Archive of Our Own

The United Kingdom is a nation in decline. It's shores are scarred by surging inflation, broken public services, and a government absolved of all responsibility by the fact that there was never a chance in hell of any redemption for any of it's repulsive co-conspirators. Boats, tarred sickly orange, crash onto the white cliffs of Dover, carrying jittering, anxious bodies into the false light of long-dead 'hope and glory'. But, audaciously, there is hope. Hope, that no pain is eternal. Hope, that there may be deliverance for this land of sinners yet.

So much time and so much to do, it was almost like a bargain from the devil to settle his shoulders with this kind of work.

Lord Talis was nothing if not self assured in his measure of work and the arena of his choosing would be nothing in comparison to the challenges that came with the idea of fixing the rot at the core of the population that had no wisdom to look beyond their immediate sight, but he supposed he would forgive them for the lordship even if this whole experiment of his ended up not working.

It would not be the first time he had been disappointed by his own desires.

Jayce Talis had not wanted any of the life he had currently lived as a lord or even before the realization of the need to enter the service economy in return for the investment into his education now that they had solved the mysteries of science and in turn left the dreamers such as himself in the dust to work on the other kind of sectors of the economy beyond the nebulous idea of ‘progress’

There was a sense of shock in the air as he moved in for the first few days of the enforced nightmare by their victory in the campaign of that girl and her promises of ‘security’ and ‘taking back control’ from the forces of control that were happy to ruin the lives of the proud citizenry, his own observations aside, that took the form of the outside world and all the people that existed outside their borders.

Piltover was supposed to be strong enough to avoid the unnecessary roughhousing and saber rattling that came with being the greatest nation on earth yet if anything had been proven by the election all that really mattered was what the people wanted to hear from their elected representatives instead of anything closely related to the idea of truth.

And thus ‘Lord’ Talis sat in the chair of the Exchequer instead of the opposition in some board room that would fail to see beyond their next quarter; already he had a plan that would bring them prosperity.

A tax; for that was all the luddites might see in their controlled media.

Progress revitalized in the name of bringing back the jobs that had been lost in the kind of deal that had led to his lordship and seat, progress restarted with the renegotiation of the unequal treaties helping to make Piltover the greatest country on earth… just on a more equitable playing field.

After all, how could one vote against progress when they lived in Piltover?

For now, at his ready admission, nothing more than a kind of wishlist if the party and the opposition were to lose their minds at the ascension of the kind of person that was supposed to be the enemy on the campaign. Yet it was a right thing to attempt to see what might be possible
before they might rally the troops and continue business as usual while selling the entirety of the country down the river.

Sadly, the country was not a land of the educated, and he would never dare to admit such feelings out in the open beyond tabloid speculation but he cared little for the words of the uneducated opposition and electorate falling for the dangers of populism that had propelled him into the lordship if by happy accident.

Just imagine if there were a true madman to exploit their feelings!

Utter madness, Jayce admitted as he worked on his policy in simple language before the task of adapting such a proposal into the right categories of subsection and language for the office to look towards and proof his calculations.

Thankfully there was a repository of knowledge on call, and even if he felt uneasy at the sight of someone coming close to the age of death than retirement, he would easily come to appreciate that the workers behind the scenes still had the kind of drive that was supposed to be expected of a citizen of the nation of progress compared to some of the… inspired choices that came with listening to the people.

He would politely keep such things to himself to save them all the embarrassment of needing an intervention from his prime minister… he had ridden that wave and now he could not allow for his section of the ship to collapse before they might one day hammer out the budgets of the others in the event that his shelved bill gathered enough support that he might get the chance to truly experiment and not tinker around the edges.

Science truly was his lost Lenore taken away by the miracle generation that had given them the world as their playground.

Science had, rather unfortunately in his view, reached some kind of plateau long before he had been born and while that young man’s urge remained to experiment and tinker upon each and every huge discovery that had come to pass, what reason would he have to continue on such a field where if he were lucky might find some way for some company to streamline their already minimal cost production line?

All that remained was the sciences of the people and everyone could do with paying their fair share. It was that which drove another of the first policies that had to be constructed in such a way where they would finally return to the ethos of progress that was out of reach for the worst off in society while they hungered and laboured for nothing.

Right now anyone with open eyes could see the imbalance that came with the continued avoidance of the taxes honorable citizens were supposed to be giving as part of their civic duty and it would only be right that they need an incentive to remember the homeland and give to those that could not be saved by the promises of work given by those that had the wherewithal to sell in the homeland.

There was a cadre of true citizens that would agree with his own ideals that those on the highest ladder deserved to give more than the least along with the necessary reforms to to take the country back to the ideal world that had been promised for them all before they had been born and the true scientists moved minds and worlds to give them the world owed to them chained by those opposed to doing the right thing.

No good and honest citizens of Piltover should ever have to come under the kind of rule that was supposed to be as native to Zaun as progress was to Piltover.

Jayce sat proud at his desk as he looked over the original copy of the document that would be driven into the ground later, yet that was not the current time, with some kind of pride resting in his breast as he looked over the work that had been transformed into the language that was to be used in the council. It truly was a dead and worthless language that was only kept together by false tradition.

He loathed all that work even as he felt pride in the kind of work that would fix the problems in the country as they would come out with their knives and stop anything from happening in the nation as enemies of progress, life should be better than the whims of the old that had kept the world from developing the new reality that would finally give them the panacea to strike the original sin.

And thus those aides of his took the copies and went off to do what they did beyond standing as the ‘enemy’ that was supposedly stopping all the progress of the country when they had quickly come and done his work in less than an hour with the language that he would never learn if he could help it, they deserved more than to be the punching bag of those that could never do their work like himself.

They lived lives he could never fathom as they took marching orders from their intellectual inferiors but attempted the Sisyphean task of attempting to make sense of the words of politicians that made all kinds of promises because they were too afraid of looking their constituents in the eyes and explaining what they stood to gain if they for once broke past the limits of their brains and understood reason.

It was much the same with him as he attempted to follow the work that came to be done in a bill that might never be done in the first place without their help, much more fruitful than attempting to work to pass the kind of bill that would lead to another of those speeches that ends as nothing more than the kind of thing that would broadcast across the nation as another reason to the failures of popular representation.

Friendships really could take one far, alas he had not been able to look into the future otherwise he surely wouldn’t be here, would he?

