Paris, Earth

The human brain, to a degree, has fail-safes that work to protect other portions of itself if it experiences trauma. The information that the mind receives, however absurd, gruesome or uncomfortable can be made to become tolerable. Victims in hostage situations, for example, come to care for and even defend their attackers as their brains forget the horror of their confinement replacing it with a different emotion.

As Round 28 ended, hundreds of the brightest and youngest minds on earth sat in silence. A chill came over the entirety of the Sorbonne amphitheater where hundreds of scientists tried to digest the importance of what had just transpired.

There was a shift deep in the solar system. Sophie’s positive waves were now gone and replaced by her frustration. The young men and women felt as though they were powerless observers to a crumbling world, cold rolled in. The Multiverse was hurt, they all felt. Now, no one felt comfortable sitting in the old worn-out wooden seats. The silence was heavy.

Ahead, the sole Rho chamber was standing straight out of a science-fiction movie. It hummed in the center of the stage. The screens on its side were lit and now rebooting. Emilio slowly returned to consciousness inside of the polymer tube. The last images on the screen above the machine, live from mars, had been disturbing on many levels.

Floated still two madmen on their way to rescue the 93 creatures on mercury.

The twelve members of the Scientific Advisory Committee (the SAC) sat hunched on the first row, jaws open or eyebrow raised. Even Francois, his shiny new Fields Medal in hand, had watched the game powerlessly. An army of martian creatures was revolting against the artificial intelligence and the Laurent family ready for an attack. These Elders of the solar system stood ready to kill all the players in the Center and dismantle Marilyn Monroe, who might be the only power capable of understanding what was on her horizon.

If that happened, Emilio would win the Presidency by default. But no one even thought so far ahead or cared for the true nature of the Electoral 2072 competition. Humanity had learned why Marilyn warned Ronaldo before he entered the ‘Door’ back in the Valles. There was an agreement; it explained the hundred balls sent to earth and the mission to mercury. A lot of it. But for each answered question, five new ones went unanswered.

In the room, for the first time since this story began, there was fear. Sophie remained defiant and rejected the insanity around her. She refused to acknowledge the story, choosing instead to play a force of neutrality. Some began to think she feared to step away from her role as guardian to her father. She... was... twelve.... reasoned many trying to justify her inaction. In little over a week, mankind had arrived on mars and learned about the various dimensions of the Multiverse, other alien life, and something called the Sixth Attraction. Now, there were martians, mercurians, purpleites, and a Liam. There was also war, suicide missions, all within the boundaries of the solar system shrunk to human size in a matter of hours.

The latest twist was strange beyond words. From the digital reality, Laurent spoke to a creature stranded near the sun and warped time itself. None of it made any sense.

The events were unfolding in rapid succession. The game orchestrated by Marilyn no longer felt like the central driving linchpin of the fall of 2072. It unquestionably did not feel like a flashy, yet simple method to choose humanity's leadership. She was now using it as a tool, fighting to unfold it for some strange reason against the entire universe. Perhaps her intentions were not genuinely hostile to anything; maybe they were. Marilyn Monroe's agenda was proving to be as elusive as the technology within the toys she created. In the room, people wrestled to hide their emotions. Knuckles turned white around pens that slowly bent under the pressure. People feared Marilyn’s gift hunching on the corner of each desk.

The game had just ended, and the two hundred scientists sitting in the amphitheater witnessed Sophie once again turn her back on humanity. Days ago, she'd refused to enter the Purple, a neighboring quantum dimension of the Multiverse. Any time now, heliocorium, a solar magma, would be released into the solar system. Most believed humanity would perish in that eventuality, but the girl had spoken to the Multiverse. All of it only made the future more uncertain.

She'd just walked out on Marilyn and refused to help protect humans on mars from an invading army. Sophie was no ordinary girl; the Multiverse had chosen well. Laurent's daughter kept in mind the interest of all parties, including the creatures in the martian cloud or the Multiverse herself. If Marilyn was to be believed, all humans would perish.

