THE CUBE Read online

  THE CUBE

  The Cube

  © Alex Gore

  ISBN: 978-619-230-033-3 All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission from the author.

  THE CUBE

  To Ritchie Blackmore who created the most gorgeous music ever made.

  Also, to Candice and Ritchie whose love made me believe in the existence of soul mates.

  “Life is just a moment between two eternities.” Plato

  PART ONE: THE SHINING

  Boston, Harvard, Day 1, 04:23 a.m.

  “Open up!” Michael half-opened his eyes and his first thought was that he was having a dream. His head was pulsating of all the vodka he had drank and he could swear he had gone to bed just a minute ago. He looked at the “Seiko” on his wrist and saw it was past 4 a. m. He tried to remember how he had got home, but the only thing he was sure of was that he came back alone, without a girl, he was very drunk and it took him forever to unlock the door to his room.

  “Open up! Police!” Wide awake now, Michael realized that this midnight uproar was no practical joke.

  “Open up, for Christ sake! Police!” ,the voice sounded now even more exasperated and irritated.

  “Okay, okay, I’m comin’… err… I got it.”

  He opened the door cautiously and was immediately almost pushed down inside by an obscure figure.

  “Are you Michael Stevens?”, the man asked, without stepping out of the shadows of the open door. As far as Michael could see, his midnight visitor was a tall middle-aged Afro-American, with an athletic build, dressed entirely in black.

  “Yes. What do you need me for?”

  “I’m Captain Harold Smith”, the man said, showing his police ID with a practiced gesture. “And you’ve got to come with me.”

  “But why? If this is about the night before, I assure you, that had nothing to do with me… it was all Gary’s idea.”

  “Sorry, I can’t provide more information at this point, you have to go with me right now.” His voice sounded as if he would not tolerate any objection and it was clear that he was not only used to give orders but also to be obeyed unconditionally.

  “Yes, sir… Let me just grab some clothes, sir”, Michael barely managed to say, sensing now was the time to bargain some time to come to himself and find out where this unexpected attack came from. “Just a sec, sir”, he said, trying to cajole the man.

  “You have five minutes”. His tone was not rude but one that discouraged contradiction. “Take some more clothes. Let’s just say you’ll not be back in the morning.”

  “Right”, the boy sighed, accepting the situation. “Are we going some place cold?”

  “It’s scorching during the day and ice-cold at nighttime.”

  He turned back to look at the students’ hostel, somehow sensing he would not return back here. They had made him take luggage for a week, but the two cars that had come for him, the people in them and the way they communicated among themselves made him think that something very special had happened that night.

  He was more amazed and curious than frightened. Actually, he was still drunk and quite dazed to figure what was happening in full extent.

  Surely, it was important but what did it have to do with him? Michael was a decent guy or at least his friends would describe him as such. He had stooping posture and looked shy on the outside; late to step into the stage of puberty, he still felt a few pimples on his face. And the face itself was lean, gaunt, with big and lively eyes under the handsome intelligent forehead. He was slender, rather with medium height than tall, which did not prevent him from being among the well-liked boys in the campus of Harvard. He did not shave often both because of laziness and out of desire to look older, so his stub concealed the traces of the latest night binge on alcohol with his fellow students. In fact, he was a perfectly ordinary boy who did not exceed the boundaries of statistical error as to his generation.

  He was led into the black Escalade gently but firmly – they made it clear he had no choice. The captain sat on the back seat next to him. With the closeness of his body Michael felt trapped. Why, for fuck sake, all cops make you feel guilty and don’t need words to oppress you, just their presence is enough, Michael thought.

  The SUV provided comfortable and quiet drive, but looking over the shoulder of the driver Michael could see they were not observing speed limitations. He was watching the night sky through the back window and noticed that it was somewhat lighter and at the same time murkier, with some bluish green shade.

  The Shining.

  He became aware of it only after hearing about an unusual natural phenomenon on TV weather forecast. He had an obscure memory of the dull babbling of a blond chick about some atmospheric electromagnetic fields and polarized waves… She had nice tits, that was the reason why he stayed with the channel and did not switch to sports.

