Alex Gore

THE CUBE

To Ritchie Blackmore who created the most gorgeous music ever made.

Also, to Candice and Ritchie whose love made me believe in the existence of soul mates.

“Life is just a moment between two eternities.”

Plato

PART ONE: THE SHINING

Boston, Harvard, Day 1, 04:23 a.m.

“Open up!”

Michael half-opened his eyes and his first thought was that he was having a dream. His head was pulsating of all the vodka he had drank and he could swear he had gone to bed just a minute ago. He looked at the “Seiko” on his wrist and saw it was past 4 a.m. He tried to remember how he had got home, but the only thing he was sure of was that he came back alone, without a girl, he was very drunk and it took him forever to unlock the door to his room. “Open up! Police!”

Wide awake now, Michael realized that this midnight uproar was no practical joke.

“Open up, for Christ sake! Police!” ,the voice sounded now even more exasperated and irritated.

“Okay, okay, I’m comin’… err… I got it.”

He opened the door cautiously and was immediately almost pushed down inside by an obscure figure.

“Are you Michael Stevens?”, the man asked, without stepping out of the shadows of the open door. As far as Michael could see, his midnight visitor was a tall middle-aged Afro-American, with an athletic build, dressed entirely in black.

“Yes. What do you need me for?”

“I’m Captain Harold Smith”, the man said, showing his police ID with a practiced gesture. “And you’ve got to come with me.”

“But why? If this is about the night before, I assure you, that had nothing to do with me… it was all Gary’s idea.”

“Sorry, I can’t provide more information at this point, you have to go with me right now.” His voice sounded as if he would not tolerate any objection and it was clear that he was not only used to give orders but also to be obeyed unconditionally.

“Yes, sir… Let me just grab some clothes, sir”, Michael barely managed to say, sensing now was the time to bargain some time to come to himself and find out where this unexpected attack came from. “Just a sec, sir”, he said, trying to cajole the man.

“You have five minutes”. His tone was not rude but one that discouraged contradiction. “Take some more clothes. Let’s just say you’ll not be back in the morning.”

“Right”, the boy sighed, accepting the situation. “Are we going some place cold?”

“It’s scorching during the day and ice-cold at nighttime.”

He turned back to look at the students’ hostel, somehow sensing he would not return back here. They had made him take luggage for a week, but the two cars that had come for him, the people in them and the way they communicated among themselves made him think that something very special had happened that night.

He was more amazed and curious than frightened. Actually, he was still drunk and quite dazed to figure what was happening in full extent.

Surely, it was important but what did it have to do with him? Michael was a decent guy or at least his friends would describe him as such. He had stooping posture and looked shy on the outside; late to step into the stage of puberty, he still felt a few pimples on his face. And the face itself was lean, gaunt, with big and lively eyes under the handsome intelligent forehead. He was slender, rather with medium height than tall, which did not prevent him from being among the well-liked boys in the campus of Harvard. He did not shave often both because of laziness and out of desire to look older, so his stub concealed the traces of the latest night binge on alcohol with his fellow students. In fact, he was a perfectly ordinary boy who did not exceed the boundaries of statistical error as to his generation.

He was led into the black Escalade gently but firmly – they made it clear he had no choice. The captain sat on the back seat next to him. With the closeness of his body Michael felt trapped. Why, for fuck sake, all cops make you feel guilty and don’t need words to oppress you, just their presence is enough, Michael thought.

The SUV provided comfortable and quiet drive, but looking over the shoulder of the driver Michael could see they were not observing speed limitations. He was watching the night sky through the back window and noticed that it was somewhat lighter and at the same time murkier, with some bluish green shade.

The Shining.

He became aware of it only after hearing about an unusual natural phenomenon on TV weather forecast. He had an obscure memory of the dull babbling of a blond chick about some atmospheric electromagnetic fields and polarized waves… She had nice tits, that was the reason why he stayed with the channel and did not switch to sports.

Probably everybody watched weather because of the good tits… As if a Harvard history student cared about meteorology when there was vodka, weed and chicks with big boobs.

Three days earlier they smoked a lot of joints, followed by huge amounts of vodka and finally he and his room-mate Gary snatched a Celica. They didn’t need it for the money, just for a joy-ride, so that they could impress Mary Ann and her girlfriends with a funny story in the morning. They drove hard the stolen car for a few hours and just when they started getting tired of it, the petrol finished. They went to the store to buy more beer and decided to visit the girls in their flat.

Both of them busted inside, drunk as assholes, smoked some more and from this point on his memories of the night were really foggy. He just remembered her naked body, the perfect hairless skin and fine bulging nipples, while in the background the shouting of Gary and the rest of the drugged whores was heard…

“Sir, if this is about the Toyota, I could explain…” Michael stuttered. “What do you need me for? What happened?”

“An accident.”

Heathrow Airport, London, Day 0, 02:34 a.m.

She hated flying and still she spent almost one third of her life in the air. She disliked the goddamn airplanes, filled with snoring sloppy bores most of who traveled for no good reason.

Her present neighbor was a plump avuncular man with seriously receding hair, sparse worn-out teeth and stale breath of airport fast food. He was of the most tedious type of fellow flyers, since he had this dumb good-natured smile on and one just couldn’t cut him off. His naïve babbling about the weather, the latest Merseyside Derby and the flaws of Labour just drove her crazy. The tactics of the silent passive smile and the constant staring at the smartphone were predictably inefficient and she was almost resigned to spending the next four hours entrapped in football, sandwiches and the foggy glasses of the man.

She tried to ignore him, summoning a fantasy of a pool in which she swam slowly and the pleasantly cool water was caressing her body. For a moment it seemed his talking went to the background of her mind. She shuffled her bottom to the left and to the right, trying to find the most comfortable position possible on the hard seat and suddenly she remembered that she had left her lipstick in the big bag. Anyway, she did not wish to be made passes at, which often happened during long flights. She found the brazen and banal remarks of middle-aged men, who were trying to impress her, extremely tiresome. They always sounded pitiful and desperate but the worst part was that they didn’t give her a chance for a nap.

A loud uproar was heard when the engines went on, the airplane started along the runway and Marcela, glued to her seat, felt she was sweating as she always was during take-off. The airplane shook slightly and some hissing sound was heard.

Just when it was about to leave the runway and raise in the air, the aircraft suddenly lost its propulsion and literally slumped back on the ground on its landing gear. There was a tumult of indignation and fear around the economy class cabin and the airhostesses scurried along the aisle.

Probably the next technical failure or a check-up against a terrorist attack – lately this had become quite common around all airports. Or was it because of the Shining – that beautiful, though strange phenomenon of which all the physicists had been talking for the last week? It made sense: eruptions in the Sun, combined with space dust, entering the atmosphere…or at least that was the explanation she had heard from a guest in the morning TV show. She was really horrified of flying and always when getting on board of an aircraft, she asked for a glass of rose wine and was in a hurry to be absorbed by some interesting reading. But even her suffocating terror of heights did not prevent her from noticing that the sky was like a Monet picture – from greenish during the last few days it had turned pink.

The flight was aborted. The panic and fear gave place to irritated murmurs and tedious waiting in a confined space with no knowledge of what was going on.

This time, however, they did not have to wait long. The door to the cabin opened slowly and two men, all in black, came into the belly of the aircraft and confidently strode towards Marcela. They resembled predators, that were sure of acquiring their prey. A hot wave consumed Marcela’s back.

She was the prey.

As far as I remember, I postponed the explosions of airplanes until after Christmas, she tried to make an encouraging joke in her thoughts. She did not find it funny, but still made an effort to summon all of her feminine charms and asked the man in the black leather jacket, standing in front of her:

“What is the problem with the airplane? How can I help you, sir?”

She took a quick look of him. His hair was crew cut, military style, and the lamps reflected in his low monkey forehead.

“Miss Tarantino, be kind to come with us out of the plane”, he said but it was by no account a kind request, because the man grabbed her forearm and with the other hand took out abruptly her bag from the overhead baggage compartment.

“But what’s going on, for Christ sake? You can’t just do this to me!”, she tried to argue.

“You are coming with us, Miss”, he repeated and her skin prickled with the hissing in his voice.

She was trying without success to free herself from his iron hold, while he was pushing her in front of him along the aisle towards the exit. The heads of the rest of the passengers were aligned like a guard of honor and their curious and sympathetic glances were seeing off the beautiful gentle girl and the fearsome bad guys.

“Change of flights – you are leaving for Cairo, Miss.”

Seismology Research Centre, Queensland, Australia, Day 0, 01:14 a.m.

Seismic Activity Communique for the period: 2017-09-13

Date & time UTC

30min ago

Latitude degrees 39.57 N

Longitude degrees 26.01 E

2017-09-13 16:37:53.0 38min ago

2017-09-13 15:50:40.3 1hr 25min ago

2017-09-13 15:21:39.8 1hr 54min ago

2017-09-13 15:21:09.8 1hr 55min ago

2017-09-13 15:03:53.0 2hr 12min ago

2017-09-13 14:47:11.1 2hr 29min ago

2017-09-13 14:39:35.3 2hr 36min ago

2017-09-13 14:16:03.0 3hr 00min ago

2017-09-13 14:06:49.0 3hr 09min ago

2017-09-13 14:01:12.0 3hr 15min ago

39.57 N 26.04 E

19.22 N 19°25‘22.9 W

156°26‘42.4 Depth Mag (+) Region km

5 2.5 NEAR THE COAST OF WESTERN TURKEY

3 2.6 NEAR THE COAST OF WESTERN TURKEY

7.1 ISLAND OF HAWAII, HAWAII

S 9°52’14.4 E

158°26’03.5 10.78

6.9 SOLOMON ISLANDS

37.12 N 37.42 E 7 2.2 CENTRAL TURKEY

44.24 N 11.88 E 18 2.4 NORTHERN ITALY

47.45 N 7.85 E 7 1.6 SWITZERLAND

42.77 N 11.82 E 6 2.0 CENTRAL ITALY

3.23 N

21.67 21°26‘24.20 W

157°59‘51.8 S 68.48 W 117

6.5 OAHU REGION, HAWAII

3.7 ANTOFAGASTA, CHILE

39.55 N 26.05 E

9 2.3 NEAR THE COAST OF WESTERN TURKEY

2017-09-13 15.24 N 93.63 W 68 13:55:25.0 3hr 20min ago

2017-09-13 36.93 N 27.58 E 2 13:51:42.5 3hr 24min ago

2017-09-13 55.46 N 166.54 E 10 13:42:56.3 3hr 33min ago

2017-09-13 40.52 N 41.95 E 11 13:26:56.8 3hr 49min ago

2017-09-13 38.83 N 118.82 W 9 13:21:54.9 3hr 54min ago

2017-09-13 S 21°12’42.3 E 2 13:14:43.8 165°56’32.3 4hr 01min ago

2017-09-13 24°04’18.9 S 12:56:28.0 152°35’07.6 4hr 19min ago E 26

2017-09-13 32.16 S 71.92 W 26 12:52:00.0 4hr 24min ago

2017-09-13 15.88 N 93.74 W 94 12:48:33.0 4hr 27min ago

2017-09-13 38.69 N 27.23 E 8 12:48:05.0 4hr 28min ago

2017-09-13 6.77 N 73.11 W 146 12:47:50.0 4hr 28min ago

2017-09-13 40.17 N 20.22 E 2 12:37:27.0 4hr 38min ago

2017-09-13 43.18 N 132.51 E 490 12:09:21.2 5hr 07min ago

2017-09-13 15°34‘35.0 57 E 11:51:44.0 N 145°49‘03.6 5hr 24min ago

4.2 OFFSHORE CHIAPAS, MEXICO

2.5 DODECANESE IS.TURKEY BORDER REG

4.6 KOMANDORSKIYE OSTROVA REGION

2.1 EASTERN TURKEY

2.3 NEVADA

8.3 NEW CALEDONIA

6.4 OFFSHORE EASTERN AUSTRALIA

3.4 OFFSHORE VALPARAISO, CHILE

4.5 OFFSHORE CHIAPAS, MEXICO

2.5 WESTERN TURKEY

2.5 NORTHERN COLOMBIA

2.1 ALBANIA

4.2 PRIMOR‘YE, RUSSIA

6.1 MARIANA ISLANDS

For the last 24 hours quakes with magnitude not exceeding 4.7 are observed all along the surface of the Earth. No volcanic eruptions have been detected. Seismic activity at the ocean bottom is within the range of 0-0.7.

A sub-continental active region was localized in the South Pacific with quakes concentrated over limited territory exceptionally great in number and very powerful. The eight most powerful ones were with magnitude of 6.1 – 8.2.

Results of comparative analysis according to geographic features: NO MATCHING. There are no available data in the archives about similar activity in that region.

Results of comparative analysis according to time features: NO MATCHING.

Ever since the beginning of laboratory seismology research and preservation of data for the last 100 years there has not been a similar case described.

RECOMMENDATIONS:

- Announcing of 4th degree emergency alert

- Ceasing of all military training activities

- Informing the local authorities/population in the mentioned regions

- A special alert signal to the atomic power stations functioning in the region.

Cocoa Beach, Florida, Day 1, 11:48 a.m.

“Alan, Alan… Alan”, an Afro-American boy about thirteen was shouting, running along the beach towards the sea and waving like a madman.

Alan Parker was handsomely sculptured in his tight swimsuit. He was one of those men whose age is hard to define and who exude animal health. Allen had the typical for an athlete thin skin, under which every muscle fiber was outlined, graceful and full of energy. The man was boasting a tanned hairless body and his tech suit emphasized the power of his distinct muscles. He was strong on the outside and simple to understand on the inside.

Because along with the physical strength of such men, the weakness of their excessive vanity is soaked in their every movement. One could see from miles away that they yearn to be noticed, approved of, liked and even worshipped by ordinary mortals around them.

Stable on his windsurf, it was obvious that it was a child’s play for him not only to balance on the board but to harness it to any wish of his. He loved riding this wooden board with a sail among either the calm or the madness of the sea. He had never felt any fear of the elements or the ocean, he would rather be scared of the empty bay early in the morning and the lack of an audience. However, on rare occasions like today he rode alone without any company in the water and with no watchers on the beach. He listened to the wind and his thoughts again went to Margaret.

Then he noticed the boy shouting and waving excitedly at him. Obviously, the people from that TV show had called at last. Abruptly and confidently he turned around the sail and started for the beach.

The house grew bigger on the horizon, while the shouting of the kid got louder and more distinct:

“Alan, Alan… Alan…”

Well, what was the rush, couldn’t they just leave a message and he would call them back after having had lunch?

“Alan, there is a phone call from Washington for you. They said it was urgent and you’ve got to come to the phone immediately.

Oh, so these are not the people from the TV show then.

Well, whatever, politicians paid handsomely as well, moreover they were indispensable in problem situations which were happening ever more often lately.

“Alan, Alan… They said it was of the utmost importance…” the boy kept talking from the beach, employing all the force of his newly found man’s voice.

Ah, again these pre-election stories and who’s going to support me for this show? When they need you during an election campaign, they hang around to woo you, but as soon as they are already in the Congress and you ask for a favor, they stop answering their phones… As if Margaret is better or smarter than me, being a host of her own TV show.

He stepped on the beach at last, threw the windsurf on the sand and started for the house. The kid walked next to him and did not stop talking something about ‘importance for all humanity’, ‘grave national security issue’ and such. Alan did not listen to him, he was more worried that he would most probably wave his holidays goodbye.

He entered the house, the water from his bare feet leaving little pools on the wooden floor.

He went to the carved desk in the corner, picked up the receiver and in a second was totally speechless.

“Mister Parker, we have a 4th degree alert.”

“Beg your pardon?!”

“An accident, sir…”

“No way, please repeat, you mean there is penetration?”

“That’s right, 4th full A, sir.”

“Send me a plane, I’m coming right now.”

And he hung up. He looked at the pink sky and said to himself: For Christ’s sake, how could I not guess it earlier? God, have mercy upon us.

Polar Station “Vostok”, Day 1, 5:31 p.m.

“Hey, Mitya, did you see this?”. Alena stopped the snowmobile, raising a cloud of snow, switched it off and rushed into the base.

“Alya, what’s going on? I saw them too”, Dmitriy said, typing feverishly on the keyboard without averting his gaze from the figures on the screen.

“The rock went crazy! There are electric impulses in the atmosphere… Mitya, it’s something huge… Great! Have you seen the sky? All pink like in a child’s drawing…”

“Yes… I’ve never witnessed anything like this before”, he almost shouted. “Wait and see what earthquakes the Aussies experience… And it’s not just them… the entire South Pacific is shaking in every direction like mad…”

“Send the report to Moscow right now and then let’s go and look”, Alena said, already punching a number on the satellite phone…

Daily report to Moscow Institute of Hydrometeorology

During the last three days abnormal values of the electromagnetic and radiation fields were measured around the South Pacific.

We need some new measurements for comparative analysis that might confirm or deny present data. Possible interferences in the measuring devices because of meteorological anomalies and fluctuations in power supply. Detected hurricane winds with velocity of over 120 mph in the region of the South Pole with direction East-Northeast.

Data herewith enclosed.

Possible inaccuracy: up to 100%.

Munich, University “Ludwig Maximilian”, Day 0, 01:18 p.m.

“Prof. Hans Rosenstein, PhD, Mathematics”.

That was what the plate on the laboratory door read. The cold diode light of this plate had always annoyed him, he probably thought it two small and insignificant to encompass all of his scientific titles.

The telephone on the desk was like those in old movies – with a huge and elegant receiver of genuine wood, a cable and figures under a moving metal dial. He liked it, not being a fan of new technologies in everyday life, and even though his own discoveries had advanced the introduction of a number of modern devices, he preferred the cool receiver of the old and heavy telephone to the gaudy multicolored smartphones.

He enjoyed the touch to real materials: the polished fragrant wood of his pipe or the heavy thick fountain pen. He adored good old times when everybody knew his place and science was not used for mass enrichment. He remembered his university professors whose aristocratic manners and devotion to the cause made him believe in genuine “benevolent” science.

Cold ringing.

“Professor Rosenstein?”

“Yes, speaking.”

“We have a 4th A accident, sir.”

“How bad is it?”

“Quite bad, sir.”

“I am coming right over.” He put sown the receiver, got up, slowly put on his plaid jacket and left the office.

The Mediterranean Sea, American airplane carrier ‘Carl Vincent’, class ‘Nimitz’, Day 2, 11:39 a.m.

“How are you, Harry?”

“I’m okay, thanks”, the Admiral replied, exhaling a thick cloud of smoke, which virtually concealed his stern face.

“What’s with all that drama, Harry? Nobody’s telling me anything.”

“You’ll know soon enough, Alan.”

“We’ve known each other since the Gulf, Harry, won’t you even tell me what’s going on?” He started sounding somewhat nervous.

The Admiral looked down – the entire ship was visible in his feet, enormous, powerful, capable of destroying a whole continent. The bridge was above all and everything – the heart of the ship, a sacred place, where only the anointed were allowed. Alan was here due to his solid connections in Washington and to his military career, but to an old sailor from the Navy this jerk from the TV with his windsurf tan remained a clown and a funny bugger. He had orders to transport him as soon as possible to Cairo, moreover, with the utmost secrecy, but he was sick of those conceited, posh and phony semi-retired military guys, who just never stopped parading with their former ranks. And how could he ask so many questions? A true military person should know to keep his mouth shut.

“You served on a submarine, didn’t you, Alan?” The Admiral replaced his cigar to the other corner of his lips and gazed over the bridge. “At least that’s what your file says.”

“Harry, you know too well I served on the damn submarine and since when have you been interested in my file? Is that some official meeting or is the Navy just making fun of me?” Alan was starting to be seriously distressed.

“This is not a joke, Alan. My orders demand for me to know if you still remember how to navigate a submarine. Here, see it in print, if you don’t believe me.” The Admiral took a few sheets of paper out of the metal chest of drawers, waved them briefly before Alan’s eyes and then put them back.

“How to navigate it? Was that the stamp of the Navy Headquarters?”

“In a nutshell, I have to ask you and report: if you were on a submarine right now, could you be in charge of it? Could you do it?”

“Sure, but who would need me to go on a submarine and be in charge of it?”

“You will soon find out. In twenty minutes you will be off board.”

“Off board where? And where, the fuck is the goddamn submarine? Here, in the Mediterranean, is that so?”

“No, Alan. In Sahara.”

Temporary military base ‘Abu Minqar’, Day 2. 3:03 p.m.

She went under the shower. The lukewarm water pleasantly caressed her skin and took her deeper into her thoughts. Marcela was so tired that she caught herself for a moment with her brain in a reverie, without being able to focus on a particular thought. It could be the jet lag after the long night flight from London to Cairo and the tiring journey by cars through the desert to this godforsaken place. All the time she asked herself hundreds of questions and was seeking to find a logical explanation and an answer to the crucial question: why, for Christ sake, when she had to fly from Heathrow to Bucharest, she ended in Egypt, moreover in a top-secret military base?

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’?

Libyan Desert, 20 miles South-East of Al-Farafrah, Day 2, 4:10 p.m.

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.”

“Theory of the Critical Event”

Prof. McDowell, “Science @Co.” journal, 11-21-2008

“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’.

Temporary military base ‘Abu Minqar’, Day 2. 6:00 p.m.

“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.

“I also insist on an explanation”, Marcela interfered, having gained courage from the course of the meeting and ready immediately to stride the group discontent.

“Gentlemen… Madam…”, the Major tried to raise his voice over theirs.

“When will we be able to contact our families? How can you keep us in isolation? Are we some sort of prisoners?”, Michael asked.

Only Hans was sitting in the back, not saying a word.

He was the last one to come to the base, but arrived for the meeting with immaculate appearance and exactly on time. The first impression of him was of a plump and agreeable man who could be detected from miles away as a queer fish. His ubiquitous plaid jacket had surrendered to the tropic heat and he had on a light blue shirt, surprisingly not accompanied by a necktie, but all buttoned up. Either for that reason or because of his overweight Hans was constantly sweating, his short curly hair was all wet, the shirt was stuck to his spherical body and his glasses were fogged to a degree that made him completely blind. Poor man took off their massive frames to clean the glass with his shirt and wiped his forehead with a white handkerchief – he had one of these in his pocket at all times.

As a young boy Hans was quite plump, hence a good target for mockery by his classmates. He did not have friends and found a refuge in the thick books with long and complex equations. He was reading a lot till the age of sixteen, then began writing himself – also thick books for which he was highly awarded by prestigious universities.

He was a mathematician by profession, but his true love was physics. Nobody could ever imagine Hans, the genius, deal in something different but dull figures and incomprehensible formulas. When he was in high school there was a story how his mother took him to a piano lesson with the hope that her son would become a musician and Hans described to the poor teacher all notes in terms of physical frequencies and number of oscillations per minute. Or at least something like that. Naturally, both the lesson and his musical career ended on that very day.

This did not prevent him from acquiring his first PhD when he was sixteen, at eighteen he was a professor in Cambridge and when he turned twenty five, he became the youngest member of the Austrian Academy of Science.

Today he was sitting in the room and did not seem surprised or distressed in the least.

Near him, in the darkest corner, two men were sitting who also did not take part in the discussion. One was whispering from time to time to the other and he was nodding approvingly.

“Hans, you have no family”, Alan snapped, “or maybe you would call your assistant. Don’t worry, even without you there will be someone to read your dull lectures.”

“Alan, why don’t you tell us the reason your show was taken from you?”, said Hans, gazing at him icily.

“Oh, easy, easy. I take it you’ve known each other previously”, Marcela said, trying to clear the atmosphere.

Alan just waved his hand dismissively.

The Major changed the slide on the wall and they all froze gaping.

A picture of a submarine was displayed, half of which was buried in a sand dune. Its nose was emerging from the sand, slightly tilted to one side. Everybody watched in amazement, since they would never have imagined such a view.

Norman looked around the room and after satisfying himself that this time he had their undivided attention, went on calmly:

“At the moment we are in a state of 4th A degree of emergency, classified according to category APAUO.”

“Can you say it in English, please, sir?” Michael asked, casting a glance to the others to see if they did not understand too.

“Abnormal Phenomena of Alien or Unidentified Origin. In this case – 4th A degree.”

“What Aliens?” Alan pricked his ears.

“What is 4th degree?” Marcela was completely at a loss.

As a typical military person Norman started reciting the code:

“First degree: Observing from a distance unidentified objects on the ground or in the air.

Second degree: Visual contact with a proven extraplanetary form of non-alive matter. Third degree: Physical contact with micro- or macro-organisms of non-humanoid type. Fourth degree: Verbal contact or contact on informational level with alien intelligence.

A: Level of communication – social and/or scientific.

B: Level of communication – emotional.

C: Level of communication – sexual contact.”

“Which means we have here rational contact with real aliens?” Alan was already writing in his head the script for the TV show.

“Come on, people, you are serious scientists, there’s no way you can believe in some little green men! Sir, this is some kind of joke, isn’t it?”, Michael addressed Norman, who ignored the interruption and went on with a calm voice. At the same time there was an image projected on the wall of empty sand dunes and the sun high in the sky.

“The picture you see was made ten days ago. While this one”, the same dunes appeared but this time with the half-buried corps of the boat, “dates from three days ago. Then the satellite data indicated the appearance of a large object in this region. We located it and made numerous pictures from the stratosphere. You will understand our surprise when we found out it was a submarine and a very real one at that, of which there was no trace only a week ago.

“After the necessary political and organizational actions by our governments we were granted full access to the object and complete cooperation by the Egyptian authorities”, the Major went on. “This is an international operation with the participation of the USA, the European Union with two scientists and Russia. I was appointed in charge of the mission and my boys will be responsible for the security of your team.

“Do you tell me Allen is a part of the team too? I thought you had called him for TV coverage”, Hans said.

Smith was not impressed by the Professor’s remark and went on:

“The science team comprises Dr. Rosenstein, PhD in Mathematics, Mr. Alan Parker, previously having served on a submarine, Miss Marcela Tarantino, a biologist, Mr. Michael Stevens, a history undergraduate, Dr. Sergey Radlichenko, a nuclear physicist. I and Colonel Ivanov from the Russian secret service are in charge of military matters. Please, welcome our partners.

Everybody instinctively glanced at the dark corner, from which both Russians nodded simultaneously. After that short introduction the Major went on:

“At the same time, with the appearance of this unidentified, if I may call it hat, floating object, strange meteorological data and high seismic activity were also detected. Predominantly in the region of the South Pacific.”

“But this is much too far away”, Michael said in surprise.

“He’s right, that is on the opposite end of the world”, Marcela said in support.

“We do not have any idea either, what the relation between those two phenomena is, but we believe there is one because of their simultaneous occurrence”, Norman said.

“You answered your own question”, Hans remarked laconically.

“How so?”, Michael asked uncomprehending.

“Well, the lady…”

“I prefer to be called by my name as a person rather than being considered a representative of the ‘fair sex’”, Marcela objected.

“Excuse me, but the answer is very obvious”, Hans went on unperturbed. “You said it yourself – ‘on the opposite end of the world’. That’s exactly on the geographic pole compared to the object of which we speak and which we must explore… There is a relation and it is very obvious, we just do not know its nature… All in all, something influences with great strength earth gravitation and the electromagnetic field of the planet in exact juxtaposition.”

“What do you think this might be?”, Michael asked.

“Could be, for instance, huge amounts of energy or huge mass… or both… It could be deformation of the time-space continuum due to the passage of a large number of protons through the earth sphere as if through a cylinder…”

“Could you explain that for the unsophisticated biologists?”, Marcela asked, staring at him without expression.

“Well, it is similar to laboratory experiments in which we bombard a given target with a flow of electrons or protons… It’s not hard to understand. It is as if in this case the whole Earth was the target for exploration.”

Norman interrupted them abruptly:

“As you know, now we are at the base camp, but tomorrow we are going to the facility at the object itself. We are leaving at 7:00. Any questions?”

“Whoa, whoa… wait a minute, do you mean that this submarine appeared here three days ago out of thin air?”, Alan exclaimed, who had come to himself after the initial amazement and was now looking forward to the sensation, which would get him back in the game.

“That’s right”, the Major replied.

“Well, whatever, what’s that got to do with me and why did you call us here out of everyone else? I am a biologist. By the way, have you any details at all about this ‘little boat’?” Marcela asked, believing she had at last found the man with the answers and trying to make up for the lack of information during the last couple of days.

“They summoned a biologist because there are little green men… True, isn’t t, Major?”, Alan asked.

“We needed a specialist like Miss Tarantino because of the data of the spectral analysis. The experts defined them as ‘more than strange’. I should tell you that she has also a PhD in Chemistry.”

“What data?”, Marcela jumped from her seat.

“The data from the interior of the submarine. The spectral analysis showed enormous amounts of carbon, more than 60% of all the atoms there.”

“But this is not possible!” she exclaimed. “In all living creatures on the Earth carbon does not exceed 25%!”

“I am afraid this is very real, we doublechecked the data many times and the results were identical.” Norman dropped his glance, held his breath for a moment and added: “There is one more thing… On the corps of the boat… just under the tower with the periscope we found an inscription…”

“What kind of an inscription, Norman?” Alan was looking at him in feverish anticipation.

“The one that wrote it was either in a hurry or his hand was shaking violently… Anyway, we saw on the metal corps the words Come, follow me, and I will send you out to fish for people. And they were written in…” – Norman held his breath gain and looked at the group.

