Refurbished [Sherlock/Portal] [R] [2/2]
Title: Refurbished
Rating: R (just in case)
Words: 10,060
Fandom: BBC Sherlock/Portal
Pairing: Accidentally written subtle Mycroft/John if you squint
Summary: While investigating a series of disappearances, Sherlock and John come across the "abandoned" Aperture Laboratories.
Sherlock has been testing for what feels like forever, but John hasn't wasted any time in trying to help get him out.
Warnings: Some more angst. Some Portal spoilers I think? Spoilers if you didn't know GLaDOS is a bitch. Oh, and I may have cheated on the dialogue by using lots and lots of GLaDOS quotes.
Notes: Okay, I did this sooner than I anticipated. If only I could write this efficiently for school! Just a note... If you haven't played Portal 2, then the name Caroline will mean little to you. Ignore it. It is not worth stressing over. Link to part one is just below. Also, I've shoved in some Aperture Investment Opportunities video links, just in case you'd like to have a look, or if you don't understand some of the things I've mentioned (panels, boots, portal gun, etc). They're a good watch. Oh, Mister Johnson.
Part 1/2: Abandonment
“You’re not even breathing real air. We just take the carbon dioxide out of the room, freshen it up a little, then pump it back in. So you’ll be breathing the same air for the rest of your sorry little life. Just thought you might like to know.”
The voice overhead was too sweet for the words being said, but Sherlock was numb to it now. It was one of many taunts and teases that never ceased, day in, day out, while he exerted himself to the point of collapse in between test chambers.
Today he found himself curled up against a wall while the robotic woman from somewhere deep in the factory spoke at him, without any real concern for his well being. He’d stopped talking back a long time ago. Sherlock tried not to think about it too much, otherwise he’d be forced to realised how long it had been. He’d be forced to remember his final moments with John before they took him away.
He lifted his head lazily, the back of it resting against the cool white wall of a hallway in between. His ankles ached from the straps of his long fall boots; thin, uncomfortable boots that were more like pieces of metal strapped to his calves with a single sturdy spring attached to the back of each one. They made it difficult for Sherlock to land on anything but his feet if he fell a great distance, and it turned out that great distances were common in Aperture Laboratories. Without those boots he’d surely have killed himself by now, but it didn’t mean they weren’t uncomfortable after walking around on his toes for months.
“When do I get a break?” he shouted, voice cracking with exhaustion and dehydration. He was supposed to be booked into a relaxation chamber days ago, but the robotic woman had kept him testing.
“I’ll open up a lounge for cake and refreshments after two more chambers,” she cooed, the last word crackling and skipping before the speakers buzzed and switched off. Sherlock felt he had no choice but to stand and walk slowly along the hall to the next chamber.
---
John had started out in the Baker Street apartment, foolishly thinking that he could handle it without Sherlock. He was sorely mistaken. He couldn’t bring himself to let go of the place, though, so with some help from Mycroft Holmes, Mrs Hudson kept 221B clean for him while he stayed with Sarah for a few weeks after the incident. He refused to believe that Sherlock wasn’t coming back and everyone understood that, even though they would sigh a sympathetic sigh whenever he walked into a room.
When things got too difficult at Sarah’s (one bedroom, and they weren’t really seeing each other; John was still a little shaken about the whole ordeal to give his full attention to anyone anymore), Mycroft took him in. It was the best plan because Mycroft’s house was large, out of the way, but still accessible to the city, where John needed and wanted to be. It also meant that he would get information first hand from Mycroft as they searched for any clues regarding Sherlock’s disappearance. John had to remind himself that they were still brothers, and Mycroft was just as frightened as John was. The only difference was that he hadn’t been there to see him go.
John could still remember it. He tried not to, but it would invade his dreams some nights, whenever the topic came up in conversation during the day. They could avoid it most of the time, but if there was ever that quiet mention of the anonymous email, John wouldn’t be able to shake it from his mind and he would be haunted by the memory of passing out against the glass wall, and waking up in the middle of a wheat field with no tin shed behind him.
If he hadn’t fallen asleep in that chamber, he would probably still be down there with him. If a lot of things hadn’t happened, they wouldn’t be in this mess.
One morning at breakfast, Mycroft came downstairs to greet him at the dining table. Normally John wouldn’t see him until later in the day, but there he was, already fully dressed in a sharp two-piece, tapping a small leather notebook against his wrist.
He sounded almost apologetic when he said, “We’ve gathered all the information on the disappearances,” but John didn’t mind. Not if it meant new information, he didn’t mind dwelling on it all again.
“Taking into account everything you told me about the factory,” Mycroft continued as he took a seat opposite John at the table, “Sherlock’s suspicions that the abductors being inhuman were more than likely correct.”
He placed his notebook down on the able and opened it up, then flicked across a few pages to find his place. John watched his face intently as he read from his notes.
“We’ve found Aperture Laboratories. They were award winning innovators back in the 60’s, in North America. They had branches all over the country, but the factories were always out in abandoned or uninhabited areas.” He paused, looking up to check John’s reaction so far and only finding a look of pure concentration as the doctor listened. “They started moving from innovations and branched out to new inventions. They grew, soon becoming recognised as one of the largest, most successful companies of the future.”
John licked his lips. “I’ve never heard of them.”
Mycroft gave him a small, kind smile and turned a page of his notebook. “You wouldn’t. They were really only known by those who could afford their products. They even helped NASA after the first moon landing.”
“So what does this have to do with Sherlock going missing?” John asked after a moment, trying his hardest not to sound impatient or irritated. He was just keen to get to the bottom of this, that’s all. Somehow, he knew Mycroft would understand that.
“Data, John,” the Holmes brother cooed softly, trying to calm him. “It’s best to know as much about them as possible.
“Aperture did prefer to do their manufacturing underground, which would explain the nature of the factory you and my brother came across. The American facility stretched 600 miles into the earth’s crust.” John exhaled slowly. How far down had he and Sherlock gone?
“It kept them hidden, see. Away from the eyes of competitors and enemies. Aperture were never afraid to break boundaries and cross lines with their experiments. We’ve found record of some tests which involved crossing human DNA with insect DNA, just to, and I quote, ‘see what would happen’.” Mycroft frowned and cleared his throat, obviously becoming uncomfortable. John wondered if he had thought of the same thing he had; if they’d crossed lines before, who was to say they wouldn’t cross lines with Sherlock?
“Their most successful invention was the Handheld Portal Device, and they’ve been testing it since early days in 1974. It’s only progressed since then. No doubt that if Sherlock is being used for testing, he will be testing with that equipment. But not to worry. After all the research we’ve managed thus far, the recent developments of the portal gun are mostly safe.”
“Mostly?” John’s throat felt dry.
“I’m not going to sugar coat this, John. You deserve more than that.” Mycroft frowned gently and closed his book. “All this brings me back to the abductors. Aperture is experienced and familiar with technologies we aren’t yet capable of understanding. When the second largest branch and factory of the company made the move to England in 2001, they would most definitely have brought this technology with them. People worked in the facility, yes, but the technology began to take over. The factory is overrun with artificial intelligence: robots that can think and feel. I have no doubt that if people were being taken by Aperture in Blackmoor, they would be taken by AI units to find people to run tests.”
John sat back and took in a deep breath. It was a lot to comprehend in one morning.
“So,” he began, in attempts to understand what he’d just been told, “What we’re dealing with here are robots kidnapping people, dragging them back to their derelict factory, so they can use them as test subjects for futuristic machines?”
Mycroft watched John closely for a moment. “That’s the gist of it, yes.”
“What have you done in terms of finding this place? There’s got to be another way in that we can use to find them.”
The older Holmes brother rubbed a hand against his jaw as he thought, but he didn’t consult his notebook before answering. “The formal entry of the facility closed down a few years after opening. It seemed like Aperture Laboratories was no longer open to the public, but work continued as usual underground. There’s now a shopping mart in its place.”
“How convenient,” John muttered bitterly.
“I promise you, John, we will find a way to do this. Sherlock may not like the idea of a whole squad coming to his rescue, but I don’t think elegance is at the top of our list right now. I’ve already had a team return to Blackmoor with the police who are investigating the disappearances further. We all need to work together on this. We’ll find a way to get to him.”
Mycroft stood from the table and left John in peace to poke at his breakfast and contemplate how Sherlock was coping.
---
“As part of a required Enrichment Centre protocol, the previous statement that there would be cake and refreshments was a complete fabrication. I would rewrite my systems to stop enhancing the truth, but,” the robotic woman’s voice took a darker turn, “I don’t think you deserve that.”
Sherlock stood against the wall between an emancipation grill, smirking to himself as he rocked gently against the springs of his boots. It had felt incredibly satisfying to break three of the security cameras in that last chamber, even if it did mean he didn’t get to rest. He had a feeling that he wouldn’t have been allowed a break anyway.
As he walked down the steps to the elevator, prepared to take him to his next chamber, Sherlock could hear the squeaking of the springs of his boots. It made him feel sick to listen to, even though he’d grown so accustomed to that noise. It reminded him of his aching belly, the sound his bones made when his joints cracked, and he suddenly wished he could have some cake and tea to cool off for the day.
Sherlock had lost the flare of determination that he had developed a few days after his abduction. At first, he was tentative about everything, trying harder to search for a way out in the gradually repairing factory, but after those few days, he fell into the mindset that if he completed things fast enough, he would be allowed to leave. That feeling had long since perished. It’s not as if he hadn’t noticed the numbers on the signs changing; the total amount of rooms slowly rising. He was in the thousands, now. 82/1361. That was a lot of testing.
Sometimes, he’d find himself staring at a broken window or a mismatched wall panel, imagining his chances of success if he tried to run again. He knew, now, that the robotic woman was in full control of the factory after a successful power up from when they had tried to hack into the system. If he jumped off the side of a testing chamber, she would reprogram one of the wall panels to catch him a few hundred feet later. He was caged in the redundancy.
That’s not to say that the tests weren’t interesting. The first few dozen chambers were both an insult and a pain to solve, taking him less than two minutes each. But as he went on, the robot watching him, shouting abuse at him and making hollow promises when he was most vulnerable, started to realise just how unique his mind was. She made things more of a challenge, picked the deadly chambers, with bullets firing at him as he ran across bridges that collapsed under his feet, as his malnourished body struggled to keep up with his tickling mind. He was exhausted to the point of where the end of every chamber felt like death.
But he definitely wasn’t bored.
When Sherlock was exhausted, however, he did take his time when he could afford it. The woman didn’t like that, and that’s when the abuse returned. He was in the middle of aiming his portal gun, taking his time to find the perfect spot on the wall, when she buzzed into the speakers and began talking in that sultry, mocking tone of hers.
“Where’s your friend, Sherlock?” The mention of John made him tense up, freezing with the gun in his hands until he forced himself to fire an orange portal at the wall. The light shot from the gun, sticking to the wall and forming a perfect orange frame, waiting for him to step through to where he’d fired a blue portal earlier on. The portals did no damage to the wall, but it was still satisfying to shoot something.
“You’d think he’d come back by now. It has been a long time since we began, Sherlock. Do you want me to tell you how long it’s been?” She paused and Sherlock stayed put, his arms now limp by his sides and the gun gripped tightly in one hand.
“Do you know how long it’s been since you sat down, Sherlock? Do you know how long it’s been since you had a rest? I’ll tell you what, if you solve my puzzle in one minute, I’ll let you out for a nice cup of tea.”
