AUTHOR NOTE: Reminder that we'll be going down to 2 chapters per week. Tues/Sat.
Tess marveled at the fabric tablecloth, running her fingers across it, while Kade studied the menu with an intensity that suggested he was studying for an exam.
“You know,” she said, “you could have just told me.”
“Told you what?” Kade didn’t look up.
“That your hauler won’t start.”
He lowered the menu just enough to show his eyes. They held the expression of a man who’d been caught and was trying to decide whether to keep lying.
“It starts,” he said.
“Does it?”
“Sometimes.”
“Kade.”
He set the menu down. Around them, Bistro Y hummed with the quiet energy of a lunch crowd, people in clean clothes eating food that probably cost more than Kade made this week. The pale wood and soft lighting made everything feel muted, civilized. She still wasn’t entirely sure why Kade had insisted on meeting here instead of Tak’s Noodles.
“Okay, fine.” Kade leaned back in his chair. “It doesn’t start at all anymore. Hasn’t since last week.”
“And you’ve been doing what, exactly?”
“Walking. Taking the tram. Bumming rides off people who still have functional vehicles.” He picked up his water glass, swirled it. “I may have also tried to fix it myself.”
“You tried to fix it yourself.”
“I watched some tutorial holos.”
Tess closed her eyes. “Kade.”
“I know, I know. But you were busy with the whole…” He waved vaguely. “Noble house situation. I didn’t want to bother you.”
She opened her eyes. He was watching her with the Kade look, somewhere between sheepish and defiant.
“So instead of asking for help,” she said. “You decided to learn mechanical repair from tutorials. On a hauler that was already falling apart. And you made it worse.”
“Significantly worse,” he agreed. “But hey, you’re here now. And I’m buying lunch.”
“At a place with tablecloths.”
“Good investment.” He grinned. “You’re kind of a big deal these days. House Tertian contracts, fancy workshop, probably about to become the most famous technician on Tertius-Prime. I figure I should get in early while you still remember the little people.”
A server appeared before Tess could respond, took their orders, and vanished with a practiced efficiency that came from working in places where customers expected to be waited on.
Tess didn’t even remember what she had ordered. Braised something or other?
“I’m not famous,” Tess said once they were alone again.
“Not yet. But you will be. Rivera’s Repairs, fixing things for nobles. That’s practically a brand.” Kade leaned forward, eyes bright. “Speaking of which, I have some ideas for advertising.”
“Please don’t.”
“Just hear me out.”
Her communicator buzzed. Tess glanced at it, grateful for the interruption.
Alex.
“I need to take this.” She stood, stepping away from the table toward the restaurant’s front windows. “Alex?”
“Ms. Rivera.” His voice was professionally neutral, with just a hint of the dry humor they’d developed over the past week. “We’ve got a delivery situation at the workshop.”
“What kind of situation?”
“The kind where there are crates everywhere and half of them are labeled ‘hauler parts.’ Which is strange, because I wasn’t aware we’d ordered hauler parts. Unless you’re planning to expand into vehicle maintenance. In which case, congratulations, I suppose.”
Tess pinched the bridge of her nose. “Those are mine. Personal order.”
“Ah.” A pause. “Well, they’re here. Along with about twenty other crates that I assume are also part of House Tertian’s ongoing investment in your operation. There’s a diagnostic station that I’ve only ever seen in catalogs. And something called a ‘mag-lev transport board’ that I’m fairly certain costs more than my annual salary.”
“I’ll be there soon. Can you unpack?”
“Already done. Just thought you should know about the scope of the delivery. It’s… substantial.”
She ended the call and returned to the table. Kade was already standing, pulling out his credit chit.
“Work calls?”
“Workshop delivery. I need to sort it out.” She hesitated. “But I’ll stop by Sector 7 tonight. We can look at the hauler then.”
His face lit up. “You’re the best.”
“You’re paying for lunch.”
“Obviously. Money well spent.” He pressed his chit to the table’s payment reader. “I’ll see you tonight. Try not to get conscripted into any more noble house schemes between now and then.”
***
The workshop was utter chaos.
Crates lined every available surface, stacked three high in some places. Diagnostic equipment sat on workbenches, still wrapped in protective sheeting. Tool racks had been installed along one wall, filled with implements Tess had only ever read about.
Alex stood in the middle of it all, holding a datapad and looking like a man who’d stopped being surprised several deliveries ago.
“There you are.” He made a note on the pad. “I’ve inventoried about half of it. The highlight is definitely the plasma welder with adjustable beam width. I didn’t even know those existed outside military applications.”
