AUTHOR'S NOTE: This story is the result of an idea that Christian Palmer had after watching the movie CUBE. Basically he was laughing at the filmmaker's major cop-out response as to why the massive Death Cube was there. They decided saying 'The Government built it' was a good enough explanation. Christian made us all laugh by asking what the Senate hearings must have been like to start this project off. This story is basically taking that idea WAY too far. Many thanks go out to Christian and to everyone who read this story in zygote form.
SPEAKER: Unless there are any amendments or objections, we will vote on the bill… (He consults his notes) S.RES.134. As you all know this bill was introduced by Senator Paulson from Missouri and would allocate 2 million dollars annually to feed the homeless. Are we ready to start the voting?
SEN. PHERE: Mr. Speaker?
SPEAKER: The chair recognizes the gentleman from Arizona.
SEN. PHERE: I would like to make an amendment to the proposed bill.
SPEAKER: Very well, please come to the floor to make your proposal.
SEN. PHERE: Thank you Mr. Speaker.
He stands up from his chair and grabs a folder from his desk and approaches the microphone in the middle of the chamber. When he gets to the front of the room he looks at the first sheet in the folder and then closes it and speaks into the microphone.
SEN. PHERE: Ladies and gentlemen, we all have worked long and hard on this bill for many months. When Senator Paulson introduced it there were many arguments and compromises and many long nights spent reworking the language and the conditions, but finally we are at the point where I think we can all live with the bill. However, I would ask that this assembly hear me out for this one final amendment proposal.
There are assorted groans from the senators
SEN. PHERE: I propose we add an amendment to build a twenty billion dollar death cube.
SPEAKER: Did I hear you correctly, Senator? A death cube?
SEN. PHERE: Yes, Mr. Speaker. The death cube would be16 stories tall, long and wide and would be made up of 256 smaller cubes, each being ten feet by ten feet by ten feet. Each of these 256 cubes would change position once every half hour or so and half of them would have various booby traps set up in them.
SEN. LOGAN: Mr. Speaker?
SPEAKER: The chair recognizes the gentleman from Illinois.
SEN. LOGAN: I have a question for Senator Phere about his proposed death cube.
SPEAKER: Proceed
SEN. LOGAN: Senator Phere, when you say booby traps, exactly what sort of booby traps are we talking about here? Are these all like spikes coming out of the wall or heated floors or what?
SEN. PHERE: Well, some of the rooms have spikes or heat as you mentioned but there are also rooms with acid sprays, lasers, large blades, the list goes on and on. We have 128 rooms that need to be trapped and we certainly aren’t going to have one or two traps repeated over and over again. Also, we have a variety of trigger mechanisms ranging from heat and motion sensors to sound triggers, weight plates; it all depends on what room you are in.
SEN. LOGAN: Thank you senator.
SEN. LEE: Mr. Speaker, I too have a question for Senator Phere.
SPEAKER: The chair recognizes the lady from South Dakota. You may proceed.
SEN. LEE: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Senator, why would you have to put booby traps into the death cube? What would their purpose be?
SEN. PHERE: Well, it is a death cube after all. The purpose is to kill people.
SEN. LEE: Yes, I understand that, but what I meant was if we put someone in a ten by ten box with no doors, windows, food or water, wouldn’t they die anyway?
SEN PHERE: Well, there are doors in all six walls in each room that lead to adjoining rooms. As far as the food source question goes, the inmates could just kill and eat each other. This would mean that the strong ones stay live and could presumably live for as long as we keep putting new prisoners into the cube. This would not work out at all since the whole point, as the name implies, is to kill the inmates.
SEN. LEE: I see. You never mentioned that there would be multiple inmates in the cube at any given time.
SEN. PHERE: My apologies for the confusion.
SEN. WATTS: WAIT A MINUTE! THIS IS INSANE!
SPEAKER: The gentleman from Florida will sit down and wait until the lady from South Dakota has finished her questions.
SEN. WATTS: BUT MR. SPEAKER…
SPEAKER: Sit down and wait your turn Mr. Watts.
Watts sits down grumbling.
SPEAKER: You may continue Miss Lee.
SEN. LEE: Thank you Mr. Speaker. Senator Phere, I understand that we need the traps to kill the inmates, or at least the ones that aren’t killed and eaten by the others, but why are there so many different kinds of traps and triggers? Is the variety really necessary?
