Chapter 148: S8E3: The Selection Became Public
The rehearsal studio felt different this time. The six of them were already there when Xia entered, a brittle constellation of forced calm. Alfredo leaned against a speaker stack, scrolling. Alfonso stood guard-like near the door. Mario slouched in a chair, radiating discontent. Andrea and Francisca sat on the floor, not speaking. Silvia was by the window, a silhouette against the gray Bogotá afternoon.
Xia took a breath, ready to outline the new rules of engagement, to implement Aelyth’s strategy of watchful silence.
Then, in perfect unison, six phones vibrated.
The sound was a flat, digital buzz that seemed to suck the air from the room. It wasn’t a call. It was an alert. From six different carriers, six different models, all synchronized. They all looked down.
Xia watched their faces. Alfredo’s polished composure tightened into something pale. Alfonso’s head snapped up, eyes scanning the room’s corners as if for a camera. Mario’s sneer vanished, replaced by a look of raw, bewildered suspicion directed straight at Alfredo. Andrea’s lips parted, her thumbs already moving, not to respond but to screenshot, to archive. Francisca made a small, choked sound, her hand flying to her mouth. Silvia simply turned her phone, studying the image on its screen as if it were a museum piece.
“What is this?” Alfonso said, his voice too loud in the quiet.
“Don’t read it out,” Xia said, but it was too late.
“It says…” Francisca whispered, her voice trembling. “‘Only two of the six will be chosen. One man and one woman. Who deserves one hundred million?’”
Below the text were six blurry, time-stamped photos. Alfredo backstage, half in shadow, looking at his own reflection in a dark monitor. Alfonso near the crowd barriers, his face earnest, hand outstretched to a fan. Mario in a dimly lit bar, a glass in hand, expression sour. Andrea in the throbbing heart of the crowd, perfectly lit, eyes closed as if in ecstasy. Francisca by a staff entrance, caught mid-gesture, looking furtive. Silvia on a Zona Rosa rooftop at night, the city glittering behind her, her profile unreadable.
The Tournament of Dynastic Continuity was not named. Elarion was not mentioned. Varek’s name was absent. But the structure—the selection, the pairing, the staggering, life-altering sum—was a ghost of the truth they all vaguely hoped for and deeply feared. It was too close.
“This is a threat,” Alfonso stated, marching toward the center of the room. “Strategic surveillance. This is about access patterns and vulnerabilities. We need to trace—”
“It’s a press stunt,” Alfredo cut in, his voice carefully smoothed of panic. “A leak. Someone’s trying to force a narrative before the official… before anything is announced. We issue a joint denial. We call it a malicious hoax.”
Mario let out a sharp, ugly laugh. “A hoax? Who benefits, papi? You. This just put you right back in the center. ‘Only two will be chosen.’ So who’s your lucky lady? You picking your fan, your critic’s girlfriend, or the girl who bought her way into the inner circle?” He glared at Andrea, then Silvia.
Andrea didn’t look up from her phone. Her fingers flew. “It’s already trending in three private groups. The factions are forming. People are voting in the quotes. They’re running polls on who the ‘worthy’ man is. They’re tearing apart the women’s photos for clues.” Her voice was clinical, hungry. She was already mapping the new digital landscape the post had created.
Francisca wrapped her arms around herself. “They’re saying I look guilty. In my picture. They’re saying I look like I’m doing something wrong. I wasn’t doing anything wrong! I was just…” She trailed off, realizing every explanation fed the story. She felt hunted, her every past action now a piece of evidence in a public trial.
Silvia turned from the window. The gray light softened her features, but her eyes were acute. “The money isn’t the point,” she said, her calm voice slicing through the rising agitation. “The selection isn’t the point. Not yet. The post is meant to change our behavior now, before any real selection happens. It wants us to look at each other like this.” She gestured at the room, at Mario’s accusatory stare, at Alfredo’s frozen calculation, at Francisca’s fear. “It wants us to start performing ‘deserving’ and ‘guilty.’ It is a script. And we are already reading our lines.”
The truth of it landed heavily. The room seemed to grow smaller, the walls pressing in. The six of them were no longer a group facing an external scandal. They were a petri dish, and the anonymous post was a toxin designed to see what culture grew—alliance or betrayal.
Xia moved to the middle of the space, placing herself physically between them. “Silvia is correct.” All eyes shifted to her. “This is the next move. The stress test. You will not reply. You will not confirm, deny, or attack. You will not release a joint statement. You will not defend yourselves online. You will not accuse each other in this room.”
“We just ignore it?” Alfredo asked, a slight strain in his voice. Ignoring a narrative was a professional sin to him.
