The Cube Read online

  “What’s in the cube?” I asked again.

  “Nothing you would understand,” the traveler said. “But it will help. Why don’t you back off now and let me finish the job?”

  I had two options. One, I send this guy and his box packing, off to whatever Present he came from. Tell him to say hi to Joel for me. He’d be out of my hair and I could get back in time for the show.

  My phone buzzed again in my pocket. I didn’t have many friends in high school given my secretive extracurriculars, but I was determined to make friends with my suitemates. That meant eating pizza and making fun of a dumb television show with them.

  Two, I could make a play for that box. Whatever was in there could be valuable. Or it could bring harm to whatever time this guy was from. I didn’t like missing out on TV night with my new suitemates, but I really didn’t like unknowns.

  “I’m going to send you back one way or another,” I said. “Might as well tell me what’s in the box first. You know. Curiousity. One lover of animals to another. Is it a weapon, a tool, something else?”

  “You wouldn’t understand, girl,” the man said viciously. “No one here could possibly –“

  I laughed, which made the man’s face turn red. “No, you don’t understand. Have you traveled before? You can’t use whatever’s in that box to change the future, because if you changed it, you never would have come. Why don’t any of you understand that?”

  The man narrowed his eyes. I watched carefully as he bent his knees. He’s gonna run. I flicked my Some Gun from Stun to Cage and pulled the trigger at the exact moment the traveler turned to his right. The Cage of Light, as I called it – no trademark yet – tried to grab hold of him, but he was too fast. The Cage wasn’t optimized for moving objects yet, and its success rate dropped as its target’s speed increased.

  The Some Gun did catch onto the metal cube, surrounding it with strings of light and effectively ripping it out of the man’s hands. “No!” he mouthed as he disappeared. A teleporter. If I had that kind of technology on my hands, I could send travelers back to their own time and be back in my dorm so much faster.

  Dammit.

  The metal box dropped slowly to the ground, trapped in the Cage of Light. It bounced a few times before coming to a top. I checked my phone.

  Where r u? Show starts soon!

  No one wants the pizza with olives. Did you order that?

  There was a picture message of my three suitemates sitting together on the floor in front of our TV. I’d hopefully be sitting with them very soon. I swiped the picture away and texted Ridge.

  Found a box. Traveler disappeared. Heading over now.

  Ridge did not like to hear that a traveler got away, but that made two of us.

  THE BIKE RIDE FROM the park to Ridge’s apartment wouldn’t have taken as long if I wasn’t lugging an 8” metal cube under one arm as I swerved around cars and jaywalking pedestrians. New York City on another hot summer evening. I couldn’t imagine why any of these people wanted to be outside with the mosquitoes and flies. Drops of sticky water rained down from air conditioning units. I felt my long dark hair blowing out behind me – not from a cooling breeze, but from the muggy air wafting up from the subway grates.

  I checked the time as I pulled up by Ridge’s place. 8 pm. The show was starting.

  Ridge’s door was open, waiting for me as usual. I kicked my shoes off on the doormat and set the cube and my messenger bag on his kitchen table.

  Ridge stood by the fridge, scrounging around for snacks. He landed on a bag of grapes and pulled them out for us.

  “What’s in the box?” he teased, sitting down at the table next to it. I shrugged and sat with him.

  I turned the cube over in my hands, and we took a closer look. It wasn’t very big, but dangerous weapons could come in small packages. The sides were softer than I expected, like it was some kind of futuristic metal. Based on the sound I heard when I tapped on the outside, the walls were definitely thick. I wouldn’t have known there was any open space inside the box except for the intermittent rattling. I leaned in close to listen. It wasn’t just rattling. There was a sound like scissors being snapped open and shut. Snip. Snip. Snip.

  The strangest part was that the box wasn’t sealed shut. It had no seal or opening at all. One plain solid surface along each of the six sides. Ridge pulled the cube closer and traced his fingers along the edges to feel for anything I may have missed. He shrugged. Nothing.

