Raen stood in the middle of his sleek, modern lab, letting the quiet hum of dormant machines surround him.
His house was finally livable. Furnished, clean, organized. He had a real bed now. A functioning kitchen. Even a decent chair that didn't try to kill his spine. For the first time in years, his home didn't feel like a cage.
The lab? It was everything he dreamed of. Rows of fabrication units, mechanical arms, diagnostic stations, and servers lined the space like a silent army waiting for command.
He should've been thrilled.
Instead, he stared at the system interface with a tight jaw.
The problem was glaring and impossible to ignore: power consumption.
"At idle... 32,000 Lux a month," Raen muttered as he swiped through the stats. "When running full capacity? It's gonna eat through 50K easy."
His current balance wasn't small, but it wasn't bottomless either. If he wanted to keep innovating, inventing, expanding—he couldn't afford to burn through Lux just to keep the lights on.
Cutting power wasn't an option. That would defeat the entire purpose of the lab.
He needed something else. Something sustainable. Something powerful.
Raen stepped over to the far side of the lab and pulled up a new schematic on his floating display. As his fingers danced across the interface, a 3D model began to take shape. Cylindrical core. Magnetic confinement system. Triple-layered shielding.
His mind was running fast.
A miniature nuclear reactor.
Not a full-scale disaster waiting to happen, but a compact, clean energy solution. Something that could power his lab indefinitely without relying on the grid or draining his finances every month.
"If I build it right... this thing could run for 100 years," he whispered, eyes gleaming. "No more energy bills. No more limits."
He had the mechanical skill. The theory. Even the software framework.
But not the parts.
Some components weren't commercially available. Others were restricted. A few were... entirely illegal to own without government clearance.
He'd need connections. Deep ones.
Only one person came to mind.
Saelyn Vire.
She'd seen potential in VoxFrame. Backed him with no hesitation. She wasn't just rich—she was networked, resourceful, and unafraid of boundaries.
Raen pulled up his secure comms tab and started drafting a message.
[To: Saelyn Vire]Need to discuss something urgent. Come to the lab. It's big.
He hit send. The message pinged and vanished.
He leaned back in his chair, watching the prototype reactor rotate on the screen—blue lines pulsing softly like a heart.
"Let's give this lab a soul…"