[Mechanic (lv1: 640/1000)]
The number posted and held.
He kept his palm on the bench long enough to feel the cold go up his arm and argue with the fever under the skin. Then he set both big projects in the lamp's circle: the chainsaw longblade to the left, the dual-range shotgun to the right. The pane hovered where he looked, quiet and blue.
He started with the longblade. Up close, the chain wasn't a chain anymore so much as a single, rust-welded ribbon. Someone—possibly a past him—had oiled it; dust had turned the oil to tar. The drive sprocket still had teeth. The bar had a shallow warp that would eat new links if he didn't dress it.
"Assessment first," he said, because saying it made his hands behave.
[Project: Longblade // Milestones (0/4)][Bench Prepared ✓][Next: Assess chain; source replacement links or reforge.]
He teased the chain free an inch at a time with a pick. Rust flaked like cinnamon. A section near the tip flexed, then seized; another by the drive cracked and went to crumbs.
No saving you. He let the pick rest. We rebuild.
He clamped the bar between wood blocks and stoned the high spot until the warp read as a smooth gradient under his fingers.
On the shelf above, three coffee cans held what anyone else threw away: stray links, half-links, spacers, circlips. He poured them into a tray and sifted for a match. Machine Affinity helped—geometry jumped forward and offered pairs. He dry-fit a dozen, tossed half back, and built a short, clean section to prove pitch and gauge.
[Progress Logged: Longblade — chain section matched.][Gain: Mechanic XP +5][Gain: Basic Mechanical Repair XP +10]
He needed more links than he had. Scavenge tomorrow, gamble on the scrapyard, bribe a quartermaster—each option was a walk into someone else's problem.
He looked at the dual-range shotgun instead. The old man had called it his party trick: a choke selector with a mid-barrel venting system that let you go from scatter to tight in one motion. The core module—the tiny brain—had corroded into a furry green lie.
Jace stripped the housing and laid the parts like bones. Springs that had no right to remember their shape tried anyway. He cleaned contacts with a pencil eraser, kissed copper with isopropyl, and inspected the selector ring. Wear. Not fatal.
The pane blinked, delicate as throat-clearing.
[Project: Dual-Range Shotgun // Milestones (0/3)][Bench Prepared ✓][Next: Replace or rebuild choke controller; calibrate port timing.]
"Replace with what?" He eyed his bins: relay coils, ancient logic ICs, a micro-servo that whined like a mosquito. What he didn't have: a sealed controller built for wet and grit.
He could build ugly that worked. He could build elegant that died. Today wanted ugly.
He sketched a box-and-arrow logic, then soldered a breadboard that would never survive recoil but would prove the idea. Servo on a test armature; bench supply for power. The servo twitched, complained, then traveled the range. He could tie it to the selector ring mechanically; let the ring's motion command the ports.
[Work Registered.][Gain: Mechanic XP +5]
"See? We don't need smart. We need honest."
A hiss from the duct made him pause—just air settling. Back to the longblade. He polished guide rails, checked the tensioner cap. Its threads were chewed; he cleaned them with a chaser and promised himself a replacement when the world forgave small luxuries. He assembled the short clean section and laid it across the bar.
"Test fit."
He threaded the chain around the sprocket and over the nose. The rebuilt section moved like it belonged. The rust-fused section jammed and let go in a snap that shot a link into shadow.
He didn't jump. He tallied fingers and eyes. All present.
He fished the runaway link from the dust and stood slow so the room wouldn't tilt. Fatigue wanted to turn work into a story about heroism. That way lay bad welds and lost blood.
"Eat," he told himself, and obeyed: two mouthfuls of paste, one of water.
Back to the shotgun. He filed the port edges, inked selector travel marks. The breadboard moved the armature too fast; he added a resistor and calmed it until the motion looked like intention rather than panic.
[Gain: Basic Mechanical Repair XP +10]
A tap at the door.
He set the tool down, covered the projects with canvas, lifted the bench's trap tile, and slipped the breadboard into the void where he kept things he couldn't explain to an audit.
The tap came again, sharper.
"Who is it?"
"Vault patrol. Nightfall adjunct," a bored male voice said with a layer of warning.
He slid the peephole open. Black jacket, patch A3. Another shadow behind him and a cart.
"Repairs," A3 said. "Rush. Our allotment says you take Nightfall priority."
"Our allotment says I take work that doesn't blow up in my face," Jace said mildly. "What is it?"
A3 pushed when the latch turned—not a shove, just the kind of pressure that says doors are suggestions. Jace let it open as far as the chain allowed, then unhooked it.
Two rifles and a compact coil carbine lay on the cart. The carbine's casing was smoke-scored near the grip; the rifles had mismatched bolts and the kind of grime only panic produces.
"Timeline?"
"Tonight. Expanding south patrol."
"Of course you are." Jace kept his tone flat. He pointed at the coil gun. "That tried to cook its owner. I can fix it. Takes time. The rifles—clean, match, test. Two hours if headspace gods are kind."
