Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

The year is 2035, and much has changed in the world in the last decade. Most for the worse, some for the better.
Conflicts have increased globally, caused by climate change and societal problems. Wars started in countries, especially in the south, that have been most impacted by the rising temperatures, fights for resources and sociopolitical conflicts. But Europe has been affected too, especially the UK. Mass migration to northern countries to escape the countries most affected by heat, drought and floods and rising poverty has affected society.

A glimmer of hope is provided by breakthrough scientific discoveries and new technologies, giving hope to solve those problems in future years. Robotics, artificial intelligence and biotechnology has advanced very far in 10 years time, becoming more accessible and more common in day to day life. Robots designed for various special functions are deployed in various areas and jobs. However they have replaced many humans in their jobs, leading to record high unemployment rates, poverty and social issues. The divide between the poor and the rich, the proletariat and the elite grew even bigger.

The technology that should have helped humanity and was intended to make their lives easier ended up making many lives worse.

John Watson returned to London after serving 6 years as a royal army corps surgeon in the fifth northumberland fusiliers. His stay in the military was prematurely cut short by a bullet to the shoulder, damaging his axillary nerve and ending his career as a surgeon. On top of that he suffered PTSD and now had to deal with a psychosomatic limp that required a cane to walk.
The London he knew before leaving had significantly changed, but so had he. Robots had become a clear part of society, they worked in shops as cashier machines, restaurants, customer service, delivery robots, cleaners. The robots were not very sophisticated, they were only built for their designated function.
London itself had deteriorated in many areas, looking bleak, and most people looked hopeless and resigned, unemployed and poor. Other areas prospered, the societal divide grew wider. Crime rates soared.

He was provided with a small army pension and provided a small bleak bedsit, in a rather sketchy area. John tried to integrate back into civilian life, applied for jobs in the medical field, but no one wanted to employ him. Society had changed very much during his time away.
Many human jobs have been replaced by robots or AI, even in the medical field. Paying a human salary is much more expensive than maintaining machines, humans need breaks, can’t work day and night, and have labour laws. Humans experience stress, get sick, their performance can suffer, they can argue and protest. Machines don’t have those issues. They are believed to be perfect without any mistakes. Buying one of those machines might be costly in the initial acquisition for employers, but it quickly pays off in a few years compared to human workers.

Diagnostic AI’s replaced many GP’s, especially in poorer areas the amount of human doctors decreased, while private doctors and private hospitals still were mainly led by human experts just assisted by the occasional AI’s to analyse samples or radiology images. The divide in the two-tier health care system became even more extreme.
The NHS clinics were not able to accept John as a new doctor because of limited funds for human doctors. He also applied to some private clinics, but most of them didn’t even bother to answer his application. Only one clinic invited him to an interview, but as soon as they saw his cane and learned about his nerve damage they ‘kindly’ ended the interview with an excuse and never got back to him. No one wanted to employ a damaged army doctor with PTSD when they could have a perfectly functional machine.

John’s life was bleak, his chances for employment rare, his chance to escape his miserable bedsit seemed impossible. He felt useless, his life felt pointless. He was clearly depressed, possibly even suicidal as his looks lingered on his service weapon that he had illegally kept. At the beginning he tried to find new friends and a community, but those attempts were futile, and he soon gave up with socialisation and withdrew further from everyone around him. He started to seek his solace in bottles of alcohol.

In late January he took a walk through Regents Park, trying to escape from his depressing life for a bit, and to occupy himself instead of spending his whole day drinking at home.
He chose this park because it was one of the nicer parks, located in Marylebone, a more affluent district. The weather was nice, sunny but slightly chilly, the water fowl splashing in the water and vocalising.
John limped along the paths, the stones scraping on his cane, trying to take his mind off his worries, but his thoughts kept spiralling.
Suddenly he was ripped out of this spiralling state, it was as if he had heard someone call his name. At first he thought he had just imagined it, but then he heard his name again, he turned around confused. His eyes landed on a man, dressed in a nice suit and coat, carrying a suitcase, all clearly expensive.

