"Perhaps," says Sherlock with a frown--the personal vexation over his flat's gone for the time being, replaced by a deeper sort of preoccupation--"we weren't being entertaining enough as it was."

The theory's thin, but they're all thin. There's nowhere to start with theorizing when it comes to Taxon. There's no ground to stand on, no established facts, no assumptions for the formal proof. The idea that Taxon's shrinking and gaining more dangerous aspects for captors' personal amusement seems as valid as any. The idea of it compressing into some sort of enlarged gladiatorial arena seems unpalatable, and unfortunately also highly plausible. "I'm afraid the likelihood of virtual reality is growing increasingly high."