Zyair sits with a cup of tea when his eyes are suddenly covered by someone "Guess who?" a voice asks. "Hm? My amazing boyfriend?" Zyair smiles. Mattheo uncovers Zyair's eyes, letting him turn round to face him "How was your trip down?" he asks. "Alright, could've been worse." Mattheo smiles, sitting next to him. Just then Lestrade walks in "Lestrade?" Zyair asks. "Zyair, what are you doing here?" Lestrade asks, before Zyair can respond Sherlock and John walk in. "What the hell are you doing here?" Sherlock asks. "Well, nice to see you too! I'm on holiday, would you believe?" Lestrade tells him sarcastically. "No, I wouldn't." Sherlock retorts. Lestrade takes off his sunglasses as John walks over to the bar "Hullo, John." he greets. Greg!" John greets. Sherlock looks over to Zyair and spots Mattheo, making John look over too. "I heard you were in the area. What are you up to? You after this Hound of Hell like on the telly?" Lestrade asks. "I'm waiting for an explanation, Inspector. Why are you here?" Sherlock asks, wanting to get answers so he can move onto Zyair and Mattheo. "I've told you: I'm on holiday." Lestrade tells him. "You're brown as a nut. You're clearly just back from your 'holidays'." Zyair points out. "Yeah, well I fancied another one." Lestrade responds, trying to look nonchalant.
"Oh, this is Mycroft, isn't it?" Sherlock realises. "No, look..." the DI starts. "Of course it is! One mention of Baskerville and he sends down my handler to... to spy on me incognito. Is that why you're calling yourself Greg?" Sherlock asks. "That's his name." Zyair and John tell him. "Is it?" Sherlock asks. "Yes, if you'd ever bothered to find out. Look, I'm not your handler and I don't just do what your brother tells me." Lestrade tells him, picking up his pint. "Actually, you could be just the man we want." John tells him. "Why?" Sherlock asks. "Well, Zyair and I have not been idle, Sherlock. I think we might have found something. Here. Didn't know if it was relevant; starting to look like it might be. That is an awful lot of meat for a vegetarian restaurant." he explains, pulling out the sales invoice from Undershaw Meat Supplies. "Excellent." Sherlock smiles. "Nice scary inspector from Scotland Yard who can put in a few calls might come in very handy." John tells Lestrade. Sherlock and Greg exchange a look as John slaps his hand down on the bell on top of the bar "Shop!" he calls. Sherlock spins to face Zyair and Mattheo, raising a brow "Dad, John, Lestrade, this is Mattheo. Mattheo, this is my dad, Sherlock Holmes, Doctor John Watson and Detective Inspector Lestrade." Zyair introduces. "It's good to finally meet you sir." Mattheo tells Sherlock, shaking his hand. John smiles and shakes Mattheo's hand after "It's good to meet you Mattheo." he nods. Mattheo smiles and shakes Lestrade's hand after, going back and holding Zyair's hand as the Inn owners arrive.
Later, after catching Zyair up to speed with HOUND being a acronym, Lestrade looks through the paperwork while Gary the manager and Billy the chef sit at the other side of the table looking at him anxiously. Sherlock pours a cup of coffee from a filter machine and stirs suffer into it. He picks it puts it on its saucer before carrying it over to John, offering it to him "What's this?" John asks. "Coffee. I made coffee." Sherlock tells him. "You never make coffee." John tells him. "I just did. Don't you want it?" Sherlock asks. "You don't have to keep apologising." John responds. Sherlock looks away with a hurt expression on his face, John relenting and taking the cup and saucer "Thanks." he tells him. Sherlock smiles happily as John lifts the cup to his mouth, takes a mouthful and grimacing "Mm. I don't take sugar..." he trails off, noticing the hurt look on Sherlock's face again. John takes a longer drink with a slight grimace "These records go back nearly two months." Lestrade says. "That's nice. That's good." John tells Sherlock, putting the coffee down. Zyair and Mattheo look at each other, trying to hid their amusement "Is that when you had the idea, after the TV show went out?" Lestrade asks. "It's me. It was me. I'm sorry, Gary. I couldn't help it. I had a bacon sandwich at Cal's wedding and one thing just led to another..." Barry starts.