“That’s from the Bible, the New Testament”, Alan offered. “Christ said it to His future apostles. It was described in the Book of Mathew, 4:19.”

“Alan, are you are priest? How do you know this Bible shit?”, Michael asked.

“Actually, after my military service I studied Theology for two terms in the University of Pennsylvania”, Alan replied, perfectly serious.

“May God help us with such priests”, Hans remarked and made a mocking cross.

“Come on, Major”, Marcela urged, burning with impatience.

“It was written in something which we initially thought was red paint…”

“Oh, my God!”, Marcela cried.

“…but the analysis proved it was human blood.”

“That’s terrible and yet what are we doing here?”, Michael asked, trying to calm the heaving of his stomach.

“As I told you, this is a joint operation with our Russian colleagues and you are selected and approved on the basis of a totally new program. I must inform you that Professor Rosenstein and Mr. Allen Parker are former members of the Control and Security Commission at the Committee for Research of Extraterrestrial Intelligence and Critical Situations. They were under the direct command of the President of the United States but that did not have any influence in their selection. Both of them were, like Michael and Marcela, filtered through the innovation program of our colleagues from Russia.

“No influence, my ass”, Michael whispered to Marcela.

“As far as I can remember, at our last meeting Hans was talking of the mathematical NON-probability of encountering aliens. You seem to have been proven wrong, Hans?”, Allen sneered again.

The scientist was wiping his fogged glasses in his shirt and didn’t award him with as much as a glance.

“These are not aliens.”

“But I’ve never even been to Russia…”, Michael mumbled.

“If the gentlemen could explain, please”, Norman gestured politely to the Russians at the back.

One of them rose from the dark corner. He was short and slender, with a boyish face and ‘John Lennon’ type of glasses below long black curls, falling on his high forehead. His clothes were civilian: blue jeans and a Chinese T-shirt. The typical distracted scientist, careless with hygiene and with neglected appearance, who was unpopular with girls in high school. Or at least up to his first million. Which did not happen so often in Russia to people, dealing in science. And Sergey regarded knowledge rather in its pure unadulterated form, than in terms of career or money.

He started talking, trying to subdue his thick Russian accent:

“My name is Sergey Radlichenko and I am one of the coauthors of the project for response to crisis situations like this one. The latest research we conducted showed that the general IQ is much more important than the expertise in a narrow field of science.”

“But I have not hit very high results in these tests”, Michael interfered again, as if trying to sneak out on the basis of worthlessness.

“So, we are here for the reason that we do not have very high IQ and are quite dumb in general, is that it?” Marcela asked with arms folded on her chest.

“Of course not. And I didn’t mean the standard IQ tests. Since 2016 a special branch has been functioning in our Institute, that collects data about all potential collaborators by means of a special computer program.

Alan leaned towards Marcela and whispered with a smile in her ear:

“Now we are collaborators.”

The scientist went on:

“Three basic features are taken into account. First, medical/ physiological indicators, that do not include, for example, how much weight you can lift from bench press or your speed in 100 yards sprint, but rather the potential of your constitution to survive in adverse surroundings and to adept to extreme life circumstances. These are natural factors you’ve been born with like the count of red blood cells per unit of blood plasma, number of muscle fibers per unit volume of muscle tissue, regenerative potential of the liver cells etc.”

“With all my respect, Sergey, but in what way exactly Hans, who does not possess a single muscle fiber, passed through the filter of that program of yours”, Alan interrupted.

“And you, Alan, do not possess a single gray matter cell”, Hans retorted to this attack, quick as a lightening.

“Gentlemen, please!”, Norman raised his voice.

“The second indicator is not how much you studied and what marks you got, but what efficiency your brain possesses.”

“I can guarantee for my liver”, Michael tried for a joke again, “but I am not very keen on studies…”

Sergey smiled at him, well used to ‘alcohol jokes’ as any Russian. “Fine. So, we’ve been right. The coefficient of your laziness is what matters. We don’t care about the common standards of efficiency but how much you can remember with minimum efforts. The program is not interested in your high marks and awards but in the potential, making you superior to other people.”

“This is a dumb system”, Hans murmured. “And why is Alan here then?”

“By all three criteria Allen is among the top places and his total score is quite impressive”, Sergey replied.

“Ha! Did you hear that, Hans?”, Allen said self-complacently. “We are not all of us geeks with a PhD. I like your system, congratulations. I promise to make a TV show about it.”

“I am sorry, but I have to warn you that the system and the entire mission are top secret”, Norman interfered.

“I, at least, have some objective recognition, unlike you”, Hans remarked.

“What is it that you want from us, actually?”, Marcela asked, trying to cut their stupid squabble. All men are like kids, whatever the system of evaluation.

“We need answers, it is as simple as that! The accident with the submarine is unique so far and the government demands an explanation”, Norman said and nodded to the Russian to go on.

“The third indicator is related to the subjective capacity of the individual for interpreting new/strange facts or, to say it in a simpler way, to the possibilities and strength of your imagination.”

“Look, Alan is the champion in this respect, especially when he needs not only to imagine but to lie”. Hans snarled at Allen, who did not retort this time but only shook his head ruefully.

“I find your attitude to the task quite irresponsible. Be warned that I will not tolerate this among my men!” Norman said in a grave tone. “We are entering the goddamn submarine, assessing the situation, removing potential dangers, and you, on your part, prepare your scientific report and after a couple of days we clear out of there. That’s all that is expected from you as a team.”

“I don’t want reports and childish fantasies. I just need to understand what, for Christ’s sake, our submarine is doing in the middle of the Sahara”, the voice of the second man in the dark corner thundered when Ivanov got up and stepped forward, at which point everybody was silent. He was a real giant – over six feet three inches tall, with massive limbs like of a heavy weight wrestler, you wouldn’t want to fuck with. His face was chiseled as if with an axe and his eyes seemed to be able to scan all the people in the room at the same time. His bald head only underlined the dimensions of the square skull. His fists resembled hammers, ready to squash any insurgencies, while his enormous body exuded Biblical power and destructive potential. He looked like a picture of a Russian gigant from a fairy tale about monsters and heroes.

“Oh, is it a Russian submarine then?” Alan raised his brow.

The giant cast him a look of dismissive annoyance and answered in a perfectly serious manner:

“It is Russian all right. And it is not in production yet. The first one of this model will be released from the production dock only after sixteen months.”

PART TWO: THE SHIP

“The fear of the unknown is a consequence of the infinite power of our brain for fantasizing.”

Professor McDowell

“The true mark of intelligence is not knowledge but imagination.”

Albert Einstein

Temporary military base ‘Abu Minqar’, day 3, departure, 7 a.m.

There’s nothing more beautiful than sunrise in the desert, Marcela thought. She was the first to go out and was now gazing at the infinity of the newborn day.

If one watches the horizon in the morning from the deck of a sailing ship, one sees the play of the ocean and the sun in the blue and white colors of the newborn morning. The performance of this duo is quite brief and then the sun starts on its way up the sky, while the sea remains down there, pensive and a little lonely. At least till they join again in the red sunset. The impartial observer next to you on the sailing ship is free to choose whether to admire the dark waters down or the golden rays up in the sky.

While here, among the sands, the sun and the desert walk together friendly, hand in hand, for the entire day, until the night separates them with its cold cleaver. Everything is in a golden fiery frame, reaching the point of melting, and all this lethal beauty squashes your mind like a cheap narcotic.

In the sea the wind carries pleasant coolness, while here in the infernal desert it burns and destroys like the touch of white-hot steel.

The sun had just brushed the sand horizon with reddish-yellow gentle hand and was spreading its divine embrace on all nature. The billions of sand grains reflected the tufts of sunlight, refracting it into all the colors of the rainbow.

It was hot, even though it was only seven in the morning. They knew that just an hour standing unprotected under the beautiful rays equaled to being in a burning house.

The ocean was too far away, as was the luxury of philosophical contemplation of nature. Marcela turned back. Everybody else was here already.

It was time to go.

The engines of the Range Rovers were running, awaiting their task. The major waved to the group and all together went to the black angular trucks which from here on were going to be their only refuge in the sand oven.

The luggage was loaded, now the passengers needed to take their seats.

And they did not seem in a hurry to go. Their movements were slow, as if subconsciously they felt the threat of the unknown reality lying ahead.

Still, because of the shadows, falling in one direction, or because of their gazes, focused on the same singular point on the horizon, they looked for the first time as a unit. As a group of friends who are starting into the unknown and are able to conquer it.

Alan was the last to come out of the bungalow, dressed in a thin white shirt and smart linen trousers, just right for the occasion, which could not be said about the posh dark glasses, perched on his nose. He held a cup of coffee in his left hand and with his right he was waving to Marcela. Alan approached her with a steady step as if the sand under his feet was no challenge for him. “Hey, Miss, how are you this morning? Did you sleep well?”

Marcela was like an image from an ancient myth about forest nymphs and sensual goddesses: a fine face with a classical Roman nose, imparting both gentleness and sternness to her beauty, white, almost chalky skin, immune to the sun rays. Her large and dominating eyes were radiating waves of greyish-green light that could easily enchant any man.

Alan stopped and looked her over – he could not help enjoying what he saw even with the objective stare of a man not yet in love. Even a woman would not be indifferent to Marcela’s beauty. Her figure was slender and elegant, her firm body emanated intelligent passion, without any trace of provocative perkiness.

The small and well-formed breasts added a charming childish nuance to her feminine sex-appeal, complemented with emancipated gait and a touch of introvert haughtiness.

Hans, who had just appeared from somewhere, could not take his gaze off her, while Alan was addressing the woman with the sleek phrases of a practiced womanizer. He was sipping his coffee, swaggering and dropping banal jokes.

“Alan, stop trying to be attractive, you suck at it”, Hans said to him in lieu of a greeting.

“Good morning, Professor Rosenstein, glad to see you too”, Alan replied.

“Boys…”, Marcela tried to restrain them.

“There’s the other boy.” Norman waved to Michael, who had just emerged from the building. “Come on. Mike, we’ll be off.”

The undergraduate approached the group also holding a cup of coffee in one hand and a cigarette in the other.

“I see something like an informal meeting here. Good morning, Madam”, he said, smiling at Marcela.

“With all these gentlemen around your stay in the desert might prove less unpleasant than you expected, Miss”, Norman said to her.

“Please, Major, we will stick together in the next few days, let’s drop the formal address.” Then she turned to Alan and Hans. “And let’s not quarrel over nonsense.”

“I’ll be glad to be informal, March”, Michael winked at her and took a drag from his cigarette. “Can I call you March?”

“If I can call you Mike”, she replied and they both laughed.

Alan sipped his coffee.

“Mike, how can you inhale this shit. It smells awful.”

“I can see you’ll get along just fine”, Norman said. “Anyway, it’s time to go now.”

“Let me have just a couple of drags more, Major”, said Michael and greedily sucked from his cigarette. “Just give me ten secs and I’m coming”.

“I agree with Alan, smoking is bad for you. Come on, the rest of you, we are off. You are in this truck. Myself, the smoker and the Colonel will ride in the first one.”

Thus, after the instructions of the Major, he himself, Michael, Ivanov and the young short baby-faced lieutenant climbed in the first SUV. The latter hardly said a word, but acted with the knack and efficiency of an experienced military person. His pretty head was hardly seen above the wheel, while he was driving – at a high speed but elegantly without straining the passengers.

Hans, Sergey and Marcela sat in the second truck with Alan in the driver’s seat.

The large leather seats were comfortable and the pleasant coolness of the air condition almost erased the memory of the hard bunks and the stuffed air at the base.

At first everyone was silent, deep in thoughts about home and family, mixed with curiosity and anxiety about the unknown that awaited them.

“So, Michael, not that it is my business, but since you’ve been selected, maybe you would show us why, eh?” Norman was not scoffing at the young man, but was rather asking in a fatherly manner.

“Well, I had just started at the State University with a major in Geography, when in summer I heard by accident about a practical course in archaeology. I joined it, the professor liked me and helped me for my history exam. I got an A and was admitted in Harvard. I had never even dreamed of studying there. You know, they mostly admit rich kids and ambitious crammers there, I can’t be a match for them… Anyway, partying is superb and the chicks are cool”, Michael laughed. He had a broad and sincere smile, infectious for the people around him.

“Still, you were the first option.”

“Come on, no way!”

“Well, according to that new program, a team like yours is formed with three options for each position. You gained the lead with great advance compared to the second person…”

“It figures then I’m some kind of genius, is that it, Sir?” Michael could not take all this very seriously yet.

“Let’s just say you are several levels ahead not only of your fellow students but also of 99 per cent of your professors…”

“You say I’m smarter than the professors in Harvard?” The young man felt the surge of satisfaction but he still found it hard to believe.

“Here, look”, Norman said, took out several sheets of paper from a file in his briefcase and handed them to him.

Michael’s eyes quickly scanned the pages from top to bottom.

Michael Stevens: 3rd year student, major History, Harvard University; age 22

Total score: 95.9%

- major (History): 97.9%

- physicochemical parameters (by Wilhelm): 95.3%

- coefficient API (absorbing primary information): 96.7%

- coefficient non-standard thinking (creating of ideas and images in complex systems of events): 94.2%

Strong aspects: Possesses general knowledge in different fields of science and excellent capacity to interpret them. Extracts the maximum of a minimum amount of data. Combinative and creative thinking with great potential for improvisation. Strongly developed imagination and good in team work. Keen interest towards engineering sciences and extraordinary practical technical skills. Social type, inviting trust and friendship.

Weak aspects: Unhealthy life-style. Inclined to excessive use of alcohol and narcotic stimulants. Prone to accidental sex contacts. Level of discipline: low.

“Ha-ha!”, Michael laughed aloud. “I don’t know about the first part, but they did a good job on me about the ‘weak aspects. My discipline is particularly poor… ha-ha…”

“Actually, the program is Russian, we just approved their choice. It has started before Perestroika, but was stopped eventually. When Putin came to power it was restarted. You have to admit that it employs an entirely innovative approach for evaluation and choice of a team for reaction in ‘unusual situation’ like that.” Norman smiled at him and took back the sheets, putting them in the black briefcase next to his feet.

“Yes, we are all cool guys here and the chick is superb. Only this German guy seems to have a stick in the ass, but at least he keeps quiet,” Michael lapsed to more relaxed language. “That whole business seems to be a little overstrained. How can a submarine, moreover a future model, sink here, in the desert? Anyway, it’s my first visit to the desert and I enjoy it… Tell me, Norman, do you really believe there are aliens in this submarine?”

“I don’t know, Mike, but we declared ‘Fourth A’ emergency level, since we supposed the inscription is of an alien origin, moreover the results of the carbon analysis are highly disturbing.”

“Well, maybe they are, but I guess this is too far-fetched, there must be some simpler explanation… don’t you think? Anyway, some of the things written about me might be true… like I always pass my exams without studying too much.”

“Still you don’t get scholarship for good grades, do you?”

Norman noted tersely.

“Only because the universities are not what they used to be… and what they must be”, Michael replied contemplating. “What do you mean?”

“He means that sometimes the army is preferable to the lie, called ‘higher education’”, the lieutenant spoke suddenly. Ivanov was still silent at the front passenger’s seat. “Look the first university was founded in Bologna in 1088 if we don’t count the culture centers of the ancient Greeks or the famous Magnaour School in Constantinople.”

“Were alcohol and marijuana legal there, Michael?” Norman attempted for a joke.

“In those real cradles of knowledge back then”, Michael went on, ignoring the question, “professors and students were searching together for the truth and the path, leading to it. Even though, from our contemporary point of view, some naive, romantic and even hilarious theories were taught…

“Yes, for instance that the Earth was flat and stood on four whales or turtles… what was it?” Norman interrupted.

“Or that earthquakes were caused by enormous snakes and spiders, hiding underground”, Ivanov spoke for the first time. “It’s not important how inadequate the theses from a thousand years ago are, compared to the modern ones… Don’t forget that back then the great minds also imagined they knew everything. It’s totally realistic and very probable that after one thousand years they say the same about us and our scientific beliefs and doctrines.” Michael’s voice was filling the interior of the truck and the other passengers listened attentively. “The problem of today’s universities is that they don’t seek for the truth but serve corporative interests and encourage dumb repetition of obsolete and impractical theories. Look at medicine, for instance… If we make an exception for Anatomy, which is a deeply conservative discipline, all the sets of methods, studied at the universities are already obsolete before the students graduate. I have friends at the medical faculty who say that after graduation they need to pass specializations all the time and they use only five per cent of what they learned during the long terms at the university.”

“So, you think education is useless?” Norman raised his eyebrows inquiringly.

“Well, not entirely, I personally prefer to read online about my subject and about the world as a whole. There’s all you need to know there, without having to be stuck in libraries for hours on end. The whole info in the world is only a click away from you. I analyze the data and reach my own conclusions about the truth, I don’t need some stuck in time professors who require from you to be a parrot. I guess, the most precious thing in universities is the medium. I learned more from my fellow students than rom the professors… And if they sense you are a bit more different, they crush you at once and then you can forget about good grades.” Michael paused for a moment. “Well, whatever, I hope we enjoy ourselves here.” They had been riding for two hours already.

In the second Rover Alan had not uttered a word, he followed the other SUV and his gaze was glued to the horizon.

“You cannot wait to see it, can you?” Sergey said, trying to break the oppressive silence.

“Yes. That might prove to be the greatest discovery in human history. Do you know what the probability of a submarine appearing in the heart of the biggest desert on the planet is? Zero!”

“It can’t be zero!” Hans contradicted, not wasting a second to pick on Alan.

“What do you mean, Hans?”, Marcela asked. “According to me the probability is too negligible or at least very small…”

“Small, yes, but not zero! The probability is somewhere between 0 and 1, but by all means different from 0 and 1”, Hans went on. “It’s always greater than zero and less than one. From a mathematical point of view something is always probable no matter how small the probability. We’ll just have to write a lot of zeroes between the decimal point and the last figure. Look, it doesn’t matter how improbable a given event is… If we accept that time and space are infinite, after numerous attempts it is probable that a monkey, jumping on a typewriter, might have composed “War and Peace”. Quite accidentally…”

“I would not choose this particular example, but I agree”, Sergey replied.

“Still, at the same time” Hans was now in his own domain and not a trace was left of his previous quietness “the occurrence of an event cannot be absolutely inevitable because that would contradict the laws of physics. In the same way that it is not 100 per cent sure that at this moment we are in the Libyan desert and lead this conversation, nothing else can be 100 per cent guaranteed. Absolutely sure events just do not exist neither in mathematics, nor in nature.

“How can it not be sure that we are now riding and talking?” Marcela asked in amazement.

“The event might be sure for our mind but the probability never equals one. It is always smaller”, Hans explained, not hiding his satisfaction of being able to lecture on Alan.

“So, nothing is sure. Then is it a sure thing it is not sure?” Alan replied, happy with his line of defense.

“It is one way of saying this, but you, Alan, are simplifying as always”, Hans went on with his lecture in a serious tone. “According to Newton’s physics and the Theory of probability a coin tossed up falls back on one side – either heads or tails. This is the so called ‘sure event’, but according to quantum physics it can be in both states simultaneously. Although, if we talk of probabilities, the coin may fall on its edge and not be on either side.”

“Okay, since you are so smart, would you be so kind as to enlighten us, ignoramuses, in what way exactly the submarine dragged itself here?” Alan was holding the steering wheel and never took his glance away from the windshield.

“Gentlemen, we are all nervous, we don’t want to burden ourselves more with mathematical equations, do we?” Marcela tried to stop the forthcoming argument.

“It did not drag itself, Alan, it just was here. It has always been here and now we are just coming to it.”

“What re you talking about? Have you gone mad? From where?”

“Not ‘from where’, Alan, but on which side of the edge are we and what do we see? The coin, standing on its edge, remember?” Hans smiled imperceptibly and relapsed in his usual silence.

The Libyan desert, 220 miles west of ‘Abu Minqar’, military camp ‘Site 111-13X’, day 3, 2:20 p.m.

Norman was the first to jump out of the truck and the soldier on duty saluted him, reporting to him in a hushed voice, so that the rest could not overhear.

The base was smaller than the one at Abu Minkar, it consisted of about a dozen military domes in amphitheatrical arrangement. They were all interconnected by soft couplings, similar to halls along the circumference of the base. In the middle of the semicircular space that was formed a 15-yard tall tower was rising and on top of it there was a guard with surveillance equipment and heavy armament. On one side of the base a tall rock stood, covered with less sand and overgrown with bushes, which was as if guarding the small valley and the camp in it. It was about three hundred yards tall and was hiding the sun, throwing a shadow over the entire base.

“What’s the machine gun for?”, Michael asked.

“To keep us from nosy people who ask too many questions”, Norman said and waved to them. “Come on, I am sure you all want to see it right away.”

They started climbing with a bent gait the narrow path along the sparsely vegetated barren rock. They were walking in a column of one and everybody tried to follow exactly the steps of the person in front. Nobody wished to be harmed by a poisonous snake or a scorpion. Very soon the camp was left far away down behind their back. While they were climbing, they were looking all the time at their feet, but when they stepped on the summit, they raised their heads and a sand desert was revealed before their eyes – a real ocean with gentle yellow waves, stretching all the way to the horizon. The dunes seemed at first glance void of any kind of life, beautiful and endless.

And then they saw it.

It was huge. Like the carcass of an enormous whale, washed out on the ocean shore. A thick body, once sleek and perfectly formed, that swam to the beach to find its death. Something that did not belong to the sand but to the ocean. It was not from this time or this place. Something that filled them with awe and at the same time paralyzed them with fear.

The submarine was just like in the photograph – half of it buried in the sand with its nose protruding lopsidedly in the air. It looked just like a plane, ready at any moment to get free from its sand restraints and take off. The bluish-grey metal was shining under the sun and was in sharp contrast with the hot Sahara sand. Almost half of the tower in the upper part of the submarine was submerged under sand.

Alan quickened his step and the rest followed him. Hans was the last one in the column. He obviously had difficulty walking in the sand and his immaculate black shoes were filling with sand grains, making him sweat even more. He did not look his best at the moment but that did not stop him from taking out his ubiquitous pipe and lighting it when he reached the ship.

Alan was the first to reach the submarine, having advanced about ten yards before the group. He brushed its corps with his hand and seeming to enjoy it like it was a little kid, said:

“Cute baby, eh?”

“Well, we are good at manufacturing submarines”, Sergey grinned.

They all crowded around it, everybody touching it as if to make sure it was real.

“No, you are not dreaming, Seriozha, my friend, this is a real fucking submarine, no joking about it…”, Alan said, overjoyed with the perspective of his future story in the media about the event.

“Look, there are traces of shells and seaweed on it”, Michael observed, touching gently the surface.

“Well, I guess it is normal for a submarine”, Sergey replied and walked around to its opposite side.

Michael saw on the thick steel cover a thin layer of small crustaceous organisms, shells, seaweed and even small corals. Typical for a vessel that had stayed in sea water for a long time.

‘No, I mean, the seaweed is not dead yet, some of it is still wet even”, Alan said, picking with his nail the greenish layer over the metal.

“Look this shell is not entirely open”, Sergey said.

“It has definitely been floating in water”, Ivanov contemplated.

“And definitely it happened three days ago for the last time”, Hans added, gazing attentively at the submarine.

“This here is pure titanium”, Marcela announced, knocking on the metal with her knuckles.

Norman approached Hans and they started whispering.

Meanwhile Alan addressed the two Russians.

“Do you know, Ivanov, I used to serve on a submarine for four years and I find this one a little odd… No mini-submarine, nor openings for torpedoes. I bet there isn’t even one torpedo inside. And I’ve never seen such coating. Usually the metal on the corps is about six inches thick while this one here is about three feet…” Alan slammed hard the body of the submarine. “I wonder how this thing manages to keep on the surface.”

Ivanov and Sergey exchanged embarrassed glances.

“As we told you, this is an entirely new model, an improved one. There is no way you might have seen such a submarine”, Ivanov spoke slowly and tersely.

Only now Marcela and Michael saw the blood-red inscription, which was barely readable under the blown over sand. Even from a short distance the letters were hard to distinguish.

“People, let’s first go and have lunch and then we’ll enter the ship”. Norman turned back and beckoned for them to follow him back to the base. “I know you can’t wait to examine it on the inside, but we still have a bit more work to prepare the entering. Besides, we are waiting for a final confirmation from Washington.”

“You mean you have no idea what’s inside?”, Hans asked.

“No, like I said, we were waiting for you”, Norman replied.

“Oh, I’m definitely coming inside you, baby”, Alan said with a smile and slapped the metal body as if it were the backside of a plump girl.

The sun was scorching and they had not eaten since early morning.

The journey towards the unknown could be postponed until after lunch.

The base, day 3, 4 p.m.

The room was smaller than the previous one but but just as well equipped. There were only a dozen seats, enough for the group.

They were in the central and largest dome of the base, which included also the main dormitories for the military staff. The rest were distributed in groups among the smaller domes. The Russians – in the one on the right to the central dome, Michael and Alan – right next to them. Marcela was in a separate dome in the left side of the base, where the medico-biological laboratory was situated. Next to it were the storage-rooms for munitions. Hans occupied the last smallest dome on the other side of the storage-rooms.

“Gentlemen… and ladies”, Norman nodded to Marcela, “we are starting this afternoon. The entry manhole on the upper side of the corps is cleared of the sand and accessible.

“Has really no one been inside?”, Alan asked, determined not to submit the first discovery to anybody.

“No, I told you already, we’ve been waiting for you”, Norman replied.

“What do the scanners show?”, Sergey wanted to know.

“Ordinary medium for a submarine, even though the model is unknown to us. We do not detect any movement or life forms. The exceptionally high values of carbon-containing stuff is what makes it remarkable.”

“I am not sure I want to go in there”. Michael had lost a bit of his good humor and was getting nervous now.

Sergey was speaking something in Ivanov’s ear, making involuntary gestures. Ivanov obviously disagreed and was shaking his head negatively. The young physicist was insistent, his face showed that he would like to shout while he was whispering to his boss. Ivanov slightly waived his hand and Sergey stood up.

“Allow me to speak, Sir.”

Norman nodded in agreement, not less amazed than the rest of the group. Sergey went to the multi-media and inserted a miniature memory stick in the computer.

He started hanging the slides while the rest were gazing in wonder at the blue screen.

“Like I said, the submarine is ours, Russian. Class ‘Shark’, which according to American classification means “Typhoon”. A crew of 200, length 300 yards…”

“Excuse me, Radlichenko, these are not manufactured now, Michael interrupted in a very serious manner.

“Well, yes, precisely… The most modern submarines today have characteristics well below these of ‘Ivanushka’, as they call him in Severodvinsk. There are no such models nowadays, but we started the project in 2015 and in the beginning of 2018 three units of this class are expected to be in the sea, complete and available to the navy commanders. Unfortunately, I have to admit that for financial reasons there is a certain delay… I guess they will be ready and on water by the beginning of 2019.”

“Ivan Semionovich, we have to talk! now!” Norman addressed the Colonel. For the first time he seemed enraged, obviously not liking surprises. Restraining his anger with an effort, he tried to keep the civil tone. “Why wasn’t I provided with this information earlier?”

Ivanov stood up and both of them took their conversation outside.

“Wait, do you mean that this is a nuclear submarine, manufactured in 2019?” Michael asked.

“It was planned for 2018 but in case of delay… yes, in 2019 I think… err… yes…” Sergey replied. Then he inhaled deeply and went on, clearly needing to go to the end. “The deadliest submarine today is the Russian ‘Shark’, carrying intercontinental ballistic missiles with a range of action of about 1000 miles, each equipped with ten nuclear heads, 1400 times more powerful than the bomb, dropped on Hiroshima. One submarine is capable of destroying with its missiles life on half the globe.”

“Impossible!”, Marcela exclaimed.

Just then Norman and Ivanov retuned to the room and Ivanov interfered:

“It is quite possible and even probable. In case of nuclear strike from the enemy the Russian people would avail of those submarines that actually saved the world from a nuclear war. They are designed to protect the Russian people and to ensure freedom and peace on Earth.”

“I just couldn’t figure, after you kill all the multicellular organisms on the planet, what will amoebas do with peace”, Marcela snapped indignantly.

“Your pacifist slogans cannot oppose a single nuclear strike. We have an obligation to protect ourselves. Besides, the class ‘Typhoon’ submarines are recognized as world peace-makers, because during the Cold war finally nobody pressed the button just because of the existence of such machines for mass destruction. We all knew that even if in a possible war the entire enemy state was destroyed with all its land facilities and human potential, only one such submarine, surviving under water, could annihilate on its part the entire planet in counterattack.”

“Blah-blah-blah”. Marcela could not resign to what was said but mumbled this in a hushed voice. She did not want this giant to hear her.

“Thank you, comrade Ivanov”, Norman spoke with irony, interrupting the ideological argument. “However, at this moment we have rather more important tasks than international comparative analysis of nuclear underwater force. Please, Sergey, go on.”

The young scientist with disheveled hair fixed his glasses, brushed his curls from his forehead and continued:

“The Higher Council of Russian Navy adopted a decision to improve these characteristics and create ‘the submarine of all seas and of all time’. Thus, the project ‘Kovaliov’ was started. The biggest submarine in the world is Project 941 class ‘Shark’ (American classification ‘Typhoon’). The project is ours entirely and it is manufactured in Severodvinsk. The dimensions of the submarine are truly gigantic: 900 feet long, 760 feet wide, displacement of 78 000 tons. If we compare the submarine to a football field the picture will look like this.”

