Chương 172: Ethan's Scientific Instinct

After Chris said they'd write the manual themselves, Kira's frown didn't move; she couldn't find a single point of resonance in those cold industrial objects. Chris was running flat out in his head, trying to use Dynamic Inference to find the team a road. And in that short stall, Ethan moved. He went straight to the cabinet of future ingredients without hesitating, like a scientist walking into a new laboratory, and yesterday's confusion was gone out of his eyes. What was there instead was close to greed.

Curiosity at full strength. The first thing he picked up was the white disc marked CULTURED SCALLOP A-3. He didn't smell it the way an ordinary cook would, and he didn't cut a corner off to taste. He pressed it with a forefinger first, feeling for its elasticity and grain.

"High density. Firmer than a natural scallop. Protein structure has probably been reinforced." He was half talking to himself and half reporting to the team. Then he took a thin slice, put it in a clean small pan with no oil, and set it over a low flame. Everyone watched that little white disc. As the temperature came up, Chris saw that it didn't weep water and curl the way a scallop should.

It went translucent all the way through, and at the edges something began to happen that looked disturbingly like plastic melting.

"No." Ethan killed the heat at once.

"Direct heat collapses its structure. The protein is too pure — there's no fat and no connective tissue the way there is in a real scallop, so nothing holds it together. Which means we can't sear it and we can't roast it." He turned to Chris and Kira.

"Its advantages are a regular shape and an even texture. Its weaknesses are that it tastes of almost nothing and it can't take heat. The only good handling is sous-vide — or raw." Without so much as a glance back at the scallop he picked up the purple carrot with its metallic sheen. He scraped off a little of the skin with a paring knife, put it on the tip of his tongue, and spat it straight out.

"The skin's bitter. Like quinine. But the flesh—" he cut a small piece and held it out to Kira "—try it." Kira hesitated, then put the purple thing in her mouth. She chewed slowly, and her expression got complicated.

"It's very sweet," she said, surprised.

"But not a carrot's sweetness. Closer to a berry. And there's spice in it. Star anise?" Unauthorized usage: this tale is on Amazon without the author's consent. Report any sightings.

"Correct." Ethan's eyes lit.

"The flavor is compound. It was designed. Which means we can't treat it traditionally, and we can't treat it as a carrot. It's already a complete flavor combination on its own." For the next ten minutes Ethan ran like an analytical instrument at full speed. Using the simplest and most direct physical and chemical methods, he tested the basic properties of every unfamiliar material in front of him. Which liquid set under heat. Which powder swelled in water. Which gel broke down in acid.

Chris watched in silence and could not get over it. He finally understood that Ethan's science wasn't the flashy apparatus of molecular cooking at all. It was a way of thinking — a formidable ability to deconstruct an unknown quickly, analyze it, and find the logic underneath it. Yesterday's error had worked like a whetstone. It had ground the ornamental layer off him, the part that wanted a perfect performance, and left a scientist in his most essential state: exploring, and after the truth.

"Right." Ethan straightened up. On the bench in front of him stood a dozen tested samples, each with a slip of paper beside it carrying his verdict. Formable, tasteless, requires flavoring. Crisp, sweet, will not survive cooking. Extremely acidic, usable as a setting agent. He'd finished the base analysis. And then he did something that genuinely surprised both Chris and Kira. He looked at Kira and asked her, entirely seriously: "Kira. I've solved the question of what they are.

Now I need you to tell me what they should become." He pointed at the scallop he'd ruled raw-or-sous-vide.

"Its texture is like the best hand-dived scallop there is. But it has no soul and no taste of the sea. Can you give it one?" Then at the purple carrot.

"This one's flavor is domineering. It's a king in armor. What can stand next to it without being swallowed, and still show off how magnificent it is?" It was the first time Ethan had ever asked Kira for help this directly, at the level of both technique and art. He'd stopped being the lone hero charging through his own technical world. He had started, genuinely, to treat himself as one piece of a puzzle and to look for the piece that fitted against him.

Kira looked at him — at that open, complete trust in what she could do — and the line between her brows finally eased. Under Ethan's reading, those cold and lifeless materials seemed to acquire temperaments and moods. They weren't silent industrial products anymore. They were unfamiliar souls waiting to be woken.

"I understand," Kira said softly. She picked up the green leaf-like thing Ethan had marked crisp, sweet, will not survive cooking, put it in her mouth, and closed her eyes. Chris watched, and the weight came off him at last. Round two was survivable. He started building the menu on the panel in his head at speed, off Ethan's physical analysis and the flavor definitions Kira was about to give him. The appetizer would use the soulless scallop to carry an ocean Kira put into it.

The main would use the hardest protein of the lot and push Ethan's technique to its limit. The dessert— Chris's eyes went to the small bottle labeled SYNTHETIC SWEETENER X. In his head, Dynamic Inference was flickering through possibilities faster than it ever had.

"Ethan. Kira." There was excitement in his voice he couldn't keep down.

"Let's tell the judges a story about tomorrow."