Emerging from his accidental nap, the Professor’s heart beats wildly with excitement. In his latest dream, the Detective was especially cunning and relentless; his adversary had only one string left to pull and the whole of the Professor’s empire would have come crashing down, dismantled beyond repair. At the last minute, the Professor applied an unexpected equation into the fray, and the Detective’s carefully constructed body of evidence and counter-measures untangled, humiliating the Detective, leaving him disgraced, his reputation and authority forever tarnished.
Never before has the Detective been defeated in the Professor’s dreams. What has changed? The Professor delves into the mental universe of his equations, scrutinizing every element, variable, algorithm and solution.
Re-examining his earlier equation, the one with which he seemed to succumb to his annoyance with his sycophantic puppets, he understands now that it was the correct and timely move in his complex game of domination. It reassures him that, even on those rare occasions when emotion seizes him, his mind will nevertheless act on the correct equations, ignoring these irksome distractions that sometimes flutter on the surface of his consciousness.
Every once in a while – the equations reveal that the intervals must appear chaotic although they follow a complex algorithm – the masses need to be placated with a scapegoat, a sacrifice, a deception. The larger the bloodletting, the more the public is appeased and fooled into thinking the world has turned in their favour, that justice has been served.
The coming financial and political upheaval will restore common people’s belief that they wield some control over their collective destiny. In truth, the equations of world domination are unfurling according to the Professor’s designs. Time now to dive into the datastreams.
In the last two decades, the Professor’s equations have grown exponentially in both complexity and accuracy. The information society that he calculated into existence has yielded, as per the model based on his equations, a surveillance society that collects so much data that only the Professor’s exquisitely trained mind can synthesize it.
The Professor wields every string of the surveillance society like a master puppeteer. It is a world of his own making, a world in his own image. He rules it. He dominates it. And no one – not even the Detective, even if he were, improbably, still alive – will ever wrest it from him.
That night, for the first time in a decade, following his unprecedented nap-time victory, the Professor does not dream of the Detective. Does not dream of the Detective defeating him. The Detective is again absent the next night … And the next …
A pyramid, reflects the Professor during a trip to Egypt, is the perfect mathematical expression of the perfect human society. A construct of concentric rungs, each superior tier smaller than the inferior yet dominating the lower and larger tier, until the top rung is reached, and that rung has only one component. The ruler. The pharaoh. The alpha. The Professor.
The Professor is in Cairo to oversee a crucial play in his game of world domination. His personal attention is not strictly required, but without his presence there is a 17.3 per cent probability that the move will fail. Factoring his on-hand intervention, that probability falls to 0.002 per cent.
The three arms dealers, the four bankers, the seven foreign diplomats, the one representative of the Egyptian government, the two environmental activists, the six revolutionary militia commanders, the three insurance brokers, the five industrialists, the two civil rights advocates, and the three religious figures do not meet each other. The Professor handles every discrete aspect of the negotiations, and it all goes smoothly, exactly according to the Professor’s calculations. Having now met all the actors in this particular action, the Professor recalculates that, even without his presence in Cairo, the likelihood of this venture’s success would really have been 99.12 per cent.
World domination is so ridiculously effortless. All that is needed is to apply meticulously the proper equations and act on them without mercy or hesitation.
It has now been one year since the Detective has been banished from his dreams. The Professor is as all-powerful in dream as he is in reality. The world responds to his every whim as if it were a limb directly attached to his perfectly calibrated brain. The world is his, and there is no one, not a single person on the entire planet, with even the slightest potential to pose any serious, or even minor, challenge to his hegemony.
On the night of the anniversary of his conquest of the Detective of his dreams, the Professor falls into slumber with perfect serenity and confidence.
… Only to be once again visited by the Detective, who all this time has been secretly plotting against the Professor. The Professor’s worldwide empire collapses. His operatives and vassals turn against him. All of his schemes are revealed. His web of influence is ripped apart. The Detective is ruthlessly victorious, the Professor utterly ruined and destroyed.
The Professor wakes before dawn, his entire body covered in sweat. It takes him a moment to realize that his body feels different, uncomfortable.
He rushes to a mirror and gazes upon the naked body of an ashen old man. He once more resembles the persona he adopted against the Detective in the late 1800s. But older – more decrepit, more defeated.
The Professor cancels all of his appointments for the day. He spends the next few hours recalibrating the formula that keeps him alive, the legendary Fountain of Youth. He lets himself appear a few years older than he has recently done – late thirties rather than late twenties. Neither young, nor old. Eternal.
That settled, he dives into the datastreams to lose himself in the ceaseless flow of information at his disposal, but after thirty minutes he disengages in disgust.
There is no real information in the datastreams. Everything is as he has calculated and put into motion. There are no surprises. There is no chaos. There is no opponent. The grip of his will upon the world is as precise as it is unshakeable.
That night, he again dreams of absolute destruction at the hands of the Detective.
For the first time since his childhood eight hundred years ago, the Professor’s mind is in disarray. His own equations are subtly beyond his grasp. The datastreams are incomprehensible gibberish. When faced with the prospect of issuing instructions to the network of subordinates who sustain his empire, he is dumbfounded.
