Chapter 214. Waiting for Integration.
About five minutes after I’d hung up with Marie, she was knocking on the door of my apartment, with Julio in tow.
“You look a lot better than when I last saw you,” Julio said as I invited them in.
“Being taken apart and reassembled seems to do the trick with any lingering injuries,” I replied. It was hard to for me to fathom that all the time I’d just spent on my summonings, the negotiation for my personal space expansion, and the visit to Somhagen equated to just about an hour or so here at home.
The last time Julio and Maria had seen me, I was still pretty banged up from my experience clearing the tiki dungeon. That was one advantage of being summoned, the ability to repair any damage you might have. Minerva had mentioned that I would have an extended life expectancy, which was an even better bonus.
“I just got off the phone with Agent Lopez. He’s in LA and is taking a chopper here with some tech expert that he’s rounded up. They’ll meet us at the Huntington Beach Police Station. There’s a secure room there where we can talk. Julio will drive us over,” Marie explained.
We piled into Julio’s old Buick Century and left for the police station. It wasn’t that far of a ride, but the evening rush hour traffic made it take a lot longer than I would have liked. While we drove, I explained to Marie all the changes and things I’d learned during my last summoning session and subsequent visit to Somhagen.
“Interesting, we’ve seen in the shared database that most people are offered either a new class, or an evolution at tier two, like the system did with you. Some people are reporting no changes offered at all, and others that they had to wait until tier two, rank five. The system is odd in the way it is doling out upgrades. I think you did well with yours,” Marie said as we pulled into the station parking lot.
A uniformed officer was there to greet us and led us directly inside, past the security measures. I was pretty sure the local police department wasn’t read into the top-secret information about summoned beings, but apparently Agent Lopez had some pull to get things moving quickly for us.
“Rico, thanks for meeting with us, and thank you for what you’ve picked up in Somhagen. We’ve been requesting that summoned beings bring back a variety of items so we can test them out, but this is the first we’ve heard of something that can predict our world’s integration. Can we see it now?” Agent Lopez asked as soon as the door to the office we were using was closed.
A pair of government agents were posted outside to make sure that any curious police officers didn’t stick their noses in or overhear anything they weren’t supposed to. It was a large enough office but felt a bit cramped around the table with all of us, Lopez, his technician, and piles of various scientific equipment that I couldn’t identify.
“Here, it doesn’t look like much, and the person who sold it to me said we’d be integrated when the gauge reaches about a quarter of the way up,” I explained as I placed the gauge on the table.
“Incredible, let us get some initial readings,” the tech said as he began to poke and prod at the mana gauge.
“How did you find this?” Lopez asked.
“One of the information brokers on the second tier of the city, a human named Rhett, told me about it when I asked about predicting our integrations. I can give details about where the shop is located where I bought it, and the owner won’t be hard to spot. Her name is Zamly and she’s a Medusa looking creature with a bit of a temper,” I explained.
“Medusa, like from the Greek legends?” Lopez asked.
“Sir, that species is rare but has been documented by other summoned beings. They call themselves the gorgoth which is eerily close to the gorgons of the legend. It further confirms my theory that there was past interaction between our world and others governed by the system,” the tech interjected. He looked like he was going to go on, but Lopez stopped him.
Stolen novel; please report.
“Thanks Jeff, you have a great knowledge base about this stuff, but we need to continue with the debrief,” Lopez asked.
“I do hate to bring this up, Lopez, but I have to ask if the government is going to reimburse me for buying this thing. It cost me a hundred gold, which isn’t chump change,” I asked.
“I agree, that’s a hefty sum, but don’t worry, you’ll be happy when you see the compensation check to not only reimburse you for the mana gauge, but also the bonus for bringing back new tech. The bonus only counts if this thing works as advertised,” Lopez said.
“You do realize that the coins are around an ounce each, and gold is hovering just over $2000 per ounce now,” Julio offered. I’d paid over $200k for that stupid gauge when you put it in dollars. I hadn’t really thought of it that way, but Gary had paid me the equivalent of over a million dollars for renting my personal space expansion.
