Monroe

Chapter Two Hundred and Three. Uncomfortable Meetings.

President Elania Hartford oscillated from considering the presidency as the best thing she'd ever accomplished and the worst thing she could have been sentenced to. She'd known the limits of the office before she'd ran, and she'd thought she knew the pressures of the office, having served in the Senate on behalf of the great state of California for three terms.

She'd been wrong.

Every minute of every day was regimented, often with concerns that weren't important to the national discourse but were vital to the people who brought them to her. Her days were filled with tiny decisions, often made without having any real understanding of the subject matter. She had experts to advise her, but her first two years in office had reinforced the lessons she'd learned as a congresswoman and then a senator; everyone, even her aides, had an agenda, and they didn't always fall in line with her own.

Now there was this. If it weren't for the fact that it was the Secretary of Defense, a man she'd known for years, Elania might have thought the whole thing was some sort of awful joke. She'd been read into the whole 'Magic is real and coming to Earth' project, and she'd even been shown pictures and videos illustrating what was coming. Now that she was due to meet with the President of Mexico and the Prime Ministers of Canada, Australia, and the United Kingdom, she'd demanded a direct briefing.

"Alright, Ed," she began after skimming through the folder in front of her. "I've got an hour before the summit, I've been briefed, and now I need to know what isn't in the file," she stabbed a finger down onto the leather folder.

The Secretary of Defense cocked his head to the side for a moment before replying. "Madam President, the pertinent details are outlined thoroughly. I could ramble for days about the things I've seen over there."

"What is your greatest concern, the single issue that's keeping you awake at night?" Elania asked.

"The complete change in doctrine," he replied immediately. "We don't fully understand everything that's possible, but we already have service people who are able to open a magical portal, large enough to drive a Bradley or an Abrams through, instantly transporting personnel and materials up to a mile instantly." He ran his hand across his high and tight haircut. "From what I understand, there are multiple ways to counter that ability, but we don't fully understand how any of it really works. My fear is the same as it's always been: not knowing what the enemy is going to do, multiplied by the unpredictability of Magic."

Mark Jakobs, the Secretary of Homeland Security, raised a finger. Elania nodded, and he began. "A larger concern is if there will even be a United States any longer, let alone one with the need or capability to field a military. If everyone is able to develop the power to remake reality, what's to stop any disenfranchised citizen from leveling up and taking over a town? Or a gang from doing the same and taking over a city?"

"While it won't be an issue initially, as the armed forces will be the only ones who've leveled up," Jakobs continued, "it will be imperative to ensure that law enforcement increases their levels next, with federal branches given priority, of course."

"Of course, all of this will fall apart if the military isn't tasked to protect our communications," Taylor Adams, her chief of staff, interjected, "from what I understand, one high-level person could destroy every communications satellite we have, in just a matter of hours. It would take even less to disrupt our infrastructure on the ground."

"Well, I, for one, am optimistic," Hellena Garcia smiled, "from what I understand, this whole magic thing is going to make my life a lot easier." Elania nodded to her friend, whom she'd plucked from the house of representatives for the position of Secretary of Energy.

"I read about the hydroelectric generators," Elania agreed, "but going back to what Mark said, I have to raise the question; could we ensure that law enforcement maintains a higher level of power than our citizens, and perhaps more importantly, should we?"

"Long term, I don't think it's possible," Ed sighed, "I've seen people building a Dungeon. Folks could do it in their basement or their shed. In a major city, if we acted quickly, which we'll need to do for the purposes of keeping our citizens safe, we could ensure that only official, sanctioned Dungeons exist. But outside the city," he shrugged helplessly, "We can order people not to, but we can't stop them."

Mark shook his head. "It won't be easy, and we'll have to act decisively, but unless you want the country to splinter into a thousand micro-kingdoms, each lead by the local strongman and his lackeys, we'll need to institute regulations ensuring that only official Dungeons are allowed. Also, we will need to develop and implement a tracking system for our citizens to ensure we know what level they are and what they are capable of."

"Is that legal?" Heidi Fraumsberg mused. "Would levels, classes- excuse me, I played Dungeon and Dragons in college," she smiled, "paths, rather, spells and skills, wouldn't they fall under medical information?"

Mark snorted, "How did you come to that conclusion?"

"How much weight can you bench press? How quickly can you run a mile?" Heidi asked, "or perhaps, what are your oxygen saturation levels, how good is your vision, how viable are your sperm?"

Elania chuckled at that. "You both have valid points, and we have to ask ourselves the same question raised so often in this office; are we willing to sacrifice liberty for safety? If so, how much liberty for how much safety? Or in doing so, do we betray the very principles on which our country was founded?"

She shook her head. "These are heavy questions, and the answers aren't always clear. History has shown us that we have to tread with caution."

