Play the Game - Sherlock fanfic (Sequel to Painting Murders)

Traced

I clambered out of the warm police car, loving the feeling of cold air on my face. Evening was rolling in and the sky had become cloudy. Somewhere a helicopter hummed in the sky and I could hear the central London traffic in the distance. A train rumbled on its tracks behind me.

We had ventured to the outskirts of London following the lead I had given Lestrade. Donovan and Anderson plus an officer in uniform who I didn't recognise, pulled up in a separate police car, providing backup.

"What now?" I asked as we all stood facing the building the address had lead us.

It looked like a derelict office block, a big 'to let' sign nailed high up on the external wall. The majority of the windows were still intact apart from the ones at ground level which were shattered in places.

I was having flashbacks to mine and John's kidnapping experience last year and I wrapped my hands around myself carefully, trying to quell my shivering.

"The likelihood that anyone is in there is low. Spread out and search the building for anything that can be considered evidence." Sherlock said, moving forwards.

"Are we taking orders from you now?" Anderson questioned dangerously.

Sherlock whipped around to face him, squaring up his shoulders, "Have you got a better idea? Pointless question really, I know you don't." He stopped to look at his phone then sighed and showed me the screen. Five messages and three missed calls from Mycroft.

"The faster we solve this case, the quicker Mycroft leaves me alone and goes back into his cave." He added, eying me as if this whole ordeal was my fault.

Lestrade divided us up, making it so I was with him, which I didn't mind.

We took the back of the building, Lestrade's torch lighting up the ground so that I could watch my step. We found some crumbling steps on the inside of the building and Lestrade moved to take the lead.

It wasn't long before I heard a noise that was all too familiar.

"Stop." I hissed as Lestrade paused and turned to look at me, listening.

It was only faint but it was a low hum, the low hum of computer fans. And layered over that was a voice.

I surged forwards, forgetting that Lestrade was the one with the badge, the torch and more importantly, the handcuffs and gun.

I burst through a doorless doorframe and into a large concrete room. In the centre, glowing with an eerie green light was a computer screen. Hooked up to it was a sea of monitors and processors, all of them with blinking lights and overworked fans. The temperature of the room was warmer than the rest of the building due to the heat the machines were kicking out.

The unnerving thing was that the computer seemed to be running a program that was stuck on a loop, the source of the voice. The voice easily recognised as my own.

"I'd hide the activation in the email address so that it would activate when they replied to the email . . . what should I put? . . . What does this mean? . . . I'd hide the activation in the email address so that it would activate when they replied to the email . . . what should I put? . . . what does this mean? . . . I'd hide-," The recording made me want to heave, they had been watching me through my own laptop. Somehow by breaking into the data, I had activated some kind of program. That could mean someone didn't like what I had been able to do. It could mean I was on some kind of hit-list.

The recording, my own voice, was doing my head in.

I ran to the computer, finding the keyboard and shutting the program off. My voice died. I fished in my pocket, pulling out my purple USB stick and searched the whole computer for the virus. It wasn't hard to find. It was the only file on the computer, in fact the whole system. I went to plug in the USB and found another in the port. I glared at the object before wiping the device, pulling it out and bringing my foot down hard on it. I downloaded the virus file onto my USB before pocketing it. I could hear footsteps, Lestrade was finding his way to me after I'd run off.