Fic: There Was a Master in a Game (9/25)
Title: There Was a Master in a Game
Author: azriona
Characters: The Master mostly. This week's guest stars are Malcolm Taylor and Captain Erisa Magambo.
Rating: PG-13 for language
Spoilers: Everything. The majority takes place after The End of Time, but there are references to events through the end of Season Five.
Betas: runriggers and earlgreytea68
Summary: Gallifrey wasn’t entirely lost when it went back into the Time Lock; it just got stuck. The Master wants out. Isn’t he lucky that the Doctor left him a way?
Chapters One ~ Two ~ Three ~ Four ~ Five ~ Six ~ Seven ~ Eight
Chapter Nine: Horizontal G
It had absolutely nothing to do with whether or not Malcolm Taylor liked or disliked working for U.N.I.T. He left academia, he needed a job, U.N.I.T. offered him the most competitive salary and benefits package, it was far enough from his mother that he had a ready-made excuse for why he couldn’t see her every Sunday afternoon for tea, and that was the end of that.
Sunday afternoon teas with Malcolm’s mum were often followed by Sunday evenings watching the telly, in between his mother’s gentle prodding about when he would find a girlfriend, get married, buy a house instead of renting that ridiculous rat-trap of a flat above the Indian take-away (how did Malcolm stand the smell?), and perhaps most importantly, have some children. Oh, grandchildren would be such a comfort to her in her declining years - fancy them playing at her knees while she knitted lovely socks and hats and scarves for the little tykes. Malcolm, can you turn up the volume just a titch? And perhaps a spot more tea?
Malcolm didn’t have time to look for a girlfriend, which precluded any possibility of getting married. He liked his ridiculous rat-trap of a flat with its convenient and delicious-smelling Indian take-away downstairs.
As for children, Malcolm didn’t quite see the point. He turned the volume up on the telly and poured his mother another cup of tea.
Monday through Saturday, those were the days Malcolm liked best. It wasn’t because he liked his coworkers - frankly, he was afraid of some of them, most of the time. It wasn’t that he was that fascinated by the alien races or languages or ideas he heard on a near-daily basis - Malcolm thought France just as strange as Sontar, truth be told. His commute was pleasant, the dining hall was adequate, and if he didn’t have a window - well, no one had windows, not with U.N.I.T. Headquarters located under the Tower of London. But at least there were several extremely cheap fish and chip shops nearby.
No, what Malcolm liked best was the things. Nearly every day since he’d begun working at U.N.I.T. six months previously, Malcolm came to work and found, on his laboratory table waiting for him, a thing.
Malcolm adored things. Above all, it was the moment in which he would pick up the strange thing and turn it over in his hands, feel the energy pulsing through it, give it a sniff to smell the dioxins and carbons and metallic tangs. Sometimes, Malcolm would spent an hour or even two, if the item was large and complicated enough, simply holding it, looking at it, studying every twist and turn molded into it.
His co-workers thought him strange for this practice. They scoffed that he was idling away company time, a waste of resources. Just stick it under the microscope, take a scraping, start doing something already instead of staring and dreaming, Mr. Taylor!
Malcolm ignored them. He could afford to do this; he would always have solved whatever problem the mysterious object posed inside a week, while the rest of them scratched their heads for another month. His supervisors didn’t mind what Malcolm did. Carry on, Mr. Taylor, good show, see you in the morning.
Had Malcolm surrounded himself with mysteries, from the moment he woke in the morning to the moment he lay his head down at night, he would have been happily oblivious to the world beyond. It was the mysteries that brought Malcolm joy: the knowledge that once again, there was a curious object in his laboratory which needed unraveling. It was the anticipation of the work such unraveling would require, the foreknowledge that eventually he would break through the code, the way his mind spun in a thousand different possible directions before settling on the proper solution.
Malcolm, above everything, loved the sensation of not knowing. Considering he knew just about everything else, the thrill was usually temporary, and appreciated all the more for its impermanence.
