It took Serenity six hours to cleanse the rest of the Sterath memories the next day.

Each Sterath was faster than the humans that were his only previous experience, because they were far younger. Sterath grew up quickly, but they didn’t usually live very long; they were a prolific race, and most died in conflict. If they weren’t killed before they were Tier Three, there was a good chance they could live for decades, possibly even a century; their lifespans were only slightly shorter than the normal human lifespan under the same conditions.

When he was done, he was met with a virtual wall of notifications from his phone and email; Aide had held them to prevent them from disturbing Serenity’s concentration, and they all arrived at once. It was not the most comfortable feeling to suddenly be inundated with missed texts, emails, and three missed calls.

Serenity sorted through them, figuring out what was important and what wasn’t.

The most important was a voicemail from Dr. Mattingly, discussing an equipment failure; a power supply died that morning, and it damaged the equipment it was in as well. She said they were scrounging for parts, but it might be a day or two before the receiver was back online. She didn’t say that the equipment in question was the portal detector, but Serenity could guess that much simply because she was the one who called. That meant the search for the invasion portal probably hadn’t happened yet.

The next most important was an email from Serenity’s father; all it said was that his liaison was police lieutenant Bertram Smith and gave a phone number.

Rissa had texted.

Ita is enthralled by science shows, but thinks cooking shows are utterly pointless. Would you believe that she told me she’d never seen anything like the explanation of surface tension?

She doesn’t get the point of Westerns. It’s probably just as well; I had to explain what a horse is.

We came across a Babylon 5 marathon three hours ago. She’s still watching. It’s better than I remembered.

The last text was only about twenty minutes before Serenity finished. He replied with a grin.

Try her on Star Wars. I think she’d really enjoy it, even if the fight scenes are very Hollywood.

Serenity headed to the kitchen to make himself a late lunch while he called the police lieutenant.

“Smith.” It was a relatively blunt way to answer the phone, but at least Serenity could be fairly confident he’d called the right number.

“Lieutenant Smith? This is Serenity - or perhaps you heard of me as Thomas Rothmer?”

“Aw, yeah, gimme a minute.” There was a lot of noise on the other side of the connection; Serenity wasn’t sure if he’d heard correctly. Also, what was with that accent? It almost sounded Southern, but it wasn’t, quite. Maybe somewhere between Southern and Texan? Or was that just the bad connection?

There was a muffled bang before the background noise disappeared. “OK, ready now; who’d you say you are?” The accent was still there, but it seemed far less pronounced.

“Serenity - Thomas Rothmer? I was told to call you?” Serenity still wasn’t sure which name to use. It wasn’t until after he said it that he realized it probably sounded like Thomas was his middle name.

“Oh yes, the civilian backup.” Lieutenant Smith seemed to place a lot of emphasis on the word “civilian”.

That emphasis sent Serenity off on a different path than he’d originally planned. “I was expecting to be talking to a soldier, not a policeman. Isn’t this about the Sterath?”

There was absolutely no humor in Lieutenant Smith’s bark of laughter. “You’d think, but not under President Stewart. Look, this would be better in person. Can you meet me at the temporary command post? I’ll send you the address.”

“Sure. Any specific time you want me to show up?” Serenity was ready to start; he couldn’t think of anything else he had to do before he started dealing with the Sterath.

The only major question he had was whether he should go after the portal first or start taking out some of the actual invaders, but that decision was made for him when the prototype portal detector malfunctioned. The portal would have to wait until it was repaired, but he knew where several Sterath safe houses were. From the very few memories he’d kept and Ita’s experience, they didn’t have good communication available, so it was likely they could roll up several before the Sterath even realized they were under attack.

“I won’t be there for at least half an hour, but any time after that will work. The sooner the better.” Serenity could hear the noise of a car starting on the other side of the connection. “See you soon.”

“See you-” Lieutenant Smith had already hung up.

The address arrived moments later. He forwarded it to Janice, then called her to come get him.

While he was waiting, his mind turned back to the odd phrase Lieutenant Smith had used. “Not under President Stewart”. Why would who the President was matter? Surely fighting invaders was a job for the military?

A quick search turned up the answer, and it was clear why Serenity had missed it; not only was he not particularly in tune with political events, he’d been on Tzintkra when it happened. He’d heard about the attack in London, of course, but he hadn’t heard about the political aftermath.

The day after the London invasion, President Stewart gave a speech exhorting people to not give into fear after the attack. “This is no 9/11! There shall be no Patriot Act under my watch! We will not be stampeded by fear into giving away our liberty for temporary safety from a false threat! Should these people come to our shores, we will greet them like any illegal alien sneaking into our country!”

