Q: Is Orbital worth saving up for?

  A: Orbital is intended for professionals who require it immediately.

  If your use case involves saving, it may be premature for your workflow.

  — Seorin Dynamics FAQ

  I stared at the notification for another moment, then closed it with a mental swipe. Twenty-one percent progress. Six hours estimated completion time. And my mana reserves felt like I’d just run a marathon while solving calculus problems.

  Which, technically, I had.

  I needed to wait for my mana to regenerate. The book hadn’t specified how long that would take, but judging by the hollow exhaustion radiating through my body, it wasn’t going to be quick. I just hoped my “weak body” could handle this workout.

  “Fine,” I muttered, standing up from my desk. “Workshop time.”

  I grabbed my backpack from where it hung on the door, unzipping it and carefully placing the cloth pouch of mana dust inside. The Erika figurine went in next, wrapped in a spare shirt so it wouldn’t get damaged. The book... I hesitated, then slid it into the main compartment with reverence bordering on paranoia.

  Half a million credits for a week’s loan. Dante’s friendly reminder about what happened if I didn’t return it. Yeah, this thing was getting careful treatment, which was probably the reason for their kill policy.

  Still stupid corpo nonsense.

  I grabbed my desk chair next, one of those ergonomic models that Mom had insisted on buying after I’d complained about back pain. Expensive, comfortable, and about to be relocated to my basement workshop.

  The chair scraped against the floor as I dragged it toward the door, one hand on the backrest, the other on my backpack strap.

  I made it exactly three steps into the hallway before Comma’s door opened.

  “Whatcha doing?” She leaned against her doorframe, arms crossed, that insufferable smirk already forming on her face.

  “Working,” I said shortly, continuing past her.

  “With a chair?” She followed me because… Comma wouldn’t be Comma if she didn’t. “Are you moving out? Finally?”

  “Scram, Comma.”

  “Ooh, using my name. So serious.” She danced ahead of me, walking backward down the hallway with the satisfaction of someone who’d perfected annoying her older brother into an art form.

  “What’s in the backpack? More secrets? More things you’re not telling Mom about?”

  I stopped at the top of the stairs, giving her my flattest stare. “Scram.” Comma stuck her tongue out at me in the same gesture as earlier and gave me the very same infuriating grin. “I hope your homework eats you,” I said, resuming my march down the stairs.

  Her laughter followed me down. “Love you too, big brother!” Her door slammed shut with enough force to rattle the Earth 1.0 pictures on the wall.

  I made it to the basement without other interruptions, descending into the cool air and a scent of stored wine.

  The workshop was exactly as I’d left it earlier: ten meters by ten meters of haphazard… organized chaos. Wooden crates stacked against the walls, labeled with contents I hadn’t properly cataloged yet.

  And absolutely nowhere to work on rune studies.

  I set my chair down near a wall, then my backpack on the floor beside it, and turned to survey the disaster I’d created.

  “Okay,” I said aloud, because talking to myself had become a habit. “Plan. I need a proper work surface for the book and rune practice. Something stable, something that won’t wobble when I’m trying to focus on mathematical equations that might literally explode if I fuck them up.”

  My eyes scanned the crates, reading labels.

  EXOTIC ALLOYS - ASSORTED.

  SYSTEM FIBERS - COMBAT RATED.

  POWER DISTRIBUTION - COMPONENTS.

  There against the far wall, partially hidden behind a stack of smaller boxes.

  KALLUM TABLO SERIES - MODULAR WORKSTATION.

  I walked over, shoving aside the smaller crates to get better access. The TABLO crate was substantial, maybe two meters long and half a meter on each side. Fibrosteel construction, if the weight was any indication.

  I grabbed the edge and dragged it clear off the wall. “TABLO,” I muttered, reading the label again. “Of course. Great-Grandpa named it TABLO.”

  The family naming tradition was inescapable.

  I found the release latches on the crate’s side, industrial-grade mag-locks that required a specific sequence to open. Standard Kallum security, because even the furniture packaging was paranoid about theft.