Tess picked her way through the crates, trying to get a sense of the scope. “I placed the orders through a merchant friend… I didn’t think she’s go this crazy. And House Tertian just allowed it?”
“I don’t even think they looked at it. Lady Sara signed off on the requisitions personally.” Alex set down the datapad and picked up something from a nearby bench. “Here. This one’s interesting.”
It was a board, roughly a meter long and half a meter wide, made of some kind of composite material that gleamed under the workshop lights. Tess took it, testing the weight. Lighter than she expected.
“Mag-lev transport board,” Alex said. “Watch this.”
He pressed something on the board’s edge, and it collapsed. The meter-long surface folded in on itself, sections sliding and compacting until Tess was holding something no bigger than a thick book.
“Fully portable,” she said.
“Very. And when it’s deployed, it can carry up to two hundred kilograms while hovering about half a meter off the ground, adjustable height too. Great for hauling boxes. Would also work great in air ducts, if someone was doing maintenance work in tight spaces.” He gave her a look that was entirely too knowing.
Tess thought about her knees. About the hours spent crawling through maintenance tunnels, both in the Estate and in the dungeon. About how much she’d been dreading doing that again.
She triggered [ANALYZE], half-expecting the usual Network-manufactured readout. Instead, a full-system display bloomed across her vision.
·········································MAG-LEV TRANSPORT BOARD MLT-4Designation: Personal Transport · Cargo AssistLoot Seed: 0xE7F2Status: StandbyHardware: OperationalUser Tech Skill: 7·········································Hover Height ............. Available [Tech 3]Speed Limiter ............ Available [Tech 4]Terrain Following ........ Available [Tech 6]Whisper Mode ............. Available [Tech 7]Auto-Follow Protocol ..... Locked [Tech 9]Emergency Brake Override . Locked [Tech 11]·········································
Dungeon tech. Actual dungeon tech, and it was hers. And the modification options… four features she could tweak right now, including Whisper Mode that was exactly at her current skill level. She could already imagine adjusting the hover height for different tunnel configurations, tweaking the speed limiter for tight corners.
Auto-Follow was locked, but only two tech levels away. A board that would trail behind her through maintenance shafts, carrying her tools while she worked. No more dragging a kit bag on her hands and knees through crawlspaces.
“That’s… actually useful.”
Her voice came out flatter than she had intended. Alex raised an eyebrow.
“You know you’re allowed to be excited. I’d be excited. You don’t have to pretend that you’re not.”
“I’m not pretending anything.”
“Your eyes got wide for a second there. Before you remembered to look unimpressed.”
Tess pressed the collapse mechanism, watching the board fold back down into its compact form. The weight settled in her hands, solid. No more crawling. No more aching knees and scraped palms. She could glide through the Estate’s maintenance network, hover over the dungeon’s deteriorating floors, reach places that would have taken her twice as long on foot.
“It’s fine,” she said. “It’ll do.”
Alex’s expression suggested he wasn’t fooled for a second.
“I thought you might appreciate it. There’s a carrying strap in the box, clips onto your belt.” Alex returned to his datapad. “Now, about these hauler parts. I’m not sure what they have to do with estate repairs, but who am I to question it?”
“Those are for a friend’s vehicle. Personal project.”
“Understood. They’re in the back corner, three crates total. Also, there’s a note from a Vera Kain attached to the shipment. She says, and I quote, ‘Stop pretending you’re going to pay for any of these.’ Not a very subtle person, is she.”
“That sounds like Vera.”
“She also says to tell you the door motor works perfectly now, and she’s added a few things to the order that you’ll need for ‘that project.’” Alex paused. “I didn’t ask what project. I’m learning not to ask questions.”
Tess found the hauler parts in the corner, exactly where Alex said they’d be. Three crates, neatly labeled, containing everything she’d ordered from Vera plus some things she definitely hadn’t.
Fuel line assemblies. Grav-plate calibration tools. A reactor core housing that looked brand new.
And at the bottom of the third crate, wrapped in protective foam, was a compact holo-projector with a note taped to it: For Kade. This one is on me. — V
She stared at it for a long moment.
“Everything alright?” Alex called from across the workshop.
“Just wondering when Vera started giving things away for free.”
“When someone else started paying for them, I imagine.”
That was probably it. House Tertian had apparently funded every repair-related expense in Tess’s life, and Vera was taking full advantage. It helped that Tess had a small fortune in credits saved up now too.
She loaded the hauler parts onto her new mag-lev board, testing how it handled the weight. The board hummed softly, hovering at exactly the right height for easy transport. She could get used to this.
