The brick

– Hello. Nav. Welcome.
Silence
– Please, take a seat. I’ll be fine thanks captain, leave us alone for now.
Silence
– You can sit down,
— Where’s access?
– Access didn’t ask to see you, I did.
— So where is she?
– We don’t know. I don’t know.
Pause
— What am I here for?
– Please, there’s something I think you can help us with.
— The Law? The Law needs my help.
– We do, yes.
Pause
— Right.
Pause
— Right. So what is it?
– Sit down please, you’re making me nervous.
— As you wish.
– It’s not a command.
Quick exhale through the nose – a laugh
– What?
— No nothing, just something… someone I spoke to before. Anyway.
Pause
– Nav you’re good with… identifying things?
— Is that a question?
– You and Access, and the processes for tagging, identification, context building.
Pause
— I can do that, yeah. Why?
– How much of it have you done? I mean, if,
— You want me to look at something?
– Well, you see,
— You want me to look at something.
– It’s a bit more complicated than that,
— Where is it?
Pause
— Show it to me. What have you got?
Pause
– We found this, um,
Reaching down, lifting a chrome case
Sets it down on the table between them
Silence
— Gee Law, I’d have to say it’s a gear-case.
– Take a look inside.
— You want me to open this?
– Yes.
— You’ve opened this?
– Yes.
— You’ve seen what’s inside this case?
– Yes. Open it.
Pause
— Alright.
Reaching forward to release two clips
Hinge
Inside a single, slender chrome brick hugged by foam
Nav jumps up from where he sits
The chair legs scrape on the floor
Backs away to the wall
— Close the case.
– What? What is,
— Close the fucking case!
– I don’t understand,
— Where did you find this?
– Where? Um, the External Exchange.
— Exchage, what the fuck are you on about?
– The Exchange, the… the, I don’t know how else to put it, um,
— Jesus – your fucking names for everything, all of you. You mean perception?
– Maybe, I don’t know, I think perception runs through the Exchange,
— The Corridors then?
Pause
– I guess they are corridors, yes,
— The Corridors. You found this little chrome box in the Corridors?
– No we found the case, with the box inside.
— Close the case.
– But,
— Close it!
Snap
Clips fasten

– We were thinking it might have come through as something like a hard-drive, storage device, something technical, mechanical, from the External side.
— You’ve got that much right.
– It has no ports though, no plugs at all, it’s just smooth metal all the way around. No seam even where say, a case would be put together in parts.
Silence
– It’s heavy, but probably not heavy enough to be solid, so there’s either nothing inside, or something less dense than the metal,
— Your physical analysis is fascinating, Law-man, but really I don’t give a shit.
– You know what it is then?
Pause
– Nav, do you know what this is?
— Stop talking to me like I’m a witness or something will you?
Pause
— You’re going to have to hang on to this for me.
– For you?
— Until I can figure out what to do with it.
Pause
– Will you tell me what it is? If you want me to keep it, I need to know if it’s dangerous, explosive, subject to specific storage conditions,
— None of that matters. Yes it’s dangerous, but there’s nothing you can do to contain it. It’s here.
– I don’t follow.
— Just by being here means it’s active.
– Active? What do you mean?
— Look – I can’t explain right now. I have to figure out what to do with it.
Pause
Silence
– Tell me what it is, Nav. Please.
Pause
— It’s lithium.
Silence
– What’s lithium?
Pause
– What’s it doing here?
Pause
— You’ll have to find that out for yourself. In the mean time, tell the rest of the Law to keep their eyes out. There’ll be more.
– How do you know that?
— Trust me. There’ll be more, and you’ll need to contain them all. Lock them in a vault, burry them in concrete for all I care, just keep them all in one place out of sight.
– How can you expect me to do something like that? I mean, without Access I can’t just,
— Yes you can. Yes you can. You can do it, and I need you to do it.
– Alright.
— You need to do this for me.
– Alright alright, I’ll do it. I’m sorry. I’m sorry if this is distressing you. Help me to understand.
— There is no understanding. There’s no understanding that thing. It’s here, you and I don’t have a choice in the matter.
– What are you going to do?
Pause
— There’s a young lady who wants to go into space – I think I might join her.
– Space? What for?
Pause
— To look for Vroenis.