Alex Gore - The Cube

…5, 4, 3…

A beam of white light went from the Eye towards the Cube. Its sparkling edges as if melted in the space around it.

…2.

Blast!

The whole ship shook, the helpless bodies of both men flied upwards in the air and hit like straws the massive screen. The board below them crashed in thousands of metal pieces that flew in different directions, bombarding the place. The cannonade of molten metal threw them on the ground where they fell on a thick layer of glass splinters.

“Ivanov, what’s going on? Is this coming from the Core?”

“No, it’s coming from outside!”

At this moment two of the doubles dashed against them. They had not noticed when and where they had entered from.

The huge mass of Simpson’s double, one of the sergeants, pressed the Professor to the floor. His arms, strong as a vise, clutched his neck. He was throttling him with ease, as if the Professor’s throat was made of rubber. Hans felt his plump body squashed over the sharp and cutting glass and metal shards by the terrible weight of the creature, sprawled on his chest. His back was all covered in blood, mixed with sweat. The pain from the torn muscles pierced him as a drill. His head was about to burst. His eyes were blind in a dim and salty blackness, water was retreating and darkness was enveloping him.

Hans was losing consciousness and blue haze rose before his vision. He started drifting and his body stopped fighting, his arms ceased their helpless waiving and dropped lifeless on the ground.

The creature understood he had won and raised his head to check if the other one had finished too.

Suddenly a small lithe body with energetic movements threw against it. The short arms blocked the creature and did not allow any movement for defense. Babyface stuck an insulin jet in its neck and the double instantly loosened its hold of Hans’s throat. It fell on him like a breathless stone statue.

Hans was also lying stiff.

In the opposite end of the place the struggle was far more equal. Ivanov and his strong arms were a good match for Hans’s double. In the creature’s agile movements there was not a trace of the real professor’s phlegmatic and dull manner.

Both bodies had grasped in mortal combat. The fat double managed to stick his teeth in the flesh of the Russian’s neck. Ivanov did not utter a sound but a fountain of bright red blood gushed from his old wound and almost reached the ceiling.

The corpse of the Colonel smashed into the control board, activating the blinking buttons.

The beast let him go and slowly turned his head to Babyface. His nostrils were sniffing hungrily. His predatory scarlet eyes were glued to the Lieutenant’s body.

The double approached from one side, ducked a little back and then dashed forward like a spring towards the Lieutenant.

The small man remained cool and tried to evade the attack to the left, but the creature was there already, grabbing his leg. The Lieutenant knew he had only one last chance left, put his hand in his pocket and took out the second syringe. He stuck it in Hans’s double’s thick thigh and the thing instantly fell on the floor in a heap.

Ivanov’s dead body slipped down from the control board and the buttons went off for a second.

Then the screen lit again and the electromotors of the aperture switched on. This time the Eye was wide open and white concentrated light started pouring from it, engulfing the entire interior of the submarine.

It was so strong that it seemed to penetrate the thick steel corps.

Hans opened his eyes.

I’m still alive.

He took a deep breath and the light began returning to his

pupils. For a second the shadows around him froze immovable. He thought he could stay like that for a few minutes. It was like in the morning, when you awfully want to sleep and after the alarm sounds, you turn to the other side to steal a few sweet moments from the time of creation.

He felt the whole submarine shaking, while the ceiling lost its contours in the bluish shining. In the sweaty blinking fog before his eyes the thought flashed that they are going back in time. “Outside!” Hans’s face was all bloody. “Go outside now!”

Babyface had kneeled by the lifeless body of the Colonel. He jumped. He just needed an instant to get in touch with what was happening. He grabbed the plump man and dragged him towards the opening.

They barely managed to jump in the sand outside. The metal monster next to them started rising over the earth as a gin in an Arab fairy tale. The whole submarine was enveloped in a bluish-green cloud of trembling aerial lava that was going upward.

Their brains were heated to a boiling point. Hans looked at his hands: his fingers were at least twenty, his palms were burning in strong vibrations. His head was pulsating like it was hit by a lightning. His feet were stoned, buried in the sand.

He looked at the Lieutenant, whose silhouette looked quadrupled to him. His dozen eyes were flickering left and right and his white rabbit front teeth were clattering vertically.

“So, this is traveling in time”, Hans thought and with his last remaining impulse pushed with his body Babyface on the sand.

The whole ship for an instant was reduced to a black dot and disappeared with fiery flame from the horizon. White glow in colorless thin mist.

Nothing.

It was finished.

The submarine and the Cube were no longer there.

Alan was sitting on the covers and his only leg was dangling down helplessly. Marcela was leaning on the bed beside him. Dark shadows beneath her eyes and tiredness had marked her beautiful face.

Norman had gone to inspect the trucks and had been away for more than an hour.

“The serum worked, March.” Babyface handed her the empty retort.

“What was that, Lieutenant? It really killed him instantly.” Hans asked.

“Well, nothing much…”

“Don’t play modest, March, this miracle saved my life!” Hans’s disheveled head was bandaged and he wore another bloodied bandage on his arm.

“Each cell contains in itself the key to self-destruction. Nature has encoded our own death in us in this way.”

Babyface was all the time looking outside through the small window, seemingly uninterested in the conversation. He was worried about the Major and the spooky sensation that they were being watched never left him. The traces near the submarine did not give him peace.

“Apoptosis. A programmed cell death”, he said curtly. “Yes, almost.” Marcela did not hide her surprise. “I separated the lysosomes of Golgi Apparatus and managed to isolate a protease, an enzyme responsible for leasing, i.e. ‘melting’ of the cell and its destruction. In short, with the doubles that enzyme was built only of proteins and did not contain any non-organic ions. I added iron and the enzyme became hyperactive, in other words, it was destroying all the proteins coming its way.”

“Where did you manage to add iron from, March?” Michael asked.

“From our blood.”

At this moment Norman came in the bio lab, all dusty, with the dirty cloth around his head and the goggles, covered by sand. He was walking a bit funny, slowly, as if he had hurt his knee. He held a machine gun, hanging down his legs, went to Alan and put his hand on the sheet in the place of his missing leg, then stood as if made of stone, facing the patient.

Marcela and the Lieutenant exchanged glances.

“Hey, Norman, how’s the truck? When will it be ready, so we can clear out of this place?” Marcela approached him.

Norman did not turn back but put his other hand on Alan’s good leg.

“Norman, why are you wearing goggles?” Hans retreated a step back.