Pushing the very idea of the lordship through the council in the first place where the kind of person that did not deserve such honours rested to the surprise of nobody had been an… interesting development. Clearly he could point to the many others that deserved it even less than himself even as ‘merely’ an economist with the stones to look upon the current deals upon which the state relied as something to actually analyze instead of the kind of line in the sand that was untouchable.

They had robbed when they had first been approached by the traitorous sons looking to make ‘amends’ as they would say into the minds of those that failed to see the danger that came with offering so much of a return immediately without looking into the prospects of what it might entail in the future instead of the next election.

Unsurprisingly they had correctly seen the influx of currency as the kind of thing that would win the next election while selling the future down the river because they had failed to strike down want when the great exodus had occurred and now it was the job of Lord Talis to fix the problems that had left them with a coalition that was tied together as the last bastion of sanity and rational thought.

He was rather too happy to be a member of the coalition than a part of the wilderness that was a beacon for insanity.

At least he was able to look past his preconceived motions and got off the intranet that was a mistake the moment they had allowed for it to become a lawless land where each and every individual got a say in the ways that the world was supposed to run along with an organizational point for those additional wings of many parties that had developed recently.

He hoped she had considered this goal of hers beyond her promise that was already making itself known through these thugs running the street for the moment before order would come back and they would be nothing more than an oddity in the course of history that would leave this whole issue behind them.

You give an inch and they take a mile.

The results of the election were never going to be the most popular especially when she had to face the reality of the record on the kind of things she had to say to get elected instead of the open warfare proposed by her opponent on the left that were ever so radical to suggest an increase on the ‘corporations’ at the top of the food chain. It was the kind of thing that really fired up a base and yet meant there had to be an intervention by rational actors against the media machine.

It was easy enough to use their money to raise the spectre of turning Piltover into Zaun where the people were nothing more than pieces upon a chess board where the Duce moved them around while they danced to whatever directive could she might make from one day to the next, of course they were dancing to their marching orders being delivered by the party as a proxy but she wasn't exactly going out of her way to say such a statement on the record.

Usually when Piltovians got mad it was best left in the letters to the editor sections of the intranet instead of the streets where they might face more consequences that whatever fool had decided the laws upon the usage of such a technology when it had existed as something for businesses and eventually the wider world before that project had been rejected killing it in its grave.

She was better than the first intuition to return to the state system that would’ve stopped these bastards before they appeared with their eyes in the sky and yet she was happy to see them come out for what they believed in. There would be no turn on her beliefs, of course, but they seemed to test her own belief in waging the war against the technology that had given them the intranet yet asked them to accept the distortion of their humanity.

Which would require a deep rooting of the systems that had been allowed to grow and fester to the root and stem of Piltover… but this chaos could not be allowed to stand just because of her desires for freedom from the control they all laboured under just to survive.

If she could survive the war then she could survive some uppity protesters remembering they were human outside of the day to vote for any amount that they lose would be nothing in the gains from that ever elusive flip flop of a voter. The armed portion of the party was nothing in comparison to the kind of men and women she had to work with now that she was the leader and prime minister where they thought they might stand up against her will.

Men worked well with the algorithms that determined the faces, names, and identities of those in the way of what she needed and while they might not understand the way one would use the streets as another of the reasons to lambast the government if they ever wanted true freedom and a return to past glories they would have to sign on to their sacrifice on the altar of progress.

There could be no doubt their standing had been diminished, as she could personally attest to under the sun of Noxus, but was she the only one to see the damage that the national suicide that the people were demanding they consider? She may have been elected in part because of their ignorance but she would not follow their desire to run away from the conflict that they decided was worth continuing before the eventual retreat.

This was no rout like last time, just a steady withdrawal from a problem that was in part a ton of arm twisting by those in the shadows.

Man as she had found while in Noxus and back home were especially weak to the idea of creating their very own kingdom of God where they might find their fortune and forever wonderland for as long as they continued to rule their prospective kingdom of wealth or land; bit it by force or influence.

It had given birth to many stories that were not of her own that she could not relive for both sides of the story were long gone and buried but she could not let the reason for their stories to be created in the first place go.

Caitlyn certainly had mini confessionals and last rites on the battlefield many a time that was too many to speak of.

Like the one she remembered as she read over the proposal on her desk where the ‘buck stopped' as they might say abroad where she had the misfortune of being the receiver of bad news even as she suspected something from the kind of tone that was contained in that Piltovian stuffiness and dryness from the moment the budget had been delivered by one of those from the treasury.

It was sad to see such a document hit her desk where clearly some joy had been inserted as to the glee to which the budget went into each and every little thing before they had given her what might be the true budget that could begin the work of preparing for the coming confrontation with those that used the people for their own whims.

For now they would begin the hard work of preparing parallel supply lines in the name of taking their country back by having to make some unpopular choices; she always knew populism was a scourge.

Even as she profited off the work of those in bed with that same enemy; who didn’t love a dramatic story like that?

Four years seemed like so little time in the grand scheme of things yet she would have to make due with the mandate given to her as they feared for the collapse of the government that might cost them their seats if they did not coalesce around her power and will as the prime minister of this great country.

It was ever so easy to deal with politicians more concerned about their seats than actually changing things, and for the moment she would let the rest of her cabinet run wild in the meantime.

They could be brought in line to her way of thinking much easier than the others.

She had trusted men to deal with relations upon the rest of the world even as she pretended to understand the kind of autarky they were desiring upon not only themselves but the rest of the world that would not let them sit idle as one of the great powers of this world just as she would always rise to meet their enemies in battle.

The world was a place that was not made for the kind of policy pivots that they were considering especially in the face of the forces of reaction that were surely forming in the heartland of Noxus that would surely take issue with Piltover’s sudden withdrawal from the issue they had promised their honor as the greatest nation in the world to alleviate.

When she had been bogged down on the ground she could see the way faces and what might pass for local authority in the midst of the conflict had come to shift their views on being on the side of Piltover and their weapons that she hoped to resolve into something greater than the showing that had been the first of many reasons for the eventual collapse on the front of Piltovian interests.

Terror would come for them all and yet the consciousness might only be awoken when it was far too late for them to understand the use of terror and fear in a decision to run but also a decision to fight and engage in a cycle of revenge that was a waste of time just begging to be unleashed where they might once again sign away more of their independence to those who would profit off their fear and comforting visage.

As was quickly becoming anathema to the isolationist mood she found herself looking across the world for the kind of inspiration that offered in itself a study on the kind of actions that one might take if provided the same material conditions.

