Millbrook County sat forty minutes south of Ashford City by bus — a small, quiet place that time had mostly forgotten. The kind of town where everyone knew everyone, where the biggest news in any given month was a new restaurant opening or someone's kid getting into a good school.
This was where Ethan Mercer had grown up. And this was where he needed to be.
On the bus ride home, he'd done the math. Rough estimates, conservative numbers, cheapest options across the board — and the total still made his stomach drop.
Five million marks.
That was the minimum to build a working small nuclear reactor. Materials, equipment, a workspace that wouldn't draw attention — even cutting every corner possible, five million was the floor.
And right now? Ethan couldn't produce five hundred marks. His bank account was the financial equivalent of a ghost town. The only asset to his name was the house his parents had left him — and even that, combined with their savings, would barely scrape together two million.
Three million short. More than halfway to go.
He leaned his forehead against the bus window and stared at the passing countryside.
The knowledge in his head was extraordinary. If he could build this reactor, it would change — well, everything. Energy production. Military technology. The global balance of power. He was sitting on what might be the most valuable scientific breakthrough in the history of this world.
And he couldn't afford the materials to build it.
A penny stumps a hero, he thought grimly. Or in my case, three million marks stumps a kid with the blueprints to Iron Man's heart in his brain.
By the time the bus pulled into Millbrook, Ethan had made his decision.
He called the real estate agent.
The house his parents had left him was old — built decades ago, well before the neighborhood gentrified — but its location was prime. Close to the town center, walkable to everything, the kind of spot developers salivated over. The agent had been circling for years, showing up at his door every few months with a new pitch and a higher offer.
Ethan had always said no. The house wasn't just walls and a roof to him. It was the last piece of his parents that still existed in the physical world. Their furniture. Their photographs on the wall. The height marks they'd penciled on the kitchen doorframe when he was three, four, five years old — the last one just weeks before the accident.
Selling it felt like burying them a second time.
But the reactor wouldn't build itself. And once it worked — when it worked — money would stop being a problem. He'd buy the house back. Same layout, same everything. This was temporary. It had to be.
The agent was efficient. Alarmingly so. Within an hour of the call, he was standing at the front door with a briefcase and a smile that was trying very hard to look sympathetic.
Ethan led him through the house. The inspection was brief — the agent had been mentally appraising this property for years. They sat down at the kitchen table and negotiated.
The price was fair. Ethan had checked comparable sales in the area, cross-referenced with recent listings, and settled on a number that reflected the location premium without being greedy. One condition, though: full cash payment. No loans, no installments, no six-month closing process. The reactor couldn't wait.
They signed a preliminary letter of intent. Over the next few days, the agent would bring buyers through. If everything went smoothly, Ethan would have the full payment within a week.
Just as the agent was gathering his papers to leave, a sound echoed through the house that made both of them freeze.
Not a knock. A pounding. The kind of sound someone's palm makes when they're hitting a door because knocking is for people with patience.
Ethan knew exactly who it was, and the knowledge gave him a headache roughly the size of Northvale Province.
He motioned frantically to the agent. Stay quiet. Pretend nobody's home.
But Ethan had drastically underestimated the persistence of the person on the other side of that door. The pounding continued — ten seconds, twenty, thirty — and then there was a click, and the lock turned, and the door swung open.
Of course he has a key. Of course he does.
Frank Holloway strode into the living room like he owned the place. Which, in the emotional sense, he kind of did.
He was about fifty — short salt-and-pepper hair combed back with military precision, spine straight as a flagpole, the kind of energy that made men half his age feel tired by comparison. Decades of army discipline had left their mark: everything about Frank Holloway was sharp, efficient, and slightly terrifying.
If you spent enough time around him, you'd eventually notice the rigidity — the stubbornness, the refusal to bend, the blunt-force approach to every situation that had kept him from advancing past his current position despite a service record that should have taken him much further. Being incorruptible was admirable. Being incorruptible and tactless in a system that ran on favors? That was a career ceiling.
The agent, upon seeing who'd just walked in, went pale. He shrank into his chair like a mouse cornered by a cat, all trace of professional confidence evaporating.
Frank surveyed the room. His eyes found Ethan, and his expression cycled from relief to fury so fast it was almost impressive.
"So you are home." He dropped onto the couch without being invited. "Didn't answer when I knocked. Playing dead, are we?"
"Uncle Frank, what would I be hiding from? School's on break, so I came home for a day."
Frank snorted at the lie — a sound that conveyed years of practice seeing through this kid's nonsense — and then turned his gaze on the agent.
"You." The single word hit like a thrown brick. "Is your skin itching again? Bothering my nephew?"
The agent's smile looked like it hurt. "Principal Holloway, sir — we would never come uninvited. Your nephew is the one who called about selling—"
"Selling what house?!"
The question was so loud the windows rattled.
"Get. Out." Frank pointed at the door. "If I catch you sniffing around my nephew again, I'll park myself in your office every single day until you close up shop."
The agent flinched — physically flinched — like a man recalling a very specific, very unpleasant memory. He glanced at Ethan with desperate, pleading eyes.
Ethan gave him a subtle nod. Go. I'll handle this. Get out while you can.
The man didn't need to be told twice. He grabbed his briefcase and fled like the building was on fire.
Once the door closed, Ethan switched gears instantly — rubbing his hands together, stepping forward with the ingratiating smile of a nephew who knew he was about to get yelled at and was trying to preempt it with charm.
"Uncle Frank! Wow, that was impressive. You scared that guy so bad he could barely talk."
It didn't work.
Frank grabbed him by the ear.
"You little brat!" The volume was sufficient to rattle the light fixtures. "Are you trying to get yourself KILLED?"
He dragged Ethan closer by the earlobe, and his voice dropped to something worse than yelling — quiet, controlled fury.
"Tell me the truth. Did you drop out of Ashford Prep?"
Hearing Frank's familiar roar, Ethan didn't feel anger or resentment. What he felt, unexpectedly, was warmth.
It had been a long time since anyone had cared enough to yell at him like this.
Since starting at Ashford Prep, his visits home had gotten rarer. Frank was busy with his own school; Ethan was busy surviving. The distance had grown without either of them noticing. And now, hearing the raw worry beneath the fury, Ethan realized just how much he'd missed this man.
His uncle. His family. The only one he had left.
PLZ Throw Powerstones.