The engineer met his eyes, got his answer, and began to lower her finger.
The switch completed the inch the room had been waiting for. The driver sang a verdict. Four-point-one landed like a stamp on bone.
He met it—ribs boxed, breath trapped where it couldn't rattle, feet talking to the slab in a language with no adjectives. The quarter-second ended with the kind of authority steel respected.
Cut. Baseline held.
[SYSTEM: Overshoot sample (4.1g, 0.24s) stable. Tissue load acceptable. Recommend end-cap cadence: ladder → hold → single overshoot.]
The engineer didn't blink slow or fast. "Logged," she said. "We use it at the end of ladders, not as a toy."
"End-cap," Vegeta agreed.
She nodded once to a tech. "Verify mounts."
A wrench clicked twice, the sound of obedience. The new ribs stayed ribs. The collar put its back into being a collar because that's what it had signed up for.
"Baseline three-point-two," she said. "Up. We take the long hold next. Three-point-six for thirty."
He set his feet a hair narrower, knees honest, tail a counterweight and not a vanity. The field pushed like a truth that didn't need theater.
"Breath in on two," she coached, watching the knee as much as the graphs. "Box it. Exhale after the tenth second, not before."
"Counting is yours," he said.
"Time is mine," she answered. "You carry it."
Ten seconds behaved. Fourteen wanted to announce itself; he didn't let it. Twenty-three asked for a story from the right knee; he told it the wrong language.
"Twenty-eight," she called. "Twenty-nine. Cut."
He stepped off as if air had always weighed this much. His nose did not reconsider drama. The clerk dared a half-step closer with a bottle; Vegeta took two sips—currency, not charity.
"Again at thirty," the engineer said. "Then we ladder."
"Again," he said, already back on the plate.
They took another thirty and taught it their names. The wall stayed a wall. Driver B stayed true on the slab, heat curve clean. The collar didn't whisper. Good.
"Ladder," she said. "Baseline three-point-two. Pulse to three-point-eight for one; hold three-point-six for ten; pulse to four for half. Twice."
He let the band write the lines on his bones. One, hold, four; again. Rinse with breath. Repeat.
[SYSTEM: Ladder integrity—good. Advisory—hydration micro-sips after each ladder.]
He took one sip. The water learned manners.
The hatch thumped—two polite knocks and a regret. The lock light made no new friends.
"Shipyard," the clerk said at arm's length, voice pitched to survive gravity. "Rails down; driver bed arriving. They request confirmation on the 'rude collar' for the hatch design. Their words."
"Send the sketch," the engineer said, drawing a rectangle in the air with chalk memory. "Tell them rude is structural integrity in a language they understand."
Vegeta stayed on the plate. "End-cap," he said.
The engineer moved the switch to where it wanted to live. "End-cap," she echoed. "Quarter-second only. You say 'out' if anything whispers."
He didn't waste syllables.
[SYSTEM: Overshoot (4.1g ≤ 0.25s) armed. Consent reconfirm?]
"Consent," he said.
She dropped the finger. The band bit, named his spine guilty, met an appeal, and became precedent again. Cut. Clean. Baseline unflinching underneath.
Nerves lit along his forearms and sat down. The right knee behaved because it had learned.
"Logged," she said. "We don't chase that again this set. You want more, you buy it with holds."
"Then sell me thirty-five," he said.
"Earn thirty," she said. "Twice."
He earned it twice. The second thirty felt like an argument he didn't need to win because he'd already written the law. Sweat tried to move; gravity kept it literate.
Nappa's absence in the room made a shape; the room had filled the shape with ribs and work. The clerk spoke into his wrist with ceremony, throwing words at the east pad that sounded like confidence. The bay hummed in the key of steel that works for a living.
"Ladder again," the engineer said. "Then pairs. Then we end-cap once and stop pretending the day has more hours than physics."
"Physics works for me," Vegeta said.
"Physics doesn't work for anyone," she said, almost amused. "We negotiate."
They negotiated. Three-point-eight pulses said hello and minded their own business. Four-point-oh spikes arrived and left as instructed. The hold did not sing; the wall did not bow. His breath made the payments on time.
[SYSTEM: Session quality high. Protocol available—'End-Cap Chain' (two overshoots separated by 10s at 3.6g). Accept?]
