Midnight Orders

Midnight blanketed the city in deep silence. The towering skyline of steel and light felt distant out here, behind the Arkbound building, where a dusty two-acre plot of land lay untouched—until now.

A pair of trucks had just unloaded piles of construction material: steel beams, reinforced panels, cement drones, and temporary lighting rigs. The cold glow from the streetlamps cast long shadows on the plot. Most of the team had already dozed off in their quarters inside the building—except Raen, Nyra, Lira, and Korin.

Lira yawned, rubbing her eyes. "Can't we do this in the morning? We've been working non-stop for days. We're engineers, not robots."

Raen smiled gently but shook his head. "Just hang on a little longer. After this, your overnight shifts are done. Once the bots start working, you'll finally have a breather."

Nyra stretched her arms and looked up at the moon. "Actually... this is the perfect time."

Raen raised an eyebrow. "Why?"

"It's quiet. No eyes. The night works in our favor. No media. No drones. Just us and our secrets."

Raen's eyes lit up with that familiar spark of intensity. He tapped his comm and gave a sharp command:

"NEAR-01. NEAR-02. Report to me immediately."

Not even a full minute passed before the ground lightly trembled—and from behind the facility, two metal silhouettes came into view, sprinting silently at inhuman speeds.

They stopped behind Raen, their eyes glowing like twin embers in the dark.

Lira's jaw dropped. "W–What the hell…"

Korin stepped back. "Wait, what just happened…?"

Saelyn had stepped outside by then, wrapped in her dark coat, still alert. She froze when she saw them.

"Raen?" she asked, eyes narrowing. "Why are they moving like that?"

Raen didn't even turn around. "Hold onto your shocked expressions. This is nothing."

He turned, facing the pile of construction materials now sitting in the center of the land.

"In the future," he said, voice low and certain, "we're going to build something out of this world. But tonight—we start with walls."

He looked at the bots. "Engage night vision. Scan the boundary. Mark a perimeter around the full two-acre plot."

The bots both responded in perfect sync.

"Acknowledged."

In an instant, they shot off like bullets, their metallic limbs silent but swift, scanning and mapping the land with laser-precision. One of them left illuminated markings on the soil using a low-powered emitter, while the other began organizing the material piles.

Korin muttered under his breath, "They're like machines with souls…"

Raen crossed his arms and nodded in approval. "Now that… that's nice."

Nyra was speechless, her eyes locked on the trail of glowing markers forming around them.

Saelyn stepped beside Raen, half-whispering. "We're not just making robots, are we?"

Raen didn't answer.

Instead, he just watched his creations start to build his future—one line of steel at a time.