world war z

[assistingconsultant]

This was not what Joan had intended, at all.

The door had been innocent, and she supposed that was the real mistake. In her defence, though, upon going through, nothing had been out of sorts. Her eyes, trained as they were, actively picked out details in the building as she walked through, looking for the exit. She'd wanted to explore, that was all, though she kept the door back to the Nexus firmly locked in her mind, direction-wise. Like Las Vegas, she just wanted to see something new.

The real hints came slowly as she approached the street. It had been an office building, and sometimes a painting was askew, a chair knocked over. Down in the lobby, though, with its glass walls, she was able to see that outside there were cars parked on the sidewalk, the traffic lights were off. She had paused, uncertain, because she knew that this could be a bad idea. What if there was a pathogen, here, like in Fran's world? But then she had heard screaming, and Joan simply could not ignore it - she tore out the building and into the street.

Zombies. Zombies. Really?

She supposed her other mistake had been in assuming that the only real danger in the Nexus was the danger she faced every day in New York during her work, nothing more than that. A dangerous assumption. The woman at the end of the block could not be saved, Joan saw that immediately upon going out on the street - but now she was exposed, and then she was running, unable to get back through the building's front door without being intercepted. The best she could do was try to loop around, get in through the back, and get back to the Nexus. And never go through this door ever again.

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[burdenofproof]

The world was fever bright in his anger as he moved through the abandoned office with all the grace and silence of a bull, his head down, his jaw tight as the strangeness of the situation wound about him like vice. He had put it together by that point, but the absurdity of what his brain was telling him simply did not mesh with what Luther had come to believe as reality. He was fueling himself then on the idea that he'd perhaps blacked out and wound up here in this abandoned building he did not recognize, but he knew even as he attempted to fit that explanation into the facts as he understood them, that was not the case.

He had opened the door to exit his flat, and instead of finding himself on the London street, had instead wound up in some sort of posh hotel. When he'd attempted to go back through the door that he'd entered, he wound up here. It was possible that he was a nutter, probable even, that all the shit that'd happened with Zoe had broken something inside him, but it had not been his ability to rationalize or assess a situation. He wasn't crazy and this shit seemed real enough to him, so the only thing left to do was figure out what it was, and why the hell he was there.

He slowed as he began to notice the disarray of the office, and that while there was a bank of windows at the front, no light shone in. He paused a good distance back, still and silent and listening, squinting out toward the street when he saw things moving. They were the draggy, jerky movements he'd been seeing in movies since he was in short pants, and entirely unmistakable for that movies.

"Bloody christ," he breathed, his muscles tensing as he prepared to turn back the way he'd come as there'd surely been no dead people walking in that hotel, when he saw her. She was small and moving fast, but perhaps not fast enough. He could see the horde staggering toward her even if she couldn't, and he swore roughly as he pushed out the door and hit the sidewalk, running in her direction for all he was worth, his coat flapping behind him.

"Ay!" He called at her, then realized his mistake as a number of half rotted heads that were too terrifying to count turned in his direction.

[assistingconsultant]

Another person was definitely not part of her plan. The screams of the woman who she had seen torn apart - a shocking and disturbing image, had she enough time to process and understand it - were still echoing in her ears, such that she almost missed the new voice, even though it was deep, male, different. It was instead something else, a sense of how the zombies were not focusing on her anymore, and she looked aside and saw the man who had come out on the street.

Damn it. Damn it!

That was when Joan remembered. She supposed she could not be faulted for forgetting, because she was not often in a life or death situation - but that had been the whole point of it, had it not? Beyond taking down guilty people attempting to escape? Joan turned on her heel. Maybe she was insane, but she only had instinct to rely on now, and years of regular exercise, most specifically running.

