Whereabouts

All over the cracked ground were chunks of meat and dried blood. The body cavity had been ripped open, sunlight playing against the inside of a ribcage, a fly buzzing here and there. She was dead. Two men stood over the body smoking cigars.
"Who do you think did this then Pete?"
"Who? I was reckoning a bear or mountain cat did this."
"When you ever seen a mountain cat around here? Besides, an animal would have eaten most of her. This was the work of a man."
"You think? I never saw anything like this done by a man."
"You were in the war, right?"
"Yes sheriff. I was in the ninety ninth infantry."
"The front line eh? I never saw anything like that, we mostly followed the front line, clearing out areas, opening supply-lines, that sorta stuff. I remember one time we came across this little village, no Germans about, but there were a few folk still there. Anyway, turned out one of 'em was crazy. One night he'd taken a knife to his family, then his neighbours, moving from house to house. And what he did to 'em looked a lot like this." said the sheriff, looking down at the body.
"What happened to him?" said Pete.
"The man? We hung him." said the sheriff before turning around and going back to his car. The birds sang in the forest around them, the morning was warm and hinted that it was going to be another hot day. "Send an ambulance up here to pick up the body, then I want you to look round and gather evidence, see if she had a purse or something. I'll meet you back at the station later."
"Where you going sheriff?"
"Gonna go question the guy at the gas station down the road, see if he'd seen anything."

An hour or so later the sheriff got back to town, though he'd stopped on the way for some onion rings. He was still wiping his fingers clean when he stepped into the station.
"We not got the air conditioning fixed yet?"
"Yeah, I just thought I wouldn't turn it on."
"Smart ass." said the sheriff. Louise went back to her crossword as Pulaski walked to his office and cracked open the window. It was still outside, quiet. He thought about buying a new fan for his office, but wasn't sure where he'd put it. His desk was thick with papers, some of the ones on the bottom had started yellowing slightly. Not that the sheriff was particularly busy, it just suited him to have access to all his paperwork at once. And the newest addition to this system was a witness statement about the discovery of the body up in the hills. He read through it quickly. Anna Bradley, seventeen, found by a hiker that morning, apparently he scared something off and it ran away into the forests that surrounded the town. There was also an envelope containing black and white crime scene photographs. Something savage had happened to Anna. Severe cuts across the legs and face, you could see the bone in one cut along her forearm. She'd been gutted, some of the organs missing though the intestines were mostly intact. There also looked to be bite marks in places, though he couldn't tell exactly what had made them. Just as Pulaski put the photographs back into the envelope Pete knocked on the door and let himself in.
"Any luck?"
"I couldn't find anything."
"Not even tracks?"
"Grounds dry sheriff, and I was never much of a tracker. Maybe if we take a few dogs up there?"
"Forget it. Where's Mike and Jake?"
"Mike's over at the Bradley house talking to the parents and Jake's doing his patrol." said Pete, sitting down across from the sheriff.
"Louise, could you radio Jake and tell him to come down here?" Pulaski shouted out from his office.
"Okay!"
"Any luck at the gas station?"
"Nope. And there coffee is atrocious. No, looks like we're going to have to do some old fashioned detective work on this one. I want you to go to the school and ask her teachers who her friends were, who she was dating, that kinda thing. When you find out who, I want you and Jake to go talk to them. Try and not let on she's dead, eh?"
"Okay sheriff."
"I'm going to go to back to the crime scene, have a look around for myself." he said, nodding at Pete. Pulaski sat in his car and looked up at the hills that surrounded the town. Acres of colours, green and brown, still beneath the summer sky that cracked cloudless overhead. Somewhere out there was a killer capable of such brutal violence that the sheriff hoped that they were obviously insane. Because if not it meant they could blend in, be anybody, pretend normal. The sheriff picked his cigar from the ashtray and re-lit it before turning the ignition.

The doctor pulled back the sheet to reveal the body, then began to pace backwards and forwards.
"At first glance this looks like an animal kill. We've had a few over the years."
"I know."
"Exactly. So you know that this must be the work of a man. How deliberate it is, almost ritualistic. There's relatively little damage on the arms and legs, though our killer showed a great interest in the genitals and face."
"What about the organs? I thought I saw bite marks."
"Right again sheriff. It seems our boy has cannibalistic tendencies." said the doctor, pointing out crescent rings of teeth imprints. "Thing is, there are two sets of canine teeth. Not only that but they must be huge."
"How did he actually do it?"
"From what I can tell she was first attacked around the throat, exsanguination followed quickly. Though she defended herself beforehand, hence the cuts on her forearms. I can't see any kind of clean cuts on the torso, I'm guessing he must have used either a bluntish instrument or his bare hands."
"Jesus Christ." said the sheriff. "Is that even possible?"
"Anything's possible sheriff. I've been the doctor in this town coming up thirty seven years, I've seen some strange things in my time. Though this...nothing like this. Have the Bradley's been told?"
"Mike's over there now."
"Good. Such a shame, she was a bright girl, kind to. God rest her soul." said the doctor. He looked down at the body momentarily and stopped pacing.
"You said our man has two sets of canine teeth. Any chance he's wearing fake teeth?"
"Could be sheriff. I never seen any record of it happening naturally." said the doctor. He bent down slightly, his knees cracking as he did so. "Look here, at the left lung. I'd say the teeth must be pretty darn big."
"Well, I don't think there's any werewolves in our town." said the sheriff. He looked around the morgue, the dozen polished steel doors behind him reflected his beige uniform slightly, as if seeing himself through a metallic fog.
"Sheriff, could you pass me some tweezers?" said the doctor. Pulaski turned around and saw the doctor was leaning close to the body, his face hovering just a few inches from the cold flesh with a magnifying glass in one hand.
"Seen something doc?" said Pulaski, handing over the tool. The doctor carefully moved the miniature tongs forward and clasped at something before gently teasing it out from a wound.
"Come here sheriff." he said. The sheriff walked around the table and looked through the magnifying glass. A long, thick, black hair, encrusted in blood. "Looks like our killer needs a haircut."

Pulaski drove back up into the hills and looked around the crime scene for a while, the sun was beginning it's slow dive off in the west. On a clear day you could perhaps just make out the ocean if you were up high enough, though Pulaski was looking closer to the ground. He could track most animals that lived in the forests around the town and saw that several different species as well as a few of his officers had worn away any track that may lead to the killer. He cursed under his breath and rooted around in his pocket for his tobacco tin. He pulled out a brown cigarette and lit it as he began to drive higher up into the hills. Few people lived so far away from town, but most of them kept themselves to themselves. Old families that had lived in the hills for generations, a couple of people preferring the solitude the rural living provided them and a few odd ones. The sheriff knew most of the hill people, though they usually weren't that welcoming. He drove past an old man following the edge of the road, he held a dead raccoon in one hand and a short bow in the other, a few arrows he'd made himself dangled in a rope loop he wore round one leg. On the forest went, some areas deeper in began to grow dark. He knocked on the doors of a few cabins, came across a camp site and was beginning to make his way back towards the town. None of the people he came across seemed suspicious to him, nobody had seen anything. A dead end. He guided the car through the failing light and came across an old house with the lights on. He had thought this had been abandoned, yet it looked as if somebody had moved in. He parked in the drive and got out, looking around at the overgrown weeds amongst what would have been the front yard. The house itself was rather big, perhaps one of the biggest in town. He remembered his dad telling him at been home to somebody who'd gotten rich from prospecting in the south, though once he'd died the house hadn't been lived in since. It must have cost quite a lot of money back then, the workmanship good enough that the house hadn't fallen into complete disrepair in the last thirty years. It also looked like somebody had been renovating it, curtains were drawn behind every one of the new windows. A high fence had also been erected around the back. Pulaski went up to the door and knocked a few times. He heard footsteps inside and a few locks clicking and the door opened.

The man who answered the door was a good deal shorter than the sheriff. Beneath thick eyebrows that joined above a broken nose was a tired face, skin mottled red and a small beard, marked pink in places with small scars. He wore a red waistcoast and a grey suit, maybe once it had been expensive but now looked shabby and worn.
"Can I help you?" he said, his voice sounding thick and french.
"My name's sheriff Pulaski, I was just wondering if I could ask you a few questions?"
"Sheriff? I'm not in trouble am I?"
"Just a few questions. Where were you last night?"
"I was in my home."
"You see or hear anything odd?"
"Odd sheriff? I live in the forest, you hear a lot of odd things up here."
"Yeah, you do, don't you? You know, I don't think we've met. Can I ask your name?"
"Nicholas Vineur. I moved here just before the war, saw that things may get a little uncivilized, don't you see? As well, myself, I am not much of a soldier." he said and held up his hand. It was made of wood.
"What was it you did in France?"
"I was a professor at the university of Strasbourg."
"How does a professor lose his hand?"
"Ah, I taught chemistry. Accidents happen."
"That's too bad. My brother lost a few fingers though he worked in a saw mill. Still doesn't stop him from picking his ears though. You live alone here Nicholas?"
"It is just me and my dogs sheriff."
"Dogs?" said the sheriff.
"Yes, come see them if you like."

The sheriff walked through the house lead by the little man. Everything inside was shades of brown, a few oil burners were lit here and there. There was a stale sort of smell in the air, sweat and alcohol. A dark book shelf dominated one wall, filled with at least two hundred or so leather bound books. They entered a kitchen, the remaining daylight played through dusty windows onto the green tiles that surrounded them.
"You like dogs sheriff?"
"Sure, had a few in my time. Work dogs mostly." said the sheriff, looking out into the yard. In the corner was a large kennel, the only thing in the yard besides the two huge mastiffs that paced around with their thick heads bent low towards the dirt.
"I've always been interested in them, I got my first dog when I was just a tot."
"You go hunting with these dogs?" said the sheriff, glancing at Vineur.
"No, no. These are here for company. They may look intimidating and I hope that that will be enough to scare anyway any thieves and other miscreants, but otherwise they are more like kittens than hounds." said Vineur. He went over to a stone cabinet set towards the floor and opened it, revealing several parcels of meat.
"Dinner time?"
"For the dogs, yes. Is there anything else I can help you with sheriff?"
"Not right now. Thanks for showing me around."
"Not at all sheriff, the pleasure's all mine. Let me see you out." said Vineur. The two men walked through the front door, the sheriff nodded at a horse box parked at the front.
"You keep horses?"
"I use it to transport slaughtered cows here. The boys do eat a lot."
"Yeah, mine to. See you around Nicky." said the sheriff before getting into his car and set off back towards the town.

The sheriff walked into the station, his three deputies were sitting around with the last of the day's sunlight coming in through the dusty windows making it all look like a sepia toned photo. Pete and Jake looked up.
"Where's Louise?" said the sheriff.
"She went home, needed to look after Jack Jnr."
"Okay. Anybody have any luck with finding the culprit?" said Pulaski. Pete glanced to Jake before stepping forward.
"Sheriff, how do we know a bear didn't do this?"
"I spoke to the doc, he said there were...human teeth marks."
"So who we looking for? Bela Lugosi?" said Jake.
"Nah, Lon Chaney played the wolfman. I caught it at a drive-in up in Portland." said Pete.
"You had any luck with the friends?"
"Nope. Nobody saw anything. We haven't found the boyfriend yet though."
"Well, go and look for him then." said the sheriff. Jake and Pete paused momentarily, unsure if Pulaski meant it. He nodded them on before going over to the reception desk and taking a few peanuts out from the top drawer. He cracked one open and began to eat it before looking at Mike, leant by the coffee machine as he did every day. Hated sitting down.
"And you Mike...what've you been doing all day?"
"Well I was looking after the town, there was a fight in O'Sullivan's, some girls were smoking cigarettes at the cemetery and a car broke Kyle Goldstein's arm when the jack broke."
"So all that's been done now? Are you ready to hunt down a murderer?"
"Yes Sheriff."
"Thanks. Well, looks like the only lead is this boyfriend. Go and help the other two, they'll probably need it. Meanwhile, I'll be waiting here, doing Louise's job." said the sheriff, sitting down and taking more peanuts out for himself.

The sheriff sat alone, listening in now and then through the police radio at brief updates from the three men he'd sent out. He could count on them to break up fights at the local bar or catch people speeding, but they didn't have too much experience in solving murders. Neither did the sheriff at that. He went back into Louise's drawer for some more peanuts and found he'd eaten them all, he checked his watch. The store wasn't due to shut for another fifteen minutes. He was just about to go when a teenager walked in. He had big shoulders and his hair was a little longer than a lot of the other boys around town, but the sheriff thought he recognized him from the local football team.
"Can I help you son?"
"Hello sir. I'm Anna's boyfriend."
"Yeah? And why've you come here?" said the sheriff, getting up slowly. His revolver rested in his belt holster reassuringly, nine times out of ten the victims of violent crimes knew their attacker.
"I heard you been looking for me, so I came in."
"What did you say your name was?"
"Brad Whittle. I'd have come in earlier sir but I was out by the lake, only heard the news an hour ago." said Brad. His voice wavered slightly, the sheriff could see he was trying to keep himself together.
"Sit down Brad. I've had my deputies out looking for you, y'know? Good of you to come in. Now, can you tell me what you were doing last night?"
"That's the thing sheriff, I was with Anna last night. We were going to go up to Peak Top and...look around. Anyway, we had a bit of an argument, she got real sore at me so she left."
"Most kids who go up to Peak Top don't go to look around. What happen? She say no? You get angry?"
"It was the other way round sheriff, honest!" said Brad. One of his eyes had a tear building up above his lower lid, it danced up and down his pupil like a little bead of glass.
"Well, look at it from my perspective. You were the last one to see her alive. You're a big guy, maybe you got a temper on you, I don't know. So what happened?"
"We were going to go up there to...make love, yeah. But I chickened out. I didn't want her to get pregnant, I wanna go to college in the fall. So we argued and she left, that was it sheriff. I drove back home and got in by ten, you can ask my old man."
"So you abandoned a teenage girl in the woods?"
"No, no, I thought it'd be safe, see? None of us had seen that weird guy for months."
"Which guy?" said the sheriff.
"You know, the guy from the asylum." said Brad. The sheriff frowned and tilted his head. "Okay, there's this guy who lives up in the woods, nobody ever saw him up close, but he's up there alright, especially round Peak Top. Anyway, this guy just stands there, watching us, we leave him alone because we thought he might just be some bum or something, you know?"
"Yeah."
"Anyway, one day little Eddie Spivek's brother came to town, the guy used to be a orderly at the loony bin upstate, he don't talk about it much but he's a good guy. So anyway we decide to go up into the woods and go camping or something you know, the weather's been good and just as we were settling down to start a fire we see this bum again standing in the woods. We ignore him like usual but Jessie Spivek freezes, acts like he's seen a ghost. Says that he recognizes the guy from the asylum, he say's he was pretty crazy even amongst the other crazies. Guy used to have to wear a mask to stop him from biting other people."
"You know which asylum it was he worked at?"
"Can't remember sheriff, but it was upstate."
"You remember anything else this Jessie Spivek said?"
"Yeah, apparently this guy...well Jessie didn't know exactly why this guy was in in the first place, but there was rumours this guy was nuts. Killed and ate his own mother. His papa didn't get off lightly either, lost a hand" said Brad.
"The man's papa only had one hand?" said the sheriff.

The sheriff's car drifted through the forest with Pulaski and Pete sat inside, both lit from below with a strange green light. Sweat daubed both brows, faces still as they stared at the road ahead. White lines raced, eaten by headlights, each second bringing them closer to the house of the professor. Both of the men had been soldiers and felt they could see no worse than what they already seen. The sheriff joked with his deputy about bogey men and the sasquatch. After a few minutes they arrived. They got out and looked at the dark windows of the house, it didn't look like anybody was in. They walked up to the door and knocked, immediately followed by loud barking from the mastiff's in the back.
"Doctor Vineur! It's the sheriff. Open up." A light came on somewhere and they heard the shuffling of slippered feet. The door opened.
"Yes?"
"Vineur, I've got a warrant here to search your premises. Please step aside." said the sheriff, handing over a piece of paper before pushing through the small gap in the door.
"Excuse me, excuse me monsieur, but I insist that you return in the morning." said Vineur.
"I don't need an invitation, I'm here with a court order. We have reason to believe there is another person living here, we'd like to see him."
"No, there is nobody else here."
"I called Dammasch State Hospital. I know about your son."
"My son's not here, nobody is. Please could you leave?" said Vineur. The dogs continued barking.
"Pete, check the house. If Mr. Vineur tries to stop you, arrest him." said Pulaski.
"You got it sheriff!" said Pete. Vineur watched the deputy begin walking upstairs.
"Tell me about your son."
"John? He's a troubled boy."

"How about I go look in those kennels out there?"
"Sheriff, my dogs are awake and aren't as friendly as I may have previously stated."
"Well you better go and rope them dogs up, because I want to look in the kennel." said Pulaski. Vineur looked confused for a moment before nodding, walking off towards the kitchen. The sheriff was left in the living room, listening to the sounds of Pete's footsteps as he searched upstairs, the dogs continuing to bark at the back. It was still hot, even in the night. The sheriff waited.
"Come this way then sheriff." said Vineur, appearing at the door. He lead the way into the back, the dogs now crouching and growling with thick chains through loops in their collars holding them in the centre of the yard watching them walk by the fence.
"Why aren't they in their kennel?"
"Because they're animals sheriff. Who am I to tell them this or that?" said Vineur. The kennel was about seven feet tall, a box made of wood painted in thick red enamel. The sheriff took out his flashlight and pointed it at the doorway of the dog's house.
"You going to look inside sheriff?" said Vineur.
"Yeah." said the sheriff. He crouched down and began to crawl towards the entrance, flashing the torch around in front of him. The floor was made of concrete and the whole thing stunk of hair and grease and shit and warm and animal. Inside the house a gun was fired. The sound of it cracking in the night made the sheriff spin to face it's source, he saw Vineur running towards the house. The dogs had leapt back up and were barking throatily, spit gathering at the mouths that snapped open and shut as they leapt towards him, fully extended they were almost as big as a man. The sheriff took out his revolver and began to run through the yard, dodging a mouth going for his elbow. Pulaski got into the house and pointed the gun in front of him as he walked.
"Pete?" he shouted. The only sound were the footsteps of Vineur as he ran upstairs. The sheriff followed, finding himself walking through a dark corridor. There were five doors and all were shut. The sheriff flicked the light on and listened carefully, walking forward to check the first door. But before he could reach it the door opposite it banged open. Standing in the doorway was John Vineur. A man shape as intimidating at it was horrific. He was a good seven feet tall, with this long, thin hair dangling off his naked body. It wasn't quite right, muscles were overdeveloped in some areas whilst others looked thin and malnutritioned. His head was a fat lump of bone and fat with the face of a child. Before the sheriff could spin around the strange son knocked the pistol away with a howl. It went off and blasted a hole in the wooden floorboards, the smell of gunpowder filled the air. The blood was coming from the hide of John Vineur, gore ran down his front and from his screaming mouth, each sharp, deformed tooth coated in red, poking out from diseased gum. It was all the sheriff could look at as the man threw himself forward, gripping the sheriff with powerful hands about the shoulders. Pulaski crouched down before fully extending his legs, pushing with everything he had at his attacker. In the army he'd been disciplined multiple times for brawling. He'd been on the boxing team at high school. And his dad had been a drunk. Pulaski and the creature fell back into the room it had just come from, the sheriff throwing punches and swinging elbows at the thing's head. It wasn't like any man Pulaski had ever fought, nor was the way this fight was going. John Vineur fought with the strength and ferocity of a wild thing, not throwing punches as kicks as much as a constant attack with his whole body. The sheriff quickly found they were rolling in thick, sticky blood and his mind barely registered the dead body of his deputy crumpled in the corner, the shadows hiding his features. But Pulaski was fighting for his life and hadn't time to properly process what was happening entirely. He rolled around on his back, kicking out his feet so that he slowly moved backwards, the thing clawing at him, snapping at his arms. He stood up over Pulaski momentarily only to bring both fists smashing down onto his forehead. Everything seemed to be white for a moment, he forgot what he was doing. There was the face, jaws stretched open wide and the spit and the breath coming out smelling of blood and damp leaves. Pulaski slipped on the floor, skidding an arm upwards. He needed the gun. The sheriff brought a foot up and kicked back at the creature. His hands wrapped round something metal, heavy. He brought up the pistol and pointed it at the middle of his attacker's body and started pulling the trigger. John Vineur moved quickly, flexing out of the way like a cat dodging cold water. Though two bullets had still run through his shoulder, leaving exit wounds like thumbs glistening in the hallway light thrown from behind. The man screamed and bounded away, using all four limbs to propel himself to safety and leaving the sheriff and his deputy in the room, dazed. Pulaski edged his way into the hallway, pointing the pistol forward. He knelt and picked up his other gun and holstered it before walking towards the staircase. The sheriff moved through the living room as if in a dream. There was no sign of either of the Vineur's, though the dogs kept barking in the yard. The sheriff looked down at some splats of blood leading out of the front of the house. Nicholas Vineur was probably still in the house and the sheriff could find him easily. But the one who'd escaped had killed his deputy and most likely murdered Ms. Bradley. The sheriff went out into the night.

The man made his way through the forest as his ancient ancestors had, the animal inside him guiding him between the trunks of the trees that surrounded him like pillars holding up bunches of black and blue leaves. He stopped now and again and listened to the sounds of the night, the toads and owls, the distant shaking of grass, the ground breathing. Only a minute or so had passed since he left the house yet it had seemed to him as if there was no time. Each second could have been a millenia. He hadn't felt dread since the war, now it crawled on the underside of his skull and plunged white hot irons into his adrenal glands. Blood shone in the night like black jelly. He continued to hunt, gun pointing forward, his eyes turning big resembling that of the jungle cat. Somewhere in the night he heard breathing. Then footsteps began to slap against the ground, pat pat pat pat. He raised the gun and fired blindly, the muzzle flash illuminating the forest for a moment as the bullet zipped onwards and smashed into a tree. The footsteps continued, faster now. They were going from the sheriff's right to his left, the sheriff fired off another shot that zipped away through the leaves. It missed. The sheriff began to run after the murderer, sticks hitting at his shins and his feet finding their way perfectly across the dead leaves and dry mud. The moon was low on the horizon and shone weakly through the branches, giving the man glimpses of the thing he was chasing.
"Stop!" the sheriff shouted. Each breath burned his lungs, the blood and sweat wet his back cool. He came to a dead stop, took his gun up and fired. There was a scream. The sheriff ran into the darkness, looking for the one he’d been hunting. He could hear heavy breathing in the bushes around him. If only it wasn’t the night. The sheriff decided that it was silly to be chasing the suspect like this. He had no backup, no more bullets and it was pitch black. He turned around, walked back to his car, drove home, made himself a cup of coffee and sat in bed reading comics and jacking off.

