Investigating The Machine

A day or so later, once we’d rearranged a few things to make space for the Machine, I was able to get to work figuring out how to connect it up.
And whether the damn thing worked at all.
It was a quiet time in the day; All the big machines were in use on commercial loads, and Lake had wandered out on one of his errands which, for reasons of parole, I took no interest in whatsoever, and knew nothing about.
Taking the back panel of the thing was a dead end, mostly because I didn’t have anything that’d deal with the bolts back there, so I was inside the drum of the Machine trying to see what I could figure out from in there when the door chimed.
“I can tell you this, Lake” I called out. “If I can get this thing working, it’ll definitely increase capacity. You could wash a corpse in this thing.”
A nervous cough, and an unfamiliar voice.
“Money laundering I’ve heard of, but corpse laundering … That’s new to me.”
I craned around inside the drum, but all I could see was a pair of legs outside; Grey trousers, business shoes.
“Sorry about that; I can give you a hand in a minute, but I’m literally up to my arsehole in washing machine at the moment”
“No trouble” Came an amused reply, “I got time.”
I managed to shift the drum enough to get a look through one of the drain holes.
“Grab a coffee if you like.” I offered. “Lake should be back soon; I’m just maintenance and heavy lifting. You picking up or dropping off?”
What the hell kind of washer has cables that big?
A small flurry of clinking and gurgling from outside.
“You want one?”
“Please; Black and one.” I started squirming out feet-first. “Picking up? I can see whether it’s done yet.”
“Actually.” Came the voice from right beside the machine. “It’s neither; I’m here to see you.”
Shit.
I froze, waist-deep in the Machine, trying to decide whether the dentist’s mirror or the cheap torch would make a better weapon. Neither seemed like a great option, and my off-hand wedding band is more decorative than punchy.
I tried for nonchalance. “Yeah? Do I owe you money?”
A chuckle.
“Nope, you’ve paid all your debts.”
I know that phrase.
I climbed the rest of the way out & stood up.
Guy in a suit, late middle age maybe, smiling a bit, and holding out a mug of black coffee.
“I’m your parole officer; Call me Davis.” He rotated the mug so that the handle was in my direction. “Black and one, right?”
Seemed rude not to take the cup, and I did want a coffee.
“You don’t look like my parole officer. My parole officer is a squirrelly little fuck in an office on Turner Street.”
I tried to scan the room for anything questionable. What might he have seen?
Another smile.
“He works for me.” He gestured to the pile of scrawled notes & diagrams on one of the sorting tables. “What’s all this?”
It’s always a good idea to stay on-side with people who can make your life complicated.
I took a sip of coffee to steady my nerves, which … is counterproductive if you think about it.
“New machine. Well, new to us; Christ knows how old it is.” I gestured at the notes, then at the laundry computer, which was showing the surprising results of some image searching. “I’ve got no idea who made it, or where, or when, or what most of the controls do.”
Davis pointed at the screen. “And the spacecraft pictures?”
I beckoned, and we walked around to the back of the thing.
“See the hose connectors there?” I pointed with a foot.
He nodded, and crouched for a closer look.
“Closest thing I can find to them is the liquid oxygen and liquid hydrogen feed lines from a Soyuz rocket. Why a washing machine needs a high pressure armored insulated hose with a remote-detach & seal mechanism is anyone’s guess, but that’s what it’s got.”
I put the cup down and pointed at the electrical connector.
“This thing I can’t identify at all. It seems like it’ll take three-phase, and household, and some form of high-voltage direct current, plus an extra fitting here which accepts a thirteen-pin plug that nobody has ever put a picture of on the internet.”
Davis rocked back on his heels, and pointed to a couple of extra ports.
“What about these?”
“Smaller one is a standard American gas connector from the 30’s, which is kind of in keeping with the look of this thing.”
Again with that stupid car-salesman slap! What the hell? How did I pick that up?
