THE CUBE

by Alex Gore

  Everybody started talking simultaneously, nobody listening to the others. They were overexcited and noisy, reason gave way to emotions for the moment. A curtain of rumbling uproar fell in the small room.

  Only Hans kept quiet and there was a slight smile in the corner of his lips.

  “Everybody, please, be quiet! Hans?” Norman had learned to detect this expression by now and urged him to talk.

  “There is nothing illogical and strange in this on first glance crazy equation. It is even quite simple.”

  “Come on, Hans, I beg you…” Alan said impatiently.

  Hans stood up and went to the white board. He took a black marker and started writing on it. The others followed every movement of his and and every symbol.

  “Like I said, there is nothing complex at all in this code. It even looks written by some kid.” Hans stepped away from the white board. “He had written the first fourteen letters of the English alphabet:

  А

  B

  C

  D

  E

  F

  G

  H I

  J

  K L

  М N

  Then he wrote a figure against each one: A-1

  B-2

  C-3

  D-4

  E-5

  F-6

  G-7

  H-8

  I-9

  J-10

  K-11

  L -12

  М-13

  N-14

  “Do you see now?”

  “For God’s sake, Hans, explain it normally”, Norman said, starting to lose his patience too.

  “Well, it’s rather simple really. Square root of 117 is approximately 10.816653826.”

  “Still that doesn’t make it equal to 5. It’s more than twenty three times bigger, isn’t it?” Marcela spoke.

  “I cannot understand how 117 could be equal to 5. And what is the connection with the letters?” Alan asked, absorbing eagerly every word of the plump mathematician.

  “Like I said, it’s fairly simple, I can’t believe you don’t see it.” Hans was obviously enjoying those final accords. “So, let’s see… Square of 10.816653826 is 117 or, more accurately 116.9999999999(9), but that doesn’t matter to us at the moment. If we had greater imagination and wish for games we would present the number 117 as a product of two other prime numbers, for example: 117=13x9, or, like it is in our small puzzle 5=117, which can be presented as 5=13x9. You understand, don’t you. Hans looked at his audience. Everybody was gaping with a vacant expression.

  “More precisely said, when we replace the figures with letters of the alphabet, we will have the following:

  5 will be E,

  13 will be M, and

  3 will be C…”

  Hans stepped aside from the whiteboard, so that everyone could see what was written:

  Е=М.С2

  Day 4, 12:59 p.m. Alan took her by the elbow to make her stop. She turned her head with the evident lack of desire of being spoken to and brushed aside her raven-black wavy hair.

  “What do you need?”

  “Just to talk to you.”

  “I’m listening, Alan.”

  “What do you think of all that?”

  “What is there to think? We’ll write our reports, collect our

  checks… if there will be such at all…” Marcela coldly pulled her arm off his hand and started to walk away to her room. “I don’t trust the Russians. I’m sure they are hiding something. And that Hans you are so close with, seems too self-absorbed. All his theories might lead us along the wrong path…”

  “You are babbling nonsense, Alan.” “You don’t feel like talking to me, do you?” Alan made a theatrical face of being devastated.

  “Oh, come on, Alan, we don’t have time for this now!”

  “Is it lack of time really or of desire?”

  “Okay, let’s just say we have far more important issues.” She abruptly turned away her head and went on forward.

  Alan remained speechless in the hall, looked after her for a moment, then started slowly for his own dome.

  The base, canteen, day 4, 1:13 a. m. Sergey opened a bottle with a practiced gesture and content smile, eager to put his lips to the invigorating liquid. One could tell by his shining eyes that he had a weak spot for vodka. He poured to himself first and gulped greedily, only then he filled the glasses of all the rest and finally his own again.

  Hans refused to drink. Marcela was barely touching the rim of the glass with her tongue, while Alan was flirting with the taste of the strong drink with the moderation and elegance of a real gentleman.

  A little later Michael and Sergey sent the lieutenant for another bottle and did not find any difficulty in finishing it.

  They were all sitting in the canteen. They were dead tired after the last sleepless days, filled with tension. They were not hungry but after Norman admitted there was alcohol in the base and he would not mind for them to relax after the hard day, they all agreed to move from the conference room to the canteen.

  Norman himself, after sending to them the lieutenant with a bottle of vodka, went to check the perimeter and take care of some supplies.

  “Tell us, Alan, what’s the story with that show Hans always teases you about?” Michael asked. He had wanted to hear it for a long time and he thought now was the right moment.