Emilio's pod door hissed open under considerably less applause and open adoration than the customary avalanche he typically received. Francois and Kaï, Emilio's assistant, walked out to help the President regain solid footing. His shirt was drenched with sweat, and his knees weak from the influx of Rho waves into his brain. His eyes were slow to focus. Like a runner crossing a finish line, he took several deep breaths. "Fuck," he let slip past his lips. The President grabbed the tumbler, made the ice cubes cling, inhaled deeply and put his lips to the rim. Then, with everyone's support and respect, he deliberately put it back down. The man knew he still needed his gift now more than ever. He also knew the gesture would send a subtle reminder that they each must remain in control of themselves.

Before Emilio was able to grab the microphone, everyone in the room looked up feet above his head at the giant screen. He stepped three feet forward and turned to watch the image.

"Emilio?" said Marilyn centered on the spacious screen. She was not her usual jovial self. The woman’s make-up was gone.

"Here to congratulate me?" Emilio grabbed the towel and wiped his forehead.

"You saw the arrival of the martian army, right?" she asked Emilio.

"Yes. Want me to plug back in?"

"I don't think that will be necessary. Frankly, I don't care what the other players think at this point. I am trying to optimize the situation on mars. Sophie wants no part in it and who can blame her. We all now feel her frustration, that is now the power she yield with her waves. It is imaginable to understand how she must feel.

“I have several equally bad choices ahead to save what’s left of this group. All of them will permanently destroy something major and valuable. At best, I must destroy the martian ecosystem to kill these invaders. The only path which would have preserved mars required some of Sophie's," she chose the last word carefully, “magic.”

"How can I help? That’s why you are here."

"Your gift is unique, it finds low probability paths and places them in the preferential set. To me, a solution is preferable scientifically, but I want to know if you agree with my calculations."

“You want to know what I think?”

“Yes, you should be honored.”

The mathematicians alone knew what she meant. The computer did not care to explain. "I want you to hear the choices you have lined up and give me your opinion as to each." Emilio smelled the glass.

"Time is short, Mr. President," she pressed, "very short."

"Why not play it as Round 29, right now? We play as you, that would be fun, no? In theory, the rules prevent us from talking outside of the game. If that rule is vital, we could at least bypass it that way."

"We have minutes, not an hour. Even if we played on an alternative compressed timeline, Sophie is worried about her dad's fatigue and will refuse to plug Laurent back on. Frankly, I agree with her. The last thing I need is to fry what you or he may have left between the ears."

"What do you suggest?" asked Emilio.

"I show you a video illustrating my favorite scenarios and you tell me which you prefer." Emilio stumbled quickly to the front row. He stepped down the stage helped by several of the Doctorate students and sat. The game was already stressful, the after-game portion was worrisome, but seeing this hesitation of a creature with an intellect superior to most gods lay somewhere beyond troubling. Emilio made a conciliatory hand gesture, and the images began. This was no time for a debate.

***

What came next was not for the weak of stomach.

Marilyn illustrated each option.

A moon orbited Mars. "This is Deimos, the second moon. In this first solution, it has a radius of 4 miles, and I need it.” A dark point began to spread and invade like a cancer the moon. “My little robots multiply. As the micro-technology is infecting the moon, it replicates exponentially. I have begun as we speak. In ten minutes, this is what should happen if you pick this option. Remember the Presidential Challenge, this is inspired after your flying flesh-eating fish."

Hundreds of small robots began to dig into the rock and to reproduce. As if struck by a savage cancer, the rock began to crumble and pulverize from within. "We need nineteen quadrillion sentinels." Then the moon lost its shape and flattened. A flow of powder began to fall down to the planet surface below like the cannibal fish had swarmed the forest of Loric’s Comb. Like locusts, the small creatures push down into the clouds of sand formed by the invaders. Then on the screen a battle began, lightning flashed in the skies. "I am unsure of what comes next. My sentinels are designed to absorb grains of sand; they also interfere with magnetic fields and can link to lock in grains. They have five weapons." As she spoke, images flashed on the screen; she had little time to make it watcher-friendly. "This is a classic war and the optimal solution for humans.”

