Alex Gore - The Cube

Location: Libyan desert, coordinates: 26°45’08.8”N 25°13’30.9”E

Possible electro-magnetic influence of the shining on devices. Record each information on paper.

Libyan desert, Camp ‘Object’, Day 4, 6:18 a.m.

She moved waking up and realized her t-shirt was wet. She felt the cool sweat on her back. At night temperatures were falling to

-10°C, and during the day it was a hot hell. Either because of what she had seen in the submarine, or because of this amplitude she found it hard to fall asleep and dreamed a lot.

She hated dreaming. Maybe because she was always seeing the soldiers who tortured her father or she was swimming in the air breast stroke style. She was floating weightless in space and only the strokes of her arms determined her direction. In her sleep it seemed so easy, as if air was water in a pool, taking the weight off her body and making her feel light as a blade of grass on the surface of the sea. No man could give her such pleasure as water did. She adored swimming.

But always at some point he appeared.

And he spoiled the whole dream.

He was gently stroking her hair with his exquisite hand, watching her straight in the eyes, then touched her face with his soft warm lips, stood up and walked away in the darkness.

In real life he was never so gentle and quiet. They had not much time for romance.

He was handsome, strong, arrogant, wicked and aroused her with the way he treated people around him. As if they were subordinates, poorly dressed servants, who only existed to obey the commands of the almighty prince.

It suited him.

He was smart and could not understand common people. His thoughts seemed to be floating in the distant sea of another life. He was doomed to success, brilliant in every enterprise he took. Money and status in public hierarchy were reserved for him. He was conquering peaks with natural ease, which concealed hard labor and many deprivations. A cardio-surgeon of world class, he was married to his job. Like her, he was devoted to his career and his personal life was discarded somewhere under the bed, to wait for some time in the future. Nobody of the two could – or rather wanted – to make a compromise, ruining his or her career in order to preserve this relationship.

And this love.

When she was offered the PH. D. position in London, she did not hesitate for an instant and left, without even thinking about the price she was going to pay. That was the chance of her life. They fought for a whole week, she cried, he shouted and broke things all over the flat. He loved her truly, but nothing could take him away from the hospital in Bucharest, where he would any moment now be promoted to head of Cardio-surgery.

The operating theatre was his life. University was hers.

He lived among patients and for the saved lives, she – among the laboratory experiments and the lectures.

The alarm on her phone took her out of this reverie. She was grateful to start the day in the real world. As hard as it was, the day was conquerable, while her dreams would not leave her alone.

She would not admit to herself that she was lonely and much hurt by the doctor.

She met him at an age, when she was no longer a naive child, but had not yet entered middle age with its cynical freedom of moral burdens. She still had her dreams and he materialized them in their complete colorfulness.

He was tall, handsome, with long hair and mesmerizing smile. Every move he made was confident, showing his talent and power to control.

This attracted and aroused her greatly.

She was ready to forgive him all but one thing.

He never proposed.

The hurricane “Leslie” is nearing the African west coast. Atmospheric pressure is dropping and stormy winds are expected in the following three days. The center of the hurricane is moving in direction south/south-east and is expected to pass through the second parallel and cause sand storms with hurricane speed. The population of these regions is recommended to evacuate immediately and to not go outside for the next 48 hours.

“Okay, I might have drunk a bit more vodka than I should last night, but I clearly remember that we did not discuss the main issue in the fucked situation with the frigging submarine…” Michael was trying to alleviate his hangover with a big cup of coffee.

Everybody was sitting in the canteen in dark mood. “I only remember that Hans started philosophizing and we all

fell asleep except for the lady”, Sergey said. He was drinking some juice with orange color, that had a suspicious smell of alcohol, and had not lost his sense of humor. His disheveled hair and redrimmed eyes prompted he hadn’t gone to bed at all. His baggy old jeans and dirty t-shirt did not win him much appreciation from the orderly and well-groomed soldiers in the base.

Norman came in, accompanied by two sergeants.

“I’d like Sergey to leave, please. Accompany him to his room.” The two strong men fulfilled his order immediately. They wringed his arms behind his back and took him to his room. Sergey had no strength left to protest and just dropped his head to his chest, resigned to the fate that the morning had prepared for him. Norman went on coolly, as if nothing had happened.

“So, gentlemen, we have a problem. All of you were on the ship yesterday. I want answers. Here and now!”

“Good morning, Sir”, Alan replied. His sleep had been uneasy, but he had not drunk much, so his mind was sober. “In our opinion the name of the submarine was ‘Albert Einstein’ or at least that was the only thing we could think of while sleeping.“

“Enough with the bullshit, Alan, we are all too tired to listen to dumb jokes.” Norman really wanted serious answers.

“What happened to the ‘Core’, Sir? Do we have an answer to this question?” Marcela clearly remembered that this issue was addressed to the Russians.

“Our Russian colleagues were kind enough to give a full report on this topic.”

“And to inform you that this submarine was travelling in time”. Hans was slowly sipping his orange juice. Hangover was for him a suicidal evil, which he had never known.

“I need from you answers to totally different questions”, Norman said, seeming confused for the first time.

“I beg your pardon, but if you want us to participate adequately in this situation, we need to know absolutely everything.” Marcela was really a little bit offended that they were not told everything.

“Whoa, people, I think there’s something super cool going on here, only nobody can explain it”, Michael remarked.

He had to admit to himself he was not yet sober after half a liter of vodka and four hours of disturbed sleep.

“I don’t believe there’s much to analyze here. The ship was stuck in the desert after some climatic phenomenon, an anomaly, something that whirled it in the air and that’s it. The rest of the things are just coincidences.” Alan did not much believe in aliens, although they would be perfect in terms of TV ratings.

“What about the Cube?” Marcela asked him. She had a small box and a sheet of paper in her hands.

“The Cube is some kind of a toy of the Russian military, some secret weapon, which they do not want to reveal to us… That must be it”, Michael suggested.

“Not true. You know everything you need to know and it just can’t be that”, Hans said, sounding absolutely convinced. “I told you, the ship comes from the future.”

“I don’t know when it was constructed, gentlemen”, Marcela said, “but I made an analysis of samples of the corals that we found on board. According to the period of semi-decomposition of carbon, that we use, its accuracy being only to ten years, the corals, gentlemen, are at least twelve thousand years old.”