs; a skill that had taken many years to perfect, but had served him well in long-term investigations.

Standing in the center of the Business Square, he swiveled around himself, knowing where exactly He would be in the memory. Two feet towards the south exit, he saw himself, his elongated figure casting a dark shadow as he was paused striding away in deep thought. Sherlock studied his former shadow; the severe countenance on his face was withdrawn, still calculating the best way to break into Mycroft's offices. Strange; it was always strange seeing his own form from a differing perspective, a form derived from what he saw in the mirror every once in a while but…different. From behind the lean figure, movement caught his attention.

Alice Claireborne walked from the south exit across the Business Square, ponytail swaying while her musty green dress faded with the concrete. She paid no attention as she passed Sherlock's statue, keeping her focus on the corporate buildings instead. As a hallucination, her presence was bizarre. She did not belong in that memory, and his mind knew it, but she wasn't obtrusive in the least. A conflicting existence that was somehow neutral.

"The North building is fifty-three stories high," she said coolly, stopping by his side, eyes scaling the dark tinted glass. "The lower sixth of the building is derived from concrete walls and columns, suggesting a high-ceiling lobby giving way to the first row of windows. The weakest point would in the lower third, about the twelfth or thirteenth floor; damage the outer supports on either one of those floors for the greatest destruction."

"But that's not what they did," Sherlock muttered, glaring at the North building.

Time resumed, and there was the first boom of detonation, a low bass reverberating through their bodies. The concrete cracked, and the first floors of glass shattered. A rush of dusty air flew from the North building, knocking down the figures around them with a bludgeoning force.

"Detonation was outwards 360-degrees from its origin point," she called over the deafening sounds. "Remotely-operated; unless it was a suicide bomber, the explosive would need an exterior detonator to be set. The composition would be hard to determine without forensics data, but the radius of the explosive itself doesn't extend too far from the origin; only the secondary blast exceeds that. Whatever this was, its composition wasn't based off a flammable compound; firepower would have burnt you all within seconds with a blast radius like this."

Alice and Sherlock remained still as his shadow was thrust forward, a pale smoke emanating from the explosion behind him and the rubble showering down. They watched as he hoisted himself up, dust already caking his shoulders and intermingling through his dark curls. The air around them rang with a high-pitch whine.

"The dust particles you breathed in were mostly concrete," she analyzed with scientific precision, "suggesting the explosives detonated in—"

"The lobby," he completed, observing the forming cloud of smoke. "This wasn't about mass destruction."

Alice looked up at him with an intriguing smile. "Now you're getting it."

Something rushed past them, the air whirling as Alice Claireborne's old figure ran through the dusty fog. Sherlock's shadow remained still for a moment before dashing off behind her. They watched as their former selves jerked to a stop, panting through the heavy smoke before they could begin their altercation. The memory paused, and Sherlock studied the two Alices before him; perfectly identical in physical detail, but so different, so detached. The Alice Claireborne in his memory seemed paled in comparison to the girl standing by his side. The Alice Claireborne in his memory was dead, a corpse in St. Bard's morgue.

"Who runs directly into an explosion?" Alice wondered aloud.

"My thoughts exactly," Sherlock muttered.

She glanced at him with another knowing smile. "I know." She circled around her frozen statue, scanning up and down her own figure with a concentrated gaze. "You knew everything about me from just one chance encounter."

"Tell me what I already know," he demanded.

"Nineteen year old girl; judging by her—"

"Your," Sherlock corrected.

"No, 'her'," she argued impatiently, swinging hair around. "I'm not Alice Claireborne; I'm how your brain envisions she would have been. Probably very close, but not the same at all." Her sharp features eyed him, making her point.

"Anyways," she continued, "judging by her middle fingers, she's ambidextrous, but prefers her right hand over her left. Simplicity of outfit suggests student; shirt and skirt have both recently been purchased, yet worn a great number of times. Splurging on clothing rather than tuition, but with a frugal and practical eye; how unusual for a young girl. Smudges of graphite and faded ink lining her forearm, but they're organized in a strange way…she must have fallen asleep with her arm on a map printed on soft paper. Permanent crease in hair; prefers her hair tied back. Right dangling earring angled towards the neck: she was on her phone recently, and for a long period of time judging by the smeared makeup on her right cheek.

"She lives alone. The state of her hair... the edges are clipped at an angle only possible if the strands were held in front of her face; she cut her own hair. A girl of nineteen, if she didn't go to a salon, would have had her mother cut her hair. However, she is in some sort of relationship; recent impressions on the skin on her right middle finger are of a ring, but she took it off. It was on long enough to leave those marks though; a last minute thought. Cheating in said relationship? No, the ring itself has been sacred to her; if she were cheating, she wouldn't have waited until the last minute to take it off. So why did she take it off?"

