Chapter 13: Reduction
Timeline: 03:00, 7 days after reaching a 35-second window
Location: Staff Rowhouses, GIG/Apex R&D Campus, Agonwood
The ceramic plates Alex promised had been lovely. The wine had been expensive. And for two hours that night, I had felt like a human being instead of a soldering robot.
But that was a week ago.
Since then, reality had set back in. We had tried air cooling. We had tried thicker heat sinks. Marcus had even machined a casing with fins so sharp they cut my finger. Nothing worked. The "Chaos Emitter" was still overheating at the 40-second mark. We were stuck in a loop of failure, and the morale in The Barn was disintegrating.
Sleep was a variable I was never good at solving. It's not that I didn't try. And this was no exception. I was already in bed for four hours, staring at the ceiling of Unit 3, replaying the sound of the pop from the busbar. Every time I closed my eyes, I saw the thermal graph spiking into the red.
My phone buzzed on the nightstand. It was a notification from the Agonwood Home App.
ADMIN (VANE) has unlocked Unit 2.
MESSAGE: You're awake. Stop staring at the ceiling and come next door.
I stared at the screen. Of course, he was monitoring the biometrics. Of course, he knew my heart rate hadn't dipped into sleep rhythms.
"I'm trying to sleep," I said to no one.
I considered throwing the phone across the room. Instead, I rolled out of bed, pulled on a hoodie over my pajamas, and shoved my feet into my Converse. If he wanted to work at 3 a.m., fine. I'd yell at him about thermodynamics until the sun came up.
I walked out of my front door and took the ten steps to the left. The door to Unit 2 was already unlatched, so I cautiously stepped inside.
I don't know what I was expecting. I'd never taken Julian up on any offer to visit his place. Not that I needed to. He just walked freely into mine like it was just an extension of his own.
It would have made more sense to me if I'd seen blueprints on the walls. Maybe some monitors and whiteboards or the deconstruction of the failed sensor.
Instead, I smelled… shallots? And butter. Rich, browning butter.
"Kitchen," Julian's voice called out.
I walked down the hallway. Unit 2 was identical in layout to mine, but while mine was a chaotic mix of bean bags and cat toys, Julian's was obsessively organized. No clutter. I doubt there were even fingerprints.
Except for the kitchen. The kitchen was alive.
Julian stood at the stove, wearing a black t-shirt and grey sweatpants—a look so disturbingly casual on him that I almost stopped walking. He was moving a sauté pan with a rhythmic, practiced flick of his wrist.
"You're cooking," I said, leaning against the doorframe. "At 3 in the morning."
"I'm reducing," Julian corrected without looking up. "The sauce broke earlier. I'm fixing the emulsion." He reached for a bottle of white wine, splashed a precise amount into the pan, and let it hiss.
"Are we celebrating our failure?" I asked.
"We're refueling," Julian said. "The data says you haven't eaten since the sandwich Alex forced on you at noon. Your brain is running on fumes. You're no good to me like this."
"I'm not a machine, Julian."
"No," he turned, plating the contents of the pan onto two white dishes with the grace of a surgeon. "Machines are easier to fix. Sit."
He slid a plate across the island toward me.
It was art. Seared scallops on a bed of something creamy and white, topped with a garnish I couldn't identify.
"I own a restaurant," Julian said, pouring two glasses of sparkling water. "Ember & Vine. You've probably never heard of it because we don't do takeout."
"Alex mentioned it at the barbecue when you were showing off your julienning," I said, picking up a fork. "But I assume you had others cooking and that you were just a snob."
"I'm a perfectionist," Julian countered, leaning against the counter opposite me, watching. "There's a difference. Eat."
I took a bite.
I wanted to hate it. I wanted it to be over-salted or pretentious.
This is incredible. That dumb jerk can really cook.
The scallop melted in my mouth, perfectly seared, the sauce rich and acidic enough to cut the weight. I involuntarily closed my eyes and let out a small hum of appreciation.
"Good," Julian noted. "Your dopamine levels just spiked."
I opened my eyes to glare at him. "Stop reading my biometrics."
"Stop broadcasting them," he smirked. He took a bite of his own, chewing thoughtfully. "Cooking is just chemistry, Lonna. It's heat management. Just like the device."
"It's 3 a.m., Julian. I should be sleeping. And this is too rich for a midnight snack." I set my fork down. "And… The device is dead. The silver busbar melted."
"Because we tried to force the current," Julian said. "We treated the electricity like a blunt instrument. We tried to shove a river through a straw."
"I thought you were all about forcing things to go the way you wanted them," I said, not holding back the cranky.
He pointed his fork at me. "You said the anomaly interacts with complexity. With entropy."
"Yes."
"And you said the silver reduced resistance."
"Yes."
"But resistance is just friction," Julian said. "And friction creates heat. In cooking, if the pan is too hot, the butter burns. If it's too cold, the food steams. You have to find the Leidenfrost point—where the heat creates a vapor barrier."
He swirled his water.
"We don't need to cool the device, Lonna. We need to stop fighting the heat. We need to use it."
I looked at the scallops. I thought about the Leidenfrost effect—how a drop of water skitters across a hot pan because it's riding on a cushion of its own steam.
"Phase change," I whispered.