They saw on the screen the draft of a metal corps overlaid on a standard football field. The submarine was twice longer.

“Imagine a ship twice as long as Camp Nou, for example”, Sergey offered. “The crew consists of approximately 200 people. It can remain under water and move autonomously for 250 days even if a nuclear war is raging on the surface. The maximum depth of submerging is 30  000 feet. But, like I said, this super machine will be manufactured only after one year.”

A class ‘Typhoon’ submarine, year of manufacture 2019, day 3, 7:34 p.m.

“Isn’t it better to wait till morning, Sir?” the lieutenant asked hesitantly. The protective suit was much too big for his short figure and made the otherwise serious man look comic.

“No, let’s enter the damn thing, so this would faster be over. Whatever is inside can’t be scarier than this anxiousness before the unknown… Uncover it, Lieutenant, this is an order!” Norman commanded.

“Hans, you look like a matryoshka doll”, Sergey said, his voice sounding like that of Darth Vader through the gas mask. It was true, the professor resembled a waddling musical doll, that is not sure on which side to fall.

“March, even this waterproof cloak looks good on you”, Michael said, enjoying his own voice, coming through the filter of the mask.

“Thank you, Mikey, but I believe Alan is the sexiest one under his canvas”, she laughed, pointing towards the former military guy, who really moved rather freely with the uncomfortable green plastic cloak.

“It makes you really beautiful, Hans, because your face is not seen”, Alan remarked.

“Mind your own business”, the professor replied nervously. “The body is nothing but a transitive form of mind.”

“Please, stop it”, Norman urged them. “Lieutenant, begin now!”

The baby-faced lieutenant was crouching over the manhole, holding with his hands the enormous screw. The rest were crowded around him, standing on the broad back of the steel monster. They were right behind the tower of the submarine at the entrance opening. It was not more than three feet wide, covered with a screwing lock.

Their glances were focused on the lieutenant’s fine hands, anxious as if he were a magician and a dove would fly out of his sleeve any second.

Babyface started unscrewing the lock and savage screeching sound was heard. It was as if nobody had opened it for a really long time. Unscrewing the lock all the way, the lieutenant opened the manhole. Stale air came out at them from within. They looked around, as if expecting little green men attacking them with weapons. Or, in a better version, welcoming them with music.

The Major put his legs in the narrow passage and was the first to go inside. The cold darkness of the metal monster engulfed him. Alan hesitated for a moment, took a deep breath and sunk inside, following him. Soon the steel belly swallowed all of them one after the other, the last one remaining outside being Michael. He looked around, raised his eyes for the last time towards the clear sky, studded with stars, inhaled deeply and went down.

“Theory of Subjective Numbers” by Professor McDowell

A scientific report on “Irrational Numbers” presented to the academic council of Edinburgh University in May 2013. The thesis was not prized, on the contrary, its author was stripped off his title and expelled from Edinburgh University.

The scientific community condemned him as a ‘scientific populist’, ‘cheap charlatan’ and ‘shame for the profession’. Professor McDowell was severely lashed by the European Academy of Science and the Scottish Scientific Society and excluded as their fellow member without the right to an answer.

“Science & Co.” magazine, contrary to scientific dogma proclaimed his theory ‘the discovery of the century’ and called the author a man ‘of the order of Einstein’ and ‘at least Magellan of physics’. The argument has continued till the present day without any prominent result.

In 2014 Lord Dunwell, known in scientific circles for his nonstandard views and an irrational approach, proclaimed him as ‘the only bright light in scientific darkness for the last hundred years’. An extract from “Theory of Subjective Numbers”, 2013

2+2 = 4,0000000000000000000000000000000000000000000………….1

2+2 = 3,99999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999(9)

God created man to make small steps and to look down at his feet. The first step is the hardest, the second is a bit easier and so on, forward along the path of truth. When man made enough steps towards God and raised his eyes up towards the night sky, seeing the light of the billions and billions of stars there, he knew that the more steps he takes, the nearer he comes to God.

Then God’s image, suffused with light, appeared to him and man realized that even though his steps were getting easier and more numerous, he would never reach God and be equal to Him.

“Alan, stop it!” Michael shouted.

“Sorry, people, but this is amazing…” Alan could already see himself in his new show. He pushed the others and stood at the head of the line of people, who were moving along the long and narrow passage of the fat metal torso. Their flashlights were throwing light on the grey metal appliances, covered with dust. While on the outside the submarine looked as if it had just got out of the sea, the interior seemed to not have been touched by nobody for years.

“Wow, it’s quite big inside!” Michael exclaimed.

“This is the most modern submarine in the world. There are even running tracks like in your neighborhood gym… Over there, look…” Ivanov said, not trying to conceal his pride of Russian military technology.

“I never imagined it could be so large inside. What I’ve seen on TV were dark and grim narrow spaces with no room for two people to pass each other.”

“You’ve seen too many films, kid. Submarines there are mostly from the time of World War Two, that are quite different from this masterpiece of technology.

“Wow, it is like a real spaceship in here…”

“That’s right, contemporary submarines are in no way different from a large ship or from modern airplanes. The crew avails of sunbeds, a gym, a small swimming pool, even a sauna. You can stay underwater without ever going to the surface for more than eight months.”

“But how is it possible?”, Marcela, who was walking right behind them, asked. “Won’t air get exhausted?”

“No, the crew of this baby can produce electrical energy and even oxygen for breathing. As I said, they are surfacing every few months only to stock food supplies.”

“But how can you produce oxygen under water?” Michael wondered.

“Don’t forget that underwater there is mostly… water”, Sergey said, who stopped and waited for them in order to take part in the conversation. “And water, as we all know, is composed of oxygen and hydrogen.”

“Electrolysis of water to oxygen and hydrogen – and there you are, you’ve got energy for sailing and air for breathing. Moreover, in practically unlimited quantities”, Ivanov said walking on.

They reached the bridge, where the control room was situated – the heart of the ship. Michael decided to try one of the two periscopes. He struggled to open the handles and look inside, but without any success.

“Alan, have you any idea where the power switch is, if this gadget here still works?” Norman turned to the Russians. “Colonel Ivanov, how do you operate this? We need to find their archive.”

Before they could stop him, Alan pressed a couple of buttons and the lights over the main switchboard went on. Marcela timidly touched the metal of the control panel in front the monitors of the computers. Curiosity won, she bended over the keyboard and scratched it with a nail.

“This here explains the excess of carbon in the spectral analysis.”

“What do you mean?”, Norman asked.

“Well, every part in the interior of the submarine is covered with graphene. It is pure carbon.”

“Graphene?” Michael asked and touched the column before him. It felt smooth and soft as velvet.

“It is really not a common knowledge”, Marcela replied, “that graphene is the strongest and lightest material ever produced. It is stronger than diamond even, unique for its being 300 times more solid than steel and at the same time more flexible than the most yielding rubber. Colonel, may I ask you to break this here?”

Ivanov took out his gun and removed the cartridge-clip.

He then hit with all his force the fine appliance with the massive metal butt. The keys on the keyboard, the buttons and the working screens remained intact.

Marcela looked at the group and went on:

“It consists of a single layer of carbon atoms and could be given any shape. The material of the future, that’s how it is called by us, chemists. It is so thin, that a sheet with weight of 28 grams can cover an area as big as 28 football fields. The problem is that its production is highly unprofitable. Actually, it is quite cheap, but technologically…”

“Obviously the Russians have found a way to introduce it in the mass production of ships… from the future”, Alan interrupted her.

“Our problems”, Sergey started to reply, “boiled down to finding a way to separate a monomolecular layer, preserving at the same time the purity of the atom lattice. We needed only six atoms of carbon in its structure. With five or seven atoms in the lattice irregularities in the surface appeared. But if we could isolate a five-atom cell of pure graphene, that was the ideal material of the future.“

“I can see everything here is made of this graphene of yours. No wonder then that the values of carbon were so high.” Norman was closely inspecting the control panel.

“Do you mean that the ‘live analysis’ of the ship is due to this covering layer?” Michael asked.

“In a certain way this material can be integrated in biological systems like an implant in the human body for example”, Marcela answered.

“So, this thing can also be alive, can’t it?” Norman interfered. “I don’t like it one bit. We must discover the black box as soon as possible and find out what happened to this ship.”

“I just don’t know where exactly the black box stands with the Russians.”

“Alan, please, this is dangerous! Ivanov, will you cooperate?”

“Norman wanted the records from the archive. This is the most important issue for the moment.”

Ivanov just glanced at his compatriot, then lifted the metal bar from the floor and reluctantly started for the wall. He leaned and hit its lower part with force. A small hidden compartment was opened, containing a small orange cylinder.

“I’ve always known they are neither black, nor boxes”, Michael noted.

“It seems the batteries have enough charge and they are working”, Norman pointed out, after taking in his hands the ‘black box’, given to him by the Colonel.

“I can’t wait to understand what’s in the recordings”, Hans said, who had by now just watched from aside, deep in thought.

“I suggest we take a look at the back, Sir”, Alan suggested.

Ivanov remained at the bridge and Norman, being careful ordered the lieutenant to stay back and keep an eye on him. The rest of the group started towards the rear part of the submarine, where the engine room, the sailors’ cabins and the nuclear reactor had to be situated.

Norman was leading, followed by Alan and Sergey. Marcela and Hans were the last in the column.

“There is nothing in the fucking submarine”, said Alan, sounding terribly disappointed.

In the engine room nothing seemed to be touched. The four diesel engines looked brand new.

“Well, is it just me?”

“What is it, Alan?” Norman turned back to him.

“Can’t you see?!”

“See what?”

“The diesel engines, of course.”

“What about them. They seem normal enough. I guess if we start them they’ll be working even.” Norman put his hand on one of the units.

“They’ll be working, no doubt about that, but doesn’t it strike you? There are as many as four!”

“Alan, stop fucking with us and say what’s bothering you.”

“Nuclear submarines do not have diesel engines, Sir. They don’t need them.”

They went on to the cabins, that were separated from the passage with curtains. Norman lifted the first one and looked shocked.

Unlike the engine room, where everything looked new and unused, here the chaos was unbelievable. There were shoes and clothes in disarray on the floor. The bunks of the sailors were with cramped bedcovers, among which there were books, notebooks, packs of cigarettes, safety-razors, toothbrushes and miscellaneous stuff, used in everyday life. It looked as if someone evaporated people by magic and replaced them elsewhere, but not before a mortal combat. It seemed like the people left the cabins in real hurry and in a state of emergency. Or it might not be an emergency command, but they were in panic.

“I guess someone did not tidy up his room before getting out”, Alan observed.

“If this someone did get out of the room at all”, Hans said, having as usually his own version of events. He was crouching, almost kneeling on the floor, scrutinizing something with keen interest.

“Come on, Hans, there is nobody here, it is quite obvious that the crew evacuated in emergency because of something… They left the ship and that’s it. What is so strange about it?”

“Yeah, Alan, you are right as always”, said Hans ironically, “if you can just explain this.”

In a triumphant manner he held in front of Alan’s eyes a small black leather notebook with a cross on one cover, evidently a diary of one of the sailors. Alan took it and made a move to look through the pages, but there were no pages. All were torn out except the last one. He opened it and saw blurred but readable writing: Hell is here, now.

They were walking in depressed silence, seeing in their mind’s eye the messy cabin and the little black notebook. The grim sense of death and anguish prevailed. The initial enthusiasm at their coming in was replaced with a foreboding of evil, lurking in that metal coffin. Even Alan with his inexhaustible energy was quiet.

They reached the rear of the submarine.

One last metal wall separated them from the reactor. Norman carefully turned the lock and opened with ease the massive metal door. He entered first, but immediately stepped aside to let Alan through. He was the most knowledgeable about submarines and they needed his opinion first.

Alan passed through the low door with bowed head, then turned back, shouting excitedly:

“I told you! I knew I was right! There’s no reactor!”

The rest followed him inside one by one.

“Every nuclear reactor basically consists of active zone with nuclear fuel”, Alan started explaining, being in familiar waters. “There is a slowing down device around it, a carrier of heat and a system for regulating the chain reaction. I can see none of these elements here, just some queer apparatus. I’ve never on any submarine seen something like that. Frankly, I have no idea about its function.”

It was a large cylindrical chunk of metal, which traced the shape of the corps of the submarine. It was about twenty feet in diameter and there was a big opening in its center through which a bending person could pass.

“What the fuck is this?” Norman raised the transmitter to his face. “Bring the Russians to me now!”

For the first time since they were on board Hans seemed very interested and was observing the machine with curiosity. Obviously, he saw it as a super high-tech device and quite intriguing too.

Marcela was exhausted, so she sat on one of the generators to take a rest. She was emotionally overwhelmed and for the moment she had switched off, she did not think about anything at all.

Alan was watching Hans closely.

Ivanov and Sergey almost tumbled through the door one after the other.

“I need explanations. What is this?” Ivanov asked, sounding rather angry.

“That’s the Core, Sir”, Sergey answered promptly before Ivanov could stop him.

“The Core?”

“It’s the second major engine of the ship, Sir.”

“And why wasn’t I informed? Are there any more things of this kind about which I need to know?” Norman was seething.

“Yes, Sir… I mean, no, Sir… I mean, I’ll report to you in private right now, Sir. And no, I don’t believe there is anything else, Sir…”

Sergey was confused so he was rambling, while Ivanov watched dispassionately with a stone face.

Now everyone was examining the second major engine.

It looked like the lens of an old camera from the pre-digital age, when lenses with diaphragms were used. That was it, the eye of the machine reminded them of a diaphragm. Similar to those old lenses there were laminae that correspondingly made the lens narrow or dilated it like a human pupil, adapting to the different quantity of light. Around the eye twelve mirrors were placed, directed towards the center of the bottom that looked like a satellite dish. There was an electric motor at the base of each one, that seemed to be able to change their position and respectively the angle of reflection of light.

Meanwhile the sergeant and one of the soldiers wriggled through the narrow opening of the ‘diaphragm’.

In the room there were four huge energy generators on the floor, at least that was what the inscription on every one of them said – ‘Energy generator’ in Russian. Below there was a sign with an exclamation mark and a human skull and a warning also in Russian – ‘Danger! High voltage!’

Norman was just going to follow the Russians back to the cabin with the bunks, when the sergeant’s head popped up through the ‘diaphragm’.

“Sir, you might want to see that, I’m sure.” His voice sounded very agitated despite the formal military tone. He was trembling all over. “There is another room behind this one… You must come now… Sir.”

Everybody followed, squeezing through the opening. Sergey was the last to go and he offered his hand to Marcela although it was Hans who needed help more. Poor man could hardly worm his way through in the thick protective suit. They were in the last section, at the very rear of the submarine, in something like a loading room or a warehouse. It was a confined space because of the slanting ceiling in the tail of the big submarine.

The Cube.

In front of them the most amazing thing imaginable stood. They had never seen such beauty and perfection.

The Cube was placed on a throne of corals, growing right from the metal floor. Its dimensions were six by six feet, it had perfectly straight sides and angles and an indefinite color. It looked mirrorlike but it refracted light in a dull way and the reflections were somewhat different from the real objects.

Marcela, for instance, saw before her a face not so beautiful, surrounded by dark floating circles. She looked blurred, with deep dark shadows beneath her eyes and spots on the forehead.

Ivanov, on his part, was faced by a handsome distinct image in a halo of light. His reflection was young, like one, painted on a canvas by a talented artist.

However, Marcela and Ivanov both had the impression they were seeing not their own reflection but of somebody else. Somebody who resembled them, but came from a different reality.

From inside the Cube murky blue-greenish light streamed with slight pink hypnotizing nuance. If one looked at it for more than a couple of seconds, there was a feeling of one’s brain getting soft.

The entire group encircled the Cube and while everyone was gazing intently at it, Hans looked away from the perfectly smooth shining supernatural surface to view the walls of the room they were in.

The corals, white and colorless, were everywhere. It was as if they were standing on the bottom of the ocean. Five of the six planes of the space were covered with corals, including the floor, running from ceiling to floor, covering almost the entire metal plating. Only the opening, through which they had come in, was not covered with corals. The reef formed something like a nest or an altar, exactly matching the form and the dimensions of the Cube, lying in that couch.

Hans brushed with his hand the place where the coral matter met the metal corps and said:

“Marcela, you’ve got to see this.”

“Yeah, it seems the organic matter is grown into the metal… This is very strange…”

“Didn’t you mention that graphene was built of carbon only and could be implanted in live tissue?”

“That’s right, but those corals were not brought from outside, they look as if they have grown from the ship itself. Look, some of them are half alive, as if they were forcefully dragged out of the water a few days ago, while others… See how thick their skeleton is, limestone is formed very slowly… and their color…” Her voice vibrated with excitement. “I bet they they have been lying in that room for centuries.”

“Take samples”, Norman ordered and looked at them inquiringly. “What might this be? That’s why you are here, come on, I need answers…”

“This comes from quartz with inner diodes”, Michael offered. “It’s cool, it must cost a fortune.”

“For God’s sake, don’t touch it and stay away from it… It might be dangerous…” Marcela had the sickening feeling of resentment, thinking how nice it would be to relax in a hot bath at home with a glass of wine.

“Come on, it’s perfectly clear this does not come from our planet. Don’t play dumb”, Alan remarked, returning to his usual self.

“Load it, I want it at the base. We are leaving”, Norman announced, not being able to calm down from everything he had seen. Like every military person who wanted to be perfect in his job, he did not like surprises. The Russians had obviously saved a lot of essential information in their initial reports and now he needed to call Washington.

“Please, Norman, don’t take it to the base! I don’t like this thing” Marcela implored, almost dragging Norman’s lapel.

“Gentlemen…” Hans started in his typical sardonic manner. “Norman, you can’t possibly take this thing with you now…”

“And why is that? What would stop me to do it?”

Alan slapped his forehead.

“Hans, you are right… But, of course…”

“Gentlemen, don’t forget this is not democracy here. You are under my command.” Norman did not get it.

“Norman, how wide is the manhole?”

“Damn it! You mean… Then how on earth did this shit come inside?”

Alan had already figured it.

“Yes, Norman”, Hans continued, “the manhole is not more than three feet wide, which is half the width of that pretty little cube here. And there isn’t any normal way it had been brought in the submarine through its entrance… At least not after its construction.”

Norman just raised his eyebrows and looked at the thing, trying to measure it mentally.

“There is more…” Hans had embraced the Cube, examining closely its surface. He was trying to lift it from the floor, but obviously its weight was a challenge for his fine arms of a scientist. “Look here…”

The two sergeants pushed the Cube on one side. Everybody approached to see what was written on the bottom side.

5=117

Day 3, 10:47 p.m.

As soon as they entered the closed perimeter of the base, the Major announced thirty minutes leisure time and everyone went to his room.

Ivanov split from the main group and stealthily moved behind the big building next to the warehouses. The guard in front was lighting a cigarette when his replacement approached him. They exchanged a few words and each went his way.

It seemed he had luck tonight to pick the right moment. He almost crawled to the entrance and went in. Once inside, he looked around. For an experienced military person like he was, it was not difficult to spot the explosives. He had been dealing with Americans for quite a long time now and he was very well acquainted with their war equipment. He could count the sticks of plastic explosive, there were enough to blow up the whole place. Together with the goddamn submarine. His task was not to discover the secrets of nature, but to protect Russian secret military technologies and keep them away from the Americans. They were smiling at each other and were officially polite, yet he knew that on the battlefield there were no such things like mercy or friendship. His orders were to find out what he could and in no way allow the ship to be controlled by anybody else. He did not like Norman, this sleek and pedantic American. He resented Hans too, since he disliked Germans in general. They had given them a lot of trouble during World War Two. He knew all about this time from his father. Germans were not to be trusted. And this Sergey, a naïve scientist with his stupid physical inadequacies. Why was he burdened with him, he told them he could do it all by himself.

Ivanov took out from under his coat a big bag and started putting in it C4 plastic explosive, that he found in a crate. After the bag was full, he started back for his room.

He was walking fast, with wide strides. The large bag did not seem to bother him. At the same time he was scanning his surroundings. He looked up towards the guard in the watchtower, but he was too high up and was too busy to watch the outer perimeter of the base to notice him. There was nobody else around, they were all in the conference room because of those dumb figures on the bottom of the Cube. There was light behind the windows and dim shadows were seen. He noticed Norman’s tall slim silhouette. He was going to put away the explosives and go see what was going on.

Main room, day 3, 11:30 p.m.

“How can we know who wrote this thing? It might be just a random scrawl. While they were sailing, somebody got bored and decided to write nonsense just to make fun of us”, Sergey was contemplating.

“What could it mean? I guess it’s some bullshit”, Michael was thinking aloud.

Marcela could not see any logic either.

“No way 5 could equal 117, don’t you think? It doesn’t make any sense.”

After the thirty minutes, allowed by the Major, passed, they were all in the conference room. They needed rest, but did not have any time for it, besides the questions without answers were flooding their minds.

They were practically lying on their chairs with exhaustion. The coffee in their cups had the pleasant flavor of their ordinary life far from here, reminding them familiar everyday moments amidst this surrealistic madness.

Marcela was sipping with pleasure the black liquid. The memory of what she had seen scared her deeply. She was used to face real problems and solve them with her typical martial spirit, but now she felt there was something unknown and out worldly, not subjected to human laws. Was it some secret Russian weapon or super evil from another place, which had killed people, men from her world, and in an unusual way, too. One thing she was sure of, whatever happened,

it was bad.

This was an unknown evil and it made her blood freeze in the veins.

The Major started the overview.

“What we know so far is that the entire crew has disappeared without a trace. We also found an object for which we scarcely have an explanation.”

“The inscription is not drawn or engraved on the surface of the object”, Hans interfered. “It is rather coming from inside the Cube, as if reflecting some inner programmed light. I assume it might change…”

“I suppose it could be a serial number or something of the kind”, Alan offered.

“We are waiting for the laboratory analysis of the surface of this thing, but with reference to its chemical composition I don’t believe we will have any accurate results” Sergey spoke.

“Do you mean we won’t be able to define what it is made of?” Marcela exclaimed with disappointment.

“I am afraid that the smears we took with diamond droppers won’t show anything. This object won’t allow us to define its chemical composition.” Sergey seemed absolutely sure of his words. “Its surface is perfectly smooth and resistant to outer influences. I, for one, tried to scratch it with my key, but no traces were left. Absolutely nothing. Upon impact it feels both awfully hard and indestructible and soft and elastic at the same time, so it absorbs your force and does not allow being scratched. Imagine, you have a noisy neighbor who abuses you with allnight parties. You want to scratch his shiny car, parked in front of your building with the old key for your garage door. You pass one night and unnoticed by anyone leave a long fresh streak along the whole length of the black sports BMW. The very sound gives you pleasure of the sweet payback. The bad kid inside your head is exhilarated. On the next day you are overjoyed to see him from you window seething and swearing in his helplessness, having no idea at all who did this. But this thing here, no matter how strongly you try to enforce metal on it by piercing or hammering, nothing happens! The ultimate material of all time! The engineer’s and alchemist’s dream come true!”

Ivanov gave him a stern look but said nothing, just his forehead wrinkled even more.

“That would be super nice, Sergey, but now we have a task: to understand what the fuck 5=117 means”, Norman interrupted.

“There’s more”, the young Russian said. “I just looked over the data of microscopic measurements. The Cube is 6.66 feet wide which is exactly 2.029968 meters, all of its sides being equal with an accuracy of… err… I don’t know how to say it…”

“Which symbol after zero, please, Sergey?”, Alan asked, who cannot wait to hear.

“Well, as you know, we measured the object with a laser and then introduced the data to be processed. The computer did not find any difference at all between the different sides. I mean, none! Even in the millionth figure after the decimal point there was no deviation! Just zeros till the end of the fucking screen, the entire scale. This seems to be ‘the ideal cube’. I don’t know what to say, but at the moment there isn’t for sure any such technology existing on the planet, and I strongly doubt that we will be able to produce anything so ideal in the next thousand years.”

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=МС^2

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.

Till 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.

And this love.

When she was offered the PH. D. position in London, she did not hesitate for an instant and left, without even thinking about the price she was going to pay. That was the chance of her life. They fought for a whole week, she cried, he shouted and broke things all over the flat. He loved her truly, but nothing could take him away from the hospital in Bucharest, where he would any moment now be promoted to head of Cardio-surgery.

The operating theatre was his life. University was hers.

He lived among patients and for the saved lives, she – among the laboratory experiments and the lectures.

The alarm on her phone took her out of this reverie. She was grateful to start the day in the real world. As hard as it was, the day was conquerable, while her dreams would not leave her alone.

She would not admit to herself that she was lonely and much hurt by the doctor.

She met him at an age, when she was no longer a naive child, but had not yet entered middle age with its cynical freedom of moral burdens. She still had her dreams and he materialized them in their complete colorfulness.

He was tall, handsome, with long hair and mesmerizing smile. Every move he made was confident, showing his talent and power to control.

This attracted and aroused her greatly.

She was ready to forgive him all but one thing.

He never proposed.

Meteorological station “North”, 12 miles north of Cairo, day 4, 7:04 a.m.

The hurricane “Leslie” is nearing the African west coast. Atmospheric pressure is dropping and stormy winds are expected in the following three days. The center of the hurricane is moving in direction south/south-east and is expected to pass through the second parallel and cause sand storms with hurricane speed. The population of these regions is recommended to evacuate immediately and to not go outside for the next 48 hours.

The base, the canteen at breakfast, Day 4, 9:00 a.m.

“Okay, I might have drunk a bit more vodka than I should last night, but I clearly remember that we did not discuss the main issue in the fucked situation with the frigging submarine…” Michael was trying to alleviate his hangover with a big cup of coffee.

Everybody was sitting in the canteen in dark mood. “I only remember that Hans started philosophizing and we all

fell asleep except for the lady”, Sergey said. He was drinking some juice with orange color, that had a suspicious smell of alcohol, and had not lost his sense of humor. His disheveled hair and redrimmed eyes prompted he hadn’t gone to bed at all. His baggy old jeans and dirty t-shirt did not win him much appreciation from the orderly and well-groomed soldiers in the base.

Norman came in, accompanied by two sergeants.

“I’d like Sergey to leave, please. Accompany him to his room.” The two strong men fulfilled his order immediately. They wringed his arms behind his back and took him to his room. Sergey had no strength left to protest and just dropped his head to his chest, resigned to the fate that the morning had prepared for him. Norman went on coolly, as if nothing had happened.

“So, gentlemen, we have a problem. All of you were on the ship yesterday. I want answers. Here and now!”

“Good morning, Sir”, Alan replied. His sleep had been uneasy, but he had not drunk much, so his mind was sober. “In our opinion the name of the submarine was ‘Albert Einstein’ or at least that was the only thing we could think of while sleeping.“

“Enough with the bullshit, Alan, we are all too tired to listen to dumb jokes.” Norman really wanted serious answers.

“What happened to the ‘Core’, Sir? Do we have an answer to this question?” Marcela clearly remembered that this issue was addressed to the Russians.

“Our Russian colleagues were kind enough to give a full report on this topic.”

“And to inform you that this submarine was travelling in time”. Hans was slowly sipping his orange juice. Hangover was for him a suicidal evil, which he had never known.

“I need from you answers to totally different questions”, Norman said, seeming confused for the first time.

“I beg your pardon, but if you want us to participate adequately in this situation, we need to know absolutely everything.” Marcela was really a little bit offended that they were not told everything.

“Whoa, people, I think there’s something super cool going on here, only nobody can explain it”, Michael remarked.

He had to admit to himself he was not yet sober after half a liter of vodka and four hours of disturbed sleep.

“I don’t believe there’s much to analyze here. The ship was stuck in the desert after some climatic phenomenon, an anomaly, something that whirled it in the air and that’s it. The rest of the things are just coincidences.” Alan did not much believe in aliens, although they would be perfect in terms of TV ratings.

“What about the Cube?” Marcela asked him. She had a small box and a sheet of paper in her hands.

“The Cube is some kind of a toy of the Russian military, some secret weapon, which they do not want to reveal to us… That must be it”, Michael suggested.

“Not true. You know everything you need to know and it just can’t be that”, Hans said, sounding absolutely convinced. “I told you, the ship comes from the future.”

“I don’t know when it was constructed, gentlemen”, Marcela said, “but I made an analysis of samples of the corals that we found on board. According to the period of semi-decomposition of carbon, that we use, its accuracy being only to ten years, the corals, gentlemen, are at least twelve thousand years old.”

Control room, day 4, 12:3 p.m.

“You’ve got to see that, Sir!” Babyface sounded concerned and it was not a good sign. “We decoded the records from the black box, Sir.”

“Coming right now. Call the German guy and the Biology lady to be prepared, we might call them if necessary.”

“Yes, Sir.”

The recording on the video-wall showed a stocky Russian with bright eyes. He was in a navy-blue uniform with a lot of stars on his shoulder straps; he was talking something in his language and was raising a large glass of vodka, obviously making a toast on some occasion. He was grinning at the lens, the camera followed him, while he was walking to the bridge, sipping quite often from his drink. It wasn’t clear how sober he was.

“What is that, Lieutenant?” Norman asked, knitting his brows. “It’s Russian, Sir.”

“I can see it’s Russian, but I don’t know a word of Russian. You speak the language, don’t you?”

“That’s right, Sir. Only my Russian is… err… far from perfect and this man blurs the words and he’s speaking in some local accent.”

