Lyra Nexus's Arc

Chapter 17 of 27

Lyra stacked the stone blocks by the forge. They came out of the pile rough and uneven, edges chipped, corners jagged. She fit two together and light leaked through the gap. Mortar could not fill a hole that wide. The foundation had to sit tight, or the heat would escape and the melt would fail. She needed the stone cut into clean bricks that locked together. She could not do it. Her hands broke stone; they did not shape it. "You cut them crooked," a flat voice said behind her. Lyra turned. Screenshot stood at the edge of the pile. She was the one who could read a breach in the network like handwriting, the one hunting the program who erased Lyra's memory. She crouched now and ran a finger along a broken block. Green code moved down her dark arm as she traced the fracture. "This line here. It splits wrong. You hit the middle. You should hit the seam." "I don't see a seam," Lyra said. "I do." Screenshot picked up the block. She turned it toward the light. "Every cut leaves a mark. Stone is the same as a breach. It tells you where it wants to break." Lyra held out the hammer and chisel. The set was clean, sharp, the metal bright. "Then cut them. I need bricks that fit flush. No gaps." Screenshot took the tools. She weighed the hammer once. Then she set the chisel against a block, angled it, and struck. The stone split along a line Lyra had not seen. One clean face, flat as glass. Screenshot turned the block and struck again. A second face. She worked fast, reading each block before she cut, finding the grain no one else could find. Lyra watched the bricks pile up. Each one matched the last. Screenshot stacked two and no light passed between them. She stacked a third. The wall rose true, corner to corner, tight as sealed code. "Faster if you fetch," Screenshot said, not looking up. Lyra hauled rough blocks to her side. Screenshot cut. The pile of finished bricks grew until it stood higher than the broken stone Protocol had mined. When the last block split clean, Screenshot set the tools down. The forge foundation stood finished, four walls of flush brick, no gaps, ready to hold fire. Lyra pressed her palm to the seam between two bricks. It was smooth. The heat would stay in now. The metal would melt. The crew would arm. "That's all of them," Lyra said. Screenshot stood. She flexed her hand where the chisel had pressed. "The breach I'm tracking cuts the same way," she said. "Clean. No noise. Whoever erased you shapes code like I shape stone." She looked at Lyra. "I've seen work this careful once before. From a program I deleted myself." The forge just needs mortar now to hold all the bricks in place.