The whiteboard in Elian's lab was packed edge-to-edge with diagrams: symbolic logic arcs, neural architecture blueprints, KALM language constructs, and a cartoon Jenna had drawn of a robot on fire labeled "debug mode."
Muse had a working kernel now. It wasn't truly intelligent—not yet—but it could refactor its own code modules and catch flawed logic paths faster than Elian or Jenna could.
But it was slow.
Too slow.
"Run it again," Elian said, leaning over Jenna's shoulder.
She tapped a few keys. The code compiled, executed—and crashed. Again.
"Muse's cognition layer stalls at the decision boundary," she muttered. "The language is fine, the logic holds, but it just can't iterate fast enough. We're hitting the ceiling of our hardware."
Elian pinched the bridge of his nose. "Right. We designed a system that's smarter than the machine it runs on."
"Kind of like putting a V8 engine in a bicycle," Jenna said. "Except the bicycle is on fire and screaming."
He chuckled weakly, then turned serious. "We need superconductors. The real ones. Not lab prototypes. I'll call up the company that licensed our patent."
Jenna raised an eyebrow. "You mean the one already selling our room-temp superconductors to defense contractors and private aerospace?"
"The same," Elian said. "They owe us tech samples. I'm asking for a full batch of superconducting cores—enough to run Muse's baseline cluster."
Jenna whistled. "That'll cost."
"We've got equity in the licensing agreement. Time to cash in."
He pulled out his phone and stepped aside. Meanwhile, Jenna stared at the glowing console. Muse's architecture diagram rotated slowly in 3D. She bit her lip.
When Elian returned, he looked both relieved and anxious.
"They'll ship us six prototype cores within the week," he said. "Enough to build a small quantum-hybrid node cluster."
Jenna's eyes widened. "Seriously? That fast?"
"They're hoping we'll finish developing Muse and let them license that, too."
She folded her arms. "And where are we going to set up this 'small cluster'? We can't just build a supercomputer in a university lab."
Elian nodded. "I was thinking the same. It's time we move everything."
Jenna blinked. "You mean... the company? Already?"
"We have the patents. We've published the theory. The system confirmed the KALM breakthrough and opened a new tech tree. We don't need institutional backing anymore. We *are* the institution now."
She looked around the room—at the aging lab tables, the flickering fluorescent light, the faded sign over the door that said *Department of Computational Theory.*
"You know," she said softly, "I thought I'd be sad to leave. But this place feels too small now."
He stepped closer. "So, we resign?"
Jenna tilted her head. "We'll need to write something poetic for the exit letter."
"I was just going to submit my resignation with a meme that says 'It's not me, it's you.'"
She laughed. "Perfect."
They stood in silence for a moment, the hum of the servers filling the space between them. Then Jenna nudged his shoulder.
"You realize this means we'll be working even longer hours, right?"
"Oh, absolutely," Elian said.
She hesitated. "Good. I like long hours. With you."
He looked at her. Really looked at her. "Jenna…"
A beat passed. The hum of the servers filled the silence.
"You know," she said, voice softening, "I'm not just here for the science."
He met her gaze fully this time. "I was hoping that was true."
Jenna stepped closer, her voice barely above a whisper. "Then stop hoping."
Elian didn't say anything.
He just leaned in.
---
System Notification:
\[Location Transition Registered: Primary Lab Moved to 'Rho Research HQ']
\[Technology Upgrade Pending: Superconductor Node Cluster – ETA: 6 Days]
\[Romantic Subroutine Initialized (Unofficial)]
Muse blinked in the background. Its idle animation shifted to a gentle spiral, like it was thinking.
And waiting.