Monroe

Chapter Four Hundred and Nineteen. Agendas.

Bob looked in the mirror and shook his head. It was amazing just how nice the suit was. Larry had waxed poetic when he was sewing Bob's suit for him, expounding on the virtues of a properly tailored suit, and Bob had to agree. At the time, he'd been rather nervous, as despite his insistence that it wasn't a date, his evening out with Jessica, Dave, and Amanda had been one in all but name.

He paused to reflect on the fact that appearing before the United Nations wasn't nearly as much cause for nervousness when compared to dinner with friends.

Taking a deep breath, he closed his eyes. He still wasn't sure exactly what the United Nations expected from him.

Kellan was a dragon and was unlikely to change his position regarding the amount of tax he applied to people from Earth who went to his planet to delve.

Especially when so many people from Earth were eager to do so.

Bob didn't hold a position of any kind anywhere on Earth. He was unemployed and, from a purely technical perspective, homeless.

He'd thought that over the last several years, he'd made it quite clear that he much preferred the King of Greenwold's government, as terrifying as Kellan was, but apparently, that message hadn't been received by the United Nations.

He adjusted his tie slightly. Larry had come through, matching the material to the color of his eyes when he had active magical effects running, a sort of electric shade of lavender.

Eternal Servant skill, check. Swarms of mosquitoes might not be well received, but they would suck any assailant dry. They were packed tightly inside of his jacket.

Timeless Object skill, check. A skin-tight bodysuit of mesh armor, taking full advantage of his level one hundred and fifty-three Summon Mana-Infused Object spell, would serve as an additional layer of protection.

He'd been told that wearing his armor or carrying his staff would be a violation of protocol.

Persistent effect Flight spell, check. It wasn't quick, but it worked.

Three more persistent effect Summon Mana-Infused Creature and another three Summon Mana-Infused Object spells, although those were in use outside of the building. He had summoned sparrows, each of which were holding summoned twigs, directing them to three different parks, one in London, one in Los Angeles, and another was flitting around the Freedom in Texas.

If he needed to use his Summoning Switch skill to get the fuck out, he had options.

His final persistent effect slot had been used for his Mana Sight spell.

His interface flashed as the alarm he'd set went off. Willing it closed, he took a final deep breath, released it, and opened a portal at his feet.

Falling through it, he appeared twenty feet above the sidewalk that led to the new United Nations building in London.

It spoke volumes for the changes the integration of the System had wrought that no one appeared to be startled or even overly concerned when he appeared. In fact, people made space for him as he drifted down as if it were the most natural thing in the world.

He strode along with the crowd, all of whom appeared to have the same destination. He lined up outside of the building, and patiently waited his turn to pass through security.

When he reached the front of the line, he produced the new passport he'd been given when he'd landed the Freedom and been processed into the United States.

"Mr. Whitman," the security guard, a rather petite brunette, began, "I surmise you unaware that you could have used the delegates' entrance?"

"I didn't know there was a delegates' entrance," Bob replied, then paused for a moment before continuing. "To be fair, I didn't know I was a delegate either."

She cocked her head to the side as she tapped the screen of the computer in front of her. "You didn't know you were a delegate?" She asked doubtfully.

"I know that I was asked to be here, although I still have no idea what they expect from me," Bob shrugged. "I told them, give the Dragon what he wants, he's a Dragon, but apparently they feel I have something else of value to add, beyond common sense."

The security guard snorted. "It's the United Nations, sir, which is government writ large as it were," she smiled up at him. "You don't look the sort that's been let out of the psych ward, so you can't possibly expect common sense to be particularly common here."

Bob let out a grunt of amusement. "As my friend would say, 'Strewth,'" he replied.

"Indeed," she agreed. The computer beeped and a plastic card slid out of the back and into a tray. Picking it up, she handed it to him. "This is your access card. Please flow a bit of mana into it so I can authenticate it."

