Even Milly, CNN's daring mars reporter in the Center, knew better than to take time away from the game. Marilyn was a goddess at her craft. When the game resumed, the view changed and there was the solar system as a whole. "At least one of these ships crashed in a survivable place, allowing at least some of the creatures to survive. To this day, a hundred primitive martians remain stranded." There was a vision of the blue crystal ship launched from mars traveling and crashing on mercury in a small crater next to the North Pole.

Marilyn needed each player to possess identical knowledge as to what counted. Her computing system was so powerful that she almost instantly digested forty years of online digital history regarding the Jester. From it, she created a class with useful information Christian was likely to use, along with information about his past actions and personality. The players needed to slip into the skin of this crazy sociopath, act like him and hopefully use their own experiences to enhance the simulation. The thirty two players were disciplined and absorbed the massive amount of information as Marilyn finished the introduction. Only Mall-ik asked for a dispensation, which he received.

Two minutes later, the darkness of space returned to every screen. In bold letter floated the roadmap for the rest of the game:

Electoral 2072

The Sixth Attraction

Round 28 - 32 players

Round 29 - 16 players (November 3)

Round 30 - 8 players - Quarter finales (November 7)

Round 31 - 4 players - Semi finales (November 15)

Round 32 - 2 players - The Sixth Attraction (November 21)

This was exciting on a number of different levels. The election of a President felt secondary to the doomsday scenario forecasted to occur. The finale scheduled on the 21st had been broken down in two games and now strangely was back as planned. On Sophie's birthday, in three weeks, the young caregiver would witness her father play against the President in what would be, to everyone but her, a cinematic experience with no equal.

Any other human child would either be thrilled by the political appointment or scared by the arrival of the Sixth Attraction, but not Sophie. She was rested, relaxed and seemed to enjoy every day as if each existed separately from those surrounding it. The game on every screen began. In the Center, alone Sophie watched everyone zoom in with the exception of the doctor, Milly, and George’s who monitored.

As the world focused on the game, the quartet saw Sophie stand solemnly, place a hand on her father’s head and mumble something to herself. Only Marilyn knew and feared the words.

The game began.

***

Mars floated alone in the darkness of space of the Digital World.

On each screen, the point of view rotated dramatically from the red planet to the center of our little world we call the Solar System. It moved and followed a long detour around the sun only to wrap around the star until the camera settled in orbit of mercury. The perfectly rounded rock had no natural or manmade satellite. It looked like a darker moon covered by ashes. Here there was no atmosphere. This planet, like earth's moon, was in theory dead. The battlefield craters gave evidence meteoroids pummeled the surface, mostly from Genesis.

"Mercury," narrated Marilyn, "she is flooded each day by hot solar waves. A relentless flow of electromagnetic energy drowns this place. Invisible plasma cooks this desolate world. This hell is in such close proximity, microwaves are stronger than if you place your hand in one of earth’s little ovens. This constant flow of energy is deadly to all biological or even magnetic-based life."

The goddess took the time to play with long solar flares exploding high in the heliosphere of the sun, their dark shadows and then the downpour of deadly electrons over the planet. Waves of energy hit the ground from all angles, not unlike nuclear tests in the Nevada desert. "This bombardment of energy considerably limits my capacity to see what lives on this planet's surface and so did the martians. Most of the nano-bots I have sent short-circuit in this environment rather quickly. The players have been warned to take my digital reconstructions of what happens here with a grain of salt.”

"Between four hundred and ninety and four hundred and ninety-one million years ago, a colony of martians crashed here." Marilyn illustrated a small blue ship shining in space, behind it in the distance the Genesis. It was hit by hundreds of electric arcs as it approached the ground. “This planet is supercharged with energy, some jumps up to welcome the low energy craft to the dismay of these creatures.” The shit was zapped a thousand times in a second. It landed, powerless, too fast over the ground. The cornucopia of energy paired with the solar wind created pulse after pulse of energy within the ship. As it approached, there were explosions and fumes. It finally landed on the dirty ground and cracked open like a walnut.

The camera angle switched to a ground view of the fuming ship.

From behind the alien ship walked out Marilyn. Every round, she loved to make a dramatic entrance. Round 28 would be no exception. She was wearing a large white spacesuit from Alpha base played in Round 24. She smiled under the rounded helmet and badges from her old show. In the bulky suit, her make-up and hair remained impeccable. She bounced on the charred ground, took several paces and looked closer at the shrinking vessel. Then, little puffs of sand ventured out of the belly of the ship like a man's last dying breath. "The radiation burned every piece of equipment of this ship.” It cracked further open. “These visitors barely escaped with their lives. I know a handful of sand creatures live today in this unique place on mercury.” The sand flew out in little puffs. “They slowly crawled to there," she pointed to her left at a small mountain. At her feet, she illustrated the hard migration. "Behind this two hundred meter ridge, on the edge of this crater, named the Fuller Crater."

