Morning arrived with a taste like old coins. Kael woke counting the seconds between siren fragments that drifted in from distant streets and the softer breaths inside the room. Mira lay on her side, knife near her palm, eyes open before the day asked for them. Nox had slept leaning against the wall, chin down, pipe balanced across his thighs like a seated animal that refused to roll away.
"We do not need to be brave," Kael said to begin the ritual.
"We need to be correct," Mira finished.
Nox added, "And quiet. Quiet is rent."
[System: Day Plan] - Mission A: construct first active trap in corridor near Anchor - 2. - Mission B: test trap with decoy signal under cover of vent hymn. - Mission C: prepare response protocol for organized human threat. - Observation: Blue language density rising near stair two and A1 threshold. - Reward: +3 PC if trap neutralizes target, +1 PC if threat repelled without companion loss.
Points available: 10.0.
Optional Knowledge: Engineering T1 - > Torsion & Springs (cost: 3 PC).
Kael bought it because teeth like to work with springs.
[System: Knowledge Acquired]
Torsion & Springs installed.
Effects: +trap complexity, +weapon modifications, +spring tuning.
Remaining PC: 7.0.
He turned a page in the ledger and drew a square jaw with hinges. "Today the wall bites," he said.
Mira did not smile. "Make it bite the right thing." - - - Design and temper
They cleared the table and laid out their parts with the reverence of hungry people arranging a feast. Shelf plank, rope, hinge plates, nails, two bricks, a doorstop wedge, a length of copper wire scavenged from the back of the refrigerator, and a little tin of screws Nox had liberated from a maintenance closet.
"Guillotine shelf," Kael said. "Trip line here, at ankle height; release here, above the hinge; swing path across the corridor throat." He tapped the paper with the pencil and then tapped the air where the device would live until the air learned its lesson.
"Guide me," Nox said, not sarcastic.
"Hold backboard. Angle twenty degrees. Be the wall until the wall improves," Kael told him.
Mira threaded rope and learned knots by failure. The first slipped. The second held and then lied. The third held and told the truth. She nodded to herself and did not brag.
They built the latch with copper wire wound into a torsion loop around a screw shank. Kael tuned tension with a patience that had grown new ligaments since the System arrived. He listened to the way the loop creaked when twisted and stopped before metal fatigue would write an ending for them.
[System: Trap Blueprint] - Name: Shelf Guillotine Mk I. - Components: shelf plank, rope pendulum, torsion latch, hinge plate, counterweight brick x2, trip line. - Efficiency estimate: 0.72 at current mount; 0.83 with guide rail.
"Guide rail?" Nox asked.
"A strip to keep the swing honest," Kael said. "We do not want the shelf to choose a new religion mid - arc."
He cut a thin rail from another plank and screwed it into the wall so the shelf would travel true. He did not over tighten, because overtightening is still sloppiness with better posture.
Mira paced the corridor, counting steps from the stair mouth to the trap's swing plane. "Three and a half of my steps from the landing," she reported.
Kael wrote: Mira step = 0.62 m. Trigger at 2.17 m from corner.
"How do you know it is point six two?" Nox asked.
"I measured her shoe yesterday," Kael said. "Then I cheated with Perception."
Nox grunted. "Cheating with thinking. Best kind." - - - Testing under hymn
They waited for the 19:00 vent hymn even though morning had only started. Practice belongs to now; execution belongs to cover later. Kael set the trip line at ankle height and coated the knot with chalk. He set the shelf up and armed the torsion latch. He stepped through the swing path once, twice, then stepped back and wrote NO STEP on the ledger like he could send the words ahead to warn his future self.
Mira breathed in and out like a metronome that respected fear. "How do we test it without... you know, without feeding it something that bleeds?"
"We use what the city will give us for free," Kael said. He took a bag of empty cans and tied them on a length of thread to make a poor man's decoy. He hurled them into the corridor angle. The clatter traveled like gossip. He and Nox melted into the recess near RN - 3. Mira fell into the shadow beside the rail where her outline vanished into geometry.
The first infected that wandered toward the sound was slow and stupid, a shuffler who still believed in hands as tools. It missed the trip line entirely, wandered into a door, lost interest in doors, and left. They did not move.
The second came faster, drawn by the can chorus. It caught the line with its shin and the shelf dropped clean. The impact was ugly and honest. The body convulsed once and then the correction took. The corridor fell quiet except for a slow spill of things that had been in a pocket and no longer needed an owner.
Mira swallowed hard. Nox's jaw tightened then relaxed. Kael let himself nod once.
[System: Trap Deployed]
Shelf Guillotine Mk I efficiency: 0.78.
+3 PC awarded.
"Reset," Kael whispered. They drew the shelf back up, rearmed the latch, brushed away chalk, set a new knot, and erased their own footprints.
Mira whispered, "We bit."
