27

The shipping container, much like the wheel, had an ageless design. Like the wheel, technological improvements had occurred. Unlike the wheel, a shipping container would not leave you stranded upon some windswept motorway, miles from the nearest service station, cursing the day you decided to use the lug nut wrench for prising open the shed door after you had lost the padlock key. In the dog. On a drunken walk at three in the morning. Not that that happened to anyone. Ever.

The basic design remained the same. Large enough to carry practically anything, but small enough to move around without the need to pack, unpack, repack in ever more sneaky ways to conserve space and then have a partner sit on the door until the zip could be fastened. Unlike luggage, shipping containers could hold it all with little fuss and only minor niggles involving industrial cranes and lorries stopping in the middle of motorways for want of a tire wrench.

They were also incredibly adaptable. Some had fashioned collections of shipping containers into serviceable homes, others into almost unassailable walls, while still others had converted shipping containers into structures that could store things, which wasn't that much of an adaptation, but people thought they were clever for thinking it, anyway.

What Demi had not seen a shipping container used for was the site for an ultra-beyond-secret facility that stored the most sought-after, dangerous, experimental technologies the galaxy, and, indeed, DWAIt Corps didn't want in the hands of anyone until they had figured out the best way to charge customers the equivalent of the Gross Domestic Product of a small solar system for. And they would. Because greed was not only good, as one philosopher once espoused, but necessary.

The shipping container was locked by a very basic padlock and she didn't have a dog handy to relieve itself and produce a key. She gave the padlock a tug, anyway, before realising that it was, in all probability, not the actual lock that Friss had brought her along to open. She gave the padlock another tug and a rattle, just in case. When it still didn't magically unlock, she decided to chance turning on her implant, cringing her eyes closed in anticipation of the blinding headache she expected to suffer due to the technological interference.

When it only gave her a mild tingling sensation, she released her breath in relief and then doubled over in agony as the delayed pain hit her full force, like a cosh at the back of her head, if the cosh was the size of a family saloon spaceship. Through the tears, however, her mind connected with something. It came automatically, as though some kind of technology waited for such a connection. A technology safely secured underground and not suffering from pain like an elephant tusk, being handled by a gorilla that thought itself a neurosurgeon, digging into her brain.

She tried, and failed, to ignore the pain, but soldiered on anyway, sending her thoughts back along the labyrinthine conduits and wires and fibre optics and wireless connections until she found the actual locking mechanism for the shipping container, far, far underground. The locking mechanism felt more than a little grumpy at being disturbed at an unscheduled time, but allowed Demi to begin the process of breaking through. A fresh batch of new encryption breaking protocols were now in her mind, ready to take on, perhaps the most secure, insidious and, frankly, unwelcoming lock she had ever connected with.

Things were going well, swimmingly, in fact, and, if she had managed to unlock the shipping container it would have been one of the greatest achievements of her entire life. Something she could feel great pride in. Something she would dearly want to relate to children and grandchildren, should she ever decide to ruin her entire existence by having them, while sat in front of a blazing Repli-flame fire. Probably in a rocking chair with a blanket over her knees.

None of that would ever happen, however, because the door of the shipping container opened and a large crab sidled out, sideways, clacking its claws in an unmistakably annoyed fashion.

"Personal force field holding. Moving out to see what the disturbance is." In one claw, Demi could see cup on a taut piece of string. A very sophisticated cup, but a cup nonetheless. The crab's claws clicked again as it saw Demi upon stalk-like eyes and it began to side-walk back into the shipping container. "Oh dear. Oh, no. Oh dear."

From out of, seemingly, nowhere, Friss appeared, blaster in hand pointing at the carapace of the crab in a place that looked vulnerable. The crab swivelled its eyes toward the barrel of the blaster and clicked its claws twice. Unlike the crab, Demi wasn't certain the blaster would work, here, under the roiling clouds of technology damping fog. Luckily for Friss, the crab didn't want to take that chance. It settled down on the ground and folded all its limbs under itself, using its shell for protection.

"Good work. Great work! I thought it would take longer." Friss crouched beside the crab-person and tapped their carapace with his blaster. "Hey! Crab guy! How do we get down into the facility? Is there a lift? Elevator? Whatever? Transportation tube?"

