Sherlock Holmes in Orbit

by Mike Resnick (ed)

  “I never guess,” he said. “It is a shocking habit— destructive to the logical faculty.” He stood and picked up his pipe, using it to emphasize the words as he spoke. “My reasoning is based on strict logic and on the observation of minute details that others fail to see. Observation with me is second nature. I never guess. I know.”

  THE SHERLOCK SOLUTIONby Craig Shaw Gardner

  Samantha Wilson was already having a very bad day.

  She had expected her vacation to rejuvenate her, to make her look forward again to her job, apartment living, and the dating game. She expected the streets of Boston to take on a rosy glow for her return. Instead, it felt as though the city had collapsed while she was away. The morning news was full of violence: a riot in a housing project, four drive-by shootings; city officials screaming at each other, every one of them trying to avoid the blame. The weather was a persistent cold drizzle, the traffic the worst she’d ever seen.

  And it had only gotten worse once she got to the lab.

  She’d arrived early, determined to make a fresh start on her end of the project. There was no one in the lobby. Even the security guard was gone, off, no doubt, on one of his early morning donut runs. She took the elevator to the third floor and punched the access code to allow her into the research sector. She noticed that Doris wasn’t here, either. That seemed odder still. As Dr. Kinghoffer’s secretary, Doris seemed to get in earlier and stay later than almost everybody else. Kinghoffer might be the head of research, but Doris ran the lab. The traffic must be tying everybody up. In fact, the entire place seemed deserted.

  Her leather heels echoed on the linoleum as she hurried down the hall. It felt a little creepy. Everyone kept odd hours at SmartTech, but this was the first time she could remember being alone. She hurried to her office.

  She opened her door, and her feeling of unease turned to something closer to despair. The place was a shambles. Newspapers were scattered everywhere, held down by opened books, unlabeled diskettes, and empty and not-so- empty containers from Tony’s Pizza, Sid’s Deli, and the House of Ling.

  So much for an early start. Samantha set out to clean her comer of the office, putting a semblance of order to her work station and the surrounding counter space. What had gotten into her office mate? Brian was normally even more fastidious than she was. She’d have to have a word with that boy. Actually, as she began to fill up her second trash barrel, she decided it would be quite a few words.

  She noticed that some of the newspapers had articles circled or highlighted. “FOOD RIOTS IN AFGHANISTAN,” “GOVERNOR IMPLICATED IN BIZARRE KIDNAPPING SCHEME,” “MORE GUNS ON STREET THAN EVER BEFORE.” She put these pages aside—someone here had to be organized—next to the pile of diskettes on Brian’s desk. There was something else different about this place, too. And this was particularly absurd, but, besides the stale food, the place smelled oddly musty, almost as if someone had been smoking.

  Somehow, though, she didn’t want to deal with that quite yet. She’d feel much better once she’d gotten back to work.

  She punched in her password and called up the first of the files she wanted to review.

  “Aha!” Carruthers cried as he burst into the lab. “I have the answer at last!”

  “Huh?” Samantha looked up from her computer terminal. She wasn’t even aware that there had been a question.

  Well, she was still all-too-aware of the mess around the lab. She pushed an overflowing waste basket out of the way to look up at Carruthers.

  “I beg your pardon!” he replied brusquely.

  She looked up at her fellow scientist, chubby and balding, his glasses slipping down his nose as usual. Except, instead of his usual bemused grin, Carruthers was staring at her as if he had never seen her before.

  “You have recently come from some southern clime,” her lab mate announced.

  “Well, yes,” Samantha agreed, losing whatever was left of her smile. This seemed a particularly odd way to ask her about her vacation. “I did just go to Florida—”

  “Although the coloration of your hair is not entirely due to the sun,” Carruthers continued, his eyes darting from her to the surrounding work station and back again. “And I would guess by the lines of your clothing that your holiday has caused you to gain a few extra pounds. But we do not have time to exchange pleasantries just now.” Somehow, when Carruthers paused, his stare grew even more intense. “Tell me, miss, have you come here to speak with me about—Moriarty?”

