There were few jobs as conducive to being remembered long after one’s death as the office of the President of the United States of America.

Yet there were also few jobs as likely to put you in an early grave. Not only had over a sixth of the people to hold this office died while doing so, it was also extraordinarily stressful even in the most peaceful of times. No one left this office without having quintupled their number of grey hairs and those were merely the external signs.

Today … today was not a peaceful time. Nor had any point in the past month been even remotely calm either.

The monsters were bad enough, but there were people who made him want to break down and cry in frustration. And other things that society had deemed too immature for full-grown adults, so he wouldn’t do any of them, but the temptation was there.

People.

People so dense it was a miracle they didn’t cause earthquakes every time they took a step.

Sure, the government did some shady things, regardless of who the president was and which party they came from, but they weren’t Bond villains, the source of every ill that plagued the American people. And it certainly wasn’t in a position to create something as immensely powerful as the System that had infected the world.

But if he had been able to make something like that happen … why would he use that kind of power on that, specifically? Why not do literally anything else with it?

What really made him want to bash his forehead against his desk until he either passed out or the antique piece of furniture broke was the fact that people had tried to shoot him over that theory.

He was used to all the other stuff.

How anything that happened while you were in office was your fault, even if it had started under your predecessor, or had been a knock-on effect of a disaster that had affected the entire globe.

How people assumed screaming “do better” at politicians would magically allow complicated issues that made the Gordian Knot look like a simple bow tie to be solved in minutes.

How any time he dared look into what the populous thought he got yet another close look at proof of the Dunning-Krueger effect.

But as much of a nightmare as this job had become, it was his nightmare, the one he had chosen to apply for, won, and now needed to take to the very end. To win. By any means possible.

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Any means remaining, to be precise.

The United States still existed as an entity, which was better than the projections he’d seen at the start of it all, but things were still dire. Civilians with firearms had managed to take out quite a few monsters in the first couple of waves, but only the most militant and/or paranoid of them had stockpiled sufficient munitions to last until now.

Obviously, the military was in a much better position, supply-wise, but the production lines had been under attack from day one. Not any more than the rest of the nation was, but they were taking damage nevertheless, slowing down the rate at which muntions stockpiles could be replenished even as the monsters were requiring more and more bullets to take down.

Instead, they were starting to have to lean on the System, specifically, those with engineering Classes and abilities. Supernatural engineering could be used to create magnificent machines, from sub-par parts and materials, but only on a limited scale.

The stereotypical redneck engineering was reaching the mythical heights often ascribed to it online, for example. Ammo plants made from scrap iron and duct tape, landmines from superglue and cans of beans, and more besides. However, that particular subset of the population was also one that was less likely to listen to him than, say, the army.

Not to mention the fact that, helpful as it seemed to be, the System was hardly what he’d consider “reliable” or even guaranteed to be non-hostile. That was an issue. It had given them all this power, but who was to say it wouldn’t be yanked right back when it was least convenient?

But he’d chosen to embrace it nevertheless.

President Jackson Lane, [Commander in Chief], Level 21. Even thinking that line felt weird. But it represented immense power.

Supernatural knowledge of the United States’ current disposition, near-indestructible lines of communication, a slight but ever-present upgrade to every asset the government of US had … these abilities should have ushered in a new age of prosperity. Instead, they were just barely staving off disaster.

They had two things that might realistically give them a leg up. An influx of Levels, either in the form of high-Level reinforcements or existing defenders leveling up, or technological advancements.

Lane had people working on all options, but they weren’t getting anywhere fast.

The easist thing would just be to cajole one of the so-called ancients to travel across the Atlantic or Pacific, but he doubted that would happen.

Europe had a solid defense thanks to them, but sadly, they had an even better excuse for not helping. The abilities of their defenders strengthened each other, covering an exponentially larger area with each addition to their number.

And as for Mongolia … Lane doubted even offering Genghis Khan the office of president would manage to convince the warlord to change his base of opperations. Not that he ever would do that. And even if he’d been inclined to do so, he’d be thrown out of his office so fast he’d leave a friction burn on the carpet.

No, he knew what he had to do. Keep on top of things, keep making sure to do everything he could do and leaving what he couldn’t to the experts, and for the love of all that was holy, prevent the country from spiraling.

Because he’d already seen what happened when things got really bad. Someone would start to distinguish themselves, get Levels, grow strong, get drunk off that power, and eventually get themselves killed along with whoever followed them trying to fight a monster that was far beyond them.