Kai woke before the bell.
Not because he was rested—because his body had decided that sleep was optional and the core blank on his desk was not.
He lay in the dark for a long moment, listening to Milo's breathing through the thin wall. Slow. Steady. Untroubled. Milo probably dreamed about tailoring and resin and whatever normal Support students thought about.
Kai dreamed about points of light. Maps made of danger. A tug on his wrist pulling him toward home.
He sat up and reached for his notebook.
The Pingband sketch was still there, still crude, still full of questions he couldn't answer. But it was his. His idea. His goal. His reason to keep failing until he didn't.
He dressed quickly, tucked the notebook into his bag, and slipped out before Milo could wake and ask questions.
The corridor was empty. The lanterns were dimmed to their lowest setting, casting long shadows that pooled in corners and under doors. Kai's footsteps echoed softly as he walked—tap, tap, tap—the only sound in a building full of sleeping students.
He didn't know where he was going until he got there.
Workshop Hall 41.
The door was unlocked. Of course it was—students were expected to practice, to fail, to try again. Holt didn't believe in hand-holding. He believed in giving you the tools and letting you drown or swim.
Kai pushed the door open and stepped inside.
The hall was different in the early morning. Quieter. Softer. The lanterns weren't fully lit—just enough to see by, not enough to chase away the shadows. His station waited exactly where he'd left it, the tray still in the drawer, the core blank still small and dense and empty.
He sat down and pulled out the tray.
Core blank. Resin. Thread. Fittings.
Four items. Four possibilities.
He picked up the core blank first. It was cool against his palm, smoother than he remembered. He turned it over, studying the surface for any imperfection, any hint of what it had been before it went blank.
There was nothing. Just stillness.
Thirty minutes, he thought again. Someone had thirty minutes to claim its skill. They didn't. Now it's mine.
He set it down and pulled out his notebook.
Holt's lecture echoed in his mind. Materials. Knowledge. Tools. Skill. Process.
He had materials. He had tools—basic ones, at least. He had the beginning of a process: inscribe the core, bind it to a housing, connect it to a receiver.
He didn't have knowledge. He didn't have skill.
But he had to start somewhere.
He picked up his pencil and began to sketch.
---
The first attempt was laughably bad.
Kai tried to inscribe a simple detection pattern on the core blank—just a few lines, a basic circle, nothing complex. He'd seen diagrams in Holt's lecture. He'd copied them into his notebook. How hard could it be?
The answer, he discovered, was very.
The resin was too thick. The tip of his inscription tool—a cheap metal needle provided at the station—kept catching on the core's surface instead of gliding. The lines he managed to make were uneven, too deep in some places, too shallow in others. When he tried to test the pattern by feeding a tiny thread of Aether into the core, nothing happened.
No pulse. No glow. No response.
Just a blank core with some ugly scratches on it.
He stared at it for a long moment.
Crude, he thought. This is what crude looks like.
He set it aside and reached for another core blank.
He didn't have another core blank.
This was his only one. His starter allotment. His single chance to practice before he had to earn more credits.
He looked at the ruined core. The scratches seemed to mock him.
You'll make many crude items before you make anything better, Holt had said.
Kai hadn't realized how many "many" meant.
He put the ruined core back in the tray and pulled out his notebook. If he couldn't practice on real materials, he'd practice on paper.
He sketched the same pattern again. And again. And again.
By the time the bell rang, he'd filled three pages with circles and lines and notes about what he'd done wrong.
---
The workshop filled slowly as students trickled in. Some looked well-rested. Some looked like they hadn't slept at all. A few glanced at Kai's station—at the ruined core, at the pages of sketches—and quickly looked away.
Milo arrived halfway through the bell, hair sticking up in three directions, bag half-open, eyes still bleary.
"You're here early," Milo mumbled, collapsing into his station.
Kai didn't look up. "Couldn't sleep."
"Me neither. Had a dream about resin. It was... sticky." Milo shuddered. "I don't want to talk about it."
