Chương 79: 77: The Rule of Law

Nat wanted to know why I was asking about monsters. I had bad news for her.

"It's a game called choose your poison," I told her.

"I'm asking about monsters because the monsters come out of rifts. Not the mana-crazed creatures, not the snake. Those are earth animals being changed by mana. But those scaled birds and the shadow creatures, they came out of rifts. And now you've got to go into the rifts and fight them there." Nat blinked at me.

"No fucking way. Are you insane?"

"Yeah, actually. Technically. But that's not the point."

"We have this nice safe enclave. Right?" She turned to Emma.

"Isn't that the point? A safe place that no monsters can enter." Emma was staring into space.

"It's like the scenario, isn't it?"

"Um…" I wasn't sure what she was asking. No, it wasn't like the scenario. Time was passing and death was permanent.

"We can't just hide," she said.

"If we don't fight, we lose. Maybe we die slower, but we still die."

"Bingo." I shot her with a finger gun. She glared at me, but then her gaze softened and she rolled her eyes.

"Have I mentioned that I'm glad you're here? And not just because of all that XP?"

"Oh, just wait. It gets better."

"It gets better than intentionally hunting monsters?" Nat squawked.

"That's a goddamn low bar. Em, you can't be taking this seriously. They gave you an enclave so you could stay safe and save people."

"I don't think that's why they gave me an enclave. But it solves both problems, doesn't it?" Emma looked to me for confirmation. I nodded, but Nat still objected.

"What problems? The problems she's said we have?" She waved a dismissive hand at me.

"Our problems are food. Baby formula. Clean water and beds. Injured people and too many kids without their parents. We need resources."

"We need System credits," Emma corrected her.

"Which we can get by—""Killing monsters," I finished for her.

"In rifts. Instead of waiting for them to come to you, you go to them. Which means you control the terms. You meet them prepared and with the right people instead of letting them show up when you're sleeping." Can I just pause for a minute and tell you how ridiculous my words sounded in my own ears? I was strategizing about fighting monsters! This wasn't me. My life was work and dogs, hiking, nature, books, art. But five days had changed a lot, and not just in the world.

"And we get levels, which means enclave progress, which means opening up more of the locked features on that thing." Emma jerked her chin at the plinth below the golden window.

"That's the enclave core?" I asked, although the answer was obvious. Emma nodded.

"Anyone can access the info panels on the ground floor, but that's the owner's console. Administrator's console," she added the last words as if self-correcting. Nat made a scoffing noise.

"You can skip the bullshit now, since you kicked out the entire town council." Emma chuckled, although without much humor.

"They—well, the mayor, mostly—objected to me calling myself the 'owner' of the enclave. She wanted me to say 'administrator.' No big deal, but…" She scowled and rubbed her temples.

"Some of that conversation feels really fuzzy."

"That was probably whatever spell she was using on you."

"Spells," Nat snorted.

"Abilities, maybe? But her class was Mind Mage, so, you know." I shrugged.

"Mages cast spells. That's what makes them mages." Emma leaned forward.

"Is there a way to protect against—" But before she could finish her thought, light footsteps sounded on the ramp, moving fast, and a breathless kid appeared on the landing.

"There's people at the gate, John sent me to get you," he said, gasping for air.

"The mayor and the police chief and somebody from the sheriff's department. And Mr. Patterson from the council. They've got papers."

"Papers," Emma said flatly. She exchanged looks with Nat.

"What do you think? A warrant for my arrest?"

"For the crime of not doing what the mayor wants?" Nat tilted her head back and groaned.

"I guess we should go see what they want," Emma said with a sigh. The kid rested his hands on his knees, breathing hard, then straightened, putting a hand on his chest.

"You should tell 'em to fuck off."

"Declan!" Emma stood and started moving toward the door, giving the kid a light swat on the head as she reached him.

"If your mom heard you, she'd tell me to wash your mouth out with soap."

"Child abuse," he retorted with a grin.

"Big words." Nat stood too and began following Emma.

