The Hub smelled like pizza grease, solder smoke, and pure chaos.

  Cody stood in the middle of the floor holding two identical motherboards like he was presenting sacred artifacts. "We're doing this."

  Brody nodded, already wearing safety goggles that made him look like a tiny mad scientist. "One super-PC. No compromises."

  Riley leaned against the wall, arms crossed. "You're really gonna murder your babies?"

  Mia snorted. "They're not babies. They're dinosaurs. Time to evolve."

  James was already unscrewing side panels with surgical precision. "If this thing explodes, I'm telling your grandparents it was Riley's idea."

  Riley gasped. "Betrayal!"

  Sam sat cross-legged with a notebook, sketching wiring diagrams like battle plans. "We need more power delivery. The combined board is gonna pull serious juice."

  The squad had turned the Favourite Stuff Hub into a full-on workshop overnight. Tools everywhere.

  Empty energy drink cans forming little towers. Fairy lights flickering like they were nervous.

  First step: gut the cases. Screws flew. Fans spun sadly as they were unplugged. Hard drives were carefully set aside like sleeping pets.

  Cody held up a CPU cooler. "This one's got better thermal paste. We keep it."

  If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. Please report it.

  Brody pointed at the other. "That one has RGB that doesn't look like a Christmas tree exploded. We keep that too."

  Mia laughed so hard she dropped a screwdriver. "You two are arguing over RGB like it's life or death."

  "It is," they said at the same time.

  Twin thing.

  They moved to the motherboards.

  James stared at the two identical boards side by side. "Okay... how do we even combine these?"

  Lincoln Ranandel-the high-school tech teacher who had somehow become their unofficial mentor-walked in carrying a box of thermal pads and a multimeter.

  "You children are insane," he said, but his eyes were sparkling. "And I love it."

  He knelt down. "We can't literally glue them together. But we can migrate the important traces, share power phases, maybe even parallel some VRMs if we're feeling brave."

  Riley whispered to Mia, "I have no idea what he just said, but it sounded cool."

  Mia whispered back, "Shhh. Genius is happening."

  Cody and Brody worked for hours. Thermal paste was spread. Thermal pads were cut. Wires were soldered with shaky hands and way too much flux smoke.

  At one point the room filled with the smell of burning plastic.

  Everyone froze.

  Cody sniffed the air. "That's... not good."

  Brody checked the iron. "I left it on the capacitor for three seconds too long."

  Lincoln laughed. "Welcome to hardware engineering. First rule: everything is on fire at some point."

  They kept going.

  By midnight the new motherboard was born-traces rerouted, power delivered, a Frankenstein emblem etched in the center with overlapping circuit patterns from both original boards.

  Cody stared at it. "It's beautiful."

  Brody fist-bumped him. "It's ugly as sin and I love it."

  Cody and Brody wanted to add another design to the Motherboard. They wanted it to look 'Rad'.

  They designed an emblem overnight, made of metal, wires and circuits. It looked like a logo. They connected it to the motherboard.

  Everyone commented, "That thing is sick Code 'n Brode.

  Code 'n Brode is what Cody ans Brody's friends call themselves as a pair in short.

  Riley raised a can of soda. "To the monster rig!"

  Everyone cheered.

  But as they started connecting the rest-GPUs, RAM, cooling-the power supply gave a concerning pop.

  The lights flickered.

  Grandma Anne's voice floated down from the house: "Boys! What was that noise?"

  Cody whispered, "We might die tonight."

  Brody grinned. "Worth it."

  The real test was coming.

  And the Hub had never felt more alive.