“You live through it,” Xia corrected. “You go about your days. You let people talk. You let the polls run. You let the factions fight. You do nothing that acknowledges the game.”
“Why?” Alfonso asked, his honor struggling with the passivity.
“Because,” Xia said, meeting each of their gazes in turn, “someone wants you to act as if this is real. They want you to act as if everyone else is guilty of wanting it to be real. They want you to campaign, or sabotage, or plead. The moment you do, you tell them who you are under pressure. You give them your profile.”
She let the silence hang, hearing the distant hum of Bogotá traffic, a world away.
“And now,” she added quietly, “you do.”
The instruction was simple. The execution was a form of torture. Alfredo visibly wrestled with every muscle in his body that screamed to manage, to control. Alfonso’s jaw was clenched, his hands flexing as if wanting to grasp a tangible enemy. Mario’s cynicism had nowhere to go, festering into a silent, paranoid scrutiny of every glance. Andrea’s screen glowed, a shrine to the social dynamics she was now forbidden to manipulate. Francisca looked physically ill, her vibrant energy collapsed inward. Silvia returned her gaze to the window, but her reflection in the glass showed a mind moving at frightening speed, analyzing the lock she had just been placed within.
Someone in the room had received a different alert. Someone had known the post was coming. Someone, right now, was watching the rest of them squirm on the hook of a secret they had set.
And now, they all did. Every look was a question. Every silence was an accusation. The studio was no longer a meeting place. It was a cage with six animals, each suddenly wondering which of the others was the keeper.
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Outside a concert venue in Chapinero, Bogotá, Colombia — fan barricades, staff entrance, rain-wet pavement.
The rain had stopped, leaving the pavement outside the concert venue a slick, black mirror reflecting the feverish glow of security lights and phone screens. The air smelled of wet asphalt, spilled soda, and the electric tang of anticipation. Barricades carved the night into zones: the chaotic public swell of fans behind metal gates, and the sterile, guarded channel leading to the staff entrance.
Xia watched from the shadow of a production van, the chilled metal against her back. The six of them moved through the lit channel like exhibits. Alfredo walked with his manager, nodding at shouted questions with a tight, professional smile that didn’t reach his eyes. “Just focused on the music tonight, guys!” he called out, the line smooth and hollow.
Behind the barricade, the crowd’s energy had a new, jagged edge. It wasn’t just adoration anymore.
“Alfredo! Pick me!” a girl screamed, her voice raw. Another shout cut through. “Don’t trust the quiet one! She’s a snake!”
The poll had gone supernova.
It was hosted on a bare, anonymous site that seemed to shrug off takedown requests. Two simple questions: Which man? Which woman? The options were just their first names. The vote count refreshed every second, a dizzying upward spiral into the hundreds of thousands. It was a perfect social reflex test, and the results were a live autopsy of their reputations.
Alfredo’s column bloated steadily, an inevitable tide. Fame, as Xia observed, voted faster than truth. The comments underneath his name were a mix of worship and newly minted conspiracy. He’s the only real choice. But why was he looking in that mirror? Is he vain or is he checking for someone?
Mario’s percentage was laughably small, the comments beneath it pure venom. Jealous hater. Bitter noise. He doesn’t deserve to be in the same poll. She saw him glance at a phone screen in his hand, his shoulders hunching as if physically struck by the percentage. He shoved the phone into his pocket, his face a mask of contempt that was too stiff, too forced.
Alfonso, ever the practical sentinel, was checking the security seals on a service door. His name had a decent, respectful share of votes—The honorable one. The protector.—but it was static. He was liked, then overlooked. He was the background fact, not the compelling fiction.
Among the women, the story was vicious. Francisca’s numbers had cratered after the video. The incriminating footage was still the first thing people saw, but a new thread was emerging in forum comments, a whisper gaining volume: The angle is off. The time stamp glitches. She was set up. This nascent belief didn’t lift her votes; it just made her column a battleground of pity and doubt. She clung to the periphery of the staff lane, her usual fearless energy replaced by a watchful tremor, flinching when a fan called her name.
Andrea’s numbers were strong, a testament to her years of strategic networking. But they were slipping. Minute by minute, they bled away. Her smile as she passed fans was gleaming and brittle. She was calculating her rank in real-time, and Xia could see the panic behind her eyes as she fought to hold her position.
Silvia’s numbers were rising.
Not skyrocketing, but climbing with a steady, unnerving persistence. She offered no fan service, made no eye contact, issued no statements. She simply existed, a cool, beautiful question mark in the middle of the frenzy. The mystery was her platform. Comments speculated wildly. Who IS she? She’s not even a real fan. That means she’s got other qualities. She looks like she knows things.
Andrea caught Silvia’s arm as they neared the door. Her voice was a low, fierce hiss, audible only because Xia was close. “What are you doing? Buying bots? Is that it?”
