Meanwhile in Berlin

It was a humid night.

Emilio and his small security detail were heading back up the elevator after speaking to his experts, getting his Jester hired and asking a friend to quietly investigate the Ark. The President wondered why they still insisted on using the basement of the building when they knew how much he hated going down there. In his strange unique mind, he knew the entire structure could collapse one day, suffocating everyone inside. He saw a wall of pulverized cement crash down at him.

Placing a couple of pieces on this gigantic board was insufficient. Emilio needed to do more. The situation ahead was not ordinary. The once great world chess champion, Garry Kasparov, had dominated against rivals like Anatoly Karpov by cluttering the board. This had the combined effect of increasing the number of potential outcomes while simultaneously disguising certain tactical maneuvers. Karpov, on the other hand, was a master at precision; as the pieces disappeared, his skills grew stronger. Emilio felt the circumstances, and in particular, his own personal talents, called for Kasparov's approach. He needed to introduce more randomness, more chaos.

The flow of future outcomes returned to Emilio's vivid mind. He saw hundreds of stories, each more complex. Stories in books, unlike real life, were almost always linear. They had a single villain with an awful purpose. He hoped Nick was such an antagonist, and once his plans with the Ark were foiled, peace would return. However, the Mexican knew life refused to play by those cinematographic rules. The problem he was facing was tentacular. In his gut, he felt he was battling a hydra, the mythical creature with regenerating heads; cut one off and two grew in its place. The old ghost and his Visconti were just one piece of this puzzle.

There was a fact he had forgotten to bring to the attention of the SAC. Yesterday, he'd woken up drenched in cold sweat. He'd seen the sun change color and explode, destroying all life in the solar system. His vision had been triggered by the news earlier that day the yellow ball was now emitting more neutrinos. The President had an expert understanding of physics. He knew the massless particle called a neutrino was, by itself, of no concern. It flew through the earth at the speed of light rarely interacting with matter, but a change in emission rate, though, meant a change in the core structure of the sun. Someone or something was tinkering with the nature of physics itself or was implementing a doomsday solution. It was doubtful Marilyn had such power or reckless disregard for the world, but at this point, he wasn't ruling anything out.

Emilio saw more than visions; his mind played movies before his eyes. Some were of alien invasions, others of Marilyn uniting with martians to take over the earth. Each scenario ended with the destruction of mankind. Sophie was the strange linchpin; she was absent from every dream. His visions were unable to latch on to her. That was, in his opinion, a good sign. It meant the future, however dangerous, was unwritten where she was concerned. If there was a future in which Sophie lived, perhaps the rest of humanity could ride her coattails to continued survival. Either way, he knew she was of critical importance to the events lying ahead.

He also felt sure of the date. The finale of the Electoral 2072 competition would be the stage of what was next. That was a little more than a month away. After that, he saw darkness. He was so inundated with the future that he nearly tripped and fell as he walked back to the elevator. Unable to slow the visions, he grabbed the elbow of the Colonel. It was the best he could do. To his credit, Patrick betrayed no response.

"How about that burger now?" suggested the President. Emilio needed to eat a thick cheeseburger with fries, but the Colonel was insisting on showing him one more floor of the building before they could retire for the evening. The four men returned to the death box and rode it up to floor 54, to the Electoral Monitoring Center, or EMC.

This group of computer wizards monitored, as best as they could, the artificial intelligence known simply as Electoral or Marilyn. Since her exodus from earth to mars in 2069, the cell's usefulness and budget had greatly decreased.

The elevator door opened. There was almost no security on this floor. Patrick led the way leaving the two security personnel behind. By the time the pair arrived at the glass doors of the EMC, the President was finally free of his visions. The personnel in the EMC stood as they walked in. The back wall was covered by hundreds of screens. This place looked like a NASA launching pad geared toward software piracy. Patrick insisted on the decorum. They all saluted. The group rarely saw the President and was desperate to prove its usefulness. Electoral had recently pulled off some very surprising and confusing stratagems which the EMC had failed to anticipate. Emilio didn't expect them to out-maneuver Marilyn any great percentage of the time, but it would have been nice to know about the existence of something like the mars catapult that had whisked Sophie and Laurent away before it actually happened.

"Talk to me," said the President as he put his tumbler on the coffee table, and poured himself a cup of cold coffee from a warming pot. He put his hands on the cup, brought it to his face, and breathed in. "Shitty coffee is a sign people here are busy with important things. This is probably the worst thing I have smelled this week, nice job."

"Fabien," said the team leader to one of the young programmers.

