"Good," Ash said. "I was about to invite you."
[SYSTEM PROMPT] Bench validation complete. Proceed to live validation at range. Companion: Hale (optional). Caution advised.
Hale's mouth tugged at one corner. "Optional. That's generous."
Ash zipped the soft case, palmed the bench once for luck that didn't exist, and nodded to Nono. The bot unplugged itself and trundled over, bumping the door with a square little shoulder. Hale stepped aside to let it through.
"Straight line," Hale said. "Service corridor, then the lower gallery. Fewer eyes."
"Lead," Ash said.
They moved like men who had carried boxes down these halls in the dark before the world got interested. The corridor breathed cold from the vents. Fluorescents stuttered every third fixture like a heartbeat that skipped now and then. Hale took the angles wide, head slightly canted, reading sound the way some people read lips. Ash kept the case hand low and his right sleeve down; the weight of the arm dragged, honest and mean.
At the bend by the freight lift, the air changed. Voices. Two, maybe three. A laugh that didn't care about rations.
Hale stopped with one finger low. He shifted his stance and became, somehow, furniture. The voices bled closer—badges clicking, the little clank of a rifle's sling ring against a buckle. Nightshade didn't wear uniforms so much as a decision to be obeyed.
Ash kept his face neutral and watched the floor. Boots scuffed past the mouth of the service corridor; a shoulder brushed the wall, a man coughed, and the hallway remembered its own echoes. Then the sounds thinned, pulled away in the other direction. Hale didn't move for the count of ten. When he did, it was a slow breath the corridor didn't notice.
"Your timing's still good," Ash said.
"I like it that way." Hale's look flicked to the case. "Let's prove your work."
The refuge range was a long concrete throat with a sand trap at the far end and a bullet-scarred backstop that had opinions about the past. Someone had stenciled SAFETY FIRST on a peeling sign and then shot the O out of it. The switchboard by the door woke under Hale's hand; yellow strips along the floor limped to life one by one.
Nono rolled to the bench, pinged a ready glyph, and extended a hook for the ear defenders Ash never wore until Hale made him remember.
Ash set the case down, unzipped, and lifted the Silver Stag into the light. The restored core sat like a secret under the receiver. The selector's detents felt clean. He smelled oil, old solvent, the metal's cool breath under concrete.
"Protocol," Hale said.
"Protocol," Ash echoed. "One shot short-range, check pattern. One shot long-range, check. Triplet under heat. If it lives, we push."
Hale nodded once. "I'll watch the left."
Ash checked the trap, then set a sheet at ten meters: a rectangle of old card with a circle hand-drawn center mass. He ran the pulley by hand—motors didn't owe them anything—and set the selector to short-range. The Stag's weight settled into his shoulder like it had a memory of him. He drew breath, out, in, out, and let the blue panel sit in the edge of his sight like a clean rule.
He fired.
Recoil punched straight; the trap swallowed sound into its sand belly. The card danced, then hung still with a pattern like a flower snapped open—a dense oval that told him the choke-and-port geometry was doing what the sketch had promised.
[SYSTEM PROMPT]Live validation: legacy weapon (short-range mode). Difficulty: mid. +120 Mechanic XP / +200 Basic Mechanical Repair XP.
Mechanic lv1:581/1000.
Nono trundled forward, fetched the card with two clipped little arms, and brought it back like a proud dog. Hale glanced, grunted. "Centered."
"Again," Ash said.
They sent a second card downrange to thirty meters. Selector to long-range. The hum through the core thinned to a tight note. He lifted, aligned, pressed.
Bang. The trap took it; the card didn't dance so much as nod. The holes came back in a cluster that would convince a man at the far end he'd been asked a question and answered poorly.
[SYSTEM PROMPT]Live validation: legacy weapon (long-range mode). Difficulty: mid. +150 Mechanic XP / +200 Basic Mechanical Repair XP.
Mechanic lv1:731/1000.
On the third setup, the selector's return from long to short caught a whisper late—just a tick where it wanted to hesitate. He felt it like you feel gravel between molars.
"Hold," he said under his breath.