Malcolm was the first person in the laboratories on Tuesday morning. This was hardly surprising; the weather was abysmal, snow and sleet and hail and everything in between, most unusual for London. Malcolm took no special notice. Malcolm never noticed. He simply added an extra layer of socks before slipping on his galoshes, and tucked an extra umbrella under his arm for when the first one blew out.
It was preoccupation, really. Magambo had insinuated that there would be something waiting for him in the morning in his laboratory, and it had been weeks since the last mystery. Malcolm had barely been able to sleep with the excitement. The entire world could have collapsed, and it been raining budgies and prawn mayo sandwiches, and Malcolm would have just added an extra layer of socks and tucked an extra umbrella under his arm before leaving his flat.
Malcolm took a moment before opening his laboratory door. He inhaled deeply, imagining he could taste ignorance in the air itself. Malcolm could never decide if it tasted like carbon paper or the scent of the laundry detergent his mother used.
The laboratory was empty.
Empty save for his desk, his worktable, his notes, his computer, his various phials and solutions and microscopes and too many scientific objects to name. There was nothing there which had not been left the night before. Malcolm felt himself deflate. He was no less intelligent now than he had been twelve hours ago, and this was a disappointment of the highest order.
With a sigh, Malcolm set to the work he’d been hoping to avoid for another few days.
It was another hour before someone else straggled into the laboratories. Malcolm could hear the newcomer banging their umbrella on the floor as they walked, but he was busy concentrating on the speck of dust in his microscope and did not realize he had obtained company until the person spoke.
“Blimey, what the hell is that?” said Martin Emery.
Malcolm did not fall off his stool, though it was a near thing. “Iostropic half-mass from a Dilurzian raicode tube,” he said, not turning around. “Please don’t interrupt me when I’m working, Emery.”
Emery walked up to the empty laboratory table. He leaned over and peered at the empty space. “I didn’t think half-masses looked like that.”
“How do you know-“ began Malcolm, before he realized that Emery wasn’t looking over his shoulder at the microscope. He frowned. “What are you looking at?”
“That’s what I wanted to know,” said Emery. “Odd looking thing, isn’t it?”
“Er, yes, suppose so,” said Malcolm warily. He squinted at the table. It was still empty.
“Don’t envy you this one,” continued Emery. “Do you think the caf will be open today? I could do with elevenses.”
“It’s half-nine.”
“Right, do you think the caf is open?”
“No idea,” said Malcolm.
“I’ll just go check,” said Emery, and was gone.
Malcolm waited until Emery’s footsteps had faded down the hall before he walked over to the table.
It was still empty.
He leaned over and rested his chin on the edge, to get a different angle. Nothing.
He set his palms down flat on the table, and felt nothing but the cool metal surface under his fingers.
He turned out the light, and the laboratory faded into black. Nothing.
He pressed his ear to the table, but there was no humming vibration.
He waved his arms over the table, but felt nothing but air.
It was only when he checked the radiant temperature of the room that Malcolm realized what was wrong.
The air above the table was exactly 32 degrees Celsius colder than the rest of the room.
Malcolm sat down on his stool and breathed in the scent of ignorance. For the first time in his life, he did not like it one bit.
*
Malcolm Taylor had never once, in his entire career, left work early.
Technically speaking, he wasn’t leaving work early today, either, but that didn’t mean he didn’t feel somewhat guilty as he slipped out of the laboratories and headed toward the Tower Bridge entrance. It was difficult to walk with confidence when he wasn’t entirely certain of his welcome, but there wasn’t anything else for it. Malcolm had taken every reading he could think of taking on the odd temperature abnormality above his work table, and despite now knowing that the temperature drop had a very precise shape and was the exact temperature throughout, he didn’t know much else. His normal recourses were denied to him: he could neither touch nor examine nor compare what he could not see nor feel, and therefore, there was only one thing to be done.
He had to talk to the source.
The source, in this case, was Captain Magambo.
