The Imagination Box

by Martyn Ford

  She left to settle a dispute about the price of jam. This was typical Elisa—summoned away, back to work, like a yo-yo.

  Tim watched the TV and frowned at the uncomfortable ache in the center of his head. The news came on. They were still talking about the riots that had happened weeks ago. Volunteers had helped repaint the front of a shop that was damaged. He recognized the reporter—she had short rusty-red hair and a slim face with defined cheekbones. At the end of her report, she said, “I’m Samantha Locke, for GBW News.”

  Phil was sitting on the bedside cabinet, slouching into the black material of Tim’s reader hat. He’d been rambling for a while now.

  “…rambunctious kind of creatures, aren’t they? What about big cats?” he asked. “I mean, is a cheetah a leopard?”

  “No,” Tim said.

  “What is a cheetah, then?”

  “A cheetah is a cheetah.”

  “So…what is a leopard?”

  “A leopard.”

  “Hmm. Let us just agree to disagree.”

  “No, they’re different….I…” Tim scrunched his eyes as fragments began to re-form….Something about the box. The market. The man. The bridge. Someone else. A bright lady. Crossing guard. It all came flooding back. “My hat,” he said, noticing that it was underneath the monkey.

  Tim swung his legs out of bed, glancing around the floor. He spotted his schoolbag on his swivel chair and unzipped it. Two workbooks and a flattened chocolate-bar wrapper, and nothing else. Illogically, he turned it upside down and shook it, half hoping that his vision was playing tricks on him.

  “It’s gone,” he said, staring at the wall, unable to process the information. “The Imagination Box. That woman stole it. Or someone. People were chasing me, Phil. First a man in a suit. Oh, it’s hazy, but he…he jumped into the river. I jumped over the bridge.” Tim rubbed his forehead.

  “It is quite customary for sufferers of concussion to talk nonsense,” Phil concluded.

  “Oh, this is so, so bad.”

  “How bad?”

  “The baddest.”

  “Hang on a moment. Young Timothy, are you telling me that the Imagination Box, which you have been mischievously taking to school, has been stolen?”

  “Yes.”

  “Oh my. A pickle, you might say. But never mind, you were getting bored of it anyway.”

  “This is serious.” Tim felt horribly responsible—this was a direct consequence of breaking the rules. “What if it falls into the wrong hands? You remember last summer. Right. Okay. We’ve got to find it.”

  “Perhaps you should tell the professor.”

  Oh no, Tim thought. Eisenstone. As much as he hated to admit it, Phil was right. “He’s… he’s not going to like this news.”

  He leapt into his jeans, then threw on his red-checkered shirt and down vest before doing his laces, and, finally, placed his reader hat on. Now it purely served to keep his head from catching a chill—nothing more. Outside, light powdery snow—the third batch this winter—was falling fast, but, sadly, not sticking.

  “Right, are you ready?” Tim asked. “Phil?”

  “So, what, pray tell, is a puma?” the monkey said. Looking up, he noticed Tim was fully dressed. “Oh, ding dong jolly jack, are we going somewhere nice?”

  “We’re going to Eisenstone’s.”

  “Oh yes, of course.”

  Tim clicked his fingers, and Phil scurried up the bedside lamp’s neck and leapt onto his arm, before nestling in the top pocket of Tim’s shirt.

  “What about the concussion?” Phil asked.

  “The what?”

  “You must be completely better.”

  —

  “Ah, hello, Tim,” Professor Eisenstone said, opening the door. “Come on in, you must be freezing. Indeed, snow…snow day to be outside.”

  Tim had cycled here, his back wheel leaving a curved skid in the gravel of Eisenstone’s driveway. Thick lungfuls of steam puffed from his mouth as he caught his breath.

  The professor had light stubble on his chin and bags under his eyes. He’d been working hard recently. In the months since the Crowfield House incident, Eisenstone had returned to his efforts on the Imagination Box. He was in the process of creating the next prototype—one he said would be equipped with safety restrictions, ensuring the user couldn’t accidentally, or deliberately, create a nightmare monster, or torrents of fire, or some ghastly airborne disease that makes people turn inside out. Also, the next version would, he insisted, be fit for “everyone” to use. This, Tim knew, was a day to which Dee was very much looking forward.