One of the crab-person's large claws unfurled from its protective position and clicked, pointing toward a large cage-like contraption a little further into the container. It had ropes attached to the four corners, the ropes led to a hook and the hook hung upon a ring attached to another, thicker rope that looped through an impressive looking, but basic, pulley. On one side of the cage, Demi could see a little bell, like those that once adorned bicycles, back on the Earth-That-Was. The kind used to inform pedestrians that they had just been knocked on to the road by the cyclist.

Below the cage, Demi could see a square shaft, leading down beneath the planet's surface. She hadn't got the heart to tell Friss she hadn't actually opened the doors. What with that, and the fact she hadn't, actually, broken into the force field back at the impound yard at Imblibdor 5. Or when she had failed to find Bognrd and had to rely on pure chance and actually talking to people. If Friss found out she hadn't, actually, done anything, he probably wouldn't hold up his end of the bargain. Something she expected anyway, but she didn't want to give him an excuse or, as it turned out, a decidedly valid reason.

A shadow fell across Demi and she steeled herself to make an impressive, brave and blood-curdling yelp before running to the other end of the shipping container in the hope that both Friss and the crab person would satisfy the hunger of whatever slathering demon of a creature had emerged from the surrounding slathering plant-life. Upon hearing the comforting sounds of Lap's crackling and rustling, she almost relaxed. Were it not for the hollowed out head of a creature, that Demi couldn't even begin to describe, sitting over Lap's head, black gore dripping from where, presumably, Lap had ripped it from its body.

Briyun soon joined them, covered and stained in several shades and colours of blood and not a little amount of sap from some plant or other that had picked the wrong stoat to mess with. Both of them looked giddy and raring to continue their evisceration of anything that moved. Briyun stared at the huddled crab person and licked her lips, while Lap dropped the head against the frame of the shipping container door, crackling away like a mad two-dimensional maniac.

"Too right, mate? Fun times?" Briyun slapped Lap on their rear surface, nodding excitedly. "I could holiday here? Hey? Is anyone using that?"

Briyun pointed one of her long claws at the crab person and Demi didn't doubt that the impressive shell of the creature would not stand a chance against them. The crab person poked up one eyestalk, swivelling it in Briyun's direction before disappearing again. Demi wondered whether she should intervene, stand between Bri and the crab. Partly to be merciful, in the hopes that the crab would tell the authorities that she saved their life, and partly because she didn't relish the idea of seeing Briyun tear the creature apart.

"Nah. Leave it. We have bigger crustaceans to fry." At Friss' words, both eyestalks popped up from the crab person before disappearing again. The crab tried to sidle out of the doors, stopped by Friss planting a booted foot upon its shell. "Down there is the prize. The MacGuffin-Hawking device. The Temporal Gravitation and Event Horizon Compensator. A device that DWAIt Corp doesn't even acknowledge exists. Why? Because ... Oh, deal with that guys."

Friss jumped backward as something came rushing toward the shipping container. Something big, and red that soon became even more red and slightly less big as both Lap and Briyun latched upon it and then Demi turned away because she had never wanted to see something like that in her life and she had seen far too much like that in recent weeks. She hadn't prepared for the sickening sounds of bones shattering.

Demi turned back to Friss, only to find he wasn't about to finish what he was saying. Instead, he stood in the centre of the cage, blaster drawn, and standing in a stance ready to fire at anything that should appear when they reached the bottom of the shaft. He maintained that pose until Lap and Briyun joined him, now covered in even more viscera. Demi hesitated until Friss broke his pose to wave her onto the platform of the cage and then restaged the pose.

"I say! Hello!" The crab person had unfurled themself and scuttled closer to the cage. "Aren't you going to close the doors? Only, there's a rather big head stuck in the joint and, well, I have strong pincer strength, but my legs leave a lot to be desired, strength-wise, and, if we don't close the doors, then all manner of foul, hungry, incredibly dangerous creatures could get into the facility. Just, you know, a little help with the head? I won't bother you for anything else, except my life, of course and ..."

"Don't worry, fella." Friss gave the crab person a wink and a salute to his forehead. "I'm sure everything will be fine."

Lap rang the bell and, after a few seconds, the cage began to lower into the shaft, the pulley squeaking with every jerk that lowered the platform. Several more minutes passed and their heads passed down, beyond the edge of the shaft and the last thing Demi saw were those eyestalks of the crab person. They swivelled and twitched as they pleaded silently with her, but there was nothing she could do. She hoped the crab person would survive. They seemed nice.

Passing out of sight, Demi heard a roar of some kind of creature up above.

"Oh dear!" The quavering voice of the crab person only reached so far down the shaft.