Morning came quickly.

  It didn’t surprise me. The sun had been rising as we pulled Jessica up into her house, and the first people had already started investigating the hole we’d ripped into the Field Museum fortress’s side. It wouldn’t take them long to find the bodies, and I needed to be ready to face them.

  But I was drop-dead tired, and I’d fallen asleep on the cold metal trailer bed as soon as Jessica was safe in her sleeping bag. I didn’t even bother checking in on Tori. She’d understand; I’d gotten shredded in my fight with Saul Williams.

  To my surprise, it wasn’t Tori who woke me up. I started, pushing myself halfway up before Jessica’s hand guided my shoulder down. “Thank you,” she said. Then, her face hardened. “I need to check your wounds. I’m not convinced that Body-based healing is as good as mine long-term, and you’re the first patient I’ve had that didn’t completely heal from Body points.”

  I looked at the wound on my leg. It had bled in the night, but not the gushing fountains it had during my fight.

  For the first time, it hit me that we’d done it. Dad wouldn’t have put up with Saul Williams and his BS, and Mom definitely wouldn’t have. They’d dealt with a new guy, someone from out of town, who’d tried to use his big-city money to buy the Cozad city council. It had taken them months of hard work on top of running the farm, but they’d driven him out of town and back to his New York investment bank.

  Saul had been right about one thing. The world was different now. Harsher. And while that was a problem, it was also an opportunity to keep people like him from using their power to hurt other people. It hadn’t taken Tori and me months of hard work to deal with Saul and his lieutenants. We’d done it in one wild, absolutely terrifying night.

  But what now?

  Jessica’s eyebrow raised. I recognized that look. “Now you and I head to my clinic, you help me clean it up, and then you hop on the table so I can take a look at that thigh.”

  Alan’s body was light. Even with my wounds not fully healed, I had no trouble carrying him out of Jessica’s workshop and getting him buried. Jessica and I worked silently, scrubbing dried blood from the table and the rest of the place. The only time she talked was to explain exactly what had happened to Alan—how he’d dragged himself in from the south, the hour she’d spent putting him back together, and the gunshot that had killed him anyway.

  At last, Jessica pronounced the room clean and pointed at the table. She’d never gotten fully comfortable with me, but this felt like an olive branch. I took it and hopped up. She pulled my ruined pants away from the wound and frowned. “This isn’t healed. It’s barely scabbed over, and it’s oozing pus.” She got to work casting a spell. It activated, and my thigh re-opened, gushing blood for a second before it stitched itself back together.

  “Ma’am, I don’t need your magic,” I tried. Something about this felt uncomfortable—and not just the pain from re-stitching wounds.

  “Stay there. The spell needs a good five to ten minutes to set in fully. I can rush it, but…” her hand strayed to the barely-scabbed wound on her face. “I’d rather not.”

  I tried to relax and stared at the ceiling.

  “While I have you here,” Jessica said suddenly, “we need to clear something up. I understand why you dragged Tori into that dungeon last night. If you hadn’t, she’d have gone by herself. So I’m not going to count that against our agreement.”

  “Thank y—“

  “But.” She held up a hand. “If you do it again, I’ll…” She steeled herself, crossing her arms. “I’ll do my best to kill you.”

  “What?” I tried to sit up.

  “Don’t get me wrong, I understand you can’t control Tori. I can’t, either, and I never could. Roger said she’d be like this. It started well before the divorce, but she’s always been strong-willed and imaginative. But Hal, you need to understand something. She’s family, whether she’s happy about it or not. I don’t need her to call me ‘Mom’ to know that she needs one, and the one she needs is in Green Bay.”

  Something moved overhead. I looked up, but Jessica kept going as if she hadn’t heard it. Maybe she hadn’t; I didn’t know what her Awareness was, but at Level Eight, it couldn’t be more than mine. “I’m not sure where Roger is, but she needs someone who’s not a mother, too. Someone responsible. An older brother. Someone she can learn self-control from. It can’t be me. Maybe it can be you.”

  “I’ll do my best, Ma’am.” I was full Midwestern farm boy right now, full of respect. Not just because Jessica had my tattered pants in her hand, either. Those hadn’t been doing much good anyway after my fight. But because she was deadly serious about it. “What about her ‘game’ thing?”

  Her eyes softened a little, and she touched her face again, brushing her slightly gray-blonde hair back over her ear. “She’s been into video games since I met her. That’s probably all it is. That being said, this is a lot like the ones she liked the most. She might be projecting rules that don’t exist here. She should know that this isn’t a game after last night, if she didn’t before, but she might stick with it as a coping mechanism.”

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  “You know something about psychology?” I asked.

  “Not really. I’m a palaeoanthropologist, not a shrink. But I’m also trying to be the best mom I can be.”

  She let that hang, and I didn’t have anything to add. I decided, on balance, that this was a mark for Jessica, not against her. She was trying her best in this new world, just like everyone else. The silence grew longer, and I twiddled my thumbs, waiting for her to say I was all healed.

  “So.” She stretched her fingers in a steeple. “So, I can’t control her, and you can’t either. But you’re not dragging her back into that place without my permission—or any other Tier Twos. Understood?”

  “Got it, Jessica.”

  We both turned. Tori stood in the doorway, her arms crossed and a glare on her face. She stared at the single spurt of blood on the floor. “If you two are done with whatever you’re doing in here, we need to talk about what’s next.”

