Chapter 276: The Tension of a Thread
Skeins of clean, even yarn lay before the girls, having recently been returned from Iron's office.
Time after time, they pulled their needles through the thick fabric.
Lera, sitting just to Eliza's left, was trying with all her might to join two pieces of cloth. She scowled, puffing with effort, and with every stitch she yanked the thread toward herself harder and harder. Because of the excessive tension, the edge of the fabric began to bunch up, the seam wrinkled into a tight accordion, and the fabric itself warped to the side.
Eliza, tearing herself away from her own work, noticed this just in time and gently touched her wrist:
"Wait, wait, Lera..." she shook her head. "I mean, I'm far from a master myself, but I think you need to do this a little differently."
Lera lowered her hands and sighed.
Eliza, scooting a little closer and taking her edge of the fabric, said:
"Look, you're pulling the thread way too tight. Because of that, the edge pulls, and the whole garment will go wavy when you put it on. Relax your fingers, like this..."
Eliza carefully smoothed out the bunched-up section with her fingers, loosened the tension, and made three even stitches parallel to the edge, demonstrating the smooth motion.
"See? The thread just needs to hold the fabric together, not squeeze it into a fist. Try it yourself."
Lera watched her fingers closely, took the needle, and carefully pulled the next stitch through, keeping an eye on the tension this time.
"Thank you."
"Don't mention it," Eliza replied.
She returned to her seat and held her own work up in front of her. Carefully inspecting the even line of the seam, Eliza quietly exhaled and got back to work.
Meanwhile, in his office, Iron was making another attempt to deal with the crucible.
He carefully felt the smooth walls of the tungsten bowl with his fingers, checking the gaps, and then ran a series of minor diagnostic pulses. Iron's gaze, bolstered by the scan, bored into every detail: he double-checked the contours of the magnetic separators, the condition of the basalt base, and the integrity of the internal circuits.
Iron exhaled heavily and leaned back in his chair.
Crossing his arms over his chest, he ran the same thoughts through his head over and over again. The only sound in the office was the quiet tapping of his finger against his own forearm.
A few seconds passed like this.
And in the next instant, Iron vanished and materialized right at the foot of the mountains. The air around him smelled of damp earth and pine needles.
Taking a couple of steps over dry branches, he walked up to a gray boulder. Groping the rough surface with his fingers, Iron felt a protrusion and pressed it.
Somewhere deep within the rock, a mechanism clicked dully. Right after that, the ground directly at his feet gave a slight jerk, and a section of turf, along with some rocks, slid aside, revealing a narrow passage leading down.
Iron stepped forward and dropped down.
As soon as his soles touched the floor, a translucent holographic panel appeared in the air right in front of his face. An input line for letters and numbers lit up on the hovering screen.
Iron quickly typed in the PIN code combination with his right hand.
Barely had he touched the final character key when the stone slab slammed back into place above his head with a heavy thud, completely cutting off access from the outside.
Iron then walked down a narrow corridor lined with smooth metal paneling. Up ahead, a massive hermetic door blocked the path.
Stepping right up to it, he stopped at the right edge of the frame and activated his scan, peering into the hidden locking mechanisms. The mechanism was jammed: a pair of small gears inside the lock block had shifted slightly out of alignment. With a short, precise press and a small pulse, Iron adjusted the latches, snapping the parts back into their proper places.
A projection of a dial immediately flared up in front of the door. Quickly entering a second password, he waited for the facial scanner frame to unfold in the air.
After that, he took a step forward, passing his head right through the glowing plane. The hologram swept his features on the fly.
The lock clicked dryly, and the heavy door hissed as it slid into the wall.
The moment he crossed the threshold, the doors instantly slammed shut behind his back and locked tight. Iron shot a quick glance over his shoulder without slowing his stride:
"Well, that's it, it's finally working."
He turned back around and headed deeper into the lab.
As the engineer moved forward, overhead lights began to flick on one after another, flooding the entire space with bright light. The laboratory revealed itself in full detail: sleek metal panels on the walls, a clean floor, and a complete absence of clutter.
The main capsule towered in the center of the room. Its body was made almost entirely of thick glass, save for the massive metal caps on the top and bottom. A dense green liquid bubbled quietly inside. Dozens of wires, cables, and feed tubes ran from the upper and lower bases to the ceiling and the floor.
Off to the side of the capsule stood a console desk with a volumetric 3D display, projected with Lumon's help. Iron cast a glance over it and said quietly:
"Yeah, I really need to find a proper replacement for this in the future."
To the left, against the wall, sat a mid-sized apparatus with a neat technological opening on the side. And behind the main capsule, another, smaller one could be seen — inside it rested a dark-blue crystal, showing no activity and emitting no glow for the time being.
Iron walked over to the console, sat in the chair, and quickly entered a series of commands. Hitting the final confirmation key, he exhaled:
"That's it, now I can safely teleport here."
Iron pulled open a drawer in the console desk and took out a thick sheet of paper — the Test Log. The results of the previous nine experiments were already recorded on it in crisp, small handwriting: concise notes on parameters, glitches that had occurred, and the causes of failures.
He laid the sheet out flat on the polished surface. Having finished setting up the console, Iron extended his right arm slightly to the side and opened his palm.
A rabbit silently materialized right above his open palm. Iron carefully examined the animal — steady pulse, calm breathing.
Without hesitating, he transferred the rabbit inside the main glass capsule, right into the thick green liquid. In that same second, a miniature breathing mask lowered from the top metal cap, covering the animal's nose and snout tightly.
A moment later, the rabbit in the solution began to glow with a soft, steady light.
Iron picked up his pencil and neatly added a new line to the log: "Experiment No. 10." Beneath it, he quickly jotted down the test subject's starting characteristics, the solution's saturation level, and the current sensor readings.
A few seconds later, the glow inside the capsule smoothly faded away. The rabbit remained peacefully suspended in the green solution. Iron set his pencil aside and silently observed the process.
Meanwhile, Clerk, Marek, Vadya, and a dozen other men were erecting a new residential house on a stone foundation with a heavy timber frame.
Some were hauling thick lime mortar for the plinth on stretchers, while others fitted the timbers, neatly hewing out grooves so the logs would interlock at the corners. The thick scent of fresh shavings, dried clay, and sun-baked wood hung in the air.
Clerk and Marek were leveling the bottom log course, checking it with a plumb line. Wiping the sweat from his forehead with his sleeve, Clerk looked at Marek:
"You're pretty good at giving orders. And you do just as much work yourself."
Marek adjusted a lining of dried moss and shook his head:
"Well, back in my village, I've been taking things apart and putting them together since I was a kid. Helped my dad, my grandpa... So it just stuck."
He shifted his grip to get a better hold on the edge of a heavy beam that Vadya and two other guys were bringing over, and asked:
"What about you, were you a builder originally? Did you always know how to do this?"
"Oh, no," Clerk smirked, setting a prop in place. "Eliza taught me everything. How to hold an ax properly, how to manage people, and how to lay logs without getting them crooked. Honestly, she taught me a whole lot, and I'm really grateful to her for it."
Vadya and the guys dropped the massive beam right into the prepared groove with a heavy grunt. A puff of dust lightly kicked up from under the wood.
Marek exhaled heavily, straightening his back and resting his hands on his hips:
"Ah... I see."
He spent a couple of seconds looking at the even joint, then picked up a heavy wooden mallet and turned back to the log frame. Clerk, noticing an uneven spot on the adjacent post, immediately walked over there as well.