Magambo scared Malcolm more than any other U.N.I.T. employee. Malcolm wasn’t sure if it was the fact that she never, ever had even thought about possibly smiling, or if it was because on his very first day as scientific advisor, he had spilled his soup over her jacket, stepped on her toe, accidentally locked her in the janitorial closet, drunk her tea, breathed her air, and then had the audacity to apologize for any of it.
“She’s on site,” said the secretary. “And she’s turned off her mobile. Again.”
“Oh. I. How. Long?” asked Malcolm, stammering. Magambo’s office was strangely sterile, devoid of any personality, save for a single, extremely long, extremely sharp spear that hung on the wall behind what Malcolm assumed to be Magambo’s desk. He could see this spear from where he stood opposite the secretary’s desk, and despite the plethora of things to examine elsewhere (the secretary seemed to have a fascination with cats), Malcolm could look nowhere else.
“All day, I should think,” said the secretary crossly. “I told her to switch on her mobile, but she’s just awful. Isn’t she?”
“Ah. Yes. No.” Malcolm swallowed. “It’s only - I need to talk - there’s something she - it’s very important - well, not so important. It’s something-“
“You could leave a message, Mr.-?“
“Will she be back in the morning?” asked Malcolm eagerly.
“I don’t know, maybe not,” said the secretary with a bit of a sigh. “But she might call in, so really, I could just tell you stopped by, Mr.-?“
“I don’t know if it can wait,” said Malcolm. The spear wasn’t moving, was it?
“You could always go find her,” said the secretary.
Malcolm tore his gaze from the spear abruptly. The secretary swam into view. “Find her?”
“The site’s not so far,” she explained. “You could walk it in half an hour, really, and the weather’s cleared. I’ll just need your name for the clearance list, Mr.-?“
“Go to the site?”
The secretary sighed, this time in exasperation. “Well, isn’t that what you have a question about? If it’s so very important, shouldn’t you go and see it?”
“Yes,” said Malcolm, suddenly realizing the intelligence of this statement. The air already smelled less of ignorance. “I should.”
“So I’ll just need your name for the clearance list, Mr.-?“
“Taylor,” said Malcolm. “Malcolm Taylor. Scientific Advisor. U.N.I.T.”
“Pam,” said the secretary.
“Pardon?”
“That’s me,” said the secretary. Pam. This is Pam, she’s a secretary, very important position really, the entire operation would collapse if it wasn’t for her, Mum, and she’s not overly fond of my flat, either. “Very nice to meet you, Malcolm. Mr. Taylor.”
“Ah. Yes. Yes. Pam. Yes. Thank you. Pam. Yes.”
Malcolm hurried away, his mind racing.
He returned ten minutes later for directions.
The site wasn’t very far at all, really, and while it might have taken the secretary - Pam, lovely girl, quite fond of cats - half an hour to walk it, Malcolm wasn’t sure he could spare the time. At the other end of Tower Bridge, he hopped a cab and was there in twenty minutes. Traffic.
The secretary - Pam, who probably detested Indian take-away - had called ahead, and Malcolm went through the perimeter security without a bit of trouble. It was as he walked toward the center of the site that he began to feel his heart pounding. Excitement, he realized. He hadn’t been on site at an actual event before. There was something to be said about the thrill of the field, he supposed, as compared to the thrill of the laboratory. Malcolm was rather glad he’d left his laboratory coat on, although perhaps he ought to have taken his parka as well. It was fairly cold, even if no longer snowing, but everyone he passed gave him admiring looks, clearly impressed by his intelligence.
On site….there was something in the air. For a moment, Malcolm felt important. He’d heard the various U.N.I.T. teams talking in the caf. You’d never believe the size of the - and then they had the nerve to shoot at - well of course I had to - you could smell the ash in the - who’d want to be lazing with the lab rats anyway?
Malcolm would eat his cheese sandwich like an obedient lab rat and try not to listen.
