In the skies above Pittsburgh, a fine rain had been falling since dawn, showing no signs of stopping.

The rain wasn’t heavy. It was just a dense, dreary cold that seeped into every crack and crevice of the city.

It was primary election day.

There were no blaring gongs and drums, no rousing marches, and no colorful balloons rising into the sky.

Not a single campaign vehicle could be seen on the streets, broadcasting last-minute appeals for votes.

The entire city was unnaturally quiet.

Carnegie Avenue was still gridlocked with morning rush-hour traffic. A long dragon of red taillights blurred into a hazy halo in the rainy mist.

Workers still carried their metal lunchboxes, expressionlessly flooding toward the factory time clocks.

The glass panes of the coffee shops were fogged with condensation. Inside, the queued crowd stared down at their phones, waiting for the cup of hot coffee that would get them through the morning.

Everything looked no different from any other Tuesday in the past eight years.

The city didn’t seem to care who would become its master today. It simply ran on its established inertia.

But if you looked away from the grand cityscapes and focused on the street corners—on the entrances to unassuming community centers, fire stations, and public libraries—you would notice something unusual.

Near University City in the Oakland District, a crowd of young people who would normally sleep in their dorms until noon had appeared on the streets at dawn.

They wore hoodies and large, over-ear headphones.

They stood silently in the rain, holding their voter registration cards.

The line was long, stretching from the entrance of the polling station for two blocks.

The rain soaked their sneakers, but no one left, and no one complained.

In the working-class neighborhoods of the South District, the situation was even more astonishing.

Old blue-collar workers who had long ago grown disillusioned with politics, who had sworn they would never vote for another politician in their lives, had stepped out of their homes.

They stood in line wearing old, oil-stained work clothes or Union-issued jackets, passing cigarettes to one another, their gazes firm.

It was a silent understanding.

They just came out, lined up, and waited.

In the prefab office of the campaign headquarters.

Ethan Hawke sat before the enormous monitor.

On the screen was a real-time electoral map of Pittsburgh.

The data on it was jumping wildly.

Karen Miller stood behind him, arms crossed.

She had been a campaign manager for over a decade and had lived through countless nerve-wracking election days.

But she had never seen anything like this.

"This isn’t right," Karen muttered to herself.

Normally, primary voter turnout would be very low. The curve would be quite flat, with only a small peak during the evening rush hour after work.

But on the screen now, the blue curve representing voter turnout wasn’t climbing.

It was taking off.

It was a nearly vertical line.

"It’s noon, and turnout has already broken forty percent," Ethan said, his voice hoarse. "That’s the total turnout for the entire day of the last mayoral election."

"This makes no sense."

Karen stared at the screen. "There were no mass rallies, no blanket ad campaigns... where are these votes coming from?"

"They’re crawling out of the woodwork," Frank said as he walked in from outside. He had just been checking on a few polling stations and was soaked to the bone, but his face wore a nearly manic grin.

"You data crunchers would never get it," Frank said, grabbing a bottle of water and chugging it. "You only pay attention to the people who talk. But today, all the people who usually stay silent have come out."

Ethan felt an inexplicable shudder as he watched the precinct data points on the map turn red and grow hotter.

This was the release of an emotion that had been suppressed for far too long.

Leo was not at the campaign headquarters.

On this fateful day, he should have been visiting polling stations, shaking hands, and projecting confidence for the cameras.

But he wasn’t.

He drove alone, leaving the bustling city behind, and followed the winding mountain road up to Mount Washington.

He parked his car at the scenic overlook next to the famous Duken Slope Cable Car Station.

This was the highest point in Pittsburgh.

Standing here, you had an unobstructed view of the entire downtown skyline.

Below, the Monongahela and Allegheny Rivers converged. Their murky waters crashed together under the gray sky, becoming the mighty Ohio River flowing west.

This delta had seen too many ambitious men.