  The professor had, more than once, hinted at the dangers of the Imagination Box being too severe for Tim. He’d never actually said so, but Tim could tell that Eisenstone hadn’t even really like the idea of him owning the device. So he was both curious and terrified to see how he would react to the news that it was gone.

  Ducking under his arm, Tim stepped inside. He went straight into the professor’s lounge, which now reminded him of his own bedroom. The clutter was immense, the sheer volume of electronics, circuitry, and various components was staggering. In the corner was a huge metal box, like a stand-alone cash machine, covered in wires, exposed transistors, and lightbulbs.

  “So, how’s school?” Eisenstone asked, following Tim in and heading straight to the prototype.

  “Um…yeah…awful. Borderline torture.” Tim was thinking how best to explain the situation. What he’d done with his box, taking it out of his room, had been explicitly, repeatedly forbidden. For, it seemed, good reason.

  “Oh, now, now, now, I am sure it’s not that bad.” The professor was fiddling with the contraption. It was clear that Tim had arrived in the middle of testing.

  “It’s not all skipping ropes and marbles nowadays, Eisenstone. School’s different.”

  “Indeed, I assure, sure, sure you, school was no picnic in my day,” he said. “They used to, well, they used to hit you with a stick if you misbehaved.” He glanced over his shoulder with a handful of cables hanging from his fingers like spaghetti. “And they used to make you play soccer in your underwear if you forgot your gym clothes. Even if you were wearing underpants that had been, say, say, turned pink by a rogue red sock in the wash. Even then. Or some such equally devastating example.” He stared into space. “Dark days indeed.”

  “Yeah, fair enough, they don’t do that sort of thing anymore. What with the law and that.”

  “Still, mid-semester now, isn’t it. So, so, what can I do for you?”

  Tim sat and shuffled on the sofa, his palms sweaty.

  “Indeed, it must be said, I am actually in the thick of some rather compelling breakthroughs.” The professor stroked the machine, then fiddled with a bolt on the side. “But it’s very delicate work.”

  Phil poked his head from Tim’s pocket.

  “Oh yes, hello, Phil,” Eisenstone said, flicking a switch and turning to face them. “I didn’t see you there.”

  “Good day, sir.” The monkey leapt onto the arm of the sofa.

  Tim’s leg was vibrating as he chewed on his thumbnail.

  “So,” the professor continued, “do you know what’s plaguing Tim’s mind?”

  “I feel I do,” Phil said, pouting and nodding with half-shut eyes. “Young Timothy would like to discuss the differences and similarities between African and Asian large-cat species.”

  “No,” Tim said. “That’s not why I’m here.”

  “Have you just come, come, come to see the new prototype?” The professor proudly jutted a thumb over his shoulder at the complicated device behind him. Suddenly, Tim noticed that one of the circuit boards was glowing. Then, with a flicker, a small flame quickly licked up the side. Within a second, it doubled in size. “I think I’ve cracked it, it’s all coming together quite beautifully. Beautifully.”

  “It is on fire,” Phil said, pointing.

  Gasping, the professor spun round and blasted the machine with a long spray from a small red fire extinguis
her, and the corner of the room disappeared in a cloud of CO². He opened a window and gathered up some tools.

  “Right,” Tim said, lifting his gaze. He hoped to slip the confession in amid the chaos. “I…” He clenched his teeth, feeling the cold air and smelling the smoke. It reminded him of a hair dryer. All at once he felt biting guilt about what he’d done. What on earth had he been thinking? The sudden self-doubt took him by surprise. “Look, I did something I shouldn’t have….”

  “Oh,” Phil said, rolling his eyes. “That. Yes, Professor, Timothy has been taking the Imagination Box to school, and now he has lost it.”

  Tim glared at the monkey, both angry and kind of relieved that he’d blurted it out.

  Eisenstone took a moment to react. First he nodded; then his eyes opened wider as he glanced between Tim and Phil. “Indeed? Is, is, is this true?”

