High above Chicago, Voril stared down as the truck pulled into Museumtown’s gates and a swarm of humans started unloading it.

  She was happy that Hal had won, but she was less thrilled about the consequences for her. Not that she mattered. Her role in the Consortium was, if not minor, at least expendable. Hal, though…Hal represented a potentially Universal Order-altering change, as she was trying to make abundantly clear in the meeting she’d been summoned to.

  Trying to, and failing.

  “What do you mean, you lost connection with Taven Liu’s system? That doesn’t happen, and you know it, Voril!”

  The Worldcaster tore herself from the clear floor of her meditation chamber and refocused on the blue screen in front of her—and on the angry-looking man staring her down. “I can’t explain what happened.”

  “No one can explain what happened! That’s why you’re in this meeting at all!” The man’s completely hairless head was almost purple, it was so red, and he looked like he was about to have a fit. To do that to one of the Order’s representatives was impressive, Vorin supposed. “If you can’t explain what happened, then at least explain why an unfinished Phase Three dungeon was deployed into a functioning region. You weren’t the Integration manager in charge of that area. Why did you interfere?”

  “Because I have a system user in my region who’s worth moving forward with. He’s a Voltsmith. Most Voltsmiths end up on the Uplift path. It’s the logical place for crafters, but it’s also the only reason Voltsmith isn’t a banned class.”

  “What do you mean?” the man asked.

  Voril took a deep breath. “What I mean, Orderman, is that there are very few records of Voltsmiths coming out of the Advancement path. They tend to fall behind, and when they do, they become crafters first and dungeon-delvers second. And there are no records of Voltsmiths surviving Death World Integrations. So far, Hal Riley has done both. He’s been learning Principles of Voltsmithing that rarely get discovered until the fifth or sixth phase, and—“

  “And you didn’t eliminate him?”

  Voril took a deep breath and closed her eyes. This was not how the conversation was supposed to go. “No. Orderman, at the end of Phase One, I thought Hal Riley was a threat to me, personally. I thought he wanted revenge for what we did to him and his world. I no longer think that. The Principles he’s learned, his interest in the Waypoint Beacons, and the way he’s applied them to dungeons, including the Whole New World and the first few floors of the Hand That Feeds, imply that he’s less interested in revenge and more interested in…”

  She trailed off, staring down at Museumtown. The Voltsmith in question was beginning to work on the Waypoint Beacon even as the others around him pulled it off the trailer. He was up to something, but she couldn’t see what, and she couldn’t get closer—not in the middle of a meeting.

  “More interested in what, Voril?”

  For a long moment, she didn’t say anything. She couldn’t say anything—any attempt to put what she’d realized into words would just get her laughed out of the meeting. But the Orderman’s eyes were locked on to hers, and after almost a minute, she tried anyway. “I think he’s less interested in revenge and more interested in trying to understand the overarching structure of the system.”

  Sure enough, laughter. But not from the Orderman. He only kept watching, and Voril kept talking. “Revenge is an easy motivation to manipulate. Anger, fury, bitterness—all of those emotions are normal, and Integration Managers learn how to handle those. But the Voltsmith isn’t after revenge. I don’t think he cares about the Consortium at all, except as a source of information. I think he thinks there are problems with Integration, and he’s going to tear it apart to fix them.”

  “What?” the Orderman asked. A half-dozen other voices echoed him. Voril couldn’t see any of them, but she knew who they were. The rest of the Consortium’s leadership was there, listening to their representative on the Universal Order question her.

  After a moment, another question shot her way. It was the one she’d hoped to avoid, because it was the only question she knew she couldn’t answer.

  “Do you think he can do it?”

  Time Limit: Six Hours, Twenty-Nine Minutes

  We were late.

  The Runner wasn’t built to haul a semi-trailer, especially not one with a multi-ton pyramid of metal, gears, and conduit on it, and we’d fried the engine just north of Milwaukee. It had taken an hour to get it up and running again, and I’d had to tell Calvin to take it easy on the poor machine after that.

  He had. Mostly.

  But the Waypoint Beacon sat, active and functional, inside the fortress on the Field Museum’s steps, right where Saul’s throne had been. It glowed purple and orange as Charge moved through it. We’d survived Phase Two—all we had to do was hold the beacon for six and a half hours. And, equally importantly, we were dragging the Rat’s Nest and West Side safe zones through with us.

  Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

  Not that Tori agreed with saving the Rat’s Nest, but Jessica had overruled her. So had Calvin. And me. And everyone else she’d complained about her never-attempted clear of their dungeon to.

  I walked up to the beacon and pulled out a set of mechanics’ tools. Nothing that could interact with Charge—I’d worked way too hard to risk overloading our ticket to Phase Three. Just wrenches, pliers, a hammer and chisel, and some industrial-strength lubricating oil. The beacon was our ticket to Phase Three, yes, but it was also a treasure trove of information, and I needed to learn it all.

  The ceramic plates were the first things to go. I worked on one for a while with the hammer and chisel, popping the rivets that held it in place against the thin metal framework inside. It was slow going because the machinery underneath the armor was probably critical to the beacon’s operation. But it was also doubly important. When the ceramic plate finally popped free, I lowered it onto the concrete steps, then down to the room’s floor far below.