  Probably everybody watched weather because of the good tits… As if a Harvard history student cared about meteorology when there was vodka, weed and chicks with big boobs.

  Three days earlier they smoked a lot of joints, followed by huge amounts of vodka and finally he and his room-mate Gary snatched a Celica. They didn’t need it for the money, just for a joy-ride, so that they could impress Mary Ann and her girlfriends with a funny story in the morning. They drove hard the stolen car for a few hours and just when they started getting tired of it, the petrol finished. They went to the store to buy more beer and decided to visit the girls in their flat.

  Both of them busted inside, drunk as assholes, smoked some more and from this point on his memories of the night were really foggy. He just remembered her naked body, the perfect hairless skin and fine bulging nipples, while in the background the shouting of Gary and the rest of the drugged whores was heard…

  “Sir, if this is about the Toyota, I could explain…” Michael stuttered. “What do you need me for? What happened?”

  “An accident.”

  Heathrow Airport, London, Day 0, 02:34 a. m. She hated flying and still she spent almost one third of her life in the air. She disliked the goddamn airplanes, filled with snoring sloppy bores most of who traveled for no good reason.

  Her present neighbor was a plump avuncular man with seriously receding hair, sparse worn-out teeth and stale breath of airport fast food. He was of the most tedious type of fellow flyers, since he had this dumb good-natured smile on and one just couldn’t cut him off. His naïve babbling about the weather, the latest Merseyside Derby and the flaws of Labour just drove her crazy. The tactics of the silent passive smile and the constant staring at the smartphone were predictably inefficient and she was almost resigned to spending the next four hours entrapped in football, sandwiches and the foggy glasses of the man.

  She tried to ignore him, summoning a fantasy of a pool in which she swam slowly and the pleasantly cool water was caressing her body. For a moment it seemed his talking went to the background of her mind. She shuffled her bottom to the left and to the right, trying to find the most comfortable position possible on the hard seat and suddenly she remembered that she had left her lipstick in the big bag. Anyway, she did not wish to be made passes at, which often happened during long flights. She found the brazen and banal remarks of middle-aged men, who were trying to impress her, extremely tiresome. They always sounded pitiful and desperate but the worst part was that they didn’t give her a chance for a nap.

  A loud uproar was heard when the engines went on, the airplane started along the runway and Marcela, glued to her seat, felt she was sweating as she always was during take-off. The airplane shook slightly and some hissing sound was heard.

  Just when it was about to leave the runway and raise in the air, the aircraft suddenly lost its propulsion and literally slumped b
ack on the ground on its landing gear. There was a tumult of indignation and fear around the economy class cabin and the airhostesses scurried along the aisle.

  Probably the next technical failure or a check-up against a terrorist attack - lately this had become quite common around all airports. Or was it because of the Shining – that beautiful, though strange phenomenon of which all the physicists had been talking for the last week? It made sense: eruptions in the Sun, combined with space dust, entering the atmosphere…or at least that was the explanation she had heard from a guest in the morning TV show. She was really horrified of flying and always when getting on board of an aircraft, she asked for a glass of rose wine and was in a hurry to be absorbed by some interesting reading. But even her suffocating terror of heights did not prevent her from noticing that the sky was like a Monet picture – from greenish during the last few days it had turned pink.

  The flight was aborted. The panic and fear gave place to irritated murmurs and tedious waiting in a confined space with no knowledge of what was going on.

  This time, however, they did not have to wait long. The door to the cabin opened slowly and two men, all in black, came into the belly of the aircraft and confidently strode towards Marcela. They resembled predators, that were sure of acquiring their prey. A hot wave consumed Marcela’s back.

  She was the prey.

  As far as I remember, I postponed the explosions of airplanes until after Christmas, she tried to make an encouraging joke in her thoughts. She did not find it funny, but still made an effort to summon all of her feminine charms and asked the man in the black leather jacket, standing in front of her:

  “What is the problem with the airplane? How can I help you, sir?”

  She took a quick look of him. His hair was crew cut, military style, and the lamps reflected in his low monkey forehead.

  “Miss Tarantino, be kind to come with us out of the plane”, he said but it was by no account a kind request, because the man grabbed her forearm and with the other hand took out abruptly her bag from the overhead baggage compartment.