Zaun.

Always a thorn in their side from the moment they had first decided to strike against their sons and daughters that were trying to turn their own home into their failed experiment in Zaun that was not the conquest they had imagined when they had come to bring ‘progress’ to their shores. Zaun had shown them it would not be so easy in the rest of the world compared to their ‘corrupt paradise’ of Piltover; yet they were not out of opportunities yet.

Coming back home after repairing the relationship between motherland and expats had been a wonderful decision and with them tied together at the hip it almost guaranteed their problems were now the problems of the state but that did not mean there needed to be a kind of war for the property that was very much not going to be returned any time soon.

Diplomacy had been tried, presumably awful in her opinion, and they were all well aware of what diplomacy with Zaun would be like from then on.

Thus it became almost like fate as to them becoming their antithesis with everything they did both on the world stage and how they chose to run their own state without anyone else to give any input beyond their observations of what Piltover had failed to do.

A closed off place where there remained very little beyond the title of dictator that had been passed down to the next in line without very little fanfare as she continued the work of her ancestor in being both sword and shield against the outsiders that were there beyond what little trade might be needed from the labour of humanity and not the work of machines where they seemingly had enough for themselves.

Too wild for anyone with good economic sense because the bear had claws and would not allow for them to take any controlling stake in matters of security as they danced at the whims of their dictator that might very well revoke their licenses and kick them out for the crime of trying to influence their country beyond the money they made.

Caitlyn hated to listen to propaganda about the leader’s success and ability to keep the foreigners at bay and yet there they continued to stand away from the rest of the economy kept afloat by the nature of science almost cutting themselves off from the global economy were it not for the desire for their people to move beyond the isolation that had done something that were she a scientist she might be salivating.

It was impossible to avoid her grand tour of the world along with the occasional extended visit towards Demacia where things always seemed to last longer before she might get back to keeping the people in line, avoiding the occasional assassination, and keeping the enemy away from the halls of power.

Caitlyn admittedly was impressed by her continued survival. She had to come to understand how she could stand against the forces of reaction and all with the beck and call of the people that desired for her continued rule in the kind of system that would shock the consciousness of Piltover because of its reactionary policy.

Perhaps it was the chauvinism at play when she found herself delving deep into what might be released into the physical realm or find its way to their intranet through those that somehow had access to both and was giving their own personal view of living their beyond what the scientists might describe in their drab excitement.

Was it possible that Zaunites lived more fulfilled lives?

She felt out of breath the moment the thought hit her as she wondered what this was all for in the end? What was the reason they were beholden to these corporations led by the descendants of traitors when they would never allow for any traitors to the kingdom to get away with returning beyond for their execution?

Why did they continue to struggle with questions of the day just because these corporation had the gall to steal life saving technology and take control of the kind of things that were supposed to be for the citizens of the nation and not of those that came from the outside and stole their resources while blinding them to the true cause of all their troubles instead of the outside world?

Art was a damned thing and yet the greatest and happiest people of this world were those that had the misfortune of being born under the watchful gaze of a dictator that was always watching sword and shield in hand for the security of a people that had been wise to the dangers posed by these international actors coming from abroad to suck up everything that made this nation great while they ran away to attempt their ways once more with the same mixed results once again.

What was it about them that caused this flourishing state without rights to produce such happy citizens and the like when they went abroad while also having the foresight to engage with the rest of the world unlike her own country that had fled from their responsibility the first time they had fought somewhere that wasn’t Zaun?

Which secrets of the universe had they found by stealing their technology that allowed for this flaunting of the basic reality of the world itself? She would need to find whatever scraps they had that showed them the truth from those that had gone to that land in the search for whatever validation those on the ideological spectrum might find.

Caitlyn would make sure to find articles from Demacia instead of the bias of Piltover, at least then she would not need to look at the through line for each sentence.

Unbeknownst to even her mother, Caitlyn Kiramann was a dancer.

How else could she manage to fly through the day by day process of governance to pass bills easily enough in the council that was supposed to be a place of nothing but deadlock where many an aspiring politician went to die?

Certainly unflattering to many of the people the Lady knew but there was also some truth to the cynicism that had infected the people that had given rise to someone as radical as Caitlyn Kiramann in the legacy of her parents and those that had worked to give them the world that was now squandering their advancements, yet their remained the hope to turn the ship around where glory might return.

And those outside agreed as to her great shock there was actually a revolt to the fast moving wheeling and dealing nature of a government already having proven itself separate from the last government and the kinds of things that they all managed to agree on; now she was silent on the matters of Noxus so she could only watch the counter offensive.

There had been a great big break in the way that things had played out to the surprise of everyone else in the party of opposition as the people found themselves wondering who had truly won the election of the last year when she came down from up top seemingly having completed a transition into becoming a member of the opposition sitting in the chair of the majority party when she belonged on the other side.

It may have been the work of the exchequer but it had her full support and thus the question began to be how many enemies might she make before deciding enough was enough to their rebellion that she might come down from above and make sure they would lose their whips in the event of dissent on the vote that was set before them; enough seeing as they had managed to pass that bill that increased the amount of calls she received.

Despite her heritage she could not oppose the plans that required the decentralization of the industry that was being reestablished by the money and experience of the government. For once they had chosen to avoid the capital and move the needed revenue towards the kind of place that needed the work more than the service economy of the capital that would not need such a factory.

The wrangling of the bill hinged on the choice of return for the creation of a new Piltover away from the corporations and the areas of high economic value, and somehow things had gotten out of control with the exact promise of money and prestige in their little towns having elected a new kind of representative.

There really couldn’t be that many that desired to live next to an armament factory could there?

And yet there was that it gave time for the first salvo in the war that was just for the moment testing the waters and reading the mood of the county yet not enough to truly launch a campaign just seeing how much they expect to receive in return.

What a return of investment; it was close enough to being free that someone had to be receiving a pat on the back.

It was enough to return once more to that age old tradition of making their voice heard outside of the intranet, more and more investment might one day come through but for now the city itself seemed to be where most of these protestors had come from in rebellion to the notion of the capitol not receiving everything even as she also wondered if they even knew what they were being manipulated over.

Were there truly someone that desired the armament factory she would eat her hat.

It was something Lady Kiramman found herself contemplating as she heard all about her tactics that were, ‘proof of a patronage system, to her nothing more than the obvious understanding that there were only so many places that might be so depressed that they might easily accept the gift of factory work without requiring a challenge.

