He slammed the chisel into the oak with a precision born of obsession. Sawdust clouded the air like desert smoke after a firefight.
The laboratory interior hummed with the murmur of particle splitters and the low, symmetrical drumming of the AI-controlled sanding corridor. Cleanroom-white walls stretched around him, sterile and seamless. In the center of the cavernous structure, the man stood, pulling his apron tighter across his chest — the only splash of color in this blank cocoon: blood-red leather gloves, midnight blue work coat, and black trousers streaked with varnish and lacquer. An arcane artisan in a biomechanical forge.
His name was Kael Sato — thirty-four, registered furniture geneticist, once a child prodigy in lignite synthesis, now branded a dissident by the New Echelon. His studio in Sector D7, originally a high-ranking R&D containment cell, had long since been repurposed into what some whispered was a rebellion lab. But to Kael, it was a chapel. And the altar featured a slab of growing hybrid-wood — both organic and synthetic — fused with DNA strands derived from an extinct sequoia and coded with neural meshing for memory recall function.
“Run a neurograin test, model 44B. Relink the sap resonance with the AI feedback loop,” he barked into the void.
“Confirmed,” replied the embedded voice of NYX, his companion AI. Once a luxury home assistant, now hacked and surgically self-enhanced beyond New Echelon code parameters.
Kael exhaled. Each breath fogged the polyglass face shield. He lowered his safety goggles and leaned in, hands steady, as he applied the first coat of nanopoly with a bristle that had once belonged to George Nakashima’s archival brush — stolen, preserved, gold-cased. The surface shimmered with potential, humming as it absorbed the smart solution. A surface so smooth you could ice skate across it, as the myth said.
“Memory thread engaging,” NYX said calmly. “Would you like to recall the incident at Valhalla District, 2142?”
Kael hesitated. “Just show me the finish.”
The room dissolved around him.
Surfaces folded into nothingness. He was seventeen again, surrounded not by steel and AI pulse-lights, but wood. Raw, earthy applewood surfaces, unfinished, yet alive with oil and intention. The sun reached through his grandfather’s window in Kyoto, dappling the workbench where old man Shingo labored barehanded — no gloves, no goggles, only reverence for grain and years spent learning its voice.
“You don’t finish wood,” his grandfather whispered, “You listen until it asks you to stop.”
Years later, when Kael stood trial for 'genetic desecration of heritage materials,' he realized all he’d done was ignore that command. He had pushed. Infused. Improved. He thought he was modernizing tradition — not violating it. But lately…he wasn’t so sure.
IRL snapped back. NYX dimmed the hallucination interface. The slab before him shimmered — not just from the solution, but from something deeper: resonance. Kael unlatched the final clasp, revealing the embedded mnemonic thread within the wood grain. A message pulsed within — old tech, deep code — not sent, nor stored, but grown.
He read it:
“To finish is not the end. It is the beginning. Touch with love, or lose all memory.” - G.N.
It was Nakashima’s code signature — embedded centuries ago in a preserved splinter of walnut — now awakened by nanoseal and devotion. Kael wasn’t just finishing this table. He was regenerating art. Memory. Philosophy. Resistance.
The overhead lights shuddered. New Echelon had traced the resonance signal.
“Time’s up,” NYX whispered. “Extraction team en route.”
Kael touched the surface one last time. Smooth as glacier glass. A table made not to eat from, but to remember on. He triggered the release — sending the slab digitally and molecularly to the hidden colony in Terra-Singularity. The last bastion of authentic memory.
As the door exploded inward, and the agents shouted, their guns trained, Kael placed the final coat across the prototype bench and smiled.
“In the end,” he said, “only the varnished survive.”
Genre: Science Adventure / Dystopian Speculative Fiction / Psychological Thriller
The Source...check out the great article that inspired this amazing short story: How to Finish Wood Like a Pro
Disclaimer: This article may contain affiliate links. If you click on these links and make a purchase, we may receive a commission at no additional cost to you. Our recommendations and reviews are always independent and objective, aiming to provide you with the best information and resources.
Get Exclusive Stories, Photos, Art & Offers - Subscribe Today!
1 comment