"Be kind," A3 said. Pale, tired eyes in a professional face. "We'll bring a vial."
"Half now," Jace said. "Half on pickup."
"Above my pay grade."
"Then you get the same discount."
A3 considered, lifted a hand. The shadow passed a small case forward. Two vials. "Half now."
"Leave the cart," Jace said.
They did. A3's eyes flicked over the room without stepping inside. He saw the bench, the canvas, the pegboard. He did not look too long.
"Knock when you're back," Jace said. "Don't shout. The ducts carry."
"Understood." A3 paused. "Latch sticks. You know."
"I do."
They left. Jace shut the door, set the chain, and leaned his forehead against the cool metal for five counts. He set the vial case on the bench and treated it like a tool.
Triaging rifles first: clean, mate, gauge, function check. The pane chimed its coin-chime. The bar moved from 640 to 685 to 710.
[Mechanic (lv1: 710/1000)]
The coil carbine last. The casing opened with the smell of burned epoxy. A cheap insulator had tracked; carbon paths make their own choices when frightened. He scraped and cleaned, cut a gasket from scrap silicone to keep heat off a board that couldn't stand more.
He didn't trust it. He clamped it in the test cradle, pointed it at packed sand, and used a stick for the safety.
"Live," he said.
He tickled the trigger. The coil hummed, rose to a pitch that said now I know what I am. The shot hit sand and stayed. The carbine didn't smoke.
[Repair completed.][Gain: Mechanic XP +10][Gain: Basic Mechanical Repair XP +15]
He set the Nightfall pieces aside and uncovered the longblade again. Decision point. Stall for links, or reforge. A reforged chain was uglier than a new one and more honest than staying stuck.
He heated the fused sections with a small torch until the oil-tar smoked and the rust went dark. He worked the pick, the small hammer, patience. Links separated, grudging and mean. One twisted and snapped when it cooled wrong in the moving air.
He swore once, not loud. He set the broken piece down and named what it was: a loss from trying, not laziness.
[Task Update: Longblade — chain separation 40%][Gain: Mechanic XP +5]
He rebuilt from the good sections outward, splicing in the short, clean run. He checked pitch, gauge, pride. Pride wanted shortcuts that would look clever until someone bled.
He reached for the tensioner cap and felt cheap metal argue. He backed off before it seized, oiled the threads, and tried again with a whisper of force.
It held.
"Test run," he said.
He mounted bar and chain on the longblade body, checked guards, and set the assembly in the cradle. He rigged a belt from the bench motor so he could kill it by stepping away. He adjusted tension until the chain moved with the lazy insistence of something that could hurt you if disrespected.
He breathed and engaged the belt.
The chain moved. It chattered over a burr, then smoothed when friction took the edge. Oil threw a fine arc against the cardboard shield. The bar stayed true. The sprocket didn't complain.
[Milestone 1/4: Chain freed and running.][Gain: Mechanic XP +10][Gain: Basic Mechanical Repair XP +10]
He let it run a minute—long enough to find the weakness, not long enough to pretend there wasn't one. He feathered the belt off and set the assembly down. His right arm shook with adrenaline, not lack, and he let the shake happen.
"One more," he told the room. "Then I sleep like a person with a plan."
The shotgun again. He mocked the servo linkage in coat-hanger wire—ugly and precise. He ran it through the selector's travel and watched ports open and close like gills learning a new tide. Wrongness sang before he saw it: on tight, one port lagged; on wide, one stuck and then snapped.
He pulled it apart and found the culprit—a burr on the ring that had looked cosmetic and acted like a liar. He filed it flat, ran the linkage again, and nodded when the motion turned clean.
"Controller: you live as plate and lever," he said. "No brain, no failure."
He had no shells to test patterning—only math and the old man's charts. He set the selector to the marks the charts called good and wrote verify live on a tag in block letters that meant don't trust belief.
[Project: Dual-Range Shotgun — Milestone 1/3: Mechanical control restored.][Gain: Mechanic XP +10]
The bar crept to [Mechanic (lv1: 780/1000)]. Not level two. Enough to be a shape he could see.
A sound from the hall again. Not boots. A cough, then a hush like someone remembering walls had ears.
He covered both projects and set the Nightfall pieces nearest the door where a casual eye would land. He re-checked the latch and the case with the vials because he wasn't a saint.
The pane waited in his vision like a question he was still answering. He eased the stool back, let his shoulders drop, and recognized what the body said: stop now before you turn good into lucky.
He turned the lamp off. The dark came forward, cooler than before, blue around the edges.
[Mechanic (lv1: 780/1000)] hung steady in the corner of his sight.
"Tomorrow," he said to the longblade, to the shotgun, to the rifles, to himself. "We sing."
The pane didn't argue. It posted one last line—small, neutral, the way reminders should be.
[Queued: Longblade — Milestone 2/4 // Dual-Range Shotgun — Milestone 2/3]
The number posted and held.