The ground still trembled behind him.
Riven didn't flinch.
The Lazarus Facility was gone—erased in fire, dust, and silence. No clones, no backups, no ghosts of himself left to haunt him.
Just him.A satchel.And the future.
He walked for hours.
Through ruined subways, rusted scaffolding, forgotten tunnels—until he found it.
A collapsed tech depot on the edge of a dead zone. Off-grid. Abandoned.
Home.
Inside were shelves of scorched components, shattered screens, and discarded relics from the last tech war. A graveyard of potential.
Riven dropped his bag, knelt by a fried drone, and smiled.
"Hydraulic joints… if I rewire the input… and swap the shell—yeah, that could work."
His fingers moved fast, scavenging.
He didn't need money.He needed parts.
He didn't need sleep.He had focus.
He didn't need permission.He had time.
He glanced at the orb glowing faintly in his satchel.
"You'll wait. I've got something to build."
He pulled out a blank blueprint sheet.
Wrote one word at the top:
TOOLHAND v1