The night the last bridge blew, as a frenzied mob of people desperate to get out rushed the National Guard lines and were mercilessly gunned down (something I don't intend to forget, no, not ever) we feasted as the kings of old.
Lit by propane lanterns and those tiki torches you always see at the store but no one ever buys, on as many folding tables as we could find, lay the spread. Over a hundred cooks had slaved all day with duplicated ingredients to create dishes which, if deemed acceptable, would then themselves be duplicated ad nauseum until we could feed a couple million people easily.
Though, I'd have been a bit surprised if you told me half a million people showed up. I don't know, after the first ten thousand, my brain refuses to track crowd sizes and just says "lots." We did put out the word as best we could, sending criers to spread the news, not just of the banquet, but that we'd taken over 108.5 for news broadcasts and alerts. Still need to find a few regular announcer types.
The bones we saved. Tom and Jerry were both left behind for their mob history, and still had the knife of division. Much easier to preserve bones, after a little cleaning, than meat.
Of course, at least part of the idea was to do away with most of the perishables. Does us little good to keep duplicating milk near or after it's souring.
So we had a brilliant, if eclectic spread. Lobster right next to pizza, heaps of cheese wheels and loaves of bread. Meat and dairy front and center, baked goods close behind, in every variety.
Nobody went away hungry, and more people than not were packing away leftovers into an assortment of tins, bags and tupperware containers to bring home, far more than they'd actually eaten. Good. If we achieved nothing tonight but giving everyone food for a couple of days, that alone made the whole thing worthwhile.
Not that full bellies are the limit of my ambitions for tonight.
People can be incredibly complex, and unbelievably simple at the same time, and there is no contradiction here, because people build layers of complex, contradictory notions atop a very basic framework. Everyone needs food, water, air, rest and physical security, on a constant or at least daily basis. Not everybody needs attention, validation, agency, personal growth or reconciliation, at least not all the time, and making even very simple mistakes, like trying to be there for someone who desperately doesn't want company, can set off whole new issues.
I can't help everyone with all their needs, because outside the basics of Marlowe, there are no cookie-cutter solutions. Best you can do is give them the opportunity to help themselves and maybe the inclination to help each other. Well, this and wonder just when did helping people in more than the abstract become so very important to you? Hey, I can be complex too!
….
Well, I have complexes, anyway.
Seems I've wandered a bit off-track, apologies, a bad habit of mine. The takeaway here is that food still speaks to a very primal part of humanity. Giving food is pretty much universally considered a generous gesture, even more so in a time and place where people have realized suddenly they may not eat tomorrow, and sharing food is the near-universal sign of "I am not your enemy" (albeit, somewhat complicated by the existence of poison) for a reason. Besides being great for community bonding.
Which is really what tonight is about. Reassuring people that there will be food tomorrow, that the world isn't ending for them. Strengthen whatever sense of community still exists here, and make them favorably inclined towards me, personally, because tonight I need to spin a line of bullshit like never before. I need these people to actually believe in that better tomorrow. I need to give them a fire in their bellies to get up tomorrow and work for it. I need them to believe Gotham isn't going to turn into the Wasteland or Mad Max's Outback, otherwise it might well happen.
Most hilarious of all, I need to sell them on the idea I should be in charge. That I know what I'm doing, rebuild cities and societies from the ground up every week, don'tchaknow. Basically that I have some clue what I'm doing and not just making it up as I go.
Just as I'm starting to really stress out, my cue arrives. From where we set up at Mcllaren Park, we can just barely hear the charges go off on the Metro-Narrows Bridge. More noticeable is how the entire crowd falls silent as everyone looks to the North, the even having a certain weight to it. Gotham is now cut-off from the rest of America, abandoned in her hour of need.
Looks like I'm on.
"Ladies and Gents," I hoist a glass. "A toast! To the worst that is behind us!" Way too many eyes are looking at me in confusion and derision. I decide to abandon conventional wisdom and ignore my audience.
"Yes, I said behind us. Everything we've been dreading the last few days has come to pass, the American government and it's people have abandoned us entirely and look! We're still here. We've passed the worst Mother Nature and the United States Congress could throw at us, and now it's time to look to the future."
