Screened Sparks

The ring light stared at me like a cold, unblinking eye.

I adjusted my silk tie in the mirror, checking for a stray hair or a wrinkle that didn't belong. There were none. In this lighting, my skin looked like polished marble, and my eyes had just enough of a predatory glint to keep the sponsors happy. I looked like a man who had everything under control.

I sat down, pulled the heavy boom mic toward my face, and tapped the levels on my laptop.

"Ninety-eight," I whispered to the empty room. "Almost at the century mark."

I hit the record button. The red light flared to life, and I felt the familiar shift. The Jasper who felt the hollow ache of the quiet penthouse slipped away. The Jasper who sold a lifestyle took the stage.

"Welcome back to *The Pursuit*," I said, my voice dropping into that low, honeyed gravel that drove the engagement numbers through the roof. "I’m Jasper Cole, and tonight, we’re talking about the science of the exit. You see, most guys get stuck in the 'happily ever after' trap. They think the win is staying. But the real win? The real metric of a man who knows his value? It’s knowing exactly when the data says it’s time to walk away."

I leaned back, spinning a silver pen between my fingers. I thought of Chloe—number ninety-eight. She was a venture capitalist with a sharp bob and a sharper tongue. Three dates. Perfect ratings on conversation and chemistry. But on the fourth night, she’d started talking about a weekend trip to Tahoe.

*Closing time.*

"I just wrapped up ninety-eight," I told the microphone, flashing a grin I knew would look great in the social media clips. "High stakes, high rewards. She was a ten on paper, but a six on the ‘sustainability’ index. Why settle for a six when the world is full of potential tens? Don't let the fog of San Francisco trick you into seeking warmth. Seek the climb."

I stopped the recording and let out a long, slow breath. The silence of the penthouse rushed back in, thick and heavy. Outside the floor-to-ceiling windows, the Salesforce Tower glowed blue against the graying sky. Thousands of people were out there, eating dinner, arguing, touching.

I opened my private app—the one the public didn't know about. I swiped past Chloe’s finalized file.

*Date 98: Chloe V.
Chemistry: 8/10.
Intelligence: 9/10.
Risk of Emotional Entanglement: High.
Status: Archive.*

I felt a phantom itch in my chest. It was success. It had to be. My metrics were climbing, my brand was peaking, and Devon was already texting me about the next live show. But as I stared at the empty 'New Entry' slot for number ninety-nine, the thrill felt paper-thin.

I needed something different. A challenge that didn't feel like a repeat of the last ten scripts I'd written for myself.

I scrolled through the digital guest list for tomorrow night's Medical Innovation Gala. I’d been hired to provide 'lifestyle coverage,' which was code for making a bunch of nerds look cool. My eyes skipped over the usual socialites and tech founders.

Then I saw a name without a headshot.

*Dr. Elena Reyes. Chief Resident, Neurosurgery.*

I clicked the link to her profile. There was no Instagram. No Twitter. No TikTok. Just a dry, professional bio on the UCSF website and a list of published papers about brain mapping. No hobbies listed. No 'likes.' No digital trail to follow.

I leaned closer to the screen. In the tiny, grainy thumbnail on the hospital site, she wasn't smiling. She looked like she was daring the camera to waste any more of her time.

"Ninety-nine," I murmured.

Most women liked the mask I wore. They wanted the influencer, the charmer, the man who knew the best hidden bars in the Mission. But this woman? She spent her days looking at what was actually inside people’s heads.

I felt a spark of something that wasn't just ego. It was a cold, sharp curiosity.

I opened the app and typed the name into the fresh slot.

*Target 99: Dr. Elena Reyes.*

I didn't have a plan yet. I didn't even have a photo I could zoom in on. But as I watched the fog roll over the hills, I knew one thing for sure: the gala just became the most important night of my year.

I reached out and turned off the ring light. The room went dark, leaving only the faint, blue glow of the screen and the high-altitude hum of the city.

The game was back on.

The smell of the lab always reminded me of a graveyard—sterile, cold, and heavy with the weight of things that had already happened.

