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“An echo. A return signal.” He’s quiet for a beat. “It’s probably nothing.”

“Probably nothing,” I say.

“The other units were destroyed,” he says. “All of them. That was the mandate.”

“Right,” Gemma says. But her pen is back in her hand, and she’s writing.

“So there’s nothing out there to receive the signal,” Aiden continues. “The echo could be interference. A reflection off a satellite or a communication tower. There are multiple explanations that don’t involve—”

“Another synthetic,” Avery finishes.

The word hangs in the bakery like smoke.

Liv looks at me. I look at Gemma. Gemma looks at Avery. Avery looks at Aiden.

“It’s probably nothing,” Aiden says again. Steadier this time. “I’ll monitor it.”

“I’ll research it,” Gemma says.

“I’ll open another bottle,” Liv says, and she’s already moving toward the bag because Liv handles tension the way Liv handles everything—by getting us all tipsy.

The conversation drifts back. Slowly. Unevenly. Liv steers it toward wedding dresses, which is safe territory, and someone mentions a cake tasting and I say, “I’m making my own cake, obviously,” and Aiden says, “I’ll help,” and I say, “you can’t taste it,” and he says, “I’ll manage the structural integrity,” and Gemma asks if she can run load-bearing calculations on a three-tier design, and the evening almost feels normal again.

Almost.

But I catch it—twice, three times—the look that passes between my friends. Quick. Careful. Not panic. Something quieter. The look of four women who’ve been hiding one synthetic man for months and just learned there might be more.

Avery catches my eye across the room. Holds it. She doesn’t say anything. She doesn’t have to. Her expression says everything: Whatever comes next, we handle it. The way we always handle it. Together.

I nod.

She nods back. Takes a sip of wine. Returns her attention to Liv, who is now showing Aiden wedding dress options on her phone and asking him which one he prefers, and he’s saying, “the one Ruby likes best,” and Liv is saying, “that’s the right answer but it’s also the BORING answer,” and Gemma is calculating fabric costs, and Biscuit is snoring, and the bakery is warm and full and mine.

Whatever is out there—whatever the signal found or didn’t find—it can wait.

Tonight is about cake tastings and a man who wants his wedding vows to include metrics and a dog who showed up, and my three best friends who showed up when it mattered and never left.

The rest we’ll figure out.

We always do.

Epilogue

Ruby

Batteries Included

“I cannot believe you did this.”

I’m standing in Liv’s apartment, holding a cocktail called “The Upgrade,” surrounded by circuit board streamers and silver balloons that say BRIDE in block letters, and there is a banner over the kitchen that reads:

BUILD-A-BOYFRIEND WORKSHOP: BACHELORETTE EDITION

Underneath, in smaller text: Where one lucky bride literally built hers in a lab.

“You hate it,” Liv says, grinning so wide I can see her molars.

“I hate it so much.”