Natalie Snowe was not a mystery. Some women were, but not Natalie. She was like me in many ways. We both came from deep republican households. We were both young republicans together. We both did more than a healthy level of debate. However, when I saw her standing in my grandfather’s living room having a conversation with my friends, I was reminded of how we were different. She was a tall and strikingly beautiful woman. Her ethnicity was a mix of Irish, Italian, Mexican, and Filipino. She had perfectly tanned skin and thick, dark hair. It contrasted with my natural melanin deficiency and light brown hair. She could have been a model, and I most definitely could not. I knew how to be politically savvy and cagey even, but she had the instincts to be a political animal. Yet, after college, she went to work at Hound News as one of their fresh new political personalities. It piggybacked on her work in college, which she had up on YouTube. She was one of the first conservative female voices with a video channel.
All this begs the question, why me? I know we had a moment at the 2004 Republican Convention. I was 18, and she was almost 21. We were debating one another on multiple topics. I often took the role of bleeding heart liberal to push her buttons. Somewhere in between debate topics, we found ourselves drinking and then other activities. I don’t regret the weekend, but I wonder sometimes if she does? Since then, we haven’t done more than have a few conversations. I guess what happens at the convention stays at the convention. The only way to find out the answer to that question is to ask.
“Hey Natalie, long time no see. How are you?” I ventured to say.
Natalie turned to me and smiled. That smile had more hidden meanings than I could parse. “Neal! So great to see you. I’m great. How are you?”
Given the fact that I was still far too dirty from hauling dead bodies to a giant pyre, “Great!” I would just have to fake it.
“You look a mess, babe. Why don’t you have a shower, change, and then you can tell us all about it?” She was being more chummy about this than she should. My mental defenses were going overboard. I used asses to be safe:
Human, TV personality, level 3
Level three isn’t bad at this point. With that information firmly in mind, I nodded and went upstairs to do as she had suggested. I would have done it anyways, but her recommending it felt good and also horrible at the same time. She isn’t my boss or my girlfriend. She had an angle, and she was being more obvious about it than she normally would have been. That is what weighed on my mind when I went up to take a shower. After looking at myself in the mirror of the bathroom, I looked like hell. The cookies and healing potion I had consumed didn’t get rid of my broken ribs condition. We still needed to figure that out. Even though I wasn’t as sore I could have been, taking the shower was still painful. Hot water felt far worse whenever it hit the skin over broken ribs. I scrubbed myself as clean as I could and soon enough found myself back downstairs to talk to everyone.
The first thing I noticed, now that I wasn’t completely distracted by the presence of Natalie, was Frank not wearing the sling he had been wearing this morning. “Frank, No Sling?”
He laughed. “I wondered how long it was going to take you to notice.” Everyone laughed a little bit as well. “The second batch of cookies Brittney managed today had bone mending properties. They were tasty. My arm isn’t a hundred percent, but if I eat another two cookies tomorrow, then I should be back to fighting strength.”
“I’m glad to hear that. I really need you and Joe tomorrow. Oh, and as far noticing, even a government flunkie notices things every so often.”
Natalie turned at that statement, “Government flunkie?”
“Sorry. Inside joke. My class is legislative aide. So, Billy decided that it should be renamed government flunkie. Gotta give him points for comedic timing on that one.” Billy smiled and nodded his head in acceptance of the compliment.
Natalie continued, “Neal. You looked really messy when you got back. Just what have you been up to today?”
I smiled back at her, “Natalie. I’ve been securing the citizens of my congressional district as directed to by National Guard Colonel Smolders.”
“Oh, how very official sounding Neal.” Then she gave me a little more serious look, “Why are you being so coy?”
“Natalie, if you want genuinely honest answers I need to be able to trust you. I need to have a say over how you report on us, and not as censorship, but so the information isn’t skewed or framed in a way to make my position worse. If you want access I need to know you aren’t going to stab me in back or front for that matter.”
“Neal. I came here because its you. My producers and executives know that we know eachother. I got confronted on it as soon as the first video came out yesterday. They want some sort of giant coverage on this. They want to know who the real Neal Cassland is. They don’t think that you are the same person as shows up in all those videos helping people, talking to reporters, and genuinely being the kind of politician that we know most aren’t capable of. That’s part of the problem they have; they don’t know you. I do. I want the world to know and see what I do. You are as decent and upstanding as those videos show.”
I raised an eyebrow in response. “Are they trying to get you to expose me as some sort of fraud?”
“Yes. I only agreed to come out here if they gave me editorial rights over the content so that I could try to craft the best story. I hope all I have to do is show people the truth. That should be enough to win the nay sayers and doubters over.”
“Well, that is an awful lot to consider. I’ve already been burned by others in the last 48 hours, so I’ll see what I am willing to provide in the morning. Personally, I’m exhausted. I need some food and bed. We can talk more in the morning. Did Nora get you set up in a bedroom already?”
