The ride wasn’t exactly eventful, but things did happen. It took 3 gas stations until we found one that had the gas we needed. The first two were completely tapped out. We learned that there was a curfew and a shelter in place order active. Our military escort helped us navigate the roadblocks set up by the national guard and local police.

  We didn’t get to interact with many people, and quite frankly we were all a little worse for wear. Billy had cracked his pelvis and several ribs during his landing on the stairs, and Frank had cracked one of the bones in his arm. No one had magic that would heal a broken bone, which was its own frustration. Healing would typically close open wounds, restore health, and get rid of the bleeding condition. However, there must be different healing abilities that repaired broken bones, removed sepsis, revived failing organs, and rebuilt terminally damaged body parts. Healing could repair a damaged blood vessel in the eye and drain any blood, but if the eyeball is smashed beyond a certain point, then a simple healing spell just won’t do. We had the same problem with all these damaged bones. Until we had abilities that were more powerful and could actually repair these problems, we would consistently have people on the sidelines healing back up. This was not nearly as cool as any tabletop or video game; It felt more like the opposite.

  It took almost 2 hours to reach the handoff between the Colonel’s troops and the General’s. The general had way more military police available to them, so the second half was probably more boring than the first. There were frequent stops and maneuvering around sporadic car crashes. Once we reached my future district I was greeted by a line of Humvees blocking both sides of the road. Our three vehicles as well as our escorts all pulled up to a stop. From the driver’s seat I could see several soldiers waiting for someone. I got out and approached. One of the soldiers was decidedly older than the rest. “Colonel Smolders?”

  “You remembered; good. You must be Neal. We had gotten a heads up that you were headed in this direction, so I figured I should meet you as soon as you got to your district. I have a judge back here to get you sworn in to your temporary appointment.”

  “They amended the state constitution that quickly?”

  “Yes. For some reason, almost all representatives are in the state capital for both the House and the Senate. They have proxies in the district to coordinate civilians.” There was so much that was not said with that statement. The disdain over all the politicians safely in the capital was almost palpable. That situation was to my benefit at the moment. That meant they had quorum in both chambers and the governor available to sign any legislation. That also meant I was probably one of the only legislators in the St. Louis area at the moment to coordinate civilians with both the US military and the Missouri National Guard.

  I barely remembered the swearing in beyond that they had me swear on a bible for a god I wasn’t sure existed. The Colonel was insistent that I travel with him. I suggested he have one of his guys drive my SUV so Brittney and I could ride with him. He raised an eyebrow about a 13 year old girl joining us in his command Humvee, but said nothing. I motioned to Brittney, “Britt, get the gear Brett looted from that second spellcaster.”

  She joined us in the Colonel’s Humvee, handing over Brett’s backpack and the staff. “He said you could give him back the backpack when we get where we were headed.”

  The Colonel looked confused, “Why do you need his backpack?”

  “It’s a long story, but the short version is I gained an ability called Identify that allows me to identify magic items, their properties, and any commands for them. Brett got some stuff off the last creature that we killed that we hope is magical.”

  The older man shook his head, “This is all just so crazy. You just said magic items like its normal, and somehow in our new reality it kind of is normal.” He had difficulty finding those words and getting them out. This man was not entirely comfortable in our new reality. I could see it despite his best efforts to hide those emotions.

  “It is crazy. However, you need me to be up to speed, I need your help to organize all this new unorganized militia, and we need to help each other with as much information and support to pull back citizens from.”

  He smiled at me. “Don’t get ahead of yourself. There is a lot to unload on you. You will get to feel the full weight of it soon enough.” He pointed to the map on the table between us in the back of our ride. This Humvee looked different than any others I had been in. The back seats and trunk space were gone; instead we had seats facing one another with a small folding table in between. Before us was a map of the part of St. louis relevant to us. “We have Gates here and here.” He pointed to spots near where I-270 and I-44 met as well as a spot just north of I-44 north on Lindbergh. These were very unfortunate spots to have portals. I-270 was our interstate that ran in a half circle around the Missouri side of St. Louis. In a way it divided the city by those areas between I-270 and the Mississippi river and those outside of I-270. Too many portals cutting into that artery that helped us move people north to south and vice versa was a problem. A portal on Lindbergh was equally problematic. It went North to South in essentially a straight line through I-270 at both its most northern and southern spots. Cutting into these arteries mattered. I groaned a little bit at the realization that we would need to rethink travel and roadways.

  “Okay, so where is your command center set up?”

  He pointed to the map, “here. At Crestwood mall. I am also responsible for the two congressional districts bordering your north and northeast.”

  “So where have you been funneling people to get them out of what will surely become a kill zone?”

  “We have evacuated a few people to Sunset Hills.” He pointed to a spot on the map. “For the most part we have been issuing shelter in place orders.”

  “That makes no sense. The Governor activated every able bodied citizen from 17 to 45 into the state’s militia. We should be evacuating everyone to be more than 2 miles from the closest portal.”

  The story has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

  “I am not being directed to mobilize any of those people. That is being left to people like yourself.”

  What!?! Alarm bells had gone off in my head. “Was there no plan to organize the unorganized militia? Were we just supposed to figure it out?”

  Colonel Smolders frowned, “I didn’t make up the rules. There isn’t any real framework to organize every able-bodied adult. Son, you have to understand that I am commandeering some of the police in the area, but I haven’t been taking on many people besides that.”

  “You’re saying that I am the one that is officially in charge of this unorganized militia?” It was said as a question, but one that I already knew the answer to. This is so fucked up. They have no clue about higher level abilities. Nora’s Force Shield could deflect bullets, and it is only tier 1. What about defensive abilities at tier 3, 4 or 5?

