Chương 29: Scan Your Teammates

Prep time was already half gone, and the air in the Blue Team kitchen grew more oppressive by the minute. Jack's endless urging and blame kept everyone's nerves stretched taut, and the rate of mistakes climbed. Working the salmon, Jessica got distracted minding the pork in the oven and cut a fillet to uneven depth — it had to be thrown out. Sarah couldn't hold the fryer oil temperature; her first test batch of wings was nearly charred outside while still raw within.

Owen's cut potato fries, not dropped into water in time, had begun to oxidize and blacken on the surface. The whole kitchen was a pressure cooker about to blow. Chris had all his sauce components ready, his station still the cleanest in the house. Watching the disorder around him, he knew he couldn't wait any longer. He had to grasp everyone's true ability and latent risks before service began, or the moment the doors opened, not even the gods could save this team.

He walked over to Jack, who was wrestling with a huge strip steak, trying to trim it into a perfect shape.

"Jack," Chris said calmly, "my sauces are all ready. The prep station looks a little messy — I'll go help." Jack didn't look up, just waved an impatient hand.

"Go, go, just stay out of my way." He couldn't wait for Chris to get farther from him. With his "permission," Chris began to "wander" the kitchen. On the surface he was helping organize prep; in fact, Data Eye had quietly come online. His first target of observation was the captain, Jack. [Use Data Eye on target "Jack Miller"?]"Yes."

[Name: Jack Miller] [Role: culinary competitor] [Emotion: agitation (80%), anxiety (65%), anger (40%)] [Fatigue: 45/100] [Focus: C+] [Culinary Rating: C+ (68/100)] [Knife Work: B- (69/100)] [Heat Control (meat): B+ (78/100)] [Heat Control (general): C (60/100)] [Seasoning: C+ (65/100)] [Stress Tolerance: D (45/100)] [Risk factors: poor heat control on non-meat ingredients; under high pressure, prone to losing emotional control and making wrong judgments; strong need for control but lacks big-picture sense.] [System recommendation: suited to a single meat-grill station; unsuited to be captain or pass-lead, roles requiring multi-threaded handling and command.] Just as he'd thought. Looking at that glaring D in stress tolerance, Chris understood. Jack did have a real touch with meat, but his all-around ability and nerves were nowhere near enough to make him a fit commander. Leaving him in his current position was a time bomb. Chris moved off without a flicker and went to the steadiest-looking one, Jessica.

She was working asparagus, her motions textbook but on the slow side. [Use Data Eye on target "Jessica Chen"?]"Yes." [Name: Jessica Chen] [Role: culinary competitor] [Emotion: worry (70%), fatigue (55%)] Stolen novel; please report.

[Fatigue: 50/100] [Focus: B-] [Culinary Rating: C+ (69/100)] [Knife Work: B (70/100)] [Heat Control: B- (68/100)] [Seasoning (French): B (72/100)] [Process management: B (71/100)] [Risk factors: pursuit of perfection slows ticket times; poor at handling sudden situations, prone to rigid process lock; under pressure, tends to shoulder everything alone and doesn't ask for help.] [System recommendation: suited to a station needing steady output — sides or searing. Performs best under clear instruction. Can assist at the pass but unsuited to lead command.] Jessica was a reliable executor, but not a good decider, Chris thought. Like a steady-performing server — but it needed a good instruction set to run. Then Chris turned his eyes to the fast-handed Owen and the quiet pastry chef Mia.

