When Yang made the announcement people were stunned. The Cato Institute slipped their children cyanide pills. Held their hands while they convulsed and foamed and slipped mercifully into the night. Chelsea Handler set herself on fire. Even the channers couldn’t believe it– and it was them who’d made it happen. But I signed up the next day. It was like my prayers were heard.

Incel had taken out Amazon. Not the whole thing at once– but they’d figured out that you could get an RC chopper at the hobby store. A pack of model rocket engines. Ten Incel fedayeen could blow up transformers next to Fulfillment Centers any given day and that was that. Hundreds of millions vanished. Workers evacuated but still paid as Bezos’ fingers clenched futilely around that precious seven dollars an hour slipping away. And, importantly, no Value Added. No tax collected on every robot delivered package. Every self-driving truck mile. Google and Facebook didn’t even need a bomb. They were ad sales operations. Someone found their real data, sent it to their clients. No tax on every click. Zuckerberg retired to his acreage in Hawaii to live out his days diving. He’d caught the business end of a Portuguese man o’ war. Priscilla had made it through med school. But appearing distraught was the hardest thing she’d ever done.

For the first time in history, the unlaid were organized. People had had Freedom Dividends six months. Now taking it away meant murder. And there, one day, on Jack Dorsey’s hacked Twitter after an introductory FUCK N*GGERS, was a list of demands. It was one item long.

We want GFs

Yang caved. I was 45. My mother had stopped asking about girlfriends. Then about pets. Then about anything but suicidal ideation. I’d voted for Yang. Donated. Even though his signs needled me at night. DO THE MATH. Ever increasing odds of my middle aged sperm causing autism. The math said I’d grow old and die. Never hold my first child. Or I’d spend my days fighting him off as he bit me savagely for moving his oscillating fan. My own fault. Sometimes I’d think of her. Maybe text. Thinking I shouldn’t have let go. She’d text back. I remembered why I did.

The system was National E-Harmony. You punched in stats about yourself. It found you one match, one time. Math. A woman who dated her match two years could quintuple her Freedom Dividend. It’s national sex trafficking, said Rachel Maddow, rasping like male hope was cutting off her air. It didn’t matter. Cable news viewers averaged 78 years old. By the next election they’d be dead.

You punched in stats and she did too and the system gave her your address and one morning the doorbell rang.

**

Hi, she said.

Hi.

I’m Jocelyn.

She looked Irish. That was the first problem. Under 38, over 32. I don’t want to fuck her, I thought. I specifically said Asian. But no, fucking isn’t the point here. Do you want to come in.

I’d rather not, until we know each other.

Jesus Christ is she rejecting me already. 5 grand a month not enough to get a woman in my apartment. Yeah of course, I’ll uh come out– did you have trouble finding the place?

No.

OK well thanks for coming–

Well it was mandated by the government, she said. She wasn’t bad looking. She smiled, and I remembered I wasn’t either.

**

I took her to the duck pond near my apartment. They’d have given me someone who likes birds. I’d mentioned it 10 times in the form. There was a mating pair of ruddy ducks. The small auburn male with his bright blue bill stood on a rock, preening. Diligently pushing air out from his feathers to reduce buoyancy. The longer he can stay underwater, the more small crustaceans he can find, I explained. So you’re into ducks, she said. It didn’t sound like good news.

Nature helps me find peace.

And you write self help books.

Self-published books, they’re about, like– they don’t help people. They actually got flagged when the Incel stuff started–

Wait, are they like bad? Omigod are you alt r–

No, no. It’s just, very honest about sex stuff, society

And you don’t have a job. You make a living from the books.

That and the Freedom Dividend, yes.

Are you going to ask what I do?

OK

I’m a writer too. That’s why they matched us.

She was pitching pilots for streaming, she explained. Or perhaps I’ll get on staff somewhere, but for now my agent’s waiting to hear back from Quibble–

Is that–

They have a billion dollars for development from Dubai. But I also do a lot of work in branded. And with nonprofits. And I’m producing an unscripted series where young women of color rescue dogs using robotics they built. That’s for Comcast.

It doesn’t sound like you need money.

Well none of it’s paying me. But I just did this to see who they gave me.

What do you think?

I asked for someone passionate about food. Travel. Someone passionate about racial justice–

I asked for an Asian.

Oh, because you want a submissive little wife?

No, a tight pussy.

I waited. And she did laugh.

**

She moved in in January with her black Great Dane, Dante. I threw out the antibiotics I’d been hoarding in the medicine cabinet to make room for her pills. The SSRI made it hard for her to cum. It took an hour with two cramped fingers hooked into her and my jaw starting to ache. Feeling like a medieval woodcut of a peasant plowing dry fields, while Death looms over his shoulder. Half the time I’d apologize. Take a walk, frustrated. Leave her alone with the dog. But she said without them she wasn’t herself.

It was hard, but she was mine. In September I asked her about taking the IUD out. It always made me feel like a weasel had bitten me. And she said maybe. Maybe soon. You’re so good with Dante.

Then her pilot got picked up.

She got a Wikipedia entry. Jocelyn Finnegan is an American actress, writer, producer, personality and activist. Be careful, I joked with her. You have a Wikipedia, you’ll want to leave me for a guy with a bigger Wikipedia. And he’ll want to leave you for his 22 year old Asian intern. She just glared. That’s kind of racist, she said.

I didn’t mean it that way.

You know my agent asked about your books.

Oh yeah?

Not like that. She’s worried they’ll be a story. They could be a problem for me.

I asked why, but I knew. Because they’re kind of hateful, she said.

They’re not hateful–

You said “fuck the Jews.”

Not all of them

Well what do you think Buzzfeed would think of that. You think it’s funny but people read this stuff and they become racist. People like you are why Brexit happened. Racists–

Brexit was about Polish people– are they not white

You spread hate and those fucking people read it and that’s why we had Trump–

Jesus Christ can you let it go? He’s gone.

Yeah just like Voldemort was gone

Oh my fucking God is this real–

How can you not get this, she said. You think you’re fucked up because you were alone so long. But you were alone because you’re so fucked up. I’m leaving.

We have a year left

I’m requesting a transfer for abuse. They’ll give me the money prorated. Please, just don’t make this hard. If you ever cared about me, just sign–

I said yes. I was 46.

**

I don’t know what happened to her. The pilot didn’t go to series. I think she froze her eggs. I haven’t become a story, yet.

Since my last partner filed the papers I was ineligible to reapply. This was not uncommon. Less than 9% of couples stayed together for the jackpot. Most partnerships terminated for abuse claims.

A year later I spent my last Freedom Dividend. Hard to find the right material. Amazon wouldn’t ship what you needed. Am I fucked up from being alone so long. Or am I alone because I’m so fucked up.

Looking back it never could have worked. Me and her, or any of it. The world moved on. The normal inherited the Earth. They saw us as the enemy. The last pocket of retrograde evil in a society moving toward sexless pet care utopia. And she was right. I did say hateful things. I did help cause problems.

I’m sorry for that. And for what I’m about to do.