PARA/DOX

Humanity's Greatest Asset

As soon as Sherlock rose to his feet the car drove off, leaving the two to stare at the door with differing levels of discontent. There was a small square window upon the door, the sort that had wires woven through to prevent an easy access point. From what Sherlock could see that was the only source of natural sunlight the building would ever have. Victor stepped up to the door and waved a lanyard across a small camera, one which looked more like a doorbell than a high tech admission system. Had Sherlock been tasked with entering the building alone he may have pressed down upon the camera so hard that his fingers shattered the lens.
"Show them your ID." Victor insisted. Sherlock sighed, stepping up to the camera and holding out the blank ID card he had been given. The camera said nothing in return, though an audible click announced that they had passed the test. The door was open. Victor grabbed hold of the handle and passed silently through the door, holding it open with an exposed palm against the metal long enough for Sherlock to sneak inside at his heels. The inside of the building was about as bleak as one could expect, an empty white shell of a building lit entirely with LED lights so bright they almost appeared blue. The door had led into a small lobby with a single receptionist, a gruff looking man who was twice as big as the swivel chair in which he sat. He must have been a cross between a secretary and a security guard, for while he was answering the phone he also appeared to have a gun on his belt. There wasn't a word exchanged, Victor settled his hand upon Sherlock's shoulder and steered him forward while the boy lingered on the black carpet, wondering if it was too late to turn his back and run out the way he came. Victor's hand wasn't a thing to be tested, and so Sherlock reluctantly allowed himself to be herded along, following down the white hallways past many closed doors, all windowless, all dark.
"First we'll take you to meet Doctor Moriarty." Victor explained. "He's been in charge of the project since your brother was first discovered."
"Discovered? As if you just happened across him?" Sherlock spat.
"Since your brother was first introduced." Victor corrected. "I should have a mind to remove your tongue." He added under his breath, his fingers digging tighter into Sherlock's shoulder as if in makeshift punishment. Together they walked through the labyrinth of hallways and doors, most of which were unmarked save for numbers on plastic cards upon the wall. Sherlock was surprised that Victor could even attempt to find the proper office, and he was even more surprised that when they finally knocked upon a door identical to its neighbor and heard a rather high pitched response from behind the wood.
"Come in!" the Doctor called, to which Victor pushed the door open and proceeded to push Sherlock inside with just as much enthusiasm. The office was large, large enough to nearly hide the two men who now rose to their feet. One sat behind the desk, a wooden mass which stood wide and impressive in the middle of the room. The other man was lingering near the corner chairs, as if his very purpose in this room had been to wait. Sherlock stumbled forward, regaining his balance as his feet sank into a plush carpet at his feet. So many eyes stared at him, intimidating eyes, and he almost began to miss when those stares could yield in the face of sarcasm. He missed his previous escort's weakness, for he felt as though his confidence was melting like ice in the glares of these two most powerful men.
"Sherlock Holmes. I could have sworn against your relationship to your brother, other than the build." Began the Doctor, presumably the one they were here to meet.
"I'm sorry?" Sherlock stammered uncomfortably, not used to being examined so thoroughly during his first introduction.
"You're built just like Mycroft. Long, thin, bony. Too young to have grown into himself yet, and too genetically gifted to ever do so properly." The doctor finished, as if this was a perfectly normal way to introduce yourself. Sherlock stammered, looking down upon himself so as to make sure he hadn't shrunken down into this pitiful state the doctor described. No, his body was just as he had left it.
"I don't know what to say." Sherlock admitted, figuring that was the only way to respond to what could only be an outlandish observation. The Doctor himself was not something to ogle at; in fact he was just as spindly as Sherlock could expect to be when he grew to be that age. Doctor Moriarty must have been about fifty, though he stood at his tallest just short of six feet. The man had close cut black hair and deep, sunken eyes, a dark iris that lingered in the shadows of his pale and exhausted face. He managed a smile, though compared to the whiteness of his lab jacket his teeth almost appeared to be stained yellow. There was a devilish look to him, something that immediately repelled his new abductee.
"Sit down, please." offered the other man, the one who now stepped out from his place in the corner to offer Sherlock one of the chairs in the middle of the room. Sherlock remained standing. This man was much older than Moriarty, probably going on sixty with greying hair in the same governmental style. He wore a tailored suit and a large, theatrical smile. Though all this good graces could not disguise him from Sherlock's memory, even if it had been so long since he had last seen the man's face.
"Mr. Trevor." Sherlock muttered.
"The elder." Mr. Trevor added, casting a look towards his son as if to remind Sherlock that there were multiples that went by such a title. Victor drew himself a bit taller, feeling the eyes of the room shift upon him. "How did my son treat you, Mr. Holmes?"
"Horrifically." Sherlock admitted, finally accepting the chair in the middle of the room as he sank deeply into its confines. "He nearly strangled me."
"You would have done the same, Father." Victor promised quickly, making no moves to deny the claim.
"I'm not entirely sure I would have." Mr. Trevor snapped back, taking a step towards his son to which the latter retreated, a quick and frightened side step that would imply much more than intended about the relationship between the two.
"He's got a forked tongue." Victor excused.
"We'll deal with you later. A sad excuse for a recruiter." Mr. Trevor snarled. "Victor, you can go."
