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Artem Vale, a city rail tech, stumbles into a hidden class when an anomaly blooms beneath GuildCity. With a Caretaker Node as mentor, a brass ferret companion, and a brusque demolitions partner, he learns to stitch code and steel. He severs a rogue anchor, saves a line, and starts a school to teach others to weave.
The rails hummed like low music under Artem Vale’s boots. Heat rose from the ballast, and the smell of metal and brake dust clung to the platform even though commuters had thinned. Over his right eye, the GuildGrid overlay ticked semi-transparent numbers. Green bars slid across arcs. A faint chime marked a routine check.
“Duct A-12 pressure nominal,” he said into his collar mic.
Kite, his palm-sized hover-drone, chirped and drifted toward the next junction box. Its carbon body caught stray light and sent it skipping across the graffiti-streaked wall. Artem knelt, ran fingers over the box’s steel face, and felt vibration like a cat purring. He accepted the micro-quest the system had popped up.
[GuildGrid] Micro-Task: Tighten signal coupler 3B.
Reward: 10 XP, 2 CityCred. Safety bonus: 1% if completed within 90 seconds.
He slid the pulse spanner into the socket. The tool glowed, and the GuildGrid shaded the bolt blue. One click, two, until the overlay flashed a soft gold.
[Completion] Signal coupler 3B stabilized. +10 XP. CityCred +2. Safety bonus achieved.
“Easy,” Artem said. He stood and wiped grease on his CivWorks coat. Distant air brakes hissed. A new train was due in three minutes—enough time to grab tea from the kiosk.
Steam rolled from Mei-Lin’s copper kettle, the smell of jasmine bright in the oil and metal perfume of the station. She handed him a paper cup.
“Shift early?” she asked. Her dark hair was wrapped up in a saffron scarf, ends tucked so they wouldn’t dip in the broth.
“Started at five,” Artem said. “Line three kept chirping. Ghost packets, maybe.”
She clicked her tongue. “Then you should eat more. You forget when you chase your ghosts.” She tapped the counter. “IOUs don’t keep you standing.”
He smiled and slid a CityCred chit across anyway. “Guild’s paying.”
Her eyes flicked to his overlay’s faint glow. “They always do until they don’t.” She set a bao on his cup lid like a moon on a rim. “For extra ghosts.”
Kite rose to eye level and beeped, impatient. Artem took the hint, lifted the cup, let heat fill his palms, then moved back toward the platform’s far end. A maintenance door waited there—yellow sticker peeling, No Unauthorized Access repeated in eight languages. He had keys for all of them, and the GuildGrid knew his name and routes. It painted a green halo around the lock when he approached.