Chapter 8: Please Cooperate
The sound of vehicles distracted the soldiers from their interrogation, and Kalli watched as an entire convoy of supply trucks rolled in, loaded with soldiers and gear.
"Take the front field, set up the command centre. Reinforce the walls, I want men in the towers there and there. Three per tower, overlapping fields of fire. Team two, you’re on gate repair. Team three, cleanse the academy. Team four, start the inventory," the leader of the convoy announced over his truck’s loudspeaker.
The officer next to them cursed quietly.
"You’ve been outranked and made redundant, haven’t you?" Kalli asked.
"It appears so. For your own sakes, please cooperate with the operation."
Kalli nodded, and the officer retreated as a group of special forces soldiers in much more elaborate gear than the first batch came jogging over.
"Good, it seems that we’ve found the rumoured heroes. Is this all of you?"
Everyone shifted so they were standing behind Kalli, including Yara, who winked at her as she retreated.
"I guess I’m the spokesperson. We’re the only ones I know of that are currently in the Academy. Most of the other students left the grounds after the incident. Presumably, they were returning to their families."
The soldier nodded and took out a notepad. "Which class are you? And how many casualties?"
"Class 1A, no casualties."
The soldier actually looked impressed. "No casualties at all? And your whole class got powers?"
Kalli nodded. "At least some sort of powers. We didn’t all get the same thing, you see."
"Yes, we observed that among the general population.
Outside the Academy, the awakening rate is estimated to be roughly one in ten thousand. The abilities that each of the chosen was granted varied. Unfortunately, many of them did not make it through the incident, and we only learned of the situation secondhand from survivors."
Now they were actually getting some answers.
"So, there are hundreds of others within the city?" Reggie asked eagerly.
"There were hundreds in the city. How many remain is unclear. What is clear is that whatever those things were, they are far more dangerous than anything that we’ve seen on this world before.
Some of them took hundreds of shots from infantry, or the deployment of heavy artillery to take down, when they died to only a few skills from the awakened."
Kalli nodded. "It might have to do with the weapons as well. We all got something from a starting box, and I suspect that it does extra damage to whatever those things were. We barricaded our classroom door and waited out the invasion, following the instructions on the walls of the Academy.
That might not make sense to anyone else."
The soldier chuckled. "The messages were everywhere. Not always the same, but from what I understand, everyone in the world got a message that the world was ending tomorrow.
Not everywhere got an early attack."
Kalli nodded. "Alright, that makes sense. But what are you going to do next? I mean, if shooting them barely works, it’s basically up to us, right?"
A few of the students let out a soft, mocking laugh. It was up to them. Because Kalli had no combat skills.
"We’re broadcasting on every frequency we have available, including the local television stations. Advising everyone to shelter in place, stockpile food, and for the students from the Academy to return here for safety."
"Wow, talk about monumentally bad decisions," Kalli joked.
"What do you mean?"
"You not only incited hoarding and panic among the survivors, you also told them there is a government safe zone at the Academy?"
"We needed to get the others with powers here. We clearly informed them that anyone with powers would receive assistance and shelter here."
Kalli turned back to her class, who had the same disbelieving looks that she did.
This guy couldn’t be serious.
And if he was, then the plan was literally to let everyone else fight each other to their deaths, while those with power set up their own fiefdoms in the ruins.
No, that was almost definitely the plan.
Not many trusted the government enough to come to them for shelter. Instead, using their newfound powers to kill monsters, they would fortify something like an apartment block, hoard food, and make it their own private kingdom now that things had gone off the rails.
The Government plan wasn’t to stabilize society, it was to cluster the survivors in something resembling safety so that the associated government forces had a better chance of making it through the early days.
Meaning, they had no hope for what came after.
Reggie cleared his throat. "Sir, have you any word of my father?"
The soldier frowned and nodded. "Unfortunately, the invasion hit in the middle of a press conference. The Mayor and his entourage were overrun before they could get to shelter."
Reggie looked somewhere between shocked and shattered, his whole world crumbling down around him with that one response. He was someone because his father was Mayor, and had been for many years. Without that, without the luxury and wealth, what was he?
A newly awakened warrior, at the end of the world.
The responses were beginning to shake the comfortable delusion that this was all some sort of simulation, an elaborate game that the senior class had devised. And with that realization, the panic was beginning to set in.
"Why don’t we all practice our skills? Even if they’re not combat skills, there is still bound to be some use for them. Starting today, everything in the world is precious, and limited quantity."
Yara leaned over to whisper to Kalli. "We should sneak out and stock up on essentials. There is a drugstore and grocery not far from here, and if it’s not totally destroyed, it will have some of the things that none of these business minded simpletons would think to stockpile.
Including medicine. I did notice that there is no proper medical facility on those trucks, and the stock in the Academy’s clinic won’t last long if we get attacked again."
"Do you know how to get out of here? I only know the main gate."
"Trust me, I know every way in and out of here. Follow me into the dorms, and I will get us out."
