CNN

October 1, 2072

50 days to the Sixth Attraction

For the last twenty-three weeks, Electoral, the online election competition had remained the obsessive popular event around the planet. This week’s round began (as usually) in a vortex of excitement. The number of remaining players finally was manageable. 512 remained and after tonight’s Round 24, half would be gone.

There wasn’t enough time to broadcast the millions of watch parties organized around the planet. The billions who entered watched in awe as a couple of contestants from most countries still fought. Surviving 23 eliminations was quite a feat.

CNN was the network of choice, also the primary sponsor. The election game had single-handedly returned common sense to politics and given hope to a bored population.

“Is everyone ready for Round 24?” yelled the polish exercise guru over reverberation of his microphone. Sweaty people in the large studio jumped a hundred times. As they completed the last set of exercise, rolled down a large screen behind the man. On it was a large countdown clock to the start of the live broadcast of the round by Marilyn aka the Electoral 2072 system.

The CNN broadcast left the sweaty lot and jumped to another part of the world. Here nearly thirty thousand people sat in contemplative silence listening to an opera singer. The man’s deep tenor voice filled the Roman coliseum. It was a cold night in the center of Italy’s capital. These seats cost a year’s wages. Above the stage, a large screen also dropped and began counting down to Round 24 in unison with billions of other clocks.

Minutes and not hours were left as sponsors fought for advertising space.

The moment the song ended, a famous presenter walked in a sea of applauds. Hands in the air, he sent kisses and blessings. “Please vote quickly as to which of the candidates you desire to watch live on this screen,” he said in Italian. “We must pick one, your favorite.” People were excited. “As if we don’t know who you will select,” he added to general laughter. There was a clear favorite, a large man from Mexico twice victor. As expected President Sanchez took first. Sophie’s father Laurent was close second. Below fought the names of the rare Italians still part of the game.

People pushed buttons on pads and watches and quickly the numbers stopped scrolling to moving a loud cheer. “President Sanchez!” The crowed applauded. “After his live performance, Marilyn will show us a mashup from the performance our top five players.” He pointed at the old lady in the first row, “Madame Biasoli, your grandson is playing so we will have his video in the corner right there,” he slapped his hand on the tissue of the screen moving around. Cameras were loving every second of this.

He continued the explanation, “Here is the deal, the qualifying half will be asked to pack a suitcase and fly to the French Guiana launch pad. Next week these players will then play one last time to see who get a seat on the ship for mars.” Everyone applauded. “A quarter only will fly off all expenses pain to play Rounds 26 to 32 to the finale at the Center itself.”

Everyone got on their feet to applaud. The excitement was genuine.

Behind the man the countdown was nearing zero.

When it hit ten seconds, the screen stiffened ready for the image.

The crowd began counting down as if it was New Year’s Eve sliding in ear plugs or glasses with screens in them. To those watching from home, the CNN broadcast jumped each second to a different capital to build the excitement. Sidney counted seven, Rio six. Everyone who was anyone was watching for obvious reasons.

The planet in unison yelled, “five, four, three, two, one!”

***

Electoral never disappointed, and today would be no exception.

A heavy metal ballad began, the male voice spoke a deep alien language. The voice included clicking sounds. As a fully edited long-feature watched in a movie theater, the Electoral logo appeared in the center of the dark screen as the powerful algorithms of the artificial created the movie from the live performance of player. The 512 each played a different game, made choices and as if they were actors in a different reality. To each, the system created a story. Marilyn needed half a second of delay between a human command and the screen production.

The music built. The silhouette of a tall dark spike appeared in the shape of an antenna towering over a flat rocky landscape. Around it a gold circle under the two irregularly shaped moons of mars. Below, the shape the competition’s name: Electoral 2072. Everyone knew by now the real name of the long deceased actress known as Marilyn Monroe was Norma Jeane Mortenson. Below appeared the slogan “A Mortenson & Vouvelakis Production.”

Music forced complete silence. Every game began with an elaborate introduction to this week’s scenario often kept from the players. It would be followed by a smashing entrance of the egocentric artificial intelligence. Then, the players would make decisions and winners often got to the end of the story. Electoral was a live role playing game and Emilio never missed the full story.

Screens turned deep red as rapid liquid movements began to spiral around the players. There was thick convection of liquid magma. The viewers felt they were surrounded by burning lava deep at the heart of the massive planetoid. Rivers of heavy iron and other liquid granite moved and bubbled as a strange alien vision allowed everyone to see clearly in this fluid.