The political membership of the county mattered little in the face of the economic factors that were being considered for both the unions and commerce that needed something to revitalize the crumbling sectors.

Next day's round of universal positive coverage was just an inconspicuous consequence of the power of what happened when the nation was united in progress.

There was room to give them a little something for sticking through the dance her daughter was leading them through by working across the spectrum, shocking for sure, to actually give them something that might bring back prosperity. It was a new day for the country and the backbenchers would have no hold over the coalition itself over the quickly forming cabinet of national unity.

Give and take was the time of the day and when it came time for something to give there was only ever going to be something for them to disagree on and that was the worst of the protestors that were nothing more than mindless thugs using their nihilism as an excuse to destroy everything unlike the parties and their squeaky clean image as defenders of the current political reality.

Was it truly shocking to turn a blind eye to the worst and come down on those that not even Labour might bother to save? She was forced to ponder such a concept as she was served another round of the course that was for the rich like her that was considered the secret line to her very public daughter; it made her wonder why she continued to engage in politics.

Actual bipartisanship was a scandal if one believed that nothing could ever be done by the government, but she worked it by simply focusing on such a worldview to which they might buy into through the backing of their constituents. Not many dared to commit to something without having a guaranteed success of passage or at the very least survival due to public opinion yet jobs was always something not many could be seen against.

They dared not to speak of the specifics when they barely read past the headline; and in such a world there were realms she dared not to tread.

Never one dared to speak on the matter of the bedroom and other kinds of pipeline creating jobs, that whole debate was a knot she was concerned with heavily ignoring as she was elected to combine reactionary thinking with her desire to save them from their own disasters of populism that was not what they needed for the moment.

Was Lady Kiramman to blame Zaun or Piltover for this debauchery?

It always did come back to them in the end…

Simple anarchy was something that had an appealing amount of sense to the voters even as they lived in squalor while claiming superiority against the nationalization at gun point of their industries that at one point had proven their control over their own destiny was not as clear as they had believed, even today there was a real question if their unconventional tactics had made the difference.

It only seemed right that their anarchy had given birth to the kind of debauchery that was running through the intranet and spreading many a rumor and giving rise to a force that they could not return once unleashed which explained Caitlyn’s policy work as there existed no response to the current mood.

One day that league would come to rise as a counterbalance to the proposals in the council… but that was not yet.

It would always be easier to steal someone else’s labour as proven by the amount of those from places outside of Zaun with their resources, and for now they were at the very least unified in the understanding that jobs should go to those that actually lived in Piltover against the desires of the businesses that might enjoy the shock from depreciating labour.

Yet what did her reasons for the current dance mean beyond the first interpretation?

Lady Kiramman found her dance confusing along the lines of the general population when she spoke of matters of ‘national importance’ and a warning of a ‘reckoning’ that might very well be put to the immigration question as it might to whatever place might need such a factory in the apparent militarization of society.

Such wordage had raised some eyebrows, when applied to the conflict of immigration, and she was certainly doing her best to avoid remembrance of the speech during the questioning session.

Tapping into the concerns of the destitute was an… inspired choice as much as it might come off as the kind of approach only the cynical might speak of as they chased after the mythical hooligan that bothered to listen to their voice all the way from the bottom instead of spending their time nursing their concoction of infections from the streets of Zaun.

Even if they only turned their lives around because they had proclaimed a life pledge to the parties or the life they had in the moment that was seeing coming around the corner after the morning sun she found fine as long as they finally put down that concoction from the streets of Zaun that might have been carried over from their Noxian proxies.

No matter how they came to be there was nothing to do but appeal to the lowest common denominator with a passion truly felt, even as she doubted her daughter’s beliefs it was enough for them to come and now she was beginning to honor her promises even as there was an opposite reaction in those that had the honour of joining the altar.

What step of dance was this supposed to be for the electorate?

As a mother the Lady did not know her daughter since the return from Noxus into that arena which might be the arena almost as deadly as war, yet in politics a man could die more than once unlike war, avoiding this arena had been her one promise for what she did with her life beyond the very notion that she would choose to honor her nation with her service to the country coming through being shot at in the dirt.

For now, all they could do was dance to the shrewd mind of her daughter as though she went through promises left and right while attempting to pull the wool over their eyes as to the way her dance moved away from the kind of thing that might cause a true fight on their hands beyond the grumbling of investment.

Her daughter’s demeanor as if she was still upon the battlefield was impossible to ignore as she went around decorum as the kind of woman that she had never expected to come from her daughter. The war had given her an enlightened visage that she would follow until the end of her time on the national stage but not before she had accomplished her adjectives.

Eyes were upon her as she continued to be the bell of the ball as the mother to the campaign that had tapped into something thought unacceptable in such a society that had a cosmopolitan understanding of the world and a desire to continue and interact with the world with the exception of the Zaunites.

She felt nothing from the world as she wondered if this was a sign of something more than the unfortunate early warning system of someone coming too early unto the scene crafted after the Zaun war. Noxus was not like the war with Zaun where they faced a nation fully united against another nation fully united; it was questionable if there was even someone that might be considered a leader in that boondoggle.

Craving strength, they went in the arms of her daughter, and the Lady was willing to watch on the sidelines if she might create the greatest revolution seen in the history of their glorious nation beaten but not broken. Thus, her daughter promised them strength and a yearning for the return of the past where victory was certain and glory was preserved for each and every individual where they created their own story.

At some point the nation would have to face a reckoning that not everyone could take place upon the stage that was reserved for people like her who pulled their own strings and could see others instead of dancing to her daughter’s without knowing it.

Their piecemeal promises of 'increased governmental efficiency' and 'comprehensive reform' seem meaningless in the face of a desolate nation, clinging desperately onto the absurdity of the belief that Britain is a first-world nation. As the neoliberal consensus seems eager to shatter under the weight of numerous existential crises, the party must steer the ship of state through the waters whilst facing down its own internal contradictions once and for all.

How was it that there might be something greater than even the whole of politics united in one course?

What use was the kind of brain kept inside of Jayce Talis as he looked over the districts controlled by those that had a vested interest in keeping the old status quo where men like him were nothing more than untapped resources at the whims of the masses and their sock puppets that could not see the strings?

There were simply not enough resources to engage in the kind of war that was peddled by some in the cabinet in regards to the disparity between what was possible l e and white might be considered when they had wormed their way long before the coup of the party by a faction of those that subscribed to the idea of the ‘apparent’ ‘class war.’

