Apocalypse Redux - Chapter 148: A Grim Discussion

Chapter 148: A Grim Discussion

“Should you be back at work so soon, Professor Bailey?” dean Kass asked, sounding like he hadn’t slept in three days, which was entire possibly exactly what had happened, given the situation at hand.

“I can either work, or drive myself crazy at home.” Bailey responded, sounding much better than the university’s dean, but still less well than normal “Missing this … I need to be at this table, a part of this discussion.”

In addition to Bailey and the university’s dean, there were a five other people present.

The first was a politician by the name of Martin Köstler who was peripherally involved with Germany’s efforts to adapt to the [System] and was here “to represent the interests of the voters”, which Isaac mentally translated to “I have an inflated sense of self-importance and don’t know enough to even be aware of the gaps in my knowledge”. As a member of the German parliament, the Bundestag, he did wield some measure of influence, but not nearly as much as he thought he did as he hadn’t actually been put in charge of this matter. Sure, he might act like that was how things had gone, but that was all it was. An act.

The second was someone both Bailey and Isaac had worked with in the past, though their interactions had always been brief. Oberst Gram was the second in command of Grafenwöhr, where the team always fought against the first monsters of a new Tier and had spent the second Event. As extensive as the plans they’d made had been, they’d mostly been made over Email, in person meetings had almost never taken more than a few minutes and from then on, the Oberst had been far away coordinating everything involving the military.

The third was a member of the BAU, the Federal Bureau of the Supernatural, by the name of Else Götz. She was on the administrative side of things, though, not even a member of law enforcement who’d been directly involved in a situation like the one that had necessitated this meeting.

Isaac didn’t really mind the fact that someone didn’t want to do a job that actively endangered their life, but he still wished someone else could have been sent. People without that kind of experience could have a … somewhat warped sense of such situations. This could go fine, but it could easily go awfully wrong as well, and having someone like her here increased the risk of the latter happening. Sure, politician was a far bigger risk, but everyone here knew how out of touch one of those could be. A member of law enforcement, on the other hand …

That being said, he had asked Habicht about her and he’d said she was a good egg. As it turned out, she was on the same level as him in the org-chart and they’d worked together plenty of times. This new information helped soothe Isaac’s nerves, but he was still far from calm.

The fourth person was another familiar face, Professor Bishop. He knew a lot about what the team did and the precautions they took but he wasn’t a part of it, having his own faculty to run. This combination of a high degree of insight and personal detachment meant that Cass couldn’t have wished for a better candidate to sit in.

And the fifth person, well, that was Isaac himself, wearing a proper three-piece suit for the first time in this new timeline. But it wasn’t a regular suit, oh no, that would have completely contrary to the image he was trying to project.

Like literally every other article of clothing he’d commissioned since coming to this timeline, it was armored and reduced drag when moving at high speeds, with slight visual cues that let others tell that the stuff he was wearing was functional as well as (sometimes) stylish.

It told people who he saw himself, or rather, what. A consummate professional, prepared for the unexpected even outside the workplace. Someone whose job wasn’t just, well, a job, but a part of their identity.

But even though he’d dressed to the nines for this meeting, as the others traded pleasantries, Isaac was deep in thought, replaying the last couple of days in head over and over again.

The first thing he’d done after dropping Bailey off at his apartment was visit his family, reassure himself they were safe, but he hadn’t spent much time with them, there was simply too much for him to do.

And as for his second trick, he’d damn near given the spy watching over his sisters a coronary when he’d dropped by her apartment. It would have been funny, but the situation had been far too serious. Also, she’d assured him that she’d die in their defense. Reassuring … but also slightly terrifying. Because she meant it. Somehow, the loyalty to whatever specifically it was that she was loyal to, had been applied to that to this mission.

The idea that there were things like that moving behind the scenes, the government pulling a million different strings to try and keep his loyalty … more than a little intimidating. What was worse was that none of that was happening behind the scenes, outside the public eye. This wasn’t something official, like the indefinitely extended visas Amy and Raul had received, or the offer of immigration coupled with a fantastic job offer from the Dungeon Guild he’d received from South Korea.

No, this was some real spy movie shit, where no one was acting out in the open, constantly existing in a state of unspoken quid pro quo, with the actors being secret agents and even spooks. Where nothing was written down or even properly agreed upon, just a bunch of “favors” being done for each other with repayment most likely being expected, but never defined ahead of time.

