November 3, 2072

18 days to the Sixth Attraction

Normally the start of any round was preceded by a long video introduction. This one wasn’t. The excitement and the media exhilaration was mostly subdued. Left were boring colors, low quality film and no sound track. Marilyn (and the rest of the world) had just been drained of emotions; there was a general feeling of laisser-faire and exhaustion. Personally, Marilyn found it hard not to throw in the towel. Over the last week alone, as she tried to shelter the girl and her father and all the thanks she received was to be kidnapped, thrown against her will into the Underworlds. Now her memory banks were jumbled as time was - what could only be called pinched.

Deep in her systems, Marilyn felt, for the first time in many months vulnerable. The cell-phone given by Ronaldo to LO was on its way way to mars in the ship transporting Sophie’s favorite singer. Outside, in the Valles the monsters were surely regrouping. A year ago, as she set the calendar of Electoral 2072, she half expected the pain but as the days to the Sixth Attraction fell like dominos, apprehension was transforming into fear and vulnerability. Only eighteen days remained until the end. She knew the girl’s power would grow exponentially as the fracture of the Multiverse approached, but there was no controlling this raw and unpredictable power.

Happy birthday to her, she told herself. Marilyn shocked the world when she resorted to asking Emilio for guidance. The prophecy worked and somehow the martians were back in their stupid hole in the ground. She wondered how but there was no time, she needed to run the prepared scenario of Round 29.

Billions were now plugged ready to play the next round of Electoral 2072 and for the next hour, her power would be stretched running the game. Scrubbing the memory would have to wait. There was no time to relive the archives to understand what just transpired but one fact was true, Georges’ mind now hosted Ronaldo. Minds were pairing, first Laurent and Mall-ik, then Sophie and Liam, and now Georges and Ronaldo. From her cold and structured digital world, there was an easy extrapolation at hand. As the game neared the quarter final and eight players would remain, there would be in the real world four people with a total of eight minds.

She collected herself and the broadcast began, "What's the Multiverse?" began Marilyn walking on the Martian landscape. "Thanks to the cascading events surrounding the Sixth Attraction, we are each starting to understand more about this," she raised both hands to the sky, “complex world. Long gone is the childish notion hinted by science of a cooling ball of organic matter. Also gone is the theologian’s view that a fatherly figure, we call God orchestrates the world we play in.”

Sophie looked at the sad start of the game. Something to her was wrong. The computer was tired and that was not what Sophie wanted. The teen looked at Georges who shared her concern. Everyone in the room seemed drained. He shook his head from left to right in displeasure like a parent unhappy by a child’s sport performance. On the screens, Marilyn stopped talking to the world and looked directly at the girl as is she knew Sophie had to say or do something. On each screen, viewers saw Sophie and Marilyn observe each other.

The young lady in the odd silence stood up and looked around the room. Minutes ago the mood was upbeat and excited. Now, the live audience seemed tired, eyes had darker circles. They felt drained.

“What’s going on?” she asked Liam with her internal voice.

“Time, it jumped for all of us. It did not obviously for you. I was in your bedroom, we saw the birds and in a strange flash, we all woke up here.”

“People are tired?”

“In sorts. Not physically but emotionally as if they had a hard fight with a loved one. You are the Attractor. You appear to be immune to many pains of the Multiverse.”

“I fear Daddy won’t like his game.”

“The... dynamic seems off.”

She looked at Marilyn.

The eyes locked. “I am getting better at this,” she spoke. Marilyn was nervous. She felt the girl was ready to do something. Without a word, the young just girl finally made her mind and she just smiled. If she was the source of energy, she needed to help. “You can do it,” she said to Marilyn, “cheer up. I love your game. You give dad pleasure and that is true to everyone.”

Notes of a piano filled the silence. The energy Sophie normally poured in her father curved in the air and slammed invisibly into the monitor. Marilyn alone saw the power flood her systems like a blood transfusion. The girl’s power was growing by the moment. Sophie sat back down, kissed her father.

“What have you done?” asked her silent companion.

“You will see. I think I am starting to understand how all this works. It’s rather simple actually.” Sophie had used the power as if it was an afterthought. The Attractor was finally here.

Liam’s pride in his protege reached new heights.

***

A second later there was a drastic change in the mood of everyone in the Multiverse. On each screen, the Artificial Intelligence was standing in a beautiful evening gown on a dark marble platform. It floated in a rich and colorful space filled with galaxies, stars and gas formations. Beauty and energy had returned. The distant deep voice of a DeeJay spoke over the music, “This is radio C.O.S.M.O.S, we are now taking special requests.”

“Hi,” said the voice of a young boy calling in.

“What’s your name young man?”

