There were only two problems on the way home.

  The first was convincing the Garden folks to watch our beacon.

  Gerry and Ryan weren’t convinced. “We already have ours, and picking up a second’ll just make us a target,” Gerry said.

  I nodded. “I thought you’d say that. Thing is, Gerry, we need the help. I’ve got to get all the way back to Chicago, build a transport for this thing, then drive back here, pick it up, and drive to Chicago again. It’ll be close as is. I’ve got people relying on this Waypoint Beacon, and I can’t let ‘em down. You know what I mean, right?”

  Gerry stared at me. He’d narrowed his eyes so I could tell what he was thinking. I took a deep breath, then thought better of pushing more. Gerry had people here, too. He had to look out for them. But it wasn’t just the people in the cities; I needed Museumtown—and the rest of Chicago—to get through this so I could keep learning how Charge worked. That was the only way I’d be helping my folks or Beth.

  And to do that, I needed the Waypoint Beacon.

  After a moment, Calvin coughed. He’d been sitting in the corner drinking something warm, but he hadn’t said anything yet. “You know, there ain’t any benefit to having two, Hal.”

  “True,” I said quietly. He wasn’t wrong at all.

  “But there might be a benefit to working together in the next phase. I ain’t a gambling man, but if I had to make a bet, it’d be that Phase Three’s gonna pit us against each other even harder. Seems like they think we’re a Death World, and they want us to kill each other off as part of this Integration bullshit. Having some friends out there’d be good for Museumtown and good for the Garden.”

  Gerry’s gaze switched to Calvin, like he was taking stock of what the old veteran had said, and Calvin kept going. “Back in ‘Nam, they told us we were trying to win hearts and minds, but they never gave us the tools to make it happen. This is how you win hearts and minds on the streets. You watch each other’s stuff, make sure no one steals it. You get enough people doing it, you get a community.”

  After a second, Gerry nodded. “Alright, we’ll watch your beacon for you. Anyone shows up, if we can handle ‘em, we’ll handle ‘em. But if it’s a choice between losing the Garden and losing your beacon—“

  “I understand. You’ll take care of your people. Not asking you to do anything drastic.” I stuck out a hand, and Gerry clasped it. We shook, and I nodded at Tori and Calvin. “Alright. Let’s get going.”

  “That’s it?” Tori asked. “You’re just going to trust them, no guarantees?”

  “We shook on it, and Gerry’s a man of his word. We can trust them to do exactly what they said,” I replied. Then I headed for the Runner. Calvin followed, and after a moment, so did Tori.

  “You say goodbye to your mom?” Calvin asked.

  “Yeah. Kind of. She’s staying here, obviously, but we’ll see each other again soon.”

  “Why’s that obvious?”

  “Because Mom and Jessica-Mom don’t get along at all. They’ll be civil for about fifteen minutes, and then it’ll all go to fucking hell,” Tori muttered as she buckled up.

  “Ah,” Calvin said.

  I poured Charge into the Runner, and Calvin fired it up. The machine hummed to life, and we peeled out of the parking lot and toward downtown Green Bay. The sooner we got on the interstate, the sooner we could handle the second problem on our way home.

  The Field Boss [Solemnus Archwyrm] has been engaged!

  The massive worm was waiting for us just south of Milwaukee—and we were waiting for it.

  Calvin spun the Runner’s wheel as the Archwyrm ripped out of the ground in front of us. Rubber squealed, and Tori slammed against the grenade launcher hard enough to knock the air from her lungs. I opened up with the Scorpion, firing two shots that hit the monstrous field boss’s mole-like nose. That did next to nothing; one of the big arrows stuck into a tendril, while the other one bounced off, leaving a single gouge in its scabbed-over face.

  Tori caught her breath, but before she could fire, I reached back and tapped her shin. “Two shots, then wait! Third’s for an emergency!”

  “Got it, Hal,” she snarked back. “You’re not my mom!”

  “Focus up, or you ain’t seeing either of your moms!” Calvin yelled. He gunned the engine, and the Runner jerked to life, accelerating past the massive monster in a wide arc.

  Just like we’d planned.

  The scaled, hulking Archwyrm took both of Tori’s grenade shots to the side of the head. It roared in pain and slammed down as Calvin pulled the wheel again. Two tires left the road, and I threw myself into Calvin’s shoulder to try rebalancing the Runner. It worked; we slammed back down onto the cracked asphalt.

  “Go, go, go!” I shouted. Calvin stepped on the gas.

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  The Runner jerked forward, and Tori slammed into the side of the grenade launcher again. “It sucks up here! Cool it down, Calvin!”

  “Kill the worm, and I’ll slow down!”

  The wyrm in question roared, and Tori’s grenade launcher joined it as she fired again.

  Then the Runner took off as I counted down. At this point, the entire strategy revolved around Calvin not outrunning the Solemnus Archwyrm and around Tori not forcing me to use the override. If they both played it cool, the Runner would stay just faster than it could close the gap, and the grenade launcher would fire a round every five to eight seconds. It wouldn’t matter that we’d alerted the entire south side of Milwaukee and the suburbs in between it and Chicago, because we could sustain forty miles an hour, and no one else could.

  That was the plan. But plans never survived contact, as Calvin said. I kept waiting for the other shoe to fall, or for the Archwyrm to have a second phase. So did Tori. And Calvin’s knuckles only grew whiter as we bumped down the road. But, after almost fifteen minutes of sieging the massive boss down, a notification appeared.

  Field Boss Defeated: The Solemnus Archwyrm

  Level Up! Eighty-One to Eighty-Two

  Area Message: The [Solemnus Archwyrm] has been defeated. All hail [Calvin Rollins], Tori Vanderbilt], and [Hal Riley]. The [Kenosha Sands] area of [Blue Zone] is now a safe zone.

