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The curtains hadn't gone up yet.
The private box above the left wing of the opera house was separated from the adjacent box by a panelled mahogany wall and a heavy velvet curtain, designed — as all private opera boxes were — for discretion. The house was built in the Snezhnayan horseshoe style: stage at the flat end, three tiers of private boxes curving around the auditorium, each facing the stage and — if you were standing at your parapet looking across rather than down — facing the boxes directly opposite on the other side.
The house was still filling. Patrons moved through the stalls in the unhurried way of people who had nowhere more important to be, programmes rustling, conversations low and ambient, the entire machinery of a Snezhnayan evening settling into place.
Pantalone was at the parapet.
He had positioned himself there deliberately — both gloved hands settled on the velvet-capped marble edge, weight shifted forward, a posture that anyone looking up from the stalls would read as a man enjoying the view before the curtain rose. His trousers were pulled down to his thighs, and his fine silk underwear had been hauled low past the curve of his ass. Even with the back exposed, the front stayed tight and in place, trapping his cock—already fully hard—against the suffocating slickness of the fabric.
He watched the filling auditorium below and felt, with considerable satisfaction, Dottore position himself behind him.
"Someone will see," he said.
"The stalls can't see above the parapet from their angle." Dottore's thumb pressed into the muscle above his hip. "And the facing boxes are far enough that expression won't read. Only silhouette." A pause. "Unless you get close to the edge."
Pantalone settled his weight forward, closer to the edge.
"Like this?" he said.
A beat.
"Yes," Dottore said. "Exactly like that."
He pushed in.
"—ah—" The sound caught in Pantalone's throat. Not loud — not carrying over the ambient noise — but real, and present, and not something he particularly tried to suppress. He exhaled through his nose. His fingers curled loosely over the velvet edge.
The stretch of it. Even prepared, even opened beforehand in the anteroom, the first push always registered in his spine. A fullness that sat somewhere between discomfort and something else entirely.
"That's—"
"Tell me," Dottore said.
"Exactly what I expected." A beat, deliberate. "And then some."
A pause. Dottore's hand at his hip tightened.
"Control your expression," Dottore said.
"Working on it," Pantalone said. He looked across the auditorium and arranged his face into something approximating neutral. Below, patrons continued filing in. A woman in blue silk settling into the third row. A military man consulting his programme. "You picked a good angle," he added, conversationally, as Dottore held still.
"I measured it."
"Of course you did." Pantalone shifted his weight — a small adjustment, deliberate, testing the angle himself, feeling where it landed. "There. Right there."
"I know," Dottore said. He sounded, fractionally, less composed than he had a moment ago.
Pantalone filed this. He looked across the auditorium. Box four directly opposite — a couple, the man hanging up a coat. Box five — three women. Box six — someone standing at their own parapet. Just standing. The boxes opposite were close enough that faces read. Not expressions, not at this distance. But orientation.
"Person in box six," Pantalone said.
"I see her."
"She's facing this direction."
"She's forty metres away." Dottore shifted with an unhurried, calculating slowness, as if testing the boundaries of Pantalone's restraint. "She can see your face. Make sure it looks like nothing."
"And if she looks for more than a second?"
"Then she gets more than she paid for," Dottore said. "And so do you. Move."
Pantalone moved.
He set the pace himself initially, slowly rolling his hips back to find the exact angle that worked—the one where the sheer pressure and sensation finally made the rest of the world go quiet. Dottore let him, keeping both hands heavy on his hips to steady his stance without forcing a rhythm, his unyielding presence a constant grounding weight
"—nnh—" Pantalone's chin dropped slightly. He brought it back up. Looked at the auditorium. The woman in box six was looking at the stage. "Good view from up here."
"Mm," Dottore said.
"You were right about that."
"I usually am," Dottore said. He changed the angle by something barely measurable.
"—ah—" Sharper than Pantalone intended. He recovered. "Do that again."
"Ask properly."
"Dottore." His voice had dropped. "Do that again."
"That's not—"
"Please," Pantalone said, with the tone of a man who had located a leverage point and was applying it precisely. "There. That angle. Please."
Dottore did it again.
The rhythm built from there — Pantalone pushing back to meet each thrust, matching the pace, adjusting when something worked better, completely uninterested in being a passive participant in his own plan. His hands were steady on the velvet edge. His expression, to anyone looking from the stalls, would have read as a man watching the hall fill up with mild interest.
