Welcome 2 AfterLife

Pandre Law

The man behind the desk leaned back in his high backed chair, it’s leather creaking to accommodate his frame. He steepled his fingers and regarded Jessica over the top of his wire framed spectacles like a headmaster sizing up an errant pupil.

“My name is MIchael Bolton, “ he paused as if waiting for a response or recognition. “I am an associate her a Pandre Law, I doubt you’ve heard of us. We specialise in copyright law.”

Jessica opened her mouth to speak but the lawyer, Michael Bolton, held up his hand, forestalling her. “I know who you are,” he said. “Or at least, I know who you think you are.”

Jessica started to bridle, the whole situation was so mundane and yet, at the same time, quite bizarre.

“Here.” Bolton pulled a large glossy photograph from a folder amongst the papers in front of him. “Does this remind you of anyone?”

He spun the photograph across the desk to her. A family portrait, husband, wife and daughter smiled warmly for the camera. The daughter was barely a teenager, her teeth caged in wire that Jessica felt sure must be very uncomfortable. Looking at this girl hurt Jessica, hurt her deep in her chest. She didn’t recognise the man but his wife, the mother, it was like looking in mirror. The woman in the photograph could have been her doppelganger. She was older, carried more weight, but otherwise the woman in the photograph could be Jessica herself.

“Big screw-up to use your own body scan,”  Bolton said. “I mean, we’ve got you right there; the body, the face, the voice. All of them are a match to our clients property. Now if the mind in that pretty little head of yours is a match too, well, then we’ve got the whole darn shooting game.” Bolton leaned back in his chair, the springs groaned beneath his weight, and gave Jessica a cock-sure grin. “We’re just waiting on an admin to come in, run a little forensic neural analysis. We already know from the snapshot we downloaded that you’ve got a lot more data than a construct should have.”

“Nothing you say makes sense,” said Jessica. Bolton’s supercilious attitude had been grating on her, replacing her sense of befuddlement.

“Honey, it doesn’t make sense to me either. I mean, why pretend to be a construct? That’s just dumb.”

“Hello, did someone request an admin?” The familiar voice, here amongst so much strangeness, was a balm to Jessica. She hid a relieved smile by lowering her head.

“Yes, I need someone to... You’re not the usual guy?”

“Sorry, yes, I’m really only a moderator.”  Holmes stepped up to the desk, turned  to Jessica and gave her a reassuring wink. Bolton was eyeing Holmes, taking in his tweed suit and the stupid deer-stalker hat he insisted on wearing everywhere.

“I really need an Admin,” Bolton said, his manner tense and clearly suspicious.

“Look, I bought my ban hammer!” said Holmes, pulling the huge Viking weapon from his inside pocket, where it could not possibly have fit, with the flourish of a magician. Before Bolton could react, Holmes tapped him lightly on the head with it.

“Are you well, Mr Bolton?” Jessica asked. Despite her dislike for the man, he looked quite stricken.

Bolton was frozen, cracks spread from the spot on his head where Holmes had tapped him, through flesh and clothes alike. The man shattered into tiny pieces.

“Come, Watson,” said Holmes, vanishing the weapon just as magically as it had appeared, “The game’s, afoot. I’ve merely disconnected that fellow, he’ll be back and with him reinforcements.”

He took her hand but she pulled away. 

“What is this place, Sherlock?” Jessica asked.

“Yes, of course! We're someplace else. I'll... get back to you on the specifics,” he said. “Right now, Watson, we have to leave.”

Instead of following, Jessica took the photograph of the girl that made her heart ache and the woman that could be her twin and held it like a shield between herself and Holmes.

“Crap!”

The expletive from Holmes’s mouth was so shocking and so uncouth, she blushed from her toes to her hair but she fixed him with a steely glare and waited. 

“I’m sorry, Jess,” he said, uncharacteristically calling her by her first name. “It was easier for you not to remember.”

“Easier for who?” 

Holmes shook his head sadly. “Do you really want to know?”

 “I insist.”

“Then listen carefully, Watson,” he said. “Scrabble was invented by Nazis to piss off kids with dyslexia.”

“What?”

 The phrase made no sense to her but within her mind a key turned and the doors of memory opened.