  “But what’s going on, for Christ sake? You can’t just do this to me!”, she tried to argue.

  “You are coming with us, Miss”, he repeated and her skin prickled with the hissing in his voice.

  She was trying without success to free herself from his iron hold, while he was pushing her in front of him along the aisle towards the exit. The heads of the rest of the passengers were aligned like a guard of honor and their curious and sympathetic glances were seeing off the beautiful gentle girl and the fearsome bad guys.

  “Change of flights – you are leaving for Cairo, Miss.”

  Seismology Research Centre, Queensland, Australia, Day 0, 01:14 a. m.

  Seismic Activity Communique for the period: 2017-09-13

  Date & time UTC

  30min ago Latitude degrees 39.57 N Longitude degrees 26.01 E

  2017-09-13

  16:37:53.0

  38min ago

  2017-09-13

  15:50:40.3 1hr 25min ago

  2017-09-13 15:21:39.8 1hr 54min ago

  2017-09-13 15:21:09.8 1hr 55min ago 2017-09-13 15:03:53.0 2hr 12min ago 2017-09-13 14:47:11.1 2hr 29min ago 2017-09-13 14:39:35.3 2hr 36min ago 2017-09-13 14:16:03.0 3hr 00min ago 2017-09-13 14:06:49.0 3hr 09min ago 2017-09-13 14:01:12.0 3hr 15min ago