Now, they were looking at him. As if he were important. As if he filled some crucial position within the framework of the away mission, that should anything untoward happen to him, their very lives could be in danger.
Or perhaps they were smirking at the way his fingers were turning blue.
“Mr. Taylor, what are you doing here?” snapped Magambo from behind him, and Malcolm spun on his heel.
“Ah - question.”
“Question?”
“About the…item you left for me. In my laboratory.”
Magambo did not look one bit pleased to see him. She crossed her arms and stared him down, waiting.
“Ah - where did it come from?”
“Mr. Taylor, these questions are so important that you had to break a secure, sterile perimeter line to ask me?”
Malcolm blinked.
“Sterile?”
And then he noticed that it wasn’t so much that he was not wearing a parka. It was that he wasn’t wearing the sterile suit worn by everyone else, helmets included.
“Oh,” said Malcolm.
Magambo sighed, and walked past him to the center of the site, marked by a line of tape and half a dozen large spotlights. Malcolm swallowed and followed her, unsure what else to do.
“Since you’re here,” said Magambo, leading Malcolm to believe that she might not fire him that day, at least, “you might as well get a look. This used to be a warehouse, and was bought out to be a new office complex. During excavation, the contractors found this. What do you make of it?”
The spotlights were illuminating a large hole in the ground. A hole which seemed to glow, but it wasn’t until Malcolm peered in that he realized it wasn’t glowing - it was reflecting.
“Oh my,” said Malcolm. He leaned in for a better look. “That’s…goodness. Metallic. Quite new, I should think, from the shine.”
“Which is very odd indeed,” said Magambo. “Because we only just uncovered it twenty minutes ago. From beneath a concrete floor that has been in the ground for the last hundred years.”
Malcolm couldn’t think of what to say. So he said the only thing he could think of.
“Is this where the item came from?”
Magambo gave him an odd look. “Item?”
“The one you left for me in my laboratory.”
“Item?” repeated Magambo. “I haven’t left anything in your laboratory yet. This is the item I told you about last night.”
Chapter Ten
Author: azriona
Characters: The Master mostly. This week's guest stars are Malcolm Taylor and Captain Erisa Magambo.
Rating: PG-13 for language
Spoilers: Everything. The majority takes place after The End of Time, but there are references to events through the end of Season Five.
Betas: runriggers and earlgreytea68
Summary: Gallifrey wasn’t entirely lost when it went back into the Time Lock; it just got stuck. The Master wants out. Isn’t he lucky that the Doctor left him a way?
Chapters One ~ Two ~ Three ~ Four ~ Five ~ Six ~ Seven ~ Eight
Chapter Nine: Horizontal G
It had absolutely nothing to do with whether or not Malcolm Taylor liked or disliked working for U.N.I.T. He left academia, he needed a job, U.N.I.T. offered him the most competitive salary and benefits package, it was far enough from his mother that he had a ready-made excuse for why he couldn’t see her every Sunday afternoon for tea, and that was the end of that.
Sunday afternoon teas with Malcolm’s mum were often followed by Sunday evenings watching the telly, in between his mother’s gentle prodding about when he would find a girlfriend, get married, buy a house instead of renting that ridiculous rat-trap of a flat above the Indian take-away (how did Malcolm stand the smell?), and perhaps most importantly, have some children. Oh, grandchildren would be such a comfort to her in her declining years - fancy them playing at her knees while she knitted lovely socks and hats and scarves for the little tykes. Malcolm, can you turn up the volume just a titch? And perhaps a spot more tea?
Malcolm didn’t have time to look for a girlfriend, which precluded any possibility of getting married. He liked his ridiculous rat-trap of a flat with its convenient and delicious-smelling Indian take-away downstairs.
As for children, Malcolm didn’t quite see the point. He turned the volume up on the telly and poured his mother another cup of tea.