For once there was a combination of wealth and labour in the measure to reset the scene of the economy that had grown out of both of their hands; that the super rich and the urban poor were united made for a perfect skit but that was for the future to observe. Yet with all they had it could only come from a soft dismantle and an attempt which required some of their members to put down their xenophobia for the moment.

Or better yet a tapping of their xenophobia while spinning tales of the apparent success of the Zaunite model with their destitute society and lack of resources unlike what they had in Piltover, sprinkle in some speculation over what might become of them in the event they lost the coming war and it was all so ever easy to imagine everyone here dragged out in chains.

Really, Kiramman's election had been the canary in the coal mine.

A state's apparatus was larger than one truly considered usually unless they were taught such matters from a young age or where taking the world's most important crash course in the history of politics for it was somehow taboo for the nameless bureaucrat to be known beyond the punching bag that had existed and would continue to exist after this crisis.

It was who he felt the most pity for in the war that was being raged against their own expertise by in house experts working the data that came from the intranet much faster than the government might work, they could wage war faster and smarter than they might because even as a stable government there remained an aversion to the boogeyman of the deficit and a fundamental delusion about cost benefit analysis.

Take a challenge that had been proposed long before the rise of these gods that towered over life in Piltover.

With the ways one might be able to play around the limits of a natural born human along with the advancement of technology that made nutrition a think of the past then came the problem of what might be done with the land that had once been of national importance to the nation.

One could gorge from all around the world where the true money was in the eccentric and exotic leaving the citizenry in the lurch, no one might shift away from the lowest level due to profit but there were signs of decay forming in that industry.

Thus it was the obvious plan to free up the means of production in this industry to those that were accepted as a dying breed was the kind of radical action that was needed for the moment when they faced consolidation in that industry.

Lord Talis found himself in abundance as he enjoyed the meat of his labour.

But that failed to be radical in comparison to another problem they had before the consolidation of food and national security.

There were too many prisoners and not enough space for the numbers that were being generated at the rate they had discovered through a survey of the secret colony that had formed in their dark and decrepit prison system.

Thankfully they had already dealt with their blood lust phase when they might’ve come up with ideas worth absolutely nothing than a quick visit to the local asylum or having one dragged to the court system but something needed to be done about the waste of money and people.

While it was questionable to think of people as a resource they were certainly not providing anything to the state and at best was a source of free labour to those that had the distinction of running their system of prisons to which he had a duty to oppose beyond the moral ground.

If the state was going to be the ones housing and taking care of these people there was no reason why someone else had to come and make money off this bargain.

Sadly there were no prisoners to pawn off to their home countries and the anger from the economic transition could not be solved through the current term that seemed dead set on engaging in matters outside of his concern.

Yet there was a way for everyone to get what they might want in the name of helping in their own way towards the wider effort that was needed in service of the people that were multiplying their thoughts over the intranet spreading nothing but baseless rumors.

It took place in the kind of spectacle that had the media salivating as they unveiled the project that would put these people to use while freeing them from the disdain that came from all sectors of the economy through a program that was sure to win hearts and minds as they spoke of the returns and profits for human lives.

Ones that could not be convinced deserved to be damned.

Progress was something that could not be denied as he worked to put on the ritz for those that would need some special interest in making sure the bill of theirs made it through the process without some kind of debauchery from the house for fellow Lords and Ladies.

Lady Kiramman's personal involvement towards the war front was invaluable in avoiding any shenanigans, though not yet known, which only served to embolden the feeling in his breast.

As clear as day; they were on the course for victory!

Yet he could not be so blind to avoid the news coming from the other camp that was in turn still widely seen as a stronger force than the power rested in the state getting its footing back under itself especially when it truly struck in their craw at their intervention.

Egg on their face one true labour had turned out to be much more profitable than their forced decline in quality.

Now began the true danger of standing up for what one believed in after the deluge of late adopters joined their movement that laid low for the time that was coming through a thumbing of the scale that hardened some and exposed the length to which everything slowly ran under the whims of their networks.

It was, as Lord Talis would continue to argue, a sign of the decline of the nation and the ease to which the people were easily manipulated by promises and lies due to a failure of their ethos in ways not yet seen before that required the last bastion of progress.

Fine enough; as a private citizen he was allowed an opinion even if it was a sign of an oncoming mental break.

Lord Talis should take some classes on when to keep his mouth shut however.

Not many could even come to understand what that episode as it was being spun said about the cabinet or the prime minister as they reshored the matters of defense instead of outsourcing the methods of maintenance to others along with leaving the black box that was the mind of the system designed to protect them during the war in Noxus that was a void of information where one might not ever come back from.

Men and women had opened that particular box that could not be closed, the integration of machines to replace man in warfare for the most part, that it spread to the manner of security was almost guaranteed once it had been developed enough to fight and make decisions that did not require human involvement in the process of taking or protecting life.

That was like a chink in his armor yet he dared not tread down that path that led to nothing but self destruction of character thus as was to be expected he wondered just who exactly they had been selling this service off to in the first place; no suspense as to what he found.

As was expected once the veil had been lifted he was not exactly expressive at the service offered in the name of those that had them by the balls and yet was still nothing more than an oversized service industry with an army, it was times like that he appreciated the lengths to which Caitlyn would continue to speak as if she was on the battlefield giving men their marching orders.

Despite the annoyances on the street there was almost something beautiful to the lives they had saved together despite the cries that he gladly ignored with their minds filled with nothing but drivel that was worth less than an engagement in Noxus. Fine, the enemy does not deserve even justice from the larger enemy.

The friend was there to enjoy what they had given them in the first of the kind of town he would rather live in than the boring mess that was the decrepit cities at the whims of human nature that had retreated so long that the minds of Piltover were actually believing in the dribble that came from lips that should never be listened to.

Caitlyn would have resented that remark if only for the campaign that came with appealing to the lowest common denominator but she had struck on something wonderful in bombing the airwaves to make her speech the only thing that may be heard from their party to the common voter that had trusted her words of strength and revival of character that was painfully needed in Piltover.

A confession for his deathbed, yet one nonetheless, he would admit to spending time working seeing her speeches during the time of questioning. As much as true questions might be asked occasionally at the odd coalition formed against those truly on the take, she took on all comers as nothing more than the temporary enemy deserving of ridicule yet knocked away with her dismissal.

