Alex Gore - The Cube

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’?

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.”

“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’.

“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.