  “Yes, you are for your entire district. Son, I know it’s a big responsibility for someone so young, but your grandfather placed his faith in you. As a man of faith, I respect that.”

  “And what about my grandfather’s condition?” Truthfully, I hadn’t asked up until now because I really didn’t want to know if he had already died. I had avoided thinking about grandpa the entire afternoon. Others would see it as uncaring, but it was genuinely an emotionally defensive mechanism. I remembered grandma’s death. I cried for a week straight.

  “I regret to inform you that he passed away in the afternoon. Doctors did everything they could to save him.” I wasn’t surprised that he didn’t lead with this info. And I had to pull myself together. I could cry for my grandfather when the gates were gone. I’ll probably have a whole lot more people to have to cry for by then as well. I barely shed a tear; I wasn’t giving the demons the satisfaction.

  “Thank you Colonel. I am going to need you to release any law enforcement back to me, unless they were previously in the Missouri National Guard or a military reservist.”

  “I can do that. You said that the areas near a portal will become kill zones. What’s your reasoning, Son?” He used son an awful lot. I had to let that go, as getting annoyed by those things was just going to work against me.

  “These gates haven’t closed yet, and we don’t honestly know if there is a bunch of damage being done on the other side. We live in a world that has magic now. Are you going to tell me that there isn’t a magical defense to stop rockets, missiles, and bombs.? They are merely very explosive weapons. Sure, the scale is disgusting even without bringing nukes into it, but do you honestly think that an advanced magical society doesn’t have defenses against things that go boom?”

  “I don’t quite understand. We have bunker busters going through in some places. There shouldn’t be anything on the other side of those portals.”

  “Excellent. Then you should humor me. Clear the space around that portal there,” I pointed to the portal on the map firmly in my district. “Once that is done, have the military stop firing missiles and stuff through it. See if anything comes through, and be ready to bomb when they do.”

  “I’m not doing that son. That’s crazy talk. We’ll just keep firing weapons into the portals periodically to ensure that everything on the other side is very dead.” It clearly isn’t that they aren’t smart. They just seem to be stuck in a worldview that would have worked 2 days ago. The look on the Colonel’s face told me that there was absolutely zero benefit to pushing this further. I’ll have to wait for this to play out more.

  “Why don’t you she me what you are doing. That way I can coordinate with your efforts and maximize safety of citizens.” He proceeded to do just that for the next hour as we slowly made our way to my grandfather’s house. Halfway through I made him pause so I could identify the last item I had from the first set of loot. The casting didn’t take long, and in about a minute I had the details for the wand in question.

  Wand of Sticky Webs

  This wand has the embedded spell of Sticky Webs contained in it. The creator’s casting level is set to 15 in terms of overcoming spell resistance. The spell’s effect level is 20 for it’s durability, range, and duration. This wand has 34 charges remaining.

  Sticky Webs-Tier 2-Arcane, Nature, Creation, Spider, Animal

  This ability creates thick, sticky webbing at a point in space and for a radius of 10 meters in all directions. There must be points to anchor the spell to otherwise it isn’t as effective. Creatures in this area are subject to conditions that would immobilize and effectively grapple them. Even if targets were strong enough the webs would slow them down by at least half. Creatures are able to resist these effects with appropriate abilities. Unless the webbing is destroyed it will have a duration of 20 minutes and be able to be cast at a range of 70 meters.

  Fuck, another wand to Nora. At least this gives us a great crowd control option. “It’s a wand that Nora can use. If only Joe had the animal affinity, then he could use it too.”

  “What does the little wand do? Is this some sort of harry potter thing?” I shook my head and then explained exactly what the thing did.

  “It shoots sticky webs in an area? How is that powerful?”

  I laughed the most honest raw laugh inside me. “You’re kidding right. There’s an entire group of comic books about one teenager and his spider like abilities. He uses web shooters to completely immobilize whole groups of villains. This does that but on a larger scale based on the 10 meter radius cube area of effect.”

  “But you’re talking about a comic book character. How is that relevant?”

  “Comic book characters are one million percent more accurate today than they were two days ago. Start thinking in terms of crazy shit you see in fantasy movies, comic books, science fiction shows. The teleportation circles we have been destroying are a lot like transporters from Star Trek. In fact, they are worse, because they are mobile.” The Colonel got really quiet. He was looking at the wand with a very worried look on his face. Despite my earlier statements, he was finally seeing the problem for the first time.

  “How powerful is this ability in relation to everything else you’ve seen?” Now he is asking the right questions.

  “Sticky Webs is tier 2. The only ability we have encountered that is more powerful is an ability that steals abilities from dead bodies. It is how we got a few extra abilities before Colonel Kent took away the person that had it conscripted them into the army. By comparison, we think Teleportation is probably tier 5 and these giant portals are tier 9. We have no clue how much mana a tier 9 ability requires, but we think it is close to 100 mana. By comparison, Nora, our highest mana, only has 17. Whatever or whoever is powering these portals is ridiculously powerful.” I worried I was pushing too hard.

  “Hmm…. This is problematic. Son, I can’t simply side with you as I have to follow my orders, but I agree moving more people away from those portals is probably a good idea. A better idea the more I think about it.”

  “You’re going to want to move people from those other two districts into mine slowly. The biggest goal is ensure we have a few safe corridors.”

  “That actually sounds reasonable. I can work with you on that.” We smiled at each other. This might just work.

  Eventually we found ourselves back at my grandfather’s house. It was a big house, way bigger than he needed, but he always had kids, grandkids, and even a few great grandkids visiting. He had been so damn spry for a man of his age. I helped get everyone inside and we finally got situated in bedrooms or couches. The day was done. Our first day of the Apocalypse had ended.