Most great leaders have great speechwriters, some have entire teams of writers behind the scenes working to make them memorable. I wanted this to be at least a bit natural though, and don't have a speechwriter, so my preparations were limited to a single index card with bullet-points I wanted to hit. With little colored ticks in marker, to note Freddy's cues, and one the right side a series of codewords for unplanned needs.
Among the abilities of a Mistborn are, by consuming brass and zinc, exercise a form of emotional control by Soothing (suppressing) or Rioting (strengthening) selected emotions. Generally a given Soother or Rioter could only manage a crowd with patience and great art, identifying key targets, hitting a few dozen at a time and cycling rapidly through targets, an emotional symphony that only a masterful conductor could hope to manage. But those who obtained Allomancy from the source, by eating lerasium like the Lord Ruler or Freddy, they could work their magic on tens of thousands, a hundred thousand, at a time. In fact, the Lord Ruler used to give himself a supernatural, almost divine aura by just suppressing all emotion in everyone at his every public appearance. Awe might have worked a bit better.
Freddy isn't all that experienced, his touch not terribly delicate, but with a little showmanship, some emotional manipulation and +8 charisma from my cape, we should be able to paper over any shortcomings of content with enhanced delivery.
It might come out a bit less well over the radio though, or the recordings Vinny insisted on for posterity.
"Two facts are inescapable: we aren't getting any help from the US, and we don't really need it. This city predates the politics that formed the US, the people who built it were among the first to settle a new world. Later, the people of the this city were the first to ride the waves of industrialization to wealth and power, and to this day Gotham has led the world in science and innovation. On the Congress floor, they called us a lost city, a den of vice and madness, crime and filth. The truth is simple, they have always envied us, our wealth and our bustling industrious populace. Who doesn't love to see a titan fall? It's a part of human nature, if not a good one, to kick a man while he's down. Which person, outside our island, didn't crow just a little to see us brought down to their level, and lower?"
I gestured expansively, but with my hand downturned. Rising hope, yes, but dial it in a little Freddy!
"And one part of their sneers is true. Gotham has always been the hard-luck city, plagued with systemic problems. We never caught a break before, nor received a handout-" technically untrue, but this is a not a time for too much nuance "-so why should not getting one now count as a surprise, or a disappointment? Everything we have, we built, we worked for, we earned the hard way. We did it once, and we can certainly do it again, and make this city greater than ever before."
Community, solidarity. Build on it a little, can't just tear people down.
"Each of us is well-acquainted with hardship, now more than ever, and it has built a sturdy character is each of us. There is no person left in Gotham who has not suffered loss, but it has never broken us. If we have ever had a failing before this week, it has been a loose sense of community, and that weakness could not survive the quake. In this last week I have seen countless acts of caring, of people with virtually nothing giving up their last can of beans to a family of stranger, of men throwing themselves into rescue efforts, clawing at debris with bloody hands to save a complete stranger, because he was human and needed help.
"Has there ever been a city like Gotham? I can barely imagine it. There is no challenge, up to an including rebuilding civilization from scratch, I would put past her people... those who remain."
I bowed my head.
In classic rhetoric there are three elements, logos or logic for the facts, pathos for the emotional response, and ethos, the credibility and authority of the speaker himself. A certain amount of ethos was there, just because I was the man with the microphone and the shiny white suit, but I was saving it, and the logic behind why we're not totally screwed, for the big finish. Tonight is mostly about getting these people fired up to rebuild Gotham.
And nothing gets people going quite like a common enemy.
"Look around, and you won't see any of the wealthy elite. The old money and the multinationals couldn't pull out of Gotham fast enough after the quake, leaving everyone depending on them for income waving in the breeze. Why should they stay? Gotham was never their home, merely a residence, and one among many at that. With the exception of the Waynes, when did any of them invest their money, or just their time in the city? I respect that Bruce Wayne tried to go to bat for us, but you know the rest of them, the Elliots and Cavendishes, are sipping champagne on their yachts and laughing at the poor chumps they've left in a ruined city, to starve or die fighting over their scraps while they snigger at the weakness and stupidity of the lower classes.
