I've got the yoyo...

In an undisclosed location in a part of town I could only call 'empty' I checked my watch for the forth time: still early for the rendezvous. As the second hand swept toward six, the mystery man from the north arrived.  I could only assume it was him; a low voice on the phone, if it wasn't, then he'd had someone else make the drop.

The nondescript pick-up truck parked a distance away. He left the motor running and moved around to open the passenger door. For a moment I worried it might be an invitation - but it wasn't. He reached in and lifted up a squat little case and swung it out onto the curb. Then, with a feigned nonchalance the figure retraced his steps, and with the quickest glance and slight turn of wrist in my direction, he climbed back in and drove away.

I waited again; waited for tail lights to drift off into the distance. I stuffed my hands in my pockets and shuffled a short pace back and forth. Minutes elapsed as I scanned my environment; searching for any other sign of life as the day's warmth fled as quick as the daylight. When I finally felt the moment was right I slipped across the pavement, dipped one knee and retrieved the case, then made a bee-line back into the shadows feeling quite concerned.  In the act of grabbing and lifting... everything I thought I knew had gone out the window. The case was too light for what I expected. It all felt wrong. I had to get out of there.

Hours later, still under the cover of darkness, and after a meandering and paranoid drive of mirror glancing, I was alone in the shop with the work lamp rolled in position to cast an illuminating pool around a low stool where I sat the case. After a careful examination I rolled it gently to one side and cautiously undid each latch to look inside.

On one hand, I knew exactly what I had, and yet on the other, I had no idea at all.

It was a machine, certainly, but unlike any other I've ever seen. The stylings were from another era, or planet, and yet in the hard light after lifting it to the bench I found a series of numbers. A search found next to nothing. It was as if it never existed, was never made or sold; and yet here it was: hard and cold in a steel blue-green, except it couldn't have been steel. It was far too light for a normal metal:

deceptive even in the wide open. 

The labelled name was as common as they came, and I wondered if it was a ruse since company information never mentioned it, never recognized its existence  - perhaps on purpose? A rogue, a misfit, an unknown experiment gone awry. Hours slipped away and then near both exhaustion and dawn I found a clue: a little-viewed video: one of those you'd never see creeping up the side window as 'recommended'. One had to search for it: call it out desperately by name:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-136OqmpclE

and even then...

only hints to its origin

or the reason for a four inch long power cord,

or the alien antenna-esque controls,

or magnetism...

All I could think of then was stealth or deception. As if some government had made a one-of prototype off a last sketch by a dying Nikola Tesla... and then hidden it in an indistinguishable package made specifically for hiding its true nature. The perfect guise for a tall, thin, long-haired, short-fat-bald-man wearing a bowling shirt and driving a white late-model sedan. He'd park on the street, blend into a crowd, slip down a church alley and tap twice on a basement door, and be right on time for the weekly quilt club.

Undercover over-covers. Ingenious,  and that's when it finally occurred to me that it wasn't the who that was important, or for that matter the why, this moment, here, now, was all about the what: the unspoken assignment and the reason I'd been chosen.

Someone wanted me to fix it.

I redonned my hat and coat, slipped out and back into the car. It was going to be a long month and I was going to need two things strait away: coffee, and a bakery.