The crowd that gathered near the Obelisk was larger than David expected. Word had spread fast and the idea of action, information and the chance to help a large group of people seemed to have done the trick.

  Well over a hundred people, most local residents, some rescued survivors from the teams early forays. Some were still processing their tutorial experiences, most were that combination of too calm and yet strangely restless that showed the subtle influence of the safe zone.

  David stood with his team, facing the group. This felt uncomfortably like a presentation at work, except the stakes were life and death rather than insight gleaned from quarterly earnings.

  "Thank you for coming," David started, his voice carrying across the crowd.

  "We need to talk about what happens next."

  "We know what happens next," someone called out. "We stay here where it's safe!"

  Murmurs of agreement rippled through the group.

  "Safe for how long?" Camila shot back.

  Another person called out, confident within the crowd "The system told us that people will come here! That this is safe territory. The best thing we can do is make sure that we have a place ready to receive them.”

  A rumble of agreement sounded from those sitting around the man, they recognized him, liked his point and agreed.

  Camila’s passion shone through as she took the point head on.

  “How many people are out there right now, dying because they can't reach safety? How many people are out there asleep right now needing to be rescued? Only a little perra would turn their back on their need!"

  "That's not our problem! We just need to hold on until the authorities bring help." another voice protested.

  "We barely survived ourselves!", “What’s really going on?”, "It isn’t our problem”.

  The chorus of voices rapidly descended into a babble of indecision.

  “Enough! Everyone please be quiet and I’ll tell you what we DO know.”

  People grudgingly shut up and allowed David to speak, he detailed what they knew, including the dangers then finished up with the ask.

  “People are waking faster here than elsewhere. Anyone we BRING here has a good chance. Otherwise it’s die or thirst or wake up to be hunted. We are going to go out again and we want your help.”

  To David’s surprise the man who had first spoken and nearly taken the meeting of the rails actually stood up. He was older, clean shaven with thin receding salt and pepper hair and a round open face. He smiled easily at the crowd.

  “Now, most of you folks know me. I’m Phil Greenwood, Councilman.” He paused to give his title time to sink in.

  “Now I would like to get everyone here to join thanking uhh, David was it? And his friends for their actions to date.”

  He paused and started clapping, it looked silly for a second but then someone joined in, then another and like a wave the whole group was applauding. David looked round at the team and saw that there were reactions from stoic acceptance to soaking it up with a fair share of embarrassment. Oddly Carl looked worried.

  As the applause died down David found out why.

  “Now, these young folks have done their best in extraordinary circumstances, quite extraordinary but we need to formulate a plan, one which takes advantage of all our experience and respects the will of the people.”

  There were murmurs of agreement, more people were turning to listen. Charlie looked pissed after the dismissal of youth, David could sympathize but still waited to hear an actual point.

  “First, people need time to find their feet, second we need to take stock of who is here and what they can do. Finally, we need to prioritize the needs of the people who are here right now, especially those who are currently incapacitated.”

  Here he pointed to the sprawling area where survivors lay in neat rows near the Obelisk being checked on by the largest group of people who had not joined the meeting.

  Again a murmur of agreement indicated he had scored a point. “So what I say is this. Let’s take time to take stock. Those who live around here can see what supplies they can spare, and we can identify the experts we need to lead us until help arrives.”

  David was still trying to get to grips with a plan that sounded sensible if the problem was unexpected flooding, not the really bad kind but the kind where your neighbors had water in their basements but you were OK.

  Charlie had had enough, that much was plain from his face. He raised his hand and shot his new fireball spell straight up. The detonation of flames was quite impressive and the noise, a soft whump, seemed to cut through the chatter and broke the politicians rhythm.

  “Dude! You don’t get it. You can’t just marginalize people because they are young. Or pretend the system isn’t here. I just fucking cast a fireball dude. A spell I got from a quest called Save your people because I saved wait for it. Ten people!”

  He was on his feet now, yelling. “The world has literally ended. My mum is out there, far enough away that I can’t get to her. If a dipshit like you ends up in charge she’ll die waiting for help. So pull your head out of your arse and listen when someone plans to help people!”