  39.57 N 26.04 E

  19.22 N 19°25‘22.9 W

  156°26‘42.4 Depth Mag (+) Region km 5 2.5 NEAR THE COAST OF WESTERN TURKEY

  3 2.6 NEAR THE COAST OF WESTERN TURKEY

  7.1 ISLAND OF HAWAII, HAWAII

  S 9°52‘14.4 E

  158°26‘03.5 10.78 6.9 SOLOMON ISLANDS

  37.12 N 37.42 E 7 2.2 CENTRAL TURKEY

  44.24 N 11.88 E 18 2.4 NORTHERN ITALY

  47.45 N 7.85 E 7 1.6 SWITZERLAND

  42.77 N 11.82 E 6 2.0 CENTRAL ITALY

  3.23 N 21.67 21°26‘24.20 W

  157°59‘51.8 S 68.48 W 117

  6.5 OAHU REGION,

  HAWAII

  3.7 ANTOFAGASTA, CHILE

  39.55 N 26.05 E

  9 2.3 NEAR THE COAST OF WESTERN TURKEY

  2017-09-13 15.24 N 93.63 W 68 13:55:25.0

  3hr 20min ago

  2017-09-13 36.93 N 27.58 E 2 13:51:42.5

  3hr 24min ago

  2017-09-13 55.46 N 166.54 E 10 13:42:56.3

  3hr 33min ago

  2017-09-13 40.52 N 41.95 E 11 13:26:56.8

  3hr 49min ago

  2017-09-13 38.83 N 118.82 W 9 13:21:54.9

  3hr 54min ago

  2017-09-13 S 21°12‘42.3 E 2 13:14:43.8 165°56‘32.3

  4hr 01min ago

  2017-09-13 24°04‘18.9 S

  12:56:28.0 152°35‘07.6 4hr 19min ago E 26

  2017-09-13 32.16 S 71.92 W 26 12:52:00.0

  4hr 24min ago

  2017-09-13 15.88 N 93.74 W 94 12:48:33.0

  4hr 27min ago 2017-09-13 38.69 N 27.23 E 8 12:48:05.0

  4hr 28min ago

  2017-09-13 6.77 N 73.11 W 146 12:47:50.0

  4hr 28min ago

  2017-09-13 40.17 N 20.22 E 2 12:37:27.0

  4hr 38min ago

  2017-09-13 43.18 N 132.51 E 490 12:09:21.2

  5hr 07min ago

  2017-09-13 15°34‘35.0 57 E

  11:51:44.0 N 145°49‘03.6

  5hr 24min ago

  4.2 OFFSHORE CHIAPAS, MEXICO 2.5 DODECANESE IS.TURKEY BORDER REG

  4.6 KOMANDORSKIYE OSTROVA REGION

  2.1 EASTERN TURKEY

  2.3 NEVADA

  8.3 NEW CALEDONIA

  6.4 OFFSHORE EASTERN AUSTRALIA

  3.4 OFFSHORE VALPARAISO, CHILE

  4.5 OFFSHORE CHIAPAS, MEXICO

  2.5 WESTERN TURKEY

  2.5 NORTHERN COLOMBIA

  2.1 ALBANIA

  4.2 PRIMOR‘YE, RUSSIA

  6.1 MARIANA ISLANDS

  For the last 24 hours quakes with magnitude not exceeding 4.7 are observed all along the surface of the Earth. No volcanic eruptions have been detected. Seismic activity at the ocean bottom is within the range of 0-0.7.

  A sub-continental active region was localized in the South Pacific with quakes concentrated over limited territory exceptionally great in number and very powerful. The eight most powerful ones were with magnitude of 6.1 – 8.2.

  Results of comparative analysis according to geographic features: NO MATCHING. There are no available data in the archives about similar activity in that region.

  Results of comparative analysis according to time features: NO MATCHING. Ever since the beginning of laboratory seismology research and preservation of data for the last 100 years there has not been a similar case described.

  RECOMMENDATIONS:

  - Announcing of 4th degree emergency alert

  - Ceasing of all military training activities

  - Informing the local authorities/population in the mentioned regions

  - A special alert signal to the atomic power stations functioning in the region.

  Cocoa Beach, Florida, Day 1, 11:48 a. m. “Alan, Alan… Alan”, an Afro-American boy about thirteen was shouting, running along the beach towards the sea and waving like a madman.

  Alan Parker was handsomely sculptured in his tight swimsuit. He was one of those men whose age is hard to define and who exude animal health. Allen had the typical for an athlete thin skin, under which every muscle fiber was outlined, graceful and full of energy. The man was boasting a tanned hairless body and his tech suit emphasized the power of his distinct muscles. He was strong on the outside and simple to understand on the inside.

  Because along with the physical strength of such men, the weakness of their excessive vanity is soaked in their every movement. One could see from miles away that they yearn to be noticed, approved of, liked and even worshipped by ordinary mortals around them.

  Stable on his windsurf, it was obvious that it was a child’s play for him not only to balance on the board but to harness it to any wish of his. He loved riding this wooden board with a sail
among either the calm or the madness of the sea. He had never felt any fear of the elements or the ocean, he would rather be scared of the empty bay early in the morning and the lack of an audience. However, on rare occasions like today he rode alone without any company in the water and with no watchers on the beach. He listened to the wind and his thoughts again went to Margaret.

  Then he noticed the boy shouting and waving excitedly at him. Obviously, the people from that TV show had called at last. Abruptly and confidently he turned around the sail and started for the beach.

  The house grew bigger on the horizon, while the shouting of the kid got louder and more distinct:

  “Alan, Alan… Alan…”

  Well, what was the rush, couldn’t they just leave a message and he would call them back after having had lunch?

  “Alan, there is a phone call from Washington for you. They said it was urgent and you’ve got to come to the phone immediately.

  Oh, so these are not the people from the TV show then.

  Well, whatever, politicians paid handsomely as well, moreover they were indispensable in problem situations which were happening ever more often lately.

  “Alan, Alan… They said it was of the utmost importance…” the boy kept talking from the beach, employing all the force of his newly found man’s voice.

  Ah, again these pre-election stories and who’s going to support me for this show? When they need you during an election campaign, they hang around to woo you, but as soon as they are already in the Congress and you ask for a favor, they stop answering their phones… As if Margaret is better or smarter than me, being a host of her own TV show.

  He stepped on the beach at last, threw the windsurf on the sand and started for the house. The kid walked next to him and did not stop talking something about ‘importance for all humanity’, ‘grave national security issue’ and such. Alan did not listen to him, he was more worried that he would most probably wave his holidays goodbye.

  He entered the house, the water from his bare feet leaving little pools on the wooden floor.

  He went to the carved desk in the corner, picked up the receiver and in a second was totally speechless.

  “Mister Parker, we have a 4th degree alert.”