Brainwashed

Chapter 11: One Solution, One More Problem

Chapter 11

One Solution Equals One More Problem

“Why won’t you open?” I whisper to myself. I’ve been looking at this cube in every class and I can’t figure out how to open it. There is no button that I can see, no little door, no handle- nothing. I don’t get it, how is this cube supposed to help me if I can’t even open it?

Right now I’m in 5th period Algebra. Mr. Costello is giving a lecture on polynomials and how to graph them, and I am studying this dang cube.

I’ve looked at every inch of this cube and can’t find anything. “Just please open, please, I really-” I’d been running my fingers over the surface of it, and on what I guess is the top, I found a slight catch in it. I t appeared to be curved, and looked like it ran around the top of the cube. Is it a button, a door, what? I don’t know, but I’m pushing on it.

“Yes!” It popped open! It was a button!

I realized that Mr. Costello wasn’t talking anymore and looked up. He was looking at me. “Ah… ha.” I smiled sheepishly up at him, then I shoved the cube into my back pack and picked up my pencil. “Sorry.”

I guess the cube will just have to wait for home.

~*~

It killed me not to be able to tell Isadora and Isaac about the cube. It killed me, but I made it through the day without reneging on my promise to Camille. And now, I’m finally at home, in my room, all alone. Now it’s time to open that cube.

There it is, in the middle of my desk tantalizing me as I stare at it. Strangely, now that I have a chance, a possibility of opening it, I’m not sure I want to any more. A thought had suddenly occurred to me. What if this was a trick, what if this was how they brainwash people? Was Camille tricking me into brainwashing myself? I never thought of Camille as one of the enemy, I always just thought she was trying to save herself. That she was never really on board with the plan. No, she wouldn’t try to hurt someone, not like this.

I argued with myself a little longer and, now, after convincing myself of Camille’s innocence, I grabbed the cube away from my desk and began to inspect it. Now, here in my room, I have a chance to see what happened with the cube back in the classroom. The circular part that I pushed on had popped up so now, it appeared that a small table was sitting on the top of the cube. And underneath it, there was a hole leading into the hollow cube. To my dismay I couldn’t see into it, for inside it was dark and there was, under the table and between the “legs” of the table, a blue light. It was spherical and small, yet a bright blue.

There was nothing holding the light there, it was just suspended there, a hanging ball of glowing blue. I wasn’t sure what was supposed to happen next so I reached out to touch the light, and as soon as my finger comes into contact, the “table” moves. It pops up even more. Now, instead of a glowing ball of light, there is a card. I hesitate a little, and then I reach in and take the card. It is blue and plastic, almost like a credit card, but it looked like the blue part of those 3D movie glasses.

I heard a click then and looked down to see that the cube was moving, changing. The “table” had started to slide back down so the top was whole again. Then the top started to open toward me until it was straight with the front face of the cube; then that too started to unfold until it was flat on the table. The remaining three sides of the cube began to unfold down until they were at a 45 degree angle with the surface of the desk. The whole process took about ten seconds. It all reminded me of a flower blooming, a strange flower with its petals slowly unfurling.

It seemed that there was a screen on each of the three sides still slightly elevated, for there was a slight glow to them. But I could not see anything. What is on them, what can’t I see? And what does this card do?