Zyair snorts in disbelief and amusement "Nice try." he tells him. "Look, we were just trying to give things a bit of a boost, you know? A great big dog run wild up on the moor, it was heaven-sent. It was like us having our own Loch Ness Monster." Gary explains. "Where do you keep it?" Lestrade asks. "There's an old mineshaft. It's not too far. It was all right there." Gary responds. "'Was'?" Sherlock asks. Gary sighs "We couldn't control the bloody thing. It was vicious. And then, a month ago, Billy took him to the vet and, er... you know." he says. "It's dead?" John asks. "Put down." Gary says sadly. "Yeah. No choice. So it's over." Barry nods. "It was just a joke, you know?" Gary tries to defend. "Yeah, hilarious! You've nearly driven a man out of his mind." Lestrade tells them angrily, standing up and walking out the room. John, Zyair and Mattheo follow, Sherlock checking John's cup before following himself. Zyair and Mattheo walk away from John and Lestrade slightly "Sorry about you being dragged into this." Zyair tells his boyfriend. "Hey, it's alright. I'm enjoying it if anything, it's interesting." Mattheo smiles straightening Zyair's beanie. "So, you believe him about having the dog destroyed?" Lestrade asks as Sherlock walks out. "No reason not to." Sherlock says. "Well, hopefully there's no harm done. Not quite sure what I'd charge him with anyway. I'll have a word with the local Force. Right, that's that, then. Catch you later. I'm enjoying this! It's nice to get London out of your lungs! Nice to meet you Mattheo." Lestrade smiles, walking off.
"So that was their dog that people saw out on the moor?" John asks. "Looks like it." Zyair responds. "But that wasn't what you two saw. That wasn't just an ordinary dog." John tells them. "No. It was immense, had burning red eyes and it was glowing, John. Its whole body was glowing." Sherlock responds, shuddering at the memory. Zyair clenches his jaw making Mattheo grab his hand and squeeze it gently, making him smile in reassurance as his dad walks to the car park "I've got a theory but I need to get back into Baskerville to test it." Sherlock tells them. "How? Can't pull off the ID trick again." John tells him. "Might not have to." Sherlock responds, pulling out his phone as the two teens follow "Hello, brother dear. How are you?" he asks insincerely. Zyair chuckles slightly, getting in the back of the car with Mattheo "Welcome top the madness that is my family." he tells his boyfriend.
They pull up outside the gates and an armed security man goes over to Sherlock's side while the dog handler and sniffer dog also approach "Afternoon, sir. If you could turn the engine off." he tells Sherlock. He hands over his ID pass and switches the car off "Thank you." the security nods. The security goes over to the gate room to swipe the card while the other soldiers check the vehicle over from the outside "I need to see Major Barrymore as soon as we get inside." Sherlock tells John and the two teens. "Right." John nod. "Which means you'll have to start the search for the hound. Zyair and Mattheo are coming with me." Sherlock tells him. "Okay." John nods again. "In the labs; Stapleton's first." Sherlock says. The guard brings back the ID card and hands it back over "Could be dangerous." Sherlock whispers to John, the gate sliding open as Sherlock starts the car and drives onto the base.