  “Yes,” Tim said. “I… I took the Imagination Box to school, and, I—”

  “But why?” Eisenstone’s cheeks flashed pink. He didn’t look angry exactly, but rather as though he just couldn’t believe it. His attention was now all on Tim—he seemed to have forgotten about the recent fire. “What…what possible reason…?”

  “I started doing my homework in it. With it. Then all my work.”

  The scientist in Eisenstone got the better of him as a slight smile crossed his face. “How, how have your grades been?”

  “Much better,” Tim said, the mood momentarily lightened. “I wondered if it was cheating, but the answers are coming from my brain, so I suppose not.”

  “Indeed, but are they?” The professor looked animated. “Do you know the atomic makeup of all the things you’ve created—the jetpack, your own Imagination Box, a finger monkey? It is plausible you’re tapping into something we don’t yet understand. A universal, collective consciousness, perhaps bleeding into your subconscious… it’s infinitely exciting— Wait, and you lost the box?”

  “Worse,” Tim said. “It was stolen. By a crossing guard.”

  “A crossing guard?” The professor tapped his index finger on his chin.

  After a deep sigh, Tim explained the whole afternoon. The mysterious man who leapt into the river, the crossing guard, getting knocked out, everything. “But I promise I’ll find it,” Tim said. “I double promise.”

  “You…you promised you wouldn’t take it out of your room,” Eisenstone said with a sad disappointment that made Tim want to cry.

  “I know. I am sorry.”

  “Tim,” the professor said, standing amid the low white fog from the fire extinguisher, a few dim lights glowing behind him. “I think I know who can help us.”

  In the car, as Tim watched the highway zip past the window, he remembered the conversation he’d had with Dee before he created his cell phone. Now that his Imagination Box had been stolen, he longed for it. Only a few weeks before, he’d been wondering if it was a curse, not a gift, to have anything that he wanted. But now, he was—

  “Oh,” Tim said to himself as frustration shifted to simple sadness.

  “What?” Eisenstone turned his head, keeping his eyes on the road in front of him. “What is it?”

  “Nothing, I just…I just remembered all the homework I’ve been given.” He’d have to do it the old-fashioned way.

  They arrived at their destination a little over an hour later. The professor had done his best to explain where they were. It was called the Diamond Building: the London headquarters of the Technology, Research, and Defense (TRAD) Agency, a discreet government organization tasked with investigating and safeguarding new, potentially dangerous technology. It was set up, he said, following the invention of the atomic bomb.

  Climbing out of Eisenstone’s car, Tim turned and arched his neck to take in the vast, towering building. Clad in clean glass, it was the color of the sky above, reflected clouds flowing from top to bottom like water running down a slide. They walked past a huge circular fountain and then through some tall revolving doors. In the lobby, which was made from rich, glossy marble, Tim saw pairs of security guards posted at every available doorway. This place looked just as secret as Eisenstone said it was.

  They were taken through a checkpoint and escorted down a long, plain hallway by a young man with a hands-free earpiece clipped to the side of his head. Then they arrived at a door. Eisenstone entered first. A woman stood up from her desk and stepped toward them. “George, long time no see,” she said, before kissing his cheek. “And this must be Timothy Hart.”

  Tim smiled.

  “Harriet Goffe,” the woman said, extending her hand for Tim to shake.

  Harriet, the professor had explained in the car, was in charge. She was TRAD’s director and the first port of call for the unexplained theft of Tim’s Imagination Box. Eisenstone and she were old friends—she had been a student of his many years ago. However, they had become reacquainted last summer after the professor was kidnapped by Clarice Crowfield, who had been hell-bent on making her own Imagination Box work. As a consequence, TRAD now knew all about Tim and the technology. Understandably, the agency was particularly interested in its possible risks.

  Harriet stepped toward her internal window and twisted the stick on the slatted blinds, shutting them in. “Would it be all right if I met Phil?” she asked.

  Instinctively, Tim glanced to Eisenstone, who gave him a quick nod. The professor had explained that Harriet could be trusted, that TRAD might already have leads on a suspect.

  “Phil,” Tim said.