“The other one’s just a tube going down into the machine, though if you unscrew the cap it has the word ‘Benzene’ etched into it in Greek.”
Davis shot me a disbelieving look, and I raised my hands.
“Why would I lie to my parole officer?”
He stood and gave what can only be described as an old-fashioned look.
“OK, why would I lie to my parole officer, who I note has not yet told me why he’s here, about something so completely unrelated to … Well, anything?”
He nodded, and gestured towards the table.
“Shall we sit?”
We sat.
A long sip of coffee while looking at me, presumably to make me nervous.
It worked.
“Your case got referred to me by the ‘squirrelly little fuck’ you mentioned, on account of you being one of our high risk clients.”
That was just hurtful.
“High risk? How am I high-risk? You just said I’d paid my debts to society!”
He raised a hand. “High risk of re-offending.”
“Oh.” That calmed me down a bit. Maybe the coffee was a bad move.
Davis pulled a set of folded papers from one pocket. “Although, based on the arrest records and your prison transcript, you weren’t exactly low-risk to other people, were you?”
Yep, definitely time to put the coffee down.
“I was never found guilty of any violent offenses,” I began. “And that prison transcript should also show that I was found not to be instigator of any of those incidents.”
“And the police officer?”
Damn.
“I was found not guilty.” I pointed to the papers. “He got drunk, started being an annoying shit in the bar, and when I ushered him towards the door, he took a swing at me. Only pulled the ‘Assaulting an Officer’ crap because he lost.”
Another long stare, but this time I was ready for it, and Davis broke first.
“Yes, that’s what it says.” He put the papers away, and picked up his mug. “I’m here for an inspection, to be sure that you’re in gainful employment.”
Asshole had been trying to bait me.
“Nobody mentioned an inspection.” I complained. “And what are you looking for?”
“It’s a surprise inspection.” He grinned. “Surprise!”
My turn for the old-fashioned look.
Davis looked around, then back at me. He held up a hand and started counting on his fingers.
“Has the client obtained legitimate employment? Check.
“Is the client actually working there, or was it some sort of bullshit cover?” He tilted his head towards the machine, never breaking eye contact. “If that was a set-piece, designed to fool me, there’s no chance we’d catch you out anyway, so lets call that a check.”
He pointed towards the side door with an elbow.
“The ‘squirrelly little fuck’ already confirmed that you’re renting a place across the road, in what used to be the offices of a knitwear factory, so that takes care of the stable place of residence question.”
He paused at this point.
“A knitwear factory?” He gave a baffled shrug. “What’s that about?”
“Cheap rent, mostly.” I smiled. “They went to online sales, so didn’t need most of the building. They converted it into apartments; Roomy, if you don’t mind track lighting, cork tile floors, and internal windows in odd places.”
He held up his hand again, and ticked off the last two fingers.
“Has the client been attending their mandated reporting meetings and participating in outreach sessions? Yes, you have, and people say nice things about you; Even the anger management folks, and they hate everyone.
“Has the client been taking steps to improve their situation?”
A long pause.
“I’d say so.” He continued. “You’re clearly putting the work in here, trying to get that machine to work.”
He pointed to a small tray on the floor.
“I’m a bit concerned about the collection of files and dentists gear though; What’s that about?”
I leaned out and picked up the tray, shifting aside the tools and chunks of steel tubing to show him a block of soap with an impression in it.
“I’m trying to assemble something that’ll undo the bolts on the back of this thing. I’ve never seen anything like them.”
Davis peered at the soap, then picked up the magnifying glass on the tray and peered closer.
“It’s not just a bolt with a crescent-shaped hole, is it?” He muttered. “There’s different depths in there.”
I handed him the torch. “Look at it sideways”
He stared at the soap for a while, then got up and went to the back of the machine.
After a minute or so, he called out. “Is this thing a lock?”
I got up and went to lean against it, looking down as he sprawled on the floor, trying to see inside the bolts with torch and dentist’s mirror.