How long can he afford to ignore his life’s work? How long before entropy sets in, unhinging the precision of the equations at the foundation of his world order?
His mind refuses to supply the mathematical solution to these questions.
* * *
The Detective continues to haunt the Professor’s sleep. Every night, in dreams, the Detective relentlessly pursues, outwits and conquers the Professor.
Every minute of every day, the Professor feels his body ageing and decaying. He can no longer recall the mathematical formula that gives him control over the ageing process.
The Professor goes through the motions of his daily routine. The teleconferences with his operatives. The meetings with politicians and financiers. Reading the reports. He must maintain appearances. He must appear in control.
If any of his agents and vassals wonder at his prolonged silence, at the absence of fresh directives, they do not voice their apprehension. But the Professor feels that the balance of power is shifting. At least some of them are intuiting his current weakness, perhaps even planning a coup.
Despite the Professor’s neglect, his empire runs along smoothly, wealth and power trickling inexorably upward, poverty and oppression spreading in concentric circles of dominance. The world is still the world of his creation. His vassals are still getting wealthier and more powerful every passing day. Nevertheless, the Professor expects that unless he soon regains his mathematical acuity someone or some faction will attempt to usurp his position. If the potential traitors hesitate, it is because they fear that upsetting the status quo might disrupt the system that grants them the riches and privileges they crave with such g
reed and desperation.
But the lust for power cannot be underestimated. The most predatory among his entourage must be able to smell his weakness. The instinct to pounce can only be ignored for so long. Someone will act. And soon.
The Professor wakes from yet another dream defeat at the hands of the Detective knowing that the time has come. The air in the tower is supercharged. As the day progresses, everyone is oh so careful to appear subservient. The tension mounts with each passing second, and it can only be relieved with a bloodletting.
But who will die? Who shall be the sacrifice? The Professor or the usurpers?
The sun sets, and still no overt move has been made against him.
In his office, he pretends to log in to the datastreams. He has been unable to sift through the information for weeks, but still, should he be surveyed, he makes a show of interfacing with the flow of information. He must maintain the illusion of control, of power.
But he ignores the digital babble and focuses on his immediate environment. His caution is rewarded: they are here, in this room. There are three of them. They no doubt believe they are being stealthy.
It is not by chance, or even by mathematics alone, that the Professor has survived eight centuries.
It takes him two and half seconds to disarm and kill the two most dangerous ones, the ones who moved with a modicum of skill and confidence – the latter assailant managed to nick the Professor’s cheek, drawing blood – and another half-second to disarm the weakling among the trio, the leader.
The two he killed were not conspirators, but merely hired assassins. He has never seen them before; their trim, taut bodies betray their obvious training. The one left alive is a plump but merciless bank executive from Belgium. The professional assassins had wielded knives; the cowardly banker had held a gun that he did not even know how to grip properly.
The Professor spends the rest of the night torturing his would-be usurper. He finds out the names of all those who supported his move against the Professor. Even though every piece of information has been squeezed out of the banker, the Professor ministers his cruel attentions on his prisoner until sunrise. The Professor has not slept, but he feels refreshed, more rested than he has in a long while.
He convenes an emergency meeting in the reception hall. Attendance is mandatory for all those currently in the tower: financiers, politicians, operatives, staff, slaves – everyone. Within twenty minutes, there are 764 people gathered in the hall. The Professor keys in the code that locks all doors in the building.
Emerging from behind the stage curtain, the Professor drags the bloodied and bruised banker, so as to let the repugnant creature be seen by the gathered congregation. Holding up the semi-conscious man in front of him, the Professor crushes his neck with his bare hands and then flings the corpse aside.
He waits one full minute. There is scarcely a breath to be heard in the entire room. They all wait on his word.
The Professor’s head oscillates from side to side in a menacingly reptilian fashion. He starts naming names, his cold, merciless gaze falling one by one on those he lists. After having pronounced thirty-seven names, he falls silent. For a full minute, the only movement in the room is the oscillation of his head. Then he utters two words: “Kill them.”
The assemblage sets upon the designated victims. Upon the conspirators.
The blood is lovely. The atavistic savagery is sublime. The unquestioning obeisance is perfect.
As the congregation sacrifices the unworthy to the altar of the Professor’s dominance, his mind is unshackled; it once more teems with the equations that are his lifeblood.
There were seventy-one other conspirators who were not present on site. The Professor had them dispatched with the application of one efficient formula – a slight shift in the markets that targeted them and them alone. Within four days, they were all destitute and under investigation by whichever force polices financial crimes in their respective countries. Within fifteen days, they had all either taken their own lives or been assassinated in such a way as to mimic suicide.
The Professor has not dreamed of the Detective since his victory over the conspiracy that sought to topple him. But he knows that the spectre of his opponent is waiting to pounce the moment his mind once more grows idle. The Professor cannot risk being so enfeebled again.
The random chance that gave birth to the Detective is no longer possible. The Professor’s control over the world is now too absolute to allow for the nurturing of such a mind as his one true opponent’s.
