Moments later Emilio awoke from his strange and powerful vision. The President was back in the SAC's Faraday room. He was surrounded by the scientists looking at him as if he was waking up from a coma. This vision, unlike his typical flights into probability-based imagery, had taken place in real time. He didn't know how long he'd been standing there, immobile. There was silence from the members of the SAC. Emilio's hands were straight ahead in the air, reaching over the long wooden table. From the looks he was getting, he had a feeling he'd been gone for a while. The President awkwardly smiled and lowered his arms. Whatever this was, these people deserved an explanation. He looked at the table; his drink was still on it. God, he needed that shot right now. Instead, Emilio took a deep breath and sat. His mind felt strained. He took the time to calm himself.

"Sir, are you okay?" asked Copland.

Emilio felt embarrassed. He often wondered what a real vision would feel like, and he now had his answer. They were scary and draining; in it, he felt powerless like a child dragged by the hand by his father. He grabbed his drink and raised it to his lips. His hands were trembling so he slowly put it down. The images began when he heard the word Mercury. In a moment, he was on the burning planet. He looked around the room, these men and women were the future of mankind. It was their world as much as his. Who was he to hide the truth from them?

These people were brilliant and dying to help. They needed to know about him and his gift, and also he needed to tell them what had just happened. Telling them of this vision without disclosing that private part of himself was pointless. He knew if his secret got out, he might be disqualified from the competition. But he no longer cared about all of that. This was the moment for the truth. Things were too complicated.

"I..." stumbled the President.

The scientists were seeing a more vulnerable side of their longtime friend. Emilio looked down at his glass, watching the melted cubes swirl as he began his story. He talked of himself as a boy, a young Mexican. Emilio felt like a murderer about to confess. There was no going back. For decades he'd dreamed of finally letting the truth go free, yet now that he was trying, it resisted him. The entire story came out with excruciating details.

His hands were now somewhat more stable. He brought it to his nose and took a deep smell. "I guess today I will be the topic of conversation." He tilted over the glass until the liquid touched his lips. He felt the alcohol on the tip of his tongue; he needed it but did not drink. "Do you know why I carry this glass everywhere?" The question was rhetorical and called for no answer. Everyone knew better and stayed silent. They were about to hear something out of the ordinary.

"Marilyn said her game is critical for the protection of our race. She is right. I am no ordinary person. I have a curse which the game turned into a gift." Emilio began his life story rather clumsily. He spoke of his mother back in Mexico. He described his overactive mind and how it tortured him for decades as a boy and young man. As he spoke, the group's reaction was not what he expected. They remained silent, but smiles were growing on each face. They all somehow knew. At some point, he looked up. He felt like an adolescent boy, as effeminate as they come, finally finding the courage to come out of a closet to parents in the know.

They were not shocked by his words. As if to shock them, he even said "I am a bachelor because I can't bear others. Dating for me is impossible. When I see a person I like," Emilio remained gender neutral, he always did. He looked up; this was a time for truth. "When I see a man I like," he corrected. No one reacted. "My mind sends me hundreds of futures. The first are mild, but then I see the most graphic things. I see every possible lewd posture with that person, and obviously this complicates things significantly. I tried dating once. After thousands of fights and breakups in my mind, I gave up. For that reason, I isolate myself."

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

As he continued his story, he finally looked up at the experts. Their eyes were not looking back, each lost in deep thoughts. They were trying to connect pieces of the larger puzzle. Once in a while, one nodded to himself or herself. The minds in the room were busy, reconstructing hundreds of missed connections.

After telling his story, he concluded with his period struggling with alcohol. He told them alcohol is to him was what dark glasses were are to a man with a sensitivity to light. "I do feel like I am to play a role here. But in the last hour, three things happened which even surprised me." He first told them about the experience in the game with Takeda and how this led to his interrogation of Big Pete. Then he said there had been a blackened vision as he came down and now a full vision. "All of it is true. All of it as I perceive it." He finally felt silent. There it was.

Marissa, the biologist, broke the silence and spoke softly. "I am sure others will join me in saying your trust honors us. With all due respect, Mister President, your mental situation may, in fact, be easily explained by science. You are no super-hero and what is going on with your mind, while rare is not magic. The human brain is a wonderfully complex machine. Human history is filled with individuals displaying unique mental and physical abilities, not unlike yours. Some people have a photographic memory. Others cannot recognize faces or live the same day each day. While your condition is mostly undocumented, many scientists believe every decade someone, somewhere, is born someone with such a talent. In the past, they probably became prophets or were burned at the stake as witches or sorcerers."

"Why is my gift changing, now of all times? What about this vision of Mercury?"

A man stood up. "Your vision, in fact, appears to be simply a call for help. To take Marilyn's own analogy for her quantum boxes, the same way twins know when they are in danger, you may be connected to these creatures on Mercury. Whatever is happening with the sun, we have weeks and not months to rescue these lifeforms. If we are to trust Mister Lalancette, we are being flooded by these Rho waves generated by the girl on mars. I would hypothesize you are somehow surfing these waves."

The President said, "I feel like their number on Mercury matches the number of the bobble-characters of Marilyn we received from Mars. Why would she not directly send them to Mercury? Is there still time?"

The astrophysicist pulled out an old calculator. The mercurial orbit was about sixty million kilometers from the sun while earth was ninety million kilometers further. At best, the distance to travel would be a hundred million kilometers. Reaching mars from earth was the same distance, and at best the trip took two weeks with the acceleration lasers. "The finale is in twenty-five days. If we leave now, on our fastest probe we may get there on time, nothing more."

"We don't have by any chance a ship capable of withstanding this degree of heat, or which can host human life," stated the President.

"Actually, we do," offered Francois. "Thermal infrared maps of Jupiter are very hot. Six hundred miles above the planet's surface, temperatures reach 1,350 Fahrenheit. That's half the surface temperature on Mercury. We built the Io capsule to host several people and resist greater thermal stress. The views outside the window might be different, I concede as much. But we have no robotics capable of managing the situation with the hundreds of globes. Someone would have to go, a one-way mission requiring so much work inside the craft in a short time. You need one of us to go?"

Emilio looked at his watch, at the scientists, kissed Copland on both cheeks and ran out.

“I already got the guy. He would be upset to miss his flight.”