  The monkey scurried from his shirt pocket and up onto his shoulder. As people tended to, Harriet looked utterly astonished.

  “My goodness,” she said, leaning in close.

  She was middle-aged, with narrow eyes, thin lips, and blond hair neatly braided and tied at the back, long enough to hang over her shoulder. Wearing a smart skirt with a brown blazer, she seemed somehow from the wrong decade, dressed in dated clothes. On her desk, Tim noticed an antique telephone, large and black, with one of those ridiculous circular number-dialing things. What on earth were they thinking when they invented that? Tim wondered.

  “Pleased to meet you,” Phil said, and, right on cue, Harriet looked as though everything she’d ever known about the entire universe had just been turned on its head.

  “I told you you’d be impressed,” Eisenstone said, smiling.

  After the astonishment, disbelief, and quizzing of Phil, the topic turned serious.

  “So, Tim, what happened to the box?” she asked.

  Tim recounted the story.

  “It is perplexing,” Harriet said, after he had finished. “We’ll need to make some inquiries. Of course, as Eisenstone has no doubt told you, this technology—especially following the events of Crowfield House—is quite sought after.”

  “Indeed.”

  “There is a need to keep a close watch on you, Tim,” she said. “After all, it’s not long until whoever did steal your Imagination Box realizes that it is useless without you as well. I wouldn’t want to instill undue fear, Tim, but it is possible that the person responsible for this is…dangerous. Have either of you ever heard of the Mind Surfer?”

  Eisenstone shook his head.

  “Um, yeah…This guy, he was shouting something about that at the market,” Tim said. “He seemed mad.” He had assumed that the preacher he’d seen was just peddling gibberish. In fact, he’d actually forgotten the incident altogether until Harriet mentioned the name.

  “Hmm, yes. ‘The Mind Surfer’ is a colloquial term for someone long thought to be a myth, a conspiracy theory popular on obscure Internet forums,” she whispered, leaning forward. “You know, the kind of people who wear tinfoil hats and think Facebook can put ads in your dreams. There have been rumors circulating, which we are investigating. Now, this information must not leave this room.” She glared. “Some people believe that the individual, or organization, has created a device that allows them to take control of another person. To hijack them.”

  “Wow,” Tim said. It reminded him
of when Clarice Crowfield and Professor Whitelock had transmitted their thoughts through his mind.

  “The man who chased you . . . it seemed as though he ‘snapped out of it’ when he went into the water?”

  “Yes.”

  “Did you recognize him? What was he wearing?”

  “I…” Tim winced. “I hit my head. I can only remember bits….”

  There was a knock at the door.

  “Mmm, yes,” Harriet said.

  A man, in his thirties, at Tim’s guess, stepped inside. He had short brown hair, and stubble on his face. He didn’t seem at all surprised to see Eisenstone and Tim, but still said, “Oh, am I interrupting? I left my jacket….”

  “Not at all,” Harriet said. “Fredric, this is Professor George Eisenstone. George, this is Fredric Wilde.”

  “Oh wow,” Fredric said, in an American accent. “No introductions necessary. I have been following Professor Eisenstone’s innovations for a long time. I was in Glassbridge last summer for your seminar. ‘There is a box…,’ ” he said, beaming. “I must say, dude, your work has been an inspiration to me and my company.”

  The professor and Fredric shook hands. “Oh yes, indeed. I am pleased,” Eisenstone said.

  “I have a first edition of Quantum World. I’d be stoked if you could sign it for me.”

  “Of course.”

  Tim could see that this man was extremely excited to meet Eisenstone.

  “Do you work for TRAD?” the professor asked.

  “Uh, no, I—”

  “Fredric has taken over one of our American facilities,” Harriet explained, sounding particularly well-spoken now in comparison. “We’ve had our funding cut—we’ve had to sell off a few of our larger buildings.”

  “Oh, you gotta see what we’re working on over there.” Fredric’s eyes were blue enough to seem almost white. “Anyway,” he said, grabbing his coat from a nearby hook, “I’ll leave you guys—”

  He stopped, glancing for the first time at Tim or, rather, at his hand, where Phil was sitting. “What, exactly, is that?”