"Well, they're wrong. We're not going to starve, and we're not going to turn on each other. These rich bastards have forgotten a few things. Oh, they could never understand our community to begin with, but they've forgotten that they didn't build this city in the first place, we did. The best part of Gotham isn't that which left, not one of these twits could handle a flat tire, much less the task ahead."
I chance a look. It's hard to see many individual faces in the mix of torchlight and the lanterns, I have one at my side and a little before me so I can be clearly visible, which isn't helping with my own vision. But I think I see some nods, and hard expressions.
Good. Give in to your anger. Now for the big finish.
"We're going to survive, and we're gonna thrive. We'll do it together, as a community. We'll do it as a people who know how to garden, how to fish, how to build things. And we'll have a substantial edge, one they didn't forget, but laughed at. Because Gotham was the first city to ever elect a wizard for a mayor.
"All of you know me. The Book Wizard. I make no apology, but also no excuse for old crimes. At the very least, you have to admit I've never done things small." Was that a laugh? "I have been many places, seen and done many things. I've always protected my own, and at the moment, that means each and every one of you. I can feed a hundred thousand with one loaf of bread, though we should probably still get fishing and agriculture up, for variety and to remove a single point of failure." Moving away from speech-talk, bad Bookworm! Back on track. "Our logistics situation is thus made much easier. No one will starve. But as you feast tonight, savor this meal. Refrigeration is spotty and many of the perishables you see tonight, you may not see again for months."
We have a freezer at GCPD, and effectively limitless fuel for the gas generator, so we'd kept samples of lots of frozen foods for duplication. Particularly ice cream and pigs in a blanket, an old weakness of mine. But at the moment, we have no plan if the emergency generator breaks after a few weeks of running.
"But if we work hard, if we support one another, I promise you will taste all of these things again! Gotham is full of a thousand jobs that need doing, jobs that will pay well. We will rebuild this city, with grit and magic, and make it one of wonders. For as our ancestors were among the first to blaze a trail of steam and steel, we will be the First City of Magic, and the envy of all the world.
"And when they look at our shining city from the mainland, they will be ashamed. When the US Congress that ditched us comes, hat in hand, and asks for us back, we'll look upon them from a lofty height and say "Maybe. What do you have to offer us?""
The crowd doesn't exactly go nuts with applause, but it's not that really that kind of speech. Normally you open with the facts, and end on a high note, so a bit backwards there.
Still, I (and Freddy) had roused a powerful passion in them they'd not soon forget. I laid out a vision and subtly underlined, I hope, that we are no longer technically Americans.
That should do.
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In the morning, we set to work. I wasn't kidding about their being a million jobs, once you pretty much needed a pair of college degrees to find something to do in this town. Now, working pairs of eyes and hands were pretty much a guaranteeor or employment. We have buildings to tear down, rubble to clear, and materials to gather. And we were still looking for blacksmiths, and harpists, if any could be found.
We also got a new addition to Gotham's ambiance, black helicopters circling in the sky to enforce the no-fly zone. At first we cracked jokes, but by the end of the day I was more than half tempted to shoot one down.
I didn't. Last thing we needed was the casualties that would be caused in a rescue mission or retaliation.
As I was running around trying to find square holes for all my square pegs and round holes for others, I thought rather hard on a less pressing problem. Since getting out I'd upgraded my abilities, and Freddy's, so fairness suggested it was Vinny's turn. If nothing else, his self-sacrificing stupidity in coming back to NML deserved a reward.
My first thought was a weapon of some kind. Vinny has always been the least capable of us in a fight and sometimes it can make a boss worry. Somewhere in the vast tracts of literature, I'm sure I recall an old-timey revolver with heart-seeking bullets. Then I thought better, I might still get him a weapon if I think of something appropriate, but this should be for him and of him. Vinny has always been my confidante, my lawyer and accountant and manager, and frankly I need him in his present role as miracle-working administrator far more than I need another superhuman legbreaker. Besides, Freddy might get sad if he thought I thought I could just slap some magic on someone and have them do his job regardless of experience or temperament.
Sometimes a solution pops up as easily as framing the problem correctly. The hard part, naturally, was convincing Vinny.
"Run that one by me again, boss?"
