The Lapierre family was resting peacefully in a luxurious bedroom, feet from the large competition amphitheater. They'd arrived at it about an hour ago, but time here felt different. To each of the five (three physical bodies) people in the room, the game had ended quite some time ago. Sophie guessed there was a war out there, high above in the sky and somehow she would be blamed for part of it, but she was resolved not to care. Adults annoyed her and Marilyn acted at times like one.

She felt, in her heart, like they weren't in any danger. In fact, she knew it. Saying so would have cemented her role as the Attractor in most eyes. There was only one problem really: Marilyn might be trigger happy and destroy part of this ecosystem in trying to protect everyone.

Nothing, aside from the lower gravity, made this room different from one located in the northern part of the Indiana where Sophie was born. She knew the walls were like children's construction blocks made of stacked microscopic robots, but they were covered by screens, and the illusion was perfect. At the moment, the walls seemed to be unevenly painted plaster sprinkled by low-quality frames. On three of the walls were small windows behind which one could see the lush earth countryside. There was a road, a valley, and two rounded hay bales in the distance.

Sophie kept her eyes open as she spoke to Liam, her internal companion. When Laurent was in the room, she never communicated with Liam inwardly or gave any other indication that she regarded her father as anything less than a whole person. He deserved to hear her conversations, even if the doctors agreed he could not. They had been proven wrong so many times, why not about that? Sophie was no fool; she knew that her dad had long lost his contact with this world, but some things deserved to be ignored.

For once, the cameras were out, and that didn't feel right.

"Marilyn, can you broadcast to people on earth what's going on here?"

"Of course," said a distant voice. "The new default setting is one where you are filmed. Please let me know if you want this setting to be changed."

"Thank you." The broadcast began including at La Sorbonne.

She was on her back on the bed throwing her white plush dog to the ceiling. She liked the low gravity, on a bed her back barely felt the tissue. It was a bit like floating on a waterbed at home. Thanks to the low gravity, it also took Oscar nearly ten seconds to travel back to her hands. At home, balloons bounced the same way. It was just neat to do it here with heavier stuff.

"Did you hear him?" Sophie began, speaking out-loud, "He said 'Get Evert Martian.' The President has never asked me to do anything, he knows better. That means something, right? Should I do what he wants? Is that what Marilyn wants? That must mean to destroy the clouds above, right? Those are the Martians? Is that even possible? I don't know what to do. Why does he think I can help?"

Liam waited before interrupting, his boundless admiration for Sophie prevented him from doing so. Finally, he spoke, "Because President Emilio is probably right," whispered Liam.

"Sophie?" interrupted Marilyn.

"Yes?"

"I can read Liam's words by looking at your retinal reactions. Most of the time, I can translate his words when your eyes are open. The viewers might benefit from hearing his words. May I add them to the broadcast?"

"That's a great idea. Any objection Liam?" Everyone knew the Oldest would not oppose Sophie.

"Overvoice mode enabled," said the Artificial Intelligence. "Sorry for the interruption."

"Liam, please, go on,” said the girl.

"Yes. As I was saying, Emilio's words are probably right. You are critical to the Sixth Attraction, but the man is a seer. His words should be weighed carefully, and ignored with great peril. Most seers are verbose, but he told you simply three words. I know humans call the words of a seer prophecy. It is future forecasting and giving variable wording to define alternate futures. I knew we would face one at some point."

"I don't understand."

"Libraries in my world are filled with doctrines about prophecies. Nothing in them make complete sense. The Multiverse does not handle time the way you and I see and feel it. The seer simply sees time more the way the Multiverse really is. I do have a way to teach prophecy that makes some sense. Over the years I have given this class multiple times.”

“Really? A class?”

“My life has been very long. Let's say that Emilio sees the future and sees that tomorrow your hair is wet, but he does know how it got that way. It may rain, you may take a shower, swim, or someone may have pulled a prank and dumped water all over you. The problem is, I am trying to help you not get your hair wet. If a seer tells you a prank is in your future, you will be careful but it seems like that only shifts the cause, and instead, you'll get caught in the rain via a different cause.”

“Emilio works like the Multiverse? He sees a consequence instead of a cause?”

Liam took a moment to answer as he realized the brilliance of the girl. Sophie was learning very rapidly how the Multiverse worked. “Yes, Yes. To alter the future, seers walk a very tight line as multiple causes create the seen consequence. They must not tell you a prank is coming until the last moment to avoid a new consequence to substitute itself. For example, the seer might give a prophecy linked with a cat. He sees your hair will be wet as you open a door on top of which a bucket of water is balanced and about to fall on you, and in that instant, you notice a cat in the room. You step back, and as you do, the bucket misses you. Prophecy serves to alter the cause to consequence nexus."

"That's very convoluted."

"Time manipulation is never easy. It is full of paradox. At each of the Attractions, I have witnessed some type of prophecy. This one is concise: only three words. Emilio tried to help by narrowing down his words. Some seers write full books for a single prophecy. This one is an action, so Emilio wants you to do something which you could carry out in many ways."

