Sean leaned on the low parapet and let the breeze comb the sting of fatigue from his face. Streets five stories below were awake with purposeful movement: shield-wall drills in the plaza, children kicking a ragged soccer ball, a convoy of electric vans nosing toward the West Loop pumps now that power flowed again. For the first time since the world broke, Chicago looked like it might decide to live.
A soft hiss of hydraulics announced the roof door. Marcus emerged first, lugging a thermos the size of a mortar shell; Ruby, Cho, and Mala followed. Echo padded behind them, nails ticking on the concrete.
“Coffee, Captain.” Marcus thumped the thermos on the table as though setting artillery. “Perks of Tier-Two grid—three real electric burners downstairs.”
Sean poured, inhaled the steam. Actual brewed coffee—slightly acrid, faint note of vanilla. Heaven.
Cho set his tablet flat on the table; projected holograms clung to the cool air. “First-order numbers since we plugged the core.” He flicked a finger. Columns scrolled.
- Grid Output: 78 % of legacy downtown draw
? Water Flow: 140 k L/day
? Nanite Lab: 120 doses / 24 h
? DP Bank (after upgrade): 24 700
“Give it six hours,” Mala said, “and Palmer Station’s printers will finish forty ceramic filter cartridges. West Loop filtration can run without us babysitting.”
Sean sipped, savoring the heat. “Means we can push personnel south to handle Choir and north to the Gate without pulling the plug here.”
He brought up his HUD, mostly for their benefit but also to reassure himself it was all real.
Status — Sean Delgado
Level 7?XP 3 420 / 9 000
Concordance?2 %
HP 93?MP 83?Stamina 78
That new bar—Concordance—glimmered like a sliver of gold wire coiled beneath the familiar XP gauge. It had appeared right after the Gate fight, accompanied by a whisper only he heard:
Your concord with hive-minds echoes the Prime Directive of Weavers.
Whatever that meant, it felt important. He closed the window before anyone could catch the thoughtful frown on his face.
Ruby propped an ankle on the chair beside her, rolling her shoulder. “Nanites ate through eight infection cases overnight. They don’t just close wounds—they purge foreign mana signature. We’re talking battlefield miracle.”
Mala nodded toward Echo. “The wolf growled at the tanks first time I brought one out. You calm him?”
Sean scratched behind silver-edged ears. “He and the core talk in similar notes. The nanites were… loud. He’s adjusting.” Echo chuffed agreement.
Marcus poured a mug, lowering his voice. “Any more flashes from the Architects?”
“Nothing since the Concordance bar,” Sean answered, then shared the wording of the whisper. Cho’s eyes lit like LEDs.
“A Weaver?” he echoed. “Old MMO term—classes that tether buffs across party lines. If that’s real, your path could leap from animal taming to diplomacy engine.”
Sean shrugged. “Speculation. First, we keep people alive. Second, we survive the Conclave.”
He turned to Mala. “Grid stable enough to let us run the printers while half the engineers escort us to the Gate?”
Mala’s mouth twitched in a half-smile. “I’d complain about losing my best electricians, but the printers are basically crock-pots now. They even beep when done.”
“Then we’re clear.” Sean drew a long breath, held it, let it go, feeling Pack Resonance pulse. “Delegation steps through at T-36. Marcus, Kim, militia—your show until we’re back.”
Marcus bumped fist to chest. “Loop’s good hands.”
Below, a distant whistle signaled shift change. Sunlight had climbed another story.
“Let’s brief the rest,” Sean said, taking the thermos. “Bucket of hope’s only useful if the whole city drinks.”
The ether-core chamber lived in what used to be a basement tour-bus garage. Now the vast concrete shell thrummed like a cathedral organ. The core—an ovoid mass of river-blue crystal—sat in a steel cradle woven with coolant lines. Mana radiation bathed the room in a dim aurora; engineers moved through its glow as if undersea.
Mala and Cho peeled off to calibrate load balances. Sean stayed back, resting a palm on the outer safety rail. Echo at his side lowered his head, ears flat, as though listening to distant music.
Beast-Speech came easier every hour. Sean closed his eyes, let the new sense unfurl the way one listens for wind direction.
Soft-pulse. Question.
The impression floated from the core itself—no words, just curious vibration aware of the wolf, the man, the wires. Sean answered with intent rather than language: Safe here. We guard you; you guard us. Echo echoed the feeling with an approving rumble.
You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.
A warmer note responded—gratitude?—and faded. The HUD pinged.
Concordance + 1 % (Total 3 %)
You have acknowledged an energy entity.
Sean blinked. So it wasn’t only beasts of flesh; resonance could reach anything with a will.
He looked up to find Ruby watching from the stair landing, first-aid sling over shoulder. “Conferring with the light fixture?” she teased.
“Making friends.” He explained in murmured sentences. Ruby listened without sarcasm for once.
“That’s not small,” she said when he finished. “If cores trust you, grid hacks become diplomacy, not theft.”
“They’re still batteries,” he cautioned.
“Batteries that think.” She reached over the rail, rested fingertips two inches from the crystal surface. “I hope they think nice things.”
When they left, he glanced at the Concordance bar—3 percent. Early days.
Mid-afternoon sunlight speared the atrium’s skylight. Lia Kershaw and four Hive couriers wheeled in pallet crates finished in honey-yellow carbon fiber. The place smelled of citrus and machine oil.
They set up at a long banquet table while curious citizens circled at a respectful distance. Lia, stripped of battle armor, wore a flight-suit stitched with embroidered combs. She greeted Sean with a clasp of forearms—Hive custom—and gestured to the crates.
“Three hundred vials Royal Jelly nutrient, as agreed,” she said, then added, “And a token of goodwill.” Her aide opened a smaller box: sleek matte-black goggles.
