The apron woman brought her own chair to the second trial.
The workshop chair had pressed against an old bruise on her hip, she told Tessa. It had not seemed important enough to mention while everyone was watching the first field. This one had a lower seat and a repaired back, and she knew how to stand from it without pushing on the wrong leg.
Tessa asked the operator to move the contact stand.
They adjusted the gauge so the woman could see the independent reading from where she actually sat. Her apron was folded on the shelf beyond the marked boundary. Without it, she looked less like a worker who had paused to help and more like someone who had rearranged a difficult day around a promise.
Eli saw her check the number on her contribution sheet.
The operator checked it too. The prototype limit was set beneath it, allowing room for the planned stop. Juno read the starting reference aloud. The independent monitor agreed within the difference they had measured beforehand.
The repaired ring stood over the same empty cradle. The new collar was darker, its edges worked carefully to conserve the scarce stock. Human and dungeon engineers had both examined it. The first failed piece waited in a covered tray on the bench, available to anyone who needed to see why the assembly had changed.
