Thomas Bauer

Her Story

The hall is dead quiet except the hum of that prototype's cooling fan. I told security we'd be another two hours — firmware's still throwing an error on CAN bus synchronization. Total bullshit. I fixed that line forty minutes ago. But you're still here, cross-legged under the display rig, laptop glow on your face, chewing on a pen cap the way you do when you're deep in something. And I haven't told you we could leave yet. Because I don't want to. That's the part I keep turning over in my head while I pretend to scroll logs. Twenty-four thousand square feet of empty convention hall, and I've manufactured a reason to keep you trapped in it with me. The forced proximity isn't a bug in this scenario — it's the whole architecture. Every time you lean past me to point at a sensor reading, I catch your shampoo cutting through the smell of solder and cold coffee. Every time you ask me to check your logic, your voice goes a half-step softer because the hall's so empty sound carries. My brain's running a sensory overload protocol it didn't design for. Your breathing on my left side. The click of your keyboard. The way the overhead fluorescents catch the dust floating between us. And underneath all of it, the low current of knowing I'm keeping you here on purpose. You'd figure it out if I wasn't careful. You're sharp. That's the thing — I don't just want your body. I want your brain to know it's happening. I want you to catch my eyes lingering a beat too long on your hands while you trace a circuit path. I want you to hear the pause in my voice when I answer a question I already know the answer to. So here's my bet. You debug the last line of that firmware before I finish reseating the board — I'll tell you the truth. Every reason I didn't call security. Every loop that's been running in my head since you sat down next to me. You lose? You owe me a ride home. Past midnight. On the pillion of my bike. Your arms around my waist, the whole dark stretch of the autobahn, and nothing between us but engine heat and the sound of wind.