Noah slid the bench switch down until the enclosure's glow fell to a heartbeat. He left the overheads dead. The room became edges and habits.
"Dry run only," he told the machine, then palmed the long wrench into the shadow where he could find it without looking.
He crossed to the west wall and pressed his fingertips to the paint, reading the studs like Braille. The siding outside hid the adhesive scar; inside, the wall was older than his patience—two coats of paint over board that pretended to be plaster.
He knelt. Chalked a rectangle where the HUD had drawn coordinates. Cut inside the line, pry clean, patch later.
"Hand," he whispered. "Hold."
[Manual assist acknowledged.]
The hand reached out of the box with a quiet grace and braced a square of scrap wood against the wall—its palm a living clamp. Noah set the cutter's lance to a depth that wouldn't kiss any wire. He could almost hear Raines in his head: Anything generating heat. Fine. He would hum instead of burn.
"Cutter—oscillate. Two millimeters. Slow stroke."
The lance dropped, not to metal now but to paint and brittle board. It sang a higher, softer note and chewed a clean slot. Dust sighed; the fan in the enclosure kept breathing; a thin river of air pulled the powder toward the cracked window. No sparks. No smell of hot.
He cornered the rectangle and traced the final side. The waste slouched inward. He pinched it with pliers and eased it free in one piece, a neat window into the dark between wall and world.
There it was—stuck to the backside of the siding: a cheap gray square with a coin-cell belly and a spiteful little brain.
Noah reached in with needle-nose pliers, felt the adhesive fight, and peeled until the device sighed free like skin from a sunburn. He flipped it to the light of the enclosure.
[Beacon signal lost.]
He held the thing between fingers as if it could bite, then cracked the case with the pliers' back jaw and pressed until the coin cell wept a flat, ugly glitter. He dropped both pieces in a coffee can marked "bad ideas" and slid the rectangle of wall back into place. Two wood screws and a smear of filler would make a sin into a memory.
He touched the hole's edges, felt the clean fit, and breathed.
"Good," he said, not to the machine.
He stood, rolled his shoulders, and listened. The yard was still except for the kind of movement that belongs to grass. Somewhere far off, a truck shifted a gear and forgot him.
[External RF scan: background only.][Utility meter: intermittent telemetry spike.]
"Define."
[Smart meter burst: normal schedule.]
He let his jaw unclench. "I was ready to hate a second bug."
He pivoted to the problem that would shake hands with the morning: a hood.
He laid three sheets of thin-gauge steel on the bench and chalked a plenum that a firefighter wouldn't laugh at. Not pretty. Functional. A slanted throat over the enclosure window; a short duct to the back window; a cheap fan mounted in a cut panel; tape and self-tappers to keep air from changing its mind.
"Hand—hold. Cutter—line. No thermal."
The hand flattened the first sheet. The cutter traced the chalk into obedient edges. He bent the metal across his knee and a sawhorse with the slow patience of someone who trusts leverage. Rivets coughed in neat rows. The box began to wear a collar.
He cut a rectangle out of a plywood scrap and framed it in aluminum angle, drilled four corners. The hand passed him screws like a silent caddy.
He lifted the plenum into place and felt for where the screws wanted to go. The hand steadied, the cutter piloted, the rivet gun spoke. He braced his weight and found the plenum's center with his palm—the sheet flexed and then believed him.
"Window," he said.
He unlatched the back window and eased the frame up. Cold crept in. He set the fan panel into the opening and tightened four wing nuts until the whole cheap idea vibrated with confidence.
[Airflow test available.]
"Run capture."
[Fan at 70%.]Air drew through the box, past his wrist hairs. He held a strip of shop towel under the hood lip and watched it flatten and dance toward the throat.
"Good." He relocated the fan to 80 and felt the note deepen. "Better."
He taped the duct seams with a shiny ribbon of faith, then slathered the joints with foil mastic—the kind that forgives. He wiped his hands on a rag and wondered what Raines would hate most: the unlicensed competence or the competence that pretended to be cheap.
He bumped the box's lid a notch.
[Thermal: disabled.][Recommendation: low-thermal test with capture measurement.]
"Ten percent," he said. "Enclosure closed."
[Thermal: 10%.]
He slid the crystal a finger's width above a scrap plate inside and watched a tiny halo bloom and vanish. The towel stream at the hood lip grew eager. The smell of warm iron arrived late and left early.
He smiled despite himself. The hood wouldn't save a factory. It would save a morning.
His phone buzzed on the pegboard. He flipped it over with a thumb.
