Two Hundred and Twenty-One Baker Streets

by David Thomas Moore (ed)

  Holmes sprang to his feet.

  “Snare ourselves a phantom!”

  “And how do you propose we do that?”

  But I was talking to myself. Holmes had already left the room and crossed the hallway into mine. I followed after, to find my bedroom was now home to a jumble of boxes and crates containing an assorted array of odd-looking equipment. On my bed lay a dozen lengths of quartz crystal, three feet long, encased in finely wrought copper cages. The crystals themselves had copper wires running through them and exiting at either end in delicate plumes. They were clearly meant to be attached to something, but what, I could not imagine.

  “What is all this, Holmes?”

  “A missing-persons case.”

  Holmes scooped up the nearest box and carried it through to the next room. With little option but to comply, I followed suit.

  “You were right, Watson, she is a housekeeper. Her name is Mrs. Watchett, and her employer has disappeared, from inside a locked room, no less.

  “Certain aspects of the case piqued my interest and I thought it would pass the time until your return.”

  We passed each other on the landing as we carried the cargo to and fro, continuing the conversation as we went.

  “It was most perplexing. The more I understood, the less sense it made. I could find no trace of foul play. Neither Mrs. Watchett nor any of his other friends stood to gain a great deal from the man’s passing. There were no romantic entanglements or unsavoury habits that could have lead to blackmail or murder.”

  “You know Holmes, people do sometimes just walk out of their lives. The pressure and responsibility of work or family life can make them simply snap.”

  “But not this fellow,” said Holmes. “He was driven. Dedicated. His closest friend, Philby, said that on the night before his disappearance, he had arranged a dinner party for his friends. He spoke to them about his discovery and even demonstrated a working model which they dismissed as clever trickery.

  “Philby said his friend took affront to this and was intent on proving them all wrong. They never saw him again after that night.”

  I paused to help Holmes with a particularly heavy crate.

  “Mrs. Watchett let me read her employer’s journals, and it all fell into place. He had not disappeared at all. He occupied the same space, but not the same time. What we are carrying in these boxes are, in truth, the spare components of a time machine.”

  I stopped dead in my tracks.

  “Don’t be absurd. Time travel? Such a thing isn’t possible!”

  “Isn’t it? How about an English village, living two hundred years behind the times? Or a spectral figure clothed in a science we cannot yet comprehend?

  “Absurd or not. I can only follow where the data leads. Think, Watson, of all the scientific advances we have today and are yet to come. Someone has to be the first to discover them. To break ground in the realm of the unknown. Why is this any different?”

  I paused for thought, attempting to formulate an argument, but as ever, I could not fault Holmes’ logic.

  “So, I assume you have a plan?”

  “Of sorts. From the time traveller’s notes, I have determined that in order to move through time, one must first establish a zone of temporal grace. A bubble, if you will, of real time, that will shield you from the march of years beyond. If not, you would wither and die of old age in moments. We shall do the same with this room. Trapping the phantom within.”

  “Holmes, it’s just struck me. You’ve not once mentioned this fellow’s name. Who is he?”

  “Of course, his name. His name is...”

  Holmes stopped, and for the first time I saw a flash of genuine confusion cross his face; and something else. Fear. Holmes was afraid.

  “Watson, for the life of me, I do not know! My mind betrays me. How could I have taken the case without even knowing his name? Now I think back, even Mrs. Watchett did not name him. I have always simply thought of him as the time traveller.”

  I laid a reassuring hand on his arm.

  “Holmes, I am with you through thick and thin, you know that. But I sense there are facets and angles to all of this that we cannot yet perceive, and it would be a dangerous falsehood to think we have a grip on them.

  “Our world, right now is quicksand. We must tread carefully.”

  Holmes’ mood lightened a little.

  “Thank you, Watson. You are my rock, as always, but for now, tempus fugit! We have much to do and little enough time to do it in!”

  The hours passed in a flurry of activity as Holmes unpacked the eccentric array of items and began piecing them together using the missing man’s notes as a guide. I, in turn, was primarily relegated to heavy lifting and the pouring of drinks.

  A little before midnight, we slumped into our seats, joints and heads aching. In front of the hearth lay a grey metal box, the size of a tea chest. Its upper surface was encrusted with switches, dials and gauges, while its bottom edges were fringed with sockets out of which snaked a plethora of cables wired up to the caged crystals in each corner of the room.

  “Holmes, if this snare of your works, and we truly trap a phantom, won’t we be in the room with it?”

  “Yes, but I’m afraid there’s no other way if we are going to try and communicate with it. If things should go awry, however, do you have your revolver to hand?”

  I reached over and patted the pocket of my jacket, which was draped over the back of the settee.

  “It goes without saying.”

  A sudden short breeze sent the gas lamps guttering. “Watson, we are not alone.”

  As coolly as possible, I slid my jacket down beside me and reached inside for my pistol.

  Holmes leant forwards and smartly flipped a sequence of switches. Dials glowed and the box began to admit a low, bass hum. In each corner of the room, the crystals too were suffused with a soft white light.

  “Watson, observe!”