“Why am I not surprised?” Norman shook his head and waved at the soldier at the door. “Call the biologist and the rest of the scientists, they must see this.”

The canteen, Day 4, 1:12 p.m.

It was only them four in the canteen now. They had finished their meal, but nobody felt like leaving, they preferred being here. Only when they were together they felt safe and secure.

Alan was picking his molars with a toothpick. Marcela was obstinately trying to pick a lonely pea in her empty plate with her fork. Hans had sunk back in his chair with arms crossed over his chest and was gazing at the ceiling deep in thought. Michael took a rolled by hand cigarette and a box of matches out of his pocket.

“Mikey, you know that the Major forbids smoking on the territory of the base”, Marcela reminded him. “You were given twice already a ‘final warning’, you know.”

“Fuck the Major and his orders. I don’t give a shit about them. Moreover, what can he do to me? Arrest me or what? Screw him, I’m dying for a cigarette.” The young man lit his cigarette and inhaled the smoke to the bottom of his lungs.

“I really dig Mike, he doesn’t care about anything”, Alan said smiling and made a move to throw a crumpled napkin at him.

“Smoking’s bad for you, Mike”. Marcela looked at him with a motherly strict glance in which there was affection too.

“Listen to the woman and you can’t be wrong, kid.” Alan had stood up and put his palms on Marcela’s shoulders, to which she reacted by throwing a disapproving glance back at him. He removed his hands and slowly walked to the water dispenser in the corner. Having poured a glass of water he came back to his seat, looking slightly embarrassed.

The German scientist was still focused on the white ceiling as if nothing was happening around him.

“Hey, Hans, where are you? Won’t you comment on this whole story”, Michael said, shoving him gently with his foot, at which the plump scientist jumped.

“I was just reflecting on the meaning of this message, based on Einstein’s most famous formula.

“Do you think the words from the Bible are related somehow?” Marcela asked.

“Yes, they are definitely related, but I rather believe this ‘bloody’ message, indirectly pointing to cruelty and aggression, was left for us from a crew member. I don’t think it’s from ‘them’.”

“Why is it that you, scientists, always idealize alien intelligence, defining it as ‘friendly’, ‘good’ and by all means ‘better developed and more spiritual’ compared to us?!” Alan asked a bit theatrically.

“If you do not believe in the good basis of science and evolution, everything stops making sense, my friend”, Hans replied to him ironically.

“And that bit with Einstein?” Michael asked.

“It definitely sounds well-intentioned to me. The language of pure science is always a language of peace and concordance. Somebody or something wants to make contact with us and on a high level at that. Specific knowledge of the universe is demonstrated…”

“Tell it to the chimpanzees, used for experiments in some laboratory of a powerful trade corporation, or to the mice on which research is done in universities”, Marcela interrupted him.

“Well, science needs some minimum sacrifices”, Hans conceded.

“I hope this time the ‘minimum sacrifices’ in a cage are not us” Alan remarked.

“As much as it hurts me, I must admit this time you are right. Still I feel that this is just the beginning of some type of communication, it definitely seems a sign of a desire for a friendly dialogue.”

“You mean, something like a ‘chat’, eh?” Michael winked at him.

“I don’t know, ‘fishing for people’ does not sound very ‘human’ to me”, Marcela expressed a doubt.

“Actually, the biblical meaning is different from the way you understand it, taken out of the context”, Michael noted. “The fable says that while walking along the coast of Galilea lake, Jesus saw two of his disciples, Simon and his brother Andrew, fishing. He appealed to them to follow him and promised to them not money or some payback, but that he will send them ‘fishing for people’. They submitted instantly and dropped their fishing to follow him.”

“Jesus made them hunt for people and kill them?”, Marcela asked in amazement.

“No, on the contrary: to fish for lost souls and attract them to the good faith. They were simple fishermen but the meaning was that if they followed truth blindly and demonstrated the patience and the skill of a fisherman, they could reach men and convince them about the path to healing and salvation.”

“The path of Christ”, Marcela nodded as it dawned on her.

At this moment the Lieutenant came in, saluting them formally.

“The Major would like all of you to go to the command room. Now!”

Command room, Day 4, 2:01 p.m.

“I studied Russian at school” Marcela announced. “It was an obligatory foreign language for the countries behind the Iron Curtain.” She put the headset on in order to hear better. “However, I must warn you, my level is very basic. Actually, why don’t we call the Russians? They will translate it to the last detail…”

“What do you hear?” Norman interrupted her, eager to know what happened to the ship and the crew. “The Russians will translate after we see it first.”

If he knew but a little bit of Russian, we too would see it much later, if at all, Alan thought while sitting in front of the screen.

The merry commander appeared again on the wall. Behind him several crew members were seen, engaged with different devices in the command room of the submarine.

Marcela knitted her brows together in concentration, while she was watching the video for several minutes, then pressed the ‘pause’ button, took off the headset and said:

“This is the captain of the ship, who congratulates the Russian people with the successful start of the mission and the leap in time that passed without complications as per schedule. He says a phrase from Orthodox Christianity: ‘God be with us’.”

She pressed ‘play’ again and the picture moved. People in uniforms were seen, climbing a metal staircase, laughing and playing with each other. There were at least six men and two women. Obviously, the crew was in high spirits back then.

The shot changed and now just clear blue sky was seen. The operator pointed the camera back down and they saw the merry group on the deck by the tower of the submarine. The camera made a circle of 360 degrees and showed the sea – only blue water as far as the horizon. The captain reappeared on the screen, leaning on the tower and raising a toast to the group.

Suddenly the picture disappeared and the screen became fuzzy with strong cracking of static electricity, the recording was obviously damaged. Marcela abruptly took the headset off and pressed the fast forward button.

Unexpectedly the image became clear and everybody instinctively took a step back. Marcela turned her head aside. The screen showed the command room of the ship: people, objects and devices were in utter turmoil. Bodies and pieces of crushed metal equipment were flying all over the place. The cries of the dying sailors were echoing loudly and piercingly and blood gushed from their bodies in all directions. The faces were with gouged out eyes and lacerated mouths, the limbs were separating from the corps, accompanied by unbelievable agony. Some people, dressed in Russian military uniforms were attacking other people in uniforms. All of them looked the same, nobody could distinguish between victims and butchers.

The struggle was unequal and looked more like a planned slaughtering of cattle in a sophisticated slaughterhouse, than like a battle for survival.

They replayed the recording and were struck by the fact that the attackers used no weapons whatsoever – no guns or knives or anything. They killed their victims with bare hands, sticking their fingers in the eyes of the wretched human beings, who were hauling with pain. The hands of the assassins were surprisingly strong, they pierced the skin and muscles of the victims, breaking their bones as if they were bread-sticks.

The recording was interrupted now and again and its quality was exceptionally bad.

The film was cut to black screen at some point, then it was resumed outside by the very corps of the submarine. On the tower a scary man with pale face and puffy eyes was dragging the body of his victim. Under the military uniform the inhuman strength of his body was quite visible. He lifted the body high above his head and thrust it down over the periscope, that pierced the chest. The poor being was still alive, although as if impaled, and desperately moved his limbs in final attempts to escape death. The convulsions of his dying flesh were synchronized with the music that sounded from the camera of the military person. A somber symphony in the last hour of the dying man.

An Orthodox religious hymn. It resembled a sinister musical.

The man in the navy-blue uniform thrusted both his arms in the victim’s abdomen and tore the body into pieces. In seconds he took out the liver and stomach and waved them above his head. The fresh blood was trickling over his face. He looked like a fiery shaman, performing an ugly human sacrifice. His lips were moving in an unintelligible whisper and his eyes were directed upwards. He stood as if in a trance for about a minute, after which he took the wretched person’s inwards to his face, licked them with his tongue and brushed them down from his forehead to his chest.

Then he started writing letters on the corps of the tower. His writing could not be seen, shielded by his body, but when he finished, he stepped to one side and everybody in the room saw it clearly on the screen: Come, follow me, and I will send you out to fish for people.

The blood, still hot, was dripping down and blurred the letters on the metal.

Marcela turned away her head, sickened to the core of her being and ran out of the room. Alan followed her.

He reached her only outside the dome, where he saw her throwing up on the sand with her head buried between her hands. Her hair was in disorder, brushing the sand. The contents of her stomach were expelled by the spasms, she could barely breathe, sobbing and choking.

Alan waited for a minute, then approached her, lifted her up and embraced her.

Control room, Day 4, 6:28 p.m.

“Do you have any explanation, Hans?”, Norman asked and shot a searching glance at him.

“I prefer not to have one, Sir.”

“Then why are you here, if you have no answers, Professor?”

“I am here to solve codes and equations, not to watch horror movies, don’t you agree, Sir?”

At this moment a soldier came in and whispered something in Norman’s ear.

“Yes, okay, let them come in.”

Sergey and Ivanov both entered the room and their eyes went straight to the screen where the shot with the man writing with blood was paused.

“Can you translate for me, gentlemen? Rewind to the beginning, Lieutenant. Then you can explain to me why you lied about the Core, the submarine and tell anything else that you have concealed. The rest of you, take a rest till I call you back.

Hans, Alan, Marcela and Michael stood up and started for the door.

“One thing bothers me”, Hans said and stopped for a moment. “There isn’t a trace of all that mayhem in the submarine now.”

Without waiting for an answer, he turned his back to them and exited the room.

PART THREE: THE MUSIC

“Music expresses what cannot be said with words and what cannot be left unsaid.”

Victor Hugo

“If, God forbid, I die one day, let this be my epitaph: ‘The only proof of the existence of God was music’.”

Kurt Vonnegut

The Base, Day 5, 4:24 a.m.

The Lieutenant was standing before the three computers in the command room in the central dome and was watching the twinkling columns of data: communication with the US headquarters, announcements of seismic activity, the radar around the base, the red dots, representing all live organisms over three feet tall in a radius of three miles, weather forecast…

The meteorological forecast was not good at all. The barometer was falling, the weather was getting bad. The hurricane was caming from the north and was going to hit them strong. It was big and powerful, and they were going to be in its eye.

However, inside the base it was peaceful, the fifteen red dots, showing the position of the people, were in their places.

He liked things being in their places, then they could be seen easily. And to be able to see was to be able to control. Control was the premise for success of each mission. He only wanted to make his superiors happy.

Suddenly the screens before him went dark. The lamps on the ceiling blinked three or four times. The Lieutenant started nervously pressing keys and cursing.

“What’s going on, for fuck’s sake?”

The first thing he did was to restart the computers. He made sure all red dots were in their places. Then he checked the other data. Everything seemed okay.

The Lieutenant was extremely accurate and would never be careless about his job. He started tracing all the secret aps for new messages, that might be missed for those few seconds offline.

Suddenly the media player opened. Music sounded.

Babyface switched on the additional speakers and turned the volume up: a rock piece with lots of guitars.

He was not a great music fan.

The goddamn computer! Obviously, it was activated by chance or he opened involuntary some menu. He closed it and again started checking the secret communiques.

After two minutes the window opened again.

The same song.

The Lieutenant was a punctilious and responsible military man, but he did not like thinking much and was not good in taking decisions. Without improvising, he chose to follow the protocol for such cases.

He picked up the receiver.

From the theory of ‘The Thinking Melon’ by McDowell Junior:

“1. If you think that you are a melon, then you really are a melon.

2. If you are a melon, you think like a melon.”

“I find it naive”, Alan said.

“Some outdated rock’n roll from the previous century”

Michael’s comment was.

“This music was forbidden in our country during the communist regime”, Sergey remarked.

“That’s the greatest song of all times!” Marcela exclaimed.

“Do you think it’s coming from the ship?”, Norman asked.

“Impossible, we are not connected in any way, neither by Bluetooth, nor optically.”

“Do you think this technology needs it?”, Michael retorted.

“Actually, it comes from the Cube”, Hans said, leaving his quiet calmness. “They are trying to make contact with us.”

“With Deep Purple’s ‘Smoke on the Water’?” Michael wondered.

“What did you expect? Beethoven?” Sergey asked. “Or ‘Farewell of the Slavic Woman’?”, Michael looked amusedly at Ivanov, who did not buy the joke.

Norman made Babyface play the recording again. “Can you check it?”

“Of course, Sir. I’ll pass it through the filters now. Just give me five minutes.” The Lieutenant started hitting the keyboard energetically.

“What do you think?” Norman glanced at them one by one. “I think this is an extra cool song and I love the way these beings start their conversation with us…” Marcela was overexcited as if she were at a rock concert, slapping slightly her thigh in the rhythm of the music.

“How exactly they make a conversation? I didn’t get it,” Alan said.

“Well, that should be some kind of a code, shouldn’t it?” Sergey addressed Hans.

All the rest also turned their eyes to the plump mathematician. In this obscure situation he was the only one keeping calm and coolly appraising the facts. Despite his little oddities they couldn’t manage without him. All the nuclear heads of a submarine, capable to destroy the world, could not match the force of that brilliant mind.

Hans looked them over one by one, took out his white handkerchief and started clumsily cleaning his eyeglasses.

“I will need some time to find out. It could be something else. Something in terms of a greeting or, emotionally, a part of art, which I don’t quite appreciate. I would much more welcome a dry but understandable message.”

“Well, the choice of a rock song is way cooler”, Michael interrupted.

“Not quite. If the aliens have art or a system of values, related to music, it could become dangerous.”

“Dangerous?” Norman raised an eyebrow.

“Not dangerous by all means, if an alien likes our music and paintings that’s fine. Only what happens if he hates some tune or piece of art? Emotions are bad… especially in inter-species communication.”

“Or inter-planetary”, Michael added.

“And why specifically music?” Alan seemed a bit disappointed.

“As a whole, it makes sense”, Hans went on. “If you want to start a friendly conversation with someone…”

“Or delude him and put him off his guard…” Ivanov was frowning even more than usual.

“Do they necessarily have to harbor hostile intentions?”

Marcela was the incorrigible pacifist.

Babyface interrupted the argument.

“Sir, we are ready with the sound analysis.”

“Report, Lieutenant.”

“The musical file is on the computer hard disc. It’s just there. There is no any date and hour of installing and downloading. It plays itself for no reason. It is a standard file, format MP3. Just an ordinary song, Sir.”

“Except that aliens greet us with Deep Purple.”

“We checked for attached information. Nothing, Sir. No other channels or any added file. It’s a perfectly clean little file.”

“Could be a virus…” Michael offered.

“Yes, did you trace the system for bugs? Can’t it be something like a cyberattack?” Norman asked.

“No, no, it’s definitely clean.”

“You know, as a young girl I was a great fan of Richie Blackmore, the solo guitar”, Marcela said. “And the band is awesome. I know all their songs by heart.”

“Couldn’t it be something related to the lyrics?” Sergey suggested.

“No, I don’t think so. The lyrics are just fantastic, but there is

hardly anything with reference to a first contact with aliens.”

“What is it about, anyway?” Ivanov’s English was perfect. So was his suspiciousness.

“Well, the band was in Switzerland with Frank Zappa for a concert when the concert hall on the bank of Geneva Lake got on fire. They wrote the song with reference to the occasion. The lyrics go like this:

We all came out to Montreux

On the Lake Geneva shoreline

To make records with a mobile

We didn’t have much time.

Frank Zappa and the Mothers

Were at the best place around.

But some stupid with a flare gun

Burned the place to the ground.

Smoke on the water, fire in the sky

Smoke on the water…

They burned down the gambling house,

It died with an awful sound.

Funky Claude was running in and out

Pulling kids out the ground.

When it all was over,

We had to find another place.

But Swiss time was running out,

It seemed that we would lose the race.

Smoke on the water, fire in the sky

Smoke on the water…

We ended up at the Grand hotel.

It was empty, cold and bare.

But with the Rolling truck

Stones thing just outside,

Making our music there.

With a few red lights and a few old beds

We make a place to sweat.

No matter what we get out of this,

I know we’ll never forget.

Smoke on the water, fire in the sky

Smoke on the water…”

“It doesn’t sound all that innocent to me. There are instigators, explosions, casualties, damages on a large scale and definitely an inside attack…” Ivanov remarked with a stony face.

“Don’t embarrass yourself, Colonel”, Marcela gasped unbelieving.

“He might be right” Norman interfered. “There are some curious moments in the lyrics, that are worth being thought over. Couldn’t the words be some sort of a semantic message?”

“May I see the lyrics at my leisure?” Hans addressed the Major, who nodded in approval.

The Lieutenant typed something on the keyboard, took a memory stick out of the USB port and gave it to him. Hans gave a discreet sign to Marcela and the two of them left the room.

“I have to call Washington”, Norman said, also rising from his seat and going out.

“People, do you imagine what a great moment in human history that is?” Alan had overcome his initial anxiety and now his voice was charged with excessive pathos. “For the first time during the hundreds of thousands of years of human evolution we make contact on the level of reason with an alien civilization.”

“Just please explain to me how exactly we are talking to those little green men and what you understood of what they told you”, Michael contradicted him in his own style.

“Ladies and gentlemen, this is a historic moment and it is our duty to record it for the future generations! We have the tremendous honor to…”

“Alan, you are not on TV, dude”, Sergey interrupted him. The slang address and his accent made the others laugh.

At this moment Marcela entered with a cup of coffee.

“I didn’t ask if you want any, but I definitely need it…”

“I need to make a phone call”, Ivanov said and stood up.

Everybody knew he was going to report to his superiors in Moscow.

“I need to take some fresh air”, Marcela said and went out to collect her thoughts. She was dead tired, but after some point she felt her body numb, not feeling anything, neither tension, nor exhaustion or pain.

She had experienced hard challenges before, but it was different now. Never till the present time had she felt deadly fear and she could not help but feel that she was standing on the edge of a precipice. She sensed that someone was watching her stealthily, lurking in the shadows behind her back and is only waiting for his chance to push her to the abyss of hell.

She remembered what that sailor had written.

They did not stop to think that a young life was lost. Where? What happened to him? What about the rest of the crew? Where had they vanished. Did they suffer a lot while dying? Nobody knew and maybe nobody cared about people and their life.

She had heard about incredible things happening to live matter on the boundary with the impossible. Why, just a month ago she saw a movie, ‘The Philadelphia Experiment’. It was about a U.S. Navy destroyer escort being rendered invisible by the military so it cannot be detected by Japanese radars. Nobody knew where it had been and through what deformations of time and space it passed, but after people from the team go on board they see something horrible.

Some of the sailors had totally lost their minds and behaved irrationally, others were found just dead on the deck, while another group were embedded in the metal structure of the ship. It was as if their atoms had passed through the molecules of steel, turning them into martyrs of matter. Surely, the reports about those events were top-secret. The last thing military staff cared about was the suffering of those young innocent men who had to pass through hell.

She hated everything military and all people in uniforms! All of them were dumb parrots who could not think independently and were only able to repeat commands and rules. Greedy bastards, deprived of human feelings and common sense.

She shook her head to chase away the depressing thoughts and inhaled deeply the cool freshness of the night desert sea. Her temples were pulsating with pain. She knew herself, that was the effect of tension and sleeplessness with her.

She did not resist the strong desert wind, that was tousling her long black hair and was pulling her white shirt as a sail in the sea. How she longed to surrender to it as a virgin in her first night and that it would take her far away… She only wished not to remember anything about this place and be far away from it… Way beyond the horizon, far from this cursed spot…

She felt like having a drink. She disliked alcohol and rarely touched it, but now she really needed a drink.

Control room, Day 5, 05:16 a.m.

“Sir, you must come at once, Sir!”

“What is it, Lieutenant?” Norman entered the control room with energetic pace and crisp voice, as if he had not been devoid of sleep for the last five days.

“It’s coming right at us, Sir!”

“How bad is it? Degree?”

“Very strong, ninth degree and going up… Its eye will pass about thirty miles away from the base, Sir…”

“What did the Headquarters say?”

“The order is for immediate and full evacuation Sir, but in view of the latest events and the report we sent to them the recommendations are not very clear…”

“What do you mean, not very clear? What recommendations? We follow orders and act according to statute, we don’t like recommendations.” Norman was really amazed.

“Well, yes… We have not received such orders till now. It says evacuation is a must, but ‘in view of the circumstances and of the fact that the information in the enemy submarine is of vital importance for the national security, we recommend your staying in position until further orders’…”

“In other words, ‘you have to get the fuck out of there, because the storm will kill you, but we need the submarine, therefore don’t you dare move your goddamn asses from the fucking desert!’ Is that it?”

“More or less, Sir…”

“Lieutenant, we stay despite the danger. Prepare the people and the base for meeting the hurricane.” The canteen, Day 5, 6:17 a.m.

“All right, it’s fairly simple. How can you not grasp it?!”

Marcela and Hans were sitting all alone in the canteen, she had a full glass of vodka in front of her and this time was drinking for real. There was also a glass of orange juice but she had not touched it. Hans was sipping his juice with unidentified expiry date directly from the box.

He was too excited to sleep and when she came in for a drink, she found him bent over a piece of paper, biting a pencil and looking at the ceiling deep in thought.

Some odd bond of friendship was created between the two of them, which was felt also by the others in he group. They too saw that Hans and Marcela are of the same blood type and speak the same language.

“Sorry, dear, it’s more abstract than I can absorb.”

“Right, we’ll start again from the beginning, okay?” Hans smiled at her and went on. He was obviously enjoying being able to instruct such a smart and beautiful lady. “1+1 makes what?”

“2 of course”, Marcela replied timidly.

“Hmmm… No, wrong. What about 2+2?”

“Obviously 4”, she answered more confident this time. “Have you ever heard of the Theory of Subjective Numbers?”

“No.”

“There is one queer professor, super eccentric, slightly mad, but exceptionally innovative with his statements. Professor McDowell. Several years ago he blew up the mathematic world. It’s simple, there is only one condition…”

Marcela raised her eyebrows inquiringly.

“That he would be believed. Half of the world renowned mathematicians pronounced anathema against him, the other half declared him ‘the new Einstein’. It was fun.” Hans sounded exhilarated.

“Tell me how 1+1 is not 2.”

“Well, imagine you have two apples. They are not exactly the same, are they? They differ in color, ripeness, taste, shape and especially in weight. Right?”

“Yes, this is correct.”

“If you cut these apples precisely through the middle, exchange the halves and put them together, will you have two apples that are exactly the same?”

“Of course not”, Marcela answered, trying to imagine it. “Of course not, because the two apples and their halves correspondingly are not the same.”

“So, if we have two pears in a basket and add them to two other pears in another basket, we won’t get the equivalent of 2+2=4 equal pears, right?” Hans smiled again.

“Yes, that’s right”, she admitted, “but it does not correspond somehow with the mathematics I studied.”

“Mathematics is an idealized and correspondingly untrue reflection love, dear…” Hans was beaming. “It is a beautiful but just as much incorrect abstraction of reality…”

“Crazy stuff. I still cannot comprehend it…”

“The same goes for distances. For example, do you know how much the difference of the distances along the figure axis is between 0 and 1 and between 1 and 2?”

“Err… the distances are the same. They are both… 1…”

“No, I absolutely disagree. The distance between 0 and 1 is much greater, than between 1 and 2… accordingly that between 3 and 4 is less than that between 1 and 2, but bigger than that between 4 and 5. And so on…”

“That cannot possibly be correct”, Marcela argued.

“As I told you, it is very easy to be understood… Imagine you are poor and sick and you have no money for bread. If you have 0 dollars, you cannot buy food and will soon die. Right?”

“Well, I suppose so…”

“While if you have 1 dollar, you’ll still be alive.”

“Yeah, but no for long with food for 1 dollar.”

“True, but the difference between being alive or dead is quite substantial, as I’m sure you will agree. And it is present.”

“You convinced me” she said with a note of irony in her voice.

“It is the same with bigger numbers: the difference between having $1000 and $1 000 000 is great, but between 100 billion and 200 billion it is insignificant.” Hans took a pencil and paper and started writing. (0-1)>(1-2)>(2-3)>(3-4)…….(1million-10million)>>(10million-10 billion)>>>(10billion-100billion) etc.

“It is the same, of course, to the left of zero, with the negative numbers. The bigger the suffering is, the less it is distinguishable from the neighboring, near in measure.”

“Say again?”

“Imagine, like we said, that you are poor and sick at the point of zero. But the temperature outside is also zero and your teeth clatter with the cold. Not only that, but someone steals your trousers and you fall down to minus one on the number axis.”

“It sucks… Hungry and with no pants”, Marcela shook her head.

“It sucks, yes, but after some time your shirt is stolen too and you are sent to minus two, right?

“You are walking stark naked in the street, I get it…”

“Not until someone steals your underwear for good measure.”

“Come on, this is too much. There’s no way someone could take off the panties off your ass, Hans”, she laughed.

“We are talking just hypothetically, Marcela. Tell me, please, there is no big difference in being naked or half naked, is there? Even smaller the difference is between being naked and stark naked. In both cases you’ll die of freezing.”

“Yeah, I think so… still I don’t get it…”

“Okay, then, I’ll give you the same example as with positive numbers. If you are without a buck, it’s too bad, you are at zero level. On the other side, this is much better than beside not having anything you also owe one dollar that you borrowed from the bank the previous day to buy bread.”

“Well, that is correct…”

“But if you have two dollars and you owe two more is much worse than if you have 2 billion and you owe the bank another 2 billion, don’t you agree?” He smiled at her.

“Yes, Hans, I give up, you are right.”

“Sure, there were many mathematicians who squarely refuted Professor McDowell, because with the methods of pure mathematics the distance between 1 and 2 is exactly the same as between 2 and 3. Both are infinity.”

“Well here you lost me as a listener. Hans, you are crazy!”

“Let me write it to you.” He took again the pencil in his hand. “How many numbers can you write between 0 and +∞?”

“An infinite number.” This time she was sure.

“Correct. And how many between 0 and 1?”

“I suppose, a lot less” she mumbled not so sure any more.

“Wrong! You can also write an infinite quantity of numbers, although you wouldn’t know where to begin… Because if you start from 0.0001, you can insert between it and the zero 0.00001, and after it 0.000001 and so on till infinite number of values between whichever two numbers on the axis, no matter how close they are to each other…”

“Err… if you put it like that… when I think of it… I guess, you are right.”

“That is so, because between any two numbers there is always an infinite quantity of other numbers. And if the distance between 0 and 1 is infinite, it is equal to the distance between 1 and 2, which is also infinite, because infinities cannot be compared… they are equal. Exactly in the same way as zeroes are nothing and also cannot be compared. But the difference between being alive or dead is unimaginably more significant than the difference between being a millionaire or a billionaire… i.e. the infinity between 1 and 2 is still bigger than the infinity between 2 and 3 and so on. As you can see infinity is everywhere – in the small and in the big both.”

She sighed.

“Hans, you are right as always but I got a bit exhausted of all those figures…” Marcela was declaring retreat.

“As I said this “Theory of subjective numbers” is a lovely untruth, which, however, is a fine description of the beauty of mathematics…” The triumph of Hans was obvious.

“Right now, I personally would prefer a hot bath and a glass of Merlot… Actually, Hans, why is this theory so important and why are you telling me about it?”

“I remembered about it a short time ago, while I was working on the matter of music and the ship. It helped me understand the truth about the music. ”Hans sipped his coffee and glanced knowingly at her above the rim of the cup. “It also makes you realize that nothing here is what it seems to be.”

1.2 miles outside the Base, Day 5, 9:43 a.m.

Ivanov pressed the red receiver on his phone.

The instructions were clear.

Nothing had to be left in the hands of the enemy. The Americans should not in any circumstances get hold of the Cube as a weapon, nor the submarine itself. It kept too many and too vital secrets or him to take a risk with hesitation and indulgence. He was obliged to take the secret weapon, only for his country to avail of, or to destroy everything.

Everything.

Even if it cost them the loss of the ship. Even if it cost him his own life. The Cube was a priority but if he could not take it only for the Russian side to keep it, destruction would follow.

He completely agreed. Not that his opinion mattered, because even if he did not approve of the orders from above, he would never question their execution.

He looked at the bag, full of explosives.

The Submarine, Day 5, 10:47 a.m.

“Be careful with that!”

The Lieutenant was giving instructions to the four soldiers who carried an enormous wooden crate.

At last they reached the spot and placed it carefully on the sand at a distance of a yard from the corpse of the submarine. It was really heavy, made of thick wooden beams, reinforced with steel lining. It was designed for special loads.

“Where do we cut, Sir?”, the Sergeant asked and opened the tool box. He took out of it the helmet and the safety goggles.

He also took out the angle grinder and switched it on. He then pressed it to the metal jacket of the ship. The molten metal started throwing out an avalanche of glittering shavings.

The shining in the sky was becoming with every passing hour less greenish and more intensely dark red.

The Base, dormitories, Day 5, 8:21 a.m.

The Lieutenant was going to the bathroom.

He had a lot of cold tea and six cups of coffee during the night. He was alone on duty and there was nobody left to take over his shift. He had to be at his post, but nobody would know that he was absent from the control room for just two minutes in order to relieve himself. He had read in a magazine once that if you do not pee regularly and restrain yourself, it would be detrimental for your prostate and you might not be able to have children. Or you would not put it up any more… something of the sort. Whatever, he stood up from his chair and went out.

He was walking along the corridor back to the control room, whistling merrily, when he noticed Alan to sneak out of the control room and close the door quietly.

What the fuck?!, he thought.

“Alan! Hey, Alan, what are you doing here? What’s going on?”, the Lieutenant shouted at him while approaching.

