Chapter 58: Metal Heaven

  “What is this place?” I asked, gesturing around. “Are you actually building an army here?”

  Riven chuckled, shaking his head, then whispered to himself. “Well, I had promised him I’ll do it…”

  He turned to me, his voice turning sharp. “Yes. You can’t win a revolution without an army.”

  “But…” I shook my head in disbelief. “How is the Primarch in the dark about this? I thought Mother’s old guild would be the first thing he’d check – especially considering her connection to Valdemar!”

  Riven raised an eyebrow, ignoring the question entirely. “Damn…you’re really calling your own mother just ‘Mother’? That’s cold.”

  I narrowed my eyes. “She was never a mother to me. Why do you care?”

  He chuckled again. “Sorry, sorry. Never mind. Anyway, to answer your question, I’ll quote the legend himself.” He cleared his throat and spoke in what sounded like a terrible Valdemar impression. “The moment they check the place for the first time, give it three more months of surveillance and you can rest assured Rose and Vorrick will forget about it and never search it again.” He swayed his head from side to side. “Or something along those lines.”

  That only confused me further. “But the Owls…they purchased this place…”

  Riven smiled, tilting his head. “Viktor, this revolution is much bigger than you think.”

  I’d already assumed Valdemar had many people backing him from the shadows – Orlinth’s and the Foundry’s leaders included – but still…even one of my mother’s biggest haters?

  “So Carol – “

  “Yes,” he cut in, then tapped the Ironwatch badge on his chest. “Just to give you a clearer picture: this one’s the real deal too. I am an Enforcer. By day at least.”

  So his whole ensemble wasn’t just a disguise? Was he actually an Enforcer? How many more Enforcers did Valdemar have on his side?

  He continued. “Viktor, you don’t – “

  “I’m sorry,” I interrupted. “But can you stop calling me by my first name? I don’t even know you.”

  Riven laughed and rubbed his forehead. “Right. Sure. Sorry. Wow, this is more difficult than I thought it’d be.” He met my gaze. “I’m Riven Duran. Valdemar’s told me a lot about you. And that you’re…Cecilia’s son.” He gave a small nod. “Pleasure to meet you.”

  I nodded once. Slowly. “You know who he is, don’t you?”

  Riven smiled and returned the nod. “I do.”

  “Who is he?”

  “You’ll learn it once he wants you to.”

  “Is Thea safe?”

  That seemed to catch him off guard. He raised an eyebrow, looking impressed. “Didn’t know you knew about her.”

  “I do,” I said flatly. “Well?”

  “She should be okay,” he replied – though he didn’t sound that sure.

  “What now?”

  Riven smiled faintly. “V asked me to bring you.”

  “Bring me?”

  “To Libra.”

  My blood froze.

  He took a step forward, then paused when he noticed Zee tense, fangs bared.

  “V…wants to speak again,” he said, gaze flicking cautiously to Zee. “He said you’re more ready to listen this time.”

  “Again?”

  Riven narrowed his eyes slightly. “He said you might forget. Anyway, he wants a talk.”

  I glanced at the time on my COG – already after five. Something felt very off.

  “Doesn’t he have an attack to orchestrate today?” I asked, pointing at the time on my display. “The Expo’s already started.”

  Riven smiled. “He said you’d be sharp. But the answer is simple, you see. V doesn’t need to be in the Divine – or even in Skyhaven, for that matter – to pull off his plan. That’s how thought out everything is. So trust me when I say he’s waiting for you.”

  My mind reeled. I didn’t remember how the attack in the original timeline unfolded exactly, and Déjà vu wasn’t offering any hints either.

  I didn’t trust him or Valdemar. But at the same time…if there was a chance I could talk Valdemar down and stop the attack on the Divine…I had to try. Especially if I got to see where Libra operated from. That knowledge could be invaluable in future loops – assuming it stuck.

  I briefly considered asking him if he knows that his precious Valdemar is the one to bring the end of the world, but stopped myself. In case he didn’t know about that, he might react in a way that could get me marked by Erebus - if he does anything drastic.

  “You can loot this place first,” Riven said suddenly. “V gave the okay. Said that if you made it here with all your disadvantages, you earned it. I don’t really get it, but…sure.”

  He turned and started walking away.

  “I’ll wait by the door,” he called over his shoulder. “If you vanish or something, I’ll take it as your answer and leave you alone.”

  ***

  To say this guy left me confused would be a massive understatement.

  Once again, I found myself circling back to the million Steamcrowns question: who was the second looper?

  On one hand, Prime Security and the Primarch were somehow in bed with Dolos – that much was fact – so it made sense to suspect one of them. But on the other hand…Riven had just said that Valdemar knew I might forget our previous meeting. That implied he knew about the Déjà vu System and its memory-reset function. And if that’s the case, didn’t that suggest he was the second looper?

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  The only thing I could say with confidence was this: all three of them – Valdemar, the Primarch, and Prime Security – were working with Dolos somehow. Though it raised a different question: if they’re all under Dolos, why were they acting like enemies?

  Also, I didn’t fully buy Riven’s line about me being free to refuse the meeting. If I decided to bolt right now, he’d probably track me down anyway.

  Either way, I shelved the paranoia for now. I had an automaton factory to loot.

  First, I approached the downed Guardian. Using a few tools lying nearby, I managed to pry open its storage compartment and retrieve the stored mana crystals – still unused. Two Kinetras, two Ignises, two Cryoras. I sent them all into the Inventory.

  Somewhere along the way, Checkpoint’s Anchor expired.

