As much as I wanted to immediately move onto Crestwood and Sunset Hills, I needed to go sync up with Nora, Natalie, and company. My understanding was that they had done wonderful things to help Brittney with her traveler’s ring of storage. So I took my Humvee and headed north. In the vehicle with me were Will and Vern. Will liked manning the 50 caliber machine gun. I was not going to deny him that unless he fucked up and started shooting civilians.
Vern was a different sort of guy. He asked questions, lots of questions. The ride started with, “Captain, what all happened in that building?”
“A lot. They survived multiple fights with lupin, the wolf-headed demon guys, and had to protect people who were essentially on their deathbed or in a coma. It was probably a tough experience for them.” I didn’t share Tim’s abilities, but I did that out of habit more than anything. It wasn’t that I couldn’t trust Will or Vern, but I wasn’t going to blab everything out immediately to everyone. Funneling info through Natalie was useful, but my world now required me to keep more secrets than I had in my entire childhood and teenage years.
“Are they all getting moved to Fenton then?”
“Yes. All of them. We need to get people beyond the range of the portals. This will help with that.”
“Do you ever wonder if the portals will close at all?”
“I hope they do. Something powerful is clearly sustaining them. Something is keeping them open, but for how long will it do that? I don’t know, but I hope whatever is powering them runs out of fuel soon.”
“Hmm… it sounds like you've been putting in an awful lot of thought on all of this stuff?” He said it like a question, but I was unsure if it was a genuine question or a rhetorical one.
I didn’t answer him, as I thought about the situation more. Natalie had said that several smaller cities had lost control of one or more portals. It might be useful to know where the closest one was. Those portals that we couldn’t control anymore would just put exponentially more pressure on all the ones we did control. At this rate, we probably only have a few more days before portal defense completely breaks down.
However, the move to infiltrate us with a half succubus is an escalation of tactics. They aren’t using hit and run tactics or portaling in small divisions of front line grunts. They are now trying subterfuge and guile to weaken our command structure. My passive ability helped me, but it didn’t really help anybody else directly. The realization that I was thinking about this a lot prompted me to respond to Vern, “Yes, I have put a ton of thought into all of this. I worry about a lot, but it has caused me to step up my leadership and help others.”
“Well, I hope that you can have a little bit of a slower pace the rest of the day. From what little I’ve heard, you have been running around everywhere trying to fix everything by yourself. Delegating is the hardest thing about leadership.”
That last bit stung a bit. I know I had delegating problems. I tried to leave so much up to others, but the one I am least suited for is the one I go out and get engaged in. Despite that, I would persevere. Besides, we were pulling up on the elementary school in Oakland where Nora and Brittney were at. It was an older elementary school that rose to three stories to fit within the space it had. We pulled up in front and parked outside the front door. “Will and Vern, I’m going to need you guys to stay out here in the Humvee. Keep your eyes peeled, and radio me if anything comes up. I am sorry for keeping you guys in the heat in this Humvee.” I got out quickly and made my way inside.
The building was old, like a lot of schools in this part of St. Louis. I sighed, as I knew buildings like this would be destroyed when the true onslaught came. As soon as I entered the building, I was greeted by Natalie, Nora, and Frank. They were having quite the discussion.
“Don’t you think this is straight-up stealing from the community?” Natalie said as I walked towards them.
Nora’s response was unapologetic, “Reappropriating resources from buildings that will not have anyone in them is hardly theft at this point. We are simply reallocating food resources from emptied municipalities to put them in the municipalities that will have people.” Nora was super calm compared to Natalie’s angry glare.
“But that is still theft!” Nora looked past Natalie and smiled as she saw me.
“I’ll let Neal answer those questions.” Nora threw a smirk at me. She walked past me before heading for a stairwell.
Natalie turned to me with a look of perplexed shock on her face. “Neal. You knew they were going to steal from houses and schools?”
“Natalie. I think you're framing the context wrong. In those places where they have lost control of portals, how many food supplies have already been lost? 1 ton of food or perhaps 10 tons of food? We are simply moving all the food that we can from these areas that we have evacuated, and we will be putting them in grocery stores in Fenton. Fenton has 4 grocery stores, thanks to the supersized Walmart and the similarly sized Target. We can ration food out to people who need it from these areas that clearly don’t need it. We aren’t selling the food. We will be rationing it out to people based on a household allotment. For the most part, we will be doing communal cooking to meet the needs of 20,000 plus people.”
“It's still theft.”
“It’s the government reallocating assets for the common good. I’m not a big fan of the situation, but at the moment, we need to come up with enough food to feed people for the next few weeks or months. If I am overreacting and the portals close with no more monsters coming through, then have me arrested at that time. From where I’m standing, this is me troubleshooting the apocalypse.”
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“You’re willing to risk jail time if you are wrong?”
“Absolutely. You just witnessed an escalation in tactics this very morning. They sent a half-succubus to seduce leaders and misdirect us. They had to have started that plan over two days ago. So, this escalation tells me that we have a timetable before the portals close. Otherwise, they wouldn’t be hell bent on breaking down our portal defenses. I’m sure you are connected in with other news agencies. How many portals in the USA were compromised before today?
“44. One to three in most major cities, and a bunch of individual portals where it is the only portal in the city.”