Bob took the card and directed a tiny flow of mana into the card, where it flooded an embedded pattern, causing the card to flash with a brilliant blue-black light.

The security guard blinked. "Well, you've got quite the casting score, don't you?" She shook her head. "Bloke as large as you, I'd have expected you to be a tank, but now I recall you're a summoner, so I suppose you would be a real caster."

Bob nodded, watching as she ran a scanner over the card he was holding, noting that it not only checked the barcode but that there was also a component that read the mana trapped in the card and relayed that to the computer as well.

"You're all set, Mr. Whitman," she continued. "As an unaffiliated delegate, you'll be on the first floor - or, I suppose, ground floor to you. Just follow the hallway straight in, and you'll find your seat assigned."

"Thank you," Bob nodded, moving through the doors and into the building.

Past the large lobby, which seemed to serve as a waiting area for the banks of elevators, he saw the hallway, and moved toward, and then down it. He could see over the heads of everyone else, and there was a large set of doors at the end, opening into what he presumed was the main chamber.

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His suspicions were proven correct, although it turned out that there was a circular hallway that ran around the outside of the chamber with several doors leading in. Without knowing where he was seated, he entered the chamber and started looking at placards.

His was in the back, up against the wall, sitting on a desk that had clearly been brought in specifically for his use, as it didn't quite match the rest of them beyond being sized for his tier.

Bob looked around but didn't see anyone he knew, which wasn't terribly surprising but was still disappointing. He sat down, noting that, unlike the White House, the United Nations appeared to know the value of a comfortable chair, and pulled out his tablet, opening the Kindle app and resuming the detective novel he'd been reading.

Prime Minister Kiara Julwry looked at the aide sharply. "I was rather hoping he didn't come," she muttered.

"He was invited," the Prime Minister of India, Rajiv Singh reminded her. "I must admit that in my limited interactions with him, I found him to be quite charming in an earnest sort of way."

"Further, he seems incapable of turning from what he considers to be his duty to our world," the Prime Minister of England, Jonothan Turpin, added. "If I may, you mishandled matters rather badly when he and his friends attempted to visit your country."

Kiara shook her head. "They violated our laws," she replied, noting the looks on the faces of the Prime Ministers, as well as the President of Mexico.

Australia had enacted rather strict laws regarding the requirement to register skills and spells. In her mind, they had been successful, as evidenced by the low crime rate enjoyed by her nation, especially when compared to the United States, where the murder rate had increased by something like six hundred percent.

Of course, the laws weren't entirely effective. The bushmen and indigenous people simply refused. With the advent of the System, they no longer needed the rest of the country, allowing the already fiercely individualistic idiots to provide for themselves. There had been multiple instances where, when stopped, they had simply abandoned their vehicles rather than update their driving permits with their skills. Frustratingly enough, they'd become even more successful in their ranching efforts under the System, and with the restrictions in place regarding raising and slaughtering animals in and around the cities that crowded the coast, consumers had taken to going to them.

Beyond providing copious quantities of inexpensive meat to a country that had, she'd felt, been so close to a healthy, plant-based diet, the savages also provided veterinary services, as well as instruction on the many paths they'd discovered.

They had lured more than a few upstanding citizens into their lifestyle.

That was one of the many reasons that this session was important. Lowering the taxes collected by the King of Greenwold, while raising the allowable taxes from the guest nations was the primary action item on her agenda, but her secondary action item, and nearly as important, was the requirement that her citizens be returned to her country when their visa's had expired.

It was a bit of a reversal, as normally, her concern was guests in her country remaining after their visas had expired. Rare indeed was the Australian who overstayed their visa in another country, and rarer still those who didn't wish to return home.

Her true concern was that those who didn't wish to return to Australia must not be allowed to renounce their citizenship while still on Thayland. Doing so would allow them to remain without paying their taxes to her nation.

