Dara, Page, and the Secrets of the Multiverse

▷ 14.2

If there was a way to opt out of this summon, Dara would have tried it. As she went through her morning routines, she entertained all possible methods to sit this one out without involving a round of painstaking paperwork.

PAGE, as the AI matchmaker was fondly called, was nothing but a program, a heartless algorithm that its parent developer, GenSol, used to doom people for a whole afternoon of their precious weekends. Should Dara enroll in a machine learning course and hack her way into PAGE and delete all her data? Perhaps hire a hacker and shut the AI down? Both required more time and resources than actually going on the dates, so...no thanks.

Without much of a choice, Dara donned her eco-watch, slung her gaudy rhinestone pouch on her shoulder, and strode out of the apartment she shared with her sister, dragging herself towards a stately building in the middle of an overpopulated city.

Every summon started off the same way. The potential couple met at a building designated by GenSol where they were supposed to fill out several forms including the quit claim and data forms. Then, the paired couple would proceed to the cafe. Whether or not the date went well or not, they were required to head back to the building and sign their names into the exit forms. They must also provide the AI with reasons why the date worked and why it didn't. GenSol claimed it would make the machine more efficient and accurate in coming up with the matches, but really, maybe it was for stoking the company's flames and tooting their own horn. Dara was into this as a cat was to an ant.

Now, after arriving a few minutes ago, she was made to wait inside a white room with nothing but a row of cubicles, white plastic office chairs, and glass partitions meant to divide a reflected half on the other side. It reminded Dara of a prison visitation room, except there wasn't any distinction between prisoner and visitor.

Sitting in a blank, white room dressed in the tackiest clothes she owned couldn't have been made more impossible. She crossed her legs at the ankles, her legs bouncing against the steel-cold plastic chair. It has been more than twenty minutes since she arrived at the cubicle designated for her, but the opposite seat behind the glass partition remained empty. A frown colored Dara's lips. What a douche. Being late was hardly fashionable these days. And if there was anything she hated more than soggy pasta, it was anything that wasted her time.

All around her, the scheduled appointments started standing up and leaving with their prospective dates, leaving Dara the only one seated. She tamped down the feeling of abandonment down her gut, watching faces instead. Some exiting couples have an excited buzz around them. Great. Both of them were thrilled to be here until such time the other party did something off-putting. Then, it would be the worst day of their lives.

Others were more muted, as if going through the same phase as her sister and her now. Just show up and deal with it on the fly—it seemed to be written all over their faces. Sometimes on only one party, most times on both. If Dara was the AI, she'd have the time of her life, watching people shrivel and die inside with every passing day.