  “I should have just sent the guy back,” I chided myself. “He and his box could go back to his Present, and his own people could deal with whatever’s inside.”

  Ridge raised an eyebrow. “You needed to see what was in Pandora’s box.”

  My curiousity did tend to the get the best of me.

  “I’m starting college. I shouldn’t let myself get distracted like this! I want to have that normal college experience with roommates and pizza and frat parties and ...I don’t even know what normal teenagers are like. How am I going to make this work?”

  “I don’t think that particular life is in your future, June. Not when you need to run around with...all of this.” He gestured to the box. “Normal college experiences don’t align with guarding the Present.”

  I huffed. I was determined to make it work.

  “Don’t you have a thingamajig –“ Ridge pointed to my bag. “You know, the one you named after me?”

  My lips quivered. I wouldn’t give Ridge the satisfaction of a smile, but he knew exactly what he was talking about. “Ridge’s Map” we called it – another invention named when I was amused by things like that. When I started fighting travelers as a little kid, my adventures took me all around the city by myself. Ridge came with me sometimes. I invented Ridge’s Map so he could keep an eye on me when he couldn’t be my sidekick. I called him “Mr. Ridge” back then; the formality dropped over time.

  I pulled Ridge’s Map from my bag. The science was simple once you had the advanced technology the travelers always seemed to leave behind. I liked to think the real creativity came in the presentation. It was a small black box about the size of a compass, with a thin slide inside that pulled out to collect a sample. The top featured an LCD screen like on a TV or phone. It was a companion piece to the Face Finder. If I didn’t have a picture of the person, but I had some genetic materials, I could find them. Plus, Ridge wasn’t very good at using the Face Finder.

  I looked back at the metal box, which shivered on the counter as if it knew we were coming for it. Ridge and I had touched it already, so our fingerprints likely overlapped with the traveler’s. Ridge handed me some scotch tape, though, and I got to work.

  The first fingerprint I pulled was one of ours. Ridge’s Map pulled a map off the internet and displayed where the owner of the DNA on the fingerprint was located. Ridge’s apartment. It took me four tries to find the guy. He was still lurking around Central Park about a half mile north of the zoo, near the lake.

  Ridge watched from over my shoulder. “What do you think?” I asked. “Keep the box here and try to figure out what it does, or send him home with it?”

  “If he knows where it is, he’ll come after us.” Ridge stood up to return the grapes to the fridge. I wasn’t hungry. “It’s up to you,” he said.

  I didn’t get the chance to decide, because at that very moment, the box opened.

  Chapter 4

  If I wasn’t seventeen and age-appropriately jaded, I might have been awed by the strange, magical sight of the top of the box seamlessly detaching itself from the rest and falling over to the side. If I wasn’t desperate to get back to the dorms where pizza topped with olives awaited me, I might have been amazed at the sight of three palm-sized insects climbing out of the box onto Ridge’s kitchen table.

  I reacted quickly. I reached for the nearest bug and lifted him up by his thick black shell to avoid his legs and claws. He was heavier than I expected, and I dropped him back into the box with a thud. I grabbed the second one the same way, keeping my finge
rs away from his legs and pinchers, and dropped him next to his friend.

  Ridge let out a loud string of expletives. He jumped up and held his right wrist tightly with his left hand. There were two deep gashes across his palm that were already dripping blood onto the table.

  I looked around for the third bug, but in the second I turned to look at Ridge’s hand, it escaped.

  “Ridge, hold on, hold on!” I pulled the lid back onto the box and dumped Ridge’s toaster on top to hold it shut. I hurried to the bathroom and came back with bandages, a hand towel, and soap.

  “Where’s the third one, June?” he yelled. His face was ashen; he couldn’t take his eyes off his hand. I shushed him and pushed him back down into his chair.

  “Let me look at this.” He grimaced when I took his hand and cursed at me as I cleaned the wound.

  “Don’t be a baby,” I muttered.

  “Don’t worry about that, June, it’s just a scratch. You have other things to take care of.”

