Chapter 40

The man stayed in that laid-back position, his long legs stretched out, completely taking over her tiny living room. Calliope was a bit surprised at how focused he looked. Before she could stop herself, she asked, "You actually understand... adversarial neural networks?" Conrad looked up from the book, his gaze calm and blank. "We're working on fire rescue drones for the team. Stuff like this comes in handy." She blinked, then asked without thinking, "Is it for obstacle avoidance or 3D fire modeling?" "Obstacle avoidance for now. Not enough data to train a good 3D model yet." He set the book down. Those eyes of his-always a little intense, a little wild-were now fixed on her, serious as ever. In that sharp look, there was curiosity... and maybe, just a touch of appreciation that was hard to spot but there. Calliope's heart stuttered for no good reason. The steak in the pan was done. One tiny table, two sets of tableware. She stared at the man across from her, feeling oddly off-kilter.