“How many portals have been added to that list today?” Time to get as much information as I can.
“Twelve early this morning. 4 of them were in New York City, three in Atlanta, and five more in Miami.” She looked uncomfortable. She fidgeted a bit like something was wrong.
“Sixty-four portals. I am guessing there are probably over 400 in the continental USA. I imagine that St. Louis is one of the only cities to not lose any portals yet.”
“Yes. St. Louis and all the surrounding suburbs have narrowly stopped attempts on several occasions in the last three days. Are you thinking that we will lose control of one or more portals soon?”
“I think it is nearly guaranteed that we lose control of a few of them soon. My being proactive has allowed the National Guard and the Army to focus more on the portals and less on the citizens in my area. I am keeping people busy with a whole lot of preparation. Letting the military focus on the portals is important. However, I don’t think other politicians and recruited civilians are going to the lengths I am to root out all the demon-kin that are engaging in guerrilla warfare. By the end of today, we will have had teams scour the entirety of Fenton to ensure there are no demonic creatures anywhere in our territory. I have groups in Crestwood and Sunset Hills doing some of that too, but I am more concerned with making Fenton 100% demon-free.”
“No demons at all?”
“None at all. I am not sure how long we maintain that, but we will be 100% demon-free for a few days at least.”
She stood there and just looked at me. The weight of my words was slowly rolling through her. I could almost see her cycling through the various thoughts and questions she would have next. She was normally better at hiding her expressions, but it’s the little things, the furrowing of her brows, the pinching at the outer edge of her eyes, and the frown that just couldn't stay put. Watching her absorb the information was its own prize for me today.
Finally, she spoke, “Why do you think they will push us away from the portals?”
“It’s simple. We don’t know the limits of their magic. They have been using a fraction of the forces they have elsewhere in the world, and we have already lost 15% of our portals. That number should hit over 20% by the end of the day. They haven’t shown us their whole hand, but we have fired nukes through the portals. Those nukes only caused how many portals to close?”
“Seven. Nukes were more effective when they were originally used by North Korea, China, India, and Pakistan.”
“If nukes are losing their effectiveness, then what does that tell you. You’re a military brat. I’ve met your dad.”
She paused and I could tell the moment she started thinking about this to the degree that I have. “They deployed countermeasures, haven’t they?”
“Yes, they most likely have. And we don’t know what those are, because we aren’t going to be crazy enough to send anybody through to determine how effective everything is.”
She stood there again, for just a few seconds this time, before she screamed, “FUCK, you’re right! Do the people in charge know this?”
“I’m certain they do. However, we are banking on portals closing before we lose control of too many of them. This is the most fucked up chess match ever conceived. If we knew exactly how long the portals would stay open, then this would be different. We would do crazy stuff, like biological and chemical warfare at the points of entry. We would drop massive bombs around the portals, so they were no longer at ground level, but rather above massive craters. We would dig ground up around the portals to make the first 500 yards or more of exiting the now crater absolutely treacherous.”
“We haven’t been doing all of those things. Though they have been digging around the portals a lot.”
“Not surprised we have been doing that at all. It isn’t that the military or government doesn’t know what to do, but they don’t know how much of our stockpiles to use to deny them entry through the portals. There are just too many damn unknowns.”
“Well damn. I knew you were smart, but you’ve been strategically thinking about this a ton.”
“Thank Nora, she’s the genius that makes us think a whole lot deeper about this than we would have otherwise.”
“Oh!? You didn’t figure this all out yourself?”
“It was a team effort. Nora did a lot of the heavy lifting with that big brain of hers. She hates public speaking. I get to do all of that.”
Just then, my radio sounded off, “Captain, you should get back to Fenton. We have made a bit of a discovery that you should see.” It sounded like Smitty.
I responded, “Be there as quickly as I can. Give me about 25 minutes or so.”
“No problem. You’re gonna love this.”
“Natalie, care to come with me back to Fenton to see what is going on?”
She raised an eyebrow, but replied, “I could be amenable to that.”
She and Frank had to get into the overly hot Humvee with me. Will and Vern looked like they had been baking in the vehicle. Sweat was not just visible, but dripping from both their bodies. We made our way down to the interstate in hopes that we could get there a little faster. We made it past the Portal in Sunset Hills that was not too far off the road from us, when our world shook. An explosion to our north nearly had me wrecking the vehicle on an open road. My eyes darted around as I regained control of our ride. Radios went off for everyone. Snippets of “controlled demo” and “prep explode” screamed at everyone through radios.
“Can someone figure out exactly what happened?” Calmness went out the window. I just wanted to know what the fuck was going on.
Frank was on the radio talking to command. He managed several “Yes, Sirs” before talking to us. “They demolished West County Mall. That was a controlled demolition of almost the entire mall and parking structure.” The West County Mall sat right next to I-270, which formed a ring around much of St. Louis. Fenton was outside of the 270 loop, but that explosion was so loud it shook the car from several miles off. Although it might have just shaken me, and I shook the steering wheel, but seemed far too plausible.
Natalie spoke up at that point, “Neal. It sounds like the military is already stepping up to do the kinds of things you just mentioned.”
Frank replied for me, as I was a little preoccupied with driving, “About time.”
