Challenge #01024-B292: Don't Let Them Breed

Sara Louise meets Sherlock (the Benedict Cumberach one). they both get bored easily with trouble ensuing. -- Anon Guest

Watson should have known they were in trouble when the suspected alien had vanished from a locked room without a trace. Scotland yard usually handed off such cases to a special military unit, but they were off on a completely different crisis.

Sherlock looked around the room, including the floor and the ceiling. Everything seemed undisturbed. Not to Sherlock's sharp eyes. He touched a place on the white walls that looked exactly like all the others and then moved out of the cell.

"It left through the ceiling," he announced. "Possibly seeking food."

"Yeah, she did," said a new speaker in the hallway. "Hello. You must be here to tell these nice gentlemen that I am, in fact, actually human." Their arms were full of Snickers bars. They were quite green. No. Aqua. And covered in a multitude of fine scales when they weren't covered in a very brief impersonation of a leotard. "Hi. Sara Louise Adrien. I'd offer to shake hands, but my arms are full."

Lestrade snapped. "WILL YOU STOP BLOODY DOING THAT?"

"I was hungry and bored," said the greenish... thing. Sara. "I could have called out for Pizza but I have nothing to pay the poor man with and I don't think the common porno alternative is viable." She paused to think about this. "Or ethically sound, for that matter..."

"Of course it's completely ludicrous," said Sherlock. "The call-out pizza industry is entirely cash only if you can't obtain a credit card."

"My bank doesn't exist in this reality," Sara shrugged. "So I raided the supply closet. Is this going to happen here, or in an interview room? I kind of need a table."

"Certainly," singsonged Lestrade. "Anything else while we're at it? Some biscuits? A lovely, hot, three-course dinner? Perhaps a cup of tea?"

The clear sarcasm sailed merrily over Sara's head. "Tea would be lovely, thank you," said Sara. "And you're going to be out of snickers. Sorry, but I rather need some long-lasting low GI stuff after the day I've had. Well. Week I've had."

Lestrade's eye began twitching.

Watson took pity on him and escorted the alien towards the nearest interview room. Then he made what could have been the biggest mistake in his career.

He left the two of them in a locked room.

They were found later in what was left of the motor pool, hyped up on enthusiasm and completely unaware that they'd pulled apart four squad cars and some really interesting riot equipment to make some... thing... that appeared to be warping reality as it... operated. Half a dozen situation boards and all of the walls were covered with complicated mathematics and diagrams.

Mycroft Holmes had become inveigled into the scene. He was actually animated about the chaos he was in, bouncing from conversation with Sherlock to conversation with Sara in varying stages of previously unseen hyperactivity.

"Yes! Yes," crowed Sara. "That's where he fluffed up the dratted math. "T. B. 'Forge' Walkingbird, when I get back home, I am going to rub your nose in this..."

"What the flying hell is going on?" Watson managed to keep his voice away from an appalled squawk, but it was a close thing. He nearly dropped the deep fried sampler from The Frying Dutchmen.

"Foooood..." cooed Sara. She apparently finished what she was doing and smiled for Watson. "Is that for all of us?"

"You're still hungry?" he said. "You ate two entire boxes of Snickers bars."

"Regrettably, I'm going through a secondary manifestation episode. My biological needs have quadrupled for the interim. Blame my mutant genes if you must, but I am currently in a constant of nearly starving."

"She also ingested two large pizzas," added Mycroft.

"Oooh, Scottish-fried chips. Lovely..."

Sherlock came up for air from scribbling in his notebook. "Mmm? This? This is a formula for piercing the membranes between dimensions, including the calculations for finding other realities that are actually hospitable."

"Don't try it at home," said Sara, mouth full of potato. "It can have unforeseen consequences if you try to fudge the math. Met a lovely lady paying just those on my travels. Poor dear."

"Unforseen besides turning you green?" wondered Watson.

"Please, I like to think of myself as a little bit blue-ish," she grinned had her own joke. "No, I was blue-ish before I started. If you get the slightest calculation wrong - you could atomise an area around the machinery with a radius of up to three miles."

Watson tried to subtly edge away from the machine.

"Oh please," drawled Mycroft. "We're smarter than that."

"We added failsafes to our failsafes," said Sherlock. "This is a one-use dimensional tunnel to ensure that Miss Adrien returns to her home reality."

"I tried to aim it so I could bop Mr Walkingbird on my way in, but the targeting's not that precise. I must be satisfied to at least hit the correct state."

The machine went 'ping'.

"Time to bid you all adieu, I'm afraid. I'll need my stuff back or I shall end up coming back here like a bad penny."

Lestrade, who had just entered with a box, threw it at her. "Take it," he bellowed. "Take it and LEAVE FOREVER!"

"Detective Lestrade," admonished Sherlock. "I'd have thought you'd be glad to have two certified geniuses potentially working for you..."

"One Sherlock," said Lestrade, "is more than enough."

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