I called grandpa. All I got was voicemail. I called twice more. On that third call someone else answered, a deep voice, “Hello?” was their response.

  “Hello Sir. I’m Neal Cassland. This phone belongs to my boss and grandfather State Congressman James Cassland. Who are you.”

  “This is Colonel Justin Smolders. Your grandfather isn’t well. He had named you to fill his seat a few minutes earlier. How close to Fenton are you?”

  What the fuck does isn’t well mean. I can’t say that to a Colonel in any branch of the military. “I’m about 9 miles outside Hermanville at the moment, been fighting my way towards Fenton. I’m worried about being able to push through to Hermanville proper. I’m more worried about my grandfather though. You said he isn’t well?” It was a question that I didn’t really want the answer to.

  “I’m sorry son, He had a heart attack. They took him off to the nearby hospital, but I’m not sure he will make it. Which is why it is a good thing he named someone to temporarily fill his seat in case something happens to him. The Governor will probably be calling you soon about filling in for your grandfather regardless of his survival. In the meantime, I need that artery from Hermanville to I-70 cleared. We have troops coming up from Ft. Leonard Wood to all the exits onto I-70, I-44, and I-55. When they get to you, go with them to help get you onto I-70 and to the district you now represent.”

  “Sir, I’m not old enough to fill the position. I’m 22 when I need to be at least 24. I’m not saying this to weasel out of any responsibility, but about concerns of legality.”

  “Son, Extraordinary times. Also, you are hereby called to service as part of the invasion response. The Governor will be making an address shortly. Your rank will be 1st lieutenant. I expect you here before the day is over. Unfortunately, I have other calls. I’ll have my assistant text you all the numbers you need.”

  There was so much to unpack about that conversation. The first was grandpa. I am now even more worried about him, though if he had a heart attack and passed before the portals open, it would actually be a blessing. He deserved to live in happier times, and not to have to live through literal hell on earth. I needed to get the others. I pulled out the walkie talkie. “Nora, Billy, Frank, Brittney, and Brett I am just outside the McDonalds. We need to talk.” After thinking it over for just a moment I added, “Joe stay on the roof, we will go to you. Also if someone could grab Officer Mills and Dennis.” I made my way to the roof as quickly as I could.

  It didn’t take long for them to assemble on the roof. They looked different, changed. If he had the time to look in a mirror, he probably would too. Joe, Brittney, and Brett all took turns walking along the roof. Everyone else sort of stood in the middle of the roof.

  “I know you all are wondering why I called you up here. My grandfather had a heart attack. I have been named to fill his seat.” Turning to officer Mills, “This means that the actual orders for you are going to be that I absolutely have to get to Fenton. There aren’t a lot of highway patrol guys left. You should probably stay here as there are troops coming up from Fort Leonard Wood. They should be here shortly. They will take over getting me back to Fenton.”

  I looked over to Dennis. “Dennis, congratulations. If I am now a state house representative, then you are my first hire. You are in charge of ensuring my house district has enough ability badges to give the citizenry a fighting chance. We will do our best to find others like you, who can obtain ability tokens.”

  “To the rest of you, besides Officer Mills, I’m hiring you as well. I need all of you close to me. I trust you guys, more than most of the people out there. The next problem is that I have been conscripted. I imagine every able bodied adult is getting conscripted in the next hour or so.”

  Everyone looked at me with a wide range of emotions. Frank laughed. He almost doubled over from the laughter. “This is hilarious. I love this. No ROTC, just need an apocalypse. Welcome my world folks.” Frank was enjoying this a bit much.

  Before anyone else could respond my phone rang. I raised my index finger as a 1. I know they’d be okay for a minute or two, so I answered, “Hello, this is Neal Cassland. Who is calling?”

  The smoothest wannabe southern accent spoke back, “Hello Neal, this is Governor Patrick Miller. I’m callin’ to discuss something very sad but important with you. It seems your grandpaps has named you to fill his seat temporarily. Normally I would appoint the person to the seat, but in these tryin’ times I said why not. The seat has been in your family for over 70 years.”

  “And my not being 24 yet won’t be an issue?” I asked, because I absolutely needed this to be legal, and constitutional.

  “Son, we’ll be passin an amendment to the State Constitution. You know we have a supermajority in the state house and senate. It shouldn’t be a problem to change what needs changin’.”

  I was extremely surprised, but I couldn’t stay speechless. This conversation was far too important. “Right now, I am stuck outside Hermanville Missouri. I am trying to get back towards Fenton before midnight. I already Spoke to Colonel Smolders, and he is aware of my situation.”

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  “Boy, you need to git to your district. There is also a State Senator there. Now I’s gots to go, Son. I have to get on the tv, and do a thing.” And then he was gone. No real direction beyond what I already knew. The other weird part is that no one, and I mean no one, wanted to combine info system related things. No one has brought it up except us.

  “Over here, Neal. I’ve got the Governor’s announcement set to play on my laptop.” Nora had interrupted my thoughts with welcome news. I stepped over to join the group. She had YouTube up and the video had just started.

