Ingenium (✓) | Sherlock Holmes

🎓 11*new acquaintances

I was honestly starting to question all scientists' discoveries about human defence mechanisms. Apparently, my sympathetic nervous system had a few wheels missing. After being jettisoned in a cell and almost torn apart, I found myself unable to move. I felt paralysed - the single motion I was capable of was rolling my eyes out of agony. The skin on my upper torso began to detach and I imagined myself, due to the torture-induced hallucinations, tangibly seeing my epithelial cells. My cuts and bruises belonged to a bloody war prisoner, for they had such a definite degree of destruction that my limbs were molten and unresponsive.

My mind, despite the limited moments of chimaeras, was lucid enough to ponder on my situation. If Rhea had initially managed to track me down, she would not be even close to compiling my current location. It was impossible. My highly-perceptive senses could not identify a single element that could frame the jail to a restricted area. I was doomed, in every possible way.

"Hello, mate, how fortunate of me to make your acquaintance!" A rugged man cheered from the adjoining cell, raising his hand and waving it peacefully.

I was sitting on my sides – the male equivalent of "love handles" – and was able to portray him well enough. He was in his thirties, most likely a few years younger than me. His shirt was stained with blood splatters that extended from the crook of his neck down to the pelvic area. His cheeks were tumefied and extremely protruding, as if he had been deprived of nutrients. His eyes, on the other hand, were the only remaining body parts that held a light. Not a pure one, but a spark that could have lit an entire field of poppies because of its strength and survival. Who was he?

"I see you are too pained to utter any words. Let me explain myself. I am one of the twenty insurgents that collapsed all governmental technology for a full week. Their core practically vanished into thin air. We have replaced all information with juicy details about them and their acolytes.

I am sure you can imagine the shock on their faces as they watched thousands of running programs showing off their dirtiest secrets. I am not referring to who-slept-with-who or any other teenager dramas. I mean serious implications in all sorts of webs and schemes."

My pupils dilated to the point where my orbs were raven-black. He must have been John Johnson, then. I studied his rebellious accomplishments ever since he started taking matters into his own hands. He was a relevant mentor for every citizen who was repulsed by political deception. However, I did not understand how I was involved into any of those events.

I cleared my throat and coughed a few times – as you can imagine, I spit blood – before managing to articulate some words.

"Why am I here?" A simple question, yet its answer insanely demolished my grounds.

Johnson laughed, clutching on his belly. He soon stopped because one of his cuts opened up. While cleaning it, he spoke in the firmest voice I had ever heard.

"You spent a great amount of time with Rhea Adair. You were under their radar ever since Mycroft told you about her. She is, indeed, a teacher, but that is not her only field of expertise..."

He paused for a few seconds, furrowing his chipped eyebrows as if trying to make his statement gentler. Why did he refer to my brother on his first name? What on bloody Earth was Mycroft's and Rhea's liaison with this man?

"... she is one of us, Mr. Holmes. Mycroft is only an associate, he sporadically helps us with entrance to political gatherings. Rhea Adair is not a pawn in our insurgence, she is the bloody queen."

If I was in my right state of body, I would have launched myself to him and rip the bars of the cell just to get a feeling of his neck strangled by my hands. Rhea was not an insurgent, she was too bloody innocent to kill a bloody fly, let alone take part into system collapse - the same system I had attacked, yet she owned the audacity to accuse me of cruelty and ill-manners.