THE CUBE Read online

  “Beg your pardon?!”

  “An accident, sir…”

  “No way, please repeat, you mean there is penetration?”

  “That’s right, 4th full A, sir.”

  “Send me a plane, I’m coming right now.”

  And he hung up. He looked at the pink sky and said to himself: For Christ’s sake, how could I not guess it earlier? God, have mercy upon us.

  Polar Station “Vostok”, Day 1, 5:31 p.m.

  “Hey, Mitya, did you see this?”. Alena stopped the snowmobile, raising a cloud of snow, switched it off and rushed into the base. “Alya, what’s going on? I saw them too”, Dmitriy said, typing feverishly on the keyboard without averting his gaze from the figures on the screen.

  “The rock went crazy! There are electric impulses in the atmosphere… Mitya, it’s something huge… Great! Have you seen the sky? All pink like in a child’s drawing…”

  “Yes… I’ve never witnessed anything like this before”, he almost shouted. “Wait and see what earthquakes the Aussies experience… And it’s not just them… the entire South Pacific is shaking in every direction like mad…”

  “Send the report to Moscow right now and then let’s go and look”, Alena said, already punching a number on the satellite phone…

  Daily report to Moscow Institute of Hydrometeorology During the last three days abnormal values of the electromagnetic and radiation fields were measured around the South Pacific.

  We need some new measurements for comparative analysis that might confirm or deny present data. Possible interferences in the measuring devices because of meteorological anomalies and fluctuations in power supply. Detected hurricane winds with velocity of over 120 mph in the region of the South Pole with direction East-Northeast.

  Data herewith enclosed.

  Possible inaccuracy: up to 100%.

  Munich, University “Ludwig Maximilian”, Day 0, 01:18 p. m.

  “Prof. Hans Rosenstein, PhD, Mathematics”. That was what the plate on the laboratory door read. The cold diode light of this plate had always annoyed him, he probably thought it two small and insignificant to encompass all of his scientific titles.

  The telephone on the desk was like those in old movies – with a huge and elegant receiver of genuine wood, a cable and figures under a moving metal dial. He liked it, not being a fan of new technologies in everyday life, and even though his own discoveries had advanced the introduction of a number of modern devices, he preferred the cool receiver of the old and heavy telephone to the gaudy multicolored smartphones.

  He enjoyed the touch to real materials: the polished fragrant wood of his pipe or the heavy thick fountain pen. He adored good old times when everybody knew his place and science was not used for mass enrichment. He remembered his university professors whose aristocratic manners and devotion to the cause made him believe in genuine “benevolent” science.

  Cold ringing.

  “Professor Rosenstein?”

  “Yes, speaking.”

  “We have a 4th A accident, sir.”

  “How bad is it?”

  “Quite bad, sir.”

  “I am coming right over.” He put sown the receiver, got up,

  slowly put on his plaid jacket and left the office.

  The Mediterranean Sea, American airplane carrier ‘Carl Vincent’, class ‘Nimitz’, Day 2, 11:39 a. m.

  “How are you, Harry?”

  “I’m okay, thanks”, the Admiral replied, exhaling a thick cloud of smoke, which virtually concealed his stern face. “What’s with all that drama, Harry? Nobody’s telling me anything.”

  “You’ll know soon enough, Alan.”

  “We’ve known each other since the Gulf, Harry, won’t you even tell me what’s going on?” He started sounding somewhat nervous.

  The Admiral looked down – the entire ship was visible in his feet, enormous, powerful, capable of destroying a whole continent. The bridge was above all and everything – the heart of the ship, a sacred place, where only the anointed were allowed. Alan was here due to his solid connections in Washington and to his military career, but to an old sailor from the Navy this jerk from the TV with his windsurf tan remained a clown and a funny bugger. He had orders to transport him as soon as possible to Cairo, moreover, with the utmost secrecy, but he was sick of those conceited, posh and phony semi-retired military guys, who just never stopped parading with their former ranks. And how could he ask so many questions? A true military person should know to keep his mouth shut.