Dottore slowed, not stopping entirely but reducing the pace to a cruel, almost idle drag as he leaned back slightly. Pantalone heard rather than felt the shift in his attention, a sudden, heavy drop in focus that seemed to pin him downward.
Looking.
"—" Pantalone said nothing. He was looking at the auditorium. He was very carefully looking at the auditorium.
Dottore's hand left his hip, shifting to spread flat across the exposed curve of Pantalone's ass. He moved slowly from one side to the other, his touch unhurried and deliberate—the cold, calculating gesture of a man conducting a thorough examination on a specimen he found fascinating.
"Remarkable," Dottore said, quietly. Clinical flatness. Specifically, deliberately awful. "I've been thinking about it since the anteroom."
The hand drew back, leaving a sudden, chilling absence against his bare skin. Pantalone barely had time to brace himself before the spank landed—not loud, but delivered with a controlled, clinical precision. In the cramped, enclosed box, the sharp smack of Dottore's flat palm against the curve of his ass echoed with agonizing clarity, forcing Pantalone’s fingers to white-knuckle the velvet edge by sheer reflex.
"—" A sound that wasn't quite a word. He caught it before it became anything more.
"Pink," Dottore said, with the satisfaction of someone confirming a hypothesis. His hand smoothed over the spot, unhurried. "That marks easily too."
"I'm aware," Pantalone said, when he had recovered his voice. It was mostly even.
Pantalone rolled his hips back, making the movement agonizingly slow and deliberate as he pressed fully into Dottore's palm.
A pause.
"Yes," Dottore said. His voice was different. Barely. Enough.
"I know," Pantalone said. He did it again.
"Pantalone," Dottore said.
"Mm," Pantalone said pleasantly.
Dottore’s hands clamped harder against his hips, simply holding him steady as the cadence between them changed. The movement was no longer calculated; it had grown heavy, urgent, and entirely honest. Pantalone leaned into the new depth and held his tongue, knowing that any words now would only ruin the silence.
The person in the facing box had not moved. Still standing at her parapet. Pantalone kept his eyes on the auditorium and did not particularly worry about his expression, because his expression was doing something that might read, from forty metres, as a man absorbed in the view.
Which was accurate.
"You grip me differently at this angle," Dottore said.
"I know," Pantalone said.
"No—" A sharp pause. Dottore’s rhythm ground to a deliberate, agonizing crawl. Pantalone could practically feel the gears turning in the man's mind, his focus shifting into something deeply analytical. "Not the angle."
"Then what."
"The situation," Dottore said, his voice entirely clinical and unhurried, as if he were simply dictating a lab note into the warm curve of Pantalone's neck. "Your hole is tighter than usual. Measurably. I can feel it every time I push in." He delivered a slow, heavy thrust to demonstrate, letting Pantalone feel every inch of his words. "It's the audience, isn't it. All those people below us."
Pantalone said nothing.
"The ones who don't know," Dottore continued, at the same pace, the same tone. "Looking at the stage. Looking at their programmes. Completely unaware that you're up here getting fucked open with both hands on the railing." Another thrust, deeper. "Your body knows they're there. That's why you're this tight."
"—" Pantalone's grip on the velvet edge shifted.
"Am I wrong," Dottore said.
He wasn't. That was the specific problem.
The awareness of it — two hundred people below, the low murmur of the filling house, had been running underneath everything since Dottore first pushed in, quiet and electric and entirely separate from the physical sensation except that they were not separate at all, that the tension of keeping his expression still while the auditorium filled beneath him had compounded into something that sat in his chest and lower, heat that had nowhere to go except—
Pantalone clenched around him. It was neither a reflex nor an involuntary spasm, but a deliberate, sustained squeeze—locking Dottore inside at full depth. He forced himself to feel the sheer weight of the intrusion, anchoring them together in the dark, while just below their box, a couple settled into box four and a woman in blue silk casually opened her programme.
Dottore made a sound that was not composed.
"Like that?" Pantalone said.
"—" Dottore did not finish whatever he'd been going to say. His hands on Pantalone's hips pressed in hard.
"Thought so," Pantalone said.
Then Dottore drove forward sharply — once, the angle precise and punishing —
"—ah—"
Sharp. Louder than anything before it. A sudden, ragged sound that carried in the confined space.
