I woke up freezing. Not the pleasant kind of freezing that makes you want to curl deeper under the blankets and sleep for another hour. This was the aggressive kind. The kind where my nose was cold and my fingers were numb and my unicorn pajamas, while emotionally supportive and covered in sparkly mythical creatures, were not designed for arctic conditions.
I sat up and looked around the bedroom. The morning light streamed through the windows and turned everything gold and warm and completely deceptive, because the air itself was cold enough to preserve meat. I could see my breath. Actual breath. Small white puffs that appeared every time I exhaled, like I was standing outside in winter instead of inside a penthouse that cost more than most people would earn in several lifetimes.
"Chen Home," I croaked. My voice came out rough and scratchy from the cold. "Temperature. Warmer. Please."
Nothing happened. Of course nothing happened. The smart home system continued its silent war against my comfort and dignity, treating me like a stranger who had wandered in from the cold and was now complaining about the temperature.
I climbed out of bed. The marble floor was freezing against my bare feet. I grabbed a blanket from the bed and wrapped it around my shoulders like a cape. It helped marginally, though I still felt like I was camping in the Arctic and had forgotten to pack appropriate gear. I needed to find the thermostat or the AC remote or whatever controlled the temperature in this frozen palace. I was a billionaire. I should be able to afford warmth.
I walked into the living room. The cold followed me like a loyal companion I had not asked for and did not want. The entire penthouse had been transformed into a walk-in freezer overnight. The windows were fogged slightly at the edges from the temperature difference between inside and out. The plants, including the ficus I had not yet properly met, were probably suffering in silence and hoping someone would rescue them.
I spotted 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 looked like obsidian that probably responded to touch in ways I could not predict and would not understand.
The AC remote. It had to be.
I picked it up. It was heavy and expensive-feeling and completely incomprehensible. No labels anywhere. No instructions. Just a featureless black surface that seemed to mock my attempts to understand it.
I tapped it. Nothing happened. The temperature did not change. The remote remained dark and unresponsive, like it was waiting for a command I did not know how to give.
I tapped it again, harder this time. Maybe it needed a firm touch, like those old screens that only responded to deliberate pressure. The remote lit up with a faint blue glow beneath the surface. Tiny, elegant numbers appeared. Sixteen degrees Celsius. Sixty degrees Fahrenheit.
No wonder I was freezing. My penthouse was the temperature of a refrigerator, and I had been sleeping in it like some kind of preserved food.
I touched the screen and tried to swipe upward. The numbers flickered and changed. Fourteen degrees. I had made it colder. Colder. In my desperation for warmth, I had somehow dropped the temperature another two degrees.
"No," I muttered. My voice echoed off the marble floors and the high ceilings and came back to me smaller and more desperate. "Go up. Up."
I swiped in the opposite direction. The numbers jumped to eighteen degrees. Then twenty-two. I felt a flicker of hope. Twenty-two was better. Warmer. More livable.
I swiped again, emboldened by my success. The numbers exploded upward like they had been waiting for permission to escape. Twenty-eight. Thirty. Thirty-two. The remote seemed to have a mind of its own, racing toward temperatures more suitable for a sauna than a living room.
I tried to stop it. I tapped. I swiped. I pressed my palm against the screen like I was performing CPR on a dying piece of technology. The numbers finally settled at thirty-five degrees. Ninety-five degrees Fahrenheit. The penthouse was now approximately the temperature of a summer day in the desert.
And I could not change it back.
I stared at the remote. The remote stared back with its blue numbers glowing innocently. I had lost. The air conditioner was now my enemy, and I was its prisoner, trapped in a climate that shifted from arctic to tropical with a single misguided swipe.
"This is ridiculous," I said to the empty room. "I own an island. I own three penthouses. I have a private chef on retainer. And I cannot operate my own air conditioner."
The penthouse did not respond. The remote glowed silently in my hand.
I thought 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 was barely seven in the morning. He was probably still at his apartment, drinking his own coffee, preparing for another day of managing my forgotten life. I could not call him every time I was defeated by basic technology.
I had to figure this out myself.
I tapped the remote again. The numbers flickered but did not change. I swiped left. Nothing. I swiped right. Nothing. I pressed and held. The screen went dark completely.
"Perfect," I muttered. "I broke it. I actually broke it."
The penthouse was now stuck at thirty-five degrees with no working remote. I could feel the heat radiating from the vents, warm air pouring into the room with no way to stop it. The arctic had become the tropics in the space of twenty minutes. My penthouse was experiencing climate change in real time.
Fine. If I could not control the temperature, I would control my response to it. I would adapt. I would survive. I was a billionaire. I had resources.
I walked to my closet. The enormous walk-in closet full of funeral clothes. I pushed past the black blazers and the white blouses and the gray everything. At the very back, behind the row of identical black heels, I found what I was looking for.
Designer coats. Cashmere and wool and fabrics so soft and expensive they probably had their own insurance policies. I grabbed three of them. A black Balenciaga that was oversized and dramatic. A gray Saint Laurent that was impeccably tailored. A camel-colored Max Mara that looked like it had never been worn and was soft as butter.
I carried them back to the living room. The temperature was still climbing from the vents. I could feel the heat wrapping around me like a suffocating blanket.
I wrapped myself in the first coat. Then the second. Then the third. I draped them over my shoulders and across my legs until I was cocooned in designer fashion like a very expensive burrito. I was ridiculous and overheated and deeply uncomfortable, and I still could not figure out how to work the remote.
I sat on the couch and let the warmth overtake me. The coats were heavy and suffocating in the now-overheated room, but I was too tired to fight anymore. Too tired to wrestle with technology that clearly hated me. Too tired to do anything except surrender to the chaos and hope that someone would rescue me.
I closed my eyes. My last coherent thought was that tomorrow I was buying a normal remote. With actual physical buttons that clicked when you pressed them and did what they were supposed to do without requiring a degree in advanced thermodynamics.
I slept, wrapped in my expensive burrito and dreaming of a world where temperature control was simple and predictable.