Mr Hook's Big Black Box

«Memories»

The old club room was half destroyed. More than half, really. But the student societies' rooms were almost an afterthought built on top of the Mendeleev Building, so whoever was responsible for such decisions had been content to leave it in that state once the damage to the actual academic rooms had been repaired. There was still scaffolding on the roof, implying that there had been an intention to continue repairs at some point, but it had never been followed through on.

Still, room SCA:420 was an important memory to the LUSARS survivors, and they all realised on some level that they would have been disappointed if they'd come back and found that all traces of their final year had been erased.

"I thought... I thought they'd have cleared it up," Dwayne gasped, "I've been so close the last few years, and I never even thought to check. "

"I thought they would have demolished the whole building," Ferrari countered, "The elevators never worked properly, half the teaching rooms had a damp problem, they even talked about subsidence. You know they only gave the space up here to the societies because student societies have more lax health and safety regulations? I heard they kept applying for funding to have the whole of Mendeleev demolished and a new building in its place, state of the art facilities. But it's about the only surviving building that the architect designed, bet nobody wondered why, it's a listed building and all the rest."

"Oh yes," Dwayne nodded, "They applied to have the status changed again. They thought that when the supporting walls needed repair, and there'd been news reports about terrorists, they might have a chance to knock it down. But the government said that just makes it more historic, and anyway there were no actual terrorists."

"Everybody thinks there was, though."

"Yeah, but the government requires proof for something like that. It's kind of the problem when nobody can really remember. I mean, you think they would–"

"Hey, guys!" Destinee's voice cut across the conversation from the roof outside. The fire escape seemed to have been sealed now, but she'd managed to pull off some of the hazard tape and slip through the edge of the tarpaulin. "Guys, guess who's down there!" Kris and Dwayne both raced over to the opening, careful that the ground they were walking across was safe, and went out to join her.

Destinee was standing on the edge of the roof, where a three-metre wide section of barrier fence was missing, aluminium tubes replaced by trailing ends of blackened molten slag. She had one hand on a piece of scaffolding, standing so close to the edge that the slightest gust of wind could blow her away. But she wasn't scared at all; Destinee had probably never been scared in her life. She just trusted that the world wouldn't hurt her because she was a nice person, and had mostly turned out to be right.

Of course, bad things happened. Nobody could lead an entirely charmed life, and the chaos of a certain week in 2009 had probably been a whole lifetime's worth of undeserved harm. That was why there was no longer a Montgomery Darwin; but Destinee had just looked past the pain and decided to start a new chapter in her life. That was her personality in a nutshell; she only ever saw the positive side, and every failure was a chance to try again.

Right now, as her friends edged closer and hoped she wouldn't fall, she was pointing at the athletics track, visible over the roof of the Turner Building. The summer break had recently started, so alumni coming for the reunion weren't wading through crowds of current students. But the bright red of athletics club uniforms was still visible around the track, as if it was just another day in training. It was a scene this group of friends had stood here to watch plenty of times in the past, though this was the first time they'd been back since the loss of the safety rail at the roof edge.

"The uniforms haven't changed," Kris commented, "I wonder what their lap times are like these days."

"You should wave to Marco!" Destinee giggled, "The gang's all here except him, we should get him to come up too."

"Is Marco there?" Kris peered out at the track. He couldn't see much more than coloured blobs as runners moved around the track. But Destinee's eyes must be better, because she was sure enough to jump up and down, waving.

"The athletics alumni must have wanted a run for old times' sake," Dwayne muttered, "The current team's practice finished for summer a couple of weeks ago. But how can you tell from this distance?"

"It's the way he runs," Destinee grinned, "anyway, we got to call him. Anybody got the horn?" Dwayne looked around the abandoned construction site on the roof, but didn't see anything. Back when the club was active, Montgomery had started stowing an airhorn up here, giving four quick blasts to get Marco's attention when he got too carried away running. If he heard it now they could be pretty confident he'd see them on the rooftop, but the noise from the party in the main hall was maybe enough to drown out the horn even if they could find it.

"We must have an easier way," Kris waved his cellphone, "I'll klatter him, let him know we're having a club reunion aside from the main festivities. "

"That's a great idea," Dwayne cracked a smile, "We could reminisce about old times, all the great moments we had, and see if we remember the same..."

His voice trailed off and the smile almost faded as he noticed Destinee forcing a smile. She seemed as cheerful as always, but he could guess that she was hurting inside.

"I'm sorry," he murmured, "I didn't think. You seem so cheerful, and looking for the horn like that, it was like the old days again."

"Don't be upset because of me," Destinee grinned, and the smile had real life in it this time. As always, she could find the bright side of any situation in just a few moments. "Amnesia's annoying, but it's not like we've got to deny the fun times you had with Monty. If you guys all talk about what you enjoyed most, then maybe I can remember it, or if not then I'm sure I can imagine. In fact, let's do that. I've decided, I want to know all the fun stuff you did."

Back in the club room, they found that working together made it not too hard to clear a space, and to set up a folding table in the middle of the room. They could sit around and talk, in surroundings that held so many memories for all of them. Both the times they'd spent here watching movies, arguing about the differences between fictional and mythical, mythical and historical samurai. And the events that had closed down the society in the end, an incident that had shaken the whole campus.

"I call this meeting to order," Ferrari grinned, "What's on the agenda?"

"Isn't Kris still president?"

"The role of the kaityou," Kris was about as close as any of them to correctly pronouncing the Japanese word for 'society president', but it always sounded odd in a sentence surrounded by his heavily accented English, "Has a time limit of one year. If an election is not held, the treasurer's fulfilment of the role is automatic, so I believe Ferrari must have the floor."

"Fair enough," Dwayne shrugged, "I don't know how you remember this stuff. Anyway, Madam President, we were going to talk about old stories, help Destinee fill in some of the gaps in her memory."

"About the Box?" Ferrari raised an eyebrow, "I guess it makes sense. Are we all okay with that?"

"I was thinking more about the club activities she's missed out on. But I think we never really talked about the Box after we passed it on to the next group, so a bit of reminiscence might be good for us. Kind of wrap up the loose ends, sort of thing?"

"That would be great," Destinee beamed, "I mean, that week pretty much decided who I'm going to be, and half of it I didn't have a clue what was going on. I'd like to put those memories into a story that makes sense, if you don't mind."

"Sure," Dwayne nodded, "Why don't I start? I was the one who opened the letter, after all." There was just a chorus of nods, so he took a deep breath and tried to remember the feelings of what had started as an ordinary day of studies fifteen years before.