Chapter 66: i Saves the Day
The tension in the air was palpable as the final day of the matchmaking convention dawned, thick enough to spread on toast. The competitors were down to their last challenge, and Julian Ashcroft was pulling out all the stops—literally, as he’d insisted on having every door stopper removed from the venue to create what he called a "seamless technological environnt." Ava had spent the morning reviewing client profiles, fine-tuning her plans, and double-checking every detail with Ryan, all while trying to ignore the faint sound of Julian practicing his victory speech in the adjacent room.
"I swear he’s gotten worse," Ava muttered, rifling through her notes for the tenth ti. "Yesterday I heard him referring to himself in the third person."
Ryan, sprawled in a chair nearby, snorted into his coffee. "Classic villain behavior. Next thing you know, he’ll be stroking a white cat and explaining his evil plan."
As they walked into the event hall, Ava whispered to Ryan, "This feels like walking into a lion’s den."
"Don’t worry," Ryan replied, casually dodging a frantic event coordinator who was sprinting past with an armful of tangled fairy lights. "i’s the kind of person who trains lions, then convinces them to do circus tricks. We’ve got her in our corner."
Ava shot him a skeptical look. "That doesn’t comfort . Last ti i ’helped,’ three people ended up in the fountain."
"To be fair," Ryan pointed out, "they all found true love afterward. Wet, but in love."
---
Unbeknownst to Ava and Ryan, i was already hard at work backstage, implenting one of her infamous sches with all the precision of a cat burglar planning a heist—if the cat burglar wore floral prints and carried ergency matchmaking supplies in her purse. She’d been observing Julian’s team with the kind of keen attention she usually reserved for matchmaking disasters and all-you-can-eat buffets, and she’d noticed sothing intriguing: Julian’s assistants looked about as stable as a house of cards in a wind tunnel.
Eric, the uptight assistant who seed perpetually one coffee away from a nervous breakdown, had been muttering about "system instabilities" all morning. Lila, the younger assistant whose enthusiasm for technology was matched only by her inability to keep her desk plants alive, had been caught frantically googling "how to fix corrupted algorithm urgent please help" during her lunch break.
i saw an opportunity, and like any good chaos agent, she seized it with both hands.
## The Coffee Offensive
While Ava and Ryan busily prepared for the live challenge, i executed Phase One of her plan: Operation Caffeine Chaos. She swept into the competitor’s staging area carrying a tray of coffee that she’d personally "enhanced" with just enough sugar to make anyone question their life choices.
"Hello, dears!" i chirped, her voice hitting that perfect pitch between "helpful grandmother" and "possibly unhinged fairy godmother." She set the coffee tray on the table with a flourish that sent several important-looking papers flying.
Eric looked up from his laptop, his eye twitching slightly. "Uh... who are you?"
"Just a friendly face," i said sweetly, straightening a na tag that read ’VISITOR’ in suspiciously crooked letters. "I thought you could use a little pick--up. You’ve been working so hard! Though I couldn’t help but notice so... concerns?"
Lila’s head snapped up so fast she nearly gave herself whiplash. "Concerns? What concerns? Who’s concerned? We’re not concerned!"
"Oh, just little things," i said airily, waving her hand in a way that sohow managed to knock over a perfectly stable stack of folders. "Whispers about glitches, mumblings about system crashes... but I’m sure it’s nothing to worry about. I an, what’s the worst that could happen? The algorithm completely fails during the live demonstration, Julian’s reputation is irreparably damaged, and you both end up working as birthday party entertainers in New Jersey?"
Eric’s face went through five distinct stages of panic in rapid succession. "That’s... that’s not possible. We’ve run every test—"
"Of course, of course," i soothed, patting his shoulder and sohow leaving behind a fine dusting of glitter. "Though I did hear about that dating app in Seattle that crashed during a major event. Poor developers never worked in tech again. Last I heard, they were teaching interpretive dance to cats."
---
The main event began with all the grace of a giraffe on roller skates. Julian strode onto the stage, his confidence as artificial as his algorithm’s results, while his team huddled backstage like a group of conspiracy theorists trying to decode ancient prophecies through lines of code.