"Keep him here, James." Doctor Moriarty instructed, setting himself carefully within his chair without allowing his eyes to stray from the younger Trevor. Victor's father grunted his agreement, though he cast the boy to sit on the edge of the room, taking the second center seat for himself. Victor trudged away into the corner, folding his arms around himself and slouching horribly. For a moment Moriarty studied Sherlock, finally reaching out his hand and holding his palm to the ceiling.
"Can I have your glasses, Sherlock?" he asked at last.
"Surely you know why I can't take them off." Sherlock defended, recoiling from the hand and touching his fingers protectively against the wire frame.
"Surely that's the reason I want them." the Doctor explained, flexing his fingers once as if to demonstrate his urgency in the matter. Sherlock gave a small noise of defeat, shutting his eyes and sliding the glasses off of his face. He had to comply, he knew that like it or not this strange man owned him and could conduct his actions like a puppet master. Sherlock blindly swatted the glasses into the Doctor's hands, withdrawing his hands safely back into his chest. The room was dark behind his eyelids, anyone could be lingering a bit too close. He had no way to tell.
"Open your eyes, Sherlock." Doctor Moriarty instructed. Sherlock sighed, and yet he finally allowed his lids to flutter open. The room came back, in fact it seemed remarkably constant to the state he had left it. There was a man behind the desk, the same man he was talking to, though the current Doctor must have aged about fifteen years since this point of reflection. The man sat and talked on a large boxy phone, his words muffled by a spindly mustache that must have been shaved with necessary reflection some years afterward. There was talking from that era, and yet the same voice was speaking louder overtop of his past phone conversation.
"What do you see?" Doctor Moriarty asked.
"I see you, Doctor. But you're probably...probably about thirty." Sherlock explained. "You have a mustache."
"Regrettable." The Doctor sighed. "Can you describe any details?" Sherlock looked around, searching for anything that might lead to a more reliable explanation. The office didn't look much different at all, save for the current clutter that must have accumulated over the years.
"There's a plant in the corner, a fern. It looks like plastic, but I couldn't be sure." Sherlock muttered.
"Can you tell the color of the filing cabinet behind me?" the Doctor asked.
"No. No, I see the world in black and white." Sherlock explained. Doctor Moriarty sighed, as if this was not an appreciated answer.
"Your brother suffered the same." He admitted, the voice sounding much more distant and almost getting drowned out by the past phone conversation. "Tell me Sherlock, can you walk around?"
"Yes." Sherlock agreed.
"Can you walk to the door and back?" Moriarty suggested. Sherlock rose to his feet, walking as instructed like a soldier receiving a pointless order. The Doctor hummed; in fact Sherlock heard the whole room shift in interest. Sherlock already knew that what he did and said translated into his present form, that his soul and his body moved unilaterally. It should be no surprise that while he tread through the past his current body meandered through the present.
"And lastly, Sherlock, can you move something on my desk. Do you see that basket of pens? I've had it for all these years. Can you break it for me, Sherlock?" Moriarty requested.
"No, I'm sorry." Sherlock muttered. "I can't interact with the past. It can only interact with me."
"Try for me, Sherlock." Moriarty repeated, this time his voice sounding much less hospitable. It was more of a demand than a request. Sherlock reached out for the pens, his hand grasping at the container and falling short. He clenched his fingers around to no avail, he couldn't budge the basket, he couldn't even rattle the pens.
"I'm sorry sir." Sherlock muttered, withdrawing his hand.
"Considering the basket is not broken, not where it sits on my desk currently, I presume you have failed." Moriarty sighed. "Victor, give these back." In a swift moment Sherlock felt his glasses getting jammed back over his eyes, an unceremonious gesture performed by the most detesting hands. Sherlock frowned, batting away Victor's fingers as they tried to secure the glasses through his curls and upon his ears.
"Don't touch me." Sherlock sneered.
"I'm afraid I must, Sherlock." Victor sighed, flicking the side of his head with a quick yet painful response to Sherlock's snarky attitude. Sherlock ignored it, he tried to be professional, and yet the pain only reminded him of the bully he had left behind. Victor's violence felt quite like Moran's, proving all savage beasts to be quite the same. Sherlock blinked his way back into the office, peering back at the current and aged version of the Doctor. He looked intrigued, though there was no sign of pleasure or displeasure. He looked at Sherlock with an imaginative mind, as if he was sitting and considering all he was going to do from here on out.
"My first goal with you, Mr. Holmes, is to see what you see. There's a technology we worked on with your brother, a transferring of light from your eyes into our televisions. It's nearly finished, halted abruptly when we lost our pair of eyes." Moriarty described. Sherlock shuttered, having expected the administration to take such an approach to his brother's suicide. It wasn't a tragic loss, for them it was a mere inconvenience.
"That sounds painful." Sherlock admitted reluctantly.
"Then we'll go on to time travel. Some part of you, and some part of your brother, doesn't fit into the current standards of time. You're detached from the present, engrained into the past. Something about you is the key." Moriarty continued. Sherlock remembered back to the man he had witnessed in his house, the man with the blinking box. Could he be some proof of this project's success?
"Lastly, or perhaps conjointly, I want you to interact with your surroundings. I want you to train your mind to influence the past as if it were as solid as the present. I want you to change the world." Moriarty announced, leaning forward with his dark eyes sparkling. He had ambition, he had greed, and now he had the means to go about it. He had his lab rat. Sherlock shivered, wondering if every word he said in protest to these plans might just come out as a squeak in the Doctor's ears.