"Ron, I can’t take it anymore." Byers’s voice was on the verge of tears. "The money for road maintenance is gone, and the contractors dumped asphalt on my doorstep. And the truck drivers... they said if we don’t pay the freight charges soon, they’re going to drive their trucks right into my office."

"We have to go to Leo."

Smith said, gritting his teeth.

"That bastard is sitting on five hundred million US dollars. If he’d just pay the remaining balance, if he’d just give us an advance on the next shipment, we could plug this hole we’re in."

"But the shipment hasn’t even arrived..."

Smith roared, "Warren is the one who stopped it! What does that have to do with us? We produced it, we shipped it—that’s fulfilling the contract! This is force majeure!"

"Get the money from him!"

「Five minutes later.」

The phone in the Pittsburgh Mayor’s Office rang.

Ethan glanced at the caller ID and nodded at Leo.

"It’s Smith."

Leo, sitting in his chair, adjusted his collar and then picked up the receiver.

"Good afternoon, Ron."

Leo’s voice was calm, betraying no emotion.

"Good afternoon, my ass!"

Smith bellowed from the other end of the line.

"Leo, do you hear that noise outside?! Those are my constituents trying to break down my door!"

"Our shipment is already on the road, but the state police are blocking it! This isn’t our fault!"

"But your money has to come through!"

"We signed a contract! You paid thirty percent, and there’s still a seventy-percent balance! Wire it to me now! Right now! Immediately!"

"If I don’t see that money by sunset today, I’ll..."

"You’ll what?"

Leo cut him off.

"Quit the alliance? Or go surrender to Warren?"

"Ron, save it."

"Warren has already made his move. You think if you go crawling back to him now, he’ll give you your money back? He won’t. He wants your corpse, as a warning to everyone else."

"Right now, your only way out is through me."

Smith was breathing heavily. "If you know that, then give me the money! Don’t you have five hundred million? Spare me ten million, twenty million! It’s a lifeline for me, but it’s just a drop in the bucket for you!"

"I do have money."

Leo leaned back in his chair.

"But I can’t give it to you."

"Why not?!"

"Because the shipment hasn’t arrived."

Leo looked at the project schedule on his desk.

"I’m the Mayor of Pittsburgh, and I’m accountable to the taxpayers of Pittsburgh. I can’t pay for a shipment of steel that hasn’t even made it to the site—steel that might have already started to rust."

"It’s fiscal discipline, Ron. You know how it is."

"To hell with fiscal discipline!" Smith cursed. "This is a special circumstance! What is this bureaucratic bullshit?" 𝒇𝓻𝓮𝓮𝙬𝙚𝒃𝒏𝓸𝙫𝒆𝙡.𝓬𝓸𝒎

"I’m not being a bureaucrat."

Leo’s voice turned cold.

"I’m following the rules."

"Besides, Ron, even if I wanted to, I couldn’t give you cash."

"My cash flow is tight, too. I have to pay local workers’ wages and settlement fees."

"That five hundred million isn’t infinite."

On the other end of the line, Smith fell silent.

He understood the meaning behind Leo’s words.

"However," Leo’s tone shifted, "while I can’t give you cash, I can give you something else."

"What?" Smith asked, as if grasping at a lifeline.

"Notes."

Leo said the word.

"Alliance Credit Notes."

"The settlement system I mentioned to you all before is now online."

"I can immediately transfer twenty million dollars’ worth of credit notes into your account."

"You can use these notes to pay your factories, to pay your contractors."

"Within our alliance, they *are* money."

"Notes?!"

Smith’s anger erupted again.

"You want me to use these electronic codes to pay pensions to retired police officers? You want me to use this IOU to buy bread for workers who are starving to death?"

"Can they use this to buy things at Walmart? Can they use it to pay their bills at the hospital?"

"Leo, you’re screwing with me!"

"They can’t use them now because you haven’t made them mandatory yet."

Leo’s voice became firm.

"Ron, this is your only chance."

"As long as you’re willing to push it, it *is* money."

"I won’t do it!"

Smith refused.

"That’s your choice."

Leo said coolly.

"There’s no cash. Only notes."

"Or, you can figure out a way to solve Warren’s blockade yourself and get the shipment here. As soon as the goods arrive, I’ll pay for them."

"It’s one or the other."

BEEP—

Leo hung up the phone.

"He’s going to go crazy," Ethan said with concern. "You’ve backed him into a corner."

"People only learn new ways to survive when they’re backed into a corner."

Leo stood up.

"But before he learns a new way, he’ll do one thing first."

"What’s that?"

"Bite."

Leo looked out the window.

"He can’t deal with Warren, and he can’t deal with me."

"But he has to give those angry citizens an explanation, and he has to find an outlet for that explosive anger."

...

In the Erie City Mayor’s Office, Ron Smith let go of his feigned anger and sat steadily in his chair.

He had anticipated all of this.

He just hadn’t expected the pressure to come so quickly and so fiercely.

The clamor from downstairs grew louder, like a pot of boiling water about to blow its lid and scald him, the Mayor, raw.

But he knew very well that now was not the time to admit defeat.

He stood up, walked over to the full-length mirror, adjusted his tie, and smoothed the wrinkles on his suit.

He had to go face that angry crowd.

But he wasn’t going to apologize. He was going to redirect their fury.