I leaned over the microscope, the fluorescent lights humming a low, flat C-sharp that vibrated in my teeth. My neck was a knot of rusted wire. I’d been in the building for fourteen hours, and the slide beneath the lens wasn't cooperating. The glial cells looked like distorted stars, refusing to map into the neat, predictable patterns I needed for my presentation.

"Focus," I whispered to the empty room. "Just focus."

I adjusted the dial. The world sharpened. Then, my phone skittered across the metal lab bench, buzzing with a violent urgency.

I didn't have to look at the screen to know who it was. The ringtone was a specific, classical piano trill I’d assigned years ago. It sounded like a demand.

I let it vibrate until it nearly fell off the edge. On the fourth vibration, I picked it up.

"Hello, Mami."

"Elena," my mother’s voice came through, sharp and clear, stripping away the miles between San Francisco and the quiet house in San Diego. "You sound tired. Are you eating? I sent those containers of *arroz con pollo* with your cousin last week."

I rubbed the bridge of my nose, right where my glasses left two deep indents. "I’m at the lab, Mami. I have the gala tomorrow. My presentation isn't finished."

"The gala," she repeated. Her voice softened, but it wasn't the kind of softness that offered comfort. It was the kind that preceded a blow. "Your father would have been so proud. To see the Reyes name on that program. To see his daughter standing where he should have been."

There it was. The ghost in the room.

"I know," I said, my voice sounding thin even to my own ears.

"He worked three jobs so we could get out of that apartment in Queens," she continued. Her tone was rhythmic now, a rosary of sacrifices she recited whenever she felt me slipping away into my own life. "He never saw the inside of a ballroom like that. He died in a gray hallway with a mop in his hand so you could hold a scalpel. Do you remember that, Elena?"

"Every day," I said. I stood up, the legs of my stool screeching against the linoleum. The sound echoed in the vast, dark lab. "I remember every single day."

"Then you understand why you cannot just be 'good,'" she said. "The other doctors, the ones with the famous last names and the trust funds... they can afford to be tired. You cannot. You are the bridge, *mija*. If you fail, the bridge collapses. Everything he did disappears."

I walked to the window. Outside, the San Francisco fog was swallowing the streetlights, turning the city into a blurred, gray ghost. I felt the walls of the lab closing in, the glass and steel and expensive equipment suddenly feeling like a cage.

"I’m not going to fail," I said. My knuckles were white where I gripped the edge of the radiator.

"I know you won't," she said, her voice regaining its steel. "But I saw a post online. A social media thing. They’re talking about some boy, an 'influencer,' who is going to be at the event. Some person who makes videos for a living. Don't let those people distract you. They are plastic. They are shadows. You are substance."

"I don't even know who you're talking about, Mami. I don't have time for 'influencers.'"

"Good. Stay focused on the research. Make them see the Reyes name. Call me after the keynote. I want to hear every word they say about you."

The line went dead. No 'goodnight,' no 'I love you.' Just a set of instructions.

I stared at the black screen of my phone. My reflection looked back—pale, dark circles under my eyes, hair pulled into a bun so tight it pulled at my scalp. I looked like a woman who was winning. I looked like a woman who was drowning.

I turned back to the microscope. The glial cells were still there, messy and unmapped.

The weight of my father’s mop, the weight of my mother’s expectations, the weight of a thousand sacrifices I never asked for—it all sat on my shoulders like lead. I wasn't just Dr. Elena Reyes. I was a debt that had to be repaid in blood, sweat, and flawless surgical outcomes.

I sat back down and gripped the adjustment knob. My hand shook, just a tiny tremor, invisible to anyone but a neurosurgeon.

I squeezed my eyes shut, forced the tremor to stop, and leaned back into the light. If I had to work until my eyes bled to prove I belonged in that room tomorrow, then that’s what I would do.

I didn't have room for anything else. Not for sleep. Not for distractions. And certainly not for anyone who treated life like a game.

I adjusted the slide. The stars came into focus. I began to write.

The blue light of three monitors washed over my office, turning the mahogany desk into something cold and digital. Outside, San Francisco was a blurred map of amber streetlights and drifting fog, but inside, everything was sharp. Controlled.