  Someone else stood up then, he has younger and didn’t introduce himself. “The kid has a point. Only for a lot of folks they aren’t out of reach. I stuck around to hear what you had to say, even did this tutorial thing. I’m leaving now, my kids are 45 minutes away with my ex. And it doesn’t sound like any of you are going to help.”

  Several others rose to their feet after this voicing their agreement.

  Before they could leave Phil spoke again, his face stressed and his balding head shiny with sweat.

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  “Look, folks! One thing we can all agree on is that there is a lot of danger and uncertainty. Let’s take some time to plan a measured response and make sure that as many people as possible stay safe. Maybe we can find people to head out in groups, make it safer to go and check on family members…”

  Soon everyone was yelling at each other as they argued.

  Carl grabbed Camila and David by the elbows and pulled them close. “Look, I’ll shut them up for a minute but you’ve gotta give them something concrete or that snake will have us debating this in committee at the next residents association meeting or something.”

  Camila spoke softly. “Action now. Or people die. How do we get that?”

  David replied “We compromise and change the debate. Just don’t let anyone interrupt me.”

  Both the others nodded.

  Then Carl smoothly drew his gun and fired into the air. After a second of shocked silence he turned to David and spoke. “I think you all need to hear what David has to say.”

  Swallowing his nerves David stepped forward, scanning the crowd and seeing mistrust and even outright hostility in some faces. Swallowing he began.

  “This isn’t a dictatorship, I’m not going to give you orders. BUT if you haven’t been out there and seen the horrors you don’t know the dangers no matter how wise you might be.” He paused to nod to the others who had spoken.

  “We have rolled the dice several times and saved people, even assembled some supplies to help them. Now we know time is of the essence both to save people and move around without too much danger. Here is what I suggest.” He paused to take a deep breath and continued before anyone could jump in.

  “We divide our efforts. Some people need to stay here and take care of the survivors we already rescued, others can help as the councilman suggested. My friends and I are going to go out with the trucks we have and save more people. We are also going to gather supplies so that those who live around here are not overburdened. We know that we all fell unconscious early in the morning. I was waiting for the bus, just like I do shortly before six every workday.”

  He paused, nobody interrupted this time, realizing he was going somewhere. “That means there are fewer places where people are concentrated outside their houses, places where we can rescue people who don’t have a measure of immediate security. We’ve already visited a hospital, a train station and a homeless shelter. We rescued people from all of them. I want everyone to pitch in if they see a better target than what I’m about to propose.”

  He looked around, he had them. He wanted people already thinking about where to go, not whether to go. So he painted a picture.

  “It’s six in the morning, most people are in bed, even after a night of aliens and craziness. There are a few groups who are at work in large numbers. It’s overnight shift change, People are making morning deliveries and people are getting them out on the shop floor. People are getting ready to make daytime deliveries, lots of folks breaking down containers full of boxes to go the last mile to your door.”

  “We should be hitting that fulfillment center that opened up during lockdown. Hundreds of people work their early shift.”

  Then he did his final piece of selling, turning to the group on their feet preparing to leave.

  “Any of your families out in that direction? We could convoy up to get you there safely…”

  Someone nodded. Then someone else spoke up. “My cousin works there! I’m in!”

  Phil tried to grab the momentum. “Now hang on a second, you mentioned supplies – I hope your not talking about stealing a load of hard working folks packages…”

  Carl cut in then. “Nope, I don’t imagine David was. I do know for a fact that Liberty is less than a mile from there. That’s Liberty Firearms for any of you folks that don’t know. We could get real weapons and ammo…”

  Camila joined in “Not to mention all the big box stores near the interstate, lots of workers there and lots of goods that can help people.”

  Phil sputtered “Now wait a minute! This is America! We don’t riot and steal, we don’t loot and certainly don’t go around grabbing people and taking them places without a proper plan.”

  That was the moment that David won. The group started dividing into those who would go out and those who would remain.

