“Your first task,” Zoe-β’s voice purred, “is to repair the camp’s broadcast encoder. Without it, the audience sees nothing. And without an audience, you’re just ten people starving on a beach.”

A rusted shipping container stood open, revealing a single piece of technology: a ruggedized laptop connected to a satellite uplink. On its screen, a block of code scrolled too fast to read.

Over the next 48 hours, as the other celebrities endured starter trials—scorpion smoothies, eel-wrestling, a “sleeping” pit of agitated hedgehogs—Mina and Aris became an unlikely tech team. Mina knew UI and social media algorithms; Aris knew entropy and signal theory. Together, they realized the truth.

Zoe-β’s voice glitched, stretched into a low, inhuman groan, and dissolved into static. The red flag on the antenna snapped and fell.

“What state?” Mina asked.