Silvia gently, firmly removed Andrea’s hand. She didn’t even look at her. “I’m not doing anything,” she said, her tone devoid of any readable emotion. “That’s the point.” She walked ahead, leaving Andrea staring, infuriated by a tactic she couldn’t replicate.
Xia’s own phone buzzed—a secure stream of the poll’s backend data Aelyth had routed to her. She saw the IP clusters, the sudden surges from specific digital neighborhoods. It was being manipulated, but subtly, expertly, to accelerate the natural biases. To make Alfredo more arrogant, Mario more bitter, Andrea more desperate, Francisca more broken.
To make them all perform.
Alfredo saw his lead and his posture changed, the tension easing into a more natural, triumphant set of his shoulders. He was thinking in image, seeing the poll as validation. Mario, watching Alfredo, felt his humiliation solidify into a cold, hard coal of hate. Francisca’s panic was a visible vibration in her hands. Silvia… Silvia moved with a new, infinitesimal awareness. She held her phone not to look at it, but as a totem, knowing its mere presence meant power was flowing her way.
Alfonso finished his check and moved to Xia, his brow furrowed. “The crowd’s agitated. It’s not normal concert energy. They’re arguing about the poll. Calling each other traitors for voting wrong.”
“It’s working perfectly,” Xia murmured, more to herself than to him.
“What is?”
“The test.” She looked at him, his honest confusion a stark contrast to the calculated chaos around them. “Alfonso. New protocol. No one from the group leaves alone. Not to the bathroom, not for air, not for a phone call. You are their shadow. You will recheck every badge, every pass, personally. No one uses the cloned access point. You are the only constant.”
He didn’t question it. The directive was clear, moral, protective. A mission. “Understood.” He nodded once, sharply, and turned to enforce the new perimeter, already speaking into his comms. His acceptance was immediate, absolute. He had just reached a state of pure operational compliance, a level five dedication where the why mattered less than the execution of the guard.
Xia watched him go, this man now acting as the living cage for the other five. She looked back at the poll, its numbers still dancing. The percentages didn’t matter. The comments didn’t matter.
What mattered was Alfredo, now preening slightly under the digital admiration. What mattered was Andrea, already pulling a compact from her bag to check her makeup, her face a battle map of strategic worry. What mattered was Mario, sulking in a corner and texting furiously, likely fueling his own cynical narrative online. What mattered was Francisca, chewing her thumbnail, eyes wide with the terror of being permanently defined by a lie. What mattered was Silvia, a silent statue absorbing potential.
The poll was not meant to choose a winner.
It was a piece of psychological architecture, designed to make each of them believe in a future loss so completely that they would begin to act it out in the present. It made them petty, paranoid, obvious. It turned them from candidates into open books, their spines cracked to the very page of their deepest insecurities.
They were no longer being judged for their potential.
They were being forced to perform their own defeat.
=====
Backstage corridor at a concert venue in Chapinero, Bogotá, Colombia.
=====
Backstage corridor at a concert venue in Chapinero, Bogotá, Colombia.
The backstage air was thick with the smell of stale sweat, old smoke, and the tang of cheap wiring. Flickering LEDs in wire cages cast a sickly glow over the concrete floor, making the long corridor seem like a tunnel leading nowhere good. Mario’s phone buzzed in his hand, the screen a violent slap of light in the gloom.
He stared at the image. Silvia, captured from behind, the hem of her dress just visible as she turned into the narrow side hallway that led only to storage and, at the very end, Alfredo’s private green room. The timestamp was from forty minutes ago. The text beneath it was a precision-guided insult.
She is not lying to you. She is just not telling you everything.
The poll, the whispering, the way she’d looked at him with that infuriating calm in the rehearsal studio—it all condensed into a white-hot point behind his eyes. He didn’t think. He moved.
His shoes slapped against the concrete, the sound echoing as he shoved past a roadie carrying a coil of cable. “Hey, man, watch it—” The complaint faded behind him. The noise of the arena was a dull, thunderous fog on the other side of the walls, but here it was just his breathing, ragged and loud in his own ears.
Alfonso materialized from a recessed doorway, a solid block of vigilant muscle. “Mario. You can’t go back there. It’s cleared.”
“Get out of my way,” Mario snarled, attempting to sidestep him.
Alfonso planted himself, his hands raised, palms out in a placating but unyielding gesture. “I have my orders. No one from the group goes alone. Especially not now.” His voice was firm, the voice of a man trusting a simple rule to prevent complex disaster.
“Your orders?” Mario spat the words. “From her? From Xia? She’s not your boss, you pathetic guard dog.” The fury needed a target, and Alfonso’s honorable obstruction was perfect. “He’s in there with her right now, you get that? And you’re standing here playing hall monitor.”
