The PDF Sterling had sent me regarding the coffee thermometer was less of a spec sheet and more of a philosophical treatise on existential perfection. It detailed why 87.3 degrees Celsius was the "absolute zenith of flavour blossoming," while 87.8 degrees was "a bitter despair fit for the mediocre." One page even used calculus to derive the rate of heat loss through a ceramic cup wall.
I spent the entire morning, with more diligence than I'd applied to my senior thesis, cross-referencing global suppliers of precision thermometers. I finally settled on a Swiss-made model that cost as much as a used car. It met every exacting specification: ±0.1°C accuracy, three-second response time, matte black, silent. I made sure to use a vendor not on the secret "traitorous supplier" blacklist.
Placing the order gave me a ridiculous sense of accomplishment. Done. I had satisfied the Drama King's first capricious demand. Maybe I could survive here.
Just then, the intercom on my desk—a sleek, buttonless black slate—glowed softly and played a brief clip of a Bach cello suite. It was more unsettling than a shrill ring could ever be.
I tapped the screen cautiously. Alexander Wilde's voice filled my immediate space, low and clear, as if he were standing behind me.
"Miss Chen."
"Mr. Wilde," I answered the air, my eyes fixed on the doorframe above his office door,严格遵守着 the 'no eye contact' rule. "What do you need?"
"My coffee." He paused, and the pause was heavy with dramatic weight. "It is... disappointing."
My heart sank. Impossible. I had used the beans he specified, from a specific mountainside in Ethiopia, handpicked under a full moon (page 8 of the manual). The water was triple-filtered and re-mineralized. Even the pouring arc had a recommended optimal angle (Appendix C).
"Disappointing, sir?" I kept my voice even. "In what way, specifically?"
"The temperature," he pronounced, his tone that of a doctor delivering a terminal diagnosis. "It lacks... soul. The fervent resolve required to break through the barriers of the mundane. It tastes precisely 87.5 degrees. A temperature of compromise."
I stared at the intercom, dumbfounded. He could taste a 0.2-degree difference? Did the man have a thermocouple for a tongue?
"I see, sir," I said, while internally screaming. Maybe your taste buds just need dramatic therapy, not a thermometer. "The new thermometer is already en route. It will arrive tomorrow."
"Tomorrow," he repeated, and the word sounded like an eternal sentence. "Must human civilization stall until then? Miss Chen, I want you to go to the 'Coffee Bean Depot' downstairs and acquire one of their 'Dark Storm' specials."
I was speechless. The "Coffee Bean Depot" was the very establishment with which he had declared a "corporate cold war" for having misspelled his name as "Alex Wild" on three occasions. The "Dark Storm" was a caffeinated syrup drink rumoured to corrode stomach linings.
"But, sir," I ventured carefully, "didn't you say that establishment's very existence was an insult to taste itself?"
"Precisely!" His voice held a thread of excitement, as if he were plotting an intrigue. "I want you to go behind enemy lines. Bring back their formula. Analyse it! Understand it! Only then can we know our enemy. Consider this a... taste reconnaissance mission."
This had moved beyond absurd into surreal territory. My first external assignment was to go to the enemy coffee shop and buy him a drink he professed to despise.
"Of course, sir," I heard myself say. "One 'Dark Storm.' Any specific requests?"
"Extra whipped cream," he commanded, like a general deploying key troops. "And additional chocolate shavings. I wish to see how deep this mediocre abyss truly goes."
Corporate card in hand, feeling it burn my palm, I made the journey. Sterling materialized beside me as I waited for the elevator.
"Reconnaissance?" he asked placidly, having clearly listened in.
"So it seems."
He handed me a tiny, impossibly expensive-looking silver tasting cup. "Use this. For sample purity. We cannot have enemy libations contaminating Mr. Wilde's dedicated porcelain."
I looked down at the thimble-sized cup. I strongly doubted the baristas at the Coffee Bean Depot would know what to make of it.
Twenty minutes later, I returned, holding the ridiculous silver cup, now filled with black syrup and a mountain of cream and chocolate. I placed it on my floating desk. Just as I was about to announce the mission's success to the King, his door opened.
Alexander Wilde himself emerged. He looked at the concoction, his face a mask of horror and fascination, as if I'd brought back a live grenade.
"So. This is the weapon of the enemy," he murmured, picking up the tiny cup with reverence. He didn't drink it. He simply stared into its depths. "So... ostentatious. So devoid of subtlety."
He carried it back into his office and closed the door. He didn't look at me once, utterly absorbed in his grand coffee narrative.
I slumped into my chair, exhausted. It wasn't even lunchtime, and I'd already engaged in poetry, espionage, and philosophical debate, all concerning a beverage.
My intercom glowed.
"Miss Chen."
"Yes, Mr. Wilde?"
"Dispose of it," he said, a slight, probably feigned, tremor in his voice. "It is not merely mediocrity... it is a crime."
I picked up the barely touched Dark Storm and headed for the hydration alcove. Before dumping the $8 worth of sugary water, I took a sip.
It was sickeningly sweet. Objectively awful. But honestly? Not terrible.
I drank the rest of it. After all, it was necessary reconnaissance. And frankly, after the morning I'd had, I needed the sugar rush.
As I rinsed the cup, I couldn't help but wonder if the arrival of the new thermometer tomorrow would just be Act Two of this farce. Perhaps he would declare the Swiss precision "lacking in soulful fluctuation."
I looked at Alexander Wilde's firmly closed door. The man wasn't just at war with the laws of thermodynamics; he was at war with common sense, logic, and any form of peaceful existence.
And I, it seemed, had just been appointed his chief general. This war, I suspected, was only just beginning.