  I asked for simple: 1-2-3.

  Click. Click. Click.

  Hiss.

  The crate’s side panel swung open, revealing neatly packed components secured with anti-shock foam. Everything was labeled, color-coded, and organized in the same obsessive way that Kallum applied to everything.

  I pulled out the instruction holo-card and tapped on the left corner.

  A holographic diagram materialized above the card, showing the TABLO in fully assembled glory. Modular fibrosteel table, adjustable height, integrated tool mounting points, and—

  I squinted at the specs scrolling past.

  “Compatible with KUTS,” I read aloud. “What the hell is KUTS?”

  I pulled out my holoband and searched the Kallum internal database.

  KUTS: Kallum Universal Tablo Standard

  - Modular attachment system for workstations

  - Standardized mounting points (47 configurations)

  - Compatible across all TABLO series products

  - Patent holder: John Kallum, employee id: #69

  I stared at my holoband.

  “Kallum Universal Tablo Standard,” I drawled. “KUTS. He named it TABLO and KUTS.”

  The cringe hit me like a physical force.

  My great-grandfather, the brilliant engineer who’d built a house with spatial anomalies and secret passages, who’d designed some of the most advanced mining equipment in the solar system, had named his furniture standard KUTS.

  And he’d named the furniture line TABLO.

  The man who’d mandated his descendants to be named like DASH and COMMA had extended that tradition to furniture standards.

  Wait…

  I asked for the 1-2-3 code. Uh, maybe my creativity was on John’s level? I violently shook that thought away and made a vow to never name my children Interrobang or Pilcrow.

  “I’m related to this,” I muttered, setting my holoband down. “This is my legacy. KUTS and TABLO.”

  But I had to admit, as I started unpacking the components, the system was elegant.

  Each piece was precisely machined, fibrosteel treated with some kind of coating that made it resistant to scratches, my obligatory nail test doing nothing. The connection points were standardized, color-coded for easy assembly. Red to red, blue to blue, green to green.

  I explored the crates to expand my toolkit.

  New tools!

  Mag-driver first. The tool hummed to life in my hand, magnetic tip glowing faintly blue.

  The first leg assembly went together smoothly. Slide the telescoping support into the base mount, line up the color-coded markers, and engage the mag-driver. Torque feedback sensors built into the grip vibrated, so I knew exactly when a fastener was properly seated.

  Click.

  The torque feedback pulsed once, confirming proper tension. “Okay,” I admitted. “That’s actually satisfying.” Finally having proper tools was a joy.

  The second leg took the same process; the components fit together with nanometer-scale tolerances. And with my scientific test by kicking, I learned there was no wobble, no gaps, just clean mechanical integration.

  I pulled out the laser level next and set it on the floor. Instantly, red lines materialized in the air, showing perfectly level planes in three dimensions.

  The third and fourth legs went on with the guides helping me ensure everything was square. Each connection point locked with the same satisfying click, the mag-driver confirming proper assembly.

  Click. Click.

  The tabletop was a single piece of fibrosteel, but somehow light enough to manhandle by my “weak body” despite being two meters long. Treated surface, non-reflective, with integrated measurement guides along the edges.

  In Kallum weird units though, so the usefulness was questionable.

  This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it

  The surface had mounting points along all four edges. In my head, I already attached all those things Asti hadn’t let me order, like tool holders, parts bins, clamps, work lights, whatever I needed.

  I lifted the surface, aligned it with the leg assemblies, and—

  Click. Click. Click. Click.

  With four connection points engaged simultaneously, the surface locked into place, and I stepped back, wiping sweat from my forehead. The TABLO stood complete. Solid, level, professional-grade work surface that made my old desk look like... well, it was actually made from trash, so calling it trash was pointless.

  I grabbed the laser level and checked it anyway, because paranoia was healthy when working with expensive equipment.

  Not even a fraction of a degree off.

  “Okay,” I said, patting the table’s surface. “You’re ridiculous, and your name is stupid, but you’re also really well-designed. I hate that I like you.”