Kai almost smiled. Almost.
Holt entered exactly when the bell stopped ringing. His eyes swept the room once, taking in every station, every student, every ruined core and failed attempt.
He stopped at Kai's station.
For a long moment, he just looked at the scratched core blank. Then at the pages of sketches. Then at Kai.
"You tried," Holt said.
It wasn't a question.
Kai nodded. "It didn't work."
"Of course it didn't." Holt picked up the ruined core, turned it over in his fingers. "This is your first attempt. You expected it to work?"
Kai hesitated. "I hoped."
Holt's mouth almost curved. "Hope doesn't inscribe cores. Practice does. Failure does. Trying again does." He set the core down. "You used too much resin. Your lines are uneven because your hand wasn't steady. You probably rushed."
Kai nodded again. Each word landed like a verdict.
"But you tried." Holt looked at the sketches. "And you're already figuring out what went wrong. That's more than most first-term students do."
He walked away without another word.
Kai stared at the ruined core.
Hope doesn't inscribe cores.
But hope was all he had right now. Hope and a ruined core blank and three pages of sketches and a family that needed him to figure this out.
He picked up his pencil and kept drawing.
---
By midday, his hand cramped and his eyes burned and his notebook had gained ten more pages.
He'd sketched different patterns—simpler ones, ones that might actually work. He'd studied Holt's diagrams from the lecture, copying them over and over until he could draw them from memory. He'd written questions in the margins: What if the lines are too close? What if the resin is too thin? What if the core rejects the pattern?
He didn't have answers. But he had questions, and that was something.
Milo leaned over during the lunch break. "You're still at it? You haven't moved in hours."
Kai flexed his cramping hand. "I need to figure this out."
"Figure what out? The assignment isn't due for weeks."
"It's not about the assignment."
Milo frowned. "Then what's it about?"
Kai didn't answer. He couldn't explain the Pingband—not yet, not to anyone. It was too personal, too fragile, too tied to the secret he carried.
Instead, he said, "I just need to get better."
Milo studied him for a moment, then shrugged. "Okay. Well, I'm going to get food. You should too. Starving won't help you draw better."
He wandered off, leaving Kai alone with his sketches.
Kai looked at them for a long moment. Then he closed the notebook and stood.
Milo was right. Starving wouldn't help.
But neither would stopping.
---
The afternoon session was theory—Holt droning on about material properties, resonance frequencies, the difference between organic and mineral cores. Kai took notes automatically, his hand moving while his mind circled back to the Pingband.
Detection. Translation. Output.
Three functions. Three things the core needed to do. Could one core handle all three? Holt had said complex items needed multiple cores. A communication device might need three—one for receiving, one for sending, one for power.
The Pingband was simpler. It just needed to receive the gnat's ping and translate it into a tug. Maybe that was two functions. Maybe it was one.
He didn't know.
He didn't know anything.
But he was learning.
When the session ended, Kai packed his things slowly. Other students rushed out, eager to escape, to eat, to do anything except sit in a workshop hall and think about materials.
Kai stayed.
He pulled out the ruined core blank and looked at it again.
You'll make many crude items before you make anything better.
This was his first crude item. It wouldn't be his last.
But maybe, if he kept trying, it would be the foundation for something that wasn't crude at all.
He tucked the core into his pocket—a reminder, a promise, a challenge—and walked out.
---
Back in his dorm room, Kai sat at his desk and stared at the Pingband sketch.
He'd added notes throughout the day. Questions. Possibilities. Things to try.
Detection pattern from Holt's lecture?
Maybe use two cores—one for detection, one for tug
Resin too thick—need thinner application
Hand steady—practice more
He read through them all.
Then he picked up his pencil and wrote at the bottom:
Tomorrow, I try again.
He closed the notebook and lay back on his bed.
The core blank in his pocket pressed against his thigh. A reminder. A promise.
He'd failed today.
But tomorrow was another chance.
And Kai Entoma didn't quit.