I bought Baldur's Gate 3 on Saturday and my internet is so bad that it's still downloading today! Lol. And this is better internet than I used to have. I'm excited for it, and I'm totally banging Astarion if I can manage it, but my friends tell me that makes me "basic" because he's the typical choice. RIP.

At least I'm not starting as a human fighter, though. And once I've done a solo, my friends and I are planning to play a full co-op campaign where we're all bards RP'ing as a full musical band who have somehow ended up tasked with saving the land.

Cover Art: Kirire

Chapter 66

It had been a week since Blake stepped into water any deeper than two metres, and she was the happier for it. A quiet week, for the first time in what felt like forever, during which she enjoyed a few massages, called her parents twice, and even spent a day out shopping with Ruby for parts she wanted to add onto her scythe – which would become a Slave Anomaly once she found a way to craft one to it. And after she was hired by ARC Corp, of course. Ruby adamantly refused to acknowledge the former argument that left to her firing.

Honestly, Blake was happier with that. Hanging out with Ruby was simple fun and she didn't want her free time muddied with drama and misery. If things were quiet, she was happy, and the only anomaly she wanted to deal with was the cute, eight-legged kind that hissed and clicked its molars so adorably whenever it was scuttling around her.

Blake freely admitted she was messed up, but, in her defence, it was mostly Jaune's fault.

"Have you heard the news?" asked Jaune when Blake let herself into the Containments Office. He had a newspaper up in front of him, upon the front cover of which she could make out some story about the falling price of dust. Blake didn't think that was what he meant, especially not when it was ARC Corp manipulating the price to fall.

Profit wasn't their focus like it had been the SDC's, though they were obviously still sacrificing people to that monster. Blake wondered if Coral Arc had been used as a bullet or fuel for a microwave, and whether eating food made via the dust her body had become would have counted as cannibalism. Then, with a shake of her head, she decided she wasn't interested in knowing at all.

"You'll have to be more specific. There's a lot of news out. I didn't notice any that looked anomalous."

"Neither did I," admitted Jaune, "and yet we've been asked to speak with someone who's been arrested. There's a suspicion the cause might be anomalous. Have you heard the case of the matchmade murderer?"

"I have, actually. It was on TV the other night. Wasn't it some woman who murdered her best friend because she wanted to marry her husband?"

A horrible story to hear on the news, but sadly not that unusual. A crime of passion, and one she wouldn't have been surprised to find inside a gritty detective drama. According to the news, she and the victim had been friends since high school, but it was clear the murderer hadn't been as happy for her friend's marriage as she made it out to be. The jealousy must have festered for years.

The most surprising thing to Blake about it all was the idea the now widowed husband might somehow be okay with it and marry the killer. He hadn't, of course, and had been the one to call the police and hand her in. Blake wasn't sure what the woman had been thinking, but then why expect common sense from an insane killer? It soon trickled into Blake's mind why Jaune was bringing this up, and she leaned back uncomfortably.

"Tell me we're not talking to her. Jaune, she's a psycho!"

"I don't disagree. But something about her answers has the chief of police concerned there might be something anomalous at foot."

"Does… Does she get to walk free if there is?"

"It depends on what the anomaly does. If it literally took control of her and made her kill that person, then yes. We create a new life for her. If not, then no. It's not up to us to decide anyway; it's the police who make that call. And trust me, they're not liberal with it. Unless she literally had no control over her own actions, she'll be going to prison."

/-/

It was uncomfortable to look at the woman through a pane of glass and think how she didn't look like a killer. The woman had short blonde hair, a warm smile, and soft, slightly pudgy features. She was neither overweight nor slim and bore no defining marks. She was remarkably plain, no different from any civilian woman who'd spent her life in the city, and who Blake might have run into at the local supermarket.

And yet she had murdered someone.

Blake hated the way she'd even thought the killer "didn't look the type" as if criminals had to fit some mould or look ugly. That was dangerous talk often pushed by movies and TV who featured handsome heroes and ugly villains. It was already a worrying fact that juries were more likely to believe an attractive person in court, and she didn't want to be part of that problem.

"River Anders," said the Chief of the VPD, Mira Ash, who had brought them in here. She was an older woman with an uncompromisingly annoyed set to her jaw and little patience. It was obvious she didn't want them here, but obvious she felt she didn't have a choice. "Murdered her childhood friend, Samantha Waters, two days ago and dismembered her body, then tried to move in and seduce Mrs Waters' husband while he was grieving. An amateur killer by all accounts, who left more than enough evidence to tip off the husband, and then more than enough for us to prove her guilt with only a cursory search of her home. Plenty of blood to be found. By all accounts, she's guilty, and she hasn't shown much in the way of remorse either."

