Lola rolled her eyes playfully, snagging the dishtowel from Calliope’s shoulder and snapping it lightly against her hip. “This isn’t my first day. I got it.”
“Okay, then,” Calliope said, casting one more fondly worried look around the kitchen. “Follow me.”
“Where are we going?” Seven asked.
“To her bat cave,” Lola said around a laugh. “Be flattered. I’m not even allowed in there.”
Calliope gasped, gently swatting her wife’s shoulder. “That’s not true! You just don’t like it when I talk about all the techie stuff.”
“Uh-huh,” Lola said, expression skeptical but amused.
Calliope huffed and waved for them to follow. “Come on. I’ll show you the inner sanctum.”
Ansel and Elio exchanged wide-eyed looks like someone had invited them to view the Shroud of Turin.
They exited through the kitchen onto the porch, then down the steps into a yard bordered by chicken wire. A decked-out chicken coop sat off to the left, where eight chickens wandered around aimlessly. Behind the house—about an Olympic pool’s length away—stood a barn invisible from the road. Enzo glanced back to the house, wondering what that other outbuilding was—if it was Calliope’s work space.
She pulled the doors open and waved everyone inside.
Enzo stopped in the doorway and let out a low whistle. The old barn had been gutted and reborn, its timber ribs shot through with the pulse of a dozen machines. The original hayloft ladder still clung stubbornly to one wall, but everything else looked like NASA had moved in and forgotten to leave.
Warm amber light glowed from mismatched desk lamps and LED strips that pulsed gently behind glass racks of servers. Cables were braided neatly along beams like vines, feeding into sleek black towers that hummed beneath the sound of jazz and the occasional bleat of a goat outside.
One entire wall was a mosaic of monitors: world maps, scrolling code, traffic cams, chat feeds, a live thermal image of the property perimeter. A 3D printer sat beside a mason jar of wildflowers and a coffee mug that readMother of Goats.
At the center sat an old barber chair. Calliope collapsed into it, sending it spinning once before catching herself and slipping on glowing pink cat-ear headphones.
Seven leaned close, murmuring just loud enough for Enzo to hear, “You think she’ll let me sit in it if I say please?”
Enzo shot him a look, fighting a smile. “If she doesn’t tase you first.”
Seven’s grin widened, the low light reflecting in his dark eyes. “Totally worth it.”
The whole thing—the high-tech fortress, the smell of old wood and machine oil, the faint sound of goats—should have felt ridiculous. But standing next to Seven, watching his brothers gawk, Enzo realized it didn’t. It felt strangely…normal.
The contrast between her rainbow keyboard and the precision of the set-up made the whole space feel curated, deliberate, alive. The air smelled faintly of ozone and machine oil, like the place itself was sentient and practicing self-care.
Enzo had defended mobsters, politicians, and thieves, but this…this was another kind of power. Government-grade clearance dressed up as whimsy. He knew better than to ask how much she was allowed to see. Whatever the answer was, it was everything.
His brothers froze in the doorway like pilgrims seeing the promised land. “Holy—” Ansel breathed. “—shit,” Elio finished.
Banks of monitors painted their faces in flickering light, all stitched together into a kind of digital cathedral. The servers purred like contented cats, and every cable was zip-tied with loving precision.
Elio stumbled toward the wall of blinking lights. “Is that”—his voice cracked—“a quantum co-processor rigged to a home-built array?”
“It’s tethered,” Ansel said, reverent. “She’s bleeding solar off the outbuildings to keep the back-up grid isolated. That’s insane. That’s…brilliant.”
Calliope swiveled in her chair, pink cat-ear headphones glowing, an unbothered smirk tugging at one corner of her mouth. “You boys certainly know your stuff.”
They straightened immediately. “Thank you,” they said in unison.
Seven stifled another laugh. Enzo didn’t blame him; it was like watching two kids meet their celebrity crush.
“Ma’am,” Elio said.
“Your set-up is art,” Ansel finished.
“Do they always finish each other’s sentences like this?” Seven murmured, just loud enough for Enzo to hear.
