Two hours later when they mustered together, I gave an honest-to-God stirring speech.

It was also terrible.

It went something like ‘well we’re all in this crap together, and the game just gave me dominion over you, so uh, go get yourselves some food, a shower, maybe some action between the sheets, and secure your kids, because work starts real soon.’

I must have made my checks or whatever because while the humans in the building were distinguishable by their looks of concern and general dismay, the NPC residents hooted and hollered, cheering loud enough to make me want to plug my ears.

The game also gave me a +1 in Leadership. Whatever the game rules were behind that boon, I applauded them because I needed every point that I could get.

After that, I made the rounds and organized them. The actual humans had their own autonomy, of course, so they required organization and leadership.

That was something that I had ideas for, a military-like structure with squad leaders, NCOs, and officers when I got it all figured out. But the NPC residents were a lot easier. They were rather generic and essentially a resource to be assigned.

Basic Workers like mine could be set to train (craft, combat, sorcery, or finance), patrol (they did 1-6 damage per second), scrounge up scraps (+10 basic material per hour), work for wages (+20 credits per hour), or stand sentry. The sentries, like the patrols, would do just awful damage compared with Eric, whose current stats put him at 8-16 damage per second.

Good muscle was hard to find, apparently.

The map displayed a fog of war situation now that I wasn’t in the introduction stages of the game, so if I sent people out, they’d clear the fog and I’d be able to see where rival gangs were… for a few seconds before my people got their asses handed to them.

It was a lot, which meant I had some reading to do as well. The game informed me (through various help menus) that skill training for the NPCs led to increased credits or materials per hour, but also access to different types of materials.

And it was quickly obvious that credits could go logarithmic once you got someone skilled up enough to play with and roll well on this place’s stock market.

As for materials, they could upgrade from Scraps into Gizmos, then Gadgets, and then Electronic Components, and finally Bleeding Edge Components, once the workers trained up and gained the proper skills.

It actually reminded me of the WarCity 4X game that I used to play off and on when I’d be back in garrison. Your workers, soldiers, everybody really gained new abilities and access to new materials and even new weapons whenever they attained a high enough ranking.

Since none of them were any good in combat whatsoever, I told half of them to train in either finance or craft, their choice, and the other half to run patrols.

It was a blur of activity, those next 24 hours. Once the NPCs were set, I rolled about meeting people and shaking hands. However off put they were by my actual speech, they really seemed to be put at ease once I met them. My confidence, or maybe my sheer lack of fear, really got them on my side.

I didn’t spend enough time with any of them to make note of notables, as it were. I mean someone famous once said that it was good to be the king, but whoever he was had left out the hustle and bustle of getting people organized and doing what needed to be done.

And people required attention. At least at first, before there was a command structure in place to let others do that for me. What I needed was a public affairs office.

But it worked. That was the main thing. I met the residents, the real ones, the bearded, long-haired, crewcut, lanky, fat cornucopia of scared individuals that made up the place. And they relaxed. They mingled and met each other, starting the roots of a community.

Not bad for someone with an apparently small intelligence.

People brought back takoyaki from a food stall I apparently now owned, went out scrounging for scraps, and a few went on patrols. The place turned into a regular hive of activity.

And at the end of it all, I strolled back to the center of the room and gave a speech. The atrium, this real one in the hotel lobby, had transformed into a real marketplace with a central platform, a section elevated by boards and tables. A place where I could stand and be seen and heard.

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I mounted it, climbing up the side in a hunched scramble. Then I turned, took Patches from the hands of Eric Joel, and gave him a hand getting up as well. The three of us turned to face the sizable crowd, bereft of the automated working NPCs.

“Hey everyone. Glad I met you. Sorry that I suck so bad at speeches.”

Light laughter flitted through the crowd. I wasn’t a professional speaker — never ever claimed to be. But I’d been stuck standing at attention in enough public speeches to know when the guy up top was saying the right words.

“Thanks. Yeah, so, I’ve gone through and met with all of you. Great people, for sure. I can’t believe I never knew you before the world went to stuff. Just shows why the system said I had an Intelligence of one.”

More light laughter followed. It felt good.

“But I’m glad to meet you now. I've said that already a couple of times, haven't I? Stuff. Well I'm nervous as hell and I've never been a talker. Sorry about that."

I cleared my throat. It'd been easier to stand in front of fellow soldiers and give a presentation. Those guys got smoked if they showed any disrespect. But these were civilians. The highest-ranking people in the US military, as the old joke went.

