CHAPTER 7

WHAT IS

SCRIPT:

Our final approach to Earth was eventful, to say the least. The White Cube had spent the last few days trying to pin point where the Black Cube was. It had finally found it, buried deep underground, (Pause) beneath New York city.

A fitting place to put it, a seat to many powerful business leaders, and the location of one of the UN buildings. Unfortunately, this put a wrinkle in the plan. Our plan of just dropping the Cube would no longer work, the impact of the cube in the middle of New York would cause countless deaths.

On the whole, that kind of cost seemed acceptable to regain control of our destiny as a species, but the Cube refused to consider it. That kind of a cold mathematics with human lives in the balance was something it could not entertain. It seemed as thought that kind of thinking that would make that kind of trade acceptable might have come from the influence of the Black Cube, it’s singular driving determination subsuming our empathy and kindness in situations like this.

(With Emphasis) The Black Cube needed to succeed at it’s goal, no matter the cost.

The White Cube refused to go down the same path.

So we drew a new plan. Even if we took all three landers down, and tried to slip by, there was nothing to stop them from just blowing us out of the sky before we got close. The White Cube could only distract so many people at a time from seeing us, but if the Black Cube had done a good enough job of convincing the world that we were a threat, then it wouldn’t matter. Someone would see us, someone would pull the trigger, and we would be dead before we got close.

(Amused) So we would let them find us. We would let them fire on us. The Pathfinder would be sacrificed to save us. We fly the Pathfinder in a way that would be visible, would be obvious, but we would not be on it. We would follow behind on one of the landers. The other two landers would be launched on auto pilot to fly along with the Pathfinder.

As soon as they were all spotted, they would be destroyed. We would be floating along on the same flight path, just at the back of whatever cloud of debris was caused by the destruction of our ship. If we planned it right, we could follow the debris until they started to burn up in the atmosphere, and follow them down. Once we were low enough, we would engage our engines, and fly to where we needed to be. By aiming the Pathfinder at the Atlantic Ocean, just off the coast of New York, we’d minimize the chance of damage to the city, while still being close enough to catch them off guard.

It was a bold and reckless plan, but it was the best we had. The White Cube would do it’s best to confuse those looking for us, forcing them to focus on the other two landers and the Pathfinder, and to not pay us any notice as we drifted along behind.

In any other situation, I would have been voicing my opposition to anything like this. I would have also expected the crew to be under a great deal of stress and anxiety, but the faces around me were calm. We were determined. Whether we were under any influence, we still truly didn’t know, but we would find out soon enough, once the Cubes were close enough to cancel each other out.

It was decided, at the suggestion of the Cube, that all of our crew have a chance see what it had shown Elis and I. So, before we packed up into the Lander and got our plan in motion, we decided to take care of that.

We gathered in the cargo bay, and Christian and Joanna placed their hands on the Cube, while Elis and I stood to one side and watched.

The same familiar feeling of peace from before was awash in the room. As our friends removed their hands from the cube and looked to us, we felt a deep connection with them swelling up from our common experience.

In that room, we shared a common goal, and felt it’s power even more keenly than we had when setting out to explore distant Mars. What had brought us out here, seemed so far away now, and only what was before us seemed to feel real. The importance of what we were doing seemed all the more present.

With haste, we prepared the ship. The auto pilot was set, the landers were prepared, and the cube was transported back to the lander that we would fly down in.

We prerecorded a message that would announce our arrival, to make sure all eyes were on the Pathfinder when it arrived in Earth orbit. The sudden arrival of the Pathfinder followed by the launch of the other two landers, would send who ever was watching into a frenzy to stop us.

So we moved our supplies into the last lander, and strapped in. We launched away, careful to stay behind the Pathfinder while we got into position. So long as all eyes remained on the Pathfinder, and we refrained from firing our main engines or using our systems, we would hopefully remain unseen.

Ahead of us, we watched as the Pathfinder adjusted it’s course slightly, and launched the other two landers.

We watched in silent dread, as pillars of smoke stretched up from the Earth, carrying weapons meant to kill us and the White Cube. The missiles moved swiftly toward the Pathfinder and the landers. One by one, nuclear weapons detonated in brief flashes of light, cracking apart our ship, and vaporizing the landers.

