Defiance of the Fall

Chapter 114: Intelligence

“A mix of diesel generators and solar panels. We have gathered panels since the fall, and they are actually working better than before, with there being two suns and all. Our goal is to build solar farms outside New Washington and provide the whole town with electricity, but for now it’s only for critical buildings such as this, along with a few charging stations in the town, and we use it sparingly,” she answered, seemingly taking some pride in their ability.

“Once again I would like to apologize about the disturbance earlier. But I’d like to remind you to not resort to violence in New Washington. The rule of law still holds and criminals will be sentenced and jailed,” she said. “Some… confusion might happen while forces are reintegrated into society, and luckily no one died. The army will simply have to take the events as a lesson to conduct themselves better. I have prepared a small presentation about the current situation and our goals. I’m sure that the leaders of Port Atwood would be interested in this.”

Zac was about to protest that he was attacked first in both the cases, but in the end decided against it as he was more interested in hearing what she had to say.

“Humanity is currently beset on multiple fronts, and we need to band together to survive,” Julia began her presentation.

“We have both the other natives and the incursions to contend with. The Ishiate have generally been amenable for peaceful negotiations, but any attempt to open diplomatic channels with the Zhix or the foreign forces has been met with unrelenting violence. Luckily there is no Incursion close to New Washington, but many areas have already fallen,” she said.

“Which areas have fallen, and how come only our government is up and running with a teleporter?” Zac asked, wanting to drag out as much information as possible.

“Our situation is a bit unique. To be perfectly honest, we got lucky. There is no incursion close to us, and together with our high supply of weaponry, we managed to secure the area around this town quite quickly. There were even two battalions of the army that got randomized to close proximity of the town. There are no species of beasts we would categorize as highly dangerous nearby, and we even have some good areas for leveling up our military.

All this gave us a good head start, but many other areas are coming along. The Scandinavian countries have banded together, creating a new capital called Asgard. They are mainly led by cultivators though as they didn’t have very strong governments. We’ve also been in contact with London, Paris, and Berlin. Their situation is worse since they have an incursion in their area. Many others are progressing as well.” Julia narrated.

“However, we should be clear that we no longer consider us an American government. We’re a world government that consists of a network of decentralized hubs, intent on integrating with the various powers,” she added after some thought.

“How many incursions are there?” Zac asked next.

“Most prolific is the Undead Empire that already spans an area close to the size of the United States. Luckily the horde is mainly made up of weak zombies that can be killed, and concentrated efforts by multiple forces have impeded their march, some considering it a farming haven. Furthermore, their control of their area isn’t really strong. There are multiple pockets of resistance within the sphere of influence fighting as we speak.

“The problem with that force is that every death weakens us and simultaneously empowers their ranks. An even bigger problem is that the Undead spawned in the area of New Asia, decimating their huge populations. That’s how they’ve grown so quickly. They got hundreds of millions of fodder in just the first months,” Julia answered with a sigh.

“But the undead are only one among many. There are rumors of a rat-incursion far to the east, an incursion in the middle of the ocean that some coastal cities could see in the distance on clear days, even two incursions with humans. The latter seem to consider us earthlings unclean and are among the cruelest enemies. They have built an empire founded on slavery, and are one of our prime enemies. All in all, we have located 11 incursions, but we’re sure there are more.

“But progress is being made. The New Governmentʼs first goal has been to establish order in core cities such as New Washington and start mapping out our new planet. Our current continent is simply named Pangea, as from its size it should be at least the size of the ancient global continent of Earth.

“Forces such as the one you’re part of is an important piece of the puzzle. Many towns and individuals, such as the rankers, have risen up to meet the challenge of this new era, and our goal is to connect these forces and enable us to fight the common cause. I would therefore sincerely wish to invite Port Atwood into the New World Government,” she said, her eyes shining with enthusiasm.

Zac was mulling over the information. To be honest the situation seemed better than expected, with various governments working to restore order. However, he knew that it was just a façade. Unless something was done about the incursions these reborn governments would be crushed one by one when the invaders started expanding for real.

“I can’t make any decisions like that for Port Atwood at this moment, besides I would like to tour this city to see what type of society you are building before reporting back,” Zac said noncommittally.

“I have another task,” he added as he took out a note from within his cloak. “I have this list of towns that our citizens are from. Many are anxious to find out the fate of their families, and I am wondering if you know any information about these cities. Both how the cities themselves are today, and where their cultivators ended up.”

On the list were a few American cities, a few Vietnamese ones, and a few random coastal cities Zac added in order to not give a too clear picture of Port Atwood’s composition. But really, there really only was one of the towns he cared about, the fourth entry; Greenworth, his hometown.

Another town of interest was Allentown, where Emily was from. He knew where the actual town was, but not where the cultivators went. Zac them silently looked at Julia who scrutinized the list, trying to not show how eager he was.

Soon she opened a program on her laptop and started typing away.

“Allentown’s closest government outpost is Fairfield, but the distance between the two is around a week by car. And when I say that I mean driving a car with the current conditions. In the old days, it probably would only be a couple of hours. There is currently no teleporter array in the area. It is not viable to travel there at the moment from New Washington, as it’s an enormous distance,” she said.

His heartbeat started to increase. It looked like the government wasn’t just for show, they truly had some decent intel.

“There should only be one cultivator group from a town of that size, but it has yet to been located,” she added, making Zac grimace.

