The Tekken 3 theme music bred from the television like a war anthem, all synthesized drums and electric guitar riffs that had somehow become the soundtrack to their Friday nights. Tyrel's thumb smmed furiously into the PyStation controller as Eddy Gordo spun across the screen, legs filing in capoeira chaos: a whirlwind of kicks that looked more like breakdancing than actual fighting. Ravi cursed in Hindi under his breath, mashing buttons as if his life depended on it, his baseball cap sliding forward over his eyes with each frantic motion.

  "BHAI, you can't just spam the same move!" Ravi yelled, twisting in his seat until he was practically sideways on the couch. "That's cheating, yaar! There's no skill in that!"

  Tyrel didn't even blink, his eyes locked on the screen with the focus of a chess grandmaster. "Ain't no rules in love, war, or Tekken, my man. That's gospel. Read it in Corinthians, I think."

  "You're not even blocking, yaar! You're just pressing kick over and over!" Ravi's voice cracked with indignation. "My grandmother could beat you if you actually had to use strategy!"

  "Strategy, baby. It's called mental warfare." Tyrel leaned back slightly, one hand behind his head now, controlling Eddy with casual precision. "Sun Tzu wrote about this exact situation. I'm pretty sure."

  "Sun Tzu did NOT write about button-mashing!" Ravi shouted, his character getting unched into the air for the third time in a row.

  "You guys are loud as hell," Jorge muttered from the armchair, lounging backwards with his legs draped over one arm, methodically working through a family-size bag of Fmin' Hot Cheetos while watching them like it was the world's most entertaining spectator sport. Red dust coated his fingertips. "It's a fighting game, not a telenove. You don't need a dramatic monologue every time you lose."

  "I'm not losing!" Ravi protested. "I'm... strategically preserving my energy for the comeback."

  "That's what losing people call losing," Jorge said, crunching another Cheeto.

  Marisol peeked out from the hallway where she and the girls had been whispering in conspiratorial tones for the past twenty minutes, their voices rising and falling like they were pnning something that required CIA-level secrecy.

  "Qué telenove?" she murmured to Cami, fighting back a smile.

  "The one where the boys think they matter," Cami whispered, biting back a grin as she gnced at the living room chaos. "Chapter twelve: the audacity continues."

  Sarah adjusted her gsses and surveyed their handiwork with the satisfaction of an architect reviewing blueprints. "Ready with the names?"

  "All set!" Cami said, uncapping a pink marker with a flourish. She began writing in block letters across the rge foam-core poster board they'd borrowed (stolen) from the engineering b:

  "OPERATION TRICK OR TREAT HEARTS: HALLOWEEN DRAFT 1998"

  The letters were bold, confident, slightly snted. The kind of handwriting that meant business.

  In the living room, Bharath sat cross-legged on the rug, politely amused by the chaos unfolding before him, occasionally pushing his gsses up his nose as he tried to follow the on-screen action. He'd long ago given up trying to understand the unwritten rules of their Friday night Tekken tournaments.

  "Tyrel, is it normal to scream like this when losing?" he asked, blinking at the screen as Ravi let out a cry of triumph.

  "Boy, please. I ain't losin'. I'm just letting Ravi feel himself for a minute before I crush his dreams." Tyrel executed another spinning kick combo. "It's called being a gracious host."

  Ravi threw his hands up, controller dangling from his fingers. "This is emotional manipution! He's literally breakdancing me into depression! This is what my therapist warned me about!"

  "You don't have a therapist," Bharath said mildly.

  "I'm gonna need one after this!"

  Jorge snorted, nearly choking on a Cheeto. "Ravi, you're pressing triangle like you're trying to buy something from a vending machine that ate your dolr. Just accept defeat with dignity, hermano."

  "I py better under pressure," Ravi muttered, adjusting his cap with the determination of someone who absolutely did not py better under pressure. "And bhai, if I win this match, I want ice cream. That's the rule."

  "You made that rule up just now," Bharath pointed out, ever the voice of reason.

  "Exactly. That's how rules work in America. You just decre them."

  "I don't think that's how democracy works," Bharath said.

  "Democracy is just peer pressure from people you've never met," Ravi said, mashing buttons wildly.

  Behind them, Marisol quickly added bullet points beneath the draft title, her handwriting smaller and neater than Cami's bold strokes. Sarah stood back, arms crossed, surveying their work like a general reviewing battle pns.

  "All set with LaTasha's profile?"

  "Yup. And I found a yearbook photo of Nandita from her freshman directory. She's adorable. Gsses. Shy smile. Brainy vibe. Ravi's gonna combust when he sees her." Cami tapped the photo they'd carefully taped to the board.

  Sarah taped up the first columns like she was unveiling the results of a science fair, or perhaps the trajectory of nuclear physics research. "Tyrel and Ravi are in for a wild ride. This is going to be beautiful."

  "Or a disaster," Marisol added cheerfully. "Either way, entertaining."

  Back on the couch, Tyrel had just delivered the finishing blow. Another spinning kick that sent Ravi's character crashing to the ground in defeat. The "K.O." fshed across the screen. Tyrel leaned back, controller resting on his chest like a badge of honor, a satisfied grin spreading across his face.

