The workshop was quiet except for the faint tick of the wall clock. Jace was sorting through a bin of salvaged connectors when Riley's voice cut in.
"Got a call from the transit authority," she said. "One of their downtown stations is having intermittent power failures. Escalators, ticket machines, lighting — all cutting out at random."
Patchwork's voice slid in, dry as ever.
Public transit. Nothing says 'fun' like fixing something while a hundred people watch and complain in real time.
Jace set the bin down. "What's the urgency?"
"They've got a rush hour crowd coming in two hours," Riley said. "If it's not fixed, the station shuts down."
---
The Station
The downtown station was a cavern of concrete and steel, the air thick with the smell of ozone and brake dust. Commuters moved through in waves, their footsteps echoing off the walls. A harried station supervisor met them at the service entrance.
"Power drops every few minutes," she said. "Sometimes it's just the lights, sometimes the ticket machines, sometimes both. We've had two escalator stalls already."
---
The Investigation
Jace followed her to the electrical room — a cramped space lined with breaker panels and conduit. He scanned the main distribution board and saw the problem: one of the bus bars was overheating, tripping protective relays at random.
Patchwork: That's not just wear and tear. That's a bad install from years ago finally coming back to bite them.
The echo pulsed faintly — not with urgency, but with focus.
---
The Complication
As Jace was pulling the cover, the lights in the station flickered and went out. A murmur of frustration rolled through the concourse. Somewhere, a child started crying.
The supervisor's voice was tight. "We can't have this during rush hour."
Patchwork: Translation: fix it now, or she'll have your head on a pike.
---
The Improvisation
Jace didn't have a replacement bus bar on hand — and even if he did, swapping it would take hours. Instead, he rerouted the load through a secondary feed, isolating the failing section. It wasn't a permanent fix, but it would keep the station running until a full repair could be scheduled.
Patchwork: Not elegant, but it'll hold. Like duct tape for electrons.
---
The Near Slip
As Jace worked, a man in a transit uniform stumbled into the room, pale and sweating. He leaned against the wall, breathing hard.
The echo pulsed — sharp, insistent.
Patchwork's voice was low. We could help him. Right now.
Jace's jaw tightened. "Not here. Too many eyes."
The man waved off concern, muttering something about low blood sugar, and left. Jace forced himself back to the panel.
---
The Test
He closed the panel, flipped the breakers, and watched the station lights come back to life. Ticket machines rebooted, escalators hummed. The supervisor exhaled in relief.
"That'll hold?" she asked.
"Until you can get a proper replacement installed," Jace said.
---
Payment and Numbers
The supervisor handed over a payment, still watching him like she was trying to figure out how he'd done it so fast.
Payment: $380
Patchwork: $64.60 added to Pending Taxes. Current total: $2,056.15.
Wealth: $10,244.88 → $10,624.88
RP Gained:
- Mechanical repair: +20
- Improvisation under pressure: +10
(No benevolent sabotage this time)
Total RP Gain: +30 → RP Total: 1538 → 1568
---
Back at the Workshop
They didn't stop for a capability purchase this time. Instead, Jace went straight to the bench, pulling out the thermal camera and scanning the salvaged connectors again.
Riley leaned against the doorway. "You wanted to help that guy."
Jace nodded. "We're close. Just not close enough."
Patchwork: Then stop wasting time and start stacking RP.
The echo pulsed once — steady, determined.
---
Reflection
That night, Jace sat in the warm light of the desk lamp, the thermal camera beside him. Outside, the city moved — cars, voices, the hum of life. No bunker walls. Just the open air, a workshop, and an apartment they both called home.
Patchwork's voice was quiet, but the sarcasm was still there. You're walking the line. One day soon, you're going to have to decide which side you're on.
The echo pulsed once, as if to say: We know which.
---
Status Update
Technician: Jace Thorn
RP Total: 1568
Wealth: $10,624.88
Pending Taxes: $2,056.15
Monthly Rent: Workshop – $1,200 | Two‑Bedroom Apartment – $1,400 (covers both Jace & Riley)
Next Upgrade: 1750 RP – Biological Repair Capability
---
The workshop was quiet except for the faint hum of the comms unit on the bench. Jace was leaning over a disassembled relay when Riley's voice cut through.
"Got a call from a data center," she said. "They've got a phantom process running on their environmental control system. Keeps spiking the cooling fans and tripping alarms, but no one can find the source."
Patchwork's voice slid in, dry as ever.
Ah, the classic 'haunted server room' problem. I'm sure it's nothing a little exorcism and a firmware update can't fix.
Jace set the relay down. "What's the urgency?"
"They've got a client audit in four hours," Riley said. "If the alarms keep going off, they fail."
