Night on Helios‑9 never truly fell.
Even when the industrial sun sank beneath the jagged horizon, the sky remained polluted with artificial luminescence. Orbital transfer lanes carved glowing scars across the heavens. Refinery towers belched incandescent steam. Distant plasma furnaces flickered like malevolent stars. The clouds—dense with metallic dust and chemical residue—caught and scattered that light, painting the world in permanent twilight.
Lightning cracked constantly through the smog, brief and violent, illuminating mountains of twisted scrap and shattered megastructures.
Within a narrow cavity formed by collapsed alloy plating and fractured composite beams, Arjun lay awake.
The shelter—if it could be called that—had once been part of a transit hub wall. Now it was nothing more than a corroded shell barely large enough for a human body. The floor was uneven, strewn with flakes of rust and powdered insulation. The air smelled of burned fuel and stale moisture.
His chest rose and fell slowly, each breath measured.
Pain threaded through his limbs.
Hunger gnawed at his stomach.
Yet sleep would not come.
Because opportunity hovered close.
And opportunity, in the Outer Ring, was as dangerous as it was precious.
Arjun rolled onto his side, careful not to dislodge the precariously balanced plating above him. His eyes adjusted to the dim glow emitted by a cracked grav-panel embedded in the wall. The light flickered weakly, powered by a dying cell that could fail at any moment.
Kael's memories surfaced, uninvited.
This hole in the scrap had once felt safe.
A refuge from roaming gangs.
A place to hide from scavenger patrols.
A fragile sanctuary carved from debris.
Arjun exhaled slowly.
Not anymore.
He raised his left hand, fingers flexing. Calluses lined his palms. Tiny scars crisscrossed his knuckles. His body was thin, hardened by years of malnutrition and labor, but there was steel in the muscle beneath.
And behind those eyes now lived something far more dangerous.
He summoned the interface.
Translucent blue panels unfolded before him, crisp and pristine—an impossible contrast against the decayed world.
[Supreme Mech Architect System]
[Primary Authority: Confirmed]
[Synchronization Rate: 9.3%]
[Core Modules: Locked — 97%]
[Active Functions: Basic Repair | Structural Optimization | Material Analysis]
The system hovered silently, awaiting command.
Limited.
But infinitely scalable.
Arjun's gaze sharpened.
In the Outer Ring, survival depended on power.
Power belonged to those with weapons.
And weapons belonged to those with mechs.
Even the weakest training mech could dominate a dozen armed men.
But mechs were relics of privilege.
Corporate training grounds.
Military academies.
Faction armories.
The slums possessed none of those.
Only ruins.
Only wreckage.
Only bones.
Unless one knew how to resurrect the dead.
A location surfaced from Kael's fractured memories.
Sector 17.
The abandoned hangar fields.
A graveyard of training units from a corporate academy destroyed during the Second Orbital Purge.
Scavengers had stripped the place decades ago.
At least, that was the belief.
Arjun rose silently, gathering his tools.
A handheld cutting torch.
Two depleted energy cells.
A coil of salvaged cabling.
A battered datapad with half-corrupted engineering libraries.
Minimal.
But sufficient.
He slipped into the maze of alleys beyond his shelter.
The slums breathed around him.
Steam hissed from ruptured pipes.
Hydraulic pistons groaned deep beneath the scrap.
Distant machinery thundered like a sleeping god.
Muted voices echoed between stacked debris towers.
Figures moved through shadowed corridors, eyes sharp, bodies coiled with caution.
Arjun kept to forgotten routes.
Collapsed transit rails.
Maintenance tunnels flooded with stagnant water.
Half-sealed ventilation shafts.
His movements were economical, precise.
Every step chosen.
Every shadow respected.
After nearly an hour, the environment shifted.
Scrap piled higher.
Debris thickened.
Structural collapse patterns changed.
Faint energy residue tingled against his skin.
Sector 17.
The hangar complex loomed ahead.
Once, it had serviced thousands of training mechs for corporate cadets. Now, it stood entombed beneath layers of fallen districts, its massive blast doors twisted and fused into grotesque shapes.
Arjun squeezed through a breach along the eastern wall.
Darkness swallowed him.
The hangar ceiling vanished into shadow. Broken gantries hung overhead like skeletal remains. Mech frames littered the floor—shattered, gutted, half-buried.
Silence pressed heavily against his ears.
Yet beneath it, tension coiled.
He activated Material Analysis.
The world transformed.
Every surface resolved into layered schematics. Structural faults glowed red. Energy residues shimmered faintly. Integrity values hovered beside fractured components.
He scanned methodically.
Then —
A flicker.
Near the far wall.
Beneath collapsed beams and compacted debris.
Arjun's breathing slowed.
[Model: Aegis‑T7 Advanced Training Frame]
[Operational Integrity: 12.4%]
A T7.
Elite.
Responsive.
Designed to replicate battlefield dynamics for cadets bound for front-line service.
In the slums, it was myth.
Arjun crossed the hangar carefully, avoiding unstable surfaces. Each step sent tiny avalanches of rust cascading down collapsed walls.
He reached the buried frame.
Clearing the debris required patience and restraint. One wrong shift could trigger a chain collapse. Sweat soaked his clothing as he worked, muscles trembling under the strain.
Minutes stretched into hours.
Gradually, the mech emerged.
Its armor was scorched.
Limbs fractured.
Core conduit ruptured.
Neural cluster fused.
To ordinary scavengers, it was worthless.
To him, it was a puzzle.
Arjun crouched, eyes burning with calculation.
"System. Structural optimization."
Data cascaded.
Load redistribution pathways.
Power rerouting networks.
Material substitution algorithms.
Emergency stabilization sequences.
His mind surged.
This was not repair.
This was resurrection engineering.
He scavenged relentlessly.
Servos from broken industrial loaders.
Microprocessors stripped from collapsed control consoles.
Conductive alloys harvested from collapsed transmission arrays.
Every piece slotted into place under the system's guidance.
Time lost meaning.
Hunger faded.
Pain dulled.
Only focus remained.
When artificial dawn bled through shattered skylights, the mech's integrity climbed to 41%.
Barely operational.
But alive.
Arjun hauled himself into the cockpit.
The cramped space smelled of burned circuits and stale coolant. He connected the final power cable and exhaled.
"Link."
Neural pressure bloomed.
Then — unity.
The mech responded.
Gyros stabilized.
Hydraulics hissed.
[Aegis‑T7 — Limited Activation Successful]
The mech's eyes ignited.
Dim.
But awake.
Arjun lifted one massive arm.
Metal sang.
For the first time since his rebirth, he smiled.
Then the system screamed.
[Multiple Hostiles Detected]
[Threat Assessment: Extreme]
Figures flooded into the hangar.
Dozens.
Black Iron enforcers.
At their center strode a towering brute clad in crimson exo‑armor.
"Scrap rat," the brute snarled. "You just built yourself a coffin."
Arjun's eyes burned.
"No."
He tightened his grip.
"I built myself a future."