Eric thought 'you don't get to be an agent without knowing how to investigate, and despite the initial laughter, it was clear something was going on.' While they could no doubt have gone into the SCIF and seen if there was something classified, the agents seemed to take figuring out what was happening as a challenge, some combination of competition and team sport, and they seemed happy to let Eric join in.

  Miller was the first one to find something. He was an Army officer before he became an agent, and had pulled up a strategic studies map of the war lines. “OK guys, look at the timeline. Here is the first day,” The group saw the sudden shift in the border. “Here is the fall of Seoul, and if you move forward day by day the gains are much slower, pacifying Seoul took a lot of their troops. But the next few days they were still moving forward. Then you see this.”

  Miller paused, then clicked the next day. No one could see any change, but Agent Miller looked expectant. “Guys, there is no change, that is a big deal. Suddenly North Korea stopped moving forward, why?”

  He clicked the next day, and the battle line moved north. This time everyone could understand. Kendra spoke first, “The South Koreans are advancing? That is good, right?”

  Miller frowned, “For South Korea, and thus its allies, yes, in theory. But I don't know why.” He turned back to his maps, and the rest started to dig into this as well.

  Agent Hill, the blonde ice mage, was the next to say “I think I found something,” Once everyone was looking at her, she showed them news about South Korea having to create new POW camps, and even accepting North Korean troops-the ones with levels-into the South Korean military. “It isn't just the Chinese they are surrendering to.”

  Miller added, “The troop deployments don't make sense either. It looks like the North Korean offensive stopped because half of their forces suddenly rushed to Pyongyang.”

  “Why would they send half their military to their own capital?” Eric asked, “A coup?”

  Kendra nodded, “I was just noticing, no one has a recording of Kim saying anything in the last three days, before that he was addressing the troops and the nation two or three times a day.”

  Miller scoffed, “What sort of idiot launches a coup in the middle of a war? Even if you win the coup, you lose the war. Unless you think you can beat both the loyalist forces and the enemy.”

  Eric asked, “Well, what if we assume whoever is doing this does believe that?”

  The agents shared looks. “Either a very powerful group of heroes, or...well I don't know what, I mean, there are a few nukes but that would be suicidal.”

  “Um, guys?” Miller asked, and turned his phone to the others.

  Breaking news, Pyongyang apparently destroyed by a nuclear weapon.

  “What...the...fuck?” Kendra asked, and the rest seemed to agree. “We have to get back, report in.” The agents quickly returned to their burueau.

  Eric decided to check in too. Sending a text to his new boss, “Monika, it is Eric, I just saw the news about the nuke, is there anything I can do?”

  The response was faster than he expected, “Yes, there will be a military jet at the airport waiting for you, get there as soon as you can, don't worry about packing, if you need clothing or toiletries when you get here just expense them.”

  Eric added the day to the tally of days he wished he had a car, and hopped on his bike. That the tally could be counted on one hand made him feel that he had still made the right choice, but as he biked to the airport he wondered what he would find after the flight.

  Once he got there, the crew of the plane were tense, he wasn't the only one being picked up, Colonel Melendez and Special Agent in Charge Gonzalez were there too. Eric felt a bit under-dressed, the Colonel was in uniform and the Agent was in an impeccable suit, while Eric was in slacks and a collared shirt. The shirt being a bit sweat stained and the pants having some dust from the bike ride didn't help. To cover it he asked, “Anyone know why we were summoned?”

  The Agent shook his head, but Melendez suggested “Someone may want a report on the battle of skeleton rift. Well, battles I suppose. Hence why Eric is here.”

  Eric groaned, “I was afraid of that.”

  “What, don't like getting the attention of people in high places? Next you will tell me you don't like living in interesting times.” Gonzalez joked, Eric just grumbled in response.

  They talked on the flight, Gonzalez thanking Eric for taking agents into rifts and keeping them safe, Melendez thanking him and the FBI for helping with the fight, and Eric ducking the praise as much as he could while telling both about the good qualities of some of their people Eric had worked with.

  They were met by a squad of Marines and escorted to a helicopter, which landed just north of the Pentagon. The trio were then escorted into the military headquarters and into an office sized for about 50 people which was half-full of people, only a third of whom were in uniform.

  You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.

  Two more Marines entered the room and took posts on either side of the door, and the President entered, followed by a very tall man with dark bronze skin, dark brown hair, and inquisitive hazel eyes. The man following the president wore a suit but his muscles and the edge of a sleeve tattoo were still visible.

  The President said “I'll keep this short. I plan to request that Congress create an official Department of Rift Security, and I have called a number of people with direct interactions with the rifts or who have overseen rift based crises into this room. Doctor Mason Cohen here will lead the discussion, but I would like a plan on my desk for how this new Department will be structured, what existing government offices it should interact with or absorb, and what it will require.”

