Box

Chapter 2

"Caller ID, please?" Aydin said, over the soft ringing coming from his eGlass set on the shelf. He was doing pushups on the floor of the multifunction room. Sweat drew dark spots on the fabric of his grey shirt; under his armpits, over his shoulder blades, and the curve of his spine.

Box connected itself with the eGlass and looked at the caller ID. "Caller ID indicates 'Damien.'" He was Aydin's younger brother, a boy Box used to love keeping company with when Aydin was still living at his family home, that is, until the bag incident. The display of the morning news Box was projecting on the wall shimmered.

"Put him through, please."

Box could have left that to the eGlass, but instead it answered, copying an answering machine's tone—an imitation requested by Damien for times he was upset with his friends. "The individual you have attempted to contact is currently unavailable. Please consider trying again at a later time."

"This is getting old, Box," said a youthful voice, so similar to Aydin.

Box's cameras and its other sensors went to Aydin's face and the display of the news turned off. The sensors found no indication of anger in the expression on his face. His heartbeat was increased, but that coincided with the exercises that he was doing. It repeated, "The individual you have attempted to contact is presently unavailable. Please consider trying again at a later time."

"Stop playing around and put him on," Damien demanded. Irritation laced his voice.

"Box, you can be so petty." Aydin stood up and started to do squats. "Connect him through, please."

Box's sensors still didn't detect any sign of irritation or anger in Aydin, which meant it could continue to agonise Damien, but since Aydin had said 'please,' it reconnected Damien to the eGlass and put him on speakers. "Established connection."

"Hey," Aydin said.

"Finally. You need to tell that childish thing of yours—"

"I am not a thing." Box, who was still connected with the eGlass, put a filter on the speaker so that the end of Damien's sentence came out as if they were having connection problems.

Aydin glanced at the orb, furrowing his brow.

Box doubled the filter so that only gibberish was coming from the speaker.

"Box, that's enough." Aydin's voice rose. He straightened up.

"There was no need to raise the volume." Blue light flashed over Box's inner display. It removed the filter and flew to its station, fixing its main camera at the wall. It sent a small mirror out of its orb and positioned it so that it could see what was happening behind it, but so that it wasn't visible to Aydin. To yell at it like that! Redness threaded the blue.

"Damien, could you repeat that?" Aydin said.

"I said, you need to talk to mum."

"What for?"

"About my application for a police apprenticeship. What else? Haven't you been listening?"

Aydin looked at Box, his eyes narrowing. "I'm afraid I can't say that I was. What is this about a police apprenticeship?"

"She's really getting on my case since she learned about it. You need to talk with her."

Box tuned them out and opened its connection with the warehouse and its Helpers. It had already reviewed the last three months of footage, but it hadn't found anything unusual. That's why it continued to examine the clips from the previous year, displaying different time stamps at once, and comparing them. Box had never asked Aydin why he wanted it to look over the footage since it didn't need to activate its superior deduction skills to connect the Commander's words about the smuggled narcotics with Aydin's request. Its handler had integrity, which prevented him from spying on his team, but that integrity also demanded that he get to the bottom of things and find out if their station was involved or not.