The second day went faster than the first.
Not because the work was easier—the pool cost per segment held steady and the corridor's precise tolerances required the same attention as the first segment's. Faster because he knew what he was doing. There was a specific quality to work you had done before: not the absence of difficulty but the absence of uncertainty. He knew the grammar. He knew the junction architecture the third Source Point had specified. He knew the ancient network's character in this region and how to work with it rather than alongside it.
The western build was figuring it out. This is doing it. Those are different speeds.
Three segments on day two. Pool finishing at forty-two percent each time—consistent, predictable, within the range he could manage with ninety minutes of recovery.
Day three brought something new.
He was building east through the corridor, segment by segment, when the ancient network began extending toward him from the far end.
