> Lot of traffic through the dimensional jump points today, most of it outbound. Any idea what’s up with that?

>

> -Intercepted transmission from Voices for Non-Citizens

“So, the new linked user is a Pakistani woman in a city named Jamshoro named Zahra Syed. I've heard that the Canadian man is still okay, so it must be one of the two we hadn't located who died. I'm not sure which one. Anything we can do to locate and protect the other linked users…” I trailed off as Marie shook her head.

The Communication Specialist had a hand pressed to her ear like a phone, a gesture that people had started using to make it clear when they were listening to messages from afar. “I’ve passed it along. Our closest local contact is a military coalition in Karachi, and they’d already been looking for her, just based on her potential to become a linked user. Hopefully they’ll step up their efforts now that the situation’s more serious.” She sighed. “The trouble is, anything we’ve thought of to do, we’re doing. Anyone we could ask for help, we’ve talked to.”

“Another Challenge will have expanded our contacts further,” Mayor Alexandra said. “That must have opened up new opportunities.”

“I worked with Ariel a lot this past week on that,” I said. “We tried to split our eligible communications people in between locating the linked users and getting in touch with world leaders… I know we were updating our groupings until the last minute, as different people became Challenge-eligible, but I haven’t heard how it all worked out yet.”

Marie closed her eyes for a moment. “We’ve made twenty-seven more connections with Quantum Reservoir that we can use to freely communicate with people across the world. All but two of those people say they’re part of some kind of alliance. Some are from citizen groups, like Fort Autumn was originally, and others have contact with local governments or military bases. The last two contacts are located in the capital cities of India and South Korea, but they aren’t part of the governments themselves. We’ll have to wait and see if they can connect us with anyone in authority.”

Even with Ariel able to pair people up for Challenge groups however she wanted, getting in touch with the entire world had been difficult. We were sending thousands of people from the Huntsville area to Challenges, but we’d only found one ability that allowed for cross-globe communication, and that ability - Quantum Reservoir - required another person with the same ability to form a connection. Even then, the total number of connections was limited by the user’s synergy. Plus, communicating with someone overseas was of limited utility if neither spoke the other’s language. Yeah, you could try to repeat their words to a translator, but most people can’t accurately repeat a foreign language easily.

I’d been ruthless in exploiting my connection to Ariel, sorting our own potential candidates into groups with people in far-off countries who they had the best chance of connecting with. A lot of it was setting up rules for Ariel to work off of as she made last-minute groupings. Very few people had Quantum Reservoir, so most of our connections had been with people who’d earned enough Points to choose a new ability before entering the Challenge, but hadn’t chosen it yet. If we put them with friendly people who already had the Reservoir ability, “all” our allies had to do was get to them before they chose an ability and convince them to take something they’d never heard of based on the word of a person they met two minutes ago.

Honestly, it was impressive that we’d made any progress.

Making contact at all was step one. Then we had to hope those people could get in touch with some kind of leader: ideally former or current government. We’d only once been able to link to a world leader directly, because governing people is usually more about pushing papers around in a bunker than leading armies through the streets.

The chaos in the world hadn’t made the job any easier. Even finding our own country’s leader had taken multiple months. The US president had apparently died in the first minutes of the Maffiyir. He’d been older and the sight of the monsters had given him a heart attack. Secret Service had gotten a defibrillator quickly, but the device had been broken by the onset of the contest.

The Vice President had died in a plane crash only moments later, although that had taken time to verify.

Still, the US had a clear line of succession: the Speaker of the House had survived and was now our Acting President. I hadn’t thought of locating her as a big deal until we’d actually found her, twenty days ago, and suddenly all the other military bases we’d gotten in touch with had started responding to the Arsenal’s requests more quickly and mobilizing about twice as many people as they had before.

I’d been kind of shocked by that, and I’d said as much to Flip. “This doesn’t make sense! These weren’t selfish requests, this was stuff we all needed for the survival of our species. Why should finding some politician change anything?”

Flip had scratched the back of her neck. “Well… maybe it shouldn’t. But all of these people have people they’re responsible for. People dying in their own backyards. Without a clear chain of command, everyone is making their own judgment calls about what to prioritize, and the problems staring you in the face are a lot harder to ignore than the ones you’re only hearing about.”

This story is posted elsewhere by the author. Help them out by reading the authentic version.

“And finding a president made them what… believe us? They didn’t really think people were linked up with Ariel?”

“I think they did. But it was kind of like, you know… Believing in Mexico.”

“What?”

