“Oh? And you deduced this how, precisely?” Holmes’ acerbic voice replied.
“And how did you know I was here?” Chadwick queried curiously.
“The last question first,” Sherlock said, releasing Skye, but keeping a comforting hand on her back. “I heard Skye speaking with someone while I was walking through the house. Yet, when I arrived within sight, though I heard her voice, I could plainly see Skye was listening. Add to this the recognition of tesseract technology, and it was a simple matter to deduce another version of Skye. As for the other, when I can plainly hear and see my wife begging and pleading for you to lower the barrier, yet it still takes you a full five minutes and thirteen seconds, according to the wall clock, to remove said barrier? It takes no great stretch of the imagination to conclude that the two of you have allowed yourselves to be caught up in intellectual pursuits to the detriment of your normal, natural sympathetic natures.”
The silence from the other side of the tesseract contained almost palpable annoyance.
“And don’t give me that shit about ‘devotion to reason,’” Skye grumbled at the other Holmes. “You said the Other Me had permission to call you Sherlock. I KNOW what THAT means.” She smirked in the direction of the voices. “Y’all just decided to stay informal with it.”
The pause grew longer.
Finally Chadwick remarked, in an extremely subdued fashion, “No, Skye…you know what it MEANT.”
Skye and Sherlock exchanged troubled glances. Both fully understood the implications of that statement, but tacitly agreed to discuss it later.
Holmes added, from the other side of the tesseract, “You are right. We were less than…understanding. Allow me to extend our deepest apologies. We—Chadwick and I—have been busy with…exceedingly serious matters, I fear.”
“Now that, I’ll have to agree with,” Skye vouched. “Sherlock, if I properly understood what they were just telling me, their continuum is destabilizing, and fast. As in, exponential rate fast.”
“Correct,” Chadwick verified. “We came to ask for help trying to figure out what’s wrong, if it can be fixed, and if so, how.”
“Elaborate, please,” Sherlock stated, moving to the nearby sofa. He sat, drawing Skye down beside him, leaned back, and steepled his fingers.
* * *
It didn’t take long before Sherlock understood the entire tale. He sat silently on the sofa, considering the matter.
“And so you came in search of Skye, hoping she could help you work out the problem, then help develop the hyperspatial physics necessary to correct the situation,” he murmured.
“Precisely,” Holmes answered.
“Of all the continuums we’ve explored, evidently our two are the only ones to have developed a functional tesseract,” Chadwick revealed.
“And how do we know you really are who you say?” Sherlock wondered shrewdly.
“Remain seated, and please do not try to walk toward us,” Chadwick replied. “All things considered, I expected this question from the minute I realized you were there too, Holmes. I’m going to ‘invert’ the tesseract, which will allow you to see us. But we will still be in two separate continuums after a fashion, and need to stay that way. If all four of us entered the same continuum at once, I don’t want to think what might happen.”
“She’s right,” Skye averred.
“Very well,” Sherlock agreed.
Gradually, and rather unnervingly, the walls around Skye and Sherlock began to fade. Not unlike, Sherlock thought curiously, a Pepper’s Ghost effect. As it did so, a nearly perfect replica of the underground Chamber at Schriever Air Force Base seemed to materialize around them, complete with monolithic Project: Tesseract equipment. But there were no banks of control consoles, and no operators. A few technicians came and went, but one central console appeared to control the entire apparatus. Two figures rose from behind that console, moving to stand outside two of the monoliths.
Sherlock and Skye stared at two versions of themselves. Both were a little older, by some three or four years, Sherlock estimated; and both were more careworn, tired and haggard looking. The other Holmes had a cool, aloof demeanor, while the other Chadwick bore the evidence of a broken spirit in her pale, lusterless blue eyes. They stood side by side and close together, yet not touching, and somehow indefinably apart, as if despite their obvious alliance, there was a wall, an emotional distance, between them.
* * *
It nearly broke Skye’s heart. She glanced at Sherlock and saw pain hidden deep in his grey eyes as well.
