CHAPTER 41: Preparations

“What is that bramble looking building?” asked Adam.

“That’s a training area with offices and an armory.” Jordan looked embarrassed. “I modeled it after an adventurer’s guild from a book I read. I was playing around with the controls and ended up making it. It’s made of the elf trees, which the boss couldn’t damage. People should be able to go all out on the training fields and not harm the building. At least for now.”

“That should be useful,” said Adam.

“More than you know,” said Ron. “Since a certain someone announced that you were the strongest human alive, and to report all possible invader activity to the police, we have been flooded with calls.

“We’ve developed a map of people suggesting invader activity. We think most of it is bogus, but we send units to check each report just in case. They aren’t happy with the increased workload. There are two locations that we think are possible from hundreds of calls.” Ron pulled out a map, and Jordan tapped his screen causing an image of the map to display on everyone else’s screen.

“The first place is in the local mall. No one can get into the furnace room. The second location is the scrapyard.”

“Wonderful!” Jordan shouted. Everyone looked at him like he was crazy before he realized what he had said. “W-well not wonderful there are invaders, but those locations will benefit us. If we can take them then we would be able to use the scrapyard to get rift materials easily, and since it’s near the dump we can even get construction vehicle to push waste into the rift. It sounds sloppy, just dropping trash in, but the waste can be broken down and reshaped for our needs.”

“Makes sense,” said Adam. “However, there are a few things to do before then. Tomorrow, we need to check out the wildlife changes. I think if we send a group to the state park, one to the Lake Chombee, and another to the woods past the quarry on Rt 52, we should be able to check out both the changes and how viable they are for leveling.”

“How should we split the groups?” asked Lucas.

“Let’s see. I think Nick, Randall, Joseph, Brandon, and Andrea as group one. Group two will be Carlos, Lucas, Alissa, and Abbey. Group three is Brittney, Lamar, Tom, Elias, and Ed.”

Adam noticed Emily squirming, so he looked over at her. She glared at him when she noticed his look. “Yes?” he asked.

“I want to go too. Its animals this time, so like a hunting party. Not torturing people, like you did to those elves,” she said angrily. “Gracie and William too.”

“As long as mom and dad are fine with it.”

Ron also spoke up, “I request we send five policemen with each group. Both for experience and to document the changes.”

“I’m not really fine with it,” said Adam’s mom, “but I think she’ll be safe enough in such a large group. Especially from what I’ve seen of the people who leveled up.”

“Ok. Gracie will go with group one since she’s a support, Meat Shield can go with group two, and group three could use more ranged attacks, so Emily will join them.”

“Stop calling him Meat Shield! His name is William!”

“Oh, did he change it?” Adam said dismissively.

“What will you be doing boss?” asked Tom.

“Resting and eating. I’m still worn out from yesterday. I need to be ready in case a group needs help, so feel free to call me in if there are troubles.”

“Nope,” said Ron. “You need to make yourself available to challengers, the ones that showed up from Tom’s interview. We currently have about one hundred and twenty-eight people hanging around the police station who think they can beat you. There are already thousands more in hotels or camping in the parks. That lady reporter that Tom flirted with should also be invited to broadcast the fights. Then I would recommend you are seen by the volunteers we’ve gathered who will be doing your shopping and getting supplies. Try to help out and do things that show your power and friendliness, especially with the reporter watching so the world can see you doing more than just getting covered in blood. Don’t hurt the challengers too much since you are sending your healers with the hunting parties.”

“Fine,” Adam grumbled.

“Also, you are soon going to have a bigger issue. The military and homeland security have contacted us about you. They want a meeting in two days and said someone high ranked is coming and bringing some intelligence officers. Apparently, Agent Smythe has reported that you stole from those in charge, endangered people, and are withholding alien technology that could be instrumental in what’s to come.”

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Hissing could be heard as the air around Adam started to super heat, while his skin got redder.

“P-please calm down,” Ron hurried. “I was just warning you. It should be fine since I don’t think he realized that Ed was filming everything. However, make sure you are polite with the government reps, even if you aren’t willing to give them what they want. It might be a good idea to have Mr. Rhodes here for that meeting.”

Adam breathed in deeply and let it out slowly. They had to wait three minutes before his skin returned to normal. “Fine,” was all he said.

Adams mom jumped in. “Now, we must figure out what our needs are for all the volunteers we have. The police have about 80 people willing to spend time and I have about 35. That’s a lot of people we need to coordinate. We also reserved quite a few moving trucks to make sure we have vehicles for whatever needs to be fetched.”

“Food,” said Tom.

“Furniture for the base,” said Jordan.

“Grannies,” said Alissa.

