Sherlock awoke with his right wrist throbbing. His eyes flew open and he sat up, gripping his wrist tightly. Sherlock stood and moved to the bathroom quickly; he ran warm water over his wrist, over the timer that was embedded into his pale skin. The timer served a useless purpose, at least in Sherlock's opinion, for it meant that he had a - he swallowed hard and narrowed his eyes at the thing - soul mate.
The word made him cringe because Sherlock had always, since the age of eleven, considered himself married to his work. Not a single person on this planet could ruin this for him; not a single person except his "soul mate". Perhaps he could figure out a way to avoid meeting this other being?? Maybe they had only given him a timer so he didn't feel so alone? Not likely, but even so, he hoped; they couldn't honestly believe that he would find someone who could match his intellect and skills?
"Ridiculously absurd," Sherlock muttered to himself as he wiped his timer with a dry towel. No, it wasn't something he looked forward to; in fact he was dreading it completely. Sherlock Holmes in love, a human being? "Preposterous," he said, lost in his thoughts as he wandered back into the bedroom.
He had never been one to socialize much, and even as he grew up, he distanced himself from Mycroft - his own brother. Sherlock was just too different to be around them, so he had moved on and moved out. Perhaps one day they could agree on something, but Sherlock knew better. The chances for that miracle were slim to none.
The timer throbbed again, and his eyes darted to it. The numbers began to flicker and change, counting down. Minutes before, it had read 60 days, 12 hours, 2 minutes. Now, the strange machine read 48 days, 7 hours, 0 minutes.
The way the timer worked still confused - no, not confused, intrigued - him, because how could a human tell when you would meet your "official significant other"? Let alone the technology created be these beings to do this job would, or should, be as useful as Anderson. How would they expect someone to build a thing like this, for this purpose? Then there was the issue of how they had managed, so brilliantly, to genetically compose them into the skin and have it withstand the "natural weather" of the homosapien's body.
These thoughts troubled him as he watched the numbers jump around once again. It seemed to double, then suddenly split again. This frustrated him further as he rubbed the timer with his thumb. Sherlock allowed a small sigh to escape his throat as the numbers finally settled to 0 days, 0 hours, 40 minutes.
Sherlock glanced at the clock by his bedside - 9:18 AM. His phone began ringing; odd that Lestrade would be calling quite so early. He allowed the voicemail to pick it up while he went to take a shower. Had it been an emergency, Lestrade would force Anderson to call him.
After his shower, he quickly got dressed and pocketed his phone, walking outside. Sherlock hailed a cab and when inside, sent Lestrade a text message. It read, "Meet me at the lab. -SH". A sinking feeling set in on his stomach; Lestrade had new people for him to meet, he just knew it, and most likely one of them was his "other half".