With that done, he’d turned to the task of hunting down the backers of the people who’d tried to rob the team.

He’d gone at it with all the fury burning in his chest, ready to kick some ass and crack some skulls, but that wasn’t at all how it had gone.

Instead of an orgy of fire and brimstone level revenge, one that would have gone down in the history of the criminal underworld but only been spoken off in hushed whispers for fear of becoming the next target, it had been an exercise in futility.

Sure, Isaac had sense better than any bloodhound, and knowledge of another timeline that quite often gave him a starting point where others would have had to start from zero, but that hadn’t helped him here.

This mess hadn’t happened in the other timeline, and as to why it had happened in this one, well, he knew exactly what had caused it. Greedy jackass see valuable thing. Greedy jackass try to steal valuable thing. Greedy jackass gets his ass beaten. End of story.

Soooooo he didn’t have a better starting point.

His tracking ability was also bloody useless, given that everyone involved had already been locked up and anywhere he could have backtracked their movements to had already been found and investigated by the police.

And lastly, Isaac was not an investigator, for fuck’s sake. He was a warrior.

In one timeline, he’d started out as a [Rouge], then as things had started to go bad, shifted over into a different build. One based on blood and sacrifice, or rather, making one’s opponents sacrifice themselves on the altar of your wrath. Gaining power by killing minions, leaving them dying on the ground and only killing them by triggering the curses infused into the wounds he’d inflicted, then using said curses to shunt their life force into a single powerful attack that could, given the right setup, obliterate [Raid Bosses].

In the other, he’d also started out as a [Rouge], but then grown into a more classical warrior, with a “side gig” of teacher.

Neither lent itself to doing the grunt work of investigating a crime, especially when his primary leads were money sent through a dozen different shell corporations. All he’d had was his intimate knowledge as to how deep humans could sink, and that hadn’t exactly helped.

What he had done was create a schematic of the souped up taser, taken out a few vital runes and disguising that as battle damage to prevent more of them from being built, and then sent it to Calise, asking if he could find out where the damn thing had come from.

The response?

“I got no idea where that thing came from, but I’ve got a dozen people here who want to buy them by the bucketload.”

Several people had gotten arrested for asking to buy Demon Lord Blood and/or offering money to the would-be robbers to go ahead and steal it, but that didn’t help Isaac either.

Sure, watching rich pricks who’d thought themselves untouchable get arrested was funny, given what he knew was behind it, but it didn’t help much. See, they hadn’t quite realized what a few forensic accountants and people of a similar vocation who’d been power during the last event by a certain consultant were capable of and now they had some fancy new silver jewelry, but they weren’t the direct cause of the attempted robbery. They were connected to it in ways that were direct enough to earn criminal charges, but no one had outright gone ahead and said “go steal me some [Raid Boss] gunk”.

The only big question mark left was the origin of the tasers. The maker could be the trigger puller, and even if they weren’t, those things were going to get people killed and needed to be removed from circulation. It was also the thing that he had the fewest clues for.

As for the robbers, they’d sung like canaries, but they knew fuck all. Or at least, the few things they’d known were utterly useless. There’d been a job, powerful and often enchanted tools had been provided, the tasers had been given as a bonus, no one knew who the mystery client had been.

Isaac had read every report, spied on every interrogation he could, and that had been all he’d been able to find out.

Hell, he’d even “dropped by” the prison to scare the truth out of them, but as it turned out, the “truth” was the stuff he’d already been aware of.

As for how he’d dropped by the prison without catching hell, that was actually pretty simple. He and Amy had worked in the summoning rooms, then taken a brief pause, during which she’d opened a tiny portal into the cell of the robbers’ leader, making sure to pick the camera’s dead spot.

Isaac had then used his oft-neglected illusion power to project an illusionary copy of himself into the cell, then hammered his [Aura], infused with [Death’s Embrace], into the man within.

He’d held up a few placards with pre-written questions, receiving answers in between sobs of terror and hyperventilation.

And when he’d been questioned about it, a mere couple of hours later, he’d been able to truthfully state “I’ve been here all night and never left.”. It had been a straightforward statement with no weasel words, and the officer who’d asked had had the [Skills] to know Isaac was telling the truth. That had been that.

Now, after that entire mess of frustration, he was here, having to fight for the future freedom of his research team with two politically-minded civilians, and the law enforcement representative hadn’t experienced combat. This was going to suck, no matter how necessary it was.

