After the break, the next simulations resumed as if Angela had not played. She had cheated taking the value of the static charge from the future. There was a little shift in the colors, as if something deep with it the computer system was off. Each time, the first portion of the simulation in the Lab was accelerated until the crash landing. The next three players had little success and each lander bounced like a garbage can thrown by New York employee.
Mission Failed
Lives Remaining: 22
Mission Failed
Lives Remaining: 21
Mission Failed
Lives Remaining: 20
Before the player ranked #20 took the stage, there was a pause. On each screen, Marilyn appeared standing on the surface of mercury next to a fuming pile of debris with a rocket launcher assembled. At her feet was the frozen, burnt dead body of Angela.
Behind her, in the distances were three plumes of white smoke of the last players. These were the unsuccessful landings of the last. This time she was wearing a simple dress and was immuned from the cold, the darkness or even the lack of atmosphere. She walked slowly and kicked a rock at her feet. It rose slowly under the low gravity and curves silently.
"To a computer like myself, I have been pondering Angela’s disqualification,” she pointed at her husk. “While clearly outside the rules and within my power to disqualify her,” she paused. Saying what came next required effort, “she violated multiple rules, but greatly increased the chances of success of the real mission. Those chances were at best 54% before her game began and now have increased to well over 62%. I do not sanction playing in an alternate reality but she wanted to help. We should keep in mind that our goal is to save mankind. Therefore we must tolerate such deviations as we travel to the Sixth Attraction. I have informed the twenty remaining players that they may use Angela's discoveries and more importantly they can build on them. The game resumes and the remaining players do as they wish.”
“Frankly speaking, we both this the player’s games are foreplay to Emilio and Laurent’s games. Wait until you see what happens when Sophie’s father plays. She extended an arm to the burn cadaver at her feet, it grabbed her hand making everyone jump on their feet.
Player Ranked #20
"Mission Command," asked the new Jester floating in the junk of the printed pieces.This was the sixteenth time the scenario reloaded from the start. Christian have completed the initial formalities.
"Yes?"
"Can we boost our static energy level is greater than mercury, I mean when we arrive, what would that do?”
"The flow would be reversed. Maybe a couple of meters away from the ground, a lightening bold will shoot out from the ship and hit a metal-filled meteoroid on the surface of Mercury. But really the ship is so small when compared with a planet."
"Any negative side effects?"
"You would have any fuel to blow up, if you care about that. Short-circuits at most," said the engineer to his team.
"Great, set the value of the generator to six thousand instead of three. I fear at the speed we are coming in, we will not be able to correct if we undershoot the value, trust me." The player tried to get the scenario back to some type of reality. "Give me a breakdown of the different pieces we can eject on the lander to change its density, inertia and weight." The Jester grabbed the pieces of the rocket launcher, floated past his passenger and blew him a kiss. "Great music."
Christian slipped on the suit and taped the pieces to the back of the locked door. He looked up, there was earth. The player tried unsuccessfully to ignore the view. "What are the pieces?" Ground Control listed about a dozen of pieces, each attached one way or another to the outside shell of the landing module. "Let me guess," said ironically the Jester, "there is one module I will need to manually unbolt?"
"Negative, they either can be jettisoned from your command post or it is permanently attached."
"Let's assume the way we have the lander, we end up 400 kilometers from the Fuller Crater."
"In which direction?" The player refused to ask Marilyn.
"On the dark side, does that help?"
"It does. The Crater is North." The player was wondering what to do. He wanted to score points but also maintain the streamline. "Can we eject these pieces to direct the craft, would that help steer us?"
"Not really. I wish we could help more."
“Let’s rock.” The player looked at the list of pieces, selected them all and just said: "Let's make it simple for the next."
The rest was as expected. The static generator worked. The lateral thrusters worked and after ejecting the pieces, the lander crashed, bounced and stabilized six hundred and fourth kilometers off SSW of the crater.
Mission Failed
Lives Remaining: 19
This time the player ejected all but the last two pieces. The lander crashed, bounced and stabilized four hundred kilometers off SW of the crater.
Mission Failed
Lives Remaining: 18
Mission Failed
Lives Remaining: 17
Mission Failed
Lives Remaining: 16
Player Ranked #16
The last three players selected a combination of different pieces attached to the outside shell of the lander to eject in an effort to land closer to the Fuller crater. The same simulation unfolded up to the landing. Each time the craft bounced in different directions. Mathilda, playing the Jester secured herself in the capsule and asked, "Mission Command, how close must we be from the Fuller Crater for us to walk the distance."
"At best you have nine hours of air in the suit. Dragging the equipment, you move at 1500 meters an hour. You need an hour to launch the capsules, so at most 12 kilometers."
