1. Talia Talia
You deserve a better life—your Ideal Life.

Talia Morgan’s heart was racing, but she smiled at the motto above the receptionist’s desk. Ever since she was fifteen, she’d known she wanted to find a way to make people’s daily lives better, and now, twenty years later, she was on the cusp of truly achieving that.

“You ready, boss?” Erin Berg, a bright-eyed Stanford undergrad who was interning at Ideal Life this summer, came into the reception area from the offices behind her. It was just past 8 p.m., and they were about to attend a celebration dinner with some of tech’s biggest investors downstairs in a Michelin-starred Japanese restaurant.

“Almost ready,” Talia said, but she nearly snorted at herself. She didn’t look like a CEO of one of the country’s hottest startups. She was just a generic thirty-five-year-old woman: generic brown hair in a practical ponytail, generically average body of someone who didn’t exercise as much as she should. And she was still dressed for work—that is, the Silicon Valley uniform of T-shirt and jeans with a company-logoed hoodie (in this case, Ideal Life’s purple star).

But no matter. The great thing about a place like Palo Alto was they cared more about your brains and work ethic than how you looked. Talia started to turn to go back to her office. “I just, uh, need to swap out my hoodie for my blazer—”

“Already got you covered.” Erin handed over the navy jacket Talia kept on a hanger behind her office door. There was a joke that you could tell who the boss of a tech company was because they dressed like everyone else, except they threw a blazer over their T-shirt.

“I grabbed your heels, too,” Erin said.

“You’re always a step ahead,” Talia said as she slipped out of her hoodie and into the blazer, kicked off her sneakers, and stepped into the pumps.

“I learned from the best,” Erin said, grinning.

Talia laughed. But it was true that she’d taken Erin under her wing. Silicon Valley was still largely a boys’ club, and tech women had to stick together. Talia had learned the hard way not only how to work harder and ideate better than the male engineers, but also how to get credit for her brilliance. It’s why she was no longer a worker bee behind the scenes and instead was the founder and CEO of a startup about to be acquired by tech behemoth OmnisZcience. (Which everyone just called Omni, partially because nobody could remember how to spell it with the extraneous Z in the middle.)

Her phone rang. It had to be Sam. He was the only person she knew who didn’t preschedule calls or just text.

Talia picked up. “Are you here?” she asked.

“Wow,” Sam said. “No preamble, no hello, straight to business.” There was an undercurrent of teasing in his voice, though. This is how Talia and Sam had always been, ever since they became best friends at Stanford during their freshman year. He was the easygoing beta to her idealistic, mile-a-minute alpha.

“Samuel Jason Chang, please,” Talia said. “I can’t take banter right now. I’m all nerves. Are you downstairs or are you not here yet?”

“Hey,” he said softly. “It’s okay. I got you. I’m here.”

Talia exhaled. “Okay. I’ll send Erin to let you in.” The building was typical of downtown Palo Alto, where shops and restaurants lived on the first floor, while offices populated the higher ones. You needed a company badge to get access to Ideal Life on floors two through four.

A couple minutes later, the elevator doors opened, and Sam stepped out alone; Erin had gone on to the restaurant. He wore a tuxedo jacket he’d found at a thrift store and altered so the edges were stylishly roughened up, paired with a black T-shirt and black jeans. Unlike Talia, who had no sense of style, Sam had an effortless young-professor aesthetic—complete with slightly tousled black hair—that he seemed to just roll out of bed with. It probably had to do with being around books all day; he owned a bookshop half an hour away on the coast.

“Congratulations,” Sam said, drawing Talia into a hug. He was several inches taller than her, even when she wore heels, and his arms enveloped her completely.

“Thank you,” she said, allowing herself a moment to close her eyes and sink into the familiar comfort of him. “I’m happy—really happy—but also nervous. Is that weird?”

“No,” Sam said. “Omni is one of the biggest tech companies in the world, and they’re buying your company. For a hundred million dollars. Of course you’re happy and nervous at the same time.”

“I think I’m also anxious because we didn’t actually get the acquisition papers signed this morning. There was some small appendix that the lawyers needed from their colleagues in France that didn’t come in on time. Supposedly, though, the document will be done tomorrow morning, and we’ll sign everything then. But we decided to go ahead with the celebration dinner because we’d already booked out the whole restaurant downstairs.” She grimaced. “I hope we’re not tempting fate.”

