Emilio made his way down to the 21st floor on his private elevator in seconds. Quickly, his nervousness of standing in a box suspended by small cables was replaced with the excitement of meeting the twelve most brilliant minds of this century.

There was little in the world he enjoyed more than the exhilarating felling of interacting with these great minds. He couldn't help it; he felt like a child waking up on Christmas Day. He needed the group of men for two reasons. The first was personal. In their presence, they made him think like a normal person. What they said was so brilliant, his overactive mind struggled to grab the words as they were spoken. Instead of seeing images in that room, he saw these people's faces. To Emilio, that was fresh air.

The second reason was much more important. It took Emilio nearly eight years to assemble this group of people and force them to interact in a precise way. After his humiliating defeat against the world's chess champion, the President learned how to channel his gift in difficult situations. Against a champion, his gift had failed because his own level of play was insufficient to see potential favorable outcomes.

Emilio had invented a theory on how he could overcome any obstacle. He named it "crutching." One day he walked in on a game of the chess champion playing someone of Master level. As the game advanced, the weaker player began to falter. Emilio's gift kicked in and began to work. It used the local player's position and board as a crutch. His mind could see the error in the choice of a pawn and then see better moves leading to victory. Like a hawk rising on a thermal, Emilio harnessed the Master's skill and knew how to play to victory.

Emilio was indeed the best choice as President, and the Electoral system had been right all along in electing him. Her interface had successfully placed at the head of the government the most gifted individual, the man qualified to protect mankind. Now, using brilliant minds, he planned to beat Electoral. If he needed to. She'd grown too frighteningly powerful for him not to set contingencies in place.

The elevator of death stopped on the 21st floor. The box finally opened, he jumped both feet from the side rims of the floor to the center of the room to avoid embarrassment. He knew his fears were unreasonable.

Armed with a group of the brightest minds he could find, he would be able to expand his gift and hopefully, when a real crisis pointed its nose on the horizon, as it probably was at the moment, he would not be defenseless. No one knew about the extent of Emilio's gift, not even (he figured) the artificial intelligence running the game. No one also knew of the true purpose of the SAC, they all figured they were an expensive indulgence of a powerful man.

Years ago, he had insisted that the SAC meeting room be surrounded by a Faraday cage. Faraday postulated that any metal shell on which current was placed would shield the inside against any electromagnetic communication with the outside. His most obvious enemy, the creature against whom his SAC would most likely be needed, was the world's foremost and all-powerful computer intelligence. Marilyn was well known for having little respect for privacy rights and Emilio insisted on protecting against her. The Faraday cage was designed to shield the SAC's discussions from her power; at least that was the theory before her achievements reached science-fiction proportions.

For years, his heart had been telling him that one day, there would be an important event, a problem of such a magnitude that no single action, however well targeted, would suffice to save mankind. In his gut, he knew something was about to happen. Now he felt it was here, but like in any real war, the first task was to diagnose the problem and locate the right enemy. He still was on the fence. For the moment, Nick the Chairman of the Visconti was one outgunned by Marilyn herself. Emilio knew better than to keep an open mind.

Eight years of presidency was no walk in the park. Once done, he planned to retire by going back to school and spending quality time in a cluttered lab under the exhilarating guidance of one of these individuals. His passion was for theoretical physics and mathematics. As a student in Mexico City, he had never had truly inspiring teachers and quickly lost interest in education and science. Today, he was a different man. He dreamt of going back to lean. Emilio took pride in knowing after years, these superior minds had a reciprocal admiration for him.

The belief that they viewed him as equal was Emilio's delusion; the scientists knew the President was in a league of his own. They saw Sanchez as our modern day Leonardo Di Vinci. The man was, to everyone in the group, a singular exemplar of quasi-perfection. Emilio refused to stay in the Faraday room for extended periods of time. While refreshing, he felt powerless without his gift. His constantly buzzing mind was a friend he now needed and feared to disconnect. Contact with the SAC was like jumping off a plane; blood rushed through his body, but too much could prove dangerous. The elevator had opened into a long, white, windowless hallway. The 21st floor was silent and empty aside from the SAC; this was the way Emilio's hyperactive mind liked things.

Sixty-seven seconds off the elevator and exactly sixty-seven long paces down the hallway, he arrived at a set of heavy doors flanked by two armed guards. Emilio liked to measure useless things like steps. His large stride was now perfectly one meter and he could walk three and a half kilometers in an hour. Inside the room, behind the guards, he could hear the scientists engaged in discussion. His assistant Kai knew him so well: he needed the stimulation, the intelligence, and most importantly, some humility after his victory playing the Presidential Challenge.

