“Wow,” I said. “Should I do it now?”

They both nodded their heads. Janet said, “Of course, if I could talk to my parents in all of this, you know I’d be all over it.”

So, I did it. I selected the “Ruler Chat” option and, just like that I could hear my mom’s voice. I seemed to have gotten a skill or something as well, but it was minimized so I didn’t pay any attention to it.

“Hi honey!” she said.

I almost started crying then. The sheer relief of knowing that my mother was alive. Pure joy. “Hi, mom!” I said. “Are you alright, … Duchess?”

She laughed. “I know, that was a kick in the pants, let me tell you.”

I wanted to know more about that, but other things were more important. “How’s everyone? Derek, Jackie, Clancy, Jamonica? Did you all make it alright? And what happened? Do you know any more about what was going on? Do you need anything?”

“Shh!” she said. “We’re all good. They were all here at the house when the Event happened. Jamonica and Clancy brought their families here, Derek’s daughter is here, my sister and Calah are here, hell, even my parents are here. And that’s awkward.”

We both laughed.

“So what’s your status?” she asked. “Are you doing alright?”

“I’m doing ok. I’m still at the place that I worked at in Sapulpa, we’re working on getting home to your place. I’m not sure where it is now, to tell you the truth. I mean, Tulsa grew mountains. We’ve fought some big rats, so we are kind of thinking that before we start on the road, we should get a little stronger. Right now, I’m level 7, the girls are both level 6. That place that I worked at might have turned into a dungeon, in any case, it’s infested with giant rats, at least I think it is. So we might do some rat hunting.”

“Honey,” she said. “Who’s we?”

“Oh,” I said. “Tanya and Janet. I worked with Tanya and met Janet right before the Event. Let me try something.” I tried to share the conversation with both Janet and Tanya.

“Hello, can you hear us?” I asked. I heard both Janet and Tanya’s voices join the conversation.

“Hello,” said Janet, with Tanya just behind.

“Hello,” said my mom. “I’m Grace, Monsoon’s mother. It’s nice to hear your voices. I did not know that I could share these conversations. It’s kind of like a conference call. Who knew?”

“Yeah,” I said. “You can also share screens or partial screens and there’s party chat too.”

“Once again, who knew?” said my mom. “So giant rats, dungeons and two lovely girls. Hmm!”

I rolled my eyes and my mom said, “Don’t roll your eyes at me, Monsoon.”

“Huh,” I said. “I would never do something like that, mom.” ‘God, mom eyes!’ I thought. It’s what I called my mom’s ability to always somehow know what I was thinking or doing. I assumed every mother has it or develops it at some point.

“Hmmp!” she said.

“So, how’d you wind up as Duchess?” I asked.

“I didn’t ask for it, I was appointed when They dissolved the government,” she said.

“How did they, how did you, I mean, huh?” and I kind of stammered to a halt. “Really, the government knew and didn’t say anything?”

“As I understand it, they didn’t want the world to go into a panic. They assumed that they’d have more time, on what basis that assumption was made, I have no idea. It’s not like there was a comet rushing toward the planet, just some voices and a blue dot. Anyway, they started to prepare, told some folks, mainly old money and told the rest of the government, all the people on the conference blue dot call, not to say a word, that they’d throw the Patriot Act at them and they’d wind up in a black site until it was over. And you can't go to press with a story like this without multiple sources confirming it unless your fringe news and then you get labeled “Fake News!

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“Didn’t they do anything?” I asked.

“Once again,” she said, “they started to construct some shelters, for who, I don’t know, brought a bunch, but not all, of the troops stationed in places like Iraq home, and were creating a quote, unquote, communication plan when the Event occurred.”

“That’s it?” I asked. “They were planning on talking, and even then, just planning. I thought that even that man would be more effective than that.”

“It takes a leader to forge an effective path in troubled times,” she said. “We haven’t had one of those in a while.”

“Did you know about this in advance?” I asked, not sure I wanted to know the answer to that question.