“I see you have given up smoking,” Sherlock noted of his doppelganger.
“I see you have not,” Holmes observed.
“Hi there, Sis,” Chadwick greeted Skye with a tired but open smile.
“Hi, yourself,” Skye couldn’t help the slight quirking grin that tweaked her lips. “Interesting, this hyperspatial dynamics, huh? You never know who you’re gonna meet.”
Holmes snorted in amusement. “Indeed,” the other man agreed. “I must say Chadwick has introduced me to an entirely different world—in more ways than one.”
“I heartily agree,” Sherlock chuckled. “I—”
Suddenly the Chamber—and the floor beneath Sherlock and Skye—shook, and all four people grabbed for something to steady themselves. Wide-eyed, Holmes and Chadwick stared at each other as the tremor subsided.
“Another one,” Chadwick breathed. “We just had one yesterday. They’re getting more frequent.”
“That is to be expected,” Holmes nodded. “If the continuum really is becoming unstable, would it not create ripples through the very fabric of spacetime, and the like?”
“Yes,” Skye agreed, before Chadwick could answer. “Gravity waves following the instability, like the Other Me said earlier. We had a close call with ours, when a virtual black hole tried to form in the core. When we did an emergency shutdown, I thought it was going to bring the Chamber down on us.”
“Eww,” Chadwick muttered. “Sounds…vaguely familiar. Nasty sitch.”
“Amen to that,” Skye said fervently.
“So what is causing the destabilisation?” Sherlock queried.
Holmes and Chadwick exchanged glances, then both sighed.
“As far as we can tell, it’s the tesseract,” Chadwick admitted. “I don’t know whether I have a design flaw, or whether something’s gone out of focus. And shutting the thing down for an extended period didn’t help; we tried that already. Skye and I were discussing earlier that it might have been something Haines did. But I don’t know for sure, so I was hoping to be able to compare it to yours, and figure out what the problem is. Maybe even use yours to help stabilize ours.”
* * *
Skye’s face fell.
“Ours was shut down last summer,” she informed them sadly. “Completely disassembled. Too much concern over the ethical ramifications, especially after Professor Haines tried to usurp it for his own ends.”
“Damnation,” Holmes murmured bitterly. “Would you be willing to help us review the design, then?”
“Wait,” Sherlock interrupted, noting Skye was opening her mouth to answer. “I have a question first.”
“Shoot,” Chadwick said.
“Why were Skye and I able to feel the earthquake you just experienced?” Sherlock asked bluntly.
“Because,” Chadwick sighed, “you’re in the core of the tesseract, the intersection of the two sets. You’re betwixt and between. I’d have thought you understood that.”
“No,” Skye shook her head. “In our design, the core stayed entirely in its own continuum. If anything had happened to the apparatus, it would simply have severed the connection to that other continuum. It wouldn’t have affected anything in the core. But mine couldn’t do what yours is doing now. Nobody in the core could see what was outside it.”
Chadwick’s eyes widened, and she looked at Holmes.
“Different designs,” he observed quietly.
“Apparently,” Chadwi
ck agreed. “Anyway, does that answer your question, Mr. Holmes?”
“It does,” Sherlock nodded.
“Then can we count on your help, both of you?” Chadwick asked hopefully.
Again, Skye opened her mouth to answer, and Sherlock held up a hand.
“If we might, I should like to request something of a recess. As I know you can simply dial in a later time, it will cost you nothing. But Skye and I have some matters of grave import to discuss first.”
“What? But—I don’t understand…” Chadwick looked startled and worried.
“He is concerned. He appreciates he could lose his wife.” Holmes glanced at Chadwick, a knowing look in his grey eyes.
Sherlock gazed calmly at the other version of himself. Skye took a deep breath, then let it out in a sigh, and nodded confirmation of Holmes’ assessment.
“Oh,” Chadwick said quietly, face falling. “Well, that is a reasonable concern. It…if it wasn’t so dire, I’d never ask it.”
