Facts as critical as those facing the group should have created a feeling of doom and worry. Instead, the discussion was lively and upbeat. No one seemed scared of Marilyn, by the close proximity to the alien cloud of sand or that mankind was under siege from hostile aliens. The Sixth Attraction was entertainment, not news.
Ronaldo's initial plan was to enlist the help of the President. Now he knew that Marilyn had also placed the survival of the human race on Emilio's shoulders and the man’s role was to solve his problem. Suddenly, his choice to contact the past winner made sense. But it was doubtful Marilyn would let the President take action against her simply to help the Martians. As Ronaldo pondered, he watched his new allies, whom he hoped would aid him in his plans.
An hour after bursting into the center, Ronaldo's discomfort continued to grow. He got up and moved around the room, pointing at places where he felt some type of electronic infection. Closing his eyes, he could still feel electricity pulsing around him through his eyelids. His newfound friends marveled at the ability. They moved objects around the room to test him. He described his strange gift as being able to sense energy flowing, like dark shiny oil. Ronaldo hovered a hand inches above the dark flow, and as he did, it fled as if it were a bed of ants moved away a wellspring of fresh water. He seemed to repel the darkness to some extent.
At some point, he asked everyone to power down each piece of electronics in the room, not just their phones. As each piece of technology lost power, Ronaldo felt much improved. The ooze was still moving wirelessly in the air, though, like airplanes leaving a trail, information jumped between transceivers on chips creating general unease.
Wayne tried to keep Ronaldo focused. "Are you okay? Take a seat for a minute."
"It's everywhere," Ronaldo finally mumbled. "No wonder they want her dead. It's a cancer." He sat, unable to take his eyes off the television screen. Then, like a cat seeing a mouse, Ronaldo's head jerked to the left.
He'd seen something move other than the black filth.
In one of the walls, along what looked like a network of darkened electric lines, there was a single long green streak. It resembled nothing so much as a healthy packet of information. It slid down the wall, repelling the black sickness and cleansing it for a moment as it passed only to let the ooze return a moment later. Ronaldo kept his eyes on the flash of color as it moved. The green light moved like a little insect, varying its speed. It seemed to choose a direction, then stop and wander onto a new course. The green dot jumped off a micro-transceiver and launched over a wireless connection hanging across the room, landing into the wall-mounted television.
Everyone in the room watched Ronaldo's eyes and head follow something he alone could see. Behind the glass screen of the TV, the little green invader was perched on a circuit board amidst a city of electronics. The green creature burrowed into one of the microprocessors. Ronaldo could see the electrical nervous system of the television. Without a word, he stood up and walked closer to inspect the colored dot. The others in the room knew something strange was going on. He put his nose inches from the green color. There was no discernible detail or feature on it; it merely shone green. Still, though, he knew this thing was alive. It moved in the cluttered, diseased processor like a drop of oil in vinegar. The green creature kept swirling around without ever mixing with the dark around it.
"What is it?" asked Wayne.
"There," he pointed at the color. The moment he said the word and pointed, the darkness surrounding the color it heard him and began to move as if to attack the green intruder. He had spoken and revealed its location. The green dot began to wiggle and fight. It swam from electronic chip to chip, trying to avoid the ooze. Finally, unable to keep the pursuing darkness at bay, the green light pushed off a wireless transceiver and launched away from the television into the air, once again briefly airborne. It landed inside one of the cell phones on the table. The creature, while still sharing the processor with the black liquid, was no longer being attacked by it. It was hiding. The creature was there; it now pulsed.
Ronaldo looked up. He tried to act as if he did not know the location of the green creature.
"What is it?" repeated Wayne, "Are you all right?"
He needed time to understand what was happening.
"I think Marilyn is using cameras to watch us. We have to turn them off." Ronaldo looked around the room. "We are being watched. Marilyn does not want this green thing to be discovered." Ronaldo knew he was right. The group began to look around in the room. Cameras were everywhere. They taped or unplugged every camera they could find to the satisfaction of Ronaldo. He approached Julie. Her eyes were covered by the ooze.
"Are you wearing contact lenses?"
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"Yes."
"Can you remove them? They are also infected."
"What?"
"I see the infection in your contacts."
"They serve only as a screen. They only let me see the web. There's no camera built into them."
"Well, that's not what I see."
"Ha, I knew it!" said the tall man. He was a conspiracist satisfied with this notion Electoral was everywhere. "I always knew they could broadcast, too."
With a look of surprise, Julie went to the bathroom and removed the lenses. She returned to see Ronaldo grab the phone from the table. In it floated the green creature like a firefly in a vial.
"What do you see?" asked Wayne. Ronaldo kept inspecting the phone carefully. They did not share his alien sight.
