A Matter of Equilibrium

My optical sensors fixed upon a wooden mechanical puzzle left on the living room coffee table: six interlocking cedar notched bars held in an unresolved cube. Previous cycles focused on external alignment, but this structure demanded internal assembly. I marched across the wood grain and evaluated the intersecting joints. The key locking pin was wedged askew at a thirty-degree angle. I firmly braced my silver boots against the tabletop. Lowering my chassis, I aligned the blunt flat muzzle of my left forearm blaster against the protruding peg, applying measured, linear pressure. The timber yielded with a tight, crisp pop, sliding flush into its groove. The assembly locked into a completely rigid, unified matrix.