The Cube People Read Free

note the program name and delete the email. There is an email about a fundraiser bake sale for our Christmas lunch, even though it’s only July. I delete it. There is an email from management that the amount of photocopying on the floor is too high, and to please use the photocopier responsibly. I delete it. Tracey, a girl I used to work with who now works for the Ministry of National Safety, sent me a piece of chain mail: if I forward it to ten people my wish will come true in ten minutes. I delete it. Somebody I’ve never heard of is going to be Acting Director, replacing somebody else I’ve never heard of. I delete it. A friend has forwarded me an MPEG of something entitled “Monkey Balls,” but I’m firewalled here at work, so I delete it. Finally, there is an email from Phil wondering if I can get away sometime this week and hit the Werner Herzog retrospective at the Bytowne Cinema; Fitzcarraldo is playing on Thursday. I write him back that I’ll check with Sarah. I delete the email as Carla walks in.
    Squirt , squirt goes the hand sanitizer.

Writing
    As I’ve mentioned, I want to be a writer. Science fiction/horror, this is my genre. For over eight years now, I’ve been pounding away at the keys, even managing to get a few short stories published – well two exactly, and one poem in an online zine. Not much I know, but you have to start somewhere.
    I’ve received some positive feedback from editors such as “Almost went with this one, but ultimately the round table voted against it,” or “For what it’s worth, some of the editors said it would make a great movie. Good luck with your writing.” Can you call that positive? I cling to the tenuous.
    Mostly my rejections have consisted of form letters differing only by logo: “Thanks for your interest in our press, but at this time our publishing schedule is full.”
    Last Christmas I finished writing my first novel, The Cube People , representing three years of work. The protagonist, Setrac Sed (that’s Descartes spelled backwards – not genius, however I was having fun) awakens on a raft, floating down a river and lands on the banks of Cube City, not knowing who he is or how he got there.
    The people of this idyllic society worship the Cube. The Cube is a supercomputer that keeps track of all atoms within the walls of Cube City. Hence, the Cube knows or can predict what is going to happen to everyone and everything within the city. The Cube can prevent all accidents, all crime and all illness. Each citizen has a micro-processing chip implanted in his head to help the Cube keep track of all potential thought patterns.
    I built in a love story with Setrac Sed and a woman named Zia. It turns out that the Cube knew that Zia was going to start a revolution in the future, which would ultimately destroy itself and the city. The Cube found multiple revolutionary pathways amongst its people (my fancy sci-fi way of saying, if the revolution hadn’t begun with Zia, then somebody else was going to lead the revolt; it was inevitable). The Cube’s solution to stop the revolution from happening was to send in Setrac Sed, who turns out not to be a man, but an android built by the Cube. Analogous to God sending Jesus to save us, the Cube sends Setrac Sed. What the Cube can’t predict is the Cube itself. That is to say, the Cube can’t keep track of its own atoms, its own thought patterns. Therefore, the Cube wasn’t able to foresee that Setrac Sed would fall in love with Zia. Thus, this leads Setrac to kill his father, the Cube. Oedipus – who doesn’t dig Greek tragedy?
    Yeah I know, a little geeky, but I am a computer programmer after all. I find determinism fascinating. Imagine if there were a super computer that could keep track of every atom in the known universe. If you believe that atoms and molecules behave in certain set ways, then in theory you could predict exactly how