The Red Boy and His Infinite Cube

Night after night, the same events, glimpses and snippets of the ineffable, repeat; gradually clinging into my conscious mind. A username and a password come to mind. Something starting with C-H and then two surnames. The first one of those starts with a Z; that much I’m sure of. The second one begins with an E, I think. Two twin accounts can, or rather could, be accessed with those credentials. I feel like I’ve logged in a thousand times, but I can only remember a few of those. I’m never sure which is which, but using the first name and the surnames in the correct fields grants access. Do it backwards and end up backwards, I guess.

When I type the credentials in the wrong places I wake up facing the wrong side. It’s so unnerving, and yet completely necessary. I always sleep on my left side; I’ve heard it’s good for your GI tract or something like that, and I just feel more comfortable that way. I’ve been sleeping that way for decades, which is why I’m so annoyed every night I wake up facing the right side of my room instead. That’s how it feels getting kicked out for using the wrong info.

Getting it right is a completely different story. I suppose it always starts the same whether I login successfully or not, but I can only remember when I succeed at it: Thousands of keys, all of which open all of the locks; a gigantic metal cube, partially underwater; countless cells (as in cubicles or Excel, not jailcells), each one with an inconspicuous lock to guard it; a lingering feeling of being watched by moderators, invisible but always present; worst of all, the Red Boy. Despite the peculiarities of the place and its many frequent visitors, the end result is the same: I wake up facing the correct side, the left side, but I’m no longer under the covers and, like I said, I remember.

I somehow know some bits of lore tied to this place. First of all, I know it’s in Chile, on a beach that feels more like a construction site than anything else. The place was built a long time ago, when Internet was slow and piracy was king. Mods were aware of it, of course, but they tolerated it because it increased traffic and therefore revenue from ads. 

As I speak these words, I catch myself in a contradiction and think, “wait, was it a website or a physical place?”

Clarifying, it’s not that all keys work in all locks: There used to be many users, each one with their own key, but things changed. Authorities cracked down on the site and tried to shut it down, but it was impossible. To start, they were never able to find where the host was. Then, deleting content was futile, as it always popped back up soon after. Mods were told to regulate the site, but it was simply impossible. Such a large place was beyond human control. Infinite posts, infinite cells. Countless users, too, and who knows how many were bots.

The details are nebulous, but I guess that’s when moderators had to do something. Up to that point, it had been an infinite cube of piracy, exploits, and random junk, but no more. This feels more like conjecture than fact (which isn’t saying much because the “facts” just materialized in my mind after the nth time I woke up over the blankets instead of under them), but I believe they disabled all the user keys so that nobody could ever log in again. That was their solution, since nothing else worked.

The cube though, stubborn as ever, provided a work around, and this is where the lore deepens and the Red Boy shows up. There’s a public post explaining the origin of this most interesting character. There’s a handful of public posts, actually, and they’re on the edge of the cube, by the beach. Those are the ones you can read even if you don’t have the key yet. 

I don’t recall the exact title of the post, but it definitely had the words “Red Boy” and “key” in it. It told the story of how this madman of a user was able to fulfill any request, no matter how obscure or dubious the material was. You asked for it, and the Red Boy posted it shortly after. Who knows how long it was between the mods deciding to void all user keys and RB’s master play, but it mustn’t have been long. He somehow replicated his key, and this is just me, but it sounds a lot like whatever kept deleted posts coming back over and over.

That’s when the cube became no man’s land. The admins admitted defeat and promptly left the Red Boy with his newly conquered kingdom. Nothing was off the table, and so the infinite contents of the cube somehow grew even larger. Now that I think about it, I believe some things were material and some were digital. That’s the only way I can make sense of that place. I recall wielding some kind of steampunk plasma gun, for instance, but I’m also sure I actually read some articles in front of a dusty monitor in a dark room with paper-covered windows.

It’s unknown what happened to the Red Boy in the end, if there can even be an end to infinity, but he still pops up sometimes. When that happens, he’ll offer you whatever you want, as he did back in the day, but he will not accept payment, much less help. You never know if you’re going to see him inside the next cell you open with your key. I’ve actually seen him a few times, and he reminded me of a younger version of myself, which somehow deeply saddened me.

As soon as I finished reading that introductory post, I felt, not heard, the laughter of old users and their satisfied “now you’re one of us”.

From then on, chronological order gets blurred, as it often happens in dreams. I remember one public post besides the story I just told, three random cells, and two encounters with the Red Boy. I also have a feeling I know the overall vibe of the place, I guess.

Three kids, a cat, and an old lady playing in the sand. It seems like they were playing baseball. Again, it’s a beach, but it feels more like the kind of sand you’d see at a construction site, gray and so coarse it peels off dead skin from your palms.

A young woman, a dwarf, engaging users who were on some amusement park-style attraction, kind of like a mechanical octopus that carried them high up and made them spin in the air. This was the other public post I mentioned. As I recall, we were able to see the top of the metal cube from high up in the octopus; it was not as big as I had imagined, actually. Perhaps it was a three-story structure, a perfect cube, but it definitely held infinite experiences within.

A clandestine factory with labyrinth-like corridors, manufacturing who-knows-what. Both capable and incompetent workers were led by an uncannily patient foreman and employed by a careless owner. Everyone was pointing fingers for something that was obviously the owner’s fault.

A heavily modded Minecraft build with all kinds of weapons, echoing the early days of the cube, where sketchy exploits and shameless piracy abounded.

At last, the Red Boy. The first time I saw him, he was completely insane, and somehow resigned to the situation. The second time, he was afraid to be there, but something discouraged him from accepting my help. Both times, there was nothing else in the cell. It was just a small cubicle with metal walls and sand on the floor. There was natural light, but I didn’t catch where it was coming from.

They mentioned a dark room with a TV where you can watch all the content in the world, bootlegged, obviously. There were also gambling rooms that allowed all kinds of shady activities.

All of them had one thing in common: the simple lock with the “user keys disabled” sign the mods left before abandoning the place, and the Red Boy’s key etched into the paint and rust: Ch Z E. They say the only way to put an end to the unsettling awakenings is to refer a new user with the Red Boy’s key. I hope it works.