Chapter 49: The ashes of everything now

The mission was a huge fucking success.

Somebody raided a liquor store and brought a hundred bottles of champagne to the ballroom, which proved ridiculously insufficient, so the hotel bar was raided and it turned out the Marriott had plenty more bottles in reserve.

The hotel staff, the few that still remained, were invited to partake, and most did.

Richard hooked up his phone to the ballroom speakers and started blasting some party anthems, stuff by The Weeknd, Drake, and Big Freedia, which went over great at first but then James grabbed the phone and dialed up some Tom Waits, ignoring the catcalls and shouts as The Heart of Saturday Night ramped up.

That opened the floodgates, and soon Cindy implemented a system where each team could nominate one song, and a competition began, with folks shouting their support or booing the selections, which ranged all over the place. One moment Marvin Gaye was singing the anthem, the next Beck was dropping Loser, only to flip over and have Carlos Fuentes rip out Robarte un Beso or Althea and Donna sing Uptown Ranking.

Some of the military folks assigned to Blue Light looked on in constipated displeasure, but when James realized he outranked them all he commanded them to loosen up, and they retreated to a corner with a good bottle of scotch.

Nobody had died.

Nobody.

The Ma Deuces had ruled the field, and tens of thousands of Nemesis 2’s had died. In a couple of spots the Abrams had opened fire with their own machine guns, supported by the army squads, and sure, who knew how many Nemesis 2’s had gotten into the hives via the rooftops, but the streets of NYC from the tip of the Bronx all the way down to Staten Island were flooded with decomposing demon corpses.

James sat on the edge of the stage, that bottle of Bulleit in his fist, and gazed out over the ballroom. People stood in knots laughing, arms slung over shoulders, listening to each other recount tales of the day, while others grooved to the music in a sparse crowd in the front. Here and there he saw couples pair off, some moving to the shadowed walls, others just grabbing each other’s hands and slipping out of the ballroom altogether.

James raised his bottle and blessed their wisdom. There were a thousand bedrooms going unused above them, after all.

“James!” Richard had his hand over a phone. “Hey, Major Kelly! Phone call!”

James handed the bottle to Denzel who’d been sitting to this right, stood and made his way down. “Who is it?”

Richard grinned. “Colonel Hackworth. Seems congratulations are in order.”

“Colonel,” said James, plugging his other ear with a finger. “James here.”

“Major, word of today’s success is spreading.” Hackworth’s voice was rich with elation. “And I don’t mean just amongst the brass, but across the whole damn country. People who didn’t or wouldn’t listen are now coming around, and even as they criticize just about every goddamn thing we did, they’re taking notes and figuring out improvements.”

“Glad to hear it,” said James. “Smite-enhanced 50 calibers seem to do the trick.”

“That they do. It’s time you make a formal announcement online. You’re to keep your TikTok channel as your primary means of communication, and we’ll have Jessica post it to the other platforms.”

James turned and searched the crowd. Jessica was dancing with Yadriel, her shirt untucked, her blonde hair spilling out of its customary knot, a bottle of champagne in one hand. She was smiling, eyes closed, feeling the music. She extended palm, manifested a random loaf of Manna, then tossed it away over her shoulder.

James smiled. He’d never have guessed she could get down.

“Yes sir,” he said. “Anything in particular you want me to say?”

“We’re opening up official Blue Light recruiting stations in every city, following your campaign manager’s model. We’ve a simple page up, bluelight.mil, and it’ll list all the recruiting stations as they come online. Tell them you’ll be doing a tour soon, swinging by major cities to check in and make sure everything’s shipshape.”

“I will?”

“Sure you will. I don’t think you understand how powerful your example has become. And now that you’ve led this operation? Blue Light is the future. Make sure you emphasize the benefit to us all working together, federal, state, local, and the military. But keep it authentic. Be yourself.”

“Sure,” said James, head spinning. “I’ll do my best, sir.”

“I know you will. Congrats again, major, and we’ll talk tomorrow morning at 8. A.M. to review how we’re dealing with the Fourth Wave.”

“I’ll talk to you then.”

James hung up, considered the phone, then handed it over to Richard, who studied him in surprise. “What’s up?”

“Nothing. Need to make a TikTok.”

Richard laughed. “You don’t make a TikTok, dude. You - never mind. Need help? Want me to call Jessica?”

“No, I got this.” For better or worse. “Have fun.”

“All right, yeah. But listen, we gotta talk, I’m purposefully not getting smashed till we do. Come find me, yeah?”

“Yeah, all right.”

James stepped away, drew his own phone out, and tapped it against his other palm. A video.

He could easily just boast about their success. Maybe that was what was needed, to give everyone a jolt of euphoria. Heavens knew they’d had enough grim news recently.

But that didn’t feel right.