New World

The archipelagos radiated nothing loudly, the noise of existence seemed to smother the air, down and heavy. Apprehension, a curdled heart thumps behind the lungs like some fetal sea creature. An albatross clutches a snake in it's beak, it squirms in the air to try and bite the bird but can't quite reach. The conquistador wiped his brow and lead his men up from the beach along a rocky path. As the thin legs of the horses struggled to find footing on the dirt and the stones he looked up at the cliff. A sheer face where nothing could grow. The path lead up through boulders and followed the line of the rising sun as the Spanish explorers ventured deeper into the new country, the sounds of the forest waking lay ahead of them with all it's new strangeness.
The horses drank from a stream that ran through a cluster of trees just on the edge of the plain. Though on the horizon a great desert stretched. The two leaders of the expedition talked amongst each other and decided to send out a group of the men to forage for food. These men went out into the wilderness and weren't seen from again. Still they went out towards the desert. A holy man and a duke. Soldiers rode on horseback dressed finely, an open-top cart that carried the sick was pulled by two great stallions behind the troupe. Behind that was a cannon tugged by a mule, half blind and with it's neck wrapped with a red scarf. The parade crossed the plains, the tough grass seemed to grow like dreaded hair, bunched up amongst weeds and the crumbling droppings of some indigenous animal. The desert waited, a void made of sand and stone.
Piles of rock through the dirt, the sides smooth with the sand blowing on the hot breeze. The scouts appeared above the heat haze cantering seemingly in the sky. They said that the desert seemed to go on with no signs of natives. The duke nodded at the priest and gave the order for the men to advance. Riding steadily towards the dunes some soldiers began to shed the heavy armour they each wore, steel breast-plates that glinting in the sun, hot as cooking pots. When they reached a cliff face the men rested the horses in the shade and smoked cigars. The priest stood in the sun, rubbing a glove through his grey hair as he surveyed the wall. He ordered a boy to climb up the rock and watched the skinny lad begin to make his way upward. The soldiers went quiet as the boy got higher and higher off the ground, grasping with his bare hands at the dry, sandy lumps that stuck out from the face. As he went up the duke walked over by the priest and clicked his teeth. They spoke about the horses being pulled up the face by ropes when the boy fell. Tumbling down, quickly, his limbs flailing about like that of a doll til he landed, sprawled on the rocks, his expressionless face gazing at the cloudless sky as if nothing had happened. One of the soldiers went over to the body and took him over towards the sand. The soldier started digging with his breast-plate and the boy was put to rest with a prayer given by the priest. They left behind the unmarked grave and set about trying to find a way out of the desert.
They made small fires at night and sat about them quietly, listening to the sounds of far off coyotes and the shrieking of nocturnal birds. When morning came it was found that a few of the men had abandoned the conquistadors, their tracks leading east. The duke ordered a few of his men to hunt them down. With the horses thirsty they set off, following the rocks until they came across a steep path that lead to more wilderness. Just a few miles away they could see a large village amongst some scratchy trees, behind that were stretches of dirt and grassland leading towards blue mountains. The duke and the priest watched as distant figures approached. The warriors were dressed in pelts that streamed behind them as they ran across the terrain, each carried a heavy club studded in sharp flint. The conquistadors began to load the long rifles. A lot were unfamiliar with firearms so many of the first round of shots went wide. The air was thick with smoke and when it cleared the duke saw that they had only hit a few of the advancing warriors. One or two had begun to retreat and the duke ordered a charge. The horses thundered forward, swords shone white in the air as the soldiers readied themselves for the first encounter with the countries people. Quite a few of the warriors went down at this first charge, clutching at fatal wounds that dripped bloody viscera onto the dirt. A warrior had managed an attack, his club breaking the muzzle off a horse's skull. The rider had his ribs broken and the warrior was about to set upon him but was shot through the chest. They chased down the remaining warriors and advanced towards the village, the injured soldier slouching on the mule. Almost a hundred villagers stood in the centre of the town around a statue of one of their Gods. The leader of the village stepped forward, taller than the rest. He began to speak but the priest shot him. The soldiers all opened fire again, this time every shot hit somebody. Some villagers ran, some attacked, some just stood. After an hour the only people left alive in the village were the conquistadors. Bodies were left where they had fallen and the streets were red with blood. The soldiers raided the village and each now had some kind of native jewelry or precious thing. Some had decorated themselves with feathers from exotic birds or painted themselves in blood that was already beginning to turn brown and harden in the sun. The duke and the priest sat in what had been a temple and ordered some of the boys to bring food which they ate and discussed what they would do next.
The soldiers rode towards the mountains. A few had been killed at the village and their horses were now lead at the rear of the company. Some coyotes ran in the distance. The whole place reminded the duke of home in some way, though he wasn't sure why. It seemed there was some kind of representation of Barcelona hidden in the landscape that only he could see, the stones could be buildings, the animals as the people. He wasn't sure where the natives fit in his metaphor. As the mountains loomed closer the soldiers set up camp by a murky pond amidst a group of trees. They drank the water and went about cooking the little food they had left with some of the soldiers leaving to hunt. The duke and the priest discussed travelling through mountains and as the sun was beginning to dip red on the horizon the hunters returned with a few monkeys and a tapir. The skins were saved and worn by some of the soldiers as they laughed and talked amongst themselves about the battle at the village. A horse galloped in the darkness. It was a soldier from the party that had been sent out that morning to hunt for the deserters. He told the conquistador's that they had traveled across the desert when they were attacked by native warriors. He had only escaped by sheer luck. Greeted warmly, the survivor was sat by the biggest fire and passed one of the last bottles of rum. Out in the darkness waited Aztecs, the tiny spots of the fire reflecting wetly in their eyes. They quietly stalked across the plain, the grass wetting up to the ankles. As the soldiers got drunk and began to sleep the warriors quickly made there way up towards the pond, crawling low on all fours as if gathering crops. They looked down at the strangely dressed men, silently stepping between them as they dreamt of home. Clubs struck the sleeping heads of the soldiers, again and again before the night watch began to shout and fire the long rifles. The back of a warrior's head exploded beneath a feather head-dress as if a flower had suddenly blossomed from his scalp, he fell onto a soldier. In the confusion as the soldiers woke, the warriors ran back out into the black night as quickly as they had arrived.
They didn't sleep for the rest of the night and when the sun began to rise they travelled towards the mountains. Almost a quarter of the people they had sailed with across the ocean were now dead or missing. The cart for the sick broke a wheel and it was decided that the men would ride. Butchered soldiers jerked around on the saddles like marionettes. One had a swollen face and loose teeth, his arms shaking as he clutched at the horses neck that was slippery with sweat in the morning sun. The priest rode alongside a captain that had needed an arm amputated. Flies buzzed around him, causing the horse to keep flicking it's head regular. The two men had a conversation about suffering, the captain asked about the difference between life and hell. The priest didn't believe in hell. The duke was riding a little ahead of the conquistador's, two rifles strapped to each thigh and a steel saber fastened on his back. He smoked a cigar and watched the land around him, studying it in intense detail for any sign of Aztecs. Just as the sun reached it's highest point in the sky the conquistador's came across a little hut made from hay and stone. Out from the door ran a man, showing his hands. He could speak Spanish and told them there was a man like themselves over in the settlement at the top of one of the mountains. The priest rode up and asked the man if he was a Christian and the man shook his head. The priest asked him if he wanted to be baptised and the man shook his head. The priest ordered some soldiers to raid the house and they brought out his wife and his sons, none of them spoke Spanish. Flies buzzed around the soldiers, a black cloud. Open wounds, jewellery, dried blood, dull armour sagging on the bodies. Tired faces raw with sunburn watched the duke and the priest discuss what they would do with the family, the soldiers had become disinterested in the decision. A soldier wearing a coyote's pelt said they should take them as slaves. The one-armed captain agreed and ordered a few soldiers to tie up the family. The Aztec man began to shout, though the priest hushed him. He told him that Christians couldn't be taken as slaves and that if he agreed to be baptised alongside his family that they could go forth and spread the word of the one true god. The man agreed and they were baptised. Then his wife was taken and the conquistador's rode away.
They rode the horses until one of the weaker one's collapsed into the grass. It was ordered that a fire be set up and that the horse would be eaten. The duke went for a walk as the men began to collect wood, watching the horizon with bloodshot eyes beneath his thick brow. His moustache was still well kept though stubble coloured his face slate. Off by a rocky plateau fringed in weeds was a little cave which the duke walked up to. Inside a huge snake rested in the shade. A fat green body curled around itself like an intestine, with no head to be seen. The duke was fascinated. Off in the distance rain clouds gathered by the mountains.
The horse meat was good, it gave everyone a slight lift in spirits just as the rain began to fall. The woman they had taken was crouched in the dirt gnawing on a piece of gristle. She was covered in bruises. The conquistador's marched on towards the mountain and the rain passed. Hooves sank into mud, slowing down the troupe that were each nodding occasionally as sleep began to creep. But the duke kept the pace with the priest next to him. They talked about the journey across the ocean, they had lost a few of the ships one night. They sank into the waves and the men bobbed up and down before disappearing themselves. Some of the greatest men in all of Spain had drowned and the duke watched from the deck whilst the priest was read to in his cabin by one of the boys he had brought along. He had promised to teach them of Christianity and of the new country so that they could become powerful men. One of his boys rode up alongside the leaders of the party and said one of the men had died whilst riding. They piled rocks on the body quickly and rode on.
They managed to rest during the night and the morning after the adventurers began to ascend the first of the mountains. Cactus grew amongst the crags that scarred the ground. A few goats were killed and carried on the back of horses although the flies set to them straight away. The captain's horse lost it's footing and they both slid on the pebbles down the mountain. Once they had come to a stop the captain left his horse struggling on the ground and walked back up towards the soldiers. He took a dead man's horse and pushed it forward. He talked to the man riding the stallion pulling the cannon, the animal that had been dragging it before and it's rider were dead. The soldier on the stallion was young, no scars or hair on his face besides the thin brows above his large eyes. He was from Portugal and had joined the army to send the money back home to his family. The Portugese soldier talked to the captain about the woman they had taken and then they both laughed. On they went, further and further until they came across a path that lead to the settlement and they were all told to stop on a ridge overlooking the settlement. Rows of houses made of stone and straw, people making their way down the dusty roads. The Portugese soldier was ordered to set up the cannon on a hill and it opened fire. Air shook at the explosion, it sent the huge cannon bouncing backwards as the blast echoed across the mountains. The shot thundered through the air and went through several buildings before resting in a shallow crater. Whilst the townspeople looked on in fear and the screaming began to start the conquistador's horses galloped across the rocks and pebbles with the duke leading the entire brigade, save the cannon, screaming curses into the thin air until his eyes began to bulge. Aztecs suddenly seemed to surround them, they had emerged from the land and grasped weapons made from rock and wood. An ambush. A furious melee began as the conquistador's were forced to ride in a huge circle, the soldiers slashing and shooting from horseback as a hundred or so warriors began to tighten the loop. As the Spaniards were forced into a tight group, more people arrived from the town to fight. Faces contorted into masks of hate, pure violence.
The one armed captain was one of the first to fall, his shin smashed with a hammer causing him to tumble to the floor where he was strangled. Several more were killed, although the conquistador's were still doing their own share of killing. A thin man wearing an eagle around his neck leapt from behind a cactus and grabbed the woman they'd kidnapped, he picked her up and dodged between the charging horses until they were away from the murdering. Steel into skin, the sound of clubs smacking the thin ribs of horses, gunpowder and blood, the duke continued to scream curses as he went wild, leaping from his horse as it died beneath him and continuing fighting. He watched an old man, maybe eighty years old, through the battle. Eyes met. The duke watched the spear part through the crowd of Aztecs before him and looked as it went into his belly, pushing him backwards a few steps. Behind him the horses continued running and he stumbled into the hooves that smashed into the dirt over and over again.
The conquistador's won in the end. Just forty men remained, sat in the sun with their bodies glistening in the wet blood. Every man now had tattoos from gunpowder. The priest stood first and went over to what remained of the duke and made the mark of the cross on his forehead. He blessed him and then the conquistadors and townspeople that had died in the battle. None of the sick remained, the boys either. After they had smoked their cigars the soldiers went into the town and rested in a garden. A few of the soldiers began to take a nap around a statue of Quetzalcoatl, others decided to wash and eat.
As the evening light faded a few of the soldiers began to patrol the streets. The town's inhabitants who hadn't died in the afternoon had ran away, leaving the buildings quiet except for the odd chicken. The priest entered a shrine to one of the gods. On the small altar was the body of a jaguar, the priest inspected it's face closely. He hadn't seen a big cat before. Heaving it off the altar he took it back to the camp to roast on one of the fires when he noticed a strange brightness. Looking up into the sky he saw that there were two moons. One was full and almost as bright as the sun, it seemed to fall from the night and down towards the mountain. The priest began to quicken his pace back towards the garden with the jaguar still draped over his shoulder. Off in the distance he could hear the shouts of soldiers. The new moon floated through the air and came to rest just on top of one of the cliffs further up the mountain. Ice melted away from the strange orb as the thing slowly dimmed into the night. When the priest reached the garden all of the soldiers were talking amongst themselves. The priest began to speak and told them all that this was the second coming of Christ. The soldiers would immediately march up the mountain to greet the son of god. And so, they did.
Midnight. The conquistador's slowly made their way up the mountain path, staggering. Those who couldn't walk had been left in the camp with the promise that Christ would heal them. The priest told them all that they were the chosen soldiers of God himself and that they would fight at the end of the world on his behalf and become saints. Hands numb, beards fringed with dried blood and ice, the remaining conquistadors came to the rocky outcrop. There was a metallic boat that flashed strange lights in each window. The priest walked towards it with his arms outstretched, thanking God for answering the prayers of mankind and returning Christ to earth. A door opened beneath the ship and out poured it's pilot. It resembled a marsh although it's skin was like that of a jellyfish trapped in a net of lizard scales. Small bubbles appeared here and there with silvery ropes attaching them to boxes embedded in it's body. Out from the front of the creature a split opened, flashing yellow lights in the priest's face. It made his brain feel as if it was throbbing, his head seemed as if fingernails were dragging along it's interior. The thing began to speak the language of the Aztecs. The priest couldn't understand it. An arm appeared from the thing and carefully picked up the man of god. It pulled him towards it, as if inspecting him. A few of the soldiers were beginning to run down the mountain at this point. The men who had stayed began to walk towards the pilot of the strange ship, smiling, arms spread in a joyous welcome as they felt the warmth.
The men watched the priest bathing in the light of the thing before being put down gently. The priest had tears in his eyes. He told the men that he thinks they should board the ship by climbing onto the thing. Once the last man had clambered onto the soft surface, the thing gave a gentle shudder as it began to retract back into the ship. One by one they went up into the shadow of the door and it closed behind them.
The men sat in the darkness, still smiling to themselves. The priest told them that they were about to travel up in the air, that the boat could fly like a bird. The men all nodded and thanked God as the craft took off and flew away from Earth, after a few minutes a small window opened up and they could see the planet as a sphere set against the backdrop of the night sky. The view of Earth shrank and they could see more of the solar system, planets and stars. A planet with rings. And then Earth again, a lot further away this time with the sun shrinking smaller and smaller. All of this view took on a tint of blue and red, space seemed to fall away like pail of black water before returning back to normal. None of the conquistador's had seen space like this before. Huge orange clouds set against a backdrop of lights like the king's banquet table at Christmas. The priest quoted passages of the bible about heaven. They saw another planet against a small, red sun.
The liquid flesh disembarked on the planets surface, they had landed in an arid green desert. The priest said that they were to go forth into this new land and take what they felt they were worth. The conquistador's set off walking across sand the colour of ivy, singing hymns and looking out at the landscape around them. Off in the distance was a rock formation made from alabaster, refracting the light spectacularly around it like a halo. When the men neared they could see other people far away, running across the ground. They realized the men must be massive for the amount of ground they were covering, the Portugese soldier asked if they were angels. One of the older soldiers fell to his knees, he prayed with bruised fists. He sang hosanna and the natives of the planet arrived. Twice as tall as a man, they looked a little like people but the angles didn't seem to match. Each of the giants had dark brown eyes like those of a horse, fringed with soot. They wore strange padded loin cloths that were held up by leather breeches, decorated with amulets and glittering shells. On their backs they each carried long swords. They began speaking to the conquistador's in booming voices that each of the soldier's could feel vibrating their innards. It was the language of the Aztecs. The priest began speaking Spanish, then Latin. He was attempting to welcome them and asking them to join them in prayer. The soldier singing hosanna ran towards one of the giant men. The giant patted the mans head and grinned at the other giants. Speaking softly amongst each other, they decided to take the conquistadors to the city. Off they marched, some of the soldiers choosing to try and hold hands with the giants as if they were children reaching for the hand of a parent. The city was magnificent, spires that reached up toward the sky that shimmered from the alabaster monuments placed on pedestals that surrounded the city. The buildings were huge, mausoleum like in shape made from smooth black marble. In the centre of the city was a large pyramid made from five concentric cubes, with a staircase set on each face. As the giants lead the conquistador's through the city a horn was sounded. A flat low hum echoed through the streets bringing out the giants. They skipped merrily down the roads throwing bright ochre dust into the air that painted the streets and buildings a rich reddy brown that fell as deep as snow by the time the conquistadors were lead through the main archway towards the pyramid. A few of the soldiers talked amongst themselves about whether or not that the giants were the angels of god or maybe demons. The priest overheard them and had turned, angry. He was about to deliver a furious speech about belief when each man was lifted up like a newborn, each pointed towards the top of the pyramid. The men were arranged into a row and began to be carried up the steps of the pyramid whilst the giants chanted below. The prayers of giants boomed across the landscape as if it was the end of the world. At the front of the line the priest called back to his flock to be at peace with what destiny that God had chosen for them and to accept it as his son had done hundreds of years before. Instead the Portugese soldier had managed to grasp the handle of his sword and swung it in an arc that finished in the side of the head of one of the giants that had been carrying him. Down the pyramid they both tumbled as more of the soldiers started to struggle in the hands that clutched them about the ribs. The priest ordered the conquistadors to surrender until he was brought to the top of the pyramid. He saw a churning mass of grey flesh that tumbled in over itself as some arborescent form took shape. He sang hallelujah to his lord over the chanting and screaming behind him as the conquistadors now made their way down the pyramid, jumping down the steps into the ongoing fight against the giants. A limb reached out from the grey mass and clutched the priest by the head as if a lobster was wrapped around an egg. Thin legs brushed against the mans face before pushing through the skin, all the while he still prayed of his love for God.
All of the men were dead except one. He was taken out of the city towards a small village where normal sized people lived. Aztec, Toltec, Mayan, Teotihuacan, Olmec. Human. They lived side by side and spoke the language of the giants. They showed the wounded soldier to a quiet room which he rested, visited daily by healers until he was well again. He was put to work in the fields outside the village and given a hut with a single room. After a few months of living there he had been married to a Olmec woman and had promised to himself he would start a family. But as he passed his scimitar through rows upon rows of something that looked like barley, he thought about home. He would look into the strange sky at night and wonder where Spain was, sometimes thinking he recognized constellations that the sailors had taught him back when they sailed on the Atlantic. But they didn't quite match. He would never see his home again. He had stopped praying to God.

Jerusalem

The camp fires were just beginning to die as the swollen star began to rise in the East, another day had begun. The slave master's bones ached, the marrow inside was like rotten ice as the memory of some biological function was faintly remembered. His heart beat a single, weak pulse. Muscles like ancient stones rolled across each other, overlapping, sticking together, as his form assembled into some new shape. The slaves watched him silently, their hungry eyes having witnessed this reconfiguration every morning since they had been captured. With a snapping of his spine he stood, rags he'd worn the day before were now unsupported and slid off him. He stood naked in the desert and turned toward the slaves.

"Rise." he whispered. They began to walk.

The march was slow and unsteady. The ones that fell were left. The oldest slaves had been first, then the children. Some of the mothers had wanted to stay behind with them but the slave master did not tolerate such things. They needed to reach the citadel. The slaves walked beneath the slate sky and thought back to the life in the village, of loved ones that had been lost and wondering how much longer they must walk. There was no escape as there was nowhere to go. A few days back a young couple had made a run for it and the slave master just watched them leave, his face betraying no emotion as he looked through dead eyes at the man and woman. That was perhaps the worst thing about the enslavement, that they could leave any time. They didn't see the couple again and the march went on.

The slave master stopped and allowed them each a drink from the urn he carried in his pack. None of them saw any signs of water yet the strange man never seemed to run out or take a drink for himself. Instead he busied himself casting bones onto the dirt, though none knew for what purpose. By the afternoon they could make out the citadel if they knew to look for it. A black spire in the East rose from the ground like a doorway through the sky. When the slave master's eyes rested on it some of his internal structures began to churn in anticipation. They would be there by tomorrow. The miserable group then came upon the first of the corpses, sun-bleached carcasses that lay in the dirt. At first they could be mistaken for rocks, though upon closer look they could see that these were creatures. Some were almost human, with the desert wind whistling through their eyeless skulls as if they were whispering some secrets only the dead knew. Others were biological agonies, skeleton and muscles put together inside a nightmare and spat out on the godless plain. The slaves and the master walked through this open graveyard silently, none daring to speak of the atrocities that lay around them.

They sat whilst the master played his violin. There was no tune, he just sat there and drew the bow across the strings randomly whilst the slaves unpacked the last of the fire wood. One of the slaves watched him play, the last feelings of resistance stirring in his chest like the faint kick of an unborn infant. They had all tried to fight at first. They had heard about the things in the desert and knew they were strong and hardy but they had tried anyway. The biggest warriors in the village were broken before the slave master like how a child kills an insect. Though the master was more insect that man. He played his violin as the fires were lit, they were made from the wood that had once been their homes. The slave listened to the screeching of the strings and looked around at the people from his village before standing up. The slaves watched him walk across the little camp towards the figure, though the master seemed more occupied with the violin than anything else. The slave grabbed the violin from his hands and smashed it against the floor, stamping a bare foot through the ancient instrument. The slave master sat cross-legged, holding the bow like a rapier blade.

"Why?" he said. The slave gave a war cry and began to punch and kick at the sitting thing, who slowly began to unfold himself as he stood, unperturbed by the blows. He took the man's head in both hands and began to squeeze. The scream was punctuated by the cracking of bone and it was quiet once more. The slaves huddled as close as they could to the fires and waited for something like sleep.

The slaves woke, something had changed. Off in the distance they could see the fires of the citadel flickering like quasars, they matched the feeble camp fires that were struggling to feed themselves on the last of the house wood. The slave master wasn't where he usually was, sitting in the centre of them all, watching. He had gone. The slaves whispered amongst themselves, wondering what had happened when they heard running in the night around them, the drumming of feet onto earth. The slave master condensed from the blackness.

"Get up." he said. The slaves obeyed. The slave master was animated, his neck twisting this way and that as he looked into the darkness. They could hear more footsteps. "Stay near." he whispered, lighting a torch from the camp fires and then setting off towards the citadel. Most of the slaves followed immediately, though some stayed put, waiting in the darkness. If death was to come at least it may be better than what the slave master had in store for them. The slave master ignored them as he steadily made his way through the night, holding the torch aloft to guide the slaves behind him.

Occasionally the fire light would catch the outline of a dead body, though no details could be made. The slaves kept focusing on the flame ahead of them lighting the head and shoulders of the slave master as if he was a mountain range lit by a strange, red star. They looked at each others faces with this light and could see terror contorting each of them into something more primal. Footsteps ran in the night. And all of a sudden they met the hunters. Seven men stood in front of them. They looked human, dressed in grey uniforms and carrying the long muskets of soldiers long since dead. All of them had whiskers and cold, black eyes encrusted into dirty faces like ebony gargoyles.

"Give us the slaves." said one. His lips and nose had been torn off once, it seemed as if his face was held together by a bit of stitching.

"No." said the slave master. He lifted his torch up to better illuminate the surroundings. More men were dotted around them.

"We'll kill you." said the man. The slave master was about to say something else but two slaves had ran forward, clutching him around each knee. With a fist like a hammer he swung down and cracked one about the head and was about to do the other when a rifle shot flashed in the darkness. The bullet zipped through the slave master's arm. "We'll kill you." said the man again. Now all of the slaves stood around the master, unsure what was going to happen.

"Have them." rasped the slave master. He nudged one forward and they slowly began to drift away from the raggedy man. Now he stood alone, the torch light playing against his face so that it always looked to be shifting. There was a clicking of metal and a rustle of clothing then a volley of shots fired from the muskets the men were carrying. The iron bullets ripped through flesh, shattered ribs, sprayed matter out from exit wounds the size of plates. The slave master fell to his knees and another shot inverted his head. The slaves looked down at the body of the one who had brought them across the desert and felt nothing. The men with the guns turned to the slaves.

