“You’re right.” She faced him. He might look like a rumpled slacker, but he was tough inside. The calm strength that had surrounded her only a few minutes earlier was something she hadn’t expected to find. His quiet, logical way of thinking was a good compliment to her out-of-control emotions. He’d proven she could rely on him as a partner in this terrible discovery. “Where should we start?”
“We need to get our hands on one of those boxes. Maybe, if I talk to Larry—”
“I already have one,” Paula confessed.
“How did you manage that?”
“Sam dumped his in the trash, and I never got around to giving it back to the professor.”
“Where is it?”
She hesitated for a split second.
He grabbed her by the shoulders. “Where is it?”
“At home.”
He scanned her face for a second. “Did you use it?” His brows came together to form a line of worry above his eyes.
“Lark wanted to, and I didn’t think it would hurt anything.” The words spilled out all in a rushed jumble. Everything she’d been worrying about came out rapid fire. “But then she got this headache, and it was awful, and I was so worried. That’s when I asked you about the data—”
“Those were the high readings we saw on the output?”
She nodded, but she held back confessing her own experiment with the box. He wouldn’t understand. There would be no way to explain. Besides, Lark was her concern right now.
“We need to talk to her, your friend.” Will nodded in the direction of the Paranormal Sciences building. Time for them to get back to their office and get to work. “When did you say she used the device?”
“Tuesday night. Why?”
“The three dead students all had high data output readings last week. Bianca’s was much later in the week. Craig died Monday. When did Gunderson have the accident?”
“Early Wednesday morning.”
“And the fire didn’t happen until today.” Will mulled it over as they approached the side entrance to their building. “I think we’ve got a few days yet to figure this out before—”
“Before what?” Paula’s stomach dropped.
“We don’t really know, do we? If your friend follows the same pattern, we should have a few days to find out more before we react.”
Her first thought was to protect Lark, keep her safe. “I don’t know, Will.”
“We don’t need to scare your friend, if there’s no need to be scared. Plus, you said she only tried out the box that one time?”
“Yes.”
“Maybe it was a fluke.”
She turned that thought over in her mind. Paula had tried out the box for the same length of time as her friend and had felt no ill effects. Could it be possible only multiple exposures to the box caused the violent reactions they’d witnessed? “What do you propose we do, then, if you won’t let me storm up to the professor’s office?”
“I think we need to go back, visit Larry, and look more closely at the data. There might be something hidden in it—a pattern of some kind that will tell us more.”
Will’s methodical, scientific approach was the exact opposite of what Paula would’ve decided to do on her own, but she trusted him. He had more knowledge of the boxes and the numbers. “What should I do? You’re the one that’s good with numbers, and I barely even know Larry.”
“But Larry really liked you.” He winked at her.
Paula remembered Larry moving toward her in the lab with the lighted mini-welder. “He did?”
“I know, he’s a little weird.” Paula rolled her eyes at that understatement. Will smiled. “Okay, a lot weird. But I think he could help us if we gave him the chance. You need to bring him the box.”
She was beginning to grasp what Will had in mind. “And have him run some diagnostics on the box. Find out if any adjustments had been made on it versus the other ones. Find out what’s different.”
“You got it.”
She looked at her watch. Five minutes to eleven. “Let’s meet back at the office around four o’clock? I have to run home, pick up the box, then bring it back to the lab.”
“Sounds good.” He took her by the shoulders. “Don’t let Professor Pritchard see you with it.”
“Gotcha.” His sure grip was a comfort. A slight tremor of disappointment hit her when he let his hands drop. “If you find out anything before then, give me a call on my cell.”
Having a plan of action kept her mind off of things—the fire, Lark’s involvement in all of this, her own experience with the box, and these strange new feelings for Will. Too many unanswered questions right now to be sure of anything.
Splitting away from Will in the parking lot, she headed toward her car. Arriving at work this morning felt like another lifetime.
She had a purpose.
She started the engine and headed for home.
Chapter Fifteen
The box waited for Paula on the kitchen table where she‘d left it the night before, the cord wrapped around its smooth, black plastic. Her earlier encounter with the box had helped. Somehow it had worked, and it had helped her better control her power today.
She’d almost lost it on the lawn in front of Stewart Hall but remembering the success she’d had last night in this very room had given her something to focus on.
She should have told Will she’d used the box, too. But how could she explain to him? What could she have told him? No way could she reveal her ability. Her own brother didn’t believe her, why would Will?
For now, she focused on finding out what was going on with the boxes and why. Her time with the box had been a positive experience. Maybe she would have no negative reactions to what she had done and neither would Lark. Unlike the project participants who used the box on a daily basis over weeks, Lark had only used the box once for less than thirty minutes.
She tucked the small AIM device into her oversized shoulder bag. No one would notice anything out of the ordinary if she walked into the building carrying her bag. She carried it outside to her car and set it on the passenger’s seat. For a few minutes, she let the insulated quiet of the car soothe her. She closed her eyes and pretended nothing existed but the quiet.
