At first, there was guilt of not spending those few moments inside her father's head. As a loving daughter, his happiness was at the center of her every move. She quickly realized Mall-ik, the alien boy, was uniquely capable of giving her father a purpose. The boy was a refugee who enjoyed learning from Laurent, and his mentorship of the boy seemed therapeutic to him. The boy spent every possible moment playing chess with his human companion.

Sophie loved Laurent more than life itself. She felt, in her heart, her father was the key to this latest obstacle called the Sixth Attraction. He needed to stay alive until her birthday and play the Finale; the rest was immaterial. There was a purpose to his existence, and his latest adventure to the Purple as a player reaffirmed the importance he could play.

"What should we do?" she said with her inner voice to Liam.

"I know the computer intelligence is getting restless. She runs billions of scenarios trying to anticipate your every move. I have a nagging feeling she can't guess what you will do next."

"Why?"

"Do you want the complex answer?"

"I am afraid to say yes. Is there a simple version?" said the girl.

"Of course. Determinism of chaos is entangled with your Rho waves. Said differently, your actions are disjointed from your movements in the space-time continuum."

"You call that the simpler version. I have no clue what you just said."

Liam though long for a proper analogy, "She is cooking, and you are a smell. She can't read you because you are fundamentally different."

"Much better," said the girl in her mind. "I use the waves to do things, do I have superpowers?"

"Maybe. Maybe you should try."

"No."

"Why not?"

"I don't know. It's like giving a child a gun and asking what she will shoot first. She shouldn't shoot anything. Why me?"

The girl was standing silent eyes closed next to her father.

"That is a great question. I have a handful of answers, each as improbable is the next. I think you are the heart of a needed consequence. Improbable causes have followed you for well over a year, even before this game began. The accidents leaving you untouched while taking your family and wounding your father is nothing short of a miracle. If I did not know better, I would say someone wanted your family out of this world at a time before your powers were sufficient to save yourself and protect your father."

The girl did not like what this suggested. If he was correct, her father was handicapped, and her mother and brother were dead because of her. "The waves, maybe it's that simple. My father and mother gave me these waves; I was born this way. Perhaps I was not picked. Maybe I'm just the only one born this way."

"You are correct. I also think you are different than all other humans in many unique ways. I have lived a long time as you know I have met millions of creatures. They are all in their way rather easy to categorize. You, my friend, fall into the rarest category; a very strange one indeed."

"What is it?"

"You, Sophie Lapierre, are an anti-hero." He said the words almost with shame.

"What is an anti-hero?"

"Every story has a hero, a person who tries their best to achieve the goal of the story. This hero can be competent or clumsy, but each time the character is faced with the goal, the hero wants to achieve it. Sometimes, instead of a hero, a story revolves around a villain who tries to impede the goal." Sophie liked her new friend. He always made her feel intelligent. The Oldest said the words carefully. "Each story has an end, an objective. Here, it is the Sixth Attraction. The main character always travels along the story to its outcome, which I call consequence. An anti-hero is a main participant forced to travel to an end defined to be irrelevant or hostile to the hero. In a princess story, where the hero must rescue the maiden, an anti-hero is a person who does not care about saving the princess. Don't confuse a villain and an anti-hero. A villain wants the princess not to be rescued. The anti-hero refuses to play along with the story."

"Why do you call me an anti-hero?"

"I think you are the only person of your race who does not care about money or power or even life. Your primary and only care, as it should be, is your father. Your sense of caring for others is unequal for one as young as you. If I were the Multiverse and needed someone to care about me before caring about billions, I would choose you amongst all others. I would entrust you with my life before anyone else. You are, my dear, a pure altruist."

The artificial intelligence was watching the girl fearful of the silence. She knew Sophie was talking to the Oldest in her mind. The young lady smiled and said internally, "I like you, Liam."

"May I ask a question which puzzles me?" asked the Oldest.

"Of course."

Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

"If I were in your position, I would be dreaming of a miracle, of regenerating your father or speaking with the spirit of your mother. You have not tried to change him or contact her. Why not dream of an outcome where your father's body regenerates on November 21. Those powers may do that. Why not rescue the human race, your father, and take the Sixth Attraction seriously?"

"Like a hero?" she joked out loud. She continued internally, "I like your anti-hero theory; it's me. I don't believe in miracles. Things are the way they are for a reason. I correct injustice with all my heart, but my father's condition is more of a last chance. I don't want to do anything which may risk his well-being. Fixing things is often the best way to break them beyond all hope of repair." The human girl was wise beyond her years, thought Liam. She continued, "I know it will sound harsh but I care for my father the way he is. If you love someone, you don't try to change them. People in wheelchairs are full people. Their loved ones should not try to get them to walk, they should accept them with that condition." The young girl was inspiring. "I love him as he is. We have days at most. I have accepted that a long time ago. Dreaming of more is too painful."

"What do you really care about?" asked Liam.