The person in the facing box turned her head.
Toward the box opposite. Toward Pantalone's face.
Forty metres. Warm house lighting. Pantalone, looking directly back across the auditorium with an expression that was several things at once and professional composure was no longer one of them.
One second.
Two.
Dottore's arm hooked around his waist, pulling him back into the deep shadows of the box interior with a smooth, immediate sweep. With his free hand, Dottore slid his mask back into place. Across the auditorium, the woman stood at her parapet for just a moment longer before her gaze drifted back to the stage.
"That," Dottore said, against the back of his neck, "was your fault."
"Entirely," Pantalone agreed, without apology. "Worth it."
A pause.
"Yes," Dottore said.
He walked Pantalone backward without breaking their connection. The sudden change in friction made Pantalone's breath catch as he was guided toward the chair in the dim rear of the box. Dottore sat, steering Pantalone down and turning him around in one fluid motion. Pantalone ended up straddling his lap, knees resting on either side of Dottore's thighs; due to his taller frame, Pantalone had to tilt his head down, bringing their faces into a tight, direct alignment in the dark.
Dottore reached up with one hand, unhooked his mask, and pulled it away entirely. He tossed it aside carelessly, exposing his eyes to Pantalone for the first time in the quiet dark.
Pantalone looked at him for a moment.
Then he rolled his hips.
"—" Dottore's hands tightened.
"This angle," Pantalone said, adjusting, finding it, "is better."
"Agreed," Dottore said. His voice was not entirely steady.
Pantalone moved, abandoning all patience.
Having already teased themselves at the parapet, he claimed the rhythm entirely, driving down in a slow, heavy grind that was exactly as deep as he wanted. Dottore’s palms burned against his hips, no longer commanding, but helplessly tracking Pantalone's fluid, dominant heat. Pantalone kept his gaze locked on Dottore's exposed face, studying the raw, scientific hunger in his eyes and the way his jaw tightened whenever the alignment hit the perfect spot, using every ragged breath Dottore drew to fuel his own pleasure.
"You're watching me," Dottore said.
"I'm observing," Pantalone said. "You should try it sometime."
A beat. Something in Dottore's expression shifted — not much, not far, but Pantalone caught it.
"Move," Dottore said.
"I am moving," Pantalone said.
"Faster."
"Ask properly."
Dottore looked at him. The specific look.
"Please," Dottore said. Flat. Immediate. The word with no sentiment attached, which somehow made it worse.
Pantalone picked up the pace.
Dottore's hands moved from his hips. One slid up his back, pressing between his shoulder blades, pulling him forward — Pantalone's chest toward Dottore's face — and Dottore's mouth found the open collar of his shirt.
"—ah—" Pantalone's hands found Dottore's shoulders. His grip was not delicate.
Dottore's mouth moved lower — lips closing over Pantalone's nipple, warm and deliberate, his tongue moving.
"—ngh—" Pantalone's rhythm stuttered. He pushed through it, finding it again, less controlled than before. His fingers pressed into Dottore's shoulders. "Don't stop," he said, which was not a request.
Dottore did not stop. He stayed there — his mouth working until the skin marked, until Pantalone could feel the specific heat of it. He moved to the other side and did the same.
"—ah—"
Dottore pulled back.
"Interesting," he said.
"What," Pantalone said.
Dottore's hand spread flat against his chest — one side, then the other, slow and assessing.
"Your chest," Dottore said.
"What about it."
"Fuller than it was. Six months ago — less of this." His thumb pressed into the giving flesh. "Interesting."
"Your powers of observation," Pantalone said drily, "are exceptional." He flexed around Dottore again, a slow, agonizingly precise squeeze that held him trapped at full depth. He took a dark satisfaction in feeling the clinical edge of Dottore’s composure fracture, a ragged edge finally bleeding into the man's next breath.
"Your — diet has changed," Dottore said. "Or something else has."
"Mm," Pantalone said. He tightened again
"Pantalone"
"Mm," Pantalone said again
Dottore's free hand slid around, finding the front of his underwear — the fabric damp and taut. The pad of his thumb pressed against the head, slow circle through the silk.
"—ah—" This one was genuine. Pantalone's hips moved forward involuntarily before he caught himself. "That is," he said, with effort, "somewhat effective."
"Somewhat," Dottore said.
