The morning they moved in, Jenna was already awake, hair pinned back, sleeves rolled up, coffee half-sipped. Elian found her crouched in the new kitchen, surrounded by boxes labeled with surgical precision. A portable whiteboard leaned against the fridge, titled:
D.R.P. PHASE 2: Object Permanence (a.k.a. furniture)
"You've already started inventory," he said, rubbing sleep from his eyes.
"Someone has to take this seriously," she replied, gesturing at the chaos. "You labeled three boxes 'Cables, Maybe?' and one of them had a cutting board in it."
"Maybe it's a very flat experimental antenna."
She gave him a look that promised zero forgiveness and handed him a box cutter.
The moving crew arrived soon after — a team of polite, tech-literate professionals who asked questions like "Are the superconducting cores shielded?" and "Which corner of the server alcove do you want the intake node aligned to?"
"Bless this company," Elian whispered. "Actual competence."
He guided them to the recessed cabinet in the study where the home-grade superconducting system was being installed — a custom control rig provided by one of Quantum Nexus Technologies' earliest licensees. Small, modular, quiet. Not nearly as powerful as Muse's main rig, but capable of handling a home environment with ridiculous efficiency.
The installation finished in under two hours.
"Muse," Elian said, powering up the interface node. "You're online. Your new node is prelinked to the main neural archive. Go ahead and establish local sync."
"Acknowledged."
"Muse," he added, tapping through the control screen, "take over full control of the home security and monitoring systems. Set threat response to non-lethal. Log all access attempts. Passive surveillance only inside unless manually overridden."
"Confirmed. Home system synced. Superconducting control node operational. Cameras, locks, and biometric scanners now mapped."
Jenna looked over his shoulder. "You just handed our entire home to a machine we built in a lab."
"That machine made us coffee better than any barista and found a typo in your research proposal."
"…Point taken."
Furniture setup was Jenna's domain. Elian tried to contribute — offering ideas like "industrial modular minimalism" and "zero-gravity chairs". Jenna vetoed him so hard it almost left a burn mark.
Instead, she curated. The living room filled with warm light woods, soft gray upholstery, and adjustable lighting that didn't feel like an interrogation room. She selected fabrics Elian didn't know the names of. Rugs that muted footstep acoustics. Lamps with intelligent dimming systems.
Elian surrendered by lunchtime.
The only room he was allowed to configure freely was the secondary study — which quickly became his project lab, Muse's hub, and general war room for the next wave of innovation. He installed whiteboards on all four walls, a compact 3D printer, and left wires in tangled nests that Jenna labeled "Elian's Den of Spaghetti."
"You're lucky I like your chaos," she said, watching him pin blueprints over the fuse box.
"You married it," Elian said without thinking.
They both froze.
Jenna turned her head slowly, a smile playing at her lips.
"Did you... just say married?"
Elian blinked. "Hypothetically. Metaphorically. Emotionally."
Her smile deepened — not mocking, not smug. Just warm. "Well," she said, leaning in, "I'd hate to find out I moved in with someone who wasn't at least a little serious about me."
Elian's eyes met hers. "Serious is an understatement."
He kissed her — gentle, deliberate — then rested his forehead against hers.
"I love the assertive side of you," she whispered.
He grinned. "I'll try to let it out more often."
"Do," she said. "But not when we're picking curtains. I'm still in charge of that."
He chuckled. "Deal."
By evening, the house was warm and lived-in — at least in spirit, if not in unpacked square footage. The sun filtered in golden through east-facing windows, glinting off the smart panel on the far wall that now pulsed gently under Muse's remote signature.
Boxes were stacked but not chaotic. The kitchen hummed with heat from the tea kettle. Somewhere in the background, Muse adjusted the ambient temperature by 0.3 degrees.
They ate dinner cross-legged on the floor — stir-fry from a local place they both liked. Jenna found the speaker and played soft music. The playlist was half jazz, half synthesized ambience Muse had algorithmically generated from their shared focus sessions.
Elian sat with his back against the new couch — not yet broken in — and looked around at what they'd made.
A real home.
Not a rented room filled with chargers. Not a lab they slept in by accident. Not a borrowed space. This was their walls, their windows, their door to lock.
"This feels real," he said.
"It is real," Jenna answered.
They sipped tea. She leaned into him. He closed his eyes.
After a while, Jenna asked, "Do you think we'll ever slow down?"
He thought of Muse. Of the next stage: the brain-machine interface still waiting on his sketchpad. Of the system's latest theory injection queue, still half-loaded with blueprints.
He took a deep breath and said, "No. But now we have somewhere to come back to."
She reached for his hand.
He took it without hesitation.
And in the corner, Muse pulsed quietly — guarding the doors, balancing the heat, listening.
Always watching.
Always learning.
Let me know when you're ready to move into Chapter 21, where Elian begins early experimentation on the bio-adaptive signal translator, the precursor to BCI.
had the energy to sit on yet.
She passed him a mug of tea — herbal this time — and leaned her head against his shoulder.
He breathed in the moment slowly, his usual whirlwind thoughts unusually still.
"This is the first place I've lived in that doesn't feel like a temporary shelter," he said.
"It isn't," she replied. "This is the first time we get to build from the ground up. No landlords. No lab bureaucracy. No borrowed desks."
Elian chuckled. "We finally made a lab with walls and windows."
She turned her head. "We made a home."
He went quiet for a long time.
Then said, "You make this easy."
"Living with you isn't easy," she replied. "But it's worth it."
They didn't say anything else for a while.
The overhead lights dimmed automatically. Outside, the wind stirred the garden they hadn't planted yet.
After a while, Jenna asked, "Do you think we'll ever slow down?"
Elian thought about it.
About Muse. About the AI's growing awareness. About the system's newest prompts urging him toward direct neural integration. About what it would mean to build a bridge between thought and machine.
He looked around the house they had made together. The real wood beneath their feet. The warmth of a cup passed from one hand to another. The quiet heartbeat of living, shared.
"Not really," he said. "But now we'll have somewhere to come back to when we need to catch our breath."
Jenna reached for his hand.
And for once, they let the quiet carry the rest.