[Name: Owen Kim] [Role: culinary competitor] [Culinary Rating: C (64/100)] [Knife Work (speed): A- (82/100)] [Knife Work (precision): C+ (65/100)] [Seasoning: C- (58/100)] [Risk factors: chases speed at the cost of detail; seasoning is his greatest weakness, especially poor at judging salt levels.] [System recommendation: a perfect prep machine. Suited to cold station or prep, but his output must be checked for seasoning by someone else.] [Name: Mia Rossi] [Role: culinary competitor] [Culinary Rating: C+ (66/100)] [Pastry: B (74/100)] [Work speed: C- (55/100)] [Stress Tolerance: C (60/100)] [Risk factors: introverted, slow to warm into a rhythm, prone to errors under high-pressure urging; poor at communicating with other stations.] [System recommendation: suited to an independent, low-interference pastry station. Needs a clear schedule given in advance, and her workspace must not be encroached upon.] Last was Sarah, the girl who'd shown him goodwill. [Name: Sarah Jenkins] [Role: culinary competitor] [Culinary Rating: C+ (67/100)] [Balanced all-around ability; no obvious specialty and no fatal weakness. High likability — the team's lubricant.] [Risk factors: easily swayed by others' emotions; prone to hesitation at key moments.] [System recommendation: a jack-of-all-trades. Suited to a relatively independent fryer or appetizer station, and can serve as a floater to cover any gap.] Three uses of Data Eye spent, Chris had already built a clear ability-model map of the whole Blue Team in his head. Everyone's strengths, weaknesses, and latent risks, all at a glance. Jack's original assignment was a disaster. He'd given himself the pass — the role most demanding of pressure tolerance and multi-threading. He'd piled the three most complex hot-line tasks onto perfection-chasing Jessica. He'd put communication-dependent Sarah on two unrelated stations at once…

It was almost as if he'd maximized everyone's weaknesses. Chris drew a deep breath. He went to a corner no one was watching, took out his phone, opened the notes app, and tapped rapidly at the screen. He wasn't writing a letter — he was drawing a new kitchen layout and workflow. Blue Team Restructure Plan v1. 0 Core idea: modular, assembly-line, decentralized. Station reset: 1. Jack — grill specialist. Steaks only. Give him the clearest instructions: doneness, when to send.

Strip him out of the decision chain; make him a pure executor again. 2. Jessica — sear and oven specialist. Salmon and pork. Her station next to Jack's; the two handle the core mains output. 3. Sarah — fryer and assembly specialist. Wings, and final burger assembly. Her station near the pass for fast response. 4. Owen — prep and cold-station specialist. All vegetable washing and cutting, salads. Anything needing seasoning goes to the sauce station for a check. 5. Mia — pastry specialist.

Move her station to the quietest corner of the kitchen, away from the hot-line clamor; give her a minute-by-minute schedule. 6. Chris (me) — sauces and pass/expediter. Make all sauces and do final seasoning, while running the pass, coordinating every station's ticket rhythm, and handling final plating and quality control. The plan completely hollowed out Jack's command authority and shifted the decision core onto Chris himself.

Using the central position of his sauce station, he'd become the CPU of the whole kitchen. He knew that if he produced this plan now, Jack would tear it to shreds. So he put the phone away and committed the plan firmly to memory. Then he walked over to the flustered Owen and picked up a basket of already-blackened fries.

"Owen, these are no good," he said calmly.

"Huh? Then… then what do I do? I don't have time to cut more!" Owen looked panicked.

"Don't worry." Chris took a big bowl from the sink, filled it with water, threw in a handful of salt and a few drops of lemon juice.

"Listen — from now on, every potato you cut goes straight into this water. It stops oxidation, and it'll fry up crisper too." Owen stared at him, then nodded. Chris went to Sarah next; her first batch of wings had failed completely over the oil temperature.

"Sarah, don't judge the oil by eye." Chris pointed at the pan.

"Look — when fine ripples start on the surface, and you feel clear heat above it but no smoke yet, that's about 320°F, good for the first fry. When the surface starts giving off a thin blue smoke, that's over 360, good for the second fry to set." In the plainest, most direct way, he gave Sarah a working method for reading oil temperature. Sarah listened, and it clicked. She gave him a grateful look. His work done, Chris said nothing more and returned to his own station.

He didn't try to teach Jack or Jessica, because he knew neither of them could hear any advice right now. He was only, quietly, sowing the first seeds for the power-seizure to come. He would make the others, first, begin to trust his professional judgment in their subconscious.