THE QUANTUM INTELLIGENCER

It is said the Burlington Rooms have seen stranger things than most drawing rooms, yet even seasoned gossips gasped when the celebrated dual cotillions—long the pride of both the Belgrave Quantum Circle and our dear Burlington set—were abruptly merged into a single ten-step quadrille. One moment the chandeliers blazed upon two distinct rows of brilliantly initialled dance cards (those famed "interference lanes" of which every mama speaks in thrilled whispers); the next, the floor cleared, the orchestra faltered, and every card bore naught but a uniform, featureless blank. No ridged patterns, no covert geometries of favour—only the chill suggestion that certain young persons had, in an instant, been quite erased from consideration. Whispers fly that the esteemed patroness of the Fez soirée (that brisk 58-second affair whose gate-count extravagance society still debates) reached a hasty understanding with the rival hostess of Torino’s 54-second salon. Figures—56613, 34319, and so on—were bandied like dowries, though which lady yielded the larger portion none will confess. One merely notes that several hopeful debutantes, formerly assured of quadrilles, were observed retiring to the country at dawn, their prospects vanished as completely as those mysterious lanes of favour. What delicate matter compelled so sudden a consolidation? The matrons purse their lips; the bachelors shrug; the orchestra, I am told, has been sworn to secrecy. We await the next ball with sharpened pencils and sharper appetites. —Ada H. Pemberley Dispatch from Trigger Phase E0