Chapter 17: The Keys to FAO Schwartz

James told them everything. Never had he had an audience so breathlessly rapt. He’d had his moments over the past few years when he’d gotten into the flow of telling a good story, though those had usually involved a bellyful of wine and a handful of fellow street warriors around a fire.

This, on the other hand, felt as comfortable as sitting in one of the legendary tramp chairs that old-time towns had used to humiliate vagrants.

Didn’t help that every few words he was interrupted by a barrage of questions. Still, he did his level best until he reached the Monitor’s actual appearance.

“…descended to the street. I, ah.” James felt his cheeks flush and found that he simply couldn’t continue with the next part.

The mayor leaned forward. “She? The Nemesis 1’s are distinctly asexual. This being had a sex?”

“She did.” James forced the knot down. “She appeared in the guise of Jessica Miles, Deputy Commissioner Mack’s assistant.”

Nobody reacted at first except for Jessica, whom James saw just freeze in place, eyes wide.

“She appeared in the form of Jessica Miles,” said the mayor slowly, as if testing each word.

“Yes sir.” James fought the urge to squirm. “I was confused, thought Jessica - Ms. Miles - was a plant, or a traitor, but when I asked, the Monitor - that’s what she, or it, called itself - laughed at me and said it had pulled the image of Jessica from my mind.”

Again there was a long pause.

Mr. Patel, the Deputy National Security Advisor, was the first to speak from his monitor. “Mr. Kelly, can you speculate as to why this Monitor chose the form of Ms. Miles?”

James grimaced. “She said she could have picked other forms to appear to me in, but that they’d have made the conversation impossible. I believe she was referring to the appearance of my dead family members.” James felt a fist of cold, greasy rock appear in his chest, bruising and rough. How he fucking loathed this. “So as to be able to have the conversation, she chose Ms. Miles instead.”

“Right,” said Mr. Patel slowly. “But that doesn’t directly answer my question.”

James exhaled, studied the table’s surface before him. Fucking great. “I’ve been homeless going on seven years. That changes a man’s outlook on life, society, how shit - how stuff works. Ms. Miles… I don’t know.” He looked sidelong at her. She was very, very pale. “Apologies, by the way. None of this was my intention.”

She gave a very small and rigid nod.

“Anyways, Ms. Miles… I guess the Monitor sensed how she was representative of a world I was no longer part of. Professional, busy, I don’t know.”

“And surely it’s a coincidence that Ms. Miles is a young and strikingly attractive lady,” drawled Mr. Iverness. He then looked around the table and smiled conspiratorially. “No offense to the HR folks.”

“Right,” whispered James as half the men chuckled. “Yeah, well.” His anger blossomed. “She was clearly fucking with me, but that doesn’t matter, because she said her role was to watch our species’ progress and gauge how long we’d survive. On our current trajectory she gave us a little over five months before our species was extinct.”

That got their fucking attention.

“What metrics was she using -”

“Did she give a sense of variables -”

“Why did she reveal this to you -”

“Gentlemen.” Mayor Liu raised his voice ever so slightly. “Let’s get our intel first, and then ask questions. Mr. Kelly, proceed.”

He did so. Recounted the conversation as best he could, and then answered every question that was put to him. It took over two hours, and he quickly got the sense that most of the folks present thought they could trick him into revealing more if they just slightly changed the wording of key questions, or simply wanted everyone else to notice they, too, had questions to ask.

He chose to omit the part where the Monitor had offered to answer all his questions in exchange for sex. No way in hell was he going to subjugate Ms. Miles to hearing that, and he was certain the Monitor had been purposefully making an offer she’d known he’d refuse.

Finally the last of the questions dried up.

Sergeant Mancini was called forward to corroborate and recount his own experiences that night, which he did while staring straight ahead in an exceedingly efficient manner.

At last the mayor sat back and checked his watch.

“We’re forty-five hours from the First Wave’s release of Nemesis 2. We’ll be potentially facing a larger Fourth Wave tomorrow, and everybody here’s aware of the logistical and political challenges facing both this city and our nation. I want to thank everybody for their work, and most especially Mr. Kelly for his instrumental role in collecting crucial information. Mr. Kelly, please know that you have my personal gratitude, and your service to our country does you immense credit. Minutes will be sent out shortly, and I imagine there’ll be several break-out sessions to discuss elements of what was revealed here today. Thank you, all.”

