CHAPTER 60: Meetings

Meetings. Adam had heard both his parents complain about meetings before. He had heard his parent’s friends complain about meetings. Heck, he had heard neighbors, grocery shoppers, sports announcers, and even garbage men complain about meetings.

Being a teenager and spending so much time in class, he had assumed meetings were like that. Unfortunately, that wasn’t the reality that Adam found as he sat through a full day of meetings. Now Adam knew that civilization was both made possible by, and destroyed by, meetings. A new hate had grown in Adam, one not created by soul corruption. Fortunately, his new hate of meetings did not trigger his heat or river, so no one was in danger of dying.

Having to sit still as he listened to opinions and request, facts and figures, explanations of progress and so many people’s names, it was all antithetical to Adam’s naturally apathetic nature. It was why Adam didn’t want to go to college and become some kind of corporate worker. Hunting invaders was much less unpleasant. A memory of losing his arm and fingers flashed through his consciousness, as if in warning. Yeah, much better than so many meetings.

CONQUER! Adam’s soul screamed. He wondered how many meetings the invaders had to sit through or were they societies where the strong spoke and everyone else rushed to accommodate.

The morning had been filled with meetings led by his mom, a police supply officer, someone from the mayor’s office, and several of the volunteers. They brought in person after person to get updates on supply gathering, evacuation preparation, distribution centers, crowd management, and much more.

It was way more than Adam could pay attention to. Fortunately, Mr. Rhodes had stopped by early to let Adam know he would be retrieving his sons from college, and that their family would be staying in the building should he need their help. Apparently, Tom’s mom was a nurse and wanted to level so she could get more healing spells and mana to ensure she was of help in any upcoming conflict.

Mr. Rhodes gave Adam some advice when he saw how awkward Adam looked, sitting around listening to and responding to the adults in the room. All Adam needed to do was sit there and look imperious, according to Mr. Rhodes. No one was expecting him to answer the questions or come up with solutions. His job was to keep people, and enemies, under control. Sitting still and looking menacing would make people more comfortable. Letting them know that he was doing his job would allow them to focus on their own.

In business negotiations when the higher ups attended, this was the normal behavior. Setting themselves above the others in the room established a clear chain of command and showed that what people were doing mattered to all levels of management. Mr. Rhodes assured Adam that he could still be polite and friendly but to make sure he spoke as little as possible. He was now The General and people would appreciate it if he played the part. No one wanted a friendly, inexperienced teenager. They wanted the safety that only The General and his Army could provide.

The advice had definitely helped. In his first meeting, before the advice, when he had tried to participate, the attendees had left looking more nervous than when they shown up. In the following meetings people would throw glances at his haughty stare with trepidation, but always seemed much more relaxed when they left. No one even seemed to mind that he was in a raised throne. A few people even complimented him on the designs, leaving Adam stunned inside.

After five hours of those meetings, Adam was brought tons of food and drinks by the policeman Brett. Apparently, he had received assistant status, though he never complained. He brought in some pasta and Mexican dishes for everyone, five times as much for Adam, and then jugs of juice. Everyone seemed to have their role.

The early afternoon meetings featured Colonel Davian and several of his logistics officers, along with city planners from the mayor’s office reviewing city maps to see where the best places to defend against outside forces would be. They also discussed what should be done if the forces suddenly appeared in the midst of populated areas. Adam paid more attention to those but still held back opinions.

Adam assumed all the plans from this meeting would be useless, that the main point of it was getting to know the layout of the city better as well as the people they would be working with. It was like playing board games. With the abilities the invaders could have, any information shared outside this room would immediately be known to them. Announcing “what to do” procedures to the populous would show the invaders how to best use them.

It was nice to see the Colonel playing the part though. After talking with General Gervin last night, Adam didn’t get the feeling that the military was going to take his advice. It just reinforced to Adam that Jackson was on its own, though it did increase his appreciation for all the people and businesses locally who were preparing.

There were even thousands of people who had come for, or since, the fight challenges who were pitching in, hoping to find safety for themselves and their families under the Sentinel Army. The population of the city of Jackson was almost 70,000 people. With the outside suburbs and regional residencies, it would get significantly larger.

The late afternoon meetings included discussions of how to accommodate the increasingly large numbers of visitors arriving, with even more expected. They were really pumping resources into the base so Jordan could make more and more living facilities for residence and visitors.

On a side, Jordan had created a fun looking tree fort area for kids to play in. It had tree houses, bridges, slides, swings, climbing areas, rope nets, ladders, and playgrounds. During some of the more boring meetings Adam had secretly watched adults play on it while they took breaks. He planned to hit it up in the nighttime.

