Chapter Five:

Author's note: If you are susceptible to triggers about bullying, physical and verbal abuse, avoid this chapter.

CHKDSK [drive:][[path]filename] [/F] [/V] [/R] [/L[:size]]

He was working through a sub-routine to check for more directory tag corruption. It was slow work, but at least when he found the corruption, he could fix it and send it back to the dungeons where it belonged. John kept annoying him, a disembodied voice telling him that he had to do things, get up, wash, get dressed, eat, drink some water or tea. Basic commands he could cope with by running a simple housekeeping programme. But he wasn't able to devote any processing time to conversation or thought about what might be going on around him. So he ignored every other attempt made by his flatmate to get him to talk.

He had urgent business inside his Mind Palace. He wasn't even 20% through the full system scan yet, because he kept finding files in the wrong place. Damn, here's yet another one- this one seemed much bigger- a zipped file that was taking a large chunk of real time space. Ridiculous He didn't need access to that file anymore. Why hadn't the deleted pathfinder code worked to keep it hidden? It didn't make any sense. Computer code doesn't re-write itself, magically repairing a line to connect it to present memory. Not for the first time, he suspected a malware programme had taken hold, maliciously re-inventing links that he had long since deleted. Files that were just waiting to be overwritten were now consuming real time memory and slowing up important activity.

It was a big file, which he wearily started to unzip…

…. Pirate greeting him with that soft nicker of his; it was a "hello, pleased to see you" in horse. Sherlock opened the stall door and came in, greeting his horse the way he always did- burying his face into the side of the horse's neck, smelling that amazing scent, feeling the heat of the skin through the texture of coarser, wavy mane hair. He was a sensory magnet for Sherlock. Sound, vision, scent and touch. As his lips brushed the beauty of that gorgeously arched neck of the stallion, he could even taste the salt of the horse's skin.

The horse blew through his nostrils and flicked his ears back to catch the boy's sigh of appreciation. Then Sherlock moved his hands gently over his beloved horse's head, eventually cupping the big muzzle into his hands, rewarded with a gentle lipping and another soft nicker. Then Sherlock got down to business, the brush in his hand moving in broad strokes, over the chest and shoulders, the flanks, feeling those amazing muscles relaxing. If he was patient, Pirate might give a sort of rumble of satisfaction. But, more often than not, the nicker would be a bit impatient, a "let's get going!" of eagerness. He'd never had the slightest problem getting a bridle or saddle onto Pirate; he was as eager as Sherlock was to get into the ring and to work.

Eventing was so much more interesting than dressage. The challenge of speed, control and jumping- both in the ring and across country. Pirate was eager for it, loved it as much as Sherlock did. But the second year of Harrow took so much of his time, and the horse needed to learn faster than Sherlock could manage on the six hours a week they'd let him off lessons. And he needed someone old enough to drive him and the horse to the growing number of competitions, too. So Dirk Guilliams convinced Mycroft that he needed an assistant, one with experience of training Friesians to jump. They were big heavy horses, and had to be trained by someone who knew how to get them to do it. So, he'd gone to northwest Holland and come back with Geert Maes, a twenty year old Friesian blond, an aspiring eventer. He'd specialised in his native Friesians because he was too big and heavy for the thinner boned warmblood sport horses that dominate the eventing world. His weight alone would handicap him, so he'd not found a sponsor willing to put him on their event team.

For the first seven months, it worked. Pirate got better at jumping, so that when Sherlock could ride, he found the horse ready to take up the challenge. Stabled at the Littlebourne Equestrian Centre, four miles from Harrow, Pirate was taken care of by Geert, who exercised him and schooled him over the jumps. Dirk Guilliams could manage to be there for training sessions twice a week, and still keep his commitments to others on the British Eventing team.

It was when the competitions started that things began to go sour. Sherlock could enter events during the Easter break, at Exeats, and the summer months. Geert could take the horse to other events scheduled when Sherlock couldn't get time off school. With two different riders, the horse was able to compete in different classes- the under 18s with Sherlock and the Young Rider circuit, for 19 to 21 year olds, with Geert. The trouble was, Sherlock was a better rider, and won his events, when Maes didn't even place in the top four. The Dutchman argued that he was competing at a much higher level where competition was harder, but Guilliams saw that Sherlock was just better able to get the best out of the horse. When they trialled for the trainer on a head-to-head basis over the same course, Sherlock's times were better, his show ring rounds were clear and his dressage out-scored Geert's every time. The blond didn't like losing, and he didn't like losing to Sherlock in particular. Out of earshot of Dirk Guilliams, he started to make his dislike known to the younger rider.

Sherlock would show up ready to ride, and have to face a barrage of muttering. "What's it like, having a rich daddy who can fund your every whim? You have no idea what it's like to really work for something. I have to clean him up, do all the heavy work while you just waltz in here thinking you own the place." Maes' resentment grew, his jealousy festered.

