The rope's new blue lay flat. Paper scattered to pockets. Outside the grille, the truck's idle dropped half a note, the sound of a machine pretending to be patient.
They left the East Gallery as a group because rooms travel better when they carry their agreements with them. Hale kept the rear; Admin walked in front with the pad and the evidence pouch where the copper whisker slept against the rag; the City-Admin clerk moved like a man holding a cup filled to the meniscus. Nono trundled with its tray pressed to its chest, a square child pretending to be furniture.
The shop door recognized them. The watcher who'd been promoted to outside only made a show of checking nothing in particular. Inside, the bench waited with its own posture. The hot-bench red flag still shone beneath the padlock ear; the micro-jig's DO-NOT-MOVE wafer bridged the short turnbuckle on the vise; the small H7 punch winked in its jar as if its only job was to be reliable.
Admin set the pad on the corner and wrote INTERIM ACTIVE—STATUS QUO. He added WATCHERS—EXTERIOR ONLY and drew a box around the words in case the box could remember for someone who wouldn't. "Throughput resumes," he said, mostly for the recorder in his head. "View-only inventory."
The inspector chose a position just outside the threshold, clicker visible, a man in love with counting who had been told to keep his hands in his pockets.
Ash checked the bench like he checked a rifle: isolation on, ground strap tight, trap ready, rail clean. He flipped the isolation off only when his hands had finished with everything that needed no current. He pulled the drawer with springs, wire, and the jig for extractor springs—a small set of posts and a guide rod he'd cut with more care than their price deserved. Lot B wasn't glamorous: extractors, their pins, and springs for the rifles that would leave this place with zeros that did not lie.
Nono placed the little mandrel and the spool of music wire on the mat and held out a wire-straightener like a solemn offering. Ash drew the wire through the three rollers until it learned to be honest, cut a length against the block, and set it onto the mandrel between stop collars. The hand crank murmured. Wire became spring.
[SYSTEM PROMPT] Adaptive Fabrication: extractor spring winding (Lot B). Difficulty: mid. +50 Mechanic XP / +100 Basic Mechanical Repair XP.
He counted turns by habit, by feel; set the cutter; let the spring cool out of temptation's reach; ground the foot flat on the stone with a light kiss so it would sit true in its pocket. He used the H7 to mark the end—small, shallow, there. Two more, rhythm settling into the part of the brain that knows repetition is not boredom when function is the reward.
He pressed a spring into a bolt he had freed earlier for exactly this minute, set the extractor claw, and drifted the pin in by thumb until it needed a punch and a small persuasion. The pin seated with the kind of click you only get when tolerances have agreed on a future together. He racked the bolt against a dummy case. The claw bit and released. Twice. Three times.
[SYSTEM PROMPT] Repair complete: extractor assembly (Lot B—sample). Difficulty: mid. +50 Mechanic XP / +100 Basic Mechanical Repair XP.
"Counts," Admin said toward the door. Ash called them and the inspector repeated, the clicker keeping itself polite for once. Three springs wound, one assembly complete, two in queue. The City-Admin clerk's pen made small, neat additions to the audit page: Lot B—traceability H7, QA sample pass.
There were noises from the corridor that weren't men: a rumor running on a thin wire, the kind of sound buildings make when someone is telling a story in another room. Admin listened, face tilted, and then let his weight settle where it was. "Generator?" he asked the radio, more reflex than doubt.
"Local; seals pretty," came back, the same voice as before, a little more confident as if radios could learn courage.
Ash set a short length of threadlocker's blue where it belonged on the extractor pin's outer face—not drowning, just discouraging—and wiped the excess with the rag Nono produced before he asked. He stamped the H7 on the pin head—small, shallow—and let the punch ride back to its jar.
He added tell-tales without making a sermon of it: a thin scratch of chalk across the underside of the rail where a probe would have to drag to hide; a hair-thin paper slip under the rear edge of the bench mat so any lift would ask the paper to speak; a dab of witness paint on the padlock ear that would tear if someone claimed they had only looked.
[SYSTEM PROMPT] Security improvement: bench tell-tales (chalk, paper slip, witness paint). Difficulty: simple (higher-tier item). +10 Mechanic XP / +15 Basic Mechanical Repair XP.
