A few days had passed since Raen erased everything.
He kept to low places—basement rentals, old cafés, abandoned rooftops with public network feeds. He worked offline, thought quietly, and avoided all patterns.
Then, one evening, a black car pulled up at the edge of a quiet alley in the city's outskirts. The window lowered just enough to reveal a familiar face.
"Get in," Saelyn said, calm as always.
Raen hesitated, then slid in.
No questions. Not yet.
The vehicle moved silently, drifting past city lights before turning to an access road shielded by trees and utility fencing.
Finally, she spoke.
"Do you know what 'Invaris' is?"
Raen glanced at her. "Some fancy brand you slapped on a secure server?"
She smirked. "It's the name of my organization. One of them, anyway."
Raen leaned back. "Figures. What's Invaris want with me now?"
She handed him a secure tablet. On it, a satellite view of a remote village—tiny, outdated, but real.
"We own this village. Not publicly. Not on paper you'll find. A legacy acquisition. Off-grid but livable. Quiet. Forgotten."
Raen squinted at the data. A few dozen houses, one broken school, cracked roads, some basic utility lines.
"What's the pitch?" he asked.
Saelyn looked out the window as trees flicked past in the dim light.
"We want to see if you can rebuild it. Not just houses or tech—but systems. Economy, security, innovation—whatever vision you carry."
Raen blinked. "You want me to play god in a sandbox?"
"Something like that," she said. "We want to see if your mind works on scale. This is a long-term gamble. And we're offering a long-term reward."
Raen leaned forward, skeptical. "What kind of reward?"
Saelyn turned her gaze to him—calm, serious.
"Access to a vault. Sealed tech. Patents that never went public. Old world black-budget hardware. And a one-time unrestricted fund: 2 million Lux."
Raen's heart nearly stopped.
He stared at the tablet again. This dusty, forgotten village… was worth more than he'd ever touched.
"There's a catch, right?"
"Of course," she smiled. "You'll be monitored. Indirectly. Fail to make meaningful progress, we pull the plug. Use it to build weapons, we pull the plug. Try to sell it to outsiders—you vanish."
Raen was quiet.
His fingers gripped the edge of the tablet.
"And if I pull it off?"
"Then Invaris will open more doors. And maybe," she added with a wry smile, "ask you to build even bigger things."
He looked at the screen again.
The cracked roads. The silent homes. A blank canvas.
He chuckled bitterly. "Let me guess. You already started moving my stuff there, didn't you?"
Saelyn turned to him, completely unapologetic.
"We never waste time, Raen."