On the top-right corner of every single form, they stamped a red seal.

"ACTION SUPERVISED BY THE MAYOR’S OFFICE"

The red ink seeped into my fibers, like a medal pinned on a soldier before he marches off to war.

"Listen up," Sarah told the people around her. "We’re going through official channels. Go to the window, register them, and get a receipt for every single one. If they refuse to take them, record it."

Clutching us in their arms, they walked into the service hall.

The clerks inside were stunned.

They were used to slowly processing a few, maybe a dozen, applications a day.

But now, placed before them, were four thousand.

"Wh-what is this?" the heavyset woman behind the counter stammered.

"This is the voice of the citizens." Sarah slammed the top stack—which included me—down on the counter. "You have now received the hazardous condition notifications. Please sign for them."

The woman mechanically stamped and signed, her hands trembling.

I was officially entered into the system.

But it wasn’t over.

’I thought I’d be tossed into some forgotten warehouse to gather mold, just like any other document.’

’But I was wrong.’

A large, thick hand roughly snatched me up.

It belonged to a bald, middle-aged man in a gray suit with a brutish, fleshy face.

Steve Wagner.

The director of the Department of Public Works’ Bureau of Street Maintenance.

At that moment, he was in a state of extreme rage.

"They’re insane! Absolutely insane!"

Wagner roared.

His desk was piled high with papers just like me, and more were scattered all over the floor.

He’d been backed into a corner.

"You want to bury me? Fine! I’m coming to settle this with you!"

Wagner grabbed me and a few dozen of my unfortunate brethren, crumpling us into a ball.

He stormed out of his office.

He charged furiously down the hallway, ignoring his secretary’s attempts to stop him, and barged straight into the elevator.

The third floor.

The Mayor’s Office.

The door was thrown open with a bang.

Leo was sitting behind his desk, discussing something with Ethan.

Wagner burst in.

He rushed to the desk, raised the crumpled ball of paper in his hand—me—and slammed it down hard on Leo’s clean, polished desk.

SMACK!

I was thrown into a dizzy spell, spreading out across the desktop.

The photo of the gaping manhole was staring right into Leo’s eyes.

The writing on it was still clear: DANGER LEVEL: EXTREME.

"Wallace!"

Spittle flew from Wagner’s mouth.

"What the hell do you think you’re doing?!"

"Did you have these four thousand pieces of trash sent over to paralyze my department?!"

"Don’t you know we don’t have nearly enough people to verify them? Or enough money to fix them?!"

"You’re just making trouble! You’re disrupting administrative order!"

Leo didn’t move.

He looked at the raging director, then glanced down at me on the desk.

He reached out a finger and gently smoothed out my creased corners.

"Trash?"

Leo looked up.

His eyes were cold.

"Director Wagner."

Leo pointed to the photo on me.

"This was filled out by a father from the Hill District, braving the cold wind on his way home from work."

"This is a trap that could swallow a child’s life at any moment."

"And you call this trash?"

Leo stood up.

He was taller than Wagner, and his presence completely overwhelmed the portly bureaucrat.

"No, Mr. Director."

"This isn’t trash."

"This is an order."

"This is an order to you from the three hundred thousand citizens of Pittsburgh."

Leo picked me up, pressed the paper against Wagner’s chest, and tapped it with his finger.

"Right now, you have two choices."

"One, take these forms, get the hell back to your office, and figure out how to fix them."

"Two, you resign right now, and I’ll find someone who *can* fix them."

Wagner stared into Leo’s unyielding eyes.

He suddenly felt a surge of fear.

This was only supposed to be a test.

In Wagner’s eyes, this kid, not even thirty years old, had won the election through sheer luck and rabble-rousing. He was ultimately an outsider with no real foundation.

It had been almost a month since he’d taken office, and aside from the two close aides by his side, Leo hadn’t fired a single department head or installed any of his own cronies.

To Wagner, this was a sign of weakness, proof that the new mayor lacked confidence.

So, Wagner decided to test him.

He wanted to use this outburst to establish his own position, to put the new mayor in his place.

’He wanted to tell Leo: Don’t think you can just order me around because you’re the mayor. On my turf, in the Department of Public Works, I’m the one who calls the shots.’

’He wanted to get a handle on this young man, to make him understand who the real expert was in this bureaucracy, in the realm of street maintenance.’

But now, he realized he was wrong.

Dead wrong.

There wasn’t a trace of panic in Leo’s eyes. Instead, they held a condescending coldness.

Wagner suddenly realized that, at the end of the day, this was still his boss.

This was the Mayor of Pittsburgh, a man who had the power to hire and fire, who could make him disappear with the stroke of a pen.

Of course, in the world of bureaucracy, one couldn’t just blindly obey a superior. Occasionally showing some "personality" and "difficulties" was a necessary tactic for negotiation.

But this was clearly not the right time for that.

Cold sweat beaded on Wagner’s back.

He realized that times had changed.

These pieces of paper were no longer just scrap; they had become bullets.

And he was standing right in the line of fire.

And I lay quietly against his chest, feeling his heart skip a beat.

I am a piece of paper.

But I am heavier than steel.