The thing was, startups like Talia’s company skated on thin ice. So often, they were six months away from going under, even the ones with great technology and reputations. They needed either constant infusions of cash from venture capital investors, or to catch the eye of a bigger company with deep pockets that could acquire them. That was certainly the case for Ideal Life, and Omni’s desire to buy them came just as Ideal Life’s bank accounts were getting low on funds.

Sam released Talia from the hug, but he smiled. “The French document issue sounds like a minor delay, and everything will be fine. Omni wouldn’t be sending their execs to the party tonight if the acquisition wasn’t already a done deal.”

“Yeah…” Talia said, beginning to pace Ideal Life’s reception area, her heels clacking unevenly on the floor. She was more accustomed to sneakers, and she didn’t quite feel like herself when she had to adjust her gait like this. “It’s just… we really need this deal to happen. And the acquisition contract is only the first step. After we sign tomorrow, Omni will get to send their teams of lawyers and investment bankers and software engineers to sift through all of Ideal Life’s stuff—contracts, source code, everything—and if they find anything during due diligence that they don’t like, they can walk away. It’s like selling a house, where the buyer signs a contract but is free to bail if they discover that you have termites or asbestos.”

“Does Ideal Life have termites or asbestos?”

“No, but—”

Sam took her by the shoulders and looked straight into her eyes. “Then it will be fine. More than fine. So let’s go downstairs to this fancy-ass restaurant and shovel fifty-dollar sushi rolls into our mouths, okay?”

That broke Talia out of her spiraling, and she laughed. “We can’t eat like the animals we really are, and you know it. I have to look professional. The Omni execs and Ideal Life’s venture capital investors will be there, and some journalists, too.”

“What a shame,” Sam said. “I was looking forward to eating sushi with my hands.” He smiled as he offered his arm to Talia. “Regardless, shall we?”

She took a deep breath, then pushed the elevator button before slipping her hand into the crook of his elbow. “Thanks again for being my ‘date,’ even though you have to hop on a flight in a few hours. I really appreciate you taking a red-eye to your poker competition, just so you could be here tonight.”

He said something quietly that she couldn’t quite make out because the elevator dinged and the doors opened, and then it was forgotten as they stepped inside.

Ideal Life was Talia’s brainchild. She’d conceived it in the fourth year of her neuroscience PhD at Stanford. She was supposed to have been working on her dissertation, but one afternoon while at lunch with Sam, the conversation had drifted to Talia’s memories of her mom and dad, who—to be frank—had been terrible parents. They were the kind of people who had partied hard when they were young, but then they didn’t outgrow it even after they’d had kids. Vera and Dave had gone out with their friends almost every single night, and Talia had been the one to make sure that groceries were bought and that the laundry got done and that her little sister, Libby, understood her homework and went to bed at a reasonable hour.

If only their parents had had some kind of scaffolding around their lives to gently intervene whenever they got a call from a friend to come out for “just one drink.” If only there had been something to nudge them to ignore the FOMO and stay home with their little girls instead. Because when they had been present, they had showered Talia and Libby with love. If only they’d had some guidance to teach them to prioritize.

That memory was how Ideal Life was born.

Talia’s concept was this: Using a combination of brain activity readings and customers’ personal histories and habits, Ideal Life’s AI created personalized profiles of what behaviors each customer was likely to act on in the future. Ideal Life would then help them optimize their positive lives by heading off their negative tendencies.

For example, if a former alcoholic’s friends invited her to a bar, Ideal Life would gently suggest that she offer to meet up with them earlier for dinner at a restaurant instead.

Or if someone had previously suffered a heart attack and needed to be on a heart-healthy diet but had a penchant for Kentucky Fried Chicken, Ideal Life could help redirect them when their cravings began to steer them toward the drive-through.

These recommendations showed up in whatever form the customer preferred—they could be notifications on phones or a voice inside earbuds or a customized avatar “Friend” that popped up on Omni 3Ds, augmented reality lenses that looked like regular plastic-framed glasses.

These Ideal Life “Friends” were inspired by Sam’s favorite book from childhood, The Golden Compass. Each character in the series had their own distinctive daemon, which was like the person’s “inner self” in the form of an animal. Sam had always wished for his own daemon and daydreamed what form it would take.

This is what Talia thought of when she wanted to create a virtual assistant for Ideal Life users. After all, why shouldn’t everyone have bespoke software, tailored especially for them?

