David looked at the others, they had gone still just like him. He could see them tensing. Nobody had any delusions that their systems were good enough to survive close range gunfire.

  With his heartrate spiking furiously David thought. If he could get Halt off and stop all the gunmen it would be over. If he failed it would be over in another way. Cold sweat broke across his brow. He could see Camilla tensing, Sarah and Charlie were getting ready too.

  Then the speaker blared to life. It was Phil shouting to be heard, clearly shocked by the speed and potential violence of the escalation.

  “Order! Order! Let him go! Let him go! He’s a free man and nobody is going to hurt anyone! This is a peaceful meeting! ORDER! ORDER!”

  He sounded desperate as people shouted and raiders who had fought with Carl, who remembered his lectures on gun safety and his encouragement yelled in support.

  “You don’t take our guns!”

  “Carl knows more guns creating safety than you idiots!”

  “ORDER, ORDER. Nobody is threatening anybody! Everyone Calm down.” Phil sounded desperate.

  In their frozen corner David slowly turned to face the men behind them, his hands spread and visible. There were six, all were pointing weapons at them. Several looked uncomfortable but their leader, the one who had spoken looked almost eager.

  Keeping his hands half raised as though in surrender David sucked in a deep breath. He was pouring everything into his spirits willing them to gather around the men. He didn’t know if he could do this but he had to be ready.

  Then he spoke.

  “You heard the man, the leader of your community. Nobody is threatening anyone so why don’t you lower the guns, and we will all forget this misunderstanding… Or you can shoot and start a massacre that will literally damn the human race.”

  He saw the men’s eyes flickering, the leader looking a little less sure. There were hundreds of people on their feet shouting and against those numbers even a gun wouldn’t make a big difference.

  Then Micky’s voice rolled out, suddenly amplified mid-sentence. “…the one who is escalating! The watch protects people from threats like you. STAND DOWN. DON’T MOVE UNLESS HE SHOOTS!”

  He sounded desperate, as though something had gone awfully wrong.

  David watched the men in front of him, all his power coiled tense and poised. With a single spoken word he would cross a line that couldn’t be uncrossed.

  The man who had cocked his gun surveyed the scene and spoke again.

  “Don’t do anything stupid, we’ll be watching.”

  Then he lowered his gun, not all the way just so it wasn’t pointing straight at them. His men followed suit a second later.

  Camila nearly moved then, David managed to grip her arm as he saw her tensing out the corner of his eye, he wasn’t sure she was fast enough.

  “No, they aren’t worth it. Whatever this is it isn’t worth starting a fight in front of kids.”

  David still didn’t take his eyes off the men who had been pointing guns at them a moment before. He burned their faces into his mind as he focused, wondering if this was what a gunslinger felt like standing facing another man, waiting for a move, a justification to shoot.

  “Camila, Charlie, watch our ‘friends’. Sarah, what’s going on behind us?”

  Then not waiting for an answer he addressed the men in front of him. “I suggest you gentlemen crawl back under whatever rock you were hiding under. Nice and easy.”

  Sarah’s voice came quietly from the far side of the table.

  “Carl is standing, he’s got his pistol out and he is watching the goons, one of them is on the floor. I didn’t see what happened but he’s getting up now, very slowly. Oh, oh good. Mark and Katie are getting up and moving to stand behind Carl.”

  Then a new voice rolled over the speakers deep and powerful.

  “Brothers and Sisters, take a step back from violence. As the Lord said, let he who is without blame throw the first stone. Let’s all show each other the better angels of our nature and step back from the sin of violence against our fellow man!”

  After a tense few second Sarah reported that Carl had lowered his gun.

  “Praise the Lord that a tragedy has been averted. Now, Let’s all take several deep breaths and step back. Look around and see the people here. Pick a face, maybe a child, maybe a woman or man you know. Now join me in giving thanks for that person’s good health!”

  The speaker was good, David could hear the tension in his voice but Reverand Okafor was hiding it well. He kept going, finding his rhythm and drawing eyes to where he stood at the front. It was a remarkable display of personal charisma, faith and calm.