SEN. PHERE: Well, we wanted to be sure that the cube would kill the inmates. There could be no ‘maybe’ about it. We had to know for sure that if we put someone into the death cube that they would be dead within 24 hours. If we had all sound triggers, for example, soon enough the inmates would figure out how to be silent in those rooms and the traps wouldn’t trigger at all. Even if we had multiple trigger types but only one or two traps, the inmates would soon figure out how to avoid these as well. This is part of the reason we designed the rooms to move. This way the inmates have no idea what rooms are trapped with what type of triggers. They might think that they passed the acid bath room with the weight sensitive trigger, but it can conceivably come up from behind them and become the next room they go into.
SEN. LEE: Thank you Senator.
SEN. WATTS: May I speak now?
SPEAKER: (sigh) the chair recognizes the gentleman from Florida on the condition that he keeps his temper and there are no further outbursts.
SEN. WATTS: Look, I don’t know what’s wrong with this assembly. I can’t believe we are seriously discussing tacking an amendment onto Senator Paulson’s food for the homeless bill that would create a 16 story death cube. Am I the only one who sees something horribly wrong with locking people into ten foot metal boxes that may or may not be rigged to kill them all in the name of humanitarian aid for the homeless? It doesn’t sound very humane to me.
SEN. NORTON: Mr. Speaker, I would like to contribute to Senator Watts’ point.
SPEAKER: You may speak when the Senator is through.
SEN. WATTS: No, that’s ok. If Jack is going to back me up on this then I’ll give the floor to him.
SPEAKER: Very well. Mr. Norton, you may proceed.
SEN. NORTON: Thank you Mr. Speaker. Senator Phere,
SEN. PHERE: Yes?
SEN. NORTON: Senator Watts brings up an interesting point. This death cube sounds pretty inhumane to me. You are suggesting that we put multiple inmates into a ten foot metal box, am I correct so far?
SEN. PHERE: Well, they would start off in separate rooms but eventually it is conceivable that there would be multiple people in one room, yes.
SEN. NORTON: Well, I would have to say that that would be inexcusable.
SEN. PHERE: I would like to remind you, Senator that the point of this death cube is to kill people, not to make them comfortable.
SEN. NORTON: I understand that, Senator. However I am going to have to insist that this sort of treatment is repulsive and I will not stand for it. The rooms must be increased to at least 20 feet.
SEN. WATTS: WHAT?!
SPEAKER: Mr. Watts, you have been warned. No further outbursts, please. If you wish to speak you know the procedure.
SEN. WATTS: Mr. Speaker, may I present an argument to Senator Norton’s suggestion?
SPEAKER: Not until Mr. Norton is finished. May I remind you that you are the one who surrendered the floor to him in the first place?
SEN. WATTS: Yeah, but…
SPEAKER: MR. WATTS!
Watts sits down again
SEN. NORTON: As I was saying, I will do all in my power to block this amendment until the cubes are at least 20 feet across.
SEN. PHERE: Do you realize, Senator that this will make the death cube twice as large. This will mean getting rid of the original plan for a relatively small 16 story death cube in favor of a 32 story cube that will, of course, cost that much more.
SEN. NORTON: I assume that you have looked into the matter of increasing the cube’s dimensions?
SEN. PHERE: Oh of course. The original plan called for the cube to be an even fifty stories tall, thereby making the rooms 31 ½ feet in dimensions. However, the cost of this plan was so large as to be impossible to implement without cutting into our salaries.
There are gasps around the gallery
SEN. PHERE: So we estimated that a cube to the dimensions you called for would cost roughly thirty five billion dollars in parts and labor and an annual custodial and maintenance fee of ten million dollars.
SEN. NORTON: And where do you propose to get this money?
SEN. PHERE: Well, we are always eager to cut education, health care and other unnecessary things like that, so why not just do that again this time?
SEN. NORTON: And does that cut cover the annual maintenance fee you mentioned?
SEN. PHERE: Well no, but we were able to funnel eight million out of Social Security into the cube maintenance fund but we’re still looking for the remaining two.
SEN. PAULSON: Mr. Speaker, I have a suggestion.
SPEAKER: Mr. Norton, are you finished?
SEN. NORTON: Yes Mr. Speaker.
SPEAKER: Senator Paulson, you may proceed.
SEN. PAULSON: I think I know where we can get the remaining two million a year that Senator Phere needs. If the death cube amendment is altered slightly we can have the two million dollars from the main bill go directly into the death cube maintenance fund.
SEN. PHERE: Thank you Senator Paulson.
Watts practically falls out of his chair jumping to his feet.
SEN. WATTS: MR. SPEAKER!
SPEAKER: (sigh) yes Mr. Watts, I presume you have an objection.
