Alex Gore - The Cube

“No, these are not letters. It rather seems to me to be a year”, Alan suggested.

“It really is a year, Alan. This time you are right, which is a miracle.” Hans had embraced the screen with both hands, his nose almost touching the glass. “We have to check what happened on Earth in 1986… Michael?”

“The first that comes to mind is the explosion of the ‘Challenger’ shuttle. It was in January, I think on the 28 th… Seven NASA astronauts died.”

“This might be a threat”, Ivanov interfered in his usual military-suspicious tone. “A kind of challenge: ‘If you make trouble,

that’s what you’ll get – Boom!’”

“Enough, Colonel, it is rather too elementary to be true.” Marcela could not believe how stuffed and washed up the brains of the military were. “If we go along this line, in April 1986 the fourth nuclear reactor in Chernobyl exploded, bringing about the greatest eco catastrophe in human history, and millions perished as a consequence…”

“As far as I can remember, in ’86 Mike Tyson became the youngest heavy weight boxing champion in history at the age of twenty”, Alan interrupted her.

“Maybe, for an alien the more interesting fact would be that in the same year the Soviet Union launched into exploitation the International Space Station ‘Mir’”, Sergey took part in the bidding. “Yes, and then on it a contact with them was made.” Michael could not think of anything more logical.

“I doubt that any of those events are relevant”, Hans pursed his lips.

“What is it then, Hans? Tell us, since you are so smart.” Alan cast him a challenging glance.

“This is a year, for sure. 1986. But I have absolutely no idea what it means.”

The Lieutenant burst in the control room breathless and sweaty, his cheeks were flushed and underlined the paleness of his gentle face. His voice sounded anxious.

“We have a casualty, you’ve got to see this! It is the first time I’ve seen anything of the sort!”

Without any more words Norman and Babyface rushed out of the door. The rest slumped down in their chairs as if after a command ‘As you were’. They needed some rest for their brain and senses. They kept quiet, everybody locked in their own head. Hans was the only one, remaining in feverish tension, with a fixed gaze at the screen, as if decided not to let the answer to the riddle escape him.

Suddenly he stood up from the computer, threw his arms in the air and shouted:

“Done!”

It looked like a butcher’s bacchanalia. The picture was as revolting as rotting flesh in the middle of a stinking swamp. The body resembled a bloody ball of bones, flesh and excrements. Under the roughly lacerated muscles the bones were white and crashed and had acquired some freaky unnatural shape.

The carcass was like that of an animal that was thrashed in all directions, its spinal column being broken in hundreds of places. Now it was rather like a mollusk or a jelly-fish, cast lifeless on the beach by the powerful waves.

Sergeant Greg Thompson was 23. He was found dead with the assistance of dogs less than a mile away from the base. It had happened while he was on his regular night checking trip.

“I found the weapon, Sir.” The Lieutenant pointed to the grinding device, lying half-buried in the sand about two feet away from the body.

“Put your gloves on, I want you to make a thorough search of the place. And collect prints. I need an analysis as soon as possible.”

“We would hardly match the prints to any in the system, Sir… if there are any prints left at all.”

“Move, Lieutenant, action! Don’t you bother about taking decisions.”

Norman was not himself. He climbed alone in the SUV, pressed the start button and barely waiting to hear the roaring engine, stepped abruptly on the right pedal. The powerful machine obeyed and started with ugly uproar, leaving behind a cloud of sand and smoke.

Ten minutes later he was in front of his dome.

He had no wish to see anybody at that moment. He was a tough man, having experienced many cataclysms, but some things were just too much for him. He needed to be alone if only for five minutes. He went to his room and sprawled on the bed on his back. He gazed at the ceiling, then closed his eyes. This method of solitude and self-control had helped him more than once. He had learned it back in the 90-ies from a friend, a military doctor in a base in Nevada. He was lying on the bed without moving, with his arms crossed over the chest, inhaling and exhaling deeply and slowly.

Behind his closed lids he imagined a white mare, stepping slowly in the fields towards the horizon, raising its exquisite slender knees. Regal force was flowing from every fiber of its sculptured body.

The white mare was alone in the field. Suddenly it turned back its head, moved its ears and snorted, having smelled the approaching storm. In the distance a whole herd of horses were galloping in terror towards it.

The bodies of the horses were as numerous as the blades of grass in the prairie. They were all in different colors, but there was not even one white among them. They approached the white mare and stopped breathless. It raised itself on its hind legs, whined victoriously and smelled each one’s snout and mane. Then it turned, neighed with a war cry and dashed towards the bright and cloudless horizon, galloping faster than ever. The rest of the horses followed it in a group, leaving the storm behind to breathe the dust, raised by their wild unshod hoofs…

Norman woke up startled, he saw the same dream, that the doctor had put into his head, over and over again. He liked it, because it always managed to relax him, to overcome his fears and worries…

He got up and went to the bathroom, where he splashed water on his face and looked at his reflection in the mirror. He was getting old. He needed to eat better and start exercising again… And call his family, they were probably starting to worry.

Suddenly he saw a silhouette, standing right behind his back. He pulled himself abruptly from the sink and looked back.

There was nobody!

He was probably hallucinating… Maybe he was too tired and overexcited of what was going on.

No, the man behind him was real. And his face was exactly like his own in the mirror. Only his glance seemed strange. Scary, glassy, with red pupils and goggled eyes.

Norman took his jacket from the chair, put it on and left the room. He needed to speak urgently to the scientists and find out what was going on.

Hans lifted abruptly his hands from the computer, pushed his chair back with force and cried: “Ready!”

After that he rapidly altered the energy of his movements, slumped slowly in the chair, leaned back, locking his hands behind the back of his head and said self-complacently:

“I know what happened to the ship.” His voice sounded perfectly calm, as if he were announcing that he passed by the 24-hour kiosk and bought alcohol free beer.

There was not a trace of his feverish anxiousness from minutes ago. He crossed his legs like a diligent student, who had delivered early his term test to the teacher and was now going to cast arrogant glances at the rest of the class.

“Hans, you really are a genius, who knows everything about everyone”, Alan said, stressing viciously on the last word.