  As the preacher spoke and slowly drew the eyes of the crowd towards him David watched the armed men who had threatened him backing away and once they opened some distance quickly moving towards the edge of the park.

  He could feel his hands shaking as the odd calming effect of the safe zone gnawed at his tension, fear and anger.

  As soon as they were out of sight Camila exploded.

  “Those little perra’s, I will fucking end them. Nobody points a gun at me.”

  Sarah spoke, low and urgent. “Not now Cammie! The Rev. just got everyone calmed down, you can’t be seen to be the one who causes a scene now!”

  The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.

  David looked at Sarah as she said urgently “all of you just sit down. Trust me, as the person who knows exactly how to stir shit for fun, I can tell you that causing a scene now will leave a huge negative impression. So sit down, unless you want everyone to blame YOU for this shit.”

  David saw it. This was a mess, he didn’t know what had just happened or not happened. He doubted most people saw them being threatened. Slowly he took a seat again. The other followed him and the spreading circle of attention that had started to form around them slowly dissipated as it became clear they weren’t going to start anything.

  The preacher, reading his audience was wrapping up.

  “…Brothers and Sisters, now I want you to look to the people around you and give thanks for your good fortune. Many are not so fortunate, and we should take a moment to reflect upon the blessing of being alive, healthy and safe. Please, bow your heads and join me if your hearts are willing in the Lord’s Prayer followed by a moment of contemplation on forgiveness.”

  Many bowed their heads and followed along as the Priest recited.

  David found his own head bowed, half remembered words flowing over him. Camila was reciting clearly next to him and even Charlie seemed to be following along.

  Everyone looked up, all attention focused on the elderly man. His dark skin shone with sweat, testament to the tension and sheer effort he had put into his calming sermon. White hair clung to his scalp and his shirt was marred with spreading sweat stains.

  David noted that Big Mike had disappeared, along with most of his men somewhere in the whole sermon.

  Showing off the instincts of a showman Thomas passed the microphone back to Phil with one final comment, timed to appear accidental.

  “Well Phil, folks are calm enough to listen now. Don’t go and fuck it up by being controversial.”

  There was a ripple of laughter, breaking the residual tension, something told David that slip was a ploy the Reverand used regularly…

  “Uhh, Thank you Reverend for your soothing words and uhh, blunt reminder.”

  Phil somehow looked more nervous now.

  “So, folks, that just happened and it’s quite clear that passions are running high around safety. I think the best thing to do is to table that discussion for a later date and just ask everyone to take responsibility for their firearms and maybe uh speak with Big Micky if they have any questions about securing their guns.”

  This clearly wasn’t going to script, Phil seemed even more shaken up by the near violence than David felt.

  Carls voice cut through the crowd, he had remained for the impromptu sermon and David thought he had seen his head bowed in prayer.

  “Just so we are all clear, nobody is going to be talking about taking honest folks ability to defend themselves away. I got no problem with responsibility for your weapons, and I doubt anyone does.”

  David figured that was as close to forgiveness as they were going to get. Still, he was glad to be sitting as even under the influence of the safe zone he had the shakes now that the fight was past.

  Nothing else really happened for a while as Phil rambled, clearly rattled. Finally, he came round to his third planned point, clearly nervous about it.

  Sarah spoke softly to their table.

  “Bet’s on whether he saved the most controversial for last or tried a shit sandwich approach?”

  Camila replied. “Given how nervous he is I think this is the point he thought was controversial. Not sure if Carl will agree though…”

  “So, uhh, we need to well think about what comes next. There have been a lot of well, worried discussions, about how long we can last. So, Umm I’d like to have Pat speak to us all about the realities of infrastructure.”

  There was an awkward pause as Pat got up. Looking distinctly unhappy with Phil for passing the buck to him. After a bit of a scramble they realized that Big Mike hadn’t returned his microphone so they only had the one.

