Chapter Two: The Rooftop Fabricator

46:12. Zhou swept everything movable from his workbench into Refraction: six broken drones, two rolls of carbon-fiber cloth, twelve phone batteries, a crate of screws, and half a bucket of phase-change wax left from a racing modification. The fabricator listed missing elements. [RECOMMENDED: FORTY-EIGHT HEAT-RESISTANT SWARM UNITS, TWO PHASE-CHANGE SUITS, SIX HUNDRED METERS OF DIRECTED LOAD CABLE. MATERIAL COMPLETION: 63%.] “What's missing?” [ELEVEN KILOGRAMS HIGH-PURITY TITANIUM. TWENTY-EIGHT KILOGRAMS ARAMID. 2.4 KILOGRAMS SILVER.] His bank balance could not buy 2.4 kilograms of silver. It could barely buy that much pork without a discount. “Downgrade. Twenty-four drones, one suit, disposable cables.”