"Follow us." said one. They walked off into the darkness as the torch spluttered out, the only light left in the wasteland emanated from the distant citadel. The things inside continued to wait.

Trichoplasm

Morning light shone through the artificial trees outside his window. The portable computer by his bed blinked into life, the screen glowed and tuvan throat singing was played. It was morning. Slowly waking, Gomez reached for the computer and looked at the screen for a moment or two, unsure of what to do, before linking it to the machine in his hand and turning the alarm off. His brow creased at the decision whether to lie in bed for a short while longer. What did he have to do? Checking the time on his palm he got up, pushing the crumpled duvet down with his feet. Taking a paracetamol, he went to the bathroom and urinated whilst looking at himself in the mirror. He needed a shave. Pinching his nose slightly, he got into the shower and stood, feeling vulnerable in his nudity before the steam began to flood the cubicle. It was programmed to release a mixture of vitamins in order to properly wake him and he began to come to, enjoying the start of his morning ritual. Gomez rubbed a razor across his face and washed as he played a quick game of chess on the wall of the cubicle. He got out and began to dry himself when he noticed a hair on the floor. A single long, black strand that had curled in on itself. Gomez had short, brown hair. He knelt and picked it up, examining it before flicking it towards the plug. After getting dressed and having a breakfast of tea and toast he left his house and got into his car, the computer starting up automatically once he fastened his seat-belt.
“Good morning Gomez. Where to today?”
“Work please.” mumbled Gomez.
“Thank you.” said the computer. He watched out of the front window as the car rolled down his drive and onto the street. Several icons hovered on the glass. He touched one and a small square of the window was taken up by a live news feed.
“Messages?”
Another box popped up, showing two unread messages. One was from his friend, Maxwell, about wanting to go to a night club called The Bath. The other was a video message from one of his work colleagues.
"Summarize." He said to the computer, which quickly analyzed the message. 'Work Harder'.

As he drove past a coffee shop the view of the street began to change so that the walls were lined with the coffee shop logo. A small subtitle appeared at the bottom of his wind-screen. 'Great Coffee, Great Times' flashed the message. Holograms of people enjoying the coffee were projected onto the pavement, a virtual live advertisement feature that encouraged potential customers to get involved into the lifestyle of the product. Small aerosols gently puffed out scents of coffee, well-worn oak, soft pillows and a chemical intended to make people remember having a good time. He wrinkled his nose slightly at the last scent, one of the bottles containing the concentrated mixture had once smashed close to him and scorched the inside of his nose. He had to spend the next few weeks applying a regenerative paste up each nostril and ever since then that particular smell had reminded him of having a bad time. He paid a credit to stop the advertisement so he could return to watching the news, the usual mix of social upheaval, environmental disaster, mayhem and amusing trivia played out. Gomez sighed, flicking through his friends updates that changed every few minutes. He signed into work and got a few bonus credits for arriving early. Gomez passed the security guard at the front gate.
“Nice tattoo.” said Gomez. “That real ink?”
The man laughed, gesturing at the dark blue curves that now covered his face. “Of course. I'm old school.” Gomez put his thumb up, a small scanner on the security guards uniform recognized the hand form and gave the guard a bonus credit. That morning alone he had accrued sixteen credits via thumbs. He'd be promoted soon enough. He brimmed with pride and gave Gomez a high five, giving them both some bonus credits. “Have a nice day sir.” beamed the guard as Gomez headed into the office.

The office was a largely empty room with one or two tables by the wall. The workspaces were marked out on the floor with a chrome indentation, each about the size of a standard house pod. Gomez nodded to one or two of his co-workers as he went along to his workspace. A scanner flicked across his eyes and as he entered his station a translucent wall began to form around him like ice.
“Good morning Gomez. Can I get you a drink?” said a computer.
“Sure. A white coffee, caffeinated.” he said into thin air as he scrolled through the job queue. It was all pretty usual, boring. And there seemed to be more and more every week. A robotic arm appeared through the holographic wall to pass him the recycled polystyrene cup. He took a small sip of the hot liquid whilst selecting a person at random to tell. “Start.”

The room around him began to load. Basic shapes at first, the colours changed from the light pastels into darker shades as things began to solidify.
“Harry Hanrahan?” said Gomez to the pale man that had materialized in the corner.
“Yes?” said Harry. Gomez looked at him, trying to gauge how far the apathy had built up. He showed all the classic symptoms. Bad hygiene, malnutrition, no affect in the voice. But most of all, his eyes were beginning to turn square. Overuse of holograms began to reform the rods and cones in the eyes, creating at first a honeycomb structure that gradually turned into oblongs. This in turn had an effect on the pupil, then the iris until finally the eye would protrude out of the head slightly as the whole eyeball would become extremely rigid and square. Blindness was quite common in the apathetics, although this didn't stop them from receiving data broadcasted onto their optical nerve. “What can I help you with today Harry?” said Gomez, trying to match the accent of a computer as closely as he could.
“Can't...I can't open the curtain.” said Gary, pointing towards the window.
“Would you like me to show you?” said Gomez, walking over to the curtain.
“I'm not sure. What do you think?” said Harry, beginning to slump forward. That was part of the problem in being a Teller. A lot of the time people didn't even know what they wanted to be told.
“Well, I think it might be a good idea. Let some light in. Maybe even open the window a bit.”
“If you think so...” said Gary.
“Okay. Harry. Watch me.” said Gomez. He mimed moving the curtain back. “Come on Harry. Come here and do what I do.” said Gomez. Harry nodded and shakily walk towards the curtain. The distance of each step was beginning to differ. Wouldn't be long until he would forget how to walk. Harry touched the curtain, it made him jump.
“Oh.” he said, surprised.
“Don't look up. I'm a Teller. Try and do.” said Gomez. But Harry was already looking up information about the curtain, the material it was made from, the history of curtains, what his friends thought of curtains. The muscles in his face relaxed completely. “Harry!”
“Oh...I'm sorry.” said Harry. Gomez acted pulling the curtain back and Harry did the same, albeit struggling with the weight of the thing. “It looks so easy in the films.” said Harry, arms shaking with the strain. Slowly enough though the curtain was pulled to one side and the city began trickling into the dark room. Enormous structures made from carbon nanotubes reached up into space. Hundreds of other house pods like Harry's were dotted on various buildings, some moving around, others stationary. Millions of people, a majority with their curtains closed.
“It's so real.” gasped Harry.
“Maybe you should think about opening a window. Smell things, hear things outside?”
“I don't know about that. I might miss my programmes.” said Gary, shuffling off to a chair. “I'll watch it for a while though.” he said, his face suddenly twisting into a smile. Gomez nodded and faded away back into his work space.

He carried on for several hours, telling people how to use a knife and fork or brush their teeth. Once in a while he would need to tag a person who seemed as though they needed medical attention, the catatonic and feeble population were picked up and taken to hospitals where they would undergo reality therapy. At lunch Gomez went to the canteen. Being a Teller involved doing a lot of things for yourself, each one was required to take a competency test every month. A lot of other cafes and restaurants would choose the food for you based on preference and dietary requirements, but Gomez and his colleagues had to choose from a menu. It encouraged decisiveness. Gomez sat at a table with a steaming bowl of black bean soup and a fruit roll when he was joined by Maxwell.
“How are the zombies today Gomez?”
“Not too bad. Had to tell a kid how to stroke a dog today.”
“I heard Mary went to tell someone to feed their cat, turned out it had been dead for a week.”
“Funny world.” said Gomez, spooning the soup into his mouth.
“Guess who applied for a flying car license the other day?” said Maxwell.
“Really? You want one of those?”
“Ah, safer than jetpacks. What's that?” said Maxwell, pointing at the soup.
“Black bean. It's alright. You eating?” said Gomez, having another spoonful of soup.
“In a bit. Going to try and have lunch with Ava.”
“Need a Teller?” said Gomez.
“Not just yet I think.” smiled Maxwell. He folded his arms, leaning back slightly. Gomez had another spoonful of soup and pulled a face when he swallowed. He pursed his lips and pulled a hair out of his mouth.
“Gah. What's this?” said Gomez, holding the hair up.
“A hair in your soup? Haven't heard of that in a while.” said Maxwell, looking over at the large food synthesizer. Gomez laid the hair down on the table and bit into his fruit roll.

Gomez spent another few hours helping people carry out relatively simple tasks. Between jobs he sometimes thought about the state the world was in. That a fully grown man couldn't use scissors. That nobody in an entire family knew what a bed was for. When he started out it had been more complicated but as time went on he was required to show people how to undertake simpler tasks. He expected in a few years nobody would know how to do anything, it was a global epidemic of ignorance. They couldn't comprehend the familiar. And though reality was beginning to become a chore for most, the virtual was growing at an exponential rate. He would sometimes think he had been born in the wrong decade, perhaps back in the nineties or noughties when cars still had manual controls and food wasn't printed.

Gomez met Maxwell outside The Bath later that night, flashing their hands at the bouncer.
“Seven credits in, that's a bit steep. This place isn't even meant to be cool yet.” said Maxwell.
“Ah. Forget about it.” said Gomez, taking a belt from a hook on the wall and fastening it around his waist. The contact lens in his eye lit up in the bottom corner, informing him he had paid another credit for the belt rental. He tapped on his hand to accept the terms and conditions before starting to swim in mid-air. The two men drank and danced and swam about and everythin seemed alright for a time.

Gomez was driven home quite drunk, he took a route that went around the hills of the city. Scenic. He was listening to The Second Beach Boys and had set the windscreen to constantly change the colour of the lights so that the road ahead of him glowed and pulsed in time with the music. Red, blue, purple streetlights flicked overhead like planets covered in psychedelic rivers of paint whilst the city below him seemed to be made from the embers of exotic gemstones. A notification appeared, he opened the video. It was an advert for a new film about a serial killer that targeted families. He was about to turn it off when he noticed a hair on the inside of his windscreen, clinging to the glass. Gomez frowned, reaching forward to brush it off the screen when the car suddenly lurched. Gomez looked around then leaned over towards his seatbelt when the screen lost power and showed the street ahead of him normally. Besides the engine, everything had stopped working, even the brakes. The car carried on, it's momentum building. It sped beneath the white street lights before hitting a wooden fence. The car barrelled through that and bolted into the night. Gomez began to panic. In the blackness he could make out the steep incline the car was roaring down, going faster and faster. The whole car began to bounce up and down as it's huge wheels bounded into tufts of grass and rocks wet with dew. It suddenly flipped onto it's side.
“Turn on! Turn on!” shouted Gomez, his voice cracking as he slid around on the seat. There was a loud bang as the roof of the car smashed into a stone wall. Airbags immediately inflated around him, faster than the car had chance to crumple. He was quiet for a moment, then vomited. A car crash! Gomez hadn't heard of that happening for decades. He remembered reading that people used to get injured in them but as far as he could tell there wasn't a scratch on him. He began deflating the bags and pushing the door open above him. Gomez started walking back up towards the road. He tried to turn his computer on but realized it had been broken in the crash.
“Bogus.” he said.

The next morning he woke, slightly groggy and mouth dry. It had taken him ages to get back home last night, his feet were raw and covered with blisters. Gomez reported the crash to his insurance company and whilst eating breakfast he found another hair. This time a whole clump of them, wrapped around and around each other, inside the yolk of his egg.
“What the hell.” he said, holding the hair up closer to his face to inspect it. Long black hair. He hadn't seen hair like that for years and in the last twenty four hours he'd seen it in his car, his food, his shower. Where was it from? He would go into the city to get it analysed. He didn't have anything better to do on his day off anyway, it would be a good reminder about public transport.

The train sped along. In his pocket he had a ball of tissue paper containing the eggy hair, he'd take it to one of the gene sequencing labs in the city to see who it belonged to. He didn't visit the centre often, though not many people did. Most had been turned into some sort of housing, legal and illegal. Skyscrapers filled with pods blotted out the sky whilst closer to the ground the empty shopping malls and multi-storey car parks were home to hundreds of squatters. Governments had thrown hundreds of millions of credits into regenerating the city centres to try and attract people but nobody had cared. Half-completed façades of super buildings had been left for the best part of a decade, building materials lay unused and scattered around like toys. Piles of broken bricks were here and there, lit up holographically with promises that the new city centre was 'coming soon'. The great apathy of the 21st century. Even as a Teller, Gomez couldn't remember the last time he had ventured into the city during the day time to actually do anything. He walked through the doors of a modest lattice-framed building, it's exterior a net resembling the strands of DNA.
“I'd like this sample sequencing please.” he said, walking up to the person at the desk. Their cybernetic implants were so intrusive he couldn't tell if it was a man or a woman. He handed over the thing in his pocket.
“Is this the tissue sample?”
“No, it's some hair. I want to know whose it is.” said Gomez.
The cyborg sighed, taking the sample from off the brilliant white desk.
“Come back in an hour.”
“What am I meant to do in the city for an hour?”
The cyborg shrugged and pressed a few buttons. Gomez squeezed the bridge of his nose before heading back out.

Gomez walked around the inner plaza, looking around in puzzlement. The Baroque inspired architecture had been mostly torn down and the whole plaza was in the process of becoming refitted with walls of black stone. A few people walked around the huge courtyard, having to walk half a mile to find clusters of shops still open. Gomez looked around a little market. Boxes of books were scattered around, pages and covers bent under the weight of the other books randomly thrown together. A lot of country folk still liked reading paper books, but Gomez wasn't sure if he'd even held one. He thought about getting a few for his parents but got distracted by another small box of dvds. At the front of yellowing plastic boxes was a copy of Dog Chaser, one of Leonardo DiCaprio's last films. He looked down at his hand and tapped one of his fingers. Words appeared on his contacts, telling him the plot synopsis of the film and it's pop cultural significance. He ignored the compilation videos, suggestions and comments and looked at the date he'd first watched the film. Gomez slid the dvd case out and looked at it with a small smile. The old man behind the counter nodded.
“Good choice man. Have you seen it?”
“Yeah, me and my wife saw it at the cinema.” said Gomez, putting the film back.
“Any five for a cred.” said the shop keeper, turning back to his book.

Gomez walked on through the arcade, built in a time when it was thought thousands of people would use the shopping centre. Now it was occupied by just a few families living in the empty shops. Bare MDF panels had been nailed onto the crumbling walls beneath, reflecting what little light there was back onto the main walkway. A few more people were laying on their backs, totally engrossed in the virtual cloud with eyes square and glazed over Gomez wondered if they were still alive. A lot of the electric lights had been turned off in this area, Gomez was about to turn back around when he heard a strange grunting in the darkness. He tilted his head slightly, trying to hear where it was coming from. It was emanating from a corner just a few feet ahead. Gomez walked slowly across the plastic floor towards the source of the noise. He peeked his head around the corner of the wall and saw a couple having sex against a bench. They glanced at him momentarily before carrying on. Gomez walked away quickly, he could feel his face turning red. At least they had round eyes.

Back into the light. A warm breeze blew down a chimney, throwing up plastic bags and dead leaves into miniature cyclones. Gomez spat. The columns and archways were now decorated in some Aztec pastiche, spirals made from right angles adorned the edge of every wall. Finely polished marble slabs were illuminated with simple two dimensional holograms, the animations of people shopping played out in short repetitions. There was an error on one of the holowalls, the entire thing just flicked black and white. As he walked past, the strobing animation made him wince. He should have probably taken another paracetamol, the drinks from the night before were still working through his system. Gomez tapped his hand a few times then looked back up. A red line had appeared on the floor in front him. He began walking along, reading a few updates as he exited the shopping centre. Gomez crossed a road and across thick grass towards a doctor machine.

He entered the small box and the glass darkened around him. The Dr. M logo glowed, lighting up the red cross behind it. Gomez held up his hand and the machine scanned it.
“Thank you Gomez. What is the nature of your pain?”
“Not sure really. Possibly psychological, maybe it's a new disease or something.”
“Please breathe into the tube.”
A short plastic tube emerged from the small console in front of him. Gomez leaned forward and blew into the pipe. There was a quiet whirr as the straw began to retract into the machine. On the screen in front of him his results popped up. He was relatively healthy for his age then made several suggestions about what kinds of food and media should be taken in in order for him to be at his best. Otherwise there was nothing wrong with him. Gomez shrugged and got out of the box then set a new course for the gene sequencing laboratory.

“These can't be right. Are you sure?” said Gomez.
“Yes, we have ninety nine percent accuracy.”
“But this woman has been dead for a year.”
“Either way, that hair belongs to her.”
“It's impossible.” said Gomez looking at the printout he had in his hand.
“Are you okay?” said the cyborg, leaning forward.
"Not really." muttered Gomez, pushing the paper into his pocket and walking back across the plaza towards the train station. His face had began to relax as he began to think about what it meant. Leanne. Why was her hair appearing? He reached back into his pocket to check the printout again. When he unfolded it a dozen or so hairs clung to the page momentarily before being blown away by the wind.

Row upon row of luxury apartments flicked past quicker than the eye could keep up with. Gomez rubbed his nose, unsure of what to do, so was still for a while before miming a phone with his hand and holding the fingers up to his face.
“Maxwell.”
The phone rang.
“Hello?”
“Hi, how are you?” said Gomez.
“Alright. Feeling pretty good actually, had breakfast with a beautiful woman.” said Maxwell.
“Good, good.” said Gomez, licking his top lip and looking back out of the window. “Did I take anything last night? Have I been taking anything whilst I've been at work and forgotten?”
“Uh...don't think so. Why, are you freaking out a bit?”
“I don't know, I saw a Dr. M and it said I was fine.”
“So what's the problem? You'll be hungover, take a tablet already.”
“No, I got in a car crash you see.” said Gomez. There was a pause, so he continued. “It was...some hair. This human hair keeps following me around.”
“Are you okay mate? Did you say you'd been in a car crash?” said Maxwell, concerned.
“Yeah” said Gomez. His mouth opened, about to continue speaking when he noticed another hair on the leg of his trousers. He reached down to pick it up.
“Gomez?”
As he delicately plucked the single, long strand of hair on his thigh he noticed more hair at his feet.
“There's some hair here.” said Gomez, reaching down to pick up the multiple loose strands of hair. They uncurled and dragged across the floor as he pulled up at the central mass. He set it on the table in front of him.
“I'm sending you a photo of it.” said Gomez. He made the shape of a square with both his hands and made a clicking sound with his mouth. Maxwell was quiet.
“It's...it's a bunch of hair. What have you been doing? You don't sound well.”
“I had some analysed. It's Leanne's.” said Gomez, his voice flat. The web of hair lay on the tabletop. His dead wife's hair, an enigma. A shape of dread.

He locked the door behind him and ascended the staircase, looking at the door to the attic overhead. He went into the spare room, the walls that had been painted a light blue were obscured by piles of cardboard boxes holding various paperwork, old clothes, a bicycle with cobwebs between the spokes rested against an antique television. He picked up a long wooden stick and walked back into the landing, lifting the attic door upward. With a little hook he pulled down the aluminium ladders, they slid down violently, mechanically. There was a damp smell coming from up there. For a moment he was unsure whether or not to go up, pausing before he put his hand on the cold metal rung. He told himself off for being so stupid. It was his house, not some haunted mansion. Gomez began climbing. Once he had reached the top he pushed himself up into the loft and sat for a moment, dangling his legs down. He looked around, trying to let his contacts get used to the light. They had a certain amount of image correction but not too much. He rarely went up here, dead moths and flies rested on a thick carpet of dust like strange vegetation in some far off tundra. All around him was gloom, the shapes of boxes could barely be made out against the velvety blackness. It gave the illusion the room was a lot bigger than it actually was. Gomez coughed then started crawling along the floor to where he thought the boxes of her things was. He could just make out the corners of a box and started dragging it towards the light coming from the landing below, but he saw the writing on the side. It read 'baby clothes', so he pushed it back. He was in the right area. After a few minutes of looking around he found the right box and brought it downstairs.

He took it into his bedroom and set it down on the duvet. He looked at it, then left the room. He came back a moment later with a glass in one hand and a bottle of Japanese whiskey in the other. He took a drink then put both down on the bedside cabinet. He looked at the box again for a while, 'leanne' written on the side in black marker. Gomez pulled off the brown parcel tape and opened the lid. Stones from beaches, tickets to shows, small holograms they had of their wedding. He took out each thing and placed it on his bed, trying to make some sense of it. An answer. At the very bottom of the box was a framed photograph. He hadn't seen it for a while. They both were smiling, posing outside a restaurant when they first started going out. He smiled back at her, stroking the image of her face with his thumb. “I miss you.” he said quietly. Gomez moved the photo away from the rest of the stuff and put it out on top of his set of drawers. The computerized voice made him jump.
“Maxwell is at the door Gomez.”
“I'll be down in a moment.” said Gomez, rubbing his eye.

They sat across the kitchen table from each other, it was awkwardly quiet.
“Can I get you a drink?” said Gomez.
“Um...no. I'm okay. How are you doing?”
“Not too bad. Sorry about that phonecall...I don't know.” said Gomez. “I'm going to have a whiskey. Sure you don't want one?”
“No, honestly.” said Maxwell, pursing his lips. “Look, I'm sorry about last night, I wasn't thinking. With Ava and everything, I don't know. I should have been more thoughtful.”
“Oh, it's not that. No, you should go for it.”
“What is it then? Car crashes, hair?”
Gomez took a sip of whiskey, changed his mind, and finished the glass. “I don't know. I've been working hard. Too hard maybe, I've been thinking of quitting for a while. Have I said before?”
“No.” said Maxwell.
“Yeah. It's just...shit isn't it really? Having to tell people how to do obvious things. It's depressing.” said Gomez.
“Maybe you should have a holiday.”
Gomez laughed and poured himself another drink. “Maybe. I don't know.” he was quiet for a while, looking at his glass.
“You said on the phone earlier something about Leanne?” said Maxwell, voice raising an octave.
“Yeah, I've been thinking about her a bit recently. Having a bit of a hard time. I need to process I think. My wife, my son. They died.” said Gomez. He took a drink. “And what did I do? Where was I?” The two men sat for a while, being quiet. “I'll be okay. Just going to finish this whiskey, watch some crap and go to bed. Thanks for coming anyway, I appreciate it.” said Gomez eventually.
Maxwell got up from his chair. “I don't know if you should be alone bud. Come out. You and me.”
Gomez shook his head. “No. As I say, I appreciate you calling in. And I'll call you if I need you. But now, I need to be alone.”
The two friends looked each other in the eye, trying to get a decent idea of what the other was feeling. Maxwell gave in. “Okay. I understand. Don't be a stranger though.” he said, hugging Gomez. They both got an extra point for embracing. They just needed to hug another fifty times to unlock an achievement in the friend section of their lives. Gomez nodded and walked with him to the front door. “See you later.”
“Yeah. See you later Max.”

Alone again. He went through his film collection and picked out Dog Chaser. It wasn't as good as he remembered it. The sixty year old DiCaprio ran through the empty streets of Las Vegas, shooting rabid dogs and cracking jokes. He turned it off after forty minutes and sat in the darkness. The whiskey was half empty. Going back into the kitchen, he felt something brush between the fingers of his hand. He looked down and saw a hair. Holding it up in front of him, he looked around the room. “What do you want? What does this mean?” he called out. No response. Not that he really expected one. Gomez took a gulp of whiskey and put the bottle down on the table. He dropped the hair in front of him and stared at it for a while, pushing it around, rolling it back and forth. “Leanne...” he said.