That must change, and yet it must also not change.
Working on the problem for two hours every evening, it takes the Professor seventeen days to calculate the exact variables to feed into a new equation. It will take three generations from this moment, but a new opponent shall rise. And from then on twice every century a new adversary will be born, each time from a random location, from random circumstances, driven by different motivations, with a different set of skills with which to spar with the Professor.
That will do, yes; that will do. Life is long, and the Professor must face fresh challenges – even if he must manufacture them himself – lest his mind and psyche stagnate and wither.
The Professor steps out on to his private rooftop terrace, facing inland, and, with a cold sneer, breathes in the brisk night air of Dubai, of the world. Of his world. His head oscillates in that distinctly inhuman manner that distinguishes him as the ultimate predator. Below him, the sands of Arabia stretch far away in time and distance.
The Mystery of the Missing Child
Christine Poulson
‘Where do you suppose Mrs Hudson goes on a Thursday evening, Watson?’
‘I have no idea, Holmes.’
‘And why is she so reluctant to tell us? She has so far evaded my tactful enquiries.’
In Mrs Hudson’s absence, Maisie, our little skivvy, brought up the tea. Holmes poured it out and winced at the sight of the straw-coloured liquid.
‘That is one half of the mystery,’ he said. ‘The other is why the wretched girl can never learn to let the water boil.’
Holmes was not in the best of humours. He had not had a case for some weeks. He was restless and bored and, if this state of things were to continue, I feared recourse to stimulants stronger than tea. But I need not have worried. The case that was about to begin did not perhaps see him at his best, but it was a case full of interest, and one that went a long way towards explaining his enmity for Professor Moriarty.
It was a dismal day in late November in the year 1890 and dusk was drawing in. I was standing by the window, watching the lamplighter make his way down Baker Street, when a hansom cab drew up and the cabbie gestured with his whip to our door.
‘Unless I am much mistaken, Holmes,’ I remarked, ‘a new client is in prospect.’
A minute or two later, the skivvy showed a lady into our drawing room. She was wearing a half-mourning costume of lavender and mauve, and couldn’t, I judged, be more than thirty. Hers was a delicate face with arched eyebrows, but what struck me first as a medical man was her extreme pallor. She took a few faltering steps into the room, and I was just in time to reach her before she fainted. Between us, Holmes and I lowered her on to a couch. Her hands were ice-cold. Holmes chafed them while I had recourse to the sal volatile.
She was soon sufficiently revived to sit up on the couch. I placed a glass of brandy close at hand.
She was composing herself to speak, when Holmes raised a hand. ‘Let me guess the reason for your visit. Though one need scarcely be a detective to perceive that you have recently arrived in England from Italy, that before your marriage to a wealthy man you were accustomed to work for your living, that you are devoted to the memory of your late husband, and that you are desperately worried about your child.’
A glance at the lady’s face told me that Holmes as usual had hit the nail on the head.
‘But, how?’ she stammered.
Holmes smiled and picked up one of her hands.
‘Brown hands on a cold November day tell their own story. You have come from the south of France or Italy. It has been unseasonably cold in the south of France, so Italy it is. You were not born to money, in spite of those fine garnets you are wearing; otherwise, you would be accustomed to protect your hands from the sun. And for a lady such as yourself to be so afflicted, there must be a husband or a child in the case. And as you are a widow – one who still wears her husband’s signet ring on a gold chain around her neck—’
She managed a shaky laugh. ‘You are quite right, Mr Holmes. Before I married Harry, I was a governess and I have never managed to accustom myself to wearing gloves in warm weather. And, alas, it is all too true that I am at my wits’ end to know what has happened to my darling boy!’
She took a sip from the glass of brandy.
‘You must know, Mr Holmes, that though my dear late husband, Harold Armstrong, was somewhat older than myself, we were the most united of couples and three years ago there was not a happier woman in the world than myself. Little Arthur was two and our baby daughter had just been born. Despite Harry’s wealth, he came from humble origins. His own efforts and his brilliance as an engineer were responsible for his founding the engineering company of Armstrong and Morley. His sudden illness and death two years ago was a grievous blow. Still, I have my children to live for, and Harry has left me a wealthy woman, Mr Holmes. Our children shall never know want.
‘That brings me to the present. My little girl is delicate and I decided to spend the winter in Italy for the sake of her health. Two weeks ago, there was an attempt to snatch my son from our garden. It was foiled by the quick thinking of his nurse, Mrs Shaughnessy, and the ferocity of our guard dog. Kidnapping is not uncommon in that part of the world. Fearful of another attempt, but unable to move my little Alicia, who was suffering from a low fever, I made a plan to get Arthur to England and out of harm’s way. Mrs Shaughnessy left secretly at night and travelled incognito with Arthur as her own child. I was to follow on as soon as Alicia could safely travel. Mrs Shaughnessy sent me a telegram on arrival to let me know that she had arrived safely and was at the Midland Grand Hotel at St Pancras.
The Mammoth Book of the Adventures of Professor Moriarty Page 25