"To remain neutral," Sherlock replied as surveyed Alice's motionless body. "This is all choreographed; the outfit, the jewelry, they were chosen specifically to evoke a stigma."

"What do you mean?" she asked, forehead clenching in deep thought.

"She's too neutral. You said she was recently on the phone; where's the phone? She wears a ring; where's the ring? She's a student; with uni discount rates, no student goes anywhere in London without their ID, so where is her student identification?"

Alice's eyes widened as she began to understand. "There's nothing personal about her."

"Anything that could be used to identify her has been purposely excluded," he stated. "The only real factor on her was that birthmark on her neck; outside of that, everything on her has been planned. She wanted people to look at her and attach her to a school girl stereotype. Why? Because people trust school girls; they aren't suspicious, they don't pose any threats. Her safety was remaining inconspicuous, which was why nobody asked the obvious question."

"Which was?"

"What was a nineteen year old school girl doing around the corporations of the Business Square in the middle of summer?" Sherlock cracked his knuckles. "She knew this explosion would happen."

"Of course," Alice replied. "We already knew that."

The scene continued; Alice beseeching Sherlock to leave while he held steadfast to her wrist. They watched as their conversation progressed, the air between them growing tense. Another explosion went off behind them, the blast of which Alice and Sherlock felt behind them. It was a chance encounter; it wasn't supposed to escalate into the damage it had. One meeting; one vague conversation: It wasn't supposed to go like this. Nobody was supposed to get hurt.

Just tell me who you are! Who are you?!

Alice Claireborne.

Sherlock's shadow released her wrist. The young girl paused, standing tall, studying the man who had abruptly stopped her and demanded to know everything. Alice and Sherlock observed the silence between them with a close pause.

"She's not the best actress," Sherlock muttered.

"In what way?"

"She tries to come off as a university student; the clothes, the panicked look in her eyes, it's perfect. She seems normal, but what she really is is brilliant. She's observant; mimicry of other girls her age. She's professional; look at her posture. She's incredibly athletic; the way she was running isn't typical of a teenage jogger. That's how I know you," he turned to Alice with dark eyes, "are not normal."

Alice was about to say something in response, when the air shifted. With a nod, the ghost of Alice began to run away into the smoke.

"There!" Alice gasped. "Stop!"

The girl was paused mid-run, her long hair flying out behind her.

"Her legs," Alice bent down onto one knee, pointing towards one long white scratch. "These scratches on right shin, you saw it on the corpse; there were cuts all over her body from the falling concrete, but these were there before she was caught under the collapsing building." Sherlock watched as she ran her fingertips along the vertical white marks. "It's faint; if her body wasn't settling into rigor mortus, I would say they would have been gone by the end of the day. The deepest point is the middle of the scratches. The top is the entry point, where the object entered her skin at an angle. Still, with the raised flecks of skin around it, I would say it was made recently; probably minutes from the explosive's detonation."

"Bike pedal," Sherlock stated, eyes set on the scratch. As Alice lifted herself up, he explained. "It's a common mark on amateur and rushed bicyclists; if their leg is too close to the pedal while they're resting, their shins are scraped by the pedal as they begin to bike or dismount. It's an incredibly careless mistake for her to have made."

Alice sighed. "Because—"

"Because now we know how she arrived at the Business Square and where her personal belongings are stashed," he concluded coldly. "She had both her phone and the ring moments before she ran into explosion, unexpectedly as I take by the rushed nature of her movement that led her to that mark. There will be a bicycle at the south exit of the Business Square."

Before Alice could even comment on his deduction, the memory burst back into motion. Alice's figure became a shadow in the smoke, and the chucks of concrete began to tumble all around them. Sherlock's figure gracefully darted through the falling rubble. A large man in a black suit rushed past Alice and Sherlock, knocking people over as he went. Suddenly, Sherlock was on the ground, the throbbing sensation beating through his skull.

"Sherlock!" Alice called out, kneeling as Sherlock groaned, pulling a hand up to his bandaged forehead. Through his dark curls, he could see her worried eyes. "I was afraid this might happen. Immersion wasn't the best option."

"I'm fine," he muttered harshly. "I'm just fine."

"No," she soothed, brushing the hair out of his eyes. "Just wait a minute. Breathe."

"Get away from me," he snapped, pushing her away. He turned his attention to his memory, his original self, helpless under the rubble. So pathetically helpless.

"Sherlock…" a voice tugged at him from afar as the two watched the concrete bury over Sherlock's body. His vision began to fuzz over, reaching its limit as he was falling unconscious under the wreckage of the explosion. "Sherlock…"

Alice looked down at him, breathing heavily as she began to fade away. She murmured something inaudible, a pale smile spreading over her lips and her dark eyes gleaming with excitement. She reached out towards his

"Sherlock."

