The Mayor

"What about the home defense from the outskirts?" Homer suggested while staring down at the huge, table-sized, interactive map flashing with all sorts of information. 

The map displayed the general layout of the whole city and even the smaller villages and sleep-town around its perimeter. From the bird's eye view, one could see hundreds of small green points flashing up at nearly every corner of the street, with only two bigger but much darker ones hidden in the mess. 

"They have already moved to secure the sleep-towns," one of the many officials in the room quickly shot Homer's idea down. "It's already a miracle they managed to mobilize so quickly. I guess that's the one saving grace of the world's tension being so high before today…"

Homer shot his glance up, staring the man down to give a show of his disapproval over the unfounded comment. 

'What world tensions? Right now we have those portals to deal with!'

"The back-end of the app is done, we are waiting for the front-end and for the IT to bash them together. Estimate for the app changes to a quarter of an hour!" someone else called out from the far end of the huge room. 

"Good, keep going at it!" Homer called back before turning his attention back to the map. "How long until the law enforcement breaks?" he raised his eyes to one of the many uniformed members of the city-wide task-force. 

"Two hours," the city's chief of staff didn't show any doubt or hesitation. 

It was a number he floated ever since this huge group assembled to deal with the crisis. 

"Two hours, but that only means holding those portals. I don't have enough men to keep the streets safe at the same time, not to speak about trying to enter those portals. Not with how few returned by now."

"Sir," Ube, Homer's direct assistant, approached from the side. "There's no other choice. We have to move the military."

Ube worked for Homer even though he had nearly twice as much experience on the job as the City's mayor. And while rarely ever giving Homer even the tiniest reason to complain, he wasn't a man whose voice the mayor could ignore. 

"If we do that without the approval of the party, we will be effectively raising banners in rebellion," Homer countered with a dark gleam coming out of his eyes. "Do I need to elaborate on what will happen if we happily overstep our authority here?"

Homer's hand clasped down on the edge of the huge display that showcased the general situation of the city. 

"What else can we do?" Ube's voice momentarily twitched. 

Even if he didn't show it, he was equally as concerned about the situation as everyone else in the room. 

"Wait for the app and hope things will grow more…" Yet another official moved up to the main table before raising a small, yellow card, "stable. Once people start clearing the portals, we will learn if we can make them vanish. And with that, there will be a point in clearing those portals as soon as possible, so to decrease the number of places we need to spread our forces over."

This was the initial plan for dealing with this sudden crisis. 

"What if it takes more than just two hours? It's all just a bet on whether those portals can be cleared that quick!" Ube protested, only to turn his glance over to the official flashing a yellow card. "What?!"

"A portal at designate fourteen, seventy, forty-two just vanished," the official reported, right as the IT workers of the place updated the map with the new info. 

Homer squinted his eyes before freezing for a moment. Then, with his gaze still locked on the map, he reached out and pointed at the chief of the police staff. 

"Is that us?" 

The app for people to register for clearing the portals still wasn't in an operating state. As such, the general order to stay indoors still stood all across the city and the neighboring settlements. 

But it wasn't just those that Homer had to manage. 

With the burning fire of the real-estate prize hikes, a huge chunk of the city's population migrated over to the various, smaller sleep towns, all located within an hour or less of commute from the city's center. In the natural process of the administration adapting to the changed situation in the eternal fight for more benefits and tax base, all of those suburban towns and settlements fell within Homer's responsibility range. 

"No," the chief of staff shook his head, only mildly surprised by the development, "it's not us."

But contrary to the order that rang on every phone within the specific coordinates of Homer's domain, someone was not only outside… but also managed to clear out a portal. 

And while having one less place to think about was good news… 

"As for now, my men are attempting to clear this," the old officer reached out over the map and pointed at several flashing points on the display, "this, this, and this portal. If a portal vanishes anywhere else, it's not on us," he stated, only to squint his eyes as he took just a bit longer to think. "That is, unless…" he hesitated for just a little bit more, before raising his eyes and looking at the Mayor. 

"Do you think it's one of those missing patrols of yours?" Homer asked, a stray whisk of hope tickling his soul. 

"Unlikely," the old officer shook his head. "I don't have any reports about what's inside, but I think it's safe to assume it has to do something with fighting," he stated before turning his eyes over to a seemingly random corner of the room, staring at something only he could perceive. 

And that part, to a degree, was true.

For in the corner of Homer's vision, while it was his own version, he could see the content of his own system… or, as the alien message called it, the display of his own circuit. 

"So now we are going to have people that slipped our net, running around with powers that we know pretty much nothing about?" Homer asked, just to make sure of things. 

"That's pretty much it," Ube nodded. "Now, do you think we should mobilize the military now, or wait until they turn fully obsolete and some empowered freak monopolizes portals and decides that he is now the one running the city?"