---
The Data Center
The building was all glass and steel, the lobby silent except for the faint hum of HVAC. A security guard led them through a series of locked doors into the server floor — a vast, chilled space lined with racks of blinking lights.
The operations manager, a tall man with a clipped tone, met them by the control console. "We've traced the alarms to the environmental system, but the logs don't match the events. It's like something's running in the background that shouldn't be there."
---
The Hunt
Jace slid into the chair at the console, scanning the system logs. The phantom process wasn't in the main task list — it was buried in a maintenance subroutine, disguised as a diagnostic check.
Patchwork: That's not sloppy coding. That's deliberate.
The echo pulsed faintly — not alarm, but recognition.
Jace dug deeper, isolating the rogue code. It wasn't malicious, exactly — more like a badly written patch that kept looping itself. He quarantined it, rewrote the subroutine, and pushed the update.
---
The Interruption
Halfway through the update, the cooling fans roared to full speed. The operations manager swore under his breath. "If the temperature spikes, the audit's blown."
Jace's fingers flew over the keys, manually throttling the fans while the update compiled. The echo pulsed in time with his keystrokes, guiding him through the sequence.
Patchwork: You're dancing on the edge here. One wrong move and the whole room goes into thermal lockdown.
---
The Fix
The update finished, the fans settled, and the alarms went silent. Jace ran a full system check — clean. The rogue process was gone.
The operations manager exhaled. "How did you even find that?"
Jace shrugged. "Sometimes you just know where to look."
Patchwork: And sometimes you have an illegal AI whispering in your ear. But sure, let's go with instinct.
---
Payment and Numbers
The operations manager handed over a payment, still watching Jace like he was trying to figure out the trick.
Payment: $520
Patchwork: $88.40 added to Pending Taxes. Current total: $2,144.55.
Wealth: $10,624.88 → $11,144.88
RP Gained: +30 (complex fault isolation under time pressure)
RP Total: 1568 → 1598
---
Back at the Workshop
They returned to the workshop as the afternoon light slanted through the tall windows. Jace set the payment envelope on the bench and went back to the relay he'd been working on.
Riley leaned against the doorway. "You didn't even blink when the fans spiked."
Jace shrugged. "Didn't have time to."
Patchwork: And that, kids, is how you keep your cool in a room designed to keep everything else cool.
The echo pulsed once — steady, satisfied.
---
Status Update
Technician: Jace Thorn
RP Total: 1598
Wealth: $11,144.88
Pending Taxes: $2,144.55
Monthly Rent: Workshop – $1,200 | Two‑Bedroom Apartment – $1,400 (covers both Jace & Riley)
Next Upgrade: 1750 RP – Biological Repair Capability
---
The workshop was quiet except for the faint tick of the wall clock. Jace was halfway through re‑terminating a cable harness when Riley's voice cut in from the doorway.
"Got a call from a boutique recording studio," she said. "They've got a session booked with a high‑profile client in three hours, and their main mixing console keeps dropping channels."
Patchwork's voice slid in, dry as ever.
Ah, the glamorous world of audio engineering — where the coffee is artisanal, the deadlines are insane, and the clients think 'gain staging' is a yoga pose.
Jace set the harness aside. "What's the catch?"
"They've already had two techs in this week," Riley said. "Neither fixed it. The studio owner's… particular."
---
The Studio
The recording studio was tucked into the top floor of a converted warehouse. The lobby smelled faintly of cedar and espresso. The owner — a tall man in a black turtleneck — met them at the door to the control room.
"It's intermittent," he said. "Sometimes the left channel drops, sometimes the right. Sometimes both. We've got a Grammy‑winner coming in today, and I can't have this happen mid‑take."
---
The Problem
Jace slid into the engineer's chair and ran a quick signal test. The dropouts weren't random — they followed a pattern, but not one that matched any obvious hardware fault.
Patchwork: This smells like a clock sync issue. Or sabotage. Possibly both.
The echo pulsed faintly — not alarm, but curiosity.
Jace popped the console's side panel and traced the signal path. The culprit wasn't a failing component — it was a misconfigured digital clock source, switching between internal and external sync at irregular intervals.
---
The Complication
As Jace worked, the studio owner hovered behind him, arms crossed. "You're moving fast," he said. "The last guy spent two hours just running tests."
Jace kept his tone even. "Sometimes you just know where to look."
The owner leaned closer. "Do you? Or do you already know what's wrong before you even open it up?"
Patchwork: Oh, he's fishing. And he's not subtle.
---
The Fix
Jace locked the console to a stable internal clock, rewrote the sync settings to prevent automatic switching, and ran a full test. The signal stayed rock‑solid.
The owner frowned. "That's it?"
"That's it," Jace said.
