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]

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."