"Don't let it go to your head."
"You're soaked through," Dottore said, conversationally. "The silk is transparent in this light."
Pantalone looked down
"It is not—"
"It is." Dottore's thumb moved. "I can see the outline of you. Everything." He pressed. "You should consider that next time you purchase underwear this thin."
"There won't be a next time I'm in this situation—"
"There will," Dottore said. Certainty, not arrogance.
Pantalone looked at him. Found nothing useful to argue. Leaned in instead — closing the distance himself, taking Dottore's mouth.
The kiss was direct. Neither of them was particularly interested in soft, and this wasn't soft — it was two people who knew each other well enough to skip the preliminary and go straight to the point, Pantalone's hand at Dottore's jaw, Dottore's thumb still moving through the silk.
"—ngh—" Into the kiss. His hips had stopped being deliberate and started being honest, the pace driven by the dual sensation, building toward something he wasn't going to hold off much longer.
He pulled back just enough to speak. "I'm going to—"
"I know," Dottore said.
"Don't stop," Pantalone said. Not a request.
"I wasn't planning to," Dottore said. His mouth found Pantalone's ear. "Go ahead. I want to feel it"
Pantalone came.
"—ngh — ah—-"
His spine arched sharply, his hips grinding down one last time before freezing completely against Dottore's lap. The orgasm hit him with a raw, undone force—shattering his composure entirely as his cock pulsed helplessly against the trapped silk of his underwear. The expensive fabric went wet and ruined immediately. While his body was still wrecked by the lingering tremors, he felt the heavy, unyielding weight of Dottore’s hands clamp back onto his hips, firm and completely reasserting control.
"Give me—"
"No," Dottore said, and set the rhythm himself.
Pantalone held on. Oversensitive, full, completely at the mercy of his own decision to be here, making sounds that he had stopped trying to calibrate.
"—ah— Dottore — ah—"
"You feel," Dottore said, low and not entirely composed, "extraordinary right now."
"—ngh— I know—" A short, sharp sound. "I know, just—"
"Just what,
"Come," Pantalone said. "Now. I want—"
Dottore didn't let him finish. Reasserting his grip, Dottore slammed his hips upward with a sudden, vicious urgency. The abrupt change in pace sent a violent jolt straight up Pantalone's spine, forcing a ragged cry from his throat as his taller frame shuddered, helplessly riding the punishing depth of Dottore’s thrusts. In the dark, Dottore’s bare face was a picture of raw, strained concentration—his brow furrowed deeply, his jaw locked so tight the muscle corded, eyes blown wide and dark as he chased the edge.
Then, with one final, bruising drive that pinned Pantalone hard against the back of the chair, Dottore snapped.
The sudden, flooding warmth of it hit deep and immediate. Pantalone felt every single pulse of the release spreading inside him, the fingers on his hips tightening into a bruising, desperate grip that would undoubtedly leave marks by morning. He stayed utterly still, absorbing the heavy tremors racking Dottore's frame and the sharp, hot exhale that buried itself against his neck, feeling a deep, smug satisfaction as the scientist's remaining composure completely dissolved against his shoulder.
They stayed like that
Both of them still. The orchestra below, somewhere, landing on its tuning note.
Then, a knock at the box door.
Pantalone was already moving before Dottore's arm tightened.
"One moment," Dottore said — to Pantalone, not the door.
"I know," Pantalone said. "Let go."
They separated. Pantalone stood, steadier than he had any right to
"Clench," Dottore said pleasantly, reaching for his jacket.
Pantalone looked at him.
"The door isn't going to wait," Dottore said, adjusting his lapel. "Clench. Or your trousers will make the evidence available before you do."
Pantalone clenched. He did this without dignifying it with a response. He turned his back to the door — six seconds, eight — and dealt with the practical realities: his underwear, damp and ruined, pulled back into position as his trousers were refastened. The warmth inside was staying where it was because Dottore had described it as a logistical problem with a practical solution, which it was, which Pantalone resented.
He adjusted the silver frames of his glasses.
He turned around.
Dottore was already seated, mask repositioned, looking at the stage with the expression of a man who had arrived early and been waiting patiently.
Pantalone smoothed his lapel.
"Come in," he said.
The door opened.
Sandrone entered with the economy of someone who had never wasted a movement in her life.