The man just turned back, looked at him sharply with bloodred pupils, then started running along the passage to the front door.

“Hey, Alan, what’s got into you, man?” He started going after him, but Alan disappeared around the corner as a shadow. The Lieutenant did not usually pay much attention to people’s eyes but was pretty sure that Alan’s eyes were brown.

Room for biological control and analysis, Day 5, 11:29 a.m.

She was checking the samples from the ship for the hundredth time maybe.

The results were always the same.

At the beginning she thought that she had made a mistake or that the samples were not fresh enough, but now she knew for sure: this here was presence of an unknown life form!

Marcela was in love with her work. Here, under the microscope, there were only alive real things, not like with people. There were no fakes, cheatings or hypocrisy. Death was genuine and unarguable just like life was. The smaller, or like they were termed the lower organisms hid that immaculate beauty and frankness, that she had never yet encountered in men. In people, she corrected herself in her mind.

The loneliness of the laboratory work and the direct contact with nature by way of the membrane of a singular cell through the eye-lens of the microscope made her happier than all scientific awards in the world. She might be living in her own sterile world without realizing how much she had distanced herself from normal human communication.

The image under the lens of the electronic microscope was unclear and smeared, she put it to focus, turning the knob with her slender white fingers, and scrutinized again the cellular ring.

No, she was by no means mistaken. She had conducted the experiments again and again dozens of times.

She needed to call Norman.

“What is it, March?”

“Major, you’ve got to see this. The corals are really unusual, I’ve never seen such… Most corals depend on sunlight and grow in shallow transparent waters, so that they can absorb energy from the sun. But these here are structured in a way to survive at a much greater depth…”

“How deep are we talking?”

“Look, species are known here, on Earth, inhabiting deeper waters and not so strongly dependent on sunlight, up to a depth of about 10 000 feet, and only some species at that.”

“What about those here?”, Norman pointed to the samples in the Petri dish.

“Those here are able to process chemical energy from sea water, without needing sunlight…”

“Do you mean they come from a greater depth?”

“I mean, there is no way for such species to exist on the Earth!”

“And where do you think they came from?” Norman asked skeptically.

“How, the hell, do I know, Norman? I am only a university biologist who came to the fucking desert after being dragged from the plane against my will! How can I have any idea?!” Her voice was trembling. Her nerves could not hold on and she broke down rying.

Norman was caught unprepared to see her so vulnerable, but it was obvious that the pressure of the last couple of days had been too much for her.”

“Pull yourself together, March, everything will be okay, I promise” Norman said without flinching. “Now, tell me about the corals, please.”

She turned towards the samples. She hated displaying weakness and was now ashamed of the fact that she demonstrated vulnerability and lost her self-control. She wiped her wet eyes, took a deep breath and went on:

“They have a very thick layer of calcium carbonate, which does not have the usual rhombic lattice but possesses a complex fractal polymorphic structure. Besides, chemical macro structure hard cover of calcite forms something like a space suit and I am sure they can bear thousands of atmospheres of underwater pressure. Moreover, they don’t need energy and do not have mitochondria or any other organelles. I noticed tiny bubbles which most probably serve for the processing of hydrogen sulphide and other molecules at great depths… much deeper places than we have ever had on Earth… a 50 or… I don’t know… 100 miles underwater.”

“And where could those depths be, March?”

“Well, the deepest place on the Earth is the Mariana Trench 36 000 feet, but these here probably come from greater depths of other oceans…”

“Like from which place?!”

“There are oceans so deep in our Solar System only on the moons of Jupiter and Saturn. On Europe, under a deep layer of ice, there are oceans, heated by the warm core of the heavenly body, that reach depth of 70 miles.”

“Okay, I need to report to Washington. Thank you, you may continue with your work.” Norman started abruptly for the door.

“Just one more thing… Do you know the ancient Greek legend about the birth of the corals?”

Norman half-turned without stopping.

“According to Greek mythology when Perseus cut the head of Gorgona Medusa, a few drops of blood fell in the sea and created the corals”, Marcela said and sat before her utensils.

From “Theory of the Imperfect Detail” by Professor McDowell

“And God looked the man who He had created Himself and told him:

‘You shall be imperfect, because so I order and because all things in nature are imperfect. Here you get also an imperfect and illogical woman, in order to make you love and be unable to escape your nature…’

‘I accept’, the man replied to Him.

Bare field. Among its bushes and trees are scattered and trash, blown by the wind.

The man decided to build himself a house. He arranged the stones, sorted tree trunks and cut them, mixed mud and baked some bricks. He needed seven summers and lots of efforts to create his home. He extracted a lot of energy from his strong muscles to introduce harmony in this natural disorder.

Man lived happily in the house with his family, but after many years he met his demise and nobody ever came to this field. After standing for one hundred years in the wind, rain, snow and living creatures, the house steadily collapsed. And after one hundred years more the field was empty again, with rocks, bushes and innumerable specks of dust, covering the earth.

The measure of chaos in a system is entropy. The bigger the chaos, the less the energy and the more stable the system is. The better arranged the system is, the greater the energy and the less the entropy. Correspondingly, the system itself is more unstable.

Each system strives for minimum energy and maximum disorder.

Conclusion: Perfection is only hypothetical and is practically impossible from the point of view of the Second principle of thermodynamics, since it would require infinite quantity of energy and zero chaos.

Each system, existing in nature, contains imperfect details, which make it possible.”

Control room, Day 5, 1:34 p.m.

Norman and the Lieutenant were standing in front of the blue screen and did not believe their eyes.

The figures appeared from the top like an avalanche, as if coming from nothing, and the new ones quickly pushed the old ones down. They were an endless row, which did not make any sense at first glance.

“Are you sure it’s coming from the ship?”

“No, Sir, I rather believe it comes from the Cube.”

“Like the music in the air, doesn’t it?” Norman already knew the answers to these questions before even asking them.

39210466161052325153920539205466160546616055

5437055232520392104661610523251546616054661605

3920539220001039210466161052325153920539205466

1605466160555437055232520392104661610523251546

6160546616053920539220001039210466161052325153

9205392054661605466160555437055232520392104661

6105232515466160546616053920539220001039210466

1610523251539205392054661605466160555437055232

5203921046616105232515466160546616053920539220

0010392104661610523251539…

Control room, Day 5, 4:18 p.m.

“I know what the music is”, Hans began.

“You have cracked the code, haven’t you?” Norman was triumphant.

“The music is the key.”

“The key to what?” Sergey asked uncomprehending.

“To everything.” Hans sat in front of the computer and the rest of the group encircled him. “The music of Deep Purple is undeniably great but let’s focus on what we received.”

“’Smoke on the water’.”

“Yes, but which came first… The key is there! The first was the guitar riff. The intro, music without vocals on it.” Hans played it again, as if they had forgotten it and hummed: “Tamtam-taaammm… tam ta ta ta taaaaam…If you were an alien, how would you begin conversation with another civilization? You have several options. You could be direct, as long as you know the language… which, having in mind what’s written in the lower part of the Cube, is not a problem…”

“Then why don’t they send us a direct message in plain English but waste our time with some stupid songs?!” Ivanov was completely at a loss to understand.

“Yes, but try to step in their shoes…”

“If I have a nuclear submarine and I were in their place, I’d never waste time on music but would attack first. Attack is the best defense…”

Ivanov’s and Hans’s ways of thinking were on the opposite ends of a deep precipice.

“Or you could approach delicately and courteously as elegant communication demands… You would make the effort to explore the other person and would find out that one of the most pleasant forms of communication and, respectively, exchange of information for a man is melody. Thus, our life begins – with a nursery rhyme – and thus it ends…”

“I’d have only rap at my funeral, not any of that burial tunes”, Michael joked.

“You mean, they know everything about us?” Norman asked worried.

“I mean a far more advanced civilization, as theirs seems to be, would know more about us than we about them… Don’t you agree?”

“If we take as an example the representatives of the green euglena and our civilization, does that mean that we know more about unicellular organisms than they about us?” Marcela directed her question at Hans.

“It’s quite relative. We think we know more about the populations of amoebas or ants, for instance, and they know nothing about us as a higher form of life… But maybe amoebas have perceptions of six more dimensions for which we possess no senses and any idea of their existence… Or, the amoeba is just the ‘visible’ for our senses part of a much higher creature, which we are unable to even notice.”

“Or maybe ants understand our words and are even able to read our thoughts, but they are not fitted with speech apparatus and we are totally mistaken in considering them lower forms of life, compared to man”, Marcela offered.

“Yes, but it’s also a fact that the ‘cubic creatures’ from the damn submarine are superior to us, because if they were amoebas or ants, we would hardly listen to hard rock on the speaker and lead this conversation now”, Sergey concluded.

“And they seem to be somehow better in traveling through time and space than we are”, Michael added.

“Please, Hans, go on about the message”, Norman urged him.

“As I said, if you want to start a friendly conversation with a stranger, you begin with something that is familiar to him and definitely in the pleasant mode… It’s called getting on the right side of someone, and what we merely term as ‘good upbringing’…”

“So, we have cool aliens who are on top of it gentlemen”, Alan said and the rest were not sure whether he was joking or trying to pick up on Hans again.

“I feel a little awkward” Hans went on, without reflecting on this, businesslike, as if he were reading a scientific report about laboratory experiments, “but I need to admit that I failed and the understanding of such a simple code took me more than thirty minutes.”

“Hans, what on earth are the fucking aliens saying to us?” Norman raised sharply his voice.

“This here is the introduction of the piece, noted. Two tones sound simultaneously, plus the bass guitar underlining them, of course…”

“The top line is the most important.”

“It actually contains the melody, that we hum.” Hans started singing and pressing simultaneously the keys of the digital keyboard on the screen. They sounded the same: the intro. “I remembered what Bach said: ‘It is quite easy to play the organ, the only thing you must know is which key to press and after how much time to release it’. The most important characteristics of the tone are pitch and duration. From the point of view of Physics, the musical tones that are represented by notes are just sound waves with specified frequency and duration.

G = 392 Hz,

B♭= 466,16 Hz,

C = 523,25 Hz,

D♭= 554,37 Hz.

To us they might sound like a favorite song, but basically these are only figures, that are transmitted through the oscillations of the air and are caught by our hearing”, Hans added.

“All right, but what connects these numbers with the code?”

“Since I studied music a little as a boy, though later I chose another field… as you well know I started my career with a doctor’s degree on…”

“Hans, please”, Norman insisted, “focus on the code!”

“For instance, the first tone is G, which is a crotchet, i.e. it has a note value of one, the second is B♭ with the same note value, the third is C, which has a note value of one and a half”, Hans went on and started writing on the screen:

G 1,0

B♭ 1,0

C 1,5

“Here is the entire riff, written in this way:

G1,0 B♭1,0 C1,5 G0,5 G0,5 B♭0,5 B♭0,5 D♭0,5 C2,0 G1,0 B♭1,0 C1,5 B♭0,5 B♭0,5 G0,5 G2,0.”

“You mean that the frequency of the tone plus its duration are the key to the code?”, Marcela asked.

“Yes, that’s right. When we put the note value and abolish the decimal point, we get: G10B♭10C15G05G05B♭05B♭05D♭05C20 G10B♭10C15B♭05B♭05G05G20 + pause.

And when we replace the musical tone with the respective frequencies in Hertz:

392.10 46616.10 52325.15

392.05 392.0.5 46616.05 46616.05 55437.05 52325.20 392.10 41616.10 52325.15

46616.05 46616.05 392.05 392.20 + pause. Or, written with no points and intervals:

3921046616105232515392053920546616054661605554370

552325203921046616105232515466160546616053920539220 + pause. Did you get it?”

It was as if the endless deep silence of the desert was brought into the control room.

“Pause?” Marcela was the only one who dared to speak.

Hans nodded and went on:

“Yes, it seemed logical to me to present it like a note 00 with value of 1.0, i.e. 0010.”

“So, what is it finally?”, Norman asked.

“Pay attention to the time… 4/4.”

“What time is it? Isn’t 4/4 the same as 1/1, i.e. one?”, Marcela was the next one to pose a question.

“Not quite”, Hans smiled. “4/4 is a time that was imposed in classical music since Guido D’Arezzo till the Holy Trinity – Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven. It consists of first strong time, second weak, third strong and fourth weak again… Suddenly the genius of rock music of the 20th century arrives and turns everything upside down.”

“What are you talking about, Hans? You’ve gone totally insane”, Alan murmured quietly.

“With Richie’s heavy rock the times of the percussion instruments are exchanged and they go respectively like that: first weak, second strong, third weak and fourth strong… which totally changes rhythm and sound. This is a colossal rebellion of a new epoch against the classical order.” Hans’s voice was exalted and shrill.

“I just cannot understand how the juxtaposition of Baroque and hard rock corresponds with our casus here” Marcela expressed her astonishment.

“So, aliens know our alphabet and language, but write to us in a musical code?!” Norman’s logic could not fathom this.

“As I said earlier, the pause is represented as 0010 and the first message that we received, is actually an incessant repetition of the key to the code…”

3921046616105232515392053920546616054661605554370

552325203921046616105232515466160546616053920539220

0010…

Everyone gaped at the stack of figures, nonsensical at first glance, which, with the help of the mathematician, now seemed a little easier to be understood. This time nobody asked a question or urged the plump professor to explain further. After giving them a few seconds to realize what they heard, Hans went on: “Every four figures encode a letter…”

3921/0466/1610/5232/5153/9205/3920/5466/1605/4661/

6055/5437/0552/3252/0392/1046/6161/0523/2515/4661/605

4/6616/0539/2053/9220/0010/…

Hans looked around to make sure he had their attention and continued typing:

A – 3921 B – 0466 C – 1610 D – 5232 E – 5153 F – 9205 G – 3920 H – 5466 I – 1605 J – 4661 K – 6055 L – 5437 M – 0552 N – 3252 O – 0392 P – 1046 Q – 6161 R – 0523 S – 2515 T – 4661 U – 6054 V – 6616 W – 0539 X – 2053 Y – 9220 Z – 0010

“You are the top, Hans!”, Michael congratulated him spontaneously.

“With all my respect, Professor, two of the code groups are repeated for two letters J-4661 и Т-4661”, Sergey noticed.

“It would be strange if everything coincided 100%”, Hans smiled. “As Professor McDowell states in his “Theory of the Imperfect Detail”, no system could be ideal, because that would demand infinite quantity of energy and zero entropy, and this, as we all know, is impossible…”

Perseus killed the terrifying Medusa. She was one of the three Gorgonas and poisonous snakes curled on her head. Anybody at whom she directed her gaze, turned instantly to stone. Many brave men had gone to take off her head but no one came back.

Perseus never looked in her eyes, but fought her, following her reflection in his shield, shining like a mirror, that was a present to him by Pallas Athena. He cut with one blow the head of the monstrous Medusa and put it in his magic bag.

The young hero sat to take a rest from the long way, leaving the bag over water plants and seaweed. The blood of Medusa trickled through the bag and the weeds turned to stone at once. The charming sea nymphs came and were fascinated with the beauty of the stoned water plants. The nymphs took them and dispersed them on the bottom of the entire sea. That was how the corrals were born.

Control room, Day 5, 6:13 p.m.

Hans took of his jacket and hanged it on the back of the chair. “I’ve adjusted an algorithm to use the music key and translate directly the messages, coming from the ship. Here, see, to the left is he original code of numbers, and to the right – their direct ‘translation’:

39210466161052325153920539205466160546616055

5437055232520392104661610523251546616054661605

39205392200010

39210466161052325153920539205466160546616055

5437055232520392104661610523251546616054661605

39205392200010

39210466161052325153920539205466160546616055

5437055232520392104661610523251546616054661605

39205392200010

39210466161052325153920539205466160546616055

5437055232520392104661610523251546616054661605

39205392200010

A,B,C,D,E,F,G,H,I,J,K,L,M,N,O,P,Q,R,S,T,U,V,W,X,Y,Z

A,B,C,D,E,F,G,H,I,J,K,L,M,N,O,P,Q,R,S,T,U,V,W,X,Y,Z

A,B,C,D,E,F,G,H,I,J,K,L,M,N,O,P,Q,R,S,T,U,V,W,X,Y,Z A,B,C,D,E,F,G,H,I,J,K,L,M,N,O,P,Q,R,S,T,U,V,W,X,Y,Z

“The key is repeated 1 061 594 times”, Hans continued.

“They are quite insistent”, Michael noted.

“Yes, you are right, but when you need someone to hear you by all means, you’ve got to be a little pushy, don’t you think?”

Hans explained.

“Or when it is really important for both sides”, Marcela added.

“And what now? What does ‘good upbringing’ dictates to be done on our side?” Alan inquired.

“I suggest we return the code back… It is a very easy and courteous way to show them them that we have understood the message.” Hans made a move to start typing, but then he glanced at Norman for an approval. He just nodded in agreement. “Here, we return the code back… Once… I guess it is enough,

and if I am right, we will be understood correctly.”

Everyone fixed their eyes towards the screen, nobody moved.

Marcela could hardly breathe with anxiety. Ten seconds passed… then ten more… a minute… two minutes…

“That’s bullshit, you must have made some mistake in your calculations, Hans”, Alan said nervously.

“I’d hate to disappoint you, Hans, but Alan might have a point here”, Norman said, shifting his glance from the screen to the plump scientist.

“Have a little patience, I am sure everything is correct…” Another minute passed and everybody in the group started fidgeting, obviously freed from the initial tension. And just at this moment a sequence appeared on the screen: 039232525153

“What is it, Hans?” Norman almost stuck his long nose in the screen.

0392 = О

3252 = N

5153 = E

ONE

“One?!” Norman jumped back.

“Yes, ‘one’. It’s wonderful!” Hans was grinning as if he was the happiest man on earth.

The rest of them were gaping in wonder.

“What the hell is ‘one’?” Ivanov turned abruptly at Hans.

“Well, this is the beauty of Mathematics.”

“To hell with your crap about the beauty of science! Explain this fucking answer!” Alan exclaimed, as stunned as the rest of them.

“That’s the most exquisite possible answer”, Hans started exhilarated. “Think about it, on the one hand, it is very simple, while on the other, it’s exceptionally delicate. There is also the sense of a positive beginning. I mean, they did not start their answer with ‘minus one’…”

“He’s got a point”, Marcela murmured.

“You are totally right, Hans, but there might be another meaning to it… from Chemistry, for instance”, Sergey took part in the conversation.

“But yes, of course, how could I not think of it?” Hans exclaimed. “That’s the number of hydrogen… In its usual form it has one proton, one neutron and one electron.”

“And is the most widespread element in the Universe…”

“What do you mean? Really?”, Norman was uncomprehending. “How so, the most widespread? Isn’t it a gas?”

“That’s correct, it is a gas at a specific pressure and temperature, but what is more essential is that it is the basic component of all the stars in the known Universe. It composes about 98% of the entire matter in the Universe. Do you want us to continue?”

This time Hans typed without waiting for an answer:

4661- T, 0539- W, 0392- О TWO

2+2=4

…the screen answered to him. “Wow! See that? It’s working! The language of Mathematics is the language of space!” exclaimed Hans triumphantly.

“What now? How long are we going to exchange simple equations? Ask him something more serious.” Norman frowned.

331

…Hans typed.

“What is it, for God’s sake?” Alan asked.

“I wrote to him the velocity of sound. I guess he’ll easily understand.”

A new line of figures appeared on the screen: 299 792 458

“Ha! An ideal answer! And does not surprise me a bit.” Hans was content.

“What is this number?”

“It is the exact speed of light in vacuum”, Sergey answered.

“Can’t you ask anything more practical? For example, where does he come from. Enough with this Mathematics.” Norman demanded information and quickly.

At this moment the next message arrived. The screen froze in the dusk of the room with its bluish light.

- 1986

And then it went blank. The messages stopped.

Hans typed a few more figures.

The screen was silent.

“Why did it stop, Professor Rosenstein?”, Norman raised his voice sternly.

“I have no idea, Sir”, Norman mumbled almost guiltily.

“What is this, for God’s sake?!” Marcela exclaimed. “If it is the same letter code, 1=А, 9=I, 8=H, а 6=F. AIHF? Doesn’t it mean anything?”

“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 28th… 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!”

PART FOUR: THE EVIL

“What is completely under control is never completely real. What is real is never completely under control.”

Ilya Prigogine “Order out of Chaos”

“People should generally be considered ungrateful, cheating, cowardly, covetous, so it is wiser for the master rather to inflict fear than to be willing to receive love.”

Niccolo Machiavelli

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.

Control room, Day 5, 6:55 p.m.

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.

“I definitely discovered what went on with the submarine and how it appeared amidst nothingness.”

“We are listening to you”. Norman was just entering the room, then he released the top button of his jacket and sat comfortably on a chair.

Hans stood in front of them, as if giving a lecture, took a marker and started drawing on the board.

“Look, the ship was constructed in 2020, wasn’t it?”

“Hopefully, in 2019”, Sergey corrected timidly.

“Let’s assume it was made in 2020. The ship was not designed for missile attacks against the USA, since it is not your ordinary submarine, but has a different mission. The core is a hypertemporal engine that bends the space-time continuum, creating an artificial small black hole, through which the submarine sneaked like through a needle’s eye in another universe. That’s it, yes?” Hans winked at Sergey.

Everybody was listening to him intently, even Alan did not argue.

“What have you got to say about this, Ivanov?” Norman turned to both Russians, who were sitting aside from the group. He had talked to them privately and had received their secret revealing information. Of course, he had sent an email to Washington on the safe line right away. His report was most probably already in the Oval office.

Sergey sighed, looked at Ivanov, then said:

“Colleagues, I must inform you about the real mission of that ship. Or rather the task we suppose it would be assigned when it is built after two years.”

“I knew there was something fishy and that they hide it from us.” – Alan slumped deeper in his chair, crossed his arms over his chest and prepared to hear the whole story and the truth. At last, he told himself.

“There is a top-secret team, that has worked at the Russian Centre for Nuclear Physics for ten years, dealing mostly with temporal chains and achieving singularity in the conditions of the earth surface. The other vein of research is directed towards studying the behavior of biological systems in the conditions of extreme pressures and parameters, close to singularity.”

“Whoa, Seriozha, please, pal, let’s talk in plain good English.” Michael was absolutely lost about the babbling of the Russian.

“Simply put, our team is on the verge of crucial discovery, that will very soon alter the ideas of mankind about space travel. I mean, even to the most distant stars in galaxies at the end of the visible Universe. And we will be able to conquer not only space, but time as well. The team, led by Professor Andrey Michailovich, in which I myself am honored to take part, found a way to pass living organisms through time and space, artificially creating miniature black holes. The passage of matter and, correspondingly, information, was successfully executed on multiple occasions.”

“Can I ask, how does this happen?” Alan just could not believe it.

“I cannot tell you all the details about the project itself, but I’ll just explain that upon generating a great quantity of energy, focused on minimum space like a cone in one point, a tunnel is created, through which we managed to pass multicellular organisms three years ago. Then, a year ago, we successfully used vertebrates, and I suppose, a chimpanzee next month would have given us the final assurance that we move in the right direction.”

“Wait, you mean you haven’t yet created this method of travelling through time?” Michael interrupted him.

“Yes, actually the Eye of the ship, or as we used to call it, the Core, is not completed yet, but as you could see yourselves on board of the submarine, we have obviously managed…”

“And you have not only completed it, but it worked.”

“Successfully, that’s right!” Sergey was obviously very proud of their discovery which formally had not happened yet.

“I would not choose exactly the word ‘successfully’. It was hardly that for the seamen on board.” Marcela did not particularly share the enthusiasm of the young scientist.

“One way or another, the ship had been… or rather will be completed successfully and has realized the trans-temporal dislocation.”

“Who knows where you might have sent it and what it has brought back with itself.” Alan also found it hard to regard a dead ship in the middle of the desert as ‘success’.

“I have no idea where they sent it in two years’ time and where it was, but I can tell you for sure, that this is the engine that we work on at the moment. Otherwise we don’t have a clue what happened to the crew or even who was in that crew.”

“Let’s hear what Hans has to say, he said he knew…” Norman waved to the German to continue.

“A very interesting theory, no doubt”, Alan teased again.

“Thank you for your keenness, Alan”, the Professor nodded ironically. “The last message from the submarine was ‘1986’, right? This is really a year, but if a ship has passed through space and time, must it confine to some standard dimensions? If we write this year in a two-dimensional plain” – Hans took from the table a blank sheet of paper and wrote with big figures ‘1986’ – “What can you see, my dear fellows?”

“I can see the year in which Lady Gaga was born”, Michael laughed.

“Wrong answer, dear.” Hans was talking slowly, methodically and confidently, the way he conducted lectures before his students. “You can see the year the submarine was sent to and from which it took this square, ideally smooth thing…” Hans was as if giving a theatrical performance and was dying to increase the tension in his audience.

“Come on, Professor, this can’t be”, Marcela couldn’t help interfering. “Do you tell us it was built in 2020 and travelled back to 1986?”

“2019, hopefully” Sergey murmured barely distinctively under his nose.

“Not at all.” Hans turned the sheet of paper upside down and all of them goggled their eyes. “I tell you it went much further back in the past. To 9861.”

Turned upside down the sheet really showed the year 9861.

“Amazing! How did you guess it, dude?” Michael was sincerely fascinated with the plump scientist.

“How is it ‘back’?”, Alan wondered. “It says 9861, doesn’t it?”

“I remembered that when you travel in time, ‘up’ and ‘down’ do not make much sense, don’t you think? And to you, Alan, I will just remind that there was a dash before the year on the screen.” This time the Professor turned directly at Alan. “At least I thought it was a dash. Now I know it stood for ‘minus’. This is a year before Christ, according to the Gregorian Calendar. The ship traveled to 9861 B. C.”

“Okay, but that does not change things too much, and besides, the question remains: what the fuck did they do so far back in time and what did they find?” Alan was not ready to step back yet.

“The ship was sent 11 881 years back in time with an experimental mission”, Hans continued. “The purpose was to check the effectiveness of the Core, the exactness of calculations and the influence of singularity on biological units…”

“That is, to find out if people from the crew will survive” Marcela said, remembering the black notebook.

“The time is not randomly picked, is it?” Michael asked.

“That’s right, Mike, can you please stand for me in my attempts for collective encephalization?”

“About ten thousand years before Christ we date the great flood, the Bible one as some call it. As you can guess, it is a damn good period for any kind of water and sub-water vessels.”

“Can I ask you how exactly you ‘date’ this flood of yours?”, asked Alan, never ready to surrender.

“In many ways, one of which is the carbon analysis of different fossils of sea animals on the earth surface. Or, let’s say, according to the erosion of the stones of the Egyptian Sphynx. Research points out that the erosion on the pyramids and on the Sphynx itself cannot be caused by the wind and the climatic conditions in the desert, but it is the result of sea corrosion. Because the entire desert, in which we are at the moment, was under water about 12-15 thousand years ago.” While he was talking, Michael was looking at Alan, who only averted his head and did not continue picking up on everyone.

“And most of all it is an ideal time period from the point of view of safety. Thank you for being so thorough, Mike”, Hans said. “The ship has successfully made the temporal jump and has accosted on the bottom of the desert, where we are now… only it happened twelve thousand years ago. It found the Cube, which is a product of a civilization, unknown to us, and is manufactured with an unknown technology.”

“And it is utterly inexplicable how it entered through the much narrower opening in the metal corps of the submarine”, Marcela interjected.

“Yes, correctly noted”, Hans went on. “I myself cannot give a sufficiently adequate answer to this question. I gave some thought to the problem and reached a couple of scenarios: first, it is possible that there was a larger opening or entrance in the ship that was subsequently welded…”

“No way, Hans”, Alan interrupted. “We all know this can’t be true and the jacket has been thoroughly checked for welding, imperfections on the surface and repair works.”

“I agree, I just outline the possible explanations. The second probability is for the Cube to have passed through the corps by way of some teleportation.”

“Teleportation?” This time it was Marcela who interrupted him. “And how could this be achieved?”

“Well, I know it sounds like an impossible magic, but actually it’s not so hard to be done… at least in theory. There have been certain experiments in this direction ever since the beginning of the previous century. The principle consists in passing the molecules of one body through the intermolecular spaces of another body and that’s it – done! The only problem is the spatial memory and the restoration of the initial structure. Because if you pass a horse and a man through a metal wall, it is highly likely that you receive a centaur with a horseshoe on his head on the opposite side.”

“Okay, Professor, we got the basics”, Norman interjected. “Have you got any other suggestions?”

“The third possible version is that it is alive.”

“Oh, that’s really too much now!”, Alan exclaimed, raising his arms in the air.

“What do you mean ‘alive’, Hans?” Marcela asked in a calmer tone.

“The Cube was purely and simply created in the submarine itself.”

“I hope, not as a result of a sexual act between a parallelepiped and a sphere, which it took by force.” Michael said, amused as always.

“It was conceived? As any living creature? As me and you?” This time Marcela raised her voice a little.

“Since I presume everyone will blame us”, Sergey said, “I am telling you in advance, we don’ know anything about such theories.”

“I never mentioned anything about birth”, Hans said. “But there is a chance for some species to be able to reproduce in a way that is unknown to us. Don’t forget that the passing through a black hole is accompanied by huge radiation loads. And it does not have to be created inside, it might have been brought in while it was still young, sort of a ‘baby-cube’. It was inserted through the small entrance and then, when it grew up…”

“But radiation is detrimental for living creatures”, Marcela noted.

