What Thunder left behind by DT Martin 14 Cognitive
recalibration. Previously, on What Thunder Left
Behind, five days have passed since Lily kissed Stephen. 5
days of silence, skipped meals, and code that refuses to
balance. In the lab, avoidance becomes an
art form. Every breath is measured, every
glance withheld. The memory of that single kiss
loops through Lily's mind like corrupted data, collapsing every
equation she touches. When Professor Hachette
intervenes, his warning cuts through the static.
Fix it, or I'll break the team. Under threat of separation,
Steven finally breaks the silence.
He confesses he wanted the kiss too, but insists they treat it
as an experiment. In the soundproof room, theory
dissolves into heat. What begins as a clinical test
becomes a confession written in touch, not code.
Stephen kisses her once soft, deliberate searching, and again
deeper, until every hypothesis fails.
The result? A spectacular failure, and
neither of them would undo it. I stare from my father's study
toward the Charles River, the tinted windows flattening
daylight into a muted monochrome that matches my mood exactly.
The space feels colder today, each polished surface more
unforgiving. Despite the carefully arranged
furniture and meticulously aligned chairs, Brian insists on
control, Precision, predictability.
These are values I hold close, especially now when my internal
variables spin relentlessly, defying rational constraints.
From the edge of my father's private study, I watch Brian
wrap up his conference call with the board of directors, his
voice silk, smooth, confident, and disarmingly warm.
Every word lands with intention, precise yet artfully restrained.
Brian never threatens outright. He weaves implication into
reassurance, the way a scalpel disappears into velvet.
Each polished phrase carries an unspoken warning beneath the
surface. I trust we understand one
another. He says, leaning into the
speakerphone. His expression remains Placid,
but the subtle strain at the corners of his eyes betrays his
intent. The price name stands for
precision and foresight. Let's stay aligned.
We'd hate to encounter preventable setbacks.
Soft affirmations drift back, nervous and polite.
Brian disconnects with practiced ease and exhales, satisfied.
He swivels in his chair slowly, grey eyes narrowing as he
catches mine, then let's his fingers drum on a thick
quarterly report at the edge of his desk.
We'll need to revisit these numbers before the next session.
He says, sliding the folder my way.
The motion exposes A heavier, embossed document beneath the
Price family will gold seal, catching a slant of pale light.
He offers no comment, resting his hand across both papers,
folding the will into the everyday clutter of power.
Interesting choice of words you had for them.
I say neutral. They'll be rehearsing apologies
before the next meeting. His mouth tips up, faintly
amused. A gentle nudge now, saves
trouble later. That's the game, Stephen.
Something quieter lingers beneath his tone, subtle but
edged. Brian rises, adjusting his cuffs
with precision, his gaze steady on mine.
You're distracted. He observes almost idle.
Something at the lab? I cross my arms, keeping my
voice even. Algorithm refinement routine.
He nods once, thoughtful. You've been spending quite a bit
of time with your partner Lily, isn't it?
She's talented, I reply. Controlled.
Brian considers this, his paws more pointed than his words.
Talent is an asset when properly managed.
Keep perspective clear. Emotional entanglements don't
serve us. The emphasis lands where he
intends. I hold his gaze, resisting a
sharper reply. He suspects my objectivity is
slipping. That's Brian's gift.
He never pushes, only directs with invisible string.
Understood. I say, neutral to the point of
dissociation. Brian smiles faintly content.
Good, we can't afford distractions.
He exits without another word, leaving the air heavy with
implication. I exhale and turn back to the
river, the tightness in my chest intensifying.
Lily's kiss resurfaces again, unbidden, uncategorized, a
variable that refuses calibration.
I steer through Cambridge, the route to MIT so familiar it
registers only as a blur. Bricks storefront streaking past
bundled students, flooding crosswalks, the child's gleaming
coal beneath strided clouds. The wheel vibrates beneath my
fingers, tires murmuring against asphalt, a mechanical rhythm
that tries to override the chaos in my chest.
Each passing block narrows the equation.
The kiss is an anomaly. I failed to predict a breach in
the model. Brian's cautions replay
detachment, control, tactical containment.
Yet even as I rehearse them, her breath, the tremor before
contact, undoes the framework entirely.
Emotional noise contaminates the data.
At Kendall Square, I idle at a red light.
Pedestrians scatter across intersections, mirroring my
scattered thoughts. How do I maintain precision when
the reaction itself resists quantification?
The light shifts. I accelerate.
Today demands clarity, a proposal stripped of romance,
defined by motive and constraint, incentive
reinforcement, a calculated method to contain volatility.
When I park near the starter centre building, the cold hits
my lungs and the faint pulse at my temples exposes the floor.
Logic or not, I already know the model no longer fits.
The door slides behind me with a polished hush.
Serve. A hum fills the room, familiar
and static. Lily sits at the work table, her
profile lit by the screens glow. Her brows draw together as she
senses me. Morning.
She says, voice low, guarded. She glances at me, quick, almost
apologetic, before her eyes retreat to the display.
Morning. I answer, maintaining A
deliberate space between us. That distance now carries
weight. The echo of our kiss feels it
visible only in its absence. I take a breath, slower than
necessary. We.
We should talk about our last experiment.
Her fingers pause over the keyboard, stuttering to a stop.
She turns slightly, lips parted, uncertainty flickering on her
face. Oh, OK.