I felt clammy.

Just drive on, push through, I thought. At least they weren't IEDs in a child's backpack.

"As your presiding leader I’ve been given a bunch of menus and abilities by the system above. An AI, apparently, called Deus Ex. And well, stuff, I really should be explaining this better but let’s just say that we’re in a game and I’ve been made President til I hand off those powers to someone else. I might not be the most qualified guy here, but I might be also. And, hey, I’m a combat veteran and we’re all in a very dangerous place at a very dangerous time.”

I paused. Mortar rounds exploded in my ears and a rocket blazed through my memory, flashing white as the sun as it ended the lives of an armored scout crew, the magnesium alloys crumpling into themselves even as they sparked into flames hot as magma. A nervous murmuring from the crowd filtered through, bringing me back. I wasn’t going to ever let this place get as bad as that one had.

“Sorry. I’m just sayin’ that you could have gotten a worse choice. At least I’m not a lawyer, hey?”

The crowd laughed more broadly and a few clapped.

“Or an actual politician!”

At that the crowd burst into applause, heavy laughter, even a few whistles and catcalls. I scanned the crowd, and my eyes saw the hope in them. Maybe they weren’t clapping for me. Maybe they were clapping for what I represented.

That was good, too. I’d take what I could get.

I put my hands up, thanking them like the talk show hosts like to do on TV. It worked. The crowd settled.

“Thanks for your attention. If I was one of you, I would have walked out after that first stuffshow of words I gave ya. But you all stuck through. That’s good. Gives me confidence in our ability to function as a lean and green fighting machine.

“I’ve got this quest here that says I get experience points and a card if I give five of my peons orders through my command menu. But I’m not using that with you all. I’m saving that for the NPCs and for after this little talk of ours. ‘Cuz I want you to understand something. Nobody living here, or anywhere for that matter, is my peon. We’re in this together.

“Now, here’s how it is all going to work. At least til we are all settled into a good, and successful, plan of operation. I’m going to be the top poohbah, King of the Roost and all of that jazz. Under me is going to be Major Sergeant Patches, my second-in-command because he’s a good boy and while I met you all today, I’m not sure any of you are up to his level of professional conduct.”

This won a few titters. One man, in the far corner, seemed to grimace. I shook him out of my head. He didn’t matter.

“All joking aside, I’ll have a real human from among you up here next to me when I know who can do the job well. When I know I can trust you all, too,” I said, giving a pointed look at the man who’d grimaced before. I’d met him. What the hell was his name again?

Damnit. Maybe he did matter. He was getting under my skin.

“For the time being leadership is going to assign Lieutenants, each of which I am going to let you all vote for. One LT per floor. These men and women are going to be your immediate commanders. I don’t want all of you rushing me every time you’ve got a problem. They’ll bring it up to me if it is big enough, but go talk to them first.”

There was a small amount of murmuring.

“Listen, I’m not trying to be a dick, but the thing is, I’m gonna be doing a lot of stuff and I’m not always going to have time to deal with it all. Plus, I suck at names. If I have a group of LTs for every floor, I can learn their names and not worry about learning the rest of you all.”

Widespread humbled laughter. Good. Things were still riding fine.

“Underneath the LTs are going to be their corporals. Or whatever the hell you all wanna call yourselves. Doesn’t matter much to me, just so you know what I’ll be calling you. I’m gonna save sergeant for my combat leaders when we get there but hold your horses on that for now. There will be four corporals, one corporal in charge of each section of flooring.

Now comes the boring ass stuff, me telling you exactly what is going on. But first, let me hear it. This system says I’m in charge. Are you all cool with that?”

The people turned to each other and talked, but not for a long time. I tried to search out the man who had grimaced before and couldn’t see him. Fuck. Still didn’t know if he mattered or not. Maybe it was just my paranoia acting up again.

“Yeah!” a voice yelled, suddenly, piercing the murmurs and echoing through the cavernous lobby.

“Hell yeah!” added another.

All around people yelled, clamoring for me. It was moving. Not long ago I’d been discarded crap’ a turd on society’s heel. And now people were asking me to lead them through the hard times into victory. Maybe I should have been more social, back when I’d moved in here. Spilled milk and all that.

I just nodded and smiled, all the while thinking that if some idiot like me had taken the stage and told me he was now my boss, I’d have told him both where to go and what to do with himself when he got there.

But I guess saving them and killing a couple of thugs changed things.

“Thank you,” my voice cracked. “I will do my best to be the leader you deserve.”