Kael's visits to the south yard became more frequent, though no one ever scheduled them. He showed up always early, always silent, and sat in the same place at the edge of Vessa's work zone. He didn't interrupt. He didn't ask questions.
But he watched.
Mirena had worked out an arrangement with Jace. Each morning, before heading to the dig zones, Jace would strap Kael onto the back of his old pony-cycle, a three-wheeled, dust-caked electric scooter just sturdy enough to navigate the uneven ground between home and the yard. Kael would ride quietly, a helmet strapped snug over his ears, one small, gloved hand gripping the reinforced bar at his side. When they reached the edge of the yard, Jace would help him down, watch until he was safely within Vessa's sightline, then ride off without a word.
Kael never wandered. He didn't play. He just went where he was meant to be.
He would sit in the same spot just outside the yellow hazard paint lines Vessa had sprayed on the ground and pull on his gloves.
Vessa started talking to him as she worked, not to teach, but to think aloud. To explain systems to herself. And yet Kael would respond with quiet nods when she was right, the barest tilt of his head when she wasn't. She found herself relying on him without realizing it.
By the end of the week, she handed him his own set of gloves. Too large but worn soft. He slipped them on without a word.
"You've earned them," she said.
Kael looked at her, then back at the exposed junction plate they were working on.
"Spark flow's too high," he murmured.
She checked the panel.
He was right.
At home, things changed quietly.
Mirena noticed first.
The air recycler in the sleeping dome had been rattling for days, low enough that she hadn't filed a report, just chalked it up to age. But one morning, it stopped. The rattling vanished.
She climbed up to inspect it and found the bracket realigned, the magnet bolts tightened. The tool marks were fresh. But she hadn't fixed it.
Neither had Arik.
She looked down from the hatch to see Kael standing by the workbench, wiping his hands with a rag.
"Did you do this?" she asked.
Kael gave the barest shrug.
"Was loud," he said.
Jace noticed next.
The diagnostic reader for their old loader had been finicky for months. It needed a physical tap to trigger the boot sequence. But one morning, it started without resistance.
Jace blinked.
Opened the hatch.
Inside, the trigger relay was bypassed and rerouted through an old grounding pin in the maintenance stack.
No one else in the house even knew how to access it.
Kael walked by with a small spool of filament wire tucked under one arm. Jace didn't stop him.
He just stared.
Lenn came back from a salvage run one evening and found Kael standing at the workbench sorting parts.
Not toys. Not scraps.
Parts.
Correctly.
By type, function, and condition. He placed oxidized modules into a bin with a red tag, new weld joints in the clean tray, and left a handwritten note on the fuel cell cap: "Don't use. Seal weak."
Lenn picked it up, flipped it over, and saw the crack.
"Kael," he said softly, "how did you even know what this is?"
Kael just looked up at him and said, "It didn't feel right."
At dinner that night, the whole family sat quietly around the table. The lamps above buzzed softly. The stew was thin, but warm.
Jace passed a plate to Lenn without a word. Lenn didn't look up. Neither did Arik.
Kael sat between them, chewing softly, legs swinging just barely above the floor.
Mirena cleared her throat.
"So," she said. "Are we going to talk about it?"
Jace spoke first. "He rewired the loader's boot sequence."
Lenn nodded. "Sorted my entire parts bin. Identified a seal fracture I didn't even see."
Mirena looked down at her spoon. "He tuned the air recycler."
All eyes turned to Arik.
He didn't move.
"He's just watching us," Arik said after a moment. "Mimicking. Smart kids do that."
"This isn't mimicry," Jace muttered. "I've trained apprentices who couldn't do what he's doing."
"He's not trained," Lenn added. "He's... instinctive."
"He's three," Arik snapped. Then quieted.
The silence stretched.
Kael looked around the table, watching each of them with calm, steady eyes. Not confused. Not afraid.
Just present.
"I think," Mirena said finally, "we have to accept what he is."
Arik stood. Pushed his chair back. Walked to the far corner of the room.
"He's our son," he said.
No one disagreed.
But everyone understood that wasn't all he was.
****
Back in the south yard,
It was just past the third cycle when the winds finally died down.
Most of Grey Hollow had retreated indoors for the midday heat shift, but the south maintenance yard remained alive in the shade of the canyon wall. The buzz of energy cells, the occasional sputter of a pump, and the low hum of cracked ventilation units formed a symphony only engineers would recognize.
Kael sat on an overturned junction box, small gloved hands resting on his knees. Vessa crouched beside him, elbow-deep in a half-torn stabilizer module, sweat trickling down the side of her temple.
She let out a breath, wiped her face with her sleeve, and dropped her tool with a clank.
Kael didn't flinch. He rarely did.
"You ever get tired of staring at me?" Vessa asked, not looking up.
Kael blinked. "No.
"You ever get tired of not talking?"
He shrugged.
Vessa sat back on her heels and studied him for a moment. The shade made his pale skin seem even lighter, but his eyes, those strange silver-flecked eyes, reflected the exposed diode lights from the panel like mirrors.
"You know," she said, "when I was your age, I couldn't tell the difference between a coil and a capacitor. I just shoved things into other things until someone yelled.
Kael tilted his head. "Did it work?"
"Sometimes."
He thought about it.
Then: "That's inefficient."
Vessa chuckled. "You're damn right it was."
She leaned back, resting against the hull of the broken loader.
Kael watched a sand crawler drone scuttle past the far fence, its belly dragging slightly on a damaged tread.
"Why do machines break?" he asked.
Vessa raised an eyebrow. "Because people make them."
Kael frowned. "But people are machines, too."
Vessa squinted at him. "What do you mean?"
He turned back to the stabilizer unit, eyes narrowing.
"They have wiring. Pulses. Heat. Input and output."
He tapped his head softly. "Like relays. But slower."
Vessa sat forward, a slow knot forming in her stomach.
"And what are you?" she asked gently.
Kael didn't answer immediately.
Then he said, "I'm... still updating."
She laughed. Not because it was funny, but because she didn't know what else to do.
"You're gonna give me gray hair," she muttered.
Kael reached forward and took the connector clamp she'd been struggling with. In one small motion, he slid it into place at the exact angle she'd been missing.
"Hold pressure," he said.
Vessa blinked.
Then she did as he said.
A soft click echoed under her palm.
The panel lit.
Fully functional.
She stared down at the seal. Then at him.
"Kael," she asked, voice steady but quiet, "how much do you understand about what I do here?"
Kael looked at her. "Enough."
"Enough for what?"
He paused. "Enough to fix."
"Fix what?"
He didn't say anything.
Just stood, brushed his gloves together, and stepped back into the shade. Watching her.
Waiting.
Vessa watched him for a long moment after that. The silence between them felt heavier than the heat.