After he had packed everything back in the box except the photo, he put the box back upstairs and went to lie down in his living room. The drink had dulled his senses a bit, he relaxed into the soft rug and flicked from channel to channel. He had the hair in his hand, idly playing with it. Gomez thought back to when she was alive. She had such gorgeous hair, it was what had attracted him in the first place. He missed the way it shone in the sun and felt between his fingers but most of all he missed the smell. Once she had gone he didn't wash her pillow for a while, though her scent faded. Moments in time. It made him feel ill, how fragile everything seemed, there was no real difference between a dream or reality. Everything seemed as if it made sense yet could be broken in just a moment. Upon waking there was the realization that it had been a dream, occasionally a sense of loss. He wondered if upon dying that one would become aware that it had just been a life. Gomez woke. Time had passed, he wasn't sure how long he had slept but the sun had gone down and the living room was only lit by a nature programme about bacteria. Huge cells circled and swam around the room like translucent dolphins. He left the room, rinsing his mouth with whiskey. His vision was a little blurry. At first he thought it was because of the booze but after standing still, closing one eye and then the other he realized it was in just his left eye. Gomez went to the bathroom and looked in the mirror, taking out his contact lens and setting it down by the tap. He had forgotten how drab the world was without contacts. No clocks, bits of information, enhanced colours. Just stark reality. His vision still blurry, he leaned closer to the mirror to see if there was anything in his eye. A black dot. He leaned closer still and saw it was a hair.

His heart began thumping, his hand immediately went up to his eye. It had been aching strangely for a few days but he had put it down to a lack of sleep. Not a hair growing inside his eyeball. He looked at it again, moving his eyes from side to side to try and get a better look. It was tiny, the stubble on his chin was longer. He opened the medicine cupboard and took out a pair of tweezers and set them down on the sink. Gripping the sink with both hands, he looked down at the plug and thought about it. “Fuck.” he whispered. He opened and closed his hand a few times, trying to limber up before picking up the tweezers. Holding them a few inches away from his nose, he looked at himself in the mirror. He had began to sweat. Cold and damp. Gomez opened both eyes as wide as he could, leaning closer. The tweezers shook in his hand. “Fuck.” he said, putting them back down on the sink by his contact lens. He returned a minute later with the whiskey, swigging from the bottle. “Right...right.” he said. He picked up the tweezers again, trying to do it in one fluid movement. One eye watched his reflection whilst the other saw the metal fingers lurch into his field of vision, huge and blurry. With one of the prongs he gently stroked the hair. His eye immediately scrunched closed. “Fuck's sake!” he shouted to himself, it echoed around the bathroom. He should just go to hospital. What if it wasn't even a hair. What if it was a nerve or something. He had another drink of whiskey and held his eyelids open with one hand whilst the other edged forward again with the tweezers. As carefully as he could he pinched the tweezers shut and realized he was a few millimetres off his eye. He heard how heavy his breathing had become and tried to slow it down. “Right. Come on.” he said, going in with the tweezers. He pinched them shut and gritted his teeth. He gave a gentle pull and felt something move inside his eye. He managed to pull an inch or two before his eye scrunched shut. He blinked a few times and looked at himself. From his left eye dangled a hair. It bobbed up and down as his eyes moved. He reached up with his thumb and forefinger to take hold of it and began pulling, he felt it move inside his eye. There was some dull feeling that the hair was inside his skull. He kept pulling, wondering how long it was until it suddenly came free. It dangled down across his palm and he could feel the wet end brushing his wrist. A small dot of blood appeared where the hole had been, making him blink over and over. He studied the seven inch strand of hair, relieved. He sat on the toilet, shaking, wondering if he was going to vomit. But it was over now.

Once the bleeding had stopped he put the contact back in, pacing around his bedroom. Had all of this been some strange hallucination brought on by a hair being inside his head? Maybe he was free. He sat on the bed and looked across the room at the photo of himself and Leanne, years ago. Raising the bottle in the air at the photo, he smiled and then finished off the rest of the amber liquid. After all that he felt worn out. Gomez pulled off his trousers and got into bed.

He woke. It was dark and something felt wrong. Gomez rolled to one side and saw her, sleeping with her back to him. It had been so long, he wasn't sure if he was dreaming or not. Either way he felt cold as stone. He couldn't move or even speak. Her body rose and fell beneath the duvet as it had done when she was alive. Gomez rolled his tongue in his mouth dryly as he thought of what to do next. Beneath the covers he reached towards her, hand trembling. Closer and closer, his hand drew towards where her hip was. Should be. In his mind he was screaming, begging him to run. But he reached out and touched her. Skin. “Leanne?” he managed to say, quietly. She stirred beneath his hand and Gomez watched her roll towards him. Beneath his palm he felt her warm body slide, familiar. Tears welled in his eyes. Lulu rolled over and he saw her face. Wrinkled skin split across her skull, the visage of a long dead corpse. The thing screamed in his face, loudly. He felt his heart beat frantically in his chest as the scream grew louder and louder, deafening. As he frantically tried to get out of bed he vomited, scrambling away as fast as he could. Crawling along the carpet all he could see were his hands lit white from the moon as they swung in front of him, clawing his way along the floor. The roar rang in his ears but he couldn't hear it any more. He couldn't hear anything. He felt something in his throat. He stopped crawling, and with one hand he reached up to his mouth and felt hair. Gomez yanked it from his mouth but it didn't seem to end, he was choking. Not only that but the hair was now growing from his hands. A scream became lost amongst the fine fibres in his throat and he began to kick. His feet hit the floor over and over, causing the whole room to keep thumping. After a minute the kicking stopped. Where the man had been there was now a pile of hair. Lifeless. Quiet.

The Juggernaut

The cube stood inside the factory. Sixty metres by sixty metres by sixty metres, it’s metal walls had been polished to a point that it reflected the forest of umbilical tubes connecting it to the control computers. Scientists and engineers walked around beneath it, checking that all the numbers were correct in order for the first test. A countdown began. The atmosphere was tense, everything had been building up to this moment. The tubes and wires attached to the cube were disengaged and hang limply around it. In front of the cube was a mile-long road, which the cube began travelling along at a steady pace of six miles per hour. The cube travelled on hundreds of miniature wheels about half a foot wide, the only noise it made was the quiet sound of metal rubbing against metal. It trundled along, getting nearer and nearer to the concrete barrier at the end of the run. On the upper echelons of the factory scientists began to get worried, pressing data pads frantically. The cube rolled. Although instead of stopping at the wall it pushed through it. The cube kept on going, punching a square through the side of the factory as it went out into the desert. “Shit.” said Wayne, the head engineer of the project.

Wayne watched the cube drive away then at the surrounding teams of people frantically tapping away at keyboards. He pulled his mobile out of his pocket and rang his boss on speed dial.
“There has been a problem.”
“What kind of problem?”
“Well, the engine started. But now it won’t stop.”
“What do you mean? Aren’t there safety features in place, that kind of thing?”
“They aren’t working sir.”
“What are you going to do about it then?”
“I’m not sure sir. We have a few people working on that at the moment.”
“Hold on, I need to make a call.”
The phone went dead. Wayne looked at the holes the cube had made in the two walls. He ran through a few doors and outside the research facility, grabbing one of the bicycles they had specifically made for travelling over sand. It wasn’t as fast as a normal bike, but a lot quicker than walking. Riding across the desert landscape he suddenly became aware of the intense heat even in the late afternoon. It was a lot different out here than in the climate controlled shelter of where he worked. As he pedalled his phone rang again, his boss.
“You need to come and make a presentation about the engine.”
“Really? I mean, sir, I think I’m more useful trying to work out how to stop it.”
“I agree, but there’s a helicopter about to set off to come and pick you up.”
“Okay sir. Tell the pilot I’ll be by the engine though, I need to go and take a closer look whilst I have the chance.”
“I’ll relay the message.”
Wayne frantically pedalled the contraption, getting nearer to the cube moving slowly across the sand. It left a perfectly flat trail as it dragged itself along, Wayne found it easier to follow in it’s wake. The cube shone in the sun, almost dazzling him as he got nearer. He hopped off the bike and started to jog next to it, feeling it’s temperature with his hand. Cold. That was a good sign. Going back to the bike, he could already hear the chopper blades in the distance.

He sat at the front of a table, a laptop on one side and a glass of water on the other. It was half empty. He started up power point, briefly blinded by the projector before standing up to deliver his spiel.
“Gentleman. Thank you for attending this meeting, I hope you can understand it’s urgency. Exactly two hours ago an experimental project in the Nevada Desert began. The experiment was to create a machine that could explore alien planets, survive in the harshest of conditions and sustain it’s own energy. Using four dimensional solar panels built using nanocarbon alloys we have created an engine with the prospect of infinite movement. This cube” Wayne pointed a laser pen at a photograph of the cube. “has managed to escape. Although it travels at six miles an hour it will destroy everything in it’s path. At the cube’s current rate in 24 weeks it will have covered the circumference of the earth. In eleven years it will have destroyed pretty much every building on the planet, not to mention anything else that’s in it’s way.” He paused.
“What?”
“The space cube’s pretty much indestructible. It can fall off cliffs and survive the pressures of the deep ocean. If it can’t go over it, it’ll go through it.”
“How do we stop it?”
“We don’t know. There are a number of ideas at the moment although an issue more urgent is that on the cube’s current course it will hit the town of Littlefield in approximately...two days.”
Wayne showed a map of the world with a line across it.
“Due to the exploration brief of the project, the cube uses various non-euclidean geomathematical formulae to make micro-alterations in it’s course.” Wayne pointed at the line. “Although we can’t say for sure, on it’s current course it will go through several major American cities in the next few weeks, then through Europe, Russia then down through Canada...” he trailed off and they watched the line criss-cross the Earth.

The cube was being tailed by a tractor, monitoring it for the scientists. The driver of the tractor focused the beam of the spotlight on the bottom of the grey hull. So far nobody was aware of the unstoppable, slow juggernaut. Most of the sounds it made were caused by flattening most of the rocks and vegetation in front of it. The driver drank from a Thermos, black coffee. He had another containing spaghetti and meatballs that he occasionally got out and ate after relaying various updates. “Half ten. The box pushed a burned out car for a few minutes before the car was snagged on a boulder and was crushed underneath it.” He took another sip of coffee. The desert was cold. Not sure exactly what the box was made for, he liked to imagine it’s various uses to kill time. Maybe it transported fleets of tanks? Maybe it was a mobile foundation for a building? He heard noises of animals moving around him, occasionally catching a glimpse of an eye or the hind leg of some night beast. The cube hadn’t killed anything, most things seemed smart enough to avoid it. Although no human had seen it yet.
“Simon, could you re-focus the camera? You’ve moved off course.” a voice said over the radio. Simon sighed as he screwed the lid on the coffee so he could tamper with the camera. It was quiet for a while. Simon and the cube travelled through the night, by the time the first beam of sunshine stabbed it’s way over the horizon Simon had finished his coffee and spaghetti.

A child sat on the floor trying to learn how to walk. He looked at a spot on the carpet nearby, a little blurry but he used some of the brown furniture to try and get an idea of perspective to work out how far it was. Tipping forward onto his hands, he bent his fat little knees and slowly stood. A little shaky. Licking his top lip he gingerly moved his calf, straining at the amount of effort it took to move his leg. With concentration he managed to swing the bottom of his leg relatively easy through the air and then brought his foot down quickly. That part wasn’t too bad. The next step was a little more difficult as he had to trust he had the right footing, that his leg could take his weight. But it did. He did it again. And again. He was walking. Only four steps but it was a good effort. His feet were going a bit underneath him though, he sped up as he fell, managing a few more little trots. Nobody had been around. The ground vibrated a little, it made a noise. He could hear it pretty well with his ear to the floor. A woman rushed out of the bathroom, looking out of a window into the morning. It was about half a mile away, but it was heading for her trailer. Looked like some weird kind of tank or big truck. But it must be huge. She rubbed the sleep from her eye a little, might be a mirage out in the desert. Wasn’t that warm though. The ground vibrated a little more as it got closer, about as fast as a man walking. Maybe running. She went back into the house and poured herself some orange juice, looking back out of the window. A minute or so later she began to get worried. Some little tractor next to a huge black box, going towards her. A helicopter was a little speck in the cloudless sky. Way out here, it must be important. She picked up her baby and went to her truck, realizing she had left her keys in the pocket of her jeans. Running back in, she tugged them on underneath a long white t-shirt she had slept in, rooting through her pocket. Two keys and three key rings. One was a dongle from a bar, the other a small picture of herself and her kid and the other a glow-in-the-dark rubber ghoul looking a little worse for wear. Her, the ghoul and the baby got in the truck and drove off, the big box still quite a way away. She parked up a little further along the road, watching the tractor veer off it’s parallel trajectory with the huge cube and head towards her. She had a hammer somewhere around the cab, but looking at this guy it didn’t look like she’d need it. That box though. She had to crane her neck way back to see the top of it, that black, grey metal blocked out the sky like a mountain crawling along.

The guy shouted to her from his tractor.
“Hey there. Sorry about that.” he said “We’ve been sorting some stuff out in Littlefield.” He killed his engine. She looked at him, freckles on his neck, half a beard growing through his face.
“What is that thing?”
“I’m not able to say really. I’m afraid we’re going to have to take you in for a debriefing now.” “What does that mean? You’re going to arrest me? I didn’t do anything.”
“I know that. But you’ll be okay, treat nice and given breakfast, all that. We just can’t have you going out towards town and telling people about this box here.” he said. He sounded local.
“Why not? They’re going to see it sometime.” she said.
“Yeah...they probably will. But we just need a few more hours if that’s okay. Now I’m not threatening you, I don’t mean nothing, but I hope you’ll come nice and quiet.”
The helicopter that had been flying over was now landing nearby. A couple of dressed up jerks got off, shoving there finger in their ear.
“Gross. This is like a conspiracy or some shit.”
“Well, kinda is at the moment. If you’d like to go along with my friends here, that’d be dandy.”
“If it’s all the same to you I’d like to follow in my trailer. And at least let someone know I’ve been arrested for something.”
“Sure, okay. I guess my co-workers here will take care of that. Don’t worry, in a day or two we’ll let you go and you can say you were one of the first to see it.”
“See what exactly?” she called as he started up the diesel engine again.
“I don’t know. This damn space cube.” He shouted back, flashing a ‘peace’ sign and driving back towards the cube that had driven through where her trailer had been. The two suits walked across the desert toward her, but she wasn’t that worried. Even if she ran they’d catch her, there wasn’t much she could do anyway. The guy on the tractor had seemed friendly enough though. She looked at her baby and stroked his head. “Gosh.” she said too him.

Wayne looked at a report he had just printed out on the specifics of the machine he’d built. He felt a little like he was betraying himself, just handing over the last twenty years work to the military. If it went badly though, he’d end up getting the blame. They wasn’t the exact plans of the cube, these blueprints were a few months old but it was good enough. He opened up his top desk drawer, looking down at a bottle of whiskey. He wasn’t much of a drinker, never really saw the point of it. Although maybe it was times like these that a drink would help. Cracking open the seal, he unscrewed the cap and held the bottle out in front of him. His hand was shaking a little, he took a drink so he didn’t have to watch it. He coughed, gagging slightly as the liquid splashed into his empty belly. Pulling a face, he put the lid back onto the whiskey bottle and returned it to the top drawer. He wouldn’t need it but somebody else might soon enough. He went out of his office, hearing a baby crying down a corridor. He frowned at this but kept walking towards the meeting room they had transformed into an impromptu forum for the creation and discussion of ideas on how to stop the machine. As he opened the door he immediately regretted it, stopping and wondering if he had chance to run away before he got noticed. But sure enough some scientist noticed him amongst the arguments and tables filled with papers and laptops. “Wayne’s here!” he said.
“Wayne, we don’t know what to do.”
“Shut up Farslo, we got plenty of ideas. Good ideas.”
“Yeah? Blow it up? You can’t blow it up.”
“Yes you can.”
“No, you can’t.” said Wayne. “I designed it to be able to take a direct him from a cosmic asteroid, I think it’ll be able to handle the biggest bomb we have. And that includes the nuclear option.”
A few scientists and logicians went a little quiet at this, although several other arguments were occurring. One or two were deeply involved with calculations, occasionally shouting at the paper they had been writing on.
“Ladies, Gentlemen. Quiet please. This isn’t any way to conduct a logical, scientific solution to this problem.”
“Science got us here in the first place, god!” somebody said.
“Stop being so dramatic. You think they said that at the start of the cold war? You think they said that when they were stranded on the other side of the moon? You might be right. But only the naysayers would have, and we got through all of those situations fine. Science may be the cause of some problems, but it is a lot better than living in a cave like a common animal, afraid of storms and sacrificing newborns. Get a grip man! Science will be our salvation.”
“I don’t see deer or ostrich using biological weapons to attack one another. Even your average Joe in the street, do you think he’s the one conducting these experiments with no further thought as to the repercussions of science without ethics or responsibility? It is you who should get a grip. You have created a box that is going to crawl across our planet, destroying rain forests, cities, national monuments and innocent bystanders. People will die.” said Farslo. He didn't like Wayne.
“They won’t if we spend less time arguing about our emotions and regrets and rather focus on the task at hand. Now, what kind of ideas do we have so far?” said Wayne, picking up a paper at random.

The first idea was being built a few miles east of Littlefield, a sixty foot wide slope leading into a tunnel. It was hoped that the cube would carry on digging deeper into the earth until it either ran out of solar energy or pierced the Earth’s mantle and then spiralled into the underground ocean of lava. Most people weren’t sure if it would work, although it was relatively quick to do compared to some of the ideas being thrown around. Stick after stick of dynamite was exploded underground to try and dig as quickly as possible. The foreman of the dig lived in Littlefield himself, desperately wanting to be able to contact his wife so that some things could be removed from his house. Although he was on strictest orders to remain quiet. More explosions. He still wasn’t sure exactly what it was that was coming, but it would arrive by tomorrow and hopefully go in the hole he was having to dig. It paid well though.

That evening Simon could just about make out the twinkling street lights of sleepy little Littlefield. The tail-lights of a Jeep were off in the distance as well, a bit more friendlier tonight. Earlier the cube had made it’s first kill. A rabbit, apparently scared out of it’s mind was crushed underneath and came out on the other side as a red smear in the sand. Nothing left. He wondered what it’d be like to go underneath it. He’d been close enough, looked like the bottom of an escalator or something. Seemed quick although he supposed it matters how much of you there was. He’d heard about the tunnel they were digging on the other side of the town. Shame they couldn’t try to steer it clear. He knew a few people there. He was assured that they had a pretty decent way of getting people out of the way though. The tractor and the cube went through the night, quiet for the most part though Simon made the odd comment about some animal they heard or desert crap they passed.

Littlefield was a dinky old town nestled in the land bosom of Mount Bangs just by Virgin River, if you followed the road West you’d end up in Vegas after a while. Perverts drove along these roads, cruising for any naive ass thinking that hitch hiking was still groovy out in the desert. A lot of the victims barely had coloured clothes, never mind a colour television. Rapists, hoodlums, cat burglars and violent killers lived in small communities on the outskirts of the mountains mostly hunting and gathering although they would often forage among the open gut wings of some poor kid fresh out of high school for any kind of edible human part that they could consume. Those wild men looked at the black box way below in the desert, some thinking it was the hallucinations brought on by syphilis or the product of too much moonshine and blood. They grew weed in the woods and sometimes sold it to heads heading to Las Vegas or one or two of the people down in Littlefield itself. The two communities got on reasonably well all things considered. The sheriff of the town, Joe Blogs, wasn’t too happy with the band of merry men living in the mountains or the news that a big ol’ sixty foot cube would come ploughing through downtown Littlefield at eight the next morning. “Damn it! Market day.” he said, pounding a ham fist against the once beige fax machine. His deputy often sent and received nude pictures to some of his girlfriends without the sheriff knowing. Though Blogs knew a whole lot, and a bunch of high-faluting Johnny Law PhD government eggheads trying to take over his town wasn’t something he liked the look of. He puffed at the sad cigar stuck in his mouth for a while, waiting for a reply from the fax machine although there wasn’t any. An hour later one of the feds turned up, knocking on the door of his station house.
“Good evening Sheriff Blogs.”
“Evenin’ ese. Can I help you with something?”
“I was sent here. You sent a...fax to us, saying how you weren’t happy. I’m here to relax you. We’re trying to avoid this but, this thing it’s coming. You see? You need my help just as much as I need yours.”
“Pardon my French, but fuck you. This is my damn town. I’ll decide what to do with this damn box.”
“I don’t understand your point of view. Why are you resisting, you refuse to heed the warnings you’ve received? You have to understand that this, box, it will go through your town and crush everything there.” The agent pushed his fist over an open palm. “Flat.”
“Well I want to be in charge. I didn’t work my butt off chasing hippies back onto the highway for thirty years for it all to wrong and the town blame me, the sheriff, for what you fucked up.” he said, lighting another cigar. The agent looked at him, studying him.
“Okay then, you can co-ordinate the evacuation as you wish. My name is George Metzli I’m with the government. I’ll be here if and when you need me.” The agent walked into the Sheriff’s department, looking at the four empty desks.
“I don’t suppose I could have a cup of boiling water with sugar? It’s like black coffee, without the coffee?” The sheriff gave him an odd look and went to making the hot water. These city boys thought they were real slick, but he’d give them what for even if it meant screwing up his town. At least he’d be the one to do it. His face twitched. “How many sugars?”
“Five. Wait. Six. Looks like it’s going to be a long night.”
“You can say that again hot shot.” said the sheriff handing over the plastic cup, it’s sides just a touch thicker than a piece of paper. Metzli sipped.

The cube moved up to Littlefield in the early morning. The cube rolling and crushing the dried sand and stone beneath it’s wheels, it steadily made it’s way up towards the first outermost shacks. Prefab white buildings standing on small stilts where insects and lizards lurked underneath in the shade. The people inside were woken and took into the town on buses. If nobody answered the door the police burst in and checked each room attentively, anybody inside trying to sleep off a hangover or a late night shift didn’t enjoy being woken much but it was better than being crushed. Nobody knew that yet, the one or two who noticed the cube thought it was some kind of strange billboard put up recently. Cars and officials stood around, the first time they had properly gone out into the field in regards to the unstoppable cube. Trees and cactus were sucked underneath, coming out at the back as patches of moist green dust. People would scoop up the destruction from the cube later, it created interesting shapes artistically and a decent fuel practically. Simon overtook the cube as he headed towards the houses on the edge of Littlefield. His boss, Wayne, was there.

Calvin lit a number in the yard, sitting beneath an apricot tree. He looked out west at the last of the stars winking out just above the mountains as the blue sky bled outwards. Swinging a little in the garden hammock he had bought from a friend, he blew grey smoke upwards into leafage. There was a light vibration. Had he dosed himself with salvia? Looking around, he saw the silhouette of a big black shape. It reminded him a little of the obelisk in 2001. He watched it in wonder, it got bigger and bigger. There was a slight shudder at it hit his house, waking him from his weed induced hypnosis and he leapt from the hammock and started to climb his garden fence, shouting and swearing. As he reached it’s apex he looked over his shoulder as his white wooden bungalow was crushed up against the huge metal wall of the cube. The only thing he could see. He fell into a few scrubby bushes, picking himself up and running towards the front of his neighbours house. As he ran down the side, dodging trash cans and a child’s trike, he heard the apricot tree crack and splinter quickly followed by the fence. He yelled, primitively, as he sprinted down the drive and onto the street. In a bit of a haze he was only just processing that his house had been destroyed. He looked up the street and saw a bunch of police and other dudes hanging around big 4x4 vehicles. One noticed him and started shouting. “Help me!” Calvin yelled, running diagonally across the road towards them. The cube was obliterating the house he’d just ran past and parts of the two houses next to it. It was moving too quickly for him to make it to the end of the road so he had to hop a palisade fence and through another garden. This one had an empty deflated child’s pool out back and a bunch of beer cans and lawn chairs. He was getting a little tired by now, the THC was worming it’s way through his synapses. Repeating, he climbed a fence, ran across a lawn and out onto the street. A Jeep had just parked up on the road, engine revving. “Hurry!” Calvin jumped up through the window, trying to climb in. Though he couldn’t just get in, a bit high. The driver looked at him, brow creasing. “Hang on then.” he said, grabbing his shoulder as the Jeep sped down the road as the cube obliterated the houses and gardens Calvin had just ran past.

