He worked nights at the Luminaria workshop—an old printing press repurposed into a lab for curious, low-budget inventions. By day it hummed with the cautious commerce of bespoke neon signs; by night it became the kind of place that retrofits toys into robots and stitches LEDs into jackets. The Icaro laser had arrived two weeks prior in a padded crate stamped with a single instruction: "DO NOT INSTALL WITHOUT MANUAL." The crate’s corners wore the travel-marks of some far-off microfactory, and inside the machine had looked less like equipment and more like an artifact—slim ribs of titanium, a lens that reflected light like a trapped star, and a power module the size of a paperback.

"Right," Elias said, turning off the monitor for a moment to read the introduction. "I suppose I should learn how to fly this thing before I crash it."

: The central grid represents the physical workbed of your laser. Keep designs within these boundaries to prevent over-travel errors.

Sophie walked over, wiping dust from her hands. She reached into the stack of mail on Elias's cluttered desk and pulled out a sleek, black binder.