The box was large, seven feet tall and three feet square, and took four sweating hotel staff to manhandle it into the room. Alice stood and studied the container—glossy black carbon-fiber weave with shipping labels and a solitary brass plate on the front. She pressed her palm against it, and her clock meshed with the lock. A hiss of frigid gas escaped, and a hairline crack split the case; the coffin creaked open to reveal a mummified corpse.