Day Two: The Ascent

By morning, the site was surrounded.

Drones hovered overhead. Reporters lined up behind makeshift barriers. Onlookers pressed against fences, phones raised. News crews jostled for the best shot. The entire block buzzed with rising excitement.

And in the middle of the site, standing completely still—like statues—were NEAR-03 and NEAR-04.

At exactly 08:00, the two bots moved.

Flawlessly synchronized, they began lifting pre-positioned steel beams, welding supports, and securing the framework. It was like watching a perfectly choreographed dance—fluid, efficient, without wasted movement. They didn't pause. They didn't need direction.

The apartment complex, a four-story structure with sixteen units, was rising—fast.

Inside a nearby temporary control van, Barron Vrax stood in front of a wall of monitors, his arms folded and his eyes wide with disbelief. His assistant leaned in and whispered, "They're two hours ahead of projected schedule."

Vrax chuckled darkly. "You see this? This isn't robotics. This is economic warfare."

Back at Arkbound HQ, the core team watched the live feed.

Raen stood behind a dark privacy screen, arms folded, face never visible to the external feeds. The room was silent except for the soft hum of cooling fans and the tap of fingers on keyboards.

"They're exceeding baseline performance," Korin muttered, watching the system analytics.

Lira blinked. "And adapting. They're adjusting grip tension in real time. They're compensating for microstructural shifts in the steel—on their own."

Saelyn scrolled through telemetry. "Power consumption is balanced. Zero sync loss."

Raen's voice cut through. "That's the neural adaptive system. It's learning from the structural resistance and calibrating per second."

Nyra looked up from her comms. "Social reaction's exploding. The feed has hit ten million views. But we've got a situation—three confirmed industrial espionage agents on-site."

Saelyn tossed a report onto the table. "They're running spectral scans and watching bot behavior patterns. Probably trying to reverse-engineer movement logs."

Raen didn't move from the shadows. "Let them try."

Nyra narrowed her eyes. "You're sure?"

He nodded. "They can watch all they want. They'll never see the code. They'll never see what's inside."

Nyra smirked. "That's cold."

Raen leaned slightly closer to the screen. "It's necessary. If they want to know who's behind this, they'll only ever get one name—Arkbound."

Construction Site – Evening

As the sun dipped lower, the bots were already beginning the third floor. Welds gleamed golden under the torch lights, and the steel skeleton of the building stood proud over the crowd.

Barron Vrax leaned against a metal barricade, reporters all around him.

"They said two bots couldn't build a structure," he said into the nearest mic. "Well, they just did half of it in one day."

A murmur ran through the crowd.

He raised his hand. "This is day two. Let's see what day three brings."