“… as interesting as this has been, unfortunately, we didn’t meet for the excellent pastries.” Köstler announced, the last bit of his croissant vanishing down his gullet. No surprise that he loved them, given that the maker was the cook who’d been powerlevelled by the team in the sense that they’d sent a bunch of monster meat for her to figure out how to cook. You couldn’t find better food in a Michelin star restaurant.

Isaac just sighed internally. This was already off to a bad start, given Köstler was only partially wanting to talk about the matter at hand, the career politician wanted to take this as an opportunity to network.

“Yes, let’s.” Gram responded, slightly sourly. If Isaac had read him correctly, he was simply too polite to interrupt, at least not unless the people here had stretched out the small talk to a far greater degree than they had.

Then, he pulled a sheath of paper out of his briefcase and slid it across to Bailey and Kass.

“Before we start this properly, there’s an offer the Bundeswehr would like to extend to you. In the past, we’ve worked together several times to break into new Tiers and during the last Event, and as such, it’s been suggested that you might want to move to Grafenwöhr permanently.

“We’ve got the space to build any facility you might need, the engineering corps to set up basic structures in a matter of hours, and more complex ones in a few days. The only thing that might take longer is something that requires specialized equipment that isn’t freely available, but even that shouldn’t take more than a month at the very outside.

“You’d also have a literal army available in case of containment issues, or whenever you’d like to get started on the next Tier. Your manpower here is likewise impressive, but its combat power can’t match what would be available in Grafenwöhr.

“Of course, being a military base, it would provide a degree of personal security no other place could match. Regardless of the measures you take here, this building won’t be able to match the sheer protection that are already in place at your average military base, especially one as large as this one.

“Lastly, your budget would be provided directly by the state, vastly exceeding what you have right now, but it would come with the same degree of creative freedom you have now.”

Isaac had already skimmed the folder with his [Aura], while Bailey had grabbed it and flipped through it.

On paper, it was a very good offer. And in reality, it was still a somewhat good choice.

The problem was, well, it was wrong for reasons none of the people making the offer were aware of.

Grafenwöhr was aways from Isaac’s current home, and staying here would leave him with one hell of a commute. Moving was an option, of course, but that would leave him very close to a military base, with all the security precautions that entailed nearby. Given all the summoning shenanigans he got up to back home, that could easily end up biting him in the ass.

At the very least, his current home had a vast roofed section that prevented spying from overhead and he owned enough land that no one could reasonably get close enough to spy on him directly without trespassing, at which point he could legally throw them out.

And all of that wasn’t even mentioning that no matter what Oberst Gram said, they’d still be working directly with the military and that entailed a certain degree of military discipline.

Here at the university, they’d started out with near complete freedom because no one had known how to research the [System] and by the time things had been properly set up, Bailey had proven himself capable, which had then led to him being given enough rope to hang himself with. However, he’d continued to act with caution and thoughtfulness, bringing fantastic results in the process.

In the end, the overall mentality of both the dean and his beancounters had been “let Professor Bailey do whatever he wants, and so long as he doesn’t nuke the budget, he can also get whatever he wants”. After all, it had already paid off for them in them and continued to do so.

The military was an organization that ran on discipline and a clear hierarchy, which very much at odds with how the team was run.

Also, the team often ran experiments with specifically based on Isaac’s knowledge of the other timeline, which they could easily get away with due to their relative lack of oversight. That would be something that wouldn’t work if they accepted this offer, not at all. Yet he could hardly come out and say that, could he?

Thankfully, he’d both anticipated an offer like that and talked it over with Bailey ahead of time.

“That sounds like a good solution, doesn’t it?” Köstler announced, flashing a winning smile to the rest of the people at the table “More resources, a vast area for summoning already fully geared to blow monsters to pieces and the security your work needs.”

“It is the man that has nothing to lose or is willing to lose everything to beat you that I am afraid of. If a man is willing to lose his life to bite off my nose then I don’t care how good I am or what I do to him- he’s gonna get my nose.” Isaac responded, his tone that of someone quoting scripture.

“The person who said that was Bruce Lee, the greatest martial artist of the 20th century. And it’s a principle that applies here as well. We live in a world where people can, quite literally, do anything. If a determined enough foe wants to get in, they’re going to get in, no matter what we try to do to keep them out, even on a military base. What we can do is ramp up our defenses up to such a level that it simply wouldn’t be practical to try and rob us.”