"No killing?"

"What do you mean, sweet one?"

"Killing the Martians? Do I need to destroy that cloud? That's what Marilyn wanted me to do."

"No. I can promise, there is no killing involved. May I try and assist you in understanding his words and what they mean?"

Sophie felt like Liam wanted to impress and help her. "Yes," she said, knowing the explanation would be endless. She did her best not to smile, but she figured both Liam and Marilyn would catch it anyway.

"Prophecies must be read carefully, and we should never step out of the scope of the words. I'll show you why. I taught many classes on prophecy over the years; I hope I do not oversimplify things too much. Emilio spoke three simple, common words. The first word is a verb, the word 'get' and not 'kill.' The prophecy is univocal, just 'get.' That verb may mean many things: it can mean assemble, transport, hold, and a whole bunch of other more defined verbs. Most prophecies use the verbs 'be' or 'have' which can mean just about anything."

"Like when we use a swear word?"

"Precisely. Terms like those have many meanings. What does 'get' mean to you Sophie? In my class we had exercises. Let's do one. Can you give me a sentence that starts with the word 'get' and not the word 'getting?'"

"Get money until retirement," she said after some hesitation.

"Strange choice. Why did you pick it?"

"Because that's why we are here, no? My father is playing to take care of me. He will make an income and then retire."

Liam did not probe deeper. "So you are using the word get as acquiring, collecting, earning. There are other meanings, but whatever we settle on, the meaning of 'get' to you must be what your heart thinks it means."

"That makes sense."

"The second word is equally meaningful; it is a determiner. The word 'every' is not a pronoun. Emilio could have used 'the' pluralized the word martians. That would have been 'Get the Martians' or 'Get all Martians.' So we must respect this distinction. Once again, can you do a sentence with the word every in it?"

Sophie had to think. She finally said, "Get everyone home safe."

"I love it."

"What, did I do wrong? I used everyone, not simply every, sorry."

"No, quite the contrary. Some words have limited versions of themselves. Like you could have used get-out or every-time. You used 'everyone,' which gives us a subgroup. We are moving along nicely. Now think of a sentence with the word 'martians.'"

"That's easy, martians live on mars."

"Wonderful."

"You're just playing with me!"

"Never. Let's just say my capacity to help you navigate the Sixth Attraction is very limited. Your world is new to me, and the Multiverse is too complex to understand. But I, being fantastically old, have mastered the rules of prophecy. When we replace the words and meanings, we get something resembling 'collect everyone who lives on mars.' What does that mean to you?"

"The ones on Mercury, those are the only martians that are not here. We must get them safely home."

"There are more."

"Which ones?"

"Electoral spoke of many vessels sent by this local culture when this planet shifted position in the solar system. At least one crashed on mercury with survivors. Maybe others survived. There is also a martian on earth right now."

"What?"

"Yes. True, you may not know about him. His name is Ronaldo Corvas, and earlier today I saw him speak to the President. He is in a city called San Francisco. He was human and mission leader here a month ago; Marilyn plans to make him the main character of Round 29, which I believe will happen within the next few days. The martians recruited him, in a manner of speaking, destroyed his body, and now he is on earth."

"Poor guy. Are we done with your explanation? That was shorter than I imagined."

"One more step. Here, time is essential. You must not think or reason. I will say something, and you must say the first thing that comes to mind, even if it seems unrelated. Ready?"

"I guess."

"Fast, you promise?"

"Yes," said the girl.

"Get every Martian!"

"What?"

"The words are 'Get every Martian.' Say what comes to mind."

"Liam, if I wanted to be in class, I would boot my tutor." She could feel his disappointment. "Okay, what came to me was one word. It made no sense." She felt the mood of her companion lighten. He waited patiently. "Tired." She was lying.

"What do you mean?"

"This stupid game, this stupid thing called the Sixth Attraction. I'm tired of this crap. I'm like my father. It's been a very exhausting year and a half. I figured at least on mars I could hide, stay away from everyone and let my father play for a month." Her words touched Liam. Sophie was twelve. She was mature beyond her years, but this entire scenario was no walk in the park. "You know what I really want?" she said in a quiet voice.

"No."

She stopped throwing the stuffed dog. She held the words in, along with her tears. She needed to be a big girl. Her father depended on her and if any of this strange situation was true, much more depended on her. "Tell you what, you help me with the prophecy. You will see it. Just warn me, okay?”

There was only one answer he could give. "Of course Sophie. Sorry to have pushed this on you."

“You want the truth,” she asked in silence. As she did Liam felt a wind of emotion and power build.

“Please do.”

“My mother, she had a saying, ‘get every man and woman onboard’ each time we would get in the car.” Liam trembled with what she was about to say. “Those were her last words to me that night.”

Like deep and thick ice, cracks began to spread thought the fabric of the Multiverse.

“Prophecy,” whispered Liam.