"Double Down," Vance whispered.
The words were barely audible, bubbling through the blood in his mouth. He slumped forward, his forehead resting against the cool rim of his empty plate. Dark, toxic blood dripped steadily from his nose, staining the white tablecloth like ink.
Greed looked at the biometric readout on his datapad. "Heart rate thirty-five. Renal function failing. You are committing suicide, Mr. Vance."
"I accept the wager!" Gluttony roared, vibrating with energy. "I will eat whatever you choose, and then I will watch you convulse and die! Order!"
Vance raised his head. His eyes were glassy, unfocused, swimming in a haze of pain. But behind the haze, there was a spark of cold, hard diamond.
He pointed a trembling finger at the menu.
"I order... The High-Grade Fuel Rod."
"And..." Vance took a ragged breath. "...The Volcanic Capsaicin Extract."
Greed raised an eyebrow. "A fuel source and an industrial accelerant? You are trying to burn him?"
"He likes heat," Vance mumbled. "Let him have heat."
A droid wheeled out the cart. On it sat a glowing, unstable fuel rod, radiating a dangerous heat, and a canister of red, viscous oil—pure capsaicin concentrate, used to jump-start blast furnaces.
Gluttony laughed. The sound was like a landslide.
"You fool! Heat is my blood! Heat is my power!"
Gluttony grabbed the fuel rod in one hand and the canister of oil in the other.
"I am the furnace that consumes the world!"
He threw the rod into his maw and chased it with the oil.
CRUNCH. GULP.
The fuel rod hit the reactor core. The oil coated it.
The reaction was instantaneous.
WHOOSH.
It wasn't a mechanical hum anymore. It was a roar, deep and resonant, like a jet engine igniting in a library.
Inside the transparent chamber of Gluttony's stomach, the orange glow turned instantly to a blinding, violent violet. The internal temperature gauge spiked past the red line.
1,500 degrees. 2,000 degrees. 3,000 degrees.
"YES!" Gluttony bellowed, throwing his head back, steam blasting from his mouth. "I feel the sun in my gut!"
The heat radiating from him was physical. The tablecloth curled and blackened. The air shimmered.
But Vance wasn't looking at the fire. He was watching the fluid at the bottom of the reactor.
The industrial starch and the collagen jelly, churning violently under the sudden, extreme thermal spike, were undergoing a rapid phase change. The heat didn't melt them; it cooked them. The proteins denatured instantly, tangling with the long-chain carbohydrates.
The liquid didn't boil. It solidified.
In seconds, the churning white slurry turned into a thick, dark, rubbery mass. It expanded rapidly, filling the voids. It was no longer fuel. It was a solid block of high-density bioplastic.
CLUNK-GRIND.
The circulation pumps at the base of the stomach screamed and seized. They tried to cycle the coolant fluid to the heat exchangers, but the intake valves were choked with the rapidly hardening polymer.
Gluttony froze mid-laugh. A warning icon flashed on his retinal display.
[CRITICAL THERMAL MASS. EMERGENCY VENTING REQUIRED.]
"Too hot..." Gluttony grunted, his voice distorting as his vocal synthesizer began to soften. "Venting... now."
With a hydraulic hiss, the heavy armor plates on his shoulders slid open, revealing the emergency exhaust arrays. These were the chimneys designed to dump excess heat into the atmosphere to save the core.
Vance closed his eyes. He took a sharp breath through his nose, ignoring the smell of burning silk and ozone. He was hunting for one specific scent.
Before the meal, and throughout the dinner, Gluttony had smelled of Boiling Ammonia—the telltale sign of a leaking cooling system venting gas.
Now, the vents were wide open. The fans were spinning at maximum RPM.
But Vance smelled... Nothing.
The sharp, stinging scent of ammonia had vanished completely.
It wasn't because the leak was fixed. It was because the pressure behind the leak was gone. The polymer had expanded inside the cooling loops, sealing the pipes from the inside out.
The chimney was plugged.
"No steam?" Greed stood up, knocking over his chair, backing away. "Gluttony, why is there no steam?"
Gluttony looked at his shoulders. The fans were spinning, but they were blowing dry, superheated air. The heat wasn't leaving his core. It was trapped.
"Blockage..." Gluttony gasped, clawing at his chest. "System... blocked."
The laws of thermodynamics took over. In a closed system, energy cannot be destroyed. If it cannot escape, it accumulates.
Entropy spiked.
Gluttony's metal skin began to change color. It went from dull grey to a dark, angry cherry red. The paint on his armor bubbled and peeled away.
"What did you feed me?" Gluttony roared, stumbling toward Vance. "What did you put in me?"
Vance sat still, blood dripping steadily from his nose. His heart was beating slowly, heavy with neurotoxin, but his mind was cold.
"I didn't feed you poison," Vance whispered, his voice raspy. "I fed you a cork."
"You..." Gluttony reached out. His massive hand was glowing red hot. He wanted to crush Vance, to transfer the pain.
But as he moved, his joints seized. The heat had expanded the metal components of his skeleton beyond their tolerances. Pistons jammed in their cylinders.
Gluttony froze, locked in a statue pose of agony.
"I smelled the ammonia when I walked in," Vance said, forcing himself to stand up, swaying. "Your cooling system was already failing. I just gave it the final push."
The reactor in Gluttony's stomach was now a blinding white star. The reinforced glass began to spiderweb with cracks.
"You aren't a furnace anymore, Gluttony," Vance said, stepping back from the radiating heat.
"You're a pressure cooker."