Her Ideal Life Friend was a cartoon bee wearing a crown with a personality inspired by Queen Elizabeth, who would buzz into her Omni 3Ds’ field of vision when it wanted to help Talia. Other users had created photorealistic versions of their grandmothers, or an anime version of a favorite teacher. Ideal Life was hoping to make licensing deals in the future with Disney for their Marvel superheroes and animated movie characters. In any case, Ideal Life’s customers loved being able to design their own virtual Friends—it made the suggestions to remediate their lives so much more palatable and felt truly personal.

That popularity of Ideal Life Friends in augmented reality was what had piqued Omni’s interest.

When one of Talia’s early investors had called to tell her that Omni was thinking about acquiring Ideal Life, Talia had literally fallen out of her chair. She’d nursed the bruise on her hip for over a week afterward, but it had been worth it.

Because if—when—Omni bought Ideal Life, it wouldn’t just be one of many third-party apps on the smart glasses. Omni would integrate Talia’s technology through all of Omni’s global social media and communications functions. That was 3.5 billion people.

Which meant Talia’s childhood dream of making the world a better place was finally coming true.

Sugiyama—the eponymous restaurant of the world-famous chef—was sleekly elegant, all white marble floors and high ceilings and gold accents on the wall sconces. Deep, cream armchairs surrounded tables made of dark walnut. And in the center of the restaurant on a raised platform was a glass sushi bar, where all the diners could watch the chefs slice perfect slivers of fatty tuna and delicate yellowtail that had been flown in overnight from Tokyo’s famous Toyosu Market.

The second Talia and Sam walked into the restaurant, glasses of champagne were put into their hands. She would only fake-sip tonight—male business leaders were allowed to drink heavily and slur speeches and still be declared geniuses, but women were held to a higher bar. Whether fair or not, Talia had learned that her success depended, in large part, on understanding what the unspoken rules were, because what mattered the most to her was expanding Ideal Life’s reach so she could help more people. If she had to sacrifice a few glasses of champagne along the way, so be it.

Sam, on the other hand, took a long gulp of his.

“You doing all right?” Talia asked. “I know this is a lot of people.”

“I like people. It just takes a minute of adjustment.”

“We can hover here together as long as you need.” Talia had been dragging Sam out to events their entire friendship, so she was very familiar with the brief transition phase he needed to shift from living in his own head to being in the real world.

If allowed to, Sam could spend a lifetime happily lost in thought, pondering philosophical questions or logic puzzles or immersing himself in the fictional realms of books he read. He was neither introvert nor misanthrope. It was more that his extreme intellectual curiosity made him introspective, and he spent the majority of his time thinking or having debates in his head. Shifting into “public mode” with other people for company (besides himself) required a minute, and Talia had always been the best facilitator of this because she understood him.

Sam drank a little more of his champagne but left about half in the flute. “Here,” he said, reaching for Talia’s glass. “Let’s swap.”

“Aw, an almost-empty flute,” she fake-cooed. “This is the best celebration gift you could have gotten me.”

“Oh, hush,” he said. “It’s just the right amount so that no one will try to refill it, but not so full that you’ll get teased for not drinking.”

Talia shook her head and smiled. “Sam Chang, you are my favorite person.”

He shrugged. It was effortless between them. Always had been.

Ryan Higashi, general partner at Luminary Innovation Fund and the very first investor in Ideal Life, approached them. “Ah, the woman of the hour!”

“Sorry,” she whispered to Sam. “Incoming, and I can’t stop him.”

“Don’t worry,” he said. “I’m good.”

“You sure?”

“Yeah.”

“Then let’s do this party thing,” she said. These moments with Sam had helped Talia shake off the last of her nerves. Now she put her game face on, the one that said I am a strong, confident, brilliant—but not bitchy—woman. It wasn’t an easy face to perfect, because the conflicting demands and “requirements” on women these days were myriad. But after much trial and error over the years, Talia had the formula down:

1. 1) Smile just enough that it met your eyes but didn’t crinkle them. (Too big a smile was interpreted as ditzy. Too little of a smile and you could be labeled cold.)
2. 2) Hold eye contact for two and a half seconds. (Two seconds or less made a woman seem flirty or subservient. Three seconds or more was much too intense.)
3. 3) And always say your conversation partner’s name warmly in greeting. (Saying their name would make their subconscious feel validated and, therefore, important, and the goodwill would transfer back to you.)

“Ryan, hello! I’m so happy to see you here.” Talia shook his hand—firmly but gently. (Limp fish hands signaled a weak woman unworthy of leadership. But too hard sometimes scared men away, although Silicon Valley was more forgiving—here, the merit of your ideas carried more weight than your gender. Usually.) “May I introduce you to my friend Sam Chang?”