"Well," Adam Chestshire grumbled, "I've got an issue that should likely be raised at the summit, namely that every currency in the world is going to collapse. I guess I'll finally retire, maybe do that reincarnation thing."

Elania winced. She'd reread that section of the briefing twice.

"I can't disagree," she said, "given that every need can be met by these Mana Crystals, it's hard to imagine anyone not accepting them as currency."

"And there's no way to value them against the dollar because the value is dependant on the level and skill of the person using them to create... whatever they're creating," Adam added. Her Secretary of the Treasury was eighty-two, and while his mind was still razor-sharp, his hands tended to tremble a bit.

"From what Secretary Heller has described, food could be a non-issue," Secretary of Health and Human Services Angela Di'Nova beamed, "as well as disease and disability."

"To the detriment of America's farmers and the industries that support them," Her Secretary of Agriculture snapped, while her Secretary of Commerce nodded her agreement.

"Given the capabilities we've been briefed on, as well as the inevitable currency shift, I predict we're looking at the Industrial Revolution in reverse," Secretary of Commerce Liz Chaney added. "Individuals with the necessary skills will provide specialized goods and services. Whole industries will disappear. Automobiles will be effectively useless when people can use portals, teleport, or simply run faster than a car."

"Can people run faster than a car?" Elania asked, thumbing through the documents quickly.

"I haven't seen that, although the personnel who are tier capped run their laps around the encampment awfully fast," Ed replied, "I can confirm that one of the natives has a summoned dinosaur, a T-Rex I believe, that outran a drone rated for eighty miles an hour."

Liz rolled her eyes and raised her hands in defeat. "Alright, their summoned monsters then," she grumbled.

"I believe we have the man who discovered this alternate reality waiting outside?" Elania asked. "The brief indicates that he's been the primary source of intelligence thus far."

"He is," Ed replied, then paused for a moment, seeming to steel himself. "If you'd like to question him, I'd recommend clearing the room." He raised a hand for silence, and when he didn't receive it, Elania slapped the desk, instantly quieting the room.

"Robert Whitman, who prefers Bob, has evidenced significant discomfort in group settings. If we want his cooperation, which is unlikely to be enthusiastic, it would be in our best interests to make him as comfortable as possible," Ed stated firmly. "I suggest the President, and her Chief of Staff, along with myself, as a familiar face."

Given how expensive everything was, Bob thought that the chairs could have been more comfortable. If he wasn't on Earth, where mana was at a premium, he would have summoned his own.

He'd been waiting for two hours, and while he'd been offered drinks and even a snack, the White House had lost what little mystique it had held about an hour ago. He shifted in his seat again, his eyes intent on his Kindle. He was drawn out of his story by a quietly cleared throat.

"The President will see you now," the man in the dark suit intoned, gesturing towards a non-descript door.

Bob tucked his Kindle away, noticing the man's flinch but ignoring. He didn't want to be here.

Straightening his shoulders, Bob walked into the oval office. The first thing he noticed was that room wasn't that big. The second thing he noticed was that were a solid dozen of the dark-suited men lining the walls. Finally, he saw the Secretary of Defense standing beside a huge desk, a younger woman beside him, and the President of the United States, Elania Hartford, sitting behind the desk.

He thought that she looked older in person than she did on television. She had crows feet at the corners of her eyes and a few streaks of silver at her temples, contrasting against the sleek raven tresses.

Not sure of what to do, Bob moved to stand in front of the desk, where he waited.

After a moment, the Secretary of Defense coughed. "Bob, this is the President, Elania Hartford, and her Chief of Staff, Taylor Adams."

Bob nodded.

"We were hoping to ask you some questions," The Secretary of Defense said.

Bob nodded again.

"Reincarnation," The President began, "is it something you can do for anyone? Are there any restrictions?"

"While you can perform the ritual on anyone, there is a soft limit to the number of times you'd want to do so," Bob replied haltingly, before gathering steam, "the ritual does return you to the age of majority for your species, it also reduces your maximum life span by a number of years between your tier times two. In addition, the ritual is a skill under the school of Animancy, which is Divine Magic, and as such is gated behind having a Divine Blessing."

Bob frowned for a moment. "I believe all the Marines who wanted Divine Magic took a Divine Blessing from Vi'Radia?" He asked the Secretary of Defense.

"So far," Heller agreed, "although some of them have expressed an interest in other theologies."

Bob nodded.

"I'm a little confused on the usage of the word 'tier,'" The President said.

"Humans are tier five. Cats are tier four, as are most other mammals," Bob explained, "tier five seems to be the line of demarcation that separates sentience from sapience, although I'm given to understand that there are a few tier four species who defy that."