Australia couldn't afford to lose that revenue. Her public works and assistance programs were reliant on her citizens constantly delving, and with the exception of the interior, they were falling short.

It was reassuring that she wasn't alone in her abhorrence of the violence needed to secure mana crystals and gain levels. It appeared that the majority of her citizens felt much the same, which spoke well for a civilized country, but did little to alleviate the need for mana crystals.

Sadly, the people most willing to engage in wholesale, gratuitous violence were the same people who had gone to Thayland to take advantage of the King of Greenwold's offer.

She might not agree with their attitudes or their choices, but she wasn't about to let them abandon their citizenship. Distasteful as it was, Australia needed them.

"While we would certainly never instruct you as to how to go about the business of running your nation," Prime Minister Turpin's voice pulled her from her thoughts, "surely you must have noticed that we've managed to institute policies in our nation that ensure that certain skills are flagged, without having the libertarians up in arms?"

Kiara frowned. Great Britain had adopted a less restrictive process. When you entered or exited a Dungeon, you were asked if your skills had changed since the last time you'd been in a Dungeon. If you said yes, they provided a list of restricted skills and asked if you had any of them. All of this was done in the presence of an item that detected lies.

For the vast majority of people, this presented no obstacle and no major hassle. A similar measure had even been proposed in the United States House of Representatives, although it seemed bound to die in committee as those gun-loving lunatics were unwilling to see even the slightest restriction in their perceived freedoms. Idiots, the lot of them. They had speed limits, didn't they?

The problem, as she saw it, was that citizens had a duty to aid their country in its time of need should the nation require their skills. Prior to the System, knowing who had graduated medical school and who had a certificate to repair heavy equipment had been relatively trivial. With the introduction of the System, the breadth of a person's skills could be extraordinary, and without a system in place to verify skills and abilities, chaos ruled.

It was mind-boggling that others seemed to fail to recognize this.

Hell, the Evil Empire had publically accessible records of the graduates of its Warlocks Guild, which were arcanists, the roles of the clergy in the Church of Mor'Noctum, where they worshipped admittedly evil gods, and the Crimson Guard, who seemed to be general combat types. If you needed to hire someone with a specific skillset, you could contact the appropriate university and verify that the applicant had indeed demonstrated their ability.

Why would anyone object to continuing the system of certification that had ensured that people who claimed to have a certain skill did, in fact, possess it?

She took a calming breath.

"We have considered it," she smiled. "Once we have our schools and universities realigned to reflect the new realities of the System, we expect that we will be able to lift certain restrictions."

Which was true for a given understanding of truth.

There were some skills that needed to be restricted. There were also some people who needed to be restricted. Criminals, for example, were especially vexing.

The social contract was that if you were convicted of a crime, once you had completed your restitution, including time served, you were to be treated without prejudice.

That was, of course, a polite fiction. People with a criminal record were treated differently, and rightly so. You certainly wouldn't want to employ a thief in a position responsible for large sums, nor would you want to employ a person convicted of habitual driving while impaired as a bus driver. All of which was reasonable and expected. More directly, you wouldn't want to employ someone with a history of violent assault as a security guard.

The problem was that criminals tended to possess a disregard for the rule of law and for the unspoken rules of a civilized society. They had already seen it happen, people released from prison choosing skills that were, in hindsight, clearly tailored for resuming their prior lives of crime. Considering that the criminals they worried most about were also those most willing to delve in order to level, it wasn't surprising that shortly after integration, a veritable crime wave had swept the nation, although they'd quickly gotten it under control, in no small part due to those very laws that were subject to international derision.

It was enough to make her pull her hair out.

"Perhaps it might be best if President Garcia, Prime Minister Turpin, or myself were to offer our questions to Mr. Whitman," Prime Minister Rajiv suggested genially, playing the part of the wise grandfather expertly. "We have had rather more cordial interactions with him, and I believe we all share the same concerns regarding our citizens being returned to us, or at least still directing their taxes home."

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