She repeats, as though testing the words reliability.
Is that? Is that what it was?
It began that way, I say, leaning against the edge of the
table. But the results weren't
predictable. Carla warms her cheeks, but she
holds my gaze. Meaning.
Meaning we didn't account for. I falter, then finish.
Emotional variables. She presses her lips together,
absorbing the phrase. When she speaks again, her voice
is quiet. Do we pretend that it didn't
happen? No, I blurt.
I've considered an alternative. Her brow lifts, curiosity
flickering. Oh, OK.
What? Motivation, I reply carefully.
We both want progress. If repeating the kiss functions
as reinforcement, it makes logical sense to integrate it.
Her lips part. Her flush deepens.
You're proposing we kiss as an incentive.
Yes. I breathe, holding her gaze.
Then it falters, and my eyes drift down to the floor.
Exactly. She hesitates, eyes dropping,
then rising again. Would it really help?
We won't know unless we test it. I answer, trying to bury the
warmth behind a clinical tone. It might stabilize our
interaction. Lily studies me for a long
moment, then nods. Her smile is shy, fragile, edged
with uncertainty and something braver.
Then I guess we can try. OK, I say, letting myself exhale
for the first time today. But even as I speak, the
construct collapses. The kiss isn't reinforcement.
It's already rewritten the entire system, the workflows,
almost too easily after our agreement, an unspoken current
threading between us, sharpened by anticipation neither of us
addresses directly. Lily's posture relaxes
fractionally as we return to the code, her fingers moving with
new found confidence across the keyboard, algorithms unfolding
and recombining in ways I hadn't anticipated.
I watched a small furrow of focus in her brow, the way her
hair slips forward as she leans in to adjust the simulation
parameters, and feel the pulse of incentive working even before
our reward comes due. We hit a new stride before noon.
Lily's adjustment stabilised the harmonic resonance for the first
time in days. The data holds across a narrow
window, enough to give us leverage on the next phase,
though the final pattern still slips beyond reach.
My hand finds the table's edge, knuckles pale with restraint as
I glanced at her unspoken understanding passing in the
pause between lines of code. It isn't a breakthrough, not
yet. The system teeters at the edge
of possibility, close enough to glimpse what's next.
She turns expectant, nervous, hopeful.
It's time to validate the results.
I say quietly, not trusting myself with a smile.
Lily's lips curve in the smallest echo of relief.
She pushes her chair back, slow, deliberate, and stands for a
breath. Neither of us moves, then I
crossed the small distance, my hands steady as I rested lightly
at her waist, her own fingers hovering before landing
uncertainly on my sleeve. We close the circuit, eyes open,
breath shallow, and the kiss lands, precise as an algorithm
yet nowhere near clinical. Her pulse thrums beneath my
fingertips, heat radiating through cotton and skin, the
edges of restraint fraying. When we part, the world returns
in a rush, the tap of a keyboard, the muffled clink of
tools in the far corner. Lily steps back, a blush rising
but her eyes luminous, charged with something irreducible.
She clears her throat, reaching for her notebook.
For science. She whispers, failing to keep
the tremor from her voice. Before I can answer, Carter
pushes through the glass doors, balancing a tangle of fibre
cables and a mug streaked with chalk dust.
He pauses, gaze flicking from Lily's flushed cheeks to my
stance, brows arching in silent calculation.
In the hush of breath, the air feels thinner.
I nod at the simulation readout. Data's holding.
I say, tone clipped. You were right about the
feedback delay. Carter sets the cables down, his
movements measured, casual on the surface but careful in the
way he keeps both of us in his peripheral vision.
Glad one of us gets a win today. Everything all right in here?
Oh yeah, productive morning. Billy answers, her voice
steadier now, but the colour remains high on her cheekbones.
He shrugs with the hint of a smirk tracing his mouth.
Let me know if you need another set of eyes.
He scoops up the mug and steps out, glancing once over his
shoulder. Assessment complete, or at least
postponed. My phone vibrates.
Jeff, of course. You 2 getting along, or should I
bring a fire extinguisher? I tap the screen off without
responding, heat crawling up my neck despite myself.
We return to work, silent at first, but the ease has shifted,
Every equation solved, every problem untangled becomes
another unspoken promise, the logic of progress bound to a new
and a dangerous gravity. I sense Lily glancing at me when
she thinks I'm not looking. The symmetry between us grows
more precise, more fragile. The day's last Test passes at
3:00, and I step out for air, the pulse of fluorescent light
fading into the corridor's dusk. As the lab doors close behind
me, I notice a figure standing near the elevator.
A woman, tall and sharply dressed, her platinum hair
pinned back, phone pressed to her ear.
She doesn't look up, but something about the tension in
her posture catches my attention.
Holding it longer than necessary, she finishes her
call, pivots smoothly, and disappears into the stairwell.
I remind myself it's nothing. MI TS full of consultants,
visiting researchers, the occasional government liaison.
But a warning hums faintly at the back of my mind.
I file it away, unresolved. Back inside, Lily's bent over
the server logs, humming quietly under her breath.
I watch her, careful not to intrude, the margin between
focus and feeling narrowing with every minute we occupy the same
space. My phone flashes again.
Dinner tonight. Family only don't be late.
Brian's reminder, all brevity and command.
The day's precision unravels as I gather my things, a residue of
her kiss lingering, more disruptive than any error I've
ever faced.