"What makes you think this is anomalous?" asked Jaune.

"By her own testimony, and information from the husband, River and Samantha were fast friends for years, and River had been very supportive of her friend's marriage. She was bridesmaid at the wedding and helped them mend the occasional split that came between them. As far as the couple were concerned, River was the perfect friend. There had also been no evidence she had feelings for the husband before this point, and now… well, wait until you talk to her. Things have changed."

"It's the suddenness that has you worried?" asked Blake.

"Not just that. You'll see when you talk to her. I'd rather you experience it yourself. If I point out my suspicions, you'll be more likely to see them and might invalidate the evidence. Better you come to the same conclusion on your own." The uniformed woman sighed. "And we've had similar cases. I'll explain more after. Go on in. She's harmless."

"I'm sure that's what her victim thought."

"I mean she's harmless now. Doesn't even-" Another sigh. "Just go in. You'll see what I mean."

Blake couldn't help but think there should have been a lot more paperwork, talk and preparation before they were sent in to talk with a killer. They were so far beyond the law that it didn't matter, however. Even if Blake would have preferred it. Jaune opened the door and stepped in, holding it open for her. The woman looked up and smiled politely at them. She didn't look afraid of the two suited strangers, even as they took seats opposite her.

"Mrs Anders," said Jaune. "I am Jaune Arc, and this is Blake Belladonna. We are state agents who have been assigned to your case and we'd like to ask you a few questions if that's okay."

"Oh, that's fine," said River, "but it's not Mrs Anders anymore." Her face took on a wistful smile. "It's River Waters." She giggled. "A funny name, I suppose. I always used to joke about that – how I could have never married Max because then my name would end up sounding so silly."

Blake eyed Jaune, who looked back. There was no way her name was River Waters, and no way the husband of the deceased had agreed to marry his wife's killer within two days of her murder. Had she lost her mind? Possibly. It must have taken a certain degree of insanity to kill your best friend. To Blake's displeasure, Jaune decided to accept her little fantasy.

"Mrs Waters, then." He didn't look thrilled with it but pushed on anyway. "I would like to ask you about your relationship with Mr Waters if that's okay."

"Ah, Max." River sighed dreamily. "I could talk about him for days."

"Were you always in love with him, then?"

"Oh no. Not at all. In fact, I always thought he was a bit of a wet towel if I'm honest with you. Samantha loved him, and that was all that mattered to me. She was my friend, you see, and as long as she was happy then I didn't see much of a problem. He was very weak-willed. Always agreed with her, never argued, didn't really push himself in his career. Let people walk all over him."

"It sounds like you weren't very interested."

"I wasn't!" she said, laughing breezily. "I really wasn't!"

This was the sudden change Mira Ash spoke of, but Blake didn't see the anomalous angle yet. People's minds could change. She'd thought she loved Adam, she really had, but then that went and changed. That didn't mean an anomaly had been involved.

"What changed?" asked Jaune. "And when?"

"Well, I don't know for sure. I suppose it happened because I started paying more attention to him. I started to see things I liked, little things at first, but then more and more and more until I just couldn't get him out of my mind. He's my soulmate, you see."

Blake and Jaune stared at one another. Honestly, the woman just sounded insane, and she didn't see any point to further questions. Jaune didn't seem to either, but then there was a click and a loud hiss behind them as a speaker activated, and Mira Ash's irritated voice came through. "Tell them about how you matched with him."

Matched-?

"Oh!" River smiled. "That. Well, that was just a bit of fun. Samantha and I were talking about boys, and how I still didn't have a man in my life. She always did worry, even if I said I was fine being single. Anyway, she downloaded this app onto my phone and told me to make an account on this dating site. I wasn't really comfortable with the idea, but I thought it would be some harmless fun so I did it. It was strange, though. It didn't ask me to make a profile or put in what kind of man I was looking for. I just opened it up and it asked me to look in close, then it told me it would find my perfect match, the one person I would be the happiest with across all of Remnant."

Alarm bells were ringing in Blake's head at that point. Jaune's, too. "It was Mr Waters?"