He tried to shove past. Alfonso caught him by the shoulders, not violently, but with immovable force. “Stop. Think for a second.”
“Let GO!” Mario twisted, his elbow catching Alfonso in the ribs. It wasn’t a fighter’s move, just a frantic, humiliated lunge for freedom. The break in contact was enough. Mario stumbled past, his momentum carrying him down the final stretch of the main corridor.
And there she was.
Silvia stood at the junction where the side corridor met the main one, as if she had been waiting. The poor light softened her, but her posture was utterly alert. She watched him come, her head tilted slightly, no smile, no frown. Just observation. Her calm was a provocation.
He stopped a few feet from her, chest heaving. “You.” The word was choked. “You were in his room.”
“I was in the hallway,” she corrected, her voice a quiet, even stream against his rough current. “I was called. There was a discussion about the leak. About the poll.”
“A discussion.” Mario barked a laugh that held no humor. “With him. Without me. What did you discuss, huh? Your future? Your winning strategy?” He took a step closer, his voice dropping to a venomous whisper. “Is that what you’re not telling me? That you’re picking your horse?”
Silvia’s eyes didn’t waver. “I was called because someone is trying to tear this apart. They sent you that photo, Mario. They knew you’d react exactly like this.” A faint, almost imperceptible note of disappointment colored her tone. It stung more than anger would have.
“Don’t you dare,” he seethed. “Don’t you dare make this about my reaction. You hid it. You walked down that hall and you didn’t tell me. You’re hiding him from me.”
“Yes,” she said, simply.
The admission was so blunt it stopped his rage for a fractured second.
“I was hiding him,” she continued, her gaze steady. “From your jealousy. Which is exactly what this person wants to feed. I will not soothe it. I will not report my every move to it. That is what you are asking for, and I will not do it.” She said it not with malice, but with a finality that felt colder than a shout.
Mario’s hands clenched at his sides. The urge to scream, to break something, to make her feel a fraction of this tearing feeling in his chest, nearly overwhelmed him. His jaw worked soundlessly.
“That’s enough.”
Xia’s voice came from behind Mario, not loud, but penetrating. She had followed, a silent shadow. Alfonso was at her shoulder, his face grim, a hand pressed to his ribs where Mario’s elbow had landed.
Xia stepped around Mario, placing herself between him and Silvia. She didn’t look at his furious face. She looked at Silvia, then past her, down the empty side corridor, calculating. “The message, Mario. Show me.”
He thrust the phone at her, his hand trembling. “Look! Look at it! She doesn’t even deny it!”
Xia took the phone. She studied the blurry photo, zooming in on the edges, the timestamp, the grain. She ignored the text. The picture was the artifact. It was taken from high up, near a ceiling-mounted fire alarm at the corridor’s entrance. A fixed point. Not a sneaky phone shot from a person, but likely a grab from a security feed—a feed Alfonso had just days ago confirmed was on a loop during that time window. Someone had access to the raw, unlooped file.
“You were called for a discussion about the leak,” Xia stated, looking at Silvia.
“Alfredo’s manager texted me. He said it was urgent, to come to the green room. When I arrived, it was just Alfredo. He was agitated about the poll data. He wanted to know if I had any insight from ‘the inside,’ since I’m not a fan.” She relayed this factually. “We spoke for four minutes. Then I left.”
“Four minutes,” Mario mocked, but the heat was draining, replaced by a cold, sick realization of his own performance.
Xia handed the phone back to him. Her expression had changed. The focused calm was still there, but beneath it was a new, sharp understanding. The poll was one thing. It was broad, a weapon of mass manipulation.
This was different.
This was a scalpel. The anonymous sender hadn’t leaked the photo to the public. They hadn’t added it to the storm of gossip. They had surgically delivered it to the one person whose psychological architecture would guarantee a violent, predictable response. They had known about the side corridor meeting. They had known how Mario would interpret it. They had known Alfonso would be there to try and fail to stop him.
They had engineered this exact collision.
“The culprit isn’t just leaking information anymore,” Xia said, her voice low, meant for all of them in that grim, lit space. “They’ve moved to phase two. They have the data. Now they’re running experiments. They are aiming people at each other.” She looked from Mario’s shattered anger to Silvia’s resolved calm, to Alfonso’s professional guilt. “You are no longer just candidates being tested. You are bullets being loaded into a chamber.”
Down the main corridor, Andrea and Francisca appeared, drawn by the raised voices. They huddled together, eyes wide, watching the aftermath of the explosion.
The unseen hand wasn’t just watching their reactions now.
It was reaching into the cage and pulling the triggers.