“That was close.” said Simon looking through a pair of binoculars.
“Everybody should have been evacuated already.” said Wayne.
“Guess we won’t really know for sure until somebodies claimed missing.” The motorized escort followed the cube through Littlefield. Most of it’s citizens had been rounded up in buses and kept in the school whilst it passed. Some protested, others were happy for the hot meal provided.
“It’s going to get out soon, people will know about it.”
“They might.”
“I was thinking, instead of driving a tractor by it I’m just as well to climb on top of it.” said Simon, turning from the binoculars and looking at Wayne. Wayne thought about it.
“I’ll get back to you on that. I need to go, carry on following it.”

Wayne drove his open top Cadillac through the empty streets of the town. Sweat was already dampening the collar of his shirt. “Damn desert.” he said. Mr. Metzli was waiting for him outside the Fire Department holding a briefcase. They drove onto the highway, heading out towards the dig. Metzli looked around at the various diggers and workers milling about around the maw of the man made cave. An air-raid siren went off that nobody seemed to take notice. There was an explosion deep in the shade of the cave that made the land above it vibrate and crack slightly, blowing out a huge cloud of orange dust that covered everything. The blast still echoed in his ears.
“Think it will work Wayne?” said Metzli.
“This? I very much doubt it.”
The two men wiped the dust off their clothes though it stuck to the patches of sweat. The foreman walked towards them, a roll of papers in one hand.
“Morning gentlemen. How can I help?”
“Ah, forget about it. We’re just here to watch the cube go in later this afternoon.” The foreman tilted one side of his head towards them as he listened before nodding and headed off, shoulders hunched. “Don’t you have to give out some briefings or something?” said Metzli.
“You’d be surprised the amount of people doing that for me. I reckon I’m going to be fired this time next week, they want a bunch of college boys to take over from me.”
“Want a cigarette?”
“Nah.”
“I wouldn’t worry about it really.” said Metzli, lighting a Marlboro.
“All depends if we can stop it, right?”
“We will.”
“Maybe. But the chances of that happening here, they’re quite high. Now you’ve said it, they must be even higher as what are the chances of actually guessing something correctly?”
“Don’t know myself. I see it less about numbers and more about, a certain kind of optimism.”
“A certain kind?” said Wayne. He spat out, some dust had got into his mouth.
“Yes. You know, wishing something into this world.” They looked at the massive void in front of them. The box rolled up mid afternoon, the mountains jutting behind it like fake teeth inside an electric mouth. Thunder rumbled. People were stood on either side of the shape they were trying to fit the cube into. A lot of them fidgeted, smoking cigarettes or pacing around whilst birds flew overhead escaping the coming rain. The box flattened trees, rocks, bulldozing mounds of earth over effortlessly, making the cube seem to hover through the ground somehow. It was unnatural, the smoothness of the way it slowly sliced through the air as if some robotic factory cutter would move as it pulsed into plastic sheeting and lengths of timber. Alien. Tension mounted as it moved towards the hole. Moments in time.

The cube glided into the hole silently.

It disappeared into the steep gradient of it’s grave, sliding slightly on the layer of red mud beneath it as it careened deeper and deeper towards the end of the tunnel. A series of lights and the exploitation of a crack a hundred inches wide was waiting. Scientists stood to one side in an area that had been set up for observation. Metzli watched as the cube neared, blocking out the glob of sunlight and becoming illuminated by a series of yellow sodium lamps. Along it’s hull there were the marks where things had dirtied it, adding an asymmetrical quality to the otherwise grey and perfectly smooth surface. Dirt, oil, scorch marks, insects. Matter. It hit the wall ahead. As it’s front hit the ground and crushed the lights laid in front of it it also began pushing the dirt back. It was digging. There was no strain of engines, no strange mechanical noises. The only noise was the ground falling in thick, heavy clods behind it. Some of the scientists cheered each other, speaking on a telephone to people on the surface about how the experiment had been a success. Above ground Wayne stroked his hair forward, pacing back and forth. A cold wind was starting to blow although most of the people were ignoring it by slapping each other on the back and singing Atta Boy and other old show tunes. Simon was resting by one of tyres of his tractor, watching others. Wayne noted that he could be useful. He boarded a Jeep winched to a large truck on the rim of the hole and took control of a spotlight he used to shine into the hole as the Jeep slid down. “Park the Jeep over by those men standing over there sergeant.” The soldier sitting next to him obeyed his order, even though he actually outranked Wayne. He had been sent on a specific light espionage mission by government honchos to keep a tight eye on this, for him to try and be involved with as much of the action that happened and give regular updates. He fingered the blackberry in his pocket, rolling his finger along the moulded plastic exterior letting his bosses know that the attempt to contain the cube was successful. The Jeep parked up, Wayne leaving the spy to fumble in his pocket with one hand as if simulating masturbation like he was in a crude teenage soldier comedy. “Stop, stop. We have to retreat.”
“Wayne, the walls should hold. Celebrate with us.”
“Gentlemen, you know as well as I that this experiment has no end. This is it’s first iteration, we have no real conclusive data that the robot’s guidance computers won’t pull it out of the ground like how Aristotle must be after spinning in his grave so quickly.”
“Wayne you pompous ass. It worked dammit.” Said one scientist, slapping his hand with finality.
Wayne pulled a pen from his pocket that had a laser attached on the end. He had once thought it a tacky gift from his nephew although he was now using it to show that the cube had already began it’s ascent, even the layer of rock couldn’t stop the cube as it gently rolled away back towards the top soil. Wayne got back in the Jeep “I want to stop this machine as much as anybody else. Although there is no quick fix. I need only those dedicated to science, logic, perfection to assist me in stopping it.” One scientist from the group stepped forward indignantly, licking his moustache. “I’ll come with you Wayne.”
“Alphonse, good. Anybody else?”
A few others stepped forward and each climbed onto the Jeep. Metzli stayed behind. He stood on the edge of the rough and ready platform they had built and watched the dark shapes move like a minimalist hallucination. When he turned again Wayne and the cluster of eggheads swung out along the dirt as they were slowly tugged upwards out of the cave. Metzli took to rows of ladders that were used as makeshift steps and made his way along. Blinking in the sunlight, he saw the thundercloud coming towards them. A lot of rain might cause a little structural damage to the tunnel although the whole thing would most likely be destroyed to cover it up anyway. Although if the cube was to carry on on it’s current course it’d end up in Monument Valley soon.

Sheriff Joe Blogs looked at the path through his town. Agents had carried out further destruction around the edges of the path to make it seem a little more ragged with the excuse that a hurricane had been through the city. There were rumours none the less. He had personally swore an oath of secrecy, thinking to himself at the time that he was doing the best for his community. In front of him were homes, small businesses, half the fire department, completely destroyed. Tears wet his eyes for the first time in twenty years. Back then it had been because he’d found his sister strung up in the forest after things went south on some two-bit dimebag dope deal that some Vegas shit heads had set up with the hill folk. Maybe he was getting a little soft in his own age. Though these buildings made up the psychological landscape of the town’s inhabitants. Like the cube had come through and personally destroyed photo albums, comfortable sets of shoes, in some cases a family pet. Blogs lit a cigar, blowing the smoke out into the evening air filled with the sounds of his town trying to sort out their shit. He walked back into the office to check the fax and found a picture of a naked lady. He looked at the black and white blocks marking the contours of her hips, the ink on her pubic hair still wet. It shone in the light. “Boy howdy.” He went to the photocopier, reeled one off then replaced the original in the fax whilst he kept the slightly warm, folded photocopy in his back pocket. Feeling a little better he went back outside to finish his cigar.

Simon looked out at the yellow and blue vista of the night desert surrounding him, a panorama of gently rolling landscape. Lights out on the highway, drivers unaware of the 60 metre cubed beast making it’s way through the desert. He was excited about reaching Monument Valley. He’d never been there himself but he watched a lot of Westerns as a child, balancing on the edge of his dad’s knee as white hats and black hats cracked off pistols at each other and rode gallant steeds around the cinemascoped version of Monument Valley. Riding the big cube beneath him at that moment in time, he could imagine himself as John Wayne. Though if he was being honest with himself he was more like James Stewart. Still, there wasn’t any harm in dreaming these kinds of things. He walked to the front of the cube and shone a flashlight down it, looking at the mound of crap that it had begun to push along as if some kind of ocean liner slicing through the Atlantic. The size of the pushed stuff ebbed and flowed depending on the terrain, but it rarely got any higher than six feet. The cube was beginning to smell a bit more earthier because of it though, which wasn’t a bad thing. Simon imagined the cube in a million years when mankind might have left the planet. Might have stuff growing on it, a whole eco-system shuffling around the world. He looked up at the stars and imagined a little more then got back to work making sure the cube didn’t kill anyone.

She watched Metzli from her car, the horn rimmed glasses an anachronism on her face. She was handsome enough to be pretty, small lips marked red, only real colouring there. She changed lanes, following the car with Mexican plates. Unusual that they’d get somebody from abroad, although she had read Metzli’s file. He had a certain methodology that garnered results. Military tours, educated in Northern Europe, all that jazz. She carefully drove the car far enough away that she wouldn’t be noticed. She hadn’t give him any reason to be paranoid. Metzli was enjoying himself, tapping a hand on the steering wheel to the beat of some psychedelic Van Halen rip-off playing on the radio. He recorded a small sample of it onto a Dictaphone, by the time the song finished he had reached Monument Valley. Checking into a Holiday Inn he placed his shoes by the doorway and curled his toes onto the carpet, feeling satisfied. He drank a cup of hot water and watched some late night football before quickly drifting off to sleep. She watched him with a pair of thermal imaging goggles. They were state of the art, using shape-recognition and pixel replacement to try and give as close to x-ray vision as you could get. She watched him lie in bed for a while before leaving her car and placing a cross on the back of his car in special ink before she got a room herself. She stepped out of her shoes without breaking a step, had a shower and did paperwork into the early morning with the aid of crushed up caffeine pills followed by a medium dose of sleeping pills with a slow releasing vitamin suppository in order to wake up easier in about three hours. In those three hours she had complex dreams, Metzli was the subject of most.

The cube reached Monument Valley at around nine in the morning. Simon had fallen asleep on top of it, lying in a sleeping bag with a parasol above him. It was blown away as helicopter gunships flew overhead. “Hey!” he shouted at them, then realized where he was. The valley of rocks, red and familiar were dotted with a small army. “Simon Buckley!” He looked up to see another helicopter hovering above him shouting at him through some speaker. A soldier descended on a rope. “Simon, please leave the top of the cube.” Simon looked at the few things he had brought with him, a sleeping bag, a radio, some scientific equipment and an ice cooler with some beer. He picked up the radio and the cooler and waited for the man to grab him and whisk him away.
“What’s happening?”
“We’re going to blow that cube sky high. It’s time the United States Army took it’s turn rather than some boffin’s having a circle jerk about who’s got the bigger brain. We have bullets.”
“I was told that this cube’s indestructible.”
“Well, we’ll see about that. We have shells as big as trucks we use to bust towel head cave systems. We have artillery relics from the cold war we were going to use to shell Moscow. Not to mention some real heavy shit, magnetic bombs, rocket propelled molten steel. Sit back and watch the show, it’s going to be like fourth of July in this dust bowl.”
Simon shrugged, looking out of a helicopter door as the chopper circled the cube advancing towards the platoon.

Wayne and Alphonse watched a series of monitors showing Monument Valley. Some observation equipment had been installed before it’s escape.
“Are they trying to destroy it?”
“Looks like it. Let them have there childish fun.” said Wayne, turning towards the preliminary plans for the method they had chosen. Wayne rubbed at his comb-over, unsure about their idea. Metre after metre of interactive touch screen technology was glowing blue and green, lighting the scientists eerily as they tapped away at the tabletop. “How is the project going?”
“Pretty well sir. I’ve run some simulations. The only problem is the logistics of the thing.”
“Well, that is one of the inherent flaws in this plan. The waiting aspect.” Wayne continued to stroke his hair. The sergeant noted all of this down on his blackberry, volunteering to stay with the scientists. He made coffee and tried to look busy, hanging around in the shadows mostly and hoping nobody would speak to him. He was quite pleased with himself. The room glowed orange, making people look up at the monitors. The military had started their assault.

Tanks fired armour piercing shells, they screamed through the air and crumpled against the outside of the metal frame like wet tissue paper. Artillery and mortar flew down from the sky, raining explosions on top of and around the box. But it kept moving. This went on for a few minutes until they were ordered to stop whilst a laser scanned the surface of the box. “Nothing. All that did was clean all the crap off the sides.” Next was the minefield, small explosions popped underneath. And so on. Flame-throwers, Tesla cannons, electromagnetic pulse bombs, an acoustic sonic blaster, plasma cutters, even an experimental laser was fired from a high altitude satellite. At best the various projectiles hit the target then did nothing, at worst they would ricochet off at unpredictable angles and erupt into explosions that bloomed across Monument Valley like strange flowers. A general was arguing with Metzli at the side. “I want to use a nuclear bomb on this thing.”
“I’m sorry sir. Besides the low probability of success the cube would then become radioactive.”
“I know that man, but nothing can withstand the blast from one of these things. They’re hotter than the sun and twice as bright.” barked the general. Metzli looked the general in the eye, imagined looking into the inside of his head through his corneas. Into his grey brain, pulsing with electricity. He tried to send out some kind of telepathic energy in the hope that this would calm the general but he went on about the nuke. Metzli pulled out his phone, dialled a number and handed it to the general.
“Who is this? Oh, Mr. President-” said the general, feeling pretty important. It wasn’t even the president but an impersonator Metzli had hired for these kinds of emergencies. She was watched through binoculars halfway up one of the iconic rocks. She licked her top lip, lowering the binoculars to watch the cube slowly roll out of a dust cloud fizzing with sparks.

Metzli thought it was time to go public about the cube, advising his bosses. Although he was technically an agent working for America, he had got the role by being particularly useful to insurance brokers in making sure certain things remained safe whilst in South America. He was pretty well known in the insurance world as being able to protect any investment. Starting the conference call as he headed towards Kansas, he knew that they wouldn’t be pleased. Although the cube had already been through two towns since Littlefield and about to head for another, the largest yet, his bosses still yearned to keep it a secret.
“Mr. Metzli. We heard that the Monument Valley attempt was unsuccessful.”
“Correct. Although even I wasn’t optimistic about that.”
“We are wondering why you are phoning us instead of co-coordinating things on the ground in Cortez.” said somebody. Metzli wasn’t sure who was on the other end of the line.
“I’m on my way. I wanted to advise you beforehand that I consider it wise to go public on this. People have already seen it and it’s only a matter of time before it reaches Wichita.”
“We understand your concern. But witnesses are being held. Press releases are being prepared. This takes time.”
“I understand. Although I really would like to stress the importance of my opinion. I think the sooner the better. We’ve been lucky so far in that nobody has leaked this. There’s already rumours on the internet about something going through Utah.”
“Okay Mr. Metzli. We’ll get back to you on that. Until then follow standard procedure.” “Goodbye.” said Metzli. He wasn’t that happy. Times like this that he wished he had cigarettes but he’d left them in the motel room.. He checked his mirrors and drove onto the interstate, noticing a matt brown Ford estate following him.

The cube was getting dirty again after the series of explosions had blasted most of the filth off it. Rolling out of a river, it pushed the mud bank up and around the sides of it’s bottom that made more dust kick up and stick to it. It was majestic, making it’s way halfway up mountains before the gradient became too steep or the top couldn’t support it’s weight so that it just went through them. Dropping off cliffs wasn’t much trouble either, it left large craters and had to do a bit of digging back up to the surface but it didn’t slow it down, which was good as Colorado was home to several large mountain ranges that dotted the state like inverse craters on the moon. Simon followed alongside when he could although it had become too dangerous most of the time. He was glad that the cube hadn’t been stopped in Monument Valley, it had been a pretty good day so far. He was on his way to Cortez when Wayne rang.
“Simon? This is Wayne.”
“Hello boss. Can I help you?”
“I’m glad you asked. I’ve been watching you from on-board cameras, listened to you talking to the cube.”
“Oh...sorry.” Simon was glad that nobody was around to see him turn red.
“Don’t worry Simon. I find it refreshing, that you understand the cube. You like it even, am I speaking the truth?”
“Yes sir.”
“Well, I have a specific proposition for you. You saw what they tried to do back in the desert. They have some more schemes lined up for our box. Now, I don’t want you to commit any acts of sabotage or anything. But I want you to be a leak, blow the whistle on this.”
“Sir?”
“Don’t worry. There are channels to go through, I’ll talk you through it. Although before we go any further I need to know, are you on my side?”
Simon let the tractor idle and watched the cube push it’s way into a forest, the trees being knocked over and bouncing back and forth like blades of grass.
“You can count on me.” he said, smiling.

The town of Cortez was similar to Littlefield. By the mountains, insular. Years ago people swept Westwards throughout America, laying claim to any place thought to have some kind of resource. Whether that have been water, wood, land, minerals or just a good place for travellers to meet and swill moonshine with other long dead famous drunks like Calamity Jane or Jesse James. Bar fights could be finished quickly simply by hitting the side of a man and bursting his diseased liver like a steak and kidney pudding. Cortez had been founded in the winter of 1832 by a small group of families on there way to California to pan for gold. When the snow had set in the people settled and by spring the families had all married each other and began the great ritual of civilization. Nearly two centuries later the town of Cortez had grown, it had it’s own airport even. The cube made it’s way towards the town, all the regular evacuation gang stood around waiting for it’s arrival. Metzli ate a sandwich in the town’s best diner, a salami omelette between two slices of thick brown bread, the whole thing drizzled in olive oil. “Delicious.” he said to the waitress, leaving a two dollar tip before heading out. His ears were still ringing a little from the action back in Monument Valley, though it didn’t matter much as the streets had been cleared. There was an odd hum though, not the cube. He scanned the surroundings and looked up, spotting a small private plane coming in towards the runway of Cortez airport. Traffic control was ordering them to find another runway but the pilot insisted that he should land due to one of his passengers having a heart attack. The cube rolled towards the tarmac runway, emerging from the trees like some kind of 8-bit Grendel. The pilot was already coming in to land though, wheels down, wing flaps flapping away. He yelped, trying to steer the plane away from the cube. Just twenty or so feet away it managed to clear it, although the speed at which he pulled off this manoeuvre caused the plane to stall and barrel roll through the air. The small white aircraft crashed into the main high street of Cortez and exploded into a magnificent fireball, instantly killing everybody inside whilst it’s burning fuselage skidded along the road and came to a stop partway inside a second-hand bicycle shop. The owner lived just above the shop and went running down the stairs to see what had happened although the stairs had been destroyed in the air crash, causing him to fall and break his neck. Metzli had been able to watch part of this awful ballet from his position outside the diner. He couldn’t finish his sandwich, throwing it in the trash with the rest of the small town crap like t-shirts with ‘blow me’ printed on the front or empty boxes of Nike sneakers containing over saturated amateur sex photos and other teenage trinkets of days gone by. The plane burned brightly, melting it’s surroundings as the cube pushed it’s way through the front of city hall and emerging out of the front in a cloud of cement dust and broken bricks. It scraped it’s way along the high street, leaving the town of Cortez as quickly as it had arrived and was on it’s towards the foot a mountain.

The first news reports about the cube appeared in the small hours of the morning after Cortez. First one or two speculative articles on independent news sites before appearing on all of the bigger networks. The news spread as fast as E. Coli, on the television and in print by the time most people were up for work. The main story before that had been about a torture investigation involving soldiers overseas although the cube was deemed more newsworthy. After signing documents the witnesses held by the government were also released and able to give reports about what they had seen, the woman driving the trailer in the desert, people from Littlefield, Cortez all had brief interviews, their aesthetic or intellectual appeal then boosting them onto further interviews with big media people like Marvin Ham or Jessica Albright. They sweated under make-up and thousand watt lights, recanting stories about the cube whilst video footage was played in the background. The most iconic image so far was the cube riding through the desert and crushing part of a traffic jam. Simon hated the live coverage, already regretting leaking the news of the cube. He had become a person of interest, although he generally kept himself to himself which garnered more intense probing. The networks had deemed the cube a sign of government funding into science projects going haywire, Marvin Ham especially would rant, brain bubbling with amphetamines, furiously proclaiming that science funding should be reduced whilst at the same time demanding that the cube should be stopped. Nobody had died yet although there was some footage of the cube rolling through a field of cattle and catching several under it’s wheels. News helicopters circled the mountain continuously, filming the cubes gentle ascent up the black and white shell.

The air felt dry, microwaved. She sat in a news conference about the cube, giving the regular details about what the cube was made of and the way it moved. More of a way to introduce Metzli to the public, the person the government had deemed to have enough character to be the face associated with this disaster. He spoke well, made people feel assured. She had read his file and was aware of several instances where he would often talk to dying soldiers on the battlefield, speaking to them in a way that they would be more accepting in their death. Autohomicide bombs, soldiers infected with battle cancers, Metzli had a way of first empathizing with them and then reversing it so that they would feel his calmness. It made her shift in her seat. It was the first time he had seen him deliver his pre-eulogy to those about to die. She decided she needed to talk to him personally. She walked out into the parking lot, pushing the horn-rimmed glasses up her nose to get a better view of the platoon of news reporters standing around with hangovers and weak coffee served from a van that popped up at these sorts of places. Wriggling her way through camera crews and new anchors she made her way to her brown station wagon where she sat in the driver’s seat. She took a small box of pills out of her breast pocket and popped two baby blue pills into her mouth before relaxing. Pupils dilated slightly, sweat drops forming on her temples which pulsed slowly and strongly. With a monocular she watched Metzli exit the conference building to be set upon by reporters like hounds seizing a fox. Metzli managed it though, smiling his way through a forest of hi-definition SLR cameras and boom mics until he made his way to his own car. After driving away he loosened his tie, worried. His bosses had thought he was responsible for the leak due to the timing of the thing although the investigation had been put on hold whilst he helped with the cube. He wished he had a cigarette. Metzli and his follower drove around the mountain to the next town awaiting destruction.

Wayne watched the media orchestra play out in front of him. He wasn’t much of a manipulator, although when he considered the importance that the cube had to him over his own wants and needs he found he had a hidden cunning for organizing and co-ordinating chains of events. He was proud of himself. He looked at the plans the other scientists he had under his command, working on the project he now found unimportant. To him it wasn’t that important to stop the cube but instead accept it for what it was. An end of history. Monuments, libraries, galleries, landmarks. All of these would be eroded away over the years. Of course, things could be moved in order to avoid the cube. But a millennia of architectural theory would have to be cast aside. And when you change the surroundings of a person, you changed a person. He became further interested in watching the monitors than those around him, watching hours upon hours of rolling landscape. The cube was ascending, rather quickly, up the side of some distant mountain. The night that the reporters rushed upon the cube he had built a box of monitors to stand inside so he could see and hear what the cube recorded and broadcast back to him over the airwaves.

His fellow scientists on the other hand were growing increasingly worried of Wayne’s behaviour. The sergeant spy went outside, claiming he needed to refuel his Jeep. Instead he sat inside it, phoning his boss on the other line. She picked up the phone, talking quietly herself. The only room available at the motel she was staying at was directly next door to Metzli.
“Wayne’s behaviour is growing quite erratic. His staff aren’t too far away from booting him out in my opinion.”
“Understood. Continue monitoring. How is their project going?”
“It seems pretty reasonable, it might even work.”
“Are you qualified to make that statement?”
“Well, no sir.”
“You have your orders as I have mine. There will come a time in the next few days that you will need to take action but until then continue observing.”
“Yes sir.”
She put the phone down then scrunched up the stiff cover blanket of her bed between her tidy fists. Her knuckles were white, not with effort but due to the paleness of her skin. She pressed a pill out of a plastic dome and placed it into her mouth, swallowing it with a cup of lukewarm water from a disposable paper cup. The room wasn’t too big, the air-conditioning and the double bed taking up most of the floorspace above the navy blue carpet. It had patches where it was cleaner than the other areas as if strange stains had been lifted. Stains in bedrooms were usually from bodily fluids. This thought crossed her mind briefly as she carefully listened through the wall with a cluster of surface microphones, listening to Metzli moving in his sleep.

