Read The Box for Free Online Page A

one corner, a number was stamped into the metal:
     
    1005T
     
    There was no way to know what that number meant, or how to read it. This particular chunk of metal could have been manufactured almost anywhere in the world. It could have been designed for anything and then salvaged and used here as a way to keep students from trespassing. But here it was, looking him in the face, the answer to the riddle of the box.
    The tunnels. The map that made up the last two sides of the box could only be of the steam tunnels beneath the campus.
    He looked back up at the building in front of him. Finding this number should have excited him, but instead the discovery disturbed him. The number on the plate was so absolute, so distinctive, that there was no denying that it was exactly where the box was leading him. Where else would he find 1005T? But the clues leading up to it were so subtle. Sure the first four words spelled out song titles, even titles all belonging to a single band, a very popular band, no less, but it seemed like such a leap of faith to jump from related song titles to the campus music building. Why did it not occur to him instead to check the music store at the mall, or to look the Beatles up on the Internet? Or why not find those three songs and listen to them, or look up the lyrics to see if they had anything in common? He was very talented at solving puzzles and riddles, so why was his only thought the campus music building?
    The initials , he thought. G. N. J. Every building on campus was named after someone. The Craw Building was named after William Craw. Wuhr was named after Daniel Wuhr. His dormitory was named after Walter Lumey. Initials led to a name, a name led to a building, a building having something in common with music…
    No. It was too much of a leap, too doubtful. If the location of this metal cover was actually meant to be found, whoever encrypted it had placed an enormous amount of faith in his ability to make such a connection. After all, when he thought of the music building he didn’t think of songs so much as instruments . He thought of marching bands, not rock bands.
    And presuming he did actually make the connection, it took an even greater leap of faith to expect him to spot the number twelve from the back door of the building, especially when he was looking for a Z.
    Maybe that was precisely the point. Maybe whoever sent the box intended for the puzzle to be too difficult to solve.
    Albert frowned at this idea. That made even less sense. Why send the box at all then? No, that wasn’t logical in the least. He looked up at the clock face. Perhaps whoever carved the number into the box did not think about his two being mistaken for a Z. Would the number twelve have been such a hard thing to find if he’d known what he was looking for? Somehow he doubted it. Twelve was a relatively common number. It probably appeared dozens of times in and around the building. Room twelve was one example.
    Most unlikely of all, he realized, was the understanding that one needed to actually stand in front of the post with the number on it and recognize the seven o’clock digit as an arrow pointing away from the center of the clock face toward an inconspicuous metal plate set into the sidewalk several yards from the nearest corner of the building. Shouldn’t his first thought have been to try and find a way into the clock tower to look for the final clue? Or to make some sort of numerical or symbolic connection with the number seven or the seven o’clock hour?
    He remembered the strange double-take he’d done to recognize the panic button, as if something had whispered into his very brain. He tried to remember exactly what it was that made him look again, but he couldn’t quite recall.
    This wasn’t how he usually thought his way through a puzzle. The solutions came in logical steps, not gut feelings. He followed a path, unlocked the clues…
    He forced the idea out of his head and stuffed the box back into