Chapter 2: The Mentor's Proposal

Chapter 2: The Mentor's Proposal

The next morning, the pristine, controlled environment of the OmniFoods R&D lab felt like a different universe. Alex stared at a beaker of shimmering, golden liquid—a prototype for a new energy drink—but he didn’t see the delicate balance of electrolytes and flavor compounds. He saw a smug, arrogant smirk and a perfectly folded, empty bag of jalapeño chips. The image was burned onto the back of his eyelids, a recurring phantom that sabotaged his focus. He’d spent the night oscillating between white-hot rage and a cold, meticulous desire for payback.

He adjusted the speed on the magnetic stirrer, the tiny vortex in the beaker swirling with a hypnotic precision that did nothing to soothe the chaos in his mind. Every clink of glass, every hum of machinery, seemed to echo Chad’s condescending tone. It’s just food, dude. The unwritten rule.

“You’re trying to stabilize that emulsion, Vance, not bore a hole through the beaker with your mind.”

Alex jumped, sloshing a tiny drop of the golden liquid onto his gloved hand. He turned to see Frank Carter, his R&D manager, leaning against the lab bench. Frank was a man in his late forties with a salt-and-pepper goatee and eyes that held the shrewd, amused glint of someone who had seen it all and was rarely impressed. He wore his company-logo polo shirt like a casual uniform, a relaxed counterpoint to the high-tech lab surrounding him.

“Sorry, Frank,” Alex mumbled, wiping the droplet away. “Just… distracted.”

“I’ll say,” Frank noted, pushing off the bench and walking closer. He peered at Alex over the top of his own safety glasses. “You look like you’re calculating the trajectory to launch a satellite, not tweaking a flavor profile. Everything alright in the dorms? The beige walls finally getting to you?”

The question was a pressure release valve. Alex’s carefully maintained professional composure cracked. He expected sympathy, maybe some generic advice about talking to the RA or just toughing it out. He needed to vent to someone, anyone who might understand.

“It’s this guy,” Alex began, the words tumbling out faster than he intended. “Chad Miller. Lives across the hall. For the last two weeks, he’s been helping himself to my food. My milk, bread, coffee… you name it.”

Frank listened, his expression unreadable, simply nodding for Alex to continue.

“So, I left a polite note. I figured, you know, maybe he’s broke, whatever. The next day, the note is gone, and so is the new carton of milk I just bought. He left the empty carton on the shelf, rinsed out and everything. Like a trophy.”

A corner of Frank’s mouth twitched. “Bold.”

“Then last night,” Alex’s voice hardened, the memory stoking the embers of his fury. “I bought a big bag of my favorite chips. I caught him red-handed, shoving them in his face. And when I confronted him, he just laughed.” Alex’s hands clenched into fists at his side. “He told me it was the ‘unwritten rule’ of a shared kitchen. Then he looked me in the eye, dumped the rest of the chips in the trash, and put the empty bag on my shelf.”

Alex finished his story, breathing heavily, the silence of the lab amplifying his frustration. He looked at Frank, bracing himself for a platitude.

Instead, Frank Carter broke into a wide, slow grin. It wasn't a smile of sympathy. It was a grin of pure, unadulterated appreciation, the look of a connoisseur admiring a particularly audacious piece of art.

“The ‘unwritten rule’,” Frank repeated, savoring the phrase. “Oh, that’s spectacular. Truly. The kid’s got gall. You’ve got to respect the sheer, unmitigated arrogance.”

Alex stared, dumbfounded. This was not the reaction he’d anticipated. “Respect it? He’s a thief and an asshole!”

“Of course he is,” Frank said, his grin not faltering. “But a problem this elegant deserves an equally elegant solution. A note?” He scoffed lightly. “That’s diplomacy, Alex. You’re dealing with a barbarian. Barbarians don’t understand diplomacy. They understand overwhelming force.”

Frank gestured around the lab. “Look around you. We are in the business of manipulating sensation. We make things sweeter, saltier, creamier, crunchier. We are scientific sorcerers. And you want to solve this with a strongly-worded letter?”

Alex felt a slow, dawning realization. Frank wasn't dismissing him. He was recruiting him.

“What… what are you suggesting?” Alex asked, his voice barely a whisper.

Frank’s eyes gleamed with that rebellious light Alex had noticed before. “I’m suggesting a field test. A practical application of your studies. Poetic justice, delivered via applied chemistry.” He leaned in closer, his voice dropping conspiratorially. “Chad’s sin is gluttony, a crime of the mouth. So, the punishment should be oral. It should be memorable. It should be… spicy.”

The word hung in the air, sizzling with potential.

“We have suppliers for everything here,” Frank continued, his tone now that of a mentor outlining a particularly exciting lesson. “Flavorings, acids, and bases. Including food-grade chemical extracts. Things the general public can’t just buy at the corner store.” He paused for dramatic effect. “I’m talking about pure capsaicin.”

Alex’s eyes widened. He knew what capsaicin was—it was the active component in chili peppers, the compound that produced the sensation of heat.

“A jalapeño, which you seem to be fond of, clocks in at around 5,000 Scoville Heat Units, or SHU,” Frank explained, a professor in his element. “The ghost pepper, one of the hottest in the world, can top a million. The extracts we can get, for research into extreme flavor profiles? They start at 250,000 SHU and go up. Way up. We’re talking about liquid fire. A single drop in a gallon of milk would be… noticeable. A few drops would be an experience one would never, ever forget.”

The audacity of the plan was breathtaking. It was insane. It was brilliant. It was the most beautiful solution Alex had ever heard. The anger that had been a churning, useless sea inside him began to coalesce, crystallizing around this single, perfect idea.

“We can’t just… order weapons-grade pepper spray,” Alex said, the logical part of his brain fighting a losing battle against the sheer, vengeful beauty of the concept.

“Of course not,” Frank said with a dismissive wave. “But we can submit a formal R&D request to a specialty chemical supplier for a sample of high-potency capsaicin oleoresin for evaluation in a new line of extra-spicy snack coatings. It’s perfectly legitimate. We just… happen to have a very specific, off-site, pre-market consumer test in mind.”

He clapped a firm hand on Alex’s shoulder. “The world isn’t always fair, kid. Some people operate by their own ‘unwritten rules’. The trick isn’t to complain about it. The trick is to learn how to write a few of your own. And right now, we’re going to draft a new recipe. A recipe for retribution.”

Alex looked from Frank’s sly, knowing smile to the swirling golden liquid in his beaker. His internship was meant to teach him about food science. He was about to get a lesson he’d never find in any textbook. A smile, mirroring Frank's, slowly spread across his face. Chad Miller wanted to play by his own rules. Fine. But he was about to discover that Alex was the one with access to the rulebook's source code.