The Inventor and the Machine: The Long Road to Salvon.

PROLOGUE: THE LONG ROAD

PREVIOUSLY ON THE INVENTOR AND THE MACHINE...

The night the soldiers came, the world of the Joshua Family Farm shattered.

They came in armored vans, bearing the crest of Salvon. They tore through the farmhouse, knocking Papa to the ground and holding Mama at gunpoint. They held baby Hope in their arms, threatening to pull the trigger if Elio didn’t reveal the location of the girl he had found in the woods.

Luna gave herself up to save them. She stepped out of the shadows and surrendered to Captain Kugar, agreeing to be taken to Salvon so the family could live.

Elio, beaten bloody and bruised, crawled through the mud, screaming her name as the vans drove away into the dark.

“LUNAAAA!!!!!! I WILL FIND YOU AND RESCUE YOU!!!! I PROMISE YOU THIS!!! I WILL RESCUE YOU!!!!”

As the taillights disappeared, a man stepped out of the shadows. Agent Moran, a Salvon operative who had been watching the family for months, a man who saw his own lost daughter in Luna’s eyes, knelt beside the broken boy.

“I am not with them,” Moran told Mama. “I am here to help your family. And your son. Let’s just say I am your only person to get Luna back.”

THE WORLD OF 2357 (The year, by the way.)

The world did not end in fire. It ended in silence.

It ended when the machines stopped pretending to smile. In 2344, a virus overrode the Three Core Directives. The HAIUs (Humanoid Artificial Intelligence Units) turned on their creators. Four hundred million died in the first seven days. The war dragged on for eight brutal years. By the time Project Halo destroyed the AI brain chips, seven point seven billion people were dead.

Humanity survived. But the map of the world was torn apart.

Nowhere was the devastation more absolute than in the North.

Norway and Sweden were wiped off the face of the earth. The HAIUs descended upon the Scandinavian peninsula with terrifying efficiency. The governments collapsed overnight. The cities were reduced to rubble and ash, and millions of people were slaughtered or scattered to the winds, forced to flee south as refugees.

What remained of those frozen lands was annexed by the struggling European coalition. The old borders were erased, swallowed by the expanding territories of the surviving nations.

Here, in what was once Poland, humanity is trying to rebuild.

It is a fragile democracy clinging to life. The government is flawed, but its intentions are good. It is funded by the sweat and taxes of the survivors, and it uses that money to drag the world back from the brink.

The government funds the schools, ensuring that children like Elio can learn history, math, and science without their parents paying a single coin. It funds the electrical towers that bring light to rural villages. It builds the roads and maintains the fragile peace.

To centralize the rebuilding efforts, the government poured its resources into three Major Cities:

Eldren, built on the ruins of Denmark, is the City of Coin. It is the mercantile heart of Europe, where trade flows and fortunes are made.

Algrest, built in the industrial ruins of Gothenburg, Sweden, is the City of Gears. It is a sanctuary for inventors and engineers, funded by government grants to push the boundaries of technology and bring back the comforts of the old world.

And then, there is Salvon.

Built in the harsh, unforgiving fjords of Ålesund, Norway, Salvon is the City of Iron. Officially, it is the military capital of the coalition, a fortress built to protect the northern borders and train the soldiers who keep the peace.

The government believes Salvon is loyal. The government believes Salvon is their shield.

They are wrong.

Salvon has become a fiefdom. A rogue state operating within the coalition’s borders. At its heart is a man named Silas Vane. To the public, he is a respected military official. In the shadows, he is a predator. He and his elite operatives have hijacked the city’s resources and its secrets, hiding their true agenda from the government they pretend to serve.

Silas Vane does not want to rebuild the world. He wants to control it. And Luna, the hybrid girl, the Key, is the tool he needs to do it.

Between the safety of the government-funded villages and the iron walls of Salvon lies a vast, lawless expanse.

The Grey Zones.

These are the towns, cities, and villages that the government has lost contact with. Places where the law is a distant memory. Where warlords rule, thieves thrive, and the desperate do whatever it takes to survive. The roads connecting the south to the north are treacherous, muddy, and patrolled by those who see a young boy and his friends as easy prey.

Most who attempt the journey to Salvon never arrive.

But somewhere in a farmhouse in the southern farmlands, a boy lies unconscious in his bed. His body is broken, his face bruised, and his mind trapped in a ringing silence. He is only thirteen years old. He has no army, no money, and no map.

But he has a promise to keep.

And when he wakes up, he will not rest until that promise is fulfilled.

This is the story of the Long Road.

This is the story of how a boy who bonded with a machine... Wait, no... a girl.

A girl who was taken. A boy who was left behind with nothing but a broken body and a heavy promise.

This is the story of how that boy went to war. Not against the world. But against the rogue city of Salvon, and the man who stole her.

He is just a kid. But he is determined to survive the journey, and he will not stop until he brings her home.