In Trouble

"Through Cavendish, Andrew contacted a private biosecurity company called Cerberus Life Sciences. The company has a powerful background and countless ties to both the military and the intelligence services."

"They specialize in special applications of cutting-edge biological agents, which aligns with our research. I'm afraid whoever's behind this may already be thinking of stealing the agent."

Meanwhile, Watson and Sitangna used the access granted by the police's resources to conduct an in-depth investigation into Cerberus Life Sciences.

What they found was alarming. Less than forty-eight hours before the incident, Cerberus Company's chief security officer, a man with a special forces background and a heavily redacted record, had secretly entered Cavendish's residence using the highest-level security pass.

He had stayed for two hours.

More troubling still, by tracing Cerberus's vast flow of funds, they discovered that the money from one of its largest anonymous investors ultimately led back to an offshore account.

The trail from that account, in turn, led to figures connected to several political and business giants marked "handle with extreme caution" on Mycroft's watchlist.

"Where did you get that watchlist?!" Mycroft shot to his feet. He didn't remember authorizing Lestrade to have it.

"Now! Immediately! Stop accessing the resources. All three of you, leave the police station at once and get back to Baker Street." Mycroft hung up as soon as he finished speaking and headed outside. Emily, in the assistants' office, was startled to see her boss like this.

"What happened?" Emily grabbed her shoulder bag, holstered her gun, and hurried after him.

"Sherlock somehow got hold of the watchlist. Worst of all, he just opened it at the police station using a private network. It's only a matter of time before those people find out."

Mycroft called Anthea over, and the three headed for the grandest and most authoritative office in Buckingham Palace.

The patter of their footsteps was especially jarring in the vast, empty hall. Emily kept thinking back over where she might have made a mistake, her jaw clenched tight.

"It's not your fault. I underestimated how interested that boy would be in this matter. If I'd known, I wouldn't have assigned him the clock tower case." With his two senior assistants, Mycroft passed the security checks and made it through the doors to the core office area.

"His intellect is average, but his powers of observation are first-rate. I thought it would take him at least half a month to notice certain things. Fortune and misfortune really do go hand in hand."

"Come on. We're going to see His Majesty."

"...I have a bad feeling about this. Maybe we should go back." It was the first time Mycroft had warned Watson so seriously, and he was on edge.

Sitangna hurriedly took the laptop from him, used the card Sherlock had stolen to delete the access records, and logged out.

"Did we get ourselves into trouble?" She swallowed and looked anxiously at Sherlock across the dissection table.

"This has nothing to do with you. If anyone's punished, it'll be me. You were only following my instructions."

Sherlock hurriedly stuffed the various reports into a kraft paper bag. They couldn't stay here long; he was taking them back for a closer look.

"I'll ask Lestrade to give you a ride." Molly hadn't heard the call, but seeing that something was wrong and they wanted to go back, she hurried to get help.

"Don't be scared. Mycroft just likes to frighten people. Those people are usually very busy. There's no way they can react fast enough to catch little mice like us."

Sherlock put his arms around the deathly pale Sitangna and Watson and ushered them out. It was the first time the pair had seen Brother Mycroft lose his temper, and they were probably shaken.

Watson's reaction stemmed from his nature as a soldier. The reprimand from a superior weighed heavily on him, and he worried for the safety of the team.

Sitangna, on the other hand, was afraid of the unknown. Candy wasn't there, and she didn't know what to make of this sudden turn of events.

Things were about to change.

Before getting into the car, Sitangna glanced at the café across from the hospital. She had the persistent feeling that someone had been watching them ever since they came out, but it was too far away for her to see clearly.

The three made it back to Baker Street without incident. It wasn't until Mrs. Hudson brought them hot cocoa that the other two little mice came to their senses. Sherlock, however, remained calm and began analyzing the information as soon as he got home.

"Isn't this a bit excessive for disguising his identity?" Sherlock asked, puzzled after reading Victor's blood test report and comparing it with the public security records.

"Victor's DNA doesn't match the data entered in the newborn database, but there's nothing unusual about his personal file, from his birth through graduation and work."

Sherlock opened Victor's personal blog, which contained a locked commemorative photo album.

"There really are photos from his childhood through to adulthood. Even the longest gap between selfies isn't more than a year." Watson scrolled slowly through the long album.

"Doesn't he have naturally curly hair? Why are there photos of him with straight hair?" Sitangna spotted something they had missed.

"And his birthday photos seem to have been taken at the same photo studio every year. They jump straight from age one to age seven. Why are the ones in between missing?"

Sherlock enlarged Victor's solo photo at age one, then opened the one from age seven and placed it beside the first for comparison.

"The people in these two photos aren't the same." Sherlock shoved Watson aside with his backside and sat down in front of the computer.

"Although I didn't often go back to the dorm at university, I smelled ammonia and hydrogen peroxide developer on Victor. That stuff is often used to perm, dye, and bleach hair."

"So he isn't a natural blond?" Sitangna leaned closer to the computer, looking at the seven-year-old Victor. "No wonder his scalp is a little red. It looks like he had an allergic reaction from too much exposure to bleach."

"His hair might not even be curly. The degree of curl was different every year after that. And looking back, the clothes he wore for the photo at seven were a larger version of the ones he wore at one, just in a different color."

Faced with their two astonished expressions, Watson scratched his head. As a child, he had often helped his older sister curl her hair at home, so he knew all about the different sizes of curling rods.

"You even spotted that! We really are a genius team!" Sitangna hurriedly recorded it in her phone's notepad. Maybe by the time Candy came back, she would already have completed the task on her own.

"To sum up, he isn't the real Victor Trevor. At the very least, he isn't the person in this photo at age one, or the person whose information was entered in the gene database."

"Who exactly is he? Where did the real Victor go? And why did the Trevor family get an impostor to play the role?"

They had no leads, but fortunately, the call they had been waiting so long for finally came.

"Councilman Andrew's case has been concluded and closed-it was an accidental death. The intruder was just a petty thief, an undocumented person with no identity who stole because it was hard to survive."

Mycroft stood at his office window, his mind wandering as he stared at the clock on the wall.

"You were never involved in this matter. You were only passing by. The councilman's suicide case ends here too. Sherlock, you are not to mention another word of it."

"Who is Victor?" Sherlock also walked over to the window. Dusty sunlight fell across his face and body, as though he and Mycroft were standing face to face.

"...He's just Victor." Mycroft paused for a moment, took the phone away from his ear to confirm it was a voice call, then regained his composure.

"You hesitated, Mycroft."

"What are you hiding? It doesn't matter if you don't want to tell me. I'll find out myself." Mycroft was strongly opposed to his digging any deeper. Sherlock knew it was to protect him, but as long as he remained in London, there were things he would have to face sooner or later.

"I'm not a child anymore, Mycroft."