"Ladies and gentlen," Julian announced, his smile so bright it could probably be seen from space, "prepare to witness the future of matchmaking!"
The giant screen behind him chose that exact mont to flicker ominously, displaying what appeared to be a blue screen of death before quickly switching to the intended presentation. Julian’s eye twitched, but he pressed on with the determination of soone ignoring a house fire.
The app’s interface was lagging, the compatibility scores weren’t updating properly, and Eric’s attempts to fix the glitches only seed to make things worse.
On stage, Julian’s frustration was visible, though he tried to maintain his usual air of control. As he introduced his matches, the giant screen behind him displayed compatibility percentages that fluctuated wildly—one couple’s score jumped from 87% to 32% in the span of thirty seconds, prompting murmurs of confusion from the audience.
Ava, anwhile, was in her elent.
Her first couple was a quirky pairing: Natalie, an artist who worked with recycled materials, and Ben, a science teacher with a love of astronomy. On paper, their profiles didn’t scream "perfect match," but Ava trusted her gut.
"Ben," Ava said, introducing him to Natalie on stage, "you ntioned in your questionnaire that you love stargazing. Natalie actually creates art using constellations as inspiration. I thought you two might have so interesting conversations."
Ben adjusted his glasses, looking intrigued. "Constellations, huh? Which ones?"
"Oh, all of them," Natalie said enthusiastically. "But my favorite is Orion. I just finished a sculpture of it using old bicycle chains."
By the ti their segnt ended, the two were animatedly discussing their favorite teor showers, and the audience was visibly chard.
Julian’s match for the sa round, on the other hand, was a disaster. His algorithm had paired two fitness enthusiasts, but instead of bonding over their shared love of exercise, they got into a heated debate about the superiority of yoga versus CrossFit.
Astrid, not to be outdone, tried to "channel Venus’s energy" for her match. Unfortunately, the audience seed more entertained by her dramatic gesticulations than by the couple’s awkward small talk.
As Ava introduced her second match—a pastry chef nad Clara and a bookshop owner nad Henry—i suddenly appeared in the front row, holding a sign that read, Intuition Rules!
Ava groaned inwardly. "What is she doing?" she muttered to Ryan, who was watching from the wings.
"Being i," Ryan said with a shrug. "At least she’s not throwing confetti. Yet."
Despite i’s antics, Clara and Henry hit it off, bonding over their shared love of classic literature and buttercream frosting. By the ti they exchanged numbers, the audience was cheering.
Julian, anwhile, was visibly unraveling. His third match—a tech entrepreneur and a lifestyle blogger—had just discovered that they’d briefly dated in college and parted on less-than-amicable terms. The tension on stage was so thick you could cut it with a knife.
---
By the end of the event, Ava’s matches had won over the audience with their genuine connections and heartfelt conversations. Even the host seed chard, praising her "personal touch" as he announced the final round of voting.
As the results were tallied, Ava glanced at Ryan, who gave her a subtle thumbs-up.
"Ladies and gentlen," the host said, his voice booming through the room, "the winner of this year’s Live Matchmaking Showdown is... Ava Lee!"
The audience erupted into applause as Ava stepped forward, her heart pounding.
Julian, still holding his malfunctioning tablet, managed a tight-lipped smile as he shook her hand. "Well played, Lee."
"Thanks," Ava said, her tone polite but triumphant. "Maybe next ti, try trusting your instincts."
Julian’s jaw tightened, but he said nothing as Ava turned to face the cheering crowd.
—
Backstage, Ava sank into a chair, exhausted but exhilarated.
"You did it," Ryan said, handing her a bottle of water.
"We did it," Ava corrected, smiling up at him.
Ryan leaned against the wall, his expression softening. "You know, for soone who claims not to believe in chaos, you handle it pretty well."
Ava laughed, unscrewing the bottle cap. "Coming from the king of chaos, I’ll take that as a complint."
From across the room, i and Harold watched with matching grins.
"Think she suspects?" Harold whispered.
"Not a chance," i said, her eyes twinkling. "And that’s exactly how it should be."
The convention wasn’t over yet, but for the first ti, Ava felt like she had the upper hand. Chaos or not, she was ready for whatever ca next.
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