The Cube

by Melissa Faye

  I frowned, still staring at the traveler. Ridge wasn’t much of a drinker, and besides that, he was too responsible to mess around while the third beetle was in his care.

  “No, June, that’s not it. I mean, I’m getting smaller.” His voice cracked.

  “What do you mean you’re getting smaller?” I asked. The traveler’s face twisted into a nasty grin.

  “I was my size, and now I’m not my size. My phone - it’s so big. My couch. It’s happening fast now.”

  “What? Things are getting bigger? You’re not your size?”

  The traveler’s face lit up with laughter. He clutched his sides, leaning against the dirty hallway wall.

  I heard the thud of a phone falling to the floor. “Ridge? Are you there Ridge? Is that...thing...near you? Are you okay?”

  Nothing.

  My stomach dropped. Something was very wrong, and the traveler was delighted. That couldn’t be good.

  “Did one of my beetles scratch your friend?” he asked between his guffaws. “That’s what happened, right? The box opened, and someone got scratched?”

  I put my phone away and reached slowly for my Some Gun.

  “No, no, no,” the traveler said. “You can’t send me back now! What are you gonna do about your friend shrinking?” He chuckled again, his eyes creased with laugh lines.

  “What did you do to him?” I demanded. “I thought your beetles were going to save animals from extinction.”

  The man abruptly stopped laughing and his face grew dark.

  “You people. You’ll believe anything! I knew this would be easy, but I doubted myself when you got the box. But you’re gullible! And now your friend is paying the price.”

  “Tell me what’s happening!”

  “I’m not here to save anything,” the traveler announced proudly. “I’m here to take those animals on the brink of extinction back to my Present. Their meat is outrageously expensive. Do you know how much someone in my Present will pay to eat an animal that went extinct hundreds of years ago? I’m going to be rich!”

  Gross.

  “What does that have to do with my friend shrinking? What exactly do these beetles do?”

  The man looked like he’d just won the lottery. Like my old friend Joel on the evening news.

  “That’s the best part! The beetle released nanobots into your friend’s bloodstream. They’ll shrink him down until he’s the size of a grain of rice. Then, if he were an endangered leopard, I could store him in the cube and bring him home with me.”

  My stomach churned, and my mind raced. I pictured a tiny Ridge. Was he so small that he would fall right off the couch? Would he hurt himself? Break a leg? What if the phone fell on top of him?

  “How long does it last? How do I stop it?” I spat.

  “You don’t stop it. You give me my beetles back. Maybe I’ll help your friend. But I won’t do anything for him until I get the animals I want and I’m out the door.”

  I stomped my foot on the ground. This must have been why he wasn’t worried about changing the future. He wasn’t changing much at all. He’d make some money off animals he stole from my own Present – and maybe kill Ridge, but that was collateral damage. That was another problem I had with travelers. They did what they wanted without much concern for my Present. We were distant history to them.

  The man watched me like he was studying a lower species. I shook my head.

  “You’re not getting these back until you save my friend.” I waved the two beetles in front of the man’s face menacingly. It was hard to threaten someone at my height and weight, but I was working on it.

  “Your friend, the one who just called? He has the third beetle with him now, isn’t that right, girl?”

  My mouth opened. The man touched one of the rings on his left ear and I could have sworn I felt a brush of static electricity pass through the air.

  “Ridge, right? Keep the other two beetles. That one will be enough.”

  “Wait –“ I yelled. The man turned and vanished into nothingness. With shaking hands, I pulled up Ridge’s map. The traveler was already on his street.

  He was going to get the third beetle and his cube. And maybe he would step on tiny Ridge along the way. I started to breathe hard as I watched his dot on Ridge’s Map, picturing what he was doing. Storming up the stairs. Knocking on doors. Except he had pulled Ridge’s address from my phone, and I had his apartment number listed. So he could barge right in. Throw the door open. Grab his stuff and run.

  My heart pounded. I raced down the stairs two at a time and back onto the street. There was no way I could catch up, but I had to try.

