Thirst Trap (audio story)

 was the seventy-second story in the Torchwood - Monthly Range by Big Finish Productions. It was written by Tom Price.

Publisher's summary
You have 20 minutes to find your perfect mate. Then you may never see them again. Now or Never has launched in Cardiff and something's clearly very wrong with the app.

Not only is everyone going on dates, but everyone's on the same date. The same meals. The same hobbies. The same small talk.

Andy Davidson would be investigating. But he's got a date.

Plot
Andy gets a notification on his Now or Never dating app telling him to meet Anna at a Mexican restaurant for a twenty-minute date. He tries to get Anna to stay for longer, but she reminds him that their mobile phones will be wiped and their social media accounts deleted by the app if they do not part ways and departs. At work, Andy is about to attend to a child that has been left home alone when he gets a notification inviting him to a second date with Anna, so he takes her with him and learns that the child's mother, Phoebe, left him to go on a third date. Phoebe warns them against using the app and explains how she came to her senses right after her mobile phone was ruined by spilt beer.

Andy and Anna go for food and Anna realises that all of the people around them, all on Now or Never dates, are having the exact same conversations. When Andy bumps into Rhys on a date with Becky, he switches off Rhys's phone to make him remember Gwen and they both realise that Cardiff city centre is in a state of chaos because so many people are distracted by the app. They decide to investigate and switch their phones back on believing that they might now be immune, but once Andy's runs out of charge he realises that they have fallen under the app's influence again and started shopping for new clothes for their dates.

After breaking into the Now or Never office, Andy and Rhys are joined by Anna, who has come for her third date and believes that she must be in love with Andy as a result. Rhys leaves them to talk to each other whilst he follows wires to a laptop which he attempts to switch off, but Andy's colleague Sunil arrives and reveals that Now or Never is part of a military weapon he designed to make cities vulnerable to attack, tired of being taken for granted as a police officer. He boosts the app's signal to make people compliant with his commands and orders Anna to get Rhys away from the laptop, which he starts using to make everyone engage in small talk.

Sunil stuns Andy and goes to his usual coffee shop. Andy confronts him there and points out that Anna has filled the coffee shop with police officers as well as Sunil's mother and father, ordering him to switch off the app. He refuses, but everybody's phones are wiped when they fail to leave before the end of their dates and the Now or Never app is erased, freeing them. Andy decides to drop Rhys home and eat pizza with Anna.

Cast

 * Andy Davidson - Tom Price
 * Rhys Williams - Kai Owen
 * Anna - Rebecca Trehearn
 * Sunil - Sunjay Midda
 * Phoebe - Natalia Hinds

Uncredited cast

 * Becky - Natalia Hinds (BFX: Thirst Trap)

Crew

 * Music - Blair Mowat
 * Senior Producer - John Ainsworth
 * Additional Themes - Ben Foster
 * Cover Art - Sean Longmore
 * Director - David O'Mahony
 * Executive Producers - Nicholas Briggs and Jason Haigh-Ellery
 * Producer and Script Editor - James Goss
 * Sound Designer - Shane O'Byrne
 * Writer - Tom Price
 * Theme Music - Murray Gold

Worldbuilding

 * Andy orders a Mighty Meaty Half-Metre with extra pineapple and declines the offer of chicken wings.
 * Andy thinks that mayonnaise is the best condiment.
 * Andy has Friends Reunited.
 * Mark works at the police station's front desk.
 * There is a bin fire in Pontcanna.
 * Sunil is a constable.
 * Sunil drinks oat milk.
 * Sunil goes on a date with Rachel.
 * Anna has two older brothers, one of whom lives in Bristol and the other in New York. Andy has never been to the latter.
 * Rhys goes on a date with Becky.
 * Rhys mentions his children, including Anwen.
 * Andy shops for loafers.
 * Andy suggests that the Now or Never app must have had a grant from the Senedd.
 * Anna owns seventeen cookbooks.
 * Tennis owes a lot of its rules to badminton.
 * Andy once had a dog who was called Brian because she resembled Brian Blessed.
 * Anna used to prefer cats to dogs.
 * Rhys has lost weight thanks to Joe Wicks and John Wick.

Continuity

 * Rhys has missed Geraint Cooper since his death. (TV: The Blood Line)
 * Torchwood is run by a scary woman. (AUDIO: Poker Face, etc.)