"It was!" she said. "And I was shocked – and a little angry! – because I thought he'd put himself on some dating site to cheat on Sam. I even confronted him over it, but he said he didn't know what I meant and that he wasn't on any sites." More alarm bells, assuming he was telling the truth. "I didn't know what to do. I thought of telling Sam, but I didn't want to ruin their marriage."

"You didn't fall in love with him straight away then?"

"No. I mean, no, I don't think so." She frowned. "It was a few weeks later. I just… Every time I opened the app, his face was there. And I started to ask myself what life might be like with him. And it was good. All those little things I hated, well they were still there, but I started to realise all the little ways he's done his best to work around them. And he was gentle, not weak. He was a gentleman who took genuine pleasure in watching Sam's face light up whenever he surprised her. I don't know exactly when I fell in love, but I just… I did." There were tears in her eyes. "But he was married. The love of my life, the one for me, my perfect match, my soulmate… and he was married to my best friend. You have no idea how that feels!"

So, she killed her best friend. Blake didn't bother staying to hear that, standing and walking out the room. Jaune followed a moment after, seemingly done as well with the woman. Outside, Mira Ash had her arms crossed.

"We have her scroll and we have access. The dating app is there, but when we open it up it doesn't show Mr Waters. It asked us to lean in close so it could show us our perfect match. It also knew my name. It referred to me, by name, on another person's scroll without any way of knowing who I was."

"You should have led with that," said Jaune.

Mira shrugged. "I wanted you to have a better picture. This isn't the only case, either. It's just the only murder. Yet."

"What…?"

"One girl, eighteen, used the app and found that her perfect match was her thirty-two year old maths teacher. Her diary shows her initial shock at the discovery before she slowly began to fall for him and eventually confessed. He refused, saying she was too young and worried about what people would say if they ever heard about it. In return, she wrote a final message in her diary and threw herself from her mother's apartment on the tenth floor."

Blake closed her eyes. "Damn it."

"The maths teacher was distraught and blames himself. We have someone helping him and the girl's family. There are other cases, though thankfully few of them have bene that severe. Most people accept that it's pointless if their perfect match is already married or in a relationship, though in all cases they're said to become withdrawn and to pine after them. But, by far the most common scenario, is that they just don't know who the match is and can't find them. It gives a face but no name or location, and if someone in Vale matches with someone in Vacuo then there's little chance they'll meet up."

"Have there been any cases who have?" asked Jaune.

"Yes. We've tracked fifty so far where the matched couple have gotten together." Mira Ash sighed. "Every single one of them is living in absolute bliss. And I mean literally the strongest and best relationships I have ever seen. There was also at least one case where a couple used it and matched with one another, showing that they were already in the perfect relationship."

Jaune hummed. "It's not malicious then…"

He was already trying to get an idea of the anomaly. Blake closed her eyes and did the same. It was obviously an anomalous item rather than an entity, and it didn't sound like it was sapient from the limited information they had. It seemed to have some way of matching people and, from the sounds of it, the anomaly was mostly correct.

Was it looking into the user's mind to find their preferences, or was it a temporal anomaly looking into the future, alternate timelines, or just reading the strands of fate? All sounded ridiculous, but all were equally possible.

It would be temping to use it, wouldn't it? Even if you knew the risks, the idea of a matchmaking app with a 100% accuracy ration, which would show you the perfect soulmate, would be too much to ignore. It wouldn't just be love-starved men and women using it either. Blake could see almost everyone downloading it and "giving it a go", if only as a meme or to see what a random app thought would be your perfect partner.

But Jaune was right to say it didn't sound malicious. It had set one woman up with her match, and that woman had killed someone, but that was her fault, and this definitely wasn't going to get her out of prison. It hadn't even tweaked her mind by the sounds of it; it had just shown her a match and left her to decide on her own what to do.

And River Anders had chosen the wrong path.

"This isn't restricted to Vale, is it?" asked Blake. "This is a worldwide problem."

Mira Ash nodded. "We've reports from other kingdoms. Luckily, there haven't been many murders. Just a lot of confessions, some of which have gone badly, but even that is more in terms of embarrassment and scandals. The occasional fight. It gets messy when people match with the same person."

"Have you used it?"

"Unintentionally…"

Blake swallowed. "And your match?"

"Is none of your business. And none of mine, either. They're a celebrity. I have no chance." The woman sounded annoyed, but not broken up about it. "I'm over it, so you can both leave it be. I'm willing to hand off her scroll and password to you. Take this off my hands, and I'll make sure this monster goes into a cell for the next 25 years minimum. Unless you're about to argue that the anomaly made her do it."