It was the way he would've acted if his dreams could come true and he was allowed into that land of those at least educated enough to trick the population; good thing he was not required to attend his own body.

Lord knows how the media would pounce on the littlest things.

It almost made one sort of desire the kind of system that was a controlled ecosystem that would never allow for the manipulation that could not be fought with numbers and was currently either fawning over Caitlyn or attempting to draw rather unfair conclusions…

Sometimes… it was a wonder to see Zaun and the way they flaunted each and every little thing of theirs but it was a wonder to see the way the media class in and of itself was something so decentralized to avoid the kind of consolidation that still had an outsized voice in the affairs of the government and as mouthpieces of the enemy.

There was a cohesion in enforced regulation through the power of the dictator and enforced power to strike those stepping out of line; yet there was something to a popular dictator.

Dictators did not generally care for the wishes of the people much less progress in the sources of power that might cause chaos and yet here they were running towards the singularity.

It was not right that they were outpacing them in the progression of society itself yet it was only ever going to end this way and he could only console himself, just barely, with the knowledge that it had long been rigged before he had been born; his true pain came from watching evolution across the sea.

Progressive… if only for the sake of progress.

It was the kind of thing thinkers had long been concluding was possible if one followed the charts of projected population growth and an understanding of the improbability of humans going beyond their base desire to always went more be it, knowledge, commodities, or whatever it might be that caused man to war against one another.

An experiment that had seen minds rushing to the land that had done away with such things in the contract that had at the very least created a liveable, if somewhat boring, standard without much room for advancement in the material realm. He was not one to speak of the spiritual realm or the artistic but he had at the very least heard of such things by the minds that worked to make the bureaucracy run.

A guaranteed base level of habitation and security?

Like a dream from the pages that he knew to exist even as he hadn’t read such fiction and yet they had certainly not imagined the post scarcity utopia to come from those isolationists that had a healthy distrust of outsiders, and yet they somehow cared enough to get involved with the outside world, although things were fine enough what might come of the future for this land?

All the art in the world would not solve the eventual population increase and the potential for man to continue to want more and more and the snake of boredom. Was the promise of a life free of all constraints under the watch of a benevolent dictator worth all the hassle or was it just some quirk of Zaunites going back to antiquity?

It was something unprecedented to watch an experiment play out in real time and he was like a kid unable to go and play with the other children under the eyes and ears of the newest Duce who looked to be the one leading them for the duration of their experiment beginning from the last generation.

Was one generation of abundance enough to prove a successful experiment?

He would hope so if for one day he would get to see the fruit of changing human nature through their nurture and the experiment of throwing out the book on the market and what might drive the economy that had driven them to the point where the only recourse was to take their country back by force.

At least there remained a lack of information positive or negative of the reign of their newest enemy but was it more because she was rarely there for the country or because they worked so well that she could go and galavant with the local samples?

Now that was its own world of nightmares no matter the truth.

Yes, as she would openly admit in the aftermath, she intervened in the bill of her daughter’s creation to avoid deadlock. If they played around long enough they would allow for their money and threats to stick around long enough in their minds for the earliest the pill could be passed afterwards being next year or if they stuck around after that point 2 years.

Thus it was up to her to be the support in the chamber that only she was allowed to have control over instead of some outsider.

Sometimes if one wanted to work to get something done there could be much stronger results if one worked in the background while placing the right amount before the eyes of the greedy that would dance for any amount of money that came before them with a large enough attachment to those that might one day be shuttered for no illegal reason that one might imagine to exist but not prove.

It worked in the past back when there existed no competition before the creation of all the technology that had shaken the economics of Piltover and began one last call for the old wealth that came through before the corporations placed down enough money for them to no longer have outsized influence on the state; it was unconscionable that their ancient way of life was being lost.

The only form of recourse for their class was a tying of their success to the systems of profit being invented through a kind of shameful display that was appearing in places that very much said that one had taken the bribe and was now in many ways nothing more than an extension of the brand rather than an individual that might have thoughts outside of whatever money they were being paid to survive.

And it was for ‘survival’ for some of these nobles just like the Lady were forced to cement themselves as something closer to pillars of the community instead of the brands that could give them anything but without the human connection that was so desired especially after the collapse of the countries plans abroad and the turning of the wheel that engaged the rabble on the street to vote for her daughter.

What did her absence beyond appearances mean beyond when she might make a show of visiting the various military installations that were coming up across the country through her experience with the war?

There was never an absence of her presence at the very least when they held their votes as the attention was on her as her bills were brought up for the final stamp before the Lady would involve herself in the rather important part of the process that was keeping the line held together by the strong reminding the weak of their role in the process.

When had she become the unofficial rendezvous point for the mind of her daughter and the opinion of what might come from her mouth that would soon be faced with the occasional cross rebellion from policy that required enforcers of the whip?

Of course her daughter would drag her back into politics… more than she already was.

It was all coming back to her as she remembered the many bright faces that had been destroyed by the lack of a crisis for them to take advantage of as her daughter had. Now that appetite had formed she was forced to think back to the many names that had been rather correct in warning of what might come next.

Oh, what a tragedy they’ll spin about those voices.

It was almost enough to imagine her reaching out to those voices yet she knew there was a reason to keep the lid on those tombs; it was never pretty seeing someone die more than once.

Dead men tell no tales and she would keep the skull away from the light as she tried to balance her life instead of ending up like those that had nothing outside of their life in politics or lording over some little village out somewhere where no one might find them.

That had been a real fear as a mother when she worked to establish the kind of thing that she would’ve wanted to exist for her daughter aside from the experience that money could buy in the arena of the mind that they still had not unlocked after discovering the secrets to the person and the ways to extend a lifetime.

She could shoulder the low level of veterans afflicted by such a conflict through her own investments in the arena that might come from the very brief war that was fought through the crushing of the forces of theirs in pitched battle that was supposed to be long dead since the invention of the kind of weapon that was supposed to make such actions costly on the Zaunites making trouble.

It was a sign of their success in public private partnerships that made up for one another when something was found lacking when one of them would commit to their honor as part of the upper class and continue to make the greatest nation all the better in the face of challenges ahead of them by the world that was up for grabs and could not be let go of if they knew what was good for them.

Life was as it should be with Lady Kiramman making sure there was something in place of the inaction delivered by the government for the moment as they worked to create something to replace the loss of resources and technology from Zaun that had always had a bone to pick with the way things did but never to such a blatant extent.