As the cube traversed Colorado by dawn’s early light cube chasers had began following in a variety of trucks, off-road vehicles and the odd motorbike which joined the regiment of journalists and soldiers. All had to follow quite strict guidelines on how near they could approach the cube, although occasionally somebody would break rank to get closer to the cube. Security had been beefed up quite a lot since the news broke, but once in a while somebody managed to set up an ambush. None of this affected the cube, although it was beginning to get at Simon. He’d already had to fight off a small team of mercenaries intent on blowing up the cube with some home-made grenades. This was the first human kill the cube had, some bumpkin trying to light a fuse fastened to a jar filled with shotgun shells when the cube knocked him down. It went over him as quick and easily as it would if it went through a boulder or a tree, the short scream he made stuck with Simon though. The man ended up as another wet patch in the wake of the moving box. Colorado itself wasn’t doing him any good. Since the army had stepped in he didn’t have that many people to talk to or animals to look at. Just him and the cube, travelling inside a formation of military machines surrounded by an outer crust of the curious public. He couldn’t even drink whilst he was driving as he supposed it was illegal. One of the good things was that he was able to ride on top of the cube soon enough due to Kansas being so flat.

Just after the border was the next scheme to stop the cube. A huge treadmill had been built, big enough to hold the cube. It had cost millions of dollars in tax payers money to construct the titanium runway built in a field of wheat with the parts flown in from across the country. Farslo had taken the lead on this project and felt pretty pleased with himself, conducting interviews and showing cgi of the cube running on the conveyor belt. The convoy of people surrounding the cube turned up first, an advance party to watch the block meet it’s end. The cube approached as the sun blazed down, filmed from dozens of different angles as it approached Farslo’s trap. The conveyor moved backwards at six miles an hour, though it had to be turned on at precisely the right moment for the cube to remain on the titanium runway. Lasers measured the cube’s movement, they were blocked out as it’s dirty metal body drove onto the belt. There was apprehension in the air, some people who were unsure about how the treadmill worked were already shouting about how it hadn’t worked. Then it came on.

There was a groaning of metal but sure enough the cube quickly slowed to a stop as the ground beneath it matched the wheels above it. A great cheer rose from the crowd, Farslo himself was brimming with pride. He’d actually done it. Stepping onto a podium besides the two huge machines he began to make a speech to international news networks about the gallant efforts of Americans having managed to stop the advancement of technology gone haywire. Meanwhile in his ear he was being told that the cube was already making advancement. Barely millimetres but still, it hadn’t worked. Only slowed the machine down. After finishing his speech he rushed away.
“Why the fuck isn’t it working? Take me to Wayne. No, wait. Bring him to me for fuck’s sake, where is he? Where is he!” he shouted to the passengers in the car. Nobody really had any response. Farslo threw himself back into his chair so that he slumped. “Fuck’s sake.”

Back in Nevada the group of scientist’s were putting the finishing touches to a presentation about their method of stopping the cube to be shown in a 3D cinema so that it really got the attention of those in charge. The film was being processed on a supercomputer alongside various algorithms and calculations deciding on the most efficient way to deploy the huge horseshoe they had designed. It was made of the same material the cube was, could match it in pushing strength. An immovable object for the unstoppable force. The only problem was what would happen when they would collide. Although not that violent, the physics of where the cube met the horseshoe were mind boggling. The group was primarily working on the theory that they may fuse together whilst igniting the atmosphere or perhaps stripping away the Earth’s magnetosphere although Wayne had totally given up on the project. He watched the cube’s cameras. At first he was worried that the cube had been stopped, although he had looked at the treadmill and decided it was built cheaply, quickly and wouldn’t stand the wheels of the cube. He had spent most of his life working on his invention, a cosmic eye that could travel in the most hostile alien environments long after he was dead. Gas giants with molten swamps of metal as it’s core, superhot asteroids caught in the orbit of black holes, distant ice worlds that may contain alien species made of diamonds and ink. Perhaps one day even the surface of a star. An interstellar fleet of cubes being pushed outward from Earth using special rockets that would transform into satellite transmitters so that mankind could explore the cosmos without needing to physically be there. But there had been a mistake somewhere, it wouldn’t have taken much. Some loose connection, some code that hadn't been finished. And now the cube was loose and he was held responsible. That is why Wayne was packing a bag to take with him as he made his escape. The horseshoe would take months to build and he didn’t want to face the courts, the public and the media with some ridiculous backlash. He remembered back when he was a child that they had two sheep dogs and one day one had gone into his sister’s room whilst she was asleep and bit her face. She’d been alright but would have a strange scar on her cheek for the rest of her life. His dad had been furious at the dogs but knew only one was responsible. These were his prize sheep dogs as well, part of his welfare. Wayne had just turning eleven when this happened and went out to the porch that evening to talk to his dad, who spent time on their porch when he wanted to think whilst looking out at the farm he owned. They talked for a while and the first time Wayne can remember understanding his father’s point of view, the logic he had and the decision he was struggling with. That night his dad went to the kennel and shot both dogs, unable to take the chance it would happen again. Nearly forty five years later Wayne understood the dog’s point of view. The only difference was he had a chance to get out. He zipped the bag up, took a last look at the monitors and made his way out of the building. By the back door the sergeant was waiting, leaning against the wall. “Can I help you Wayne?”
“No, I’m just on my way out. Need to go the treadmill and talk to the media, you know.”
“That’s quite a way out isn’t it?”
“I think so. I’ll be alright, the cube pretty much carved a highway from here to there.”
“Why don’t you stay here, I’m sure they’ll send a helicopter for you.”
“No thanks, there’s been enough helicopter’s flying around.” The sergeant took off from his position like a swimmer, quickly within reach of Wayne.
“You’re staying here Wayne.”
“No. I can’t, they rang me. You can come with me but we have to go now.” The two men looked at each other for a moment in the concrete stairwell being cooled by noisy air conditioning. Wayne looked at the sergeant, six feet tall, sleeves pulled up over muscled arms, buzz cut. The sergeant looked back at Wayne then grabbed him by the shirt.
“We aren’t going anywhere.”
“Stop it. Stop, I command you! Stop.”
“I don’t want to hurt you but I can.” said the sergeant.
Wayne was being dragged along back up the stairs when he reached into his pocket and pulled out his pen with the laser on the end. He shone it in the sergeants eye, enough to distract him so that Wayne could push him towards the railing on the staircase. His first push barely moved him, though Wayne swung his feet up against the wall and pushed away again. The two men went over the rail and fell a few feet. It was still enough to break the sergeant’s neck. Wayne stood up, holding his wrist. “Fuck! Fuck, fuck.” he said over and over, looking at the strange bump below the sergeant’s skull. The soldier was still concious, barely. His brown eyes looked up at Wayne from the floor and followed him as he burst through the door and into the desert. The sergeant began to dribble.

Simon sat in a bar just off the highway, looking at a beer that was getting warm. A lot of the little towns around the cube had become busy, the most that South West Kansas had seen in a long time. He had parked his tractor just outside of Dodge City and hoped not many of the locals would bother him. He caught a few glances but nothing much, the bar had pretty dingy lighting from the few bulbs that worked. Simon wasn’t much in the mood for celebrating. The adventure was pretty much over for him. He lacked the charm to wrangle a celebrity career from the experience, not that he cared for that. After this he would probably end up going back to his job, maybe he’d quit and be a long distance truck driver or something. He wasn’t sure. He took a drink. The bar didn’t have a television but if it did he’d be sure they’d be showing the cube stuck on the treadmill. He heard a few snatches of conversation, though most of the old timers at the bar weren’t there to make small talk. Pool cues cracked against balls, locals laughed at blue jokes. Dodge City didn’t seem that bad. Wasn’t like being by the cube though, like swimming alongside some giant in the Atlantic. Simon sighed and ordered himself another beer.

The cube had moved almost a centimetre as midnight fell. The tracks were deteriorating slowly, the machine was making progress. Farslo looked at it through the window as the corn fields surrounding it waved in the wind lazily. His attention was brought back to the room upon hearing his name.
“So what do you think?”
“I...I think our first priority is to stop the cube. Although manpower should be put into finding Wayne, we should move ahead with the next step.”
“Are you sure sir?”
“Yes.” said Farslo. He wasn’t. But sat in a room with the half dozen men he felt the need to appear definite. The green gloss walls of the room made it seem a lot dimmer than it should, bouncing light around and making odd shadows on faces. Perhaps the oddest shadows of all belonged to the computer expert they had found in Silicon Valley. His skin was marked with ulcers, raw and fierce. There was a mark on his sleeve where one on his arm had began to bleed.
“I’ll begin the process then. I’ll need time to go over the files.” he said, holding up a memory stick. “But I imagine I’ll have some sort of system in place soon enough.”
“You will have all the resources you need.” said Farslo.
“To be honest I have my own computers, I know a few guys who could help out.”
“Are they trustworthy?”
“I used to be a hacker myself. I trust them more than...some people.” said the ulcerated man.
Farslo would usually have goaded some kind of argument out of him although he agreed. The few government men he had met had been a lot different than the boffins back in Nevada.
“Well, good luck then Poulsen. Keep me updated.” said Farslo.
“Yes sir.” Farslo nodded to nobody in particular then went out into the corn fields to look at the cube. The wind carried the hum of it’s looping motion into the night.

Metzli was preparing to debrief his bosses, making a few re-writes from time to time on his laptop. After that he wasn’t sure. Maybe another job? Maybe he’d go and visit his family in Mexico. He sipped some warm water and played around with the word processor for a while until he got bored enough that he held his finger down on the letter o, watching page after page of o’s appear and disappear. Shaking himself a little, he decided he’d finish it up in Washington and went out to his car. As he put his key into the door he felt a nip in his neck. He woke up a little groggy, then quickly worked out he’d been drugged. He was bound, to a chair. It was dark. His eyes began to focus and he could make out some shapes. Where was he? How long had he been out for? A beam of light sliced through the curtain, illuminating a bed. It had been the one he had slept in last night. He tried pulling at the rope around his arms though he heard the familiar click of a pistol being cocked behind his head so he stopped. He felt somebody move close behind his head then the wet sound of lips parting.
“I've been watching you.” said the voice.
“Okay. What do you want.”
“To talk to you.”
“This is the best way for us to talk? Let me out of this chair.”
“I don't want to let you know who I am just yet. I shouldn't be talking to you. But I need to tell you that the cube hasn't been stopped.’
“Yes it has.” said Metzli.
“It is moving and will carry on soon enough. I usually don't intervene on cases but there is more to this than meets the eye. Haven't you wondered why the cube got loose in the first place? Stopping it isn't as important as knowing why it started.”
“I don’t understand.” he whispered.
“Keep following the cube for now and think about our meeting. Until next time Metzli.” she said, her breathy cadence at almost a whisper before she walked past him and swung open the door, blinding him again as the late morning sun flooded the room. He could see the blurry silhouette of her. Hard to tell any details. And she was gone. He began to struggle with the rope around his wrist.

On top of the cube were a small group of men not used to being outside. They sat cross-legged, tapping away at computers connected to large electrodes hooked up to the cube. The head hacker, the man with the ulcerated skin was struggling in the Kansas sun, the sweat not doing his ulcers any good. "I need a sit rep!"
"This subnets like nothing I've ever seen. Trinary code, firewalls circling firewalls..."
"C'mon guys, we've all hacked military computers before. The programming is only as good as the programmer." said a balding twenty year old with dreadlocks.
"Guys, I'm running 512-bit encryption data waveware, seems to be cracking the code..."
"I'm pinging the fuck out of this bitch." said another, sweating beneath his cowboy hat.
"Synchronizing hack in 3, 2, 1!"
They all hit keys at the same time. The ulcerated man pumped his fist in the air. "Epic hack! I'm in." His monitor showed a 3D wireframe model of the cube that rotated with various green numbers changing rapidly in a side panel.
"Now it's just a case of shutting this thing down and we'll have beat this thing." he said just as the cube lurched forward on the treadmill, knocking over a few empty energy drink cans.
"Wait, wait!" he shouted at his laptop. The treadmill beneath them groaned, rising in pitch to a scream. The people below started to back away, shouting things up at the cluster of nerds until the cube suddenly lurched forward as the conveyor belt snapped. It whipped backwards, thrown from the bottom of the cube as it bounded into the grain fields. The hackers started to scream and shout in fear. "What have you done!" shouted one.
"I don't know, hold on, hold on. Something's wrong." said the ulcerated man, still typing furiously at his laptop. The cube wasn't going at six miles per hour any more.

Simon had heard the news and was racing along the streets of Dodge City, trying to get to the freeway. He'd just bought an off-road pick-up from the late 90s for a months salary but he didn't care. He was giddy. Most people were trying to head East, head out of the city. But he guided the truck faster and faster, listening to the news and squinting through a light hangover. Apparently they'd tried to hack the cube and some piece of software had been activated. Driving along the interstate his radio lost the news signal and began playing pounding electronic rock and roll noise, the first military vehicles sped towards him, flashing him down. He pulled up, showed his identification and they let him pass. The truck passed Jeeps and personnel carriers whilst helicopters flew overhead. The road was getting pretty busy for this time of day, a mix of scientists, soldiers and journalists going towards or away from the cube. After nearly half an hour he saw the cube in the distance, kicking up dust.

The hackers stood around a table opposite Farslo. On the table was the body of the hacker with the cowboy hat, he'd fallen from the cube and died of internal injuries. "Are you looking at him? This man was your friend. And it's your fault he's dead."
"Sir." one protested.
"Shut your fucking spotty face. You dicks. Do you know what 'decelerate' means? It doesn't mean speed the fucker up!" said Farslo, throwing a stack of papers around the room. They wafted around, some landing on the body.
"It was an accident."
"Yeah? As far as we can tell this isn't just, oo, a sudden burst of energy. It is continuing to accelerate." He waited for a response. When their leader was about to speak Farslo punched the corpse in the face.
"Shut up! You're all under arrest. You better hope we can stop this soon else...I don't know. You're fucked!" he shouted. Some soldiers walked in and took the hackers away, leaving Farslo shaking in anger. Twelve miles an hour and counting, an extra number after every ten minutes. At this rate the cube will have reached the East coast soon enough. "Get me Wayne!"

Wayne was out in the desert, riding around in a stolen Jeep. He wasn't sure where he was going. Maybe Vegas. Maybe Reno. Some place he could lay low for a while. The sun was reaching it's peak in the sky, high noon. Hot as hell. He drove for a while, a little lost. Bits of scrub, the occasional withered tree. Trying to steer the Jeep as much as he could in the shadow of the mountainous ridges around him, he eventually reached a road just by Death Valley and stuck to that. "Viva Las Vegas." he said to himself. With no air-conditioning in the Jeep he was struggling to keep cool and had stripped down to just his underwear. In his bag of supplies he took out a water can and gulped it's warm contents, happy enough. He'd never been to a casino but thought now would be as good a time as any to go to one.

The cube wasn't going that fast, but picking up speed. The huge electrodes were still attached to it and trailed behind it like strands of hair as it chewed up rows of farmland. Large rotating sprinklers were twisted up and crushed under it's wheels as it moved through Kansas. As it approached Dodge City some farm boys who had been waiting amongst the corn rows in a truck drove alongside it, one of them standing in the bay of the truck with a can of spray paint whilst his friend had hold of his belt. "Get nearer Clive!" he yelled to the driver as he leaned towards the metal wall. Soldiers had noticed the truck and were already moving towards it, but the graffiti artist still had enough time to begin tagging the machine. In large purple letters he began writing 'FUCK IRAQ' as his brother had been killed whilst fighting over there. He got as far as 'c' before the truck hit a bump and he was thrown from the truck. He toppled forward, instinctively trying to break his fall with his arms though when he landed and his sleeve got caught beneath the wheels of the cube. He was quickly pulled towards the cube as if sucked up by a hoover, screaming along the way. His arm was gone, bone pulled out of it's socket as easily as popping off the leg from a roast chicken. With his other arm he had managed to push away before the rest of him had been pulled underneath, though his arm was gone. He lay in the corn, shocked. Blood pumped out of his shoulder rhythmically, it nearly made him laugh. He didn't though. Instead he watched the cube move out of his vision and the faces of his friends pop into it. "Fuck Iraq." he said, then fainted. The cube moved on and as it entered the next county it was joined by Simon in his bright baby blue pick-up truck. He frowned at the 'FUC' painted on the side, but it didn't matter much to the cube he supposed. Just after two in the afternoon they had both reached Dodge City. He checked his speedo, they were both going at twenty one miles an hour. It was a little funny to Simon. Last night he had been almost in mourning, drinking flat beer in some scummy bar. Now he was riding just behind the cube and was grinning as pieces of Dodge City crumbled on either side of him.

Before, when the cube would amble into a building, it either destroyed it's whole structure or push it along for a while before it was obliterated. Now that the cube was beginning to pick up speed it tended to make buildings explode against it's front, sending debris flying everywhere. The shrapnel from post-offices, hospitals and schools would fly from the corners of the metal box and usually damage things that the cube would have missed before. Telephone lines were cut, glass would be broken, cars would be crushed beneath masonry and wood. A panic had also began as rumours spread of the path of the cube, people unsure exactly where was safe. The government would try to clear the path they thought the cube would take as good as they good, but they thought they'd have weeks to sort it out. Now they had to do entire stretches of city in just a few hours, it was complicated. People were beginning to get injured by the cube. Photographers trying to get dramatic shots could be crushed by a falling tower, people who lived alone and paid little attention to the news that week suddenly had the cube crash into their living room and kill them. Thrill-seekers, heroes, the brave, the stupid, the old, the young, the suicidal. A jail was ignored and it's eleven prisoners were crushed by the cube, approaching forty miles per hour as it reached Wichita by early evening. Simon needed to refuel occasionally, either fill his truck or his stomach, but would carry on following as close as he dared. It emerged from a lake, pushing wet mud up that uprooted trees. The speeding block wasn't going through downtown Wichita at least, instead it's course took it through the highly populated suburban area a little north of the city centre.

Debbie Montague was lying on top of her bed with her boyfriend, watching the sunset through a window. Their hands moved across each other, caressing.
“I've never done it before.”
“It's okay. I'll be gentle.” he said, pulling out his penis from his boxers and rubbing it against her thigh. She reached over onto the bedside table for a condom when she felt the bed vibrating. She laughed, wondering if he had set something up but when she turned towards him she saw the big cube looming in the distance, approaching quickly. “Fuck!” she said, bouncing off the bed and running downstairs. Covering herself with a long wool coat she went onto the street. A motorbike sped past, siren blaring. She looked back inside the house, wondering where her boyfriend was before running after the motorbike. “Stop, wait for me!” she yelled down the street. It peeled off, though a stripped down car was heading towards her. The doors and top had been ripped off it and men leaned out, she waited for them. Strong arms grabbed her and the car quickly sped away. “My boyfriend, he's back there.” she said. She turned around to see him pulling on his shirt as he ran out of the front door, the cube nearly upon him. The house she grew up in was eviscerated, the white wooden boards splaying against the wall of the box like an exploding cigar then there was nothing. Sweet Terry sprinted after the car which had slowed down, the men all shouting amongst themselves on whether or not to wait for him. Debbie watched the lanky teenager run beneath the streetlights like he was making a touchdown back at Wichita High. He was so dreamy. He was just twenty feet away when the driver decided to drive away down Denver Drive as there were more people waiting further along. “I'm sorry.” said one of her rescuers as she watched her boyfriend disappear beneath the box. She screamed in despair. Metzli watched this little drama play out a hundred or so feet above in a helicopter, still thinking about his meeting with the woman that morning. He'd just got news that Wayne had been captured in Las Vegas at a craps table. He wouldn't mind interviewing Wayne, though he wondered if he'd get the chance. The media was getting pretty rabid, creating more and more hype about the cube. The blame had been shifted from Farslo to Wayne who had been portrayed in the news like Saddam Hussein with a PhD. Metzli guessed he was getting a similar treatment.

Thousand watt bulbs shone in his eyes, disorientating him as he sat in a chair. He'd lost track of time a bit but guessed he'd been sitting like that for about an hour. Even if he closed his eyes the lights were so bright that the interior of his eyelids were glowing red and purple. The sensory overload caused him to hallucinate fizzing images that faded from view when he tried to focus on them. Monochrome landscapes, faces that rippled and merged with each other like a liquid crowd, impossible machines. The lights went out and some people walked in.
“We need answers from you Wayne. We want you to tell us how to stop the cube.” said one of them. Wayne laughed to himself, unsure of reality. A piece of paper was pushed across a table with a pen next to it, though the table was a few feet away from where Wayne was sitting. He sat up, slouched slightly as his hands and feet were restrained. He blinked a few times. The sheet of paper came into view followed by the three shadowy figures. A woman's voice. “We know the blueprints you've given us weren't the most recent.”
“You...you want me to what? Draw the damn thing?”
“As much as you can. Any weakness.” said one of them.
“From memory? I can't, my mind isn't like that.”
“It doesn't need to be exact. Just a rough outline.”
Wayne picked up the pen and poised it over the paper before relaxing slightly. “What if I don't co-operate?”
“The clichés are there for a reason Wayne, we have ways of making you talk.”
“Lights? Maybe some noises, you'll break my kneecaps? Maybe threaten my family?”
“If we had time, perhaps.” said the woman.
“You are a researcher of planetary exploration, engineering. We have our own researchers in interrogation.” said one of the men. “We suggest you tell us now, save everyone the trouble.”
“People will know I'm missing though.”
“The last you were seen was in a casino in Las Vegas. Won't be much of a stretch to plant a corpse, maybe yours, out in the desert. Suicide perhaps.”
Wayne blinked a few times, heart racing. He was a bit over his head. He drew a square onto the paper with a circle inside it and set the pen down. “You know, the square used to be thought of as representing man. The circle as angelic. That's why the Vitruvian man contains those shapes, it's an attempt to combine ourselves with some kind of god. The universe and all it's symmetry.”
“Is that all you're willing to say?”
“Whilst I can, yes. And god damn you sons of bitches.”
They walked out and the lights came back on. Wayne sat back in his chair and looked beneath his eyelids.

Night had fallen on St. Louis although there was much activity. They were attempting to move the statue of St. Louis outside the cities art museum. Although it was thought of as less important than it once was due to a magnificent archway being built in the sixties as a symbol for the city. The archway was quite impressive, big enough in fact that the cube could pass underneath it quite easily. Which it in fact would in a few hours. But the people of St. Louis wanted to rescue their cities namesake, cast in bronze sitting in the saddle of a great horse. His inverted sword cast the shadow of a cross in the fluorescent lighting as dozens of workers with power tools smashed away the base of the statue and it was gently lifted up with a crane. St. Louis flew through the air and found a new home in the park. The Apotheosis of St. Louis was safe, although many of it's citizens weren't.