He felt bad for Emily, but his main focus was on Julia’s fingers as she looked up towns. She kept typing on her laptop and writing down the answers one by one. She seemed to know of roughly half the information, either where the cultivators were or where the town was located. As for the Vietnamese towns, the information was way more sparse.

“Greenworth was split up due to the size, and part of it is actually only a week’s travel away from here,” Julia said. “As for the cultivators, some are here or still in Greenworth. The town itself is jointly run by the government and a coalition of cultivators. There is one group reportedly at the other side of the Undead Empire. It’s likely fastest to wait until someone close builds a teleporter if you want to visit there.”

Zac’s heart was threatening to jump out of his chest when he heard his family might only be a week’s travel away. If that was by her standard he could likely get there far quicker. He forced himself to calm down and properly listen. He had waited for months, and another few minutes wouldn’t matter, especially if there were still important information to be gained from her.

“The last cultivator group of Greenworth is still unaccounted for,” she finished the report on Greenworth.

“If the group is unaccounted for, how do you know it exists?” Zac couldn’t help asking.

“We have learned some rules to the Tutorial and the randomization. Our theory is that the System superimposed the four worlds in the merge, and picked citizens around the same coordinate on respective worlds and placed them together in a tutorial. That’s why some tutorials were only humans, and some were overrun with Zhix for example. Some coordinates would only hold humans, whereas others held all races.

“As for the size of the cultivator groups, they are limited to roughly 10 000 humans per Tutorial instance, as you should know from your own experience. Our census indicates that roughly 7% of the human population was teleported, meaning that roughly 150 000 citizens generated one tutorial group. Larger cities like Greenworth would generate three groups based on their population. That’s how we know there’s another group out there somewhere.

“Since the other group seemed largely fine with only a 55% casualty rate we can deduce that Greenworth’s Tutorial was one of the human-only Tutorials. This was also confirmed by the cultivators in our neighboring town. That means there was no Zhix hive that eradicated the third group like with many other tutorial villages.

“When us cultivators were returned we believe that we were returned to the same “coordinates” as before. For example, I was working in Washington before the fall, and I was placed back right here afterward. That’s how we managed to start rebuilding work so quickly. However, which world’s coordinates seem random. Some returned to Old Earth’s same coordinates. Other were placed on the Ishiate coordinates instead, which could be anywhere on the new planet after the randomization,” Julia narrated.

Zac was having an emotional rollercoaster as he listened to the explanation. Zac had thought that the people in the tutorial were lucky, but a 55% casualty rate was considered one of the safe ones? Some groups were completely eradicated? Being a normal mortal left in a city seemed far safer in comparison.

Zac had somewhat hoped Kenzie and his father were Cultivators before, as that would help them protect themselves. But now he rather hoped they weren’t. The shock from the information almost made him miss an important piece of information, but after a while he finally noticed it.

“Four worlds? I thought it was three of them that got merged?” he asked skeptically.

“There might only be three, as we don’t know for sure. However, our theory is that there are four. That’s from looking at the larger cities we have mapped, such as New York, London, and Paris. A quarter of the cultivator groups are simply missing, as though they weren’t returned after the tutorial.

“Our theory is that there is a fourth planet in the mix, likely an uninhabited one, whose landmass is on another continent. Perhaps due to a different type of climate or some other difference, making the System separate it from the rest. A quarter of the cultivators likely were placed there. So far we have had no luck finding this continent or contacting these groups, though.”

“This type of speculation is supported by the fact that the System has put similar topographies together. When it randomized the world it didn’t put a patch of desert next to a glacier for example, as that would make no sense. That’s why many of our old continents are randomized, but still somewhat together. A good part of the United States and southern Canada are meshed together with some of Europe, while the more tropical Southern America has meshed together with southern Asia and some of Africa.”

Zac was relieved to hear that there actually was some order to the chaos, which would aid his search. However, the information also contained some pretty bad news. Both Emily’s siblings and one of the cultivator groups of Greenworth were unaccounted for, meaning they might actually have been placed on another continent. If that was the case he wasn’t even sure how to begin looking. His small exploratory vessels might not do the trick since the distances on this new planet seemed pretty huge.

Still, he had two places to check before it came to that, and the government was clearly still mapping everything out. The lost groups might be found before he had to start looking for a mysterious continent.

Zac’s eyes turned toward the laptop in front of Julia. The thing clearly held all their progress in mapping out the new continent so far.

“I would like to purchase that computer. The map and accompanying information would be very beneficial to Port Atwood,” Zac said. “What is your price?”

“There’s no need for that. The program with the information is public domain, and you just need to buy a computer in the town and connect to the WIFI and download it,” Julia answered with a smile.

Zac was completely surprised by the convenience. His life on the island and with the demons had made him think in more primal ways, the fact that New Washington Possessed a city-wide WI-FI hadn’t even crossed his mind.

“Is the internet still around?” he asked hopefully.

“Unfortunately no,” the government worker answered with a sigh. “I am no expert on the subject but the internet was made from a vast network of companies and servers spanning the whole world. When the world was randomized the network was destroyed. We only have a local network available.”

“Very well, if it is alright with you I’d like to visit the town now,” Zac said.

“Of course, take this identification card, it will give you access to this compound. It is a temporary measure while we keep the teleportation array at a guarded area. Oh, and there will be an auction in two weeks held by us and a few other governments. There will be many valuable things appearing that might not be extremely useful to the government, but a huge boon to any individual cultivator.”