The watcher at the door did not watch the chalk marks. He watched Hale, which was practical if less educational.
"Two more," Ash said, and wound springs, trimmed, stamped, checked. He swapped the jig's post for the smaller one and changed the stop depth to avoid inventing a new problem. He worked faster than earlier in the night and cleaner; lv7 had not made him a hero; it had made friction less a participant. The room appreciated the difference without clapping.
[SYSTEM PROMPT] Batch progress: Lot B—springs wound (x8). Difficulty: mid. +80 Mechanic XP / +160 Basic Mechanical Repair XP.
Admin glanced at the clock that had been rescued from an office and never forgiven it. The hands said 11:22, which did not guarantee truth but had earned consideration. "We'll need two ready for bench verify on the trap," he said. "Inspector can co-witness from the rope."
Ash took B-02 and B-04 from the rack, cleared chambers that were already clear, flags set bright. He did not bother with speech; he set one at the jig, trap mouth ready to eat his mistakes if he offered it any. Nono fetched the strip of snap caps and held it like a rosary. The inspector leaned in the doorway, clicker poised to become a man's whole identity if you let it.
"Three groups," Admin said, pencil in metronome. "Fifty cycles, check; fifty; then fifty more. View-only."
Ash ran the handle and the trigger to the trap; the snap caps clinked into their catch with the composure of a plan that expected to work. At 50, he locked, cracked the receiver, looked at the extractor claw face for a burr that would announce itself by shining too early, found none, checked the retention and the spring seat, set it home, and continued.
[SYSTEM PROMPT] Functional cycle (bench endurance): B-02—150. Difficulty: mid. +50 Mechanic XP / +100 Basic Mechanical Repair XP.
The inspector counted softly, like a man talking to a dog. "Forty-eight, forty-nine, fifty," and then, ritual satisfied, nodded to a notebook he could not enter.
The second rifle wanted to be proud at 90; the extractor hesitated once and then behaved after a small press of oil at the pivot and a re-seat with a satisfying click. Ash noted the hiccup, because machines respect men who remember their small sins.
[SYSTEM PROMPT] Micro-service: extractor pivot oil/re-seat. Difficulty: simple. +10 Mechanic XP / +15 Basic Mechanical Repair XP.[SYSTEM PROMPT] Functional cycle (bench endurance): B-04—150. Difficulty: mid. +50 Mechanic XP / +100 Basic Mechanical Repair XP.
"Pass," Admin said, and pressed PV next to their tags. The City-Admin clerk, who had promised to be a clerk and had kept it, took a snapshot of the tags and the PV pencil marks without stepping over the rule he'd made.
The watcher at the door found a new lean and tried it on. He didn't like it better than his last.
Ash returned to the mandrel and the spring grinder and made tens into more tens. He alternated hands to keep the left forearm from writing its objections across the rest of the day. Between springs he loaded magazines for the civilian queue—quiet work that added small amounts of correct to a room that had built value the hard way.
[SYSTEM PROMPT] Throughput: Lot B—springs total (x20); civilian mags serviced (x6). Difficulty: mid/simple. +90 Mechanic XP / +150 Basic Mechanical Repair XP.
Hale did not pace. He moved twice and was still for long minutes because sometimes being furniture is how you keep doors honest. He watched the watcher like men watch weather: not because you can stop rain, but because you need to know when it will make everyone else stupid.
At 11:41, Admin's radio tried to have an opinion. "Corridor says brownout on Level Two," someone breathed. "Lights dipped. Came back."
"Generator?" Admin asked.
"Local. We cut a second tap somebody had hidden behind a junction plate and a poster. Sealed." The voice sounded pleased in the way of men who get to be right about wire instead of people.
"We log," Admin said, and did. He added LEVEL TWO—JUNCTION TAP CUT to the page and underlined sealed because he was learning to enjoy small victories with proper vowels.
Ash checked his tell-tales—the chalk line beneath the rail unbroken, the paper slip content in its role as spy, the witness paint on the padlock ear intact. He set another paper slip under the lip of the soft case in its shelf because he believed in calisthenics for lies even when there were no students.
[SYSTEM PROMPT] Security improvement: additional tell-tale (case lip). Difficulty: simple (higher-tier item). +5 Mechanic XP / +10 Basic Mechanical Repair XP.