Before Colonel Davian had left his meeting, he commented to Adam that Gervin had done what he could, and some reinforcements would be arriving the next day. Adam’s mom, seeing Adam in distress during the meetings, also suggested that during the next day he take some of the soldiers to clear the final invader base hidden in the mall. It clearly hurt her to suggest Adam go into a dangerous situation, and he loved her for caring enough about him to encourage the outing.

The rest of his group had split into pairs and were leading groups of about 20 police and civilians who were at level 0 to grind the mutated wildlife. Nothing they had encountered yet would stand up to his group, so they were mostly there to power level the newbs and keep them safe. Those who had reached level 5 or higher were grouping into parties of five to check out areas that hadn’t been visited yet for their own levels and scouting.

The groups were coming back every few hours, with the Sentinel Army quickly heading out with another group of newbs. Getting two levels in that time for those at level 0 was pretty solid work. Adam’s group had leveled faster because they had fought thousands at a time. Getting a few hundred people to level 5 in the next few days wasn’t going to be enough, but it was a good start. As long as the Sentinel Army could hold up against any initial attacks, the rest would be able to build up.

***

Blasted meetings and blasted opinions, thought General Gervin. He hadn’t slept since talking with that boy. To have a child hack their secure lines had been unthinkable. So unthinkable that no one he had spoken to believed him. One of the leading ranks in the country and he had to convince people to follow his orders about security. They said if he couldn’t demonstrate it happening then it was probably something different.

The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

The boy…Adam…Gervin corrected himself so as not to dismiss him and the intel that he brought, had really provided him with a lot more information. None of it led to good things. If they had months to review it and everyone immediately believed it, then maybe they could have acted on it usefully. Five days was not enough for all the people involved to accept it and act.

He completely understood why Adam was being so grabby with all the technology. His freedom with knowledge was admirable, and Gervin was beginning to think hording the technology was admirable too. Wanting technicians to come to him instead of giving out the tech. Not handing anything to the police, FBI, and army. If the threats mentioned were credible then it was good that someone resistant held on to them. Even more than that was how these bureaucrats and analysts that Gervin spent all night talking to would have learned nothing from it before it was too late.

Adam wasn’t just hoarding the technology; he was trying to gain as many useful people as possible to horde. Dangling protection had actually worked, as the techs that Gervin had approached volunteered like crazy as soon as they heard their families were encouraged to join them. Several of them even mentioned that their kids were excited to meet these teen heroes and buy their merchandise.

While the meetings had gone poorly, and the upper levels of intelligence and military agencies had been dismissive of what The General provided, suggesting he just copied it from video game strategy guides, the common soldiers were much more excited to join a Jackson expedition. Teenage kids even more so.

Gervin’s own family was unwilling to make the trip. They had spent their whole lives listening to General Gervin extol the praises of the strongest force on Earth. To now be told it was doom and gloom with only a handful of teenagers prepared for it felt like a joke to them. Sure, his granddaughter wanted to go, and he wasn’t above using her to pressure his son, but it seemed unlike to end how he wanted.

In the end Gervin ordered his wife to go to Jackson, TN, with a message sent to Colonel Davian to make sure she was taken care of. She didn’t want to leave him, but Gervin had his duty to his country and men. If things went bad he would be a target and his time too occupied to spend with his wife. It took some arguing but eventually she understood and agreed to go.

Yet still, meeting after meeting. Meetings with other generals, admirals, intelligence leaders, homeland security, and friends he had in other countries ended with the usual, “We’ll review the information and get back to you.”

Five days sure wasn’t going to be enough.

Fortunately, this wasn’t Gervin’s first rodeo. He couldn’t just order troops to a location with no military value. Especially with everyone on high alert. Instead, he organized a series of civilian protection Readiness Drills. He set them up in various states. They would last three days. Plenty of time for the troops to be back to their bases before the [System] invasion date.

The trick was making it so their travel brought them to, or through, Jackson just before the invasions happened. He had commanders he trusted set Jackson as an official evacuation zone, so if nearby military installations are compromised, that was where they would go to await orders.

In the end it was tricks and obscuring what his intentions were. The same drills would be run in many states, but General Gervin hoped to amass as much force as he could. If this wasn’t about America’s Army vs another army, but about humanity vs everything else, then he was hoping Adam Clemens really gave them a shot. If the intel was true, he was already pulling off miracles, and Gervin would like to see those miracles continue. Humanity needed all the advantages it could get.

Gervin let out another loud sigh and then chugged a black coffee. It was almost nighttime again and he still had four meetings to go before grabbing a nap. What he wouldn’t give for his own superpowers. Including ones that allowed victory in meetings.

***

The meetings were done for the day and Adam’s brain was toast. He felt like he had been cramming for a test all night only to find out he had studied the wrong subject. Since his group wasn’t back from their hunting trips yet, Adam decided to explore the residential floors. So far, he had only been in his own floor since his friends tended to come to him since the [System] arrived.

