Two Hundred and Twenty-One Baker Streets (37 page)

Jane had known Charlotte would be there —they did this every day before lessons started. And Charlotte wasn’t the kind to hold grudges. Quick to anger, but quick to forgive—Jane found it refreshing. Eric had held onto grudges like they were his only friends. Always jealous of her time, he’d once fallen out with her when she’d helped Charlotte steal school records (crucial clues in the case of the School Disco Flasher) instead of going bowling with him, and he hadn’t talked to her for nearly a month.

“I brought you a coffee.” Jane held out the peace offering.

Like the coffee, her breath steamed in the crisp morning air. “Mmm, thanks.” Charlotte fished a packet of Mayfairs out of her long black coat, and lit one with practised ease. “I brought you a culprit.”

Charlotte gestured with the cigarette to where classrooms could be seen through the wrought iron fence. The lights were on inside and among other early arrivals Jane could see Eric quite clearly, sitting at his desk, probably finishing last night’s homework. It was something he struggled with, now that he didn’t have Charlotte and Jane to help him with the answers. “We already have a culprit. That is the exact culprit we already have. He confessed, remember?”

“And what did he say, exactly? Tell me again.”

“I confronted him, as he was the only person in the library with me when the notebook went missing. He actually admitted his guilt! I asked him what he was planning to do with my book and he told me he hadn’t decided yet. What could he mean by that?”

Charlotte took out her phone and checked the time. “Are you listening to me?”

“If he hasn’t decided what to do with it yet, he’s likely keeping it close by. Any move he makes against you is going to happen at school—you know how afraid he is of your mum—but he’s unlikely to keep the book on his person in case we pay one of the rugby team to hold him upside down and empty his pockets.”

“That’s not fai—oh wait, yes we have done that.” They’d found deciding evidence in the curious case of the Kidnapped School Tortoise.

Suddenly, a persistent, repetitive ringing noise started up from inside the school. Jane realised why it sounded unfamiliar—she had never heard the fire alarm from outside the school grounds before. It sounded muted and strange.

Charlotte put her phone away with a satisfied smile. “That was you?”

“Those rugby boys will do anything on a dare.”

They’ll do anything for you, is more like it,
thought Jane. In Jane’s seventeen-year-old opinion, Charlotte was far too old to be doing the puppy-dog-eyes look at eighteen. But it worked. It was the hint of mischief behind the pleading grey eyes that Jane herself couldn’t resist—she wondered if others saw it too. “There, look!” Charlotte grabbed her and pointed at Eric’s classroom. It was emptying fast as students made their way to the fire assembly point on the lawn, but Eric was skulking behind. As soon as he was alone he bent down in front of one of the filing cabinets and fished around the back of the unit. “He must have known I’d break into his locker...” Charlotte muttered under her breath.

“You did what? For me? That’s sweet.”

Eric pulled out Jane’s notebook—royal blue and designed like a British police public call box—and hid it under his jacket, before darting out the door to follow the other students. “Yes!” Jane felt relief flooding through her body. Charlotte had pulled through—another of her moments, her brilliant flashes of cleverness. At moments like this, Jane wondered why she ever doubted her.

“Let’s get him!” Jane was raring to go, but Charlotte pulled her back.

“We know his hiding place now. We can wait.”

“Why? Let’s do it now!”

“Be logical about this. Even if you really want to physically wrestle the book out of Eric’s hands—”

“And give him a good sock on the nose to boot.”

“—and give him a good sock on the nose to boot, scrapping over stolen property in view of the whole school, who will right now be assembling in fire-alarm formation on the front lawns, is likely to draw more attention to you and your secret notebook than you’d prefer, isn’t it?”

Jane nodded.

“Speaking of the alarm, let’s get out of here.”

“Should we join the others?”

Charlotte turned her back on the alarms and started walking.

“Nah, we’ve got time for another coffee before class. I can outline our next steps.”

Excerpt from ‘Attack of the Space Pirates,’ published by plainjane on fanfictionhouse.net, category: crossovers, Sherlock Holmes/Star Force, 24
^th
January 2012.

Keywords: crossover, science fiction AU, character: Sherlock Holmes, character: John Watson, character: Irene Adler, John/Sherlock, Irene/Sherlock, OCs

T
HE PROXIMITY ALARMS
wailed throughout the ship, but too late. The enemy had boarded. First, the Krangon raiders had clamped their craft to the
Journey
, then they’d broken through its hull and pumped its life support systems full of sleep pollen, knocking out all the crew.

