Mr Hook's Big Black Box

Marco Schmidt: Call for Help

The room was one of a dozen scattered around the building. In theory they were locked so only authorized students of the department could come in here, for meetings vaguely related to their studies. But the swipe card system was virtually never turned on, and whether you even got a card depended on which tutor led your group. In practice, if anyone wanted a room to revise together or to plan tactics for some sporting event, they'd push on doors until they found one open, and then put the latch on when they were inside.

The walls were institutional grey, with red and orange bands around the skirting boards and coving. There were two desks in this room, and enough space to seat seven people, though there was space to cram in a dozen if you didn't mind standing. The desks were slate grey, with the same coloured strips around the edges. Some architect or interior designer had probably won awards for the idea of a colour-coordinated meeting room, but I really couldn't see the point. It did the job, though. It wasn't fancy, just a box for talking to people in. I clicked the latch as Cassie took a seat behind me, and then sat down on the opposite side of the table.

"Okay, I'm scared," she started, "I thought it was all just a game."

"The Box?" I felt a little lost, "Did one of your societies have it at some point?"

"The volleyball club. I'm a member as a cheerleader. We had this Box for nearly six months, standing in the corner of our room, and then we had to pass it on, right?" I raised an eyebrow involuntarily at that. It was hard to believe that someone's experience could be so different from ours.

"Anyway, it was some stupid game. Nobody cares what's in this Box. But then last week, a guy comes to a couple of us and says the whole thing with the Box is some experiment, psychology or something. There's some money in it if we can help with it. We said yes, of course. It sounded like it would be a laugh. They said we should find an excuse to talk to the next group who were getting the Box, that's you guys, and try to trick one of you into opening it behind the other's backs. I wasn't so sure, that seems like it could cause rocky friendships, you know, but Professor Hawthorne was with this group, and he said it wasn't anything serious, it wouldn't hurt anyone, we just had to come up with a lame excuse to give one of you."

She paused there, and I thought a little about what she'd said. It was entirely possible, in that case, that the reasons Nigel had given me weren't really valid. But how could I tell anyway?

"Anyway, it was all just some fun, right? But then, Tuesday evening Mirabelle saw the box, the one we'd been looking after, in a Dumpster behind the Environmental Sciences building. Well, in a skip. She called it a Dumpster because she's American. And we wondered, do they make a new one every time, or something. She called the guy, because she was curious, and found out the number he'd given us had been disconnected. Like he's using a disposable phone or something, like they do in the movies. And then we were mad, because if we can't call him how are we supposed to get paid? I put a lot of thought into that story. And what use is it anyway, if they haven't got the recordings of what we said for their research notes?"

"I guess they could have a new Box each year," I nodded, "But none of what they told you makes sense if the phone they gave you doesn't work any more. I think I can find some sense, though. See, this time there's a few groups trying to steal the Box. Some of them are even prepared to pretend to be the police, with fake badges and everything. And another group are running round campus with guns. I don't know why, my best guess is that somewhere along the line something got stashed inside the Box, like drugs or something, and everybody wants it back. We already know they don't like the law. So maybe this guy who offered you money was one of these too, he just wanted it opened."

"Criminals? Oh God, they're not?" Cassie lost the carefully studied smile, and I knew there was more to this story.

"What happened?" I didn't waste time on niceties, I was too worried about my friends now. The answer here could turn out to include something we really needed to know.

"Well, Mirabelle's a smart girl. Like the nerd type, but her glasses aren't real. She reckons she found a way to get in touch with these guys even though the number they'd given us stopped working. She said she had an appointment to talk to the guy in charge, so she could get a new number and make sure everything happened like it was supposed to. Then afterwards, she didn't come back. Her phone's got no signal or something, I can't get through to her. I'm worried about my friend, it's not like her to just lose contact. If it's criminals, do you think they might have..." she trailed off, but I could guess where that sentence went.

"So you came to see Nigel? Do you think he'd help?"

"Maybe. He was with them, I know that much. He took money from them too. He could at least tell me how far to trust those dudes."

"I was just going to see him about a similar thing," I said after a moment to think, "You'd better stay with me for a while. No telling what these guys could try if they think you're working for the enemy, so safer not to go alone."

"You really think something could have happened to her?"

"It's hard to guess, we barely know anything. Maybe Nigel can tell us more, I hope so. We should ask your friend's classmates and neighbours too, see if she's told anyone what's up. If her phone broke or something then she might not have got around to telling everybody, or she might not have your number."

"I guess, it just feels weird coming the day after she was going to call those guys. Especially now you said they're criminals."

"Yeah. So we'll check. If you can tell me where she lives, I'll get one of my friends to go round while we talk to Nigel." She nodded and gave me the address of a campus room. I texted Dwayne, though I had to leave out a lot of detail to get it into one message. He wasn't any kind of detective or private investigator, but he watched a lot of them on TV and I figured he'd be competent to go round to the building and ask the neighbours if anyone had seen a friend.