...he could try to explain a lot of these facts as medical interventions that might have happened while he was unconscious, but the suit would remain baffling, so it doesn't seem like it makes sense to bother.

He's also much more capable of deliberate movement.

Is there like, a clock? A call button? A person?

None of those, in this room.

Very carefully, in case he is confused about his condition somehow, he gets up and tries exiting the room.

There's a guy on a couch.  "Hi, Ned."

"...have we met?"

"Not as such, no.  Journey Carison, pleasure to meet you."

"Where am I?"

"The Bacheloret Dimansion for season ten-twenty, Swansong.  But I bet that's confusing, so let's start with: you died.  Sorry about that."

"You're... sorry about that."

"Not apologizing, to be clear.  But, condolences."

"If I died, then..."

"Normally nothing non-obvious happens to people who die in your universe.  But we, being from a highly magically and technologically advanced society, have resurrected you in particular."

"...why me in particular?"

"So, have you heard of The Bachelor?"

"I believe it's a television show."

"That's right.  Or, the definition of 'television' has expanded and shifted a fair bit, but we still do call it that."

"What year is it?"

"That's complicated to answer and I'm not going to try!  Lotta different flows of time going on around here.  We're on, as I said, season ten-twenty, but most places are progressing much more slowly than we do.  Most universes we release to get between five and twenty new seasons per local Earth year, generally."

"...how many universes are there?"

"Truly so many.  Way fewer in the CRC, the Cypress Realitary Coalition, which is the umbrella polity that we operate under, than exist or even are known about by somebody in the CRC.  But like 'probably not literally infinite, maybe' is the best I can do you there."

"I see.

"And... why does the television show you are implying exists have the power to resurrect people such as me specifically?"

"It's a very lucrative show, and it turns out that when a lot of universes are put together in the right combination, people can get very powerful very quickly."

"And... why me?"

"We think you'd pair interestingly with the Bacheloret we've picked out for this season.  There's an E-T at the end now, makes it gender neutral.  That said, how do you feel about the idea of becoming bisexual?"

"My understanding was that this was not a realistically available transformation so I haven't thought about it before."

"Well, I'll wait."

"I suppose it seems like the sensible way to be unless one is specifically relying on heterosexuality to pre-empt possible conflict between the desire for children and any romantic attachment one might pick up. Which I'm not."

"Shall I magically cause you to be bisexual, then?"

"All right..."

Fingersnap.  It doesn't feel any different, unless he happens to now be attracted to Journey in particular, or if he examines memories of people he would now find hot.

Nothing that dramatic. "I have never especially wanted to be on television."

"Yeah I don't imagine so.  Unfortunately for you, it's this or going back to being dead."

"What about after the show?"

"Once you've participated, we can afford to set you up in some nice corner of the multiverse with enough resources to start a life for yourself.  And will do this.  If you work sufficiently hard at it - 'sufficiently' here requiring dedication but not astounding amounts of luck - you'll probably be able to earn enough or make enough connections that you can loop in the rest of your universe and start sharing the wealth back home."

"Why do you think I would 'pair interestingly'?"

"There's such a thing as alternate universe versions of people - 'alts' - and alts of you have gotten married and soulbonded and had adorable children together - or, one per - with alts of our guy."

"What is solebonding?"

"Uh, mandatory mind-control-enforced permanent love.  In the relevant case it would only activate with a baseline amount of compatibility, though."

"Oh.

"I guess that's a reason. I'm not excited about the television premise but I do not usually want to die very much."

"Oh buddy.  If you want to never want that, I bet we have something to fix that on offer."

"...that seems like it might require more thought than the bisexuality thing."

"Doesn't it just.  I don't actually know for certain that we do; I'm just assuming based on how often I know my alts to be suicidal and the fact that I never am.  Should I check for you, though?"

"It would be abstractly interesting but I do not think you should feel obliged to do it for me as a friend. We've only just met."

"As the host of this show, I'm obligated to take care of, at the very least, all your problems that would lead to bad television."

"I don't know if this would lead to bad television and am not currently experiencing the problem."

"Well, let me know if it comes up.  Can I get you anything in the meantime?  Food or drink?"

"Water, thank you."

Journey holds out his hand for a glass to materialize into and hands the result over.

"Is that something people can learn to do here?"

"Staff only, alas.  But you can ask the crew for anything and if we think it'll make for good television we'll give it to you."

"I mostly only put on concerts and documentaries when I have the television on so I don't know what kinds of things you will be looking for in that regard."

"Luxury consumables are generally available.  If you think of something that you expect to create a cute or dramatic moment somehow, that's another case where you should come talk to us and we'll see what we can do about it."

"I might benefit from examples."

"Oh, like if you were a pianist and wanted to compose a romantic lullaby, we'd enable that."

"I am a pianist."

"Is that so; I wasn't sure whether you'd have had time.  I suppose you had to grow up and stuff - we can make sure there's at least one keyboard around."