“Cars,” said Mr. Clemens. Then his brain backtracked. “Wait, grannies?”

“Yeah, grannies,” responded Alissa.

“Why do we need grannies?” asked Andrea.

“You know, because they know how to make food,” answered Alissa. Everyone stared at her. She realized she needed to provide more. “Obviously we can buy cans of food to sit around, but grannies can put fresh foods into jars, so we have tasty food later on.”

“Oooooh,” several voices let out.

“That’s a good idea,” said Mrs. Clemens as she thought about it. “We can get a canning line going. Fruits, vegetables, and meats for jerky, as well as buying cans. We’ll need to empty the region of jars and ingredients, but I’ll call around and see if we can get that going. It’s also a good idea to get community involvement so people feel more committed to doing this.”

The teenage boys stared at her, completely clueless as to what was being talked about.

“Cars,” Mr. Clemens repeated. “We need spare vehicles and parts for them, so that everyone can get where they need to go with spares. Maybe a few all-wheel drive trucks.”

“They need to be durable, fast, and easy to fix. That’ll cut out a lot of the modern ones,” said Randall. “We should call used places. It’ll probably be a good idea to get motorcycles too. They use less gas, are easier to swap parts in, and can get more places.”

“They need to be able to survive him,” Lucas jabbed a finger at Adam who just shrugged. “Or as close as possible.”

“Don’t forget stockpiling the fluids, oils, and fuel for those too. We don’t know how long we’ll be without. I’ll contact the force’s auto-mechanic and see if he has recommendations,” said Ron.

Bedding, clothes, winter protection, paper and more were planned out. They discussed what junk they needed to get hauled into the space to allow Jordan to build what was still needed in the base. They scheduled the volunteers and who would get what. After about an hour most of the teenagers had left, leaving just the adults as well as Adam and Abbey, though they were just there to be polite and didn’t really contribute much.

When things began winding down, Jordan brought up another issue.

“Uh, boss. We don’t have access to water.”

“What?”

“Within the rift. There is no water. It can’t create something from nothing. Living spaces and working spaces require a lot of water, and we have none in here. My dreams of living here are being crushed!” Jordan bemoaned.

“Then how could we get water?” asked Adam.

“It takes a lot more water than you would realize the way our society is used to living.”

Everyone still at the table stared at Jordan. Such a simple thing that could derail all their plans using the rift.

“You only brought this up now?” asked Adam’s mom.

“I was just so excited. I was hoping that something would come up,” Jordan admitted with embarrassment.

“Then we either need to find another rift connected to water, or we need to pump it in from the outside,” Ron wondered. “Can we just hook up some city water lines to it?”

“Conceivably, however that would then introduce a way for invaders to bypass the security barriers, by following the water pipes. It would also only work as long as the city has power and control. We wouldn’t be able to weather a siege or attack. If the city’s infrastructure goes down then so would we,” Jordan explained.

“Where does the air come from?” asked Abbey, suddenly.

“Uh, I’m not sure. I would think it was allowed in by the barrier or we would eventually run out?”

“Isn’t there moisture in the air?” Abbey continued.

“Well sure, but if we alter the structure of the air to remove the water using the rift then we wouldn’t be able to use it.” Jordan’s face was scrunched up, trying to follow where Abbey was taking him. She seemed very calm about it all.

“Aren’t there machines that can do it? Just build better versions of them to be kept in the rift, and then draw in more air through the barrier to prevent it from getting too dry. That way it's the machine doing the work and we don’t need to directly manipulate the air.”

“Hmm…give me a minute…” Jordan started pressing hurriedly on the screen in front of him. Those still there either chatting or watched him, waiting patiently. About seven minutes later Jordan jumped out of his seat with a cry and fist pump.

“Yes! It looks like we can build something to generate a lot of water from the air, almost a super powered distillery combined with an air compressor. I found it in the…well I can’t read the alien description, but it almost looks like it’s from the alcohol section. There were plans for a similar but smaller version in the earth section, and then options to upgrade it with [System] technology. Sweet! Thanks, Abbey! We can also purify water more easily if we can capture a rift that has a water source attached. The water doesn’t have to start out as clean, since we can absorb any organic material in it and then build some [System] filtering devices.”

“Make sure to get on that. I’m sure you aren’t the only one looking forward to moving in,” said Adam.

“Are you planning on moving tonight, son?” asked Adam’s dad.

“No,” answered Adam. “I’ll take it day by day. We still have a few days, and wherever our family is that’s where my home is.” Adam’s mom gave him a smile, and Abbey squeezed his hand in affection. The world might be coming to an end, but Adam wanted at least some normal to remain.