The screen was already on when Juno walked in. Drex sat at his workbench, half-focused on the news feed, half-dismantling a drone stabilizer.

  “Turn it up,” Juno said.

  Drex glanced over. “Something happen?”

  “Yeah. Big.”

  He tapped the remote. The volume clicked up just as the footage rolled.

  A tower—one of the big ones, out near the U.S. central zone. Black stone. Perfect walls. Still humming from heat discharge. Three MBT-9 tanks rumbled out of the entry platform, scorched but mobile. One had a smashed tread and was dragging half a trailer behind it. Pallets stacked with crystal shards, glowing metals, and something wrapped in containment foil that shimmered like it was underwater.

  The feed cut to a press room. Military spokesperson. Full uniform. Clean voice.

  “...we can confirm a successful return from Tower 14. No fatalities. All three units returned under their own power. One operator sustained minor injuries.”

  The footage shifted again—closer shots of the loot. One material floated a few centimeters off the pallet without assistance. Another sample phased in and out of visibility. The anchor read off notes about “non-Earth isotopes,” “gravitational anomalies,” and “inertial drift.”

  Juno leaned forward. “That’s not junk. That’s physics-breaking stuff.”

  Drex didn’t respond. He was locked on the footage.

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  “Reports indicate the tower registered the vehicle as the participant. Operators remained inside at all times. Based on this, researchers believe any equipment directly connected to the participant at the moment of entry is included in the tower’s registration process.”

  There it was.

  Drex muttered, “So it’s not about the person. It’s what they bring in.”

  “Solo pilot, three tanks,” Juno added. “Each one had a single crewman. Three people, three machines. All counted.”

  Drex was already flipping his sketchbook open.

  Juno sighed. “Don’t.”

  “I’m not doing anything yet,” Drex said, scribbling. “Just running the numbers.”

  “You’re building.”

  “Thinking.”

  “Same thing with you.”

  Drex stopped drawing and looked up. “You saw what they pulled out. The materials. That’s not junk. That’s tower-grade tech. The kind of stuff that turns a scrapyard into a lab.”

  Juno grabbed a bottle from the fridge. “You’re not a soldier.”

  “I’m not trying to be. But the tower doesn’t care about rank.”

  Drex flipped the page and sketched a frame—two legs, wide stance, low profile. Cables snaking from a power core mounted in the back.

  “I’ve got metal. Motors. Hydraulic lines. Tower fragments from scav runs. Half the systems are already here.”

  “You don’t have a cockpit.”

  “I will.”

  Juno didn’t say anything for a while. Then he set the bottle down and cracked his knuckles.

  “You’re not going in alone.”

  Drex looked up.

  “You’re serious?”

  “Someone’s gotta keep you alive,” Juno said. “And if this works… I want to be there when it does.”

  Drex just nodded and turned back to the sketch.

  “Then let’s build it.”