As everyone sat down, a nervous teenager remained standing. "Sir, take a look." Data began to structure itself on some of the screens. The information included images, video clips, and audio files. "During the Presidential Challenge, fifty minutes ago, the Marilyn character was on the air and we saw her standing up next to what looked like your physical body for a full seventy seconds." The screens corroborated the kid's narration.

"Forty-six minutes ago," corrected the President.

"Yes, sorry." The President couldn't help himself. Time was just so central to him. "As part of her introduction into the game, all viewers except yourself saw Marilyn walk into your office as a virtual image as you were preparing to play. The entire scene, including the images of your office and yourself, were generated by Marilyn. The reproductions were based off true security footage. It may not be real footage, but it's as close as you can come. Of course, she was not physically present in the room next to you. Your assistant Kai was out of the room as well. Because of the highest level of security in your office, we were able to observe several 'interesting' changes." He sat down, keyed commands and continued. "We all know the image of Marilyn, while only an image, always appears to be breathing. There is no reason why she would simulate breathing except for..."

"Vanity," Emilio interjected.

"Maybe..." said the analyst reflexively before correcting himself. "Yes, vanity." He was talking to Emilio Sanchez, the one man who understood the digital creature. The young expert continued. "She tampered with the carbon dioxide monitors in your office." The President raised an eyebrow, inviting explanation. "Your office security includes air controls designed to pick up any extra breathing in case an intruder enters with some kind of visual camouflage. There's also a system that detects the precise amount of weight on the floor to within a gram. This is hard security to bypass for any intruder. Few know it's even there. At the same time the Marilyn character appeared in the room on the screen of the digital world, she noticed that neither the CO2 or floor sensors were registering her as a life form. Apparently she didn't like that. So she went into our environmental and security programs, bypassed them, and changed the readings so the sensors registered her presence like she was there, physically in the room, with mass and breath."

"I'm not surprised," said the President to himself.

"Then, after her departure, she reset the values."

"I'm not sure if she even knows she's doing that type of stuff," said Emilio.

"Sir, she's a computer. She must enable routines, give commands... she has to know."

"Nope, she doesn’t. I see her as a life form, and most of what living creatures do is subconscious. We don't control our breathing unless we focus on it. We don't look where we put each foot as we walk. I am certain she played with these settings subconsciously."

There was a long silence. Emilio offered some of the awful coffee to Patrick. He politely demurred.

"Sir, look at this," continued the analyst. Different images appeared on the screen. These were sound waves. "Unlike a digital sound produced by a speaker, a normal human voice is extremely irregular and includes many imperfections. Vocal cords are not perfect strings. Singers work all their lives to create smoother sounds. When Marilyn speaks, she sends sound to a speaker in a room, so her voice is always digital, perfectly modulated, and generated from a speaker. She cannot speak with human imperfections." The man touched a button, a voice played, it was grainy and imperfect. A short track played. The accompanying lines produced by the waveform generator were extremely uneven. "Take a look at the words pronounced by Electoral in April this year." This line was smoother, more electronic and without the imperfections. The waveform was flawless.

"Let me guess, she's talking like us now?" ventured Emilio.

"Partly correct. That's a portion of it." A track of Marilyn's voice played. The man continued. "With today's voice recognition technology, we can identify any voice on earth."

Patrick chimed in, "Very helpful to track criminals."

"I think I know the answer. She is powerful, and wants to emulate being human." The President was losing patience.

"We compared her 'new' mode of speech to old archival footage. She is now talking to viewers using the real voice of Marilyn Monroe. When she talks, what we hear is now identical to the voice of the real actress from the 1950's."

"So?" The famous “Happy Birthday” sung by Marilyn to President Kennedy played. The recording was less than perfect, but with some work, the curves on the screen we made to match. "She is serious about details and she mimics human behavior. What's new?"

The man was trying to find the right words to convey a very complicated concept. "Marilyn is a machine, or at the very least, relies on them as critical organs. She has no vocal cords and must use speakers to express herself audibly. In your office, she used normal speakers of this type." A picture of the little devices appeared along with their manufacturing specifications. The little black piece of equipment was gyrating on a corner of a screen. "We spoke with the manufacturer of this speaker, he agrees, these speakers cannot generate her human voice. Look at this voice she generates”—he pointed back and forth between Marilyn's new voice waveform and a portion of the speaker schematic—“we don't know how she manages to speak like a human."

"What's your name?" asked the President.

"Private Munro."

"Why are we discussing something so trivial?" Emilio wasn't upset, he was just puzzled. There was a different reason why he was in the room; they were beating around the bush. "Munro, her power is such that she is punching a live two-way data feed comprised of billions of client interfaces between mars and earth with the sun standing smack-dab in the path of the signal. Why should I care about the voice recognition algorithm?"

