The van's brakes whined outside the old farmhouse, a tired sound in a tired yard. Corrugated walls rattled; pigeons clattered from the rafters. Noah Cole wiped his hands on his jeans and stepped into the cold air.
"Delivery for Cole." The driver nodded at a tablet. "Heavy stuff. You building a tank or a kitchen?"
"Bench gear." Noah signed. "Out here the city inspectors don't visit."
The driver watched a gust lift dust off the gravel. "Lucky you. Everything's a pain to buy right now. Prices up, stock down." He lowered his voice. "Feels like someone's rationing without saying they're rationing."
Noah gave him a neutral smile. "I buy early."
"Smart. Heard talk about… you know." The driver tugged his cap. "End-of-the-world types emptying shelves. Government buying weird bulk. If it's nothing, I'll feel dumb." He hesitated. "If it's something—"
"You won't feel anything. You'll be busy." Noah kept his tone light, a joke with edges. "Back the pallet to the workshop door for me?"
Two pallets rumbled over the cracked concrete and kissed the threshold. The driver took a photo, got his tip, and left with a relief that smelled like gasoline.
Silence settled. The yard was a museum of ugly metal: rust-gummed shelving, bins of fasteners, spools of wire, and the prize—crates stenciled with serials. Beyond the window, the fields looked flat and patient. This'll do.
He barred the door and peeled the plastic from the first crate. Foam squealed under the crowbar. Inside: the industrial robotic arm he'd bargained out of a factory liquidation, oil still sweet in its joints.
Noah glanced over the shop—the mess he'd curated in two frantic weeks. He'd sold his apartment, paid the penalties, closed the accounts, and driven inland to higher ground. Six million in cash had evaporated into over three thousand tons of mixed scrap and usable equipment. Money goes fast when the world gets nervous.
He checked the main breaker—on. The portable inverter hummed. He slid the arm onto the bench and bolted the base to a steel plate he'd welded to the table for this exact purpose. Cables coiled like sleeping snakes.
"Power," he said, and lifted the kill switch.
Light clicked inside his skull.
[Compatibility: 90%.][Evaluation: A competent industrial arm for basic production tasks.][Upgrade paths: Industrial Arm I—Dexterous Hand (1 Survival Point); Industrial Arm II—High-Frequency Oscillating Cutter (1 Survival Point); Industrial Arm III—High-Energy Smelting Laser Emitter (2 Survival Points).]
The overlay hung in the air like frost, crisp and personal. No one else could see it. He'd stopped trying to explain it to himself; the system had woken weeks ago and it worked. That was enough.
He hovered on III. A laser meant heat on demand, precise and clean. Cut. Melt. Shape.
"Confirm: Industrial Arm III—High-Energy Smelting Laser Emitter."
A hair-thin filament of light threaded the arm's casing and snuffed out. The machine changed like a breath drawn and held—panels tightening, bearings drinking slack. At the wrist, the anthropoid hand retracted; in its place grew a fist-sized crystal, milky at the core as if it hoarded daylight.
Noah touched the housing. Cold.
[Remaining Survival Points: 14.]
He exhaled through his teeth and laughed once—short and private. Not joy. Relief. One piece that belongs to the future, finally sitting on my table.
He didn't dwell. Foam ripped; tape snapped. He opened the second crate.
"Cutter next," he murmured. He had the sequence in his head like a recipe: cutter for speed, hand for finesse, laser for the heavy work. The HUD obliged, painting the familiar options.
[Upgrade paths: … I—Dexterous Hand (1 SP); II—High-Frequency Oscillating Cutter (1 SP); III—… (2 SP).]
"Industrial Arm II. Cutter."
The new arm shivered. The fore-end telescoped into a slender lance ringed by fine vents. A low, hungry whir began, a dentist's nightmare scaled up for steel.
He rolled his shoulders, box knife between his fingers. The third crate had a dented corner. He popped staples and dug the arm free. Last one for now. His ledger flickered in memory. Start: sixteen. Laser took two. Fourteen left. Cutter will make thirteen. Hand will make twelve. Enough to begin, not enough to be wasteful.
"Industrial Arm I. Dexterous Hand."
Servos puckered; carbon-fiber tendons braided. Five fingers unfolded, more nimble than flesh, each knuckle etched with grip texture like the fingerprint of a machine.
Noah stepped back. Three arms waited—laser, cutter, hand—like a choir expecting a cue.
He flicked the workbench lights brighter and pushed a stack of steel plates into reach. The smell of oil, dust, old rust, and new ozone thickened into something he recognized as momentum.
The phone on the pegboard buzzed. For a second he let it vibrate, an insect trapped on wood. He checked the screen. Unknown number. He ignored it. When necessary, he would be known; until then, he preferred to be a rumor with a fence around it.
He opened a battered notebook and ran a finger down the first build list.
Power spine—safe routing from main inverter, surge suppression.
Mount carriages—linear rails leveled to 0.2 mm across bench span.
Tool choreography—assign lanes, avoid collisions.
Chassis plates A–D—rough cut today.
He pulled the first plate onto the bench. "No stupid cuts," he told himself. "Your steel is your time."