Hale didn't ask. He covered the room with a glance that took care of everything that wasn't the gun.
Ash kept the Stag cradled and cracked the receiver just enough to see the selector's cam face. A hairline burr, dull as a lie, was making its case. He took a diamond file from his apron pocket on habit—Hale's eyes flicked, then he decided not to comment on men who carried files to ranges—and kissed the burr until it swallowed its pride. He blew away a fleck, reseated, hand cycled. Clean.
He lifted again. The panel approved with silence.
Bang.
[SYSTEM PROMPT] On-the-spot correction: selector cam. Difficulty: simple (higher-tier item). +10 Mechanic XP / +15 Basic Mechanical Repair XP.[SYSTEM PROMPT]Live validation follow-up (short-range mode). Difficulty: mid. +120 Mechanic XP / +200 Basic Mechanical Repair XP.
Mechanic lv1:861/1000.
Heat crept into the core; the smell turned from solvent to metal warming its blood. Ash ran the back of his thumb near the receiver, felt the temperature live there. He nodded to Nono. The bot beeped and rolled a small fan around to send a ribbon of air along the Stag's flank.
"Sustained," Hale said. "Three under timer."
Ash set the selector to long-range, then short, then long again to make sure the cam had learned obedience. He planted, braced, let the timer in his head tick because nothing electrical here could be trusted to count.
"One," he said. Bang."Two." Bang."Three." Bang.
The third shot rode a little hotter; the core sang a note high enough to ask if he was paying attention. The Stag stayed honest. The trap took all three like a man with a job.
[SYSTEM PROMPT]Sustained live validation (heat band). Difficulty: mid. +200 Mechanic XP / +300 Basic Mechanical Repair XP.
Mechanic lv1:1,061/1000.
The blue deepened. New lines wrote themselves like a door unlocking.
[SYSTEM PROMPT]Mechanic profession leveled up → lv2.Minor attribute increase applied. Work efficiency improved.[SKILL] Associated skills gain learning bonus at this level.
Ash let out a breath he didn't remember deciding to hold. The lift inside his head clicked one notch higher; the bench sketches arranged themselves as if the page had decided it liked him better. His right hand didn't feel lighter; it felt steadier, the lag trimmed to something he could bully through.
Hale's eyebrows did a thing that passed for approval. "It lives."
"It lives," Ash said. He swung the selector back and forth once more, like a man checking a pulse. "Next is outside."
Hale looked at the range door, then at Ash. "Nightshade's been smelling their reflection. They'll be in the alleys. You sure you want their attention while you're learning to run?"
"Do I have time to be shy?" Ash asked.
Hale's teeth showed without humor. "No."
Nono beeped, screen ticking a crude little graph that looked like temperature over time. Ash rapped the bot's housings once, affectionate. "Pack it. We're done playing pretend."
He stripped the chamber, checked the bore, cooled the receiver with the fan until the metal felt like it would accept being asked a harder question. He eased the Stag into the case, zipped it quiet, and started closing the range the way you do when you know you might need to open it again in a hurry—nothing jammed, nothing sticky, nothing that will betray you on the come-back.
[SYSTEM PROMPT] Live validation complete. Additional XP available through field validation. Risk: elevated.
"Field validation," Hale repeated like the panel had told a joke. "That's one word for getting shot at."
"Two birds," Ash said. "Prove the core. Climb the bar."
"The bar?" Hale asked.
"Numbers," Ash said, and shouldered the case.
Hale picked up a canvas roll from a hook—tools, not bullets—and slung it. He scanned the hallway lights again, then killed the range lamps in order from far to near. The sound of the last switch was louder than it deserved to be.
They reached the door. Ash laid his left hand on the bolt. The metal was clean and cold. He put his weight in and cracked it enough to feel the corridor's breath.
Hale's voice dropped. "On me. If I stop, you stop. If I say down, you find the floor."
"Copy," Ash said.
Nono tucked itself tight against Ash's boot, ready to pretend it was a dumb cart if anyone asked.
Ash slid the bolt the last inch. The door's gasket sighed. The seam widened. Cold air took a taste of the room.
They stepped into it.