Standing on the balcony overlooking the council chambers, I couldn’t help but scowl at the chaos below me. The election had taken weeks to arrange, and that was with samurai assistance, so the candidates we’d managed to round up… left a little to be desired.

  I guess there was no reason to pull punches here—all the candidates were complete assholes. Since we wanted to get something in place as soon as possible, only rich, bored, entitled assholes really had the time and money to apply for the civilian council seats. As far as I was concerned, these people weren’t any better for the city than the original elected corporate representatives.

  Thankfully, the first council was only scheduled to stay in power for six months. Now that the people were aware they had a choice, and maybe even a voice in the government, I hoped that some interest groups might form and put together better candidates for the next election.

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

  This was just the first session, and everyone was already squabbling. Despite the restrictions that had been placed on the new council, until they got into the swing of things, each and every person immediately tried to push massive policy changes through.

  Of course, none of these people considered the fact that they’d need to raise support from the other parties or that their policies may not actually benefit any other council members. Once they realized that their opponents 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 watching 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 balcony.

  “Honestly, we didn’t think the first council 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 explained as she fell into step beside me.

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

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

  Charlotte sighed. “I thought that we’d just need them for a couple of weeks, just to keep things working, but that was before we realized how fucked up the city’s infrastructure actually was. So much of it was completely overlooked or outright ignored by the previous council. It’s a miracle that the power grid or water treatment systems hadn’t completely failed under the pressure already. Honestly? As long as they keep the lights on and don’t request anything too extravagant, I can 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 changed,” I growled.

  “Oh, things have changed alright. Sure, we still have a bunch of corps and greedy elitists for now, but the previous council was a single voting block,” Mirage explained. “An oligarchy that implemented changes that only benefited themselves. Now that there are separate parties, changes will either have to be slower or less extreme. Hopefully when we start seeing interest groups and political parties start running, some of those changes will actually be beneficial.”

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

  “There are heavy restrictions on what those organizations need to do to qualify for those seats, and I expect if the corporate block ever gets together, they’ll do whatever they can to make it impossible for a non-corporate entity to take one of those positions, but in the meantime it’ll keep them honest. If they continuously push agendas that are exclusively pro-corp and anti-consumer or civilian, they risk losing some of their power on the council. There’ll be consequences for their unrestricted greed. I like that,” he replied with a surprisingly genuine grin.

  As we made our way down the side staircase, I glanced over at the area in front of the council chambers. This was previously a private area, with expensive furniture for guests of the previous council to entertain guests. Now, however, it was open to the public, so every news agency in the city was hovering around the doors, trying to get the slightest hint about what was going on inside. Of course, as part of the new transparency, a full transcript of the meeting would be available to whoever wanted it. I had no doubt the evening news would either be all about the outrageous demands the different representatives had made, or how unreasonable some of the representatives were, depending on who owned the news agency.

  I had no doubt the council’s first order of business tomorrow would be trying to repeal that policy. Too bad we put restrictions in place so that couldn’t happen for five years.

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

  “Darling, there are already places where the local samurai straight up run things. Either they form their own society or completely overthrow a corrupt government. 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 recognized us, but they all had the good sense not 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. Chances 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 skyline out of sight. Glancing around, my eyes fell upon the sculpture in the middle of the square. Not long after the big five were deposed, someone had snuck in and taken a sledgehammer to the enormous figures. They’d been completely 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 council, 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 competing tech, so they were trying to grind the competitors down,” Mirage reported.

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

  “Quite,” Mirage grinned. “Since they couldn’t force the Big Five to capitulate, and the city council isn’t enforcing the tariffs, the Denver PMCs started taking control of some of the industrial complexes in the south, along with a couple of the mining towns back east. Although that’s not technically legal by corporate standards, the former council isn’t in any position to complain or fight back right now.”

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

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

  Charlotte glanced at me, a tiny smile on her face. “Which has nothing to do with you, right?”

  “That was entirely the council’s fault. Self-defense,” I replied solemnly, before reaching up and stretching 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 last few weeks. Are you two sticking around?”

  Mirage nodded. “I’d like to get a better feeling for the different council members, identify who we might be able to work with, and who might be a troublemaker later.”

  “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 later,” I said before turning and heading across the plaza towards my waiting Kodiak. As I passed the statue, I made a note to send Zettabyte a thank-you note later. 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.

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