“Drone-sync optics,” Cho whispered, reverence plain. “Those things let you co-pilot their micro-sentries.”
“In exchange,” Lia continued, “Hive requests five nanite schematics, plus live demonstration if possible.”
Ruby already had a sterile pack ready. Within minutes she used a single vial to close a teenager’s stove burn while Lia’s couriers recorded every angle. When the bandage peeled back to reveal brand-new skin, murmurs of awe spread.
System chimed:
Trade: Nanite Blueprint ?=? Hive Optics + Royal Jelly
Reputation + (Light) — “First Concord”
While Cho and Lia’s techs dove into spec sheets, Sean found himself alone at the edge of the clearing crates. Echo sat beside him, posture alert but calm.
“You surprise me, Captain.” Lia appeared at his elbow. “Most factions hoard new magic like dragon gold. You hand it away on day two.”
“We’re alive because Seattle didn’t hoard fuel.” He jerked chin at the Jelly crates.
She considered him. “Hive once tried to bond the mind of a Thunder-Wyvern. Five teams died. You and your wolf? You make it look… gentle.”
“It’s work,” Sean said, scratching Echo’s nape. “Not gentler—just slower.”
“Perhaps you’ll show my queens the method.” Her tone carried genuine invitation, not political bait.
“After we clear a few cult beacons, maybe.”
Her expression tightened—Hive had clashed with Cerulean Choir, too. She extended a small hexagonal token. “Gate-pass. Holds our encryption key. You’ll need it at the Seattle threshold.”
Sean pocketed the token. “We leave in two days.”
“Then fare until dawn.” She slipped back to her couriers, leaving behind a faint scent of metallic honey.
Night gathered like smoke. In the atrium’s east wing, under banners of the old State of Illinois, a town-hall crowd pressed elbow to elbow. Lanterns of repurposed flood-lamps cast harsh shadows.
On a low riser, a broad-shouldered man named Harlan Fitch gripped the microphone stand. Former dockworker, rumor said. He addressed the crowd with the easy anger of someone who had just enough facts to be dangerous.
“We give away miracle medicine for toys and bug paste,” he declared, voice booming. “Did we vote on that? Did mothers who still boil rainwater for soup vote?”
Murmurs, nods.
“Captain Delgado means well,” Fitch allowed, “but charity will drain us dry before Choir guns do.”
Tasha stood at back, arms folded. She flicked her gaze at Sean—waiting.
Sean stepped forward slowly, Echo matching. Pack Resonance touched the crowd: warmth of shared fire, memory of the night they beat the Harpy Queen. Conversations stilled.
“I hear the fear,” Sean said, no mic needed. “But know the numbers. One nanite dose costs us thirty DP in materials. A squad of Hive optics, their Jelly—the trade value more than matched. We gained allies who can air-drop supplies over two thousand miles of hostile ground. Tell me which equation starves your children?”
Fitch opened his mouth; Sean lifted a hand.
“Second,” he continued, “Refugees swell our lines, yes. They also swell our militia. Last night Kim’s shield drills had sixty volunteers—thirty were yesterday’s newcomers. More hands to defend every wall.”
A few heads bobbed.
“And third.” Sean drew breath, let Pack Resonance thrum. Echo raised muzzle, released a low rolling howl that vibrated the chest more than the ear—a sound of belonging. A hush fell.
“We are not PMC extortionists. We fought them for those kids. If you want the Choir’s path—trading lives for toys—step outside these walls and follow them.” He gestured south. “Otherwise, we build something worth more than DP.”
Silence held for one heartbeat, two. Then a voice—not Fitch’s—called, “Loop Alliance!” A second echoed it. Applause grew, ragged but real.
Fitch lowered the mic, shoulders tightening. Sean noted Tasha’s subtle nod; she’d trace the dockworker’s grievances—see if Cerulean money greased them.
For now, the fault line held.
Sean walked the Pedway alone near midnight; Echo’s paws padded silent circles ahead. Fluorescent fixtures still burned here and there on grid feed. The underground passages smelled of bleach, dust, faint sewage.
At the bend near a shuttered convenience kiosk, Echo froze. Hackles rose; a warning rumble rolled.
Sean switched to low-level Beast-Speech. “Show?”
Wolf nose tipped down. In the dim, Sean saw curling symbols in turquoise spray-paint, half-dry. Cerulean glyphs.
From behind an upturned vending machine scuttled a rat—no, half a dozen. Their eyes burned azure. Corrupted.
The rats did not attack; they swarmed the glyph, rubbing greasy fur against the paint as if worshiping.
Sean crouched, extending aura through Beast-Speech. “Quiet. Calm.”
First contact felt like pushing warm water against icy current. The lead rat’s ears twitched; blue glow flickered, shifted toward green. One after another, the pack sagged, shaking as though waking from fever.
System ping:
Choir Corruption reversed (minor).
Concordance + 1 % (Total 4 %).
Echo sniffed the lead rat, who squeaked submission before disappearing into a grate.
Sean inspected the glyph—fresh, incomplete. He keyed comms. “Marcus, Kim—I found new Choir tag in Pedway Sector C. Possible beacon staging. Marking grid.”
Kim responded, “Copy. Team en route.”
Sean straightened, palms tingling from after-resonance. Each success widened the strange new bar. Bridge-builder, the Architects whispered. Weaver.
He brushed fingertips along damp paint, then turned away toward the escalator that would carry him back to surface and starlight. Tomorrow, the Gate beckoned; tonight, their home still needed wardens.
As he walked, Echo kept pace, eyes bright. The hallway lights behind them flickered once, then steadied—tiny acknowledgments from a city learning to breathe again.