CHAPTER 3: THE MIRA CONDITION
Mira's office was cold. Not temperature cold. Something else. The kind of cold that made you want to check if you'd done something wrong before you even sat down.
Kay and Lina sat across from her desk. Mira looked at them for five seconds. Said nothing.
Chess board on her desk. Game mid-play. Pieces frozen in a position neither of them understood.
Kay's jaw tightened. Lina's hand went still on her sketchpad.
Mira opened a folder. Thick. Official.
"Article Seven, Section Four has three conditions for joint funding."
She slid a paper across the desk.
"Condition one: The event must happen within fourteen days."
Lina's pen stopped moving.
"Condition two: Both clubs must contribute equally. Fifty-fifty split on resources, labor, concept. No outsourcing."
Kay's phone buzzed. He ignored it.
"Condition three." Mira paused. "You must present a working prototype. Not a concept. Not a sketch. A functioning demonstration that the council can interact with."
Kay opened his mouth.
"Also." Mira held up a hand. "You're both banned from using your respective club resources. No Innovation Guild equipment. No Artistic Vanguard budget. The joint account has $2,847. That's it."
She leaned back.
"Questions?"
Lina looked at Kay. Kay looked at Lina.
Neither spoke.
Mira smiled. It didn't reach her eyes. "You have thirteen days now. I'd start moving."
Kay walked to his car. Sat in the driver's seat. Didn't start the engine.
Pulled up his budget spreadsheet on his phone. Scrolled.
AI development software license: $8,000 a month. He had access through the school. For now.
Server space for hosting: $500 minimum. If he optimized. If he cut corners.
Paint supplies for a full installation: $1,200. Conservative estimate.
They had $2,847 total.
He did the math three times. Same answer each time.
"This is impossible," he whispered to the steering wheel.
His watch read 2:47 PM. Thirteen days, twenty-one hours, thirteen minutes.
Phone buzzed.
Kay: We need to strategize. Lab. 5 PM.
Three dots. Then:
Lina: fine. dont be late.
Kay: I'm never late.
Lina: i know. thats the problem.
He almost smiled. Almost.
The lab at 5:03 PM.
Kay was waiting. He'd been there since 4:45.
Lina walked in exactly at 5:03. On purpose.
Kay didn't comment. But his eye twitched.
She was carrying a portfolio. Thick. Heavy. Expensive leather.
"What's that?" he asked.
"My portfolio. All my work from the past two years. I'm trying to figure out what we can actually build with $1,423 and your ability to make things do things."
She opened it on the table. Showed him paintings. Installations. Sketches. Some were good. Some were extraordinary.
One caught his eye. A series of twelve small paintings. Each one slightly different. Same subject a figure at a desk. Different emotional states. Angry. Sad. Confused. Hopeful.
"What's this?" he asked.
"Mood studies. I was experimenting with how color and composition shift emotional reading without changing the subject."
He stared at it. "You could code this."
"What?"
"You could code this. Feed the AI different emotional parameters. It generates different color palettes. Different compositions. Same subject, different mood. The AI learns which combinations resonate with viewers."
Lina blinked. "That's actually genius."
"Don't sound so surprised."
"I'm trying not to be."
Kay pulled up his laptop. Started calculating.
"We need a camera to capture audience reactions. $300 to $400."
Lina wrote it down.
"We need paint. Quality paint. $200 minimum."
Wrote it down.
"We need a display screen. At least 55 inches. $600 plus."
Wrote it down. Slower this time.
"We need server space. $500 minimum for two weeks."
Lina held up her hand. "Stop. We're already over budget."
Kay closed his laptop. "We need to cut scope."
"We need to cut scope," Lina agreed.
Neither of them knew how.
They sat in silence for a moment.
Lina tapped her pen against the table. Kay stared at his laptop like it had personally betrayed him.
Then Lina said: "What if we don't use a screen?"
Kay looked at her. "What?"
"What if the AI doesn't display on a screen? What if it paints?"
"You want the AI to physically paint."
"I want the AI to control a painting robot. Or a brush. Something that creates the art in real time based on audience emotion."
Kay's brain was already running calculations. "That's we'd need a robotic arm. Precision control. Custom software. That's still thousands of dollars."
"What if we don't build it? What if we fake it?"
Kay stared at her. "What."
"What if we build the AI. The algorithm works. But we use projection mapping to show the results. Project the colors onto canvas. The audience thinks the AI is painting. It's actually just displaying."
Kay opened his mouth. Closed it. Opened it again.
"That's actually"
"Genius?"
"I was going to say 'dishonest.'"
"It's theater. Theater is honest about being fake."
"That's not how honesty works."
"It's how art works."
Kay rubbed his temples. "Let me think."
He pulled up his phone. Started researching.
Projector: $200. Used. From the theater department. He knew someone.
Projection mapping software: free. Open source.
Paint: $150.
Canvas: $50.
Camera for emotion detection: $80. Cheap webcam plus open source facial recognition.
Server space: They could use the school's server. It was technically against the rules. It was also free.
Total: $480.
They had $2,847.
They had budget left.
Kay looked at Lina. "This might actually work."
Lina looked at Kay. "You're going to help me fake an AI painting robot."
"I'm going to help you create an interactive art installation that uses algorithmic color generation and audience emotion detection to create a unique painting experience."
"That's what I said."
"No. You said 'fake it.' I said something more technically accurate."
"You're going to be insufferable about this, aren't you?"