"It feels to me like Marilyn is the black darkness infecting our world of electronics. In this highway of energy, I can see a little creature, moving with difficulty in this darkness. Now that she can't see us, let me tell you, I see in this phone two different colors, black and green. They're fighting," he was careful with his choice of words, "twirling like the color phases in a lava lamp. The black tar is dominant; it fills most of the volume. But floating in it is a shiny green creature." He held up the phone to the light. "A creature of light. I feel like I must help it. I feel somehow attracted to it."
"When you look at the glass ball from Mars, do you see any color?" someone asked.
"No. This is different. This is..." He had no words. The group watched as Ronaldo used his sight to decipher the situation. He turned and moved the phone, but unlike a minute ago, nothing affected the light creature. "When I move the phone, without Marilyn watching, the darkness is leaving it alone. What should we do?"
"We all turned our phones off earlier, at your request. If you turn the power on, will that kill it?"
Ronaldo held the power switch of the phone until it turned flickered to life. He waited as it powered up. "No, it's still there, but it also floats in the flat battery."
"The CPU rarely powers down even when the screen is shut down," he continued. “The battery can't be removed in these old models. If we put it in water, the safety mechanism will power it down altogether. You can also try to hold the off switch ten seconds.” Ronaldo held the button, but the device refused to fully power down.
Wayne grabbed a glass jar and poured the clutter out of it. He then filled it with water from the sink. "That should shut it down."
"Will we hurt this creature?" asked Julie.
Without hesitation, Ronaldo dropped the phone in the water. Immediately, he saw the green dot of light fly off on an invisible wireless connection, leaving the room entirely. "It's gone. It flew away, but it didn't die."
"Is the black virus still there? Did the water cleanse the entire phone?" Wayne inquired.
This was brilliant. The creature could not live in the powerless phone but so did the Marilyn. "It did. I can't see any infection. So turning the power off suffices to clean Marilyn out of the system." The mission leader grabbed the glass of water, "Experimentation is a vital part to how science advances. Let's see what returns when I power it up. Either the virus still resides inside the chip and will reinitialize immediately, without aid, or the infection will pour-in from the infected network through its wireless card." Ronaldo grabbed the phone and pulled it out of the water. He wiped it dry. His eyes were focused on it, watching closely for the return of any electronic life.
"None of this makes sense," said a man named Dan as he leaned forward. "These models are usually waterproof." He held up his hand, asking for the phone. Ronaldo realized the man knew more about the phone than he himself did. Touching the little piece of electronic gear was not pleasurable, so he handed it over. Dan turned it on its side, looking at its seams. "As you mentioned earlier, some older models have a safety feature which powers off the device completely if it detects a certain amount of moisture." He held a button for several seconds. "It's now powering up." The man knew what he was doing.
Ronaldo was looking at the device as it energized. "Can you narrate what you see with those magic eyes of yours?" Try and be as specific as possible."
"Okay." As a deep space mission leader, gathering and sending information back was second nature to Ronaldo. "I can't really see the electricity in the device, but I see the phone's circuit design and casing. Both are different light shades of translucent plastic. The entire system now has energy in it, gold specs. Wait, the green creature is back. It flew in like a shooting star from there," he pointed at the wall. "The gold energy has now turned to green. The main CPU, in the middle, pulses with green. This is amazing! The sensations of disgust and disease are gone." Then things changed. "The virus has returned, also like a dark streak from the wall. The green color is drowning again in the black tar, and...wait, now the green light is gone. It flew away again." Ronaldo sighed.
Dan grabbed the phone as if he knew exactly what to do. "Let's try again, but shut down the transceiver so it cannot return," said Dan. The tall man unclipped the back panel of the phone. "Let me know if anything changes. I think that perhaps both the green light and the dark sludge are using the wireless connection to slip into the device. If we can disable the wireless transceiver after the arrival of the green, but before the black, then we might be on to something. Dan dipped a corner of the phone in the water, careful not to let water enter by the open panel he'd had to leave in order to gain quick physical access to the wireless transceiver. "Let's try again."
"The green and the black stuff are both gone," confirmed Ronaldo. Dan pulled the phone up. He grabbed the knife on the table and slid it under the corner of a chip.
"Now, the green has returned, it shines," yelled Ronaldo. On cue, Dan snapped a corner of the chip.
"Did it work?"
"For now. The dark is not coming back. The entire phone is shining in the green light."
"Let's wait." They waited in silence.
"So?" Wayne broke the long silence.
"Still green."
"Now what?"
Ronaldo was holding the phone. It was powered up. He tried dialing the last number in memory. He placed the receiver against his ear. "Hello? Anyone in there?"
"Hello, darling." It was the voice of Marilyn Monroe.