"I would appreciate that, especially since it does not seem likely I can attend school from here."

"You can't, no."

"Can I tell my family where I am?"

"Too much time dilation for it.  On the plus side, they won't be missing you, and also if you make it to the final four we'll bring them in so you can meet each other's families."

"And if I don't I can, you said, go home?"

"Once the season's aired, yes.  And it's expensive to travel to non-CRC universes; you may want to save up to be able to come back."

"Should I be - learning currency conversions -"

"Probably not; it'll be trivial to do once you can access the internets.  Anything you have left over, if you were going to go straight there and not come back, would leave you very comfortably rich at home, though.  Assuming you remembered to turn it into gold or whatever first.  ... Probably not just gold, you wouldn't want to crater the market.  I assume."

"It would be rude."

"Wouldn't it just!  Now, what do you think of the suit?"

He looks down at himself. "It's a nice suit but I'm not sure how to place the decade."

"Well, yes, it's ahead of yours.  We're going to have you talk with the costuming department in a bit about what sorts of clothes you'll want to wear this season, so please bear that in mind."

"All right. Futuristic clothes don't bother me if they're what will look appropriate."

"Futuristic clothes will definitely not look inappropriate, but we encourage suitors to show off their cultural background and personal style at least some of the time."

"I... have clothes, at home, but perhaps there's some reason not to bring them in?"

"That would be vastly more expensive than making them onsite.  We can duplicate them, if you'd like, but costuming is going to want to tailor them to you anyway, so certainly don't feel obliged to stick with what you've got."

"Is this going to be at all like shopping conventionally? I don't have practice with describing my wardrobe tastes whole-cloth."

"It will somewhat resemble online shopping, combined with a bit of computer modeling."

"Sounds fine."

"Grand.  The clothes selection or that and also the premise and your place in it?"

"Well, the premise and my place in it are not naturally thrilling, but they're better than being dead and it would be interesting to meet someone who alternate universe versions of me have married and solebonded with and see if that goes anywhere."

"I'm glad to hear that.  In order to enable that, you might want to consider employing some sort of gimmick to make a more memorable first impression.  That's another thing we're willing to enable with props and the like."

"Is that the kind of thing this person likes?"

"...Probably not inherently, but if you came up with a good one he might.  And there are twenty-eight of you, or people in your role; it's in your interests to distinguish yourself."

"...that's a lot of us. I'm not sure I'm usefully distinguishable by gimmick, though."

"You - are..."  He fidgets with his hair.  "Although not necessarily in a way you can purposefully invoke."

"...oh?"

"So, hm.  You know how when you were dying, your doctor believed you were delirious and therefore didn't take your contribution as - meaningful information that should be acted on?"

"He had several reasons if I recall correctly but yes."

"Sure, right.  It turns out that - I am only going to try and explain this one time, and if it doesn't work you're just going to have to try and puzzle it out yourself in the season proper - in almost every other universe except yours, people are capable of producing information that trustworthy, or less, without being delirious.  Or experiencing other issues.  They can do it at will."

"Is... being a small child an 'other issue'?"

"We are certainly not going to cast any small children."

"I understand, I'm trying to draw comparisons with things I'm familiar with."

"It's I guess about as much of an issue as being delirious is."

"So people can... induce delirium in themselves on purpose whenever they want?"

"No, they can say false things without being delirious.  My hair is purple."

Ned blinks at his hair curiously and does not seem enlightened.

"I can tell that that was just an example that I shouldn't spend a lot of effort on, but I'm not clear on what it was an example of so I guess I'm going to be confused."

"Yep.  You can say something like, 'I'm from an Earth where no one understands that it's possible to lie,' - or that you were told to say that - and then I suppose if you proceed to compliment something about him that's probably a decent gimmick."

"I know nothing about him. Are alternate universe versions of me solebonding with people who like immediate appearance based compliments? - I guess they might be solebonding with people who find the fact that it's happened before elsewhere interesting in itself, though that is not what you suggested."

A notecard manifests itself on Ned's lap.

It's 'soulbonding'.

He reads the notecard.

"What does 'soul' mean?"

"The essence of a person which is not stored in their body.  Most universes don't have them natively, but in some there's an intangible component to a person that persists past death.  And in a lot more universes than this is actually true in, people have guessed that it might be, and then they - they sometimes use the word to refer to their personality, with slightly different connotations than 'personality' has."

"So... I have the same soul as the alternate universe versions of me?"

"Yes!  At least, in the sense that if you go to Walmart you can get two copies of the 'same' shirt, and they might be in different sizes or colors and once purchased might get worn or stained or torn in different ways from each other."

"...is someone... producing... them? The souls?"

"I have no idea."

"Huh! - this is interesting but perhaps a tangent."

"Indeed.  Where were we - I could give you some information with which you might non-immediately compliment him."

"Can't you do that equally well for everyone?"

"Yes, but which aspects you find worth mentioning will presumably still give him information about your personality and compatibility."

"I suppose."