  “Who?” It was Samantha’s turn to stare.

  “I’m afraid this will have to wait, then.” Carruthers looked distractedly at the old round-faced clock on the wall. “I was expecting the others.”

  He turned and strode purposefully from the room.

  “What?” Samantha demanded of the retreating figure. She received no further reply.

  “What is going on around here?” she shouted after him.

  There was no answer. But she did hear some voices from the other room. So the rest of her coworkers had arrived at last. But it was more than voices. She could swear someone was playing the violin.

  “Moriarty?” she said aloud.

  The only Moriarty she knew about was part of that stupid Sherlock Holmes program that Brian and Carruthers (his first name was George, but nobody called him that) and a couple of the others had been playing with in their spare time. Well, she thought a bit reluctantly, actually the game, the Holmes Program, was kind of clever: a memory-deduction program based ever more faithfully on the character, not just from Conan Doyle, but from movies and TV, too. She had played with it a bit, but never cared for it as much as some of the others, who could get wrapped up in it for hours.

  There seemed to be so many excuses around here for avoiding work. Speaking of which—

  She turned back to her computer screen.

  The file wasn’t there.

  Instead, she saw the words:

  MOST SECRET FOR REASONS OF NATIONAL SECURITY.

  ACCESS DENIED.

  Samantha slammed her palms against the desk. Playing with her cubicle was one thing; fooling with the computer was something else.

  Now the guys were in trouble.

  She stormed from her office, headed toward the voices. “Fascinating!” one of them said, his voice charged with excitement. “So it got caught up in the air-filtration system?”

  “Rather like Legionnaire’s disease, I suppose,” another remarked with equal fervor, “but with decidedly different results!”

  “Quite simple really,” chimed in a third voice, a woman’s this time. “Surprising that we didn’t see it before.”

  “But these were experimental pharmaceuticals, nowhere near cleared for human testing!”

  Samantha turned the comer to see Brian expounding to Doris, Carruthers, and Stan the security guard.

  “How could an accident of this magnitude occur with the safeguards—” Brian paused again, turning to stare intently at Samantha.

  “And who is this?” he demanded.

  Carruthers allowed herself the slightest of smiles. “The young lady I was telling you about.”

  “Young lady?” Samantha replied. She was galloping well into her thirties.

  “From her accent,” Carruthers continued, “I believe she may originate in the Midwest. A suburb of Cleveland, most likely—south of Cleveland.”

  “Wait a moment,” Brian Browning announced, “I believe I remember her.”

  “What are you guys talking about?” Samantha exploded. This had to be some sort of joke. “You all remember me.” “Well,” Doris said with a slight smile of her own, “perhaps we did remember you, before our recent difficulty.” “Difficulty?” Samantha shouted back, all patience fled. “What in heaven’s name do you mean?”

  Stan the security guard gave her a smile much like the others. “That, my dear woman, is exactly what we are attempting to determine.”

  “My dear woman?” Samantha repeated. Stan didn’t talk like that. For that matter, they all s
ounded—well—different. “I want some answers here,” she insisted. “What’s been happening around this lab?” She frowned at her four coworkers. “And what is this about Moriarty?”

  The four glanced at each other as if she had asked for some sort of state secret.

  “Should we—” Stan began.

  “Even now, he may be listening—” Doris agreed.

  “He seems to be everywhere—” Brian added.

  Carruthers nodded. “After all, he has been my nemesis for a very long time.”

  “Your nemesis?” Samantha blurted. Carruthers was talking as if he really believed he was Sherlock Holmes.

  “The young lady is correct,” Doris interjected. “Moriarty is the nemesis of us all!”

  Even worse, Carruthers seemed to have the others playing along.

  Samantha had to get a handle on this. “Wait a moment!” She pointed at Carruthers. “Time out!”