President Stewart liked to make grand pronouncements.

Unfortunately, the stance he’d taken had gotten more extreme rather than less since then. The last speech he’d given - a week ago - called the Tutorial a fake and the reports of magic hoaxes.

The responses Serenity could find to that were almost universally negative. While most people still hadn’t been through the Tutorial, enough had that almost everyone had actually seen something inexplicable, and even the President’s own party seemed to be distancing themselves from him.

The only bill they’d managed to pass to deal with the invasions was vetoed within hours, and they hadn’t yet managed to hold another vote on it; the news articles seemed to indicate that the Speaker of the House and the Senate majority and minority leaders were all delaying the vote until they were certain they could override the veto. Even if that bill passed, it wasn’t a full declaration of martial law; all it did was declare that military force was permitted ‘on United States of America soil that has been claimed by organized opposition originating on another planet’. It was clear that this bill was what President Stewart was comparing to the Patriot Act.

After reading the excerpts, Serenity was actually kind of glad it hadn’t passed. It was far too broadly written.

The news coverage also went into a lot more detail than he’d known before about when and where military force could be used. Apparently the state governors could declare martial law in limited locations and call out their state’s National Guard, even without approval at the Federal level. Foreign invasion was one of the key examples for when it was allowed, so the lack of a federal response to the various local invasion portals might not even be that much of a problem - especially if the Department of Defense could help with supplies, even if they couldn’t directly fight. Serenity wasn’t clear on that part; the news articles seemed to argue both sides.

Washington, DC wasn’t a state. Did the city even have a National Guard?

Serenity had just found out that the answer was yes, there was a District of Colombia National Guard, when he heard the front door open.

“Serenity? You ready?”

It was Janice, of course.

“Yeah, just been surfing online while I waited.” Serenity abandoned the search and headed out to the car; thankfully, handling the politics and the rules for who could authorize the use of force weren’t his job; he didn’t want to trip on laws he’d never studied. He was a network engineer, not a lawyer.

Perhaps he should update that saying? What would he say? On second thought, that was easy. He was a dragon, not a lawyer.

He could even offer to reduce the number of lawyers in the world one snack at a time if he wanted to make a really bad lawyer joke … nah, that probably wasn’t a good idea. Someone might take it entirely too seriously. Lawyers were important, and they weren’t going to get any less important in the new world.

Especially not once people discovered just how powerful the written word could be for certain types of mage. Serenity had never focused on that sort of magic, but there were mages who did. He wasn’t actually certain that they’d be any more powerful than a lawyer was on Earth, though. They might not need to take you to court to enforce a contract, but there were still some pretty serious limits.

Janice didn’t start talking until after they were in the car, but once she did her voice pulled Serenity out of his thoughts. “Ita’s started trying to talk. Only a few words so far, but it’s a start.”

“How’s she feeling?” Serenity had visited that morning, but only for a few minutes; he wouldn’t have been able to concentrate with a show on, so he’d headed back to his parents’ place after breakfast.

“Nervous, unsure of herself. Not unhappy, just unsure. I think she recognizes we’re making an effort.”

Serenity nodded. That made sense. “I hope she can adjust. Our society is very different.”

“Mm.” Janice didn’t sound like she was agreeing, but she also didn’t say anything obvious. Perhaps she just didn’t know enough about Sterath society to comment?

The car stopped on the street in front of a large building labeled COMMUNITY OUTREACH CENTER. It didn’t say POLICE anywhere but somehow it felt governmental. “I don’t see any open parking, so you’d better hop. Call me when you’re done.”

Serenity hopped out of the car and headed inside. All glass and scuffed marble, it looked like it was a showpiece of a building, twenty years ago. Or maybe forty? Serenity wasn’t great at guessing building age, but it looked tired and well-used instead of grand.

Inside the glass doors, there was a tall gray circular counter area that looked somehow cheaper yet newer than the rest of the room; it looked like it was made of the formica used in a kitchen rather than anything designed to look impressive. Away from the counter, Serenity noticed several burgundy stuffed chairs; like the rest of the building, they looked like they were once fancy but they’d been used and abused until they were functional but not even close to pristine.

When Serenity looked back at the desk, he saw a black-haired young man in a green polo shirt standing; he must have been hidden by the high counter until he stood. “Sir, can I help you find what you’re looking for?”

Serenity walked over to the counter. “I’m supposed to meet Lieutenant Smith here.”

The young man nodded. “Your name?”

“Serenity.”