Rock letters formed only to melt seconds later.

— Round 24: Cosmos 2072 —

In this furnace was a shriek of alien creatures, a furious sound inspired by the forceful music. It was followed by a second to the left then and a third from above. Creatures were, like birds in a tropical forest communicating. The system was so powerful, except for the 2D viewing party, all others immersed were as a first-person able to see their arms and legs as they swam in the magma. They were some type of crustaceans and had claw-like arms and spikes in place of feet. The creatures were large, violent. The noises and clacking sounds got louder as more creatures joined. They were excited. The magma was under pressure, moving like fire demons in circles and the creatures loved it.

The army swam in the heavy lava like a cloud of birds.

“The heart of Mercury, millions of years ago,” said the voice of Marilyn Monroe as she quickly zoomed out to show the small dark planet orbiting close to the sun. On the surface of the planet, there were tremors, dust movements. Events of planetary importance were happening.

The view returned to the creatures below the crust.

As if a decision had been made, the fire crustaceans began to swim upwards in the same direction to one of the walls. They moved and swam for a while. The giant lobsters had no human feature. As they moved upwards, toward the surface, the rock around them began to cool and thicken.

“Few people know at the heart of every planet, every moon is a point of weightlessness. Think about it, gravity from all around cancels itself. All that exists is pressure.” Marilyn loved to educate as she entertained.

Nearing the crust of the small planet, the bright red magma darkened to a darker shade of red with brown and purple hues. But the ascension had a purpose, this was a migration, these creatures were going somewhere. Soone, swimming was impossible and the pack of creatures was burring to the outer crust of a celestial body with purpose and determination. Soon, the rock above was fully solidified. As frustrated prisoners, they began to hit the ceiling as a group.

“Humans lack imagination in understanding the diversity of life,” continued the voice as the music softened. The creatures shrieked. “Earth’s core is much larger than the puny Mercury, ever wonder what lives below your own two feet?” She loved to challenge imagination. “What’s at our center? But today, who cares.”

One creature, the player or the viewer who was in the mind of one of the creatures hit a location in the crust above and there was a loud bang and cracking sound. The sound was one of a sheet of ice over a lake about to rupture. The sound creatures were excited. A handful began to converge to the spot and continued punching while the others lined up in the back kicking widely with their legs creating pressure against the wall. They were like swimmers in the back of a canoe trying to push it away.

“Once every million years, the pressure inside any body without an active volcano builds to catastrophic levels.” There were noises, power and excitement. Everyone watching Round 24 of Electoral 2072 was in in awe. As usual, the story was designed to equally educate the few scientists watching and entertain the thugs watching. Children and the elderly loved this game.

The viewpoint changed from just below the crust to outside. Mercury was dark, dirty and covered in ashes. Mercury was not unlike earth’s moon, filled with old sterile crater impacts. This orbiting rock was only 3 light-minutes from the sun instead of the 500 seconds between earth and the sun. From here, the sun appeared five times the size from earth or about the size of a basketball held at arms length.

Then something rare happened on the surface of Mercury. There was so much pressure under the crust, pressure built inside the planet that thanks to the force, part of the crust of Mercury, like a geyser, blew up in the non-existing atmosphere. Like a pimple erupting, magma blew thousands of feet in the sky and under the low gravity, this meant the rocks went up.

Mercury was no ordinary planet, it was very close to the sun and as such the sun pushed anything touching its rays up to eight hundred degrees. Magma was not much warmer with an average of twice that temperature. As the red fluid went up in the upper orbit of Mercury, it moved sideways. Mixed in with the Magma were lobster-creatures thrown in every direction. Some went up, others dropped back down and many dried in orbit.

Marilyn showed the handful whose launch trajectory was perfect. They shot high and left orbit toward the darkness. As these creatures were launched in space, they rolled into a ball to conserve heat. The camera aligned with the handful of creatures to show their destination. In the distance, a red gem sparkled.

“Mars,” said the woman as the music turned to silence. The creatures were migrating to mars, a new, larger planet.

The introduction phased out to four full minutes of commercials.

Around the world, viewers removed their glasses and erupted in delightful speech with neighbors. Marilyn was clear, licensing the broadcast came with an obligation to leave paid sponsorship play. Marilyn was born in the United States, she was a pure capitalist.