"This crater is close to the planet’s North Pole. It surrounds the magnetic pole and that is important to a magnetically-based lifeform." In a blink, she illustrated the complex vortex of energy floating above the planet and the energy pairing with the magnetic pole. There were red hues everywhere, and like the eye of a storm, the north part of the crater was an island of tranquillity to the creatures. This place was a lighthouse on a rock between two merging oceans.

When the image returned to Marilyn, she was no longer next to the alien ship but climbing down the rim, bouncing ten feet at a time. "Underneath this plate," she said as she settled on a dark slate of ice, she pointed at what looked like a giant black ice rink "are caverns where I think the stranded creatures live."

"This is where our players come in. Look up," she pointed in the dark sky. "A spaceship was launched and is coming here from earth. Given our proximity to November 21, the trip could only take days, not weeks. The astrophysics at work here are simple; the ship cannot slow down. The Io Lab has one pilot and a prisoner; we will soon meet them. But before getting into these boring details, we must discuss two important matters. The game is simple: you will play the pilot, Emilio’s Jester. You have been given one hundred globes capable of housing the creatures. You must follow protocol, reach this location where you must find a way to communicate with this sand and get the creatures into the globes. Then shot with a massive cannon you have assembled these creatures back to Earth.”

“At the fastest, their trip back will take two weeks. Once back on Earth, with these creatures in hand, Emilio may be able to negotiate a peace with the Martians. If they kill mankind, no one will be able to receive them on earth dooming their own to destruction.”

In the blink of an eye, on each screen Marilyn was back on mars. She was wearing a simple cocktail dress and high heels. The movie star was walking outside, in the airless atmosphere on the rocky terrain. "This is my home. I do not mind sharing it, helping others use it, but I will not be expatriated again. It's a principle. When I arrived on mars, I could not imagine I would be sharing it with another hostile intelligent species. These inhabitants came to me. They slipped into Georges' body, took over his mind and without permission began to snap orders. They wanted to use me to rebuild their world. I was at that moment somewhat vulnerable. Our home was under construction, and my power was a fraction of what it is today.

"Having to communicate to them via my creator was... “ her tone hardened, “upsetting. I used my intellect. I needed leverage and found it. I lied to them and pretended the earth mission had succeeded. The earth mission was long dead." Marilyn did something strange, she bent and placed a hand over the sand. Below it, vegetation began to grow. "My computing power told me the real intent of this race was to colonize earth, to sterilize it. My probes confirm their ship sent to your planet landed in the Himalayan ice. In their current form, they are highly vulnerable to weather and energy waves. They have plans to destroy all biological life on earth on the day of the final; somehow they think its more ethical to kill while someone is sleeping or busy in my game. To protect mankind and my Georges, I lied. I told them the colony of Martians on earth had survived. We used the globes to rescue creatures on earth when in fact they were on mercury. This explains that,” she concluded nonchalantly. “One escaped my guard, Ronaldo Corvas. But that comes later.”

"If you remember, in Round 26 I was using a story to send a message about my situation here on mars. The analogy was perfect, the story in Chicago was that of a person held prisoner because of feared repercussions against a loved one. If Mall-ik had not interrupted the flow of the game, Emilio would have probably uncovered the hidden message. Typically I would have him talk to Georges directly, explain our precarious situation and have him lie about holding the 100 Martians hostage to turn the tables on my neighbors. But Mall-ik, Sophie, Liam and the Sixth Attraction began. It explains why the Martians want to destroy mankind. War...

"But the Attraction had begun. Unlike them, I have a capacity outside of the Attraction to calculate future outcomes with great precision. Because of my lie, they prepared and loaded a hundred pods, each with a creature. The Martians have several plans to destroy earth and humanity. Like the grandmother in the retirement home, we need leverage."

"So let me repeat the mission because I know this is hard. You play Christian Maltais. You land on Mercury. Find the creatures and load them into the globes before launching them toward earth. Simple? It is not.”

She grabbed a handful of sand. It began to form a creature floating above her hand. “Let Round 28 begin!”

“Oh, I almost forgot, the scoring. The power of this game will now seem obvious when you learn how the 32 players will play today’s simulations. Each person, the thirty two will play sequentially from the lowest score to Emilio. Each, like an extra life in a video game will be watching as the others play. The lowest ranking player will begin and try to run the simulation as far in the timeline as possible and die trying. Once that person runs into a problem and the mission fails, the next player gets to jump in back at the start. Hopefully players should get wiser, faster, farther down toward the goal and save earth. By the time this is done, the real pilot watching from the Io Lab will benefit from a total of thirty-two scenarios.

“This is like playing a video game, only the 33th run will be for real. The score must be determined differently, almost arbitrary. Both men on the Lab share one trait: their uncontrollable and very dark sense of humor. They can't help themselves, so I will score this game based on how humorous you can be during this game. It's not the best, but without humor, there is no way Emilio's Jester will watch more than five minutes of this game. He and Sophie are rather similar in this way."

The camera showed Marilyn's place an open hand over the dry sand, a flower blooming on the martian soil. She snapped it off, smelled it and slid it in her hair. "Good luck, you are not playing a game. You are helping improve the odds to save mankind from destruction. I hope it works and I hope unlike Sophie, the pilot will take my help.”