Chapter 2: The IKEA Incident
Three days later, Kayel sat at his tiny kitchen table eating ramen noodles straight from the pot and trying very hard not to think about anything. Not about his dwindling bank account. Not about the job applications he'd submitted to every coffee shop and bookstore in a five-mile radius. Not about the fact that he was living in a sitcom and had no idea what that meant for his long-term survival prospects.
The ramen was the cheap kind—twenty-nine cents a package—and tasted like salt and regret. But it was food, and he was rationing his money like he was preparing for nuclear winter.
"Don't think about money," he warned himself. "Don't think about anything that might cost—"
[QUERY: $0.10]
He dropped his spoon into the pot with a splash. Ten cents. Just for having a worried thought. The system was getting its hooks into him one dime at a time.
A knock at the door interrupted his spiral into financial despair. He opened it to find Penny standing in the hallway, holding what looked like a furniture manual.
"Hey!" she said brightly. "I hope I'm not bothering you, but I was wondering... are you busy?"
"I'm eating ramen for the third day in a row and trying not to think about anything because my brain charges me money. So no, not busy."
"Not really," he said aloud. "What's up?"
"I bought this bookshelf from IKEA, and I thought I could put it together myself, but..." She held up the manual with a defeated expression. "Swedish engineering apparently requires a PhD in spatial relationships. Leonard and Sheldon offered to help, but Leonard's at work and Sheldon..." She paused. "Have you met Sheldon?"
"Briefly."
"Then you understand why I'd rather not ask him for help with furniture assembly."
Kayel glanced back at his apartment, where his remaining ramen was getting cold. On one hand, helping Penny would mean abandoning his carefully rationed meal. On the other hand, this was Penny. Main character. Beautiful, kind Penny who had tried to welcome him to the building and gotten a door slammed in her face for her trouble.
"Sure," he said. "I can help."
Penny's face lit up. "Really? That would be amazing! I owe you dinner or something."
"Dinner. An actual meal that isn't ramen. Don't get your hopes up, but..."
"You don't owe me anything," he said. "Let me just grab my keys."
Penny's apartment was the mirror image of his own, but where his was sparse and depressing, hers was warm and lived-in. Photographs covered the refrigerator, throw pillows made the couch look inviting, and there were actual curtains on the windows instead of the mini-blinds that had come with his place.
The IKEA box sat in the middle of her living room like a cardboard monument to Swedish minimalism. Beside it, the instruction manual was spread open to reveal a bewildering array of diagrams, part numbers, and warnings in six different languages.
"Okay," Kayel said, kneeling beside the box. "Let's see what we're dealing with here."
He opened the box and began pulling out pieces. Wooden shelves, metal brackets, screws in three different sizes, and a collection of hardware that looked like it belonged in a medieval torture chamber. The instruction manual might as well have been written in ancient Sumerian.
Twenty minutes later, they had managed to identify all the pieces and lay them out according to the diagram. Kayel was feeling cautiously optimistic. How hard could this be?
That's when Sheldon arrived.
"Penny," came a voice from the doorway. "I couldn't help but notice the sounds of amateur carpentry emanating from your apartment. Are you attempting furniture assembly without proper supervision?"
Kayel looked up to see Sheldon standing in the doorway, surveying the scene with the expression of a general viewing a battlefield disaster.
"Hi, Sheldon," Penny said through gritted teeth. "We're fine, thanks."
"I seriously doubt that," Sheldon replied, stepping into the apartment. "IKEA furniture requires precise adherence to assembly protocols. The slightest deviation from the prescribed methodology can result in structural instability, cosmetic imperfections, or in extreme cases, catastrophic failure."
He knelt beside their work area and picked up the instruction manual. "For example, you've placed the cam bolts in the wrong orientation. And these wooden dowels should be pre-inserted into the corresponding holes before attempting bracket alignment."
Kayel watched as Sheldon began methodically rearranging their carefully organized pieces. Each movement was deliberate, precise, and maddeningly slow. He read every word of the instructions. He checked each piece against the diagram. He measured twice before making any commitment.
Five minutes passed. Then ten. Sheldon was still on step one, analyzing the optimal approach to inserting the first wooden dowel.
"At this rate, we'll be here until Christmas," Kayel thought. "I could probably figure out a faster way to—"
Wait. No. That was dangerous thinking. Any thoughts about optimization or efficiency would trigger system alerts. Better to just sit back and let Sheldon handle it, no matter how long it took.