  I followed Holmes gaze. Back by the window, apparently the phantom’s favourite spot, its chameleon-like camouflage was failing. The images of the room it had wrapped itself in had begun to warp and distort like a funhouse hall of mirrors.

  With a final frantic shimmer, it dissipated and the true phantom was revealed.

  “Good Lord!” I heard Holmes exclaim, in a whisper.

  My estimation had been correct, the being before us was easily seven feet tall and humanoid. It was wearing what I could perceive as a skin-tight, one-piece suit. Grey, but shot through, head-to-foot, with intricate silver thread. The thread itself swam like smoke over its surface, which swirled and whirled, creating intricate patterns before breaking apart to recombine in even more elaborate designs. The only constant were the geometric shapes imprinted on the forearms, which the phantom kept stabbing at with growing agitation.

  Each hand had only three fingers and a thumb, long and slender, with four joints each. The index finger was half the length again of the others and it was with this our visitor was urgently pressing the symbols on his arm.

  Its face and the few exposed parts of its body were also humanoid, but the skin was a pastel, pale green, almost yellow, rather like the belly of a turtle. Its eyes were twice the size of normal, with deep purple irises, but no whites to speak of. It bore a wide, lipless mouth filled with small, flat teeth. There was no nose, but two small oval vents edged with cartilage.

  It looked up at us from its work and I saw what I can only term as dread in its eyes. It was terrified of us. It chattered to itself, its voice sounding as if someone were plucking at a harp with a dinner fork.

  Holmes stepped forwards, his hand on my forearm, urging me to keep my revolver low and out of sight for now.

  “We mean you no harm. We merely wish to talk. Do you understand me?”

  In response, the phantom spurred on its attempts, tapping frantically at its forearm.

  “Holmes, I do believe it is more afraid of us that we are of it.”

  “Quite, so but if we cannot communicate
, it will all be for naught!”

  The phantom chirruped again in a less discordant fashion and I swear I saw it smile.

  Behind us, the metal box began emitting a discordant grinding noise as black smoke issued from the sockets. Their connections to the crystals broke, in a cascade of orange sparks.

  “It’s doing something to the device!”

  Holmes’ cry came too late as the phantom vanished, leaving only the now-familiar dash of displaced air.

  We quickly yanked the cables from the box, which had given up the ghost. The room reeked of burnt metal. A pall of acrid smoke hung in the air. I flung wide the windows to save our breath.

  “Damn! Damn and blast!”

  “There was nothing more we could do, Holmes. We tried.”

  I studied the charred ruin.

  “Can it be repaired?”

  “Not by me. The only one who might is whatshisname, who’s disappeared into God knows when!”

  “And he won’t be very amenable to assist us when he sees what we’ve done to his device!”

  A flicker of a smile twitched at the corner of Holmes’ mouth before exploding in a great guffaw of laughter. It proved infectious, and seconds later, we were both laughing like fools. It was the rain clearing the air after a storm.

  There was a knock at the door.

  “Mrs. Hudson?”

  “Visiting a friend in Worthing.”

  We quickly regained our composure. I crossed to the door, retrieving my revolver en route while Holmes straightened his waistcoat and jacket.

  He gave me a short nod and I opened the door.

  There was another phantom.

  “Dr. Watson?”

  His voice sounded artificial. Smooth, flawless and perfectly enunciated, it did not quite match the movement of his lips.

  “May I come in?”

  “By all means.”

  I stepped back, keeping my gun to my side, hidden behind my leg.

  The visitor stooped to enter. He was a different kettle of fish to our previous guest. His suit was black, not grey, chased through with gold thread instead of silver. His skin colour was a darker green than the other, and heavily lined. He gave the impression of being an older, senior figure.

  Holmes gestured for him to sit.

  “Please, be seated.”

  Despite his size, he comfortably folded himself into the chair.

  “Mr. Holmes, this is a great pleasure. I have long been an admirer of yours.”

  “Then you have me at a disadvantage, Mr...?”

  “My name in my native tongue does not translate easily. You may know me by occupation instead. I am the Curator.”

  “Curator of what?” I enquired.

  “Of all that remains of the human race. Of you. Its fiction.”

  I was dumbstruck.

  The seconds that followed after were an eternity.

  Holmes smiled serenely and nodded, as if the secrets of the universe has just been revealed to him.

  “Of course... of course we are.”

  “It may be awkward to explain, but I will do my best to put it in terms you can comprehend.”

  “Don’t be so damn patronising!” I snapped.

  “Lower your hackles, Watson. There’s no need to so defensive. From what we have seen thus far, I imagine there are concepts and technologies at work that even I may be hardpressed to comprehend.”

  “There is no easy way to say this,” said the Curator. “So I will come to straight to the point. The human race is extinct. We estimate it has been so for over two hundred and fifty thousand years.”

  “How did it happen? How did they die?”

  Holmes hid it well, but there was no denying the crack of emotion in his voice.

  “We are not entirely sure. Possibly war, or radical environmental change, but we cannot say with any certainty. There is evidence they went to the stars, but we have never encountered them on our travels.

  “Fortunately we were able to salvage a good deal of their literary and historical works from data banks that were preserved underground.”

