Dr. Liang Shuxin did not believe in miracles.
That was the first thing he told Kaito.
They stood in the subterranean workshop, the air cool and dry, the walls lined with portable shielding and sound-dampening foam. The reduced-scale fabrication module blueprint hovered between them, its elegant geometry rotating slowly.
"I believe in margins," Liang continued, arms folded. "In tolerances. In error bars."
"And this?" Kaito asked.
Liang stared at the projection. "This is an insult to margins."
Aya hovered nearby, quietly recording biometric responses. Liang's pulse had accelerated the moment the blueprint resolved its internal layers.
"You asked me here to verify," Liang said. "Not to worship."
"Good," Kaito replied. "Then tell me what breaks first."
Liang exhaled through his nose and rolled up his sleeves. "Everything. Or nothing. Let's find out."
They began with materials.
The blueprint specified composites that did not exist in any catalogue Liang had access to—layered lattices that shifted phase under load, conductive pathways that doubled as structural support. Aya translated the specifications into approximations using Earth-available alloys, ceramics, and polymers.
"Efficiency loss: fourteen percent," Aya reported.
"That's optimistic," Liang muttered. "But acceptable for a first pass."
They fabricated the core frame using conventional CNC machines, pushing them to tolerances that made the operators sweat. Liang hovered over every measurement, rejecting components that were off by fractions most factories wouldn't even bother to measure.
"This isn't superstition," he said when Kaito raised an eyebrow. "Precision compounds."
The real test came with the energy interface.
Kaito placed the Compact Energy Cell into the containment cradle, hands steady despite the knot in his stomach. This was the first time he would connect the prototype cell to something that built rather than merely powered.
Aya ran diagnostics at triple redundancy.
"Interface stable," she said. "Energy flow within predicted bounds."
Liang leaned closer, eyes narrowing. "It's not drawing power like a generator," he said slowly. "It's… negotiating."
Kaito blinked. "Negotiating?"
"Yes," Liang said. "Like the system expects cooperation rather than extraction."
That was new.
When they activated the module, the workshop filled with a low hum—not mechanical, but harmonic. Components began to assemble themselves along guided rails, tooling arms reconfiguring mid-motion with impossible fluidity.
Liang stared, transfixed.
"This isn't automation," he whispered. "It's choreography."
The module completed its first output in under nine minutes: a simple calibration tool, no larger than a wrench. Liang tested it immediately, running it against a standard alloy sample.
The cut was perfect.
No burrs.
No microfractures.
Liang straightened slowly. "That tool alone would justify a new manufacturing standard."
"And it built itself," Kaito said.
Liang laughed once, sharp and incredulous. "You've skipped a century of industrial iteration."
Aya dimmed the blueprint overlay. "Please note: current implementation operates at forty-one percent of original design efficiency."
Liang's laughter turned almost hysterical. "Forty-one percent of this?"
The implications settled heavily over the room.
They spent the rest of the day trying to make it fail.
They overloaded circuits. Introduced flawed input materials. Forced misalignment. Each time, the system compensated—rerouting processes, rejecting components, halting safely when tolerances were exceeded.
"This thing has opinions," Liang said grimly.
"Yes," Aya replied. "Embedded error-correction heuristics."
Liang turned to Kaito. "You realize what this means."
Kaito nodded. "It can't be mass-produced blindly."
"It shouldn't be," Liang corrected. "Because whoever controls the heuristics controls quality. And quality controls everything downstream."
As evening fell, Liang slumped into a chair, exhausted.
"I was wrong," he said quietly.
About what?" Kaito asked.
"About miracles," Liang replied. "They exist. They're just engineered."
Aya recorded the statement without comment.
The disk chimed softly.
DAY 008 — SIGN-IN COMPLETE
No reward.
No bonus.
Just confirmation.
Liang looked at the disk, then back at the fabricator.
"This system," he said, "isn't giving you answers."
Kaito waited.
"It's asking what kind of civilization you want to reverse-engineer."
The words lingered in the air long after the machines powered down.
Kaito looked at the humming module, at the tool it had made, at the future taking shape piece by piece.
Reverse-engineering the fabricator had been possible.
Reverse-engineering its consequences would take far longer.