“Congrats, Rico, you’re probably rich now,” Lopez said with a smile. I suppose he could be happy for me since it was the taxpayers’ money he was spending, and it wasn’t coming out of his pocket.
“Maybe I can get you an upgrade to your crappy Buick, Julio,” I offered.
“Hey, old Lulubelle is a great ride, don’t insult her,” Julio joked.
“It looks like you’ll be paying that bonus, Agent Lopez. From the initial readings it looks like this mana gauge is the real deal. It’s much more than it first appears as well. Here, take a look at this under magnification,” the tech, Jeff, said, pulling up something on his laptop. It was a short video with extreme magnification. Zoomed in, we could see even more hashmarks on the gauge, and as we watched, the gauge moved up slightly every few seconds.
“It’s moving pretty consistently, how much time do we have?” Lopez asked, concerned as we watched the gauge continue to slowly move us toward integration.
“Like I said, this is at extreme magnification, but if it continues at the same rate its going now, we’ve got about two to three years. That precludes any massive mana generating events like the dungeons that appeared recently,” Jeff explained.
“That’s far sooner than we had hoped,” Lopez said, looking a bit sick.
“With this in our possession, we can keep track of it. Maybe we’re missing something, and this is just some residual mana absorption from the destruction of the dungeons. I’ll monitor it constantly and keep everyone in the loop of where we stand,” Jeff explained.
“We’re looking at a quicker integration, what does that mean for us?” Marie asked.
“I’m not sure just yet, we had hoped for more time. The world may have need of your services sooner rather than later. We were counting on the cooperative summoned beings to assist us in dealing with the early problems. In addition to the summoned beings, we wanted to have other teams that are trained for system related issues and ready to go when the integration hits,” Lopez said.
“What kind of chaos can we expect?” Julio asked.
“All kinds, and it’s very possible that most of our technology will be wiped out by the initial surge of mana from integration. Between the monsters, dungeons, and who knows what, our traditional military, police, and other emergency services will be stretched to the limit,” Lopez said. He looked overwhelmed, and I had nothing to tell him that would make things better.
“We’ll help however we can, but we must expect some problems as everyone gets a class. Half the world will think it’s all some kind of hoax, and the other half will be split between thinking they’ve become a superhero, or, unfortunately, a super villain,” Marie added. She’d obviously thought a lot more about this than I had. I’d been too worried about my immediate issues to think too much about what the integration would mean.
“We’ll keep working hard at this, and with at least a general idea of an integration date, we can accelerate our plans. Thanks again Rico. I didn’t want to depress anyone, we’ve still got some time and we’ll get everything sorted,” Lopez said, regaining his professional composure.
“Is there anything else you learned on your last summoning?” Lopez asked.
“A lot, but some of it I can’t speak about due to some system shenanigans. I just got back, but as soon as I can, I’ll update the database with everything I’ve learned,” I said, thinking on my deal with Gary. He wanted privacy and as much as I wanted to warn everyone about him, I feared what would happen if I inadvertently broke our deal. That was something that was sure to attract Gary’s attention, and his ire.
“Whatever information you can give will help,” Lopez said.
“One thing I did have a question on, and hopefully you can answer. Where are all the higher-level summoned beings? It seems that around tier three they all disappear. I mean, I’m at tier two already, and I’m pretty new to this. Surely, we have people that are tier four, five, or higher,” I asked.
“It’s yet another mystery we haven’t been able to figure out. The highest tier summoned being we’re in contact with is tier three, rank eight,” Lopez said.
“The only thing I could get out of the information broker was that something big changes at tier three, which seems to be the case. Not only that, but he also mentioned some kind of offramp for a summoned being at that tier. Do you think we’re forced to leave our home world at that point?” I speculated.
“I’m not sure, but whatever we do find out will be shared. The only way we get through this is to all work together and make our summoned beings as knowledgeable and powerful as we can so you can help deal with the integration,” Lopez said.
Before I could respond, and ask for some high-speed soldier training, the system intervened.
Summoner link has been activated. Prepare for immediate summoning.