The man kindly smiled at him and introduced himself “Mike. Mike Stamford. We were at Bart’s together”. Realisation dawned on John’s face, he felt awkward for not recognising him sooner he quickly stuttered “Yes. Sorry. Yes. Mike. Hello” and shook his hand. “Yeah I know I got fat” Mike said still smiling, clearly not meaning it bad in any way. But John felt even more awkward, looking away trying to deny it.
“I heard you were abroad somewhere, getting shot at. What happened?” he asked curiously. There was a tense silence before John answered “I got shot” , a bitter smile spreading across his face.
Mike realised his mistake, slight shock and embarrassment dawning on his face and now he was the one feeling awkward with the faux pas.

They decided to catch up, Mike’s work starting in an hour, and John didn’t have any place to be anyway. They got coffee at a nearby shop, Mike luckily covering the bill immediately, a fact John was quite glad about because he didn’t know whether he had the funds for a coffee at the time.
Mike brought him up to date, telling John how he had spent the last years and about his job. He started to teach at Bart’s, but digital lecturers started to replace human lecturers and professors, which led to the dismissal of many of them.
Mike decided to go with the time and pursue an education in robotics and AI. Because of his education in both medicine and robotics he was soon hired at the esteemed Holmes corporation, the major leader in the AI, robotics and biotech industry. He was clearly thriving.

Hearing about Mike’s clear success made John feel even worse about his own mess of a life, he smiled bitterly “Seems I’ve taken the wrong career path then. No one wants a dismissed army surgeon who can’t even perform surgery anymore. They won’t even take me as a GP. It’s all just robots everywhere nowadays”.
Mike answered trying to keep this conversation positive although it had the opposite effect “We probably were the last med class to graduate before all of this took off. We were lucky, we didn’t have those issues getting into med school. Now they reduced the university places so much because of the healthcare assistance bots that either you have to be the cleverest person alive to even have a chance or you pay grand sums of money to get in”.

John sighed as he heard the mention of money “I can’t afford London on an army pension”. Mike with his damn positivity completely missing John’s distress “Ah, and you couldn’t bear to be anywhere else. That’s not the John Watson I know”. John replied with a bitter voice “Yeah, I’m not the John Watson”. A tick started in his left hand, and he flexed it several times.

John thought catching up with an old friend would help him, but he just felt numb, now even more reminded of his own problems. He started to ramble “Can’t get any money without a job. It’s a vicious cycle. And the bedsit I’m in is slowly driving me…” he stopped talking and stared at his coffee without ending his sentence. He takes a sip, not even properly tasting or savouring it in his state, wishing his coffee was more irish.

Mike suddenly had a weird look on his face, and finally said “I possibly have a solution to your problems”. “What?” John asked, confused. “I might have a job offer for you. But it’s a bit….different. Do you trust me?” Mike inquired. John answered “Of course I do”, although even if he didn’t trust him, he would have taken up anyone’s job offer at this point.
Mike looked at his clock “My shift’s soon starting. You have time to come along? You can probably apply there immediately. I think you fit the profile for the person they’re looking for. And with my endorsement you’re close to guaranteed to get the job”. He smiled at John, hoping that he could help him.

“Of course I’ve time” John answered, embarrassed to say that he didn’t have anything planned for the day except to drink himself into oblivion, so he didn’t say it. But he wondered what kind of job he exactly was qualified for, especially at a place like the Holmes Corporation. He knew nothing about robots, he could barely operate the self checkout machines. Something seemed off about this offer, but he would look at it, because it might be his only chance. “What’s the job about?” John tried to get more information. But Mike shook his head “I can’t talk about it here. I’ll tell you everything once we’re there”. John had a weird feeling in his stomach, but he followed Mike anyway to his potential new future job.

Chapter Text

They arrived at the Holmes corporation main facility, a big modern high tech complex. The corporation has sites and assembly factories all over the world, but this facility is where most of the new technologies get developed and the most important research done.

The building was heavily guarded, high fences supposed to keep thieves and rioters out, with armed guards patrolling the gates. But theory on the street is that all of this is not to keep people out, but to keep whatever is in there inside.
As they walked towards the compound, John watched how the gates opened and a heavily armoured luxury car with tinted windows exited and sped off. Most likely a rich higher up of the company, or some kind of investor.

