Mr Hook's Big Black Box

«Courage»

"That must be what set them telling everybody to stay inside," Dwayne guessed, "When we went away, there were police rushing in, they'd heard there was some kind of hostage situation, but when they actually went into the place there were no gunmen and no hostages. So it was a second guy after Marco that convinced the cops it was more than just a lone gunman and some hysteria."

"I guess so," Marco shrugged, "I was just glad that I managed to draw those guys away from Monty."

"And I'm really grateful for that. You were so brave. I think I remember, a little? You jumped out of the window, and they all went chasing after. I went back to the girl next door, she was so terrified, but I managed to get her to calm down even though she was shaking. She drove me to town, and went to stay with one of her friends. Does that sound right?"

"Could be," Ferrari nodded, "She was lucky to get off campus before everything went down. Do you remember anything else? Just one of those little flashes of recollection, I guess. Best not to push it anyway. I think you two met up again pretty soon in any case."

"Yeah," Marco nodded, "I got back to the house and Monty was just standing in the basement, staring. I hadn't seen the intruders, but when I got there it looked like a bomb had hit the place. The first thing I did was call Ferrari, of course I'd forgotten that you burned your phone. It didn't go to the 'number is out of service' message, though. Some guy picked up, with an American accent. I hung up right away, scribbled Dwayne and Kris's numbers down on a piece of paper, and turned my phone off too in case he could trace me after that call."

"You tried me next, I think?" Dwayne guessed, "Just when we were almost in town."

"Yeah, you sounded like you were in a total panic. What happened there?"

"Well, I think Ferrari can probably explain it better than me."

"Yeah. After three days of being scared of the people who were coming after the Box, now we had reason to actually be scared of the Box itself..."