  Calvin slammed on the brakes, and Tori jolted forward, ribs smacking against the grenade launcher one more time. “Asshole,” she muttered.

  “What was that? Can’t hear so good,” Calvin said loudly.

  I couldn’t blame him. My ears were ringing too after fifteen minutes of the boss’s roars and the grenade launcher’s firing.

  “Nothing,” she said more loudly. Then she climbed out of the Runner and headed for the boss—or more accurately, its loot. “I wonder what it dropped!”

  Archwyrm’s Heart (Epic, Charge 25)

  +5 Body, +5 Awareness, +5 Mana

  This artifact enables the user to create a violent sandstorm. The Archwyrm’s Heart is a powerful relic from Solemnus-Six and has increased power when on that planet.

  Sensor Array (Epic, Charge 10)

  +8 Mana, +2 Body, +6 Awareness

  Wielder’s spells deal increased damage for every spell the wielder casts on the same target. Switching targets or not casting for five seconds removes half of the effect.

  Spine of Solemnus (Rare, Charge 15)

  +2 Mana, +4 Body, +4 Awareness

  Wearer gains limited control over the sandstone common on Solemnus, allowing them to move significant portions of it similarly to the Telekineticist spell Grab.

  I took one look at the Sensor Array, then at Tori’s face, and I knew not to even bother asking about it. That was a shame, because of the three, it was the most resonant, and I wanted to take it apart sometime. “Just let me tinker with it if you decide to get rid of it,” I said.

  She snorted. “Hal, I’m still wearing Perfection’s Gaze half the time. I’m never getting rid of this. You can have The Queen’s Blessing, though! I won’t have room for both, and I haven’t been using it.”

  The Queen’s Blessing was a staff she’d gotten from the Queen Tyrant, the oversized, overtuned T Rex that lived in the Field Museum’s dungeon. I’d wanted it. I’d wanted it bad. But… “Nah, hang onto it. There might be a situation where the extra levels from its Elite effect matter more than me tinkering with it does.”

  “You’re sure?”

  “Yep, I’m sure. I’m going to have my hands full incorporating a second Heart into my gear.” I took the Archwyrm’s Heart.

  “And I’ll take the Spine of Solemnus,” Calvin said. I stared at him—he’d rarely wanted gear, and the last thing he’d picked up that he’d used was the Thorned Hammer from the first Solemnus Wyrm we’d fought. “What? It ain’t a combat weapon. That’s a tool for a builder, and I’ll put it to good use in Museumtown.”

  “Well, if everyone’s happy here, I want to see Mom…Jessica-Mom, I mean. I’m going to have to start calling her that again, aren’t I?” Tori said. She climbed back into the Runner and pulled a strap across her chest, locking herself into the back seat. “Come on, let’s go, people.”

  Calvin looked at me, and I shrugged. “I don’t care about the Kenosha Sands right now. We can check it out later. Maybe during Phase Three?”

  “Sure. Let’s get moving,” he said.

  The next morning, Calvin and I set off alone.

  I’d pulled an all-nighter, working on a semi truck trailer and the Runner. The machine had needed a huge amount of Charge to run—there was too much weight, and I had no idea how the Waypoint Beacon would affect it, so I wanted to go overboard. The Chariot sat in the corner of Cindy’s Garage, unpowered. Every drop of Charge was in my gauntlet, my hammer, and the truck—including all the points I’d gotten from the Archwyrm.

  Tori wanted to come with, but she had other things on her mind. Zane was…not recovered, but recovering. Carol was still pissed off about the whole mess, and I couldn’t blame her. I doubted she’d want to delve dungeons with me again for a while, but with Zane doing better, at least things had a chance of getting back to normal.

  I snorted from the Runner’s passenger seat.

  “What?” Calvin asked.

  “This whole Integration mess is screwing me up, that’s what. Do you ever think about what normal is?”

  “Yeah.” The Runner whined as Calvin slowly brought it up to forty miles an hour, then pushed it a touch faster. It handled like a slug, but unlike me, he was fresh, so even though he’d proven himself a dangerous driver, he was the one behind the wheel for now. “Hal, I hate this shit. It’s the worst I’ve had it since ‘Nam. But would I go back to normal? I don’t know.”

  “I would,” I said without hesitating.

  “Would you really?”

  This time, I hesitated. Would I? I hadn’t been anyone before Integration. Now, I was one of the most powerful people on Lake Michigan’s west shore. Maybe one of the most powerful people in North America. That meant something—it gave me the power to do more than just help myself. “I don’t know, Calvin. I was barely making it here in Chicago before the Tutorial. I could hardly help myself, and that was with spending extra time working on other people’s car problems.”

  “And now, you can help everyone?” Calvin asked.

  “Yes.”

  “From what you said, the Fireborn Crusader was trying to help everyone, too. So is Bobby Richards.” Calvin swerved sedately around an overgrown Toyota. “Just be careful. There’s a fine line between wanting to help and becoming the bad guy. You’re a smart kid. You’ll know the difference. But it’ll be seductive. You’ll go in wanting to help people, change their hearts and minds, and before you know it, you’ll be the one causing their problems.”

  I nodded. Then I yawned. “I had this thought that normal was before the Battle of Whiting, not before the Tutorial. That’s why I asked.”

  Calvin didn’t say anything for a long time. Then he nodded at the road. “There’s nothing between here and Green Bay worth looking at. Get some shut-eye. I’ll slap you awake if I need your firepower.”

  The odds of me getting to sleep with Calvin behind the wheel were less than zero, but I shut my eyes anyway. It was worth a try, and I’d been going for days now. “Wake me up at Milwaukee.”