Lieutenant Sherlock Holmes dispatched another Krangon pirate with his laser pistol as he tried to think his way around the problem.

The ship’s Chef Medical Officer, Doctor John Watson, knocked out another, freeing the pirate’s hastily-grabbed hostages—two young ensigns in red shirts—and easing the girls’ unconscious bodies safely to the floor.

He and Doctor Watson had been lucky, thought Sherlock. They had been... occupied in the medical bay when the attack hit. Sherlock had recognised the distinctive scent of the sleep pollen from Krang’s opiate dens (he had not confessed the source of his knowledge to Watson, but he was sure John had his suspicions). Watson found the correct antidote (a powerful stimulant, to counteract the narcotic pollen) in his supply cupboards and injected them both just before the drug would have overpowered their senses. Although the Doctor’s species was not as logical as his own, the Hephaestans, Sherlock had to credit the human with a modicum of quick thinking in that situation.

Now they were both on their way to the ship’s air circulation systems with enough antidote to revive a dead space whale. If successfully revived, the ship’s five hundred crew members were going to have trouble sleeping for a few nights, but at least they’d be alive and not flushed out into the vacuum of space, as was frequently the fate of any crew whose craft was taken by pirates.

There had recently been a number of ships stolen in this way in this part of the galaxy, both civilian and Star Force, merchant and military. Sherlock wondered if he’d discover how the Krangon pirates were getting so close undetected by the ships’ defences, or if he’d go to his grave unknowing.

Dr Watson injected the ex-hostages with the antidote — Sherlock assumed this was John’s annoying human sentimentality showing. It was hardly logical behaviour, as it wasn’t as if two ensigns would help much in a fight. At least they had plenty of antidote to spare.

“Good girl, don’t stand up too quickly. There now, how do you fancy coming with me and Lieutenant Holmes and saving the day?” Watson spoke soothingly to the two girls.

“I’m an ensign, not a child. You don’t have to cajole me into doing my duty.” The taller, dark haired girl spoke up and John and the shorter girl looked taken aback.

“She’s right, John,” observed Sherlock, taking a slim nicotine vaporiser out of his pocket and inhaling quickly. “You’re speaking to Star Force officers, not frightened horses.”

“Lieutenant Holmes?!” The two girls spoke in near unison.

“Clearly. And you are?”

“I’m Jane,” said the shorter girl, breathlessly, “And this is Charlotte.”

“She’s read all your books, everything they had in the academy library and more,” said Charlotte, with a wicked glint in her eye. “
Practical Deduction in the Field
,
An Elementary Introduction to Alien Psychology
. Even your biography.” Jane, reddening, elbowed her in the ribs hurriedly, but was saved further embarrassment by a noise echoing from along the hallway.

“Ssh!” Sherlock thought it sounded like footsteps. The sound of someone walking in heels?

There was only one person he knew who went about on a starship in high heels.

A woman walked into view.
The
woman.

“Irene Adler. What are you doing here?” Sherlock asked. She looked as shocked to see him as he imagined he did to see her.

The merest moment’s hesitation. A microexpression of guilt. Sherlock didn’t want to believe it. Since her arrival one month ago, he’d had just cause to add Ambassador Adler to the list of crew whose company he actually enjoyed, rather than tolerated. John was getting a little jealous.

“Sherlock! John! I’m so glad to see you.”

“How are you still awake?” asked John.

“I had a small amount of antidote stashed in my quarters.” She smiled at Sherlock invitingly. “I always keep it handy for recreational use.”

“Impossible, ma’am,” said Charlotte. “Our transporter beam would have shown us if you were carrying any narcotics when you and your luggage were brought aboard. Same for anyone else who tried to bring it in without a medical license.”

“The nerve!” said Irene. “She’s lying, Sherlock.”

“Ma’am, with all due respect, I work in the transporter room, and there’s been no record of any such substance in the past year.”

Sherlock noticed Irene checking the exits.

“What’s more,” continued Charlotte, “while we usually keep crew member’s genetic make-up private, for good reason, I would deduce that the unusual markers the transporter showed in your DNA reveal a Krangon background. Krangons being famously immune to the narcotic pollen farmed on their planet.”