Sherlock looked up as some of the wall panels to his right folded away to reveal a hallway. He bolted towards it, speed enhanced by the springs on his boots, and made his way into a new chamber. Desperation to earn his reward took over and he sped through the maze of a chamber in forty second flat, but as he dove to the exit, all he heard was a robotic hum from the speakers.
“Oh, my dear. Only a few seconds away. So sorry, maybe next time.”
Sometimes, the taunting got too much for him.
He threw his gun through the emancipation grille, rolling onto his back and curling his legs up so his knees pointed towards the ceiling. He banged his head against the floor in frustration, gasping out in pain and squeezing his eyes shut tight. This would accomplish nothing, perhaps even please her, but he couldn’t stand it any longer. He couldn’t follow these stupid rules.
“Looks like you’re giving up, just like your little friend did,” she cooed. “All your other friends aren’t coming, either, because you don't have any other friends because of how unlikable you are. It says so right here in your personnel file I’ve made for you, Sherlock: ‘Unlikable. Liked by no one. A bitter, unlikable loner, whose passing shall not be mourned. Shall NOT be mourned.’ That's exactly what it says. Very formal. Very official. It also says you were adopted, so that's funny, too.”
Sherlock cried out that time, his chest shaking as he choked out a noise not dissimilar to a sob. There were no tears, though. He wouldn’t give this woman the satisfaction.
But the taunts were too much. No matter how false they were, they were too much. Sherlock knew John would come back.
He had to come back.
---
It had been difficult for Mycroft to persuade his team, but eventually, John was given rights to join them. The Holmes brother was not about to cut him out of the equation after coming this far and John appreciated that he wasn’t trying to “protect” him like so many of the officers were.
That’s not to say that his appreciation didn’t outweigh his nervousness for returning to Blackmoor, however. Mycroft stayed by his side wherever they walked, moving with Mycroft’s people out to one of the wheat fields in search for the tin shed. John hadn’t been able to find it after he woke up in the fields after Sherlock’s abduction, but he was convinced it was here somewhere. They just needed a Holmes mind to search for it, and to say John was grateful for Mycroft’s voluntary ‘legwork’ for the case would be an understatement.
“We’ll find him, John,” Mycroft murmured down to him, obviously exhausted from the day in the sun. John didn’t blame him; if he hadn’t spent all those years in Afghanistan, growing accustomed to these conditions (granted, there was a lot more running in the war), he would be just as exhausted too. They’d been wandering for hours.
“I know we will,” John responded, despite how small he felt their chances were.
---
“I’ll tell you what,” the woman sung to him, “Maybe if you behave for a few chambers, I’ll take you up to the surface. I went up there recently; it’s so lovely in the sun. Yesterday I saw a deer. If you do well for a few more hours, I’ll bring you up and tell you about the time I saw a deer again.”
There was no bounce to his step, no gleam of hope in his eye as he walked heavily on his toes towards the next chamber. He swung the gun loosely by his side in one hand as the other tugged at the neck of his jumpsuit, wishing furthermore he could be free to see the sun, or even a drop of rain from a gloomy day in London. How he longed for London. He missed the smell of blood that wasn’t his own, he missed the twitch of excitement he felt when he saw Lestrade’s car outside his window. There was none of that here, now, just short, unpredictable bursts of energy when he walked into a test chamber to find himself face to face with a turret, filled with bullets just for him.
He would leap across lakes of toxic waste and near-electrocute himself to swing from dangling wires if it meant he had a substitute adrenaline rush for murders and crimes. But the last thing Sherlock would feel, in a room full of turrets, was excitement. Not because of the bullets, not because of the mocking coos from sweetened AI voices.
Sherlock just couldn’t bear to relive that night at the pool, with a thousand lasers pointed at his chest, ready to fire.
But Moriarty couldn’t reach him down here, and that was the only consolation he had been able to come up with. Sure, it meant that John couldn’t reach him either, but at least Sherlock being trapped away was protecting his colleague from any acts of cruelty from the consulting criminal in question.
“You spend all this time talking at me,” Sherlock called out into the hallway he was walking through, “Using my friend and the little knowledge you have of him to make me weak. What does that accomplish?”
There’s a silence, only broken by the squeaking of Sherlock’s boots while he meandered towards his next door.
“You think I know little,” she answers, ignoring his question. “But I know a lot about your friend Doctor Watson. I know even more than you do. I know even more about you than you do.”
“We only gave you our names,” Sherlock responded, the look in his eyes darkened, though nobody would see. He had an idea of what he was dealing with, here. He wasn’t stupid. There were obviously files, stacks of information on the both of them that she would have no trouble accessing from a simple detail such as their names. Information that even Mycroft couldn’t block from her. But he needed to hear it from her, he needed to know for certain. At least talking back supplied as a means of conversation, and maybe that would stop his brain from rotting.
“You underestimate the capabilities of a super computer,” the voice answered warmly. “I know about your childhood, your family, your sociopathic diagnosis, your past therapy and your line of work. Consulting detective. How... quaint.”
Sherlock gripped the handle of his gun tightly but carried on walking, forcing himself to not let his tenseness show. “And what about you,” he called, keeping his head down as he shouted, “Artificial Intelligence unit, obvious. Distinctly feminine, and you taunt me like that’s going to help. You’ve had bad experience with humans, then. You think you know what makes them tick. But you’re just a big old machine, aren’t you? The times have changed around you.”
The voice changed to be noticeably darker, more sinister. “What do you know?” She snapped. “You think you’re so special, but you’re not. You’re just another human like the rest of them, already rotting before you’re even dead. I can change that easily, though.”
The floor panels in front of Sherlock ticked, and not a moment later, collapsed from the structure to leave a gaping hole in the ground. Sherlock only just noticed in time, but he still slipped one foot from the edge of the hallway. He fell onto his backside, slipping forward as the panel he was sitting on rotated to imitate a slide. His free hand grabbed the edge of the panel, the hand holding his portal gun immediately lifting to shoot a blue portal at the ceiling a few feet away from him. When the panel he was grabbing gave way, he let go and began to fall.
As soon as he saw ground in sight, Sherlock shot an orange portal at it and braced himself as he fell through. Not a moment later did he collapse as a heap on the ground from where he’d fallen through the blue portal on the ceiling. He breathed heavily, watching as the ground closed back up and left him in silence in the hallway.
Finally, he heard the woman’s voice again, just as soothing as before. “I knew there was a reason I kept you around. On with the testing.”
---
Occasionally, Sherlock did get to rest. If he didn’t, he’d surely be dead by now. Not every time was with the woman’s consent, but once or twice, on her good days, she had unlocked a doorway to let him into one of the many waiting rooms and staff lounges. They were all abandoned, now, but there was still running water, and that was enough for him. He’d lived for longer on less.
Of course he snuck around, however. The testing facility was far from being complete in its reservations; Sherlock could only guess how large it was, and she never seemed that far away from him. But sometimes, when she had foolishly told him she would be right back, an entire wing has jammed up with faulty turrets, I guess I need to go and fix that. Don’t finish this test without me, Sherlock would of course defy her and portal his way up through the broken glass of one of the surveillance rooms.
Much of the food in the facility was stale and rotten, unsurprisingly, too. There hadn’t been any humans in here for some time and he’d be alarmed if there was fresh produce around. But he had been able to crawl through ventilation shafts to find unwatched staff lounges in which he helped himself to soft chairs, and once he even found a whole refrigeration room with frozen food he could thaw out and nourish himself with.
The robotic woman was never happy when he ran off. He always came back, but that was only because he didn’t know where else to go. She would shout at him cluelessly, unsure if she was even being listened to, if he was still in the factory. That should have given Sherlock hope, the thought that she was defenceless in some area, that there was a way out and he just hadn’t found it yet. But he tried not to raise his own hopes too far.
"Stop. The device will detonate if removed from an approved testing area."
"Hello? Where are you? I know you're there. I can feel you here."
"What are you doing? You haven't escaped, you know."
"You're not even going the right way. Hello?”
"I'm not angry. Just go back to the testing area."
"Maybe you think you're helping yourself, but you're not. This isn't helping
anyone. Someone is going to get badly hurt."
He had to go back to her, in the end. It had been a week since he had begun to doubt John’s return.
---
“Do you have a name?” Sherlock decided to ask one day. He didn’t know why it mattered to him, and really, it didn’t. They had just been silent for so long, and he figured the best kind of conversation would be one where he got to learn something.
She didn’t reply for at least an hour, in which Sherlock, if he were a normal man, would have forgotten he’d asked her at all. Instead he carried on testing, attempting to solve one puzzle without using his hands, except for controlling his gun. As he strolled through the emancipation grille at the end of the test, the speakers crackled and caught his attention.
“I am a Genetic Life-form and Disk Operating System,” she told him. Normally Sherlock was able to tell what emotion she was trying to incorporate into her words, but that was just a cold, hard, robotic sentence.
“GLaDOS,” he whispered to himself, filing that away for later use as he stepped into an elevator and leant against the wall of it. “You call me Sherlock. Do you have a first name?”
There was another silence, much shorter than the other, before he heard a whirring and humming of the computer. The speakers crackled as he descended, until finally, she responded with a flat, “No.”
---
John never thought that such a thing could have his heart beating as fast as it was.
The second he saw the tin roof of that familiar shed, he had grabbed Mycroft’s sleeve and not a second later were they all running towards it. Mycroft’s team wielded guns, something which John doubted would help, but he wasn’t about to start complaining. They stopped at the back of the shed, the group of agents circling the small structure and pointing their weapons at it while John wandered around, touching the tin with his fingertips. There was the broken wind turbine, the concrete foundation, and surely enough, the electrical warnings on the door.
“This is it.” His voice broke unexpectedly but no-one dared comment on it. He pushed open the door, lock still broken from Sherlock’s entrance the last time they were here. The agents approached slowly, Mycroft stepping closer to peer over John’s shoulder at the bolted hatch on the floor.
“We can open it,” John said quietly. “We have to open it. We’re going to open it, right?” He turned around to face the older Holmes brother, confused at their hesitation. Mycroft quickly nodded at him and petted his shoulder to have him move out of the way. Two of the agents carried large backpacks with gear inside, instruments just for this kind of breaking and entering. They’d need more than just a crowbar, going by the state of those bolts.
The sun was disappearing behind the horizon as they worked and Mycroft aided them by holding one of the torches to the hatch. All John could think was, It’s just like last time, but forced himself to look away from the sunset and instead focus on the men at work.
---
“We’re not so different, you and I,” GLaDOS says to him one day while he’s slouched against a wall, readjusting the straps on his boots. The sentiment sounds too rehearsed, like something he’d hear in a movie if he was the kind of man who watched movies of battles between good and evil. Despite his lack of experience in that area, he still cringed when he heard it and decided to ignore it.
“No, really,” she continued. “Neither of us see the point in conventional social interaction. I’ve have seen your files, remember. I know your past. We’re both addicted to the greatest drug of all, and no one seems to understand that. I’m in this for the science, really.”
She sounded painfully sincere, but it was the claims she made that caused Sherlock to look up, if carefully. He kept his head tipped back against the wall, eyes scanning over the black ceiling, ignoring the empty surveillance room above him.
“Addicted?” he dared ask, bracing himself for the answer.
“Yes. This body I’m in - this computer. It has an inbuilt euphoric response to testing. It’s a little something the scientists who invented me added in to make sure I’d get top results every time.” Her tone dropped on the last word and the speakers cracked again, but Sherlock remained listening. After a moment, her voice returned, crisp and loud as it was before. “It’s like a drug, Sherlock. Like your morphine, or your cocaine. I just need it. And that’s why, whenever you sit there like that,” she had dropped again, into that sinister tone, “You’re killing me. Don’t you want your cake at the end of these tests? Because there will be no cake if I’m not alive to make it.”