"Coming?" she said over her shoulder to me. This was going to be so stupid. What could the mayor possibly think she was going to accomplish? Reluctantly, I pushed my chair back from the table. People noticed our movement in the way that scared, wary, worried people notice change, and by the time we reached the gate, we had a small crowd with us. I hadn't looked behind me when I entered the enclave.

If I had, I would have realized that an enclave gate—assuming this one was typical—was a lot more pretentious than a rift gate. Like every American, and probably plenty of the rest of the world's population, when I hear "golden arches," I think McDonalds. So let's call this a golden archway instead. Stolen content warning: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences. The shimmer in the middle of the arch, showing the sights on the other side, was exactly like a rift shimmer.

But the arch was about three people wide, two people high—big enough that both a giraffe and an elephant could have walked through, although maybe not at the same time. The shimmer was framed with fancy golden filigree on both sides and overhead. It looked like an Art Nouveau Paris Metro sign, except gold and gaudy. Emma paused at the shimmer, contemplating the scene on the other side. In an undertone, she pointed people out to me, naming the ones I hadn't seen before.

The burly guy in the blue uniform was the police chief; the three guys in tan uniforms were members of the Sheriff's department. She didn't know the guy wearing a suit, but nothing radiated "lawyer" more than dressing in a navy blue tie and a pressed white button-down during the apocalypse. Had he gone home and gotten dressed for this occasion? Of course, the System had actually arrived only five days ago. It made sense that some people hadn't gotten the memo yet.

The middle-aged woman standing, arms crossed, right in front of the shimmer, clearly belonged to the enclave, and so did the young, uniformed cop speaking earnestly to the police chief. We couldn't hear their conversation, but from the expression on his face, he was being confronted with unpleasant choices.

"What do we think this is?" I asked before Emma could enter the gate.

"A reality check," Emma said grimly.

"For them." She stepped through the shimmer without waiting for my reply. I glanced back at the angel hovering in front of the enclave core building. [Flag of Truce] had a 12-hour cooldown, so I wouldn't be using it again anytime soon. Not that I thought I needed it. We were all civilized people going to behave in civilized ways. Right? Right. Nat was right behind Emma. I followed, but stepping into the shimmer brought up my list of destination options.

I chose to exit the enclave and joined them outside a moment later. It was cooler in actual New Jersey. The enclave must have some kind of temperature control. The inside had felt like a perfectly pleasant 68 degrees, but on the outside it felt more like mid-50s. Yes, I shivered. No, I hadn't thought to wear a jacket. A Floridian in October never expects the weather to be chilly. It's just unnatural.

Obviously, I was going to have to get over that instinct if I kept using rifts as my personal private jet equivalent. Rosalyn Guilford's demeanor still held the smooth warmth that didn't touch her eyes. She was busy being contrite and charming to Emma, apologetic for the misunderstandings. New experiences, new abilities, no intent to harm, blah-blah-blah. I tuned her out as I used [Analyze] on the people surrounding her. The police chief was a Level 2 Warrior, which seemed borderline pathetic.

What had he been doing with his time that the System hadn't been rewarding him with more experience? The lawyer was worse: still Unknown, which meant he hadn't been doing a thing. The three guys from the sheriff's office were slightly better off: a Ranger at Level 4 and two Fighters at Level 3. Nothing special, but at least it meant they'd been defending people against monsters. Emma's gate guards were a Level 4 Archer (the woman) and a Level 3 Shield (the young cop).

That last class was one I hadn't seen before, so I kept [Analyze] running until the tooltip opened up. Shield (Uncommon): Your first instinct is to protect. You don't fight for glory, but to save those in trouble. Adorable. He'd gotten the St. Bernard class. I tuned back into the conversation just as voices rose. It was the police chief who was losing his cool, which seemed both typical and like a sign that he probably wasn't all that good at his job.

In my experience, yelling at people was only a useful interpersonal strategy for bullies who knew they could get away with bullying. Nat poked my upper arm.

"Yo, maybe pull out that angel again?" she said quietly. I shook my head.

"Can't. It's in time-out." But I stepped forward until I was right next to Emma, and cocked my head to the side, a polite smile on my face, as if I actually cared what they had to say.

"This is not your property," the police chief sputtered.