James felt utterly spent. Never did he regret not putting points into Stamina as much as now. He rose, but immediately a young man stepped up in an aggressively fashionable blue suit, his tie metallic yellow, an earpiece and tablet marking him as one of the score of assistants present.

“Mr. Kelly, the Department of Homeland Security would appreciate your joining us for a quick meeting so that you can review your discoveries with key personnel. We’ve many follow-up questions for you.”

“Sorry Bobby,” said a slightly older assistant as he stepped up and put his hand on Bobby’s shoulder. “DoD gets first dibs. You know how it works. Don’t cry.”

“Actually,” said a young woman in magnificently thick glasses which caused her eyes to swim deep in her head, “I believe Mr. Kelly needs to meet with the new Personal Statistics Analysis Committee that the President’s Science Advisor has put together. They’re already gathered and waiting to discuss Mr. Kelly’s insights.”

James wanted the floor to split open and swallow him whole.

“Sorry folks.” Serenity slid into the huddle as other assistants pressed forward and slipped her arm through his. “What Mr. Kelly’s gonna be doing is joining me for a drink at Herman’s bar. You want to talk to him, you come buy us a round.”

“In a moment,” said Major Hackworth. His voice put an end to the claims, the assistants giving way like hyenas before a lion. “Mr. Kelly’s earned his rest a thousand times over. But the mayor and I would like a quick word about tomorrow before we release him from duty. James?”

Hackworth he could tolerate, so he nodded and they followed the major as he led the way through the throng and out of the huge meeting room. People were grabbing coffees, buzzing with conversation, heading off in groups.

Looked like nobody was planning to get any shut eye.

Ten minutes later the mayor closed the door behind him as he entered the smaller chamber. A dozen people were present, from Mancini and Serenity to the NYC Emergency Management Commissioner and NYPD Chief of Counterterrorism to Deputy Commissioner Mack and Jessica Miles.

A small, intimate group, obviously.

James did his level best to look everywhere but at Jessica, who was fixedly studying her tablet.

Great.

The mayor’s presence filled the room as he loosened his tie and rounded the table to grab a chair and collapse into it with an audible sigh. “I’ll try to make this quick. I’ve still got four meetings lined up before I get to take a nap, and I know you’re all just as busy. Major Hackworth, thoughts?”

“I want to keep my fire team with James, sir.” Of all of them, Hackworth was the only one who still looked fresh, his hair neatly combed, his uniform crisp. “They’ve already benefitted tremendously, and I believe it’s in everybody’s interests to keep Kelly alive and safe. Though, that being said, he clearly needs very little help in that department.”

James managed a tight smile of appreciation. At least Hackworth was trying to be generous.

“Great. I was going to suggest a police detachment if you’d changed your mind, but let’s keep things simple. Sergeant, your men spend their points already?”

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“Not yet, sir,” said Mancini stiffly. “We’re awaiting orders on how best to deploy them.”

“We’ve got some of our best strategists working on optimized approaches to the statistics,” said Mancini. “Though the simplicity of the system and huge unknowns is driving them into a frenzy.”

“The known unknowns and unknown unknowns, as Rumsfeld once said,” agreed the mayor. “Please keep me in the loop. Mr. Kelly, you’re homeless and broke.”

“That’s right.”

“But you’re doing the city, the country, hell, the world a huge favor here. You deserve better. You always did, but now we can step in. I’m going to put you on the city’s payroll. No obligations, just keep us informed. I’ve requisitioned a budget and created an entire department for folks like yourself. Dental, 401k, the works.” The mayor smiled at his own joke. “We’ve no department head yet, but it’s coming together.”

“There are other people like me?”

“There are. Things are changing so fast I can’t keep track, but we’ve created a database to track our highest-level citizens. You said the Monitor claimed there were seven hundred and forty-eight Nexuses in the city?”

James nodded.

“Well, we’ve already got several hundred names registered as having reached Level 6, with another fifty or so at Level 7. Who knows how many of them have leveled up since then. Fuck, this reminds me of my World of Warcraft days. You ever play, Mr. Kelly?”

“No.”

“I got a Holy Paladin up to 50 back in the day. Awesome DPS. But anyways.” He pinched the bridge of his nose. “God I’m tired. So. I was saying. The Department of Ranking Citizens as we’re calling it is growing exponentially, though New York City’s actually behind. We’ve less than a 20% rate of gun ownership. Atlanta is a war zone, and Huntsville in Alabama is making waves with their Liberty League. The whole South seems to have been waiting for this. You heard of the self-styled Demon Killer in Houston?”

