8 - G195(2)

"Mr Douglas, can we interrupt the conference for 30 minutes? In light of the information provided by Mr Tusk, I think that everyone needs at least this much time with their advisor to come up with a reasonable speech." Henri Courtemanche asked.

"France's prime minister proposed a 30 minute break. Does someone disapprove?"

After a few seconds with no complaints the moderator spoke again.

"Very well the conference will resume in 30 minutes."

The leaders immediately started to vivaciously talk with their advisors.

[30 minutes later]

A few countries, following the alphabetic order, proposed a few solutions, but they were all half baked. This kind of sipario kept on going for a bit.

After a few hours American president Richard Goodwin, despite not being his turn, took the stage.

"I know this isn't our turn yet, however me and my advisors have constructed a decent plan that I want to display. It would be pointless to keep listening to half assed proposals when we are so short on time."

Since everyone seemed to be fine with his behavior, Douglas didn't stop Goodwin.

"I think we should conduct a census. We must know exactly how many people are awakened and more importantly, we must know who and how strong they are.

Even with the soldiers that have awakened we still don't have enough manpower to handle this calamity. That is why through this census we will give awakeners a time limited license that garants them the authorization to freely clear rifts.

This method will also help us to keep track of which rift gets disposed of. This is just a temporary solution aimed to prevent the imminent doom that rifts represent. At a later date each country will do whatever they wish. They could keep this system by giving out permanent licenses or they could simply adopt a completely different one. Right now, the goal is to provide a quick fix, we can refine the details later."

"How do you think we can persuade these people to risk their lives? I get it, some people are patriots, but that's a small amount in the grand scheme of things." Spain's prime minister argued.

"The answer is money. Plain and simple cash.

As soon as the professor completed his speech, I personally called the military commander of The Pentagon and asked him to perform orbital scans.

Using the data provided by the scientific community, we identified around 250K unstable rifts. Therefore, those rifts are the only ones to worry about for the next 14 days. In other words, if we were to offer a payment of 10K $ per rift, it would barely cost 2.5 billions $ to save the entire world. I get it, the aìmmount of money offered doesn't seem that high, but if Tusk's estimate is correct, there are over 240 millions of awakeners. This means that, barely 10% of the total have to actively cleanse the rifts. Sure, in the future there will be millions of rifts to worry about, however, this strategy is only meat to handle the imminent danger.

If we make the scientist work day and night, I'm sure that in less than a month, they will find ways to transform the spoils of each rift into a goldmine.

The final goal is to create a market for the spoils. That way, we can call the clear bonus off and start paying for the materials retrieved."

"This sounds doable, but there still is an issue." Australian Leader Emmett Atkinson spoke.

"What kind of issue?"

"How do we keep the population at bay? People are bound to feel insecure with human weapons walking right beside them, not to mention that currently, there isn't a way to imprison or punish an awakened human that performs crimes.

Luckily there aren't many who have figured out "Status" yet. However, we are bound to share this information to the public if we want them to use their skills to dispose of rifts. On top of that there would be issues with human rights."

"Well, we already thought about a countermeasure."

The tone of the president became cold and cruel.

"All we have to do is to strip the awakeners from their human rights."

<NONSENSE! WHAT IS HE SAYING! BLASPHEMY!>

Many similar comments were shouted in the midst of chaos.

"LISTEN! Do you think that someone that can't be killed with bullets is a human equal as us? NO! IT'S A COMPLETELY DIFFERENT RACE! Besides, what are you going to do? If there is a criminal that goes rampant… Do you think you can keep him caged? NO! The most efficient course of action would be issuing a bounty on his head permitting another awakened to murder him!

That's just one of the benefits. We can make awakeners work even if they are minors. They would also lose the right to vote, making it easier for us to maintain control.

Do you want to end up like the primordial man? The Neanderthal went extinct due to the appearance of the superior Homo Sapiens!"

"I myself, the leader of Austria, am awakened! You are basically asking to approve something that would destroy me!" He said standing up.

"Do you think I'm stupid or what? You can just fake being a normal human. If you aren't registered as an Awakened and you never use your powers how can someone accuse you of being one?"

Unable to rebuke the Austrian leader collapsed on his chair.

"So what do you all think about this plan?"

"It's kinda doable, but… If you simply strip the Awakeners from their rights you will have serious repercussions.It could potentially fuel a revolt. In order to avoid such a thing, I think we should draft an Awakeners Duty and Rights paper.

Of course the trick stands in the Duty section. Nevertheless using this method we can mask the reality of things. Effectively we will strip them of their rights but, to the untrained eye... We are simply giving them a different set of rights and duties." Alf Jäger the German prime minister proposed.

The room quieted down. Signals of approval could be seen on everyone's faces except from the Chinese leader Tao Nianzu.

"China will not participate in this farce. We will deal with the situation in our own way."

"Every country is free to adopt their own measures, but keep this in mind. If you don't adopt the system approved by the majority in the unfortunate case of monsters escaping your nation, you will be held accountable for any damage." Richard stated in a clearly annoyed demeanor.

"That's fine, It's an expected reaction from someone who thinks that everything can be bought." With these words China along with a few other nations left the conference.

"One last proposal; I suggest creating a shared database with some general information on every awakener. This way we can have a rough estimate on how rare some classes/abilities are."

"I disapprove. It's already possible to know the rarity of classes using "Status", but most importantly I refuse to disclose my citizens' information." Courtemanche objected.

"Why? Don't you think that a shared database could also help to assess the power of the awakeners?"

"That's exactly the issue. Right now we are under an emergency, but what will happen when the threat is over? Simple, the awakeners will directly represent the military power of their Nation. Telling to other countries their power or who they are is the equivalent of revealing the entirety of your militar assets."

'I tried to smoothly extort this information. Unfortunately they are smarter than I thought.'

"Very well, let's do our best to implement these policies then. We have a huge amount of paperwork ahead of us."

[The conference finally concluded a day later. All the politicians returned to their countries.]