He walked through the various floors while letting himself in to empty units to check out the different sizes and arrangements. Jordan had been right, they were luxurious. It wasn’t difficult for him to get anywhere he wanted to, since he was the owner of the Rift, and could bring up the menu which included opening (or removing) doors.

Sometimes Adam felt like Jordan was given too much leeway, doing whatever he wanted in his own obsessions to play what seemed to him like a city building game. There hadn’t been anyone else to do it and Adam's group was needed for other things, so they never really put a limit on Jordan. Fortunately, it had all gone right so far, and this building was amazing, especially considering it had been built to this level of detail in one night.

The last two weeks had been crazy busy. Even when people weren’t physically around Adam, he always had things he had to think or worry about. Right now, he set all that away as he took his leisure walk through his own building.

There were signs of people living in the units but the hallways were pristine. The Rift kept things even cleaner than constant janitorial and service staff, which as a lazy teenager Adam could very much appreciate.

The seventh and sixth floors were for families, with four units per floor. He noticed that all the units were empty on floor seven with three taken on floor six. His family had taken one of the units, so he assumed they had gotten a larger unit on the sixth floor. Never did he think to check the living arrangements until just that moment.

As he came out of the stairwell door on the sixth floor he heard an elevator open. That was followed by a high pitch shriek. Out of habit he grabbed a knife from his belt and got into a fighting stance while turning.

Adam knew he was dense. He knew he was unobservant and disinterested in most situations. There was also no feeling in him that he was better than anyone else or special. He wanted to kill invaders. He did kill invaders. Others could kill them too if they tried. Nothing special about him.

Seeing a 14-year-old girl pointing and squealing at him made him wonder for the first time if other people thought of him differently. She was fanning herself and bouncing up and down like she had just met her favorite boy-band. Weird, Adam thought, since it was a girl walking through his halls, in his building, contained in his invader Rift. Is it so weird to run into him?

“Ohmygoshohmygoshohmygosh! You are HIM, aren’t you?” The girl demanded, mid freak out.

Adam looked down at himself. For once he was fully clothed, since his mom wanted him to look respectable in dress slacks and a button-down shirt. She had even styled his hair before the first meeting of the morning, though 10 hours of meetings ruin any semblance of a hairstyle. If he had to guess, he didn’t even look like the guy in any of the videos.

“Are you alright?” he asked, unsure of how to respond.

“You ARE him, right?” The girl demanded.

“Maybe? I’m Adam. I was just walking around my building.”

“Wowowow. Are you really as strong as in the videos?” She was creeping closer to him. Adam was feeling very awkward.

He shrugged in reply. “Probably stronger. I’ve never actually used my full strength. Plus, I’m stronger when I get angrier.”

“That’s just like the hulk!” she gasped. “Though you are better looking.”

“I’m also not computer generated,” he said sarcastically. He looked over his shoulder, wondering if it would be worth running for the stairs.

“Can you show me?”

Adam looked around but there was nothing heavy to pick up. “Can’t in this hallway.”

“Can you pick me up?”

“I probably could have done that before the [System]. You aren’t very big. By the way, who are you?”

“I’m Julie,” she beamed, not helping him identify her. She was getting more brazen as she finally reached him and then started poking his arm. “C’mon! You have to meet my mom and grandma.”

Generally, Adam got along better with grandmothers than mothers. Julie had an easy time pulling him along as he desperately tried to remember who in his group had a younger sister. Was it Tom’s family? Or Randall? He assumed Randall’s sisters were older since he said they bullied him. It would also be weird if Randall invited his family to live here. Tom’s sisters were supposed to be cute and polite.

Before he knew it, he was in front of a door with Julie hanging on his arm. Julie flung the door open without letting go of him and pulled him past the entryway, and into the combined living room / dining room. A beautiful wooden table that complimented the relaxing decor was being set for dinner and Adam saw quite a few women around it. Two women looked college aged, and one was setting a child in a highchair. There was a woman, most likely the mother, probably in her upper 40s, in the open kitchen putting food on plates, and the grandmother was carrying the plates to the table.

“Everyone! Look who I met!” Julie shouted in joy. Four sets of eyes snapped to him. For the first time in a while Adam was intimidated. Then he realized who they were.

“Oh! You’re Andrea’s family!” Adam said with relief. He felt regret quickly after he said that.

“And you are the boy who is marrying my daughter,” Mrs. Fritz said. That didn’t sound like a question.

“The loose boy who doesn’t think Andrea is good enough on her own,” Grandma Fritz jabbed.

Adam swallowed hard, knowing this would be the most difficult meeting of the day.