PARA/DOX

Trials of the Third Eye

"You can what?" Victor exclaimed.
"I can see the past. I'm in the framework, I'm...I'm about forty years away." Sherlock admitted.
"I thought you went blind, Sherlock? I thought you couldn't see anything?" Victor debated.
"So did I, until right now! What are you calling me, a liar?" Sherlock snarled. "I can see this, whatever this is!"
"Alright, alright. Let's calm down." Victor suggested. Sherlock felt two hands grasp at his forearms, trying to steady the boy as he wandered about the room, presenting a danger to himself and others.
"Get John." Sherlock insisted.
"Sherlock, it's nine o'clock at night. John's gone home, everyone's gone home."
"Get him!" Sherlock demanded. "He needs to do tests, he needs to know about this."
"Can't those tests wait until tomorrow?" Victor protested.
"Victor, what if this is delicate! What if the moment I blink my eyes I'll never see anything again! Get John Watson!"
"You're an insufferable brat." Victor declared. The words were loud, but not loud enough to mask the sound of his phone clicking to attention, and to the slow and monotonous rings that were being emitted from the speaker. Sherlock heard the conversation even if he couldn't see Victor. He figured it was better to see the past rather than the present darkness, either way he was blind in the real world. And so Sherlock abandoned his sunglasses, at least able to keep his balance as he meandered towards his bed and sat down heavily within the blankets. Victor was explaining the situation, though the man only got a couple of words in before the line went dead. If he had been talking to anyone less admirable Sherlock would have suspected they hung up and went back to bed. Knowing John he was already in the car by the time he picked up the phone.
"He's on his way." Victor explained.
"Good." Sherlock muttered. "I don't understand why they let him live somewhere while they kidnapped me. At the moment he's more valuable."
"All of his knowledge can be stored, Sherlock. Your brain, your eyes, they continue to help us in ways we cannot yet predict." Victor pointed out. Sherlock huffed, figuring that was a polite way of telling him he was a pig being raised for slaughter. If they could utilize his body better in death then it may very well be Victor who gutted him. Sherlock couldn't trust him, not at the moment. He shivered with the drafty cold air of the hallowed out building, the silver moon shining its beautiful rays across the muddy, soiled ground. Sherlock pushed his toes into the mud, feeling only tile in response. He heard the footsteps of Victor Trevor; he felt the bed heave with the sudden addition of weight. Thankfully the bodyguard knew to keep his distance, for while the hinges creaked Sherlock didn't feel the added heat of a companion.
"It's been a while since I've seen your eyes." Victor admitted, trying to start a conversation with the spiteful boy who sat cross legged next to him. Sherlock huffed, craning his neck towards the sky and watching the stars through the metal framed ceiling that was supposedly hanging above.
"They've grown a cloud over them. Like a white film, hiding the vibrancy." Victor explained. "Though I can still see the greens, and the blues. Your eyes have..."
"Shut up, Victor." Sherlock interrupted. "I don't want your lectures."
"It's not a lecture, it's a compliment."
"I don't trust those either." Sherlock snapped. Victor repositioned himself, the weight of the bed shifting enough now that Sherlock was tilted ever more in his direction.
"Sherlock, I was a child back then, just a child. I didn't know my own feelings better than did your brother. My father noticed that Mycroft took a liking to me, he wanted to utilize that. He threatened me if I didn't comply."
"Did you love my brother, Victor?" Sherlock snapped, not wishing to hear any more of the man's arguments without a solid understanding of his position in the matter.
"I didn't know that I did, not until he died." Victor admitted softly, muttering into his chest as if to hide the shameful, yet honest, words. Sherlock appreciated these. For some reason he wouldn't have trusted a 'yes', even if it had been legitimate. At least in this case Victor was not trying to paint himself into a saint.
"Well then you must feel pretty stupid, hm?" Sherlock sighed.
"I regret my part every day. I should have been braver; I should have stood up to my father when I had the chance." Victor insisted.
"Did Mycroft ever find out that you were double crossing him?"
"Yes."
"When was that? How many days before?"
"A week. But things...things cumulated. Aside from that, Sherlock. Your brother faced so many hurdles that week alone, it would have taken an army to withstand it."
"What else?" Sherlock wondered, turning his head lazily in the direction of the voice. It was easier to at least locate sound, at least when he could stare at something and fix on it, a beam instead of darkness. Darkness all looked the same.
"I couldn't say for sure." Victor admitted.
"Victor!"
"It was classified information!" Victor defended. "He told me that he was doing research, on what I could never find out. But he was looking into things, things he wasn't supposed to know."
"There are secrets here?" Sherlock whispered.
"There are secrets everywhere," Victor assured. "More so when the government is involved."
"Well did he tell you what sort he was looking at?" Sherlock insisted, beginning to feel a growing surge of adrenaline pumping throughout his body. Was Mycroft onto something before he died? Was there some underlying secrets, dangerous secrets, to this agency's operation?
"No, he didn't tell me. Even if he did I wouldn't tell you. Whatever it was, he was punished for it. Even if they didn't find him, he couldn't stomach it." Victor admitted, his voice growing sharp now, like a finely tempered blade.
"Something so horrible?" Sherlock whispered, curling his fingers and looking behind him, behind into the vast mess of steel rods that would soon make up this cooperation. From here it looked endless, the rooms in the bare frames, stretching for miles like a forest might have. Frames installed to keep secrets. How many had Mycroft found before he died? How many more might there be, still hidden within the walls? Hidden in the lips of the men who used to utter them? Sherlock shivered, wondering just how ghastly this agency was if you flipped it over and examined the whole of it. Their moments of contemplation were interrupted with a frantic knock at the door, a fist which beat so agressivley Sherlock might've thought there was a true danger to being outside rather than in. He got to his feet, staring at the empty frame of building as victor's footsteps pounded along the tile to admit their guest.