Zyair stands to the side with Mattheo as his dad talks to Major Barrymore "Oh, you know I'd love to. I'd love to give you unlimited access to this place. Why not?!" Barrymore asks sarcastically. "It's a simple enough request, Major." Sherlock tells him. "I've never heard of anything so bizarre." Barrymore retorts. "You're to give me twenty-four hours. It's what I've... negotiated." Sherlock tells the Major. "Not a second more. I may have to comply with this order but I don't have to like it." Barrymore tells them. The Major swings round to his computer on the desk behind him as Sherlock starts to leave the office "I don't know what you expect to find here anyway." he tells them. "Perhaps the truth." Zyair pipes up. "About what? Oh, I see. The big coat should have told me. Especially the two teens hanging around. You're some of the conspiracy lot, aren't you? Well, then, go ahead, seek them out: the monsters, the death rays, the aliens." Barrymore tells them sarcastically, making Sherlock and Zyair roll their eyes. "Have you got any of those?" Sherlock asks nonchalantly. Barrymore rolls his eyes this time "Oh, just wondering." Zyair smiles sarcastically. "A couple. Crash landed here in the sixties. We call them Abbott and Costello. Good luck, Mr Holmes." Barrymore tells them.
Zyair sits with Mattheo as Sherlock watches the CCTV of John running across the darkened lab "What are you doing exactly?" Mattheo asks in curiosity. "Zyair, Henry and I were all drugged. I'm running an experiment to see if it's in Henry's sugar." Sherlock explains. "That's why you gave him sugar in his coffee, so you can see if your hypothesis is correct." Mattheo nods in understanding, Zyair smiling at the impressed look his dad is wearing. John suddenly calls Sherlock "It's in here with me." he whispers. "All right. Keep talking. I'll find you. Keep talking!" Sherlock tells him. "I can't, it'll hear me." John responds quietly. "Tell me what you're seeing!" Sherlock says, switching on a small recorder that plays a savage growling into the microphone. "I don't know, but I can hear it now. Did you hear that?" John whispers. "Stay calm, stay calm. Can you see it? Can you see it?" Sherlock asks. "No. I can... I can see it. It's here. It's here." John whispers as Zyair, Sherlock and Mattheo head into the lab. Zyair pulls the sheets off the cage John is hiding in "Are you all right?" he asks. John's eyes widen in bewilderment as Sherlock bends down to him and puts a hand on his shoulder "John..." he starts. "Jesus Christ..." John trails off, grabbing the bars and pulling himself to his feet so he can get out of the cage.
Zyair steps back, giving Mattheo a look as John puts his phone away "It was the hound, Sherlock. It was here. I swear it, Sherlock. It must... It must... Did... did... did you see it? You must have!" John exclaims, out of breath with panic. "It's all right. It's okay now." Sherlock tells him. "NO IT'S NOT! IT'S NOT OKAY! I saw it. I was wrong!" John shouts hysterically. Sherlock shrugs while John breathes heavily "Well, let's not jump to conclusions." Sherlock tells him calmly. "What?" John asks. "What did you see?" Zyair asks. "I told you: I saw the hound." John responds. "Huge; red eyes?" Sherlock asks. "Yes." John nods. "Glowing?" Sherlock adds. "Yeah." he nods. "No." Sherlock shakes his head. "What?" John questions. "I made up the bit about glowing. You saw what you expected to see because I told you. You have been drugged. We have all been drugged. Except Mattheo." Sherlock tells him. "Drugged?" John asks. "Can you walk?" Sherlock asks. "'Course I can walk." John responds shakily. "Come on, then. It's time to lay this ghost." Zyair tells him, taking Mattheo's hand and leading them out.
The four of them walk into Doctor Stapleton's lab where she is examining a fluffy white rabbit on a metal table, looking up when they walk through the door "Oh. Back again? What's on your mind this time?" she asks. "Murder, Doctor Stapleton. Refined, cold-blooded murder." Sherlock tells her, turning the lights off. The rabbit turns a luminous green before Sherlock turns the light back on "Will you tell little Kirsty what happened to Bluebell or shall we?" he asks. "Okay. What do you want?" Stapleton sighs. "Can we borrow your microscope?" Sherlock asks.