“Irene, a Krangon agent? But that’s absurd!” said John.

Sherlock thought of the other craft that had been taken by Krangon pirates in the last year. None while Irene had been aboard the
Journey
.

“Sir,” said Jane, turning to Sherlock. “In your biography you said that when you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth...”

These girls were sharp. “Actually my dear, I must credit an ancestor of mine with that particular saying, but your point is a sound one. Irene, I’m placing you under arrest.”

John was looking back and forth between Sherlock and Irene in puzzlement. He didn’t see Irene go for the fallen Krangon’s gun at her feet, until she was pointing it at him.

“Let me go, Sherlock, or your boyfriend gets it right between the eyes.”

J
ANE STARED IN
horror at the note in her hand. She was following the plan. She was following the plan to the letter.

So if she was following the plan, how had it all gone so horribly wrong? She’d let Charlotte distract Eric with a clandestine meeting on the school roof. She’d come to Eric’s classroom, when she was sure it would be empty, and looked behind the filing cabinet, expecting to be reunited with her notebook and able to put the entire business behind her.

And instead, this.

Dear Plain Jane,

Surprise! Not quite what you expected to find? Nice trick with the fire alarm, sweetie, but you’re not going to get that notebook. It might have worked, if you hadn’t already told me about the time Charlotte used the same trick on the headmistress.

Charlotte, Charlotte, Charlotte. She was all you could talk about, even when we were together. No wonder you didn’t want me. I had the wrong parts. No wonder you wouldn’t put out! I thought you were frigid, but you’re just bent.

Admit it. She’s the reason you left me. I never could live up to her, to her cleverness, to your adventures. You’ve got a crush, you dyke bint, and it isn’t on me, or on the characters in your stupid little TV shows and your gay fanfiction. All the time you spent writing about the two of them, you were really writing about the two of you! It’s pathetic.

And now I’ve got proof. You won’t be getting your notebook back, not until I’ve shown it to Charlotte. Next time she’s alone I’ll show her—it’s not like you can spend every hour of the day with each other, no matter how hard you tried when we were dating.

Let’s see if she still wants you around when she knows how you feel.

Be seeing you,

—Eric Sadler

The pit in Jane’s stomach opened wide. What she was feeling—it was as awful as that time her dad caught Eric with his hand up her shirt, as bad as realising she had an exam she hadn’t revised for, or being sent to the headmistress’s office, but a hundred times worse.

Eric knew. Eric
knew.

Next time she’s alone I’ll show her.

Eric knew and he had the notebook and he was alone with Charlotte and he was going to show it to her.

Jane broke into a run.

Extract from Jane’s notebook, unpublished work titled ‘A High School AU: Ten Things John Watson Hated About Sherlock Holmes, and One Thing He Didn’t.’

M
ATHS LESSONS AT
the Baker Street School for Boys had to be a form of torture, John Watson was sure. Perhaps the U.N. would issue a decree against it.

It wasn’t just the maths itself. Or the teacher, Mr Harrison, who sweated too much and had once put his hand on John’s knee. No, it was sitting next to Sherlock Holmes every lesson, that was the worst part.

In the back of his exercise book, John was making a list of the ways Sherlock annoyed him. It was cathartic, and it was something to do—he’d already finished the trigonometry problems Harrison had set. Plus, John reasoned, if he ever did something rash, like, oh, maybe stabbing Sherlock through the heart with a biro for being such an annoying git, the list would help his manslaughter defence no end.

Number one on the list was ‘
he’s a bloody know-it-all.
’ Sherlock was a genius, there was no way around it. The only reason Sherlock still had his head down working on maths problems was that he had finished the assigned work, and instead of slacking off like any normal sixth former was now ten pages ahead in the textbook, working on partial fractions instead of trigonometry.

He was such a know-it-all that it was impossible to hide anything from him. That was the second item for the list. When Big Jim and his gang had called John a ‘poof’ and worse, and given him a black eye, he had hidden his embarrassment by telling everyone he’d walked into a door at home. Even John’s parents had accepted this. Sherlock was the only one who had questioned this explanation, applying logic where logic had no reason to be, asking where and how exactly he’d hit the door, and poking holes in the story until John had been forced to confess Big Jim’s involvement.