  The Governor was at his big wooden desk, where he had a small stack of papers in front of him. He was looking directly at the camera, and thus all of us. “My fellow Missourians, we find ourselves in unprecedented times. No doubt you have seen images on television, online, and in some cases with your own eyes. Every state in the Union is experiencing this. Every country in the world is, in fact. The invasion is truly filled with actual demons and devils, all clearly servants of Satan. This is a test not just of every person, or even every family or community. It is a test of our state, our nation, and genuinely our entire world. In that we are a Christian nation, we must resist. This is a test from God almighty. It is probably the ultimate test of both our nation and our Christian faith. To meet this test, we must take extraordinary measures. To that end, my fellow Missourians, we activating our previously dormant unorganized militia. Thus, every able-bodied man and woman from the ages of 17 to 45 shall be called to service. We shall not turn away any of those that are older than that who wish to serve their state and their nation. Beyond that, we defer to President of these United States of America, for any persons they may need to help on a national level. Missouri National Guard units will be in local areas assisting the unorganized militia. I urge Missourians to seek shelter from the demons and to offer up prayers in these dark times, for together, we shall survive.” The address stopped playing.

  This was our new reality. All able bodied Americans are going to be fighting this war. I can see the federal government siphoning off some of those for their needs as well. I knew it would happen, and shouldn’t be surprised. I shrugged and tried to relax on the roof. I spent the few minutes we had before noon trying to heal up a little bit. Billy found us a nurse with minor healing ability and sent her to the roof to tend to me and Frank.

  Billy had been very busy actually. He had come up with a great idea to help catalogue classes. He found ten people with fantastic handwriting and a desire to help. They were each to get the class details and abilities written down for each unique class. This was all on some of the loose paper we acquired. He then filed them all into a binder. He even had it broken down into common, uncommon, and rare. All were of the basic tier. We found a lot of classes that were just professions and jobs. A handful were related to hobbies. No real genuinely shocking classes, but Billy quickly noticed a very specific trend. Affinities drove rarity in most cases. No common classes had Arcane or Divine in them. In fact, almost any class to have hunter, or even performer got bumped to uncommon. There were the elemental affinities like fire, water, air, earth, lightning, and others. Those, almost universally, were uncommon as well. Billy showed us the differences between common and uncommon rarity. He also showed us that Joe’s Outdoorsman was the only common class with hunter in it, making it an outlier.

  “So why is my legislative aide an uncommon?” I posed to the group. I had my suspicions as to the reason, but getting group confirmation mattered.

  Nora replied offhand, “It’s your knowledge affinity. Both Assess and Identify have that specific affinity. Makes me think divination got split up a bit into multiple affinities just like I imagine most large categories would be.”

  She continued, like this was just a regular conversation, “This is why arcane and divine have to be extremely valuable. Think of them sort of like mega-affinities. All your schools of magic have to then be broken down. Brett has Arcane Lightning meaning that old school wizard spells that have lightning in them in some capacity are available, but not a single other arcane ability. In fact, everyone we have encountered so far has had those smaller categories. I imagine to Simply have Arcane or Divine would require a rare class or higher. I also imagine once we have an example of something past basic tier we will see arcane and divine way more often.”

  Billy grimaced, “Neal, I would like to point out that you get a bunch of caster levels that the rest of us don’t. you will finish your class with 5 caster levels. I don’t know what this means yet, but it has to mean something. None of the rest of us will exceed 3 by level 5, and only Nora and Brittney will have that much. It feels important, since otherwise you are underpowered compared to other uncommon classes.”

  Everyone found themselves nodding. They had taken time to consider my class more than I had. Maybe it doesn’t suck as much as I had feared. “Thanks for cheering me up about my class Billy. I hope that caster level has the impact that you suggest it does. No changes at level 2, though I am hoping something improves at level 3.”

  Frank smiled, “Hey, as long as we keep surviving then I’m happy.” That last statement gave me pause. Chris was gone. We had also lost a lot of police officers and highway patrolmen.

  Billy spoke up, “It sucks though. We lost Chris. I’m proud of the work I did on the classes, but I did it just to distract myself from losing Chris.”

  Brett cut in, “And our mom.” He reached out his hand towards his twin sister. “It ripped her head off. No one could protect her or save her.” Brittney had tears rolling down her face.

  I had to cut this off, as the mana induced dopamine high was possibly leveling out. “Hey, lets just promise to get through this together as best we can. If I’m a congressman then I can put Brittney and Brett on staff. This will keep you relatively safe. It’s the least I can do for your mom.”

  This fierce look took over Brittney, “I don’t want to be safe. I want to kill demons. I want to kill all of them.”

  “I will see what I can do to help.” That was all I could seem to get out. I was taken aback a moment by her ferocity. She seemed very determined to eradicate demons.

  Billy was still visibly sad, “Chris would have loved you becoming a congressman this quickly. He would have teased you endlessly.”

  “That he would have.” We all continued to commiserate for a few more minutes until a convoy of Humvees came up the road from the south.