They walked to the entry and Mike scanned his ID card to enter, while the guards eyed John suspiciously. “Who’s he?” one of the guards asked with an unfriendly tone. Mike answered “He belongs to me. He’s an applicant”. The guard's stony expression didn’t change, checking some kind of list on an inbuilt screen inside the visor of his helmet. “I don’t see any applicants for today”. It took a bit of convincing from Stamford before they finally granted John access, but only after he went through a security check and pat down. At first they even wanted to take his cane away, but Mike said he would vouch for John so he was able to keep it.

He brought John to a waiting area, telling him to wait while he informed his higher ups about John wanting to apply. He came back after 20 minutes, smiling satisfied, telling John that he was now officially an applicant for the position. “And can I maybe now know what that job position is exactly?” John asked, starting to become annoyed at this secrecy.
“The job is a bit…experimental. It’s part of a new developed technology, to test it”
John stared at him slightly offended “So I’m becoming a human guinea pig? Are they gonna test some new super drug on me?”
Mike shook his head quickly, raising his hands in defence “No no, of course not. It’s nothing like that. We’ve developed a new type of robot. To be more specific, it’s an android. It’s more sophisticated than the current machines, better AI, better operating system and an improved hardware and appearance. We need to train it more in human interaction, so it can mirror human behaviour better. It observes its environment and learns from it”. John nodded, slowly understanding what this was about “So you want me to interact with it here in the labs?”.

Mike explained further “It’s a bit more complex than that. They want to pair the testers with the android in day to day life, with near constant interaction so it can learn better and copy small human behaviours that it otherwise would not catch up on in artificial lab conditions. We provide a flat where tester and android can stay together. Of course without charge for you.” John looked surprised “So when I get this job I get paid and get to live in a flat without paying any rent?”.
This sounded too good to be true, there had to be some kind of catch. Mike answered “Yes, you would be provided with everything. But we would observe you two, the flat contains cameras in the common areas. Of course not in your personal room or the bathroom, to keep your privacy. And you would also have to report back how your experience with the android is” John didn’t think this was too bad, all of London was filled with surveillance cameras, wouldn’t be much different.

Mike continued “The project is still highly confidential, so competitors don’t steal it. So you are not allowed to talk with anyone outside this facility about it. But if you’re ready, you can meet the android. It’s already in operation. Then you can decide whether you want the job or not”. John agreed. He thought how difficult could it be, to live with a robot together, he interacts with them nearly daily, and he gets paid and a new place to live. That’s worth any hassle that might result from this job. It’s quite the opportunity.

As they walked towards the location where the android was supposedly kept, Stamford provided John with more information “The android’s main purpose is to help with data analysis and scientific deduction. We programmed it for various functions, if everything works out it could be used as a research assistant or as a forensic investigator. It’s our most diverse model, with the highest computing power and intelligence”
John wondered why a data analysis android would need to be able to copy human behaviour, but before he could ask Mike stopped in front of a door of a laboratory.

They entered the lab, but it was empty except a human man standing at a counter pipetting some liquids performing some kind of experiment.
John looked at the man, and the only thought in his head was that he looked absolutely stunning. Like some kind of super model. Tall, thin, pale skin that contrasted with raven curls. He was clothed in a crisp suit that looked more expensive than all of John’s belongings together. As the man raised his head from the experiment he had been focused on to look at them, John’s breath stopped. His eyes were breathtakingly beautiful, the colour resembling an aquamarine gem. John had never seen eyes like that before, he would describe them as supernatural shining like stars, as if an artist created them. His stare was so intense, it felt as if he was looking right through everything John’s made off.

When John could finally take his eyes off the man and remembered what he was there for, he looked around the empty room trying to look for the android, but couldn’t find any. “Where is it?” John asked, confused. Did they enter the wrong room?

A deep baritone voice rumbled “You mean where is HE”. John turned back towards the man, confused “What?”. John’s brain was really slow, but then it finally caught up and he realised what he meant, he exclaimed in disbelief “Wait what? No. You?”.
Stamford smiled, having seen this reaction many times before “Let me introduce you to SH-221, or Sherlock. He’s the Scientific-assistance Humanoid”.
John just stood there for a few seconds, not able to process this. He then started to laugh, slightly, shaking his head “No. No. This is some kind of prank. Is this one of your colleagues and you’re messing with me? Playing a little joke?”. Mike raised his hands placatingly “No, John. I’d never do such a thing to you. It’s real. This is the android. I told you it's sophisticated and experimental technology. The only of its kind”.