It helped that they weren't looking at her anymore; they were focused on the man. Joan lunged forward and tugged the baton out of her coat, the force of her swing causing it to extend. She hit harder than she ever had in her life and the sound was an ugly, sickening crunch. Fragments of skull and brain matter flew past, a speck hitting her on the cheek. She propelled herself forward across the pavement and through the group, letting the baton swing wherever she could. There were only a handful of them, or else she might not have tried the approach she did. In any case, it was too late now; her previous route was now blocked.

"Back that way!" she shouted, darting past the man and back towards the building.

[burdenofproof]

He had been forced to come to terms with his own mortality, either by his own or the hands of someone else, on more than one occasion, and still nothing had quite prepared him to face potentially dying at the hands of an undead mob. He could not let his mind travel down the path of what it might be like to be ripped open and eaten alive, could not think of much of anything other than the very real fear he felt just then. The smell of this new place was overwhelming - a million dead bodies left to languish in the sun - and he skidded to a halt, preparing to backpedal and take off running in the other direction when the petite woman spun in his direction and removed some sort of baton from her coat.

The smack of the baton on the skull of one of those things had the sound and smell of rotting pumpkin burst open, and Luther was grateful then that he was far too shocked and frightened to bother with anything so menial as a gag reflex. He began running after her at her word, pushing himself forward and feeling his muscles stretch and burn with the effort. He was a physically fit man, but he'd never been faced with the dilemma of outrunning a horde of dead cannibals. In terms of cardio, it was quite the motivator.

The office building he'd just left loomed in front of him, so close but seeming so far with zombies moving in from every angle. It only occurred to him then that he had a gun strapped to his side. A gun with only six bullets, but he hoped that it'd be enough to at least get them back to that hotel place when combined with the woman's rather handy and decidedly more useful baton. It took Luther only a moment of consideration to decide that blunt objects were a far more useful weapon in this world, as her baton would not run out of ammunition any time soon.

"To your left," he called to her when he saw a zombie that was moving decidedly faster than the others closing in on her, his own steps slowing just enough for him to pull his gun out and cock it. He supposed there was always going to be a food chain, even amongst zombies, and he and this woman were live bait enough to call in those at the top.

[assistingconsultant]

Joan cursed her choice in footwear, though how was she to know that she might need to run from a zombie mob? She was doing well enough in her shoes, but she was well aware that one slight misstep and her balance would be thrown off, and then she would be grounded. Which, obviously, was not desirable.

She had no idea if this man knew anything of the Nexus; she had never thought to bring anyone through from her own world, and she wondered if the Nexus would refuse, if the door would not present itself to her if she was accompanied by someone who had never gone there before. Still, there was only one way to find out, win or lose. Not a lot of choice in the matter.

She darted to the side when he warned her, then tore back into the office building, wondering if they ought to stop and try to barr the doors, before giving up on that notion when she remembered there wan't really anything in the lobby to barr the door with.

[burdenofproof]

Luther ran with his gun out and cocked, his finger on the trigger and praying even as his legs and arms pumped in tandem, that he didn't tense up and waste a bullet on either himself or the ground. Following her into the solace of the office building was easy, as she was small and fast and easy to focus on, and it was only once inside and preparing to slam the door behind him that he felt something catch at the flapping tail of his coat.

He spun, the material of the coat twisting about his torso and tightening beneath his armpits as he aimed the gun and fired at the half-eaten head of the zombie that had a grip on him, knocking the hand free of his coat and kicking the collapsing body back out of the door before slamming it shut. He also saw that there would be nothing there to block the door, so he turned and began to follow after her, praying they could make it back to the door he'd entered through before the glass gave or the rotting shitheads outside figured out how to yank open the door.

He noticed that he was gaining on her much more quickly than he had outside, even with the head start she'd had, and after a second more he realized that in addition to the pounding of his feet, he also heard the sharp, rapid clack of heels. He looked down at her feet and then at the waxed floor that was typical in most office corridors, swearing as he pushed himself to catch up with her, then hooked an arm around her waist and hoisted her up his side so that she could wrap her arms around his neck without breaking stride. It was something he would've done for anyone in that situation, though he was glad that she was small and easy to carry, as he was already winded from running and fear.