Sherlock reluctantly stood, but of his own accord. He bounced back on his heels to check his springs, then lifted his gun to hold it with both hands. “So you test, and test, and eventually, you go mad. Because it’s not enough, you grow used to it, and that’s when you need a new drug. You test different people, pick off all the employees of your own factory, until they’ve all died out because you didn’t understand why you couldn’t get your fix. And you gassed them all.”
He spoke so casually, examining his gun as he began to walk towards the next room. GLaDOS was silence until he reached the door, finding that it would not open for him. So he turned around, looked up at the closest security camera, and waited.
“How could you know that?”
Sherlock smiled. “Have you forgotten already? We’re both addicts, GLaDOS. As for your temper tantrums, I’ve got first hand evidence from all the times you tried to kill me, tried to gas me, tried to take the floor out from under my feet. There are clear signs of neurotoxin release all over this factory, all through the staff lounges and surveillance bays. It wasn’t a difficult leap to understand that it must have taken you a while to get over that feeling of an unsatisfying high and push past it for the science. By then, half the employees would have been killed.”
He leant against the door frame, waiting. He almost felt smug from the silence, just as usual, even though, surely, it wasn’t going to do him any good to continue riling up the AI in charge of the entire facility.
Finally, the door opened and he was answered by that same, emotionless voice, “Please proceed to the chamber-lock where you will be transported for further testing.”
---
John was forced to stand back after the hatch had been opened, but Mycroft had to stand back as well so it wasn’t as bad as he thought it would be. It felt like it was taking too long. There were harnesses and ropes and emergency pulleys involved, too many health and safety issues that were driving John insane under his skin. He wanted to just push them out of the way and jump down himself, ignore the consequences and just try to find his friend.
Eventually, they did begin to send some men down. Three at first, clinging to their ropes as they tried to clear away the wreckage in the middle of the elevator shaft. By the time they had the ready-go to get John down the shaft, early night had fallen, and his heart was beating in his throat.
He stopped at the top of the open hatch and looked back at Mycroft, hesitating before taking a small step back. “He’d like it if you came, you know.”
Mycroft paled. “I’m not sure I...”
“Not even for your own brother?”
John didn’t have anything more to say, but after a few minutes, Mycroft caved and joined him down the shaft. Neither knew where they were going, but they helped one another out of the tunnel and onto the first floor they could reach so they could make an attempt at surveying an area.
Mycroft paused before they could move, leaning in to John to help him attach his earpiece to help them keep in contact with one another and the group above them. In silent agreement to get on with it, they walked towards the first and only doorway in the room, the other side revealing a waiting bay not dissimilar to the one he and Sherlock found when they had come here together. There must be hundreds all around the facility.
Both men jumped when that familiar robotic woman’s voice sounded through the overhead. Mycroft stared in awe at the ceiling, having never heard her before, but John was frozen cold in his boots.
“Wel-wel-welcome to the Aperture Science Computer-Aided Enrichment Centre. The Enrichment Centre promises to always provide safe testing environments. In dangerous testing environments, the Enrichment Centre promises to always provide useful advice.”
They stood still as the recording buzzed out and left them in silence. Mycroft looked down at John, studying him closely before letting his eyes wander around the room.
“We should get into the computer systems and see what she’s done with Sherlock,” he said quietly, and John didn’t miss as he clenched his hands into nervous fists by his side. “I remember what you told me about last time, but now we have the correct software to unlock the database much quicker. If this is a computer-aided facility, then surely all the computers and artificial intelligence units are connected.”
John nodded slowly. “So if she’s kept a file on Sherlock in her own memory banks, it will appear on the computer.”
“Precisely.” Mycroft lifted a hand up to his ear to switch on his earpiece and speak to the agents on the surface. “We need help, bring three down, with the spyware.”
Three of Mycroft’s men joined them quickly in the waiting room and John was forced to sit at one of the chairs and wait for updates on information as they came. It was nearly-impossible to keep his hand still.
---
“Already breaking out the pre-recorded messages? Dull,” Sherlock called out to the high ceiling of his test chamber. There was only one camera here and he’d broken it from the wall, just because he was in a mood for breaking something, but he was sure GLaDOS could see him through the surveillance windows. He didn’t think much of the silence as he flung himself across the room from a spring-loaded aerial faith plate, and carried on towards the exit door.
When he reached the next elevator, however, the doors would not open for him and he was greeted by a frantic voice from above.
“Wha-at was that?” Her voice was much more jumpy, her pitch and tone less controlled. Sherlock had only ever heard that happen once before, and that was the first time he’d run off. He’d stayed hidden for at least a full day, and he had heard her frantic shouting (well, the robotic equivalent, raising her volume) even after he’d come out.
“That wasn’t me!” She added. “Well, yes, it was me, but I didn’t do that. That was automatic. Someone is on my ground floor.” Sherlock’s breath hitched and he spun around to face away from the elevator, staring up the shaft to see... anything. He didn’t know what he was looking for but he needed to know what was going on. Had John come back for him?
“GLaDOS?” He called, voice riddled with uncertainty.
“Keep - Keep testing. I will... Need you to keep testing where I can see you. Get into the elevator.” The doors swung open sharply and Sherlock didn’t hesitate to get inside. If GLaDOS was taking him up to test on the ground floor, where there were other people, then this was just too easy.
---
John kept his eyes on the cameras in the room, suspicious about everything with a battery pack. They were hanging limp from their stems, the red lights nonexistent, but he was still cautious. He didn’t trust a single thing about this facility, and he was sure he was right not to.
“Anything yet?” He asked, itching at his palm and shifting uncomfortably in the chair. Mycroft was on the other side of the room by the computers, and was really the only one who paid him any mind.
“We’re in, yes, it’s just a matter of finding Sherlock.”
“Surely there can’t be too many Sherlock Holmeses in the phonebook,” John grumbled, but he was only answered with a kind smile.
They all sat in further silence, John’s head bowed against his chest as he waited for news, or at least some noise of triumph. When he thought he heard it, he lifted his head up to look, but the second he did, the lights flickered out and left them all in blackness. There was a distant groaning of metal, a crackling of speakers and a sickly creaking noise, but eventually, the lights flickered back on.
Once they had light again, John could clearly see the look of confusion on one of the agent’s faces.
“The computer rebooted! We lost all power for a minute there!”
“Then log back in!” Mycroft shouted at him, making John jump with his sudden outburst. It was then that John realised what this was doing to the older Holmes brother, and just how much he was keeping hidden from everyone else. He was just as scared as John, really, if not more.
Before anyone could comment, the robotic voice started again, only this time, she sounded very far away, and muffled like she was being fed through an old radio.
“I have to - keep testing. I can’t access my security files for this floor. I may have to take you down again. Or can I trust you?” A pause and the voice skipped. “I thought not.”
John looked up at the lifeless cameras, then again around the room. Who was she talking to?
“Mi-i-ister Holmes,” the voice shouted, her pitch jumping like a breaking record, and Mycroft straightened up in fright. “Put that back.”
John’s breath caught and he jumped from his seat. “She’s talking to Sherlock,” he said quickly, “She has to be. That means he’s here. He’s close.”
“We can’t jump to conclusions,” one of the agents told him, trying to be stern and keep authority. “If he’s here, then why can’t we hear his side of the conversation?”
“Because Sherlock is not a computer,” John snapped at him. He didn’t wait for any further comment before walking briskly across the room to a test chamber door, ignoring Mycroft’s protests as he barged through and ducked down a hallway.
---
“Did you do this?” She snapped at Sherlock, the voice following him loudly no matter which test chamber he ducked into. “Did you call your stupid friends for help?”
“I didn’t do anything,” he panted, clutching his portal gun to his chest as he jogged. It had been the only thing he was able to cherish while he was down here; the only thing GLaDOS would never take away from him.
“Then why are all these humans in my enrichment centre? I can feel them here.”
Sherlock stopped at the end of a hallway, doubling over to catch his breath. Hands on his thighs to hold himself up, he lifted his head and smirked at the closest security camera. “Guess I’m more likeable than you thought.”
He heard a loud whirring and buzzing of her computer, then a loud creak and snap of metal from far away, echoing in the distance. He assumed that was her version of a tantrum; blowing up her own factory. The smirk fell from his face.
---
John shook as he ran, scared out of his wits as he rounded another corner and stopped at a sealed door. In his hesitation, he could hear the footsteps of another behind him and assumed that Mycroft had ordered one of his agents to follow him and bring him back. But as he turned around to try and reason with the stranger in black, he was shocked to find that it was actually Mycroft running towards him.
The older Holmes brother stopped next to John to catch his breath, but nodded at the door after a second or two. “Shall we?”
John nodded quickly, grabbing a hold of Mycroft’s wrist to run with him into the next chamber.
---
“GLaDOS?” Sherlock called out, waiting to see how closely he was being watched. He heard a flickered and inaudible response, something about inactive neurotoxin vents, and decided he was alone enough to veer off course for a while. If John was here, he had to get a message to him, let him know he was here.
Sherlock was never comfortable with shooting a portal beneath his own feet, but it was the only way to get up into the surveillance room in the hall. It took him a few tries, but eventually he gained enough momentum to propel himself upwards and grab onto the edge of the window and hoist himself up.
It would be easy to navigate himself out into the open, but the hard part was trying to locate John.
He dashed down the employees hallway, swinging over the edge of a stairwell and landing with a bounce on his heels. It didn’t take long, thanks to using his portal gun like a shortcut around corners, to find a damaged hallway that exposed the building to the open air. When he was close enough to the damage, he held onto the metal beams that caged the building and hoisted himself up so he could see out.
It would be risky, and GLaDOS would surely hear him, but he had to try it.
“John!”
---
John dropped to his knees and shifted to his side, needing a moment that wasn’t running or panting or feeling anything but absolute hopelessness.
He recognised this room as one of the ones he and Sherlock found last time. There was that blast in the wall, the sloshing water in the moat that stretched across the whole room. It was surprising to find it still here in tact, but he supposed that no matter how much it rocked and pushed against its metal frame, the beams wouldn’t break for some time. The factory was rather sturdy, and whatever punched that hole in the wall, it wasn’t made from simple time erosion.
John noticed Mycroft straighten up where he stood, but he soon realised why. He jerked his head up and looked towards the whole in the wall, hearing a distant shout of what sounded like his own name.
It hurt his leg but he scrambled up to a standing position, scurrying with Mycroft over to the rubble. They leant out cautiously, waiting in silence bar their heavy breathing, for another shout, both of them sighing when it came.
“He’s here,” Mycroft whispered, nearly crumbling under his own satisfaction. He slid down against the rubble, breathing harder still, while John leant further out the hole.
“Sherlock!” He shouted back, unsure of how far his voice had to reach. There was barely a pause that time before they heard Sherlock’s voice again, this time sounding far more urgent, yet far more relieved.
John arched his back up to try and see further out, but before he could ask Sherlock where he was, they were all interrupted by that familiar, sinister woman.
“What do you think you’re doing?” She snapped. “You’re trying to leave? You can’t leave. Come back, Sherlock. Turn back and finish the test or I will start the neurotoxin and all your friends will die. And it will be all because of you.”
John panicked. He knew he had to grab Sherlock’s attention somehow, show him where they were, but he couldn’t figure out how. Maybe if he made a signal, or...
He gasped, reaching into his back pocket to grab his cell phone, fit snugly next to Sherlock’s. He hadn’t been able to let it go, and he suddenly felt very glad that he had it.