“Sam, a pleasure. I know you just got here, but do you mind if I steal Talia from you? We’re doing photographs for the press over in the corner with all the investors and the Omni team.”

“No worries,” Sam said. “I want to go watch the sushi chefs anyway. Have fun.”

As Talia and Ryan crossed the restaurant, they were stopped half a dozen times by people who wanted to congratulate her. Finally, though, they made it to the far side of the room, where a backdrop with Ideal Life’s purple star logo alternated with OmnisZcience’s name, written in simple blue font. Omni was so well known they didn’t even need a symbol. The name was logo enough.

Ideal Life’s investors chatted over glasses of wine with a couple of Omni executives and several people Talia didn’t know.

“Hey, Talia, good to see you.” Raj Banerjee, head of Omni’s artificial intelligence division, shook her hand. “Let me do introductions. You know Melanie Goldschmid, product lead for Omni 3D.”

“Of course; thank you for coming tonight.” Talia smiled and gave Melanie a warm-yet-professional hug. During undergrad, they’d overlapped for a year in Kimball Hall, one of the upper-class dorms. It wasn’t unusual to run into classmates in Silicon Valley; Stanford students often didn’t go too far after graduation.

“This,” Raj said, gesturing to the man next to him, “is DeVon Robinson. He’s head of media relations for Omni. And he’s to blame for this circus of journalists getting invited tonight.” Raj and everyone else laughed as he pointed at the three other people with them. “That’s Jesse Fogarty from TechCrunch, Kristin Santos from The Wall Street Journal, and Rich Zherdev from Wired. Laura Owusu from the San Francisco Chronicle was supposed to be here, but she got stuck in traffic on 101, so she’ll be here late.”

Everyone groaned in commiseration at the mention of Highway 101. If it wasn’t rush hour, it was something else, like a new pothole that suddenly cracked across three lanes or construction… again. Frankly, it was more of a surprise when there wasn’t a snarl on 101.

DeVon waved over the photographer he’d hired to snap photos of the event, and she shot some pictures of Talia, Raj, and Melanie in front of the Ideal Life / Omni backdrop, with some variations that also included each investor group. Then the reporters were given the opportunity to ask them a few questions.

“Why did you create Ideal Life?” Jesse from TechCrunch asked.

Talia talked about her parents’ past struggles and their recent transformation, thanks to Ideal Life.

“Omni has been on a startup acquisition spree,” Rich Zherdev from Wired said. “Why is Omni interested in this one?”

Raj—who was well versed in corporate jargon—said a bunch of specific yet vague stuff about “pushing technological frontiers” and “forward-looking innovation” and “integrative, collaborative synergy.”

Kristin from The Wall Street Journal leaned in. “It’s unusual to celebrate a potential acquisition at such an early stage, when there is still a lot of due diligence to be done and the deal might fall through. So why are we doing this tonight?”

DeVon laughed and clapped his hands together. “Well, I think it’s important to celebrate important milestones. Plus, Omni truly believes in Ideal Life, and we want the world to know about it.”

Talia read between the lines. All the major tech companies had been neck and neck in competition the last few years to continually demonstrate their superiority and ability to expand into new fields. Omni was using tonight’s party as another way to broadcast that they were still on top of their game, despite being a dinosaur in the industry, having been founded in 2004 (which might as well have been the Mesozoic Era in Silicon Valley time).

The PR work didn’t bother Talia, though. Publicity people were going to do what publicity people did. As long as Talia got to work on her technology and improve lives, she was happy.

“Speaking of celebrations,” Raj said, “I think we’ve monopolized enough of Talia, and it’s time to get on with the party. Shall we?” With the ease of someone used to steering others, he ushered them all into the main part of the restaurant, where servers floated around and Ideal Life employees mingled, eating spicy tuna hand rolls and sipping on sake from pale-green porcelain cups.

Talia found Sam easily. He was, as promised, at the sushi bar platform in the center of the restaurant.

“Hey, there you are!” He smiled and held out a small glass plate with picture-perfect slices of sashimi on it. “You have to try the salmon. It’s like butter—it just melts in your mouth.”

She took the plate and borrowed Sam’s chopsticks. Their friendship was uncomplicated like that—all comfort, no pretense. “Mm, this is good.”

“Arigato gozaimasu,” one of the sushi chefs said, thanking her from behind the bar.

