Alex Gore - The Cube

Amidst a cloud of smoke the silhouette of the soldier on duty, who had given the shots, appeared.

The deadly hold of the student loosened and his body fell lifeless on the floor.

The Sergeant placed his finger on Sergey’s carotid artery. He felt no pulse.

“It’s good to hear you confessing” Babyface said and made a step towards the scientist.

“Well, of course not me, but my double!”

“What are you talking about, Hans?” Norman asked. “It makes no sense.”

“Just think about it. If you are going to meet alien races and civilizations, wouldn’t you like to know more about their behavior and culture as individuals, as a society, how they react in different situations and against various challenges?”

“Be more specific, Hans”, Norman urged him.

“I have a theory: The Cube, they found on the sea bottom or who knows where, was created by an alien civilization to test us. It is something like a lighthouse, that would show them who we are. For this purpose, the Cube creates our doubles – for everyone who has been in contact with it. A double, however, who is a total opposite of us. If, let’s say, you are a good and moral person, your double is a brutal murderer. If you are bright and calm, your double is a mindless and cruel monster.”

“That explains many things. Including the way our doubles caused the fire”, Norman said, thinking aloud.

“And Hans’s fingerprints on the dead body and the murder weapon” Alan added.

“But why do they need such evil creatures?” Marcela wondered.

“Do not forget, they need not be evil by all means” Hans replied. “They are just reciprocal to their prototype. If we accept that in our case we are positive and balanced personalities with good intentions, then our doubles are obviously monsters. But if the aliens meet an evil civilization with aggressive and cruel individuals, their doubles would be real angels.”

“Yes, I can understand this, it makes sense, but still… I am not sure what they test and why”, Marcela said.

“There is another possibility, Hans. Forgive me, but even you might be wrong sometimes” Michael interfered. “I think that the Cube just belongs to a mirror universe, compared to ours, inhabited by those aliens. Or they might not be aliens, but our reciprocal reflections in this mirror reality.”

“And what is the nature of such a parallel reality?” Marcela asked.

“The idea of parallel worlds has not dated since yesterday. Some scientists believe there exists a world, or a reality, parallel to ours, in which every man and object has an analogue with the opposite sign.”

“What are you babbling about, Michael? What opposite sign? We, people, are not some goddamn numbers, are we!”

“A fully legitimate question, Alan, and actually, yes, we are like the values of the infinite numbers. Do you know what ‘dark mater’ is?” Hans interjected.

“Something out of ‘Star Wars’ probably” Marcela suggested.

“No”, the Professor continued. “This is an unexplored part of the Universe, the greater part. We know just five per cent of the visible Universe, the rest are the so called ‘dark matter’, for which we have no idea whatsoever. Black matter, or rather more importantly, dark energy, welcome to the rollercoaster in Disneyland, only without the glasses and safety belts. Imagine how few people really realize that ninety five percent of the surrounding Universe is totally unknown to us. A part, in which physical laws or science, as we know them, might not be valid and might not even exist. Life, if it is possible at all, is probably totally different and unknown to us.”

“You mean, we don’t know nothing in fact about the surrounding world?” Marcela was amazed.

“If you find enough five per cent of the Space and two percent of the human brain…” Hans smiled at her ironically. “That’s exactly what we, people, know of our own mind or of the surrounding Universe. Every elementary particle has its analogue, and also the macro objects of our known Universe have their double in the parallel reality.”

“I read about this in an online magazine. Particles of matter meet their particles of anti-matter and are mutually annihilated” Michael said.

“Yes, there is a positively charged positron and when it meets the negative electron, they are mutually destroyed. A photon is formed and a quant of energy is discharged” Hans explained. “But I don’t think Michael had this in mind. You are all talking only of specs of our reality.”

“That’s right, Hans” the student said. “Matter and anti-matter, whatever it is, are a part of our Universe, while I had in mind something totally different… something out of another world, of another reality, of another universe…”

“You are scaring me, Mikey, please…” Marcela said.

“The so called super symmetrical particles exist, which are actually in a universe, parallel to ours and have the respective mirror analogues in our world.”

“But how so? Is there any connection between them?” Michael asked.

“The objects of super symmetry are absolutely identical with those with us, but are reciprocal, turned backwards, with an opposite sign.”

“Like reflections in a mirror, is that it?” Marcela was addressing rather Hans than Michael.

“Exactly. Imagine you are looking at yourself in the mirror in the hall of your home” the Professor replied. “Your wedding ring on your right hand is on the left hand of the image before you. His left ear is with the earring that is on your right one.”

“You have an earring on the right ear only if you are gay, dude, and I’m not sure you are exactly married” Michael laughed.

“The objects in the parallel symmetrical world are called s-objects and we define them as ‘partners’ of the respective objects in our Universe. Thus, for example, the partner of electron is selectron, the one of the quark is squark. For us today these are only hypothetical particles, since they have not been discovered or proved yet. The exception is the x-boson, which is the analogue of the known to us fermion.”

“Wasn’t the x-boson the so called ‘divine particle’, about which those scientists from CERN bragged they have managed to discover?” Alan asked, dimly remembering an article on the matter.

“Yes, Alan.”

“Tell them, Michael, tell them when these ‘symmetrical’ particles appear.”

“For their creation and proving… or rather for passing beyond that border a large amount of energy is needed. Like in the first minutes of the Big Bang.”

“Which we obviously have in the submarine with its temporal engine and artificial creation of singularity. Is it possible, Michael, that in such conditions super symmetrical objects might appear?” the Major asked.

“In theory, yes, this is one of the possibilities… a tunnel in time.”

“People, I can understand the theoretic postulates about elementary particles, but here we have before us macro creatures, don’t we?” Marcela asked.

“Yes, but what are we built of, our bodies? Of elementary particles, atoms, molecules.”

In this case is it theoretically possible, since little symmetrical particles exist, that people, mirror-like to us exist as well? You remember the message 1986/9861, like one, reflected in a mirror, backwards.”

“Yes, why not? Physics allows this possibility at least theoretically.”

“These are exactly the doubles, ladies and gentlemen, they are our mirror Self.” Hans got up from his chair, took out his pipe with an elegant gesture and bowed slightly. He resembled an actor, who goes all sweaty back on the stage for an encore after having done the perfect part in the performance of his life.