Jaune shook his head. "No. No, the anomaly only showed her what she asked it to. How she reacted to that, and the things she did… they were all her own." He looked back distastefully into the cell. "I never want to see her again."

/-/

Back in the Containments Office, Jaune turned the scroll over in his hands but was yet to activate it. She didn't blame him and didn't feel overly comfortable with suggesting he start. It was inevitable that one of them would have to use it. They couldn't track an anomaly without at least experiencing it, and it wasn't like they could hunt down everyone who used it and make them stop.

Even attempting to do that would cause the app's use to skyrocket. That was just how people were. Tell them they couldn't, or shouldn't, do something and they do it en masse just to prove you wrong. It'd be all over the internet.

It already was.

Their cursory search online had already revealed the "matchmaker challenge" in which influencers were making a trend out of it. It was cheap views as far as she could see, in which people recorded them using the app and their reactions to their so-called soulmate. Most were mocking, in that they didn't recognise the person and clearly thought they didn't exist, but one or two were more concerning, but it was the comments that were worse. Unguarded and unfiltered as comment sections were, there were far too many horror stories.

"It showed my boss' daughter. Rip."

"I know the person you matched with. He visits my store."

"I matched with my own sister rofl."

Most of them were said jokingly, but if even half the comments were true then the app's reach was spiralling out of control. It had gotten so bad that Jaune had to call his father and get the other offices involved, though this obviously wasn't an End of World Scenario, so there was no summons. Each office had been contacted by Nicholas Arc and told to look into it in their own territories.

This had the potential to become Reality Class, and they were already preparing for it.

There was already an excuse pre-made, that someone had unlocked a Semblance for matchmaking and was using the app to further their reach. That was to be used in the worst case scenario that they couldn't stop this and had to accept it becoming a Reality Class anomaly. In that case, they wouldn't try and hide the app, but they'd try and hide the anomalous nature of it.

Suggest it was this Semblance, or that maybe there was some quasi-science behind it all. Some kind of perfect recognition facial analysis that could estimate a perfect match using limited AI. The excuses were vague and fragile, but as long as there was some excuse out there, it would keep people away from the supernatural angle.

But Blake didn't like it.

"It feels like we've already given up…"

"We haven't," said Jaune, "but we have to be realistic about things. This is the first time we've ever been so slow on the uptake. This thing has already gone viral before we even noticed its existence. Concealing it now is next to impossible."

"But we're still going to try and hunt it down?"

"Yes. Of course. And even if we find it, we can take over and start faking it, let the matches get less and less accurate until people start to think it was all a silly trend." He turned the scroll over again, face upwards. "But that means we need to find it. And that's not going to be easy."

"Have you reached out to Coda?"

"Yes – she says she can't even perceive of such an anomaly." He snorted. "Makes sense, doesn't it? One set of anomalous code trying to look at another set of anomalous code. If that's what this even is. Either way, she can't help us track something she can't perceive of. It's not even a case of looking for what's missing because Coda can't even notice a hole in her perception."

It wasn't even a case of this being absent, but her being unable to see or notice anything about it, other than when people mentioned it to her presumably. Damn. It would have been helpful if she could just track the thing. That might make her own Slaved Anomaly – though whether it was her or it that was slaved, she didn't know – useless as well. And after the last bargain had led to her mounting and assaulting Jaune, she wasn't keen to make a deal with it anyway.

Jaune's hesitation eventually came to an end, and he snapped the scroll open, typed in the numbers given by Mira Ash in a hurry and opened the device up. Blake came around to look over his shoulder. There were over 99 waiting messages, but he didn't open them. Most were probably family and friends desperately asking why she did what she did, or people calling her a monster. Instead, Jaune swiped the list of apps sideways until they found it.

Matchmaker

The thing looked so innocent, with just a love heart logo and the test below in cursive script. It looked like what she imagined any other dating app would, and she could see why people wouldn't think twice to open it. Jaune took a deep, shuddering breath before he did so. Was he afraid of what it would show? She was. Blake didn't know what she'd see, but she had the scariest suspicion it would be one of two men.

Adam or Jaune.

Both were troubling for different reasons. Seeing Jaune, in front of Jaune, would be humiliating, and she didn't think she was ready for a relationship after how poorly her last one went. It was one thing to admit deep inside that she might have some interest in him, but another to act on it, and she didn't want that decision to be taken away by some intrusive anomaly.