Immediately the images on the screen changed, this time it was a close-up of mining units. "In this second scenario, I send similar robot units to the martian underground lair. I believe the main creatures are not part of the frontal attack. The same way these monsters sent sentinels in the balls down to earth, I can’t imagine these creatures are part of the initial attack of my Center.”

Sand below the surface of Mars began to collapsed creating hundreds of holes across the surface of mars. “There are here too many robots for me to fully control. I can initiate border parameters on them, but the damage as you will see will affect most of the core of the planet.” On the screen, the images showed a different color robot, in the shape of a mole began to dig below the ground, to cave and collapse everything around them. Marilyn's technology began to destroy a significant portion of mars. The Valles collapsed from the inside. “In this solution, I bet these monsters will need to halt their offensive to protect their elders."

"Those are simple mechanical solutions. Here I fear of too much of mars is hollowed, this could happen.” The shape of the entire planet began to crumble and flatten. The Electoral Center, as shown, survived inside of some type of dark bubble. “But a mass collapsing will change the gravity field.” Electoral illustrated a gravity shock. It moved and expanded until it hit earth. The clouds moved and water tsunamis rose in some places. “The effects down on earth will be minor. At most four thousand deaths.”

In the room there was silence. The first solution was without a doubt preferable.

“Let me show you where this gets creative. The third solution is a bit scarier." A small door opened on the on the top of the Electoral Center tower. A black ball of energy began to spin and rise into the sky of the red planet. It passed undisturbed through the cloud formed by the invaders and once above it, detonated with the force of a thousand nukes. Untold megatons of explosive force, coupled with commensurate heat and light. The sand blew and was incinerated and blown away, and most of the Center turned into rubble under the shockwave. “This one kills everyone at the Center except myself.”

At some point, there simply was no word to describe emotions greater than shock.

"Finally, look at this last solution." Marilyn's stolen Dot began to move in the void of space. It began to vibrate as it came down over mars. Then it blinked several times. As it did, everything began to rip from the ground and rise up attracted by the singularity. The Dot entered the atmosphere of mars and then the Valles. It drew the floating cloud into it. A third of mars ripped off from its base and was digested by the Dot as if the thing was a portable black hole. "Humans are fragile; all of these high energy, high mass solutions are extremely likely to destroy part or all of human life. The Dot irradiates more energy than a large star. The temperature of the Center will reach 2,000 degrees in seconds."

Everyone was silent.

Nothing on the screen made much sense except the first scenario.

It was apparent to everyone watching that the images were gross oversimplifications, prepared at great haste for the President. The computer was going to war, and those were her options. She could destroy a moon, the planet itself, or ravage the landscape. All eyes turned to Emilio as the broadcast to every living room resumed. Emilio's mind was stuck. He stood up and looked at the audience. He figured he could ask questions to a handful. He raised his hand, but as he did, the flashes began.

In what felt to him like an hour, he saw a total of eight hundred and nine visions, about a hundred were partial or altogether black. At first, the images were linked with each of the solutions proposed by Marilyn. The AI was right, each time humanity was collateral damage. The martian creatures adapted and somehow the sand overcame the attack and won. Marilyn was right to worry, she was raging a war against smoke. Each time, she did survive.

Then, after about a hundred visions, the images began to accelerate, and each time the result was grim. He saw the end of mars, an erupting sun, and the death of all the players hundreds of times. Emilio was standing, eyes wide open on the stage lost in his unique mind. In the room, amazement and hope returned as their leader proved why he existed and that ordinary humans still played a role in these events. His eye movements and hand gestures were the only signs of his visions to this crowd. After about five endless minutes, he tried to shake himself out of the visions; this was going nowhere.