“Yep. Each bolt is also a lock. From the way it’s stepped, I’m guessing the key … wrench … key-wrench has curving bits that jut out, and you have to guide the thing in from the shallow side.”
I held out a hand and helped Davis up. Probably should have warned him about the drifts of white laundry powder, but too late for that now. We walked back to the table, sat, and stared at the machine.
“Who the fuck” He began. “Makes a washing machine that takes multiple forms of electricity, and a gas feed, has a god-damned petrol cap, has spaceship hose fittings, and has locks instead of bolts?”
“Nobody does.” I replied. “They also don’t make industrial scale washer-dryers, but that’s what it is, and absolutely nobody would make one with a cast … cast … cast some metal I can’t identify casing, but it’s got one of those too.”
He looked at his watch.
“You made any headway with the controls?”

Lake got back a few hours later, and came to a dead stop in the doorway.
Davis and I had covered half the sorting table with notes, and were working our way through a sketch of the machine’s controls.
“OK, so rotor one is the wash cycle, and is labeled with these cute little pictures that are almost Egyptian.” I started, “And rotor two … “
“Rotor two is the wash temperature in the outer ring, and the dryer temperature on the inner ring, and they’re both labeled in Sanskrit numbers that for some reason start at 58, … “ Davis continued.
We both turned around at the sound of a bag of take-out hitting the ground, and Davis lunged wildly to catch the cardboard cup-holder before it joined them.
“Are you alright, Mr. Lake?” Davis enquired, with a touch more of a smirk than really seemed justified. He’d only caught a cupholder; It’s not that big a deal.
Lake blinked, then picked up the takeout bag.
“Lake,” I began. “This is Mr. Davis, my … “
“ … Parole officer.” Lake finished for me. “Senior Supervising Parole Officer. We met when he came by to check out the place before your release.”
Davis gave him a hard look.
“I never showed you any ID, or identified myself.”
Now it was Lake’s turn to smirk.
“No, but you did get into the same car as the guy who did identify himself.” He grabbed some plates from behind the counter and began laying out food. “I don’t have an extra drink, but the food’ll stretch to three if you’d care to stay for dinner?”

Lake & I watched as Davis drove away.
“He seemed nice” Commented Lake. “That … could have gone worse.”
I nodded. “True. He ignored the bit where I mentioned the machine being big enough to wash a corpse in; I ignored the amount of time he spent staring at my arse sticking out of the damn machine before he identified himself.”
A snigger from Lake. “Sounds like the beginnings of a beautiful antagonistic friendship.”
“There is no way,” I started. “That you happened to notice what car he got into. And how the hell did you know his job title?”
Lake grinned and started clearing up the dishes.
“He came in to get a couple of business shirts done, just before your parole officer arrived. Stayed around for the whole wash-dry cycle, then borrowed the iron. Who does that?”
I started nodding.
“So you watched him?”
“That’s right.” Lake replied. “Then I stalked him.”
“Is that not considered to be … Oh, what’s the word?” I asked.
“Illegal? Absolutely!”
Turns out you can learn something from the parole service; I’m definitely liking the effect of those old-fashioned looks.
“Waited outside before the parole centre opened, watched him go in to see the floor.” Explained Lake with a sly smile. “Then accidentally got out on the wrong floor looking for the prisons service, so I could see where his desk was.”
“I’m impressed; And the name & job title?”
A shrug from Lake.
“Waited until he left for lunch, then went in to talk to your parole guy. Bit of luck there; His desk is near enough that I could get turned around on the way out. Lifted a business card on the way past.”
Working with Lake, it’s easy to forget that there’s a creative criminal mind in there, lurking underneath the ludicrously complicated schemes and misdirected ambition.
Some of that must have showed, and then probably misinterpreted, because Lake looked embarrassed.
“No way in hell I was going to not know who’s watching you.” He pointed at me with a straw. “You’ve had my back; Now I’ve got yours.”