Julian raised an eyebrow. "Go on."
"We don't use a heatsink," I said, my brain suddenly firing faster than it had all week. "We use a vapor chamber. We fill the housing with a liquid that boils at forty degrees. When the chip heats up, the liquid turns to gas, carries the heat away to the casing, condenses, and flows back."
"Like a weather system," Julian said. "Self-regulating."
"It would add weight," I warned. "But it would eliminate the hotspots. The entire casing would become the radiator."
"Marcus can machine a hollow casing," Julian said. "Alex can recalibrate the voltage for the new thermal curve."
"And Dave?" I asked.
"Dave can keep the algorithm messy," Julian grinned.
He finished his scallop and pushed the plate away. Then he leaned across the island, invading my space again. The smell of butter and wine mixed with his bergamot scent. "See?" he said softly. "You just needed the right fuel."
"You did that on purpose," I accused him. "You cooked scallops at 3 in the morning to trick me into solving a physics problem."
"I cooked scallops because you were hungry," Julian corrected. "Solving the problem was just a bonus."
He reached out and brushed a crumb from the corner of my mouth. His thumb lingered on my lip for a second—warm, rough, and deliberate.
"You're brilliant when you're angry, Lonna," he whispered. "But you're dangerous when you're fed."
My breath hitched. The tension in the kitchen wasn't about the food or the physics anymore. It was about the fact that we were alone, in his house, at 3 a.m., and he was looking at me like I was the only variable he hadn't solved yet.
"I should go," I said, my voice barely a whisper. "I have to tell Marcus about the vapor chamber."
"Marcus is asleep in Unit 4," Julian said, not moving his hand. "Alex is asleep in Unit 1. The rest of the world is offline."
He leaned closer.
"Stay. We can run the thermal simulations here. I have a workstation in the office."
"Why do you have to say that like we're a couple of frisky teenagers that snuck out to hookup?" My face turned red as soon as it left my mouth and I tried to cover my face to hide behind my hands.
Julian laughed. It wasn't a polite chuckle. It was a genuine, victorious sound that rumbled in his chest.
He reached out and gently pulled my hands away from my face. He didn't let go. He held my wrists, his thumbs tracing the frantic pulse on the inside of my arms. "Is that what you think we're doing?" he asked, his voice low and teasing. "Sneaking out?"
"I think you enjoy making me uncomfortable," I whispered, unable to look away from his grey eyes. They were dark in the dim kitchen light, full of intent.
"I enjoy reactions," Julian corrected. "Most people are static, Lonna. They're background noise. You… you're signal."
He stepped closer, closing the gap until my knees bumped against his thighs. I was trapped between the stool and him, and I wasn't entirely sure I wanted to escape.
"You hate not being in control," he murmured, leaning down until his face was inches from mine. "You hate that the device failed. You hate that I walked into your apartment. You hate that I'm right about the vapor chamber."
"I don't hate that you're right," I breathed. "I hate that you make it look like a game."
"It is a game," Julian said. "The only game that matters. Who breaks first? The problem… or the scientist?"
He released my wrists and placed his hands on the counter on either side of me, caging me in. The smell of bergamot and wine was overwhelming.
"You were breaking, Lonna. I saw it in the data. You were starving yourself. You weren't sleeping. You were trying to brute-force the solution."
He tilted his head, studying me.
"I don't want you broken unless I'm the one who does it. Until then, I want you… pliable. I want you responsive."
My heart hammered against my ribs. Pliable. Responsive.
The words hung in the air, heavy with double meaning.
"Is that why you fed me?" I asked, my voice trembling. "To make me pliable?"
"To make you function," Julian said. "And because I wanted to see if you'd let me."
He leaned in closer, his gaze dropping to my lips. For a second, I thought he was going to kiss me. I held my breath, my body tensing in anticipation—or maybe surrender.
But he didn't.
He pulled back, just an inch. The denial was more potent than the touch would have been.
"Go to the office," he said, his voice rougher now. "Boot up the simulation. I'll make the coffee."
I blinked, disoriented by the sudden shift. He had pushed me right to the edge, made my heart rate spike, made me want him—and then he had pulled back.
Just like the anomaly. Chaos, then order. Tension, then release.
"You're terrible," I whispered, sliding off the stool. My legs felt shaky.
"I'm efficient," Julian countered, turning back to the stove. "And I make excellent coffee. Go."
I walked toward the office, my skin still tingling from his proximity.
"And Lonna?" he called out without turning around. I stopped in the doorway. "Next time you want to act like a frisky teenager," he said, the smirk audible in his voice, "wear something other than flannel pajamas. It ruins the fantasy."
"If I ever decide to, it won't be with you," I mumbled. "And I won't ever be coming over at 3 a.m. or any other time," I mumbled some more. "And I'm not just your toy, who just does whatever you want because you flirt a little."
I flushed hot all over again and fled into the office. I sat down at his workstation, my hands shaking as I logged in. The screen flared to life, casting a blue glow over the room.
Phase Change Cooling. Vapor Chamber.
I started typing, the physics flowing easily now. The block was gone.
Julian was right. He had added chaos to my system, disrupted my loop of failure, and forced a reaction. He had played me like an instrument.
And god help me, I couldn't wait to see what he'd do next.
Jerk.