Riven emerged from the chute into the underrail—wet, cold, heartbeat in his ears.
Behind him? The Nest burned. A place he'd built from broken dreams now just smoke and ruin.
He had nothing.
No tools.No bench.No power grid.No cube.
Just Ghostwire… and his mind.
He wandered for hours.
Down tunnels. Through forgotten basements. Past the echo of old worlds.
Until he hit a wall—literally. An ancient concrete block tagged with a single symbol:
🜁The alchemy mark for air.
Below it, scrawled in ink:
"All builders start with ruins."
He stared.
And laughed.
That's where she found him.
Ash.
"Told you they'd come," she said."Didn't think they'd level your home though."
Riven just stared.
"Why are you here?""Because you survived. That means you're useful."
She tossed him a data slate.
"Blueprints. Materials. Contacts. One condition—""Let me guess," Riven muttered. "Mindvault?"
Ash shook her head.
"No. Something older. A network of rogue architects—real ones.We don't build for control. We build to reclaim."
"What's it called?""We don't name it. But if you're in, we start now."
Riven looked down at the slate.
Project codename:
ARK—Autonomous Reconstruction Kernel.
A mobile workshop. Self-powered. Self-repairing. Off-grid.
His fingers twitched.
"Let's build something they can't burn."