Morning found them more machine than house and more house than bunker. Kael woke to Battery Crate's tame hum and the ledger's unblinking requests. Mira sat upright with the knife and headlamp, eyes already on the door seam as if looking alone could be a gasket. Nox stretched and smiled at Anchor - 3 like it was a new muscle. Renn checked dots with a toe the way a violinist checks tuning.
"We do not need to be brave," Kael said.
"We need to be correct," Mira answered.
Nox: "And levered."
Renn: "And on the dots."
[System: Day Plan] - Mission A: outfit Anchor - 3 as a proper workshop (bench, pegboard, vise, tool hooks). - Mission B: unlock Springs & Cams for compact traps; prototype Coil Snare Mk I. - Mission C: design and teach Mirror Code v0.1 for line - of - sight comms with watchers. - Mission D: consult on Brass Street generator at clinic during hymn shoulder; trade for plates, bleach, fuel stabilizer. - Observation: Blue frames labeled CENSUS appeared overnight; mirror in stairwell placed to mimic periscope angles. - Reward: +1 PC for A3 outfitting, +2 PC for Springs & Cams prototype, +1 PC for code adoption, +1 PC for clean generator consult/trade.
PC available: 41.5.
Tier - 1: Engineering T1 - > Springs & Cams (cost: 3 PC).
Kael purchased without apology.
[System: Knowledge Acquired]
Engineering T1: Springs & Cams installed.
Effects: +compact mechanism design, +trigger tuning, +cam profile drafting.
PC remaining: 38.5.
Mira watched him the way a door watches weather. "You look like you can hear metal wanting to rest and then decide to work instead."
"I can give it reasons," Kael said. - - - A3 becomes a room that tells the truth
They carried in a door laid across two cabinets for a bench, then screwed a 2x4 cleat into studs that had not forgotten their duty. The pegboard went up with washers under each screw so the holes would not tear. Nox mounted a small vise found in the storage cage like he was introducing an old friend to the future. Hooks received tools by category: cut, hold, measure, lie (levels and plumb bobs that sometimes did).
Kael taped outlines on the pegboard because outlines shame tools into returning home. He labeled in pencil because pencils forgive. He hung the Hymn Map where the eye would hit it twice per job. He posted A3 rules in handwriting that avoided romance.
"Noise only during shoulders," he said. "Silence otherwise. If you must swear, do it at screws, not at people."
Renn breathed in workshop smell: oil, wood dust, plan. "Feels like a brain we can walk into," he said.
[System: Outfitting]
A3 bench/pegboard/vise installed; tool discipline posted.
+1 PC. - - - Springs, cams, and a quiet snare
Coil Snare Mk I began as a donated bungee, two nails, and a cam cut from scrap plywood. Kael drew a cam profile that would flip from stable to eager at a quarter turn, then sawed and sanded until the edge felt like a decision. He wound the bungee into a tighter, smarter spring with a wire lashing and hid it under a shelf lip so the mechanism would be more idea than object. Trigger: light cross - line at ankle minus one finger, harmless to children trained on dots. Output: a loop that snaps closed on a shin and waits.
Mira watched the build with an expression that lived halfway between approval and dread. "It teaches ankles to stay away from our door," she said.
"It teaches ankles to think before hands decide," Kael replied.
They mounted the cam inside A1's recess on a removable plate so the trap could be disarmed with one deliberate twist that Thread alone would know. They rehearsed twice with a broom handle and once with Nox's boot, slow and gentle. The snare kissed and held and then released on command like a polite animal.
[System: Prototype]
Coil Snare Mk I built and tested; cam tuned; release protocol set.
Effect: +nonlethal denial at A1; +capture for interrogation if required.
+2 PC.
Kael wrote the parts list clean and left a copy in A3. He added a drawing with a note: do not set when child dots are in play. - - - Mirror Code v0.1
Words at distance are expensive when air sells them to enemies. Kael cut two hand mirrors down to palm size and taped their edges. He drafted a code that used three easy signals: flash (short), hold (long), and blank (space). He refused Morse because Morse belonged to ships, not stairwells. He wrote a tiny grammar instead: - 1 flash: ready - 2 flash: go - 3 flash: danger - hold: wait - flash + hold: need help - hold + hold: abort - diagonal sweep: friendly - vertical sweep: stranger - horizontal sweep: blue nearby
He taught the code to Mira, Renn, Isa, Tom, and Stripe with a folded sheet that could be memorized in a minute and kept under tape behind a pipe. They practiced down the hall, Isa at the quiet square, Tom at RN - 4, Stripe at the stair elbow, Kael in A1 with the periscope watching the glints bounce like tamed fireflies.
Renn laughed once, delighted. "We are lighthouse people," he said.
"We are ledger people who learned mirrors," Kael corrected.
[System: Comms]
Mirror Code v0.1 adopted by watchers. Effect: +silent coordination, - risk during hymns.
+1 PC. - - - CENSUS frames and a lying mirror
In the stairwell a cheap wall mirror had appeared at bend height, angled to catch A1's seam and show a smear of hall from a blind spot. Next to it, blue frames with the word CENSUS in shaky caps and a grid drawn inside, empty. Beneath, a small crown and a dot in a circle. The mirror was clean. Too clean.
Mira exhaled a rude syllable. "They are counting with glass."
"We count with glass too," Kael said. "We are just honest about it." He turned the mirror sideways so it reflected only the ceiling and taped its edge with residue from a label so it would hold its lie. He drew a tiny ashamed X at the lower corner and left.