Two civilians arrived with the quiet you practice when rooms teach you new pronunciations for fear. Admin routed them to Hale with a hand; Hale returned them with a pair of pistols that would be reliable now and later. Ash declined the impulse to watch the whole world; he watched the next part that would make something work.
The inspector cleared his throat at the rope line. "Inventory check—outgoing rack counts," he said, hopeful for nouns as always.
Admin read counts; the inspector echoed; the City-Admin clerk added them to the interim order where it asked the day to demonstrate that it had been worth surviving.
The bench light held steady. The mandrel turned. Springs cooled into usefulness. Nono's little arm placed the finished coils in a tray with numbers and dignity. The red flag stayed bright.
[SYSTEM PROMPT] Facility: stable. Oversight: active. Risk: moderate → low (temporary).
At 11:56, Admin closed his pad, opened it again, and looked at the amount of white that had survived the night. "We walk in four," he said, not raising his voice. "Bring the pouch."
Ash clipped the evidence pouch with the copper eyelash to the pad's ring so it would not convince itself to wander. He wiped down the mandrel, set the jig in the vise as-is so no one could accuse him of moving a snapshot, set the knife switch to isolation with a click and the padlock through, and hung the red LOCKOUT—VALE tag with a second line that said RETURN—AFTER NOON.
Admin added BENCH—LOCKED/ISOLATED to his page, because you repeat good ideas.
The watcher outside straightened as if his spine had just been called in for a meeting. The drone had returned to its favorite hover near the corridor mouth, eyes pretending to be law.
They left the shop in the same order they had arrived—Admin with the pad, Hale with the door, Ash with the habit of touching the bench and telling it to remain itself. The City-Admin clerk paused to lay a fresh blue over the shop's rope knot—not to seal people, just to remind the day it was still agreeing with itself. He read the number and gave Admin the twin; no one clapped.
The East Gallery had not changed shape. Chains hummed small. The angles of the anti-grapple skirt lay where intelligence had put them. The cross-chain had not learned a new note, which is one way to recognize loyalty in steel.
Outside the grille, the truck had found a face it liked: polite, idle, lights off. Men arranged themselves as if they owned their own postures. The Nightshade clerk had replaced one folder with another—same color, different letterhead. Beside him, a woman in a coat with City-Admin buttons and a judge's calm stood with her hands folded in a way that made people rehearse their sentences.
The City-Admin clerk noticed the letterhead from ten paces and inclined his chin as if acquaintanceship could be printed. "New seal color?" he asked, tone neutral, pen out.
The Nightshade clerk held up a strip that wasn't red or blue. It lived somewhere between—a violet that thought it had something to say. "Per emergency consent, tribunal may apply co-seal when City-Admin is present in venue."
The judge's coat did not nod. "We will discuss it inside," she said, voice weightless in a way that told you gravity had chosen her side anyway.
Admin set the pad on the barrier crate and let his fingers know they were still part of his hands. Hale stood where doors stand. Nono parked by the rope and pretended to be slightly more square than geometry permitted.
The rope waited with its blue. The grille waited with its holes. The post waited with its loyalty. The minute hand kissed 12:00 with an indifference only clocks can afford.
The City-Admin clerk lifted his microphone because sometimes form is what keeps rooms alive. "Reconvene," he said, voice measured. "Venue with watchers exterior, cart at rope, view-only inventory. City-Admin present. Nightshade present. Admin present. Proposed: co-seal request."
The Nightshade liaison's smile arrived before his words. "Emergency co-seal is authorized under Twelve-B-minor, when conditions—"
"—are met," the judge said, not looking at him. "Inside."
She reached for the rope's blue with a pair of scissors that looked like they believed in paper. The Nightshade clerk's violet strip lay ready on his clipboard, numbers already written to imply that the future had consented.
Ash's hands didn't sweat, not because he was fearless, because they had learned to keep their own counsel. He watched the grille and the line beneath it. He watched for rods, hooks, tongues, whiskers, any attempt to make machines tell lies during a sentence.
The blade touched blue. The judge's eyes watched the seam. The liaison's smile tried to learn a different language and found it wouldn't.
[SYSTEM PROMPT] Facility: venue ready. Oversight: active. Risk: moderate.