One-second room read. Two occupants, seated, facing the stage. The air in the box carrying a tension that did not belong to people who had merely been sitting.
Pantalone's collar was very straight. Dottore's jacket was without a wrinkle. The chair at the rear of the box had been repositioned.
Sandrone took the third seat and directed her gaze at the stage and began, immediately and comprehensively, to regret her evening.
Why did I come tonight, she thought. Specifically tonight.
"Marionette," Dottore said.
"Doctor." A pause. "Regrator."
The performance was good. She had been looking forward to it. The soprano had a reputation. The production had been reviewed extensively.
She was going to watch this opera if it killed her.
"Enjoying the season?" Pantalone asked.
"I was," she said. Then, hearing herself: "Yes."
Below, the soprano moved into the emotional peak of the first scene. Sandrone looked at it. She was looking at it.
In her peripheral vision, Dottore turned his head toward Pantalone. His mouth moved to the side of Pantalone's jaw — openly, not pretending to be anything else. Pantalone exhaled through his nose. It was not a professional exhale.
Sandrone looked at the stage.
I could have stayed in the workshop, she thought. Seventeen things. The primary resonance calibration alone. I chose not to do any of them.
From her left, brief and audible, a kiss.
"Doctor," Sandrone said.
"Mm," Dottore said.
"We are in public."
"We're in a private box," Dottore said. He had not moved away from Pantalone's jaw. "There's a material distinction between the two."
"The distinction," Sandrone said, "is insufficient for what you're currently—"
"The adjacent box is unoccupied," Dottore said. "The staff have been redirected for the evening. The curtain on that side is drawn and has been since we arrived. The nearest occupied position is this chair." He indicated Sandrone. "Which is you. And you're not public."
A pause.
"That," Sandrone said, "is not the relevant definition of public."
"It's the operationally relevant one," Dottore said. He finally moved away from Pantalone's jaw, but his hand settled on Pantalone's thigh instead, which was not an improvement.
Sandrone looked at the stage.
I turned right, she thought. Ispecifically, voluntarily turned right.
The soprano's scene continued. The letter. Its significance. The technically demanding vocal passage that Sandrone would have been paying close attention to, under different circumstances.
"My proposal," she said. "Third quarter allocation. Six weeks without a response."
"These things take time," Pantalone said.
"How much time."
Dottore's thumb moved on Pantalone's thigh. She caught it peripherally. Pantalone's response came out a half-beat late: "thorough evaluation. Responsible fiscal management."
"Large allocations require review. Smaller allocations—"
"Cleaner to process together," Pantalone said. "Downstream—"
Dottore leaned toward him again — mouth at the corner of Pantalone's jaw, one hand sliding around to the back of his chair, the other remaining on his thigh. Pantalone's sentence stopped.
"—complexity," he finished. Slightly louder than required.
"Regrator," Sandrone said.
"Mm," Pantalone said.
"Could you elaborate on downstream complexity without stopping mid-sentence."
"I'll do my best," Pantalone said.
From her left, barely audible: Dottore made a sound that was almost a laugh. Pantalone, facing the stage with complete neutrality, said: "The soprano is excellent this evening. I've been noting it."
Sandrone looked at the stage. The soprano was excellent. She was going to look at the soprano.
"Sub-components," she said. "Two weeks. Separate submissions."
"Two weeks," Pantalone agreed. "That's manageable."
She almost left.
She had the sub-components. Concrete outcome. Return on investment.
She stayed.
She had paid for this seat. The soprano was genuinely good. She was not going to let these two have this.
Intermission.
Sandrone did not move from her seat.
"The Khaenri'ah project," Dottore said, into the intermission noise. "Materials budget is running short."
"Send it through," Pantalone said. The specific warmth reserved for one person in this box. "I'll approve it when it arrives."
"Promptly?" Dottore asked.
"Promptly," Pantalone confirmed.
Sandrone sat with this for two seconds. Then filed it under information I now have and cannot un-have and said nothing.
The second act was better, technically, than the first.
Sandrone watched it. Dottore's hand had relocated from Pantalone's thigh to around his shoulder — his fingers moving at the back of Pantalone's neck, slow and unhurried, the gesture of someone who had stopped pretending.
"Doctor," Sandrone said.
"Mm," Dottore said.
"Your hand."
"It's not in anyone's way," Dottore said.