“Still,” Holmes said coolly, “it is a sentimental response.”
Skye and Sherlock watched silently as Chadwick suddenly rounded on her companion.
“And so you mean to tell me, after all we’ve been through together, that you’d calmly sacrifice me to the cause, without a moment’s hesitation, if the situations were reversed?” she snapped.
Holmes froze, then averted his face slightly. “No,” he admitted succinctly. “I…would not.”
“Then don’t condemn them, when they had the good fortune to figure out how to make a life together,” Chadwick retorted sharply. “Just because we couldn’t, doesn’t mean they’re wrong.” She turned to the other couple. “We’ll dial back in at 9 o’clock tomorrow morning. Will that do?”
“It will,” Sherlock nodded. “My thanks.”
“Until then,” Chadwick said.
There was a sizzling, popping sound, and a slight whiff of ozone, and the Chamber vanished, replaced by the sitting room of their cottage.
* * *
Sherlock rose and immediately turned to Skye. “They are telling the truth.”
“Yeah. They’ve got a mess over there, and they’re both scared shitless over it. Did you see the way the other you—the way his eyes dilated when the shock wave hit?”
“Yes,” he noted, beginning to pace. “Quite aside from the fact that it would be impossible to simulate that tremor. They are both short of sleep, into the bargain. The sleep deprivation characteristics they were exhibiting are difficult to fake. And the smile your alter ego gave you was genuine.”
“So,” Skye took a deep breath, “they’re on the up and up.” She paused and shook her head. “Dear Lord. Sherlock, did watching them interact hurt you as much as it did me?”
“It was…unpleasant,” he confessed. “Do you remember the misunderstanding we had after we first became…a couple?”
“Yeah. When I wanted you to say you loved me, and you weren’t ready to admit it. I don’t think you were even completely sure if you did love me or not. And you didn’t have the first notion how to deal with it.”
“That was indeed the case, in every respect.” Sherlock nodded, impressed. “At any rate, I strongly suspect that he,” he tilted his head toward where the other Holmes had been standing, “chose to deal with it by ignoring it, or perhaps even turning away from it. Did you notice the wistful way she would look at him?”
“Yes,” Skye responded instantly. “Not to mention how she watched us. She still loves him, and it’s broken her.”
“There, but for the grace of God…” Sherlock swallowed and turned away to hide his emotion. Skye came to him, putting her arms around his waist.
“You have me, Sherlock. And who knows? Maybe by watching you, the other you will come to his senses and realize he doesn’t have to be alone either.”
“Yes, I have you—for now,” Sherlock admitted, turning to respond to her embrace, then paused. “Is it absolutely essential that you do this, my dear?” he asked, brow creased. “From the sound of it, there is considerable danger. If that continuum collapses, and you are in their tesseract core when it occurs, it may take you with it.”
“I don’t think I have much choice, Sherlock. If their continuum collapses, at the very least there’s going to be a ripple effect through the bulk. Worst case scenario, it triggers a domino effect and continuums start going down like bowling pins. Either way, we’re likely to be drastically affected.”
“How so?”
“Because their continuum is enough like ours that I’m betting it’s an adjacent string on the same branes,” Skye explained. “Which means it’s ‘close,’ relatively speaking. If a continuum collapses, it creates a singularity, something like a black hole, in the bulk. And that’s how it would affect adjacent continuums. Unless, of course, it’s the brane itself destabilizing, in which case it takes out all attached strings when it goes. And if ours is close enough, or attached to the destabilizing brane…”
“I see,” Sherlock sighed. “Then I have a decision to make.”
“What?”
“Whether to continue the murder case, or postpone it to stay with you.”
“Why would you postpone it?” Skye shook her head, puzzled.
Worried grey eyes met confused blue eyes.
“Because,” he confessed softly, briefly referencing the opera they’d seen in London, “I find I prefer dying with my spouse, to living without her. Therefore, should anything happen, at least I would not be Watson, wandering through the continuum, ever in search of my companion, yet unable to find her.”