  At exactly 17:45, a peculiar notification from the Expo flashed across my COG:

  [Notification]

  [Dear Annual Expo attendees, a message from your leader will now play through the Divine’s central phonotube array]

  I ignored it for now and turned back to the Guardian – its upgrade metals.

  “You’re coming or what?” Riven called out from the entrance.

  “Still scavenging,” I said, paying him little attention.

  The shot I fired had destroyed the Guardian’s Aetheris core, which unfortunately also wiped out a lot of the tantalum surrounding it. Still, I managed to scavenge some. The rest – iron, copper, titanium, beryllium – was plentiful. I collected them too, even if I wasn’t in short supply.

  What I really needed was nickel.

  And I found it.

  Almost four kilograms of it from the springs in the Guardian’s joints and the heat shielding inside its frame. I haven’t recognized it at first and used the Inventory’s identification function for help.

  I had enough to level up.

  I summoned the Dematerializer and plugged it into the Integration Port.

  [Dematerializer is Active]

  [Déjà vu System: Level 13]

  [Progress until next Level: 0%]

  [Metals needed for Level 14: Iron – 285.5g, Copper – 287.1g, Nickel - 37.9g, Tantalum – 32g]

  [You may proceed with the upgrade phase]

  Nickel’s base conversion rate was 1.2%, which meant I found enough.

  [Required Metals are present in the Inventory]

  [Do you wish to level up?]

  [YES / NO]

  YES.

  [You have gained 1 Skill Point]

  [Civic Omni-Gear System: You have 1 Upgrade Available]

  I allocated the points into Déjà vu and Quality, then checked the next requirement.

  [Metals needed for Level 15: Iron – 326.75g, Nickel – 40.7g, Tantalum – 34.5g]

  Hmm. No more copper required? Sweet. I was almost out of it.

  Nickel was now the bottleneck, but since this floor was manufacturing automatons in bulk, there had to be more of it lying around.

  I rolled up my sleeves and started rummaging through the conveyors.

  After half an hour of searching and collecting, I had enough to level up six more times.

  Then, level 21 presented a new problem:

  [Metals needed for Level 21: Tungsten – 54.2g, Nickel – 57.2g, Tantalum – 49.5g]

  No more iron. Now my COG was hungry for tungsten.

  The problem? There wasn’t any tungsten in Orlinth. Or at least, not much of it. As far as I knew, most of Solvane’s tungsten was only used in the Foundry – for their mining equipment in the Crystals Mines.

  Still, I got this at least:

  [You have gained 6 Skill Points]

  [Civic Omni-Gear System: You have 6 Upgrades Available]

  I wanted to dump all six points into Déjà vu – to max it out – hoping it’d mean I could finally retain my memories permanently. But of course, that wasn’t the case.

  [Déjà vu: Cannot upgrade to lvl.9 as requirements not met]

  [Requirements: Temporal Trace Level 10]

  Nice.

  I allocated the last point into Temporal Trace, shifting my focus to it going forward.

  [Skill Upgraded: Temporal Trace lvl.4]

  [Next Level: lvl.5: You’ll be able to see the Time Plane clearer. Number of maximal marks: 5]

  At least I had four Temporal Trace marks now.

  As for my COG upgrades, I split the six upgrades evenly between Burn Rate and Quality.

  [Burn Rate lvl. 5: Increased to 5 minutes]

  [Quality lvl. 8: Casting System improved]

  Once I was sure there was nothing left to scavenge in the factory, I checked the time on my COG, ready to leave.

  [18:29]

  Now I had to decide what to do about Valdemar’s invitation.

  The cons of following him to Libra heavily outweighed the pros – the main one being the fact that this was definitely a trap of some kind.

  My mind was quickly made up. I would find Libra and Valdemar on my own terms – no matter how many loops it took. Any help from them wouldn’t be help. I’d just become Valdemar’s tool.

  I glanced at the door from a safe distance, trying to peer through the melted hole I’d created. Sure enough, I spotted Riven’s silhouette outside and quickly turned around.

  Blowing open a wall and escaping it is, then.

  I made my way toward the wall farthest away from him. That was when he called after me.

  “I see you’ve made your decision.”

  I stopped and turned around.

  “I have,” I said. “Are you going to kill me now?”

  He looked disappointed, shaking his head. “You know, he said you’d probably say no.”

  “Right,” I replied, scratching my nose. “He also probably told you that at exactly 18:31, I’d scratch my nose, right?”

  Riven laughed. “Good one. But no. He said something about…Memory Fragments? Said the new ones might make you more inclined to listen to him this time – or do the exact opposite.”

  My heartbeat quickened slightly at the mention of the Memory Fragments.

  How could he know about them if he wasn’t the second looper? And yet, despite all that, I still wasn’t completely convinced he was.

  “Like I said before,” Riven continued, “you can choose to walk away. V predicted this outcome.”

  Was that supposed to be a manipulation tactic? Telling me that walking away was still part of Valdemar’s grand plan? Pathetic…

  “Then I will walk away,” I said with a smile. “Thank you very much. Pass your boss my thanks for that research he sent me earlier. Too bad I’ll forget it soon.”

  Riven nodded. “Don’t worry about that.”

  He walked toward the far corner of the floor and gestured toward the entrance.

  “You can leave through there,” he said. “No need to waste mana crystals on blowing up walls. I won’t come after you. Promise.”

  I eyed him warily but decided to take his word for it.

  As I made my way toward the entrance, he called after me again.

  “He asked me to tell you something before you inevitably declined the meetup.”

  “What’s that?” I asked without turning, still walking away. The sooner I was gone, the better.

  He cleared his throat, slipping into his terrible Valdemar impression again.

  “Have you ever wondered what would happen if you fed your COG an Aetheris?”