One month later…
Baron Cain shifted his gaze uneasily as he adjusted his necktie and collar, glancing around the ballroom nervously. It was slightly packed, with many noble families laughing and eating happily, mingling with each other.
“Ah, Cain Detrius. It’s been a while since we met.” A lesser noble walked up to him.
“Indeed. I believe the previous gathering three months ago was the last time we’ve met.” Baron Cain focused his attention on the short stocky man, who clearly had an ulterior motive instead of just small talking.
“Yes, you don’t usually come to any other gatherings apart from these quarterly ones, don’t you? I do have a few acquaintances that would be more than happy to have your company. There is room for tangible benefits here.”
“I will consider it – however right now I have my hands full.”
“Ah, that ugly building in the South Sector that has just been built? What an eyesore that is, and to think it was built by the common folk. How repulsive. I assume you’re going to take it down?”
“I am working on it.” Baron Cain curtly replied. Mind your own business you fucking twat. If the lesser noble next to him was just a common folk or an inquisitor, he would have him caned or whipped immediately.
However, even though the lesser noble did not hold a land nor title, he and everyone else here had some form of ties with each other due to inter-familial marriages. Baron Cain eked out a fake smile as the lesser noble continued to talk his ears off, obviously intending to pry out what the Baron’s next actions were.
“I’ve heard the construction union is extremely unhappy about how the building was done. I heard it was a brand new construction company that seems to be building at near cost rather than matching union prices.”
Baron Cain simply nodded in response, unwilling to divulge any further. Indeed, he knew that Kyle was the one who set up the new construction company. Rumour was that the building was fairly innovative in some aspects, with the construction company filing for intellectual property protection from him.
He has yet to approve the process, but he was naturally afraid of antagonizing Kyle – it was only through the compromise they made that the spread of repeater handguns were stopped indefinitely. Kyle had kept true to their word, with no more handguns hitting the black market.
However, he did not underestimate Kyle, knowing that Kyle could retaliate against any perceived aggression from his side by releasing a hidden stash of handguns. It was what he would have done in his position as well, after all. In short, he could not do anything outwardly against Kyle, who seemed to have a stranglehold on him now.
Kyle did not push the Baron too much, falling in line with the other gangs and also providing him with a tithe of their profits on the same percentage as the Ardent Cretins. This assuaged the Baron’s ego slightly, knowing that whatever profits the Seven Snakes make – he would have a cut of it.
He swirled the wine in his glass on his left hand, the hilt of his handgun tapping against the interior of his suit. He had followed Kyle’s advice and left it in a thick metal safe, saving it from god knows what methods of arctech activation Kyle had. A team under his payroll was already trying to reverse engineer the handgun, as well as come up with a replica. Maybe I could sell such an invention to the military myself.
“Announcing the entrance of Count Leon!” A servant called out loudly, with the grand double doors of the ballroom revealing a blonde hair man dressed in a fully decorated blue uniform, walking in with a big smile.
The lesser nobles and barons clapped as Count Leon walked in, his features dazzlingly handsome. He walked up briskly to the front of the ballroom, swiveling around on his heel before facing the audience.
“Fellow members, thank you all for again for attending this quarterly gathering of Raktor. I understand that many of you have pressing issues to petition me, and today is exactly that day to do so. However, before I start, I would like to say a word to honour one of our own, who has done a tremendous job. Baron Cain, please.” Count Leon motioned to the Baron, who was slightly shocked.
As Cain walked up, his brain was running through all the reasons why he was called up. In fact, the very reason why he was so nervous at the start was that he thought that Count Leon would admonish him for losing the guns in the first place.
“Baron Cain is an exemplary ruler – he was able to quell and root out a foreign power’s attempt at stealing our technology. With such extensive evidence of Versia’s complications in our affairs, we now have justification for retribution and reparations claim from Versia. Not only that, he did it all in a span of three months, stabilizing the South Sector immediately!”
Cain smiled as he gently bowed to the clapping audience, though his eyes were still glancing at the Count’s expression. So the Count made some money off threatening Versia, thanks to my initial failure, while I got nothing. How convenient.
“Quickly, quickly! Ollie, we’re going to be late!” A kid slapped another kid right on the face, causing him to jolt awake.
“Late? Late for what?”
“The opening of the new… erm… arcade? Shopping arcade. Something like that?”
“Shopping? We got no money even to buy groceries, much less go shopping! Shut up and let me sleep.”
“I heard that there would be free candy given out!”
“We’re going immediately!” Ollie shot up from his makeshift bed on the hard warehouse, changing into his clothes quickly. The abandoned building they lived in was terribly ran down, the paint on the walls clearly peeling off while the double-decker beds creaked loudly as other kids also scrambled to get ready.
Ollie cupped his hands under a water tap, wincing from the near ice-cold water before splashing his face, rubbing with a obviously used towel. “Come on Ollie, quick!”
“I’m coming, I’m coming!” Ollie scampered out of the room, running down the hallway with the rest of the kids. However, Ollie suddenly came to a halt, stopping right outside a makeshift tent barricaded by rusty barrels and dirty clothes. “Mister, do you want candy? I can bring some back for you!”
“Thank you kindly, but there’s no need to. You go enjoy yourself now.” The old squatter smiled weakly, obvious beads of sweat trickling down his wrinkles and chaffed skin.
Ollie nodded, sprinting off to catch up with the group of kids. They laughed and shouted as they ran out onto the streets, avoiding the scowling pedestrians and raging of wagon drivers. “Where’s the new shopping arcade? Which street is it?”
