Gerard stood alone in the round antechamber. The glyphs carved in the walls were back to normal but told the strangest story. The history about the origin of mankind on Earth now was lifted. Man was in fact from mars; Emilio surprised himself in thinking how both words sounded the same. The President reminded himself he was in a game and all this was a digital reconstruction from Marilyn. In the back of his mind, this felt like a fraud, a deception. He could not stop giggling out of character.

Emilio's unique mind saw multiple scenarios unfold and flash and with increasing frequency some were dark. He had to return to the story and lift the mood. Word sparring was the perfect solution.

"Guys, did you hear this crock of bull?" asked the cook out loud.

"We did. Like you, we are in shock."

"I am not in shock, I still wonder why the hell I am doing your jobs. Once I am back in the hotel, one of you lazy idiots better be cooking me a nice dinner."

"Steak?" said the voice.

"Hell no, a blind monkey from earth can cook a steak. I want veal. It better not be overlooked." The exchange of words was not fooling anyone. It failed at lifting some of the stress in the air. "Let's get this over with." Emilio moved his character, made the body turn and head down to exit at the other end of the room. The President knew unless he did some narration, Marilyn would use a trick to fill in the void. He no longer needed the points, but who was he to stay silent.

"Okay guys, I am now walking down to the other side. Is the camera recording all of this?"

"Yes, but I am sure your viewpoint outshines ours." What came next would be carved in human history. The sight caught Emilio by surprise. The rounded doorway from which he entered was a black dot thousand feet high in a massive underground cavern. He was overlooking a Mayan-inspired city carved in a single piece of rock. The glow of the walls gave enough light. There were large flat pyramids with stairs, water wells and primitive housing attached to the walls of temples. Thousands of humanoid figures were busy going about their lives. There was no technology, everything about this culture seemed primitive.

Below him were small stairs carved in the bedrock and leading down to the city.

You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.

"Are you seeing this? Where is Paul, is he okay?"

"Paul is back in the ship. This seems to be on just for you to discover. You are on your own. You heard the creature, Mister superior. We are finishing up the hors d'oeuvres. Delicious, I wonder who prepared them."

Gerard liked the brainless conversation as he began to walk down the endless flight of stairs, "This is going to hurt coming back up."

"You are French and France still has stairs, right? Did they every get elevators, I don't think so." Gerard walked slowly down the nearly two thousand steps carved into the wall. He felt like an explorer having just discovered the lost city of gold. Even from a distance he could distinguish that the humanoid figures walking the street was not biological forms but instead made of sand. In fact the entire city was a giant sand castle. The shape of the figures washer odd in an important way. They were taller and leaner.

"Gerard, the base is telling me the creatures down there have a slightly different morphology, which is coherent with lower gravity evolution."

"This is what we would look like if we grew up in low gravity?"

"Reminds me of a lot of alien movies."

Emilio kept smiling as if his intuition told him something major was off. His visions were strangely unrelated to what was going on. He looked around, awaiting something to happy. It did.

He said using the voice of his character, “Marilyn?” in the cave. He repeated her name.

For a strange reason, there was a long commercial break.

***

"Why the break?" asked Georges in the Command room to his creation.

"I can't," whispered Marilyn in his earpiece.

"What are you talking about?"

"I finished looking at these last two days in my memory banks. No. I won't lie, this is over. God I hate those critters." Marilyn was visibly shaken.

"What are you talking about?" said Georges.

Marilyn looked in the Command Center at the young Attractor. “You did this to me,” she said to the young girl. Sophie was smiling.

“What is she talking about,” asked Liam to the Attractor.

“What the hell,” asked Ronaldo in Georges’ mind.

The computer was angry. "Let them come, I will exterminate them," snapped the Artificial Intelligence as if upset with herself. Marilyn was not joking. “Fuck them,” she said out loud in the Command room so everyone could hear. Sophie was smiling, so was the body of Emilio back home in his tube.

The President and Sophie both felt this was a positive turn of event. “This was it.” They both thought to themselves at precisely the same time.

“Father, it truly begins,” whispered the girl in the non-existing hear of her handicapped father. The doctor and the journalist looked at the Attractor. She grabbed the plush dog, put it in front of her face and as she waved its mouth she spoke to the computer, “Finally,” said the dog animated by Sophie, “truth.”