She boarded the train that Wayne was being held on. The prison trains were useful for keeping prisoner's constantly moving, unable to ever tell where they were exactly and unable to escape. It had been one of the first inventions of her boss, back in the seventies. The other agents tried to ignore her, they didn't usually like outsiders trying to break a prisoner but she was quite revered in the field of espionage. Adjusting her glasses, she tapped the keypad and entered Wayne's cell.
“Oh.” he said, surprised.
“Sensory overload can be pleasant.” she said, walking over to him.
“Are you going to torture me? You want my plans?”
“No. I'll get the information I need, relax. I wanted to ask you one or two things whilst we're alone though.” she said, opening a bag and taking out a box. The little chrome box was attached to a belt she strapped around her waist.
“Like what?”
“People, people high up, have been impressed with you so far Wayne. We don't wish you any harm for the time being. But we need to know a few things. Do you suffer from migraines?”
“Not until today.”
“How important is the cube to you?”
“It's my life's work. I'd die for it.” he said.
“And lastly, do you have any more ideas?” she said, taking a pair of gloves with wires hanging off them out of the bag and stretching them over her hands.
“Well, of course I do. I'm an inventor at heart. But up there.” He pointed with his head upwards. “Space. I can't understand how people aren't as passionate as I am about it” he said.
“Okay Wayne. I'll report to my supervisors. Just keep yourself to yourself.” she stretched her fingers inside the gloves and pulled another thing out of the bag.
“What's that?” She ignored him and pulled the white cap over her head and plugged that into the box along with the gloves. Pressing a few buttons on the box she first dimmed the lights then walked behind him and rested her fingertips onto his head.
“Where are the plans Wayne?”
“I won't tell you. I don't care what you say, it's all bullshit.”
“I want you to imagine building the cube. The years it took, the plans you needed to make. Yes?”
“What are you doing?”
“Think about it Wayne. Your final plans.” she said calmly.
He tried to think of something else but couldn't help but think of the cube. He had watched it being built from the ground up, tested the materials over and over again. He thought about the cube on other planets. He thought about himself on other planets. He was woke from his day dream by the little belt beeping behind his head. “Thanks Wayne.”
“I didn't say anything.”
“I know. You were thinking though. I'm not wearing these gloves for hygiene purpose, I'm wearing a modified EEG. It receives as well as broadcasts, just takes time for us to synch up.”
“I don't understand.”
“You've built an invincible machine. If you can think it, why isn't it possible?” she said, taking off the cap and gloves.
“Wait, that's not fair. I wasn't going to say anything.” he said, voice rising.
“Don't worry Wayne. Don't struggle. I may see you again, you might have a future yet. Try and stay alive.” she said. And then she left. Wayne shouted after her, struggling for the first time in his restraints. The light went from dim to ridiculously bright again and he screamed to be let free.

The cube was in Missouri, the enormous metal box travelling at sixty miles an hour sliced through the ground like a cannonball fired into a swamp. Back in the deserts it barely made a noise although there was now some kind of rumbling roar emanating from it's undercarriage. This along with the sound of the earth being shredded, flora and fauna being smashed and splattered, made the cube sound like hell. Someone had also had the bright idea of attaching an air-raid siren to the top of the cube with a set of grappling hooks meant to warn people of it's arrival. This mixture of noises combined with the stress of the situation was beginning to get to the loose guard around the juggernaut, men had been replaced pretty regularly since Kansas. Everyone except Simon. The chaos the cube caused balanced it's purity of form and function for him. It made sense somehow. He would often drive the closest, anchoring his truck onto one of the grappling hooks so that he almost surfed behind the cube, sometimes having to dodge falling detritus but for the most part he was in awe. People were beginning to worry about him, making jokes across walkie-talkies about how they should drill a hole in the cube so he could fuck it or how the cube reminded him of his mother. For the most part nobody dared go near to him. A van full of journalists had tried to get close to him and he had shot at them. As the cube crushed a church Simon clambered out of the truck cab and onto the bed at the back. He looked up at the night sky whilst eating some beef jerky he'd bought back at Dodge City, not that sure what rations he should bring. He looked at the last few pieces of meat, half a bottle of orange juice, a litre of water and some twinkies. It wasn't much but he doubt he'd need it at the rate the cube was going. Already he could feel it picking up speed. He took out a twinkie and bit into it absent mindedly as he watched the groups of cars and helicopters around him bouncing over the rough terrain and into the crop fields, their headlamps reminded him of the strings of lanterns explorers used when charting new terrain. The cube was the blackest thing in the twilight, filthy and noisy. The siren wailed on.

Metzli was trying to focus. He had given up trying to follow the cube, finding the way it so easily destroyed things at such a rapid pace disturbing. Thirty seven people dead, tens of millions of dollars of property damage. Areas of natural beauty were spoiled as if somebody had gone through the pages of a national geographic with a paint roller, leaving a flat, featureless line across the Mid-West. He stubbed out a cigarette and drank some bitter tea, he needed stronger stuff than his usual hot water. Graphs of shares rising and falling, investors, page after page of notes detailing the initial escape of the cube, witness statements. Propped against a wall was a white board with a few theories on, though he had abandoned that in favour of recording his thoughts into his Dictaphone. It was deep into the night although when playing back the recordings he caught the sounds of a fight taking place outside his room than he hadn't noticed at the time. As it played he looked from behind the window curtain and saw an empty parking lot made of grey dirt, dry blood in dust. “A conspiracy to destroy architecture. What does this mean?” he heard himself say about an hour ago. It continued for a while before running silent again. He wondered if she was nearby.

The ground rushed beneath. Grasses that gave way to concrete, cars, trees. They all flicked past at quite a pace as the cube was now punching through small towns in the blink of an eye. At midnight it crept into the outskirts of St. Louis. Houses and factories were obliterated, roof panels and clods of earth were thrown high in the air. It was like a tornado. Most people managed to escape, watching the spectacle of the cube as it rumbled through the places they lived. It was lit with mixtures of yellow and white as it overtook streetlights and cars. Crashing into the city centre, buildings collapsed on top of it causing masonry to rain across downtown. Simon followed, cracked windscreen on truck, dents all over the body. His face contorted in concentration as through blood filled eyes he scanned the horizons of the cube for flying objects. Out of the radio blasted static.

The president sweated beneath lights, his cold hands by his sides like anchors of awkwardness. His mouth clicked when it opened. Dry. He went to drink a glass of water and managed to get it down the front of his shirt. Why blue today. Somebody signalled him and he began his speech. “America. It has been a long day. An important day. A day that tried the very nature of our spirit.” His heart skipped a beat. He was still focusing on the obvious patch on his front where he had spilled. Something that babies did. “You may have seen the footage of this, invention. Destroying our businesses, our homes, our lives. But we need to remain strong in the face of this adversary. We have been strong before and we can be strong again.” The glowing blue of the Teleprompter reflected in his eyes on the high-definition cameras. On the television psychologists were analysing his body language in order to gauge his emotion. The dilation of pupils. The beads of sweat collecting on his shaven lip. His face contorted as he told lie after lie. He wasn't particularly thinking about the cube but more the reason why he had become president. The choices he had made over the years. Often, in secret, he consulted the I-ching to help him with his decisions. Through a bluetooth earpiece he would speak through an intermediary collecting dozens of predictions until deciding on how this would affect him. He had consulted them earlier, the fourth and thirty ninth. Hexagrams of change. Using the divinations so much he had reached a point where he relied on it. Although in that reliance came confidence in it's insights. He continued.

The speech was broadcast across America as well as the internet. This lead to quite a rapid response to the president's mis-drink of water, allowing various news networks to first question his ability as a leader and then repeating how this was important due to several similar events of everyday nothingness. Farslo watched in the waiting room just off stage. He was due to give a speech himself next. His mind was blank. He hated public speaking, especially in the case that he was seen as failing. In an hour the cube would reach a different time zone. At it's current rate of acceleration, which showed no signs of slowing, the cube would be travelling at the speed of sound in a week. It was hard to say what it would be doing in a years time. His mind tossed and turned between running away and staying. Surprisingly for him, he had managed to convince himself to get up and leave the waiting room. A secret service agent was guarding the door but Farslo ignored him, hoping that if he kept walking nobody would question him. He walked down nearly a mile of corridors before pushing a fire door open into the night air. He wasn't running away. That's what Wayne had done and look where he was. Farslo didn't know exactly, but he knew he didn't want that. He just needed a breather. He paced around beneath a security light before deciding he was going to go for a sandwich. Subway, the home of the original subway sandwich. It was a little difficult to order for him, he forgot the fastest way to order all the different ingredients. What happened to a bag of fries and salsa for a dollar. What happened to the good ol' burgers with the middle cut out and replaced with a fried egg. What happened to the mom and pop stores where you could get a fifth of whiskey and some skin rag with a few numbers in the back. He'd never rang any but liked to fantasize about what they could be. Before he knew what he doing he had managed to get half way through ordering some sandwich. “Everything.” he said in response to some question, gesturing at the bunch of black trays in front of him lit beneath a glass sneeze shield. A couple of government higher ups were sitting around at the plastic tables, looking a little out of place amongst the brutally inoffensive furniture. He nodded to a few of them. Nobody looked healthy. The lights seemed to strobe slightly, adding a dream-like quality to the situation. His thoughts carried him back towards the conference centre, sandwich in one hand. Farslo looked at the white building with trepidation, the food in his mouth seemed foreign, strange. He dropped it on the floor. Instead of going back in he rested for a while. He looked in the direction he thought the cube was and wondered what it was doing. His phone began to ring so he went inside though paused at the door, turning over his shoulder to look at his sandwich. It's fake paper wrapper flapping at it's side in the night breeze. He rolled his tongue across his gums and decided it had been a mistake going to Subway.

The team entered the factory in Nevada, she directed them to Wayne's office. It was pretty large, a scale model of the cube took up most of the room. The leader listened to the woman speaking in his ear, guiding him towards a keypad on one wall. He attached a circuit board to it and began hacking at the code whilst she watched through a camera one of the soldiers was carrying. The keypad beeped and opened up a shelf on the bookcase. A soldier walked across the blue carpet, scanning the area with a Geiger counter before walking towards the bookcase. With a gloved hand he reached into the secret compartment and pulled out a usb stick. The soldiers stood around, waiting for a computer to load. “I think these are the most up to date blueprints.” said the team-leader, looking through designs of the cube with annotations. He stopped, listening to the voice in his ear. Running through the empty factory they found the experimental laboratory. This was where a lot of the prototypes for the cube had been invented a few years ago, now it was home to several smaller robots to demonstrate possible features. Even with no control a few of these robots were carrying out tasks. A few robots the size of golf balls bounced around a maze. A mechanical arm shuffled a deck of cards again and again, the cards themselves were beginning to wear away. One of the soldiers shut it off. They rummaged around the room until eventually they found what they were looking for encased in a block of liquid nitrogen. She was a few hundred miles away, a metallic sensation just behind the roof of her mouth from the drugs she had taken earlier. She picked up a phone. “I need an F-15 ready to transport, co-ordinates after this message.” She tapped some numbers into her phone then put it down. A glass of water. The television was on. Low lighting. A tube of pills, nootropics. She took one and went back to watching the soldiers through her laptop. Inside the frozen block was the shadow in the shape of a man. Packing a few things into a bag she left. The glossy metal skeleton of her car glinted in the moonlight whilst yellow sodium street lighting set a constant tempo as she drove through the night, heading toward the cube.

The horizon was aglow with the dull orange of a sun rise. It would take a while yet, but it was on it's way. The roads were quiet, crickets chirping in the undergrowth outside the car window. Quiet factories were off in the distance, massive compared to the few lights of houses nearby. Families slept. As she passed an eighteen wheeler she split a pill in two with her thumbnail and flicked half of it into her mouth. She hadn't slept for a while. She could sleep when it was over. There wasn't long now. Eastward, the six seven five interstate. As the scenery barely changed she was aware of the sun beginning to shine off in the distance. That summer sun. The days were hot and the nights warm. Sunburn ached on the back of the neck, sweat drew itself together where skin met. She stopped at a gas station for a drink, mesmerized by the lines upon lines of products. She got some water wrapped in plastic, cooled by a fridge advertising anti-smoking drugs. When she pulled herself across the driver's seat she sat for a moment, trying to consider her actions. Her brain was moving a little too fast for her to consider them with a concious. She had gone too far now. The key turned, the engine began exploding petrol and she was off again into the dawn.

Indianapolis. People were protesting in the streets, others holding a candlelit vigil for the sleeping hundreds that would have been caught in the path and now rested in various tents. The cube went through. The air-raid siren had broken away a long time ago, there was now just the dull noisyscreamwave emanating from the box as it ploughed a sixty metre cut across the American city. The morning smelled wet, acidic. The dewy soil stung the back of the nostrils, it was almost like electricity. O-zone. The cube blasted dirt high into the air, adding to the cloud it had been throwing up for the last few hours. Simon was no longer aware of the names of his surroundings, how one space connected to the next. Instead his world had taken quite a two dimensional aspect. There was the black square in front of him, constantly now. Around it there was a halo of debris, black patterns against the blossoming horizon as the sun was slowly starting to begin it's ascent into the sky. It made sense to him. There was the cube and everything else. The cube was a fixed point in time and space with landscapes and people and language and meaning piled around it awkwardly. The box in front of him had a certain kind of purity amongst the chaos.

The train came to a stop. Wayne walked forward gently lead by a chain around the handcuffs he was wearing. He was lead to a public toilet at the train station, aware that there were a few people around him. His eyes ached from the light he had been subjected to for the last few hours. “Wayne.” said a voice. He turned, hoping he was facing the speaker.
“Yes?”
“Wayne, your invention has caused millions of dollars in property damage. It's killed people.”
“What?” said Wayne, shocked. His heart leapt in his chest. Weak at the knees.
“You know this Wayne. Your invention is approaching speeds of one hundred and sixty kilometres an hour.”
“No, that's impossible. You have to understand-” said Wayne, needing to support himself against the cold porcelain of a sink.
“You have been charged with treason, murder, terrorism, vandalism of federal buildings...” said somebody next to him. The charges continued whilst he tried to focus on the room around him. Four people, dressed in black. One had taken out a pistol.
“Stop, I'm the only one who can stop the cube! Listen to me for fuck's sake, don't kill me. Just don't kill me, this is my life we're talking about!” he started shouting. Somebody came at him from the side and pushed down on his shoulder.
“Don't resist.”
“No. I'm going to resist. You can't kill me! Don't fucking kill me. Give me a chance, please.”
There was another hand on his shoulder and he was pushed down to the floor, too weak to fight his way out. “Is this worth taking my life?” he shouted. A phone rang. The voice continued in monotone about his rights and his punishment. The person holding the gun stepped forward and cocked the pistol. Thoughts raced through his head. Was he meant to think about how to escape or be remembering the best moments in his life? They say your life was meant to flash in front of your eyes when you died. Did he believe in God? “Please.” he said, crying. He flinched. Somebody was talking. He waited, he nearly couldn't comprehend what was happening. Such fear. His executioner took a step back as the conversation continued. He caught snatches of it through his delirium though couldn't make sense of the words until he realized they weren't speaking English. After what must have only been a few seconds he was helped back on his feet. Bile rose in his throat though he stopped himself from vomiting.
“Well done Wayne, we still need you.”
Wayne couldn't think of anything to respond with. He was trembling violently. The hands took hold of him again and he was carried back onto the train.

The prairies flew past. Metzli was driving through the country, hoping he'd get some kind of answers by being near the cube. Maybe she'd be there at least. He also had a job to do after all and had heard that one of Wayne's employers was acting increasingly erratic as the hours went on. The military didn't want to take any action before Metzli had attempted to talk to him. Simon. He remembered him, he'd seemed to be behaving a little oddly the last time Metzli had seen him. Should have known then perhaps. A lot of the roads here weren't leading exactly where he wanted to go, as the crow flies. He checked behind him from time to time and sometimes drove across a field of wheat or along a dirt footpath. His optimism had been knocked, he felt his grasp of the situation sliding as more and more news reports played over the radio. Earlier that day he would check the internet regularly although there had been a point where the media saturation of the cube had just become depressing. There was a story behind every house that had been crashed into, every person killed had a family to speak for them. A parade of melancholy, hours of footage of wailing families and towns becoming little more than rubble fringed by the few remaining buildings. And still, the meaning of why it had happened. He wondered if he could believe what she had said earlier although the more he considered the facts the more it seemed like there may be some motivation behind it. The idea that this had happened randomly, by accident was a little tough for him to understand so he considered the alternatives. What would be the motivation behind letting an invention do so much damage? “Money? Political gain?” he said out loud. “Had Wayne been set up? If so, who by?” he paused for a while, letting the Dictaphone run. He rooted around in his pocket for a pack of cigarettes but couldn't find one. Metzli crossed the time zone into the East. A jet flew somewhere above him, a robotic arm beneath it carrying it's cargo. This jet was running out of fuel and so had to pass the pod to another robotic arm in mid-air. It was a delicate job. When the load was passed the new pilot accelerated greatly, punching through the sound barrier. He didn't know what was in the pod. It didn't matter really. The configuration of machines flew through the air for a while until the pilot began to descend. His orders were to disengage the pod in mid-air so as to avoid needing to land on any airfield. Top secret mission apparently. With a slight hesitation he released the grip on the robotic arm on the jet, sending the pod down to earth like some kind of bomb. He wondered if it was a bomb for a moment. Maybe it was nuclear. Though nothing happened. The jet flew around for a while longer until the pilot decided it was time for breakfast.

Simon's truck broke down, the fuel tank empty. He had been driving flat out for a while now, ignoring his surroundings slightly. As the truck rolled to a gentle stop, police cars advanced on him. Simon got out, blinking. His eyes were bloodshot, sweat slicked his head. “Get down.” shouted some policeman. With his legs shaking slightly he began to kneel when he was advanced upon by police. They threw a blanket over his head and picked him up, carrying him towards a car. The cube continued, the noise of it's technological destruction fading into the distance. Simon was quickly becoming aware of what had happened to him and reached for the woollen blanket covering his head. He felt the ground rushing towards him and realized he'd been pushed over, cold metal around his wrist and ankle. Again with his other half. They picked him up again using the handcuffs as a handle. He heard a door open in front of him and was thrown in.“I haven't done anything wrong.” he moaned. The door shut behind him. He wondered where he was going. Although for now he couldn't do much. Sleep came. Meanwhile, miles away now, the cube created waves of earth and trees, clods of mud thrown high in the air. It was being circled by fire trucks and police cars, the sirens of the motorcade illuminating the cube in a flickering mess of red and blue. Around this nucleus were a few government vehicles, the press, the public chasing alongside. This group was quite far away, winnebagos and off-road vehicles filled with people eager to see what the cube would do next. If the cube was going to pass a road people would park half a mile or so away behind barricades and watch the box go past like observers at a marathon. In the air hovered various helicopters shining high powered spotlights towards the ground that criss-crossed amongst each other. It was quite a spectacle. Morning came. The cube ploughed through the empty suburbs of Brookville. A golf course was ruined, the grounds keeper sat on a hill in a deckchair drinking a mug of coffee. He rose it in the air as the cube passed. The cube continued on it's voyage.

Metzli was getting close to Columbus. His car sped along the interstate, passing the stream of traffic leaving the city on one side. He hadn't been to Columbus before. It's skyline was changing slightly as the lights began going out whilst the sun emerged in the East. Metzli ate a ham salad sandwich he'd got from a gas station, following it with a bottle of coke and a cigarette. The way the cube was going, it'd be out of America by lunch time thought Metzli. He pulled the car to a stop in a parking lot in Columbus. In about half an hour this lot would be even more barren and flat than it already was. The mayor of Columbus waited with the Chief of Police. The mayor looked a little tired, kept clicking a pen. The Chief just leant against his squad car with his arms folded in front of him, staring at the floor. “Mayor, Chief. Glad to see you both.”
“Hello Mr. Metzli.” said the Mayor, extending his hand. The Chief nodded.
“So, I hope all the houses have been evacuated, checked? Put the warning out?”
“Yeah, sure we did.”
“I'm just checking. This cube's already killed enough people.”
Metzli inhaled deeply as he looked around, nodding.
“Nice part of town.”
“It was, sure.” said the Chief of Police again.
“Don't be a sourpuss.” said the Mayor.
“Sure, sorry pal. Ain't it just rotten though?”
“Si, a real pain in the balls right guys?” said Metzli. The Chief snickered. Metzli looked at the trees lining the streets, a Wal-Mart in the distance already blurry behind a heat haze.
“Reckon it's going to get pretty warm.”
“Yup.”

The air was still. Windless. The summer sun blazed, making the atmosphere oily. Hundreds of miles in the air the earth's magnetosphere buckled under blazing solar flares that whipped it's ethereal form with radiation. It was hot. The cube bumbled along towards the East Coast like some kind of terrible insect, a city crumbling behind it. Cars, trees, houses, offices, churches, museums, libraries, schools and political buildings were smashed against each other at the front of it, rattling and grinding around the cube violently although this was now lost in an avalanche of dust. Vague shadows sometimes emerged until the cube burst from the cloud of buildings and back into the open country. By now police had stopped attempting to escort the cube and had instead arranged themselves on both sides of the cube's path. Mile after mile of black and white police cars waited, a gauntlet of stern observation as the cube sped past.

She waited in a Denny's car park, drinking shit coffee. The cube was due to go past soon enough. She cleaned her glasses on the bottom of her shirt, holding up the golden frame in the air in front of her. Zoned out for a while. When she snapped out of it she got back into her car and drove off. Showing a pass to a guard at a roadblock she made her way towards the interstate. Her intel had been good, Metzli was just a few miles ahead of her. She accelerated across the cracked, empty road and flashed her lights twice. Metzli looked in his rear view mirror, squinted. He slowed his car down to a stop and she did likewise a few metres behind him. They both got out of their cars. The morning smelled good. Birds chirped away in the trees.
“Can I help you?” he said, pacing towards her.
“Yes. I think you can Metzli.” she said. She spoke slowly.
He recognized her voice, back in the motel room. Those glasses. “Who are you?”
“I work for a great man, the best scientist alive. He wants you to stop the cube.”
“Well, what do you want me to do? I don't know how to stop the cube.”
“We think you can Metzli. There is one last chance, a final weapon we have against the cube. The cube's purpose is to be able to go to these alien planets. Why wouldn't man go with it?”
“I don't understand.”
“Metzli was working on a suit made from the same specifications as the cube. An indestructible armour and life support system for astronauts. The armour was in it's early stages of development when this incident occurred but we believe that this is our best chance.”
“You want me to wear this thing? Then what do you want me to do, get fired from a cannon?”
“No. The cube was also in a relatively early stage of development. There is a way inside the cube, through a doorway.”
“What? You're not making any sense.”
“Metzli, listen. Accept what I am saying is true, we don't have enough time to discuss aspects of truth. There is a door at the bottom of the cube, beneath it's wheels. Once inside it's just a case of shutting down the engine from inside. There are still manual controls in place.”
“Why me though.”
“You have a unique position in this, the media knows you. We need to have a good ending to this.”
“So you want me to be a hero? Stand on top of the cube holding a little flag?”
“If that's what you had in mind. But you are getting the chance Metzli. You have been picked to wear this suit. Reasons why will become clear later. But I need you to trust me.”
Metzli took a cigarette out of his pocket, offering one to her. They smoked quietly.
“If I agree to do this, what happens next?”
“You get in the car with me and we go.” she said. The whole conversation for her had been a little hazy. She was stoned, deprived of sleep and food for while. Her body was operating differently. Smoke felt like air. Metzli nodded at her. “Okay.”

Simon left the police station, rubbing his wrists. His bail had been posted on the grounds he didn't go anywhere near the cube, though he had ignored that. He walked along the empty street, sweat running down his neck. He glanced at the sky. Cloudless. Walking for a few minutes he got to a cafe and entered, the air conditioning hitting him like the blast from a shit hair-drier. The waitress behind the counter was wiping the chrome surface with a bit of wet rag, it smelled like bleach. She looked up at him. “Hey. Want anything?”
“I could do with a...sandwich? You do toasted sandwiches?”
“Sure. We got bacon, cheese, ham, pastrami, salami, roast beef, salmon, turkey-”
“Ah, a ham sandwich please. With a coke.”
“Is that with or without salad?”
“Without. Some ketchup on it.”
“Sure, take a seat.” she said nodding, heading into the kitchen.
He sat at a window, facing out but not really looking at much. He wondered if he should just go home. Go and see his mom and pop, shoot some baseball, the everyday stuff. Maybe he could even go back to Littlefield, help them rebuild some of the stuff that the cube had knocked down. But then, why would he bother. His sandwich came, he smiled at the waitress and began eating it slowly. There was more ketchup than ham but that was okay. Why would he bother anyway, if the cube didn't stop. It'd go through Europe, China, America again. Over and over, faster and faster. It was going to change things. He sipped the coke and focused back on the window. A car pulled up outside. Simon put a few dollars on the table and walked out.