"So five is a numeric value related to the prowess of a species?" The President asked.

"Yes," Bob replied, pleased that she'd understood so quickly. The President apparently hadn't reached her position by collecting bottle caps.

"And each tier is limited in its level to its tier squared?"

"That's not entirely true," Bob hedged. "Once you've reached your level cap for your tier, you can push through that threshold, selecting a higher tier species to apotheosis into, but without reincarnating, allowing you to continue to level to the next tier cap. Doing so without actually reincarnating results in not receiving many of the benefits of increasing your tier or the advantages of your new species."

"From a purely technical standpoint, without reincarnating, a person at tier five who pushes into tier six is still considered tier five," Bob finished.

"From what Ed has told me, that's what you've done, isn't it?" She asked.

Bob glanced at the Secretary of Defense. "Yes," he replied. He wasn't particularly happy about other people knowing what his tier, level, and skills were.

"Aside from being a rather handsome young man, you look as human as I," The President smiled winningly.

Bob disabled his Return to the Beginning blessing and froze as the dozen men that lined the walls drew and leveled their sidearms at him.

"Gentlemen, I don't think Mr. Whitman means us any harm, do you?" She addressed the question to him.

Bob nodded slowly. He was fairly certain that a handgun couldn't hurt him. Mike had grumbled out a story about some of the old guard accidentally shooting one another and discovering that if they didn't use their skills, the bullets couldn't pierce their skin, although they did leave a bruise.

Still, he wasn't interested in demonstrating that capability. His two hours spent waiting outside had demonstrated that these men had no sense of humor.

He reactivated his Return to the Beginning blessing and resumed his normal form.

"Amazing," The President breathed. "And you're a paragon, which I take it means precisely what that word implies?"

"Yes," Bob agreed, noticing that while the weapons had been lowered, they hadn't been holstered.

"Why don't you have a seat, I have a few specific questions I'd like to ask you before the summit, and we haven't much time."

Robert Whitman was definitely a nerd, Elania decided. He was willing to expound at length when asked a technical question about the System, but he didn't volunteer information and seemed to be completely unaware of social cues.

She'd insisted on bringing him to the summit so that he could answer any questions the attendees had directly. As she rode towards the U.N. building, she glanced across at Ed. "Ed," she caught his attention, "I was wondering if you'd leveled up yet, I didn't see any mention of it in the briefing."

"No, Madam President," Ed shook his head, then shot a glance at Bob, who was reading something on a tablet. "While it isn't reincarnation, increasing your level increases your attributes, including your Endurance, so even if you don't allocate anything toward Endurance, you're still extending your lifespan, which," he sighed, "if you reach the level cap, results in looking younger. Much younger. As a public figure, I can't exactly show up looking like I'm twenty years old again."

"Ah," she nodded thoughtfully. "Would it be possible to advance to the level cap during the one hundred and ten days during which this Monster Tide will have driven us from our home?"

"I imagine," Ed replied with a shrug, "I know we have a number of retired Marines who've reached the level cap, and it's been a bit under a hundred days since they were brought over."

"We'll definitely need to make sure that the government uses that time to advance," she sighed, "we'll have enough trouble keeping things under control when this System arrives."

Bob snorted, not looking up from his tablet.

"Something to add?" She asked.

Bob looked up. "This isn't something you can control, not really," he said flatly, "the world is going to change, and society will have to change with it. Governing through strength will be the only type of government that survives. You might govern justly, fairly, even generously, but without the necessary strength to deal with the monster waves and tides, you won't have anyone to govern, and conversely, you'll need the strength to keep people with less moral character from taking over."

"Do you really see it becoming that bad?" She asked cooly.

"Ten people are all you need to create a new settlement," Bob replied. "You could do it with less, but it's much faster with ten. Thanks to spatial expansion, those ten people could wander out into the middle of a field in Kansas and disappear. You'd never see them again unless they wanted you to. They'd have everything they would need, and their only reason to interact with another society would be if they wanted to."

"Homeland Security seems to think that if we don't have all of the law enforcement members leveled up, that warlords and gangs will take over," Elania said.

"Might happen," Bob shrugged, "but with environmental hazards like waves and tides, I don't know how long that will last. The trick will be making sure you have the highest level person as a deterrent."

"I'm not sure that people were meant to hold that much power as individuals," Elania mused.

"From what I've seen, power doesn't change who a person is; it reveals who they want to be," Bob replied seriously before looking back down at his tablet.

Elania exchanged a glance with Ed. His brief had described what he'd learned about the society on Thayland, and while it was feudal in nature, the power dynamics tracked quite closely with what Bob said.

The more she learned about the possibilities and dangers associated with the upcoming System integration, the more concerned she grew. There may very well not be a United States of America after the System came online.

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