  Chapter 8

  I flew up the stairs to Ridge’s apartment and once more, the door was already open to me. Only this time it looked like it had been flung open carelessly; there was a crack in the plaster where the doorknob smashed into Ridge’s wallpaper. I almost tripped over my feet before stopping myself from crossing the threshold into his place. Any movement and I could step on Ridge.

  I scanned the apartment from the doorway. Ridge’s phone lay on the floor next to the couch. A chair was knocked over by the kitchen table. The toaster and microwave lay smashed on the floor. Ridge would snap at me for that. He always needed to replace his microwave and it was somehow always my fault. Just because I liked using it to test inventions.

  He won’t get angry, I reminded myself. He’s too tiny to see across the apartment.

  I imagined him on the couch, the size of a toddler, frantically trying to figure out what was happening as the world grew before his eyes. The cushions were still indented from where he was sitting. I bit my lip. I didn’t dare stepping inside; if I crushed Ridge, he’d kill me.

  “Ridge?” I called out softly. Maybe my voice sounded like thunder to him, like Gulliver in the land of Lilliput.

  “Ridge, are you there?” I tried again.

  I knelt down and peered along the carpet. The fibers were too thick. If Ridge was a grain of rice, he’d have trouble moving around. Honey, I shrunk my mentor and sidekick. I choked back a laugh.

  I sniffed loudly, then I brushed my nose with my hand. Ridge isn’t lost, I thought. I’ll get him back. I have to.

  “Ridge, I’ll be back soon. I promise.”

  I closed his door gently, hoping I wasn’t knocking him down in the process. I locked the door with my spare key and collapsed down the steps one at a time.

  Ridge and I got into our fair share of trouble. Usually it was my fault. Definitely tonight was my fault. I shouldn’t have been so intent on seeing what was in the box; I should have sent the traveler back to his own Present. They could deal with him there. Now it was after midnight, Ridge was lost in a sea of carpet fibers, and half the animals in the Central Park Zoo were about to be stolen and eaten by rich people from a future century.

  I swore loudly. There was a metallic click on my right. One of Ridge’s neighbor’s had heard me curse and was peering at me through her peep hole. I picked up the pace.

  I unlocked my bike with no idea where to go. Usually, I went to Ridge. When Ridge wasn’t around, I went home and tinkered with the technology in hand until something occurred to me. Now I was all moved into my first dorm room in my first week of college.

  Might as well head that way now. I pushed up kickstand and took off.

  My body led me into my dorm on auto-pilot. I shuffled through the dorm’s common room where I saw Marlene sitting close to another student. I smiled at her, but she didn’t notice me. She was staring at the girl and let out a sweet giggle. She didn’t have any classes until late afternoon the next day. Or today, I corrected myself. It was past midnight, after all.

  I pushed my bike over to the side of the suite and dragged myself into my bedroom. Honey was out somewhere, probably doing the normal college student thing. I checked Ridge’s Map again: the traveler was already back at the zoo. How long until he had all the animals he needed? Even if I caught up with him, he probably wouldn’t tell me how to save Ridge.
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  I pulled open my tablet to look at the beetles’ programming again. If there was an Off switch, that’s where I’d find it. I scanned through line after line of code, but after several minutes, I tossed the tablet onto my bed with a grunt. No answers, and it was taking too long to keep looking.

  I pulled my trunk out from under my bed and unlocked it with a click. It smelled like my room in my grandparents’ house. Freshly washed sheets and burnt metal.

  I lifted the lid. The trunk contained as much of the technology and as many of the inventions as I thought I would need at school. There was another trunk just like it at my grandparents’ house. I shuffled through the contents halfheartedly. Nothing.

  I dropped onto my bed. The envelope was still there, and it crunched under my body as I lay out. I wondered what Harrison was up to. Probably flirting with someone who wasn’t responsible for the fate of the world. Or at least responsible for the fate of a bunch of animals and someone she loved very much.

  Now I’m thinking about some guy instead of saving Ridge.

  I have to save Ridge because no one else can.