* * *
January 18
The “Watson dreams” appear to be coming true in a most singular and distressing fashion. Evidently Skye’s calculations were both right and wrong. As she predicted, there are far fewer tesseracts in existence than in her worst case scenario: There have evidently only and ever been two, in the more than seven hundred continua our counterparts have documented—only theirs, and ours. But as theirs is apparently malfunctioning in some fashion, the search was no longer random—they sought out Skye, looking specifically for the signs and signature of an active tesseract. So Skye’s probabilities become skewed in favour of deliberate selection.
Skye is completely convinced that the endpoint of the tesseract in this continuum is what caused the UFO sightings, at least recently, and probably historically, as the other “us” attempted to focus in on the correct time and place to locate Skye. And I am strongly inclined to agree with her. So one mystery of long standing is solved, but another revealed, and yet another multiversal crisis is laid in our laps.
However, there are some conclusions that can be drawn regarding this and related matters. The fact remains that Skye is not irradiated from her exposure to the “UFO.” Therefore it was not the source of McFarlane’s radiation burns.
Further, there was no appearance of the UFO—really the tesseract terminus—the night of McFarlane’s death, per the statements of the other Holmes and Chadwick. That simply was not one of the times into which they focused with the tesseract. Chadwick even went back and read off times from their computerised log, and the very night of McFarlane’s death is not there, let alone the time.
I have discussed the matter privately with Skye, and she indicates from her observations that the thing would have been impossible to miss if it was in the area at all. From the videos I watched, I agree with her; though admittedly I could not see it when it was “chasing” her vehicle. This may have been because it was nearly upon the ground, however, and was hidden by the tall hedges bordering the front of the Gibson property.
Moreover I conclusively verified, on my constitutional about the McFarlane farm this morning, that there is an excellent line of sight between the farm and the Carvers’ dog breeding facility, as I was able to spot several of their outbuildings from the farm. Therefore the other…“us”…are not lying: The “UFO” was not in the area the night McFarlane died.
Further, we have the evidence of the fo
otsteps carrying a partially incapacitated McFarlane to his death.
These facts eliminate the tesseract “UFO” as the cause of his expiration.
Thus, as we already know the death of McFarlane was not a function of the UFO, and since we do not yet have the true cause of death, it seems I have a definite murder case on my hands, and one which the Secret Service fully expect me to solve. Yet in order to avert the dimensional crisis, Skye must be put in danger. Again. This does get old. To say I am happy about the situation is like saying Mycroft would be happy to take a run around Regents Park.
The end result is a conflict of interests and responsibilities: My duty to Queen and Country, versus my duty to my wife as sworn before a righteous Providence. Had I maintained a strict adherence to my original principles, I might not now be in such a dilemma. Yet I find I can no longer even stomach the thought, having seen—in that other reality in the which Skye and I exist together—the end result of holding unyieldingly to those principles.
They are together, and yet a universe apart, those two. I cannot say for certain, and yet the looks that pass between them indicate they were once lovers, if only briefly. Skye tells me in their reality, Professor Haines also tried to wrest control of the tesseract for himself, and THAT Chadwick also nearly died in averting sabotage. It seems, however, that Haines tipped his hand more readily there than here, and they were able to prevent his gaining full access to the device. The same, and yet not. So this argues for a similar progression of their relationship, at least to the point at which I—he—needs must have made a decision. Thank God I was wise enough to realise that the organ in question had already been committed into Skye’s safekeeping without my conscious awareness, and I had found the one instance where my principles need not apply.
Which is why I have it in mind to postpone work on the murder investigation in order to assist Skye in whatever way I can. But I must be honest with myself—though it is possible I may be able to help her, my underlying rationale is simply to be with her, close beside her, should disaster strike. Unfortunately, Skye believes the best use of my time would be investigating the murder of McFarlane, and we have spent virtually the entire evening arguing the point. Or rather, as near to arguing as we two ever come.
The Case of the Displaced Detective Page 95