James moved to a side door, politely refusing to engage with folks who called out to him, and when he reached it he held up the phone and trained it on the ballroom.

Everything Now by Arcade Fire was playing. Folks were having a good time, even if the lighting in the ball room was garish. Just then someone discovered dimmers, the lights went down to 25%, lowering everything to a more intimate gloom, and the crowd shouted its approval.

James smirked. Even in the face of the apocalypse you could find a moment of respite with booze, good music, and friends. Somethings never changed.

He turned the phone upon himself and started recording.

“James Kelly here. Guess I’m a major now. Our start-up department, the DRC, has become Special Operations Force Blue Light, and I’m one of the folks in charge. Today we scored a victory against the demons. We surrounded the thirty-four hives across our city with Blue Light teams and other synergized armed forces, and with the help of Smite-enhanced Ma Deuce’s we killed them all. I reckon a hundred thousand demons died today, and we didn’t take a single casualty. This is how we’re celebrating.”

He turned the phone to take in the crowd which was chanting along with the music, everyone together, bottles raised:

(Everything now!) I need it

(Everything now!) I can't live without

(Everything now!) I can't live

(Everything now!) Every inch of space in my heart

Is filled with something I'll never start

You are reading story Dawn of the Void at novel35.com

The celebratory tone of the song began to die, and became more contemplative, slow-paced, melancholic:

The ashes of everything now

And then you're black again

Can't make it back again

From everything now

James pushed open the side door and stepped out into the hallway, turning the camera back on himself.

“So yeah, we got ourselves a victory today, but our work’s just getting started. I’m not out there singing and dancing - though everyone out there fully deserves to - ‘cause I’m aware of what’s coming down the pike. Fourth Wave is tomorrow, which means millions of Nemesis 2’s, and then we need to clean up the hives and get ready for Nemesis 3.”

James rubbed at his jaw, looked down the empty hallway and out into the lobby where a group of Blue Light operators were lounging and passing a bottle around. “This feels like a victory, and maybe it is, but if so, it’s a pinprick of light against a moving ocean of darkness. What we’ve done here needs to be replicated across the country, across the god damned world. If you’re seeing this and you’ve got some fighting spirit in you, then find the closest Blue Light recruiting office and sign up. If you’re already part of a team, bring all your friends down. We’re getting ammo, hummers, M2 machine guns, support, everything we need from the military, and it’s making all the difference. See, at first I thought it was enough to just team up in groups of nine, but now I’m seeing that’s still not enough. Those teams need to join together to form armies. We need to work together to kill not thousands of demons, but millions, and you and I both know they’re coming.”

Again he paused, frowning into the camera.

“One day I fear we’ll look back at this time as a golden age, when we had time to catch our breath and prepare. We need to make the most of it. Get down to your Blue Light recruiting center. Sign up. Get your hands on a Ma Deuce and get ready to slaughter the enemy tomorrow. And if you’re watching this from some other country? Form your own Blue Light, check our website, bluelight.mil for how to organize and everything we’ve learned. There ain’t no more nations out there. Just one people. One species. It’s us versus them, and we need to make sure we’re acting like it.”

Again he paused, considered his words, frowned off to the side. In his mind he heard that old, ageless quote from countless movies: there’s a storm coming.

“Anyways. Chalk up a victory today for the good guys. Don’t fuck around. Don’t waste time. Get organized, get yourself in place for the Fourth Wave tomorrow, and do what needs doing. This is Major James Kelly. Out.”

He ceased recording. Resisted the urge to watch the video and uploaded it instead.

For a few moments he tapped the phone against his chin, then pushed the door open and entered the ballroom.

A couple was moving to another door just off to his left. They hadn’t seen him. Becca had taken hold of Bjørn’s tie and was pulling him after her, smirking at him over her shoulder. He was laughing, bottle of wine in hand, and together they pushed through the doorway and were gone.

“Mazel tov,” James whispered, chuckled, and made his way back to the ASOCC where Richard was sipping on a Redbull and bopping to the new song. “Yo, Star Boy, what you got?”

“Hey, Major Kelly, dude, awesome, come here, check this out.” Richard led him to a computer terminal where he clicked on a few things and then brought up a spreadsheet. “See here? This is a list of all our Blue Lighters, including updated ranks, or at least what folks could be bothered to share with us as they came back in. And over here…” Another couple of taps, and he looked at a huge screen on the wall, which flipped over to show an aerial shot of a drone looking down at a battle scene outside one of the symbols. Another tap, and the screen divided into four feeds, then sixteen, then into more ongoing feeds than James could keep track of.

“These are the recordings I had my fleet of drones take during the fight. Now, using some sweet facial recognition software of dubious legality that came with the ASOCC, I correlated who was firing and how many demons they look to have killed with how many levels they gained. The numbers are rough, of course, but we got enough data that I was able to sort through the noise and come up with the following. Check it.”