“For us, who are carbon-based – yes, but we cannot be sure about ‘them’, can we?”

“Actually, the strong ionizing radiation stimulates the growth of arthropods. Giant scorpions have been described in the vicinity of sources of radiation“

“Add the strong gravitation, that would slow our growth. But what if it acts on them in the opposite way?” Sergey added.

“So, anyway, sex between cubes is out, is that it?”, Michael said still giggling.

“Cut the bullshit! Everyone!” Norman shouted. “We leave this matter aside. Professor, go on.”

“Yes, of course.” He cleared his throat and continued: “The ship has activated the hyper-temporal engine or the Core in order to return back along the temporal line in 2020, from which it started.”

Hans took a thick black marker pen and started drawing on the board.

“Time can be represented in different forms according to different scientists. I can draw it for you, if you wish.” Hans started drawing on the board again. “It might be spherical or square, depending on the perspective. In this case it is a part of a flat plain, which, however is crossed perpendicularly by another temporal plain.”

“Much like drawing a house, isn’t it?” Michael asked. “That’s right. Only the observer is on the canvas, while the

drawing person is in perspective. It’s turned backwards.”

“But how is time a plain?”

“In fact, it is spherical, but we perceive it as a plain.”

“I don’t get it.”

“Imagine a bug, crawling on the surface of a balloon that is much, much bigger than the bug itself. For us, who observe from aside, the balloon is spherical, but for the bug it is an endlessly vast plain… This is the form of our Universe, while time and space, as Einstein proves, are inseparably connected and you cannot alter one without altering the other. Actually, time and space are one whole entity. In one plain everything went out to plan and the ship just took a walk along the line to the past, then came back to 2020. But after the space-time continuum was bended, the line of life goes to another plain, in the so called ‘unplanned events’. Accordingly, ‘a cone of bending’ is formed.” Hans turned the board at an angle of 45 degrees. “And, bum! – a new plain of events.”

The scientist was most of all amused by watching their faces, showing zero realization of the information received.

“Yes, actually everything is spherical”. The plump scientist was diligently using the marker to create a thick background for the sphere, forming on the board. “Both time and space… no matter how you look at it…”

“Hans, you are totally crazy, man. Does anybody understand something, because I totally don’t.”, Michael complained.

“I understand. So far, you’ve been explaining it very well, Hans. I just could not get it how the ship came to us in 2017.” Marcela had almost assimilated the scheme on the white board.

“The Cube”, Hans said.

“What about it?”

“It was by no means made on the bottom of the ocean or in the sands of a desert, at least not a desert on the Earth. Probably it has participated in the bending of the temporal line.”

“So, the submarine had an accident in the past, in 9861, it was manufactured in the future, in 2020, and is here with us in 2017 only because it took on board an alien cube, made of devil .knows what, with music playing from it.” Marcela summed all this up loudly, without having had such an intention. She was in confusion and reasoned without realizing that her thoughts were audible.

The Base, watch-tower, Day 5, 10:46 p.m.

His eyes were closing.

Since Greg was found dead and John and Taylor had disappeared, the shifts became too hard. It was impossible for him with only three other men to cover the shifts of seven people.

He was falling asleep. He made an effort to stay awake, but his lids were heavy as lead.

Then he saw a flash in the darkness on the left!

Something was moving, probably someone’s watch, although the shining was too bright like coming from a table mirror.

He saw the pretty Romanian lady with sexy bottom to come out of the ammunition warehouse. She was carrying two bags, from which the barrels of several machine-guns were sticking out. She was walking slowly, seductively, as if she were dancing and inviting you to pinch her ass… Hell, what was she doing there? And how could she enter without him seeing her?

He was startled. He did not know whether he had napped for a second or for a few minutes. He was not sure if this was a dream or it was really happening.

If it was true, he had to report to the Major right away.

No, there was no way such a slender young woman to take out the heavy weapons out of the warehouse.

He looked at his watch. It was almost eleven. Someone would come to relieve him soon.

Watchtower, Day 5, 11:31 p.m.

Ivanov bent down and started digging. He could not possibly go to Norman and ask him for a spade and he also wanted to avoid making noise by all means. He needed to go at least three feet deep in the base of the support tower. If he did not reach deep enough, this would be a failure.

An explosion in the air or at insufficient depth would just be fancy and too expensive fireworks. And he had not come here to organize festive events.

He had come to destroy the damned submarine, the damned Cube, the damned military base and to rub the Americans’ condescending noses. He did not have much time, since the storm was approaching. He need to place the explosives at six spots around the base. First, the watchtower, to ensure there would not be enemy fire from above. Then, the control room and the dormitories, and last – the ammunition warehouse. If by once pressing the button he could succeed blowing up the watchtower, the command room of the entire base and the military warehouse, they would not stand a chance. If there happened to be survivors, he knew he would find no problem to eliminate them himself. With his own hands and means. That boring scientist Sergey would only be an obstacle. He had no special instructions about him, but a true soldier like Colonel Ivanov was aware that in a dangerous operation there is always collateral damage. Sergey was just going to disappear.

The Libyan Desert, 19 miles Northwest from the camp, Day 6, 00:01 a.m.

The camel stopped.

Usually it was not scared of small snakes or mice, but this time it was stubborn and refused to make even a step forward. Poking in its hips or slashing with the whip were of no use.

The Bedouin dropped the reins and stepped forward in the darkness. His two companions got down from the animals and tried to illuminate the path before him with search-lights.

Out of nowhere a man and a woman appeared before them, looking rather unusual for the place. The man was plump, not very tall, with plaid jacket and was smoking a pipe. The woman was an attractive slim brunette with a white shirt under which her breasts were half-visible.

“Hey, you, what are you doing here?” the Bedouin called them in Arabic, then switched to English: “Are you lost, where are the others?”

Surprisingly for his weight the man made two quick jumps ahead and stuck the stem of his pipe in the Bedouin’s eye.

His two companions could not react, one took a gun out, but the woman was already all over him and bit hard his throat. A fountain of warm blood gushed and splashed on the ground.

The plump man raised his glance towards the third Arab, dashed at him, brought him to the ground and stuck his thumbs in the man’s eyes. The screams of the dying stopped after a few seconds and the dead silence of the desert engulfed in its embrace two retreating silhouettes.

The desert around the base, Day 6, 3:57 a.m.

The sand was pouring like a raging waterfall over their heads. It was like a rain of little pebbles, but thicker and hitting at each point. It was as if the devil was pouring all the sand in the desert on the punished sinners.

“Sergeant, close the windows!”

The Sergeant’s answer was carried away by the storm.

“Yes, Sir, but the canvas is torn and collects sand! We can’t lift it, Sir!”

The strong wind took the words some place high.

“A sand devil, Sir”, the soldier next to him added.

“What?! I didn’t know it was called this. A very appropriate name, by the way.”

The Sergeant caught the canvas and helped them cover the window with it.

It was the first time he saw a tornado.

A sand devil.

It was a fascinating phenomenon, but also ugly and scary.

Their eyes and mouths were full of sand. Sunglasses or scarfs did not help.

After they managed to find shelter in the dome next to the military warehouses, the Sergeant took down the scarf from his head and shook the sand from his hair.

“What is it, for god’s sake?”

“The locals call it ‘fasset el ‘afreet’ or ‘wind of ghosts’. It is formed when warm air climbs up in a pocket of cold air and whirls as a small tornado. “

“It really is a devil’s doing.”

“It is caused by vertical air movements just like the tornado. It can be rather big and strong.”

Marcela threw herself on the bed with the full force of her slender body, feeling exhausted to death. She thought she was too tired to take a shower even. She barely managed to take off her cramped t-shirt, then she removed her bra and threw it towards the other bunk but missed and it fell on the floor.

Nothing mattered any more, even if the world stopped turning around, she would not care but would want to sleep and then gather her thoughts. To hell with the Russians and their patriotic passion. To hell with Norman and his strict orders.

The most important issue was her doctor’s thesis. The Chancellor would not be pleased with her inexplicable absence. What would she tell him upon returning back?

Would those military men be willing to vouchsafe that they almost kidnapped her, so that she could take part in this madness? She needed to complete the chapter about flaviviruses and fuck the dumb militaries with their dumb submarine. Her life was more important, wasn’t it? Nothing else mattered or at least in this moment, she tried to convince herself.

If she did not take this last step in her professional development, all her efforts so far would have been wasted. The long years of night and day work in the laboratory and in front of the computer. What if it had all been in vain?

What would she do? Was there anything else in her life? She was scared. She was weak.

As much as she strived to demonstrate power and determination, she was torn inside with memories and contradictions.

Was she good enough, was her career worth the price to be left alone and without a family? How much normal life cost and was it not better to be moderately happy than chase the peaks of science?

She was lonely. She had never admitted it to herself before. Of course, nobody considered her lonely. She was a beautiful, sexy woman, coveted by every man in Bucharest to hold her in his arms.

But she did not want just anybody. She felt lonely with each one of her partners so far. They were either self-indulging egocentrics with expensive sports cars or collapsing workaholics, too idealistic and naive to provoke any interest in her.

Money was an argument, that powerful men were pointing out all the time, but after a week they became trivially boring. She found dull their ambitions and the things that amused them and saw no sense in playing a role. She preferred to be alone and work.

She graduated in Biology as if it was a joke, she loved animals.

She did her first doctor’s thesis at 27, too late for her ambitious nature. But early enough to attract the attention of the scientific community with her work on virology and most of all on applied Biology in closed systems.

Now she was 37 and still irresistible.

In any restaurant she entered, all the glances were pinned on her. No man could avoid imagining her naked under her clothes of a working, emancipated professional.

And she never stopped provoking them. She loved short skirts and see-through tops. She found interesting how primal and oversimplified men were and how easy it was to make them crawl. She provoked them with arrogant behavior or light flirting and elegant smile.

The entropy of creation made her go on believing in great love.

She opened her eyes startled and looked at her watch, placed on the dresser. It was almost half past six. She remained lying, staring with an empty glance at the dark ceiling, not thinking of anything, just unwilling to close her eyes again.

Her phone gave a sound. It was the alarm.

The music of ‘Deep Purple’ sounded.

Control room, Day 6, 8:16 a.m.

“Impossible!” Norman could not believe his eyes.

“I have no doubt whatsoever, Sir!” The Lieutenant was pointing at the lighted screen. “Those are from the National police service, those – from Interpol, and those – from the Civil protection organization.”

“And they match?”

“Absolutely, Sir! I double-checked them five times, there can’t be any mistake.”

“I can’t believe it.”

“See, these on the left are the fingerprints of the perpetrator on the body or what was left of it, we found them on a part of one of his shoes, on a piece from the rims of the glasses and particularly on the grinding device. And those on the right are his.” The Sergeant slipped them with the mouse to the left and overlaid them one on the other. “There is a 100% match.”

“Yes, these are for sure the fingerprints of the murderer.”

“Beg your pardon, Sir, I’ve been in military police, homicide department, I’ve seen all kinds of butcher scenes, but never anything like this… I don’t know what to call it, Sir.”

“Yes, I myself have never imagined that such savagery could exist and I’ve been on six missions. I’ve witnessed distressing pictures.”

“But how can he be capable of this? He seems the kindest man on earth.”

“I agree, but we need to detain him”, Norman said decisively. “Take two men and arrest him.”

“We are talking of the murderer, aren’t we, Sir?” The Lieutenant needed to be 100% sure.

“Of course, who else? Arrest Hans immediately.”

Dome 3, Day 6, 8:58 a.m.

Alan was going to his room to fetch his sunglasses, when he saw her, standing with her back to him just in front of the door to his dome.

She was squatting and was picking something on the floor, her behavior seemed a little strained and unnatural, but the sun was shining so bright in his eyes, that he could not see clearly. He squinted, wrinkling the skin of his face.

He hated forgetting his glasses, because it was hard to see, his eye-balls started aching from the tension and moreover unwanted wrinkles formed at his temples. He did not want to provoke extra wrinkles. The botox he had been using for several years now was quite efficient but needed care.

“Hey, Marcela, what are you doing here? Do come in, I’ll show you my modest adobe.”

She just turned her head to him and stared. He was unable to see her eyes behind the enormous sunglasses, but he felt now was the moment to tell her.

“Look, March, come inside and let’s talk. I’ve been meaning to tell you something for a long time.”

She looked around as if to make sure they were alone and nobody saw them.

“No, no, there’s nobody here, everyone is at the central dome, I’m sure, I myself was there just a second ago… You know, I really like you very much and… err… I’ve been thinking for some time that I have to confess…”

Marcela stood up, turned and started walking slowly towards the fence.

“Hey, March, please, don’t be like that, I never meant to insult you. Where are you going?” Alan caught with her and took her by the hand – it was ice-cold, he felt like he was touching a corpse. “There is nothing in this direction, please, come back. I just wanted to invite you as a guest in my new show when this is over. Because I can guarantee after what’s happening here I’ll be back in the game.”

She released her hand coldly and went away without a word.

Alan remained motionless, looking at her.

The Canteen, Day 6, 9:07 a.m.

The smell of fresh coffee refreshed them and took them away in their thoughts. It was pleasant just to stay quiet, while drinking from real china cups. It seemed there were suppliers with taste in that base. Michael, Marcela and Hans were up earlier than the rest, and they enjoyed being able to talk, free from the military, the Russians and Alan, about whom they joked that at nights, when he was alone in his room, he had started writing a script for a Hollywood blockbuster.

“How did you sleep?” Marcela sipped a large gulp of her coffee. “I dream a lot and wake up startled all through the night. Frankly, I haven’t slept at all since we came here.”

“I sleep well”, Michael replied. “Especially since Norman has lifted the ban on vodka.”

“I don’t sleep, I work, but in my opinion all mathematicians are like me. When there is a logical problem to be solved, we don’t find peace till we find the solution.”

“Hans, I don’t think the rest of the mathematicians are like you”, Marcela said, addressing him with one of her winning grins and the three of them laughed. It was quite obvious that at this moment they did not miss the rest of the group.

“Michael do you have a girl back at the University?” Marcela always found the right moment for the right question.

“No, nothing serious. There is Mary Ann, but so far we’ve only been loitering.” Michael remembered their last night together, her gorgeous gentle skin, as smooth as velvet.

“What about you, Hans?”

“You know that I don’t have anybody. I was never much interested in affairs. I have more important things to do with my time.”

“One should not skip amusement”, Michael noted with a smile.

“Mathematics can be quite amusing, actually. Didn’t you enjoy the Theory of subjective numbers?” The very thought made Hans smile. “If I have to be really serious, a man just needs two things in his life.”

“Just two?” she asked surprised.

“That’s right.”

“Probably the first is to live forever, which in your language is ‘plus infinity’, did I guess correctly?” Michael was very proud to be able to predict Hans’s mathematic terms.

“Hmm… immortality could be quite boring and lonely.”

“What then?”

“Just two things.”

“What are they, Hans, please…” Marcela was dying of curiosity.

“The first one, of course, is to find out the answer to all questions, how and why the Universe was created, what’s beyond it and what is a man in his or her essence. What is the point of our existence.”

“You are very philosophically minded this morning, Hans”, Michael said.

“Our Hans is a deep and vulnerable soul.” Marcela was not at all surprised by the deep sensitiveness of her closest friend in that ordeal. “What about the second thing, Professor?”

“The second, after you find the answer to the big question, is to have someone to share it with. Otherwise sublime knowledge leads to sublime solitude. Glorious minds have proved it through the centuries.”

“That’s right, Professor, love is the greatest thing in the Universe.” Michael looked outside the window with misty eyes. “But now, I guess, we just need to survive in all that mess, don’t you think?”

“Do you believe them?”, Marcela sipped her coffee, interrupting the silence.

“Oh, not a bit.” Hans’s answer was quick and unhesitating. “We are all going to die here.”

“How did you come to this conclusion?”

“Well, think about it… This ship was constructed and launched into exploitation in the future. There are Russians here with us. You don’t doubt, I presume, that they report everything to Moscow.”

“So what?”

“Why have they launched it after two years, if they would know it ended with catastrophe? There s only one explanation: that we will all die here and nobody will find us.”

“That sounds very encouraging, Hans. You are always super optimistic, aren’t you?” Marcela said, her spirit fallen.

“Look, you understand that there is general relativity and all of this might not be happening.”

“I wonder what happened to the people on the ship,” Marcela could not stop thinking about the sailor, who had written the short and lonely sentence in his notebook.

“It might have come from there”, Michael suggested.

“Yes, they might have taken it on board unaware, it might have crawled on the ship and is now out hunting.”

The door opened and three armed men with grave expressions and bad yes rushed into the dining room. The Lieutenant and the two Sergeants stopped their military pace and stood at attention.

“Professor Rosenstein, you are under arrest.”

“What?” Hans stood up a little from his chair, unable to believe it.

“Please, gentlemen, this has to be a mistake!” Marcela was almost shouting.

“I am sorry, Major’s orders. Come with us, you will be placed under custody in your room.” The Lieutenant took Hans under the arm and dragged him to the door.

Control room, Day 6, 10:21 a.m.

“Sir, the messages haven’t stopped at all”, the Lieutenant reported to Norman.

“Can you decode them yourself?”

“Of course, Hans left the code and the program… Actually, they come directly as words.”

“What do they say?”

“It’s in plain English, Sir, no coding whatsoever. Yet, I can’t make anything of it, Sir.” The Lieutenant looked confused.

“Go and bring me the scientist!” Norman literally shouted to the Sergeant at the door.

“Can I be explained what’s going on?” Hans said, coming into the room, handcuffed and accompanied by the Sergeant. “What kind of insanity is this?”

“You will answer before the law for what you did, Professor

Hans! Did you know Greg? Why did you kill him?”

“What are you talking about, Major? I don’t understand… really. There must be a huge misunderstanding here.” Hans needed to talk and acquit himself. He had spent a few hours in solitude and unawareness. He got to hear explanations. “You killed Greg. We have your fingerprints all over his body. Confess!”

“I don’t know what the hell you are talking about.” It was obvious that Hans was genuinely amazed.

“There is a procedure about these things, according to which you will be held responsible later. Now, tell me, what is this?”

I AM LIFE INSIDE YOU, I AM THE DEVIL

The inscription was shining on the screen. It was the latest message.

“I don’t know, Major. I really can’t say. I need time and space to analyze it… not only the letters but the figures too…

“Take off his handcuffs and give him access to the computers now. Let him sit here, but while he is working, watch him all the time.” Norman stood up, he needed to check the safety measures at the base. “When I come back in an hour’s time, I expect you to be ready!”

At this moment the room whirled under their feet.

A stunning explosion cut through the air.

The shock wave sent everyone lying on the floor, while the tables and the computers collapsed over their heads. The lights went out and for several seconds they were as if in a knockdown, hardly able to feel orientation who was where, which was ‘up’ and which was ‘down’.

The soup of people and objects soon came to the boiling point.

The mess was clearly seen when the emergency lights went on and everybody searched the eyes of his nearest neighbor in order to make sure he was alive.

The first one to regain control was Norman. He stood up, looked through the window and started giving orders:

“There is an explosion in the dome next to this one. I’m going there to check what’s going on. Lieutenant, restore the order in the room and continue with the work. Be sure to watch Hans, never take your eyes off him. I need the answers as soon as possible. Am I clear? The rest of you stay here and nobody move. Understood?”

“Yes, Sir!” The Lieutenant also rose and helped the plump scientist get up. The rest were getting up from the floor, shaking the dust off their clothes. Nobody was seriously wounded.

Norman went out and saw that three of the buildings had turned into burning stakes. The dome to the right of the center, where the Russians slept and Alan’s, next to theirs, were totally destroyed, only the foundations were left to burn out. The guard on duty had descended from the tower and was trying to put out the fire with the help of two other Sergeants.

“What happened?” Norman asked them.

“Alan and the fat scientist came and put the buildings on fire, throwing burning sticks, but they have clearly put explosives beforehand, since everything was instantly in flames like a torch.”

“Impossible, both of them have been with me in the control room for the last half hour.” Norman turned back to the control room. If there was any explanation at all, it was in Hans’s mind. He was their only hope.

Control room, Day 6, 12:11 p.m.

“I think I know what’s going on, Major” Hans said without taking his eyes off the white sheet.

Nobody of the people, present in the room, uttered a sound, they were all gazing intently at the plump mathematician. “The message you have received, is true.”

660052153 054660039231

660153492669349231 534920392

660 052153 349231053660054

I AM LIFE INSIDE YOU I AM THE DEVIL

“But it can be seen in another way”, Hans started explaining. “The aliens, unaware about how human brain works, sent another message, to which you did not pay attention.”

660 052153 310293231

349231053660054 660153492660231 293920392

I AM THE DEVIL INSIDE YOU

“What does it mean?” Norman interrupted the silence. “This thing… these alien creatures are testing us.”

“Testing us?! Come Hans, how do they do it? And why would they need such a crap?” Alan interfered, the sceptic as always. “I killed Greg!” Hans said.

The Base, Day 6, 2:31 p.m.

Sergey entered their room. Ivanov was sorting his luggage. He was throwing his personal belongings from the shelf into a big bag on the floor, while his clothes were strewn on the bed. He was moving hurriedly and when the young scientist came in, he did not even look at him.

“What are you doing, Ivanov? Where are you going?”

“I’m doing what needs to be done, Seriozha, duty calls.”

“Don’t be stupid.” Sergey knew enough about his room-mate’s nature by now. “What are you planning to do?”

“Seriozha, my friend, come with me, we cannot allow this thing to fall in their hands. Our people needs it, otherwise we’ll destroy it. These are orders from Moscow and if you are a true patriot, you’ll come with me.”

“Don’t do it, Colonel, let’s talk…”

At this moment the door opened and Michael rushed in. He looked at them with bloodshot eyes, raised his gun and without aiming, shot first at Sergey.

The young man with disheveled hair fell on the ground with a groan, clutching his chest, while Ivanov reacted like a true military man – he dashed at the young American and started punching him with his fists on the head. No human being would survive even a minute under the stony hits of that giant. But Michael seemed to have acquired inhuman force. He overthrew Ivanov with a mighty suplex, caught his neck and started suffocating him. At this moment three gunshots banged.

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.

Control room, Day 6, 2:49 p.m.

“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.

Day 6, 3:17 p.m.

“There is, however, one more message.” Hans pressed two keys on the keyboard and figures appeared on the screen:

66920392 310920920923 153231 052153349

660 492660054054 923660054054 66920392

YOU TOOK ME AND I WILL KILL YOU

“What does it mean?” Alan addressed Hans.

“Better ask the Major.”

This time the glances were directed at Norman and after hesitating for a couple of seconds whether to answer sincerely, he said:

“We removed the Cube from the ship and put it here, in the Base. At this moment it is only a few yards away from you, behind this wall, in the next room.”

“My God, Norman, what have you done?!” Marcela exclaimed. “People, you know that this is a mission of the government. I, as commander, follow orders. Which, by the way, you should also do.” Norman did not quite sound as if he believed what he said. “This Cube belongs to mankind” Alan said firmly. “And to all nations round the world” Marcela added.

Control room, Day 6, 6:43 p.m.

“Sergey is dead and there is not a trace of Ivanov.”

“And where is the body, Lieutenant? What did you do with it?”

“We took it immediately to the room for biological research, the Romanian lady is there with it. I put a guard in front of the door, Sir.” The Lieutenant saluted briskly.

“Very well, Lieutenant, observe the controls and if there is news, immediately report to me on the radio. I’m going to see what’s this whack that harasses us and I swear, once I get to know what it is, I’ll fix it my way instantly!

Ammunition warehouse, Day 6, 8:14 p.m.

Ivanov charged his gun and started slowly forward.

He had just the warehouse to finish with and he would be ready.

The helicopter would wait for him after eleven hours at the agreed spot, eight miles from here, direction east-northeast. It would take him to a Russian nuclear submarine by the shores of north Egypt, and from there – home.

But the most important thing now was to finish destroying the base and take the Cube with him. He knew it was heavy, he had tried to overturn it as soon as it was discovered on the submarine, but he had no doubt that he would be able to carry it for eight miles. He was worried only about the weather – in this storm the problem would be not so much walking through the sand, as some difficulties that might arise about his orientation in the right direction.

Suddenly, out of nowhere, Marcela appeared in front of him. She held one arm behind her back and in the other hand she had a plastic explosive with her finger on the detonator.

“What the hell are you doing here?”, the Colonel hissed quietly and raised his gun at her. She dashed towards him without answering, as if wishing to embrace him, but what she did was push him with inhuman force, sending the giant on the ground. Her red eyes twinkled in the pale moon light, then her hands pinned his own on the sand, while her sparkling white teeth dug in his neck.

Her hands were clutching his head as a vise and the warmth of the blood, gushing like a fountain, covered all his right side. He knew he would lose consciousness any moment now, and like his training dictated, he considered the options for some outcome from this situation.

If he did not overthrow her away from him, he was lost, he knew it very well. He succeeded in tucking one hand between her legs and with the other he squeezed her neck. Her flesh was hard as steel, nothing human felt this way.

The bulky man moved with great effort the body of the woman several inches and could hardly lift her a bit, she was as heavy as iron. Her limbs resisted chaotically, but he managed to move her at some distance and looked at her face.

Her eyes were sparkling scarlet-red, with the beautiful and unnatural shining of an artificial blood red diamond. The paleness of her skin was in even greater contrast with her bright pupils.

Despite the great loss of blood, Ivanov succeeded to overturn her with trembling arms but with a skillful grip and to press her with his powerful body. He acted on instinct and bit her neck. Instead of blood he felt the acidic taste of something like cider vinegar between his teeth and removed his head from her body. He saw the death convulsions of her chest slowing down, then gradually stopping.

He looked around for help, then submitted to unconsciousness, falling over the lifeless body.

Biological laboratory analyses hall, Day 6, 8:20 p.m.

“What’s this motherfucker?” Norman looked at her inquiringly. “I’ll show you now, Major.” Marcela had finished the autopsy, took off her gloves and sat in front of the computer to show him the results.

The lifeless body of the double was lying on the table with his tummy open. There was no smell of decomposition or traces of bleeding, only some strange whitish liquid with revolting acidic stench. “A normal in appearance human body of a male individual, aged about 22…”

“Please, March, cut the crap and say directly. What is actually this shit on the table?” Norman had no time or patience for unnecessary details.

“Death has come as a result of a bullet, that entered the frontal lobe of the brain… Only that usually I would add the phrase “because of a massive hemorrhage and irreversible brain death”. But here there is no hemorrhage, since there is no blood, Major. It is as if this ‘thing’ or this ‘creature’ does not need oxygen or metabolism as a whole. It has only a scanty quantity of some strange liquid, similar to acid, which is totally incompatible with live cells. It would rather burn any living creature on Earth, than support metabolism in the tissues.”

“I just need to know whether it can be killed by a bullet.”

“I suppose so. But there is something awfully strange. Besides, the chemical analysis shows very unusual values. Its anatomy as well – it has no secretory system, no internal organs, no bladder, no kidneys. Digestive system is also missing – no stomach or intestines. There is just nervous tissue, a well formed and greatly folded brain. This thing obviously has an appearance and tissues, similar to those of humans, but is definitely not human.”

Marcela cut a piece from the calf and almost stuck it under Norman’s nose, who instinctively flinched his head back.

“Look at the muscle, see the muscle fibers.”

She splashed the piece of meat, similar to fillet, on the stable and stuck the scalpel deeper, removing a couple of thicker fibers. To Norman it seemed exactly like a pork chop.

“Here, Major, the muscle fibers are very hick and at the same time numerous.”

“You mean…”

“I mean that in appearance this thing has a similar structure to ours but is twice as strong. And this is not all. Look at the brain.” Marcela moved upward to the head and stuck her gloved hand inside the opening in the top of the skull.

“Here, look”, she said and stepped away from the lens of the microscope, so that Norman could take a peek. “Can you see?”

“No”, he replied. Frankly there were only some dots at the end of the tube and around them – smudgy pink background.

“These here are normal human nervous cells and these here belong to the ‘thing’. Can you see? The small dots are the nuclei of the cells. There are at least three times as many nuclei and respectively cells per a unit of area.”

“Does that mean it is cleverer than we are?”

“I am afraid it does mean exactly that, Major.”

“So, we have to deal with an alien form of life, that doesn’t need to feed or go to the toilet, has no blood and is definitely more intelligent than us, stronger, faster…”

“A better killing machine than us, Major.”

“Does it have any flaw?”

“Yes, Major, it can be killed. But only with a bullet in the head that can cut the nervous activity and stop the nervous impulses. The rest of the body is practically invincible, except in case of massive laceration.

The Canteen, Day 6, 10:41 p.m.

This night unlike others they were eating silently and only the slight clatter of silver interrupted the deadly silence in the dining room.

Tension was pulsating in the stuffy air of the room. Their glances were hanging over the plates and nobody dared look into someone’s else’s eyes.

“What happens to the doubles after they kill us?” Michael was the first one to speak in the quietness.

“When the original version perishes, regardless in what manner, their double dies”, Hans answered.

“So, if we all die, they are toast”, Michael said, trying to clear the atmosphere with black humor.

“Stop it, Michael, let us try to find some more rational solution than our mass suicide”, Marcela cut him short. She was as pale as a sheet of paper and extremely scared.

“How can you be sure about that, Hans?” Alan asked.