"We counted," Kael said. - - - Blue reply
On the wall opposite the trap, a fresh mark appeared in the hour that followed, like the building had been drawing while they were being proud. Three blue teeth. Children would have called them that: teeth. Kael called them rectangles with a hunger problem. Under the teeth, a smudge formed into the word CORRECT and then smudged back into itself like a creature that had discovered it could write and then decided writing was tiring.
Mira pointed. "It is watching."
"Or it is recording what it thinks the world wanted to say," Kael said. "Mirrors write, too." His jaw ached. He unclenched. He wrote: Blue mirrors trap; three - teeth icon; near A2 corridor; time stamp.
Nox spat on the floor away from all lines. "If it is a mirror, I am going to start making ugly faces."
"Make useful faces," Kael said. "We have limited ink." - - - Humans at the door of math
By late afternoon, the corridor learned new footsteps. Not the limp of infection or the patience of Kael's count. Three humans, moving in a pattern that admitted to practice: one heavy, one fast, one cautious. They stopped at the turn before the trap. Voices scraped low against the wall.
"You sure this place has water?" the fast one hissed.
"Old man saw bottles," the heavy one said. "Put your eyes on the floor. They are string people."
Kael's handwriting slowed but did not stop. String people. He almost liked the term.
He slid Mira toward Anchor - 2 with a palm on her shoulder and tilted his head for Nox to become the shadow by RN - 3. He himself crouched behind the trap plane, a meter back, hammer ready to teach a close lesson if math failed.
The cautious one came first, crouched, eyes scanning like a raccoon with a better brain. He saw the line. He traced it with a finger and smiled in a way Kael did not like. He stepped over it as if stepping over a child's drawing.
The fast one could not help himself. He shouldered past and clipped the line with his boot. The shelf fell. Kael had set it for ankle height, but the fast one had already started to jump, so the impact hit hip and rib. The man spun and hit the floor wrong, breath exploding out of him. The cautious one flinched and froze. The heavy one charged.
Nox stepped into the charge like he had been born for it. Pipe rose, pipe fell, pipe spoke. The heavy one stumbled and then remembered the floor. His crowbar clanged away like a dropped opinion. Nox kicked it behind him without looking.
Mira did not scream. She thrust. The knife took the fast one in the shoulder as he tried to get up. He screamed for her. She did not give him what he asked for. She stepped back because stepping back was the plan.
Kael did not waste his swing on a skull; he spent it on the cautious one's hand. The hammer broke fingers and the weapon fell. The cautious one yelped and then tried to run. He took two steps and found the stair rail with his ribs. He whimpered in a way that tried to recruit pity.
"Stop moving," Kael said. Voice as flat as a door. "Stop or the ledger will write the last word for you."
The cautious one stopped.
The heavy one crawled, then rested his head against the wall with the three blue teeth and laughed once, a shattered sound. "You people," he said hoarsely, "you have a way of counting that feels like knives."
Kael did not look at him when he answered. "We use knives for counting sometimes."
[System: Encounter Logged]
Threat: organized survivors (3). Tools: crowbar, knife, speed. Pattern: partial discipline.
Result: repelled with casualties; one incapacitated, one wounded, one neutralized.
+1 PC (repel), +1 PC (no companion loss).
Nox breathed out through his teeth. "I hate that the paint gets courtside seats."
"It is a mirror," Kael said. "Make it reflect a better angle." - - - Prisoner, ledger, mercy
They bound the cautious one with tape and wire and sat him against the radiator cage where the missing paint made rust look busy. His fingers were a mess of new angles. He panted. His eyes flicked between them the way a trapped animal counts exits that do not exist.
Mira's knife tip hovered. "He tried to take our water. He would have hurt us."
Kael nodded. "He would have and might still." He wrote in the ledger: Prisoner: male, mid - 20s, injured hand, eyes steady. He drew a line under Prisoner and then drew a little box next to it and did not color it.
Nox nudged the heavy one with his boot. No response. "This one is grammar," he said. "Past tense."
The fast one had the knife in his shoulder and an expression that refused lessons. He crawled and hissed and then tried to bribe air. "Let us go," he wheezed. "We will not come back."
"We do not write policy with promises," Kael said. He was not unkind. He simply used the voice that doors believed. "You walk if you can walk. You carry him if you can carry him. If you return, the shelf will be better tuned."
Nox raised an eyebrow. "Mercy?"
"Allocation," Kael said. "Killing him costs time and removes a messenger. Leaving him hurts him and uses him as a sentence."
Mira shivered but did not argue the math.
The cautious one whispered, "You are insane."
"Order is a kind of insanity," Kael said. "We will recruit you for counting if you learn posture. If not, you will be erased."
The prisoner spit on the floor. "Erase yourself."
"Later," Kael said mildly. "If it is correct."
[System: Choice] - Execute prisoner: +1 PC, morale impact (Mira - ). - Recruit under ledger: +1 PC if stabilized, betrayal risk. - Release: 0 PC, external threat increases.
Kael closed the ledger without coloring any square. "Not now," he said. "Anchor - 2 first. Then court."
