Her left arm was at 60% on Day 13.
Kim Dae-won had assessed it twice — once the morning after the Sector 8 strike, once the morning after that. The void-frequency disruption to the musculature was resolving. Not quickly. The refined rounds' afterwave was a more complex frequency than standard void-frequency contact and the tissue was taking longer to restore its mana integration than a standard disruption would have.
60% function. Rising at approximately 8% per day.
She would be at full capacity by Day 17.
One day after the Sector 1 inspection window.
She sat in the Sector 11 safe house and looked at her left arm and did the arithmetic that she had been doing since she woke up and came out on the wrong side of it every time.
Six refined rounds. One node. Her left arm at 60%.
The Sector 8 strike had required both arms for the sequential precision firing. Round 4 and 5 simultaneous — the rapid-sequence compounding resonance that had pushed the efficiency from 74% to 89%. That had required the specific, bilateral coordination of a full-capacity A-Rank archer.
With her left arm at 60% she could fire the rounds.
She could not fire them with bilateral precision.
Which meant no rapid-sequence compounding. Which meant every round at its base efficiency — 67% against Year Zero architecture. Which meant the node might not go dark in six rounds.
Might.
She looked at the arm.
Then she looked at the Broker's rounds on the table in front of her.
Six of them. Each one slightly different from the standard void-frequency ammunition they had been using since the operation. The Broker had been working on the calibration for days — each round's void-frequency tuned to the specific resonance signature of the Sector 1 node's Year Zero architecture, which was different from the Sector 8 node's signature in the specific way that all Year Zero construction varied depending on which of the original twelve Founders had overseen its installation.
The Sector 1 node had been overseen by Ryu Jae-won.
She knew this because Ryu Jae-won had sent the information through the maintenance layer — the specific architectural notes of someone who had been maintaining the node for twenty-two years and understood its frequency signature at the level of intimate familiarity.
The Sector 1 node's resonance signature was the most precisely documented target she had ever had.
She looked at the rounds.
She looked at her arm.
She picked up the first round and turned it over in her fingers.
The Broker's fabrication was meticulous. Each round's void-frequency material precisely layered, the calibration built into the round's physical structure rather than applied as an external coating. The frequency was intrinsic — it would not degrade between fabrication and firing the way standard void-frequency coatings sometimes did in cold conditions.
She set it down.
She picked up a standard piece of paper from the table.
She drew the Sector 1 node's architecture from Ryu Jae-won's maintenance notes — which she had memorized, which was what she did with target information because her skill set was built on the specific, irreplaceable value of knowing exactly where to put an arrow before you drew the bow.
She drew the resonance seam.
The restart circuit.
The specific coordinate sequence that the Sector 8 strike had validated as the correct disruption approach for Year Zero architecture.
She drew it all with her left hand.
Her handwriting was worse than her right hand's. The 60% function producing lines that were slightly less precise, slightly less controlled. She could see the degradation in the drawing.
She looked at the drawing.
She looked at the rounds.
She picked up the first round again.
She thought about the Sector 8 strike. About the sequential precision firing. About the rapid-sequence compounding that her bilateral coordination had produced.
She thought about what the bilateral coordination had been doing mechanically.
The right hand drawing the bow. The left hand holding the grip. The specific, distributed force management of an A-Rank archer's full-draw position — the right hand managing the release, the left hand managing the bow's reaction force, both of them in precise communication to produce the clean, repeatable accuracy that sequential targeting required.
The compounding resonance had come from the timing — round 4 arriving before round 3's resonance faded, the frequency overlap amplifying both impacts. The timing had been possible because her bilateral coordination was fast enough to cycle the draw in the specific, short window between shots.
She thought about the timing.
About what the timing required.
Not bilateral strength. Bilateral speed. The left hand didn't need to be at 100% function to manage the bow's reaction force at a draw weight scaled for precision rather than power.
She set the round down.
She picked up her bow.
She adjusted the draw weight — not to accommodate the injured arm, to recalibrate the specific balance between her right hand's release speed and her left hand's reaction management at 60% function.
She drew.
The left arm protested. The 60% function producing the specific, dull ache of tissue that was being asked to work at a level it wasn't quite ready for.
She held the draw.
Counted.
One.
Two.
Three.
Released.
She looked at her hand.
At the arm.
At the bow.
She drew again.
Faster this time. Not full-draw — a partial draw, the specific shortened version that reduced the arm's load while maintaining the precision of the release.
She felt the difference in the accuracy.
She drew again.
And again.
For forty minutes she worked the arm through every draw variation she knew — full draw, partial draw, modified stance, altered anchor point — looking for the specific combination of modified technique that her 60% left arm could sustain repeatedly at the precision level the Sector 1 strike required.
She found it on the twenty-third variation.
Modified stance. Shortened draw. Adjusted anchor point that redistributed the load from the left forearm to the left shoulder — which was at 85% function, the void-frequency disruption having been concentrated in the forearm musculature.
The precision was 94% of her standard.
Not perfect.
Enough.
She put the bow down.
She picked up the paper with the node architecture drawing.
She annotated it — the new stance, the modified draw, the adjusted firing sequence that compensated for the bilateral precision reduction.
She worked for two hours.
When she finished she had a firing plan for the Sector 1 strike that accounted for every parameter of her 60% arm and produced, on paper, a disruption sequence that the Broker's six rounds should be able to execute.
On paper.
She folded the plan.
She put it in her coat.
She picked up the analog crystal.
She called Jinsu.
"Day 16," she said. "I'm ready."
"Your arm," Jinsu said.
"Modified technique," she said. "I've tested it. It works."
A pause.
"Show me," Jinsu said.
"Come to the safe house," she said.
He came.
She showed him.
He watched her run the modified technique twenty times without a miss on the specific target geometry she had drawn from Ryu Jae-won's architecture notes.
He watched without saying anything.
When she finished he looked at her arm.
At the modified technique's compensated form.
At the firing plan she had spent two hours developing.
"Day 16," he said.
"Day 16," she confirmed.
He looked at the rounds on the table.
At the specific, meticulous calibration of six pieces of void-frequency fabrication built by a man with horizontal violet eyes who had named his price as being present when it ended.
He looked at Soo-yeon.
"The Broker wants to be there," he said.
She looked at the rounds.
"Tell him to bring the rifle," she said.