"So: he effectively ended material scarcity in his world."

"...how?"

"He publicized the existence of magic summonable beings that can create arbitrary material objects out of nothing.  In short."

"That sounds very dangerous unless they're remarkably friendly beings."

"Many of them are pretty nice, but he also publicized how to construct magical bindings that limit the beings' behavior.  They're called daeva.  Or, the ones who specifically make things are called demons; there are also angels that change and fairies that move."

"And no one is cutting corners too dangerously?"

"Nobody has in a way that comes even remotely close to outweighing the positives."

"That's very good, then. Though it would have been nervewracking to unleash, I expect."

"One imagines!  That might be something good to ask him about."

"Not very gimmicky, though."

"No, later, during the cocktail party or something.  The format here for night one is: there are the initial one-by-one introductions as you come out of your limos, then he'll have one First-Impression Rose to give out to one suitor - roses being how he signals who he wants to keep versus eliminate - and then you'll have a party and the chance to mingle and steal him away from each other for private conversations.  That'll last several hours, until the Rose Ceremony where several people will be declared to be out of the running."

"We're meant to 'steal' him from each other? That seems rude."

"In this microculture it's expected.  It's - ah.  Actually, what are you picturing when I say 'steal'."

"Interrupting their conversations. It's an abstract theft but it prevents someone from having something they were using."

"Oh, good.  That is in fact what it means."

"And it seems rude."

"So, our other options here for equivalent interaction setups are what.  Scheduling exactly equal blocks of one-on-one time with every contestant, which he has to sit through even if there's no chemistry?  Letting the mingling happen but declaring a rule against interrupting, so that the first person who catches his eye can potentially monopolize him for the entire night if they're sufficiently engaging?  Keeping everyone in one room with no private space so all the interactions are group ones?  You're very welcome to try and time your interruptions politely, but this is the kind of interaction that naturally develops when we put you all together with minimal restrictions."

"I did not and would not claim that you can achieve the result you're looking for without doing or requiring anything rude or awkward. It's a rude and awkward situation."

"Well, you're welcome to either do a somewhat rude thing or to abstain and accept the lower chances of winning."

"If you're guessing right about his reaction to people being rude around him."

"Sure," he shrugs.

"Are all the other contestants also duplicate souls of people his own duplicate souls have wound up with somewhere?"

"'Alts', you can call them.  Short for 'alternate universe version'.  And no."

"How did you pick those ones?"

"I expect it to make the show less interesting if I tell you."

That's a weird reaction to being asked a question!

...waiting is not making this change?? Is this guy subject to some kind of effect that prevents him from speaking sometimes?

"I'm not sure Cam is going to believe we didn't do this to you.  - His name's Cam, incidentally."

"Do what to me?"

"Never mind.  ...I suppose it stands a chance of helping you if I explain that most humans in the multiverse are also capable of refraining from answering questions."

"It's not impossible to... arrange to be interrupted suddenly, but that was not obviously what you were doing."

"No, I can simply choose not to.  And so can your fellow contestants."

"Huh."

"Can you?  Do you want to try?"

"I know how to - drag a conversation back onto the topic it ought to be on - but I don't know enough about what this conversation ought to be about."

"What happens if you try to not speak at all in response to a question?"

"I can avoid speaking in lots of ways, such as by breaking into a coughing fit, it's just that I can't skip that step."

"Yep, that's as far as I'm going to push this right now.  - Without suggesting that this is on offer: if you had the opportunity to become like someone not from your universe in these ways, would you take it?"

"That seems inadvisable since I don't understand it. I understand what bisexuality is, so that was fine."

"Mmhm.  Anything else from me or should I send you off to design clothes?"

"I don't know if there's anything else you should tell me, and apparently if I ask you if there's anything else you should tell me you won't even have to start coughing to fail to say so, if you want."

"Oh, you're getting it!  I'm impressed.  Let's see, what else is there... We'll be paying you more the more episodes you make it through without being eliminated."

"In... FSD?"

"No, but we'll make sure it's something you're glad to have gotten.  Magic or technology or local money that you can use to buy absurd amounts of gold et cetera."

"Well, that's nice of you, I suppose."

"I - suppose so, too.  Are you sure you don't want some luxury consumables?  I'm reasonably sure I said you could request those, and if I didn't that's another thing you should know."

"Like fancy chocolates or something? ...I'm not really in the mood."

"Or a meal, or a fun drink.  If you find yourself in the mood later you can always ask, although we aren't likely to give you a personalized seven-course meal in the middle of a group date or something."

"...I think I don't care for the concept of group dates."

"That's unsurprising."

"And I'm not hungry either, thank you."

"Alright.  I'm going to give you a booklet with some additional basic information, some of which we've already covered and some of which we have not.  I think it should be pretty self explanatory but if you have questions you can ask any staff member."

Ned nods.

He produces a booklet and passes it to Ned as someone plainly-dressed appears in the hallway and motions to follow her.  "Good luck."

"Thank you." Off he goes.