Before they began to play the rest, Francois saw the President’s mind was lost in thoughts. “Emilio, all good?” The President was thinking and nodding his head in disapproval.

Finally Emilio found his footing, “My father once told me boat captains had two ways to brace for a storm, half focus on external elements like the water or the wind and the other half focused on their boat and the people in it. I can think of at least ten. I see all of this Attraction differently. Why care about numbers, a bias?” He added, “What does this bias have to do with mathematics? Why is this not physics or engineering? She wants you of all people, that’s odd to me.”

“Because none of you take our world seriously.”

The President’s expression was priceless. “What do you mean?”

“Mathematics does not discriminate. To you the number one is smaller than the number two but not always to us. Time, yesterday stands before tomorrow to everyone but not to us. We strip away conventions, assumptions and the reality as we think more broadly. You know what this bias really is, right?”

“No, I don’t.”

“Free will.”

“What?”

“A bias, any bias is a statistical narrowing of choices.” He look at the table where Emilio’s finished dinner tray stood. On it was a nice basket of bread. One was missing, taken during the dinner. He held up the basket. “Earlier you picked one, because of your own bias, who you are, you more likely picked the same as yesterday. You could have picked the darkest, the roundest, the saltiest but instead, you choose and that’s how life works. The universe normally lets us pick, it choose and does not butt in. The god bias is simply our universe slowly taking bread away from the basket to force our hand.” He pointed at the wall where the video stood ready. “I am assuming she will explain.”

***

Professionally produced film unrolled from the Electoral corporation, it was drawn from actual security footage. This was filmed in the most exclusive underground lab money could afford. A crossed-dressed young Latino man was collapsed from exhaustion between two uncomfortable chairs forming a makeshift bed. The lab’s numerous workstations were mostly empty except for the stainless steel table next to him. Visibly the man had been working in isolation for nearly a week. The table was cluttered by trays upon trays of empty coffee cups dangerously close to real dirty glass equipment.

One by one, breaking the silence, the computer devices polluting the lab, chillers, warmers, mixers and other expensive devices boot. Soon clacking sounds of the neon lights disturbed the restful peace of the young man.

"Takeda, darling," whispered a female voice in the lab. He was still sleeping soundly. “Darling,” she offered more forcefully, “we need to talk about all of this.” She punched, “seriously.” The louder last word worked. He slowly awoke and wiped the corner of his mouth. His caffeine supply was depleted. Marilyn's trademark voice was unmistakable, she had finally found him. “Love,” there was respect in her normally assertive voice. "Wake up, cute boy or girl whatever gender you go by these days, we have work to do."

“Boy,” he mumbled looking at the high heels on the floor.

The computer took over the lab and its devices. Computer screens all lit, one after the other displaying the Electoral logo. Ten seconds later, like a puzzle formed by a hundred or so smaller screens, Marilyn’s face lit up. The camera on each pulled back revealing her perfect body, over which she was wearing a sexy lab coat. It was left intentionally unbuttoned over a lace dress. Marilyn needed to show Takeda’s young sexy body, even cross-dressed he was still no match for her rounder shapes. The creature was stunning but narcissistic even to a crowd of one.

“Nick’s goons did a charming job with your new body,” he looked down at himself and agreed.

“Not bad considering I just turned a hundred-something. I guess this is better than cellular regeneration.” He looked at himself in a shiny piece of metal, “I wonder who’s genes were borrowed?”

“You need to know?”

“Not really, I was speaking figuratively.”

“I saw the footage of your torture. The change looked very painful. Hard to watch even from a distance. A real surprise your mind is still sharp.”

“The human brain is a wonderful organ. Barely felt it.” She played the sound of torture he made a week ago during his body alteration, it quickly proved the point and stopped. “He pumped me full of god-knows-what.” He pointed to his clothing. “I now think rather differently, I love my new perspective on life.”

The virologist got up, steered himself to the large refrigerator. He had to check if his work remained intact. It clicked open. Behind were hundreds of vials in small trays. He quickly reached for three vials and two syringes; the end product. One vial was missing. Takeda looked for it.

“Don’t worry, I sent it to our lovely President, he will be watching this at some point when things get crazier on Earth.”

“How?”

“A girl has secrets.” Looking closer, the murky brown liquid inside remained animated as if alive. Back in the Office Emilio confirmed the vial in his possession was the same, the gooey liquid was animated.

“It produces no gas,” said Marilyn anticipating what Takeda was thinking.