“I had some knowledge of it,” she said after a pause. “I heard from someone I could almost believe that it was happening. So I talked to some of the ‘old money club’ and they hinted, talked around it, outright denied it, affirmed it, you name it, I heard a story about it. I didn’t know what to believe, I mean, come on, the apocalypse? Voices? God’s gone and isn’t coming back? If I hadn’t heard from the boss - that’s what she called Warren Buffett, her idol - that the stories were true or mostly true, I wouldn’t have believed it.”

She paused for a second, then continued. “I started planning and quit business traveling. Did some construction around the place, things like had some more greenhouses built and stocked, started a higher rock wall and installed some 12’ chain link fence around the property, made better roads, built some Quonset huts to house refugees, that kind of thing, but I didn’t want to appear like a fool and, well, I guess l was caught off guard like they were. In my defense, I didn’t get told by Them that the end times were upon us. I got told by a frenemy and even then, a lot of people were telling me it was BS. I would have brought you home if I’d known.

“I'm fine, mom. We're fine. But I’m so angry, mom!” I said. “1.5 billion people and it’s just day two.”

“I know honey,” she said. “I’m furious too. At myself and at that damn president. That damn worthless man! I want to shoot him myself! Well, hit him with a Firebolt!”

“Hey,” I said, “you’ve got magic!”

“Yep,” she said proudly. “I got two titles after our phone call, Warrior of the Apocalypse and Mage of the Apocalypse. And so did everyone at the house. We were all in the ballroom waiting for the apocalypse to start when I got your call, so I was able to pass your message along to everybody. Sifu was over, doing one of his training stayovers with security and got Mage of the Apocalypse and Qi Master. Took monk as his class, it auto-leveled to 24. I didn’t even know classes auto-leveled, it really surprised us all. Derek got the Mage of the Apocalypse title and another one called Ninja Warrior. In addition, Jamonica got a special class called, Apocalypse Maid, which is both odd and terrifying. I saw her literally beat a huge, feral cat to death with a broom yesterday. The cat made the mistake of attacking her niece. Climbed the fence and attacked while Jamonica was in the yard. Plus she just walks into a room and it gets cleaner. I have no idea what level she’s at now. She’s gone cleaning mad. I’m assuming she’s getting experience points for all the cleaning she’s doing. It’s a little bit off-the-hook, she walks in, the room gets clean, she giggles and walks out. The house has never been this clean. Even the paint looks clean, she’s started to clean the outside of the house too. Derek took Ninja as his primary class, he’s thinking of taking another class. He’s level 17 now. And our Gardner, Victor, got this class called Green Mage. He can grow tomatoes overnight. Which I think is going to come in really handy.”

There was a long pause then. I could tell my mom’s attention had been pulled away by something in her environment. Janet and Tanya started looking a little restless, so I held up my hands to say wait, give her time, she’s dealing with something. It was good to hear from her. That big information dump was not really like her. Normally, she was pretty reserved in her communication, this kind of gushing, over-the-top exuberance told me how happy she was to hear from me. I could hold for a longer time than this to keep talking to my mother.

“Honey,” she finally said.

“Got to go?” I interrupted.

“Yes,” she replied. “Something's come up. Government stuff. I’ll tell you more when I have more time. I’m going to be in meetings the rest of today and tomorrow, then I’ve got to take a trip to Tulsa to talk survival with King Kaiser and Duchess Schusterman,” she kind of chuckled here, “so I won’t be able to talk with you ‘till Tenebrisday. I’ll contact you that evening and we can talk more. Are you safe?”

“Yes, we’re good,” I replied. “As good as anyone is.”

“OK,” she said. “Do not start traveling until you reach at least level 11, the Iron Rank. Your odds of survival go way up unless you get unlucky and meet a peak existence. Don’t do that. So far the monsters we’ve encountered have been basically giant versions of the standard Oklahoma wildlife. We have encountered a couple of beasts, Griffons. I’ll tell you more about them when we talk. Check out the map that is at the front of the Government screen. Really look at it. It will surprise you. I love you. Be safe. Girls, it was good talking with you. I look forward to meeting you. Goodbye,” and with that, she was gone.

The two girls looked a little stunned. Mom can have that effect on people. “Yeah,” I said. “That’s my mom.”