“I heard it’s a single building, with thousands of shops inside!”
“Thousands? How is that possible? Don’t joke around, I work at the factory part-time! Even I know you can’t fit in that many.”
“It’s true, I heard Guang Hwa say it himself! He even told me directly that we get a free hot bath when we get there!”
“Okay now that’s too farfetched!” OIlie panted as he sprinted, slowing down to a walk. “They’ll never let us into that place now – even the public baths don’t accept us!”
“I’m serious, Ollie, come on!”
The kids ran down a series of blocks, finally reached an extremely crowded cross junction where they could barely see above the heads of the adults that were all standing there, ogling at something. “Let’s squeeze to the front!”
They used their small bodies to push through the legs of the crowd, weaving through as they managed to get near to the front. They could begin to hear a voice, speaking passionately as it was propgated over multiple arctech radios spread across the street. “That’s the guy! That’s Guang Hwa!”
[Today marks the beginning of a new era in this district. The building behind me offers the best services, food and entertainment than anything else in the district, not to mention the very first light-thrower theatre!]
The crowd murmured between each other, all of them gradually becoming more excited. Word of the invention of the light thrower had been spread quite thoroughly, especially with the enforcers using it to improve their reputations. Many of them had already seen films of the protestors attacking the enforcers, only to end up arrested.
[Fret not – the first meal, item and theatre ticket you buy in this shopping mall is free for the first day!]
“FREE?!” One of the crowd members was shocked, the excitement naturally spreading even faster.
[That is right. The Golden Snake Construction Company is proud to sponsor the opening day of this building. As its spokesperson, I shall now declare the building – OPEN!]
Guang Hwa turned around and cut a symbolic ribbon, much to the fanfare of the people. The floodgates literally opened, with the crowd rushing forward to enter the building. However, the members at the front of the crowd immediately slowed down upon seeing the fifty or so Seven Snakes associates, all armed and armoured, serving as the private guards for the shopping arcade.
There were even enforcers stationed at the entrance, glaring down at the approaching crowd members. The crowd immediately calmed down, word travelling rapidly from the front to the back.
“Shit the enforcers are here, don’t push!”
“Why the fuck do you care about the enforcers – the stuff in that shopping arcade is free! We have to move before its gone!”
“Idiot, have you not seen how badly the protestors fared when they attacked the enforcers?”
“You’re the idiot, I was there at the protest myself, it was the thugs who attacked first!”
“Don’t lie to me, I saw the light-thrower pictures, it was clearly the protestors who attacked first!”
Just like that, the effect of the edited film Kyle and the enforcers had distributed began to take root in the people, instilling the people with more fear and less inclination to fight against the enforcers.
The crowd began to queue up in an orderly fashion, guided by the enforcers and the Seven Snakes guards. Ollie and the other kids quickly ran up to Guang Haw, swarming him. “You promised us candy!”
“Yes, of course there’s candy! There’s a candy shop right inside. Just queue up and you’ll get it in an instant!”
Ollie immediately queued up. The Seven Snakes guards vetted each individual quickly, checking them for hidden weapons and so on before allowing them to enter. Ollie peeked through the queue, already seeing people browsing the candy shop and clothing stores beyond the glass doors.
As Ollie walked up to the guard, the guard blocked his path and pointed him to another entrance at the side. Ollie noticed that the guards were redirected all the unkept and shabbily dressed folks to there, causing him to get mad. “HEY! YOU’RE DISCRIMINATING!”
“Go to that entrance, or you won’t be able to get in.”
Ollie was about to grumble before Guang Hwa suddenly bent over next to him, smiling at him. “Don’t worry, we just have to get you cleaned up!”
“The last person to say that to me robbed me of everything, you think I’ll believe a cunt like you?” Ollie retorted, about to storm off when his friends quickly stopped him.
“Fine, how about this? All of you kids can follow me in now. Surely I can’t rob all of you at the same time, right?”
“YAYY, GUANG HWA!” The kids screamed his name, running forward quickly into the side entrance. Ollie followed along warily, still keeping an eye out for anything suspicious. However, as soon as he entered the side entrance, his jaw dropped immediately. “This… this is madness!”
In front of him was the interior of a wide indoor bath house, with more than thirty separate pools and a thousand showering cubicles, and it seemed that there was still more construction going on in the upper levels from the thumping sounds above as well as the Seven Snakes associates lugging material up.
Naturally, the kids did not care, immediately stripping their clothes off and placing them into a shelf before trying to sprint into the pools. However, Guang Hwa quickly stepped in front of them, blocking them. “HEY, YOU PROMISED US A HOT BATH!”
“I did, but you have to shower first!”
The water coming out from the shower was heated, much to the surprise of Ollie, who had lived his entire life with nearly cold water save for the heated barrels in his squatter tent. He closed his eyes and let the hot water wash the sludge and stains that had been on his body for months, his mind in pure bliss.
“Scrub! Scrub hard!” A few of the workers in the bathhouse came to pass the kids a simple bristle scrub, with Ollie recognizing one of the workers. “Bola? How did you get here? I thought you were working at a construction site!”
“Ollie! You made it! I got a job from the Golden Snake people; they pay real good money, and you get to almost live like a king on your offdays. You know there’s a dorm for workers here too? It’s amazing!”
Ollie was even more shocked, his mind in turmoil as he continued to listen to his friend gush about how the worklife was here, and his time hanging out with the Seven Snakes. This… this is it! This is my ticket out of the slums!