"Twelve?"
"That is correct sir. Twelve," he confirmed. The last four failed attempts had landed hundreds of kilometers away and the success of this mission appeared to hinge on pure luck.
"Million, is there a way to regulate the direction of the flight after a first impact?"
"Maybe. You have thrusters and Mmercury’s gravity is very low. We are too far to dynamically adjust. You would have to adjust manually with the broomstick between your legs. Not sure your capsule won’t spin way too fast for any adjustments."
"Teach me how?"
“On that monitor, to your left will appear a red dot marking your initial impart location. We will color the windows in front of you so you distinguish the planet from space. The screen on your left will be an image of the gyroscopes.”
There was really little time but the players of the game adapted to any new situation. Once the craft hit the ground hard, it bounced. In front of Christian was a map, like a video game. He used the broomstick to pushed the craft closer. It bounced five time and finally landed fifty-three kilometers from the crater.
Mission Failed
34 kilometers from Crater
Lives Remaining: 15
Mission Failed
121 kilometers from Crater
Lives Remaining: 14
Mission Failed
21 kilometers from Crater
Lives Remaining: 13
Mission Failed
56 kilometers from Crater
Lives Remaining: 12
Behind the scenes, the Electoral platform was able to manipulate what appeared to be time. Each of the 15 last players were each invited to learn, as if it was a video game the thrusters. The first had an hour to learn, the second two hours. But there was great uncertainty.
Player Ranked #12
Ji-ing was born to play Electoral; she was gifted. Her small frail asian frame was not much to look at. Early in her childhood, she was diagnosed at the bottom of the spectrum of Asperger syndrome. Her whole life, she had never been comfortable with in the real world and like many online players, her game persona was radically different from her true self. Here she was courageous, bold, and funny. Her mind in the Rho chamber buzzed with strange energy. The invisible waves, uploaded from the inhabitants of half a continent were a rush more powerful than any known drug. She was literally on fire.
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Her real heart comfortably resting in the low gravity tube would be beating out of her chest if the computer goddess had not long ago taken over the regulation of every system of her body. Her pulse was a steady 45. Marilyn's power was growing exponentially, but for the first game in months, the computer’s skills would be mostly invisible to the viewers. Marilyn manipulated the Rho waves and her power was imperceptible.
Ji-ing was thrilled to play the Jester. In the scenario, the villain, a caffeine addict was in charge of saving mankind. The irony of placing evil in control wasn’t lost on her. Much like Sophie, the banker really did not care for the real world. She now had a new job in the new administration unless the world ended. Either was, her efforts to tailor predatory loans over the Internet were over. Admitting those lunatics were really on their way to mercury challenged any logical mind. She had a job to do, play the game and that meant rescue Martians. She would land the fucking craft.
With one exception, all players felt, as they should, that every round was more challenging than the last. Last week's visit to the Purple remained vivid in her mind; it was a wonderful experience. The sight of the capital of Mall-ik's world was breathtaking. In the end, every player had it wrong, the young girl did not care about the Purple. Sophie closed her eyes and jumped directly to the belly of the Multiverse. The killer in the zoo Lab might as well blow up the ship on purpose.
Ji-ing felt odd about the role of Sophie. She was no Guardian. The term Attractor felt more adapted to her strange role. To Ji-ing, the girl was only a door between things which required connection. Her love for her father was refreshing to witness in this intense digital world, but she knew if you truly love someone hurt, wishing it to stay around and suffering was cruel and the young girl was too kind to desire for her father to live. The death of the world was a solution to Sophie. The player felt Sophie was selected because of her unconditional love for Laurent. That love was the unique certainty.
Ji-ing felt the raw power of Sophie standing in the real world feet away from her own body. The waves in her head were interfering with the girl’s. By some strange magic, she could feel her poise. The young Attractor knew the world was in peril but she did not care.
For what felt like five hours, deep inside the computer system, Ji-ing practiced landing the tip portion of the Io Observer on the stupid ash ball called mercury by everyone else. With the help of Marilyn, like fighter pilots use simulators, the interface was used to practice away from the actual game. In a simulator, the players played a game to help them play the game designed to help Maltais in the real world.
This felt like a video game, but as she played with each bounce, she felt genuine pain. Thanks to the Rho interface, Marilyn's world was perfect in all aspects. It was impossible to distinguish from her vantage point this world from reality. In the interface were lounges, buffets, and even rest areas for the players. Laurent was here as a fully capable human. He walked like every other player. Sophie should jump into this anti Chamber to meet her dad. Strangely, Laurent was the only player who did not care for the landing simulator, instead, he stood behind Mall-ik and spoke gently to him.