Three hundred years ago, French explorers in military boots had hidden behind dense thickets, greedily eyeing this crucial piece of land that would determine the fate of North America.

Later, a colonial governor from the United Kingdom stood on this same cliff’s edge, planning Fort Pittsburg, intended to control the new continent.

Andrew Carnegie must have come here too.

When that short Scotsman stood here, gazing at the endless rows of smokestacks on both sides of the river valley, at the blast furnaces that spat flames day and night and stained the sky orange, he must have felt like he was the god of this land.

Those men—those once-mighty conquerors, those industrial titans who held the power of wealth in their hands—had all stood here, looking down on the same river, certain that they had their finger on the pulse of the era.

Now, it was Leo Wallace’s turn.

The rain was still falling.

The city was shrouded in a gray mist.

In the distance, the Morganfield Building still soared into the clouds, and the dome of City Hall was faintly visible through the mist.

Leo rested his hands on the damp railing, letting the rain soak his hair.

He felt a calm he had never known before.

The exhilaration from the debate stage, the anxiety from battling bureaucrats on construction sites—it all vanished in this moment.

"Do you feel it, Leo?"

Roosevelt’s voice echoed in his mind.

’I feel it,’ Leo answered in his mind. ’It’s quiet.’

"Yes, quiet."

It seemed Roosevelt, too, was gazing through Leo’s eyes at this industrial city he had once known so well.

"This is the sound of democracy."

"People always think democracy is the shouting in public squares, the debates in parliament, the victory celebrations under falling confetti."

"In truth, it’s none of those things."

"True democracy is this very moment."

"It’s the tens of thousands of ordinary people, queuing silently in the rain."

"It’s the rustling sound of countless thin slips of paper falling to the bottom of a ballot box."

"The sound is soft, so soft you can barely hear it."

"But when tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands of those sounds come together."

Roosevelt paused.

"That is the sound of an old era collapsing."

"That is the sound of the very foundations of power being ripped out by the roots."

Leo looked at the city below.

He imagined that in each small voting booth, calloused hands and young hands were casting their solemn ballots.

They were placing their trust, their anger, and their faint, meager hopes for the future all into his hands.

It was a suffocating weight.

’Can I do this?’ Leo suddenly asked.

For months, he had been fighting, and he had never doubted himself.

But in this final moment, faced with the heavy weight of the people’s will, he felt a flicker of fear.

"Of course you will make mistakes," Roosevelt answered bluntly.

"You will stumble in this city. You will make wrong decisions. You will disappoint some people. You’ll even be cursed out worse than Carter Wright."

"That is the price of power."

"But, Leo."

"As long as you always remember this rainy Tuesday."

"Remember this quiet."

"Remember how you stood here, watching this city."

"Then, you will never lose your way."

Leo closed his eyes and took a deep breath of the damp air.

The chill that filled his lungs made him feel clear-headed.

「Time passed, minute by minute.」

The sky gradually darkened.

The city’s streetlights began to turn on, their orange glow casting long reflections on the wet pavement.

Six o’clock in the evening.

The doors of the polling stations in every neighborhood closed on time.

The last voter cast their ballot.

The boxes were sealed.

The count began.

Leo opened his eyes.

He saw the lights of the City Hall building below, which seemed a little dimmer than usual.

It had once been the unassailable center of power, the solid fortress built by Carter Wright.

But now, in Leo’s eyes, the building had lost its former majesty.

It just looked like a pile of old stones.

A house about to change hands.

The steel city had completed another transfer of power in its history, all in silence.

It was as if nothing had happened.

And yet, as if everything had changed.

Leo turned and walked toward his car.

’Let’s go, Mr. President.’

Leo pulled open the car door.

’Karen and Ethan are still waiting for us. They’re probably going crazy with worry.’

"Where to?" Roosevelt asked.

Leo started the engine. The headlights pierced the darkness.

’To where we need to go.’

’To take over this city.’