CHAPTER ONE

BRITTLE FOUNDATIONS

----------------------------------------

Rio

I frowned, staring absently at the report and wondering what the hell was happening.

“It just… fell?” I asked.

“Seems so. Happened in the middle of the night with no one the wiser. It’s not a huge bridge, but… well. It’s a bridge. We’re lucky there weren’t any deaths,” said Samuel Walakis.

The man was wearing a professional suit with a tie that had a bunch of rubber ducks all over it. Usually, I would have been amused, but I could tell he deeply regretted the choice now that something serious had come up. In his defense, it wasn’t every day that a bridge collapsed.

“Was it just too old? Did it have an inspection? Get me the–!”

“Right here, Ma’am,” he cut me off, holding up a manilla envelope. “Before you ask, yes, it was inspected. It was fine seven months ago and is only nine years old. Damn thing should’ve lasted a century. Especially considering what we paid for it. I was in on the meetings to build it. I’m… not saying it, but have the police found any evidence of sabotage?”

“No, but my guys aren’t experts. No evidence of a bomb if that’s what you’re asking,” said a weary police chief. Mikaela Williamsford had once been a battleaxe of a woman, but her age was beginning to force her into a permanent desk job. I was up early, but she’d been at the site since before dawn, which showed as she continued.

“Best we can tell, the metal just warped under the rig's weight and collapsed,” she said.

“Could’ve been a classer,” Paula chimed in. All eyes turned towards me, and I couldn’t help the frown.

“What? If I’m thinking it, you know other people are,” she said defensively. Paula was a media specialist who’d been with me for most of my campaigning days. Her mind was constantly on public opinion.

I sighed. “Yes, there is a chance it could’ve been a classer. Do we have any evidence of that? Handprints in the metal? Spikes shooting out of it where they shouldn’t? Warping consistent with a Paladin’s Bulwark?”

The Paladin skill Bulwark had a habit of pulling in bits of metal from the surroundings to create patchwork shields or temporarily increase the size of an existing shield. There was a small but substantial possibility that a Paladin training under the bridge caused this. I doubted it, though.

Paladin’s were all about protecting people, and it would have to be a pretty dim Paladin indeed not to realize that siphoning metal off the struts under a bridge would be a bad idea.

A lower-level Barbarian might be more likely. Theo was probably strong enough, and he was a Druid who’d only marginally focused on strength during the outbreak. Any Barbarian who’d put even a few points into strength would’ve been able to damage the bridge… I couldn’t put my finger on it, but blaming it on a stray classer didn’t feel right.

Help support creative writers by finding and reading their stories on the original site.

Of course, I was biased. I was, possibly, one of the highest leveled classers out there, and any bad publicity on them shined brightest on me.

“Any chance a classer could fix it back up?” the treasurer asked with a bleak hope.

“God, I wish. It’s a few skills and abilities Manuella, not Harry Potter. Can’t just wave a hand and repair a fallen bridge,” I said. “Might be able to get Theo to hold some heavy stuff and speed it up a bit, but that won't do much to make it cheaper. How many people will this keep from getting into town again?”

“Hundreds. For weeks. They’ll have to go down to Red Eye and cross the creek there. Turns a twenty-minute commute into an hour. Kids will miss school, too.

“Uggghhh,” I moaned. Somehow, this was not what I’d expected when I was elected.

A sudden knock came at the door.

I blinked. It was rare for someone to interrupt a meeting. Especially one like this.

The door opened before any of us answered to admit an aide. One of Paula’s. I… thought she was an intern, but I didn’t remember her name.

“Uh… sorry to interrupt, but I thought it might be relevant. This bridge… it’s not the only one to collapse today,” the kid said. I frowned. I’d just thought of a twenty-two-year-old as a kid.

“That’s a nice coincidence, but I’m not seeing the connection Miss…?” I trailed off, waiting for her name.

“Lafferty, Ma’am. I’m Penny Lafferty,” she said, flushing. “Sorry. It’s… it’s easier to show you.”

She circled the small table where the five of us had gathered and set her laptop down in front of me, showing a newscast. Below the video and the talking head, the headline read “The Great Bridge Collapse.”

“There have been… like over forty different bridge collapses today. Big ones. Not just our county either. The huge one crossing the lake down in Henderson? Gone. One of them from Springfield collapsed. There are at least four different bridges on Interstate Four down in Florida. A bunch of them are up in Montana and Indiana. It’s… also not just bridges. Water Towers, and a few buildings too,” she said as she continued cycling through tabs.

Montana… Florida… Indiana… and Missouri…

I licked suddenly dry lips, remembering where all of my fellow victims down in the dungeon had come from as if it were only yesterday.

“Could… you check and see if there have been any major bridge collapses in Honduras as well?” I asked.

"Honduras? Like... the country? Central America?" she asked.

I nodded.

The gathered committee members eyed me curiously for the odd request, but Penny did as asked, opening a new tab and searching.

It wasn’t common knowledge that another breach had occurred in Honduras, though there had been plenty of classers from Central American countries. They were still incredibly rare, but a few had shown up in almost every major country in the world since the outbreak. That said, Honduras was the only other place I knew for sure had a breech.

“Uhhh…. Sure enough, yeah. At least, two bridges collapsed there today. How did you know, Ma’am?” she asked.

I turned to the tired police chief, ignoring the question. I’d known this day would come. I’d felt it in my bones.

“Mikaela, get with Manuella and start buying guns. And I mean all of them. Not just little ones, either. I want bazookas and cannons. Anything that goes boom, and people who know what they're doing with them. We’re getting a militia set up, too. As for the bridge… I need to go down there.”

“You’ve got a meeting with the school board at ten to discuss E-Rate funding. The school was allotted funding based on the pre-influx population numbers, but Boyerton has doubled in size since you got elected. They’re saying it’s not enough.” Paula said.

“Postpone it. Or heck, just give them what they think they need. That’s one use of tax dollars hardly anyone complains about. I need to head down the bridge personally. Chief, mind phoning ahead so they’ll expect me?”

Mikaela nodded, and I grinned.

“Wait, Mayor Tande don–!”

I ignored Samuel as I activated Phase and fell right through the chair, and the floor.

God, I hated meetings.

----------------------------------------