“Mall-ik, I have a special request for my sister and her father.” His words were part of the musical introduction. “Radio waves,” sang a chorus of youthful voices.

The music played louder, “Your father,” corrected the voice. “What’s their names,” asked the DeeJay as part of the growing introduction of the music.

“It’s Sophie and Laurent. The Lapierre family.”

“And what is the request.”

“It’s a long song, a record.”

“What’s the name?”

“Radio K.A.O.S. from a man called Roger Waters. Daddy loves it, he listens to it all the time.”

“What a great choice, very apropos.” The music introduction was growing in strength. “That’s a song called Radio Waves, we now have Mall-ik on the line.”

Images zoomed on the screen. The movie star was regenerating on the screen. The music for once was not generated by the artificial intelligence but from the outside world. Marilyn was drinking the sound making her stronger by the second. The camera angle was moving and rotating around her. Marilyn’s gloom passed as she felt the boundless kindness of the young girl. She, this machine, was powerful and had an important role to play. The only person who did seem to care of the regeneration of the world was the girl who already was back caring for her father. Sophie was different, more mature in her caring for the progenitor.

“You will be great,” she whispered to her father. “Make this fun.”

Georges was managing having to ignore a voice deep in his head, but he saw the girl’s magic. In a heartbeat, she had jolted his creation back to her old self. Sophie was learning how to control her power and more importantly, for the first time was using it for the good of mankind; or at least of her father.

Marilyn was now back to her radiant self as the first song concluded minutes later, she spoke. "We all accept the notion that each of us," she pointed at her arm, "are made mostly of emptiness. Science tells us we are made of very small electrons, protons, and other sub particles. Yet we are not shocked to learn of how distant each of our atoms are to each other. Think about it, if you were the size of an atom, standing on one, how far would be the next atoms? The answer is very simple. Look at this!” She pointed to the cosmos around her. “The distance between two atoms is the same as the distance between two stars. But here is the twist, the low density of our atoms creates void yet this does not prevent us from being solid to the touch. I ask, why would an extremely large formation, made of the know Universe not also be solid?"

A glass of champagne appeared in her hand. She took a sip. "Think about it." She took another sip. "Really, think about it. Humans, and even the other worlds of the Multiverse like to think we are the largest structure, how can anything else make sense, right? If we admit the theory of the extremely small and extremely large, our brains ask the paradoxal question, why is there an upper and lower size formation. If we imagine an infinite size of things, both in the small and the large, we are faced with the same paradox as time."

She finished her glass. “Scale, that’s the first barrier to understanding the Multiverse. We know Mall-ik comes from a quantum world, compared to us, his body fits in an atom. What is our galaxy not a small structure or also part of a solid one? The second barrier is time. What came before, what is after?"

"So think about it, time and space cannot really be as we perceive them with our eyes or nothing makes any sense. Think about that as we start the next Round. Each of you saw a piece of what is greater than us as part of the Underworlds. All of you want a purpose in life, you wonder why you are here. For a moment, each saw that you are part of a whole, a larger structure. Next week before Round 30, we will have more about that.

"I do have some good news. As I review the logs of what transpired these last two days, the mrcurian mission was successful thanks to the players guidance as to Round 28. Christian Maltais crash landed, followed the roadmap and every creature was shot toward mars with one exception. The joker's first launch was the consciousness of the Chairman which he sent to earth. As part of the last ball, he sent himself here. The balls seems to be able to use some type of sailing technology and speed themselves. They should be here in a couple of weeks, no need to tell you on which day. Ronaldo Corvas also joined us here on mars and now is in George's mind. Trent back on earth is back to his old self. So yes, all of the martians are being gathered here." She winked at Emilio and his short-lived prophecy. The moon is still intact and so is this planet.

"As for the bad news, the heliocorium has started being ejected from the sun in the shape of a long streak of matter and not a ball. This spaghetti hardened in the cold of space is moving toward earth. Strange conditions and mutations are increasing in frequency thanks to Takeda’s virus. The burning solar magma should get to earth during the Finale on November 21. Here is a reminder of what the next rounds will look like."

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)

We will begin immediately at the request of our little guest, but if anyone is like me, we will now have an extra long commercial break so everyone can get a stiff drink. In case anyone cares."

The following scores scrolled.

President Emilio Sanchez - 2,566 points

Laurent Lapierre - 2,524 points

Marie Lalancette - 2,121 points

N'Bele Abukaye - 2,120 points

Julian Velev - 2,119 points

Fiancé Lee - 2,119 points

Ji-Ing Po - 2,118 points

Bukoye BoLi - 2,117 points

There was a 20 minute long commercial break. On the upper corner was a countdown clock. Marilyn tried and failed to pretend like she was untouched.