And across the room?—
Tilda.
She doesn’t look at me yet.
She’s looking at the stage with the stillness of somebody who has gone past surprise and landed in a colder, more lethal country.
Captain Photonic spreads his arms to embrace the whole disaster. “This season’s theme—our guiding star, our central test, our beautiful catastrophe—is…”
He pauses.
The music cuts to a low, vibrating thrum.
Then he shouts it.
“LAST CHANCE AT ROMANCE!”
The words explode across every screen in giant silver letters surrounded by animated sparks and blooming neon hearts that fracture into challenge symbols.
I actually laugh.
Not because it’s funny.
Because my nervous system briefly gives up and starts improvising.
Dax stares at the screens. “That is criminal.”
Sonya says, “I think I just felt my soul leave through my teeth.”
All around us, contestants are reacting in real time. Outrage. Denial. A few delighted maniacs who apparently enjoy pain if it’s packaged romantically. Reporters are nearly vibrating with pleasure. Camera drones dive lower, greedy for every flinch and curse and expression of personal devastation.
Captain Photonic is still talking, but now it’s just decorative noise under the blood-rush in my ears.
He says something about chemistry. Redemption. Teamwork under emotional pressure. Couples-based twists. Audience investment. Narrative arcs.
None of it matters.
Because the screens are changing again.
The silver title dissolves. New graphics spin up, more precise now: contestant names arranged in pairs, accompanied by photos, archived clips, whatever ugly little data set the producers scraped together to make our private histories presentable.
“Contestants,” Photonic cries, “meet your match!”
The display screens erupt.
Names everywhere.
Faces.
Gasps ripple through the room as pairings appear overhead.
Sonya finds hers and actually chokes on air. “No. Absolutely not. He’s in prison-adjacent.”
Dax squints upward. “Oh, hell. Mine is that woman from the Vexa campaign? We went out twice. Twice! That barely qualifies as disastrous.”
“Apparently it qualified enough,” I say, but the words come out thin.
Because one of the largest screens, centered right over the room, flashes and locks.