They dragged the heavy one to the stairwell and left him where gravity and blue would do what they always did. The fast one limped, cursing, and left a red trail like a chalk line nobody wanted to step on. The corridor accepted the new stains without an opinion. - - - Aftermath ritual
They cleaned what needed cleaning with bleach because procedures do not care about feelings. Mira gagged once and then set her jaw and finished scraping. Nox returned the crowbar to nowhere. Kael reset the trip line, rearmed the latch, and changed the anchor point to reduce the angle of failure the fast one had taught them accidentally.
[System: Trap Upgrade]
Shelf Guillotine Mk I - > Mk I - b.
Guide rail extended. Anchor point adjusted. Knot position raised 2 cm.
Efficiency estimate: 0.85.
"Better," Kael said.
"Meaner," Nox said.
"Correcter," Mira tried, then winced at the word. Kael allowed it because he liked the intent even if the grammar bled.
A new blue mark smeared near the three teeth, a short underline with a little tick: a tally, a one. As if the wall had decided to count with them.
Mira stared. "It is keeping score."
"Then it will learn we are bad opponents," Kael said. - - - Quiet Court convenes
Back inside Anchor - 1, he washed and made them eat even if their stomachs wanted to discuss it. Hunger is a bad negotiator after fights. He opened the ledger and the room arranged itself into a tribunal without needing chairs or titles.
"Quiet Court," Kael said. "We weigh the day."
He read the audit. - Trap built and tested: Shelf Guillotine Mk I, now Mk I - b. Killed one infected; disabled one human assailant; inflicted wound on second. - Organized threat: repelled. No companion loss. Evidence of reconnaissance skills among hostiles. - Prisoner: restrained. Status: hostile, injured. Decision pending. - Blue language: mirrored trap with three teeth; added tally mark; density rising near A2 corridor. - Supplies: rope - small, screws - small, tape - medium. - Hygiene: bleach used; zones sanitized. - Doctrine: repeated morning and evening.
Mira lifted her hand. "Permission to argue against mercy," she said softly, eyes on the prisoner bound in the corner of the stair cage, visible through the doorway.
"Granted."
"If we recruit him, we feed him. If we feed him, we hand a stranger our calories. He will cut our throats for those calories later."
Nox shrugged. "Or he carries, and that saves our wrists."
Kael let silence work. It is the cheapest foreman. He wrote three lines: - Execute: removes variable; cost to morale; yields nothing but quiet. - Recruit under ledger: audit discipline test; risk betrayal; potential hands. - Release: risk increased; reduces moral debt; preserves calories.
He looked at Mira, then at Nox, then at the ledger. "Court adjourns without decision," he said. "We decide at dawn when doctrine is loudest and the world is quietest."
Mira nodded, relieved to postpone the killing or the feeding. Nox accepted the pause like a small fine that could be paid tomorrow.
[System: Audit Complete]
+3 PC (trap success + repel without loss).
+1 PC (discipline under stress).
+1 PC (doctrine repetition).
Total PC: 12.0.
[System: Advisory]
Companion morale check: Mira brittle; reassure with roles.
Threat forecast: human group may return with numbers or fire.
Recommendation: diversify traps; prepare decoy corridor.
Kael assigned roles because roles make scared hands steady.
"Mira, you are Thread. Your job is to see lines and teach them truth. Nox, you are Bar. You are mass and lever. I am Latch. I decide when things release and when they do not."
Mira breathed, shoulders lower. "I can be Thread," she said.
Nox smirked. "I was always a Bar," he said. - - - Night listeners
The paperclip bell clicked once at 23:10, twice at 23:12, then not again. Someone tested the knob as if they were learning a knock with their hand from the wrong side. The string trembled and told the truth and then went back to pretending it was not a guard.
Mira did not rise. She pressed the flat of her knife to the floor and listened to the vibration travel from metal to wood to skin. She smiled without joy. "I can hear them. I can hear wrong footsteps now."
"You are Thread," Kael said. "You hear where lines go before they are pulled."
Outside, down the hall, the prisoner coughed and then did not cough again, remembering the lesson of walls. Farther away, the blue language shared a conversation with itself that eyes could not read and ears could only suspect. Kael did not try to translate. He was tired of translating other people's bad ideas into his own fear.
He closed the ledger with the soft thud of a sentence finishing. He placed his palm on it and spoke because speaking had become a hinge for their nights.
"We do not need to be brave."
"We need to be correct," Mira answered from the floor.
Nox added, almost amused, "And mean. Mean is efficient."
Kael did not correct him. Mean, tonight, had protected calories and wrists. Tomorrow he would try to spend less meanness to buy the same outcome. But if the math refused charity, he would loan it steel.
He slept with his hand on the floor again, fingers reading dust like braille. In the corridor, the shelf waited with gravity held in place by wire and intention. In the stairwell, the blue tally waited to teach itself a bigger number. In the city, a choir of vents planned a hymn for 19:00 because routine survives empires.
And in Kael's head, springs and levers rehearsed the next sentence: the pendulum sermon that would make even fast men slow.