Apocalypse Redux

Chapter 249: Summit

“… And then he asked me if I’d really never made a mistake,” Isaac grumbled.

“What did you tell him?” Amy asked.

“I told him that everyone makes mistakes, and anyone who claims otherwise is lying, delusional, or stupid. So yes, I’d made mistakes, but I’d never made the same one twice. And, in fact, one mistake I wasn’t going to repeat was giving him another chance to argue at me. And then I left,” Isaac said.

“Wow, I did not think you had that in you,” Amy observed, “You normally only insult people who you’ll never have to interact with again, when it comes to important people, you normally save the swearwords until afterward.”

“Politeness is important and will get a lot further than you’d think, but being a doormat will get you absolutely nowhere,” Isaac shrugged, “And I’ll call him out for being a militaristic hardliner as many times as I have to before he either smartens up or sends someone more reasonable to deal with me.”

“I mean, he did have a point. You’re pretty agreeable for a person with the firepower of an entire army, but not every S-Ranker is. A proper framework for high-Level intervention would be really useful. Hell, it’s probably vital,” Karl cautiously suggested.

“Oh, I know,” Isaac said, “But he’s the wrong person to create that framework. He’s a stubborn bonehead who hates how the world has changed. He might have adapted his abilities to the new reality, but his mindset is still stuck in the past. Seriously, is there anyone worse at their job than a general who can’t adapt to modern warfare?”

“A doctor who disrespects or ignores nurses,” Amy suggested.

“Yeah, I don’t care how rude my doctor is to me as long as he’s a good one. If I see a doctor being rude to a nurse, I know it’s time to run,” Schultz agreed, “I mean, it might just be like that in the military, but in my experience, the more experienced a doctor is, the gruffer they get.”

“Eh, it’s the same with the police. Any doctor who regularly deals with the police and doesn’t look like they’re preparing to tear your head off if they learn you’ve been acting like an idiot while injured … you know they’ve got to be new,” Müller added.

“Honestly, I think that’s all doctors who deal with people who are injury-prone,” Bailey added, “Gabriel’s a big guy working in a historic building from a time when people were smaller, and it took him an embarrassingly long time to learn to duck. Our doctor wasn’t polite for very long.”

“To be fair, when GSG-9 bothers its doctors or medics outside of actual deployments, it usually over something dumb,” Müller admitted, “You know, walking into doors, falling down stairs, twisted ankles, that sort of thing. We all like to pretend like members of one of the most elite police units in the world don’t have those little accidents, but really, we just hide it better.”

“Isaac usually uses the fact that people tripping over dead monsters causes more injuries than the actual monsters as a punchline, but when you think about it, it’s kind of pathetic how often that happens,” Bailey agreed.

“You know, I still can’t believe this is what we’re talking about,” Stein said, “Nine out of Germany’s twelve S-Rankers in one place, for the second time ever. The first time it’s just us. And that’s the topic of conversation.”

The conference room they were eating takeout in wasn’t particularly glamorous, but it was secure and the seating was comfortable.

The ones absent were Sun, who’d gone on a bar crawl, Winter, who really didn’t like being outside his mountain range and had gone back to Germany, and Braun, who’d also left, though his destination was shrouded in mystery. Almost as bad as Jason North, except with Braun, the world at least knew he existed.

Jason, on the other hand, was something of an urban myth.

“So then what should we talk about?” Müller asked, “Because some stuff is classified, we’re such a diverse group that shop talk is going to bore most of us half to death and honestly, we could all use some humor in our lives.”

“I was thinking we could talk about the future,” Stein suggested, “Dr. Thoma made a good point about regulations for S-Rankers. We need them, but the people currently pushing for them are going to make a complete mess of things. So why don’t we take a crack at it?”

“Why us, specifically?” Patrick asked.

“Variety of perspective,” Stein offered, “We’ve got representatives of both law enforcement and the military here, leading members of industry and the scientific community. And everyone evolved would be an S-Ranker, the people directly affected by the decision. So why not see if we can set reasonable rules for ourselves?”

“We should keep this hypothetical for now, but I don’t see a problem with figuring out some basic rules of engagement,” Müller said, “I’m currently operating under the directive of ’use your head’ when it comes to the really high-end abilities, and there are a million things that could go wrong there even without maliciousness.”

“What about you, Oberst Schultz?” Bailey asked.

“Calling the current state of the regulations a mess would be the understatement of the century,” Schultz said, “Basically, things make sense for a few months, then another new facet of the [System] crops up on the radar of the higher-ups and the whole thing is rewritten. I’ve been taken aside by several separate generals and reminded that, no matter how the rules or orders happen to be phrased, I’m to avoid committing any war crimes.”