  “Look Folks, I’m not going to sugar coat this for you. We have a bit of a situation on our hands. There are something over a thousand of us awake right now squatting in an area that, was built out to hold rather fewer people. Between the local rescue efforts and the wider ranging ones we have hundreds more people due to wake up.

  “We’ve already cannibalized much of the space afforded by the park but can only do so at a very low density due to well, no buildings.” Here he paused to fiddle with the pencil he had tucked behind his ear.

  “Put bluntly we need a LOT of work just to manage our most immediate issues. On top of that the whole power system is out, gas is now a horrible risk. Water will keep running for a while but we have to start planning for it to fail. If not stop they we need to boil drinking water…”

  Then he sucked in a breath and spoke again. “Can we really afford to rescue more people?”

  Camila was on her feet and Yelliing before he could continue. “Dios Mio, we just prayed and counted our blessings! There is NO WAY that we can stop helping. Every man, woman and child out there deserves our absolute best efforts to save them. We would demand that of ANYONE who was near loved ones we can’t reach. HOW can we demand less of ourselves?”

  David could see ripples of nods, but also head shakes and skeptical expressions. Being told that there wasn’t enough resources to go around for the existing people was having the predictable effect of making people cautious.

  Before anyone else could butt in he stood up.

  “Look, I get what Pat is saying. Everything he described CAN be addressed, it just needs a lot of hard work.”

  Pat nodded vigerously and responded. “Yes we can fix each problem but we just don’t have the manpower, or frankly the training to do a lot of it.”

  David smiled. Then he shouted his response confident in the pitch.

  “That’s right. We need hundreds of distinct skillsets to maintain a modern city. Thousands of workers, people to protect them, people to grow food. That’s why we need to save as many people as humanly possible.”

  He saw nods but just as many skeptical faces.

  “Every person we save is another shot at a critical skillset we are missing today. We need builders, engineers, doctors with different specialties, electricians, plumbers, farmers. Let’s go out and save those people!”

  More nods this time.

  “There are children out there. We need to save them, and we need the people to take care of them, we need their parents.”

  More nods, he had reached a chunk of the people initially supporting Phil in the cluster near the speaker.

  “The crisis Pat describes is only one in a sequence of challenges. First, we have to acutely save as many people as possible and get them awake and contributing. Second, we have to find enough food to keep them going day by day. Third, we have Pat’s crisis – houses, bathrooms, fortifications, schools, workshops. Finally, we have the real challenge – what happens next year, or in ten years.”

  “There is a whole city out there we can use to address Pat’s crisis IF we can secure it. There is farmland and woodland beyond the city limits IF we can make it safe.”

  He paused, he could see everyone paying attention and nodding now.

  “More than anything you have to see our situation for what it is. We have been invaded. Sure, there invaders are riding in on a literal magical apocalypse but fundamentally we are fighting for our survival as a civilization and as a species.”

  “Every person we save can help the fight to take back our city. We showed today that we can save people AND secure supplies. We need more of that and we need to do everything we can to secure the streets so that people who wake up on their own can make it here…”

  He hadn’t won them all over but enough were nodding that he decided to quit while he was ahead.

  “I and my friends will be going out again tomorrow to save people. Anyone who has a system, a useful skill and a willingness to fight if needed can join us. We will be meeting at sunrise”

  A heckler shouted “That’s like six am!”

  “We will be meeting an hour after sunrise here in the park. I suggest anyone who wants to join us uses the time between then and now to prepare.”

  After that the meeting broke down into minor things including a plea from Pat to help with setting up the portable generators, the bribe being that those who helped with that or offered to open their houses if powered would get priority for phone charging…

  That proved to be a pretty good incentive. David wondered how many people realized the internet was basically dead at this point…

  As the meeting broke up Carl, Mark and Katie joined them. As soon as they did Camila marched the group away from everyone then whirled to Charlie.

  “We do your idea, right now. No talk about how this is selfish we just do it before Mike figures out how to give it to his thugs.”