He didn't answer the knock.
The seam hissed and glowed, white eating gray. The crystal purred, the sound barely there and somehow louder than the pounding at the door.
"Mr. Cole," Raines called again, knuckles sharp on wood. "Open up. Immediate safety check."
"Busy," Noah said, not turning his head. The beam traced the chalk and made the chalk a liar. The hand steadied the plate; the cutter hovered, ready to nip tabs. Heat pushed against his cheeks through the lenses; sweat crawled his spine.
[Traverse: 250 mm/s.][Melt pool stable.][Fume density rising.]
"Not now," he muttered, not to Raines. "Hold the draw."
Outside the window something whined, a mosquito with a grudge. The drone slid across the glass and stopped, the lens a glossy black pupil. It edged sideways until it found a sliver past the propped tin.
Noah nudged the blind tighter with his shoulder, never lifting the lenses. The drone smacked the pane lightly, a child's tap. "Fuck off," he said, conversational.
The seam reached the end. He lifted the crystal and let the white cool to sullen cherry. The long bracket looked right—straight, no heat warp. He barely let himself enjoy it.
[Operation complete.][Thermal stress: low.]
He pivoted to the rails. Time wasn't money; time was safety. He needed the bones up and the arms parked in a way that looked legal and boring.
"TRIAD to Shroud," he said.
[Choreography program not found.]
"Fine. We build it live."
He dragged two lengths of angle iron onto the bench, slipped them under the rails. The hand fetched bolts in neat groups; the cutter trimmed burrs where the rails would sit flat; the laser made three tiny tack welds that felt like signing a name. He checked level—bubble dead center.
The door shook. Raines wasn't knocking now; she was testing it. "Mr. Cole, I will contact the fire marshal if you don't comply."
"Schedule it for tomorrow," he called, polite as a blade. He didn't look away from the rails. "Insurance won't love me letting strangers into an active cut."
"That's not how this works."
"Then get a warrant. Or a bigger clipboard."
A beat, then the sound of a phone call being made inches from his door. The drone whined again, higher now; the little bastard had found the window's weathered gap at the edge of the frame.
[External device: consumer drone; range: 18 meters; angle: 15° downward through aperture.][Camera active.][Recommendation: occlude line-of-sight or reduce internal luminance.]
He killed the bench lights with his elbow. The shop fell to the glow of the crystal and the dim work lamps. The corrugated tin threw a greasy shadow over the bench. The drone buzzed forward until its props churned dust in the window's old channels.
"Persistent shit," Noah said.
He shoved the long backbone plate up onto the rails. The hand slid a carriage under it; the cutter clipped temporary tabs. He took a breath and welded—tiny zips, keep the heat low, keep the hide high.
[Warning: Luminance spike may reveal operation.]
"Zip and hush." He shifted his body to block the window's crack. The welds stitched invisibility.
Across the yard a new engine approached—lower, official, the kind that didn't rattle. Through the gaps in the tin he caught a reflection of white paint.
He snapped the last tack and thumbed the crystal to standby. The shop exhaled.
[Standby.]
The hand held the backbone steady, fingers curled in a machine's idea of patience. Noah moved fast—bolts, washers, torque snug. Then a simple shell: he grabbed two pre-cut sheets of dull aluminum, bent them over his thigh, and held them in place while the hand fed rivets.
"Cutter—pilot." The lance bit tiny holes. The hand popped rivets with quick, satisfying coughs. The shell began to look like a box around sin.
"Mr. Cole," Raines called, voice closer to flat now, the way people get when their escalation ladder is out. "I have Fire on the way. If you don't open voluntarily, this becomes very inconvenient."
"Same," he said, breathless, and he meant it.
He slid the second sheet in place. Now the tri-arm spine looked like a prototype CNC enclosure if you squinted—square edges, a cheap window he'd screw on later, all the menace smothered. The crystal's glow became a rumor inside.
[Optics: external profile reduced.][Thermal: residual heat inside enclosure.]
The drone's lens found a pinhole between sheet and rail and stared. He could feel its stare like a fingertip on his neck.
He lifted a scrap strip, bent it, and the hand snapped it into the gap. Rivet—cough. The pinhole went black.
He let his breath out. "Good."
[Shroud—manual assembly complete.]
The gate rattled. Another vehicle came up the lane and did not stop at the buzzer. Tires on gravel. Noah peered through the narrow corner of the window not covered by tin.
The pickup. Bix again. Of course.
"Fuck me," Noah said softly.
Bix parked crooked and stayed in the cab this time, phone up—no pretending. The county sedan slid in behind him, prim and blank. Raines talked into her phone and didn't look at the pickup; professionals didn't see things that complicated their job.
Noah wiped his face and checked the bench. The backbone was on. The rails were true. The three arms rested within the box, their wrists down, like harmless tools.
He needed a lid. He grabbed a sheet, set it across the top, and the hand clamped it while the cutter nipped corners for fasteners. Eight self-tappers later, he had something that a bored inspector might call a machine instead of a project.
He pulled the lenses down around his neck and tested the door lock. Solid. He could open a slice and argue. He could keep it shut and draw fire. He could do a third thing—the thing he didn't want to want.
The drone drifted higher, testing angles. It ticked the glass lightly with a prop, impatient.
[External device range: 12 meters. Angle: 22° downward. Camera zoom: 2×.][RF channel open.]
"Can you jam it?" he asked, not expecting an answer.
[No RF jamming capability.]
"Right." He palmed sweat onto his jeans and thought about optics. Lenses hate glare. Lenses hate saturation. Lenses hate not seeing.