  The table, predictably, did not respond.

  I dragged my chair over and sat down, testing the height. A little low, but the legs were adjustable. I found the height controls, twisted them until the surface was at a comfortable level, and then locked them in place.

  Better.

  I retrieved my backpack and carefully unpacked its contents onto the new TABLO surface. Mana dust pouch. Erika figurine, still wrapped in my spare shirt. The book, which I set down with reverence.

  My workspace was ready.

  I unwrapped the figurine, trying not to notice the detail again, and set it in the center of the table. The golden rune mark on the base caught the workshop lights.

  Time to remove it and try again.

  I focused on the warm sensation beneath my skin, the mana that had barely started to regenerate. It was there, a thin trickle compared to the flood I’d had earlier, but enough for what I needed.

  I placed my hand on the figurine and thought about the rune. About the equation, the pattern, the way it had fused with the wood.

  And pushed.

  The mana responded, flowing from my hand into the figurine. To dissolve it. The equation reversed, variables flipping, solving backwards.

  The golden mark flared brightly for a moment, then faded.

  Gone, the figurine was just wood again, unchanged except for the mana dust still clinging to its surface.

  I slumped back in my chair, breathing hard. “That was... easier than I expected.”

  But I could feel the difference already. If there had been multiple runes, multiple equations interacting and supporting each other, removal would have been exponentially harder. I’d have needed to balance everything, dissolve them in the right order, and prevent cascade failures.

  The book had mentioned that, but it was something to worry about for future Dash. Right now, I had mana trickling back into my reserves and a rune to practice.

  So I sprinkled fresh mana dust over the figurine, watching it cling to the wood.

  The previous dust dissolved in the enchantment, absorbed into the magic system fuckery when the rune took hold.

  I closed my eyes, focusing on the warm sensation. It was weaker now, not even half of what I’d had before.

  A small voice inside told me I should wait, not risk it. But a voice of Dash, who was being drained, screamed: magic!

  I had probably enough to make another attempt, so I opened my eyes and let them unfocus, looking at the book without looking directly at it.

  The text crystallized.

  The Rune of Durability appeared in my mind, mathematical expressions flowing and shifting. I’d seen this before, struggled through it once already.

  This time, I understood slightly more.

  Not in a mathematical sense, but like the object's dimensions were constant. The figurine’s size, its material properties, and the grain of the wood. Those were givens, variables I couldn’t change.

  What I could change was the mana distribution. How I channeled the energy through the dust, how I reinforced certain areas versus others.

  I placed my glowing hand on the figurine and let the mana flow.

  The equation appeared, demanding precision. More mana here, less there, follow the grain, avoid the delicate details—

  I adjusted, feeling my way through the puzzle. The mathematics shifted, simplifying slightly as I found the right balance.

  The mana flowed along the wood, guided by the dust, carving invisible channels that would reinforce the structure. I could feel it working, feel the equation resolving, finding its solution—

  My mana guttered out.

  The warm sensation died completely, leaving me hollow and exhausted.

  But the figurine had changed. The wood was denser again, harder, more resistant. And carved on the base was the golden rune mark, slightly less clear than before.

  A notification appeared.

  [Rune of Durability - LEARNING IN PROGRESS]

  Progress: 48%

  Estimated time to completion: 4 hours

  I slumped forward, head resting on my arms on the beautiful, stupid TABLO surface.

  Almost halfway… and I was completely tapped out.

  I sat up, looking around the workshop. At the crates. All the equipment I had spent half a million credits on and hadn’t properly organized yet.

  “Right,” I said, standing on shaky legs. “Time to actually use this stuff.”

  I walked over to the stack of crates, reading labels until I found what I was looking for.

  ORBITAL - HOLOGRAPHIC DESIGN SYSTEM

  The crate was smaller than the TABLO’s had been, maybe a meter on each side, but substantially heavier. I dragged it to an open space in the workshop, away from the walls, somewhere with enough clearance.