An image of the dead META flashed through his mind. Why was it here? This was not a good sign. Both armed guards saluted the President, slung their weapons, and slowly pulled completely open the heavy vault door. Inside were several large manual clocks and old-fashioned chalkboards already covered by scribbles. Here, there was no electricity or technology. Emilio smiled at the guards and gave his phone to the cute one. The President forced himself to ignore the seductive images that came to his overactive mind.

"Congratulations, sir," said the guard.

Emilio just smiled at the guard, nodded and walked in. He had more pressing matters. He made a note to ask for uglier guards to avoid these disturbing sexual images. The room was bare; it had no computers, no electricity, and most importantly, no ventilation. Oil lamps and candles provided the illumination. Emilio wanted Marilyn and any computer memory as far away from the SAC as possible. Here, electronics were prohibited. Once the doors closed, the cage would be electrified. Those inside would run out of oxygen unless the door was reopened. The doors could not be locked, but had to be manually operated.

This was the President's sanctuary away from the all-powerful Marilyn Monroe. But today, seeing Marilyn's exponentially growing power, he guessed she had found a way around even this inviolable scientific principle. As soon as the door shut, the room exploded in lively discussion. The SAC members knew the importance and relevance of the President's participation to the discussions, so the men and women had tried to wait until he arrived to start.

Emilio smelled the Scotch he was still carrying and sat at the end of the table. In his mind, the visions were dissipating. The room was taking shape. These people were here and so was he, sitting here were a number of multi-disciplinarians in overlapping branches of science. Six were Nobel laureates, two owned Fields medals in mathematics, and others had prestigious university chairs. Only one man, a detective had been invited to join and had no academic background. The average IQ in this room was measured at 149.

Emilio smiled and saluted everyone. "Welcome!" The salutation was heartfelt. "Sorry to keep you up so late. We have little time; I will be pulled from the room in about twenty minutes by Patrick. You have been briefed about the latest problems. Without sounding alarmist, I fear things are accelerating. Let's make sure we leave secondary findings to others. I need to see a big picture; I need to see what is happening. Today of all days you have to dumb this down to my level. Remember, I barely graduated high school." Several members cringed at the comment. This group didn’t like the President's self-deprecating remarks.

Emilio continued. "We have been in what seems to be an accelerating avalanche of events that I strongly believe will converge on the day of the finale of the Electoral competition. There is little time, just under a month. The date feels right to me." No one disagreed. Emilio continued. "I know something is going to happen. Marilyn shipped a hundred mysterious bobble heads down from Mars, those from Round 24. I have them locked-up in quarantine in this building on a different floor. Manufacturing information shows she built ten more. We may be missing a few." The group had been briefed.

“Under the glass domes of these figurines was a figurine of Marilyn. The movement in each of a cloud of Martian sand seems to be perpetual, and we all know how ridiculous that sounds. The cloud of martian sand in each blows wind under the skirt of the Marilyn figurine. That is number one. A META on the not-so-secret Visconti board blew up a hospital near Vienna. I was just informed that a different META dropped dead here in Berlin and left me what is called his spot on the ark rom Round 25. The Visconti also likely sabotaged the orbital laser on mars that almost made the Airbus with the players miss the landing. I had some back-up contingencies drafted, one was useful it appears."

Emilio was trying to organize the different events in his mind. He continued, "On mars, a month ago, a mysterious hydrogen flare killed our first manned expedition beyond what looks like an alien-made door. They had seen sand with unique properties before dying, that sand orbits in the balls Marilyn sent over. A day ago, the Glass Slipper encountered turbulence where I was told none could exist. On that same day, a passenger on the ship to mars died of brain damage, and now Laurent Lapierre seems to be infected with the same condition, which strangely is not fatal to him." Emilio took a deep breath and continued. "Marilyn now has Sophie and her father in custody, and she's playing music in near-vacuum conditions, which she has somehow made possible." He thought for a second and continued. "Things are a bit more complicated than that, but you get the gist of it. Any new facts before we start the analysis?"

A couple of hands went up, and a tall man with bad complexion jumped in. "Minutes ago you won the Presidential Challenge, proving yet again your complete dominance over the platform. This should be a 127-person fight at this point, but this really is a two-man show, you and Laurent. This is no coincidence," said Francois Copland, the holder of the Mandelbrot Chair of mathematics. Everyone nodded in approval.

"I have something." Detective Chamberland of Interpol took the floor. "Remember how a very unique movie began to play on the screens of the Glass Slipper at the conclusion of that turbulent ride? I was wondering why it showed up. First, only Electoral could pick and play that specific movie on these screens. No one has access to them at that rate."