Monday through Saturday, those were the days Malcolm liked best. It wasn’t because he liked his coworkers - frankly, he was afraid of some of them, most of the time. It wasn’t that he was that fascinated by the alien races or languages or ideas he heard on a near-daily basis - Malcolm thought France just as strange as Sontar, truth be told. His commute was pleasant, the dining hall was adequate, and if he didn’t have a window - well, no one had windows, not with U.N.I.T. Headquarters located under the Tower of London. But at least there were several extremely cheap fish and chip shops nearby.
No, what Malcolm liked best was the things. Nearly every day since he’d begun working at U.N.I.T. six months previously, Malcolm came to work and found, on his laboratory table waiting for him, a thing.
Malcolm adored things. Above all, it was the moment in which he would pick up the strange thing and turn it over in his hands, feel the energy pulsing through it, give it a sniff to smell the dioxins and carbons and metallic tangs. Sometimes, Malcolm would spent an hour or even two, if the item was large and complicated enough, simply holding it, looking at it, studying every twist and turn molded into it.
His co-workers thought him strange for this practice. They scoffed that he was idling away company time, a waste of resources. Just stick it under the microscope, take a scraping, start doing something already instead of staring and dreaming, Mr. Taylor!
Malcolm ignored them. He could afford to do this; he would always have solved whatever problem the mysterious object posed inside a week, while the rest of them scratched their heads for another month. His supervisors didn’t mind what Malcolm did. Carry on, Mr. Taylor, good show, see you in the morning.
Had Malcolm surrounded himself with mysteries, from the moment he woke in the morning to the moment he lay his head down at night, he would have been happily oblivious to the world beyond. It was the mysteries that brought Malcolm joy: the knowledge that once again, there was a curious object in his laboratory which needed unraveling. It was the anticipation of the work such unraveling would require, the foreknowledge that eventually he would break through the code, the way his mind spun in a thousand different possible directions before settling on the proper solution.
Malcolm, above everything, loved the sensation of not knowing. Considering he knew just about everything else, the thrill was usually temporary, and appreciated all the more for its impermanence.
Malcolm was the first person in the laboratories on Tuesday morning. This was hardly surprising; the weather was abysmal, snow and sleet and hail and everything in between, most unusual for London. Malcolm took no special notice. Malcolm never noticed. He simply added an extra layer of socks before slipping on his galoshes, and tucked an extra umbrella under his arm for when the first one blew out.
It was preoccupation, really. Magambo had insinuated that there would be something waiting for him in the morning in his laboratory, and it had been weeks since the last mystery. Malcolm had barely been able to sleep with the excitement. The entire world could have collapsed, and it been raining budgies and prawn mayo sandwiches, and Malcolm would have just added an extra layer of socks and tucked an extra umbrella under his arm before leaving his flat.
Malcolm took a moment before opening his laboratory door. He inhaled deeply, imagining he could taste ignorance in the air itself. Malcolm could never decide if it tasted like carbon paper or the scent of the laundry detergent his mother used.
The laboratory was empty.
Empty save for his desk, his worktable, his notes, his computer, his various phials and solutions and microscopes and too many scientific objects to name. There was nothing there which had not been left the night before. Malcolm felt himself deflate. He was no less intelligent now than he had been twelve hours ago, and this was a disappointment of the highest order.
With a sigh, Malcolm set to the work he’d been hoping to avoid for another few days.
It was another hour before someone else straggled into the laboratories. Malcolm could hear the newcomer banging their umbrella on the floor as they walked, but he was busy concentrating on the speck of dust in his microscope and did not realize he had obtained company until the person spoke.
“Blimey, what the hell is that?” said Martin Emery.
Malcolm did not fall off his stool, though it was a near thing. “Iostropic half-mass from a Dilurzian raicode tube,” he said, not turning around. “Please don’t interrupt me when I’m working, Emery.”
Emery walked up to the empty laboratory table. He leaned over and peered at the empty space. “I didn’t think half-masses looked like that.”
“How do you know-“ began Malcolm, before he realized that Emery wasn’t looking over his shoulder at the microscope. He frowned. “What are you looking at?”