  “You served on a submarine, didn’t you, Alan?” The Admiral replaced his cigar to the other corner of his lips and gazed over the bridge. “At least that’s what your file says.”

  “Harry, you know too well I served on the damn submarine and since when have you been interested in my file? Is that some official meeting or is the Navy just making fun of me?” Alan was starting to be seriously distressed.

  “This is not a joke, Alan. My orders demand for me to know if you still remember how to navigate a submarine. Here, see it in print, if you don’t believe me.” The Admiral took a few sheets of paper out of the metal chest of drawers, waved them briefly before Alan’s eyes and then put them back.

  “How to navigate it? Was that the stamp of the Navy Headquarters?”

  “In a nutshell, I have to ask you and report: if you were on a submarine right now, could you be in charge of it? Could you do it?”

  “Sure, but who would need me to go on a submarine and be in charge of it?”

  “You will soon find out. In twenty minutes you will be off board.”

  “Off board where? And where, the fuck is the goddamn submarine? Here, in the Mediterranean, is that so?”

  “No, Alan. In Sahara.”

  Temporary military base ‘Abu Minqar’, Day 2. 3:03 p. m. She went under the shower. The lukewarm water pleasantly caressed her skin and took her deeper into her thoughts. Marcela was so tired that she caught herself for a moment with her brain in a reverie, without being able to focus on a particular thought. It could be the jet lag after the long night flight from London to Cairo and the tiring journey by cars through the desert to this godforsaken place. All the time she asked herself hundreds of questions and was seeking to find a logical explanation and an answer to the crucial question: why, for Christ sake, when she had to fly from Heathrow to Bucharest, she ended in Egypt, moreover in a top-secret military base?

  Yes, everybody was wearing a uniform, they were terse in their conversation, very cool and polite, nobody provided to her the tiniest piece of information about what happened and her role in it. So, she just stopped inquiring and decided that at some point someone would tell her what the matter was.

  She had never been keen about the military and their secrets. All their mysterious projects were reeking of death. That was it, she was scared shitless when she saw arms and military uniforms. Ever since the time of Securitate, the secret services in her native country.

  The base was small but obviously well equipped for the needs of the employees. As much as she could see of it under the blazing sun, it consisted of five buildings, situated near each other. She also noticed several Hammers and a large dome, where something obviously of great importance was stored, since it was guarded day and night by armed men.

  There was a loud knock on the metal door.

  “Yes?”

  The military at the threshold was tall and his muscled body

  could be sensed even under the uniform. Any other woman would have found him attractive in spite of his stern gestures and ice-cold expressionless face.

  “Miss, get ready. The meeting is in the control room at 18:00 exactly. The others are on their way.”

  The man left without waiting for an answer or giving more explanations, but she did not expect them anyway.

  Who could be ‘the rest of the people’?

  Libyan Desert, 20 miles South-East of Al-Farafrah, Day 2, 4:10 p. m. He felt terribly sick but he could not even throw up. He had not eaten anything
for the last twenty hours. His head felt heavy, even though he slept throughout the entire flight. He only woke up in Cairo, when they passed from the airplane to the SUVs, to realize he was not in the campus and was not going to attend classes in the morning. The worst of all was the infernal heat, of which he was constantly sweating, even inside the car while the air-conditioner was on maximum power.

  “Hey, kid, we’re almost there, get yourself together”, the man with the military uniform on the front seat turned to him. Under his crew cut fair hair his face was square and unshapely. Michael could not see well his patches to determine his rank. They had not exchanged a single word during the journey.

  “When can I call home? My family will be worried.” “I have no idea, kid. All I know is they went crazy about that desert in the last couple of days. One would think they struck gold or petrol. They make us work like madmen.”

  “Have you got a cigarette?”

  “Here, kid, help yourself. This will be your last one. There is no smoking in the base. Major’s orders.”

