Mr Hook's Big Black Box

Ferrari Delguessimo: The Accident

So, I was in the elevator with the crate. I told Monty that because she'd used the emergency button to open the doors, we'd have to press the close buttons both inside and outside before it would start moving again. So she stepped out to close the doors, and I think that must have been right. The outer doors closed, but it took a few attempts at pressing the button before the ones inside the elevator closed too.

That was when I started moving the crate. I was thinking about what was the quickest way to get it to the truck. I just walked it on the back two corners, pivoting around a stable point, until I had it lined up so that when we opened the door we could just tilt it out. But there was a hole in the timber, and when I gripped it the lid flexed slightly, like there weren't enough nails to hold it in place. The elevator started moving at just the right time – or the wrong time, depending on your perspective. I was holding a lid that wasn't securely attached, and the jolt was enough that the whole crate started to topple.

I could have pulled harder, could have dived around to grab it, I know my reflexes are good enough. But I also knew how easy it was to be injured moving something heavy. As soon as the lid started to separate, with the Box not standing solidly, I knew it could twist in any direction without warning. I dived back to the far side of the elevator, programmed on an instinctive level to let the cargo fall on its own rather than risk it hitting me.

I dived to the corner and covered my face with my arms in case of flying pieces of broken wood. But it was solid, the Box leaning neatly against the inside of the door. Neater than I could have imagined, I thought for a second that if I grabbed the bottom corners and Marco took the top, we could just lean it back a little more and carry the whole thing straight down the corridor between the two of us. Then I realised how dumb that thought was, and tried to erase it from my mind while I worked out the pros and cons of the now-open lid.

We weren't supposed to open the Box, I knew, but I couldn't resist taking a little peek once it was already hanging loose. I didn't open it more than it already was, just took a look. If we were going to be disbanded or whatever, seeing what all the fuss was about wouldn't make any difference. And maybe if the cracks in the Box weren't too serious, we could pin the lid back on and nobody would be any the wiser. It was hardly our fault in any case, if this thing managed to open itself because it wasn't sealed properly.

I peered through the crack along the edge, between two nails whose tips now barely touched the edge of the crate body. I couldn't see much between, but I could tell right away that the crate had been custom-made for the task. The lid was a half dozen parallel planks, with a rectangular border made of more planks both inside and outside, to give structural strength. There were also four short battens on the inside, dividing the surface into squares. I assumed they would be to prevent it flexing. That could have been any crate, I could guess the structure with just a quick glance. But in this case, two of the battens on the inside of the lid stood slightly proud, and were less than a quarter inch apart. There were solid bolts driven through both and tightened, to firmly hold something between them.

It was a key. I could just about guess that much, and that meant that the dark bulk filling most of the crate was another container. A Black Box, and that meant that we hadn't failed at all. We had a Box, and we had a key that went with it, and despite all the jolting the crate had received, it wasn't going to break. It was clear now that the real Box wouldn't come open by accident. We couldn't fail this task unless one of us deliberately inserted that key and turned it. Or re-inserted, I should say. Because with the key's head sandwiched between two bits of wood like that, it looked like the crate was designed to hold it in the keyhole. I couldn't see any reason for something like that, but it wasn't our problem. All we had to do was not open the Box.

Our problem right then, it turned out, was some unexpected behaviour in the elevator's programming for emergencies or power failures. Or maybe Dwayne had pressed some button in the plant room that I didn't know about. As I was looking, the slow movement of the elevator drifted to a stop, and then I heard a different motor engage as the doors started to open. I didn't know if I had time to grab the Box and brace myself to support the weight before it fell through the gap, but I could tell that trying and failing would be a disaster. So I leapt away again, ducked down and shielded my face. The crate disintegrated in a crash, and when I looked again there was a coffin shaped construct of crimson-black metal lying in the corridor.