The corridor shouldered them past chalk that thought it was law. Hale set pace—quiet fast—eyes front and back by turns. Admin carried his pad like a flag he was ready to bleed on. The City-Admin clerk kept his blue bag under one arm and used the other to steady himself on railings that had learned this day could multiply.
Nono rolled in Ash's wake, tray hugged to chest, maker's punch in its jar peeking like a coin. The Stag rode Ash's shoulder, soft case open enough he could feel the weight and the promise.
The East Gallery greeted them with the smell of the morning's work—steel warmed thin by friction, chain oil, the faint sweetness of hydraulic fluid from somebody else's bad idea. The fire curtain sat down square in its tracks, brace bar bit, chain set, DO-NOT-MOVE tag on the turnbuckle singing a small red truth. The smoke-hatch above wore a memory of his hand.
Hale walked the interior line like a man testing a boat for leaks: curtain posts, wedges hammered under rails, shear pin in the crank hub; all there. "We make a room," he said.
"Seats," the clerk agreed. "And paper."
"Bar," Admin added, chin at the chalk across the concrete that would be the line where men stopped pretending to be air.
Ash set two lengths of angle as a waist-high barrier—bolted to floor anchors meant for shelving that had become politics. Nono handed rope; Ash strung it between drilled ears and cinched to cleats until it stopped behaving like string and started behaving like a rule.
[SYSTEM PROMPT] Facility prep: barrier line + rope stanchion (temporary). Difficulty: simple (higher-tier item). +10 Mechanic XP / +15 Basic Mechanical Repair XP.
Admin set his recorder on a box and wrote TRIBUNAL PROCEEDING—TEMPORARY VENUE: EAST GALLERY (INTERIOR) at the top of his page. He stamped the line with ADMIN—OVERSIGHT in ink that still smelled like a past where stamps had budgets.
Nightshade got there like weather—first the drone that liked to sniff boundaries, then boots, then the armored truck nosing the shutter outside with a thoughtful idle. The liaison's voice came through the seam the way doctrine travels—confident and practiced, like a salesman who believes his suit can survive a thunderstorm.
"Nightshade Tribunal Unit," he called. "Convening under emergency provision twelve at East Gate. Present: liaison, sergeant, clerk. Haven representatives to admit and comply."
"Convening here," Admin answered, voice amplified by the gallery's long throat. "Interior. With seats. With record."
The truck idled meaning. Outside metal clanked. The Nightshade clerk stepped into the seam where echo could help his vowels. He wore a coat that remembered offices. His hair remembered combs.
"Nightshade Tribunal presents Seizure Order 12-B," he intoned. "For non-compliant tooling and outputs. To be executed immediately."
The City-Admin clerk stepped to the rope with the neat small authority of a man teaching children how to form a line. He didn't raise his voice. "City-Admin Audit is open and on-site. By inter-faction protocol, tribunal proceedings will not be convened in the open nor at a barrier under active security measures. We accept the venue—interior room—and hold adjournment options."
"Your audit is theater," the Nightshade clerk said.
"Sometimes theater keeps people from bleeding on the set," the City-Admin clerk said, and his eyes saw a younger room.
The liaison tried a flank. "We will attend inside with the cart."
"No attachments," Admin said, polite like a hammer under a towel. "Bring your eyes and your clerk, leave your hooks."
The cart rolled anyway until Hale's existence in the doorway taught rubber about friction. The watcher from the shop had found a friend and leaned with him; two leans did not equal a door.
Ash walked the barrier and touched the chain on the turnbuckle just enough to hear its note—still set. He slid a red tag into the cleat eye and wrote ACTIVE BARRIER—NO MOVE because words that look like law sometimes get to be. He checked the curtain post wedges with the low tap of his hammer and listened for argument. None.
[SYSTEM PROMPT] Reinforcement check: chain tension / wedges (confirm). Difficulty: simple. +5 Mechanic XP / +10 Basic Mechanical Repair XP.
"Call your first witness," the Nightshade clerk said, with a mouth adopted from older cities.
Admin didn't blink. He lifted a small evidence pouch and held it up so the seam could see the dark shape inside. "Foreign micro-relay removed from our control bus," he said, and the recorder liked the sentence. "Unknown pigtail sealed, junction cut and capped. Co-witnessed by Nightshade techs during earlier security sweep." He set the pouch on the box next to the recorder like a bomb that had decided to become paper.
The liaison didn't look. "Irrelevant."
"Admissible," the City-Admin clerk said without looking at the liaison. He wrote EXHIBIT A—FOREIGN RELAY with a small pleasure he didn't confess.
