Chapter 13

Cubic Wife

"Holy shit, how did I get on this train?" Marine asked. "I don't even know!"

He stood at the driver's end of a small train, moving at Mach 4. His mind was too overtaken by confusion to make an immediate attempt to slow down the train. He had no idea how he got here, but he knew if he didn't do something now, every bone and organ in his body would make contact with the wall at the end of the track, quite literally when going through a glass windshield at that speed would open his body right up.

He fiddled with the controls on the console, but nothing seemed to change the speed. He pushed a few more buttons and moved some more levers, but to no avail. The entire console was sparking with electricity. Marine shielded his face. Trying to stop it was no longer an option. He looked outside to see the end of the track quickly approaching.

"Oh, I'm gonna crash," he said in defeat.

He braced himself for impact. He placed his hands flat on the console and prepared his legs to jump. He didn't want his pelvic area to smash into the console. He remembered one rule he told himself: death comes before the shattering of his dreams of raising a family.

The wall was getting closer until he realized there was a huge gap in the track. So instead of impacting the wall, the front end scraped by the end of the track at the other side of the gap. The back end of the train nearly fell into the gap, but the underside hit the end of the track before it bounced back up on top of it.

Marine was bounced into the air and ended up laying on the floor. He scrambled to his knees to see that the contact had slowed the train down significantly. The train finally made contact with the wall, which caused Marine's ribs to make contact with the control console.

He groaned as he lay on his back with his hands on his chest. "Ow. Okay, that hurt. Ow." It didn't feel like anything was broken, but he took great caution in his attempt to stand up. "Oh, man."

He moved a chunk of metal out of the way of the windshield and climbed out. He jumped down onto the track, looking around for a way to go. The only way to go was down to the ground below. He dangled from the side of the track by his arms and dropped down, landing neatly on his feet. "Well, that sucks. I don't even know how I ended up here." He looked around and discovered a ladder leading up to a platform. "Whatever. I'll just go kill more bad guys or whatever."

He climbed up the ladder and entered the first door he saw at the top. Inside, there was a computer. He decided to try doing a Skype call with his boss. The second he logged into the computer, it started ringing. His boss was calling him. He answered the call to see his boss in a different location than he was last time. He couldn't quite make out where he was.

"Hey, man," his boss said. "It's me, Butt-Slapping Bob. So they allowed me one more Skype call." He had a sheepish grin on his face. "So I'm kind of in jail right now because after they gave me a warning, I slapped the woman cop's butt, so now I'm here."

Marine looked at the screen with a deadpan expression as he nodded, unsurprised of the other detective's predicament.

Bob shrugged. "I don't know what is up with me and slapping butts. I mean, I know my name is Butt-Slapping Bob, but I mean, come on!"

The call ended. Marine sighed. Was that it? That was all he called about? It had no significance to the mission whatsoever.

He scoffed and exited the room. He found another door that led to a hallway. He followed the hallway, passing many doors until he reached a large automatic door that opened to reveal an employee sitting at a computer. He recognized the man as one of his oldest friends, who had no name, so he shall be referred to as "the guy". The guy stood up and greeted him.

"Hey, man. I heard you got a pointless Skype call. I've gotten a lot of those. Anyway, I wanted to admit something to you." The guy took a deep breath. "I am in love with your wife."

Marine rolled his eyes. This was typical behavior for the guy. He wasn't the brightest mind in his circle of friends. Regardless, he corrected his friend. "But I don't have a wife."

"Really?" the guy asked, scratching his head. "Are you sure about that? I thought I remembered you had a wife named Felecia or something."

Marine held back a sigh. "Dude, that's your wife."

The guy looked surprised. "Oh. Really? I didn't know I was married. How long was I married?" He looked at one of the monitors on his desk. On the screen was a cube-shaped object with a small face on it. He pointed at it. "Is that cube my wife? Is that my wife?"

Marine was losing his patience. He raised his voice as he said, "Yes, that cube is your wife. Geez, are you really that dumb? I mean, seriously."

The guy typed in his computer and a door opened nearby, allowing Marine to pass through. He made his way towards a giant arcade machine on the opposite side. He figured he might as well give it a play. He read the title of the game.

"Hmm. 'Food Simulator'. I wonder what that means." He tapped the play button and two large extensions on the side of the machine moved to the left and right sides of him. "Oh, well, it looks like I'm about to find out." The ends of the extended parts began to glow a bright orange color. "So, I'm guessing this is a VR thing? I dunno."

The lights grew brighter as the machine emitted a loud whirr. Suddenly, he was transported to some sort of tunnel. It was red and fleshy-looking.

"Oh," he said as it took a couple of seconds for him to process what was going on. He was still standing on the machine's platform, but in the game, he realized he was traveling through what might have been intestines. He wasn't sure.

"Oh!" he repeated, this time, with disgust. "Oh, is this what food sees when we eat it?" He shielded his eyes from the horrifying sight. "I'll never be able to eat again!"