Zyair sits looking into a microscope, analysing his blood to try and work out what drug they have been exposed to. Sherlock sits a little way from him, trying to find the drug in the sugar. John sits on a stool with his head propped on his hand, gazing blankly into space "Are you sure you're okay? You look very peaky." Stapleton asks him. "No, I'm all right." John tells her, smiling as Mattheo brushes Zyair's hair out his face for him. "It was the GFP gene from a jellyfish, in case you're interested." Stapleton tells John. "What?" he asks. "In the rabbits." she explains. "Mm, right, yes." John nods. "Aequoria Victoria, if you really want to know." she adds. "Why?" Mattheo pipes up, sitting on a stool next to Mattheo. "Why not? We don't ask questions like that here. It isn't done. There was a mix-up, anyway. My daughter ended up with one of the lab specimens, so poor Bluebell had to go." Stapleton responds. "Your compassion's overwhelming." John tells her cynically. "I know. I hate myself sometimes." Stapleton responds. "So, come on then. You can trust me, I'm a doctor. What else have you got hidden away up here?" John asks. "Listen: if you can imagine it, someone is probably doing it somewhere. Of course they are." Stapleton tells him. "And cloning?" John asks. "Yes, of course." Stapleton nods. "Dolly the Sheep." Mattheo pipes up, pushing Zyair's seat down as he leans forward making the chair tilt.
"Human cloning?" John asks. "Why not?" Stapleton shrugs. "What about animals? Not sheep... big animals." John questions. "Size isn't a problem, not at all. The only limits are ethics and the law, and both those things can be... very flexible. But not here, not at Baskerville." Stapleton tells him. Sherlock stands up, grabbing his latest slide out from under the microscope and hurls it against the nearest wall "It's not there!" he shouts, making Zyair snap out of his own searching. "Jesus!" John exclaims. "Nothing there! Doesn't make any sense." Sherlock tells them. "What were you expecting to find?" Stapleton asks. "A drug, of course. There has to be a drug, a hallucinogenic or a deliriant of some kind. There's no trace of anything in the sugar." Sherlock explains, pacing. "Sugar?" John asks. "The sugar, yes. It's a simple process of elimination. I saw the hound, saw it as my imagination expected me to see it: a genetically engineered monster. But I knew I couldn't believe the evidence of my own eyes, so there were seven possible reasons for it, the most possible being narcotics. Henry Knight and Zyair saw it too but you didn't, John. You didn't see it. Now, we have eaten and drunk exactly the same things since we got to Grimpen apart from one thing: you don't take sugar in your coffee or tea." Sherlock explains. "I see. So..." John trails off. "I took it from Henry's kitchen, his sugar. It's perfectly all right." Sherlock says, glaring at the microscope. "But maybe it's not a drug." John suggests. "No, it has to be a drug." Zyair pipes up, drawing more blood from his arm.
Sherlock sits on the stool, his head buried in his hands with his eyes closed "But how did it get into our systems. How? There has to be something... something... ah, something... something buried deep. Get out." Sherlock says, opening his eyes and motioning Stapleton out. "What?" she asks. "Get out. I need to go to my mind palace." Sherlock tells her. "Your what?" she asks. Zyair looks through his microscope before groaning and hitting his head on the table "Zyair, mind palace." Sherlock tells him. Zyair nods as Mattheo and stand up "They're not gonna be doing much talking for a while. We may as well go." John tells Stapleton, leading her out. "Their what?" Stapleton asks. "Oh, their mind palaces." John tells her. "It's a memory technique, a sort of mental map. You plot a map with a location, it doesn't have to be a real place and then you deposit memories there that... Theoretically, you can never forget anything; all you have to do is find your way back to it." Mattheo explains. "So this imaginary location can be anything, a house or a street." Stapleton says. "Yeah." John nods. "But he said 'palace'. He said it was a palace." Stapleton frowns. "Yeah, well, he would, wouldn't he?" John says, looking back at the father son duo before walking out with Stapleton and Mattheo.