The car carrying Metzli and the woman pulled up to a parking lot by a forest. A few men stood around with guns. Hard faces and cold eyes. There was a black helicopter in the middle of the lot, it looked out of place. Her and Metzli got out of the car, walking towards a flatbed truck. “This was taken from Wayne's lab. Got here a lot quicker than the cube did.” she said. He looked at the suit. It was the same shade of grey the cube was. A little bulky, lying on the floor of the truck it looked like some strange metallic ape hunter's had captured. The front of the helmet had three small holes, two for the eyes and one for the mouth. “I hope I'll be able to see through that well enough.”
“Not really.” she said.
“Are you joking?”
“Afraid not.”
“How am I meant to find this door if I don't know where I am? That cube's travelling at a hundred miles an hour and gaining speed right now, if I don't get in it the first time it's going to just drive away.”
“We wouldn't ask you to do this if it was impossible Metzli. I've looked over the plans personally and can assure you that whilst it won't be a cake walk, it's doable. I thought you were an optimist.”
“Oh, I am. This just seems like a bit of a long shot even by my standards.”
“You'll never know if you don't try. Isn't that a good thing to think about?” she said.
“I suppose.” he said. “How am I meant to put it on?”
A few minutes later he was in the suit. He moved around a little to see how it moved. He felt as though he were in a bed. The suit was pretty tight against his body. He felt no heat from the sun or breeze against his back. He tried to take a step forward and felt it easy, walking ahead a few steps.
“How do you like it?”
“Seems okay.” He said, walking over to a tree. He punched it lightly, testing how it felt. He felt nothing. He did a big haymaker and punched into the tree, up to his elbow in bark and wood.
“You'll have to be careful of your face but otherwise the suit pretty much turns you into a humanoid version of the cube.” She said. He pulled his arm out of the tree.
“Now what?”
She pointed at the helicopter.
“You're going to fly Metzli.”

The cube sliced through the ground as it headed into Pittsburg, kicking up a huge storm of dust behind it that stretched for miles. It was viewable from space. An astronaut looked down at it, marvelling as the small dot and the dust cloud headed towards the glittering Atlantic. “Fascinating.” she said, focusing the long range telephoto lens on the hull of the space station.
“How fast is it going?” asked her colleague.
“Not sure exactly. Hard to tell up here. Can't you ask more from down there?” she said.
“Haven't been able to get any signal for a few hours now.” he said.
“Really? Why didn't you tell me?”
“We weren't sure what was happening, all we can guess now is it's something on their end. We can't do anything about it. In the mean time all we can do is watch.” he said, joining her at the window. They watched as the cube tore up downtown Pittsburg.

Farslo rode in a limousine on his way to another meeting, this one in Washington D.C. He looked through tinted windows towards the white house, muttering to himself. People were protesting, for some reason he couldn't quite fathom, about the cube. Even so early in the morning. Even though he was pretty conservative he could see the point in protesting something that could be changed. But protesting about this was like protesting about a tsunami. It couldn't be stopped by people power. They were angry though. The long black car drove to an empty building that housed a secret entrance to the White House. “Thank you driver.” Farslo said as he got out of the car. He moved quickly, people knew what he looked like and weren't happy with the role he now played. A guard stood at the door and ushered him into the empty hotel.
“Come with me sir.”
“I still haven't been briefed on this meeting.”
“All will be explained soon sir, just step this way.”
Farslo and the agent walked through the dusty lobby. It must have once been a pretty grand place, Farslo imagined ninety years ago or so that politicians would come here for illegal whiskey and maybe chase some tail. Things were probably a whole lot easier back then. The two men walked through a doorway and into what would have been a great ballroom that had since been gutted by roving gangs of metal vultures, stripping the carcasses of dying cities like Detroit, Washington and Chicago for valuable old metal. You could make a little bit of money by selling to the junkyards, kingdoms of reclaimed copper piping and roofing panels dusted in asbestos and insects. “So where's this secret entrance?”
“Sir?” said the agent. Farslo turned around and was greeted by a bullet just beneath his eye. The shot echoed in the empty hall as Farslo collapsed to the floor, his dying brains leaking out through the jagged hole in the back of his skull. The agent shot him again in the chest, checked his pulse and left Farslo alone in the building. Although he was losing blood and his network of neurons had been spread across the dusty floor of the old ballroom, somewhere in his subconsciousness Farslo had a memory of a Christmas day. It had been a long time ago. It had been a good day.

A stolen car was being driven through some of the back roads in Pennsylvania. Most of the main highways and byways were jammed with early morning drivers trying to get out the city, gridlocks overseen by police mounted on horses or bikes in order to travel up and down the jams quickly. Simon needed to get to the cube quickly. He was nervous, worried he wouldn't see it in time. He gunned the car as fast as it could go, tyres screeching as he flew around corners and along the dry concrete road. The sun was already making the car warm, the windows needed to be rolled down. Simon licked his lips. News reports over the radio were telling him how the cube had just completely obliterated a small town called Benson. Anything in the cube's path was destroyed of course although at the speed it was going there was now a huge cloud of dust and dirt from which various debris would rain from, crushing buildings and trees with ease. Even the military escort had needed to move back. Simon had nearly forgotten about the group of army and police vehicles circling the cube. It would be no good to get close to the cube only for him to be captured again. He slowed the car down to thirty miles an hour and checked a map, running his finger from Pittsburg. There was Harrisburg, Lancaster, Philadelphia then the cube would reach the sea about halfway between New York and Atlantic City. Philadelphia. He'd had an uncle who'd gone their once for some business convention. The city would be big enough to hide in. He threw the map into the passenger seat and took the next turning.

She waited for him at a train platform, shaded from the morning sun by a dead tree. He wouldn't be long now. She couldn't remember the last time she'd been asleep. Although that was mostly through choice. Her bloodshot eyes looked up at the sky and she wondered how Metzli was doing. The train came, she wasn't sure how long she had been waiting. It didn't matter to her. Looking down the length of the train she saw a door open and Wayne get shoved out onto the platform with her. Like her, he wasn't totally well either. “Over here Wayne.”
“Hmm? Oh, hello.” he said. He coughed.
“I hope they weren't too rough on you.” she said walking towards him.
“Ah.” he said, straining to think of what to say. “Not too bad. What are you going to do?”
“What do you mean?” she said
“Are you going to kill me?” he said.
She smiled a little, giving his shoulder a squeeze. “No Wayne. You did a good job.”
They walked out of the train station and towards her car.
“So what are we doing?” he said, looking at his surroundings.
“We're going to take a drive out to the sea. Would you like that?”
“I think so. I...I'd like some water please.”
“Of course.” she said, opening her car door and taking out a bottle. He unscrewed the lid and drank from it heavily.
“Be careful now, don't want to give yourself a stitch.” she said. She gestured to the open car door and, with a little hesitation, he got in. She walked around and got in herself.

The cube had just reached speeds of a hundred and twenty miles per hour as it reached the peak of a mountain. A few days ago it would have gently slid down the side but at this speed it flew through the air and caused the whole mountain to shake when it landed. As it sped along rocks and boulders began to tumble around behind it, an avalanche meeting the detritus the cube was throwing behind it. People watched it from afar, excited and horrified at the same time as the machine smashed into the ground and carried on going as if nothing had happened. The open fields and occasional rural house was the path the cube took on it's way towards the sea. The sun was creeping up higher into the sky.

Another thing in the sky at the time was Metzli, hanging on a wire beneath the helicopter. It was an odd sensation, dangling from the helicopter with relatively little protection. He used to be part of a special army platoon that would often need to jump from helicopters back in Mexico although this was a little different. No parachute, no other soldiers. Just him and his mission. It was a cloudless day, which was good as he could see quite far and bad as he was getting pretty warm. In the distance he could make out the sprawling grey and brown of Washington D.C, the nations capital. From his perspective it all seemed a little bland, boring. It wasn't often, but he missed his home at the moment. He wished he could see Mexico this way. If he looked left and squinted a little he could just about make out the cloud of dust the cube was throwing into the air. It wouldn't be long now.

Simon went through Baltimore, the nozzle of a gas pump sticking out of the side of his car. Sweat dripped into his eye. It wasn't even eight in the morning yet but people were awake, watching live footage of the cube in bars. Philadelphia was a big city. The main path had been evacuated but people were still struggling to get at a safe distance. Then there was the looting. Simon didn't care much for this. Seventy miles to Philadelphia. He guessed he could make it. A cop had been trying to keep up with him for a bit but had given up as Simon careened through red lights and sharp bends in the road. A lot of police had been taken out of the cities around the cube's path in order to help assist with things like evacuation and guarding the cube from anybody who wanted to get near it. There still were some who wanted to take the opportunity to be near the cube as it meant being on international television. Celebrities with waning careers often clamoured to be where the cube was heading to in order to get an interview on what they saw, what they think should be done. Simon turned the radio off. “Bullshit.” he said to nobody.

The car heading towards the shore was going at a lot more steadier pace.
“So nobodies stopped the cube yet then?” said Wayne, eating a breakfast burrito.
“No. You did a good job at building something indestructible Wayne.” she said.
“Good. Glad I'm good at something.” he said.
“Oh yes.” she said. They were quiet for a while, trees and signs flicking past every once in a while.
“The last time I went to the ocean, it was a while ago. Maybe the mid-nineties. Anyway, I went with my wife and we sat on the pier. I'd been working on the cube pretty solidly at that point, we barely saw each other. And there we were, sitting on the pier like when we first went out. And I looked at her, my wife. And I saw in her eyes that she missed that, you know. Seeing me like that.”
She didn't say anything.
“Anyway. I decided then and there, it wasn't fair to her, for me not to be there. I asked on that bench on the pier for a divorce and she gave it to me. Didn't need much convincing. I haven't thought much about it since but it makes me wonder why I chose making the cube over her.”
“And why did you?”
“Eh...I don't know. We never had kids you know. I wanted a legacy. Something to exist after I died. But now I'm going to be remembered for the cube getting loose, causing all that havoc. I should have just stayed on the pier.”
“It's not your fault Wayne.” she said, pushing her horn-rimmed glasses up her nose with her index finger.
“Ah, don't give me that.” he said, throwing the last of the burrito out of the window.
“No, I'm serious. It wasn't your fault the cube got loose.”
“Well, whose was it then?” he said, frowning. “Farslo?”
“I can't say yet.”
“Why?”
“You haven't been hired yet. Consider this a job interview.” she said, turning to him for a second.
“Job? I don't want a fucking job. What is this anyway?” he said.
“You'll want this job Wayne. You'd be working for the same person I work for. He's a scientist, a little like you. You'd have access to equipment and personnel that'd make your factory look like a high school lab.”
“I don't care. Weren't you listening to me? I've done what I needed to do. My lifelong ambition is about to drive through Philly then end up on the coast of Europe in a few days. I don't care.”
She smiled. “You will.”

Philadelphia.

Metzli was carried by helicopter over the city. Unable to feel properly, the wind still stung at his eyes. The helicopter swooped down the trail of destruction, following the flat path of demolition towards the cube. Metzli watched the ground below him and began to get a little nervous. The cube was now below him, relatively going just a little slower than he was. He was flying just over a hundred miles an hour when the helicopter disconnected him from the wires he hung from. Tumbling towards the ground he managed to overshoot the cube by a good couple of miles. He clipped the edge of a building, torpedoing straight through and a foot or two into the street before coming to a stop. It felt odd for him although he managed to stand back up with relative ease. He looked towards the city, knew the cube would be here in a matter of minutes. Unsure of what to do besides to somehow prepare for the cube he loosened up his muscles a little. Even if the suit would protect him, being hit with a wall of metal and concrete wouldn't be a walk in the park. Though muffled he heard an engine behind him. Though when he turned round a truck hit him. They both went through the air and skidded along the ground. Metzli was a little shook up, disoriented. Just as he managed to work out that the front end of the truck had crumpled around his waist like some ridiculous belt Simon pushed open the driver's door and began shooting him with a shotgun. It was odd, unable to even feel the bullets that pinged off his chest. Out of ammunition, Simon stumbled towards him.
“You can't stop the cube.” he said, grabbing Metzli by the head. He had a broken nose and a gash on his forehead where the steering wheel had hit him. Blood was running down his face.
“Simon. You can't be here, it's dangerous.”
“Please. You don't understand. You haven't seen it like I have.”
Metzli turned back up the street, the cube was now in sight.
“Run.” he said.
“I won't let you, I'm sorry.” said Simon, letting go of Metzli's head as he struggled to climb onto the wreck. He pulled a knife out of his pocket. Metzli turned his head away as Simon scratched at where his eye was. With his arms pinned to his sides by the engine he tried to wriggle free whilst simultaneously bucking his head from side to side as Simon tried to slide the blade through one of the holes in the metal mask. The cube was only a few blocks away. Metzli tilted his head back to look at it. One arm almost free. His vision was darkened as the tip of the knife slid in through one of the holes. Pain rocked his entire body. He could feel the cold metal push inside his eye, further into his head. It was almost incomprehensible although had given him enough to pull his arm out from the engine. He grabbed at the arm that was stabbing him and squeezed. Simon started shouting, punching at the metal glove that was crushing his arm. The cube hit them.

They tumbled above a wave of broken glass and concrete, one or two cars jutting from the churning swell that were quickly swallowed up. The two men began to sink amongst the huge blocks of wreckage. The truck was pulled off Metzli with ease and he was quickly pulled beneath the cube. The knife had also been plucked out of his face by a passing stop sign. Simon was having a bit of a rougher time. His broken arm waved about uselessly as he attempted to pull himself onto the surface though the ground was burying him quickly. His head was crushed against part of a building and Simon died. Metzli flicked beneath the cube, seeing the wheels quite close. They span above his head like chrome farm equipment, he managed to get a grip on one of the axles. Unsure exactly where he was on the underside of the cube, he pulled himself along for a while, blindly. By looking at some of the materials of the stuff that passed he was roughly able to guess where the road was and using that he tried to centre himself on the axle. He began easing himself along. Blood sometimes got in his good eye but he was too full of adrenaline and diazepam to mind at the moment. Then he felt it with a toe. The entrance. Slipping amongst the wheels, he pulled himself up and into the cube itself.


Metzli grabbed a wall covered in wires by the entrance. It was a tunnel going quite high up, deeper into the cube. Around him the walls and floor were covered in all sort of dirt, debris from beneath the cube that had been shuddered into the opening. Metzli began scaling a set of ladders set into one wall, hands still shaking from the adrenaline. Around him was lit in a strange green glow from various LED lamps. Another door. He strained against the mechanical door mechanism until wrenching the door open. The cube left the borders of Philadelphia, bursting from the outer industrial parks in a parade of concrete. Metzli noted how smooth the journey was, he felt as if he was inside some building rather than a vehicle. The core of the cube stretched about him, a jungle of tubes and wires connecting various supercomputers. All of this was bathed in a green light, casting strange shadows around Metzli. There was the skeleton of a stairway to his right though it hadn't yet been built. The cube wasn't ready for people when it was released. Metzli knelt down for a minute to catch his breath, prepare himself. Blood ran down into his mouth, making him spit. With his good eye he looked up at the fractal structure of the metal connections above him and reached upward, clasping a hold on a thick corrugated pipe with one hand and pulling himself up with the other quickly. He began making his way up, making his way around computers the size of cars suspended with the web of wires and metal supports. As he clambered further he became more entangled into the cube's interior.

The cube bounded through the flat land of New Jersey, crashing into a small, abandoned town. A few remaining policemen and robbers were covered in a thick layer of dust that clouded their senses as the cube continued on it's journey. It's metal wheels pulled the cube onwards, spurring it through a forest hundreds of years old. A bar, a gym, a school, several small businesses, barns, churches, houses. Places. All were crushed against it's invincible body as easily as a hammer through lego. As Metzli was about halfway towards the inner brain of the cube it submersed itself in a small lake. Water and mud frothed below him, reaching a point where it suddenly fountained up from the way he had made his way in and flooded the computers below him. This didn't affect the cube at all, although it's insides were filled with water than glugged out of it's bottom as the cube zoomed it's way out of the lake at a hundred and twenty five miles an hour and straight through the back of a bar, causing it to explode into a puff of smoke. Metzli tugged at a cable and slipped downwards, nearly getting caught in a net of wires. He coughed, relaxing. Stay calm. The more he struggled the further he descended. Entwining his fingers around a large black plug he managed to find a grip again, making his way through the wires. The green light got more intense.

A few miles away a car parked up. Out stepped a woman wearing horn-rimmed glasses and a middle-aged man with thinning hair. They sat on the front of the car that faced the shores of New Jersey.
“He isn't going to make it.”
“Who?” said Wayne.
“Metzli. That Mexican agent they sent up.”
“You sent him in there?”
“Of course. Think of it as his job interview.”
“He has time yet.”
“Maybe.” she said. It wasn't often, though she felt a pang of guilt for giving Metzli the job.
“If he gets in the middle it's pretty simple.”
“If.”
He popped open a can of lemonade she had in the car, taking a gulp. He looked at the distant square of the cube as it zoomed through Eastern New Jersey. “Don't you think it's amazing? Not to blow my own horn, but that machine. Look at it.” he said.
“I don't think much about that kind of thing. Somebody does though.”
“Oh yes. This interview we're having.” he said.
“I mentioned earlier how this wasn't your fault. What did you think I meant by that?”

Metzli hacked his way through a nest of wires and cables, getting closer to the source of the light. He'd looked over the blueprints pretty closely though he struggled to picture what the inside of the cube looked like.

“I thought you meant someone else did it. I'm still wondering who.”

A green light. Looking at it felt as wrong as looking at the sun. Possible but not something you'd choose to do. And not just it's brightness. It felt wrong.

“I need you to keep an open mind.”
The cube rushed onwards and onwards, continuing it's acceleration.

Metzli pulled himself upward.

“Of course.” he said.

Metzli turned away from the green light at a bunch of computer consoles.

“Who would stand to lose the most from space exploration? The government? Big business?” she said.

The cube approached the small town of Forked Rivers, pulverizing a block of suburbs.

Wayne frowned. “Maybe.”

Metzli began punching at the consoles, ripping out wires that arced electricity and oil in the air around him,

“Maybe. I can tell you

it hissed and turned to steam against the green

although if I do

light. An incredible

there is no going

scream filled the air as loud

back.” she said. “I

as an aircraft engine. Metzli

have gone this

covered his ears and

far”

fell to the

“Wayne. Your

floor. The cube

cube was sabotaged

began to slow

by aliens.”

down.

“Aliens?” said Wayne. They were both watching the cube as it hit the sand dunes in the distance. The Atlantic tide washed up against it and it quickly dipped into the ocean, throwing sea water hundreds of feet into the air.
“Aliens, yes. They are in orbit high above Earth. They broadcasted a code down at your cube when your initial experiment took place, causing a fault in the guidance computer. We need people like you to help.”
“Help with what?”
“To protect us Wayne. That's what I do, what my boss does.” she said, watching the cube dip into the ocean. “It's what Metzli should have done.”

Metzli had stopped the cube. As the cube lost it's acceleration the sea water easily rushed in through the hole, rising and rising. The green light began to dim, slowly moving between brightness and darkness. The sound of the cube suddenly stopped, the only thing Metzli could hear was the sound of water beneath. He realized what had happened and began breathing in and out quickly, hyperventilating. He'd had training for this before. Thirty metres down, at least sixty up. It was going to be tough. The water began to rise above his legs. He took a final deep breath as the ocean covered him.

“I don't understand. These aliens mean us harm?”
“It's not as black and white as that, harming and helping. Biologically they are totally different but more importantly, culturally. We have no real way of understanding their intentions in human terms.”
“So what do you need me for?”
“Wayne, you built something indestructible. For exploring distant worlds, maybe even theirs. And they didn't want that. At the moment we can only guess that whatever they don't want is something that we do.”
Wayne walked back and forth a few times, looking out to the sea with helicopters hovering above where the cube had been.
“Wait a minute. Look at the surface.” he said, pointing out. “Looks regular.”
She stepped off the car and squinted. “You're right. Hold on.” she took her phone out of her pocket and dialled a number.

Metzli swam down through the tangled mass of wires and cables, feeling his way through the black. The salt water stung at his eye, flooded his suit. His adrenaline was pumping through his blood too quickly to realize what he had done or his current situation. Even though his suit was invincible to bullets there were still three holes in the top. Metzli needed to breath still. He swam deeper, pulling himself along through the cables. He suddenly felt nothing and realized he was near the inner door.

She put the phone down. “Looks like Metzli has done it.”
“Why isn't there somebody to help him?”
“They're on their way.” she said. “You know, I'm not heartless. I hope he gets out.” she said
“Well act like it!” he shouted at her.
“I thought you didn't care. Your legacy. Your machine.” she said.
“It's stopped though, hasn't it. It's caused enough damage.”
“I don't mean to offend you but relatively that was nothing. All of this that has happened was nothing compared to what would happen if the aliens were to win.”
“But we won.” he said, swinging his arm towards the sea.
“This instance. There are a few astronauts on the space station at the moment that will come into contact with the aliens soon, they will most likely be killed. They've already directly killed several other astronauts, pilots and abducted approximately half a thousand people.”
“This is a lot to take in.”
“It needs to be said. Your interview is over, congratulations. Do you want the job?” she said.

Metzli tugged himself from the hull of the dead cube and swam through mud. His lungs ached, his throat burned. He felt as if his tongue had shrank and turned into some strange limb he had no control over. Most of all his brain ached. Part of it begged him to breath, the other pleaded him to continue. He was so close. Feeling his way along the still wheels on the underside of the cube he grasped finally reached the edge.

Wayne looked at the sea and shifted his gaze Westward as the sun slowly shrank the shadows of the night. A stretch of destruction from here all the way to the Nevada desert. So much destruction. He turned to the woman who had drove him to this summit, looking at her. For a brief instant he remembered his wife on that pier. This wasn't so different. A choice.
“I accept.” he said.
She smiled and went up to him, extending a hand.
“I'm glad you said yes Wayne. I will call my boss in a moment.” she said. Wayne took one last look back to the ocean then back towards the car. She looked for a moment at the sea. Metzli. The cube. Aliens. She needed to sleep. She took her phone out of her pocket.
“Dr. Peppard? Wayne said yes.” she said. She put the phone down and walked towards the car.

Metzli swam up. The pain from the lack of oxygen was almost unbearable. If he didn't breathe in soon he'd pass out. He thought about stopping the cube. All the good he'd done. If he lived would he want to, not being able to surpass this achievement? He swam. What would happen once he reached the surface. Fame and fortune? He didn't want either of those. The last few bubbles emerged from his mask. He wanted to go home. Could he go home. He coughed. As he inhaled, sea water went into his mouth and down his throat. He didn't want to die like this, he realized. All the things he hadn't done. Just as he the water hit his lungs it caused him to cough again, bringing in more water. Metzli felt light headed, stopped swimming. He was so close. All the people he would leave behind. With his good eye he could see the sun above him, getting closer and closer towards the surface, although this sank away as the suit weighed him down. The edges of his vision fizzed black and white. The last thing he saw was the shape of a boat above him. Next to him he felt the cube. He sank further down towards the ocean's floor. He wanted to live.