The light from his phone would be easily drowned out in the distance and thick air between their chamber and the many others hanging on their floor. But Sherlock’s phone had a flashlight application: a controlled course of light. He held his own phone, locked and sleeping, to face the hole in the wall, while he directed the light from Sherlock’s flashlight against the screen of his own. If he could create some kind of glare, even just a single flash of light...
---
Sherlock felt an itch like he was being watched, even thought it wasn’t so. If GLaDOS knew where he was, then she would have stopped him already, so he blames it on months (had it been years? He was frightened to think about it, frightened to remember his last moments with his friend in the gas chamber) of cameras and voices and abuse from a robotic hum.
His attention was caught by something outside, what he didn’t at first believe was true. He could have sworn to have seen a flash of light, some thousand yards away, but it was difficult to tell if it was some kind of mirage.
Suddenly, the light flashed again and Sherlock’s grin overtook his face. He stepped back away from the beams and lifted his gun, aiming it directly at where he had seen the light flash.
With startling precision, he fired a blue portal, watching the glob of light fly through the air and disappear. He glanced down at his gun and waited, then grinned even wider when he heard the two quick beeps that told him his portal had landed and was waiting for him.
As he turned to fire an orange portal into the wall behind him, he heard GLaDOS speak again, much quieter this time. He didn’t know how he could tell, but the voice felt like it was speaking to his ear, like he was the only one to hear it.
“What did I ever do to you?”
Sherlock took in a shaky breath and adjusted his sweaty grip on his gun. “Kidnapped me,” he started, “Gassed me, took me in against my will, underfed me, abused me. Shall I go on?”
“You’re not a good person, you know that, right?” She didn’t sound bitter. She sounded almost sad. “Good people don’t end up here.”
“I never said I was a saint,” he muttered back.
He dared wait for a response, wanting to know what else she had to say. He could hear the speaker crackling again, so he held off firing his second portal until he was sure she was finished with him. Finally, she spoke again,
“There really was a cake.”
“I have to see my friend.”
He grit his teeth and pulled the trigger, firing a blast of orange at the wall.
---
John ducked when he saw a flash of blue hurtling towards him. He fell down to sit by Mycroft’s side, back to the damaged wall and both watching in awe as the big blue glob smacked against the wall into the shape of a perfect oval. It almost seemed like a light projection, a solid blue light folding in against itself, taking the place of the wall where it had landed.
“What is it?”
John turned to look at Mycroft and, to his utmost surprise, found him smiling. “John, I think you’ve done it,” he whispered. “I think that’s a portal. He just.. needs to fire another, somewhere else, and the two portals will join like a doorway. He’ll be able to step through.”
John took in a deep breath, watching the portal closely. After a moment of nothing, he reached out and grabbed Mycroft’s hand, honestly scared. Mycroft held it back.
“What’s he do-”
The doctor was cut off when the image warped and the blue folding lights were replaced with a thin blue frame. They were no longer staring at nothing.
Sherlock nearly dropped his gun when he saw his brother and his best friend sitting against the wall opposite him. He called John’s name just as John called his, then quickly stepped through the portal and into their room. John was quick to jump to his feet, run over and grab Sherlock in a crushing hug.
“Fuck,” he whispered as he buried his head in Sherlock’s neck, his cheek feeling the detective’s protruding collarbone. It had been a long time since Sherlock heard John swear like that, but he supposed he could forgive him. He took his time to hug back, but when he did, it was an embrace he’d never forget.
“Brother,” he said after a moment, hands shaking as John let go and Mycroft took his place. For a few minutes, John actually wondered whether Sherlock would be pleased to see him or not. He supposed that life-or-death situations broke the bond of sibling rivalry, even if it was just temporary.
Sherlock had dropped his gun when John had hugged him, and it now lay forgotten on the floor. While Mycroft checked over his brother’s few injuries, inspecting his visible malnourishment more than anything, John knelt down to pick up the device and inspect it in his hands.
“Don’t look at the barrel,” Sherlock told him, and John hadn’t even realised he was being watched. “And don’t touch it. It may be frightful down here but they still give you basic safety rules and regulations to make sure you don’t off yourself.”
John smiled weakly and put the gun back down. To his surprise, Sherlock reached out to grab it.
He didn’t look right, standing there all skin and bone in an orange jumpsuit too big for him, foreign looking boots that didn’t let his heels touch the ground. It made him taller than usual, much more lean, which was a little frightening in itself, but the dark circles around his eyes and dry, quiet edge to his voice was making it all the more worse. The top half of his jumpsuit had been folded down, the sleeves tied around his waist. In just a uniform singlet, John could see more of Sherlock than he’d ever seen before. It was terrifying.
“You’re not going to get out easily,” Sherlock warned them as he took a fierce grip on his gun. “We may be on the ground floor but there’s a lot more earth between us and the sun.”
“We have it sorted,” Mycroft assured him. “I have a team down here with me. We cleared the elevator shaft that you boys came down ten months ago and we have open access back to the top.”
Sherlock stared at his brother before uttering a quiet, “Oh.” John looked at him nervously, trying to read that blank expression. Had Sherlock known how long it was? Was this a shock to him?
“Sorry,” he added after a moment, frowning gently at himself. “I guess that makes everything quite... easy.”
“Fortunately, yes,” Mycroft agreed impatiently. “Come, we need to get you out of here.”
The politician took a gentle hold of his brother’s bicep and guided him and John by a touch to the back of the doctor’s neck. They walked swiftly, but didn’t dare run, which Sherlock found both foreign and awkward. He had done little else but run, aside from the days where he simply bounded through halls with a bounce of his heels.
Mycroft, luckily, had that brilliant Holmes mind and remembered the way back through all the twisting hallways. They found themselves back in the reception-slash-waiting room in about fifteen minutes, John relieved and Sherlock remaining in a state of indifference.
They approached the small group settled around the computers, all of them jumping up with smiles on their faces when they saw Mycroft walking over to them. There was a handshake or two, but Mycroft brushed off all of the fussing and tapped the top of the computer.
“As planned,” he said lowly, then walked back to John and Sherlock.
“What are they doing?” Sherlock asked quietly, and he gripped his gun even tighter when Mycroft laid a gentle hand across it. Sherlock wouldn’t give it up that easily. “What’s the plan?”
“This facility has broken laws, Sherlock,” Mycroft told him quietly. “So, so many laws. It has kidnapped, killed and cursed the entirety of science with its monstrosities. I’ve been given permission to do the final deed and cut the power. They’re wiping the memory banks of the computer’s core.”
“It won’t work,” Sherlock snapped, making John frown gently at his slightly defensive posture.
“We’re not just wiping the memory, brother,” Mycroft assured him, thinking that Sherlock was criticising his work methods. “We’re placing a corrupted core into the system so it can’t reboot. It will set the system to an emergency lockdown so no one falls victim to this place again.”
Sherlock was eerily silent as his face was startlingly expressionless. Mycroft turned away, but John stared.
It was difficult to describe the feeling of alone that Sherlock felt as he climbed with the group up the abandoned elevator shaft. He hadn’t heard GLaDOS speak since before he found John, and was beginning to grow wary of what she was doing.
Only when he was hanging from his rope, one hand hoisting himself up and the other still clutching his gun, did he hear that cool woman’s voice buzzing from the bottom of the elevator shaft.
“This isn’t brave. It’s murder.”
“I’m sorry, Caroline,” Sherlock murmured, knowing that she couldn’t hear him now.
“What was that, Sherlock?” John asked, straining to climb up just underneath him. Sherlock hummed, feigned confusion then brushed it off as nothing before he continued to climb.
John pretended he didn’t understand, and Sherlock pretended to believe him.
---
“You’ve not answered any of these emails,” John called to him from the kitchen where Sherlock’s laptop was resting dangerously on top of a stack of books. “Not interested in taking a case? It’s been a while.”
“Boring,” Sherlock finally responded from his place on the sofa. It had been his place for a while now, about two months to be precise. John fed him regularly in small doses to get him back to normal weight, or, as normal as Sherlock’s weight could be, and Sherlock just stayed on the sofa, talking to his skull or recalibrating his portal device.
He didn’t realise John was still standing in the archway between living room and kitchen until the doctor cleared his throat.
“What?”
John took a breath and opened his mouth, but closed it again. Trying to think of the right thing to say, worried about offending his flat mate, unsure if it was too soon to talk about the 10 months of his life that had been erased by a computer virus.
After a few seconds, John cleared his throat and put on a small smile. Topic change. “Did you ever find out who sent that email?”
Sherlock raised his eyebrows, but returned his gaze back to the gun resting on his stomach from where he was laid out, taking up the entirety of the sofa. “It didn’t require any figuring out,” he mumbled.
“What?” John’s eyes widened and he stepped closer, obviously confused and alerted to how Sherlock could have known for so long and not said a word about it. “Was it.. Him?”
“Don’t be naive, John,” Sherlock tutted. He did hesitate, though, before turning his head slightly so he could look at his flatmate. “Mycroft. Mycroft told me about the disappearances.”
He closed his eyes and set his head back on the sofa, missing it when John’s mouth fell open quite ungracefully. “Mycroft?” he stammered, fisting a hand in his own jumper as he shot up from where he sat. “Mycroft told you? Why didn’t you tell me? Why did you tell me you didn’t know who it was?” But he could see it, now. He could see the guilt in Mycroft’s eyes when he shouted at his crew, the fear so well hidden to the naked eye. John’s presence at his house must have been a constant reminder that it was he who got his little brother into this mess.
“He obviously didn’t know what we were dealing with,” Sherlock excused with a wave of his hand, eyes still closed. “He just thought it would interest me. I guess, partly, it might have been... Pride. Just a little. I don’t normally like taking Mycroft’s cases.”
“And you thought I would care if you did?” John almost felt ill at the thought of all those months in Mycroft’s home, forcing the man to relive that hurt every day. No wonder he worked himself so hard. No wonder he ran down into the factory himself. No wonder he hugged Sherlock so hard and was so determined to have the facility closed down.
John sat back down and let the silence settle over them. Sherlock was obviously fine with all of this. He’d had a year to come to terms with it, to accept that it was no one’s fault, not really. No one’s but his own.
“Get me some tea, would you please?” Sherlock asked after a moment, eyes opening quickly to smile at his flatmate. John was too shocked by the news he’d just been given to do anything but nod and stand, walking to the kitchen like a zombie to start boiling the kettle for two.
Very slowly, almost like he barely moved at all, Sherlock sat up and rested the small of his back against the armrest of the sofa. He cradled his gun in his hands, using it to remind himself of his time spent in Aperture Laboratories. All those months of being not bored. He couldn’t really describe the attachment he felt to that gun, of being able to feel protective and proud of something that wasn’t morbid or murderous. He supposed now that GLaDOS was gone, he could only remember the small talks, the comparisons between the two of them. Somehow, remembering those ten months made him smile.
He deleted the tantrums, the abuse and the near death experiences. He’d finally found a mind to match his own, and all he could think was what a shame it was that they had to go and blow her up from the inside out.
At least he had his souvenir, he thought, as he fired a portal at the wall in the kitchen, then one at the ground next to the sofa he was laying on. When John finished the tea, he handed the cup through the portal, holding it steady so Sherlock could pick up from from the doctor’s arm that extended from the ground.
At least he had his souvenir, yes.