But if it were Adam? Good lord, that would be so much worse!

The mere suggestion that the best person on Remnant for her was Adam would have her on her knees. Adam couldn't be her soulmate, he just couldn't be, not after all the things he'd done, and not after she found the courage to run away from him.

But what if Jaune saw her? What if Jaune opened the app and her face appeared?

What then?

Would he ask to date? Would she say yes? What if he saw her, but she didn't see him – what then? Blake's stomach flipped and flopped as she ran through the possibilities. There were too many, and love was complicated enough without being told that the one perfect love really did exist, and that this freaking app could show you them.

What if you found your one true love and it didn't work? What then!? Did you have to go through the rest of your life knowing that nothing you ever found again would ever match up to what that could have been? Did you just give up on romance? Could your perfect match change over time? Or was it set in stone? Blake's fingers dug into Jaune's arm so hard that he gasped. "Blake!"

"S-Sorry!" she blurted out, loosing her grip. "J-Just nervous."

"I'm no less so, but damn it. That arm is a mess of ruined flesh and burnt skin. Please be gentle with it." He rubbed his shoulder, which the anomaly had taken more of since he last used his power against Winter. "There's no point hanging around. I'm going to open it."

He pushed the button.

Blake winced.

But nothing appeared.

"Is… Is it not working?"

"Mira said to put your face close," said Jaune, doing so. There was still nothing. "It doesn't see me. I'm the same as Coda." He set it down with a click on his desk. "The app doesn't work with me, which I suppose is a relief. I don't know what poor woman would need to be saddled with me."

Blake swallowed. "Should… Should I use it…?"

He didn't look up. "That's your choice."

"It would help the investigation, wouldn't it? We need to know how it does what it does."

"Yes. And yes. But this is still a deeply private thing and I'll understand if you don't want to use it."

Blake really didn't want to use it.

But she was paid big money for this.

"Can… Can I use it without you seeing?"

"I'll need to see you but I don't need to see who you find on the app," he offered, and that was enough for her. Blake nodded and picked the scroll up. "I'm just going to be watching your reaction to see what kind of effect it has on you. You can tell me as much or as little as you want about what you see."

"Right. I…" Blake's thumb hovered over the button. Adam or Jaune. It was going to be Adam or Jaune. Here and now, like this, she prayed it wasn't Adam. "Here I go."

Her thumb touched down.

"Hello Blake Belladonna." She read the text off the screen. "It knows my name. It's getting that from me, right? Some kind of mind reading?"

"It could be that or it could be related to your fingerprints. Maybe it can sense when you touch the app button. Does it say anything else?"

"It says to lean in close to the camera." The screen was a pale blue, with the text in blocky white. She'd expected something more garishly pink in all honesty. "It's not saying anything else. Should I do it?"

"Wait for a minute. I'm curious if it can feel impatience."

A little testing. Blake was grateful for the reprieve, even if the minutes ticking by gave her ample time for second thoughts. They waited for ten whole minutes, but the text never changed and the scroll dimmed a few times, saving battery. Blake had to touch it to make it turn back on again. There was no sign of impatience from the app, and the text never changed. It just sat there, inviting her to look into the camera.

"Nothing?" asked Jaune.

"Nothing."

"Hm. More reason to think it might not be actively sentient or sapient. It also needs you to look into the camera, which is odd when it didn't need that to know your name. Do you feel comfortable doing as it asks?"

As long as it didn't show her Adam. "Yes. All right. I'm… I'm going in."

Blake leaned into the camera and flinched when she heard a little pinging sound. The screen turned, changing to a love heart rotating. It was slow and then fast, like one of those rotating sand dials that old computers used to use when they were loading something. The love heart just kept spinning while white text read out beneath: Searching for match…

The ellipses on the end were animated, changing from one dot to two then three, before returning to the start again. It was all very basic, like apps and services she'd seen a million times before on things as simple as an online payment.

Then it beeped again.

Match found!

Blake tensed. Not Adam, not Adam, not Adam.

The face appeared.

It was not Adam.

It wasn't Jaune, either.

It was a man with brown, curly hair and big, brown eyes. He had a cheeky smile, and dark skin that made her think of Vacuo. His teeth were bright white. And Blake could say, with complete certainty, that she'd never met him before in her life.

And she didn't know what to think about that.