For six months after her parents’ death, she’d sat in her aunt’s car for hours at a time and let the quiet wash over her. She’d imagined her parents were probably somewhere very quiet now. Not much hearing to do when you’re dead.
Most days her brother came looking for her when it got close to dinner time. He’d rap on the window. “What are you doing in there, Paula?”
She’d never answered his question. She’d slowly open her eyes and pull the door handle. When the door opened sounds rushed in—children laughing, cars driving past, birds chirping in the yard. As soon as Peter came for her, she’d pretend she was just normal Paula. She’d give him a smirk and some smart ass remark.
Really, though, she wanted to stay in there. Sit through dinner, through dessert, through her favorite TV shows, through the ritual of brushing her teeth for a full minute before she’d put down her brush. The quiet had been so much easier. Nobody asked, “How are you doing?” or said, “I’m sure your mom and dad are up in heaven looking down at you.”
The quiet was just the quiet.
Now, here in her driveway, she tried to recapture some of that feeling, the security of being sealed inside the car with only murmurs from outside. How easy it would be to stay in here and forget everything.
She’d tired of giving in to the horror, the worry, and the fear. For twelve years she’d let the specter of her parents’ deaths overshadow everything in her life. Each day was about not remembering, not thinking about being one step closer to her own death every day. That thought paralyzed her. She’d made it through life so far by not caring too much about any one thing. Nothing could hurt her then.
Her friendship with Lark and her relationship with her brother were the only two things left in her life she cared
about. She and Peter might not see eye to eye on everything, but he was the only sibling she had. He remembered the Paula who existed before the accident—the carefree, happy Paula who wanted nothing more than to dance in the living room with the radio blaring and to give out hugs and kisses as if they were water.
Her thoughts turned to the project at hand—taking the box to Larry and finding out what she could about it. Had it been altered or updated during the study? The answers she might find scared her.
***
When the elevator reached the fifth floor Paula headed toward the lab at the end of the hall. She needed whatever information she could glean from Larry’s wacky mind. To keep detailed notes, she’d armed herself with a notebook tucked next to the box in her bag.
One of the lab’s glass doors swung open. Candace studied papers clipped to clipboard.
Paula’s heart skipped a beat. Candace had been none too pleased with Larry helping them yesterday.
Candace looked up from her clipboard, as if sensing Paula’s presence in front of her. “Can I help you with something?” She gave Paula a suspicious squint and pushed up her glasses.
“I’m just here to meet Larry. We, uh, we have a date.” Where in the hell did that come from? A date with the freaky weirdo?
“A date?”
“Yeah, see I have this family obligation, and Larry was kind enough to agree to go with me.” When in doubt, ramble. “My cousin, Janie, is getting remarried, but no one likes her fiancé. He’s a pilot in the Navy, and he’s just back from overseas. Anyway, everyone thinks he has a little bit of PTSD. You know?” Paula circled one finger around the outside of her ear in the ‘crazy’ gesture. “But Janie says she loves him, so we’re having this big family barbecue to get to know the guy. Larry was so nice to agree to come along. Moral support, you know. He’s great about stuff like that.”
“He is?”
“Oh, yes.” She clutched her bag. “If you don’t mind, I need to meet up with him. He’s expecting me, and I’m late.” She pushed past Candace.
“Sure. No problem.”
Larry’s shaggy head rose up from a magnifying lamp. Luckily, this time, he held a pair of tweezers in his hand and not a mini-welder. The worst he could do would be to over pluck her eyebrows if he got too close.
“Hey, it’s Zap’s girl.”
“My name’s Paula, and I’m not Will’s anything” She made sure to emphasize her office partner’s name.
“Yeah, Paula. Cool.” Larry nodded his head and stared at her absently.
He turned as if he were about to go back to tweezing whatever it was he was tweezing, when she stopped him. “I need your help.”
“Shoot.” He set the tweezers next to a circuit board, wiped his hands on his jeans, and tucked his long, wild hair behind his ears. “Any friend of Zap’s is a friend of mine.”
“I’d like to ask about the modifications you’ve been doing to the boxes in here.” She set her bag on the table with the box hidden inside.
Larry jutted out his bottom lip and nodded his head. “I’ve done a few tune-ups in the last couple of weeks. You know, replace a couple of burnt up processors and swap out motherboards.” He must’ve noticed the edge of the black box peeking out of her bag. “Whatcha got here?”
Paula caught his wrist with her hand. “I want to make sure I can trust this will stay between us. You tell no one else.”
Larry’s small eyes sank further into his round, potato face. He glanced at her slender fingers holding his tree trunk of an arm captive. “What’s in there? A bomb?”
“Promise me.”
Larry’s eyes never left her bag. He was curious. No lab rat worth his salt would turn away from a mystery like this.
He pulled his arm free. “Yeah, whatever, I promise.”
She let him open the bag to reveal the black box.
