No.
No, absolutely not.
A few people laugh uncertainly. Somebody near the back says, “Oh hells no,” with enough heartfelt conviction that it gets a burst of agreement.
Photonic grins like he’s being fed energy through the floorboards. “Every one of you was selected not just for your competitive potential, but for your story. Your spark. Your past.”
The word lands like a live wire.
Past.
My pulse starts banging hard enough to blur the edges of my vision.
Dax glances at me. “Bron.”
“Don’t,” I say, too quickly.
He goes still.
Onstage, Photonic gestures grandly, and the ring of giant screens flickers from the GXC crest to a storm of stylized silhouettes, hearts splitting into lightning bolts, names dissolving and reforming in silver light.
“Producers,” he declares, “have secretly paired each contestant with someone from their romantic history.”
The room detonates.
Not literally, though give it time. But sound hits all at once—shouts, swearing, laughter sharp with disbelief, one high incredulous scream from somewhere near the media pod, the furious bark of a contestant who sounds like he’s already planning murder.
“What?”
“You have got to be kidding me!”
“No. No, no, no.”
“That violates several spiritual principles!”
I don’t move.
I can’t.
It feels like the hall has gone both too hot and too cold, my skin unable to decide whether to sweat or ice over. The smell of perfume, champagne, polished stone, and human alarm sharpens into something metallic.
Sonya slowly turns her head to look at me.
“You,” she says, voice flat with dawning horror, “have got to be kidding.”
“I am not kidding,” I say.
Dax makes a helpless little noise. “Oh my God.”
Captain Photonic is talking over the uproar, delighted beyond reason. “Yes! Former flames, almost-loves, exes, heartbreaks, unfinished epics—reunited at the greatest competition in the galaxy!”
Somebody yells, “I’m leaving!”
Photonic points at them. “You can try!”
The crowd roars, not with joy exactly, but with the chaotic energy of people realizing they have been professionally ambushed.
Around the room, contestants start scanning for each other with a new kind of panic. Faces go white, red, slack, murderous. One woman near the champagne tower puts both hands over her mouth and whispers, “No, not him,” with the dead stare of a soldier seeing artillery crest the horizon.