Rumors circled around her ears as part of the upper class before many others and she helped make the kind of change she wanted to see in the world before the next one that had shocked the nation even more than the first war in Zaun and it’s easy enough defeat that was almost like the sweetest nectar instead of the bitter medicine that had been refused by a majority of the population.

Trounced once more but unlike the last time she would not rest until they managed to remove all vestiges of their army in the desert and the town that had acted as the place to which they had paid for the offerings of the old country coming home to roost in service of the motherland that was asking them to do their duty even if it involved an incentive for the kind of world they lived in against the darkness that had been steadily growing as they recomposed themselves from the last defeat.

Yet things did not come to an immediate end like the last conflict.

A slow crawl came from the desert and at first it was almost unnoticeable to her and those that were hired to take care of those that served the country, it was nothing against the increase in resources to keep up with inflation that it was easily written off as nothing more than an increase in the quality of their assistance to those on their service to restore their dignity while they returned to society.

A blip or perhaps a statistical anomaly that was to come from the war as it lasted longer than any of them, commoner or noble, had expected from warfare.

When the first rumors of something occurring down at one of her locations was the first time the war had truly come home to her even as her daughter’s letters continued to come from the front with her unbridled thoughts about the conduct of the war and the kind of things she had seen that were deserving of a considerable investigation to conduct. It was a result of many of the things she had learned from that letter along with the rising tide against the ‘elite’ and those that one should be careful to parlay with.

The Lady would certainly never consider herself as part of the problem when she was certifiably trying to fix the problem brought by the war and massive amounts of misconduct on the homefront. It was counter to everything she had done and continued to do in the name of the people along with her duty as someone with wealth versus the faceless entity that encroached on their livelihoods.

Yet flames did not care for class nor did they care for reason; all they could do was spread.

Once they had the the criminal in their custody she knew it was over for the state of relations between both the people and the veterans from the war that Caitlyn had words about the quality of those that she was forced to work with and the reality of being the auxiliary in a war supposedly in the service of their country while others made their own way through the land that could not be ignored by her daughter. ‘

Although she knew that each man was their own individual and thus she was more than willing to believe in rehabilitative justice against the kind of prisons that were considered long before in the past before they had become the greatest civilization on earth there was something that could not be let go of as she read the report of the attack and the kind of slander spewing from the mouth of a puppet.

They were only a distraction from the deeper issue and yet she remembered them long since the time when she had rebuilt the place, and yet she was asked to reconsider the position once she returned from the war.

She hesitated to consider that brute and her daughter as suffering the same problem but no one could see any other connection.

Even once her daughter returned she was only ever someone related to the scourge that remained because they could not completely remove man from warfare as once imagined before they had found the limit to having an algorithm decide on more than the best way to make sure the people’s appointment were made on time and with the concerns of their caretakers.

By her own admission and daughter’s words the Lady went about the next few years after the quagmire in the desert preparing the cost of the eventual upkeep that came with the eventual return of a majority of the soldiers that would be looking to be part of a world that had not prepared for their existence and was working towards a kind of guarantee for them while also dealing with the budget.

She washed their hands of the veteran issue and they washed her hands of the taxation required of the industry that came with the stop gap before their own government version of the program that would surely use the powers of the state in a way that she could not despite the wealth she did have to go to the continuing betterment of their nation for progress towards the future.

That did not happen as she found herself developing a twitch every time she dared to think of the amount of time she had to deal with an attack on her places of support for those that needed such options because of the failure of the police and her healthy distrust of signing over the keys to her security to the companies that were nothing more than an algorithm in some large faceless facility.

Fine.

It was only ever going to end this way with those of the lower socio economic class descending into basic barbarism and with the with voices of extremism only rising she should’ve realized something like this was the end result especially when there seemed to be nothing more than radio silence from her own daughter even as they went around recruiting more and more men and women for an actual human army after their experience being burned before.

If it kept some of them off the streets to replenish the police along with an actual army in the face of the dangerous world developing along with the continued presence of Zaun in Noxus then she was all for the Kiramman doctrine that was developing in the mind of her daughter that would spread to the troops in the first test of their competency.

WIth her daughter it all somehow had to tie in back with her experience in the war that she heard too much of even as a parent with exclusive access to the kind of thing that was sure to cause harm to the image of the system she was trying to establish from those that had served in combat and were now being asked to serve as first generation cadres to the army that would take back control from relying on anyone beyond the government that paid for them in the first place.

Man was the natural defender of progress; always and forever more.

If not, then... ha! Maybe this miserable place may finally be put out of it's misery!

It was harder to consider the reasons for staying in the only place that was open for people like her from the quagmire Piltover had created by involving themselves in the future of Noxus without a single damned clue about who it was they were there to support and who it was that they decided was the metaphorical enemy that could solve everything by defeating.

She had some glee back then in giving them a reminder of the first war they lost that kick started all this bullshit in the first place. There was something to finding these fools and reminding them why they had lost in the first place.

Even when it came from many a case of engulfing a metal box in what would be a funeral pyre if only they were manned by humans instead of the cold unfeeling processor of an artificial intelligence. She couldn’t blame them especially when she could guess some people that would appreciate an undead army.

It was what made her own line of work like being back on the battlefield.

Her job was going to kill her faster than the wounds from Noxus and the stigma from being outside of Piltover, but at least she wasn’t a Zaunite in their brains, they would not heal from her time spent with the enemy as she became in their expectations another of a nameless number as a cog in the machine.

A small saving grace was finding someone apparently taking a more humanistic approach to the issues of advanced automation even if it was a case of the rich uniting with the poor to fight the richest of the rich.

Talk about true Third Positionism.

And like any true Third Positionist party she was dealing with the wing of the party that was more devoted to the fucking shit up along with radicalizing the destitute to their own whims cultivating into the fire that was burning down her place of work while she watched the flames lick and dance among the chaos with the fore department working their hardest to finish the flames from another of the buildings that were stamped with the image of the devil.

Kiramman.

It seems what they say about big tents was true in the end.

Say what they will about the state of the police but they at least would allow for them to avoid immediate murder from attacking the premises of their buildings instead of the automated security of the buildings the cowards would not mess with because somewhere in their manipulated minds they valued their survival even somewhat.

But she knew a Kiramman: they would not give up until they died.