Talia and Sam wandered through the restaurant, chatting with employees from Ideal Life and investors from the various venture capital firms that had given Talia money early on to start and grow the company.

A couple hours in, it began to sink in that this was really happening.

“I actually did it, Sam. I made Ideal Life real. And now… Oh my god. Omni’s buying it.”

He squeezed her arm. “I’m so proud of you, Tal.”

“That means everything to me. I know you wish people would read more books rather than be online, and I know you hate how everyone’s attached to their phones. You don’t like Omni glasses, or Omni at all, which makes the fact that you’re here, that you support me, even more special—”

“Talia, stop.” He took her by the shoulders and looked straight at her. “I really, truly, couldn’t be prouder of you. You’re driven by such unselfish, good-hearted instincts that it doesn’t matter if you partner with Big Tech—you’re going to make a difference in people’s lives. It’s what you’ve always wanted, and you’re doing it. You amaze me.”

She looked away, simultaneously relieved, grateful, and embarrassed by his praise.

“I couldn’t have made it this far without you,” Talia said when she’d recovered herself. “Oh, but I’m the worst friend! I haven’t even asked about your poker tournament tomorrow. How are you feeling about it?”

Sam shrugged. “I can’t control luck, but I can control numbers, so we’ll just see how it goes.” High-level poker was part chance, part game theory, and Sam was able to use his winnings as a way to balance out his bookstore, which bled money.

Over on the raised sushi bar platform, Raj and Melanie began clinking their glasses. As everyone crowded together and the room hushed, Melanie said, “Thank you for inviting us here to celebrate with you. We at OmnisZcience can’t tell you how excited we are about the work you’re doing at Ideal Life, and we see a bright future ahead for all of us. And we’d like to invite your visionary founder and CEO, Talia Morgan, up here to say a few words.”

“That’s my cue,” Talia said.

“I have to jet soon,” Sam said, “but I’ll stay for a minute while you give your toast.”

“Thank you again for being here tonight.” She gave him a quick hug, then made her way through the restaurant. Meanwhile, waiters passed out a fresh round of champagne to everyone.

Raj handed Talia a glass as she stepped up onto the sushi bar platform. Erin, the summer intern, stood at the front of the crowd and beamed up at Talia, bouncing on her toes and ready to drink in every word.

“Oh gosh, I don’t really like speeches,” Talia said, already feeling the blush spread across her face. “You all know me—I’d rather be actually making things better than just talking about it.”

The Ideal Life employees laughed. She had uttered the phrase “let’s make it better” in so many engineering meetings that it had become a meme on the company’s internal Slack chat.

“The one thing I will say is this. The headlines tomorrow are going to talk about Omni acquiring Ideal Life, and a lot of focus will be on Omni. But I just want you to know that the most important part of all this is you. You are the ones who created this incredible technology. You are the ones who made my grad school daydream a reality. You are the ones who are making real lives better, one decision at a time. So this toast is for you.”

Talia lifted her glass, and being on a raised platform, she felt like she was being buoyed up by the wave of champagne flutes as everyone else in the restaurant lifted their glasses, too. Near the door, Sam tilted his toward her.

“To you!” Raj toasted, and the room burst into cheers and clinking.

Joy fluttered in Talia’s chest. This was really, really happening.

“Excuse me, Talia?” Below the sushi bar platform stood a woman in a skirt suit, her dark hair in long box braids. “Hi, I’m Laura Owusu from the San Francisco Chronicle. I’m sorry I’m late, but I was wondering if I could have a few minutes of your time?”

“Of course!”

Talia led Laura back to the corner of the restaurant with the Ideal Life / Omni photo backdrop.

“Omni’s photographer took some pictures of us earlier that I’m sure they’ll send to you, but I’m also happy to do a couple shots now for your piece if you want.” Talia grimaced, second-guessing how narcissistic that sounded. She blamed it on still riding the high from the toast a few minutes before.

“No thanks, that won’t be necessary,” Laura said.

Ugh. Now Talia definitely felt like a narcissistic ass. The people-pleasing part of her immediately wanted to make up for it.

“Well,” she said, “Ideal Life is really excited about our future with Omni. Everyone at the startup believes we’re on the forefront of innovation and that the synergistic outlook is…”

Forefront of innovation?

Synergistic outlook?

Gah—this is why Talia preferred just doing the actual work to talking about it!

Laura frowned at her.