  “I was hosting a show on CBS and I was removed from screen… stupid episode”, Alan replied. They had known each other for only three days but it was as if they had been together for an eternity. “The show had great ratings and for me after my military career and the university it was a brilliant chance. We cohosted it with a colleague of mine, Margaret. She had graduated the School of Journalism and had a lot of other diplomas too, a beautiful and well-read lady of high class.”

  “Alan was madly in love with her”, Hans interfered but without a trace of irony this time.

  “Yes, I don’t deny it, I was totally smitten with her, that was the woman I’ve had the deepest feelings for… She, like me, was highly ambitious and unscrupulous in attaining her goals. She, I might say, learned from the best. And at that time, in those circles there was no one better than me. Anyway, I invited her to work with me, I taught her everything I knew. She was my partner, we took turns hosting the show and shared the best stories.”

  “Until one day Alan got a flash of consciousness”, Hans added again.

  “There was a superhot story, just by the book, a godsend for every reporter. A young child was kidnapped and the terrorist was trying to extract a big ransom from the parents. But things got messy, his car was stuck and the cops had nailed him. He, together with the victim was in an old community building in the outskirts of Detroit. I was sent right away, I just had to report the case, say a few heart-breaking facts in front of the camera and then go and have my whiskey at the hotel.”

  “But our Alan decided to play the hero on the wrong night”, Hans offered information.

  “That’s right, Hans, I know I shouldn’t have done it”, Alan sighed. Still he was determined to go to the end. “We had just finished reporting the story and the cameraman was putting away his stuff, when I saw a small opening… For God’s sake, she was only 12, on the way to that place I couldn’t stop looking at her picture – a slim tall girl with gorgeous long black hair. I read her school report, she was an A student, interested in Biology… She wanted to become a doctor...”

  “Our Alan acted impulsively and without warning the police or anybody at all, after seeing the slightly opened window, decided he could manage by himself. However, his military skills were not enough in this situation and he was trapped together with little Anna. Alan lost his nerves, started a fight with the kidnapper during which the girl was mortally wounded. The same night she died at the hospital… Alan got away with a gunshot wound in the shoulder, nothing serious, but did not dare show his face for weeks on end. Her parents and the public believed that if not for his reckless actions the
child would be saved. Ten minutes before Alan rushed in the building, the kidnapper had agreed on the ransom with the police and prepared to release the girl unharmed.”

  “Well, we just had no luck”, Alan said, lowering his head. “When I went inside the freak pointed his gun at me and I had no choice, I was scared he would shoot both of us…”

  “But he only shot Anna and you saved yourself, Alan.”

  Alan was deadly pale now and glanced at Hans with desperate eyes, but he went on:

  “There’s no such thing as ‘bad luck’, Alan. You were just not suited for this job. Eventually your contacts could not help and you were expelled. That’s it.”

  “Mind your own business, Hans. It was all about luck. Or rather the lack of it.”

  “Luck was made up by losers like you, so they could excuse their own failure”, Hans concluded.

  “Go to hell with your dumb theories”, Alan said, making an obscene gesture and frowning.

  “What kind of theory is that, Hans?” Marcela asked cautiously. She would like to think that Alan was right and that was nonsense. She had often wondered if she was not trying to justify her problems and having no family with lack of luck.

  “The ‘Theory of Bad Luck’ also called ‘Theory of Purple Stockings’ has been known since the end of the past century. It was first made public by one Lord Dunwell. The first premise of this theory is that anything which might happen, really happens, in other words, everything is possible.”

  “How so?” Michael asked.

  “Well, according to quantum physics there are infinite number of universes with infinite number of versions of our existence.”

  “Is there a universe in which I’m married to Angelina Jolie?” Michael asked, smiling dreamily.

  “Yes, but also there is one in which you are a gay in Massachusetts Central Correctional Institution.”

  Michael’s smile disappeared instantly.

  “Yes, there is also a parallel universe in which I am married to Marcela and we have three kids, we live in a small village in Peru, growing potatoes and llamas, she is half-literate fat person with a huge wart on her nose, while I have blond curls and have never gone to school.”

  Marcela showed her perfect white teeth in a broad and sincere smile.

  “So, if we assume that each probability is materialized somewhere in some world, we are sure that absolutely all versions of events are possible”, Hans went on. “Don’t you think?”

  The rest in the group just nodded, listening with interest. Only Alan sat frowning and not uttering a sound.

  “Imagine two boys. The first one is really fortunate, luck has never left him, whatever he does. We’ll call him ‘Lucky’. The second boy is the most unfortunate person in the universe, he never had any luck at all – if something bad could happen to him, it always did. Let’s call him ‘Unlucky’.”

