The Cube

In April 2035 Jennifer Hardy is sent into the future.

Northern Montana, United States,

April 15, 2035

Jennifer Hardy sat in the crook of a tree staring up at the night sky. Her hair a soft brown, her eyes a vivid blue, and her skin made pale from sitting in front of a computer's sharp glow for far too long.

She was thinking about what it would be like if the world wasn't like it was: ruled by computers and various amounts of technology. When you walked into a store your DNA was checked over five times, holographic displays showed you the 'Great Deal Of The Day', robots clambered around cleaning and straightening things out.

Jennifer sat up as the ring on her middle finger started to vibrate, for this was no ordinary ring. She brought the ring up and pressed down on the emerald diamond. A holographic screen lit up the night from the ring, casting all the shadows in a pale blue light.

She then reached forward, thing gloves on her hands lighting up as she pressed buttons that weren't really there at all, just part of the vivid hologram. A screen of a person popped up from the buttons, and it looked to all the world a person had just walked out of the tree and was floating in the rings cascading blue light above the ground.

"Sarah, what is it?" Jennifer asked, lying back down.

"Where are you? You were supposed to meet us at the mall at half past six!" The girl whose name was Sarah exclaimed, her face turning into a look of disapproval.

"I'm on my way," Jennifer then pressed the ring and the screen disappeared, she made her way down the tree, slipping and stumbling. "Being agile really isn't my greatest talent," she thought as she finally came to rest on the soft ground beside the tree.

She walked through a wide field and stepped over a small creek. When she stopped, she head come to rest beside a white house, the beginning of a long block, and at the end, Corner Tech Mall.

She looked down to watch her foot fall as she stepped on the sidewalk.

"Corner Tech Mall," She said clearly and the sidewalk started to move. It carried her past houses that had cameras slinging from them, cars that were painted in odd colors and whose wheels stood several feet off the ground, past bushes that were see-through, and past other people who were riding in the strange floating cars.

The sidewalk stopped abruptly at the mall parking lot and she walked off. Walking through the parking lot, she didn't stop until something minuscule and shiny caught her eye. She squinted trying to see what it, a small box was sitting in the middle of a parking lot. She ran toward it and picked it up. It was solid and light, hardly weighing anything at all. Her eyes went wide as she looked more closely at it. On the side was a screen extending slightly outward as if screaming, "Look at me first; Look at me first!"

Numbers were running through the screen. It looked random but probably had some sort of order to it. She stood up and pressed her ring again, a digital clock came up reading 7:05. Over half an hour late. She looked down at the cube; she could either leave it there for someone else to find or take it with her. After a moments hesitation, she pocketed the small cube.

She ran up to the mall entrance, went inside and instantly veered left where her friends were waiting.

"I'm sorry, I got caught up with.... something." She panted as a girl with pitch black hair walked up to her and gave her a hug.

"It's fine." From the look on Sarah's face, it obviously wasn't.

"Come on, Kari, Jenny; we are already late," Sarah said, tossing her hair back and marching forward.

They walked through several stores. Sarah bought a new shirt, and Kari bought a pair of shoes, but Jenny wasn't exactly in to shopping at the moment. Her hand kept wandering to her pocket, fingering the cube and wondering. Wondering what it could do.

Finally they decided to get something to eat at the food court. Jennifer wasn't exactly hungry, but she got a pretzel and a soft drink, just so Sarah and Kari would stop glancing at her with worried looks as if she had just grown a pair of bunny ears.

"So, Jenny, are you feeling alright?" Kari asked.

Oh goodness, here we go.

"I'm fine. Why?"

"Oh, it's just, you seem like you're on a whole different planet sometimes."

Jenny just laughed, stood up and threw the remnants of her half eaten pretzel and empty soft drink cup into the green garbage can.

The pretzel went in, but the cup did not. She looked at it, then walked away.

She would soon realize this was the mistake that would change her life. The cube vibrated and started to heat up. She instantly took it out of her pocket and looked at it as the numbers flashed faster and faster on the small screen.

They flashed from 2035-the present year: to 2010, 2013, 2099, and finally stopped abruptly at 2062.

She stared at it, then held it close to her face. Several people stared at her as they walked by, but she couldn't care less.

The last thing she remembered, before she passed out, was a bright flash of blinding white light.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * 

Jenny woke up, her head pounding. She sat up and jumped to her feet, holding her arms out to counteract the dizziness. Looking around at her surroundings, she felt a small coil of fear begin to form in her stomach.

