Ash ripped the dry-chem pin, rammed the seam wand through the grille, and flooded the lip with powder. It hit white like a winter fist—billow, hiss, a sudden ugliness that stole the light's appetite. Admin pulled the hatch cord another inch—not a door, a vent—and the heat's breath climbed where air told it to instead of where panic wanted.
[SYSTEM PROMPT] Fire countermeasure: dry-chem through seam + controlled vent. Difficulty: mid. +50 Mechanic XP / +100 Basic Mechanical Repair XP.
The rod stayed bright at the tip, wanting its meal. The torchman outside rode it like a man who'd convinced himself he was smarter than steel.
"Clamp," Hale said, the single word that points a rifle.
Ash slid the Stag to the adjacent perforation and put the sight on the torch head's rod clamp set-screw—tiny, proud, the little knurled devil that holds the glowing spear in a mouth that shouldn't. He exhaled, pressed.
Metal ticked; the set-screw blinked out of existence; the rod shivered, lost its bite, and slid from the head with all the dignity of a dropped cigarette. It hit the concrete, sputtered powder and pride, then died to orange without a job.
[SYSTEM PROMPT]Field disabling shot: lance rod clamp set-screw (long-range). Difficulty: mid. +200 Mechanic XP / +300 Basic Mechanical Repair XP.
The man outside made a sound that wanted to be a new plan and turned into a swear.
"Again," Hale murmured—not to Ash, to the night.
They brought a second lance, faster this time, impatient hands on bottles and rods. Ash didn't rely on good shooting twice for the same sin. "Nono—mud," he said. "Dust and water."
The bot knew the drawer. It brought a cracked bucket, a jug, a trowel that had seen more walls than men, and a stack of rags that belonged to no one. Ash scraped the concrete dust he'd raised into the bucket, drowned it, folded in rags until the mess turned into a slab of paste with attitude. He buttered the post base and rail with the mud, fat and ugly, pushing it under the lip where heat would try to get clever. He pressed rags into the paste until they stayed. He took a sacrificial plate—a thin scrap of mild steel with holes because everything has holes here—and bolted it over the mud as a baffle, two short bolts into drilled lead anchors that used to belong to shelves.
[SYSTEM PROMPT] Heat hardening: mud shield + sacrificial plate baffle at base. Difficulty: mid. +50 Mechanic XP / +100 Basic Mechanical Repair XP.
Admin narrated like a man writing instructions for a future that may need them. "Heat baffle installed; mud set at base; vent management ongoing."
The new lance bloomed again, white with more oxygen. The torchman shoved for the baffle. The mud boiled ugly on the surface and did what mud does: it stole heat with the cheap honesty of water. The plate blushed but didn't admit pain.
Ash sighted on the torch head's side, just off the valve body where the metering needle lives—tiny stem, hex locknut, not tank pressure, just meter, the kind of wound that starves without a bang. He angled for the knob's root, not the line.
Press. A ping, a hiss turning into a less, flame starving, white to orange to a pout. The operator throttled and discovered his knob wasn't in charge anymore.
[SYSTEM PROMPT]Field disabling shot: torch head oxygen metering needle (long-range). Difficulty: mid. +150 Mechanic XP / +200 Basic Mechanical Repair XP.
"Proceedings note thermal lance interrupted; no personnel engaged," Admin told the recorder. The City-Admin clerk's pen underlined no personnel with a small satisfaction he didn't show his face.
The truck quit heat and tried force again. Two low jacks crept at two bays—opposite ends like a child testing a fence. Each wore its own short manifold with a gauge cluster that thought it was important.
"Left," Hale said to Ash. "I'll call timing."
Ash took the left manifold's gauge—big face, glass that didn't deserve to live—through the grille. The glass jumped to dust, needle jammed itself into a lie, the man at the pump cursed and backed off because men don't argue with dead gauges when courts are watching.
[SYSTEM PROMPT]Field disabling shot: jack manifold gauge (long-range). Difficulty: mid. +150 Mechanic XP / +200 Basic Mechanical Repair XP.
"Right holds for later," Hale said, low. He angled his weight—doorway, rope, inspector—and the room stayed the shape he liked.
Ash used the minutes he'd bought like he'd stolen them. He checked the cross-chain turnbuckles again—one half-turn tighter to move a creak into a hum—tapped the wedges, dug another scoop of dust to dress the mud at the base where it had sighed. Nono reset the motion wands; their little eyes blinked once, content with the night's arithmetic.