------
Aperture Science Investment Opportunities
(or, a snazzy video with a nice voiceover for anything you might not have understood a reference to)
[x] Panels
[x] Turrets
[x] Boots (includes brief mention of the portal gun)
[x] Aeriel Faith Plate
Rating: R (just in case)
Words: 10,060
Fandom: BBC Sherlock/Portal
Pairing: Accidentally written subtle Mycroft/John if you squint
Summary: While investigating a series of disappearances, Sherlock and John come across the "abandoned" Aperture Laboratories.
Sherlock has been testing for what feels like forever, but John hasn't wasted any time in trying to help get him out.
Warnings: Some more angst. Some Portal spoilers I think? Spoilers if you didn't know GLaDOS is a bitch. Oh, and I may have cheated on the dialogue by using lots and lots of GLaDOS quotes.
Notes: Okay, I did this sooner than I anticipated. If only I could write this efficiently for school! Just a note... If you haven't played Portal 2, then the name Caroline will mean little to you. Ignore it. It is not worth stressing over. Link to part one is just below. Also, I've shoved in some Aperture Investment Opportunities video links, just in case you'd like to have a look, or if you don't understand some of the things I've mentioned (panels, boots, portal gun, etc). They're a good watch. Oh, Mister Johnson.
Part 1/2: Abandonment
“You’re not even breathing real air. We just take the carbon dioxide out of the room, freshen it up a little, then pump it back in. So you’ll be breathing the same air for the rest of your sorry little life. Just thought you might like to know.”
The voice overhead was too sweet for the words being said, but Sherlock was numb to it now. It was one of many taunts and teases that never ceased, day in, day out, while he exerted himself to the point of collapse in between test chambers.
Today he found himself curled up against a wall while the robotic woman from somewhere deep in the factory spoke at him, without any real concern for his well being. He’d stopped talking back a long time ago. Sherlock tried not to think about it too much, otherwise he’d be forced to realised how long it had been. He’d be forced to remember his final moments with John before they took him away.
He lifted his head lazily, the back of it resting against the cool white wall of a hallway in between. His ankles ached from the straps of his long fall boots; thin, uncomfortable boots that were more like pieces of metal strapped to his calves with a single sturdy spring attached to the back of each one. They made it difficult for Sherlock to land on anything but his feet if he fell a great distance, and it turned out that great distances were common in Aperture Laboratories. Without those boots he’d surely have killed himself by now, but it didn’t mean they weren’t uncomfortable after walking around on his toes for months.
“When do I get a break?” he shouted, voice cracking with exhaustion and dehydration. He was supposed to be booked into a relaxation chamber days ago, but the robotic woman had kept him testing.
“I’ll open up a lounge for cake and refreshments after two more chambers,” she cooed, the last word crackling and skipping before the speakers buzzed and switched off. Sherlock felt he had no choice but to stand and walk slowly along the hall to the next chamber.
---
John had started out in the Baker Street apartment, foolishly thinking that he could handle it without Sherlock. He was sorely mistaken. He couldn’t bring himself to let go of the place, though, so with some help from Mycroft Holmes, Mrs Hudson kept 221B clean for him while he stayed with Sarah for a few weeks after the incident. He refused to believe that Sherlock wasn’t coming back and everyone understood that, even though they would sigh a sympathetic sigh whenever he walked into a room.
When things got too difficult at Sarah’s (one bedroom, and they weren’t really seeing each other; John was still a little shaken about the whole ordeal to give his full attention to anyone anymore), Mycroft took him in. It was the best plan because Mycroft’s house was large, out of the way, but still accessible to the city, where John needed and wanted to be. It also meant that he would get information first hand from Mycroft as they searched for any clues regarding Sherlock’s disappearance. John had to remind himself that they were still brothers, and Mycroft was just as frightened as John was. The only difference was that he hadn’t been there to see him go.
John could still remember it. He tried not to, but it would invade his dreams some nights, whenever the topic came up in conversation during the day. They could avoid it most of the time, but if there was ever that quiet mention of the anonymous email, John wouldn’t be able to shake it from his mind and he would be haunted by the memory of passing out against the glass wall, and waking up in the middle of a wheat field with no tin shed behind him.
If he hadn’t fallen asleep in that chamber, he would probably still be down there with him. If a lot of things hadn’t happened, they wouldn’t be in this mess.
One morning at breakfast, Mycroft came downstairs to greet him at the dining table. Normally John wouldn’t see him until later in the day, but there he was, already fully dressed in a sharp two-piece, tapping a small leather notebook against his wrist.
He sounded almost apologetic when he said, “We’ve gathered all the information on the disappearances,” but John didn’t mind. Not if it meant new information, he didn’t mind dwelling on it all again.
“Taking into account everything you told me about the factory,” Mycroft continued as he took a seat opposite John at the table, “Sherlock’s suspicions that the abductors being inhuman were more than likely correct.”
He placed his notebook down on the able and opened it up, then flicked across a few pages to find his place. John watched his face intently as he read from his notes.
“We’ve found Aperture Laboratories. They were award winning innovators back in the 60’s, in North America. They had branches all over the country, but the factories were always out in abandoned or uninhabited areas.” He paused, looking up to check John’s reaction so far and only finding a look of pure concentration as the doctor listened. “They started moving from innovations and branched out to new inventions. They grew, soon becoming recognised as one of the largest, most successful companies of the future.”
John licked his lips. “I’ve never heard of them.”
Mycroft gave him a small, kind smile and turned a page of his notebook. “You wouldn’t. They were really only known by those who could afford their products. They even helped NASA after the first moon landing.”
“So what does this have to do with Sherlock going missing?” John asked after a moment, trying his hardest not to sound impatient or irritated. He was just keen to get to the bottom of this, that’s all. Somehow, he knew Mycroft would understand that.
“Data, John,” the Holmes brother cooed softly, trying to calm him. “It’s best to know as much about them as possible.
“Aperture did prefer to do their manufacturing underground, which would explain the nature of the factory you and my brother came across. The American facility stretched 600 miles into the earth’s crust.” John exhaled slowly. How far down had he and Sherlock gone?
“It kept them hidden, see. Away from the eyes of competitors and enemies. Aperture were never afraid to break boundaries and cross lines with their experiments. We’ve found record of some tests which involved crossing human DNA with insect DNA, just to, and I quote, ‘see what would happen’.” Mycroft frowned and cleared his throat, obviously becoming uncomfortable. John wondered if he had thought of the same thing he had; if they’d crossed lines before, who was to say they wouldn’t cross lines with Sherlock?
“Their most successful invention was the Handheld Portal Device, and they’ve been testing it since early days in 1974. It’s only progressed since then. No doubt that if Sherlock is being used for testing, he will be testing with that equipment. But not to worry. After all the research we’ve managed thus far, the recent developments of the portal gun are mostly safe.”
“Mostly?” John’s throat felt dry.
“I’m not going to sugar coat this, John. You deserve more than that.” Mycroft frowned gently and closed his book. “All this brings me back to the abductors. Aperture is experienced and familiar with technologies we aren’t yet capable of understanding. When the second largest branch and factory of the company made the move to England in 2001, they would most definitely have brought this technology with them. People worked in the facility, yes, but the technology began to take over. The factory is overrun with artificial intelligence: robots that can think and feel. I have no doubt that if people were being taken by Aperture in Blackmoor, they would be taken by AI units to find people to run tests.”
John sat back and took in a deep breath. It was a lot to comprehend in one morning.
“So,” he began, in attempts to understand what he’d just been told, “What we’re dealing with here are robots kidnapping people, dragging them back to their derelict factory, so they can use them as test subjects for futuristic machines?”
Mycroft watched John closely for a moment. “That’s the gist of it, yes.”
“What have you done in terms of finding this place? There’s got to be another way in that we can use to find them.”
The older Holmes brother rubbed a hand against his jaw as he thought, but he didn’t consult his notebook before answering. “The formal entry of the facility closed down a few years after opening. It seemed like Aperture Laboratories was no longer open to the public, but work continued as usual underground. There’s now a shopping mart in its place.”
“How convenient,” John muttered bitterly.
“I promise you, John, we will find a way to do this. Sherlock may not like the idea of a whole squad coming to his rescue, but I don’t think elegance is at the top of our list right now. I’ve already had a team return to Blackmoor with the police who are investigating the disappearances further. We all need to work together on this. We’ll find a way to get to him.”
Mycroft stood from the table and left John in peace to poke at his breakfast and contemplate how Sherlock was coping.
---
“As part of a required Enrichment Centre protocol, the previous statement that there would be cake and refreshments was a complete fabrication. I would rewrite my systems to stop enhancing the truth, but,” the robotic woman’s voice took a darker turn, “I don’t think you deserve that.”
Sherlock stood against the wall between an emancipation grill, smirking to himself as he rocked gently against the springs of his boots. It had felt incredibly satisfying to break three of the security cameras in that last chamber, even if it did mean he didn’t get to rest. He had a feeling that he wouldn’t have been allowed a break anyway.
As he walked down the steps to the elevator, prepared to take him to his next chamber, Sherlock could hear the squeaking of the springs of his boots. It made him feel sick to listen to, even though he’d grown so accustomed to that noise. It reminded him of his aching belly, the sound his bones made when his joints cracked, and he suddenly wished he could have some cake and tea to cool off for the day.
Sherlock had lost the flare of determination that he had developed a few days after his abduction. At first, he was tentative about everything, trying harder to search for a way out in the gradually repairing factory, but after those few days, he fell into the mindset that if he completed things fast enough, he would be allowed to leave. That feeling had long since perished. It’s not as if he hadn’t noticed the numbers on the signs changing; the total amount of rooms slowly rising. He was in the thousands, now. 82/1361. That was a lot of testing.
Sometimes, he’d find himself staring at a broken window or a mismatched wall panel, imagining his chances of success if he tried to run again. He knew, now, that the robotic woman was in full control of the factory after a successful power up from when they had tried to hack into the system. If he jumped off the side of a testing chamber, she would reprogram one of the wall panels to catch him a few hundred feet later. He was caged in the redundancy.
That’s not to say that the tests weren’t interesting. The first few dozen chambers were both an insult and a pain to solve, taking him less than two minutes each. But as he went on, the robot watching him, shouting abuse at him and making hollow promises when he was most vulnerable, started to realise just how unique his mind was. She made things more of a challenge, picked the deadly chambers, with bullets firing at him as he ran across bridges that collapsed under his feet, as his malnourished body struggled to keep up with his tickling mind. He was exhausted to the point of where the end of every chamber felt like death.
But he definitely wasn’t bored.
When Sherlock was exhausted, however, he did take his time when he could afford it. The woman didn’t like that, and that’s when the abuse returned. He was in the middle of aiming his portal gun, taking his time to find the perfect spot on the wall, when she buzzed into the speakers and began talking in that sultry, mocking tone of hers.
“Where’s your friend, Sherlock?” The mention of John made him tense up, freezing with the gun in his hands until he forced himself to fire an orange portal at the wall. The light shot from the gun, sticking to the wall and forming a perfect orange frame, waiting for him to step through to where he’d fired a blue portal earlier on. The portals did no damage to the wall, but it was still satisfying to shoot something.
“You’d think he’d come back by now. It has been a long time since we began, Sherlock. Do you want me to tell you how long it’s been?” She paused and Sherlock stayed put, his arms now limp by his sides and the gun gripped tightly in one hand.
“Do you know how long it’s been since you sat down, Sherlock? Do you know how long it’s been since you had a rest? I’ll tell you what, if you solve my puzzle in one minute, I’ll let you out for a nice cup of tea.”
Sherlock looked up as some of the wall panels to his right folded away to reveal a hallway. He bolted towards it, speed enhanced by the springs on his boots, and made his way into a new chamber. Desperation to earn his reward took over and he sped through the maze of a chamber in forty second flat, but as he dove to the exit, all he heard was a robotic hum from the speakers.