"We do not know for sure Electoral is responsible for playing that movie," said a short lady.

Chamberland acknowledged the comment with a smirk, but continued. "We cops don't need certainty. Seems rather obvious to me the blonde is involved. Totally her modus operandi, timing was too impeccable to be anyone else. The movie was a diversion. Why him, that passenger and not the others, I wondered? The Slipper is made of glass. They all have pretty much the same view over the Martian landscape. She wanted to stop one man from looking at something on mars. That bugged me. One man said on the camera the movie was his favorite. That's our guy. Turns out the man's body is unique in one very difficult way to diagnose. His medical file says he has 20/20 vision, but my research shows that this man in fact has better-than-exceptional vision. "

"How did you find this out?" asked a scientist.

"It's documented. Let me put it in words you guys will understand. The astronomer Tycho Brahe from the 15th century was one man with such a gift. Tycho is said to have been able to perceive the moons of Jupiter on a clear day with his naked eye. There have been only a handful of individuals recorded in history with this gift. Looking around, I found an old entry on social media written by a former high school friend of this passenger. She describes the man as having the gift of being able to read from across a room. If we are to believe her, he could read a clothing label from the length of a football field away. I looked at his eye exam when he signed up for Mars. He has an exceptional vision."

"What can this man see that our satellites have never seen?"

"I mapped the position of the Slipper at the precise moment at which the diversion occurred. For a diversion by Marilyn to be relevant, the thing to be seen had to be visible by the human eye for only a short time, and only by that man. Using a simulation, I played with the angles, and from where they were, a person with perfect vision could have seen the area around the Door at the bottom of that chasm on mars. He would have seen the door. What she showed btw at Round 24."

The great thing about this group was that rarely did anyone ever have to repeat themselves. Each knew these facts were no coincidence.

"We already know about the door," said one man.

"There must be something else to see, something we cannot spot with our cameras. Maybe what caused the explosion as that smoke," answered the detective.

"How do we check?" asked Copland.

"Nothing is easier. Verify the negative. Have that bird fly again, but this time make sure they don't fly over the door or don’t put that man in it." Emilio was enjoying the conversation. Emilio stayed silent as usual.

The mathematician continued. "Are you suggesting that Marilyn killed the recon mission? Or that she had a hand in what happened to them?"

"No. I conclude Marilyn is working very hard to prevent us from going there or coming in contact with whatever is down there. That also explains why she spoke privately with the ground mission before their death, probably a warning of some type. Feels to me like Marilyn wants but can't tell us to be careful with her newfound martian neighbors."

Emilio volunteered information the group did not know. "It fits. Marilyn contacted a person in that glider and told him to relax before the turbulence began. She also contacted the pilot on the Airbus A2070 to calm her down before the laser incident. She also told the head of our ground mission to back off before the team was vaporized." Emilio was now sure there were aliens on mars, and that Electoral knew about them. "Any more?" continued the President.

"Yes," said a psychologist from across the room. "It’s about the incident at the hospital in Vienna, here on Earth. I kept watching the explosion over and over in a loop, and frankly this entire story bugged me. That scene is way too dramatic. The limo, the empty parking lot, even the rainy night. No one blows up a health care facility like that. There was definitely an explosive in that basement. The incident looks great on paper, but it really makes no sense. While we can't identify from the tapes who from the Visconti blew it up, I am sure we are talking about Nicholas Schmidbauer, the chairman himself. He is overconfident and does not hide his tracks, but most importantly, he produces a TV show called Serial Killers."

"A TV show?"

The man continued, "Trust me, this show sucks, and the only reason it is still being produced on Austrian TV is to flatter Nikky’s ego. Legends has it, he offered a script to the director with this exact scene. The director felt the scene was so stupid that he refused to direct it. Ultimately Nick fired that director. I think Nicholas purchased the building and wanted to prove to himself that his writing was impeccable and the he scene could work. That’s stupid enough for him to do." Emilio loved these people, Nikky, Nick, Nicholas. The use of diminutives was obviously to ridicule the man. The man continued. "In the original script, a person walks out and the explosion is a diversion to rescue a prisoner in one of the rooms."

The men and women in the group were thinking. "Takeda, the famous virologist was there." They all agreed on the connection. Emilio was listening eyes closed.

"Anything else?" said the President. Emilio had little time.

"Yes," said the biologist, head of the Pasteur Institute. "Let me try to earn the very generous pay your government is giving me."

"Our government," mumbled Emilio.

The biologist ignored the comment. "I investigated the death of the player on the flight to mars from a biological perspective. The player who died seconds before Laurent came down with his unknown condition would have lived, in my opinion, had he been sleeping at the time he was attacked." It took a moment for the statement to sink in. Emilio looked at the expressions around the room.