  And only then did I start looking over the internal workings of the Waypoint Beacon.

  It was a tangled, convoluted mess of conduit, wire, and thousands of tiny, watch-sized gears and cogs. Every single part was in constant motion, and the gears clicked back and forth along their bars a few times every second as mechanical parts deeper inside moved them into and out of gear with each other. There were so many moving parts to the thing that I couldn’t even begin to decipher it.

  That was fine, though. I’d already learned what I needed to. It could be understood—and not only that. It was also a Charge-based system.

  The next three panels came off cleanly and much more quickly than the first had. I ran my eyes carefully along the myriad gears. If there was a single one not spinning after our journey across Wisconsin, I had to know—and I had to know now. I’d need every second to figure out a possible repair for the Waypoint Beacon so I could—

  “Whatcha doing, Hal?” Tori asked.

  I jumped and set my pliers aside. “I’m doing a basic inspection. Looking for flaws.”

  “Finding any?”

  I nodded. “So far, I’ve found a lot of inefficiencies in the design, and a possible clue as to why they exist. But I can’t answer that for sure. Not until Phase Three starts.”

  “Why not?” Tori asked. She stared at the machinery.

  “Because I’d have to take the whole beacon apart to understand what it’s supposed to do. That’s the first step in fixing anything—understanding what it does. And I don’t have time to put it all back together before the end of the phase. So, I have to wait.”

  “Well, is it working right now?”

  “Yes.”

  Tori grinned sheepishly. “Great. Mom wanted to see you. She wants an update on what happened in Green Bay—and she didn’t want me giving it to her. I know what that’s about, but…still, pretty harsh.”

  “Yeah, that’s pretty rough. I can take a few minutes.” I stood up and pulled my tools back into my inventory.

  Tori was right—I hadn’t checked in with Jessica at all since we’d left for Milwaukee, and later, Green Bay. It wasn’t that telling the rest of Museumtown what was happening didn’t matter. It was that time had been critical, and even as it was, we’d only just snuck in under the wire. If I’d bothered reporting in twice, that could have been the end for everyone. But now that things were stable, it was time to tell Jessica what I’d told Calvin—and to get her caught up on what she didn’t want to learn from Tori.

  That was another problem to crack. I thought about it as Tori and I walked over to Jessica’s raised trailer. It smelled like blood; I doubted that stink would ever fully clear up. She wasn’t in her clinic, though, and I climbed the ladder. Tori didn’t follow me. “She doesn’t want to see me right now, and I’ve gotta catch up with Carol some more,” she said, looking at the ground.

  I didn’t pursue that. “I’ll swing by when I’m done here. Let her know I’m on my way, okay?”

  “Okay, Hal. And good luck…with both of them.”

  Then I pushed through the door and into Jessica’s home.

  She looked tired, the same way my mom had always looked when Beth was giving her a hard time, and her eyes washed over me with a very ‘don’t try me’ hardness to them. I nodded slowly. “Ma’am.”

  “Don’t give me that, Hal. I need to know.”

  “She found her mom,” I said. No point in pulling the band-aid off slowly. Better to get it over with.

  Jessica’s face went white. She took a moment to physically brace herself, setting her jaw and squaring up. Then she asked her next question. “And? What’s she going to do?”

  I shrugged. “I have no idea. I’ve been thinking about it, and there’s only one answer that works. I think she’s going to do the most Tori thing she can, and she’s going to expect you to fight her on it, no matter what it is.”

  “You really have no idea? You rode all the way back here with her, and she didn’t say anything?”

  “No. She didn’t say anything about Kate. I think she’s still figuring out how to feel about you and her mom. But I also think there’s room for both of you in Tori’s heart.” I hated how corny it sounded, but it was the truth as far as I could see it. “Give her time to figure it out. That’s the only thing you can do that won’t make it harder for both of you.”

  “How do you know?” Jessica asked. She didn’t look reassured at all.

  “I don’t. But I know you, and I know Tori. She’s a tough kid, and you’re a tough lady. That’s going to be a sticking point for both of you. One of you has to back down and be patient, and it has to be you. She’ll get to the answer she needs to, but it’ll take some time. Let her do her thing.”

  “Right.” Jessica took a deep breath. “Thank you for keeping her alive.”

  “It’s not easy,” I joked. Then I got serious. “You probably want to know about the Garden and the Hand That Feeds, right?”

  “Yes.”

  For the next hour, I launched into a detailed explanation of everything that’d happened. The secret room under the Whole New World. The fate of Milwaukee. The Garden and its power level, and the fact that we could trust them. And the fight against Taven Liu. Then, when it was over, I said one more thing. “When this phase ends, I’m taking apart the beacon. I saw something in it, and if I’m right, it’s a window into the flaws in Integration. I’m ready to stop trying to survive the apocalypse and start fixing it.”

  “Alright,” Jessica said.

  “Alright?”

  “Yes. You’ve gotten us through two phases. It hasn’t always been clean, and I’ve hated you putting Tori in danger, but you keep winning. If you say you can fix Integration, then I’m for it.”