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“Oh, come ooon Skip!”
“Arthur, no means no. We really can’t.” Martin did his best to pronounce these words in a tone that aimed to be sympathetic yet authoritative. He hated disappointing Arthur, but as long as GERTI was still in the air he was the captain of the plane and if he didn’t enforce safety guidelines, who would?
Certainly not Douglas, who was doing his damnedest to not take part in any of this argument.
“I just don’t understand why not.”
“As I’ve already explained to you, Arthur, CAA rules forbid the presence of any sort of explosive on board. Even toy ones. You shouldn’t even have that thing on board, much less be using it.”
“But it’s not an explodey thing! Douglas, tell him!”
Douglas raised an eyebrow. “Don’t ask me, I’m sure the Captain has read the CAA list of items forbidden in the cabin and flight deck more times than the security-obsessed TSA goon who wrote it.”
Martin groaned. Had he expected any more? “Thank you Douglas, incredibly helpful as usual.”
“I live to serve.”
“Although a bit of an exaggeration. I mean, have you even looked at the lists? There’s thousands of things in there. Nobody can remember them all. It’s the item category, use, and risk factor that matters.”
“Well, this one definitely isn’t on the TAA or the CSA list,” Arthur said blithely.
Martin scoffed. “And you know this, how?”
“The man who gave it to me said so.”
“Someone gave you this object, and then told you it was safe to take on board an aeroplane?” Martin had been distrustful of the object before on matter of principle. Suddenly, it seemed a whole lot more suspicious.
“Well, he didn’t say that. Exactly. He said it wasn’t like anything else on the planet that existed. So, how can it be already banned by the TAA-”
“CAA!”
“- if nothing else like it exists?”
Martin and Douglas reluctantly leaned in to inspect the object more closely. Arthur displayed it proudly, like a science fair contestant showing off his project to a pair of judges.
“It does look rather strange.”
“And why exactly did he give this to you, again?”
“You know, I didn’t quite get the whole story. Only that he needed someone to keep it safe for a bit, who wouldn’t use it in a bad way.”
The alarm in Martin’s head elevated to code red. “Oh God. Arthur, that thing contains drugs.”
“What? No it doesn’t!”
Martin could see it happening already. Arthur was rubbish at hiding anything; he’d get spotted at customs, searched. They’d scan it and find the stash inside, implicating the whole of MJN Air. Martin felt his mind panic. How bad could this be? How much cocaine could you fit inside a large, electronic pen-like gadget?
“Oh my God, we’re all going to jail.”
“What? Why?”
“Martin, nobody is going to jail, and that thing doesn’t contain any drugs,” Douglas smoothed.
“Oh, and you would know all about that, would you?” Martin accused hotly. “Seen many of those in your smuggling days?”
Douglas huffed, as he always did when his ego was attacked. “First of all, I never smuggled, and especially not anything so crass as drugs. I simply enjoyed procuring souvenirs of questionable legality from my trips across various countries.”
“Which you then sold on eBay,” Martin muttered.
“Secondly,” Douglas continued, pointedly ignoring Martin. “This definitely doesn’t contain drugs.”
“How could you possibly know that?”
“The whole point of concealing illegal substances inside innocuous looking objects is that they look, well, innocuous. This thing,” he said, pointing to the bizarre technological sharpie in Arthur’s hands, “is guaranteed to attract the attention of any airport security agent who glances at it. Only a complete idiot would choose that as a disguise to smuggle something illegal.”
“Well, he did pick Arthur as his drug mule.”
“Hey!”
“The point is, that contraption most definitely does not contain any sort of illegal substance. At least, not the conventional kind.”
“Fine.” However, now it turned out the thing was not drugs, Martin felt more and more curious. “So, what does it do?”
“I bet it’s a magic wand! Or something from aliens.”
“Don’t be stupid, Arthur. Neither aliens nor magic really exist.”
“Sure they do! I saw some just last week.”
“Arthur, that was a TV series, not real life. It was fictional.”
“Well they all looked very real to me.”
“Well, they aren’t. And that thing certainly isn’t magic.”
“What is it, then?”
“I…” Martin stared at it more closely, trying to remember what his Dad had taught him about multimeters and electrical engineering. It didn’t look even vaguely familiar. “I don’t know,” he admitted in defeat.
“Oh. What about you, Douglas? Do you know?”
“Certainly,” Douglas replied smoothly.
“Oh come on!” Martin protested. “There’s no way you know what it is.”
Douglas’ smile turned sharkish. “I bet you the Brie for the next five flights that not only do I know what it is, but I can demonstrate its use right here on GERTI.”
“Nothing that would break any CAA protocol.”
“Not even slightly.”
Martin tried to discern just how smug Douglas was about this bet. He was definitely very self-assured. “You’ve seen one of those before.”
“Never seen nor handled any of them, I promise. I do have a theory though, and as you know, I’m often right about those.”
“No. No, you know something.”
“I don’t! But fine. If I turn out to be wrong, you can have the whole cheese tray. In perpetuity.”
With such odds, what did he have to lose? Martin shook Douglas’ hand.
“Arthur? Hand me the whats-a-thingy.”
Arthur passed it over. With a quick flick, Douglas applied it to the control column. Before Martin could protest, the object emitted a low humm, and Douglas picked up the screw it had removed.
“It’s a screwdriver.”
“Ooooh,” went Arthur. "That was obvious."
Martin blushed angrily. “I don’t believe it.”
“Of course it is. How else did I remove this screw?”
“It didn’t even touch the control column!”
“It doesn’t need to. It’s sonic.”
“That isn’t possible. How on Earth did you know that? You must have seen it before.”
“Cross my heart, I had never seen or touched anything like this before.”
“Then how did you know, Douglas?” Arthur asked as Douglas handed the screwdriver back to him.
“If it looks like a screwdriver and feels like a screwdriver… the chances are that’s what it is. Not anything explosive or carrying drugs. Sorry to disappoint you, Martin.”
Martin didn’t answer, embarrassed to have caused such a fuss over something as mundane as a screwdriver - even a sonic one.
It was only once they’d landed and the Captain had left the flight deck, that Douglas pulled Arthur aside.
“That man who gave you the screwdriver, Arthur. What was he like?”
“Oh! He was quite tall and thin, I guess? Looked a bit old. With angry sort of eyebrows.”
“Ah. He wasn’t by any chance travelling in a blue police box, was he?”
“He was!”
“Right. Well, I’m not sure it’s the person I’m thinking of… But just in case, tell him Douglas said hello.”