“Go ahead, set up the call,” Matt told them. “Everyone, please sit down so you can see the screen over there." He pointed to the TV at the end of the room. We shifted a bit so all four of us could see it while the newcomers set up for a video call.

  “Matt?” I asked. “Is this what I think it is? Is this why I had to dress up?”

  “Probably,” he said and laughed.

  It wasn’t long before they said they were ready. A minute after they left the room, the screen lit up and showed the Presidential Seal; as I expected. It cut to the President, sitting behind her oval office desk again. “I’ll bet she does this a lot.” We started to stand up, but she motioned for us to sit back down. There was an open folder on her desk with two or three pages sitting on it.

  I took my hat off and set it softly on the table in front of me with the turned-up brim side facing her.

  “Will, Blaze, MBledsoe, or Matt, I guess. And Harry. It’s good to meet you, Harry. This is an informal session and I’m told I need to get used to referring to people by their game names. I’ve found out how useful the chat feature is.” She smiled and nodded slightly. “I’ve gone over your suggestions for how to include me in actual fights.”

  Looking straight at me, she smiled. “We’re ahead of you in a few areas. I already approved the black fatigues yesterday and I’m wearing the boots when I can. They’re the same ones our special ops use for night operations. We’re working on getting me a mace.” This time, her silent smile whispered to me that she was thinking, ‘Gotcha. We’re ahead of you this time.’

  “I can’t give you details yet because not everything’s worked out, however my plan is to be there tomorrow night. We’ll do the filming early the next day. How much stronger do you think the creatures will be by then?”

  Looking at her, I answered. “The spawns are changing every day at 7 am, my time every day. They’re getting a little stronger every day. Today, the frequency of spawns increased. It’s down from every six hours to every three. We’ll see how the 1 pm goes, but the 10 am was the same as yesterday. It may keep the pattern tomorrow or change it again. If it changes frequency again, I expect it’ll be an hour apart. Maybe 90 minutes. I don’t know where it’ll stop.”

  Nodding in agreement, she told us, “That’s what my people are telling me. That's why I declared a national emergency today. When do you all think it will stop?”

  Deciding to let others speak first, I looked around, waiting for someone to say something. Henry half lifted his hand, and finally spoke up. “Madame President. Nobody knows if it will stop. The System seems to be pushing us into fighting and getting stronger. If we don’t, we’ll eventually die. Our local university people, the University of Eddington, say it looks intentional. Some people say the System is pushing us out of the nursery into whatever world is being created around us.”

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  “I know what the nursery means. We have people saying the same thing. This is a different war than any we ever expected to fight. This isn’t to go any further, but I’m worried we won’t be able to do it. Not and keep things as they are. Civilization as we know it may not exist in a few months. The biggest doomsayers are saying it won’t exist at all.”

  Everyone else in the conference room twisted in their seats and looked at me. “There are wards that can block magic and we think the portals too,” I told her. “They’re a general Level 10 Mage spell. Any Mage can learn and cast it. I don’t know if I’ll be the first one in the US to get it, but I’m taking it as soon as I level up.”

  “It should cover one of the spawn portals,” I said. “For an hour. That means refreshing it every hour or ahead of every spawn time. It can be modified if you have the leveling points to do it. Each level doubles it’s size and duration up to ten levels.”

  Continuing, I added, “I saw online that in Europe, they’ve measured the portals to be three meters across. I was guessing about 10 feet. I’ve also read that all the game measurements they’ve made are metric. That means at maximum level it will cover about a kilometer and a half circle.” Stopping, I stared at Henry for a few seconds. “Have Hal do some quick measurements around the spawn points. Have him figure out how many levels we need to cover before there’s much too overlap.”

  “Good idea Will. I’m on it,” and his face went slack. That’s when I noticed the President’s face had the same look. She was fast. We waited for her.

  “One of the few things I like about being President,” she told us a few seconds later, “is you have aides who can get things done for you. They’re on it now with Geological Survey. Am I going to like the numbers on this?”

  Shaking my head no, I told her, “I doubt it. I think we’re looking at months of these spawns before enough people are high enough to protect an area of any size. Like a town. Cities will be harder. The countryside and wilderness areas will be the hardest of all. And every few hours they’ll have to redo them. Also, they have to keep leveling up. To cover the country will take thousands or tens of thousands of high-level mages to do it. I hope we can survive that long.”

  “We all do,” she replied sadly. “We’ll talk more about this later. I have another meeting in a few minutes. We still need to talk about my visit to Eddington before then. Presidents have slipped away before to make off-the-record visits. We have procedures for that.” Her grin looked like the cat who just caught the canary.

  “All I can tell you at the moment is that we’ll take Air Force One to a somewhere nearby Air Force Base, where it will wait for a few hours before flying to your state capital. I’ll make my way to Eddington by another route. I know you’ve met Mr. Phillips. He’ll be coordinating things from there and in touch with you at the right time.”

  “I hope to be there by seven your time. If you can wait dinner for me, I’ll bring dessert. I know they have a hotel room for me. I won’t intrude on your hospitality that much.”

  Quickly glancing at Blaze for an answer, she nodded yes, several times. “We can do that. Is there anything we shouldn’t make?” she asked.

  “Phillips will let you know. He’s coordinating my visit.” She stopped for a moment, looking like someone just sent her a message, then looked back at us. “I’ll contact you on the day. I’m 46.” With that cryptic remark, the call ended and we were left with a black screen.

  “46?” Henry asked.

  “She’s the forty-sixth president. That means 46 is in her game name. Please treat that as top secret.” Matt said. We all muttered our agreement on that. The reason was obvious.

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