"Miss Po," said Marilyn in the intercom of the simulator, "get ready for you real simulation. There are only eleven players which will enter after you. Please land close to the Crater to advance the scenario. The real travelers need your help. Good luck. To help motivate you, based on the scoring so far, I can confirm if you land within 10 kilometers from the Fuller Crater, you will qualify for the next round. In it, you will battle martians here on Mars. My neighbors have awaken."
Before Ji-ing could respond there was a swoosh, a digital reset and her game began. In the blink of the eye, she was in the Io Lab, floating in space and moving at a fraction of light speed toward the Sun. She now had hands of an old white man. The player knew she was in the body of the Jester and billions now watched her every moves. Her heart was racing and her mind clouded by a lack of sleep. Marilyn forced her mind to cloud as if she really lived in the Lab. Everything felt so real. On her way to mars, two weeks ago, she felt weightlessness for the first time; this felt identical. Back in the practice rooms, Electoral and her interface let her guide the lander a hundred times until she knew how to do it with perfection.
There she was, floating in clutter and printing shells of rockets. She quickly played the first half of the game making her way, equipment in tow into the tip. She taped the rockets to the locked door before slipping into the main control chair. She looked around. Something was wrong, it nagged at her.
"Houston, I am sliding into the co-pilot seat," said the Jester as he tied himself in.
"You know we are not in Houston?"
"You should be, it sounds much better to those at home watching me vaporize Dracula back there." She was playing the crazy man and she felt he would have said this. She was right. She reached over and pushed the red blinking button. The static generator worked its charm. She passed out. The screens of the Io Lab's remote Lander began to settle once the static generator stopped whizzing. As they came back online one by one, they all blinked red. Christian played by Ji-ing grabbed both handles and with brio flew blindly the craft. This felt like she was in a washing machine thrown off a moving bus making its way down a mountain. The impacts were brutal. But the seat was well designed. Sitting in the co-pilot seemed to work wonders.
When the crashes finally stopped, almost twenty minutes later her brains were in shambles. She rolled over the mercurial landscape for over 200 miles. She looked at the map on the screens. She was six and a half kilometers from the Crater. This was within walking distance. She had just qualified herself for Round 29.
"Yes! Houston, now what, I walk?"
Earth came online, "Nice job Firefly, you do."
"Firefly?"
"Yes, that's the codename you were given in case of a successful landing."
"Hum," he began "I like the name, who picked it, Patrick?"
The voice of the Colonel came online, "You can thank me later. A firefly has a lifespan of two months. I was told in two days at most you will be dead and the sun will take about two months to burn your bones down to ash. A thank you right now will do wonders for my esteem."
"I miss you. My only regret is to have picked the old ghost instead of you as a travel mate. He was useless."
"Come on, the man is a born DeeJay. We are already selling that soundtrack down here."
"What's next?"
"After crawling out, if that's even possible, you will find a hatch numbered C12. Let's hope that great driving of yours did not bend it out of shape. The module does have metal cutting tools. This ship was going to mine on Io after all. You must grab a little rover, load the launcher and the rockets and begin a long walk. We hope the ground is not too unstable. Judging by the hard bounces of the lander, you should be fine. The gravity on Mercury is close to four meters per second square." There was a long silence, "that's about the same as the gravity our moon. The equipment to carry to the crater is about two hundred pounds, the weight of an adult but here thanks to the low weight, you will be carrying the weight of a small child."
"How long is that walk?"
"If you can do it in six hours, that will be great."
"I need music." Techno music began.
With her brilliance and flair for entertainment, Marilyn used her power to stimulate billions of viewers and draw out the Rho waves. What happened next was surreal. At first in the darkness of night on the Mercurian soil, Christian found and opened the heavy panel. The work was exhausting. The suit and low gravity reminded some viewers of watching an underwater welder. Christian followed the instructions from the base carefully. Close-ups showed sweat dripping off his forehead. He kept hydrated by sucking on a small tube.
After he was done, he crawled out of the banged up lander, walked around until he saw and opened the designated hatch.
"Where next?"
"We will enhance the magnetic spectrum of your visor, the Fuller Crater should appear clearly." It did, in the distance a tall magnetic vortex was radiating. As he walked away pulling the cart, what he saw was hypnotizing. Electoral, as usual, did wonderful editing. The point of view of the camera showed the amazement of the space walker. Her camera angles were optimal and she also used many parlor tricks like light filters to enhance the experience. Earth's greatest film editors were dwarfed by her skills. Colors danced in the sky.
