Kai walked toward the door. Milo caught up immediately.
"Wait—we have to go back to the lobby? Alone? What if I get lost?"
"Then you waste time and lose credits."
Milo's face paled. "That's a real consequence?"
"Yes."
They walked back through the corridor—Workshop 40, 39, 38. Kai counted doors to be sure. The numbers were a reassurance, a pattern he could hold onto. When they reached the lobby, the materials counter was busier now, with students from multiple workshops lined up in uneven rows.
Kai joined the line and waited.
The student ahead of him received a tray similar to what Kai would get. Core blank. Resin. Thread. Fittings. Standard issue for first-term Support students. Nothing special. Nothing wasteful.
When his turn came, Ms. Orla Venn held out a hand without looking up.
"Badge."
Kai passed it over.
She pressed it against a recessed plate on the counter. A faint pulse moved through the metal—recognition, registration, record. A mark lit briefly beside his name on a ledger she hadn't opened.
Then came the sound:
THUNK.
A dry, final stamp. Like a door closing. Like a decision made.
Orla slid out a narrow issue tray.
Starter-grade core blank. Measured resin vial. Basic thread. A wrapped packet of practice-grade fittings.
Nothing luxurious. Enough.
"Scholarship badge," Orla said to the ledger. Then her eyes lifted. They were gray, flat, and older than the stones of the academy. "Don't waste it."
Kai nodded. "Yes, ma'am."
He took the tray with both hands—a reflex, as if the materials were more fragile than they looked. The core blank weighed almost nothing. The resin vial was cool against his palm. The thread spool clicked softly as it shifted.
He carried the tray back through the corridor—Workshop 38, 39, 40—and into Workshop 41.
His station waited. He set the tray down carefully, the wood of the table solid beneath it.
For a long moment, he just stared at the materials.
Core blank. Resin. Thread. Fittings.
Four items. Four possibilities. Four questions he didn't know how to ask.
He picked up the core blank first. Small. Dense. Empty. It fit in his palm like it had been made to sit there—smooth, cool, perfectly still. He turned it over in his fingers, feeling its weight, its texture, its absolute stillness.
Thirty minutes, he thought. Someone had thirty minutes to claim its skill. They didn't. Now it's blank. Now it's waiting.
For someone to inscribe something new.
He thought about Holt's words. Processor. Energy storage. Inscription surface. All in one.
The core didn't look like any of those things. It looked like a rock. A very smooth, very deliberate rock that someone had decided was worth more than most people earned in a year.
He set it down and picked up the resin vial. Clear liquid, faintly sticky. He uncapped it carefully, held it away from his nose, and waved it toward himself. The smell was sharp, chemical, nothing like anything he'd encountered before. It reminded him of the workshop itself—clean, artificial, purposeful.
He recapped it and set it beside the core.
Thread next. Ordinary thread, really. A spool of off-white cord, thin enough to snap if pulled too hard. Holt had mentioned it was for binding—keeping components together, holding inscriptions in place, creating physical connections between parts of an item.
The fittings were last. A small wrapped packet that crinkled when he touched it. Inside, tiny metal pieces—clasps, rings, connectors—all practice-grade, all cheap, all meant to be ruined while learning.
He lined them up in front of him.
Materials. He had materials.
He didn't have knowledge. He didn't have tools beyond what was already at the station. He didn't have skill. He didn't have process.
But he had materials. That was a start.
Kai pulled out his notebook and flipped to a blank page. The paper was rough under his fingers, the same cheap stuff every student got at the start of term. He'd already filled half of it with notes from Holt's lectures, from Combat Foundations, from the screening.
This page would be different.
At the top, he wrote:
Pingband (idea)
He stared at the word. Pingband. It sounded like nothing. Like a child's toy. Like something that shouldn't exist.
But he'd felt the Signal Gnat's ping-map. He'd seen the world turn into points and distances, threats and paths, warnings and opportunities. He'd tasted what it meant to never be surprised, never be ambushed, never be blind.