I cracked my neck and leaned back in the leather chair. The silence of the penthouse was the best part of the night. No fans screaming my name, no Devon breathing down my neck about sponsorship deals. Just the hum of the hard drive and the hunt.

I opened the icon on my center screen—a plain black square with a minimalist white 'J' in the center. My private vault. My ledger.

The interface was clean. A scrolling list of names, each a past "project."
*Lila. Rating: 4.8. Notes: High engagement, low durability.*
*Chloe. Rating: 3.2. Notes: Too much noise, not enough signal.*

I bypassed them all and hit the 'New Entry' button. The cursor flickered, a tiny white heartbeat waiting for me to give it life.

I typed: **Project 99: Elena Reyes.**

"Let’s see what you’re hiding, Doctor," I murmured.

Usually, this was the easy part. A quick scan of Instagram would give me her favorite brunch spot. A LinkedIn deep dive would reveal her professional insecurities. A Twitter scroll would show me her politics and her pet peeves. By the time I actually walked up to a woman, I already knew the password to her personality.

I hit 'Search.'

Nothing.

I frowned, my fingers hovering over the mechanical keyboard. I tried 'Elena Reyes UCSF.' I tried 'E. Reyes Neurosurgery.'

A single professional headshot appeared from the hospital’s staff directory. It was the same woman I’d seen on the gala’s digital pamphlet, but the resolution was better here. Dark hair pulled back with surgical precision. Eyes that didn't just look at the camera—they challenged it. She wasn't smiling. She looked like she was counting the seconds until the photographer finished wasting her time.

"No Instagram?" I whispered, a grin tugging at the corner of my mouth. "No TikTok? Not even a dormant Facebook from college?"

I dug deeper. I bypassed the first ten pages of Google. I searched for mentions of her name in medical journals and grant applications.

*Reyes, E. et al. "Neural Plasticity in Post-Traumatic Recovery."*
*Reyes, E. "Advanced Mapping of the Visual Cortex."*

It was a wall of stone. She had no digital footprint. No "likes," no "checked-in" locations, no tagged photos from friends at a bar. She was a ghost in a white coat.

I leaned forward, the wheels of my chair squeaking. The lack of data should have been frustrating. Instead, it felt like a jolt of pure caffeine.

Every other woman I’d dated was an open book with highlighted passages. Elena Reyes was a locked safe in a dark room. To a man who made his living by reading people, she was the ultimate glitch in the system.

I clicked back to my app and began filling in the 'Strategic Assessment' fields.

**Vulnerability:** *Unknown.*
**Interest Triggers:** *Intellectual elitism? Professional legacy?*
**Social Circle:** *Minimal. High barrier to entry.*

I paused, my eyes fixed on her headshot. Most guys would see that cold expression and walk away. They’d see the lack of a social life and think she was boring. But I saw the way her jaw was set. That wasn't boredom. That was a woman who had decided that the world wasn't worth her attention.

And there is nothing an ego like mine loves more than being the exception to a rule.

"You think you’re untouchable," I said, my voice echoing in the quiet office. "You think you’ve scrubbed yourself clean so nobody can find a grip."

I tapped a rhythmic beat on the mahogany.

"But everyone has a frequency, Elena. I just have to find yours."

I moved to the 'Project Goal' section. Usually, I’d write something like *'Three dates, high-impact closure.'* Or *'Short-term engagement, mutual brand boost.'*

This time, I typed: **Total Surrender.**

I wanted more than a date. I wanted to see that composure break. I wanted to see the moment those guarded eyes realized I’d climbed over every one of her walls without her even hearing me coming.

I hit 'Save.'

The app processed the entry, the progress bar crawling across the screen. When it hit 100%, a small notification popped up in the corner: *Project 99 Active.*

I stood up and walked to the floor-to-ceiling window. Down in the streets, the fog was thick enough to hide the sidewalk. It was a city of millions, all of them screaming for attention on their glowing screens, yet she was somewhere out there in the dark, silent and invisible.

I took a sip of the cold espresso sitting on my desk. It tasted bitter, like a challenge.

"See you tomorrow, Doctor," I said to the glass.

The game wasn't just about the win anymore. It was about the hunt. And for the first time in ninety-nine tries, I didn't know how it was going to end.

That made it perfect.