“That’s what I wanted to know,” said Emery. “Odd looking thing, isn’t it?”
“Er, yes, suppose so,” said Malcolm warily. He squinted at the table. It was still empty.
“Don’t envy you this one,” continued Emery. “Do you think the caf will be open today? I could do with elevenses.”
“It’s half-nine.”
“Right, do you think the caf is open?”
“No idea,” said Malcolm.
“I’ll just go check,” said Emery, and was gone.
Malcolm waited until Emery’s footsteps had faded down the hall before he walked over to the table.
It was still empty.
He leaned over and rested his chin on the edge, to get a different angle. Nothing.
He set his palms down flat on the table, and felt nothing but the cool metal surface under his fingers.
He turned out the light, and the laboratory faded into black. Nothing.
He pressed his ear to the table, but there was no humming vibration.
He waved his arms over the table, but felt nothing but air.
It was only when he checked the radiant temperature of the room that Malcolm realized what was wrong.
The air above the table was exactly 32 degrees Celsius colder than the rest of the room.
Malcolm sat down on his stool and breathed in the scent of ignorance. For the first time in his life, he did not like it one bit.
*
Malcolm Taylor had never once, in his entire career, left work early.
Technically speaking, he wasn’t leaving work early today, either, but that didn’t mean he didn’t feel somewhat guilty as he slipped out of the laboratories and headed toward the Tower Bridge entrance. It was difficult to walk with confidence when he wasn’t entirely certain of his welcome, but there wasn’t anything else for it. Malcolm had taken every reading he could think of taking on the odd temperature abnormality above his work table, and despite now knowing that the temperature drop had a very precise shape and was the exact temperature throughout, he didn’t know much else. His normal recourses were denied to him: he could neither touch nor examine nor compare what he could not see nor feel, and therefore, there was only one thing to be done.
He had to talk to the source.
The source, in this case, was Captain Magambo.
Magambo scared Malcolm more than any other U.N.I.T. employee. Malcolm wasn’t sure if it was the fact that she never, ever had even thought about possibly smiling, or if it was because on his very first day as scientific advisor, he had spilled his soup over her jacket, stepped on her toe, accidentally locked her in the janitorial closet, drunk her tea, breathed her air, and then had the audacity to apologize for any of it.
“She’s on site,” said the secretary. “And she’s turned off her mobile. Again.”
“Oh. I. How. Long?” asked Malcolm, stammering. Magambo’s office was strangely sterile, devoid of any personality, save for a single, extremely long, extremely sharp spear that hung on the wall behind what Malcolm assumed to be Magambo’s desk. He could see this spear from where he stood opposite the secretary’s desk, and despite the plethora of things to examine elsewhere (the secretary seemed to have a fascination with cats), Malcolm could look nowhere else.
“All day, I should think,” said the secretary crossly. “I told her to switch on her mobile, but she’s just awful. Isn’t she?”
“Ah. Yes. No.” Malcolm swallowed. “It’s only - I need to talk - there’s something she - it’s very important - well, not so important. It’s something-“
“You could leave a message, Mr.-?“
“Will she be back in the morning?” asked Malcolm eagerly.
“I don’t know, maybe not,” said the secretary with a bit of a sigh. “But she might call in, so really, I could just tell you stopped by, Mr.-?“
“I don’t know if it can wait,” said Malcolm. The spear wasn’t moving, was it?
“You could always go find her,” said the secretary.
Malcolm tore his gaze from the spear abruptly. The secretary swam into view. “Find her?”
“The site’s not so far,” she explained. “You could walk it in half an hour, really, and the weather’s cleared. I’ll just need your name for the clearance list, Mr.-?“
“Go to the site?”
The secretary sighed, this time in exasperation. “Well, isn’t that what you have a question about? If it’s so very important, shouldn’t you go and see it?”
“Yes,” said Malcolm, suddenly realizing the intelligence of this statement. The air already smelled less of ignorance. “I should.”
