Chương 173: England's Programmatic Response

While the American kitchen was throwing off startling amounts of invention out of the reaction between Ethan and Kira, the other end of the floor showed something entirely different. Something close to absolute calm, and absolute order. Facing the same pile of future ingredients, there was not a trace of confusion or surprise anywhere on Arthur Campbell's face. As though he had rehearsed all of this in his head a hundred times already. When the whistle went he didn't even touch the ingredients first.

He took a tablet and a small data logger out of his own case. He fixed the tablet at a corner of the bench. On the screen was a complex table with columns headed INGREDIENT CODE, PHYSICAL PROPERTIES, CHEMICAL BEHAVIOR, FLAVOR PROFILE, OPTIMAL HANDLING. Then he spoke, not loudly, and the sentence went through the chaos like a scalpel and left it in clean pieces.

"Thomas. Group A, proteins. Test solubility, thermal stability, and behavior across pH. Log live."

"Imogen. Group B, plants and gels. Test sugar, acid, and brittleness. Focus on the setting conditions for gels G-3 through G-5."

"I'll take Group C. Synthetic aromatics and flavor agents." The instructions were short and clean and carried nothing in them. Thomas and Imogen went straight to work; their movements were an extension of Arthur's body. No questions, no discussion, only execution. In a gap between his own frantic calculations, Chris glanced across at the other kitchen — and stopped dead at what they were doing. Thomas wasn't testing the proteins over a flame the way Ethan had.

He'd taken a minute sample into a test tube, added distilled water, and put it into a precisely controlled water bath. His eyes stayed on the thermometer, and every five degrees he logged the state of the sample. Imogen was worse. She had a handheld refractometer and pH strips out and was building an identity file for every vegetable and every fruit, exactly like a working chemist.

"What are they doing?" Ethan had noticed it too, and he sounded honestly confused.

"We've got three hours. Are they writing a paper first?" Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

"No." Chris's expression had gone as serious as it had all week.

"They're not writing a paper. They're writing a program." He had Arthur's tactic now. Facing an unknown, the Americans had chosen to embrace it. They were relying on Ethan's scientific instinct and Kira's artistic perception, interacting with the material, failing, correcting, hunting order out of the chaos. High risk, high return, improvised. England had chosen to conquer it. Arthur refused improvisation and refused feel.

What he intended to do, before cooking anything, was convert every unknown variable into known data through rigorous, repeatable experiment. While the Americans were already arguing about flavor combinations for the appetizer, England was still testing the solubility of a powder at eighty degrees.

"They're too slow," Kira said, seeing the same thing.

"By the time they finish testing everything they'll have ninety minutes left."

"No. You've got it the wrong way round." Chris shook his head, and his stomach dropped.

"They're not slow. They're stable. The moment that database is complete, Arthur can run it through his process and compute the optimal combination for this entire pantry in a few minutes. A solution that in theory cannot be wrong, and that scores highest on execution." Arthur's expressionless face rose in his mind.

"He isn't cooking, Ethan." Chris said it quietly to the man beside him.

"He's using food to prove that the world can be completely calculated and completely controlled. He doesn't want a delicious dish. He wants a correct answer." That idea put a cold in you that plain technical superiority never could. In the English kitchen, the data went into the tablet line by line.

"Protein A-3. Denatures from sixty-eight in a water bath, structure fully set at seventy-five. Texture comparable to steamed custard. Recommended working temperature, seventy-two," Thomas reported.

"Gel G-4 will not set below pH 4. 5. Forms a stable structure in the presence of calcium ions. Can be paired with fruit B-2, which is high in calcium," Imogen reported. Arthur listened and swiped fast through the tablet. His brain worked like a supercomputer taking the incoming stream. A full hour into the competition, England's testing phase ended. Arthur looked up at the clock on the wall. Then, perfectly calmly, he gave his teammates their orders.

"Appetizer, Protocol No. 7. Main, No. 13. Dessert, No. 21."

"Thomas, the protein core on the main is yours. Seventy-two point five degrees, twenty-eight minutes. Tolerance under a tenth of a degree or five seconds."

"Imogen, the spherified shell on the dessert. Concentration per the beta file. I want a perfect sphere." Then he pulled on a fresh pair of gloves and started work on the complicated synthetic aromatics. His movements were precise and elegant and had nothing alive in them, like a robot executing an instruction set it had been fed a thousand times. Their bench was frighteningly clean. Every tool sat in a fixed position. Every step looked rehearsed. Chris pulled his eyes away. They didn't have much time.

England's war machine had finished warming up and was going to full output. And the Americans were still feeling their way forward through an inspired mess.

"Kira." Chris turned, and there was urgency in it.

"The ocean, for the appetizer. Have you got it?"