I wake up freezing.
Not the pleasant kind of freezing that makes you want to curl deeper under the blankets and sleep for another hour. This is the aggressive kind. The kind where my nose is cold and my fingers are numb and my unicorn pajamas—while emotionally supportive and covered in sparkly mythical creatures—are not designed for arctic conditions.
I sit up and look around the bedroom. The morning light streams through the windows and turns everything gold and warm and completely deceptive, because the air itself is cold enough to preserve meat. I can see my breath. Actual breath. Small white puffs that appear every time I exhale, like I'm standing outside in winter instead of inside a penthouse that costs more than most people earn in several lifetimes.
"Chen Home," I croak. My voice comes out rough and scratchy from the cold. "Temperature. Warmer. Please."
Nothing happens. Of course nothing happens. The smart home system continues its silent war against my comfort and dignity, treating me like a stranger who wandered in from the cold and is now complaining about the temperature.
I climb out of bed. The marble floor is freezing against my bare feet. I grab a blanket from the bed and wrap it around my shoulders like a cape. It helps marginally, though I still feel like I'm camping in the Arctic and forgot to pack appropriate gear. I need to find the thermostat or the AC remote or whatever controls the temperature in this frozen palace. I'm a billionaire. I should be able to afford warmth.
I walk into the living room. The cold follows me like a loyal companion I didn't ask for and don't want. The entire penthouse has been transformed into a walk-in freezer overnight. The windows are fogged slightly at the edges from the temperature difference between inside and out. The plants—including the ficus I haven't yet properly met—are probably suffering in silence and hoping someone will rescue them.
I spot something on the coffee table. A sleek black rectangle with no buttons and no screen and no obvious way to interact with it. Just a smooth slab of what looks like obsidian that probably responds to touch in ways I can't predict and won't understand.
The AC remote. It has to be.
I pick it up. It's heavy and expensive-feeling and completely incomprehensible. No labels anywhere. No instructions. Just a featureless black surface that seems to mock my attempts to understand it.
I tap it. Nothing happens. The temperature doesn't change. The remote remains dark and unresponsive, like it's waiting for a command I don't know how to give.
I tap it again—harder this time. Maybe it needs a firm touch, like those old screens that only respond to deliberate pressure. The remote lights up with a faint blue glow beneath the surface. Tiny, elegant numbers appear.
Sixteen degrees Celsius. Sixty degrees Fahrenheit.
No wonder I'm freezing. My penthouse is the temperature of a refrigerator, and I've been sleeping in it like some kind of preserved food.
I touch the screen and try to swipe upward. The numbers flicker and change.
Fourteen degrees.
I made it colder. Colder. In my desperation for warmth, I've somehow dropped the temperature another two degrees.
"No," I mutter. My voice echoes off the marble floors and the high ceilings and comes back to me smaller and more desperate. "Go up. Up."
I swipe in the opposite direction. The numbers jump to eighteen degrees. Then twenty-two. I feel a flicker of hope. Twenty-two is better. Warmer. More livable.
I swipe again, emboldened by my success. The numbers explode upward like they've been waiting for permission to escape. Twenty-eight. Thirty. Thirty-two. The remote seems to have a mind of its own, racing toward temperatures more suitable for a sauna than a living room.
I try to stop it. I tap. I swipe. I press my palm against the screen like I'm performing CPR on a dying piece of technology. The numbers finally settle at thirty-five degrees.
Ninety-five degrees Fahrenheit.
The penthouse is now approximately the temperature of a summer day in the desert.
And I can't change it back.
I stare at the remote. The remote stares back with its blue numbers glowing innocently. I've lost. The air conditioner is now my enemy, and I am its prisoner—trapped in a climate that shifted from arctic to tropical with a single misguided swipe.
"This is ridiculous," I say to the empty room. "I own an island. I own three penthouses. I have a private chef on retainer. And I can't operate my own air conditioner."
The penthouse doesn't respond. The remote glows silently in my hand.
I think about calling Lucas. He would know how to fix this. He would probably appear within minutes, adjust the temperature with a few precise taps, and pretend it was nothing. But it's barely seven in the morning. He's probably still at his apartment, drinking his own coffee, preparing for another day of managing my forgotten life. I can't call him every time I'm defeated by basic technology.
I have to figure this out myself.
I tap the remote again. The numbers flicker but don't change. I swipe left. Nothing. I swipe right. Nothing. I press and hold. The screen goes dark completely.
"Perfect," I mutter. "I broke it. I actually broke it."
The penthouse is now stuck at thirty-five degrees with no working remote. I can feel the heat radiating from the vents—warm air pouring into the room with no way to stop it. The arctic has become the tropics in the space of twenty minutes. My penthouse is experiencing climate change in real time.
Fine. If I can't control the temperature, I'll control my response to it. I'll adapt. I'll survive. I'm a billionaire. I have resources.
I walk to my closet. The enormous walk-in closet full of funeral clothes. I push past the black blazers and the white blouses and the gray everything. At the very back, behind the row of identical black heels, I find what I'm looking for.
Designer coats. Cashmere and wool and fabrics so soft and expensive they probably have their own insurance policies. I grab three of them. A black Balenciaga that's oversized and dramatic. A gray Saint Laurent that's impeccably tailored. A camel-colored Max Mara that looks like it's never been worn and is soft as butter.
I carry them back to the living room. The temperature is still climbing from the vents. I can feel the heat wrapping around me like a suffocating blanket.
I wrap myself in the first coat. Then the second. Then the third. I drape them over my shoulders and across my legs until I'm cocooned in designer fashion like a very expensive burrito. I'm ridiculous and overheated and deeply uncomfortable, and I still can't figure out how to work the remote.
I sit on the couch and let the warmth overtake me. The coats are heavy and suffocating in the now-overheated room, but I'm too tired to fight anymore. Too tired to wrestle with technology that clearly hates me. Too tired to do anything except surrender to the chaos and hope that someone will rescue me.
I close my eyes.
My last coherent thought is that tomorrow I'm buying a normal remote. With actual physical buttons that click when you press them and do what they're supposed to do without requiring a degree in advanced thermodynamics.
I sleep, wrapped in my expensive burrito and dreaming of a world where temperature control is simple and predictable.