"It's simple." I said. "This-" I held up a small white capsule. "Is a squip. Specifically SQUIP 2.6. It's a qubit supercomputer in pill form that will adhere to your stomach lining and interface with your central nervous system. Like your old emblock, it will record everything you learn in a totally secure manner. Unlike the emblock, it's precognitive to an extent and will tell you how to avoid danger and achieve your goals."
Vinny looks unconvinced.
"Didn't you tell me once the reason you didn't create AI is it would go insane and try to kill everything?"
"This isn't true AI, just expert systems. It'll be totally fine." Probably.
"You don't sound that sure."
"I'm that sure."
"Could you maybe look me in the eye when you say that?"
"I never knew it was so important to you to stare into my beautiful blue eyes."
"Since when are your eyes- don't change the subject! I know you, boss, and I know you love to tinker, and you're always looking for that one wrinkle that will get around every restriction. But if you're going to hook this thing up to my nervous system, I'd like to know that it won't go Skynet or make me kill people in my sleep or something."
I open my mouth- and reconsider. Vinny has seen a few spectacular magical mishaps in his day, and I do owe him some degree of honesty. Plus, sharing is caring, and the best way to avoid mistakes, like just the other night when I kept the three of us up most the night working on a strike operation before three AM when Freddy and Vinny thought to wonder why were doing this manually when I had a gismo that could duplicate any number of finished coins.
"I'm pretty sure it won't go rampant. If it does, it has strong safeguards, it can't control your body without your express, sober, fully awake and aware consent. Worst it can do is talk to you and give you bad advice. It shouldn't have goals beyond those you set it, or the ability to lie or withhold information from you. There's an on/off switch you control mentally, and, if worst comes to worst, it's also designed to harmlessly dissolve in Code Red Mountain Dew, so a bottle of that is all you need to pull the plug permanently. I even saved you one." I heft the bottle.
He gives me a very old-fashioned look.
"What? It's from a YA book, it doesn't have to make sense. Oh, downsides, without other squips to network with, it won't be quite as prescient as the book, though it should still have at least some grasp on the most likely futures. Be sure to turn it off before partaking in alcohol, or other drugs but not really an issue for you. If you get drunk or high it goes a little funny, will stop trying to head off danger, and may start telling you to kill."
"Oh, now I feel really comfortable with this."
"Have I ever steered you wrong?" He opens his mouth. "When it really mattered, I mean. No. Don't answer that either. Let's not get bogged down in the details of the distant past." He muttered something that sounded vaguely like 'turned me into a toad.' Which I chose to take as informed and enthusiastic consent to the procedure.
He doesn't throw the pill away when I give it to him either, so I have to figure that counts. I hand him a water bottle one of the ones with a number '1' inside the recycle logo, so we should be saving it.
"Why do I still feel like those gerbils you were testing teleporters on? I still swear that one with the black spots knew it was going to die, it bit me!"
"Wasn't that one of the inconclusive results? He didn't return but might have simply wandered off?"
He sighed.
"Let's just get this over with." He popped the pill in his mouth, then took a huge snip of water and threw his head back for a massive, exaggerated gulp. He's not just being a drama queen, this is legitimately how the man takes medication.
"Now what?"
"Any moment you should be hearing a voice inside your head. Followed by a second or two of indescribable agony as the squip maps your nervous system."
"Wait, what!?" He glares at me. "You didn't think that was worth mentioning before- hold on, it sounds like... Keanu Reeves?" Suddenly he screamed and collapsed.
I waited out his twitches, true to the story it only took a few seconds.
"Actually, that's just the default voice. I understand it also has..." I pull out the book and flip to the first dog-ear "let's see... Jack Nicholson, Sean Connery and... Jen Taylor."
"... I hate you so much sometimes. Definitely going with Jen Taylor here, though."
I nodded.
"And no man could possibly fault you that choice."
Knocking at the door, and Freddy pokes his head in.
"Not to interrupt, but we've got trouble in the North corner of Eastend. Team of electricians found a whole bunch of bodies, couple looked at least a little eaten."
Oh come on, it hasn't been two weeks since the quake or four days since the Guard pulled out. Nobody is that low on food yet. Only in Gotham...
"Vinny, hold down the fort and try to get acquainted with your new helper. I'll get my coat."