  “Just a scratch from an oversized beetle from the future! Hold still.” The wound looked clean, but it was still bleeding. The cuts were deep; I wasn’t sure if Ridge would need stitches. I wrapped his hand in a bandage and commanded him to apply firm pressure with his other hand.

  “I’m fine, June. You need to go find that third beetle.” Ridge’s face was stern but still pale. He was tough, like one of those worn out beat cops who’s tired of all the evil in the world but won’t stop fighting it. And he also hated the sight of blood.

  “I’m not sure I can,” I said with a glance towards the box. The beetles were rattling it again, although this time they seemed more motivated. “I don’t know how far he went. The other two sound riled up. And I don’t know if the bug is big enough to show up on my J-DAR.”

  My J-DAR, named by Ridge because he said it was June’s version of RADAR, scanned areas for traces of the chronograms that marked time travelers. It worked well for tracking humans, but its track record with smaller creatures was spotty. Up close it worked fine, but up close I didn’t really need it. Still, I pulled the instrument out of my bag and set it on the table. It looked like a large magnifying glass, which made me feel awkward holding it up in front of myself on the city sidewalks. I made a smaller version that clipped onto my sunglasses, but being so small, it wasn’t as useful.

  Ridge let go of his bandage and held the J-DAR up to the box. “Take the lid off, would you?”

  I pulled the toaster off the box, keeping a hand firmly planted on the lid. Then I slowly, carefully, pulled the lid open just an inch or so. Ridge looked into the box and immediately jumped back. I couldn’t help laughing at the big guy acting so scared of the beetles.

  “Give it to me,” I said, holding out my hand. Ridge passed the J-DAR over. I pulled the cube’s lid back on and looked at the beetles through the walls. The J-DAR scanned right through inanimate objects. I squinted and cocked my head to one side and the other. I pulled the J-DAR closer to my face then moved it so it was right up against the box.

  “What’s happening?”

  “I don’t see anything,” I said, passing the J-DAR back to Ridge. He held it up to the side of the box like I had.

  “Well, that doesn’t mean anything! Maybe the box is too thick.”

  “Nope. The J-DAR sees through walls. Buildings, even.” I invented the J-DAR a long time ago and updated it several times since. It was one of the tools I used most in my work. I had to take certain things into account when I updated the J-DAR, like having to peer through buildings. Ridge passed the J-DAR back.

  “So what does this mean?”

  I pursed my lips. I had no idea. “Are you ready, Ridge? I’m opening the box one more time.” He pushed his chair back from the table so far that he ran right into the kitchen counter.

  I slid the lid back again and looked inside. The beetles weren’t interested in me or concerned with the light coming in through the opening. They scuttled around, clicking their pinchers. I tried the J-DAR again on the off chance that the box was made of some metal I’d never seen before that was J-DAR proof. Like lead to Superman.

  Nothing. The beetles didn’t light up like they should have. Ridge waited for me expectantly.

  “I don’t know what to tell you, Ridge. This has never happened before.” My phone buzzed again.

  Girls and guys are in hot tub. Then they’re gonna put on a play for a nursing home. So amazing! So absurd!!!!!

  If Ridge wasn’t injured and a bug wasn’t missing, I would insist on turning the show on immediately. It was crazy and I was missing out.

  “You have other responsibilities, June...” Ridge muttered.

  I pushed the lid back onto the box. Another text.

  Don’t stay out too late. Class tomorrow at 8!!!

  That was my Lacey. She said her folks made her sign up for the class, and she was terrified of failing. I promised we could work on our assignments together. I looked up at Ridge, pleading with my eyes. Unfortunately, Ridge was impervious to my big brown doe eyes.

  “I don’t know what that beetle is, but I don’t want it running around my neighborhood, June. You have to find it.”

  What would happen if I didn’t find the beetle? Really, what was the worst that could happen? I leaned back with an annoyed exhale, avoiding Ridge’s eyes. When Ridge first figured out what I was up to nine years ago, he asked me why I did it.