“Yes, the house next door was apparently empty. Something about people were in the middle of a two week vacation in Greece and haven’t been able to return to here.”
“Excellent. I will see everyone in the morning.” I then proceeded to the kitchen to find some leftovers from dinner to warm up.
I had a ton to think about as I went to eat food. I made it sound like I wanted to be alone right now, but the truth is I just didn’t want to deal with her right now. There are conflicting emotions about her, and that is confusing me about how much to trust her. Can I trust her?
I only pondered that for a moment before Billy came in the room and stopped his wheelchair opposite me. He looked better than he did two days ago when he had far too many broken bones. Healing magic is insanely powerful. He still had his right arm in a cast and was using a wheelchair. Despite that, he looked rather pleased with himself. “Whatcha thinking Neal?”
“How to trust someone.”
He spoke back to me softly, “It’s a difficult situation. We’ve been vetting her for the last two hours in polite conversation. I want to trust her, but her politics and mine don’t mesh so well. My intuition says she can be trusted, but mentally I am having a hard time getting with that idea.”
“Yeah. Thanks for the insight. So how was your day in Sunset Hills?”
This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.
“It was good. The administrator at the Sunset Hills office was nice to me. We signed up some folks, but with you visiting yesterday, the anger was sort of gone. There was still fear and anxiety, but folks mostly accepted the problem and understood the need to flee for safety. They liked that you would make Fenton more defensible.” When Billy mentioned the administrator, Neal remembered that they were young and probably Billy’s type. Granted, his type was women he didn’t piss off with his personality. “So, how was your day? Pick up any levels?”
“My day was kinda shit. I deal with conspiracy nuts in the morning in Oakland. Crestwood is fortunately, very uneventful. I return to Oakland to help clear people out and get into not one gun fight, but two, with the second one involving an air strike hitting the ground close enough to feel it. At least I gained 2 levels to get to level 5.”
Billy just stared at me. He was saved by Nora walking in, “2 levels today. Please tell me you ate a bunch of food all day to deal with the massive calorie burn of leveling.”
“Hey Nora, yes the whole squad and I were eating snacks all afternoon and early evening. Will, our ability stealer is already on the cusp of level 5.”
“Crap, Neal. That is an insane amount of experience. Glad you could join me in the ‘completed my class already club.’ Natalie already left by the way. She figured you wanted some privacy with us and to get to bed. She didn’t want to intrude on that any longer.”
“Oh, so you’ve already completed your five levels as well?”
“Neal, I have affinity for every single stat. Literally, almost everything I do gives me some type of experience. I tipped over today when I used detect magic a dozen times from the staff to finally learn it as a separate ability.”
“Wait a fucking minute. You developed an ability from simply using it out of the staff a bunch?”
“Yes. With my intelligence at 11, and arcane as an affinity, I have been working hard to piece together various spell like abilities. I want to learn read magic next. We have found plenty of scrolls between all the various spell casters. Read magic would be super useful.”
“Hell yeah. Do you need the staff tomorrow to do that?”
“I’m going to be too busy with the next phase of logistics tomorrow to have spare time. We are starting Operation: Food Run tomorrow morning with Brittney and bus full of Soccer Moms. We will be emptying every house and business in Oakland of food into their interdimensional storage. We have massive platforms installed in Brittney’s ring now so she can shelve a couple hundred full sized refrigerators. We’ll plug them in when we get back to Fenton.”
“That sounds like quite the undertaking. Was everyone okay with us essentially their houses and that of their neighbors?”
“We didn’t run into any problems. Everyone involved seemed to understand the potential severity of the situation. I sent people with the teams here in Fenton to record the fights they had. Those videos have been floating around social media all evening. Also, we captured a few lupin and have had the military interrogating them. We didn’t get to be there after the handoff, but a ton of people saw the capture and the subsequent hand off. People are scared, but they feel reassured because videos keep surfacing of you on the front lines. Did you kill some sort of horse sized spider today?”
Yes, the team killed two of the spiders and more of those gut demons. They are called Demonic Munchers, by the way. They can seriously jump around when they are in the open. We were very fortunate before to fight them in an enclosed space.”
Billy and Frank both just stared at me. Billy finally ventured forth, “Lucky? The damn things nearly killed all of us.”
“Out in the open it ate a man carrying a baby whole mid leap.” I let those words sink in. Billy gulped. Frank took a deep breath in dark realization of the truth: those things are even worse in the open.
“How did you kill it?” Frank asked.
“It sorta impaled itself partially through the roof of a Mercedes. Apparently this model of car had serious steel reinforced into parts of the roof. Then my guys kept putting bullets into it until it no longer moved at all.”
Frank chuckled, “Sounds like you got a little lucky. If it didn’t crash into the car then you might not be here.”
Now it was my turn to pause. Fuck! He was right. I will absolutely not take that kind of luck for granted. “Frank, you know what? You’re right. I did get exceedingly lucky. Not everyone is going to have that kind of luck. We need to stack the deck in humanities’ favor.”