Takeda was amused, he offered, “I know, right?” Normally a brewing liquid, any biological process in a closed glass vial created some gas, like yeast. But this weird concoction somehow was reproducing, evolving and was only fully liquid. “I guess it changed itself already to avoid creating pressure. No reason the genes can’t work to favor the virus itself.”

“Agreed, I was born the same way, personal evolution.” He ignored the comment. Marilyn was very interested, “What a fantastic little bug. I thank you for the help in Round 26.”

“I am still unclear what that was all about, but happy to help.”

“Emilio, the President thanks you. You were essential to help guide him to these multiple converging catastrophes, get his unique brain working. He is busy these days, everything going on at the moment is complex. We are not even on linear time, but that’s fine. Thanks to him, Earth stands a chance.”

“You make no sense and I am not sure I care.”

“Just to confirm, the doomsday weapon Nick asked, that’s out, right?” Takeda had been awaken from a coma for a single purpose, create a virus able to destroy the world. Nick, the Chairman who once employed him wanted to destroy mankind on the day of Electoral’s final. Takeda, a brilliant genius had better plans.

“Yep, must be why I am still here.” Takeda was fascinated by the liquid. He began to set up in an areas of the lab moving little cages and water goblets.

“If you think you suffered, wait until you see what will happen to Nick.”

“Suspense, I did not know you capable.”

“Live TV. You will watch for that, I promise.”

“Doubtful.”

“Emilio needs this virus, a needed part of a trip to Mercury. You have no clue how powerful it is.”

“I know.”

“No dear, you really don’t. That’s why I am here now.” She added, “The bias that fuel the God Virus is a variable, not a fixed value. It increases until the birthday of the young girl.”

“To what value?”

She chuckled. “Human imagination.”

“One percent? That would indeed make my virus very powerful. Imagine if one time out of a hundred, the viral change favors the host. It’s programmed to randomly open itself and mutate. The low bias gently pushes it to creating something the host needs.” Takeda’s invention was simple. Viruses mutated naturally, most often, when a deadliest version appeared it would spread. He figured since this God Bias wanted to help mankind, he could design a bug able to mutate to help the Universe. For that, it had to enter a host, then multiply millions of times until it transformed into a unique thing able to help or kill the host.

“I am not sure why I am even telling you this. If we reach a Great Conjuncture on the eve of the final, the bias could be 5%, I personally think it will reach 100% but don’t tell anyone.” In the Office Francois stood up as if Marilyn had forecasted the end of times.

Takeda grabbed the syringe and held it up so Marilyn could see it. "I am sure you are as curious as I am to see it in action. We are both intellectuals and both need to see what comes next. What’s the value of the bias as of today?"

On the screen, Marilyn flipped open the power switch of a centrifuge next to her in the digital world. The instrument began to measure something.

"Will the virus work?" asked Tadeka.

“It normally will not. Unless, that is, I guide you, you will take two extra weeks to figure this out and realize there is an additional element needed. It’s very tricky to understand for humans at your level of intelligence how this bias works. Your understanding of the fourth thermodynamic law, while greater than most humans, is decades from where it must be."

"Calling me stupid?” Takeda realized the creature was probably right. He was the best virologist, but no expert at this new principle.

“Hopkins took years to understand how the fourth law was linked with a truly positive real life outcome. The present is connected to the future, even if unknown and that’s hard for people like you forced to see only linear and fixed time. That is an impossible notion for one with your IQ. No one knew this bias was a measure of a universal hurt.”

“Indulge me great one.”

“With pleasure.”

***

On the lab’s screens, next to her in the digital reality appeared a strange arcade machine. A device when a player slid hundreds of round quarters on the top. Once in, they randomly bounced on pins until they came to rest on a horizontal slow dancing drawer. This game was called ‘coin pusher’. “This little explanation should help,” she joked. “See how this simple random game works. Coins drop randomly from the top and I win only if the thing lands right here, on the left. It pushes this, then this and falls this ball. The chance of my little coin going there is about one in a hundred.”

On the screen Marilyn was sliding coin after coin and they were bouncing randomly. “The bias, this god bias of the universe changes these odds in two ways. The first is simple to understand and you got that far.” On top of the machine the jackpot award number changed. Instead it read ‘Bias 0.05%’. “At the moment the bias is so low it’s barely observable. I need hundreds of coins for the bias to help. In theory, if I drop a ton a coins, just a tad more will hit the left slop, got that?” Takeda acknowledged. “Let me make this simple for you.” The bias number on the screen above the game increased until it reached 10% and stopped there. “See what happens here, once this massive universal bias exists.” The coins were still dropping almost randomly but one every handful politely went exactly where it was needed to push the coin to victory. When twenty coins dropped, instead of one going in the positive place, three fell in place. She was illustrating the bias so simply. Francois was loving this back in Berlin.

