Standing on the baly overlooking the cil chambers, I couldn’t help but scowl at the chaos below me. The ele had takee, and that was with samurai assistance, so the didates we’d mao round up… left a little to be desired.

  I guess there was no reason to pull punches here—all the didates were plete assholes. Since we wao get something in pce as soon as possible, only rich, bored, entitled assholes really had the time and moo apply for the civilian cil seats. As far as I was ed, these people weren’t aer for the city than the ied corporate representatives.

  Thankfully, the first cil was only scheduled to stay in power for six months. Now that the people were aware they had a choice, and maybe even a voi the gover, I hoped that some i groups might form and put together better didates for the ele.

  They certainly couldn’t be any worse than the jokers below.

  This was just the first session, and everyone was already squabbling. Despite the restris that had been pced on the new cil, until they got into the swing of things, ead every person immediately tried to push massive policy ges through.

  Of course, none of these people sidered the fact that they’d o raise support from the other parties or that their policies may not actually be any other cil members. Ohey realized that their oppos weren’t just going to roll over and instantly give them what they wanted, a lot of the representatives started yelling like spoiled brats.

  “I’d say it’s like watg a bunch of children squabbling, but I’ve seen the kids at my school, and they don’t act like that,” I grumbled as I stepped away from the baly.

  “Holy, we didn’t think the first cil would work out. Let those with big mouths and bigger wallets squabble for a couple months before realizing that being in charge wasn’t all it was cracked up to be. They might push through one or two messed-up policies, but when cooler heads get into office, most of that garbage will be overturned,” Charlotte expined as she fell into step beside me.

  “And in the meantime, your bots will keep the city running behind the ses,” Mirage added.

  I gred at the man. I didly like having him around still, especially when he smirked like that, but I had to admit he’d been useful the st few weeks. “I don’t like the idea of leaving them actively managing so much behind the ses,” I grumbled.

  Charlotte sighed. “I thought that we’d just hem for a couple of weeks, just to keep things w, but that was before we realized how fucked up the city’s infrastructure actually was. So much of it was pletely overlooked or ht ignored by the previous cil. It’s a miracle that the prid or water treatment systems hadn’t pletely failed uhe pressure already. Holy? As long as they keep the lights on and don’t request anything too extravagant, I see future representatives keeping the bots around, and just giving them what they want, so they don’t have to deal with those issues.”

  “Why exactly did we take over a month to set this up? It feels like absolutely nothing has ged,” I growled.

  “Oh, things have ged alright. Sure, we still have a bunch of corps and greedy elitists for now, but the previous cil was a siing block,” Mirage expined. “An oligarchy that implemented ges that only beed themselves. Now that there are separate parties, ges will either have to be slower or less extreme. Hopefully wheart seeing i groups and political parties start running, some of those ges will actually be beneficial.”

  “I still ’t believe you didn’t object to the fact that rger i groups and political parties lobby for one of the corporate seats,” I said, turning towards Mirage.

  “There are heavy restris on what those anizatioo do to qualify for those seats, and I expect if the corporate block ever gets together, they’ll do whatever they to make it impossible for a non-corporate entity to take one of those positions, but in the mea’ll keep them ho. If they tinuously push agendas that are exclusively pro-corp and anti-er or civilian, they risk losing some of their power on the cil. There’ll be sequences for their uricted greed. I like that,” he replied with a surprisingly genuine grin.

  As we made our way down the side staircase, I gnced over at the area in front of the cil chambers. This reviously a private area, with expensive furniture fuests of the previous cil to eais. Now, however, it en to the public, so every news agen the city was h around the doors, trying to get the slightest hint about what was going on inside. Of course, as part of the ransparency, a full transcript of the meeting would be avaible to whoever wa. I had no doubt the evening news would either be all about the eous demands the different representatives had made, or how unreasonable some of the representatives were, depending on who owhe news agency.

  I had no doubt the cil’s first order of busiomorrow would be trying to repeal that policy. Too bad we put restris in pce so that couldn’t happen for five years.

  “Do you think we went a little too heavy-handed on the restris? That people will say the samurai are running the gover?” I asked.

  “Darling, there are already pces where the local samurai straight up run things. Either they form their own society or pletely overthrow a corrupt gover. What we did here was a light touch,” Charlotte replied.

  “If you say so,” I muttered as we quickly made our way around the crowd of reporters and out the doors. I’m pretty sure more than a few of them reized us, but they all had the good se to try and stop us for questions. There might have been a couple of people brazen enough to risk irritating a samurai by intercepting them and shoving a microphone in their face. Very few were stupid enough to try it before multiple samurai at once. ces are, at least one of them wasn’t going to take kindly to the interruption.

  I flipped up my hood as we stepped out the main doors and onto the front stairs, trying to keep the skyli of sight. Gng around, my eyes fell upon the sculpture in the middle of the square. Not long after the big five were deposed, someone had snu and taken a sledgehammer to the enormous figures. They’d been pletely destroyed, leaving nothing but some jagged foundations and the sculpture of the city. Strangely enough, the vandals hadn’t appeared on any of the security footage.

  “So, have you made any progress with the Denver military?” I asked Mirage as the three of us stood there.

  “Apparently the cil, that is, the big five, more than tripled the price of all raw materials they were shipping to Denver, while simultaneously implementing tariffs on all their exports. It sounds like Great North was about to roll out peting tech, so they were trying to grind the petitors down,” Mirage reported.

  “Well, that backfired on them, didn’t it?” I mumbled.

  “Quite,” Mirage grinned. “Sihey couldn’t force the Big Five to capitute, and the city cil isn’t enf the tariffs, the Denver PMCs started taking trol of some of the industrial plexes in the south, along with a couple of the mining towns back east. Although that’s not teically legal by corporate standards, the former cil isn’t in any position to pin ht back right now.”

  “Unfortunately, that means the majority of their forces will probably be stig around until they’re fident that any opposition to their takeover is taken care of,” Charlotte added with a frown.

  “Holy, I don’t give a shit as long as they’re not blowing holes iy and killing civilians,” I grumbled. “If anything, having ara superheavy or two around might be useful if there’s another incursion. Calgary happens to be short a few.”

  Charlotte g me, a tiny smile on her face. “Which has nothing to do with yht?”

  “That was ehe cil’s fault. Self-defense,” I replied solemnly, before reag up and stretg out my shoulders. It had been a lot of long days to get to this point, and even though it wasn’t perfect, the job was done.

  I turned back to Charlotte and Mirage. “I’m heading home. I’ve barely had any time for the family or my own projects the st few weeks. Are you two stig around?”Mirage nodded. “I’d like to get a better feeling for the different cil members, identify who we might be able to work with, and who might be a troublemaker ter.”

  “Well, good luck with that. I’ve had enough of that building for a lifetime,” I growled. “Have fun with that, I guess.”

  “Don’t worry, boardroom politics are what we do. We’ll be fine,” Charlotte replied, patting me lightly on the head. “Enjoy your time at home.”

  “I will. See you both ter,” I said before turning and heading across the pza towards my waiting Kodiak. As I passed the statue, I made a o seabyte a thank-you er. Without his help with the security system, Bob would have had a much harder time getting away with crushing those statues.

  Sometimes, the little petty things made life worth living.