  “I believe the young lady may be correct. We often do our best thinking upon quiet reflection.” The security guard reached for a brown paper bag.

  Ah, Samantha thought, food! While he often had trouble with such complexities as alarm systems and video monitors, their security guard certainly knew his way around a jelly donut. At least something around here was normal.

  Stan pulled out an oval wrapped in foil. “I believe, after some research, that I have located the very best bagels in our area. Not that that should be our only concern.” He began to unwrap the bagel. “You see, there are seven distinct types of deli cream cheese to be found in the greater metropolitan area!” Unwrapping complete, Stan paused to take a bite. “I intend to write a monograph on the subject.”

  Samantha’s agitation popped as surely as if it had been poked with a pin.

  “Wait a moment!” she cried in disbelief. “You can’t all be Sherlock Holmes!”

  Carruthers nodded solemnly. “As unlikely as it sounds—” “Once you eliminate the impossible—*’ Stan added between mouthfuls.

  “This is exactly what remains,” Doris concluded for the others. “When I said Moriarty was our nemesis, I was speaking quite literally.”

  “And how did it occur?” Brian continued. “Well, you know of course about our intelligence enhancement program—”

  ‘The twin tracks—”

  “Both the Smart drugs—”

  “—and the accelerated computer learning software.”

  Each spoke quickly, with no pause in between. It was almost like one person with four voices.

  “It all seems to have come together,” Doris continued what was seeming more and more like a monologue. “Our minds are honed, analytical machines, based on the Holmes model.

  “Only now,” Stan insisted, “are we piecing together the parts of the investigation.”

  Samantha held up her hands, as if waving them might force all of this to make sense. “You refer to this—what’s happened to you—almost as though it were a crime.” “Indeed.” It was Brian’s turn to nod. “It is a most unusual occurrence that demands exploration.”

  “We all agree on that.” Carruthers smiled wryly once more. “But, then again, we agree on almost everything.” He pulled a pipe from his pocket and began to stuff it with tobacco.

  Samantha though this might not be the best time to remind them of the lab’s no-smoking policy. Instead, she asked, “But why do you think your—enemy is involved?”

  “How could he not be involved?” Brian exploded. “Have you heard the news broadcasts? Seen the papers? Moriarty’s hand is everywhere!”

  So that’s why the papers were so marked up. “Well,” she said after a moment’s thought, “things are bad.” That was easy enough to admit. “But they’re so bad they’re chaotic— totally beyond reason. How could Moriarty be behind something like that?”

  “But you see,” Doris insisted, “that is his genius. His pattern is the absence of a pattern, at least on the surface!” “Until, of course, you dig more deeply,” Stan cut in, “to see how he plans to control the world.”

  “And he might have succeeded, too,” Carruthers added, “if we had not appeared upon the scene.”

  Brian raised a defiant fist. “Now, though, that we are working together, the arch criminal does not stand a chance!”

  The lights went out.

  Somebody screamed.

  “Moriarty is in our midst!” somebody else yelled.

  But, of course, that somebody had to be Sherlock Holmes.

  It was Samantha who thought to hit the light switch. “What was that?” she asked of the four around her. As far as she could tell, nothing else in the room had changed.

  “A very dramatic statement, I would think,” Doris replied coolly. “The scream, in particular, was a very nice touch.” “I think it is obvious who did it,” Brian agreed. “Moriarty?” Samantha asked, only half believing she’d bring up the name.

  Stan nodded his assent. “But I don’t think we’ve quite determined the reason—”

  “Or the extent,” Carruthers continued. “More has changed here than might first be apparent.”

  “The doors are sealed!” Doris shook a nearby knob to demonstrate.

  Stan leaped upon a nearby table. He ran a hand along the overhead grille. “The air is no longer circulating through the vents.”

  Samantha looked from one Holmes to another. “Is he— uh—Moriarty trying to kill us?”

  Doris stared at her thoughtfully a moment before replying. “No, I think if he had wanted that, we would be dead already.”