His family deserved that.
Below the title, he wrote:
Function: translate Signal Gnat's ping direction into physical tug
Output: left/right + intensity (near/far)
He paused. How would that even work? A tug to the left meant danger left. A stronger tug meant closer danger. Simple. Obvious.
But how did you make a core tug?
He kept writing.
Materials: core blank (modified), resin, thread, receiver notch
Core blank = processor + energy storage. Needs inscription.
Complexity: detection + translation + output. Might need multiple cores?
He thought about Holt's trade-off. One T2 core could do the work of three T1s. But he was T1. He couldn't touch T2 materials without risking his life—and even if he could, he didn't have the credits.
So T1 it was. And if he needed three cores to make it work, he needed three cores.
He had one.
Trade-off: higher tier core could do it with fewer. But I'm T1.
He underlined that line. A reminder. A limit. A challenge.
At the bottom, he wrote the only thing that really mattered:
Goal: family safety when I'm away
He stared at the words.
When I'm away.
He was already away. The dorm was a ten-minute walk from home, but it might as well have been a thousand miles. His mother was alone with Lux and Rize every night. If the breach happened again—when the breach happened again—they would be blind.
Unless he built this.
He didn't know if it was possible. He didn't know if he had the skill. One core might not be enough. He might need two. Three. He didn't have three. He didn't have the credits to buy more. He didn't have the knowledge to inscribe what needed inscribing.
But for the first time since the screening, he had a direction.
Around him, other students examined their materials with varying degrees of confusion and dread. Some whispered to each other. Some sat in silence, staring at their trays like the answers might appear if they waited long enough. A few had already started measuring, their faces set with concentration that looked fragile, like it might crack at any moment.
Kai picked up the core blank again.
Small. Dense. Empty.
Waiting, he thought. Just like me.
He set it down and opened his notebook to the first page of Holt's lecture. The words Stability First were written at the top, underlined twice, the ink still dark from this morning.
He read it again. Then again.
Stability First.
What did stability mean for something that didn't exist yet? What did it mean for an idea scribbled in a notebook, held together by hope and a single core blank?
He didn't know.
But he knew he had to try.
He thought about his mother—the way she watched him from across the courtyard, never cheering, never frowning, just watching. The way she'd said "There will always be home for you to come back to." The way her hands had felt on his face the morning of the screening, warm and real and terrified despite her calm.
He thought about Lux—loud, proud, impossible Lux, who shouted "That's my brother!" to a courtyard full of strangers. Who trained beside him in silence when the coughing got bad, who never asked questions, who just stayed.
He thought about Rize—small, soft Rize, who curled against Lux during the breach night, who asked "Brother, you'll win again today, right?" with absolute faith in his voice. Who hugged Kai's waist like he could hold him there forever.
They were why he was here.
They were why he'd survived the screening, the fusion, the mosquito, the breach night.
They were why he'd keep trying, keep failing, keep getting back up.
He picked up his pencil and began to write. Not just notes—everything. The weight of the core blank in his hand. The sharp smell of the resin. The way the thread felt like it could hold something together or fall apart at the slightest pull. The fear that he'd never figure it out. The hope that he would.
He wrote until his hand cramped and the page was full.
When he finished, he closed the notebook and looked at the tray.
Core blank. Resin. Thread. Fittings.
Four items. Four possibilities. Four questions he didn't know how to ask.
But tomorrow, he'd start asking.
Tomorrow, he'd start trying.
Tomorrow, he'd begin the long, uncertain path toward making the Pingband real.
He tucked the notebook into his bag, slid the tray into his station drawer, and sat back.
Around him, the workshop hummed with quiet activity. Students measuring. Students sketching. Students staring at materials like Kai had, lost between wanting and knowing.
He wasn't alone in that.
But he was alone in what he carried—the core, the creatures, the secret that could destroy his family if it ever got out.
That weight would never leave.
But maybe, just maybe, he could build something that made it lighter.
He stood, gathered his bag, and walked toward the door.
Tomorrow.