The mug in my hand had dark black tea with a splash of milk. Across the small kitchen table, Luke drank his black coffee while scrolling through a parts supplier inventory on his phone, wearing faded denim and an old gray shop shirt. Saturday morning in his kitchen was quiet. Outside, a neighbor’s lawnmower buzzed two doors down. Luke locked his screen and dropped the phone into his pocket. "You ready?" "For an electronics surplus run?" I set my mug in the sink. "Try to contain yourself." "I am containing myself," he said, taking his keys off the magnetic strip by the door. "Barely." The surplus place was twenty minutes south on an industrial access road, wedged between a sheet metal fabricator and an auto glass warehouse. The sign above the metal double doors read Tri-State Component Supply, sun-bleached to a dull pale blue. Inside, the aisles were stacked ten feet high with metal shelving, wire bins, and narrow cardboard drawers. The air smelled of machine oil, stale cardboard, and solder rosin. Luke knew exactly what he was looking for. He turned down Aisle 4 toward the legacy passive components, pulling a yellowed slip of paper with two handwritten part numbers from his pocket. "Two-watt wirewounds," he muttered, running a finger along a row of narrow metal drawers. "Ten-K ohm, five percent." "Replacing the power drop on the Philco?" "Bleeder resistor," he said, pulling open a small drawer and pulling out two ceramic cylinders with thick lead wires. "Original was drifting fifty percent high under load. Found it Thursday night." I left him to his resistor bins and drifted toward the front counter where the owner had set up an endcap of liquidated industrial test gear and modular sensors. In the third bin, tucked between two rolls of thermal tape, sat an unopened distributor pack of multi-spectral optical environmental sensors. The packaging was plain white cardboard with an engineering datasheet taped to the top. I picked it up. Ambient light spectrum, particulate count, and dynamic humidity across four independent photodiodes. Digital I2C interface. My fingers twitched. Luke appeared at my elbow, a small plastic bag containing his resistors clutched in his hand. He looked down at the box in my palm, then up at my face. "What's that?" "Multi-spectral environmental sensor," I said. "Measures particulate count and ambient spectrum simultaneously." "You already have air monitors." "Not one that samples wavelength balance." "Your apartment doesn't have plants, Claire." "It has light," I said, putting the box into my basket. "And because I can." Luke’s mouth twitched at the corner. "Tragic." "It's twenty dollars, Hayes. Don't audit my weekend." We walked toward the front checkout register. Near the lumber and hardware overflow in the adjoining warehouse bay, a tall man in a faded canvas jacket was leaning over a bin of heavy steel corner brackets, holding a tape measure against a flat zinc brace. He had the same straight jawline as Luke, dark hair with a faint dusting of gray at the temples, and an unhurried, mechanical posture. Luke stopped two paces out. "Look at this. An engineer in the wild." The man turned around, the tape measure snapping shut with a sharp metallic slap. He looked at Luke, then his gaze shifted to me, his eyebrows lifting in mild surprise. "Landon," Luke said. "Claire. Claire, Landon." Landon extended a hand, his grip dry and solid. "Claire. Furniture committee." "The shelf is an unstable habitat," I said, shaking his hand. A dry laugh broke out of Landon's chest. "It’s been level enough for three years." "It has a six-millimeter drop on the left anchor," I told him. "I measured it with my eyes from across the living room." "She’s not wrong," Luke added, leaning an elbow on a rack of drywall screws. "The photos are practically sliding onto the floorboards." Landon held up the zinc corner brace defensively. "That is precisely why I am standing in Aisle 6 on a Saturday morning. Heavy-duty reinforcement. I'm shimming the stud." "A shim won't fix poor drywall anchors," Luke said. "A shim will fix anything if you use enough torque," Landon shot back. He turned back to me, tucking the tape measure into his pocket. "Don't let him lecture you. He’s been complaining about that shelf since the day I drilled the holes." "It was a criminal installation," Luke said. "It was free labor," Landon countered. He gave Luke a solid clap on the shoulder, then nodded to me. "Good to meet you in person, Claire. Try to keep him from buying another dead Philco." "No promises," I said. Landon took his brackets toward the commercial counter. We paid for the wirewound resistors and the sensor pack, then walked back out into the bright noon sunlight. The truck cab had warmed up, smelling faintly of clean upholstery and engine heat. "Six millimeters?" Luke asked as he backed out of the space. "At least," I said, setting the white cardboard box in my lap. "Probably closer to eight." He laughed once, shifting into drive. "I knew I liked you." Back at Luke’s kitchen, the screen door clicked shut behind us. I set the sensor box on the end of the small wooden dining table and pulled out the spec sheet. Luke dumped his keys into the tray by the door and went straight to the refrigerator, pulling out deli roast beef, cheddar, and bread. "Sandwich?" he asked, grabbing a cutting board. "Yes." "Mayo or mustard?" "Both," I said without looking up from the pinout diagram. "Generously." "Done." He set two plates on the counter. Bread down. Slices of cheddar, folded beef, brown mustard, mayo. He dropped a knife into the sink, picked up the plates, and walked over to the table. He set one plate down right beside my cardboard box, looking down at the small Phillips screwdriver I’d pulled from my bag. "You're going to take that apart before you eat, aren't you?" "No," I said, picking up the screwdriver. Luke pulled out the chair across from me, took a bite of his sandwich, and didn't say another word.

Chapter 26: Shelf Committee