“Oh, my dear. Only a few seconds away. So sorry, maybe next time.”
Sometimes, the taunting got too much for him.
He threw his gun through the emancipation grille, rolling onto his back and curling his legs up so his knees pointed towards the ceiling. He banged his head against the floor in frustration, gasping out in pain and squeezing his eyes shut tight. This would accomplish nothing, perhaps even please her, but he couldn’t stand it any longer. He couldn’t follow these stupid rules.
“Looks like you’re giving up, just like your little friend did,” she cooed. “All your other friends aren’t coming, either, because you don't have any other friends because of how unlikable you are. It says so right here in your personnel file I’ve made for you, Sherlock: ‘Unlikable. Liked by no one. A bitter, unlikable loner, whose passing shall not be mourned. Shall NOT be mourned.’ That's exactly what it says. Very formal. Very official. It also says you were adopted, so that's funny, too.”
Sherlock cried out that time, his chest shaking as he choked out a noise not dissimilar to a sob. There were no tears, though. He wouldn’t give this woman the satisfaction.
But the taunts were too much. No matter how false they were, they were too much. Sherlock knew John would come back.
He had to come back.
---
It had been difficult for Mycroft to persuade his team, but eventually, John was given rights to join them. The Holmes brother was not about to cut him out of the equation after coming this far and John appreciated that he wasn’t trying to “protect” him like so many of the officers were.
That’s not to say that his appreciation didn’t outweigh his nervousness for returning to Blackmoor, however. Mycroft stayed by his side wherever they walked, moving with Mycroft’s people out to one of the wheat fields in search for the tin shed. John hadn’t been able to find it after he woke up in the fields after Sherlock’s abduction, but he was convinced it was here somewhere. They just needed a Holmes mind to search for it, and to say John was grateful for Mycroft’s voluntary ‘legwork’ for the case would be an understatement.
“We’ll find him, John,” Mycroft murmured down to him, obviously exhausted from the day in the sun. John didn’t blame him; if he hadn’t spent all those years in Afghanistan, growing accustomed to these conditions (granted, there was a lot more running in the war), he would be just as exhausted too. They’d been wandering for hours.
“I know we will,” John responded, despite how small he felt their chances were.
---
“I’ll tell you what,” the woman sung to him, “Maybe if you behave for a few chambers, I’ll take you up to the surface. I went up there recently; it’s so lovely in the sun. Yesterday I saw a deer. If you do well for a few more hours, I’ll bring you up and tell you about the time I saw a deer again.”
There was no bounce to his step, no gleam of hope in his eye as he walked heavily on his toes towards the next chamber. He swung the gun loosely by his side in one hand as the other tugged at the neck of his jumpsuit, wishing furthermore he could be free to see the sun, or even a drop of rain from a gloomy day in London. How he longed for London. He missed the smell of blood that wasn’t his own, he missed the twitch of excitement he felt when he saw Lestrade’s car outside his window. There was none of that here, now, just short, unpredictable bursts of energy when he walked into a test chamber to find himself face to face with a turret, filled with bullets just for him.
He would leap across lakes of toxic waste and near-electrocute himself to swing from dangling wires if it meant he had a substitute adrenaline rush for murders and crimes. But the last thing Sherlock would feel, in a room full of turrets, was excitement. Not because of the bullets, not because of the mocking coos from sweetened AI voices.
Sherlock just couldn’t bear to relive that night at the pool, with a thousand lasers pointed at his chest, ready to fire.
But Moriarty couldn’t reach him down here, and that was the only consolation he had been able to come up with. Sure, it meant that John couldn’t reach him either, but at least Sherlock being trapped away was protecting his colleague from any acts of cruelty from the consulting criminal in question.
“You spend all this time talking at me,” Sherlock called out into the hallway he was walking through, “Using my friend and the little knowledge you have of him to make me weak. What does that accomplish?”
There’s a silence, only broken by the squeaking of Sherlock’s boots while he meandered towards his next door.
“You think I know little,” she answers, ignoring his question. “But I know a lot about your friend Doctor Watson. I know even more than you do. I know even more about you than you do.”
“We only gave you our names,” Sherlock responded, the look in his eyes darkened, though nobody would see. He had an idea of what he was dealing with, here. He wasn’t stupid. There were obviously files, stacks of information on the both of them that she would have no trouble accessing from a simple detail such as their names. Information that even Mycroft couldn’t block from her. But he needed to hear it from her, he needed to know for certain. At least talking back supplied as a means of conversation, and maybe that would stop his brain from rotting.
“You underestimate the capabilities of a super computer,” the voice answered warmly. “I know about your childhood, your family, your sociopathic diagnosis, your past therapy and your line of work. Consulting detective. How... quaint.”
Sherlock gripped the handle of his gun tightly but carried on walking, forcing himself to not let his tenseness show. “And what about you,” he called, keeping his head down as he shouted, “Artificial Intelligence unit, obvious. Distinctly feminine, and you taunt me like that’s going to help. You’ve had bad experience with humans, then. You think you know what makes them tick. But you’re just a big old machine, aren’t you? The times have changed around you.”
The voice changed to be noticeably darker, more sinister. “What do you know?” She snapped. “You think you’re so special, but you’re not. You’re just another human like the rest of them, already rotting before you’re even dead. I can change that easily, though.”
The floor panels in front of Sherlock ticked, and not a moment later, collapsed from the structure to leave a gaping hole in the ground. Sherlock only just noticed in time, but he still slipped one foot from the edge of the hallway. He fell onto his backside, slipping forward as the panel he was sitting on rotated to imitate a slide. His free hand grabbed the edge of the panel, the hand holding his portal gun immediately lifting to shoot a blue portal at the ceiling a few feet away from him. When the panel he was grabbing gave way, he let go and began to fall.
As soon as he saw ground in sight, Sherlock shot an orange portal at it and braced himself as he fell through. Not a moment later did he collapse as a heap on the ground from where he’d fallen through the blue portal on the ceiling. He breathed heavily, watching as the ground closed back up and left him in silence in the hallway.
Finally, he heard the woman’s voice again, just as soothing as before. “I knew there was a reason I kept you around. On with the testing.”
---
Occasionally, Sherlock did get to rest. If he didn’t, he’d surely be dead by now. Not every time was with the woman’s consent, but once or twice, on her good days, she had unlocked a doorway to let him into one of the many waiting rooms and staff lounges. They were all abandoned, now, but there was still running water, and that was enough for him. He’d lived for longer on less.
Of course he snuck around, however. The testing facility was far from being complete in its reservations; Sherlock could only guess how large it was, and she never seemed that far away from him. But sometimes, when she had foolishly told him she would be right back, an entire wing has jammed up with faulty turrets, I guess I need to go and fix that. Don’t finish this test without me, Sherlock would of course defy her and portal his way up through the broken glass of one of the surveillance rooms.
Much of the food in the facility was stale and rotten, unsurprisingly, too. There hadn’t been any humans in here for some time and he’d be alarmed if there was fresh produce around. But he had been able to crawl through ventilation shafts to find unwatched staff lounges in which he helped himself to soft chairs, and once he even found a whole refrigeration room with frozen food he could thaw out and nourish himself with.
The robotic woman was never happy when he ran off. He always came back, but that was only because he didn’t know where else to go. She would shout at him cluelessly, unsure if she was even being listened to, if he was still in the factory. That should have given Sherlock hope, the thought that she was defenceless in some area, that there was a way out and he just hadn’t found it yet. But he tried not to raise his own hopes too far.
"Stop. The device will detonate if removed from an approved testing area."
"Hello? Where are you? I know you're there. I can feel you here."
"What are you doing? You haven't escaped, you know."
"You're not even going the right way. Hello?”
"I'm not angry. Just go back to the testing area."
"Maybe you think you're helping yourself, but you're not. This isn't helping
anyone. Someone is going to get badly hurt."
He had to go back to her, in the end. It had been a week since he had begun to doubt John’s return.
---
“Do you have a name?” Sherlock decided to ask one day. He didn’t know why it mattered to him, and really, it didn’t. They had just been silent for so long, and he figured the best kind of conversation would be one where he got to learn something.
She didn’t reply for at least an hour, in which Sherlock, if he were a normal man, would have forgotten he’d asked her at all. Instead he carried on testing, attempting to solve one puzzle without using his hands, except for controlling his gun. As he strolled through the emancipation grille at the end of the test, the speakers crackled and caught his attention.
“I am a Genetic Life-form and Disk Operating System,” she told him. Normally Sherlock was able to tell what emotion she was trying to incorporate into her words, but that was just a cold, hard, robotic sentence.
“GLaDOS,” he whispered to himself, filing that away for later use as he stepped into an elevator and leant against the wall of it. “You call me Sherlock. Do you have a first name?”
There was another silence, much shorter than the other, before he heard a whirring and humming of the computer. The speakers crackled as he descended, until finally, she responded with a flat, “No.”
---
John never thought that such a thing could have his heart beating as fast as it was.
The second he saw the tin roof of that familiar shed, he had grabbed Mycroft’s sleeve and not a second later were they all running towards it. Mycroft’s team wielded guns, something which John doubted would help, but he wasn’t about to start complaining. They stopped at the back of the shed, the group of agents circling the small structure and pointing their weapons at it while John wandered around, touching the tin with his fingertips. There was the broken wind turbine, the concrete foundation, and surely enough, the electrical warnings on the door.
“This is it.” His voice broke unexpectedly but no-one dared comment on it. He pushed open the door, lock still broken from Sherlock’s entrance the last time they were here. The agents approached slowly, Mycroft stepping closer to peer over John’s shoulder at the bolted hatch on the floor.
“We can open it,” John said quietly. “We have to open it. We’re going to open it, right?” He turned around to face the older Holmes brother, confused at their hesitation. Mycroft quickly nodded at him and petted his shoulder to have him move out of the way. Two of the agents carried large backpacks with gear inside, instruments just for this kind of breaking and entering. They’d need more than just a crowbar, going by the state of those bolts.
The sun was disappearing behind the horizon as they worked and Mycroft aided them by holding one of the torches to the hatch. All John could think was, It’s just like last time, but forced himself to look away from the sunset and instead focus on the men at work.
---
“We’re not so different, you and I,” GLaDOS says to him one day while he’s slouched against a wall, readjusting the straps on his boots. The sentiment sounds too rehearsed, like something he’d hear in a movie if he was the kind of man who watched movies of battles between good and evil. Despite his lack of experience in that area, he still cringed when he heard it and decided to ignore it.
“No, really,” she continued. “Neither of us see the point in conventional social interaction. I’ve have seen your files, remember. I know your past. We’re both addicted to the greatest drug of all, and no one seems to understand that. I’m in this for the science, really.”
She sounded painfully sincere, but it was the claims she made that caused Sherlock to look up, if carefully. He kept his head tipped back against the wall, eyes scanning over the black ceiling, ignoring the empty surveillance room above him.
“Addicted?” he dared ask, bracing himself for the answer.
“Yes. This body I’m in - this computer. It has an inbuilt euphoric response to testing. It’s a little something the scientists who invented me added in to make sure I’d get top results every time.” Her tone dropped on the last word and the speakers cracked again, but Sherlock remained listening. After a moment, her voice returned, crisp and loud as it was before. “It’s like a drug, Sherlock. Like your morphine, or your cocaine. I just need it. And that’s why, whenever you sit there like that,” she had dropped again, into that sinister tone, “You’re killing me. Don’t you want your cake at the end of these tests? Because there will be no cake if I’m not alive to make it.”
