Chapter 292
Kinsley was biblically pissed about the researcher. To the point we ended up calling it early, after a few minutes of listening to her scream behind a copse of trees at some poor sap over a voice call. Judging from the ear-muffs clamped tightly over Iris's head and her bleary expression, my sister was verging on overstimulated anyway. She stuck it out for a long time, and it helped that I'd chosen a relatively quiet area, but the sounds of the city were still deafening to the unaccustomed.
After dropping Iris off at the apartments and making sure she was okay, I finally allowed myself to look at the timer.
It wasn't terrible. Eleven days and change left plenty of room to maneuver. But, as Nick had observed, the problem was the lack of momentum. Hastur wasn't keen on specifics, meaning we had no idea which floor housed the real Excalibur. We also had no clear insight on the process of stopping the transposition, only that the sword and "Prophecy" were key factors in stopping it. The first joint foray into the tower had been a halting, alarming affair that hadn't accomplished much beyond clearing a single floor, and now the leader of the Adventurer's Guild was dragging his feet.
If I had to guess, Tyler was already getting second thoughts about the arrangement after the timer started. The alignment of the Order, Adventurer's and Merchant's guild already placed us in a powerful position for the coming storm. Tower expeditions took focused effort and consumed resources, and if we faced significantly more resistance, or got entrenched with a difficult floor that incurred a high casualty count, I could see him battening down the hatches and delaying further attempts until after the second event had passed.
More than anything, the timing is questionable. All the floors cleared without issue before the alliance, yet somehow the first one we come together for with more firepower than ever, ends up containing an existential threat? It's almost as if—
The sound of a horn blared through my musing, startling my foot off the brake pedal as traffic bristled behind me, cars edging up, waiting for me to move. I accelerated from the standstill, leaving the green light and complex, cog-riddled workings of the region behind, taking a shoulder road to a highway I'd driven countless times before, feeling a growing degree of disquiet as the gritty scenery grew more familiar.
Things in region 2, my old home, had improved significantly, since I'd left after filling the receptacle. Even from the elevated view on the overpass, I could see countless streets—once cracked and riddled with potholes—now perfectly paved, the dark green of stubborn growth replaced with verdant grass and trees, with an infrastructure facelift to match. It no longer resembled the post-modern slum I'd grown up in, and I felt a twinge of nostalgia. Region 3, alternatively, was a mess. No one in my circle of power had spoken to the leader of Region 3 since the first transposition. Their decisions during the last event, from hoarding lux after they'd already achieved the objective to hosting a group of paramilitaries harvesting User cores, hadn't been conducive to popularity.
But what really boggled my mind was how little it had changed. It started as a low-income area with shitty infrastructure and high crime rates, and despite being among the first to complete their receptacle, hadn't taken a step beyond that. The only new additions here were cheap, neon signs advertising various system and crafting related businesses. Several newly minted bars that appeared cobbled together with scrap wood and repurposed windows blared thumping music, and on the streets, people staggered between them, substance abuse and homelessness on full display.
Whatever the leader of Region 3 had selected as their reward, it certainly wasn't anything that improved the region itself.