<P> A man named Alderson awakens in a cube - shaped room with a hatch in each wall, the ceiling and the floor, each of which leads to other cube - shaped rooms, identical except for their color . He enters an orange room and, without warning, is cut to pieces by a wire grid that swings down from the ceiling . </P> <P> In another such room, five people--Quentin, Worth, Holloway, Rennes, and Leaven--meet . None of them knows where they are or how they got there . Quentin informs the others that some rooms contain traps, which he learned by nearly being killed by one . Rennes assumes each trap is triggered by a motion detector and tests each room by throwing one of his boots in first . Leaven notices numbers inscribed in the passageways between rooms . Quentin recognizes Rennes as "The Wren," a convict who has escaped from seven prisons . After declaring one room trap - free, Rennes enters and is killed when he is sprayed with acid . The others realize that there are different kinds of detectors, and Quentin deduces that this trap was triggered by heat . </P> <P> Quentin believes each person has a reason for being there . He is a police officer, Leaven a mathematics student, Holloway a physician and conspiracy theorist, and the surly Worth declines to talk about himself . Leaven hypothesizes that any room marked with a prime number is a trap . They find a mentally challenged man named Kazan, whom Holloway insists they bring along . When Quentin injures his leg in a room deemed safe by Leaven's calculations, tensions rise due to personality conflicts and lack of faith in Leaven's system . Quentin provokes Worth into an argument about finding the exit, and Worth accidentally reveals that he has knowledge of the Cube . Worth admits that he designed the Cube's outer shell for a shadowy bureaucracy and guesses that its original purpose has been forgotten; they have been imprisoned within simply to put it to use . </P> <P> Worth's knowledge of the outer shell's size allows Leaven to determine that each side of the Cube is 26 rooms across and that there are 17,576 rooms in total . She guesses that the numbers indicate the Cartesian coordinates of the rooms . The group moves toward the nearest edge as determined by her theory, but each of the rooms near the outer wall is trapped . Rather than backtrack, they travel silently through a room with a sound - activated trap . After Kazan makes a sound and nearly causes Quentin's death, Quentin threatens Kazan . Holloway defends Kazan and provokes Quentin into an argument by calling him a Nazi . The acrimonious argument escalates until Quentin slaps her, further increasing tension within the group . When they reach the edge, Holloway scouts the gap between the Cube and its outer shell, but slips during a violent quake; Quentin initially saves her, but then lets her fall to her death and reports it to the others as an accident . </P>

Who built the cube in the movie cube