By eight-fifteen Tuesday morning, Lab 7 had settled into a steady, practical rhythm. Luke was already at the rig, a pair of wire cutters resting on the tool tray beside an open harness diagram. He looked up as the door latched, an easy grin touching his mouth. "Morning, Mercer. You look ready to dismantle something." "I am," I said, setting my bag down by the secondary console and waking both displays. "We promised Dana we’d isolate the secondary harness. Let's actually isolate it." We pulled up the routing schematics. Asteron’s internal conduit was a dense, packed channel where the high-current motor drive lines ran side-by-side with low-voltage sensor runs. "Look at this junction," I said, pointing the tip of my stylus at the diagram. "The secondary harness feeding the sensor line is clamped directly against the main motor feed for nearly twelve inches." Luke leaned in, studying the path. "Parallel runs. If the motor is drawing heavy current on that sudden jump, you think the switching noise is coupling straight into the sensor lead?" "It's consistent with what we're seeing," I told him. "And it explains why the smaller blip appears on the auxiliary rail right as the power ramps up. We need to physically pull that bundle out of the conduit." Luke picked up a roll of yellow electrical tape and a set of zip-tie snips. "Let's make a mess." It took an hour of methodical, knuckle-scraping work. Luke unclipped the secondary harness, carefully unthreading the delicate sensor lines from the thick, braided motor leads, while I monitored the diagnostic baselines to ensure nothing broke continuity. He rerouted the sensor bundle outside the main frame, securing it along an external aluminum strut with temporary clips. "Ready," he said, wiping a streak of black machine grease from the heel of his hand. "Fire up the sequence." I initialized the jump test. Idle. Five seconds. Sudden surge. We both watched the vibration trace. The spike appeared right on schedule—sharp, vertical, and jagged. Then we checked the amplitude. Luke leaned both forearms against the desk, his eyes widening. "Wait. Look at the scale." I zoomed in on the vertical axis. The cliff was still there, but it topped out at barely a third of its previous height. "It's down sixty-five percent," I said. "Which means routing matters," Luke said, a slow, genuine grin spreading across his face. "Cross-talk?" "Strong suspect," I countered, keeping my voice steady despite the rush of seeing a clean result. "Not convicted. Moving the harness reduced the coupling, but the signal didn't disappear entirely. We haven't proved whether it's capacitive bleed between the wires or something leaking through the board itself." "A smaller spike is a better spike, Mercer." "A smaller spike is still an error flag, Hayes." "Details." Wednesday became three harness configurations, two shielding tests, and another fourth-place finish at O’Malley’s. Marc blamed a question about seventies television. Maya blamed Marc. Luke had reached across the table to hand me the pencil for an 1883 Krakatoa question without either of us breaking conversation with Ben. It was seamless. Thursday afternoon, Dana Kim appeared at the door of Lab 7 shortly after four, holding a slim folder. "Architecture accepted cross-talk as the working theory," she announced, leaning against the doorframe. "That's encouraging," I said from the console. "They used the phrase working theory four times, Mercer. Nobody was encouraged." Dana tapped the folder against her palm. "They want to know if separating the cables permanently fixes it, or if we have to redesign the control board traces." "Moving the bundle drops the false amplitude by two-thirds," Luke told her from across the bench. "We're testing localized ferrite shielding tomorrow morning to see if we can choke out the rest." Dana looked between us, her sharp gaze lingering for a beat before she gave a single, pragmatic nod. "Make it work. Have a preliminary report on my desk by Monday." She pulled the door shut behind her. Luke set down a pair of wire strippers with a soft clatter. "Monday. We bought ourselves some air." "Some," I conceded, saving the latest telemetry batch to the local drive. Luke checked his watch, then looked across the workbench at me, his eyes bright with that calm, unhurried focus that had become entirely familiar. "Seven tomorrow?" he asked. "Seven," I agreed. "I'll pick you up," he said, reaching for his jacket. "Drive safe, Mercer." "Tomorrow, Hayes." By eight that evening, my apartment had settled into its usual quiet order. I stood in front of my open bedroom closet, two hangers held up in front of the full-length mirror. On the left was an emerald green dress—simple cut, comfortable fabric, clean lines. On the right was a tailored black dress that felt slightly more deliberate. "NELL," I said to the ceiling. "Green or black?" "The question lacks criteria," NELL’s flat voice responded through the overhead speaker. "Which one looks better?" "Better according to what metric?" "For dinner." "Both garments are appropriate for indoor dining at current ambient temperatures." I stared up at the vent grille. "You are exceptionally unhelpful." "You requested analysis without defining a desired outcome." "Fine," I said, rolling my eyes. "Which one looks better on me?" There was a brief, two-second pause while the room sensor processed. "The green." "See? Was that difficult?" "No," NELL stated. "Your previous questions were." I set the black dress back on the rail and draped the green one over the chair by the dresser. "Claire," NELL announced, her tone shifting to her standard scheduling cadence. "Would you like me to add Luke Hayes as an expected visitor tomorrow evening?" I paused with my hand still resting on the back of the chair. Luke had never been to the building. He was a name on a company badge, a voice on an intercom, and a contact in my phone. "Yes," I said. "Seven o'clock." "Added," NELL replied. The bedroom went quiet. I turned off the closet light and walked into the kitchen to start the kettle.

Chapter 13: Cross-Talk