  I made myself get up and go through my trunk again, this time more methodically. There had to be something in there to stop the traveler before he left. Biological was my Achilles heel; I had no idea where I would even start to find a cure for Ridge’s anatomical dilemma. I pulled machines and spare parts out of the trunk one by one. A few prototypes for Ridge’s map – I was working on an extra version to leave with Ridge, and planned on updating the screen. My Back-U-Go – the first tool I made for sending a traveler back to their Present. I was only eight when I made it out of my grandparents’ television remote. They looked for the remote for a week before resorting to getting a new one. I made some upgrades so it could be used to send travelers back. I even used to say it aloud when I was little: “Back you go!” By now I had integrated it with the Some Gun. I’d have to think of a more technical name for it.

  I jumped when someone knocked on the door behind me. It was my new crush Harrison, and his mouth was wide open.

  “What is all of that?” He pointed to the floor. I looked down and noticed I was surrounded by tools, circuitry boards, microchips, computer screens, dissected weapons, and wires. I rushed to dump them back in the trunk and ignored Harrison’s question.

  “What’s up?” I asked nervously, avoiding looking at the handsome, tall stranger standing in my doorway. “Thanks again for the letter. Sorry I rushed out on you before.” I felt my face turn red. Georgie, my favorite teddy bear growing up, sat politely on my pillow. I should have leapt across the bed to move him aside, but I was too busy with the trunk.

  “I wanted to make sure you made it back in time. New York City is a scary place for freshman.”

  “I’m a native,” I snapped. There were still wires sticking out from under my bed, pushed aside from a few minutes earlier.

  “What is all of that? You have a lot of...wires.”

  “I like making things.” He didn’t respond. “Crafts. Wire crafts. Jewelry”

  “Mmmmm...no, you don’t. You’re an engineer. You make crazy stuff from the looks of it.” He crouched next to me and handed me some wires that were out of my reach. He held a shiny white remote with three gray buttons along the top. I didn’t even remember where that came from.

  “I’m very busy,” I huffed. I took the wires from his hand and felt that jolt of electricity that comes from a buildup of static or from accidentally brushing against your crush. “I made it back.”

  “You don’t look so good, Wires,” Harrison said. He planted himself on the floor next to me and watched as I finished packing the trunk. “What are you looking through this stuff for? Why don’t you just go to bed? Or, you know, find a party to visit? Frats love freshman girls.”

  I rolled my eyes and sat back on the floor across from him.

  “I have a friend I need to help,” I explained. “I was looking for...the thing he needs. To borrow.”

  “Great! I can help you look. Does he need....” Harrison waved his hands over the floor until he arrived at a broken LCD screen. “I don’t know. One of these?”

  I leaned back against the wall and closed my eyes. Ridge was the only one who ever helped me with travelers. When he wasn’t around, I did this on my own. No one else helped. Still, I had no ideas, and time was running out.

  “Let me ask you a hypothetical,” I said slowly. Harrison dropped the broken screen and leaned forward as I spoke. “You’re trying to get something from someone. Information. If you don’t get that information, something bad happens. But they’re bigger and faster than you, and they have no reason to tell you what you want to know.”

  “Sure, of course,” Harrison said. He nodded seriously, but his eyes sparkled with a hint of laughter. They were the lightest blue I’d ever seen. “A hypothetical, right? A brain teaser?” I didn’t respond.

  “Ok, first of all, there aren’t a lot of people who are bigger or faster than me, so that’s a little hard for me to imagine.” He smirked and paused for me to snicker. I did not. “Second, if this person doesn’t have reason to tell you what you need to know, then you should give them a reason.”

  “Like how?”

  “Hypothetical, right?” He paused in thought. “If this was James Bond, you’d put a gun to the guys head. But it looks like...” He scanned the contents of the trunk and rifled through a few gadgets. It took all my strength not to swat his hand away. “You’re not armed. But that’s what you would do. Hypothetically.”

  I did have a Some Gun in the messenger bag on my bed.

  “Hypothetically.” I nodded to Harrison pointedly. “Let’s say I did have a weapon. The guy’s still bigger and faster than me. How do I get him before he runs away?”