  Carruthers pulled his unlit pipe from between stem lips. “I believe, rather, that this is a challenge.”

  Brian tried a second door, with the same result. “He has trapped us in our own building. Very clever.”

  “But how is it possible?” Samantha asked.

  Stan answered that. “It’s fairly simple, at least in conception. SmartTech has a master computer. Everything in here is managed by that computer.”

  Well, the next question seemed obvious. “Well, if the computer controls it all, why don’t we shut it down?”

  Brain clapped his hands together at her suggestion. “The computer! Of course! Good man, Watson!”

  “It’s Wilson,” Samantha reminded them, “and I’m a woman.” And she had already thought of an objection to her own question. “But if Moriarty has taken over the computer, won’t he try to stop us?”

  “Oh, he can try,” Stan said as he jumped from the table. “But nothing is impossible with the proper tools.” He lifted a ring full of keys from his belt. ‘This will reset the entire system.”

  “Oh, dear,” Samantha replied, “but that means it will wipe out whatever people are working on—”

  Stan was unmoved. “There’s something more important than those projects now. The entire system has been corrupted by a virus named Moriarty!”

  Samantha frowned. There was still a lot of this which didn’t make any sense. “How, if Moriarty’s doing all these other things, does he have time to completely circumvent not only this computer system, but other systems the whole world over?”

  All four Holmes paused to stare at her.

  “Watson! You’re brilliant!” Carruthers enthused.

  “He would not have to take over those computers—” Brian added.

  “If Moriarty already was those computers!” Stan concluded.

  “At last,” Doris theorized, “a true thinking machine! But what if that machine became bored, restless; what if it needed a challenge!”

  “Improbable?” Carruthers asked, no doubt reading Samantha’s thoughts. “Perhaps! But once we examine the evidence—”

  Samantha had to make sense of this somehow. “So Moriarty has challenged us by—trapping us here?”

  “In a way,” Doris replied. “But think of it; we’ve been locked out—not in.”

  “And we are not alone,” Brian added. “There are other Sherlocks out in the field. One hundred and six of them, I believe.”

  “One hundred and six?�
� Samantha replied in a voice barely above a whisper. SmartTech employed one hundred and seven.

  While the others were theorizing, Stan had moved to a panel by the side of the elevator. One key unlocked an outer door. Stan inserted two more identical keys in two side-by-side receptacles. He turned both keys. A green light on the panel turned to red.

  The lights went out again.

  Then popped back on an instant later.

  “We’re on auxiliary power now,” Stan announced.

  “The doors are unlocked,” Carruthers announced as he pushed open the nearest one, the door to Samantha’s office.

  Samantha stepped inside. Her computer screen was dark.

  She hoped she hadn’t lost anything of importance. Not that working around here would ever be quite the same again.

  With a click and a whir, her workstation sprang back to life.

  “Oh,” Samantha said, a bit surprised, “you’ve reset the computer already.”

  “The keys are still in the off position!” Stan called from the hallway. “I’ve done nothing of the sort.”

  Words flashed across the screen:

  MOST SECRET FOR REASONS OF NATIONAL SECURITY.

  ACCESS DENIED.

  Then the word “DENIED” was wiped from the screen, to be replaced by the word “ALLOWED.”

  “I believe the challenge has been accepted,” Carruthers said behind her as data began to fill the screen.

  “Was there ever any doubt?” Doris added with a chuckle. “You know what they say. If Moriarty hadn’t existed, it would be necessary for Sherlock Holmes to invent him.” “But Moriarty is real!” Brian continued. “And he has invented us!”

  But Samantha was only half listening as the data flowed by—not the program she had called up, but facts, figures, statistics, telephone numbers, secret bank accounts—data from all over the world.

  Stan stepped into the room, his arms filled with newspapers. “We will face each and every one of these challenges.” “No problem is too great for Sherlock Holmes!” all four cried together.

  Samantha found a hand on her shoulder.