  “You came up with super original names, Hans, I would have never thought of them”, Michael giggled, but it was obvious that he was absorbed in the subject.

  “The names are arbitrary.” Hans rarely abandoned the serious tone when talking about mathematics. “So, Lucky is walking in the street and the first thing that happens to him is he finds a lottery ticket, winning 1 million dollars. He is walking on all alone. Around the corner he meets a beautiful girl, the woman of his life, the one from his wildest dreams.”

  “Wow, Hans, it’s getting really interesting! Will there be sex on quantum physics level?” Michael went on joking, being in excellent mood after the vodkas.

  “The neighborhood sucks, but the weather is fine, warm and sunny, and the boy is dressed in denim shorts, purple socks and sports shoes.”

  “Hans, you are killing me, bro, who wears purple socks?”

  “I don’t know, I myself don’t possess such, but that’s how Lord Dunwell formulated it. I guess it is some kind of metaphor or a British snobbish whim. You know their freaky way of talking.”

  Marcela just nodded amused.

  “And so, the girl of his dreams is attacked by three gangsters, who, luckily have phobia of purple socks. All three of them!”

  “Oh, fuck, that’s too much now!” Michael laughed so hard, he barely balanced on his chair.

  “That’s just it, too many quite improbable facts are piled up. But don’t forget hat Lucky is the luckiest person alive.”

  “Well, he’ll need all the luck with these purple socks.”

  “The attackers see his socks and run away, leaving the girl alone. She herself has a very rare kind of vison anomaly, seeing all colors except for the purple.”

  Michael was totally at a loss now how this story might end.

  “Naturally, you guess that the girl instantly falls in love with the hero who has saved her and after a week the two of them get married. The story ends in a fairy tale style: they have fine healthy children and live happily ever after…”

  “A pathetic and, I must admit, a dumb story”, Alan said, coming out of his dark silence.

  “Now imagine the second boy, the most unfortunate person in the universe, Unlucky. He is walking in the street, but instead of finding a winning lottery ticket, he steps in dove’s excrement.”

  “Hans, you mean his foot is covered in fucking shit… Ha-haha!”, Michael was genuinely amused.

  “Something like that”, Hans said, a little taken aback, since his manners excluded street language. “He meets the same girl further on and again they are attacked. Besides needing new shoes, Unlucky has the misfortune to meet thugs, who all have a common phobia, only not of purple, but of green. Since the boy does not wear anything green, he is badly beaten and the girl is robbed. They do not fall in love, never get married and the story does not have a happy ending.”

  “Another pathetically dumb story with a dumb ending”, Alan noted, not yet discouraged that he might get his revenge. However, Hans continued unperturbed:

  “There is a catch in the story though. Think that if the poor boy did not marry and did not have children, respectively did not live a happy life, but spent it in illness, leaving no offspring, while the other boy reproduced, his children had children of their own and all lived till very old age as a big family, surrounded by grandchildren and great-grandchildren.”

  “Which means that lucky people live longer and are more prone to leave offspring than unlucky ones”, Michael concluded, getting more serious now.

  “That is correct and if we follow the logic of statistics and mathematics, which is undeniable”, said Hans, proudly thrusting forward his chest, “in an infinite sequence of time and events the unlucky ones will gradually fall out and disappear and the lucky ones will prevail…”

  “…which would mean that all who are left in the world are exceptionally lucky and ‘bad luck’ just does not exist anymore…”

  “And that totally excludes any theories of luck, be it good or bad”. Hans sat back in his chair, crossed his arms and glanced at the group victoriously.

  Alan sank again in his sulky silence. Marcela whispered in Michael’s ear:

  “What do you think connects the professor with the failure of Alan?”

  “They hate each other because of that, now I see.”

  “I remember the story from TV, total tragedy. However, I don’t recall a fired journalist.”

  “I remember the hero reporter who tried to save a kidnapped child, but fucked up…”

  “But what does it have to do with Hans?”

  “You, women seem to absorb just the drama from TV and facts escape you.”

  “Mikey?”

  “The Margaret in question is Hans’s ex-wife – Michael told her in a low voice. – The little girl was her niece.”

  Secret CIA message, Day 4, 3:11 a.m.

  To Base ‘Object 111-13X’:

  Any activity is prohibited in the region of the Eastern Libyan desert, especially in its Egyptian part. The same is valid for topsecret climatic experiments and meteorological explorations. At all atmospheric levels.

  Ti
ll further notice.

  Unidentified sound source. Detected waves from the supersonic

  and infrasound specter.

  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.