The young man was frustrated by his own capacity to convey a critical piece of a puzzle.

"Electoral now mimics human behavior every chance she gets, and her efforts are becoming increasingly obsessive. Take a look at this." This was part of the introduction to the Challenge. Marilyn was standing next to a digital version of the President ready to play. The camera zoomed in the bottom portion of the actress' shirt. There were wrinkles. "And here..." He focused on her shoe. A portion of the heel was scraped. "Even this..." The camera moved to the label on the jeans. It read "Levi's 401 - Designer Edition - Pair 231.344."

The programmer continued, "Not only is the image of Marilyn wearing a custom-made pair of jeans, she actually ordered this exact real pair from Earth. The Levi's corporation confirmed that it was built and delivered on Mars over a month ago. In fact, she has hundreds of outfits. She owns an entire wardrobe on Mars, and picks from it what she wears on a given day."

Emilio laughed. "Hundreds of changes, you said?"

"Yes."

"Guys, I need a burger. Stop wasting our time. I'm not going to budget any more of it for this without a good reason. Who has something really weird for me?" asked the President. "Try saying something you don't want to say out loud for fear of being fired."

A different analyst tentatively raised his hand. He expected someone to yell at him. No one dared.

The President placed the coffee back on the table next to the coffee-maker and grabbed his Scotch tumbler. "Make it count. You are standing between me and the best fries in Germany." The man was too nervous to speak. "Say it!" Emilio took a step closer and leaned forward, using both arms. The young man he'd addressed was visibly struggling. Emilio grabbed a napkin from next to the coffee machine, and pulled out a large pen from his pocket. He handed it to the young man and gestured to the items with a kind nod.

The analyst scribbled something. He handed the tissue to Emilio with a shaking hand, who was careful to hide the words as he read them. He feared he was close to losing this job.

"Ha!" said Emilio out loud after reading the scribble. The President made a very distinctive sound each time he was surprised or impressed. The network comedians had a field day imitating this sound. Emilio reread the words, looked at the director of the group standing next to Patrick and pointed at the analyst who had just handed him the napkin. "No one take this badly. I don't need any ego problems here. This guy is in charge now. The rest of you, please help him. Top secret about this. He must report to me. Is that clear?"

"Me?" stuttered the startled analyst.

"Well...this..." Emilio waived the napkin. "This is what you guys are working on from now on. Simple enough? What's your name?"

"Eric."

"Well Eric, you have days, not weeks to build a case to support what you are saying here."

There was a long silence. Patrick offered, "Mr. President, before we grab the burger, can I show you one more thing?" The Colonel was trying to take advantage of Emilio's strangely cooperative mood.

"Okay." The answer surprised Patrick. He'd now made Emilio deviate twice from his carefully paced schedule and his precious burger. Patrick had rarely seen the President willing to sacrifice more than a couple of minutes. Unbeknownst to Patrick, Emilio had plans for the man; they required much of him. He was trying to be nice.

Emilio knew about group morality and empathy. He needed these people all pulling in the same direction, in tandem. As he left, he said, "Go have a drink at the bar, and no jealousy. This planet needs teamwork, cohesion. Eric is onto something. Don't let Marilyn snoop in." The President was great at voicing positive reinforcements. "You've all earned your salary today, you all got the ball closer to the post. From the person who trained you”—he nodded at the EMC's Director—“to the guy who tuned in the fine details”—he nodded at Munro—“to the guy who saw what I needed him to see.” He nodded at Eric. “Keep up the good work."

Patrick and Emilio walked out toward the elevator.

"What the hell was on that paper?" asked the Colonel.

Emilio reached into his pocket, unfolded the paper, and handed it carefully to Patrick away from the cameras. The Colonel was worried about the good level of respect and collaboration he was getting from his boss. In Patrick's experience, that did not bode well for him from a convenience standpoint. On the paper was written: She is hiding a collective via individualism.

"What?"

Emilio looked up at one of the security cameras as if to talk to Marilyn, "I finally got her. Trust me, if this kid is right, and I think he is, we are in for one fast ride. That doesn't explain everything, but it helps. This may not be true but he is onto something.”

"Seriously? How is that even possible?"

The two walked to the elevator, and Emilio hesitantly stepped inside, he reached for the button for the Lobby but saw the friend’s expression.

"Where were we going?" He asked. Patrick pushed the 58th floor button on the panel.

Emilio cringed. “No security.”

“Agreed.”