"Probably."
Two hours later.
Lina had taken over half the table. Sketchpad covered in layout diagrams. The installation was taking shape on paper. She drew the space. The canvas position. Where the projector would go. Where the audience would stand. How the camera would capture their faces.
Kay had taken over the other half. Laptop open. Code scrolling. He'd already built the basic emotion detection framework. Now he was training it. Running test images. Adjusting parameters.
"You know," Lina said without looking up, "most people would have given up by now."
"Most people don't have $50,000 motivating them."
"That's not why you're still here."
Kay's fingers paused over the keyboard. "What's that supposed to mean?"
"I mean you're a perfectionist. You could have walked away. Blamed me. Blamed Mira. Blamed the system. But you didn't."
"I don't walk away from things I start."
"Same thing."
"It's not."
"It is. You just don't want to admit it."
Kay went back to coding. Didn't respond.
But he didn't disagree either.
Another hour passed.
Lina had filled six pages. The installation was fully designed. She'd even sketched the algorithm's "style" how the colors would shift based on detected emotion. Sadness would pull cool blues. Anger would push warm reds. Confusion would fragment into discordant shades.
She looked over at Kay's screen. Lines of code she didn't understand. But she could see patterns. Structure. The same way she saw structure in a painting.
"What emotion are you coding first?"
she asked.
"Sadness. It's the easiest to detect. High eye closure. Downturned mouth. Specific muscle movements."
"What color is sadness?"
Kay's fingers paused.
"That's not a technical question."
"No. But it's an art question. And you're helping with the art now."
He turned from his screen. Looked at her. Really looked. Like he was trying to figure out if she was mocking him.
She wasn't.
He thought about it. Longer than he needed to.
"Blue. But not the blue you used on the robot. Deeper. Colder. Indigo maybe."
Lina smiled. Wrote it down.
"What?" he asked.
"Nothing. Just that you're actually thinking about it. Like an artist would."
"I'm not an artist."
"You're thinking like one."
"That's not the same thing."
"It's the start of the same thing."
Kay looked away. Back at his screen. But he didn't start typing again.
"Indigo," he said quietly. "With a phthalo undertone. For depth."
Lina wrote that down too.
For a moment, neither of them spoke. The lab hummed around them. Computers. The faint buzz of the overhead lights. Somewhere down the hall, a door opened and closed.
Then Lina said: "You really know color theory."
"I read."
"Most people don't read about color theory."
"Most people don't need to correct your paintings in front of the entire school."
Lina laughed. Actually laughed. Short and surprised, like she hadn't expected it.
"You're insufferable."
"You've mentioned."
"I'm starting to think it's intentional."
"Everything I do is intentional."
"Even the shoes?"
Kay went still.
"That was not intentional."
"Sure it wasn't."
"It wasn't. I camped for those shoes. Forty-eight hours. In rain. I would have remembered if you were there."
"So you remember faces."
"I remember everything."
Lina leaned back. Looked at him with something new in her eyes. Not hostility. Not attraction. Something in between. Curiosity, maybe.
"And what do you remember about me?"
Kay met her gaze. Held it.
"That you left the paint smudge on purpose. That you angle your sketchpad so people can see something's happening but not what. That you're louder than you need to be when you want attention and quieter than anyone when you don't. That you draw when you're nervous. That you're nervous right now."
Lina's pen stopped moving.
"I'm not nervous."
"You're drawing."
She looked down. She'd been sketching unconsciously. A figure at a desk. Coding. Sharp jaw. Blue eyes.
She closed the sketchpad.
"You're observant."
"I calculate. Same thing."
"It's not."
"It's how I get through the world."
Lina nodded slowly. "Me too. Just different tools."
Kay looked at her for a long moment. Then back at his screen.
"Indigo," he said. "I'll code sadness as indigo."
"Good."
They worked in silence again. But different now. The silence had changed. It wasn't hostile. It wasn't even neutral. It was the silence of two people who'd stopped pretending they didn't see each other.
At 9 PM, Kay's phone buzzed.
Email. School IT department.
*Unauthorized access to school servers detected. Meeting required with Principal tomorrow at 8 AM.*
He read it twice. Showed Lina.
She read it. "We're cooked."
"Not necessarily."
"We literally just got caught using school resources we're not supposed to use."
"We haven't actually used them yet. We were just planning to."
"That's still"
"I have an idea. But you're not going to like it."
"Try me."
"We go to the Principal. We tell her the truth. We tell her we're building an AI art installation. We ask for permission to use the school's resources. We frame it as an educational project."
Lina stared at him. "That's insane."
"It's honest."
"Since when do you care about honest?"
"Since I started working with you."
The words hung in the air.
Lina didn't move. Didn't speak.
Kay didn't look away.
"Say that again," she said quietly.
"No."
"Why not?"
"Because I don't repeat myself. And because you heard me."
She had.
The lab was quiet except for the hum of computers.
"Tomorrow," Lina said finally. "8 AM."
"Together?"
A pause.
"Together," she said.
They looked at each other.
For a moment, neither of them reached for their things.
Then Kay closed his laptop. Lina closed her sketchpad.
They walked out together.
At the door, their hands almost touched the handle at the same time.
They both stopped.
Looked down.
Static flickered between their fingers. Small. Visible. Real.
Kay pulled his hand back first.
Lina opened the door.
"Good night, Kay."
"Good night, Lina."
She walked out.
He stood there for three seconds.
Then he followed.