The camera panned out from the lander. There were solar flares crossing paths in the sky and building into a coherent structure. First she showed the sun and in an upper region of its corona a buildup of raw hydrogen. The color of the plasma changed slightly to a lighter shade of white before the atomic chain fusion blew matter and energy into the solar system where mercury floated. Just before the silent detonation, the distance between molecules of ionized hydrogen increased so slightly and helped the explosion occur the same way hitting a pool cue too hard did not help balls move gently to the corner pockets. Space-time warped a tad creating the perfect condition for the fusion.
Intertwined in highways of convective gas lines were streaks of denser helium gas. Above the hydrogen was created clouds of helium gas. The composite was blown out away from the oven heart. The puff of energy moved up in the darkness of the star for two thousand miles. Then a whip of raw energy snapped the energy and pushed away the line into the path of the small orbiting Mercury. Not all particles in these formations were equal, yet they all travelled at approximately the same speed. Solar wind was beautiful, a snowstorm of raw plasma.
To illustrate the difference in energy level, Electoral used vibration-like effects and color differences. The viewers were used to how she illustrated magic in her fantasy games, the Rho waves recently and now energy levels of plasma. She showed how the weaker and less energetic atoms were bent down by the planet's magnetosphere where the stronger ones pushed undisturbed by the magnetosphere around the orbiting rock.
In minutes, Marilyn illustrated with brilliance these complex space and particular dynamics. Physicists took decades to master plasma dynamics, fusion, energy levels of atoms, solar winds and planetary magnetic field interference. To viewers, everything was now so simple, but in fact, this was not. What would come next, even for the Artificial Intelligence required touch and finesse.
Electoral used numbers, moving charts and other parlor tricks to explain show how the Fuller Crater was a magical and unique place. The solar flares as they bent around the rounded mercury, it split like rainbows; like a fan of colors from the deep purples to bright reds. Each color vibrated slightly differently to the naked eye. Marilyn knew better and refused to illustrate the energy as simple particles or waves. She showed diffuse small clouds of energy pulsating between these two states. The smaller electrons were fatter-looking clouds and these turned south to the surface as the larger structures moved on. Two types of energy bent drawn into the upper layers of the magnetosphere and slid down to the Fuller Crater. On their way to the surface, the two colors began to twist and turn forming a vertical open eye of a magnetic twister around the Fuller Crater. Over it, a tornado pulsed in power as solar wind gusts passed above.
On the ground, the vortex connected with the rim of the Fuller Crater; in it was the glacier below sand gently lifting to join the vortex. Sand of atomic size began to lift up and dance in the flux of particles pouring into the ground. As it did, the sand blocked the horizontal solar wind creating the set of perfect conditions for what would come next. The Jester was still walking at a distance but was getting closer; he was still more than an hour away.
To use a possible analogy, this was like the lost island of King Kong in the middle of the ocean constantly surrounded by a cloud vortex pulling up a water wall from the sea. This was raw power hidden from plain sight. The sight was majestic. The Crater was unique in the Solar System.
Marilyn’s voice spoke to each viewer, "Our Jester's time of arrival at the Crater must be precise." On the screen, the small astronaut was painfully making his way. "Take a look what I think will come next." The camera panned back to the edge of the Crater. There were particles dancing in this strange vortex of electricity and magnetism. The natural gray sand began to turn and move upwards. In the center of the vortex, all traces of residual magnetic energy started to evaporate. At the center of the color vortex was cold and void free of any solar wind.
On the ground the ashes as they rose to twirl revealed a lighter color glacier ice. The white contrasted against the dark sand. On the cold carbon dioxide surface were little black lines. One by one, shimmering puffs of red shiny smoke made of a thousand grains of Martian sand began to lift above the ground. In the distance, the Jester was walking and was too far to see what would come next. All one hundred creatures came out of a ground for a rare stroll. They stretched. The sand creatures lifted about ten feet off the ground, then twenty and like puppies at the beach, began to dance and twirl around each other.
"Any of this dangerous?" asked the Jester. Christian was at the limit of his aerobic exhaustion. Behind him were the tracks of the rover and his short steps. He had to force himself to make longer steps but in fact they were much shorter than he wished. The imprints were barely inches apart. "Is this dangerous?" he repeated like a child bored of a long car ride.
"No. The visor greatly enhances that part of the light spectrum. The levels of energy are very weak to a human. We fear your little passengers will not like it. The visor enhances things. Please hurry."
"Why?"
In the sky the flux of plasma stopped. The vortex was closing. The creatures slipped back into the ground. The colors stopped. The creatures returned below the ice.
“What happened?”
Patrick at great pain to himself relayed the last words to his strange friend of fortune. “Seems like we are fucked. You go too fast to land and the ship explodes, you go too slow and the window of the vortex closes.