There was a personal interest to this project which made her continue this display of masochism through this pet project of hers in the name of her own daughter who was the leader of a group of Third Positionists clamoring for the expulsion of all the people like her that were scooped up in their efforts to fix the problems they had created through the leadership of some smoked filled backroom.

That was why she was almost proud of the woman that was being saddled by her own daughter’s actions that spoke of everything that she was not by giving someone from Noxus a job and not embracing the mood of the country that showed no signs of stopping anytime soon through this united front of discrimination.

She was like a god damn Zaunite when she spoke of the hidden truth underneath all their words that are yet to be defined in the world but she could see why Zaun would have no desire to speak to these people that would never treat them with respect.

Probably explained why the less she thought of Caitlyn Kiramman the better.

Caitlyn Kiramman was at the top of her shit list even before she was for some reason mum on the events going on day to day beyond the occasional reminder that sure did hate those Zaunites like the rest of them, they may need to put her through a few more acting courses before she would find her posturing believable.

That right there was everything wrong with Piltover.

Too blind to the idea that their politicians might be lying to them because their little island was oh so perfect and it was the outsiders that had corrupted these loyal sons and daughters of the first generation of businessmen and women.

It had nothing to do with the scum spewing from their mouths about the ways to solve the problem that only seemed to serve Caitlyn Kiramman’s position as marching orders from the top against the bottom.

Of course she very much believed her Third Positionist promises, how could that have ever been proven wrong when faced with the steps towards becoming one big union with enforced anarchy on the street.

And that was nothing to say of her promises to the people against the enemy both ‘foreign and domestic’ that had spread through her supporters with a zeal not seen before that had people like her now under siege where any of her regular visitors might’ve one day been the one to firebomb her workplace if their assistance had not been on the table.

Soon enough the local constable would be here and she would get the opportunity to have the rest of the day off before the costs of reconstruction were considered for the building and they found some new place for them to inhabit before they eventually bombed this one too; the rich really did have infinite money to waste.

Nonetheless while everyone else was busy losing their minds at the sight of a fire and warfare coming to their shores through these thugs she found herself searching the web for another moment of time to which she might be distracted from her troubles and the burning desire to do something to these mouthpieces on the take spitting out whatever lies the corporations wanted about their efforts in Noxus.

They were both sides of the same coin but she hated them even more than the warriors that might come back with their own stories of that hell that she sympathized with as the war fucked both sides without a concern from anyone involved in that system beyond the masochism of a woman certainly making money while killing others at the same time.

She expected very little if they were to expose the events that took course in that land with the same way she found the people around her having conversations they expected her to be unable to hear as they rather politely imagined the takeover of their country by people like her even as they triggered the issues of those responsible for driving them to their treatment; it was so much easier dealing with the warriors.

People were going to be misled until the moment they died but she supposed it was just the way things were turning across the globe, too bad she wasn’t in the collectivist paradise of Zaun instead. She clearly would’ve had more fun mixing with the veterans of the Zaunite perspective of the war in Noxus within their isolated exclusionist nation.

Assuming she had the gall to attempt to sneak past a border where they actually cared about who entered their nation instead of the overlapping ‘otherness’ that ‘could be proven’ at the border that came with being a foreigner of any stripe.

She wasn’t blind to the new kind of identity being created at the border.

She got the message from the intranet of the ceasing of operations of the day before the statements would be required so she went to her favorite place that was one of those places that seemed to invent the oddest hours just to take the piss out of workers like her that were an opportunity just waiting in the wings.

Yes, if there was the tiniest silver lining to another reminder of home it was a physical taste of home.

There was something she was missing from that statement.

A small blessing that it had yet to go into flames like her own place of work. Certainly she had seen some familiar faces that she knew to be on the list of suspects enjoying a place that was sure to be demolished if they had their way and actually read the manifesto they were eating up without so much as activating their critical thinking skills.

What happened next should've been obvious in retrospect, it was inevitable with the brain drain occurring ever since the first war.

Despite the shitfest for the lower class there was this expectation that things might improve in the wake of both wars that were for that nebulous concept of progress that united even the lowest of the low and those that still had the misguided belief that somehow they were better than their primal human instincts of easy solutions to complex problems.

Only the actual army had shown themselves to have both dignity and self respect when someone was making a truly awful decision in the desert because there was in fact no chance of this conflict being anything unlike they had ever seen before; it had been fun back then but now it was almost pitying as she engaged those forced to die for resources.

It made the sight before the civilians all the more shocking and the choice to run through the back of that building in the face of those shocked civilians nothing to her as she saw them losing whatever illusions that had carried this far in the face of a new dawn for them and the nation that they had called home and would soon be born in the dying of the old world.

When that time came she would not be on the front lines as she slipped through all the cracks and alleyways that had been formed during their time of constructions and acquiescing to the desires of their money makers as she went through the hidden grime and muck that existed on these streets past the local homeless person that was even a step too low for someone like Lady Kiramman.

Her mind pushed that aside as the sounds of their treads made that ever familiar noise to her ruined brain as the pace increased of the pressure on her heart at the sight and sound of one of those things again, there truly was nowhere one might find peace beyond joining many others in death.

Soon enough she might as well collapse from shock and yet her pace did not stop for she had to make it out of the city before the true reprisals began against those that dared stop the march of progress through ignorance and obscurantism that was dumbing down the people of Piltover through their efforts to create more and more capital to the point even the army had enough of their tactics.

Like a well oiled machine they were taking positions in all areas of potential choke points and areas for trouble from the rabble that would surely increase in numbers if they managed to get out of this siege and spread the word.

In that way she might salute the rubbish as they acted for once in the name of true freedom against the oppressor.

There would be no city for them to take and twist into their own wicked hands if the rabble burned down the city first in an attempt to prevent the capture of their freedoms that had come to be expected without any official promise, of course that metaphorical paper would be about as valuable as an actual piece of paper but it got them on to the streets instead of the alleyways and occasional help office that they kept burning.

From the moment she had captured the scene before her she had to wonder why exactly she was on the backfoot instead of the front foot from her job that she would’ve immediately deserted in the face of an end to the old way of things, sure that internet thing never got off the ground but their intranet still blanketed the entire country and yet she had never felt a damn thing through a notification?

With such a thought running through her brain as she avoided the detection of the first response module to the tank that could’ve considered her a belligerent, something she would take no chances with her phone was quick to leave her pocket as she unlocked the screen and attempted to find any information from outside the city, the rest of the country would not take this lying down and someone had to have gotten out by now.

Right?

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