The Other Detective

 

Benedict looked at the Stanley Apartment room. It seemed plain enough. Not quite as generic as it started though. An odd memory flickered in his head. No, it was always like this. A wooden desk, a keyboard, blue this time. Wait. That was new.

He yelled on his phone. “Nathan. Big changes or small ones. Make up your mind.”

“Right,” said Nathan sheepishly over the phone. “I was just experimenting with the settings”

He wasn’t really irritated with Nathan, but the camera on the monitor was running, and the mood in the air – not his – was tense.

“That’s fine then.” said Benedict as he remembered he had to be polite and patient too.

“Are you any further in?” asked Nathan, now that he got the wink+camera emoji on the phone.

“Once the room stops spinning I’ll tell you.” said Benedict. He was on a drip feed of a few things that Nathan though might help the time sickness that everyone seemed to have.

“It’s just water” said the Narrator. “Water from Metric.” Added Nathan.

That meant something to the Time Detective, but not to everyone else. “Do you mind if I try something?” asked Benedict over the phone. “I’m going to my mind palace.” he said as he hung up.

Nathan could hear the audio from the employee lounge. That only happened when it was an important scene.

As Benedict mimed the actions from Sherlock, the monitor showed a swirl of words. “Metric” “Story” “Memory” “Actor” “Apartment” “Computer”. As he made a swiping motion with his hand, the word list spun around. “Oh, that’s brilliant.” He pointed at Actor and his name came up. Various clips from different episodes played. It seemed to paint a picture of a composite character. One not unlike Sherlock, but bouncing around more, alternating bored and brilliant. Not one that interacted with people, but a kind of mental Narrator.

Speaking of which, he heard his own voice on the speaker instead of Kevan. “If you’re hearing this, then we’re at least a bit farther in.”

Sherlock, as he now called himself, tried to remember if he had recorded that line, or if it was his helper. There was a bit of fuzz on his memory, like that was possible, but nothing definite.

He assumed it was his helper, faking his voice. The room seemed to want him to trim back his card choices. He had filled in cards for all of his movie and TV roles, and had followed the phone apps task prompting to pretend to be each of the characters and use the room and monologue.

Now he could use the computer to do that he didn’t have to wait for the phone app to drop a hint. He decided to give up his phone and work with a small set of printed cards. He’d get someone else to manage his phone and he’d use just the computer. He put his phone in the room’s recycle slot and felt like he was unteathered from time for.. who knows how long. His mind drifted back to dropping the phone into the recycler.

He’d miss the group chats, but he was sure the computer could catch him up on the details. After he closed the Mind Palace Interface, the OS seemed to be a bit more complex.

He had a pending message from Martin Freeman, and another Martin as well, maybe one of the crew?

Sherlock put all 3 of them in a room. His name was ‘Sherlock’ on the screen, the actor part of his mind slipped away and he lived his character.

Sherlock tried talking, but found he could only use clips of himself on shows to chat. Another wrinkle. The computer showed a demo, but he still couldn’t use them. Maybe it was waiting for something.

If he said anything else, the connection would vanish. Right now they were frozen. He tried a few clips, then read the lines to the back to the screen. He was getting tired. His mind drifted back a while, he’d done this game before, they practised. There was always a key line that unfroze the screens and set things moving. It took the other people to a certain place and setting in time. One that Sherlock didn’t quite feel.

“Look, this is a 6.” That was the line. The one they never heard.

Martin/Watson “It says End of the World! Haven’t you been watching the TV? Sherlock?

Martin Crew “That’s a 6 on my chart, Nathan doesn’t like this much Time Editing. We should probably think about leaving.”

The two Martin’s seemed worried. The TVs in the background of their rooms had been showing some scary scenes. The crew Martin had read out the temporal instability level before. Six was big. But they were frozen again. He couldn’t break character. They said before that his line went to static when he remembered them as frozen. They were talking again, probably working themselves up.

Sherlock’s clips were limited. An explosion in 221B, the British Parliament blowing up and a clip of him talking on a laptop. Not wanting to add to the bad mood, he picked the last clip.

Sherlock’s computer finally accepted the input and he felt like he could read the line now and have them hear it without locking up again. “There's no point in my leaving the flat for anything less than a 7, we agreed.”

The two Martin’s looked shocked, but then the TVs turned off and the mood lightened. They laughed. They understood the game.

A forth screen joined. It was Una Stubs - Mrs Hudson. She was alive again as Sherlock already seemed to know. Before anyone else could react a large shape fell outside past each of the windows in turn. Una seemed to ignore the two Martins and looked out the window instead. “Oh, that was right on my bins.”

“Temporal sync achieved!” said a loud voice in a gameshow like tone.

Nathan cut off the feeds before the Temporal Antics got too carried away. He seemed to think Sherlock had masterminded the whole thing, and opened up a chat window with him first.

Nathan seemed confused. “You were in a time loop, and somehow you linked in the other two rooms, and it kept saying ‘Rehearsing a Scene’ and it wouldn’t let me in.

Sherlock’s mind drifted back. Ya, that’s what happened. I just forgot for a minute. Caught up in the scene.

Nathan continued as Sherlock remembered more details. “Then you got on this ‘loop high’ and suddenly Una is an apartment and you talk about pranking the other two and she says she’s been in a garden and ... how many times have you rehearsed this scene?”

Sherlock didn’t even have to guess the next line, he’d seen the clip before, and he was still live and feeling very clever. “It's all a bit of a blur, Detective Inspector. I lost count.” More giggles.

“Temporal Antics Bonus! Laugh it up!” said the gameshow voice,

Nathan realized as much as he thought he was in charge, he really wasn’t. He felt like this was the plan though. Have everyone on a slightly different temporal tilt. See things out of order, come in from unique angles, say something specific and recognizable that can act as a ‘beat’ to the story. Throw the natural fodder of the moment in the middle as ‘filling’ and use the finished scenes in the movies.