The android, or Sherlock, paused his experiment and approached them, extending his hand in greeting towards John. After a moment of hesitation John took the offered hand and shook it. The skin felt soft and warm, just like a humans, even with small hairs. He now could take a closer look at the alleged android, but he couldn’t register anything that looked even remotely like a machine. He looked and felt just like a living breathing human being. How was it possible to recreate the human form so accurately in a robot? He released the hand, shaking his head again and chuckling “That’s impossible. You can’t convince me that’s not a human man”.

Sherlock narrowed his eyes, looking John up and down as if to analyse him, then started to speak rapidly with a monotone voice “I know you’re an army doctor, invalided home from Afghanistan. I estimate from the fading of your tan that you arrived home about 5 months ago. You have a limp, but you didn’t suffer any damage to your legs, so it must be psychosomatic. You have been shot in the left shoulder, suffering damage to your axillary nerve, the bullet narrowly missed your subclavian artery. You used to work as a surgeon, but due to the intermittent tremor in your left hand you had to change career paths. You applied for several positions as a GP, unsuccessfully. That’s why you’re here, looking for a job, trying to improve your living conditions.”
John stared at him in disbelief “How do you… did you tell him about me?” he asked Stamford, who shook his head in denial “Not a word”.
The android looked somehow smug “That’s enough to be going on with, don’t you think? Believe it now? I will not show you my USB port just to convince you, that’s indecent”. Did the robot just make a joke or was he serious?

John was dumbstruck about everything that happened in the last few minutes. He was slowly getting convinced that this was indeed an android and not a man, but it still was so surreal to him.
Stamford must have noticed the look on his face as if he could read his mind “Yeah, he does that sometimes. His algorithms have been trained with various conversation patterns, including the occasional joke. To make him appear more human. But he isn’t always good at it, sometimes joking at inappropriate moments or getting quite dark. We might have to fix that. His algorithms still seem unaware about many appropriate responses to some social situations and contexts. We hope that spending time with you could improve his conversation and social algorithms”.
John found it a bit weird how Stamford just talked about him that way while he was standing right next to him, if someone would talk that way about him he would get offended. It reminded him of someone talking about a misbehaving dog. But the android didn’t seem to mind, just standing there watching them and not reacting. ​John felt like he was still being scrutinised, making him a bit uncomfortable.

John wondered about something “Why aren’t any of the scientists here participating in this experiment? Wouldn’t they be better suited, they know much more about him.”
Mike explained to him “That’s the problem, we know him too well because we programmed him, and he knows us too well because we are all he has known since his creation. He needs new data points of human behaviours, a variety of human behavioural patterns, so we need external sources outside of this lab. And we also need to see how humans react to him. We know everything about him, we are used to his antics, so we would influence the results. The data would be invalid”

The android suddenly straightened, standing ramrod straight instead of his previous more relaxed human looking posture, as if he had suddenly received a command. “The incubation time is over, the samples are ready. I need to bring them to the other lab” he exclaimed and turned around, picking up a tray with test tubes and leaving the room without any goodbye.
“Huh” was the only thing John could produce, astonished by this peculiar interaction. “He’s always like that”, Mike stated and smiled.

Chapter Text

“You must have more questions” Stamford exclaimed, while they sat down in a comfortable room, drinking some tea one of the kitchen robots provided. They were so different from Sherlock. The robots John knows are all clunky metallic and plastic machines, clearly identifiable as robots.
Most of them didn’t even have a humanoid form, some just cylinders with wheels and arms like server bots, other four legged dog-looking machines like the delivery bots, or just consisting of several arms like assembly or surgeon bots. Their appearance depended on their function, some enormous and some small. And most of them did not show much intelligence, just being programmed to their respective tasks. Some of them didn’t even have audio systems to talk, just created for physical work and no intended human interaction. Customer service robots or receptionists were only AI’s with animated human avatars contained in holograms or screens. 