“I am sure. Call it ‘scientific intuition’ if you must, but in vein of the principle of the annihilating of elementary particles with their anti-particles, I’m telling you that when the prototype of the ‘double’ dies, then the replica stops to exist as well. I suppose, they avail of information for the replicating of some form of energy information field from us. Their DNA must be in constant communication with ours, or else all functions cease. Believe me, when you are not here, your double is not here either.”

Norman’s radio buzzed, so he answered and after three words from the other end of the line he jumped instantly from his chair and dashed out of the door.

Outside the hurricane was at its worst. There was no a trace of the beautiful desert from three days ago, the storm had turned the sunny vast territory into a black freezing blind hell.

Norman had the feeling that all the fucking sand in Sahara was up in the air, whirling and trying to enter through his eyes, mouth and nose. He was walking almost as a blind man, having covered his head with a scarf, hardly seeing through the protective goggles the lights of the projectors inside the base.

“What’s going on, Lieutenant? What was that on the radio?”

“As I told you, we have three dead bodies and munitions are missing from the warehouse, Sir. The bodies belong to two of the sergeants on duty and to Miss Tarantino.”

“How did it happen?”

“One is torn to pieces, the other one is cut by a big tool, probably an axe… The woman died from a bite on her neck, like in a horror movie for vampires.”

“This is her double! Take the body immediately to the biology room for further investigation.”

“Yes, Sir! There are broken ribs, her chest was practically smashed with enormous weight and force. Death has occurred almost instantaneously.”

“Take in the bodies for an autopsy and… Fuck this damned wind!” The storm had almost dragged the scarf off Norman’s head and moved his goggles.

“There is one thing more, Sir…”

“Say it, because too many new things heaped on me today!”

“Near the woman’s dead body we found a phone, tuned for detonation.”

“Hers?”

“Probably not. Its menu is in Russian.”

“A saboteur, obviously.” Norman did not seem too surprised.

“Yes, Sir. The phone is here, but the detonators are missing.”

At this moment the Sergeant approached.

“Sir, we found the body of Colonel Ivanov. You’ve got to see it, Sir.”

“Take us there, Sergeant.”

Norman bent over the Russian’s huge body, lying lifeless on the sand about twenty yards away from the one of the female double. A bloody trail was connecting them. Ivanov had left it, dragging on the ground. He had clearly remained alive after the fight despite the great blood loss and was trying to seek for help.

The Major leaned and touched his heart. Though barely felt, there were slight movements of the chest.

“But he is alive, for God’s sake! Take him to her! Quickly!”

Central dome, Day 7, 00:11 a.m.

The Cube was there. It stood imperturbably motionless like when they saw it for the first time. Only its light was changed from bluish-green to bright red.

“Do you think this thing can be destroyed at all?” Marcela asked. Her question was obviously directed at Hans.

“I don’t know, there must be a way… The bad side of it is that we don’t have an idea what it is actually and what it is made of. You can only kill something if you know how it lives. If you don’t know birth, how could you possibly understand death?”

“But we know how it lives.” The latest events had broken Alan and he had lost his habitual positive enthusiasm and energy. “It lives through the doubles and that’s how it affects us, don’t you think?”

“I suggest we destroy it by an explosion, while it’s not too late”, Norman interfered.

“I don’t believe they would let us do it”, Marcela said. “And I deeply doubt that this ‘thing’ is vulnerable to our weapons. You shouldn’t have brought it here.”

“To begin with, the Russians from the submarine shouldn’t have taken it from wherever they found it”, Hans added. “But it is here and we need to destroy it. I believe I can guess how.”

At this moment the lights went out and everybody froze in the darkness. It was quiet.

Like in a coffin.

All hell broke loose with the bang of a rock falling through the ceiling. Glass, people and metal mingled in a heap of rubble.

The ceiling of the dome collapsed in pieces over the heads of the group with monumental crash and the doubles rushed against them.

Two of the soldiers were instantly torn to pieces.

The monsters were silent assassins, they acted with perfect accuracy and precise movements, as if consuming the small space of the room. They did not utter a sound, probably they could not even talk, only the ferocious flames in their cannibal glances were an evidence that they were not machines, but alive creatures.

The Lieutenant was thrown onto the ground.

He was fighting one of the creatures, employing all the power of his short and sturdy limbs. Ivanov’s double, heavy as a roller machine, had pressed his chest with its knee and was just intending to bite his neck with those enormous sharp teeth, when Babyface caught with his right hand one of the tumbled down computers. With astonishing force he raised the heavy metal box and, using just his wrist, smashed it against the head of the creature. It stumbled and lost its balance for a moment. This second was enough for the Lieutenant, who jumped with quick thinking, grabbed he monster and pinned it to the ground. His right hand was holding its neck, stopping its ability to move its head and get oriented in space. The fingers of the Lieutenant’s left hand were feverishly fumbling for his pistol that had slipped from the holster and fallen on the floor. The creature was madly waving its limbs in the air, trying to free itself.

The double stretched in a way, impossible for a man, and kicked Babyface in the back so hard that the Lieutenant tumbled forward over his head. However, his left hand was now holding the gun. He fell on his face but managed to turn over quick as a lightning and fired at the head of his adversary, which was almost touching him.

The brain of the creature burst in thousands of small pieces and splashed some acidic liquid over the Lieutenant’s pleasant face. He got up, wiping his lips with his sleeve, and looked around for his companions.

Struggling bodies were rolling on the floor. The red lights in the eyes of the doubles were moving in the darkness like huge and fast fireflies.

The metal bar from the roof hit Marcela on the forehead and she almost lost consciousness. She saw only shadows, while her ears were ringing from the swish of bodies flying around. She thought she was dying. The surprising attack had left no room for fear and now she was conquered by some strange peace before death.

She had the feeling that the flash of the bullet moved towards her head for several seconds before the bang deafened her completely.

She thought of the lightnings. Her ears started ringing again and then deadly silence followed.

Marcela closed her eyes, waiting for her end and laid low on the floor. Alan threw himself over her to protect her. Shots were heard. Norman was firing at the red spots, moving around the room, careful not to shoot someone of his own group.

A second later the double of one of the soldiers threw itself against him and pushed the gun from his grip. Norman caught the creature, trying to throw it on the floor, then took out the knife from the sheath on his waist and without any hesitation dug it in the double’s head, between the eyes.

The Major felt the iron grip around his chest loosening and glanced around in search for more red eyes.

At the same time Alan, with Marcela cuddled beneath him, felt an enormous weight on his back as if a ton of sand was loaded on him. Something warm bit the back of his neck, he was overwhelmed by sharp pain and dizziness.

His first thought was to protect Marcela. He felt as if he was drunk, as if he was injected with poison and could not reason straight. Thinking only of her and how to save her from those beasts, he had no idea at all whether he himself was wounded or not.

His self-preservation instincts were off.

He turned over in order to relax the pressure on her and together with the creature, that had grabbed him, rolled over and crashed against the wall. It was completely dark and Alan could not see anything; he heard a shot and the noise of fighting in the room. He was not sure where the ceiling and where the floor were, and with his last remaining strength he managed to kick off the creature aside. The double was pushed away but at the last moment, like someone sinking under water, grabbed Alan’s leg. Alan knew there was no way for him to extract his limb from the pitiless iron vise. At this moment a pair of blood-red eyes lowered towards his face and he felt the sharp smell of carrion against his lips.

Then a dull blow came in his crotch, a body, thrusting against his own, some warm liquid squirted over his face and he tasted fresh blood in his mouth.

He felt sick but did not have the strength to throw up.

The pain was only momentous, but the sharpest he had ever felt. His leg hurt as if a thousand knives were stuck in his flesh.

Then he lost consciousness.

Watchtower, Day 7, 3:14 a.m.

The Sergeant saw how most of the lights in the Base went out. The strong wind was blowing sand in the eyes and blurred his vision. He was ordered to keep his duty down on the ground because of the hurricane danger and, really, the forty five feet construction was moving like an overturned pendulum and hardly anyone would like to stand on its highest point at this moment. However, from his position in the base of the watchtower his zone of vision was too limited and he could barely distinguish the outlines of the camp. He felt a tap on his back, turned around and saw the Major.

“What are you doing here, Sir?”

Norman’s face was mostly covered. He had twisted some white cloth around his head like a true Bedouin. He approached the soldier and with a quick shot of his hand squeezed his throat, then grabbed his testicles. The man on duty was so shocked by the surprise attack, that stood frozen. He felt a stinging pain between his legs which crawled along his stomach and up towards the chest. Darkness fell before his eyes, his head felt heavy as lead, pulsating, and now he saw only the light, coming from a gloomy tunnel.

Norman’s double pushed the dead body among the crates under the shed of the watchtower and went away.

An explosion. Then another one.

The ammunition warehouses and the watchtower were in flames.

Hall for biological research, main dome, Day 7, 4:40 a.m.

He saw shadows, moving slowly in the darkness of the room and in his ears a misaligned grinding device was screeching. The shadows were talking among each other, he was sure of that, but as much as he strained, he could not understand just what they were saying. He felt as if terribly drunk, it had happened to him once when he was a university student – he poisoned himself with different varieties of alcohol and his body surrendered on him. He was young and wild back then, and after the heavy drinking session his life was saved with lots of efforts in the emergency room. He was in a coma and was almost not going to make it, at least that was what he was told.

The few memories that he kept from reanimation back then were very similar to what he felt now. The same cold insensitivity and panic fear of not being able to feel your own skin. No sense of cold or stinging. Even the strong hands of the colossal chief nurse, shaking his shoulders, felt like gentle caresses. “Do you think he’s in pain?”

“I doubt it, I completely drugged him with pain-killers, so he must hardly realize where he is.”

“He has lost a lot of blood and needs to go to a hospital. Infusions, an urgent operation…”

Alan was gradually coming out of the haze and could distinguish Marcela’s voice.

She was so exquisitely beautiful and he wanted very much to tell it to her. He had craved for it ever since he saw her.

“March, you are awesome… I love you…” he lisped.

“Here, now he is talking deliriously. He is drugged and stabilized now, but if we don’t take him to a hospital, he will soon be in a coma.”

Alan thought that her voice was like a Shakespearean sonnet, kind, gentle, filled with love.

“Alan, Alan, wake up! How are you feeling? Does it hurt somewhere?” This was the not so gentle Major’s voice.

“Yes, yes, I’m okay. Nothing hurts, I’m just a bit dizzy. Where am I? What happened? I can’t remember anything.”

“You suffered an accident during the attack, Alan, you are seriously hurt. You need a doctor.” His head felt heavy again and he drifted into uneasy sleep.

Control room, central dome, Day 7, 6:20 a.m.

“So… gentlemen, our situation is quite grave”, Norman said.

He was standing in front of them with a torn uniform and bandaged head, all dirty with blood and sand. His face was grim and smeared, just his big eyes were flashing with their typical daring flame. Now he was more responsible for them than ever before. There was no way he could let them down.

The rest were sitting on the remains of the furniture with dropped heads and blurred eyes.

“I guess it couldn’t be any worse” Michael said. He didn’t look at all well with his split eyebrow and a bandaged left hand. He felt like this was the worst hangover in his life, but with his usual light smile tried to encourage them. “We could be dead, but I guess death is preferable to hangover.”

“Only the five of us are left, plus Alan and Ivanov, who are in the biological hall. The Russian is better now, luckily, we have about ten liters of frozen blood and we started infusions. I believe he will be fully restored in a couple of days. However, Alan is in bad state and needs an urgent operation. Otherwise he will die. As you know, his left leg was torn away and his condition deteriorates by the hour. Colonel Ivanov will answer before a court martial for his actions. I have solid proof that he tried to sabotage our mission from the start and I will hold him responsible for the death of several people. However, he cannot be denied the strength and courage, since he managed to kill with bare hands Marcela’s double.”

“Bless him for killing me” Marcela said. She shivered at the very thought of those creatures.

“He lost a lot of blood but is stable at the moment and can even walk. And since I have no men to spare for his guarding, I locked him with handcuffs to the bed, so that he would not escape.”

“But, Major, this is not humane” Marcela protested. “He is my patient and as such he is innocent till proven otherwise. Let your tribunals and judges put him on trial later, but while he is under my observation, I insist for him to be free.”

“Impossible!” the Major replied firmly.

“Can I make a suggestion, Sir”, the Lieutenant interjected surprisingly. “Maybe the lady is right… to a certain extent. The physical power and the tactic skills of the Colonel might be useful in this critical moment, Sir.”

“He is right, of course. Ivanov is a formidable force” Michael said.

“Please, Major”, Marcela said, employing the gentlest note in her voice. “Let me go and unlock him. The man suffers, he has lost at least two liters of blood and would hardly be able to hurt someone in near future.”

“Okay, but he stays under the direct observation of the Lieutenant”, Norman agreed.

“And how is the situation with communications, Major?” Michael asked.

“As a consequence of the attack we’ve lost all connection with the rest of the world. We have power for ten hours more and no food, except for a few packs of crackers. Water is altogether thirteen liters.”

Marcela looked through the small round window. Dawn was coming outside and the smoldering remains of the Base could be seen. The smoke mingled with sand and the storm was carrying it away in the sky.

“The dormitories are completely destroyed, as is the munition warehouse. We have no weapons with the exception of my pistol and two automatic M4, for which we have almost no bullets.”

“What about the SUVs?” Hans asked.

The latest events had marked his face as well. He looked exhausted, pale, dirty and a little thinner – all features that were unusual for him. The feverish worry in his eyes made his round face look somehow younger. His shirt was cramped and was a pitiful reminder of his perfect attire from a couple of days ago. The jacket was missing and the white handkerchief, with which he constantly wiped his sweaty forehead, now looked like a dirty rag.

“One is completely destroyed, the fire has left only its metal carcass, the other one is with cut tires and cannot be ignited. I have to check it and see what I can do with it”, Norman said.

“I can help you, Major, I know a bit about trucks”, Michael proposed.

“How many of these suckers are left? As far as we know, they were exactly as many as us, right?” Marcela asked and looked at the others.

“Yes, correct”, Hans replied. “Our total number in the Base was fifteen, wasn’t it, Major?”

“That’s right, six soldiers, the Sergeant, the Lieutenant, myself and you, the scientists. Plus, of course the two Russians. Fifteen altogether.”

“Okay, we found Greg dead, and two more had disappeared without a trace? What were their names?”

“John and Taylor, yes. We declared them missing, but they were probably killed with Greg. They were both patrolling around the Base. Two of the soldiers died in the first explosion and the other two – in the attack through the roof. We found the Sergeant’s body by the watchtower and Sergey was shot by Mikey’s double.”

“Fuck, that’s totally crazy” Michael said in a sad voice, imagining a creature, that looked like him, doing something so awful.

“So… We killed two of them in the roof attack, two more escaped… right?” Hans was counting in his head. “March’s double was eliminated by Ivanov and those of the dead soldiers should have already disintegrated according to my computation.”

“You mean they do not exist anymore? They are dead, aren’t they?” Marcela needed to be sure that they are now free of those particular monsters.

“Yes, you’ll never see them again.”

“Thank God” she said, making a cross in the Orthodox manner, finishing with her right hand over her heart.

“So, we are five, not counting the two wounded men in the infirmary. The doubles are also five: mine, Alan’s, Ivanov’s, Norman’s and the Lieutenant’s. That’s it, we have five vermin creatures to kill.”

“If we are focused and keep together, we might be able to finish them”, the Major said.

“May I make a suggestion, Sir”, Babyface surprisingly spoke again. He did not seem anymore so much the pedantic military person. “Let’s group in two teams in view of safety. Me and you will be responsible for each of the teams, Sir.”

“Actually, this is a brilliant idea, Lieutenant.”

The rest exchanged glances in wonder of the creativity, demonstrated by the young man with the gentle face.

“Myself, Hans and Michael will take on the technical maintenance of the SUVs”, the Major said, “and will try to restore communications. Your task, Lieutenant, is to guard Marcela, who will be taking care of both patients. And try to find a way in which we can exterminate the abominable creatures.”

“Understood, Sir!” Babyface saluted, stamping his feet, his body as straight as a string.

Alan lifted himself a bit and rested on his elbow in the bed. The action of the anaesthetics was now diminished, his mind got clearer, but at the same time he started feeling an awful pain in his left leg. He looked down at himself and saw that the whole bed was red in color, the white synthetic sheet was soaked with his blood and the stench was terrible. He looked at his right leg, which was smeared and his once white sock had an indefinite color of dirt. It hurt just a little bit, obviously from the bruises, while he was spinning along the floor of the room.

He shifted his eyes to the left and… saw nothing. Just a huge spot of blood on the sheet. His leg was not in its place! His leg was cut!

At this moment Marcela and Hans entered the room. They were followed by the Lieutenant, who took a chair from the corner and set it across the patient’s bed.

“What happened? Please, you’ve got to tell me!” Alan cried at them.

“Alan, calm down, you had an accident, lie down and try to compose yourself, you’ll be okay.” Marcela ran to him and started to switch on faster the opiate in his intravenous catheter.

Alan stopped her with a weak gesture and fell back on the bed. He had no strength left for any other movement.

“Please, March, don’t drug me, I prefer to be in pain, but to be aware of what’s going on.”

“Do you remember what happened?”

“We were attacked, I kicked one of them in the ass, somebody was shooting, that I remember, but all the rest is like in a fog.”

“Alan, you saved me.” Marcela addressed him with a gentle profound glance. “If not for you, I’d be dead now.”

Alan lifted the corners of his mouth in an almost imperceptible smile.

“You covered her to protect her”, the Lieutenant said. “But one of the creatures literally tore your leg. I’m really sorry, Alan.”

“Did you kill it?”

“Norman shot it in the head. I eliminated the other one.” The Lieutenant modestly lowered his head and went to the bed of the other patient.

“Why is it here?” Alan was watching the Cube with suspicion. “We decided it is safer to keep it here.”

“Safer?! Tell it to my leg, goddamn it! This thing kills us! It is a

work of the devil and must burn in hell! We have to take it out of here and destroy it! Once and forever!” Alan started to get out of bed. He was like a madman, insanity filled his eyes, he was shouting hoarsely and his cries made Marcela’s heart sink. She pressed the button and the liquid in the UV started flowing down the tube. Alan fell asleep instantly.

“How are you, Colonel?” The Lieutenant was looking straight into his eyes and despite the darkness in the room could see the Russian’s pupils clearly.

“Better.”

“You are aware that because of your unlawful saboteur’s actions you have to be arrested and stand before a court martial, aren’t you?”

“Right!” the Colonel answered with a voice, surprisingly strong and firm for his condition.

“We decided to release you from responsibility and temporarily close our eyes, on the condition that you cooperate and cease any efforts for sabotage and for communication with your government. I hope, you will remain on our side, we greatly need each man in that crucial moment. Do you agree?”

“But of course, Lieutenant.” Ivanov turned with an effort on the other side, obviously feeling strong pain. “I’ve always been on your side.”

“I’m not convinced about that, Sir.”

“Or at least when we were allies and had a common purpose.”

“Okay. I’ll leave you to rest now, but bear in mind that the cameras in the room are on, and we are following every movement of yours.”

Ivanov sighed deeply and the bed shook. The conversation was clearly over.

Norman’s team, Day 7, 7:24 a.m.

“The Rover is fine, the engine was blocked, the battery was exhausted, probably from the magnetic field, but I think we’ll be able to fix it. Mike did a great job.” Norman put a cracker in his mouth with a serene smile, then drank exactly three gulps of water from the plastic bottle, covered his head with the dusty scarf, put on the pilot’s hermetic goggles and went again outside. His face was even dirtier now.

Michael went to the room with the spare parts to find something for fixing the punctured tires and for charging the battery from the generator.

Hans was trying to connect to the rest of the world. He was bent under the desk in the control room with his nose stuck in the satellite connection device.

“Hey, Hans, do you fancy a cracker?” Michael shouted at him. No reaction at all. “Hans, can you hear me, man? Aren’t you hungry?” The scientist was obviously carried away in his thoughts. Michael bit his cracker and left.

PART FIVE: THE DEATH

“What would your good do, if evil did not exist, and how would the earth look if the shadows disappeared from it?”

Mikhail Bulgakov, “The Master and Margarita”

After the rage of nature silence came.

The dawn of the new day.

The storm went away as quickly as it had come. The sun led a decisive struggle with the sand grains in the air and was trying to pierce its bright rays through the dusty shadows of the retreating gale. Just a few more hours and the unequal fight would end with the beautiful triumph of light.

Marcela thought how quiet death always was. Even if one had lived noisily, even if one’s voice had overwhelmed the voices of others, one dies alone and in silence. Regardless of how many millions of humans had been under you power, you leave the world weak and pitiful. No matter how many cannons have roared in honor of your royal birth, when you die, only a solitary shot spreads its echo.

They were not going to get out of this. They were not going to make it. She felt it, this was stronger and would defeat them. No way they could oppose it. The sky had turned blood-red, there was no trace left of the ethereal bluish green hue.

They were standing in the control room or in what was left from it. The computers were strewn, broken in pieces on the floor, the roof was almost completely destroyed. The sand, brought in from the storm was even forming small dunes.

The satellite connection did not function, they had no internet and communication with the world was impossible. Their mission was top secret and the people who knew about it were too far away. Even if they decided to reveal their position and ask the local people for help, by the time they reached them, they would be dead without food and water.

They were all alone in that godforsaken place. Even when they arrived here, they knew that there would not be help coming from anywhere. They should put their faith in themselves and God. And God had abandoned them.

Now evil was piling up strength but they knew it would come back soon.

Marcela had just come back from the biological lab, having changed Alan’s bandage.

“Damn! The tank!” Michael rushed in, slamming the door behind his back.

He untwisted the cloth around his head with an angry movement and threw it on the floor. After him the Major came in, clutching his left shoulder with his hand. Both of them were covered with sand, all scratched, cramped and dirty.

“Boys, what happened?” Marcela jumped up and went immediately for the cabinet with the bandages.

“We were attacked by two of those. They were the doubles of Hans and one of the sergeants” Norman said and sat down so that Marcela could put a bandage on him.

The wound was bleeding profusely but was not deep, there was no residue from a bullet or inlet opening, just a number of small perforations as after a bite. Not a bite from a man or a dog, but rather strange in appearance: he was as if bitten by a shark with three rows of sharp teeth. The blood was mixed with yellow-greenish pus.

‘It’s too early for an inflammation process’, she thought. Usually pus appeared in a few days while this wound was only from a couple of minutes ago. Obviously, some unknown enzyme made the biological processes develop faster.

“You’ll feel pain for a second, Norman, I need to disinfect the wound, sorry”, she said and showered his shoulder with peroxide The bubbles created thin froth, chasing out gelatinous whitish strange matter.

Norman clenched his teeth in a painful grimace without uttering a sound. Large drops of sweat appeared on his forehead.

“I’m almost ready, Major, let me put some iodine, that does not hurt.”

“We were surprised or it wouldn’t have been so easy for them”, Michael whispered, collapsing on the chair, very pale in the face. He was losing consciousness and his head was falling backwards.

“Mike, are you okay?” Marcela cried.

“They attacked us with bare hands, while we were repairing the SUV”, Michael said with a trembling voice. “We had no time to react, but we didn’t give up… One of the doubles managed to bite the Major’s shoulder… the other…”

‘But you are bleeding, Mike!”

The young man faltered and the Lieutenant instantly caught his falling body just before it touched the floor, while Marcela leaned over him and tore with her hands his bloodied shirt.

She noticed five holes on the right side below the ribs, out of which dirty black blood was trickling, mixed with whitish fluid, spreading revolting stench.

“What happened to Mike, Norman? Tell me now! What is this wound?”

“Ivanov’s double stuck his five fingers in his stomach like skewers.”

“And he has curled them inside! My God, I wonder what these creatures are made off, if their fingers are like arrows!”

“March, look at this”, Babyface said, showing her the wound. “I’ve never seen such blood, there is something else here, isn’t there?”

“Yes, we definitely have to test this mucus.” She gathered a sample of it in a sterile retort, which she duly sealed. “Mind you, this thing aimed directly at the liver. It knows where to hit, in order to kill the more efficiently!”

Norman stood up at once in order to help the Lieutenant, who put Michael on his back and carried him to the bio lab. To common surprise he did it with such ease, as if the body of the student was made of cheese.

“You’ve obviously picked wisely your people, Major”, Marcela noted and bent over the retort with the sample.

“Where is Hans?” Norman dropped in the arm-chair, then touched the bandage with his good hand.

“He said he needed ‘to communicate with the Cube’. You know how he is, when he is obsessed with an idea.” Marcela put the last sticking plaster on Michael’s bandage and straightened up. “I’m leaving you, I need to see what this mucous nastiness is. Try to have some good rest.”

The Major did not hear her last words, having gone into a slumber from exhaustion.

Biological hall, last day, 7:59 a.m.

Hans had long ago given up the efforts to repair the satellite connection and had spent the last couple of hours sitting with crossed legs on the floor by the Cube with a sheet of paper and a pencil in his hand. His head was filled with formulas, he was somewhere far away as if not noticing what was going on around him. He was so much engrossed in what he was doing, that he did not even wipe the sweat, streaming down his forehead. For several hours he had not touched his pipe and Marcela started to really worry about him.

“Hans, my friend, do you want a drop of water, aren’t you thirsty?”

He turned his head to her with a wandering glance and replied:

“No, March, I’m not thirsty. Have you heard of ‘Mandela’s effect’?”

“No, what is it?”

He seemed not to have heard her at all, raised his eyes at the ceiling and focused on a dot.

“Hans!”

The plump Professor dropped his bottomless glance at her and it soaked through her.

“Come on, say something!” Marcela was starting to panic.

Hans just sniffed a couple of times, deep in thought. He sat again on the floor and started scrawling indecipherable formulas on the paper.

“Hans, please, don’t be like that… You’re scaring me…” She was already calling Norman on the walkie-talkie. “Major, please, all of you come here. Hans has totally lost it.”

The plump scientist, who always found the correct answers to all of their questions was their most solid support in this place and now she was terrified of the thought that they may lose him. He was the only one who always kept presence of mind and calmly and soberly solved the most complex problems. What would they do if he was not himself?

Marcela left Hans to his difficult formulas and started testing the samples, taken from Michael’s and the Major’s wounds. She mixed the material from the retorts with the citrate and poured the liquid over a lot of test slides. Then she prepared the color indicators and switched on the microscope.

Once under the spell of the light in the lens and engulfed in the miniature world of cells and organelles, time as if stopped for her. If someone saw them with Hans at that moment, he would take them for mute sculptures, each one absorbed with a stony glance in his and hers parallel worlds. He was transfixed by the music of figures and logics, while she was married to the variety of the mini-world. An hour had passed without noticing.

The opening of the door took them out of their stupor. The

Major and Babyface came in the room, supporting Michael on both sides. The young man was very pale and could barely move his feet. Norman went to Hans, who still sat on the floor with crossed legs. The Lieutenant, almost dragging the wounded, helped him to a bunk in the corner.

Meanwhile Ivanov had raised up, seeming surprisingly well and was sitting in his bed, ignoring her requests to lie down and rest. The tube of the IV was dangling helplessly from his giant arm.

Babyface had put Michael on the bunk next to his and Marcela had injected to him a sedative. She bandaged again his arm, which looked healed and left him rest.

Alan was drugged and snoring.

“Hans, how are you?”, Norman leaned above the German. “I’m okay, why?”

“Well, March said you haven’t drunk water or eaten since yesterday. Are you sure everything is all right?”

“Yes. I know how we can destroy the Cube.” His voice sounded calm and confident.

“And how can this happen, dear?”

“Have you heard of ‘Mandela’s effect’?”

“No, we haven’t, Hans, what effect is that?” Norman’s tone was gentle and delicate. He thought he did not find the smallest reason for concern about the Professor’s mental health. He looked and sounded perfectly normal.

“There are events about which millions of people have different memories, compared to the other inhabitants of the world. Some call it mass psychosis or just technical small discrepancies in memorizing, but there is another hypothesis. You all know who Nelson Mandela is, right?”

“But of course.”

“Can you tell me what you remember about his death?”

“He died while in prison, didn’t he… back in the 80-ies. I’m not exactly sure, but it was in 1985 or 1986…” Marcela said.

“No, you are wrong March, he was released from prison and died in 2013, his funeral was on TV, I remember very clearly the huge posters with his name, hanging on the walls”, Norman said.

“That’s it”, Hans said standing up from the floor, returning instantly to his typical gait. “You are both right.”

“But how can it be?! Impossible!”

“The truth is that Nelson Mandela died in 2013, but there is a large group of people all over the world who state that Nelson Mandela definitely died in prison in the 80-ies. They accept it as a real fact. They even have a memory about a court trial after his death with the participation of his widow about the rights for a book. Also, thousands of people are ready to swear that after his death they watched benefit concerts on TV after his death and many celebrities wore t-shirts with his prison number 46664, honoring him in this way. Some go even further, mentioning the reason for the death of the South American leader – from tuberculosis in prison in 1986. The official historic reference proves that Nelson Mandela really suffered from tuberculosis in prison because of the hard conditions there, moreover, precisely in the 80-ies of the previous century. There is a theory, according to which at that moment a splitting of reality happened in two new parallel universes, in one of which Mandela died in 1986, and in the other he continued to live till 2013. You remember the message from the ship, don’t you? 1986.”

“The prison number is quite interesting too, with many sixes in it”, Babyface added.