The overlay baited him with more.
[Suggestion: Calibrate before first operation.][Auto-calibration options: Quick (2 minutes), Precise (14 minutes).]
"Precise." He could feel the tug of impatience and refused it. A line of blue dots marched across his view; the hand tapped reference points with a tidy rhythm. The cutter flicked bursts at tape squares; the laser traced a hairline over the table to map flex. The bench responded with a faint, resonant hum that he felt in his knees.
He checked the yard again. Nothing but wind. The world beyond his fence had started to creak in ways that didn't make the news: friends mentioning empty pharmaceutical shelves, rationed sugar in the corner store, a papered-up notice at the municipal office about "temporary requisition powers." He had tried to buy into a finished, official shelter. Too late. By the time he chased the listings, the good sites were "reserved" or "under evaluation." The rest were gone or hot with rumor.
So he'd come here. Higher ground. Few neighbors. A roof that leaked, a floor that didn't, and a breaker box that thanked him for the attention. From zero meant he owned every decision and every fault.
The calibration completed with a small chime that only he could hear.
[Calibration complete.][Collision matrix built.][Operational safety: Acceptable.]
"Good." He set the plate, chalked a cut path, then erased it. He wanted the first slice to matter more than practice. "Let's do the spine bracket."
A knock thudded at the front door.
He didn't flinch, but his breath paused. He keyed the bench lights to half, wiped his palms, and stepped through the dark shop to the door.
An old man in a waxed jacket stood there, hat in hand. Neighbor, maybe. Noah clocked the boots, the hands, the farmer's squint.
"Afternoon." The man nodded toward the workshop. "Saw the van. You renting out?" Subtext: Who are you, what are you bringing into my quiet?
"Fixing up the place," Noah said. "Restoration work."
"Must be good work. Folks in town say you've been buying every piece of scrap that isn't nailed down."
"That so?" Noah kept it mild.
The old man studied him, then smiled a notch. "If you're fixing, you'll need sand and aggregate. My cousin runs a lot. Fair prices, no questions." He slid a card across the doorframe—name, number. "Tell him Elliott sent you."
Noah took it. "Appreciate it."
"Another thing," Elliott said. "County permits." He jerked his chin at the back lot. "You dig, they notice."
"Not digging." Yet. "I'm a careful man."
"Good." Elliott tipped his hat. "Careful men last longer."
When the door shut, the workshop felt denser, as if the conversation had added weight to the air. He tucked the card under a magnet. Permits mean eyes. Eyes mean a schedule. He moved to the bench and breathed in to the count of four, out to six. The only way forward was forward.
He set the plate again and locked it. The hand steadied the edge with a mechanic's patience. The cutter hovered.
[Warning: First operation consumes consumables significantly if parameters are incorrect.][Preset profiles available.]
"Manual." He keyed in feed rate and depth. "We'll learn the machine, not the presets."
The cutter's whine climbed. Sparks spawned in a tight stream and ran like orange rain across the tray. The smell of hot metal filled his throat. The hand brushed glowing grit aside before it could weld itself where it didn't belong.
Halfway through the arc, the overlay blinked a soft yellow.
[Recommendation: Increase coolant airflow 12%.]
"Do it."
The whine mellowed. The plate's edge came off clean—no burrs, no chew marks. Noah lifted the bracket with pliers and quenched it in a steel pan. Water boiled angry and calmed.
He laid the bracket on the blueprint and marked the next cut. The movement felt right—build the foundation parts first, then the rails, then mount the three arms in a proper choreography. He could see it assembled in his head, the universal engineering robot with a stable base, rails that could carry weight and repeat the same path a thousand times within a hair.
His phone buzzed again. Same unknown number. He muted it and kept working.
A quiet, unwelcome thought slipped in as he swept slag into a bucket: Survival Points don't grow on trees. He didn't know how to earn them efficiently yet. The system sometimes ticked a point upward after a long day of building, sometimes not. He suspected thresholds he hadn't mapped. [CHECK: exact accrual rules unknown.]
He set the next plate, larger, thicker. The laser felt heavy even dormant, as if it knew what it could do. He lined it up above the chalk.
[Caution: High-Energy Emitter—eye protection required.]He slid on the dark lenses. "Noted."
The phone buzzed a third time and, after a beat, began to ring steady, a caller who wouldn't accept being ignored. He froze. There were two kinds of calls that waited like that: family—and officials. He had neither here, not really.
The ring died. A text popped.
UNKNOWN: "Are you operating heavy equipment at 14 Quarry Lane? Call me."
He placed the phone face down. Permits. Elliott's warning walked a slow circle in his head. He checked the door. Locked. He checked the breaker. Solid. He looked at the three arms—a fist of crystal, a needle, and a machine hand—poised over a plate that would become the first piece of the chassis that would carry the tool that would build the bunker that would keep him breathing.
"Time to choose," he said.
He brought his thumb to the activation switch and set the emitter's aperture to narrow.
[High-Energy Smelting Laser Emitter—standby.]
Noah lowered the crystal to kissing distance from steel. His finger tightened—just enough to cross a line.
[Engage?]
He clicked.
The world answered with white fire.