Doctor Who_ Blue Box - Kate Orman [41]
‘just to balance the weight of the money,’ he always said.
They counted hundred dollar bills into a manila envelope and handed it over to the auctioneer, who passed back a box containing their purchases without ever looking them in the eye.
That night, they flipped for who got what in the parking lot of a Denny’s.
Luis’s apartment always smelled of cinnamon, coffee, ozone, and chistbutuales. The spare bedroom where he kept his collection was tidy and clean to the point of sterility, but the rest of the flat was always in need of vacuuming and polishing. Swan found the smell comforting, the smell of a place that’s lived in. Her own house smelled of paint and empty rooms.
They hung up their coats and this went to the kitchen to boil up some strong Mexican coffee to warm them. The cardboard box they had brought home from the auction all those months ago was sitting on the living room table.
Swan opened the box, gingerly. The device Luis had chosen was still inside, nestled in layers of blue crepe paper.
Its dark green-blue surface was covered in lighter tracings that looked like a cross between printed circuits and Tolkien’s Elvish writing. It was bigger than her fist, maybe six inches long, a round shape pointed a little at one end.
And it was broken. When Swan had last seen It, it was a heavy handful. She had assumed it was nothing more than a decoration, like one of those polished crystals you could get, with some artist’s idea of circuits etched into the surface: an artsy gift for the computer lover. She had been more than happy to leave it in Luis’s hands and take the much more intriguing multicoloured device for herself.
Now the object had cracked into three large pieces. Instead of a single weighty lump, all that was left were those three chunks, maybe a quarter of an inch thick; the centre was hollow. Swan picked up one of the pieces. It was tough, smooth on the outside except for the lines of etching, crinkled and wrinkled inside. The inner texture made her think of the whorls and soft complexities of a brain.
Luis grinned at her from the kitchen doorway as she looked up at him. ‘Your Easter egg hatched,’ she said.
He raised his eyebrows, enjoying her surprise. ‘More about that later’ he said, putting down a cup of rich coffee in front of het ‘Tell me about these smartasses who are making your life difficult.’
‘They read my email. They read my frigging email, man,’
she said. Swan took a long drag on the coffee, seemingly not bothered that it was seething hot. ‘They broke into my work machine and they kicked me out while they were doing it.’
Luis was the only person in the world she would ever admit something like that to. He listened quietly as she outlined the Doctor’s antics, how he had taken away the device from under her nose, how she had followed Bob. ‘They know stuff about western Maryland that we don’t: she said. ‘I have worked and worked on the device, and I’ve got no idea of how it works or what it’s supposed to do. I’ve pestered collectors all over the country. All I’ve found out is that there are supposed to be three more of those devices. Five components making up a single machine. She pushed the heels of her palms against her eyes. ‘I think the Doctor is working for the original owners. They want their crap back.’ Luis shrugged with his face. ‘Don’t gimme that!’ said Swan. ‘We paid good money for those items. It’s us against them. And we’re gonna be the ones who win’ She slammed both palms down on the table. In the dim light her pupils looked like a pair of black marbles.
‘ ¡Cálmate! ’ said Luis. ‘Think it over. They have given themselves away to you. You’ll be able to learn from them where the other parts of this strange machine are. And in the meantime, we still have one of its components. A good one:
‘Luis,’ she said, looking down into the box, ’what the hell was inside this thing?’
With a conspiratorial wink, he got up and crooked a finger to her. Swan put the box down on the table and followed him.
Luis put his finger to his lips. Very carefully, he turned