...
Pittsburgh, the South District Inland Port construction site.
A massive tower crane stood motionless in mid-air, its steel cables swaying in the wind.
A few hours ago, this place had been bustling with activity, but now it had fallen into an unsettling silence.
The convoy of steel trucks, which should have arrived two hours ago, was nowhere to be seen.
Dozens of welders sat on the scaffolding, welding torches in hand, but with no work to do.
The machinery at the concrete mixing station had stopped. Workers gathered around to play cards, but no one had the heart to look at their hands. Their eyes kept drifting toward the construction site’s main gate.
Anxiety spread through the air.
"What’s going on? Why aren’t the materials here yet?"
"Heard they set up a roadblock. The state police impounded all the trucks."
"So what about our pay for today? We don’t get paid if we’re not working."
"Dammit, this job is so frustrating. Sothing goes wrong every other day."
The workers began to complain. Unrest was brewing.
City Hall, the Mayor’s Office.
Leo stood before his desk. Several phones on it were ringing simultaneously, one after another.
Ethan, sweating profusely, picked up one of the phones. His expression changed after hearing just a few words.
"Mayor, it’s Ron Smith from Erie."
Ethan covered the mouthpiece, his voice urgent.
"He says retired workers stord City Hall and trashed his office. The Federation funding is gone, the pensions can’t be paid out, and he’s finished."
"He says this is all your fault, that you tricked him into this ss."
Before Leo could answer, another phone rang.
"It’s Joe from Scranton," Sarah said, picking up another line. "He says his highway subsidies have been canceled, and the contractors are suing the city governnt. He’s asking if you can advance him next month’s paynt so he can fill the hole."
"Then there’s Johnston, and Altoona..."
All of his allies were crying out in distress.
Warren was making an example of them.
He was turning these mayors into sacrifices, slaughtering them one by one right in front of Leo, to show him—and everyone else—
...who the real master of Pennsylvania was.
Leo took the call from Erie.
"Ron."
"Leo! You have to save !" Ron Smith’s voice was hoarse. "Warren is trying to kill ! That damn environntal review, that damn budget assessnt—they’re all just excuses! He just wants to destroy !"
"We’re in the sa boat, Leo! You can’t just stand by and watch die!"
"Calm down, Ron."
Leo tried to keep his voice steady.
"I’ll figure sothing out with the Federation..."
"Figure sothing out? What are you going to figure out?" Smith roared. "That’s Senator Warren..."
BEEP—
Smith didn’t get to finish his sentence before the line went dead.
Maybe the signal was lost, or maybe Smith had been swallowed by the mob that stord his office.
Leo put down the receiver.
Ethan and Sarah looked at Leo, their eyes filled with helplessness.
"Mayor, we have to do sothing," Ethan said urgently. "Ron Smith said that if the paynt isn’t sent to him by tomorrow morning, he’s going to bring Erie’s workers to protest in Pittsburgh. Joe Byers has it even worse; the contractors are already camped out on his doorstep."
"And then there’s the checkpoint," Sarah added. "The state police have sealed off the roads. Supplies can’t get in, and the South District site has already shut down. Every hour of stoppage is burning through our money. The workers’ morale is getting ugly. Frank just texted; he said he’s losing control of them."
An agitated mood perated the air.
Funds were frozen, logistics were severed, allies were turning on them, and their base was wavering.
And yet, Leo Wallace, sitting behind his desk, appeared unusually calm.
He even had the leisure to pick up his coffee cup and gently blow on the steam rising from it.
"What do we do?" Ethan asked.
Leo set down his coffee cup.
"We wait."
Ethan’s eyes widened, thinking he must have misheard.
"Wait? Wait until when? Until Smith announces he’s leaving the Revival Alliance? Until those truck drivers haul their cargo back? Until our construction site becos a permanently unfinished disaster?"
"Until the pain is unbearable for them."
Leo leaned back in his chair, lacing his fingers in front of him.
"Ethan, Sarah, don’t you see it yet?"
"All of this was to be expected."
Leo’s voice was steady, without a single ripple.
"The mont we decided to bypass Harrisburg and create the Industrial Revival Alliance, we were already standing on the edge of a cliff."
"Warren’s counterattack, the state police blockade—I anticipated all of it."
"It would be strange if they *didn’t* react."
"Don’t let them intimidate you."
"These old-tirs, their greatest talent is putting on a show, especially playing the victim."
Leo said, "Think back carefully to the background noise on that call. The conveniently tid sound of shattering glass, the perfectly rhythmic roars of anger."
Leo looked at Ethan and Sarah, a hint of mockery on his face.
"Do you really believe Smith would sit in an office being stord by a mob and call ? If it were , I would’ve been out the back door long ago."
"I have reason to suspect that might have just been a sound clip of a riot he was playing on his computer. It could have even been a few loud-mouthed secretaries he’d arranged to bang on a table nearby."
"It’s a negotiation tactic. They’re trying to manufacture a sense of urgency to force to imdiately cough up the money."
Ethan didn’t relax at Leo’s reassurance. The screen of the tablet in his hand was lit up, displaying the latest intelligence summary.
"I’d like to think it’s just an act too, Leo." Ethan pushed up his glasses, his tone heavy. "But I just verified it with our contact in Harrisburg. The docunts from the Federal Transportation Departnt and the EPA are real. The administrative investigation orders against Erie and Scranton have been filed in the system, and their special accounts have indeed been grayed out."
"Smith wasn’t lying. At least on the matter of the frozen funds, he was being honest."
"I never said he was lying about the money," Leo said. "I’m questioning their description of the pain."
"They’re really being investigated, and their accounts are really frozen, but has it truly reached a life-or-death stage? I don’t think so."
"They’re deliberately exaggerating the pain, describing a scrape as an amputation, a cold as pneumonia. Because only then can they justifiably demand that I use that five hundred million dollars to bail them out."
"If we panic now, if we wire the money over right away, they’ll have us by the throat. Our system will never be able to move forward."
"So what do we do?" Sarah asked, her voice still laced with anxiety. "If they really can’t hold on, or if they actually flip to Warren’s side, our alliance is finished."
"Patience. We need to wait until they start to truly bleed, and until Warren starts to bleed, too."
Leo gave an answer that surprised them both.
"You only see us bleeding. You see our construction schedule being delayed and our allies crying out in distress."
"But you’ve forgotten that war is a two-way street of attrition."
"Warren is using Federation Agencies to freeze funding. Who is he pissing off? He’s pissing off the voters in those cities. He’s pissing off the contractors waiting to build roads. Those people might have been Republican Party supporters, and now their own side is stabbing them in the wallet."
"The state police are setting up roadblocks on the highways, burning through the State Governnt’s budget every minute. Every private car stuck in traffic holds an angry voter. I’m sure the logistics association’s phone lines have been flooded with complaints."
"Warren is using his political capital and the Republican Party’s base to fight this war of attrition with ."
Leo’s gaze was piercing.
"This is now a test of endurance."
"We’ll see who breaks first: us, from lack of supplies, or them, from boiling public anger and soaring costs."
"I’m holding hundreds of millions in cash. I’m backed by Pittsburgh’s recovering economy. I can afford to wait this out."
"I, for one, would love to know if that high-and-mighty Senator..."
"...also has a few hundred million in spare cash to keep playing this little ga of blockades with ."
"I hope their health bar is a little thicker than I imagine."
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