---
The Push
The owner didn't move. "You're good. Too good. I've been in this business twenty years, and I've never seen someone diagnose that fast."
Jace shrugged. "Experience."
Patchwork: And a little something extra you'll never know about.
The echo pulsed once — steady, unreadable.
---
Payment and Numbers
The owner finally handed over a payment, still watching Jace like he was trying to memorize every move.
Payment: $460
Patchwork: $78.20 added to Pending Taxes. Current total: $2,222.75.
Wealth: $11,144.88 → $11,604.88
RP Gained: +30 (complex fault isolation under scrutiny)
RP Total: 1598 → 1628
---
Back at the Workshop
They returned to the workshop as the late afternoon light slanted through the tall windows. Jace set the payment envelope on the bench and went back to the cable harness.
Riley leaned against the doorway. "He's going to think about you for a long time."
Jace didn't look up. "Let him."
Patchwork: And hope he doesn't start asking the wrong people the right questions.
The echo pulsed once — steady, but with a hint of warning.
---
Status Update
Technician: Jace Thorn
RP Total: 1628
Wealth: $11,604.88
Pending Taxes: $2,222.75
Monthly Rent: Workshop – $1,200 | Two‑Bedroom Apartment – $1,400 (covers both Jace & Riley)
Next Upgrade: 1750 RP – Biological Repair Capability
Taxes due: two months
---
The workshop smelled faintly of solder and coffee. Jace was hunched over the bench, sorting through his kit. A few compartments were running low — heat‑shrink tubing, spare fuses, a couple of specialty connectors.
Riley glanced over from her tablet. "You're restocking?"
"Yeah," Jace said. "Better to do it now than in the middle of a job."
Patchwork's voice slid in, dry as ever.
Or you could just buy the deluxe restock pack from my store and be done in thirty seconds.
Jace didn't look up. "Not worth the RP hit."
Suit yourself, Patchwork said. But one day, you'll wish you'd taken the shortcut.
The echo pulsed faintly — neutral, as if it knew the decision wasn't final.
---
The Call
Riley's tablet buzzed. She frowned. "Urgent job. City hospital's neonatal wing. Their environmental control system is throwing random alarms — humidity spikes, temperature drops. They've got premature infants in there, Jace."
Patchwork: And here's where the stakes get interesting.
Jace's jaw tightened. "Let's go."
---
The Hospital
The neonatal wing was a sealed, climate‑controlled space. The head nurse met them at the security door, her voice tight. "We've had three false alarms in the last hour. Every time, we have to move the babies to backup incubators. It's chaos."
She led them to the control room — a small space lined with monitors showing temperature and humidity readouts for each incubator.
---
The Problem
Jace scanned the logs. The alarms weren't random — they were triggered by a sensor cluster that was intermittently dropping off the network. Without its data, the system defaulted to a "critical" state.
Patchwork: Easy enough to fix if you had a spare cluster. Which you don't.
The echo pulsed — sharper now.
---
The Decision
Jace's mind flicked to the store. He could buy a replacement cluster right now — it would appear in his bag, no questions asked. But the cost in RP would push the biological repair upgrade further away.
Patchwork's voice was low. You could fix this in minutes. Or you could spend an hour trying to jury‑rig something and hope it holds.
Jace's jaw tightened. "Not yet."
---
The Improvisation
He pulled a spare environmental sensor from his kit — not a perfect match, but close enough. He rewired the input to accept the substitute's data, bypassing the faulty cluster entirely. The readings stabilized, the alarms stopped.
The head nurse exhaled. "You just saved us a lot of chaos."
Patchwork: And you saved yourself the RP hit. For now.
---
Payment and Numbers
The hospital's facilities manager handed over a payment, gratitude clear in his eyes.
Payment: $600
Patchwork: $102.00 added to Pending Taxes. Current total: $2,324.75.
Wealth: $11,604.88 → $12,204.88
RP Gained: +40 (critical system stabilization under high stakes)
RP Total: 1628 → 1668
---
Back at the Workshop
Jace set the payment envelope on the bench and went back to his kit. He made a note to replace the sensor he'd used — it wasn't something he wanted to be without.
Riley leaned against the doorway. "You thought about it, didn't you? The store."
Jace didn't answer.
Patchwork: One day, you'll decide the delay's worth it. And when you do, I'll be ready.
The echo pulsed once — steady, but with a hint of inevitability.
---
Status Update
Technician: Jace Thorn
RP Total: 1668
Wealth: $12,204.88
Pending Taxes: $2,324.75
Monthly Rent: Workshop – $1,200 | Two‑Bedroom Apartment – $1,400 (covers both Jace & Riley)
Next Upgrade: 1750 RP – Biological Repair Capability
Taxes due: two months
---