"What?" asked Copland on behalf of the group.

"The human brain is a very complex machine. The player was awake, online, and simply watching the Electoral system. The brain of Mister Gresens was not in a sleeping mode nor in a semi-sleeping gaming mode. I do not know the source of the energy that killed the player on that flight but when humans dream or play, a very unique portion of our brains regulates synaptic activity, a portion around here"—he pointed—"named the lower hippocampus. I worked on a team who... tried..."—his hands forming "air quotes" as he said the word—"to kill humans who are in the virtual world or sleeping. We wanted to kill pilots of drones, for example in this mode. When humans enter the digital world, the hippocampus flares up, acting to protect us the same way it blocks our bodies when we sleep. To our brains, playing a virtual-reality game and dreaming are pretty much the same thing." The scientist continued, "In order to kill someone who is dreaming, or playing a virtual game, you really need more energy vis-à-vis a person who is not."

"That's horrible," said a woman.

"Grow up, Cindy. Here is my point. Laurent Lapierre is the only human we know with an overdeveloped hippocampus. He has been in a permanent dream state, with an overactive hippocampus for years."

Emilio broke his silence. "Simply stated?"

"Someone tried a unique weapon to kill the first passenger, a weapon which energizes the hippocampus. The weapon worked on the first person. Then the weapon was used on Laurent and may have failed. That explains the heightened energy in the brain of Laurent."

"Why would anyone try a weapon there and then? It makes no sense," asked a scientist.

"Agreed, it's a working theory."

Emilio said, "Not sure if the conclusions are not premature, but with the hippocampus linked to the dream state, and Laurent's unique condition; that's worth keeping. Any more facts? My time is running out." No one talked.

Emilio smiled. He walked to a small table located behind him. He poured himself a new glass of Scotch over fresh ice cubes. There was no time to offer others a drink.

"Okay, now onto the analysis. Who wants to start?"

Emilio knew everyone was itching to speak. A lean adolescent stood up. He was too excited to remain seating. "We are two mathematicians here, maybe we should begin." Emilio smiled; he loved mathematics and respected the field. "I can prove scientifically that all of these events; all of them, including today's, emanate from a single cause." Mathematicians all love to shock with their theorems. "In math, there is no such thing as an impossible yet occurring event. Once something happens, it has been proven possible, only its cause is unknown. In our modern world, we can explain most events. Unexplained events are very rare. Two months ago, my inbox began piling up with information on these anomalies, each of which seemed more diverse and improbable than the last." The man was animated with large hand movements, obviously excited. He was using his hands to both convey his emotions and bleed off excess excitement and stress.

He continued, "Mathematically, the proximity in time of these many anomalies is extremely important. I will spare you the series calculation, but the only logical way to produce a series of adjacent timed anomalies, each which should in theory be highly improbable, is by reclassifying each anomaly as a probable sub-event from a single larger event. We call it the unknown cause theory."

Emilio was perplexed. “Not sure I get it?”

The man continued. "I think an analogy would be helpful here. For a high school to produce an exceptional student, later known on the international stage, is a rare and improbable. Nothing can be drawn from one or two student in the news. If, within a short window in time, a large number of exceptional students are produced by a single school and the focus of international attention, we can conclude that a source, a reason, some influence, generates these individual results. They are classified from a normal anomaly, to what we call a classical subset. Math tells us there is a cause, unknown perhaps, generating these normally improbable events." Everyone around the table had reached the same conclusion but based on a different logic.

Another mathematician continued. "Here is the second conclusion we can reach simply from this number's series analysis. It's even stronger as these events precipitate over time. Let me continue Francois' analogy. If each fantastic student produced by the school turns out to be a brilliant chemist and gets a Nobel laureate in Chemistry, we can easily deduce the probable source, most likely an exceptional teacher in Chemistry. Each gifted student has a common feature. Each occurrence is from one series. If the students instead each receive a Nobel but in different disciplines, we know the source is less likely to be a single teacher, but it could be the principal, the parents. Something which touches every child; a larger series."

"What if our school produces multiple exceptional Nobel recipients, Olympians, exceptional authors, or even an opera diva? While it becomes more difficult to find the commonality, or the cause, math tells us something very useful about the cause of our unrelated events. These events must have a commonality. There is one source, one event, one origin capable of generating all these effects. Continuing John's analogy, the common source could be a drug that boosts intelligence, or even a common gifted progenitor in the region."

He took a deep breath. "Whatever the source, it must be capable of generating, or influencing all of these events."