He could flood the window with light and steam. He could crack the extinguisher for a whiteout, but Raines would smell propellant and think fire. He could blast the drone—not with a gun he didn't have, not with a rock through his own window—but with light.
He looked at the blind, the small gap, the crystal's domestic star.
Don't be stupid, he told himself, automatic. Don't put a beam on a window. Don't. Don't—
Outside, Bix's pickup door creaked. Bix got out and elbowed the fence latch like they were friends. He lifted a hand to Raines, the motion loose, almost kindly.
"Afternoon," he called. "We're neighbors."
Raines didn't answer him. She kept her eyes on the door. "Mr. Cole, last request: open up."
Noah's heart thudded in the quiet that comes before stupid things.
He stepped to the bench, slid the blind a finger's width, and brought the crystal to a polite angle at the floor near the window—an inch of steel scrap propped like a tiny mirror.
[Warning: reflective hazard.]
"I know."
He nudged the scrap with his boot, found an angle that tossed a shard of bright onto the window frame—just enough to fog the drone's shot without actually painting the glass.
[Risk: moderate.]
"Moderate's fine."
He thumbed the emitter to its lowest power and pulsed it—short, surgical flashes into the scrap. A rectangle of savage light jumped across the pane, not a beam, but the suggestion of one, glare on glare.
The drone twitched away instinctively, battling its own exposure like a moth refusing a porch light. It scooted sideways, lens hunting for a darker slice. Noah shifted the scrap, pulsed again. The pane bloomed; the drone retreated two meters and steadied, confused, angry.
Raines looked up sharply at the window. Her eyes narrowed at the flare.
"Mr. Cole," she called, voice thin with alarm, "are you firing something inside there?"
"Cooling fans," he said, which was true in the wrong way. "This is a bad time, Ms. Raines. I'm happy to schedule."
He was not happy. His hands shook with control.
He set the emitter to standby again and closed the blind gap with his hip. The workshop fell into its safe glow.
[Standby.]
He checked the box—the faux enclosure. It would pass a glance. It would not pass an audit. He needed to either bluff or open. He needed to either neutralize the drone or live with the video.
The pickup's passenger finally got out, a skinny man with a sunburn and a grin he probably took off and put on in the mirror. He kept his phone up. "Yo," he called to Raines, casual. "County lady. You mind if I film? Public right of way."
"This is private property," Raines said without looking at him. "Step back."
Skinny laughed and didn't.
Noah thought about all the ways this could end: the county's polite threat becoming a paper he could ignore until men with tools arrived; Bix's "Materials & Solutions" turning into a pipeline of cash and problems; his own project becoming a rumor with a video.
He went to the door, set his palm flat on the wood, and inhaled.
[Recommendation: secure interior before entry.]
"I know," he said to the absent friend in his skull, and flicked the three arms to parade pose—wrists low, elbows tucked, tips covered with quick 3D-printed caps he'd kept for this kind of performance.
The caps snapped on with magnetic clicks. The laser's crystal wore a dumb little bucket hat of stamped aluminum. The cutter's lance hid behind a rubber boot. The hand looked like a bad toy.
He pocketed his lenses, wiped his mouth, and cracked the door an inch.
Raines stood square in the sliver, tablet held like a shield. Behind her, the county sedan blazed a helpful orange on its dashboard. To her right, Bix leaned on the fence like he was watching ducks. The drone hovered at the corner of the window, wary now.
"Ms. Raines," Noah said. "I'm not refusing an inspection. I'm refusing a surprise inspection while my equipment's hot."
"Then turn it off."
"It is off. Fans run."
"Let me verify."
"I'll make you a deal," Noah said. "We set a time for morning. You come with the checklist. I have extinguishers, I have ventilation, I have eye protection—" he touched the lenses around his neck "—and I'll walk you through everything. You bring whoever makes you sleep at night. Just not today while things can bite."
Raines weighed him. She wasn't theatrical. She was tired and wanted to do it by a book that had burned years ago and been reprinted on cheaper paper.
"Fire is en route," she said. "They're two minutes out. If I leave and something happens tonight, it's on me."
"Nothing's happening tonight except me finishing a box," he said. "You can even stand in the doorway and watch me not die."
"That's not how this works," she said again, but this time softer, the way people say a learned line they don't feel.
The skinny man lifted his phone, bored into his screen. "Say 'government overreach,'" he told no one in particular, and chuckled.
Noah looked at the drone's shadow against the window and felt something unhelpful rise in him—the urge to solve a problem violently.
The drone slid closer again, brave in small increments.
[External device range: 9 meters. Angle: 27° downward.][Camera zoom: 3×.]
He could step back, lock the door, and cut the feed with light again. He could open the door, invite Raines two steps inside, show her dead fans and dead tools and sell boredom. He could take the small risk or the big one.
The county siren answered the decision like thunder announcing weather. A second car turned into the lane—red stripe, white roof. Fire.
Raines lifted her chin like a person who had been handed a solution by the universe. "Mr. Cole. Now."
Noah looked at the box he'd built around his sins, at the crystal wearing a hat, at the drone's little eye, at Bix's grin, at Raines's tired certainty, at the siren coming closer.
He put his hand on the lock.
He also put his other hand on the bench switch that would throw power back to the spine—quietly, no lights, just enough to slide the arms into a different innocent pose or to do something uglier.
[Power routing available.][Warning: movement during entry increases risk of detection.]
He had one heartbeat to choose: unlock and bluff through a controlled look, or light the room for one savage second to blind the drone and buy five minutes of dark.
His thumb hovered over both futures.
The siren yelped short and near.
Noah swore, quietly, and—
—moved.
He snapped the lock and tapped the bench switch to park the arms, keeping the room dark.