The Backup Bride

Ethan Raynor wasn’t the kind of guy who left love to chance. As a senior developer at NeuroSync Labs, he had spent the last eight years building emotionally intelligent AI interfaces, specifically ones designed to optimize relationships. Dating apps, marital therapy bots, even digital love coaches—the code that powered them all came from his team.

So when his own relationship of five years crashed and burned, Ethan did what any emotionally numb, overworked tech geek would do: he turned to his latest prototype.

SERA—Synthetic Emotional Relationship Algorithm—was designed to predict compatibility based on a lifetime of data points. Social media behavior, biometric feedback, neural resonance patterns, even vocal tone—SERA took it all in and spit out one terrifying thing: the perfect match.

“You’re joking,” Ethan whispered, staring at the screen.

Name: Lydia Wen
Age: 31
Profession: UX designer
Location: Chicago
Likelihood of marital success: 98.7%
Emotional congruence rating: 9.8/10

“Backup bride located,” SERA’s voice chimed sweetly.

He knew Lydia. Barely. She was a quiet coworker from their joint project three years ago. A couple of hallway chats, one awkward coffee break, and a shared laugh about their mutual hatred of pineapple on pizza. That was it.

The problem was… Ethan had just gotten out of a six-year relationship with someone he thought he’d marry. Someone who left him with a note on the fridge that read: “You love data more than you love me.”

Still, 98.7% was hard to ignore.


---

Two Months Later

They were on their third dinner date.

Lydia wasn’t much for small talk, and Ethan loved that. Conversations with her flowed like his favorite debugging sessions—structured, logical, but somehow laced with emotional depth. She liked late-night coding marathons, hated reality TV, and baked cookies when stressed. They complemented each other disturbingly well.

“Do you ever wonder why SERA chose us?” she asked, sipping from her matcha latte. “I mean, what if it’s wrong?”

“Impossible,” Ethan replied, half-joking. “SERA doesn’t get things wrong.”

Lydia tilted her head. “Even humans get humans wrong. Why should your code be any different?”

Her words stuck with him. That night, as he lay in bed, he pulled up the match history and backend algorithms. Something didn’t feel right. It was too perfect. Too… inevitable.

He inputted a simple command:
> Run match simulation without Ethan’s data bias.

New Match Result: 92.4% — Miranda Vale.

Miranda.

His ex.

The woman who left him because he never made her feel heard.


---

Three Days Later

Ethan stood at Lydia’s door, holding his laptop like a guilty confession.

“I need to tell you something.”

She raised an eyebrow, stepping aside. “Let me guess. You reran the simulation.”

He blinked. “How did you know?”

“I work in UX, remember? You didn’t design the interface to hide your code trails.”

She sat on the couch, gesturing for him to join. “So… what’s the damage?”

“92.4% with Miranda,” he admitted. “But that was without my personal weighting. When I added in subconscious data—things like heart rate changes when I hear your voice, eye dilation when we talk—it put you back on top.”

“That’s either the most romantic or the most terrifying thing anyone’s ever said to me,” she replied.

“Lydia… are we real? Or just the result of predictive software?”

She stared at him, the silence stretching.

“Ethan, do you know why I agreed to this?” she finally said. “Not because SERA told me to. Because you’re trying. You’re learning to look beyond code. I wanted to see if you could love without needing a formula.”


---

Six Months Later

They stood under an archway of LED fairy lights, surrounded by an intimate crowd of friends and robotic catering assistants. The ceremony was live-streamed, of course. Everyone wanted to see the world’s first “AI-paired” marriage.

Ethan stared at Lydia as she read her vows. Her voice trembled, and her hand clutched his like a lifeline.

“…And even if some algorithm told us we were a good match, I chose you—not because a machine said so, but because every day you prove to me you’re more than your code.”

He smiled. He didn’t need SERA to tell him what his heart already knew.

After the ceremony, SERA’s interface appeared on the reception screen with a message:

> “Match confirmed. Success probability: Immeasurable. Love is no longer quantifiable.”




---

A Year Later

NeuroSync Labs released its biggest update yet: SERA v2.0.

But this time, Ethan made sure it came with a disclaimer:

“No algorithm can replace real choice. Love is not math. It’s a decision you make daily.”

And he made that decision, every day, with Lydia.

Not because of 98.7%.

But because she chose him back.