Zyair stares at the blank wall ahead of himself as he goes into his mind palace, immediately pulling up everything he can in the word 'Liberty'. Glaring he swipes them away before pulling up different things to do with the word 'hound' before moving onto the word 'in'. Shaking his head, Zyair moves onto different breeds of large dogs and tries to match them to the dog he had seen the night before. Frowning he pulls up the three words next to each other, adding different combinations to the end of 'in'. Opening his eyes, Zyair sees the words 'Liberty', 'Indiana' and 'H.O.U.N.D' in front of him as he falls back in his chair. Sherlock looks across at him "You got the same?" he asks. Zyair nods and stands up, walking out the room to find where the others had disappeared off to.
Stapleton leads them into a large room which has Major Barrymore's office in the corner, Sherlock points at the door they just walked through "John." he says. "Yeah, I'm on it." John nods, going over to the door to keep an eye on it. Stapleton sits down at a computer "Project HOUND. Must have read about it and stored it away. An experiment in a CIA facility in Liberty, Indiana." Sherlock tells her. "H, O, U, N, D." Zyair spells out. Stapleton types it in before pressing enter, a message appearing saying 'NO ACCESS. CIA Classified' and requesting an authorisation code. "That's as far as my access goes, I'm afraid." Stapleton tells them. "Well, there must be an override and password." Mattheo pipes up. "I imagine so, but that'd be Major Barrymore's." Stapleton tells him. Sherlock spins around and walks into Barrymore's office with Zyair "Password, password, password." he mutters as Zyair turns the light on. "He sat here when he thought it up." Zyair says, sitting in the chair. "Describe him to us." Sherlock tells Stapleton. "You've seen him." she responds. "But describe him." Zyair tells her. "Er, he's a bloody martinet, a throw-back, the sort of man they'd have sent into Suez." Stapleton explains. "Good, excellent. Old-fashioned, traditionalist; not the sort that would use his children's names as a password. He loves his job; proud of it and this is work-related, so what's at eye level?" Sherlock rambles.
Zyair stands, looking at the bookshelves "Books. Jane's Defence Weekly, bound copies. Hannibal; Wellington; Rommel; Churchill's "History of the English-Speaking Peoples", all four volumes. Churchill, well, he's fond of Churchill. Copy of "The Downing Street Years"; one, two, three, four, five separate biographies of Thatcher." the teen says, not noticing the look of admiration on Mattheo's face. Sherlock looks down to a framed photograph on the desk of a man in uniform standing with his teenage son "Mid 1980s at a guess. Father and son: Barrymore senior. Medals: Distinguished Service Order." he says, looking at John who has walked in. "That date? I'd say Falklands veteran." John tells them. "Right. So Thatcher's looking a more likely bet than Churchill." Zyair nods, walking out. "So that's the password?" Stapleton asks, following. "No. With a man like Major Barrymore, only first name terms would do." Sherlock tells her. Leaning down to the keyboard, Sherlock starts to type Margaret Thatcher's first name into the 'Auth code' box but stops when Zyair reaches over and starts tying instead, deleting what his dad wrote and retyping it as 'Maggie' before pressing enter. The computer beeps happily and pulls up the message 'OVERRIDE 300/421 ACCEPTED. Loading...'