  The mag-locks released with the same satisfying hiss, and I pulled out the components.

  The Orbital wasn’t like the TABLO. No color-coded assembly, no KUTS standardization. This was precision equipment, each piece individually calibrated.

  The base unit was a cylinder, maybe half a meter tall and thirty centimeters in diameter. Brushed chrome surface, completely blank except for a single activation panel. The emitters came separately, six of them, each one a sleek pod about the size of my fist.

  I found the setup holo-card and clicked on the left corner.

  Nothing.

  Right corner… it activated.

  The instructions were simple: place the base unit in the center of your workspace. Position emitters in a two-meter radius circle around it, evenly spaced. Power on.

  Simple.

  I set the base cylinder in the open floor space, then grabbed the laser level again. The holographic guides appeared, and I used them to mark six… eh, equidistents points around—

  Equdistant?

  I should stop trying to be fancy; there’s no Erika to impress.

  I used the holographic guides to mark equal distances around the base. The emitters had magnetic feet, and I placed them on the marks until they locked to the floor with soft clicks, auto-leveling to ensure perfect alignment.

  Six emitters arranged in a circle, each one angled slightly toward the center.

  I stepped back, checking the setup. Two meters of empty space? Check. Nothing that would interfere with the projection field.

  That was all for checks, and the activation panel on the base unit glowed softly as I pressed it.

  The emitters hummed to life, a sound I felt more than heard. Light flickered between them, pale blue lines connecting each emitter to its neighbors, forming a hexagonal lattice in the air.

  Then the lattice filled.

  Holographic space materialized above the base unit, a perfect cylinder of light two meters in diameter. Empty for now, just a faint blue glow marking the boundaries of the projection field.

  I stepped into it.

  The system reacted immediately. The blue glow intensified where my hand passed through it, tracking my movement. I waved my hand, and the projection responded, following my gesture with zero lag.

  Body-reactive. The Orbital would track my position, adjust the projections so I could walk through them, manipulate them, view them from any angle without disruption.

  Twenty-five thousand credits with my discount.

  Worth every sol.

  The Seorin Dynamics logo briefly appeared, and I couldn’t stop smiling. They were the sleeper Sol 15 corpo, not selling much software for masses to use, despite their OS being on every holoband.

  Their customers were industrial-scale, and I’d always dreamed of owning any of their machines and this Kallum-Seorin ORBITAL was exactly what I needed.

  After the logo blinked out, a menu appeared, and I clicked on “START FROM BASE DESIGN” and picked “PANTS”.

  The menu vanished, replaced by a blank workspace. A grid materialized, measurement guides, reference planes, all the tools I’d need to design... anything.

  I smiled as the holographic workspace waited, empty and patient, while a prompt floated in the center:

  SELECT PRIMARY MATERIAL

  I turned away from the Orbital, scanning the workshop. The crates were still mostly unpacked, labels being the only hint of what was inside each one.

  SYSTEM FIBERS - COMBAT RATED.

  That one.

  I dragged it away from the wall, popping the mag-locks with my super-secure code. The crate opened to reveal rolls of fabric, each one vacuum-sealed in protective wrap. I pulled out the first roll and checked the label.

  SERIES-7 COMBAT FIBER

  I whistled softly. “Asti wasn’t kidding about excellent materials.”

  This wasn’t synth-cloth or cheap polymer weave. This was actual system-grade fabric, the kind that could stop a bug bite, a blade, and then shrug off plasma burns. The stuff cost more per meter than monthly rent.

  I set the roll aside and kept digging through the crate.

  Impact foam came next, sheets of it in various thicknesses. The material was dense but flexible, designed to absorb kinetic energy and distribute it across a wider area. Perfect for knee and hip protection.

  “Okay, so I’ve got the shell fabric and padding,” I muttered, pulling out more components. “Now I just need—”

  I stopped, staring into the crate.

  Fasteners. Conductive threading. Slap-on conduit mounts. Everything I needed for the electrical integration.

  But no reinforcement webbing.

  I checked the other crates, reading labels, opening anything that might contain structural materials.