“You seem to be under the impression that a military base is an easy target.” Köstler commented, sounding like he thought Isaac was a bit of an idiot.

Now this was where things could get dangerous. If the politician in the room decided to push for a move “for the safety of the university”, that could end badly.

Politicians were … annoying. They needed to at least look like they were trying to follow up on the promises they’d made to the voters, so there was a limit as to how much they could faff around in the parliament or on committees related to said promises.

This, though, wasn’t either of those situations. Köstler having been voted into office didn’t make him an expert on the topic of every committee he might join, and he really shouldn’t have any say or sway here. But he did.

“First of all, Isaac could probably waltz straight through there and not even notice.” Bailey pointed out “And secondly, Grafenwöhr is a training area. Lots of practically untouched areas of forest, a few administrative buildings in one cluster, then there’s the airfield, but that’s about it. We’re not talking about a heavily guarded fortress here. While the buildings do have guards and all the other protections military buildings usually have, I think you might have the wrong mental picture of the place.”

“Is that right, Oberst?” Köstler asked, looking at the military officer while pretending to ignore Bailey.

“While I’d love to be able to claim that we’d catch Dr. Thoma if he decided to go sneaking around, it would be a lie. And Professor Bailey’s completely correct in his assessment.” Gram replied, sounding contrite but Isaac caught that little twitch in the corner of his mouth. He didn’t like the politician any more than Isaac did.

“In addition, the security features that do exist could pose a problem.” Bailey added “We rely on a lot of students and TAs to help us with our research, something we’d lack if we moved to a military base.”

“I believe Oberst Gram offered the help of military personnel?” the dean asked.

“He did.”

This time, it was Professor Bishop who answered “But in the military, people in the lower ranks are trained to be disciplined and follow orders. If you know what you want to happen, that is a good thing because you can be sure that orders get followed even if they don’t have an obvious logic behind them. But we’re experimenting here, and that requires a slightly different mindset. In addition, any military personal would require intensive instruction on what constitutes an anomalous result of an experiment as they lack the proper grounding in this topic to be able to identify one.”

Kass uncomfortably shifted in his seat and turned to the Oberst “I’m afraid it seems like a permanent move to Grafenwöhr won’t be viable.”

Isaac sighed internally. The fact that the move was most likely not going to happen had been obvious to everyone here, but Kass had felt like he needed to mention it for some reason. Had he suggested it? Probably.

Of course, politics were important, constant complete and utter honesty would cause a hell of a lot of trouble, but this was supposed to be a reasonable conversation between adults. Yet people had tried to cut a dozen different backroom deals and conducted pre-negotiations, and so on, and so forth. And because of that, no one had all the information, and that was going to make this whole thing a million times more frustrating and more annoying.

“You’re telling me no one here can think of a way to protect something from thieves? In this room of experts?” Köstler commented with deceptive nonchalance.

“Actually, I do have a solution, a very simple, very obvious one.” Götz finally gave her contribution to the discussion “The BAU is still in the process of being created, but it’s rather obvious that it cannot remain limited to the few buildings in Berlin that we currently use. As such, we’re planning to create several satellite offices from which to dispatch and coordinate tactical operations. And why not create one here, placing a group of highly trained GSG-13 officers within spitting distance of the university, able to respond to incidents like the one that occurred a couple of days ago or a containment breach in a matter of second?”

“Shouldn’t something like that be put inside a major city?” Köstler asked “This is a university town with barely fifty thousand people in it and the only major sites it’s got are the university and the dairy factory.”

“Actually, it shouldn’t.” Götz said “We won’t have the personnel to guard all major cities, so each of the BAU’s site will need to cover a vast area. Given the kinds of deployment distances we’re looking at, the time needed to get out of a major city can easily cost lives. In addition, the kind of space one of our facilities need would be hard to come by in a heavily populated area.”

“Where exactly would you suggest you place this new building? There’s plenty of woodland around, yes, but I’m already catching hell from environmental protection groups over the current expansion of the campus.” Kass threw in.

“While I can’t help with the optimal placement of the BAU building, I do have suggestion for your other problem.” Köstler interjected “Your [Biologists] and [Rangers] have some degree of affinity for plants, don’t they? They’re able to grow trees in a matter of days, and lesser plants in a matter of minutes?”

Isaac, Bailey, Bishop and Kass all nodded.