Sherlock reluctantly stood, but of his own accord. He bounced back on his heels to check his springs, then lifted his gun to hold it with both hands. “So you test, and test, and eventually, you go mad. Because it’s not enough, you grow used to it, and that’s when you need a new drug. You test different people, pick off all the employees of your own factory, until they’ve all died out because you didn’t understand why you couldn’t get your fix. And you gassed them all.”
He spoke so casually, examining his gun as he began to walk towards the next room. GLaDOS was silence until he reached the door, finding that it would not open for him. So he turned around, looked up at the closest security camera, and waited.
“How could you know that?”
Sherlock smiled. “Have you forgotten already? We’re both addicts, GLaDOS. As for your temper tantrums, I’ve got first hand evidence from all the times you tried to kill me, tried to gas me, tried to take the floor out from under my feet. There are clear signs of neurotoxin release all over this factory, all through the staff lounges and surveillance bays. It wasn’t a difficult leap to understand that it must have taken you a while to get over that feeling of an unsatisfying high and push past it for the science. By then, half the employees would have been killed.”
He leant against the door frame, waiting. He almost felt smug from the silence, just as usual, even though, surely, it wasn’t going to do him any good to continue riling up the AI in charge of the entire facility.
Finally, the door opened and he was answered by that same, emotionless voice, “Please proceed to the chamber-lock where you will be transported for further testing.”
---
John was forced to stand back after the hatch had been opened, but Mycroft had to stand back as well so it wasn’t as bad as he thought it would be. It felt like it was taking too long. There were harnesses and ropes and emergency pulleys involved, too many health and safety issues that were driving John insane under his skin. He wanted to just push them out of the way and jump down himself, ignore the consequences and just try to find his friend.
Eventually, they did begin to send some men down. Three at first, clinging to their ropes as they tried to clear away the wreckage in the middle of the elevator shaft. By the time they had the ready-go to get John down the shaft, early night had fallen, and his heart was beating in his throat.
He stopped at the top of the open hatch and looked back at Mycroft, hesitating before taking a small step back. “He’d like it if you came, you know.”
Mycroft paled. “I’m not sure I...”
“Not even for your own brother?”
John didn’t have anything more to say, but after a few minutes, Mycroft caved and joined him down the shaft. Neither knew where they were going, but they helped one another out of the tunnel and onto the first floor they could reach so they could make an attempt at surveying an area.
Mycroft paused before they could move, leaning in to John to help him attach his earpiece to help them keep in contact with one another and the group above them. In silent agreement to get on with it, they walked towards the first and only doorway in the room, the other side revealing a waiting bay not dissimilar to the one he and Sherlock found when they had come here together. There must be hundreds all around the facility.
Both men jumped when that familiar robotic woman’s voice sounded through the overhead. Mycroft stared in awe at the ceiling, having never heard her before, but John was frozen cold in his boots.
“Wel-wel-welcome to the Aperture Science Computer-Aided Enrichment Centre. The Enrichment Centre promises to always provide safe testing environments. In dangerous testing environments, the Enrichment Centre promises to always provide useful advice.”
They stood still as the recording buzzed out and left them in silence. Mycroft looked down at John, studying him closely before letting his eyes wander around the room.
“We should get into the computer systems and see what she’s done with Sherlock,” he said quietly, and John didn’t miss as he clenched his hands into nervous fists by his side. “I remember what you told me about last time, but now we have the correct software to unlock the database much quicker. If this is a computer-aided facility, then surely all the computers and artificial intelligence units are connected.”
John nodded slowly. “So if she’s kept a file on Sherlock in her own memory banks, it will appear on the computer.”
“Precisely.” Mycroft lifted a hand up to his ear to switch on his earpiece and speak to the agents on the surface. “We need help, bring three down, with the spyware.”
Three of Mycroft’s men joined them quickly in the waiting room and John was forced to sit at one of the chairs and wait for updates on information as they came. It was nearly-impossible to keep his hand still.
---
“Already breaking out the pre-recorded messages? Dull,” Sherlock called out to the high ceiling of his test chamber. There was only one camera here and he’d broken it from the wall, just because he was in a mood for breaking something, but he was sure GLaDOS could see him through the surveillance windows. He didn’t think much of the silence as he flung himself across the room from a spring-loaded aerial faith plate, and carried on towards the exit door.
When he reached the next elevator, however, the doors would not open for him and he was greeted by a frantic voice from above.
“Wha-at was that?” Her voice was much more jumpy, her pitch and tone less controlled. Sherlock had only ever heard that happen once before, and that was the first time he’d run off. He’d stayed hidden for at least a full day, and he had heard her frantic shouting (well, the robotic equivalent, raising her volume) even after he’d come out.
“That wasn’t me!” She added. “Well, yes, it was me, but I didn’t do that. That was automatic. Someone is on my ground floor.” Sherlock’s breath hitched and he spun around to face away from the elevator, staring up the shaft to see... anything. He didn’t know what he was looking for but he needed to know what was going on. Had John come back for him?
“GLaDOS?” He called, voice riddled with uncertainty.
“Keep - Keep testing. I will... Need you to keep testing where I can see you. Get into the elevator.” The doors swung open sharply and Sherlock didn’t hesitate to get inside. If GLaDOS was taking him up to test on the ground floor, where there were other people, then this was just too easy.
---
John kept his eyes on the cameras in the room, suspicious about everything with a battery pack. They were hanging limp from their stems, the red lights nonexistent, but he was still cautious. He didn’t trust a single thing about this facility, and he was sure he was right not to.
“Anything yet?” He asked, itching at his palm and shifting uncomfortably in the chair. Mycroft was on the other side of the room by the computers, and was really the only one who paid him any mind.
“We’re in, yes, it’s just a matter of finding Sherlock.”
“Surely there can’t be too many Sherlock Holmeses in the phonebook,” John grumbled, but he was only answered with a kind smile.
They all sat in further silence, John’s head bowed against his chest as he waited for news, or at least some noise of triumph. When he thought he heard it, he lifted his head up to look, but the second he did, the lights flickered out and left them all in blackness. There was a distant groaning of metal, a crackling of speakers and a sickly creaking noise, but eventually, the lights flickered back on.
Once they had light again, John could clearly see the look of confusion on one of the agent’s faces.
“The computer rebooted! We lost all power for a minute there!”
“Then log back in!” Mycroft shouted at him, making John jump with his sudden outburst. It was then that John realised what this was doing to the older Holmes brother, and just how much he was keeping hidden from everyone else. He was just as scared as John, really, if not more.
Before anyone could comment, the robotic voice started again, only this time, she sounded very far away, and muffled like she was being fed through an old radio.
“I have to - keep testing. I can’t access my security files for this floor. I may have to take you down again. Or can I trust you?” A pause and the voice skipped. “I thought not.”
John looked up at the lifeless cameras, then again around the room. Who was she talking to?
“Mi-i-ister Holmes,” the voice shouted, her pitch jumping like a breaking record, and Mycroft straightened up in fright. “Put that back.”
John’s breath caught and he jumped from his seat. “She’s talking to Sherlock,” he said quickly, “She has to be. That means he’s here. He’s close.”
“We can’t jump to conclusions,” one of the agents told him, trying to be stern and keep authority. “If he’s here, then why can’t we hear his side of the conversation?”
“Because Sherlock is not a computer,” John snapped at him. He didn’t wait for any further comment before walking briskly across the room to a test chamber door, ignoring Mycroft’s protests as he barged through and ducked down a hallway.
---
“Did you do this?” She snapped at Sherlock, the voice following him loudly no matter which test chamber he ducked into. “Did you call your stupid friends for help?”
“I didn’t do anything,” he panted, clutching his portal gun to his chest as he jogged. It had been the only thing he was able to cherish while he was down here; the only thing GLaDOS would never take away from him.
“Then why are all these humans in my enrichment centre? I can feel them here.”
Sherlock stopped at the end of a hallway, doubling over to catch his breath. Hands on his thighs to hold himself up, he lifted his head and smirked at the closest security camera. “Guess I’m more likeable than you thought.”
He heard a loud whirring and buzzing of her computer, then a loud creak and snap of metal from far away, echoing in the distance. He assumed that was her version of a tantrum; blowing up her own factory. The smirk fell from his face.
---
John shook as he ran, scared out of his wits as he rounded another corner and stopped at a sealed door. In his hesitation, he could hear the footsteps of another behind him and assumed that Mycroft had ordered one of his agents to follow him and bring him back. But as he turned around to try and reason with the stranger in black, he was shocked to find that it was actually Mycroft running towards him.
The older Holmes brother stopped next to John to catch his breath, but nodded at the door after a second or two. “Shall we?”
John nodded quickly, grabbing a hold of Mycroft’s wrist to run with him into the next chamber.
---
“GLaDOS?” Sherlock called out, waiting to see how closely he was being watched. He heard a flickered and inaudible response, something about inactive neurotoxin vents, and decided he was alone enough to veer off course for a while. If John was here, he had to get a message to him, let him know he was here.
Sherlock was never comfortable with shooting a portal beneath his own feet, but it was the only way to get up into the surveillance room in the hall. It took him a few tries, but eventually he gained enough momentum to propel himself upwards and grab onto the edge of the window and hoist himself up.
It would be easy to navigate himself out into the open, but the hard part was trying to locate John.
He dashed down the employees hallway, swinging over the edge of a stairwell and landing with a bounce on his heels. It didn’t take long, thanks to using his portal gun like a shortcut around corners, to find a damaged hallway that exposed the building to the open air. When he was close enough to the damage, he held onto the metal beams that caged the building and hoisted himself up so he could see out.
It would be risky, and GLaDOS would surely hear him, but he had to try it.
“John!”
---
John dropped to his knees and shifted to his side, needing a moment that wasn’t running or panting or feeling anything but absolute hopelessness.
He recognised this room as one of the ones he and Sherlock found last time. There was that blast in the wall, the sloshing water in the moat that stretched across the whole room. It was surprising to find it still here in tact, but he supposed that no matter how much it rocked and pushed against its metal frame, the beams wouldn’t break for some time. The factory was rather sturdy, and whatever punched that hole in the wall, it wasn’t made from simple time erosion.
John noticed Mycroft straighten up where he stood, but he soon realised why. He jerked his head up and looked towards the whole in the wall, hearing a distant shout of what sounded like his own name.
It hurt his leg but he scrambled up to a standing position, scurrying with Mycroft over to the rubble. They leant out cautiously, waiting in silence bar their heavy breathing, for another shout, both of them sighing when it came.
“He’s here,” Mycroft whispered, nearly crumbling under his own satisfaction. He slid down against the rubble, breathing harder still, while John leant further out the hole.
“Sherlock!” He shouted back, unsure of how far his voice had to reach. There was barely a pause that time before they heard Sherlock’s voice again, this time sounding far more urgent, yet far more relieved.
John arched his back up to try and see further out, but before he could ask Sherlock where he was, they were all interrupted by that familiar, sinister woman.
“What do you think you’re doing?” She snapped. “You’re trying to leave? You can’t leave. Come back, Sherlock. Turn back and finish the test or I will start the neurotoxin and all your friends will die. And it will be all because of you.”
John panicked. He knew he had to grab Sherlock’s attention somehow, show him where they were, but he couldn’t figure out how. Maybe if he made a signal, or...
He gasped, reaching into his back pocket to grab his cell phone, fit snugly next to Sherlock’s. He hadn’t been able to let it go, and he suddenly felt very glad that he had it.