Ash added his smaller pouch—the RFID disk from the INSPECTION PENDING tie—on top. Nono, pleased, set the rag with the squib's smear beside it like a child who wanted to share the day's ugly.
"Exhibit B," Admin said, soft. "RFID tag hidden in inspection tie. Location: bench leg."
The Nightshade inspector had the grace not to invent a history for it. He rotated his clicker one click to keep his fingers from telling the truth.
The truck outside let idle become rev, a sound with belt in it. Tools clanked. The drone lifted to peer at the curtain's lip like a curious rat.
Ash looked at Hale. Hale looked back. The sentence didn't need words: machines first.
"Proceed," the City-Admin clerk said.
The Nightshade clerk lifted his Seizure Order, read items like a list of groceries that included jigs, outputs, and logs. He pronounced attach with a mouth that thought it still carried a budget.
"Out of scope," the City-Admin clerk said each time the word attach stood up. He stamped DENIED (PEND. AUDIT) in blue next to half the line items simply because the stamp had been born to do that.
It would have gone on like a smaller war except the torch outside woke up with a meat-eating hiss at the shutter seam near the floor. Someone had decided to subtract process with heat.
Admin didn't flinch. "Log," he said, and wrote EXTERNAL TOOL—SEAM.
"Don't break posture," Hale murmured, eyes on the seam. "We keep our room."
Ash stepped to the grille beside the barrier, let the curtain's frame become a rest, and brought the Stag up—but low, muzzle barely through the perforation. He translated Nightshade's torch into parts: bottle, regulator, hose, igniter. The regulator had already learned about him earlier today. The igniter hadn't.
He drew a breath and pressed.
The sound died tidy. A bead of glass tried to be a star and failed. The torch hiccupped; then it remembered it had no fire and told the man holding it to consider new verbs.
[SYSTEM PROMPT]Field disabling shot: torch igniter (long-range). Difficulty: mid. +150 Mechanic XP / +200 Basic Mechanical Repair XP.
The drone jittered, lens hungry. Hale's pocket light stuttered through the grille. The drone blinked and wrote notes about glare.
"Order," the Nightshade clerk said, as if language could torque steel.
"Order," the City-Admin clerk echoed, and his version meant chairs and recorders and men not bleeding.
The truck changed its proposition. A winch line nosed under the shutter lip like a ferret, snap shackle grinning small teeth. It wanted the seam and the day. The last meter of line looked new—braid clean, anodized shackle pin with 'NS' laser etched like a signature.
Ash waited for the angle. The shackle presented side-on as the driver leaned to see; for a breath the pin looked at him with one bright, precise eye. He pressed.
Metal spit. The pin snapped. The line licked back across the yard into its own hurry and slapped armor. The truck's idle climbed and sulked.
[SYSTEM PROMPT]Field disabling shot: grapple snap shackle pin (long-range). Difficulty: mid. +200 Mechanic XP / +300 Basic Mechanical Repair XP.
"Proceedings note attempted breach," Admin said to the recorder, steady as a metronome. "Defense executed on tools, not personnel."
The Nightshade sergeant said a word that would have gotten a boy washed out in older armies. The liaison said, "This is hostile obstruction."
"This is room," the City-Admin clerk said, with a patience that had grown ribs today. "You convene in a room. Or you come back at dawn with papers that don't carry hooks."
The Nightshade clerk took a long breath for optics and said, "Adjournment until oh-six. Continuous inspection rights retained."
"View-only," Admin said.
"View-only," the City-Admin clerk repeated, and he laid a blue seal across the barrier rope knot—number read aloud, duplicate stuck to Admin's page. He wrote VENUE SEALED—RETURN DAWN and underlined sealed so the underline could carry some of the day's weight.
The cart backed up, sullen and quiet. The drone climbed. The truck rolled its shoulders like a bull pretending it wanted grass. Boots scuffed. The watching pair left a lean behind, as if leans could keep rooms honest.
Ash took one more check on the turnbuckle—a fingertip on a link; the chain sang set—and stepped back from the grille.
[SYSTEM PROMPT] Venue status: sealed (blue). Barrier: locked. External threat: monitoring. Recommendation: night checks at hinge and seam.
They turned to go. The room held for one extra breath like a lung that didn't trust its next air.
The armored truck outside decided it was done pretending to be a clerk. A grapple shot from a telescoping launcher tucked under the bumper, a small steel harpoon with barbs meant for sheet. It slid under the curtain lip and bit. The winch spooled before the line had finished making its first mistake.
The curtain flexed. The posts didn't. The bar didn't.
Ash was already at the grille, cheek off the stock, muzzle barely through, breath not wasted. The harpoon's shackle showed one clean pin head as the drum took slack.
He pressed, and the moment held between paper and steel.