He gave her a dead stare. “Okay, am I missing a lug nut here? What the hell did I have to go promising you anything? It’s just a box, dude.”
“Yes, it’s just a box. But it’s a box that might have been modified beyond the normal parameters. I want to know exactly what was done to this machine. Then maybe you can help me track down the why.”
“Modified how?”
“Why do you think I brought it to you?” She looked around the lab for any other assistants who may have been hiding earlier. “Will’s my friend, and he told me I can trust you. I need to know what happened to this box—if it was ever brought in for servicing, if the professor ever requested a different modification—that sort of thing.”
“Ah-ha, now I see what you’re getting at. Something hinky with the old professor, is that it?” He picked up the box and carried it over to a long table loaded with three or four computers all in a row. “You thinking he might be listening to dollar signs instead of science? Let’s check this puppy out and see what kinds of skeletons its hiding.”
He flipped the box over to reveal a barcode sticker.
“I never noticed that before.”
He keyed in the number above the barcode and hit enter. “Each box is numbered so we can keep track of maintenance issues or upgrades.” Larry stared at the screen. “Hmm, that’s funny.”
“What?” She stepped closer so she could read the computer screen over his shoulder.
“It says that number doesn’t exist.” He pressed a fat finger to the screen to show her. “That can’t be right. I put all the barcodes on myself. Let me try the scanner.”
He picked up an optical scanner that was plugged into the computer’s CPU and waved it over the barcode.
Paula watched the screen. An error message appeared: NO SUCH NUMBER.
“What the hell?” Larry banged the optical scanner against the edge of the table. “Piece of shit.”
Paula stilled his movements with her hand. “Wait. Stop. Could it be possible you don’t know about all the AIM devices?”
“I’ve been working in this lab since day one. I know about the boxes. All of them.” Larry examined the small plastic box from all sides as if he was looking for something. “I printed up all the barcodes, I created the system. This is all my work.” He gestured at the metal shelves full of pieces and parts of black boxes.
“There has to be an explanation, then.”
“Like what? That I’m a total fucking idiot who can’t handle a few stickers?”
“No. What if there were other boxes? What if there were boxes you knew nothing about? Boxes that had another purpose?”
“Huh? What do you mean? Who would make boxes different from all the rest? It would totally hose the study.”
Paula was already miles ahead of him. “You aren’t the only one who works in the lab.”
Larry set the box on the table. “No, there’s Candace and J.P.”
“Could it be possible one of them—?”
“Okay, Candace might be a tight ass, but she’s the most dedicated researcher I’ve ever worked with. I mean, she’s a stickler for the rules.”
Paula remembered that well.
“She wouldn’t let someone fuck around in here. And J.P.? He doesn’t even know how to enter the data into the system. He’s great with mechanical stuff, but computers and barcodes? No way. It’s gotta be someone else.”
She didn’t want to say it, but she had a sneaking suspicion she knew exactly who. “Pritchard,” she whispered.
“The professor? No way. This is his baby.”
They both heard the glass doors to the lab swing open. Larry hollered out a greeting, “Hey, Candace. Thought you were gone for the day.”
“And I thought you were on a date.”
Paula whirled around. She thought about what Will had said about not letting anyone see the box. She slid minutely to her left, and hoped her body blocked it from view.
“A date?” Larry’s features were contorted in confusion.
Paula took the reins of the conversation. “Yeah, I told her about Janie and her fiancé, and how nice you were to agree to come along.”
Candace’s lips curled into a smile. “I thought you spent your weekends in front of the PS4. This is all new to me.” She gestured at them. “I thought you told me you’d sworn off dating after that incident at your senior prom.” She pushed her glasses up her nose, as if she wanted to see Larry’s expression as clearly as possible. She seemed to be enjoying every minute of this.
“Uh, well, I—”
Larry didn’t think very well on the fly. Paula peeked at her watch. “Well, we’re going to be late if we don’t get moving. Let me just get my bag, and—” She turned around to scoop the box into her bag.
Candace’s footsteps closed in behind her.
It was too late.
“What are you doing?”
Larry, finesse not his strong point, moved his body between Candace and the table. That only made Paula’s movements more suspicious. Then he made it worse by adding, “We’re working on this important project together. You know, important stuff for important people in the department.”
“Move, McAllister” Candace stood firm, her hands on her hips.
Paula rolled her eyes. This was pathetic. Candace had caught them. Might as well face the music. She let Candace see what she’d been hiding in her bag.
“What are you doing with that box? Why didn’t you want me to see it?” She slung out questions like arrows. “If you two are working outside the protocols of the project, I’m going to have to tell the professor.” She crossed the room toward a phone hanging on the wall.
Paula had to explain before it was too late. “This box isn’t part of the study,” she blurted out. “In fact, we don’t know where this box came from.” She looked up at Larry, hoping he would corroborate the truth.
Candace stopped in her tracks. “What do you mean you don’t know where it came from? What, did it just magically appear on your doorstep?” she snorted.
The Little Black Box Page 10
