Mr Hook's Big Black Box

Ferrari Delguessimo: Coffee Break

When Marco was satisfied there was nothing else to be found in Mira's room, we decided it would be safer to stick together for a while. It was a sobering thought, that someone so thorough and professional was operating on campus, that we were probably going to be their targets at some point, and yet we really had no idea who was responsible. We could have double checked with Mirabelle's classmates, tutors, and friends from other circles. But there seemed little point now. If the room had been cleaned that well, and she'd been missing a day, then whoever had killed her had made sure to leave no witnesses. We could only learn when was the last time she'd been seen.

We went to one of the little coffee shops that dotted campus. In my first year, nearly every department or faculty had a small kitchen for the use of office staff, a place they could go to get tea or coffee. Now there seemed to be a trend of these places opening up to students outside the department, as informal little cafés. It suited us fine, because it meant there were more than a dozen places on campus we could go for a drink, and it was so much harder for anyone to guess where we were.

This particular place was CSCS, one of Dwayne's favourite haunts. It stood for Computer Science Coffee Shop. The influence of the computing department, who had a whole load of labs upstairs and along the corridor, was obvious. There were two giant coffee machines on the side, which looked to have been heavily modified. Periodically one of them would start up, grumbling and hissing with steam, to dispense a carefully measured dose of coffee into the cup below. If one of the waitresses was free, they'd attach the label poking out of the printer to the cup, put it on a shelf at the side, and then slide a fresh cup under the machine. A student would be down a minute later, to collect a tray of cups destined for all the people in one computer room. If I saw Dwayne when we were both free during the day, he would drag me in here every time, and insist on telling me how marvellous the online ordering system was, being experimented with and improved on by every generation of students since the late '80s.

It was strange to be here without him. And I found myself eyeing the two big machines for new additions, looking for something interesting to tell Dwayne the next time I saw him. There wasn't anything I could see different, but I probably wouldn't have noticed anyhow. We ordered coffee (made the old fashioned way, in a pot manually operated by a waitress) and stared at the table while we sipped it. We both had things to say, and couldn't bring ourselves to say them. But eventually, one fact at a time, I told him as much as I could about the Box, and where it had come from.

My phone rang. A number that wasn't in my address book, and not one of the ones I recognised either. Still, I'd better take the call. I muttered "Sorry" to Marco before I answered.

"Jessie?" the speaker was whispering, and there was so much noise on the line that I couldn't easily identify him, "I'm sorry."

"What?" I said, "Sorry, I couldn't hear properly ..."

"You're in the wind," I was sure it was Trevor now. But I couldn't believe what I was hearing. I resisted the urge to interrupt in disbelief, and listened in silence while he explained:"The bureaucrats at Century House don't want to let us run this job, they're calling up all kinds of bullshit complaints about my conduct. Their guy, Mellor, has named himself my successor as soon as I'm out of action. I think they're trying to get control of the Tightrope project resources, it's all been a game. They've said you're too young to be an active agent, they're kicking you out. And it's your fault I'm incapacitated. I've done my best, called in favours, but I've done all I can now. Some of the network will still trust you, they know what it's like dealing with politics in something like this. They'll help you get out of town. But you can't use the switchboard, they'll ping you right away."

"Crap," I couldn't think of anything else to say. Then for emphasis, I repeated the sentiment in three or four other languages, before continuing: "I'm not running. We need it to be somewhere safe, that's more important than politics. Is there anything else you can tell me?"

I listened. It took maybe two minutes, and then he hung up.

"That was one of my friends," I told Marco, "He decided to try and investigate these groups who are chasing us, the soldiers and the spies. They're saying things like this isn't just a bomb, it's a demon."

"Can you ask what that means?"

"I think that's the last I'll hear from him," I spoke slowly, hoping it wasn't true, but knowing it just might be, "At the end he said some guys from the MI6 were onto him. But... the demon thing I think I understand. It's not just a weapon, it's a living weapon. Like a... android?" I was grasping at straws, I knew what I was trying to say but I didn't know the words, and using the same vocabulary Trevor had would just convince Marco that I was insane. I needed to get the meaning across. "Or a possessed machine. It's somehow sentient, or appears to be. It'll say what it has to, trying to persuade people to open it. The Russians think it's some kind of genie, but they're all for blending magic and science. The things that both groups are agreed on are..." I paused just a second, finished my drink while I checked out the facts in my head for consistency.

"One: whatever's in the Box might try to talk to us, convince us to open it. And two: opening it will be a disaster. The end of the world..."

"– as we know it?" Marco completed the sentence, injecting a little optimism that I didn't intend.

"We can only hope," I sighed, "that we'll never have to find out what kind of end they're referring to. I think–"

"Hey!" Marco half stood and waved across the café. Dwayne was just by the door, on the edge of my vision, but it still amazed me that Marco had spotted him before I did. I must be taking the stress from this case more seriously than I thought, losing my edge.

"Marco, Ferrari," Dwayne nodded at us as he came over, "Good to see you. I just called you, but your phone was busy. Can you... No, first things first. Marco, Monty wants to talk to you. Something she couldn't say to me, she's getting pretty scared."

Marco looked up, saw Monty standing at the door. His eyes darted back to his coffee, just refilled and sitting on the table in front of him. Then he looked at Monty again, saw the anguish in her expression, and left the café without a second thought.

Dwayne sat down in the space he'd just vacated, and took a sip of the steaming coffee before he started talking: "I'll get him a fresh one when he comes back. While I'm not privy to that conversation, I may as well tell you what we found at the house. Get everyone up to speed, right? See we found–"

"No," I interrupted, and sloshed coffee onto the table as I submerged my phone in the mug, "They've probably been tracking me, we need to get out of here right now."