"Your conclusion?" asked the Detective.

"Whatever is that source, it has to be responsible for all of it, not just a part, even if we want to see these events completely disassociated. The victory earlier today of the President and the death of the mission on mars from a month ago are somehow connected. Find the connection -- find the source, something capable of touching all these events — and you will understand."

Once again, the man's conclusion seemed obvious to all.

"Before the physicists chime in..." said Leopoldo Garibaldi. "Let me take a crack at this. We, in law enforcement, take a completely different angle to solve these problems. When we cannot find a mastermind, someone who hides his tracks, we think of the problem from the the perspective of a motive. Who or whatever is that source you just describe, it, she, he has a motive. That allows us to narrow the search." The man made sense. "Most of my peers think the motive is always money, but I wrote a book on this topic. The one true motive to every crime is always, without exception, selfishness. Crimes are the last resort when normal routes fail. Here, the question is, "Who benefits from these events and who is made better by them?

The detective continued, "Politically, financially, and sociologically, we live in a rather fulfilling period for mankind. Twenty years ago, after the third world war, there were more incentives to commit crimes. Right now, Electoral found a new place to live; she seems happy. She has money and power, so I do not think she has any motive to act in such a way. We need to find a group that is unhappy with this peaceful status quo."

"Who do you have in mind?"

"The obvious choice; not mankind. Whatever has been living on mars for millions of years, however, must be rather pissed to see Electoral and us barge in on their peaceful existence. Martians are this common cause you are talking of John.”

"I don't buy the space alien scenario," the historian in the room countered. The large woman was coiffed with a large hat. "I prefer the simpler solution of human change before we jump the gun and point to a new god-like source. Historically, the opposition to any strong, stable regime has had few options, one being to empower less-powerful groups directly or indirectly to pursue their own goals. Not to insult you Mister President, but if we take issue with this regime, you'd need to push and poke a lot of different smaller groups."

She continued. "Let's not assume that alien life exists and is highly advanced, yet is waiting peacefully until the finale of Electoral 2072 to react. Sounds..." she said, tempering her words as she looked at the others, "...a bit far-fetched. Improbable. To me, this is simply human evolution. Humans always foolishly think they will be able to perceive the evolution of our race. History tells us otherwise: we are always surprised by the future."

"I like this," said a different man. "There is no denying that we are historically at the biggest nexus of forced change our race has ever seen. Man has always resisted change. I am not surprised that forces from many places would oppose this evolution. Humans now are in space, we created Electoral, a new life form, and we are now on mars."

The group paused.

Emilio directed, "A show of hands. The girl, Sophie, is she the pivot here?" Five of the twelve hands got up. "Who thinks Electoral is the pivot here?" Three hands went up. "Laurent Lapierre," he asked. No hands. He was missing votes. "An alien life?" He got two hands. "Me?" The last two hands got up. Emilio's gift worked; from this group, he knew who was right.

"Sophie is the pivot, the attraction around which all this evolves." In the last six years, the group had never heard the President express his opinion so openly. “The girl, something is unique about her. Things are attracted to her.”

"Are you certain?" asked detective Leo. He immediately wished he could pull back his idiotic comment.

"Yep!" Emilio got up from his seat. "I want you guys now to work with two assumptions. The first, Sophie is the magnet around which things gravitate. Let’s imagine she is an...” he was looking for the right word, “attractor.” He was thinking and smelled his beverage.

"The other?"

"That I am right on this one. Time is precious, we can't waste any."

On cue, there was a loud noise coming from the door. Emilio pretended to look at an imaginary watch, grabbed his tumbler, and walked out. He had saved another four minutes.

"I know we aren't done here," Emilio said from the edge of the door. He turned back, grabbed a box of markers and library cards. He passed them around. "Assuming the girl is the attractor here, write down in one sentence on this card what you personally think is going on. Over the next two hours, I want you guys to draw on the chalkboard three diagrams of future events leading up to the finale of this damn game. My gut tells me on that day, shit will go down. A diagram of probable events, one of unlikely events, and one of far-fetched events. How can that girl blow everything up?"

There was awe in the room. The President had a purpose, and strangely, everyone felt deep down that he was right. Each member of the SAC grabbed a card and a pen. They wrote quickly. The fact that each person in the room still knew how to write with a pen was evidence the level of education and resourcefulness of these individuals. Emilio collected the cards on his way out, folded each in half and slid them sight unseen in his pocket.

"I need the sketches in two hours after my burger." The President turned to a guard. "Get these people some good food, and cater from four different places. The last thing I need is twelve scientists lined up in the bathroom!" As he walked out, there was a reflective silence in the room generally filled with discussion.