Ripples 7 by KimB

[Editor's Note: Ripples is a serial story.
The author makes no guarantees as to completing the serial.
Publication dates are located in the left side menu.]

07 Whatsit

The stub of a pencil traced the new information on the paper.

She compared her drawings with the phone: front and back. Arrows pointed to the location of tiny connection points. She did her best to copy the stenciled patterns.

She set aside the phone and reached for the tiny plastic container.

Tipping the contents into her hand, she examined the tiny black and red object.

It was certainly small. One side had some symbols on it and the other side had golden stripes. Avoiding the golden stripes she turned it over. She knew what it was or at least she thought she knew. It was old school now. She smiled, rather like herself. Old School.

Using the magnifying glass to see the tiny symbols, she copied them onto the paper. Funny looking symbols. Broken circles, buckets, numbers and stylized lettering crowded the tiny surface. Notches, dog-ears and crop outs formed its irregular shape. These she carefully added to the paper.

Satisfied that she had copied all correctly, she dropped the tiny object back into the container and snapped the lid tight.

She examined the finished drawing.

Something was odd.

Her eyes scanned the drawing several times.

Something was not right.

She picked up the phone, compared it with her drawing. Turing the phone over and around, looking at it from all angles to confirm.

She hadn't missed anything. The drawing was correct.

There was still something wrong.

The golden bars on the object, now locked inside the plastic container, were there for a reason. They allowed the object to be slipped into a matching slot. But this phone had no such opening. None. The tiny object had been sandwiched between the protection case and the phone. It had fallen out when she pulled off the protector.

It wasn't part of the phone.