John and Mattheo walk over and look at the screen with Zyair, Sherlock and Stapleton as information begins to stream across the screen, everything related to Project H.O.U.N.D. becoming available to them. Sherlock and Zyair's concentration becomes intense while they take in all the information, focusing on p phrases like 'extreme suggestibility', 'fear and stimulus', 'conditioned terror', 'aerosol dispersal'. A photograph comes up of the team happily posing, Zyair identifying the five project leaders as Elaine Dyson, Mary Uslowski, Rick Nader, Jack O'Mara and Leonard Hansen. Growing he rearranges the names into another order so their names spell H.O.U.N.D vertically. "HOUND." Stapleton realises, staring in horror as more information from the project appears. Zyair glares as words and phrases are highlighted such as 'Paranoia', 'Severe frontal lobe damage', 'Blood-brain', 'Gross cranial trauma', 'Dangerous acceleration', 'Multiple homicide', accompanied by photographs of some of the subjects screaming "Jesus." John remarks. "Project HOUND: a new deliriant drug which rendered its users incredibly suggestible. They wanted to use it as an anti-personnel weapon to totally disorientate the enemy using fear and stimulus; but they shut it down and hid it away in 1986." Sherlock tells them. "Because of what it did to the subjects they tested it on." Stapleton adds. "And what they did to others. Prolonged exposure drove them insane, made them almost uncontrollably aggressive." Zyair adds.
"So someone's been doing it again, carrying on the experiments?" Mattheo asks. "Attempting to refine it, perhaps, for the last twenty years." Sherlock nods. "Who?" Stapleton asks. "Those names mean anything to you?" John asks, motioning to the screen. "No, not a thing." she responds. "Five principal scientists, twenty years ago." Sherlock says. Zyair looks at the photograph "Maybe our friend's somewhere in the back of the picture, someone who was old enough to be there at the time of the experiments in 1986..." he trails off as he spots someone in the picture, the same time his dad does. "Maybe somebody who says 'cell phone' because of time spent in America. You remember, John?" Sherlock asks. "Mhm." John nods. "He gave us his number in case we needed him." Zyair adds. Stapleton looks at the photo "Oh my God. Bob Frankland. But Bob doesn't even work on... I mean, he's a virologist. This was chemical warfare." she tells them. "It's where he started, though ... and he's never lost the certainty, the obsession that that drug really could work. Nice of him to give us his number. Let's arrange a little meeting." Sherlock says, pulling out Frankland's card.
Just then John's phone begins to ring, pulling it out he frowns at the number on the screen before answering it "Hello? Who's this?" John asks. "You've got to find Henry." Louise, Henry's therapist, cries. John looks round to Sherlock "It's Louise Mortimer. Louise, what's wrong?" John tells Sherlock and Zyair before talking to Louise. "Henry was... was remembering; then... he tried... He's got a gun. He went for the gun and tried to..." Louise cries. "What?" John asks. "He's gone. You've got to stop him. I don't know what he might do." she tells him, sobbing. "Where-where are you?" John asks her. "His house. I'm okay, I'm okay." Louise tells him. "Right: stay there. We'll get someone to you, okay?" John tells her, hanging up. "Henry?" Sherlock asks. "He's attacked her." John responds, texting. "Gone?" Zyair asks. "Mm." John responds. Sherlock hits speed dial on his own phone "There's only one place he'll go to: back to where it all started. Lestrade. Get to the Hollow. ... Dewer's Hollow, now. And bring a gun." he says, the last part into his phone.
Sherlock, John, Zyair and Mattheo go to the Hollow where they find Henry, squatting down with his pistol aimed in his mouth "No, Henry, no! No!" Sherlock exclaims as they scramble down the slope. Henry gets up and stumbles back, waving the pistol in their direction "Get back. Get...get away from me!" he shouts hysterically. "Easy, Henry. Easy. Just relax." John tries. "I know what I am. I know what I tried to do!" Henry shouts. "Just put the gun down. It's okay." Zyair tells him. "No, no, I know what I am!" the man responds. "Yes, I'm sure you do, Henry. It's all been explained to you, hasn't it, explained very carefully." Sherlock tells him gently. "What?" Henry asks. "Someone needed to keep you quiet; needed to keep you as a child to reassert the dream that you'd both clung on to, because you had started to remember. Remember now, Henry. You've got to remember what happened here when you were a little boy." Sherlock explains, inching forward slightly. Henry's gun hand begins to droop but he raises it again as he struggles to understand "I thought it had got my dad, the hound. I thought... Oh Je... oh Jesus, I don't...I don't know any more!" he screams, sobbing as he bends forwards again with the gun aimed at his mouth.