  Michael took a cigarette with a swift motion out of the pack of “Marlboro” and inhaled deeply. Only now he felt wide awake and could collect his thoughts. He looked out of the SUV window and asked:

  “Is the sky always so pink in the afternoon here?”

  “It has been at least for the past week. Strange, isn’t it? Why do they need you, anyway? Are you some straight A student or the son of a big boss?”

  “I have no idea. I am a history undergraduate in Harvard, but I’m not super studious, you know”, said Michael, immediately attempting to shorten the distance among them.

  “Ha-ha…”, the military man laughed, genuinely amused. “A historian in the Sahara, that would be really curious. Pity that we won’t be here to have some fun.”

  “You won’t be here?”

  “We leave you here, kid. After that you are on your own with the ‘thing’.

  While talking they had arrived at the base. The men almost threw out Michael and his bag out of the SUV, handed some papers to the soldier on duty in front of the gate, made a U-turn and left among a cloud of dust.

  The Thing?!, Michael said to himself.

  He dropped the bag with his clothes on the sand and looked around: he was standing in front of something that looked like a military camp and in the distance behind a town could be seen. It was definitely a town – with buildings and streets. It reminded him of a real oasis from the fairy tales he had read as a young child. An island of greenery among the vast sand sea, bringing joy to the traveler’s eyes. From so far way it looked like a geographic map: irrigation canals, outlining agricultural lots in different shades of green.

  “Welcome to the base, sir”, a young man about his age greeted him in a military style. He had short hair and a baby face, completely hairless. “I trust you have had a good trip, sir.”

  “Where the fuck are we?” Michael could not quite focus yet after the long journey.

  “This is Abu Minqar, sir, the most distant town-oasis in Egypt and the last line of civilization before the frontal base, sir.”

  “Look, pal, relax a little bit and tell me about this place”, Michael said, glad to have found some seemingly normal person, who might answer his questions.

  “Yes, sir, of course, sir”, the young man with no facial hair said. “I was just going to tell you about the mission…”

  “And what mission is that?”, Michael asked quickly with the hope that he would at long last receive some adequate information.

  “The town was founded because of the demographic irregularity of Egypt, sir. Therefore, the government has stimulated these people with different favors to settle here and turn the desert into fruitful farms...”

  Michael smiled.

  “No, I got it about the town, I was asking about the ‘mission’. What is it?”

  “It’s top secret sir. Sorry, but I can only tell you that we are heading West, near the boundary with Libya, in the heart of the desert.”

  “Theory of the Critical Event”

  Prof. McDowell, “Science @Co.” journal, 11-21-2008 “Critical Event” is a phenomenon with highly specific strong influence on the community from the outside and by all means causing critically important shift of the system or a change with fatal consequences.

  Such a ‘critical event’ might have a positive or a negative charge.

  Most people do not recognize the ‘critical event’ as positive, but define it as ‘luck’, ‘happy concurrence of circumstances’ or ‘fate’. The positive development of every situation is forgotten and people tend to accept it as something good or even normal.

  Contrary to that, when the ‘critical event’ is with a negative value, causing harm or evil, it is much better remembered and defined as more important for the development of the system.

  In such instance of negative ‘critical event’ its victims tend to give it names like ‘war’, ‘calamity’, ‘death’, ‘bad luck’, ‘apocalypse’.

  Temporary military base ‘Abu Minqar’, Day 2. 6:00 p. m.

  “Good afternoon, everyone. I am Major Norman Smith.” The man was about 50, more than six feet five inches tall, very thin, but exuding strength and power. His aquiline nose was dominating the tanned face and it was only his intelligent and lively eyes that softened a little his stern and rough aura. He was dressed in camouflage military clothes, as if ready to enter a battle at any time. He stood before the sitting audience like a strict teacher, who was examining his students in the end of the term. The multimedia slowly changed the slides with incomprehensible figures and diagrams of meteorological and seismological measurements. Heavy silence hung in the room.