"John, thank God." Sherlock exclaimed, rising to his feet just as soon as he heard the Doctor's small greeting.
"I'm not sure that I'm allowed to be here." John admitted, a large thunk signifying his abandoning his satchel to fall to the floor.
"Why wouldn't you be?" Sherlock wondered, hearing the almost deafening click of the lock as soon as the door was shut. Victor must be anxious, unusually so.
"I don't know. But they checked my ID twice, and made me swear to my destination."
"Which was?" Victor wondered.
"My laboratory, of course." John assured. "I told them I had a breakthrough in the evening, that I was anxious to get to work."
"They've got cameras; they'll know you were lying." Sherlock scoffed, his anxiety only heightening to hear of the new security concerns.
"Hopefully not quick enough." John muttered. Sherlock couldn't see him though he could imagine that shrug and smirk. He had seen it enough times, the Doctor shooing away any hint of doubt as he forged ahead. He was a good man, an invaluable one.
"I can see the past still, Doctor. But I can't see the present. The sunglasses are either too dark or something went wrong, terribly wrong." Sherlock explained, figuring they ought to get to work if they had such a crunched schedule. He heard john walk towards him, he felt the Doctor as he dropped to his knees and pulled Sherlock's face into his hands. For a while the man examined, stretching Sherlock's skin between his fingers as he studied each angle of his eyes.
"It's just like it was, no sensitivity to light." John explained. Sherlock hummed, figuring the Doctor must have been shining a flashlight into his eyes. "Get the glasses, Victor." Moments later Sherlock felt his sunglasses settle onto his face; though this time instead of the face of the Doctor he saw instead an inky blackness, as close to nothing as a human could ever comprehend.
"And here, no sensitivity either." John explained. "It's strange, too strange. It's as if to your eyes the present doesn't exist."
"Why?" Sherlock questioned, threading his fingers together anxiously.
"My best guest would be that something burned your corneas. All of that light in one time, with three time periods trying to illuminate you...it was an overload. But, to my knowledge, you don't need your corneas to see into the past. Every time you look into the past you don't use the correct parts of the eye, hence your eyes inability to adjust. You see black and white, yes? Well, that there proves that it's unnatural. Your natural eyes, Sherlock, were destroyed. But your unnatural eyes, this third eye of yours, it's perfectly intact."
"Did you just make that up on the spot?" Sherlock wondered.
"Good, isn't it?" John chuckled.
"In any other situation I'd laugh." Sherlock grumbled in response. John pouted, a small huff of breath being released onto Sherlock's face. Surprisingly it had a hint of toothpaste.
"I see a solution, Sherlock. I didn't lie to that guard when I admitted to a revelation." John admitted. "You see, sunlight particles start their half-lives as early as thirty seconds. They disintegrate quickly, though they're never quite gone. Miniscule, negligible amounts, but they're ever present; allowing us to see as far as light has ever shone. But that thirty seconds, if we can harness that within your head, whether it be naturally or mechanically, we can allow you to see as near to the present as possible."
"You mean I'll be seeing thirty seconds late? Like some sort of badly synched audio?" Sherlock clarified, blinking his disgust in the idea.
"It's better than seeing nothing at all." John assured.
"I'm not sure about that. My reflexes are going to be god awful." Sherlock warned. John chuckled, catching Sherlock's hand and squeezing it gently.
"We don't need reflexes, Sherlock. But sometimes we like eye contact. I can imagine you miss our faces." John insisted.
"Don't flatter yourself, Watson. The first thing that crossed my mind is the relief that I'd never have to look at you again." Sherlock chuckled. Sherlock heard Victor grumble, followed by a quick procession of his footsteps. It sounded as if he had turned a half circle, as if he felt required to stare at the wall rather than the two conversing.
"Yes of course. I dare not get ahead of myself in compliments." John muttered. Sherlock grinned, pushing the sunglasses off of his eyes just so that he could find a fixed point in time to concentrate on. To his relief his own bedroom came into view, an empty room, with a couple of workers going around installing the television. It was a bright and aggressive view, though at least the structure was similar enough to the present that he wouldn't start running into walls. Sherlock felt John's hand clasped within his own, though when he stared ahead of himself he saw nothing but empty floor. It was pitiful, heartbreaking even.
"How soon can you make me this device?" Sherlock wondered hurriedly.
"As soon as they let me start." John admitted.
"The time machine must be their first priority." Sherlock pointed out regretfully.
"It is, I'm afraid. They want me to go farther, as I knew they would. Not just project the past but stay put inside of it. They want their travelers to vanish when the machine switches to another timeline; they want to deposit them wherever they please." John admitted.
"Why do they want to time travel, do you know? Is it just for the sake of doing it or...or is there another motivation?" Sherlock wondered.
"I wish I knew, Sherlock." John admitted. "Though the flash drive never mentions history."
"We've done it before...or rather we still have yet to. But it's been done, one way or another, and it can be repeated." Sherlock assured.
"That it will. And when I'm not working on that, I'll be working on you." John promised.
"You'll run yourself ragged." Sherlock warned.
"I've been through worse."
"Worse company, you mean?" Sherlock presumed.
"If I could trade every day I've spent with Moriarty for one evening spent with you it will have been the steal of a lifetime." John agreed. Sherlock could feel his smile; there was a certain radiance to it that could not be ignored, not even when he was staring some weeks into the past. Sherlock felt that joy, in response he had no choice but to smile back. He dared to laugh, leaning his head forward until his forehead collided with some part of John's face. He felt a nose, squished underneath his curls.
"Then we should get to work." Sherlock suggested. "The sooner the better."