  It still took time to organize people. Mostly that was time to get people over the hump that they already crossed about looting, or theft, or as Camila finally put it in a fit of exasperation.

  “We need to save people and move lots of stuff. Hundreds of people and tons of stuff. How is using your Honda Civic to avoid feeling bad about taking a delivery truck a good idea?”

  Once they got over the idea of looting people became surprisingly enthusiastic.

  “We need guns first!”

  “Radio’s, this will be so much easier if we coordinate with those.”

  “We need tents, there aren’t that many houses in the safe zone.”

  “Food, I was going to go shopping tomorrow and I don’t have much in the house…”

  “Tools, tools and wood would be more flexible.”

  “We need hand wagons, everyone can move more stuff that way.”

  “Hey, I’ve got a hand wagon for my kids, should I grab it?”

  This led to the second problem. They had to wait for the slowest person to get ready, which was inevitably someone who had a whole house full of potentially useful stuff to sort though.

  Her name was Ivy, and David grudgingly admitted that it might have been worth the time when she produced a thermos of hot coffee and actually offered him a cup.

  As the trucks slowly rolled out toward their first stop at the Uhaul David found himself in the back of the pickup with Sarah, Charlie, Carl and four people he didn’t know who had combat spells.

  He noticed that they were all young, male and looked like the archetypical geek.

  "This is a high-risk mission," David explained. "Going out into the city for the first time and learning to use your skill is dangerous. You probably only have three or four shots each. Make them count and keep talking to each other.”

  “Hey, man we’ve done raids before! We can like totally handle ourselves. We even did the best we could to armor up!” David just looked – he was wearing skateboarding pads and a helmet. It looked ridiculous when paired with a baseball bat that had that shiny look of a gift that had been used far too infrequently.

  “This isn’t like a computer game, no respawns and the violence isn’t digital. It is going to be absolutely lung pounding.”

  The journey continued with the team sharing tips with the new recruits. David just hoped Carl was having better luck with his group – he had agreed to organize the people who wanted guns. Which turned out to be a lot, only some of whom had ever held a gun.

  Once they got to the Uhaul and picked up the remaining vehicles they were committed and swapped the group of casters riding with them.

  "This is insane," the older man now riding next to David said. "You're asking people to risk their lives for strangers and cooly trading tips about leading the target with firebolts on the way."

  "Well fire magic is the most awesome but you do need to anticipate, flight time is no joke at longer ranges.” Charlie seemed to miss the main point in his magic enthusiasm.

  “Look it won’t be that long before you are slinging fireballs with the best of us!”

  “So how does this next bit go? It all seems a bit you know, risky to me, deliberately provoking these zombies.”

  By this point those riding in the pickup had seen zombies moving, even got close enough to be completely convinced they were dead.

  It had been sobering.

  "We did this before, the Nath, the zombies” David corrected himself “are going to rush to any location where one is killed. That’s really bad if they swarm around people we need to save but really good if they leave the gun store to investigate and we get everyone armed nice and quick.”

  “Won’t the gun store have pretty good security?” another new recruit, this one a teenage girl, asked.

  “Yep, but Cammie can bust most locks with a crowbar and stats. Security cameras and stuff like that, plus security guards are not a problem.” The girl listend to Sarah’s explanation with something close to worship in her eyes. She had clearly decided that the blonde was incredibly cool and the person she was trying to imitate (the fact that they both had ice magic made this rather more practical than just hero worship).

  The group continued to speak in quiet voices as they drove steadily away from the residential areas entering first suburban areas with bigger, more spaced out houses and then transitioning towards industrial warehousing and businesses as they got closer to the interstate.

  Carl cut the chatter by raising his voice.

  “OK folks, ya’ll get ready now. Liberty is a couple of block that way. We need to find a target away from the road.”

  As he spoke he stood up in the back of the pickup and waved his hand to the following vehicles. As they pulled over and came to a stop the pickup continued moving forward.

  All they needed was an isolated zombie as they turned down one of the side streets in the industrial area with everyone looking for targets.