“Does that really need to be said?” Patrick asked.

“Soldiers are trained until they don’t need to think, they just fall back on training. There’s no time for long consideration when you’re being shot at, that needs to become instinct by the time you’re deployed. And one of the things you’re trained to do is follow orders,” Schultz explained.

“Doesn’t the Bundeswehr have some very strong words to say about using your head while obeying orders, and ignoring illegal ones?” Müller asked, “I might be misremembering, but I heard that several times during a joint training session.”

“In theory, yes, but in practice, the full consequences of obeying an order aren’t always clear. Despite my rank, I don’t have the right [Class] to properly keep a top-level overview in the middle of combat,” Schultz explained, “I’m supposed to keep that in mind permanently. ‘Don’t commit any war crimes’, like that ever needed to be said. The real problem is that no one is entirely sure just what constitutes a war crime with my power.

“Is summoning a storm anywhere near an inhabited area a warcrime? What if a crop field gets drowned? Do I have to keep track of every nearby body of water and where they empty out? What if a random bolt of lighting starts a forest fire?”

“I’d guess it’ll take another century to settle all of the legal issues caused by the [System],” Isaac said, pausing briefly for effect, “ A century after we’ve discovered the maximum Level, I mean.”

“Speaking of [System] issues, have you been to the Oktoberfest since the initialization?” Müller asked, “It’s a complete and total zoo. The owners of the big tents all have [Skills] to allow people to get drunk, which causes no end of trouble. Thankfully, those [Skills] deactivate when people are in danger or about to fight, but that doesn’t seem to help much.

“People are drunk for the first time in ages, having fun, then someone bumps into them, fight or flight activates, and boom, they’re sober again. You’d think they’d be smarter sober, but according to a colleague who worked there last year, people just get mad about the wasted booze and things go downhill from there.”

“Oh gods,” Isaac muttered, “My sisters have been begging me to take them this year, that’s not happening, I’m not putting myself through that. I’ll take them to Disneyland or something instead.

“Anyway, as far as the regulations for S-Rankers go, I’ve actually been thinking about that for a while,” Isaac announced, pulling a folder from his storage, “If we ever gain the ability to beat any and all summonable monsters, people will go right back to killing each other.”

“Every person will do that, why are we only talking about S-Rankers?” Patrick asked.

“Because making sure that everyone doesn’t act like an idiot is impossible, people commit crimes all the time. And most people can’t level cities with a wave of their hand,” Amy pointed out “By making sure the single most destructive individuals behave, we can massively decrease the potential for carnage.”

“Basically, my idea was to make it so that S-Rankers aren’t allowed to pick fights in cities. Self-defense or defense of others is fine, but no S-Rankers are allowed to act as aggressors. And if a fight does break out, they have to take it outside of city limits if they can do so without endangering themselves. If we can enforce that, we’ll have gotten a hell of a lot closer,” Isaac explained.

“What about police actions?” Müller asked, “It seems like something that would cause serious trouble when it comes to law enforcement.”

“There would obviously have to be some allowances made,” Isaac said, “The real issue is that we need to somehow put that into a workable treaty and then actually have people sign it.”

“Making people sign is easy, cities could pass laws about how no walking WMD is allowed in without promising to not pick fights,” Müller pointed out.

“The real problem is going to be finding the right wording,” Stein said, “I’m no lawyer, but I’ve worked with a lot of them over the years.

“The basic idea seems to be ‘don’t start any fights, directly or by provoking others into throwing the first punch’. But that’s just easy to say, we’re going to have the devil’s time writing that into law. For example, what if someone doesn’t like you and tells you they’re going to punch you the next time you walk by their house, does walking on a certain sidewalk count as provocation?”

“Let’s just do a brainstorming session first,” Bailey suggested, “None of us are involved in legislature or have any experience in legal matters. If we can figure out workable rules that can stand the test of time, then someone else can turn them into something workable.”

“We’ll definitely need some allowance for pre-emptive attacks. If someone is charging up a big spell or evidently preparing to unleash a cooldown [Skill], you shouldn’t have to wait until they use it to be able to defend yourself,” Schultz said.

“That opens up a whole new can of worms. ‘I thought he was about to attack me’ would become the number one excuse for murder.” Bailey pointed out.

“Truth spells,” Amy suggested.

“When it comes to something as subjective as feeling threatened, those can be pretty unreliable,” Isaac pointed out.

And things only went downhill from there. By the time the discussion ended, several hours later, he’d gained countless ideas but anything even semi-concrete he’d had up until now had been obliterated.