Chapter 31: Getting our own crew together

James and Serenity texted Jessica and headed down to the NYCEM. No buses were running, dawn was on the horizon, and the air was thick with the pungent, cottony smell of an unseen fire. In the end they’d not had enough to get trashed, just enough to keep them warm and alive and able to inhabit the new space they’d created between them. By the time they reached downtown Brooklyn and the futuristic headquarters of the Emergency Management department, the eastern horizon was brightening, and James saw his Aeviternum points replenish.

“I’m tempted to go in there buzzed,” he rumbled, arm linked through Serenity’s. “No filter, just tell ‘em what I think.”

“You do anyways.”

“Hmm.” They stopped just outside the security check point, and James realized he was reluctant to use his point to refresh himself. “I’m starting to appreciate the psychological benefits to just checking out for six or so hours. Part of me doesn’t want to get all bright-eyed and eager for more.”

“I hear you.” Serenity hunched her shoulders. “Though let’s have this conversation inside where it’s not freezing?”

James frowned and spent the point. He was as sharp right now as an old razor blade. No point in showing up if he wasn’t going to make a difference.

His body glimmered with white light as the Aeviternum worked its magic, and the fuzziness, the buzz, the aches, the deep-seated fatigue from voyaging into profound emotional depths, it all eased and washed away.

But he still felt worn-out on what might have been a spiritual level. The things he’d seen last night, the horrors, the conversations, the old pain he’d dredged up. Aeviternum couldn’t refresh his soul.

Still, it was better than diner coffee.

James squared his shoulders, approached the checkpoint, and presented his expired driver’s license. It was sufficient; they were waved through, and Jessica was waiting for them, as always, on the curb outside the front doors.

“You ever go home?” asked Serenity, but it wasn’t as pointed a question as before; James thought he heard more teasing warmth in her voice than defensive exasperation.

“Home?” Jessica adjusted her rimless glasses. “What is this home you speak of? But seriously, Aeviternum is a godsend. I used my sole point around four last night, it just replenished, and I should be good for another five hours before I use it again. I’ve gotten a lot done.”

“I’m sure you have,” said James. “How are you holding up, otherwise?”

Jessica hesitated as if unsure how to answer, then smiled tightly. “I’m fine. Keeping busy is an excellent coping method. Now, a lot has happened over the past five hours. I’m glad you finally showed up.”

“Like what?” asked James mildly.

“The military has made extensive use of drones to investigate the Nemesis 2 activities. Your report coincided with dozens more coming in from across the country, and several hundred from around the world. We have ample footage of their…” Jessica paused, clearly trying to find the most clinical term.

“Eating people and using them as cement,” said Serenity flatly.

“Yes.” Jessica grimaced. “That. The consensus is universal: they must obviously be stopped, but infrared footage shows that the people trapped in the buildings with them are still alive.”

Serenity clutched James’s arm. “No.”

Jessica grimaced again. “Yes. Which precludes major military action until we can establish whether those people can be rescued. There was a very vocal political minority led by the mayor that just wanted to destroy the blocks beneath each demon symbol with carpet bombing or worse, but we’ve since reached a consensus that we must extract and examine at least one victim before determining the best course of action.”

“There must be millions of them across the country,” said James. “We’d have to wipe out all the Nemesis 2’s by hand before the bigger waves arrive as reinforcements.”

“Which is why they’re planning major armored assaults early this afternoon before the Second Wave is slated to hit. I’ll let the military explain the nature of the assault, but they don’t want the Department of Ranking Citizens to be involved.”

“Why not?” demanded Serenity.

“They want to run the assault on their terms. I think… my guess is that they simply don’t want civilians involved. That they want to execute a clean attack that they have complete control over, without having to accommodate random powers they’re not used to using.”

James frowned. “I can see that. They certainly have the firepower to pull this off without us.” He considered. “Doesn’t mean I want to sit on the sidelines, though.”

“I didn’t think you would. It’s why I’ve put together a tentative schedule for your day.” Jessica turned her tablet around so he could see her calendar. “You’ve got meetings with different groups, primarily military, up till ten, and then we’re heading down to the Marriott to hold our first DRC meeting. If that goes well, I thought we could put together an investigative team of our own, and you could lead a DRC assault on an unattended symbol.”

Serenity’s expression was wry. “You did, did you.”

“I did. We cannot afford to be sidelined. If the DRC is to become a viable authority and means of confronting what’s to come, we have to establish our bona fides up front, and that means proving we’re as capable as the US military when it comes to launching assaults on demon strongholds.”

“That’s a big ‘if’,” said James. “I’d need to feel comfortable with these new people before ‘leading’ them anywhere. How about we take it one step at a time?”

Jessica pulled her tablet back. “Of course. It was a conditional statement on purpose. But I have a strong sense that we can’t allow ourselves to be sidelined. Global supply chains are breaking down left and right and were it not for half the population’s ability to create Manna, we’d already be facing a food shortage. But my real fear is that we rely on the military right up until ammunition runs out, and then even more powerful demons show up and we don’t have a sufficiently powerful DRC to handle them.”

“Good point. Though the military would have a ton of ranked up people by then,” said James.

