entranceway | [Video]

[Video starts with a view of the ground that turns up to show Sherlock's face as he handles it.]

-ill the same model. Then again, time does stand still here. Same features--ah, recording light. No bother; hello, Wonderland. Let's make this simple, shall we? I want detailed information about everything that has happened since I was last here left at my doorstep. Room 21 on the second floor. I trust it has been left vacant.

All previous informants are expected to report in a timely fashion.

For those of you with bad memories or who have arrived since my departure, I am Sherlock Holmes. If that name sounds familiar, don't worry, you're not going crazy but neither am I a fictional detective from the 19th century. Accept that I am who I say I am, accept that I will meet if not exceed the expectations you have formed from that fictional association, and tell me everything you can about the things you've discovered since your arrival.

[Sherlock ends the transmission quickly. He's busy now.]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[Oh, she is going to read into it, buster.

...Quietly.

And Evelyn would ask a certain physicist about wormholes, but he's been missing for a while, so the library is all she's left with.]

I wouldn't assume that - it seems to be based on who you are, rather than where and when. I've noticed that in many cases, people from like dimensions appear because someone else they know got here before them. I would postulate that the mechanics of this place revolve not simply around memories, but relationships.

[Oh, Evie, you have given him a wonderful idea.]

The only way to test that hypothesis is to attempt to bring someone here through influencing the world with our memories.

[Yes, but-]

How on earth are we supposed to accomplish that? We still have yet to determine whether or not the mansion is directly influenced by our presence and somehow comprehends memories via...oh, I don't know, osmotic transference, or if the memories have to be talked about out loud, between people.

Then we shall experiment. We are given communication devices so we are expected to be sociable. Tracking all incoming traffic and comparing it to the sociable nature of those who are from the same world may prove to show some correlation.

You propose that we trace every single transmission to its origin?

[That sounds...horribly tedious. If he thinks she's going to do all the legwork for that, he's got another thing coming.]

I can see the advantages to knowing, but keeping a steady census of mansion residents is hard enough, and some people may not even know that their friends or relatives are here.

[A beat.]

...Perhaps a more controlled experiment? Start with two or three people from the same place, rather than the entire population of Wonderland.

You have something better to do that stay tuned to the communication device or haunt the halls?

[He doesn't. Not if it's case related. But, then again, clever as she is, Evelyn is still normal. It's a fair assumption to say she could probably occupy her time with other pastimes.

He envies that. A little.]

We're already working from a limited pool but with the constraints of manpower I can see how altering the parameters might be necessary.

Which world currently has the highest retention rate in Wonderland? My figures are outdated until I have time to correlate the new data.

Well-

[No, actually. Not right now. Not particularly. Not since so many people she knew well have gone.]

...I'll do as much as I can.

[Fiddling with her locket, Evelyn mulls over his query.]

And I'm not sure about the exact name of the world itself, but whichever place the grey people with sharp teeth are from. You must have met at least one of them, they seem to pop up like weeds.

Can we be sure those inhabitants are from the same world or are simply the same species? You and I are both humans but we are certainly from different worlds. Anatomical similarities will not be enough to establish a correlation between worlds. They're far from guarded, though, so answer this question may be simple. If they are in the mood to be cooperative.

I know for certain that some of them are - they refer to each other and the collective destruction of their world. Some...game they were playing, I believe, led to the disaster.

[What a terrible future.]

Depending on which one we speak to, they may or may not be agreeable. One of them bit me my first day here, and apparently adopts the tendency to lick people in order to see them.

[She pulls a face. Where is the logic, there? Where?]

I have had the pleasure of interacting with one such specimen today. Made me pay in candy to have my room back. I know her price. I'll pay her a little visit, perhaps, and see what she can offer in the way of information.

Be sure to bring extra sweets for her, then.

[They might as well lay out the methodology now, eh?]

I'll see which ones I can contact and find out whether or not they've got friends from their home. When you're the only ones left of your race, I suppose you've got to stick together. I can begin drawing up a sheet of relations, if you like.

By all means.

[Sherlock smiles. He is very glad he has an assistant in Wonderland. And Evelyn is about as good an assistant as he could hope for.]

We'll get to the bottom of this eventually.

I'll inform you as soon as I've got something. Do, um-

[What's that term, again?]

-text me if you find anything out, it'll help in compiling notes and divining a pattern.

Certainly. I would expect little else in return.

A pleasure as always, Evelyn.

Likewise.

[Transmission: Out.]