The Poop Wars had started.
Or at least that’s what I called them. All the candidates of all stripes were taking to the airwaves, to fliers, to posters, to newspapers, to word-of-mouth, and mercilessly skewering one another.
It began innocently enough: “Hobardi lacks experience and he will pull the city into a theocracy based on his own religion.”
About a week later it became: “there are independent reports that Peush is working for the Dredel Led to sell Colmarians as feedstock to the Boranjame.”
This was going back and forth constantly. My only take on it was the candidates felt they couldn’t really resort to violence to win—because I told them they couldn’t, and they had seen how it had negatively impacted Hong and his Totki Clan—and so they were trying to get ahead in the polls by hurling turds at one another.
I don’t even think any of them had given their positions on issues. Stating your position might piss people off who disagreed with you. But attacking someone else only hurt them, especially if you did it through third parties.
If the times weren’t so serious, it would be comical. But the Boards were still a mess and I couldn’t figure out what to do. Fortunately, I had been wrong and people weren’t rioting due to the prices.
Everyone was spending all their money on food or pawning their hard assets to make up the shortfall. But that couldn’t last forever. Money lenders were charging exorbitant rates.
I lumbered into the Belvaille Athletic Gentleman’s Club heavy with thought and empty of stomach.
“Secretary. Secretary!” Someone called.
I wasn’t used to being referred to as Secretary of City yet, so I didn’t answer at first.
“Huh?”
Two men ran up to me, holding some papers. One was breathless and agitated and he wore a complicated array of lenses on his face to correct his vision. The other man had a bushy beard and bushy arm hair and was wearing business clothes, but not very well.
“You need to invalidate Hong as a candidate,” the eyeglassed man said.
“Why?”
He shoved the paper in my face like he wanted me to eat it.
“Haven’t you read?”
“Hong is a spy for the Moluk-teen Regime!” The bushy man said.
“The what?”
The two men looked at each other like I was an imbecile. And maybe I was. But not because of this.
“The Moluk-teen Regime. They’re trying to recolonize Belvaille. That’s why the Totki carry spears.”
“They are radio antennas.”
I stood there a long moment. I just couldn’t bring myself to answer.
“Haven’t you heard of this? You’re Secretary of City.”
“And Supreme Kommilaire. If anyone should—”
“Guys,” I said, holding up my hands.
They looked at me with expectant eyes, their mouths poised in mid-jabber.
“Piss off,” I said.
I walked to my booth and ordered an extra helping of sandwiches. I was almost tempted to order the meat cake thing.
“Sorry, sir. No sandwiches left,” the Dredel Led server said.
“How did that happen?” The club was never out of food. They just served old stuff if they had to.
“The wholesalers are not making their usual shipments. Apologies.”
Alright, now we had a problem.
I struggled to my feet and looked across the room. All kinds of deals were going on here. Gangs were fighting. They were resolving conflicts. There were mergers. Acquisitions. New companies being formed. Turf was being divided. Products being designed. Products being diluted.
But no one was eating. And there was a definite air of desperation over my familiar club.
“Hey. Everyone,” I said.
No one turned. Even the people who heard me didn’t turn for long.
I took out two pistols and started firing randomly, just above everyone’s heads, forcing them to the floor.
One guy returned fire until I glared at him. He put his gun down.
“Hey. Uh. If you wanted me to fix the economy. Make Belvaille more valuable. What would you want me to do? As Supreme Kommilaire and Secretary of City.”
No one answered.
They still seemed pretty annoyed I had shot at them. Some were slowly returning to their seats or standing up.
“Like, anything?” I finally heard one guy ask at my elbow. He was definitely a gang boss. His teeth were all gemstones and he was wearing every garish color possible on his clothes, none of them matching.
“Anything I could do. I’m not a magician.”
“You know Beadle Avenue?” he asked.
“Of course.”
“Someone has hacked apart the water lines underneath so they can siphon them and not have to pay. Any businesses on that street don’t have water. I can’t manufacture anything.”
A quiet moment.
“Alright,” I said, nodding. That was a good start.
Wham!
The room came alive. People were climbing on top of each other to try and get in front of me. They were fighting and pulling and yelling. It was like feral kids battling over a packet of food rations, only they were rich criminals in fancy clothes.
“The salt prices in the 48th Street market always lag the others because the train is shut down ten blocks away. The Neculone Building needs 100 more kilowatts to reach full capacity, half our machines are idle. Latticework lighting in the southeast has been spotty for the last three years. Ships can’t languish in port for weeks, you need to push them out so others can get in, just because they’re bigger doesn’t mean they should get priority. Garm still has a huge amount of real estate she isn’t using; turn that over to the public via auction so we can develop it. We need a city run courier fleet so they don’t gouge you based on location. Not if my prices go up! You need to put an Ank Board in the southwest. The feral kids are becoming a real problem on Westlos, increase Stair Boy patrols. If we sell goods to the city, we should be able to use city resources for free. The loudspeakers are monopolized by the richest groups, there should be at least half the time where us normal businesses can use them since you won’t let us create more. Guns shouldn’t be illegal for gangs that you register and approve—and we could pay you. That’s a good idea. No drugs should be illegal, especially XrXr. Clean out the bottom of Deadsouth so we can at least travel across it instead of going around.”
This went on for about thirty minutes. I didn’t have anything to record it with and I only heard about a tenth of what everyone was saying. But soon I realized:
Their goals weren’t to help the economy. They were offering suggestions designed to help themselves personally.
I now understood what the Governor would do on Belvaille. He or she would have to listen to this crap all day and night.
“Hey. Hey! People. I need to go. I’ll come back later.”
But it was like a burst water main, they just kept talking and talking and clamoring after me. They kept a respectable distance, like an ocean lapping against a force field. But they didn’t stop and followed me right to the exit and even onto my heavy lifter. I actually thought we were going to run over some of them.
I was at Rendrae’s broadcast studio. “The Boards. Hank, what is going on with them?” Rendrae asked me.
He had been reluctant to talk, but when I told him what it was about, his news-nose overruled his wounded journalistic integrity. I was sitting in my portable chair and Rendrae was at his control panel with his headset on.
“It’s supply and demand, Rendrae. Pure and simple,” I stated with confidence.
“But what does that mean to the man on the street? How do you expect them to cope, Supreme Kommilaire?”
Wish he wasn’t trying to put this on my shoulders, but that was fine.
“No one controls the Boards, as you know. Not even the Ank—”