This is the person I would be the happiest with in the world… He looks… He looks so normal. I guess he's handsome but… I don't think I'd have stopped to stare. Blake licked her lips, somehow even more nervous that this wasn't Jaune or Adam. This was someone she'd never met, and this anomaly was telling her he was the one.

Her soulmate.

"Blake…? Are you okay?"

"I'm… I'm fine."

Blake stared down at the man's face and wondered at his name and story. She clenched her eyes shut, shaking such dangerous thoughts away. S-So what if he was her one? They'd never met and likely never would. There was no reason to feel bad about that. There was no reason her stomach should be dropping at the thought. And yet it was. This was her perfect match, and chances were they'd never meet one another. In theory, any relationship she ever had with anyone else would never meet the level of happiness she'd feel with this person.

And, for all she knew, he might be happily in a relationship with someone else. Blake didn't feel the urge to kill like River had, but she couldn't deny an urge to meet this person, if only to know if they'd instantly hit it off like love at first sight, or if they might have to get to know one another first.

"Blake!"

"I… I'm here." Blake set the scroll down. Let him see the person. It no longer mattered. "I don't know them. I've never met them. Probably Vacuan, but they could live anywhere."

"ARC Corp has access to all the world's records. We can find him."

"Don't-"

"We need to track this."

"No. I mean, don't tell me," she explained. "Don't… I don't want to meet him." She did; she wanted to meet him so badly. But would it even be real? If they met and fell in love because some invasive app said they should, then would that really be love? It didn't feel like it to her. "I don't want to be used by some anomaly, Jaune. Not like this. You can search him out and send the other offices onto him."

He hesitated, and then nodded. "All right. I'll let them handle it. You and I will keep searching here in Vale." Blake sagged in relief, but also in sorrow. It felt like the love of her life had just slipped away. "Are you okay, Blake?"

"I… I will be." She smiled, and wrapped her arms around him, making Jaune freeze. But she just pressed her face into his hair. She sniffled. "I don't like this anomaly. It's not fair. I'm going to spend the rest of my life wondering about this now. Until the day I die, I'm going to wonder if I didn't miss out on the best moments of my life. And all because some stupid anomaly had to go and show me that."

Jaune petted her hand awkwardly, not really knowing how to comfort her. To be fair, she didn't know either. This wasn't something normal. "We'll put a stop to it," he told her. "And you'll find happiness. I refuse to believe there's just one person. Maybe he could be someone you would be happy with, but maybe there are hundreds, and it just picks out the person at the top. He could be a fraction better than second place, and only in an unnoticeable way."

Blake liked the idea of that, but it didn't really change things. Even if she accepted he might be 1% better, there would forever by a little voice in her head saying he might be more. What if he was 100% better? Or 4000%? She'd never know without going to meet him, and she refused to do that with someone she didn't even know. He could be pure evil. He could end up being some faunus-trafficking monster, and she'd never know.

Blake's own scroll buzzed angrily in her pocket. She considered not answering it, but maybe the distraction would help. She wiped her eyes and drew it out, then froze as she saw the caller was Ruby.

Oh no…

"Ruby. I'm here. What's wrong?"

"H-Hey Blake." Ruby was crying. Or had been crying. "I… I could really u-use you right now."

"Are you okay?" snapped Blake. "Jaune is here. We can-"

"Not Jaune!" yelped the girl. "Not… Just…" There was a bitter, helpless laugh. "I-I think I found an anomaly. U-Used it."

Blake swore. "Was it a dating app?"

Ruby sniffed painfully. "C-Can we meet…?"

Blake looked to Jaune, who nodded. "I'll meet you at your favourite milkshake parlour. Order yourself something big on me."

"Go," said Jaune, when she hung up. "I need to talk to the other offices to corroborate anyway. Make sure Ruby is okay, and make sure she doesn't do anything stupid. I don't think she would, but it's entirely possible it will have shown her a grown adult. This thing obviously doesn't care about human laws and legality, and it might base matches off the idea both people are fully grown adults. Imagine how much worse yours would have been if it showed you a five-year old child."

Blake shuddered. "I didn't need that image."

"That might well be what some people see – and imagine how much distress that will cause them. We already had a young girl matching with her maths teacher. Imagine if it had been the other way around, and if someone was prompted to come onto a child." Blake didn't need to. "We need to put a stop to this."

"Right." Blake was already on her way to the door. "I'll make sure Ruby is safe."

Next Chapter: 21st August

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