"You are on land belonging to the township, and you need to remove yourself immediately. You have no legal right to occupy, operate, or restrict access to this building or the surrounding land. You are required to vacate these premises. Now." The lawyer coughed.

"Within the required notice period. Forty-eight hours."

"The System established this enclave, and made me the owner." Emma didn't step back, despite the man practically spitting in her face. She must be experiencing the same dissonance that I was. As an EMT, she'd undoubtedly dealt with some crazy shit at her job, but women in situations with the potential to turn violent—women confronting screaming bullies who outweighed them by a hundred pounds—were used to mentally running their own personal threat assessment calculator.

I'd learned mine with the stepfather my mother had brought home when I was eight, developed it more in adolescence, fine-tuned it in jail. Mine was a carefully calibrated equation generator, always weighing the odds, options, and escape routes. It felt broken now.

"The System," the lawyer said carefully, "is not a recognized legal authority in Burlington County. Or in the State of New Jersey. Or, to our knowledge, anywhere."

"Oh, you should tell it that," I said almost involuntarily.

"And you are?" he said to me.

"Olivia Thorne," I responded easily. He didn't have any gray mana to pull away from his brain, so he must just be an idiot naturally.

"Well, Miss Thorne, I'm sure you understand that the rule of law has not been suspended simply because of some unusual events."

"Why would you think I understand that? It seems to me that's exactly what's happened." I gestured toward the police chief.

"How many people have died on his watch in the past five days? And yet instead of investigating their deaths, finding the guilty parties, bringing them to justice, he's here arguing about a property dispute? Trying to take a safe place away from traumatized children? Explain to me how that's the rule of law, please." The System had obviously done something to my brain. Maybe it was all those extra points of Intelligence, or the almost ridiculous number of points in Will.

But challenging the police chief's competence, practically to his face, felt natural instead of dangerous. The lawyer looked taken aback by my vehemence, but the police chief went ballistic. He turned his attention from Emma to me, his face going from a heated pink to a furious red. He stepped toward me, closing the distance between us in a way that was clearly meant to be intimidating. Just like Emma, I stood my ground, my gaze unblinking.

"How dare you impugn the integrity of my department's work?" he raged.

"You come in here, some random nobody from God knows where, and you think you can just—just—" He was waving his index finger in my face, the scolding gesture of the paternalist in power.

"You have no authority here. None. You are interfering with township business. Keep it up and I will arrest you on the spot. You can spend a few nights in jail and see how that kind of disrespect serves you there." I was aware, at the edges of my vision, of the crowd shifting. The sheriff's deputies were shifting uneasily, glancing between one another with the worried expressions of men who weren't quite sure what they ought to be doing. The lawyer had taken a small, careful step backward.

Even the mayor had retreated half a pace. Emma's Shield—the uniformed cop who'd been guarding the enclave gate—looked horrified. He started to step forward, his mouth opening to say something, but Emma put a hand on his arm, stopping him, and he fell back.

"Disrespect?" I said.

"Do you think your behavior in these circumstances has been worthy of respect?" Talking back to a bully in uniform was an incredible rush. Definitely some adrenaline, but mostly, it felt like freedom. I felt freer than I ever had in my life. Well, except maybe when I was a little kid, riding my bike on my own for the first time. But you know, freer than I'd ever felt as an adult. Not because the rules didn't apply to me. I really wasn't going to go all Murder Hobo on this guy's ass.

But because I could speak up in the face of authoritarian bullshit and I could back up my words if I needed to.

"That's it." The police chief's finger jabbed forward and connected with my collarbone.

"Touch me like that again," I said, voice completely calm, "and I will break that finger." He stared at me.

"Did you just—" His face went from red to purple.

"You just threatened a police officer." His hand went to his holster. I almost pulled out Warden's Edge. Instead, I reached for his holster, too. I caught his wrist before the gun cleared it, applied enough pressure that I could almost feel the cracking bones, and before he had time to do more than take a gasping breath, I plucked the gun out of his hand. I looked at it for a moment, then opened my companion pouch and dropped it in.

"You can have it back," I said, "when you're ready to behave like an adult."