There was a door coming up at the end of the hall, and while it looked familiar he couldn't be sure as most every door he was running by just then looked identical. "That one?" He asked, making it a question through panted breaths, not wanting to waste time as he heard the shattering of glass and the chattering, wet moans of the things moving in behind them.

[assistingconsultant]

Ok, that was a first. And strange how she thought of that in conjnction with being carried by a man on the run, and not about the fact they were being chased by zombies. She was about to protest, but she doubted he would have picked her up if it was going to be slow going; she supposed she was grateful he wasn't just going to leave her behind (yes, she'd seen those movies; people were complete jerks in them, to thicken the plot).

Oh, so he was from the Nexus. Clearly he'd made the same mistake as her. "Yes!" she called, trying to simultaneously look back over his shoulder and not hit him with a zombie-encrusted baton.

[burdenofproof]

Luther could hear the zombies behind them, could practically smell their scent of rot and pooling body fluids getting closer, and his knees lifted as his legs pumped, driving himself and the woman forward so quickly that he almost couldn't stop in time and wound up running through the door like a goddamn Roadrunner cartoon as opposed to jerking it open. The knob twisted mercifully beneath his hand, swinging open to show the hotel he'd left on the other side, and Luther turned to the side to get the woman on his side through first, letting go of her waist to sit her on her feet on the hotel carpet before following her through and slamming the door behind them. He was panting as he staggered to the opposite side of the corridor, putting his back firmly against the wall before leaning over to brace his weight on his knees and and just breathe for a moment.

"What-" he started, then took a few more gasping breaths before continuing. "What the fuck was that?!"

[assistingconsultant]

Joan stumbled but, mercifully, stayed on her feet, throwing her hands out to keep her balance. When the door closed with a resounding slam behind her, she felt relieved, but she still turned to look, and watch. She hoped nothing else would open that door, and nothing would come through. Oh, she hoped.

But thankfully, it stayed still. Not a tremour to show what was going on behind it. Her baton sagged closer to the floor, and she let out a breath, before turning to the man who had joined her. "Zombies," she said, even though she knew that was the obvious response. "A door that leads to zombies... why is that?" The second part was more a remark to herself.

Aware that her baton was spattered in all kinds of things that she was really not looking forward to cleaning off, she angled it slightly behind her, and set her other hand forward to offer in a handshake. "Joan Watson," she said. "Thanks. You're a cop?" The signs were all there. She was used to the look.

[burdenofproof]

Luther slowly became aware of a tightness around his fingers and looked down to find the gun wedged along the third digit of his index finger, the metal digging into flesh and making it bulge. He swore, pointing the gun at the ground as he attempted to extract it from his hand without setting off another shot, carefully minding the trigger until it was far enough down that he could flick on the safety without jamming his finger. It slid free as the woman gave her explanation, and he looked up at her with his brow furrowed and a slight squint as she wondered out loud why that door in particular led to zombies. It was a pretty good question, Luther had to figure, but a better one would be what the hell this hotel was and why it had doors that led anywhere other than outside or to another room.

He holstered his gun and was about to begin asking her just those questions when her hand came out for a shake and she introduced herself. He took her hand and found she had a good grip for someone so small and deceptively delicate looking, and was reminded of how he'd scooped her up and practically carried her through the door like a child on his hip. He cleared his throat. "John Luther," he replied. "It's nice to meet you, Joan. I'm sorry about that," he said with a vague gesture to the door. "I was afraid your shoes would slip on that floor and you'd fall."

While being 'gentlemanly' wasn't usually something that was high on Luther's list when his life was in danger, he had been raised correctly and he knew grabbing a woman up and carrying her off, even if it was to save her life, deserved an apology. She could've whacked him in the head with her baton for it, but she hadn't and he was grateful.