"It's in my way," Sandrone said. "Categorically. It is obstructing my ability to receive this performance, and I'm asking you to move it."
"The obstruction," Dottore said, "is perceptual. Not physical. You're bothered by the awareness of it, not by any tangible interference with your viewing experience. If you were to simply not think about it, the problem resolves itself."
Sandrone turned to look at him.
"That," she said, "is not a solution."
"It addresses the root cause," Dottore said. "The performance is in front of you. My hand is not. The issue is exclusively in your perception. Adjust your perception."
"I am not going to adjust my perception of your—"
"Doctor," Pantalone said, pleasantly.
"Mm," Dottore said.
"She has a point."
A pause.
Dottore's fingers stilled. Not removed. Stilled.
"Better?" Dottore asked Sandrone.
"No," Sandrone said.
"The movement has stopped," Dottore said. "The hand is stationary. By any objective measure, the situation has improved."
"The hand is still—"
"Stationary," Dottore said. "Yes."
Sandrone looked at the stage. The soprano was doing something technically remarkable. Sandrone looked at it and thought about breath control and tried to locate the portion of her attention that was capable of appreciating it.
She found approximately sixty percent of it.
The other forty percent was occupied by the awareness of Dottore's hand, stationary at the back of Pantalone's neck, and the awareness that stationary was doing a great deal of work as a definition.
"Doctor," she said, forty-five seconds later.
"The movement is minimal," Dottore said.
"Doctor."
"Barely perceptible," he said.
"I can perceive it,"
"Your perceptual sensitivity," Dottore said, "is exceptional. You should receive that as a compliment. Most people in this building couldn't detect what you're detecting. It speaks to the quality of your attention."
"My attention," Sandrone said, "is currently being wasted on detecting your—"
"Which means," Dottore said, "that the performance has your full attention and this conversation is operating on your surplus cognitive capacity. You're watching the opera and managing this simultaneously. That's efficiency, not obstruction."
A silence.
Sandrone had, over the years of her career, encountered a small number of people who could stop a sentence before it got anywhere useful. Dottore was, unfortunately, one of them. She looked at the soprano. She thought about breath control. She filed Dottore's argument under technically irrefutable, substantively infuriating, and did not respond.
Beside her, Pantalone said: "She's right, you know. About the hand."
"Mm," Dottore said, and did not move it.
Pantalone caught Sandrone's expression and looked at the stage.
"The second movement," he said, "is structurally superior to the first. The composer understood her range better in the lower register."
"I noticed that," Sandrone said, because it was true.
"The transitions in the third scene are—"
Dottore leaned over and kissed Pantalone's temple.
"—are technically well-executed," Pantalone finished, without a break.
Sandrone looked at the soprano.
She stayed through the final act.
She was not going to let them have this.
The curtain came down to sustained applause.
The soprano had earned it. Sandrone applauded. Then she straightened her coat and moved toward the box door and did not look back.
The main exit. The marble staircase. The outside air, cool and significantly improved by the absence of Dottore and Pantalone.
At the foot of the steps, a man in a grey coat and a woman in a dark blue shawl. Facing box. Sandrone recognised their posture.
She was almost past them.
"—kept thinking about it through the whole second act," the woman was saying. "The person in the box opposite."
"You're still on that," the man said.
"It was the expression." The woman adjusted her shawl. "You know how it is when someone is trying very hard to look perfectly fine and almost managing it."
"Could have been anything. Bad news before the evening."
"Before the curtain?" The woman shook her head. "He was at the parapet. Both hands on the edge. And then his face just — went somewhere else, for a moment."
"You were watching him the whole time?"
"Only for a second. He looked directly across. I thought he'd seen me." A small shrug. "I hope he was all right. He seemed — not unwell, exactly. Something else."
The man said something Sandrone didn't catch. The woman laughed, quietly, and they moved toward the carriage at the kerb.
Sandrone kept walking.
She walked until the sound of them was gone.
Then she stood on the pavement — alone, the departing audience thinning around her — and considered the precise shape of the evening she had just survived.
Not unwell, exactly. Something else.
She turned left.
She walked to her carriage, told the driver to return, and sat in the dark with her hands folded in her lap and thought about the soprano's breath control and the sub-component approvals and did not think about anything else.
She had seventeen things to do in the workshop.
She went to do them.
The primary resonance calibration took until 3am.
It helped, somewhat.
— End —