"No, Henry! Henry, for God's sake!" John exclaims. "Henry, remember. 'Liberty In.' Two words; two words a frightened little boy saw here twenty years ago. You'd started to piece things together, remember what really happened here that night. It wasn't an animal, was it, Henry? Not a monster. A man." Zyair tells him gently, Henry moving the gun away from his mouth. "You couldn't cope. You were just a child, so you rationalised it into something very different. But then you started to remember, so you had to be stopped; driven out of your mind so that no-one would believe a word that you said." Sherlock tells him gently. John steps forward, holding out his hand towards Henry as Lestrade arrives "Sherlock!" he exclaims, walking down to them. "Okay, it's okay, mate." John soothes, taking the gun from Henry. "But we saw it: the hound, last night. We s... we, we, we did, we saw ..." Henry tells Sherlock and Zyair tearfully. "Yeah, but there was a dog, Henry, leaving footprints, scaring witnesses, but it was nothing more than an ordinary dog." Zyair tells him. "We saw it, saw it as our drugged minds wanted us to see it. Fear and stimulus; that's how it works. But there never was any monster." Sherlock tells him gently.
There's a sudden howl as the hound appears at the top of the hollow "Sherlock..." John trails off. Zyair immediately grabs Mattheo's hand and pulls him back, away from the dog "No. No, no, no, no!" Henry wails. "Henry, Henry..." Sherlock tries. "Dad..." Zyair mumbles, not looking away from the hound as it continues round the rim of the Hollow. "Henry!" John exclaims as the man falls to the floor screaming. The hound snarls viciously as it turns its glowing red gaze to them "Shit!" Lestrade exclaims. John turns and shines his torch into his face "Greg, are you seeing this?" he asks. Lestrade glances at him, his expression answering the question. Zyair looks at Mattheo who is staring at the "Right: he is not drugged, Sherlock, so what's that? What is it?!" John asks. "All right! It's still here... but it's just a dog. Henry! It's nothing more than an ordinary dog!" Sherlock tries to tell Henry. The hound raises its head and lets out a long howl "Oh my God." Lestrade says, stumbling back slightly. Zyair holds Mattheo's hand tightly as the hound turns and leaps a short way down the slope, its eyes flashing red in the torchlight "Oh, Christ!" Lestrade exclaims. Zyair stares at the hound as it snaps its teeth threateningly at them "Mattheo..." he trails off. "I'm here." Mattheo responds, squeezing his hand in reassurance.
Sherlock spins a man round and pulls a mask of him to reveal Frankland, the man covering his face "The fog." Sherlock realises. "What?" John asks, still keeping his torch trained on the hound. "It's the fog! The drug: it's in the fog!" Sherlock shouts. "Aerosol dispersal, that's what it said in those records. Project HOUND, it's the fog! A chemical minefield!" Zyair realises. The hound snarls as it stalks closer to them "For God's sake, kill it! Kill it!" Frankland shouts. Lestrade aims his pistol and fires three times, his bullets flying past the hound as it flinches momentarily. It leaps towards them, John shooting it twice. The hound squeals in pain and crashes to the ground, Sherlock runs over to Henry and pushes him towards the hound "Look at it, Henry." he tells him. "No, no, no!" Henry cries, digging his heels in. "Come on, look at it!" Sherlock exclaims, pushing him forwards. Henry looks at it before turning to look at Frankland "It's just... You bastard. You bastard! Twenty years! Twenty years of my life making no sense! Why didn't you just kill me?!" he shouts, lunging at the man. The others pull him off the older man and keep him away "Because dead men get listened to. He needed to do more than kill you. He had to discredit every word you ever said about your father, and he had the means right at his feet, a chemical minefield; pressure pads in the ground dosing you up every time that you came back here. Murder weapon and scene of the crime all at once. Oh, this case, Henry! Thank you. It's been brilliant." Sherlock tells Henry. "Dad..." Zyair starts. "What?" Sherlock asks. "Timing." John tells him. "Not good?" he asks.