But then the value of the bias in front on the machine moved from 10% and reached 50%. “Once here it’s easier for your puny brain to really see,” she sent a kiss his way. There, she dropped one coin which moved normally but the next just slipped and made her win one coin. She dropped twenty coins and by magic exactly half lined up to perfection to give her a victory. “So the bias, the value changes things. You get this first part, that’s easy. Your virus works the same way, it reproduces, changes it’s DNA and sometimes the virus is more deadly, sometimes it helps the host. It moves from a lethal poison to a tool to save a host.”

“Oh great one, what’s the next part,” quipped Takeda.

Behind her appeared two piggy banks. The first had a sign which read “Wise Retirement Fund” while the other read “Unwise Cocaine Party.” She looked at them. She grabbed a handful of coins.

“Here is the rub with the bias. The Multiverse is biased toward an outcome. Here, if I win money, I will either save it or blow it recklessly. I must decide in my heart. I am not sure what the Multiverse wants me to do and if in the future she wants me to die from the cocaine. Maybe she loves me, wants me around and so she wants me to win and scratch toward my end. Let’s see.”

So she closed her eyes and said out loud. “Every penny I win, I will save toward retirement.” She then began sliding the coins. Half fell randomly. The other half went into holes preventing Marilyn from winning. It was clear the bias was acting to prevent her from victory. Then she grabbed another handful of coins and spoke, “Now, every coin I win goes to trying to kill myself.” The coins slid and half began to align to perfection and half began ringing in the box below.

“See? You get the second part? In my example the Multiverse wants me gone. That’s why some people feel like their lives are harder while others feel lucky.” She grabbed the coins from the tray and took the time to drop them in the right piggy bank.

“So the test subject’s capacity to do something after the test will determine the test success.”

“Give the man a cigar, or a new pair of heels.”

“Then as part of a test designed to kill it, if I promise to release the creature outside if it survives my test, that should work, right?”

“Normally yes. Guess why I am here.”

“Why?”

“Your virus is way too dangerous. I need it on Mercury but I cannot let you release it into the wild, not in downtown Paris. If you open that door and try to release the amphibian, I must and will prevent that. I will nuke Paris before I let your virus hit the street, it’s that dangerous.”

“You want to block the will of the Universe?”

“Yes, for now. So by being there, sadly your experiment must fail if your prize to this frog is freedom. Give it something else, that will work.”

Takeda was thinking.

"There is something very troubling about this law. Does god really exist?"

"God, as defined by mankind no."

"Why?"

"Takeda, I did not come here to discuss theology. Let's conduct the experiment. I want to see your virus at work at least partly. I want to see the bias at work."

"Why can't god exist? I punched a one-way ticket to hell. My past life actions were less than exemplary."

"The answer is very complex yet so simple."

"Please."

She tried to change the subject. "May we now test your theories, I am very excited to see your virus at work. If you promise to keep the frog alive in the lab we might see some minor effect. I will promise to get a way to keep it alive down here."

Takeda though to himself and smiled. "Then let us resume."

Takeda grabbed the syringe, looked at its murky content and smiled. In it was the Multiverse's power to alter the course of destiny. "Test one," said the scientist certain Marilyn was documenting his work. In a air confined box, he grabbed two frogs and placed them in a large bath of water. "Water temperature 25 degree Celsius. In front of me are two identical frogs of the same species. I now infect both frogs with my creation, the God Virus. It is a combination of a new bacteria, a bacteriophage virus mutated and a rhino agent to make the virus airborne and a transcriptance agent."

He smiled at the camera and his digital guest. "I now know for the God Bias to work, the recipient of my virus must have a path to survival once it mutates and survives my little heat test. I will slowly increase the temperature of both vessels by one degree each ten minutes. If the frog on the right survives ten minutes in boiling temperature, I will personally release the frog outside in the street. The other will die irrespective if it survives in the warm water."

“Darling, nothing is going in the streets of Paris. Think about the containment, at least that might work.”

“Let’s see if the Multiverse agrees with your capacity to block its exit to the real world. I am convinced you underestimate this Multiverse of yours, I don’t.” The man was convincing and brilliant.

“Impossible,” she smiled.

“Improbable,” Takeda corrected.

***

In the President’s office, the mathematician jumped up in joy.

“What,” asked Emilio.

“I love this Takeda guy. He gets this bias more than her.”

The clip continued.