[SYSTEM PROMPT] Reinforcement check: turnbuckle tension + mud dress + sensor reset. Difficulty: simple (higher-tier item). +10 Mechanic XP / +15 Basic Mechanical Repair XP.
The City-Admin clerk took two quick photos—baffle, mud, cross-chain—numbers tiny at the corner, date a fiction they all agreed to use. He sealed another blue across the rope knot because ritual, like grease, keeps things from squealing.
"Generator?" Admin asked into his radio, because a man with two fires needs one truth.
"Local," came the reply. "Load flat. Seals pretty."
"Good," Ash said, and didn't let himself imagine sleep.
The liaison tried a sentence and found it made of tinfoil. "We record obstruction," he said.
"We record venue defense," the City-Admin clerk said, soft and factual.
Outside, Nightshade got quiet in the wrong way. When men start to synchronize, the night puts on shoes. The truck repositioned; boots settled like punctuation. Then: three thin snakes nosed under the skirt at three bays—lines, fresh braid, each with a snap shackle keen to please.
Hale's head turned; the air made room for his voice. "Three points," he said. "Pulls in—two."
The winches spooled—three whines finding harmony, three lines sliding for the lip. The skirt said no; the lines said or. The chain took the weight and translated it into a note a man could hate.
Ash moved—left grille first—sight on shackle pin. Press. The left pin parted; the braid whipped. He slid to the center, cheated the sight through perforations that weren't designed for men in the wrong century, put the pin in the glass and cut it. The center line screamed itself back.
Right shackle remained. He drew the breath men draw when there is not time for breath and put the sight to work. The pin winked; the trigger answered.
[SYSTEM PROMPT]Field disabling shots: three snap shackle pins (long-range) under multi-point pull. Difficulty: mid+. +300 Mechanic XP / +450 Basic Mechanical Repair XP.
The drum noises outside turned into language that wouldn't pass the clerk. The truck went up one note—anger has a throttle—and settled back because paper owns a little corner of machines when you make it.
The rope at the barrier stayed alive under its seal. The City-Admin clerk wrote WINCH PULLS x3—PINS CUT and underlined x3 like a small victory deserves a tidy hat.
"Rotate seam walk," Hale said. The Admin grays moved on the cycle he'd given them: hinge, seam, lip, back to hinge. Feet became metronome.
Ash scooped a handful of mud onto his trowel and smoothed the places where heat had tried to invent a personality. He pressed a new rag into the paste, then palmed the sacrificial plate—still hot—through the glove's lie and snugged its bolts another hair. The plate's blush had dried to a story.
[SYSTEM PROMPT] Maintenance: baffle snug + mud refresh. Difficulty: simple (higher-tier item). +10 Mechanic XP / +15 Basic Mechanical Repair XP.
The recorder clicked its little heart. Admin added a line: A.M. checks every 10. The City-Admin clerk's pen paused, then wrote DAWN—OH-SIX and boxed it—the little square older cities had taught him could sometimes stop stupid.
For a long inch of time, the world chose not to escalate.
"Drink," Hale said, which meant sip. Nono beeped like a kettle. Ash took a swallow that remembered to be water and not solvent. His hands wanted to shake and understood that wanting isn't policy.
The drone returned to its roof fascination; the spot painted the smoke-hatch like guilt. Admin didn't move; he simply put ROOF OBSERVE—NO ACCESS on the pad again and let repetition become a fence.
Then the night tried clever. A small wedge—thin as a bad idea—slid under the skirt near the left post where Ash had overlapped angles. Not a hook this time; a shoehorn for line. It slipped, shied, tried to learn the labyrinth, and kissed metal that didn't want company.
Ash didn't shoot it. He tapped the overlap with the hammer—one, two—and the wedge decided gravity had been misrepresented to it and clattered out like an apology.
[SYSTEM PROMPT] Reinforcement confirm: skirt overlap resists wedge. Difficulty: simple. +5 Mechanic XP / +10 Basic Mechanical Repair XP.
The socked footfalls of a plan retreating followed—brief, sheepish.
"Time?" Ash asked.
"Twenty-three to oh-six," the City-Admin clerk said, which might have meant something in a city that had kept time better. Here it just meant almost.
Nono pinged once—soft—from the far post, then stilled. The Admin gray at the hinge reported a creep: the lower bolt had started to shine at its washer, not moving, just thinking. Ash took a spanner, kissed the nut with it, and turned one flat—a language bolts respect.
[SYSTEM PROMPT] Facility tweak: hinge nut one-flat tighten. Difficulty: simple. +5 Mechanic XP / +10 Basic Mechanical Repair XP.