The light from his phone would be easily drowned out in the distance and thick air between their chamber and the many others hanging on their floor. But Sherlock’s phone had a flashlight application: a controlled course of light. He held his own phone, locked and sleeping, to face the hole in the wall, while he directed the light from Sherlock’s flashlight against the screen of his own. If he could create some kind of glare, even just a single flash of light...
---
Sherlock felt an itch like he was being watched, even thought it wasn’t so. If GLaDOS knew where he was, then she would have stopped him already, so he blames it on months (had it been years? He was frightened to think about it, frightened to remember his last moments with his friend in the gas chamber) of cameras and voices and abuse from a robotic hum.
His attention was caught by something outside, what he didn’t at first believe was true. He could have sworn to have seen a flash of light, some thousand yards away, but it was difficult to tell if it was some kind of mirage.
Suddenly, the light flashed again and Sherlock’s grin overtook his face. He stepped back away from the beams and lifted his gun, aiming it directly at where he had seen the light flash.
With startling precision, he fired a blue portal, watching the glob of light fly through the air and disappear. He glanced down at his gun and waited, then grinned even wider when he heard the two quick beeps that told him his portal had landed and was waiting for him.
As he turned to fire an orange portal into the wall behind him, he heard GLaDOS speak again, much quieter this time. He didn’t know how he could tell, but the voice felt like it was speaking to his ear, like he was the only one to hear it.
“What did I ever do to you?”
Sherlock took in a shaky breath and adjusted his sweaty grip on his gun. “Kidnapped me,” he started, “Gassed me, took me in against my will, underfed me, abused me. Shall I go on?”
“You’re not a good person, you know that, right?” She didn’t sound bitter. She sounded almost sad. “Good people don’t end up here.”
“I never said I was a saint,” he muttered back.
He dared wait for a response, wanting to know what else she had to say. He could hear the speaker crackling again, so he held off firing his second portal until he was sure she was finished with him. Finally, she spoke again,
“There really was a cake.”
“I have to see my friend.”
He grit his teeth and pulled the trigger, firing a blast of orange at the wall.
---
John ducked when he saw a flash of blue hurtling towards him. He fell down to sit by Mycroft’s side, back to the damaged wall and both watching in awe as the big blue glob smacked against the wall into the shape of a perfect oval. It almost seemed like a light projection, a solid blue light folding in against itself, taking the place of the wall where it had landed.
“What is it?”
John turned to look at Mycroft and, to his utmost surprise, found him smiling. “John, I think you’ve done it,” he whispered. “I think that’s a portal. He just.. needs to fire another, somewhere else, and the two portals will join like a doorway. He’ll be able to step through.”
John took in a deep breath, watching the portal closely. After a moment of nothing, he reached out and grabbed Mycroft’s hand, honestly scared. Mycroft held it back.
“What’s he do-”
The doctor was cut off when the image warped and the blue folding lights were replaced with a thin blue frame. They were no longer staring at nothing.
Sherlock nearly dropped his gun when he saw his brother and his best friend sitting against the wall opposite him. He called John’s name just as John called his, then quickly stepped through the portal and into their room. John was quick to jump to his feet, run over and grab Sherlock in a crushing hug.
“Fuck,” he whispered as he buried his head in Sherlock’s neck, his cheek feeling the detective’s protruding collarbone. It had been a long time since Sherlock heard John swear like that, but he supposed he could forgive him. He took his time to hug back, but when he did, it was an embrace he’d never forget.
“Brother,” he said after a moment, hands shaking as John let go and Mycroft took his place. For a few minutes, John actually wondered whether Sherlock would be pleased to see him or not. He supposed that life-or-death situations broke the bond of sibling rivalry, even if it was just temporary.
Sherlock had dropped his gun when John had hugged him, and it now lay forgotten on the floor. While Mycroft checked over his brother’s few injuries, inspecting his visible malnourishment more than anything, John knelt down to pick up the device and inspect it in his hands.
“Don’t look at the barrel,” Sherlock told him, and John hadn’t even realised he was being watched. “And don’t touch it. It may be frightful down here but they still give you basic safety rules and regulations to make sure you don’t off yourself.”
John smiled weakly and put the gun back down. To his surprise, Sherlock reached out to grab it.
He didn’t look right, standing there all skin and bone in an orange jumpsuit too big for him, foreign looking boots that didn’t let his heels touch the ground. It made him taller than usual, much more lean, which was a little frightening in itself, but the dark circles around his eyes and dry, quiet edge to his voice was making it all the more worse. The top half of his jumpsuit had been folded down, the sleeves tied around his waist. In just a uniform singlet, John could see more of Sherlock than he’d ever seen before. It was terrifying.
“You’re not going to get out easily,” Sherlock warned them as he took a fierce grip on his gun. “We may be on the ground floor but there’s a lot more earth between us and the sun.”
“We have it sorted,” Mycroft assured him. “I have a team down here with me. We cleared the elevator shaft that you boys came down ten months ago and we have open access back to the top.”
Sherlock stared at his brother before uttering a quiet, “Oh.” John looked at him nervously, trying to read that blank expression. Had Sherlock known how long it was? Was this a shock to him?
“Sorry,” he added after a moment, frowning gently at himself. “I guess that makes everything quite... easy.”
“Fortunately, yes,” Mycroft agreed impatiently. “Come, we need to get you out of here.”
The politician took a gentle hold of his brother’s bicep and guided him and John by a touch to the back of the doctor’s neck. They walked swiftly, but didn’t dare run, which Sherlock found both foreign and awkward. He had done little else but run, aside from the days where he simply bounded through halls with a bounce of his heels.
Mycroft, luckily, had that brilliant Holmes mind and remembered the way back through all the twisting hallways. They found themselves back in the reception-slash-waiting room in about fifteen minutes, John relieved and Sherlock remaining in a state of indifference.
They approached the small group settled around the computers, all of them jumping up with smiles on their faces when they saw Mycroft walking over to them. There was a handshake or two, but Mycroft brushed off all of the fussing and tapped the top of the computer.
“As planned,” he said lowly, then walked back to John and Sherlock.
“What are they doing?” Sherlock asked quietly, and he gripped his gun even tighter when Mycroft laid a gentle hand across it. Sherlock wouldn’t give it up that easily. “What’s the plan?”
“This facility has broken laws, Sherlock,” Mycroft told him quietly. “So, so many laws. It has kidnapped, killed and cursed the entirety of science with its monstrosities. I’ve been given permission to do the final deed and cut the power. They’re wiping the memory banks of the computer’s core.”
“It won’t work,” Sherlock snapped, making John frown gently at his slightly defensive posture.
“We’re not just wiping the memory, brother,” Mycroft assured him, thinking that Sherlock was criticising his work methods. “We’re placing a corrupted core into the system so it can’t reboot. It will set the system to an emergency lockdown so no one falls victim to this place again.”
Sherlock was eerily silent as his face was startlingly expressionless. Mycroft turned away, but John stared.
It was difficult to describe the feeling of alone that Sherlock felt as he climbed with the group up the abandoned elevator shaft. He hadn’t heard GLaDOS speak since before he found John, and was beginning to grow wary of what she was doing.
Only when he was hanging from his rope, one hand hoisting himself up and the other still clutching his gun, did he hear that cool woman’s voice buzzing from the bottom of the elevator shaft.
“This isn’t brave. It’s murder.”
“I’m sorry, Caroline,” Sherlock murmured, knowing that she couldn’t hear him now.
“What was that, Sherlock?” John asked, straining to climb up just underneath him. Sherlock hummed, feigned confusion then brushed it off as nothing before he continued to climb.
John pretended he didn’t understand, and Sherlock pretended to believe him.
---
“You’ve not answered any of these emails,” John called to him from the kitchen where Sherlock’s laptop was resting dangerously on top of a stack of books. “Not interested in taking a case? It’s been a while.”
“Boring,” Sherlock finally responded from his place on the sofa. It had been his place for a while now, about two months to be precise. John fed him regularly in small doses to get him back to normal weight, or, as normal as Sherlock’s weight could be, and Sherlock just stayed on the sofa, talking to his skull or recalibrating his portal device.
He didn’t realise John was still standing in the archway between living room and kitchen until the doctor cleared his throat.
“What?”
John took a breath and opened his mouth, but closed it again. Trying to think of the right thing to say, worried about offending his flat mate, unsure if it was too soon to talk about the 10 months of his life that had been erased by a computer virus.
After a few seconds, John cleared his throat and put on a small smile. Topic change. “Did you ever find out who sent that email?”
Sherlock raised his eyebrows, but returned his gaze back to the gun resting on his stomach from where he was laid out, taking up the entirety of the sofa. “It didn’t require any figuring out,” he mumbled.
“What?” John’s eyes widened and he stepped closer, obviously confused and alerted to how Sherlock could have known for so long and not said a word about it. “Was it.. Him?”
“Don’t be naive, John,” Sherlock tutted. He did hesitate, though, before turning his head slightly so he could look at his flatmate. “Mycroft. Mycroft told me about the disappearances.”
He closed his eyes and set his head back on the sofa, missing it when John’s mouth fell open quite ungracefully. “Mycroft?” he stammered, fisting a hand in his own jumper as he shot up from where he sat. “Mycroft told you? Why didn’t you tell me? Why did you tell me you didn’t know who it was?” But he could see it, now. He could see the guilt in Mycroft’s eyes when he shouted at his crew, the fear so well hidden to the naked eye. John’s presence at his house must have been a constant reminder that it was he who got his little brother into this mess.
“He obviously didn’t know what we were dealing with,” Sherlock excused with a wave of his hand, eyes still closed. “He just thought it would interest me. I guess, partly, it might have been... Pride. Just a little. I don’t normally like taking Mycroft’s cases.”
“And you thought I would care if you did?” John almost felt ill at the thought of all those months in Mycroft’s home, forcing the man to relive that hurt every day. No wonder he worked himself so hard. No wonder he ran down into the factory himself. No wonder he hugged Sherlock so hard and was so determined to have the facility closed down.
John sat back down and let the silence settle over them. Sherlock was obviously fine with all of this. He’d had a year to come to terms with it, to accept that it was no one’s fault, not really. No one’s but his own.
“Get me some tea, would you please?” Sherlock asked after a moment, eyes opening quickly to smile at his flatmate. John was too shocked by the news he’d just been given to do anything but nod and stand, walking to the kitchen like a zombie to start boiling the kettle for two.
Very slowly, almost like he barely moved at all, Sherlock sat up and rested the small of his back against the armrest of the sofa. He cradled his gun in his hands, using it to remind himself of his time spent in Aperture Laboratories. All those months of being not bored. He couldn’t really describe the attachment he felt to that gun, of being able to feel protective and proud of something that wasn’t morbid or murderous. He supposed now that GLaDOS was gone, he could only remember the small talks, the comparisons between the two of them. Somehow, remembering those ten months made him smile.
He deleted the tantrums, the abuse and the near death experiences. He’d finally found a mind to match his own, and all he could think was what a shame it was that they had to go and blow her up from the inside out.
At least he had his souvenir, he thought, as he fired a portal at the wall in the kitchen, then one at the ground next to the sofa he was laying on. When John finished the tea, he handed the cup through the portal, holding it steady so Sherlock could pick up from from the doctor’s arm that extended from the ground.
At least he had his souvenir, yes.
------
Aperture Science Investment Opportunities
(or, a snazzy video with a nice voiceover for anything you might not have understood a reference to)
[x] Panels
[x] Turrets
[x] Boots (includes brief mention of the portal gun)
[x] Aeriel Faith Plate