“I’ll be back tomorrow,” she told Alex, “Early. We should go through the rest of the inventory.”
“I’ll be here. Try to get some sleep. You look exhausted.”
She probably did. Two days of processing the Guild revelations, talking with Bee, trying to figure out what came next. Sleep had been more theoretical than actual.
But tonight, she had a hauler to fix. Something simple. Something she knew how to do.
That sounded exactly like what she needed.
***
Kade’s hauler sat in the Sector 7 docks, looking like it had given up on life.
The thing had always been held together with stubbornness and optimism, but Tess had never seen it this bad. The engine housing was warped. One of the grav-plates had actually detached and was sitting on the ground next to the vehicle. And there was a smell coming from somewhere that suggested something had melted that really shouldn’t have.
“Kade,” she said carefully, “what exactly did you do?”
He was standing a safe distance away, hands in his pockets, radiating the energy of someone who knew they were about to be yelled at.
“I told you. I watched some tutorials.”
“Which tutorials?”
“…Generic ones. About reactors.”
“About reactors in general, or about the specific reactor in your hauler?”
“The tutorials didn’t get that specific.”
Marcus emerged from behind the hauler, wiping his hands on a rag. His expression was somewhere between horrified and impressed.
“Tess. You need to see this.”
She walked around to the engine bay, Kade trailing behind her like a child about to be shown the mess he’d made. Marcus had already opened the main access panel, revealing the hauler’s internals.
It was worse than she’d expected.
“Is that…” She leaned closer, not quite believing what she was seeing. “Kade. Is that a feedback loop?”
“I don’t know what that means.”
“It means you connected the power output back to the power input. The reactor was feeding itself until it couldn’t handle the load.” She traced the wiring with her eyes, following the disaster. “You’re lucky this thing didn’t explode.”
Bee’s voice came from the communicator. “I have 19 hypotheses about worse ways that reactor could have failed based on a feedback loop. Hypothesis 1: A large piece of plasteel could have pierced through the bulkhead, instantly…”
“No thanks, Bee.”
“Understood. Filing away for future inquiry.”
Marcus was shaking his head, but he was smiling. “The boy created a perfect storm of poor decisions. It’s almost beautiful.”
“It really is.” Tess pulled back from the engine bay and looked at Kade. “You completely destroyed your reactor.”
“Destroyed is a strong word.”
“It’s the accurate word.” She unfolded her new mag-lev board and set down her tools. “Good news is, I brought a replacement housing. Bad news is, we’re going to be here for a while.”
Kade’s face shifted from guilty to hopeful. “We? Like, you and your dad?”
“Like me and my dad.”
Marcus was already reaching for tools, moving with an energy Tess hadn’t seen from him in a long time. His lungs might finally be healed, but it was more than that. He looked eager. Ready to work.
“Let’s start with the fuel lines,” he said. “They’re shot, but we can salvage the connectors. Save us some time.”
“I saw them. They’re corroded all the way through.”
“Corroded, sure. But the fittings are still good. Trust me, I’ve worked with worse.”
They settled into the work. With Marcus taking point on the fuel system, Tess handling the reactor housing, Kade hovering nearby and handing them tools when asked. The evening air was cool, carrying the familiar sounds of the docks. Ships settling, people talking in the distance. The low, constant hum of the city’s infrastructure.
Marcus leaned back and sighed. “I forgot how much I missed this.”
“Working on haulers?”
“Working.” He fitted a connector into place, tested the seal. “Being useful. I spent so long just… existing. Waiting to get worse. Watching you handle everything alone.” He glanced at her. “You got good, Tess. Damn good. But I’m glad I can help again.”
She didn’t know what to say to that, so she focused on the reactor housing. The old one came out in pieces, metal warped and discolored from being melted. The new one slid into place with a satisfying click.
“Speaking of being useful,” she said, “can you look at the ignition system? Kade definitely did something to it.”
“I didn’t touch the ignition!”
Marcus was already inspecting it. He was quiet for a long moment.
“Kade,” he said finally, “this isn’t a power converter.”
“What do you mean? It says power converter right on it.”
“It has three inputs.” Marcus held up the component so Kade could see. “You didn’t think that leaving one disconnected was sort of a red flag?”
“I thought that was a spare. For, you know, expansion.”
Tess looked at her father. Marcus looked at Tess. Neither of them said anything.
BEE: I am detecting elevated frustration. Should I calculate the probability that Kade’s repairs were guided by actual understanding versus random experimentation?
“We both know it was random experimentation, Bee.”
BEE: Understood. However, I will note that there is a high probability the component Kade installed is actually a load balancer. It is impressive that the hauler functioned at all after this modification.