“No.”

“He’s put together a YouTube channel teaching folk how to run trawling convoys like your own but on a bigger scale. Four trucks, men kneeling on the flatbeds, each covering a cardinal direction, driving at what he claims is the optimal speed of… was it 15 mph? Anyways. As a city we’re behind, but I believe you’re the only Level 8 I’ve heard of in the US.”

The Counterterrorism Chief spoke up. “China is supposed to have a Level 15. They’re claiming he’s a Shaolin Monk. Who knows.”

The Emergency Management Commissioner nodded. “It took everyone around two days to realize and adapt. Now humanity’s retaking the initiative. The US has optimal positioning, however. We’ve the largest military and the highest rate of gun ownership. Places like Taiwan, Indonesia, Japan, Poland, hell, most of Africa, are, to put it crudely, fucked. Their no guns policy is coming back to bite them big time.”

“The point being, we want you on payroll, we’re happy to give you keys to an apartment if you want it and make you the spokesperson for the Department of Ranking Citizens. There’s so much messaging going out of our agencies that the Department’s creation is getting drowned in the noise. We want you to make one of your TikTok videos.”

“Why?”

“Why?” The mayor blinked at him. “So we know who’s leveled up.”

“Yeah, I got that. Why do you need to know?”

The mayor looked dumbfounded for a moment. “Because we need intel, Mr. Kelly, the kind of stuff you just shared.”

The Emergency Manager Commissioner leaned forward. “And because we don’t know what the Nemesis 2 will look like. We might need to call our highest-level fighters if we’re not able to handle them. We want you to form a military unit.”

“But under your command,” said James.

“We’re still figuring out the details. Look. The most important thing is we want you to have some ready cash, a place to crash, and be ready to smash when and if we need you.” The mayor smiled. “We’re just trying to show our appreciation for what you’ve done.”

James looked at Serenity, who gave a shrug and nodded.

“Fine,” said James. “I’d like to know more about this department before I start pushing it online.”

“No worries. Jessica will keep you informed of developments. Which - right. We’ve decided to assign Jessica to work with you moving forward as your own assistant.”

James froze. “What?”

“What?” said Jessica.

The EM Commissioner furrowed his brows into an earnest expression. “This Monitor chose her appearance. We might be grasping at straws, but right now we can’t risk even the slightest advantages. Jessica has some meaning to this Monitor now, she’s part of this. We want you to work together and see if you can’t tease out more of what’s going on.”

James glanced at Jessica. She looked like a deer in headlights. “I don’t need an assistant.”

“Think of her as a liaison,” said the mayor smoothly. “Things are developing by the hour and having someone by your side who’s plugged in and can keep us in the loop in will be to everyone’s advantage. Jessica, we’ll email you the paperwork. For now, can you swing by the city hall and grab James’s new debit card and keys? I think Mary’s already sent you the email with the info.”

“I…” She stared at the mayor, blinked, then James saw her pivot and adapt. Her demeanor changed; the blank shock disappeared as she became the epitome of efficiency once more. “Absolutely. Mr. Kelly, are you in need of the keys tonight, or can we meet up tomorrow morning?”

“He’s fine,” said Serenity, leaning in. “He’s got a place to crash.”

“Perfect. If you’ll give me an address, I’ll be there first thing tomorrow.”

Mancini stirred. He had an incredible ability to remain completely still during these moments and just fade from awareness. “James, the US Army has negotiated the rights for us to camp out in the laundromat beneath Serenity’s apartment. They’re already refurbishing it. And we’ve had the F150 brought back. It’s in the parking lot below and yours to use moving forward.”

“Oh. OK.” James felt numb. At this point they could have told him he’d been given the keys to FAO Schwartz and access to a hidden underground fairy base, and he’d have just nodded. “I think I’m going to go now.”

“Yes.” The mayor stood and extended his hand. “Keep up the good work and think hard about joining and promoting the Department. You’re perfectly positioned to get the word out.”

James shook. The man’s hand was silky smooth, uncalloused.

“Let’s go,” said Serenity, looping her arm through his. “Herman’s?”

“Herman’s,” he agreed.

Mancini stepped in to speak with Jessica while Hackworth moved to confer with the mayor.

James left them to it.

He couldn’t remember the last time he’d needed a whiskey this badly.

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