  “Oh that’s the easiest part!” Harrison exclaimed. “You bring someone like me. And I approach him very, very quietly.”

  When I was twelve, my grandmother, Ma, caught me sneaking into the house late one night. I had just sent a traveler home and was sweaty, tired, and dirty. Ma pitched a fit. I wouldn’t tell her where I’d been, and I was grounded for two weeks. I spent those two weeks inventing a neat little device I named the Shusher. It was shaped like a thin rectangular plate and snapped around my arms and chest. When I wore it and flicked it on, I no longer made a sound. Not only could I not speak, since my vocal chords made no noise, but any footsteps, squeaks, sniffles, and heavy breathing were silenced. A person wearing the Shusher was very, very quiet.

  Harrison watched as the wheels turned in my head. Every second that passed meant the traveler was one step closer to capturing the animals and returning to his Present without helping me get Ridge back. I knew Ridge’s scratch had taken a while to take effect, so I had some extra time. But not much. Bringing Harrison along would help.

  On the other hand, we’d only just met. He was friendly and, like he said, as big as the traveler, but that didn’t guarantee him being a reliable ally in the field. Even if we were successful, he might go crazy and tell everyone what happened.

  There was one more invention that could be helpful. My Swiper Spray. It was a modified version of a memory erasure drug I got from a traveler who stole money from banks, then made sure everyone in the area forgot what happened. I could erase Harrison’s entire memory after he helped me.

  I didn’t like using the Swiper Spray. It was unfair; who was I to mess with someone’s brain like that? The smallest dose erased a person’s memory from the last 24 hours. Harrison would forget everything that happened that day.

  “What did you do today?” I blurted out. Harrison was unfazed.

  “Woke up at 9, went for a run, late breakfast with my roommate, picked up my textbooks for the semester, lunch, dinner, um...stuff like that. Oh! I met you. Why? Is this another hypothetical?”

  “Just wondering.” I bit the corner of my lip. He could lose twenty four hours without much issue; I would be the only one of us to suffer.

  I leaned over my messenger bag and
snuck another peak at Ridge’s Map. The traveler was moving back and forth around the zoo. I had to move fast. Bring Harrison, or leave him behind? Use the spray, or let him know the truth?

  “What the hell is that?” Harrison screeched as he jumped to his feet. One of the caged beetles had fallen out of the bag onto the floor. The light cushioned its fall, so it made no sound as it gently bounced against the ground before rolling to a stop. Inside the Cage, the beetle floated an inch off the ground, clicking his legs uselessly.

  Harrison backed up towards the doorway.

  “Do you still want to help?” I asked again with an arched eyebrow.

  Harrison leaned forward to inspect the beetle. He grabbed a wire from the trunk and moved it towards the cage. I nodded: go right ahead. He poked the Cage, but it was impenetrable. Harrison couldn’t touch the beetle.

  “Now I definitely want to help,” Harrison said, looking up at me with a goofy grin. “Do you also have a weapon in there?”

  “Yes, but you’re not touching it.”

  “Fine. You’re the boss, Wires.” He gave me a smug grin and I crossed my arms.

  “Stop calling me that. Do you have a bike?”

  Chapter 9

  Harrison was a proficient biker and we maintained a brisk pace as we trekked south to the park. I fed him bits and pieces of my plan at intersections. He looked more excited each time.

  We laid our bikes behind some bushes near the zoo entrance. The door was locked, but we climbed a high fence off to the side. Harrison’s landing was graceful; he landed gently on his tiptoes. I fell over and scraped my knee.

  Harrison pestered me to let him hold Ridge’s Map, but I pushed his hands out of my way. I led us to a section on the far side of the zoo. The traveler was located near the red panda display. When we were about a hundred feet away, I gestured for Harrison to kneel on the ground next to me.

  I couldn’t turn on a flashlight, but I knew my equipment very well. Harrison followed my hushed instructions and inspected my invention as I snapped the Shusher onto his back and around his stomach. I noticed how muscular his torso was. I suspected seeing him without a shirt on would make me swoon.