"No, no, it's...it's okay. It's fine, because this means... this means that my dad was right. He found something out, didn't he, and that's why you'd killed him, because he was right, and he'd found you right in the middle of an experiment." Henry says. Frankland gets to his feet but can't respond as a savage snarl comes from the hound. John shoots it twice again, effectively killing it as Frankland runs off. "Frankland!" Sherlock shouts, running after the man. Zyair immediately takes off after his dad with the others not far behind "Frankland!" Zyair shouts. "Come on, keep up!" Lestrade tells Henry, not wanting him to get separated from the group. "It's no use, Frankland!" Sherlock shouts. They all skid to a halt and duck down as a massive explosion blasts from the minefield. As the blast dies down, Henry sinks down with his back against a nearby tree while Sherlock stares at the minefield.
The next morning, Zyair sits with John and Mattheo as Billy brings them breakfast "Mmm. Thanks, Billy." John remarks. As Billy walks away, Sherlock brings over a tray with four mugs and puts it down on the table "So they didn't have it put down, then, the dog." Sherlock remarks. "Obviously. Suppose they just couldn't bring themselves to do it." John responds. "I see." Sherlock responds. "No you don't." John smiles. "No, I don't. Sentiment?" Sherlock asks. "Sentiment!" John nods. "Oh." Sherlock rolls his eyes, sitting next to John. "Listen: what happened to me in the lab?" John asks. Sherlock looks at him for a moment before turning and reaching for a box of sauce sachets "D'you want some sauce with that?" he asks. "I mean, I hadn't been to the Hollow, so how come I heard those things in there? Fear and stimulus, you said." John continues. Sherlock rummages through the box of sachets "You must have been dosed with it elsewhere, when you went to the lab, maybe. You saw those pipes, pretty ancient, leaky as a sieve; and they were carrying the gas, so ... Um, ketchup, was it, or brown ...?" he trails off. "Hang on: you thought it was in the sugar. You were convinced it was in the sugar." John tells him.
Zyair smirks slightly, bringing his cup of tea up to his face to hide it "Better get going, actually. There's a train that leaves in half an hour, so if you want..." Sherlock tries. John turns his head away as he realises the truth "Oh God. It was you. You locked me in that bloody lab." he tells Sherlock. "I had to. It was an experiment." Sherlock responds. "An experiment?!" John exclaims. "Shhh." Sherlock tells him, looking at the people nearby. "I was terrified, Sherlock. I was scared to death." John tells him. "I thought that the drug was in the sugar, so I put the sugar in your coffee, then I arranged everything with Major Barrymore." Sherlock explains. John sighs in exasperation "It was all totally scientific, laboratory conditions...well, literally." Sherlock tells him before explaining what they did "Well, I knew what effect it had had on a superior mind, so I needed to try it on an average one." he finishes. John looks up from his plate "You know what I mean." Sherlock tells him. "But it wasn't in the sugar." John tells him, going back to eating. "No, well, I wasn't to know you'd already been exposed to the gas." Sherlock tells him. "So you got it wrong." John says, Zyair choking on his tea. Mattheo bites his lip in amusement as hew helps wipe the tea off of Zyair's clothes "No." Sherlock tells John. "Mm. You were wrong. It wasn't in the sugar. You got it wrong." John tells him. "A bit. It won't happen again." Sherlock admits. "Any long-term effects?" John asks. "None at all. You'll be fine once you've excreted it. We all will." Sherlock responds. "Think I might have taken care of that already." John jokes. Sherlock snorts laughter as the teens laugh. Sherlock puts his mug on the table and stands up as he looks at Gary "Where're you going?" Zyair asks. "Won't be a minute. Gotta see a man about a dog." he responds.