"I am a copper," he said, though he was long used to being asked that question. He'd had 'that look' about him since he was a boy, it would seem. "I can't figure out how the hell I wound up here, though. What is this place? I came through that door," he pointed to the door they'd just left, "but when I tried to go back through to where I came from, there was a goddamn zombie apocalypse."

[assistingconsultant]

Joan underwent two realizations. One: this man had only just found the Nexus, and, therefore, was not accustomed to its ways (she had been in the Nexus for months, it seemed, and she still was not accustomed to it; in comparison, fresh arrival was surely the worst). Two: she still had a speck of zombie brain matter on her cheek.

The second realization immediately wanted to call in effect her gag reflex; instead, with the calm hands of someone who, under pressure, had slit and sliced her way into living beings to try to fix whatever had gone wrong, she pulled some kleenex from her pocket and, trying not to look like she was utterly revolted and mostly succeeding, carefully wiped it away.

"It's okay," she said, to him having picked her up. "I appreciate it." Her taste in shoes rarely had comfort in mind; she enjoyed it after years of wearing scrubs and the ugliest, most practical shoes available. "This is the Nexus. If you believe in magic just call it magic, if you don't, it's probably science at its most advanced. The doors here lead to different places, and there must have been a door where you're from that suddenly connected here, I guess."

[burdenofproof]

Luther found himself taking in the entirety of Joan for the first time, minutes into their meeting, though he supposed his tardiness could be excused by the fact that he'd first encountered her in the middle of a life and death situation with zombies. He noticed then, that she was very exotically beautiful, and as an afterthought, that she had a chunk of...something on her cheek.

He looked away as she moved to wipe it clean, clearing his throat and rubbing at the bridge of his nose with a fingertip as he battled his own urge to gag. The sight of that brain matter or whatever it was riding the jut of her cheekbone brought back a crystal clear memory of what it'd sounded and looked and smelled like when Joan had split that walker's head open, and that was a little too much for him just then.

Her explanation of the hotel was enough to distract him from any nausea he might've been feeling, and he looked back up at her sharply. Words like "magic" didn't exist where he came from, and science to the nth degree seemed almost equally unfathomable. Still, he was the sort to firmly believe in at least all that he could see, and all that he'd seen thus far was enough to drive home the fact that what Joan said made sense, considering. He didn't know her, but she seemed put together and more than a little reasonable.

"Well, fuck me," he exhaled, rubbing at his forehead as he considered it all. "So... We stuck here? Or does one of these doors lead home, too?"

[assistingconsultant]

Her cheek cleaned off (though after she left him she was going straight to her room to shower) she was aware that her baton was a sticky mess all on its own. Still, she didn't feel like facing that particular task just yet and kept her arm carefully crooked at the elbow so that she had it both out of their lines of sight.

He was more crass than the cops she knew, but it wasn't like Joan was of a delicate nature. "I don't know about anyone else," she said, "but I can move between here and home just fine. If your door moves on you, though, maybe you're meant to stick around for a little bit more. I don't know."

Again, the thought that the hotel might be some kind of entity; weird, but it wouldn't be a shock if that was indeed the case. She preferred to think of it as random but with logical causes, if she were to mull over it longer - like the weather, ever changing, but it had its cycles.

[burdenofproof]

"Really," Luther said, not making the word a question as he thought that over. He couldn't imagine the sort of mental ease it would require to move fluidly from home to a world where opening a door could lead you to zombies and back again, but he supposed most human minds were made of stronger stuff than he gave them credit for. Adapting was a human instinct, to be sure, and he couldn't outright say that if he tried the next door down the hall and found his route home that he wouldn't come back here eventually. It just wasn't in him to leave well enough alone.

"How long have you been here, Joan?" He asked. "I mean since the first time you arrived. How long have you been going back and forth?"