He glanced at the switch, not at the panel. "Two," he said. "You cut if the wall breathes."
The engineer didn't flinch. "One more only," she said. "You buy it with ten seconds at three-point-six between."
"I pay," he said.
"Baseline three-point-two," she told the harness. "Up. Pulse to three-point-eight—now. Hold three-point-six for ten."
He carried the ten. The knee watched him and didn't speak. The collar did its job without needing applause.
"End-cap," she said. "First overshoot—on my mark. Three… two…"
[SYSTEM: Overshoot #1 armed—4.1g ≤ 0.25s. Consent reconfirm?]
"Consent," he said.
Her finger fell. Verdict. Precedent. Cut.
"Hold," she said, voice like a plumb line. "Three-point-six for ten. Do not get clever."
He behaved like a man who liked living inside his own bones. The ten did what it was told.
The clerk, because habits need occupation, whispered updates into his wrist. "East pad confirms… rails set. Mounts being drilled. They, uh, sent a compliment about our collar. They called it 'disrespectful in the right way.'"
"Finally," the engineer said, reading graphs. "Someone speaks my dialect."
Vegeta didn't twitch for the compliment. He watched the switch.
"Second overshoot armed," she said. She hovered her finger one more discipline long. "If the knee whispers—"
"It won't," he said.
"It might," she said. "I cut anyway."
He didn't nod.
[SYSTEM: Overshoot #2 armed—4.1g ≤ 0.25s. Consent reconfirm?]
"Consent," he said again.
"Three," she counted. "Two…"
The driver hum thickened into something with intent. The ribs settled as if they'd remembered a story from a previous life. The collar decided it was born for this and stopped doubting.
"One—"
Her finger fell.
Overshoot hit as if the room had found a new word and needed to try it. The right knee stood its ground. The nose did not perform. His spine took the stamp and gave it back without offense.
Cut. Baseline took over like a promise honored.
The engineer's shoulders dropped the two millimeters discipline allows. "Logged," she said. "We don't chase a third. That is the day."
"Again," Vegeta said, almost conversational.
"No," she said, not unkind. "Pairs at three-point-eight and four to scrub the edges, then thirty at three-point-six to put the day away, then the door opens and you go make Command feel like a courtesy."
He looked at the hatch light. It looked back, doctrinal and red.
"Scrub," he said, stepping off and on with no time for pretense.
They ran the pairs. His breath hit its marks. The field had the decency to behave like a tool that wanted to be used again tomorrow. The wall refused to sing. The clerk learned to count like a professional.
"Final thirty," the engineer said. "Three-point-six. Up."
The band pressed him into honesty. The seconds arranged themselves into a stack. He carried it. Twenty-eight wanted to be a headline. He cut it down to a caption.
"Thirty," she said. "Cut."
He stood on the plate a breath longer, because movement is a kind of admission, and he wasn't making any.
[SYSTEM: Session complete. Metrics recorded. Recovery advisory: micro-hydration, protein intake, cooldown walk (5–7 min) recommended.]
The panel dimmed to the polite level of a butler who knew his place. The engineer flicked the hatch control.
The lock light softened from doctrine to procedure. The door didn't leap open; it negotiated with itself and slid aside.
Air from the corridor perturbed the room and learned manners.
The clerk straightened like a man told he'd been temporary gravity. "Your Highness—shipyard asks if you want to inspect the hull now or—"
"Later," Vegeta said. "After the room eats."
"The room eats," the engineer echoed, which meant we rebuild what we broke before it notices.
He stepped off the plate. The floor tried to welcome him with a lie about lightness. He refused.
"Again?" he said without looking back.
"No," she said, already marking the mount that had flirted with song at second twenty-eight. "You get what you came for today. You come back for the rest."
He turned his head just far enough to put the sentence where it belonged. "I never leave."
The clerk flinched and then learned.
The engineer drew another rectangle on her palm, wrote numbers inside like a prayer that worked, and turned to the switch one last time—not to indulge him, but to prepare the next hour for being honest.
Her finger hovered over the pre-charge. The driver hum deepened because it knew what kinds of people they were.
"Baseline three-point-two," she said, more to the room than to him. "Up next time."
Her finger didn't drop—yet.