Portfolio of Micro-Stories

The Cube

"Don't touch that!"
I quickly pulled my hand away. I looked closer, trying to take it all in with my eyes rather than my hands. It was gray. It was square. It was metal. It was mysterious. I wondered how it could accomplish all it was rumored to, being as small and bland-looking as it was.
"Touching it will transfer the oils from your hands into the metal. The exterior is not strong. It would allow those oils to seep in and destroy the inner mechanism." He stood impatiently behind me, his hands at his sides, ready to pull me back at any moment. But I was not interested in harming it. It would cost too much. Thousands of lives. This was one case where my curiosity would not win out over reason.
"Explain to me again how it works," I asked. Of course I knew exactly what it did. I had been studying Frank Mitzer and his energy box for years. But standing here, in the presence of them both, I wanted to hear it, to make what I saw more real. He was just a normal person and this was just a normal metal cube. How could it be possible?
Before he could begin the explanation of the splitting of molecules and the process of converting carbon dioxide to usable energy, the doors behind him burst open. Two men in suits and black shades, the secret service assigned to him by the government once his project had gone public, burst through the doors. "We have a security breach, get to the bunker," the first man's voice boomed.
Frank immediately grabbed my arm, pulling me to the corner of the room. We stood on a rug while he pushed back a painting to reveal a lever. Pulling it dropped us. Down down down we went. I could no longer hear the voices and sirens and crashing that was going on above our heads. "We're going 15 miles down, we'll be safe," Frank assured. I shivered. The farther down we went, the colder the air became.
We stopped. The carpet hit the bottom, we stepped off quickly and it began to rise up again, sealing the floor we once stood on and sealing away any chance of the trespassers from getting in. I looked and noticed the cube waiting here for us. But this cube was noticeably bigger. I looked at Frank for an explanation. "Of course the one you saw was a decoy, we have to keep it as safe as possible. I would have let you see this one eventually."
"So I could have touched it?"
As soon as the words left my mouth, the ground shook. An explosion. I looked toward the real cube; it had not moved.
"The real cube wouldn't have been harmed by human touch. But the decoy is rigged to explode at the slightest touch. The trespassers were here to steal it."