“So I’ll just need your name for the clearance list, Mr.-?“
“Taylor,” said Malcolm. “Malcolm Taylor. Scientific Advisor. U.N.I.T.”
“Pam,” said the secretary.
“Pardon?”
“That’s me,” said the secretary. Pam. This is Pam, she’s a secretary, very important position really, the entire operation would collapse if it wasn’t for her, Mum, and she’s not overly fond of my flat, either. “Very nice to meet you, Malcolm. Mr. Taylor.”
“Ah. Yes. Yes. Pam. Yes. Thank you. Pam. Yes.”
Malcolm hurried away, his mind racing.
He returned ten minutes later for directions.
The site wasn’t very far at all, really, and while it might have taken the secretary - Pam, lovely girl, quite fond of cats - half an hour to walk it, Malcolm wasn’t sure he could spare the time. At the other end of Tower Bridge, he hopped a cab and was there in twenty minutes. Traffic.
The secretary - Pam, who probably detested Indian take-away - had called ahead, and Malcolm went through the perimeter security without a bit of trouble. It was as he walked toward the center of the site that he began to feel his heart pounding. Excitement, he realized. He hadn’t been on site at an actual event before. There was something to be said about the thrill of the field, he supposed, as compared to the thrill of the laboratory. Malcolm was rather glad he’d left his laboratory coat on, although perhaps he ought to have taken his parka as well. It was fairly cold, even if no longer snowing, but everyone he passed gave him admiring looks, clearly impressed by his intelligence.
On site….there was something in the air. For a moment, Malcolm felt important. He’d heard the various U.N.I.T. teams talking in the caf. You’d never believe the size of the - and then they had the nerve to shoot at - well of course I had to - you could smell the ash in the - who’d want to be lazing with the lab rats anyway?
Malcolm would eat his cheese sandwich like an obedient lab rat and try not to listen.
Now, they were looking at him. As if he were important. As if he filled some crucial position within the framework of the away mission, that should anything untoward happen to him, their very lives could be in danger.
Or perhaps they were smirking at the way his fingers were turning blue.
“Mr. Taylor, what are you doing here?” snapped Magambo from behind him, and Malcolm spun on his heel.
“Ah - question.”
“Question?”
“About the…item you left for me. In my laboratory.”
Magambo did not look one bit pleased to see him. She crossed her arms and stared him down, waiting.
“Ah - where did it come from?”
“Mr. Taylor, these questions are so important that you had to break a secure, sterile perimeter line to ask me?”
Malcolm blinked.
“Sterile?”
And then he noticed that it wasn’t so much that he was not wearing a parka. It was that he wasn’t wearing the sterile suit worn by everyone else, helmets included.
“Oh,” said Malcolm.
Magambo sighed, and walked past him to the center of the site, marked by a line of tape and half a dozen large spotlights. Malcolm swallowed and followed her, unsure what else to do.
“Since you’re here,” said Magambo, leading Malcolm to believe that she might not fire him that day, at least, “you might as well get a look. This used to be a warehouse, and was bought out to be a new office complex. During excavation, the contractors found this. What do you make of it?”
The spotlights were illuminating a large hole in the ground. A hole which seemed to glow, but it wasn’t until Malcolm peered in that he realized it wasn’t glowing - it was reflecting.
“Oh my,” said Malcolm. He leaned in for a better look. “That’s…goodness. Metallic. Quite new, I should think, from the shine.”
“Which is very odd indeed,” said Magambo. “Because we only just uncovered it twenty minutes ago. From beneath a concrete floor that has been in the ground for the last hundred years.”
Malcolm couldn’t think of what to say. So he said the only thing he could think of.
“Is this where the item came from?”
Magambo gave him an odd look. “Item?”
“The one you left for me in my laboratory.”
“Item?” repeated Magambo. “I haven’t left anything in your laboratory yet. This is the item I told you about last night.”
Chapter Ten