The Pathfinder broke into pieces, trailing debris behind it. We watched, with ice in our veins, at the realization of how much of a threat they saw us as. While we had believed what we had seen from the Cube, this served as an agonizing confirmation. The ship which had once been our home, had been destroyed by the very people who had sent us out in the first place. We felt the apparent betrayal keenly. Our old lives, our old beliefs, broke within us as we watched the wreckage of the Pathfinder spread out before us.

We were quite in our thoughts while we floated along in the cloud of twisted and melted metal. The fact that no more missiles were launched, and we remained alive, let us know that our plan was successful so far.

The larger pieces of the Pathfinder hit the upper atmosphere ahead of us, they began to glow and trail smoke. We felt the buffeting of the air as we slipped in behind it. Our plan was to drop in as fast as we could, and then try and slow ourselves once we were low enough for the White Cube to counter the effect of the Black Cube.

The ride down was full of the fury of reentry. Our landers normally came in much more controlled, and we were pushing it to its (With Emphasis) absolute limit. It rocked and shook so badly that I feared it would break apart and that would be the end of our journey.

But it held, and down we went. The city of New York grew more defined as we dropped down. Ahead of us the debris of the Pathfinder began to slam into the water off the coast of the city, throwing up plums of water and smoke. I winced as they struck near boats on the water. Christian fought with the controls to bring us as close to land as he could, the quicker we get into the city, the better. The White Cube would guide us to the Black Cube, while neutralizing it’s influence as best it could as well as focus it’s efforts around us and in the city, and we would have to wait and see how the Black Cube reacted.

We struck the water with bone shaking force, and the craft skipped back up into the air, slamming back down again and again. On the last drop, the nose plunged into the water, and we dropped under the surface. As the water closed over us, a brief moment of panic cut through me at the thought of sinking to the bottom.

Floats deployed along the edge of our craft, and it surged to the surface once more, breaking through the water and settling to rest.

We hurried to unbuckled ourselves and rush for the top side hatch. We stripped off our spacesuits as we moved through craft, the floor swaying under us with the swells of the ocean. We popped a top hatch and dove into the waves, and swam for the waterfront.

Onlookers gawked at us as we scrambled up a boat landing. Many had phones out, recording us, we hoped that the White Cube could keep us out of the attention of the Black Cube long enough for us to get where we needed to go.

Behind us, the floats deflated, and shuttle began to dip beneath the waves. We had set the cargo hatch to open and the floats to deflate after we left. With the White Cube at the bottom of the Hudson River, it would be harder for it to be found or tampered with.

Without any money, or identification, it would be impossible for us to move around the city quickly. We didn’t know exactly where we were going, but the White Cube guided us forward. It gave us a direction and worked to clear our path.

We entered into the subways, the Black Cube being underground. We hopped over the ticket gates and rushed down into the station. Our path was deeper into the city. We looked at the subway maps to figure out where we needed to go, and disappeared down a tunnel.

We walked for hours, in the dim light of the subway tunnel. When trains blew past us, we stuck to the wall, hoping against hope that we could make it to where we were going before someone was sent to stop us.

We worried in vain though, as the White Cube had been confusing the train operators so that they didn’t really see us as they drove past.

Before long, we came to a door in the tunnel wall, which was unmarked and unlocked. The Black Cube had never had to worry about anyone uninvited before, as only those it wanted near it, would have ever been able to make it that far. Had anyone else tried, they never would have even seen the door.

It opened to a set of stairs. They were lit, and pipes ran down the corners. We started down, and layer by layer we descended. We were breathing heavily when we reached the bottom. We must have gone down about twenty flights of stairs. There had been no other doors on any of the other landings until we had reached the very bottom. There, another unmarked door sat.

With my heart in my throat, I gripped the handle, and opened the door.

Inside, the Black Cube sat on a short pillar, with a light directly above it. A man in a dark suit stood in front of us, holding a pistol in his hand and smiling at us.

No one was supposed to be down here, no one was supposed to know where we were. The Black Cube was supposed to have lost all control over humanity while fighting the White Cube. The fact that anyone was here sent us reeling.

With no other choice, we all put our hands up and looked at the man.

He nodded, and introduced himself as Chavan (Chae Vahn).