"Not much. I'm tired of all this. The computer, the game and now this Multiverse problem. I think it's unfair this falls on my lap, the same way my father's condition did. I own a house; you know that? I am the only twelve-year-old in the world who legally owns a house, I think. I should be trick-or-treating right now; it's Halloween, my favorite day." Liam did not know what the celebration was, but he felt for the girl. "I am no hero, that's for sure, and I don't want to be one."

"At my age, as you can imagine, I've lived past many bouts of depression and a lack of desire to continue living. I understand in part what you feel, and I can tell you, it will pass. You are a prized creature, a lovely one. Just be yourself. I forgot to say; the anti-hero always saves the world. She simply saves it for a different purpose. An anti-hero is often the only one able to see the door invisible from sight. Anti-hero's make more sense in real life. The Multiverse could have picked hundreds to be a hero, the President for example. You alone require no guidance from Marilyn, myself or even your father. We will all show you the wrong door. I am here to provide context and background, not to help you choose. Trust yourself."

"I really like you, Liam," she added again. “Do you want this world to survive?"

"Honestly? This world, even with its beauty not really. But I do want the Multiverse to heal, yes. I stopped caring about life in the Multiverse millions of years ago. The desire to live is weak. I drove myself with an insatiable thirst to see outside of my world because I wanted to see the Multiverse. Now I found something much stronger to care about: you. I want you to be happy, irrespective of what this means. I am ready to die. If you want this to end, it will, and I will be happy until it does."

"So what should I do?"

"You are asking the wrong person," as Liam said these words, he felt the girl's inner fiber resonate. She was thinking.

"I know what to do," she said out loud. She did not care if Marilyn was listening, in fact, she was also talking to her.

"Finally," replied the elegant female voice in the room, "welcome back. Should I prepare the portal to the Purple? The Nexus requires activation and power."

"I need to be clear," began the artificial intelligence, "the game simulation in the Purple was only designed to help you, not to teach you what to do. From this point forward, you are in charge of what happens, and you call the shots. I agree with Liam, whatever the Sixth Attraction is, we cannot adversely interfere with you. In fact, I don't think we can interfere with it at all. Even if we wanted to."

The girl smiled as she walked to the pod room. She had different plans.

"Are you ready?" asked Sophie to Liam using her inner voice. "Marilyn will not like this."

The cameras were buzzing in the room. The voice of her new friend replied. "Words fail to convey my excitement."

"Don't worry Liam; you'll love this." He felt warmth deep inside her mind. It was a strange fire he had never encountered before. Sophie then continued out loud. "Marilyn, get the pod ready."

"It is. Should I prepare your father for the connection? I need about two minutes for the Dot to power the Nexus."

"No need. I need to try something else. I think I know what needs to happen next; if not, no harm done." She was determined and excited. Liam, locked in her mind marveled at youth: one moment they were toying with despair and the next they were exalted.

"The pod is ready. Milly and Georges are there also. Do you need me to broadcast to the world what you plan to do in the Purple? I know the viewers and myself would love to see what happens next if that is possible."

"If you can send images, please do. I doubt you will be able to." As she entered the gaming room, the rows of chambers were all powered up. The small group had been waiting all night for the girl to decide what she would do next. The Earth was in imminent danger, and the computer had shown the way forward. Georges' trash can overflowed with candy wrappers. Marilyn was on high alert, in fact, she was excited.

"Hi Soph, your father is in great shape," said Susie. From a distance, Milly the journalist unclipped more flying cameras from her belt. They began to buzz around the room. Milly was happy to see Sophie and waved at her as she walked to the nearest pod. The young girl's presence always lit up the room, and today was no exception. The broadcast began down on earth and to the Holiday Inn mars.

Something important was about to happen three weeks before the Sixth Attraction.

After kissing her father, Sophie walked to the pod. The transparent door opened, welcoming her. She wedged the furry creatures inside the pod and jumped in. With both hands, she tied the security belt around her waist and slipped the ring around her head.

"What can I broadcast Sophie?" asked Milly before the girl arched back.

Sophie replied, "You know me, this is their world, they always have a right to know and see. Hiding the truth only creates problems and lies. I just fear you'll be too busy to broadcast. I think what I am about to do is stupid. I apologize in advance," she said as she looked at the camera, speaking directly to the viewers on earth.

The artificial intelligence, capable of faster calculations read Sophie's words, deduced where she was going next. In a lab below Paris Takeda was holding his frog.

She simply had a second to wail "Noooo..."

In a nanosecond, Marilyn tried in vain to cut power to the pod. She could not; the forces at work were much greater than hers. The girl's plan needed power and Marilyn was in no way capable of standing in her way. Electrons punched out quantum barriers to power the helmet. The essence of the world changed. Sophie's power was growing by the day. As if a giant power cord had been pulled somewhere deep below the Electoral Center, the entire place went dark. Every camera, every piece of electronics, or microprocessor on mars and earth shut down.

Alarms in the Center went off as the walls made of millions of magnetized grains of sand began to lose coherence and fall around the room.

***

On earth Marilyn was gone. Takeda walked to the exit guided by blinking safety lights. He released his frog and the God Virus in the wild. In seconds, a bird had touched the frog, then another.