Sherlock snapped into reality. Back standing in the middle of the living room of 221B Baker St, he blinked once or twice, reorienting himself to the shift in his environment. Immersion usually left him somewhat blurred, but this was worse than usual. His head was still throbbing painfully; blanking his mind, the throbbing subsided into a mild pounding. There was a moment of singular peace; alone, his mind clear for the first time in four days. It was only when John gave a light cough that he realized there was a pressure on his shoulder, shaking him lightly.

"Are you alright?" John asked, looking into Sherlock's dark pupils. His face was lined with concern, his pale eyes narrowed as they tried to see what was going on in his mind. It wasn't unusual for him to come home to a reserved Sherlock, so withdrawn that nothing he said could get through. It was the blank look in his eyes once he had scared him; that moment of dead nothingness. Even now, Sherlock seemed slightly delayed in thoughts. Whatever was going on under those bandages, in that brilliant mind of his, it wasn't good.

"How long have you been standing there?" he tried again. "I've been calling your name for the past five minutes."

"Hardly noticed."

"Yeah, I know."

"Call a cab," Sherlock ordered his friend, completely disregarding the comment on his health. Snatching his phone from his pocket, he began to type vigorously.

"And just where do you think you're going?" John asked nervously.

"The North building in the Business Square," he muttered. "I'm telling Lestrade we'll be over there in ten minutes; he'll meet us."

"Sherlock, I don't think—"

"The bomb was a fake," Sherlock said abruptly.

John's face fell, his mouth gaping slightly. "What?"

"The bomb was a fake, and I can prove it to you."

"Sir, we've completed our search."

Mycroft looked up from stack of papers he had been reading on a black sofa. He had been so focused that his current preoccupation had slipped away from him. Then again, he rarely attended flat searches personally. Most of the time he could send his own agents; they would be gone for two hours and return with enough evidence for any incriminations. But this was different; there was a matter here too important to trust with anyone else but himself.

A young man in a dark suit stood before him; a tall, lanky fellow, with a mop of blonde hair. Carsons was obviously not the most versatile of fighters (he could hold up on his own, but protecting others was really not within his best interests), but he was one of the best research agents he had in his personal assembly. And what Mycroft needed now was information.

"Did you find anything?" he asked, voice devoid of any anxiety whatsoever.

"Nothing pertaining to the explosion just yet. Marx and I can begin analyzing these papers once we return to the office."

"No," Mycroft interrupted, the young man giving him a confused glance. "This is a Grade 4 investigation; Marx doesn't have clearance to that level."

"Neither do I, sir."

"I want you analyzing those documents alone." Carsons nodded, accepting his promotion before Mycroft continued. "Was there anything else?"

"There was a safe in a trap compartment under the bed."

"Can you open it?"

"I'm sure I can, but it'll take some time," Carsons said. "It's a five-lock system, and no doubt it's been rigged so the usual methods won't work. I'll take it back to the office with me."

"Thank you," he replied coolly, waving the young man away. He looked around the small apartment. Through the windows along the It was a rather plain place, devoid of any underlying personality whatsoever. White walls, wooden floors, black sofas and chairs, glass tables; there were pictures along the walls, but nothing beyond scenic views of foreign countries. Mugs and a few dirty dishes sat in the sink, waiting to be scrubbed and put away, but other than that the flat was incredibly tidy. Papers had been strewn all over the living room table; everything they had found so far. Analyzing them wouldn't take very long; it was what was in the safe that mattered the most.

"I need you to do something," he calmly ordered, handing Carson a slip of paper. "Find everything you can on this person."

Carson took the slip, glancing at the name before a curious expression overcame his face: Alice Claireborne, age 19.

"Sir, if you don't mind my asking, who was she?"

Mycroft said nothing, simply rising from the sofa and making his way to the door. Carsons knew his employer well enough to know that that meant the conversation was over and there was no point in pressing the matter further. Instead, he gathered the papers into a pile and wandered over to the bedroom safe.

Mycroft paused in the doorframe, though, taking one last look at the small flat. Still impossible to read, he gave a sigh; there was a lot of work before him because of this explosion, and not a lot of time to do it. His phone gave a singular buzz; no doubt Lestrade updating him on the remnants of the explosion.

Sherlock is coming to the Business Square now. I think he's remembered something. Will update later. –Lestrade

"Oh dear," he sighed, slipping his phone back into his pocket just as Anthea appeared behind him. Time was slipping from him faster than he expected.

"Your car is ready," Anthea announced quietly, the black vehicle pulling up just outside the door. Silently, he opened the door and sat down, running his hands along his face loosely. He let his face fall slightly, now positively sure nobody could see him (Anthea hardly cared at this point).

"Who was she indeed," he murmured out the window as the black car began to move down the road.