Brianna turned the Black Cube over a few times in her hand.
She slowly ran her thumb over each face of the cube, pausing for a second or two on each one—just long enough to whisper a single sentence: "Input command, check countdown."
As she touched the fifth face and repeated the command for the fifth time, the Black Cube finally responded.
On the face parallel to the one she was touching, a line of dark, vaporous text suddenly projected outward. It hovered in the dim alley, almost like an illusion.
"Countdown: 4470 days, 12 hours, 34 minutes"
Brianna kept her finger pressed firmly against the fifth face. She waited patiently for a few seconds as the text was sucked back into the Black Cube and vanished.
She actually knew exactly how much time was left on the Black Cube's countdown.
The reason she checked again was simply to find this specific face—the only one on the Black Cube that would provide an informational result to a command.
