HeavenCube

The total loss of physical sensation was an unsurprising consequence of plummeting a few hundred feet. But agony, eternal nothingness and squelching noises that Travis had expected never came. He was instead overwhelmed by the feeling of being stuck in a menu. The menu read:

• Start
• Options
• HELP
• English dishes
  • Chips
  • Chicken nuggets
  • Omelette
• About Us

He chose HELP. Not with a gesture or the press of a finger, he simply chose it by choosing. And with that, the sense of being trapped in Menudom faded, and he began to think words.

Hi! And welcome to the HeavenCube^TM, a simulated salvation sensation! This message is for new residents who didn’t arrive via The Exodus (or those who did but have short memories), you’re about to enter artificial reality, designed to preserve humankind in comfort and style in the event of an insurmountable existential threat. To be experiencing this message. you’ve either gotten fantastically lost or something terrible has happened. But don’t despair, your body may be gone, but YOU live on!

Please enjoy your stay, everything you need is right where you think it is. Direct any further queries or complaints to The Council.

The still unfamiliar ‘menu’ feeling returned. It was stifling. Travis wanted to move, to breath. He chose ‘Start’ thinking that a simulated reality must have more legroom than the nightmare menuscape. He flashed into being. And found himself stood in a space that oozed the word ‘foyer’. Even down to a desk occupied by a receptionist that struck fear with their disinterested competence and a coffee table stacked high with magazines so uninteresting that no literate pair of eyes in existence could extract joy from them. Behind it sat a man staring at nothing with the nonchalance of someone in their own living room.

Travis froze in the middle of the foyer, his only movement being the tapping together of his fingers like a lost child in a supermarket. The man by the coffee table broke his gaze from nothing in particular and fixed it on Travis. “You alright?” he asked, as he lazily clambered to his feet.

“Yeah you?” Replied Travis reflexively, drastically lowering his opinion of himself in the process. “No wait I mean I… Don’t know.”. He didn’t know how to feel. This was uncharted territory as far as his emotions were concerned. “I don’t know what any of this is… I don’t think I’m supposed to be here. He, Lucas, said ‘I’d see’. And then I think he pushed me!” Travis was beginning to settle on anger. Regardless of context, shoving someone to their death from the top of a spire is incredibly impolite and rarely called for. His eyes narrowed in thought. “I think I need to speak to The Council… But I don’t know where or what they are.”

“Yeah probably your best bet. It’s rare this place gets visitors. I don’t think they expected new arrivals when they built it. Explains this useless sod.” Said the comfortably-dressed man, gesturing toward the receptionist who’d not even twitched since Travis appeared. “Lead the way.” Travis looked at him in confusion. “Everything is right where you think it is. Just go. And you’ll find what you’re after. Don’t despair!”

Tentatively, the both of them set off, Travis passed through the main door of the foyer and down whichever corridor seemed most inviting. The two wound their way along thick, pristine carpets, passing content-looking people wandering to nowhere.

“So are you on this Council?” Asked Travis, still barely any closer to understanding where he was. The man laughed.

“Oh god no. No, I’m just a resident. No idea how you get on it or if those people are even real.” This just raised further questions.

“But you work here or something? You were in the foyer, like you were waiting for me.”

The man took a moment’s pause to think. “No one works here exactly. Some might think they do I suppose. No, I was bored, sick of everyone I know and wanted to feel useful. I went on a wander and sat down. And then you showed up. That’s how this place works. Things just end up where they should be.” Travis ruminated on this.

“None of this makes any sense to me though. I mean… the menu? That stuff about chicken nuggets?” The resident looked mildly startled.

“Oh that! They still haven’t fixed it!? I wouldn’t give it much thought to be honest. I heard most of this place was built by an AI to save time. They reckon it probably read every menu it could find in recorded human history and got confused by how often ‘English dishes’ inexplicably turns up. Did you look at options too? That one’s buggered ‘n’all. I think it gives you ‘volume’, ‘invert Y axis’, ‘Save As’ and ‘hot towel shave’.” This gave a semblance of closure.

“So, what would have happened if I’d chosen ‘Omelette’ instead of ‘Start’?” The resident looked offended at the question.

“Eugh! Who orders off the English bit of a menu!? Have some self-respect for Heaven’s sake.” He shook his head in disdain and they continued on in silence.

The two came to a long, wide corridor of parquet flooring. At the opposite end were two ornate oak doors. Taped on one of them was a scruffy sheet of A4 paper bearing the words ‘The Council’ written in jazzy rainbow word art. As they walked closer, muffled noises from behind the doors came into focus. An enthusiastic chorus of ‘YES’ then a pause followed by a cacophony of ‘NO’. Another pause followed, and just before they reached the door, a single voice could be heard bellowing ‘ABSTAINED’.

Travis went to knock gingerly on the door. But before he could, his companion had heaved it open by its great, brass handle and strolled through. Travis pursued. They found themselves stood above a crescent-shaped pit. Within it sat rows of mismatched people, in full view of a stern, sharp-chinned elderly woman sat at an elevated desk.

“The results are as follows. Yes, 50. No, 50. Abstained, 1. As chief councillor, I interpret the will of the chamber to be undecided. The motion to pilot the HeavenCube ‘trademark’ into the sun, with the intention of terminating the programme, does not pass.” She said this with a commanding voice that grasped attention by the throat and squeezed. Ambient grumbling followed from the councillors before one stood up to address the room. He was a wiry man with a shrill voice.