Emilio felt in his heart this was different. The computer Intelligence was desperate for his help. He closed his eyes and put both hands over his head. It helped. The kaleidoscope of light slowed. Nothing was happening.

"So?" asked Marilyn in his darkness. "Which one, I need a number, time is short," she pressed.

There was an unusually long silence. Emilio wasn’t proud of himself, he saw doom, pain and death. He opened his eyes - he needed help. "One moment," he said to the blond. The solution was somewhere in this room. The group was here, he had summoned them without knowing precisely why, now he did. Emilio stood best on the shoulders of giants and these were giants.

“Help,” he whispered loud enough to be heard in the room and around the world.

In the room there was puzzlement. Eyebrows raised, others opened notebooks. Everyone was thinking hard. Emilio’s strange mind was wondering, moving from one person to the next. Then the room disappeared leaving only one person in the back. His gift allowed him to see her glow.

“You!” he pointed. The small black woman immediately began to cry. “What?” he questioned desperately.

She said one sentence, “Why can’t you guys trust Sophie.”

At that point, he realized Sophie was absent from all the visions. The solution was simple, he wished to see a future which favored her. Emilio frantically searched for Sophie in his mind’s eye but at first was unable to see any future where she stood. He would see Laurent, even the Oldest, but the girl was a ghost.

"Emilio, I need an answer," pressed Marilyn.

“I can’t,” began Emilio. Marilyn had no time to waste explaining the obvious. She needed to kick his mind into higher gear. The computer knew Rho waves were out of reach and the man was not really moved by music.

His watch buzzed. Emilio looked at it and on it was a face, the perfect face of the person he loved the most. Marilyn knew how to awaken a human brain. The image hit him. Emilio closed his eyes, smiled and reopened them. His mind had just given him the solution. "Get Sophie on that screen, now!"

"I don't want to disturb her," begged the A.I.

"This is not a request.” Deep within the computer servers, Marilyn relaunched the calculations but this time she used Sophie as the Attractor as the main central variable. During this time, she bothered the girl. In a matter of seconds, Sophie’s face was on the screen. She was sitting, legs crossed on her bed with her favorite book across her lap. Behind her, Laurent rested in his crib under the watchful eye of Doctor Shin.

"Yes, Mr. President?” She had calmed down. “Liam salutes you and your esteemed audience." Sophie was no simple human girl. She now spoke like the wisest and oldest of seniors on Earth. Her voice was deeper.

"Call me Emilio. Neither of us wants to get involved in Marilyn's nonsense. I just need to say three words to you."

"Three words?"

"Yes. I don't even know what they mean, but it seems like these strange waves and this game have put my brain on overload."

"Let's hear it."

"Get every Martian."

Sophie repeated, "Get every Martian?"

"Correct."

"That's it?"

"Yep. I fear Marilyn will get anxious or nervous. She does try her best to make you and your father feel at home." As the President spoke to the girl, Marilyn saw the Attractor's mood lighten. Her Rho waves also return to normal. As this happened, the Artificial Intelligence felt the mood of humans across the planet soften. Sophie's mind shared a link to most individuals. "Please extend my salutations to Laurent; I am truly looking forward to our finale if it ever is held and both of us are qualified." The President was a smooth talker, and he was calming the girl by hitting all the right notes.

“Sophie?” he said to her personally.

“Yes Mister President,”

“I envy Laurent.”

“How so.”

“I wish I had a daughter like you. Nothing else in this world can bring him more joy. Stop making perfection better.”

The girl could read between the lines. The President reminded her Laurent’s role was as her support, not the other way around. The girl blew a kiss his way and winked. Electoral cut the communication.

"What about my question, what solution to implement?"

"You're going to think I'm crazy, but..."

"I already do."

"Touché, but joking aside, you should now sit this one out."

"What is going to happen?" asked Marilyn.

The President said words, famous last words, "She will Attract."