Mr Hook's Big Black Box

«Revelation»

"You figured it out this time?" Ferrari asked, eyebrow raised.

"Yeah," Kris muttered, "Your friend of a friend picked up the Box when he got the car. That's why the tow truck came here, even though they took my car back to their workshop."

"Just like that," Dwayne smiled, "I love it when a plan comes together."

"It's pretty neat," Kris admitted, "But you could have run into the same problem I did. You trusted someone else."

"Guess so," Ferrari frowned, "We trusted him because Marco had family vouching for him. But if Carl's guy had been as reliable as your uncle's guy, we would have lost right there. He was alone with the Box for quite a while, so he could have done anything."

"Not so easily," Marco shrugged, "I mean, I was alone with the Box for a whole three minutes after he left, and I couldn't get into it."

"You were still trying?" Ferrari was shocked, "Even after you found out your department's explanation makes no sense and there's real international criminals after the thing?"

"Well," Marco looked down at his hands, "I guess I got kind of caught up in the idea that it was all a show, that it wasn't real. That kind of made sense at the start, when it was a couple of guys pulling the breaker on the elevator to get into our room. We never saw them shoot anyone, so maybe the guns were just for show. It could be a psych experiment or something, judging how we'd respond, so it made sense they'd get some theatrics in. Then the guys on the ring road were pretty bad actors, which kind of reinforced that. By the time people were actually shooting at us, I'd got it so ingrained in my mind that the whole thing was staged, I didn't stop to think how much effort it would have taken to put that show together, how unlikely it would have been for it to come off as they planned. It seemed real in the moment, we were running for our lives, but when I was alone with the Box my mind went right back to what Hawthorne had told me. That none of this was for real."

"It's established in psychology," Destinee pointed out, "When your worldview is challenged, it's easier to stretch it to fit facts that don't quite fit than to start over and realise you've done something stupid."

"I think I had some of that too," Dwayne nodded, "It was all about Cassie's video, I kept on thinking that right through. When the government guys showed up, I assumed somebody higher up had an old secret in the Box. But I don't think the president of any country ever studied at Lanchester, and that's what it would have needed to justify such an elaborate operation. Once I'd decided they were after the Box for the same reason I was, just a different skeleton in someone's closet, I didn't reevaluate that belief as the situation carried on escalating."

"You didn't get the Box open, Marco?" Kris changed the subject a little to spare Dwayne any further embarrassment, "You were leaning over it when I came in, but I didn't see what happened really."

"Well, my goal was different from all of yours. I didn't need to get anything out of the Box in secret, or to give the whole thing to anyone. I didn't need to worry about going back upstairs with a dirty movie hidden under my coat, or getting a shipping manifest to my uncle, or anything. Opening it would be enough, and I figured I had time for that...