"Recorder time code," Admin said, because wording your own history makes adopting it easier later. He read it out. The room put it where it keeps promises.
"Again," Hale said, not to anyone—just so the night knew he remembered how its script goes.
It listened. Three winch whines rose together like a choir that had practiced this time. Braid slithered; three lines came, low and fast, slapping at the skirt in different bays so a man couldn't be everywhere. The cross-chain sang a warning about how even triangles have limits.
Ash was already at the first grille. First pin, press—gone. He slid a step, boot on chalk, second pin, press—metal spit, line kicked. The third line jinked left, hungry, learning the angles he'd built and arguing with them. Its shackle rolled and hid.
"Rightmost," Hale said, because he'd heard the line think.
Ash moved—a half body length, low—sight hunting a sliver of pin through two perforations and a geometry that hated him. The skirt flexed a polite millimeter. The chain hummed a note that wasn't on his map.
He set the sight on a half-moon of steel, gave the trigger that two-stage he'd taught it, and found the break.
[SYSTEM PROMPT] Multi-point interdiction: third pin under partial occlusion. Difficulty: mid+. +150 Mechanic XP / +200 Basic Mechanical Repair XP.
Two lines shrieked away. The third—the one he'd just cut—didn't. It hung, caught on something beyond view, not a shackle now, a bite on concrete or a weld seam he hadn't seen. The drum kept pulling. The skirt flexed again, more than polite. The post vibrated into Hale's shoulder and stopped because men sometimes get to be part of buildings.
"Left, left," Hale said, and his voice had a new weight. Admin's pen froze; the City-Admin clerk's breath did the same.
Ash shifted, sight searching for whatever held the line—hook tooth?saddle? He found a shadow shaped like a grab—a little steel jaw bolted to the truck's A-arm, teeth set to sheet, head down where his angle wasn't generous.
He went low, cheek off, almost prone in a room that had no floor for that posture, and drew a line through two holes and a lie. The trigger found him because they had made a pact.
The jaw let go. The line lashed back, angry at physics. The skirt settled, the chain dropped a note, and the post told Hale it was loyal again.
[SYSTEM PROMPT]Field disabling shot: grab jaw (aux clamp) under partial occlusion. Difficulty: hard. +250 Mechanic XP / +350 Basic Mechanical Repair XP.
Outside, the truck idled a sentence he'd heard before and would keep hearing until someone made it stop with more than paper.
"Record," Admin said anyway, stubborn, decent. The City-Admin clerk wrote THREE PULLS—CUTS + JAW RELEASE and underlined JAW because he liked a noun that did its job.
The drone, aggrieved, buzzed closer. Hale took his pocket light, palmed the switch, and sent a stutter through the grille that made the drone's sensor decide elsewhere was the interesting direction.
"Rotate," Hale said, because rotations save lives and bolts.
The next minutes arrived in handfuls: hinge check, seam walk, mud touch-up, baffle snug, rope seal press, recorder time code. The watchers shifted feet and chewed on their own false teeth. The liaison composed a memorandum in his head and filed it with his jaw.
Nono pinged—soft—from the center bay. Not motion; heat this time—residual from the failed lance rolling under the baffle, trying to live in the mud. Ash pushed a new rag into the paste and pressed until it sighed. He touched the plate and let it bite his glove a little—pain is a kind of measurement—and left it.
[SYSTEM PROMPT] Heat management: mud replenish on residuals. Difficulty: simple (higher-tier item). +10 Mechanic XP / +15 Basic Mechanical Repair XP.
Admin checked his watch, which believed in oh-six in a way that would make a liar of any room. "Twenty-one," he said.
The night heard almost and decided to be dramatic. The truck coughed its winches alive again—not one, not two, but three, all at once, spooling in a cadence that wanted to be a tear. Lines slid low in three new bays—spread wider this time so geometry would run out of kindness. The skirt caught, the chain sang, the wedges put thoughts in the floor.
Ash slid to the first grille. The pin presented; he cut it. Second—cut. The third hid again, clever. The drum took; the post leaned into Hale's bone; the chain sang a note that sounded like a hinge making up its mind.
Ash found the third through two holes and a shadow, the pin a slice, the jaw lurking like a rat. He set the two-stage, took up slack, felt the break living right there—
—and all threewinch whines peaked together, louder: the truck had decided to jerk instead of pull, to write its sentence with an exclamation mark.
Ash's sight held on that sliver of steel. His finger kissed the last ounce.
The trigger broke as the gallery decided whether it would.