"So, it's started," says James to a room of more people than are actually usually under his command. A number of National Guard have been training and drilling with his squad over the past couple of months, ever since the DRT started preparing for the confluence they knew was coming up. Both DSWAT and DRT are very busy with the drills and logistic prep in the months leading up to confluences, as they're going to be stretched much thinner than usual and will need to be making the job of the esper superstars that save the day as easy as possible. And now that it's here, it's his job as squad lead to brief them on what's different. "I know most of you already have experience with confluences, but not all, and it's protocol to go through this yet again to make sure we are all aligned and aware of how things are going to work."
He does not respond to the poking because he is Listening Very Attentively to his First Confluence Briefing.
"So, starting with the basics: resources. Espers and orgs from all over the world are pooling their resources and sharing them much more freely. We will be able to log into various websites and databases for information sharing and requisitions that are typically more restricted. I'll link you all of them, but the most notable ones are the worldwide map of active dungeons, teleportation credits covered by the department, and fancy equipment using dungeon materials that you'll miss like a limb once the confluence is over and you have to hand it back."
"What are the helmets?" Why does everyone seem so into them? They already have helmets???
"Man the helmets are the best, we get this HUD and a feed of everything, and it does gaze tracking so it knows what you wanna look for, and there's some contextual stuff, it's better than the sarge's powers."
"I do want to try the helmets now," he agrees. "Why are they limited to confluences only? Do they use dungeon materials?" Ugh, wait, this isn't relevant to the briefing and he should have kept silent but he let his curiosity get the better of him.
"They do, particularly the context detection. And, relatedly, we will as I mentioned need to hand those back after we're done with them, and we won't have them for all dungeons."
Part of him feels like it would be better to go without the entire time, because the feeling of having something you got used to be taken away from you is very jarring and disruptive to one's sensorium. It's like trying to drive only to find that the pedals have changed positions. But if they're that good, then maybe they're a net positive, still.
Conrad remains silent.
"We also have access to a worldwide esper database to choose from, and one of the biggest operational changes for us is that we need to be a lot more trigger happy about calling in esper reinforcements. Dungeons will be sandbagging a lot—I don't need to tell you guys that, we all literally just left that haunted asylum dungeon, you saw what it was like. If anything unexpected happens, report immediately, and if two unexpected things happen regroup and leave. We leave nothing to chance."