Flip had shrugged. “Well, no one doubts Mexico is real. Not even the biggest conspiracy nut I’ve met. But most people don’t think about it very much. It’s not pushing itself in their face, and no one’s making them think about it. And lots of things are making them think about their city, their town, the people right around them. We were kind of like Mexico. When we found the president, she kinda started pushing us in people’s faces. Making it impossible not to think about us. She made General Heggins… ah, I forget his title. Acting Director of something. Anyway, point is, she told people they have to listen to him on stuff related to the aliens, so they do. Whether it’s the best plan or most important thing to do anymore doesn’t factor. It’s just orders.”

Flip’s explanation made a sort of sense, even if I felt like it shouldn’t. And as we got in touch with more heads of state over the next several days, we saw the same pattern play out again and again… and frustratingly, we also saw its inverse. When the mega-treezilla wiped out a good portion of the British Isles, they’d made an utter mess of its government. The people who were left were divided into several smaller factions. The factions were trying to work together - they all wanted to help their people - but each faction thought their plan was the best one and wasn’t willing to do something “worse,” leading to a ton of wasted time and effort.

I shook my head, focusing on the discussion again as Alexandra clapped her hands. “Okay - next order of business: we have a decision to make. Most groups got a simple prize, another upgrade to our Intensifiers that allowed for the display of the total count of thresholds a person has passed, or their ‘level,’ if you will. One of our groups got something else. Clint, would you explain?”

Micah's forging buddy stood up, the big man's shoulders hunched a little awkwardly in the face of all the attention. “Yes’m. Three of us all had metal-shaping abilities and Specialties, which was right powerful in an Arena that was mostly metal. After we saw they were comin’ in from above, below, and around, we decided to go take ‘em out at the source. Didn’t take us but an hour. When there were no monsters left, system sent us home early and gave us an Advanced Shop blueprint.”

I sat up as the room burst into noise. It lasted only moments before Vince’s friend Byron dropped a Zone of Silence over the area… a neat trick that let us hold our “council meetings” out in the main hall of the Quarry, where everyone could listen in.

After a moment, Byron released the zone. Sound resumed, but the cut-off had chastened the crowd, who kept things to a respectful low rumble.

Alexandra stood and addressed the crowd. “Clearly, his group will not place the Shops anywhere until after the new Threat appears, but the question is if we want one at Fort Autumn at all? Personally, I propose spreading them throughout several nearby areas in an effort to divert attention away from us and Meghan. Yes, George?”

My friend cleared his throat. “Well, can Ariel tell us what the Shops offer? I feel like it would have to be pretty good before I’d want to draw any extra danger this way.”

“Let me check.” I closed my eyes. Ariel? Advanced Shops? What can you tell us?

As the AI Overmind filled me in, I winced. “Oof. Actually… I hate to say it, but we might not want to place these at all. Or, maybe one at the Arsenal?”

“They’re no good?!” Clint looked betrayed.

I shrugged apologetically. “Well… They do have every portable item that was available as a blueprint during the first two duodenaries, including the weapons from the first Mandatory Trial. They also sell the entertainment-based Titan drops for really high amounts of Money.”

“That all sounds alright,” Clint said gruffly. “Not too exciting, but not bad.”

I nodded. “Yeah. The problem is the other thing an Advanced Shop sells: fast food and street food from all over the world, and it’s pricey. We’re talking “100 Money for an order of fries” expensive.”

My words caused a predictable reaction: crestfallen faces from some, and immediate interest from others. The air filled with questions like “Can you buy banh mi?” “Fries? Do they sell loaded fries?” and “How about onion rings?” until Byron dropped his Zone of Silence on the area once more.

Alexandra frowned. “It might be reasonable to buy one or two pieces of prepackaged food to put into the matter replicators. We have plenty of those, after all.”

I shook my head. “Nope. I think they thought about that. It’s all hot foods… mostly fried or grilled stuff that won’t keep well. We’ve been doing well buying land, so this seems like a clear effort to slow us down.”

Alexandra snorted. “If that was the plan, why wouldn’t it be the default reward?”

I knew that one already. “Ariel said that Shops are never handed out for simply entering a Challenge - it’s always for going above and beyond in some way. Anyway, we’ve got our water vending machines and our ration vending machines from the intensified Titans. We don’t need a full Shop here.”

There was some grumbling at that - and a lot of mournful expressions - but no one argued. Everyone here knew the stakes. Everyone knew someone who had died. Hell, we’d lost another two dozen people just this morning, people who’d been taken to the Challenge and hadn’t made it back.

Alexandra nodded and glanced at her watch. “That makes sense. I’ll keep seeing if we can locate and import unused ingredients to put through our replicators. The new Shops don’t need to be placed unless the Arsenal says otherwise. The new Threat will be here in an hour and a half. Rest up and be ready. Meeting adjourned.”

Her voice projected her usual confident persona, but as she turned away from the table I caught a glimpse of the exhaustion on her face.