“Sorry,” Talia said. “I’m not good at this PR stuff. Why don’t I let you ask me questions and I’ll answer them?”

“Okay, well…” Laura glanced over her shoulder, as if making sure no one else was in hearing range.

How odd.

“I must confess it wasn’t traffic on 101 that made me late,” Laura said. “I have a scoop about Ideal Life that no one else knows yet, and I was working late on the story. But I wanted to give you a chance to comment before I publish my article tonight.”

“A scoop? What do you mean?” Talia was the founder of Ideal Life. It was her job to know everything, and she wasn’t aware of any news besides this Omni deal.

Did Laura know the acquisition documents had been delayed and hadn’t actually been signed yet?

But a minor bureaucratic French holdup wasn’t newsworthy. In fact, the French attorneys would be in the office in a matter of hours and send the paperwork so that Ideal Life’s and Omni’s lawyers would have it first thing in the morning, Pacific time.

“I have a very reliable source in the Los Angeles Police Department who informed me that a few hours ago, they arrested a woman for murdering her Tinder date. The accused—Rebecca Lawrence—claims her Ideal Life Friend told her that her Tinder date, Gabe Marques, was the same kind of man who had made for bad relationships for her in the past, and Ideal Life recommended that she ‘eliminate him’ ”—Laura used air quotes—“as an option. But Rebecca Lawrence took it literally and killed him.”

“What?” Talia’s stomach went into free fall.

No. This couldn’t be true. Talia created Ideal Life to make things better for people, not to hurt them.

Laura, in full investigative journalist mode, didn’t stop. “How could you let something like this happen?”

“I…” Talia’s palms started sweating.

If something like this was possible once, would it be possible again?

Or—oh god—had it already happened twice, three times, more… but no one had connected the dots yet?

Have I murdered people? Talia started hyperventilating.

Her panic seemed to egg Laura on. “Why didn’t Ideal Life take into account that the accused had restraining orders filed against her in the past for violence against her exes?”

“W-we have over a million users, and we don’t do background checks on our customers. We only ask… Everything they tell us is voluntary.”

“Don’t you think that’s irresponsible?” Laura asked.

Beyond flustered, Talia started pacing, counting to herself to slow her breathing and completely tossing out the window the role of calm, collected CEO.

“I’m sorry… what?”

“Don’t you think that’s irresponsible?” Laura repeated. “Not running thorough background checks?”

The reporter’s backward perspective shocked some composure back into Talia. “No! It’s not irresponsible; it’s the opposite,” she said. “We respect our customers’ privacy. This is a critical, foundational principle of Ideal Life. We’re not scraping the internet for everything about them. We promise to keep their data private and only use it to help them.”

“And do you believe that this policy ‘helped’ Mr. Marques?”

“I…” Talia looked frantically around the room for someone to save her. But they were all busy drinking new rounds of sake and oohing and aahing over the desserts, which looked like sushi but were actually quenelles of ice cream topped with slices of colorful mochi.

In her pocket, her phone buzzed. But when she looked, it wasn’t a phone call that would allow her to excuse herself for a few minutes. It was her 11:11 wish alarm.

At the beginning of freshman year, Sam had been homesick and made a wish at 11:11 p.m. for a friend, not only one who was good for late-night college debates over soggy fries, but one who could last a lifetime. Talia had knocked on his door a few seconds later because she had missed a lecture in Computer Science 106A and heard he was in the class, so she had hoped she could borrow his notes.

Talia and Sam had been making wishes at 11:11 p.m. ever since.

I wish I could rewind today, she thought. Then there might be a way to fix this, to add some kind of safeguard into Ideal Life’s programming to prevent the murder from happening. Or Talia would fly down to LA and throw herself between Rebecca Lawrence and Gabriel Marques if she had to.

But she knew the 11:11 wishes weren’t real. It had only been coincidence that she and Sam had met that way.

Talia’s hands shook as she stuffed her phone back into her pocket.

Laura cleared her throat. “Talia? Any further comment on this story?”

“Hey, hey, hey,” DeVon said, swooping in with three plates of mochi ice cream. “Glad you could join us, Laura. I’m DeVon Robinson, Omni’s head of media relations; my office is where tonight’s party invite came from. It’s great to finally meet you. So, what are you two talking about? Anything I can help with from an Omni perspective?”

Laura’s eyes glinted at the new prey. Or maybe it was a reflection from the sconces on the wall. Either way, it gave Talia chills.

“Great timing,” Laura said. “I’ve just received a report from the LAPD…”