On Monday mornings, I send out a story via email: ultra-brief tales of 1,000 words or more, usually in genres including horror, science fiction, and the supernatural. Those stories collectively are called Once Upon A Time. I’ve also published several ebooks and compendium volumes of those stories so far.

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Here's story 262, of 266 so far.

We Have Work

The ringtone was exceptionally annoying, but that was the whole point. Few things were so guaranteed to make you attend to a call — whether answering or rejecting it — as an insipid, cookie-cutter pop ballad. The damnable ditty had probably been written by a machine, not unlike the one he could hear puttering about in the kitchen making breakfast.

The narrow-faced man huffed in irritation, then tapped the button-sized device pinned to his lapel in one smooth, practised motion. He was standing at the bay window overlooking the street several storeys below. There were far fewer vehicles these days, and virtually all of them were self-driving public transport. Around five percent — and growing — were equipped with antigrav induction coils, and one such automated delivery van obligingly hummed by overhead, about ten metres above the roofline as he watched.

There was a soft chime as the incoming call was connected, and the origin point and other metadata sprang into holographic existence in his field of vision. Unusually, it was a voice-only transmission, with no holo or even video component. A fine crease appeared across the man’s brow.

“This is Sherlock Holmes,” he said.

The voice on the line was female, and unfamiliar. “Thank god,” it said. “My name is Dr. Katherine Winter. I need your help.”

Holmes’s mind needed no prompting. Mid-thirties. English, originally from Lancashire — likely Macclesfield — but has lived in London for at least a decade. Privately educated after the age of twelve. Unmarried.

“With?” he replied, momentarily distracted by the sleek humanoid machine that had just entered the room almost silently, carrying a silver tray bearing assorted breakfast foods, a steaming pot of black coffee, and a rolled and well-worn flexscreen that was no doubt preloaded with today’s Times.

Holmes covered his lapel with his hand briefly, automatically muting the microphone pickups. “Put it over there, Watson,” he said, pointing towards the oak coffee table in front of his favourite armchair, and the machine nodded courteously. Holmes removed his hand from his lapel. The woman was talking again.

“ The communications lockdown will take effect in the next few minutes, but I’m at the Wyhen GS Pharm campus in LW3. Building 94. I knew something like this was going to happen. I knew it.”

Satellite imagery of the campus automatically appeared in the holographic interface, but Holmes was already familiar with it from an article he had read at approximately eight-fifteen in the morning on an overcast but unseasonably warm Tuesday morning in early September, four years prior, while drinking a passable cup of mint tea. The company specialised in cutting edge drug creation, using a combination of pharmacology and nanotechnology. Its net worth was currently in excess of nine trillion Euros.

“Dr. Winter, please be precise,” he said. “What exactly has occurred at your workplace, and how did you obtain this number?”

“I don’t have much time,” she replied. “I’m involved in a project that’s extremely sensitive, and… well, there’s a matter of public scope.”

“By which you mean a classified government contract,” Holmes said, his eyes flicking to the upper right of the heads-up holo to confirm the communications channel was encrypted.

“Your words, not mine,” Winter replied. She was about to continue when there was a mechanical sound in the background, then a short pause. “That’s the safety interlock. The monitoring system has detected the level of exposure.”

Holmes turned away from the bay window now, striding towards his breakfast tray, but he stopped short of the table when Dr. Winter spoke again.

“I raised all the proper concerns, but they wouldn’t listen. I just didn’t think they’d actually want to kill me. But I suppose it makes a twisted sort of sense to remove one person for trying to blow the whistle on a technology that will endanger tens of millions.”

“I’m leaving here now,” Holmes said, “and I’ll bring my… investigative assistant. We should be at your location in less than thirty minutes. Can we meet in front of your building, or shall we ask to be taken to you?”

Watson did indeed serve the function of a very capable investigative assistant, when it wasn’t also being an effective personal valet, housekeeper, and — currently, and to Holmes’ considerable chagrin — temporary parole officer.

There was a choked laugh over the communications channel. “We won’t be meeting today, Mr. Holmes,” Winter said. “Though I dearly wish we could.”

“Then I’m afraid I don’t understand,” Holmes replied. Watson was monitoring both the call and Holmes’s own words, and it was already simultaneously summoning an autotaxi and fetching Holmes’s coat.

“I’m in the radbay,” Winter said, and there was a sadness and bitterness in her voice that immediately confirmed Holmes’s newest suspicion. His jaw tightened as she continued. “Whoever did this must have disabled the failsafe for the emitters that sanitise the nanotech between trials. I was scheduled to inspect a sample batch this morning. I couldn’t stop the sterilising wash cycle. I called you immediately after it ended, when my call dot would work again.”

Holmes closed his eyes.

“How much radiation have you received, Dr. Winter?”

“I could calculate the exact number of sieverts, but it doesn’t matter. My film badges are solid black. I knew something like this would happen, which is why I reached out to an old friend at the Yard to get your contact information. I was going to call later in the week. But it’s too late for that now.”

“You’re absolutely certain there’s no possibility of—”

“I wish there was, Mr. Holmes. I’ll be here when you arrive, but we won’t be having a conversation. Find out who’s responsible.”

“You have my word.”

“One last thing. My friend; if you’d contact him for me. His name is Lestrade. We were at school together. You can’t miss him; he lost his right arm and leg in the uprisings in Cornwall, so he’s a partial synthetic now. Tell him the truth. Tell him—”

“That you were murdered a short while ago,” Holmes said, and then the call was abruptly cut off.

Watson stood nearby, its vivid blue eyes unblinking. Holmes was well enough attuned to its moods that he could read a certain detached compassion in its expression. It held out his coat as if it was asking a question, to which Holmes nodded as he took the garment.

He threw the coat around his shoulders, and threw the briefest glance of regret at his untouched breakfast.

“Well don’t just stand there, Watson,” he said. “We have work.”

JINX

KESTREL face a new and terrifying enemy: an all-seeing mastermind who already knows exactly who they are, and many of their deepest secrets. Nothing stays hidden forever, and the line between privacy and liberty is razor-thin…

Book 3 in the KESTREL action-thriller series.

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