“How do we stack the deck for all of humanity?” Billy interjected.
“The same things we are doing now. Building up infrastructure for citizens. Working on defense. Leveling as many people as possible. The whole first squad is between levels 3 and 5. We even gained an extra person who has oversized cat animal companions.”
Nora cackled, “Yes, we know. Ted told me all about Katnessa the Cat Woman cosplayer. She has some class called cat mistress? Sounds like a woman with a lot of time and bdsm thoughts on her mind.”
“Katnessa is a bit… extra. But she comes with powerful oversized cats and a 50 caliber sniper rifle. So We’ll put up with her extra-ness.”
Frank grinned. “Full sized 50 caliber sniper?”
“Yes. As big as I have ever seen. It packs enough punch to knock the spiders and the demonic munchers backwards.”
“Sweet! I’m a get me one of those someday.” Nora rolled her eyes.
“Nora, Billy, Joe, Brittney, and Brett, did you all get what you wanted done today?”
Billy went first, always the impatient one. “Yes. At the end of the day Emily and I shut down and locked the city hall in Sunset Hills. She is staying with the admin for the Fenton offices. She will be working beside her Fenton counterpart tomorrow. Also, over half of Sunset Hills is already evacuated.” We all smiled at Billy’s little personal tidbit about Emily the admin.
Brett went next. He just seemed really excited to be included. “Smitty worked together with a bunch of other guys with the same and similar classes. We now have a workshop turning out ammunition, melee weapons, and he is working on his first enchanted pistol. He needs more monster cores though. That is the point where it all log jams. He told me to give you this.” Brett handed me two clips of ammo for my rifle.
“Enchanted I guess?”
“Yup. They will completely bypass the demonic resistance those guys have. I already gave a couple of clips to Joe and Frank.”
“Awesome. Thanks. Its like Christmas came early.” I was genuinely happy. If they can turn out several clips a day then we might very well stand a chance.
Brittney went after her brother. She handed me a small pile of wrapped up cookies. “The other girl scouts and I have been hanging out two houses down with a few single moms. We hang out and bake cookies for part of the day. We learned that everyone with the cookie baking ability can combine their mana when baking new batches of cookies. We have also identified all the different types of cookies. Including the little brownies that help to speed up the healing of broken bones.” I looked through the pile of wrappings with labels on each. I was shocked, to say the least.
“Wow. That is amazing. You and your fellow girl scouts did an amazing job. Even wrapped and packaged in pairs. Very impressive.” Brittney blushed.
Nora went next, “Well as you know Operation: Food Run will be under way tomorrow. We will probably be doing that for about 3 days. We will collect everything we can in those three days to ensure we have finished food and raw materials to feed all the people in Fenton. On the ability token front we have a ton of abilities, though not all of them are usable by most people. We have run into problems with most people not having all the stat requirements for some of them. Hopefully you have some ability tokens for me as well.” I pulled the four I had between the first usage and what Will got me from the spider riding goblins. I happily handed them over.
“One of those is ranged ability to affect shooting that has a bunch of affinities that will be helpful. We need lots of copies of that.”
“Is that the one you learned earlier?”
“Hell yeah. And it did great work against the giant fucking spider.” Everyone got a little happier about that piece of news.
“Excellent. I don’t blame you for using a duplicate. Especially because it helped to save lives.”
“We will do more with the ability tokens tomorrow when I take Natalie to the Fenton Government Center.”
Nora responded, even before Billy could, “Are you sure you want to do that?”
“No, but we need to bypass the military and simply get as much fucking information out there to everyone as fast as possible. I have no idea how other cities are faring.”
Billy answered that one, “Not nearly as well as we are. Several cities up and down the East Coast have already lost control of their portals. Many of them today. Lots of cities have minimized the impact to only 1 to 3 portals not under their control. However, it will only get worse tomorrow.”
“Which is why I want Natalie to report on everything with minimal filtering. If all of it is out there, then the military can’t actually do much about that. They can’t take stuff from me without political fallout and massive public backlash. We create and frame the entire narrative.”
Nora got a half smile. “If we do it right, then I can see that fucking over their effort to paint you negatively. They certainly won’t arrest you or ship you off to Colorado to be with your parents.”
“That is my hope. The more transparency, the better. I will have critics, but I can answer the critics quite easily at that point. We have had more successful engagements. We have had far fewer casualties than the shit monster fight. Which brings me to Joe. How close are you to completing your task?”
“Very close. Close to two-thirds of Fenton has been thoroughly checked for monsters. We should get the last third tomorrow. Then we can be sure that creatures aren’t in our territory to fuck us up in our own back yards.”
“Perfect. Then it sounds like everyone had a busy and successful day. With that, I’m going to bed. Air strike really took it out of me.” I chuckled and went to bed.