Something like Sherlock had never been there before. It was entirely new technology, a masterpiece of engineering and programming. John couldn’t even comprehend how this was possible. 

“Just...how?” John couldn’t even properly formulate his question, he felt so dumb at this moment. Like a sputtering buffoon, while those people that worked here were absolute geniuses. But Stamford somehow understood what he meant, taking out a file out of his suitcase to show to John. It described SH-221’s different functions and abilities, and some information about his components. To John it felt weird, like reading an advertisement for a new computer, instead of something that seemed so human. Only that he didn’t understand most of the terminology.

SH-221: Scientific-assistance Humanoid

Scientific data analysis, forensic deduction and logical inference

Functions:
Scientific assistant, forensic investigator

Components:
Neurochemical computer with high processing power and speed

Synthetic electrochemical synapses

Synthetic graphene nerves with conduction velocity of 1 million m/s

Synthetic muscles with actin and myosin motor units capable of high contractility

Graphene silicon carbide chip CPU with 400 gigahertz

RAM 50 petabytes

Memory disk with 500 petabytes

Equipped with scientific knowledge and basic human interaction protocols

Generative independent artificial intelligence “Mind palace”

Algorithms adapting to surroundings and acquiring new information

Biosynthetic skin with thermo-, pressure-, humidity- and air current sensors

Acoustic, visual and olfactory sensors with high precision for sample recognition

Carbon fibre skeleton

Thirium-310 energy source

Requires occasional charging cycles

Battery life of 4 days without charge because of high energy demand

Features:

Realistic human appearance

Emulates human behaviours and assimilates

Can display different emotional patterns to appear empathetic to humans

Pattern recognition algorithms including emotional pattern analysis

Aversive programming to damaged components for self preservation

Advanced thermoregulation for environmental adaptation

Real time sample analysis with PCR, DNA sequencing and spectrophotometry

Simulation of past events by examining evidence

Precognition based on calculated probability 

John finished reading without understanding much “That’s…a lot”.
Mike chuckled, “You can say that. They worked on this project for 10 years. We tried to accurately recreate the human body with mechanical and synthetical components. That’s why they included medical doctors in their construction, to recreate the anatomy of a human realistically. We copied every muscle with a synthetic equivalent to make his movements so human. Some of his internal machinery was inspired by organs. But I can’t say more about his construction, that’s confidential. We discovered many new technologies that enabled his creation”. 

Someone knocked on the door and entered the room. “Ah, Doctor Hooper. Joining us?” Mike exclaimed. A mousy young woman entered the room, her voice sounding shy “If I may? I heard about a new tester and would like to ask him some questions”. “Yeah of course, you can ask me anything”, John answered. Doctor Hooper sat down next to them and asked the server bot to kindly bring her a coffee, unlike other people she didn’t just order it around. 

She started to ask John questions, about his education, his previous jobs and experiences, and what he thought of Sherlock. “Well, he’s quite extraordinary” was the only thing he knew to answer.
She was quite pleasantly surprised as she heard that he was an army doctor. “I think you’re very well suited for this position. Medical education, used to high stress environments and adaptable to new situations”, Molly concluded. John was quite surprised to hear that, he thought he wasn’t suited at all “But I don’t have any experience in robotics. Wait, high stress environments? Why is that significant?” Was the android supposed to stress him out, trigger his PTSD? He hadn’t mentioned his PTSD, he hoped that wouldn’t disqualify him from this job. 

Stamford and Hooper looked at each other with a peculiar expression and hesitated “Well, Sherlock has a tendency to stress people out sometimes. He can be…difficult. We already had three previous testers, but they all resigned after a day. They were freaked out by him, especially when he started to deduce them and tell them everything about themselves. One of them even believed this experiment was some kind of psy-op targeting him personally and grew very paranoid, so much that he later had to be admitted to a psychiatric facility”. 

John was quiet for a minute, concerning the two doctors that he might now decide to withdraw from this position knowing about the previous failed tests. He pondered his experience with Sherlock, it felt a bit weird to be just seen through like that, but at the same time it was impressive “It was…amazing. Quite amazing”. Doctor Hooper started to smile “You think so? I supervised most of his programming. What do you think of his physical appearance? I was majorly involved in his design. His features are as symmetrical as possible to make him appear physically appealing to humans”. She seemed very enthusiastic to talk about this project, shedding some of her shyness. 

