The date was May twelfth, and the city no longer looked the same.
The one-hundred-and-one–floor residential tower in North Compton had climbed to its eighty-fourth floor, its skeletal frame cutting into the sky like an unfinished crown. Even in its incomplete state, it dominated everything around it. Cranes hovered overhead day and night, their warning lights blinking in slow, rhythmic patterns. Floodlights bathed the exposed concrete in harsh white light after sunset, turning the construction site into a beacon that could be seen from neighborhoods miles away.
People had started using the building as a point of reference.
"Two blocks south of the tower." "Across from where the tower's going up." "Near that big Raven project."
It had become a landmark before it even had walls.
The speed of the construction unsettled seasoned developers. Prefabricated sections arrived on convoys that never seemed to end, rolling in at dawn and leaving long after midnight. Entire floors were lifted into place in a matter of hours. What should have taken months was being done in weeks, and that alone sent ripples through the real estate world.
The progress had consequences.
Property owners in northern Compton began selling at a pace that surprised even Derek's analysts. Some residents wanted in early, signing co-op contracts while the terms were still generous and the guarantees ironclad. Others sold out of fear—fear of being surrounded, priced out, or left behind by something they didn't fully understand. Quiet buyouts, long-term leases, land swaps, and development rights accumulated rapidly.
By mid-May, the Raven Corporation controlled close to eighty percent of the land in northern Compton.
Survey teams moved through the area like a second population. Structural engineers drilled deep into the ground, extracting soil samples and rock cores. Geotechnical specialists ran seismic simulations, mapping stress points and fault tolerances. Environmental teams analyzed drainage, groundwater flow, and air quality. Drones buzzed overhead daily, mapping streets, rooftops, and alleys in obsessive detail.
Nothing was left to chance.
Anyone with enough experience could tell this wasn't about a single residential building. The tower was only the anchor. Everything else was groundwork—carefully laid, deliberately paced, and impossibly expensive.
Derek had intended to keep the media's influence minimal.
That plan failed.
Mayor Reed appeared on local news almost every other day, always with the tower behind him. Sometimes he wore a hard hat. Sometimes he stood at a podium draped with city banners. He spoke of revitalization, economic growth, and historic opportunity, careful never to mention figures he didn't fully understand. Every speech was polished, every soundbite rehearsed. It was obvious to anyone paying attention that he saw this project as a launchpad—first to statewide recognition, then beyond.
Councilwoman Lakeisha Williams was more subtle, but no less ambitious.
She positioned herself as the project's moral compass, emphasizing equity and community ownership at every opportunity. She talked about generational wealth, about residents becoming stakeholders instead of casualties. Her approval ratings climbed steadily as she walked the careful line between champion and negotiator. In private meetings, she asked hard questions. In public, she framed the project as proof that Compton could attract capital without losing its soul.
Yet through all of it, the Raven Corporation remained silent.
No press releases.
No interviews.
No public statements.
The absence gnawed at journalists. They wanted a face, a quote, a villain or a savior. Instead, they had only rumors, permits, and a rising tower that refused to explain itself.
Derek's only visible move during this period was quiet and precise. He acquired another twenty-floor building in downtown Los Angeles, converting it into the Raven Corporation's permanent headquarters. The purchase barely made the business pages. Renovations began immediately, sealed off behind mirrored glass and private security.
Still, the temporary office in Compton remained active.
That choice was intentional.
Derek wanted his people on the ground. Close enough to hear complaints, rumors, and threats before they matured into problems. Close enough that no one could accuse him of hiding behind downtown glass and distance.
The disappearance of the Northside Crips from the drug trade created a vacuum.
Vacuum always invites pressure.
Smaller crews tested the edges first—independent dealers, loosely affiliated groups, opportunists looking to see if the stories were exaggerated. They weren't. Within days, those who pushed too far simply stopped showing up. Phones went unanswered. Apartments were abandoned overnight. Cars were found stripped and left miles away, but the people themselves vanished without drama or noise.
There were no gunfights.
No arrests splashed across headlines.
No bodies.
Just absence.
The message traveled faster than any threat could have. By the end of the month, established gangs in neighboring areas quietly warned their people to stay out of North Compton. Whatever had claimed that territory didn't negotiate through violence. It erased mistakes.
Fear, when paired with uncertainty, proved more effective than brutality.
While the physical city shifted, Reality Quest continued to ripple outward like a shockwave that refused to fade.
The forty-eight-hour demo had ended weeks earlier, but its echoes dominated online discourse. Test players wrote essays about their experiences. Streamers replayed clips endlessly, dissecting NPC reactions, economic systems, and moral consequences. Entire forums were devoted to one question: How much of this world is real?
Crowds gathered daily outside the Blackfire Technologies building. Most were turned away by polite but firm security. Some left disappointed. Others stayed anyway, filming the exterior, hoping to capture something—anything—that hinted at progress.
Inside, the atmosphere had changed.
The developers weren't just working anymore. They were invested.
Teams argued over historical accuracy with near-religious intensity. Artists added imperfections to walls players might never see, just to ensure the world felt honest. Psychologists refined NPC behavior models to replicate fear, loyalty, resentment, and hope in ways that unsettled even themselves.
This wasn't just a game.
It was a system.
By mid-May, entire continents were complete—Africa, Asia, and Europe rendered not just as maps, but as living civilizations. Trade routes existed before players arrived. Political tensions simmered independently of player action. Wars could start without warning. Peace could collapse due to rumors alone.
Reports reaching Derek carried a single, alarming conclusion.
If server capacity allowed it, Reality Quest could be finished in three weeks.
That revelation triggered immediate action.
Current infrastructure could handle controlled demos and limited access, not a global release. Engineers warned of catastrophic failure if demand spiked without preparation. Derek authorized expansion without delay. Additional server farms were greenlit. The Missouri facility's buildout was accelerated. Temporary redundancies were deployed, including private backbone routing and distributed load systems designed to absorb impossible traffic loads.
Money was irrelevant.
Time was the only constraint.
And time, Derek understood, was something that bent under sufficient pressure.
By the end of the week, Compton leaned forward whether it wanted to or not.
The unfinished residential tower loomed over the city, still raw, still incomplete, yet already reshaping lives, power structures, and expectations. Politicians chased relevance. Criminal networks retreated into silence. Residents watched with a mixture of hope, suspicion, and cautious excitement as contracts turned into concrete and promises became steel.
Somewhere between a city under construction and a virtual world waiting to be unleashed, Derek Morgan remained exactly where he preferred to be.
Unseen when possible.
Unapologetic when necessary.
Always moving faster than anyone realized.
Because while the world reacted—
He was already preparing for what came next.