  Having given his directive, the President left for his next engagement, and once the two Marines followed him out, a bedlam of noise followed. Eric stayed silent as people tried to give ideas, argue for or against such a department, and complained about the arrival of the rifts.

  Dr. Cohen watched impassively for a few minutes, then rapped his knuckles on the large oval desk in the center of the room, the loud crack caused about half of the conversations to stop. He rapped again, harder, then said “pardon me, perhaps we could call this meeting to order?” The conversations faded out, and he smiled.

  “To quickly address a few points, complaining about the existence of the rifts is as useful as complaining about a snowstorm. They are here, we now have to deal with it. Given that we are all outranked by the President, and he has made his intentions quite clear, the creation of the new Department of Rift Security is the same, complain all you want, nothing will be changed by it. Normally I think letting people complain is good, a healthy way to accept the situation and express your feelings, but we are rather busy so how about such complaints occur later, when they won't waste the time of everyone in this room?”

  Dr. Cohen waited for a moment for his point to sink in and resumed, “There are 327 rifts identified so far in US States and Territories, and over 750 rifts in North America. Our ability to respond to rifts will require a nationwide organization, with foreign as well as domestic expertise. We will need diplomats, not just for interactions with rifts in neighboring nations, but for interactions with nations on the other side of rifts, a few such diplomats are already in this room. We will need security forces, both for law enforcement and for more militant responses to attacks. We will need to regulate trade, monitor environmental challenges, such as from new species coming to our planet. I suspect we will need an analogue to every current department of the United States government. Or at lease liaisons and close cooperation agreements with those other departments. We also need to assess and plan to address threats and opportunities from rifts, so we will need planning staff to accomplish this, and good intelligence to gain the information we need for those plans.” He sighed.

  “It is a big ask, honestly. Now, the first thing I would like to address is the most immediate threat, invasion. I have two groups to come to the front of the room to discuss this. Would the Phoenix party and the Suwon party come forward?” Eric wasn't sure where Suwon was, but guessed that he was part of the 'Phoenix' party, so moved towards the doctor along with the Colonel and Agent Gonzalez. An Asian man and woman, the latter in a military uniform, also moved to the front of the room.

  “First, could Colonel Melendez brief us on the so called Skeleton Rift invasion? I believe we have an FBI and, er, EPA representative here as well to provide clarifications as needed.” Dr Cohen seemed surprised at Eric's employment.

  Colonel Melendez gave a brief to the group on both the first and second battles of the Skeleton Rift, then noted that he had not been present at the first battle, but Eric had. Eric expected questions on how skeletons were walking around, but most of those in the room had classes and magic, which led to an acceptance of things like animated dead. The questions Eric was getting were more about abilities. “Can you guess about how many hit points the purple robed skeletons had?”

  “I used Sun Bolt I think 4 times on one to kill it, and that was 4 bolts that I think do about 6 damage each, so about 100?” Eric guessed.

  “How much damage did the lightning strikes do?”

  “There is an old joke that lightning never strikes the same place twice, because once lightning strikes, the place isn't there any more. Seriously though, one shot took out a helicopter. With that said, I was able to use a Humvee as shelter from several strikes, the first one fried everything electronic, but it wasn't until the fuel tank burst that the next hit ignited it and blew up the vehicle. Large hunks of metal did work for cover.”

  Eric answered similar questions until Dr Cohen interrupted the group. “OK, that is enough, I think an important thing to take away from this invasion is that the US Army has a dedicated defense force outside the rift, and we have that potential invasion contained. I think it is time to hear from the Suwon party.”

  The Asian woman in uniform stepped to the microphone, “Hello, I am Soryeong Pak Jun, but you can call me Jun. I am a Soryeong, something like an American Major, in the South Korean military. I am in the intelligence service, and have been monitoring communications in the North during the resurgence in combat. We have been accepting North Koreans into our nation as refugees, as it appears the North Korean government has fallen.” She gave a short bow seemed to wait for questions, getting an immediate uproar.

  “If I could have the screen projection I gave earlier?” She asked. A display showed a bipedal lizard with short legs, a tail that barely touched the ground, and a thick shell on it's back. Long arms with what looked like two elbows each, a flat head with almost a beak for a mouth and two small eyes that were set wide on either side of a long snout. Covered in green scales which were the size of quarters near the shoulders and on the legs and head, but were much smaller on the arms, neck, and near joints. In the video it's mouth opened, a forked tongue testing the air, and it had two dark pits on either side of it's toothless mouth. It also had a bulging blue ring around its neck, the size of a life preserver or shawl, with a pattern of wider and narrower circles as it surrounded the creature's neck. It appeared to be filled with water or a similar fluid, and pulsed even when the creature held still.

  “It is apparently called a Kappa. Our intelligence is that they wiped out the Kim family and have been consolidating their hold on the North portion of the Korean peninsula. They appear to consider human meat delicious, and have only been keeping the very young and very old alive, the latter as slaves to care for the former.” Jun told the group