“Yes and no. It’s been discovered that killing Nemeses via digital or electronic means does not result in leveling. Dropping bombs, or indirectly controlling guns attached tanks or helicopters means those kills are in effect wasted.”

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“No shit,” said Serenity. “So, it has to be, what? Mechanical?”

“That’s the going theory, yes.” Jessica curled a strand of blonde hair behind one ear. “There must be a direct mechanical link between your action and the demon’s death. Pulling a trigger, swinging a baseball bat, using Smite, an arrow, whatever. But the moment the death is separated from the killer by remote or electronic means, that channel that provides leveling is severed.”

“Shit,” said James. “So carpet bombing the Nemesis 2’s all to hell would actually set us back in the long run.”

“Precisely my concern. Each Nemesis 2 comes from a single person. The number of eligible manifesters, or whatever we want to call them, is dropping rapidly with each successive generation of demons, and if we don’t harvest their power ourselves, we’ll be unable to fight the Nemesis 3’s and so on.”

James pursed his lips and nodded thoughtfully. “Sufficient reason right there for us to keep the DRC relevant.”

Jessica smiled. “Walk and -”

“Talk?” Serenity disengaged her arm from James and slipped it through Jessica’s instead. “Oh honey, we need to get you out more. When’s the last time you did a line of coke?”

“I - what?” Jessica stared at Serenity, suddenly and utterly thrown off her game. “A line - I mean, I’ve never - never had any interest, or - or reason to, cocaine is -”

Serenity laughed. “Relax! I’ve got an 8 Ball in my pocket. Let’s hit the lady’s room on the way to our first meeting.”

Jessica fought to disengage her arm. “Serenity, I’m afraid I’m really not interested -”

“She’s fucking with you,” said James mildly, following them both into the lobby.

“Oh.” Jessica’s relaxed, considered Serenity, then scowled. “That was mean.”

“Just toughening you up, honey.” Serenity smiled. “You gotta relax!”

They passed through security and then spent the morning shuttling from one meeting to the next. Some were useful, others a complete waste of time. The meeting that really engaged James’s attention was one with Hackworth and other high level local brass; they’d received commands from the highest ranks to organize the afternoon strike so as to extract as many citizens as possible and weaken the Nemesis 2’s in the process.

The plan was simple. First Black Hawks and Killer Eggs would slaughter the Nemesis 2’s from the air, strafing them with miniguns, then the Black Hawks would enter holding patterns around the symbols to provide back-up when needed while a combination of Bradley’s and Stryker’s would roll up to the target building.

Their objective was to exterminate any remaining exterior Nemeses and then secure each corner of the building, deploying Ranger squads and keeping other Nemeses at bay while Killer Eggs dropped special ops on the roof, who would descend and try to rescue as many citizens as they could safely carry out.

The Killer Eggs would carry them away, and then the Rangers would re-enter to the Bradley’s and Stryker’s and roll back out.

The goal was to move fast, with the entire operation taking less than thirty minutes. Fifteen similar assaults were to be carried out at the exact same time across the country, all of which would be supported by readied reinforcements who would remain outside the enemy zone unless needed.

All of this had already been approved by the President, and the meeting was more a way to rope local politicians into the plans as anything else. The air of excitement was palpable in the room.

“We’ve had our hands tied up until this point,” said Colonel Hopkins, the CO of Fort Hamilton. “Nemesis 1 was too mobile for us to do more than mount a defensive play against. But the Nemesis 2’s have finally given us the best gift we could have asked for: stationary targets with no surface-to-air defense. They’ve proven to be moderately resistant to five-five-six NATO rounds, but something tells me a seven-six-two NATO round fired out of a M134 Minigun will give them food for thought.”

Chuckles all round.

“Sir,” said James, his tone flat. “Are those miniguns fired by soldiers?”

“Well now, that depends,” said the colonel, narrowing his eyes a fraction. “I already know what you’re going to say, Kelly. Electronics kills our ability to level, am I right? But you know what else kills our ability to level? Thousands of Nemesis 2’s congregating and digesting US citizens.”

James knew this argument was already lost. It felt just like arguing with a cop who was determined to move you along no matter what your reason for being on a particular street corner. “Colonel, we need to focus on leveling up as many people as we can so that when we run out of NATO rounds we have people ready to keep fighting.”

“Son, we have more NATO rounds stockpiled across the country than there are grains of sand in Hawaii. Right now, our primary concern is getting citizens out of those buildings and determining their condition. Can your DRC do that today?”

James frowned. “No sir.”

“I didn’t think so. The US Army can. Get your superheroes amped up, show that you can hit thirty enemy bases simultaneously across the country with overwhelming firepower, and then we can talk.”

James stared at the table. He could have kept arguing. Maybe should have. But to what end? The whole military machine was in motion with the President’s blessings behind it. His voice would just irritate people and get him excluded from future meetings. Not that it did him any good to be roped into this one.

And the colonel was right. The DRC was nothing but fancy talk and Google Forms thus far.

It was time to start focusing on getting the right people together.

Because the day would surely come when those miniguns fell silent, and then somebody would have to be ready to step into the breach.

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