“There are many other similar contradictions in group memory about famous public events. For instance, the wide spread photo from Tiananmen Square, in which a student puts his body in the way of the tanks. Most people remember how they saw on TV the rest of the protestants pushing him off the street and saving his life. Many others are convinced, though, that they saw the tanks smash him. He just dies.”

“I don’t believe this crap”, Michael interjected surprisingly. He had recovered from the anaesthetic and had obviously listened quietly the whole time.

“And what are those contradictions due to?” Norman asked in a serious tone.

“There is a theory, according to which after the CERN accelerator of particles started working in Switzerland, some strange events happened, capable of influencing the time-space continuum. One way or another, if there is splitting of realities in a singularity point, caused by the collider, why would not the Core have a similar effect? Michael opposes this theory, but I will ask him: Michael, you have seen ‘Star Wars’, haven’t you?”

“Sure, who hasn’t?”

“Do you remember how Darth Vader cut Luke Skywalker’s hand above the wrist and confessed he was his father?”

“Yes, this is the second film, ‘The Empire Strikes Back’.”

“Do you remember the exact words?”

“Of course, Luke is hanging on the wall and Lord Vader tells him: ‘Luke, I’m your father’.”

“Here, see? You are the very proof of the authenticity of the ‘Mandela effect’. Half of the people, including the man with the hoarse voice, the actor James Earl Jones, swear that the line is as you say: ‘Luke, I’m your father’. But in reality, if you see the film, you’ll be informed that the real phrase is: ‘No… I am your father’.”

“Not true, this cannot be, you are fucking with my kid’s memories. There is no way what you say to be correct.”

“In one reality it is the first version, in the other – the second. It is stated that the people from one parallel universe have one set of memories, while those in the second experienced a different set. In some way both realities intertwine in a particular point… or they split in the same one.”

“Look, Hans, all this is very intriguing, but what does it have to do with our situation?”

“Have patience, Major, everything will become clear to you very soon. These creatures, our copies, are from another universe, aren’t they? And they are conceived by the Cube or arrived here with its help, right? And which is the source of the Cube’s vital energy?”

“I don’t think anybody can answer that question”, Marcela suggested tentatively. “The Cub is not anything alive, that needs energy.”

Everybody remained quiet in waiting, not daring to move, in order not to confuse Hans.

“On the contrary, the Cube is as much alive, as you and I.”

“But, Hans you don’t think it’s organic, do you? At least from what we found out through spectral analysis I don’t believe it is organic matter”, Marcela said.

“Yes, it might not be based on carbon, as are all living organisms on our planet, but it is alive. It is from another planet on which probably life was conceived and is maintained by different principle. Do you remember how the Cube was connected to us? It was literally knitted together with the non-live matter of our world through the corals. Maybe it needs live matter to feed on, to draw energy and substances from it. To copy its DNA in order to create its doubles. The Cube is at the same time alive and non-live, it creates doubles for the sake of preserving life.”

“And how exactly does it ‘preserve life’ by killing us all, in a very cruel manner too?”

“Yes, it kills only the types that are aggressive and bad, creating their opposites.”

“Well if we are the good and the cool, it means it creates nasty people, who then kill the cool guys. I can’t make sense of it, rather it seems to me vice versa.“ Michael frowned.

“Precisely, because it is ‘vice versa’, Mikey. Don’t forget that it comes from a parallel universe, mirror-like to ours, in which everything is the direct opposite”, Hans smiled at him. “So there, in this ‘upside down’ universe, the Cube makes good doubles from the good guys and bad from the bad, is that it?”

“Exactly.”

“A marvelous suggestion, which we have no way to prove”, Norman sighed. “But how is this going to help us make it toast?”

“Do you remember how the corals appeared according to Greek mythology?”

“Perseus killed some chick”, Michael said.

“Actually yes, the chick was a very beautiful woman with poisonous snakes on her head, whose eyes turned to rock anybody who looked at her. Perseus killed the Gorgona Medusa and put her head in a magic sac, which becomes as big as the thing you put in it. Perseus sat to rest, putting the head on the sea shore, and the blood of the murdered Medusa soaked through the cloth and turned the seaweed to stone. The charming nymphs fell in love with their beauty and spread them along the bottoms of all seas.

Thus, the corals appeared, according to the ancient Greeks. “A very cool story, Hans, this time your overpassed yourself.”

It was Alan this time, who raised from his bunk and interfered. Nobody had noticed him wake up.

“And do you know how Perseus succeeded to cut the head of Medusa without her looking at him? The gods gave him as a gift a polished magical shield in which he saw Medusa as in a mirror. Thus, he managed to behead her with only one hit.”

“So… Hans?” Marcela urged him.

“So… We’ll kill it the same way.”

“How?”

“We have to send it back to where it came from, to its mirror universe.”

“Okay, but in what way?” Norman insisted.

“Ask Colonel Ivanov, he knows.” Hans turned to the Russian, who lowered his eyes in embarrassment.

“What else haven’t you told us, Colonel?!” Norman shouted. “I can explain, Major…” His strong voice had turned into a quiet mumbling.

“Isn’t it enough for you that I closed my eyes and spared you the court martial?”

“Calm down, Major, it’s not his fault, those were his instructions, isn’t that right, Colonel?” Hans approached Ivanov. “You know how the Core is activated, don’t you?”

“Yes, I know” the huge Russian said, lowering his head.

Last day, 8:58 a.m.

“Yes… You are right.” Hans was lost in thoughts and was scratching his head. “It is heated, too much even. I suppose the temperature of the Cube has been constantly increasing for the last few days, but, of course the dumb headed military did not bother to follow such ‘trifling’ features.

“Hans, I can understand your irony, however, this is not the time for analysis and reproaches, but for actions… Don’t you think?” Marcela touched his shoulder gently.

Hans placed his hand on the Cube but quickly pulled it back. “It’s awfully hot!”

“Don’t play around Hans, it might be dangerous!”

“I’ve a bad feeling about this”, Hans said. “I think the constant increase of temperature in our little Cube will result in mighty fireworks.”

“But how does it produce heat, energy, how does it work?”

“I am not sure, but I have a theory. Do you know how a star works, how it generates energy?”

“I guess it burns out a part of its mass, doesn’t it? The mass turns into energy, isn’t that what Einstein says?” Michael was not very knowledgeable about astrophysics.

“Not quite”, Hans laughed. “Actually, every star, including our bright Sun, works this way. If the Sun burned out its own mass like the burning of charcoal in a stove or in the heat power stations, its fuel would have finished in about 150 000 years. Actually, it produces energy through nuclear synthesis, turning the lighter elements like hydrogen and helium into the heavier iron and cobalt.”

“Something like in nuclear power stations?”

“No, just the opposite. While we break down heavy elements like uranium into lighter ones to obtain energy, the stars do vice versa, synthesizing heavy elements from lighter ones. But in both processes huge quantities of energy are released, that allow our Sun to shine and heat the Sun System in the course of several billions of years. I’m sure the Cube functions the same way, if it was capable of generating the necessary quantity of energy to bend space. If we take this thing and return it to where Norman and the others took it from, it will leave us in peace.”

“Back to the submarine?”

“Yes, Mike, we’ll load it on the Rover and will take it there. When it explodes, it won’t be here and we will be far away in time and space.”

The Submarine, last day, 9:16 a.m.

It weighed too much. And it was awfully hot. Three people could hardly take it out of the trunk of the SUV and pull it with ropes to the corps of the submarine. Anyway, they dragged it by the hole, cut there, and dumped it inside.

The corals there seemed to have doubled in quantity. They had as if overgrown the whole place making it seem unbelievably smaller. Four people could push with great efforts the Cube inside and their backs were all the time scratched by the sharp coral edges.

They took off their gloves and looked it over.

“Let Ivanov and Hans try to switch on the Core, Lieutenant, and you help them”, Norman ordered. “Michael will go finish repairing the truck and I’ll return to Marcela in the lab. Be quick, gentlemen, I don’t fancy another night in this place!”

“Fuck you, damned nastiness!” Michael spat noisily over the Cube and followed the Major back to the Base.

The Submarine, last day, 9:27 a.m.

“Turn the key clockwise at half a revolution.” Hans turned the red button simultaneously with Ivanov, whose hand was on the blue one. “Now wait and again forward, clockwise, half a revolution… And… now…”

Even Hans’s brilliant mind would not be able to repeat the complex sequence of pressing buttons, pulling levers, handles and inserting starting codes for the submarine.

The lamps on the ceiling blinked a few times, then began shining with a brighter white light. Everything seemed to move around them.

The four generators in the room boomed hollowly and the screens on the wall were lit like a spectacular video-wall at a stadium before the gathered crowd. The feeling was like standing under a buzzing power transmission line. Hans’s head was pulsing with the tension in the air and his ears were ringing from invisible oscillations. The space around him was stuffing him heavily and his flesh was as if convulsing under a press.

“Colonel, where are the temporal chains shown?” Hans asked, breathless and all sweaty.

Ivanov showed a red screen in the left side.

The inscription 15.11.9861 stood on it.

The big lens of the Eye started contracting, the mirrors, directed at the Eye, shone with dim light blue light.

At this moment the Lieutenants tender white face appeared in the opening of the corps and his small energetic eyes started looking around the room.

“How is it going?” he asked, glancing at the Russian with suspicion.

“Can’t you see, Lieutenant, we’ve started the Core, didn’t you feel the tension in the air?” Hans said.

“No, what tension?”

“What about the noise? Are you sure you didn’t hear anything from outside?”

“Nothing at all, but here it is quite warm, actually… Obviously they have good insulation.”

“Or rather the submarine swims in its own climatic bubble”, the plump Professor mumbled under his nose.

“I’ll leave you to the Russian military magic, I need to see what’s going on with the rest of the group. I have a bad foreboding and those things have not been seen for quite a long time.”

“Go, Lieutenant, we’ll be all right here.”

“Be careful, I saw steps in the sand by the prow.”

Babyface slipped through the narrow opening, lithe as a panther, and disappeared.

Bio analysis hall, last day, 10:17 a.m.

“I’m telling you, Norman, I’ve never seen such values.”

“Could it be because of the heat, the Sahara climate or any other reason?”

“No, I don’t think so, Norman.”

“And how exactly did you know it?”

“Look, I might be just a pretty image for you, but I dare say I know my job.”

“Please, March, I never implied you didn’t…”

“After I took samples of secretions from your and Michael’s wounds, I inserted a culture in nutritious mediums. I was in doubt, because the infectious changes in your wounds carried out too quickly and it was impossible that the bacteria had melted the tissues in such a short time, fermented and formed a pus secretion. And what do you know? The results were amazing! For two hours all the bacteria in the petri dishes had multiplied hundredfold.”

“How so?” Norman raised his hands inquiringly.

“The development of every colony of bacteria passes through three basic phases:

- an exponential phase, in which the number grows in geometrical progression;

- a stationary one, in which the growth stops because of exhaustion of the nutritious environment and the exotoxins, released from the bacteria. Here the number of dead and new cells is equal;

- dead phase in which the number of perished cells is bigger than that of the newly appeared.”

“Great. so, what?”

“So, there is no dead phase with the aliens that I took from your wound.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean that they grow and multiply regardless of the lack of food and without interfering with each other. They don’t need oxygen or carbon dioxide at all, light or any matter to exist! Usually infectious microorganisms need several days to pass through several scores of generations. And these here had divided super quickly, producing a hundred generations for no time at all!”

“Okay, March, what does it mean according to you? And why, the hell, Ivanov was not ill, when your double bit his throat?”

“I really don’t know, Norman, I’m not quite sure, I need more time for tests. He might have had some biochemical peculiarity or has been vaccinated in a different way in Russia. I have no idea. But your wounds too were not only infected instantly, they healed instantly. Their saliva resembles that of the Varan de Komodo, which, beside having exocrine venomous glands, collects huge remains of its meat food between the teeth. The meat gets spoilt and the mouth of the huge lizard is full of lethal microorganisms. The victim dies of sepsis only hours after having been bitten. I just remembered that while I was analyzing the results. Obviously, those cells here have some kind of mechanism for enhancing metabolism as a whole, some special enzyme or other… I really don’t know yet.”

“Calm down, March, you’ve done a great job till now. When we get home, these data of yours will serve as a basis for future research, I am sure.”

“If we go back home, Norman… I’m scared.”

“Don’t worry, clever girl” he said composedly and put his hand on her slender shoulder. “I want you to collect yourself and tell me if there is anything to which their bodies are vulnerable.”

“Yes, I think I have something in mind. I thought of it, while I was watching the dishes.”

“How, March?”

“Well, I thought that in nature the velocities are not by chance and all processes are in balance. Something that develops and kills so fast, can correspondingly be destroyed as quickly and easily.”

She leaned over the table and lifted before his eyes a glass retort. filled with translucent liquid.

The Submarine, last day, 11:04 a.m.

The noise had become unbearable.

What was just a vexing buzzing and squeezing in the temples, was now hitting them on the heads like a sledgehammer, while their ears stopped being able to absorb any kind of sounds at all.

Meanwhile the lights from the walls and ceiling were almost dimmed by the bluish heavy haze, smoldering over the metal floor. Only their eyes had not deserted them yet, glued to the lit screens of the control board.

Hans felt his body as if it were leaden. He could not turn his head to Ivanov and look at him, although just inches separated them. His brain felt soft as dough, he felt as if thousands of heated hooks were stuck in his head.

The Cube stood in its previous place over the corals and shone with the active bright blue light that they saw around it, when it was first discovered.

The diaphragm had contracted to a small dot, surrounded by a flaming circle of twinkling light.

The portal in time was opening.

Ivanov could barely separate his hand from his body and pulled the big handle of the control board. The figures on the blue screen started a countdown:

10, 9, 8, 7, 6…

The Cube started vibrating vigorously, and the loop was losing its outlines. Then it lifted from the floor, seeming lighter than air.

…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.

Bio analysis room, last day, 2:31 p.m.

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.

A shot blasted and Norman fell abruptly on the floor. “What the hell are you doing, have you gone mad?! What are you doing, for god’s sake?!” Marcela was shouting hysterically at Babyface, who bent over the dead body and took the goggles off.

The bloodred pupils shone even after death as hot embers.

Babyface leaned and took out the M11 from the double’s belt, handing it to Michael with its handle forward. The young man hesitated, looked at Marcela and Hans, then took it awkwardly and started examining it.

“Whoa, be careful, this is not a toy! Have you ever practiced shooting?”

“Yeah, once, last year. Me and Mary Ann went to an amusement park in Miami, there was an enormous shooting gallery and I won for her a stuffed dinosaur.” The memory of that day made him smile.

“Okay, when it gets heated, try to stay behind me and not to shoot, if possible. Except in extreme situation. Understood?”

Outside, 4:13 p.m.

Michael and the Lieutenant were moving slowly, almost glued to the ground. Luckily the weather was bright and sunny, so they could see all the way to the horizon.

However, this also meant that they were easily noticeable too. They were not talking, the Lieutenant giving directions to the young man only with brief gestures. Now he waved to him to follow track. Both men went around the burned ruins of the two domes and reached the remains of the watchtower.

Then they saw the first explosives. They were half-buried in the base of the watchtower. Babyface stopped abruptly and Michael almost fell over him from behind.

The bomb was as big as a stack of cigarettes and perfectly placed under the thick metal column. Exactly on the place where it would cause maximum of material and human damages.

Complete annihilation. The plastic explosive under the base of the tower would fry everything alive at a distance of a mile just a moment after the detonation. The Lieutenant and Michael exchanged glances.

The digital clock was changing the figures inexorably.

00:54:48

00:54:47

00:54:46

00:54:45

The red lamp was blinking at an interval of one second. There were no wires or buttons. Professional work with remote control for activation.

The Lieutenant gestured with his hand for Michael to wait for him there and started crawling forward.

The young man was not particularly happy to remain in the company of that hellish blinking contraption, but just nodded affirmatively.

He looked at his watch every twenty seconds. Almost ten minutes passed and there was no trace of Babyface. Michael started really worrying, he tried to scan the entire place but was rather turning like a steering wheel without being able to focus.

He felt far more confident with the little man next to him and now those ten minutes seemed to him an eternity. He took a relieved breath when he saw the small blond head approaching quickly.

He gave him a sign. They were going back to the bio lab.

There was no trace of Norman.

They approached tentatively and were so near, that they heard Marcela’s and Hans’s voices, talking inside. They huddled behind the remains of one of the Rovers, who had burned to the iron base. But the storm had brought in sand and it was the the perfect cover.

They noticed a low shadow that walked quietly along the main dome, stopped by the small window of the bio lab, and watched the shadows inside.

Suddenly a shot fired that hit the double in his left thigh. His body did not react, no cry of pain or surprise was heard, it just turned to them.

Mike was aiming at the shadow. The double ducked and managed to avoid the shot. The student was pouring a raging rain of bullets at the small silhouette. He was absolutely sure that he hit him at least three times in the back, the chest and the legs, but the creature seemed to feel no pain and continued running fast towards the fence. Babyface shouted:

“What are you doing, for god’s sake, we have no more bullets, stop shooting!” The Lieutenant ran after his own double with surprising speed.

The creature made a sharp stop and started in the other direction, while the Lieutenant lost his balance and could hardly twist his body.

“Fuck you, nasty freak!” he cried loudly, feeling that he was outrun.

The double turned his head to see where the shouts were coming from and did not notice the body in front of him. He stumbled and fell to the ground. This momentarily devoid him of his advance and turned the tables in favor of Babyface who with a lion jump threw himself against his back.

He managed to pin him to the ground, then, quick as a lightening, took out the huge knife from his belt and dug it in the double’s neck.

He was trying to cut his head but the double’s tissues were resisting under the knife, unnaturally wiry and stubborn. He cut the front part of the neck, the wind pipe and the gullet, while the metal blade touched the hardness of the cervical vertebrae.

He raised his whole body, sweat was pouring from his brow, all the muscular fibers of his short arms were exerted to the limit. He pressed all the weight of his body over the neck bones and in just a second the head separated from the shoulders.

The creature continued fighting as if nothing had happened, while its pale face was tumbling on the side. Its red pupils had occupied all of its eyes and its twisted blue lips were torturing the air like a fish, squirming on the hot sand.

Babyface took a breath, released his hold, then pushed the decapitated body away and left it move chaotically its limbs in the air. It resembled a cut chicken with a carcass, twisting in death convulsions.

He went to the head, pressed the nozzle of the gun to the forehead of his own self, and fired.

The limbs of the headless body dropped dead on the sand.

There was no blood.

The Lieutenant got up, shook off his clothes and asked unperturbedly:

“Mike, how many are left with you? The bullets are precious, there is one more of these fuckers. Alan’s double.” The Lieutenant got up, shook off the sand from his trousers and leaned over the object in which the double had stumbled.

It was Norman’s body.

Babyface put his finger on the carotid artery. He did not feel anything.

“I know, but I believed I could shoot him in the head. I’m sorry, I was carried away”, Michael could not stop excusing himself.

“Okay, Mikey”. The Lieutenant knelt by the body and brushed the face with his palm, closing the eyes. “That’s the Major’s dead body.”

“I’m sorry, Lieutenant”. Michael also knelt by Norman’s body.

“How many more have you left, Mike?”

“Just one.”

“What about the carabines?”

“The carabines are missing.” Mike pointed to the hole in the dome. It was torn and near the ground a big opening gaped.

Bio lab, last day, 6:18 p.m.

“How much fuel have we got left, Hans?” Marcela was sitting in front of the computer but her glance was lingering somewhere away from it.

“For not more than an hour and we have a little for the Rover’s tank. If we manage to fix it at all. Now our life depends on it.”

“Hans, I don’t want us to spend another night here, we are not going to survive.”

“That’s right, but if we go walking through the desert, we are doomed. Better to wait for the night to pass and start early in the morning.”

“We are not going to make it till morning, Hans, what are you talking about? You know we’ll be attacked after the sun sets.”

The door opened abruptly and Michael and the Lieutenant rushed into the room. Babyface was almost breathless.

“Quickly! We must leave now!” He was almost stuttering, being so much in a hurry. “There are explosives everywhere.”

“Lieutenant, calm down, what are you talking about? What explosives?”

“I saw them, they are an entire network, they’ve surrounded the whole Base and can explode at any moment. We have not more than twenty minutes left.”

“Who put them, Lieutenant, did the doubles do it?”

“I rather believe Ivanov started it, looks like a fine job, but then they ‘inherited’ them and put some more. The detonators were with Ivanov the first time when the female double attacked him. They have been missing since then. They can be activated any minute now, I don’t think they’ll wait for the countdown.”

“Yes, having in mind that we kicked their asses hard”, Michael smiled.

“There is one left, Alan’s double, but he’s got the carabines with no less than two hundred bullets”, Babyface said. “If he decides to attack us, we don’t have anything to act against it.”

“My God, we are doomed!” Marcela had directed her eyes at the ceiling.

“Cover the windows with something”, the Lieutenant ordered. “Hans, help me move this cupboard to the door. People, we are barricading in and waiting, Michael, our hopes are on you now, you have to fix the truck real soon.”

“Yes, Sir, I’m going right away, you can rely on me.”

“Lieutenant, give him the last bullet”, she said.

“Now, I think he has too light a finger, and we’ll quickly be left without this weapon.” Babyface’s tone was definitive. “March is there any serum left?”

“Unfortunately, I used the last extract. I need more time for the next batch…”

“How much time?” he interrupted her.

“Two hours at least.”

“That’s too much. Anyway, get on.”

Michael lifted the bag with instruments from the floor and disappeared outside through the door.

“Come on, Hans, push harder.” The Lieutenant was moving the heavy cupboard almost by himself, while the fattish Professor seemed only to be leaning on it on the other side.

Last day, 6:41 p.m.

The door behind the solid cupboard shook.

“Open up!”

“That’s Michael, move the cupboard”, Marcela said. The Lieutenant moved the metal box and opened the door to the young man. The three of them stared at him.

“What are you gaping at me, people, my double was the first one to be killed”, he laughed. “Your truck, ladies and gentlemen, is ready, and is at your noble disposal.”

“Oh, Mike, you are my hero!” Marcela embraced him and kissed his cheek and he stepped back a little embarrassed and red in the face.

“How could you fix it?”

“Well, the tank has two sections, un-upper one and a lower one, which is narrower. The upper one was completely destroyed by the blades, it couldn’t be sealed and would not keep any fuel. But the lower was just a little bended by one hit and was not punctured. I just moved the tube, sucking fuel to a lower level, and now we have a working Rover. True, it cannot run for more than twenty five miles here, in the desert, but if we carry petrol and fill the tank, we can safely reach Al-Farafra oasis.”

“Mike, you are a real treasure, but what can we do with Alan, we can’t leave him.”

“Me and Hans will carry him to the back seat of the truck, we’ll pile up around him blankets and pillows, so that he doesn’t move too much while we’re driving. I think it is possible…”

“I don’t know if he could survive a journey through the desert. He has lost an awful lot of blood and he really needs an operation in a hospital. Here I am helpless, I cannot do anything…”

“Marcela, bandage him the best you can and calm down. You are doing everything in your power.”

Alan seemed to turn in the bed.

“Do you think he can hear us? March, please talk quietly”, Michael whispered.

“He can’t possibly hear, he’s still under sedation. But I’ll soon have to wake him up for the journey. He would better have certain reflexes preserved with all this jostling…”

Bio lab, last day 7:09 p.m.

“How are you, Alan, are you very much in pain?” she asked him gently.

“Only a little”, he lied. Actually, he hurt unbearably and he was counting the seconds to the next opiate infusion.

“It will all pass, my friend”, she tried to console him in an even quieter voice. This was the first time she called him that.

Really, her voice had stronger effect on him than the drug in the IV.

Marcela was tired, exhausted with the struggle, pale with worry, devoid of sleep, disheveled and still so natural and attractive. He could look at her face forever.

“Alan, your forehead is all sweaty. Are you hot?”

“Yes, a little… I’m a bit hot.”

The Lieutenant and Hans prepared a makeshift carrier from a grid that they extracted from the floor. They put a soft blanket over it and attached some leather belts so they could carry the sounded man to the truck.

“Mike, please, bring the car as close to the door as possible”, Marcela said.

“Right. Take more blankets, it’s cold outside at night” Mike said. A blast was heard in the distance. Then another one. Nearer.

“It has begun”, the Lieutenant said. “The double is exploding the nests one after the other, in three minutes he’ll blow us in the air. We better go.”

“But we’d be an easy target there”, Hans said.

A rain of bullets clattered fiercely on the dome, some of them pierced the boards that covered the windows and ricocheted on the floor.

Another explosion.

All the time nearer!

“Hans, Marcela, lie down!” Babyface shouted and pushed Michael on the floor, covering him with his small body. At this moment from the back of the room Alan’s weak voice was heard:

“I’ll help you solve the problem, friends.”

Alan hardly spoke the words, he hurt so much, his strength had almost expired. His voice sounded strangely acquiescent, there was not a trace of the true spirit of Alan.

“We cannot possibly kill him with just one shot, except if he does not come out as an easy target. If we stay here, he’ll blow us up, if we go out, he’ll shoot us”, Hans said, who was lying on the floor.

“Do you believe he would be able to catch up with the Rover?” Michael asked.

“I don’t doubt it”, Hans replied.

“I suggest we go.” Marcela was going all numb with the thought of the creature being so near.

“Who knows if it does not prey on us even now? Don’t forget he is armed heavily enough to wipe out us all.” The Lieutenant was gazing out of the window. The Lieutenant approached the wounded man’s bed.

“Alan, what are you talking, for god’s sake? Save your strength for the journey and don’t speak.”

“We both know I’m not going to survive this journey but at least I can help you get out of here.” Alan reached for the Lieutenant’s belt and with a fast movement dragged out the pistol out of its holster.

“What are you doing, Alan, are you crazy?” the astonished soldier exclaimed.

“I’ll help you get rid of that freak and you wouldn’t have to carry me.” Alan touched the gun to his temple and shot. The bloody brain mass flew all over the place.

Outside, last day, 8:22 p.m.

They stopped the engine, got out of the truck and looked at the distance behind.

Every few minutes the roaring of explosions was heard and gradually all that remained from the Base against the horizon was red glow and smoke.

It was over.

The Base, the submarine, the Cube, all had vanished forever.

“Hey, people, did you notice, the shining is gone”, Michael said.

The desert, last day, 100 miles southeast of Al-Farafra, 11:14 p.m.

Driving in the Rover was hard and rough, but at the same time it was advancing confidently through the sand dunes as if sailing with the wind.

Michael removed his right hand from the steering wheel, turned over his shoulder and shoved the heap under the blanket on the back seat. “Hans, are you sure you returned the Cube back in time?”

“Yes, of course, there is not a trace of it left. It just evaporated like that”, Hans whistled. “Like smoke, like magic…”

“So, you returned it together with the submarine?”, Marcela asked.

“Yes, but the Colonel’s body fell over the controls and everything was mixed up. It smashed exactly on the temporal buttons. The last thing I remember from the interior, when we were attacked, was the date of the final destination. It was blinking brightly on the screen.”

“But it was supposed to be in 9861, the year the Russians took it before…” Michael said.

“What did the board say, Hans? Where did you send it?” Marcela’s head was almost between them.

Hans was quiet for some time, looked at Michael, then lowered his eyes, sighed and replied quietly: “22.08.2018.”

AUTHOR’S NOTE

One of my most hateful subjects at school was Literature, immediately followed in this dark list by Physics and Mathematics. Naturally, at the Medical University we were not studying these subjects at all. Therefore, it is quite surprising that I started writing books, the themes of which tackle Mathematics and Physics.

I say I hated them but the truth is I adored these subjects! I was all burning inside while digging in Asimov, Lem, Strugatsky brothers, Crighton, Hawking. But at school I found the lessons endless and boring. I was amazed how the same subject matter could feverishly inspire my teenage mind and make me sleepy in class.

For years I had been wondering why I received such undesired marks especially in the fields I loved best. Only after some time I realized that the methods of teaching were hopelessly outdated and were neither interesting, nor effective. The repetition of dusty scientific doctrines at the dawn of the new millennium is not only dull but dangerously inadequate to the present times.

Even more so to the future.

I believe we need to stimulate our children to think, rather than cram lessons in their heads. To create with inspiration and intellect rather than copy. And most of all we need to allow them the freedom to feel and have dreams.

In this particular way most of the quasi-scientific theories in this book are emotional and untrue. They were mostly born by the writer’s imagination and not so much by his limited and not always lucid mind. You will not find them in any textbook, but if they made you think or even better – laugh here and there, then this book has realized its purpose.

If you are a teacher, ask your students; if you are a parent, ask your children if they do not have their own opinion on a certain matter. Talk to them in a friendly way and let them teach you. Give them the opportunity to speak. Learn how to listen. You might be surprised how talented, clever and different their reasoning might be. And how much you can learn from them.

And who knows, you student or son might be the next Columbus or Einstein.

He might discover not just a new continent, but new galaxies. He might not just describe time and space but master and control them.

All through my life I have much more wanted to write than to be read. I suppose if the opposite was true, you would not hold that book in your hands and reach its frank end.

February 2018

Copyright

© Alex Gore

ISBN: 978-619-230-033-3

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission from the author.

Content

Alex Gore
THE CUBE

PART ONE: THE SHINING

PART TWO: THE SHIP

PART THREE: THE MUSIC

PART FOUR: THE EVIL

PART FIVE: THE DEATH

AUTHOR’S NOTE

Copyright