She was at the beginning of the same street she had walked on earlier. She had pressed the ring on her finger to find out what time it was, but it didn't work now. She pressed it again. Coming up with the same result, she took the ring off and put it into her pocket. Her hand brushed up against something cold and square shaped. The Cube.

Then everything came back to her, the tree, the parking lot, finding the cub, going through the mall, and finally the bright light.

"Something is wrong." she thought as she looked at the street. Usually you would see the sidewalk going in different directions with people. Others would just walk on the moving sidewalk not having the patience for it. But everything was completely bare. No cats, dogs, birds or cars. Not anything.

Jenny walked onto the ill-forgotten sidewalk and said in a bright clear voice, "Corner Tech mall."

Nothing happened.

She said it again, this time with a hint of fear in her voice, "Corner Tech Mall."

Again nothing happened. She looked up and down the sidewalk and then looked up running as fast as she could to the nearest house.

"Hello?" She yelled banging on the door, "Hello, is anybody home?"

"Now, lady, you know no one is going to answer." a voice came from behind her and she instantly looked up. A man was standing behind her. His face and hands were scarred as if they had been working for years on a dangerous piece of machinery that just kept hurting him, but he couldn't do anything about it.

"What's wrong with the street? Who are you? Where is everyone?" Jenny asked, her voice didn't sound as if it were her own; it sounded lost and scared.

"I would appreciate one question at a time," the man said sitting on the sidewalk. "I am Christopher Mathews, and you are obviously not from around here."

"Okay, Christopher Mathews, where is everyone?" The man was quickly getting on her nerves. She just wanted to know what was happening.

'The Apocalypse; everything is gone; only about 1/3 of the population left, and this city has been bare and completely marked off the map for about 10 years now."

"The Apocalypse?" Jenny said sitting not quite beside him, "how?"

"Pollution. Where have you been living under a rock; you didn't notice the whole world going down the drain?"

"What year is it?" She asked her voice a soft whisper.

"April 15, 2062."

April 15, the same day she had been at the mall. The last thing she remembered. She tried to think how to fix this, but of all the classes in school that she was taking, she hadn't yet run across one that taught, "How to Get back to Your Own TIme 101."

She thought hard. Christopher still sat beside her, pulling out a water canteen from his bag which was slung over his shoulders and took a drink from it.

That's when it hit her, like a train coming in at sixty miles an hour. The drink. She had been throwing away the drink when everything went wrong, and the Earth was ruined by the cause of pollution. She could've helped stop this from happening if she had just recycled.

"That must be it," she said standing up abruptly, making Christopher spill some of the water onto his shirt. "I have to go pick up that cup!"

"Hey! Wait! What cup?" Christopher yelled running after Jenny as she sped down the street.

"The cup in the mall!" Jenny stopped all of a sudden. The chances of that exact cup still being there would be an outright miracle after all this time. 

Jenny sighed and then turned back toward Christopher, "Hey, whatever happened to the Corner Tech Mall?"

"Oh, that place closed down in April of 2035; some gas leak or something."

"Then there is still a chance," She said, running once again. It took what seemed like an hour to get there but in reality it was more like five minutes. She ran up to the door, but there was a lock on it.

"Here, thats my job," Christopher panted. He kicked the rusted lock several times until it broke, then he pushed it open, "Ladies first." he said and Jenny ran in.

She ran straight past shop after shops. Some of them still had clothes in the. The signs marking the stores had fallen off, wires kept them dangling off the wall.

She ran straight toward the food court; her breath coming in short bursts. She then stopped at the garbage can closest to the entrance, and on the floor was a red cup witha picture of a pretzel on the side of it.

"I found it!" She screamed, picking it up and throwing it away. Her hand going to her pocket and bringing out the already vibrating cube.

The bright white flash came back, and she passed out once again.

* * * * * * * * * * * * *

She woke up and found Kari shaking her. Sarah was standing close by looking worriedly at her.

"Hey, you alright?" Kari asked helping Jenny to her feet, "You just passed out there for a minute."

"Yea, I'm fine." Jenny stood up. She looked at her hand, her ring was missing! She reached into her pocket and pulled it out The emerald glowed in the light. SHe put her hand back into her pocket and searched for the cube but nothing was there.

 

Author's Note

I wrote this for my Literature Class. Please review!

Reviews

[Charity]

This is awesome! Also because it has to do with recycling which is big in the world right now. Awesome story by my best friend!