John thought that he looked absolutely breathtaking, but realised with embarrassment that this probably was a weird reaction to have towards a machine. Even if he wasn’t a machine it would be unusual for John, given he never experienced such a reaction to any fellow man. He could recognise when another man was physically attractive, but never before was his breath taken away when laying eyes on a man for the first time. He preferred the feminine form, was just a regular straight man, never having desired a fellow man. At least that’s what he thought.
Just thinking about those eyes and prominent cheekbones caused a weird feeling in his stomach. He looked like a piece of art, an intricate statue carved from marble, with crystals for eyes.

He announced nothing of that, instead saying “Yeah he looks quite…nice. Nice eyes. Good work”. He swallowed in embarrassment, hoping that none of them thought he was acting peculiar. But the answer seemed to satisfy doctor Hooper, who smiled that her work was being appreciated.

After some more talking they all seemed convinced that John was well suited for this job, they left the room and a woman appeared with a contract to sign to make it official. The contract was a thick bundle of pages, he skimmed through it, not really versed in all of those legal contract terms. And he felt exhausted, he really did not have the brain capacity now to read through all of those pages. He should probably read through it properly or maybe even give it to a lawyer to make sure he wasn’t signing something that would put him at a disadvantage, but he couldn’t really afford one of those.

He skipped a few pages just reading the titles of each paragraph, but then his eyes caught  something that made him stop in his tracks. “ Holmes corporations is not liable for any psychological or physical harm or injuries sustained during the experiment or caused by any Holmes corporation products ” , he read it aloud. The woman in front of him seemed unfazed, her expression looked even more robotic than Sherlock’s had. 

She spoke in a bored voice, it even looked like she was suppressing an eye roll behind her glasses “Just a basic liability clause, you usually sign that for any service or product. That doesn’t mean you’re in any danger, it’s just for our legal protection”.
John didn’t seem very convinced by her attitude, but he continued to read. “Holmes corporation is allowed to collect all personal data concerning the experiment. Constant audio and video surveillance in public areas of the testing field” . Looks like he was basically signing away all his private data, he will just have to be careful to not do anything embarrassing in the common areas of the flat. The government was anyway surveilling them all constantly with CCTV, not much difference to that.
“Non-disclosure agreement: Absolute confidentiality of all information about the experiment, Holmes corporation and products. Noncompliance will be fined and legally prosecuted” . He didn’t have any plans on corporate espionage, so he didn’t mind that.

The woman started to tap her nails in boredom on the table, annoyed that John was taking so long. John felt a bit pressured, worried by the sheer volume of the contract that he was tricked into signing something that he would later regret. He sighed, reassuring himself that it couldn’t be anything too bad, and just signed the papers. 

The woman got up in an annoyed manner, releasing a quiet groan that seemed to express ‘finally’, picked up the contract and just left. John was a bit disgruntled by her behaviour, but he was used to people treating him that way, especially people who believe they are worth more than him because their paychecks are bigger.

He left the room, Stamford and Hooper were waiting for him outside in the hallway. “And, did you sign it?” they asked expectantly with a hopeful tone. “Yeah I did. Quite the contract, hope I didn’t just sign away my soul” he joked, hoping that this wasn’t actually the case. Who knows, maybe the Holmes corporation now owned his body and could sell his organs if the experiment failed. They reacted gleefully to his confirmation “Congratulations, you are now officially part of the SH-221 project” Mike patted him on the back encouragingly. John’s shoulder twinged slightly.
At that exact moment Sherlock reappeared, intended to walk past them but Mike stopped him in his tracks “Sherlock, looks like we got a new flatmate for you”. Sherlock seemed slightly relieved as if he had been waiting for this, but his voice sounded rather annoyed that it took so long “ Finally . It was about time. They’ve been looking for aaaages ”.
He redirected his focus on John, looking at him intensely again “See you at 221B Baker Street then. Afternoon” and then he winked at John. The android winked and made a clicking noise with his mouth. If it had been a human John would have interpreted this wink as a flirting gesture.
Sherlock walked away, John stared after him dumbstruck. What was that ?