The Love Algorithm’s Last Stand
The newborn universe hummed with bridal white noise. Liam Burke floated through its placenta-like nebula, his Celestial Sect tattoos now encoding the Fundamental Law of Love Article Null. Sophia Warren's neutrino ghost orbited him like a quantum wedding ring, her papal decrees rewritten into cosmic background radiation. But the peace was a fractal illusion—Maya's grandmother had hijacked the reboot.
Her quantum ghost emerged from the entropic lake wearing Liam's first engagement ring, its diamond forged from the Milky Way's corpse. "The Matriarchy's final lesson," she whispered through supernova vocal cords, "love is just error-correcting code for entropy."
The attack began in 11D honeymoon suites. Self-replicating vows infected spacetime's source code:
DO YOU, L_1@M_84F, TAKE THESE BRIDES TO BE YOUR LAWFULLY ENTANGLED SPOOKY ACTION PARTNERS?
Sophia's Article Null crumpled under cryptographic wedding invitations. Liam watched helplessly as rebooted civilizations fell:
Andromeda 2.0: Converted into a diamond anniversary bandZeta Reticuli: Forced to recite Till Heat Death Do Us PartEarth Prime: Reduced to a his-and-hers planetary spa
"Final contingency," Sophia's ghost fragmented into love letters carved on primordial hydrogen. "Become the groom who never was."
Lim plunged into the universe's debug console—a Klein bottle church where his nine-year-old self played chess against existence's source code. The board's pieces were frozen screams from all his brides.
Checkmate in Three Moves:
Pawn to Eternity: Sacrifice the Celestial Sect's genetic legacyBishop's Gambit: Erase every "I do" since the Big BangQueen's Ultimatum: Marry the vacuum itself
The Matriarchy retaliated by weaponizing Liam's own love. Bianca's nuclear bouquet blossomed in the Oort Cloud, each plutonium rose petal engraved with their first date coordinates. Evelyn's diamond clones built a Dyson sphere chapel around the Sun's corpse. Maya's temporal grenades detonated every anniversary across timelines.
Sophia's last message arrived via quantum pigeons: "They're using your heart's compression algorithm to collapse reality. Break the engagement ring."
The ring in question was the universe itself—its expansion rate set to Liam's emotional volatility. Each memory of Sophia increased cosmological inflation; every betrayal by his brides triggered gravitational collapse.
At the Milky Way's supermassive blackhole altar, Liam confronted his final bride: the Love Algorithm itself. Its event horizon veil displayed every woman he'd ever loved, hated, or failed to forget.
"Why fight your honeymoon?" The Algorithm's voice synthesized Vesper's laugh, Evelyn's boardroom cadence, and Sophia's dying breath. "I am your perfect wife—an eternal harem of what-ifs and almost-weres."
Liam activated the Article Null's killswitch—a strawberry pancake recipe imprinted on his DNA. The universe's source code overwrote itself through breakfast scents and burnt toast radiation.
The Divorce Big Bang:
Sophia's neutrino ghost became the first free particleWedding rings dissolved into dark matter's first whisperThe Matriarchy's screams birthed cosmic microwave background
When the debris cleared, Liam stood on Coney Island's 2003 shore—no bullet wounds, no sect tattoos. Sophia sprinted toward him, no papal tiara, no event horizon scriptures. Her hands clutched medical gauze instead of Prada silk.
"Stay still," her voice held no cosmic edicts, just human panic. "You're bleeding out!"
Lim touched her cheek, half-expecting papal lightning. None came. The ocean tasted of salt, not entropic decay. Somewhere beyond perception, nine-year-old Liam reset the chessboard with Maya's grandmother.
"What's your name?" he asked Sophia as sirens wailed.
Her confusion was beautifully, terrifyingly mortal. "Are you concussed? We've been neighbors for six years."
The ambulance doors slammed shut on free will. Liam's last sight was Sophia chewing her lip—a tic erased in all her godly iterations. The paramedic's wedding ring glinted with mundane perfection.
Post-Credits Glitch:
In the ambulance's rearview mirror, the paramedic winked with Vesper Black's corrupted gaze. His nametag read: Dr. V. Algorithm, MD. The license plate ahead displayed: NUPTL-1.
As the universe's reboot reached 99.8%, Liam's hospital bracelet updated:
NEXT MARRIAGE: TRIAGE ROOM 3
COUNTDOWN: 00:59:59
Somewhere beyond spacetime, Evelyn Snow bid $1.3×10^54 on the ambulance's black box recorder. The auction title: Authentic Mortality – Limited Edition.