  What came next was pants.

  Specifically, leather ones. They fit—barely. I didn’t ask where Jessica had gotten them, and she didn’t say.

  Once I was dressed, we climbed the ladder. Tori sat in the corner, glowering at us—and especially at me. I stared at her. “What’d I do?”

  “You know what you did,” Tori shot back. “The loot. Let’s see the loot.”

  I had no idea what I’d done. “Right, the loot.” The Captain—or should I say, Saul Williams—had several pieces of rare equipment. I’d scooped it up, but the time had come to deal with it. The first two, a pair of shoulderpads made from wool with washer-sized discs sown into it and a dagger that looked more like a gigantic nail, weren’t anything special. And worse, they couldn’t be equipped, anyway. They’d already been bonded to, and all the shoulders were good for was scrap and Charge.

  I had an idea for the dagger, but it depended on how the Voltsmithing session I desperately needed went. If it worked, I’d be able to upgrade the Trip-Hammer pretty substantially. If not…no harm done, right? I had a longer-term build in mind, too—plus a vanity project.

  The third item was Saul’s sword. I didn’t even get a name. It was just scrap—and not even the kind I could build something with. Just shattered, untempered metal and a scorched leather handle.

  But the fourth one…

  I pulled the simple brass key from my inventory and set it on the trailer floor.

  City Key (Rank One of Three)

  +3 Body, +3 Awareness, +3 Mana

  This item’s bearer has either founded, been given, or conquered a settlement within a safe zone. The bearer may approve a settlement beacon to communicate with the Consortium. At Rank One, this beacon will allow messages of up to 255 characters once per day. Questions will be answered vaguely or not at all, at the Consortium’s discretion.

  Additionally, this item allows for settlement defense upgrades. Representatives of your settlement may apply dungeon clears by settlement residents to this item in order to unlock powerful defensive buffs.

  Lionheart Defense: (Inactive, 15/30 Dungeons Cleared) Applies a large armor and magic resistance buff to defenders inside the keyed settlement (24-hour cooldown)

  This item can be transferred between bearers, but it will take twenty-four hours to attune itself to a new bearer.

  The settlement beacon also allows for settlement upgrades. See the Settlement tab in your user interface for more information.

  “I got this. It’s very different, and I’m not sure what to make of it. I’d assumed that Saul and Eddie were just playing by their own rules, but if he was actually empowered by this thing, it means the Consortium wants us rebuilding from the ruins,” I said.

  “I agree,” Jessica said. She reached for the key, then stopped and looked at me. I nodded, and she touched it. She pulled her fingers back like they’d been burned. “It says it’s yours. I can steal it, but that’ll restart the attunement timer. Hal, do you want to be mayor of Museumtown?”

  “What? It’s not an elected position?” I waited for her to laugh, but she didn’t. She looked deadly serious. “Honestly, no. Managing a village the way it would need to be managed isn’t my thing. I want to tinker with machines and work on advancing.”

  “I’ll do it,” Tori said. “Queen Tori Vanderbilt, First of Her Name, Empress of the Lake Shore. Has a ring to it, right?”

  “Absolutely not,” Jessica said. “You’re way too young to run your own town.”

  “Fine. I’ll make my own. With blackjack, and—“

  “And stop quoting shows from when I was a kid.”

  I held a hand up to quiet them both down. “Actually, my first thought was to give it to Calvin. He’d be good at organizing people, figuring out what they need to survive, and stuff like that. That ex-military mindset could be just what we need. But he’s not here, and it’s going to take a day before we get it running. I don’t think we can afford to wait. Jessica, you’re our best choice.”

  “Because…why?” Jessica looked confused. Tori just looked pissed off that her plan to become the Monarch of the Magnificent Mile had failed before she’d even gotten it started.

  “Because your field was people, right? Palaeoanthro-something.”

  “Palaeoanthropology. I studied prehistoric people and how they lived, their societies, and…yes, okay, you make a good point. But I’m not exactly strong. Don’t we want someone strong running the settlement?”

  “Did that go well with Saul?” I asked.

  “No.” Jessica squirmed. “I’m just not sure if—“

  “I want to be a princess. If you don’t take it, I’ll never be a princess,” Tori said. I glanced at her, and she winked. She was playing her step-mom.

  And Jessica knew it. But that didn’t matter, because while Tori’s pressure wasn’t huge, it was enough. We had her beat. She sighed. “Fine. I’ll do it, but under a couple of conditions.”

  “Don’t try to weasel out of this,” Tori said.

  “I’m not. They’re very easy conditions to meet. First, I hold the key, but Calvin’s involved in all the decision-making if he ever returns. He’s a smart guy, and you’re right. His experience is too valuable to throw away.”

  “I can’t agree for him, ma’am,” I said, “but if he’s willing, that’s okay with me. What’s the next one?”

  “You need to clear dungeons. Lots of dungeons. We need to get the City Key powered up,” Jessica said.

  “That was my plan already. You’re going to want some other dungeon-clearers, though. The sooner we get the key’s Lionheart Defense powered up, the sooner Museumtown can protect itself.” That was true, but I also wanted the dungeons for my own personal power, and for Tori’s. “Anything else?”

  Jessica nodded, smiling grimly, and I realized that I’d walked into a trap, but there wasn’t any going back on it now. “That you’re the third person on the council.”

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