Goddess from the Machine: A Prequel to the Ark Saga

Reese Sadoleto is an ex-slave, genius machinist, and the only companion of the superhuman "Vigilant." Together, Reese and the Vigilant battle the City of Machindoun's underground slave trafficking network and force its secret leaders to the brink. But the night the Vigilant plans to deliver the death blow and end slavery for good, he vanishes.

A tense ceasefire settles over Machindoun. Trafficking goes underground and regular folk walk the streets again. With no hero to mend, missions to plan, or gear to repair, Reese determines to forget her past and forge a future all her own.

But the past never forgets.

A year after his disappearance, the Vigilant's foes return to take back Machindoun, killing one of Reese's new friends. Fueled by vengeance, she weaponizes her body with cybernetics while playing the city's criminals, elite, and working class against each other in an escalating game of cat-and-mouse.

Machindoun's factions go to war, unaware that Reese has orchestrated the conflict. But when her greatest foes reveal themselves as the architects of Machindoun's-and Reese's-suffering, she realizes that to kill her past, free herself from the Vigilant's legacy, and forge her own future, she must sacrifice either her humanity or her life.

Neither vengeance nor her foes will let her escape with both.