“They why don’t you send some of them to the Amazon, regrow twice as much forest as you fell here? Or use them in other ways to restore nature in a region that is in the public eye?”

In hindsight, that suggestion had been bloody obvious. Isaac fought down the urge to facepalm.

“That just leaves one more question to be asked: when can you move?” Kass asked.

“I’m afraid that’s where it gets tricky.” Götz sighed “We don’t have another group of GSG-13 trained officers ready to go. And until then, I’m afraid an alternative solution will have to be found until then.”

“Or we could always train them up faster. I could help.” Isaac suggested.

“Thank you for the offer, Dr. Thoma, but I’m afraid you don’t have the right kind of qualifications to teach people to be police offers.” Götz apologized

“But I don’t have to teach people to become police officers. GSG-13 is made up of the best of the best, the finest officers on the force. They know how to be police, what they need to learn is how to fight monsters and use the [System] to its greatest effect.”

Isaac then tapped his temple “Thanks to my [Class], I’ve got as much combat experience as a veteran member of the military, and thanks to one of its core [Skills], that knowledge has been upgraded so it’s useful in a world with a [System]. I was hoping to have unlocked all teachable [Skills] before I started teaching people in earnest, but I can still grant the [Skills] and training needed to make your officers fight as if they shared a brain, and give them [Skills] that will massively boost their combat power, [Skills] they have no chance of getting elsewhere.”

“Have you ever thought about talking to a historian, sharing some of that knowledge?” Köstler suggested.

“I did, but before I could take any steps towards that, I got absolutely hounded by people who felt that I was wasting my life by not spending every second of it sharing my first hand knowledge of ancient history, so I decided to give them all some time to calm down.”

“I see. Also, have you considered training some members of the Bundeswehr?” Köstler continued, as if everyone else wasn’t here “I think you could really be a huge help to this country.”

“I think I do more good here, I’m afraid.” Isaac shook his head. All turning Germany into a superpower would achieve was destabilize politics, and maybe help keep this specific country safe, but in the end, even the strongest bastion would fall if all most of the world was consumed by monsters.

“I see. Though I do have to mention that there are some great things this nation can do for you. For example …”

The politician stopped talking as Oberst Gram surged to his feet and then, voice sickly sweet, asked “Can I talk to you outside for a second?”

Clearly, the military officer had realized the same thing Isaac had, the politician was about to start on a whole spiel about the carrot and the stick. All very polite, designed to make anyone getting offended seem like a crazy person who was overreacting … and also something Gram knew Isaac could see through.

Once outside, one of the pair activated an anti-eavesdropping [Skill], but it was insufficient to keep out someone with Isaac’s Perception.

“… if you piss him off, he’ll head to South Korea and all that will be necessary by the time his plane touches down will be his signature on the immigration paperwork, they’ll gladly handle everything else for him. You …”

Yeah, Isaac should probably try and help out of the Oberst if Köstler decided to retaliate. But hopefully, he wouldn’t, or if he did, be blocked. Gram had been very polite the entire time, mindful of the damage a politician could do to his career, but when the politician had been about to damage the government’s relationship with a vital asset, he’d acted. Hopefully, that would be enough to for his superiors to actively work to insulate him from consequences, or maybe even get Köstler in a position where he could be useful.

Because the politician wasn’t stupid. In fact, Isaac would have hired him as a PR agent or similar role for the team in a heartbeat. It was just that those weren’t the qualifications that one should have to talk at this table.

“I think that might take a while.” Bailey observed, addressing Götz “Shall we get down to brass tacks?”

After several hours of negotiation, Isaac ended up getting voluntold to train officers a few hours a week by Kass, Bailey would teach the finer points of monster anatomy, and a few of the university crafters would become available for hire by the BAU. Kass had folded like a wet blanket, especially after Götz had cheekily asked him to put a monetary price of safety and peace of mind. He’d ended up getting surprisingly flustered when he realized he couldn’t give a proper answer.

But they hadn’t gotten completely ripped off. GSG-13 had temporarily relocated to the university, the offices would be set up in a couple of months and they’d get an official authorization to borrow manpower from the soon-to-be nearby office of the BAU for their experiments.

Also, after Köstler had left in a huff, Bailey and Isaac had been able to make a full set of plans for the upcoming Event with Gram.

All in all, the whole affair had been tiring as all get out, but it had been worth it. Now if only he had some leads vis-à-vis the robbery … then again, maybe some of the police officers would let something while he was training them?