SEN. WATTS: I do Mr. Speaker. This assembly has worked on this bill for over four months all in the name of providing food for the homeless. That is four months that we have toiled and worked to try to make life a little easier for the less fortunate citizens. And yet after only twenty minutes Senator Phere has asked that we not only build a giant death cube that is guaranteed to kill it’s occupants in less that 24 hours in any number of gruesome and sadistic ways, but he has also asked that we cut money from education, health care and social security to do it. This is not the sort of amendment to tack on to Senator Paulson’s bill that promises to give two million dollars in food to the nations homeless every year.
SPEAKER: Mr. Watts, may I remind you that there is a motion on the floor to spend that money on cleaning the death cube instead.
SEN. WATTS: EVEN MORE REASON FOR THIS AMENDMENT TO NOT BE CONSIDERED! WE HAVEN’T EVEN BEEN TOLD WHY WE NEED THIS DEATH CUBE!
SEN. PHERE: Well, to kill people of course. I thought we had made that fairly obvious.
SEN. WATTS: Yes, but what people? Who do we need killed so badly that we need to build this multi billion dollar monstrosity?
SEN. PHERE: Well…the people who build the cube for a start. I mean we can’t have them running around telling everyone about the death cube now can we?
SEN. WATTS: Well we wouldn’t have to worry about them telling anyone if we didn’t build the damned thing in the first place. But let’s say for the sake of the argument that we did build it. Who is it that we need to wipe out so urgently?
SEN. PHERE: Well we hadn’t actually planned that far ahead. We were just hoping to build it and then put in a test group and see how that went.
SEN. WATTS: See how it went?
SEN. PHERE: Well yeah. We would put in a housewife, a prison escape artist, an autistic guy, a whiney smart girl and an ex soldier with severe ‘Nam flashbacks. It would be a really diverse group in there that first go-around. It would be like a reality show in a way.
SEN. WATTS: Uh-huh, and just how would we, as you put it, see how it went? Are there going to be cameras in this death cube?
SEN. PHERE: No.
SEN. WATTS: Then how do you know all the people inside are dead? Do we just go inside and look through all 200 and some rooms for the bodies?
SEN. PHERE: No, of course not! Anyone who goes inside the cube would be killed. That’s why the cleaning costs are so high. We would have to keep hiring new janitors and maintenance people after the old ones get killed by the booby traps.
SEN. WATTS: So, and correct me if I’m wrong Senator, you are asking this assembly to cut education, social security and other humanitarian programs so that we can build a 40 story death cube that has no purpose other than to kill veterans, janitors, engineers and the mentally handicapped?
SEN. PHERE: Well, the cube would be 32 stories tall, not 40, and you forgot about the whiney smart girl, but other than that you got the right idea.
SEN. WATTS: May I again ask why this is necessary?
SPEAKER: Mr. Watts, it has been explained several times that the point of the death cube would be to kill the people inside within 24 hours. I don’t think this assembly needs to hear it again. Unless you have something constructive to add to the discussion I am going to have to ask you to sit down.
SEN. WATTS: Mr. Speaker, I would like to call a vote on the proposed amendment.
SPEAKER: For what reason?
SEN. WATTS: I feel that if we vote now on whether or not to add this amendment to the bill the Senator Phere will see that this assembly is interested in feeding the homeless and not in building giant death cubes.
SPEAKER: Very well. Seeing as how it’s almost lunchtime we will have a vote on the amendment and then announce the results. After that we will vote on the bill as it stands and then break for lunch. Are there any objections?
He looks around the room. The only movement is Senator Phere returning to his seat.
SPEAKER: Alright, please vote ‘yes’ to include the death cube amendment and ‘no’ to leave the bill as it is now.
Fade to black as the Senators begin to vote.
Scene: News footage. Biff Talking Head is reading your Action McNews.
BIFF: Today the senate passed Resolution 134 that would give two million dollars to feed the homeless. The bill passed with only one negative vote. Senator Watts of Florida was the sole nay-sayer. After the house voted to include a final amendment to the bill, senator Watts reportedly began yelling and pounding on his desk and was escorted out of the room by police officers. Before he was pulled from the room he managed to shout that his vote on the bill was ‘no’ and that he would not support it in any way. When asked by reporters why he hated the homeless so much, all Senator Watts would say was “Don’t let the cube happen.” We can only assume that this refers to the three square meals that Senator Paulson hoped to give the homeless with this bill. One can only wonder what would cause the Senator to hate the homeless so much that he would try so hard to block a bill that would only serve to help people. Here is Tom with the weather.
FIN.