But fifteen minutes later, Sheldon was still explaining the engineering principles behind cam bolt insertion, and Kayel was starting to lose his mind.
"I'd pay five dollars to make this go faster."
[ACCEPTED. AR OVERLAY: $5.00. ASSEMBLING OPTIMAL PATHWAY DISPLAY.]
The world exploded into color.
Suddenly, Kayel could see everything. Not just the furniture pieces, but the optimal assembly sequence laid out before him like a 3D blueprint. Blue lines showed the correct orientation for each piece. Red arrows indicated the proper insertion angles. Yellow highlights marked the next component in the sequence.
It was beautiful. It was perfect. It was also causing a splitting headache that felt like someone was driving railroad spikes through his skull.
"Oh, God. Oh, no. This is going to hurt."
But he could see the path forward so clearly. And more importantly, he could see how to deviate from Sheldon's methodical approach to create something faster, more efficient. Not just IKEA's design—something better. Something Kayel-optimal.
He stood up abruptly, causing both Penny and Sheldon to look at him in surprise.
"You know what?" he said, his voice tight with pain. "I think I see a faster way to do this."
Sheldon's eyes narrowed. "The instructions are quite explicit about the proper assembly sequence. Improvisation is inadvisable."
"Trust me," Kayel said, and began moving.
What happened next felt like a blur of motion guided by perfect knowledge. His hands moved without conscious thought, following the AR overlay's guidance. Dowels slipped into holes. Brackets aligned with mathematical precision. Screws found their threads on the first try.
The headache intensified with each movement, a throbbing agony that made his vision blur around the edges. He could feel something warm and wet under his nose, but he couldn't stop. The overlay was showing him exactly what to do, and his body was following its commands with mechanical efficiency.
Four minutes later, the bookshelf stood complete.
Kayel stepped back, swaying slightly. The AR overlay faded, leaving behind a perfectly assembled piece of furniture and the worst headache of his life. He touched his nose and his fingers came away red.
"Holy crap," Penny breathed. "How did you do that?"
Sheldon stood frozen, staring at the bookshelf with an expression of profound confusion. "This is... This is not the IKEA design."
He was right. Following the overlay's guidance, Kayel had made subtle modifications. The middle shelf was positioned two inches higher for optimal weight distribution. The back panel had been reinforced with additional brackets. The overall structure was more stable and aesthetically pleasing than the original design.
"You modified the engineering specifications," Sheldon continued, his voice rising with a mixture of outrage and fascination. "You improved upon Swedish design principles. How did you calculate the load-bearing requirements without a calculator?"
Kayel wiped his nose on his sleeve, leaving a streak of red on the fabric. "I just... I could see it. The math, I mean. In my head."
"Which is technically true, if you count an AR overlay as 'in my head.'"
Penny was staring at him with concern. "Are you okay? You're bleeding."
"Nosebleed," he said weakly. "Happens sometimes when I think really hard."
"Also technically true."
Sheldon was now circling the bookshelf like a predator studying prey, examining every joint and connection. "Remarkable. You've achieved structural optimization through intuitive spatial reasoning. Most impressive."
The way he said it made Kayel nervous. There was something calculating in Sheldon's expression, like he was filing away information for future reference.
"It's just a bookshelf," Kayel said.
"Is it?" Sheldon asked, finally turning to look at him directly. "Are you... damaged? You appear to be experiencing some form of cognitive overflow."
The room tilted slightly. The headache was getting worse, and he could feel another nosebleed starting.
[MEDICAL CONSULTATION: $15.00. IMMEDIATE NEUROLOGICAL ASSESSMENT.]
"I should go," Kayel said quickly, before the system could offer any more expensive assistance. "Feel better, and... enjoy the bookshelf."
He made it back to his apartment before the second nosebleed hit in earnest. As he held a towel to his nose and waited for the bleeding to stop, he could hear Sheldon's voice through the wall, talking to Leonard about "anomalous problem-solving capabilities" and "potential savant characteristics."
Kayel closed his eyes and tried not to think about what he'd just gotten himself into.
His balance now read $24.90.
The bookshelf had cost him five dollars and probably a significant amount of brain cells. But Penny thought he was some kind of spatial genius, and Sheldon was developing theories about his cognitive abilities.
"This is either the beginning of something good, or I just painted a target on my back."
He decided not to ask the system which one it was.
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