By June, the 14 year old Sherlock and Pirate had won enough to be picked for the BEU18 Junior Southeast Regional Team, competing at Weston Park against the other seven regional teams. Winning the dressage outright, Sherlock on Pirate then produced clear rounds on the cross country and in the show ring- enough to bring the regional team the victory they'd not had for eighteen years. People started talking about the new rider and his black horse.

That summer, Maes failed to qualify on Pirate for the region's Young Rider team, mostly due to consistently poor scores in dressage. He complained to the trainer, Dirk Guilliams, "This horse is just too clumsy in the dressage arena. He will always be outclassed by the warmbloods. You need to switch him now to show jumping. In the ring, he's really good at the fences. Eventing is just not his strength. I mean I love the breed- I'm Friesian myself, but he's never going to be Olympic quality in the cross country; he's a heavy horse- too slow."

Sherlock, on the other hand, thought Pirate was perfect. "He's so responsive- and he loves to compete. I just have to ask, and it's always there. He's not the fastest, but he's smarter than the rest of the horses, so we can win. I can do this; I can go all the way with him."

The trainer saw the growing difference between the two riders. The younger one worked with the horse. The older tried to tell the stallion what to do. Pirate was awkward in the stall when Maes worked with him, braiding the long mane or currying his coat. The big man pulled and pushed. Sherlock's touch was gentler, more intuitive and courteous. The horse began to play favourites, and that made the conflict between the two riders grow deeper, more ingrained. The trainer thought a little competition would be good for both of the riders, push them to become better. He didn't see that away from his eyes, they stopped even the pretence of politeness. Sherlock ignored Geert, the Dutchman responded by yet more snide and cutting remarks. By the time Sherlock reached the second summer of competition, it was nothing short of open warfare. Only Dirk Guilliams failed to see it. When he arrived for training sessions, both Holmes and Maes were on best behaviour.

Away from training sessions, Sherlock didn't care. Maes was just an annoyance, and nothing interfered with his pure joy of riding Pirate. Until Sherlock won the Under 18 national dressage competition at Stoneleigh in June. That was a game changer for Geert. He didn't even wait to get back to Harrow. Dirk had left after the winner's photographs. Maes was to drive the horsebox and Sherlock back from Warwickshire to North London. His last word to the blond Dutchman was a gentle ribbing. "Well, I think this shows that at least one Friesian is outstanding in the dressage ring, eh, Maes?"

The other Friesian, the man this time, bit his tongue until the trainer left. He then stormed into the back of the horsebox, where Sherlock had just loaded Pirate. The irate man just pushed his way alongside Pirate's rump and shoved the boy so hard against the side of the horsebox that Pirate half reared from the noise of the crash.

"What are you doing, rich boy? You klootzak- just trying to show me up, were you? Well I don't like it one bit." He grabbed Sherlock's arm and threw him into the side of Pirate who shied away to the left side of the box, pulling at the bridle leads that kept him facing the right direction in the box. Maes was shouting now in his strange Dutch dialect, and Sherlock couldn't understand what he was saying. He didn't really need a translation- the man's hatred was clear. The slender teenager ducked under the horse's head, keeping the stallion between him and Maes.

"Stop it, you're scaring Pirate. It's not his fault."

"Oh, so you care about the horse, do you?" Maes lashed out, punching Pirate hard in the neck. The horse squealed, shying away from the man's blow. The heavy horse's shoulder caught Sherlock, smashing him up against the metal side of the horsebox, and the boy cried out in pain. "Stop it, just stop this. What's wrong with you?"

That made Maes laugh. "Me? There's nothing wrong with me, Klootzak. You're the defective one."

Pirate was thrashing about, his eyes rolling and nostrils flaring as the two argued. His hooves were striking the floor in an agitated tattoo. Sherlock managed to extricate himself from the side and squeezed back into the space at the narrowest part of the horsebox, in front of Pirate's head. To reach him, Maes would have to push past the Pirate's shoulder, and risk getting hit with a flailing front hoof.

"That's it, coward- hide. For all the good it will do you." With that, Maes went out the back door and Sherlock heard it slam and lock. Then the engine started. He reached for Pirate's head and tried to soothe the horse, calming him. He tried to control his crying. His shoulder ached.

"Shsssh, Pirate. It's alright. I won't let him hurt you again, I promise"….

…Sherlock re-zipped the file and backed out just as fast as he could. No, I will just leave this one. There is something very nasty in there!

He was trying to delete the pathfinder code when everything just stopped.

ERROR CODE 10 0xA ERROR_BAD_ENVIRONMENT

Now he was flummoxed. Runtime environment had everything he needed to execute his de-frag programme, but no tools to change it. If the environment had gone wrong, then he was going to have to go into the build language and re-build the directory structures again. That would take ages. He groaned. What the hell was going on?