“This is beyond belief! Every session! Every session we teeter on the brink of extinction because of this cabal of lunatics! No matter the issue, this is their solution! But I’ve come to expect that. They’re broken. What’s your excuse Mr Reece!? We number 101 precisely to avoid indecision. And yet you appear undecided on certain death each time. Did you leave your senses back on Earth!?” Roughly half the room jeered in support as the shrill man jabbed an accusatory finger towards another council member.

“YERRRRRRRRRRRRR!”

Mr Reece, a scruffy man entombed in tweed, bit back. “Well excuse me for seeing the merits of both sides of the argument! Unlike the rest of you, I have a sense of perspective! I’m more than happy to go with the mood of the room. Not my fault none of you can agree on anything.” He sat back, arms crossed and a face paralysed by an unwarranted sense of moral and intellectual superiority.

The wiry man choked on his own rage, and before he could spit it out, a representative of the so-called ‘cabal of lunatics’ spoke. A woman sat on the opposite side of the crescent pit. The embodiment of a LinkedIn headshot. Both in appearance and manner.

“It is clear that Mr Haroldson has failed to comprehend the obvious benefits of our aforementioned proposal. We are yet to be presented with a dilemma that cannot ultimately be solved by the eradication of our existence. Crashing the vessel into the sun would also constitute a substantial cost-saving initiative.”

“COST-SAVING INITIA…”

“Silence please Mr Haroldson. Ms Riennes” Boomed the chief councillor. “Don’t despair. There are other matters to attend to”. She turned menacingly towards the two spectators, but to Travis’s surprise, the ice in her voice melted. “Can we help you?” Before Travis could respond, the resident spoke.

“Yeah, my friend here just arrived in the cube. Doesn’t think he should be here. Can you help him out?” Travis was struck by how the resident was able to slice through the formality of the session like weak butter. And how the council seemed unperturbed by their arrival. The chief councillor leaned back ponderously.

“As I recall. From previous instances of the administrators dumping new arrivals into the HeavenCube ‘trademark’, a protocol has been established to remove them from the simulation and return them to whichever plane of existence they’ve come from. That is, assuming there’s still a world for them to return to. Don’t despair. You will be removed from the programme imminently. Before you exit the programme, are there any complaints or concerns you’d like to draw to the council’s attention?”

Travis fumbled for words. He thought this is what he wanted. To leave whatever this place was. But he now worried that he may stop existing altogether. Despite Ms Riennes’ advocacy, this seemed like a problem. The shroud of anxiety left only one clear thought in his head. “Err… yes… the menus. The menus are very confusing.”

“Thank you for your feedback.” Said the chief councillor, monotonously. “I therefore invite the council to vote on a motion to review all menu interfaces.” Ms Riennes rose from her chair.

“Chief Councillor, we’d like to propose an amendment to this motion. Eradication of any faults with menu interfaces by piloting the HeavenCube ‘trademark’ into the sun.” Mr Haroldson slammed his head into his hands with enough force to give a statue a concussion.

“Very well.” Said the chief councillor. “The council shall also vote on the amendment should the primary motion pass.” The initial motion passed with 101 cries of ‘YES’. As the chief councillor commenced with the preamble for the next vote, Mr Haroldson turned to Travis and in a loud whisper, ranted over his colleagues.

“You must see this right!? It is utter madness! I cannot believe that anyone other than the shattered minds that inhabit this place would even entertain this nonsense. I question my own sanity!”

Busy reciting his clearly rehearsed treatise on the flaws in HevaenCube democracy, he failed to hear the call for votes. Yes, 50. No, 49. Abstained, 1.

“A member is still yet to vote.” Called the Chief Councillor. “Mr Haroldson?”

Unthinkingly, he responded to the his name. “Yes?…. Wait No! NO!”

“Oh now he’s buggered it.” Remarked the resident.

“Very well. Yes, 51. No, 49. Abstained, 1. I interpret the will of the chamber to be in support of the amendment. The HeavenCube ‘trademark’ will be redirected into the sun with immediate effect.”

The yells of protest from Mr Haroldson dwindled. Travis lost all physical sensation again. All he could perceive was the word ‘redirecting’.  As if no time had passed at all, he found himself once again in his own body. It was like being shaken from a dream. The sensation of standing on two legs caught him off-guard and he collapsed to the floor panting and screaming.

He was in yet another unfamiliar place. He lay on an itchy carpet in a dim space lined with machines of indeterminate function. Metal boxes of flashing lights and screens. Like an uncle’s spare room. At a terminal stood a thin-haired woman in a matted jumper so oversized, she could have used it as a yurt.

“Another one?” She said, with the mildest hint of surprise. The single thread to reality that Travis dangled from was close to ripping point.

“They ended it all! Killed them all! They crashed it into the sun!” Travis was beginning to learn that incoherent screaming is often more cathartic than asking questions and trying to understand what’s going on.

“Oh bloody hell! Not again.” Sighed the woman. “That’s what backups are for I suppose.” She leaned over to one of the metal boxes, slapped a large red button then yanked at a lever. She then leaned into a microphone by her terminal. “Critical project failure. Reset conducted. Number… I don’t even remember, stopped counting ages ago.” She looked at Travis but didn’t direct her words at him. “Appears another stray from the Promethean project was deposited in the simulation.”

There’s only so far disjointed yelling can take you, and Travis had had his fill for now. He lapsed back into the old habit of asking questions. “Where am I?”

The woman’s eyes rolled upwards thoughtfully. “Well, not here. Possibly nowhere.” Travis’s face remained blank. “Think holograms. You’re only here in the sense that I’m wherever you are.” The blankness persisted. “Don’t despair, They’re all fine by the way. Backups you see? It may take some time to explain. Before I do, would you like to go back in?”