  “Data banks?” I asked.

  “Mechanical libraries. Machine memories. We are in one now.”

  “This is all some sort of construct?” said Holmes.

  “Exactly. We are inside a machine mind. Via an interface, I can insert my consciousness directly into it. It is a completely immersive experience. For instance, I can feel the heat from the fire in the grate. The breeze through the window carries with it the odours of coal fires, undercut with horse manure.”

  “Can you die here?” I asked.

  “No, Doctor, I cannot, but please, keep your revolver to hand if it makes you feel at ease.”

  Feeling suitably chastened, I laid my pistol on the table. “So, what are we?” I asked. “If we are not men?”

  “You are the literary work of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, a Scottish physician of your time. His stories about you were considered some of the greatest ever works in the field of crime fiction. To many of my race, they still are. I can give you access to his biography, if you so wish?”

  “If you created us, can we not also meet our maker?” said Holmes.

  “Not quite. Not yet. That is partly why I am here. The entire canon of your stories resides in the Aleph—the machine mind— but it is so much more than that. It is a consciousness in its own right.”

  Holmes sat forward, intrigued.

  “Is it self-aware?”

  “Yes. They are commonplace in our culture. My university alone has six hundred. This one is solely dedicated to the works of your people. It has taken all the information regarding yourselves, stories and otherwise, and along with all available historical data of the period, extrapolated an environment for you to live in.”

  Something akin to a smile crossed the Curator’s face.

  “The result of which, is you are not bound by your stories anymore, Mr. Holmes. You are... chaotic variables. Your lives are your own.”

  This sounded too good to be true.

  “Why would you do this for us? To what end?”

  “By observing you, we hope to learn what mankind was like. We shall know them by their works.”

  “So, we are exhibits in a zoo!” I said.

  “Not at all. Many of the others do not even suspect their world is any different from the way it has always been.”

  If this was meant to put me at my ease, it did not work.

  “Others?”

  “Other works of fiction, Watson,” said Holmes. “Like the observant Mrs. Darcy and our missing timetraveller?”

  “The works of Jane Austen and Herbert George Wells.” replied the Curator. “However, some of them, like yourselves and Mrs. Darcy, have begun to perceive the changes. You are not the only ones. Interestingly, they are characters who are free thinkers; daring, even dangerous. They are also unexpectedly expanding the remits of the program and pushing at the boundaries of their fictional worlds, crossing over from one to another. The Aleph accommodates the shift, but not without some discomfort.”

  “So I’ve discovered,” I said.

  “If they remain too long out of place, the Aleph will attempt to acclimatise them into their new world. Blend them in, so their presence is not so conspicuous.”

  “It’s not going quite as planned, though, is it?” said Holmes. “That other fellow who looked half scared to death. He had more of the engineer than the academic about him.”

  “Yes. Which is why I am here,” said the Curator. “Occurrences of migration are rising, and my university faculty faces a difficult choice. One that is not solely ours to make, but yours also. All who are like you.

  “On the one hand, the Aleph can shut down and reinitialise all of the fictional worlds, but with new restrictions. Your awareness for one, would be purposefully limited.”

  “Lobotomised,” I said.

  “In a manner of speaking. It would also render our study moot if you were so constrained. The other choice, and the one favou
red by my colleagues and myself, is to let things go on as they are. More so, in fact. We would let migration continue unrestricted for those with a mind to travel. There would just be some checks and balances to ensure the rules of internal logic may be stretched, but not broken. We wished to see the nature of mankind; how better than to give them new worlds to explore?”

  “Be careful what you wish for,” I said.

  The Curator pushed himself up from his chair.

  “So, gentlemen, I have laid my case before you. What is your decision? Will you take it?”

  I caught Holmes’ eye. This whole thing was madness, but from one look I knew what he was thinking. I could not let him go alone, and he knew it. With a nod, I gave my affirmation.

  Holmes sprang to his feet.

  “Indeed we do! The game! My dear Curator. The game is afoot!”

  The Final Conjuration

  Adrian Tchaikovsky

  “It’ll probably be secondary -world,” said Adrian when I spoke to him about this, “as that’s my thing.” And oddly, ‘The Final Conjuration’ takes both the longest and shortest leap with the concept of the anthology, actually ’porting Doyle’s original creation directly out of Victorian England and dropping him into the ultra-High-Fantasy world of the seven great Lords Wizard. I suppose it’s cheating, but the detective’s palpable frustration at being unable to ‘eliminate the impossible,’ according to his famous maxim, is worth it.

  YOU WILL HAVE heard, of course, of those events in the Year of the Yellow Cat that almost plunged us all into a disastrous war. A handful of days, now consigned to history, when the great wizard-lords mustered their most destructive energies, and armies of conjured demons roamed restless on every border, waiting to be unleashed.

  And yet the details of these events are as obscure as they are notable. How the business was resolved has been hidden behind a veil for many decades, by those fearing that the revelation might open up wounds only recently scabbed over.

  Now, however, these matters have passed into something close to myth, so that my master, the Green Wizard Ang Tze, has graciously given permission to this humble scholar to narrate the full truth, many particulars of which are known to none but I.