Another tap, and the video feeds were replaced by a simple table.

“We start with Mendicant 1 on the far left, and then move over to Supplicant 1, right up to Supplicant 9, where you’re at. I brought in some outside data to support my formula, namely the information released by Taiwan two days ago, and the NSA’s own studies, and it looks like we have a geometric doubling sequence for advancing in level for each demon type.”

James studied the numbers. It took about 20 gremlins to hit Level 2, then 40, 80, and so on, right up to 10,240 to reach Supplicant 1.

But to go from Supplicant 1 to Supplicant 2 only took two Nemesis 2 kills. Then four, then on up on the same escalating climb to 512 to reach whatever the new Level 1 would be.

“But here,” said Richard, tapping the Supplicant 2 column, “is where we discovered synergies, and the growth rate changed. Everybody is still advancing far more quickly as a collective, but slower than they would as individuals, with the effect growing more noticeable as we get closer to Supplicant 10, or whatever. Now, if the geometric sequence formula from solo leveling has a common ration of 2, meaning the number of kills needed to level doubles every round, then I can find a new formula that fits the synergy leveling if we use 2.5 instead.”

Richard eyed James. “You still with me?”

“Instead of doubling we multiply by two and a half each time?”

“Right. At first the difference is almost negligible: 10 kills for Supplicant 4 instead of 8; 63 kills for level 6 instead of 32. But by the time we get up to Level 9, where you’re at, we need 2,441 kills instead of 512.”

“Whoa, hold up.” James stared at Richard. “You saying we don’t benefit from the synergy in the long run?”

“No, it’s still a god send. Remember, you’re leveling up nine people. Individually, you’d need 9 x 512 for all of you to level, so about 4,608 Nemesis 2 deaths. With the synergy, you only need 2,441, almost half. It’s still huge. It’s just not quite as delicious as we’d hope.”

James’s heart had lurched in his chest, but now he felt its thudding begin to subside. “OK. That explains why I didn’t level today. I must have added at least a thousand to my running total but didn’t hit the 2.5k needed.”

“Right. But the proof is here: synergy gives us a savings of 48% of demon kills. Given that we currently get only one Nemesis 2 per person, that means we can more than double our number of ranking fighters if we synergize.”

“Which in the long run will be crucial. Got it. Which reminds me. It feels almost wasteful using up thousands of demon kills to bring our team from Supplicant 8 to 9, or whatever. Wouldn’t it make more sense to rotate a bunch of other teams in, regular military guys, to rocket them up from Mendicant 6 to Supplicant 4?”

“Tough one.” Richard grimaced. “On one hand, yeah, getting a bunch of second Benedictions like Deadeye and Protective Circle are huge force multipliers. On the other, getting you to whatever comes above Supplicant could be equally huge. Who knows what a third order Benediction could bring to the table? What if Nemesis 3 tears through the ranks of Supplicant 4’s, and can only be stopped by Majordomo 1’s, or what have you?”

“Majordomo 1’s.”

“Sure, you know. Or Murderhobo 1’s, or… fuck. I’m not naming this shit. Point is, I think we need to do both. Our priority needs to be getting a single advance team to the next major level, and then evaluate what we should do based on the new powers offered to us.”

“How are we going to evaluate in the middle of a gunfight?”

“Wear a headpiece and tell me in real time what your leveling bonus is once you bust out of Supplicant. If you bust out of Supplicant, and it doesn’t go to 15, or 20, or whatever. I’ll evaluate on the fly, and radio in new orders to every ka-tet leader. It’ll be to either keep going and reach Majordomo 1, or to cycle in military squads that we’ll have sitting in reserve just for leveling purposes.”

“Guess we could do that. Have four squads at the ready to jump in and take over the Ma Deuce’s if needed. Won’t take much to level each one.”

“Right. The trick’ll be getting the military to allow me to make that call. Which means I need a good rank. I was thinking…” Richard squinted, as if envisioning it. “Lieutenant Colonel Star Boy. No? OK. Captain Star Boy. Actually, that sounds better.”

James snorted. “I’ll talk to Hackworth. You think you can get this all figured out by dawn?”

“You betcha. As long as I have access to data, I can make it do whatever I want. Ask Hackworth to get me local military ranking data, too. I can’t optimize who we sub in if I don’t know what’s out there.”

“I bet he’ll love that request. But fine. Oh, and Richard?”

Richard’s eyebrows rose. “Yeah boss?”

“Good work.”

“Ha! That’s why they pay me the big bucks. You guys do pay me the big bucks, right?”

“Sure we do.” James turned away, but even as he did so, he caught the pleased flush spreading over Richard’s face. “Sure we do, Star Boy.”

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