He found the idea of jumping worlds fascinating, like something off of one of those Sci Fi shows Zoe had gotten a kick out of when they were young. Because he found it fascinating he was not immediately sure he could do it himself with as much aplomb as Joan apparently was, but he knew he could do what he had to, if it came right down to it.

[assistingconsultant]

"A few months," she answered, having stayed silent while he obviously thought about what she had said. "I live in New York." She was aware, too, that just because he spoke in an accent she vaguely recognized (English, and then her understanding stopped right there) didn't mean he came from a place that had an England, and, therefore, may not have a United States in which her New York existed. Still, beating around the bush or asking him if he knew New York State would just be a waste of time.

"I come here for extra time. My life is busy at home and I can relax here. Well," she amended, with a short, humourless laugh, "The past half hour being a bit of an exception."

[burdenofproof]

Vacations had never really been a priority for Luther, not that he could've never have gotten away from the job, but mostly because he'd never wanted to. He didn't know how to be idle or relax for longer than a night or two, which is why he'd heard of the New York that Joan spoke of, but had never gone there himself. He wondered if he did find his way home, if he could treat this place as a retreat, as Joan did. It seemed like a good idea in theory, but he was understandably wary after having so much bad luck right out of the gate.

"It's pretty nice here then, yeah?" He asked. "Outside of occasionally stumbling into some sort of Romero wet dream."

[assistingconsultant]

"Yeah," Joan agreed. "Except for... that. It's a pretty nice hotel, and everyone here has their own room. And most of the time the doors to other places aren't as upsetting as... that."

Now that the threats were behind her, it was easier to try to ignore what had just occurred. As far as gruesomeness went, she supposed it was no different than finding a headless man in an oil barrel, though that man didn't try to kill her after they found him. "Where are you from, John?" she asked.

[burdenofproof]

"Well, that's a relief," Luther said, turning to look down the corridor at the doors that lined both sides, counting them idly and imagining where, if anywhere, all of them might go. However, even if one of those doors lead to paradise, he wasn't the sort that could trust it. "I think I'll have to be a bit more cautious now. No more running through doors willy nilly in this place."

"London," he said, remembering yet again that for all that had happened, it was still a first meeting and he had manners to attend to. He gave Joan a bit of a smile. "I had some friends go to New York once. They said it was plenty like London, but I've never been myself. You ever go to London?"

[assistingconsultant]

"You're telling me. I usually have a great time trying doors, but I'm going to have to look a little more closely now." Why would anyone want to set up a portal to a world like that? Joan considered the hotel to be more like a sanctuary than anything else - it seemed to exist in its own pocket of, well, existence, like a well-tended garden in a busy city - so she didn't understand why a door like that would crop up.

"I've been to London," she said, glad there was this similarity to latch onto. "Just for work, though. I admit I didn't have enough time to really enjoy the place. I suppose it is like New York - the crowds, and the tourists. Only with a lot more cameras." The amount of security footage being taken in London was staggering to her and, she admitted, did upset that annoyingly American part of her that objected to the idea of no privacy. As a consulting detective though, it was a joy to consider.

[burdenofproof]

"What do you do for a living, Joan?" He asked, as he was suddenly curious. She was obviously whip smart, he could tell that from even their brief conversation, but he could not make a proper guess on what sort of work she did. She was dressed stylishly and well put together, and the fact that she'd traveled from New York to London for work would point him toward professional of some sort, but of which sort he did not know. It also occurred to him that he should perhaps offer to buy her a drink at some point in the future, if only because she seemed pleasant, courteous, and intelligent, and when in new and potentially dangerous places people like that always made for a good ally, and that was saying nothing of what a person like her could be as a friend.

The thought of buying her a drink brought him around to something else, and he gave her another smile. "So you said this place is a hotel - I can get a room and someplace to shower, then? I'd like to talk more over drink if you'd be so willing to indulge me, but I think we'd both probably prefer a good scrub first after that whole mess." He hadn't forgotten the speck of brain matter on her cheek or her baton, and he highly doubted she had, either.