“Bee says it’s impressive your hauler didn’t just die immediately,” Tess translated.
Kade brightened. “See? Impressive.”
“That wasn’t a compliment.”
They worked through the evening. The reactor came online smoothly once they replaced the housing and rerouted the power flow correctly. The fuel lines took longer, Marcus insisting on doing each connection by hand to ensure they wouldn’t leak. The grav-plates needed recalibration, which meant crawling under the hauler and adjusting the alignment matrices one by one. The mag-lev board worked perfectly.
Somewhere around the two-hour mark, Kade disappeared and came back with food from Tak’s. They ate while sitting on crates, sharing containers of noodles while the hauler’s systems ran diagnostic cycles.
“This is nice,” Kade said, chopsticks pausing mid-bite. “This whole thing. Team effort.”
“You’re not part of the team. You’re the reason the team was necessary.” Tess said.
“I’m providing moral support.”
“You’re eating our food.” Marcus pointed out.
“Moral support requires fuel.”
Marcus laughed. Actually laughed, a sound Tess hadn’t heard nearly enough lately. “He’s got you there.”
The diagnostic cycle completed. All systems were green. Tess ran through the startup sequence, and the hauler hummed to life, stable, better than it had probably run in years.
Kade whooped, jumping off his crate and doing a little dance that would have been embarrassing if anyone else had been watching.
“It’s running! Listen to that hum!”
“It works,” Tess confirmed. She was tired, her fingers aching from hours of delicate work, but she couldn’t stop the smile spreading across her face. “Don’t break it again.”
“No promises.” But Kade was beaming, looking at the hauler like it was brand new. Then his expression shifted to something craftier. “Oh, I almost forgot. Vera gave me something. Said it was on House Tertian.”
He pulled out the holo-projector Tess had seen earlier.
“What is that?”
“Advertising.” He was already connecting it to the hauler’s external display port. “Rivera’s Repairs. We’re going mobile.”
The projector hummed to life, casting a small holographic image across the side of the hauler. Text scrolled across it in a simple but clean font:
RIVERA’S REPAIRSFixed by the Best
Tess stared at it. “I don’t hate it.”
Kade adjusted the projector angle. “Every time I drive through the sectors, people see your name. Free advertising. It’s a good investment.”
“You keep saying that.”
“Because it’s true. You’re going places, Tess. Might as well bring the rest of us along for the ride.”
She looked at the holographic sign, the hauler, and then at Kade, who didn’t know anything about guilds or dungeons or the weight she was carrying, who just knew his friend fixed things and that was worth celebrating.
“Vera charged this to House Tertian too?”
“Nah. This one was all Vera. She wanted to contribute something too.”
Tess sighed. Right now, standing in the docks with grease on her hands and the satisfaction of a job well done, she couldn’t bring herself to care.
“Let’s get it mounted properly,” she said. “The angle’s off.”
They spent another twenty minutes positioning the projector just right. By the time they were done, the holographic sign floated over Kade’s hauler like a beacon, advertising Rivera’s Repairs to anyone who cared to look.
Kade patted the hauler’s side with genuine affection. “Beautiful. Absolutely beautiful.”
“You’re ridiculous.”
“I’m a visionary.” He climbed into the driver’s seat, revving the engine just to hear it run. “Same time next month? For maintenance?”
“We’ll see.”
Marcus started packing up the tools, moving with purpose and energy. Tess helped him, the two of them working in comfortable silence while Kade continued to admire his newly functional vehicle.
“Good work today.” Marcus kept his voice low, not looking up from the toolbox.
“You too.”
“I mean it.” He closed the toolbox, his face unreadable in the dock lights. “You’ve gotten good at this. Better than I was at your age. Better than most people ever get.”
“I learned from you.”
“You went past what I taught you a long time ago.” He hefted the case. “I’m proud of you, Tess. Whatever comes next, I want you to know that.”
Whatever comes next. The dungeon. The Guild. The Network watching them from the shadows.
But that was tomorrow’s problem. Tonight, she’d fixed a hauler, spent time with her father, and watched Kade dance about advertising.
This was who she was. Whatever else was happening, this was still home.
“Come on,” she said. “Let’s get back to the freighter. I’m exhausted.”
They walked together through the docks, leaving Kade to admire his mobile advertisement. The evening had turned to night, the sector’s lights flickering on in their familiar, slightly unreliable pattern. Tomorrow would bring new complications, new decisions, extra weight to carry.
But tonight, Tess had grease under her fingernails and the memory of a job well done.
Some things at least were still simple.