  Nothing.

  “Seriously?” I pulled out my holoband and searched the order manifest, scrolling through line items until I found the textiles section, but there was no webbing. I’d either forgotten to order it, or Asti had assumed I wouldn’t need it for basic designs.

  I slumped against the crate, thinking.

  Reinforcement webbing was important for distributing weight and stress, especially if I was adding equipment mounts and loaded pockets. Without it, the fabric would take all the strain directly, which meant tearing or deformation.

  But.

  I looked at the spec sheet for the Series 7 combat fiber again. I had read about it before, tensile strength was superb... actually insane. “Maybe I don’t need it,” I said aloud. “For a first version, anyway. The fiber’s strong enough to handle the load, and I’m not planning to carry a hundred kilos of gear in my pockets.”

  I could always add webbing later, once I got my hands on some. Or design a second version with proper reinforcement once I understood what I actually needed.

  Decision made.

  I grabbed the fabric roll, the impact foam sheets, and the conductive threading spool, carrying them over to the Orbital. The base unit had a small scanner built into the side, a recessed panel with a blue targeting laser.

  I set the fabric roll down and pressed it against the scanner.

  The laser swept across the material in a quick grid pattern, analyzing it. Data scrolled across my holoband as the Orbital cataloged everything.

  Properties loaded. Ready for application.

  The impact foam scanned just as easily, then the conductive threading. Each time, the Orbital accepted the material and added it to its internal database. The holographic workspace updated, and new options popped into the floating menu. I could now use any of the scanned materials in my design, layer them, specify thicknesses, create patterns.

  Way better than using trash.

  The basic pants template rotated slowly in the projection field, a simple mannequin-leg outline waiting for me to make it into something useful.

  I reached into the holographic space, my hand passing through the blue glow, and grabbed the waistline of the template. The projection responded instantly, highlighting the section I’d touched.

  “Okay,” I muttered, pulling up the material application menu. “Combat fiber for the shell, obviously. Double-layer on the knees and seat, single-layer everywhere else to save weight.”

  I dragged the Series 7 fiber icon onto the template, and the holographic pants materialized with actual texture, the weave pattern visible even in the projection. Damn, this stuff was good.

  “Pockets. Lots of pockets.”

  I gestured, and the design tools appeared. Cargo pockets on both thighs, deep enough for tools or magazines or whatever I needed to carry. Hip pockets, reinforced. Back pockets with magnetic closures.

  Each pocket got impact foam backing where it would sit against my body, extra protection that wouldn’t add much bulk.

  The conductive threading came next. I traced lines along the seams, creating pathways for power distribution. Nothing complicated, just simple runs from waist to thigh where I could attach battery pouches or equipment mounts.

  The slap-on conduit mounts went on the back, small attachment points that would let me route cables without having them flap around loose.

  And then the holsters.

  I spent longer on these than anything else, designing integrated pouches that would sit flat against my thighs, accessible but not obvious. They would blend with the cargo pocket aesthetic but could hold a standard pistol or whatever future top-tier operator Dash needed.

  Hidden in plain sight.

  I stepped back, examining the design from multiple angles. The Orbital tracked my movement, rotating the projection so I could see every detail.

  It looked... good. Professional, even. Tactical without being obvious about it. Type of pants I could wear in the Corpo District without getting stopped by Tago PD, but that could carry everything I needed for a gig or a dive.

  I was about to add another pocket when I felt a warm sensation beneath my skin as I unconsciously pushed mana instead of a design tool.

  Not a trickle anymore, or the hollow exhaustion I’d felt after the last rune attempt. Full. My mana had regenerated completely while I’d been working. I blinked, glancing at the time on my holoband: a few hours had passed.

  “Oh,” I said, looking toward the TABLO where the Erika figurine waited, mana dust still clinging to its surface. “Right.”

  The pants design could wait.

  I saved the project, the Orbital automatically storing everything, and walked across the workshop to my rune practice station.

  Time to see if I could push past fifty percent.

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