[assistingconsultant]

"I help consult on cases for the NYPD," Joan replied, easily enough. "I got into it through a friend. It's not in an official capacity or anything, but I also take independent cases." At the moment she was being paid by Sherlock as an assistant, though Joan hoped that one day she would be confident enough in her skills that she would be able to take on paid cases and actually make a proper living out of it, outside of Sherlock's help.

"Everyone here has a room. When people arrive here it gets set up - or the other way around, but that's a little too creepy to think about." Creepy, but incredibly convenient. "If you ask at the front desk they can tell you where to find your room. The room numbers don't always make a lot of sense on their own." She glanced down at her shoes, which, to her dismay, were no longer quite as pristine as they had been - and she'd worn them in New York, so that was saying something. "Yeah, I could probably use a shower. I likely smell like... dead things."

[burdenofproof]

"Oh yeah?" Luther said as he processed that. She said she'd gone to London for work before, which made him wonder if she'd ever had her fingers in a case he'd be working on. The list was too long to compare, though, and he was too tired at that point to attempt to go into the grisly specifics that may or may not have been involved in an attempt to trigger his memory. "I work for the SCU," he said. "Detective Chief Investigator. Sometime we'll have to compare notes and see if we've ever been sniffing after the same shithead."

There was much about this place that pounded at him for his attention, as he'd been there for roughly twenty minutes or so and had already had his world rocked on multiple occasions. The fact that there was a hotel room waiting for him already was disturbing, but he supposed no more disturbing than walking from one universe to another with the casual use of a door. "Plenty creepy," he agreed. "Is there some way I can contact you here?"

[assistingconsultant]

"Well, I was only there for one case and we closed it," she said. "But my partner is from London and he's worked a lot of those cases before he relocated." Relocated was a polite way of saying his father had bundled Sherlock off to a rehabilitation facility. "So maybe you two have read the same files before. Who knows?"

Of course, from what she knew Sherlock had always worked with Lestrade, and the relationship had not been a healthy one. From what Joan knew of Lestrade he was not very well-grounded like John was, but then again, maybe he hadn't started out that way until the fame from Sherlock's cases got to his head. "Oh, if you have a pen I can give you my number," she said. "I have a phone that really only works here. You can pick one up at the front desk, as well."

[burdenofproof]

Joan's words made him think of his own mobile, and he patted down his pockets until he found his phone tucked away in the inside pocket of his coat. He hadn't expected it to work here, but when he withdrew the contraption from his pocket and found that it had no signal he sighed. It was handy that he also had a pen and a tablet that he carried about in case he needed to take notes, but that was rarely ever the case. If Joan told him the number he would likely even remember, but he offered her the pen and the notepad instead.

"I'll do that, then," he said when she said he could pick up his own mobile. It'd been a long while since he'd found himself in the position he was in then, though it didn't feel as awkward as it had when he was a young man and had asked a lady for her number. As beautiful as Joan obviously was, the fact they'd survived the zombie apocalypse together had served to negate his nerves. "Is your partner here too?" He asked, figuring it'd be polite to invite him along as well when he called Joan eventually to ask for a drink.

[assistingconsultant]

Not really able to stick her baton under her arm to hold it while she wrote - she didn't want any of what was on it to get on her - she settled for leaning it carefully against the wall before taking up the paper and pen, jotting the number down.

"No, he's not here," she said, while she wrote down her name, as well. "He doesn't even know this place exists. I've no idea how I've managed to hide it for this long - I have a feeling if I cracked and told him I travel through dimensions every few days and tried to show him the door it just wouldn't open up to here. Sometimes even when he's nearby it won't work at all, so I don't think he'd be able to come through. If I tried to tell him he wouldn't rest until he'd figured it out and I don't know if he ever could without proper evidence."