He drew the frame in the ledger and wrote: our census is receipts, not souls. He underlined receipts hard enough to indent the page below.
[System: Observation]
Blue CENSUS frames; decoy mirror neutralized by rotation; counter - communication maintained. - - - Clinic consult
They moved during the 19:00 shoulder with Stripe escorting them through a side alley to the clinic's back lot. The clinic had been a place for healing and then a place for triage and then a place for lists. The generator sat on a pallet under an awning, cheap and proud. It smelled like old gas and optimism.
Kael ran his hands over the panel like a blind man over a stranger's face. He checked the oil: low. He cleaned the air filter with the economy of a miser. He sniffed the tank and winced. "Stale," he said. "We need stabilizer. And we need to run it on shoulders only, with a thickened exhaust muffled behind the brick to bleed signature."
The map man listened like a machine. Stripe crossed her arms. "We have a neighbor with fuel in a metal shed. We do not have their keys or their patience."
"We do not steal," Kael said automatically, then corrected himself with a sigh. "We do not steal when receipts work better."
He primed the carb with discipline, bled the line, and pulled the cord at the top of the shoulder. The engine complained then negotiated and finally agreed. The sound punched the alley. The Hymn Ear's LEDs climbed, not from the pipe but from noise, and then fell as the muffler breathed into the brick baffle Kael had constructed on the fly with scrap and a prayer to physics. The sound smudged into city. Acceptable.
"Run only for fridge and light," Kael said. "No televisions. No worship. Charge your radios off it if you promise to talk less."
Stripe nodded a hair. "Payment?" she asked.
"Plates. Screws. Bleach. Fuel stabilizer when you find it. And a promise you do not tax in paint on our floors."
She held out a hand. Kael hesitated the time it takes to kill a bad habit and then shook it with a grip that belonged to doors.
[System: Consult]
Generator tuned; muffler baffle built; run protocol written. Materials promised.
+1 PC. - - - A small skirmish and a lever
On the way back, near the clinic's side gate, two men in improvised armor argued with a third about a box of canned goods like crows arguing with gravity. One shoved, the other shoved back, the third reached for a knife like a man reaching for yesterday.
Kael did not want to spend blood. He spent leverage. He grabbed a long piece of conduit and slid it under the box, pivoted on a broken brick, and lifted with a quiet law that ignored their biceps. The box moved toward him without caring about their argument. The men blinked, confused by physics. Stripe barked, "Lever beats loud," and the moment's heat went out of the scene like air leaving a paper bag.
"Parley," Kael said to them. "Receipt Wall or teeth. Choose."
They chose to grumble. Stripe chose to make a list that did not include knives. The city chose to allow them back to the stair without a tally of new errors.
[System: Encounter]
Potential fight diffused via lever demonstration; no contact with Blue; no tally. +discipline.
Renn glanced at Kael's hands. "You are teaching people like you teach doors," he said.
"People are doors in groups," Kael said. "They swing and stick and slam for reasons." - - - Mirror macro: the quiet alarm
Back at A1, Kael wrote a macro for mirrors: three quick flashes from RN - 4 means "alley eyes"; from the square means "stair eyes"; diagonal sweep means "friendly cross," horizontal "blue near." He drew it on a single strip, taped it to the periscope mount, and handed copies to Isa, Tom, and Stripe. "We train until your wrists know," he said.
Mira practiced until her forearm burned, then smiled without needing to show it to anyone. "We are going to talk a lot without talking," she said.
[System: Comms Update]
Mirror Macro v0.2 posted. Effect: +alert quality. - - - Quiet Court: mirrors and springs
The light stripe was thin to spare cells; the Battery Crate hummed like a cat in another room. Kael read the day, simplifying where pride wanted to decorate. - A3 outfitted with bench, pegboard, vise; tool discipline added. - Springs & Cams unlocked; Coil Snare Mk I built; nonlethal ankle capture at A1. - Mirror Code v0.1 taught to watchers; Macro v0.2 posted. - Blue: CENSUS frames; mirror rotated to ceiling; counter - communication maintained. - Clinic consult: generator tuned; muffler baffle; trade for plates/bleach pending; run law written (shoulders only). - Encounter near clinic defused via lever; no blood spent. - Doctrine: repeated.
[System: Audit Complete]
+1 PC (A3), +2 PC (snare), +1 PC (comms), +1 PC (consult), +1 PC (discipline), +1 PC (doctrine).
Total PC: 45.5.
Advisory: with 45+ PC, plan next unlocks: Info T1 Comms Basics (line relay, flag code), Engineering T1 Fasteners Pro (anchors in brick), Bio/Chem T1 Antiseptic Gel. Next missions: Mirror relay to rooftop; Anchor - 3 noise baffle; first proper map beyond the block.
Mira closed her eyes and listed the new nouns: bench, cam, snare, mirror. "We are building a language the city does not speak," she said.
"We are building a ledger the city must balance," Kael answered.
Nox yawned, pleased to be tired for correct reasons. Renn dozed in the chair with a mirror tucked under his wrist like a pet that gleamed.
Kael set his palm on the ledger. "We do not need to be brave."
"We need to be correct," the others said, and for once the sentence felt less like armor and more like a pillow.
Outside, CENSUS frames waited to count souls that would not stand still. Inside, springs slept wound, mirrors slept facing down, and a crate of batteries kept its small quiet promise. The clinic's generator pouted behind brick and then forgot to be loud. And the house learned to talk in light.