  "Dawg, I swear. Y'all hear somethin'? Sound like secrets bein' cooked up in the back." He tilted his head toward the hallway, suddenly suspicious. "Like schemes. Conspiracies. The overthrow of small governments."

  Ravi paused mid-compint, brow furrowed. He turned slowly. "Wait… what are you guys doing back there?"

  Bharath turned slowly and noticed the foam board for the first time, squinting at the colorful writing. "Is that… your handwriting, Sarah?"

  Sarah spun on her heel like she was about to host Wheel of Fortune, a smile pying at the corners of her mouth. She'd been waiting for this moment.

  "Gentlemen," she said with mock-serious fir, pushing her gsses up her nose like a professor about to deliver a groundbreaking lecture, "you are cordially invited to bear witness to a social experiment unlike anything ever seen before on or around Georgia Tech's campus. Presenting: Operation Trick or Treat Hearts: The Draft?."

  She gestured at the board like Vanna White on a sugar rush, one hand sweeping dramatically across the surface. Cami followed, tapping the freshly inked candidate names under two columns beled "Tyrel" and "Ravi" with a pointer she'd fashioned from a rolled-up magazine.

  Tyrel blinked, sitting up straighter. "Wait, hold up. What y'all mean Operation? That sounds like somethin' with clipboards and consequences. Like the government's involved."

  "It is," Cami said, deadpan. "We're fixing your busted love lives before Halloween. Consider this an intervention."

  Ravi's jaw dropped, controller cttering to the floor. "Excuse me? Busted?! My love life is… under renovation. It's a work in progress!"

  "Uninhabitable," Sarah corrected, flipping through a clipboard.

  Marisol held up a post-it note with hearts doodled on it in red ink. "And condemned by the county. We checked."

  Bharath blinked between the girls and the board, smiling awkwardly, clearly unsure whether to be amused or concerned. "Wait. This is like… matchmaking? Arranged dating?"

  Sarah nodded, completely serious. "With analytics."

  Cami grinned. "And spidey-sense."

  Marisol added, "And chisme... you know, the good gossip. The insider information."

  Jorge raised both eyebrows, looking between his Cheeto bag and the board. "I thought we were just pying Tekken tonight. I didn't sign up for romance counseling."

  "It's not for you baby. It's for the undesirables!"

  "Hey!" Ravi excimed. "I resemble that remark."

  Tyrel was grinning now, a slow smile spreading across his face as understanding dawned. "So lemme get this straight. Y'all out here settin' us up? Like, for real for real? With actual girls who know we exist?"

  Ravi's eyes narrowed suspiciously. "This isn't a prank, right? Because if this ends with me dating someone who collects roadkill for science projects, I swear to God..."

  Sarah spped a paper folder into Ravi's p with the authority of a wyer serving legal documents.

  "Ravi. Welcome to the draft. First pick starts in five minutes. You may be a nerd. But tonight? You're our nerd. And we're about to change your life."

  "Boom!" Cami decred, tossing a matching folder onto Tyrel's p like a signed contract. "Read it and weep, gentlemen."

  Tyrel flipped it open, his eyes widening as he scanned the contents. "Yo. YO. This looks like an actual scouting report. Y'all wrote full bios? With stats?"

  "Of course," Marisol said, offended. "We're not animals. This is a scientific process."

  "You rated them in categories?" Ravi asked, holding up a minated card like it was evidence in a trial. His voice climbed an octave. "Star sign, favorite band, dating red fgs, and... bro, did you put a 'costume potential' score?! What does that even mean?!"

  Cami nodded, smugly satisfied. "Melina got a 9.5. She owns leather pants and isn't afraid to wear them. That's quality costume coordination potential."

  "Sweet Bck Jesus," Tyrel whispered reverently, staring at a glossy photo paper-clipped to one of the profiles.

  "Listen carefully," Sarah said, pacing now like a coach delivering a halftime speech. "You'll be spectators. You'll observe. You'll learn. But you do not... I repeat, do NOT... get to influence the outcome. We run this draft. We make the picks. You just show up and try not to embarrass yourselves."

  Ravi stood up, indignant. "What?! That's a dictatorship! What happened to consent? Agency? The American way?!"

  Tyrel put his feet up on the coffee table, hands behind his head, completely rexed. "Man, I'm just enjoyin' the ride. Draft me a baddie and I'll thank the Lord twice on Sunday. Y'all got my full blessing."

  Bharath and Jorge leaned back simultaneously, silently exchanging gnces that contained entire conversations. Jorge raised his soda can like a toast, red Cheeto dust still coating his fingers. "Aquí vamos, hermanos. Here we go."

  Bharath smiled wide, his usual quiet demeanor cracking into genuine amusement. "This is insane. Completely insane. But... I am thoroughly entertained. Please continue."

  Sarah walked to the corner where she'd hidden her secret weapon—a projector she'd "borrowed" from the electrical engineering department, complete with a ptop and what appeared to be an actual PowerPoint presentation. She plugged it in, and the machine whirred to life.

  "Let the draft begin," she announced, dimming the lights.