  “I have to do it. No one else can,” I replied. Even at eight, I knew what was right.

  “I can’t trace the beetle, and I’m not going to catch a teleporter,” I thought aloud. “What’s left?”

  Ridge’s eyes twinkled. “You know who you get to talk to now.”

  There was only one person in the city to talk to when I was stuck without the resources I needed to send a traveler home. Her name was as strange as she was. Leslie Leslie.

  I slid the toaster off the box. I pulled out the Some Gun, switched it to Cage of Light, and shot it at one of the beetles. Now the bug was safely encased in a Cage of Light, and I could transport it without fear of those pinchers.

  “If I go see her, can you stay here and keep an eye on the cube and Beetle #3?”

  “Yes, but this time don’t just put the toaster on top. Add the microwave.”

  I smirked and lugged the microwave on top of the box. It looked like the microwave would crush it, but I suspected the metal was particularly strong.

  J-DAR in hand, I went to the restroom to return Ridge’s first aid supplies to the medicine cabinet. A glimmer of color caught the corner of my eye.

  I smiled. It was an inside joke I had with myself. I held the J-DAR in front of the bathroom mirror so I could look at myself. a traveler would show up in the J-DAR surrounded by a few streaks of bright reds and oranges. I showed up as brightly radiating shimmers of multiple colors that weaved in and out as I moved.

  That was the joke. I was covered in chronograms even though I never traveled through time. It was Rule #4 of Time Travel: June doesn’t do it. Chronograms don’t pass from person to person, or through objects, or through any other measure I could find. I had no clue why I was covered with them. If Ridge knew my secret, he never mentioned it. I tried not to think about it; some mysteries are meant to be solved in the future, not the Present.

  I twisted my thick hair, frizzy from the heat, into a bun on the top of my head. I wore a white t-shirt, old jeans covered in holes, and my favorite boots. I was caked in sweat and desperate for a shower, and I had no idea how much longer this would take. The show would be long over by the time I got back to the dorms.

  I cursed under my breath. Why couldn’t I have just sent the guy back? Why did I have to care what was in the box?

  I grabbed my stuff, said goodbye to Ridge, and headed out into the city.

  Chapter 5

  Without the box, I rode swiftly down the streets. Leslie Leslie ran a pawn shop in midtown a few blocks south of Central Park. The shop sat in the middle of a posh neighborhood featuring expensive shops, fancy re
staurants, and Carnegie Hall. The neighbors wanted her and her store out. The pawn shop had the run down appearance of a store that had been decimated by looting in the aftermath of a natural disaster. It was marked by a single, large sign with yellow and black writing that read “PAWN.”

  I locked my bike to a parking sign out front. Leslie Leslie was always in the store, so I walked right in. A little bell jingled as the door opened but Leslie Leslie wasn’t immediately visible. I looked around. Half of her shop was cluttered, while many of shelves were completely empty. There were used televisions and VCRs no one could possibly want. I found a cardboard box one time with dozens of old vinyl records. I assured Leslie Leslie that she could make a lot of money selling them, but she left the price tag on the box. $5. It was gone by the next time I came by.

  I waited by the register, dumping my bag on the display case next to a “Take a Penny Leave a Penny” tin. People only followed the first half of those directions; it was empty. I tapped my foot on the floor and traced my name into the dust on the counter.

  Finally, Leslie Leslie poked her head out from the back. “Who’s there?” she yelled. Her face scrunched up into a grin when she saw who it was.

  I met Leslie Leslie many years ago when I was particularly motivated in my work. I would take my J-DAR with me everywhere, just in case I ran into a traveler and needed to act fast. Leslie Leslie was the only traveler I found, and I was thrilled with my accomplishment. I went inside her store and met its short, round owner. She looked to be in her fifties, with crazy white hair and an oddly ornate walking stick. Her glasses swallowed up half her face. I never saw travelers with glasses or canes; these were just a few more things that made her an odd duck.