  “I know what you are expecting from me now. To explain to you why you are here. Actually, I’ll be expecting the answers from you.”

  “Excuse me, sir, but the normal logic suggests that the US Army owes us some explanation, if not apologies for this. You interrupted my holidays, I cannot communicate with my family…” Alan was accumulating speed.

  “I also insist on an explanation”, Marcela interfered, having gained courage from the course of the meeting and ready immediately to stride the group discontent.

  “Gentlemen… Madam…”, the Major tried to raise his voice over theirs.

  “When will we be able to contact our families? How can you keep us in isolation? Are we some sort of prisoners?”, Michael asked.

  Only Hans was sitting in the back, not saying a word.

  He was the last one to come to the base, but arrived for the meeting with immaculate appearance and exactly on time. The first impression of him was of a plump and agreeable man who could be detected from miles away as a queer fish. His ubiquitous plaid jacket had surrendered to the tropic heat and he had on a light blue shirt, surprisingly not accompanied by a necktie, but all buttoned up. Either for that reason or because of his overweight Hans was constantly sweating, his short curly hair was all wet, the shirt was stuck to his spherical body and his glasses were fogged to a degree that made him completely blind. Poor man took off their massive frames to clean the glass with his shirt and wiped his forehead with a white handkerchief – he had one of these in his pocket at all times.

  As a young boy Hans was quite plump, hence a good target for mockery by his classmates. He did not have friends and found a refuge in the thick books with long and complex equations. He was reading a lot till the age of sixteen, then began writing himself

  – also thick books for which he was highly awarded by prestigious universities.

  He was a mathematician by profession, but his true love was physics. Nobody could ever imagine Hans, the genius, deal in something different but dull figures and incomprehensible formulas. When he was in high school there was a story how his mother took him to a piano lesson with the hope that her son would become a musician and Hans described to the poor teacher all notes in terms of physical frequencies and number of oscillations per minute. Or at least something like that. Naturally, both the l
esson and his musical career ended on that very day.

  This did not prevent him from acquiring his first PhD when he was sixteen, at eighteen he was a professor in Cambridge and when he turned twenty five, he became the youngest member of the Austrian Academy of Science.

  Today he was sitting in the room and did not seem surprised or distressed in the least.

  Near him, in the darkest corner, two men were sitting who also did not take part in the discussion. One was whispering from time to time to the other and he was nodding approvingly.

  “Hans, you have no family”, Alan snapped, “or maybe you would call your assistant. Don’t worry, even without you there will be someone to read your dull lectures.”

  “Alan, why don’t you tell us the reason your show was taken from you?”, said Hans, gazing at him icily.

  “Oh, easy, easy. I take it you’ve known each other previously”, Marcela said, trying to clear the atmosphere.

  Alan just waved his hand dismissively.

  The Major changed the slide on the wall and they all froze gaping.

  A picture of a submarine was displayed, half of which was buried in a sand dune. Its nose was emerging from the sand, slightly tilted to one side. Everybody watched in amazement, since they would never have imagined such a view.

  Norman looked around the room and after satisfying himself that this time he had their undivided attention, went on calmly:

  “At the moment we are in a state of 4th A degree of emergency, classified according to category APAUO.”

  “Can you say it in English, please, sir?” Michael asked, casting a glance to the others to see if they did not understand too.

  “Abnormal Phenomena of Alien or Unidentified Origin. In this case – 4th A degree.”

  “What Aliens?” Alan pricked his ears.

  “What is 4th degree?” Marcela was completely at a loss.

  As a typical military person Norman started reciting the code:

  “First degree: Observing from a distance unidentified objects on the ground or in the air.

  Second degree: Visual contact with a proven extraplanetary form of non-alive matter. Third degree: Physical contact with micro- or macro-organisms of non-humanoid type. Fourth degree: Verbal contact or contact on informational level with alien intelligence.