9. But No, Like Seriously, What HAS It Got in Its Pocketses

“The device with the songs is incredible, sir, but it’s not a radio or a recording device.”

“Then how is sound transferred to it?”

“We’re not sure, sir, we’re working on it. We have built a cable to charge the battery. That took some doing.”

Stephens brushed the commentary aside.

“Get to the point, man. The hinged device?”

The scientist — a Corporal Nigel Bowyer borrowed from Station X — swallowed. “I have confirmed it’s some kind of radio.”

“It can’t be. Not at that size.”

The scientist quailed a bit before the glitter of the monocle. “We don’t understand it either, sir. Yet, sir.”

As the monocle continued to glitter warningly, he hurried on. “It’s broadcasting some kind of signal at regular intervals, probably positional somehow. It’s in a Faraday cage, don’t worry, sir.” He sighed, half in annoyance, half in wonder. “I can’t begin to figure it out beyond that. The wiring is simply baffling. It has a battery, and we’ve worked out how to charge it on direct current as well, but that’s all. And ...” He paused, almost embarrassed. “...it can record sound and ... take photographs. Color photographs. We tested, sir.”

Stephens frowned. The idea of the enemy being suddenly that far ahead of them in radio and camera technology was almost literally incredible.

“Photographs? Sound?”

The scientist shuffled his feet.

“Yes sir,” he said hopelessly.

“Give me the photographs, then.” He snapped his fingers.

“...they’re ...they’re in the device, sir.”

“In it?”

“They’re displayed on the screen as soon as you take them, sir. There’s no film. We took it all apart and put it back together. No microfilm, even, and no projector. The screen is lighted, but not backlighted.”

Stephens paused. The scientist gave him a helpless little shrug again.

“Is it broadcasting in code?”

“No sir. It’s just pulses, at regular intervals. I think it’s some kind of ... way of locating it. Perhaps so they could keep track of him. Or it, sir.”

“Find out more about it. Dismissed.”

“Yes sir. And oh, sir, the black rectangles on some of the cards are magnetic.”

The money, that was less odd only in comparison to the devices. He’d sent an aide to a coin-collector’s shop, one still standing, for American money. The presidents and heads of state were accurate portraits to the finest details, and the style was generally similar, but the design was simply, wildly wrong. The minister of the treasury was wrong. The years on the bills, as on the coins, were bafflingly, bewilderingly wrong. Most of them, aside from a tiny American penny, bore dates well into the future. Was the money some sort of elaborate hoax? If so, what could it possibly hope to accomplish? On the other hand, the enemy had been known to do idiotic things. Maybe this was a cartoonish mistake, but he hesitated to take that as proven truth.

Next