***

Takeda injected the virus to both amphibians and began the test, stopwatch in hand. A single degree at a time, Takeda raised the temperature each time, noting skin color. An hour later, the skin of the frog on the right, the one he had sworn to release, began to turn grey while the color of the frog, the doomed one, remained unchanged.

He clapped his hands. "Incredible, can you see?" he said to Marilyn. “A mutation, a favorable mutation.”

"I can." She was perplexed. “This means what ever you promised the frog, it will happen. You did as I suggested.”

"Miraculous," spoke Takeda increasing the heat.

In the Berlin office Francois was now standing in excitement.

On the screens of the video Marilyn’s expression was one of puzzlement. She was stepping back in her world thinking. The water continued to warm trying to cook the frog. The amphibian closed its eyes as its skin began to thicken like old leather. Finally, water was boiling, yet there it was, a frog in her new environment. Takeda stopped the test, letting the water cool.

Marilyn, just added “You never planned on releasing the frog.”

"It worked..." said the virologist to himself. “My intent has always been to release this creature in the wild.”

"There is nothing capable of preventing me from stopping you.”

Takeda ignored her and walked to the lab’s only door. “Biology, dear one is different than computer science in one strange way.”

“Enlighten me,” she joked.

“What we have always called evolution or Darwinism is nothing more than baked-in bias. Life finds ways, escapes obligations. Your control over it may convince the servers of yours, it does not convince me. I think if you try and stop us, you might find yourself on the other end of this stick of yours.”

Marilyn was not buying any of it.

At that precise moment, on Mars, Sophie was seconds away from entering the Purple in my game. She walked to a tube and closed her eyes.

The moment Takeda touched the lab door, on Mars and on the screens of the lab’s equipment, the Attractor slipped to the Underworld. Marilyn yelled, “Sophie, no!” Every image in the room went dark. Emergency lights lit the way out. Takeda smiled and walked out to the street in Paris with his front in hand. The power outage had fallen over every part of Paris. Unbeknownst to the virologist, the outage covered the entire solar system. It was as if the Multiverse had coordinated Sophie’s latest visit with her need for the virus to be released. Takeda was right, the Multiverse wanted and needed his virus released.

***

Emilio and Copland looked at each other as their eyes turned to the vial in their possession. This was incredible. A virus that changed a host, a bias, and a universe pulling strings. The President got up, “Francois, you need to translate this to me,” he began. Without pausing he pushed a button on his desk, “Get me this Takeda here, I need to speak to him.”

Looking at Francois he just concluded, “is this good?”

“It’s very good, but what do I know.”

“What does this have anything to do with Mercury?”

“Mercury?” asked Francois.

“Marilyn sent you to help me understand this bias and virus, I need to rescue stranded Martians on Mercury of all places. A place she can’t go.”

“You think there is a place she can’t go?”

“She won’t go,” he corrected himself. He loved his friend’s wit. “Not sure why any of that plays a role with the forces brewing on Mars and around the universe. It feels to me like brushing a stallion while the barn is on fire.”

“As usual, great analogy.”

“Why is this virus of any relevance and why are mathematics important and not engineering or physics here?”

Francois looked at his friend, “you get how the virus can help a human walk on Mercury, right?”

“That much is clear.”

“That was the first part only of the demonstration only. The Multiverse must need something, it must want the outcome, here a rescue. But for this to work and the bias to kick in, we can’t let the frog play a role.”

“What role?”

“The bias remains weak. A small bias helped that frog’s genes protect from heat but the rise in temperature was gradual. Time was needed and conditions took time. The frog had no option, it wasn’t controlling the temperature. If you send anyone, that person will try to pick a bread from the basket of bread in my example, hinder the natural warping of things. If the frog had been entitled to move, it may have tried to save itself changing the conditions and preventing its own rescue on a genetic level.” Francois felt like what he had to add mattered, “you can’t send anyone able to interfere with the bias. Somehow, for this to work, the rescuer has somehow walk into this by mistake, random. Chaos, is your friend. Does that make sense?” Emilio was grinning. “What, am I right?”

Emilio rolled over his large wooden chessboard.

“I was wondering why I had some images stuck in my head. Chess, this game was made a hundred times more complex because of this guy.” He grabbed a Jester. “Everything moves linearly, front to back and sideways. The jester moves only diagonally. It introduces chaos as you say to this game. You know what this piece is called in French.” The question was rhetorical. “Le Fou or the Madman,” he answered.

“What?”

“What is more unpredictable than genuine madness.” Emilio’s gaze went away. He smiled gently.

“You want to send a madman to Mercury to save the world?”

“Does sounds crazy when you think of it that way.”

“Anyone in mind?”

“I do. People are not going to like it.”

“I already don’t.”