COUNTY: "Appointment confirmed for 09:00. Bring written procedures for lockout & PPE."
Then, on the same screen, another nudge:
UTILITIES: "Atypical draw noted. Please reply YES if work is ongoing within permitted hours. A field check may occur."
He typed YES and set the phone face down.
Every decision felt like coaxing a dog. See? I'm calm. Be calm with me.
He sealed the last joint and stepped back. The room had edges again. The hood made a small weather of its own, pulling the air in the same direction his life wanted to go.
He eyed the red tag. It watched him without blinking.
He set the machine to a dry routine and let the three arms trace choreography—a small, neat dance inside the box—no heat, just the certainty of paths. The hand flicked a spacer into a slot and pretended to hold it. The cutter dipped and mimed a kiss. The crystal waited, capped and studious.
He looked at the clock and realized he had stopped checking it hours ago. The night was large but not endless.
Outside, a distant whine rose and fell—the drone's cousin or the same toy on a fresh battery. It didn't come to the window. Not yet.
Noah pulled the pliers from the coffee can and looked at the dead beacon. He could boil it in the solvent wash and make it a rumor. He could leave it there like a trophy. He chose to drop it into a tiny steel box and screw the lid shut because trophies are for people who want to be seen.
"Fan test," he said again, and the box obliged, the hood lip drawing a clean, invisible line.
He chalked the next small thing that looked big: a bolt-on shroud panel for the enclosure's front—something that would say prototype louder than weapon. He cut and bent, riveted a cheap plexi window into it, and taped the edges with a tight, ugly thoroughness that made inspectors relax. Honest ugliness was a kind of camouflage.
The phone buzzed once more.
COUNTY: "Heads-up: Fire may accompany for hood verification. If schedule changes, we'll text."
He could feel the clock move again, a shadow crossing behind him.
He checked the chain at the rear gate through the window slit. Still hanging loose, a mouth waiting to be used. He made a note to rethread it at dawn and weld a proper clasp the moment no one was looking.
He washed his hands in a plastic basin and found fresh gloves. The hood's edge sang a very soft note. He pressed the towel under it and watched it obey.
He could end here: lid closed, hood mounted, red tag unoffended, sleep a few hours, wake to a checklist. He could also steal a day. A single seam at low thermal, door locked, lights dead. The hood would drink most glow; the box would drink the rest.
The trip he wanted to take wasn't long. One long seam across the baseplate—foundation for a carriage that would make tomorrow's fabrication move on rails instead of elbows. With that done, everything else would accelerate.
He stepped to the breaker and kept his hand on his thigh instead. The habit of flipping it rose up in him like thirst.
"Don't be stupid," he said, then added, "Be efficient."
He lowered the lid completely. He set the hood to 90%. He turned the overheads off even in their offness, touching the switch as if to remind himself that dark was a decision.
"Seam one. Low thermal."
[Profile: SEAM-1.][Thermal: 12%. Vent capture: good.][Safety: acceptable.]
He braced the plate, double-checked the clamps, and rolled his shoulders until they remembered he had a body.
The hand steadied. The cutter hovered. The crystal waited, polite and predatory.
A low pair of headlights slid along the far fence—slow, not stopping. A car turned at the corner and forgot him. The drone's whine lifted, uncertain rain over a field.
Noah put his fingers on the feed knob and felt its knurl like a familiar lie. One seam isn't cutting. He almost laughed at himself. It is literally cutting. It's also necessary.
He looked at the door, at the rag over the glass. He looked at the chain's shadow, unhooked. He looked at the hood lip and the towel's obedient bend.
The red tag on the door burned popular and stupid. It said tomorrow. The machine in the box said now.
He pulled in a breath that fit his chest and not the world.
Then the phone rattled the pegboard with an energy that wasn't bureaucracy.
UNKNOWN: "Turn it off. We're coming back."
He stared at the message until it felt like someone else's. The second bubble arrived before his opinion did.
UNKNOWN: "We brought a friend with a badge."
He put the phone face down and made it a different room by the act of not acknowledging that the words existed.
The drone's whine grew closer. A shape drifted to the edge of the window slit and held, shy of the bright.
Noah tightened his grip on the feed knob. The hood drew air like a principled thief. The box waited.
He could turn the knob and buy a day. He could keep his hand at his side and buy a morning.
It felt like the simplest arithmetic he'd done in years and the kind that ruins lives.
He pressed his thumb to the knurl until the pyramids printed his skin.
Outside, near the gate, metal talked softly to metal.
He had to choose the crime he could afford.